It was half past midnight on a Friday night--the witching hour, my dead grandma used to call it. I was tending bar in a gangster's suite in a glitzy Atlantic City hotel. I'd stuffed myself into a black silk sheath as snug as it was expensive and was pouring drinks, grinning like a fool. But I was scared.

I was looking for a young runaway named Gabriella Desmond whose rich parents had paid me serious money to find out where she'd run. The trail had led me here but the girl didn't want to be found so I had to earn my money the hard way--with tact and discretion. No P.I. license flashed. No probing questions. At least not yet.

I hadn't looked for many runaways, but the few cases I'd taken had turned out well. There had been a troubled little druggie from Essex Fells whom I'd helped get into rehab; an angry ten-year-old whose recently remarried mama forgot to tell him that she loved him; a smart-mouthed Newark teen whose tough-talking daddy cried like a baby when he held her in his arms again. They had all been found easily and in predictable places: a sympathetic friend's bedroom, a deserted basement, a video parlor, a fast-food joint. They'd come home easily and been welcomed by parents who swore they'd mend their ways and never let them leave again.

I had my doubts about this new one, though. Gabriella Desmond had taken off the first week in November. It was March now, and her trail was decidedly cold. She was eighteen years old and whatever had chased her away would probably chase her again if she wasn't yet ready to face it down. I had my doubts about the Desmonds, too--why they waited so long to call me, if they had told me the whole truth, how they would treat her if she actually came back. But I had no doubt that the girl was in more danger than she could possibly know. She'd run to a fun-loving city in dangerous times, and she was young, pretty and rich, a combination that will make a victim out of a woman quicker than hot grease catches fire. And there was a killer on the streets. There was no doubt about that, either.

His victims were young prostitutes, runaways mostly, who were likely to have had a passing acquaintance. The murders were brutal, ruthless and all committed near the end of the week. The first woman had been murdered on the first Friday in November, and there had been four since then, one killing a month. The murder scenes had been wiped clean, with no souvenirs taken or brutal signatures left to bait the cops and feed some sick, sadistic hunger. The women had been beaten to death and their bodies discovered well after the fact, tucked out of the way in hidden places. At least that had been the case up until the most recent victim, who'd been found in her own home, suggesting, perhaps, that this killer was changing directions, growing bolder with his success.

Folks had started to grumble that the police weren't doing enough because the murder victims were poor and black or Latino, so nobody in high places really gave a damn one way or other. But the fifth girl was white. Her name was Layne Grimaldi and, like two of the others, she had been killed on a Friday, but she had been found in the apartment she shared with another young woman--Gabriella Desmond. At their lawyer's suggestion, the Desmonds called me the Saturday after Layne's body was found and hired me the following Monday. They were afraid their runaway daughter might be the next victim, and they were determined to find her before the murderer struck again.

The first few days in town, I'd visited the traditional places homeless teenagers hide: Covenant House, the boardwalk, fast-food restaurants offering cheap food and video games. I'd had no luck, and it was time to go in another direction. My good friend Jake, a public defender, put me in touch with a hotel manager who owed him a favor, and the man had arranged for me to tend bar at a high-stakes poker game thrown for big-time players and small-time hoods. The host was a man named Delmundo Real and the manager hinted that if I kept my eyes open and mouth shut I might find a lead on Gabriella. Pretty young girls with nowhere to go routinely decorated Real's parties, so if Gabriella was still in town chances were she'd show up there. At worst, I might come across someone who'd crossed paths with her. The manager also warned me that if anything bad went down I'd be on my own. I'd given him a tough-girl shrug and told him I could take care of myself. Truth was, I wasn't so sure.

But I'd been in the party since nine, and although my hands were shaking when I mixed the drinks, nobody seemed to notice my fear. Straight scotch or gin and juice were the cocktails of the hour, and I poured them fast and free. I kneeled down to pick up a napkin a drunk had aimed at the trash can behind me when a young woman sauntered up to the bar and requested a drink.

"Amaretto. Neat," she said in a baby-soft voice.

"Neat?" I stood up to face her. She was dressed in a short red dress that was tighter than mine, which was saying something that shouldn't be said. Her hair was piled high on her head and glossy black curls cascaded into a face that, despite too much makeup, looked younger than she wanted folks to know. But her bright eyes had a hard edge, as if they'd already taken in more than they were meant to.

"That means straight, which means nothing in it." She gave me a patronizing smile.

"I know what 'neat' means, but you're too young to have it neat, sweet or anything else." I sounded like somebody's mother, which I am. She tipped her head to the side as if trying to figure out how to get around me. I'd seen that gesture before; it was one of my son's.

"How old are you anyway?" I asked her.

She studied me for a moment. "Old enough to fuck without getting stuck."

