Fat Ollie's Book A Novel of the 87th Precinct ED MCBAIN

I realize this is getting boring... But this, too, and yet another time... is for my wife, Dragica Dimitrijevic-Hunter

The city in these pages is imaginary. The people, the places are all fictitious. Only the police routine is based on established investigatory technique.

Fat Ollie's Book 1 RESPONSE TIME-from the moment someone at the Martin Luther King Memorial Hall dialed 911 to the moment Car 81, in the Eight-Eight's Boy sector rolled up-was exactly four minutes and twenty-six seconds. Whoever had fired the shots was long gone by then, but a witness outside the Hall had seen someone running from the alleyway on its eastern end and he was eager to tell the police and especially the arriving TV crew all about it. The witness was very drunk. In this neighborhood, when you heard shots, you ran. In this neighborhood, if you saw someone running, you knew he wasn't running to catch a bus. This guy wasn't running. Instead, he was struggling to keep his balance, wobbling from one foot to the other. Nine, ten in the morning, whatever the hell it was already, and he could hardly stand up and he stunk like a distillery. He finally sat on one of the garbage cans in the alley. Behind him, rain water from a gutter dripped into a leader and flowed into an open sewer grate. Slurring his words, the drunk immediately told the responding officers from Car 81 that he was a Vietnam vet, mistakenly believing this would guarantee him a measure of respect. The blues saw only a scabby old black drunk wearing tattered fatigue trousers, an olive-drab tank top, and scuffed black penny loafers without socks. He was having trouble not falling off the garbage can, too. Grabbing for the wall, he told them he'd been about to go into the alley here, yessir, when he saw this guy come bustin out of it... "Turned left on St. Sab's," he said, "went runnin off uptown." "Why were you going in the alley?" one of the blues asked. "To look inna garbage cans there." "For what?" "Bottles," he said. "Takes 'em back for deposit, yessir." "And you say you saw somebody running out of the alley here?" the other blue asked. He was wondering why they were wasting time with this old drunk. They'd responded in swift order, but if they wasted any more time with him, their sergeant would think they'd been laggard. Then again, the TV cameras were rolling. "Came out the alley like a bat out of shit," the drunk said, much to the dismay of the roving reporter from Channel Four, a pretty blonde wearing a short brown mini and a tan cotton turtleneck sweater. The camera was in tight on the man's face at that moment, and the word "shit" meant they couldn't use the shot unless they bleeped it out. Her program manager didn't like to bleep out too many words because that smacked of censorship instead of fair and balanced reporting. On the other hand, the drunk was great comic relief. The Great Unwashed loved drunks. Put a drunk scene in a movie or a play, the audience still laughed themselves to death. If they only knew how many battered wives Honey had interviewed. "What'd he look like?" the first blue asked, mindful of the TV cameras and trying to sound like an experienced investigator instead of a rookie who'd just begun patrol duty eight months ago. "Young dude," the witness said. "White, black, Hispanic?" the first blue asked, rapping the words out in a manner that he was sure would go over big with TV audiences, unmindful of the fact that the camera was on the witness and not himself. "White kid," the witness said, "yessir. Wearin jeans and a whut chu call it, a ski parka, an' white sneakers an' a black cap with a big peak. Man, he was movin fast. Almost knocked me down." "Did he have a gun?" "I dinn see no gun." "Gun in his hand, anything like that?" "No gun, nossir." "Okay, thanks," the first blue said. "This is Honey Blair," the Channel Four reporter said, "coming to you from outside King Memorial in Diamondback." She slit her throat with the forefinger of her left hand, said, "That's it, boys," and turned to her crew chief. "Get him to sign a release, will you?" she said. "I'm heading inside." She was walking toward the glass entrance doors when the Vietnam vet, if indeed that's what he was, asked, "Is they a reward?" Why didn't you say that on the air? Honey thought. THIS WAS, and is, and always will be the big bad city. That will never change, Ollie thought. Never. And never was it badder than during the springtime. Flowers were blooming everywhere, even in the 88th Precinct, which by the way was no rose garden. Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks had good reason to be smiling on this bright April morning. He had just finished his book. Not finishedreadingit, mind you, but finishedwritingit. He was still rereading the last chapter, which was back at the apartment. He didn't think it would need any more work, but the last chapter was often the most important one, he had learned, and he wanted to make sure it was just right. He was now transporting the positively perfect portion of the book to a copying shop not far from the Eight-Eight. He wondered if the sun was shining and the flowers were blooming next door in the 87th Precinct. He wondered if it was springtime in the Rockies, or in London, or in Paris or Rome, or in Istanbul, wherever that was. He wondered if flowers bloomed all over theworldwhen a person finished his first work of fiction. Now that he was a bona fide writer in his own mind, Ollie could ponder such deep imponderables. His book, which was titledReport to the Commissioner,was securely nestled in a dispatch case that rested on the back seat of the car Ollie drove hither and yon around this fair city, one of the perks of being a minion of the law, ah yes. The windows of the Chevy sedan were open wide to the breezes that flowed from river to river. It was 10:30 on a lovely sunlit Monday morning. Ollie had signed in at 7:50 (five minutes late, but who was counting?), had taken care of some odds-and-ends bullshit on his desk, and was now on his way to the copying shop on Culver Avenue, not four blocks from the station house. So far, the day- "10-40, 10-40..." The dash radio. Rapid mobilization. "King Memorial, St. Sebastian and South Thirtieth, man with a gun. 10-40, 10-40, King Memorial..." Ollie hit the hammer. HE PARKED ILLEGALLYat the curb outside the Martin Luther King Memorial Hall, flipped down the visor on the driver's side to show the card announcing Police Department authorization, locked the car, flashed the blue-and-gold tin at a uniformed grunt who was already approaching with a scowl and an attitude, said, "Weeks, Eighty-eighth Squad," and barged right past him and the roaming television teams that were already thrusting microphones at anyone within range. He kept using his detective's shield like a real warrior's shield, holding it up to any barbarian who rose in his path, striding through the glass doors at the front of the building, and then into the marble entrance lobby, and then into the auditorium itself, where a handful of brass were already on the scene, had to be something important went down here. "Well, well, if it isn't The Large Man," a voice said. Once upon a time, Ollie's sister Isabelle had referred to him as "large," which he knew was a euphonium for "obese." He had not taken it kindly. In fact, he had not bought her a birthday present that year. Ollie knew that there were colleagues in this city who called him "Fat Ollie," but he took it as a measure of respect that they never called him this to his face. "Large Man" came close, though. He was ready to take serious offense when he recognized Detectives Monoghan and Monroe of the Homicide Division, already on the scene, and looking like somewhat stout penguins themselves. So someone had been aced. Big deal. Here in the Eight-Eight, it sometimes felt like someone got murdered every ten seconds. Monoghan was the one who'd called him "The Large Man." Monroe was standing beside him, grinning as if in agreement. A pair of bookends in black-the color of death, the unofficial color of Homicide-the two jackasses were the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of law enforcement. Ollie wanted to punch them both in the mouth. "Who got it?" he asked. "Lester Henderson." "You kidding me?" "Would we kid a master detective?" Monoghan said. "A super sleuth?" Monroe said, still grinning. "Stick it up your ass," Ollie explained. "Anybody else from the Eight-Eight here?" "You're the first." "Then that puts me in charge," Ollie said. In this city, the appearance of Homicide detectives at the scene of any murder was mandatory if not necessary. Presumably, they were here in an "advisory and supervisory capacity," which meant they only got in the way of the precinct detectives who caught the squeal. Since Ollie was the so-called First Man Up, the case was his. All he had to do was file his reports in triplicate with Homicide, and then go his merry way. He did not think he needed to remind the M&Ms that this was a fact of police life in this fair metropolis, ah yes. They knew full well that except on television, the glory days of Homicide were long gone. The dead man lay on his back in a disorganized heap alongside a podium draped with red, white, and blue bunting. A sign above the podium readLESTER MEANS LAW. Ollie didn't know what that meant. The dead man was wearing blue jeans, brown loafers without socks, and a pink crewneck cotton sweater. The front of the sweater was blotted with blood. "So what happened?" Ollie asked. "He got shot from the wings," Monroe said. "They were setting up for the big rally tonight..." "Whowas setting up?" "His people." "All these people here?" "All these people." "Toomanypeople," Ollie said. "Is right." "Whatrally?" "Big fund raiser. Putting up lights, American flags, cameras, bunting, the whole shmear." "So?" "So somebody fired half a dozen shots from the wings there." "Is that an accurate count, or are you guessing?" "That's what his aide told us. Five, six shots, something like that." "His aide? Who's that?" "Guy with all those reporters over there." "Who letthemin?" "They were already here when we responded," Monroe said. "Terrific security," Ollie said. "What's the aide's name?" "Alan Pierce." The corpse lay in angular disarray, surrounded now by the Mobile Lab techs and the Medical Examiner, who was kneeling beside the dead man and delicately lifting his pink cotton sweater. Not fifteen feet from this concerned knot of professionals, a man wearing blue jeans similar to the dead man's, and a blue denim shirt, and black loafers with blue socks stood at the center of a moving mass of reporters wielding pencils and pads, microphones, and flash cameras. A tall, slender man, who looked as if he jogged and swam and lifted weights and watched his calories-all the things Ollie considered a waste of time-Pierce appeared pale and stunned but nonetheless in control of the situation. Like a bunch of third graders waving their hands for a bathroom pass, the reporters swarmed around him. "Yes, Honey?" Pierce said, and a cute little blonde with a short skirt showing plenty of leg and thigh thrust a microphone in Pierce's face. Ollie recognized her as Honey Blair, the roving reporter for the Eleven O'Clock News. "Can you tell us if it's true that Mr. Henderson had definitely decided to run for the Mayor's office?" she asked. "I did not have a chance to discuss that with him before...before this happened," Pierce said. "I can say that he met with Governor Carson's people this weekend, and that was the main reason we flew upstate." "We've heard rumors that you yourself have your eye on City Hall," Honey said. "Is that so?" "This is the first I'm hearing of it," Pierce said. Me, too, Ollie thought. But that's very interesting, Mr. Pierce. Honey would not let it go. "Well,hadyou planned on running for Deputy Mayor? Assuming Mr. Henderson ran for Mayor?" "He and I never discussed that. Yes, David?" A man Ollie had seen a few times here and there around City Hall shoved a microphone at Pierce. "Sir," he said, "can you tell us where you were when Mr. Henderson...?" "That's it, thank you very much," Ollie said, and strolled into the crowd. Flashing his shield like a proud father exhibiting a photograph of his first born, he said, "This is all under control here, let's go home, okay?" and then signaled to one of the blues to get this mob out of here. Grumbling, the reporters allowed themselves to be herded offstage. Ollie stepped into Honey's path just as she was turning to go, and said, "Hey, what's your hurry? No hello?" She looked at him, puzzled. "Oliver Weeks," he said. "The Eighty-eighth Precinct. Remember the zoo? The lady getting eaten by lions? Christmastime?" "Oh yes," Honey said without the slightest interest, and turned again to go. "Stick around," Ollie said. "We'll have coffee later." "Thanks, I have a deadline," she said, and followed her tits off-stage. Ollie showed Pierce his shield. "Detective Weeks," he said, "Eighty-eighth Squad. Sorry to interrupt the conference, sir, but I'd rather you tolduswhat you saw and heard." "Yes, of course," Pierce said. "You were here when Mr. Henderson got shot, is that it?" "I was standing right alongside him." "Did you see the shooter?" "No, I did not." "You told the other detectives the shots came from the wings." "That's what it seemed like, yes." "Oh? Have you changed your mind about that?" "No, no. I still think they came from the wings." "But you didn't see the shooter." "No, I did not." "Guy fired five, six shots, you didn't see him." "No." "How come?" "I ducked when I heard the first shot." "I woulda done the same thing," Ollie said understandingly. "How about the second shot?" "Lester was falling. I tried to catch him. I wasn't looking into the wings." "And all the other shots?" "I was kneeling over Lester. I heard someone running off, but I didn't see anything. There was a lot of confusion, you know." "Wereyou planning to run for Deputy Mayor?" "I wasn't asked to do so. I was only Lester's aide." "What does that mean, anyway?" Ollie asked. "Being an aide?" "Like his right hand man," Pierce said. "Sort of like a secretary?" "More like an assistant." "So you don't have any political aspirations, is that correct?" "I didn't say that." "Then you do?" "I wouldn't be in politics if I didn't have political aspirations." "Excuse me, Alan," a voice said. Ollie turned to see a slight and narrow, precise little man wearing a blue blazer, a red tie, a white shirt, gray slacks, gray socks, and black loafers. Ever since the terrorist bombing at Clarendon Hall, everybody in this city dressed like an American flag. Ollie figured half of them were faking it. "We're having a conversation here," he said. "I'm sorry, sir, but I wanted to ask..." "You know this man?" Ollie asked Pierce. "Yes, he's our press rep. Josh Coogan." "Excuse me, Alan," Coogan said, "but I was wondering if I should get back to headquarters. I know there'll be hundreds of calls..." "No, this is a crime scene," Ollie said. "Stick around." Coogan looked flustered for a moment. He was maybe twenty-four, twenty-five years old, but he suddenly looked like a high school kid who hadn't done his assignment and had got called on while he was trying to catch a nap. Ollie didn't have much sympathy for politicians, but all at once this seemed very sad here, two guys who all at once didn't know what to do with themselves. He almost felt like taking them out for a beer. Instead, he said, "Were you here in the hall when all this happened, Mr. Coogan?" "Yes, I was." "Where in the hall?" "In the balcony." "What were you doing up there?" "Listening to sound checks." "While you were listening to these sound checks, did you happen to hear the sound of a gun going off?" "Yes." "In the balcony?" "No." "Then where?" "From somewhere down below." "Where down below?" "The stage." "Which side of the stage?" "I couldn't tell." "Right or left?" "I really couldn't tell." "Was anyone with you up there in the balcony?" "No, I was alone." "Incidentally, Mr. Pierce," Ollie said, turning to him, "did I hear you tell those reporters you went upstate with Mr. Henderson?" "Yes, I did." "Where upstate?" "The capital." "When?" "We flew up together on Saturday morning. I'm his aide. Iwashis aide," he said, correcting himself. "Did you fly back together, too?" "No. I left on Sunday morning. Caught a sevenA.M. plane." "So he spent all day Sunday up there alone, is that it?" "Yes," Pierce said. "Alone." "You the detective in charge here?" the ME asked. "I am," Ollie said. "Your cause of death is gunshot wounds to the chest." Big revelation, Ollie thought. "You can move him out whenever you like. We may find some surprises at the morgue, but I doubt it. Good luck." Monoghan was walking over with a man wearing a red bandana tied across his forehead, high-topped workman's shoes, and bib overalls showing naked muscular arms, the left one tattooed on the bicep with the wordsSEMPER FIDELIS. "Weeks, this is Charles Mastroiani, man in charge of decorating the hall here, you might want to talk to him." "No relation to Marcello," Mastroiani promptly told Ollie, which was a total waste since Ollie didn't know who the hell he was talking about. "My company's called Festive, Inc.," he said, exuding a sense of professional pride and enthusiasm that was all too rare in today's workplace. "We're listed in the city's yellow pages under 'Decoration Contractors.' What we do is we supply everything you need for a special occasion. I'm not talking about a wedding or a barmitzvah, those we leave to the caterers. Festive operates on a much larger scale. Dressing the stage here at King Memorial is a good example. We supplied the bunting, the balloons, the banners, the audio equipment, the lighting, everything. We would've supplied a band, too, if it was called for, but this wasn't that kind of affair. As it was, we dressed the hall and wired it, made it user-friendly and user-ready. All the councilman had to do was step up to the podium and speak." All the councilman had to do, Ollie thought, was step up to the podium and get shot. "Will you get paid, anyway?" he asked. "What?" Mastroiani said. "For the gig. Him getting killed and all." "Oh sure. Well, I suppose so." "Who contracted for the job?" "The Committee." "What committee?" "The Committee for Henderson." "It says that on the contract?" "That's what it says." "Who signed the contract?" "I have no idea. It came in the mail." "You still got it?" "I can find it for you." "Good. I'd like to see who hired you." "Sure." "All these people who were onstage with you when he got killed," Ollie said. "Were they regulars?" "What do you mean, regulars?" "Have you worked with them before?" "Oh sure. All the time." "All of them reliable?" "Oh sure." "None of them strangers to you, is that right? What I'm driving at, would any of these guys have come in here with a concealed..." "No, no." "...weapon and popped Henderson, is what I'm asking." "None of them. I can vouch for each and every one of them." "Cause what I'll have to do, anyway, I'm gonna have to send some of my colleagues from up the Eight-Eight around to talk to them individually, just in case one of them got a bug up his ass to shoot the councilman." "I don't think you need to worry about that." "Yeah, well, I worry about such things. Which is why I'll need a list of all your people here on the job." "Sure. But they're all bonded, so I'm sure you won't find anything out of the way." "Why are they bonded?" "Well, we sometimes do these very big affairs where there's jewelry and such laying around..." "Uh-huh." "Precious antiques, things like that, on these big estates, you know..." "You're saying these men are honest individuals, is what you're saying." "That's right." "Wouldn't harm a fly, is what you're saying." "Is basically what I'm saying." "We'll have to talk to them anyway," Ollie said. "So whatI'msaying, after you give me all their names, you might advise them not to leave the city for the next couple of days, till my people have a chance to talk to them." "I'll be happy to do that." "Good. So tell me, Mr. Master-yonny..." "It's Mastroiani." "Ain't that what I said?" "No, you said...I don't know what you said, but it wasn't Mastroiani." "You know, have you ever thought of changing your name?" "No." "To something simpler?" "No. Like what?" "Like Weeks, for example. Short and sweet and easy to say. And people would think you're related to an American police detective." "I don't think I'd like to do that." "Entirely up to you, my friend, ah yes," Ollie said. "And IamAmerican," Mastroiani said. "Of course you are," Ollie said. "But tell me, Charles, may I call you Charles?" "Most people call me Chuck." "Even though most Chucks are fags?" "I'm not." "You're not Chuck?" "I'm not a fag." "Then should I call you Charles?" "Actually, I'd prefer being called Mr. Mastroiani." "Sure, but that don't sound American, does it? Tell me, Chuck, where were you exactly when the councilman got shot?" "I was standing near the podium there." "And?" "I heard shots. And he was falling." "Heard shots from the wings there?" "No. From the balcony." "Tell me what happened, Chuck. In your own words." "Who else's words would I use?" Mastroiani asked. "That's very funny, Chuck," Ollie said, and grinned like a dragon. "Tell me." The way Mastroiani tells it, the councilman is this energetic little guy who gets to the Hall at about a quarter to nine, dressed for work in jeans and a crewneck cotton sweater, loafers, real casual, you know? He's all over the place, conferring with his aide and this kid he has with him looks like a college boy, giving directions to Mastroiani and his crew, arms waving all over the place like a windmill, running here, running there, going out front to check how the stage looks every time a new balloon goes up, sending the college kid up to the balcony to hear how the sound is, then going up there himself to listen while his aide talks into the mike, then coming down again and making sure the podium is draped right and the sign is just where he wants it, and checking the sound again, waving up to the kid in the balcony who gives him a thumbs up signal, and then starting to check the lights, wanting to know where the spot would pick him up after he was introduced... "That's what he was doing when he got shot. He was crossing the stage to the podium, making sure the spot was following him." "Where were you?" "At the podium, I told you. Looking up at the guy in the booth, waiting for the councilman to..." "What guy in the booth?" "The guy on the follow spot." "One of your people?" "No." "Then who?" "I have no idea. My guess is he works here at the Hall." "Who would know?" "You got me." "I thought you supplied everything. The sound, the lighting..." "Theonstagelighting. Usually, when we do an auditorium like this one, they have their own lighting facilities and their own lighting technician or engineer, they're sometimes called, a lighting engineer." "Did you talk to this guy in the booth? This technician or engineer or whatever he was?" "No, I did not." "Who talked to him?" "Mr. Pierce was yelling up to him-Henderson's aide-and so was the councilman himself. I think the college kid was giving him instructions, too. From up in the balcony." "Was the kid up there when the shooting started?" "I think so." "Well, didn't you look up there? You told me that's where the shots came from, didn't you look up there to see who was shooting?" "Yes, but I was blinded by the spot. The spot had followed the councilman to the podium, and that was when he got shot, just as he reached the podium." "So the guy working the spot was still up there, is that right?" "He would've had to be up there, yes, sir." "So let's find out who he was," Ollie said. A uniformed inspector with braid all over him was walking over. Ollie deemed it necessary to perhaps introduce himself. "Detective Weeks, sir," he said. "The Eight-Eight. First man up." "Like hell you are," the inspector said, and walked off. 2 WHEN OLLIE GOT BACKto his car, the rear window on the passenger side door was smashed and the door was standing wide open. The briefcase withReport to the Commissionerin it was gone. Ollie turned to the nearest uniform. "You!" he said. "Are you a cop or a doorman?" "Sir?" "Somebody broke in my car here and stole my book," Ollie said. "You see anything happen, or were you standin here pickin your nose?" "Sir?" the uniform said. "They hiring deaf policemen now?" Ollie said. "Excuse me. Hearing-impairedpolicemen?" "My orders were to keep anybody unauthorized out of the Hall," the uniform said. "A city councilman got killed in there, you know." "Gee, no kidding?" Ollie said. "Mybookgotstolenouthere!" "I'm sorry, sir," the uniform said. "But you can always go to the library and take out another one." "Give me your shield number and shut up," Ollie said. "You let somebody vandalize a police vehicle and steal valuable property from it." "I was just following orders, sir." "Follow this a while," Ollie said, and briefly grabbed his own crotch, shaking his jewels. DETECTIVE-LIEUTENANT ISADORE HIRSCHwas in charge of the Eight-Eight Detective Squad, and he happened to be Jewish. Ollie did not particularly like Jews, but he expected fair play from him, nonetheless. Then again, Ollie did not like black people, either, whom he called "Negroes" because he knew it got them hot under the collar. For that matter, he wasn't too keen on Irishmen or Italians, or Hispanics, or Latinos, or whatever the tango dancers were calling themselves these days. In fact, he hadn't liked Afghanis or Pakis or other Muslim types infiltrating the city, evenbeforethey started blowing things up, and he didn't much care for Chinks or Japs or other persons of Oriental persuasion. Ollie was in fact an equal opportunity bigot, but he did not consider himself prejudiced in any way. He merely thought of himself as discerning. "Izzie," he said-which sounded very Jewish to him, the name Izzie-"this is the first big one come my way in the past ten years. So upstairs is gonna take it away from me? It ain't fair, Izzie, is it?" "Who says life has to be fair?" Hirsch said, sounding like a rabbi, Ollie thought. Hirsch in fact resembled a rabbi more than he did a cop with more citations for bravery than any man deserved, one of them for facing down an ex-con bearing a grudge and a sawed-off shotgun. Dark-eyed and dark-jowled, going a bit bald, long of jaw and sad of mien, he wore a perpetually mournful expression that made him seem like he should have been davening, or whatever they called it, at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, or Haifa, or wherever it was. "I was first man up," Ollie said. "That used to mean something in this city. Don't it mean nothing anymore?" "Times change," Hirsch said like a rabbi. "I want this case, Izzie." "It should be ours, you're right." "Damn right, it should be ours." "I'll make some calls. I'll see what I can do," Hirsch said. "You promise?" "Trust me." Which usually meant "Go hide the silver." But Ollie knew from experience that the Loot's word was as good as gold. Like a penitent to his priest, or a small boy to his father, he said, "They also stole my book, Iz." HE TOLD THISto his sister later that night. "Isabelle," he said, "they stole my book." As opposed to her "large" brother, as she thought of him, Isabelle Weeks was razor-thin. She had the same suspecting expression on her face, though, the same searching look in her piercing blue eyes. The other genetic trait they shared was an enormous appetite. But however much Isabelle ate-and right this minute she was doing a pretty good job of putting away the roast beef she'd prepared for their dinner-her weight remained constant. On the other hand, anything Ollie ingested turned immediately to...well, largeness. It wasn't fair. "Who stole your book?" Isabelle said. "What book?" she said. "I told you I was writing a novel..." "Oh yes." Dismissing it. Shoveling gravied mashed potatoes into her mouth. Boy, what a sister. Working on it since Christmas, she asksWhatbook? Boy. "Anyway, it was in the back seat of the car, and somebody spotted it, and smashed the window, and stole it." "Why would anyone want to steal your book?" she asked. She made it sound as if she was saying "Why would anyone want to steal youraccordion?" or something else worthless. Ollie really did not wish to discuss his novel with a jackass like his sister. He had been working on it too long and too hard, and besides you could jinx a work of art if you discussed it with anyone not familiar with the nuances of literature. He had first titled the bookBad Money,which was a very good title in that the book was about a band of counterfeiters who are printing these hundred-dollar bills that are so superb you cannot tell them from the real thing. But there is a double-cross in the gang, and one of them runs off with six million four hundred thousand dollars' worth of the queer bills and stashes them in a basement in Diamondback-which Ollie called Rubytown in his book-and the story is all about how this very good detective not unlike Ollie himself recovers the missing loot and is promoted and decorated and all. Ollie abandoned the titleBad Moneywhen he realized the word "Bad" was asking for criticism from some smartass book reviewer. He tried the titleGood Money,instead, which was what writers call litotes, a figure of speech that means you are using a word to mean the opposite of what you intend. But he figured not too many readers out there-and maybe not too many editors, either-would be familiar with writers' tricks, so he abandoned that one, too, but not the book itself. At first, the book itself was giving him trouble. Not the same trouble he'd had learning the first three notes of "Night and Day," which he'd finally got through, thanks to Miss Hobson, his beloved piano teacher. The trouble was he was trying to sound too much like all those pissant writers out there who were not cops but who were writing what they called "police procedurals," and by doing this, by imitating them, actually, he was losing track of his own distinctiveness, his very Oliver Wendell Weekness, no pun intended. And then he hit upon his brilliant idea. Suppose he wrote the book like a Detective Division report? In his own language, the way he'd type it on a DD form, though not in triplicate. (In retrospect, he wished he had written it in triplicate.) Suppose he made it sound like he was writing it for a superior officer, his Lieutenant, say, or the Chief of Detectives, or-why not?-even the Commissioner! Write it in his own language, his own words, warts and all, this is me, folks, Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks. Call the book "A Detective's Report" or "Report from a Detective" or- Wait a minute. Hold it right there. "Report to the Commissioner," he said aloud. He'd been eating when the inspiration came to him. He yanked a paper napkin out of the holder on the pizzeria table, took a pen from his pocket, outlined a rectangle on the napkin...

