'Like weed and stuff?'

'For starters. I was thinking more along the lines of, was he deeper into it. Matter of fact, was he into anything criminal at all?'

'Not that I know. Like I say, we weren't all that tight this past year. I'd tell you if I thought he was.'

'I know you would. Anyway, we'll talk some more. Go ahead and read your book. Listen to music while you're doing it if you want to.'

'I wasn't really readin that book, tell you the truth.'

'No kidding.'

'Dad? I got in a little trouble again today.'

'What happened?'

'We had this fire drill, and while we were standing outside, this boy told me a joke and I laughed.'

'So?'

'I mean, I kinda laughed real loud. They suspended me for the rest of the day.'

'For laughing outside of the school.'

'It's the rule. Principal got on the intercom before the drill, warned everyone against it. I knew not to do it, but I couldn't help it. This boy just cracked me up.'

'You couldn't have been the only kid who was laughing.'

'True. Plenty of kids were joking around. But Mr Guy didn't mess with them. He came right down on me.'

'Don't worry about it,' said Ramone.

He left his son in his room. Ramone's jaw was tight as he walked down the hall.

Holiday poured vodka over ice, standing beside the Formica-topped counter of his small kitchen. There was nothing to do but have a drink.

He wasn't into television, except for sports, and he never read books. He'd thought about taking up a hobby, but he was suspicious of men who did. He felt they were fucking off when they could have been doing something productive. There were problems to be solved and goals to achieve, and here were grown men chasing little white balls, climbing rocks, and riding bicycles. Wearing those stupid bicycle-riding clothes, for Chrissakes, like boys wearing cowboy outfits.

Holiday wouldn't have minded talking to someone tonight. He had things to discuss, police-type matters, which went beyond bar conversation. But he could think of no one to call.

He had few friends, and none he could call close. A cop he occasionally drank with, Johnny Ramirez, who had a chip on his shoulder but was all right enough to have a beer with now and again. The guys at Leo's, them, too. He knew some of the residents of the garden apartments to nod at or say hello to in the mornings as they walked out to their cars and their cabs, but none of them were people he'd ask into his place. He lived in Prince George's, not the last white man in the county but feeling at times as if he were, because he had grown up here and it felt like home. The guys he had known were in northern Montgomery or down in Charles County now, or had left the area entirely. He'd run into someone locally on occasion, black men he'd gone to Eleanor Roosevelt High with, now with families of their own, and that was cool. They'd talk for a couple of minutes, twenty years of catch-up in a short conversation, then part company. Acquaintances with shared memories, but no real friends.

Sure, he had his women. He had always had a talent for finding strange. But no one he wanted to wake up next to in his bed. His nights were no more meaningful than his days.

This afternoon, Dan Holiday had driven a man named Seamus O'Brien, who had bought an NBA team after cashing out of a tech start-up in the late '90s. O'Brien had come to Washington to meet with a group of lawmakers who shared his values, and also to have his photo taken with a group of charter school students residing east of the Anacostia River. He had brought them signed posters of one of his players, a shooting guard who had come out of Eastern High. O'Brien would never see these children again or be involved in their lives, but a photograph of him and a bunch of smiling black kids would make him feel as if he were right with the world. It would also look good on his office wall.

Holiday had listened as the man in the backseat of the Town Car talked about vouchers, prayer in school, and his desire to influence the culture of the nation, because what was money worth if you didn't use it do some good? His sentences were peppered with references to the Lord and his personal savior, Jesus Christ. Holiday had helpfully turned the satellite radio to The Fish, an adult-contemporary Christian program, but after one song O'Brien asked him if he could find Bloomberg News instead.

That had been his day. Driving a rich man to and from appointments, waiting for him outside those appointments, and taking him to the airport. A nice chunk of change, but zero in the accomplishment department. Which is why his eyes never snapped open in the mornings when he woke up, as they had when he was police. Back then he couldn't wait to get to work. He didn't hate this job or love it; it was an odometer turning, a ride with no destination, a waste of time.

Holiday took his drink and a pack of smokes out to the balcony of his apartment and had a seat. The balcony faced the parking lot and beyond the lot the rear of the Hecht's at the P.G. Plaza mall. A man and a woman were arguing somewhere, and as cars drove slowly in the lot there was rapping and window-rattling bass, and as other cars passed there was toasting, and from the open windows of still other cars came the call-and-response, synthesizers, and percussion of go-go.

The sounds reached Holiday, but they did not bother him or interrupt the scenario forming in his head. He was thinking of a man who would like to hear the story of the dead teenager lying in the community garden on Oglethorpe. Holiday had a sip of his drink and wondered if this man was still alive.

Ramone and Regina ate dinner and shared a bottle of wine, and when they were done they opened another bottle, which they normally didn't do. The two of them talked intensely about the death of Diego's friend, and at one point Regina cried, not only for Asa, and not only for his parents, to whom she was not particularly close, but for herself, because she was thinking about how completely and permanently crushing it would be to lose one of her own in that way.

'The Lord oughtta strike me down for being so selfish,' said Regina, wiping tears off her face and chuckling with embarrassment. 'It's just that I'm afraid.'

'It's natural to feel that way,' said Ramone. He didn't tell her that he feared for his children also, every day.

In bed, they kissed and held each other, but neither of them took the step to make love. For Gus especially the passionate kiss was always a prelude to something else, but not tonight.

'God is crying,' said Ramone.

'What?'

'That's what Terrance Johnson said. We were standing in his backyard, and it had started to rain. Can you imagine?'

'Not unusual for him to be thinking on God.'

'What I mean is, you'd think that if your kid died like that, you'd either lose your faith completely or you'd be so angry at God that you'd turn your back on him.'

'Terrance is gonna look to God now stronger than ever. That's what faith is.'

'You sound like Rhonda.'

'Us black women do love us some church.'

'Regina?'

'What?'

'You know, Asa's name… It's spelled the same way backward as it is forward. It's a palindrome.'

'All right.'

'You were on the force back when those kids from Southeast were killed.'

'I was still a recruit. But, yeah, I remember.'

'Those kids were found in community gardens, too. All of them, shot in the head.'

'You think this is connected?'

'I have to sleep on it. Tomorrow I guess I'll go ahead and open some files.'

'Tomorrow. You forget about it now.'

After a while Ramone said, 'Diego seems okay. He'll never forget this, but he's handling it pretty well.'

'He had a rough day, all in all. On top of everything, they went and sent him home-'