Blood On The Sun

4

SHELDON HAWKES, listening to Dinah Washington singing Love for Sale, made the first incision into the naked corpse of Becky Vorhees after examining all the wounds in the girl's body, six in her chest and stomach, one in her neck. He reported the wounds, including the location, size and shape of each penetration, and the depth of each thrust of the knife, into the microphone above his head, which was attached to a recorder on a table nearby. He also recorded that, while there were signs of slight bruising and shallow penetration, she did not appear to have been raped.

There were many possible reasons and, if asked, he would give them, but he was sure Mac would have his own thoughts on the reason for the lack of deep penetration. Three would be obvious. One, the rapist had changed his mind. Unlikely given the violence of the attack. Two, the girl had fought him off. Three, the girl had not fought him off, but the rape had been interrupted.

The girl's mother had been stabbed five times, four times in the stomach and once in the chest, a deep hard thrust that broke through bone to the heart. There were no signs of recent sexual activity on the woman.

Finally, almost two hours later, Hawkes had the last body on the table. Howard Vorhees was a big man, more than two hundred pounds, in good shape, obviously worked out. He had been stabbed once in the back and twice in the stomach. Besides these wounds, the only other thing Hawkes found of possible interest was a purple bruising just above the man's right wrist. The bone beneath the bruise was not broken. If he were still alive, Vorhees would have been in pain.

"The blood from the victims has been typed and the DNA is being determined," Hawkes said into the microphone. "Assuming the wounds were all made by the same weapon, which I believe is likely, a determination will be made to conclude from the layering of the blood the order in which the victims were killed."

Hawkes flipped off the tape recorder and looked down at the dead man. If he could see the knife, he'd be able to confirm what he suspected.

For now, however, he could determine the order in which the three members of the Vorhees family had been killed. For example, if the blood in the wounds of Becky Vorhees was hers alone with no traces of blood from any other family member, then she had almost certainly been murdered first. If the blood in the wounds of Howard Vorhees contained both his blood and that of his daughter but not his wife's, then he had been killed second. Once he had the blood reports, he would know with certainty.

He looked down at the placid pale face of Howard Vorhees. Hawkes had listened to sixteen Dinah Washington songs. The last, Destination Moon, was just ending.

Long before the days of the iPod, Hawkes had listened to Maxine Tucker, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington over and over again. On one of those days, Hawkes had been sewing up a skeletal homeless man with a liver that looked like bulbous gray silly putty when a new body was wheeled in.

"Put it over there," he had told the paramedics, pointing to his left without looking up as he finished sewing the cavity closed.

After putting the corpse back in its assigned drawer, Hawkes had put a CD in his stereo and turned to the body that had been brought in moments earlier.

Behind him came the bittersweet voice of Maxine Tucker singing, "I wonder if it's worth the dyin.' " And in front of him lay the body of Maxine Tucker.

Hawkes had stood silently listening until the end of the song.

Hawkes sat next to Mac at the counter at Metrano's. Mac had coffee. Hawkes ate a gyro sandwich.

"Well?" asked Hawkes, reaching for a large glass of Coke.

"I think you're right," said Mac. "The girl was killed first. Then the mother. Mother's blood in her wound was over hers. The father was killed last."

"Makes no sense," said Hawkes. "You have three people to kill. The one you go after first is the one most likely to cause you trouble, the father, but he was last."

"Maybe he came into the girl's room after she and her mother had been stabbed," said Mac.

"He didn't hear all the noise?" asked Hawkes. "He wasn't taking sleeping pills or any other drug. I would have found traces in his stomach. Nothing wrong with his hearing that I could see."

"So," said Mac. "What was he doing when his wife and daughter were murdered?"

Hawkes shrugged.

"And why were the women laid out on the bed but the father was crumpled on the floor?"

Mac was looking into the tan depths of the coffee in his mug. Hawkes looked at him.

"You have an idea?" said Hawkes.

Mac nodded.

"You know where the boy's body is?" asked Hawkes.

"Maybe," said Mac. "I need to find Kyle Shelton."

"The Beast," said Hawkes. "It would also help if you could find the knife."

"We're working on that," said Mac.

Mac didn't like what he was thinking. Didn't like it at all.