And that was it. He had found a title, he had found an approach, he was on his way. "It was in the dispatch case you gave me," Ollie said, "he prob'ly thought it was something else. Up the Eight-Eight, the only thing anybody carries in a dispatch case is hundred-dollar bills or cocaine. He prob'ly thought he was making a big score." "Well, hey," Isabelle said, "your bignovel!" He would have to tell her sometime that skinny people shouldn't try sarcasm. "Also they're tryin'a take away this big homicide I caught." "Maybe they'll show more respect once your bignovelis published." "It's not that big," Ollie said. "If you mean long." "Anyway, what's the big deal? Print another copy." "Do what?" "Print another copy. Go to your computer and..." "What computer?" "Well, what'd you do? Write it in longhand on a lined yellow pad..." "No, I..." "Write it in lipstick on toilet paper?" Isabelle asked, and laughed at her own witticism. "No, I typed it on atypewriter," Ollie said. "You know, Isabelle, somebody should tell you that sarcasm doesn't work when a person weighs thirty-seven pounds in her bare feet." "Only large persons should try sarcasm, you're right," Isabelle said. "What's a typewriter?" "You know damn well what a typewriter is." "Are you saying you don't have acopyof the book?" "Only the last chapter. The last chapter is home." "What's it doing home?" "I may need to polish it." "Polish it? What is it, the family silverware?" "Nothing's finished till it's finished," Ollie said. "So as I understand this, everything but the last chapter of your book was stolen from your car this morning." "Five-sixths of my novel, yes." "What's it about?" "About thirty-six pages." "Isn't that short for a novel?" "Not if it's a good novel. Besides, less is more. That's an adage amongst us writers." "Didn't you writers ever hear of carbon paper?" "That's why there are Kinko's," Ollie said, "so you don't have to get your hands dirty. Besides, I didn't have time for carbon paper. And I didn't know some junkie hophead was going to break into my car and steal my book. It so happens I'm occupied with a little crime on the side, you know," he said, gathering steam. "It so happens I'm a professionallawenforcement officer..." "Gee, and here I thought you were Nora Roberts..." "Isabelle, sarcasm really..." "Or Mary Higgins Clark..." "I am Detective Oliver Wendell Weeks," he said, rising from the table and hurling his napkin onto his plate. "And don't you ever forget it!" "Sit down, have some dessert," she said. DETECTIVE STEVE CARELLAfirst heard about Fat Ollie Weeks being assigned to the Henderson homicide on Tuesday morning, when Lieutenant Byrnes called him into his corner office and tossed a copy of the city's morning tabloid on his desk. "Did you see this?" he asked. The headline on the front page read: 88TH PCT CATCHES HENDERSON HOMICIDE The subhead read: LOCAL FUZZ LAND BIG FISH "Seems Fat Ollie caught the squeal," Byrnes said. "Good for him," Carella said. "Bad for us," Byrnes said. "Henderson lives in the Eight-Seven. Lived," he corrected. "Over in Smoke Rise." Smoke Rise was a walled and gated community of some seventy-five homes, all of them superbly located on sculpted terraces that overlooked the River Harb. The residents of Smoke Rise enjoyed the exclusive use of an indoor-outdoor swimming pool, a health club, and tennis courts lighted at night. There was a private school on the property as well, the Smoke Rise Academy, for grades one through eight, boasting its own soccer and baseball teams, their gray-and-black uniforms seeming to conjure the very image of rising smoke. Long, long ago, in a galaxy far away, Carella had caught a kidnapping there, at the residence of a man named Douglas King, whose estate lay within the confines of the Eight-Seven, at the farthermost reaches of the precinct territory in that nothing but the River Harb lay beyond it and the next state. In this exclusive corner of the Eight-Seven, Smoke Rise provided the ultra-urban face of the city with an atmosphere at once countrified and otherworldly. Smoke Rise signified wealth and exclusivity. It was here, on a tree-shaded street named Prospect Lane, that City Councilman Lester Henderson had lived with his wife and two children. And it was not seven miles away and a hundred miles distant-at the Martin Luther King Memorial Hall on St. Sebastian Avenue in Diamondback, a black and Hispanic section of the city coiling like a rattlesnake on the fringes of civilization-that Henderson had been shot to death yesterday morning. "Means we can expect Ollie any minute," Byrnes said. Both men looked at each other. Carella actually sighed. • • • OLLIE DID NOT, in fact, show up at the precinct until twelve noon that Tuesday, just in time for lunch. Ollie's internal mechanism always told him when it was time to eat. Ollie sometimes believed it told him it wasalwaystime to eat. "Anybody for lunch?" he asked. He had opened the gate in the slatted rail divider that separated the squadroom from the long corridor outside, and was waddling-the proper word, Carella thought-across the room toward where Carella sat behind his desk. On this bright April morning, Ollie was wearing a plaid sports jacket over a lime green golfing shirt and blue Dacron trousers. He looked like a Roman galley under full sail. By contrast, Carella-who was expecting the imminent appearance of a burglary victim he'd scheduled for an interview-looked sartorially elegant in a wheat-colored linen shirt with the throat open and the sleeves rolled up over his forearms, and dark brown trousers that matched the color of his eyes. Ollie noticed for the first time that Carella's eyes slanted downward, giving his face a somewhat Oriental appearance. He wondered if there was a little Chink in the armor back there someplace, huh, kiddies? "How's my eternally grateful friend?" he asked. He was referring to the fact that around Christmastime, he had saved Carella's life-twice, no less. "Eternally grateful," Carella said. In all honesty, he didn't enjoy the idea of being indebted to Ollie in any which way whatever. "What brings you to this part of town?" he asked. As if he didn't know. "Seems a resident here got himself aced yesterday morning, ah yes," Ollie said. "So I understand," Carella said. "Then why'd you ask, m'little chickadee?" Ollie said, once again doing his world-famous W. C. Fields imitation. The pity was-but hedidn't realize this-nobody today knew who W. C. Fields was. Whenever Ollie did his impersonation, everyone thought he was doing Al Pacino inScent of a Woman. "Want to go get a bite to eat?" "Gee, what else is new?" Carella said. Sarcasm, Ollie thought. Everybody today is into sarcasm. THE PLACEthey chose was a diner on Culver and South Eleventh, which Ollie said was run by the Mob, which Carella doubted since he'd only been working in this precinct forever, and except for prostitution and numbers, the boys had pretty much ceded the hood to black gangs and Colombian posses. The black gangs used to devote their time to street rumbles until they realized there was money to be made dealing dope. The Colombian gangs knew this all along. Unfortunately, dope didn't stop anyone from killing anyone else. In fact, it seemed to encourage the activity. "I need your help," Ollie said. "I'm gonna have my hands full checking out the Hall and how somebody could've got in and out of there with what Ballistics now tells me was a .32 aced Henderson. His views weren't particularly appreciated in the so-called Negro community, you know, so it ain't exactly unlikely that he was offed by some irate person of color, as they sometimes refer to themselves, ah yes." "What is it you'd like me to do?" Carella asked. He was watching Fat Ollie eat, an undertaking of stupendous proportions to anyone not himself a glutton. Ollie had ordered three hamburgers to start, and was devouring them with both hands and a non-stop mouth, consuming simultaneously a huge platter of fries with ketchup, and drinking his second chocolate milk shake, a perpetual-motion, eating, drinking, slurping, slobbering, dripping, incessant ingestion machine. "I want you to go up Smoke Rise," Ollie said, signaling to the waitress, "talk to the councilman's widow, see you can find out did he have any enemies besides the usual suspects...yes, darling, here's what I'd like if you could be so kind," he said to the waitress. "Bring me another shake, that's chocolate, and another hamburger, and that apple pie-is it apple?-looks good, too, with some vanilla ice cream on it, please, make it two scoops,isit apple?" "Actually, it's strawberry peach," the waitress said, looking already weary at twelve-thirty in the afternoon, but Ollie appreciated women who appeared beaten and defeated. "Yum, strawberry peach sounds good, too," he said, "two scoops of ice cream, okay?" "Yes, sir." "And that uniform is very becoming," Ollie said, "ah yes, m'dear, have you ever considered modeling?" The waitress smiled. Ollie smiled back. Carella bit into his grilled cheese sandwich. "I'd like to take a look at the Hall," he said. "See what happened there before I go talking to any widow." "What's one thing got to do with the other?" Ollie asked. "Well, a woman's husband gets shot, maybe she'd like to know some of the details." "I can tell you everything you need to know right now, you don't have to waste time. He was up there getting the lay of the land, helping his people set the stage for what was supposed to be a big rally last night. Somebody plugged him from the wings, or the balcony, or wherever-I'm still waiting for information on trajectory, flight curve, all the other garbage, from both the ME and Ballistics. I got three different acoustics reports from witnesses at the scene. One said..." "Who were the witnesses?" "Guy named Alan Pierce, who's Henderson's aide, and a guy from the company supplying the balloons, the bunting, all the other shit, both of them standing right next to the councilman when the bullets took him." "What'd they hear?" "Pierce says the shots came from the wings. The other guy-his name is Chuck Mastroiani, one of yourpaisans," Ollie said, and grinned as if he were telling a dirty joke, "says the shots came from the balcony. Neither of them know Shinola from bow-waves, they were prob'ly talking about muzzle reports. Third guy, this young college twerp, was actually sitting in the balcony, which is maybe why he told me the shots came from downstairs.Whereverthe shots came from..." "How many?" Carella asked. "Six. Ballistics says they were fired from a .32 Smith & Wesson, which means the shooter emptied the gun at him. Betokens rage, mayhap? Leading back to the possibility that a jig done it-oops, forgive me, I know you don't appreciate slang." "Some people might consider your 'slang' racist," Carella said. "Pip, pip, my good fellow," Ollie said, trying to imitate a British member of Parliament, but sounding instead like either W. C. Fields or Al Pacino. "There's a vast difference between being politically incorrect and being racist." "Explain the difference to Artie Brown sometime." "Actually, Brown's a good cop," Ollie said. "For a Negro." "Explain 'Negro' to him, too." "Steve, don't bust my chops," Ollie said. "I saved your goddamn life." "Twice, don't forget." "Don't forget is right." "I still want to take a look at that hall," Carella said. 3 YELLOWCRIME SCENEtapes defined a wide area leading from the sidewalk to the entrance doors of the hall. A row of uniformed cops stood outside the building, uneasily expecting the appearance of anyone with scrambled eggs on his cap. They all knew a city councilman had been shot to death inside here yesterday morning. They all knew the murder was all over the newspapers and television yesterday afternoon and early this morning. They also knew that last summer a series of gropings in Grover Park had attracted intense media scrutiny because some policemen appeared to have been inattentive to the needs of women whose panties were being yanked down. The cops here today did not wish to be considered derelict in their duty. So they stood outside the hall scratching their asses and wondering what the hell they were supposed to be doing here, while simultaneously trying to appear alert for future assassins. The appearance of two gold-and-blue shields on the scene made them uneasy. "At ease, men," Ollie said, though none of the uniforms had snapped to attention. A sergeant who'd seen it all, and heard it all, and done it all merely looked at Ollie, who opened one of the glass doors and allowed Carella to precede him inside. The two made an odd-looking couple. Carella was some six feet tall in his stocking feet, weighing in at about a buck-eighty now that he was watching his weight, broadshouldered and narrow-waisted, with the stride of a natural athlete-which he certainly wasn't. Ollie was somewhat shorter, with the pear-shaped body of a bell buoy floating off the harbor, but with a stride that actually surpassed Carella's, not for nothing was it rumored that fat men were light on their feet. Once, in fact, while vacationing in the Caribbean, Ollie had won a salsa contest-but that was another story. Marching side by side into the marbled entrance lobby, Carella actually had difficulty keeping up with him. Ollie flashed the tin at the gaggle of uniforms standing attentive guard in front of the inner doors, and again allowed Carella to walk ahead of him, this time into the vast auditorium itself. The place had a ghostly silence to it, not unusual at the scene of a murder, but somehow more resolute because of the cavernous space. The stage was still partially hung with bunting and balloons, American flags and banners proclaiming the councilman's name. But the job hadn't been quite finished because someone had inconsiderately shot Henderson while he and his people were still setting things up. Like a woman who was dressed for a ball, but who hadn't yet put on her earrings or her lipstick, the stage sat only partially adorned, forlornly incomplete. The two men stood at the rear of the hall, looking toward the stage, outwardly appearing to be sharing the same thoughts and feelings, but actually experiencing quite different emotions. For Carella, there was only a sense of loss, the same pain he felt whenever he looked down at a torn and bleeding corpse on the sidewalk. Ollie looked at the stage and saw only a puzzle that needed to be solved. Perhaps that was the essential difference between the two men. Silently, they walked down the center aisle. There were empty seats on either side of them, adding to the sense of an incomplete act, a performance postponed. Carella stopped midway toward the stage, turned, and looked up at the balcony. It seemed a hell of a long way for .32-caliber bullets to have traveled. "Had to be the wings, don't you think?" Ollie asked, reading his mind. "Maybe." "Thing is, nobodysawanything. Pierce and yourpaisan"-and again, the knowing leer-"were standing right next to him. Workmen are all over the place. Bam, bam, somebody drops Henderson and disappears. Nobody seen nothing." "Workmen doing what?" "Putting up the flags and stuff." They were standing on the stage now, the flags and stuff hanging above them. A podium behind which Henderson would never stand was under a huge banner that statedLESTER MEANS LAW. Neither of the detectives knew what that meant. "How many workmen?" Carella asked. "A dozen or so. I have the list." "None of themsawanything?" "I got some of my people out talking to them now. But I doubt we'll get lucky." "But they were all there working when he got shot, is that it?" "They were all on the stage here, putting up things, testing mikes, whatever they do." "Nobody in the wings?" "Just the shooter." "Let me get this straight..." "Sure." "Henderson is onstage with his people and a dozen workmen..." "Is the way I got it." "...when six shots are fired." "Two of them taking him in the chest. Four went wild." "And by the time anyone reacts, the shooter is gone." "That's the long and the short of it," Ollie said. HE TOLD THEuniformed guard in the gate house booth that he was here to see Mrs. Henderson, and the guard checked his clipboard list, and then picked up the phone when he didn't see Carella's name on it. Apparently Pamela Henderson gave the okay; the guard told him it was the first house on the right on Prospect Lane, and then waved him on through. It was a lovely spring day. Carella drove on winding roads past men and women in white playing tennis under clear blue skies, boys and girls on the fields behind stolid Smoke Rise Academy, playing soccer and baseball in their gray-and-black uniforms, their vibrant voices oddly recalling a youth he thought he'd long forgotten. The Henderson house was a vast stone structure set on a good two acres of wooded land. He parked the car in the gravel driveway, walked to the front door, and pressed the bell under a brass escutcheon that read simply "26 Prospect." A uniformed housekeeper answered the door and told him she would fetch Mrs. Henderson. Pamela Henderson was a woman in her mid-forties, Carella guessed, tall and slender and exuding the sort of casual confidence women of wealth and influence often did. But she was not an attractive woman, he realized, her eyes somehow too small for her face, her nose a trifle too large. Newspaper reports would undoubtedly describe her as "handsome," the death knell for any woman who aspired to beauty. Poised and polite, already wearing black-albeit jeans and a cotton turtleneck-she greeted Carella at the door, and led him into the living room of her home perched on the river, afternoon sunlight streaming through French doors, a glimpse of the Hamilton Bridge in the near distance, the cliffs of the adjoining state bursting with the greenery of spring. Her eyes were as green as the faraway hills. She wore no makeup. A simple oversized gold cross hung on the front of the black cotton turtleneck. "I understood from the newspapers that a...different detective was investigating the case," she said, hesitating slightly before the word "different," as if disapproving of either the false information in the papers or the unexpected turn the investigation had taken. There was a certain formality here, a strict observance of the rules of sudden death and subsequent grief. Here were the stunned widow and the sympathetic but detached investigator, together again for the first time, with nothing to talk about but what had brought them to this juncture on this bright spring afternoon. A man had been robbed of his life. To Carella, Lester Henderson was a vague political figure in a city teeming with strivers and achievers. To Pamela Henderson, he had been husband, father, perhaps friend. "Would you care for some coffee?" she asked. "Thank you, no," he said. She poured coffee from a silver urn resting on a table before sheer saffron colored drapes. She added cream and two lumps of sugar. "What are the chances?" she asked. "Realistically." "Of?" "Of catching whoever killed him." "We're hopeful," he said. What do you say to a widow? We lose as many as we catch? Sometimes we get lucky? What do you say when you can see that all her outward calm is vibrating with an almost palpable inner tenseness? Her hand on the saucer was shaking, he noticed. Tell her the truth, he thought. The truth is always best. Then you never have to remember what you lied about. "There were a dozen or so people onstage with him when he was shot," he said. "Detective Weeks and his colleagues at the Eight-Eight are questioning them more fully now. They're also doing a canvass of the area around the Hall, trying to locate any..." "What do you mean by questioning them more fully?" "They already had a first pass at them." "And?" "No one saw anything. The shots were described as coming from different sections of the hall. This is common. Eye witnesses are notoriously..." "Is it possible there were two shooters?" He noticed the word "shooters." Everyone watches television these days, he thought. "We're still waiting for reports from the ME and Ballistics." "When will you have those?" "It varies." Tell her the truth. Always the truth. In this city, with the number of homicides committed here every day of the week, any kind of report could sometimes take a week or ten days to get back to you. "We're hoping, given the magnitude of the case, it'll be sooner rather than later," he said. "The magnitude of the case," she said, and nodded. "Yes, ma'am." "Meaning my husband was important." "The case is attracting attention, yes, ma'am." "What do I tell the children?" she asked, and was suddenly weeping. She put down the coffee cup. She groped for a tissue in the box on the table, found the tag end of one, yanked it free, and brought it to her eyes. "I kept them home from school today, I don't know what to tell them. My son was supposed to have baseball practice. My daughter's on her soccer team. What do I tell them? Your father's dead? They think he's still upstate. What do I tell them?" Carella listened silently. He never knew what to say. He never knew what the hell to say. She kept sobbing into the tissue, crumpled it, took another from the box. He waited. "I'm sorry," she said. He nodded. "Why are you here?" she asked. "There are some questions we need to ask. If you'd rather I came back some other..." "No, please. Ask me." He hesitated, took his notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket, opened it, and looked at the list of questions he and Ollie had prepared. They seemed suddenly stark. Her husband had been killed. He cleared his throat. "Can you tell me what time he left here yesterday morning?" "Why is that important?" she asked. "We're trying to work up a timetable, ma'am. If we can ascertain when..." "I wish you'd stop calling me 'ma'am,'" she said. "I'd guess we're about the same age, wouldn't you? How old are you, anyway?" "I'm forty, ma'am." She looked at him. "Mrs. Henderson," he corrected. "I'm forty-two," she said. He nodded. She returned the nod. The ice had been broken. THERE WERE REPORTERSwaiting outside the station house when he got back there at a quarter to four that afternoon. A pair of blues were standing on the wide front steps, barring the way like soldiers outside the gates of ancient Rome. Carella moved past the teeming crowd on the sidewalk, approaching the steps with an authority that told them at once he was connected. "Excuse me," one of them said, "are you...?" "No," he said and went past them, and through the entrance doors with their glass-paneled upper sections adorned with the numerals "87" on each. Behind the muster desk, Sergeant Murchison was busy fielding phone calls. He looked up as Carella went past him, rolled his eyes, said into the phone, "You'll have to contact Public Relations about that," and hung up. Carella climbed the iron-runged steps to the second floor, stopped in the men's room to pee, washed his hands, and then went down the corridor and into the squadroom. Everything seemed more or less normal here. He almost breathed a sigh of relief. Meyer Meyer, bald and burly and blue-eyed, was at his desk talking to a woman who looked like a hooker but who was probably a housewife who'd got all dressed up in her shortest skirt to come report something-or-other terrible to the police. The woman appeared extremely agitated although scantily dressed. Meyer merely looked patient. Or perhaps bored. At his own desk, Bert Kling, blond and hazel-eyed and sporting a beard that was coming in blond and patchy, but which he felt was essential to an undercover he was working, was on the phone with someone he kept calling Charlie, who was probably on a cell phone because Kling kept saying, "Charlie? Charlie? I'm losing you." Artie Brown, looking huge and menacing and dark and scowling, stood at the bulletin board, pondering the multitude of posters, notes, and announcements hanging there, glancing as well at the latest posted e-mail jokes from other police stations all over the country. Carella thought he detected a smile from him. He turned as Carella went by, waved vaguely in his direction, and then went back to his desk, where the phone began ringing furiously. Another day, another dollar, Carella thought, and knocked on the lieutenant's door. DETECTIVE-LIEUTENANT PETER BYRNESdid not like high-profile cases. Given his druthers, he would have preferred that Lester Henderson had not lived in Smoke Rise, had instead lived across the river in the next state, or anyplace else but the Eight-Seven. He would have preferred that Ollie Weeks had not come calling with his courtesy request, although asking payback for saving someone's life-twice, don't forget-possibly qualified as something more substantial than a mere exchange of good manners. It was not unusual for cops in this city to ask favors of other precincts. Usually, but not always, they offered to share credit for any ensuing bust. Ollie had not deemed such an offer necessary. But, hey, he had saved Carella's life.Twice! The first time was when a lion was about to eat him. Yes. A lion was sitting on Carella's chest, don't ask. Ollie shot the beast between the eyes, end of lion, end of story. Carella could still smell the animal's foul breath. The second time was a week or so later, when a blonde carrying an AK-47 was not about toeatCarella, more's the pity, but was instead ready to shoot him in the eye or someplace