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“Are you crazy?” Burns yelled. It was the only time he’d raised his voice.

Looking at the partially exposed skull I saw a golden upper front tooth gleaming there.

“Johanna Mudd,” I murmured.

“You knew her?” Burns asked.

“Who were they?”

“Kids that caused trouble,” Burns said. “Enemies, ODs that would be better not founded.”

“And you carried some of them in here?”

“You gonna shoot me like you did them rats?” he asked.

There was no fear in his voice. He was like an old-time condemned Soviet prisoner, sentenced to death but never told when the bullet to the back of the head might come.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Up the stairs we went and out into the rats’ courtyard. We passed through the iron door and secured it. I kept the key.

We stood at the entrance a moment or two, maybe experiencing the silent exercise of unconscious prayer for the dead. On each side, in the sheltering holly, dozens of red eyes of rats watched us, willing us to leave.

“What you gonna do with that key?” Burns asked.

“Throw it away,” I said. “If they can’t get in, maybe somebody’ll bring out a body and get caught.”

At Christopher and Hudson I gave the remaining cellophane packet and two hundred-dollar bills to Burns.

“Thanks!” he said like a gleeful child. “I thought you might be lyin’ about another one.”

“I try not to lie to people who help me.”

Burns nodded, patting the pocket where he’d deposited the drug.

“Did Valence and Pratt work with anybody else?” I asked.

“Not usually. I mean, they had pimps and kids do some pretty bad things but they was always in charge if that’s what you mean.”

“Any other cops?”

“No. Never.”

“Nobody?”

The only thing that Burns wanted was to get somewhere where he could inject his escape. But he didn’t want to be rude to his benefactor so he stood there concentrating.

“One time they gave me a envelope and told me to meet this guy down by the United Nations.”

“What kinda guy?”

“Just a short prissy faggot.”

“White? Black?”

“White guy in a—in a pink suit smelled like roses. I remember because I usually can’t put a name to a perfume but his was definitely roses.”

“What was in the envelope?”