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As I rounded so a joint He wore jeans and a leather vest over a plaid shirt, feet bare His hair was pulled back in the sarayer somehow than I remembered He seemed very mellow, except for his eyes, which were aquamarine and impossible to read He held the joint out to me, but I declined with a shake of my head

"Didn’t I see you at Bobby’s funeral?" I asked

"Might have I saw you" His eyes settled on aze Where had I seen that color before? In a swi like a lily pad That had been four years ago, one of the first investigations I ever did

"Chair over there if you have ti his breath, dope slanced around and spotted an old wooden lawn chair, which I dragged over to the step Then I took the address book out ofand passed it to him, open to the back cover "Any idea who this is? It’s not a local nuave ?"

"Sure I also tried the only Blackman listed in the book Its a disconnect Why? Do you knoho it is?"

"I know the nu Bobby moved the hyphen over"

"What’s it for? I don’t understand"

"These first two digits indicate Santa Teresa County Last five are the ot in storage I told you we had two that had been out there for years This is Franklin"

"But why list it under Black pull off his joint before he spoke "Franklin’s black He’s a black man Maybe it was Bobby’s joke"

"Are you sure?"

"Reasonably sure You can check it yourself if you don’t believe un out there Would you have any idea where he hty, ninety rooms out there that haven’t been used in years Could be anywhere Bobby would have worked his shift by hi as no one found out he ay fro it I appreciate your help"

"No problem"

I went back to my office Kelly Borden had toldthe three-to-eleven shift at the uy was a friend of his and he said he d call ahead and let hiain and made some notes What was this? What did the corpse of a black an and the black and I picked it up like an automaton, "