Everything about the club was blue, maybe even the flames on the little candles that sat at the tables, if you stared at them long enough. Long legs and bony arms and vapid smiles sat at the bar, smoking and chatting low and taking in the coolness of just being there, in that narrow little space that a narrow few would want to be in so very badly -- at least according to the latest spread in the Trib, sitting on my knee. The drinks -- if I were inclined to buy any, which I wasn't -- ran something higher than cab-fare, and outside, TriMet buses growled by like angry elephants in a Mercedes-Benz world. I had a knack for landing in places that outclassed me, and I had to admit that, despite the hype and the plastic air of status, there was an edge to RiverGrove that made my white sneakers a bit too flat.

In the corner, hunched as if conscious of the space being too small, a rather talented bass player plucked his strings and made the air float in a way only real money seemed to be able to pay for. But I didn't have to worry: I wasn't here on my own dime, I was here because Kyrian Minski, the bar's "writer in residence", had asked me to come. About a job. What kind of job I didn't know yet. What the hell a bar's "writer in residence" meant in plain American I didn't know either. I figured I'd stick it out until I learned at least one or the other.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned on the stool to find a gaunt man in his mid thirties standing before me, wearing a loosely tied silk tie over a yellow polo shirt above worn out jeans. He was dressed worse than me, yet he still made me feel cheap. I recognized the smell of old money.

"You Camillo Reid?" He asked, his voice oddly soft yet rough, like suede. I nodded. "I'm Kye" When I did nothing more than blink, he stuck out a hand, and added, "Kyrian Minski."

I took his hand in mine. It was clammy. I hate clammy hands. It should have been my first warning.

***

"She's 14. Her name is Ennis."

The photo sat on the bar, a slightly curled, over-glossy fragment of a life. In it, a wisp of a girl wearing too tight jeans and a too tight tube-top stood leaning against a metal railing, at the edge of a wide patch of water. I knew the place. The patch was the Willamette, and the half-crappy east side warehouse district of Portland sprawled behind I-5 in the background. The photo had been taken at Waterfront Park. But my eyes weren't lingering on the concrete and brick wasteland of the background, but on the girl. Everything about her casual pose should have been accompanied by a wide smile on her face and in her eyes, but it was not. Her lips were white and hard, pressed together firmly, and her brows were flat in a way you can only make them when you are trying to suppress an emotion. Was it amusement, or anger, or sorrow she was trying to hide? But it was a poker face, and I couldn't tell.

"What happened?"

"She's disappeared. Monday she didn't come back from school."

"You check in with her friends? Other relatives?"

"Yes, of course."

"Nothing? Not even any hints that anyone knows where she is?"

Kyrian shook his head. Fingers of clumpy hair flew about as he did. I yearned for a pair of scissors.

"Why aren't you talking to the police about this? Missing persons are their job, and besides, when a 14 year old girl goes missing, it can be pretty damn serious. They have resources I don't."

Kyrian waved over the bartender, a twentysomething with kinky black hair and five earings in his left lobe. "Two Bombay Sapphires."

I put a hand on his arm. "One will do. I don't drink."

Kyrian smiled a little then, as if he had something to say to that. He let it go. We sat in silence, staring at the photo until his gin arrived, and then we moved to a small table in a back corner and sat down. "You asked why I didn't go through official channels. Well if I thought she'd been kidnapped or something like that, I'd agree, the police would be best. But I don't think that. I think she ran away, and I think I know who with. You see... Ennis... she's got a problem."

I nodded in silence, waiting for the rest.

"She's... addicted."

"Meth, or heroin?"

Kyrian's eyes came up to mine rapidly, questioningly.

"She doesn't look like a coke user. If she were a pothead I doubt you'd be very worried. The other two popular choices are meth and heroin."

"There are others."

"Yeah, but not as popular as those two."

The man stared at me in silence for a minute, and sneered. "Heroin." Taking a slug from his drink, he added, "And I think she's with her supplier. He's young, he's what some might think of as handsome. And since I found out about all this, I've cut off her funds. So she may be trying to score her fix... in other ways."

"What's his name?"

