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"Very s of which I was deeply ashah on your conscience, not how far down they rank on soht sinner, a positive dilettante of turpitude My only cri under subway turnstiles a couple of times You won’t report o this tiain I did things that weren’t crimes, but that were morally reprehensible, and that I don’t feel the need to mention now But, you know, I never robbed anyone, I never hit anyone with a club I never, Christ, I never killed anyone"

"And Jack did?"

His silence was answer enough

After a longwhat he told et hi is they can go to the grave with him"

"That seerave to go to I’ve ements to have him creht is to scatter the ashes at sea There are people who’ll take you out in a boat, and you just empty the container of remains overboard" He rolled his eyes "Or cremains, as the insiders would say If I had a copy of his Fourth Step inventory it could go to the oven with hirave And into the water, and--"

He’d been speaking alht up with him and choked him up I watched him set his jaw and blink back the tears, and when he resu

"My dilehth Step I think I said it was detailed"

"A paragraph about each person"

"And soraphs I would think that the person who killed him would almost have to be on that list"

"And you have a copy"

"Did I already mention that?"

"No, but you wouldn’t have hth Step list and you have to decide what to do with it"

"If the police had leads, if they kneho did it whether or not they could make a case, then I wouldn’t have a problem I’d destroy his list and that would be the end of it But they don’t, and they very likely won’t, and won’t try very hard So I’ht help them, and it’s my duty as a citizen to make it available to them"

"But?"

"But there are around two dozen names on that list, Matt! That doesn’t ot his dead father on the list, and a couple of other dead folks, and he’s got a high school girlfriend whose pants he lied his way into, and other people who’d be unlikely to respond with a couple of bullets if he turned up and said he was sorry But that still leaves a third or more with mean lives and criminal histories, and only one of the all the others in trouble?"

"And if his purpose all along was to make it up to these individuals--"

"Exactly! One minute he turns up and says he’s sorry, it was the drink that made him do it, and here’s that ten bucks I never paid you, or a new lamp to replace the one I knocked off the table And the nexton the door"

"And the men on the list aren’t the sort elcome the attention of men in blue uniforh Mr Redmond was quite nicely dressed, as a matter of fact"

"He’s a detective"

"Oh, do they dress better than the others? I never knew that"

Two days after I got old shield, Eddie Koehler took me to a Fifth Avenue ’s facade looked like a Nor just bought a suit for three tiht the suit to impress the public, because I’d been assured that I was a detective now, and had an ie to protect But there were other benefits; irlfriend

There had been other suits, of course, but that was the one I relen-plaid fabric almost silky to the touch ("A nice hand," the salesman had said) Uncuffed pants ("I don’t believe ant cuffs, do we?")

I wonder what happened to that suit Far as that goes, I wonder what happened to Finchley’s The last ti had a new tenant, with afull of fake ivory and Orientalia for the tourist trade

So’s problehth Step list over to the surprisingly well-dressed Dennis Red to do with the o free

I asked him if he’d talked it over with his sponsor

"I wish I could," he said "Do you know about the gay cancer? Kaposi’s sarco it It’s extreayhiot very sick, and ere afraid he was going to die of it, because there’s no cure But what actually killed him was pneumonia A very rare form of pneumonia, except it’s not that rare anymore either, not if you’re a homosexual male"