A yellow DART bus chuffed by in a blast of warmth and diesel smoke; the driver had a glazed robotic gleam in his eyes. Overhead, the clouds clotted gray and ugly. The day had a metallic taste to it that clung to her tongue like fuzz. She swallowed and wished for breakfast. Coffee. Pastries that melted in her mouth. Sugar to jump-start the day.

Maybe a Baby Ruth.

“You said you had something?” Bradshaw prodded as he scuffled along. She turned the collar on her coat up to keep her ears warm against the wind.

“Yeah, well, don’t worry, they have treatments for it.” She glanced over at his choirboy face and saw him frowning as he tried to work it out. “Never mind. Yeah, I got something. Something hot. You’ll love it.”

“Well, tell me.”

“Not so fast. Cash.”

He tried to flash a roll but almost dropped it, She told him to keep it in his pants and took him around the corner. They went down a twisting flight of marble stairs in the shadow of a fifty-story high rise whose contractor must have had a brother-in-law in the marble business. At the bottom was a shopping mall, glass and aluminum with indoor-outdoor carpet with CLOSED signs in the windows, and some wrought-iron chairs and tables for fine outdoor dining. She parked herself in one of the chairs and gestured him to another one. He perched like a granny in a whorehouse.

“How’d you get the black eye?” Lenny asked. He sounded almost concerned.

“Do you want the stuff, or not?”

“I can’t pay you more than three hundred. Orders.” Lenny looked devastated. “My editor kicked my butt over the last time.”

“My heart bleeds. Three hundred’ll do it. This time.”

She reached for the bills he passed over and slid them in under her blouse. Lenny took out his little Nancy Drew notebook and looked eager.

“Yeah, like I told you on the phone, my guy, Burt, he wasn’t the first one.”

“First one?” He was looking confused. “Well, I know you’re a professional—”

“Asshole, I mean the first one to flame out, get it? There was some guy who was a fence or something, burned up in his apartment less than a year ago.”

“Ah. Great. Name?”

She shrugged. Lenny bit his lip. He had small teeth that looked like he didn’t use them much.

“You don’t know his name?”

“Well, excuse the hell out of me, I didn’t have time to do your job for you, newsboy. He died the same way as Burt, laying on the floor black as a Cajun steak. Another one of those darn ‘smoking accidents.’”

Lenny looked a lot less than impressed. In fact, he tapped his pencil eraser on the table and stared at her, waiting. She scowled back.

“Like I said, the wiseguys did it,” she finally said. He brightened.

“Wow! Really? The mob?”