"Now say you want wheels," the big man said, sitting in the booth in his plaid lumberjacket, a porkpie hat on his head, his meaty right hand leaning on a bottle of Miller's. "I can get you anything from a Honda to an eighteen-wheeler with stereo CB, chrome-plated stacks, and designer sheets on the bunk in the back. Caddy, Mark Six, Imperial, red, blue, green, your choice. Get you a Rolls-Royce with pink polka dots you want it. Like boats? I can get you a scooter, a windsurfer, a ski boat, sport boat, cabin cruiser, any make, any model, or an offshore racer that'd make Bermuda and back in ten minutes flat. Planes? Gimme your order. Navajo? Comanche? Gulfstream? Get you a Learjet, your choice of trim. Or something for the house, maybe."

He gulped at his beer, wiped his wrist over his mouth, and continued almost without interruption. "Chairs, tables, drapes, broadloom, refrigerators, freezers: gimme the size and color, you got it. Cigarettes, booze, champagne? Name your brand. Want a camera? Anything from an Instamatic to a backpack video and a mile of tape. I can get you a print of any movie ever made, a dupe of any record a week before it's in Sam Goody's. Get you seats to the hottest show on Broadway or anything else that's playing, the fights, Rangers, Knicks, Mets, the Giants, whatever. I can get you first-class tickets on any flight leaving La Guardia or JFK; seats on any train, bus, or steamship. Get you plastic or paper. American Express, Diners', Visa, Carte Blanche, stocks, bonds—what's your pleasure? You want a watch or a home computer? A TV or a grand piano? Retail, wholesale, it don't matter, if they make it I can get it. So"—he finished the beer in two swallows and sat back in the booth—"what'll it be?"

The man sitting opposite was short, slight, and had a

curious nervous habit of patting his hair where it had been carefully brushed and sprayed over his right ear. Nelson Fitzroy cleared his throat and said, half-whispering, "Explosives." The big man grunted. "No problem."

For the past few days all over New York City, sweaters and tweed skirts and three-piece suits had been brought out of closets; topcoats had been retrieved from dry cleaners. The sky had taken on a bright, brittle sheen that made it look fresh-washed and far away. Leaves in the park had begun to turn. Even the East River gleamed clean and blue as it moved past the green sweep of lawn that fronted Grade Mansion. The early rays of an Indian-summer sun shone through the high windows of the building, lighting up the office of a senior aide to the mayor. The man looked up as his assistant came through the door with the morning mail in his hand.

4 'And what does Gotham think of its administration today?"

44 About the same as yesterday." The younger man sorted the mail. 44 You ready?"

44 Shoot."

44 Five letters about dog shit."

4 Tor or against it?"

44 Eight complaints about voracious landlords, four about uncollected garbage, three about potholes, and one from a woman who thinks we should build a church in Times Square."

4 'What do we call it? The Forty-second Street Porno Church? What else have you got?"

44 A threat to blow up the UN if the Cuban flag isn't removed. A threat to blow it up if the Libyan flag isn't removed. And a third to blow it up if the flag of Upper Volta isn't removed."

A i assume," said the senior aide, 44 that that one's from somebody from Lower Volta."

His assistant didn't look amused; he put the pile of letters down on the desk, keeping one of them, which he tapped against his fingers.

His superior said, "You've saved the best for last, right? How serious is it?"

"It could be for real."

"Read it to me."

M To whom it may concern. On Friday, a week from the date of this letter, a bomb will go off in the lobby of the Hotel Amsterdam on East Fifty-fourth Street. It will be detonated at four p.m. precisely. The police will not be able to find the bomb no matter how hard they look. I am not asking for money at the present moment. That is, I am not offering to not explode the bomb in exchange for money. This will be the first of two demonstrations, because I feel two will be needed. But I will be asking for one million dollars, to be collected a week from Friday, in order to forestall a third explosion somewhere in the city. I will be in touch/ M

The assistant passed the letter across the desk. "It's signed Alka-Seltzer."

The senior aide looked it over. "Typed, with a handwritten signature. Why would anybody call himself Alka Seltzer?"

"That's what I wondered. He sounds like a nut. But I assume we have to do something about it. . . ."

"Yep. We treat it as a genuine threat. I'll handle it. Although it's got to be a big fat time-waster. Anyone who tells us exactly where he's going to plant a bomb and claims we still won't be able to find it is playing with himself. Anything else?"

"Just the usual bunch of phone calls bad-mouthing his Honor."

The senior man sat back in his chair, laced his fingers together. "You know what might help improve his PR? It worked for a previous tenant of this building."

"What's that?"

"He could read the Sunday funnies on the radio."

The junior aide rolled his eyes. "Great idea, Chief."

People had been calling Lieutenant Jacobi Jack ever since he was in elementary school, back at P.S. 63. Some of the men at the precinct called him Columbo, after that character in the old TV series. They said he should have sued the producers on that one; they'd obviously stolen the idea of a police lieutenant who slouched around in a rumpled topcoat from his photograph in the newspaper. But Lieutenant Jacobi wasn't naturally careless in his dress, it was just that, being big and plump, his suit didn't hang very well and his shirt had a way of bunching up around his belt.

Jacobi stood on the steps of the Hotel Amsterdam shaking tobacco from a pouch into a Zig Zag rolling paper. He put the pouch away, and with great deliberation, rolled the cigarette, licked the edge of the paper, sealed it, sniffed the tobacco, then put it between his lips. He took the cigarette out, spat out a piece of tobacco, put it back in his mouth, drew on it as if it were lit, then flicked the cigarette into the gutter. It was a way he'd discovered of giving up smoking two packs of Marlboros a day, and it was working.

He went up the steps and through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby. Everything looked exactly as it had five minutes back: a deep red expanse of carpet, gleaming display cases, dark mahogany, good furniture upholstered in Regency stripes. The staff was somberly dressed, as befitted the hotel's quiet style, standing quietly in their regular positions. The only discordant note was the presence of several patrolmen, the bomb squad, and some of his own men from the Special Fraud Department.

Jacobi approached Detective Sergeant George Vig. "Okay, pretend I'm the old man come down to lend an expert hand. What have you got for me?"

It was Jacobi's way of checking on himself, and Vig played it straight. "We've got a bomb situation, sir. We've cleared the hotel, leaving only the lobby staff in their normal positions. All entrances, all exits have been sealed off with the exception of the front doors. Nobody has gone in or out of the building for the last three hours except department members. During that time we've made a thorough search of the lobby. Twice. We've been over everything up, down, and sideways. We've checked under things, above things, behind things. Anything that's removable we've removed and checked. We've even searched the staff in case the bomber managed to slip a device into a pocket or a handbag. We've searched everywhere, both visually and with a metal detector."

Jacobi had nodded at each point, checking off a mental list. He thought some more, then raised his arms a few inches and let them drop to his sides. "I don't know what else to do. Do you?"

"We've done it all," Vig said. "There's no bomb here. WTiy do you look so worried?"

"Because the guy challenged us. You saw the letter."

"Just one more hoax for the file," Vig said. He belonged to the new breed of cop: he looked more like a lawyer, neat and correct; Vig gave more than a little attention to his clothes. He pointed to the clock over the reservations desk. "It's ten to two. You want to declare it safe? Or do you want to wait it out for the hell of it?"

"Wait it out," Jacobi said.

It was a long ten minutes. Nine out of ten jobs the bomb squad worked on turned out to be hoaxes, yet there was always that feeling in the air, a palpable tension during the few minutes before a bomb was supposed to go off, even when they knew the bomb didn't exist.

At two minutes to the hour Jacobi fished out his cigarette makings again.

A young patrolman watched what he was doing with some interest. "I don't get it, Lieutenant. How's it supposed to work?"

"Think it through," Jacobi invited. "It's brilliant. You give up smoking, but you don't give up cigarettes. You get none of the minuses and all the pluses. You get to walk into the store and ask for your own brand. They call that BSE. Brand Selection Enjoyment. You get to do something with your hands, because cigarette smoking isn't totally oral. I

mean, what do you do when you go for a cigarette? You take out the pack, you flip it open, you take out a cigarette, you reach for matches, you light up, put the matches away, put the cigarettes away . . . you got hand movements like Horowitz playing a Beethoven sonata. You don't give any of that up. You make the thing, you sniff the tobacco, get the smell, put it in your mouth, satisfy the oral bit. Then you toss it. Result? You've had everything you smoke for, except the smoke. No tar, no nicotine, just the enjoyment."

4 'What about satisfaction?"

"I get that in bed," Jacobi said, settling tobacco on a cigarette paper. The next moment the tobacco vanished, whipped away by the air that was blasted in several directions by the explosion.

It was tremendously loud, sharp, and lingering at the same time, as the sound burst and rolled, thunderously concussive in the enclosed area. The glass in a freestanding display case was shattered and blown like a hail of razor blades clear across the lobby to the far wall, smashing against or embedding in the heavy wood paneling. A sofa and two chairs, as if shot from a cannon, were tumbled end over end, their arms and legs crunching, breaking off. A coffee table, a thin, delicate, feather-light piece, was hurled with such velocity it broke a detective's forearm.

They were incredibly lucky; there was only one other casualty, a woman named Mary Hope, a hotel receptionist who'd been standing beside the glass display case. In his report Jacobi stated that she'd taken the full force of the blast. He didn't add that the blast had been impossible. McMullen, the head of the bomb squad, a man with fifteen years' experience, had gone over that case himself.

They had a problem on their hands.

"Mr. Charters? My name is Freidman." The smiling man at the door walked in and held out his hand.

Charters bobbed up from behind the desk. The guy's grip was firm, professional, a grip that was supposed to inspire confidence. A country-club handshake.

"Sit down," Charters said, although the man was already making himself comfortable. Freidman was definitely the take-charge type, Charters thought to himself; it stuck out a mile: tall, slim, well-groomed, fair hair strictly parted and worn at a length that wouldn't upset anybody in a boardroom. The suit would have set him back five or six hundred dollars, and he would have paid almost as much for the animal-skin briefcase he carried. How old was he, thirty-five? He'd probably made vice president years ago and was now vying for the top job at wherever he worked. Charters had met the type before and never enjoyed them much; they were always selling themselves, always projecting. They couldn't even choose a flavor at Baskin-Robbins without turning it into a carefully considered executive decision.

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," Freidman said. "I hope I'm not interfering too much with your busy schedule."

He smiled when he said it—he couldn't seem to stop smiling—but the barb was there. There were no phones ringing, no secretary putting people on hold; no secretary at all. And for the same reason, there was nobody waiting in an outer office. Charters had only one small room: a desk, couple of chairs, filing cabinet, pens, pencils, pads, calculator. The decor, left on the wall by a previous occupant, was a picture of a sleek thirties ocean liner on her maiden voyage.

"I was happy to be able to fit you in," Charters answered. "What can I do for you, Mr. Freidman?"

4 Tve brought something for you," the man said. He unlocked the briefcase, snapped it open, and took a stiff manila envelope from a side flap. Then he lifted the case and upended it.

The money cascaded out and flopped onto the desk like fresh-caught trout. It was in hundreds, crisp, new bundles, caught around the middle by a paper binder. The figure 5,000 was penciled on each binder. There were ten bundles. Fifty thousand dollars. It wasn't the first time Charters had seen that much money in one place, but it had been a while, and it made him nervous. He didn't touch it. Instead he said, "I think you've got the wrong guy, Mr. Freidman. That's too much money for a tax return."

Freidman laughed. "As a matter of fact, you're wrong. I pay my tax lawyer considerably more than this each year."

"That just proves my point." Charters spoke slowly. "You already have a tax man. So you don't need me."

"I don't want you for your tax expertise, as undoubtedly fine as I'm sure it is." Freidman hit the word "undoubtedly" as if he were playing to an audience of his peers.

"Then you don't want me at all. Because that's the only thing I get paid for."

"Ah, but it was not always so, Mr. Charters." Freidman was taking a sheet of paper out of the manila envelope. He began to read. " 'Gene Charters, n£ Jean Ren6 Charters, Chicago, 1940, of French parents, both naturalized Americans. Family moved to New York, 1948. Average education, tried several jobs, entered New York City Police Academy, 1966. Meteoric rise through the department. Fine record as patrolman, made detective with highest examination grade in years. Assigned Bunko Squad, Seventh Precinct, excellent record of arrests. Assigned Extortion Squad, Police Headquarters. Outstanding record of arrests. Youngest man to make full lieutenant since the war. Three citations, wounded once in the line of duty. Quit the force suddenly two years ago to enter private business.' "

Freidman looked up from the paper and waved his hand at the office. "Tax consultant. You'd be used to filling out forms, of course, and a simple return doesn't take much math. However, most ex-policemen go into a related field.

like security. That is," Freidman dangled the words, "if they can get a license."

"Get out of here, buddy." Charters nodded at the money. "And take that with you."

"Officially hushed up. No prosecution. You were lucky, Mr. Charters. But then you were unlucky too, an easy hundred grand slipping through your fingers."

Charters said slowly, "You're good with words, mister. Do you know what defenestration means?"

Freidman took it in his stride; his smile didn't waver. "To fall through or be thrown out a window. I certainly wouldn't want that to happen. Your windows are so grubby."

Charters' chair scraped back. "Out!"

The other man stayed right where he was. He held up a placating hand. "Please. Don't for a moment imagine that I'd be foolish enough to indulge in rough-and-tumble with an ex-policeman. Especially one who's bigger than I am. What are you, six feet, one-eighty? And clearly in good shape. Also, the scarred eyebrow and the slight break at the bridge of your nose lead me to believe that you're no stranger to the manly art. I understand that policemen sometimes settle their differences in the locker room or a convenient alley. Is that true?"

Charters had risen and walked around the desk. He stood over Freidman, jerked his thumb at the door. "Hit the boulevard, buddy."

"I didn't come alone, Mr. Charters." When Charters' eyes flicked to the door, Freidman said, "They're not outside. They're down in the street."

"Then they can't help you any."

Freidman got to his feet. "I want to show you something. Over here by the window you're thinking of throwing me through."

The man had unshakable confidence in himself; he defused die threat of being forcibly removed by ignoring the possibility of such a thing. Charters thought him oily and obnoxiously superior, but he had to admit the guy had guts.

The two men went to the window. Nine stories below them Forty-sixth Street collided with Broadway in a controlled stampede of traffic and pedestrians. Freidman waved at somebody down on the street, then said, "I want you to pick out a person on the sidewalk. It doesn't matter who."

"What is this, some kind of parlor trick?"

"It's a little demonstration. I thought you might need one." Freidman moved to the phone, which rang as he put his hand on it. "Go ahead, Mr. Charters. Pick somebody out. If you're not impressed by the demonstration, I'll leave immediately and pay you two hundred dollars for your time." He lifted the phone and said into it, "Just a second, Robert. Mr. Charters is making his selection."

Charters exhaled. "Freidman, you're beginning to bore me. Okay, the guy in the yellow windbreaker. Now what?"

Freidman, looking down at the street, spoke into the phone. "Robert, a tall man, black hair, yellow windbreaker, carrying a cassette player. Your side, walking toward you." He replaced the phone. "Keep your eye on him, Mr. Charters."

Charters couldn't see who Freidman had been talking to, there were no phone boxes down there, although there was a long black limousine double-parked; the call could have come from that. He saw the driver's door open. Someone got out and melted into the pedestrian flow. Twenty feet down the block the man in the yellow windbreaker was obscured for a moment, then came clearly into view. Again, a group of people passed him going the other way, and suddenly he was no longer walking with the flow. The man in the yellow windbreaker stopped and, almost in slow motion, crumpled to the sidewalk, where he lay motionless.

"What the hell's going on down there?" Charters demanded.

In the same conversational tone he'd been using all along, Freidman answered him. "He's dead, Mr. Charters. Robert is an artist with a knife."

Charters stared at Freidman's placid, smiling face, then jerked his gaze down to the street. A crowd was beginning to form down there, and Charters knew that nobody would have stopped just for a man lying on the sidewalk; they would simply walk around him. But a man leaking blood . . . that was something to tell the folks when they got home or back to the office or wherever they were headed, those safe places where they could cluck their tongues and shake their heads over what a jungle it was out there, and getting worse every day. One of those people would also walk off with the dead man's cassette player, of course.

An understanding of what had just happened, the scene he'd just witnessed, broke over Charters like a cold hard spray. He brought his eyes back to Freidman and tried to look

through the benign smile. "You had that guy killed? For God's sake, why?"

"To impress you, Mr. Charters. I wanted you to see that I'm very serious about this little meeting of ours. I have a proposition for you. I chose this way as a means of getting your attention, and to demonstrate, at the same time, that I'm not a man to be taken lightly. Why don't we sit down?"

Charters shook his head, trying to sort things out. He looked back down at the street; somebody, probably a woman, had gone and gotten a patrolman. The black limo, unnoticed, was gliding slowly away.

He moved away from the window back to the chair behind his desk and watched his visitor for a moment. "Who are you, Freidman?"

44 Ah. I seem to have piqued your curiosity at last." Freidman reached into his jacket and produced a flat silver cigarette case. He was about to spring the catch when he caught sight of the thank you for not smoking sign on Charters' desk. He put the case away unopened, an extraordinary gesture, Charters thought, under the circumstances.

"For openers, my name isn't Freidman. It isn't necessary for you to know my real name, or anything else about me that I don't choose to tell you. But I can paint in a little background. I'm a senior partner in a Wall Street firm. We specialize in venture capital. Our own. We've bankrolled inventions, films, mineral exploration. We hop in and out of the forward currency market. We speculate in metals. We take real fliers because that's the name of the game. If there's a chance of exceptional profits within an acceptable time, we'll look hard at it no matter what the odds are. Eighty percent of our transactions are legal and aboveboard. The remaining twenty percent aren't. Which is why a past chairman of the SEC once referred to us"—Freidman started to chuckle—"as 'that damned bunch of crooks.' "

Charters continued to stare; he couldn't get a handle on this guy. What the hell made him tick? "What are you trying to be, Freidman, or whatever the hell your name is? Quaint? Charming? Lovable?" He thrust his arm toward the window. "You just had a guy killed."

"Come on, Mr. Charters. All those years on the police force? It can't be the first time you've seen a man killed."

"No, but it's the first time I ever got to choose the victim.'*

"Is that what's bothering you?" Freidman sounded like a

favorite uncle explaining away a child's fear. "I wouldn't worry too much on that score. That man was clearly Hispanic, and they don't have much of a life here, as you know. They're economically depressed, constantly discriminated against, and they hate the cold—not much future any way you look at it."

"Be sure to tell that to his wife and kids." Charters reached for the phone. "I'm calling the police."

"What are you going to say to them? That you saw my chauffeur kill a man? That would be a lie. Nobody ever saw Robert with a knife in his hand, He's too slick for that. Passersby wouldn't even remember him being on the sidewalk. He has a talent for melting into crowds."

Charters replaced the receiver. He knew he had nothing; the chauffeur would have disposed of the knife by now anyway. No murder weapon, no murderer.

Freidman tried to be magnanimous in his small victory. "You're shocked, aren't you? You think that I regard that man's murder as a mere frivolity. On the contrary, I regard it as a necessity. He was killed for business reasons. And thousands of people are killed for business reasons every day. Detroit has killed legions in their unsafe automobiles because to make them really safe would cut profits. The proprietary drug industry rushes scantily tested products onto the shelves to be first in the market. The mining industry, the lead lobby, the small-arms industry, the asbestos manufacturers, they're all killers. Why, the tobacco people even confess to accidental murder in all their advertisements. So you see, I really haven't done anything out of the ordinary."

"Freidman ..." Charters waved a hand, cutting Friedman off with a curt gesture. "You wanted my attention? You've got it. And I've got yours. So hear this. You know what you are? You're a moral pervert. You're warped. Wacko. You come to me, you want some kind of job done. You weren't listening. You killed that poor son of a bitch for nothing, because I don't want your stinking job. I don't want any part of you or anything that belongs to you." As he said it, Charters picked up one of the bundles of money and lobbed it at the man across the desk. It hit Fneidman's shoulder and bounced off onto the floor.

But Freidman didn't even blink. Instead, he leaned toward Charters, like somebody helping a friend with a difficult problem. "You don't understand, Mr. Charters. There are

certain rules that apply whenever we offer a job of a specialized nature, like the one I have in mind for you. While we're free to offer a job to whoever we think most suited, the person we offer it to is not free to turn it down." He made a little altar of his hands, turning them palms up. "You're hired, Mr. Charters. That pile of green in front of you is your paycheck, already cashed. Fifty thousand dollars paid in advance. Your expenses will come out of that, of course. How much you spend is up to you, but whatever's left, you keep. I won't require an accounting."

"Horseshit, Freidman. What the hell do you mean, I'm not free to turn it down? Fuck you, I'm turning it down."

Freidman's smile shrank a little; he seemed disappointed. He said, as if he were thoughtfully reconsidering the facts of the matter, "Yes, you could do that, I suppose. But you'd incur two penalties. First, you'd lose this money here, which must represent about two years' salary to you. And second, we'd kill you."

"What?"

44 Just as easily and as unexpectedly as we killed that man in the yellow windbreaker."

There was a sudden, deadly silence between the two men. A staccato note of traffic noise rose up from the street and pierced the room. Outside in the corridor, heels clicked as somebody hurried by.

Charters got up and went over to the window. An ambulance had arrived. Considering Freidman's last remark, it was perfect timing. He watched the wink and flare of the red light for a few moments. They had great presence, ambulances. They wailed, they flashed, they shoved you aside from two blocks away, they insisted on .being noticed. Only a fool would ignore them. There were some things in life that had to be acknowledged.

Speaking to the window, Charters said in a flat voice, t4 So if I take the job, I'm for what passes around here as rich. If I don't take the job, I'm for what passes as dead."

"Basically, yes," Freidman said. "Although I must add that you also have to do your best at this job. As I explained to you we seek investments that have a good chance of success within a short period of time. You'll have a week to be successful. If you're not successful by then, the penalty will be the same as if you refused to accept the job."

Charters turned, a violent expression on his face, but Freidman

BLAST 19

continued. "You'd be committing suicide, Mr. Charters, if you say no, or if you don't give it your best shot. And no rational man commits suicide. So don't feel you're being coerced. There's no real decision to make, because there's no real choice. Is there?"

Charters pictured himself lunging for Freidman, grabbing the faultless lapels of his beautiful suit, belting him one, sending the guy rolling on the floor, messing up his perfect blond hair, the smooth silky image. But he didn't. Charters wasn't a physical person. Besides, he knew it would be a very expensive punch. He also knew that his only option was to go along with it, for the time being, and plan a counterattack later.

He moved back to his chair and sat down. "Let's have it."

"Excellent. I knew you'd see it our way." Freidman opened the attache case, took out another crisp manila envelope. "Last Friday a bomb went off in the lobby of the Hotel Amsterdam. A receptionist was killed. Perhaps you read about it. This is a letter that was received by the mayor's office a few days before the blast." Freidman passed it across. "As you can see, this person, who signs himself Alka Seltzer—a curious choice for a nom de plume if I might say so—claims the police won't be able to find the bomb, as indeed they couldn't. He says there'll be a second demonstration of his talent, and he asks to be paid one million dollars to persuade him not to plant a third bomb."

Charters didn't look at the letter, he was watching Freidman. "So?"

"So we want you to locate this man. I assume he's a man and not a woman. Find out who he is and where he lives. We'll let him collect the million dollars, then we'll relieve him of it."

"Are you a rich man, Freidman?"

"Reasonably. Why?"

"Then how come you're so stupid? You expect me, one man, to beat an entire police department to this guy? They've already had three days' start, for crissakes."

"But in the wrong direction." Freidman delivered the line as if someone were shaking his hand and congratulating him.

"What do you mean?"

"We have friends in high places, Mr. Charters, people who, for a fee, keep their eyes open for ventures that might interest us. We have one such man in the mayor's office.

That letter you have in your hand was supposed to go to the police department. Instead, he sent it to us and we gave him a different letter to give to the police. It says the same thing as this one, but it's typed on a different machine and the handwriting's completely different, too. So you hy we're

confident you can beat the police. You have the real evidence while they're working with a misleading fake."

Charters almost laughed; he'd just told Freidman he was stupid. What they'd done was damn smart. If you were going to do something like this, this was the way to do it.

"I'm still just one man."

4 'But a very good one, Mr. Charters. Your success rate against blackmailers, kidnappers, extortionists, was remarkable. I understand you would have made captain had you not . . . fallen from grace."

Freidman loved to rub it in, but Charters let it go; the guy was making a mistake. "I was good two years ago. I haven't been on the street since then. I haven't kept up any contacts. A cop can't function without contacts."

"They'll remember you." Freidman picked up a bundle of money from the desk and, in a parody of Charters' earlier action, tossed it lightly to him. "Especially if you go in armed with some of this." Freidman explored his attache case again and this time came up with a newspaper cutting. "There's one more item that may be of help. This appeared in the personal column of the Times this morning. It says, " 'Alka Seltzer. I know who you are. Call Janice.' " There's a phone number. Now that's interesting because the police have put a media lid on this. The papers and the TV only talked about a blast at the hotel. There was no mention of any demand for money, hence no mention of the name 4 Alka Seltzer.' It probably has nothing to do with the bombing, but I pass it on for what it's worth."

Freidman handed over a last item, a white card with a telephone number. "Should you need to contact me at any time before Friday, that number will reach me." He clicked the attach^ case closed, glanced at his watch, and stood. "Ten minutes to eleven. You have the rest of the day, and the rest of the week. Five days and four nights. Not a lot of time, perhaps, but I'm sure that, once you get into high gear, it will prove ample." He moved toward the door.

Charters knew him well enough by now to know that what he'd just said wouldn't be his exit line; Freidman would want

to leave with a last threat, a restatement of his superiority. Charters was right.

"One other thing," Freidman said, his hand on the door. "Not so long ago I engaged a man to help us with a little industrial skulduggery. The terms of the job were the same as the ones you're working under. I told him that he would be tailed by experts until the job was done, in case he was tempted to take the money and run. He didn't believe me." Freidman opened the door, stepped through it, held it open. "He was found dead in the parking lot at Kennedy Airport. Apparently, somebody had run him down. Good day, Mr. Charters." He closed the door very gently.

Charters put the letter, the newspaper cutting, and Freidman's card in his suit jacket pocket. Then he went over to a corner behind the filing cabinet and picked up a big red plastic bag with wire handles. The legend on the side read Kleenrite Wash. He brought the bag back, took out some wrinkled shirts and socks, swept the money off his desk into the bag, and replaced the clothes on top of the green bundles. Then he grabbed his topcoat off the rack and slipped into it, picked up the laundry bag, picked up the wad of money he'd thrown at Freidman, shoved it into his pocket, and left the office, locking the door behind him.

He went down to the street and out into a crisp fall morning. Cars honked and revved their engines, people shuffled, marched, walked, ran, ignoring each other. There was nothing to suggest that, a short time before, right there on the sidewalk, someone had met a violent death.

Charters walked down the block to Eighth Avenue, to his lunchtime bar. "Well, if it ain't Johnny-Come-Early/' the bartender said. "What are you doin' here, Lieutenant? This ain't your time."

After two years they still called him by his rank. Names stick, but titles stick even harder.

Charters took a stool about halfway down the bar. There was the usual bunch of regulars in there, pension-check drinkers mostly, but business was still slow.

The barman brought a foaming glass and set it in front of him. "There you go, poured with a whack. I ever tell you what happened to me in 1945? I got pawed by a WAC." The man guffawed as if he'd just made it up.

"Max, a vodka side, huh?"

"Sure thing, Lieutenant." The barman worked quickly.

Usually, the lieutenant was strictly an ale man, never touched the sauce at lunch. But following a seasoned bartender's instinct, he served the drink and left him alone.

Charters tipped the vodka shot into his ale, drank it down slowly. He hadn't realized how parched his throat had been. His shirt felt sticky under his arms. Wild thing, the human body, it dried up in one place and burst out in another.

The bastard!

Charters thumped the bar, and one or two of the old guys looked up. He stared straight ahead at his reflection in the mirror behind the long row of bottles. A lot of people had told him he looked like a fighter, which was funny because he'd never put on gloves in his life. He had done a lot of wrestling, but the scarred eyebrow had come from a childhood accident when he'd crashed into a glass table and almost lost an eye. The slight break at the bridge of his nose was a souvenir of a hard-hit grounder in high school. The batter had been a lanky, Swedish kid, Svenson or Nilsson, with a blank face and fair hair. About the same color as Freidman's. Shit! What did they do, the fates, the gods, or whoever the hell it was ran the world? Have a meeting every morning and decide whose life they were going to wreck that day? Did they put your name in a hat? Assign you a number and have a draw? At ten this morning he'd been wondering if the deli would let him run a tab for another week. Now he had fifty thousand dollars and five days to find one man in a city of several million.

His eye fell on a small easel card on the back of the bar, an advertisement for "The Real Stuff."

It set him wondering.

The guy who'd been knifed, was that the real stuff? Was he being faked out of his shoes?

Charters slid off the stool and hurried down the bar to the pay phone. He worried about leaving the laundry bag unattended; but what else could he do? Nobody took their laundry with them to make a phone call. Maybe it didn't matter anyway. Maybe the money wasn't the real stuff either. Maybe the whole thing was a scam. He dialed a number he was surprised he remembered so easily.

"Midtown."

44 Who am I talking to?"

"Sergeant Docksteder. Who am / talking to?"

"Dock. It's Gene Charters."

"Lieutenant! Jesus, how the hell are you?"

"Never better. Listen, you want to do me a fast favor? A guy got killed today, I think. Right outside my office building, Fortv-sixth and Broadway. You got a prelim on it?"

"Hold on."

There was a two-minute wait.

"Lieutenant? You there?''

"Go ahead."

"A DO A. Casares. First name Angel. I guess that's An-hell. Lived up in the Barrio. Worked downtown, a busboy. Wife, three kids. Somebody stuck him in the ticker. Left his wallet on him, though. They're doin' it for kicks these days. It's a fuckin' zoo out there, right?"

"Thanks, Dock. I owe you one."

"Anytime, Lieutenant."

Charters retraced his steps, picked up his glass. The murder was for real, therefore the money was for real. Therefore everything was for real. But there was one part Freidman might be skimping on: the surveillance. That anecdote about the guy killed in the parking lot at the airport—he might have just thrown that in as part of the fine print that wasn't supposed to be checked out.

Charters put down his glass and left the bar. He set off on foot toward Times Square, not realizing until he was almost there that he could now afford to take a cab. Hell, he could now afford to buy a cab. He took the shuttle to Grand Central, packed in among the other riders standing in the crowded car. He figured he had to be the only subway rider in New York carrying fifty thousand dollars in a laundry bag. Going up the stairs to the main concourse, it occurred to him that if he was being tailed, although he hadn't yet spotted anyone, they might get the wrong idea: here he was at a train depot carrying a bag that had to contain the money.

Charters checked the bag in a locker, putting his topcoat in too, to show them he was carrying nothing, then went through the concourse and down the steps to the IRT. He took the local two stops to Fifty-ninth Street, rode the escalator up, and went into Bloomingdale's.

He'd moved slowly, deliberately; even the worst tail would've had no problem staying with him this far. He strolled through the street floor, stopped to look in a display case, then jumped into an elevator that was just about to leave. He got

off at the second floor, hurried to the exit, ran down the stairs back to the street floor, and went out the Third Avenue door.

He stepped right into a cab and directed the driver to Lexington and Fiftieth, where he got out on the east side of the street. He went into an office building, walked through, and came out onto Third Avenue again. There he hid in the crowds, moving with the flow of pedestrian traffic to Fifty-third, where he darted down into the subway once more and rode under the river to Queens, staying on the train till Jackson Heights. He stopped a cab a hundred feet from the subway exit, rode that for a mile, then paid off the driver outside a lunch counter. He went in, took a booth at the back where he could watch the doors, ordered a grilled cheese, tea with lemon, and a glass of ice water, and waited.

The diner crowd was just the regular lunchtime trade: local people, plumbers, repairmen, housewives with supermarket bags. Nobody dashed in looking wildly around, no car screeched to a stop outside; perhaps Freidman had been conning him about the tail, or he'd lost them. Either way it gave Charters an option. He could take the money and run anytime he wanted to. But as Charters pondered the situation over his greasy grilled cheese, the idea of playing along with Freidman until he could beat the crook at his own game appealed to him more and more.

Charters ate slowly, thinking about Freidman and what he could do. If things worked out, and if he got a few breaks, and if he wasn't too rusty, and a few other ifs, he could maybe throw the whole thing back in Freidman's custom-tailored lap.

He stayed at the table for a while thinking it through. There was one hitch: if there really was a tail, he had probably lost them in Bloomies, but they would have seen him check the bag at Grand Central. So they'd be waiting there to pick him up again, knowing he'd have to come back for the money. But that was okay; if he'd lost them once, he could lose them twice.

He got up and went to the front counter to pay his bill. The man at the cash register took a look at his check. "Table twelve," he said. "I think I got something for you."

He handed Charters a piece of paper that had been torn from a note pad. There was a message written on it.

It said, "Trial run, Charters?"

After a moment, Charters said, "What did this guy look like?"

"What can I tell you? He was just a guy." 'Two cabs, two subwavs," Charters murmured. "Say what?"

"I was just thinking," Charters said. "I just blew nine bucks."

Charters had lived all over the city at one time or another— Columbus Avenue, Yorkville, Turtle Bay, the Village— depending on where the girl of the moment had her apartment. He was quite happy to move in with a woman if invited, as long as he liked her, she liked him, and there was a reasonable chance they'd still be glad about the arrangement the following weekend. He liked women, liked to look at them, talk to them, make love to them. He liked being with them and sharing with them. He'd tried to make it permanent with two of the women he'd lived with, but they'd been happy with things the way they were. It was ironic, because some of the other women had made it plain that they'd be delighted to make it legal, which only confirmed Charters' opinion that life was a game played with round pegs and square holes.

His social life had taken a dive since he'd left the department. He'd met a lot of women when he was a cop, but as a tax consultant the women were few and far between. He had tried the singles bars, and hated them. They reminded him of service stations: you pulled in, got a tankful of gas, had your windshield wiped, then you were back on the road again. One young secretary, rushing to leave for the office the next morning, had actually said, "What did you say your name was again?" after she'd been moaning it half the night.

So Charters was currently living on his own, and had been for some time. He was subletting a painter's studio in the Flower Market district, a curious section of lower midtown where the streets weren't littered with fruit rinds and beer cans, but with broken stems and crushed blossoms. It made for a nice change. The studio was on the first floor of a tenement building that was still in pretty good shape; the landlord looked after his investment, employed a live-in manager/super, and made sure his tenants weren't the type who might set the place on fire. It was something that was getting to be a rarity: a good, quiet, well-maintained building.

Charters climbed the stoop and let himself into the apartment. The main room was huge. Large, unframed canvases lined the walls, bright paint splashed onto them in delirious abandon.

The painter was in Europe to study for three months, although in Charters' opinion that wasn't going to be long enough to do him much good. He strode past the garish canvases into the second room, the living section, which was only slightly smaller than the studio, with the same sixteen-foot ceiling. He stopped dead. In the kitchen el, to his right, a bottle clinked softly. He turned, raised his foot, then stamped it down hard. 44 Get outa there, You Rat."

The soft clink sounded a second time; then there was silence.

Charters walked into the kitchen and checked the baseboard near the bottles under the sink. The rat had gnawed through the Brillo pads he'd stuffed into the hole. Again. The cheese in the trap had been neatly eaten around the edges. Again. Charters had been engaged in a running battle with the rat ever since he'd moved in. Certainly the rat didn't come because the place was dirty; because it was clean. Charters knew why it came; it came for the cheese in the trap he set every morning. It wouldn't have been around in the first place but for the fact that the flower stores below used an awful lot of paper, and when you have paper, you have rats. Except Charters didn't have rats, he only had a rat—he was certain there was only one, and it had chosen the studio to hang out in. It had been around for so long he'd been tempted to name it—something cute, like Oscar or Hubert—but he didn't want to make a pet of it, so he simply called it You Rat, went on setting the trap, and waited for it to get lazy one day.

He went into the tiny bathroom and put the laundry bag, which he'd retrieved from Grand Central, in its usual place near the metal shower stall. Then he moved back to the kitchen, took his radio out of a top cupboard, hidden up there in case somebody broke in, and found some Debussy on NCN. He liked the French composers, he assumed because of his Gallic heritage. He put the kettle on, removed his jacket, and loosened his tie, then went into the big room and picked up the darts. It was a terrific room for darts, but then it would've been okay for basketball, too. The dart board was set up against an end wall that was free of paintings. Charters liked to stand forty feet away and toss the darts with a pitcher's action. He couldn't get much accuracy, but the sound was extremely satisfying: thunk! He'd found that darts was a perfect catalyst for thinking; with his body occupied in

mild physical activity that required no mental effort, his brain was free to wrestle with whatever problem he had.

And boy, did he have one now.

He threw the darts till the water boiled, went in, made some instant coffee, then sat down with the mug on the sofa bed. In front of him was a long coffee table that had been made from a handsome antique walnut door. There were some nice pieces in the studio.

Charters pulled a note pad toward him and began to make a priority list. He looked at what he'd written, sipped his coffee, and looked at it some more as he tried to think what else would help him track down this Alka Seltzer. He was going to have to find him, no question about it. Because it was now apparent that the only way out of this was to get Freidman.

And to get Freidman he had to first get the bomber.

Nelson Fitzroy shook his head. It was a shame he had to kill people.

That part troubled him. How many deaths were there going to be? Two? Three? Four? More? A bomb was indiscriminate, but death waited for everybody, didn't it? Man's inevitable end. The people who'd be killed would just be arriving at that end a little earlier.

That was the way to look at it. After all, he was no stranger to death. He saw plenty of it. It wasn't so bad. He could never understand why people feared something that was as natural as a sunrise. Or, more appropriately, a sunset. It was old age that was to be feared—the loneliness, the insecurity, the creeping, debilitating diseases. In one way he'd actually be doing those people a favor. Besides, there were worse things than dying. Living, for example. Living the kind of life he was, perhaps for the rest of his days, a puppet on a string pulled by dirty, slimy fingers.

For the hundredth time Fitzroy wondered how he could have let it happen to him. He was supposed to be smart—he was smart—always in the top 2 percent of any class he'd ever been in, yet he'd still made the kind of classic mistake you read about in the tabloids.

Had it been greed?

No. The desire to be rich wasn't greed, not in the United States, the land of opportunity. It was a noble end in itself; it was the national ideal. The acquisition of wealth had a moral stamp of approval, and that's all he'd been trying to do, make a lot of money.

But he'd failed.

Oh, how he'd failed.

Even as he struggled to wipe it from his mind the memory

of where he'd begun to go wrong flooded back over him. Fitzroy had received an excited call from a friend, just back from Washington, who had come into confidential, inside information that would make them both rich. His friend had been told that, due to a big interdepartmental government skirmish, Environment was making a big fuss about unacceptable pollution levels, and had buffaloed Transport into insisting that Detroit switch immediately to an improved catalytic converter. The new converter would use twice the amount of platinum that the old one did—the metal was going to skyrocket. Fitzroy had moved fast. He called a commodity broker, laid all his money on the line, and taken a position in platinum, buying on a 20-percent margin. And he waited for his investment to pay off. But not a word was heard about any new converter. And then, gold took a tumble and dragged all the metals, including platinum, down with it.

There'd been no money left to cover his position, and it had to be covered. Grasping at straws, Fitzroy believed his broker when he said the situation could be turned around. It would mean another infusion of money, but he was in for a bundle already, and he had to protect that.

Fitzroy knew there was only one person who would let you have a large amount of money instantly, and that was a loan shark. But he'd never had any dealings with anybody like that, didn't know how to contact such a man. So, discreetly, he'd asked around.

The name Fitzroy came up with was John Stegner.

The man had turned out to be a surprise: polite, accommodating, and very friendly. He'd listened sympathetically, asked some personal questions, and two hours later, had handed him a brown paper bag containing one hundred thousand dollars. The interest was absurd, 9 percent per month, but it didn't matter because the price of gold was sure to bounce back and would bring platinum with it.

It didn't happen.

When the smoke had cleared, he was off the hook with his broker, but well and truly stuck with the loan sharks.

He'd gone back to see Stegner and explained his rotten luck and his impossible financial situation. While he earned an excellent salary, the very most he could afford each month would be three thousand dollars, and he was supposed to pay twice as much again just to service the loan. Fitzroy was hoping Stegner would agree to renegotiating the loan terms.

Stegner was a mid-sized man with straight, gingery hair, a bloated freckled face, freckled hands, and teeth that hadn't had the advantages of fluoride as a child. He'd sucked at his bad teeth, shaken his head, and said that he wasn't empowered to make such an arrangement, so Stegner took Fitzroy to talk to his boss.

They'd gone over to Forest Hills—coincidentally, not far from where Fitzroy worked—and into a restaurant on Queens Boulevard, to a private table in a quiet corner. The snowy-white tablecloth was laid with heavy flatware and old-fashioned cut crystal; there was a single rose in a fluted glass vase. Seated at the table, alone, was a thin, silver-haired man who looked to be about sixty. He wore brown pants and a brown long-sleeved shirt with the top button fastened. He ate his pasta with great care, chewing thoughtfully, as if he expected to crunch against something hard. Between bites he took tiny sips of red wine from a glass that was immediately and expertly topped off by an elderly waiter.

Feeling very nervous, now, Fitzroy glanced toward two young men at the bar. They were clearly with the solitary diner. In their dark suits, with their backs to the bar, seated stolidly on stools, they were young Mussoliois. Big and fat, with dark olive-skin faces and glossy black hair slicked back, they watched the table, watched the restaurant, their eyes never still.

The boss had listened to Stegner's quiet summation of the situation, as he continued his methodical eating. Then he explained the way it was going to be. They'd take payment from Fitzroy in services instead of in cash. It was lucky Fitzroy was in the profession he was; it was lucky for him he wasn't a plumber or a teacher or a shoe clerk. But someone in his profession they could always use.

Nelson Fitzroy had heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. A few midnight visits, one or two other clandestine chores, and his debt would be canceled. He could handle that.

How incredibly wrong he'd been.

The loan shark and his organization let him put in his regular day—they were still taking three thousand dollars a month from him—but after that he was theirs. They owned him. They made him do dreadful things, hideous things. They'd arrive at his apartment at all hours, drag him out of bed, drive him somewhere, force him to work. Favors for their friends and friends of friends.

Some of the things they'd wanted done had made Fitzroy

sick to his stomach, but he'd had to obey. His life was on the line. They prostituted his skill, used his ability in ways that left him gasping. And when things got tight, they'd even used him as a drudge, a messenger boy. They'd come to his door, give him a package, an airline ticket, and a schedule. Once he'd had to deliver a small brown paper parcel to a man in Bogota, pick up another package from him, and deliver that to a man in Sao Paulo. And then do the whole thing all over again, in reverse. He hadn't been told what he'd been carrying, but he knew beyond a doubt that, if he'd been caught, he would have been left to rot in a South American jail.

But there came a day when he couldn't take it anymore. One night when they'd phoned him at two in the morning, for the fourth time in five days, Fitzroy had revolted. He'd yelled at them, told them that enough was enough, that he'd discharged his debt, and that he was no longer available. After slamming the phone down in its cradle, Fitzroy, still shaking with anger and fear and relief, believed his ordeal finished. An hour later the door had burst open and the two fat men, the young Mussolinis, had come storming in dragging with them—he couldn't believe it—a pig. A huge hog. In Manhattan!

One of the thugs also held a filthy towel and a pair of tailor's scissors, but before Fitzroy could realize what was happening, they'd grabbed him. Muttering obscenities more graphic than Fitzroy had ever heard, they jerked his head back and to the side. The scissors chunked, he had felt an incredible flash of pain, and his right ear had dropped into the towel.

In agony, woozy with shock and fright, he'd watched, horrified, as one of them had tossed the dripping ear onto the floor. And the pig . . . the pig had grunted and snuffled it up, chomped it down, and licked at the broadloom.

Later, just back from the hospital, his head swathed in bandages, and his body full of painkillers, the phone had rung and a voice had said, "We gotta come again we'll bring a bigger pair of scissors. Remember, a hog'll eat anything."

He'd gone to a good surgeon, a top man who'd done the best job he could, but flesh was flesh and plastic was plastic. So he'd let his hair grow long, straight to his jawbone. He sprayed it heavily at the sides to keep it in place.

When he'd paid another visit to the restaurant in Forest Hills, Stegner had frowned, tut-tutted, and acted as if the

incident with the pig was news to him. Again the silver-haired man was being served lunch; he was like an eighteenth-century king who'd graciously consented to allow some of his subjects to have the pleasure of watching him at table.

44 You come to apologize. This is good."

Fitzroy couldn't believe what he was hearing. They'd cut off his ear and fed it to a pig right in his very own apartment, and this crazy old man thought he was owed an apology because, obliquely, he'd been defied.

