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I DROVE OVER TO King's place to get back my Tom Waits tickets, the ones he'd stolen out of my wallet. Mia was with me, using the rear-view mirror to put on her makeup. She kept having to redo her lipstick because she'd quit smoking two or three days earlier and now her hands were shaking all the time, like she had a cold. I'd turned up the heat in the car but she'd just rolled the window down. It turned out she'd never been King's girlfriend at all, that she'd just gone to Kennedy's party with him. We were sometimes dating now, but that's another story. She'd come with me because I'd promised to give her one of the tickets.

King lived across the city, on the top floor of a warehouse that had been converted into studio apartments. There was no elevator, so we had to take the stairs. Mia ran all the way up, even though she was wearing a skirt and high heels. By the time I got to the top, she'd already gone into King's place, but I had to stop and catch my breath. There was a band practising in one of the other rooms on the floor, playing the first few bars of the same song over and over. When someone began whistling into a microphone, I followed Mia inside.

The room was mostly empty, just a couple of leather chairs, a stained pool table with one cue lying across it, and a couch that looked as if it had come from Goodwill. King's roommate, Payne, was sitting on it, wearing nothing but a bathrobe that was open at the front. He was staring at Mia, who was pointing a small pistol at him. For some reason, he had an erection.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"King's not here," she said, not taking her eyes off Payne. "He's already left."

Payne looked at me and licked his lips but didn't say anything.

I looked around the place. There was another, smaller room off to one side of the main room, and I went in there. The walls were covered in peeling red velvet wallpaper, and there was a bed with black silk sheets in one corner. A framed poster of Audrey Hepburn hung over the head of the bed. I went over to the bed and pulled the sheets off, looked under the mattress. There was nothing but some empty condom wrappers. I emptied the drawers of the dresser onto the floor, kicked through the clothes. Nothing.

"He's not here," I said, walking back into the other room.

"I already told you that," Mia said. She was still pointing the gun at Payne, who still had the erection.

"Where's King?" I asked Payne.

He looked at me with an almost grateful expression. "He's gone for the night. He was going to the Rex, to hustle some guys he knew."

"Did he take the tickets?"

"What tickets?"

"The concert tickets."

"What concert?"

THE THREE OF US were in the car, Payne in the passenger seat. I didn't know where the Rex was, so he was giving me directions. Mia sat in the back seat. She put the gun against Payne's headrest whenever we stopped at a red light, like he was going to get out and run or something.

"Where did you get that thing anyway?" I asked her. It was shiny and small, the size of her hand.

"I bought it last time I was in New York. Everything is so cheap there."

"Well, don't wave it around in here," I said. "What if it goes off?"

"It won't, it won't."

"But if it does."

"Am I some sort of hostage?" Payne asked.

"No, no, it's nothing like that," I said.

"It's just until we find King," Mia said at the same time.

Payne just looked out the window. It was growing dark, and the sky had turned a violet colour. I looked at my watch. It was nearly eight o'clock. The concert started at nine, but we still had to find a parking spot and get in line.

"What if he's not there?" Payne asked. "What if he's left or something?"

"He'd better be there," Mia warned him. "For your sake."

WE PARKED ON one of the side streets by the Rex and walked back. The place was full of people, every table taken and people standing all the way to the pool tables in the back. The bouncer at the door wanted a five-dollar cover from each of us just to get in. "It's the experimental jazz night," he said, like that explained it all.

"We're just looking for a friend," Mia said. "We'll only be a minute."

The bouncer shook his bald head. "It's five dollars a night or five dollars a minute."

Mia looked at him and then reached into her purse. I didn't know if she was going for money or the gun, so I stopped her. "I've got it," I said and gave the bouncer ten dollars.

"What about him?" he asked, nodding at Payne.

Mia and I both turned to look at Payne. He stood on the sidewalk behind us, arms folded across his chest, shivering. He'd only had time to throw on jeans and a T-shirt before Mia had forced him out the door, and now there was a cold breeze coming down the street. "Well, I don't have any money," he said.

I gave the bouncer another five dollars, and he finally stepped out of our way. We went inside.

