The Covenant Of The Flame

ONE

Manhattan.

In her office on the fifteenth floor of a soot-dinged building on Broadway near Thirty-Second Street, Tess Drake set a reproduction of a painting onto her desk. The painting, by an early nineteenth-century artist, was a colorful representation of a wooded slope in the Adirondack Mountains in upper New York State. Typical of his time, the artist had idealized the wilderness, making it so romantically lush, so idyllic and gardenlike that the painting seemed an advertisement for pioneers to settle there, an American Eden.

Next to the painting, Tess set a photograph, dated 1938, of a similar section of the Adirondack Mountains. Because of limitations in color photography during that period, the hues weren't as brilliant as in the painting. A further contrast was that the photograph didn't idealize the landscape but rather presented the forested peaks realistically, the cluttered chaotic woods more impressive as a consequence.

Finally Tess set down a photograph, taken last week, of the slope depicted in the 1938 photograph, and now the contrast was startling, not because improvements in color photography made the hues vivid. Quite the contrary. The image was alarmingly drab, disturbingly lusterless. Except for a hazy blue sky, there were almost no colors. No green of lush foliage. Only a muddy brown, as if something had gone wrong when the film was developed, and indeed something had gone wrong, but it hadn't happened in the processing lab. It had happened in the air, in the clouds, in the rain. This section of the forest had been killed by acid in the water that was supposed to nourish it. The trees, denuded of leaves, looked obscenely skeletal, the grassless slope cursed.

Tess leaned back in disgust to study the sequence of images. They made their depressing point so effectively that the article she was preparing to write to accompany them couldn't possibly be as strong, although of course the article had to be written, just as she'd written God knows how many others on related environmental disasters, in the hope that people would at last respond to the global crisis. Her commitment explained why, despite lucrative employment offers from such mainstream publications as Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair, she'd chosen to work for Earth Mother Magazine. She felt an obligation to the planet.

Granted – she readily admitted – it wasn't any sacrifice for her to be idealistic. At the age of twenty-eight, while most of her contemporaries seemed obsessed with money, she had the benefit of a trust fund from her late grandfather that gave her the freedom to be indifferent to the temptation of high-paying jobs. Ironically, that trust fund provided not only independence but a motive for her to devote herself to environmental causes, for the considerable money in that trust fund had come from her grandfather's extremely successful chemical factories, the improperly discarded wastes from which had killed rivers and contaminated drinking water throughout several sections of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It gave Tess satisfaction to think that she was doing her best to make amends.

She was statuesque, five-feet-nine, with cropped blond hair, attractive glowing features, and a sinewy sensuous figure that she kept in shape with a daily workout at a health club near her loft in SoHo. Her eyes were crystal blue, her only makeup a slight touch of lipstick. Jeans, sneakers, and a cotton pullover were her favorite clothes. She reached toward an apple in a well-stocked bowl on her desk, savored the taste of the fruit, sensed someone behind her, and turned toward a man in the open doorway to her office.

'Working late again?' The man's eyes crinkled. 'You'll make me feel ashamed for going home.' His name was Walter Trask. The editor of Earth Mother Magazine, he had his suitcoat draped over the arm of his wrinkled white shirt. His top button and his tie were open. Fifty-five, portly, he had gray thinning hair and paler gray, sagging cheeks.

'Late?' Tess glanced at her watch. 'Good Lord, is it seven o'clock already? I've been putting together my piece on acid rain. I guess I got so involved I-'

'Tomorrow, Tess. Give yourself a break, and do it tomorrow. The planet will manage to survive till then. But.you won't last much longer if you don't go easy on yourself.'

Tess shrugged self-consciously. 'I suppose I could use a swim.'

Trask shook his head. 'How I wish I had your energy.'

'Vitamins and exercise.'

'What I need is thirty less years. Have you read the papers? The murders at the Pac-Rim Corporation after the spill. What do you think?'

Tess raised her shoulders. 'It's obvious.'

'Oh?'

'The spill pissed somebody off.'

'Sure.' Trask sighed. 'That's not what I meant. Do you think we should do a story on it?'

'Earth Mother Magazine isn't a tabloid. The spill's the story. Not the murders. They're a sidebar. A small one. Fanatics hurt our cause. Too many people think that we're fanatics, exaggerating the threat to-'

'Sure,' Trask said again. 'But our profit-and-loss statement's in the red. If we could… Well… Never mind. Lock up when you leave, will you, Tess? And soon, okay?'

'Word of honor.'

'Good. See you tomorrow, kid.' His shoulders stooped, Trask walked down the hallway, disappearing.

A half-minute later, Tess heard the elevator descend. She finished her apple, assessed the artwork for her article, and decided that Trask was right – she needed a break. But the trouble was, she knew that after her swim at the health club, after a shower, a walk home, a salad, a meatless tomato sauce on pasta (with plenty of mushrooms, onions, and green peppers), she'd still feel compelled to work on the article. So in spite of Trask's advice, she packed up her artwork and two boxes of research, slung her purse across her shoulder, hefted both boxes as well as her clipboard of legal-sized yellow notepaper, used an elbow to shut off her office light switch, and proceeded along the hallway, elbowing other light switches as she passed them.

A further nudge of her elbow turned on the intruder alarm… Stepping back from the infrared beam, she fumbled to open and close the door, which locked behind her automatically. In a small waiting area, she nudged her arm against the elevator's button, sagged against the wall, heard the elevator rise, and finally admitted she was tired.

Fatigue, or fate. For whatever reason, when the doors hissed open and Tess stepped into the elevator, she lost her grip on her clipboard. It fell to the floor, dislodging the gold Cross pen she'd clipped onto it. The pen, a gift from her father on the day she'd entered college, had bittersweet significance – her father had never lived to see her graduate.

With a mournful twinge, she pressed the button marked LOBBY, felt the elevator sink, and stooped with her purse and boxes to grope for the clipboard and pen. Bent over, her hips angled into the air, she tensed when the elevator unexpectedly stopped. As its doors slid open, she peered backward, up past her knees, and a man loomed into view, casting a long shadow over her. Her awkward undignified pose made Tess feel vulnerable, at the very least embarrassed. Nothing like presenting my better side, she thought.

But the man's good-natured smile put her instantly at ease. With a sympathetic shrug, he picked up her clipboard and pen, and although Tess realized it only later, his act of courtesy changed her life. In nightmarish days and weeks to come, Tess would compulsively re-analyze these next few moments and wonder if she'd never dropped her clipboard and pen, maybe they'd never have started talking. Maybe none of the pain, grief, and terror would ever have happened.

But her conclusions were always the same. Events had controlled her. No matter the horrifying results, she couldn't have changed a thing any more than she'd have been able to repress the immediate attraction she felt toward this man. Absurd? Illogical? Yes. Call it chemistry, or call it vibrations. Call it a confluence of the planets or a merging of the stars. Whatever the explanation, her knees had felt weak, her groin warm, and she'd briefly feared that she might faint. But instead of sinking, she'd managed to straighten, face the man, and keep herself from wavering.

The man was tall, six-feet-one at least, and Tess, who was also tall, appreciated men whose shoulders weren't even with her own. He had healthy, glowing, tanned skin, and square-jawed, rugged, classically handsome features. His body was perfectly proportioned, muscular yet trim. His clothes were similar to hers. Sneakers, jeans, a blue cotton shirt, the collar of which projected from a burgundy cotton pullover. But his eyes, though. They were what Tess most noticed. They glinted with a radiance that seemed to come from his soul, and their color was unusual, gray, a tint that Tess had encountered only in the heroes of arousing romance novels that she'd read with guilty pleasure during her middle teens.

As she tried to look dignified, the stranger's good-natured smile persisted. 'Tough day?'

'Not bad. Just long,' Tess said.

The stranger pointed toward the boxes she held. 'And apparently about to get longer.'

Tess blushed. 'I guess I try to do too much.'

That's better than doing too little.' The stranger pressed the elevator button marked LOBBY and narrowed his eyes toward her pen. 'Gold Cross,' he said, noting the manufacturer's name. The words seemed to have particular significance for him. He attached the pen to the clipboard and gave them to her.

Briefly their hands touched. Static electricity must have leapt, for Tess's fingers tingled.

'You work for Earth Mother Magazine!' the stranger asked.

'How did you-?'

The labels on those boxes.'

'Oh, of course.' Tess blushed again. 'And you? You came from the floor below mine. There's only one business on that floor. A TV production firm. Truth Video.'

'Right. By the way, I've read your magazine. It's excellent. In fact, I'm putting together a documentary that's related to your work – a video on the lack of sufficient safeguards at nuclear-waste sites. Between your work and mine, I can't think of anything more important.'

Than trying to save the planet?' Tess nodded, despondent. 'If only more people felt the same way.'

'Well, that's the problem, isn't it?'

'Oh?' Tess frowned. 'I see so many problems. Which one do you-?'

'Human nature. I'm not sure the planet can be saved.'

Tess felt surprised by his response.

The elevator stopped.

'Do you need help with those boxes?' the stranger asked.

'No, really, I can manage.'

Then let me hold open the lobby door.'

They emerged to frenzied pedestrians, blaring traffic, acrid exhaust fumes, and a smog-dirtied sunset.

This is what I mean.' The stranger shook his head, sounding mournful. I'm not sure the planet can be saved.' He helped Tess hail a taxi, peered around as if in search of someone, told her 'God bless,' and walked briskly away, blending with the crowd, disappearing almost magically into it.

Tess's fingers still tingled.

TWO

The next morning, standing in the lobby, waiting for the elevator, Tess glanced toward the right, noticed the stranger enter the building, and felt her cheeks flush.

'Well, hello again,' he said.

Flustered by her attraction to him, doing her best to hide it, Tess managed a pleasant smile. 'Nice morning.'

'Isn't it, though? When I went for my run, a breeze cleared the air. There's still not much smog yet.'

'You run?'

'Every day.'

'Hey, so do I,' Tess said.

'It shows.'

Tess felt her cheeks flush even more.

'Good for the body,' the stranger said, 'good for the soul.'

'I try.'

They lapsed into silence.

The silence lengthened.

This elevator.' Tess sighed.

'Yes. Awfully slow. But I do my best to take everything as it comes.'

'Sort of like "patience is a virtue"?'

The man debated. 'Let's call it a discipline.'

The doors slid open.

There. You see.' The stranger pointed. 'Everything in time.'

They entered the elevator.

'I promise not to drop anything,' Tess said.

'I was pleased to help.'

'But I didn't have a chance to thank you.'

'Not necessary,' the stranger said. 'You'd have done the same thing for me.'

Tess watched him push buttons for his floor, then hers, and noted with satisfaction that he didn't wear a wedding ring.

The stranger turned. 'I suppose – if we're going to keep bumping into each other – we ought to introduce ourselves.'

Tess loved the way his gray eyes twinkled. She told him her name, or at least her first name. By habit, she deliberately didn't mention that her last name was Drake because people occasionally associated it with her well-known father, and she felt upset whenever she had to talk about the brutal way he'd been killed.

'Tess?' The stranger cocked his head and nodded. 'Beautiful. That's short for…'

'Theresa.' Again she didn't tell the stranger the full truth. Although Tess' was sometimes used as a shortened form of 'Theresa', her nickname resulted from her father's teasing practice of calling her 'Contessa Theresa' when she was a child. He'd finally shortened it lovingly to just Tess'.

'Of course,' the dark-haired, strikingly handsome man said. Theresa. The Spanish mystic, the originator of the Carmelite Order of nuns.'

Tess blinked, surprised. 'I didn't know. That is… I wasn't aware of…'

'It doesn't matter. I've got a knack for collecting all sorts of useless information.'

'And your name?' Tess asked.

'Joseph.'

No last name, Tess noted, just as she hadn't volunteered hers.

The elevator jerked to a stop.

'I guess it's time again for my penance,' Joseph said.

'It can't be that bad. Last night, I got the impression you enjoyed your work.'

'Documenting the decay of the planet? That's hardly enjoyable. Still, I do get satisfaction from trying to accomplish some good.' Joseph left the elevator and turned to her, his face glowing. 'God bless.'

As the doors slid shut and Joseph disappeared, Tess's stomach sank, but not from the upward motion of the elevator.

THREE

The next day, Friday, Tess became so absorbed in her article that she worked through her lunch hour. At quarter after two, the rumbles in her stomach made her finally decide that her concentration would suffer if she didn't get something to eat.

When she entered the elevator, she thought of Joseph. Descending, it stopped at the floor below hers. Again, she tingled. No, she thought. This is just a coincidence.

But her knees went weak when the doors slid open and Joseph entered.

He grinned, apparently not at all surprised to see her. 'Looks like we're destined to keep bumping into each other.' He pressed the button marked LOBBY. 'How's your penance?'

Standing close to him, feeling his arm against hers, Tess tried to control her breathing. 'Penance?' Abruptly she remembered that he'd used that expression yesterday. 'Oh, you mean my work. I'm doing an article on acid rain. It's going well.'

'Can't ask for better than well.'

'I…'

'Yes?'

'Don't you think it's odd, to say the least, that you and I decided to take the elevator at…"

'The same moment? Joseph shrugged. 'The world's an odd place. Long ago, I decided to accept fate instead of question it. Some things are meant to happen.'

'Like kismet or karma?'

' Providence.' Joseph's gray eyes glinted. 'Late lunch?'

Tess smelled his aftershave lotion and couldn't keep her voice from quavering. 'I lost track of time.'

'Me, too. Clock time anyhow. There's a deli across the street. Care to join me?'

Gooseflesh prickled Tess's arms. 'Only if it's Dutch treat.'

Joseph spread his hands. 'Whatever you like. But for me, it'll still be a treat.'

Outside, on the noisy sidewalk, they waited for a break in traffic and darted across toward the deli. The afternoon was humid, the struggling sunlight dull with exhaust haze. As Tess reached the opposite sidewalk, she glanced toward Joseph and couldn't help noticing that, just as the first time she'd met him, he peered around as if searching for someone in the crowd. Why? She repressed a frown, wondering – influenced by her father's habits – did Joseph think that he was being watched? Come on, she told herself. This isn't a secret meeting. Get real.

The brightly lit deli, after the noon-hour rush, was only a quarter full.

'Our pastrami's very good today,' the waiter said.

'Thanks. No meat, though,' Joseph said. 'I'd like your tomato, sprouts, and cucumber sandwich.'

'Cole slaw? How about a dill pickle?'

'Might as well. And a bottle of mineral water.'

'Sounds good,' Tess said. The same for me.' When the waiter left, she studied Joseph. 'No meat? You're a vegetarian?'

'It's not a big deal. Meat just doesn't agree with me. Besides, this is Friday.'

Tess – a Roman Catholic – thought she understood the reference. Years ago, Catholics had not been allowed to eat meat on Friday. But only elderly, extremely conservative Catholics still obeyed that outmoded rule, and Joseph, like her, was young enough that he couldn't have been conditioned to abstain from meat on Friday for fear of committing a sin.

The reason I asked' – Tess subdued her puzzlement – 'is that I'm mostly a vegetarian, too.'

'Well, that's something else we share in common.'

'Like being Roman Catholic?'

Joseph frowned. 'What makes you think I'm a Catholic?'

'No meat on Friday.'

'Ah,' Joseph said. 'I see. No, I don't belong to that religion.'

'Sorry. I apologize. I guess I'm asking too many questions.'

'Don't worry about it. I'm not offended.'

Then as long as I'm… If you don't mind, let me ask you something else,' Tess said.

'I'm waiting.'

'Why did you look so nervous when you crossed the street?'

Joseph laughed. 'In New York? With all the junkies and crazy drivers? Who doesn't look nervous?'

'One more question.'

'Sure.'

'… Would you like to see me tomorrow?' Tess's boldness surprised her. Her heart skipped.

'Would…?' Joseph concentrated, peered down at the table, toyed with his knife and fork, then focused his intense gray eyes upon her. 'Of course. I'd enjoy your company very much.'

Tess exhaled.

'But I have to be honest.'

Damn, Tess thought. Here it comes. This is what I was afraid of. A man this gorgeous, he's probably going to tell me he's involved with someone.

'By all means.' She straightened and pressed her hands on the table, preparing herself. 'I appreciate honesty.'

'We can only be friends.'

I'm not sure what…'

'What I mean is, we can never be lovers.'

His frankness startled her. 'Hey,' Tess said, 'I wasn't making a proposition. It's not like I asked you to go to bed.'

'I know that. Really, your behavior's impeccable.' Joseph reached across the table and tenderly touched her hand. She noticed he had a jagged scar on the back of his wrist. 'I didn't mean to offend or embarrass you. It's just that… there are certain things about me you wouldn't understand.'

'I think I do understand.'

'Oh?'

'You're gay? Is that it?'

Joseph laughed. 'Not at all.'

'I mean, it wouldn't bother me or anything if you are gay. I'd just like to know. I don't want to make a bigger fool of myself than I already have.'

'Believe me, Tess, I'm not gay, and you haven't made a fool of yourself.'

Then maybe you've had some kind of accident, and…'

'You mean, have I been emasculated? Hardly. The truth is, I'm extremely flattered that you want to spend time with me. But I have certain… well, let's call them obligations. I can't explain what they are or why I have to abide by them. You just have to trust and believe and accept. The point is, I welcome your friendship.'

'Friendship?' Tess squirmed. 'I once got rid of a persistent boy in high school by telling him that I only wanted him as a friend.'

'But this isn't high school,' Joseph said. 'If you want my companionship… and I'd enjoy yours… I hate to sound formal, but those are my terms.'

