Down And Dirty

I

Sitting shade-clad in a booth at Vito's Italian, odd-hour and quiet, lowering a mound of linguini and the level in a straw-bound bottle-black hair stiff with spray or tonic--the place's only patron had drawn attention from the staff in the form of several wagers, in that this was his seventh entree, when a towering civilian with a hand like a club came in off the street and stood near, watching, also, through bloodshot eyes.

The man continued to stare at the diner, who finally swung his mirror lenses toward him.

"You the one I'm looking for?" the newcomer asked. "Maybe so," the diner replied, lowering his fork, "if it involves money and certain special skills."

The big man smiled. Then he raised his right hand and dropped it. It struck the edge of the table, removed the corner, shredded the tablecloth, and jerked it forward. The linguini spilled backward into the dark-haired man's lap. The man jerked away as this occurred and his glasses fell askew, revealing a pair of glittering, faceted eyes.

"Prick!" he announced, his hands shooting forward, paralleling the other's clublike appendage.

"Son of a bitch!" the giant bellowed, jerking his hand away. "You fuckin' burned me!"

"Fuckin' shocked,"' the other corrected. "Lucky I didn't fry you! What is this? Why you taking my table apart?"

"You're hirin' fuckin' aces, ain't you? I wanted you to see my shit."

"I'm not hiring aces. I thought you were, the way you came on."

"Hell, no! Bug-eyed bastard!"

The other moved quickly to adjust his glasses.

"It's a real pain," he stated, "looking at two hundred sixteen views of an asshole."

"I'll give you something up the asshole!" said the giant, raising his hand again.

"You got it," said the other, an electrical storm erupting suddenly between his palms. The giant stepped back a pace. Then the storm passed and the man lowered his hands. "If it weren't for the linguini in my lap," he said then, "this would be funny. Sit down. We can wait together."

"Funny?"

"Think about it while I go clean up," he replied. Then, "Name's Croyd," he said.

"Croyd Crenson?"

"Yeah. And you're Bludgeon, aren't you?"

"Yeah. What do you mean `funny'?"

"Like mistaken identity," Croyd answered. "Two guys thinking they're each somebody else, you know?" Bludgeons brow was furrowed for several seconds before his lips formed a tentative smile. Then he laughed, four coughlike barks. "Yeah, fuckin' funny!" he said then, and barked again.

Bludgeon slid into the booth, still chuckling, as Croyd slid out. Croyd headed back toward the men's room and Bludgeon ordered a pitcher of beer from the waiter who came by to clean up. A few moments later, a black-suited man entered the dining area from the kitchen and stood, thumbs hooked behind his belt, toothpick moving slowly within a faint frown. Then he advanced.

"You look a little familiar," he said, coming up beside the booth.

"I'm Bludgeon," the other replied, raising his hand. "Chris Mazzucchelli. Yeah, I've heard of you. I hear you can bash your way through nearly anything with that mitt of yours."

Bludgeon grinned. "Fuckin' A," he said.

Mazzucchelli smiled around the toothpick and nodded. He slid into Croyd's seat.

"You know who I am?" he asked.

"Hell, yes," Bludgeon said, nodding. "You're the Man."

"That I am. I guess you heard there's some trouble coming down, and I need some special kind of soldiers."

"You need some fuckin' heads broke, I'm fuckin' good at it," Bludgeon told him.

"That's nicely put," Mazzucchelli said, reaching inside his jacket. He removed an envelope and tossed it onto the tabletop. "Retainer."

Bludgeon picked it up, tore it open, then counted the bills slowly, moving his lips. When he was finished, he said, "Fuckin' price is fuckin' right. Now what?"

"There's an address in there too. You go to it eight o'clock tonight and get some orders. Okay?"

Bludgeon put away the envelope and rose.

"Damn straight," he agreed, reaching out and picking up the pitcher of beer, raising it, draining it, and belching. "Who's the other guy-the one back in the john?"

"Shit, he's one of us," Bludgeon replied. "Name's Croyd Crenson. Bad man to fuck with, but he's got a great sense of humor."

Mazzucchelli nodded. "Have a good day," he said. Bludgeon belched again, nodded back, waved his clubhand, and departed.

Croyd hesitated only a moment on reentering the dining room and regarding Mazzucchelli in his seat. He advanced, raised two fingers in mock salute, and said, "I'm Croyd," as he drew near. "Are you the recruiter?"

Mazzucchelli looked him up and looked him down, eyes dwelling for a moment on the large wet spot at the front of his trousers.

"Something scare you?" he asked.

"Yea, I saw the kitchen," Croyd replied. "You looking for talent?"

"What kind of talent you got?"

Croyd reached for a small lamp on a nearby table. He unscrewed the bulb and held it before him. Shortly it began to glow. Then it brightened, flared, and went out.

"Oops," he observed. "Gave it a little too much juice."

"For a buck and a half," Mazzucchelli stated, "I can buy a flashlight."

"You got no imagination," Croyd said. "I can do some heavy stuff with burglar alarms, computers, telephones-not to mention anybody I shake hands with. But if you're not interested, I won't starve."

He began to turn away.

"Sit down, sit down!" Mazzucchelli said. "I heard you had a sense of humor. Sure, I like that stuff, and I think maybe I can use you in a certain matter. I need some good people in a hurry."

"Something scare you?" Croyd asked, sliding into the seat recently vacated by Bludgeon.

Mazzucchelli scowled and Croyd grinned. "Humor," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"Crenson," the other stated, "that's your last name. See, I do know you. I know a lot about you. I've been stringing you along. That's humor. I know you're pretty good, and you usually deliver what you promise. But we got some things to talk about before we talk about other things. You know what I mean?"

"No," Croyd answered. "But I'm willing to learn."

"You want anything while we're talking?"

"I'd like to try the linguini again," Croyd said,

"and another bottle of Chianti."

Mazzucchelli raised his hand, snapped his fingers. A waiter rushed into the room.

"Linguini, e una bottiglia," he said. "Chianti."

The man hurried off. Croyd rubbed his hands together, to the accompaniment of a faint crackling sound.

"The one who just left…," Mazzucchelli said at length. "Bludgeon…"

"Yes?" Croyd said, after an appropriate wait. "He'll make a good soldier," Mazzucchelli finished. Croyd nodded. " I suppose so."

"But you, you have some skills besides what the virus gave you. I understand you are a pretty good second-story man. You knew old Bentley."

Croyd nodded again. "He was my teacher. I knew him back when he was a dog. You seem to know more about me than most people do."

Mazzucchelli removed his toothpick, sipped his beer. "That's my business," he said after a time, "knowing things. That's why I don't want to send you off to be a soldier."

The waiter returned with a plate of linguini, a glass, and a bottle, which he proceeded to uncork. He passed Croyd a setting from the next booth. Croyd immediately began to eat with a certain manic gusto that Mazzucchelli found vaguely unsettling.

Croyd paused long enough to ask, "So what is it you've got in mind for me?"

"Something a little more subtle, if you're the right man for it."

"Subtle. I'm right for subtle," Croyd said.

Mazzucchelli raised a finger. "First," he said, "one of those things we talk about before we talk about other things." Observing the speed with which Croyd's plate was growing empty, he snapped his fingers again and the waiter rushed in with another load of linguini.

"What thing?" Croyd asked, pushing aside the first plate as the second slid into place before him.

Mazzucchelli laid his hand on Croyd's left arm in an almost fatherly fashion and leaned forward. " I understand you got problems," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I have heard that you are into speed," Mazzucchelli observed, "and that every now and then you become a raging maniac, killing people, destroying property and wreaking general havoc until you run out of steam or some ace who knows you takes pity and puts you down for the count."

Croyd laid his fork aside and quaffed a glass of wine. "This is true," he said, "though it is not something I enjoy talking about."

Mazzucchelli shrugged. "Everybody has the right to a little fun every now and then," he stated. "I ask only for business reasons. I would not like to have you act this way if you were working for me on something sensitive."

"The behavior of which you've heard is not an indulgence," Croyd explained. "It becomes something of a necessity, though, after I've been awake a certain period of time."

"Uh-you anywhere near that point yet?"

"Nowhere near," Croyd replied. "There's nothing to worry about for a long while."