when who should arrive upon the scene but the large man from the Eight-Eight-wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, though he did not kill her as dead as he had the lion. Carella could still smellherbreath, too. A whiff of Tic Tacs, as he recalled, spiked with that selfsame stink of imminent extinction. Ollie had a right, Byrnes guessed. But he sure as hell wished nobody but the usual suspects had got killed yesterday morning. "So what'd she have to say?" he asked Carella. "Her husband wasn't home Sunday night." "What do you mean?" "I asked her when he left the house yesterday morning, she told me she didn't know, he wasn't home." "So where was he?" "Upstate. Meeting with the Governor's people." "That's very nice, the Governor's people," Byrnes said. "His wife told me they were trying to convince him to run for mayor." "Oh, Jesus, don't tell me this is going to get political," Byrnes said. "It could. He's a politician, Pete. Was." "Too much bad blood between Democrats and Republicans these days," Byrnes said, shaking his head. "You think a Democrat killed him?" He was smiling. The idea of a Democrat killing a Republican was somewhat amusing. For that matter, so was the idea of a Republican killing a Democrat. "I don't know who killed him," Byrnes said. He was not smiling. "You know something else? I don't evencarewho killed him. This case belongs to His Lord Fatness, I don't know how the hell we got involved in it." "Payback time, Pete." "You should try not to get yourself killed so often. And you should try to avoid obese saviors." "I'll try." "Where'd Henderson stay upstate? Did she say?" "I'll ask her." "Call whichever hotel it was, find out what time he checked out, did he drive, did he take the train, did he fly, whatever. Give Ollie an ETA at the hall, and then tell him goodbye." "Yes, sir, is that an order, sir?" "I don't want this case," Byrnes said. AT SEVEN O'CLOCKthat Tuesday night, while Carella was at the dinner table with his wife and two children, Ollie Weeks called to say he was sorry he'd missed him at the office earlier today, but was it convenient for him to talk now? "I'm in the middle of dinner," Carella said. "That's okay," Ollie said, "so am I." Carella had the feeling that somehow Ollie wasalwaysin the middle of dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast. Or something. "Can I call you back later?" he asked. "Well, sure," Ollie said, sounding offended, and hung up. Carella called him back at a little past eight, after the twins were in bed. Ollie picked up the phone, said, "Weeks," and then belched. "Ollie, it's Steve." "Yes, Steve." Still sounding offended. "I wanted to report on what I learned from Mrs. Henderson..." "Yes, Steve." His tone was saying I only saved your life, you know. "I had a long telephone conversation with her this afternoon. She..." "I thought you were going to see her personally," Ollie said. "I did. This wasafterI saw her." "Uh-huh." "She said her husband flew up to the state capital on Saturday..." "Uh-huh." "...stayed the weekend at the Raleigh Hotel there..." "Okay." "Probably flew back early Monday morning..." "What do you meanprobably?" "He didn't come home. She thinks he must have gone directly from the airport to King Memorial." "What do you mean shethinks?" "Ollie," Carella said, "non mi rompere,okay?" "What?" "I'm trying to tell you what I've got here. The lady doesn't know forsurewhere he was when. The last time she spoke to him was from the Raleigh. The next thing she knows he's shot dead at King Memorial. So she's assuming he flew back and went directly..." "Okay, I get it, I get it," Ollie said. "Did you call the airport?" "There are two non-stop flights leaving here early in the morning, both on US Airways. Takes about an hour to get to the capital. Any connecting flight doesn't pay, you can just as easily drive up these days, the long lines." "How about coming back?" "Same thing. Two early morning flights. I called the hotel. Henderson checked out at six Monday morning. He could've caught either one of them, been here in the city by eight, eight-thirty. A cab from the airport would've put him at the Hall by eight-thirty, nine. Which is about right, more or less." "Where's his suitcase?" "What?" "He had to have a bag, no? So if he went straight to the Hall, where's the bag?" "Good question." "We'll find out tomorrow. Meet me up the precinct at eight o'clock." "Uh...Ollie...my boss wants me off this." "Oh? Why?" "He thinks it's too uptown for us." "We been uptown together before, my friend, ah yes." "The Loot isn't sure he wants to go there again." "Even if we share the bust?" "I just don't think he wants any part of it." "You negotiating with me, or what?" "Would I even dream?" "We crack this one, we're made men." "I thought only the Mob had made men." "The Police Department is a mob, too, believe it or not. Tell your loot we share the bust, we'll all be glory boys." "How do you figure that, Ollie?" "Guy about to run for mayor, he gets snuffed? Hey, this is big-time stuff, Steve-a-rino." "How do you know he was going to run for mayor?" "His aide told me. Alan Pierce, Mr. Wasp from Waspville. Steve, I know it don't mean nothing I saved your life..." "Enough already, Ollie." "Talk to your loot. Tell him we'll all get rich and famous." "He's already rich and famous." "Sure. Like my Aunt Tillie. Tell him we'll be on television and everything." "You know what we caught this morning, Ollie?" "Tell me what you caught this morning, Steve." "A hundred-and-four-year-old lady drowned in her bathtub." "Not unusual. These old broads, they sometimes..." "She was stabbed in the eye first, Ollie." "Extraordinary," Ollie said. "But it ain't gonna get your picture in the papers. You want the Eight-Seven to remain a shitty little precinct the rest of your life, or you want to step up to the plate and knock one out of the ball park?" "I want to go say goodnight to my kids." "Call your loot instead, what's his name? Bernstein?" "Byrnes." "I thought he was a Yid, like my boss. Tell him does he want another juicy one like that money money case we caught around Christmastime..." "Money moneymoney," Carella said. "Or does he just want another old lady moldering in a bathtub?" "I think he might prefer the old lady." "Then he's an old lady himself, your boss. Tell him you got to grab this city by the balls before it grabs you first. Tell him opportunity knocks but once, tell him it's not every cop in the world gets invited to talk onLarry King.Tell him Oliver Wendell Weeks has spoken." "I'm sure he'll be impressed." "Tell him." "I'll tell him." "Don't forget the old lady metaphor," Ollie said, and hung up. 4 DETECTIVE/SECOND GRADE EILEEN BURKEdid not know how she felt about being transferred to the Eight-Seven. Lieutenant Byrnes voiced it for her. "Eileen, you're a good cop," he said, "and I'm glad to have you with us. But there's this thing with Bert." The lieutenant was referring to the fact that in the not too distant past, Eileen had enjoyed an arduous but brief (well, brief in the annals of the Eight-Seven) relationship with one of his detectives. The look on Byrnes's face indicated he did not want problems related to ancient love affairs. Eileen read the look, and registered his words, and didn't know quite what to say. She had not seen Bert Kling in a very long time, and she knew he was now involved with someone else. Standing before her new boss's desk, wearing brown slacks and brown low-heeled pumps, an olive-green crewneck sweater with a matching cardigan over it, sunshine streaming through the Loot's corner windows and setting her red hair ablaze, she wondered what gave him the right to intrude on her personal life, wondered if he would give the male half of this prior romance the same warning, and was tempted to tell him to go to hell. He must have read the look in her green eyes, must have seen County Cork flaring; he was Irish himself, after all. "Not that it's any of my business," he amended. "I'm sure there won't be any problem, sir," Eileen said. Byrnes noted the "sir." They had worked together before, when Eileen had been loaned to him as an undercover decoy, and back then it had been "Pete." Now it was "sir," which meant he'd got off on the wrong foot with her, something he didn't particularly wish. In apology, he said, "You're the first woman I've had on my squad, Eileen." "I know that, sir." "Make it Pete, can you?" "Pete," she said, and nodded. "You may find it quiet around here," he said. "After Hostage Negotiating." "In this city, nothing's quiet," she said. As a matter of fact, hostage-taking had cooled down a bit in recent years. Oh sure, you had the occasional nut who shot his wife and two of his kids and was holding the third kid at gun point in a ratty apartment someplace in Majesta while the cops promised him an airplane to Peru and three dozen Hershey bars, but for the most part the bad guys had bigger things on their minds. You didn't-in fact, couldn't-send a negotiator to talk to some fanatic who had taken over an airliner. Maybe the Eight-Sevenwouldseem a little tame after standing face to face with a hostage-taker holding an AK-47 on his grandma, but maybe Eileen needed a rest in the country. Besides, from the inter-departmental jive she'd heard, the boys up here had recently been involved in a very big case involving the Treasury Department, the CIA, and God knew what else. Byrnes was thinking he should tell her he'd try his best not to partner her with Kling-but that sounded apologetic. He was thinking he'd tell her that very often the working relationship between two detectives made the difference between life or death-but that sounded corny. "Eileen," he said simply, "we're a tight-knit family here. Welcome to it." "Thank you, sir," she said. "Pete." Which was when a knock sounded on the lieutenant's door. "Come," Byrnes said. The door opened-and speak of the devil. AT TWENTY MINUTESto nine that Wednesday morning-some fifteen minutes after he'd stepped into the lieutenant's office to encounter a redheaded ghost-Bert Kling was at the wheel of an unmarked police sedan driving himself and Carella uptown to the Eight-Eight. "I have to tell you the truth," he said, "my heart stopped." Carella said nothing. He had called the lieutenant the night before, and told him about Ollie Weeks's offer of a fifty-fifty bust, if ever there was one. He had told the lieutenant that you had to grab this city by the balls before it grabbed you first. He had told him that opportunity knocks but once, and it wasn't every cop in the world who got invited to talk onLarry King. "Oliver Wendell Weeks has spoken," he'd said. Byrnes had responded, "Let's go for it." So here he was on the way uptown again, listening to Kling tell him all about how he'd felt upon seeing, after all this time, the woman who had once been the love of his life. It had begun raining. The Eight-Seven had investigated a case one March where it had rained almost constantly. They would later refer to it as "The Rain Case," even though it had involved finding a severed hand in an airline bag. In this city, rain could actually be pleasant sometimes. Not this morning. The rain was driving and incessant, falling from the sky in buckets-to coin a phrase-cascading onto the windshield where the wipers worked in vain to maintain some semblance of visibility. "I felt like telling her I used to love her a lot," Kling said. "But the Loot was sitting right there, and besides I didn't want to give her the idea there might be anything there anymore." "So whatdidyou say?" Carella asked. "Well, Pete told me she'd be working with us from now on, so I said, 'Glad to have you aboard,' or something stupid like that, and we shook hands. It felt strange shaking hands. I mean...we were together a long time, you know, we were acouple.And now we were just shaking hands. Like strangers. That's when I felt like telling her I used to love her a lot. While we were shaking hands." "We can park behind the station," Carella said, "go in the back way." Kling leaned over the wheel, squinting through the windshield to locate the driveway, and then swung the car into the lot. He parked in a space as close to the building as he could find, but they both almost drowned before they'd stepped a foot out of the car to begin a mad dash to the rear door of the station house. All of these old precincts had the same layout. They could just as easily have been entering the Eight-Seven as the Eight-Eight. They came into a long corridor illuminated by a naked light bulb. No one inside the door, it occurred to Carella that some lunatic with a bomb could just march in. He made a mental note to mention this to Byrnes when they got back home. Down the corridor, past an old defunct coal-burning furnace, up a flight of wooden steps to a door that opened onto the first-floor muster room. Same muster desk as the Eight-Seven's, different sergeant behind it. He either recognized Carella and Kling, or else didn't give a damn that they might be desperate terrorists. Mobile radio rack to the left of them, rack with vests to the right. Up the iron-runged stairs to the second floor, past a men's room, and a ladies' room, and then through a gate in a slatted wooden railing identical to the one back home, and there you were, face to face with His Royal Girth. "You're late," Ollie said, grinning. It was 9:01A.M. Here, too, were the familiar sounds and smells. The ringing telephones, the aroma of coffee brewing on a hot plate, the stale odor-especially on a rainy day-of a room that had seen too many days and nights of use and abuse, and there, yes, the faintest trace of a scent only cops could identify as coming from the black ink on the fingerprint table across the room. One of the windows across the room was open just a crack. There was even an unaccustomed whiff of fresh air. All so very familiar. Especially if you watched television. "We found the bag," Ollie said. Kling wondered what bag. For a moment, Carella wondered the same thing. "Oh, the bag," he said, remembering. Ollie rose from his swivel chair like a whale off the coast of Mexico. He waddled across the room to where one of those small black airline bags on wheels rested near the water cooler. Yanking out the handle, he wheeled the bag over to his desk, hoisted it onto its top and-like a magician about to pull a rabbit from a top hat-unzipped the bag, and threw back the flap. "This is what a city councilman packs for an overnight trip," he said, and opened his hands wide. "Found it sitting on the stage, near the rear wall." The clothing in the bag was stuffed into it like laundry-which is what it undoubtedly was. These were the clothes Henderson had worn during his two-night stay in the state's capital. Packed in the bag were a pair of men's undershorts, two pairs of dark blue socks, a blue, long-sleeved, button-down shirt, a similar white shirt, a blue tropical weight suit, a blue-and-green-striped silk tie, a pair of black shoes, a toilet kit, and an electric razor. "He was wearing jeans, loafers, and a faggoty pink sweater when he got killed," Ollie said. "Probably wore them home on the plane." "Tells us nothing," Kling said. Ollie looked at him. Carella braced himself for whatever was coming. With Ollie, you never knew. But nothing came. Ollie merely sighed heavily. The sigh could have meant "How come I always get stuck with stupid rookies?" (which Kling certainly wasn't) or alternatively, "How come it's raining on a day when we have so much to do?" "How much time can you guys give me today?" he asked. "The Loot says we're at your disposal." "Really? Who's gonna take care of the old lady in the bathtub?" Ollie asked, as if he gave a damn who'd stabbed her in the eye. Carella recognized the question as rhetorical. Kling didn't know what they were talking about. "Here's what I'd like to do today," Ollie said, and began ticking the points off on his left hand, starting with the pinky. "One,I'llgo chase down this guy who was on the follow spot when Henderson caught it Monday morning, nail down what he saw, what he heard, and so on. Nobody leaves alive. Next," ticking it off on his ring finger, "I wantyouguys to talk to the Reverend Gabriel Foster about a little fracas him and Henderson got into just a week or so ago." "Why us?" Carella asked. "Let's say the rev and me don't get along too well, ah yes." "Gee, I wonder why." "What kind of fracas?" Kling asked. "Name calling, fists flying, like that." "Where was this?" "A Town Hall debate. Hizzoner was there, too,thatshmuck." "You don't really think Foster had anything to do with Henderson's murder, do you?" Carella said. "I think where there's a nigger in the woodpile, you smoke him out," Ollie said. Kling looked at him. "Something?" Ollie said. "I don't like that expression." "Well, gee, shove it up your ass," Ollie said. Carella stepped in at once. "Where do we see you later?" "You mean when shall we three meet again?" Ollie said. "Ah yes. How about right here, back at the ranch, let's say three o'clock." He looked Kling in the eye and said, "I hope you know Henderson was for stiffening drug laws." "So?" "So some people in the so-called black community might've thought he was trying to send their so-called brothers to jail." "So?" "Targeting persons of color, they might have thought," Ollie said. "What some people up here call profiling. You ought to keep that in mind when you're talking to him." "Thanks, we'll keep it in mind," Kling said. "What I'm suggesting is Foster's a well-known Negro agitator and rabble rouser. Maybe he got himself all agitated and aroused Monday morning." "Or maybe not," Carella said. "Or maybe not," Ollie agreed. "It's a free country, and nobody's hassling the man." "Except us," Kling said. "Asking pertinent questions ain't hassling. Unless you're a Negro, of course, and then everybody in the whole fucking world is hassling you. Foster's been around the block once or twice, so watch your ass, he's slippery as a wet condom. Then again, they all are. This is where the big bad city begins, Sonny Boy, right here in the Eight-Eight, the home of the jig and the land of the spic." "One more time, Ollie," Kling said. "What the fuck's with you?" Ollie said, genuinely puzzled. "See you at three," Carella said, and took Kling's elbow and steered him out of the squadroom. Behind them, Ollie called, "You new in the job, or what?" IT OCCURRED TO CARELLAthat it had been raining the last time he'd visited the Reverend Gabriel Foster here at the First Baptist Church. This time he took an umbrella from the car. In this city, you never saw a uniformed cop carrying an umbrella and you hardly ever saw a detective carrying one, either. That was because law enforcement officers could walk between the drops. Walking between the drops now, Carella hunched with Kling under the large black umbrella, and they splashed their way together to the front doors of the church. The First Bap was housed in a white clapboard structure wedged between a pair of six-story tenements whose red-brick facades had been recently sandblasted. There were sections of Diamondback that long ago had been sucked into the quagmire of hopeless poverty, where any thoughts of gentrification were mere pipe dreams. But St. Sebastian Avenue, here in the Double-Eight between Seventeenth and Twenty-first, was the hub of a thriving mini-community not unlike a self-contained small town. Along this stretch of avenue, you could find good restaurants, markets brimming with prime cuts of meat and fresh produce, clothing stores selling designer labels, repair shops for shoes, bicycles, or umbrellas, a new movie complex with six screens, even a fitness center. Carella rang the doorbell. The middle of the three doors opened. A slight black man wearing a dark suit and glasses peered out at them. "Come in out of the rain," he said. Inside, rain battered the roof of the church, and only the palest light trickled through stained-glass windows. The pews echoed themselves row upon row, silent and empty. Carella closed the umbrella. "You're policemen, aren't you?" the man said. "Detective Carella," he said. "You've been here before." "Yes." "I remember. Did you want to see the Reverend?" "If he's here." "I'm sure he'll want to talk to you. I'm Deacon Ainsworth," he said, and offered his hand. Both detectives shook hands with him. "Come with me," he said, and led them down a side aisle to a door to the right of the altar. The door opened onto a narrow passageway lined with windows on the street side. They walked past the windows to another door at the far end. Ainsworth knocked. A voice within said, "Yes, come in." Ainsworth opened the door. According to police records, the Reverend Gabriel Foster's birth name was Gabriel Foster Jones. He'd changed it to Rhino Jones when he enjoyed a brief career as a heavyweight boxer, and then settled on Gabriel Foster when he began preaching. Foster considered himself a civil rights activist. The police considered him a rabble rouser, an opportunistic self-promoter, and a race racketeer. His church, in fact, was listed in the files as a "sensitive location," departmental code for anyplace where the uninvited presence of the police might cause a race riot. Six feet, two inches tall, with the wide shoulders and broad chest of the heavyweight fighter he once had been, his eyebrows still ridged with scar tissue, Foster at the age of forty-nine and fast approaching fifty still looked as if he could knock your average contender on his ass in thirty seconds flat. He extended his right hand the moment the detectives entered the rectory. Grinning, he said, "Detective Carella! Nice to see you again." The men shook hands. Carella was mindful of the fact that the last time he was here, Foster hadn't been at all happy to see him. "This is Detective Kling," he said. "Nice to meet you," Kling said. "I know why you're here," Foster said. "You're shaking the tree, am I right?" "We're here because the last time you and Henderson debated, it ended in a fist fight," Carella said. "Well, that's not quite true," Foster said. "It's our understanding of what happened." "Oh, we came to blows, all right, that part of it is most certainly true," Foster said, grinning. "It's the 'debate' part I would challenge. I wouldn't exactly call his diatribe a debate." Kling was trying to decide whether he liked the man or not. He had become overly sensitive in his dealings with black people ever since he'd begun living with a black woman. What he tried to do was see all black people through Sharyn's eyes. In that way, all the color bullshit disappeared. The first thing he'd learned from her was that she despised the label "African-American." The second thing he'd learned was that she liked to kiss with her eyes open. Sharyn Cooke was a medical doctor and a Deputy Chief in the Police Department, but Kling never saluted her. He guessed he liked the mischievous gleam in Foster's eyes. He knew the man was a troublemaker, but sometimes troublemakers were good if they raked up the right kind of trouble. He was wondering how Lester Henderson had managed to survive a fist fight with the man who'd once been Rhino Jones. Henderson's pictures in this morning's paper showed him as a slight man with narrow shoulders and the sort of haircut every politician on television sported, a nonpartisan trim that Kling personally called "The Trent Lott Cut." Weren't the Reverend Foster's hamlike fists registered as deadly weapons? Or had he pulled his punches? And when, exactly, had that boxing match taken place, anyway? Reading his mind, Carella said, "Tell us about that fight, Reverend Foster." "Most people call me Gabe," Foster said. "It was hardly what I'd call a fight, either. A fight is where two people exchange punches with the idea of knocking somebody unconscious. That is what a fight is all about. Or evenkillingthe other person-which I understand might be a sensitive subject at the moment, considering what happened to that S.O.B." Foster grinned again. "A week ago Sunday, Lester threw a punch at me, which I sidestepped, and I shoved out at him, which caused him to fall on his ass, and that was the end of that. Photo op for all the cameras in town, but no decision." "Why'd he punch you, Gabe?" Kling asked. "He did notpunchme, per se, hetriedto punch me. I saw it coming all the way from North Dakota, and was out of the way before it was even a thought." "Why'd hetryto punch you?" Kling asked. "Are you the brother dating Sharyn Cooke?" Foster said. "Brother" was not a word Kling might have used. Neither was "dating." "What's that got to do with the price of fish?" he asked. "Just wondered. I used to know Sharyn's mother. Cleaning lady up here in Diamondback. She helped around the church every now and then. When I was just starting out." "Why'd Henderson try to punch you?" Kling asked. Third time around. Maybe he'd get lucky. "Gee, I really don't know," Foster said. "You think it's cause I called him a racist pig?" "Now why'd you go say something like that?" Carella asked. His eyes, his faint smile betrayed the knowledge that Lester Henderson had been called this before, in many variations on the theme, the most recent one from a state senator, who'd called him "Hitler without a mustache." "It's a known fact that he was targeting Diamondback for extinction," Foster said. "If I'm not mistaken, Detective Carella, you yourself