'Listen.' Tess bit her lip. 'Maybe we ought to forget it.'

'Why? Because you can't imagine a male and female relationship that doesn't result in sex?' Joseph asked.

'God, I feel like such an idiot.'

'Don't,' Joseph said. 'You're a healthy, intelligent, attractive woman with normal desires. But I'm'-Joseph's gaze intensified -'totally different.'

'You'll get no argument. And maybe that's why…'She couldn't believe she was saying this. 'I want to be with you.'

'Platonically,' Joseph said.

'All right. Sure. For now. But who knows…?'

'No, Tess. Not just for now, but always. Trust me, that way is better.'

'Why?'

'Because it's eternal.'

'You're the strangest man I ever met,' Tess said.

'I'll accept that as a compliment.'

'Okay.' Tess increased her resolve. 'What time tomorrow?'

'Ten a.m.?' Joseph suggested. The upper East Side. Carl Schurz Park. Off Eighty-Eighth Street. Next to the mayor's house.'

'I know it.'

There's a jogging track beside the river. Since we exercise every day, we might as well do it together.'

'Swell,' Tess said. 'So we jog, and I work off my attraction to you?'

'Exercise works wonders, my platonic friend.'

'Maybe for you.'

Joseph grinned with good nature. 'It's like a cold shower.'

'I have to warn you,' Tess said. 'I'll do my best to tempt you.'

'It won't do any good,' Joseph said. 'Really, I'm untemptable.'

'I consider that a challenge.'

FOUR

Even at ten a.m., the jogging track off the wooded park next to the East River was crowded. The absence of commuter traffic freed the air of smog and exposed an unfamiliar glorious sky. Senior citizens sat on benches, enjoying the weekend's peace. On the left, in a court past a waist-high wrought- iron fence, teenagers played basketball.

Sunbathers spread blankets on grass, enjoying the unusually intense June sun. People walked dogs through the trees. What a gift, Tess thought. What a beautiful day. How rare.

She'd worn a blue jogging suit that complemented the turquoise color of her eyes. Although loose, it managed to reveal her figure, her lean, lithe body and firm, upwardly tilted breasts. A red sweatband encircled her forehead, emphasizing her short blond hair. She leaned her taut hips against the railing that separated the jogging track from the river and studied the runners surging past, many of whom listened to earphones attached to miniature radios strapped to their waists. Her own preference was not to be distracted by music but instead to devote herself exclusively to the high she gained from prolonged exercise. The Zen-like pleasure on the runners' sweating faces made her eager to join them. Soon, she thought. Joseph will be here anytime.

As she waited, she continued to be amazed by her irresistible attraction to him. Certainly he was good-looking, but Tess had gone out with many good-looking men and had never felt so intense an identification with them. Most had been so aware of their looks that she couldn't bear their egos. She'd discovered that one had been seeing three other women while pretending that Tess was the only woman he cared about. Another had been an up-and-coming TV executive whose primary interest in Tess was having someone to tell him how great he was while he gained power.

For the past six months, she hadn't gone out with anyone. Maybe that explained her attraction to Joseph, Tess thought. A combination of overwork and loneliness. But the more she considered that explanation, the more she dismissed it. There was something – she couldn't find the proper words – different about him. A handsome man who wasn't in love with his handsomeness, who treated her with deference, who was easy to talk to, who related to her as a human being, not a potential sexual conquest. All of that certainly counted. Even so, she'd never before been this insistent and candid to a man about her interest in him. Why? There was something else about him. What was it? The unfamiliar sensation not only puzzled but disturbed her.

She didn't know which direction Joseph would come from, right or left, or straight ahead through the wooded park, so she turned her gaze often, watching for him. We should have chosen a specific spot to meet, she decided and continued to scan the crowd. Still, there's no one nearby on either side of me. Joseph shouldn't have any trouble noticing where I am.

Because she'd looked forward to spending time with him, Tess had arrived here early, at quarter to ten, but now as she glanced at her jogger's watch, she was troubled to see that it was quarter after ten.

Had they failed to see each other?

She studied the crowd more intensely. Then her watch showed half-past ten and with frustrating slowness eleven o'clock, and she told herself that something important must have delayed him.

But when her watch showed eleven-thirty, then noon, she angrily understood the explanation for his absence.

This had happened to her only once, in her junior year of college, her date having gotten so drunk at a Saturday afternoon frat party that he'd become too sick to take her to a movie that night and hadn't bothered to phone to explain he wasn't coming. That had been the end of that relationship.

And now Joseph, too, had stood her up. She couldn't believe it. Disappointment fought with fury. Fury won.

The son of a…! He'd seemed too good to be true, and that's exactly what he was. Tess, we can only be friends? Well, buddy, you blew it. We're not friends.

Seething, Tess joined the stream of joggers, too distraught to bother with the preliminary ritual of stretch-and-warm-up exercises, her anger so fueling her long urgent stride that she outdistanced the fastest runners.

Bastard.

FIVE

Sunday was dreary. A dismal rain reinforced Tess's depression. Bare-footed, wearing the shorts and rumpled T-shirt that she'd slept in, she sipped from a steaming cup of strong black coffee and scowled from a window of her loft in SoHo. Three floors down, across the street, a drenched pathetic cat found shelter under a seesaw in a small playground.

Behind her, the TV was on, a Cable News Network anchor-woman somberly reporting the latest environmental disaster. In Tennessee, a train pulling twenty cars of anhydrous ammonia, a toxic gas shipped in the form of pressurized liquid and used in the manufacture of fertilizer, had reached a rural section of ill-maintained tracks and toppled down an embankment. The tanks had burst, and the cargo had vaporized, spewing a massive poisonous cloud that so far had killed the entire train crew, sixteen members of families on local farms, dozens of livestock, hundreds of wild animals, and thousands of birds. A northeastern wind was directing the dense white cloud toward a nearby town of fifteen thousand people, all of whom were fleeing in panic. Emergency workers were powerless to stop the cloud and unprepared to organize so huge an evacuation. At last count, eight motorists had been killed and another sixteen critically injured in car accidents due to the chaos of the town's frantic attempt to escape. Eventually, the anchorwoman reported, the heavy gas would settle to the ground, but paradoxically, although anhydrous ammonia was used to make fertilizer, it wouldn't benefit the land. Not unless diluted. Instead its present, extremely concentrated nitrogen level (eighty-two percent) would sear hundreds of acres of woodland as well as destroy crops and become absorbed into streams, wells, ponds, and reservoirs, poisoning the town's water supply.

Tess drooped her shoulders, turned off the TV, and frowned up toward the monotonous unnerving gusts of rain on her skylight. She shuddered with the realization of how even more disastrous, almost unimaginably so, the accident would have been if it had happened near a major urban area. One day, though, that's exactly where it will happen, she knew. Because of carelessness, poor planning, badly maintained equipment, government lethargy, greed, stupidity, overpopulation, and… Tess shook her head. So many reasons. Too many. Piece by piece, the earth was dying, and there didn't seem any way to stop it.

A line from one of Yeats's poems occurred to her.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

She felt exhausted. Abandoning her plan to go to her health club this morning, she decided she needed a long hot bath. I've been pushing myself too hard. What I ought to do is curl up in bed and read the Sunday Times.

But the news would only depress her further, she knew.

Then watch some old movies, she told herself. Rent some Cary Grant screwball comedies.

But she doubted that she'd do much laughing. How could she laugh when…? Without minimizing the gravity of what had happened in Tennessee, she admitted, reluctantly, that part of her depression was the consequence of her bitterness that Joseph had failed to meet her yesterday.

Her anger still smoldered. Why would he-?

Joseph hadn't seemed the type to be rude. Okay, I admit, I came on awfully strong. I kept trying to get him to say that we could be more than friends. I overreacted. I probably scared him away.

In that case – her indignation flared – the least Joseph could have done was phone and explain that he had second thoughts and didn't plan to show up. He didn't need to keep me waiting.

Phone you? Tess suddenly thought. Your number isn't listed! And even if it were, you never told him your last name! For all you know, he had a legitimate reason not to meet you, but he didn't have a way to get in touch and let you know.

Should I swallow my pride and call him?

Dummy, you don't know his last name any more than he knows yours.

SIX

Monday, self-conscious, Tess almost expected to see Joseph enter the lobby while she waited for the elevator, but this time, a coincidence didn't happen. In her office, she tried to concentrate on her article, glancing frequently from her computer toward the telephone.

Whenever it rang, she tensed, hoping it would be Joseph, disappointed when it wasn't. By eleven-thirty, frustration made her check the Yellow Pages for Truth Video's number. She picked up the phone, only to slam it down.

What's wrong with me? I'm the one who got stood up. Why should I call him! Have I lost my pride? Do I need to beg for an apology?

At two, when she went for lunch, she again wondered if she'd see him in the elevator, but the car passed Truth Video's floor without stopping. On impulse, she decided to eat at the deli across the street. No sign of Joseph.

Thinking of him, she ordered what both of them had eaten on Friday: a tomato, sprouts, and cucumber sandwich.

She didn't see him waiting back at the elevator, didn't receive a call from him in her office, and didn't cross paths with him when she left the building just after seven.

Screw him! He had his chance!

But Tuesday, when she still didn't see him and he still didn't phone, she banged down the gold Cross pen she'd been using to edit the printout of her manuscript and decided that an apology was exactly what she wanted.

In fact, she demanded it!

Not on the phone, though. No, by God. She wanted to see him squirm.

She wanted him to-

The son of a bitch had to apologize in person.

SEVEN

Truth Video had a narrow reception area separated from its offices by a thick glass wall and door. A secretary peered up from a desk and spoke to Tess through a slot in a window, her hand poised to press a button that would free the electronically controlled lock on the door. 'May I help you?'

Tess's determination wavered.

Don't be a fool! He'll think you're-!

Think I'm what?

Chasing him? He should be so damned lucky!

Taking a breath, Tess forced herself to look businesslike, not at all angry.

Inwardly, though, she smiled. When I see the creep, when the secretary hears what I tell him and the gossip gets around…

'By all means, yes. I'm looking for a man who works here. I don't know his last name, but his first name's Joseph.'

The receptionist nodded, although her eyes looked puzzled. There's only one Joseph who works here. You must mean Joseph Martin.'

'Martin?' Tess mentally repeated the name. 'Early thirties? Tall? Trim? Dark hair? Gray eyes?'

'Yeah, that's him, all right.'

'Well, if he hasn't gone to lunch, would you kindly tell him I'd like to speak with him?'

'Sorry.' The receptionist frowned. 'I don't know if he's having lunch, but he certainly isn't here.'

'Great. Then I'll try again later. Any idea when he'll be back?'

'Well, that's the question, isn't it?'

'I don't understand.'

'Joseph hasn't reported for work since he left the office on Friday.'

'What?'

'We haven't seen him yesterday or today,' the receptionist said. 'He didn't call in to tell us he was sick or had a family emergency or… He just never showed.'

Tess felt off-balance.

'The editing department's been frantic to meet a deadline without his help, and…'

Tess's anger no longer mattered. She pressed her fingertips against the window. 'Why didn't you phone him?'

That's another problem. If he's got a phone, he never put its number on his employment sheet.' The receptionist studied her. 'Are you a friend of his?'

'In a strange sort of…'

The receptionist shrugged. 'It figures. Joseph's strange enough. Look, if you run into him, why not give us a break and tell him to call? We can't find his notes for the project we're working on. The editing department's climbing the walls to find those notes and meet their deadline.'

'But didn't anyone go to Joseph's home?'

The receptionist strained to look patient. 'I told you we can't find his notes. But the messenger we sent over says that no one lives at the address Joseph gave us.'

'What's the address?'

'It doesn't matter,' the receptionist said. 'Believe me, it won't help.'

Tess again raised her voice. 'I asked you, what's the address?'

The receptionist tapped her pen against her chin. 'You're wasting your time, but if it means that much to you…'

'It does mean that much to me.'

'You sure must be a friend of his.' The receptionist exhaled, flipped through a Rolodex, and gave an address on Broadway.

Tess scribbled it down.

'I'm telling you, though,' the receptionist said. 'It's…'

'I know. A waste of time.'

EIGHT

But when Tess got out of the taxi to confront the blaring horns and noxious fumes of congested traffic on Broadway near Fiftieth Street, she began to wonder. Comparing the address on the dismal building before her to the numbers she'd written on her notepad, she understood – with belated apologies to the receptionist – why she'd been told she'd be wasting her time.

The building had a tourist-trap, overpriced-camera-and-electronics shop on the bottom floor. The second floor had a dusty window with a sign: SEXUAL EDUCATORS. The third-floor windows were all painted black. God alone knew what they hid, but Tess braced her shoulders, determined to find out. Because the address she'd been given had specified a number on the third floor.

She stepped around a drunk or more likely a junkie passed out on the sidewalk, entered a hallway that stank of urine, climbed equally foul-smelling stairs, mustered the confidence to ignore the oppressive absence of lights, and reached the gloomy third floor. The names of businesses on various doors reinforced her increasingly despondent certainty that this building was strictly commercial, that neither Joseph nor anyone else would have an apartment here.

But then why, she brooded, convinced that something was wrong, had Joseph told his employer that this was his address?

She found an open door with a number on its grimy frosted glass that matched the third-floor number on her notepad.

Inside, she studied a frizzy-haired woman with too much lipstick who sat behind a desk. The woman chewed gum while reading a paperback. On every wall, from floor to ceiling, there were eight-inch-square cubicles with closed metal hatches that had numbers and locks.

Tess haltingly approached the desk.

The woman kept reading.

'Excuse me,' Tess said.

The woman turned a page.

Tess cleared her throat. 'If you don't mind.'

The woman splayed her book on the desk and frowned upward.

'I'm looking for…' Tess shook her head. There isn't a sign on the door. What kind of business is this?'

The woman gnawed her gum. 'A mail service.'

'I don't…'

'Like a post-office box? The mailman brings it. I sort it. I put it in those slots. The customers pick it up.'

'Have you ever heard of…? I'm looking for a man named Joseph Martin.' •

'Sorry. It doesn't ring any bells.'

'Maybe if I described him.'

'Honey' – the woman raised a chubby hand – 'before you get started, I'm just a temp. The regular gal got sick. Appendix or something. I don't know any Joseph Martin.'

'But he told his employer that this is where he lives.'

The woman chortled. 'Sure. Maybe he sneaks in at night and sets up a cot. Come on, I told you this is a mail service. What this Martin guy probably meant was this is where he wanted his check sent.'

Tess's pulse quickened. 'If he's one of your customers…'

'Maybe yes. Maybe no. I just started this morning. No one named Joseph Martin came in.'

'But if he is a customer, could you find out if he picked up his mail on Saturday or Monday?'

The woman squinted. 'Nope.'

'Why not?'

'Because that information's confidential, honey. When I started this morning, the guy who hired me made sure I got two points. First, I have to get ID from customers before I let them unlock their box. And second, I'm not allowed to give out information about the clients. There's too many process servers.' The woman eyed Tess with suspicion.

'I'm not a process server.'

'So you say.'

'Look, I'm just worried about my friend. He's been missing since Friday, and…'

'You say. Me? I have to protect my buns. If this gal I replaced gets sick enough to quit or die or something, maybe I can make this a permanent job. So why not get lost, huh? For all I know, you work for my boss and he sent you here to check out if I'm doing what he told me. So look for your friend somewhere else.'

NINE

In a taxi on the way back to work, Tess trembled, frustrated. She tried to assure herself that she'd done her best. If Joseph decided to quit his job and drop out of sight, that wasn't her concern, she told herself.

But despite her insistence, she couldn't ignore the queasy churning in her stomach. Suppose Joseph's disappearance had something to do with her.

Don't kid yourself, she thought. Nobody quits his job just to escape a woman who was too insistent about starting a relationship.

Anyway, Joseph didn't quit his job. The receptionist at Truth Video said he never called in to explain why he wouldn't be at work.

So what? That doesn't prove a thing. Lots of people quit their job without calling in to say they've quit. They just never show up again.

But Joseph didn't seem that irresponsible, Tess thought.

Sure, just like he didn't seem the type to stand you up? Stop being naive. You met him only three times. You really don't know anything about him. You admitted – in fact you told him – he's the strangest man you ever met. Even the receptionist at Truth Video called him strange. And maybe that's why you're attracted to him.

Tess bit her lip. Admit something else. You're concerned because you think something might have happened to him. For all you know, he's sick at home, too weak to phone for help. That explanation would certainly soothe your wounded pride.

Tess sagged in the back seat of the taxi.

What's wrong with me? Do I actually hope he's too sick to make a phone call?

On the taxi's radio, an announcer gave a tense update about the toxic-gas disaster in Tennessee. Three hundred dead. Eight hundred critically injured. Fields littered with thousands of dead animals and birds. Already the forests and crops were turning brown from the caustic effects of the poisonous cloud's searing nitrogen. The Environmental Protection Agency, among many other government agencies, had rushed investigators to the nightmarish scene with orders to search for the cause of the train's derailment. Their conclusions so far – according to an unnamed but highly placed informant – indicated that budget cuts at the financially troubled Tennessee railway had resulted in understaffed maintenance crews. The railway's owner could not be reached for comment, although rumors suggested that his recent divorce -costly and caused by an affair with one of his secretaries – had distracted him from crucial business decisions. As well, the foreman of the maintenance crew was reputed to have a cocaine addiction.

Jesus, Tess thought. While I'm worrying about a possibly sick man who stood me up, the planet gets worse.