"Cesar. He's Mexican. Or Guatamalan. Or something. He lives somewhere off 82nd, but I don't know where. He's probably illegal."

"You want me to find her and bring her back."

"Something like that. Actually I'd like you to find her, then tell me where she is. I'll come and get her then."

"With all due respect, Mister Minski, Cesar and his buddies, these guys are drug pushers. They aren't teddy bears. You might want to have a professional get your daughter out rather than trying it yourself."

Kyrian's smile grew obscenely broader. "I'm not afraid of that. And it means five thousand for you if you can do it before the week is out." He slipped a small envelope across the table. "Consider this your retainer. And it's Kye, or at least Kyrian."

I stood up, and picked the envelope up between two fingers as I did so. Inside where ten portraits of Ben Franklin.

"I think your nuts, Mister Minski. But I'll do it."

***

Southeast 82nd. The Chinese thought it was a lucky road, something about the similarity between the pronunciation of the name and of the Cantonese words for "Easy Fortune". Yeah, easy fortune for the pawn shops, lemon hawkers, and prostitutes. Even in the early afternoon light, there were enough cars stopped along the curbs and at the street corners that it was amazing that so few of them got rear ended by a delivery van or a bus. I walked the chipped, dingy, weed-sprouting sidewalk under gay banners of yet another car lot, and came to a big neon sign offering rooms. In it's heyday it had probably been a one-hour rental queen; now it was boarded up with plywood over the windows. But the doors still worked. Of course they did. This was one of the many places that officially didn't exist, that the police kind of just thought of as empty, rather than acknowledging the existence of illegal flophouses sheltering the sex trade.

Making my way up a rickety set of metal steps, I worked my way around three tweakers mixing their habit with pot before heading to an evening's work. I was careful of my shoes, I had a nasty fear of stepping on a used hypodermic. But I made the mezzanine without puncturing my feet, and soon enough, I was at room 222 -- triple deuces.

I don't know why I was there. Five hours of old-fashioned detective-work -- the kind that used twenty dollar bills for grease -- had told me this was where Cesar was staying. If the girl was there, I could probably have found out with a few hours of sitting in my car. Drug pushers like Cesar rarely had well stocked refrigerators, and girls of fourteen rarely were the type to go without food and entertainment for long. But instead, I was standing in front of the door that she might be behind, wearing a Domino's jacket and holding a flat red insulated bag full of pepperoni and pistol pizza.

I put hand against the door, and knocked. No answer came from the other side. I slipped the bag's handle over my shoulder and let it drop to my side, the open end up, and with one gloved hand inside it wrapped around the gun, I placed my other on the doorknob, and turned it. Smoothly the door swung inwards.

***

"Well, ladies, you're sure looking fine tonight. How would you like to earn a little cash?"

The two tweakers at the end of the steps glared at me, but said nothing. In the hot, late afternoon sun, the tarmac wasteland five lanes wide was giving off heat distortions that made the other side of the block look like a mirage. If only, if only. With narrowed eyes, the thinner of the two, harder and tenser so that her neck muscles were wound tighter than violin strings, opened her mouth to answer me.

"Fifty," said Skeleton Girl, in a voice that was far away. "Or you can screw yourself."

"How about a hundred, for a special favor?"

"Sorry, buddy, I don't do whips and chains."

"I was thinking more like information." I produced a folded C-note from a pocket and fanned myself with it as if it were hot, and I needed to feel the breeze from it.

"You a cop?"

"Do cops pay for information?"

"You haven't paid yet."

I ripped the bill in two, and then let half of it casually float down the stairs at her. Skeleton Girl's companion snatched it up, but a quick grab of her wrists and the half was in the right hands. The other girl yelped in pain, then took off fast, running down the block.

"You get the other half when you tell me what I want to know."

"Yeah, like what?"

"Room 222. There's been a girl staying there lately."

"Maybe. So what? Like I pay attention to that shit?"

"Sure you do. She could be your new competition. You'd want to know all about her." I sat down on the stairs a few above and behind her, making her a bit nervous. She half turned so she could keep an eye on me. "I want to know when she left."

"Why, did Cesar tell you to go fu --"

"Cesar is dead."

