I hadn’t wanted to take it. “Put it in your pocket,” he told me. “What do you think happens to it otherwise? Somebody else takes it. Or it goes to the state. What’s the state of New York gonna do with forty-four dollars? Put it in your pocket, then buy yourself some perfumed soap and try to get this poor fucker’s stink off your hands.”

I put it in my pocket. Later on, I was the one who bounced bagged corpses down the stairs, the one who counted and divided their leavings.

Someday, I suppose, it’ll come full circle, and I’ll be the one in the bag.

I spent over an hour there. I went through drawers and closets without really knowing what I was looking for. I didn’t find very much. If she’d had a little black book full of telephone numbers, the call girl’s legendary stock in trade, someone else had found it before I did. Not that I had any reason to assume she’d had such a book. Elaine kept one, but Fran and Donna had both told me they didn’t.

I didn’t find any drugs or drug paraphernalia, which proved little in and of itself. A cop might appropriate drugs just as he’d take money from the dead. Or Chance might have picked up any contraband that he found lying around. He’d said that he visited the apartment once after her death. I noticed, though, that he’d left the African masks. They glared at me from their spot on the wall, guarding the premises on behalf of whatever eager young whore Chance would install in Kim’s place.

The Hopper poster was still in place over the stereo. Would that stay behind for the next tenant, too?

Her spoor was all over the place. I breathed it when I went through the clothes in her dresser drawers and in her closet. Her bed was unmade. I lifted the mattress, looked under it. No doubt others had done so before me. I didn’t find anything and I let the mattress fall back into place, and her spicy scent rose from the rumpled bedclothing and filled my nostrils.

In the living room, I opened a closet and found her fur jacket, other coats and jackets, and a shelf full of wine and liquor bottles. A fifth of Wild Turkey caught my eye, and I swear I could taste that rich overproof bourbon, could feel the bite of it in my throat, the hot rush flowing down to my stomach, the warmth spreading clear to my toes and fingers. I closed the door, crossed the room and sat down on the couch. I hadn’t wanted a drink, hadn’t so much as thought of a drink in hours, and the unexpected glimpse of a bottle of booze had caught me unawares.