At eight the next morning Nikki sat at a window table at EJ’s Luncheonette, blowing on her large coffee and waiting for Lauren Parry to pick up her phone. Instead of corporate jazz or Soft Hits of the Eighties and Nineties, the programming for anyone stuck on hold at OCME was a loop of short messages about New York City’s municipal opportunities and ser vices. Rather than Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” or Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” the mayor invited you to call 3- 1- 1 for all your information needs and some monotone DOT administrator extolled the virtues of Alternate Day, Alternate Side Parking. Where were Annie Lennox’s “Sweet Dreams” when you needed them?

“I have a question for you,” said Heat when Lauren finally came on the line. In the background she could hear the snap of gloves and the lid of a metal pail clanging open against a wall. “It’s about that bruise on Father Graf’s lower back. You recall it?”

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