A gruff voice intruded on her thoughts.

'What?' Tess straightened. 'I'm sorry. I didn't…'

'Lady.' The taxi driver scowled. 'I told you we're here. You owe me four bucks.'

TEN

Surprised to discover that she'd been gone from the office for almost two hours, Tess tried to concentrate on the revisions she'd made in her article, but as she jotted notes for a possibly stronger last paragraph, she found herself staring at her gold Cross pen. She remembered the day her father had given it to her and how dropping it had been the catalyst that brought Joseph and her together.

Abruptly she stood, left her office, proceeded along a row of other offices, and stopped at the end of the corridor, at the open door of the final office. With equal suddenness, she felt her determination wither. Because what she saw was Walter Trask, the fiftyish, portly, avuncular editor of Earth Mother Magazine, hunched over his desk, rubbing his temples and shaking his head at what looked like financial statements.

Tess turned to leave.

But Trask must have felt her presence. Shifting his worried gaze toward the open door, he changed expressions and smiled. 'Hey, kid, how are you?'

Tess didn't answer.

'Come on, what's the matter?' Trask leaned back and raised his hands. 'You're always so cheery. It can't be that bad. Get in here. Sit. Stretch your legs. Talk to me.'

Tess frowned and entered.

'What is it?' Trask raised his eyebrows. Trouble with your article?'

'Trouble? Yes.' She sank toward a chair. 'But not with the article.'

'Which means it might be…?' Trask raised his eyebrows higher.

'Personal.' Tess felt a greater hesitation. 'This is embarrassing. Maybe I shouldn't have…'

'Nonsense. That's why my door is always open. Personal problems always result in professional problems. When my staffs unhappy, the magazine suffers. Talk to me, Tess. You know I'm fond of you. Think of me as a confessor. And I hope I don't need to add – anything said in this room, believe me, goes no farther.'

Tess tried not to fidget. Given her late father's background, she knew she ought to be more sophisticated about certain matters. 'What I wanted to ask… You know these companies that hold mail for people…?'

Trask narrowed his gaze, emphasizing the furrows around his eyes. 'Hold mail for people?'

'Sort of like post-office boxes, except they're not in a post office.'

'Ah, yes, now I… Mail services. Sure,' Trask said. 'What about them?'

Tess's stomach hardened. 'Who uses them? Why?'

Trask leaned forward, considered her, then ordered his thoughts. 'That all depends. Quick-buck mail-order outfits for one. The kind that advertise in the back of supermarket tabloids and sex magazines. You want a genuine World War Two Nazi bayonet or an inflatable, life-sized, anatomically correct female doll? What you do is send your check to such-and-such an address. The creep who placed the ad picks up his mail at one of those services, lets the scam last three or four months until he figures his customers are impatient enough to call the police, and then he skips town with all the cash. Of course, there were never any bayonets or inflatable dolls.'

'But…' Tess gripped her thighs. 'Why make it so complicated? Why not just use an official post-office box?'

'Because' – Trask raised his shoulders – 'I know this is hard to imagine, some people who read those ads in the tabloids and magazines are smart enough to smell a scam if the company they're tempted to send the check to doesn't have a permanent-looking address. Besides, those con artists risk being charged with mail fraud. The last thing they want is to go near a post office, where a clerk might wonder about hundreds of letters addressed to vaguely suggestive names. World War Two Collectibles and Home Anatomical Education.'

'Okay.' Tess frowned. 'In a sick way, that makes sense. But surely there are other reasons to use these places.' She suddenly remembered what the frizzy-haired woman had told her. To stay away from process servers?'

'You figured that out? You bet,' Trask said. 'A guy who's afraid of being served with a summons to testify in court, or who's running from a lawsuit, or who hasn't been paying his child support and doesn't want his wife to know where he lives.'

Tess considered and shook her head. 'I still don't… Wouldn't a process server merely wait around until his target came in to get his mail?'

'Process servers get paid for results,' Trask said. 'They know a mail drop's trouble. I mean, they could wait around for days, maybe weeks , and still not… If someone's really nervous about being found, all he has to do is pay to have the service forward his mail to another address. Mind you, there are legitimate reasons to use a mail service instead of a post-office box.'

Tess waved her hands for Trask to continue.

'Why is this so important to you?' Trask asked.

'Please!'

'Okay, so maybe your job takes you out of the country a lot, and you don't want to depend on the post office to forward your mail. Or maybe you live in another state, but for legal reasons, you need a corporate address in New York City. Or maybe you own a legitimate mail-order business, but you're well aware of the resistance that potential customers have to temporary-looking post-office-box numbers. There are many legitimate reasons. But basically, in my experience, seven times out of ten someone uses a mail service because…"

'They don't want anyone to know where they live.'

'You got it,' Trask said.

Tess stared at her gold Cross pen. 'Thanks.'

'Whatever your problem is… Listen, kid, I don't want to pry, but I hate to see you looking so dejected. Since I've answered your question, return the favor and answer mine. I might be able to help. Why is this important to you?'

Tess slumped, shaking her head. 'I… It's just that… Well, I found out a friend of mine… at least, sort of a friend… uses one of these services.'

'A friend?' Trask assessed the word. 'Are you saying this friend's a man?'

Tess nodded glumly.

'Oh.' Trask's voice dropped.

'I was supposed to meet him on Saturday, but he didn't show up, and he didn't report for work this week.'

'Oh.' Trask's voice dropped lower.

'And now I'm trying to find out why.'

'Be careful, Tess.'

'I can't help it. My pride's involved. I need to know what happened to him.'

'Well, maybe…' Trask sighed.

'What?'

'This is just a guess. But it could be you don't want to hear.'

'Tell me.'

'Maybe, if he didn't want someone to find him, whoever he didn't want to find him – an ex-wife who hasn't been getting her alimony, for instance – might have gotten too close. It's possible your friend was forced to move on.'

Tess shoved her pen in her purse. 'I'm sorry I interrupted you. Thanks, Walter. I've taken too much of your time. I'll let you get back to work.' She stood.

'No, Tess, please, wait. I told you I might be able to help. Perhaps you didn't know, but before I founded Earth Mother Magazine, when I worked for the Times, I was their expert in tracking down reluctant sources.'

'Then how do I find him?'

'Top line first. Given the implications of the mail service your friend used, are you absolutely sure you want to find him? Think it over.'

'Yes, I'm sure.'

'Should I take it that means you're in love with him?'

Tess hesitated. 'Yes. No. Maybe.' She swallowed, despite a constriction in her throat. 'I'm so confused. God help me, what I do know is I'm worried about him and I want to be with him.'

'A clear enough answer. Okay, my friend, I could write down a list of people and places for you to check. But you'd find it exhausting and time- consuming, not to mention a pain in the ass, to go through them all. Besides, you're a good enough reporter that you've probably already thought of them. So I'll save you the hassle and cut to the bottom line. I'm going to let you in on a secret. Because you confided in me, I'll confide in you. But just as I'll keep your confession in confidence, I take for granted you'll keep mine. Word of honor?'

'Yes.'

'I know I can count on you. This is the reason I was so legendary at the Times for being able to track down reluctant sources.' Trask wrote two words on a piece of paper.

tess frowned at them. '"Lieutenant Craig"?'

'He works for Missing Persons. Central division. One Police Plaza. Just mention my name. If he doesn't cooperate, tell him I said to remind him of nineteen eighty-six.'

'Nineteen eighty-?'

'Six. I doubt you'll have to remind him, though. He owes me a favor he's well aware he can't ever completely repay, and unless he's had a lobotomy, he'll stop whatever he's doing and give your problem his full attention. But if he doesn't, let me know. Because in that case, I'll send him a copy of a letter – along with some audio tapes – that'll give his memory one hell of a jolt, I guarantee.'

ELEVEN

Lieutenant Craig was a tall beefy man, late thirties, with tousled hair, a ruggedly handsome face, and sharply creased cheeks that gave his mouth a pinched expression.

When he heard Trask's name, his dour look intensified. 'Swell. Just swell. The finishing touch on a crummy day.' Craig wore a rumpled suit that matched his haggard features. That leech is a… Never mind. You don't want to know my opinion of him. My language would ruin your day. So what's that bloodsucker got in mind this time?' Squinting toward Tess, Craig gestured toward a stout wooden chair in front of his cluttered desk.

Tess sat, trying to ignore the phones that rang constantly at desks behind her, detectives answering the calls while pecking at typewriters and computer keyboards. 'Well, actually' – she tasted bile, ill at ease – 'Walter, I mean Mr Trask, doesn't want anything.'

Craig closed one eye and squinted more severely with the other. Then why did he tell you to mention his name?'

'I guess because' – Tess clutched the arms of the chair, needing to steady her hands – 'he figured you'd give me extra help.'

Craig laughed, a crusty outburst that sounded like a cough. 'Hey, I'm here to serve the public. No kidding. I'm really a devoted civil servant. Rich or poor, young or old, male or female, white, black, Chicano, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim – did I touch all the bases? – regardless of race or creed, etc., everyone who shows up in this office gets my full and complete attention. Unless of course they're relatives of politicians, and then I really snap to attention.' The lieutenant laughed again and abruptly did cough. 'Damned allergies. So, fine, you need my help and Walter sent you here. So what can I do for you?'

Tess glanced toward the ceiling.

'Look, whatever it is, don't let it embarrass you. I've heard it all before and then some, believe me.'

'It's not that I'm embarrassed exactly,' Tess said.

'Then…?'

'It's just that… Now that I'm here, I'm not sure… I mean…'

'Hey, it's almost six. I'm supposed to be off-duty. Why did you want to see me?'

'It seemed awfully serious a couple of hours ago, but involving the police…'

'Sure, I understand. There's serious, and then there's serious,' Craig said. The thing is – count on me – it's my job to tell the difference. So as long as you are here, you might as well explain why you're clutching the arms of your chair so tight. Hey, lady, take advantage of the taxes you pay. Unburden your soul. What's the worst that can happen?'

'You can make me think I'm wasting your time.'

'Not likely,' Craig said. The truth is, I love it when people waste my time. It gives me enormous satisfaction to tell the taxpayers they're worried for nothing. Think of it this way. After you talk to me, I could reassure you enough – it's possible – that you might even get a good night's sleep.'

Tess felt her stomach harden. 'But suppose what I tell you gets a friend of mine in trouble with…'

'The law? Look, the way we do this is, first we discuss your problem. Then we decide what's next. But if I understand the reason Walter sent you here, it's not to make waves but to smooth the waters. So if it's possible, let's keep the law out of this. That's not a guarantee. What I said was, if it's possible.'

Tess nodded, surprised that she'd grown to like this man. 'All right, I'll give it a try.' Amazed, she released her hands from the arms of the chair. 'There's a man I know…'

It took her a while.

'Don't stop. Keep going,' Craig said.

With delicate prompting and a welcome cup of coffee, Tess finally finished her story.

'Good.' Craig set down his pen. 'Better than good. Impressive. An excellent description. But after all, you work for Walter, so I take for granted you're a skilled reporter with a wonderful memory.' The lieutenant studied his notes. 'Yes. Gray eyes. Extremely unusual… And the last time you saw him was Friday?… And he uses a mail service?… And his employer doesn't have his home phone number?… And he has a habit of glancing nervously around him?'

'Yes.'

'If you don't mind, I have one, no, two more questions.'

Tess felt exhausted. 'What are they?'

'Your home and work addresses. And your telephone numbers, both places.'

Tess wrote them down.

'A day or two, and I'll be in touch.'

That's it? You'll be in touch?'

Craig coughed again. 'What do you think, I use a crystal ball or a ouija board? For starters, I've got to phone the hospitals, the morgue.'

'Morgue?'

'You mean you never…?'

'I've been trying not to think about…'

'Well, it's always a possibility. That's where we start. Of course, there are other possibilities, other reasons why a man would disappear. You put me in an awkward… Hey, there's always…'

'What?'

'Always hope.' Craig straightened the files on his desk. 'But in conscience, I ought to warn you…'

'About?'

'A man who keeps checking behind him?' Craig stood. 'Never mind. We'll talk.'

'All of a sudden' – Tess stood as well – 'I don't want to.' 'Yes, that's what my former wife used to say. But you and I will talk. Soon. I promise. In the meantime, I suggest you see a movie, get drunk, whatever'll help you relax enough to sleep.'

TWELVE

Tess seldom drank, and this hardly seemed a good time to start to rely on alcohol, but a long swim and a fifteen-minute sauna did relax her, loosening her tension-knotted muscles. At nine, when she returned to her loft, she felt exhausted enough that, after a salad, she went to bed. But her mind wouldn't shut down. She kept recalling, re-experiencing the troubling events of the day. Joseph? What had happened to him?

Why had he guarded his privacy so much?

When would Lieutenant Craig phone?

Tense again, she tried to read but couldn't concentrate on the new Ann Beattie novel. She turned on the TV and frequently switched channels, impatient with the forced cheery conversations on what seemed an endless stream of talk shows. It wasn't until after two that she finally managed to sleep, but her dreams weren't restful.

At work Wednesday morning, she had a headache that aspirins did nothing to soothe. Regardless, she strained to focus her thoughts on her new assignment, an article about the overuse of herbicides and pesticides on Midwestern farms and the recent discovery that those poisons had passed through the soil and now were present in alarming quantity in the water supply of various cities. Each time the phone rang, she lunged to pick it up, hoping to hear Joseph's voice, simultaneously dreading what she might be told if the voice wasn't Joseph's but instead belonged to-

'Ms Drake?'

'Speaking.' Tess winced, recognizing the gravelly voice.

'This is Lieutenant Craig.'

'Yes?' She squeezed the phone with one hand while using the other to massage her throbbing forehead.

'I promised I'd call as soon as possible,' the lieutenant said. 'Are you free to take off work and go for a drive?'

Tess felt dizzy and closed her eyes.

'Ms Drake?'

'Call me Tess, please.' Yesterday, Craig hadn't commented on her last name, apparently not associating it with her father. To simplify matters, she didn't want him to make the connection, which he might if he repeated Drake often enough. 'Have you found something?'

'Why don't we talk about it in the car? Is fifteen minutes too soon? I'll pick you up outside your building.'

'Fine.' Tess's throat cramped. 'Sure. That's fine.'

'Don't look for a cruiser. To keep you from feeling self-conscious, I'll use an unmarked car. Just wait at the curb.'

Tess set down the phone and shuddered.

Outside, on the busy, noisy, exhaust-acrid sidewalk, she paced. Ten minutes later, exactly when promised, a brown Chrysler sedan stopped in front of her, the lieutenant waving for her to get in.

The moment she sat beside him and buckled her seatbelt, Craig steered out expertly into a small break in traffic.

Tess studied his face, trying to read his thoughts. 'Well?'

The husky lieutenant coughed. 'Rotten throat. My doctor says I might have asthma. No wonder, this crummy air.'

'You're avoiding my question.'

'Just making conversation. It never hurts to be pleasant. Okay, here's the thing. What I've got is good news and maybe bad news.'

'I believe,' Tess said, 'that my line's supposed to be I'll take the good news first.'

'Right. That never hurts either.' Craig turned off Broadway, heading east on Thirtieth Street. 'I checked all the hospitals. You never know – your friend might have had an accident, been hit by a car, maybe had a stroke, a heart attack, whatever, and be in a coma. If he wasn't carrying a wallet at the time, the hospital personnel wouldn't be able to identify him.'

'And since this is supposed to be the good news,' Tess said, 'I gather you didn't find my friend at any hospital.'

'Plenty of coma patients, but not anyone who matches your description of him.'

'Well, that's some reassurance, at least.'

Craig raised a hand from the steering wheel. 'Not necessarily. I checked only the hospitals in the metropolitan area. If your friend took a trip this weekend, to New Jersey, let's say, or Pennsylvania, or up to Connecticut, and if he did have an accident that put him into a coma, I wouldn't know about it yet. These days, almost everything's in computers, but it still takes a while to get access to those other states' hospital records. I've got someone working on that, incidentally. But my hunch is, gut-feeling, we'll come up negative. That's not a promise, mind you. Just a-'

'Hunch. I note and appreciate your qualification.'

'Simply being cautious,' Craig said. 'Long ago, I learned the hard way: seldom affirm, seldom deny. People often don't pay attention to what I'm telling them. They hear what they want to hear, and later they claim I was more positive than I…'

'This reporter understands cautious statements. Please, get on with it,' Tess said. 'I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. The possible bad news.'

'Yes, well…' Craig stopped the sedan in a blocked line of traffic on the narrow confines of Thirtieth Street. Ahead, at the crowded intersection of Lexington Avenue, a policeman waved cars around a stalled pizza truck. 'My next choice was the morgue.'

'Is that why we seem to be heading toward First Avenue?'

Craig frowned in apparent confusion.

'If we keep going in this direction,' Tess said, 'we'll reach the New York University Medical Center, and next to it, across from Thirtieth Street, is the Medical Examiner's office.'

'So. I was hoping to prepare you. Yes, that's where we're going. Over the weekend, then Monday and Tuesday, there were several unidentified guests of the Medical Examiner.' Craig peered ahead and resumed driving as the traffic cop on Lexington Avenue supervised the removal of the stalled pizza truck. 'Most of the corpses didn't match your description of your friend. But a few, though…"

'What about them?'

'A floater in the Hudson River. Same height. Same apparent age. Same body type, with allowance for bloating. I hate to add graphic details.'

'I don't shock easily, Lieutenant. I was in Ethiopia during the recent famine. I've seen my share of… too many… corpses.'

