Who?"

"Richard. Took her money and the jumbos given her earlier. Nine hundred bucks and ten j "You didn't see her bag anywhere around, did you.

When we carried her down to the car?"

"No, I didn't, come to think of it."

"I'm sure he stole her bag with the money and jumbos in it. Which is how we're going to tie him to this thing."

"Tie him to what thing?"

"The girl's accident. Yvonne. Whatever her was."

"Claire, I think her name was. I wish I

had come before she passed out." "Well, that was her fault." "Even so."

"We have to find that bag, Richard."

"Which bag is that?"

"It's not in the car, I looked. It has to be in his apartment."

"Which bag, Richard?"

"The one with the money and the jumbos in it. Once we find it, we can link him to the accident."

"How?"

"If he stole the bag, his fingerprints'll be on it." "He might've wiped them off."

"They only do that in the movies. Besides, he wouldn't have had time.

We were all of us together, don't you remember? Wrapping her in the sheet, getting her downstairs into the trunk? He wouldn't have had time."

"She was heavy."

"She was."

"She looked so small. But she was heavy." "Deceptive, yes."

"I still don't understand about the bag."

"What don't you understand?"

"How will it link him to the accident?" "Well, his prints are on it."

"Yes, but..."

"The prints will link him to it."

"But if we go to the police with her bag..." "No, no, no, we can't do that." "Then what?"

"We leave it alongside the body."

"You think it's still there? She's probably in the morgue by now, don't you think?"

"I'm not talking about her body, Richard."

Paul Blaney was trying to determine which had come first, the chicken or the egg. Had the white female corpse on his autopsy table suffocated to death, or had her death been caused by severe hemorrhaging from the genital area? He had already determined that there was a sizable amount of cocaine derivative in the bloodstream. The girl had not died of an overdose, that was certain, but the detectives nonetheless would want to know about the presence of the drug, which could mean that the murder was drug-related so what else was new? He wasn't confident that the detectives would care a whit whether she was so badly injured below that she had bled to death or whether the bag over her head had caused her to suffocate. But it was Blaney's job to determine cause of death and establish a postmortem interval.

He was not paid to speculate. He was paid to examine the remains and to gather the facts that led to a scientific conclusion. Suffocation in his lexicon was described as "traumatic asphyxia resulting when obstructed air passages prevent the entrance of air to the lungs." But if the girl had suffocated, then where were all the telltale signs? Where was the cyanosis of the face, the blue coloration he always found somewhat frightening, even after all these years performing autopsies? Where were the small circular ecchymoses on the scalp, those tiny bruises indicative of strangulation, smothering, or choking? Where were the minute blood spots in the whites of the eyes? Lacking any of these certain indications, Blaney cut open the girl's chest.

What black Richard was thinking as he lugged the water back from the car wash was he would go to the police and tell them these four rich kids from a prep school in Massachusetts someplace, Connecticut, wherever, a school named Pierce Academy stitched right there on the front of their parkas these three rich white football players had come to him to see did he have any dope to sell, which of course he did, you all know I deal a little dope every now and then, who's kidding who here? I'm not here to lie to you, gents, I'm here to help you.

Cops lookin at him like Sure, the nigger's here to help us. Started as a mere clocker in the hood, and now he's dealing five, six bills a day, he's here to help us. Get lost, nigger.

Hey, no. I seen these boys do a murder.

Ah?

Ears perkin up now.

"What're you smiling at?" Richard the Third asked. Hulking along in his blue parka with the big white P on the back, little football right under the P, carrying two pails of water, same as black Richard himself. Both of them with clean rags from the car wash stuffed in their pockets. Shagging along under the expressway. If it was nighttime stead of mornin right now, they could both get killed, this neighborhood.

"Whut I'm thinking," Richard said, "is soon as we finish here, you go your way, I go mine."

And never the twain shall meet, he thought.

"It was a shame what happened to the girl," the other Richard said.

"Mm."

"But it wasn't our fault."

"Sure as shit wasn't my fault, Richard thought. They were the ones holdin her down, doin her with the Which is why I'll feel safe goin to the police. By my car being all spic-and-span, my apartment clean as a whistle, my bedsheets burned to ashes along with all rags we used. Get that little bonfire started soon as finish with the car. Watch it all go up in smoke. kiss the boys goodbye and go straight to the cops.

"Still," the other Richard said, "I feel sort of sorrn for her."

Oh, man, you don't know how sorry you gonna feel Richard thought. Cause what I'm gonna do is sell you to the police. I'm going to trade your ass for money, boy, whatever the traffic will bear. Cause this is to be a big bust, three rich white kids from a fancy school suffocating a white hooker? Oh, this is a bust, cops up here in the asshole of the universe kill for a bust like this one, never mind just layin out three, four large from a slush fund they keep handy hot information like this. Might be worth even five grand, information like this, three rich white kids?

Can see the motherfuckin cops salivatin. Just got to keep clear of it, is all. Keep myself out of it.

Make it plain I had nothin to do with it. I only seen them do it.

Which, anyway, is the truth.

"I wish you'd stop smiling that way," Richard said. "You look like a hyena."

Oh yes, Richard thought.

There was something that kept troubling Jamal about the picture the cops had shown him. Well, sure, Yolande being dead and all, that was very troubling.