"If I was to hire you, I'd rather I didn't worry about it at all. Now, it's no good asking somebody not to be a user. But I want to know this: Have you got enough sense when you start on the speed that you can take yourself off of my work? Then go crash and burn someplace not connected with what you're doing for me?"

Croyd studied him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I see what you mean," he said. "If that's what the job calls for, sure, I can do it. No problem."

"With that understanding, I want to hire you. It's a little more subtle than breaking heads, though. And it isn't any sort of simple burglary either."

"I've done lots of odd things," Croyd said, "and lots of subtle things. Some of them have even been legal."

They both smiled.

"For this one, it may well be that you see no violence," Mazzucchelli said. "Like I told you, my business is knowing things. I want you to get me some information. The best way to get it is so that nobody even knows it's been got. On the other hand, if the only way you can get it is to cause somebody considerable angst, that's okay. So long as you clean up real good afterwards."

"I get the picture. What do you want to know, and where do I find it?"

Mazzucchelli gave a short, barking laugh.

"There seems to be another company doing business in this town," he said then. "You know what I mean?"

"Yes," Croyd replied, "and there is not usually room on one block for two delicatessens."

"Exactly," Mazzucchelli answered.

"So you are taking on extra help to continue the competition by heavier means."

"That is a good summary. Now, like I said, there is certain information I need about the other company. I will pay you well to get it for me."

Croyd nodded. "I'm willing to give it a shot. What particular information are you after?"

Mazzucchelli leaned forward and lowered his voice, his lips barely moving. "The chairman of the board. I want to know who's running the show."

"The boss? You mean he didn't even send you a dead fish in somebody's pants? I thought it was customary to observe certain amenities in these matters?"

Mazzucchelli shrugged. "These guys got no etiquette. Could be a bunch of foreigners."

"Have you got any leads at all, or do I go it cold?"

"You will be pretty much a ground-breaker. I will give you a list of places they sometimes seem to operate through. I also have names of a couple people who might do some work for them."

"Why didn't you just pick one of them up and pop the question?"

"I think that, like you, they are independent contractors rather than family members."

"I see."

Then, "And that may not be all they have in common with you," Mazzucchelli added.

"Aces?" Croyd asked. Mazzucchelli nodded.

"If I've got to mess with aces it's going to cost more than if they're just civilians."

"I'm good for it," Mazzucchelli said, withdrawing another envelope from his inner pocket. "Here is a retainer and the list. You may consider the retainer ten percent of the total price for the job."

Croyd opened the envelope, counted quickly. He smiled when he finished.

"Where do you take delivery.?" he asked.

"The manager here can always get in touch with me."

"What's his name?"

"Theotocopolos. Theo'll do."

"Okay," Croyd said. "You just hired subtlety."

"When you go to sleep you turn into a different person, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if that happens before the job is done, that new guy's still got a contract with me."

"So long as he gets paid."

"We understand each other."

They shook hands, Croyd rose, left the booth, crossed the room. Moth-sized snowflakes swirled in as he departed. Mazzucchelli reached for a fresh toothpick. Outside, Croyd tossed a black pill into his mouth.

Wearing gray slacks, blue blazer, and bloodclot-colored tie, his hair marcelled, shades silver, nails manicured, Croyd sat alone at a small window table in Aces High, regarding the city's lights through wind-whipped snow beyond his baked salmon, sipping Chateau d'Yquem, hashing over plans for the next move in his investigation and flirting with Jane Dow, who had passed his way twice so far and was even now approaching again-a thing he took to be more than coincidence and a good omen, having lusted after her in a variety of hearts (some of them multiples) on a number of occasionsand hoping he might fit the occasion to the feelings, he raised his hand as she drew near and touched her arm.

A tiny spark crackled, she halted, said, "Yike!" and reached; to rub the place where the shock had occurred.

"Sorry-" Croyd began.

"Must be static electricity," she said.

"Must be," he agreed. "All I wanted to say was that you do know me, even though you wouldn't recognize me in this incarnation. I'm Croyd Crenson. We've met in passing, here and there, and I always wanted just to sit and talk a spell, but somehow our paths never crossed long enough at the right time."

"That's an interesting line," she said, running a finger across her damp brow, "naming the one ace nobody's certain about. I bet a lot of groupies get picked up that way."

"True," Croyd replied, smiling, as he opened his arms wide. "But I can prove it if you'll wait about half a minute."

"Why? What are you doing?"

"Filling the air with neg-ions for you," he said,

"for that delightfully stimulating before-the-storm feeling. Just a hint at the great time I could show-"

"Cut it out!" She began backing away. "It sometimes triggers-"

Croyd's hands were wet, his face was wet, his hair collapsed and leaked onto his forehead.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"What the hell," he said "let's make it a thunderstorm," and lightning danced among his fingertips. He began laughing. Other diners glanced in their direction.

"Stop," she said. "Please."

"Sit down for a minute and I will."

"Okay."

She took the seat opposite him. He dried his face and hands on his napkin.

"I'm sorry," he said. "My fault. I should be careful with storm effects around someone they call Water Lily."

She smiled.

"Your glasses are all wet," she said, suddenly reaching forward and plucking them from his face. "I'll clean-"

"Two hundred sixteen views of moist loveliness," he stated as she stared. "The virus has, as usual, overendowed me in several respects."

"You really see that many of me?"

He nodded. "These joker aspects sometimes crop up in my changes. Hope I haven't turned you off."

"They're rather-magnificent," she said. "You're very kind. Now give back the glasses."

"A moment."

She wiped the lenses on the corner of the tablecloth, then passed them to him.

"Thanks." He donned them again. "Buy you a drink? Dinner? A water spaniel?"

"I'm on duty," she said. "Thanks. Sorry. Maybe another time."

"Well, I'm working now myself. But if you're serious, I'll give you a couple of phone numbers and an address. I may not be at any of them. But I get messages."

"Give them to me," she said, and he scribbled quickly in a notepad, tore out the page, and passed it to her. "What kind of work?" she asked.

"Subtle investigation," he said. "It involves a gang war."

"Really? I've heard people say you're kind of honest, as well as kind of crazy."

"They're half-right," he said. "So give me a call or stop by. I'll rent scuba gear and show you a good time."

She smiled and began to rise. "Maybe I will."

He withdrew an envelope from his pocket, opened it, pushed aside a wad of bills, and removed a slip of paper with some writing on it.

"Uh, before you go-does the name James Spector mean anything to you?"

She froze and grew pale. Croyd found himself wet once again.

"What did I say?" he asked.

"You're not kidding? You really don't know?"

"Nope. Not kidding."

"You know the aces jingle."

"Parts of it."

"'Golden Boy ain't got no joy,"' she recited. "'if it's Demise, don't look in his eyes…'-that's him: James Spector is Demise's real name."

"I never knew that," he said. Then, "I never heard any verses about me."

"I don't remember any either."

"Come on. I always wondered."

"Sleeper waking, meals taking." she said slowly. "'Sleeper speeding, people bleeding.'" P› "Oh."

"If I call you and you're that far along…"

"If I'm that far along, I don't return calls."

"I'll get you a couple of dry napkins," she offered. "Sorry about the storms."

"Don't be. Did anyone ever tell you you're lovely when you exude moisture?"

She stared at him. Then, "I'll get you a dry fish too," she said.

Croyd raised his hand to blow her a kiss and gave himself a shock.

Breakdown by Leanne C. Harper

The pair of bodyguards left Giovanni's first. Behind their dark glasses they immediately began scanning the street, looking for trouble. At a wave from the man on the right, another bodyguard preceded Don Tomasso, head of the Anselmi Family, onto the street. The don had to be assisted in walking. He was an old man, bent and in obvious pain, but his old-fashioned black suit had been hand-tailored and pressed into sharp creases. He surveyed the street as well, swiveling his shaking head from between his hunched shoulders like an aging turtle. The red and green neon of the restaurant's sign alternately revealed and hid his weathered face.

Don Tomasso's black Mercedes limousine was doubleparked directly in front of Giovanni's entrance. Surrounded by his men, the don approached his car with his head held as high as possible in defiance to any unseen observers. A dark BMW pulled up behind Tomasso s Mercedes. He nodded in recognition at the driver before ducking his head and climbing into the limousine. One of the bodyguards followed him. The others moved back to the BMW Both cars were in motion before the doors of the BMW were shut.