investigated a case just recently where the drug problem up here played an important role. Well, Henderson was all for toughening the state's already Draconian drug laws, laws that are methodically clearing young black people off the streets..." Here comes a speech, Kling thought. "...and throwing them into already overcrowded prisons that are costing taxpayers a fortune to maintain. Instead of helping these youths to become productive members of a thriving community, we are instead turning them into criminals. I pointed this out to Lester, and I casually mentioned that only a racist pig would pursue a course as politically motivated as the one he was promoting. That was when he tried to pop me." "Small wonder," Carella said. "So where were you around ten-thirty Monday morning, Gabe?" "Oh dear," Foster said. "Oh dear indeed." "I fear I was asleep in my own little beddie-bye, all by my little self." "Which would have been where?" "1112 Roosevelt Av. Apartment 6B." "And what time did you getoutof your little beddie-bye?" "I came to the office here at eleven. I had a scheduled eleven-thirty interview with a reporter." "What time did you leave the apartment?" Kling asked. "Around ten-thirty. Whenever the weather is good, I walk to work." "So you weren't anywhere near King Memorial at ten-thirty Monday morning, is that right?" "Nowhere near it at all." "Be nice if someone had been in bed with you," Carella said. "Yes, it's always nice to have someone in bed with you," Foster said. "But no one was." "No one at all." "What'dyou say your address was again?" Kling asked. "1112 Roosevelt." "That's between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth, isn't it?" "No, it's further uptown." "Near King Memorial?" "A few blocks away, yes." "Where exactly?" Carella asked. "Between Thirty-first and -second." "The Hall's on St. Sab's, corner of Thirtieth," Kling said. "So it is," Foster said. "If you'd walked one block over, you could've passed it on your way to work." "IfI'd walked one block over," Foster said. "But I came straight down Roosevelt. Same way I always do." "You walk the ten blocks down to Twenty-first here..." "Yes, and then I walk the block crosstown to St. Sab's." "Nice walk." "If the weather's nice, yes." "It certainly was nice Monday," Kling said. "It certainly was," Carella said. "Fellas, let's cut the idle bullshit, okay?" Foster said. "You know I didn't kill that prick, so it doesn't matterwhereI was Monday morning. I could've been home in bed with the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or I could've been right outside King Memorial tying my shoelaces. I may have done some foolish things in my lifetime, but killing a man a week after we had a brawl is definitely not one of them." "I tend to agree," Carella said. "Me, too," Kling said. "But we have to ask," Carella said. "You know how it is," Kling said. "Thanks for your time, Gabe. If you happen to hear anything..." "What would I hear?" "Well, youdohave your finger on the community pulse. Maybe somebody saw something, heard something, feels it's his duty to report it to a community leader..." "That's yetmorebullshit," Foster said. "I'm still a suspect, right?" "Teach you to sleep alone," Carella said. 5 TO TELL THEGod's honest truth, Ollie was more interested in finding whoever had stolen his book than he was in finding whoever had murdered Lester Henderson. Toward that end, he had already coerced the Mobile Crime Unit into coming all the way uptown to dust his car for prints, the operative theory being that the perp hadn't been wearing gloves on a nice spring day, and had therefore left tell-tale evidence all over the place. Sure. That was for fiction. The MCU boys hadn't come up with anything at all-which didn't surprise Ollie, those jackasses-but which still leftsomebodyout there who had smashed Ollie's car window (in plain view of the deaf, dumb, and blind blues standing outside King Memorial, don't forget) and reached in to unlock the door and run off with Ollie's precious manuscript. He didn't think anyone up here knew how to read, so he didn't suppose they could discern he or she was looking at something written by a police officer, which if it wasn't returned pronto, could put his or her ass in a sling. The dispatch case bearing the manuscript had been a gift from Isabelle two Christmases ago. Like everything else his dumb sister ever gave him, he'd had no use for it until he placed his book inside it to carry to Kinko's. He figured the only use the thief had for the case was to hock it, so he'd already sent out a flier to all the hock shops in the Eight-Eight and neighboring precincts. Junkies-if indeed a junkie had stolen it-were territorial by nature and basic by instinct. In the three months it had taken him to write the book, he had learned a lot about so-called mystery fiction. After he'd thrown away his first feeble attempts atBad Money,he'd started all over again by reading most of the crap on the bestseller list, much of it written by ladies who were not now, nor had ever in their entire lives been cops or private eyes or medical examiners or game wardens or bounty hunters, or any of the other things they professed to be. He then began reading all the book reviews posted on Amazon Dot Com. Before he himself got on the Web, he used to think Amazon Dot Com was a very large broad named Dorothy Kahm. Now he knew better. To him, the reviews on this bookselling site seemed like the book reports he had to write when he was in the sixth grade. In fact, the reviews on Amazon seemed to be written by soccer moms who'd never been to school atall,it looked like, who were also not cops or private eyes or anything else, and who weren't very good writers in the bargain. He wondered why Amazon, presumably in the business of selling books, would post bad reviews about books they were trying to sell, but hey, that wastheirbusiness. Besides, these so-called book reviews were very informative to Ollie. What he learned from them was that any book with more than half a dozen characters in it, or more than a single plot line, was too confusing to be understood by some hick down there in Green Beans, Georgia, or out there in Saddle Sores, Texas. The answer was simplicity. Keep it simple. If simpletons were out there reading mystery fiction or detective fiction or crime fiction or thrillers or whatever anyone chose to call these so-called stories, then anybody actually writing the stuff had better learn how to keep it simple. Simplicity for the simpletons. Simple. So what he'd done was to scrap the literary approach he'd formerly been striving for inBad Money.For example, in the original version of his book, there had been high-flown language like: The sound of music came from somewhere inside the apartment. Its noisome beat filled the hallway tremblingly. In the next version, Ollie changed this to: Loud music hammered the halls. Period. Simple. He thought he had found his voice. There was no sense trying to explain "voice" to anyone who wasn't a writer. He had once tried to define it for his jackass sister Isabelle, and she had immediately said, "Oh, are you gonna be a singer now?" To a writer, voice had nothing to do with singing. Voice was as intangible as mist on an Irish bog. Voice was something that came from the very heart and soul. Voice was the essential essence of any novel, its perfume, so to speak. Try explaining that to a jackass like Isabelle. And then, all at once, he had a truly brilliant idea. In the first version of the book, he had called his lead character Detective/First Grade Oswald Wesley Watts. He had, in fact, described him like this: Tall and handsome, broad of shoulder and wide of chest, slender of waist and fleet of foot, Detective "Big Ozzie" Watts, pistol in hand (a nine-millimeter semi-automatic Glock, by the way) climbed the steps to the fourth floor of the reeking tenement and knocked on the door to apartment 4C. But after realizing that most of the mysteries on the bestseller list were written byladies,Ollie took an entirely different approach. The revised version of his book started like this: I am locked in a basement with $2,700,000 in so-called conflict diamonds, and I just got a run in my pantyhose. He had found a voice at last. • • • IT DID NOT TAKEEmilio Herrera long to realize that he had stumbled upon something very large indeed. He was not talking about the dispatch case itself. He had already sold that for five dollars. He was talking about what was inside the case. What he had just finished reading was a private report to the Police Commissioner from one of his female detectives:

"The podium's in the center there," Ollie said. "Henderson came on stage left, walked across to it, got shot just as he reached it. The shooter was in the wings stage right. The electrical guy saw repeated muzzle flashes, are you guys going to finish that pizza or what?" "Go ahead, have a slice," Kling said. He was eager to see if Ollie could juggle four slices simultaneously. "Kept the follow spot on him all the way to the floor, dedicated, huh?" Ollie said, hands reaching, mouth working, teeth biting, sauce and toppings and cheese dripping all over his hands and his shirt and the desk top. Astonishing, Kling thought. "Is there a Detective Weeks here?" someone said. They all turned toward the slatted wooden railing that divided the squadroom from the corridor outside. A female police officer was standing there. She was holding a manila envelope in her right hand. The wordEVIDENCEwas printed across the face of the envelope. "I'm Detective Weeks," Ollie said. "Officer Gomez," she said, and opened the gate in the railing and walked over to the desk. She was trying to learn attitude. Fresh out of the Academy, her uniform trimly tailored, the buttons all shiny and bright, even her shield looking glistening new, she walked with a sort of sidelong gait that tried to negate her obvious femininity while emphasizing the authority of the Glock on her hip. "I was asked to bring this over," she said, and placed the envelope on the desk. "You have to sign the Chain of Custody tag." "I know, honey," Ollie said. "It's Officer Gomez, Detective," she said, firmly but politely correcting him. "Oh my, so it is," Ollie said, glancing at the name tag pinned above her perky left breast, which readP.GOMEZin white on black. He signed for the envelope, hefted it on the palm of his hand, and said, "Would you happen to know what's inside here, Officer Gomez?" "Yes, sir," Gomez said. "I was there when it was recovered at the scene." "And where would that have been, this scene, Officer Gomez?" "In the alley outside the auditorium at King Memorial. Down the sewer there, sir." "I see, ah yes," Ollie said, and opened the envelope. Someone diligent seemed to have retrieved what looked like a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. • • • OLLIE WAS JUST LEAVINGthe squadroom at a quarter to six that evening when the call from Ballistics came. The detective calling had a thick Hispanic accent. Ollie could hardly understand him. He wondered why these people didn't learn to speak English. He also wondered why every time you called a movie theater to find out what was playing or what time the show went on, the person on the recorded message was somebody who'd learned English in Bulgaria. You had to call the number two, three times to get the message played all over again because you couldn't figure out if it was Meg Ryan in the damn picture or Tom Cruise. He figured this was some kind of dumb-ass equal-opportunity program. If you had to record a telephone message essential to your business, what you did was choose the person in your company who couldn't speak English at all. The thing was, Ollie hadn't realized till now that this practice had spread to the Police Department. From what he could gather, the .32 Smith & Wesson recovered from a sewer in the alley off the western end of the King Memorial auditorium either was or was not the pistol that had fired the fatal shots into Lester Henderson. From what he could gather further, a pistol bearing the serial numbers of the recovered weapon either was or was not registered to someone in this city. "Listen," Ollie said, "is there somebody there speaks English?" The dope got insulted and hung up. Ollie dialed back at once. Another guy who couldn't speak English answered the phone. "What is this?" Ollie asked. "Did Castro invade the United States?" "Quien es?"the guy asked. "Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks," Ollie said. "Give me somebody speaks English down there." He heard the phone rattling onto a counter top down there. Probably dangerous weapons all over the place down there, nobody could speak English. "Detective Hogan," somebody said. "Hooray," Ollie said. "Who's this?" "Weeks, the Eight-Eight. You got an evidence piece we sent down for Comp and ID, I'm tryin'a get a report on it." "Didn't somebody call you?" "Somebody called me." "So?" "So nowI'mcallinyou.Did you test-fire the piece, and if so did you get a match?" "Test bullets were positive for the evidence weapon, yes," Hogan said. "Anything else?" Ollie figured he was pissed off cause his spic buddies couldn't speak English too good. "If it's not too much trouble," he said sweetly, "can you perhaps tell me if you ran a computer check on the evidence weapon?" "Serial numbers were obliterated," Hogan said. "Anything else?" "Yes. What's your first name, Hogan?" "Why?" "Cause I don't like your attitude is why. I'm investigating a homicide here, of acouncilmanno less, and you happen to have in your possession themurderweapon. So if you don't mind, Mr. Hogan, and if it ain't too much trouble, what I'd like you to do isrestorethose numbers for me and then run the piece to see who mightownthe thing. Do you think you might know how to do that, Mr. Hogan? First you clean the site of the numbers..." "I know how to do it," Hogan said. "So do my partners." "Well, good, maybe the numbers are written in Spanish. After you bring 'em up, let me know what you find in the system, okay? I'll be waiting. So will the Mayor's Office, cause Lester Henderson wasn't just some punk on the street, you know?" He paused for emphasis. "I wouldn't be bothering you with all this, Mr. Hogan, cause I know how valuable your time is, but it so happens the only prints on the weapon were smeared, and we got nothing to go on. Which is why your expertise in the matter is so urgently demanded, ah yes," Ollie said. "The numbers were filed deep," Hogan said. "Gonna be tough to bring 'em up." "Well now, gee, that's your job, ain't it?" Ollie said, and hung up. 6 ANDY PARKERdidn't particularly like being partnered with women, especially any woman who'd been hurt on the job. The way he understood it, Eileen Burke had been slashed while serving as an undercover decoy in a case she'd been working with the Rape Squad. Blue wisdom maintained she'd also been violated at the time, so to speak, but nobody talked about that because Burke had friends with short tempers, among them Bert Kling who Parker knew for a fact had been going steady with her when all this occurred. What went on between them-or even between her legs, for that matter-was none of his business. What happened on the job when you were partnered with someone who'd been cut or shot was another matter. They were never the same again, he knew that for a fact, too. The man they were talking to this Wednesday night was a person Parker had been working with ever since February. His name was Francisco Palacios, and he owned and operated a cozy little shop that sold medicinal herbs, dream books, religious statues, numbers books, tarot cards, and other related items. His silent partners, however, were named Gaucho Palacios and Cowboy Palacios, and they ran a shopbehindthe other shop, andthisone offered for sale various unrelated and medically approved "marital aids" like dildoes, French ticklers, open-crotch panties, plastic vibrators, leather executioners' masks, chastity belts, whips with leather thongs, penis extenders, aphrodisiacs, inflatable life-sized female dolls, condoms in every color of the rainbow including vermilion, books on how to hypnotize and otherwise overcome reluctant women, ben wa balls in both plastic and gold plate, and a highly popular mechanical device guaranteed to bring satisfaction and imaginatively called Suc-u-lator. Francisco, The Gaucho, and The Cowboy were in fact one and the same person, and they were collectively a police informer, a stoolie, a snitch, or in some quarters even a rat. At the back of El Castillo de Palacios, as The Gaucho called his bifurcated shop, he sat with the two detectives and tried to fill them in on what was about to come down next Tuesday night. He found it somewhat difficult to concentrate on business, however, because his eyes kept wandering to the redheaded detective's crossed legs, and he kept wondering what it would be like to put her in a pair ofbragas sin entrepiernaand leather anklets studded with chrome. The Gaucho wondered if she found him good-looking. He himself thought he was one coolhombre.As tall and as lean as a matinee idol, with dark brown eyes and a mustache he hadn't sported a year or so ago, he still wore his long black hair in a high pompadour, the way kids used to wear it in the fifties. He did not admit to having four wives because that was against the law-havingthem, notadmittingto having them. But none of them was redheaded. In fact, he had never been to bed with a redheaded woman in his life. He wondered if it was true that they were even more passionate than blondes. None of his wives was blond, either. Not really blond, anyway. He wondered if Eileen Burke here, with her splendidly crossedgambasand the faintest trace of a scar on her left cheek was, in fact, arealredhead. Does the carpet match the drapes, he wondered, or is she merely Miss Clairol's cousin? "What is going to happen next Tuesday at midnight," he said, "is a very large quantity..." "When you sayTuesdayat midnight," Parker interrupted, "do you meanTuesdaynight when the..." "Yes," Palacios said. "...clock strikes twelve..." "Yes." "OrMondaynight when the clock strikes twelve?" Parker asked, cleaving the air with the edge of his hand. Palacios looked at him. "What I'm asking is...let's say it's eleven fifty-nineP.M., and then it's midnight, and then the minute hand moves to twelve-ohone...is thisTuesdaynight we're talking about, orMondaynight?" "I am talking aboutTuesdayat midnight," Palacios said. "It is eleven fifty-nine on Tuesday night, and then it is midnight, and then it is twelve-oh-one on Wednesday morning. The shit will go down on Tuesday night at midnight." "Wouldn't it be easier to look at a calendar?" Eileen suggested. Men, she thought. There was, in fact, a calendar on the wall of The Gaucho's shop, and it showed a picture of a dark-haired, spread-legged woman wearing nothing but an open Japanese fan. Palacios put his finger on the square for Wednesday, April 24. "This is today," he said. He moved his finger down to the next row of dates. "And this is Tuesday, April thirtieth, the last day of the month. That is when the shit will go down. Tuesday night at midnight." "Is that clear, Eileen?" Parker asked. She looked at him. Palacios caught the glance. Very nice, he thought, and wondered if she would care to be spanked by him some day. Parker was thinking, Well, pardon me all to hell, lady, but these are not kindergarten kids we're playing with here, and I would not like to show up a day late and a dollar short, and lose the whole damn bust, if you don't mind. What he was afraid of, in fact, was that they'd break down the door next week and go down the basement steps, and Burke here would see a gun or even a box cutter and pick up her skirts and run right into everybody else in her haste to get out of there. "These people are not amateurs," he said aloud. "They are very definitely not amateurs," Palacios said, smiling at her to let her know he realized her partner here was being condescending merely because she was a ravishingly beautiful redhead he would love to take to bed sometime. "The ones selling the candy, anyway. They've been working on this deal for a long time now," he said. "They are not going to like you going down their basement and messing with them." You can hardly see where she was cut, Parker thought. On the face, he understood. Psychologically bad, especially for a woman. Still, they did wonders with cosmetic surgery these days. And yet... "Where is this basement of theirs?" Eileen asked. "That's one of the problems," Palacios said. "I didn't know there were any problems," Eileen said, and looked at Parker again. "The problem is it keeps changing," Palacios said. "What keeps changing?" "The basement where the dope is." "They keep moving the dope, is that what you mean?" "So far, yes, it's been in three different locations." "Why is that, do you suppose?" "They're being cautious," Parker said. "Careful," Palacios agreed, nodding. "They're not amateurs," Parker reminded her again. "Or,"Eileen said. Both men looked at her. "They're onto us," she said. HOGAN GOT BACKto Ollie at ten that night. Ollie was enjoying a snack before going to bed. He hated any of his meals being interrupted, and was almost sorry he'd given Hogan his home number. "What I did," Hogan explained, "was first I cleaned the site, filed it down smooth, and polished it with Carborundum till I had it looking like a mirror. Then I kept swabbing it with hydrochloric acid till the numbers came up. Took me three hours altogether." Don't tell me your fuckin troubles while I'm eating, Ollie thought. "So what'd the computer have to say?" he asked. "The gun was registered to a guy named Charles McGrath. He used it in a bank holdup five years ago, shot the guard and a lady making a deposit. He still had the piece in his possession when he got busted two months later." "Where is he now?" "Castleview. Doing a max of twenty on a B-felony conviction. He should be coming up for parole in a year or so." "Meanwhile he's behind bars, is that what you're saying?" "That's what the computer says." "What happened to the gun?" "What do you mean?" "After they sent Mr. McGrath to the country." "I told you. It was recovered in his possession." "Yeah, but how'd it get on the street again?" "Well now, gee, that'syourjob, ain't it?" Hogan said, and hung up. SHARYN EVERARD COOKEwas the Police Department's Deputy Chief Surgeon, the first black woman ever to be appointed to the job-though "black" was a misnomer in that her skin was the color of burnt almond. She wore her black hair in a modified Afro, which-together with high cheekbones, a generous mouth, and eyes the color of loam-gave her the look of a proud Masai woman. Five feet, nine inches tall, she considered herself a trifle overweight at a hundred and thirty pounds. Bert Kling thought she looked just right. Bert Kling thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever met. Bert Kling loved her to death. The only problem was where to sleep. Sharyn's apartment was at the very end of the Calm's Point subway line, some forty minutes from Kling's studio apartment across the river and into the trees. From his apartment, it took him twenty minutes to get to work in the morning. From her apartment, it took him an hour and fifteen minutes. Sharyn still had her own private practice, but as a uniformed one-star chief, she still worked fifteen to eighteen hours a week at the Chief Surgeon's Office, which was located in Rankin Plaza in that part of the city known as Majesta. Majesta happened to be forty-five minutes by subway from Kling's apartment. So it all got down to where they should sleep on any given night. All couples should have such a problem. They had planned to spend that Wednesday night in Sharyn's apartment, but because a cop had got shot downtown, and Sharyn was here in The City, anyway- No matter where you lived in this city, Isola was still called The City. If you lived in Riverhead or Majesta or Calm's Point or even Bethtown, and you were taking the subway or a bus downtown, you were going into The City. That was it. Sharyn lived in Calm's Point, but Kling lived in The City, and since she wasinthe city anyway that day, they decided to sleep at his place, talk about lengthy exposition. His place was a studio apartment. His place wasn't too very comfortable. But she loved him, so what could you do? "Did your mother really work for Gabe Foster?" he asked. She was in the bathroom brushing her teeth. She was still wearing a half slip and a bra and the sandals she'd worn to work that morning, strappy and buckled, with a medium-sized heel. She had rinsed out her pantyhose, and they were hanging over the shower rod. He liked her things hanging all over the place. He liked anything that reminded him of her. "My mother worked for everyone in the world," she said. "How do you think I got through college and med school?" "Foster said she used to help around the church every now and then. When he was just starting out." "That's possible," Sharyn said. "I'll have to ask her." She was cold-creaming makeup off her face now. It took her a half-hour every night to get ready for bed. She always came to bed smelling sweet and clean and fresh and beautiful. He loved the way she smelled. He loved everything about her. "You ever meet him?" Kling asked. "Foster? Once. There was a liquor store