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"Oh, was it? What was he doing there?"

"Hoping to get lucky, I suppose You never knoho'll show up at a funeral"

"Not many people showed up at this one"

"Just a handful"

"I'lad ere there"

"Uh-huh"

I bought her a cup of coffee, then put her in a cab She insisted she could take the subway but I got her into a cab and made her take ten bucks for the fare

A lobby attendant at Parke Bernet directed allery where Friday's African and Oceanic art was on display I found Chance in front of a set of glassed-in shelves housing a collection of eighteen or twenty surines Sos and various household articles One I recall showed a est would fit easily in a child's hand, and many of theold weights," Chance explained "From the land the British called the Gold Coast It's Ghana now You see plated reproductions in the shops Fakes These are the real thing"

"Are you planning to buy them?"

He shook his head "They don't speak to "

We crossed the room A bronze head of a woman stood mounted on a four-foot pedestal Her nose was broad and flattened, her cheekbones pronounced Her throat was so thickly ringed by bronze necklaces that the overall appearance of the head was conical

"A bronze sculpture of the lost Kingdom of Benin," he announced "The head of a queen You can tell her rank by the nu Does she speak to you, Matt? She does to th in the bronze features, cold strength and a merciless will

"Knohat she says? She says, 'Nigger, why you be lookin' at ot de hed "The presale estimate is forty to sixty thousand dollars"

"You won't be bidding?"

"I don't knohat I'll be doing There are a few pieces I wouldn'tBut soo to the track even when they don't feel like betting Just to sit in the sun and watch the horses run I like the way an auction rooh? Let's go"

His car was parked at a garage on Seventy-eighth Street We rode over the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and through Long Island City Here and there street prostitutes stood along the curb singly or in pairs

"Not uess they feel safer in daylight"

"You were here last night?"

"Just driving around He picked up Cookie around here, then drove out Queens Boulevard Or did he take the expressway? I don't guess it matters"

"No"

We took Queens Boulevard "Want to thank you for co to the funeral," he said

"I wanted to co woman with you"

"Thank you"

"Jan, you say her nao with her or-"

"We're friends"

"Uh-huh" He braked for a light "Ruby didn't come"

"I know"

"What I told you was a bunch of shit I didn't want to contradict what I told the others Ruby split, she packed up and went"

"When did this happen?"

"Soe on et this funeral organized I thought it went okay, didn't you?"

"It was a nice service"

"That's what I thought Anyway, there's a e to call Ruby and a 415 area code That's San Francisco I thought, huh? And I called, and she said she had decided to ht it was some kind of a joke, you know? Then I went over there and checked her apartone Her clothes She left the furniture That e, nobody can find a place to live, and I', huh?"

"You sure it was her you spoke to?"

"Positive"

"And she was in San Francisco?"

"Had to be Or Berkeley or Oakland or some such place I dialed the number, area code and all She had to be out there to have that kind of number, didn't she?"

"Did she say why she left?"

"Said it was ti her inscrutable oriental nu killed?"

"Powhattan Motel," he said, pointing "That's the place, isn't it?"

"That's the place"

"And you were out here to find the body"

"It had already been found But I was out here before they ht"

"It wasn't pretty"

"That Cookie worked alone No pimp"

"That's what the police said"

"Well, she coulda had a pimp that they didn't know about But I talked to some people She worked alone, and if she ever knew Duffy Green, nobody ever heard tell of it" He turned right at the corner "We'll head back to ht"