He'd told the man that he'd decided to pay off his debt— he'd find the money somehow. But the old man had said that his rudeness and lack of respect had raised the price and that now his obligation could be discharged only upon receipt of one million dollars.

He'd been floored, flabbergasted. But later he'd realized that coming up with a million wouldn't really be that much harder than finding a hundred thousand. Because he was going to have to steal it, whatever the amount.

A bank robbery with a gun in his hand was out of the question, as was anything blatant or heavy-handed. He was not a violent man. But he was desperate. He decided he'd have to acquire the money by dint of bright ideas and careful planning, perhaps through the use of his own particular skills. The thought had appealed to him. Why not take advantage of his expertise, his vocation, his scientific training, his nimble fingers?

And an idea began to gel. It was outrageous, terribly flamboyant, but it was also fresh, clever, and therefore, had every chance of success. He'd need certain materials, but then everything was for sale, and Stegner could doubtlessly set him up with the right connections. He'd also need a name, something to call himself in his letters to the city. He could be doubly smart there; he could choose a name that would give the police a little clue. That way, if things didn't work out and he was caught—and he had to recognize that possibility, as remote as it was—his defense could claim that he'd made it easy for the police to capture him, which would surely count in his favor.

But forget negative thoughts; the main thing was that his scheme had an excellent chance of working, and that would mean an end to his nightmare existence. It would mean freedom, his own life to live again. And everybody had a right to that.

For the first time in many many months Fitzroy felt alive, excited, keyed up. His scheme was foolproof. It was going to work.

But it was a shame he had to kill people.

That part troubled him.

On the assumption that a thief wouldn't bother looking in a dirty laundry bag, Charters had left the money in the bathroom.

He wasn't paranoid about being ripped off, he was just very much aware that burglary was a thriving, twenty-four-hour industry in New York, so one had to expect to be robbed and prepare some kind of defense. To further protect the cash, he'd used a diversionary tactic; he'd left his Roberts FM radio—an English import that had cost him a week's salary—in plain sight in the kitchen. A smart thief would grab it and get out fast.

He'd done one other thing before leaving the studio. He had made a phone call to a man he'd been on good terms with in the department, a man named Pitkin. It pleased Charters that he'd got the same pleasant reception that he'd gotten from Docksteder, the desk sergeant at Midtown, when he'd made the earlier call. Pitkin sounded genuinely glad to hear from him, asked what he'd been doing, said it was no trouble to do a favor for an old pal, and had checked the phone number in the Times ad—the one Charters had gotten from Freidman—against police records. The number turned out to belong to a Mrs. Janice Stanley. There was a home address and a business address. But hers was only the fourth name on Charters' list, and he was taking it from the top. Janice Stanley would have to wait.

The first place he went to was downtown, close to where Seventh Avenue became Varick Street, an area that knew it could be better than it was but wasn't trying too hard to prove it. Charters knew most of Manhattan very well, but he knew Varick Street very, very well, because it was the only street in the city on which he'd been shot.

He'd been a patrolman for eight months and six days when he'd thought he'd seen a man—it'd been a dim winter's day around five in the afternoon—trying to break open a parking meter. When he'd got closer, he'd realized that the guy was only trying to get his coin to drop, but by then it was too late. The man had turned, seen the uniform, and without a moment's hesitation, pulled a gun and fired, hitting Charters in the right shoulder an eighth of an inch away from his lung. Just who he was or what he was they never found out. The man had jumped into his car and driven off, but Charters had never forgotten the meeting, or the venue.

Charters approached a doorway. On one side of the door, most of the window was taken up by a large printed sign that advertised Jiff-E-Press. There was a list of all the things the business specialized in, although, Charters noted, it made no mention of the main specialty of the house. The other window had several sheets of contact prints stuck to the inside of the glass and, underneath on a felt-covered stand, portraits of smiling people set in cardboard easel frames. The legend on this window read, Quick Snap. Yep, Charters thought, the proprietor always did offer fast service.

He walked into the printing shop, which was nothing more than a rickety counter fronting a long narrow room and several machines. At the back of the room, what looked like a metal deck chair folding and unfolding was an old-fashioned broadsheet printer that hissed and slapped and filled the place with a sweet, oily smell. Behind the counter a good-looking girl in tight T-shirt and jeans was feeding pages into a copier. She glanced up, checked him over, and pouted slightly, seeming annoyed that Charters was looking at her.

4 'You work here, miss?"

She paused reluctantly.^ "You want copies, ten cents you do 'em, twelve cents we do 'em."

"How much to talk to the boss?"

She gave him a sour smile and walked away, twitching her hips. Charters had never been able to stand the type; they resented you thinking about sex in their presence, yet they waved it under your nose as if to say, "You want it, don't you? Well, you can't have it."

With some amusement, Charters thought about how surprised she would be if she only knew how unappealing he found her.

A man came toward him holding a proof in an ink-stained

hand. He was short and stubby with bristling gray hair and a face that looked as though it had frowned a lot over the past fifty years. The tufty eyebrows rose when he saw who it was waiting for him.

"Lieutenant! For God's sake."

"Hello there, Diz."

The printer's name was Dean, and in the mid-thirties, like a lot of kids with that name, people had begun to call him Dizzy, after the famous ballplayer.

"How have you been?"

"Fine. You're looking well." The words were automatic with the printer, but behind his benign smile he was thinking furiously. When he finally spoke again, his words were casual. "I guess you ain't here about a flier for the church bazaar."

"Can we talk?" Charters asked.

Dizzy motioned him down the length of the room. As Charters passed the girl, her glance said, "Don't expect any favors just because you're a friend of the boss."

The printer led the way into a small office at the rear whose walls were festooned with first-off copies of brochures, letterheads, two-sheet posters. The desk was a jumble of type boxes, chase forms, ink cans, and rollers. Charters had always liked printing shops, liked the way that, out of all the mess, you got a product with perfect edges and dead accurate dimensions—order brought out of chaos. As a policeman he'd been employed to do very much the same thing, although the results were never as neat and tidy.

The printer took a swivel chair and pointed Charters to a captain's chair that had a seat patched with a strip of tin.

"You been reinstated?"

Charters sat down. "Nope. I'm here as a customer."

"Stationery? Business cards? I'll give you a good price."

"I need an ID and a passport."

"No problem. We'll go next door, you watch the dickie bird, and pick up the shots on your way out."

"Not just the shots, Diz. The whole shebang."

"Lieutenant, I print calendars for grocers. I take Polaroids for people who want to cash checks. I don't compete with the government."

Charters sighed as if he were weary. "What is this, Diz, a time warp? A couple of years back I was sitting in this same wobbly chair listening to the same kind of horse manure.

Only then it wasn't grocers 1 calendars you were printing, it was jokes to go inside fortune cookies."

"I still do some of those now and then."

"What else do you still do now and then?"

The printer tilted his chair back and found room for his foot on his already crowded desk. "Look, Lieutenant—"

"Come on, Diz. You've printed more passports than they see at JFK in a year. You know it, and I know it."

Dizzy's gaze was piercing. "If that's true, how come you never arrested me?"

"Because I could never find a customer who was willing to tip you in. You always chose your clients with care, didn't you, Diz?"

"That's the name of the game in any business. A guy comes in, wants a big run on a three-fold brochure, if he don't look reliable I say, 'Sorry, too busy.' "

Charters leaned forward and picked up a blueprint of an engraving. It showed a man with a straw skimmer on his head and the words "Big Bargains" issuing from his mouth. "You think I'm unreliable, Diz?"

"I think you're trying for a little entrapment, maybe. You walk in asking for a passport and an ID, gotta figure you're back on the force."

Charters reached into his topcoat for the bundle of money and tossed it to the other man. "That's five thousand real American dollars. Take five hundred and give me the rest back."

The printer riffled the wad, examined it closely, but made no move to cut into it.

Charters said, "Do you think the department would hand a cop that kind of money just to make a collar? They'd never see it again, right?"

"You must be doing okay," the printer said. "You working free-lance?"

"Something like that."

"Five grand. Nice client."

"Tough client. If I don't come through for him, it might be healthier for me if I'm in Brazil when he finds out."

"Okay, so you want a passport. Why the ID?"

"Because I'm going to be asking people questions and I no longer have a shield, remember?"

The printer looked at Charters for an extended moment,

then nodded quickly. "Okay, but it'll cost you seven hundred, not five."

Charters shook his head. "That's too much.*'

"You want a passport or you want a boxtop?"

Charters knew it had been a mistake to flash the roll of bills, although it had done the trick and convinced the guy. "Okay. But for that kind of money I'll need the ID tomorrow morning. I can give you a week for the passport. Make it six days."

"Deal," the printer said. He counted out seven bills, fanned them to show Charters what he had taken, and then tossed him back the rest of the bundle.

Charters said, "Dizzy, if I was back on the force I'd forget about forgery and go after you for larceny."

The printer pushed back his chair. "Let's get started." He led the way through a door that opened into the photographic studio, a room with the same dimensions as the printing shop. It was a strange-looking place; part of it must have been somebody's kitchen once upon a time. Charters could see the outlines where wall cupboards had been and a gas stove. The sink was still in place, but now there was a makeshift dressing table to one side of it, and above it, a drilled mirror was screwed into the wall. At the back of the room was the studio proper: a camera mounted on a tripod, three hooded floor lights, raised and locked off, an old piano bench, and a white paper background. There was also a clothes rack off to one side with an assortment of garments on wire hangers.

Dean sat Charters down in front of the sink, turned on the faucet, and leaned him forward.

Charters resisted. "What are you, the demon barber of Varick Street?"

"We gotta make you different, Lieutenant. An ID, a passport, it's better they look a little used. So the shot's gotta look like you used to look a few years back."

"This is the way I looked a few years back."

"I know," the printer said. He soaked Charters' hair and rubbed in some shampoo. "Ever since I know you you had a short back and sides. You never let it grow out like everybody else. How come?"

"I'm expecting a bubble-gum attack."

"Always a kidder, too. But then you were one of the few cops with a sense of humor." Dean dried Charters' hair with a ragged towel, took out a ratty-looking brush, and worked

his hair into a different shape. "Now," he said, "you need something you used to wear but gave up. Either glasses or a mustache. If it's glasses, you don't wear 'em no more, you wear contact lenses. If it's a mustache, you shaved it off." He opened a large cigar box and considered the contents. "You want a Clark Gable, a Groucho, a Burt Reynolds, or a William Powell?"

"I'd forgotten you were a movie fan," Charters said.

The printer chose a mustache and pressed its sticky backing above Charters' lip. "Let's try a George Brent."

Charters peered at the effect in the mirror. "Even George Brent would've shaved it off."

Dean grunted agreement, retrieved the mustache, and dug into a box of eyeglasses. He placed a pair on Charters' nose. "Not bad. Okay, now the clothes. You can't show somebody a two- or three-year-old ID wearing the same things you're wearing in the ID."

Charters surrendered his jacket and tie. Dean said, "Jesus, Lieutenant, you ain't a cop no more, why do you still dress like one?"

"Comfort." Charters said. "I'm used to a suit and tie. I wore a suit and tie for twelve years."

Dean turned the jacket in his fingers, frowning at it. "I think you wore the same one for twelve years."

"It's clean and it's pressed, isn't it?"

"Sure, but it's way out of style."

"Dizzy, fashion moves in a circle. I'm not behind everyone else, I'm ahead of them."

"One way of looking at it. Here, try this on."

Charters slipped into the blue blazer Dean had chosen. His broad sloping shoulders were too big for it, and the sleeves were tight on his muscular arms, but Dean said it wouldn't matter. He handed over a striped tie, then busied himself with his camera, moved Charters to the bench.

Dean snapped the picture. He asked Charters what kind of firm he wanted on the ID, and Charters told him to pick any medium-sized insurance company.

"You want a fake name on the ID and on the passport, right?"

"Right?"

"What name do you want?"

"I hadn't thought about it. Any suggestions?"

"Keep it simple. Tom, Dick, Harry, John . . ."

4 'John. Okay. Last name?"

The printer studied him. After a moment he said, "Garfield."

"John Garfield. Back to the movies again. Don't you have any other names?"

"Sure. You want to call yourself Esther Williams?"

Charters surrendered. "Okay, John Garfield." He got back into his own clothes and they returned to the office next door. Charters said he'd be back the next day for the ID.

The printer made a note of it. "You're down, Mr. Charters. Incidentally, speaking of names, I never knew your first name."

"Gene, as in Kelly."

"Now there was a star."

Walking out, Charters passed the girl, who was back at the copying machine, where she was noisily eating an apple. She lifted her eyes to his new hairdo and gave a kind of sullen snort. "Better," she said.

"I was hoping you'd notice," Charters answered.

Once out on the sidewalk, he used his fingers to comb his hair back to something like its usual style and started looking for a cab. Waiting on the corner he began to wonder why, out of all the names he could have chosen, the printer had come up with John Garfield. He assumed the name had just popped into his head, being a movie fan the way he was. He tried to recall what the actor had been noted for, but when he remembered, it didn't exactly do wonders for his confidence.

Garfield had been famous for always playing the same kind of part: the hero who lost out in the end.

For the first month or two, after he'd been let go, Charters had continued to hang out with his friends in the department, determined not to be embarrassed about showing his face. He'd turned up regularly at Shanon's, the bar they always went to when they came off duty. It was traditional to sit around for a while shooting the breeze, bitching about assignments, superiors, and life on the streets. And his ex-brothers had accepted him; they'd understood. Most of them were only an ace away from doing something like he'd done themselves. But the new arrangement hadn't worked out; he couldn't contribute to the anecdotes now—who'd said what to whom in the squad room, what had happened in court that day, who was close to a collar, who was miles away. Every-

one else had the job in common, which made him an outsider. So he'd drifted away.

Charters no longer saw the street people, either—no reason to. He'd built up a surprisingly large number of contacts in his twelve years with the department; not a day had gone by when he didn't chat with several of them, people who always knew what was going down, which made a detective's job a lot easier. Waiters, barmen, cabbies, hookers, bondsmen, not to mention the crooks he let alone because of the good information they supplied—scammers, runners, store boosters, phone stuffers, race track and subway dips—the small-time operators who were plugged into people who were plugged into other people who operated big. He wouldn't have invited a single one of them into his home, but they'd been good value for a drink, the majority of them, with a good line of patter, and he missed the daily contact.

Cops and robbers. No longer in touch with either group, Charters was in touch with nobody. But so far, on his first investigation in two years, he couldn't complain about the reception he'd been getting. He just had to keep on getting it.

The cab let him off at Abingdon Square. It was familiar territory; Charters had once lived on Bank Street. All of the Village was familiar to him. He'd often won money with his knowledge of the crazy geography of the place, sitting in Shanon's betting that you could stand on the corner of West Tenth and West Fourth at the same time, and that if you walked up Washington from West Twelfth to Little West Twelfth, you'd still have to pass Jane, Horatio and Gansevoort streets. Charters' next stop was up a flight of stairs, above a handcrafts store. Takama Graphics was an extreme contrast to the office he'd just come from: a polished parquet floor, chrome-and-leather chairs, track lights spotting metal-framed art posters, everything at right angles, perfect, pristine. Front and center was a large white draftman's board surrounded by a series of small red plastic tables. Arranged on the tables, in dead-even rows, were paints and brushes, colored inks, crayons, pens, nibs, pencils, and cans of fixative. The man seated at the board, engrossed in his work, was a slim, thirty-year-old Japanese. With lustrous black hair that hung down to the shoulders of a white embroidered shirt, and black cotton pants that stopped an inch above immaculate white running shoes which had never known the harsh tread of a sidewalk, the Oriental man was a study in chiaroscuro.

44 I'd say that's Kenny Takama," Charters said.

The man looked up, squinted, then pantomimed a heart attack.

44 As I live and breathe, it's Lieutenant Charters." He got off his stool, came over, and shook Charters' hand.

44 How you doing, Kenny?" Charters asked.

Takama gestured around him. 44 How does it look?"

4 'Like you went shoplifting at Conran's on your lunch hour.''

Takama laughed. He had a sunny disposition, pleasant and outgoing. 44 Hey, that's right. You haven't seen the new place, have you?"

They'd arrived at a sore spot a little sooner than Charters had expected. The tiny smile he gave Takama had a touch of genuine sympathy. "You were awfully unlucky, Kenny. I bust you and you get sent to the Lake. Four weeks later I get the old bounceroo."

44 Yeah, I heard about that. Listen, don't give it a thought. Hell, you did me a favor."

"You're not mad at me?"

44 Hell, no. I met a guy up there who really knew bank notes. I mean really. When I went in I thought I was an expert. Now I'm an expert."

Charters wagged his head. "Yeah. Dannemora High they call it. You get by okay otherwise?"

44 Oh, sure. The first day I'm there this huge black guy comes up. I don't know how big he was, seven or eight feet, somewhere in there. He says he'd like a little Oriental nooky, wanted to see if my ass ran sideways. So I made a deal with him. I said I'd pay him five bucks for every day he kept guys away from me, himself included. Cost me the best part of four grand, but I came out of there ninety-nine and nine-tenths pure."

4 'That's ten percent purer than most guys go in," Charters said. He nodded at the drawing board. 44 So what are you doing now?"

Takama invited him to take a look. It was beautiful work: an invitation, written in florid calligraphic script on heavy vellum paper. "It's for this rich chick. Company chairman's wife. Bags of money. I'm doing two hundred for her."

44 And what are you doing for yourself?"

Takama cocked his head at him. "I don't want to have to spend another four grand, Lieutenant."

"Honest Injun, Kenny, I'm not a lieutenant anymore. They don't take you back once you've tried to screw 'em."

Takama believed him, but there was no harm in playing it safe. "Let me tell you what a friend of mine's doing, him and a couple of buddies. They're not doing American money anymore, they're doing foreign. Mexican pesos."

"Why pesos? Even the Mexicans don't want them."

"That's the point. The local feds down there are looking for funny dollars, not funny pesos, so the heat never goes on. It's a sweet operation. This group has a guy who can get his hands on the paper, and it's shipped up here looking like magazines. They got erasable type now."

"How the hell can you erase type?"

"Use a special kind of ink. Anyway, when the paper arrives, the type's erased, they engrave, print and guillotine here, and sell the money to people in Texas who drive it across the border. Sweet, huh?"

"Sure, but pesos . . . Why doesn't your friend do German marks, or Swiss francs?"

"The paper's too hard to get. There's a bank-note company in London that prints money for a couple of European countries, but, boy, the security. Even the scrap paper has to be accounted for. End of the day all the torn pieces are Scotch-taped together so they can see that every scrap that should be there is there. So," Takama said, "that's what my friend's doing. Now what are you doing?"

"Working," Charters answered. He handed over a one-hundred-dollar bill. "My business card."

Takama accepted it. "A fine old firm. What can I do for you?"

"Lend me a pair of scissors." Charters took the pair that was given him, got out the letter Freidman had left with him, and snipped off the signature at the bottom. He passed the signature to Takama. "I'm looking for a guy. What can you tell me about a man who writes like that?"

"Alka Seltzer. Well, for starters, I'd say he's been watching too much television."

"Apart from that."

Takama swung a hinged lamp over the piece of paper and looked at it more closely. He said, "Whoever wrote this doesn't run a steam shovel all week. It's an elegant, educated hand. You'll notice he chose a fine point, too. Another indicator."

"Professional man?"

"I'd say so. A dentist, an architect, a lawyer maybe."

"Could you run me up some sample signatures? Use three or four names with the initials A.S. God knows why he called himself Alka Seltzer, but it could be his name has the same initials."

Takama was counting. "Two vowels and six consonants. I could try to give you a name that uses the same letters if you like."

"Sure. Do that as well. I'll be back in the morning." Charters turned to leave, but the other man stopped him.

"Lieutenant. ... it's not an exact science, graphology. The neatest handwriting I've ever seen belongs to a stevedore with hands like a gorilla, so I'm only guessing about this

guy."

"Par for the course, Kenny." Charters started for the door again. "When you don't know who you're looking for you're guessing all the way."

"The trouble with being a locksmith," as Walter Hutchinson would tell his Chelsea Square drinking buddies every other day around six p.m. in the bar they'd nicknamed The Spot, "is that it's all over once you do time. Now if I'd been something else, like a dry cleaner, say, I wouldn't have had a problem. I would've done my time, come out, and gone right back to scorching lapels and stapling tickets to the front of your best tie. But I'm a locksmith, and just 'cause I been in the joint, they revoke my license. Is that fair? I mean, they let you out 'cause you been rehabilitated, that's the aim of a prison, to rehabilitate the criminal so he's fit to rejoin society. They tell you that. Okay, so you done your sentence, you were a good boy, didn't pin any dead buzzards on the warden's door, nothing like that. You behaved yourself and made parole. They set you free and call it quits, right? Wrong! Not if you're a locky. They figure you're gonna get a cab straight from the slammer to the nearest Chase Manhattan, hang up your coat, and start in on the vault. A baker goes back to his bread, a waiter goes back to his tables, but a locky can't go back to his locks. Now that's discrimination. Am I right?"

Charters hadn't known Walter Hutchinson, or Hutch, as everybody called him, when he'd been a locksmith, although he knew that the reason why Hutch was no longer a locky had to do with a combination of poor judgment and bad luck.

Hutch's poor judgment had been throwing in with a group of auto mechanics who offered a service their customers didn't know about. When somebody delivered a car to the garage in the morning, to be picked up on the way home that evening, he'd often leave the front door key on the key ring in the ignition. At some point in the day a mechanic would swing by Hutch's shop, and the locksmith, in return for a share in the proceeds of the upcoming burglary, would supply the mechanic with a copy of the customer's front-door key.

One day Hutch had allowed himself to be talked into going on an actual job; that's where the bad luck had come in. A, the apartment they entered wasn't empty. B, it was occupied by the assistant deputy commissioner's mother, who screamed all through the robbery. And C, the police pinned three of the other jobs on Hutch and his confederate, and made the charges stick.

Out of jail and rehabilitated, but barred from his former trade, Hutch had gone into something that also required precision and care: he became a typewriter repairman. Then, a few years later, he bought his own typewriter store, which made Hutch a happy man. That fact didn't surprise one of Charters' cohorts, who had a theory that a lot of guys turned to crime in an effort to become their own bosses. "They're all junior capitalists at heart," he'd say. "Okay, they steal money. What do they do with it? Go to Las Vegas? Buy a yacht? Blow it on broads? They do not. Seven out of ten set themselves up in business. I tell you, the largest percentage of crime in this country is only a reflection of the American desire to make good. To be seen as a success."

Whether or not the theory was correct, it was certainly true that Hutch was a success. He'd been an indifferent locksmith, but had become a master typewriter mechanic and an expert on typewriters in general. Charters had used him many times, but like Dizzy Dean and Kenny Takama, he hadn't seen him for two years. So he was pleased that he got the same kind of reception the other two had given him: surprise, followed by a genuine welcome and inquiry into his present circumstances. All three men had had a great deal of exposure to policemen. They knew that cops came in all shapes and sizes, and that when one of them treated you with a little humor and maybe even a little tolerance, the way Charters always had, then you counted yourself lucky.

"You still see the guys from the precinct?" Hutch asked.

A lot of people thought that if Walter Hutchinson had grown a beard, he would have been a dead ringer for Santa Claus. He was fifty-two, short, way overweight, and had a bulbous nose and scraggly white hair.

"I run into them now and then," Charters told him.

'Tell you why I ask, Jack Jacobi was in to see me this morning, your old sidekick."

Charters had expected it; he'd known that, sooner or later, he was bound to cross paths with the official investigation, and that it was most likely to happen in Walter Hutchinson's typewriter store. There was a good chance it could occur elsewhere, too, and if he suddenly ran right into it, he'd have an awful lot of explaining to do.

4 'How is Jack these days?" Charters asked. "Still trying to give up the weed?"

"Naturally. He's got yet another new system. He rolls his own but doesn't smoke it. He looks like a man weaving a Marlboro on a hand loom." Hutchinson knew that Charters hadn't dropped in for old times' sake, and he could see that he had something on his mind. "You got something for me, Lieutenant?"

"Two things. One, a letter. And two, a one-hundred-dollar bill to forget I'm giving you the letter."

"What will you give me to forget the hundred-dollar bill?"

"How about a punch in the eye?"

"Say no more." Hutchinson pocketed the money and opened the letter Charters handed him. "Hey. This is the same letter Jacobi brought me."

"But typed on a different machine, correct?" Charters asked.

"Correct."

So there it was. If Charters had any doubts that Freidman had been snowing him about faking the real letter, he didn't have any now.

"All I can tell you, Hutch, is that there are two groups who want to talk to this bomber. Jacobi represents one of them, and I represent the other."

"But two different machines, Lieutenant. Two different signatures, too. So one letter's for real and the other one ain't."

"Are you curious as to which is which?"

"Yeah."

Charters handed him another hundred dollars. "Are you Still curious?"

"No."

"Good. Now tell me about the machine."

The typewriter man squinted at the letter, holding it close to his pudgy face. "Olympia. The Monica model. It's a mid-size manual. Used a light-ink nylon ribbon. Got a funny E and a damaged O. That's all I can tell you till I blow it up."

"That's all, huh?" Charters said facetiously. He'd never failed to be impressed by Hutchinson's knowledge and wasn't at all surprised that Jacobi had come to him, too. Hutch was unique. But he doubted that Jacobi would go to Kenny Takama about the signature. As good as he was, Kenny was only one of many handwriting experts, and the department would prefer to deal with somebody who was a little more respectable.

Hutchinson waddled across the store with Charters in tow. The layout of the place couldn't have been simpler: one room in which dozens of new and used machines on small display stands were arranged, and a work area at the rear where Hutch practiced his craft. There, the innards of a stripped-down machine lay on a bench, surrounded by tiny spanners and picks and miniature screwdrivers. Hutchinson went up to an optical enlarger that was mounted on a table. He removed its cover, switched on the bulb, and flattened Charters' letter on the glass plate. As he adjusted a hand knob, the typewritten lines swam up toward them.

"There, you see that?" he said. "You see the E, the way it tails off? It's been slightly flattened. And the O key's striking the type guide wrong. You can see how the face has been damaged, that little break in the O there, on the left-hand side? And here, too. Hey, this machine's got a real strong signature—see how the M is leaning? I'd say that's a bad repair job."

Charters had learned quite a bit about typewriters over the years—most of it taught to him by Hutchinson—and he knew that even a brand-new machine sometimes had one or two keys out of alignment. "Why do you figure a repair?"

"Because that E got flattened through use, you can bet on that. So either this guy does a hell of a lot of typing—in which case he'd probably have an electric, not a manual—or else the machine is old. So let's say it's old. So what we got here is an old Olympia, and the way the old Olympias were

designed they hit harder than Larry Holmes. They were always throwing off type slugs. I think this M slug was thrown off, and I think when the repairman replaced it, he should 've used a type jig and didn't."

"Sloppy work, huh?"

"I could've used an egg-salad sandwich and done a better job. He probably fitted it without a shim."

"A shim?"

"A brass insert goes over the bar, holds the slug while you're aligning. He didn't have that, and he didn't use a jig, so what he did was squeeze the fins at the back of the slug and ended up with a key that gaps and hits at an angle. So if you're gonna try to track down the machine that typed this letter, my advice is to go after an Olympic Monica, between seven and ten years old, with an unfinished E, an O side-clipped left, and a gappy M that leans to the right."

"Hutch," Charters said, "have you ever thought of going into the typewriter business?"

"Lemme tell you, Lieutenant, there are days when I wish I was back repairing the Yales. But you do time, you can't get back to being a locky. Now a baker does time, he goes back to baking bread, and—"

"And a human cannon ball goes back to being fired from a cannon. You see how lucky you are?" Charters had heard Hutch's complaint many times before. He retrieved the letter from the enlarger and they moved out together into the store.

"Just as a matter of interest," Charters asked, "what kind of machine was used for the letter Jacobi showed you?"

"That's privileged information."

"Then I'd be privileged to hear it."

Hutchinson started to protest, then gave it up. Charters had always had a knack of getting his own way, whether he paid money for it or not.

"An Olivetti Lettera with a dropped P, a dropped A, and a worn serif N."

"Jacobi leave you a copy of the letter?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Just asking," Charters said, innocently.

Charters' list had shrunk: three down, one to go. And now, when he took another look at the last name, and the business address—Fifth Avenue—he got a surprise. This Janice Stanley had to be the Janice Stanley, the one who owned the

J. Stanley stores. She was a big name in the business world, one of New York's women executives who were written up in features with headlines like "Making It in a Man's World," or some such. Charters knew little about her except that she'd married Jonathan Stanley, the son of the stores' founder, and been left the Stanley fortune, including the stores, when her husband had died.

He knew the store on Fifth Avenue very well, at least from the outside. He could recall a lot of Christmases when he was a kid, strolling down Fifth Avenue with his parents, oohing and aahing over glittering treasures. Stanley's was one of the stores you window-shopped, along with Tiffany's and Cartier's. It was a New York institution.

The old man, Jacob Stanley, had originally run a dry-goods store in Poland. When he had immigrated, he'd gone into the diamond business and, so the story went, got lucky. He opened a retail establishment with his savings and ran it the way he'd run his dry-goods store, not from an office but from the floor itself, actually waiting on the customers. His son had done the same thing. And according to what Charters had read, his widow, Janice Stanley, was continuing the tradition.

She certainly sounded like the last person who'd have anything to do with a bomber, and he assumed that the Alka Seltzer she referred to in her ad in the Times was someone or something completely different.

The store was just closing when he got there; there was a security guard letting the last shoppers out as they staggered out, one by one. When Charters told the man he wanted to speak to Mrs. Stanley about her ad in the Times, the guard went away, came back, and invited him inside. It was only the second time Charters had gone through the elegant doors; the first time had been when his old captain had retired and all the guys in the precinct had chipped in to buy him a silver hip flask.

The store didn't look quite as pretty with the dustcovers over the glass cabinets, but the Italian marble floor and the molded mahogany paneling on the walls and pillars still impressed him.

Another thing that impressed him was the store's owner.

Charters recognized her from photographs he'd seen, but he was unprepared for the way she looked in real life. He wasn't sure whether he'd call Janice Stanley lovely or not— maybe he would—but it had been a long time since he'd seen

a woman as striking. Her hair, a tawny-brown shade, swept up, out, and down in voluminous waves and haloed a squarish face that angular cheekbones helped to narrow. Her nose was a touch more prominent than perfection called for, but rather than detracting from her looks, it simply made her unique. And her mouth was glorious: full and wide, the lower lip plump and slightly protruding. She'd penciled her eyebrows high, which lent her entire face an expression of animated interest, and her slate-gray eyes, deep and bold in her face, the lashes long and mascaraed, added to the impression. She was beautifully groomed and beautifully dressed in a green knit that clung to her slender, hippy figure. And she was tall. Most women only came up to Charters' shoulder, but Janice Stanley, in two-inch-heel Ferragamos, was almost his height.

She took him in at a single fast glance, and he knew what she was going to say before she said it.

"I don't understand. I've already talked to the police. A Lieutenant Jacobi." Her voice was cool and businesslike, but there was still a nice deep tone to it. This was a very interesting lady.

"My name's Charters. I'm not a policeman, I'm with the Aetna Insurance Company. I saw your ad in the Times, Mrs. Stanley, with a reference to somebody who calls himself Alka Seltzer. I'm looking for somebody who calls himself that, too, and I was wondering if we're both looking for the same person."

"The ad didn't include my last name." She was looking at him hard. "I think you've invaded my privacy, Mr. Charters."

"Mrs. Stanley, I'm here because I'm trying to invade somebody else's privacy." Charters could tell that she hadn't expected an answer like that; a lot of people seemed to think that a guy his size, with a broken nose and a scarred eyebrow, was going to have trouble accounting for himself verbally. He went on. "The man I'm looking for put a bomb in the lobby of the Hotel Amsterdam last Friday."

The woman let out a breath she didn't appear to have been holding. She said, with a tightness still in her voice, "That bomb killed a very good friend of mine."

"The receptionist? I'm sorry."

"Her name was Mary Hope."

Charters could see that it had hurt her to say the name, and guessed that, like a lot of people who suffer the death of

somebody close, she was trying to force herself to realize that her friend was really gone. He said, "Jacobi explained everything? About the extortion note and how it was signed? Because it's not common knowledge."

"That's correct/'

"And he came back to see you to rap your knuckles about your ad . . ."

"Correct again." The woman was getting impatient.

Charters took the newspaper clipping from his pocket. " 4 Alka Seltzer, I know who you are. Call Janice. 902-6220/ You don't really know who he is, do you?"

"Of course not."

"Why are you running the ad? You trying to trap him single-handed?"

She snapped at him. "That's entirely my business. Now, you'll have to excuse me. John will show you out."

"Would you believe me if I said that 1 know who your first caller will be, Mrs. Stanley? And the second and the third? And that I know what they'll say?"

"No. Good-bye, Mr. Charters."

"They'll all be men and what they'll say will be variations of 'Hey, Janice, I'd like to fuck you, baby.' " He could have put it far more politely but he wanted to shake her. And he saw that he had. Charters was pretty certain that that particular verb wasn't heard too often in the august confines of J. Stanley's.

"John!" Janice Stanley summoned the security guard. "This person is leaving. Now."

"Mrs. Stanley. This guy Alka Seltzer has promised to set off another bomb somewhere in the city. He's going to do it, I can assure you. And when he does, somebody else's friend might be killed this time. But if I can find him, I can stop him. And I'd have a better shot at doing that if I had the cooperation of anyone who might be able to contact him. Or vice versa."

The guard arrived, large and bulky in his uniform. He was even bigger than Charters. "Let's go, mister." He put a beefy hand on Charters' arm. Charters kept right on talking to Janice Stanley.

"Now I doubt very much that he'll respond to your ad, or if he'll even see it— Get your hand off my sleeve— But if he does, there's something I think you should do."

"Mister, I'm asking you politely to leave," the guard persisted.

Charters turned his head and gave the guard a tiny smile. "I'm sorry, but I always stay where I'm not wanted."

The guard squared himself on his feet, preparing for a struggle.

"It's all right, John. Leave him."

The guard grumbled and pulled down the cuffs of his uniform. "I'll be over here if you need me, Mrs. Stanley."

"What should L do?" she asked Charters. Some of the hardness had left her eyes.

"Tape his voice. Do you have a telephone recorder? For live conversations?"

"No."

"Pick one up on your way home. Lafayette, or any of those places on West Forty-fifth will have them. If he calls, he'll be easy to tell from the foul mouths and weirdos, because this guy isn't crazy, he's very, very smart. Tell him you want to meet him just to talk. No cops, nothing. You'll meet him anywhere he says, and there'll just be you and your thirteen-year-old son."

"Who would that be? As you probably know, I don't have a son."

"A street kid I know will go with you. He really is only thirteen years old, and he looks like an angel. But two seconds after he meets this guy he'll have him spread-eagled and leaning against a wall with a gun in his back."

Janice Stanley frowned. It didn't do a thing to mar her looks. "You'd use a child to do that?"

"This kid was never a child." Charters had taken a pen and a card from his jacket and was scribbling on it. "This is my home number. If you hear from him, make sure I hear from you."

The woman checked the number, looked at the other side of the card. "Gene Charters. Tax Accountant?"

"Don't believe everything you read, Mrs. Stanley."

She'd lost the initiative some time back and it was clear to Charters that she didn't like it, especially on her own turf. "Why didn't Lieutenant Jacobi suggest a telephone recorder?"

"Because he knows it's a fifty-to-one shot, too. He doesn't have to play the long shots yet, but I do. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Stanley."

The guard had to unlock the front door for him, a chore he performed with smoldering reluctance.

Charters said to him, "No hard feelings, okay? You were just doing your job. So was I."

Somewhat mollified the security man agreed. "Sure. I have to look after the boss."

Charters looked back. Janice Stanley was still standing in the middle of the floor, watching him. "Keep it up," he said to the guard. "That's a lot of woman you're working for."

Fitzroy saw the ad.

It wasn't surprising, given the fact that he'd started to read the Times again. It was another thing working for those wretched people had robbed him of: the pleasure of sitting down at breakfast with coffee, toast, marmalade, and a crisp edition of the morning paper.

Before he had thought up his extortion scheme, Fitzroy would return from work each evening, only to wait nervously for them to call. And even if they didn't, he'd toss and turn all night and have no stomach for breakfast next day, no desire to do anything but sleep until it was time to drive back to work again. But now that they were leaving him alone for a while so that he could bring them a million dollars, he found that he could sleep at nights and once again enjoy a relaxed and contemplative start to each day.

He liked to peruse the paper—he even liked that word, "peruse"; a slow, thoughtful word that accurately reflected its meaning. He always read the entertainment section first for the music and theater notes; he didn't care for films, not the ones they made today, sensational pieces of trash, full of sex and blood and gore. After the book reviews he turned to the editorials and the political reporting, wondering afresh each morning if the clowns and dullards who ran the country would ever be driven out by a man of intelligence and breeding and compassion: a new JFK or, better still, a new Stevenson. Fitzroy had just about given up hoping.

He read the financial pages next, just skimming them: the state of the market, the gains-and-losses table, the DJ, and like a man who keeps poking his tongue against a bad tooth knowing it will hurt, the commodity prices.

55

After that he read the overseas news, then sports. He liked certain sports. He'd often wished he'd been able to participate in sports in college; he still wished he could be an athlete. After all, thirty-two wasn't old, but he'd always been too small, too light, too uncoordinated. So he'd settled for being a spectator.

He liked to watch golf. He admired the standard of perfection you got at a major tournament where the entire field, from one hundred yards out, could put a ball within twenty-five feet of the cup. And he'd enjoyed the colorful pageant of ice hockey, although he never went to the Garden anymore; the crowd was Neanderthal and came alive only when there was a serious fight on the ice. He liked to watch tennis best, much preferring the Forest Hills event to the nationals at Flushing Meadows with its brash baseball-stadium atmosphere. But he liked to read about all athletic endeavors, and the Times had some good reporters who appreciated the graceful balletic aspects of the sports they wrote about.

The last thing he glanced at each morning was the Personal Column. He'd once described it, quite poetically he'd thought, as being like messages that were stuck into bottles and tossed into a sea of newsprint, bobbing up and down, seeking a responsive shore. He also thought of it as a peek into people's front windows, a brief involvement in their lives from a distance. He liked the idea of being distant from events yet being present, the way you could be at a gripping tennis final, sitting anonymously in the middle of a row but still very much a part of the action.

But when he saw the ad, all distance was sucked away in an instant and the world, suddenly and shockingly, closed in on him.

Fitzroy went cold. Then he fought for self-control, struggling for a rational outlook. The message had nothing to do with him. It was simply a coincidence. Many personal ads were coded messages, financial or business related—everybody knew that. The two names were just a wild coincidence, Alka Seltzer and Janice. All right, the police might have told her about the note, so she'd know he was calling himself Alka Seltzer. But she couldn't possibly know who he was unless she knew how he'd done it, about the bomb. And she couldn't possibly have figured that out.

Could she?

Given a particular set of circumstances it was possible . . . No. He dashed the thought from his mind. Such a slim chance. No. She couldn't have found out, therefore it couldn't be that Janice who'd run the ad. And even if it was, she had to be bluffing. It had to be some kind of a trap. Well, he wasn't about to fall into any trap.

Besides, it wasn't her anyway. He was being foolish, letting his nerves get the better of him. How many Janices were there in the city? Thousands. He could prove it wasn't her simply by checking her number.

He went to the phone and dialed Directory Assistance. *Tm sorry, sir, that number is unlisted."

4 'But this is an emergency."

t4 If it's an emergency, sir, you'll have to go through the police."

The police? No, he didn't think much of that idea. So if he couldn't get her number, he could call the one in the ad. What was there to be afraid of? They couldn't trace phone calls, not fast ones. He wouldn't have to say anything that would give him away. And it wasn't going to be she who answered the phone, anyway. In fact, there probably wouldn't be an answer; the phone number was probably part of a financial code, too.

One fast phone call couldn't hurt, even though it would be a waste of time; it would put his mind at ease.

No. He was being stupid. Best to ignore it.

At least not do anything till morning.

Sleep on it.

That was always the best thing to do.

Now that he could sleep again.

Janice had given the butler and maid the night off and instructed them not to take any calls during the day. She felt that if this man did call her and got no answer, he'd keep trying till he did.

The interview with Charters had sobered her, taken the edge off her expectations. She'd thought on the way home, after she'd stopped off to buy the telephone tape machine, that what he'd said made sense; although she'd never done anything like this in her life and knew nothing about it, he clearly had had lots of experience dealing with criminals. He was a curious mix: handsome, according to the masculine ideal of

twenty years ago; big and strong and tough-looking in his fuddy-duddy clothes; but also bright, today's brain in yesterday's body. An interesting man. And she found when she picked up a ringing phone as she entered her apartment, a pretty clairvoyant one, too.

"Janice?"

4 'Who is this, please?"

"This is Alka Seltzer. You know who I am, you said so in your ad. Now I don't know who you are, but I'll bet you've got great big beautiful tits, and a snatch like a— M

She hung up on the caller. And the next one, and the one after that. All together she received eighteen calls between six-fifteen and one a.m., most of them much like the first. There were a few nuts as well, crazy people who laughed or just played music and said nothing. And there were two genuine, if misguided, inquiries. She unplugged the phones and went to bed, convinced the whole thing had been a stupid idea.

Around nine the next morning, getting ready to leave for the store, she plugged in the phone and set the answering machine, pretty sure that if there were any more obscene calls, they would come after dark. Just as she was reaching for the door, on her way out, the phone rang. On an impulse, she answered it. "Hello."

Nobody spoke on the other end, but she could hear the open line.

"Who is this, please?"

"What is your last name?" a man asked. He spoke only five words, but there was something about the hesitant, nervous quality of the voice that made her switch on the cassette recorder.

She asked again who it was.

"This is . . . Alka Seltzer. What is your last name?"

"I need proof that you're who you say you are. I'll trade you names. What's the name of the hotel you . . . were recently involved with?"

There was a long pause. When the wavery voice answered, it was like a charge running through her. "The Hotel Amsterdam. Now tell me your last name."

"Stanley." She said it automatically while she tried to think clearly, trying to choose her words with care. "I want to meet you, talk to you. The police know nothing about this. It will just—"

"The police?"

The phone clicked, leaving only the dial tone.

Janice Stanley closed her eyes and sighed. She'd messed it up; she should never have mentioned the police. He wouldn't call again; she knew it.

So close. She'd almost had him.

Now he was gone.

A fine trembling rattled the receiver as Fitzroy hung up.

It was she. It was incredible, but it really was Janice Stanley!

Of course she knew about the letter to the mayor's office because her friend, Mary Hope, had been killed at the hotel. The police would have explained what was happening, that much was clear. But the horrible, nagging question was, Was she bluffing or not? Did she know more than that?

If she'd figured it out, wouldn't she have gone to the police with her suspicions? In that case, they would have arrested him by now. And if she knew who he was, then she knew where to find him, so she wouldn't have had to run the ad.

So it was a trap, after all.

But it wouldn't work. It couldn't. The call had been too short to trace.

Although she had heard his voice.

Would she remember hearing it before?

Impossible.

He took out a handkerchief, dabbed at the perspiration on his upper lip, and smoothed the hair covering his right ear. He must be rational about this; he couldn't afford to stick his head in the sand. It was possible that she could remember his voice. It could be in her subconscious. It could pop into her memory at any time. Triggered by something. Perhaps by the headlines the blast at the bank would make. She didn't know who he was now, that was clear, but there was absolutely no guarantee she wouldn't make the connection tomorrow, or the next day, or in an hour's time. And if she remembered where she'd heard his voice, and followed up on it, he'd be arrested.

So that was the situation; Janice Stanley was in a position to ruin everything. All his careful planning, and it was going so well. The hotel had worked perfectly. The bank would work perfectly. And he was happy with his idea for collecting

the money. He was on the threshold of acquiring a million dollars and being a free man as long as Janice Stanley's memory wasn't nudged. He had two clear choices. He could keep his fingers crossed.

Or kill her as soon as possible,

I

There were many New Yorkers who would have taken advantage of the lower rents that prevailed around the flower market district had it not been for the market itself. The area was full of trucks and shouting people by six each morning, so it was strictly a place for early-risers. Charters, a lark, not an owl, wasn't bothered by the noise. In fact, he enjoyed the bustle of the market when he went for his regular morning run about six-thirty, as he was doing now. Jogging through the flowers on the sidewalk, he felt like a marathon runner getting a winner's floral reception: it always made a nice beginning to the day. And today he could use a nice beginning. And a nice middle, and a nice end. It was going to be busy: people to see, calls to make.

Tuesday.

Four days left to catch Alka Seltzer. Four days before Freidman lowered the boom. The bomber or the boom.

