I told her it was fine with me. She fetched a plastic baggie of marijuana from a shelf over the stove and hand-rolled a cigarette with evident expertise. “He’ll probably want to smoke,” she said, and manufactured two more cigarettes. She lit one, put everything else away, and returned to the sling chair. She smoked the joint all the way down, chattering about her life between drags, finally stubbing the tiny roach and setting it aside for later. Her manner didn’t change visibly for having smoked the thing. Perhaps she’d been smoking throughout the day and had been stoned when I arrived. Perhaps she just didn’t show the effects of the drug, as some drinkers don’t show their drinks.

I asked if Chance smoked when he came to see her and she laughed at the idea. “He never drinks, never smokes. Same as you. Hey, is that where you know him from? Do you both hang out in a nonbar together? Or maybe you both have the same undealer.”

I managed to get the conversation back to Kim. If Chance didn’t care for Kim, did Fran think she might have been seeing someone else?”

“He didn’t care for her,” she said. “You know something? I’m the only one he loves.”

I could taste the grass in her speech now. Her voice was the same, but her mind made different connections, switching along paths of smoke.

“Do you think Kim had a boyfriend?”

“I have boyfriends. Kim had tricks. All of the others have tricks.”

“If Kim had someone special—”

“Sure, I can dig it. Somebody who wasn’t a john, and that’s why she wanted to split with Chance. That what you mean?”

“It’s possible.”

“And then he killed her.”

“Chance?”

“Are you crazy? Chance never cared enough about her to kill her. You know how long it’d take to replace her? Shit.”

“You mean the boyfriend killed her.”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause he’s on the spot. She leaves Chance, there she is, all ready for happily ever after, and what does he want with that? I mean he’s got a wife, he’s got a job, he’s got a family, he’s got a house in Scarsdale—”

“How do you know all this?”