'Sure. No doubt that was bad. I'm just trying to prepare you. It's possible you haven't seen corpses like these. The problem with floaters is the water clouds their eyes, so we can't tell whether the color was green or blue or in this case what we're looking for, gray. There's also a junkie we found in an alley. Overdosed on heroin.'

'Joseph isn't a drug addict.' To keep her hopes up, Tess insisted on using the present tense.

'That might be, but it's not always easy to tell, and as you explained, your friend has a habit of keeping secrets. The point is, this junkie's description is the same as your friend's. Except for his eyes. No help there, either. Rats ate them out.'

Tess inwardly cringed. 'I get the idea.'

'If you're as determined as you told me yesterday…'

'I am.'

'I could show you photographs. That's the usual procedure and a lot less traumatic. The problem is, as vivid as the photos are, they still don't give the same perspective as… In cases where the face has been damaged, it's often difficult to make a positive ID unless…Are you…? This is a terrible question. Are you willing to look at the…?'

'Corpses? Yes.' Tess shuddered. 'For my friend, I'm willing.'

THIRTEEN

Despite her various experiences as a reporter, Tess had never been to the New York City mortuary. Uneasy, she expected something like in the movies, a wall of refrigerated steel cubicles, a shiny hatch being opened, a sheet-covered corpse being pulled out on a sliding table. Instead Craig escorted her along a hallway to a small room where she faced a large window, beyond which was a dumbwaiter shaft.

Craig gave instructions into a phone, set it down, and explained, 'To save time, I made arrangements earlier. The staffs got everything ready. Tess, it's still not too late to change your mind.'

'No. I have to do this.' She trembled, not sure what would happen next, bracing herself.

A half-minute later, she flinched, hearing a motor's drone. Apprehensive, she watched cables rise, a platform being lifted. As the platform stopped beyond the window, she found herself staring at the swollen, lead-colored face of a corpse with filmy eyes and skin that seemed about to slip off its cheekbones. Although the skin was gray, its texture reminded Tess of a split, peeling, parboiled tomato. Turning away, she felt nauseous.

Craig gently touched her shoulder. 'Yeah, I know. For what it's worth, as many times as I've been here, I always feel queasy.'

Tess fought to restrain the insistent spasms in her stomach. 'Thanks. I think…'She breathed. 'I think I'll be okay. Apparently I'm not as tough as…'

'Nobody is. The day I get used to looking at corpses in as bad shape as this, is the day I quit my job.'

'The sheet that comes up to his neck. It covers the stitches from the autopsy?'

'Right. This is gross enough without…' Craig hesitated. 'Is it him? Your friend?'

Tess shook her head.

'Are you positive? From being in the water so long, the face is disfigured. You might not be able to…"

'It's not disfigured enough that I wouldn't recognize him. This isn't Joseph.'

Craig sounded awkward. 'That must be some relief to you.'

Tess felt clammy. 'So far, so good.'

'So far. That's the trouble. Unfortunately there are others. Do you think you can…?'

'Hurry. Let's finish this.'

Craig picked up the phone and gave new instructions.

Again Tess heard a drone. Still averting her gaze from the window, she imagined the platform descending, the corpse disappearing. 'Can I-?'

'Yes. It's gone. You can turn around now.'

Tess slowly pivoted, her legs unsteady. Her breath rate increased. Once more, the drone of the rising platform made her flinch. She became light-headed and mustered all her discipline, forcing herself to study the next corpse that stopped beyond the window.

Craig had warned her that rats had eaten the eyes, but she wasn't prepared for the further damage that the rats had inflicted. The corpse's lips had been chewed away, exposing teeth that seemed to grin. The nose was gone, leaving two grotesque slits. There were jagged gaps in the cheeks, a shredded oval hole beneath the chin, like an obscene second mouth, and…

Tess spun away. 'Get it out of here!'

Despite the pounding behind her ears, she heard Craig speak to the phone and in a moment, mercifully, the drone of the descending platform.

Craig gently touched her arm again. Tess felt him waiting and sensed his hesitation, the uneasiness with which he tried to think of a sympathetic remark before he'd be able to ask…

'No, it isn't Joseph.' Tess shook. 'His forehead's too narrow.' She breathed. 'His hair's the same length, but the part's on the right instead of the left. Thank God, it isn't Joseph.'

'Come over here. Sit down.'

'I'll be okay.'

'Sure. All the same, you look pale.' Craig guided her. 'Come on, take a rest. Sit down.'

Tess obeyed, leaned back, closed her eyes, and felt cold sweat on her brow. 'Is that the end?' Her voice was a whisper. 'In the car, you mentioned only those two corpses. I want to know about my friend, but I hope to God there aren't any more.'

Craig didn't answer.

Slowly, nervously, Tess opened her eyes.

Craig glanced toward the floor.

'What?' Tess asked with effort.

Craig pursed his lips.

'Tell me.' Tess frowned, her voice regaining strength. 'Are there others? You're… What are you holding back?'

'… There is one more.'

Tess exhaled.

'But I don't think the victim can be identified. Not this way anyhow. Not visually. Probably only by bone X rays, dental records, and…' Craig gestured, ill at ease. 'He was burned. Over much of his body, especially his face. I don't know what use it would… I really question whether you should look at him.'

'It's that hopeless?'

'Definitely worse than what you've seen. I doubt that viewing the body would accomplish anything, except make you sick.'

'You mean sicker than I already am.'

Craig grimaced. 'I guess that's what I mean.'

Tess debated, concluding with relief, 'If that's your opinion. I want to do everything possible to learn what happened to Joseph, but if…'

'The only reason I even mentioned the victim is…' Craig peered toward the floor again.

'You're still holding something back.'

'Is where he died.'

Tess felt a worm of fear uncoil in her stomach. 'Where he died? What are you trying to say, Lieutenant?'

'You mentioned you were supposed to meet Joseph on Saturday morning.'

'Yes. So what?'

'To go jogging.'

'Right.' Tess straightened.

'On the upper East Side. At Carl Schurz Park.'

'Damn it, I asked you, what are you trying to say, Lieutenant?'

'That's where this victim was found. At three a.m. on Saturday night. In Carl Schurz Park.'

Tess surged to her feet. 'Jesus. How did he…?'

'Get burned? We're not certain yet. The victim might have been a derelict, sleeping in the park. It closes at one a.m., and it's supposed to be patrolled, but sometimes street people sneak in and manage to hide. The victim was doused with gasoline and set ablaze. The autopsy shows he died from the flames, not from a knife wound or a gunshot that a fire is sometimes used to conceal. The blaze destroyed his clothes, so we can't tell if he was a derelict, but as we know, sometimes kids get their kicks by tracking down vagrants while they sleep and setting them on fire. That neighborhood doesn't see much trouble, so near to the mayor's house. The gangs tend to stay farther north and west. All the same, the scenario I just described is consistent with what happened.'

'But do you believe that scenario? You wouldn't mention this victim unless you thought there was a chance' – Tess could hardly say the words – 'he might be Joseph.'

'All I'm doing is pointing out a common denominator.'

' Carl Schurz Park.'

Craig nodded. 'But it's probably just a coincidence. Your friend wasn't a derelict. What would he be doing in the park at three a.m.? Especially that night.'

'What's so unusual about last Saturday night?'

'On Sunday, it rained, remember?'

'Yes.'

'Well, the storm began around two in the morning. Even if your friend couldn't sleep and felt tempted to take a walk, is it reasonable to believe he'd have gone out after he saw it was raining? And if he did, why would he have left the street to climb the fence of a park that was locked for the night?' Craig shrugged. 'The scenario that doesn't raise questions is the one I described. A derelict snuck into the park to find shelter. Kids followed him and set him on fire.'

Tess bit her lip. 'All the same, I don't have a choice.'

'Excuse me?'

'I have to look at the body, to try to assure myself it isn't Joseph. Otherwise I'll never stop wondering.'

'I meant what I said. It's much worse than the others.'

'Please, Lieutenant.'

Craig studied her. 'Why don't we compromise?'

'I don't' – Tess swallowed – 'understand.'

'I admire your loyalty to your friend. But why not do yourself a favor? This time, look at photographs. Since visual identification is almost hopeless, the difference won't matter, and you can still put your mind at rest.'

She thought about it, dismally nodding.

'I'll be back in a minute,' Craig said.

Alone in the room, Tess waited nervously, darting her eyes toward the window and the horrors she'd seen beyond it. She wondered what greater horror she soon would-

Lieutenant Craig re-entered the room, carrying a folder. He opened it, then hesitated. 'Remember, the fire disfigured most of the body, especially the face. All of the body would have been disfigured, but it seems that the victim had strength enough to run through the rain and get to a pool of water. He managed to roll in it and put the flames out before he died.'

Tess reached for the folder. She slowly removed what felt like six photographs, discovering that they were frontside down. A short reprieve. Tense, she turned the first one.

She gasped.

What once had been a head now resembled a roast that had been seared, scorched, blackened, charred, and…

'Oh, my God.' Tess jerked her eyes away, but the image of the grotesque mutilation remained in her mind. The blistered skull had no hair, no features, nothing that could possibly resemble Joseph's handsome face. Soot-filmed bone protruded from dark whorls of crisped…

Her voice quavered… 'Lieutenant, I'm sorry I doubted you.'

'Here. Let me… There's no need to torture yourself any further.' Craig reached for the photographs.

Tess shook her head fiercely. 'I started this. I'll…'

She turned the next photograph. Another head shot, equally repulsive. In a rush, she set it aside. Only four more to go. Hurry, she thought.

She wasn't prepared for the next photo. The corpses on the platform beyond the window had each been covered with a sheet to the neck. But now she winced at a full view of a naked, almost totally charred body. Only the legs to the knees and the left arm below the elbow hadn't been scorched. However, what Tess noticed most, with mounting nausea, were the bulky stitches that ran from the pelvis up to the ribcage, then right and left, forming a Y, where the pathologist had closed the body after the autopsy had been performed.

I can't take much more. Tess inwardly moaned, hands shuddering, and flipped another photograph. Whatever horror she'd dreaded she would see, she discovered – exhaling sharply, reprieved – that she was staring at the corpse's unburned left leg and foot. Thank you, Lord. Now if only… She turned the next-to-last photograph and again exhaled, reprieved, viewing the corpse's unburned right leg and foot.

One more to go.

One last photograph.

And if I'm lucky, Tess thought.

She was.

At the same time, she wasn't, for although the final photograph wasn't threatening (indeed it was predictable, given the logic of the sequence – a shot of the corpse's unburned left arm below the elbow), something in it attracted her shocked attention.

Abruptly her memory flashed back to when she'd talked with Joseph in the delicatessen last Friday afternoon.

'We can only be friends,' he'd said.

'I'm not sure what…'

'What I mean is, we can never be lovers.'

His frankness had startled her. 'Hey,' she'd said, I wasn't making a proposition. It's not like I asked you to go to bed.'

'I know that. Really, your behavior's impeccable.' Joseph had reached across the table and tenderly touched her hand. I didn't mean to offend or embarrass you. It's just that… there are certain things about me you wouldn't understand.'

And while he'd said that, Tess had glanced down at the back of the hand, the left hand, that Joseph had placed on hers.

Just as Tess now glanced at – no, riveted her eyes upon - the back of the left hand in the photograph.

She felt as if she'd swallowed ice cubes, as if her stomach were crammed with freezing chunks of…!

A choked sound escaped from her throat. She slumped back in the chair, forced her eyes away from the photograph, fought to speak, and told Craig, 'It's him.'

'What?' Craig looked surprised. 'But how can you be…? The corpse is so…'

'On Friday, when we ate lunch, Joseph touched my hand. I remember glancing down and noticing he had a scar, a distinctive jagged scar, on the back of his left wrist.' Weary, heart sinking with grief, Tess pointed toward the photograph. 'Like this scar on this left wrist. He's dead. My God, Joseph's…'

'Let me see.' Craig grasped the photograph. As if clinging to Joseph, she resisted. The lieutenant gently pried at her fingers and carefully removed the photograph.

Craig scowled down, frowning, nodding. 'Yes. An old scar. Judging from its thickness, the wound was deep. No one mentioned this to me. Otherwise I'd have told you about it and saved you the pain of looking at the other photos.' He raised the picture closer. 'Not a knife scar. Not jagged the way it is. More like a wound from a broken bottle or maybe barbed wire or… Tess, are you sure?'

'In my mind, I can see his hand on mine as vividly as I see that photograph. There's no way to measure them. But yes… I'd give anything not to be… I'm sure. The scars are identical. This is Joseph. Joseph is…" Tess felt pressure behind her ears, in her stomach, but most of all, around her heart.

Her voice sank. Abruptly she felt numb. 'Dead. Joseph is…'

'Tess, I'm sorry.'

'Dead.'

FOURTEEN

In the mortuary's parking garage, Tess's walk became more unsteady. She was barely conscious of Craig helping her into the car, then going around and sitting behind the steering wheel. She fumbled to put on her seatbelt, again barely conscious that Craig snapped it into place for her. With unfocused eyes, she stared toward the blur of other vehicles in the dimly lit garage.

At last Craig broke the silence, coughing. 'Where shall I drive you? Home? After what you've been through… You're trembling. I don't recommend that you try to go back to work.'

Tess turned to him, blinking, only now fully aware of his presence. 'Home? Work?' She crossed her unsteady arms and pressed them hard against her chest, restraining her tremors. 'Would you…? This'll sound… Do me a favor?'

'I already promised I'd help as much as possible.'

'Take me to where he died.'

Craig furrowed his brow. 'To the park?'

'Yes.'

'But why would you…?'

Tess hugged her chest harder, wincing. 'Please.'

Craig seemed about to say something. Instead he coughed again, turned the ignition key, put the car in gear, and drove from the garage, emerging onto First Avenue, following the one-way traffic northward.

Thank you,' Tess said.

Craig shrugged.

Tomorrow, first thing, I'll make a point of telling Walter how cooperative you've been,' she said.

'Walter? Hey, you've got the wrong idea. I'm not doing this for Walter. I'm doing my job. Or have been. But at the moment, I'm doing this for you.'

'I'm sorry. I apologize.' Tess almost touched his arm. 'I didn't mean to sound insulting, as if I thought you were only paying back a debt or…'

'You didn't insult me. Don't worry about it. But I like to make sure things are clearly understood. Not many people would have done what you just went through for a man they'd only met a few times but considered a friend. Loyalty's a rare commodity. You'd be amazed how many people don't care when someone's missing. I admire your persistence – your sense of obligation – so if you tell me you want to go to the park, fine, that's where we go. The office will just have to do without me till this afternoon. Joseph Martin must have been special.'

Tess thought about it. 'Different.'

'I don't understand.'

'It's hard to explain. He had a… Sure, he was handsome. But more important, he had a kind of… magnetism. He seemed to… the only word I can think of is… he seemed to glow.' Tess raised her chin. 'And by the way, in case you've been wondering, there wasn't anything sexual between us.'

'I never suggested there was.'

'In fact, the reverse. Joseph insisted that we could only be friends, that we could never have sex.'

Craig turned to her, frowning.

'I know what you're thinking, and so did I. Wrong. He didn't say that because he was gay or anything, but because… How did he put it? He said a platonic friendship was better because it was eternal. That's how he talked. Almost poetically. Yes.' Grief squeezed Jess's throat. Sorrow cramped her heart. 'Joseph was special.'

Craig concentrated on driving but continued frowning. They crossed the intersection of Forty-Fifth Street, passing the United Nations building on the right, heading farther northward.

'So.' Tess quivered and straightened. 'What happens next?'

'After the park? I talk to Homicide and tell them we've got a tentative identification of the body.'

'Tentative? That scar is…'

'You have to realize, Homicide needs more than that to be absolutely certain. They've sent the fingerprints they managed to get from the left hand to the FBI. Even with computers, though, it can take several days for the FBI to search its files for a match to those prints, especially given the backlog of cases. But now, with a possible name for the victim, they can speed up the process, go to Joseph Martin's file, compare prints, and… Who knows? It could be the scar is coincidental. You might be wrong.'

'Don't I wish. But I'm not.' Tess felt dizzy.

'I'm just trying to give you hope.'

'And I'm afraid that hope's as rare as loyalty.'

Tess's breathing became more labored the closer they came to Eighty-Eighth Street. Tense, she watched the lieutenant steer right, cross two avenues, and just before the final one, manage to find a parking space. With greater distress, she got out of the car with him, locked it, and in hazy sunlight faced the opposite side of East End Avenue.

To the left, partially obscured by trees, was the six-foot-high, stockadelike, wooden barrier that encircled Gracie Mansion. One of the first New- York- City houses along the East River, it had been built by Archibald Gracie in 1798. Huge, with many chimneys and gables, as well as numerous verandas, it had once been the museum for the city but was now the well-guarded mayor's residence.

Straight ahead, however, compelling Tess, was the wrought-iron fence that encircled the woods and paths of Carl Schurz Park.

'You're certain you want to-?'

Before the lieutenant could finish his question, Tess clutched his arm and crossed the avenue. They passed through an open gate (a sign warned that no radios, tape players, or musical instruments were permitted between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.) and proceeded along a brick walkway. Thick bushes flanked them. Overhanging branches of densely leaved trees cast shadows.

'Where?' Tess sounded hoarse.