He didn't need to be reminded of Freidman, but he was, anyway, because, for the first time, he spotted the tail.

It would have been hard to disguise it early in the morning with the streets almost empty. Four men in a green Fairmont were cruising behind him. Deliberately, Charters ignored them and completed his normal circuit: down Seventh, east along Fourteenth, through an obstacle course of trash cans, assorted junk, and sidewalk sleepers, up a deglamourized section of Fifth to Twenty-third, through Madison Square Park, being careful not to wake the winos on the benches, a left on Twenty-eighth, and back to the studio.

When he let himself in, he found that the day hadn't gotten off to such a good start, after all, at least not for every resident in the district. He checked the laundry basket. The

money was undisturbed. Then he went into the kitchen. You Rat was lying dead in the trap, his neck broken.

It astonished Charters; he'd been certain the thing would outlive everybody. He said out loud, "Now what did you want to go and do a dopey thing like that for?" It didn't make sense; You Rat had been stealing cheese for weeks from that trap without getting caught, so what had happened this time? Overconfidence? Or did it just get careless?

He got a supermarket bag, picked up the trap, dropped everything into it, took it outside, and dumped the bag in a garbage can.

It was exactly what he'd been trying to accomplish for ages, yet now that he'd done it, he found the funeral vaguely upsetting. It was a very graphic demonstration of the consequences of making a mistake. Why had it happened today, of all days? Was it a portent from the powers-that-be? He mulled it over in the shower and while he was getting dressed, the Wagner on the radio serving only to deepen his mood.

What did help was the phone call he got just after nine.

"Mr. Charters, this is Janice Stanley."

"Good morning, Mrs. Stanley."

"Would it be convenient for you to come to my apartment?"

"You mean now?"

"Yes."

"What's so urgent?"

"I have something for you," she said.

Charters tried to remember the last time he'd been in a private elevator. It was easy. He'd never been in a private elevator.

When the elevator stopped, the doors opened on the kind of Park Avenue apartment that was fabled in song and story. Janice Stanley's apartment was like a full-sized house within an apartment building. A butler in black tie waiting to greet him led him across a huge stretch of a black-and-white marble-tiled hall, past a graceful double staircase that rose up to the next floor, and down a corridor flanked by small pieces of sculpture in scalloped wall niches. Charters made a mental bet of a hundred dollars that the butler was about to show him into a library and tell him that Mrs. Stanley would be with him shortly.

The man showed him into a library. "Mrs. Stanley will be with you directly, sir."

Almost right on the money.

The room was sufficiently high-ceilinged to have a gallery, and an impressive collection of books stretched around all four walls in open shelves. There was a massive oak table in the center of the room surrounded by matching chairs with heavily carved legs. The table was bare except for four lamps with tasseled shades. Janice Stanley's library was clearly an attempt to reproduce, on a smaller scale, the reading room at the Forty-second Street Library.

"Good morning." Janice Stanley came through the open door and closed it behind her.

Charters was, once again, struck by her presence. For the second time he wondered if she were lovely or if she were just one hell of an eyeful. She'd styled her hair differently today; it was swept back behind her head, so full that it gave her a charming Gibson Girl look. She'd done her eyes a little differendy too, slanting them in the corners, Oriental style. Her mouth, he was happy to note, was the same: a plump, bright-red apple he would have loved to chunk into. And she was wearing another clingy knit, a gold autumn shade that toned down the brightness of her hair. The dress clung and slinked around her body as she came toward him.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

"Not at all," Charters murmured. Reflexively, his hand went to straighten his tie. He was wearing the same suit as yesterday and he was down to his last shirt, the one with the frayed collar. He knew he should have dropped off his laundry on the way over, but there was the small matter of forty-five thousand dollars in the bottom of the bag.

He looked at the small cassette machine she carried in her hand. So that's why he'd been summoned; some nut had called who she thought might be a possibility. It figured; she wasn't the type to give up easily. "How did the recording session go?"

"Almost as you predicted."

"A lot of nasties, huh?"

"Yes. Plus a couple of silly ones."

"Like what?"

"One woman wanted to know if the ad should have read, 4 Alka Seltzer, I know where you are.' That's the name of her dog."

Charters thought that was pretty funny, although he didn't say so. Brand names for pets, yet: "Naughty kitty, Nescafe."

'Tide, come here this instant." He nodded and said, "But there was one call you think might be worth something, correct?"

"There's no question about it, Mr. Charters. It's definitely him."

"You're kidding. He called?"

She stood the machine on the table and pressed the play button.

"Hello? . . . Who is this, please?"

"What is your last name?"

"Who is this?"

"This is . . . Alka Seltzer. What is your last name?"

"I need proof that you're who you say you are. I'll trade you names. What's the name of the hotel you . . . were recently involved with?"

"The Hotel Amsterdam. Now tell me your last name."

"Stanley ... I want to meet you, talk to you. The police know nothing about this. It will just—"

"The police?"

Click.

"Jesus Christ," Charters said. "You did it."

"But I spoiled it. I should never have mentioned the police."

"Never mind that, the important thing is that we have his voice on tape. We know something about him now." Charters tugged at his jacket, stretching his neck inside his collar. "I'm a little embarrassed, Mrs. Stanley. I practically insisted you were wasting your time. You were wise to ignore me."

Charters had left her the opening, and she could have scored points, but she chose not to. That told him a lot.

Instead, she said, "If I'd ignored your advice completely, Mr. Charters, we wouldn't have a tape of his voice."

Charters asked to hear it again and she played it through a second time.

"I could kick myself," she said. "Even if he hadn't agreed to meet me, if I'd been able to keep him talking, he might have given you something to go on."

"True. But we're still way ahead just with what you got. He told us quite a bit about himself."

"In what way? How do you mean?"

"For one thing, the quality of his voice. He was clearly in a highly nervous state, which means he's no pro, which is good news and bad news. When did he phone?"

"Just before I called you this morning."

4 'Okay, so if he saw the ad yesterday, as he probably did, he waited a long time before he made the call. He was uncertain about it and scared. That's why he hung up when you mentioned the police. He sounds timid, the nervous type. I don't think he likes what he's doing. I don't think he's done it before. And if that's so, that's bad news too, because he's not likely to have a sheet—a record. So he'll be that much harder to find."

There was a slight touch of puzzlement in the way Janice Stanley looked at him; there was an element of evaluation there, too. "You've obviously had some experience in this kind of work, Mr. Charters. I wouldn't have thought it was the kind of thing an insurance man would know about."

"I was twelve years in the Police Department. The insurance thing is new."

"I see." She seemed to expect him to add something more. When he didn't, she asked him what else the tape had told him.

"Only one other thing, except it raises a question rather than tells me anything. He asked you what your last name was three times. The ad just says Janice, of course. Janice who, he wants to know. Why does he want to know that?"

"Because he's curious. He calls himself Alka Seltzer in a letter to the city. Then he sees an ad in which someone claims to know who Alka Seltzer is. He doesn't believe it, perhaps, but he has to find out who this person is."

"But again, why? It could be that there's a Janice somebody that he suspects might know who he is. And he thought it could be you. I can think of another explanation, but you're not going to be crazy about it."

"Tell me," Janice asked.

"He feels threatened. He doesn't know any Janice, but there's a Janice who claims to know him. Maybe he doesn't want to take any chances. Maybe he figures he's slipped up somewhere. So he calls to find out who you are. Because once he knows who you are, he can find out where you are.

Charters could see the possibility of being in personal danger hadn't occurred to her before, yet it didn't shake her; her expression remained the same and her voice remained even. "Are you saying that he might try to get to me? M

"I think it would be wise if you took some precautions.

Mrs. Stanley. Perhaps hire some protection until this man is caught."

Instead of pursuing that, she changed the subject, asking Charters about his conclusion that the man was not a pro. 44 You said that was both good and bad. Why?"

"Because a pro's predictable, to a certain extent. He doesn't hand you any surprises. If it's worked before, he figures it'll work again. But it's an amateur's first time out and he has to play it by ear. You don't know which way he's going to jump, which makes it hard to position yourself so that he jumps right into your arms."

Charters hit the eject button on the cassette machine and slid out the tape. k Top marks for this, Mrs. Stanley. I'll get it over to Lieutenant Jacobi right away. We're old friends."

44 I don't believe you/' she said.

44 We came up through the department together. Jack Jacobi and me. Ask anyone."

44 I mean I don't believe you intend to give it to him."

44 Why not?"

4 'Because you're not an insurance man," Janice Stanley said evenly. 4 'You're not with Aetna. I checked."

4 'You'll never get an insurance company to acknowledge one of its investigators. Not when he's working on a case. They were just protecting me."

The explanation was a good one, but she had him and she knew it. And so did Charters.

Janice continued, "You never showed me any identification, Mr. Charters. Show me some now."

Charters stopped struggling. 4 Td tell you I left it in my other suit if I thought you'd believe I had another suit."

44 Who are you working for?" She didn't seem angry at the deception, or suspicious, either. She sounded interested.

Charters decided to tell the truth. % Tve been hired by a man who wants to see this bomber caught. For reasons of his own."

44 So you're a private detective . . ."

44 I used to be a public detective. Now I'm a tax accountant, just like my business card says. I've been brought out of retirement because I was pretty hot stuff at catching criminals once upon a time."

44 I assume you're being paid a lot of money . . ."

44 Oh, yes. Up front, too."

Janice Stanley paused. They were still standing by the table

in that immense room. The library was totally insulated from any street or neighbor noises; so the silence weighed heavily.

"I may be wrong, Mr. Charters, I often am. But you don't strike me as someone who'd work just for money."

"I'm not. I don't like people who plant bombs, so I'm happy to be paid for trying to stop them. But it's not without its dangers, and as a married man with a family, I insist on being well-compensated if I have to neglect my business and stick my neck out as well."

"But you don't want Jacobi to get this tape. Am I right in assuming that if Jacobi beats you to this man your compensation will be less?"

They were fencing now, fending each other off with flowery sentences. Charters knew what he was defending and why, but he was uncertain about the reasons behind her attack. He decided to demolish her with a single stroke.

"Jacobi can't beat me to the bomber, Mrs. Stanley. The fix has gone in."

"Explain that please."

"The department has been fed fake evidence. The letter that Jacobi has, the one from the bomber, isn't from the bomber. It's a fake that was typed on a different machine to send the police down the wrong alley. I have the real letter. That's why I'm the only person with a real shot at catching this guy."

It shook her, although it wasn't easy to tell; she was good at masking her feelings. She went for a little walk around to the other side of the table, where she stopped and faced Charters again. "You don't have to comment, Mr. Charters, but it's clear to me that whoever is employing you has a score to settle with this Alka Seltzer person, so I assume it's the hotel management. They must be seeking a personal revenge. I can understand that. I'm seeking a personal revenge, too. Of a kind."

Charters waited. She was in a position to shoot the whole thing down in flames. And him with it.

"I'll tell you something that may surprise you," she said, as those deep-gray eyes focused like a laser beam on his face. "I'm glad it's turned out this way. Because, now that it's strictly a private investigation, I can help."

Charters waved the tape he was holding. "You've already helped. Enormously."

"I mean full time. How many people do you have working for you?"

44 As many as I want. I've got the money to hire whoever I need/'

44 Of course. But there must be a lot you have to do by yourself. I could help you there. I can knock on doors, talk to people, ask questions, whatever needs doing." Janice Stanley seemed determined.

Charters tried not to smile. He could almost see the headline in the tabloids: Millionaire Store Owner Becomes Private Eye. He ran his hand over the smooth grain of the table. There wasn't a speck of dust on it.

44 Mrs. Stanley, I understand how you feel about your friend, but— M

44 No, you don't. But I think I can show you. Come with me." She walked around the table and out of the library, and he followed her down a mirrored corridor. They went through a recital room where two gleaming black grand pianos, their covers closed, faced each other, and maybe twenty bergere chairs were set in orderly rows on the vast expanse of a black-and-red Granada rug. There was a circular hall at the end of the room, covered in a deep, white broadloom—it was like walking through snow—and on the far side of the carpet a closed door which Janice Stanley opened. The broadloom continued into a large room where a huge Chinese screen presided: five hinged panels depicted scenes of an ancient Chinese court in green and orange and pink. The same colors were picked up in the silk curtains that framed the screen, and in the tapestry coverlet on the immense bed for which the screen served as a headboard. The walls were papered with a French floral print—pink and red carnations—and there were fresh carnations, also pink and red, in faience vases. Two door-high topiary trees stood in porcelain tubs, flanking the door. The room glowed with color, brilliant and inviting.

4t My bedroom," she said. 44 What do you think?"

"About your bedroom, or the fact that you're showing it to me?" She leveled those gray eyes on him again; they were slightly hypnotic. 44 Mary Hope lived in this apartment, Mr. Charters. I loved her. We shared that bed."

44 I see."

44 Does that surprise you?"

44 No. It looks big enough for two."

4 'You joke a lot, don't you?" A flicker of pain shot through Janice Stanley's expression.

Charters shrugged. "I don't see what's so serious about two people sleeping together. If you love somebody, you sleep with them. If I feil in love with a man, I suppose I'd sleep with him. But that hasn't happened yet, and I hope it doesn't. I have enough trouble with women."

She closed the door without a word and he followed her back into the recital room. She stopped halfway across the magnificent Spanish rug and stood, silent, giving him time to think about her original request.

Charters moved to the piano and tried a soft chord. It was a beautiful instrument, a nine-foot Bosendorfer. If he'd kept up with those lessons as a kid, he could've sat down and torn off a Chopin study. Too late now.

He looked up at Janice Stanley. She was patiently waiting for his answer. He knew he was going to have to take her on; being rich, she was more than a little spoiled, and was clearly used to getting her own way, so she wouldn't take no for an answer without putting up a fight. Besides, Charters figured, there had to be compensations: he sure could use another pair of hands—although her legs were her best feature—and having a sexy, Park Avenue widow as a partner would certainly be a change.

He closed the piano lid on his broken dreams and said, "I warn you now, it's tough on the feet and the hours are brutal."

She gave him the tiniest of smiles: there was no triumph in it, she was genuinely pleased. "You should try running a department store," she said. "Shall we go?"

44 You want to start right now?"

44 Why not?"

4 'Okay," Charters said.

A few minutes later they were walking out of the lobby onto the sidewalk. She asked him where they were headed first.

4 'Downtown, to pick up that ID you wanted to see. You may need something like it yourself."

A white Rolls-Royce was waiting for them—an older model, very large. It's left-rear door was being held open by a uniformed chauffeur.

Charters stopped. 4 'What's this?"

44 My car."

He got in. The deep leather seat took his weight with an

expensive-sounding creak. He adjusted his tie again, felt his frayed collar, and made up his mind: tomorrow morning he was definitely going to find another hiding place for the money.

He was just getting the lie of the land, that's all. It made sense to look something over first, even if you hadn't come to any decision. It was smart to prepare for the eventuality.

Fitzroy was at Park and Eighty-first. Just one more block to go. He waited for traffic to pass on the side street, and crossed with the light. He could see her building, with its subtly striped awning. It was one of the older buildings, but in beautiful condition. He'd heard that in buildings like these there were apartments with sixteen rooms. Some with twenty.

He strolled by the entrance, casually glancing in through the glass doors at the lobby. There was a reception desk on either side, manned by two doormen in pressed gray uniforms. Shiny parquet wood-block floor, crystal chandelier. Understated elegance. There'd be an elevator operator as well, probably. No way in there.

He continued around the block. The service entrance at the side had a solid, locked look about it. And there was no garage; the building had been put up before such a thing was automatically included in the design. So it would be impossible to slip in unobserved, if he decided he had to go through with it and kill Janice Stanley.

Fitzroy started back the way he'd come, passing a very large car—it had to be a Rolls—that had pulled up at the entrance, double-parked next to a Mercedes. He continued walking, planning to check the lobby again, when he saw something that snatched his breath. He forced force himself to keep going, to act normal.

With his heart thumping—he could practically feel the adrenaline surge—he passed in front of Janice Stanley and the man she was with. He shot a glance at them, trying to keep it natural. They didn't look at him, they were saying something about the car.

Fitzroy stopped at the corner of the block, stepped out, and waved down a cab. As he got in, the big white Rolls went by.

"Yeah?" the cabdriver said.

"Downtown."

"Gimme another hint."

4 'Please, I'm in an awful hurry. I'll give you directions as we go."

The driver muttered something but pulled the cab away from the curb. The Rolls had stopped for a light and they were ciose behind it.

It had been a snap decision, deciding to follow her. But it had been the right one. She could be up to something. She'd said on the phone that she wanted to meet him. Why else but to trap him? Maybe she was on her way to the police to tell them it hadn't worked.

If that car ahead pulled up outside a precinct house . . . But wait. The odds were ten-to-one, maybe twenty-to-one that she didn't know his name. This might be a pointless chase. She might just be going shopping. Was that her boyfriend with her? Possibly. He was good-looking in a rugged, rough kind of way. He'd noticed the nose broken high at the bridge and one eyebrow had been sutured closed a long time ago. The man had almost certainly been a boxer. He had an athlete's powerful build, and he moved well, Fitzroy had noticed that.

Janice Stanley. Even if she got a good look at him, she wouldn't remember him. And that was a comfort.

He checked his watch.

Plenty of time before he had to be at the bank.

Yes.

She was probably going shopping.

He was worrying about nothing again.

The girl behind the counter at the printer's was feeding the copier again, wearing the same tight T-shirt and jeans and snapping gum in her mouth loud enough to be heard over the click-clack of the machine.

When she looked up, her jaw stopped in midaction as she got an eyeful of the glamorous woman Charters was with and the chauffeured Rolls at the curb. At the back of the shop Dizzy Dean waved to Charters and beckoned him through. Charters let Janice precede him. As he went by the copier, the girl sniffed and said, "Pretty fancy."

44 It was the new hairdo that did it," Charters replied. He directed Janice into the little office where the printer was waiting for them. He made it clear, by the way he introduced them, that the meeting was strictly off the record.

He said to Janice, "This is Dizzy Dean. He sounds like a

ballplayer but he's really a printer. Also a photographer and a movie fan." He said to Dizzy, "This is my sister, John Smith. Can you fix her up with an ID?"

"Better wait till you see yours." The printer opened a binder. Dean looked tired, there was a smudge of ink in his gray hair and the wrinkles around his eyes seemed more pronounced than they had the day before. He held out a small vinyl-covered card folded down the center. It was a beautiful job: the corners were crinkled, the card slightly bent as if it had gone in and out of a jacket pocket for a couple of years. The harshly lit photograph worked beautifully. With his hair swept back. Charters looked like another version of himself; it could have been a picture of his younger brother, if he'd had one.

The ID said that he was employed by New York Life; Dizzy had matched their typeface perfectly. To make it look even more official, he'd embossed an unreadable stamp on the bottom edge of the photograph and added a vice-presidential-looking signature.

Charters showed it to Janice. "Not bad, huh?"

The printer bristled. k 'Not bad? That's good enough to get you a paycheck."

"It's excellent," Janice said. "I see a lot of identification, and that looks totally authentic."

"Hear that, you Philistine?" Dizzy said to Charters. "The lady has good taste."

"Also a lot of beautiful hair," Charters said, looking at her. "How long will it take you to get a new hairstyle?"

Janice surprised them. "About three minutes."

The printer took them both into the studio next door and sat Janice down at the little dressing table. He laid out brushes and combs before her and came up with a clean towel, which she put around her shoulders. She unpinned her hair, and it fell like a bright-brown waterfall over the back of the chair. Dean asked her what else she needed.

"Just these," she said. She picked up a pair of scissors and held out one section of her hair.

"Hold it," Charters said. "You sure you know what you're doing?"

She didn't even pause. "I have to look different, isn't that the idea?" The scissors clicked and her beautiful hair began to fall to the floor in thick, heavy strands.

The printer glanced at Charters, then went over and started to busy himself with the camera. Charters joined him.

"That's some girl you've got there," Dizzy said. "I haven't seen a woman cut her hair off since Jane Powell did it in Song of the Open Road. ''

"Yep," Charters said, "she doesn't fool around." Watching her slicing through the other side of her hair, he wondered if he were going to have trouble with Janice Stanley. She was forceful and confident—good qualities for policework. But she was also impulsive and maybe overconfident, and these were bad qualities for policework. Nor did she take advice well; she was accustomed to giving it. But, on the plus side again, he was pretty sure she'd come through in a tight spot. And on this job there were definitely going to be a few of those to negotiate.

Dizzy found her a cardigan to disguise her dress, took her photograph, got a fake name from her, and told Charters the ID would be ready in the morning. Out on the sidewalk again, the chauffeur opened the door of the Rolls-Royce.

Charters stopped. "Mrs. Stanley, do you mind if we get a cab? Your car bothers me."

Her hair was now a good three inches above her shoulders, and a little ratty at the back, even though she'd made a good job of brushing it into some kind of shape. But in spite of her drastic action, she was still a knockout: her features were just too good to be marred by a short, amateurish hairstyle.

"What's wrong with it?" she asked. "Is the clock too loud for you?"

Her reply was a nice surprise: she was letting some personality show.

"It's like this," Charters explained. "My employer doesn't trust me, so he has me tailed. I don't want to make it any easier for them, and riding around in this thing is like riding around inside a theater marquee. Now appearing . . . Gene Charters."

Janice Stanley started to look over her shoulder, then caught herself. "Are they here? Do you see them?"

"There's a Yellow Cab that pulled in behind us up the block. It's still there."

She spoke to the chauffeur who got into the Rolls and drove it away.

"Okay," Charters said. "Let's find out how good a detective you are."

They began to stroll up the block toward the cab. They looked as if they were going to go by it until Charters, as if on a whim, stopped, ducked his head, and said to the driver, 44 You wanna take us to— Oh, sorry. Thought you were free!"

They kept moving. Charters flagged down a cab. 44 Abingdon Square,'' he said. They got in and the cab took off.

44 You ready?" Janice asked.

44 What for?"

44 The man in the back seat of that taxi."

44 Good girl. Let's hear it."

44 Mid-thirties, well-dressed, short, slim, aesthetic-looking. Surprised to see us, and not happy to see us."

44 Not bad. But there was something else, something that should be a sore point with you right now."

She frowned. 44 His hair? I didn't notice."

44 He'd used half a can of hair spray on it. And he smoothed back one side of it soon as he saw us coming up. Definitely a nervous habit. You always look for habits. They can be just as good as a nameplate."

44 Is he following us now?" Janice asked.

44 You can check if you want. That guy back there's an amateur, a decoy. If we try to shake him, he won't have any trouble, but we'll be overlooking Freidman's number-one team."

44 Freidman?"

He turned his head to find her eyes on him. 4 'That's the guy who hired me. From the Hotel Amsterdam."

44 I never heard Mary speak of a Mr. Freidman. Ever. How do you explain that?"

44 Simple."

4 4 Well?"

44 I was lying."

4 Tve noticed you're able to lie very easily, Mr. Charters."

44 It comes from being a cop for so long. You get used to fibbing. Also, you learn not to give too much away."

44 Who are you working for, Mr. Charters? Who is this Freidman?"

44 You want the truth?"

44 Will it be the truth?"

44 Probably not."

The cab, braking quickly for a light, heeled forward, and they had to brace themselves against the front seat. It cut off

Janice's immediate reply, and she waited until the taxi was moving again before she spoke. "You also lied to me earlier on, didn't you? About being married."

"Why don't you think I'm married?"

"Never mind. I've only just met you. Perhaps I'm wrong."

"Come on, you can't leave me there."

She seemed sorry she'd brought the subject up, but challenged, she had to continue. "You just don't seem the type who'd want to commit himself, that's all. To marry someone is to make a declaration of some kind of permanency. You don't strike me as a person who would be attracted by that."

"You mean I'd get bored coming home to the same woman two years in a row?"

She looked out the window. "Let's drop it, shall we? I didn't mean to disparage you."

"Good," Charters said. "If there's one thing I can't stand it's being disparaged."

The cab hit a pothole, and the broken springs thumped up and jounced them in the rear seat.

"We should've stuck with the Rolls," Charters said.

Janice, perhaps feeling that she was behind on points in their verbal duel, took another crack at him. "You were even less comfortable in the Rolls, Mr. Charters. I noticed that."

"Stuck out, did it?" Charters sounded a lot less affected than he felt; she was talking about inadequacy, and he was no less vulnerable in that area than most people. He bumped the discussion slightly off course. "Well, you can either regard a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce as a nice way to travel, or a vulgar expression of wealth."

"I was born wealthy, Mr. Charters. Don't despise me for my heritage."

"I don't despise you, Mrs. Stanley." Charters noticed that her serious expression only emphasized the fine planes of her face. "On the contrary, I like you a lot. You're not afraid to say what you think. That's refreshing. You're also nice to be near. You look good and you smell good and you're sexy in a Smith, Vassar, Wellesley kind of way that I find vaguely exciting."

"Am I supposed to be flattered, Mr. Charters, or are you fibbing again?"

"It's hard to tell," Charters said.

She looked out the window for a minute, then turned back

to him. "About the Rolls. I'm a dreadful driver, a menace. I had an accident recently that was serious enough to put me in Queens County Hospital, so I no longer drive. Which means I have to have a chauffeur. And you can't ask a chauffeur to drive a Volkswagen."

"Why not? They have a front seat."

"Status, Mr. Charters. A good chauffeur wouldn't work for you if he couldn't drive a fine car. And if I have a bad chauffeur, I'm risking another accident."

Charters slowly began to nod his head. "That's very good, Mrs. Stanley. That's the first time I've ever heard anybody rationalize spending seventy-five grand on a set of wheels."

The taxi jolted them from their seats as it braked again, this time at their destination.

As they got out, Janice asked Charters who they were going to see.

"A guy named Kenny Takama. He's the best counterfeiter in town. You're getting a tour of the underworld, Mrs. Stanley." He led the way up the stairs into the designer's immaculate open-space office.

Takama had done a reverse on yesterday's outfit; today he wore a black embroidered shirt, white duck pants, and black running shoes. It was as if, working with color as much as he did, he wanted to remain neutral and apart from it. He laid down an ink brush and came out smiling from behind his drawing board.

Charters made some nonspecific introductions, then asked the man what he had for him.

"Some rare and beautiful autographs. Come on back." He showed them what he'd been working on. "Signatures are always tough because they don't have to have any relationship to a person's handwriting. But I had a stab at it."

Takama was being modest; on a page of layout pad, beneath the Alka Seltzer signature Charters had given him, were six signatures: Albert Summerhill, Artie Simon, Arthur Simone, Al Shaw, Adrian Singer, Lester Allen. It looked as if whoever had written Alka Seltzer had immediately signed the other names too; the handwriting appeared to be identical.

"The first five," Takama said, "start with A.S., as you can see. The last name uses the two vowels and four of the consonants contained in the words 'Alka Seltzer.' "

"Lester Allen," Charters said. "That's smart."

'They're amazingly similar," Janice said to Takama. "You're very talented."

"Thank you, but I have to work at it." He pointed to a large straw waste-paper basket. It was full of scrunched-up paper. "Rejects," Takama told her.

"You have copies of these?" Charters asked.

"I run a full service," the designer said. He passed over a square white envelope. It had Kenny's logo on it: a big, red brush-stroked T.

Charters put the original sheet into it, and held out his hand. "Thanks, Kenny. We'll let you get back to making money."

Takama grinned. "How am I supposed to take that, Lieutenant?"

"Literally," Charters said.

It had been a hideous moment; he'd thought he was going to be sick. They'd almost got into the cab.

Fitzroy couldn't help his reaction, even though it meant nothing, Janice Stanley seeing him. She couldn't recognize him, he was still certain of that. To her he was just a man in the backseat of a taxi. But it had still been very unpleasant. Forget it. The big question was, Why had she cut her hair? A woman like her, a society person, would have lots of correspondence, so he could understand a visit to a printing shop. But she'd come out of it with her hair cut off! There was a photographic studio next door. The only explanation was the studio had access from the printer's. Had she had her photograph taken? And had she cut her hair off for the photograph?

Why?

Why would she do a thing like that?

He'd wondered about it as he followed Janice Stanley and her companion all the way to Greenwich Village. She'd dismissed the Rolls-Royce for some reason and they'd taken a cab. He was beginning to run out of excuses for his own cabdriver when he saw their taxi stop. Fitzroy saw them go up some stairs above a handcrafts store.

He said, "Would you pull over here, please?"

The cabdriver leaned heavily on the steering wheel. "Is this the end of the mystery tour?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Hey, champ. You wanna see the sights, take the Circle Line, okay?"

Fitzroy wasn't going to argue. He got out, paid the driver, and walked farther down along the sidewalk, keeping out of sight of the doorway next to the handcraft store.

Janice Stanley and the man came down in a few minutes. The man had a white envelope in his hand. They started walking south.

He decided to let them go and find out where they'd been. Maybe it would explain the printer/photographer's.

He crossed the square to the doorway they'd come out of. Screwed to the wall, just inside, was a wooden sign beautifully hand-lettered in red: Takama Graphics, Second Floor.

Graphics? What would she want with graphics? Still, that had to be where they'd gone—the white envelope the big man was carrying had had a red T on it, just like the one on the sign.

Cautiously, he went up the stairs.

The office opened right off the landing, airy and spacious and ultra-modern.

14 Hi there. Come on in." An Oriental behind a drawing board, smiling at him. "Help you with something?"

"I . . . I saw your sign downstairs."

The Oriental came toward him. Immaculate black-and-white clothes, carefully chosen, like his office decor. "What are you interested in?"

"Well, er . . ." Graphics. Think! "A letterhead."

"The specialty of the house. Business or personal?"

This was leading nowhere. "Business. But I ... I don't know your work. Perhaps I should—"

"I got samples. Stuff I've done for other people. Hold on a sec." The man turned and padded across to an alcove at the back of the room.

While Fitzroy fidgeted, waiting, his eye fell on a straw waste-paper basket overflowing with balled-up pieces of paper. One of the pieces on top of the pile had partway unwound. He could only see half of it, half of what was written there. But there was something about it . . .

He didn't question his action. He moved, snatched up the piece of paper, and shoved it into his pocket.

In a fog he took the samples from the designer, mumbled something, and quickly left the office. Once back on the sidewalk, he unfolded the piece of paper, smoothed it out.

Adrian Singer, Adrian Singer, Adrian Singer, Adrian Singer.

He'd never heard of Adrian Singer, had never written the name in his life. Yet there it was in his handwriting.

How had a sample of his handwriting . . . ?

The Alka Seltzer signature.

They'd shown the man upstairs, the graphic artist, the letter with the Alka Seltzer signature. The man had copied the handwriting, his handwriting, but for some reason, he had made the name Adrian Singer out of it. They thought he was somebody named Adrian Singer.

Adrian Singer. It was a long way from Nelson Fitzroy.

How long would it take them to find out who he really was?

He smoothed his hair over his right ear, patting it into place.

They?

His stomach twisted and he felt sick again. Just like he had back in the taxi.

The man with Janice Stanley ... he wasn't her boyfriend, he was a policeman. Or a private detective, because there'd been no police car. She'd hired the man to find him. She was that serious about it. Because of her friend, Mary Hope.

She was out to get him and giving it everything she had. Otherwise, she'd be at the store, not running around Manhattan.

If she was that committed, she'd be thinking about him constantly. She could put two and two together at any time.

Fitzroy checked his watch, ten-twenty-five. He had to be at the bank at eleven. He was cutting it a little close. But now he had two things to attend to quickly. First, the bank. And second, no more maybes, Janice Stanley.

They walked for a while, down Bleecker Street, then east on Perry.

Charters said, "I used to live in that house over there, on the top floor. The landlord lived below. His daughter was taking piano lessons twelve years too late/'

"I've always liked the Village." Janice said, "but I don't know it very well."

Charters had a good idea why: Janice Stanley's New York would be a variation on the famous Steinberg New Yorker cover, only in her case there would be nothing between the brokerage houses on Wall Street and Saks at Forty-ninth Street.

4 'I had a place on West Thirteenth once," Charters told her. "Street level. Right next door to Mario's. One Saturday about two in the morning, a couple of the waiters joined the last of the guests in a sidewalk Puccini competition. Tosca, I think it was. Woke everybody on the block. Anyhow, the young lady who was currently sharing my abode came up with a classic two a.m. line. She said, 'You know, if we were in Naples now, we'd think this was charming.' "

Janice began to smile.

"Ah," Charters said, "Garbo laughs."

The smile died. "I can laugh, Mr. Charters. Things just haven't been too funny lately."

Charters answered softly. "I know." There was a note of understanding in the murmured words, and she was aware of it.

She walked beside him for a few paces and then said, "Tell me something. I'm curious. When you were with the Police Department, were you always so relaxed on an

80

investigation? I know nothing about police work, but you seem to be just strolling through it."

"That's because it's only day two. Day one, day two, of a job there's nothing to run for. Any investigation takes a while to crank up. Tomorrow you'll see more speed. After that it'll get progressively hectic."

"What's going to speed things up tomorrow?"

"A meeting." Charters would have liked to have let it go at that, but he knew he was going to have to break it down for her; as a member of the ruling class, she wouldn't accept anything less than a full explanation. "I'm going to be sitting down tomorrow with a guy who runs a detective agency. I've used him before. The department doesn't like to go outside, and it won't admit that it does, but it has to sometimes because of the manpower shortage. Which is why we have to use an agency."

Janice began to ask a question, but Charters kept talking. "The agency will do most of the legwork, starting by trying to trace the typewriter Alka Seltzer used to type his letter. Another of my old questionable acquaintances has already identified the kind of machine and its characteristics. Now all we have to do is check a whole raft of typewriter stores and hope that somebody can remember servicing a machine like we describe."

"And the signatures we picked up? Where do they come in?"

"If we get lucky with the typewriter and come up with a few suspects, then we start comparing handwriting. We also have a voice tape, thanks to you, which gives us another identification aid. We're not in bad shape." At this, Charters' voice trailed away.

"What's the matter?" Janice asked.

As they'd turned into Greenwich Avenue, a long black limo had slid by them and stopped fifty feet away. The driver got out, and there was something about the man's silent, waiting attitude that Charters recognized. Turning to Janice, he said, "I believe my employer wants a word with me. Would you object if I left you on the sidewalk for a minute?"

She told him to go ahead, and Charters walked up to the limo. The driver, stolid, impassive, watched him approach. He was a big, rangy man, six three or four, very broad-shouldered. He wore a blue suit and dark tie. His face was a

collection of small features—small eyes, small button nose like a girl's, small mean mouth—but his jawline was large and strong. His haircut was like a boot-camp marine's, an inch on top and then shaved almost clean. He remained immobile, like a lizard in the sun, and it was this that had struck a chord in Charters. He'd seen men like this before: knifers. They had a different look than other kinds of killers— like gunmen, for instance. There was always a touch of swagger about a gunman, brought on by the pistol he carried. A modern, fully loaded handgun gave a man six to nine chances of taking out the other guy, but a knifer had to rely on a single fast thrust, and if it didn't work, he could be in trouble. That's why knifers tended to be a lot more wound up. They had a clenched, coiled quality about them; dead-still one second, sudden action the next.

"You must be Robert," Charters said to him. "I believe I saw a sample of your work a few days back."

The man opened the rear door. "Get in." A deep, swallowed voice. Harsh.

"Good morning, Mr. Charters. Come on board." Freidman, wearing his perpetual smile, patted the space next to him on the rear seat. Except for a change of wardrobe—another seven-hundred-dollar suit—he looked exactly as he had in Charters' office: beautifully dressed, his young, unlined face tanned from a sunlamp, his yellow hair perfectly barbered.

As Charters joined him, Freidman said, "I apologize for the intrusion. That's a lovely woman you're with."

"You think so? I've been trying to decide."

"Are you making any progress?"

"Well, I pressed up against her in an elevator."

Freidman laughed. "I meant with your investigation. You're a witty man, Mr. Charters. I like that in a person."

"Bullshit, Freidman. The only thing you like is watching people jump when you rattle the chain."

"Watch your mouth," the driver said. He'd got into the front seat and had swiveled around to keep an eye on the newcomer.

"It's all right, Robert." Freidman seemed incapable of accepting an insult; it was hard to wound a man who held all the aces. "You've met Robert, I take it," he said pleasantly.

"Oh, sure, we had a long conversation. He's pretty deep."

The driver stared at Charters, a flat, steady gaze. Charters could see that he wasn't going to do anything. Not then. But he had the look of a man who was waiting.

"What do you want, Freidman?" Charters asked. "I'm being rude to my lady friend."

"I want to show you this. It was received by the mayor's office in the morning mail and passed on to me a few hours ago."

It was another letter from Alka Seltzer, typed, as far as Charters could tell, on the same machine and with the same signature at the bottom.

"Notice of a second demonstration," Freidman said. "As he promised in his first letter."

"Manufacturers Hanover," Charters read out. "Fifth and Forty-third at noon today." He looked up. "What's that, in fifteen minutes' time? How come you're only giving it to me now?"

Freidman spread his hands in simple explanation. "I know how good you are, Mr. Charters, and I have to protect myself against your expertise."

Charters nodded. "I get it. If I'd gone along to the bank and got a look inside, there's a chance I might have found that bomb."

"Precisely, Mr. Charters, and I need that bomb to go off so the city will pay up."

"If it does go off, people could be killed, and there's one person dead already. I'm interested, Freidman. How many people would you kill for a million bucks?"

Freidman kept his smile bright; his cool approach irritated the hell out of Charters.

"I'd have to put that question the other way around," Freidman said, still smiling. "How much money is too little money for me to have people killed? The answer is two hundred thousand dollars. For anything less than that, it's not worth the risk. Robert is an expert, but nobody's infallible. So on that kind of equation, Mr. Charters, I don't come off too badly. There are men who kill people for ten dollars."

"Yeah, but they need the ten dollars." Charters pushed at the door handle, but it had been locked from the front seat.

In his rock-grinding voice the driver said, "You leave when Mr. Freidman says you leave."

"That's all right, Robert. Let Mr. Charters go. He only has

three and a half days to find the man, and we don't want to hold him up."

The driver got out, pressing a button as he did so, and opened Charters' door from the sidewalk.

Charters, still in the rear seat, said, "Don't worry, Freidman, I'll find him. And when I do you and I are going to talk a little more business."

"We have a deal, Mr. Charters. I'm not paying you any more money."

"The money you paid me is for tracking him down. I have another service I'm willing to offer."

"I'm intrigued, Mr. Charters."

Charters got out of the car. Robert closed the door after him and said, "Beat it."

Charters took a half step toward the big man, bringing them very close. He said, "I knew a guy like you once, Robert. He was pretty good with the knife, too. But he never made it. You know why?" Charters paused before delivering the clincher. "Because he could never learn to use the fork." He gave it a beat, holding the driver's cold gaze, then turned and started to move off.

Janice was standing just a few feet away. He took her arm. "Let's go. Alka Seltzer's put a bomb in a bank."

Fitzroy saw the police barricades the moment he walked around the corner onto Fifth Avenue. He stayed on the east side of the avenue, squeezing by the crowds that had stopped to watch. Being short and not able to see over the people, he could see only the second-floor windows, but he knew what was below them. He'd been a kid when they'd opened up the branch and put that huge cylindrical vault right there in the Fifth Avenue windows. It was a wonderful idea: a sheet of glass—what could be more vulnerable? And a few feet behind it, that colossal ten-ton circle of steel, as new and shiny as a late-model Cadillac right off the assembly line. The bank entrance was on the Forty-third Street side; he knew the layout inside very well. It had been easy to pop in and out as much as he liked—a busy bank, lots of people making out withdrawal slips, deposit slips—there was nothing suspicious about one more person who looked to be doing the same thing. The tellers' counter was on the street floor. An escalator took you up to the next floor, where the more specialized tellers and bank officers sat behind desks.

Fitzroy worked his way around behind the crowd. It was a noisy scene: patrolmen were trying to get people to move, one of them shouted directions through a bullhorn. The west side of Forty-third was completely blocked off, but the police had left the avenue clear, he was happy to note. He crossed at Forty-fifth Street to the bus stop.

A bus lumbered up the avenue. It was a Washington Square bus, and they were always crowded.

He saw by the big sidewalk clock that it was five minutes to twelve. He let the first bus go by; they'd respect him more if he were right on time. He fished out the bus token; he was prepared, he'd thought it all through very carefully. A little detail like not having a token, not having any change, the driver refusing to let him on, could spoil the perfection of his entire plan.

But it wouldn't be perfect of course—a bomb blast in a crowded bank, it couldn't be—he'd just have to hope for the minimum of casualties.

Another bus pulled up, good and crowded, too. He boarded it, dropped the token into the hopper, moved down the bus, and stood on the right-hand side between two large women.

Already the passengers were starting to realize that something was up. He could hear them murmuring at the front, where they had the best view. The doors hissed shut and the bus pulled away, picking up speed. Now all the riders had a clear view of the bank scene—the crowds, the barricades, the blue uniforms, the fire-department trucks, the police cruisers with their swirling, flashing lights.

4 'Bank robbery," somebody said.

ft passed up the bus like a prairie fire. "Bank robbery! Look!"

Fitzroy slipped his hand into his pocket and closed his fingers around the dull, black plastic case of the little radio transmitter.

The passengers were all standing up, peering to their right. Nobody saw him take the small transmitter from his pocket, hold it close to his body, ease out the tiny antenna. He'd set the frequency and the signal code himself: two short jabs, two long jabs. Much safer that way—no chance of the bomb being set off accidentally.

It was a fine transmitter, very sensitive. Like a TV remote control device that could change a channel even when pointed

away from the set, the transmitter didn't have to be directed accurately.

A traffic cop waved the bus through the intersection, keeping the traffic moving down the avenue.

The bus was almost level with the bank now, coming up on it fast.

Fitzroy swallowed, tensed, breathed in, jabbed the transmitter button: two short, two long. Invisible, at the speed of light, a radio beam flashed from the bus to the bank.

The bomb was roughly the size of a postcard and about a quarter of an inch thick. It weighed only a few ounces. Its clear plastic package held a thin, two-inch aluminum detonator, a tiny heating coil, and a calculator battery connected to a miniature radio receiver. These four tiny components were packed inside a gel made of nitroglycerine thickened with nitrocellulose, with barium sulfate added for high-velocity detonation.

The miniature receiver, coded to match the transmitter's message, recognized the flashed signal and acted as a switch. The bomb exploded.

The bus windows were all closed, yet everyone's eardrums were hit hard by the blast. The passengers erupted, gabbling questions, shocked faces craning to see. The bus pulled up to its regular stop outside the library, and the driver used the interruption of his route to leave his seat and look back up the avenue.

Fitzroy got out and started walking south. There was perspiration on his forehead. He brushed it away and smoothed his hair down, trying to unwind.

Three more days. Just three more days and he'd be a free man again.

He was still thinking about his deliverance from the nightmare of violence he was trapped in when, as he let himself into his apartment, the phone began to ring.

The police!

That was the first panicky thought that leapt into his mind. Then he calmed himself. He was being silly; his fears were nothing but an understandable reaction to the tensions of the last few hours. He answered the phone.

"Nelson. How are you? Thought I'd call and say hello."

John Stegner. As polite and friendly as he'd been the day he'd arranged the loan. He'd never been anything but warm

and accommodating; he had always been very apologetic about those midnight calls. It was out of his hands, as he'd explained when he'd taken Fitzroy to the restaurant in Forest Hills. He was nothing more than a glorified messenger boy, he'd said with a sympathetic smile. Fitzroy believed that down deep Stegner was a nice man. God knew what he was doing tied up with those horrible people.

44 You there, Nelson?"

"Yes."

4 'You don't sound so good."

"I ... I haven't been sleeping well lately."

"That's funny, seeing the old man hasn't been bothering you awhile. Which I'm certainly glad to hear, incidentally. You were really coming apart there."

"Why, er, why are you calling?"

"I told you. Just to say hello. See how things are."

"Fine. Just fine."

4 'Good. That's good to hear. Uh, Nelson, I told the old man I'd be calling you, to say hello. Just mentioned it in passing. And, uh, he said I should jog your memory, let you know he's expecting the money two days from now. Well, I told him, I said, 'Come on, now, Nelson don't need a reminder.' When you promise a whole entire million dollars there's no way you're gonna forget you promised something like that. But you know what old folks are like, and he's really old folks. I mean, he must be pushing seventy if he's pushing a day. So I humor him. I say, sure, I'll mention it. And I have, right? So let's forget about it, okay?"

4 'Yes. Okay."

"You're on schedule, though, right? No problems?"

"I'll have the money Friday."

"Sure you will. I never doubted it, smart guy like you." There was a pause. "So. Good talking to you, buddy boy. Stay with it, huh? I'll talk to you later, okay?"

44 Good-bye," Fitzroy said, and hung up. He hurried into the bathroom, dashed cold water onto his face, and dried off. Although his hair was still neatly arranged, the act of spraying the hair spray and patting his hair in place soothed him. He came out and took several deep breaths.

