THE SUN dropped on the far side of the Hudson River like it knew what was coming.

I turned off the West Side Highway at Thirtieth Street, cruising east toward Tenth Avenue. Glanced at the photograph taped to my dashboard. Marilyn, her name was. Fourteen years old, her father said. Chubby, round-faced little girl, smiling at the camera, standing next to a Bon Jovi poster in her pink ruffled bedroom.

Marilyn ran away from home. Ran herself straight to Hell. I didn't know what she was before she caught the bus that dropped her into Port Authority, but I knew what she was now.

Raw meat on the streets. A pimp's prey as soon as her feet hit the sidewalk.

She'd be out here somewhere, chasing money.

Me too.

Marilyn wouldn't be working the commuters heading home through the Lincoln Tunnel. The hard-core tunnel bunnies would take her the way a Cuisinart took vegetables. A girl that young should be working indoors, but she hadn't turned up. Only one place left.

I fluttered my hand in a "get down" gesture but Max the Silent was way ahead of me, puddling himself into a pool of shadow in the back seat.

You can't make more than a couple of passes at any one block. The working girls know all about comparison shoppers. I stopped for a light on Twelfth. The Prof was at his post, his tiny body in a wheelchair, a Styrofoam begging cup jingling coins in his hand. He caught my eye. Nodded his head. Pointed up the block with a finger held at his waist.

You couldn't miss her. Babyfat spilling out all around the borders of the red hot pants, nervously plucking at her white halter top. Face unreadable behind the thick makeup. Hair piled on top of her head to make her look taller. Wobbling on spike heels in the heat waves the retreating sun left behind on the pavement. She was leaning against a long low building with some other girls. Cattle waiting for the prod.

My eyes flicked to the I-beam girder on the corner. Something moving in the shadows. Her pimp? No, one of the triple-threat street skells: clean your windshield, sell you a vial of crack, or slash at your face while another snatched at your wallet. Whatever pays.

I slowed the Plymouth to a crawl. Empty parking lot to my right. A black girl detached herself from the lineup, cut diagonally across the block toward me, streetlights glinting off her high cheekbones, crack-lust in her dead eyes.

"Want to give me a ride, honey? Change your luck?"

"Not tonight," I said, my eyes over her shoulder.

"She underage, man. Jailbait, big time."

I lit a cigarette. Shook my head. The black girl stepped aside. Walked away, switching her hips out of habit. Her other habit. AIDS and crack -- racing to see which would take her down first.

Marilyn came over. Tentative. "You want to party?" Watching my face. Wanting me to say no. Not wanting me to. Lost.

"How much?" I asked, so she wouldn't spook.

"Fifty for me, ten for the room."

"What do I get for the fifty?"

Her eyes were somewhere else. "You get me. For a half hour. Okay?"

"Okay."

She walked around the front of the car, her head down. Resigned.

She got in the car knees first, the way a young girl does. Closed the door. "Take a left at the corner," she said, fumbling in her purse for a cigarette. I knew where she wanted me to go -- one of the shadowy deserted parking lots on West Twenty-fifth. In case I wanted to save the ten bucks for the room. She looked up as I drove through the green light, heading for Ninth. "Hey... I said..."

"Forget it, Marilyn." Using her name so she wouldn't think I had violence on my mind. Her pimp would have warned her about men who wanted to hurt her for fun. He'd tell her this was all about business. Beat it into her if she didn't understand. Beat her again to make sure.

"Who're you?" Everything in her voice running together in a sad-scared baby-blend.

"It's not important. Your father said you ran away, so..."

"You're taking me back there."

"Yeah."

She snatched at the door handle. Jiggled it. Hard. No go. Looked at my face. She knew. Started to cry.

She didn't look up until I pulled in behind Lily's joint. Max flowed out of the back seat. I lit a smoke, waiting.

"This isn't my home."

I didn't answer her.

Lily came back with Max, her long black hair bouncing in the night breeze. She opened the passenger door, said, "Hi, Marilyn," and held out her hand. The kid took it. They always do. Lily would keep her for a while, talk to her, see what happened, and why. Then, if it was okay, the little girl would make a call and her father would come in and get her. If it wasn't okay, Lily knew what to do.

I've been doing this for a long time. Cruising the cesspool flowing around Times Square, trolling for runaways. Sometimes the pimp is around when I work -- that's why Max was along.

I used to bring them straight back where they came from. Now I know better.

It's a new game, but the same old rules -- her father had paid me up front.