The guards at Gracie Mansion saw the flames at three o'clock Sunday morning. Just about…' Craig glanced around. There.' He pointed toward a cavelike contour in a granite ridge behind bushes to his right. The mayor's guards are pros. They know, whatever happens, they don't leave their post. After all, the flames might have been a diversion, a trick intended to draw them away and expose their boss. So they called the local precinct. In the meantime, the mayor's guards saw the flames streak from here' - Craig indicated the cavelike contour, then gestured ahead past bushes toward a miniature amphitheater beyond an overhead walkway -'to there, toward that statue.'

Tass wavered, approaching the human-sized statue. It increased in definition, becoming a bronze child, knee raised, peering sideways, downward, toward the brick surface in the middle of the fifty-foot perimeter of the circular enclosure.

The statue resembled a nymph. Perversely, it reminded Tess of Peter Pan.

'And?' In the stone-lined basin, Tess heard her voice crack as she swung toward Craig.

'Remember, you asked to come here.'

'I haven't forgotten. And?'

The officers from the local precinct found… The rain had pooled on these bricks. The victim…'

'Yes, you told me. He tried to roll in the water and put out the names. Where?'

'Behind the statue, Tess.' Craig raised his hands and stepped closer. 'I don't recommend…'

'It's necessary.' Tess slowly rounded the statue.

And sank to her hips on a ledge at the statue's feet.

The contour of a man, lying sideways, his knees pulled toward his chest, had been blackened into the bricks.

'Oh.'

'I'm sorry, Tess. I didn't want to bring you here, but you kept insisting.'

With a sob, Tess stooped toward the dismal dark shape on the bricks. She touched where Joseph's heart would have been. 'Do me another favor?' Her voice broke. 'Please? Just one more favor?'

'Take you away from here?'

'No.' Tears streamed from Tess's burning eyes. Through their blur, she begged him silently.

Craig understood. He opened his arms, and sobbing harder, she welcomed his embrace.

FIFTEEN

Memphis, Tennessee.

Billy Joe Bennett couldn't stop sweating. Moisture oozed from his scalp, his face, his chest, his back, his legs. It rolled down his neck. It soaked his shirt. As he nervously drove through one a.m. traffic in this bar-district of the city, he felt as if he was sitting on a puddle. The problem was that he didn't sweat because of the hot humid night. In fact, he had the windows of his Chevy Blazer rolled shut and the air conditioning on full blast. Still, no matter how much he shivered from the cold air rushing against him, he couldn't stop sweating. Because he shivered from something else and sweated for the same reason. Two reasons actually. The first was tension. After all, he was due to testify before a shitload of government investigators this morning. And the second was a desperate need for cocaine.

Jesus, he thought. How could anything that made you feel so good when you snorted it put you through this much hell when you didn't have it? Billy Joe's insides ached as if every organ scraped against the other. His muscles contracted so forcefully that his cramped hands seemed about to snap the steering wheel. God Almighty. The glare of headlights stabbed his eyes. The blaze of neon signs over taverns made him wince. If I don't get some nose candy soon…

He kept glancing furtively toward his rearview mirror, desperate to make sure he wasn't being followed. Those damned government investigators were worse than bloodhounds. Since Sunday, they'd been tailing him everywhere. They had a car parked on his street when he was at home. Each day since the train's derailment, they'd forced him to give them urine samples, the tests on which he'd passed, because Billy Joe wasn't any dummy. No, siree, boy. He read the papers, and he watched the news on TV, and months ago he'd realized that random drug testing would soon be required for anyone who worked in transportation. So he'd planned for the day when he might be tested. He'd paid his brother, who never touched cocaine, to piss in a sterile jug for him. Then he'd taken the jug home, poured urine into several plastic vials, and hidden them behind the toilet tank in his bathroom. The second he'd heard about the derailment, he'd gone to the bathroom, smeared Vaseline over one of the vials, and inserted it – Lord, that had hurt! -up his rectum. And sure enough, Sunday, a government investigator had knocked on his door, shown him a court order, handed him a glass container, and requested a urine sample.

So Billy Joe had said, 'Of course. I've got nothing to hide.' He'd gone into the bathroom, locked the door, removed the plastic vial of urine from his rectum, poured the warm fluid into the glass container, returned the vial to his rectum, and come out of the bathroom, telling the investigator, 'Sorry, I don't piss so good on demand. This is the most I could coax from my bladder.'

The investigator had given him a steely look and said, 'This is all we'll need, believe me.'

'You're wasting your time.'

'Yeah, sure, we are.'

After that, Billy Joe hadn't gone anywhere without a Vaseline-slicked vial of urine up his rearend. Talk about cramps and pain. Man, oh, man. But he was a railroad worker, broad-shouldered, big-chested, from twenty years of lifting rails, shifting ties, and hefting a sledgehammer. He was tough, he told himself, right on, no two ways about it, and if those government investigators thought they could scare him, those pansies in their cheap suits had another think coming.

At the moment, though, Billy Joe did feel scared. Because on Monday, he'd used up his carefully hidden stash of cocaine, and the first day without it hadn't been too bad, a slight case of the shakes is all, but the next day his stomach had started to squirm, and the day after that, he'd thrown up and couldn't stop sweating. Now at one a.m. Thursday morning, soaking wet, trembling, doing his best to drive without wavering, he feared he'd go fucking out of his mind if he didn't get a jolt of coke soon.

Dear God in heaven, he couldn't testify before those government investigators this morning if he looked and shook and sweated like this. He couldn't keep his thoughts straight. He wouldn't be able to concentrate on their questions. He'd stammer or, worse, maybe even babble, and they'd know right away that he wasn't just nervous, like from stage fright, but suffering from withdrawal, and that would be that. He didn't know what the government could do to him if the investigators proved he was an addict, but this much he did know – he wouldn't like it one damned bit. Three hundred people were dead because that section of track had given way, toppling the train. Twenty cars of anhydrous ammonia had split open, and ever since Sunday, the newspapers had been full of stories about possible criminal negligence, even manslaughter. Shit, man, they put you away for that.

So all right, as foreman of the maintenance crew, he'd checked those tracks, and they'd looked okay to him. Granted, maybe he hadn't checked them as thoroughly as he could have, but it had been late afternoon, and he'd been eager to get back to town and snort some coke. It wasn't his fault that the jerk who owned the railway had mismanaged the business because he was too busy dipping his wick in his secretary. The dummy's wife had caught him, kicked him out of the house, divorced him, and taken him for millions. Hell, no, Billy Joe thought, it wasn't my fault that the railroad was forced to cut back on its maintenance fund so the jerk could pay his divorce settlement. If there'd been more guys checking the tracks, the accident wouldn't have happened.

But that's not my problem. No way. Not now. Never mind fixing those tracks. I'm the one who needs fixing, so I don't fall apart eight hours from now when those government investigators try to crucify me.

Again Billy Joe scowled at his rearview mirror. He'd been driving at random, watching if headlights behind him took the same routes. He'd made sharp turns, run red lights, veered down alleys, done everything he could think of, remembering all those detective and spy movies he liked to watch and the way the heroes got rid of tails. Satisfied that he hadn't been followed, he drove hurriedly from the bar district, heading toward the river. He didn't have much time. Each night at one-fifteen, his supplier set up shop for five minutes and only five minutes – at a secluded parking lot next to a warehouse close to the Mississippi.

Wiping sweat from his eyes, Billy Joe glanced at his watch. Christ, it was almost ten after. He pressed his trembling foot on the accelerator. The dark parking lot looked deserted when he steered past the warehouse and stopped. No! Don't tell me I'm late! It's one-fifteen on the button! I can't be late!

Or maybe he's late. Yeah, Billy Joe decided, heart pounding. That's what it is. He just hasn't got here yet.

At once, the headlights of another car turned into the lot. Billy Joe relaxed, then shook with sudden worry that this wasn't his supplier but government investigators who'd been tailing him. Fighting not to panic, he told himself, there's no crime in taking a drive to the river. Hey, all I have to do is tell them I couldn't sleep, I needed to relax, I felt like watching the lights of the barges on the water. Sure, no problem.

He didn't recognize the blue Ford that stopped beside him. Not a good sign but maybe not a bad one. His supplier often took the precaution of switching vehicles. But when a tall thin man wearing a T-shirt got out of the Ford, Billy Joe didn't recognize him either, and that for certain was not a good sign.

The man knocked on Billy Joe's window.

Billy Joe lowered it. 'Yeah?' He tried to sound gruff, but his shaky voice didn't manage the job.

'You're here to do business?' the man asked.

'I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.'

'Cocaine. Do you want to score, or don't you?'

Entrapment, Billy Joe thought. If this guy was an investigator, he'd blown his case right there. 'What makes you think I-?'

'Look, don't waste my time. The regular delivery man had to' leave town for his health, couldn't stand the competition, if you get my meaning. I've got this route now, and plenty of other stops to make. Four minutes more, and I'm leaving. Make up your mind.'

Billy Joe suddenly realized that the Ford had approached the parking lot from the opposite direction that he himself had used. This guy – whoever he was – couldn't possibly have been tailing him.

Billy Joe realized something else, that he was sweating more profusely and shaking so bad his teeth were clicking together.

'Okay, I've made up my mind.' Barely controlling his trembling hands, he awkwardly opened his door and stepped out, legs wobbly. 'Let's do business. Same price as the other guy charged?'

The stranger unlocked the trunk of the Ford. 'No. The Feds have been making too much trouble, intercepting too many shipments. I've got extra expenses.'

Billy Joe felt too desperate to object.

'But this one time only, I'm being generous, adding more to each package. Sort of a good-will gesture, a way of introducing myself to my customers.'

'Hey, fair enough!'

Rubbing his hands together, Billy Joe followed the man to the trunk of the car and peered eagerly inside. What he saw was a bulging plastic garbage bag that the stranger opened, revealing white powder. 'What the-? What kind of way is that to-?'

A sharp pungent odor reached his nostrils. The trunk smelled like a…? Laundry. That was it. A laundry"! Why would-?

'All for you, Billy Joe.'

'Hey, how come you know my name?'

The stranger ignored the question. 'Yes, we brought all of this for you.'

'We?'

Car doors banged open. Three men who'd been crouching out of sight in the Ford rushed toward the trunk, grabbed Billy Joe – one on each side and one behind him – bent him over, and shoved his head toward the powder in the plastic bag.

Billy Joe strained to shove back, squirming, twisting, frantic, but even years of hefting a sledgehammer didn't give him the strength to resist the determined men.

'All for you, Billy Joe.'

He struggled with greater desperation, but the powerful hands kept pressing him downward. As his head came closer to the white powder, the strong pungent smell became overwhelming, making him gag. He recognized what it was now. Ammonia. Powdered bleach.

'No! Jesus! Stop! I-!'

His words were smothered as his face was thrust against the powder. It smeared his cheeks. It caked his lips.

Then his face was rammed beneath the powder. It filled his ears. It plugged his nose. He fought to hold his breath, but as the three men held him down while the fourth man twisted the mouth of the plastic bag around his neck, Billy Joe finally inhaled reflexively and felt the stinging powder surge up his nostrils, spew down his throat, and cram his lungs. It burned! My God, how it burned!

The last thing he heard in a panic before he lost consciousness was, 'We know it's not the powder you're used to, but how do you like it, Billy Joe? You let three hundred people die from ammonia. It's time you got a whiff of it yourself.'

SIXTEEN

The eastern bank of the Mississippi. Ten miles north of Memphis.

In the bedroom of his country mansion, Harrison Page huffed and puffed but finally admitted that his frustrating efforts were pointless. The irony of the word wasn't lost on him. Pointless. It exactly described his penis. Out of breath, giving up, he rolled off the woman – his affair with whom had caused his wife to divorce him – and lay on his back, staring bleakly at the dark ceiling.

'Sweetie, that's okay,' the woman, Jennifer, said. 'You don't need to feel your manhood's threatened. You're tired is all. You're under stress.'

'Yeah, under stress,' Page said.

'We'll try again later, sweetie.'

Page had only recently admitted to himself how much her shrill voice annoyed him. 'I don't think so. I've got a headache.'

'Take one of my sleeping pills.'

'No.' Page stood, put on his pajamas, and walked toward a window, parting its drapes, brooding, oblivious to the moonlight glinting off the river.

'Then maybe a drink would help, sweetie.'

If she doesn't stop calling me that, Page thought. 'No,' he said irritated. 'I've got a meeting with my lawyers before I testify at the hearing this morning. I have to be alert.'

'Just doing my best to be helpful, sweetie.'

He spun, trying to control his temper. The moonlight through the parted drapes revealed her naked body, her dark mound between her legs, her lush hips, slender waist, and ripe breasts. Overripe, Page bitterly thought. They're like melons so swollen they're about to go rotten. And her skin, when he stroked it, had lately begun to make him cringe, because beneath its smooth once-arousing softness was a further softness, like jelly, like… fat, Page decided. The way she lies around all day, watching soap operas, eating chocolates, she'll soon be as fat as…

Although he stifled the angry thought, another thought insisted. How could I have been such a fool? I'm fifty-five. She's twenty-three. If I'd kept my dick in my pants where it belonged… The first time, after we screwed, when she started calling me sweetie, I should have realized what a mistake I was making. We don't have anything in common. She's incapable of an intelligent conversation. Why didn't I stop right then, give her a bonus, transfer her to another office, and thank God I didn't ruin my life?

But the fact was, Page dismally admitted, he'd let his dick control his brain. He had ruined his life, and now he didn't know how to salvage it. 'I'm going downstairs. I've got some testimony to prepare before I walk into that hearing.'

'Whatever, sweetie. Go with the flow, I always say. Just remember, I'll be waiting.'

Yes, Page thought, subduing a cringe. Isn't that the hell of it? You'll be waiting.

He put on slippers and left the bedroom, shuffling along a corridor, gripping the curved bannister of a marble staircase, unsteadily descending, relieved to be out of her presence. Her excessive perfume – like the smell of flowers at a funeral – had been making him sick.

Except for Jennifer and himself, the mansion was deserted. He'd sent the butler, cook, and maid away, lest they overhear conversations that might incriminate him if the servants couldn't keep their mouths shut when the investigators questioned them. Footsteps echoing, he felt the emptiness around and within him as he crossed a murky vestibule, entered his study, and turned on the lights. There he hesitated, chest heaving, staring at a stack of documents on his desk, the possible questions that his lawyers had anticipated he'd be asked at the hearing and the numerous calculated responses he would have to know by heart.

Weary, he rounded the desk, slumped in his chair, and began reviewing the depressing documents. If only his ex-wife, Patricia, were here, he'd be able to talk with her, to sort out the problem and try to solve it. She'd always helped him that way, listening sympathetically, rubbing his taut shoulders, offering prudent advice. But then he wouldn't have this problem if Patricia were here, because they wouldn't be divorced and she wouldn't have nearly bankrupted him in the settlement and he wouldn't have been distracted from managing the railroad, let alone have been forced to cut maintenance costs so he could squeeze out more profits to make up for the millions he'd been forced to pay his ex-wife. Three hundred people dead. Tens of thousands of acres of forest and pasture turned into a wasteland. An entire county's water supply poisoned. All because I thought with my dick instead of my head.

A noise made him jerk him eyes toward the left. With a flinch, fear burning his stomach, he saw one of the French doors that led to the patio swing open. Three men and a woman stepped in. All were in their thirties, trim, good-looking, dressed in dark jogging clothes.

Page lurched to his feet. His years of being an executive had trained him never to show weakness but to react aggressively when feeling threatened. 'What the hell do you think you're doing? Get out of here!'

They shut the door.

'I said, get out!'

They smiled. The woman and one of the men had their hands behind their back.

Page fought to control and conceal his fright. They looked too cleancut to be burglars, not that he knew what burglars would look like, but… Maybe they were…

'Damn it, if you're reporters, you've picked the wrong way to get an interview, and besides, I've stopped giving interviews!'

'We're not reporters,' the woman said.

'We don't have any questions,' one of the men said.

'I'm calling the police!'

'It won't do you any good,' another man said.

They approached him. The woman and one of the men continued to hold their hands behind their back.

Page grabbed the phone and tapped 911, suddenly realizing that the line was dead.

'See,' the third man said. 'It doesn't do any good.'

'I locked those doors! I turned on the security system! How did-?'

'We're handy with tools,' the first man said.

'Like these tools,' the woman said.

They brought their hands from behind their back.

Page opened his mouth, but terror choked his scream.

While two of the men grabbed Page's arms and forced him flat across the desk, the remaining man held up a railroad spike, and the woman swung a sledgehammer, driving the spike through Page's heart.

SEVENTEEN

'… impaled on a stack of blood-soaked documents that confidential sources indicate were statements that Harrison Page had been prepared to make at the hearing this morning.' The bespectacled television reporter paused somberly.

Appalled, Tess sat on a stool at the kitchen counter in her loft, watching the twelve-inch TV next to the microwave. The red numbers on the Radarange's digital clock said 8:03. She'd been trying to make herself eat breakfast – fruit salad, whole-wheat toast, and tea – but after yesterday's ordeal at the morgue and her discovery that Joseph was dead, she didn't have much appetite.

The reporter continued, 'In a further grotesque aftermath of the Tennessee toxic-gas disaster, the body of Billy Joe Bennett, foreman in charge of inspecting the section of the track where the derailment occurred, was found early this morning in a Memphis parking lot near the Mississippi River. Bennett had been under investigation for possible negligence due to alleged cocaine addiction.'

The TV image shifted from the reporter to a harshly lit videotape of stern policemen standing near a warehouse, staring down at something, a closeup of a garbage bag on the parking lot's asphalt, the bag filled with white powder, then a panning shot of a sheet-covered corpse being lifted on a gurney into an ambulance. Off-camera, the reporter explained the grisly means by which Bennett had been murdered.

