Down Here

She made a sound of pleasure, exhaling a stream of smoke into the warm, soft night, leaning against the side of her Audi in the parking lot.

“I like to know where everything is before I do anything,” she said. “Going to bed with you—taking you to bed—that’s not me, you’re right. But I did it before I thought about it. And now you’re making me think about it.”

“I don’t know money talk,” I said. “But isn’t there some terminology you guys use for long-term investments?”

“Lots of them. Why?”

“That’s what I’m looking for.”

“With your book?”

“Stop dancing around, Laura. You don’t need to do that. I’m not pressuring you. That’s why I said what I did, to take the pressure off.”

“I . . . checked you out,” she said, quietly, looking down.

“And?”

“And . . . are you married?”

“Divorced,” I said.

“Do you have children?”

How deep did she look? I knew Hauser kept his private life rigidly segregated from his work, but, still . . .

I gambled. “No,” I told her. “I had a vasectomy, in fact.”

“You don’t like kids?”

“I don’t dislike them. Just never wanted any.”

“Me neither,” she said. “I wouldn’t have invited you to my house if I didn’t know you were a legitimate person. Some of those books, the ones I read after we first talked, they were just . . . terrifying. Like . . . I don’t know, pornography.”

I shifted my body slightly, so my chest was against her shoulder.

“I don’t mean that I think there’s anything wrong with . . . sex,” she said, hastily. “That isn’t what I meant by pornography. Those books—are they all about sex murderers or rapists?”

“I guess they could seem like that, especially if you were looking at the paperback originals. The real pros, though, they’re journalists, and crime happens to be the topic of a particular book. Look at Jack Olsen. He was the dean of so-called true-crime writing, and he wrote about sex killers, sure. But he also wrote about Gypsy con games. And about an innocent man spending most of his life in prison.”

“Oh. Is that where you—?”

“I think so,” I said, as if I was considering the idea for the first time. “I met Jack Olsen once,” I told her. “He was a great truth-seeker. Any reporter would want to follow in his footsteps.”

She turned to face me. “So what happens now?”

“You make some decisions,” I said. “In order of importance: Do you want to give me a chance with you? Do you want to talk to me about the impact the wrongful imprisonment of a loved one has on a family? Do you want to ask your brother if he’d be interested in doing an interview?”

“But I—”

“You don’t have to decide any of it tonight, Laura,” I said, holding her eyes in the reflected glow of the diner’s windows.

It was almost one in the morning when we pulled into her garage. She killed the engine. Turned to look at me. “I want you to come back up with me,” she said.

“Because you decided . . . ?”

“On all of it, yes.”

She leaned over, kissed me under my bad eye.

“Okay?” she said.

^“You have a lot of scars,” she whispered, later.

“I’ve had a lot of surgery,” I said. “Different things.”

“Where did the doctor who did this one get his license, in a school for the blind?” she said, licking the chopped-off top of my right ear.

“Sometimes, it’s not neatness that counts.”

“What, then?”

“Speed.”

“Oh. Were you wounded?”

“Yeah.”

“In Vietnam?”

“No. Africa.”

“Africa? You were a . . . like a mercenary?”

“No,” I said. “I was there covering a story.”

“What story?” she asked.

So I told her a story. About the genocidal slaughter in Rwanda, the rape of the Congo, the “blood diamonds” of Sierra Leone, and how they got that name.

Everything I told her was true, except for the part about me being there. I filled in the blanks—right down to how it feels to get malaria—from my Biafra days. But I didn’t say a word about those experiences. J. P. Hauser wouldn’t have been old enough to have them.

“You’ve really led a life,” she said.

“Not me, personally,” I told her. “Reporters aren’t supposed to lead lives, they’re supposed to lead people to lives . . . other people’s lives. I didn’t have to be in Africa. The story wasn’t me, it was those people who did have to be there, see?”

“Yes. But, still, it must be exciting. There’s a woman I watch on CNN all the time. It seems, every time something major happens, anywhere in the world, she’s there. You can’t tell me that’s not . . . I don’t know, glamorous.”

“I don’t have the face for TV,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed. “But at least you could be in the profession you wanted.”

“Are you saying you couldn’t?”

“You know why there’s such a shortage of nurses and teachers now?” she said.

“No,” I admitted. “I guess I haven’t thought about it.”

“It’s because, years ago, those were about the only real opportunities for an educated woman. Maybe there were others, like being a social worker, but all in the ‘helping’ professions. When things started to change, started to open up, a lot of women took other roads.”

“And you’re one of the them, right?”

“Yes. I didn’t get an M.B.A. to teach home economics. It wasn’t just the money—although that was a factor—it’s the . . . freedom, I guess.”

“I thought money was tightly regulated. I mean, with the SEC and all. . . .”

“You’re talking about interest rates, and things like that,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if the government regulates money, so long as it doesn’t regulate making money. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m saying is, if you get good enough at putting together deals, you get to call the shots. Be your own boss. I don’t mean self-employed; I mean a real boss. With people under you.

“There’s women who manage major mutual funds now, head up corporations, all kinds of opportunities. But what I want isn’t anything like that.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to put things together,” she said. “Not working for anyone, working for me. I want to sit back and analyze situations. Then I’d approach all the different parties with a proposal to solve their problems—by using what they already have but don’t understand.”

“Like what? What could they have and not understand, for example?”

“Capabilities in concert,” she said, licking the words like they were rich cream. “Sometimes, assets and liabilities of one company fit those of another one—like a jigsaw puzzle. And if you look at them from an objective distance, you can see how, if they did things together, they could both benefit.”

“You mean, like a merger?”

“Like that, but not exactly that,” she said. “Mergers are usually about controlling markets. Or a company looking to expand. I want to specialize in rescue operations. Like leveraged buyouts and third-party ventures from unrealized asset pools and—”

“You know you’ve already lost me, don’t you?” I said.

“I guess,” she giggled. “Don’t mind me. I get so . . . enthusiastic sometimes. I don’t show that side of me at work. They expect women to be more emotional than men. Women in my profession, they have to come across as . . . well, not cold, exactly. Objective, I guess. That’s the right word.”

“That’s why you dress the way you do? For work, I mean.”

“What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

“Wrong? Nothing. It’s very, uh, tasteful. I just meant, you couldn’t walk in there in a micro-skirt and fishnet stockings and spike heels, right?”

“I don’t guess,” she said, chuckling. “Why? Do you like those kind of outfits?”

“On some girls.”

“What kind of girls?”

“Girls who can bring it off.”

“And you think I could?”

“Guaranteed.”

“You’re an angel,” she said. “But I know my flaws. It’s part of . . . objectivity. Looking at things as they really are. My legs aren’t thin enough to show off.”

“You’re nuts,” I told her. “They’re . . . flashy.”

“Stop it!”

“I especially like these,” I said, running the back of my fingernails down her thighs.

“I’m fat there,” she said, reaching over to light another cigarette.

“That’s a class thing.”

“What?”

“It’s not . . . objective,” I said, using her language. “Middle-class men have a different image of what a good-looking woman is than working-class men have. And girls pick up on that, real early. Maybe even from their parents.”

“You really think that social class determines what’s physically attractive?” she asked, sounding truly interested.

“Not a doubt in my mind,” I told her. “I’ve been all over, and it never seems to fail. Marketing plays a role, too. Women who were all the rage decades ago would be dismissed as overweight today.”

“Like who?”

“Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, Barbara Eden . . .”

“You’re quite the connoisseur, are you?”

“Just an observant reporter.”

“Uh-huh. And what social class do you come from?”

“My family didn’t have much money when I was small,” I told her, weaving the lie. “My dad had to work like an animal. But later he became pretty successful. Good enough to get us a nice home, send me to college. So I guess I ended up middle-class,” I said, then switched to the truth, “but my roots, my earliest experiences and conditioning, that’s what set my standards.”

“And you like what you see?”

“I’d like it even better if . . .” I said, turning her over onto her stomach.

^“I told you I was no cook,” she said the next morning, offering me a choice of half a dozen different cold cereals, none of which I’d ever heard of. “There’s plenty of juice, though.”

“We could go out,” I offered.

“If you’re not starving, could we do that later?”

“Sure.”

“What do you want to know?” she said suddenly.

“About . . . ?”

“For your book.”

“Oh. All right, just sit there, I’ll get my notebook.”

My cell phone made its sound.

“Excuse me,” I said. “This could be important.”

I pulled the phone loose, opened it up, said, “Hauser.”

“We’ve got her.” Pepper’s voice.

“Really? Can you be more specific?”

“Not alone, huh, chief?”

“Not even close.”

“The missing woman.”

“The friend of the—?”

“No. The one who went to Iowa.”

“Okay. When you say ‘got’ . . . ?”

“Address, current employment, license number . . . Nobody’s approached her. Yet. But we figured we’d go along with you on this one.”

“Why is that?”

“Mick’s from around there,” she said. “He might be able to help you with the directions.”

“Okay,” I said, not believing a word.

“When can we book it for?”

“I can’t do anything until Monday,” I told her.

“Call me tomorrow,” Pepper told me. And hung up.

“Lucky that didn’t ring last night,” Laura said, as I returned to the table in the kitchen with my notebook.

“Oh, I turned it off,” I lied. “I didn’t want anything to . . . disturb us. I turned it back on while you were in the shower, earlier.”

“That was sweet of you.”

I ducked my head, busied myself with lining up a trio of felt-tipped pens.

“Was John a typical big brother?” I asked when I looked up.

“What do you mean, typical?”

“Well, did he resent you tagging along when he went places, stuff like that?”

“I never went anyplace with him.”

“Yes, I guess that makes sense. Too much difference in your ages. Well, what about—?”

“How far apart do you think we were?” she said, tilting up her chin.

“Well, I know your brother’s age, from the court records. He was born in 1964, so he’d be almost forty now. You’re, what, thirty? Ten years, between kids, that’s a million miles.”

“I’m only four years younger than him,” she said. “I’m going to be thirty-six.”

I made a noise in my throat.

“What?” she said, quickly.

“I . . . just thought you were a lot younger. I only made it thirty, when I guessed, because I thought you might be insulted if I thought you were too young to have the kind of job you do. Oh, hell, I don’t know. I’m not exactly an expert at dealing with women.”

“You seemed to know your way around last night,” she said, smiling.

“You’re confusing skill with motivation,” I said.

She blushed prettily. Opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, as if biting off whatever she was going to say.

“All right,” I said, “let’s try it another way. Was John very protective of you?”

“Like how?”

“I don’t know. Like giving your boyfriends the third degree when they came to the house.”

“No,” she said. “He was never protective.”

“You weren’t close?”

“Not at all.”

“Each had your own lives, huh?”

“Yes. We even went to different schools.”

“Parochial school?” I guessed.

“I did. He didn’t,” she said.

Her answers were getting shorter, more clipped. I shifted gears, asked, “How did your family react when he was first arrested?”

