McBain's Ladies Too: More Women of the 87th Precinct

Virginia Dodge

It was a normal everyday afternoon at the beginning of October.

Outside the grilled windows of the 87th's squadroom, Grover Park was aflame with color. Indian summer, like a Choctaw princess, strutted her feathers, wiggled her bright reds and oranges and yellows on the mild October air. The sun was dazzling in a flawlessly blue sky, its rays pushing at the grilled windows, creating shafts of golden light which dust motes tirelessly climbed. The sounds of the street outside slithered over the window sills and through the open windows, joining with the sounds of the squadroom to create a melody unique and somehow satisfying.

Like a well-constructed symphony, there was an immediately identifiable theme to the sounds inside the squadroom. This theme was built on a three-part harmony of telephone rings, typewriter clackings, and profanities. Upon this theme, the symphony was pyramided into its many variations. The variations ranged from the splendid wooshy sound of a bull's fist crashing into a thief's belly, to the shouted roar of a bull wanting to know where the hell his ballpoint pen had gone, to the quietly persistent verbal bludgeoning of an interrogation session, to the muted honey tones of a phone conversation with a Hall Avenue debutante, to the whistling of a rookie delivering a message from Headquarters, to the romantic bellow of a woman filing a complaint against her wile-beating husband, to the gurgle of the water cooler, to the uninhibited laughter following a dirty story.

Such laughter, accompanied by the outside street sounds of October, greeted the punch line of Meyer Meyer's joke on that Friday afternoon.

"He really knows how to tell them," Bert Kling said. "That's the one thing I can't do. Tell a story."

"There are many things you can't do," Meyer answered, his blue eyes twinkling, "but we'll excuse the slight inaccuracy. Storytelling, Bert, is an art acquired with age. A young snot like you could never hope to tell a good story. It takes years and years of experience."

Cotton Hawes sipped at his coffee and grinned. His red hair was lighted now by the lazy October sunshine that played with particular intensity on the streak of white over his left temple.

He turned suddenly.

The woman who stood just outside the slatted-rail divider that separated the squadroom from the corridor had entered so silently that none of the men had heard her approach. She had just cleared her throat, and the sound was shockingly loud, so that Kling and Meyer turned to face her at almost the same moment Hawes did.

She looked for a moment like Death personified.

She had deep black hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head. She had brown eyes set in a face without makeup, without lipstick, a face so chalky white that it seemed she had just come from a sickbed somewhere. She wore a black overcoat and black shoes with no stockings. Her bare legs were as white as her face, thin legs that seemed incapable of supporting her. She carried a large black tote bag, and she clung to the black leather handles with thin, bony fingers.

"Yes?" Hawes said.

"Is Detective Carella here?" she asked. Her voice was toneless.

"No," Hawes said. "I'm Detective Hawes. May I hel—"

"When will he be back?" she interrupted.

"That's difficult to say. He had something personal to take care of, and then he was going directly to an outside assignment. Perhaps one of us—"

"I'll wait," the woman said.

"It may take quite a while."

"I have all the time in the world," she answered.

Hawes shrugged. "Well, all right. There's a bench outside. If you'll just—"

"I'll wait inside," she said, and before Hawes could stop her she had pushed open the gate in the railing and started walking toward one of the empty desks in the center of the room. Hawes started after her immediately.

"Miss, I'm sorry," he said, "but visitors are not permitt—"

"Mrs.," she corrected. "Mrs. Frank Dodge." She sat. She placed the heavy black bag on her lap, both hands resting firmly on its open top.

"Well, Mrs. Dodge, we don't allow visitors inside the squad-room except on business. I'm sure you can appreciate—"

"I'm here on business," she said and pressed her unpainted lips together into a thin line.

"Well then, can you tell me…?"

"I'm waiting for Detective Carella," she said. "Detective Steve Carella," and she said the last words with surprising bitterness.

"If you're waiting for him," Hawes said patiently, "you'll have to wait on the bench outside. I'm sorry, but that's—"

"I'll wait right here," she said firmly. "And you'll wait, too."

Hawes glanced at Meyer and Kling.

"Lady," Meyer started, "we don't want to seem rude…"

"Shut up!" the woman said.

There was the unmistakable ring of command in her voice. The detectives stared at her.

Her hand slipped into the pocket on the right-hand side of her coat. When it emerged, it was holding something cold and hard.

"This is a .38," the woman said.

The street noises outside the squadroom seemed to magnify the silence that followed her simple declaration. The three detectives looked first at each other and then back to the woman and the unwavering .38.

"Give me your guns," she said.

The detectives did not move.

"Give me your guns, or I'll fire."

"Look, lady," Meyer said, "put up the piece. We're all friends here. You're only going to get yourself in trouble."

"I don't care," she said. "Put your guns on the desk here in front of me. Don't try to take them out of the holsters or I'll shoot. This gun is pointed right at the redheaded one's belly. Now move!"

Again, the detectives hesitated.

"All right, redhead," she said. "Say your prayers."

There was not a man in that room who did not realize that once he relinquished his weapon he would be at the mercy of the woman holding the gun. There was not a man in that room, too, who had not faced a gun at one time or another in his career. The men in that room were cops, but they were also human beings who did not particularly relish the thought of an early grave. The men in that room were human beings, but they were also cops who knew the destructive power of a .38, who also knew that women were as capable of squeezing triggers as were men, who realized that this woman holding the gun could cut down all three of them in one hasty volley. And yet, they hesitated.

"Damnit!" she shouted. "I'm not kidding!"

Kling was the first to move, and then only because he saw the knuckle-white tension of the woman's trigger finger. Staring at her all the while, he unstrapped his shoulder rig and dropped holster and Police Special to the desk top. Meyer unclipped his holster from his right hip pocket and deposited it alongside Kling's gun. Hawes was carrying his .38 just off his right hipbone. He unclipped the holster and put it on the desk.

"Which of these desk drawers lock?" the woman asked.

"The top one," Hawes said.

"Where's the key?"

"In the drawer."

She opened the drawer, found the key, and then shoved the guns into the drawer. She locked the desk then, removed the key, and put it into her coat pocket. The big black purse was still on her lap.

"Okay, now you got our guns," Meyer said. "Now what? What is this, lady?"

"I'm going to kill Steve Carella," the woman said.

"Why?"

"Never mind why. Who else is in this place right now?"

Meyer hesitated. From where the woman was sitting, she had a clear view of both the lieutenant's office and the corridor outside the squadroom…

"Answer me!" she snapped.

"Just Lieutenant Byrnes," Meyer lied. In the Clerical Office, just outside the slatted-rail divider, Miscolo was busily working on his records. There was the possibility that they could maneuver her so that her back was to the corridor. And then, if Miscolo decided to enter the squadroom on one of his frequent trips, perhaps he would grasp the situation and…

"Get the lieutenant," she said.

Meyer began to move.

"Before you go, remember this. The gun is on you. One phony move, and I shoot. And I keep shooting until every man in this place is dead. Now go ahead. Knock on the lieutenant's door and tell him to get out here."

Meyer crossed the silent squadroom. The lieutenant's door was closed. He rapped on the wooden frame alongside the frosted glass.

"Come!" Byrnes called from behind the door.

"Pete, it's me. Meyer."

"The door's unlocked," Byrnes answered.

"Pete, you better come out here."

"What the hell is it?"

"Come on out, Pete."

There was the sound of footsteps behind the door. The door opened. Lieutenant Peter Byrnes, as compact as a rivet, thrust his muscular neck and shoulders into the opening.

"What is it, Meyer? I'm busy."

"There's a woman wants to see you."

"A woman? Where…?" His eyes flicked past Meyer to where the woman sat. Instant recognition crossed his face. "Hello, Virginia," he said, and then he saw the gun.

"Get in here, Lieutenant," Virginia Dodge said.

A frown had come over Byrnes's face. His brows pulled down tightly over scrutinizing blue eyes. Intelligence flashed on his craggy face. Lumberingly, like a man about to lift a heavy log, he crossed the squadroom, walking directly to where Virginia Dodge sat. He seemed ready to pick her up and hurl her into the corridor.

"What is this, Virginia?" he said, and there was the tone of a father in his voice, a rather angry father speaking to a fifteen-year-old daughter who'd come home too late after a dance.

"What does it look like, Lieutenant?"

"It looks like you've blown your wig, that's what it looks like. What the hell's the gun for? What are you doing in here with…"

"I'm going to kill Steve Carella," Virginia said.

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Byrnes said in exasperation. "Do you think that's going to help your husband any?"

"Nothing's going to help Frank any more."

"What do you mean?"

"Frank died yesterday. In the hospital at Castleview Prison."

Byrnes did not speak for a long while, and then he said slowly, "You can't blame Carella for that."

"Carella sent him up."

"Your husband was a criminal."

"Carella sent him up."

"Carella only arrested him. You can't—"

"And pressed the D.A. for a conviction, and testified at the trial, and did everything in his power to make sure Frank went to jail!"

"Virginia, he—"

"Frank was sick! Carella knew that! He knew that when he put him away!"

"Virginia, for Christ's sake, our job is to—"

"Carella killed him as sure as if he'd shot him. And now I'm going to kill Carella. The minute he steps into this squadroom, I'm going to kill him."

"And then what? How do you expect to get out of here, Virginia? You haven't got a chance."

Virginia smiled thinly. "I'll get out, all right."

"Will you? You fire a gun in here, and every cop in ten miles will come barging upstairs."

"I'm not worried about that, Lieutenant."

"No, huh? Talk sense, Virginia. You want to get the electric chair? Is that what you want?"

"I don't care. I don't want to live without Frank."

Byrnes paused for a long time. Then he said, "I don't believe you, Virginia."

"What don't you believe? That I'm going to kill Carella? That I'll shoot the first one who does anything to stop me?"

"I don't believe you're fool enough to use that gun. I'm walking out of here, Virginia. I'm walking back to my office…"

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I am. I'm walking back to my office, and here's why. There are four men in this room, counting me. You can shoot me, maybe, and maybe another one after me… but you'll have to be pretty fast and pretty accurate to get all of us."

"I'll get all of you, Lieutenant," Virginia said, and the thin smile reappeared on her mouth.

"Yeah, well I'm willing to bet on that. Jump her the minute she fires, men." He paused. "I'm going to my office, Virginia, and I'm going to sit in there for five minutes. When I come out, you'd better be gone, and we'll forget all about this. Otherwise I'm going to slap you silly and take that gun away from you and dump you into a detention cell downstairs. Now is that clear, Virginia?"

"It's very clear."

"Five minutes," Byrnes said curtly, and he wheeled and started toward his office.

With supreme confidence in her voice, Virginia said, "I don't have to shoot you, Lieutenant."

Byrnes did not break his stride.

"I don't have to shoot any of you."

He continued walking.

"I've got a bottle of nitroglycerin in my purse."

Her words came like an explosion. Byrnes stopped in his tracks and turned slowly to face her, his eyes dropping to the big black bag in her lap. She had turned the barrel of the gun so that it pointed at the bag now, so that its muzzle was thrust into the opening at the top of the bag.

"I don't believe you, Virginia," Byrnes said, and he turned and reached for the doorknob again.

"Don't open the door, Lieutenant," Virginia shouted, "or I'll fire into this purse and we can all go to Hell!"

He thought in that moment before twisting the doorknob, She's lying. She hasn't got any soup in that purse, where would she get any?

And then he remembered that among her husband's many criminal offenses had been a conviction for safe-blowing.

But she hasn't got any soup, he thought, Jesus, that's crazy. But suppose she does? But she won't explode it. She's waiting for Carella. She wouldn't…

And then he thought simply, Meyer Meyer has a wife and three children.

Slowly, he let his hand drop. Wearily, he turned to Virginia Dodge.

"That's better," she said. "Now let's wait for Carella."

There were ninety thousand people living in the 87th Precinct.

The streets of the precinct ran south from the River Harb to Grover Park, which was across the way from the station house. The River Highway paralleled the river's course, and beyond that was the first precinct street, fancy Silvermine Road, which still sported elevator operators and doormen in its tall apartment buildings. Continuing south, the precinct ran through the gaudy commercialism of The Stem, and then Ainsley Avenue, and then Culver with its dowdy tenements, its unfrequented churches, and its overflowing bars. Mason Avenue, familiarly known as "La Via de Putas" to the Puerto Ricans, "Whore Street" to the cops, was south of Culver and then came Grover Avenue and the park. The precinct stretch, like a dubious immy-span in muddy water, was a short one from north to south. Actually, it extended into Grover Park but only on a basis of professional courtesy; the park territory was officially under the joint command of the neighboring 88th and 89th. The stretch from east to west, however, was a longer one consisting of thirty-five tightly packed side streets. Even so, the entire territory of the precinct did not cover very much ground. It seemed even smaller when considering the vast number of people who lived there.

The immigration pattern of America, and, as a consequence, the integration pattern were clearly evident in the streets of the 87th. The population was composed almost entirely of third-generation Irish, Italians, and Jews, and first-generation Puerto Ricans. The immigrant groups did not make the slum. Conversely, it was the slum with its ghetto atmosphere of acceptance that attracted the immigrant groups. The rents, contrary to popular belief, were not low. They were as high as many to be found anywhere else in the city and, considering the services rendered for the money, they were exorbitant. Nonetheless, even a slum can become home. Once settled into it, the inhabitants of the 87th put up pictures on chipped plaster walls, threw down scatter rugs on splintered wooden floors. They learned good American tenement occupations like banging on the radiators for heat, stamping on the cockroaches that skittered across the kitchen floor whenever a light was turned on, setting traps for the mice and rats that paraded through the apartment like the Wehrmacht through Poland, adjusting the unbending steel bar of a police lock against the entrance door to the flat.

It was the job of the policemen of the 87th to keep the inhabitants from engaging in another popular form of slum activity: the pursuit of a life of criminal adventure.

Virginia Dodge wanted to know how many men were doing this job.

"We've got sixteen detectives on the squad," Byrnes told her.

"Where are they now?"

"Three are right here."

"And the rest?"

"Some are off duty, some are answering squeals, and some are on plants."

"Which?"

"You want a complete rundown, for Christ's sake?"

"Yes."

"Look, Virginia…" The pistol moved a fraction of an inch deeper into the purse. "Okay. Cotton, get the duty chart."

Hawes looked at the woman. "Is it okay to move?" he asked.

"Go ahead. Don't open any desk drawers. Where's your gun, Lieutenant?"

"I don't carry one."

"You're lying to me. Where is it? In your office?"

Byrnes hesitated.

"Goddamnit," Virginia shouted, "let's get something straight here! I'm dead serious, and the next person who lies to me, or who doesn't do what I tell him to do when I—"

"All right, all right, take it easy," Byrnes said. "It's in my desk drawer." He turned and started for his office.

"Just a minute," Virginia said. "We'll all go with you." She picked up her bag gingerly and then swung her gun at the other men in the room. "Move," she said. "Follow the lieutenant."

Like a small herd of cattle, the men followed Byrnes into the office. Virginia crowded into the small room after them. Byrnes walked to his desk.

"Take it out of the drawer and put it on the desk," Virginia said. "Grab it by the muzzle. If your finger comes anywhere near the trigger, the nitro…"

"All right, all right," Byrnes said impatiently.

He hefted the revolver by its barrel and placed it on the desk top. Virginia quickly picked up the gun and put it into the left-hand pocket of her coat.

"Outside now," she said.

Again they filed into the squadroom. Virginia sat at the desk she had taken as her command post. She placed the purse on the desk before her, and then leveled the .38 at it. "Get me the duty chart," she said.

"Get it, Cotton," Byrnes said.

Hawes went for the chart. It hung on the wall near one of the rear windows, a simple black rectangle into which white celluloid letters were inserted. It was a detective's responsibility to replace the name of the cop he'd relieved with his own whenever his tour of duty started. Unlike patrolmen, who worked five eight-hour shifts and then swung for the next fifty-six hours, the detectives chose their own duty teams. Since there were sixteen of them attached to the squad, their teams automatically broke down into groups of five, five, and five — with a loose man kicking around from shift to shift. On this bright everyday afternoon in October, six detectives were listed on the duty chart. Three of them — Hawes, Kling, and Meyer — were in the squadroom.

"Where are the other three?" Virginia asked.

"Carella took his wife to the doctor," Byrnes said.

"How sweet," Virginia said bitterly.

"And then he's got a suicide he's working on."

