“I tried. I tried to run after him. I tried to tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Lorenzo hunched forward, elbows on knees.

She carefully placed the soda can next to her side, on the table. “I don’t want my mother to know about this.”

Lorenzo nodded, thinking, Buying dope.

“Brenda, I have to ask you this, but I want you to know that whatever your answer’s gonna be, all I care about is getting the guy that hurt you, OK?”

“So what was I doing there, copping rock?” Her mouth went tight.

“I don’t really care, but if that was the case, then that helps me know who to reach out to. You’re not in no trouble. I just need to know who to hit on. You’re the victim, plain and simple. Your mother, nobody needs to know nothing else, you understand?”

“I’m clean almost five years. I don’t even think about it.”

“Good, good.” Lorenzo was not particularly convinced. “So—”

“And my brother’s on the job.”

“Oh yeah? Where at?”

“Gannon. He’s a detective.”

“Huh.” Shit. “What’s his—”

“Martin. Danny Martin.”

“Oh yeah.” He nodded as if pleased. “He’s a good cop.” The guy was decent enough but a hothead. A real mess shaping up. “Do you want me to call him?”

“Not really,” she said in a desultory mutter, as if she shared his vision of things to come.

“OK, no problem.” He said this easily, but he’d have to call the guy anyhow—professional courtesy. “So, Brenda, tonight—”

“What was I doing there if I wasn’t buying drugs, right?”

“I got to ask.”

“I work there.”

“Where.”

“In the houses. I work in the Study Club for the Urban Corps.”

“The Study Club’s in the Jefferson Houses, isn’t it?”

“We just opened up a second club in the basement of Five Building.”

Lorenzo hesitated, things coming a little fast now. “OK, yeah, yeah, I heard about that, OK, OK,” he finally said, nodding. The Study Club was an afterschool program set up to keep preteens off the streets and, in some cases, out of their home situations as much as possible.

He read her T-shirt again—IT TAKES A WEAK MAN TO DISRESPECT THE STRONG WOMAN WHO RAISED HIM—thinking, Maybe she’s the goods. Maybe. “Yeah, I had heard you were coming in there. OK. OK.”

His tone of mild enthusiasm made her lean forward, her speech speeding up as if she had a fixed amount of time to win him over. “See, we just moved some of the stuff over from Jefferson yesterday, and I was home tonight? And I couldn’t find my glasses, so I thought maybe they got packed by mistake, so I went over to Five Building, you know, to look through the boxes? But I didn’t have the right key and I couldn’t get in and then—So I was just trying to get back quick to Gannon, and—” She suddenly pulled up short. “I told you the rest.”

She was working it too hard—no eyes, hiding her face, hiding. Boyfriend? Black boyfriend? Rape? Dope? What…

“OK.” He rubbed his palms, marking time, the two of them sitting in silence, an expectant vibration in the room.

The diabetic sneezed, flipped a page, yawned.

“How you feel about coming down looking at some mug shots now?”

She gave him a small shrug, not answering, making no move to stand up or conclude, knitting her fingertips, waiting.

Lorenzo cocked his head, trying to raise her eyes from her lap. “Brenda?”

She grudgingly flicked him an agitated glance.

“Brenda.” He leaned forward, twisting his head so that his face was in her sight line. “What are you not telling me…”

She shrugged again, trying to find somewhere else to look, a bandaged hand flying to her mouth.

“Brenda.” Lorenzo’s voice was soft. “I can’t help…” He faltered, hit with a wave of dread, a distinct fear of finding something out that he’d rather not know.