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but remembered Nicole telling him about the fly-in whorehouse she worked in and how she used to shop in Phoenix, and after locating the state, he stuck the pencil tip on the city of Phoenix and sketched a line between it and New York.
    “What’s in Phoenix, boss?” Artie asked.
    “An idea,” Papa Menes told him.” Now draw to Cleveland.”
    Artie Meeker knew where Cleveland was and drew a line up to it. “Okay?”
    “Fine,” Papa said. “Go to Seattle this time.”
    Artie did as he was told and found Seattle by accident.
    “San Diego is in lower California. Draw a line to there.”
    Artie nodded and followed Route Five all the way down because it was the sure way not to make a mistake. He stepped back and looked at his handiwork. It was like when he was in his geography class at P.S. 19. He wished Miss Fischer were watching right now. He was always the dumbhead, but right now she’d be proud of him. Hell, once he couldn’t even find Philadelphia, and just now he had drawn a line down to San Diego.”
    “Go to Dallas,” Papa said.
    Artie was like a little kid enjoying the game. He had seen enough weather men on TV and knew right where Dallas was because that was where they made those big circles with the L or the H in the middle and where Kennedy got killed and they just had a crazy cold front last week with a tornado in the north end. He always wanted to hear a tornado go past because everybody said it sounded like a train going by. He drew the line to Dallas.
    “Very good,” Papa said. He leaned back in his chair and studied the map. He could have had Artie draw in some more lines, but they weren’t really necessary. He could have put in numbers to indicate the continuity of killings, but they weren’t really necessary. He knew their sequences and nothing made sense at all. “They’re very mobile,” he said.
    Artie Meeker didn’t know the meaning of the word so simply bobbed his head as though he did.
    Papa Menes said, “Is that little whore you met in Miami coming down here tonight?”
    A long time ago Artie had stopped questioning the old man’s intuition or sources of information. He knew better than to lie and said, “Yeah, boss.”
    “How much?”
    “A yard. Hundred bucks and she’s happy.”
    “Anything?”
    “Sure, boss.”
    “Tell her to bring a friend. Call the West Wind and we’ll see them there. You sure she’s three way?”
    “Come on, boss, you know me.”
    “That’s for sure,” Papa Menes said.
     
    The two cottages on the Gulf were separated from the others by fifty yards. Ordinarily they were used for the benefit of Harvey Bartel, the bartender who had learned how to bypass the locks, but when the man came down from the big city, the broker with enough money to buy or sell you, or get you booted out of your lovely suntanned job where the pussy was easy and the money substantial, or get you beaten up by those frigging Miami toughs who didn’t understand you just wanted some fun, you just closed your eyes and took your date to a movie twenty miles away and were glad nobody caught you with the skeleton key or screwing a local blonde whose husband was six inches taller and forty pounds heavier.
    Sometimes Harvey Bartel wished he could see just who owned those cottages, but being a coward he was too scared to inquire and satisfied himself with a hand on the bare thigh of the fat girl from Summerland Key who had driven all the way up to see him. She wasn’t much. She was all lard and excitement, but she had a nice, wet mouth and liked to use it. Her father owned a machine shop in Miami and four sport fishing cruisers too.
    The girl screamed because she thought the old man liked it that way. She got a belt across the head and Papa Menes said, “Shut it. I don’t pay for noise.”
    Louise Belhander stopped screaming and twisted her head back so she could see the old man propped in position astride her legs. She laughed, made herself comfortable on her stomach and spread her