We left Max on the first floor in case somebody came home. The Mole took the upstairs bedrooms, I hit the basement.

The doctor had a nice little home-office setup downstairs. IRS would approve. I pulled the antenna on the same little box Terry had used to show off for his mother and went to work. It only took a couple of minutes. Second-rate wall safe behind a framed painting of assholes on horses chasing a fox. Amateur Hour. I could have knocked off the dial and pried the thing open in twenty minutes.

It took the Mole less than five. It looked like gray putty he pasted around the edges of the safe. Until you saw the fuse. When he touched it off, we stepped back to watch. A soft pop and the door crumpled.

Our Krugerrands were inside. The doctor liked gold. Canadian Maple Leafs, Chinese Pandas, Australian Koalas. American cash in neat stacks. A small leather loose-leaf book. A Canadian passport. The doctor was prepared- but not for us. We took it all.

AN AMATEUR steals only when he's broke. I'm a professional- I work at my trade.

It didn't stop the pain, just put it on hold.

I've had bad dreams all my life. But now it was sad dreams…bone-marrow pain. Belle. I never would have left her. Now she wouldn't leave me.

I told Michelle I'd pick Terry up at Lily's. Got there early, looking around. Waiting. Lily came down the corridor at high speed, shrugging out of her parka, long black hair streaming out behind her. "Tell her I'll call her back!" she shouted over one shoulder. She pulled up when she saw me, a busty, glowing woman with a scar over one of her big dark eyes. Lily's old enough to have a teenage daughter, a little heart-breaker named Noelle, but she looks like she's still in college. Noelle's at the age where she's always griping because her mother isn't stylish enough. She tried to get me on her side once.

"Don't you think Mom would look cool with her hair up?"

"Your mother is beautiful, baby. She looks like the Madonna."

"Oh, Burke!" the kid shrieked. "She's not even blond!" It's not a generation-gap anymore, it's a time-warp.

I waited until she ran up on me. "Hi, Lily."

Her face was reserved, eyes watchful. "Is there trouble?"

"I'm here to pick up Terry."

"Okay." Dubious.

I lit a cigarette, ignoring her frown, moving aside to let her pass.

She wasn't going for it. "She doesn't bring Scotty herself."

"Scotty?"

Her eyes raked my face, looking for the truth. A trained therapist against a state-raised thief. No contest. I knew who she meant. Scotty was the little boy sodomized by a freak who had a feeder deal with a day-care center. The freak took a picture of his fun- took the little boy's soul for a souvenir. The kid never told anybody until he let it slip to the mother of a little girl he played with. The devil stole his soul, so he asked a witch to get it back. Strega. Flame-haired, steel-hearted Strega. I made a promise to her. To never come back. If she and Wesley mated, their child could walk through Hell in a gasoline overcoat.

Immaculata came down the hall, her arms on the shoulders of the pair of ten-year-olds framing her slender body. One kid was black, the other white. Her long nails made bright slashes of color as she emphasized her words, looking for the right chord to play. Her English was perfect, but the Catholic school in Vietnam where she learned it left a few things out.

"Benny, the very last thing on earth you need is another model airplane. It would be…coals to Newcastle."

She pulled up short when she saw me standing with Lily. Raised her eyebrows in a question. I shook my head.

"Burke, these are my friends. Benny and Douglas."

I shook hands with each of them. Benny tugged at Immaculata's smock.

"What's coals to Newcastle?"

"Cocaine to Colombia," I told him.

A grin flashed. He raised an open palm and I slapped him a high-five. His buddy grinned.

"Maybe you missed your calling," Immaculata said, pulling the kids down the hall with her, leaving us alone.

Lily wouldn't let it go. "You came here to volunteer…teach one of our self-defense classes?"

I dragged on my cigarette. Lily wasn't an ex-con, but she had enough patience for a dozen of them. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Come on," she said, charging down the hall to her office. She walked through the open door, tossed her parka on a couch already overflowing with files, plopped herself in a battered old chair next to the computer she only used for video games. She didn't wait for me to work around to it. "What?" she demanded.

"I lost a friend. Somebody close to me."

"How?"

"She was murdered."

"Oh. You know who did it?"

"Yes."

"Is he…the perpetrator…arrested?"

"No. And he's not gonna be."

"Why?"

I held her eyes until she understood. "And that didn't end it for you?"

"No."

Lily combed both hands through her thick hair, pulling the mane off her forehead. "You don't know about grief, do you, Burke? You pay your debts, it's supposed to be all done, right?"

I nodded.

"Your friend…you loved her?"

"Still do."

She watched my face. "And she knew? You told her?"

"Just before…"

"That's not too late."

I lit another cigarette, biting deep into the filter, cupping the match to give my eyes a rest from Lily. "She didn't have to die," I said.

"You think it was your fault?"

"It was my fault."

"She was with you? In your life?"

I nodded.

"Then she knew…"

I nodded again.

"Burke, listen to me, okay? Some pain's not supposed to go away. That's the price. That's what it costs to remember her."

"Aren't you going to tell me to remember the good times?"

Lily's voice was sweet and quiet, but it made you listen. Honey-in-the-rock. "We all know you're a hard man, Burke. If it works so well for you, why did you come here?"

"Nothing works all the time."

"What does that mean?"

"I played all my cards, Lily."

"Then do what you do best."

My eyes flicked up to her face, watching.

"Steal some more," she said, a Madonna's smile so faint I couldn't be sure it was ever there.

A PLANE CAN run on automatic pilot, but it hits the ground when it runs out of fuel. Nothing was pushing me. I needed to get back to where I was before. Before Belle. The sands shifted- I couldn't find my own footprints. Throwing antacid tablets into a cauldron of boiling lye. Stealing and scamming didn't bring me any closer. Everything worked. The money kept coming in but there was no payoff.

Even Wesley's fear-jolts wouldn't jump-start my battery.

Dead and gone. Dead and gone.

I called Candy.