“Do you like me? Even, you know, a little bit?”

Oh, about as much as a blister or a cold sore, Lilly thought. “Of course,” she said. “I’m here, aren’t I? Why would you ask me that?”

“Because boys are insecure,” he said with gnarled smile.

Boys. She was just about ready to puke. Time to get this party started. “You know, you don’t strike me as all that insecure.”

“I don’t?”

“Absolutely not. You strike me more as the Matt Damon type. Older—like my father’s age—but still pretty cool.”

He smiled again. It was the last thing she wanted.

“You know, I was thinking,” he said. “If you’re a little short of cash, I could help you out. You being from out of town and all. I did the Jack Kerouac thing myself when I was a little younger. I know how it can be.”

“Well, I’ve never been to Philadelphia before,” she said. “I have no idea how much things cost.”

“It can be expensive. Not quite like New York, but pricier than, say, Baltimore.”

Lilly smiled, winked. “How much do you have, big spender?”

Another laugh, as phony as the others. He reached into his back pocket, extracted a camouflage nylon wallet—pure class. He opened it. It bulged with plastic cards, business cards, ID cards. He pulled them all out, and she got a glimpse: Visa, Macy’s, American Express, a Borders gift card. She also saw what looked like a lot of cash. About an inch or so. It might have been all singles, but still.

“Wow,” she said. Girls her age were supposed to say “wow” a lot. Like they were all Hannah Montana. “How much is in there?”

“I don’t really know,” he said. “But I’d be willing to—”

At this moment Lilly turned away, pivoted, and slammed her knee into the man’s crotch. Hard, and fast as lightning. He didn’t have a chance. The man blew a lungful of sour breath into her face, then folded instantly to the ground.

Lilly looked behind her, to the mouth of the alley, then at the windows of the buildings on either side. All dark. All good. They were completely alone.

“Why?” the man managed on a ragged breath. He was curled in a fetal position on the ground, knees to his chest

“Why? Are you kidding me? What planet are you from?”

“I don’t—”

“You’re like a million years old,” Lilly said. “And I’m not even legal, dickhead.” She picked up his wallet, took his driver’s license and the money. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“I thought we might—”

“You thought what?” Lilly asked. “That we were going to fall in love? That we were going to have a romance?”

“No,” he said. “It was just…”

Lilly got down on the ground next to the man. She lay back, then pulled up her T-shirt, baring her breasts. She worked her right arm around the man’s neck, as if they were two drunken people at a wild frat party, or at some tequila-blast on spring break in Panama City. In her left hand she held up her digital camera, the lens facing them. She snapped a picture of the two of them together, then another for good measure: Mr. Mushroom Teeth and his topless teen cohort. Film at eleven.

The flash was bright blue in the darkened alley. It blinded her for a second.

“Now we have a record of our lovely time together,” Lilly said, pulling her top back down. She stood up, brushed herself off. “And keep in mind, if you tell anyone about this, if anyone comes looking for me, they’ll find this camera, okay?”

The man remained silent. As expected. He was in pain.

“Then later tonight I’m going to take some naked pictures of myself,” Lilly continued. “Full naked. And all of these pictures will be right in a row.” She slipped the camera into her bag, took out a brush, ran it through her hair. When she was done she put away her brush, pulled off the rubber band she always kept on her wrist, snapped her hair into a ponytail. “And your wife, your kids, your boss—the cops—they’ll see the pictures, too. Think about it. How many of them are going to think you didn’t take these pictures?” She put her bag over her shoulder, struck a pose. “I’m fourteen, dude. Think about that.”

It wasn’t true. She was older. But she looked fourteen, and she was an unrivalled drama queen to boot.

Lilly stepped back a few feet, waited. She reached into her bag, took out the printed photo she’d carried for two months, turned it toward the man. “This is your house, isn’t it?”

The man tried to focus his eyes on the photograph of the big house with the woman standing in front of it. A few seconds later he did. “My… my house?”

“Yeah. You live here, right?”

“Are you crazy? That’s not my house. Who is that woman? Who the hell are you?”

Lilly already knew the answer to her own question, but none of this would have made any sense if she didn’t ask.

Seconds later, she put the photograph away, took a deep breath, composed herself—after all, she was not used to things like this, even if she had lived it all in her mind for a long time, over and over again—then stepped out of the alley, onto Market Street. No cops. Cool beans. After a block or so she slipped into the shadows, took out the wad of cash, counted it. She had 166 dollars.

Oh, yes.

For a street kid—which was what she was now, officially—it was a fortune. Not Donald Trump big, but big enough.

For tonight.

ON EIGHTEENTH STREET Lilly slipped into a diner, wolfed a hoagie, gulped a black coffee. Twenty minutes later, back on Market, she raised her hand, flagged a cab. The driver would know an inexpensive hotel, she thought, if there were such a thing in Philly. Right now all she cared about was a clean tub and a soft bed.

A few moments later a cab pulled to the curb. Lilly slipped into the backseat. The driver was from Nigeria. Or maybe it was Uganda. Whichever, he had a wicked bad accent. He told her he knew just the hotel. Cabbies always did. She would tip him well.

He was, like her, a stranger in a strange land.

Lilly sat back, sated, in charge. She fingered the thick roll of cash in her hand. It was still warm. The night air rushing in the window made her sleepy, but not too sleepy to think about the next few days.

Welcome to Philadelphia.

THIRTY-THREE

JESSICA GLANCED AT the speedometer. She was twenty over. she backed off, but not too much. The day was closing in on her and she wasn’t doing a very good job of shutting it out. She usually could.

She remembered when she was small, her father coming home after a tough day, a Philly-cop day. In those days, the days when her mother had already passed and her father, still a patrolman, was juggling his career and two small children, he would drop his cap on the kitchen table, lock his service weapon in the desk in the living room, and circle the Jameson in the hutch.

He always waited until the sun went down. Tough to do in summer. Daylight savings time, and all. Even harder to do in Lent, when he gave it up all together. Once, during Lent, when Jessica was four, and her family was still intact, her father made it all the way to Easter Saturday on the wagon. After dinner he walked down to the corner bar and got tanked. When he got home, and Maria Giovanni saw his condition, she proclaimed that her husband—probably the whole family—was hell-bound. She marched Jessica and her brother Michael down to St. Paul’s, banged on the rectory door until their pastor came out and blessed them. Somehow, that Easter came and went without the Giovanni family bursting into redemptive flame.

Jessica wanted to call her father, but stopped herself. He’d think something was wrong. He would be right.

SHE GOT IN just after eleven. The house was quiet, save for the sound of the central air, save for her husband Vincent’s world-class snoring upstairs. It sounded like a lumberjack competition on ESPN2.