holdup in Diamondback, and one of the cops who responded was a brother. He got shot twice in the chest. Foster showed up at the hospital to do his thing." "What's his thing?" "False compassion for anyone who's black, indignation for any imagined slight to the black man-or woman, he claims, though I understand he favors honkie trim. He's a rabble rouser who wants to be mayor of this city one day. How'd you happen to talk to him?" "Ollie Weeks thinks..." "Bigot." "I know. Maybe that's why he thinks Foster might have had something to do with the councilman's murder." "Are you on that case?" "Sort of." "What does that mean, sort of?" "We're sharing the bust with Ollie. If we make one." "Is Foster a suspect?" "Not really. Not yet, anyway. But he had a fist fight with Henderson..." "Uh-oh." "Well, maybe. Be sort of dumb to shoot a guy you just brawled with, though." "Not something I would do, that's for sure." "Especially if you're in the public eye, the way Foster is." "So ask him where he was when the shooting took place." "We did. He could have been in the neighborhood." "Then heisa suspect." "Maybe. In police work..." "Yes, dear, tell me all about police work." "Inpolicework, wise guy, everyone's a suspect until he's no longer a suspect." "Gee," Sharyn said, and rolled her eyes in mock amazement. She was standing in the bathroom door now, the light behind her, looking tall and magnificent and lovely and wonderful. She put her hands on her hips. She looked across the room to where he was lying on the bed in his undershorts. The window was open. There was the sound of traffic below, moving toward the Calm's Point Bridge. "Are we going to make love tonight?" she asked. "I don't know. Do you feel like it?" "Do you?" "I think I could be persuaded." "What I'm asking..." "I know." "Should I put the diaphragm in?" Her voice lowered. "Is what I'm asking." "Well, if you're going to look so sexy and beautiful and all in that transparent slip with the light behind you, I think you ought to put in your diaphragm and take the pill and do everything possible to protect yourself because I'm but a mere mortal who can't possibly resist you, is what I think." "Sweet talker," she said, and smiled, and went back into the bathroom, and closed the door. In a little while, she came to him. THE THING ABOUTbeing with him was the shared intimacy. Before him, she had never been intimate with another man. She didn't mean sexually intimate, she'd had sex with a dozen men, at least, before she met Kling. Having sex with a man wasn't the kind of intimacy she meant. You could be sexually intimate with any man, she supposed, white or black, although Kling was the first white man she'd ever been to bed with. She never expected to go to bed with any other white man in her life. Any other black man, either. Being sexually intimate with some man wasn't the point of it all. She had finally discovered the point of it all with Bert Kling, the least likely candidate for the job. To begin with, she outranked him in spades, no pun intended, and political correctness be damned. That was one of the things she meant about being intimate with him. She could happen to say, "Besides, I outrank you in spades," and he could put on a big Sammy Davis, Jr. watermelon accent and answer, "You can saythatagain, honey chile," and she could laugh at the racial allusion and not get angry, the way a black woman in America-especially a black woman who wanted to become a doctor-could sometimes get very damned angry in America. And besides, shedidoutrank him in spades, which meant that she was a Deputy Chief who earned sixty-eight grand a year, and he was but a Detective/Third Grade who earned a whole hell of a lot less than that, a fact she had to remind him of every time he insisted on picking up a restaurant check, God, how she loved this man. That had been one of the early problems, their relative positions in this small paramilitary force known as the Police Department, wherein fraternization between a chief and the lowest grade of detective was-if not forbidden by fiat-at least discreetly frowned upon. Not to mention this other small matter of their disparate coloration, orlackof coloration as the case actually was, black and white being an absence of hue rather than a plain statement like red or green for stop or go. That was what they'd had to decide rather early on. Stop or go. Oddly, her rank was what had troubled him most. She could remember him calling for the first time from one of those open plastic phone shells, standing in the rain and asking her if she'd care to have dinner with him. He thought it might make a difference that he was just a detective/third and she was a one-star chief. No mention of his blond hair or her black skin. "Does it?" he'd asked. "Does what?" "Doesit make a difference? Your rank?" "No," she'd said. But what about the other? she'd wondered. What about whites and blacks killing each other in public places? What about that, Detective Kling? "Rainy day like today," he'd said, "I thought it'd be nice to have dinner and go to a movie." With a white man, she'd thought. Tell my mother I'm going on a date with a white man. My mother who scrubbed white men's offices on her knees. You hear this, Mom? A white man wants to take me out to dinner and a movie. Bring the subject up, she'd thought. Face it head on. Ask him if he realizes I'm black. Tell him I've never done anything like this before. Tell him my mother'll jump off the roof. Tell him I don't need this kind of complication in my life, tell him... "Well...uh...do you think you mightliketo?" he'd asked. "Go to a movie and have dinner?" "Why do you want to do this?" she'd asked. "Well," he'd said, "I think we might enjoy each other's company." She supposed the intimacy between them had started right that minute. It was an intimacy that had nothing to do with protecting or defending their right to be together in these racially divided United States of America, nothing to do with this white man and black woman having unimaginably found each other long before the slogan "United We Stand" came into vogue again. Nor did their intimacy have anything to do with his whiteness or her blackness although each found this disparity enormously attractive. They both realized that terrorism wouldn't last forever, all wars ended sooner or later, and there would still be an America where blacks and whites could never be intimate unless they first forgot they were black or white. Sharyn Everard Cooke and Bertram Alexander Kling had forgotten that a long time ago. In the dark there were only two people making love. But this was sexual intimacy, and they had both enjoyed that before, albeit never with anyone who wasn't color-coordinated. Now that they were equal opportunity employers, so to speak, they had to admit that sex with someone of a different tint was actually something of a kick. "How about all this stuff I hear about black men?" Kling once asked. "Why?" she said. "Are you feeling underprivileged?" "I'm just curious." "You know the joke, don't you?" "Which one is that?" "Man loses his penis in an automobile accident, he goes to see a surgeon who says he can give him a penis implant?" "Yeah?" "Guy says, 'That's great, but how will I know what I'm getting?' The surgeon says, 'I'll show you some samples.' He goes in the back room, comes back with a penis six inches long, shows it to the guy. The guy says, 'Well, since I'll be getting a new one, I was hoping...' The surgeon holds up his hands, says, 'I understand completely,' goes in the back room, comes back with a peniseightinches long. The guy says, 'Well, to be perfectly frank, I was hoping for something with a bit more authority.' The surgeon goes off again, comes back with a penistwelveinches long. The guy says, 'Now you're talking! Does it come in white?'" Kling burst out laughing. "Do that answer yo question, honey chile?" Sharyn asked. The intimacy went beyond white and black. The intimacy was based on the knowledge that living together withanyonewas something that required constant care and attention. Intimacy demanded utter honesty and complete trust. Intimacy meant never being afraid of revealing yourself to another person, exposing yourself to this person, warts and all, without fear of condemnation or derision. Kling, who was not Jewish, described intimacy as a "shlep," a Yiddish word that actually meant "to carry, or pull, or drag, or lag behind," but which he took to mean "a long haul," as in the expression "Man, that was a shlep and a half!" common to everyone in this city regardless of stripe or persuasion, United We Stand, and God Bless America! They were both in this for the long haul. And though they knew true intimacy wasn't easy, they realized that once you got the knack of it, everything else seemed so very simple. Sharyn found a yarn shop near Rankin Plaza that would needle-point a small pillow to her specifications. Actually, she had two of the pillows made, one for his apartment, the other for hers, one in white letters on black, the other in black letters on white. Each pillow read: Share Help Love Encourage Protect Kling was bone-weary when he got to her apartment that night. He had taken the subway out to Calm's Point, and didn't get there till almost nine-thirty. He'd grabbed a hamburger at the squadroom, but he was grateful nonetheless for the soup and sandwich she had waiting for him. He didn't see the pillow until after he'd eaten. In fact, he was lying on the sofa in her living room, watching the Eleven O'Clock News, his head resting rightonthe pillow, when Sharyn suggested that he might be more comfortable with a softer pillow, and he said, "No, I'm fine, hon," and she said, "Here, let me help you," and she took the pillow from under his head and replaced it with a down pillow from the bedroom, and then she put the smaller pillow on his chest, and hestilldidn't look at it, what waswrongwith this man? Patience, she told herself, you did get through med school, you know. So she waited until the news went off, and they were both ready for bed, and then she came into the bedroom stark naked, holding the pillow with both hands at the joining of her legs, covering the wild tangle of her pubic patch, and he squinted at her, and said, "A definite improvement," and she burst out laughing and threw the pillow at him. He read the needlepoint: Share Help Love Encourage Protect "That says it all," he told her, and took her into his arms. Now, with her in his arms again, spent and somewhat damp from their exertion, the lights of the bridge twinkling in the distance, he told her that Eileen Burke had been transferred to the Eight-Seven and would be working there from now on, and Sharyn asked, "Does that bother you?" and he said, "I don't know." And that was honest. And that was what the two of them were all about. 7 IT WAS WHILE OLLIEwas investigating what in his mind would always be known as "The $$$ Case," that he'd received from a knowledgeable editor at the publishing firm of Wadsworth and Dodds, which later turned out to be a front for a big drug-running operation and God knew what else-but that was another story. Anyway, a woman up there named Karen Andersen had given him a form letter from an editor up there named Henry Daggert, and it was from this letter that Ollie had learned everything he knew about writing bestselling thriller fiction. The letter read: Dear Aspiring Writer: I often receive inquiries from writers who wonder about the most effective way to get a suspense novel on the bestseller list. After years of experience, I have discovered that there are some hard and fast rules to be followed in the writing of successful suspense fiction. I would like to share these rules with you now, if I may. IF YOU WANT TO CRACK THE BESTSELLER LIST 1) YOU MUST CREATE A PLOT THAT PUTS AN ORDINARY PERSON IN AN EXTRAORDINARY SITUATION. Your protagonist must be an "Everyman." However, you must have at least one complex female character as well. Don't forget, you want to capture both male and female readers. 2) YOU MUST CREATE A PLOT THAT PLAYS OUT A UNIVERSAL FANTASY. You must put the reader in a situation that tests him in ways he's always wanted to be tested, vicariously. 3) YOU MUST COME UP WITH A PLOT THAT PASSES THE "COOL" TEST. You must find an idea that makes readers want to read the book simply on the basis of the ideaalone! 4) YOUR PLOT MUST INVOLVE HIGH STAKES. You must make clear that the fate of the world hangs in the balance-or, at least, the fate of a character we desperately care about. 5) YOU MUST INTRODUCE A TICKING CLOCK. You must give your protagonist only a limited amount of time to solve his problem, and the reader should be regularly reminded of the urgency via "COUNTDOWN CUES." Ollie deciphered all this to mean that a bestselling suspense novel had to tell a simple story about an ordinary person who found himself in an extraordinary situation that tested him in ways he'd always wanted to be tested, vicariously. Moreover, the plot had to include at least one complex male or female character in it, and the fate of the world had to be hanging in clock-ticking suspense. But there was yet more to learn. 6) BE SURE TO AVOID AMBIGUITY! You must avoid situations where points in favor of both sides diminish the reader's ability to root intensely for one side over another. For example: Novels about the IRA. Novels about murky Central American conflicts. Novels about Pro Choice versus Right-to-Life disputes. 7) AVOID WRITING ABOUT WHAT'S IN THE NEWS! Editors (and especiallythiseditor) will be seeing a slew of books onwhateverit is, believe me! Be especially wary of plots about Computer Hackers, Genetic Engineering, Air Disasters, Terrorist Attacks, etc. Good luck! Sincerely,

"You see where it says 'Stage Right' there?" he asked. "Yes?" "That's where the shooter was standing when Henderson got aced." "Why is it called stage right when it's on the left?" Patricia asked. "I don't know why that is," Ollie said. "It's one of life's little mysteries. The point is, let's say the shooter ran out into the alley afterward, and dumped the gun down that sewer..." "Which is actually what did happen," Patricia said. "Well, that's the problem," Ollie said. "Tell me where we are," he said. "What do you mean?" "Where are we now?" "In the alley outside the auditorium," she said and blinked in further confusion. He knew where they were. They were in the alley. She had told him a hundred times where they were. What was the matter with this man? "Which alley? There are two alleys, one outside stage right, the other outside stage left. Where is this alley we're standing in now?" he asked. "Which side of the auditorium?" "Well...I don't know." She looked at the metal doors at the far end of the alley, and she looked at the brick walls enclosing the alley, and then she looked at the garbage cans lining one wall. Nothing gave her a clue as to which side of the auditorium this was. Well, it was easy to get disoriented because Ollie had parked the car on St. Sebastian Avenue and they had entered King Memorial through the big glass doors at the front there. And then they'd walked across the lobby to where the auditorium was, and had gone into the auditorium itself and walked down the center aisle to the stage... "Take a look at the drawing again," Ollie said. Patricia looked at it.

"Please observe the way the letter 'W' is worked into the design," she'd said, the jackass. She had given him the sampler, framed, for Christmas one year, a gift as worthless as the stolen dispatch case, which was why he was here to see an Irishman like Walsh in the first place. He greeted Walsh with his favorite Irish joke. "These two Irishmen walk out of a bar?" he said. "Yeah?" Walsh said, grinning in anticipation. "It could happen," Ollie said, and shrugged. The grin dropped from Walsh's face. Ollie guessed the man thought he was making some kind of remark about Irishmen being drunk all the time. Well, if he couldn't take a joke, a fart on him. "I'm looking for a cross-dressing whore named Emilio Herrera," he said, "street name Emmy. Does it ring a bell?" "I'm still thinking about that so-called joke of yours," Walsh said. He was perhaps six feet, two or three inches tall, a big redheaded mick going gray at the temples, wide shoulders, arms like oaks, the butt of a Glock sticking out of a shoulder holster on the left side of his body for an easy right-handed draw. He was in shirtsleeves on this bright April morning, the sleeves rolled up, the collar open, the tie pulled down. Ollie guessed Walsh thought he looked like a TV detective. TV detectives thought they looked like real-life detectives, which they didn't. Trouble was, real-life detectives watched TV and then started acting like TV detectives, who were acting the way they thought real-life detectives did. It was a vicious cycle. Ollie was glad he looked like himself. "Don't worry about jokes," he said. And then, because he was not only a real-life detective, but also a real-life writer, he added, "Jokes are the folk lore of truth." "Does that mean it's true that two Irishmen can'twalkout of a bar?" Walsh asked. "It could happen," Ollie said, and shrugged again. "That's what's offensive about the joke," Walsh said. "Those words 'It could happen.' And the accompanying shrug, indicating that whereas it's a remote possibility that a pair of Irishmencouldwalk out of a bar, the teller of the joke has certainly neverseensuch a phenomenon in his entire life, though that doesn't mean to say itcouldn'thappen, two Irishmenwalkingout instead ofstaggeringout or falling down deaddrunkas they come out, is what that joke is saying," Walsh concluded somewhat heatedly. "Gee, is that so?" Ollie said, and shook his head in wonder. "I never thought of it that way. Can you help me find this Herrera punk?" THE MANPatricia spoke to was a Serb named Branislav Something, she couldn't catch the last name. Something with no vowels in it. He had been working here at the Hall since last December, just about when she'd started on the beat. "I tink I see you valking around," he said, grinning. He had bad teeth and patchy hair. He was probably fifty years old, she guessed, and was surprised when he later told her he was only forty-one. He had nice blue eyes. He kept smiling all the while he talked to her. He had been in Kosovo when the Americans bombed, he said. "I don't blame Americans," he said, "I blame Albanian bastards." "Were you here Monday morning?" she asked him. "When the councilman got shot?" "Whoo," he said, and rolled his blue eyes. "Vot a trouble!" "Where were you?" she asked. "In toilets," he said. "Cleaning toilets." "Are the toilets anywhere near the stage?" "Some toilet near, some not," he said. "You tink I shot councilman?" "No, no. I just wanted to know if you'd seen anybody running from the stage." "Nobody. Saw nobody." "Somebody with a gun?" "Nobody. Saw nobody. Mop floors, wash windows, clean toilets, sinks, everything, make sparkle like new." "There are windows in these toilets?" Patricia asked. "Two toilets got windows," he said. "Let fresh air come in." "Can I see these toilets?" "Both for men's," he said. "That's okay," she said, "I'm a cop." When Patricia was eight years old and visiting her grandparents in San Juan, her father took them to a show in one of the big hotels one night, and she had to go to the bathroom after the show, but there was a big line of women out in the hall, the way there always is. He came out of the men's room and saw her standing there, dancing from foot to foot, and he said, "Come with me, it's empty in here," and he took her into the men's room and stood outside the door to make sure nobody came in while she was peeing. That was the first time she saw urinals. The next time she saw urinals was just last week at the Sony Theater on Farley and First, where somebody had mugged some kid in the men's room, smashing his face into a urinal that was running with blood and piss when she came in with her gun drawn and the perp long gone.Harry Potterwas playing on the screen outside. The first men's room Branislav showed her was just off the right side of the stage. The urinals here were sparkling clean, just as he'd promised. A pebbled glass window was on the wall opposite the urinals, at the far end of the room. The window was wide open. A hand dryer was on the adjoining wall. Patricia hated hand dryers. She did not know anyone who liked hand dryers. She figured hand dryers were designed not to dry a person's hands but to save money on paper towels. She went to the window, bent over, and looked out. She was looking out onto what appeared to be an airshaft that ran from right to left across the back of the building. So much for an accomplice theory, she thought. • • • PORTOLES AND DOYLEwere just coming out of the Okeh Diner that Monday when Carella and Kling caught up with them. They seemed surprised to learn that the detectives were here about the murder at King Memorial; until now, they'd thought the Fat Boy was investigating that case. "Was Weeks pulled off it?" Portoles asked. "Is that it?" "No, we're handling it together," Kling said. "You ain't shooflies, are you?" Doyle asked. "No, we're just honest, decent law enforcement officers investigating a mere homicide," Carella said. Doyle looked at him, not sure whether he was kidding or not. Portoles wasn't sure, either. Sometimes Internal Affairs sent around guys pretending to be what they weren't. "So what can we do for you?" he asked. "We understand you talked to some bum in the alley outside the building," Carella said. "Is that right?" "Yeah, a Vietnam vet, he said he was." "Did you get his name?" "No, he was an old drunk." "How old could he be, Vietnam?" Kling asked. "Well, helookedold, let's put it that way," Doyle said. "Did you get his name?" "No. He was drunk, he didn't see a weapon, what's the uproar here?" "You just didn't bother to take his name, is that it?" Kling said. "An eye witness." "An old drunk," Doyle insisted. "Besides," Portoles said, "the TV lady got it." "Got what?" Carella said. "What TV lady?" "His name," Portoles said. "He had to sign some kind of release," Doyle said. "What washername?" Kling asked. "The TV lady. Did you gethername?" "Ohsure," Doyle said, beaming. "Honey Blair, Channel Four News.Everybodyknows Honey Blair." • • • CARELLA CALLED HERas soon as they got back to the squadroom. He got her answering machine. "Miss Blair," he said, "this is Detective Steve Carella, you probably won't remember me, we met around Christmastime at the Grover Park Zoo, the case with the lady and the lions, do you remember? I need to know the name of the Vietnam vet you talked to outside King Memorial on the day Lester Henderson got shot and killed. One of the responding officers told us the man signed a release for you. If we could have his name, we'd appreciate it. You can call me back at Frederick seven, eight, oh, two, four, thanks a lot." She called back ten minutes later. "Well, well," she said, "Detective Carella." "Hi, Miss Blair, I'm glad you..." "Honey," she said. "Thank you for returning my call, uh, Honey," he said. "I won't take much of your time. All I need..." "You can take all the time you need with me," Honey said. "All I want is the name of the man you..." "It's Clarence Weaver, 702 Huxley Boulevard, I don't have a phone number for him, what else is on your mind?" "Nothing right now," he said. "When you think of something, give me another call," Honey said. There was a click on the line. He looked at the receiver. THE HAND-LETTEREDwooden sign over the entrance door readDSS HUXLEY. The DSS stood for Department of Social Services. Huxley Boulevard had once been a tree-lined esplanade with elegant apartment buildings on either side of it. The trees were still there, but the apartment buildings were now run by the city and were used for welfare housing. 