Her mouth clamped shut. She stood up.

"If really you want the other half of that bill, you shouldn't walk away now."

"Like I'll be able to spend it dead."

"I didn't kill him. He was already dead when I got into the room. Stabbed."

"Yeah, sure mister. Whatever you say."

I shrugged. "You don't have to believe me. I didn't come here to kill Cesar. I was hired to bring the girl home."

Her eyebrows suddenly moved upwards, and she started a grimace that grew to a wild, weird grin. She began to laugh.

"What's so funny about that?"

"She's already home, you 'tard. Her mom came in here all ghetto-tough packing a gun and drove away with her in her big white Lexus."

Her voice trailed away in manic laughter.

***

Riverwood Road curved off the main highway south to Lake Oswego in a tangle of antebellum shade trees, coifed rhododendrons, and velvet-green lawns that cost more per square foot than a crooked congressman. As it swung its narrow, lazy curves down towards the river, the houses grew older and larger, and many were surrounded by head-high stone walls. Portia Minski's house was like this, with a modest white Lexus out front. No uniformed house boy was out polishing it. I guess that sort of thing was out now.

The stone wall was tall, but it didn't have barbed wire atop it, nor broken bottles embedded in the ledge, nor security cameras nor tripwires nor laser sensors or any of that fancy crap. My feet landed on the other side, in a bed of ferns, solid enough, and quick enough that no-one had noticed.

"Hold it right there."

Game over.

On instinct, I put up my hands, and turned around. A 16 inch naval canon -- disguised as a Colt .45 for stealth -- stared at me, held in very firm hands. I followed the hands to well developed yet shapely arms, which were attached to well developed but shapely shoulders, which held above them on a well developed but shapely neck a rather pretty head of tussled brown hair.

"Well hello, Mrs. Minski."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Camillo Reid. I'm a private detective." I put one hand into my jacket pocket, and slowly withdrew my wallet, flipping out the window that showed my license. Her eyes glanced over it briefly, and I tried to will the sweat down the back of my neck to stop. It wasn't easy, facing naval gunnery.

"What do you want."

"Well, see, that's the funny thing, heh. Umm... I'm trying to find your daughter."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, your husband, Kyrian, hired me yesterday night to find your daughter. He seems to be under the impression that she's missing. Of course, he also neglected to mention he had a wife who might have found her first."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Look, can you lower that gun? I mean, I don't much like talking to people who point guns at me. I used to be a cop, chalk it up to an old habit dying hard."

"You're a man I don't know. You jumped over my wall. If you were a cop once, you know that's breaking and entering. You say you're after my daughter. Why should I trust you?"

"Yeah, plus your husband hired me, so that's an even worse mark."

She frowned.

"Have you told him yet?" I asked. She didn't respond. "I didn't think so."

"I think you should leave now."

I stood staring at her, as she still held that canon out at me. It trembled a little. Not a good sign; I didn't want to end up with a hole in me because she got emotional and squeezed her finger by accident. I shrugged. "Alright, Mrs. Minski, Have it your way." I backed towards the gate in the door, feeling that dark, third eye watching me the whole way. As I unhooked the latch and slipped through, I opened my mouth again. "Just so you know, I'm calling Mr. Minski as soon as I've gone, to tell him where his daughter is. It's what he hired me to do."

"Wait!" The gun now sat at her side. "Is that necessary? I mean, you didn't see her, did you?"

"No, but I know she's here. That's good enough."

"Bastard." She did not re-raise the gun, for which I was relieved.

"Fine. Far be it for me to do you any favors." I began to close the gate.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I stepped back through and closed the gate behind me. "Look, Mrs. Minski, let me put it real plain to you. A man hired me to find his runaway heroin addict daughter, and I find out she's in his wife's care, but she hasn't told him a word about it. Now I wonder, why would a mother hide her daughter from her husband? It smells. So maybe it smells enough that I bet this mother might have a good reason to hide her daughter, just maybe. So maybe I go beyond my charge, and warn her that her cover is about to be blown. But like I said, far be it for me to do you any favors. You'll probably just shoot me for them for thanks."

