“No, I do not.” She sucked more of the Kent, looking down the flat planes of her face at me. “I take care of my people. I guess I take care of them even when they don’t live with me anymore.”

I said, “She’s not looking at trouble here, Miriam. The ex-husband hasn’t seen her or the boy since they were divorced, and he’s feeling pretty bad about it. He wants a shot at knowing his son.”

She breathed in the rest of the Kent, then crushed it out. Three puffs, and she had drawn through 100 millimeters down to the filter. She said, “I don’t like this. A woman gets dumped, then the sonofabitch who dumps her wants to come back to stir the pot again. And I’ll bet you a high hand to heaven I know what he wants to stir it with, too.”

I gave her a little shrug. “They’re adults, Miriam, they can work that out. The boy isn’t. He’s about twelve now and he’s never met his father.”

She pursed the wrinkled mouth. She was wearing only the upper teeth. The lowers were in a glass by the telephone. She finally took out another Kent and lit up. Succumbing to the inevitable. “She lived with me for almost a year. She lived in number two, that’s the one right behind.”

“Okay.”

“She wanted to be an actress. A lot of them come out here wanting that.” She looked at the picture of Ward Bond and drew heavy on the Kent.

“Only it wasn’t happening.”

“She tried, though. She’d ask me to mind the baby so she could go out on readings, and I would, and for a while she worked at one of these carhop places, and I minded the baby then, too. She was good about it. She didn’t abuse.” Miriam leaned past me and peered out the open door. The flash of a bird. A passing car.

“How long did that last?”

“Two months. Maybe three.” She leaned back as if whatever had caught her eye was gone. “I heard her crying one day and I went to see. She said she couldn’t keep on like she was going. She said she had the baby. She said there had to be a way to make a life for herself. She was very serious about it. She talked about going to school.”

I thought of the Karen Shipley I had seen on the tape. Giggle. Do I havta, Peter? Giggle. “Did she enroll?”

Miriam Dichester shook her head and finished off another Kent. “She didn’t have the money. And what was she going to do with the baby?”

“Did she have friends? Boyfriends, maybe.” As soon as the one Kent was dead, she fired up another.