With renewed pangs of grief, Tess was reminded of the brutal way in which Joseph had been murdered.

The reporter came back on the screen. 'Police speculate that Bennett and Page were killed for revenge by relatives of victims of the toxic-gas disaster.'

A commercial for disposable diapers interrupted the news. Tess rubbed her forehead, peered down at her breakfast, and felt even less hungry.

The phone rang, startling her while she rinsed out her teacup.

Who'd be calling this early? Troubled, she left the kitchen, walked to the section of the loft where the furniture was arranged to form a living room, and picked up the phone halfway through its third ring.

'Hello?'

The gravelly voice was so distinctive that the speaker didn't need to identify himself. This is Lieutenant Craig.'

Her fingers cramped around the phone.

'I apologize for calling at this hour,' Craig said, 'but I won't be in the office, and I wasn't sure I'd have a chance to phone you at work this morning – that's if you feel up to going to work.'

'Yes. I'm going.' Tess sat, dejected. 'I almost decided not to. But it doesn't do any good to brood. Maybe work will distract me.'

'Sometimes it helps to be with other people.'

'I'm not sure anything will help.' She slumped, weary. 'What can I do for you, Lieutenant?'

'I wanted to know when you take your lunch break.'

'Lunch? Why would-? I doubt I'll be eating lunch today. That's why you called? To invite me to lunch?'

'Not exactly. There's something I might want you to look at,' Craig said, 'and I figured if you were going to be free at a certain hour, we could make an appointment.'

Tess felt cold. 'Is this about Joseph's death?'

'Possibly.'

'You're holding back again.'

'This might be nothing, Tess. Really. I'd prefer not to talk about it until I'm sure. I don't want to upset you without a reason.'

'And you don't think I'm upset already? Okay, one o'clock. Can you pick me up outside my office building at one o'clock?'

'I'll make a point of it. Who knows? Maybe the meeting won't be necessary. That's what I mean. Don't think about it.'

'Sure. Don't think. What a great idea.'

EIGHTEEN

But Tess had many things to think about. She kept remembering Joseph's burned corpse and the dark contour of his body seared into the bricks at Carl Schurz Park. In the elevator at work, she shuddered, identifying it with Joseph, numbed that she'd never see him again.

At Earth Mother Magazine, she went immediately down the hall to Walter Trask's office and told him everything that had happened.

Trask frowned, more haggard than usual. He stood, came around his desk, and clasped her shoulders. I'm sorry, Tess. Honestly. More than I can say.'

'But who would have done that to him? Why?'

'I wish I had answers.' Trask hugged her. His features gray, he stepped back. 'But this is New York. Sometimes there aren't any answers. I'm reminded of the jogger who was raped and nearly killed by that marauding gang in Central Park. The kids who did it weren't raised in a slum. They came from middle-class families. Poverty can't be blamed for their behavior. It doesn't make sense, like too many other things.'

'But why would Joseph have been in Carl Schurz Park in the rain at three a.m.?'

'Tess, listen to me. You don't know anything about this man. You found him attractive, but he… This'll sound harsh. Nonetheless, it has to be said. When you mentioned that he hadn't given his employer his phone number and he used a mail service, I was worried. The man had secrets. Possibly his secrets caught up to him.'

With eerie clarity, Tess recalled what Joseph had told her in the delicatessen Friday afternoon. I have certain… let's call them obligations. I can't explain what they are or why I have to abide by them. You just have to trust and believe and accept.'

'Maybe. Maybe he did have secrets,' Tess said. 'But that doesn't mean the secrets were bad, and it doesn't mean I have to turn my back and pretend I never knew him.'

'Believe me, I sympathize.' Trask put an arm around her. 'Really. All I'm asking you to do is try to be objective. Protect your emotions.'

'Right now, the last thing I'm capable of being is objective,' Tess said.

'Look, perhaps you shouldn't have come into work today. Take a break. Give yourself a rest. Go to your health club, whatever relaxes you. We'll see how you feel tomorrow.'

'No,' Tess said. 'Being alone would make me feel worse. I need to work. I have to keep busy.'

'You're sure?'

The more work, the better.'

'In that case…'

'What?'

'I've got something I want you to do.'

Tess waited.

'It'll mean postponing your article on the overuse of herbicides and pesticides on Midwestern farms.'

'But that's an important issue,' Tess said automatically. 'Those poisons are sinking through the earth and into the drinking water.'

'All the same, there might be a story we ought to do first. The TV news this morning. Did you watch it? The murders in Tennessee? Remind you of anything?'

'I gather you're thinking of the murders at the Pacific-Rim Petroleum Corporation last week.'

There'd been three, two in Australia and one in Hong Kong, after the massive oil spill that continued to endanger the Great Barrier Reef. Victor Malone, captain of the supertanker that had run aground, Kevin Stark, executive in charge of cleanup efforts, and Chandler Thompson, director of the Pacific-Rim Petroleum Corporation, had each been killed following widespread allegations of drinking while on duty, failure to respond to the spill in time to contain it, and corporate refusal to admit its negligence. Malone had been blown apart as he drove from Brisbane 's courthouse. Stark had been drowned, his body discovered upside down in a barrel of oil. Thompson had been poisoned when he drank a glass of water during a press conference.

'Remember, we talked about those murders last Wednesday,' Trask said.

Tess sank toward a chair, dismally remembered something else. That evening, shortly after their conversation, she'd first met Joseph. She dug her fingernails into her thighs, forcing herself to concentrate on what Trask was saying.

'I suggested we do a story about the killings.'

'And I said Earth Mother Magazine isn't a tabloid,' Tess replied. 'We shouldn't add to the controversy. Fanatics hurt our cause.'

'Well, now it seems we've got some fanatics in Tennessee.'

'No, the parallel isn't exact. The police suspect that Bennett and Page were killed by relatives of…'

'That's what they said on television.' Trask scowled. 'But I just checked my sources at the Times. They're preparing a story that quotes a Memphis policeman who wonders if some nutso ecologists might be responsible.'

'What?'

'Already the major environmental-protection groups, like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, are anticipating the charge, condemning the murders as totally irresponsible.'

'But it's absurd to suspect…" Tess jerked forward. 'Sure, some Greenpeace members were once arrested for taking over a whaling ship in Peru. And it often puts boats filled with people between whaling ships and their quarry. But there's a big difference between seizing private property or risking your life to save an endangered species and-'

'Executing someone you blame for contributing to the destruction of the planet?' Trask raised his eyebrows. 'Of course. And don't get me wrong. Greenpeace is a reputable organization. I certainly don't think it would ever resort to violence. But the new director of the Pac-Rim Corporation did receive a note warning him that he'd better make sure another spill doesn't happen, so we know that fanatics were responsible for those murders. My point is, I agree with you – extremists hurt our cause. Every time protestors invade a nuclear-power facility or steal research animals from a medical lab or throw blood on a woman who wears a fur coat, the public reacts as if all environmentalists are a bunch of lunatics. The rest of us who believe that education, common sense, and good example are the proper ways to gain converts become guilty by association. So let's not avoid the issue. Let's face it head-on and make clear that the majority of environmentalists are not crazed, Looney-Tunes weirdos, that we don't approve of excessive protests any more than the public does.'

Tess studied her boss and slowly nodded. Burdened with grief, she fought to pay attention. 'You know, Walter, the more I think of it…'

'Not a bad idea? Of course, if I say so myself. Does that mean you'll do the piece?'

Tess nodded again, pensive, straightening.

'Good.'

'I see several possibilities.' Her voice sounded cramped. With effort, she continued, 'While I'm condemning extremists, I'll still be able to emphasize the threats to the environment that make them behave the way they do. Right motives, wrong methods.'

'You got it, kid. And if you get deeply enough into the story you never know – maybe you'll be able to take your mind off what happened to your poor friend.'

'I doubt it, Walter. Very much. But Lord knows, I'll try my best.' Her eyes misted. 'I definitely need distracting.'

For the rest of the morning, Tess almost succeeded. Struggling to immerse herself in the subject and stop brooding about Joseph's death, she searched through her files. Determined, she called the reference department at the public library, the Daily News, and the Times. She jotted notes and quickly made lists. Trask's reference to animal-rights activists prompted her to recall that last year a group of protestors who'd stolen rabbits being used for medical research had destroyed a five-year experiment that might have resulted in a cure for muscular dystrophy. In another case, the animals that were stolen had been infected with anthrax to test a new vaccine. A minor epidemic had resulted before the animals were recovered.

Seeking further examples, Tess recalled what had happened in Brazil last week. Pedro Gomez, a rubber-tree tapper who'd been trying to organize his fellow villagers to stop developers from their slash-and-burn destruction of the Amazon jungle, had been blown apart by automatic weapons while making a speech. At his funeral, his wife had received a 'gift,' the head of the financier suspected of ordering Gomez's death. The theory was that one of Gomez's followers had killed the financier to get even. Nonetheless the beheading, like the supposed revenge slayings of Billy Joe Bennett and Harrison Page in Tennessee, was related to a major environmental catastrophe, and Tess decided to include the incident as an example of radical behavior ultimately caused by an ecological crisis, and while condemning that behavior, she still could emphasize the crisis itself.

By noon, Tess had a rough outline for her article, amazed by how much she'd been able to accomplish so quickly, given her need to distract herself. But the truth was, a festering corner of her mind continued to brood about Joseph. More and more, she kept glancing at her watch, its hands proceeding relentlessly, with surprising speed yet paradoxical slowness, toward one o'clock and her appointment with Lieutenant Craig. What had he wanted to show her? Why had he been evasive yet again?

NINETEEN

The lieutenant drove an unmarked rust-colored car this time. When he stopped at the curb and Tess got in to fasten her seatbelt, she noticed that his creased brow was beaded with sweat. His blue suitcoat was lumped beside him. The front of his wrinkled white shirt and the underarm she could see were dark with moisture.

'Sorry.' He coughed. The windows were open, but the only breeze on this sultry smog-hazed June afternoon came from passing cars. 'The air conditioner doesn't work.'

'I'll adjust.'

'Good. That makes one of us.'

'Asthma, you said?'

'What?'

'Your cough.'

'Oh.' Craig steered into traffic. 'Yeah, my cough. That's what my doctor tells me. Asthma. Allergies. This town's killing me.'

'Then maybe you should move.'

'Sure. Like to someplace wholesome? Like to Iowa? What's that line in the movie? Field of Dreams. Yeah, that's the movie. "Is this heaven?" and Kevin Costner says, "No, it's Iowa." Cornfields? Give me a break. I was raised here. This is heaven.' Craig frowned, his voice dropping. 'Or at least, it used to be.'

He turned east off Broadway.

'We're heading in the same direction we did last time.' Tess became rigid. 'Don't tell me we're going back to-'

'The morgue?' Craig shook his head and coughed. 'I'd have warned you. No, we'll be driving up First Avenue again.'

'To Carl Schurz Park? But I don't want to-'

'No, not there either. Let me do this my way, all right? So I can explain and prepare you? And don't frown. I swear, cross my heart, you won't see anything gross.'

'You're positive?'

'I'm not saying it won't disturb you, but I guarantee it won't make you sick. On the other hand… Okay, here's the deal. You told me your friend was different? That's an understatement. According to the FBI, he doesn't exist.'

'Doesn't…? What are you…?'

'We sent your friend's name to the Bureau to help them find a match for the fingerprints on the corpse's unburned left hand. They searched their computers for a file on Joseph Martin. No surprise. It's a common name. There are plenty of Joseph Martins. What is surprising is that none of the fingerprints in those files matched the fingerprints we sent to the Bureau.'

'But surely not everybody has fingerprints in the Bureau's files.'

'Right.' Craig continued toward First Avenue. 'So the next step is to check with Social Security, to match the number your friend gave his employer with the names and addresses on their list.'

'And?'

Craig steered around a UPS truck, its driver hurrying to make a delivery. 'And? There is a Joseph Martin with that number. The trouble is, he lives in Illinois. Or used to live in Illinois. Because – and this took several phone calls – Joseph Martin who has that social security number died in nineteen fifty-nine.'

'There's some mistake.'

Craig shook his head. 'I doublechecked. The result came up the same. Joseph Martin – your Joseph Martin – should have quit fooling everybody. He should have done the decent thing, stretched out on the floor, crossed his arms, stopped breathing, and been as dead as the Joseph Martin who's in a cemetery in Illinois.'

While Craig reached First Avenue and headed north, Tess felt pressure behind her ears. 'You're telling me Joseph assumed the identity of a dead man?'

'Actually dead child. Infant. Remind me – how old did you estimate Joseph to be?'

'Early thirties.'

'Let's make it thirty-two,' Craig said. 'Because that's how old the other Joseph Martin would be today if he hadn't been killed in a car crash along with his parents in 'fifty-nine.'

'And I'll bet there were no surviving close relatives.'

'Oh?' Craig assessed her. 'You understand how this is done?'

Tess spread her hands. 'Someone who wants a new identity chooses a community at random and checks the obituaries in the local paper for the year in which he himself was born. He looks for an infant who died that year and was either an orphan or was killed along with his immediate family. That way, he doesn't look older or younger than he says he is, and there's no one who can contradict his claim to be that person. The next step is to find out where the child was born. That information is often in the obituary: "so-and-so was born in this-or-that city." The person seeking a new identity then writes to the courthouse in that city, tells its record office that he lost his birth certificate, and asks for a replacement. People often lose their birth certificates. It's not unusual for someone to ask for another copy, and clerks almost never bother to check if the name on the birth certificate matches the name of someone who's dead. As soon as he gets the birth certificate, the person sends a photostat to the Social Security office, explains that he lived abroad for many years and didn't need a Social Security number but now he does. The Social Security office seldom objects to such a request. With a birth certificate and a Social Security number, the person can get a passport, a driver's licence, a credit card, all the documents he needs to appear legitimate, to enter the system, get a job, pay taxes, etc.'

'Very good,' Craig said, continuing northward. 'I'm impressed.'

'Reporters pick up all kinds of information.' Tess certainly didn't intend to add that the real way she'd learned about assuming false identities was by overhearing her father's phone conversations with business associates.

Craig brooded, passing Forty-Ninth Street. 'With some cooperation from the federal government, I've been able to learn that Joseph began to use his assumed identity in May of last year. That's when he first started paying income taxes and Social Security. Since then, he's had two jobs, not counting his present one. The first was in Los Angeles, the second in Chicago. Obviously he didn't want to stay in any place too long, and he felt the need to put a lot of miles between one location and another. In each case, he worked for a video documentary company.'

'Okay.' Breathing too fast, Tess concentrated not to hyperventilate. 'So Joseph had something to hide. Everything about him was a lie. That explains why he didn't want me to get close to him. The question is, what the hell was he hiding?'

'Maybe you'll be able to tell me when you see where I'm taking you. Certainly I can't figure it out,' Craig said.

'Figure out what? Where are we going?'

'No. Not yet.'

'What?'

The problem is… See, first I have to explain some other things.'

Tess raised her arms in exasperation.

'Be patient. When I talked to the accountant where Joseph worked,' Craig said, 'I asked to see the paychecks he cashed. They're too large for a supermarket or a liquor store to accept them. He'd have needed to take them to a bank. And the bank would have sent the cancelled checks to his employer's bank, which in turn would have sent them to the employer's accountant. As it happens, Joseph cashed all his checks at the same bank. Back there.' Craig pointed. 'We just passed the bank on Fifty-Fourth Street.'

'So you went to the bank, showed them a court order allowing you access to their records, and examined Joseph's account,' Tess said.

Craig assessed her again. 'You'd have made a good policeman.'

'Police woman.'

Craig ignored her correction. 'Yes. That's what I did. I went to the bank, and the address they had for Joseph was the mail service on Broadway. That was also the address he told the bank to print on his checks. No surprise. What was surprising is that the microfilm records of Joseph's cancelled checks show that he hadn't made any payments for electricity or rent. Obviously he had to live somewhere and pay his utilities, so how was he keeping his landlord and Con Edison happy? Turns out, every month he sent a check for thirteen hundred dollars to a man named Michael Hoffman. Now take a guess who Hoffman is.'

'An accountant,' Tess replied.

Craig studied her with greater intensity. 'You're better than good. Right. An accountant. Clearly, Joseph was trying to increase the smokescreen that protected his privacy. So I spoke to Hoffman. He told me that Joseph and he had never met. They conducted all their business through the mail and over the phone.'

'But Hoffman paid Joseph's major bills,' Tess anticipated.

'No compliment this time – you're correct.'

'Okay. With Hoffman's records and cooperation from Con Edison, you ought to be able to find out where Joseph lived.'

'In theory.'

Tess frowned. 'Another smokescreen?'

'Right. Joseph's arrangement with his landlord was that the landlord would pay the utilities and Joseph would reimburse him. So Con Edison couldn't help us.'

'But the landlord could.'

Craig didn't answer.

'Whenever you purse your lips like that… What's the matter?' Tess asked.

'The landlord is a real-estate conglomerate that owns thousands of apartments. All their records are stored in a computer. They looked up Joseph Martin's name, gave me his address – in Greenwich Village – but when I went there, I discovered that the agency had given me the wrong address, that Joseph didn't live there. In fact, the real-estate firm didn't even own that apartment.'

'You mean, someone made a mistake and typed the wrong information into the computer?'

'That's one possibility. The agency's looking into it.' Craig scowled toward a traffic jam on First Avenue.