Lit by a dull orange streetlight, two children played on the sidewalk in front of a brownstone half a block down the street from the restaurant. The boy had just tossed the baseball to the younger girl when the Mercedes exploded, followed instantly by the BMW's destruction. The fireballs bloomed and met as pieces of the cars and bricks from the nearby buildings crashed back to earth.

Rosemary Muldoon continued to watch the flames on the oversize video screen in front of her. She said nothing until the tape ran down into static. She sat immobile in the carved black walnut chair at the head of the long table, but her hands clutched the chair's arms until her knuckles were white.

Chris Mazzucchelli got up from the chair beside her to pull the tape from the VCR. Rosemary glanced around her father's library, where strategy meetings for his Family, the Gambiones, had always taken place. She had left almost everything in the penthouse the same, only bringing in some high-tech equipment such as the video and her computer to help her run the empire she had inherited. Right now, the room felt very empty, as if even her father had abandoned her.

When Chris came back to the conference table, he laid the tape down and stroked her dark brown hair. As his hand cupped her face, Rosemary roused herself.

"Only two of us left now. Don Calvino and I. Three dons dead in a matter of weeks, and we don't even know who's destroying us. All we know is who they are using." Rosemary shook her head. "The Five Families have never faced a threat like this. We're not prepared to fight on this scale. We've lost most of the drugs in Jokertown. Harlem has stopped paying our portion of the numbers. We're getting hit from the top and the bottom. They took over our biggest drug factory in Brooklyn."

"We've got to get prepared. You're the only active don left. I talked to Tomasso's capos; they're all with us just like the others. I only wish I could point them in the right direction. Right now, I'm just trying to keep business going so we have the money to survive and fight back. Calvino tried his hand at negotiating. So far, it doesn't seem to have worked. We had both of the remaining dons covered at all times. That's how we got this tape." Chris picked it up and tossed it into the air. "Remotely controlled explosives, EE., we assume. They were probably within sight of the cars to make sure they got Don Tomasso."

"So they knew about the kids." Rosemary glanced up at "Probably." Chris shrugged. "So far they haven't been particularly careful about civilian casualties. They're terrorists."

"They're bastards." Chris nodded and Rosemary knew he was already working out the details of backtracking the explosives. One of the things she had learned in the last few months of working with him was that he was superb at taking her objectives and desires and accomplishing them through his position as her front man to the Families. She had known she would never be accepted as the head of the Gambiones by the capos. They required a masculine figurehead. So Chris ran things in public, and she, Maria Gambione, pulled the strings. Except that it had not worked out quite like that. Chris could almost read her mind. He had the practical experience she lacked. They made a great team. Without him she would never have pulled it off.

"The Shadow Fist is causing us trouble, but I didn't think that it had the organization to accomplish all of this. On the other hand, we know they are working with the Immaculate Egrets and the Werewolves from Jokertown. Together, they're giving us a lot of trouble. But a bunch of gangs…"

"With the right leader…" Rosemary spread her hands. "With the right leader anything's possible. But we would have heard something about him. How could they keep him under that sort of deep cover?" Chris shrugged. "I'll check it out, but I won't hold my breath. I had another idea. Think about Tomasso's murder. Those cars would have been under twenty-four hour guard by teams of his most trusted men. How the hell did they plant those bombs?"

Chris pulled a chair out and sat down backward. "How?" Rosemary had learned not to get too impatient with Chris's occasional use of Socratic method. As in law school, it taught her much.

"Aces, again. Just like Don Picchietti. Who else could pop in and out without being seen? Nobody really knows how many there are or who they are or what they can do. What if some of them decided that wearing funky costumes and being altruistic was silly? Jokers, too. Look at the Werewolves. Get back at the nats. That's a pretty fierce army we're talking here. Look at where the action is going on most of the time. Jokertown. Maybe it's because we control it and they're trying to get us, or maybe it's because the jokers have decided that they want their own piece of the action." Chris had leaned forward to emphasize his point. "If these guys aren't all aces, they've got some working for them. And I think that's the way to go. If we don't get our own aces, we're going to get slaughtered. We can't compete."

"I like that. I could use the district attorney's office to get volunteers. A little steering of their efforts and a number of our troubles could get solved. We'll get higher-quality aces that way too. Pity a lot of the big names are still on that WHO tour." Rosemary nodded, more enthusiastic about this plan than she had been about anything in some time. "Good. Can you pull in anyone?"

"To be honest, I already have. We've got a detective named Croyd doing some checking for us and a heavy name of Bludgeon who'll come in handy in a fight. 'Course they won't be as `high quality' coming from the criminal element like me." Chris straightened and looked down his nose at her, trying to hide his grin.

"They'll do. The criminal element isn't all bad." Rosemary reached up and pulled him down to her to kiss him.

Bagabond walked down the crowded East Village street trying not to be impatient with C.C. Ryder's window-shopping. It seemed as though every ten feet the spike-haired redhead saw something she just had to have-as long as she didn't actually have to go in and talk to anyone about it. Bagabond was about to suggest going back to the songwriter's loft when she heard a bayou-accented voice behind her.

"Hey, y'all, que pasa?" The teenage hyperactive body encased in a tiger-striped leotard with gold-lame sneakers belonged to Jack's niece Cordelia. She bounced out of the restaurant she had been about to enter and grabbed both Bagabond and C.C. Ryder by the elbows to guide them into the Riviera with her before either could muster a protest. C.C. quickly shrugged her off when they were inside, but neither woman put up a struggle when Cordelia immediately got them a table. Bagabond had learned it was useless to resist unless one wanted an excessively hurt teenager on her hands.

"So, y'all seen Rosemary's television appeal to aces yet?" Cordelia opened and shut her menu with the same movement. "Gonna join up, Bagabond?"

"Haven't been asked." Bagabond chose to take her time with the menu. "What about you?"

Glancing up over the top of her oversize menu, Bagabond was surprised to catch the expression of revulsion on Cordelia's face. For possibly the first time she had stopped Cordelia cold in her tracks.

"I, uh, don't do that anymore." Cordelia opened her menu again and stared at it fixedly. "I could hurt somebody y'know. I'm never going to do that again. It's not right."

"I'm not sure it's a good idea. Ace vigilantes are not what we need in this city," C.C. looked from Cordelia to Bagabond before excusing herself.

"So, you seen Jack lately?" Cordelia followed C.C.'s progress to the rear of the restaurant intently before turning to Bagabond with wide, innocent eyes.

"Yeah. He asked if I'd seen you. Ever think of calling your uncle once in a while?" Bagabond's irritation was evident in her rough voice.

"I've been so busy, what with working for Global Fun and Games an' all-"

"And you haven't wanted to talk to him anyway, right?"

"I don't know what to say…" Crodelia blushed. "I mean, it's like I don' know him anymore. You don' understand. I was raised in the Church. I was taught that bein' a homo-what Jack is, is one of the worst sins."

"It's not catching and he's your uncle. He's risked his life for you and you wont even give him a call. I'm glad you're so strong on right and wrong." Bagabond looked disgusted and unconsciously flicked her wrist at the girl. "Michael's good for him. I've never seen Jack so happy."

"Yeah, well, Michael's a son of a bitch! I saw him in a club in the Village last week. He was with someone and it wasn't Uncle Jack." Cordelia was furious.

"Everything okay here?" C.C. seated herself and looked at each woman in turn.

"Hey, no prob." Cordelia waved the waitress over. "You goin' to do my benefit or what?"

"You keep asking and I keep saying no." C.C. shook her head in affectionate exasperation. "I just want to write my songs, do some recording at home. I don't need a live audience and I certainly don't want one."

"C. C., de audience needs you. It's a benefit for wild card victims as well as AIDS. You of all people should have sympathy for the cause."

Bagabond watched C.C.'s face tighten at the mention of the wild card virus. It had taken years of drugs, therapy, and God knew what else to bring her back to humanity. C.C.'s very real nightmare was that she would again become a living subway car formed from nothing save hate. Or something much worse. C.C. had spoken of a little of this to Bagabond.

