“It’s worse this time. He’s drinking more. When he drinks too much he loses, uh, his perspective.”

“What’s Amos doing now?”

“Being a pain in the ass. When I left a half-hour ago he had the door closed and locked, no one allowed in but Andy.”

Johnson rolled his eyes. “The cowboy man-child. What’s he do in there?”

“Sings hymns. Prays. Babbles. Amos finds it soothing.”

Johnson thought for a few seconds. “Maybe we can have an event that will make our reflective and, uh, sick old friend feel better about himself.”

“What?”

“Give me time to think.”

16

The door of the Mailey household opened, Mailey holding the child. Belafonte and I stood motionless on the stoop, side by side, the angels of death. Our faces told the truth before our voices could.

“NO!” Mailey wailed as her knees buckled.

Belafonte grabbed the child as I jumped to Jeri Mailey’s side, holding her up and moving her to the couch. As if knowing, the child began crying.

I’d made such terrible visits many times before, but Belafonte had not. She rose to the moment, her composure solid as she offered a comfort I could not, perhaps because she was a woman. We stayed until a neighbor arrived, a kindly and older woman who helped Jeri Mailey to her bed and sat beside her, Bobby in her arms.

Belafonte and I crept softly away. “Is that the worst?” she said, sitting beside me in the car, meaning the worst aspect of police work.

I blew out a breath, felt my hands shaking. I’d been in gun battles with crazed felons, my hands as steady as an anvil, but relaying the news of death went somewhere deeper.

“The absolute bottom,” I said. “I wouldn’t fault you if you want to take the rest of the day off.”

“I need to find the monster doing this.”

Belafonte and I returned to the street, dark above, the stars blotted out by the flashing lights of used-car lots and strip joints and fast-food outlets. The pressing task was to connect the deaths of Kylie Sandoval and Teresa Mailey. Both were prostitutes, both had been killed in Miami. That’s all we had, so we needed to dig deep into their pasts. When I told Belafonte we were paying a second visit to Shizzle Diamond, né T’Shawn Matthews, her nose wrinkled, but she said nothing.

We went to his current turf, the bar-filled block near Liberty City. Matthews was in a sky-blue suit and leaning against the nose of his ride, a Jeep Cherokee with spinners and a custom paint-job, a cobalt metalflake that looked three inches deep. Behind him a bar window blazed with neon logos of beer brands. We pulled to the curb and walked up, me in the lead, Belafonte two steps behind, the nose still wrinkled.

“How you doin’, T’Shawn?” I said.

He decided to play it cool, staring through the opaque shades. “Yo … You peoples owe me for a hat.”

Belafonte stepped forward. “Be glad you still have a head to put one on, Mr Matthews. We need to talk more about Kylie.”

“I tol’ you all I know. She showed up, I gave her a place to stay and put some food in her mouth. That’s it.”

“We need you to put more effort into your recollections, Mr Matthews. It’s very important.”

He peered above the shades at Belafonte, then turned the gaze to me. “Where’d you find this one? A high-yellow that talks straight outta that Down-town Abbey.” He winked in her direction. “You can come over and change my sheets anytime, baby.”

Out of nowhere, BAM! Belafonte’s got the folding nightstick open and wreaking havoc on the Cherokee’s hood. BAM BAM BAM … loud as gunshots.

“My fuckin’ paint!” Matthews shrieked. He started toward Belafonte with malice-laden eyes, but she spun and whipped the tip of the baton about ten centimeters in front of the wide-open orbs.

He stepped back, hands in the air. “All right. Shee-it. Just stop fuckin’ drummin’ on my lacquer, right?”

A small crowd started gathering, mostly drunks who’d seen the show from the bars. Belafonte narrowed her eyes and tapped the baton into her palm. “Beat it, arseholes,” she said, giving them flint eyes. They turned away like reprimanded children. Matthews patted the hood of his ride, looking about to cry.

“It’s like a fuckin’ hailstorm hit it.”

“It’s just one panel,” I commiserated, adding, “But you have others.”

“What the fuck you want to know?”

“Kylie ever mention knowing a Teresa Mailey?” I asked.

“Yeah. One day I axed her to tell me everybody she ever knew. I think May-lee was like five hundred on the list.”

Belafonte said nothing, leaning to run a finger over an unmarked panel on the pimpmobile. Matthews sighed. “No. I ain’t never heard the name before. Why?”

I thought a moment and ran to the car. “Where he goin’?” I heard Matthews ask Belafonte.

“Put a cork in it,” was her response. I rifled through my briefcase for photographs of Kylie Sandoval, both in her charred wrappings and on the table in the morgue.

“I never showed you what happened to Kylie,” I said, handing him the shots. “Take a look.”

I saw the eyes widen, the hard, dry swallow. “Muuuuthafuck,” he whispered, turning away.

“We have two girls killed the same way. And probably more to come. You get that, T’Shawn? We need your help. Did Kylie have any enemies … or mention any weird trade?”

“Naw, man …” Matthews said quietly, the attitude gone. “Kylie usually worked the street. If anyone got freaky, she’d yell and I was there to chill the fucker out.”

“She talk much about the past?”

The lips pursed as he thought. “Mos’ girls open up with me about past shit, like they need to tell. Kylie kept her past tight, like she’d been born the week I found her.”

I recalled Jeri Mailey’s comment about Teresa seeming to have been in Central Florida at one point in her journey from hookerdom to salvation.

“Did Kylie ever mention being in Central Florida?” I asked.

Matthews frowned. “Where’s that?”

“The center of the damned state, T’Shawn: Ocala, Orlando, Lakeland … hell, throw in Melbourne and Tampa.”

His high brow creased in thought. “Where that Disneyland at?”

“Disney World. It’s in Orlando.”

“I think she mighta worked there a while.”

“How so?”

“One day I was feeling like some fun and told my ladies maybe we should head up to Disney-town and I’d pay for everyone to ride on Mickey Mouse or whatever the fuck you do there. They was all yellin’ like ‘Thank you, Shizzle, we love you’ an’ all that – all ’cept Kylie. She was shakin’ her head. I said, ‘What’s wit’ you, girl? Doan you wanna see Donald Duck?’” The forehead creased again.

“Keep going,” I said.

“I’m fuckin’ thinkin’ … uh, she said something like she’d seen enough theme parks to last a lifetime. I said, ‘What? You work up there?’ She nodded yes and started laughing … real weird laughing, too, like she was choking.” He shrugged. “That was about all we ever talked about her past an’ shit.”

“How was Disney World?” I asked. “You and the, uh, ladies enjoy it?”

He yawned, patted his mouth. “I fell outta the mood. We never went.”

It was suddenly half past nine. Neither of us wanted to stop, but neither of us had the energy to keep going. “We got to bag it,” I said. “I’m running on one calorie and two neurons.”

I put the Rover in gear as Belafonte stared into a street crowded with traffic, bars, cheap food joints, men looking for women, women looking for men …

“He’s out there,” she said softly. “On the prowl.”

“I know,” I said. “We’ll get him tomorrow.”

We drove in silence to Belafonte’s car and I assigned her the morning task of checking with Disney World to confirm Kylie Sandoval’s employment She started to step from the Rover, paused, turned back.

“Today … telling someone a loved one is dead. Do you have to do that often?”

“Seventeen times in my career. Today was actually a better one.”