'One? What's another possibility?' The lieutenant's somber expression made Tess nervous.

'Suppose… I keep thinking of smokescreens. I'm suspicious by nature. I keep wondering if Joseph found a way to access the firm's computer and tamper with their records. He might have been that determined to keep someone from finding out where he lived. Or maybe he bribed a secretary to falsify the records for him. However Joseph did it, it makes me more determined to find out why,' Craig said.

'But if you don't know where Joseph lived, where are we going?' Tess rigidly clasped her hands together.

'Did I say I didn't know? I made a few assumptions. One was that since Joseph's bank is on the East Side and he arranged to meet you at Carl Schurz Park- '

'And died there.' Tess squeezed her eyes shut, repressing tears. 'The upper East Side.'

'That maybe Joseph's apartment is in that direction. Of course, his mail service is on the opposite side of town. But given his phobia about secrecy, it's logical for him to break the pattern. So I asked the precincts around here to find out if anything unusual happened from Friday night onward, something that might help us. That's how we caught Son of Sam. While the bastard was shooting his victims, he overparked and got tickets. On the weekend, there were lots of incidents. But after I sorted through the reports and eliminated several possibilities, I read about a fight in an apartment building on East Eighty-Second Street. An apparent attempted mugging. One of the tenants, a man, was assaulted. He ran from the building, chased by several men. They made enough noise that several other tenants woke up and peered out their doors, seeing shadows struggling on the stairs. Someone coming in late from a party noticed what appeared to be a gang chasing a limping man down the street.'

'East? Toward the river?'

'Yes.' Craig sighed. 'And this happened on Saturday night – or rather at half-past two on Sunday morning.'

'Oh,' Tess said. 'Jesus.'

'I spoke to some of the tenants who were wakened. They said the fight began on the seventh floor. That building has only four apartments per floor. This morning, I got there early enough to talk to the people who live in three of those apartments, but I didn't get any answer at the fourth. The tenants in the other apartments said it had been several days since they'd seen the man who rents that apartment. Not unusual apparently. They hardly ever see him. He's a loner. Friendly but distant. Keeps to himself.'

Tess frowned, more rigid.

The name on the downstairs mailbox for that apartment is Roger Copeland. Of course, that means nothing. Anyone can put a false name on a mailbox. The neighbors describe the man as handsome, tall, in excellent physical condition, in his early thirties, with dark hair and a tawny complexion.'

'My God.' Tess winced. 'It certainly sounds like Joseph.'

The thing is, what the neighbors noticed most were his eyes – gray, with what they described as a glow.'

Tess quit breathing.

'And his unusual way of speaking,' Craig added. 'On the few occasions they spoke to him, he didn't say "Good-bye," but "God bless. "'

Tess felt a chill.

'Joseph used that expression often, you told me. So I got some keys from the landlord, checked the apartment…'

'And?' Tess fought to restrain a tremor.

'I'd rather not describe what I found,' Craig said. 'It's better if you see it fresh, without expectations. But I really don't understand what I… That's why I'm taking you there. Maybe you can make sense of it.'

Craig steered toward the side of the road, parking in a narrow slot. Tess all at once realized that she'd been so engrossed by their conversation that she hadn't noticed they'd turned onto Eighty-Second Street.

'It's just up the block,' Craig said.

'You learned all this since yesterday afternoon?'

'That's why I phoned you early and told you I wouldn't be in the office. I had plenty to do.'

'But shouldn't Homicide be working on this? Not Missing Persons?'

Craig shrugged. 'I decided to keep my hand in.'

'But you must have hundreds of other cases.'

'Hey, I told you yesterday. I'm doing this for you.' With a cough, Craig stepped from the car.

Puzzled by Craig's statement -

– was he saying he'd become attracted to her? -

– Tess joined him, her confusion immediately changing to apprehension as she walked past garbage cans along the curb, approaching the mystery Craig wanted to show her.

TWENTY

The apartment building, one of many narrow structures crammed together along the street, looked different from the soot-grimed others only because its brick exterior was painted a dingy white. At each window, a fire-escape ladder led down from a rusted metal platform.

Craig opened the outside glass door, escorted Tess through a vestibule Hanked by mailboxes (ROGER COPELAND, 7-C), pulled out a key, and unlocked the inside door.

The interior smelled of cabbage. They proceeded along a hallway and reached concrete steps on the left that crisscrossed upward. An elevator faced them on the upper landing.

The architect saved costs,' Craig said. The elevator stops at only every other floor.'

'Let's walk,' Tess said.

'You're kidding. To the seventh floor?'

'I didn't get my run in this morning.'

'You're telling me you run every morning?' Craig asked.

'For the past twelve years.'

'Holy…'

Tess glanced at Craig's beefy chest. 'A little exercise might strengthen your lungs. Can you manage the effort?'

'If you can do it, I can.' The lieutenant stifled a cough.

'Just a guess. Did you ever smoke?'

'Two packs a day. For more years than you've been running." He coughed again. 'I stopped in January.'

'Why?'

'Doctor's orders.'

'Good doctor.'

'Well, he's certainly persistent.'

'That's what I mean. A good doctor,' Tess said. 'As long as you stop lighting up… Well, it'll take a few more months to get the nicotine out of your system, and a few more years to purge your lungs, but you're in the right age group. Late thirties. On balance, you've got a good chance of not getting lung cancer.'

The lieutenant stared at her. 'Are you always this dismally reassuring?'

'I guess I hate to see people damage themselves the way they seem determined to damage the planet.'

'I keep forgetting you're an environmentalist.'

'An optimist. I'm hoping if I try hard enough, and if others try hard enough, we might actually be able to clean up this mess.'

'Well.' Craig coughed and gripped the bannister. I'm prepared to do my share. Let's go. Seven floors. No problem. But listen, if I get tired, can I lean on your shoulder?'

TWENTY-ONE

Craig was out of breath, his brow beaded with sweat, when they reached the seventh floor. But he hadn't complained, and he hadn't stopped to take a rest. Tess gave him credit for being determined. 'There. That's my exercise for the month,' Craig said. 'Don't break the start of a pattern. Try again tomorrow.' 'Maybe. You never know. I might surprise you.' The lieutenant's mischievous grin made Tess suspect that he was trying to make her feel at ease.

To the left, they faced 7-C. There wasn't any name in the slot below the apartment's number. A metal sign on the door said ACE ALARM SYSTEM.

'You'd better put these on,' Craig said. He handed her rubber gloves and coverings for her sneakers. 'Homicide was here this morning. They took photographs and did a preliminary dusting for fingerprints. But they'll be back, and even though I've got permission to show you the apartment, we don't want to disturb it anymore than necessary.'

Craig had rubber gloves and shoe coverings for himself as well. After knocking and getting no answer, he pulled two keys from his pocket and unlocked two deadbolts. But when he twisted the doorknob, Tess placed a nervous hand on his arm.

'Is something wrong?' Craig asked.

'Are you sure there's nothing inside that'll gross me out?'

'You'll be disturbed. But I guarantee – this won't be like the morgue. Trust me. You don't need to feel afraid.'

'Okay.' Tess compacted her muscles. 'I'm ready. Let's do it.'

The lieutenant swung the door inward.

Tess saw a white corridor. A red light glowed on an alarm box to the right. The alarm was primitive – no number pad, just a switch, presumably because the landlord had economized by installing the least expensive model.

Craig flicked the switch down. The light went off.

They entered the corridor. Beyond the alarm box, Tess saw a small bathroom to the right. A sink, a commode, a tub, no shower stall. The tub was old enough that its rim was curved, oval instead of rectangular, metal feet supporting it. But despite its age, and that of the sink and commode, the pitted white surfaces gleamed.

Tess concentrated so hard that the sound the lieutenant made when he shut the door surprised her, making her flinch.

'Notice anything?' Craig said behind her.

Tess studied the neatly folded, clean towel and washcloth on a shiny metal rod next to the sink. On the sink itself, a toothbrush that looked new stood in a sparkling glass. The mirror on the medicine cabinet shone.

'Joseph was a better housekeeper than I am, that's for sure.'

'Look closer.' Craig edged past her. Entering the bathroom, he opened the medicine cabinet.

Tess peered inside. A razor. A package of blades. A tube of Old Spice shaving cream. A tube of Crest toothpaste. The tubes were methodically rolled up from the bottom and set in an ordered row. A bottle of Old Spice aftershave lotion. A bottle of Redken shampoo. A packet of dental floss.

'So?' Tess asked.

The basics. Only the basics. In fact, for most people, less than the basics. In all my years of being a detective, of searching the rooms that belong to missing persons, I've never yet seen a medicine cabinet that didn't contain at least one prescription medicine. An antibiotic or an antihistamine, for example.'

Tess opened her mouth to respond.

Craig raised his hand to interrupt. 'Okay, from the way you describe him, Joseph was healthy, exercised every day, ate right, took care of himself. But Tess, there isn't even an aspirin bottle, and everybody – I don't care how healthy Joseph was – keeps aspirins. I mean everybody. I checked the rest of the apartment. I found vitamins in the kitchen. But aspirins?' The lieutenant shook his head. The guy was a purist.'

'What's so strange about that? He didn't like taking chemicals, no matter how benign they are. So what?'

'I'm not finished yet.' Craig motioned for her to follow.

They left the bathroom, continued along the hallway, and reached a kitchen on the left.

There, the stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher were several years old, but like the sink, commode, and tub in the bathroom, they were polished until they gleamed. The worn but bright counter was bare. No toaster. No microwave. No coffee pot.

Craig opened the cupboards. They were empty, except for a plate, bowl, and cup in one, and a few spotless stainless steel pots and a colander in another.

Craig opened every drawer. They too were empty, except for a knife, fork, and spoon in one and two larger metal spoons appropriate for stirring food cooked in the stainless steel pots. To put it mildly, Joseph felt compelled to strip things down to the absolute essentials. The vitamins are in the spice rack behind you, by the way. No sage, no oregano. Never mind salt or pepper. Only vitamins. And no alcohol anywhere, not even cooking sherry.'

'So Joseph didn't like to drink. Big deal,' Tess said. 'I don't drink much either.'

'Keep an open mind. I'm just getting started.'

Tess shook her head, bewildered, as Craig pulled open the fridge.

'Orange juice, skim milk, bottled water, fruit, a shitload of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, sprouts… Vegetables. No meat. No-'

'Joseph told me he was a vegetarian.'

'Don't you think he was taking it to an extreme?'

'Not necessarily. I'm a vegetarian,' Tess said. 'You ought to see my refrigerator. The only thing different is I sometimes eat fish or chicken but only white meat.'

Craig gestured impatiently around him. 'No cans of food in the cupboards.'

'Of course. Too much salt. Too many preservatives. The taste is synthetic.'

'No offense, but I hope I never have to eat your cooking.'

'Don't jump to conclusions, Lieutenant. I cook very well.'

'I'm sure you do, but if I don't get a steak now and then-'

'You'd have less cholesterol,' Tess said. 'And maybe less weight around your belt.'

Craig squinted, then chuckled, then coughed. 'I suppose I could use a few less… Never mind. As I said, we're just getting started. Let me show you the living room.'

Tess followed, leaving the kitchen, proceeding down the corridor.

And faltered.

Except for thick open draperies at the windows, the room was totally empty. No carpet. No lamps. No chairs. No sofa. No tables. No shelves. No television. No stereo. No posters. No reproductions of paintings. Bare floor. Bare walls. Not even a-

'Phone,' Craig said, seeming to read her mind. 'Not in the kitchen. Not here. And not in the bedroom. No wonder Joseph didn't give his employer his phone number. He didn't have a phone. He didn't want one. And my guess is he didn't have any use for one. Because the last thing he wanted was a call from someone or to make a call. Your friend had reduced his life to bare necessities. And don't tell me that's typical of a vegetarian. Because I know better. I've never seen anything like this.'

Trembling, Tess opened a closet and stared at a jogging suit on a hanger next to a simple but practical overcoat. No boxes on the upper shelf. Below, on the otherwise barren floor, she saw a solitary pair of Nike jogging shoes.

Trembling harder, she clutched the edge of the closet door to steady herself and turned. 'Okay, I'm convinced. This isn't… No one lives like… Something's wrong.'

'But I haven't shown you the best part, or I should say the worst.' With a stark expression, Craig nodded toward a door. The bedroom. What you'll see in there…No, don't cringe. It won't make you sick. I've promised you that several times. But I need to know. What does it mean?'

His footsteps echoing, Craig crossed the room and opened the bedroom door.

As if hypnotized, Tess stepped forward.

TWENTY-TWO

The bedroom was almost as empty as the living room. Plain draperies but no carpet. There was something in the corner, but here the draperies had been shut, the room too shadowy for Tess to be able to identify the murky shape.

She groped along the inside wall and found a lights witch. However, when she flicked it, nothing happened.

There's no lamp,' Craig said. 'And the overhead bulb doesn't work.'

Then how did Joseph keep from stumbling around in the dark?'

Instead of answering, the lieutenant pulled the draperies open.

Hazy sunlight flowed in, making Tess blink as her eyes adjusted. Abruptly she blinked for another reason, because what she saw in the room bewildered her.

The murky object she'd glimpsed dimly in the corner was a mattress on the floor. No. Not even a mattress. A pallet, six-feet long, three-feet wide, one-inch thick, made of woven hemp.

'Joseph didn't exactly pamper himself,' Craig said. 'No pillow. No sheet. Just that one blanket. I looked. There aren't any others in the closet.'

Tess's forehead pounded. With mounting confusion, she noticed that the blanket the lieutenant referred to had been folded at the bottom of the pallet with the same meticulous care that the towel and washcloth had been hung so neatly on the rack in the bathroom.

'And there's your answer for how he kept from stumbling around in the dark,' Craig said.

The pain in her skull increasing, Tess frowned toward where the lieutenant pointed and shook her head. Next to the pallet, a dozen candles stood in saucers.

'Somehow I don't think he was just trying to save on his electricity bill,' Craig said.

To the right of the pallet, Tess squinted at a plain, pine, three-shelved bookcase. Feeling pressure in her chest, she walked toward it, examining the titles. The Consolation of Philosophy, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Holy Bible: Scofield Reference Edition, Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Art of Courtly Love, The Last Days of the Planet Earth.

'I guess he never heard of the New York Times bestseller list,' Craig said. 'Philosophy, religion, history. Heavy. I'd hate to have spent a weekend with him. Not many laughs.'

'He wasn't boring,' Tess said, distracted, continuing to examine the shelves. 'Several books about the environment.'

'Yes. That's something else you and he shared in common.'

Trembling no matter how hard she tried to control it, Tess drew her index finger past a book called The Millennium and noticed a title that wasn't in English. The volume was bound in well-worn leather and looked very old.

'Can I take it out?'

'As long as you put it back exactly where you found it,' Craig said.

With care, she removed the book from the shelf and examined its dry, cracked cover. El Circulo del Cuello de la Paloma.

'Looks like Spanish,' Craig said.

'Right.'

'I'm still working on English. Can you read it?'

'No.' Tess exhaled, frustrated. 'I took a few courses in high school, but I don't remember the vocabulary.'

'Below the title,' Craig said. 'Abu Muhammad 'Ali ibn Hazm al-Andalusi.' He stumbled over the words. 'I assume that's the author's name. It barely fits across the cover. Muhammad? Sounds Moslem.'

Tess nodded, wrote the title and author's name on a notepad, then opened the book. Its pages were brittle, the entire text in Spanish. Impatient, she returned her gaze to the bookshelf, in particular toward the Scofield Bible. Earlier, something about it had troubled her. It didn't look right. She cautiously replaced the Spanish book and withdrew the Bible, finding that its covers slanted inward. With a frown, she stared inside and discovered, shocked, that most of its pages had been removed. A straight line showed where a knife or scissors had been used to cut out the pages.

'Why would-?'

That's one of many things I want to know,' Craig said.

Tess read the names of the sections at the top of the heavily underlined, remaining pages. 'He cut out everything except the preface and… " She flipped more pages. 'John's Gospel, John's Epistles, John's Book of Revelation. I don't understand.'

'You're not the only one. And this…' Craig pointed.' Whatever the damned thing is. On the bookshelf. This is the weirdest of all.'

Tess raised her eyes. She'd noticed the object when she walked toward the bookshelf, but it made so little sense that she'd postponed examining it in the hope that the other things in the room would help her interpret the grotesque image.

The object was a statue, or to be exact a bas-relief sculpture, one foot tall and wide, fashioned out of white marble. It depicted a long-haired, muscular, handsome man straddling the back of a bull, jerking the struggling animal's head up, slashing its throat with a knife.

Blood cascaded from the wound toward what appeared to be wheat growing out of the ground. At the same time, a dog lunged toward the blood while a serpent sped toward the wheat and a scorpion attacked the bull's testicles.

To the right and left of the grisly scene, torch bearers watched. The torch on the left was pointed upward, the torch on the right pointed downward. And above the torch bearer on the left, a bird -

– an owl! hard to tell -

– stared with fixated eyes toward the slashing knife and the cascading blood.

'What does it mean?' Craig asked. 'Since I first saw it this morning, the thing's been haunting me.'

Tess had trouble speaking. Her mouth tasted bitter. Her shoulder blades felt frozen. 'It's… Horrible. Repulsive. Disgusting.'

'Yeah, just your ordinary everyday decoration around the house.'

Attached to the wall behind the statue, imitating the torches that flanked the eerie grotesque scene, were candles in holders, one facing up, the other down. A saucer had been set beneath the latter candle to catch the melting wax when it fell.