If it had been important to do something about Janice Stanley before, it was imperative now.

He checked his personal diary, then picked up the phone.

They arrived at a scene of noise and confusion: whining sirens, tire squeals, shouted orders, patrolmen bullying the crowds. There was a harsh, burnt smell in the air.

"The bastard!" Charters said. "He did it." He pulled Janice behind him and started to push his way through the crush. A sergeant, whom Charters recognized, was standing on the avenue, arguing with somebody in the crowd.

"John! What the hell happened?"

"Lieutenant! What are you doing here? Christ, could we use you these days."

"A bomb?"

"Upper floor."

"Anyone hurt?"

"And then some. Two bank officials blown away. And some idiots in the crowd cut by flying glass. Own fuckin' fault."

"Can you get us through, John? I want to talk to Jacobi."

They ducked under the barricade, and the sergeant escorted Charters, still towing Janice, over to the bank and down the cross street. There were pools of water everywhere from the fire trucks. Shards of glass littered the gutter, some of them bloodstained.

Jacobi was just coming out of the entrance doors, walking very slowly. He was heavier than he'd been the last time Charters had seen him and, if anything, a little more rumpled. He stopped and just stood there, a bewildered, stunned-looking figure clenching an unlit home-made cigarette in his mouth he seemed to have forgotten about.

"Hello, Jack."

Jacobi glanced up. He didn't even notice Janice, and it was a long second before Charters' face registered with him. He seemed a long way away. "Gene," he said absently. "Hi." He discovered the cigarette in his mouth and tossed it away.

Charters looked up at the second-floor windows. Most of the glass was missing and wisps of white smoke trailed out of the building like sea fog. "What happened, Jack?"

"I don't know. I don't understand it." He was shaking his head from side to side. He had a jowly face with dark eyes that never seemed to blink. He would have been bald but for a semicircle of hair that sat on his scalp like a garland. "We went over every inch. Two teams working from both sides.

Searched everybody on the floor. Every nook and cranny. There was nothing there, Gene. So how did he do it? Answer me that?"

"Where was the blast?"

"That's the crazy thing. It was under one of the desks or maybe even on top of the thing. There was a guy sitting at it, another standing next to it. Jesus, what a mess!"

Jacobi left off. Two medics were wheeling a trolley out of the door. There were three body bags on it, only they didn't have the usual long shape—they were short and lumpy, more like garbage bags.

Three bags for two bodies.

It was the last thing Charters had wanted Janice to see, but it was too late now. She was staring at the bags, her face very still, very pale.

Jacobi was staring at them, too, as the medics wheeled them past. He said, continuing, "The crazy thing is Bill McMullen went over that desk himself not two minutes before."

Charters knew McMullen well. The head of one of the bomb squads, he was a thorough, careful man.

"I shoukTve cleared the place," Jacobi said. He squinted his eyes; he looked destroyed. "After that hotel bomb I should've cleared the place, just let the squads go in." He rubbed his face and, for the first time in their conversation, focused on Charters. "You want your old job back, Gene? I think there's gonna be a vacancy."

Charters put a hand on his arm. "You did the right thing, Jack."

"Lieutenant!" It was somebody calling Jacobi. The-detective mumbled something and moved away.

Janice, still standing behind Charters, said with a wobble in her voice, "Take me home, please."

She was fine in the cab, okay in the elevator going up to her apartment, but once inside she began to tremble and catch at her breath. She left the room abruptly.

Charters tracked down the liquor cabinet, poured a brandy, and went looking for her. He found her in the sumptuous bedroom he'd seen earlier that day. She was gazing at something on the red-lacquered dressing table, a memento of some kind.

She said, with her back to him, "He knew he should've

cleared the bank. He knew there was a bomb there. Why leave people inside to be killed?"

"Jacobi's a good man, Janice. He went by the book. You clear the public. You search the place up, down and sideways. You search the staff to make sure no one's got something in their pocket they don't know about. But you leave them in position because they can help you. It's happened a thousand times: a clerk or a salesman spots something that's out of place, that shouldn't be there, or that should be there. They know their work area and what it should iook like, and the police don't."

"How can you go by the book with a bomb that can't be found, that doesn't appear to be there, yet it is and it explodes? It happened that way once, it was bound to happen that way again." She turned to face him; her eyes were glistening, and her mouth looked shaky. "If you'd been in charge, would you have asked that bank staff to stay in their places?"

"I honestly don't know, Janice." Charters slowed his words. "But I do know that if I'd been running things at the hotel, I wouldn't have done anything different."

She looked at him for a long moment, then took the glass, sipped from it, put it down, and just stood there.

When the little coughs began, he thought for a second that she was choking, that the brandy had caught in her throat. But then her face swelled, her body gathered, and she burst into wailing sobs, standing there with her hands at her sides and her head bowed, like a child, gasping in breath and howling.

Charters said, "Janice ..." and stopped, unsure of the right comforting words that should follow.

She stepped into him, crushed her face into his shoulder, and wept.

He put his hands on her elbows and held her lightly. "Okay," he said. "It's okay." Stupid words but it was something to say.

He patted her arm and held her a little tighter, stroking her chopped-off hair. "It's all right," he murmured into her ear, meaning that it was all right to go ahead and bawl her eyes out, not that it was all right that a person she'd loved was dead. It was the first time she'd let herself react to it, he was sure of that. She'd squeezed it down, corked it, bottled it all up, but it was gushing out of her now, released in great sobbing gasps.

Trying to comfort her, Charters held her, kissed her cheek. "It's okay, Janice." He kissed her cheek again, and when her head moved, he was kissing her mouth. He just brushed it at first, then pecked softly at it, then he was fastened to it, and she was pressing into him, clutching at him, and they locked together, arms wrapping fiercely around each other, mouths gaping.

There was a brief respite while they shed their clothes, pulling them off, dumping them, anything to get rid of them. Then they were on the bed, under that fabulous green-and-orange Chinese screen, framed by the silk curtains, as they pounded together on the huge expanse of the woven spread.

It was over very quickly. They spent themselves in a heaving, shuddering few moments, then rolled apart, both gulping for air now. They lay on their backs, side by side, blinking up at the molded ceiling, recovering their breaths.

Charters had been more than a little surprised by what had happened, mainly by the timing. Since he'd first seen her, he'd wanted to be where he was now, but the chance of that coming to pass had seemed so remote that he hadn't really considered it. He was under no delusions about why it had happened: it had been a natural extension of the release she'd had to find. He was aware that, whenever a man went to bed with a woman he'd only just met, there was always a chance that he was a substitute for the guy who'd gotten away. He wasn't sure how he felt about being a substitute for a woman, for Mary Hope. Or whether he was even right in thinking he'd been one.

Perhaps it had been anger and hurt that had prompted her action—a desire to strike back at a cruel and crushing circumstance. Whatever it was, he knew he'd been used, but it didn't bother him. He'd been delighted to offer comfort of that kind to Janice Stanley. She was a lovely woman—he saw that now—and he liked the person he'd gotten glimpses of behind the brittle facade she affected.

Charters rolled off the bed and reached for his clothes. He had even less idea now of what to say to her than he'd had before, so he stayed silent as he dressed. He turned to look at her: she'd covered herself with a piece of the spread and was lying quietly, still and pensive, her reddened eyes fixed on the ceiling, her face streaked with dried tears.

"I'll, um, call you tomorrow," Charters said.

Her head moved in a brief nod.

He walked across the lush, white broadloom out into the circular hall, through the recital room, with its glistening grand pianos, and went down the long, mirrored corridor to the main entrance hall. His shoes clicking on the marble floor brought the butler from somewhere, and he beat Charters to the front door and opened it.

"Good day, sir," the butler said.

"Good day," Charters said.

Unlike a lot of people who run detective agencies, Boots Ebberhardt had never been on the police force. Being only an inch over five feet, it was out of the question anyway. His lack of stature had dictated his first job; he'd started as a stable boy and gone on to become a jockey, making the rounds of the summer fairs. He'd never been good enough to ride the big-name,tracks, so he'd had a hard time making ends meet, especially when he'd gotten married and the expenses had doubled.

He'd looked around for something more remunerative, and ironically, it was his bride who'd brought about his new career. She'd started cheating on him. Boots had hired a private detective, but the man proved to be useless. He'd hired another one who proved to be worse. It then occurred to him that perhaps this was an area that could use some new talent; so, after he'd divorced his wife, he'd gotten a private eye's license and applied common sense and creative thinking to a business in which most of his competitors were content to just go through the motions.

His methods were unorthodox and he'd often been accused of making a production out of everything, but Boots had always countered any criticisms by pointing out that he was hired for his production. He invited his detractors to check his letterhead, which read, "The Ebberhardt Agency. We produce." It had been general knowledge for some years that if you wanted some discreet questions asked, and you needed the answers fast, accurate, and confidential, you called the Ebberhardt Agency. They were more expensive than anybody else, but you got what you paid for. Charters had often used the service—there were always times when a private operator could move with greater latitude than a public department.

93

When Charter walked into Boots' office next morning at nine-thirty, it was the first time they'd seen each other since Charters had stopped carrying a badge. They'd always got on well, often having a drink together just to shoot the breeze, and they greeted each other now with the kind of banter that had become a tradition with them.

4 'Lieutenant!" Boots said, getting out of his chair and offering his hand. "Pardon me for not getting up."

"Hi there, Boots. My, how you've grown. The last time I saw you"—Charters held his palm level with his waist—"you were only that high."

"I know. I decided you're only as short as you feel. I've really shot up the last couple of years."

"Same thing happened to me," Charters said. "Do you know that I was only three foot six until I was thirty-nine?"

"We both got our growth late," Boots said. He pointed to a chair, then sat down himself behind his desk. "I've missed you, Gene. Most people treat me like I could play center for the Knicks."

They spent a few minutes catching up on each other. When Boots ordered coffee, it was brought in by a very tall and statuesque blonde.

"That's Thelma, my new secretary," Boots said after she'd left. "I only come up to her shoulder. Some nights not even that far."

"Boots, what is this thing with you and tall women? Everytime I come here a different amazon brings in the coffee."

"I like to hire by the yard. Besides, I love walking into restaurants with a broad a foot taller than me. It makes head-waiters think I'm wealthy."

"You are wealthy."

"I know. My accountant says I'm making too much money for such a little guy."

"I wouldn't listen to him, Boots. As the Duchess of Windsor said, 'One can never be too short or too rich.' "

Boots smiled. "It's been too long, Gene. We going to be working together for a while?"

"Alas, no. I need results by tomorrow night."

"Who are you looking for?"

"Olympia Monica."

"If she's Greek, she's a woman. If she's German, she's a typewriter."

"She's German/' Charters said. "With a funny E and a damaged O." He took a piece of paper from an envelope, passed it across. He'd made a copy of the first line from the letter. It read, "To whom it may concern. On Friday, four days from the date of this."

Scanning it, Boots said, "You want to go citywide?"

"Don't have the time. We'll take a chance on Manhattan. You got the Yellpw Pages handy?"

The little man pulled a phone book from a drawer. "That's still a hell of a lot of stores to cover."

"I know it. How soon can you get a team started?"

"Well, I got to bring 'em in, brief 'em, get 'em out again. Say two, two-thirty."

Charters leafed through the book until he found the page he was after. "I'm going to put in some legwork myself. I have someone working with me. We'll take six midtown stores, these ones here." He picked up a pen from the desk and marked the page. "Have your team cover everything else from the Battery to, let's say, 116th. That'll take in Columbia. If the guy I'm looking for lives in Manhattan, he lives within that area. And if he lives in the Bronx or Queens, it's going to be too damn bad."

"This guy. He owns the typewriter?"

"Yep."

"Hey, this is just like the old days."

"It pays better than the old days." Charters put a thousand dollars onto the desk. "A grand on account."

Boots looked impressed. "Must be nice to pull a thou out of your pocket just like that."

"It depends who put it there in the first place," Charters said. "I have to tell you something, Boots. The department's looking for this guy, too. Your men will be working right on their heels. By this time Jacobi will have already made the rounds looking for a different typewriter, but one that typed the same line. So you'd better tell your guys to have a story ready."

Boots swayed back in his chair. He'd had his desk custom-made, and it looked more like a coffee table. "I'm not gonna ask how come there are two different machines. If the cops have got the wrong machine, that's their fault."

"Very diplomatic, Boots."

"In this business, you gotta be."

Charters took a note of the stores he'd ticked off. He said,

*'First thing tomorrow morning we'll go over whatever you come up with. Then I'll want your guys to do the interviews. I'll supply the forms."

"Fine. And by the way, I don't use guys anymore. I use girls. Pretty ones."

"Come on, Boots ..."

The little man held up a hand. "Not for what you're thinking. I found that a good-looking chick can get into places easier than a guy. The ones I got are bright and they know what they're doing. Also, they're more enthusiastic because they're out to prove they can do a man's job."

"Okay. If you're happy with them, I'm happy with them."

"Anything else I can help you with?"

"Yeah. I have a tail job I need done. Can you get me Frankie and Johnny?"

"If the price is right I can get you Gilbert and Sullivan."

"Lay them on for tomorrow. Ten a.m."

"Done."

"We're up against the clock on this one, Boots. Don't be afraid to spend money; I've got a bunch of the stuff at home in a laundry bag."

"You working for a dry cleaner?"

"No, just an ordinary, everyday son of a bitch." Charters got out of his chair. "Can I make some calls outside?"

"Sure. Just ask Thelma." Boots got to his feet.

"Don't get up," Charters said.

"I didn't," Boots said.

Charters made three calls from the outer office. The first was to Dizzy Dean, the printer, with an order for a rush print job. The second was to Janice's apartment. He spoke to the butler and left a message for her to meet him midtown in thirty minutes' time.

He made the third call on a sudden whim.

Thelma, Boots' tall secretary, was surprised to hear him speaking French. "Gee," she said, leaning her long frame against a filing cabinet, "you're pretty good."

"Nah. That's just dinner-table French." • "Where did you learn it?"

Charters shrugged. "The dinner table."

The white Rolls-Royce delivered her, then left silently like a magic carpet. If it hadn't been for the distinctive car, he wouldn't have recognized her right away.

She was wearing a fake suede coat, the kind underpaid secretaries bought on sale at Alexander's. The beige dress beneath it was nice but nothing special, and instead of her usual adornment—pearls or a diamond brooch—she had a couple of bracelets on her wrists that could have come from the five-and-ten. But it was her hair that had fooled him. She wore a dark-brown shoulder-length wig that hugged her face and gave it a longer, slimmer look. And she'd changed the color of her eyes with wide frame glasses tinted a very light pink.

"Good morning." She said it pleasantly, informally, the way a person might greet someone with whom they had a nodding acquaintance.

Charters was happy to settle for that; he hadn't been sure what kind of atmosphere to expect. It could have been one of frostiness, embarrassment, or even disdain, although embarrassment would have been the hardest to handle.

"Hello. I like the outfit. Very working girl."

"Do you think it will do?"

"Absolutely. Now that the Queen Mary's driven away you look like anybody else."

"I get the feeling you think it's an improvement."

Charters decided to test the water. "You're lucky, Janice. Whatever you wear you'll look okay."

"Jean. Jean Ovington." She held up the ID Dizzy Dean had made for her. It was as good a job as Charters' ID. The photograph of her, with her lopped-off hair, looked to be two or three years old. "I had it picked up this morning."

"Then let's try it out," Charters said.

As they walked uptown, he filled her in on the meeting with Boots and the job they had ahead of them.

"Alka Seltzer did us three favors. One, he called you up, so we know what he sounds like. Two, he signed his letters, so we know what he writes like. And three, the biggest one of all, he typed the letter, so we know what his machine types like."

"I would have thought," Janice said, "that most typewriters today were fairly standard."

"Nope, they're all different. Some have tiny differences, some have great big ones. They call it a signature. Happily,

the machine Alka Seltzer used has a very pronounced signature. And it's an older machine, which is another break, because he'll probably have had it serviced at one time or another."

44 And if he hasn't had it serviced?"

"Then we'll never find him. Not in time. We've only got today and tomorrow. Friday the money's delivered, and once he picks that up, he could be long gone for Rio."

44 But when he collects the money, won't he be vulnerable then?"

Charters nodded. "It's always the weakest moment for an extortionist because he has to show himself or have some kind of contact. But this guy is bound to use another bomb threat as protection against being interfered with. We've got to get to him before the pickup."

They'd stopped outside of a typewriter store on Madison. The window featured expensive office machines, but there was also some smaller stuff and, Charters was glad to note, some used portables. They went inside.

4t Help you?" a man asked.

Charters got out his fake ID. He glanced at it to remind himself of the name Dizzy Dean had chosen for him. "My name's Garfield. This is Miss Ovington. We're with New York Life and we're trying to trace a machine for a client. It might've come in for repair."

4 'What kind of machine?"

44 01ympia Monica. It types like this." Charters showed the man the line. He was a skinny person with a narrow, angular face that puckered into a frown when he saw what Charters showed him. "The police were in day before yesterday with some lines like this. They were looking for an Olivetti Lettera, though."

Charters threw Janice into the deep end. He said, "Miss Ovington can explain that."

She wasn't flustered; she moved smoothly into an explanation she'd clearly prepared. She began by asking the man if the police had given him any details of what they were working on, which was a joint investigation. The man said no. "We're not permitted to give you any, either. But we can tell you that the police think there's only one machine involved, and our client thinks there are two. He's insisted we follow up on it."

It sounded logical; the typewriter man didn't question it.

He squinted at the line on the paper and said, "The E and O are damaged."

"You've got a good eye," Charters said.

"Ought to. Been in the business twenty years."

"Can you remember seeing a machine like that?"

"I don't handle the repairs myself anymore," the man said. "I got a guy comes in from Brooklyn two times a week. He'll be in Monday you want to talk to him then."

"Tell me," Charters said. "Does he type up the repair sheet on the machine he's working on?"

"Sure. Most mechanics do."

"Could we look through your files? Maybe we could spot it."

"As. long as you leave 'em the way you found 'em," the man said.

They spent an hour going through the repair slips, as well as two years' worth of sales slips. They came away with three names, one the owner of an Olympia Monica that had been. serviced—its characteristics were similar to the one they were looking for, so they kept it as a possibility—and the other two were names of people who'd bought the same make and model used.

Out on the sidewalk Charters said, "Not bad. You handled that pretty well, Janice. And we've got three names."

"I assume they won't all be that easy to come by."

"You never know till you get inside. Some people don't like their sales records being looked at. You may have to talk them into it." He handed her a list of stores to cover, plus a copy of the typed line. "You take three, I'll take three. Boots' team are covering the rest. I suggest we meet around six and compare notes. You know Gallagher's?" Janice bobbed her head. "I'll see you there at six."

She'd started to move away, then turned back. "There's still a lot I don't know about this. The man you're working for, whoever was in that limousine yesterday. I don't know anything about him or why he's doing what he's doing."

"I know," Charters said. "Listen, after we compare notes, if you don't have other plans, I thought we might grab a bite together."

"You'll tell me then?"

"Maybe, although I doubt it."

She blinked slowly. "You really can be exasperating. Why

ask me to dinner if you're not going to tell me what's going on?"

Charters shrugged. "Boys ask girls to dinner. It's done all the time."

It could have gone either way. But, with no expression on her face, she said, "Very well. Dinner," before turning and starting off again.

He looked like a door-to-door salesman with his two big suitcases, almost like an old-fashioned peddler come back off the road, except that he couldn't have been more than twenty-five. He was a plump young man with a poor complexion and a thatch of thick, greasy, crinkly hair. He wore a pin-striped suit and a shirt with no tie.

"Hi. I think I got the right apartment. You wanted to see a little merchandise, right?"

"Please come in," Fitzroy said.

The young man put both bags on a sofa and began to undo them. "I always check these days. Once, I walked into the wrong apartment, opened these things up, and you shoulda seen the look on the guy's face, he nearly shit."

He had a high voice and rapid delivery, running many of his words together. "Nice place you got here." He nodded at the antique clock display on the wall, the dark whaling paintings, the velvet-covered walnut chairs. "I don't wonder you want a gun. You got a lotta nice things to protect."

He hinged back the lids of the suitcases. A smell of steel and oil rose faintly into the air. "Gorgeous sight, isn't it? It still gives me a charge every time I open 'em up. You'd be surprised the number of customers say they wish they could take the lot."

Fitzroy nervously ran his eyes over the arsenal. He didn't like guns. "I only want one."

4 'Most people do. But you gotta be sure it's the right one. The one that's right for all your home-protection needs. You gotta be sensible in your choice, and I already know you're sensible because you're buying a gun in the first place. I mean, these days, anybody don't own a handgun's gotta be crazy. It's every American's birthright to own a firearm, yet they make it hard, can you beat that? I mean, do you need a license to put a lock on your door? You do not. Do you need a license to fit a burglar alarm? You do not. Yet they expect

you to get permission to own a piece of protection that's better than any lock, any alarm ever invented."

The guns lay there in their cloth loops, a dozen in each suitcase, murderously quiet, chilling.

44 I . . . I wouldn't want anything too big."

4 4 Of course not. I knew that right away. A guy like yourself, slim, average height, what're you, five-eight? Dresses good, proud of his appearance, the hair spray and all, he's not gonna want a bulky piece like this Safari Match Master here. Something smaller, sure. Now say you're in the bedroom and a noise out here wakes you up. You got an intruder in your home. You gotta protect you and yours. You reach into your bureau drawer for a gun that's every American's right to own. Now let's say it's this baby." The salesman slipped a black automatic from its loop; it was made of sleek grainy steel and sculptured like a precision instrument. 44 A Heckler and Koch Nine-Six with delayed roller-locked bolt system, polygonal bore, and cocking and chambered round indicators. You come in here and the home invader's over there having a belt."

He waved the gun at a collection of crystal decanters. 44 You'd be surprised the number of burglars, they break in, spot the booze, and the first thing they do is help themselves to a little snort. Anyway, he spots you and he doesn't even think about it, he comes at you. Believe me, they'll do that. They got nothing to lose. Most of 'em have done time anyway, and all that's standing between them and ten-to-fifteen in the slammer is you, so you gotta go. But, boy, is he in for a surprise! Bam! All of a sudden a Hornady one-fifty-eight grain slug picks him up and dumps him on his ass. Here, feel the balance."

The salesman pressed the gun into Fitzroy's hand. 44 Looks good on you. I mean it."

Fitzroy gave it back. "It's too heavy."

44 You want something lighter, I got something lighter. How about this Mag-na-port Mini Forty-four Magnum. It's a conversion job on a S and W Model Twenty-nine. Pretty, huh? Finished in stainless Metalife. And don't let its size fool you, it's a real man-stopper. Fires a jacketed soft-point that's got real good wound channel shock and expansion."

The salesman would have been surprised to find out that his customer already knew quite a bit about wound channels.

"Perhaps this one," Fitzroy said, pointing.

44 You got a good eye. You know guns. That's a twenty-two Hi-Standard Derringer/' The salesman didn't take the pistol out of its loop. He didn't want to sell it to this mug; he had another appointment in an hour's time with a man he'd done business with many times before, and he'd heard that early this morning, somebody had been found dead in a car out at Coney, shot through the head with a twenty-two. The salesman knew his customer would've ditched the piece and would be wanting another just like it.

"But a derry's a specialist's gun," he told Fitzroy. "Now you come out of that bedroom, and the home invader goes for you, you could have trouble whacking him out. It's just a two-shot, with light rimfire ammo that's not gonna waste anybody 'less you're close enough to dance with 'em. I wouldn't want to see you take the chance."

Fitzroy considered it. Two shots would be plenty. One would be enough if it went through the heart. And distance wouldn't be a problem; he was going to be standing right next to Janice Stanley.

"This is a better idea," the salesman said. He reached for a gun that seemed to be missing most of its barrel. "A Semmerling LM Four. Only weighs twenty-four ounces, but it'll pump out five two-thirty grain federals in under four seconds. Got a Hogue combat grip, too, with a cobblestone surface that'll hold a sweaty hand without skin irritation, and does away with the need for unsightly friction tape."

"How much is the twenty-two?"

"I don't want to sell you the twenty-two. I wouldn't feel good. Look, you want a nice piece, small, compact, take the Charter Undercover. Only weighs twenty ounces, so it don't look like you got a monkey wrench in your pocket. But it hits like one. Fires a SWC thirty-eight special. It's a real honey, and a steal at three hundred dollars."

"Three hundred? That's a lot of money for a gun."

"It's a lot of gun for the money. Stainless steel throughout, beryllium-copper firing pin, internal hammer, exotic wood palm swell and finger grooves . . . it's a little sweetheart."

"I'm sure I can buy a gun cheaper than that."

"I'm sure you can, too. But it won't be factory-fresh, like this stuff, I can promise you. It'll be used. And Christ knows for what. A liquor store holdup where they dusted the guy behind the counter, maybe. You want to walk around with something like that?"

"I'll give you two-fifty."

The salesman began to pack up. "You'll give me nuthin'. We ain't doing business."

4 'Very well. Wait here." Fitzroy went into the bedroom and returned with an envelope of money, most of which he counted out and handed to the salesman.

The man took him through the gun, showed him how to load it, snapped the safety off and on, and gave him a box of evil-looking hollow-point bullets.

"You made a smart buy," he said. "You need the service again, or any of your friends, just gimme a call. These days guns are like telephones. You need one in every room."

Fitzroy let the salesman out, closed and locked the apartment door behind him. Then he picked up the pistol and put it into his jacket pocket. It sagged slightly and made a bit of a bulge, but it could have been anything—a large bunch of keys, for instance. He decided to leave it in his pocket and not fiddle with it. Best not to touch it until he used it.

Tonight.

An instructor at the Police Academy lecturing on what to expect if made detective had said that, for the main part, it was like the old pilot's description of flying: hours of dull, steady routine interspersed with moments of sheer terror.

Charters had always found it to be pretty accurate. There'd been a few times when he'd thought he was about to die from a bullet, but countless times when he'd been sure his demise would come through boredom. It had all been brought back to him today—he'd spent most of the time sifting through piles of paper, and by six he was dry and dusty and very glad to be walking up to the bar at Gallagher's.

When Janice arrived ten minutes later, he ordered her a gin and tonic, and another beer for himself. They both drank for a minute before he asked her how her day had been.

"Fine. I got into all the stores I was supposed to. But I got only seven names." She took a double sheet of paper from her handbag and put it on the bar.

"That's one more than I got," Charters said. He took out his list. "If Boots has six or seven people in his team, and they average around the same, we'll have fifty to sixty names to put into the hat."

Charters watched her as she sipped at her drink. She'd put in just as hard a day as he had—he knew that by the list of

names she'd collected—yet she looked as fresh and glamorous as if she'd just spent the last several hours behind Elizabeth Arden's red door. The rich set a standard, Charters thought, and maintained it come hell or high water. It was no doubt bad form to look anything but your best, or to admit to anything approaching fatigue. A constant maintenance of refined behavior and appearance was a large penalty to pay for being bom upper-class-wealthy. There was no free lunch at any social level.

"You told me yesterday," Janice said, "that after we got the names we'd compare handwriting. I don't understand how we're going to do that."

"Boots' team will go out on bogus interviews. You can help there, too. You'll take, say, six names each and go see them. You'll ask them a few questions—about their favorite brand of cat food, that kind of thing. And you'll get them to sign their names to the answers. So you'll come away with a signature as well as a voice sample, because you'll all have mini recorders in your handbags. It's an all-girl team, by the way. Then we'll get out Alka Seltzer's voice tape and his signature on the letter, and compare them with what the team brings back."

"What if there's nothing remotely similar?"

"Ah, well, in that case, it's a wrap. We turn out the lights and go home. It's all over."

Janice hadn't wanted to hear that; she said quickly, "But you don't expect that to happen, do you?"

As Charters exhaled, his shoulders sagged. "I don't expect, I only hope. Most of the signatures and the voices will be wildly different. Some could be close. Those we'll check out." He reached for her list of names, spread it out on the bar next to his own so they could both see.

"Alka Seltzer," Charters murmured. "With a million names to choose from, why would anybody call themselves Alka Seltzer?"

"Do you think that could be something in itself?"

"Very possibly. I never have believed in the theory that all criminals want to be caught. It's just not true. But a lot of them like to flirt. They get a charge out of driving with their wheels over the center line."

Janice tapped a manicured fingernail on Charters' list. "This name here, James Waters. You can't take an Alka Seltzer without water."

"That's not bad, Janice. What else do we know about Alka Seltzer, the product? It's an antacid, right? You take it if you've eaten too much. When you feel full."

"John Fuller. I've got a John Fuller on my list."

"Good. Let's keep going. Alka Seltzer. Indigestion. Heartburn. Johnny Hart. Ralph Burns. We may get a name like that."

Janice thought for a second, trying to shake something out of her memory. "What was the little cartoon character they used to use in their commercials?"

"Speedy. Speedy Alka Seltzer," Charters said. "You can see what we couid be facing here. We could hire a cryptolo-gist and give him sixty names and I can promise you he'd hand us back at least a dozen that contained the same letters as speedy, or relief, or whatever. It may have something to do with their current slogan, or maybe even an old one. Relief is just a swallow away. Wasn't that their annoying little jingle once upon a time? Swallow. Bird. George Byrd. Richard Wren. Robin Jones. And so on, into the gathering dusk." Charters put both lists into his pocket. "If there is a connection in the name it might be some personal thing we don't know anything about. Let's wait and see. Meantime, I think we should concentrate on dinner. We're eating down the block."

They left the bar and started walking west. It was getting dark, the street lights coming on, a breeze with small teeth in it nipping at their backs.

"I hope you like French cooking," Charters said. "If you don't, you'd better buy a magazine to read."

"I love it," Janice said. "But I thought you'd be a meat-and-potatoes man."

"And eat peas off my knife and fan my soup with my hat."

She glared at him. "I didn't mean it that way. You think I feel I'm out slumming, don't you? You're confident enough to ask me to dinner, but not confident enough to think I might enjoy it. Why is that?"

"Because apart from that brief interlude yesterday afternoon, which I wasn't going to mention, you've treated me like the delivery boy at the back door."

"Delivery boy. Back door. Your analogy reveals a lot," Janice said. She was looking straight ahead. "You're saying I'm a snob, correct?"

44 Your word, not mine," Charters shot back.

She walked briskly beside him, almost striding, her long legs taking up the pace. She said firmly, "I was brought up in a particular social circle, and there was seldom any reason to leave it. Nor did I ever want to. So I suppose that does make me a snob, to a certain extent. And if I've been snobbish to you, Mr. Charters, I apologize. I want you to like me, because I like you. You can be amusing"—she gave him a look— 44 at times. And you have a bright mind. Also, you're a very . . . understanding person. You proved that yesterday with that little interlude you weren't going to mention. So I'll make a deal with you." She stopped and faced him. 4 T11 come down off what you no doubt regard as my high horse, if you'll stop being so defensive about what you seem to feel is your humble station in life."

Charters looked set to argue, but changed his mind and nodded. "Okay. Deal."

4 'Good. Now let's go to that French restaurant."

4 'We're here."

Janice looked at the building they faced. It was an old brownstone that seemed to be 100 percent residential. 4 'There's a restaurant inside?"

Charters smiled. "Good. You've never been here. If you had, I would've slashed my wrists." He led her through the front door into the hallway.

The place had a scrubbed look and a good, clean smell. They started up the stairs.

"It's not really a restaurant," Charters explained. "It's a private dining room, and very exclusive. If you don't know Madame Mercier, she won't accept your reservation. And even then she has to like you."

44 I think I've heard about this place," Janice said. "She wouldn't let Jackie Onassis in, isn't that right?"

"She wouldn't let Sinatra in one night. She said she'd never met him. She even refused to recognize George Plimpton. She's very French, except for her prices. She only charges her costs plus twenty dollars."

44 A labor of love, then," Janice said. "She likes to cook."

They'd reached the second-floor landing, and Charters pushed a bell outside a door. "She got used to it," Charters told her. "Cooked twenty years for her husband, big lunch and dinner everyday, like the French do. When he died, a long time ago,

she kept on doing what she'd always done, only for friends, and friends of friends."

The door was opened by a small, birdlike woman who looked like a hostess expecting guests. She was smoothing her plain black dress, as if she'd just taken off an apron. She was carefully groomed with her hair set in a tight permanent, shiny studs in her ears, and a pearl choker at her neck. She greeted Charters in French, accepted a kiss on both cheeks, and shook Janice's hand as she was introduced. She conducted them into the apartment, chatting with Charters for a moment, then she excused herself. They went past a dining room gleaming with goblets and damask, into a parlor that was all antimacassars and lace and overstuffed armchairs- and big-pattern wallpaper. A heavy sideboard held bottles and decanters and silver-framed photographs, china ornaments, and a wooden salad bowl full of fruit.

Charters filled two glasses, handed one to Janice, and they sat down, facing each other, at opposite ends of a long chesterfield.

44 You continue to surprise me," she said. "Now you speak French."

44 No big trick. I grew up with the language."

4 'Where? In France?"

4 'Chicago. But my parents were from France. We moved to New York when I was a kid, lived just up the block. This used to be the French area, that's how come there are so many French restaurants around here. My mother and Madame Mercier were good friends, which is why she lets me in here. Although she wouldn't have tonight, but for a cancellation."

Janice tried her drink. 44 What is this?"

44 Birrh. Is it too bitter?"

44 It's nice," she said. 44 Did your father work in the area?"

Charters reached for a bottle and topped his glass up. 44 My father was a wrestler. Not too many people can make that claim."

44 More surprises," Janice said. 44 You mean a professional wrestler, like you see on television?"

Charters grimaced. 4 'Nothing like those clowns. The wrestling game used to be for real, not a joke exhibition like it is today. Back then, it was all hold and counterhold, skill and science; that's what the crowd came to see."

44 Was he any good? I mean, could you be a champion at wrestling as you can at boxing?"

44 Yes, ma'am. He was a champion. He was French champion, and damn near became world champion. Emile Chartres." Charters pronounced it "Shart." "When he came over here his manager changed his name to Charters and called him Frenchy. There are still a lot of people who remember Frenchy Charters. He died a year and a half back. My mother some time before that."

Janice watched him over her glass. She said, "You're obviously very proud of him. And I think you loved him a lot."

"He was a great guy. And terrific at what he did—good enough to get a title shot. He wrestled a man named Jim Londos, who was world champ for years. Londos was fifty-two then, and a marvel. My father lost and was paid four thousand dollars." Charters grunted a kind of laugh. "Not so long ago a man got into the ring at the Garden with a pair of boxing gloves on his hands, a man my father could've floored with a slap, and that guy earned two million. Times change."

"You admired him," Janice said, "but you didn't want to be a wrestler yourself?"

"I was too small."

"You? Small?"

"You had to be huge. My father was six-five, two-sixty, solid bone and muscle. He taught me all the holds, all the tricks. But at nineteen I disappionted him greatly by not growing any more."

"So you'd been trained for a career you weren't able to take up," Janice said.

Charters made a dismissive gesture. "Big-time wrestling was just about finished anyway. The end of an era. I fiddled around some at odd jobs, then joined the force."

"Any special reason?"

"Yeah. They took me. I was a big strong boy and could read Dick Tracy without moving my lips, so I was clearly marked for advancement. And maybe I thought it would improve my father's opinion of me. A manly job like being a cop." Charters looked at his empty glass. He said, "This is pretty tongue-loosening stuff. The CIA should know about this."

"Go on," Janice said. "Please."

Charters shrugged; he looked a little reluctant. "I was a good cop; I made detective and then got my lieutenant stripes years before you're supposed to. My father was very proud of me."

BLAST 109

"Why did you quit?"

"I was asked to."

Janice shifted slightly on the chesterfield. "How did your father take that?"

44 He stopped being proud of me. Everybody did."

"Including yourself?"

"Oh, yes. You see, I turned out to be just as big a criminal as the people I'd been putting in jail."

Madame Mercier came in then with a little announcement. ■ 'Ce soir, nous avons oeufs poches au safran aux amandes; quenelles de lapin, sauce poivrade; pain de poireaux; salade Aveyronnaise; et clafoutis."

"Dans ce cas t nous restons," Charters answered.

The Frenchwoman smiled. "Deux minutes/' she said, then went back to the delicious aromas in her kitchen.

Charters led Janice into the dining room.

"Would you translate?" she asked. "I studied French, but I never learned it."

"Saffron-poached eggs with almonds, to begin. Then rabbit dumplings with pepper sauce, baked leeks on the side. Then a green salad with, I think, blue cheese, and cherry flan for dessert, if we're still breathing."

When the meal was served and they began, Janice took two mouthfuls, then said, "I've never had cooking as good as this. Ever."

"High praise, indeed," Charters said; "coming from someone who's eaten in all the best restaurants."

"A lot of private homes, too, with fine chefs. But this dish is marvelous."

Charters poured the wine and then watched her eat for a moment, watched the easy, elegant way she handled her fork and lifted her glass. He felt sure that she would have eaten in the same delicate manner even if she'd been starving in a wilderness for the last three days.

4 'Tell me," he said, 44 does it ever get boring, always going first-class?"

44 I wouldn't say boring. It can get a little stuffy now and then."

44 Good word," Charters said. 44 I think somebody once said, 4 It may be stuffy at the top, but it's never anything but comfortable.' "

screens out most of the irritants of life, but it can't protect you from the hammer blows."

Charters nodded. "When did your husband die?"

"Last February."

44 So you lost your husband and Mary within eight months of each other."

"Yes. I loved Jonathan, but I wasn't in love with him, like I was with Mary. He was a very kind man, but he was much older than I was, and we were interested in different things."

Charters didn't want to ask her why she'd married him, and he was saved from having to awkwardly skirt around the question when Madame Mercier brought the main course. They both gave themselves up to the wonderful food. When Charters asked her about Mary, she told him something of their life together.

44 It was surprising we became friends at all," Janice said, smiling at the memory. "We were hardly looking our best when we met, but we seemed to hit it off, and then our friendship just blossomed into love." She talked a bit more about the two of them and then settled into a reflective silence.

They went back into the parlor after dessert, where they had coffee and Cognac. They both felt mellow and replete.

Janice said, "Would you tell me something personal?"

"I'm a Junior Miss, size six," Charters said.

44 What did you do?"

44 To get aced off the force?"

44 Yes. You seem such an honest person, and such a smart one. I can't imagine you doing something foolish."

"It surprised me, too." Charters placed the brandy snifter on his knee and tilted his head to rest on the back of the chesterfield. He knew he owed her an explanation: besides the fact that she really was working as his assistant, she'd been pretty open with him, talking about Mary Hope, which was a compliment of a kind. He supposed he was duty-bound to return it.

44 There was a guy I'd put away who was a little nutty. His name was Paul Ring. He hadn't been out of jail two weeks before he launched a personal vendetta against me. He called me at home and told me he'd snatched this girl. She was twenty-one, lived up in Greenwich with her multimillionaire father. He told me to go to Greenwich, collect a hundred grand from her father, and bring it to him at an address

upstate. If I came alone, he'd take the money and I'd get the girl. If I came with uniforms, he'd kill her. I called the father, and sure enough, everything was true. He hadn't called the police because he'd been instructed not to. I didn't tell anyone either, because the girl's father promised me twenty-five thousand dollars if I brought his daughter back. He didn't care about the hundred grand, he made that much in a week. So I figured I'd do a little free-lance; I needed the money because I was thinking of quitting the department and going into business with a pal in California. So I kept quiet."

Charters took a sip of Cognac and slowly savored it. 4 'Good stuff. Anyway, I went up to Greenwich next day. The guy had twenty or thirty acres, horse stables, the works. The house was as big as a high school. I collected the hundred thousand and drove upstate. I knew what I was getting into. Paul Ring was going to kill me and take the money. I also knew that if I didn't go, he'd kill the girl. He would've done it to spite me. As I said, he was nuts. I didn't have much of a plan, because I didn't think I'd need one. Ring wasn't very bright and it wouldn't have been hard to take a gun away from him if he let me get close, and I was sure he would because he'd want to gloat and call me names before he shot me.

4 'When I got to the house it looked deserted. It was off by itself way out in the boonies, no sign of anybody. I walked in the front door and found I'd missed Ring by a couple of hours. He was dead. He'd had a bum ticker for years and it had finally quit on him. I discovered the girl down in the basement, drugged out of her skull; she didn't know a thing. Then it dawned on me what I had. A live daughter, a dead kidnapper, no witnesses, and a hundred thousand dollars in a suitcase."

Charters tried his drink again. 44 I heard somebody say once that R6my Martin was a good luncheon Cognac. It must be nice to be a connoisseur."

44 Keep going," Janice said.

44 I put Ring's body under a bed with the suitcase, took the girl back to Greenwich, and delivered her into the arms of a deliriously happy father. I told him everything had gone smoothly and that the kidnapper had taken the money and beat it to parts unknown. He didn't care about him, all he wanted was his daughter back, and she was fine except for a headache. He tried to give me the twenty-five thousand he'd promised.

but I nobly refused it, having already scored four times that amount off him. But to make it look good, because the whole thing had been unofficial and we both wanted to keep it that way, I let him press ten grand on me and took my leave.

4t I went straight back to the house, found some tools, buried Paul Ring in the woods, drove back to New York, and put one hundred and ten thousand dollars in a safe-deposit box. Then I sat up all night composing my resignation letter and handed it in next day. California, here I come. They didn't want to accept it. Well"—Charters tipped back an empty glass—"it soon became evident that, while I was a real hotshot at finding people, I was a klutz at hiding them. Two days later a troop of Boy Scouts who, I don't know, must've been going for their body-finding badge, or something, found the grave in the woods. I got hauled up for it within a couple of hours. I hadn't even bothered to check Ring's pockets. The guy had written out his whole plan, names and everything. The Greenwich millionaire was pretty good about it. He thought I'd acted shabbily, but declined to press charges and settled for his hundred thousand back, plus the ten because I hadn't been a gentleman."

"What did the police do?" Janice asked.

"They didn't charge me, either. They could tell Ring had died of a heart attack, so they did the only thing they could do"—Charters gave her a half-smile—"accepted my resignation after all." He got off the chesterfield and went over to the sideboard, where he put his glass down. "So, lady, now you know. Your partner's a thief."

"But a very brave one," Janice said.

"Not really. Ring wasn't a gunman. He would've been candy. You want another Cognac?"

Janice shook her head. Her eyes on him, she was quiet for a moment. "Freidman's forcing you to work for him, isn't he?" she asked.

"What makes you say that?"

"I could tell yesterday, the way you looked getting out of his car. The way you spoke to his driver. Who is Freidman?"

"A high-class crook. He's paying me to find Alka Seltzer. The idea is that Alka Seltzer collects the money and Freidman takes it from him."

"Can you stop him?"

"I'm working on something," Charters said. "It's got a shot if we can find Alka Seltzer tomorrow. But I'm not

improving our chances any holding up this sideboard. Shall we go?"

They found the Frenchwoman in the kitchen and complimented her on the dinner. Charters paid her, and they left. It was chilly outside after the warmth of the apartment; a recent rain had slicked the streets, and the breeze carried a reminder that winter was only a few pages away on the calendar.

Janice took Charters' arm as they crossed at the light, and left it there as they went along the sidewalk. She said to him, "I find it surprising that you had such success in something like the police force, where you have to take orders. You hate taking orders.''

"That's why I made lieutenant so fast."

"And you don't like being pushed around either, which I suppose is the same thing. I saw that the first day when you backed down the security guard at the store. And yesterday, with Freidman's driver."

"He's a real sweetheart, that one."

"He's a bodyguard, I assume. He looks mean."

"He is mean. He kills people with a knife."

She turned her head sharply; he'd said it in such a casual way. "You're not afraid of him?"

Charters seemed preoccupied with the traffic behind them, a green Fairmont in particular. He said, "My father always told me that if you're going up against a man and you're scared of him, it'll show and he'll beat you."

"Must you go up against him?"

"I may not have any say in the matter." Charters stepped out into the street and stopped a cab with a wave of his hand. "You take it," he said to Janice. "I have to call these names into the detective agency."

She got in and leaned out the window. "I enjoyed it, Gene. Very much."

"I'll pick you up in the morning. Nine o'clock sharp." He patted the side of the cab and it pulled away.

Charters spotted a phone box, and walked toward it, thinking. She'd called him Gene.

Well, well, well.

Fitzroy stood on the sidewalk at the corner of her building, waiting. It had been simple to find out whether or not she was home. He'd phoned her apartment claiming to be somebody from the store. Nothing important. No need to tell Mrs.

Stanley he'd called, even. A small matter that could be attended to another time.

He thought she'd be out, had counted on it, in fact; glamorous, socially prominent women like Janice Stanley seldom stayed home in the evening. But that could also present its own problem: if she came back with an escort, there'd be very little he could do. He had to hope that she would return alone. Even then, he'd have to time it perfectly; that Rolls-Royce of hers would drop her right outside the front door, which would give him only a few feet of sidewalk in which to work.

