“I guess it did.” Durham looked stupidly at the PlayStation 2 controllers lying on the floor. “You wanna play some Street before you tip out?”

“I will, if you’re ready to lose.”

“I’m done with losin’,” said Durham. “Do I look like I could lose to you?”

HORACE McKinley snapped the lid down on his cell as he crossed the parking lot with Mike Montgomery, walking toward the hair shop. He was moving slow, and his stomach hurt some. He had eaten too much barbecue at lunch, but it had tasted too good for him to stop.

“That was James,” said McKinley. “Him and Jeremy circled around that Strange’s car a couple of times, then went back to their place.”

“They make an impression?”

“Some white boy was in the car. But they say they got their point across. I told them to stay where they’re at for a while. Sun ain’t down yet, and James sounds like he’s all fucked up on somethin’ already.”

“He usually is.”

“Yeah, but those two earned it. They done enough for today.” McKinley tipped his large head in the direction of Devra Stokes’s Taurus. “She’s in there. There go her car.”

They went into the shop. Devra was painting the nails of a woman her age, a goosenecked lamp throwing light on the table between them. Juwan sat at Devra’s feet, his plastic wrestlers in his lap and on the linoleum floor. Inez Brown was seated behind a desk, reading a magazine. She stood and smoothed out her skirt as McKinley lumbered through the door.

Devra and the young woman had been talking, but they stopped at the sight of the fat man and his long-armed companion. The new Eve was coming from the store stereo, and it had become the only sound in the room.

McKinley took a half-smoked cigar and a silver lighter from the pocket of his warm-up suit and flamed the cigar’s end. When he was satisfied with the draw he replaced the lighter in his pocket. He looked at the cigar lovingly as he exhaled, then gazed at the young customer as if he were noticing her for the first time.

“Sorry to interrupt your session, baby,” said McKinley, “but you’re gonna have to leave for a while, come back later on. Me and my employee need to discuss some business up in here.”

“She ain’t even done with my nails,” said the young woman.

McKinley lodged the cigar in the side of his mouth, reached for his wallet, withdrew a ten, and dropped it on the table. “Go on, get yourself some Mac-Donald’s, sumshit like that.”

“I ain’t hungry.”

“You look hungry to me.”

Her eyes went up and down his rotund body. “How would you know what hungry looks like?”

McKinley leaned down and put his face close to hers. “Go on, now,” he said. “Before I lose my composure.”

She looked away from him and stood quickly. She gathered her possessions and left the shop.

“All right, girl,” McKinley said to Devra, smiling pleasantly, showing her his fronts. “Let’s have a talk in the back.”

“I need to look after my son,” said Devra.

“Mike’ll look after the boy,” said McKinley. “He’s good with kids.” To Inez Brown he said, “Lock that front door.”

Devra got up from her chair and Juwan stood up with her. She danced her fingers through his short, tight hair. “Mama’s just going in the other room. I’ll be out in a while. Stay out here and play.”

The boy sat back down but kept his eyes on his mother as she walked through a doorway behind the register desk. He watched the fat man with all the jewelry follow her. He watched his mother’s boss, that little lady who wasn’t never nice to him, put her key to the lock of the front door.

“What you got there, little man?” said Montgomery, who had crouched down beside the boy, his forearms resting on his thighs. “Who’s that, the Rock?”

“That’s Afro Thunder!” said Juwan, pointing to one of the action figures. He didn’t mind talking to this man. His eyes told Juwan that this man was all right.

“My mistake,” said Montgomery, gently tapping the boy’s shoulder. “Tell me the names of the other ones you got, too.”

The back room, cluttered with supplies and lit with a forty-watt naked bulb, was little more than a narrow hall leading to a dirty bathroom. A door near the bathroom had a small window, barred on both sides, that gave to a view of an alley.

“Stand over there,” said McKinley, pointing to the door. Devra went to the door, crossed her arms, and leaned her back against the bars.

McKinley drew hard on his cigar and walked toward her. Smoke swirled off of him as he approached. It settled in the dim glow of the naked bulb. He stood three feet from her and smiled.

“You lookin’ fine, baby.”

“Thank you.”

“You makin’ some money here, right?”

“I’m doin’ okay.”

“That’s good,” said McKinley. “Good to remember why you doin’ okay, too.”

“I do,” said Devra.

“I know you do. I know you remember when you lost your other job, how that felt. I know you remember that it was Phil Wood who asked me to put you on. How it was him who was lookin’ out for you.”

“I remember.”

“Sure you do. So my question is, why you want to go and do him dirt now?”

Devra’s palms had begun to get sticky. She dropped her hands to her sides.

“You been talkin’ to the police, haven’t you?” said McKinley. “That man they call Strange.”

“He’s not police,” said Devra. “He’s private. Gathering evidence for Granville’s defense. They be trying to talk to everyone knew Phil and Granville.”

“They tryin’. Except for some dry snitches they got inside, though, they ain’t had too much success. What we got some concern about is you.”

“You don’t need to worry.”

“Strange took you out somewhere yesterday, ain’t that right?”

“He bought some ice cream for my boy and me, is all.”

“What about over at your apartment, a little while back? He buy you some ice cream there, too?”

“We talked,” said Devra, hating the sound of the catch in her voice. “But I didn’t talk to him about the case. He asked me to, but I didn’t. Everything he knows he already knew, or he found out his own self. We just talked. Wasn’t anything more than that.”

McKinley nodded slowly. He dragged on his cigar. The smoke reached her and it was foul. He looked at the cigar and then put it behind his back. Smoke coiled up over his broad, round shoulders.

“I’m sorry, baby. This bothering you?”

“It’s all right.”

“You know,” said McKinley, “I’m glad we’re straight on this. Seems like you got your priorities together, I mean, with your little boy and all. Seems like a good kid.”

“He is.”

“I know you want to be a good mother. Seein’ as how you had some problems with your own mother and all that. See, Phil told me about her. Granville and him knew her some around the way, when you wasn’t but a slip of nothin’. She goes by the name of Mattie, right?”

“She don’t have those problems anymore,” said Devra. “She’s good now.”

“But she did have some problems while you was growin’ up. Phil says she was one of those rock stars, from back when they had that, what do they call it, epidemic here in the city.”

“She’s good now,” repeated Devra.

“But she wasn’t back then. Heard she was a real chicken-picker. Would give up her face for ten dollars.”

Devra said nothing.

“Was she pretty like you?” said McKinley. “Probably not when she was geekin’ behind that shit. They lose their ass at that point. But I wonder, at one time, if she was as fine as you. If she had the ass on her that you got on you now.”

McKinley stepped in and put his free hand, thick as a mitt, on Devra’s hip. Then, suddenly, he moved it to the crotch of her slacks. He rubbed her clumsily through the fabric. She pushed herself against the door and felt the bars of the windows press into her back. She wanted to cry out. She wanted to look away, but she kept her eyes on his.

“You are fine,” said McKinley, his voice soft and raspy.