"When will he be back?"

"I don't know."

"You must have some idea."

"I have no idea. He'll be back when he's ready to come back."

"What about the other two men?"

"Brown's on a plant. The back of a tailor shop."

"A what?"

"A plant. A stakeout, call it what you want to. He's sitting there waiting for the place to be held up."

"Don't kid me, Lieutenant.'

"I'm not kidding, damnit. Four tailor shops in the neighborhood have been held up during the daylight hours. We expect this one to get hit soon. Brown's waiting for the thief to show."

"When will he come back to the squadroom?"

"A little after dark, I imagine. Unless the thief hits. What time is it now?" Byrnes looked up at the clock on the wall. "Four thirty-eight. I imagine he'll be back by six or so."

"And the last one? Willis?"

Byrnes shrugged. "He was here a half-hour ago. Who's catching?"

"I am," Meyer said.

"Well, where'd Willis go?"

"He's out on a squeal, Pete. A knifing on Mason."

"That's where he is then," Byrnes said to Virginia.

"And when will he be back?"

"I don't know."

"Soon?"

"I imagine so."

"Who else is in the building?"

"The desk sergeant and the desk lieutenant. You passed them on your way in."

"Yes?"

"Captain Frick, who commands the entire precinct in a sense."

"What do you mean?"

"I control the squad, but officially…"

"Where's he?"

"His office is downstairs."

"Who else?"

"There are a hundred and eighty-six patrolmen attached to this precinct," Byrnes said. "A third of them are on duty now. Some of them are roaming around the building. The rest are out on their beats."

"What are they doing in the building?"

"Twenty-fours mostly." Byrnes paused and then translated. "Duty as records clerks."

"When does the shift change again?"

"At a quarter to midnight."

"Then they won't be back until then? The ones on beats?"

"Most of them'll be relieved on post. But they usually come back to change into their street clothes before going home."

"Will any detectives be coming up here? Besides the ones listed on the duty chart?"

"Possibly."

"We're not supposed to be relieved until midnight Pete," Meyer said.

"But Carella will be back long before then, won't he?" Virginia asked.

"Probably."

"Yes or no?"

"I can't say for sure. I'm playing this straight with you, Virginia. Carella may get a lead that'll keep him out of the office. I don't know."

"Will he call in?"

"Maybe."

"If he does, tell him to come right back here. Do you understand?"

"Yes. I understand."

The telephone rang. It cut the conversation and then shrilled persistently into the silence of the squadroom.

"Answer it," Virginia said. "No funny stuff."

Meyer picked up the receiver. "Eighty-seventh Squad," he said, "Detective Meyer speaking." He paused. "Yes, Dave. Go ahead, I'm listening." He was aware all at once of the fact that Virginia Dodge was hearing only one-half of the telephone conversation with the desk sergeant. Casually, patiently, he listened.

"Meyer, we got a call a little while back from some guy who heard shots and a scream from the apartment next door to his. I sent a car over, and they just reported back. A dame got shot in the arm, and her boyfriend claims the gun went ott accidentally while he was cleaning it. You want to send one ot the boys over?"

"Sure, what's the address?" Meyer said, patiently watching Virginia.

"2379 Culver. That's next door to the Easv Bar. You know it?"

"I know it. Thanks, Dave."

"Okay." Meyer put up the phone. "That was a ladv calling," Meyer said. "Dave thought we ought to take it."

"Who's Dave?" Virginia asked.

"Murchison. The desk sergeant," Byrnes said. "What is it, Meyer?"

"This lady says somebody's trying to break into her apartment. She wants us to send a detective over right away."

Byrnes and Meyer exchanged a long, knowing glance. Such a call would have been handled by the desk sergeant directly, and he would not have annoyed the Detective Division with it. He'd have dispatched a radio motor patrol car immediately.

"Either that or he wants you to contact the captain and see what he can do about it." Meyer said.

"All right, I'll do that," Byrnes said. "Is that all right with you, Virginia?"

"No one's leaving this room," Virginia said. I know that. Which is why I'm passing the call on to Captain Frick. Is that all right?"

"Go ahead," she said. "No tricks."

"The address is 2379 Culver.'' Meyer said.

"Thanks." Byrnes dialed three numbers and waited. Captain Frick picked up the phone on the second ring.

"Yop?" he said.

"John, this is Pete."

"Oh. hello, Pete. How goes it?"

"So-so. John, I've got a special favor I'd like you to do."

"What's that?" Frick asked.

"Some woman at 2379 Culver is complaining that someone's trying to get into her apartment. I can't spare a man right now. Could you get a patrolman over there?"

"What?" Frick said.

"I know it's an unusual request. We'd ordinarily handle it ourselves, but we're kind of busv."

"What?" Frick said again.

"Can you do it, John?" Standing with the receiver to his ear, Byrnes watched the shrewdly calculating eyes of Virginia Dodge. Come on, John, he thought. Wake up, for Christ's sake!

"You'd ordinarily handle it?" Frick asked. "Boy, that's a laugh. I've got to kill myself to get you to take a legitimate squeal. Why bother me with this, Pete? Why don't you just give it to the desk sergeant?" Frick paused. "How the hell'd you get a hold of it anyway? Who's on the desk?"

"Will you take care of it, John?"

"Are you kidding me, Pete? What is this?" Frick began laughing. "Your joke for today, huh? Okay, I bit. How's everything upstairs?"

Byrnes hesitated for a moment, phrasing his next words carefully. Then, watching Virginia, he said, "Not so hot."

"What's the matter? Headaches?"

"Plenty. Why don't you go up and see for yourself?"

"Up? Up where?"

Come on, Byrnes thought. Think! For just one lousy minute of your life, think!

"It's part of your job, isn't it?" Byrnes said.

"What's part of my job? Hey, what's the matter with you, Pete? You flipped or something?"

"Well, I think you ought to find out," Byrnes said.

"Find out what? Holy Jesus, you have flipped."

"I'll be expecting you to do that then," Byrnes said, aware of a frown starting on Virginia's forehead.

"Do what?"

"Go up there to check on it. Thanks a lot, John."

"You know, I don't understand a damn thing you're—" and Byrnes hung up.

"All settled?" Virginia asked.

"Yes."

She stared at Byrnes thoughtfully. "There are extensions on all these phones, aren't there?" she said.

"Yes," Byrnes said.

"Fine. I'll be listening to any other call that goes in or out of this place."

The problem, Byrnes thought, is that we cannot communicate with each other. This, surely, has been the problem of the human race since the beginning of time, but it's especially aggravated right here and right now. I'm in my own squad-room with three capable detectives, and we can't sit down together to discuss the ways and means of getting that gun and that nitro — if the nitro exists — away from the menacing little bitch. Four intelligent men with a nut cruncher of a problem, and we have no way of talking it out. Not with her sitting there. Not with that .38 in her fist.

And so, lacking communication, I also lack command. In effect, Virginia Dodge now commands the 87th Squad.

She'll continue to command it until one of two things happens:

a) We disarm her.

b) Steve Carella arrives and she shoots him.

There is, of course, a third possibility. There is the possibility that sne'll get rattled and put a bullet into that purse with its alleged jar of nitro, and there we go. No more waiting (or next week's chapter. It'll be over in a mighty big way. They will probably hear the blast away the hell over in the 88th. The blast might even knock the commissioner out of bed. Assuming, of course, that there really is a jar of nitro in that bag. Unfortunately, we cannot proceed as if there isn't. We have to assume, along with Virginia Dodge, that the jar of nitro is as real as the .38. In which case, another interesting possibility presents itself. We can't fool around here. We can't go playing grab-ass because nitroglycerin is very potent stuff which can explode at the slightest provocation. Where the hell did she get a jar of nitro? From her safecracker husband's hope chest?

But even safecrackers — except in Scandinavia — don't use it any more. It's too damn unpredictable. I've known safecrackers who, when using nitro, carried it in a hot-water bottle.

So there she sits with a jar full of the stuff in her purse.

I wonder if she rode the subway with it in her purse? Byrnes thought, and he smiled grimly.

Okay, the nitro is real. We play it as if it's real. It's the only way we can play it. And this means no sudden moves, no grabs for the purse.

So what do we do?

Wait for Carella? And what time will he be back? What time is it now?

He looked up at the wall clock — 5:07.

Still broad daylight outside — well, maybe a hint of dusk — but still a golden afternoon, really. Does anyone out there know we're playing footsie with a bottle of soup?

No one, Byrnes thought. Not even meatheaded Captain Frick. How do you set a fire under that man, how do you get the wall of bricks to fall on his head?

How the hell do we get out of this mess?

I wonder if she smokes, Byrnes thought.

If she smokes… Now wait a minute… now, let's work this out sensibly. Let's say she smokes. Okay. Okay, we've got that much. Now… if we can get her to put the purse on the desk, get it off her lap. That shouldn't be too hard… Where's the purse now?… Still in her lap… Virginia Dodge's goddamn lap dog, a bottle of nitro… Okay, let's say I can get her to put the purse on the desk, out of the way… Then let's say I offer her a cigarette and then start to light it for her.

If I drop the lighted match in her lap, she'll jump a mile.

And when she jumps, I'll hit her.

I'm not worried about that .38 — well, I'm worried, who the hell wants to get shot — but I'm not really worried about it so long as that soup is out of the way. I don't want to have a scuffle anywhere near that explosive. I've faced guns before, but nitro is another thing and I don't want them blotting me off the wall.

I wonder if she smokes.

"How have you been, Virginia?" he asked.

"You can cut it right now, Lieutenant."

"Cut what?"

"The sweet talk. I didn't come here to listen to any of your crap. I heard enough of that last time I was here."

"That was a long time ago, Virginia."

"Five years, three months, and seventeen days. That's how long it was."

"We don't make the laws, Virginia," Byrnes said gently. "We only enforce them. And when a person breaks…"

"I don't want a lecture. My husband is dead. Steve Carella sent him up. That's good enough for me."

"Steve only arrested him. A jury tried him, and a judge sentenced him."

"But Carella…"

"Virginia, you're forgetting something, aren't you?"

"What?"

"Your husband blinded a man."

"That was an accident."

"Your husband fired a gun at a man during a holdup and deprived that man of his eyesight. And he didn't fire the gun by accident."

"He fired because the man began yelling cop. What would you have done?"

"I wouldn't have been holding up a gas station to begin with."

"No, huh? Big simon-pure Lieutenant Byrnes. I heard all about your junkie son, Lieutenant. The big-shot cop with the drug-addict son."

"That was a long time ago, too, Virginia. My son is all right now."

He could never think back to that time in his life without some pain. Oh, not as much as in the beginning, no, there would never again be that much pain (or him, the pain of discovering that his only son was a tried-and-true drug addict, hooked through the bag and back again. A drug addict possibly involved in a homicide. Those had been days of black pain for Peter Byrnes, days when he had withheld information from the men of his own squad, until finally he had told everything to Steve Carella. Carella had almost lost his life working on that case. It had been touch and go after he'd been shot, and no man ever had prayed the way Byrnes did for any other man's recovery. But it was all over now, except for the slight twinge of pain whenever he thought of it. The habit had been kicked, the household was in order. And now, Steve Carella, a man Byrnes considered as almost another son, had a rendezvous with a woman in black. And the woman in black spelled death.

"I'm glad your son is all right now," Virginia said sarcastically. "My husband isn't. My husband is dead. And the way I read it, Carella killed him. Now let's cut the crap, shall we?"

"I'd rather talk awhile."

"Then talk to yourself. I'm not interested." Byrnes sat on the corner of the desk. Virginia shifted the purse in her lap, the revolver pointing into the opening. "Don't come any closer, Lieutenant. I'm warning you."

"What are your plans, exactly, Virginia?"

"I've already told you. When Carella gets here, I'm going to kill him. And then I'm going to leave. And if anyone tries to stop me, I drop the bag with the nitro."

"Suppose I try to get that gun away from you right this minute?"

"I wouldn't if I were you."

"Suppose I tried?"

"I'm banking on something, Lieutenant."

"What's that?"

"The fact that no man is really a hero. Whose life is more important to you — yours or Carella's? You make a try for the gun, and there's a chance the nitro will go off in your face. Your face, not his. All right, you'll have saved Carella. But you'll have destroyed yourself."

"Carella may mean a lot to me, Virginia. I might be willing to die for him."

"Yeah? And how much does he mean to the other men in this room? Would they be willing to die for him, too? Or for the crumby salary they're getting from the city? Why don't you take a vote, Lieutenant, and find out how many of your men are ready to lay down their lives right now? Go ahead. Take a vote."

He did not want to take a vote. He was not that familiar with courage or heroics. He knew that each of the men in the room had acted heroically and courageously on many an occasion. But bravery in action was a thing dictated by the demands of the moment. Faced with certain death, would these men be willing to take an impossible gamble? He was not sure. But he felt fairly certain that given the choice "Your life or Carella's?" they would most probably choose to let Carella die. Selfish? Perhaps. Inhuman? Perhaps. But life was not something you could walk into a dime store to buy again if you happened to use one up or wear it out. Life was a thing you clung to and cherished. And even knowing Carella as he did, even (and the word was hard coming for a man like Byrnes) loving Carella, he dared not ask himself the question "Your life or Carella's?" He was too afraid of the answer he might give.

"How old are you, Virginia?"

"What difference does it make?"

"I'd like to know."

"Thirty-two."

Byrnes nodded.

"I look older, don't I?"

"A little."

"A lot. You can thank Carella for that, too. Have you ever seen Castleview Prison, Lieutenant? Have you ever seen the place Carella sent my Frank to? It's for animals, not men. And I had to live alone, waiting, knowing what Frank was going through. How long do you think youth lasts? How long do you think good looks hang around when you've got sorrow and worry inside you like a… like a thing that's eating your guts?"

"Castleview isn't the best prison in the world, but…"

"It's a torture chamber!" Virginia shouted. "Have you ever been inside it? It's dirty, filthy. And hot, and cramped, and rusting. It smells, Lieutenant. You can smell it for blocks before you approach it. And they crowd men into that hot, filthy stench. Did my Frank cause trouble? Yes, of course he did. Frank was a man, not an animal — and he refused to be treated like an animal, and so they labeled him a troublemaker."

"Well, you can't…"

"Do you know you're not allowed to talk to anyone during work hours at Castleview? Do you know they Still have buckets in each cell — buckets — no toilet facilities! Do you know what the stink is like in those sufferingly hot cubicles? And my Frank was sick! Did Carella think about that, when he became a hero by arresting him?"

"He wasn't thinking of becoming a hero. He was doing his job. Can't you understand that, Virginia? Carella is a cop. He was only doing his job."

"And I'm doing mine," Virginia said flatly.

"How? Do you know what you're carrying in Your goddamn purse? Do you realize that it might go up in your face when vou fire that gun? Nitroglycerin isn't toothpaste!"

"I don't care."

"Thirty-two years old, and you're ready to kill a man and maybe take your own life in the bargain."

"I don't care."

"Talk sense, Virginia!"

"I don't have to talk sense with you or anyone. I don't have to talk at all." Virginia moved violently, and the purse jiggled in her lap. "I'm doing you a goddamn favor by talking to you."

"All right, relax," Byrnes said, nervously eying the purse. "Just relax, willya? Why don't you put that purse on the desk, huh?"

"What for?"

"You're bouncing around like a rubber ball. If you don't care about it going off, I do."

Virginia smiled. Gingerly, she lifted the purse from her lap, and gingerly she placed it on the desk top before her, swinging the .38 around at the same time, as if .38 and nitroglycerin were newly weds who couldn't bear to be parted for a moment.

"That's better," Byrnes said, and he sighed in relief. "Relax. Don't get upset." He paused. "Why don't we have a smoke?"

"I don't want one," Virginia said.

Byrnes took a package of cigarettes from his pocket. Casually, he moved to her side of the desk, conscious of the .38 against the fabric of the purse. He gauged the distance between himself and Virginia, gauged how close he would be to her when he lighted her cigarette, with which hand he should slug her so that she would not go flying over against the purse. Would her instant reaction to the dropped match be a tightening of her trigger finger? He did not think so. She would pull back. And then he would hit her.

He shook the cigarette loose. "Here," he said. "Have one."

"No."

"Don't you smoke?"

"I smoke. I don't feel like one now."

"Come on. Nothing like a cigarette for relaxation. Here."

He thrust the package toward her.

