haven't got?" The guy answers, "Parkinson's."" "That's sick,"

Priscilla said, laughing. "But funny," Tony said, laughing with her.

"I don't get it," Georgie said. "Parkinson's," Tony explained.

"Yeah, Parkinson's Parkinson's, I still don't get it." "You shake,"

Priscilla said. "What?"

"When you have Parkinson's."

"She's jacking him off, "Tony explained. "So what was the other one doing?" "Just holding him in her hand."

"I thought she was jacking him off, too."

"No, she was just holding him in her hand," Tony said, and looked across at Priscilla. "Which is little enough to ask," he suggested pointedly.

"I'll bet all that money is still in her apartment," Priscilla said.

At that moment, a knock sounded on the door to the suite.

Jamal knew something the cops didn't know and that was where Yolande had been at what time. She had called him around five-thirty in the morning, told him she was just leaving the Stardust and would be home soon as she caught a cab. He'd asked her what the take

was and she said close to two large, and he told her hurry on home, baby, Carlyle's already here, wait up for you. So from the Stardust to the alley on Sab's and First would've taken five, ten minutes most, which would've put her uptown at twenty to six a quarter to six, depending on how long it took her to find a taxi. Never mind the time in the corner of picture: 07:22:03. All Jamal knew was that had been there almost an hour and a half before that. But who'd been there with her?

Jamal knew the nighttime city.

He knew the people who frequented the night.

He kissed Carlyle goodbye and went out into the glare of a cold winter morning.

He didn't have to go very far.

Richard the First had bought six bottles of Dom Perignon, and he and all the other Richards had already consumed three of them by eleven-ten that morning. Or at least that's what black Richard thought. What he didn't know was that the other three Richards weren't drinking at all, but were instead laughing it up while one or the other of them took a walk to the bathroom, back and forth, emptying glass after glass of champagne behind his back, dumping down the toilet bubbly that had cost $107.99 a fifth. The idea was to get Richard drunk. The idea was to drown him.

What the bellhop delivered to Priscilla's suite was a plain white envelope with her name written on the front of it. She recognized her grandmother's frail

handwriting at once, tipped the bellhop a dollar, and immediately tore open the flap of the envelope.

A key was inside the envelope.

The accompanying notes in her grandmother's hand, read:

My darling Priscilla,

Go to locker number 136 at the Rendell Road Bus Terminal. your loving grandmother,

Svetlana.

Priscilla went to the phone, picked up the receiver, and dialed the front desk.

"This is Priscilla Stetson" she told an assistant manager. "A letter was just delivered to me?"

"Yes, Miss Stetson?"

"Can you tell me who left it at the desk?"

"A tall blond man."

"Did he give you his name?"

"No, he just said to be certain it was sent up to your suite. Sort of."

"What do you mean sort of." "Well, he had a very heavy accent." "What kind of accent?" "I have no idea."

"Thank you," Priscilla said, and hung up.

"What the hell is this?" she asked aloud. "A spy movie?"

The white man who approached Jamal the moment he came out of his building was named Curly Joe Simms,

and he ran a book up here in Diamondback. Jamal knew him because every now and then he would have a girl for a horse, so to speak, asking Curly Joe to put two bills on a nag as an even swap for an hour with one of his girls. Jamal never ran more than two girls at a time. And nobody underage, thanks.

He knew they escalated from a class-A misdimeanor to a class-D felony if:i person promoted "prostitution activity by two or more prostitutes" or "profited from prostitution of a less than nineteen years old." He figured a judge go easier on him if he didn't have say, five, six girls in his stable, ha ha. Anyway, even two girls were a handful, and to tell the truth, he got tired of them soon and was always on the lookout for fresh talent.

Curly Joe was bald, of course, and he wore earmuffs on this frighteningly cold morning, hands in the pockets of a brown woolen coat buttoned over green muffler, his eyes watery, his nose red. He had not been waiting for Jamal, but when he spotted him coming out of his building, he walked right over.

Janm, he said. "It's me."

Jamal recognized him at once, and figured he was looking for a piece of ass.

"How you doin, man?" he said. "Good, how you been?" "I'm survivin,"

Jamal said.

"Cold as a fuckin witch's tit, ain't it?"

"Cold," Jamal agreed.

"Was that your girl last night?" Curly Joe asked.

"Got herself juked on St. Sab's?"

"Yeah," Jamal said cautiously.

"I thought I recognized her from that time."

"Yeah."

"What a shame, huh?"

"Yeah."