“My mother had been dead for years,” she said. “So she never knew about any of it. And my father had already retired, moved to the Sun Belt. I don’t know if my brother told him what was going on at the time. Maybe he didn’t—my father’s got a bad heart.”

“So that left you.”

“Not really,” she said. “I was just starting to make headway in my job, trying to put enough money together to risk a few little moves of my own. Working eighteen-hour days, sometimes. I was frazzled, a real wreck. And, to be truthful, I never took it seriously.”

“Him being charged with rape?” I asked, allowing just a trace of disbelief into my voice.

“I thought it was some kind of mistake,” she said. “I was so sure I’d get a call from him saying they realized they had the wrong man.”

“Did you go to the trial?”

“I was supposed to,” she said. “I even arranged for some time off. But I got the dates wrong. By the time I showed up, the jury was already out.”

“You were in the courtroom when they came in with the verdict?”

“Yes. It was . . . it was about what you’d expect. A shock.”

“Did they let you speak to him before they took him away?”

“I was too stunned to even move,” she said. “It was like, I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, he was gone.”

“Did you visit him in prison?”

“No. John wrote and asked me not to. He said the visiting conditions were disgusting. The guards were very abusive to women. He didn’t want me there. Besides, he expected to be released any day.”

“He never lost faith?”

“Never once. But, with John, it isn’t ‘faith,’ exactly. It’s more like . . . certainty.”

“You really don’t know much about the case itself, then?” I asked, walking the tightrope.

“Well, I know John didn’t do what he was accused of. What more is there?” she asked, blue eyes on mine.

“The . . . impact thing, remember? Are you saying that your brother’s faith—his certainty—that he’d be vindicated made the whole thing less hard on you? And maybe on your father?”

“I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “Although I never thought about it until right now. Is that common?”

“In a way, it is,” I lied. “For other families I’ve interviewed, it was always the belief that someday the truth would come out that kept them going. I guess the difference is, sometimes the families had an awful lot more faith than the person who had been convicted.”

“But they would be the only ones who really knew, isn’t that true?”

“I guess that is true,” I acknowledged. “In some of the cases, the evidence was so shaky, or there was such outright corruption, or there was a journalist already on the job, beating the drums so hard, that the public got to share the sense of innocence before the courts ratified it. But in your brother’s case, that wasn’t so. Until he was actually set free, I couldn’t find one line of coverage of the case after the trial was over.”

“And when he got shot . . .”

“Exactly. Truth is, Laura, if that hadn’t happened, I never would have heard of your brother’s case at all.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“I’m sure it was to you.”

“I know how this must sound, but when I told you my brother and I were never close, that’s an understatement. When I heard about it, my first thought was how . . . humiliated I was at the idea of anyone connecting me to him. We don’t have the same name. . . . You think that’s disgusting, don’t you?”

“I think it’s human,” I told her. “After all, for all you knew . . .”

“Who knows what anyone’s capable of?” she said.

“Exactly.”

“This doesn’t do a lot for your book, does it, J.?” Her expression shifted, too quick to read. “Can I call you that? J.? ‘J.P.’ sounds like you should be a banker or something.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Does anyone do it? Call you that?”

“Never in my life,” I said.

“I never liked my name,” she said, wistfully. “When I was a little girl, I always wanted to change it.”

“To what?”

“Oh, all kinds of different things. ‘Laura’ always sounded so old-fashioned to me. I wanted a fabulous name.”

“Like Hildegarde?”

“Stop it!” she laughed. “You know what I mean. I went to school with girls named Kerri, and Pandora, and Astrid, and . . . names like those.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I did some research into this, for a story I was working on. All you have to do, to change your name, is file a petition in court.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. You have to file a notice in the papers—in case you’re trying to duck a bunch of debts and get some new credit—but it’s no big deal.”

“I could never do that now,” she said. “In my business, a name is very important. Not what the name is, what it represents. Like a brand. ‘Laura Reinhardt’ isn’t what to call me, it’s what I do. Understand?”

“Sure.”

“So I guess I’m stuck with Laura the Librarian.”

“That’s not how I see you. Although I bet you’d look real cute in glasses.”

“I have glasses,” she said. “I never really use them—I wear contacts—but I have them. I always thought I looked dorky in them.”

“Let me see.”

“I . . . All right, wait here.”

I thought I heard the bottle tree tinkle as she swept out of the kitchen, but I couldn’t swear to it.

She was back in a minute, wearing a pair of plain round glasses with rust-colored frames.

“All you need is your hair in a bun,” I said.

“I knew it.”

“It’s your own fault,” I said. “You picked out the glasses, right?”

“Sure.”

“But you didn’t pick them out the same way you picked out your dresses. Or your jewelry. Or your apartment, even.”

“I see what you mean. . . .”

“They’ve got thousands of different frames. You could get some that would show off your eyes. Like putting something especially beautiful under glass.”

“Oh God, that’s so . . .” She started sniffling.

Thanks, Little Sis, I said to myself, holding Laura Reinhardt against me.

^“I should go home,” I said, later.

“Am I making you—?”

“I just feel grungy in these same clothes,” I told her. “I need to change.”

“Want me to come with you?”

Fucking moron, you didn’t see that one coming? I thought. “I’d like to have you stay with me,” I said. “But not until I . . . do some stuff to my place.”

“You mean, like, rehab?”

“No. I mean, like, clean.”

She giggled. Then said, “You probably think I’m the world’s best housekeeper, looking around this place.”

“It does look immaculate.”

“It should. I’m hardly ever here. I have a girl come in twice a week, and I’ll bet all she does is watch TV.”

“You don’t let her touch your bottle tree, do you?”

“Never! I blow the dust off it with my own breath.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“When I put something together myself—even a deal, which is not really a thing you can touch—I get very protective of it. I don’t want anyone handling it but me.”

“I understand.”

“You’re the same way about your car, I bet.”

“I guess I am, now that you make me think about it,” I confessed, lying. The truth was, the Plymouth had been built as a multi-user appliance—power steering and an automatic transmission made it possible for anyone to drive the beast, if they didn’t get too crazy with the gas pedal. “How about this? I go and get some fresh clothes, and come back in time for dinner?”

“Do you want to go to—?”

“Let me surprise you,” I said.

A block away from Laura’s, I thumbed my cellular into life.

“Gardens.”

“It’s me, Mama. Can you get everyone over there?”

“Now, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Basement?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Max was the only one there when I walked in. He was in my booth, trying to play a game of solitaire. Mama was seated across from him, tapping the table sharply every time she detected what she considered a major error in progress.

“Have soup at big table,” Mama said, confirming everyone was on their way. I never would have asked her. In my family, some things you know inside yourself. Other things—like “basement” meaning “weapons”—you learn.

The Prof strolled in the door just as the soup came up from the back. He snatched a cup from the tray and put it on the table in front of him as he sat down.

“I’m in,” he said, as if the cup were a poker chip.

“Where’s Clarence?” I asked.

“He’s with Terry, over at your place, cooking on those computers.”

“But that’s just around the—”

“You want the Mole on the set, letting him drive ain’t the bet, bro. They have to go and haul him over.”

“Fair enough,” I said, just as Michelle swept into the joint.

“This had better be important,” she said.

She didn’t bother to wait for anyone to pull out a chair for her—Clarence is the only one who ever does. And I didn’t bother to assure her the meet was important—she was just being herself.

“So? What’s up, pup?” the Prof asked.

“Let’s wait until everyone’s here,” I said. “I don’t want to tell it twice.”

“Righteous,” he said, lighting a smoke.

“You did get to be with that girl?” Michelle demanded.

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you are going to talk about that?”

“Yes, Michelle.”

“Not in front of my son, you’re not,” she said, in a tone of utter finality.

“Honey, he’s old enough to—”

“Don’t you say a word!” she warned me.

“Terry’s been teaching Clarence some boss stuff,” the Prof slipped in. “Boy’s talking about going to school, for real.”

“I’m sure,” Michelle said, not mollified. “And I’m glad, Prof,” she added, quickly. “But if you think I’m going to have Terry sit here and listen to the gory details of—”

“There won’t be any details, honey,” I promised.

“How can I know if my . . . expertise is needed without specifics?” she said, exasperated.

“I can tell you that part right now,” I said. “Before they get here. Fair enough?”

“Sold,” she said.

^“It was a Seimens,” I told the Mole, almost an hour later. “One of those jobs that work as a regular phone and as a cordless, too. The main one is in the kitchen. She’s got three of those pod-things in different rooms. You just lift the cordless unit out of them and talk. It’s a two-line job. Probably uses the second one for the fax. Or maybe the Internet.”

The Mole shook his head. “That is a difficult one to plant a device in,” he said. “You don’t have the . . . knowledge. It would be better at the junction. In the basement.”

“You see security cams?” the Prof asked.

“Not in the garage. I don’t know where they’d go to; I didn’t see a monitor in her apartment.”

“Just a voice system, like they got in regular apartment buildings?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I haven’t gone in the front door.”

“But you’re going back this evening, yes?” Michelle said. “So then we’ll know if—”

“No,” I told her, holding up the plastic card Laura had given to me. “She gave me hers, for the garage. Said she wouldn’t be using her car all day, so . . .”

The Mole took the card from my hand, studied it for a few seconds. He nodded, asked: “It doesn’t have to look the same?”

“As long as it works,” I told him.

“You can test it later,” the Mole said, pocketing the card.

“I don’t see a play except the phone,” I said. “We don’t have the personnel to shadow her—”

“Not in that neighborhood, for sure,” the Prof said, sourly.

“—but the house phone’s not enough,” I told them. “What if he contacts her on her cell? Or even at work? Hell, what if he drops her a goddamned postcard?”

“What makes you so sure they’re going to meet at all?” Michelle asked.

“They met once,” I said. “Or planned to meet, anyway. If the story we got is true, the sister shows up, he’s already down from the shots. Whatever he wanted to tell her, he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do it on the phone. And he didn’t just want to meet her in a public place. He went to a lot of trouble to set the whole thing up.”

“You think he wanted to give her something, mahn?” Clarence asked.

“If he had it with him, whoever shot him got it,” I said. “But Wychek’s still running scared. Big scared. He’s got—still got—something good enough to convince the cops to keep him on ice. But, whatever it is, it has to be something . . . physical. Not just info he could carry around in his head. Otherwise, he would have already cut the deal he wanted. And there’d be no need to keep the charges running against Wolfe.”

“Maybe he’s still trying to work that one out,” the Prof said. “How he can turn loose of what he’s got, and still keep himself protected?”

“Even if that was so, why keep the charges alive?”

“They don’t want to tip off whoever shot him? That he’s ratting them out?”

“No,” I said. “Doesn’t work for me. Wychek’s dirt. If all he could do for the cops is dime out the guy who shot him, what’s that worth? Not the DA’s Office cooperating in a bogus charge against Wolfe. Too much potential downside for them, especially with all the press attention.

“He’s got something,” I went on, filling in the blanks with guesses. “And either he needs the sister to get it for him, or he needs her signature on a safe-deposit box, or . . . something like that. Whatever he has, he’s had it for a long time. Since before he went into the joint.”