"Oh, all right," she said. She shifted the .38 to her left hand. The muzzle of the gun was an inch from the bag. With her right hand, she took the cigarette Byrnes offered. Standing at her right, he figured he would extend the match with his left hand, let it fall into her lap, and then clip her with a roundhouse right when she pulled back in fright. Oddly, his heart was pounding furiously.

Suppose the gun went off when she pulled back?

He reached into his pocket for the matches. His hand was trembling. The cigarette dangled from Virginia's lips. Her left hand, holding the gun against the purse, was steady.

Byrnes struck the match.

And the telephone rang.

Virginia whipped the cigarette from her mouth and dropped it into the ashtray on her desk. She switched the gun back to her right hand and then whirled on Bert Kling, who was moving to answer the telephone.

"Hold it, sonny!" she snapped. "What line is that?"

"Extension 31," Kling answered.

"Get away from this desk, Lieutenant," Virginia said. She gestured at him with the gun, and Byrnes backed away. Then, with her free hand, she pulled the telephone to her, studied its face for a moment, and then pushed a button in its base. "All right, answer it," she said, and she lifted her receiver the moment Kling did.

"Eighty-seventh Squad, Detective Kling."

He was very conscious of Virginia Dodge sitting at the next desk, the extension phone to her ear, the snout of the .38 pointed at the center of the big black purse.

"Detective Kling? This is Marcie Snyder."

"Who?"

"Marcie." The voice paused. "Snyder." Intimately, it whispered, "Marcie Snyder. Don't you remember me, Detective Kling?"

"Oh, yes. How are you, Miss Snyder?"

"I'm just fine, thanks. And how's the big blond cop?"

"I'm… uh… fine. Thanks."

He looked across at Virginia Dodge. Her lips were pressed into a bloodless smile. She seemed sexless, genderless, sitting opposite him with the lethal .38 pointed at the black hulk of the bag. And, in contrast to the thin shadow of death she presented, Marcie Snyder began to ooze life in bucketfuls. Marcie Snyder began to gyrate with her voice, undulate with her whispers so that Kling could visualize the big redhead lying on a chaise lounge in a gossamer negligee, cuddling up to the ivory telephone in her hand.

"It's nice talking to you again," she said. "You were in such a hurry last time you were here."

"I had a date with my fiancée," Kling said flatly.

"Yes. I know. You told me. Repeatedly." She paused. Her voice dropped slightly. "You seemed nervous. What were you nervous about, Detective Kling?"

"Get rid of her," Virginia Dodge whispered.

"What?" Marcie said.

"I didn't say anything," Kling answered.

"I was sure I heard…"

"No, I didn't say anything. I'm rather busy, Miss Snyder. How can I help you?"

Marcie Snyder laughed the dirtiest laugh Bert Kling had ever heard in his life. For a moment, he felt as if he were sixteen years old and entering a whorehouse on La Via de Putas. He almost blushed.

"Come on," he said harshly. "What is it?"

"Nothing. We've recovered the jewels."

"Oh, yeah? How?"

"It turns out they weren't burglarized at all. My sister took them with her when she went to Las Vegas."

"Are you withdrawing the complaint then, Miss Snyder?"

"Why, yes. If there was no burglary, what have I got to complain about?"

"Nothing. I'm glad you located the jewels. If you'll drop us a letter to that effect, stating that your sister—"

"Why don't you come by and pick it up, Detective Kling?"

"I'd do that, Miss Snyder," Kling said, "but there's an awful lot of crime going on in this city, and I'm just about damn near indispensable. Thanks for calling. We'll be waiting for your letter."

He hung up abruptly, and then turned away from the phone.

"You're a regular lover boy, aren't you?" Virginia Dodge said, putting her receiver down.

"Yeah, sure. A regular lover boy," Kling answered.

He walked over to the desk where she sat. The black purse made him nervous. Suppose someone fell against it? Jesus, you had to be absolutely nuts to go around carrying a bottle of nitroglycerin.

"About that girl," he said.

"Yes?"

"Don't get the wrong idea."

"Why, what idea would that be?" Virginia Dodge said.

"Well, I mean… I was investigating a burglary, that's all."

"Why, what else would you be investigating, honey lamb?" Virginia asked.

"Nothing. Oh, forget it. I don't know why I'm bothering explaining it to you anyway."

"What's the matter with me?" Virginia said.

"Well, I wouldn't say you were exactly a stable person, would you? No offense meant, Mrs. Dodge, but the run-of-the-mill citizen doesn't run around waving a gun and a bottle of soup."

"Don't they?" Virginia was smiling now, enjoying herself immensely.

"Well, it's a slightly crazy stunt. I mean, even you have to admit that. I can see the gun, okay. You want to kill Steve, that's your business. Listen, am I going to fight City Hall? But the nitro's a little dramatic, don't you think? How'd you manage to get it over here without blowing up half the city?"

"I managed," Virginia said. "I walked gently. I didn't sway my hips."

"Yeah, well, that's a good way to walk, I guess. Especially when you've got a high explosive in your bag, huh?" Kling smiled disarmingly. The clock on the wall read 5:33. It was beginning to get dark outside. Dusk spread across the sky, washing a deeper blue behind the color-riot trees in the park. You could hear the kids shouting for a last inning of stickball before real darkness descended. You could hear mothers shouting from windows. You could hear men greeting each other as they entered bars for their before-dinner beers. You could hear all the sounds of life outside the grilled windows and you could hear, too — a sound as real as any of the others — the silence inside the squadroom.

"I like this time of day," Kling said.

"Do you?"

"Yes. Always did. Even when I was a kid. Something nice about it. Quiet." He paused. "Are you really going to shoot Steve?"

"Yes," Virginia said.

"I wouldn't," Kling said.

"Why not?"

"Well…"

"Is it all right to turn on some lights in here, Virginia?" Byrnes asked.

"Yes. Go ahead."

"Cotton, snap on the overheads. And can my men get back to work?"

"What kind of work?" Virginia asked.

"Answering complaints, typing up reports, making calls to…"

"Nobody makes any calls. And nobody picks up a phone unless I'm on the extension."

"All right. Can they type? Or will that disturb you?"

"They can type. At separate desks."

"All right, men," Byrnes said, "then let's do it. And listen to everything she tells you, and let's not have any heroics. I'm playing ball with you, Virginia, because I'm hoping you'll see reason before it's too late."

"Don't hold your breath," Virginia said.

"He's right, you know," Kling said softly, boyishly.

"Is he?"

"Sure. You're not doing yourself anv good, Mrs. Dodge."

"No?"

"No. Your husband's dead. You're not going to help him by killing a lot of innocent people. And yourself, too, if that soup should go off."

"I loved my husband," Virginia said tightly.

"Sure. I mean, Jesus, I should hope so. But what's the good of ii? I mean, what are you accomplishing?"

"I'll be getting the man who killed him."

"Steve? Come on, Mrs. Dodge. You know he didn't kill your husband."

"I know nothing of the sort!"

"Okay, let's say he did kill him. I know that's not true, and you know it too — but we'll say it if it makes you happy, okay? So what do you accomplish by revenge?" Kling shrugged boyishly. "Nothing. I'll tell you something, Mrs. Dodge."

"I don't want to hear any more," Virginia snapped.

"You think Frank would want you to do this? Get in all this trouble over him?"

"Yes! Frank wanted Carella dead. He said so. He hated Carella!"

"And you? Do you hate Carella, too? Do you even know him?"

"I don't care about him. I loved my husband. That's enough for me."

"But your husband was breaking the law when he got arrested. He shot a man! Now you couldn't expect Steve to give him a medal, could you? Now come on, Mrs. Dodge, be sensible."

"I loved my husband," Virginia said flatly.

"Mrs. Dodge, I'll tell you something else. You've got to make up your mind. Either you're a woman who really knows what love is all about, or else you're a cold-blooded bitch who's ready to blow this dump to hell and gone. You can't play both sides of the fence. Now which one is it?"

"I'm a woman. I'm here because I'm a woman."

"Then act like one. Put the gun up, and get the hell out of here before you get more trouble than you've had in all your life."

"No. No."

"Come on, Mrs. Dodge…"

Virginia stiffened in her chair. "All right, sonny," she said, "you can knock it off now."

"Wha…?" Kling started.

"The big blue-eyed baby routine. You can just cut it. It didn't work."

"I wasn't trying to…"

"Enough," she said, "damnit, that's enough! Go find somebody else's tit to suck!"

"Mrs. Dodge, I…"

"Are you finished?"

The squadroom went silent. The clock on the squadroom wall, white-faced and leering, threw minutes onto the floor where they lay like the ghosts of dead policemen. It was dark outside the grilled windows now. The windows, halfway open to let in the October mildness, also let in the night sounds of early traffic. A typewriter started. Kling glanced toward the desk near one of the windows where Meyer had inserted a blue D.D. report together with two sheets of carbon and two duplicate report sheets into the machine. The hanging globe of light over Meyer cast a dull sheen onto his bald head as he hunched over the typewriter, pecking at the keys. Cotton Hawes walked to the filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer. The drawer squeaked on its rollers. He opened a folder and began leafing through it. Then he went to sit at the desk near the other window. The water cooler suddenly belched into the silence.

"I'm sorry I bothered you," Kling said to Virginia. "I should have known a person can't talk to a corpse.''

There was a sudden commotion in the corridor outside. Virginia tensed where she sat at the desk. For an instant, Kling thought her finger would involuntarily tighten around the trigger of the .38.

"All right, inside, inside," a man's voice said, and Kling recognized it instantly as belonging to Hal Willis. He looked past the desk and into the corridor as Willis and his prisoner came into view.

The prisoner, to be more accurate, burst into view. Like the aurora borealis. She was a tall Puerto Rican girl with bleached blond hair. She wore a purple topcoat open over a red peasant blouse which swooped low over a threatening display of bosom. Her waist was narrow, the straight black skirt swelling out tightly over sinuously padded hips. She wore high-heeled pumps, red, with black ankle straps. A gold tooth flashed in the corner of an otherwise dazzlingly white set of teeth. And, in contrast to her holiday garb, she wore no makeup on her face, which was a perfect oval set with rich brown eyes and a full mouth and a clean sweeping aristocratic nose. She was possibly one of the prettiest, if flashiest, prisoners ever to be dragged into the squadroom.

And dragged she was. Holding one wristlet of a pair of handcuffs in his right hand, Willis pulled the girl to the slatted-rail divider while she struggled to retrieve her manacled wrist, cursing in Spanish every inch of the way.

"Come on, cara mia," Willis said. "Come on, tsotzkuluh. You'd think somebody was trying to hurt you, for Christ's sake. Come on, Liebchen. Right through this gate. Hi, Bert! something, huh? Hello, Pete, you like my prisoner? She just ripped open a guy's throat with a razor bl—"

Willis stopped talking.

There was a strange silence in the squadroom.

He looked first at the lieutenant, and then at Kling, and then his eyes flicked to the two rear desks where Hawes and Meyer were silently working. And then he saw Virginia Dodge and the .38 in her hand pointed into the mouth of the black purse.

His first instinct was to drop the wristlet he was holding and draw his gun. The instinct was squelched when Virginia said, "Get in here. Don't reach for your gun!"

Willis and the girl came into the squadroom.

"Bruta!" the girl screamed. "Pendega! Hijo de la gran puta!"

"Oh, shut the hell up," Willis said wearily.

"Pinga!" she screamed. "Dirtee ro'n cop bastard!"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Willis pleaded.

He was, as he surveyed the gun in Virginia Dodge's hand, already figuring on how he could disarm her.

"What's up?" he asked the assembly at large.

"The lady with the gun has a bottle of nitro in her purse," Byrnes said. "She's ready to use it."

"Well, well," Willis said. "Never a dull moment, huh?" He paused and looked at Virginia. "Okay to take off my coat and hat, lady?"

"Put your gun on the desk here first."

"Thorough, huh?" Willis said. "Lady, you give me the chills. You really got a bottle of soup in that bag?"

"I've really got it."

"I'm from Missouri," Willis said, and he took a step closer to the desk.

For an instant, Kling thought the jig was up. He saw only Virginia Dodge's sudden thrust into the bag, and he tensed himself for the explosion he was certain would follow. And then her free hand emerged from the purse, and there was a bottle of colorless fluid in that hand. She put it down on the desk top gently, and Willis eyed it and said, "That could be tap water, lady."

"Would you like to find out whether it is or not?" Virginia said.

"Me? Now, lady, do I look like a hero?"

He walked closer to the desk. Virginia put her purse on the floor. The bottle, pint-sized, gleamed under the glow of the hanging light globes.

"Okay," Willis said, "first we check the gat." He pulled gun and holster off his belt and placed them very carefully on the desk top, his eyes never leaving the pint bottle of fluid. "This plays a little like Dodge City, doesn't it?" he said. "What's the soup for, lady? If I'd known you were having a blowout, I'd have dressed." He tried a laugh that died the moment he saw Virginia's face. "Excuse me," he said. "I didn't know the undertakers were holding a convention. What do I do with my prisoner, Pete?"

"Ask Virginia."

"Virginia, huh?" Willis burst out laughing. "Oh, brother, arc we getting them today. You know what this one's name is? Angelica! Virginia and Angelica. The Virgin and the Angel!" He burst out laughing again. "Well, how about it, Virginia? What do I do with my angel here?"

"Bring her in. Tell her to sit down."

"Come in, Angelica," Willis said, "have a chair. Angelica! Oh, Jesus, that breaks me up. She just slit a guy from ear to ear. A regular little angel. Sit down, angel. That bottle on the desk there is nitroglycerin."

"What you minn?" Angelica asked.

"The bottle. Nitro."

"Nitro? You mean like in a bom'?"

"You said it, doll," Willis answered.

"A bom'?" Angelica said. "Madre de los santos!"

"Yeah," Willis said, and there was something close to awe in his voice.

From where Meyer Meyer sat near the window typing his D.D. report, he could see Willis lead the Puerto Rican girl deeper into the squadroom to offer her one of the straight-backed chairs. He watched as Willis unlocked the handcuffs and then draped both wristlets over his belt. The skipper walked over and exchanged a few words with Willis and then, hands on hips, turned to face the girl. Apparently Virginia Dodge was going to allow them to question the prisoner. How kind of Virginia Dodge!

Patiently, Meyer Meyer turned back to his typing.

He was reasonably certain that Virginia would not walk over to his desk to examine his masterpiece of English composition. He was also reasonably certain that he could do what he had to do unobserved especially now that the Puerto Rican bombshell had exploded into the room. Virginia Dodge seemed completely absorbed with the girl's movements, with the girl's string of colorful epithets. He was sure, then, that he could carry out the first part of his plan without detection.

"What's your name?" Byrnes asked the girl.

"What?" she said.

"Your name! Cuál es su nombre?"

"Angelica Gomez."

"She speaks English," Willis said.

"I don' speak Een-glés," the girl said.

"She's full of crap. The only thing she does in Spanish is curse. Come on, Angelica. You play ball with us, and we'll play ball with you."

"I don't know what means thees play ball."

"Oh, we've got a lalapalooza this time," Willis said. "Look, you little slut, cut the Marine Tiger bit, will you? We know you didn't just get off the boat." He turned to Byrnes. "She's been in the city for almost a year, Pete. Hooking mostly."

"I'm no hooker," the girl said.

"Yeah, she's no hooker," Willis said. "Excuse me. I forgot. She worked in the garment district for a month."

"I'm a seamstress, that's what I am. No hooker."

"Okay, you're not a hooker, okay? You lay for money, okay? That's different. That makes it all right, okay? Now, why'd you slit that guy's throat?"

"What guy you speaking abou'?"

"Was there more than one?" Byrnes asked.

"I don' sleet nobody's thro'."

"No? Then who did it?" Willis asked. "Santa Claus? What'd you do with the razor blade?" Again, he turned to Byrnes. "A patrolman broke it up, Pete. Couldn't find the blade, though, thinks she dumped it down the sewer. Is that what you did with it?"

"I don' have no erazor blay." Angelica paused. "I don' cut nobody."

"You've still got blood all over your hands, you little bitch! Who the hell are you trying to snow?"

"That's from d'hanncuffs," Angelica said.

"Oh, Jesus, this one is the absolute end," Willis said.

The trouble, Meyer Meyer thought, is that it's hard to get the right words. It mustn't sound too melodramatic or it'll be dismissed as either a joke or the work of a crank. It has to sound sincere, and yet it has to sound desperate. If it doesn't sound desperate nobody'll believe it, and we're right back where we started. But if it sounds too desperate, nobody'll believe it anyway. So I've got to be careful.

