Little Markie, I thought, and found myself saying it out loud. It chilled me some, to hear my own voice that way, almost as if a stranger had spoken into my ear.

     The killer hours between midnight and dawn.

     I put the ornament aside; no reason to remind her how little we knew each other. I wrote a check for two hundred fifty, slipped it into the card, sealed it, put a stamp on the envelope, addressed it. Her mother's home, Boston.

     Her birthday was Wednesday. The card would be on time if it went in the morning. I took it outside and waded slowly through the fog, and put it in the mailbox on the corner.

     When I got back I bolted the door and turned out the lights behind me on the way to the bedroom. The last one was the lamp at my bed. I left it on as I slid between the sheets. I had hung my blazer on a chair beside the night-stand; now I reached into a pocket and found the snapshot and held it.

     I looked at it a long time, taking in details.

     The school looked hot and weary. A palm tree's ragged shadow slashed through the words PAARALANG ELEMENTARIA, several letters of which were missing but still visible in outline. A cracked sidewalk at the foot of the wall. A dusty playground behind it.

     Vangie. Her dress was a blue print, no style or vintage that I could name. Plain, loose, unrevealing. Even if she hadn't pulled it, the hem would have covered her knees. Her calves were lean and long. Her shoes were low pumps, and they were clean. There was grace in the set of her head, in the cant of her shoulders and legs, but she was not at ease.

     Her smile was unconvincing. She didn't like the camera. Or maybe it was the company. Lito's shirt clung, his black slacks were tight almost to obscenity. Gold