Her mouth hung open a little. I took out a business card, and tossed it at her feet. "If you change your mind, and feel like telling me about it, you know where to find me."

"But you work for him."

"I was hired to find the girl. I've found her. The job is over. And you look like you might need some help. Good night, Mrs. Minski."

***

The early morning light barely made it past the Venetian blinds that were halfway dropped in the windows at RiverGrove. Being closed still, the entry was locked, but Kyrian had let me in, one hand on the knob, the other, bandaged, on the edge of the door. Apparently being "writer-in-residence" extended to such things as keys to the building. I silently wondered how much stock he had drunk up in the times he'd had the bar to himself. Once I was inside, he went around the counter and began to prove me right, mixing himself a screwdriver. For me, he set out a coffee. He had remembered I didn't drink, I was almost touched.

"So what's the progress you wanted to see me about?" He took a deep swing of his drink.

"I've found her."

He stopped tipping back his glass, and set it down on the bar. "Really? Where is she?"

"What did you do to your hand?"

"Oh, umm, I fell. Cut myself. Jogging."

"Ah. Well, she's safe and with her mother."

Kyrian stared at me as if I had bugs crawling out of my eyes. "Are you sure?"

"We talked. Yes, I'm sure."

"You talked. I see." He threw his drink back and poured another, this time without the orange juice. Reaching under the counter, he pulled out a manila envelope. "You'll find the rest of your pay there, as promised."

I popped open the envelope. Inside were 40, one-hundred-dollar bills. I was impressed by anyone who paid cash in that sort of quantity; I wasn't about to tell him it was way beyond my going rate for the work I had put in. I had almost not believed he'd really pay as much as that for the job, but here it was; fresh lettuce in a brown paper wrapper. It smelled almost good enough to eat.

"I don't mean to be rude," he said, interrupting my reverie, "but I need to go downtown on some business soon. I think everything is settled now, thank you for helping me. Gerry made a very good choice recommending you."

As I slid off the barstool onto my heels, my ears perked. "Gerry?"

"Eh?"

"You said just now that Gerry recommended me. Who did you mean?"

"Oh, you must be mistaken... I meant... I meant Harry. Harry Lieberstein, my lawyer."

"Never heard of him."

"Well he's heard of you. I guess word of good service gets around. You'll certainly get my recommendation, if anyone asks for your sort of help. Anyway... I really do need to go, I hope you don't mind?" He was now around the bar, and I think if I hadn't been that much younger and bigger than him, he'd have put a hand on my arm and been steering me towards the door. By the time I stood on the sidewalks of Belmont, he was locking up behind me. I cupped my hands against the glass and stared inside at the bar; my coffee still sat there, untouched, steaming away. Then the blinds dropped all the way down behind the glass, cutting me off from it.

***

In the end I had not followed Kyrian from the bar. Perhaps I ought to have. Perhaps that would have changed things. But instead, nightfall found me sitting behind the wheel of my car, which now sported a high-gloss wax polish in a vain attempt to make it fit the richy surroundings of Riverwood Street better. I don't know what I was expecting, or why I was there. Watching someone's place from your car -- especially in a wealthy suburban neighborhood -- is about as inconspicuous as streaking through the middle of a football game.

Of course, sometimes, being an idiot has an upside, because only when you think like an idiot and act like and idiot can you find other idiots who are doing the same idiotic things you are. In this case, they were in a nice dark green sedan parked three cars ahead of me, a pair of jokers smoking cigarettes. Suddenly the odds of having the cops called on us got that much more real... and they had to know that too. They couldn't have been that stupid. Or were they figuring they weren't going to be there that long...?

Both doors opened, and their dome light went on. Stupid, they hadn't taped the button in the door frame shut, as I had. The light from inside the car shone on their faces, and recognition hit me fast. I didn't know the driver, though he looked to be tough enough. The passenger was another matter.

I got out of the car and strolled their way.

"Well, well, well. Charlie Chezinszcki." I stepped into a pool of light from one of the few streetlamps. His head spun around, and a hand went inside his coat. "Now, now, no need for artillery just yet."

"Cam, you sonofabitch. Go home, this doesn't concern you."

"Really? Now is that any way to talk to a close companion you haven't seen for years?"

