I WAS AT the restaurant before it opened the next day. Mama brought me the four-star edition of the Daily News. They put it out on the street by six in Chinatown. I didn't have to search through it. The headline screamed "Bizarre Murder on Sutton Place." A socialite with a WASP name was found murdered by her Wall Street husband when he came home from work around nine o'clock last night. Her name didn't mean anything to me. The newspaper account was short on facts- long on adjectives: grisly, ritualistic, satanic. Hinting at things that only come out on evil nights.

It was too early to call any of the free-lance reporters I know, but I had another solid contact in the press: a West Indian who worked the streets for one of the tabloids. Worked them hard. He'd lost his Island accent somewhere between Newark and journalism school but he was a hard-core risk-taker. He might be on the job.

I found a pay phone on the West Side. I got the reporter's answering machine. "If you know who you're calling, you know what you want to say. Do it when you hear the beep and I'll get back to you."

I heard the beep. "Leave me a message," I said into the recorder.

I GOT OFF the street before the citizens took over the city. Let Pansy out to her roof. Gave her some of the food I'd brought back from Mama's. Felt her pleasure as she lit into it, her sadness when it was gone. In another couple of minutes, she forgot about both feelings, back to herself. Lucky dog.

Maybe I'd go away for a while. Cruise out to Indiana, visit my old cellmate Virgil. His daughter was almost ten and I'd never seen her.

I could always see Virgil's daughter.

"ANYTHING?" I asked Mama when I called her from the street late that afternoon.

"Come in, okay?"

Max was in the kitchen when I walked in through the back door. He followed me out to my table. Mama sat down next to him, facing me.

"Man call. Black man, sunny voice. Call him at home, seven o'clock tonight."

"That's it?"

Mama's smooth face never changed expression. "Dead man called. Said call him. Hangs up."

I waited.

"Man say his name is Julio. You know him. You call him at his club, okay?"

Julio. Fuck!

"Girl call too. Same girl. Say to call her too. Very important."

"Okay."

"Not okay. Take Max with you."

"To make phone calls?"

"Meetings, yes? All these people?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Take Max."

THE BASEMENT under Max's warehouse has a tunnel we cut through to the building next door. Some architects own it. I stepped into their basement, flashing the pencil-beam before my feet. Empty, like always. I hooked the field phone into their lines with the alligator clips. Julio first.

The beef-brain who answered took his time understanding I wasn't going to talk to him first. Julio got on the line, the old alligator's voice down to a whisper.

"I want to meet you."

" Take Marcy Avenue all the way until it hits the bridge that crosses the BQE. Seven-fifteen, okay?"

"Why don't you come here?"

"I don't have time."

"You should make time."

"Take it or leave it," I told him, cutting the line.

I RANG THE number Wesley gave me, using the code. Three times. Again. Then Candy. She answered on the first ring.

"What do you want?" I asked her.

"To see you."

"Tell me."

"I'll tell you whatever you want to hear. You know that. There's trouble for you. I can help. You believe me?"

"No."

"Come anyway. Listen for a few minutes."

"I'll come tomorrow. Don't be cute. Don't be stupid."

"The only thing I'll be is here."

WE CROSSED the Brooklyn Bridge to Tillary Street, left to Flushing Avenue. Ran parallel to the highway through Williamsburg. The sidewalk was thick with dark-eyed girls. Young Jewish beauties from the Hebrew high school in Williamsburg. Walking in tight clumps, chattering like sweet birds. All the brightness was in their faces- their clothes were too old for the way their hair bounced at the base of their necks, the way their eyes snapped at life. Mothers wheeled babies in strollers. Hassidim with their black stove-pipe hats and long coats covered ground with purposeful steps. Laughter was for children. Hebrew writing on the walls, iron bars over the windows. Occupied territory, carved out of other ghettos on all sides.

We hadn't walked a block before we picked up cover. Half a dozen men, plain white shirts, dark suspenders, yarmulkes on their heads. Hands in their pockets. One had a coat over his forearm. Israeli soldiers- different uniforms. A clot of young girls passed us, demure but fearless. They were used to strangers.

The group of men watched me as I dialed the pay phone, not making a secret of it. The reporter was waiting for the call.

"Morehouse here."

"You know my voice?"

"Sure."

"You working on anything?"

"Lots of things, man. This a social call?"

"Maybe a trade. You know the shelter by the meat market?"

"Sure."

"Two o'clock coming. On the far corner?"

"Sure."

THE CADILLAC SEDAN stopped on the east side of the short bridge. The old man stepped out of the back. His driver opened the door, stood outside, watching. The pack watched him. I leaned against the stone wall, Max between me and the west side entrance. Traffic rumbled underneath us- tail end of the rush hour.

I let him come to me.

"Who's this?" he snarled, tilting his head at Max.

"What d'you want, Julio?"

"I want to know who this is."

"Fuck you."

"Burke, don't play with me. You got a pass. One time. You know why. Nobody gets two."

"Save it for the Godfather movies, old man. You don't need to know who this is. You had any brains, you'd already know."

"Why's he here?"

"To memorize your face, okay? So don't threaten me."

Max stood as stony as the wall, eyes slitted on Julio. Camera lenses. The old man's driver put his hand in his pocket, restless.

"Tell him to stay where he is, Julio. My brother wants to hurt somebody bad, and you'll do. That guido driving your car, he comes out with a piece and the Jews make him into chopped liver. Look for yourself."

Julio waved his hand as if he'd just seen an old friend. His driver took out a cigarette, kept his hands in sight. The street was empty like it was four in the morning. Except for the pack. One of them walked over to the same pay phone I'd used. Picked up the receiver.

"We can't stay here long," I told Julio.

He took a breath. "Last night, he hit Torenelli's daughter."

"What?"

"On Sutton Place. That was the don's daughter. She broke away from the family. Years ago. Married a citizen. Gives parties to raise money for the homeless, lives in a two-million-dollar co-op, okay?"

"So?"

He moved in close to me, prison-yard whisper cutting, hands shaking. "The husband, he comes home, finds her on the bed. Staked out like a piece of beef, wrists and ankles wired to the corners. With her head chopped off. Off! He shoved the head between her legs, you understand? So her face was looking at the husband when he comes in the door."

"Who?"

"Wesley. Who the fuck else? Who else would do that?"

"A freak."

"Sure. A freak who can get past the security in that joint. A freak that don't leave a lousy fingerprint. Not a trace. It was a pro hit. The fucking detectives threw up just looking at it. The husband- he's in a rubber room."