“Ay, conjo! ” a woman screamed.

The pounding stopped.

“Twenty bucks or four vials of crack and she’ll do just about anything you want,” Rico said, tilting his head at the now silent wall. “Marisa’s still pretty new at the game. She tries to enjoy it. I let her suck my cock once in a while. You see the little fat girl downstairs? That’s her kid.”

I needed a shower.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he asked, the inevitable bitterness leaking into his voice. “Wanna talk old times, buddy?”

“In a way, I guess, maybe I do.”

He wasn’t ready for that, seemed to stumble reaching for an empty bottle to use as an ashtray.

“Don’t fuck with me, Moe. You don’t have that much credit with me to fuck with my head.”

“So I’ve got some? That’s good to know.”

“Was you who gave up on me, brother. Not the other way around. You were a big part of my life and the next day. . pfffft! I was cut out like a tumor.”

“Your metaphor, Rico, not mine. And it’s not like you had no part in that. You tried playing me. You-”

“Yeah, I used you. Blah, blah, blah. You’re like a broken fucking record, man. What’s it been, like ten years since you seen me? In the hospital, right, when your father-in-law had that stroke?”

“Eight years. 1981, I think.”

“Eight fucking years and you still can’t let it go. Well, you can stop playing that tune. I’m bored with it. I played it over and over again in my head when I was inside. We’re not friends anymore. Okay, I get that. So what is it you’re doing here?”

“Larry Mac.”

“What about him?”

“No one can find him.”

He burst out laughing. It was wild, manic laughter. His sluggish brown eyes came to life, darting madly. His lips curled back, exposing his stained teeth and thick, grayish tongue. The laughter took its toll and he launched into a coughing fit that seemed to last for hours. These were coughs from down deep, coughs so raw and raspy they hurt my throat. When the coughing finally died down, Rico made smooching sounds.

“Mmmhhhh! Mmmhhhh! Larry, where are you?” he looked under the dirty laundry on his bed. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

“Very funny.”

“He ain’t here.”

“I didn’t think he was.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“I gave up wanting that in 1978.”

He winced. I knew the tough guy shit was an act. He missed me as much as I missed him. Only difference was I’d had a life to fall back on. He’d pissed his away.

“I thought you might know where he is,” I said, not interested in inflicting any more pain. “I know you two are still close and that you keep in touch.”

He was thinking that one over. It was an opening he chose not to take. I guess he’d had enough hard feelings, too.

“Haven’t heard from him since last week. He did tell me you and that asshole brother of yours opened another store.”

I let it go. He never liked Aaron much, especially because my big brother refused to let Rico invest in the business when we were first starting out. Aaron was smart that way.

“Yeah,” I said, “out in Brookville.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. So did Larry sound okay? Did he seem like the ambitious prick we both know him to be?”

Rico thought about that, dragging his fingers and palm across a week’s worth of beard. I could read the answer in his expression, but I let him say it anyway.

“Nah, something was up with him. He was quiet-like, you know, sorta thoughtful and philosophical almost. That ain’t Larry. Ferguson May, maybe, but not Larry Mac.”

“Anything else? Did he actually say anything out of the ordinary? Do anything out of the ordinary?”

Rico hesitated, a veil of genuine concern on his face. “Yeah, well. . he. . he threw me an extra hundred bucks. But he did that sometimes.”

“This time was different, right? I can see it in your face.”

“Different, yeah, but I can’t say how. An extra C-note is an extra C-note is an extra C-note. I can’t afford to be too. . You know how it is.”

I didn’t, but I could guess. He noticed the pity on my face as I stared at the appalling condition of his room.

“Better to live in a shitbag room like this than in a fucking cell, Moe. A cell’s no place for a man. Once you go in, you never really get out.”

The conversation was going in a direction I wasn’t willing to follow.

“Can I use the head?”

“Sure,” he said.

I closed the door behind me. After I pissed, I ran the water a little and took five twenties out of my wallet. I slipped them under Rico’s disposable razor and closed the medicine cabinet. When I came out, I handed him a business card and asked if he needed a few bucks to hold him over.

“No thanks, Moe.”

“Okay. You hear anything from Larry, you call me.”

“I’ll call.”

This time I put my hand out to him. He took it, but not too eagerly. Ten years of hard feelings and hurt weren’t going to disappear in ten minutes.

“I didn’t ask about Katy and Sarah because Larry tells me about them,” he said, embarrassed.

“That’s okay, Rico. Let’s just worry about Larry for now.”

As I walked down the hall I heard the locks clicking shut. When I reached the stairs I nearly ran into the chubby girl who had since shed the one-eyed cat. Her impassive expression had been replaced by one of loathing and disgust. Her near-black eyes cut deep. I thought she might spit at me, but she moved on. I understood. She had mistaken

It was nothing, a small piece in the Daily News that only a few days before would have meant less to me than the death of a moth. At first, the words didn’t quite register. I read past the article and accompanying photo, and went back to it. Two hikers in the wildlife preserve area of Gateway National Park had stumbled over a body. The unidentified man had some holes in his head besides the ones God included in the original design. It’s not like dead bodies never turned up in the preserve.

Once, decades ago, before the coastal area that stretched from Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to the Rockaways to the approaches around Kennedy Airport had been turned into a national park, the reeds, marshes, and murky inlets along Jamaica Bay had been a favorite dumping ground for the prematurely dead. But since the area was now federally protected and the nearby Fountain Avenue landfill closed, murderers had had to find alternative, less conspicuous places in which to discard their trash. I didn’t give the subject much thought.

I was too busy staring at the black-and-white photo of what was described as a gold and diamond-encrusted ID bracelet. The bold block letters spelled out the name MALIK. Malik was described as a light-skinned black male, five-foot-seven inches tall, weighing one hundred and fifty-five pounds, approximately thirty years of age. He had light brown eyes, no facial hair, and a close-cropped haircut. Although these days Malik wasn’t exactly an uncommon name, I suddenly felt very uneasy. I sensed the fan blades spinning faster and that the shit was moving in their general direction.

Another round of calls to all the people Larry and I had in common netted me nothing. I had avoided getting back to Margaret until

Those calls, the ones to Margaret and my old acquaintances, were easy compared to the one I was about to make. The single condition of my partnership with my brother was that I be allowed to work cases whenever I wished. The reality of it was that I averaged about one case every two years, and even then I used vacation days to account for my time away from the business. In my heart I knew that Aaron had agreed because he believed my passion for the job would fade like the taste of a first kiss. He was a smart man, my brother Aaron. Money in a man’s pocket, a nice house, a new car, and a comfortable life can kill passion as effectively as a thousand different poisons. But what Aaron forgot is that the taste of some first kisses never fade.