“Because . . . ?” Michelle said.

“Because he was protected in there. Off a contract. Somebody paid real money for that. And for the fancy appellate lawyer, too.”

“So why’d he wait?” the Prof demanded.

“He . . . Damn, Prof! It isn’t just that he waited so long to hire Greuchel. He never even made bail on the charge Wolfe dropped him on. And he wouldn’t have needed PC at Rikers if the Brotherhood was protecting him there. So, whatever he found out, it must have happened while he was at Rikers.”

“Yeah?” the Prof snorted. “You think someone in there sent him a kite, made him see the light?”

Nobody said anything. Whatever they were thinking, I don’t know. Me, I was wondering if Wychek had ever asked his sister for bail money.

Suddenly, Max tapped a knuckle against the tabletop, drawing all our eyes. The Mongol looked up at the ceiling, dropped his gaze to eye level, let his eyes wander around aimlessly. He glanced at the floor. Picked some imaginary object up, gave it a quick, examining look, shrugged, and put it in his pocket.

Max got to his feet. Walked over to one of those promotional calendars, mostly a large poster, with a little pad of months you can tear off one at a time on the bottom. The one on Mama’s wall featured a Chinese woman, elegantly dressed, having a cocktail. The writing on the poster was all in Chinese, and the calendar pad was for 1961.

Max turned the pages of the calendar, indicating the passage of time. Then he snapped his fingers, made an “I’ve got it!” face, and reached into his pocket. He brought out the imaginary object in one hand, and used the fingers of the other to turn it, as if examining it from all sides.

He nodded a “Yes!,” then went over to Mama’s cash register and patted it, like it was a good dog.

I stood up, bowed deeply. “You nailed it, brother,” I said, making a gesture to match the words. “He got it before he went down, but he didn’t figure out it was worth anything until later.”

“Adds up,” the Prof said.

“Very logical,” the Mole agreed.

“And I think I know where he got it now,” I said. “So I’m going to Iowa.”

I walked out to the back alley with Clarence and Terry, the Mole stumbling in our wake. I pulled Clarence aside, asked him a quick question, got the answer I expected.

Back inside, I sat down in my booth. I felt . . . depleted. Like I’d fought ten rounds, to a decision that wasn’t going to go my way.

Mama came over and sat across from me. “All for police girl?” Mama said, accusingly.

“There’s money in this,” I said, stubbornly.

I closed my eyes, felt Michelle slide in next to me, ready to defend her big brother. Mama had known about Wolfe for years. “Police girl” said it all. Our family is outlaws; we don’t believe in mixed marriages.

“If Burke says there’s money, there’s money,” Michelle said, loyally.

“Maybe. But not for money,” Mama replied.

“So?” Michelle challenged her.

“So no . . . focus,” Mama said, pointing at Max to emphasize what she meant. For all his skills, the ki radiating from Max the Silent was all about focus. Without it, he’d just be another tough guy.

“I’m feeling my way,” I admitted. “But Wychek’s got something. Even Max says so.”

“Something for police, maybe.”

“Wolfe’s not on their side anymore,” Michelle said. “She went into her own business a long time ago.”

“Still police girl here,” Mama said, patting her chest. Case fucking closed.

It was just past seven that same night when I test-slipped the Mole’s clone card into the slot for Laura’s garage, my other hand on the genuine one Laura had given me, just in case.

The gate went up.

I walked up the back stairs, carrying the stainless-steel cylinder by its handle.

I rapped lightly on the door to her apartment. The door opened immediately. I hadn’t heard the sound of a deadbolt retracting, and the chain wasn’t in place.

“Hi!” she said, giving me a quick kiss as I crossed the threshold.

She was wearing another kimono—white, with gold and black dragon embroidery.

“I didn’t know where we were going, so I didn’t want to get dressed until . . .” she said, blushing a little.

“You’re perfect,” I said, holding up the gleaming cylinder.

^“Oh my God, this is the best Chinese food I ever had in my life,” she said, about forty-five minutes later.

I had opened the complex series of interlocking pots, each with its own dish inside. A few quick blasts with the microwave, and we had a five-course dinner that money, literally, couldn’t buy.

“I told you it would be a surprise,” I said.

“Where did you get it? I’m going to order from them for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, it’s not from a restaurant,” I said. “I know this old Chinese woman who makes special meals to order. She used to serve them in her house—”

“Oh, I heard about those kind of setups. You don’t get a menu or anything, and you have to book, like, months in advance, right?”

“Exactly. Only she’s not up to having people in her home anymore. She’s like a hundred years old,” I said, involuntarily tensing my neck muscles against a psychic slap from Mama. “I called her, gave her a few hours’ notice—that was what took so long—and she said she’d do it.”

“Wow. She really put herself out. It must have cost a—”

“Money wouldn’t make her do anything, not at her age. I told her it was very special, very important to me.”

“I . . . I wish I knew how to do things like that.”

“I guess I don’t, either. I never did it before. I was just thinking . . . about you, about going out to eat, how things . . . happened. Then I remembered this old lady, and . . .”

“Did you use to eat there a lot?”

“A lot? I ate there once. About, let me see, six, seven years ago? I was doing a profile on a big Chinese businessman. A puff piece, really, but I can’t support myself doing nothing but investigative stuff. He was the one who took me there.”

“Did you mention it in your article?”

“I wasn’t going to. It isn’t that kind of place, you could see that. But it wouldn’t have mattered. The piece got spiked, and I had to settle for the kill fee.”

“What’s a kill fee?”

“Say a magazine commissions a piece for five thousand. Then, after they see it, they decide not to go with it. If there’s a decent contract, they have to pay the writer some percentage of the fee, agreed on in front.”

“Why would they do that? Commission an article and then not use it?”

“There’s a hundred reasons.” I shrugged. “They decide they need the space for something else that month. Or the subject isn’t hot anymore. Or maybe they just don’t like the job you did on it.”

“But if they did that, you could just turn around and sell it to someone else?”

“If you can, sure. It doesn’t happen often. Every magazine is a different market, even when they’re competing with each other. What’s good for one isn’t always good for another.”

^“You don’t have to do that,” I said, later.

“You weren’t planning to return all the cookware without washing it?” she said, incredulous.

“No. I just meant, I could take it home, throw it in the dishwasher myself.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, dubiously. “I mean, not everything can go in the dishwasher. It’s easy enough to wash them by hand; I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Do you want to go out somewhere. Or just . . . ?”

“How about we go for a drive?”

“To . . . where? Oh. I guess that’s the point, right?”

“Sure is.”

^“Is this still Queens?”

“Yep. That’s Flushing Bay we’re looking at. You can’t see it from here, but La Guardia’s over to the left. The Bronx is on the other side of the water.”

“I was born, what, maybe forty-five minutes from here? And I never even knew it existed.”

“It’s a nice little community,” I said. “You got everything from working stiffs to big-time gangsters, with house prices to match.”

“With those other cars around, it’s like a drive-in movie, almost.”

“People come here for the same reason they go to drive-ins, true enough.”

“Did you know that in Singapore young couples go to drive-ins because the culture frowns on public displays of affection?”

“I didn’t have a clue. You know a lot about Singapore?”

“I’m hardly an expert. But everyone in the money game knows something about Singapore.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No. You?”

“Yeah, I was there, once.”

“What’s it like?”

“Very clean, very efficient. And very scary.”

“Scary?”

“I can’t explain it, exactly. Felt like everybody was so . . . anxious. Like something could descend on them any minute.”

“Were you there for a story?”

“No. I was on my way to Australia. But something happened with the connecting flight, and I ended up having to lay over.”

“I wonder why people would be so anxious there. It’s supposed to have a very low crime rate.”

“Maybe it was a misimpression,” I said. “I was only there for a short while. I wouldn’t ever write what I told you.”

“Why not?”

“I’m old-school,” I told her, trying to be Hauser in my mind. “I don’t like this ‘personal journalism’ stuff. Never did. What I told you, that was my own feelings, not facts. Private, not public.”

“That’s what this place feels like,” she said, snapping her cigarette out the open window and sliding in close to me.

Twenty minutes later, she moved back toward her side of the front seat. Rolled down her window, lit a cigarette.

“I never did that before,” she said.

“In a car?”

“Not just . . . in a car. Never.”

“Oh. I . . .”

“You don’t know what to say, do you, J.?” she said, a slight edge around the softness of her voice. “If you say you never would have known, it sounds like you’re calling me a liar. And if you say it was obvious I’d never done it before, you’re saying I’m not very . . . good at it, right?”

“None of that’s right, Laura. Not one word of any of it. Some people, they do things perfect the first time they try. Others, they could do it a thousand times and still . . . not do it very well.”

“I only meant—”

“But what’s really not right about what you said was the other part. It would never cross my mind that you were lying.”

“I thought reporters were supposed to be cynics,” she said, expelling smoke in a harsh jet.

“Cynicism is for adolescent poseurs. A person who’s been around the block a few times learns better.”

“What’s better?”

“Better is knowing some people are liars. I don’t mean they just told a lie, I mean they’re liars; that’s what they do. Better is knowing that even essentially truthful people lie sometimes, for different reasons. Better is knowing how to tell the difference.”

“You know when people are lying?”

“Not always,” I said, reaching over and taking her hand. “But I know when they’re not.”

We were both quiet for a while. Then she said, “I never asked you. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I have a sister.”

“Older or younger?”

“She’s my baby sister.”

“Is that why you asked me, before, if John was protective? Because you were?”

“No. I was just trying to get a picture of the whole family dynamic.”

“But you were, weren’t you?”

“Protective? Sure.”

“You think that’s normal, don’t you?”

“I’m a reporter, not a judge.”

“J., I’m just asking you an honest question. Can’t I get an honest answer?”

“Ask me your question,” I said, watching her eyes.

“If someone tried to hurt your sister, what would you do?”

I saw pieces of Michelle’s childhood, playing on the inside of my eyelids like a movie on a screen. The kind of movie freaks sell for a lot of money. Felt the familiar suffusion of hate for all of them—from her bio-parents, who used her like a toy, to the agencies that treated a transgendered child like a circus freak, to the predatory johns who took little pieces of her in exchange for survival money, to . . . Oh, honeygirl, I wish I had been there, I said to myself. Again.

I waited a beat, still on her eyes.

“Kill them,” I said.

^“Do you have something to pick up?” Laura asked me, as I wheeled the Plymouth into the gigantic parking lot for the Pathmark supermarket in Whitestone. At just after two in the morning, the lot was almost empty.

“Nope,” I said, pulling over to the side. I put the lever into park, opened the door, and got out. I walked around to her side of the car, opened her door.

“You’re leaving the engine run—”

“Just come on,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her around the back of the car. “Get in,” I told her.

“You want me to—?”

I was already on my way back around to the passenger side. We both closed our doors at the same time.