C.C. Ryder controlled her emotions rigidly, never allowing them to exceed a certain low level. If she continued taking the downs and antidepressants prescribed for her, she couldn't write. Not being able to create her songs was even worse than the prospect of changing back. So she avoided any situation that might be more than she could handle. Not even Tachyon could tell her what might set off the series of internal changes that could result in another transformation. Bagabond did not understand how C.C. could live in that state of constant fear and still create the songs, but she did understand why she wanted to stay away from most humans. She approved.

"No." C.C.'s voice had become as tense as her muscles, although it was equally clear that she was controlling the effect the discussion was having on her.

"It could be your big comeback-"

"Cordelia, you can't have a comeback if you were never there in the first place." C.C. forced a smile. "I'm sure there are many more likely candidates out there."

"Your songs have been recorded by the best: Peter Gabriel-" Cordelia barely paused in her diatribe at the arrival of their burgers. "Simple Minds, U2… It's time for you to show them all what you can do."

Bored by the argument and reasured that C.C. was holding her own, Bagabond reached out across the city, flashing through the tangle of feral intelligences. Darkness, bright light; hunger, fulfillment; the tense anticipation of the hunter, the cold, shivering fear of the stalked; death, birth; pain. So much pain in living each minute-why did these human fools insist on creating even more for themselves by their little games? Playing at living. She touched a squirrel with a broken back. It had been struck by a passing car near Washington Park, and she stopped its heart and brain simultaneously. In Central Park the gray son of the black and the calico dashed into a copse of oaks and sheltered by the underbrush, spun and raked the nose of the Doberman that had chased it. Bagabond felt the cat's triumph for an instant before it recognized her touch and hissed in anger. Feeling no need to force the contact, she moved on. She allowed herself another instant to ascertain that the black and the calico's most recent litter of kittens was well in the warm service tunnels beneath Forty-second Street.

As her eyes rolled back down, Bagabond realized that Cordelia's conversation with C.C. had stopped.

"Suzanne, are you okay?" C.C. ran her gaze across Bagabond's face then nodded slowly.

"She's fine, Cordelia." C.C. brought the young woman's attention back to herself, giving Bagahond time to return. Sometimes it had become difficult to come back to the slow, jabbering world of the humans. Someday, she thought, looking at C.C. Ryder, she would not come back. C.C. was the only person she had ever met who understood that. One day she would ask what C.C. had felt as the Other. C.C. mentioned it rarely, but when she did, Bagabond had seen a haunted need still there behind her eyes.

"Um, okay. Anyway, GF amp; g, you know, would love to back you on your reintroduction. The Funhouse is an intimate venue. Perfect for you and your music." Cordelia leaned toward C.C." hand extended. 'And you know Xavier Desmond's one of your biggest fans."

"Christ, girl, you're turning into a freaking agent." C.C. leaned back in the fifties plastic-covered chair. "And I've already got one agent. That's bad enough."

"Well, hey, I've got to get home. It's late. Good to see you guys." Cordelia dropped a few bills onto the table and got up. She swung the armadillo shoulder bag off her chair. Catching Bagabond's eyes on the dead animal, she elbowed it behind her and backed toward the door, still working on C.C. "You've got a few weeks to make your final decision. The show's not until late May. Bono said he was looking forward to meeting you. So'd Little Steven."

"Good night, Cordelia." C.C. Ryder had clearly reached the end of her patience. "I'm too old for this, Suzanne."

Wriggling underneath the padded shoulders of the business suit Rosemary had bought her, Bagabond stepped out of the elevator onto Rosemary's floor. The receptionist recognized her instantly.

"Good morning, Ms. Melotti. Let me buzz Ms. Muldoon."

"Thank you, Donnis." Bagabond sat down uncomfortably in one of the chairs scattered around the waiting area.

"I'm afraid you just missed Mr. Goldberg. He left a few minutes ago for his court appearances today." The older woman behind the word processor smiled at Bagabond indulgently while she punched Rosemary's intercom number and announced her.

"For once everything's running on time. Go right on in." Bagabond nodded and got back up onto her high heels. With her back to the receptionist, she blinked at the pain in her feet. She hated these days when she played dress-up to talk to Rosemary. At Rosemary's closed door she knocked twice and walked in to see the assistant DA with a phone resting on one shoulder. As usual, Bagabond sat on Rosemary's big oak desk. She listened to the conversation.

"Wonderful, Lieutenant. I'm so glad that tip on the designer drug factory panned out." Rosemary rolled her eyes at Bagabond as she signed papers and balanced the receiver.

"So it wasn't a Mafia operation after all. Any clues as to the ownership? If we could just find out who's behind this senseless crime war with the Mafia, we could go a long way toward stopping it." Rosemary nodded to her unseen caller and almost dropped the phone. "True, but as long as they're wiping each other out, they're hurting innocent people."

"Well, you can rest assured that I'll be forwarding any other aces who volunteer over to you immediately. You're right-uncoordinated activity is dangerous for all concerned. I'm just glad to help. Right. I'll be in touch. 'Bye." Rosemary hung up the phone.

"We took out a drug plant last night." Rosemary leaned her chin on her hand and smiled up at Bagabond. "I'm pleased."

Bagabond nodded, looking across the office toward the dark wooden door.

"And I'm curious." Rosemary got up and checked to make sure that the door was securely closed. "Why haven't you volunteered?"

Bagabond noticed for the hundredth time that Rosemary had no trouble walking in her spike heels. She looked up to see Rosemary staring at her, a muscle jumping along her jaw.

"You never asked." Bagabond was uncomfortable. She hated it. Guilt was for humans. Or pets.

"I didn't think I had to. I thought we were friends." They glared at each other like two cats in a territorial battle. Rosemary broke the impasse.

"And of course we are." The DA sat down and leaned back in her chair. "I should have asked. I'm asking now. I need your help."

Rosemary's smile reminded Bagabond of a tiger's yawn. Teeth, lots of teeth. Bagabond felt cold.

"What can I do? I talk to pigeons." Bagabond examined Rosemary's face for duplicity.

"Well, pigeons see things. Sometimes I'm sure they see interesting things. I'd just like to hear about those things."

"Which one of you? The DA or the Mafia don?" Rosemary's eyes flashed up to the door and back to Bagabond. After an instant of hesitation she smiled at the woman sitting on her desk.

"You'd be amazed to discover how much their interests are intertwined."

"Yes. I would." Bagabond shook her head. "No, I don't think I can help."

"Come on, Suzanne. People are getting hurt out there. We can stop that." Rosemary reached toward her window. "People killing other people." Bagabond nodded. "Good. The fewer of them, the better I'll like it."

"Being a hard case today, I see." Rosemary relaxed back into her chair. "I've heard this one."

"I mean it." Bagabond looked down at her old friend.

"I know. But I do need you. I need your connections. I need your information. And it's not just humans getting hurt." Rosemary stretched her hands out on top of the papers on her desk. They both watched the fingers shake until they were clenched into fists. "Don Picchietti and Don Covello are already dead. They just took out Don Tomasso. He was my godfather. Please, Bagabond. Help me." Rosemary looked up at Bagabond, pleading her case with both her voice and her face.

"Picchietti was hit with an ice pick in his ear. Nobody around him saw anything." Rosemary smiled at her with a twisted and unamused grin. "And for once they weren't lying."

"You don't know what you're doing. But my help won't hurt anything either." Bagabond tasted bitterness at her surrender and felt anger at herself, but she could not abandon her friend.

"Thank you." Rosemary relaxed and picked up her pen, flipping it through her fingers. "Talk to Jack lately?"

"Almost never." Bagabond slid a part of her consciousness to the rat whom she had set to watch Jack as he worked his way through the subway tunnels. She smelled him first. Then, turning the rat's head toward Jack Robicheaux, she saw him in the rat's dim, black-and-white vision.

"Maybe you could pass on that I'd like to see him?" Rosemary had obviously tired of sparring with Bagabond.

"I can tell him." Bagabond nodded. "No promises. Who's the lieutenant I report to?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Suzanne. You'll give anything you come up with directly to me." When Rosemary met her eyes, Bagabond found no friendship at all.

