tone implying that only a dog turd would cause Uncle Mo a moment of grief.

No offense taken. I knew where she lived. We had the same mental zip code. "You mean am I going to talk to Mo? Yeah, I'm going to talk to Mo."

Connie's black eyebrows fused into a straight line of righteous indignation. "That cop had no business arresting Uncle Mo. Everyone knows Uncle Mo would never do anything wrong."

"He was carrying concealed."

"As if that was a crime," Connie said.

"That is a crime!"

Lula's head came up from her filing. "What's all the deal about this Uncle Mo, anyway?"

Lula was a former hooker turned file clerk. She'd just recently embarked on a makeover program that included dyeing her hair blond and then straightening it and recurling it into ringlets. The transformation had her looking like a 230-pound black kick-ass Shirley Temple.

"Moses Bedemier," I said. "He runs a candy store on Ferris Street. Very popular person."

"Uh-oh," she said. "I think I know him. He about in his early sixties? Going bald on top? Lotta liver spots? Got a nose looks like a penis?"

"Um, I never really noticed his nose."

Vinnie had given me Uncle Mo's file, which consisted of stapled-together copies of his arrest sheet, his signed bond agreement and a photo. I turned to the photo and stared at Uncle Mo.

Lula stared over my shoulder. "Yup," she said. "That's him all right. That's Old Penis Nose."

Connie was out of her chair. "Are you telling me Uncle Mo was a client? I don't believe that for a second!"

Lula narrowed her eyes and stuck her lip out. "Yo momma."

"Nothing personal," Connie said.

"Hunh," Lula replied, hand on hip.

I zipped my jacket and wrapped my scarf around my neck. "You sure about knowing Uncle Mo?" I asked Lula.

She took one last look at the picture. "Hard to say. You know how all them old white men look alike. Maybe I should come with you to check this dude out in person."

"No!" I shook my head. "Not a good idea."

"You think I can't do this bounty hunter shit?"

Lula hadn't yet embarked on the language makeover.

"Well, of course you can do it," I said. "It's just that this situation is sort of . . . delicate."

"Hell," she said, stuffing herself into her jacket. "I can delicate your ass off."

"Yes, but . . ."

"Anyway, you might need some help here. Suppose he don't want to come peaceful. You might need a big, full-figure woman like me to do some persuading."

Lula and I had crossed paths while I was on my first felon hunt. She'd been a streetwalker, and I'd been street-stupid. I'd unwittingly involved her in the case I was working on, and as a result, one morning I found her battered and bloody on my fire escape.

Lula credited me with saving her life, and I blamed myself for endangering it. I was in favor of wiping the slate clean, but Lula formed a sort of attachment to me. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was hero worship. It was more like one of those Chinese things where if you save a person's life they belong to you . . . even if you don't want them.

"We're not doing any persuading," I said. "This is Uncle Mo. He sells candy to kids."

Lula had her pocketbook looped over her arm. "I can dig it," she said, following me out the door. "You still driving that old Buick?"

"Yeah. My Lotus is in the shop."

Actually, my Lotus was in my dreams. A couple months ago my Jeep got stolen, and my mother, in a burst of misguided good intentions, strong-armed me into the driver's seat of my uncle Sandor's '53 Buick. Strained finances and lack of backbone had me still peering over the mile-long powder-blue hood, wondering at the terrible acts I must have committed to deserve such a car.

A gust of wind rattled the Fiorello's Deli sign next to Vinnie's office. I pulled my collar up and searched in my pocket for gloves.

"At least the Buick's in good shape," I told Lula. "That's what counts, right?"

"Hunh," Lula said. "Only people who don't have a cool car say things like that. How about the radio. It got a bad radio? It got Dolby?"

"No Dolby."

"Hold on," she said. "You don't expect me to ride around with no Dolby. I need some hot music to get me in the mood to bust ass."

I unlocked the doors to the Buick. "We are not busting ass. We're going to talk to