Haiti and beyond that to Africa itself, to the Guinea in the child's plaintive song, to the Grain Coast and the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast, to the empires of the Fula and the Mandingo and the Ashanti and Kangasi, the Hausa and the Congo. Still the detectives waited. Clotilde drew on the cigarette again, exhaled a billow of smoke, and began speaking in a low, hoarse voice. From the rising smoke of the cigarette and the hypnotic smoke-seared rasp of her voice, the old stone church seemed to materialize again, a young girl in white standing before Clotilde,

the priestess sprinkling her hair with wine and oil water, whitening her eye-lids with flour. Clotilde blows out the candles. The faithful are chanting again. "Mistress Ezili, come to guide us! "If you want a chicken, "We will give one to you! "If you want a goat, "It is here for you! "If you want a bull,

"We will give one to you! "But a goat without horns, "Oh, where will we find one.. "Where will we find one... "Where will we find one?"

The bar went silent.

Clotilde exhaled another cloud of smoke, blowing over her shoulder, away from the detectives.

"That is essentially how the ceremony goes," she said "The faithful call to Ezili until she appears. Usually takes the form of a woman being mounted..." "Mounted?"

"Possessed, you would say. Ezili possesses her.

Goddess Ezili. I left out some things, but essentially..." "You left out the sacrifice," Carella said. "Well, yes, in Haiti a goat or a chicken or a bull be sacrificed. And perhaps, centuries ago in Africa, the': sacrifice may have been human, I truly don't know. I suppose that's what the goat without horns is all about. But here in America?

No."

"Here in America, yes," Carella said.

Clotilde looked at him.

"No," she said.

Yes, Carella said. "After the oil and the water... "No."

"... and the wine and the flour, someone slits the throat of a chicken or a goat..."

"Not here in America."

"Please, Madame Proteau. This is where the priestess dips her finger into the blood and makes a cross on the girl's forehead. This is where the sacrifice is placed on the altar and the drumming begins. The sacrifice is what finally convinces Ezili to appear. The sacrifice..."

"I am telling you there are no blood sacrifices in our ceremonies."

"We're not looking for a cheap three-fifty-three bust," Hawes said.

"Good," Clotilde said, and nodded in dismissal.

"We're working a homicide," Carella said. "Any help you can give us..."

ats, quest-ce que je peux faire?" she said, and shrugged. "If there was no chicken, there was no chicken." She ejected the cigarette stub from the holder, and inserted a new one into its end. Piaf was singing "Je Ne Regrette Rien." Taking a lighter from her purse, Clotilde handed it to Hawes. He lighted the cigarette for her. She blew smoke away from him and said, "There are cockfights all over the city on Friday nights, did you know that?"

The interesting thing about Jamal Stone's yellow sheet was that it listed the names of several hookers in his on-again off-again stables.

Among these, and

apparently current until her recent demise, was Yolande Marie Marx, alias Marie St. Claire, who left behind in the apartment of the dead Cooper her handbag and samples of hair and fiber Ah, yes, Ollie thought, doing his world-famous W C Fields imitation even within the confines of his mind, a small world indeed, ah, yes. Another one Stone's current racehorses was a girl named Rowland, alias Carlyle Yancy, whose address listed as the very same domicile Stone had while among the living, ah, yes.

Ollie didn't expect to find a working girl home this hour of the night.

But even the good Lord works on Sunday (although it was already Monday), so he drove downtown through the snow and into Precinct territory, getting to Stone's block at quarter past one, and stopping for a cup of coffee in open diner before going into Stone's building of piss in the hallway and then upstairs to the floor to knock on his door. Lo and behold, and wonders never, a girl's voice answered his knock. "Yes, who is it?"

"Police," Ollie said, "sorry to be bothering you late at night, would you mind opening the door please?" All in a rush in the hope that she'd just open the goddamn door before she began thinking about search warrant, and police brutality, and invasion of privacy, and civil rights, and all the bullshit people up here thought about day and night.

"Just a minute," she said.

Footsteps inside, approaching the door.

He waited.

The door opened a crack, pulled up short by a night chain. Part of a face appeared in the wedge. High-yeller girl looked about nineteen, twenty years old. Suspicious brown eye peering out at him. "What is it?" "Miss Rowland?" "Yes."

"Detective Weeks, Eighty-eighth Squad," he said, and held his shield up to the wedge. "Okay to come in a minute?"

"Why?" she asked.

He wondered if she knew her pimp was dead. News traveled fast in the black community, but maybe it hadn't reached her yet.

"I'm investigating the murder of Jamal Stone," he said, flat out. "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

She knew. He could see that on her face. Still, she hesitated. White cop banging on a black girl's door one o'clock in the morning. Did he think nobody watched television

"What do you say, miss? I'm trying to help here," he said.

He saw the faint nod. The night chain came off. The door opened wide.

She was wearing a short silk robe with some kind of flower pattern on it, black with pink petals, sashed at the waist, black silk pajama bottoms under it, black bedroom slippers with pink pompoms. She looked very young and very fresh, but he knew in her line of work this wouldn't last long. Not that he gave a shit.

"Thanks," he said, and stepped into the apartment.

She closed the door behind him, locked it, put on the chain again. The apartment was cold.

"Police been here already?" he asked. "Not about Jamal." "Oh? Then who?" "Yolande."

"Oh? When was this?"

"Yesterday. Two detectives from the Eight-Seven." "Uh-huh. Well, this is about Jamal." "Do you think they're related?" "The murders, do you mean?" "Yes."

"Well, I don't know. You tell me."

"Richie was killed, too," she said. "Isn't that richard?" "He didn't like to be called Richie." "I didn't know that."

"Yeah. He liked to be called Richard."

The scumbag, he thought.

"Do you think somebody was after all three of them?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know. You tell me."

Ollie often found this effective. Get speculating, they told you all kinds of things. Sometimes, they speculated themselves right Murder One rap. Cause they all thought they were fuckin smart. Far as he knew, this sweet, looking doll here had torn open the other hooker drowned Richard the scumbag and then slashed her own pimp, who the hell knew? These people could tell? So they ask do you think they're and do you think somebody was after all three of them,

which could all be a pose, the one person you could never trust was anybody.