Hands clenched atop a stack of case briefs, Rosemary stared out the window of her office. She was afraid for Chris. Until they found out who was behind the war on the Families, he was in extreme danger as the public chief of the Gambiones. And they still had few clues, although every day there was another Mafia loss. They'd hit all the numbers runners, dealers, small-timers, and extortionists they could find to try to get a lead to the top. It hadn't worked. The cells of lower-level criminals had no information about the cells above them. It was brilliant organization on someone's part, and it was destroying her people. She shook her head unconsciously, one part of her preoccupied with the Families while the other was trying to keep on top of her office's caseload. More and more she had come to depend on her assistants for aid in prosecuting the cases she would have dealt with personally a few months ago. She wondered if anyone had noticed and made a mental note to be more careful. But it was so hard to balance everything, so much more difficult than she had ever imagined.

"There's someone here to see you, Ms. Muldoon." Donnis's quiet voice broke into her thoughts so abruptly that she jumped.

"Who is it, Donnis? I've got a desk full of cases."

"Well, Ms. Muldoon, she says her name is Jane Dow." The name was familiar although Rosemary failed to place it for a moment. Then she had it: Water Lily. What did the girl want?

"I'll see her."

Entering, the auburn-haired girl, no, young woman, Rosemary corrected herself, carefully closed the door after herself "Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Muldoon."

"Please have a seat, Ms. Dow. What can I do for you?" Water Lily looked down at her twisting hands, and Rosemary saw droplets of liquid forming on her forehead. Rosemary wondered if sweating was the extent of her ace, power. Just what she needed.

"Well, I thought maybe I could do something for you. I heard that you were looking for aces and-I know I'm not much of one, but I thought I could work for you. Help out." For the first time Water Lily met Rosemary's eyes and shrugged. "If you have anything that I could do."

"Possibly." Rosemary sighed. She couldn't imagine what, but she was not about to turn down any help at this point. "Tell me what, precisely, is the extent of your power?"

"Well, I control water. I'm really good at floods." Water Lily turned pink and the water on her face shone. She seemed very young. Rosemary heard dripping but chose to ignore it.

"All water, everywhere? I mean, do you have a range? Do you generate it, or can you use the water around you?" Rosemary stopped and smiled apologetically. "Sorry about the third degree. I'm just trying to see where you'll fit in."

"It has to be fairly close, but I can use any water in my vicinity and control the force of its flow. And I can change the electrolyte balance in someone and knock them out." Water Lily was looking fractionally less embarrassed now that she was being taken seriously. Rosemary no longer heard the dripping. " I was thinking that I would be good with crowd control, sweeping people off their feet without really hurting them with a small flood, or causing distractions if you needed it."

"What about other forms of water, high-pressure steam, for example?"

"I don't know. I've never tried it." Water Lily appeared to be interested in the idea.

"Okay, that sounds as if it could be quite helpful. Welcome aboard, Water Lily. Or do you prefer Jane?" Rosemary thought about the raids she was trying to organize on some of the Shadow Fist drug operations. A few burst pipes could do an amazing amount of damage. She smiled broadly at the younger woman without seeing her.

"Jane, please. You can reach me at Aces High. I brought a card. Just let me know what I can do." Jane looked pleased by her acceptance.

Rosemary stole half an hour to familiarize herself with the cases stacked in front of her before she called in Paul Goldberg. His experience had made him an obvious choice to be her immediate aide, and Rosemary had taken advantage of it.

Paul came in and sat down uninvited. He held a fat sheaf of reports that he dropped on her desk with a thud.

"The latest info on our caseload. We won the case against Malerucci." Rosemary glanced up from the paperwork at the mention of the name. "I know you didn't think much of the case we had, but I decided to go ahead with it. It worked out. Maybe you're not aware of this, but we've been taking some heat about the number of Mafia cases we're prosecuting, or rather not prosecuting. The cops have come to me several times complaining about doing all the work and getting no support from this office."

"The cops are always complaining. You know that, Paul. They don't understand that we have this Constitution thing we have to pay attention to when we haul someone into court. Good work on the Malerucci case, but you took a chance there. The jury could have gone either way based on that evidence."

"Especially after somebody got to the Police Evidence Lab and destroyed most of the coke." Paul crossed his legs on Rosemary's desk and leaned back in the chair. "We haven't been able to trace that leak yet."

"In the future, please stick to my instructions on which cases to go after. I'd appreciate it, speaking strictly as your boss." Rosemary smiled at him and leaned back in her own chair.

"Boss, I've noticed a trend in the cases you okay, and I'm not the only one. Why aren't we going after the Mafia? With this war going on, we could put a lot of nasty people away. Their resources are stretched too thin to protect all of their people." He reached out and tapped the stack of papers with a rigid forefinger. "It's all right here. I've even got a possible tax evasion on Chris Mazzucchelli. What do you say? Let me at 'im."

"No." Rosemary put on her best inscrutable madonna look. "I want to wait until the war has shaken out some more."

"The Mafia appears to be self-destructing anyway. We can just save ourselves the trouble."

"You know that if we put some of these people behind bars we might just be saving their lives." Paul was watching her closely. His scrutiny made Rosemary uncomfortable.

"I make the decisions here." The tone in her voice was meant to shut Paul up and it worked, but she still didn't like the stare she got after she said it.

After working out strategy for the twenty most urgent cases they had, Rosemary had relaxed and so had Paul. In many ways it reminded her of working with Chris. She came up with the plan and he carried it out. Only with Paul, everything was on the right side of the law. It was after six and she was leading Paul and his stack of cases to her door when he turned around to speak to her once more.

"You ever go to Holy Innocents?" Paul asked about her Catholic elementary school in offhand tones.

"Me, are you kidding? That's for rich Italian kids. I went to good old ES. one ninety-two in Brooklyn." Rosemary studied his face.

"I didn't think so. Friend of mind went there. He said the craziest thing the other night. Thought you looked just like Rosa Maria Gambione grown up. What a crock, huh? She died back in the early seventies. See you in the morning." Paul nodded his farewell and Rosemary wondered if she had seen a warning in his eyes-or an indictment.

Bagabond moved quickly through the subway maintenance tunnels, accompanied by the black and one of his kittens. The kitten, a mottled ginger, was even bigger than he was. She had watched Jack return to his old home in the nineteenthcentury abandoned station through the eyes of a succession of rats. Bagabond waited to catch him when he was still underground. It always felt more natural talking to him here, When she met him above, he was different. They both were. She pulled the ragged blue coat farther up above her knees and hurried to cut him off before he could go. The black paced her while his daughter loped ahead to spot trouble.

Bagabond reached the door and opened it onto Jack reaching for the knob. The compact, pale man smiled in surprise. "'Allo dere." He set down the box he had been cradling and knelt to let the black sniff the back of his hand. The other cat kept her distance, standing in front of Bagabond to protect her.

"I haven't seen you for a long time. I've been a little worried." Jack stood up to face the woman in tattered clothing. "Come on in and sit down."

"You've been busy." Bagabond had swung her snarled hair back down across her face and hunched within the pile of ill-fitting dresses and pants she wore. She knew that with her rough voice and trembling manner she now looked at least sixty years old.

"So have you." Jack looked at her hesitantly making her way down the carpeted stairs. He grinned broadly. "You could win a Tony for that, you know. I met this Broadway producer, he's looking for an actress."

"Friend of Michael's?" Bagabond straightened as she sat on the edge of the Victorian horsehair sofa. The ginger sat tensely at her feet. The black leaned against Jack's leg and looked up at him.

"Yes, a friend of Michael's. Why won't you come over and spend some time with us? Get to know Michael. You'd like him."

"Why don't you get to know Paul?" Bagabond drew her feet up under her and looked at Jack sitting on the equally antique chair opposite her.

"I don't think a yuppie would see much in a blue-collar transit worker."

"I don't think Michael would approve of my style sense." Bagabond spread out her layers of mismatched clothing along the couch.

"So there we are, hmm? I don't like it and neither do you, but we've become trapped in our undercover lives as normal people." Jack looked sad. "Have you seen Cordelia?"

