“Uh-huh. I just came from one, as a matter of fact. How are you doing?”

“Not so bad.”

“That’s good.”

What was it, Friday? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. “I’ve got three days,” I said.

“Matt, that’s wonderful!”

What was so wonderful about it? “I suppose,” I said.

“Have you been going to meetings?”

“Sort of. I’m not sure I’m ready for all that.”

We talked a little. She said maybe we’d run into each other at a meeting one of these days. I allowed that it was possible. She’d been sober almost six months, she’d qualified a couple of times already. I said it would be interesting sometime to hear her story. She said, “Hear it? God, you’re in it.”

She was just getting back to sculpture. She’d put it all on hold when she got sober, and it was hard to make the clay do what she wanted it to do. But she was working at it, trying to keep it all in perspective, putting her sobriety first and letting the rest of her life fall into shape at its own pace.

And what about me? Well, I said, I had a case, I was looking into a matter for an acquaintance. I didn’t go into detail and she didn’t press. The conversation slowed, and there were a few pauses in it, and I said, “Well, I just thought I’d call and say hello.”

“I’m glad you did, Matthew.”

“Maybe we’ll run into each other one of these days.”

“I’d like that.”

I hung up and remembered drinking in her loft on Lispenard Street, warming and mellowing as the booze worked its magic in our veins. What a fine sweet evening that had been.

At meetings you’ll hear people say, “My worst day sober is better than my best day drunk.” And everybody nods like a plastic dog on a Puerto Rican’s dashboard. I thought about that night with Jan and looked around my little cell of a room and tried to figure out why this night was better than the other had been.

I looked at my watch. The liquor stores were closed. The bars, though, would be open for hours yet.

I stayed where I was. Outside, a squad car went by with its siren open. The sound died down, the minutes slipped by, and my phone rang.

It was Chance. “You been working,” he said with approval. “I’ve been getting reports. The girls cooperate okay?”

“They’ve been fine.”

“You getting anywhere?”

“It’s hard to tell. You pick up a piece here and a piece there and you never know if they’re going to fit together. What did you take from Kim’s apartment?”

“Just some money. Why?”

“How much?”