702 Huxley had once been a movie theater. The seats had been torn out seven years ago, when the building was turned into a shelter for the homeless. That was where they found Clarence Weaver on that Monday afternoon a week after Henderson's murder. There were eight hundred and forty-seven cots in the shelter. Weaver was lying on cot number 312, his hands behind his head, his eyes closed. He was wearing khaki fatigues and a khaki-colored tank-top undershirt. He had taken off his shoes and socks. His feet were dirty, grime caked between the toes, the ankles smudged with filth from the streets. Gently, Carella said, "Mr. Weaver?" He sat upright, eyes snapping open. He truly looked too old and too frail ever to have served in Vietnam, a scrawny, unshaven, toothless black man with thin arms and a sunken chest, the stench of whiskey on his breath at two o'clock in the afternoon. "Whut's it?" he said at once, and looked around wildly, as if he had just heard incoming mail. "It's okay," Carella said, and showed Weaver his shield. "We just want to ask you some questions." Weaver studied the shield carefully. "I'm Detective Carella, this is my partner, Detective Kling." He looked up at the detectives, swung his legs over the side of the cot. "That TV station never sent me a nickel," he said, and shook his head. "I axed was they a reward, the blond lady tole me to just please sign the release. I told them ever'thin I knowed, but nobody sent me nothin." "What is it you told them, Mr. Weaver? What did you see that morning?" As Weaver recalls it, he was planning to enter the alley on the side of King Memorial... "They's two alleys," he said, "one to the right, one to the left. One of them usually has nothin but papers an' trash in the garbage cans, from the offices that side of the buildin. The other one sometimes has soda bottles in it, sometimes even food, from people usin the aud'torium for one reason or another. I was juss about to go in there to start mah search, when I seed this young feller come racin out the buildin..." "When you say young..." "Yessir." "How young?" "Hard to say. You know how these young fellers look nowadays. Tall, kind of thin..." "How tall?" "Five-seven? Five-eight?" Carella was thinking that wasn't tall. Kling was thinking the same thing. "White or black?" he asked. "White man. He was a white man." "Clean-shaven? Or did he have a beard? A mustache?" "No, nothin like that. Clean-shaven, I'd say." "Any scars? Did you notice any scars?" "No, he was comin too fast. An the cap made it hard to see his face." "We understand he didn't have a gun." "That's right, he did not have a piece, suhs. I was in the Army, you know, I'm a Vietnam vet, I knows all about weapons. He did not have a weapon, this man. I was in Nam durin the Tet offensive, you know." "Yes, sir," Kling said. "Sir, can you tell us what this man was wearing?" "I tole the other officers, he had on blue jeans and a ski parka..." "What color parka?" "Blue. Darker than the jeans. An white sneakers, and this cap pulled down over his eyes." "What kind of cap?" "A baseball cap." "What color was it?" "Black." "Anything on it?" "How do you mean?" "Any letters for a team?" "I still don't get you." "NY for New York, or LA for Los Angeles..." "SD for San Diego? The Padres?" "M for the Milwaukee Brewers?" Weaver was thinking. "The Phillies?" Kling said. "The Royals?" "Anything like that?" "Yes, they was letters on it," Weaver said at last. "Which team?" "I got no idea." "Well, what'd you see, sir?" "SRA." "SRA?" Kling said. "The letters SRA, yessir." "SRA," Carella repeated. "You sure it wasn't SF?" Kling asked. "For San Francisco? The San Francisco Giants?" "Or SL?" Carella asked. "For the St. Louis Cardinals?" "No, it was SRA. I feel sure about that. I was a spotter, you know. In Nam." "What color were the letters?" Carella asked. "White." "White letters on a black cap," Kling said. "What team do you suppose that can be?" "Oh Jesus," Carella said. "What?" "Smoke Rise. Smoke Rise Academy." 16 THE PLAYING FIELDSbehind Smoke Rise Academy were empty as Carella and Kling drove past them at three-thirty that Monday afternoon. Girls and boys in their school uniforms-gray trousers and black blazers for the boys, gray skirts and similar black blazers for the girls-walked along country roads anomalous in a city as big as this one, wending their easy way homeward, chatting, teasing, skipping, laughing on an afternoon still bright with spring sunlight. The same housekeeper who'd answered the door for Carella on his earlier visit opened the door for them now. She said she would inform Mrs. Henderson they were here, and then politely left the door open a crack while she went to summon her. Pamela herself opened the door for them not three minutes later. She was still wearing black, a sweater and skirt this time, black pantyhose, black loafers. "Has there been some news?" she asked at once. "May we come in?" Carella asked. "Please," she said, and led them into the house and into the living room Carella remembered from the first time he was here. "Would you care for some coffee?" she asked. "No, thank you," Carella said. Kling shook his head. The detectives sat on the sofa, their backs to the French windows and the Hamilton Bridge in the near distance. Pamela sat in a chair facing them. "We're sorry to bother you again," Carella said, "but we'd like to ask a few more questions." "I was hoping..." "Mrs. Henderson," Carella said, "can you tell us where you were on the morning your husband was shot and killed?" "I'm sorry?" she said. "I asked..." "Yes, I heard you. Will I need a lawyer here?" "I don't think so, Mrs. Henderson." "Why do you want to know where...?" "You don't have to answer the question if you don't want to," Kling said. "Oh, I'll just bet," she said, and then immediately, with a slight wave of her hand to indicate this was all nonsense, "I was here at home." "This would've been around ten, ten-thirty..." "Yes, I was here at home. Is that it? In which case..." "Was anyone here with you?" "No. I was alone." "No housekeeper, no..." "Our housekeeper comes in later on Mondays." "Oh? Why is that?" "She does the weekly marketing on Mondays. She doesn't get here till noon or thereabouts." "So she wasn't here at all that Monday morning, is that correct?" "That's correct." "You were here alone." "Yes." "Children gone?" "The children walk to school. They leave here at eight-thirty." She looked at her watch. "They should be home any minute, in fact. I would rather you were gone by then. If there are no further questions..." "Do you drive a car, Mrs. Henderson?" "No. Well, do you mean do I have alicenseto drive? Yes, I do. But no, we do not keep a car in the city. My husband was a city councilman. We were provided with a car and driver whenever we needed one." "I believe you mentioned your son was on the school baseball team." "Yes, he plays second base." "Does he have a baseball uniform?" "Yes?" "With a baseball cap?" "Yes?" "A black cap with the initials SRA on it? For Smoke Rise Academy?" "I'm sure he does." She rose suddenly. "I hear them now," she said. "If you don't mind, I must ask you to leave." They passed the children on the way to their car. A boy of eleven, a girl of eight or nine. "Hello there," Carella said. Neither of them answered. THE UNIFORMED GUARDin the booth at the Smoke Rise gate wasn't sure he should talk to them. "It's okay," Kling assured him. "We're just checking some stuff Mrs. Henderson already told us." "Well," the guard said, but then immediately relaxed into his five minutes of fame. "Can you tell us what time the Henderson housekeeper got here last Monday?" "Jessie? Around noon, I guess it was. She usually comes in late on Mondays. Does the shopping for them, you know. Or used to. I don't know what it'll be like now." "How about Mrs. Henderson? Did she leave the development anytime before then?" "We don't call it a development," the guard said. "What do you call it?" "People who live here call it a compound." "Did she leave the compound anytime that morning?" Carella asked. "Saw her going out around nine," the guard said. "In a limousine or what?" "No, in a taxi. Let him in a few minutes before that." "Around nine, you say." "Well, the cab got here at five to nine, it must've been. Drove out some ten minutes later? Quarter past, let's say. Around that time." "Yellow cab, was it?" "Yellow cab, yes." "What was she wearing, did you notice?" "Mrs. Henderson? I just told you. She was in a taxi!" "Yes, but did you happen to...?" "How could I tell what she waswearing?" "Thought you might have noticed." "No, I didn't." "You didn't glance in the cab or anything?" "No, I didn't. I knew it was the same cab came in ten minutes before, I just opened the gate and waved him on through." "When did she get back, would you know?" "Let me think a minute." "Take your time." The guard thought it over. "I was having a cup of coffee." "Uh-huh." "Must've been around eleven, eleven-fifteen." "Yellow cab again?" "Yeah, but a different one. The first guy was black. This guy was wearing a turban." "Sikh, huh?" "No, he looked pretty healthy to me. Big guy with a turban. Probably a terrorist, don't you think?" the guard said, and grinned. "Probably," Kling said. "Did you notice what she was wearing this time?" "Well, yeah. Cause I looked in the cab to make sure it was somebody who lived here. When I saw it was Mrs. Henderson, I waved her on in." "So what was she wearing?" "She was dressed casual. Jeans, some kind of jacket, a baseball cap." "Any letters on the cap?" "It looked like the school cap to me. The school here? The ones the kids wear? It looked like that. Hell of a thing, ain't it?" the guard said. "I'll bet she went out to meet her husband. He'd been away, you know. She prob'ly went out to meet him, don't you think?" "I think so, yes," Carella said. "I THOUGHT YOU MIGHTfind this interesting," Patricia was telling Ollie. He was eating, of course. She somewhat enjoyed watching him eat. Such gusto, she thought, and wondered if the word "gusto" had Spanish roots. "I got it from the manager at King Memorial. It's the architect's schematic sketch of the building. Shows what's what and where's where." She spread it out on her side of the table. Without missing a beat, hands and mouth working, Ollie leaned over the table to study the drawing: ?FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=image" "Auditorium is here on the right of the building," she said, "offices on the left. You'll see that these two men's rooms, one left, one right, have windows opening on an airshaft. Little narrow passageway runs along the back of the building. The windows were wide open when I checked them out. I figured..." "You checked them out?" "Yeah. Earlier today." "That was very enterprising of you, Patricia." "Thank you," she said. "I figured it was funny, the windows wide open in rest rooms? What I did, you see, was walk the passageway from one side of the building to the other. I climbed out one window and in the other." He visualized her climbing out the rest room window on the left here, and walking across the back of the building and then climbing through the other rest room window on the right. And then... "I get it," he said. "You think that's what our killer did. He got into this rest room..." "The men's room here on the left of the drawing, yes." "...went out the window, and ran across the back of the building to the other rest room..." "The other men's room, yes." "And then out the exit doors here, and into the alleyway." "Where he ditched the gun down the sewer," Patricia said, and shrugged. "That's what I figure happened, anyway." "I think you're right," Ollie said. "Listen, is that all you're going to eat?" "I'm not very hungry, really." "You're not?" Ollie said, surprised. "I'm hungry all the time." "Maybe..." she started, and then shook her head. "No, what?" Ollie asked. "Maybe it gives you something to do," she suggested, and shrugged. "I got plenty to do," Ollie said. "I mean, something to...well...take your mind off whatever...problems you might have." "I don't have any problems." "Because eating is pleasurable, you know." "Oh, that I know," he said. "Instead of fighting City Hall," she said. "Che si puoi fare?"he said. "I found out how to say that in Serbian, by the way." "You're kidding me." "No, the janitor at King Memorial taught me." "So how do you say it?" "Shta-MO-goo,"she said. "Shta-MO-goo,"he repeated. "I also know how to say 'Nothing.' Ask me 'What can you do?' in Serbian." "Shta-MO-goo?"he said. "Neeshta,"she answered. "What makes you think I got problems?" "I don't." "You said I eat cause I got problems." "No, you eat cause it's pleasurable is what I said." "You said that, too, but you also said I got problems." "Well, I was wrong." He looked at her. His cell phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt, hit the SEND button. "Weeks," he said. "Hey, Steve." He listened. "When? Okay. See you." He pressed the END button, and hung the phone on his belt again. "I gotta go up the Eight-Seven," he said. "Carella and Kling think they're onto something. Do you like to dance?" "Yes, I love to dance," Patricia said, surprised. "You want to go dancing with me sometime?" "Sure." "I'm a good dancer. I won a salsa contest one time." "I'll bet you are." "I really am." "I said so, didn't I?" "So when would you like to go?" "I don't know. You're the man. You say when." "How about this weekend?" "Okay." "Saturday night?" "Okay." "Put on a nice dress." "I will." "I'll wear my blue suit." "Sounds good to me," she said. "Shta-MO-goo?"he said. "Neeshta,"she answered. "OKAY, SO TELL USwhat you've got," Byrnes said. This was almost five o'clock already, and all of the detectives gathered in his office should have gone home an hour ago. But Carella and Kling thought they had real meat here. "First," Carella said, "she knew her husband was having an affair." "Everybody'shusband is having an affair," Parker said. "That don't mean you run out and shoot them." "Besides, why would she turn the bimbo's letters over to you?" Hawes asked. "Throw us off the scent," Kling said. "Throw us off the scent?" Parker said. "What is this, Sherlock Holmes? Throw us off thescent?" "Let us think she was trying to help the investigation," Kling explained. "It's done all the time." "Okay, so we've got motive," Willis said. The men were sitting or standing or leaning everywhere in the lieutenant's corner office. Most of them were bone-weary after a long day. Ollie looked fresh and energetic. He was the only one eating the donuts and drinking the coffee the Loot had set out. "We've also got opportunity," Carella said. "We have her leaving the compound at nine-fifteen..." "Plenty of time to get there and do the job," Brown said. "Get back, too," Kling said. "We've got her coming home at eleven, eleven-fifteen." "How about means?" Meyer asked. "Only smeared prints on the gun. We can't tie her to that." "So where's your probable cause?" Parker asked. "Lady goes out to do some shopping..." "No, her housekeeper was out doing that." "No alibi, huh?" Byrnes said. "None." "You've still got no reason to arrest her," Parker said. "We've got a description from an eye witness. Same clothes the Smoke Rise guard saw her wearing." "We can get a search warrant for the hat," Kling said. "What hat?" Byrnes asked. "The baseball cap she was wearing." "She's a baseball player?" Willis asked. "Her son is." "Maybehe'sthe killer," Meyer said. "He's only eleven." "I've seen eleven-year-old killers," Brown said philosophically. "Not this kid. He comes up to my belly-button," Carella said. "Our witness saw somebody five-seven, five-eight. Which is about her height." "You still got nothing that warrants an arrest," Parker said. "I agree," Byrnes said. "Absent fingerprints on the gun..." "How about we dust them window sills?" Ollie said, and bit into a chocolate-covered donut. "What window sills?" "In the toilets," Ollie said. "Where maybe the shooter went in and out after plugging Henderson." Byrnes didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Neither did any of the others. "My girlfriend went to the toilet," Ollie explained. NELLIE BRANDgot to the precinct at sevenP.M. that Monday night. She was wearing a tan linen suit that complemented her short blondish hair, a darker brown silk blouse, sheer pantyhose, and dark brown, French-heeled pumps. It was raining again, and she was carrying an umbrella which she deposited in a stand just inside the slatted wooden railing that divided the squadroom from the corridor outside. The day shift had been relieved three hours ago. A Chinese translator was sitting at Bob O'Brien's desk, talking to a man who'd been arrested two hours earlier. O'Brien sat looking bored as the two exchanged sing-song dialogue. The guy had killed both his wives; that was good enough for O'Brien, never mind the Mandarin or the Cantonese. "Hello, Bob," Nellie said, "where are they?" "The Loot's office," O'Brien said, and the translator turned to him and said, "What?" and he said, "I'm talking to the DA," and the translator said, "Oh, solly," was what O'Brien actually heard her say, "solly." Nellie walked across the familiar squadroom to Lieutenant Byrnes's office, knocked on the frosted glass panel in the upper half of the door, heard Byrnes's voice yelling, "Come!" and opened the door and went in. She recognized Carella, of course... "Hey, Steve." "Nellie." ...and Ollie Weeks from the Eight-Eight. "Hello, Ollie." "Hi, Nellie." She had been briefed on the phone, and knew that the two precincts were sharing the bust; Lieutenant Hirsch had already given permission for the Q and A to take place here at the Eight-Seven, since this was where Mrs. Henderson had been apprehended. A police stenographer was seated at a small table across the room, near the windows that fronted the street, closed now against the rain and the noise of the traffic below. Pamela Henderson was sitting in a straight-backed chair alongside her attorney, a man named Alex Wilkerson, with whom Nelliehad crossed swords on many a previous occasion. Pamela was wearing a dark blue suit, a white blouse, blue pantyhose, and blue high-heeled pumps. Despite the expensive designer suit, she appeared somehow shabby, perhaps because the rain had dampened her hair and her clothes on her walk from the car to the front steps of the building. Nellie's first impression was one of shoulder length hair that could only be described as mousy, matching eyes that were a trifle too large for the woman's narrow face, a thin-lipped mouth devoid of lipstick. "Hello, Alex," she said. "Nice to see you, Nellie." A man in his late forties, Wilkerson affected the long, lanky, languorous style of a young Abraham Lincoln, favoring dark suits and bow ties, a shock of black hair hanging boyishly over his forehead. He was smoking a pipe now, even though a sign on Byrnes's desk readCANCER-FREE ZONE. Byrnes was frowning. He was thinking, Smoke your brains out, Counselor, we're gonna fry your client. Nellie introduced herself, explained that she was here from the District Attorney's Office at the request of the arresting officers, and then asked if Mrs. Henderson knew she'd been charged with second-degree murder... "My client has been so informed," Wilkerson said. "Has she been informed of her rights?" "She has." "Does she understand she can stop the questioning at any time...?" "I've advised her not to answer any questions at all," Wilkerson said. "Then we've got nothing further to say here," Nellie said. "Let's get her printed, boys, and take her downtown for arraignment." "I'd like to add," Wilkerson said, "that you have no probable cause for arrest. Anything that's brought out from this moment on-including any fingerprints you take-will be fruit of the Poisoned Tree." "We'll take that risk, Counselor." "Be so advised." "Thank you." "I'd like to say something," Pamela said. "Mrs. Henderson, I strongly suggest..." "I'd like to know why I've been arrested." "Well," Nellie said, "the detectives here seem to think you shot and killed your husband, ma'am. If you'd like to convince us otherwise..." "She's not going to answer any questions, Counselor, so please don't get fancy with us." "Well, fine, then let's get on with it. Boys? You want to...?" "I have nothing to hide here," Pamela said. Nellie was happy to hear this. The ones who had nothing to hide already had one foot on the path to life imprisonment. "They've placed you under arrest," Wilkerson said. "Answering their questions will onlyhelp..." "My answers will be on the record, won't they?" Pamela asked. "Yes, but you have the right to remain silent," Wilkerson said. "And if youchooseto remain silent..." "I don'twantto remain silent!" Pamela said. "I'm trying to say that your choice won't be held against you in court. They cannot compel..." "I'll say it in court, too." "You may not wish to testify in..." "I didn't kill him!" The room went silent. "So what'll it be?" Nellie asked. "Questions, no questions? It's your call, Counselor." "I fear it's my client's call," Wilkerson said. "Mrs. Henderson?" "Ask your questions. I didn't kill him." "Counselor. That okay with you?" Wilkerson spread his hands and sighed. "Thank you," Nellie said. She took Pamela's oath, elicited her name, address, and occupation, reaffirmed once again that she had been informed of and understood her rights, and then began questioning her. "Mrs. Henderson, can you tell me where you were at ten-thirty on the morning of April twenty-second?" "I was home." "Where was that?" "26 Prospect Lane. In Smoke Rise. I gave you the address two minutes ago." The stenographer's fingers were flying over her machine. Q: Can you tell me what you were wearing? A: A simple skirt and sweater. Q: Do you remember what color they were? The skirt? The sweater? A: It was a matching set. An olive green sweater and skirt. I have them at home. I can show them to you, if you like. "Excuse me, Counselor, but where's this going?" Wilkerson asked, and looked to Byrnes for sympathy and encouragement. Byrnes sat dead-panned behind his desk. "Why is my client's wardrobe on the morning of her husband's death of such importance to you?" "Maybe because we have a witness who saw her wearing something entirely different that morning," Nellie said. "Oh, and who might...?" "Alex, do you want me to swearyouin? Or may I continue questioning your client instead?" "Mrs. Henderson?" he asked, turning to her. "I have nothing to hide," she said again. Q: Mrs. Henderson, do you own a pair of blue jeans? A: I do. Q: Do you own a blue ski parka? A: I do. Q: Do you own white sneakers? A: No. Q: White running shoes then? A: Yes. Q: How about a black baseball cap? A: No. I don't own a black baseball cap. Q: A cap with the letters SRA on it? A: No. Q: Weren't you wearing such a cap on the morning of April twenty-second? A: No. I was wearing a green sweater and skirt set. Q: No hat. A: No hat. Q: Any idea what those letters might stand for? A: The detectives have already told me what they think those letters stand for. Q: And what's that. A: Smoke Rise Academy. Q: Where your son goes to school, does he not? A: That's where he goes to school. Q: Does your son own such a cap? A: You will have to ask my son. "Excuse me, Counselor, but what does her son'sschoolhave to do with any of this? I must again ask where you're going. Mrs. Henderson has already told you..." Nellie sighed heavily. "No theatrics, please," Wilkerson said. "We're not in court yet." "Counselor, your client said she wants to answer my questions. If she's changed her mind, fine. But if she still..." "I just don't know where you're going," Wilkerson said plaintively, and again turned to Byrnes for sympathy. Byrnes sat stone-faced. "I don't know where you're going, either," Pamela said. "I'm going to King Memorial on the morning your husband was killed," Nellie said. "I'm going to an alleyway on the western end of the building, where the murder weapon was recovered from a sewer there. I'm going to a man named Clarence Weaver who almost got knocked over by someone running out of that alley. The person he saw was wearing what I questioned you about a moment ago. Blue jeans, a ski parka, white sneakers...or maybe running shoes, hm?...and a black baseball cap with the initials SRA on it. I'm suggesting that the initials on that cap stand for Smoke Rise Academy, where your son goes to school, and I'm further suggesting that you were wearing your son's hat on the morning of the murder when you ran out of that alley on St. Sebastian's..." "Well now," Wilkerson said, "that is one hell of a mouthful, Nell." "Don't call me Nell," Nellie said. "I wasn't raised in the woods with wolves." "Well, gee, excuse me, Mrs. District Attorney. But now that you've told us where you plan to go, and now that you've made all your wonderful suggestions, do you think you might like to frame all that rhetoric in the form of a question? Because, I must tell you, my patience is wearing a bit thin and I'm on the edge of making a suggestion of my own, which is the one I made to my client in the first place, and that is to keep silent from this moment on." "Mrs. Henderson," Nellie said, "were you the person our witness saw running out of the alley at King Memorial, yes or no?" "No." "Mrs. Henderson, did you almost knock a black man off his feet in your haste to get out of the hall that morning, yes or no?" "No." "Mrs. Henderson, did you shoot your husband from the wings stage right..." "No." "...and then make your escape by..." "No." "Let me finish, please." "I don't want to answer any further questions," Pamela said. "Good," Wilkerson said, and nodded in dismissal. "You can stop answering questions, that's Miranda-Escobedo, and it still holds for some lucky citizens of these United States," Nellie said. "But you're still under arrest, and you can't stop me from asking you to put on a baseball cap like the one you were wearing when the witness saw you-who by the way is down the hall waiting to have a better look at you in a lineup-and you can't stop me from asking you to put your finger to your nose, or walk across a stage, or jump up and down for me three times, or sing 'Eeensy Weensy Spider' in the key of G! And please don't give me any bullshit about fingerprints and The Poisoned Tree, Alex. I've been informed by Detective Carella that we already have her prints on file, but I don't want to risk any technical nonsense later on about them not being hers, or whatever you might come up with, which from personal experience I know can be plenty. That's why I want her prints taken again, now, in my presence, which is exactly what we'regoingto do. And then we're going to compare them with the ones we lifted from two separate rest rooms at King Memorial. If we get a positive match, and I feel certain we will, your client can kiss..." "Canthey do all that?" Pamela asked suddenly. "I'm afraid they can," Wilkerson