Shallow Graves

George’s got the rolodex, you know?“
    “According to Yulin’s rolodex, you and Mau Tim were pretty good friends.“
    Puriefoy pulled back a little more. “You could say that.“
    “Lovers?“
    “The fuck difference does it make?“
    “I have to follow through on anything that might help me find out who killed her.“
    “Who killed her? The fuck you talking about? I was there, man. Some burglar done it.“
    “Back up a step, all right? Mau Tim lived with you for a while?“
    Puriefoy waited a moment before answering. “Yeah. She was overage, man, her decision to check out on the family. Only I didn’t know about... her family, you know?“
    “She didn’t tell you she was connected?“
    “Shit, no. I walk over to her—at that cafe with the croissant?—and I say, ‘Hey, lovely lady, you a model?’ And she says, ‘No,’ but not like ‘Get-the-fuck-lost’ no, just kind of a ‘not yet.’ And I like her more as a natural, and she tells me her name is Tina and we go around on that for a while, and pretty soon we’re back at my place for a little sweetness in the dark.“
    “Where’s your place?“
    “Apartment, over in JP.“
    Jamaica Plain, the farthest west of the Boston neighborhoods. “How soon after that did she move in with you?“
    “Like a week, maybe two. Didn’t tell me her last name that first time. But when she did, she said it was ‘Dani,’ and I should start calling her ‘Mau Tim,’ on account of that was her name in Vietnamese, only not exactly.“
    “What do you mean?“
    “Well, it wasn’t her name, translated like. It was more a description.“ Puriefoy closed his eyes. “It meant like, ‘purple flower,’ or something. For her eyes. She was always doing that.“
    “Doing what?“
    “Making up names for things. She was at my place one night, and we’re watching one of the Star Wars videos, I forget which one. But when that Darth Vader comes on the screen, she— you know whose voice they used for him?“
    “James Earl Jones.“
    Puriefoy looked disappointed, like I’d spoiled a punch line. “Yeah, old James Earl with that voice comes up from his high tops somewhere. Well, we’re watching the screen, and in walks the guy all dressed in that black outfit, and Mau Tim jumps on me and says ‘Your voice is just like his, and you’re a big brute, too. I’ll call you Grute Vader from now on.’ “
    “Why ‘Grute’ Vader?“
    “Account of it rhymed with ‘brute,’ maybe. But it could have meant something in Vietnamese, too. Mau, she was into that kind of thing.“
    “What kind of thing?“
    “People’s backgrounds.“
    “How do you mean?“
    “Well, like she really enjoyed Sinead on account of Sinead had a real ethnic name. Irish.“
    “Right.“
    Puriefoy looked a little sheepish. “Right. And she was always asking me about my roots.“
    “Your family, you mean?“
    “Yeah, like that genealogy shit. I read that out to Chicago, man, it is a thriving business, black folks trying hard to trace themselves back just a couple generations to Mississippi, and from there all the way to the slave times. I told Mau Tim I wasn’t so interested in my past as my future.“
    “A future that didn’t include her?“
    “Shit happens.“
    “And now you’re involved with her girlfriend?“
    “The fuck difference does that make?“
    “I’m just wondering who broke it off, you or Mau Tim?“
    No response.
    “Was it because she moved on to other photographers?“
    Puriefoy’s molars worked inside his mouth. “This part have to go outside this room?“
    “Probably not.“
    “That ain’t good enough.“
    “All right. Between you and me.“
    “I just don’t want it getting back to her family.“
    “Sinead’s?“
    “Shit, no. Mau Tim’s.“
    “It won’t.“
    “Okay.“ Puriefoy shifted his feet on the floor. “Mau Tim’s shacking with me about three weeks, I’m sitting here. Right in this chair, setting up some shots, and the door there opens. I got my back to it, and I didn’t hear no knock. So I turn around, and there’s this little cheech standing there.“
    “Cheech?“
    “Italian greaser. Eth-nic ster-eo-type, you know? We called that kind of dude a ‘cheech’ down in New York.“
    “So this guy comes to see you.“
    “Yeah. And he says to me, ‘We’d consider it a good thing for you to stop seeing Tina Danucci.’ Said it just like that, real polite.“
    “What did you say?“
    “I told him I didn’t know no Tina Danucci, but