There must have been a hundred, a hundred and fifty people in there, everyone crowded shoulder to shoulder. I started sweating from the heat almost right away. There was a small stage to one side of the door, empty except for a few stools and a drum set. I got up on it and looked over the crowd but couldn't see King anywhere.

"He's probably at the back," Payne said. "By the pool tables."

I looked that way. I could see the tables, but there was too much smoke in the air to make out anyone's face. "What's he wearing?" I asked Payne.

"How should I know? I'm his roommate, not his girlfriend."

I got down from the stage and started through the crowd. Mia pushed Payne after me. She was shaking hard now, and she looked like she was holding her breath.

"Can someone buy me a drink?" Payne asked. "I think I at least deserve a drink for all this."

There was a tall, skinny man with dreadlocks playing pool by himself at the back. At his feet lay some sort of giant grey dog, panting and watching us approach. There was a line of drool running from its mouth all the way to the floor. I stopped on the other side of the table from the man and watched him sink the five ball with a bank shot. He called it even though he was the only one playing. He waited until the cue ball stopped rolling and then looked up at me.

"You looking to play?"

"Actually, I'm trying to find someone," I said, but now he was looking at Mia, who had pushed past me. "Oh, look at the puppy!" she said, bending down to pet the dog.

"I don't think you should do that," I said, but she was already running her hand down the long length of its back. The dog tensed and stared up at her but didn't make a sound.

"Who you looking to find?" the dreadlocked man asked. He was staring at Mia's legs, which were exposed all the way to her upper thighs now that she was bent over.

"It doesn't look like he's here," Payne said to me. "So I think I'm going to leave now."

"I'm trying to find a guy named King," I said, ignoring him. "He's supposed to be playing pool here."

"King?" The man swung his gaze back to me.

"How'd you like to come home with me?" Mia asked the dog. It began to growl at her.

"He's about this high," I said, holding up my hand, "and he's got a scar on his left cheek."

"Right," Payne said.

"What?"

"It's on the right cheek. His scar."

"Whatever."

"One of his girlfriends attacked him with a knife one night."

"Whatever," I said.

"Yeah, I've seen him," the dreadlocked man said. He bent over the pool table again and drove the eight ball into one of the pockets without calling it. "He just finished hustling me."

Like that was some sort of cue, the dog launched itself at Mia's throat, snarling and barking. She fell back, screaming and kicking at it. Somehow the dress had ridden all the way up to her hips. She was wearing black silk panties. The dog grabbed on to one of her feet, and she started kicking it in the face with her other foot, while at the same time trying to get her purse open.

I was still wondering what to do when Payne grabbed one of the pool cues from the wall and started beating the dog across the back with it.

"Hey hey hey," the dreadlocked man said, coming around the table with his own cue as the dog turned to go after Payne.

I dragged Mia back and then pulled her to her feet. She was digging around inside her purse now, but I grabbed her hand before she could find the gun. "Would you stop that?" I said. I turned around to help Payne, and that's when I saw him. King.

He stepped out of the washroom just as someone started playing guitar onstage. It wasn't any song I recognized, just a bunch of random riffs and notes. He stood there for a moment, looking around, and then glanced our way at Payne's yells. His face was lit up from the washroom's light, and I could see his skin glistening, like he'd just washed it. He looked straight at me. Then he turned and ran for the door.

I went after him. Through the music, I could hear the sounds of Mia's heels on the floor, following me. We went past the bouncer, who was heading for the pool tables now, and out into the night. There was a cab waiting outside, like a getaway car, and King threw himself into the back of it, locked the door.

I hammered on the window and the cabbie took one look at me, then put the car into gear and sped away, tires squealing. King looked back at us and waved.

"We'll get another cab," Mia said, running out into the street and looking around wildly. "We'll chase him, like in the movies."

I pulled her back to the sidewalk and out of the way of a yellow Corvette with its top down. The two men inside - who were both wearing baseball caps - stared at her as they drove past.

"Relax," I told her. "We know where he's going."