He looked across the room to where Virginia Dodge was watching the interrogation of the Puerto Rican girl.

I've also got to hurry, he thought. She may just take it in her mind to amble over here and see what I'm doing.

"You know whose throat you slit?" Willis asked.

"I don' know nothin'."

"Then I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. You ever hear of a street gang called the Arabian Knights?"

"No."

"It's one of the biggest gangs in the precinct," Willis said. "Teen-age kids mostly. Except the guy who's leader of the gang is twenty-five years old. In fact, he's married and he's got a baby daughter. They call him Kassim. You ever hear of anybody called Kassim?"

"No."

"In fiction, he's Ali Baba's brother. In real life, he's leader of this gang called the Arabian Knights. His real name is Jose Dorena. Does that ring a bell?"

"No."

"He's a very big man in the streets, Kassim is. He's really a punk — but not in the streets. There's a gang called the Latin Paraders and the shit has been on between them and the Knights for years. And do you know what price the Paraders have set for a truce?"

"No. What?"

"An Arabian Knights jacket as a trophy — and Kassim dead."

"So who cares?"

"You ought to care, baby. The guy whose throat you slit is Kassim. Jose Dorena."

Angelica blinked.

"Yeah," Willis said.

"Is this legit?" Byrnes asked.

"You said it, Pete. So you see, Angelica, if Kassim dies, the Latin Paraders'll erect a statue of you in the park. But the Arabian Knights won't like you one damn bit. They're a bunch of mean bastards, sweetie, and they're not even gonna like the fact that you cut him — whether it leads to his untimely demise or not."

"What?" Angelica said.

"Whether he croaks or not, you're on their list, baby."

"I di'n know who he wass," Angelica said.

"Then you did do the cutting?"

"Si. But I di'n know who he wass."

"Then why'd you cut him?"

"He wass bodderin' me."

"How?"

"He wass try to feel me up," Angelica said.

"Oh, come on!" Willis moaned.

He wass!

"Dig the virgin, Pete," Willis said. "Why'd you cut him, baby? And let's not have the hearts and flowers this trip."

"He wass grab my bosom," Angelica said. "On the steps. In fron' the stoop. So I cut him."

Willis sighed.

Virginia Dodge seemed to be tiring of the inquisition. Nervously, she sat at the desk commanding a view of both squadroom and corridor beyond, the .38 in her hand, the clear bottle of nitroglycerin resting on the desk before her.

I have to hurry, Meyer thought. Get it all down once and for all with no mistakes, and then start moving. Because if she comes over here and sees this, she is just liable to pull the trigger and blow off the back of my head, and Sarah will be sitting shivah for a week. They'll have to cover every mirror in the house and turn all the pictures to the wall. God, it'll be ghastly. So get it done. October ain't a time for dying.

"He grabbed your bosom, huh?" Willis said. "Which one? The right one or the left one?"

"Iss not funny," Angelica said. "For a man he feels you up in public, iss not funny."

"So you slashed him?"

"Si."

"'Cause he grabbed for your tit, right?"

"Si."

"What do you think, Pete?"

"Dignity doesn't choose its professions," Byrnes said. "I believe her."

"I think she's lying in her teeth," Willis said. "We check around, we'll probably find out she's been making it with Kassim for the past year. She probably saw him looking at another girl, and so she put the blade to him. That's more like it, isn't it, baby?"

"No. I don' know thees Kassim. He jus' come over an' get fresh. My body iss my body. An' I give it where I want. An' not to peegs with dirty hans."

"Hooray," Willis said. "They're really gonna put a statue of you in the park." He turned to Byrnes. "What do we make it, Pete? Felonious assault?"

"What condition is this Kassim in?"

"They carted him off to the hospital. Who knows? He was bleeding all over the goddamn sidewalk. You know what killed me, Pete? A bunch of young kids were standing around in a circle. You could see they didn't know whether to cry or laugh or just scream. They were kind of hopping up and down, do you know what I mean? Jesus, imagine growing up with this every day of your life? Can you imagine it?"

"Keep in touch with the hospital, Hal," Byrnes said. "Let's hold the booking until later. We can't do much with…" He gestured with his head to where Virginia Dodge sat.

"Yeah. All right, Angelica. Keep your legs crossed. Maybe Kassim won't die. Maybe he's got a charmed life."

"I hope the son a bitch rots in his gray," Angelica said.

"Nice girl," Willis said, and patted her shoulder.

Meyer pulled the report from the typewriter. He separated the carbon from the three blue sheets, and then he read the top sheet. He read it carefully because he was a patient man, and he wanted it to be right the first time. There might not be another chance after this one.

The window near the desk was open. The meshed grill outside the window — which protected the glass from the hurled brickbats of the 87th's inhabitants — would present only a small problem. Quickly, with one eye on Virginia Dodge, Meyer rolled the first report sheet into a long cylinder. Hastily, he thrust the cylinder through one of the diamond-shaped openings on the mesh and then shoved it out onto the air. He looked across the room.

Virginia Dodge was not watching him.

He rolled the second sheet and repeated the action.

He was shoving the third and final sheet through the opening when he heard Virginia Dodge shout, "Stop or I'll shoot!"

Meyer whirled from the open window.

He fully expected a bullet to come crashing into him, and then he realized Virginia Dodge was not looking at him, was not even facing in his direction. Hunched over, the .38 thrust out ahead of her, she had left the desk and the bottle of nitroglycerin and was standing a foot inside the slatted-rail divider.

On the other side of the divider was Alf Miscolo.

He stood undecided, his curly black hair matted to his forehead, his blue suspenders taut against his slumped shoulders, his shirt sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms. Total surprise was on his face. He had come out of the Clerical Office, where he'd been sweating over his records all afternoon. He had walked to the railing and shouted, "Hey, anybody ready for chow?" and then had seen the woman leap from the desk with the gun in her hand.

He had turned to run, and she'd yelled, "Stop, or I'll shoot!" and he'd stopped and turned to face her, but now he wondered whether or not he'd done the right thing. Miscolo was not a coward. He was a trained policeman who happened to be a desk jockey, but he'd learned to shoot at the academy and he wished now his gun was in his hand instead of in one of the filing cabinet drawers in the Clerical Office. The woman standing at the railing had the look of a crazy bitch on her face. Miscolo had seen that look before, and so he thought he'd been wise to stop when she yelled at him, and yet there were a lot of other men in that room and Jesus how long had she been here and was she going to shoot up the whole damn joint?

He stood in indecision for a moment longer.

He had a wife and a grown son who was in the Air Force. He did not want his wife to become a cop's widow, he did not want her making up beds in precincts, but, Jesus, that bitch had a crazy look on her face, suppose she shot everyone, suppose she went berserk?

He turned and started to run down the corridor.

Virginia Dodge took careful aim and fired.

She fired only once.

The bullet entered Miscolo's back just a little to the left of his spinal column. It spun him around in a complete circle and then slammed him up against the door to the men's room. He clung to the door for an instant and then slowly slid to the floor.

The bottle of nitroglycerin on the desk did not explode.

The stench of cordite hung on the air with the blue-gray aftersmoke of the explosion. Virginia Dodge, in clear silhouette against the gray of the smoke, seemed suddenly a very real and definite threat. She whirled from the railing just as Cotton Hawes broke from his desk in the corner.

"Get back!" she said.

"There's a hurt man out there," Hawes said, and he pushed through the gate.

"Come back here or you're next!" Virginia shouted.

"The hell with you!" Hawes said, and he ran to where Miscolo lay against the closed door.

The bullet had ripped through Miscolo's back with the clean precision of a needle passing through a piece of linen. Then, erupting at its point of exit, it had torn a hole the size of a baseball just below his collarbone. The front of his shirt was drenched with blood. Miscolo was unconscious, gasping for breath.

"Get him in here," Virginia said.

"He shouldn't be moved," Hawes answered. "For God's sake, he…"

"All right, hero," Virginia said tightly, "the nitro goes up!" She turned back toward the desk, swinging the gun so that it was dangerously close to the bottle of clear liquid.

"Bring him in, Cotton!" Byrnes said.

"If we move him, Pete, he's liable to…"

"Goddamnit, that's an order! Do as I say!"

Hawes turned toward Byrnes, his eyes narrowed. "Yes, sir," he said, and there was barely concealed vehemence in his voice. He reached down for a grip on the prostrate Miscolo. The man was heavy, heavier now with unconsciousness. He could feel Miscolo's bulk as he lifted him from the floor, his muscular arms straining against the man's weight. He braced himself and then shoved Miscolo higher into his arms with a supporting knee. He could feel Miscolo's hot blood rushing against his naked forearm. Staggering with his load, he carried Miscolo through the gate and into the squadroom.

"Put him back there," Virginia said. "On the floor. Out of sight." She turned to Byrnes. "If anybody comes up here, it was an accident, do you hear me? A gun went off accidentally. Nobody was hurt."

"We're going to have to get a doctor for him," Hawes said.

"We're going to have to get nothing for him," Virginia snapped.

"The man's been…"

"Put him down, redhead! Behind the filing cabinets. And fast."

Hawes carried Miscolo to a point beyond the filing cabinets where the area of squadroom was hidden from the corridor outside. Gently, he lowered Miscolo to the floor. He was rising when he heard footsteps in the hallway beyond. Virginia sat at the desk quietly, putting her purse up in front of the bottle of nitro as a shield, and then quickly moving the pistol directly behind the bottle so that it too was hidden by the bag.

"Remember, Lieutenant," she whispered, and Dave Murchison, the desk sergeant, came puffing down the hallway. Dave was in his fifties, a stout man who didn't like to climb steps and who visited the Detective Division upstairs only when it was absolutely necessary. He stopped just outside the railing, and then waited before speaking while he caught his breath.

"Hey, Lieutenant," he said, "what the hell was that? Sounded like a shot up here."

"Yes," Byrnes said hesitantly. "It was. A shot."

"Anything the…?"

"Just a gun went off. By accident," Byrnes said. "Nothing to worry about. Nobody… nobody hurt."

"Jesus, it scared the living bejabbers out of me," Murchison said. "You sure everything's okay?"

"Yes. Yes, everything's okay."

Murchison looked at his superior curiously, and then his eyes wandered into the squadron, pausing on Virginia Dodge, and then passing to where Angelica Gomez sat with her shapely legs crossed.

"Sure got a full house, huh, Loot?" he said.

"Yes. Yes, we're sort of crowded, Dave."

Murchison continued to look at Byrnes curiously. "Well," he said, shrugging, "long as everything's okay. I'll be seeing you, Pete."

He was turning to go when Byrnes said, "Forthwith."

"Huh?" Murchison said.

Byrnes was smiling thinly. He did not repeat the word.

"Well, I'll be seeing you," Murchison said, puzzled, and he walked off down the corridor. The squadroom was silent. They could hear Murchison's heavy tread on the metal steps leading to the floor below.

"Have we got any Sulfapaks?" Hawes asked from where he was crouched over Miscolo.

"The junk desk," Willis answered. "There should be one in there."

He moved quickly to the desk in the corner of the room, a desk that served as a catchall for the men of the squad, a desk piled high with Wanted circulars, and notices from Headquarters, and pamphlets put out by the department, and two empty holsters, and a spilled box of paper clips, and an empty Thermos bottle, a fingerprint roller, an unfinished game of Dots, the scattered tiles of a Scrabble setup and numerous other such unfilable materials. Willis opened one of the drawers, found a first-aid kit and hurried to Hawes, who had ripped open Miscolo's shirt.

"God," Willis said, "he's bleeding like a stuck pig."

"That bitch," Hawes said, and he hoped Virginia Dodge heard him. As gently as he knew how, he applied the Sulfapak to Miscolo's wound. "Can you get something for his head?" he asked.

"Here, take my jacket," Willis answered. He removed it, rolled it into a makeshift pillow, and then — almost tenderly — put it beneath Miscolo's head.

Byrnes walked over to the men. "What do you think?"

"It isn't good," Hawes said. "He needs a doctor."

"How can I get a doctor?"

"Talk to her."

"What good will that do?"

"For Christ's sake, you're in command here!"

"Am I?"

"Aren't you?"

"Virginia Dodge has pounded a wedge into my command, Cotton, and split it wide open. As long as she sits there with her wedge — that damn bottle of soup — I can't do a thing. Do you want me to kill everyone in this room? Is that what you want?"

"I want you to get a doctor for a man who's been shot," Hawes answered.

"No doctor!" Virginia called across the room. "Forget it. No doctor!"

"Does that answer you?" Byrnes wanted to know.

"It answers me," Hawes said.

"Don't be a hero, Cotton. There're more lives in this than your own."

"I'm not particularly dense, Pete," Hawes said. "But what guarantee do we have that she won't fling that bottle when Steve arrives anyway? And even if she doesn't, what gives us the goddamn right to sacrifice Steve Carella on our own petty selfish altars?"

"Would it be better to sacrifice every man in this room on Steve's altar?"

"Stop that talking over there," Virginia said. "Get on the other side of the room, Lieutenant! You, Shorty, over here! And you get in the corner, Redhead."

The men split up. Angelica Gomez watched them with an amused smile on her face. She rose then, her skirt sliding back over a ripe thigh as she did. Swiveling hip against hip socket, she walked over to where Virginia Dodge sat chastely with her gun and her bottle of nitroglycerin. Hawes watched them. He watched partially because he was mad as hell at the Skipper and he wanted to figure out a way of putting Virginia Dodge out of commission. But he watched, too, because the Puerto Rican girl was the most delicious-looking female he had seen in a dog's age.

In his own mind, he didn't know whether Angelica's buttocks interested him more than did the bottle of nitro on the desk. As he toyed with various plans for the bottle of nitro, he also toyed with various fantasies concerning the blonde's explosiveness, and as he fantasized he found that Angelica Gomez was more and more delightful to watch. The girl moved with contradictory economy and fluidity, slender ankle flowing into shapely calf and knee, hip grinding, flat simplicity of belly, firm rounded thrust of breast, sweeping curve of throat and jaw, aristocratic tilt of nose. She seemed absolutely at home within the specified confines of her body. It was a distinct pleasure to watch her. She was perhaps the most unselfconscious female he had ever met. At the same time, he reminded himself, she had slit a man's throat. A nice girl.

"Hey, ees that really a bom'?" Angelica asked Virginia.

"Sit down and don't bother me," Virginia answered.

"Don' be so touchy. I only ask a question."

"It's a bottle of nitroglycerin, yes," Virginia said.

"You gon' essplode it?"

"If I have any trouble, yes."

"Why?"

"Oh, shut up. Stop asking stupid questions."

"You got a gun, too, hah?"

"I've got two guns," Virginia said. "One in my hand, and another in my coat pocket. And a desk drawer full of them right here." She indicated the drawer to which she had earlier added Willis's gun.

"You minn business, I guess, hah?"

"I mean business."

"Hey, listen. Why you don' let me go, hah?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Why you don' let me walk out of here? You run the place, no? You hear the cop before, don' you? He say you put a wedge here, no? Okay. I walk out. Okay?"

"You stay put, sweetie," Virginia said.

"Por qué? What for?"

"Because if you walk out of here, you talk. And if you talk to the wrong person, all my careful planning is shot to hell."

"Who I'm gon' talk to, hah? I'm gon' talk to nobody. I'm gon' get the hell out the city. Go back Puerto Rico maybe. Take a plane. Hell, I slit a man's throat, you hear? All thees snotnose kids, they be after me now. I wake up dead one morning, no? So come on, Carmen, let me go."

"You stay," Virginia said.

"Carmen, don' be…"

"You stay!"

"Suppose I walk out, hah? Suppose I jus' do that?"

"You get what the cop got."

"Argh, you jus' mean," Angelica said, and she walked back to her chair and crossed her legs. She saw Hawes's eyes on her, smiled at him, and then immediately pulled her skirt lower.

Hawes was not really studying her legs. Hawes had just had an idea. The idea was a two-parter, and the first part of the idea — if the plan was to be at all successful — had to be executed in the vicinity where the Puerto Rican girl was sitting. The idea had as its core the functioning of two mechanical appliances, one of which Hawes was reasonably certain would work immediately, the other of which he thought might take quite some time to work if it worked at all. The idea seemed stunning in concept to Hawes and, fascinated with it, he had stared captured into space and the focus of his stare seemed to be Angelica's legs.