“This isn’t like your Audi,” I said, as she wiggled around, trying to find the best driving position. “The gas pedal isn’t hyper-sensitive, but if you step on it hard we’ll launch like a rocket. The brakes are a little stiff when you first touch them; they take a little pressure. But if you floor them, we’re going to stop. I mean, right now, like someone dropped an anchor into the road behind us.”

“You’re making me nervous.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “The first time I ever let anyone drive my baby and you tell me you’re nervous.”

“J.,” she giggled. “Stop it.”

“Your Audi’s a front-driver. This one’s not. If you get on the gas too hard in a corner, the rear end’s going to want to come around.”

“You make it sound like a ticking bomb.”

“It’s nothing of the kind,” I said. “Only reason I’m saying all this is that it’s a great contrast to what you’re used to driving. Take it slow, get used to it, and it’ll practically drive itself. You’ll see.”

“I . . .”

“Come on, Laura. I’ll bet you’ll be perfect at it, the first time.”

She gave me a look I couldn’t read. Then she put her left foot on the brake and pulled the lever down into drive.

I nodded approval. Laura took her foot off the brake, and the Plymouth started to creep forward. She delicately feathered the gas and we picked up speed.

“There’s nobody around,” I told her. “Give it a little gas.”

“This isn’t so bad,” she said. “I could just . . . Oh!” she gasped, as the Plymouth shifted stance and shot forward.

I had expected her to deck the brakes, but she just backed off the gas, got it under control instantly.

“It is fast,” she said.

I made her try the brakes a few times, to get used to the pedal.

“I can feel the power,” she said. “Like a huge dog, on a leash.”

“Let’s give it some running room,” I said, pointing toward the highway.

^“What a wonderful car this is, J. It was so nice of you to let me drive it.”

“My pleasure.”

“I was . . . wondering.”

“What?”

“Well, how come you . . . The outside of the car is so . . .”

“Grungy?”

“At least. But it runs so beautifully. Is it the money?”

“If you mean, did I put my money into the engine and the transmission and the suspension and then kind of run out of cash, the answer is ‘yes.’ But it’s been this way for a long while now, and I think I may actually like it better.”

“Better? Why?”

“It’s kind of . . . special-sweet to have something very fine, something that most people wouldn’t even recognize. They’d have to drive my car to know what it was.”

“And you’re not going to let them?” she said, smiling in the night.

“Why should I?” I answered. “I’m building her for me. Not for my ego.”

“What does that mean, for you, not your ego?”

“It means she’s perfect for me. Just for me. I don’t care if anyone else thinks I’m driving a rust-bucket; I know I’ve got a jewel.”

“Is that the way you are—?”

“About everything,” I assured her. “Everything in my life. Right down the line.”

O’Hare was in its usual state of high cholesterol, but the three of us had plenty of time to catch our connector to Cedar Rapids. On the way out, Pepper had ended up seated next to an elderly lady; Mick and I were side by side. By the end of the trip, the old woman wanted to take Pepper home with her. Mick and I hadn’t exchanged a single word.

All they had left at the car-rental agency was an Infiniti SUV. Mick kept calling it a stupid cow every time he had to take a curve.

He found the address easily: a smallish wood-frame house on a side street. Pepper turned around in the front seat so she could face me.

“You want us to go in with you, chief?”

“I think it might help if you did,” I said. “But if Mick’s going to pull his—”

“I’m in the fucking room,” he said.

“Mick!” Pepper said, punching him on the arm hard enough to floor most middleweights. “Come on!”

“The paper says she’s from around here,” Mick said. “She came home. If anyone here scares her, it’s not going to be me.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

^“Miss Eberstadt? My name is Michael Range. This is my assistant, Margaret Madison. And her husband, Bill. We apologize for coming by without notice, but I thought it would be better if you got to look us over before we asked you anything. People can give a real false impression over the phone.”

“I . . . What do you—?”

That’s when Mick took over. “We all work for a lawyer, ma’am,” he said. “Mr. H. G. Davidson, from New York City. I don’t mean I’m from there; I guess you can tell,” he went on, a warm, friendly smile on his transformed face. “I’m a paralegal, Mr. Range is an investigator, and Margaret here is an administrative assistant. Anyway, there’s a case back there that concerns you, a little bit, and we were sent out here. Well, I guess the truth is, the boss sent Mr. Range out, and we came along for the ride. I wanted to take Margaret home to see my folks, anyway.”

“What does this have to do with—?”

“Could we come inside for a little bit, ma’am?” Mick asked, in a voice I never would have recognized. “Unless this town has changed a lot since I was last home, I wouldn’t want to be talking about stuff like this out on the front step.”

“I . . . All right,” the target said.

Pepper and I watched in respectful silence as Mick danced with Eileen Eberstadt for almost an hour. We listened to her explain that her initial report had “all been a big mistake, like going to New York in the first place,” and how she “had nothing against anyone.”

Mick countered gently, explaining that Wolfe, the only one who had ever prosecuted Wychek, was now being charged with shooting him, and any help she might be able to provide would be greatly . . .

But the woman held firm, until I stood up and walked over to where she was sitting.

“Everything costs,” I said, softly. “And everybody pays. The only question is when, and how much. There’s a lot of people behind Ms. Wolfe. Serious people. Very committed. You’ve got your reasons for lying—don’t waste my time,” I said, when she opened her mouth to speak—“and nobody cares about them. We’re not cops, and we’re not the bad guys, either. We’re not on anyone’s side except Ms. Wolfe’s. But we have a job to do, and now you’re it.”

“I’m not going to—”

“Just tell me what he took,” I said, even more softly. “Just tell me that one thing, and we’re gone.”

I tossed “forever” into her long silence.

“A skirt,” she said, looking down. “A little red pleated skirt. It was the bottom half of my cheerleader’s outfit. From high school.”

^“I got a call,” Davidson said.

I didn’t say anything, just watched the smoke from his cigar turn blue in the band of sun that came in the top of his office window.

“Toby Ringer, you remember him?”

“That’s a long way back,” I said.

“Sure. From when he was an ADA in the same office that’s prosecuting Wolfe now. Toby’s gone up in the world since then. Moved over to the feds. He was the boss of Narco there for a while, then he kind of dropped out of the public eye. But he’s the same man.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“Meaning, you know how it works in our business. A man’s no better than his word. And Toby’s has always been gold.”

“Okay,” I said, neutral.

“So, anyway, Toby gives me a call, says we haven’t had lunch in a long time. How about Peter Luger’s, his treat?”

“Did he pat you down when you showed up?”

“Asked me to give my word that I wasn’t wired.”

“This was about Wolfe, right?”

“I’m getting to it,” Davidson said.

I went quiet again.

“Toby said it would be in my client’s interest not to push for discovery right now. He said, if we could be a little patient, he was absolutely confident—that’s the exact phrase he used—that the case would just go away.

“I told him we weren’t interested in a case going away. That happens, the case can always come back. He said he meant go away for good. Disa-fucking-peer.

“I told him he knows the game as well as I do. I can’t just sit on motions, or I end up waiving my right to them. He went over the time lines with me, said another few weeks and it would all be over.”

“So he’s just trying to save you time and aggravation?”

“I asked him the same thing. He fenced for a while. Finally, after he could see he wasn’t getting over, he told me Wychek’s going in the Grand Jury soon.”

“How is that supposed to—?”

“He’s not going in as a victim, he’s going in as a witness,” Davidson said. “His appearance has nothing to do with Wolfe, or her case.”

“So?”

“So, by way of preamble, first they’re going to immunize him. Full boat—use and transactional. Then he’s going to tell the Grand Jury that he made it all up about it being Wolfe who shot him. When the DA’s Office gets ‘notified’ of that, they then introduce a transcript of his statement during a presentation of her case. And No True Bill it.”

“Sure.”

“It sounds fishy to me, too,” Davidson said, tilting his chair back. “If we’re a target, we’re entitled to Grand Jury notice, and we haven’t gotten any. But it could work the way Toby says. A federal grand jury—investigating who knows?—brings Wychek in. He makes a statement under oath. Suppose he does say that he lied about Wolfe? The feds have to turn that statement over to the DA in Manhattan. And then they’d have to drop the case. If the statement ever came to light, they’d be cooked. Not just legally, politically.”

“What’s in it for us, to wait?”

“That’s where Toby stopped being blunt. But I got the distinct impression that Wychek is telling the DA’s Office one story and the feds another. And that they’re not sharing.”

“He’s in federal custody?”

“He’s not in anyone’s custody,” Davidson said.

“You mean he’s still in the hospital?”

“Nope. That’s why I’m inclined to go along with Toby. He said the DA’s Office is giving Wychek an allowance, maintaining him as a protected witness. But Wychek knows, long-term, it’s got to be the feds, if he wants the total package—new ID, maybe even a new face, some serious maintenance money, you know.”

“So Wychek goes in the Grand Jury—the federal one—and then he gets gone?”

“What Toby says.”

“Toby say where Wychek’s staying?”

“I never asked him,” Davidson said.

^“You had a successful trip?” Laura asked.

“In my business—actually, I’ll bet it’s a lot like your business—you don’t always know right away. You make an investment, then you wait to see if it pans out.”

“That sounds a lot more like gambling than investment.”

“Isn’t that what investment is, gambling?”

“At some end of the continuum, it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“A person who buys shares of stock—or of a mutual fund, or any similar instrument—is gambling. Their idea of ‘research’ is maybe fifteen minutes on the Internet . . . and that’s for those who even go that far. For most investors, it’s more like religion than it is science. They trust; they have faith; they believe. They believe in a broker, or a mutual-fund manager, or in something they heard on a TV program. Everybody in the business knows this is true, but nobody knows why.”

“If people didn’t want to believe, they wouldn’t,” I said. “I don’t care if it’s a televangelist or a stockbroker; it’s easier for people to say ‘I trust you’ than to find out the truth for themselves.”

“You make it sound like they’re all suckers.”

“And volunteers for the job,” I agreed.

“I’m not in any of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t sell stocks or bonds. I don’t even analyze them. What I do is, I put deals together. There’s big sharks and little sharks, sure. But all the players are sharks, do you see what I mean? There aren’t any fish.”

“Then where do the little sharks get their food?”

^“You haven’t asked about him at all,” she half whispered, her mouth against my ear. “Have you changed your mind?”

We were lying on her bed in the dark. Me on my back, she on her stomach. It was the first time we’d had sex that she hadn’t lit a cigarette afterwards.

“Changed my mind?”

“About your book.”

“No,” I said, my tone suggesting that would be absurd. “I’ve made the commitment. I took the advance. And spent most of it, too. Your brother’s case didn’t give me the idea for the book—it was something I came across during my research.”

“But you said he’d be perfect.”

“He might very well be. But I can’t believe he’s the only one. There were two things that drew me to him—”

“What?”

“—and neither was the underlying fact pattern,” I went on, ignoring her interruption. “One, I have to be honest, was nothing but convenience. He was—at least, I thought he was—right here, and available for in-depth interviews. Everything about his case is right here, too: the court records, the local newspapers, the judge who sat on his case, maybe even some of the jurors. The second thing, of course, was him getting shot.”