"Close companion my ass."

"Hey, we spent lots of quality time together. Like every time I busted you."

The driver stepped forward, and silver flashed in his hand. A knife, about four inches long. "Back off, kid. Go home."

"Nice jewelry kid."

Charlie put a hand across the driver's chest and pushed him behind him a little. "Look, dude. You got paid well enough for your job. Back off. Don't get all high and mighty cause you had a high-class client once, you're still flesh and blood. And besides," he said, cracking a lopsided grin, "That broad's dead now, so you didn't exactly do her much good. So just you go home, understand?"

I leveled my eyes on the driver's, staring into them and never blinking. He began to sweat, and his face began to get angrier. The knife had now disappeared.

"Oh I understand alright. You want me to turn around and walk back to my car -- "

"That's right," said Charlie, nodding.

" -- so you can shoot me in the back."

The driver lunged forward, pulling his pistol out from his coat -- or trying to anyway. With Charlie's arm over his chest, he couldn't get free as fast as he'd like, and then my gun was in my hand. Two flashes lit up the scene for a millisecond, followed hard on by two loud booms. The pistol sat still in my hand, hot and smoking, and the driver lay on his back in the street, a pool of blood surrounding him. Both bullets probably had hit his heart.

"Don't try it Charlie, unless you want to end up like him."

Charlie was standing, feet wide apart, like they teach you to do in shooting class at the range. One hand was at his hip, about to go for his holster there, while his face stared down at the driver, frozen in shock. I knew around us, lights would be going on in the houses, and there were probably two dozen people on the phone to the police as we stood there. Then again, it had probably only been a few seconds that had passed; it was the adrenaline that was making it feel like hours.

Then Charlie's reverie snapped. He looked up at me, twitched, and then dove for the cover of the cars as he reached for the gun on his hip. Four more bullets left my gun, two of them hitting their car and leaving nice pretty round holes in the paintwork. The other two hit their target. Charlie's arm flew up in the air as he fell onto the hood, his gun going flying into the street. He lay face down on the car, and twitched a few times, then moved no more. Nor would he ever again.

I ran to the gate at the Minski house, and jumped the wall again, and landed in the garden. This time, I went right up to the door, and began pounding on it. "Portia, open up! It's Camillo Reid! Portia, you need to get out of here, open up!"

The door cracked, and again the .45 stared out at me. Then the light caught my face. Portia Minski was wearing a thin robe and her hair was mussed up in that way only sleep can produce. "What's happening?" Her voice trembled, and in the darkness of the house behind her, someone was moving around, sniffing... and crying.

"Someone, I'm not sure who, has just sent two heavy's after you and your daughter. I'm not sure why, but they were here to kill you."

"Kill us?" She opened the door slightly wider. "Can you be sure?"

"Honey, they were packing heat and not afraid to use it. They already tried to use it on me."

"You mean...?"

"I'd take you to go see the blood and check for pulses, but I'm afraid we don't have the time. The police will be here soon. Your neighbors are probably already calling them now."

"But... wont that be good? Won't the police make us safe?"

"You don't seem to get it, Mrs. Minski. Whoever sent these guys wanted you dead. If the police show up, you'll be answering questions as a material witness -- "

"I didn't see anything, how can I be a -- "

"-- as they were coming to your house, and as I was here only because of you. And once they start asking you questions, you'll be stuck here. And frankly, if I were you, I wouldn't want anyone knowing exactly where I was right now."

The sobbing in the background grew stronger. "I'm sorry!" a voice cried out, a thin, young, brittle voice.

***

I drove. Portia sat in the back seat, cradling Ennis in her arms. She was silent now, I think she was sleeping.

"Turn here," Portia said.

"What was she sorry for?"

As we passed streetlight after streetlight, patterns of shadow and light alternated across the tableau in the backseat, my own private Rembrandt of Mary & Jesus. Only Jesus was being played by a little girl who had sobbed herself to sleep.

"She... she blames herself for bringing those men to our house."

"Why are they after you?" Silence. "At first I thought Kyrian sent them, but now I'm not so sure. For one, if he had resources enough to find and hire those thugs, why did he need me to find his daughter for him? And for another, he was injured, and cagey, when I last saw him."