Danny sat in the chair across from Sheila Hellyer. Her office was small, clean, as identified by polished wood as the CSI lab was identified by shining steel.

Sheila Hellyer was somewhere in her forties, good looking, classy, short gray hair, every strand in place, large silver earrings.

"Hold up your hand," she said.

He did. The tremor was there. Sheila Hellyer wrote something on the yellow lined pad in front of her.

"When did it start?" she asked.

"Noticed it this morning when I got up," Danny said, trying not to look uncomfortable.

"What did you think had happened?" she asked.

"My grandfather had Parkinson's."

"It come on him suddenly?" she asked.

"No, a little at a time according to my mother," he said.

"I don't think you have Parkinson's, but we'll run neurological tests."

"You've seen this before?" Danny said.

"Many times," she said. "Sometimes a tremor, a tic, a slurring of words and uncontrollable blinking of the eyes. It comes with the job. This happened to you once before."

Danny looked puzzled and said, "No."

Sheila Hellyer flipped through the papers in the folder, found the one she was looking for and said, "Two years ago you underwent a mandatory psych evaluation," she said. "You had shot and killed an armed murderer on a subway platform."

She put down the evaluation and said, "The recommendation was that you be allowed to go back to work, but that you should be evaluated every six months."

"I have been," Danny said.

"I know. It says here that in each evaluation session you showed some signs of resentment toward the evaluator."

"Maybe they were paranoid," said Danny seriously. "Stress of the job. I think one of the evaluators, Dr. Dawzwitz, had a tick in his right eye."

Sheila couldn't hold back the smile. He was right. He was also deflecting.

"I mentioned the tremor in your hand," she said. "In your initial evaluation, Dr. Dawzwitz noted a small tremor in your right hand."

"No," protested Danny, trying to remember.

There had been so much to think about, so much not to think about. He had wanted to go to bed and pull the blanket over his head. He had also wanted to plunge into work, all-consuming twenty-four-hour work. Had his hand really trembled?

"What happened last night?" she asked.

Danny shrugged.

"When you held up your hand I could see your knuckles were bruised. I think one of them might be broken."

Danny looked away, sighed, examined his hand and said, "Two men tried to mug me last night on the way home from work."

"On the street?"

"Subway."

"And you were afraid?" she asked.

Danny smiled, a bitter smile.

"No," he said. "That was the problem. There were two of them. One had a knife. One had a lead pipe. I think I was happy to see them."

"What did you do?" she asked.

"Lost it," he confessed. "Beat the hell out of them. I heard a rib crack, a nose break, saw blood spurting. I kept punching. I wanted to kill them. I think I shouted or grunted or something."

"What were you thinking?" she asked.

"Thinking?" he said. "Nothing. I was seeing. Maggots. A dead little girl. A killer who wanted sympathy. And then more bodies, mangled, torn, sometimes faceless. An old woman dead on the floor of a subway car clutching her shopping bag. I thought I had forgotten most of them."

"And the man you killed two years ago, did you see him?"

"No," he said.

"You kept punching the two men on the subway after you had subdued them?" she asked.

Danny nodded.

"How did it feel?" she asked.

"Losing it? Scary. When I stopped punching and looked down at the two of them groaning, I didn't remember beating them. But maybe what was worse was that, scary as it was, I felt good about it."

"You don't get to touch the bad guys in CSI," she said.

"No. Not if we can help it. Even when we use force when we have to, it always winds up as an issue in court if there's a trial."

"This time you did use force," she said. "For all the victims you've seen, all the killers of the innocent you had to endure. You did something."

"The wrong thing," he said.

"And you regret it?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I let them go."

He looked down at his trembling hand and then up at her and said, "I just want the tremor to stop."

"I'll call Dr. Pargrave in neurology to set up tests and prescribe blood work," she said, making a note, "and I'll ask him to give you a prescription for propranolol for the tremors and a mild drug prescribed for combat veterans. Make an appointment with me for one week from today. If you need me sooner, call day or night." She handed him a card.

"What's wrong with me?" asked Danny.

"How much coffee do you drink on an average day?" she asked.

"Not much. Four, five cups."

"Cola?"

"Diet, three a day maybe."

"Too much caffeine. Cut the caffeine. Cold turkey."

Danny looked at her, adjusted his glasses and repeated, "What's wrong with me?"