“Couldn’t you—?”

“But, the more I think about it, I’m not so sure.”

“Not so sure about what?”

“Whether the hook is really such a good one after all. At first, I thought it was perfect. If you’re writing a book about overzealous prosecutors, what’s better than one who tries to kill a man they convicted, after the courts set him free?

“But, in looking at these cases, you don’t see that . . . personal element at all. You see the criminal-justice system jumping the rails. You see cops concerned with their crime-clearance rate, just like you see prosecutors obsessed with their conviction rates. Working together. But that kind of mind-set is just as likely to tip the scales the other way.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, moving away from me and sitting up.

“A prosecutor who wants a perfect conviction rate can give some plea bargains that are real bargains. I’ve seen cases where a defendant confesses to a couple dozen different crimes, and only gets sentenced for one of them.”

“But that person would still be guilty, wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Why would they ever—?”

“Did you ever read about the Boston Strangler case?”

“I heard of it. But it was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“The Sixties. A serial killer was at large. The public was panicked. The media—and this is the key to the whole dynamic—was demanding action. Everyone was on the spot. They already had this guy—Albert DeSalvo was his name—on a whole ton of sex crimes. Different MO—not a homicide in the bunch—but more than enough to give him a life sentence.

“So now they’ve got DeSalvo in a prison where they evaluate defendants to see if they’re competent to stand trial. Out of the blue, he makes a deal to confess to all the strangling cases.”

“Plead guilty?”

“It was a little trickier than that. He ‘clears up’ the cases, gives the police information about the crimes, stuff like that. But the deal is, since there’s no other evidence he was the Strangler—no fingerprints, no blood, no body fluids, no witnesses, nothing—the confession can’t be used. So DeSalvo gets the same life sentence he would have gotten anyway, and everyone’s happy.”

“I still don’t see what’s so horrible. I mean, what he did, of course. But he still went to prison for life.”

“What if he wasn’t the Strangler?”

“What? Then why would he—?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t there. But a lot of people, today, think he was lying about those crimes. Especially relatives of the victims. There’s a whole new investigation going on now.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” she said, her tone just below angry.

“He was going down for the count anyway. And he wasn’t going to do an extra day for the Strangler’s crimes. Maybe he got some money . . . from a book deal or whatever. Maybe he just wanted to be famous—the cops get confessions like that all the time.”

“Did the crimes stop after he was arrested?” she asked. I caught the faintest whiff of triumph in her voice—the cold-blooded researcher, confronting the “believer” with the hard facts.

“They did,” I said. “But if he got the information—about the crimes—from someone else, that person could have been locked up, too. With DeSalvo. Maybe in the nuthouse.”

“What does he say?”

“DeSalvo?”

“Yes. Well, what does he say about it, now that all that time has passed?”

“He’s not saying anything,” I told her. “A few years after he went to prison, he was stabbed to death.”

“Oh my God. Who did it?”

“Nobody knows,” I said. “Or, at least, nobody was ever charged with it.”

Laura bent over to light a pair of candles on an end table. “Can you see me?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Perfectly. But I’d rather have a closer look.”

“You will. But, first, could you close your eyes? Just for a minute?”

“Sure,” I said, dropping my eyelids, but leaving a slit open at the bottom. I learned how to do that when I was a kid—the trick is to keep your eyelids from fluttering.

Laura dropped to her knees, pulled out the lowest drawer in a dark wood bureau. She rooted around for a few seconds. When she stood up, she held something clasped in her hands.

She came over to the bed, climbed on next to me, and knelt, keeping her back very straight.

“What do you do when you’re afraid of something?” she said, very softly.

“What do people do, or what do I do, personally?”

“You.”

“It depends on what it is that I’m afraid of.”

“Tell me.”

“If it’s something I can avoid, I do that. If it’s something I can’t, I try to overcome it.”

“How?”

“How? I don’t know. It depends on what it is.”

“Give me an example?”

Oh, I could do that, I thought. I could give you enough “examples” to haunt your dreams for the rest of your life.

But I’m a Child of the Secret. We don’t talk to outsiders. Except when we lie. Because They taught us well. We know we’re never safe.

And just because you’re one of Us doesn’t mean you can’t also be one of Them.

“Public speaking,” I said. “I was scared to death to get up in front of—”

“That’s not fear,” she cut me off, sharply. “That’s a . . . phobia. Didn’t you ever—?”

“A bully,” I said. “How’s that?”

“That’s very good,” she said. Kneeling, with her hands clasped.

“When I was a kid,” I said, feeling the dot of truth inside my story expand the margins of the lie, “I was scared all the time. Of this one guy. He took stuff from me. Just because he was bigger. Just because he could do it. And he hurt me, too.”

“Did you tell your parents?”

“It wasn’t the kind of thing I could tell my parents about,” I said. More truth, wrapped in a mourner’s cloak.

“What did you do?”

“I tried to stay away from this other guy,” I said. “But he made it impossible.” Yeah, I thought, “impossible,” when you’re a little kid, and the other guy is the teenage son of the degenerate freaks who have custody of your orphaned body.

“What happened, finally?”

“I hit him with a baseball bat,” I lied.

“Oh! Did you hurt him badly?”

“Bad enough so he never bothered me again,” I said. The baseball bat was true enough. I didn’t tell Laura how I had followed it with a can of gasoline, and a match. By the time I was done, every human living in that house of demons was, too.

“Good! I hate bullies, don’t you?”

“Ever since I was old enough to know what they are,” I said, switching to pure, undiluted truth.

“See what I’ve got?”

I opened my eyes. She was holding up a pair of handcuffs.

“Being . . . restrained has always terrified me. I . . . I keep these as kind of a test. Usually, I’m afraid to even look at them.”

“You were handcuffed once?”

“Oh, no,” she said, way too much certainty in her voice. “Nothing like that. I’ve always been this way. When I was a little girl, and they played cowboys and Indians, I would never let anyone tie me up.”

“Some things, it’s good to be afraid of. Just common sense.”

“Maybe that’s why I went into my line of work. There’s a lot of risk—one day, you’re getting a huge bonus; the next, you’re out of a job—but there aren’t any . . . restraints.”

“Maybe you just like the risks. I’ve known people like that.”

“Maybe I do,” she said. “Do you know how these work?”

^“See how much faith I have in you?” she purred. “With my hands behind my back like this, you could do . . . anything.”

“If you trust me, you know I won’t.”

“I know you would never do anything to hurt me,” she said. I wondered if she realized how much she sounded like one of the no-research investors she had been sneering at.

“I wouldn’t, Laura,” I said, guiding her shoulders down.

^“I could still ask him,” she said. It was much later; the candles were burned out.

“Okay.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic, J.”

“I guess I’m . . . not, actually. I thought he was the one who would have been enthusiastic. Most people want to tell their stories, especially if they believe it’s going to make them look good.”

“But you haven’t lost interest completely?”

“No, of course not. But I can’t put the whole project on hold waiting for—”

“Oh, I understand,” she said, squirming in close to me.

^“It’s not that big a risk,” Wolfe said. “If Toby’s . . . prediction doesn’t come true, it’s not like the DA has a better case against me. Besides, I trust him.”

“Toby?”

“Yes. Who else?”

“Not me, I understand.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you think my arteries are hardening—the ones to my brain. Your pal, Molly? No way he made copies of all the files he had in his storage unit. And no way you didn’t. You never trusted anyone in administration when you worked there. Probably got copies of every single piece of paper that ever went through your hands, somewhere.”

“It’s Molly who doesn’t trust you,” she said, not denying anything. “He said he was willing to take the chance of you shopping him, but he wasn’t going to give you the chance to do it to me.”

“Very protective of you, is he?”

“You have a problem with that?”

“No,” I said. “None of my business.”

“This whole thing is none of your business now,” Wolfe said, quietly. “It’s done. Maybe not wrapped up with a red ribbon and tied with a bow, but it’s done. I appreciate what you did, but . . . but I want you to stop now. Just stop.”

I got to my feet. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought I was helping.”

“Come on, Burke. Be yourself.”

“You got it,” I promised.

The next day, I kept my promise. I sat down with my family, and we made our plans.

If you think a “perfect crime” is some kind of rare event, you probably think all sociopaths are handsome, intelligent, and charming, too. Truth is, thousands of perfect crimes take place every day. Nobody ever gets arrested for them, much less convicted.

And if you think it takes a criminal genius to commit the perfect crime in America, you don’t know anything about incest.

“There’s other players, remember,” I warned my family. “Whoever shot him has to know by now that they didn’t get the job done.”

“He’s a piece of dry wood, Schoolboy,” the Prof said. “Lying on the ground, waiting for the forest fire to catch up to him. Why don’t we let the flame take the blame?”

“Nobody needs him dead now,” I said. “Nobody on our side, anyway. Wolfe doesn’t think she’ll even go to trial. Neither does Davidson. If whoever wanted him finds him before we do, there’s no loss, sure. But we can’t make that happen. Even if we could stake him out, how would we get the shooter to show up? Besides, it’s not about him anymore. It’s about the money.”

“You think there’s cash in his stash?”

“I don’t know, Prof. But there’s cash somewhere. Heavy cash. This whole thing reeks of it.”

“You mean, because he had protection when he was Inside?” Michelle said. “His little sister’s got money . . . and she was the one coming to see him the time he got shot.”

“The sister has some money,” I conceded. “And it doesn’t take a fortune to buy protection Inside. But Silver said the order came from the top, and there’s no way she’d even know how to make a contact like that.”

“He has not called,” the Mole said.

“What? You mean you—?”

“The card opened the garage,” he said, shrugging. “The basement has all the lines. We already had her numbers. It’s a simple relay unit—we record the calls at our end.”

“I didn’t know you were even going to . . .”

“I was in a Con Ed van,” the Mole said. “In and out in under fifteen minutes.”

“You leave any paint behind?” the Prof asked.

The Mole ignored him.

“He could use a lot of other ways to get in touch,” I said. “Or maybe he hasn’t reached out for her at all. I’ve spent a lot of time with her. Consecutive hours. She didn’t get any calls. So either her phones were turned off—and that doesn’t seem likely—or he’s not coming through that way.”

“Maybe he only has her work number, or her e-mail address,” Michelle said. “If I was his sister, Satan forbid, I wouldn’t want him to know where I lived.”

“Could be. I don’t know. And she never said.”

“So how would we be able to have a strategy, mahn?” Clarence asked. “Either he calls her at home—and he has not done that—or she convinces him to give you that ‘interview.’”

“We’re holding garbage,” I agreed. “But we already anted heavy, so it’s worth staying to see the last card.”

The tenants in the Lower East Side building were so old, I got called “boychick” more than once. Four of them stopped their canasta game long enough to tell me that the two girls who had lived in the second-floor apartment had been very nice, but kind of standoffish.

“You would think, coming from such a big family, that Hannah would have been a little more friendly,” an elderly lady with heavily rouged cheeks and an elaborate hairdo told me.

“She had a big family?”

