Kurtz had to blink at that. "For WeddingBells? To set up all the details of a wedding online?"

"Yes."

"Ten percent discount to personal acquaintances," said Kurtz. "I mean, you've met Arlene."

"I know what you meant, Mr. Kurtz." O'Toole put her glasses back on. "You still have a room at… what is the hotel's name? Harbor Inn?"

"Yes." Kurtz's old flophouse hotel, the Royal Delaware Arms near downtown, had been shut down in July by the city inspectors. Only the bar of the huge old building remained open and the word was that the only customers there were the rats. Kurtz needed an address for the parole board, and the Harbor Inn served as one. He hadn't gotten around to telling O'Toole that the little hotel on the south side was actually boarded up and abandoned or that he'd leased the entire building for less than the price of his room at the old Delaware Arms.

"It's at the intersection of Ohio and Chicago Streets?"

"Right."

"I'd like to drop by and just look at it next week if you don't mind," said the parole officer. "Just to verify your address."

Shit, he thought. "Sure," he said.

O'Toole sat back and Kurtz thought that the short interview was over. The meetings had been getting more and more pro forma in recent months. He wondered if Officer O'Toole was becoming more laid back after the hot summer just past and with the pleasant autumn just winding down—the leaves on the only tree visible outside her window were a brilliant orange but ready to blow off.

"You seem to have recovered completely from your automobile accident last winter," said the parole officer. "I haven't seen even a hint of a limp the last few visits."

"Yeah, pretty much full recovery," said Kurtz. His "automobile accident" the previous February had included being knifed, thrown out of a third story window, and crashing through a plaster portico at the old Buffalo train station, but he hadn't seen any pressing need for the probation office to know the details. The cover story had been a pain for Kurtz, since he'd had to sell his perfectly good twelve-year-old Volvo—he could hardly be seen driving around in the car he was supposed to have wrecked up on a lonely stretch of winter highway—and now he was driving a much older red Pinto. He missed the Volvo.