“What?” said Tracy.

“What?”

“You’re staring at me and you’ve got a silly smile on your face.”

“You look nice.”

“Yeah, so do you. You want another beer?”

“Okay.”

He heard her washing herself in the bathroom, and soon she returned with two more beers and a towel for Quinn. She sat on the couch and stretched her legs out, her toes noodling with the hair on Quinn’s thighs.

“Good night,” said Tracy.

“Really good,” said Quinn.

They tapped bottles and kissed.

“You were late getting here,” said Tracy.

“I was finishing up something for Derek, over in Northeast. Confirming an address on a woman for a client of ours. It was a bullshit job, but I took care of it.”

“Why was it bullshit?”

“I don’t know,” said Quinn, the self-disgust plain in his voice.

“Why?”

Quinn looked away. “I had to lie to this kid, the son of the woman, to confirm the address. I tricked him, see? The look he gave me afterwards… I bet you money he’s been told all his life to distrust white people, that in the end white folks are always gonna fuck you over if you’re black. And you know how I feel, that it’s wrong to plant that kind of seed in any kid’s head, no matter what color you’re talking about, because it never gets unlearned. So it just got to me, to see that look he gave me, like everything he’d been taught had come true. And you know he’s never gonna forget.”

“Who’s looking for his mother?”

“A loser. That was the other thing that bugged me. That we just found this woman for this client, knowing this client’s type, without giving it any kind of thought. ’Cause whoever this client is, he’s no good, just a bad one to put anywhere near that boy’s life. But Derek and me, we treat it like a game sometimes, who’s got the bigger set of balls, like that, without thinking about the consequences. I don’t know; I’m just pissed off at myself, that’s all.”

“You’re angry.”

“As usual, right? Derek tells me I gotta relax.”

Tracy looked down at Quinn’s equipment, lying flaccid between his legs. “You look pretty relaxed to me.”

“I’m just resting. You want me to rally, I will.”

She touched his cheek. “Look, Terry. It’s just a job. You agreed to do something for money and you did it. Don’t make it more complicated than it is.”

“It’s wrong when there’s kids involved.”

“You’re probably worried about nothing.”

“I’m right about this,” said Quinn. “What we did today, it was fucked.”

THE street was quiet and inked with shadows as Mario Durham moved down the sidewalk, his head low. He shifted his eyes from side to side. On the surrounding blocks there had been some kids hanging out, but on this street there were none. No cars running, either. No kind of drug strip, nothin’ like that. Dogs barked in the alleys, and muted television and music sounds came from behind the walls of the apartments and row houses he passed. The nights were still cool, and the windows of the residences were shut or just opened a crack. Durham thinking, That’s good.

He went by Olivia’s hooptie, that old Toyota Tercel of hers, parked along the curb, then took a few steps up and went down a walkway to the address given him by that white-boy detective. He found the front door locked and was not surprised. There were a couple of rows of buttons outside the door, and he flattened out both of his palms and pushed on all the buttons at once. He had seen this done on TV shows. It always seemed to work on those shows, and it worked now. A click was audible as the lock was released, and he opened the door and went through it and then up a set of wooden stairs.

The second floor was unlit and held two apartments, one that faced the front of the house and one that faced the back. Two-B, Durham decided, would be the one to face the back. Durham went to that door. He could hear both television and stereo noise coming from inside the crib. Had to be Olivia in there, ’cause she liked to get high, watch TV and play her music at the same time. The door was heavy and wooden and had a peephole in its center. Durham knocked on it and stood back. He reached forward and knocked again.

The television sound faded down. He heard footsteps approaching from behind the door. He looked at the peephole and watched as it went dark.

“Open up, Olivia,” said Durham, and when he got nothing he repeated his instructions the same way.

“Go away, Mario,” was the reply.

They went back and forth for a while, but eventually she did open the door. Durham had known she would, after she’d thought it out. What else was she going to do?

OLIVIA Elliot turned down the television volume and went to see who was at the door. When she looked through the hole and saw Mario, she didn’t jump. She wasn’t scared, and her heart didn’t race inside her chest or nothin’ like that. Some people got paranoid when they burned smoke, but it had always evened her out, made her see things more clear.

She let him stand out there and call her name a couple of times, though, while she figured out what her next move ought to be.

“Go away, Mario,” she said.

“I ain’t goin’ no goddamn where,” said Durham.

“You gonna need some of that Grecian stuff, then, ’cause you gonna go gray, standin’ out there, thinkin’ you’re comin’ inside.”

“Then I’ll go gray. And I’ll go get my brother, too.”

She leaned against the door. This was what she didn’t want to hear, but at least Dewayne Durham wasn’t out there on the landing with a couple of his boys now. She’d need to handle this with Mario alone, work it out and end it tonight.

Leaning against the door, she put the tip of her finger in her mouth while she let it all bounce around in her mind. Her mother had told her to take her finger out her mouth all the time when she was a kid, that it would buck her teeth. But the habit had never left her.

“Olivia! C’mon, girl.”

Finally she opened up the door. And when he stepped in, his fists all balled up at his sides like he was gonna get physical with her, she nearly laughed. Lookin’ like Lil’ Romeo or sumshit, wearin’ a Redskins jersey and a matching cap, like a kid would. Shoot, Lil’ Romeo had more heft on him that this little slip of nothin’ right here.

“Damn, Olivia, how you gonna let a man stand in the hall all night long?”

She motioned him inside, shutting the door behind him as he entered, one hand in his pocket, bobbing his head in that way he did, like it was mounted on a spring.

“So you found me.”

“Didn’t you think I would?”

“You want a drink or somethin’?”

“Nah, baby. I ain’t here to drink.”

Durham had forgotten how fine she was. She wasn’t tall, but she was put together right. And she liked to look clean, even just hanging inside her place. She had on a summer dress and some shoes, sandals with heels and no backs, on her feet. On her chest where the dress separated were a few black hairs. Girl had some hairs on her chest and around her nipples, too. But that was the only fault Durham had found in her. Other than that, she was all right.

Olivia walked over to a grouping of furniture and Durham followed. Music, that “Fiesta” joint by R Kelly and Jay Z, was up real loud, and Durham could smell blunt smoke mixed with her cigarette smoke in the room. The blunt smell was sweet, the good stuff, had to be his brother’s. Well, maybe she still had some of it left.

“Where your son at?” He moved toward her and she held her place. She was up against the arm of the couch.

“He’s stayin’ with my brother for a couple of days.”

“It’s good he’s not here. ’Cause you and me need to have a very serious conversation.”

“Ain’t no big drama to it, Mario.”

“Oh, yeah? Guess it wasn’t no thing to you. Including the thing we had together, right?”