“Well, either her or Jane—that was the roommate—must have. I never saw so many boys. Brothers or cousins. I could tell by the way they were acting, all together.”

“And they came after the . . . after it happened, too?”

“Oh yes,” another lady said. “But not right away, a few days later. Maybe they were from out of town.”

“Who can tell anymore?” a third lady said.

“Did Hannah and Jane leave with them?” I asked.

“Who pays attention, a time like that?” the rouged-cheeked lady said.

“And who should be surprised, her moving out, after such a thing?” a different lady said.

“You saw Hannah move out?” I asked.

“Hannah? Hannah never moved out, young man. She was murdered. Didn’t you know that? It was in the papers. Horrible! That’s when Jane moved out.”

“Like the Devil was chasing her,” the rouged-cheeked lady said. “In the middle of the night. Manny, the super, he said she hardly took any of her clothes, she was in such a hurry. Who could blame her? To have such a thing happen to your own roommate. It would be . . . I don’t have the words for it.”

As I exited the apartment building, I had to step back to avoid a pair of skinheads strutting down the sidewalk. As they passed, I saw they had bar-code tattoos on the back of their necks. Couldn’t tell if they were identical.

I drove over to the building in Williamsburg where Hannah had been found hanging. The rehab was long since completed, and I calculated my chances of getting inside about as good as a counterman at Taco Bell buying a condo off his tip money.

Walking away, I felt a tremor in my wake. Just a slight pattern-shift in my visuals, maybe. Afterimages that didn’t match up with my expectations.

That was enough to send me Queens-bound on the subway instead of driving back to Manhattan. I changed trains three times, careful not to box myself, working my way back to Canal Street. When I got to the network of back alleys that leads to Mama’s, I found a place to wait.

And that’s what I did, for over an hour.

Nothing.

Spiders have it easy. When they need a web, they make their own threads. I had to work with the ones they gave me.

Something about those bar-code tattoos . . .

I knew a stripper who had a tiny bar code tattooed on one cheek of her bottom. “It’s a trick,” she said, smiling at the double meaning. “Supposed to mean my ass is merchandise, see? But if anyone gets close enough to read it, they’re mine.”

I opened one of my notebooks, found what I had drawn from my memory after I’d left Silver.

V71.01

What had he told Silver? “A message, written in the code of Nietzsche.”

I’d seen the “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” tattoos in prison. Sometimes with swastikas where the quote marks would go. Not exactly a secret code.

So?

In the room I use for sleeping, I took a polished piece of steel with a hole drilled at the top out of one of the standing lockers. In the middle of the steel, I used a Sharpie to draw a red dot. Then I hung it on a nail on the wall. When I settled into position, the red dot was exactly at eye level.

I focused on the red dot until I went into it.

When I came back, the room was dark. A sliver of moonlight glinted on the steel. I couldn’t see the dot.

^“He’s guilty,” I said.

“That view ain’t new, son.”

“I’m not talking about the evidence, Prof.”

“Then how you know, bro?”

“He said it.”

“Confessed?”

“No, sis,” I said to Michelle. “I’ve never spoken to him. But in prison, Silver saw this on his forearm. . . .” I drew it on a paper napkin, showed it to everyone.

Max shook his head.

Mama shrugged the same message.

“What is it, then, mahn?” Clarence asked, for all of them.

I took out the two pages I had Xeroxed. “This is from the DSM-IV. The manual the shrinks use to put labels on people. Listen.”

They all turned toward me.

“V71.01 is a code number. All the disorders have one. Like schizophrenics or pyromaniacs or whatever. That ‘V’ prefix is kind of a catchall. They say it’s for ‘other conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention.’ I remembered it, finally, because it goes in front of malingering.”

“What is that, mahn?”

“Bottom line, it’s when you fake being sick to get out of something, Clarence.”

“Like when you plead insanity?”

“Like when you fake insanity.”

“How do you know all this stuff, mahn?”

“Schoolboy was the shrink’s clerk, Inside,” the Prof said, proudly. “One of the cushiest jobs in the entire joint. Once Burke got that deal working, we made bank in the tank, son. Bank in the tank.”

“From meds?” Michelle asked.

“No, honey,” the Prof told her. “From reports. That’s where you tap the vein. You know what it’s worth to a man going before the Parole Board to have a few little changes made to his jacket? Or a guy trying to get into a work-release program? Or—?”

“I get it,” Michelle said, grinning.

“Let me read it to you,” I said, clearing my throat. “‘V71.01. Adult Antisocial Behavior. This category can be used when the focus of clinical attention is adult antisocial behavior that is not due to a mental disorder, for example, Conduct Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, or an Impulse-Control Disorder. Examples include the behavior of some professional thieves, racketeers, or dealers in illegal substances.’”

“What does that—?”

“Means us,” the Prof cut Michelle’s question off. “Our kind of people.”

“That filthy little maggot isn’t—”

“No,” I said. “He’s not us. He’s not even like us. That code isn’t some diagnosis a psychiatrist put on him—that’s what he’s saying about himself. What he’s telling the world. He didn’t do the . . . things he did because he was nuts; he did them because he wanted to.

“That Nietzsche thing he told Silver? He did those rapes, hurt those women, took those trophies because he could. In his mind, he’s not some sicko; he’s a superman. And the tattoo is his little private joke.”

I handed the photocopied sheets of paper to Max.

“Where he find that book?” Mama asked, pointing at the pages I was holding.

“What I think is, he had a lot of therapy, probably when he was very young,” I said. “I’m guessing here; the sister didn’t say anything about it. But a freak like him doesn’t spring into full bloom overnight.

“First, he experiments. I’ll bet he hurt a lot of small animals, set some fires. . . . And when he finds out what certain things do for him, how they make his blood get hot with power . . . he escalates. Until he gets caught.

“His family had money. Not enough money to quash a major felony, but enough to get him sent for ‘treatment’ instead of the juvie joints when he was a kid.”

“So tattoo is big insult?” Mama said.

“Yeah, exactly,” I agreed. “A joke nobody’s supposed to get but him. I don’t know when he got the idea for it, but it’s his way of sneering at the whole idea of him being a sick man. He’s the opposite. In his mind, he’s a god.”

Max picked up a pair of chopsticks, held them together in his two fists. He twisted his hands, and the chopsticks splintered like matchsticks.

^“You do have a backup plan?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you wanted to interview him. But if you can’t . . .”

“I already told you. I was working on the book way before this whole business with him came to light. His case wasn’t even part of the proposal.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But what, Laura? What difference does it make now?”

“I guess I’m just . . . insecure.”

“About what?”

“About . . . us. In my world, people are always plotting. You have no idea of all the crimes people in business commit every day. Like it was nothing. Or there’s a set of special rules for them. Remember when Bush made that whole speech about ‘corporate ethics’ last year? What a fraud. You think stuff like Enron or WorldCom is an aberration? It’s only the tip. Business is a religion. Probably the only one practiced all over the world.”

“What does that have to do with—?”

“If you want to succeed, you have to plan very long-term,” she went on, talking over me. “Tools and research. Research and tools,” she said softly, stroking the rock of her faith for comfort. “You have to be very patient. There’s no forgiveness in my world. You only get one chance.”

“Laura . . .”

“You and I met because you wanted something. That part is real, I know. What happened, with us, I mean, I don’t know how real that is. And now that you’re not going to get to meet my—”

“I’m still here,” I said.

“Yes.”

“There’s never any more than that.”

“Yes there is,” she said, fiercely. “There’s . . . promises.”

“I never made any—”

“That’s exactly it,” she said, taking the handcuffs out from under her pillow.

^“Oh no,” she said softly, as she climaxed. “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no!”

In the silence after she let go, I thought I heard the bottle tree whisper. But I couldn’t be sure.

^“Sorry, chief. She doesn’t want you.” Pepper caught herself, quickly added, “Working the case, I mean. There is no case, far as we’re concerned. You understand, right?”

“Sure, but—”

“It’s done,” she said, gently. “Let it go.”

^“I don’t know who the hell you are, or what you’re talking about, pal. But I can tell you this: don’t ever fucking call me again. Understand?”

Molly, at the other end of a phone call. The dead end.

^“Well, sure, it’s still theoretically open,” Davidson said. “But I’ve got my deal in place with Toby, and my client and I are both certain the result will be as agreed.”

“What about the other rapes he did?”

“You know the statute of limitations on a felony as well as I do,” he said. “Better, I’m sure, given your . . . profession. He could call a press conference, confess to everything, and walk away giggling.”

“He’s already done that,” I said.

“What do you want from me, Burke? Some bullshit about bad karma? We both know how it is. Real life isn’t on Oprah. What goes around sometimes doesn’t come around. Chalk it up.”

^“We already had this conversation.”

“I found some new—”

“No,” Wolfe said, drawing the line all the way down to the exit wound. “You found something new that proves what we already know, so what? We already know Wychek did those rapes. We already know I didn’t shoot him. With what Toby Ringer told Davidson—and I trust him, even if you don’t—we’re never going to have to prove either one.”

She tapped a cigarette out of her pack. Didn’t offer me one. Snapped her lighter into life before I could move.

“And if Toby’s gone in the tank, double so what?” she said, not looking at me. “If they force us anywhere near a trial, we’ll prove both. Steamroll those punks in the DA’s Office like fresh asphalt in August.”

I just sat there, silent.

“I’m not going to prison, Burke. It’s over. Everything’s over.”

She blew a harsh jet of smoke into the night air. “I appreciate all you did,” she said, looking away. “But there’s no more for you now.”

^“Didn’t that prove anything to you?” Laura said. She was lying on her stomach, both hands around the big tube of KY she had taken from under the pillow. Before the handcuffs.

“Is that why you did it?”

“Maybe.”

“To prove what, exactly?”

“That I would do things for you. Things I wouldn’t do for anyone else.”

“I think you know,” I said.

“Know what?”

“You know I’d never hurt you. What you said, a while ago, about trust? If you didn’t trust me, you wouldn’t use those—”

“I trust you now,” she said, softly. “That first time, I couldn’t know. Not for sure. It was a risk. A chance. I was frightened. But it was time, and I knew it.”

“Time?”

“I always know when it’s time to do something, to make the move,” she said. “That’s my gift. That’s what I do. So that’s me.”

^“I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks or so,” I said, much later that night. Setting the stage for my fadeout.

“Really? To where?”

“Out to the coast. There’s a couple of interviews I need to do for the book. And my so-called agent claims he’s got a couple of meetings set up, with a production company that specializes in TV pilots.”

“You don’t sound very excited about it.”

“I’m not. I’ve had those kind of meetings before. But since I have to be out there anyway . . .”

“You’re here now,” she said, tongue flicking against my chest.

^“When are you leaving, exactly?” she asked, looking up from a bowl of grains and nuts she was breakfasting on. The sun slanted against the far wall of the kitchen, but it didn’t reach where we were sitting.