Sheila Hellyer nodded and said, "Cop trauma. You've seen too much darkness, death. You hold it in and then, in your case, something triggers all the memories and you explode. That hand is angry."

"You sure I'll be OK?"

"No," she said. "That's why we're running tests. The tremor might get worse without the caffeine. What you should do is go home for a few days and meditate or rent all six Star Wars movies."

"Are you going to recommend that I be taken off the unit?" he asked.

Sheila Hellyer closed the file in front of her and said, "If I recommended that all of the walking wounded police officers be fired, the New York police department would probably be reduced to a few hundred people. Besides, a lot of those officers living with the horror of what they see and do are the best this city or any city has. Just my opinion. I'm not planning to write a paper about it."

The Stalker entered Stella's apartment using a copy of the key he had made himself from the one he had found in a drawer in the kitchen the first time he had been there. The first time he had picked the lock. It hadn't been easy. It wasn't something he knew how to do, but he had practiced at it, especially with the lock Stella had installed. He had purchased a lock just like hers, read a book on how to pick a lock, bought the right tools, and practiced.

It had taken him almost twenty minutes that first time he had entered Stella's apartment, and by the time he was finished he had been drenched in sweat from the fear of someone seeing him. He had also been afraid that he had left small scratch marks that she might notice.

Now was the third time he had been in her apartment, and this time he didn't bother searching drawers and accessing Stella's computer. It took too much time to put everything back exactly as it was so she wouldn't notice anyone had been there.

He moved quickly to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He knew where the bottle was. He took the bottle he had brought with him from his pocket and carefully, over the sink, poured the white-brown gel from the bottle he had brought into Stella's medication and shook Stella's bottle for a full two minutes.

He had learned how to make the gel, which used simple fly strips and turpentine, from notes he found on a bookmarked web site on her computer.

He had been certain it would work. The person who had written the notes knew about such things, but just in case, the man had tried the poison on a dozen white rats he had purchased at a pet show. He had told the woman who sold the rats to him that he was feeding them to his two corn snakes. The rats had died almost instantly. That wasn't good. He moved on to guinea pigs and finally a rhesus macaque monkey, tried various mixtures, percentages, until he found one that made the monkey immobile for about two minutes before it died.

She might take it that night. It might be days or weeks before she would need it, but she would need it. When she did take it, it would kill her quickly, but she would suffer.

He carefully cleaned and dried the sink using toilet paper and a spray bottle of cleanser Stella kept under the sink. He flushed the paper down the toilet, made sure it was gone, pocketed the bottle he had brought with him and returned Stella's half-full bottle of antihistamine syrup to the cabinet with the label facing out as he had found it.

Less than a minute later, he left the apartment. He would return when the time came. He wanted to be there when she died. He wanted her to live long enough to know why this was happening to her, but he would settle for simply knowing that she was dead.

Mac had returned just before dawn to the wooded area where Jacob Vorhees' bicycle and clothes were found. He wanted to use an ALS on the area to look for signs of blood. With his luminol light on and wearing an amber eye-shield, Mac went over the ground, moving outward in circles to a distance of fifty yards.

No signs of blood, but as dawn came, Mac found the missing sneaker behind a rock, half a football field away from the bike and clothes. Had the boy broken away from Kyle Shelton still wearing one shoe? Had the shoe come off when the boy was running away?

Wearing latex gloves, Mac lifted the shoe and saw the blood. He bagged the shoe and put it in his kit.

Mac had a few ideas. Some were simple, some- one in particular- were bizarre, but he had dealt with more than the bizarre before.

There were at least six linden trees in the area Mac covered. He had examined leaves from beneath some of them. Most of them had the edges gnawed off or an irregularly shaped hole in the middle of the leaf. It didn't take much searching to find silken threads on the trees and then cankerworm larvae on the still-living leaves of the linden tree.

Magnified 120 times and focused, the leaves revealed two secrets.

There was one small bite mark at the edge of one leaf near the stem. There was also a trace of something else, something white and pulpy. Mac increased the magnification until he was convinced the small white dot was animal material, almost certainly from a dead caterpillar very much like the one he had found on the linden leaf in Jacob Vorhees' room.