If the phone rings, Hawes thought, Virginia will pick it up. She's listening in on conversations now, and she sure as hell won't let one get by her, not with the possibility that it might be Steve calling. And if her attention is diverted by a phone call, that'd be all the time I'd need to do what I have to do, to get this thing rolling so that the big chance can be prepared for later on. Assuming she acts impulsively, the way people will when they're… well, we're assuming a lot. Still, it's a chance. So come on, telephone, ring!

His eyes were glued to the telephone. It seemed to him that during the course of the day, the telephone usually rang with malicious insistence every thirty seconds. Someone was always calling in to report a mugging or a beating or a knifing or a robbery or a burglary or any one of a thousand offenses committed daily in the 87th. So why didn't it ring now? Who had declared the holiday on crime? We can't stand a holiday right now — not with Steve waiting to walk into a booby trap, not with Miscolo bleeding from a hole the size of my head, not with that bitch sitting with her bottle of nitro and her neat little .38.

The sound startled Hawes. He almost turned automatically to reach for the wall, and then he remembered that he had to wait until Virginia picked up the phone. He saw Byrnes start across toward the instrument on the desk nearest him. He saw Byrnes waiting for Virginia's nod before he picked up the receiver.

The phone kept shrilling into the squadroom.

Virginia shifted the gun to her left hand. With her right hand, she picked up the receiver and nodded toward Byrnes. Byrnes lifted his phone.

"Eighty-seventh Squad, Lieutenant Byrnes."

"Well, well, how come they've got the big cheese answering telephones?" the voice said.

Hawes edged toward the wall, backing toward it. Virginia Dodge was still partially facing him, so that he could not raise his hand. Then, slowly, she swiveled in the chair so that her back was to him. Swiftly, Hawes lifted his hand.

"Who is this?" Byrnes asked into the mouthpiece.

"This is Sam Grossman at the lab. Who the hell did you think it was?"

The thermostat was secured tightly to the wall. Hawes grasped it in one hand, and with a quick snap of his wrist raised the setting to its outermost leading.

On one of the mildest days in October, the temperature in the squadroom was now set for ninety-eight degrees.

Hawes unobtrusively closed first one window and then the other. Outside, the sultry night pressed its blackness against the windowpanes, filtered by the triangular mesh beyond the glass. The six hanging light globes, operated by a single switch inside the railing near the coat rack, feebly defended the room against the onslaught of darkness. A determined silence settled over the squadroom, the silence of waiting.

Angelica Gomez sat with her crossed legs and high-heeled pumps, jiggling one foot impatiently. Her coat was draped over the back of her chair. Her peasant blouse swooped low over her confessedly unrestricted bosom. She sat with her own thoughts — thoughts perhaps of the man whose throat she'd cut, a man named Kassim whose friends had behind them the power of the vendetta; thoughts perhaps of the uncompromising arm of the law; thoughts perhaps of an uncomplicated island in the Caribbean where the sun had always shone and where she had helped cut sugar cane in season and drunk deeply of rum at night with the guitars going in the velvet black hills.

At the desk beside her sat Virginia Dodge, solemnly dressed in black — black dress and black overcoat and black shoes and black leather tote bag. Thin white legs and a thin white face. The blue-black steel of a revolver in her fist. The colorless oil of a high explosive on the desk before her. Nervously, the fingers of her left hand rapped a tattoo on the desk top. Her eyes, so brown that they too appeared black, darted about the room, wild birds searching for a roost, settling always on the corridor beyond the railing, waiting for the appearance of a detective who had sent her man to prison.

Behind her, on the floor near the huge green bulk of the metal filing cabinets, lay Alf Miscolo, police clerk. Unconscious, gasping for breath, his chest and head on fire, Miscolo did not know he might be dying. Miscolo knew nothing. In the void of his unconsciousness, he dreamt he was a boy again. He dreamt that it was Halloween, dreamt that he was carrying bundles of paper to be tossed into the huge bonfire set in the middle of the city street. He dreamt he was happy.

Cotton Hawes wondered if the room were getting any hotter.

He looked across the room and saw that Willis had unloosened his tie. He hoped desperately that — if the room were truly getting hotter — none of the men would mention the heat, none of them would go to the thermostat and lower it to a normal setting.

Leaning against the bulletin boards near the coat rack, Lieutenant Byrnes watched Hawes with narrowed eyes.

Of all the people in the room, Byrnes had been the only one to see Hawes raise the thermostat setting. Talking with Grossman on the telephone, he had watched Hawes as he stepped swiftly to the wall and twisted the dial on the instrument. Later, he had seen Hawes when he closed both windows, and he knew then that Hawes had something on his mind, that both actions were linked and not the idle movements of a thoughtless man.

He wondered now what the plan was.

He also wondered who or what would screw it up.

He had seen the action, but he was reasonably certain no one else in the room had followed it. And if Hawes was banking on heat, who would soon comment on the heat? Anyone might. Bert Kling had already taken off his jacket and was now mopping his brow. Willis had pulled down his tie. Angelica Gomez had pulled her skirt up over her knees like a girl sitting on a park bench trying to get a breeze from the river. Who would be the first to say, "It's hot as hell in here?"

And why did Hawes want heat to begin with?

He knew that Hawes had misunderstood him. He felt somewhat like a man falsely accused of racial prejudice because of a misunderstood remark. Hawes, of course, had not been attached to the 87th at the time of the Hernandez kill. Hawes did not know that Carella had risked his life for Byrnes's son, had come very close to losing that life. Hawes did not know how strong the bond was between Byrnes and Carella, did not know that Byrnes would gladly face a cannon if he thought it would help Steve.

But Byrnes was faced with the problem of command. And using the timeless logic of generals in battle, he knew that he could not be concerned over the welfare of a single man when the lives of many others were at stake. If Virginia Dodge's single weapon were that .38, he'd have gladly sacrificed himself on its muzzle. But she also held a bottle of high explosive.

And if she fired at the bottle, the squadroom would go up and with it every man in the room. He owed a lot to Carella, but he could not — as commanding officer of the squad — try a gamble that would endanger every life for a single life.

He hoped now that Hawes's plan was not a foolhardy one.

And, sourly, he thought, Any plan is a foolhardy one with that bottle of nitro staring at us.

Bert Kling was beginning to sweat.

He almost walked over to the windows and then he remembered something.

Hadn't Cotton just walked over there to close them?

Hadn't he just seen Cotton…?

And wasn't the temperature in the room controlled by thermostat? Had someone raised the thermostat? Cotton?

Did Cotton have a plan?

Maybe, maybe not. In any case, Bert Kling would melt right down into a puddle on the wooden floor before he opened a window in the joint. Curiously, he waited. Profusely, he sweated.

Hal Willis was about to comment on the rising temperature in the room when he noticed that Bert Kling's shirt was stained with sweat. Their eyes locked for a moment. Kling wiped a hand across his brow and shook perspiration to the floor.

In an instant of mute understanding, Hal Willis realized that it was supposed to be getting hotter in the room.

He searched Kling's eyes, but there was no further clue in them.

Patiently, his underwear shorts beginning to stick to him, he wiggled on his chair and tried to make himself more comfortable.

Meyer Meyer wiped the beaded sweat from his upper lip.

It's hot as hell in here, he thought. I wonder if anybody found my notes.

Why doesn't somebody turn down the goddamn heat? he thought. He glanced over at the thermostat. Cotton Hawes was standing near the wall, his eyes fastened to Virginia Dodge. He looked for all the world like a sentry guarding something. What the hell was he guarding?

Hey, Cotton, he thought, reach over and lower that damn thermostat, will you?

The words almost reached his tongue.

And then he wondered again if anyone had found his notes.

And, wondering this, his mind drifted away from thoughts of the heat in the room and — oddly for a man who had not been inside a synagogue for twenty years — he began to pray silently in Hebrew.

Angelica Gomez spread her legs and closed her eyes.

It was very hot in the room, and with her eyes closed she imagined she was lying on a rock in the mountains with the sun beating down flatly on her browned body. In Puerto Rico, she would climb trails as old as time, trails hidden by lush tropical growth. And then she would find a hidden glade, a glade wild with ferns. And in that glade, there would be a level rock, and she would take off all her clothes and tilt her breasts to be kissed by the sun.

Idly, she wondered why there was no sun in the streets of the city.

Lazily, she kept her eyes closed and allowed the heat to surround her. Suspended, her mind in the Caribbean, she relished the heat and hoped no one would open a window.

Sitting behind the high desk downstairs in the muster room, the desk which looked almost like a judge's altar of justice, the desk which had a sign requesting all visitors to stop there and state their business, Dave Murchison looked through the open doors of the station house to the street outside.

It was a beautiful night, and he wondered what ordinary citizens were doing on a night like this. Walking through the park with their lovers? Screwing with the windows open? Playing bingo or mah-jongg or footsie?

They certainly weren't sitting behind a desk answering telephones.

Now what the hell had the lieutenant meant?

Murchison tried to reconstruct the dialogue in his own mind. He had gone upstairs to see what the hell the noise had been about, and the loot had said it was just an accident, and he had said something about well, so long as everything's okay, and the loot had said yes, everything's fine or something like that and then… now here was the important part, so let's get it straight.

He had said to the loot, "Well, long as everything's okay. I'll be seeing you, Pete."

And Byrnes had answered, "Forthwith."

Now that was a very strange answer for the loot to give him because in police jargon "Forthwith" meant "Report immediately."

Now how could he report immediately il he was already standing there in front of the lieutenant?

So, naturally, he had said, "Huh?"

And the loot hadn't said anything in answer, he had just stood there with a kind of sick smile on his face.

Forthwith.

Report immediately.

Had the loot meant something? Or was he just clowning around?

And if he meant something, what did he mean? Report immediately. Report to whom immediately? Or maybe report something immediately. Report what?

The gun going off?

But the loot said that was an accident, and everything sure as hell looked copacetic upstairs. Did he want him to report the accident? Was that it?

No, that didn't make sense. A gun going off by accident wouldn't make the loot look too good, and he certainly wouldn't want that reported.

Argh, I'm making too much of this, Murchison thought. The loot was having his little joke, and here I'm trying to figure out what he meant by a gag. I should be upstairs working with the bulls, that's what. I should have been a detective, trying to figure out the meaning of a stupid little thing the loot tells me. It must be this Indian summer. I should be back in Ireland kissing Irish lasses.

Forthwith.

Report immediately.

A light on Murchison's switchboard exploded into green. One of the patrolmen was calling in. He plugged in his socket and said, "Eighty-seventh Precinct, Sergeant Murchison. Oh, hello, Baldy. Yep. Okay, glad to hear it. Keep on your toes."

All quiet on the Western front, Murchison thought. He pulled the wire from the board.

Forthwith, he thought.

Virginia Dodge rose suddenly.

"Everybody over there," she said. "That side of the room. Hurry up. Lieutenant, get away from that coat rack."

Angelica stirred, rose, smoothed her skirt over her hips, and walked toward the grilled windows. Hawes left his post by the thermostat to join the other men who began drifting toward the windows. Byrnes moved away from the coat rack.

"This gun stays trained on the nitro," Virginia said, "so no funny stuff."

Good! Hawes thought. She's not only thinking of the heat, she's also worried about the nitro. It's going to work. Jesus, the first part of it is going to work.

I hope.

Virginia backed toward the coat rack. Quickly, she slipped the coat off her left shoulder, the gun in her right hand aimed at the nitro on the desk. Then she shifted the gun to her left hand, slipped the coat off her right shoulder and, without turning, hung it on one of the pegs on the rack.

"It's hot as hell in here," she said. "Can't someone lower the heat?"

"I will," Hawes said, and went immediately to the thermostat.

There was a grin on his face. He looked across the room to where Virginia Dodge's shapeless black coat hung alongside Willis's hat and coat on the rack.

In the lefthand pocket of Virginia's black garment was the pistol she had taken from Lieutenant Byrnes's office.

It was remarkable how simply it had worked. If everything in life worked as easily as the first part of his plan had, everyone in the world would have his own private pink cloud upon which to float around. But the very ease with which Virginia had taken off her coat and parted with the pistol gave Hawes his first twinge of doubt. He was not a superstitious man, but he regarded simplicity of action with some skepticism. Was the success of the first part an ill omen for the second part?

Anxiously, he began to review the plan in his mind.

The gun was now where he wanted it, in the pocket of a coat hanging on the rack near the bulletin board. Between the coat rack and the bulletin board, on the short stretch of wall inside the slatted railing, was the light switch that controlled the overhead globes. It was Hawes's idea to amble over to the bulletin board, busy himself with taking down some notes from the Wanted circulars and then — when and if the opportunity presented itself — snap out the lights and reach for Byrnes's pistol in the coat. He would not use the pistol immediately because he did not want a long-distance shooting duel, not with that bottle of nitro on the desk in front of Virginia. He would hold the pistol until it was safe to fire it without the attendant possibility of a greater explosion.

He did not see how the plan could fail. The switch controlled every light in the room. One flick, and the lights would go out. It would take him no more than three seconds to snatch the gun, hide it, and flick on the lights again.

Would Virginia Dodge fire at the nitro in those three seconds?

He did not believe so.

In the first place, even if she did fire, the room would be in total darkness and she probably wouldn't be able to hit the bottle.

Well, that's a hell of a gamble to be taking, he told himself. She doesn't even have to fire at it, you know. All she has to do is sweep it off the desk with her arm, and there goes eternity.

But he was banking on something else, a person's normal reaction to a suddenly darkened room. Wouldn't Virginia, in the confusion of the moment, assume there'd been a power failure or something? Wouldn't she hold her fire, hold the sweeping motion of her arm at least long enough to be certain one way or the other? And by that time, the lights would be on again and Hawes could invent some excuse about having turned them off by accident.

It had better be a damn good excuse, he told himself.

Or did it really have to be a good one? If, when the lights went on again, everything was apparently as it had been before the darkness, wouldn't she accept any alibi? Or would she remember the gun in the coat pocket? Well, if she did, they'd have it out then and there, nitro or no nitro. And at least they'd be evenly matched, a pistol for a pistol.

Again, he went over the steps in his mind. Get to the bulletin board, busy myself there, flick out the lights, grab the gun…

Now wait a minute.

There was an alternate switch at the far end of the corridor, just at the head of the metal steps. This switch, too, controlled the lights in the corridor and the squadroom so that it wasn't necessary to walk the entire length of the hall in complete darkness when coming onto the second floor of the building. But Hawes wondered if he had to do anything to that second switch in order to ensure darkness in the squadroom when he made his play. He did not think so. Each switch, he hoped, worked independently of the other, both capable of either turning on or extinguishing all the lights. In any case, it had better work that way. Virginia Dodge had already used her gun once, and she showed no signs of reticence about pulling the trigger again.

Well, he thought, let's get it over with.

He started across the room.

"Hey.''

He stopped. Angelica Gomez had laid a hand on his arm.

"You got a cigarillo?" she asked.

"Sure," Hawes said. He took out his pack and shook one free. Angelica accepted it, hung it on her full lower lip, and waited. Hawes struck a match and lighted the cigarette.

"Muchas gracias," she said. "You got good manners. Tha's importan'."

"Yeah," Hawes said, and he started away from the girl, and again she caught his sleeve.

"You know something?"

"What?"

"I hate thees city. You know why?"

"No. Why?"

"No manners. Tha's the troo."

"Well, things are rough all over," Hawes said impatiently.

He started away again, and Angelica said, "Wha's your hurry?" and this time Virginia Dodge turned from the desk and looked at Hawes suspiciously.

"No hurry," he said to Angelica. He could feel Virginia's eyes on his back. Like two relentless drills, they bored at his spinal column.

"So sit down," Angelica said. "Talk to me. Nobody thees city ever have time to talk. Iss diff'ren' on the islan'. On the islan', ever'body got time for every tin."

Hawes hesitated. Virginia Dodge was still watching him. Trying to appear unhurried, he pulled up a chair and sat. Casually, perhaps too casually, he shook another cigarette from the package and lighted it. His hand, he noticed, was shaking. He pretended to ignore Virginia completely, pretended to be interested only in the lively company of Angelica Gomez. But as he drew on his cigarette, he was wondering, How long will it be before she remembers she's left a gun in that coat?

"Where you get that white in your hair?" Angelica asked.