"Injured?"

"His hand was bandaged."

"Maybe he fell."

"Yeah, maybe. Or maybe some goons decided to use an easy form of quick pain, by breaking a few fingers in a creative way. Ya know... for a little persuasion. Or maybe punishment. or maybe both. But I can't figure out just why."

Silence kept us company again for a few miles, and I kept to well within the speed limits as we headed southwards. Soon we were through the Walmartville of Woodburn and nearly to Salem. Our goal was to reach Corvallis, a college town, where a mother and teenaged daughter could hide safely for a little while.

"You know she's not a bad kid."

I started a little at hearing her voice for the first time in many miles.

"It was Kyrian who got her onto Heroin. It made her easier for him to... handle."

"What kind of dad puts his daughter onto heroin?"

"The kind that sells it. The kind that wants his daughter to be... cooperative." The way she hurtled the word cooperative out at me, I thought I ought to check for cuts on myself.

"What exactly do you mean by... cooperative?"

"I can't say it."

"Portia." I stared at her in the rearview mirror, and our eyes met. There was fire in hers, and hurt. She looked away quickly. "Are you telling me Kyrian abused her?"

She refused to meet my eyes again.

"I see." We passed through the helter-skelter of government malaise and warmed-over 1930's that was the Capitol. "What you said earlier... you said Kyrian sells Heroin."

She nodded, and held Ennis tighter. "Through RiverGrove. He sells to highbrow clients, people with money who can't be seen walking into a crackhouse to buy their stash. Phil Kosner had something to do with setting the place up."

Kosner. Gerry. I felt a sudden chill overcome my body, and could swear I tasted Bourbon in my mouth.

"Kosner set him up as "writer in residence" so he could hang around all the time without being an employee. That way, if he got busted, he wouldn't lose the place to forfeiture. He'd never be able to sell drugs from it again, but he could at least sell the the property and recoup his investment if he had to shut down."

"I guess. I don't know much about that."

"Kosner is a shrewd businessman. It's how he'd do it. I should have figured it out as soon as I saw Charlie out front of your place."

"Charlie?"

"Charlie Chezinszcki. One of the men who... came for you two tonight. When I last saw him, he was a minor thug for Kosner." I paused. "But that still leaves holes. Why did your daughter run when she did? Why did Kyrian try to find her, and then Kosner's men try to kill her?"

"He sent them to shut us up. He was afraid we'd ruin him by exposing Kyrian for a drug dealer with ties to him. And Kyrian was afraid she'd tell me about the abuse."

I shook my head. "No. Kosner can dismiss Kyrian if he played it smart. The way he set up RiverGrove, I doubt he was sloppy about his business arrangements with your husband. So he wouldn't be worried about silencing you two. As for Kyrian's motive, maybe... but he'd really have to be on Kosner's sweet side to get to use his heavies for personal matters. And by his hand, it looks like he incurred official displeasure. Looks to me more like Kyrian did something that endangered his boss. And it looks like your daughter played a part in that."

Portia seemed to shut down then, and let her head roll backwards. She was either asleep, or wanted to avoid talking further. But my mind kept working, and kept wandering back to room 222 on 82nd Avenue... where Cesar had been stabbed to death by someone. I couldn't really picture Kyrian doing that. He was too damn limp-wristed to be much of a physical threat to anyone besides his daughter.

"Cesar was Guatamalan." I was speaking only to myself of course. "And Kosner doesn't employ foreigners."

***

Ennis was soon tucked into bed in a nice motel on the edge of Corvallis. The sun had just risen, but she'd probably sleep the whole day. Portia and I stood on the balcony of the room, drinking coffee.

"This is four thousand dollars," I said, handing her the same brown envelope that Kyrian had handed me the day before. "Use it to live off of for the next few days. Go to a used car lot and buy a cheap car with two grand or less, and pay in cash. Use the rest to eat and pay the motel bills. Don't ever use the credit card, your cell phone, and do not call anyone you know, even me. Understand?"

Portia nodded. "I'll pay you back of course."

"Sure, sure."

"How long does it have to be this way?"