Back in his office, Mac checked his watch. He had a busy morning ahead. He sat back in his office chair and looked down at the two items on his desk, the fragment of leaf and a credit card printout, items related to the murder of the Vorhees family.

When Danny came through the door holding a folder and a book, Mac didn't look at his hand or ask him any questions about his session with Sheila Hellyer. Instead he asked, "What do we know about Kyle Shelton?"

Danny opened the folder and scanned the report. He already knew what was in it.

"Age twenty-five, degree from City University of New York, in philosophy. Did three years in the marines, enlisted. Served on the Iraq-Syria border. Purple heart. Punctured spleen from a mine. Got out, took a job delivering flowers. Had a fight in a bar on the Lower East Side, The Red Lamp Lounge. Some guy, a little drunk maybe, got in Shelton's face about Middle East policy. Shelton shut him up by breaking the guy's jaw with one punch. Shelton spent three months at Riker's and then got a hearing and was given probation. And last, but maybe not least, our fleeing Beast wrote a book, War and Rationalization. Published by a respectable small press. Got a short favorable review in the Times on a Tuesday. The book didn't sell, only two thousand copies."

Danny handed Mac a copy of the thin book. Mac opened it to the inside back flap and saw the face of a serious young man looking back over his shoulder at the camera.

Early that morning, before he went to the woods just before the sun rose, Mac, warrant in hand, had gone to Shelton's studio apartment in a gray, uninviting prewar stone building. He had found lots of Shelton's prints. He felt certain they matched the bloody ones at the Vorhees house.

Shelton's room was clean, dominated by a gleaming all-purpose exercise machine. One solid dark wood bookcase was filled with books, mostly about philosophy and psychology: Jung, Freud, Nietzsche, Sartre, some names Mac didn't recognize. The bottom shelf was filled with CDs. Shelton's taste, like Mac's, ran to the Baroque: Bach, Vivaldi, Hayden, Mozart. There was a slightly faded futon against the wall across from two windows, which had recently been cleaned. A heavy dark wood chest with six drawers rested against the wall. A round well-polished wooden table with two metal folding chairs stood next to the refrigerator and built-in pantry. A small desk with a chair stood against the last wall. A computer, slightly past its prime, sat on the desk. Mac checked the computer files and e-mail.

The Beast was a puzzle. He received and sent e-mails about the need for a massive movement to send troops or mercenaries into lawless African countries. He was ready to go fully armed and ready to kill if a mercenary army could be organized. He also received and sent e-mails about children starving and dying in third world countries, and abuse of children in all countries. Some of the e-mails were clearly written in a rage. In all of his e-mails, Shelton quoted philosophers, novelists, poets and psychiatrists.

There had been no copy of Kyle Shelton's own book in his apartment.

"So," said Mac. "Shelton is smart."

"Looks that way," said Danny.

Mac looked at the credit card printout on his desk and said, "If he's so smart, why did he use his Visa card for gas a few hours ago in New Jersey?"

"No cash?" Danny guessed.

"He could have gotten cash from an ATM in Manhattan," said Mac.

"He wants us to know he was in New Jersey," said Danny. "He wants us to think he's running west or north. Or he could also be doubling back and heading south."

Mac nodded his agreement, his eyes on the credit card statement.

"My guess is that he's on the way back here," said Mac. "Probably here already. There's something he has left to do."

When Danny left, Mac removed the leaf from the sealed see-through bag and twirled it by the stem.

You have something important to tell me, Mac thought. But what?

A second check of the Vorhees neighborhood turned up a single linden tree in the backyard of Bob and Shirley Straus.

Mac found the Strauses, who were in their early sixties, wearing shorts, broad-brimmed hats and loose-fitting long-sleeved shirts as they worked in their garden. The Strauses knew the Vorhees family casually, but they had never visited each other's homes or belonged to the same church or club. Bob Straus, who wiped his sweating neck with a red bandana, assumed the Vorhees' were Republicans, but he didn't know where he had gotten the idea. Had any of the Vorhees family been in the Straus backyard? Both Bob and Shirley said it was possible, but they didn't think so. No reason for them to.

Mac had walked over to the linden tree and picked a leaf up off the ground. It was a good match for the one he had taken from Jacob Vorhees' bedroom.

"We're going to save that tree," said Bob, pointing a trowel at the trunk.