A cab would be better. Most cabdrivers were sloppy and would pull up yards past the point at which one asked them to stop. That would give him more room, more time.

He went over it again. He'd intercept her just as she stepped out onto the sidewalk. It had stopped raining, which meant there'd be no chance of a doorman coming out with an umbrella. He'd say, quite conversationally, "Good evening. I believe you wanted a few words with me."

That might stop her, but it might not. She might try to sweep by him, thinking he was a crazy. She might have caught a glimpse of him the day before, but who was going to remember a man sitting in a cab? If she kept on walking, he'd say, "I'm Alka Seltzer," and that would stop her in her tracks. Then he'd say, "I have my car nearby. We can talk there."

He'd been lucky to find a parking spot so close, so quickly. It was always possible if you were willing to circle the block several times and wait until—

He stiffened.

A cab was pulling up. The rear door opened. It was an elderly man with a small dog on a lead.

Fitzroy relaxed, smoothed and patted his hair, and got his mind back on his plan. If she was reluctant to accompany him, he'd show her the gun and tell her not to be afraid, that the gun was only to stop her from calling out, because it was important that they talk. They would move to the car; he'd let them in, chatting to put her at her ease. He'd take the FDR Drive, then the Bruckner, swing off at City Island and pull up at the marina.

There'd only be the night watchman, old Joe, in his little cabin, more interested in his TV set and his home-made wine than in who came and went. There would be nobody on the

dock this late at this time of year; no one would see them. She'd be nervous, scared, wanting to know where they were going and what was in the bag he was carrying.

44 Just gear for the boat," he'd tell her. "We can talk on the water. It's quiet out there—no horns honking, no phones ringing, no interruptions. I'm not going to harm you. I want to explain about Mary, that's all, and why I was forced to use that bomb. Then if you think I should go to the police, I'll go to the police."

She'd have to agree to that.

They'd go on board, he'd start the engine, maneuver away from the dock, and move the boat slowly into the Sound, out into a good sea smell, the taste of salt, the lights of the Throgs Neck Bridge a soft necklace in a velvet sky.

He'd tell her everything then, because he wanted her to understand about those horrible people who made his life hell. He'd tell her how money had been his only way out, and the bombs the only way of getting the money. It would be nice if she could understand and forgive him, Mary's friend. It would ease his conscience a great deal.

Would he tell her how he'd done it? Hard to resist the temptation. She would be shocked, but she'd have to admit it was clever. It wouldn't matter much either way because, by that time, they'd be well out into the Sound, miles from either shore.

He'd say something about the seats being hard, and he'd pick up a cushion. It would muffle the gunshot. A gunshot could carry a long way across water. The cushion would make aiming difficult, though, and he didn't want to shoot her anywhere but the heart or the brain. Although there was a lot of blood in the heart, a lot in the skull, too. But then he had the big plastic sheet for that. He'd open the bag, spread it out, roll her body onto it, then take out the purchases he'd made that afternoon: three heavy, nylon-covered motorcycle chains and their bulky padlocks.

He'd take a pair of scissors and cut the plastic following the shape of her body, then he'd wrap her up so that her arms and legs were free. He'd wind the chains around her, two of them running diagonally from her crotch to her shoulders, the third chain circling her waist and interlocking with the other two. Then he'd padlock all three securely, tip the whole thing over the side, and watch his main problem—the threat of exposure—sink out of sight, neatly wrapped and packaged,

gliding gently down to the bottom, too weighty for the body gases to float it to the surface. Then back to the marina to dock the boat and drive home. Done! Able to breathe easy again. Not have to worry about— The thoughts fled as another taxi pulled up.

A woman by herself, but it wasn't she.

Yes, it was! She was wearing a wig. But her tall figure, as she got out of the cab, was unmistakable.

Fitzroy gripped the gun in his pocket, and steeled himself to do it exactly as he'd planned. His mind quickly ran over his opening lines: "Good evening. I believe you wanted a word with me."

"Who are you?"

"I call myself . . . Alka Seltzer."

"What?"

"I thought we might talk. I want to explain about Mary."

"My God . . . M

"Don't call out. I have a gun. See? Don't be afraid. Let's just go to my car and we can talk."

But it wasn't going like that. It wasn't going like that at all. He was still standing where he was, unable to get his legs moving.

She was walking toward the doorway, where the doorman stood, holding the door open for her.

Move! Get going now!

He couldn't. And it was too late.

Looking neither left nor right, she vanished inside the apartment building.

Fitzroy turned and began to walk. His breathing came hard and sweat soaked his collar. He brushed his hair over his ear, smoothing it repeatedly as he whimpered with frustration. Coward! Coward! It was the same old story, the same cursed thing that had haunted him for so long: his chronic shyness around women. He choked out a laugh. How funny! He was planning to abduct her, kill her, dispose of her body, but he'd been stopped from doing any of it because he'd been too shy to approach her.

It was insane; he dealt with hundreds of women of all ages, shapes, and sizes in his profession and had no problem. But they came to him. He'd always had immense trouble going to them; he'd never gotten the knack of breaking the ice.

Absurd.

Yet there it was. His whole plan could crumble, disintegrate

in his hands, because of a hang-up he'd had ever since dancing school.

He couldn't accept that. He'd think up a new approach and kill Janice Stanley tomorrow night.

And if he failed tomorrow night, then he'd try again the next night. Because for the first time he understood that, even if he made it home free, the money collected and paid to John Stegner and the awful people he represented, with no chance of pursuit or prosecution, free to live his own life again—even if all that fell neatly into place, he was still going to have to kill her anyway.

The meeting going on in Boots Ebberhardt's boardroom at nine-thirty that morning looked much the same as any of the other meetings going on in boardrooms all over the city. The big difference was that, out of the eleven people sitting around the table, sipping coffee and making notes on yellow legal pads, only two were male—Boots and Charters. The rest of the group was female—Janice and Thelma, Boots' tall secretary, and seven pretty young women all under the age of twenty-five. They were the kind of girls, Charters thought, that you'd see at political conventions wearing skimmers and handing out campaign buttons: bright-eyed, alert, nicely dressed, with their makeup on straight.

At the head of the table, in a chair especially made so that he sat as high as everybody else, Boots laid it out for them. "Okay. Now here's the reason why the Ebberhardt Agency is the best in town, in case you had any doubts. You guys came up with sixty-six names yesterday, all phoned in by midnight. If you look at the sheets that the beauteous Thelma is putting in front of you, you'll see that every one of those names has either a home address or an office address against it. That information was acquired at ruinous expense in the early hours of the morning, which is going to cost a certain party a bundle."

"Do you take plastic?" Charters asked.

"Now, sixty-six names," Boots continued, "is an awful lot to get through by midnight tonight. Can we cut it at all?"

"Yep," Charters said. "Strike out all the women's names."

One of the girls said, "Chauvinist," and there was some laughter.

Pens scratched as each person went down her list.

"How many does that leave?" Boots wanted to know.

118

"Forty-eight," somebody said.

"Better. Forty-eight between seven."

"Forty-eight between eight," Janice said. "If that's all right with everybody."

"The more the merrier," Boots said. He'd only met Janice a few minutes ago, and even with the wig, he'd recognized her; Charters could tell that. But Boots hadn't commented; in his business discretion was king. "That's six names apiece," he said to the meeting. "Now, everybody got their printed sheets?"

There was a rustling of paper and a general murmur of consent.

"Okay, Judy," Boots spoke to a girl on his immediate left "take the first six names. Irene, take the next six, and so on around the table. Write them in on six of those forms. And add a seventh name. Make a note of this. The name is Lester Allen." He checked with Charters. "That right?"

"Lester Allen. Right." It was the name Kenny Takama had come up with, the one that contained most of the same letters as the name "Alka Seltzer."

Boots went on with the briefing. "The object of this exercise is to get a signature and a voice recording from each of the six people on your list. You've all worked mini-recorders before and, Janice, if you haven't, they're a snap to use. That's the easy part. The hardest part is getting the signature. Mr. Charters, would you like to fill in the details?"

"You've got to get them to sign the name 'Lester Allen,' " Charters told the table. "I don't care about their own signatures. You're going to have to be smart and think up some kind of excuse to get them to do this, because this is the real reason why you're going out."

"Bat your eyes at them, stick out your chests," Boots said, "turn cartwheels if you have to. You've all got to bring back six Lester Allen signatures. Clear?"

The girls nodded and continued to make up their lists.

"Work in pairs," Boots told them. "If anybody gives you a hard time, trade off with your partner, and your partner can try a different approach. When you've done your six interviews, bring the results back here. There'll be somebody here till midnight." He got off his chair. "I'll leave you to it. Knock 'em dead, kids."

Charters, getting up, murmured to Janice, "You going to be okay?"

'Til be fine." She certainly looked fine, Charters thought. She was wearing another working-girl outfit, but the ordinary clothes only seemed to magnify her soft loveliness. He couldn't understand why he'd been uncertain about her looks when he'd first met her; a man with one eye could see that she was gorgeous. She finished copying six names and passed the sheet on to the next girl.

Charters took a look at her list: Jose Ruiz, John R. Leo, Harold Williams, Rudy Hecht, Dr. Nelson Fitzroy, Bernard Kurnitz.

She sat back and asked him what he was going to be doing.

"I have errands to run and arrangements to make. I'll talk to you later." He went out of the room with Boots. He said to him, "Are your girls going to come through?"

"Sure. They're old pros, you should pardon the expression. What are you worried about?"

"Nothing, it's just that it's the bottom of the ninth, and if we don't get a hit, the season's over."

"They'll deliver," Boots said. "They're clutch players. Incidentally, Frankie and Johnny are down in the lobby waiting for you."

"Okay. I have to make a call first."

"Use Thelma's phone. And keep your eyes off her boobs. I don't mind you touching them, but keep your eyes off 'em."

Charters went outside to a desk and called the number Freidman had given him. He identified himself to an answering voice, a man's, and told him he needed to meet with Freidman as soon as possible. The man asked for a number where Charters could be reached, called him back a minute later, and gave him a midtown address. "Half an hour," the voice said.

Charters told him he'd be there, hung up, and went downstairs.

Frank and John Lamont had come to be added to the list of Boots' "suppliers" because of their hobby, which was a peculiar one: getting into places for free. It had started when they were kids sneaking into the movies, and they'd graduated to other things as they'd gotten older. It was their claim that, by the time they were twenty-one, they'd sneaked into every Broadway theater, every club that charged admission, and every major sports event that had been held in the New

York area. They also claimed to have the run of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center; they said they would have been regulars but for the weird music played at those places. They drank for free at office parties, ate on the cuff at receptions, and slept in the best hotels without the management knowing.

The reason why they were so successful was that they continually changed their methods, which ran the gamut from simple scams to elaborate stunts. Once, at the National Tennis Center, Frank had stood close to an entrance gate wearing a reasonable approximation of an usher's uniform. He picked out a loudmouthed obnoxious type, with two six-packs in one arm and a flashy blonde on the other, asked for his tickets, turned away for a moment, ripped tickets in half, and handed the man the stubs. When the man got to the gate, he found that the stubs were from last month's dog show.

But generally, Frankie and Johnny Lamont preferred to sting the management rather than individuals. Their most famous stunt was performed at Madison Square Garden one night. They put on white uniforms and got a friend to lie down on a stretcher wearing trunks and boxing gloves, then they carried him past a door guard. It was only later that the guard began to wonder why an unconscious boxer would be carried into the Garden.

Boots had heard about the brothers' prowess and he'd wisely figured that a talent like theirs could be put to good use on behalf of his clients, some of whom needed information that only an intruder could get. So the brothers had gone on his payroll.

Charters had used them several times before with the tacit approval of the department, although he hadn't run into them for some time. Once downstairs, it was a minute before he recognized them. That was a problem with Frankie and Johnny; one never knew what they were going to be dressed as. On this occasion Frankie, the older brother, slim, with a mop of dark hair, was carrying a helmet and wearing a one-piece leather motorcycle outfit with a yellow Day-Glo vest that said "Kwik Kourier 745-0196." Johnny, almost his brother's twin, with the same lanky body and pleasant open face, wore coveralls and a motorman's cap.

They greeted Charters and swapped pleasantries for a minute, then Charters said, looking at Frankie, "Did Boots tell you this was a tail job?"

"Sure. Why?"

4 'Because you look like you're going to crash the National Motorcycle Show/'

44 We crashed the boat show once," Johnny said.

44 What did you do, disguise yourselves as anchors?"

44 Nah, better than that. We found this big Chris-Craft on a trailer waiting to go in, so we hopped on board and hid in the cabin."

"We're the only guys," Frankie said, "who've ever stowed away and ended up in the Coliseum."

4 This is going to be different," Charters told them. "If you're caught on this one, you won't get just thrown out. You'll probably get rubbed out. I want you to know that."

Frank dismissed the warning. "Hell, that don't bother us. There are two ushers at Shea who swear they're gonna shoot us on sight."

44 Who do we tail?" Johnny asked.

44 Me first of all. I'm going to be meeting a guy who travels in a black Caddy limo. I want to know who he is. I had the limo checked out, but it's leased to a company that doesn't exist. He's had me tailed all week. Watch out for a green Fairmont, three men, and a driver. After I talk with this guy I think the tail will be called off, but it'll probably stay with him so, again, look for that Fairmont."

"What's this guy look like?" Frankie asked.

44 Like the cover of Fortune magazine. Age thirty-two, fair hair, fixed superior smile, wears a suit with lapels made in Rome, sleeves made in Paris. I'm meeting him at Park and Forty-seventh. You ready?"

"Let's go," Johnny said.

Charters wasn't kept waiting very long. Just two minutes after he arrived, the long black limo glided up to the curb. The driver got out immediately and came around to open the rear door. He moved smoothly for a man with such a heavy frame. He was even bigger than Charters remembered, springy and powerful, with overlarge hands gripping the door handle that looked capable of tearing it off. He laid his fish eyes on Charters and inclined his head sideways. "Get in."

"Last time we met," Charters said to him, "you told me to get out. I wish you'd make up your mind, Robert."

The big man's thin mouth hardly moved. 4 'Don't worry. It's made up."

"Good morning." Freidman was leaning across the rear

seat, smiling up. Charters recognized that smile now: the condescending, patronizing smile of the winner for the loser. Well done, and all that. Better luck next time. The smile of a man who could afford to be gracious.

44 An unexpected pleasure, Mr. Charters. Something on your mind?"

Charters slid in next to him. "I think I'm very close to Alka Seltzer."

"Well, I should hope so. Tomorrow the money will be delivered."

"That's what I want to talk about. The collection. It's not going to go the way you think."

Freidman's expression remained the same, but there was a new hard note in his voice. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I know the department. They're not going to just drop off the money like a spaniel bringing back a stick. They're going to cheat."

"How?"

"The way I used to do it myself when I was handling payoffs. They'll probably bug the suitcase for a start. They could put an indelible green dye in the money. Or they could use funny money that looks great until it begins to fade the next day."

"None of that bothers me. I'll be fencing the money anyway."

4 'And give up forty cents on the dollar? Not you, Freidman. You wouldn't give up a nickel."

Freidman tried to play the busy executive. He glanced at his watch and said, "Thank you for your concern, Mr. Charters. I'll be sure to inspect the money carefully."

4 'Better make it fast. There's another little trick they could play. In each bundle there could be a bill that looks like all the rest, only it isn't. It's been chemically treated with a green phosphorus. An hour after you pick up the money, the whole lot goes up in smoke. Now I'm not saying they'll do all of these things, but you can bet your boots they'll do at least one of them. And if you don't know what to look for, Freidman, you could end up looking at a bagful of ashes and a couple of carloads of blue uniforms."

There was doubt in Freidman's face now, a crack showing through his facade of confidence. "What are you suggesting, Charters?"

Charters gave it a moment for dramatic effect. He checked

the driver, who was squared around behind the steering wheel looking like a man waiting for a sudden move, and then came back to Freidman. "I'm suggesting you need me at the pickup/'

"For which you'd expect an additional fee, I take it?"

"Naturally. Right now, without the money, I only have you and the happy knifer in the front seat to worry about. But if I pick up the money, I'm going to have the cops to worry about. 1*11 be swapping one threat for another. So Til have to be paid all over again."

"Another fifty thousand? Is that what you're saying?"

"It's a good deal I'm offering, Freidman. Fifty thousand is a twentieth of a million. Think of it as an insurance policy. To protect twenty dollars the premium is a dollar. That's not bad."

"I have to consider your history, Mr. Charters. You're not very reliable with extortion payoffs, are you? If you get your hands on that money, I may never see it."

Charters grunted, a derisive sound. "Don't you think I've spotted the green Fairmont by now?-Four faceless men in it. Plus Robert here, who'd look better faceless."

"Shut up!" the big man said.

"I don't like those odds, Freidman. I'd rather be alive with a hundred thousand, than dead with a million."

Freidman brushed at the knee of his pants. There was no need to, there wasn't a speck on it. He said, in what appeared to be an admission of normalcy, "I'd be lying if I said I'm not worried about the collection. I don't pretend to know the ways of the Police Department better than you do, and you're right, I must protect against a surprise." He tapped his mouth and seemed to be considering something. "Very well, I'll take out an insurance policy, as you put it. You pick up the money and make sure that it's clean before you bring it to me, and I'll meet your fee."

"It's a deal," Charters said.

Freidman nodded at Robert, and there was a clunk as the door lock released. Freidman slid over to the window as Charters got out. "Mr. Charters. If I called off the tail, what would stop you from taking the fifty thousand you already have and leaving town now?"

"The other fifty thousand."

"That's what I thought you'd say. But you could be bluffing about being close to Alka Seltzer."

Charters leaned against the limo. "Remember why you

hired me, Freidman? You said I was good at finding people. Why change your opinion now?" He walked away without another word, continuing on for thirty feet before glancing back.

Robert was out of the car, signalling to somebody, and then Charters saw the green Fairmont pull out and pass him, no longer interested. There was a customized van several cars behind the Fairmont, driven by a man dressed in coveralls and a motorman's cap. Right behind the van Frank Lamont, in his black leathers and yellow messenger vest, rode a Honda with a CB radio mounted on the rear.

Charters continued walking. Everything seemed to be in order; things were running on schedule. He was even on time for his date with Hutch, the typewriter expert.

4 'Green Fairmont/' Johnny Lamont said into his handmike. The radio squawked out the message to Frank on the Honda, now twenty feet behind. Frankie spoke into the mike mounted on the handlebars. "Yeah, I got it. Picked up two guys."

"I'm on the limo," Johnny reported. "It's taking Forty-seventh." He made the light and steered the van into the cross street. He was two cars behind the Fairmont, which was two cars behind the limo. The van, with a raised suspension and balloon tires, gave Johnny an excellent view and, at the same time, made the van very conspicuous, which was the intention. It would have been hard to ignore it with its brown metallic paint, double white speed stripes, and Tiffany-papered side windows. The bumper stickers on the front read "Impeach Orange County" and "Honk if You're for Noise Reduction."

When the limousine swung onto Third Avenue, the Fairmont and the van following, Johnny could see the two men in the rear seat of the green car turn and take a good look at him. Johnny spoke to the windshield. From the other car it might have looked like he was singing. "They're hooked. Anytime you're ready."

"Coming,'* Frankie replied.

The Honda pulled out, weaved expertly through gaps in the traffic, and zipped by the Fairmont. The men inside didn't give it a second thought. Frankie took his bike past the limousine, and when he stopped at a light, he was twenty feet in front of it and hidden by a couple of cars.

The light changed and the traffic moved away. "Steady as she goes," Johnny said.

4 'Roger," the reply came back.

The convoy went several blocks up the avenue, the men in the Fairmont watching the van very closely now.

Ahead, Johnny could see the limousine changing lanes. "He's moving over. East-side curb. Could be stopping."

Frankie, still in front of the limo and still hidden from it, changed lanes as well.

Johnny saw the long car's right indicator flash and the brake lights come on. "Yeah, he's pulling up. He's all yours."

The Fairmont had slowed too, the driver keeping pace with his boss. Johnny didn't even glance at it; he sailed by the Fairmont and could practically feel the men inside relax as he barreled the van down the avenue. Half a block ahead Frankie had pulled in almost at the same time as the limo, angle parking the bike between two cars. He unstrapped a large folded canvas bag from the carrier and moved quickly along the sidewalk. He saw the limo double-parked outside an office building, two men standing next to it: one, a very large, tough-looking man, the other a fair-headed executive type, beautifully dressed, just as Charters had described.

The executive began to walk toward the entrance of the building, and Frankie timed it so that he went through the doors ahead of the target. He crossed to the tenant board, as if he were checking a name, then turned and followed Freidman into an elevator. It was the usual New York mix: suits and ties, a couple of secretaries holding coffeecups, a maintenance man, and Frankie in his black leather messenger's outfit, crash helmet under his arm.

When Freidman got out at the sixth floor, Frankie got out too. Freidman turned left, Frankie turned right, and as the man rounded a corner, Frankie doubled back and peeped around into the corridor just in time to see Freidman entering an office. Frankie walked up the corridor, noted the name on the door, but kept going until there was nobody around. Then he whipped off his Day-Glo vest, unzipped his leather suit, and stepped out of it. Underneath, he was wearing jacket and slacks and a bow tie clipped to his shirt collar. The jacket had a Red Cross badge on the lapel.

He unfolded the canvas bag and stuffed everything into it, including the crash helmet, then went into the first office he came to.

A receptionist looked up. Frankie flashed her a smile. He

was a good-looking boy with a casual charm. "Can I leave this bag here? I'll be back in a minute."

4 'What was your name, sir?"

"Back in a minute," Frankie said again, hurrying out. He went down the corridor, stopped outside the door Freidman had entered, and unfolded the rolled-up plastic briefcase that was sticking out of his jacket pocket. He finger-combed his hair and went through the door.

It was an office much like any other: a reception desk, two vinyl-covered chairs, a low table piled with financial magazines and Wall Street Journals, and the obligatory art posters framed on dark-hessian fabric walls.

The woman behind the desk was young and waspish. She wore glasses, which she immediately took off, as if they didn't belong to her. "Help you?"

Frankie said, brightly, "John Anderson. Red Cross. I'm following up on a donor pledge."

The girl frowned. "Not here. What name do you have?"

Frankie pulled some paper from the briefcase and improvised. "HerbKarras."

"Wrong office," the girl said.

"Yeah? You know, it's amazing how many times that happens to me. You make a phone call, they pledge blood. You follow up and, bingo, bango, everyone's gone to Florida for two weeks."

With an annoyed click of her mouth the girl said, "There is no Mr. Karras here."

Frankie blinked slowly. "That right? You know, it don't hurt, giving blood. There's no pain involved. It's not like going to the dentist, anything like that."

"Please. You have the wrong office."

Frankie nodded at the closed door at the end of the room. "Whoever told your boss it hurts was dead wrong."

Exasperated, the girl stabbed the on button of her typewriter. "Look. You've got the wrong address. There is no Mr. Karras here."

"Wait a second," Frankie said, getting a sudden suspicion. "This says Mr. Herb Karras. Maybe it should read Mrs. Herb Karras. That wouldn't be you, would it?"

"No, it would not!"

"Because believe me, Mrs. Karras, it don't hurt."

The girl hissed at him. "For the last time. There is no Mr.

Karras here. There is just Mr. Forman and myself. Forman and Douglas. That is all."

Frankie frowned at his piece of paper. "What are the first names?"

"Craig and Anne. I'm getting tired of this."

"Craig and Anne," Frankie said slowly."This is the Acorn Company, isn't it?"

"Can't you read? This is Acorn Investments. I told you you had the wrong place."

"You're Acorn Investments? I wanted the Acorn Company."

"Exactly!" the woman said. She picked up her glasses, shoved them on, and began to peck fussily at the typewriter.

Frankie said, "Well, seeing I'm here, would you like to make a pledge? It don't hurt."

The woman stopped typing and closed her eyes. "Will you get out of here!"

"Okay. We never press. We only accept blood if it's gladly given."

"If you want to see some blood, mister, just keep talking."

"Say no more. I'm leaving." Frankie proved it, went back down the corridor, entered the other office, picked up his canvas bag, and thanked the receptionist.

"What was your name again, sir?"

"Karras. Herb Karras."

The woman checked her diary. "I don't seem to have you down, but I think Mr. Shell could squeeze you in."

"Tell Mr. Shell I'm sorry," Frankie said, halfway out the door, "but I never see anybody without an appointment."

An hour later, while Boots was dictating a letter to Thelma for the third time, one of the desk phones buzzed.

Thelma picked it up, listened for a second, then handed it to her boss. "Gene Charters."

Boots took the phone and said into it, "His name's Craig Forman."

"He told me Freidman," Charters said. "Freidman, Forman, it's close. What else did you find out?"

"Plenty," Boots answered. "You wouldn't know him because he's one of the new boys. The department's been trying to nail him for the last five or six months. What did he tell you he did for a crust?"

"He made out he was one of the biggies in a giant Wall Street outfit. He was lying, right?"

"Right. He's a loner, one-man office, midtown. Claims to be an investment adviser. Worked as a securities analyst on Wall Street, then sold stocks and bonds. Fired from both jobs for improper practices. Then he got in hot water with the SEC on a unit trust fund he invented. Everybody lost money except Mr. Forman. Then he went in for some real serious financial finagling and a body or two turned up, but he covered himself and the department couldn't even get a piece of his sweater. In short, he's a white-collar crook who spreads money around in high places. Does any of this surprise you?"

4 'Not in the slighest," Charters said. "You have his home address?"

"Five forty East Seventy-second. Been there three years."

"Do you think Frankie and Johnny could get in there, Boots?"

"They could get into the White House."

"Okay. Have them meet me there at, hold it—" Charters broke off, and Boots heard him asking a question of someone. Then he came back on. "Boots? Half an hour all right?"

"Make it forty-five. I gotta set things up." Boots handed the phone to Thelma to replace, then said to her, "You feel like doing the Ma Bell routine?"

Thelma sighed. "I used to be a gal Friday. Now I'm an actress."

"Guy's name is Craig Forman. Acorn Investments."

A minute later Thelma was talking to Forman's waspish secretary in a fair approximation of a robot's voice. "This is the telephone company. We're trying to contact Mr. Craig Forman. There was no answer at his residence, and our records show this number as an alternate."

"I'm his secretary. What's it about?"

Thelma told her that their records showed a phone bill three months in arrears, and that, following company policy, service had been terminated at ten that morning.

"Crap," the secretary said. "I sent that check myself. Your computer's crazy. You put that phone back on."

Thelma told her they'd double-check, hung up, gave it five minutes, then dialed the same number. "This is the telephone company again. Our computer made a mistake. We apologize for any inconvenience, and we'll be restoring Mr. Forman's service just as soon as possible."

"Do it now or we'll sue." The secretary slammed down the phone. "Jesus, what a morning," she said.

The van was already parked on Seventy-second when Charters got there, Frankie's motorcycle behind it. The brothers had just stepped out of the rear doors of the van wearing gray workshirts and pants and windjackets. They wore leather linemen's belts from which swung tools in holsters, and each carried a hand phone with a plug.

4 'Not the Ma Bell routine again," Charters said.

44 Why not? It still works," Frankie said.

44 Dull, but tried and true," Johnny added.

4 'This a pickup or a delivery?" Frankie asked.

Charters handed him the heavy cardboard box he had under his arm. 4 'Delivery. Make sure you hide it when you get in there."

Johnny stashed the box in a workbag as they swapped a few more words with Charters, then the brothers walked up the block to the door of 540 East 72nd Street.

The doorman told them to check with the super, so they went in and crossed the lobby. A small fountain burbled colored water beneath a modernistic chandelier, and there were dark smoked mirrors on the walls. The place had a skin-deep expensive look that ended abruptly once they were out of the lobby area and at the super's door.

The superintendent, a heavy dyspeptic type, listened impatiently to Frankie's explanation. 44 I gotta call," he said. 44 I can't let nobody into any of the apartments without I check with the tenant first." He left the door open, lumbered to his phone, flicked through a small book, and dialed.

Twenty blocks south, the phone was answered, and the super passed on Frankie's story. 44 They cut off the service. They tried to switch it back on, but they got a problem. They gotta go in. That okay with Mr. Forman?"

The secretary was annoyed all over again. She buzzed an intercom, explained the request, and got a fast okay. Forman—or Freidman as he'd called himself—had other things on his mind.

"Okay," the super said as he hung up. 44 But I gotta go with you. I gotta be there anytime we let anybody in."

44 Fine with us," Johnny said. 4 'We'd rather have it that way. Something comes up missing, nobody's gonna say we did it."

They went up in the elevator, the super eyeing the big bag Johnny was carrying.

"We do plumbing on the side," Johnny said, and laughed. "Nah, you see, we got to do any heavy work, go into a wall or anything, it's best we bring the whole kit and caboodle with us. Saves going back to the truck."

The super didn't seem to care one way or the other. He led them down a hallway and let them into an apartment.

"Hey," Frankie said. "Some folks live nice." A decorator's touch was evident; the apartment was glossy and rich-looking, with dramatic, stylized furniture, woven Indian rugs on the floor, and primitive art carefully displayed. Everything was in perfect order and precisely placed as if the editor of Architectural Digest were expected.

Frankie went to the nearest phone and picked it up. "That's crazy, I got a dial tone. Check the one in the bedroom, Johnny."

His brother carried the workbag into the other room. The super leaned against the wall just inside the door, content to dp his duty and no more.

Inside the bedroom Johnny moved quickly. He slid back the door of a long built-in closet and whistled at the contents: a dozen beautiful suits and as many jackets, and fifteen or sixteen pairs of hand-made shoes in shoe trees. He grabbed a chair, moved it over, took the heavy cardboard box from the bag, stood on the chair, and put the box at the back of the top shelf under some blankets. He got down, slid the cupboard closed, replaced the chair, and went back into the main room.

"All set. Just a little wire feedback," he said, making it up.

Going down in the elevator, the super said, "That was quick."

"We're fast workers," Frankie said.

"So?" Charters asked as the brothers arrived back at the van.

Johnny showed him the empty workbag. "I've had more trouble dropping off a pizza."

"A snap," Frankie said. "What's next?"

"One last job." When Charters described what he wanted, Johnny looked at his brother. "Number five would work."

"Not number five. It wears me out," Frankie answered.

"It wears you out? It wears me out."

"This number five," Charters said. "That isn't the one where you dress as lion tamers, is it?"

"Nah, that's number six," Frankie said. "Number five is deep-sea divers."

Charters scratched his neck. "Gentlemen, can we be a little more serious? What exactly is number five?"

Johnny told him. "Heart-attack victim."

"I may be able to help out," Charters said. "Does it work?"

"Like a charm."

"Okay, let's get rolling."

Charters didn't take them far, just two blocks away to a group of small quality stores. The brothers went into a shop that sold typewriters, sandwiched between a poodle parlor and an antique dealer's.

"Anything special I can show you?" the clerk asked.

Frankie and Johnny had stowed their tool belts, changed to street clothes, and looked quite respectable.

"Just browsing," Frankie answered, checking over the layout.

"Well, if you want anything demonstrated, I'll be—"

Johnny clutched at his brother. "I don't feel so good."

"Oh, no! Where are your pills?"

"I think"—Johnny was starting to sway—"you got 'em,"

The clerk looked concerned. "Is anything the matter?"

Johnny stumbled and grabbed hold of the man. "Ughh!"

"Water! Quick!" Frankie cried, frantically looking around.

"In back," the clerk said. He sounded panicky.

Frankie ran down the store to a rear office. "Hold him. Don't let him go," he called.

The clerk thought he was talking to him.

Frankie slid open a filing cabinet, checked the files, slid open another drawer, leafed quickly through some folders.

"Hurry!" the clerk yelled.

"Looking for a glass."

"Paper cups on the cooler," the clerk yelled back.

"Ughh!" Johnny said, clutching the clerk.

Frankie found a repair slip he thought would do, thrust it into his pocket, and closed the cabinet. Five seconds later he was at his brother's side with a cup of water and a Contact capsule.

Johnny took it and made a fine recovery. He stopped swaying and his heavy breathing subsided. "Oh," he sighed. "God bless nitro."

"You should be in a hospital," the clerk said.

"You're right," Frankie said to him. "Thanks for your help." He put a supportive arm around his brother. "Come on, old soldier, let's go and see Doc Charters."

Charters told them to meet him outside the same store in about three hours, then took the repair slip to Dizzy Dean, the printer. He spent an hour and a half there, then an hour and a half at Kenny Takama's studio before returning to keep the rendezvous back outside the store.

He handed the slip to Frankie Lamont. "Okay, you can put this back where you got the other one."

The two brothers walked into the store.

The clerk was more than surprised to see them. "You sure he should be on his feet?" he asked Frankie. "I thought he'd be in a hospital bed."

Frankie dismissed the notion. "He's like iron, this one. Comes roaring back every time."

Johnny started to sway. "Hey," he said, "I don't feel so good."

Fitzroy thought it through, and it was simple.

He'd been spooked last night, thrown a curve.

Yes, the baseball reference was particularly apt. He liked to read Roger Angell on the sport. Such a good writer.

Well, he knew what to expect now: a tall, glamorous woman who'd have to be stopped by his opening words. Last night he'd been concentrating too hard on what he'd have to say afterward, to get her into the car. That was why he'd frozen. He hadn't prepared enough for the crucial opening line. And as Roger Angell would no doubt agree, your opponent could just as easily slam your first pitch of the game, when you weren't fully warmed up, as your last, when you were tiring.

Getting started, getting off the mark, was always the most difficult part of any endeavor. Actors, for example, some of the ones he'd seen himself, seasoned professionals who stood trembling in the wings before their entrance, so he'd heard. But they went on, and after forcing out the first few words, the rest came tumbling after and they were fine.

44 Pardon me, Mrs. Stanley." New lines. A whole new approach. "I believe we've already spoken on the phone."

Say them without thinking about them. They would certainly stop her. Then he could rely on the actor's saving grace, a prop. In this case, the gun.

He'd been wrong to leave it in his pocket, shunning it. Perhaps Sir Laurence Olivier hated swords, but would you know it from his Hamlet or his Richard? He couldn't let her see that he was afraid of using it; it had to look familiar in his hand.

He slipped the revolver out of his pocket, pointed it, pushed the safety catch on and off. It was quite a pretty little thing really, with its shiny silver body and the warm, molded

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wooden grip. It came easily to the hand and felt pleasant. That was the way to think of it: an attractive little aid, an elegant little tool designed to assist him with his lines.

He'd be letter-perfect tonight. Everything would be fine. Everything would be fine tomorrow night, too, when he picked up the money. That would make two nights running he'd be on the water. He'd have to wear his big parka and his fleece-lined shoes; it got cold out there.

He was happy with his plan; no need to go over it again. And he was happy about Janice Stanley, too, now that he knew he could do it. He'd bank on her being out again tonight, count on her getting back alone again, at around the same time as last night. If he left his apartment at ten-thirty, he'd cut down on the time he'd have to spend waiting on the corner getting nervous. That would also reduce the risk of anybody seeing him loitering and getting suspicious.

Fitzroy looked at the time: four p.m. Have a light snack now, skip dinner. He went into the kitchen, where he made himself a cheese omelet, opened a can of tomato juice, chopped up parsley, and tossed a green salad together. He ate the meal slowly and thoughtfully at the small dining table. He washed the dishes and carefully scraped the garbage into the bag under the sink.

He looked up as something splattered against the window and moved to take a look.

Rain again.

Ten floors below people were scurrying for shelter.

He was too high up to recognize Janice Stanley crossing the street, heading for his apartment-building entrance.

"If you want a job done properly, do it yourself," so the old axiom went. Charters had always thought that there was a corollary to that: "If you want a job done really well, hire experts."

He was more than happy with the group he'd used: Frankie and Johnny, Hutch, Dizzy Dean, Kenny Takama, nobody could have done any better. There was nothing more he could do now. It was all up to Boots' girls.

He wondered how Janice was doing and whether she'd be as successful as the others. Probably not. Boots' girls were full of personality, bright young things ready with the big smile, the nice hello. They could charm themselves past

doormen, talk their way into an apartment for an interview. Janice might be too cool, too restrained for that.

He checked his watch. Almost four. He wondered if he should track down Janice, help her out.

No, she might resent it. Besides, whatever she didn't cover, one of the other girls would.

He checked the time again. Just four o'clock. He could use a glass of beer, and it had been a while since he'd dropped in on the Pals, as he called them. He turned up the collar of his topcoat and headed west.

They'd been cronies of his father's, old men from the neighborhood who still lived there. They were all retired and either hadn't had the urge or a sufficient nest egg to move to Florida, or had tried it and moved back after six months. They spent most afternoons in a bar on Ninth, coming in after the lunchtime rush ended to nurse a few beers until dinnertime. He'd dropped in on them several times since his father had died, but mainly since he'd been kicked off the force. The Pals hadn't treated him any differently. Charters wondered if that was the reason why he went back—to get their forgiveness, since he couldn't get his father's.

There were the usual greetings when he walked into the bar. He bought the usual round, they told him the usual things: news of the neighborhood, whose daughter had got married, whose son had been promoted, which barman, or which waiter, had changed jobs. None of the men were French; his father had deliberately shunned his old country to embrace his new one.

During the second round of drinks somebody would bring up sports. They'd talk football or baseball for a while, then get on to boxing and the latest heavyweight debacle.

"Ain't no fighters no more," somebody would say.

"Ain't no wrestlers, either," somebody else would add. Which would start it off.

"Your dad was the last of the grapplers. The good ones, anyway."

There'd be a murmur of general agreement. "Damn right. Frenchy Charters was the cream of the crop. Jesus, he was good. And talk about smart! I saw him one night at the Garden, wrestled Szando Szarbo. Remember him? Real tough cookie. Had a forearm jolt could knock a horse down. Now, Frenchy, of course, his specialty was an airplane spin, then a

backbreaker, and that's what Szando was looking for. So what did Frenchy win it with? Szando's own specialty. He just stepped right up and handed the guy a terrific forearm jolt, pinned him, and the match was over. I tell you, that was one surprised Hungarian."

Everybody laughed. It was even better when you knew the stories.

"I saw him do something like that one night," someone else said, lt up there at Saint Nick's. He was in against Jack Claiborne, remember him? Champion Colored Wrestler of the World, he was billed as. Had this terrific dropkick, you never seen such a jumper. Well, Johnny Keefe was the ref, all five feet five of him, and he was arguing with Frenchy about something when, out of nowhere, the black guy comes sailing over Johnny's head, dropkicks Frenchy, and pins him for a fall. It's one fall each, anybody's match. But that was all right because, next round, Johnny's jawing at Frenchy again, and you can practically hear Claiborne thinking, It worked once, it'll work twice. And, sure enough, Claiborne comes sailing over Johnny Keefe's head again, only this time Frenchy's sucked him in."

Everyone at the bar started to laugh.

4 'Claiborne's in midair when Frenchy just sidesteps like he was Arthur Murray. The guy lands flat on his back, Frenchy drops on him like a ton of bricks, and gets the decision."

Lots of laughter; even Charters joined in.

'The colored guy I liked to watch," somebody said, " was Seelie Samara. Boy, he was slick. Never beat Frenchy, though."

4 'Neither did Big Chief Little Wolf, and he had a hold. That Indian death lock of his was like to snap your legs off."

4 'Fred Atkins," somebody else said, "the Aussie. He had a step-over toehold, my God, you blinked your eyes he'd have it on you. Got it on Frenchy for a submission fall, but Frenchy didn't give him another chance. He came out for the second round, really limping 'cause Atkins practically broke his leg. Well, Fred didn't know what hit him. Frenchy softened him up with a couple of body slams, picked him up in the airplane spin, and the crowd went wild. There was nothing Atkins could do. Zap! The backbreaker. It was ten minutes before Atkins could leave the ring."

Everybody drank more beer.

"I saw your father wrestle John Katan one night in Chicago. John Katan, Bad Man o' the Mat, they called him. Mean son

of a bitch. Used to tuck a piece of soap in his wrist support and rub it in the other guy's eyes. He'd do it on the blind side of the ref, and the crowd would go crazy. He did it to Frenchy, which was a mistake, because your dad hated dirty wrestlers. Anyway, Katan thought he was gonna have an early night the way he was going. He kept catapulting off the ropes and belting Frenchy down. The third time he tried it, Frenchy dodged and jumped on Katan as he went by. Only he wasn't riding him, he had him in the python clutch. And that was the end for the Bad Man o' the Mat.'

4 'They banned that hold, the python clutch."

4 'They banned the octopus clamp, too. And the sleeper."

4 'Didn't matter to Frenchy. He used to say that as long as they left him the airplane spin and the backbreaker, he could beat anybody."

4 'Damn near beat Londos with 'em," somebody said.

The mood quietened.

44 He came so close that night, Gene. That title should've been his by rights."

Charters spoke, and they craned and listened. 44 My father always said that Londos was the better man. He had no regrets getting beaten by somebody better."

There was a general murmur.

4 'That's the way Frenchy was."

44 He always gave credit where credit was due."

"What a guy."

There was some more talk, generalities, then Charters drained his glass, ordered another round for everybody, and told them he'd see them later.

4 'So long, Lieutenant. Thanks for the beers."

They watched him as he left the bar, their smiles fading, faces silent and pensive. Somebody slowly shook his head and said what the others were thinking. "Too bad."

Janice had been lucky in her interviews; out of the four people she'd tried so far, three had responded to her questions and given her signatures: a Wall Street computer programmer, a copywriter in a big ad agency on Sixth Avenue, and a stereo salesman near Grand Central. The first two men had been happy to answer questions posed by such a good-looking woman. The third person, an older man, had been pressed for time but had done it finally, although she'd had to hang around for half an hour. The fourth man had been unavail-

able, so she'd try him at home after six. That left two names to go.

She only had a home address for the man she was going to see now, and she didn't hold out much hope that he'd be home at four-thirty in the afternoon. She'd probably have to come back later for him, too.

The apartment house was a fourteen-story red-brick affair that looked as if it had gone up in the early sixties' building boom. It was in a good area—on Forty-fifth not far from the UN—the rents would be high, although there was no doorman anymore; there was an automatic lock instead. Janice found the name on the tenant intercom, Apartment 10-B. She hesitated to use it; if the man was home, she didn't want to try talking her way in from outside on the street. She only had to wait five minutes before somebody came out, and she grabbed the door before it closed.

"I want to surprise a friend," Janice said.

The other person, an elderly man, nodded and didn't question her.

Going up in the elevator, Janice wondered again about the three men she'd interviewed. Their voices had told her very little; she knew she'd have to wait to hear the playback of the recordings she'd made. But none of them had seemed remotely like a person who could kill people with a bomb.

She got off at ten and rang the bell outside apartment B.

Inside the apartment Fitzroy spilled the coffee he was spooning into a percolator. Nobody had buzzed. He wasn't expecting anybody.

Unless it was the ring from the police he'd been half-expecting all along.

He shook his head as if to shake the thought away. It was probably just somebody selling a magazine subscription. Or the super calling about that leaky radiator. He went from the kitchen to the front door, swallowed hard, and patted and smoothed his hair. "Who is it?" His words sounded frayed.

His ears were ready to accept a deep, hard, man's voice, ordering him to open up."

Relief flooded through him when he heard a woman answer. "Doctor Fitzroy?"

He squinted through the peephole, but all he could see was a woman's face distorted by the magnification. "What is it?"

"My name's Jean Ovington. I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time."

"In what connection?" He came away from the peephole, leaned his moist brow against the door. He'd been certain they'd come for him. He had to get a grip on himself, get his confidence back.

"I'm taking an opinion poll and your name was chosen at random. It would only take a few minutes, and I'd be very grateful."

"I'm busy." He put a hand to his heart, felt it racing. He should really run in place or do push-ups to burn up the released adrenaline. He'd read in one of his journals that research indicated surplus adrenaline was a contributing factor to heart disease.

"Doctor Fitzroy?"

4 'I can't see anybody at the moment."

Janice heard footsteps walking away from the door. She turned and went back toward the elevator. She knew she should have put some allure in her voice, but it was something she resisted. Katie, the girl she was teamed up with, would be able to do it.

She put a mark against the name. Dr. Nelson Fitzroy.

The name seemed to ping off the edges of her memory. Had she met him somewhere? At the store? At a party? The name seemed vaguely familiar.

She went uptown several blocks and tried to see the last person on her list, but that turned out to be another appointment she'd have to keep later. At five she met Katie as they had arranged.

4 'Hi. Rung any good door bells lately?" Katie was a pert blonde with a big smile and a bright personality. Janice gave her a rundown of her day. 'Two more to go and one definite failure. He just wouldn't let me in."

"I'll trade you," Katie said. "I'll give him a try and you take this guy on my list. He should be back at his office now. He'll be there till six."