His hand wandered unconsciously to the white smear above his left temple. "I was knifed once," he said. "It grew back this way."

"Where you got knifed?"

"It's a long story."

"I got time."

I haven't, he thought, and then he realized that Virginia was still watching him, and he wondered if she knew he was up to something, and he felt nervousness settle in his stomach like a heavy black brew. He wanted to let out his breath in a giant sigh, wanted to shout something, wanted to pound his list against the wall. Instead, he forced himself to continue talking in a normal conversational voice, thinking about the pistol all the while, thinking about it so hard he could almost feel his fingers curling around the checked walnut stock.

"I was investigating a burglary," he said. "The woman was pretty hysterical when I got there. I guess she was still in shock. She was terrified when I started to leave. I heard her begin screaming as I was going down the stairwell, these high hysterical screams. I was going to send a patrolman up as soon as I reached the street, but I never got that far. This guy came rushing at me with a knife in his hand."

"This was the burglar?"

"No. No, that's the funny part of it. He was the super of the building. He'd heard her screams, and came running upstairs because he thought it was the burglar returning. The hallway was dark and when he saw me he jumped me. And he cut me. I didn't know he was the super, either. I got mad as hell, and I just kept hitting him until he went limp. But he'd already put the gash in my head."

"So what happened?"

"So they shaved the hair off to get at the cut. And when it grew back, it was white. End of story."

"Did the super go to jail?"

"No. He honestly thought I was the burglar."

There was a pause.

"Will I go to jail?"

"Yes. Probably."

There was another pause. He wondered if he should leave now, but Virginia was still watching him. Angelica Gomez sat with her hands folded in her lap. There was sadness on her face, mingled with a hardness that made her seem older than she actually was.

In a thrust at further conversation, Hawes said, "What brought you to the mainland?"

Without hesitation, she answered, "Pan-American Airlines."

"No, no, I meant…"

"Oh. You meant…" and she burst out laughing, and suddenly there was no hardness to her face. She threw back her head, and the bleached blond hair seemed, for a moment, as natural as her laughter. She was carefree for an instant, all thought of spontaneous mayhem and violent gang retaliation washed from her mind. Her face relaxed, leaving only the natural beauty that was her birthright and which the city could never rob from her. The laughter trailed off. The relaxation dropped from her face like a gossamer veil drifting to the dust. There was only the hardness again, covering the beauty with the glitter of shellac.

"I come here because I am hungry," she said. "Very poor in Puerto Rico." She pronounced the name of the island with Spanish grandeur, rhyming "Puer" with "prayer," discarding the harsh "Porto" of the native mainlander. And, never having been to the island, Hawes listened to her pronunciation of the words and visualized it immediately as a place of rare beauty.

Angelica shrugged. "I get letters from my cousins. Come the city, come the city. So I come. Very easy. The plane fare is loan you, there are people who loan you dinero. Later on, you pay them back. With in'ress. So I come. I get here January. Very cold here, I don' expec' thees. I knew would be winter here, but not so cold I don' expec'."

"Where'd you go, Angelica?"

"I go first what they call a hot bed place. You know what thees minns?"

"No. What?"

"It sounds dirtee, but hot bed is not thees. Hot bed is where people come to sleep in shifts, comprende? Like they renn the apartment to three diff'ren' people. You come sleep, you leave. Nex' one comes sleep, he leaves. Then nex' one comes sleep, he leaves. One apartment, three renns. Very smott, much dinero in this. For the landlord. Not for the sleeper." She smiled grimly. Hawes smiled with her.

"So," Angelica said, "I stay there a while 'til all my money is gone, an' then I go live with my cousins for a while. An' then I figure I am become — how you say — burn. Burn. When is too much for someone to carry?"

"Burden," Hawes supplied.

"Si. Burd'n. So I find a man an' go live with him."

"Who?"

"Oh, jus' a man. Pretty good man, no police trouble. But I don' live with him now because he beat me once, an' thees I don' like. So I leave. An' sometimes I sleep around now, but only when I need bad the money." She paused. "I tell you something."

"What?"

"In Puerto Rico," and again the "Puer" was a prayer, "I am pretty girl. Here, too, I am also pretty — but I am also cheap. You know? I am look at here, an' men think, I sleep with her.' In Puerto Rico, there is respect. Very diff'ren'."

"How do you mean?"

"In Puerto Rico, a girl walks don the stritt, men look an' watch, it is a pretty thing to see. I minn, iss all right a girl could wiggle a little, is nice to see, appreciated. An' also a little comical. I minn, good-natured. Here… no. Here, always there is the thinking, 'Cheap. Slut. Puta.' I hate thees city."

"Well, you…"

"Iss not my fault I don' speak such good English. I learn Spanish. I know real Spanish, very high Spanish, very good school Spanish. But Spanish iss no good here. You speak Spanish here, you are a foreigner. But thees is my country, too, no? I am American also, no? Puerto Rico is American, no es verdad? But Spanish no good. Spanish here minns puta. I hate thees city."

"Angelica…"

"You know something? I wann to go back the islan'. I wann to go back there an' never leave. Because I tell you. There I am poor, but there I am me. Angelica Gomez. Me. An' there is nobody else the whole worl' who iss also Angelica Gomez. Only me. An' here, I am not me, I am only dirtee Spanish Puerto Rican spic!"

"To some people," Hawes said.

Angelica shook her head. "I am in big trouble now, no?" she said.

"Yes. You're in very big trouble."

"Si. So what happens to me now? I go to prison, hah? Maybe worse if thees Kassim dies, hah? An' why do I cut him? You want to know why I cut him? I do it because he forgets one thing. He forgets what everybody else in thees city forgets. He forgets that I am me, Angelica Gomez, an' that what is me is private an' nobody can touch unless I say touch. Me. Private." She paused. "Why they cann let a person be private? Goddamn, why they cann leave you alone?"

She seemed suddenly on the verge of tears. He reached out to touch her hand, and she shook her head instantly and violently. He pulled back his fingers.

"I am sorree," she said. "I will not cry. One learns fast in thees city that it does no good to cry, no good at all." She shook her head. "I am sorree. Leave me alone. Por favor. Leave me alone. Please. Please."

He rose. Virginia Dodge had turned her attention back to the desk. She sat quite silently, staring at the bottle in front of her. Casually, Hawes walked to the bulletin board near the light switch. Casually, he took a pad from his back pocket and began writing aimlessly into it, waiting for the precise moment of attack. Ideally that moment should be when Virginia Dodge was at the other end of the room. Unfortunately, she showed no signs of moving from the desk behind which she sat in deadly earnestness, staring at the bottle of colorless fluid.

Well then, Hawes thought, the hell with the ideal. Let's just hope she turns her back for a minute, just to give me enough time to snap off the lights.

That's all I need. Just a moment while she turns away, and then the lights go off, and I reach for the gun, lefthand pocket of the coat, mustn't grab for the right-hand pocket by mistake, Jesus, suppose one of the boys thinks there's been a power failure, suppose somebody strikes a match or turns on one of those damn battery-powered emergency lights, is there one in the squadroom? sure under the kneehole of the junk desk, oh Jesus, don't anybody get any bright ideas, please, pun unintentional, don't anybody throw any light on the subject, pun intentional, don't foul me up by being heroes.

Just let the lights go out, and sit tight, and let me get my mitts on that pistol. Just three seconds. Stick my hand in the pocket, close it around the butt, pull it out, and shove the gun into the side pocket of my pants. That's all I need.

Now if she'd only turn her head.

I'm six inches from the light switch. All she has to do is turn her head, and I make my move.

Come on, Virginia darling, turn that deadly little skull of yours.

Virginia darling did not move a muscle. Virginia seemed hypnotized by the bottle of nitro.

Suppose she whacks it off the desk the minute the lights go out?

No, she won't do that.

Suppose she does?

If she does, I'll get a demerit, and never get to make Detective/First Grade.

Come on, you bitch, turn your head. Turn it!

There must be a God, Hawes thought. He watched in fascination as Virginia Dodge slowly but surely turned to look across the room toward the grilled windows.

Hawes moved instantly. His hand darted for the light panel, shoved downwards on the protruding plastic switch.

There was blackness, instant blackness that Tilled the room like a negative explosion.

"What the hell…?" Virginia started, and then her voice went dead, and there was only silence in the room.

The coat, Hawes thought.

Fast!

He felt the coarse material under his ringers, slid his hands down the side of the garment, felt the heavy bulk of the weapon in the pocket, and then thrust his hand into the slit, reaching for the gun.

And then suddenly, blindingly, unimaginably — the lights went on.

He felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

For a moment, he couldn't imagine what had caused the sudden blinding illumination. And then he realized the lights were on again, and here he was reaching into the pocket of Virginia's coat, his fingers not an inch from the gun. Oddly, time seemed to lose all meaning as soon as the lights went on. He knew that time was speeding by at a remarkable clip, knew that whatever he did in the next few seconds could very well mean the life or death of everyone in the room, and yet time seemed to stop.

He decided, in what seemed to take three years, to whirl on Virginia with the revolver in his hand.

He closed his fingers around the butt of the gun in the warmth of the dark pocket, and the closing of his hand took twelve years. He was ready to draw the gun when he saw Arthur Brown, a puzzled look on his face, striding rapidly up the corridor. He decided then — the decision was a century coming — to yell, "Get out, Brown! Run!" and then the time for yelling was gone because Arthur was pushing through the gate and entering the squadroom. And then, too, the time for pulling the revolver was gone, all the time in the world had suddenly dwindled down to its proper perspective, perhaps twenty seconds in all had gone by since the lights went on, and now there was no time at all, time had gone down the drain, now there was only Virginia Dodge's cold lethal voice cutting through the time-rushing silence of the squadroom.

"Don't pull it, redhead! I'm aiming at the nitro!"

He hesitated. A thought flashed into his head: Is there really nitroglycerin in that bottle?

And then the thought blinked out as suddenly as it had come. He could not chance it. He released his grip on the pistol and turned to face her.

Thunderstruck, Arthur Brown stood just inside the gate.

"What…?" he said.

"Shut up," Virginia snapped. "Get in here!"

"What…?" Brown said again, and there was complete puzzlement on his face. He knew only that he'd returned to the precinct after sitting in the back room of a tailor shop all afternoon. He had climbed the metal steps leading to the second story as he'd done perhaps ten thousand times since joining the 87th Squad. He had found the upstairs corridor in darkness, and had automatically reached for the light switch at the top of the steps, turning on the lights. The first person he'd seen was Cotton Hawes reaching into the pocket of a coat hanging on the rack. And now… a woman with a gun.

"Get over here, redhead," Virginia said.

Silently, Hawes walked to her.

"You're a pretty smart bastard, aren't you?" she said.

"I…"

The gun in her hand moved upwards blurringly, came down again in a violent sweeping motion of wrist and arm. He felt the fixed sight at the barrel's end ripping into his cheek. He covered his face with his hands because he expected more. But more did not come. He looked at his fingers. They were covered with fresh blood.

"No more stunts, redhead," she said coldly. "Understand?"

"I understand."

"Now get out of my way. Over there on the other side of the room. You!" She turned to Brown. "Inside. Hurry up!"

Brown moved deeper into the room. The puzzlement on his face was slowly giving way to awareness. And fast on the heels of this came a look of shrewd calculation.

Virginia picked up the bottle of nitroglycerin, and then began walking toward the coat rack, the bottle in one hand, the gun in the other. Her walk was a jerky, nervous movement of shoulders, hips, and legs, devoid of all femininity, a sharp, quick perambulation that propelled her across the room. And watching her erratic walk, Hawes was certain that the liquid in her left hand was not the high explosive she claimed it was. And yet, nitro was funny. Sometimes it went if you breathed on it. And other times…

He wondered.

Nitro? Or water?

Step into the isolation booth, sir, and answer the question.

Quickly, Virginia removed Byrnes's pistol from her coat. She walked back to the desk, put the bottle of nitro down on its top, unlocked the desk drawer, and tossed the revolver in with the others.

"All right, you," she said to Brown. "Give me your gun."

Brown hesitated.

"The bottle here is full of nitroglycerin," Virginia said calmly. "Give me your gun."

Brown looked to Byrnes.

"Give it to her, Artie," Byrnes said. "She's calling all the shots."

"What's her game?" Brown wanted to know.

"Never mind my game," Virginia said heatedly. "Just shut your mouth and bring me your gun."

"You sure are a tough lady," Brown said. He walked to the desk, watching her. He watched her while he unclipped his gun and holster. He was trying, in his own mind, to determine whether or not Virginia Dodge was a hater. He could usually spot hatred at a thousand paces, could know with instant certainty that the person he was looking at or talking to would allow the color of Brown's skin to determine the course of their relationship. Arthur Brown was a black man. He was also a very impatient man. He had learned early in the game that the chance similarity of his pigmentation and his name — was it chance, or had some long-ago slave owner chosen the name for simplicity? — only added to his black man's burden. Impatiently, he waited for the inevitable slur, the thoughtless comment. Usually, it came — though not always. Now, as he put his gun and holster on the desk, his impatience reached unprecedented heights. He could read nothing on the face of Virginia Dodge. And, too, though he had newly entered the situation in the squadroom, he was impatiently itchy to have it done and over with.

Virginia pushed Brown's gun into the top drawer.

"Now get over there," she said. "The other side of the room."

"Is it okay to report to the lieutenant first?" he asked.

"Lieutenant!" she called. "Come here."

Byrnes walked over.

"He's got a report for you. Give it here, mister, where I can hear it all."

"How'd it go?" Byrnes said.

"No dice. And it isn't going to work either, Pete."

"Why not?"

"I stopped off in a candy store when I left the tailor shop. To get a pack of cigarettes."

"Yeah?"

"I got to talking with the owner. He told me there's been a lot of holdups in the neighborhood. Tailor shops mostly."

"Yeah?"

"But he told me the holdups would be stopping soon. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because — and this is just what he told me — there's a bull sitting in the back room of the tailor shop right up the street, just waiting for the crook to show up. That's what the guy in the candy store told me."

"I see."

"So if he knows, every other merchant on the street knows. And if they know, their customers know. And you can bet your ass the thief knows, too. So it won't work, Pete. We'll have to dope out something else."

"Mmm," Byrnes said.

"You finished?" Virginia asked.

"I'm finished."

"All right, get over on the other side of the room."

Byrnes walked away from the desk. Brown hesitated.

"Did you hear me?"

"I heard you."

"Then move!"

"What's the gun and the nitro for, lady?" Brown asked. "I mean, what do you want here? What's your purpose?"

"I'm here to kill Steve Carella."

"With a bottle of soup?"

"With a gun. The nitro is my insurance."

Brown nodded. "Is it real?"

"It's real."

"How do I know?"

"You don't. Would you like to try belling the cat?" Virginia said and smiled.

Brown returned the smile. "No, thank you, lady. I was just asking. Gonna kill Steve, huh? Why, what'd he do to you? Give you a traffic ticket?"

"This isn't funny," Virginia said, the smile leaving her mouth.

"I didn't think it was. Who's the floozy? Your partner?"

"I have no partner," Virginia said, and Brown thought her eyes clouded for a moment. "She's a prisoner."

"Aren't we all?" Brown said, and again he smiled, and Virginia did not return the smile.

Hal Willis walked over to the desk. "Listen," he said, "Miscolo's in a bad way. Will you let us get a doctor in here?"

"No," Virginia said.

"For Christ's sake, he may be dying! Look, you want Card la, don't you? What's the sense in letting an innocent guy…"

"No doctor," Virginia said.

"Why not?" Byrnes asked, walking over. "You can keep him here after he treats Miscolo. Same as all of us. What the hell difference will it make?"

"No doctor," she said again.

Hawes drifted over to the desk. Unconsciously, the four men assumed the position they would ordinarily use in interrogating a suspect. Hawes, Byrnes, and Brown were in front of the desk. Willis was standing to the right of it. Virginia sat in her chair, the bottle of nitro within easy reach of her left hand, the .38 in her right hand.

"Suppose I picked up a phone and called a doctor?" Hawes asked.

"I'd shoot you."

"Aren't you afraid of another explosion?" Willis said.

"No."

"You got a little nervous when Murchison came up here last time, didn't you?" Hawes said.

"Shut up, redhead. I've had enough from you."

"Enough to shoot me?" Hawes said.

"Yes."

"And chance the explosion?" Brown put in.

"And another visit from downstairs?"

