"You never knew how to hold a woman," she said.

"I know how to hold what matters."

"A gun?" she sneered.

"A grudge," I told her, stepping out of the whorehouse.

COLD FIRE inside me. Ugly acid, all the way to my eyes, burning off the haze. I felt them cut through the darkness as I neared my car. Everything in sharp-edged black &white. I wanted to talk to whoever took Belle from me and offered this sociopathic slut in return. Just for a hair-trigger minute.

A lump of shadow against the building wall a few feet from the passenger side of the Plymouth. I stepped forward fast on my left foot like I was going to charge, locked on the pavement, pivoted, and threw myself behind the car, turtlenecking like a gunshot was coming. Heard a grunt, a body slamming into the passenger side. Silence. Steel-palmed hands clapped once, twice. Max.

He was standing on the sidewalk, a body at his feet. His hands went parallel to the ground, palms down, patted the air twice. The body was alive. I knelt down to take a look, Max watching my back.

A small body, wrapped in a Navy pea coat, hooded sweatshirt inside covering the head. Dark gloves. Jeans and sneakers. I pulled the hood away from the face. Elvira, the wolf-child. Eyes closed, face blue-toned in the streetlight. I pinched her lower jaw- her tongue slid out. I looked up at Max. He tapped his diaphragm with two stiffened fingers. Just the wind knocked out of her. I touched the face of my wristwatch. Max's finger made one full circle, flashed his hand open and closed. She'd been waiting over an hour- since I'd parked the car.

I opened the passenger door and we put her into the front seat. I motioned for Max to climb in behind her. He bowed, brought his hands together, and disappeared. He was doing his work, not mine.

BY THE TIME I got near the river she was sucking in ragged gulps through her mouth. I hit the power-window switch to give her some air.

"Breathe through your nose. Shallow breaths. In and out. You're okay."

"I'm going to be sick…"

I pulled over. Went around to her side and helped her out. She walked toward the water under her own power. I smoked a cigarette while she left her supper in the parking lot.

Michelle had left one of her old street-trick kits in the back of the Plymouth. I gave the girl one of the premoistened towelettes to wipe her face. Handed her the airline-size bottle of cognac. "Rinse out with this," I told her.

I moved the car deeper into the darkness, backing it in against an abandoned pier. Dropped my own window, listening for sounds a human would make. Nothing. I lit another smoke. She still had some of the cognac left, sipping at it, watching me, color coming back in her face.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"What happened to me?"

"You set off the burglar alarm."

"I thought I was going to die."

"You could have- you're playing with dangerous things."

"I had to talk to you."

I snapped my smoke out the window, watching the little red dot through my black &white eyes. "So?"

"I have to go back."

"To Train?"

"Yes."

"So go."

"It's not that easy. She'd send you after me again."

"How d'you know?"

"She said so. You work for her, right?"

"Wrong."

"Oh."

I waited. She sipped the cognac.

"You got money?" I asked her.

"I can get some. How much…?"

"Not for me. For cab fare. I'll drop you off near a good corner. Go where you want to go. I won't be coming after you."

She went quiet again. I lit another cigarette. "What's the rest, Elvira?" I asked her.

"I don't believe you," she said in a quiet, subdued voice. "She never tells the truth."

"It's not her talking."

"And I know about you, Mr. Burke."

"Say what you have to say, little girl. I got things to do. And you're not my friend."

"Can I have one of your cigarettes?" Stalling, like a kid who doesn't want to tell you she did something bad.

I gave her one. Fired a wooden match before she could try the dashboard lighter.

She took a deep drag. "I know what you do," she said.

"That right?"

"Yes, that's right. Danielle told me."

"I don't know any Danielle."

"I don't know what her street name was. We're not allowed to use street names in the family. She was a hooker. You came and took her away. A long time ago."

"Away from what?"

"Her old man. And you brought her home. To a big house on Long Island. Her father paid you to do it."

I shrugged.

"I know you. I know things you know and I know things you don't know."

Her mother's rap, a few years early. "I haven't heard one yet."

She dragged on the cigarette, a soft glow lighting her face for a second. Calm now. Watching me.

"Her old man's name was Dice. A sweet mac- he never made his girls turn hard tricks or anything. Let them go shopping whenever they wanted. You were waiting for them when they came back to the hotel room. You must've had a passkey or something. You pointed a big gun right in Dice's face. Told him you were taking the girl. There was another guy with you. Big guy- he didn't say anything. Dice tried to talk to you and you started whaling on him with the gun. Danielle said she could hear the bones break in his face. She'll never forget it. You took all her old man's money and jewelry. Then you put her in a car and drove her to Long Island."

I shrugged again.

"Why'd you do that?"

"You think it's right to fuck fourteen-year-old girls?"

"Her father did. The man who paid you the money to bring her back. He loved to do it. In the basement. Danielle told me he had a special room for it. She only has one nipple- he burned the other one off. To teach her not to run away again."

I didn't say anything. Shuffling the memory cards. Going right past Dice and the sleazy hotel room. Looking for that address on Long Island. The world was still black &white, but a piece was out of place.

"And Train saved her?" I asked.

"Train saved us all. Men like Danielle's father. Powerful men. They're always after him. It's not that they don't understand. They know. And they hate him. Our family too. They hate us all. And they use men like you to do their dirty work for them."

"How'd he save you?"

"You think you're smart, don't you? You think you know everything. You don't know everything. We're saving for a place. Our place. Not in this miserable country. Where we can be free. We're in a war. You make sacrifices in a war. Not everyone will be able to go, but that's all right."

"And you all live in that house in Brooklyn? Raising money for your new country? You sell flowers on the street? Phony magazine subscriptions? Blowjobs in parked cars? What?"

"Whatever we do, that's okay. It would never be as bad as what people did to us."

"Sure."

"Sure. You don't know. You're a mercenary. That's what Train calls you. You only serve yourself- you have no honor. Your god is cash."

"That house must be pretty crowded, what with Train saving the world and all."

"We don't all live in the house. Some of the older ones, the best ones…if they show the commitment, prove themselves…they work other places. For our family. Outriders. The special people. I'll be one someday."

"Danielle's an outrider?"

"No. She lives with us. Outriders are special. I only met one. She went to prison for seven years for the family. And she never said a word. That was her commitment. That proved her true."

"So how come this family let you go?"

"It was a test. I know it was a test. We have to act for ourselves. Train isn't running a mission or a runaway shelter. It's only for those who are worthy. I had to find my own way back."