"Until I contact you again. If you don't hear from me within a week, you'll need to go to Eugene, and find the field offices there of the FBI. Ask to speak to an agent about a major drug syndicate in Portland, and when you get to see someone, tell them everything you know." I turned to her, and put her shoulders in my hands, so she couldn't avoid my eyes easily. "Everything, Portia. Everything."

"Everything."

"Yes." I picked my coffee back up, and drained it quickly. I'd have to be going soon. "One more thing."

She looked up at me.

"What do you have on Kyrian and Kosner?"

"What do you mean?"

"Kosner was looking for your daughter too. See, when I went looking for your daughter at first, I was also looking for a cheap hood named Cesar. He wasn't part of Kosner's organization, and your husband claimed he was her boyfriend and heroin supplier. Now Kosner got to him before me, and he bit the big one. Now why would both Kyrian and Kosner want Cesar found? Because he was Ennis' lover? Kosner wouldn't give a shit about that. She had to have something that was a danger to both of them, that Cesar might want."

Portia's face was placid as the light on the trees outside, a soft, warm peach glow that came just before autumn fell.

"Where is the customer list, Portia?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You can't snow me. It's why Kyrian wanted to find his daughter before she got it to Cesar. When she ran, she took his customer list, hell if I know why. Maybe she wanted to take something of great value from him. Maybe she figured it would get him killed. Who knows. But with no place to run, she went to Cesar, who figured out what it was she had.

"My guess is Cesar got uppity, and contacted one of the customers, either to try and sell them some drugs of his own, or to try and blackmail them. Either way, whoever he talked to blabbed to Kosner, and Kosner broke Kyrian's hand to get the whole story, and then sent men to finish of Cesar. Knowing the streets as well as a good hood ought to, he found him before me, but not before your daughter called you to rescue her, and made off with the list when she disappeared.

"And of course, if that list fell in the wrong hands, it could ruin Kosner's reputation as a discreet supplier. So... where is it?"

Portia turned slowly and opened the sliding glass door to the motel room. Walking over to the dresser, she picked up her purse, opened it, and withdrew the canon. Setting it down, she dug out a brown ledger. "It's not even in code or anything. Kyrian wasn't really that inventive. It's only names and numbers, and account balances."

"What did you plan to do with it?"

"I hadn't decided yet. Maybe use it as insurance to make sure Kyrian didn't try anything against Ennis again."

I shook my head, and gently took the book from her grip. "As long as you have this, you have a price on your head. Kosner will do anything to get it into his control."

"Then what do you suggest to do with it? Give it back to him?"

Cogs began to turn. "Maybe. I want you to package this up. If you don't hear from me, it goes to the FBI along with yourself and your daughter as planned. If you do hear from me, I'll give you an address to send it to."

"But why? I don't understand."

"Trust me."

"But... I..."

"If I wanted the book for myself, I could kill both of you now and take it from you. But I'm not, am I? And I saved your life last night too. So... will you trust me, one more time?"

***

"This isn't funny, Cam. A man ended up dead. And you were involved somehow."

I stared up over the edge of the Big O and into the eyes of Jim Devlin, Assistant District Attorney for Multnomah County.

"Sounds like a regular comedy to me. And it was three."

Jim sighed, then pulled out a chair with a thick scrape against the sidewalk. I watched our reflections in a streetcar as it passed by, headed north to the warehouse revival-land of the new rich. The table between us shook as Jim stuffed his legs under it. "And careful with my coffee," I added.

"I know all about the other two. We gave you a pass on them. They were hoods, they were after the wife of a connected writer who may have had enemies. They pulled a gun on a private who was employed to provide security for the woman and her daughter. Self defense."

"You know I have a mouth of my own. I could always tell the Grand Jury that myself."

"Yeah, and we could always make this harder on you. All we've got as proof this gal was your client is her word, and a wad of cash you both say she gave you. It could be some kind of cover. It could be you had a personal score to settle with the two hoods who ended up dead, and then you leaned on this woman for a cover. One of them was Charlie Chezinszcki. I believe you two were acquainted when you were on the force."

"And it could be you're an arrogant asshole, Jim."