"You can't chance that, Virginia, can you?"

"I can! Because if anyone else comes up, the nitro goes, goddamnit!"

"But what about Carella? You blow us up, and you don't get Carella. You want Carella, don't you?"

"Yes, but…"

"Then how can you explode that nitro?"

"How can you chance another gunshot?"

"You can't shoot any of us, can you? It's too risky."

"Get back," she said. "All of you."

"What are you afraid of, Virginia?"

"You've got the gun, not us."

"Can't you fire it?"

"Are you afraid of firing it?"

Hawes came around to the left side of the desk, moving closer to her.

"Get back!" she said.

Willis moved closer on the right, and Virginia whirled, thrusting the gun at him. In that instant, Hawes stepped between her and the bottle of nitroglycerin. She was out of the chair in the space of a heartbeat, pushing the chair out from beneath her, and starting to rise. And as she started the rise, Willis — seeing that her hand was away from the bottle, knowing she was off balance as she rose — kicked out with his left foot, swinging it in a backward arc that caught her at the ankles. Hawes shoved at her simultaneously, completing the imbalance, sending Virginia sprawling to the right, toppling toward the floor. She hit the floor with resounding force, and her right hand opened as Hawes scuttled around the desk.

The gun fell from her fingers, slid across the floor, whirled in a series of dizzying circles and then came to a sudden stop.

Willis dove for it.

He extended his hand, and Hawes held his breath because they were getting rid of the crazy bitch at last.

And then Willis shrieked in pain as a three-inch dagger of leather and metal stamped his hand into the floor.

The black skirt was taut over the extended leg of Angelica Gomez. It tightened around a fleshy thigh, pulled back over the knee, ended there in sudden revelation of shapely calf and slender ankle. A black strap circled the ankle and beneath that was a red leather pump with a heel like a stiletto. That heel was buried in the back of Willis's hand.

And then Angelica pulled back her leg and stooped immediately to pick up the gun. From the floor, her skirt pulled back over both knees, her eyes flashing, she whirled on Lieutenant Byrnes, who was reaching for the bottle of nitro on the desk top.

"Don' touch it!" she shouted.

Byrnes stopped cold.

"Away from the desk," she said. "Ever'body! Back! Back!"

They moved from the desk, fanning away from it, backing away from a new menace that seemed more deadly than the first. Angelica Gomez had stabbed a man and, for all they knew, that man might now be dead. She had the law to face, and she also had the street gang to face, and so the look on her face was one of desperate resignation. Angelica Gomez was making her pitch for better or worse, and Christ help whoever stepped into her path.

She rose, the pistol unwavering in her fist.

"I'm ge'n out of here," she said. "Don' nobody try to stop me."

Virginia Dodge was on her feet now. She turned to Angelica, and there was a smile on her face. "Good girl," she said. "Give me the gun."

For a moment, Angelica did not understand. She looked at Virginia curiously and then said, "You crazy? I'm leavin'. Now!"

"I know. Give me the gun. I'll cover them for you. While you go."

"Why I should give you the gun? Angelica said.

"For Christ's sake, are you on their side? The ones who want to send you to jail? Give me the gun!"

"I don' have to do you no favors. I ask before you let me go, an' you say no. Now you want the gun. You crazy."

"All right, I'll put it in black and white. If you take that gun with you, I'm jumped the minute you leave this room. And that means they'll be on the phone in four seconds and the whole damn police force will be after you. If you give me the gun, I hold them. I keep them here. No phone calls. No radio cars looking for you. You're free."

Angelica thought about this for a moment.

"Give me the gun!" Virginia said, and she took a step closer to Angelica. The Puerto Rican girl stood poised like a tigress, her back arched over into a C, her legs widespread, the gun trembling in her hand. Virginia came closer.

"Give it to me," she said.

"You hol' them back?" Angelica asked. "You keep them here?"

"Yes."

"Come then. Come close."

Virginia moved to her side.

"Your hand," Angelica said.

Virginia held out her hand, and Angelica put the gun into it.

"I go now," she said. "You keep them here. I get away. Free," she said, "free."

She started to move. She took one step away from Virginia, her back to the woman. Quickly, Virginia raised the gun. Brutally, she brought it crashing down on the skull of Angelica Gomez. The girl collapsed to the floor, and Virginia stepped over her and moved rapidly to the desk.

"Does anybody still think I'm kidding?" she asked quietly.

Alf Miscolo lay in delirium, and in his tortured sleep he cried out, "Mary! Mary!"

His wife's name was Katherine.

He was not a handsome man, Miscolo. He lay on the floor now with his head propped against Willis's jacket. His forehead was drenched with sweat that rolled down the uneven planes of his face. His nose was massive, and his eyebrows were bushy, and there was a thickness about his neck which created the impression of head sitting directly on shoulders. He was not a handsome man, Miscolo, less handsome now in his pain and his delirium. Blood was seeping through the sulfanilamide bandage, and his life was leaking out of his body drop by precious drop, and he cried out again "Mary!" sharply, because he once had been in love.

Bert Kling put a wet cloth on Miscolo's forehead.

He was used to death and dying. He was a young man, but he had been through a war in which death and dying had been a matter of course, an everyday occurrence like waking up to brush your teeth. And he had held the heads of closer friends on his lap, men he knew far better than Miscolo. And yet, hearing the word Mary erupt from Miscolo's lips in a hoarse scream, he felt a chill start at the base of his spine, rocketing into his brain where it exploded in cold fury. In that moment, he wanted to rush across the room and strangle Virginia Dodge.

In that moment, he wondered whether the liquid in that bottle was really nitroglycerin.

Angelica Gomez sat up and shook her head.

Her skirt was pulled back over her knees, and she propped her elbows on both knees and shook her head again, and then looked around the room with a puzzled expression on her face, like a person waking in a hotel.

And then, of course, she remembered.

She touched the back of her head. A huge knob had risen where Virginia had hit her with the gun. She felt the knob and the area around it, all sensitive to her probing fingers. And as the tentacles of pain spread out from the bruise, she felt with each stab a new rush of outraged anger. She rose from the floor and dusted off her black skirt, and the look she threw at Virginia Dodge could have slain the entire Russian Army.

And in that moment, she wondered whether the liquid in that bottle was really nitroglycerin.

Cotton Hawes touched his cheek where the gun sight had ripped open a flap of flesh. The cheek was raw to the touch. He dabbed at it with a cold wet handkerchief, a cloth no colder than his fury.

And he wondered for the tenth time whether the liquid in that bottle was really nitroglycerin.

Steve Carella, she thought.

I will kill Steve Carella. I will shoot the rotten bastard and watch him die, and they won't touch me because they're afraid of what's in this bottle.

I am doing the right thing.

This is the only thing to do.

There is a simple equation here, she thought: A life for a life.

Carella's life for my Frank's life. And that is justice.

The concept of justice had never truly entered the thoughts of Virginia Dodge before. She had been born Virginia MacCauley, of an Irish mother and a Scotch father. The family had lived in Calm's Point at the foot of the famous bridge that joined that part of the city with Isola. Even now, she looked upon the bridge with fond remembrance. She had played in its shadow as a little girl, and the bridge to her had been a wondrous structure leading to all the far corners of the earth. One day, she had dreamt, she would cross that bridge and it would take her to lands brimming with spices and rubies. One day, she would cross that bridge into the sky, and there would be men in turbans, and camels in caravans, and temples glowing with gold leaf.

She had crossed the bridge into the arms of Frank Dodge.

Frank Dodge, to the police, was a punk. He'd been arrested at the age of fourteen for mugging an old man in Grover Park. He'd been considered a juvenile offender by the law, and got off with nothing more serious than a reprimand and a J.D. card. Between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, he'd been pulled in on a series of minor offenses — and always his age, his lawyer, and his innocent baby-blue-eyed looks had saved him from incarceration. At nineteen, he committed his first holdup.

This time he was beyond the maximum age limit for a juvenile offender. This time, his innocent baby-blue-eyed looks had lengthened into the severity of near-manhood. This time, they dumped him into the clink on Bailey's Island. Virginia met him shortly after his release.

To Virginia, Frank Dodge was not a punk.

He was the man with the turban astride the long-legged camel, he was the gateway to enchanted lands, rubies trickled from his fingertips, he was her man.

His B-card listed a series of offenses as long as Virginia's right arm — but Frank Dodge was her man, and you can't argue with love.

When he held up that gas station, the attendant yelled for help and it happened that a detective named Steve Carella, who was off-duty and driving toward his apartment in River-head, heard the calls and drove into the station — but not before Dodge had shot the attendant and blinded him. Carella made the collar. Frank Dodge went to prison — Castleview this time, where nobody played games with thieves. It was discovered during his first week of imprisonment that Frank Dodge was anything but an ideal prisoner. He caused trouble with keepers and fellow-prisoners alike. He constantly flouted the rules — as archaic as they were. He tried to obtain his release, but each attempt failed. His letters to his wife, read by prison authorities before they left the prison, grew more and more bitter.

In the second year of his term, it was discovered that Frank Dodge was suffering from tuberculosis. He was transferred to the prison hospital. It was in the prison hospital that he had died yesterday.

Today, Virginia Dodge sat with a pistol and a bottle, and she waited for the man who had killed him. In her mind, there was no doubt that Steve Carella was the man responsible for her husband's death. If she had not believed this with all her heart, she'd never have had the courage to come up here with such an audacious plan.

The amazing part of it was that the plan was working so far. They were all afraid of her, actually afraid of her. Their fear gave her great satisfaction. She could not have explained the satisfaction if she'd wanted to, could not have explained her retaliation against all society in the person of Steve Carella, her flouting of the law in such a flamboyant manner. Could she not, in all truth, in all fairness simply have waited for Carella downstairs and put a bullet in his back when he arrived?

Yes.

In all fairness, she could have. There was no need for a melodramatic declaration of what she was about to do, no need to sit in judgment over the law enforcers as they had sat in judgment over her husband, no need to hold life or death in the palms of her hands, no need to play God to the men who had robbed her of everything she loved.

Or was there a very deep need?

She sat now with her private thoughts. The gun in her hand was steady. The bottle on the table before her caught the slanting rays of the overhead light.

She smiled grimly.

They're wondering, she thought, whether the liquid in this bottle is really nitroglycerin.

The telephone in the squadroom rang at 6:55.

Hal Willis waited for Virginia's signal, and then picked up the receiver.

"Eighty-seventh Squad," he said. "Detective Willis speaking."

"Just a second," a voice on the other end said. The voice retreated from the phone, obviously talking to someone else in the room. "How the hell do I know?" it said. "Turn it over to the Bunco Squad. No, for Christ's sake, what would we be doing with a pickpocket file? Oh, Riley, you're the stupidest sonofa-bitch I've ever had to work with. I'm on the phone, can you wait just one goddamn minute?" The voice came back onto the line. "Hello?"

"Hello?" Willis said. At the desk opposite him, Virginia Dodge watched and listened.

"Who'm I speaking to?" the voice asked.

"Hal Willis."

"You're a detective, did you say?"

"Yes."

"This the 87th Squad?"

"Yes."

"Yeah. Well then I guess it's a crank."

"Huh?"

"This is Mike Sullivan down Headquarters. We got a call a little while ago, clocked in at… ah… just a second…" Sullivan rattled some papers on the other end of the line. "… six forty-nine. Yeah."

"What kind of a call?" Willis said.

"Some college kid. Said he picked up a D.D. report in the street. Had a message typed on it. Something about a broad with a bottle of nitro. Know anything about it?"

At her desk, Virginia Dodge stiffened visibly. The revolver came up close to the neck of the bottle. From where Willis stood, he could see her trembling.

"Nitro?" he said into the phone, and he watched her hand, and he was certain the barrel of the gun would collide with the bottle at any moment.

"Yeah. Nitroglycerin. How about that?"

"No," Willis said. "There's… there's nothing like that up here."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. But the kid gave his name and all, so it sounded like it might be a real squeal. Well, that's the way it goes. Thought I'd check anyway, though. No harm in checking, huh?" Sullivan laughed heartily.

"No," Willis said, desperately trying to think of some way to tell Sullivan that the message was real; whoever had sent it, the damn thing was real. "There's certainly no harm checking." He watched Virginia, watched the trembling gun in her hand.

Sullivan continued laughing. "Never know when there'll really be some nut up there with a bomb, huh, Willis?" he said, and burst into louder laughter.

"No, you… you never know," Willis said.

"Sure." Sullivan's laughter trailed off. "Incidentally, is there a cop up there by the name of Meyer?"

Willis hesitated. Had Meyer sent the message? Was it signed? If he said "Yes," would that be the end of it, and would Sullivan make the connection? If he said "No," would Sullivan investigate further, check to see which cops manned the 87th? And would Meyer…

"You with me?" Sullivan asked.

"What? Oh, yes."

"Answer him!" Virginia whispered.

"We sometimes get a lousy connection," Sullivan said, "I thought maybe we'd got cut off."

"No, I'm still here," Willis said.

"Yeah. Well, how about it? Any Meyer there?"

"Yes. We have a Meyer."

"Second Grade?"

"Yes."

"That's funny," Sullivan said. "This kid said the note was signed by a Second Grade named Meyer. That's funny, all right."

"Yes," Willis said.

"And you got a Meyer up there, huh?"

"Yes."

"Boy, that sure is funny." Sullivan said. "Well, no harm in checking, huh? What? For God's sake, Riley, can't you see I'm on the phone? I gotta go, Willis. Take it easy, huh? Nice talking to you."

And he hung up.

Willis put the phone back onto the cradle.

Virginia Dodge put down her receiver, picked up the bottle of nitro and slowly walked to where Meyer Meyer was sitting at the desk near the window.

She did not say a word.

She put the bottle down on the desk before him and then she brought her arm across her body and swung the gun in a backhanded swipe that ripped open Meyer's lip. Meyer put up his hands to cover his face, and again the gun came across, again, again, numbing his wrists, forcing his hands down until there was only the vicious metal swiping at his eyes and his bald head and his nose and his mouth.

Virginia's eyes were bright and hard.

Viciously, cruelly, brutally, she kept the pistol going like a whipsaw until, bleeding and dazed, Meyer collapsed on the desk top, almost overturning the bottle of nitroglycerin.

She picked up the bottle and looked at Meyer coldly.

Then she walked back to her own desk.

When Teddy Carella walked into the squadroom at two minutes past seven, Peter Byrnes thought he would have a heart attack. He saw her coming down the corridor and at first he couldn't believe he was seeing correctly and then he recognized the trim figure and proud walk of Steve's wife, and he walked quickly to the railing.

"What are you doing?" Virginia said.

"Somebody coming," Byrnes answered, and he waited. He did not want Virginia to know this was Carella's wife. He had watched the woman grow increasingly more tense and jumpy since the pistol whipping of Meyer, and he did not know what action she might conceivably take against Teddy were she to realize her identity. In the corner of the room, he could see Hawes administering to Meyer. Badly cut, Meyer tried to peer out of his swollen eyes. His lip hung loose, split down the center by the unyielding steel of the revolver. Hawes, working patiently with iodine, kept mumbling over and over again, "Easy, Meyer, easy," and there was a deadly control to his voice as if he — as much as the nitro — were ready to explode into the squadroom.

"Yes, Miss?" Byrnes said.

Teddy stopped dead outside the railing, a surprised look on her face. If she had read the lieutenant's lips correctly…

"Can I help you, Miss?" he said.

Teddy blinked.

"Get in here, you," Virginia barked from her desk. Teddy could not see the woman from where she stood. And, not seeing her, she could not "hear" her. She waited now for Byrnes to spring the punch line of whatever gag he was playing, but his face remained set and serious, and then he said, "Won't you come in, Miss?" and — puzzled even more now — Teddy entered the squadroom.

She saw Virginia Dodge immediately and knew intuitively that Byrnes was trying to protect her.

"Sit down," Virginia said. "Do as I tell you and you won't get hurt. What do you want here?"

Teddy did not, could not answer.

"Did you hear me? What are you doing here?"

Teddy shook her head helplessly.

"What's the matter with her?" Virginia asked impatiently. "Damnit, answer me."

"Don't be frightened, Miss," Byrnes said. "Nothing will happen to you if…" He stopped dead, feigning discovery, and then turned to Virginia. "I think… I think she's a deaf mute," he said.

"Come here," Virginia said, and Teddy walked to her. Their eyes locked over the desk. "Can you hear?"

