Better to be outside than inside out. After a week of hibernation, the street was more attractive than Bakelite radios, ziggurats, or Lew Archer fantasies. More interesting than my obscene fondling of the television’s remote. Liberating, actually, on this side of my drunken, stoned depression. I considered movies, junking, an indoor batting cage, but rejected them all. I wanted work not play. Real case or not.

And not just for Simon. I wanted work for me. My newfound balance hadn’t left me indifferent to Cheryl’s damaged hands. I wanted to stick it to Sean Kelly. It didn’t matter that he was six feet under. If I could, I’d push him down another twelve.

But since I couldn’t, I decided to break into his apartment. It was likely the police already had removed everything of value, but doing detective was more powerful than any “likely.” Kelly’s home would give me a clearer picture than the one I had.

And that picture was growing important. Kelly’s “political” conversion, his relationship with Blue, his distance from the Avengers, and the possibility of his acting alone on Simchas Torah had combined to fire my curiosity. Digging up garbage no longer felt like a dirty job, just a small payback for Cheryl’s injuries. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do. Maybe it would be enough.

My first drive-by down the tired residential street was a surprise. I had expected to see a cave in the middle of a burned out block. Kelly’s address, one side of a two-family duplex, was no more rundown than the other buildings. The two or three-flats lining both sides of the street were clapboard, asbestos shingled, or aluminum sided. There was absolutely no sign of fresh paint, though all the houses needed a coat or two. Or three. Postage stamp backyards were used as open air closets for broken and rusted toys. The entire area had a defeated feel. No trees, no grass, the unkempt houses virtually flush with the sidewalk.

I carefully scouted for Clifford or his shadows before I pulled the car into a spot up the block from Kelly’s address. The parking space afforded a view of his first-floor door and two of his small bay front windows. I rejected the idea of a joint, instead smoked a cigarette while I thought about getting into the apartment. Since light facial bruises still peeked out from behind my large sunglasses, I couldn’t pass for Fuller Brush.

I was surprised by the extent I needed to work. My desire to search Kelly’s apartment was less a function of potential discovery, more a release of pent-up energy. By the time I jammed the butt into the ashtray it didn’t matter. There was always the possibility of finding something the cops had overlooked. Something like Blue.

The thought had me fingering my shoulder holster. I didn’t plan to shoot, probably wouldn’t even break his hands. But until I had him in my sights, it was possible he had me in his. I wanted to be prepared.

A slight rustle to the bay window’s shade caught my attention. I took off my sunglasses, sank low behind the dashboard, and stared. I waited but nothing moved. I wondered whether my eyes had deceived, seeing perhaps the movement of a cat on the small porch. I sat up, but the shade on the other bay window shook, so I slid back down. Then the shade cracked open; someone was spying from within. I stayed very still as, almost imperceptibly, the shade closed. Now I fondled the gun, not the holster.

As if on cue the door opened. I felt my adrenaline rise, but a different color and gender than the one I expected slipped out onto the porch. It wasn’t Blue. A tall, leggy woman with short red hair and oversized “Gloria Steinem” sunglasses leaned forward and worked the lock. She wore a hip length dark green down jacket and black jeans. The lock took a long moment but finally surrendered. I ducked as she turned my way. After a moment’s hesitation, she zipped up her coat, swiveled in the opposite direction, and casually walked away from the house.

It hadn’t occurred to me that the apartment might have been re-rented.

I quieted my interior jeering and tried to figure the next move. But sometimes there is no figuring. Sometimes “action is the only reality,” and this was one of those times. If I hadn’t seen her play hide-and-seek, or fantasized about her difficulty with the lock, I might have gone home. Probably not. I stuffed my cigarettes and watched the woman walk. Her arms swung in easy athletic rhythm as she turned the corner.

I waited a minute before I traced her steps to the intersection and veered off in a different direction. If I was going to play, I’d play it right. When I finally looked back, the redhead was rounding the far corner onto a thoroughfare in the direction of the neighborhood’s “downtown.” I plotted an alternate route to where I hoped we would meet. For a moment I forgot myself and started to jog but stopped a couple of wheezes later. There was no guarantee that she’d continue on foot. Anyway, I liked to breathe.

I thought about returning to my car but stayed the course, albeit a good deal slower. Unfortunately, by the time I got to my hoped-for interstice, I thought I’d been too clever by half. The woman was nowhere to be seen. I was more surprised than pleased when, a couple of long minutes later, I spotted her coming from a block I hadn’t anticipated. I crossed the street, climbed an apartment house’s set of concrete stairs, discovered a bench, and waited for her to pass. I lit a cigarette, my patience and planning rewarded as she strolled past the steps. She walked with a relaxed gait though she kept her head cocked, her fists curled. I gave her plenty of time to switch her butt up the block, and me time to quell my detective fantasies. I should have returned to the car but I liked feeling invisible while I watched unsuspecting strangers go about their business. I’d always known that voyeurism had partially instigated my social work career, but hadn’t admitted it until I became a detective. The more things change…

I last-dragged, flipped my smoke, and stood. I didn’t want my enjoyment to frighten an innocent woman so I stayed far behind as I kept pace. What the hell, I was out of the house and she was moving at a clip I found comfortable. Eventually she entered the large Roman Catholic church near the trolley stop. According to the broken white sign in front, there was another five minutes until Mass.