"That one's as old as me," I said, without missing a beat. "But whatever you do or don't get stuck doing, honey, you're stuck tonight with a soft drink because I have no intention of serving you liquor." I picked a towel off the edge of the bar and polished one of the glasses, keeping an eye on the girl from the mirror behind me. She scowled like my son does when something doesn't go his way, then sunk down on a barstool with a thud. I poured her a Coke, stuck a lemon slice on the top of the glass and slid it across to her.

She glanced at the drink critically and then at me. "You know if I really wanted a drink all I'd have to do is ask one of them suckas over there, and he'd get me one just like that." She snapped her long, red-nailed fingers to emphasize her point. Pouring a diet Coke for myself, I settled down on the stool behind the bar so we'd be eye to eye.

She looked me over, then gave me a hesitant smile that said I'd passed whatever test she was giving. "So how long you been tending bar?"

"About as long as you been walking this earth."

"So how long you think that is?"

"About sixteen years," I said, and the shy half-grin that pushed itself out on her lips told me I'd guessed right. "So why is a girl as young and pretty as you hanging around a place like this?" I asked her, even though I suspected the answer.

She shrugged prettily then asked, "So where you think I should be?"

"Well, when I was your age, I was--"

"Lady, you were never my age," she said in a way that told me she'd seen things in her sixteen years most people twice her age never want to. But I also suspected she wasn't as hard as she wanted me to think, and if she was on the street now she hadn't been there long. I also noticed her earrings, which were tiny pearls encased in gold, and out of place with her dress and ostentatious hairdo. They were earrings that looked as if they been selected with care, a first piece of jewelry for a baby with newly pierced ears or a young girl breaking into womanhood. I wondered how long ago they'd been given to her. Her gaze shifted as if she could read my thoughts, and her eyes roamed the room.

We were in a penthouse suite, the highest thing in a hotel called the Sultan's Lair, which like Caesars Palace, the Taj Mahal and nearly every other hotel in Atlantic City was tarted up to look like something it wasn't. Aging women decked out as belly dancers served drinks and snacks from gilded trays. Old men in Bedouin robes and turbans carried bags and pushed suitcases on trolleys. Although this suite, called the Sultan's Tent, might cost a king's ransom, no self-respecting sultan would be caught dead in it. In this world of bad manners and worse taste it was the tackiest place I'd seen yet.

The glossy off-white walls were trimmed with gold leaf and the long, narrow white couch slung low against the wall was upholstered in velvet more suited to a teddy bear's rump. A thick gold shag carpet, which should have gone out with the sixties, covered the floor. Molded columns stood against walls topped by high ceilings studded with tiny glittering stars. There were at least four bedrooms in the suite, all had arched doors trimmed in paper ivy; all the doors were closed. Every so often, a man, accompanied by a woman half his age and girth, would quietly exit to one of these bedrooms.

But the real action was around the four mahogany card tables in the center of the room. The game was poker, played fast and furiously, and the exhilaration that comes with losing easy money hard permeated the room like a heady perfume. It was simple to see why this kid would be fascinated. A sly smile appeared on her lips as she gazed around the room. One of the men beckoned her with a diamond-ringed index finger. She tossed him a saucy grin, raised her drink in salute and turned back to me.

"So what's your name?" she asked.

"Tommie Hayes." I gave her the fake one I'd scribbled on the hotel register. "What's yours?"

"Amaretta. My mama named me after that drink except it's with an A. It was her favorite drink, and she used to put it in milk to make me go to sleep when I was a baby."

Was her mother dead? Had she been the kind of woman who would give her baby liquor to put her to sleep? "Amaretta. That's a very pretty name."

She took a gulp of her Coke, and her gaze traveled the room as if she were looking for somebody who wasn't there. They finally came to rest on a man on the far side of the room who slouched down in a chair. His long legs were crossed and there was an enigmatic smile on his full lips. He was very tall, bone thin and impeccably dressed in a conservative charcoal-gray suit. His tawny brown skin was as clear as a child's, and his curly jet-black hair was pulled back in a short, silky ponytail. He wore no jewelry save a gold stud in his right ear. His eyes turned in my direction and fastened on me, like an animal does when it knows it's being watched. He smiled shyly, shifted his attention to Amaretta, then lazily stood up and ambled toward us. Amaretta picked up her drink and sipped it, but her eyes never left him. He turned abruptly and went into one of the rooms, leaving the door ajar. I didn't realize she was holding her breath until she let it go.

"Who is that?" I asked her.

"Don't you know who that is? He hired you, didn't he?" Her eyes focused on me suspiciously.

"The manager hired me. I'm covering for somebody. The usual girl had an emergency, and she had to split. It's okay."

"That's Del. Delmundo Real." She eyed me warily while she finished her Coke. I poured her another, put some mixed nuts in a glass bowl and placed them in front of her. "How high up you think we are?" she asked, deciding that maybe she could trust me.

"About thirty stories." I sat back down on my stool.

