Fulton laughed again. "So what you're saying is because you can't get a knish in Texas, we'll make it happen thirteen years later, where they drew a blank?"

"That's it. I rest my case."

Fulton stared at him for a moment and said, smiling, "You need professional help, not a cop."

"Come on, Clay. You're a homicide investigator. Investigate the homicide of the century! What're you gonna do when you retire? Security for department stores? Teach at John Jay? You'll go batshit."

"This is for me, right? You're doing me a favor? Just a minute, let me make sure my wallet's still here." He patted at his suit coat pocket. "Okay, wise guy, how long you figure this gig is going to take? Months? Years?"

"This I don't know," admitted Karp. "Say a year…"

"Okay, that means I'm gonna have to go to Martha and say, 'Guess what, baby? We're going south. Back to the land o' cotton…' "

"Oh, horseshit, Clay! Washington isn't the South!"

"Do tell," said Fulton, giving Karp a hard look. "And there's Texas, too. Those old boys're gonna love having a big-city nigger poking around in what they did or didn't do, the heaviest case they ever saw."

Karp was taken aback, and felt himself flush with embarrassment. It had not occurred to Karp that Fulton and his wife would be at all discommoded by moving from their apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to a city that was still heavily segregated, in fact if not in law, or that poking into a Texas investigation might be a problem for a black man.

Karp said, "Okay, forget it. I wasn't thinking…"

Fulton stood up, leaned over, and placed his hand on Karp's arm. "No, I appreciate being asked… I guess."

He perched on the edge of the desk and looked at Karp with the fatherly expression he sometimes assumed with the younger man. He was only twelve years older, but he had spent most of his adult life as a street cop uptown, which worked out to an effective seniority of about a thousand and four years.