Most of me knew my imagination was grasping straws, but I sat on a stoop hidden from the church anyway. It troubled me that she had taken a long and circuitous route. Nothing to see but three-deckers, no apparent reason for her twists and turns. The route might have been chosen to shake a tail. And I might be chosen Man-Of-The-Year. Still, there was no rush; if the lady returned to Kelly’s apartment, I could skip the break-in.

I was crushing my third cigarette onto the stoop—wishing I’d packed a joint—when a few elderly parishioners straggled out from the tired granite edifice. I watched while people said familiar goodbyes. They were clearly regulars who knew each other well. When everyone was finally gone, with still no sign of my redhead, I called it quits.

I was starting back to my car when the woman emerged from the church. I kept out of sight as she hesitated before heading up the street toward Kelly’s. I was dismayed. She was homeward bound and I was out of fantasies.

I watched her turn the corner before I began kicking myself up the block. I had pissed the morning away. By the time I got to the corner the woman was gone, but I couldn’t guess where. Incompetence shook hands with my annoyance. Cheryl had been able to tail me to Buzz’s twice, but I couldn’t follow an innocent pedestrian without fucking it up.

I ran to the next corner and saw her jogging in a different direction from Kelly’s block. There had to be a thousand solid reasons for her behavior, but I had a certain amount of professional dignity to restore. Despite rib ache and shortness of breath, I followed her. Followed until I watched her slow to a walk, and let herself into a three-flat five or six blocks from where we originally began. I gave her plenty of time to settle in or come back out before I walked past the house. I glanced at the address, turned, and aimed for my car.

Kelly’s block was very quiet: no moving cars, no people. No Clifford. I sat behind the wheel smoking the roach in my ashtray until my ache retreated into a tolerable soreness. A part of me felt guilty for wasting the morning, another part kept returning to the woman’s behavior. I stared at the duplex. The appetite for tradecraft was gone, but my guilty frustration needed fixing. If I broke into Kelly’s, I could tell myself I’d done what I’d intended.

I entered through the back door into the kitchen, knowing instantly I’d made the right decision. The place was stuffy, with dirty dishes piled high in the sink. Kelly’s bleak apartment was dark and I almost flicked on the light before changing my mind. No need to disturb the cockroaches.

The redheaded woman didn’t live here, no one did. The living room was a total mess. Books, tapes, and videos were haphazardly strewn about the floor. The beat-up electrical spool that had been used for a coffee table was piled high with pamphlets. It was evident the place had been tossed. Not exactly a surprise. The police weren’t known to clean up if no one was expected to return. Let the landlord worry.

I methodically pored through the mess, intent on my original goal. Whoever Kelly was, whatever he had been, he was not an easy take. The books were primarily hate literature: Did Six Million Really Die? The Plot Against Christianity, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the like. Then, a sprinkling of unexpected titles. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, an anthology of Irish poetry, Moby Dick, and a huge book on the history of Ireland. To my surprise they looked as worn as the others. He’d probably bought them used. The tapes were a mix of porn and hate flicks. It surprised me the cops hadn’t pilfered the porn.

I kicked my way through the crap into the bedroom only to be greeted with more of the same. Kelly’s dresser had been emptied, all but the bottom drawer left on the floor. Someone had dropped everything onto the bed. I pushed a space clear, sat, and started to go through a pile of stenciled hate shirts. I stopped pawing once I got to his underwear.

I started back to the living room to collect a hate sampling for Simon. On my way out of the bedroom I mindlessly stooped to push the still filled bottom drawer back into the bureau. The drawer refused to budge. I wondered why the cops had left it that way. I tried pulling but ran into resistance in that direction as well. At first I thought the wooden runners were broken, but when I squeezed my hand behind the back they were intact. I tried to quick-jerk the drawer out but failed. Frustrated, I stuck my hand inside the drawer, felt around, found nothing. If something had been there, it was gone now.

I started to gather the stuff for Simon but found myself drawn to the book of Irish poetry I’d noticed in the living room. I had once given a similar book to my first wife, Megan. She had slashed it into sections the time she destroyed every gift I had ever given her.

I scanned the front of the book for a particular poem but didn’t find it. Didn’t even finish looking. The moment the paper slipped onto the floor, I forgot poetry, forgot Megan. The note was dated the previous year, its content a seductive invitation. The note was unsigned but contained an address.

The same address I had just left.