"When it gets warm you can stand out there on that balcony and see the waves hit the beach and go back out again." She ate a few nuts, dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, then took out a compact, checked her teeth and spread on some lipstick. Her eyes met mine again. "The ocean takes everything with it. Shells. Trash. I even saw it pick up a kitten once, swept it out to sea." She shook her head very slightly as if trying to shake out the memory. "Sometimes I stand up here and wish I could ride out there with it, let it take me anywhere it wants to. Never look back."

"How far would you like to go, Amaretta?" Where had she come from and why was she afraid to go back?

"A girl fell off the balcony last summer." She changed the subject, her voice hushed. "Her name was LaTisha. The cops say she jumped but people say somebody pushed her."

"Did you know her?" I watched her closely.

She shrugged as if to say that she didn't, but something in her eyes and in the way she moved her shoulders told me that she did.

"What do you think happened to her?" I tried to read what she was afraid to say.

"Do you have any kids?" She changed the subject again, and I wondered what it would take to make her open up.

"Yeah. A son, about your age. Maybe a year or two younger."

"You don't look old enough to have a kid my age."

"I'm like you, Amaretta, older than I look," I said, only half-joking, and she smiled like she appreciated the joke.

"Where is he?" She turned serious again.

"My son? Home. Probably watching TV. Supposed to be doing his homework."

"Don't let Del know you have a kid. He likes the women who work for him to be free. Be convenient." She add those last two words with a laugh that wasn't one and tugged at my heart.

"So how long have you been 'convenient,' Amaretta?" I turned serious, and she avoided my eyes so I went in another direction. "Did you know the girl who was killed last Friday? Layne Grimaldi." She was still too young to hide what was in her eyes. I picked up a glass and pretended to polish it. "Was she convenient?" The shrug she gave indicated that Layne Grimaldi wasn't, and I wondered if she had talked to the police. "Do you know a girl named Gabriella Desmond?"

Her voice was steady when she answered, but her eyes got so big and innocent I knew she must lying. "Gabriella Desmond? No, I don't think so." But the tenderness in her voice when she said Gabriella's name told me she might be trying to protect her, and if her voice hadn't said it, the way she finished off her soda, abruptly stood and left without another word or glance at me told me what I wanted to know. I watched her as she headed for the room where Delmundo Real had gone, and before she entered she turned around and gave a look filled with anguish.

Angry at myself and distracted, I washed glasses without seeing them. I'd blown it, and I wondered how I could have played it differently. I poured drinks, polished glasses and argued with myself for the next hour or so and wondered how I could talk to her again and what I would say to her when I did.

I'm not sure what made me look up or how long he had been standing there, but my heart stopped the moment I laid eyes on him. The last time I'd seen him he lay bleeding on a terrace in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. I was afraid he was dying. Later that year, flowers came to mark the anniversary of our last meeting, and I knew then what I should have known all along. Men like Basil Dupre don't leave this life easily, not before they're good and ready to go.

He has always strolled into my life when I least expect to see him, like some delightful cosmic gift sent to remind me that there's more to me than Jamal's mother, Annie's friend, the sole family survivor who remembers her dead. I have always been mystified and often disturbed by my feelings for him--how deep they go, how starkly sexual they are, how quickly they make me forget my good sense. I can count on one hand the number of times we've been together, yet each encounter has fed some lingering hunger that I didn't know I had. Every time I see him, I forget how long it has been.

He is remarkably handsome in the way that black men can be: high, fine cheekbones and full lips that are clearly African with a suggestion of Arawak Indian; dark skin that glows as if a sun burned from within; enough self-confidence (which some probably call arrogance) to take over any room he steps into; sensuality brushed with a hint of danger and unpredictability as unsettling as it is fascinating.

He glanced in my direction, his eyes widening slightly when he saw me but there was no other change in his expression. Basil Dupre is a man of controlled response, a survivor in a treacherous world where taking risks is all that counts and pure instinct can save or take a life. His eyes assessed the scene that he had stepped into and came back to me, acknowledging me with a nod, but his eyes expressed concern, that I could clearly see. I glanced away quickly, not able to trust my response.

Several people came forward to greet him, and as always with "business" associates he was distant, formal. Someone beckoned him toward a card game that was beginning, and he gave a smile that indicated he might join. A plump, pink-faced man in an ill-fitting suit nodded almost imperceptibly toward the room where Amaretta had gone, and a look that I couldn't read crossed Basil's face. A model-thin woman with long reddish hair embraced him, seductively pushing her body into his, but his mind was still on the room with the closed door, and he glanced toward it and then at me over the woman's head. He gently but firmly took her arms from around his neck and came toward me. I concentrated on polishing a champagne glass.

There were several people at the bar when he reached it, and he stood near for a while, biding his time until they left. I could feel his eyes upon me, but I avoided looking at him because I knew mine would give me away. He leaned toward me, touched my hand to get my attention, and that small, tender gesture sent a tremor of excitement through me. But the word he spoke chilled me to my bones.

"Beware," he said.