"We could have been tougher on you about them."

I put down the paper at last. The awning above the street-side seating put a shadow right across his face, but his eyes still gleamed in the darkness there, eyes that had stared across at me many a time in the past.

"And you could stop doing me favors." I took a sip of my mocha. They served it here in a tiny little cute glass that must have made it a buck an ounce at these prices, but the quality almost made up for it. Almost. "What, did you go easy on me on two hits so I might feel all soft and gooey, and confess to a third one?"

"Don't be an asshole yourself, Cam. You knew Minski somehow. He ended up in the river with six holes in him. We don't know who did it, we don't know why. It's kinda natural we'd want to talk to you. You should just feel lucky it was an old friend, and not some copper you didn't know."

"Better the Devil you know...."

"Shu --"

"He hired me to find his daughter. She'd run away from home with some drug pusher. She called her mother before I had a chance to get to her, and then her mother decided to hire me to watch their house, in case thee pusher came to try and take her back. Looks like the pusher was a bigger fish than Kyrian thought."

Jim narrowed his eyes. "Who was the pusher?"

I shrugged. "The boys I nailed on Riverwood belonged to Phil Kosner I believe, Maybe you should go have coffee with him next."

Jim pushed back his chair and stood up, smoothing his silver hair back on his head lightly as he did so. "Maybe I should just go back to North Carolina. Things were easier there."

"You can't do that Jim. You'd miss me." I grinned wide, then put the paper back up, and held it there until he was gone.

***

The marble steps were wide and made each footfall just a little hollow. Up on the second floor, I sat on a narrow bench, watching the traffic of cops, judges, lawyers, minor offenders, future divorcees, genealogical researchers, and the flotsom of cheap relatives perps leave behind them walk by. I wanted a cigarette, not because I smoked, but because I felt a need to do something, and I had already exhausted the paper over at Jake's Grill, waiting for Jim to be long gone. He'd probably be pretty damn surprised to learn I was inside the same building as him just then; almost as surprised as at who I was meeting. Then again, he was always ready to be disappointed in me, maybe he'd be heartened to be proven right at long last, if he knew.

Heavier footfalls neared, and then a man sat beside me. "Do you have the sports section?"

"Why, want to see if the Ducks lost again?"

"I prefer Corvallis."

I gazed over at the man, not knowing what to expect, but he was as human as me. Brown hair, blue eyes, maybe a bit too pudgy for his age, but what did you expect from a well paid lawyer for 'connected' people?

"Well it's sitting on the bench between us, help yourself."

The lawyer grabbed the sports section, unfolded it, and found the small stack of pages that had been ripped from the ledger.

"They should all match the tears in the book, as well as the photocopies I sent with the remainder."

The lawyer nodded, then stood and walked away. I just sat and sulked for a while on the bench, then got up and went out into the grey canyons of the city.

***

My phone rang. It was 2am. The number was unlisted.

"Hello?"

"How do I know there aren't more copies, to go along with the ones you sent with the book?"

"Nice night, Phil, how sweet of you to call. You don't."

Silence for a long stretch, then: "That's no good. That makes it sound like you have extras."

"Do you really think a few would sink you, Phil? That's like trying to take down a battleship with a slingshot." I paused and flipped on a light. "If thats not good enough, though, I have a solution."

"I'm listening."

"I give you my word."

Kosner laughed on the other end of the phone. I'd never heard him laugh before.

"Are you accusing me of being corrupt with that laughter?"

"No, but we did what you asked, and it's kinda final and not something we can take back. You, you might be able to hold back forever."

"Okay, how about this. If I could have destroyed you with that book, I would have. Hows that?"

"Your word was enough."

"How touching."

"Not at all. But if anyone knows what you're made of, it's your enemy." Just then, I'll admit my skin crawled a little. "Oh don't worry, Cam. I'm sure our time together will come, but it's not tonight. A pleasure doing business with you."

"One more thing."

Kosner grunted.

"Tell Mayor Gerry to stop recommending me to his friends. I'm not in business to be his patsy."

"Oh? I dunno. You did a great job of it this time. We got the book back, now didn't we?"

The line went dead in my hand.  

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