'Joseph didn't have a lot of respect for the fire code,' Craig said. 'If the landlord had known about all these candles, your friend would have found himself and his few belongings out on the street. It's a wonder he didn't burn down the building.'

'But this is crazy.'

'It sure as hell spooked me.'

'Look, there's no way I can borrow the Bible and the Spanish book, right?' Tess asked.

'Homicide would have my ass if I let you.'

'Well, can I at least take pictures?'

'You've got a camera?'

'Always. A reporter's habit.'

'Okay. But I want you to promise,' Craig said. 'You won't publish the photographs unless you're given permission from Homicide or me.'

'Agreed.'

'Then be my guest,' Craig said.

Tess removed a small 35mm Olympus from her burlap purse and took several closeup photos of the statue from different angles. Then she opened the Bible and photographed the most heavily underlined pages. Next, after putting the Bible back on the shelf in the spot where she'd found it, she photographed the entire bookshelf and finally the pallet flanked by candles.

She put away the camera. 'All set.'

There's one other promise I want you to make,' Craig said. 'If you learn anything from those photos, I want to hear about it in case it's something we haven't already discovered.'

'Word of honor.'

Craig fidgeted.

'That look on your face. You're doing it again,' Tess said. 'Holding back.'

The thing is…'

'What?'

'Are you ready for another shock?'

'You mean, there is more?'

'In the closet.' Craig opened it. 'Notice he had few clothes. A pair of clean jeans. An extra shirt. A spare – only one – cotton pullover. A few pairs of socks and underwear on the shelf. And this.' Craig reached to the right, toward the inside wall of the closet.

'Whatever it is, I don't want to see it.'

'I'm sorry, Tess. But it's important. I have to show you.'

The lieutenant pulled an object from the closet. The object was a foot-long section of wood that seemed to have been cut from a broomstick handle. A half-dozen three-foot-long pieces of rope were attached to one end.

Tess shuddered. 'A whip?'

'With dried blood on the ropes. He… I believe the term is… flagellated himself.'

TWENTY-THREE

The Tsavo National Park. Kenya. Africa.

The hunter waited patiently, clutching his long-distance, high-powered rifle, hunkering with practised discipline in a shelter of scrub thorn next to a cluster of baobob trees. His view of the water hole was unobstructed. At mid-day near the equator, the heat was so severe that the targets would soon lumber into view, forced to seek water. Although his wide-brimmed hat and the bushes around him provided some shelter from the glaring sun, the hunter sweated profusely, his khaki hunting shirt dark with moisture. But he didn't dare raise his canteen and drink, lest his motions reveal his position. After all, his quarry was extremely cautious, vigilant against intruders.

Still, the hunter's patience and determination had been rewarded many times before. He simply had to maintain professional conduct. Later, when his hunt was successful, he could afford the luxury of drinking.

His nerves tingled. There! To his left! He sensed more than heard the approaching rumble of huge plodding feet. Then he saw the dustcloud they raised, and finally the massive animals emerged from a stand of flowering acacia trees, warily assessing the open grassland, nervously judging the water hole.

Elephants. The hunter counted ten. Their wide ears were flared, straining to detect unfamiliar threatening sounds. With disappointment, the hunter noted that four were tuskless children and that the adults had tusks that were barely – hard to tell from this distance – four feet long. With greater disappointment, he remembered a time, twenty years ago, when the curved tusks had been six, eight, and sometimes ten-feet long. On average, the weight of each tusk had dropped from eighteen pounds to nine. As a consequence, it required much more killing to achieve the quota demanded by ivory merchants. Twenty years ago – the hunter mentally shook his head – forty thousand elephants had roamed this plain, but last year, he'd estimated that only five thousand remained, and that figure didn't include the two thousand carcasses he'd come upon during his increasingly determined expeditions. Soon the ivory trade wouldn't exist. Because the elephants themselves would no longer exist. Twelve tons of tusks, the harvest from thirteen hundred elephants, were worth three million dollars. But smaller tusks meant less weight and more killing in order to achieve the quota.

His fingers rigid on his rifle, the hunter watched the reluctant elephants finally overcome their nervousness and approach the water hole. They were so magnificent. He focused his intensity, clasped his rifle's trigger, and slowly, angrily, swiveled his vision, scanning the grassland around the water hole.

Again the hunter's nerves tingled, instincts quickening.

To his right, he saw motion. Figures rose from the shelter of waist-high grass. These figures, too, held rifles.

Men! Dressed in camouflage khaki, the same as himself!

Other hunters!

But he and they weren't competitors. Not at all. Quite the contrary. They existed in a complex deadly condition of symbiosis. Their purpose demanded his purpose, and with angry resolve, the executioner swung his rifle toward those predators.

Even from a distance, he could tell that they weren't using hunting rifles but automatic weapons – M-16s and AK-47s. He'd stumbled upon the evidence of their slaughter too many times before. Entire herds destroyed, riddled with bullets, their carcasses rotting in the sun, their tusks grotesquely hacked from their faces, their meat – which could have been used by starving natives – left for ravaging jackels and swarming maggots.

God damn those other hunters.

To hell!

Which was exactly where this hunter intended to send them.

Careful not to reveal himself, he slowly stood, raised his rifle, braced it against his shoulder, intensified his vision through the rifle's high-enlargement sights, steadied his finger on the trigger, and with enormous satisfaction, squeezed.

Without removing his gaze from the rifle's sights, he saw – in closeup – the predator's skull blow apart.

Nothing like explosive bullets.

At once, the hunter saw another predator surge upward from the grass, recoil in horror, raise his hand to his mouth, and stumble back, fleeing.

No problem.

With a slight shift of angle and focus, the hunter shot yet again.

And blew the second predator's chest apart.

So how does it feel? the hunter thought. When you died, did you feel like… did you identify with… did you imagine… and regret… and feel sorry for… the agony you caused so many of God's magnificent irreplaceable creatures? The elephants?

Shit, no. You're incapable of emotion, except for greed.

But you're not feeling that now, are you?

You're not feeling anything.

Because, you bastards, you're one less curse on the planet.

Native bearers scrambled from the waist-high grass and fled toward a distant ridge. Their panicked outlines were tempting, but the hunter restrained his trigger finger and lowered his rifle. His message had been delivered. He understood – although disapproved of – their motives.

The native bearers needed employment. Yes.

They needed money. They needed food.

But no matter their desperation, they shouldn't help to destroy their heritage! The elephants were Africa! The elephants were…!

The hunter's anger diminished. His churning stomach made him want to vomit. As the native bearers scrambled below the curve of the distant ridge, he stood with professional caution, assessed the grassland around him, regretted that the elephants had been spooked by his gunshots and had retreated from their desperate need to drink from the shallow, muddy, water hole, but he felt tremendous pride that he'd done his duty.

It took him five minutes to reach the first of his executed predators. His dead antagonist looked pathetic, the robust man's skull blasted open, his blood soaking into the dirt. But then -

– the hunter reminded himself -

– the dead elephants looked even more pathetic. Because when alive, so magnificent, the elephants had been a triumph of creation.

An example had to be made.

The hunter removed a pair of pliers, knelt, propped open the corpse's mouth, and began the necessary but repulsive work of reinforcing the example.

'Ivory,' he muttered, his voice choked. 'Is that what you want? Ivory? Well, here, damn it, let me help you out. I mean, unlike the elephants, you've got all the ivories anybody needs.'

With torturous effort, the hunter began to yank out each and every one of the corpse's teeth.

He set them neatly in a pile beside the sunken-mouthed corpse.

He then proceeded toward his other victim.

By every means necessary…

Examples…

Reprisals…

Had to be made!

The slaughter had to be stopped!

TWENTY-FOUR

'I'm sorry,' Craig said.

'For what?'

'Really, I didn't mean to upset you this much.'

'It's not your fault,' Tess said, 'I had to… I needed to see that apartment. Earth Mother Magazine won't go out of business because I'm not there. I wouldn't be much good to them anyhow. I've got some thinking to do.'

With a troubled expression, Craig double-parked on the noisy, crowded street outside Tess's loft in SoHo. 'Well, while you're thinking, remember your promise. Homicide will investigate thoroughly, but if something occurs to you that might help explain what we found in Joseph's apartment, let me know.' The lieutenant gave her a card. That's my home telephone number at the bottom. If it's important, don't wait to call me at the office.'

'Hey, don't worry. If I have to, I'll call you in the middle of the night.'

Craig grinned. 'That's fine with me. I'm a very light sleeper.' He coughed. That is, when I sleep at all.'

'Which reminds me.' Tess fumbled in her purse. 'I almost forgot. While I waited for you to pick me up, I brought you a couple of presents.'

'Oh?'

'A copy of our magazine. Maybe that'll help put you to sleep.'

'I doubt it. If anything, I'm sure it'll keep me awake. You have my word – I'll read it. Cover to cover.'

'I'll have a quiz prepared. Also, I brought you this.'

She handed him a box of cough drops.

Craig looked amused. Thanks. People don't often give me anything – except grief.' He cleared his throat. Take care, huh?'

'You, too.' Echoing Joseph's words, she surprised herself by adding, 'God bless.'

Craig nodded.

After getting out of the car, Tess watched the lieutenant drive away. Pretending to climb the steps to her apartment building, she waited until Craig's car disappeared around a corner. Then, instead of entering her building, she walked briskly in the opposite direction.

Toward a shop down the street.

TWENTY-FIVE

QUICK PHOTO, a sign said on the window. A bell rang when Tess opened and shut the door. A middle-aged Hispanic clerk glanced up from stacking boxes of film behind the counter. His voice had no trace of an accent when he asked, 'Can I be of help?'

Tess hesitated. The clerk's tawny skin… There was something about… It reminded Tess of Joseph's skin. She'd assumed that Joseph's swarthy skin was due to a tan.

But maybe…

She wondered, Could Joseph have been Hispanic! That would explain the Spanish book on his shelf.

'Yes. In your window, you advertise one-hour film processing.'

'Of course. But for an extra charge,' the clerk said.

'No problem.' Tess unloaded her camera and handed the clerk the film. 'It's important. I need it back as soon as possible.'

'One moment.' The clerk took the film through a door behind him and returned a half-minute later. 'My brother is beginning to process it now.' He poised a pen above an order form. 'Your name?'

Tess gave him all the information he needed.

The clerk handed Tess a claim check. 'Is there anything else I can help you with?'

'Yes. I want more film. Three rolls. Thirty-six exposures each. ASP two hundred.' From trial-and-error, Tess had learned that, for her simple, easy-to-carry, inexpensive camera, an ASP of two hundred was a good compromise for getting clear indoor and outdoor pictures. 'I… You look… Do you speak Spanish?'

The clerk smiled. 'Si, senorita. Muy bien.'

'Then, if you don't mind, could you tell me what this means?' Tess pulled her notepad from her purse and showed him the title she'd written.

'El Circulo del Cuello de la Paloma?' The clerk shrugged. The circle… or possibly the ring… of the neck of the dove.'

Tess frowned, disappointed. She'd hoped that the title would give her an indication of what the book contained. 'Well, have you ever heard of a book with that name?'

'My apologies, senorita. No.'

'Then what about this?' She pointed toward the author's name. Abu Muhammad 'Ali ibn Hazm al-Andalusi. 'Why is the author's name so long?'

The clerk raised his shoulders. 'In Spanish, long names are common. They often include the parents' names.'

'But Muhammad isn't a Spanish name. It sounds Moslem. Arabic.'

'That's true,' the clerk said.

'And what about at the end here? Al-Andalusi?'

'That means he comes from Andalusia.'

'If I remember,' Tess said, 'that's in Spain. Right?'

'Yes. The southern-most province.'

'I don't understand. Why would someone who's Arabic come from a Spanish province?'

The clerk spread his hands and shook his head. 'My former country's history is complicated.' He glanced at a clock on the wall. 'Your pictures should be ready by five.'

'I'll be back. Thank you.'

'De nada.'

TWENTY-SIX

Tess hurried to her apartment building, ignored the elevator, and ran up the stairs to her loft. After locking the door behind her, she rushed to pick up her portable phone, tapped some numbers, and went to a closet, pulling out a suitcase.

The receptionist at Earth Mother Magazine answered.

'Betty. Tess. Is Walter free? Good. Then put me through. Walter, it's Tess. I need a favor. I can't come into work for the next few days. Can you spare me? Yes, I've been working on the article. This isn't connected. Let's call it family business. The point is, I have to leave town. What? Is this about Joseph? Okay, all right, you guessed it. Are you a mind reader now? Walter, I have to do this. Be careful? Hey, what else? I promise.'

With relief, Tess broke the connection, carried the suitcase toward her bureau, and pressed more memorized numbers on the portable phone. 'Public library? Reference department, please.' While she waited, she tossed a change of clothes into her suitcase. 'Reference department? I'm a journalist. I'm on deadline, and I'd appreciate if you checked your computer for a book I'm trying to find. It's called The Circle or The Ring of the Neck of the Dove.'

Waiting again, Tess entered her bathroom and placed an emergency kit of toothpaste, etc., into her suitcase. 'No? Thank you.'

But Tess felt hollow as she zipped her suitcase shut. She left the bathroom, reached her volume of the Yellow Pages, and finally found what she wanted.

Again she pressed numbers on the portable phone. Trump Shuttle? I need a seat on the six o'clock flight to Washington. Yes, I know you guarantee seats. But I don't want to wait if you have to bring out another plane. My Am Ex number is…'

She slumped on her sofa, tried to clear her mind, and pressed more buttons. 'Mother? I'm coming to town tonight. That's right, it's been a long time. We'll catch up. I'm fine, mother. Listen, as I recall, you had some influence with the Library of Congress director. Didn't he used to come to father's dinner parties? Good. I want you to call him. Ask him if he knows about and can get me this book.' Tess gave the title. 'Eight, mother. Maybe later. I'm trying. I just don't know exactly. Don't keep dinner waiting. Yes, I love you, too.'

She pressed the disconnect button, searched her address book, and pressed more numbers. Actually, she jabbed them. 'Brian Hamilton, please. Yes. That's what I expected. He's always unavailable. Tell him Theresa Drake is calling. Yes, that Drake.'

The name had magic. Or possibly caused fear. For whatever reason, Brian Hamilton answered quickly. 'How are you, Tess?' His voice was smooth. 'It's been a long time.'

'Not long enough. But I want to get reacquainted, Brian. In person.'

'Oh? Does that mean…?'

'You bet. I'm coming to town. Be at my mother's house at eight tonight.'

'I'm sorry, Tess. I can't. I'm scheduled to attend a reception for the Soviet ambassador.'

'With all respect to the Soviet ambassador…'

'Respect. Exactly. We're suddenly allies. I have to…'

'You're not listening, Brian. I need to see you.'

'But the Soviet ambassador…"

'Fuck him,' Tess blurted. 'You promised my father you'd be there if I ever needed help. I demand you honor your promise.'

'Demand? You make that sound like a threat.'

'A threat? Brian, I don't make threats. I make guarantees. I'm a journalist, remember. I know your secrets, just as I knew about my father's. I might be tempted to write a story about them. Unless you want to put out a contract on me.'

'Hey, Tess, let's not overreact. You know we don't…'

'Just be at my mother's. Eight o'clock.'

Brian hesitated. 'If you insist. For the sake of old times and your father. I look forward to…'

Tess broke the connection.

TWENTY-SEVEN

On schedule at five o'clock, her clothes moist from urgency, Tess carried her suitcase into the QUICK PHOTO store. Again, the bell rang. Again, the middle-aged Hispanic clerk glanced up at her.

Tess eased her suitcase onto the floor and breathed out. 'My pictures? They're ready?'

'But of course, 'the clerk said. 'As we advertise, one-hour service.' He reached in a drawer. 'Here they are.'

Tess opened her wallet.

'I'm sorry your friend got angry.'

'… My friend?'

'The man you sent to pick up the photographs for you.'

'But I…'

'A month ago, we gave out some wedding pictures by mistake. In truth, it was my fault. I forgot to ask for the claim check. Since then, I don't give out any pictures unless…'

'Here's the claim check,' Tess said. Her hand shook. 'You did the right thing. I didn't send… What did he look like?'

'Tan. Early thirties. Tall. Well-built. Good-looking.' The clerk paused, then frowned. 'He became quite insistent when I wouldn't give him the photographs. He was so upset that I almost feared he'd force me to give him the photographs. I reached under the counter.' The clerk held up a baseball bat. 'For this. In case he turned violent. Perhaps he noticed my gesture. Fortunately it wasn't necessary. Just then, three customers came in. He left in a hurry.' The clerk frowned harder. 'What I noticed most about him were his eyes.'

'His eyes?' Tess gripped the counter for support. 'What about them?'

'Their color was unusual.'

'Gray?'

'Yes, senorita. How did you?'

Tess gaped. Feeling sick, she dropped money on the counter, grabbed the package of photographs, and mustered the discipline not to tremble. She rushed toward the door to find a taxi.

'You're certain I did the right thing, senorita?'

'Absolutely. From now on, you get all my business.'

The overhead bell rang as Tess lunged out. Scanning the smoggy street, she suddenly realized, her stomach burning, that she wasn't just looking for a taxi.

The man the clerk had described sounded like Joseph. But Joseph was dead!

How could?

As she hailed a taxi and scrambled into it, Tess surprised herself by assuming one of Joseph's habits. Nervous, she darted her eyes in every direction to see if she was being followed.