"Good luck with Doctor Fitzroy," Janice said. "He doesn't sound like he wants to be disturbed."

Katie wiggled her shoe. "All I need is a foot in the door."

When the bell rang for the second time, Fitzroy refused to react as he had previously. He refused to admit that the confidence he'd built up was so fragile that an ordinary,

everyday thing like a door bell could destroy it. It was probably that woman back again, the pollster.

He walked purposefully to the door, checked the peephole. It was a woman, but not the same one. This one had blond hair.

4 'Doctor Fitzroy? My name's Katie. Could I see you for a moment?" * "For what reason?"

"I have a couple of questions and I'll bet you're just the man to answer them."

Katie pressed a button on the mini-recorder hidden in her handbag. The microphone was pinned under her topcoat lapel.

Fitzroy chastised himself. It was just a young woman. And she was coming to him. He wouldn't have to break the ice. She'd do all the talking. He unbolted the door but left the safety chain on.

"Hello there," the girl said.

Nice smile, pretty face. Her topcoat open, nice breasts pressing against a sweater.

"I'm with TV Guestimates. Maybe you've heard of us? We're a consumer information group."

"I don't think I'd be able to help you."

"Oh, I'm sure you would. You look like a very intelligent person."

Fitzroy patted and smoothed his hair. "What, er, what exactly did you want to know?"

"Well, for instance, what's your favorite kind of TV show? Movie, situation comedy, or drama?"

"Drama, if it's well done."

Katie flashed him the smile again. "I thought you might say that. So many people say Westerns or soaps." She raised the clipboard in her hand and made a note on it. "It's nice to meet somebody with taste for a change."

Fitzroy coughed with his hand over his mouth. This wasn't so hard; nothing to be afraid of here. He unhooked the safety chain. "Maybe you'd better come in."

"Thank you." Katie stepped into the apartment.

"Ooh, what a nice place. You have some handsome things."

"I, er, I like to collect."

"I'm into antiques myself. I'd like to take a closer look sometime. But for the moment, back to the salt mines." Katie consulted her clipboard. "When you watch TV, what's

your favorite snack? Peanuts, corn chips, a cheese dip, a candy bar?"

"I never snack. Snacking is poor nutrition."

Katie laughed, it was a warm, pleasant sound. "That's something else I thought you might say, you being a doctor. Okay, we're doing fine. One last question and I'll let you get on with your life. If an event takes place of national importance, which medium would you go to for information? Radio, TV, or a daily newspaper?"

"The Times, always. Radio and television don't give you anywhere near the detail. Besides, I don't think news should be sponsored."

"You know, that's a very interesting point of view. And just between you and me"—Katie moved fractionally closer; he got a whiff of her perfume—"I think I'm inclined to agree with you."

Fitzroy coughed again. "Thank you." She really was a pretty girl. And she seemed to like him.

"Now if you'd just sign against your name for me—"

"Sign?"

Katie handed him the clipboard. "It's just so my employers know I haven't shortchanged them. You know, sat around and made up the answers myself."

"I see." Fitzroy accepted the pen she offered, then stopped. "Somebody's already signed my name."

Katie took a peek. "Oh, no." She looked a little shamefaced. "I have to tell you, this isn't my chart. It belongs to the girl who was up here before. She's new on the job. I don't understand this, but the last respondent, Mr. Allen, signed your name against his. See?"

"Why would he do that?"

"He must have misunderstood her and she's a little shy anyway. Look, could I ask you a big favor? Could you sign his name where he should've signed it? Just so everything looks straight."

Fitzroy drew back a little. "I really shouldn't sign for anybody else."

Katie simpered. "I don't want this girl to get fired. Her husband's out of work." She put her hand on his arm. "Would you be a sport?"

"Well . . ." Fitzroy swallowed. "I don't suppose it would hurt."

"That's awfully nice of you. Would you sign his full name, I think that reads Lester Allen/ 1

Fitzroy signed and handed the clipboard back.

"You're a nice man, Doctor. And thanks for the interview. It's been a pleasure."

When she left, Fitzroy closed the door gently. He felt buoyed by her visit; he'd been so right to let her in. Alone with an attractive young woman in his apartment, and he'd been fine. It was exactly the kind of morale booster he needed.

He was sure now that he wouldn't have any trouble tonight. He'd just walk right up to Janice Stanley and talk to her as naturally as he'd talked to that young lady. What was her name? Katie?

Pretty name. Pretty girl.

Everything was going to be fine.

Charters and Janice sat at the big boardroom table at Boots' agency. From the rear office came the sound of a typist working late. There would be no need for her to stay till midnight; although it was not yet ten, all the results were in.

"Not bad/' Charters said. "In fact, terrific. Out of forty-eight possibilities, only five people couldn't be reached, and only two refused to be interviewed."

"Do you think that's suspicious?" Janice asked.

"Maybe. Why don't we see what we've got first?"

They shared the eight clipboards with their attached pile of questionnaires. Each board had a cassette tape on it.

"Let's start with the signatures. Mark anything that looks close. We'll check the voice tapes later." Charters passed Janice a copy of one of the extortion notes folded open at the Alka Seltzer signature. Then they began.

The typewriter had quit in the other room, so there was just the rustle of papers as they went through the questionnaires.

"Close," Janice murmured. Then, a minute later, "Close again."

Charters, working much faster than she was, flicked through the sheets, stopping only once or twice for a longer look at something. He finished before she did, and he sat and waited.

Eventually Janice put her last clipboard aside. She looked worried. "I don't have much. Five possibles and two maybes. How about you?"

"I have only one possible."

"That's awful," Janice said. "We've failed. It didn't work."

"You can't say that yet. My possible is a probable." Charters said it so casually it was a moment before she understood.

She rose halfway out of her chair. "You've found him?"

144

"Don't get excited. It looks very close. But that doesn't mean it's him."

"Let me see."

Charters passed a clipboard to her. "It's your sheet," he said.

Janice paled. "My God. He's the man who wouldn't answer the door. Katie went back and talked her way in." She compared Fitzroy's writing with the Alka Seltzer signature. Now that she saw them side by side, it only made her more excited. "That's him! Look at it. Alka Seltzer, Lester Allen. They're identical."

Charters slowly ran a finger over his scarred eyebrow; he didn't seem at all affected by what he'd found. "They look identical, yes. If you compare Alka and Allen, the cap As are very close. Also the l's and the e's."

"And the r's," Janice said. "Why are you being so negative?"

"Because I've been in this position before. It's too soon to jump up and down."

Janice subsided a little, but very reluctantly. "Let's play his voice," she said. "Then we'll know for sure."

"Wrong again. We won't know for sure just from one signature and a voice track. I don't want to get your hopes up, Janice. I don't want to get mine up, either. Let's see the other names you checked off."

Almost angrily Janice swiveled around two clipboards, stabbed her finger at some signatures. Charters nodded over them, then reached for the cassette player on the table. "Let's hear their voices."

It was easy to tell which voice was which; the girls had all been careful to call the person by name. They listened to several excerpts.

"Nothing like the man on the tape," Janice said. "Let's hear Fitzroy's voice."

Charters played Katie's interview:

"I don't think I'd be able to help you."

"Oh, I'm sure you would. You look like a very intelligent person."

"What, er, what exactly did you want to know?"

Charters immediately played their tape of Alka Seltzer, the one Janice had recorded:

"What is your last name?"

"Who is this?"

"This . . . this is Alka Seltzer. What is your last name?" Janice, very quiet now, said, "It's him, Gene. Nelson Fitzroy is Alka Seltzer."

Charters got up from his chair. "Let's go and find out." He ejected the tape cassette and handed it to Janice. "Hold on to this. If Fitzroy is our man, you're going to need it later."

They were silent for a while in the cab. Charters, watching the streets, noted that some heavier winter coats were appearing as the city crept into colder weather. He looked at Janice sitting very straight, on edge. Not as on edge as he was; this was going to be his only shot.

Janice finally spoke. "What if it is him, and I know it is. How are you going to handle it?"

"Confront him with it. Accuse him and see how he reacts."

Janice moved uneasily. She said to the side window. "Do you have a gun?"

"Nope. Never could stand the things. Loaded they're dangerous, and if you're sure they're unloaded, they go off."

She looked at him but didn't comment. And then they were pulling up outside Fitzroy's apartment house.

"We have to get in," Charters said. "Who did you say interviewed him?"

"Katie."

"Buzz him and say that Katie told you he was cute, and that you'd like to meet him."

"I'm not very good at things like that, Gene."

"Janice, this is kind of important. For once in your life, break down and play the hooker."

For a moment Charter didn't think she'd do it. Then she moved away from him and pressed a button on the tenant intercom.

A voice said, "Who is it?"

"Jean Ovington. I was here earlier. I work with Katie, the girl who you saw this afternoon."

"Yes . . . ?"

"I'd like to thank you for saving my job."

"That's okay."

"Personally."

"What?"

"I'd like to thank you personally."

Upstairs, Fitzroy was surprised, flustered. He'd been getting ready to leave, but he pressed the door release anyway.

He hurried into the bathroom, rinsed his mouth again, brushed his hair over his ear, and sprayed it into place for the second time in five minutes. He really should be leaving; he didn't want to be late getting to her apartment house. But this girl who was on the way up ... If she was anything like Katie . . . Although it would only be to say thank you, a smile, a handshake. She was married, Katie had said so. Nothing would come of it, of course. But it would further bolster his confidence for what lay ahead of him later that night.

When the door bell sounded, he automatically checked the peephole. When he got the same distorted view of the woman he'd seen before, he undid the safety chain and the locks and opened the door.

All three of them had different reactions.

Fitzroy's was one of stunned surprise and shock as he saw the woman he was on his way to kill standing on his doorstep.

Janice's initial feeling was one of triumph when she recognized the man who'd followed them in the cab, for she knew for certain that she was looking at Alka Seltzer.

And when Charters stepped out from the wall, where he'd been standing out of sight, and saw Fitzroy, and recognized him from the taxi as well, it was as if a huge weight he'd been carting around on his back for the last week had suddenly sprouted wings.

Fitzroy had a second, and more terrible, .reaction when Charters appeared: a slow, crushing realization that what he'd dreaded most, discovery, had also arrived on his doorstep.

Charters walked in; Fitzroy backed away. "Good evening, Doctor," Charters said. "Would you object to a pat-down? Close the door, Janice."

Charters only got as far as Fitzroy's jacket pocket. "That feels like a gun. Is it?"

Fitzroy nodded.

"Then here's what you do. Take it out with just your thumb and forefinger, very slowly, and put it down on the table here."

Fitzroy did as he was told. The three of them were standing halfway into the living room, Charters very close to Fitzroy, intimidating him by his size.

"Now I'm going to ask you two questions, Doctor, and if you lie to me, God help you. Do you understand?"

Fitzroy, still unable to speak, nodded.

"First question: is there another gun in the apartment?"

"No." It came out as a croak.

"Second question: are there any explosives in the apartment?"

In spite of his shocked and fogged brain, Fitzroy wondered if there was yet a glimmer of salvation. If he denied everything, admitted to nothing ... "I don't"—he choked, struggled with it—"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm going to count that as a fib rather than a lie, because you're trying not to incriminate yourself. However, it's too late. You're Alka Seltzer, and I can prove it." Charters raised his arm and pointed. "That typewriter on the desk over there. It has a cover on it, so I can't see what kind it is. But I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's an Olympia Monica."

Fitzroy's face sagged, and Charters piled it on. Charters wanted him totally demoralized, destroyed by his failure, because he was going to have to mold this man and talk him into something. He said, "Something's just occurred to me. I wondered why you called yourself a name like Alka Seltzer. I thought you might be giving us a little clue, for reasons of your own. Only I couldn't figure it out. Now I can."

Fitzroy stared at him, blinking fast, tongue moving around his mouth, little coughlike noises sounding in his throat.

"We went through their slogans," Charters said, "but we forgot one of their most famous ones. 'Plop, plop. Fizz, fizz.' ' He looked at Janice. "Fizz, Fizz, Fitzroy. We missed it."

Janice hadn't taken her eyes off the bomber. She was looking at him with a curious mix of emotions: anger, dislike, contempt, and something else that was unreadable.

Charters turned back to Fitzroy. He put little spaces between his next words.'' Why did you do that, Doctor? Why did you give us a hint?"

Charters was using the word "us" as a synonym for authority. He assumed Fitzroy believed he was a policeman, but it didn't really matter as long as the man believed that he represented retribution and punishment of one kind or another.

Fitzroy's body seemed to slump in on itself, and whatever resistance had been there drained away like water down a sink. He drooped his head and said, "I thought that, if something did go wrong, it would ... it would count in my defense."

"Okay," Charters said softly. He had his admission now, so he was over the first big hurdle. "I'll ask my second question again: are there any explosives in the apartment?"

"Yes."

"Get them." Charters followed him to the desk, hovering near as Fitzroy opened a drawer. Lying there were two things Charters had seen many times before: a clear plastic envelope containing gel, detonator, battery, and switch, and next to it, a small radio sender.

Fitzroy had been telling the truth, he did have only one spare bomb. But he also had another signal sender, although he didn't tell Charters that.

Using just the tips of his fingers Charters took both items out and slipped them into his jacket pockets. "Why don't we sit down?" he suggested. "Make yourself comfortable, Doctor." He looked at Janice, who still hadn't said a word, and indicated an armchair.

Fitzroy dropped onto a sofa and sat with his hands between his knees, as if he were cold. Charters remained standing, wanting to stay in the dominant position: authority on high.

"I'm going to tell you a couple of things, Doctor, and then you're going to tell us a couple of things. That's fair, isn't it? First, my name is Charters, Lieutenant Charters. The lady on your left, as you well know, is Mrs. Janice Stanley. Now, about that phone call you made to her. We have a recording of it, incidentally. You saw the ad in the Times and had to know if this person Janice, whoever that was, really did know who you were. But the call didn't prove anything one way or the other, so you traced Mrs. Stanley from her phone number. And you followed her. What were you planning to do?"

Fitzroy spoke to the floor. He didn't seem to want to look at Janice. "Nothing. I didn't have anything in mind. I ... I just wanted to see where she was going."

"Why?"

Fitzroy was thinking now, protecting himself. He was shattered, and he knew he'd lost, but his instinct for self-preservation was still struggling. His crushed, hunched-up position and his thin, wavery voice made it hard for Charters to tell if he was lying or not when he responded. "I was curious. I knew she didn't know who I was, how could she? I'd never met her. But I didn't understand the connection."

Janice spoke for the first time: cold, even, straightforward. "Would you like me to tell you?"

There was no reply.

"You killed somebody I loved."

Fitzroy's head shook from side to side. "I didn't kill anybody. Not personally."

4 'Her name was Mary Hope/' Janice went on in the same relentless tone. "She was a receptionist at the Hotel Amsterdam. And by planting that bomb, you killed her just as surely as if you'd put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger."

"I never wanted anyone dead/' Fitzroy squeezed his hands together till they went white. "I hoped and prayed it wouldn't happen/'

"How humane of you/* Janice said.

Charters could tell that the man was starting to feel sorry for himself. He didn't want that; he wanted him scared, rattled, his mouth bitter with the taste of failure.

"A bomb doesn't pick and choose, Fitzroy. You should know that. It doesn't tiptoe around people. You made a mistake there. You made all kinds of mistakes. It was a mistake to type the letters. It was a mistake to sign them. It was a mistake to make the phone call."

Fitzroy's head came up. He'd been too shocked earlier on to take in how he'd been tracked down. It hadn't been because of any stunning conclusion Janice Stanley had suddenly come to; he'd been betrayed by his typewriter.

Charters saw the look of puzzled dismay and kept the pressure on. "You should have bought a new machine to type the letters. A big-seller like a Brothers or a Smith-Corona. Old machines are much easier to trace, especially one like yours that has to go in for repairs."

Charters's statement shook Fitzroy, dashed all the confidence he'd carefully, painstakingly built up. He'd been so certain he'd planned everything well, down to the last foolproof detail.

He struggled for words. "But ... my signature. I mean . . . how could—"

Charters talked through him. "We had a whole bunch of suspects, so we checked everybody's handwriting. Doctor Nelson Fitzroy kindly gave us a sample of his, although he signed someone else's name."

"Katie!" The name came out in a half-gasp. "She tricked me."

"She wasn't the only one. Fitzroy." Charters had moved to the coffee table and had picked up the pistol by the barrel. "Whoever sold you this tricked you, too."

"What do you mean?"

Charters was examining the gun up close. "He told you it was new, I'll bet. Never used, right?"

Fitzroy didn't answer.

"Why were you carrying a gun, anyway?"

Fitzroy bumbled an excuse. "I was going out. For a walk. I always carry a gun now. It's a jungle out there."

"So I've been told," Charters said, moving the pistol around close to his face, catching the light.

"What do you mean he tricked me?" Fitzroy's voice quavered.

"The serial number here, under the trigger guard. It's been etched away and replaced," Charters lied. "The only reason anybody would do that is if the gun has a bad story attached to it."

There was a cut-glass bowl on the table full of paper flowers. Charters moved it aside, picked up the flowered napkin it stood on, and began to wrap the gun in it. "You don't know much about guns, do you, Doctor? Otherwise, you'd never have bought a used one. And never one with a wooden grip because wood leaves such a strong fingerprint." Charters put the gun in his inside pocket. "I should've brought a shopping bag."

He was doing well; Fitzroy was shaking his head as if he were trying to drive away the dregs of a nightmare. He was getting soft, malleable, ready for a guilt trip.

Charters used Janice. He turned to her. "Would you like to tell this gentleman what you would've said to him if he'd agreed to meet you?"

Immediately, almost as if she'd been expecting the invitation, Janice started speaking to Fitzroy. "I still have the same question, and it's this: how could you have let money become so important that you're willing to kill for it? How could the idea of maiming people, or killing them, just for personal gain be acceptable? I don't understand. Can you explain that to me?"

"Yes," Fitzroy cried. His clenched fists moved up and down. "Yes, yes, yes. I was forced into it. I was forced into a desperate solution."

He poured it out then, his financial trouble, his instant loan, the second disastrous investment, the horrible way the street people were getting their money back. 'They own me. I have to do whatever they say. I'm a doctor—a surgeon. They found lots of work for a surgeon. Bullet wounds, knife

wounds, abortions for their girlfriends who didn't want any hospital records. I've had to dissect bodies. People they murdered. And it didn't stop at surgery. They used me as a courier to take drugs and God knows what else to places where I could've rotted in jail for the rest of my life. And when I finally rebelled, do you know what they did?"

Fitzroy jerked back his neck-length hair. "Take a good look at it. They cut my ear off with a pair of scissors right here in this room. And do you know what they did with it? You won't believe this. They brought a pig with them. A hog. They fed my severed ear to a hog." Fitzroy dropped his face into his hands. "Horrible people. Horrible. And I was theirs forever, with no end in sight. The only way out was to buy my way out. And this was the only way I could think of to get the money. The only way."

He choked off a sob, distraught at the memories he'd brought back.

"The only way out was to kill people?" Janice looked as if she'd bitten into something sour. "You didn't care for the kind of life you were leading, so you were quite willing to take away other peoples' lives in order to get a better one for yourself. Is that it?"

"I regret the deaths. Regret them bitterly." Fitzroy moaned out the words. "I tried and I tried to think of a way to get the money that wouldn't involve hurting anybody. But I couldn't." He pushed forward on the sofa and appealed to Janice. "These gangsters, you have no idea what they're like. They've brutalized me for two whole years. I couldn't go on being their victim."

Janice had an answer to that, and she delivered it like a slap in the face. "There were two men killed at the bank. Both married. That's four victims. One had two children. That's six victims. Mary Hope makes seven victims. She was a beautiful person and her death has touched me to such a degree that I don't think I'll ever be the same person again. So you can count me as your eighth victim. Eight people to save one. That's an incredible imbalance, don't you think?"

Fitzroy made two attempts to defend himself but gave up on both. He settled for massaging his face and murmuring, "You don't understand. You don't understand."

Charters had moved across the room to the desk and was lifting the cover off the typewriter. "How much did they ask for?"

The reply was a long time in coming. "An insane amount of money."

4 'How much?" Charters insisted.

"Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"But you're asking a million. What's the other quarter million for, your trouble?"

"No! I didn't do any of this for personal gain. Only for my freedom."

"A payoff, then?"

Fitzroy slowly sucked in breath and let it out, thinking fast. His mind made up, he nodded.

Charters strolled back from the desk, then said, as if the question had just occurred to him, "How did you do it, by the way? How did you plant those bombs so they couldn't be found?"

"I ... I don't think I can tell you that."

Charters inched closer; he towered over the man on the sofa. "Come on, Nelson. You can tell us anything you want."

There was no answer.

Ever so gently Charters nudged Fitzroy's ankle with his shoe. "We're waiting, Nelson."

"I ... I made an arrangement with somebody. A man on the bomb squad."

"Who? What's his name?"

Fitzroy's gaze remained on the carpet. He clearly wasn't going to say any more.

"Look, Fitzroy, this isn't an English boarding school. You keep quiet about an accomplice and it's going to hurt you. And right now, you need every break you can get. Now, I know all the men on the bomb squad. I've worked with them a lot. Whatever name you give me will surprise me, but I guess a quarter of a million's a lot of money. Now who was it?"

"No. I can't tell you. It wouldn't be fair to him."

"Fair," Charters said. He looked at Janice. She hadn't changed position; she was still sitting upright in the armchair watching the doctor with a hard, flat expression on her face.

"Fair," Charters repeated. He pushed a leather ottoman up to the sofa and sat down opposite Fitzroy. "All right, let's talk about what the law will see as fair. In an attempt to extort money from the city you caused the deaths of three people. To put it another way, in the course of committing a crime,

three people died by your hand. No!" Charters jumped in quickly to forestall Fitzroy's protestations. "Whichever way you slice it, you're culpable of three deaths. The penalty for homicide in the course of a crime is extremely severe. It could put you on death row. You won't have much of a defense, outside of temporary insanity, which isn't going down too well these days. The prosecution will be able to prove that the extortion letters were written on that typewriter over there. They'll prove it's yours because it was found in your possession, and we have a repair slip for it with your name on it. And they'll call handwriting experts who'll swear there's not the slightest doubt that you signed those notes. Then you also have to factor in a gun found in your possession which, I can assure you, will turn out to have killed somebody."

Vehemently Fitzroy said, "I've never used it. Ever."

Charters spread his hands. "I know you didn't kill anyone with a gun. You only use bombs to kill people."

Fitzroy moaned and dropped his head back to lean on the sofa, eyes clamped shut.

"But the jury," Charters continued, "probably won't give you the benefit of the doubt. And if you're thinking you can use the name of your accomplice to plea-bargain with, you can forget it. That's another thing that's fallen from favor lately. There've been some outrageous deals made and they're clamping down." Charters paused for a moment, then asked Fitzroy how old he was.

"Thirty-two. "_

"With time off for being a good boy, and counting on earliest parole, do you know how old you'll be when you come out of prison? Fifty-six, fifty-seven, somewhere in there." He tossed off the figures nonchalantly to give them extra emphasis, then waited a second for them to sink in. "You know anything about prisons, Nelson? You ever visited one or known anyone who's been inside? Probably not, huh? Well, I know a lot about them. Too much. And I can tell you, the prison system in this country, for the most part, is a crime in itself. But I'm not paid to reform prisons. I'm paid to make sure that the people who belong there, go there. You belong there, Doctor, and you're going there. The only question is, are you coming out?"

Something tugged at Fitzroy, deep within him, and it showed

in his thin pale face. He brushed and patted at his hair. 4 'What are you talking about?"

Charters moved his shoulders in a small, apologetic gesture. "I think you'll kill yourself."

Janice had switched her eyes to Charters, uncertain why he was being so mean. Even though she'd never seen him handle a criminal, she knew that for him to play the quiet, superior bully full of scary stories was entirely out of character. So she kept her peace and waited to see why he was doing it.

"You think your life is hell now," Charters said to Fitzroy. "Believe me, these are the good old days. Do you know what the worst thing is about prison? It's not the iron bars, it's not the hopelessness, nor the regret, nor the dull, boring job you have to do. And it's not the guards either, although God knows you'll run up against some Neanderthals. It's your fellow inmates, Nelson. You're in with animals. Your first day there they'll lick their lips at the sight of new meat. You think you're owned now? You'll find out what being owned is. Some huge thug will take you as his wife. A month or two later, when he's grown tired of banging you all night, somebody else will try their luck. You'll be passed around like a roach on a pin, and the only time you'll get a break from your conjugal duties is when you're in the prison hospital because a proctologist has to operate after a bunch of the boys got carried away."

"Stop!" Fitzroy waved a hand frantically. "I don't want to hear it. It can't be that bad."

"Believe me, Fitzroy. The only time it isn't that bad is when it's worse. The guys in the Russian prisoner-of-war camps were better-off. At least they had the Red Cross coming through. But you'll have no recourse at all. You're too small to defend yourself, and your trial will eat up any money you've got, so you won't be able to buy protection. Inside a year you'll be a screwed-out wreck. You won't even look the same. You'll be as thin as a stick, you'll have lost your front teeth—they'll knock 'em out to make your services more comfortable—"

"Don't!" Fitzroy cried.

"And your hair will be shorn. The animals will cut if off, Nelson. They love novelty, and they'll want to look at your plastic ear all the time."

Fitzroy's hands flew to his hair, then slowly dropped back

to his lap. He looked ill, and Charters waited a second before driving in the final nail.

"One year gone and only twenty-five to go. No release, no relief in sight. There'll only be one way to get out, and you'll take it, Fitzroy. You'll take it."

Fitzroy, making little whimpering noises, was doubled onto himself, one hand pressing the other, as if he were feeling for broken bones.

"However," Charters added, loading his words, "none of that has to happen."

Fitzroy, in shock, didn't appear to have heard him at first, but then his eyes came up and his trembling mouth started to form a question.

"I'm talking deal," Charters said. He could practically feel Janice's reaction, but he refused to look at her. He had to give his whole attention to doing a sales job on Fitzroy while the guy was still Silly Putty. Janice would just have to wait and wonder.

"You mean," Fitzroy said, hope expanding his face, "you'll let me go for a cut of the money?"

Over on the sideboard an antique clock ticked away a few seconds of silence.

"No," Charters said.

"Then, what?"

"Let me explain it this way. You're an amateur criminal, Doctor, and you got caught your first time out. Why not? You made big mistakes. But there's a whole raft of people, professionals, who don't make mistakes and never get caught. We know who they are and what they are; they're thieves and murderers. But as long as we can't prove they did anything, they remain free to keep on doing it. Now, what you did was unforgivable, of course, but, had you gotten the money and paid off your debts, I don't think you would have tried the same thing again."

Fitzroy shook his head vigorously. "I wouldn't. Not in a million years."

"Which makes it a shame that you were caught, a one-timer, while habitual criminals are walking around free. I'd rather have it the other way around. I'd gladly exchange you for one of these professionals I'm talking about."

"It's possible?" Fitzroy didn't seem to trust the words, he said them so quietly and carefully.

"If you cooperate, I think it could be."

"Cooperate ..."

Charters got to his feet, went over, and stood behind Janice. The way she'd been staring at him was bothering him. He said, "In your last note, Doctor, you said you'd supply delivery instructions by phone tomorrow. And that a bomb you've planted, somewhere in the city, would explode if you were interfered with, correct?"

Embarrassed, Fitzroy said, "Yes. But I was only bluffing." He looked at Janice for some kind of approval. 'There's no bomb. I figured they wouldn't take the chance."

"You've already proved they'd be foolish to doubt you," Janice said bitterly.

Fitzroy looked away.

Charters asked him what his idea had been for the pickup.

"I was going to ask for the money to be delivered to the East Side heliport. I assumed they'd think I was going to collect it by helicopter."

44 And weren't you?"

"No. You see, I have a boat." Fitzroy couldn't resist sneaking a glance at Janice as he said this. "I was planning to come alongside the heliport in the boat, collect the money, and speed off down the river in the darkness."

"That's not bad," Charters said. "But that's not the way we're going to do it."

It was such a shock Fitzroy rose from the sofa. "We're going through with it?"

Janice had swiveled around in her chair. "What are you talking about?"

"I'll collect the money. I'll turn it over to a certain crook I know. If we do everything properly, and luck is on our side, he'll be stuck with it."

Fitzroy looked from one to the other while he got his mind around it. "You're going to frame this man."

4 'Frame him and hang him. It'll be the right guy for the wrong job, but we'll never get him for the right job, so now's our chance."

44 What . . . what happens to me?"

"Well, now," Charters said. 44 We can't have two culprits, can we?"

44 Then I won't be prosecuted?"

"Not by us. However, I can't answer for the people who are expecting the money, Nelson. They're sure to be upset."

Fitzroy slowly leaned back on the sofa. He began to cough

nervously again. "They'll have to understand. I tried to get the money for them. I risked twenty-five years in jail. That will have to count for something."

4 'You're going to have to square it with your partner, too."

"What?"

"The man on the bomb squad."

"Yes. Of course. I'll just have to . . . explain the situation to everybody. They'll have to understand." Fitzroy knuckled at his chin, ran his wrist over his brow. "It'll mean going back to my old life. They'll want to use my surgical services again. I don't know if I can face it."

"Nelson, as much as you hate it, you've proved you can handle it. You would not be able to handle the alternative."

It was true, and Fitzroy knew it.

"I can't go to jail. You're right. As hideous as my life is, I'm surviving. I wouldn't survive in prison. They'll just have to understand, that's all."

Charters changed his approach; he became bustling and decisive. "I'm going to pick the money up around five p.m. tomorrow. Mrs. Stanley will be here at four with instructions for you." As he said it, he wondered if Janice would comment, but she didn't, although there were a lot of questions in the look she gave him. He went to the desk and picked up the typewriter. "I'd better take this with me."

"I've given you my word," Fitzroy said, "I won't go back on it."

"I know that. I just don't want you to be tempted, that's all. Janice ..." Charters said.

She got up and went to the door, opened it, and walked out.

"Four p.m. tomorrow, Fitzroy," Charters said, crossing the room. "And I don't think I have to tell you, all this is strictly unofficial. You've never met me. I've never met you. So for God's sake, don't try to contact me."

Charters didn't wait for a reply. He walked out of the apartment into the corridor in time to see Janice angrily stabbing at the elevator button. He joined her there. They didn't speak.

She contained herself all the way back in the cab, waiting until they were in the living room of her apartment before she blew up at him.

"Are you serious? Are you really going to let that man go unpunished?"

"He won't go unpunished, Janice. It's all over for the good doctor. I think he knows it, too, but he's not about to admit it to himself. That's why I let him grasp at a straw."

"Explain that, please."

"He's thirty-two years old and knows nothing about the world. He's probably a good surgeon, but he's a fool, as well as a failure as a person, and he's going to pay the price for being both. Those street people are expecting a big payday tomorrow. When Fitzroy comes up empty, there's no way they're going to shrug and grin and say, What the hell, it's only money."

"They'll kill him?"

"Almost certainly."

Her haughty attitude slowly melted away, replaced by something akin to a melancholy acceptance. She said at last, "I don't believe in revenge, Gene. He killed Mary and those two men. But it's not right that he should be killed in turn. But he must be put somewhere where he can't hurt anyone else. The man's a desperate ruin. He's terribly insecure and cowardly, and I think he's got a hang-up about women, too. But he's not crazy, so an institution is out. That leaves only prison."

"Janice," Charters said. "The result would be the same, it'd just be more drawn out. I painted a lurid picture of prison, sure. I meant to. But it was based on the truth. Penitentiaries, in this country, come under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment. It's impossible for the average guy to do more than a couple of years and still come out a whole man. The odds on the mob letting him live are minuscule, granted. But he has a better chance of staying alive with them than he does if he stands trial and goes to jail."

Janice turned away from him, crossing over to the huge windows with their Austrian drapes looping down in silky folds. Cold and rainy, the city lay outside, silenced by thermal glass, bright with apartment lights and the washed illumination of the avenue below. She said, finally, "There seem to be four players involved in all this. I don't count myself because I'm really just a spectator. There's Fitzroy, his accomplice in the bomb squad, there's Freidman, and there's you. Fitzroy, as you've pointed out, has no escape. But what about the man who helped him? Who punishes him?"

"Nobody. He doesn't exist. Fitzroy was lying."

That spun her around. "How do you know?"

4 'I know the guys. They're all underpaid, they all have dental bills, they might steal if they had to, or if it was offered on a plate with no one the wiser, like I tried to do. But none of them would kill."

"Then we still don't know how he did it."

"If he doesn't tell us, we may never know. I hate the thought of it, but there it is."

"So that leaves only two players," Janice said. "Freidman and you."

"His name's Forman. Craig Forman. I found out."

"Freidman yesterday, Forman today. And tomorrow it's going to be Alka Seltzer? It sounds like an awfully tall order, Gene."

"You should have seen it before we found Fitzroy. It was a skyscraper."

"Tell me the truth. What are your chances?"

"Of sticking him with it? Not bad, as long as Fitzroy holds together. That's why I want you with him tomorrow afternoon. He's afraid of you because of what happened to Mary, and also, as you said, because he's nervous around women anyway. I spotted that in him, too. I'll call you in the morning and tell you what I want him to tell Jacobi. I also want you to call in on Jacobi, but I'll explain about that later." Charters hesitated for a beat, then said, "He's going to be the real hump, Jacobi. He'll be the last man in, and I think the whole thing's going to hinge on him."

Instead of exploring that, Janice was looking at him as if he'd asked her a question she wasn't sure she understood. She said, "For an ex-detective you can be pretty sloppy."

"What's that suppose to mean?"

*T think you've just given yourself away. When I asked you what your chances were, you said, 'Of sticking him with it?' as if there were some other set of chances. What are the other chances, Gene?"

"I just meant—"

''Forget it." Janice waved her hand in impatience. "You won't give me a straight answer, so I'll do it for you. Forman is forcing you to work for him, I knew that. And you admitted it. At first, I thought he probably had something on you, but I don't think so now. You'd tell any blackmailer to go ahead, because you wouldn't care. So he must have threat-

ened to kill you if you refused the job. And he must be able to back it up, because you took the job."

"Uh uh. I took the job for the fifty thousand dollars he paid me."

"Liar." She said it softly, almost kindly. "You can't fool me anymore, Gene."

Charters could plainly see he'd lost this one, so he didn't waste time trying to contest it. He smiled, made a fist, and tapped it against his forehead. "You're right, it was sloppy of me. I knew it was gone the moment the ball left the bat."

She came back from the windows to where he was standing in the middle of the immense room. He'd put the typewriter down on a teak coffee table. The other items he'd taken from Fitzroy—the gun, the little transmitter, the neat, compact plastic bomb—hardly bulged in the pockets of his topcoat.

Janice said, "Same question, different meaning. What are your chances?"

"Pretty good, now that we've found Fitzroy. I had Dizzy Dean, the printer, run me up a passport in case we didn't. I was planning to take the IRT to Brazil."

She came close to him. "Do it, Gene. Go now. Settle for Fitzroy. Give all the evidence to Jacobi and get out. Don't give Forman a chance to get to you."

"Listen for a second. This isn't High Noon. I didn't throw the tin star in the dust. The department did. I didn't pick it up, shine it off, and pin it back on me, either. I tried to run. Ten minutes after Forman left my office the first day he came to see me, I tested the waters to see if I could take off with his money.I found out I couldn't. The tail was too good. So it was either take the job or end up at the East Side Bus Terminal with a ticket in my pocket and a knife in my back."

"I can get you away, Gene. I have friends, good friends, at the Waldorf Towers. They have terrific security there, it's foolproof. You'd be at La Guardia or JFK before you could even turn around. And they're powerful enough to hold any commercial flight for an hour or more if need be. Let me call them now."

Charters put his hands on her shoulders. The room's lighting was hidden, indirect, and there were no highs or lows on her lovely face. Her eyes glistened and there was a soft, moist glow to her lips that Charters wanted to melt into, but he used his grip on her to keep himself away.

"I could go myself, Janice. They're not tailing me anymore.

But I don't want to go now. I've got a real shot at getting Forman out of hand-stitched suits and into denims for twenty years or so. He'll be okay in prison, by the way, the bastard. He's rich, so he won't suffer. He'll just be bored."

44 Why are you doing this?" She stared at him, searching his face as if she could spot the thing he was hiding from her.

"Why? Because the longer a guy like Forman stays locked up, the longer other people can go on living."

"I told you you couldn't fool me anymore, Gene. You can't frame a man like Forman and expect him to sportingly admit you're the better man. He'll try to have you killed no matter how deep a cell they find for him. Won't he?"

Charters shrugged. 'The thought could cross his mind."

"You're hiding the truth again. I'm reading you now, Gene. I seem to have found the key. Your answer was way too casual."

'Tm a casual kind of guy." It was a poor reply and it didn't stop Janice from continuing to examine his earlier answer or reaching a logical conclusion.

"He's planning *•> kill you. Money or no money. Whether you frame him o* not, he's planning to kill you," Janice said slowly.

"He has to be," Charters admitted. He knew he couldn't fake her any longer. "A guy like Forman likes to tidy up afterward. If I'd given him Fitzroy, as I was supposed to, he would've taken the money but left him alone because Fitzroy would never have been a threat to him. But he wouldn't want an ex-cop mouthing off in the Blarney Stone Saturday nights about how he caught a bomber for big bucks and met interesting people."

"That's what you meant, then."

"When?"

"The night we had dinner. We were talking about Forman and his driver, and about you going up against him. You said you might not have much say in the matter."

"He's only one man with a knife, and I know him. The problem's going to be a couple of other guys, whomever Forman sends to get me. It's impossible to defend yourself against someone if you don't know what they look like or when they're coming."

Charters had taken his hands from her shoulders, but Janice stayed where she was, a foot away from him. With fine

shadings of worry in her voice, she asked him what he was going to do.

"Leave town. Make it hard for them."

"When?"

"If everything goes okay tomorrow evening, I'll leave tomorrow night."

"Where will you go?"

"Los Angeles. I have a friend out there who's been after me for a long time to come into his security business. I wouldn't have any trouble doing that in California." He raised his hand, stroked the back of his fingers along the side of the wig she was wearing. "How long will it take for all that beautiful hair to grow back?" Janice went on looking at him, and Charters said, "I'd better be going."

She folded herself into him, holding him hard. "Don't go. Stay with me. Tonight."

"No."

She held him for a moment longer, then lifted her head from his shoulder. "Why not?"

"I don't like the conditions."

"There are no conditions. What do you mean, conditions?"

"I'm talking about the situation. I may have some trouble tomorrow. You know that. I don't like playing the soldier on his last night of leave before he goes to the front in the morning."

"It's not like that at all."

"I'm an old-fashioned boy, Janice. I dress old-fashioned and I think old-fashioned. When we spend the night together, I'd like to think it was because it was going to be the first of many, not because it might be the last. I'd hate to stay and find out later you'd done me a favor."

Her eyes were liquid, blinking fast, but her words were steady and flat. "You're going to have to forgive yourself, Gene. One of these days. I'm talking about what you did two years ago. Because until you do, you'll always go on thinking of yourself as second rate."

"Thanks for the tip, Doctor Brothers." Angry, Charters moved away, picked up the typewriter, and left the apartment.

He walked all the way to the Forties, then over to Sixth, the soft rain cooling him off.

He chose a place that didn't know him, put the typewriter on the bar, took off the wet plastic cover, and found some paper in his jacket.

"What'11 it be?" the bartender asked.

Charters slipped the paper into the roller and started typing with two fingers. M 'Now is the time for all good men.' Look at that. Nothing wrong with this machine. Writes first time."

4fc This ain't a hock shop, champ."

"I don't want to hock it. I want to trade it."

"For what?"

"Bottle of Ballantine with a vodka side."

"This is a scam I ain't heard of," the barman said.

"No scam. Try it yourself."

The barman tapped out a few awkward words, tried the roller and the carriage return. "That's all you want for it? An ale and a side? Why?"

4 'Because I'm cold and I'm wet and I'm broke and I'm thirsty."

The man slapped the bar. "Done," he said.

Charters couldn't figure out what had awakened him.

It wasn't the flower market outside, the trucks arriving, backing up; that never disturbed him. It was a noise that should have been there and wasn't. He tossed the covers off, swung his legs to the floor, and checked the table clock. It was just six. Then he realized what the missing noise was: the kitchen was dead quiet, no soft clink of bottles under the sink, no sound of Brillo pads being gnawed.

You Rat had been a worthy foe and Charters missed the fray. How did a rat know what a trap was anyway? They certainly didn't learn through experience. He thought about a guy he knew, a cop, who'd caught a rat in a mousetrap and had panicked because the thing was very much alive. He'd dropped the poor beast into a toilet and tried to flush it to death, forgetting that rats can swim. Finally he'd rushed off, grabbed his .38, and tried to shoot it. He blew up his toilet, and the rat got away.

There was a moral in there somewhere. Also a possible parallel.

Forman was the rat, and all the trap needed now was some cheese. The question was, Would Forman be too smart to do more than nibble around the edges? And who would end up in the toilet?

At seven, Charters said to hell with it, put on his running togs, and went out on his regular circuit through the crushed flowers. He bought a pint carton of orange juice at an early-morning deli and drank most of it when he got back to the studio. Then he lay down and snoozed for another two hours; he had an athlete's ability of being able to sleep before a big event.

He woke, showered, and dressed—he was down to summer

165

polo shirts now. "Jesus, Lieutenant/' somebody was going to say, "why don'tcha pick up your laundry?"

"Because I haven't taken it yet."

"So take it."

"I can't. I've got forty-five thousand dollars in the laundry bag."

He went back into the little bathroom and checked the bag. His shirts were still in it, and so was the money. He'd almost forgotten about it. That would have made for a nice little scene at the laundry if he'd really forgotten about it.

"Hi, Lieutenant. No starch, right?"

"Right, Max."

"Hold it, Lieutenant. You got forty-five thousand dollars in this bag. That money hot?"

"Nah, you can do it on warm."

Charters was fully aware of what he was doing: filling his head with trivia, trying to relax, so he could take it step by step and get it right. He had a lot to do between now and five, and it had to be done in the right order, and done properly.

He started with a call to Frank Lamont. "Frankie? . . . Gene Charters. I have a job that has to be done today. ... A biggie, but it needs only one person. Can I break up the set?"

He invited Frank down as soon as he liked, then called Fitzroy.

"Good morning, Doctor. Big day today. How do you feel?"

"Not so good."

The voice was as shaky as ever, and it didn't sound as if Fitzroy had got much sleep. Charters knew he had spent the night worrying. Now, in the light of morning, the threat of incarceration would be taking a backseat to the thought of the million dollars he wouldn't be getting.

"You're a physician. Wouldn't you say it's just nerves?"

"I'm very worried. I just hope I'm doing the right thing."

"If I thought you were having second thoughts, Fitzroy, there'd be a squad car outside your door in two minutes flat."

"No!" The reply was immediate. "No squad car. I'll be fine. We made a deal."

"Mrs. Stanley will be over about three."

"But . . . there's no need for her to be here."

"Yes, there is. She has all the details of the phone call you have to make, remember? Now buck up, Doctor. Do a job." Charters hung up and called Janice.

"Good morning. How are you?"

"I'm well, thank you." The reply was medium-warm, if that.

"Look, I'm sorry I left so abruptly. I wasn't very polite."

"No, you weren't."

Long silence.

"I want you to go to Jacobi, soon as possible. Give him the Alka Seltzer tape. Tell him he called last night. When Fitzroy calls him, Jacobi will know he's the real McCoy."

"Is that necessary?" Janice's tone was still clipped.

"Yep. There'll be dozens of people who'll have heard about a bomber named Alka Seltzer by now, in spite of the hush up. Jacobi will want to be absolutely certain he's giving a million dollars to the right guy."

"I see. That makes sense."

"I just spoke with Fitzroy, incidentally. He's having second thoughts. Could you get over there a little earlier? Say three. Call him about noon, tell him you're coming. If you keep him feeling guilty, he's less likely to fold on us. Now," Charters said, "grab a pen and I'll tell you what I want Fitzroy to say." He spoke for a minute, then told her he had to go.

"Gene—"

"Yeah?"

"Call me when it's all over. Call me at Fitzroy's."

"You bet."

There was another extended silence, then they both hung up at the same time. Charters picked up the phone again and made a fourth call. He called Jacobi, and when the detective came on the line, Charters did a curious thing: he took the top off a felt-tip pen and put it between his teeth.

"Lieutenant Jacobi? I got some information for you. I remembered that typewriter you guys were checking on." The pen top gave his words a sibilant sound, which was all Charters needed to disguise his voice.

"Who is this?" Jacob asked.

"I don't want to get involved. You want the info?"

"You remembered the machine?"

"I checked my files. You got a pencil?"