said. "Then it's all over," Pamela said. 17 THIS WAS THEmeat-packing section of the city. During the daytime, trucks pulled in and out, and sides of beef were unloaded, and hung on platform hooks and then carried inside where they were weighed and refrigerated. Food stands and flower carts and stalls selling photographs suitable for framing lined the streets during the daytime, and African merchants in tribal robes hawked imitation Rolexes and Louis Vuitton luggage. During the daytime, there were restaurants and book shops and antiques emporiums and furniture stores, and couples wandered down to the river to watch the big steamers and the tug boats, and the ferries chugging over to Bethtown during the daytime. At night, the streets were thronged with hookers. "Vice don't bother with this petty shit anymore," Walsh told Ollie. "Ever since the terrorist business started, we got more important things on our mind. Hookers have it easy now. Terrorism made it easy for hookers." "How about you get some hooker commits a crime?" Ollie said. "That's a different story. Every now and then, one of the girls'll stab a john gets out of line, that's an ADW no matter how you slice it, no pun intended." "I'm not talking about deadly assault, I'm talking about a minor crime like stealing somebody's dispatch case has something valuable in it. Does that attract your attention?" "You know," Walsh said, "you sometimes have a snotty way of saying things." "Gee, really. What did I just say that was snotty?" "You said, 'Does that attract your attention?' With a little edge to it, you know? As if we're not doing our jobs or something. As if Vice has nothing to do all day long but worry about some fuckin dispatch case." "Well, you just told me you look the other way, you got more important things on your mind, you don't bother with this petty shit anymore..." "That's just what I mean," Walsh said. "The way you just said that." "I was only repeating what you said." "It's thewayyou repeated it." "All I'm asking is whether a hooker who stole a dispatch case is worth your valuable time, is all I'm..." "There you go again," Walsh said. "My valuable time. That little edge of sarcasm there. That snotty tone. I was trying to indicate to you that we've been on high alert for Arabs and other such types ever since 9/11. This is Vice here, we know every whore house in this city. These fucks pray to God five times a day, but then they go out drinking and lap-dancing before they crash an airplane into a building." Ollie suddenly liked the man. "I tell you," Walsh said, "I wouldn't care to be some guy who looks even vaguely Middle Eastern when the only mischief on his mind is getting laid, though they ain't supposed to do that in their religion, anyway, go to a whore house. Unless they're Saudi Arabians in London," Walsh said, and Ollie liked him even more. "We got girls all over town waiting to call us the minute one of these creeps shows up. But that ain'tallwe do, Weeks." "Oh, I know that," Ollie said. "No, youdon'tknow it, all your remarks about our looking the other way, or being sarcastic about my valuable time..." "Don't be so fuckin sensitive," Ollie said. "Well, Iamsensitive," Walsh said. "Vice ain't concerned only with prostitution. We're after the policy racket, bookmaking, loan sharking, ticket scalping, we're after the big boys, the ones running the show. We want to get 'em on RICO, send 'em up forever. That's why you tell me some hooker stole a fuckindispatchcase, I'm supposed to get all excited about it? Give me a break, willya?" "I'm sorry, but that case had something in it very valuable to me." "You telling me it'syourcase?" "Yes, it was my case this Herrera hump stole from my parked car and hocked." "So what was so valuable in this case of yours?" "Well, nowyou'redoing it." "Doing what?" "Sounding sarcastic." "I didn't mean to sound sarcastic." "I mean, you tell meyou'resensitive, well,I'msensitive, too," Ollie said. "I'm sorry, okay? Tell me what was in the fuckin case, okay?" "A novel I wrote." "You wrote a novel?" "Yes." "So did I!" Walsh said. Everybody wants to get in the act, Ollie thought. "It's with my agent right this minute," Walsh said. He's got an agent, no less, Ollie thought. "What's it about?" he asked. "Police work, what do you think it's about?" Walsh said. That's what we need, all right, Ollie thought. Another novel about police work. There used to be no novels about police work at all. Then, all of a sudden-God knows who or what the influence might have been-every shitty little town in America had a fictitious character working out of a detective squadroom. To look at all these police novels out there, you'd think every hamlet in America was overrun with crime. Dumb little village has a population of six hundred people, according to these novels there are murders being committed there every hour on the hour. Let's say you live in Dung Heap, Oklahoma, and your day job is you're a garage mechanic. You go to the local police chief and you tell him you're a writer and you want to set a series in his police station. The Chief says, "Come in, sit down, I'll bare my soul to you." Never mind being arealcop. Nobody's real anymore, Ollie thought, that's the trouble. Well,Walshis real, but fuck him, the Irish hump!Hewrote a police novel. That makes him competition. "So let's find Herrera, okay?" Ollie said. "One of these days, we have to have a beer together," Walsh said. "Talk shop." Yeah, one of these days nextyear,Ollie thought. "Hey, fellas, wanna take a picture of my pussy?" a voice behind them said. They both turned to see two girls standing there and grinning. The one with the camera seemed a trifle high. Not stoned high, just silly high. Marijuana, Ollie guessed. "It's Polaroid," she said, still grinning, extending the camera to them. "You like what you see, we can talk about further exploration." Further exploration, Ollie thought. Everybody sounds literary these days. "Thanks, no," he said. But to tell the truth, he was tempted. The girl was wearing a short black skirt, a red silk blouse, and red patent shoes to match, no stockings. She looked like Dorothy inThe Wizard of Oz.Well, the red shoes did. She had very lovely breasts, most of them showing in the low cut peasant blouse. In fact, Ollie thought he detected the rosiest of nipples peeking out of the right side of the blouse. The girl had a beauty mark near the corner of her mouth, and black hair done in twisty little ringlets, and dark brown eyes. Ollie suddenly thought of Patricia Gomez. "You want to look for Herrera or what?" Walsh asked. "Be more fun taking my picture," the girl said, and waggled her eyebrows. "Some other time," Ollie said, and winked at her as he turned to follow Walsh. THE NAMEThe Cozywas lettered onto the plate glass windows out front. "They may know something about him here," Walsh said, and reached for the doorknob. A little bell tinkled over the door as the detectives entered, making the place sound as cozy as it looked. The feeling was one of gingham and pine. Ten or twelve tables with blue, checked table cloths. Stools at the bar cushioned in the same blue check. A pine-framed mirror behind the bar. A blonde wearing a white T-shirt, red Larry King suspenders that exaggerated the thrust of her breasts, high-heeled pumps, and a short blue skirt was behind the bar. A second blonde, identically dressed, was working the tables. There were maybe six or seven people sitting here and there around the room. The detectives took stools at the bar. The blonde behind the bar came over. Ollie wondered if the other blonde was her twin sister. "Are you drinking or working?" she asked Walsh. "We're both off duty," he said. "What'll you have, Ollie?" It'd been "Weeks" before he discovered they were both literary people. Now it was "Ollie." Next thing you knew, he'd be asking how to utilize metaphor most effectively. "A beer'd be fine," Ollie said. "You got Pabst?" "Coming up," the blonde said. "How about you, Detective Walsh?" "Just a shot of bourbon, Flo, little water on the side." The other blonde came to the bar, looked at her pad, read off, "BLT down, hold the mayo, iced tea no sugar," and then turned to Walsh and said, "Hey, long time no see. How's your book coming along?" "Finished it," Walsh said. "With my agent right this minute." "Oh, gee, good luck with it." "Thanks, Wanda. This is Detective Weeks here." "Hey," Wanda said, and gave him the once-over. Of the two blondes, Ollie guessed Wanda was the prettiest. Although to tell the truth, they were both quite attractive. Ollie had always liked the look of blondes, especially real blondes, which these two definitely did not seem to be, but then again you could never tell until the panties came off, could you? He thought it odd that he was now attracted to a woman like Patricia Gomez, all dark and exotic looking, not that he was attracted to her, per se, but certainly interested in her, to say the least. He wondered how she was, in fact. Wondered what she was doing right this very minute, eleven o'clock at night. He thought maybe he'd give her a call when he got home later on, ask her if she'd like to go for some pancakes or something. He sure liked the way she filled that uniform of hers. As he was leaving the Eight-Seven tonight, he happened to mention to his good buddy Parker that he'd made a date to go dancing this Saturday night with a Puerto Rican girl. "Is she a hooker?" Parker asked. "Hell, no," Ollie said. "She's a cop." "I don't think you should date a fellow police officer," Parker said, offended. "I like the way she fills her uniform," Ollie said, and winked. "Never mind how she fills her uniform. Don't go dating a cop. Especially a Puerto Rican one." "Why's that?" Ollie asked. "Cause she'll cut off your dick for a nickel and sell it to the nearest cuchi frito joint," Parker said. Ollie wondered about that now. Wanda here, and her twin sister behind the bar, if that's what she was, certainly knew how to fill their own uniforms, these T-shirts with the red suspenders framing tits like melons, how do you likethatfor a fresh simile, Detective Walsh? Wanda took the stool on his left. "So, Detective, what brings you to this part of the city?" she asked. One elbow on the bar. Leaning over it. Left breast pressing against the rounded edge. Short blue skirt sliding back very high over very white, very smooth-looking legs and thighs. Looking up at him. Blue eyes. Her sister had blue eyes, too. If Flo was indeed her sister. "Oh, a little business down this way," Ollie said. "Are you Vice, too?" she asked. "No, no. I'm with the Eight-Eight Squad. We just wrapped a murder," he said. "Oh my, a murder," Wanda said, and rolled her delicious blue eyes. "Who got killed? Or am I being presumptuous?" Everybody so literary these days. "No, not at all," he said. "You probably read about it in the papers. It's Councilman Lester Henderson." "Oh, wow, a big one," Wanda said. "But he's down here looking for a dispatch case," Walsh said, leaning over to talk past Ollie. "Actually, I recovered the dispatch case," Ollie said. "Oh. Then it's the book wasinsidethe case," Walsh said to Wanda. "Ollie wrote a book, too." "Did you, Ollie?" Wanda said. "May I call you Ollie?" "Yes. But I used a pen name on it," he said. "What name did you use?" "John Grisham," Walsh said, getting even for the Irish joke. "Actually, I used a girl's name," Ollie said. "Oh, really?" Wanda said, and leaned closer to him, her eyes widening. "Ready when you are, hon," Flo said. "I'll be back," Wanda said, and swung out sideways to get off the stool, the skirt sliding back even higher on her thighs, almost to Katmandu, in fact. She went to the other end of the bar, picked up her order, looked back over her shoulder at Ollie-who felt himself growing faintly tumescent in his pants-winked at him, and then swiveled over to a man sitting alone alongside the wall under a framed poster of Boy George. "I wish I could write a book," Flo said wistfully. "Maybe I could give you lessons sometime," Ollie said. "Maybe you could give usbothlessons," she said. "Maybe so. Let's ask Wanda when she comes back." Ollie was thinking he'd stepped in shit here. A three-way without any effort at all. How lucky could a person get? Walsh looked at him. There was a faint, smug, Irish look on his kisser. Probably congratulating himself on his wise-ass John Grisham remark, whoever the hell that was. "Meanwhile," Walsh said, "we wanted to ask you girls about somebody who maybe you've seen in here." "What makes you think that?" Flo asked. "Kind of place The Cozy is," Walsh said. "Hi, honey, you miss me?" Wanda said, and took the stool on Ollie's left again. Ollie put his left hand on her knee. "How come you decided to put a girl's name on the book?" she asked. "I thought it would sell more copies," Ollie said, and slid his hand onto her thigh. "That the only reason?" Wanda asked, and snuggled a little closer to him. "Guy's a Puerto Rican switch-hitter," Walsh told Flo. "Goes by Emmy on the street. His square handle is Emilio Herrera. Ever see him in here?" "Oh, sure," Flo said. "Emmy's a darling." "You know Emmy, too?" Ollie asked Wanda, just as he reached clear up under her skirt and got the shock of his life. • • • "YOU SHOULD HAVEtold me she was a he," he shouted at Walsh. The two men were striding up the street toward where Ollie had parked the car. One look at them, you'd know they were cops, that stride they had. Same way you took one look at a hooker, you knew she was a hooker, the strut on her. "You were getting along so fine there," Walsh said, grinning. "I didn't want to..." "And who the fuck is John Grisham?" "...interrupt a beautiful..." "Is the other one a man, too? Flo? Is she a man?" "She is a man, yes, Ollie." He grinned again, the fuckin Irish bastard. "I guess that rules out both of them, huh?" he said. Ollie walked on ahead of him. He was at the car, unlocking the door, checking the windows to make sure some other faggot junkie hooker hadn't smashed one of them, when Walsh caught up. "You won't be needing me anymore, will you?" he asked. "You got what you wanted, right?" "I got alocationis all I got." "They told you he lives in Kingston Station," Walsh said. "What more do you need?" "Kingston Station is six blocks wide and a mile long," Ollie said. "That's a lot of territory to get lost in." "It's also Jamaican," Walsh said. "So?" "Your man's Puerto Rican. He should stick out like a sore thumb." "I've been looking for the little fuck the past week," Ollie said. "So far he ain't sticking out so good." "What's your book called?" Walsh asked. "Fuck you," Ollie said. "Nice title," Walsh said, and threw a finger at him and walked away from the car. • • • THE TRUE AND PROPER NAMEof the neighborhood now called Kingston Station was Westfield Station. Perhaps that was because when railroad tracks still ran along that side of the city, the station stop there was called Westfield. It was not until an overwhelmingly large number of Irish immigrants settled in Westfield Station that the neighborhood was familiarly dubbed Dublin Town. Russian Jews started pouring in at the turn of the century, and the place was popularly renamed Little Kiev. Upward mobility sent the Jews to the suburbs, ceding the area to Italians moving out of ghettos downtown. The area was still called Little Kiev, but the streets now resonated to cries of"Buon giorno"and"Ba fahn gool!"But not for long. Prosperity led to migration. The Italians, too, followed the trail to the suburbs. Nature abhors a vacuum. The Puerto Ricans came next, and finally the Jamaicans. So many Jamaicans, in fact, that first the rest of the whitebread city, and then the residents themselves, began calling the area Kingston Station. An enterprising mayor, gunning for the Jamaican vote, even suggested that the name be legally changed to what everyone was calling it, anyway. Nobody but the Jamaicans liked that idea. In everyday conversation, then, Westfield Station was Kingston Station. But the name on the maps remained what it had been back in 1878, when the railroad opened its route along the river. Everybody in Kingston Station- Well, everybody along James Street, anyway. -had heard of the transvestite hooker who called himself Emmy, but nobody knew where the hell he was. Ollie had been a detective for a very long time. He knew the word had gone out. Somehow, Emilio Herrera had learned that the law was looking for him. So where the hell was he? • • • SHANAHAN'S BARat midnight was full of policemen who'd just come off duty. This made Emilio and Aine somewhat uncomfortable. But they were here to learn if this was, in fact, the bar Olivia Wesley Watts had mentioned in her report to the Commissioner, and it certainly looked as if it might be. Emilio was convinced that the woman they'd seen coming out of the basement on Culver Av was indeed Livvie, who had somehow escaped her captors. Aine thought this was a very far-fetched notion. "She fits the description exactly," Emilio said, and quoted from the report, which by now he knew by heart because he'd read and reread it so many times, searching for clues. "'I am a female police detective, twenty-nine years old, five feet, eight inches tall, and weighing one hundred and twenty-three pounds, which is slender.'" "I weigh a hundred and six," Aine said. "That'sslender." "That'sskinny," Emilio said, and went on quoting from the report. "'My hair is a sort of reddish brown, what my mother used to call auburn...'" "My hair is red, too." "Your hair is not reddish brown." "But it's red." "It's carrot colored." "That's still red," Aine insisted. "'I wear it cut to just above the shoulders,'" Emilio quoted. "'What my mother used to call a shag cut.'" "I wear my hair short, too," Aine said. "And shaggy," he agreed. "'My eyes are green...'" "So are mine." "'I look very Irish...'" "So do I." "Aine, what is yourpoint?" Emilio asked, truly irritated now. "My point is, do you thinkI'mOlivia Watts-her-name?" "Of course not." "So why do you think some Irish babe you ran into on the street is her?" "Because she was coming out of the verybuilding!" Emilio said. "Otherwise it would be too much of a coincidence!" "The world is full of coincidence," Aine said wisely. "I don't believe in coincidence," Emilio said. "You believe in coincidence, then you don't believe in God. It's God makes things happen, not coincidence." "Oh okay. Then it was God made me a junkie and a whore, right?" Emilio looked at her. "Whatareyou?" he asked. "Some kind of atheist?" "That's what I am, yes," Aine said. "Since when?" "Since I was twelve years old and a priest felt me up in the rectory." "That never happened." "Oh no?" "And anyway, you can't blame God for some horny priest." "WhatdoI blame him for? All these fucking lunatics fighting wars in his name? Killing each other in his name? I don't know any atheists who kill people in God's name. Not a single one. I don't believe in a God who allows such things to happen. I believe in coincidence, is what makes things happen." Which was when Francisco Palacios walked in and took a stool beside them at the bar. BECAUSE THE GAUCHOrecognized Emilio as a fellow Puerto Rican, and because he had an eye for the women, especially if they seemed not to be wearing either panties or a bra, he struck up a conversation with the young couple, directing his conversation at first directly to Emilio, entirely in Spanish, because he didn't want the young Irish girl, was what she looked like, to think he was coming on to her, even though he was. This annoyed Aine, so she said, "Are you guys gonna talk Spanish all night? Because if you are, I've got better things to do." The Gaucho leaned over the bar and began chatting with Aine about the latest movies she'd seen and her favorite color and did she like to walk hatless in spring rain, all the stuff he thought a woman liked to hear. Aine was in fact flattered by his attention. She was well aware of the adage that held if you wanted to succeed with a lady, you treated her like a whore, and vice versa. She knew he was treating her like a lady, which meant he suspected she was a whore, but that was okay with her. It was the thought that counted. On the other hand, The Gaucho had no idea she was a working girl. In his eyes, she looked like a well-scrubbed Irish girl from one of the suburbs, albeit one of these anachronistic hippie types who ran around without underwear. There was something sharp and snippy about her, qualities he liked in a woman. Qualities he had found in Eileen Burke, who did not, alas, seem too terribly interested in him. He looked at his watch. The detectives were now ten minutes late. "Listen," he said, "I know you're here with your boyfriend and all..." "He's not my boyfriend," Aine said. "Oh, well good," The Gaucho said. "I have an appointment here-in fact they're late-but it shouldn't take more than half an hour to discuss our business, and then I thought maybe you'd like to go for a drink someplace quieter than this, what do you think?" Aine looked him dead in the eye. Green eyes clashing with brown eyes, sparks flying. "Sure," she said, and smiled like an Irish shillelagh, whatever that was. As coincidence would have it, Eileen Burke walked in just then. EMILIO SHREWDLY CALCULATEDthat the other guy who came in some five minutes later was either a civilian like Palacios or a detective like Livvie. He was absolutely positive now that the girl with the reddish-brown hair was Olivia Wesley Watts. All three of them had moved to a table over by the phone booths. From where he was still sitting at the bar with Aine, who had her legs crossed and who was nursing a very sugary non-alcoholic beverage, Emilio could not hear a word of their conversation. This was unfortunate because he was sure they were discussing the blood diamonds hidden in the basement from which Livvie had escaped earlier today. They were instead discussing cocaine. So were the three men in the living room of a tenement flat half a mile uptown. SUZIE Q. CURTISwas never permitted to sit in on any of these brainstorming sessions between her mastermind husband and his two rocket-scientist associates. Her job was to keep them supplied with food, like the women in theGodfathermovies. Although to see those movies, you sometimes got the feeling the gangsters in them were as interested in cooking spaghetti with clams, or sausage with peppers, as they were in killing people. Just nice homey fellows who if you looked at them cross-eyed, they would slit your throat. Her husband and his cronies were talking about killing some people tomorrow night. Listening from the kitchen, where Suzie was making tuna fish sandwiches with slices of tomato on them, she could hear their conversation clear as a bell. "We go in shootin," her husband was saying. "Never give them a chance to frisk us." "Cause then we'd be at a disadvantage," Constantine said. "If we let them frisk us." She could just imagine him twitching and grinning. "Exactly," her husband said. "We know she'll be there with the coke, she'd be stupid not to bring the coke when we went to all this trouble setting this up. We mow everybody down, grab the coke, and split." "She'll have goons with her," Lonnie said. "How many? Two, three? Even half a dozen? We got the element of surprise on our side." "That's right," Constantine said. "Nobody's gonna expect us to come in shootin." "Exactly!" Harry said, and laughed. "Who'd think we could be that stupid?" Me, Suzie thought, and sliced another tomato. HE HAD TAKEN HERinto the back room of his shop, where there were all sorts of sex toys. She had seen all of them before, of course-there was nothing she hadn't seen or done-but she looked at them all agog and amazed like an Irish virgin, and pretended to be shocked when he asked her to put on a leather merry widow and thigh-high leather boots, so where's the whip, honey? she was thinking. It turned out he wasn't into the dominatrix scene, after all; it was just the opposite. He merely wanted to see what a nice Catholic girl like Aine would look like all dressed up like a whore. She figured she wouldn't break his heart just yet. She'd go along with it, let him believe she was Cathleen the Colleen for a little while longer. Then she'd tell him she was a working girl, bro, and ask him for a deuce. Or whatever the traffic would bear. Instead, he started talking about himself. She kind of found this interesting about him. The way he opened up to her. He told her he was a spy named The Gaucho. Shutup,she said, aspy? Verdad,he said. Or Cowboy, I'm sometimes called. Boy, she said, a spy. For the Police Department, he said. So what it was, he was a snitch, was what it was. She didn't say this to his face. She let him talk. And, of course, like all men, he wanted to show her how important he was. So he told her he had been instrumental in uncovering valuable information that would lead the police to a big drug bust tomorrow night at midnight in the basement of an apartment building on Culver Avenue. 3211 Culver, she thought, but did not say. Midnight, she thought. That's when it's going down. Midnight tomorrow. A hun' fifty keys of coke will change hands, he told her. Three hundred thousand dollars will change hands, he told her. So she didn't ask him for any money, after all. He had given her enough already. And besides, it was kind of nice to make love instead of to be fucked all the time.

