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It struck me later that I could have stayed for the end St Paul's was only five minutes from my hotel Chance would have waited

Maybe I wanted an excuse to leave before it was my turn to talk

I was in the lobby at ten o'clock I saw his car pull up and I went out the door and crossed the sidewalk to the curb I opened the door, got in, swung it shut

He looked at me

"That job still open?"

He nodded "If you want it"

"I want it"

He nodded again, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb

Chapter 11

The circular drive in Central Park is almost exactly six miles around We were on our fourth counterclockwise lap, the Cadillac cruising effortlessly Chance didI hadin it

At first he talked about Kirants who had settled on a farm in western Wisconsin The nearest city of any size was Eau Claire Ki the vegetable garden When she was nine years old her older brother began abusing her sexually, co her do things to him

"Except one time she told the story and it was her uncle on her mother's side, and another time it was her father, so maybe it never happened at all outside of herso real"

During her junior year in high school she had an affair with ato leave his wife for her She packed a suitcase and they drove to Chicago, where they stayed for three days at the Pal all their other he was ruining her life He was in better spirits the third day, but the following one A note explained that he had returned to his wife, that the rooet Ki with the note he left six hundred dollars in a hotel envelope

She stayed out the week, had a look at Chicago, and slept with severalasked She'd intended to ask the others but couldn't bring herself to do so She thought about going back to the farht at the Palerian delegate to soes," Chance said "Sleeping with a blackthe next ht a bus for New York"

She'd been all wrong for the life until he took her away from Duffy and put her in her own aparte trade, and that was good because she hadn't had the hustle to ht for afor him Noith Kim dead, he had five He talked about theot down to cases, supplying names and addresses and phone numbers and personal data I made a lot of notes We finished our fourth circuit of the park and he pulled off to the right, exited at West Seventy-second Street, drove two blocks and pulled over to the curb

"Be a minute," he said

I stayed where I hile he made a call fro I looked at iven

Chance returned to the car, checked the al U-turn "Just checking with ht to have a phone in the car"

"Too co up next to a fire hydrant in front of a white brick apartment house on Seventeenth between Second and Third "Collection ti, but this ti jauntily past the liveried door nimbly behind the wheel

"That's Donna's place," he said "I told you about Donna"

"The poet"

"She's all excited She got two poeet six free copies of the issue the poeet, just copies of the ht turned red in front of us He braked for it, looked left and right, then coasted through the light

"Couple tiazines that pay you for theot twenty-five dollars That's the best she ever did"

"It sounds like a hard way to "

"A poet can't make any money Whores are lazy but this one's not lazy when it coet the words right, and she's always got a dozen batches of poems in the mail They come back from one place and she sends 'ee than they'll ever pay her for the poehed softly "You kno ht hundred dollars, and that's just for the past two days Of course there's days when her phone won't ring once"