Yeah." Bagabond shrugged. Another shrug, another avoidance of responsibility. She straightened her shoulders. "I tried. I don t know,

"When you see her again, tell her… tell her I understand. I grew up there too, after all." Jack ran the palms of his hands down his sharply creased black denim jeans. "So, you tracked me down. What can I do for you?"

Jack reached down to scratch behind the black's ears, and they both listened to the loud purring for a few moments. "Rosemary wants to see you." Bagabond had pulled her knees up and drawn her armor back around her. She refused to meet Jack's eyes.

"No."

"Jack, she's just trying to keep everything cool. She could use some help."

"For Christ sake, Bagabond, she's on the side of the bad guys. She's the head of the frigging Mafia." Jack got up and began pacing on the Oriental carpets. The black got up to join him, then looked at Bagabond and lay back down. Bagabond got a flash of warning from the cat. She didn't know if it was for her or for Jack. "What the hell does she need me for anyway?"

"Well, you could help with surveillance. You could keep your ears open for anything strange going on."

"Oh, right. Am I supposed to be her lead into the gay community? No, maybe she thinks the reptiles are against her too. Or maybe she just wants me to bite off a strategic foot or two." Jack turned to face Bagabond. "No fucking way."

"Jack, she just needs someone on her side-"

"Someone on her side! She's got the whole Mafia. I find it a little hard to believe that one were-alligator would make all that much difference." Jack walked over to the sofa and looked down on Bagabond. She refused to look up to meet his eyes. "Suzanne, you stay out of this. She doesn't care about you anymore. She'll use you too. Get you killed. And not even blink."

The black stood up and moved between Jack and Bagabond. The ginger began growling deep in her throat, the hair on her back standing up. Jack retreated a few steps.

Bagabond slid off the sofa onto her feet and stared back into Jack's green eyes.

"She's my friend. I guess she's my only friend."

She stalked to the stairs. The cats followed her. The ginger never took her eyes off Jack as she backed across the narrow room. The black walked a few steps, then stopped and looked back at Jack before leaping up the stairway to catch up with the others.

"Well, whoever they are, you're keeping them busy." Chris helped himself to a bite of Rosemary's grilled tuna. "You said you weren't hungry," Rosemary swatted away his fork.

"I lied. It's definitely not the Yakuza. They're taking hits too. Lost one of their top men here in the city. It seems our friends are not above going after anybody if they can't have their Mafia for breakfast. Your program of authorized trouble is taking its toll. They may not be out, but they're definitely down. You having any trouble with that?"

"No. Now that the capos are all following our instructions I know everything that's happening anywhere among the Families. It makes it easy."

"I hate to say this, but you may need to arrange a hit on us. Nothing too severe, just something to ease off any suspicions." Chris glanced around the bright kitchen. It was the only cheery space in the otherwise dark and gloomy penthouse. "Got any cookies?"

"Afraid not. Do you know something I don't?" Rosemary examined Chris's face.

"No, I just believe in prevention. I don't want anyone to see a pattern in what your aces are doing."

"I'll be fine. Who'd connect me, assistant DA, with the Gambione Family? I'm more concerned with you." Rosemary pushed away her plate. She was not about to mention Paul's suspicions to Chris. She already knew what he would say. "What kind of security are you carrying?"

"Beretta, of course." Chris swung open his black leather jacket.

"That's not what I mean."

"All right, okay. You got no sense of humor sometimes, ya know. I've got some guys I know I can trust. They're with me twenty-four hours a day. One's outside right now. Three more are downstairs. I'm covered, babe. These guys owe me; their souls are mine."

"Tell me what's happening with our regular operations." Rosemary was annoyed at his possessiveness of his cadre of her men but decided it was only her native paranoia.

"Don't worry about it. I've got it all taken care of. Each of the other Families has a representative who reports to me directly. Any problems I take care of them. You need to come up with a way to find out who we're up against and how to take them out." Chris smiled happily at the ceiling. "You know, I think those boys still don't like my rattail."

"I'm still working on it. Have you investigated the Vietnamese? The Shadow Fist gang in Jokertown is involved in this somehow. That much has become clear." Rosemary decided not to press the issue of her normal briefing. Chris was right; she had more important things to think about.

"Well, I'm trying to get somebody to infiltrate them. You got any idea how hard it is to find an Oriental in the Mafia?" Chris sighed elaborately. "I'm trying to borrow somebody from the Yakuza."

"Good idea. Listen, Chris, I need some time by myself tonight, okay?" Rosemary hesitated. "To make plans."

"I can find something to keep myself busy." Chris smirked in a way that worried Rosemary.

"Stay out of trouble. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

"Me either." Chris got up and kised the top of Rosemary's head. "I may not be around for a few days. Don't worry about me. I'm just taking care of business."

When Chris had gone, Rosemary went to the library. She kept trying to keep her two lives straight, but it was getting more and more difficult. She had promised herself that she would get the Mafia out of drugs and prostitution. But now that the war was going on there was no way that she could do that. They needed the money desperately. Protecting her people was causing her trouble at the office. Paul Goldberg had openly asked her if her informants couldn't get more dirt on the Mafia. And that comment about Maria Gambione. Christ. There had to be something she could do about him. Kill him, before he passed on his suspicions? But he was Suzanne's boyfriend. What could she do?

She had thought it would be easy to run things from behind Chris. Instead it seemed that he was more and more in control of what was happening in the streets. Nothing was going the way she had planned. Rosemary rested her forehead on the table between her outstretched arms.

She knew that she was not doing her job in the DA's office. But it was only a matter of time until this damned war was over and she could get back to doing what she was supposed to be doing. Then she could get rid of the drugs, prostitution, and corruption. Just as soon as they had won the war.

She woke up from the nightmare with a small cry, quickly stifled by the heavy atmosphere of the library. She had been in a religious painting she had seen as a child, the Crucifixion. But it was her broken body on the center cross, with Chris hanging on her right and her father on her left. Rosemary put her arms around herself to stop the trembling.

Bagabond woke instantly, the warning of danger as insistent as a cat's claws set in her skin. She separated the thought-streams entering her own mind and found the sending carrying the cry for help. There was still a shock when she recognized Jack Robicheaux down the alley. The strength and clarity of the sending told her that the creature observing the scene in the alley was the black. So that's where he had been for the last few days. When he vanished, she had not followed him mentally except to make sure he was alive and well.

Silently she told him to return home. He snarled at the suggestion. He and Jack had been close since they had first met. The black's curiosity about the man/big-lizard had created a bond. The black focused on the tableau at the end of the streetlight-spotted alley. Jack was trapped by a much larger man who taunted him. Despite herself, Bagabond allowed the black to transmit more and draw her into the situation.

"Hey, fucking faggot! Guess taking off down this alley wasn't so smart, huh?" The hulk looming over Jack was ugly, with close-set eyes and a sloping forehead. Bagabond suddenly recognized him. Bludgeon. She'd seen him once before in the Tombs with Rosemary. He was just as mean and just as stupid as he looked. Jack was in trouble, but Jack could handle himself.

"All I wanted to do was play wit'cha a little. An' I know you faggots jus' love rough trade."

"You don't want to mess with me, man." Jack was plastered against the fence cutting off the alley. "I'm a lot more trouble than I look."

"Oh, I wanna mess wit' chou, pretty-boy. I'm gonna start wit' your face and work down, pervert. Ain't nobody gonna want you when I get through." Bludgeon reached out for Jack, but the smaller man ducked under the paw.

"Please, I don't want to hurt you. Just leave me alone." Jack's voice shook. Bagabond wondered why he was so afraid. "You won't like what you see."

"You think you know that gook chop-sockey stuff, huh?" Bludgeon laughed, and even Bagabond winced at the sound like gears stripping. "It's okay. I'm part of the Family now. I got me an insurance plan."

The black was more insistent as he sensed Bagabond's reluctance to help his other human friend. It transferred to pain in Bagabond's own mind. She sent Jack's refusal to help her and Rosemary back out to the black, but the cat would not turn away. Tiring of watching the two men spar, Bagabond called the black to return and showed him Jack's transformation to alligator. If he didn't want her help, fine. She wouldn't force it on him. He thought he didn't need her around, okay.