I FOUND THE LETTERSfrom her the night before. I knew right then I had to kill him. We kept a gun in the house. I don't know where Lester bought it. I think in a pawnshop someplace downtown, near his office. He bought it when the first of our children was born. Lyle. When he was born. We'd heard there'd been a kidnapping in Smoke Rise, many years ago, at the King estate, on the water. Douglas King. So we figured we needed a gun. I don't know whether Lester registered the gun or not. Frankly, I didn't care. Lester was a councilman, he often took liberties. I mean, he parked in clearly marked No Parking zones, he went through red lights when he'd had a little too much to drink, he was a great one for breaking the rules. He felt he was privileged, do you know? A city councilman. Only this time, he broke one rule too many. I know I'm not a beautiful woman, but I've always been a good wife. To think of him with a nineteen-year-old girl-how could he? I had to kill him. That was all I knew. Never mind confrontation, never mind asking for explanations, never mind forgiving him, I wanted him dead, I wanted to kill him. I knew he'd be going directly to King Memorial after his trip upstate. I knew what time he'd be getting there. I knew all this, he'd told me all this on the phone. The only thing he hadn't told me was that a young girl was in bed with him. The gun was in the safe in his study. Same place I found the letters. The desk in his study. I wasn't looking for the letters, I was looking for his appointment calendar. Because we were supposed to go to a dinner party that Sunday when he got home, and I had the time written in my calendar as six o'clock, which sounded early, so I wanted to check it against his calendar, to make sure. But I couldn't find it anywhere on his desk, his calendar, so I started looking through the drawers, and that was when I found the letters, at the back of the middle drawer to the right of the kneehole, buried under a stack of papers. I wanted him dead. I read the letters, and I went directly to the wall safe, and opened it, and took out the gun, and loaded it. We kept it unloaded, because of the children. The box of cartridges was in the safe, with the gun. I loaded the gun, and then I went upstairs to dress. I dressed for expediency. Nothing else. I wasn't thinking of any kind of disguise, I had no thought of getting away with it, I just didn't give a damn. I merely wanted him dead. So I dressed for ease of movement. Baggy blue jeans I used when I was gardening, a T-shirt, white socks and Reeboks, my hair up under Lyle's baseball cap so it wouldn't fly all over my face, wouldn't get in my eyes when it came time to shoot him. I put on a ski parka when I left the house. We used to ski a lot before the children were born. The gun was in the right hand pocket of the parka. I took a taxi up to the Hall. I walked right in, nobody there to stop me, you'd think after all this terrorist stuff there'd be people frisking me or something. But no. I walked right in with the gun in my pocket. I opened the door at the back of the auditorium, opened it just enough so I could look in. He was onstage with a lot of other people, Alan Pierce, Josh Coogan, some other people I didn't know. I closed the door and came around the side of the auditorium, to where there were a lot of offices and a corridor running between them. I went down the corridor almost to the end of it, and then opened a door that led to the stage. My heart was beating very fast. I opened the door and found myself in this backstage area, the wings I guess you'd call them, looking out at the stage. It was very dark where I was standing. There was no one around. Everyone was onstage, calling directions and adjusting lights and what not. Alan told Lester to go off left and then walk toward the podium so they could make sure the follow spot was on him, something like that. I took the gun out of my pocket. Alan said Okay, start your cross, and Lester stepped out of the wings on the other side of the stage and began moving toward the center of the stage, this bright light on him, it was as if they were illuminating him for me, so I could kill him, the son of a bitch. My hand was shaking. When he reached the podium, I shot him. I fired six times. I don't think all of my shots got him. But I saw him falling, and I could see blood all over his pink sweater, so I figured I had got him good. Then everyone started screaming and yelling. I turned and ran. That was the first time I had even a notion of survival. Of getting away. Before then, I'd only wanted him dead. I could hear yelling behind me. I kept running. There was a corridor with anEXITsign at the end of it. I was heading for the door under it, when someone came out of an office at the end of the hall, a woman, and I turned and started running in the opposite direction again, back toward the stage. But there were voices ahead of me now, coming off the stage, so I opened the nearest door and went in whatever it was, I didn't know what it was, I was just trying to hide. The room was dark except for faint daylight coming through a narrow window at the far end. I could hear people running by outside, shouting. In the dim light, I saw urinals. I was in a men's room. I ducked into one of the stalls just as someone cracked open the door. Anyone in here? a man's voice yelled. I held my breath. The room was dark, the light from the window filtered. Where's the fuckin light switch? the man asked himself. Silence. I heard him fumbling around on the wall. Then he asked Anyone in here? again, and muttered something, and closed the door, and was gone. I heard more running outside, voices passing by, fading. I waited. I didn't know where to go. I wanted to cry. I had killed him, and now I wanted to cry. Not because he was dead, the son of a bitch. But because they would catch me and put me in prison forever. The children, I thought. I kept still in the dark, terrified that the man would come back and put on the light this time, and search the room, and find me, and take me away. I don't know how long I waited there in the dark, in the stall. At last, I came out of the stall and stood still, listening in the dark, for several moments. Then I went to the window. It was open a crack, just some three or four inches. I opened it all the way. I was looking out onto what seemed to be an airshaft, the sky far above, a narrow paved passageway below. I climbed up and over the sill and dropped to my feet on the other side. The passageway ran behind the building for the entire width of it. I ran down it, enclosed by walls on either side of me, and saw another window on the far wall. This one was open just a little bit, too. I reached up, and opened it all the way. Then I hoisted myself up and climbed into what I realized was another men's room, a smaller one this time, just two stalls, and a single urinal, and some sinks. The lights were on. A man was in one of the stalls. I heard him coughing, and then I heard the toilet flushing. I ran for the door at the other end of the room, opposite the sinks. I opened the door, and stepped out into a long corridor. I was on the stage-left side of the auditorium. A door painted red was immediately to my left. An illuminatedEXITsign was above it. I opened the door and went out into an alley. Sunlight struck my eyes. I dropped the gun down a drainage sewer near the wall, and began running. An old bum in army fatigues was just stepping into the alley at the far end. I almost knocked him off his feet. He said, Hey! That was all he said. Hey. After I'd just killed a man. THEY ASKED HERif there was anything she wished to change or add to her confession. She said No. They asked her to sign it, and handed her a pen. She signed it. It was all over but the shooting. 18 This is what they call The Denouement, I thought. I am not a writer, Mr. Commissioner, but that is what writers call the chapter in the novel where everything falls into place and makes sense. It is alternatively called The Epiphany, which has religious overtones, I know, but which means some kind of dramatic change, as for example when a woman looks at herself in the mirror and sees looking back at her someone all bleary-eyed from being knocked unconscious, and all tied up to a chair in a basement she doesn't even know where. A black woman came in carrying a tray upon which was, or were, a donut and a cup of coffee, when a person was starving to death. There was also an Uzi on the tray, which the black woman was careful to remove before placing the tray in front of me. "Here you go, sister," she said. I asked her how I was supposed to eat with my hands tied behind my back. "You won't have to worry about eatin too much longer," she said, and burst out laughing, which I considered ominous. "You goan be dead by midnight," she added, which I also took to be a bad sign. The clock was ticking. Along about eleven-thirty, the door opened and Mr. Mercer Grant himself came marching down the steps. Behind him was the French receptionist from the Rêve du Jour Underwear Factory. "This is my wife Marie," he said. "By the way, those are our real names." "Then why did you tell me they werenotyour real names?" I asked. "To lure you to the factory," he said. "It's called entrapment. It's done all the time." "How about your cousin Ambrose Fields?" "You rang, madam?" someone asked, and a black guy as big as the one inThe Green Mile, who could draw snot out of your body and make you able to urinate again, came walking down the basement steps, ducking under the hanging light bulb as he approached me. "Dat ismyreal name, too," he said, and grinned. Nothing could surprise me anymore. All I knew was that the clock was ticking. "So where are the diamonds?" I asked. "What diamonds?" Grant asked, grinning to show the gold-and-diamond tooth in his mouth. His wife Marie stood by his side, all curly haired and brown eyed, and not wearing a bra. She was grinning, too. "The conflict diamonds," I said. "Isn't this all about blood diamonds?" "Have you forgotten about theotherblood diamonds?" Grant asked. "I'll bet she's forgotten about the other blood diamonds," Ambrose said. "Oh dear, she's forgotten all about the other blood diamonds," Marie said. "I thoughtyouwere supposed to be dead by Tuesday," I said. "That was to throw you off the scent," she said. "It's done all the time." "Besides," Ambrose said, "don't worry. You yourself will be dead by midnight." "Butwhy?" I asked. And a voice I had heard somewhere before said, "Because." I looked toward the stairway leading from above. Someone I knew was coming down the steps. AT MIDNIGHTthat Tuesday, they came into the basement simultaneously, the six detectives in Kevlar vests, and the three men wearing ski masks. It would have been a regular traffic jam if Emilio and Aine had also showed up at the stroke of midnight, but at that very moment they were just coming around the corner to 3211 Culver. When they heard the shooting start, they almost turned and ran in the opposite direction. It was Rosita's goons who started shooting first. They did not know in which direction to turn. It was as if the Northern Alliance were coming down the stairs from the ground floor, and the Pashtun were breaking in the door from the back yard. Everybody had guns. Somebody was bound to get hurt. The goons figured it wasn't going to be them. So they started shooting. They took out the three men in the ski masks first. They were easy marks, these three. They came down the steps one after the other, in single file. You shot the first guy in the row, he fell over and gave you a clear shot at the second one, and so on till all three of them were lying on the steps bleeding from a dozen holes, one of them between the eyes of the first guy's ski mask. The guys in the Kevlar vests were another matter. To begin with, they came in following the business end of a battering ram that sent wood from the door flying all over the place. And they were all six of them carrying assault rifles. Rosita's goons-Rosita herself, for that matter-recognized the weapons as AR-15s, heavy Colt carbines that could tear off a man's head. As the goons turned toward the door, one of the guys coming in yelled, "Police! Hold it right there!" The guy was a woman. The goons had no qualms about shooting a woman, police detective or not. It was only the AR-15 assault rifles that gave them pause. The pause was all the team needed. They swarmed over the room like fire ants, yelling and swearing, and snapping on handcuffs, and telling anyone in sight that he, or she in Rosita's case, was under arrest. Parker picked up the suitcase with the hundred and fifty keys of coke in it. "Better file a report on that," Eileen reminded him. He shot her a dirty look. As if he would evernotfile a report. EMILIO AND AINEhuddled in the shadows near the building. There were police cars angled into the curb now, their dome lights blinking. There were unmarked cars as well. It looked like the whole police department was here. The guy they'd seen in Shanahan's last night came out carrying a suitcase. Livvie came out behind a woman in handcuffs. There were other detectives with assault rifles. This had to be a big bust. As Emilio took a step forward, Aine put her hand on his arm, trying to stop him. He shook it off. "Detective?" he said. Eileen Burke turned. "Yes?" "Don't worry about your report," he said, and winked. "What?" "I burned it," he said. "The bad guys won't ever see it." "What?" she said again. "But you don't have to worry. I memorized it," he said, not realizing that in that moment he became one of a long line of traditional storytellers. Eileen still didn't know what he was talking about. Just then, Rosita made a sudden move as if to run. Eileen grabbed her by the arm, and said, "Don't get any ideas, sister," and shoved her toward one of the cars at the curb. Emilio's only regret was that he would never know how she'd got out of that damn basement. 19 THE CALL FROMthe Reverend Gabriel Foster came at eleven o'clock that Wednesday morning. He asked to speak to Detective Kling, and when Kling came on the line, he said, "I asked for you because of Miss Cooke." Kling said nothing. "Your relationship with Miss Cooke," he said. "Deputy Chief Cooke, you mean," Kling said. "Yes, Deputy Chief," Foster said, and Kling could swear he heard a chuckle. "You asked me to call if I heard anything. My having a finger on the community pulse and all. Is what your partner said." "Uh-huh," Kling said. "This has nothing to do with the councilman, may he rest in peace, poor soul. I understand you've already cleared that one." "Yes, we have," Kling said. "Whatdoesthis have to do with?" "A big drug deal is about to go down," Foster said, lowering his voice. "Three hundred grand changing hands. A hundred and fifty keys of cocaine. I don't like narcotics in my community. You want to hear more?" "We already heard more," Kling said. "It went down at midnight last night." "It did?" Foster said, surprised. "It did." "Oh. Well," Foster said. There was a long silence on the line. Then he said, "Give my regards to your lady," and hung up. Eileen was just leaving the building, coming down the corridor from the squadroom to the metal steps leading below, when Kling came out of the men's room. Startled, she stopped dead in her tracks. "Hey, hi," she said. "Hi," he said. "I hear it went down good last night." "Oh yeah, terrific," she said. "How's everything otherwise? Did you like working with Andy?" "Joy and a half," she said. "Did he tell you any of his jokes?" "Oh yes..." "Which one?" "The nuns peeing in a gasoline can?" "Lovely joke." "Lovely," Eileen said, and they both fell silent. "Well," he said. "Listen..." she said. "Yes?" "I hope this isn't going to be awkward for you." "No, no. Awkward? Hey, why? Awkward?" "Cause Pete gave me a little welcoming lecture, you know..." "He did?" "Yeah. Did he talk to you, too?" "About what?" "About this being one big happy family..." "No. What? A big happy family? Why?" "He also told me I'm a good cop, but 'There's this thing with Bert,' quote, unquote." "Oh." "So I was wondering if he'd given you the same, well,warningwas what it was." "No. I'd have told him to shove it." "Really?" Eileen said, genuinely surprised. "My private life...ourprivate lives...are none of Pete's business. What does he think this is, a soap opera? We're professionals here," Kling said. "This really pisses me off, Eileen. I have a good mind to go in there and tell him..." "Hey, slow down, Bert. I wasn't trying to incite a riot." "What'd you tell him? When he said there was thisthingwith Bert, or whatever it was he said." "I told him I didn't think there'd be a problem." "Well, there won't." "I know there won't. You're with Sharyn now, and I'm..." I'm what? she wondered. Still looking for Mr. Right? "I'mperfectly content to be here at the Eight-Seven," she said. "I just wanted to make sure it's cool with you." "It's cool," he said. "Don't worry about it." "So, I mean, we don't have to avoid each other, or anything stupid like that, tiptoe around each other..." "Is that what we were doing?" "No, I meant it's not something we even have tothinkabout anymore, is what I meant. We're two professionals, like you said, and this isn't a soap opera." "It certainly isn't. Besides, why should people have toforgetwhat happened between them?" he said, and she could have hugged him then and there. "Why can't they just remember the past, and move on?" His voice lowered, but he wasn't trying to be sexy or anything, he wasn't coming on or anything. "There's a lot to remember, Eileen. No one can shoot us for remembering." "No one," she said, and smiled. "You going back inside?" he asked. "No, I was just leaving," she said. "In that case," he said, and bowed her in the direction of the staircase. She suddenly remembered why she had loved him so much. • • • THE GAUCHO CALLEDAine at three o'clock that afternoon, hoping he could see her again tonight. He had enjoyed being with her, and now they really had something to celebrate; the bust had gone down as predicted, and he was in possession of five hundred bucks the generous cops of the Eight-Seven had given him as a reward for his services. He let the number she'd given him ring a dozen times. Aine didn't hear it. She had shot up half an hour ago, and was lying stoned on the mattress in Emilio's apartment, her eyes closed, a dreamy expression on her face. Emilio didn't hear the ringing phone, either. He was on the toilet bowl, a needle still in his arm, the same peaceful look on his face. The Gaucho hung up and went out front to greet a woman who was looking for herbs that would cure her insomnia. CARELLA CALLED HONEY BLAIRat three-thirty that afternoon. She came on the phone all treacle and smiles. "Well,hello," she oozed, "how's it goin? What can I do for you?" "My wife's looking for a job," he said. "I'm sorry,what?" "My wife's looking for a job," he said again, and then he explained that she was this beautiful speech- and hearing-impaired woman who could sign at the speed of light, and whose face spoke volumes besides, and he thought if the station was looking for someone who could appear in that little box in the left hand corner of the screen to sign for the deaf while a news report was going on, she'd be perfect for the job. "She's really the most beautiful woman on earth," he said. "You won't be sorry, I promise you." There was a long silence on the line. "Honey?" he said. "I'm here," she said. There was another silence. Then she said, "You are really unique, you know that? You are positively unique." He imagined her shaking her head. "Have her send me a resume," she said, "I'll see what I can do." And hung up. AT THE EIGHT-EIGHTlater that afternoon, Ollie ran into Patricia Gomez just as the shift was changing. "I want to thank you for that wonderful work you did on the Henderson case," he said. "Well, hey, thankyou," she said. "I already mentioned it to the Boss, he knows what a role you played." "Well, gee," she said, "thanks." There was an awkward moment of silence. "Did you ever find that guy who stole your book?" she asked. "No, all I still got is the last chapter." "I'll bet it's good." "Oh, yes," he said. "But I'll get him, don't worry. There's always another day, am I right?" "Always another day," she said. He looked at her. Quite seriously, he asked, "Are you gonna cut off my dick for a nickel?" "What?" she said. "And sell it to the nearest cuchi frito joint?" "Why would I do that?" she asked, and smiled. "I don't evenlikecuchi frito." He kept looking at her. "You still wanna go dancin Saturday night?" "I bought a new dress." "So okay then." "So okay." "Que puede hacer?"he asked, and shrugged. "Nada,"she said. I watched him as he came down the steps into the basement. "So, Olivia," he said. "We meet again." "Apparently so, Commissioner," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Does she know?" he asked the black man. "Nothing," Ambrose said. "Then kill her," the Commissioner said. There was on his face a look of ineffable sadness. I could tell he felt badly, or perhap seven bad. "It isn't midnight yet," I said. "But who's counting?" "I am. Can you please tell me what's going on here?" "Well, since you'll never be able to tell anyone else," the Commissioner said, "I see no reason why you shouldn't share my little secret." This was a line I had heard many times before in detective work, and I was surprised to hear it coming from someone as erudite, you should pardon the expression, as the Commissioner, who surely knew that if you told someone he or she would never be able to tell anyone else, then in the next thirty seconds or so he or she was going to kick you in the balls and tell everyone in the entire world. Strengthened by this knowledge, I began working on the ties that bound me, so to speak, laboring secretly behind my back with a little razor I normally use for shaving my legs and armpits while the Commissioner began telling me what his little secret was. It turned out that spilling red wine on his white linen suit was only the first of a series of real or imagined affronts he had suffered at my hands over the many years I'd been on the job. Never mind that this was his favorite suit, which he had bought after hearing Tom Wolfe speak at a Barnes & Noble one time long ago. Never mind that I had once crashed my motorcycle into the rear fender of his personal car, which happened to be a Mercedes-Benz-and this is not product placement, believe me; I am a police officer and above such mercantile pursuits. Never mind, too, that I had once-inadvertently-called him an asshole in the presence of several reporters, but that was when he was still only Chief of Detectives and I hadn't known at the time that he would become the Commish. What really bothered him- And, honestly, I don't know how people can be so petty, I mean it. Whatreallybothered him-it now turned out as strand by strand I worked with the razor on the ropes binding me to the chair-was that I had once turned over to the Property Clerk's Office a large pile of so-called conflict diamonds without reporting to the Commish that I was about to do so. This rough ice had come from rebel groups in Sierra Leone or Angola and was virtually impossible to trace, as some enterprising detective had undoubtedly figured out before he committed what was now famous in police archives as the African Connection Theft, later immortalized as a movie starring a promising young actor named Peter Coe, now serving a five-and-dime upstate for possession-but I digress. As I was saying, or perhaps evenlikeI was saying, the Commissioner himself could have been the one who got his hands on thatpile of blood diamonds sitting on a shelf in the Property Clerk's Office, instead of some dumb detective from a precinct in the sticks, if only I had told him I was about to turn in the recovered loot as evidence. If I had mentioned my intentions, the Commissioner would now be sipping delicious Veuve Cliquot champagne at a fine Club Med someplace-which, again, is not product placement, but exactly what he said. "You should have filed a report to the Commissioner," he said. "I should have been informed. If it hadn't been for you I would right this minute be sipping delicious Veuve Cliquot champagne at a fine Club Med someplace instead of standing here about to put a bullet in your head," which was when he pulled a nine-millimeter Glock from a shoulder holster under his jacket. "Police! Hold it right there!" someone shouted from the stairway, and my good friend and sometime partner Margie Gannon, who got divorced every six years and shot every three, came charging down the steps with a gun in herhand. By coincidence, it so happened that Margie had been shot almost three years ago to the day. So naturally, the Commissioner shot her once again, and she came tumbling down the stairs, yelling obscenities I won't repeat. I was out of the chair by then, my hands free. I grabbed a convenient lug wrench sitting in a box near the furnace, and I hit the Commissioner on the head with it, God forgive me for he outranked me, and then I turned on Ambrose and Marie and said, "Okay, who's next here?" Nobody was next here. It was truly all over.

About the Author ED MCBAIN is the first American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association's highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Grand Master Award. His most recent 87th Precinct novel wasMoney, Money, Money.Under his own name-Evan Hunter-he has enjoyed a writing career that has spanned almost five decades, from his first novel,The Blackboard Jungle,in 1954, to the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock'sThe Birds,toCandyland,written in tandem with his alter ego, Ed McBain, toThe Moment She Was Gone,published last year.

Also By Ed McBain The 87th Precinct Novels Cop Hater • The Mugger • The Pusher (1956) The Con Man • Killer's Choice (1957) Killer's Payoff • Killer's Wedge • Lady Killer (1958) 'Til Death • King's Ransom (1959) Give the Boys a Great Big Hand • The Heckler • See Them Die (1960) Lady, Lady, I Did It! (1961) The Empty Hours • Like Love (1962) Ten Plus One (1963) Ax (1964) He Who Hesitates • Doll (1965) Eighty Million Eyes (1966) Fuzz (1968) Shotgun (1969) Jigsaw (1970) Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here (1971) Sadie When She Died • Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (1972) Hail to the Chief (1973) Bread (1974) Blood Relatives (1975) So Long As You Both Shall Live (1976) Long Time No See (1977) Calypso (1979) Ghosts (1980) Heat (1981) Ice (1983) Lightning (1984) Eight Black Horses (1985) Poison • Tricks (1987) Lullaby (1989) Vespers (1990) Widows (1991) Kiss (1992) Mischief (1993) And All Through the House (1994) Romance (1995) Nocturne (1997) The Big Bad City (1999) The Last Dance (2000) Money, Money, Money (2001) The Matthew Hope Novels Goldilocks (1978) Rumpelstiltskin (1981) Beauty and the Beast (1982) Jack and the Beanstalk (1984) Snow White and Rose Red (1985) Cinderella (1986) Puss in Boots (1987) The House That Jack Built (1988) Three Blind Mice (1990) Mary, Mary (1993) There Was a Little Girl (1994) Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear (1996) The Last Best Hope (1998) Other Novels The Sentries (1965) Where There's Smoke • Doors (1975) Guns (1976) Another Part of the City (1986) Downtown (1991) Driving Lessons (2000) Candyland (2001)