Cover

Title Page

Dedication

In memory of
BILLY DUGAN
CLIFF
BOSTON JOHN
BAMBI
MARK THE DWARF
and
RED-HAIRED MAGGIE

Contents

Contents

Epigraph

1I saw her entrance. It would have been hard to miss. She had blonde hair that was close to white, ...

2There was a problem. In order for me to talk to Chance I had to find him, and she couldn’t ...

3I got up around ten-thirty, surprisingly well rested after six hours of skimming the surface of sleep.

4He wasn’t hard to recognize. His suit was a dove gray flannel and with it he wore a bright red ...

5I read the paper while I ate breakfast. The housing cop in Corona was still in critical condition ...

6Kim Dakkinen had died in a room on the seventeenth floor of the Galaxy Downtowner, one ...

7It was no big deal. I didn’t even feel the drink at first, and then what I experienced was a ...

8I bought the News the next morning. A new atrocity had already driven Kim Dakkinen off ...

9I woke up suddenly, consciousness coming on abruptly and at top volume.

10He said, “You still think I killed her, don’t you?” “What does it matter what I think?”

11The circular drive in Central Park is almost exactly six miles around.

12“I didn’t know her all that well. I met her a year or so ago at the beauty parlor ...

13When I left Elaine’s the sky was growing dark and the streets were thick with rush-hour traffic.

14He took me around the corner and a block and a half south on Tenth Avenue to a tavern ...

15I walked straight back to my hotel. The liquor stores were closed but the bars were still open.

16Donna Campion’s apartment was on the tenth floor of the white brick building on East ...

17I had taken a cab from Morton Street to Donna’s place on East Seventeenth.

18Saturday was a good day for knocking on doors. It usually is because more people are ...

19Just as I was leaving her building, a cab pulled up in front to discharge a passenger.

20Danny Boy held his glass of Russian vodka aloft so that he could look at the light shine through it.

21I didn’t cross the street. The kid with the smashed face and broken legs was not the only ...

22She was dead, all right. She lay on her back, nude, one arm flung back over her head and ...

23It wasn’t half the hassle it might have been. I didn’t know either of the cops who came out ...

24Tuesday was largely devoted to a game of Follow the Fur.

25I called Durkin from a Dunkin’ Donuts on Woodside Avenue.

26There was a message at the desk to call Danny Boy Bell.

27“Jesus, I need a shave,” Durkin said. He’d just dropped what was left of his cigarette ...

28The body was still there, sprawled full-length on the king-size bed.