"Inchworm infestation," Shirley said, pushing back the brim of her hat so she could get a better look at Mac. "Late in the year for it, too. Thank God it hasn't gotten to this neighborhood, but if it does come, we'll be ready for them."

To Mac she sounded like a feisty character from a horror movie saying she and Bob would be prepared when the zombies came ambling down the street.

"Think the worms will miss us," said Bob. "They only live a few weeks."

"And then there's something else," said Shirley.

Bob nodded in agreement and said, "Mites. But we've kept them from touching our trees.

"Trade-off," Bob continued, returning the bandana to his pocket. "We use chemicals. Maybe add a little pollution into the ground and air, but if we didn't, it would be the end of our trees."

When Mac turned to leave, Shirley Straus said, "Detective?"

Mac turned back to look at her.

"The boy," she said. "Jacob. Is he…?"

"We don't know yet," said Mac.

"I can't…" she began.

Before she could cry, her husband was at her side, one arm around her shoulder.

"We have two boys, men now," said Bob Straus. "Can't imagine what it would be like… I hope he's alive."

His wife nodded in agreement, holding back tears.

"We'll find him," said Mac.

He didn't say whether he expected to find the boy dead or alive. Mac thanked them and drove back to the lab.

Arvin Bloom's furniture shop on Eighty-second Street just off of Second Avenue was small, but in a good location near dozens of antique shops, many specializing in furniture.

When Stella, Flack and Aiden entered, they could hear a soft buzzer sound in the rear of the shop and they could smell the mixture of new and old wood.

The shop was packed with furniture, large armoires, dressing tables, desks, a few ornate lamps and four huge crystal chandeliers overhead.

From an alcove a big balding man in his fifties with a paunch appeared, wearing a suit and carrying an apron, which he placed on a wooden armchair with a gold cushion. Stella was sure the cushion was both old and silk. The man walked slowly.

"Looking for something in particular?" the man asked with a smile.

Something about the smiling man irritated Flack, who took out his wallet, showed his shield and said, "Arvin Bloom? We're looking for a murderer."

Bloom looked at the two women, puzzled.

"I don't understand," he said.

"Asher Glick was murdered yesterday," said Flack.

Bloom bowed his head. "I know. I was going to sit shiva, but, to tell the truth, I don't know if I'd be welcome."

"Why not?" asked Stella.

"I owe Asher a great deal of money," he said.

"Forty-two thousand dollars," said Aiden. "We checked the business log on his computer."

"Actually, more than that," said Bloom. "My wife made the purchase from Asher. She saw it for the bargain it was and checked it with me. I was bedridden at the time. Prostate cancer. I'm fine now. Radiation treatment and radiation pellet implants. When Ivy, my wife, was talking to Asher, it turned out that we were Yeshiva students together."

"Can we speak to your wife?" asked Flack.

"Certainly," said Bloom. "I'll get her. Would you like some coffee? I always have it brewing for customers. Coffee and tea. Trade secret; if a potential customer accepts coffee, tea, wine, cookies, they feel obligated, not necessarily to buy, but to look more seriously than they might have done otherwise."

"I'll remember that," said Aiden.

"I will pay every penny I owed Asher to his family," Bloom said. "This is an up and down business. I have two pieces with buyers for the pieces we bought from him. They will bring in more than enough money to pay what I owe."

"Do you mind if I look around?" asked Aiden.

"Please do," said Bloom. "And feel free to ask any questions or touch any item as long as you are careful."

"I'll be as careful as I am with crime scene evidence," said Aiden, kit in hand, moving past Bloom, who followed her with his eyes.

"There's a small workspace back there where I make minor restorations myself," Bloom said. "My wife and I have an apartment up there." He indicated a wooden staircase that led up to a pair of doors.

Bloom looked at Stella and Flack, nodded, and said, "I'm a suspect, aren't I? The young lady said something about a crime scene."

"You're someone who might be able to supply us with some information," said Flack.

Stella moved to the chair where Bloom had dropped his apron. She opened her kit.

When she took out the mini vacuum, Bloom said, "I think you need my permission to do that."

"What do you think I'm going to do?" Stella asked.

"Vacuum my apron for evidence," Bloom said.

"You know about forensics?" said Flack.

