As if in emphasis, a heavy beer truck roared past and streetlights burst on as he opened his car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of his building.

Where Detective Emmanuel Okoro was waiting for him.

Boyfriends

BOYFRIENDS

Catherine was home alone, waiting. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was waiting for. She thought Rafe might call. With news about Pleski’s money. With a suggestion that he come over and spend the night. She didn’t entirely regret last night. It had made her forget her problems. There was that to be said for basic instincts. But starting up again with Rafe would be another kind of problem. She looked around her apartment. The white walls. The practical furniture. The de rigeur Montreux Jazz Festival poster. The books neatly arranged on shelves. Finance books, a literary anthology from college, short stories by Alice Munro, all those stories about lonesome Canadian women. Lonesome, but they survived. When unreliable men entered their lives it never turned out well.

The doorbell rang.

It was Majid. She opened the door, and he stepped inside and looked around as if he suspected someone else might be there.

“You didn’t call,” she said. “You usually call.”

“I didn’t want to talk on the phone,” he said. He moved into the living room but remained standing.

“Why not?” Because he wanted to confront her about Rafe in person? But how could he know? And even if he did, he had no claim on her. She thought that had been clear.

“I did something for you,” he said. “Rafe asked me to.”

“What?”

“Took care of a problem with some cash. Something best not talked about on the phone.”

Was he worried about being wiretapped? Should she be? Because of Pleski? But Majid wasn’t involved with Pleski, at least until now, so what would he be worried about?

He sat on the couch. She sat on the white chair opposite.

“Rafe asked you to do it? Why you?”

“Because he thought I could do it more easily than he could.”

“But you’re . . .” She hesitated.

“Honest?” he suggested. “Not like him? I appreciate the confidence.”

How odd, she thought. Every man in her life jumping in to help her with this. Rafe and Majid and, hey, what about Gary, her boyfriend in the eleventh grade? Would Gary be helping out, too?

“He said he didn’t tell you he was coming to me,” Majid said. “He didn’t want you to think less of me. Or maybe he didn’t want you to think more.”

“Majid . . .” She didn’t know what to say. Was that an accusation? That she preferred dishonest men?

“I don’t think less of you,” she said.

“I hope not,” he said. “I hope nothing has changed between us.”

She said nothing.

He waited a moment, then pulled an envelope out of a small portfolio he was carrying. She hadn’t noticed he was carrying it.