“I don’t have a flight yet. Next couple of days or so. I have to pack, make arrangements for coverage at the paper. . . . A trip like this, you never know how it’s going to play out. If I come up with something dynamite, I may just—”

“Did you ever hear of StandaBlok Machine Tools?” she said, stopping me in mid-sentence.

“No. Is it one of your—”

“It was a small operation, not so very far from here. You know the area around Liberty Avenue? Anyway, it’s out of business now. The building they used would be just perfect for a conversion like this one. The only thing is the neighborhood.”

“Sooner or later, there’s no neighborhood in New York that won’t be worth money,” I said, reciting the conventional wisdom.

“That’s what I think, too. But for now it’s just an abandoned building. After vandals broke all the windows, it got boarded up and padlocked. Tight. Nobody goes there now.”

“All right,” I said, just to fill the empty space between us.

“The day after tomorrow, I have to go there. Alone. At midnight.”

“What for?”

“To meet my brother,” she said. “Do you want to come?”

What she told me was, Wychek called her at work Monday afternoon. He asked her for a safe place where they could meet. Said he wanted her to choose it, after what happened last time.

“That building she told me about? She’s got the key. The way she was talking, I figure she already owns it. Or a piece of it, anyway. Some development deal.

“All Wychek’s got to do is make sure he’s not followed. If he told her the truth—that nobody knows where he is now— shouldn’t be any problem for him.”

“And she wants to just bring you along?” Michelle asked. “Like a little surprise?”

“No. What she wants is just for me to stand by, close. Once she meets him, she’s going to pitch the idea of him doing the interview with me. For the book. If he says ‘okay,’ she’ll call and wave me in.”

“No chance you make that dance, son.”

“That’s true, Prof. But she can’t know that.”

“Why does she do it, then, mahn?”

“She’s gotten more and more . . . I don’t know the word for it. She keeps trying to ‘prove’ something to me. Like if I thought she was for real I’d . . . be with her, I guess.”

“So you think all this cloak-and-dagger is so she can say, ‘I tried, honey’?” Michelle.

“You tell me.”

“Well, she is a woman. And having a freak in your family doesn’t make you one,” my little sister said. “We all know that song. By heart.”

^“Guy down here, boss.”

“Seen him before?”

“Yeah. The lumberjack.”

“Let him pass, Gateman.”

^“I’m in.”

“In what, Mick?” I asked.

“What you’re doing,” he said, his glance covering all of us, seated around the poker table.

“It’s over,” I told him. “Like Wolfe said.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You looking to join for the coin?” the Prof asked suspiciously.

“There’s only one thing I care about in all this,” Mick said, eyes just for me. “Same as you.”

Nobody said anything, waiting.

“And I don’t trust the fucking feds,” Mick said. “Same as you.”

Thursday, 3:22 a.m. The building was two stories of solid brick, standing squat and square, as if daring anyone to ask it to move.

By the time we finished offloading, the Prof had seduced the lock.

We left him just inside the door, cradling his scattergun. I led the way up the stairs, a five-cell flash in one hand, a short-barreled .357 Magnum in the other. Clarence was just behind me, to my right. As soon as we cleared the area, Max and Mick brought up the gear.

Except for a thin film of interior dust, the place was immaculately clean, as if a former tenant had swept up before moving on.

We set up camp on the top floor. Clarence started to unpack methodically. Max and Mick went around making sure we had more than one way out. I took care of setting up observation posts, carefully using a box cutter to make eye-slits in the blackout curtains we hung behind the boarded windows.

“No people, no food, and it’s nice and warm out,” the Prof muttered, looking around. “So the miserable little motherfuckers got business elsewhere.” The Prof hated rats.

By daybreak, we were ready to start sleeping in shifts.

^“I say he gets here first,” the Prof whispered to me.

“Michelle put the padlock back in place behind us,” I said. “And only the sister has the key.”

“What time’s the meet?”

“Midnight.”

“I got a century to a dime the cocksucker gets here by eleven-thirty, minimum.”

I was still considering the offer when Max slapped a ten-dollar bill on top of one of the duffel bags.

^“Pssst!”

“You got him?”

“Got somebody, mahn. This scope makes everything green, but it’s a man, walking.”

“Alone?”

“Yes,” Clarence said. “Closing now.”

The Prof snatched Max’s ten and his hundred off the top of the duffel bag in one lightning move. Then he and the Mongol took off downstairs. Mick was already there, waiting.

Thirteen minutes later.

“You’re not feds,” Wychek said, despite my dark-blue suit, white shirt, and wine-colored tie. If being stripped, handcuffed to a pipe, and surrounded by the men who had choked him into unconsciousness and carried him up the stairs frightened him, it didn’t show on his face.

“Good guess,” I said.

“And you’re not with . . .”

“With who, John?” I said, pleasantly, not a trace of urgency in my voice.

“Oh no,” he said, lips twisting in a stalker’s smile.

“When did you last take your medication, John?”

“Just before I— What difference does that make?”

“You know why I asked,” I said, very softly.

“I don’t—”

“Ssshhh,” I said, soothingly. “We’re already here. You know what that means.”

“If anything happens to me—”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you, John. But we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t know who else was coming.”

“She doesn’t have it,” he said, smoothly. “She doesn’t even know where it is.”

“One of those is a lie, John. Maybe, maybe it was true that first time, on Forty-ninth. But it’s not true now. Not tonight. So, the way we see it, all we have to do is wait. Soon as she shows up, we won’t need you anymore.”

“The feds know where I am. If anything—”

“You said that already, John. That’s why we took your clothes. To make sure you didn’t have any way to stay in touch.”

Wychek watched me blank-faced, same as he had watched dozens of social workers and therapists and cops and prison guards for a lot of years. His other face only came out under a ski mask.

He hadn’t been carrying a cell phone. No tape recorder, no body mike.

But he had his straight razor. And a roll of duct tape.

I walked around in a little circle, as if I was making up my mind. Finally, said, “You want to know what this is about, John? What it’s really about?”

“Yeah. Because if you think—”

“It’s about money,” I said, moving closer to him. “And you’re going to—”

Clarence stepped into the room, chopped off my speech with a hand gesture. I followed him out of the room, over to where he had an observation slot.

A silver Audi TT convertible pulled up to the front of the building. Its headlights went out. Just as Laura Reinhardt opened her door, I caught a flicker of movement at the edge of the lot.

I gestured to Max and the Prof, pointing two fingers down, forked. They took off.

“Big SUV,” Clarence said, watching through the scope. “Coming on.”

“I’ll cover you from up here,” I said, and went back to where we had Wychek trussed up.

“This is so you don’t hear or see what’s going on,” I said, a doctor explaining a medical procedure to a nervous patient. “Just breathe through your nose,” I told him, very softly.

“Do not panic,” I cautioned him, just before I fitted a set of sound-canceling earphones in place. “We’re all going to be busy for a few minutes. You have yourself a seizure now, it’s your last.”

I slapped a couple of turns of duct tape around his mouth, then dropped the black hood over his head, with another quick turn of the tape to hold the earphones in place.

I heard the downstairs door open.

A flashlight blazed downstairs for a half-second. Then it went out.

The SUV was a moving brick, black against the gray night. It came to a shadowed stop about fifty yards from the building. The front doors opened, and a man climbed out of each side. No light went on inside the truck.

“Can you see anyone still inside?” I asked Clarence.

“It looks empty, mahn. But someone could be on the floor.”

“All right. She should be out of the way by now. Go on downstairs. Remember, if there has to be any—”

“I know,” he said, threading the tube silencer into his nine-millimeter.

I lost sight of the two men just as they entered the building. I moved over to the top of the stairs. Looked down. Shadows inside shadows.

The front door opened. Closed.

A blast! of sudden light.

“Freeze, motherfuckers!” the Prof barked.

I heard a harsh grunt. Then the puffft! of a silenced handgun.

^“The broad strolls in. Max takes her from behind, same as he did the freak. She goes right out, never saw a thing. We wait for the two guys following her. As soon as they come in, I light them up, give them the word. One raises his hands, the other goes for his steel. Clarence cut loose, and—”

“Where’s the sister now?”

“Sleeping,” the Prof said. “I gave her the hypo the Mole put together. One shot, he said she’ll be out for a few hours. Wake up with a bad headache. Be all fuzzy, too, like coming out of a bad dream. That’s why he needed you to tell him how much she weighs, get the dose perfect.”

“We’ve got two men,” I said. “One in the room next door, one upstairs. No way to know if the guys in the SUV had backup—”

“Not in their truck, they didn’t,” Mick said, telling us he had gone out to make sure.

“—but they both had cells. Don’t know if they’re supposed to call in, how much time we’ve got. . . .”

“Got to pick one and run, son.”

“Yeah, Prof. I know.”

“Which one?”

“Wychek knows where. But the guys who came in after Laura, they know why, I think.”

“We came for the green,” the Prof said, settling it.

The man was in his late forties, tall and rangy, with leathery skin. In the soft light from the candle, his eyes were colorless.

“I’m not with them,” he said, in that calm, deliberate voice people use when they’re trying to keep an unstable person calm. “I’m a professional. Freelance, just like you, am I right? No reason for anyone to get wild, now. Just tell me what I have to do to walk out of here, and it’s done.”

“We want the money,” I told him.

“Sure. Give me the book, and you can name your price.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. It would have been just like that if that fucking Yusef didn’t have to play with his toys.”

“That’s what took Wychek out the first time?”

“Yeah. Could I have a cigarette?”

The Prof fired one up, held it to the man’s lips. He inhaled gratefully. “Thanks. I’m the same as you, okay? A professional. I get hired, do a job, get paid. Only they don’t trust outsiders, so they sent that degenerate psycho along with me.”

“Yusef?”

“Right.”

“He came with you tonight? He’s the one—?”

“Yeah. Like I said, he’s one of them. You had the drop on us, cold. Stupid asshole must have figured he was going straight to Mecca,” the tall man said, deliberately distancing himself from the dead body at the foot of the stairs. “After what he pulled the first time, I couldn’t believe they’d ever send him again.”

“The first time? You mean with the girl in that apartment on the Lower East Side?”

“Right. Fucking sicko. They told me he hooked her up to a car battery. He kept jolting her, but she kept telling the same story.”

“And later they found out it was the truth.”

“Not from her. Or from the other one, either. Fucking scumbag morons don’t know from interrogation. All they know is torture. It wasn’t until Wychek contacted them that they knew for sure.”

“He took the book from her apartment? After he raped her?”

“Right. When she found it was gone, she panicked. I don’t blame her, seeing what happened.”

“She couldn’t tell them anything but the truth.”

“Right. But they didn’t know it was the truth until Wychek started holding them up for money. That was when he was in the joint. By then, it was way too late for her. Fucking half-wits outsmarted themselves. They figured, even if they got busted themselves, nobody’d ever think to look for the book in some white girl’s apartment.”

“She was the girlfriend of one of the—?”

“If you mean, was she fucking one of them, yeah, I guess. But that wasn’t why they let her hold the book. She was one of them. One of those rich little ‘revolutionaries,’ you know what I mean? Like shopping isn’t enough of a thrill for them anymore, so they need to go liberate the downtrodden masses.”