Charters gave him some facts, then said, "I'm gonna deny everything if you guys come calling. I don't want to get involved." He cut the connection and thought back over the call. It was adequate.

Twenty minutes later Frank Lamont arrived. He'd never

been to the studio before. "Hey. what is this, the Museum of Modern Art?"

"The Museum of Awful Art. Come on in."

Frank stepped inside and took a tour. "My God," he said, "look at the size of it. You could run out of food in the kitchen and starve making for the door." He pointed to a stack of packaged cheese. "What are you, a dairy-food nut?"

"No, that was for a rat that used to come around."

"Uh huh. You were gonna enter him in the Iowa State Fair?"

"He was a warm, wonderful rodent and I miss him," Charters said. "Come on, I've got something for you."

Charters' topcoat was lying folded over a chair in the other room. He fished out the explosive device and handed it to Frank.

"What's this?"

"What's it look like?"

"A suppository radio."

"It's a bomb."

"Hey," Frank said.

"It's okay. It won't explode."

"Listen, bombs explode."

"Not this one, Frankie. Not without a coded signal on a specific frequency."

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

"I'm glad you asked me that question," Charters said. He gave Frank some instructions, plus a phone number he'd checked on earlier. "Ask for a Mr. Garfield, you got it?"

Frank didn't look too happy. "Yeah, I got it."

"You see any problem with any of this?"

"Yeah. I get seasick."

"I don't mind what you get as long as you make that phone call the instant you arrive."

He walked him to the door. "Bear down on this one, Frankie. Muy importante."

"Don't worry. Last two years I haven't screwed up on a job more than, oh, a dozen times."

"Get out of here," Charters said. He went back inside and made one more phone call.

"My name is Charters. Would you please tell Mr. Freidman that I'll have something for him at five-thirty this evening. I'll be at Fulton and South Street." He repeated the message, hung up, and left the studio.

Walking toward Sixth, he saw the green Fairmont pull out behind him. It was not unexpected; he didn't think Forman would let him roam free today when he was going to be picking up a million dollars. The tail didn't bother him, as long as they didn't get too close—Charters didn't want them to see what he was going to be buying.

A bus came before a cab, so he rode it up to Forty-second and walked over to the big Rexall drugstore. He'd checked the stock out the day before, after the visit to his father's old cronies, and had already decided what he would shop for. He bought two of the largest plastic sports bags he could find, blue and white, with the legend Dallas Cowboys on the side. He made sure to take the cardboard stiffeners for them and stole an additional pair from another bag.

Then he chose some headgear: a cheap felt stetson and a crushable rain hat. He also went to Flax, on Madison, and bought one other item: an art director's portfolio case designed to carry layouts and storyboards. It measured three feet by four, with a zipper on three sides.

Then he returned to the studio to wait out the clock.

"Terrific,' Jacobi said to his assistant. He sat in his office-, his feet up, his jacket off, one shirttail riding up out of his ample midsection. He stroked his plump face, continued the movement over his balding head, then clasped his hands at the back of his neck. "We turn handsprings for five days and get nowhere. Then the Stanley woman waltzes in with his voice on tape. Why? She ran an ad. Maybe that's what we should've done instead of futzing around every typewriter store anyone ever heard of. 4 Alka Seltzer. Come home. All is forgiven. Contact Jacobi, Twenty-seventh Precinct.' It might've worked."

Detective Sergeant George Vig rewound the cassette player. He said, "You want a voice profile on this?"

"Why bother? All it'll come down to is a nervous, educated type who's probably built like the guy that gets sand kicked in his face at the beach. That is, if he's not six four and just happens to have a high, thin voice."

He took his feet off the desk, reached for his cigarette makings, and continued talking. "What I want to know is, why does it always happen this way? A week goes by, you're breaking your shoes and getting zilch, the brass is having hernias at your ineptitude, and then on payoff day, when it's

too late to do anything except hope the bug works, things start to break. A voice tape and a call from a guy who doesn't want to get involved. What's happening on that, by the way?"

"I got Syd Hurst working on a warrant to get in there," Vig said. "You think it'll be worth anything?"

"A pinch of bat guano, maybe." Jacobi dropped a freshly made cigarette into the waste-paper basket, then looked over at Vig and said, "How come you always dress like you're going for a job interview at IBM?"

t4 I have a neat, tidy mind," his assistant answered, "and it's reflected in my personal appearance."

"Oh, sure," Jacobi saicL He leaned forward and tapped the phone. "Come on, Alka Seltzer. Call, for crissake."

When he spied Janice through the peephole, his first thought was to remain silent and not let her in. But he knew he had to, and her voice demanded it anyway.

"Doctor Fitzroy. Open the door, please."

He slid back the locks and stepped aside for her, averting his eyes as she strode into the apartment. He tugged at his sports jacket, fussed with his bow tie, smoothed his hair. He was terribly embarrassed by her presence, and frightened, too. Frightened that she'd somehow read his mind. Because he had a plan now. It had come to him just like that, about an hour ago.

He'd cooperate with Lieutenant Charters today and let him collect the money. This evening he'd tell John Stegner that it was going to take him a little while longer to get the million dollars, but that it was a sure thing this time. And it would be too.

He'd give up the apartment and rent a room under a different name. Then he'd write another letter demanding money, a million and a quarter this time, and demonstrate his seriousness by setting off a blast at a famous Fifth Avenue store.

That would solve everything. He'd collect the money, pay off Stegner, and use the other quarter-million to start a new life somewhere where Charters would never find him.

He might have been almost content, for the first time in ages, if it hadn't been for the woman's presence; she choked him up, made him feel so inadequate.

Janice shed her coat and took a note from her handbag.

"Read this, please." She kept her tone strong, forceful. 44 Read it several times, then call the number at the bottom. Ask for Lieutenant Jacobi and deliver the message."

He began to read, then stopped. "I'll . . . I'll just hang up your coat."

"Never mind," Janice said. But he was already on the way to the bedroom with it.

She let him go; she didn't want to be in his presence any more than he wanted to be in hers. She walked to the window. The radiator was cold. She had a good idea that Fitzroy had turned the heat off because he knew he'd start perspiring when she arrived. Let him. He had plenty to perspire about.

She gave him a few minutes, then called him. He came meekly out of the bedroom, bringing the smell of fresh hair spray with him.

"Would you telephone now, please."

He moved slowly across the room, Charters' instructions in his hand, and reached for the phone as if its touch might burn him. He checked the number repeatedly as he punched buttons, fidgeted while he waited, and then began speaking into the phone in his high, dried-up stammer.

There were four men in Jacobi's office; a junior detective taping the call, a senior patrolman, Jacobi on the desk phone, and George Vig on another phone, all listening to the same conversation.

"Uh huh," Jacobi said. "Now let's just go through it one more—" There was a click. "Yeah, nice talking to you, too, buddy."

"Mike?" George Vig shouted.

4 'Forget it," Jacobi told him. "Way too short."

"Definitely him," Vig said.

Jacobi nodded. "Definitely."

The junior detective, whose name was Neil Swire, rewound the tape. "You want the playback, Lieutenant?"

44 Just the last part. I got the beginning," Jacobi said, checking his notes. "The money goes in a Dallas Cowboys sports bag. Plastic, blue and white. Sells for nineteen ninety five around town. We take it to the lobby of the World Trade Center, North Tower, five o'clock, and wait for instructions."

"I know what they're gonna be," Vig said. \T1I bet my badge he'll take delivery on the 486th floor, or however many they got. Then he'll switch elevators, ride down to the

basement, and beat it over to Jersey on the PATH. Just one more guy hanging from a strap in the rush hour."

Fitzroy's voice burst nervously into the room as the tape started up. ". . .at five. At five-fifteen I'll call this number again with further instructions. Please arrange to have the message relayed to you in the lobby. Do not try to interfere with me in any way. I have put a bomb on a public conveyance somewhere in the city. I will be in radio contact with another person, and if you attempt to capture me, that person will detonate the bomb."

Swire switched off the machine. "He's got to be bluffing about that."

Vig gave him a tired look. "We thought he was bluffing about the first one, too."

"Round up everybody in a uniform," Jacobi said. "Cops, transit cops, parking cops, the ushers from Radio City, I don't care who. Check every bus and subway that's running. If we could find that bomb, we could grab him the moment he shows."

A phone rang and George Vig snatched it up. He identified himself, listened for a moment, then looked at Jacobi, his face starting to expand. "Do tell," he said, his smile spreading a little further. "All-11 rightl"

He took his time replacing the phone, then said to Jacobi, "That was Syd Hurst. He got the warrant and got inside that apartment. Guess what he found."

The wind had a hint of rain in it again as it swept over the plaza, sucked down by the two immense World Trade towers that seemed, from his vantage point on the ground, to be rocketing into the air. It swirled around Charters, buffeting the big portfolio case that contained the two sports bags, folded flat. He went through the plaza entrance of the North Tower, passed underneath the giant Nevelson sculpture—half a ton of genius mounted on the wall—and walked around into the main part of the mezzanine. His timing was good. As he stepped into an elevator, the first of the squad cars was pulling up outside on West Street.

He took the express to the 107th floor and went into the famous restaurant. It was cocktail hour, and the restaurant was filled with tourists, mainly couples sipping on brandy alexanders and gawking at the darkening city a thousand feet below. Charters checked the case, his topcoat, and the stetson

he was wearing, then went up to the maitre d' behind his lectern. 44 My name is Garfield. I have a reservation."

The maitre d' flicked his eyes over the drab suit, the short haircut, the fighter's face. He checked his reservations book and made a clicking noise with his teeth when he found the name. "Very well/' he said. He made it sound like a large favor. He turned and said in French to a hovering waiter, "Table twenty-nine for big boy."

In bullet-fast French, Charters said, 44 I only let hungry blondes call me big boy." The maitre d' winced, then tried a sickly smile. 44 Monsieur ..." he began.

In English Charters said, 4 Tm expecting a call from my secretary. Come and get me the moment it comes through, understand?" He handed the man a ten-dollar bill.

"Certainement, monsieur/'

44 How's that?"

44 Yes sir, Mr. Garfield."

Charters followed the waiter to an interior table and declined when the contrite maitre d' tried to shift him to a better one. He wanted to stay near the door where the phone was, just in case. He'd arranged for Janice to call him if Fitzroy lost his nerve, one phone call he didn't want to get.

There was a call he did want. Had to have. The one that should come through from Frankie in about an hour and a half, if the ferry was on schedule.

He ordered a Bloody Mary and a Perrier, and settled himself in to wait out the clock for the second time that day.

The wind hadn't had time to whip up the harbor into anything more than a sullen swell, so Frank's trip to Staten Island wasn't nearly as bad as he thought it might be. All the same, he stayed on the upper deck, outside in the fresh sea air, and took his mind off the water by joshing a.fellow passenger. A middle-aged man sitting next to him lowered his paper and said, 44 I make this journey twice a day, five days a week, and I never, ever fail to look at that young lady."

There was a good-looking girl standing at the rail not far from them, the breeze playing with her skirt. Frank said, 4 'Aren't you afraid of getting arrested?"

The man frowned, irritated. 44 Not her, her/" he said, nodding at the Statue of Liberty.

44 0h," said Frank.

The man recovered his good humor and pointed south.

"See that? Ellis Island. Used to be called Oyster Island. Before that, Bucking Island. And before that Gibbet Island. My grandfather came through there with a salami in one hand, a cardboard suitcase in the other, and five dollars pinned to his undershirt."

44 Why would he want to do that?"

The man started to get irritated again. "He was an immigrant, for God's sake."

"No, I mean, pin a salami to his undershirt."

The man looked up at the gray heavens. "It was the money in his undershirt. The salami was in his hand."

"Oh," said Frankie.

He got off in St. George with everybody else and got on again with a boatload of people commuting back to Manhattan. As soon as the ferry pulled away from the dock Frank went to work; he had a job to do on this trip. He roamed the boat, looking over the passengers, looking for a particular type of woman, the kind that loved drama, squawked long and loud, and ran for authority at the first sign of trouble. He found her near the bow of the boat sitting on deck, a redheaded woman of uncertain age with a disapproving mouth and busybody eyes. She had advice for everybody, particularly a young mother with two small children. "Don't let 'em get too near the rail. A kid fell over coupla months back."

Frank sat down next to her, leaving some space between them.

44 If they were my kids," the woman said to him, "I'd sit 'em down. Kids these days got too much freedom."

44 Right," Frank said.

She told him about the outrageous freedom allowed her sister's kids, her cousin's kids, her hairdresser's kids. She complained about several other subjects, suggesting draconian remedies for all. Frank nodded and said he agreed with her thinking across the board.

When the conversation began to run down, Frank revived it again, because they were getting close to Manhattan. He pointed out Ellis Island and told her he had a friend whose grandfather had almost been turned back because he'd tried to smuggle in a salami in his underwear. She was of the opinion that if they'd turned back all the Italians, plus the Poles and the Germans, the country would be in a lot better shape today.

Frank nodded sagely at that piece of wisdom, reached for a

Kleenex, and pulled out some coins with it, some of which rolled under the seat. When he tried to retrieve them, crouching down facing the seat, and groping underneath, he said, "What the hell's this?"

He brought out the explosive device he'd concealed in his other hand.

The woman repeated his question. "What's that?" "I don't know. It was shoved under the seat." "Looks like some idiot stuck a battery in some Jell-O." "Got tired of putting in bananas, I guess." Frank said. The woman jerked her thumb. "Throw it over the side." But Frank didn't do that. Instead, he gasped, put the object down very carefully, and sprang back. "Jesus H. Christ!" "What's up?" "It's a bomb!"

"A bomb?" The woman came off her seat. "You sure?" Frank backed up another step. "I used to work in construction. A battery, a detonator, gelignite . . . that thing's a bomb."

The woman immediately took charge. "Don't touch it! Don't touch it!" Frank was nowhere near it. "I'm gonna get the captain." She stormed away, heading for the stairway that led up to the bridge.

A group of people had heard the commotion and gathered warily around, peering in frightened fascination at the object under the seat.

"That's a bomb?" somebody said doubtfully. "Ain't no bigger'n deck of cards."

"Stay away from it," Frank said. "I'm gonna get help." He hurried off in the same direction as the woman, but went down a stairway to the lower deck. He moved through the parked cars to the chain across the bow and watched the skyline of Manhattan getting closer. He figured thirty minutes till they docked, and it was five to five now, so he was nicely on schedule. It would take, say, two minutes for that dopey woman to bring back the mate or somebody to check out the bomb, two more minutes for the captain to get on the ship-to-shore radio, and then twenty minutes, according to Charters, for somebody from the bomb squad to get down to the terminal to meet the ferry.

The bomb expert would be the first man on. And Frankie planned to be the first man off. * * *

The afternoon had passed far more comfortably than either of them had expected. Janice had stayed in the living room, staring out the window and checking her watch every twenty minutes; and Fitzroy, claiming in all honesty that he wasn't feeling well, had remained in the bedroom. She was spared his loathsome presence, and he didn't have to sweat and fidget and nervously try to find things to do with his hands.

At five minutes to five she went to the bedroom door and called through. "Please come out." She said it stonily, refusing to give him his name or his title. She'd got chilly in the cold apartment in just a skirt and blouse and had started to shiver. "It's time to make the second call. And I'd like my coat, please."

He seemed to take an age to appear, dragging himself into the room, eyes averted from her face. She took the coat from him and slipped it on. He turned to go, but she stopped him. "Stay near the phone, please. You only have three minutes."

"I thought I'd"—he pointed aimlessly at the kitchen—"I'd make some coffee." When Janice just went on looking at him with her flat, unforgiving gaze, he murmured, "Perhaps later," went to the phone, picked up Charters' instructions, and began to reread the second part.

The outside of the van parked opposite the World Trade Center's North Tower wasn't anything out of the ordinary: a little grubby, one fender crunched, the tires scuffed and worn down through the tread. The words SoHo Hi Fi and TV on the side seemed to account for the FM antennae on the roof. But inside, where nobody could see, two men sat at a console that housed an awesome array of electronics.

The van was just one of the police vehicles parked in the huge block that surrounded the center, although the rest were regular automobiles. Only three were identifiable blue-and-white cruisers.

There was nothing to suggest to the passerby that a large-scale police operation was in progress. Nor was there any more evidence in the concourse lobby of the building itself. There were only five or six uniforms, and two of those belonged to Brinks men. Holding a large canvas bag, they were standing just behind Jacobi and George Vig, hands close to their holsters.

Next to George Vig was the junior detective, Neil Swine, a

tiny plug in his ear and a walkie-talkie in his hand. He was in contact with the FM van outside, and also patched into a radio police cruiser parked on Vesey Street, which ran along the northern extremity of the center. Jacobi checked the time. 4 'Five to five," he said to Vig. "Let's have the scratch now."

Vig motioned to the senior Brinks man, who produced a receipt book that Vig had to sign twice. Then the guard opened the canvas bag, and his partner, who was wearing gloves, brought out a blue-and-white Dallas Cowboys sports bag. It was crammed full and zippered tight. Vig took delivery of the sports bag with a handkerchief in his hand and rested the bag at this feet.

Jacobi didn't even look at it; he was watching the crowds in the lobby. "He's picked a good time," he said. "Twenty-five thousand people leave this building between four-thirty and six, most of 'em between five and five-thirty."

"The son of a bitch knows what he's doing," Vig said.

Jacobi nodded at the sports bag. "They getting the Top Twenty loud and clear?"

Vig checked with Swire, who muttered into his radio, talking to the technicians in the van. "Good strong signal,'* he said.

Jacobi hadn't expected anything less; he'd placed the bug in the money himself.

"All right," he said, checking on himself, "what haven't we done?"

"Not much," Vig answered. "Outside, we got guys covering every exit for a start. We got 'em at the PATH entrance and the IRT. We got a chopper out over the harbor ready to come in if we need it. Inside, we got two men on every elevator bank. It'd be nice to put one in front of every elevator, but seeing they got ninety-five of them, plus four freight elevators, it makes it kind of hard. What boils me is^-"

"Lieutenant!" Swire pressed the plug in his ear. "Call coming in." He listened for a moment, said, "Repeat, please," into his radio, listened some more, then spoke to Jacobi. "He wants the bag sent to the seventy-eighth-floor sky lobby. Last express elevator in the bank."

"Shall we go?" Jacobi said.

With the handkerchief covering his hand, George Vig picked up the sports bag and followed the plump figure of his boss.

* * *

Ten minutes before the hour, Charters paid his tab, retrieved his things from the checkroom, stepped into a local elevator, and traveled down twenty-nine floors.

He moved through the lobby, seventy-eight floors above the street, and stopped outside an express elevator near the end wall.

He knew what would be happening below; he had a tremendous advantage over Jacobi because the policeman would be doing exactly what Charters would have done in the same situation. He knew all the weapons Jacobi would employ, and he knew for sure that he'd be using a tracker van. The only area in which he didn't have an edge was the most important one: escape. If he couldn't get the money out of the building, everything was going to go belly-up.

The elevator bell dinged, and Charters got ready.

Jacobi would have commandeered it, put the sports bag inside, and sent it up express, unable to be stopped at any other floor.

The doors opened, but tnere was no bag, just people.

Charters moved aside to let a bunch of people behind him get in. The doors closed.

Maybe the next trip, he thought. That is, as long as Fitzroy had held together and made the call. But seeing he hadn't heard from Janice, he had to assume that everything was okay on that score. Maybe Fitzroy had been late with his call; it would have been like pulling teeth to get him to pick up the phone.

Charters put down the big portfolio case, slipped on his topcoat, and settled the stetson on his head. People pressed behind him as crowds of office workers started to fill up the lobby, 90 percent of them waiting for the express elevators. That was something else he'd have to do: grab the bag without being swept into the elevator, because once the doors closed the next stop would be the main lobby, where Jacobi and his men would be waiting.

He didn't have long to wait; express elevators traveled at high speed, and it made the eight-hundred-foot return trip, down and back up from the concourse lobby, in less than thirty seconds.

The doors opened on emptiness.

Charters reached down to the front corner, grabbed the blue-and-white sports bag that had been placed out of sight

underneath the control buttons, and backed out as the crowd pushed forward.

"Hold it! Wrong car! Pardon me. Excuse me." Had he been a smaller man, he would have been carried inside, but his bulk saved him. He turned sideways to the crowd and let them surge around him, his two bags very large obstacles for the weekend-bound office workers. He pushed his way through the last of them, then walked down the sky lobby to the much-less crowded local elevators. He stepped into one and rode it down as far as it went, to the forty-fourth floor. He knew that Jacobi would be getting excited; the tracker van was extremely accurate and could pinpoint the bug within the building, at least on the lower floors, so they'd know he was coming down. Well, Jacobi was going to be even more excited, because he was coming even farther down.

He switched elevator zones, crowded into a local, and pressed the fifth-floor button.

The elevator stopped at the next floor, and the next, and the one after that. Forty, thirty-eight, thirty-four, thirty-three. The trip seemed to take forever, and he started to get worried.

Eighth floor, seventh, sixth, fifth. He struggled out with his bags, picked up the pace going down the corridor, and found the Deak-Perera office. It was a foreign-money exchange service that had branched into banking, and here, in the Trade Center, it got a lot of business from tourists as well as from the regular financial community.

Charters had been there a few years back, looking for counterfeit Canadian dollars, and he knew they had a private room for some of their heftier cash clients. He asked a teller if it was free, and went in when the girl said yes. It was a small room, empty except for two chairs and a heavy square table. As he locked the door he realized another point he hadn't considered was the room's availability. If it hadn't been free and he'd had to wait, his timing would have been all off.

It was getting tight as it was.

He worked quickly. He put the portfolio case on the table, zippered it open all the way around, laid it flat, and took out the two blue-and-white sports bags along with their cardboard stretchers. Then he opened the bag he'd taken from the elevator. The money was packed in fat bundles, held together by white paper wrappers. It was tightly packed, too, because, as big as the bag was, a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills

took up a lot of room: the bag was filled to bursting. He transferred the money carefully, checking each bundle. He knew the bleeper would be in one of them. He laid the bundles in tight, even rows on one-half of the portfolio case, and had filled up one complete layer before he found it. It was sandwiched between a double wrapper, so well hidden that only somebody who knew what he was looking for could have spotted it. He removed the bleeper and put it in his pocket. Charters didn't have to worry that there'd be another: two bleepers both sending out signals could confuse the tracking equipment, especially if the money were split up.

He didn't have to worry about the bag being bugged either, partly for the same reason, but mainly because the bag was usually the first thing to go: anybody taking delivery of illicit money dumped the original container the first chance they got.

He put the last bundle into the portfolio and zipped it up all the way around. It was now big and fat and looked more like an oversized suitcase. He put two cardboard stretchers into the sports bag. which expanded the bag, making it appear full. He did the same with the other two bags, zipped all of them up, unbolted the door, and carried everything into the bank's main room. It was a little cumbersome with three sports bags in one hand and the fat heavy portfolio case in the other, but it wouldn't be for long.

To make it look good, he bought five hundred dollars' worth of Swiss francs in high denominations, then took the francs to a side table and pretended to count them.

He'd been keeping a close eye on the time. It was getting near five-twenty. The ferry was scheduled to dock at five-twenty-five, but it could be five minutes either way. He wouldn't know for sure until Frankie called, but even there the timing wasn't going to be exact because Frankie would still have to dash through the terminal and find a pay phone that was free and in working order.

It was what Charters used to call a Goldilocks situation: you didn't want to move too soon, and you didn't want to move too late. You wanted to move when it was just right.

He transferred the tiny bleeper to his shirt pocket—there was a hole in his jacket pocket—and made sure it was safe. It was impossible to deactivate it, and he couldn't simply toss it away because he was going to have to rely on it later on. He'd figured there'd be only one way to get out of the

building with the bug singing its head off: create some kind of pandemonium and sneak out in the middle of the uproar.

He checked the bank.

It was getting ready to close, the tellers busy straightening their daily accounts. Phones were ringing, but only sporadically and, at the entrance, a guard was locking one side of the door.

4 'Is there a Mr. Garfield here?" A teller, a phone in her hand, looking over the floor.

4 'Right here," Charters said.

"It's your office calling. A Mr. Frank is trying to contact you/'

Charters thanked her, scooped up the Swiss money, picked up the portfolio case, grabbed the three sportsbags, and strode toward the door.

"He's somewhere around the fortieth," Neil Swire had said a few minutes earlier. He'd pressed one hand to the tiny receiver in his ear. "Lower. Lower. He's coming down."

"Keep coming, baby," George Vig had said to the ceiling.

"Down. Down. Slow, but still coming."

"Don't let anybody screw it up," Jacobi had said to Vig. "Four cars, that's all, and three men on foot. We'll tail him tight but cute. Hands off all the way. You go in the van."

"Stopping at fourteen, fifteen, somewhere in there . . . he's off again . . . down . . . still coming . . . stopping . . ■ down . . . getting close . . . stopping ..." The detective had paused longer this time, then his voice had picked up. "Moving laterally, Lieutenant. He got off. Five or six, maybe. No, five."

"He's gonna take the stairs," Vig had said.

"Still moving laterally . . . now he's stopped. . . . Got to be either in a corridor or an office."

"Or a men's room," Jacobi had said, "switching the money."

There'd been three or four minutes of heavy, weighted silence; nothing from the tracking van. Jacobi had irritably slapped his leg. "What the hell's he playing at, anyway?"

Then, at almost the same time Frankie was calling the bank, Swire started as if he'd touched something hot.

"Repeat that, please!"

Jacobi and Vig both swiveled their heads toward him, waiting.

The young man gabbled. "Lieutenant! They found a bomb on the Staten Island ferry. Confirmed report."

Vig punched a fist through the air. "We got him."

Jacobi exhaled heavily. "I tell you, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Jesus Christ, how about that for timing!"

"He's moving again, Lieutenant . . . moving laterally . . . stopped ..." Swire listened for a long moment, then frowned. "I don't get it. He's going up again."

"Let him," Jacobi said. He had straightened up and looked several pounds lighter. "Sooner or later he's gotta come down."

Charters left the elevator at the forty-fourth-floor sky lobby, the lowest point from which express elevators ran down to the main lobby. There were only a handful of people waiting for the local he'd got out of, but farther along the place was full of homeward-bound office workers waiting for an express to empty.

Charters moved toward them, picked out a man at the back of the crowd. "Here you go, sir. Free Cowboys bag."

"Free?" The man was suspicious.

Charters flicked the brim of his stetson. "Club promotion. It's free if you want it."

"I'll take it," another man said.

"I'll take one, too," a woman said. She was large, about fifty, and knew a bargain when she saw one.

Charters handed them both a bag. "Enjoy 'em," he said as they surged forward into the elevator.

Charters moved to the next one which had just arrived and was disgorging passengers. "Free bag. Dallas Cowboys. Who wants a free bag?"

Two men bid for it at the same time.

"Only got one," Charters said, giving it away. "But here, at least have the stetson."

The man who'd lost out on the bag was happy to get anything for free, took the hat, and delightedly plonked it on his head. The crowd pressed forward into the elevator, Charters going with them. He managed to squeeze his way to the back, using the portfolio case as a wedge.

The doors closed and they started down; Charters, the man with the bag, the man wearing the stetson, and fifty-one other people.

Swire, who'd been edgily silent for a while, burst into speech. "He's on his way! He's coming down!"

Vig dashed off and Jacobi started rapping out orders. "Cover that elevator bank. Tell 'em to grab anybody carrying anything bigger than an attache case. And watch for a Cowboys bag. He may not have switched."

Swire jabbered into his walkie-talkie, which, twenty seconds later, squawked back. "We got 'im, Lieutenant! Bank number two!"

Nobody could remember ever seeing Jacobi move faster than an untidy walk, but now he jogged his two hundred pounds through the crowds and wheezed his way over to the elevator bank.

A scared-looking man was being held by two detectives, a third was holding an empty blue-and-white sports bag.

"What didja do with the money?" one of them snarled.

Two more detectives arrived on the run from another direction and grabbed a member of the crowd that was still spilling out of the elevator. "We got 'im, Lieutenant! Hey, he's a woman!"

The second elevator opened, and fifty-four people moved forward.

A rookie patrolman made his first collar. "I got 'im! I got im!

"Hey, what did I do?" a man wanted to know.

A loud, indignant woman's voice said, "A man in a cowboy hat gave it to me. He was in the car somewhere."

And a second man's voice whined. "Honest, a guy just handed it to me. A big guy wearing a stetson."

"There he goes!" somebody yelled. "Grab 'im!"

"Oh, God!" said Jacobi.

It took the best part of half a minute for Swire to fight his way through the mob and get to his boss. "He's down, Lieutenant. Moving laterally. Somewhere on the concourse."

"Shit!" Jacobi said. He plowed through people as he started to trot toward the doors. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

A simple disguise was always the best, Charters had found. Wear something you never ever wore, and you didn't look like you anymore. That's why he was wearing the crushable rain hat he'd bought at Rexall's, although there'd been so much confusion in the lobby he probably hadn't needed it.

He was surrounded by people now, hurrying through the

echoing concourse past the endless underground shops, but he was still willing to bet he hadn't fooled Forman's men; they would've picked him up the moment he came through the doors from the lobby.

He took the stairs of the IRT exit, emerged on the eastern edge of the windy plaza, and moved swiftly across Church into Dey Street. Ahead of him lay the labyrinth of the financial district, with its narrow lanes and alleys running every which way. It was going to be hard for the tracker van to get through the tight streets full of armored cars and delivery trucks, cabs and private vehicles, plus a zillion people who were pouring out of buildings, swamping the tiny area. The van wouldn't lose him, but it would have to follow his trail, and it would catch up only when he stopped.

He didn't plan to stop till he got to Fulton and South Street.

And Craig Forman.

When the phone rang in the silence of the chilly apartment, Janice jumped, then relaxed. It had to be Charters. It was all over.

She grabbed the phone. "Gene?"

"Jean? No, this ain't Jean. 'Less I get one of them sex-change operations.''

44 Who is this, please?"

"Nelson there?"

Fitzroy had come out of the bedrootn, wondering about the phone call. Waiting around for news hadn't improved his fragile state of mind, and he was pulling at his lower lip as if he had something stuck to it, and coughing in a continuous attempt to clear his throat. Incredibly, he'd used more hair spray; the sides of his hair were thick and stiff with it, a short, almost-solid curtain covering his ears.

Janice laid the phone down on the table and turned away. "It's for you," she said.

"I'll . . . I'll take it in the bedroom."

He moved back into his room and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

4 'Nelson? John Stegner."

Fitzroy felt his stomach flop.

4 'Nelson? You there?"

44 What . . . what is it?"

"Hey, you jolly dog. Got a little matinee going, huh?"

"I don't understand."

"Don't matter, just make sure you kick her out before seven. I'll be over then.''

"No."

"How's that?"

"Wait." Fitzroy left the phone, closed the bedroom door, came back. "There's been a bit of a hitch."

"No hitch, Nelson. Come on now."

"I'm er, I'm afraid I won't have the money today. It'll be next week. Or the week after. You'll have it all then."

"Hey, Nelson. Don't tell me things like that. I went to bat for you with the old man. I told him you'd come through. Now you don't come through, that's gonna make me look like a putz. And I don't like looking like that, Nelson. So I'll be over at seven for the money."

Fitzroy had trouble getting saliva. "But ... but I won't—"

"Speak up, Nelson. Hardly hear you."

"I won't have it today. I've made different arrangements. M

"So? Pull strings. Make new arrangements."

"It's too late."

"Look, Doc. Here's the way it is. I'm coming over at seven. I'll see you down in the garage. I'll see you and the money down in the garage. At seven. You and the money."

The phone went dead, but Fitzroy, eyes closed, held the receiver in his hand for a long, long time before he replaced it. He looked like he was in agony.

Down John Street, up Dutch Street, onto Fulton, down William Street to Piatt, along to Gold Street, down to Maiden Lane, up Pearl to Fletcher, down Fletcher and up Water Street, then along the narrow alley called Burling Slip.

The van was going to have to turn itself inside out to follow him.

Charters came out onto South Street, a block below Fulton, and turned north. On his right the East River, leaden in the fading light, wrapped itself sluggishly around the rotting legs of wooden piers. Traffic sped over the highway above him, producing a constant swish and rumble.

He spotted the black limo.

It was parked under the steel stanchions of the overhead highway in a no-man's-land that divided the two-way traffic of South Street. It was a beat-up area, a fringe neighborhood, just beyond the Seaport Museum and the fancy new shops in the freshly scrubbed brick buildings. Reconstruction had not reached this block; a few run-down bars on the west side of the street, busted cyclone fences and crummy little parking lots, strewn with newspapers lying soggily in puddles set the tone.

Charters saw Robert, Forman's driver, standing by the car watching him approach. Robert's lips moved, then he opened the rear door, and Forman got out, looking his usual, sartori-ally perfect self: his blond hair just so, his flat, smooth face tanned by a sunlamp, the ready smile. Each time he saw him, Charters loathed him a little bit more.

"What's that, Mr. Charters?" Forman was talking about the fat portfolio. "You look like a photographer's rep."

"It's my sample case. Some government work."

He handed the case over and Forman took it, put it down,

186

and partially unzipped one side. "My favorite perfume," he said, peeking in. "You have any trouble getting it?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

There was a soft sound of squeaky brakes and the green Fairmont pulled up fifty feet away. Three men got out. There were no surprises; they were tough, hard, professional-looking types. They stayed where they were, watching.

Forman didn't acknowledge their arrival. Instead he said, "Is it all here?"

"I wouldn't know. Tclidn't count it."

"But you did examine it?"

"Oh, yes. That's what you're paying me for, remember?"

"And did you earn your money?"

"In spades. There was a bleeper in one of the bundles, and one in the original bag, sewn into the carrying handle. I also checked for chemical dye and incendiaries. All clean. And the money's Grade-A U.S. prime."

"Excellent." Forman placed the portfolio case in the rear seat of the limo.

Robert, on the far side, a yellow cloth in his hand, seemed to be absorbed in maintaining a shine on the hood of the Cadillac. His mean eyes flicked to Charters for a moment, then he bent his powerful frame to work on the lower part of the door.

Forman turned back to Charters, straightening his cuffs. All he'd done was reach into the car, but he seemed to feel the action had upset the hang of his jacket. "I was smart," he said, "to accept your additional service."

Charters stood on tiptoe, as if to peer after the portfolio case. "I just hope I was smart to offer it. I'd like to see my fifty grand, Forman."

The reply was delayed a moment. "That's very naughty of you, Charters, finding out my real name. I cherish my privacy."

"Not privacy, Forman. Piracy. What you cherish is your piracy."

Forman's smile shortened; it was only an affectation after all. "I think you're trying to be rude to me, Charters."

"I'm busting a gut to be rude to you. I'd give up a week's pay to be rude to you. You stink, Forman. You smell. You're the worst thing anybody can be—a poor human being."

Robert rose up from behind the car. He didn't say anything, nor did he make a move, but Charters saw that the yellow

cloth he was rubbing over the car was no longer floppy. He was hiding something in it.

Okay. So it was going to be here.

Charters wasn't particularly surprised. The light was bad, cars were rushing by overhead and on the street; there was lots of noise, lots of movement. . . . Who was going to look at a couple of guys standing around a Wall Street limo? And even if they did, they'd only see a man being helped into the rear seat, ill or sick or something. Then, zip, through the tunnel over to Brooklyn, dark-tinted windows, impossible for anyone to see inside. Down the Gowanus and around the Shore Parkway to Coney or Sheepshead Bay and . . . "My Gawd, Harry, they fished another one out. What is this town coming to?"

Forman attempted to play it smooth, but it didn't quite come off. He didn't like what Charters had said and he tried to make a joke of it.

"You're dead wrong, Charters. I'm a rich human being. And getting richer."

"You're a gold-plated toad, Forman."

Robert's voice came from the back of his throat. "You got a big mouth, scumbag."

"Get on with your dusting, Hazel, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to Fancy Dan here."

"You're fooling yourself, Charters." Forman's voice had risen slightly, and he spoke faster. "I know what I want and I go out and get it. You think you hate me for the way I go out and get it. You're wrong. You hate me for wanting it in the first place. You hate me for the clothes I wear and the car I ride in as much as anything else. You're a class snob, a romantic. Money's what you're measured by in the world. Without it, you're nothing."

"Money makes you something. Is that what you're saying, Forman? You're right. That money in the car, for instance, that makes you something. You think it makes you a smart businessman, a realist in today's harsh world. But that's where you're wrong. All it makes you is a bully. The worst kind of bully. And do you know what the worst kind of bully is? A terrorist. And that's all you are, kiddo. A miserable, dreary, fucking terrorist."

Forman was having trouble holding on to his smile. His mouth was stretched, but his teeth were clamped together and there were lines of anger around his eyes. "A terrorist? If

that's the worst you can call me, you've failed to wound me."

"That's the worst for me, Forman. The worst for you is something else. But you wouldn't believe it."

"Try me, Charters. As tedious as I'm sure it's going to be."

"You're a loser," Charters said.

It rocked the other man, it was so unexpected. And it hurt. '7'/?2 a loser? That's rich. I'm worth two million dollars in liquid assets. Three, now. I'm thirty-four, in terrific health; I play racquetball at B level; I have an apartment in town, a beach house on Fire Island, and an A-frame at Vail. And /'ma loser. What the hell does that make you? A washed-up cop in a J. C. Penney suit and a three-dollar haircut."

Charters snorted as if he thought what Forman had said was funny. "We're back to clothes again. If you'll allow me a paraphrase, it's not what you wear when you play the game, it's whether you win or lose."

Forman snapped at him; he was really angry, and all trace of his usual smooth manner had vanished. "I'm not interested in your righteous moral judgments, Charters. I suggest we conclude our business and take our leave. Fifty thousand dollars, wasn't it?" As he said it, Forman took a fast look around, as if he were checking that the money could change hands unobserved.

Charters took a fast look, too. There was only the regular traffic rushing by, no sign of any beat-up TV van. He wondered if he'd been a little overzealous in the serpentine route he'd chosen.

"Robert," Forman said, casually moving aside, "pay off Mr. Charters."

Charters had never really taken his eye off the big man. He'd seen him first polishing the front fenders, then the front door, working his way around the car with his back to them. He was holding the cloth in his left hand, which was informative. It was always comforting to know if a knifer was right- or left-handed.

Robert straightened up within a few feet of Charters, whipped around suddenly, and thrust. There was no glint of steel; the yellow duster still covered the blade.

Charters was way ahead of the driver. He knew the knife was coming, and from which direction, so the parry was easy.

He shot his right hand out, getting inside the big man's arm at the wrist. He brought his left fist thumping down, chopping Robert on his heavy bicep, jarring the knife from his grasp. That left them evenly matched, weaponless, one on one.

"So what did Frenchy win it with? Szando's own specialty. He just stepped right up and handed the guy a terrific forearm jolt."

Charters took a half-step forward and threw a make-believe punch. He didn't aim directly at Robert, but kept his fist close to his face as his elbow came swinging around, and the edge of his forearm smashed into Robert's mouth.

The big man's head snapped back, and he took two staggering steps away from Charters, driven back by the blow. He blinked and shook his head, and blood flew from his ruined mouth.

The surprise on his face was swept away by rage. He said something behind his broken teeth and charged forward, his big, hard hands clawing out as if he were going to wrench Charters' head off.

4 'Frenchy . . . used to say that as long as they left him the airplane spin and the backbreaker, he could beat anybody. Damn near beat Londos with 'em."

Charters let Robert almost reach him, then ducked his whole body, twisted slightly, and shot up as Robert crashed into him. The big man was hoisted in the air, stretched out on Charters' shoulders.

Charters spun two complete turns, whirling around fast, his right hand looped around the driver's legs, his left gripping the man's neck. Robert struggled to get at him, tried to kick loose, but he was fighting centrifugal force, the clenched tightness of Charters' grip, and the dizzying effect of the spin.

Then, before he knew it, he was flipped. Charters curled him off his shoulders, faceup, as he stopped in midturn, dropped to one knee, and slammed the man down over his outstretched thigh.

The driver yelled out and rolled away, writhing slowly on the ground, his back arched, his hands trying to get to his outraged spine.

For Charters the look on Forman's face alone was worth everything: he'd clearly never seen his bodyguard bested before, let alone destroyed, and his mouth was actually hanging open.

Robert's quick defeat had been a surprise to the men in the

Fairmont, too, although they recovered quickly enough. As they started to walk forward, two of them were reaching into their jackets.

Charters, breathing hard, pointed and called to them. "Wait for the audience."

He said it with such assurance they stopped and turned. They couldn't see anything out of the ordinary; only a grubby-looking van with a swivel antenna coming out of Fulton Street. And then suddenly there were cars coming from all directions, wheeling in, squealing to a stop, lights flashing, doors banging open, blue uniforms, guns everywhere.

Charters took something from his topcoat, bent to the groaning driver, and slipped the object into his pocket. Forman didn't see him; he was trying to get over the shock of the surprise raid.

Jacobi got out of one of the cars and slumped his way over to them. He didn't look at Forman or at the four men being frisked against the Fairmont. His whole attention was focused on Charters.

"Gene . . . what the hell are you doing here?"

"Hi there, Jack. How are things?"

George Vig had hopped out of the tracker van and was right behind his boss. "Lieutenant," he said, recognizing Charters. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hello, George. Jack just asked me the same thing. I was in the area and I ran into Mr. Forman here. He's a former client of mine, so I stopped to say hello." Charters gestured around him. "What's up, anyway?"

Jacobi gave him a long look* and then switched his attention to Robert, who was still moaning on the ground.

"Who's this?"

"That's Mr. Forman's driver," Charters said helpfully.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He has lower-back pain."

Jacobi gave Charters a long look again, then at last addressed himself to Forman. "My name's Lieutenant Jacobi."

"Craig Forman. I'm happy to meet you, Lieutenant." Forman had recovered quickly; he was back to his old role of rich, confident Wall Street investor—everything smooth, under control—although Charters knew his mind had to be darting around like a ball bearing in a pinball machine, looking for a nice, safe, high-scoring hole to drop into.

"Do you have any other names, Mr. Forman?"

"James, my middle name."

"No, I meant do you ever use an alias? Do you ever sign letters Worried Brown-eyes, or Fed-up Taxpayer, or maybe the name of a leading analgesic sold at the corner drugstore?"

Forman was shaken by the implication, but he hardly let it show. He just stood there like a statue while Charters jumped into the silence. After dancing to Forman's tune for the last five days, there was enormous satisfaction in letting the man know the music had stopped.

"I knew a guy did something like that. Used to sign himself Philip Milk, of Magnesia."

"I'll get to you later," Jacobi said, not looking at him.

"Lieutenant," George Vig called out. He'd opened the rear door of the limo and Vig emerged with the portfolio case, holding it by its sides. He unzipped the top part way, peered in, then gave his boss a look that needed no words.

Jacobi said, "Is this your car, Mr. Forman?"

"It's leased to a company I control."

Jacobi said, "That your case, Mr. Forman?"

Forman didn't even turn to check. "I've never seen it before."

"Then you wouldn't have any idea what's in it.'*

"How could I?"

"What's your zodiac sign, Mr. Forman?"

"Aries. Why?"

"I went down the signs this morning, in the paper. It said Aries was going to come into money this week. George? What's in the bag?"

"Money," Vig answered.

"And some people think astrology is hogwash," Jacobi said.

Forman was still putting up a front. He was tight, watching his words, but he continued to give the impression of a gentleman submitting to the tiresome antics of functionaries.

"How did the bag come to be in your car, Mr. Forman?"

"I assume somebody put it there."

"Do you collect for the Red Feather, Mr. Forman?"

"No."

"Then why would somebody put a million dollars in your car?"

"I think somebody made a mistake," Forman answered, his eyes darting to Charters for a brief, vicious moment.

"I think you're right," Jacobi said. "And I think I know who it was."

He wasn't looking at Charters, he was looking at Forman. "George? Take a look inside the limo. Besides the leather covered ashtrays, and the Chivas waterfall, is there a telephone in there?"

4 'Yes, sir."

"Who's waiting on the end of it, Forman?"

"My stockbroker, my secretary, numerous business associates. Anyone I care to call. Including my lawyer. Whom I think should be informed about this harassment."

44 You didn't mention your accomplice."

Forman had gone pale with an interior rage. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew Charters had set him up. And he knew that this fat policeman had all the answers by the leisurely way he was asking questions. The money being found in his car didn't bother him, he could beat that. But there was something more around the corner—there was the smell of avalanche in the air—and he was frightened enough now to answer without thinking, lapsing into cliches. "I don't know what you're talking about."

44 We couldn't be sure you weren't bluffing about the bomb, so we stayed away. We wouldn't be here now if somebody hadn't tripped over it."

4 'What bomb?"

"The one on the ferry." Jacobi shifted his lumpy figure and looked irritable; he seemed to have grown tired of hitting a ball against a backboard. 44 Come on, fella. We've got you colder'n the little matchgirl. It's so tight you'd need a laser beam to get through. So why don't we go back to the station house, and have a rotten cup of coffee, and you can call that lawyer you mentioned."