"A little, television," said Bloom with a shrug. "Go ahead. Permission granted. But your time would be better spent looking for the lunatic who killed Asher."

"What lunatic?" asked Flack.

"Joshua," said Bloom. "He's a madman."

"You were part of the minyan yesterday," said Stella after she had carefully vacuumed the apron.

"You want to take it?" said Bloom. "Take it."

"Thank you," said Stella, carefully folding the apron and placing it in her kit.

"When was the last time before yesterday that you were part of a minyan?" asked Flack.

Bloom smiled.

"When I was fifteen," he said. "I had a bar mitzvah when I was thirteen. I was considered a man who could make up the sacred number. A man named Ruben Goldenfarb found me on a street corner with some other kids. This was back in Cincinnati. He didn't ask me if I wanted to come. He simply said, 'Come,' and I came."

"Then why yesterday?" asked Flack.

"I had recovered from my treatment and I wanted to see Asher. He suggested I join the minyan and we could talk afterward. I said yes. I owed him. More than money. He was good to me, steered buyers to me."

"We know," said Stella. "We were at Mr. Glick's store."

"Your wife," said Flack, reminding the man that they wanted to talk to her.

As if on cue, one of the doors at the top of the landing opened and a woman came down the steps. She was short, slightly overweight, wearing a colorful orange and yellow dress. Her hair was short, touches of gray, neatly brushed, and she was wearing makeup and no smile. Aiden pegged her at forty plus.

"My wife," said Bloom with a smile. "These are the police. They want to ask you some questions about Asher Glick."

The woman vaguely registered Bloom's words and took a few seconds to turn her head to look at him, then turned to look at each of the strangers before her.

"He's dead," she said softly.

"When did you last see him?" asked Stella.

"I only saw him three times," she said. "Always at his shop to look at merchandise. The last time was, I think, last Monday. We bought a French Regency period commode, early nineteenth century, three doors, carved walnut with a marble top from L'оe-de-France."

"It didn't have the original hardware," said Bloom, "but Ivy knew that I had perfect period hardware. And the legs needed a little work. The restoration is undetectable. It is one of the pieces we have a buyer for."

"Your computer," Flack prodded.

"My accounts," answered Bloom. "I prefer the old-fashioned way, the feel and smell and touch of a craftsman's shop."

Bloom moved behind the counter, reached down to a shelf and pulled out an oversized old clothbound notebook.

"Before I forget," said Bloom, making some notes in the book with a pen he pulled out of a white mug on the counter. "I keep track of where I am on each job."

"We checked Mr. Glick's computer," said Stella.

"Yes?" said Bloom, looking up over the top of his glasses.

"What we didn't find on Mr. Glick's computer was more interesting," said Stella.

Bloom looked puzzled.

Aiden appeared from the back of the shop, nodded for Stella to follow her.

"We didn't find anything he bought or sold in the last year made of bloodwood," Stella said, nodding at Aiden. "There was nothing in his shop made of bloodwood. But Asher Glick had bloodwood dust on his clothes. Do you have anything made of bloodwood?"

"Yes, back where your friend was," said Bloom. "A beautiful piece. I was working on it when you came. My guess is that a fair number of people Asher was doing business with have pieces made of bloodwood. Have you checked them?"

"None of them were part of that minyan," said Stella. "None but you."

Stella left Flack with Bloom and joined Aiden in the small back room. Aiden pointed to a red sideboard.

"Transfer from Bloom to Glick," said Aiden. "Can we match sawdust to a specific piece of furniture?"

"I don't know," said Stella, "but we're going to find out."

"He's not left-handed," said Flack as they left the shop.

Neither Aiden nor Stella responded. They had both noticed the same thing. Wristwatch on Bloom's left wrist. Notes he made in his notebook with his right hand. The killer's chalk marks, hammered nails, and written message near the body were definitely made by a left hand.

"But he avoided telling us if he had a computer," said Stella. "We know he does."

"Glick's e-mail," said Aiden. "He sent messages to Bloom."

"Could use a computer at the library or an Internet coffee bar," said Flack.

"Could be," Stella said. "Let's find out if he's got one."

"Will do," said Flack, wondering what they would find on Bloom's computer when he found it- and Flack was sure he would find it.