The contempt in his voice invited me to join him, but I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to fill the silence. Maybe me holding Wychek’s straight razor helped.

“At first, the little weasel didn’t want that much,” the mercenary said. “I handled everything for them. I was the bridge man to get him that protection contract.”

“From the Brotherhood.”

“Right. You know what happened next. Fucking Wychek steps it up. He wants a lawyer. Okay. Still within budget. And by then they knew he hadn’t turned the book over to anyone. So they figured, Wychek gets out, they can deal with him.

“He gets out, all right. Only what he wants is a lot of money. Now, these sand nig—” He pulled himself up short, segued into—“assholes, they got the money,” without missing a beat. “They got all kinds of money. But instead of just paying him, they decide to get cute.

“Yusef’s got this little pistol. A twenty-five. Custom job. Between the suppressor and the reduced-powder hand-loads, it looked bad enough, but it wouldn’t kill a fucking cockroach. Yusef promises them, no electricity this time. He’ll use fear. Figures, he puts a couple of rounds into Wychek, it won’t kill him, but it’ll scare the shit out of him, make him give up the book.

“And that’s what Yusef does. He pops Wychek a couple of times. Then he puts the piece right between Wychek’s eyes, tells him ‘Last chance,’ and . . .”

“Wychek goes out.”

“Yeah. Fucking Arab assholes. Yusef swore Wychek didn’t have the book on him. Stupid amateur. He was too busy searching the body to check and see if Wychek was even still breathing.”

The tall man took another hit off the cigarette the Prof was holding for him. “After that, they’re in a panic,” he said. “In case Wychek’s got backup—you know, someone he left it with. But the book never surfaces, so they start to breathe easy.

“All of a sudden, there’s that story in the papers. That Wychek didn’t die. And they got this woman charged with shooting him. But Wychek’s supposed to be in a coma, and they’re not worried about him talking. Then, a couple of weeks later—bang!—they get another call. Wychek himself. He’s out of the coma. And he still wants to sell them the book. But now, behind what happened, he wants the money in front.”

I didn’t say anything, watching the play of candlelight on the razor’s edge underline the reality of his situation.

“They figure, pay him, okay?” the tall man said. “But they also figure he makes copies, right?”

“I would.”

“Sure. Look, you got the book now. And you’re not some sick-fuck amateur, like him. I could get them to go a flat million, for real. All cash. Or gold, if you want it that way. Any drop you say.”

“Then I’m in the same place he is,” I said. “On the spot. And I don’t even know who’d be looking for me.”

“If you’d ever looked in the book, you’d know, man. Those camel-jockeys put it all in there. Names, addresses, phone numbers, codes . . . the whole thing. Most of them are still in place. Once they realized Wychek wasn’t going to do anything but hold them up for money, they got cocky. They’re sitting ducks, man. One call, you could take them all down,” he said. “They have to pay.”

The tall man was reciting his credentials. A mercenary to his core, keeping it real. One man-for-hire to another. Whatever was in the book he was talking about, his own name wouldn’t be. In the sociopath’s moral compass, true north is always in his mirror.

“We understand each other, right?” the tall man said. “I’m the same as you.”

I looked over to the Prof. He shook his head.

^“We’re a lot smarter than the Arabs were,” I told Wychek. “If we wanted, we could keep you alive a long time. Long enough for you to tell us whatever we need.”

I deliberately stepped back a couple of paces, to lower the threat-level.

“But I got a better deal for you,” I said. “Fifty-fifty. That’s fair. Come on. You should have hired people like us in the first place. You know what happens if you go anywhere near those psychos yourself. This way, we collect the money for you, split it down the middle. What do you say?”

“How do I know I can trust you?” he asked, eyebrows raised above his reptile eyes.

“You can trust us to hurt you bad, if you make us go that way. Go the right way and you walk, with half of the score. Call it a commission.”

He didn’t say anything.

“We don’t have much time,” Mick said to me, tapping his wristwatch.

“Right,” I said, catching his rhythm. “We’re up against the clock now,” I told Wychek. “So the way it works is this: no answer from you is a ‘no’ answer, understand?”

I started counting inside my head. I was up to seven when he let out a long, thin breath. “My sister’s bringing it,” he said. “It was in a safe-deposit box. Only has her name on it. Her married name; not mine. I told her to go and clean out the box.

“She’s bringing me my . . . other stuff in a suitcase. But the little book, you’d never find it,” he said, twisting his lips into something like a smile.

“Just tell us—”

“I ordered her to carry it in her cunt,” Wychek said. “In a Ziploc. She knows how to do it. As soon as she gets here, just bring her to me and I’ll—”

I drove Laura Reinhardt’s Audi back to her place. My cloned card opened the gate. I put her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry and took the stairs. Moving slowly, the .357 in one hand.

When she woke up, she would find herself in her own bed. Alone.

I looked down at her. Feeling . . . I wasn’t sure what.

“I never meant to hurt you, Laura,” I whispered, gently adjusting the blanket, touching her body for the last time.

The book had been where Wychek had promised. Boasted. “You were just another casualty,” I said. “That’s the way it is down here. The way it has to be. I’m sorry.”

I kissed her beneath one drug-closed eye. And went out the way I’d come in.

The newspapers said three bodies had been discovered inside a Ford Explorer in the swampland near JFK Airport. All three were charred beyond recognition. The Mole’s package would have been enough on its own; but when the fire hit the gas tank, the whole vehicle had just about vaporized. The police said it was an obvious gangland hit, a “message” of some kind. The Queens DA promised that those responsible would get the maximum sentence.

Wolfe probably never even saw the papers. She had been somewhere off the Maine coast for the past few days. On a little sailboat, with Pepper and Bruiser.

Pepper had made all the arrangements. Used Wolfe’s credit card to rent the sailboat. And the car that they drove up in. And the motel where they stayed.

Pepper’s a real friendly girl. Wolfe’s mostly standoffish. But lots of people saw them. Pepper had some of them take their pictures, the three of them together, for souvenirs of their vacation.

Whenever the coroner’s office got around to doing the autopsy, all they would have to work with was bones. But if they looked close enough, they would find three .25-caliber slugs rattling around in whatever was left of Wychek’s skull.

^“You know what was in what you gave us?” the man asked. I knew him only as Pryce, and I hadn’t seen him in years. Not since the last-minute abortion of a plot to blow up Federal Plaza by a “leaderless cell” out of the White Night underground.

We had planted my brother Hercules in that cell. For him, it was that or go back Inside, forever.

They had ringed the downtown building that housed everything they hated—from the IRS to the FBI—with trucks stuffed full of enough explosives to level the ground down to zero. The drivers thought the plan was for them to set the timers and run, but the boss—hiding in the van outside the blast zone—held the real detonator. He was still holding it when a close-up blast from a girl he thought was a hooker shattered his neurons.

The pure-white sheep were still in their trucks when Pryce’s crew went into action. A surgical strike. Only one was left at the end. And when he was clued into what the real plan had been, he sang a canary aria that thinned the rest of their herd, big-time.

Hercules walked away. I don’t know where he is now. But I know where he’s not.

The last time I saw Pryce, he was holding out his hand for me to shake. “I’m gone,” he said quietly. “None of the numbers you have for me will be any good after today. And I won’t have this face much longer, either.”

I took his hand, wondering if the webbed fingers would disappear, too. Watched the muscle jump under his eye. I’d know that one again.

“I’m gone, too,” I had promised him.

If my new face threw him, it didn’t show on his new face. The fingers of his hands were still webbed. The muscle still jumped under his eye. I wondered what he still saw in me.

“I couldn’t make any sense out of it,” I lied. “Just enough to know you’d be interested.”

“It was all pre-Nine/Eleven stuff,” he said. “There were a hell of a lot more people involved than anyone ever imagined. We’ve been making arrests like there was no tomorrow. True-believers and freelancers, they’re all going down.”

“It’s hard to think of—”

“What, Americans working for them? You know the kind of money they’re throwing around? The little princes learned from what happened to the Shah. They eat peacock tongues off gold plates while the rest of their country dies of malnutrition. All the secret police in the world won’t keep them safe from their own people. They know they can’t stay on their thrones unless they provide a shunt for all the pressure building up, a bleed-valve for all the anger and hate.”

Pryce shifted posture, as if his spine hurt, but his pale eyes stayed chemical-cold. “You think those people wiring up their own children and sending them into crowded markets in Israel are revolutionaries? Wake up. They’re fucking flesh-peddlers, selling their kids for the bounty. It’s the most lucrative form of child labor ever invented. You know what the bounty is up to now? Fifty grand. Fifty thousand dollars, for people who don’t know what an indoor toilet is. For people whose other kids are going to grow up to be cannon fodder, anyway. The car-bombers, the one-way pilots, the . . . For all of them, who’s putting up the money? Not the terrorists themselves, my friend. The little princes who finance them.”

I didn’t say anything. What could I?

“It’s been more than two years since the World Trade Center,” Pryce said, softly. “I guess the scumbags thought they were safe in their little sleeper-cells. They knew, if we’d had that book, we would have rounded them up a long time ago. So, therefore, we didn’t have it, see?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “And the case against Wolfe—”

“It’s gone,” he assured me. “And it’s never coming back. One of the bodies in that truck they found out in Queens? It was Wychek.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said, no expression on his new face. “That book, it was what he was holding over . . . the agency. That’s why they gave him—”

“I don’t care.”

“But if you got the book from . . . ?”

“I didn’t get the book from him,” I said. “And that’s the truth.”

“Why did you just hand it over?” Pryce asked me, his eyes everyplace but on mine. “You had to have some idea of what it could be worth. You’re a merc yourself. How come you didn’t try to make some kind of a deal? When you reached out for me, I thought that was what you were angling for.”

“It’s not true, what they say,” I told him. “You know, that everyone’s got a price. I know people like that. I was raised with them. I’ll never be a citizen. But I’ll never be them, either.”

^“Mayday!” Hauser, on the phone.

I met him an hour later, in the park across the street from the Appellate Division courthouse.

“I was in Atlanta, on assignment,” he said. “Just got back. Turns out, a while back, a woman came to my house in Westchester. It was about four in the afternoon, right after school. My wife was at her Wednesday tennis lesson. One of the kids answered the door. Long story short, when she left, she knew damn well that you’re not me.”

“She saw a photo of you?”

“More than that,” he said, ruefully. “I’ve got great kids. They’re proud of their father. So, when a woman shows up and says Daddy’s getting an award . . .”

“When was this?”

“I don’t know exactly when, but it was a while back, only I just now found out about it,” Hauser said, impatiently. “Kids, they forget things. . . .”

Images of Laura Reinhardt flooded my mind. They turned slowly, like a roulette wheel near the end of its spin. I watched as she built her “business model” as meticulously as she had her bottle tree.

With her own hands. Unrestrained.

“Some kids do,” I told Hauser.

Then I hung up. On all of it.