44 For what reason? On what charge?"

"Impersonating a box of antacid tablets, for a start." Jacobi broke off; Robert was groaning again as he painfully attempted to rise. 4 'Somebody help this guy up," Jacobi said.

Two men pulled Robert to his feet and leaned him against the limo.

44 Ho, ho, ho," George Vig said, frisking him. "Lieutenant ..." He was holding out the radio transmitter that Charters had slipped into the driver's pocket.

"What's it set for?" Jacobi asked.

Vig read out the frequency dial, then slipped off the back

cover. *'Twenty-two point six. And coded for . . . two short, two long." He handed over the device, then headed toward a cruiser to make a call.

Jacobi didn't seem surprised by the discovery. In direct contrast, Forman was biting his lower lip and staring at the transmitter the detective was folding into a handkerchief.

"What is that thing?" he asked.

"A signal sender, as if you didn't know. You weren't kidding, were you, Forman? If your bagman had been collared, you would've zipped down to the ferry terminal and blown a few commuters away. What a sweetheart."

"I've never seen that thing before."

"I know," Jacobi said wearily. "You haven't seen the case, you haven't seen the transmitter, you haven't seen Star Wars . . . Get in your car, Forman. Call your lawyer and tell him you're in trouble. And when he wants to know what you're accused of, tell him the charge is extortion. Tell him the police have this crazy idea that you tried to bail up the city for a million bucks by planting two bombs, make that three, which killed three people. Tell him we found the million dollars in your car. We have a record of the serial numbers so we know it's not just any old million dollars. Tell him we searched your driver and found a remote-control device suitable for setting off bombs."

"Lieutenant?" Vig called to him from a squad car, a radio telephone in his hand. "The bomb receiver was set at twenty-two point six. Coded for two short, two long."

"Tell him," Jacobi said to Forman, "that by a weird coincidence the device was set at the same frequency code as the bomb found on the ferry. And if by this time he hasn't told you that he's sorry, but he has a pressing appointment in New Guinea, tell him something else: tell him that the extortion notes sent to the city were typed on an Olivetti Lettera, with a dropped P, a dropped A, and a worn serif N. Then tell him that, around ten this morning, I got a call from an unidentified typewriter man who remembered repairing such a machine, and that his records showed it belonged to one Craig Forman."

"That's a goddamn lie! I never had that—" Forman caught himself, changed gears swiftly. "I've never owned an Olivetti anything."

Jacobi continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Everybody was a little nervous, this being payday, so we were able to

swing a search warrant on the strength of that phone call, and we went into your apartment. Guess what we found on the top shelf on your cupboard, underneath a blanket?"

"Impossible," Forman breathed. He was thinking about the typewriter he'd used to type the fake Alka Seltzer notes, his Olivetti. It had been tossed into the river yesterday. With his own eyes he'd watched Robert do it.

"We've got it, Forman. It's the machine. A Lettera with a dropped P, a dropped A, and a worn serif N."

Forman wasn't pale anymore; his face was a furious pink, his blazing eyes riveted on Charters, who was playing the part of the innocent spectator, interested but puzzled by what was taking place.

"I don't care what you've got." Forman spat out the words. "That machine was put there. You'd have to prove it was mine, and you can't do that."

"Wronnnggg." Jacobi sounded like a gong. "We went looking for the mysterious repair man and started with the typewriter store nearest to your apartment. We didn't have to go any farther. The guy denied making the call, of course, but we checked his records and there it was. A repair slip with the serial number of the machine and your name and address on it."

Forman couldn't speak; whole sentences fought to get out of his mouth at the same time. He thrust his arm out straight, his finger pointing like a gun at Charters. "You take me, you have to take him. He set the whole thing up."

Charters placed an amazed hand against his chest. "Me? I just got here."

"He was the bagman," Forman raged. "Check that case. Check the handle. They're his fingerprints. They'll be on the money, too. Check—" Forman stopped, cut off by what Charters was doing.

Very carefully and very slowly, he was peeling away tiny pieces of Scotch tape from his fingertips. He looked up and said, a little embarrassed, "I have a fetish about germs."

Forman stayed silent, transfixed. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and hard as glass. "You're a dead man, Charters. You hear me? You're dead."

"Get him outa here," Jacobi said, disgusted.

George Vig led Forman away, handcuffing him as he walked him toward a squad car. He sat him rudely in the rear seat and slammed the door.

"I want a word with you," Jacobi said to Charters. "Over here."

Jacobi moved off, and following him, Charters stopped by the squad car. Vig had gone to get the portfolio case, and there was no one near to hear the conversation.

"Pretty dumb, Forman," Charters said. "I even gave you a hint and you missed it. On Wednesday, when we met in the limo, I said, k I think I'm close to Alka Seltzer.' I was sitting right next to you."

Forman stared straight ahead. "You're a dead man," he said again.

44 Mr. Charters," Jacobi called.

Charters went over to him. Jacobi was getting out his cigarette makings from both pockets of his creased topcoat. It was getting darker, and a quick breeze came in off the river, wafting a high, brackish smell toward the city where the lights were already on in the buildings that massed around Wall Street.

4 'You rang?" Charters said.

Jacobi made a vague gesture in the direction they'd just come from. "Does that guy think he's slick, or something? He was loud when he was telling the truth and quiet when he was lying. It's supposed to be the other way around."

44 Yeah, I noticed."

44 For instance, he was loud when he said you were the bagman."

"He was very loud when he said that," Charters admitted.

44 So what we got here," Jacobi said, "is a setup, right? You must've known the money would be bugged. And yet you led us right here."

"Oh. By the way ..." Charters reached into his shirt pocket and handed over the bleeper. "Better put this back when you get a chance. I removed it in case nutsy decided to have a look himself."

"Thank you," Jacobi said. "Now, if you'll just give me a minute, I'm going to concentrate on giving up smoking while I have a little think about all this." He fussed with his tobacco pouch, getting an opening about the size of a dime, selected a Zig Zag paper, and prepared himself to roll a perfect cigarette. He frowned down at what he was doing and said, "Let's trade places for a minute. You're a dashing, dynamic police detective named Jacobi, and I'm Gene Charters, ace crook-catcher and mediocre tax accountant. Forman comes

to see me with a deal. There's a nasty little extortionist around called Alka Seltzer who he figures he can cut out, and will I help him find the guy. I say no, being still bound by my Brownie oath, but he puts the arm on, so I say yes."

4 'How do you know I didn't jump at the chance?"

"I'm you, remember?" Jacobi said. 'Til tell you why. Because I may be a cad and a bounder, but I feel that blowing up people for money is downright mean."

"A fine opinion you have of me," Charters said.

"I'm stuck with Forman," Jacobi went on, 44 so I look for a way to put a whoopee cushion on his chair while his back's turned." Jacobi got the tobacco nicely even on the Zig Zag paper. He nodded slowly as he got his thoughts even, too, working out what had happened in easy stages. 44 I find Alka Seltzer because I'm damn good at that kind of thing. Then I take his typewriter and put it in Forman's closet."

44 Guess again."

44 Not his typewriter? Then I have one made up. Let's see, for that I'd go to Hutch—and a good choice it would be, too. He turns out to have a copy of the extortion note given to him by the police, for the purpose of identifying the machine. An Olivetti Lettera with three outstanding faults. For a large consideration he fakes a dead ringer, and that's the machine I put into Forman's closet."

44 Good old Hutch," Charters said, smiling in fond memory. i4 Say, whatever happened to that guy?"

4 'But I have to prove ownership," Jacobi said, warming to his scenario, "so I get a repair slip printed up, just like the ones they use in a store down the block from Forman's apartment. I guess Dizzy Dean would do that for me."

"Dizzy Dean," Charters said. "Boy, those were the days, eh?"

"I have to make it look like it was written out by the guy who runs the store, which means I have to forge the handwriting. So I go to a man I once put in jail for forgery. But we're still buddies, and he does it for me. Kenny Takama."

"Kenny Takama," Charters cried, slapping his leg. "Hey, this is like old home week."

"Okay, end of role reversal, you're back to being a schmuck. You put that bomb on the ferry, you arranged for it to be found, you were the guy in the cowboy hat, which, I hope, looked better than the one you're wearing now."

Charters had forgotten about the rain hat. He took it off, folded it up, and put it in his pocket.

4 'Real answers now, Gene; this is where they roll the drums. The bomb. And the sender you put into the driver's pocket. Did you get 'em from Alka Seltzer?"

Charters had always known that, if everything went okay, he was going to reach this point. He didn't have anything special prepared, no threats, no considered arguments, no charming persuasions, because nothing like that would've worked with Jacobi. He was a damn good policeman, and highly principled. Charters was banking on the fact that he'd be a highly practical one, too. He said, quiedy, 'That's where I got 'em. From Alka Seltzer."

44 I want him, Gene."

44 You can't end up with two bombers, Jack."

"If I have a choice, I'll take the real one."

"You don't have a case against the real one. Alka Seltzer didn't type the notes you've got. They're fakes that Forman typed up."

4 'Where are the originals?"

"I have them. But I don't have the original machine. I got rid of it."

"That's serious stuff, Gene."

"Not really. Your case against Forman couldn't be tighter. What's he going to do, tell the truth? Tell them that he was framed while obstructing justice, indulging in bribery and corruption and threat of murder? Admit to intercepting and falsifying evidence, all with the object of stealing money he knew was going to be extorted from the city? He'd also have to admit he knew the modus, the planting of two bombs. And seeing those bombs killed three people, do you think he's going to want to confess to that? You've got your bomber, Jack."

44 All I've got is Forman."

"You know anything about him?" Charters asked.

44 0h, sure." Jacobi brought the cigarette up to his mouth, ran his tongue along the glued edge, and sealed it carefully. "He's a high-tax-bracket killer with the morals of a cook in a concentration camp. It won't bother me if a piece of crap like that goes away for twenty years. But what do we do about Alka Seltzer?"

44 You don't have to worry about him, Jack. He's not going

to survive. He's in the kind of personal trouble you don't recover from."

Jacobi took his time over the next question; it was the one he'd been saving up, even though he'd been dying to ask it. He took a look behind him, restraining himself for a few more seconds. The tracker van had gone, as had all of the cars except for the squad car with Forman and Vig. Robert and the four men from the Fairmont had been taken away, and the Fairmont itself, as well as the long black limo, were being removed by two detectives.

"How did he do it?" Jacobi asked, turning around.

"He says one of the bomb squad was in on it."

"Horse manure."

"That's what I think."

It bothered Jacobi; he made an annoyed sound and walked around in a tight little circle. "I know those guys. Hell, I shared a vacation once with Bill McMullen. They're folks, for crissakes. They're not hired killers." The policeman chewed it over for a bitter moment then said, "How big is that bomb?"

"Tiny. A few ounces of gelignite, miniature components . . . you could put it in your shirt pocket."

"Your shirt pocket," Jacobi repeated, then paused. "I thought maybe somebody knew how to make a bomb the size of a grape. But maybe it's not technology we're up against. Maybe it's technique. Maybe this guy has found a way of hiding it in people's clothes."

"I wondered about that, too," Charters said. "Because I know it's not McMullen."

Jacobi turned the cigarette round and round in his mouth, then took it out and examined it as if it were a fine cigar. "I'm not crazy about it, Gene. I'm not getting the right guy."

"The right guy can't be got. All you have is a tape of his voice, and you know how voice tapes rate as evidence. D minus. But look at the case you've got against the wrong guy. A Gucci with silk lining and crocodile-skin handles. Justice will have been served in the true sense of the word for once."

Jacobi shifted his considerable weight and appeared no more comfortable than before. "What am I supposed to do? Just let this guy go?"

Charters shook his head twice. "He's got nowhere to go. You'll have to believe me on this one, Jack. He's not going

to set the alarm for seven and get up tomorrow morning and start planting more bombs again. He's through/'

"I have to know his name," Jacobi said.

44 Nelson Fitzroy."

44 Fitzroy. I wondered if he was trying to tell us something, calling himself Alka Seltzer. Plop, plop. Fizz, fizz. Fitzroy."

"It took me an age to get it," Charters said.

44 What's he look like?"

44 You know the short, slight guy you see lining up way in advance for opera tickets? Like that."

4 "Personality?"

4 'Right now, a nervous wreck. He could have been a momma's boy, he has a couple of phobias that point that way. He's a doctor, incidentally "

Jacobi, with a disdainful grunt, said, 44 A goddamn doctor. Don't those guys make enough money as it is?"

44 He's too young to be making a really big salary. He was probably okay at treating other people's problems. No good at treating his own."

A silence grew between them as Jacobi mulled it over. Charters let him think it through. He didn't mind waiting; the longer Jacobi took, the more he would realize that Charters's solution was the only one that was anywhere near satisfactory.

"Okay." The policeman made a reluctant little gesture. "I'll buy it. But on one condition, Gene. I have to know how he did it."

44 I think I can find out. I'll tell him something that's almost the truth. I made a deal with my superior and he goes free as long as he gives us the information." Charters pursed his lips and sighed through his nose. 4t If he says it was Bill McMullen, then we do have a problem."

Jacobi waved the possibility away. 4 'Let's wait and see. Call me the moment you know." He looked over at the waiting squad car, where George Vig was leaning against the fender. Forman sat very still in the backseat. "That guy meant it, Gene. You know that, don't you?"

"Oh, yes. His first call will be to his lawyer. His second will be to a man who owns a gun."

44 What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to try the West Coast for a while."

"Go soon, Gene."

"I'm all packed. Ten minutes after that guy walked in my door I knew I'd be traveling." Charters brightened, slapped

Jacobi on the arm. "Congratulations, Lieutenant. I hear you caught the notorious Alka Seltzer."

44 Get outa here, you bum."

'Til call you," Charters said.

Jacobi watched him walk away, sniffed at his cigarette, and put it between his lips. He waddled over to the squad car, took the cigarette out, started to flick it away. Jacobi looked at Forman's sour face and shoved the cigarette back into his mouth.

"Aw, screw it!" he said. "George? You got a light?"

Charters went into the first bar he came to and grabbed a stool. He was glad to sit down—he could have happily lain down; now that it was over and the tension was gone, he felt limp. The knowledge was like a healing balm; it was like being welcomed by the scented comfort of a hot bath, soft, warm waters banishing aches and pains, relaxing, soothing.

He ordered a bottle of Ballantine's, with a shot of vodka on the side. After knocking back the spirits, he slowly savored the ale.

He blanked his mind for a minute, and watched the people around him. It was a pleasant place, cheerfully lit, with a good atmosphere. There was some forties swing playing on a tape, although the crowd was young, mostly Friday-night boys and girls together, and there was a lot of laughter and flirting going on.

The fight with Robert had drained him somewhat, and he leaned his elbows on the bar and closed his eyes while he sipped from his glass and thought about what he was going to do.

He wouldn't sleep at the studio tonight. He'd go there, grab the money, throw some socks in a bag, call Air Canada, and make a reservation, in his own name, for Toronto. He'd fly there and make some kind of fuss on the way so they'd be sure to remember him. Spend the night in a hotel, check out next morning, and take the bus back across the border to Buffalo. From there a feeder airline to Chicago. Buy a thousand-dollar car in Calumet City from one of those lots that didn't insist on too much paperwork, drive to Dallas, dump the car, fly from Dallas to Las Vegas, and take a bus into LA from there. Let Forman's killers hunt for him in Canada. There'd be no trail leading anywhere else.

202

He filled his lungs to capacity and slowly exhaled air. It had been a hell of a lot of work for one week.

He finished his ale and slid off the stool. He'd promised to call Janice, and suddenly he wanted to hear her voice very much. The tape was playing "Chattanooga Choo Choo" now. Appropriately, Charters thought. He walked in time to the music as he moved toward a pay phone at the rear.

He dug some coins out and dialed Fitzroy's number.

And Fitzroy answered.

The moment he came on the line, the moment Fitzroy blurted out his first few words, Charters knew that his week's work wasn't quite over yet.

"Do you have the money? Do you have the money?"

Fear made Fitzroy's voice tremble, propelled it into a higher register. There was desperation there, too, and a hint of panic, so Charters' answer was instinctive. "Yes. Right here beside me. I just called to say everything's going fine."

"Don't hand it over! Whatever you do, don't hand it over!"

"What's the matter, Doctor?" Charters tried to sound casual, but his stomach was beginning to ball up in a knot.

"Everything. It's awful. Those terrible people called. They wouldn't listen to reason. They're demanding the money now. I have to have it for them at seven. In forty-minutes. You'll have to bring it here. Bring it now."

"Well, that certainly changes things, Doctor. It's pretty short notice. I'm not sure that—"

Fitzroy screamed at him. "I'm ready for that! I didn't think you'd want to bring it back. Unless you do, I'll kill Mrs. Stanley. Do you hear what I say?"

"Now, Nelson, there's no need to talk like that. I'll bring you the money." Charters had to fight to keep his delivery calm. Fitzroy was very close to breaking, his fear tumbled the words out of his mouth with no trace of his usual stammer. "I'm leaving now," Charters said. "But I have to speak with her, Nelson."

"No!"

"I have to make sure she's safe."

"She's safe."

"That you haven't already harmed her."

"She's fine."

Charters started to grow cold; the short, clipped answers sounded awful. He switched to a tone of firm demand. "Unless I speak to her now, Fitzroy, you can forget about the money."

204

There was a pause for a moment or two, then Janice spoke. "Gene?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"He hit me with something. My hands and feet are tied."

Fitzroy's voice came on the line again. "I didn't hurt her; she's fine. Now bring the money. Hurry."

"You interrupted me, Fitzroy. I'm not coming till I finish talking to her."

"You're wasting time talking to her. I've told you she's fine. I'm a doctor, I should know."

Charters had to be very, very careful; he had to bend Fitzroy with authority, but not so far that he'd snap. "I have a million dollars in a bag on the floor, Fitzroy. But you won't see a penny of it unless I finish speaking with Mrs. Stanley."

"Thirty seconds. I'll give you thirty seconds."

Janice came back on. "Gene?"

"Has he got a gun?"

"No."

"A knife?"

"Transmitter."

"A radio transmitter? That's what he's threatening you with?"

"He means it, Gene. I'm certain." She spoke with a fine edge of controlled fright.

Fitzroy's voice shouted in the background. "I do mean it. I must have that money."

44 Janice. Listen. Did he get to your handbag?"

"No."

"Your coat?"

"Yes."

"I'm on my way. Let me speak to him."

He heard Janice murmur, then Fitzroy's voice. With her hands tied, Fitzroy had to be holding the handpiece for her. "Are you satisfied?"

4 Tm coming now. You'll have the money. But the streets are backed up with Friday-night traffic, and I'm at the other end of town. It'll take me a while."

"Meet me downstairs in the garage. Before seven, do you hear? If you want to keep her alive." Fitzroy hung up abruptly.

Charters hung up more slowly.

He moved back through the music and the laughter in the

bar, which sounded vulgar and mocking now, and out onto the sidewalk. He didn't dash, he didn't run, he walked at a normal pace, moving through the almost-empty streets, letting his mind settle around it before working out an answer.

Jacobi had hit on it: it wasn't technology they were up against, it was technique. Fitzroy had found a way of hiding a bomb in a person's clothes that was good enough to get by a search. Although he probably hadn't had to employ it this evening. Janice would have taken off her coat in his apartment, and it wouldn't have been hard for him to slip the little bomb into a pocket. She'd realize now what he'd done, but with her hands tied—and he would have tied them behind her back—she'd be powerless to do anything about the explosive. It was so light she probably couldn't even feel it against her body.

Charters passed under a clock, noting the time with a glance that was almost lazy. Six-twenty-five. He had thirty-five minutes to stop her from being killed. And she would be killed if he didn't show on time, there was no question about it; the guy was demented now. He wanted to start running, pound down the sidewalk, commandeer a cab, get over there, run into the garage, belt the radio sender out of Fitzroy's hand, and jump on it and crush it into nothing. But he knew that if he tried it that way, the blunt frontal approach, Janice would be blown to pieces before he could get within fifty feet of Fitzroy.

A gun was no good, either. Fitzroy had said the garage. He'd be jammed in behind an automobile, impossible to pick off.

A gun, a blind running charge, these were offensive weapons, and they wouldn't work. What he needed was a defensive weapon.

Knowing what it had to be and knowing where he could get it changed him from a plodding, pensive stroller into a running wild man. He started to sprint, just like he'd wanted to before, pumping his arms and dashing down the sidewalk to a taxi that was letting out a shift man in front of a brokerage house.

"Bellevue," Charters yelled, jumping in. "Emergency. Run the reds, anything. Just get me there!"

The driver pointed to his previous fare, who stood fumbling with money on the sidewalk. "I ain't been paid yet."

Charters threw a hundred-dollar bill at him. 4 'You've been paid. Let's go!"

The driver was willing but amateurish, and the trip took longer than a hundred dollars should have bought.

There was nothing Charters could do to make it any faster, so he tried to ignore the ineptitude of the driver and concentrate on the nagging question.

What kind of technique could be a new technique for hiding something in somebody's clothes?

Granted the explosive device wasn't any heavier or bulkier than a pack of king-size cigarettes, but wouldn't a man notice even that if it was slipped into one of his jacket pockets? And by the same token, wouldn't a woman notice it in her blazer or her suit jacket?

Nor did the next layer seem plausible; how could it be kept a secret in a shirt or a blouse? Let alone underwear.

That was laughable. Farcical. You couldn't hide something in a guy's shorts or a woman's bra.

Charters thumped the cab's seat; it just didn't add up. He wiped his mind clean and started again, going through it from the top.

Bellevue was on First at Twenty-eighth. He was still in the dark when they passed Twenty-first. Still hadn't a clue as they crossed Twenty-second. But at Twenty-third the sun came out with a blinding quickness. He didn't spend much time wondering about it because it seemed impossible. Instead, he backtracked through his memory to see if he could support the idea.

The result wasn't what he'd hoped for. He'd wanted something similar to a magic act, where a man in a cape took a mundane object like a shredded newspaper, pulled the right string, and hey, presto! it became a glass of water, or a fluttering Stars and Stripes, correct in every detail.

But it wasn't working like that. The trick wouldn't come out. He needed help.

The taxi wheeled into the drive of the Victorian brick pile known as "Bellevue Hospital." Charters was out of the cab door and running before it had stopped. "Wait for me!" he yelled over his shoulder.

He slowed when he got inside; he had to make this look official, and cops seldom hurried. He got a break. The nurse behind the admittance desk, an older woman, recognized him.

"Hello there," she said. "I haven't seen you for a long while."

"I was transferred uptown. I have a big problem and I'm up against the clock. Will you help me?"

4 'Of course."

"I want to borrow something; I need to talk to a doctor fast."

The apartment-house garage was quiet, poorly lit, and badly ventilated. The smell of oil and gasoline hung in the air like a damp blanket on a clothesline. He'd freed her feet in the apartment so she could walk, but had refused to untie her hands. "In case you're tempted to try to run," he'd said, "it's very difficult if you can't swing your arms."

He'd taken her out into the corridor then, staying very close behind her. He'd tucked her into a corner of the elevator, screening her with his body, but nobody got in. He'd warned her about calling out for help or talking to anyone they met; he told her he'd explode the bomb, and she believed him. That he'd be killed in the same explosion, either hadn't occurred to him or didn't bother him. He was possessed now, with a single thought in mind, and like any fanatic, he wasn't thinking about consequences.

Only two cars had come and gone since they'd been down there, and neither driver had seen them—Janice back against the wall in the top corner, Fitzroy on the other side hidden behind a wide, concrete roof support.

There were just the two entrances into the garage: the one from the basement of the apartment building, and the automobile ramp to the street. Fitzroy had positioned himself to cover both, and was screened from both by the concrete support. It would also screen him from a gun as well as from an explosion.

"Where is he?" His voice echoed, shrill in the cold cavernous space. "It's a quarter to seven."

Janice didn't reply; her head hurt from where he'd struck her, and her body was rigid with tension. There was nowhere she could run even if she wanted to; the line of parked cars stopped thirty feet away, and she was totally exposed. Charters wouldn't find any cover, either, when he arrived. And she knew he was coming, although she also knew he didn't have the million dollars; she'd asked him to call when it was all over, and it wouldn't have been all over if he hadn't successfully passed on the money.

But what would he do when he got there? He'd have to try

to bluff Fitzroy. Perhaps he'd try to get in front of her, distract the man, move his hand behind him, slip it into her coat pocket, grab the bomb, and hurl it away. Perhaps.

She couldn't feel the bomb against her body and couldn't see it in her pocket; her coat was too thick and luxurious, the pocket too deep. The pocket was about level with her hip.

She shuddered, shaking the thought away. It wasn't going to happen. It couldn't.

"Ten minutes," Fitzroy xalled. "He's got ten minutes."

All she could see of him was part of his face, and his hand, which trembled slightly as he held the transmitter pointing toward her.

His voice rose, "I don't think he's coming. He doesn't have the money. He was lying. He—" Fitzroy cut himself off.

Somebody was running down the ramp from the street.

Charters appeared, and he slowed instantly, squinting into the gloom of the dim garage. He could see Janice, beyond some cars at the end, and opposite her, he heard Fitzroy scuttle behind the ceiling support.

"Where is it? You didn't bring it."

"I brought it, Fitzroy."

"You're lying. There's no bag."

Charters began to walk forward, slowly. "The bag was bugged. I had to transfer the money."

"To what? I don't see it." The concrete support muffled Fitzroy's voice to a certain extent, but it couldn't hide the quaver of hysteria.

"I'm wearing it," Charters said. "Under my top coat. Can't you see how bulky I look?" He kept moving forward, on Janice's side of the garage.

"A million dollars? You couldn't hide that much money under your coat."

"It's in thousand-dollar bills."

"You're lying. There's no such thing."

"For an extortionist, you don't much about money. There's a five-thousand-dollar bill, and there's a ten-thousand-dollar bill. But those are hard to come by, so they paid you in thousand-dollar bills."

Charters kept his tone light. Fitzroy had clearly psyched himself up to be able to deal with Janice as he had, and an authoritarian approach wouldn't work with him now. In fact, it could boomerang and push him in the wrong direction.

"Take off your coat. No. Wait. Stand next to Mrs. Stanley. Take the money out and put it on the floor/'

"Right," Charters said, and walked toward Janice. It was exactly the place he wanted to be. He smiled when he reached her. "We're going to be okay," he said to her under his breath. Then he turned so that she was directly behind him, very close. All he could see of Fitzroy, fifty feet away, was the same view Janice had had: a piece of his head, as he peeped around at them, and his hand holding the transmitter.

Fitzroy pushed the transmitter farther out. ki Take out the money.''

"What about our deal, Fitzroy?"

"The deal is off. I'm sorry."

"Then you're ready to go to prison?" Charters had put his right arm behind him.

"I'm not going to prison. I can't. If you try to arrest me, ril explode the bomb."

"Oh, yes," Charters said. "About that bomb." His hand found Janice's belt. "My superior doesn't buy your story about having a partner in the bomb squad. He thinks you have a new technique for hiding explosives in people's clothes."

"Would you just take out the money, please? I won't tell you again."

"But I was thinking about that on the way here," Charters continued, as if there had been no interruption. Pulling gently on her belt, he began to move very slowly toward Fitzroy, taking Janice with him. "Nobody was wearing a topcoat at the bank or the hotel, so it wasn't in a topcoat. A jacket? Very possibly. A shirt or a blouse? Trousers or a skirt? Still possible."

The transmitter shook. "Stay where you are!"

"That leaves only underwear, improbable at best. And there I had to stop, Fitzroy. Because there's nothing left but skin."

"I'm warning you." Fitzroy's voice had climbed the scale. "All I have to do is press this button. You'll both be blown to bits!"

Charters, forty feet away now, continued his gradual progress, with Janice still in tow\ her breathing coming in short little bursts. "So," Charters went on, "I wondered if you hadn't been really smart. I wondered if you hadn't thought of sewing a bomb in the lining of a garment."

The transmitter dipped momentarily as if something had jogged Fitzroy's arm.

4 'That would have been easy for you to do if you were a tailor. But you're not a tailor, are you? You're a doctor, Fitzroy. A surgeon. And surgeons are known to be pretty nifty with a needle, too."

Fitzroy screamed at him. "Stop! Stop now!"

Charters halted. He said over his shoulder, "Janice? You still there?"

She couldn't answer. She'd only been half-listening to what he'd been saying to Fitzroy; she'd assumed it was only a ploy to keep him talking while they got closer. But she could see now that they weren't going to make it: Charters was way too far from the man, and Fitzroy, terrified of capture, was getting ready to press the button.

"Don't fall down," Charters continued, speaking softly to Janice. "I'm going to tell you something. The bomb isn't inside your coat," he said evenly. "It's inside you."

Her tiny gasp was drowned by Fitzroy's broken-voiced cry. "Last chance!"

Charters had started advancing again. "You press that button, fella, and the money goes, too. You'll end up with nothing."

"But I'll be alive. You'll be dead!"

"You won't be alive for long, Fitzroy." Charters moved faster, but Fitzroy didn't hesitate.

Janice cried out as his thumb jerked on the button—two short stabs, two long.

Nothing happened.

Fitzroy, his eyes wide, mouth open, brandished the transmitter and repeated the code—two short stabs, two long.

Still nothing.

He didn't get a third chance. Charters reached out and snatched the transmitter from his hands, dropped it to the cement floor, and crushed it beneath his heel. He turned and grabbed Janice, pulling her to him. "Okay," he said. "It's okay."

She slumped against him, fought down a gurgled sob, and tried not to whimper. For the last few minutes she'd been convinced she was about to die, and with the piece of news Charters had just come up with, she still wasn't sure whether she was going to live.

"There's no problem," he said, still holding her to him. "Everything's okay. You'll be fine."

He held her some more, gentled her, then untied the dressing-gown cord that had been lashed around her wrists.

He didn't have to worry about Fitzroy; the man was broken. He was staring down at the smashed transmitter and whispering, t4 I don't understand," over and over again. The hysteria had vanished like a fever that had run its course, and he was spent, shattered like the object he was wondering about on the floor. He was bewildered by what had happened, or had failed to happen, and a slow embarrassment began to creep over him as if he'd been caught in a compromising position. The stammer came back into his speech, and he became conscious of his wild appearance.

44 Why . . . why didn't it work?" Fitzroy seemed more in control of himself now.

44 I guess it's just not your day," Charters said.

Fitzroy glanced up briefly, then dropped his eyes again. 4 Tm sorry." He was apologizing for trying to kill them. 44 Are you ... are you going to arrest me?"

44 If you lie, I will," Charters said. 44 Are there any more, Fitzroy?"

44 No." Fitzroy said this with such utter defeat that Charters knew he was telling the truth. Fitzroy made little fluttering movements with his hands. 44 What do I tell those people?"

"Tell them the truth," Charters said. He was still holding the pajama cord. He tossed it to Fitzroy. "Tell them you tried."

He moved Janice away, walked her the length of the garage, and in through the basement door that led up to the street.

When they reached the sidewalk, Charters stopped, shrugged off his topcoat, and took off the lead-lined X-ray apron he'd borrowed from the hospital.

There was the sound of tires squealing as a big white Buick, moving fast, braked opposite them, turned forty-five degrees, nose-dived as it hit the ramp, and vanished down into the garage.

Behind it, traveling much more slowly, was a taxi with its vacant lights lit. Charters grabbed it.

The ale was imported from Newcastle, England. The vodka was also the finest in the world, an unpronounceable name from Poland. What bothered Charters, having fun behind the bar in Janice Stanley's Park Avenue duplex, was that he didn't think it was as good as his regular combo at the White Rose on Eighth. Plebeian tastes?

He slouched on a silk-covered sofa, the heels of his shoes disappearing in the broadloom. He could have happily worked on his drink, gotten out of his jacket, unlaced his shoes, stretched out on the sofa, and not stirred for twelve hours. But, with a plane to catch, he couldn't do any of that.

Except work on his drink.

And that he could do for only fifteen more minutes. Then he'd have to leave.

When Janice came back into the room, he handed her a tall gin and tonic, figuring she'd be thirsty as well as in need of a shot. She sat down in an armchair opposite him and drank half of her drink, slowly, as if it were hot soup. She'd just come out of the shower and had wrapped her long slim body in a floor-length terry robe, a plain white towel turbaning her head. She'd scrubbed off all her makeup, and her face was pink from the steam. She was as natural and unadorned as she'd ever be, just her facial features on show, and Charters thought she'd never looked more marvelous.

4 'Please excuse me," she said. "I just had to be surrounded by hot water."

4t I know what you mean," Charters answered. "I get that way myself. There are times when only a long hot shower will do it."

He knew she had probably felt grubby and desecrated by

213

her experience, but he suspected that by showering and scrubbing the outside of her body she had unconsciously been trying to cleanse the obscenity she had inside her.

"How's your head?" he asked.

"A hell of a bump, but nothing more serious." She sipped at her drink, then put the glass down and faced him. "Well?" she asked.

Charters went straight into it. "I called Jacobi while you were in the shower. He just called back. You're to check into Lenox Hill anytime before midnight. Nothing to eat from now on. They'll wheel you in at seven tomorrow morning, and twenty minutes later, they'll wheel you out a few ounces lighter. The operation couldn't be simpler. Zip, snip, and you're done. The hospital report will just say exploratory surgery."

She nodded over that. "Fine. The sooner the better."

"I would say so," Charters said.

"I know when he did it," Janice said, "but I still don't know how. And I don't know how you found out."

"I didn't find oat, really. I just ran out of theories. Did you hear any of what I was saying to Fitzroy?"

"I wasn't taking it all in." She tried a little smile. "About then I was watching my life flash before my eyes."

"Jacobi thought Fitzroy had found a way of hiding bombs in people's clothes. And I thought maybe he could have, if he were a dry cleaner or a tailor. But he's a surgeon. Where could a surgeon hide something? I got it then, but I dismissed it as being too far out. I was still thinking about you and your coat. You and Fitzroy. Then word associations started popping up. Surgeon, hospital, Janice, hospital. I'm good at remembering conversations; I've had a lot of practice. Do you recall a few days back when we were arguing about Rolls-Royces and chauffeurs and things? You said you had to be driven because you were such a lousy driver. In fact, you said you'd already had one accident serious enough to land you in Queens County Hospital."

"I remember," Janice said.

"That made it a bit more plausible," Charters went on, "but it was still too weird, so I went back to clothes. I tried to remember if anyone had mentioned anything about Mary or the man at the bank, if they'd been wearing anything out of the ordinary. And then, thinking about Mary, I recalled what you'd told me the night we had dinner. You said that when

you'd met neither of you had been looking your best. I thought at the time you meant you'd met after a late party, or at the end of a hard day, or something." Charters stopped for a moment, then said to her, "You met in the hospital, didn't you?"

"Yes. She'd been in a car accident, too. But how did you guess that?"

Charters took a swallow of ale to see if it would help him find the correct reply. It didn't. "Beats me. It's not very logical, is it? But it had to be, because it was the only answer I had."

Charters offered to make her another drink, but she declined. She recrossed her legs beneath her gown and traced a slow pattern in the broadloom with a bare foot while she mulled over what he'd told her. She asked him when he'd been sure.

"When I talked to a doctor at Bellevue, while I was waiting for that X-ray apron. I asked him how much room there is in a person's body. He said lots. A pacemaker, for example, fits easily under a rib, and a pacemaker's only a fraction smaller than the bomb I took from Fitzroy. He said the most room was in the gut. So then I asked him about surgical techniques and hospital procedures. But maybe you'd rather hear about this later."

"No. Now."

Charters finished the heel of ale in his glass, decided against another, and sat up straighter on the sofa. "Fitzroy was a house surgeon at Queenfc County. Jacobi just checked on this. He's been on leave of absence for a while. Guess why. When they brought you in from your accident, you must've been a little out of it, huh?"

"I was. I was still in shock."

"The casualty doctor would've taken a fast look at you and had you whipped upstairs for immediate surgery. What was your problem, by the way?"

"Ruptured spleen."

"Not nice. Anyway, you were just what Fitzroy had been waiting for. Somebody who worked with the public. As Mary did. And the man at the bank."

"Mary had been in for two days when I got there."

"Okay. The man from the bank probably came in after you, not that the order matters any. But you never saw Fitzroy before or after the surgery, did you?"

"No. I had my own man look after me," Janice said. "But, Gene, how could it just be Fitzroy by himself? How about the rest of the operating team?*'

4 Three people, Janice. That's all it had to be. He wasn't doing double heart transplants with a room full of green gowns. There'd only have to be Fitzroy himself, an anesthetist, and a scrub nurse. Fitzroy opens you up and makes the necessary repairs. Then he tells the nurse he needs some number-four thread, or whatever. Off she goes to get it from the supply room. Fitzroy takes the bomb out of his pocket. He's got it in a sterilized polythene container. The anesthetist can't see what he's doing; he's behind his screen watching his dials and keeping you alive. Fitzroy snips open the container and removes the bomb. You saw a similar one in Fitzroy's apartment, so you know how small and simple they are. Gel, plus a few other odds and ends, in a soft plastic bag. He attaches it inside you, and when the nurse comes back, he's getting ready to close you up, and there's nothing to see. So you end up with a little extra inside, and no one the wiser. Diabolical, but pretty smart."

Janice had put a hand to her stomach, her lips tight against her teeth. "But why can't I feel it? Why didn't it upset me or cause me a lot of pain?"

"I had to skirt around this with the doctor," Charters answered. "I didn't want to give him any details, but he said that a foreign object could be tacked to the peritoneum, the stomach lining, with a couple of fast stitches. It'd be out of the way there and wouldn't interfere with normal stomach function."

Janice started to speak, stopped, then started again. She didn't seem to know what to say. "It's amazing."

"I know," Charters said. "How long ago did you have that operation?"

"Almost three months back."

"Did you have any discomfort at all?"

"A little. I called my doctor and he—"

Charters held up a hand. "He said it was normal postoperative bruising, correct?"

"Correct."

"I checked on that, too," Charters said. "Fitzroy knew what he was doing."

Janice gathered her robe around her and slowly rubbed her

arms. The warmth she'd gotten from her hot shower had worn off, and combined with the chilling things she'd just learned, she was starting to feel cold. "Gene, there were two men killed at the bank."

"Only one had been Fitzroy's patient. The other man had the bad luck to be standing in the wrong place. Fitzroy needed only one explosion in the places he threatened."

44 My store would have been next then," Janice said. "And me with it."

"I think you were just insurance, in case the city proved to be obstinate. But it does bring up a point." Charters watched her for a moment before he spoke. "If we hadn't found him, and he'd gone ahead with the pickup he had in mind, and he'd got away with the million dollars, he still would've had to do something about you."

44 Yes," Janice said. 44 I can see that. Sooner or later, postsurgery bruising could no longer be blamed for the discomfort caused by this charming little thing I'm carrying around. The doctors would have X-rayed and found it. So Fitzroy would have had to have killed me before that happened."

44 You say that very calmly, Janice." Charters gave a tiny shake of his head, not a negative movement, but a gesture of admiration. 44 You don't choke, do you, Mrs. Stanley?"

44 I came pretty close in that garage." She paused, and then said, 44 We missed it, you know."

44 Missed what?"

44 The Alka Seltzer hint."

44 Plop, plop. Fizz, fizz. Fitzroy," Charters said. "You don't think it's that?"

44 No. He's too humorless to pun. I think we had it, but we passed it right by."

"When?"

44 When we were at Gallagher's talking about what you take Alka Seltzer for. Of course, now it's obvious."

"Oh, my God." Charters slapped his face, lightly with the palm of his hand. "What a dummy I am. You take Alka Seltzer for an upset stomach." He sat on the sofa for a moment more, dwelling on his oversight and wondering if it would have helped any if he'd thought of it then. Probably not. He dismissed it with a fatalistic wave; it was academic now. He checked his watch. 44 Hey, I've got to see a man about a plane."

He stood and moved across to her. "Well," he said, 4 i guess this is the part where we punch each other's shoulder and promise to meet at P. J. Clark's next Arbor Day."

Right on top of his words she said, "I've been so busy talking about myself I didn't ask you what happened with Forman."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "Come on, Janice. You know what happened. I wouldn't be here if it hadn't happened. I'd be trying to reach my lawyer in the steam room."

"Forman was arrested?"

"Yep. Screaming all the way, too."

Janice got up quickly and spoke with as much urgency as he'd ever heard from her. "Don't go back to the studio. Leave the money. I'll send someone for it later."

"Oh, hell, it'll be four or five hours before Forman can bribe somebody to take a message. I'll be long gone by then." Charters smiled.

"Go now," Janice said. "The sooner the better."

"Well, that's gratitude for you."

Janice ignored his attempts to keep the conversation light. "Let's talk about that for two seconds, Gene. How do you thank someone for your life?"

"I'm sorry, your two seconds are up. You going to let me out or shall I ring?" He took her arm and they walked together to the door. He said, "If I was going to be around tomorrow, I would've brought you some flowers and a bunch of grapes. Bu you'll be fine."

She didn't reply.

"I'll just have to send you some Sunkist oranges instead, dammit."

She waited, saying nothing as she stood there, looking at him.

Charters opened the door. "So . . . take it easy, lady."

She moved her head in a quick bobbing motion and did her best to give him a smile.

He began to move through the door, then stopped. "That memory of mine again," Charters said. "Am I wrong or does it say Palm Beach, Dallas, and Beverly Hills on the window of the J. Stanley store?"

"That's what it says." Janice held herself straight with her hands clenched, trying to sound normal and to ignore the smarting in her eyes.

"Well, you run the place. When, urn"—Charters scratched

his scarred eyebrow—"when is the Beverly Hills store due for a visit?' 1

Janice jumped, looped her arms around him, crushed herself to him, and let the smarting in her eyes get the better of her. "Very, very soon," she said.

"Good," said Charters.

The white Buick got locked in Friday-night traffic and it took an age to get downtown. One of the young Mussolinis was driving; expressionless, his face registered no impatience with their creeping progress.

Fitzroy sat beside the driver because John Stegner, right behind him in the backseat, had suggested that he'd be more comfortable up front. Next to Stegner sat the driver's twin, equally silent, bored, staring out the window at the nighttime city.

Fitzroy had hardly spoken the entire time. He was glad he was sitting in the front and not in the back next to Stegner, because he couldn't have looked him in the eye. He said at last, 4 Tm sorry about the money."

44 So am I, Nelson." Stegner sucked at his bad teeth. "A real disappointment."

44 I . . . I almost had it, but I had to give it up."

"Too bad."

"If I hadn't, I would have gone to prison."

"That's a bad place to go, prison. You're lucky, Nelson."

"I'll get it, though."

"Sure you will. You just had bad luck, is all."

They'd reached Fortieth Street. But instead of turning east, toward the Midtown Tunnel, they turned west.

Fitzroy wondered if they were taking some kind of detour until he saw the signs for the Lincoln Tunnel. "Where are we going?"

"How's that, Nelson?" Stegner asked, a bland expression on his freckled, moon-shaped face.

"I . . . I thought we were going to Forest Hills. To the restaurant, to see the elderly gentleman."

"He don't see anyone at night, Nelson. He likes the TV."

220

"Then where are we going?"

In spite of the chilly temperature outside, the driver's window was halfway open. The heater was on high and the heat poured out, defeating the cold outside air and making the interior of the car close and stuffy.

As they flashed into the tunnel, the traffic noise bounced off the tiled walls, and the yellow lights strobed on them, giving everyone a ghostly two-minute flicker.

"How's that, Nelson?" Stegner asked as they came out of the tunnel.

"I said, where are we going? This is New Jersey."

"The Garden State," Stegner said. 'Tunny thing, though, you never see that many gardens."

The Buick stopped briefly at the toll plaza and then rolled on, picking up speed, rushing toward the turnpike and the Pine Barrens.

"Where are we going?"

With a slow, practiced movement, Stegner took a small pistol from his jacket, a .22 Hi-Standard Derringer. It was the same pistol that the gun salesman had talked Fitzroy out of buying.

"We're going to a farm."

"A farm?"

"Don't look around, Nelson. That's like riding backward. It can make you feel all queasy."

"But . . . why a farm?"

"We got some chores for you to do, Nelson."

Fitzroy had been expecting the answer, and it sickened him. They were taking him back to his hideous, horrible life. He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, feeling ill. "What kind of chores?"

"You know, regular farm things," Stegner answered. He spoke soothingly to the back of Fritzroy's head. "You gonna milk the cows, collect the eggs," he said. "Feed the pigs."

About the Author

Tony Kenrick was born in Australia and has lived in Canada, the United States, and Europe. He worked for many years in advertising before becoming a writer. He and his Welsh wife and their two children live in England. He is the author of 81st Site, The Nighttime Guy, and Two Lucky People, also available in Signet editions.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

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