Kyle Shelton had abandoned the pickup on a street in the Bronx. The street, he knew, was an elephants' graveyard of abandoned cars. He didn't bother to wipe off fingerprints. He did bother to remove the license plate and tuck it into his backpack. It was four blocks to the subway station in a neighborhood where a white face was a rare exception.

In spite of the name on the vanity plate, Kyle Shelton's nickname was not The Beast. The plates had belonged to his cousin Ray, as had the pickup truck. People just assumed the nickname went with the driver. Kyle felt nothing about abandoning the pickup. It was a piece of crap, falling apart, rusting through the bottom, radio a spray of static, brakes needing fluid every two weeks. Ray wouldn't care either, but he would want his plates back.

Kyle hitched the pack onto his shoulders. It contained clothes, a disposable razor, a toothbrush, a few books, a few nutritional bars. It had two more items too. One of them was a long-bladed kitchen carving knife encrusted with dry blood. Kyle had considered throwing it away, but he decided to hold on to it. He didn't know much about forensic evidence, but he knew there were things Crime Scene Investigators could find that might help him with what he was trying to do.

It was midday, the sun burning bright in the clear sky, humidity coming thick from the air. He felt the moist itch in his crotch, under his jeans and against his scalp. It had been this hot in Iraq, especially on the unsafe roads across the desert, bouncing, hallucinatory.

The streets of the towns of Iraq had been dangerous for a soldier, more dangerous than this street in the Bronx.

The buildings on the street were mostly two- and three-story brick apartments built in the 1920s. Between some of them were debris-filled lots where buildings had been torn down.

Kyle had a plan. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was all he could come up with. He had slept in the pickup the night before for about two hours. He was tired. He half closed his eyes and was aware of children somewhere in the distance laughing and arguing. What he wasn't aware of until he heard the voice was the three young men standing on the crumbling stone steps of one of the old three-flat buildings Kyle was about to pass.

"You lost?" asked the voice.

Kyle looked up. The speaker was maybe eighteen or nineteen, black, hair cut short, clean yellow T-shirt and brown jeans. Flanking the speaker were two other young black men wearing identical T-shirts and brown jeans.

Kyle didn't answer. He pulled the brim of his baseball cap down, shifted the weight of his backpack and kept walking.

"Asked you a question, brother," said the young man, who was obviously the leader. There was irritation in his voice now.

Kyle stopped, tilted back his cap and looked at the young men who had taken a step toward him. He had been through situations like this, on the streets of Fallujah, at Riker's.

"Bo asked you a question," said the young man to the right of the leader.

" 'Life is not a spectacle or a feast. It's a predicament,' " said Kyle, reaching over his shoulder into his backpack.

"Say what?" asked Bo.

"George Santayana," said Kyle. "A philosopher."

"He's high," said one of the others.

"Hand over the backpack," said Bo, holding out his hand.

The three took another step toward Kyle, who shook his head "no."

" 'I believe in the brotherhood of all men, but I don't believe in wasting brotherhood on anyone who doesn't want to practice it with me. Brotherhood is a two-way street,' " said Kyle. "You know who said that?"

"Don't give a shit," said the young man.

The young man on the right pulled a small gun from his pocket after looking up and down the street to be sure no one was watching.

Kyle didn't seem to notice.

"Malcolm X," said Kyle. "He said it. You know who he was."

"I ain't simple," said the leader. "Saw the movie."

Kyle's right hand came out of the backpack holding a.45 caliber army pistol, which he aimed at the leader. The trio stopped.

"You gonna shoot all three of us?" Bo said.

"Looks that way," said Kyle. "Unless he puts that gun away and you all back up and sit down on the steps and talk about the heat and listen to the radio or some CDs."

The one called Bo scratched the side of his head, smiled and looked at Kyle.

"I like you," said Bo.

"That makes me very happy," said Kyle. "Adds to my new philosophy."

"What's that?" the leader said, still smiling.

" 'I'm only going to dread one day at a time,' " said Kyle.

"Who said that?" asked the leader.

"Charles Schulz," said Kyle.

"Who?" asked Bo.

"Peanuts," said Kyle.

"Crazy fool. Get out of here," said the leader, waving his hand.

Kyle nodded, put the gun back in his pack, and walked the rest of the way to the subway without looking back. He had things to do.