The black's wild anger at her stand surged back at her and she cut off contact. It wasn't her problem anymore. She lifted her hands to probe gently at the pain in her temples. The black had overridden her defenses because she had not expected his response. Christ, what was wrong with everyone? Why did everybody hate her now?

Curled upon a pile of rags in a steam tunnel yards below the surface, Bagabond had slept for hours. Despite her best efforts, the headache clung on. She couldn't reach the black either, although she knew he wasn't dead. She searched through her layers of clothing until she found the strapless wristwatch she used when she needed to keep track of time. Less than an hour until she was supposed to meet Paul. She'd be late. It would take half an hour to get to C.C.'s, where she had taken to keeping dresses and suits that had to be hung up. Stupid game. With a little luck C.C. would be working in the studio and never know she had been there.

The only luck she'd had all week actually happened. The red light was on over the door to C.C.'s studio, so Bagabond got in and out without distraction. Still, the always-late Paul was standing in the bar waiting at West Fourth Street where they were meeting for dinner before a movie. Dinner was pleasant, but Bagabond knew that Paul was not entirely there even as he regaled her with tales of the latest escapades and defenses he had encountered during the last week.

"So then this guy starts claiming that his what-do-you-callit, his ancient Persian contact, told him that this other poor guy was really an ancient Greek and a personal enemy. And he starts channeling, right there in the courtroom. Lots of grunts, rolling around on the floor, speaking in tongues-who knows if it's Persian. The judge breaks two gavels screaming for order while the schmuck's defense attorney is alternately calling for a doctor for his client and trying to build a defense based on this fit. He did get a continuance. Which means I have to go back in there with those idiots next week. Oy vay, as my sainted mother used to say." Paul Goldberg grinned over the cheesecake at her. "So, how was your week?"

"The animals are all okay. No major problems."

"What a city to be a veterinarian in. Between poodles and rottweilers, I don't know how you manage."

"That's why I try to stick to cats, with the occasional exotic rat or raccoon." Bagabond smiled across the table, wondering why she had ever come up with this story. Paul's mood changed abruptly.

"Listen, I need to talk to you. Can we skip the movie tonight?" Paul stared into his coffee cup as if the swirls of cream would reveal his future.

"Sounds serious."

"It is. At least I think it is. You're the sensible sort. You'll tell me if you think I'm crazy."

"Just don't start speaking in Persian."

"Right." He picked up the check. "This one's mine. Don't argue."

They took a cab over to Paul's huge two-level apartment on the upper East Side. He said almost nothing, just examined her hands with their short, blunt nails and joked about her lack of claws. Once up in the apartment he made coffee and put on Paul Simon. When he finally sat down, it was in a chair he pulled to face her rather than on the couch beside her.

"There are some things happening down at the office. Weird stuff. I need a second opinion. You're probably not the best person to ask, for a number of reasons, but you're a friend and that's what I need right now." He rolled the coffee cup between his palms.

"I'm here." Bagabond knew she wasn't going to like what he was about to say.

"I think somebody's gone bad. I've got people out on the street, snitches, we all do. Rumors are springing up about the DAs office. Rumors about Mafia connections."

"What sort of Mafia connections?" Bagabond got up and walked around the white-on-white living room.

"Nothing specific. But I do know that the last three raids on Mafia operations have netted us nothing, just a few minor soldiers, virtually no drugs or guns. We're being given enough to keep us happy, but not enough to do actual damage." Paul looked up at Bagabond. "We're being used. The raids on the Mafia's enemies are always well-informed and almost always effective in hurting the opposition. And I think I know why."

"What are you going to do about it?" Bagabond sipped her coffee and pondered her options. If she killed him here, she had been seen and would be a suspect. Rosemary might or might not protect her.

"I can't trust anyone in the DAs office. And I'm not so sure about the mayor's office either." Paul put down his cup and paced across his living room in front of the fireplace. "I want to go to the press. The Times."

"Are you absolutely certain about your information?" Bagabond stared past Paul into the flames. Rosemary had left herself open to this. She had not been careful enough.

"Absolutely. I can corroborate everything I've said." Paul turned his back to her and warmed his hands over the fire. Bagabond stared into the back of his head. "But I'm hoping that the situation can be salvaged. If the person in question comes to their senses-maybe all this can be avoided. There are some other strange things going on here too. Some of this information that I have appears to have come directly from the Mafia. That I don't understand."

Bagabond remembered Chris Mazzucchelli. She had never trusted the man regardless of Rosemary's attachment to him. Was he betraying Rosemary?

"You have to do what your conscience tells you. But if these people are really mafiosi, isn't that a little dangerous?" Bagabond remembered Rosemary's telling her how everything was going to be different now that she was in charge. Rosemary had made her decision.

"True. That's one of the reasons I'm telling you. I've told some other people, given them the evidence. I didn't want to endanger you with it." Paul seemed relieved that she had not openly recognized Rosemary from the description. Bagabond wondered if this conversation had been a trap of some sort. Had she failed or won?

Paul put his arms around her and pulled her close. Bagabond did not resist, but she did not encourage him. She awkwardly embraced him in return.

"You could stay over tonight." Paul kissed her forehead. "No. Paul, I'm just not ready to get involved that way. I'm old-fashioned, I guess." Bagabond pushed him away. "I need time."

"We've been seeing each other for months. I still don't know where you live. What is it about me that you don't trust?" Paul stood in front of her with his hands dangling at his sides.

"It's not you. It's me." Bagabond avoided his eyes. "Give me time. Or don't. It's your choice."

"My choice?" Paul shook his head in resignation. "This woud be easier if you weren't so damned intriguing. Next Friday, dinner and, I promise, a movie next time. Meet me here?"

"Okay. Good luck. At work." Bagabond didn't know whether she meant it for Paul or for Rosemary.

Bagabond watched the muzzle-flashes and heard the sound of pistols, rifles, and shotguns going off and destroying the night as she circled the building. With a small army of rats, cats, and a few wild dogs, she was patrolling the perimeter, as Rosemary had put it in their meeting two days ago. Whenever anyone tried to break and run, she and the animals drove them back to the waiting police.

She almost tripped over a body, face blown off by a shotgun blast. As she retreated, she ran into a black cop. He caught her gently and steadied her.

"Ma'am, it'd be better if you found someplace else to sleep tonight." His big hands turned her away from the battle toward the quiet surrounding streets. Those hands reminded her of Bludgeon's reaching for Jack. She twisted free, leaving a dirty leather coat in his hands, and limped swiftly away.

When she found herself hidden in the darkness again, she made contact with her animals. The ginger remained with her at all times, but the others ranged around the building. With the eyes of a rat crouched on a pile of garbage, she followed the slow progress of a young Oriental man who was attempting to flee the fight. A trail of blood followed him, dripping down the right leg of his pants. She smelled it and so did the escaped rottweiler that suddenly filled the mouth of the alley. The Vietnamese gasped and began to back slowly down the alley. Holding the dog back, Bagabond pulled the rottweiler onto her haunches, and the dog howled a summons to the sky.

There was water everywhere. Rosemary had said that a new ace named Water Lily would be there that night. Bagabond had grown tired of splashing through puddles. The bottom six inches of her coats and skirts were soaked through and so were her boots. Where was all the water coming from? She hoped there weren't any fires in Jokertown tonight.

Even though it revealed her presence, Bagabond had set up a fireline of feral cats to prevent any jokers from coning closer than a couple of blocks away from the fighting. The Jokertown warehouse at the center of the ring of protection was, according to Rosemary, one of the major Shadow Fist weapons storage areas. Bagabond's concentration was flagging. Rosemary had given little thought to how long her pet ace could continue to scan through animals' minds and control hundreds of them in coordinated action.

The ginger cat snarled and woke Bagabond from her reverie. She straightened up from the wall she had leaned against to conserve her strength. Holding an Uzi in firing position, another Vietnamese was making his way down the dark street, moving from shadow to shadow without a sound.. Bagabond fixed on him, then called the rats. Within seconds a hundred rats attacked the man, driving him back. They leaped up his pants and ran up his flailing arms, biting his face and neck. Their sheer numbers tripped him as they covered the ground beneath his feet. He screamed. The Uzi began firing and did not stop, its pulsing fire echoing between the walls in an eerie rhythm to the mans screams. Both climbed the scale until the Uzi ran out of ammunition and the man's throat was too raw to make another sound. It was a silence broken only by the scrabbling rats. Bagabond sent them scurrying away to a new position. The sight of the man in his pool of blood disturbed her. He should not have struggled.