The Corvette slowed to a stop in the street and the passenger shouted something at us I couldn't understand.

"Just try it," Mia shouted back. She pulled out the gun and waved it at them. The driver hit the gas, and they disappeared around the corner.

"This is starting to get out of control," I said.

THE CONCERT HALL was only a few blocks away. We were almost there when Mia started laughing. "Oh my God," she said. "We forgot Payne."

It was true. I hadn't even thought about him since I'd seen King. "It doesn't matter," I said. "We didn't need him anyway."

"But we left him with that dog," she said. "You remember it?"

"Oh, I remember."

"And that Jamaican guy. What if he was some sort of crazy dealer or something?"

"What Jamaican guy?" I asked, confused.

"The guy with the hair. And the dog."

"He wasn't Jamaican."

"He wasn't?"

"No. He just had dreadlocks, that's all."

"Well, I think he was crazy anyway. Did you see him go after Payne with that pool cue?"

"It doesn't matter," I said. "Any roommate of King's deserves what he gets."

"But he was helping us," she said, still laughing.

I checked my watch. "There's no way they've opened the doors yet," I said. "King's going to have to wait in line."

Mia laid a hand on my leg. "And you," she said, "you saved my life back there."

"Just let me handle this," I said.

WE PARKED IN A LOT beside the concert hall. There were maybe a hundred people lined up along the sidewalk. A man with a top hat was slowly walking up and down the line, playing an accordion he wore slung over his chest. King was nowhere in sight, so we went up to the front of the line. The doors to the hall were closed and barred with a velvet rope. Two women wearing white shirts and headsets stood in front of the rope, talking in low voices and blowing cigarette smoke away from each other.

"You haven't let anyone in yet, have you?" I asked the women.

Before either of them could answer, the first person in line, a young man wearing a black suit and with slicked-back hair, said, "No budging!"

"Who are you talking to?" Mia asked, looking at him and frowning.

"No one's going in front of me," he said, pointing at us. "I've been here for hours."

"I'm looking for a guy with a scar," I told the women. "On one of his cheeks, I'm not sure which one."

"You've been standing here for hours?" Mia asked. "In that suit?"

"There's a line," he said, flushing. "I was here first."

"I haven't seen anyone with a scar," one of the women said. "Have you?"

"No, no, not on my shift."

"There you go," the first one said.

"And I've been here as long as this guy," the other one told me, nodding at the guy in the suit.

"No one's taking my seat," he said.

"Isn't it assigned seating?" Mia asked.

"It's the principle of the thing!"

We went to the back of the line.

"What if he doesn't show?" Mia wanted to know. "What do we do then?"

"Oh, he'll show," I said.

"But what if he doesn't? How do we get in then?"

"I don't know," I said. "We'll buy some tickets from someone else or something."

"We could shoot our way in," she said. "Like Bonnie and Clyde."

I wasn't listening to her any more, though, because just then King came walking down the sidewalk, a Starbucks coffee in his hand. He stopped at the front of the line and spoke to the women there. I could hear the man in the suit say something about the line.

I grabbed Mia by the hand and pulled her after me. "Whatever you do," I said, "don't kill him."

"All right," she said and giggled.

King was walking down the line now, looking at everyone in the crowd as he passed. "Tickets," he said. "Who needs them?"

"He's selling our tickets," I said. "He's not even going to the concert."

"Are you sure you don't want to kill him?" Mia asked.

We went past the guy playing the accordion. He winked at Mia and nodded at me. Then, as if he sensed us, King looked our way. When he saw me, he stopped moving, stopped blinking even. We were still ten or twelve feet away from him. Then he was pushing through the crowd and running into the parking lot, heading for the street on the far side. I could see more cabs there, so I knew this was our last chance.

I shoved a woman reading a People magazine out of the way and went after him. He was fifteen or twenty feet in front of me, winding his way through the cars. I jumped up on the hood of a Lexus and ran across the back of a Mercedes and a Saab to jump down five or six feet behind him. He looked over his shoulder, threw one of the tickets back at me. I stopped to grab it, and when I looked up again, he was almost at the other side of the parking lot.