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many total? Favors and beers?"
    That was his way of saying yes, though. Bree and I met Avie at a shitty little pool hall called Forty-Four. The owner told us that was how old he was when he opened the place. Avie already knew the story but listened politely anyway.
    "Seemed like as good a name as any," the owner said. His what-ever attitude struck me as that of a long-term stoner. For sure, he wasn't making his nut on billiards and sodas. His name was Jaime Ramirez, and Avie Glazer had advised me to give him room and a little respect.
    "You know anything about the murders in Georgetown last night?" I asked Ramirez after we'd chitchatted some. "Multiple perps?"
    "That was some awful shit," he said, leaning on the bottom half of a Dutch door, a brown cigarette held between stubby fingers and tilted at the same angle as his body.
    He chinned up at the television in the corner. "Channel Four's all I get in here, Detective."
    "How about any new games opening up?" Bree asked. "Players we might not have heard about? Somebody who would wipe a family out?"
    "Hard to keep up," Ramirez said and shrugged. That's when Glazer gave him a look. "But yeah, matter of fact, there has been some talk."
    His dark eyes flicked almost involuntarily past me and Bree. "Africans," he said to Avie.
    "African American?" I asked. "Or—"
    "African African." He turned back to Avie. "Yo, Toto, I'm gonna get something for this? Or this a freebie?"
    Avie Glazer looked at me first and then at Ramirez. "Let's say I owe you one."
    "What kind of African?" I asked.
    He shrugged and blew out air. "How'm I supposed to know that? Black-guys-from-Africa kind of African."
    "English speaking?"
    "Yeah," he said, nodding. "But I never spoke to them. Sounds like they're into a little bit of everything. You know, four-H club? Hits, ho's, heroin, and heists. This ain't your graffiti-and-skip-party kind of gang."
    He opened a glass-fronted cooler and took out a can of Coke. "Anyone thirsty? Two dollars."
    "I'll take one," Glazer said. He cupped a couple of bills into Ramirez's hand, and they didn't look like singles.
    Then Glazer turned to me. "And I will collect from you too. Count on it."
    "Africans," Ramirez repeated as we headed toward the door, "from Africa."

Chapter 9
    T HIS WAS THE last place I wanted to be in DC, or probably anyplace else.
    So unbelievably sad, and eerie, and tragic. So many memories rising to the surface for me.
    Ellie's office was up on the second floor of the house in Georgetown. It was as tidy and meticulously organized as I remembered her being back when we thought we might love each other.
    A copy of Sidney Poitier's The Measure of a Man was open on the arm of an easy chair. I'd liked the autobiography and remembered that Ellie and I had similar tastes in books, music, and politics.
    The shades were all drawn to exactly the same height. The desk held an iMac, a phone, an appointment book, and a few family photos in silver frames. The room felt strange compared with the downstairs of the house, which had been ransacked by the killers last night.
    I started with Ellie's appointment book and then went on to the desk drawers. I wasn't sure yet what I was looking for, only that I'd had to come back here with a clearer head than I'd had last night.
    I booted up Ellie's computer and went into her e-mail — checking the in-box, sent items, and deleted folders, working backward in time. I was trying to get as close as possible to the moment of the murders. Had Ellie known the killers?
    The first thing to catch my attention was a note from an editor at Georgetown University Press. It concerned her completion schedule for "the new book."
    Ellie had a new book coming out? I knew she was on the history faculty at Georgetown, but I didn't know much more than that. We had seen each other at a few charity events during the past fifteen years or so, but that was about it. She was married, I wasn't for much of that time, and that fact can sometimes cut down