Lasers arced through the sky above the building, surgically cutting it apart. When the beams hit Water Lily's puddles, clouds of steam rose. The intermittently lit scene reminded Bagabond of a Ken Russell staging of hell.

Using the kitten Bagabond had left with her, Rosemary called her. Bagabond turned and left the body. He had done nothing to her. He would not feed her or the animals. What right did she have to kill him?

When Bagabond arrived, Rosemary had stepped back into a deep, shadowed doorway to wait for her. The bag lady slipped along the wall, remembering the Vietnamese maneuvering in the same way minutes before. No one saw her.

"What do you see?" Rosemary had no time for preliminaries. "We got everyone. Nobody escaped through my eyes."

"Good, good. The bastards wont forget this one soon."

Rosemary was pleased, but her thoughts were elsewhere. "You see, I knew you could do a lot for me."

Rosemary stepped out into the street as a policeman stepped up to greet her.

"Great job! Those aces of yours really made the difference, much as I hate to admit it. That black guy-the Hammer?-something else. Gave me a chill just being around him and that cloak of his." The captain thrust out his hand in congratulations.

"Glad we could help, Captain. But the Harlem Hammer is still out of the country. Sure it wasn't one of your undercover people?" Rosemary smiled and shook his hand. "By the way, could you have one of your officers help this lady out of the area?" Rosemary nodded toward Bagabond, who waited next to the doorway. "She got herself a little lost."

Before the cop could catch her, Bagabond moved down the sidewalk and ducked into an alley. She took a moment to scatter her gathered animals before following the ginger into a manhole she had left open earlier. In the wet night below the streets she considered what she had accomplished. To what end? So that Rosemary's Mafia could carry on? At least a score of rats, a cat, and one of the dogs had been lost tonight. Not again, Rosemary. Your games aren't worth it to me. Catching the gleam of the ginger's eyes, she followed her home through the tunnels.

When Rosemary got to the Gambione penthouse, Chris was already there. He was sitting in the chair at the head of the conference table in her father's library. He said nothing while she took a seat next to him.

"We've got trouble." Chris reached out and took her hand. "Paul Goldberg knows who you are."

"How?" Rosemary simultaneously felt fear and a strange, small relief that the masquerade was over.

"That we don't know, but it doesn't matter much now, does it? We've been watching your office on general principles and found this stuff in his apartment." Chris shoved an envelope across the table at her. When she opened it, she discovered pictures of herself and her father, records, everything they needed to pin her to a wall.

"We've got to get rid of him." Chris drummed his fingers on the oak tabletop. "But I wanted to get your okay first. He is one of your employees after all."

"Of course, immediately." Rosemary kept staring at the photographs and moving them around. "Did he give it to anyone? Who else knows?"

"I think we got him in time." Chris picked one of the pictures and looked at it almost idly. "I'd suggest you check with your great, good friend Suzanne, however. They've been seen together."

"Jesus, she and Paul have been dating. I don't know what she'll do if he's hit. She's not very stable sometimes."

"So you want us to wait on the hit? Come on, you know it's either him or you." Chris tipped the heavy chair back on its rear legs.

"No, take him out. Take him now. If he hasn't had time to tell anybody, I'll still be safe." Rosemary turned her head from side to side as if seeking an escape route.

"It's the only good choice. I'll take care of it. Unless…" Chris set the chair down with a small crash that was quickly dampened by the heavy rug.

"No. You do it." Rosemary looked up at him gratefully. "Thank you."

Smiling broadly, he leaned over and kissed her. "No problem. That's what I'm here for."

Walking around the corner of Paul's high rise, Bagabond simultaneously' tugged her skirt down and tried to avoid the puddles left by the afternoon rain. The doorman held open the heavy glass door for her with a badly hidden smirk that told her he had seen her adjustments. She considered making his life a little more miserable by perching a pigeon directly above him, but he was not worth it. She had more important things on her mind. It would depend, she had decided, but she might stay with Paul tonight. She still felt a little queasy about the decision.

She waved at Marry, who nodded and checked her off on his guest register. As always, the echoes of her heels tapping across the marble made her self-conscious. The elevator took forever. She had determined that everyone who had seen her come in knew what she was thinking about Paul by the time it showed up. This was ridiculous. She was an adult for Christ's sake. One deep breath and she was in the car headed for Paul's thirty-second-floor apartment.

Mercifully there was no one in the hall when she got out of the elevator. Up here the carpet felt three inches thick, and she made no noise at all as she stepped up to Paul's front door and rang the bell. When several minutes had passed, she rang again and began paying attention to any sound from inside. She heard nothing. She mentally scanned for any creatures inside, a mouse or a rat, but Paul's building was much too classy for that. Failing to locate an animal inside, she pulled a pigeon across the windows. A couple of lights were on, but she didn't see Paul.

Great. What a night to stand her up. Good timing, Paul. Bagabond started back for the elevator with a certain lurking sense of relief that she kept shoving to the back of her mind.

Riding down, she realized that she must have been expected or the security guard would not have let her up. For the first time she felt concern about Paul.

Marty, the guard, had seen Paul come in several hours earlier. They had chatted about the fact he had actually won a case for once and had left early to relax before Bagabond came over. Marry blushed as he mentioned that Mr. Goldberg had told him to look out for her. Paul had said they would be celebrating together. There was no record of Paul's going back out, and none of the doormen had seen him leave. Marry called another guard to take over his station and got the skeleton key for Paul's apartment.

As soon as the door opened, Bagabond knew that something was wrong. Following her sense of dread, she led Marty straight to the bathroom. Paul was naked in the black marble Jacuzzi. Blood swirled around him in the bubbling water. He had been shot in the eye at close range. She stared at him while Marty frantically dialed the police.

The police took her down to the station and questioned her for hours. At first they were determined to get her to confess to the crime. When the initial coroner's report finally came in, they gave up and began asking her about her knowledge of Paul's activities. Who might have wanted him dead? She thought about Rosemary, over and over, but denied knowing anything.

Could Rosemary have had him killed? Rosemary knew that she cared about Paul. Rosemary had encouraged them. Was she capable of murdering someone she had worked with and respected? Bagabond did not allow herself to answer the questions.

It was almost six in the morning when C.C. finally got permission to take Bagabond home. Bagabond said nothing on the taxi ride back to C.C.'s loft. She reached out for the cats and mentally pulled them close to her, shivering. C.C. scooped her morning paper up off the sidewalk in front of her building and tucked it under her arm as she guided Bagabond into the lift. In the loft Bagabond stared blindly at the opposite wall while C.C. made tea.

Bagabond realized that C.C. was repeatedly calling her name. It had brought her back to herself. She preferred spreading her consciousness across the city. It spread her pain as well. Only the urgency in C.C.'s voice made her focus on the paper in front of her.

Rosemary Gambione Muldoon's picture took up a quarter of the front page.

Rosemary was icily calm. The warning had come from an obit writer who just happened to owe a lot of money in Vegas. She had bought his marker some time ago. Today had been the payoff. He had heard the excitement in the newsroom and checked it out. Seeing her picture on the front-page mock-up had been enough. He placed the call to his Family contact. Chris had pounded on her door at two A.M. and together they had thrown clothes into a suitcase.

Chris had brought four of his best men to guard her twenty-four hours a day. The six of them sat in the black limousine that took them to one of the Gambione safehouses. Rosemary said nothing. What was there to say? Part of her life had been destroyed. Only the Family was left. As she had begun, she was going to finish.

Rosemary sat alone in the house. Her bodyguards patrolled the exterior and kept watch on the windows and doors. Chris had left her to organize a safer retreat from which she could lead the Gambiones. She felt free and more alive than she had since she had taken over the task of living two lives. Her head swam with plans for keeping the Families alive and viable. Now that she could concentrate on the problems at hand, everything would be different. Paul had done her a favor. Pity he had had to die for it, but one couldn't show weakness, after all. She wondered when Chris would come back. She had so much to discuss with him.

All the King's Horses