Teddy touched her lips.

"You can read my lips?"

Teddy nodded.

"But you can't speak?"

Teddy shook her head.

Virginia shoved a sheet of paper across the desk. She took a pencil from the tray and tossed it to Teddy. "There's paper and pencil. Write down what you want here."

In a quick hand, Teddy wrote "Burglary" on the sheet and handed it to Virginia.

"Mmm," Virginia said. "Well, you're getting a lot more than you're bargaining for, honey. Sit down." She turned to Byrnes and, in the first kind words she'd uttered since coming into the squadroom, she said, "She's a pretty little thing, isn't she?"

Teddy sat.

"What's your name?" Virginia asked. "Come over here and write down your name."

Byrnes almost leaped forward to intercept Teddy as she walked to the desk again. Teddy picked up the pencil and rapidly wrote "Marcia…" She hesitated. A last name would not come. In desperation, she finally wrote her maiden name — "Franklin."

"Marcia Franklin," Virginia said. "Pretty name. You're a pretty girl, Marcia, do you know that? Can you read mv lips?"

Teddy nodded.

"Do you know what I'm saying?"

Again, Teddy nodded.

"You're very pretty. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I'm only after one person, and I won't hurt anybody unless they try to stop me. Have you ever loved anyone, Marcia?"

Yes, Teddy said with her head.

"Then you know what it's like. Being in love. Well, someone killed the man I loved, Marcia. And now I'm going to kill him. Wouldn't you do that, too?"

Teddy stood motionless.

"You would. I know you would. You're very pretty, Marcia. I was pretty once — until they took my man away from me. A woman needs a man. Life's no good without a man. And mine is dead. And I'm going to kill the man who's responsible. I'm going to kill a rotten bastard named Steve Carella."

The words hit Teddy with the force of a pitched baseball. She flinched visibly, and then she caught her lips between her teeth, and Virginia watched her in puzzlement and then said, "I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to swear. But I… this has been…" She shook her head.

Teddy had gone pale. She stood with her lip caught between her teeth, and she bit it hard, and she looked at the revolver in the hand of the woman at the desk, and her first impulse was to fling herself at the gun. She looked at the wall clock. It was 7:08. She turned toward Virginia and took a step forward.

"Miss," Byrnes said, "that's a bottle of nitroglycerin on the desk there." He paused. "What I mean is, any sudden movement might set it off. And hurt a lot of people."

Their eyes met. Teddy nodded.

She turned away from Virginia and Byrnes, crossing to sit in the chair facing the slatted railing, hoping the lieutenant had not seen the sudden tears in her eyes.

The clock read 7:10.

Teddy thought only, I must warn him.

Methodically, mechanically, the clock chewed time, swallowed it, spat digested seconds into the room. The clock was an old one, and its mechanism was audible to everyone but Teddy, whirrr, whirrr, and the old clock digested second after second until they piled into minutes and the hands moved with a sudden click in the stillness of the room.

7:11…

7:12…

I must warn him, she thought. She had given up the thought of jumping Virginia and thought only of warning Steve now. I can see the length of the corridor from here, she thought, can see the top step of the metal stairway leading from below. If I could hear I would recognize his tread even before he came into view because I know his walk, I have imagined the sound of his walk a thousand times. A masculine sound, but light-footed, he moves with animal grace, I would recognize the sound of his walk the moment he entered the building — if only I could hear.

But I cannot hear, and I cannot speak. I cannot shout a warning to him when he enters this second floor corridor. I can only run to him. She will not use the nitro, not if she knows Steve is in the building where she can shoot him. She needs the nitro for her escape. So I'll run to him and be his shield, he must not die.

And the baby?

The baby, she thought. Hardly a baby yet, a life just begun, but Steve must not die. Myself, yes. The baby, yes. But not Steve. I will run to him. The moment I see him, I will run to him, and then let her shoot. But not Steve.

She had almost lost him once, she could remember that Christmas as if it were yesterday, the painfully white hospital room, and her man gasping for breath. She had hated his occupation then, detested police work and criminals, abhorred the chance circumstances that had allowed her husband to be shot by a narcotics peddler in a city park. And then she had allowed her hatred to dissolve, and she had prayed, simply and sincerely, and all the while she knew that he would die and that her silent world would truly become silent. With Steve, there was no silence. With Steve, she was surrounded by the noise of life.

This was not a time for prayer.

All the prayers in the world would not save Steve now.

When he comes, she thought, I will run to him and I will take the bullet.

When he comes…

The clock read 7:13.

That isn't nitroglycerin, Hawes thought.

Maybe it is.

That isn't nitroglycerin.

It can't be. She handles it like water, she treats it with all the disdain she'd give to water, she wouldn't be so damn careless with it if it were capable of exploding.

It isn't nitroglycerin.

Now wait a minute, he told himself, let's just wait a minute, let's not rationalize a desire into a fact.

I want desperately for the liquid in that bottle to be water. I want it because for the second time in my life I am ready to knock a woman silly. I am ready to cross this room and, gun be damned, knock her flat on her ass and keep hitting her until she is senseless. That is the way I feel right now, and chivalry can go to Hell because that is the way I feel. I know it's not particularly nice to go around slugging women, but Virginia Dodge has become something less than woman, or perhaps something more than woman, she has become something inhuman and I no more consider her a woman than I would apply gender to a telephone or a pair of shoes.

She is Virginia Dodge.

And I hate her.

And I'm ashamed because I hate so goddamn deeply. I did not think myself capable of such hatred, but she has brought it out in me, she has enabled me to hate deeply and viciously. I hate her, and I hate myself for hating, and this causes me to hate deeper. Virginia Dodge has reduced me to an animal, a blind animal responding to a pain that is being inflicted. And the curious thing is that the pain is not my own. Oh, the cheek, I've been hit harder before, the cheek doesn't matter. But what she did to Miscolo, and what she did to that Puerto Rican girl, and what she did to Meyer, these are things I cannot excuse, rationally or emotionally. These are pains inflicted on humans who have never done a blessed solitary thing to the non-human called Virginia Dodge. They were simply here and, being here, she used them, she somehow reduced them to meaningless ciphers.

And this is why I hate.

I hate because I… I and every other man in this room… have allowed her to reduce humans to ciphers. She has robbed them of humanity, and by allowing her to rob one man of humanity, by allowing her to strip a single human being of all his godly dignity, I have allowed her to reduce all men to a pile of rubbish.

So here I am, Virginia Dodge.

Cotton Hawes is my name, and I am a one-hundred-percent white Protestant American raised by God-fearing parents who instilled in me a sense of right and wrong, and who taught me that women are to be treated with courtesy and chivalry — and you have turned me into a jungle animal ready to kill you, hating you for what you've done, ready to kill you.

The liquid in that bottle is not nitroglycerin.

This is what I believe, Virginia Dodge.

Or at least, this is what I am on the road to believing. I do not yet fully believe it. I'm working on it, Virginia. I'm working on it damn hard.

I don't have to work on the hatred. The hatred is there, and it's building all the time and God help you, Virginia Dodge, when I'm convinced, when I've convinced myself that your bottle of nitroglycerin is a big phony.

God help you, Virginia, because I'll kill you.

"Where is he?" she said, and looked up at the clock. "It's almost seven-thirty. Isn't he supposed to report back here?"

"Yes," Byrnes said.

"Then where the hell is he?" She slammed her left fist down on the desk top. Hawes watched. The bottle of nitro, jarred, did not explode.

It's water, Hawes thought. Goddamnit, it's water!

"Have you ever had to wait for anything, Marcia?" Virginia said to Teddy. "I feel as if I've been in this squadroom all my life."

Teddy watched the woman, expressionless.

"You ro'n bitch," Angelica Gomez said. "You should wait in Hell, you dirtee bitch."

"She's angry," Virginia said, smiling. "The Spanish onion is angry. Take it easy, Chiquita. Just think, your name'll be in the newspapers tomorrow."

"An' your name, too," Angelica said. "An' maybe it be in the dead columns."

"I doubt that," Virginia said, and all humor left her face and her eyes. "The newspapers will…" She stopped. "The newspapers," she said, and this time she said the words with the tone of discovery. Hawes watched the discovery claim her face, watched as she stirred her memory. Her eyes were beginning to narrow.

"I remember reading a story about Carella," she said. "In one of the newspapers. The time he got shot. It mentioned that his wife…" She paused. "His wife was a deaf mute!" she said, and she turned glaring eyes on Teddy. "What about it, Marcia Franklin? What about it?"

Teddy did not move.

"What are you doing here?" Virginia said. She had begun rising. "Are you Marcia Franklin, come to report a burglary? Or are you Mrs. Steve Carella? Which? Answer me!"

Again Teddy shook her head.

Virginia was standing now, her attention riveted to Teddy. Slowly, she came around the desk, sliding along its edge, ignoring the bottle on its top completely. It was as if, having found someone she believed to be related to Carella, her wait was nearing an end. It was as if — should this woman be Carella's wife — she could now truly begin to vent her spleen. Her decision showed on her face. The hours of waiting, the impatience of the ordeal, the necessity for having to deal with other people while her real quarry delayed his entrance showed in the gleam of her eyes and the hard set of her mouth. As she approached Teddy Carella, Hawes knew instinctively that she would inflict upon her the same — if not worse — punishment that Meyer Meyer had suffered.

"Answer me!" Virginia screamed, and she left the desk completely now, the bottle of nitro behind her, advanced to Teddy, and stood before her, a dark solemn judge and jury.

She snatched Teddy's purse from her arm, and snapped it open. Byrnes, Kling, Willis, stood to the right of Teddy, near the coat rack. Miscolo was unconscious on the floor behind Virginia, near the filing cabinets. Only Meyer and Hawes were to her right and slightly behind her — and Meyer was limp, his head resting on his folded arms.

Quickly, deftly, Virginia rifled through the purse. She found what she was looking for almost immediately. Immediately, she read it aloud.

"Mrs. Stephen Carella, 837 Dartmouth Road, Riverhead. In case of emergency, call…" She stopped. "Mrs. Stephen Carella," she said. "Well, well, Mrs. Stephen Carella." She took a step closer to Teddy, and Hawes watched, hatred boiling inside him, and he thought, It isn't nitro, it isn't nitro, it isn't nitro…

"Aren't you the pretty one, though?" Virginia said. "Aren't you the well-fed, well-groomed beauty? You've had your man, haven't you? You've had your man, and you've still got your good looks, haven't you? Pretty, you bitch, look at me! Look at me!"

I'll jump her, Teddy thought. Now. While she's away from the nitro. I'll jump her now, and she'll fire, and the rest will grab her, and it will be all over. Now. Now.

But she did not jump.

Hypnotized as if by a snake, she watched the naked hatred on Virginia Dodge's face.

"I was pretty once," Virginia said, "before they sent Frank away. Do you know how old I am? I'm thirty-two. That's young. That's young, and I look like a hag, don't I, like death one of them said. Me, me, I look like death because your husband robbed me of my Frank. Your husband, you bitch. Oh, I could rip that face of yours apart! I could rip it, rip it for what he's done to me! Do you hear me, you little bitch!"

She stepped closer, and Hawes knew the gun would flash upward in the next moment.

He told himself for the last time, There's no nitro in that bottle, and then he shouted, "Hold it!"

Virginia Dodge turned to face him, moving closer to the desk and the bottle on it, blocking Byrnes and the others from it.

"Get away from her," Hawes said.

"What!" Virginia's tone was one of complete disbelief.

"You heard me. Get away from her. Don't lay a hand on her."

"Are you giving me orders?"

"Yes!" Hawes shouted. "Yes, I am giving you orders! Now how about that, Mrs. Dodge? How about it? I am giving you orders! One of the crawly little humans is daring to give God orders. Keep away from that girl. You touch her and…"

"And what?" Virginia said. There was a sneer in her voice, supreme confidence in her stance — but the gun in her hand was trembling violently.

"I'll kill you, Mrs. Dodge," Hawes said quietly. "That's what, Mrs. Dodge. I'll kill you."

He took a step toward her.

"Stand where you are!" Virginia yelled.

"No, Mrs. Dodge," Hawes said. "You know something? I'm not afraid of your wedge any more, your little bottle. You know why? Because there's nothing but water in it, Mrs. Dodge, and I'm not afraid of water. I drink water! By the gallon, I drink it!"

"Cotton," Byrnes said, "don't be a…"

"Don't take another step!" Virginia said desperately, the gun shaking.

"Why not? You going to shoot me? Okay, damnit, shoot me! But shoot me a lot because one bullet isn't going to do it! Shoot me twice and then keep shooting me because I'm coming right at you, Mrs. Dodge, and I'm going to take that gun away from you with any strength that's left in my hands, and I'm going to stuff it right down your throat! I'm coming, Mrs. Dodge, you hear me?"

"Stop! Stop where you are!" she screamed. "The nitro…"

"There is no nitro!" Hawes said, and he began his advance in earnest, and Virginia turned to face him fully now. To her left, Byrnes gestured to Teddy, who began moving slowly toward the men who stood just inside the gate. Virginia did not seem to notice. Her hand was shaking erratically as she watched Hawes.

"I'm coming, Mrs. Dodge," Hawes said, "so you'd better shoot now if you're going to because…"

And Virginia fired.

The shot stopped Hawes. But only momentarily, and only in the way any sudden sharp noise will stop anyone. Because the bullet had missed him by a mile, and he began his advance again, moving across the room toward her, watching Byrnes slip Teddy past the railing and practically shove her down the corridor. The others did not move. Shut off from the bottle of nitro, they nonetheless stood rooted in the room, facing an imminent explosion.

"What's the matter?" Hawes said. "Too nervous to shoot straight? Your hand trembling too much?"

Virginia backed toward the desk. This time, he knew she was going to fire. He sidestepped an instant before she squeezed the trigger, and again the slug missed him, and he grinned and shouted, "That does it, Mrs. Dodge! You'll have every cop in the city up here now!"

"The nitro…" she said, backing toward the desk.

"What nitro? There is no nitro!"

"I'll knock it to the…"

And Hawes leaped.

The gun went off as he jumped, and this time he heard the rushing whoosh of the bullet as it tore past his head, missing him. He caught at Virginia's right hand as she swung it toward the desk and the bottle of nitroglycerin. He clung to her wrist tightly because there was animal strength in her arm as she flailed wildly at the bottle, reaching for it.

He pulled her arm up over her head and then slammed it down on the desk top, trying to knock the gun loose, and the bottle slid towards the edge of the desk.

He slammed her hand down again, and again the bottle moved, closer to the edge as Virginia's fingers opened and the gun dropped to the floor.

And then she twisted violently in his arms and flung herself headlong across the desk in a last desperate lunge at the bottle standing not two inches from its edge. She slipped through his grip, and he caught at her waist and then yanked her back with all the power of his shoulders and arms, pulling her upright off the desk, and then clenching his fist into the front of her dress, and drawing his free hand back for a blow that would have broken her neck.

His hand hesitated in mid-air.

And then he lowered it, unable to hit her. He shoved her across the room and said only, "You bitch!" and then stooped to pick up the gun.

Meyer Meyer lifted his battered head. "What… what happened?" he said.

"It's over," Hawes answered.

Byrnes had moved to the telephone. "Dave," he said, "get me the Bomb Squad! Right away!"

"The Bom…"

"You heard me."

"Yes, sir!" Murchison said.

The call from the hospital came at 7:53, after the men from the Bomb Squad had gingerly removed the suspect bottle from the room. Byrnes took the call.

"Eighty-seventh Squad," he said. "Lieutenant Byrnes."

"This is Dr. Nelson at General. I was asked to call about the condition of this stabbing victim? José Dorena?"

"Yes," Byrnes said.

"He'll live. The blade missed the jugular by about a quarter of an inch. He won't be out of here for a while, but he'll be out alive." Nelson paused. "Anything else you want to know?"

"No. Thank you."

"Not at all," Nelson said, and he hung up.

Byrnes turned to Angelica. "You're lucky," he said. "Kassim'll live. You're a lucky girl."

And Angelica turned sad wise eyes toward the lieutenant and said, "Am I?"

Murchison walked over to her. "Come on, sweetie," he said, "we've got a room for you downstairs." He pulled her out of the chair, and then went to where Virginia Dodge was handcuffed to the radiator. "So you're the troublemaker, huh?" he said to her.

"Drop dead," Virginia told him.

"You got a key for this cuff, Pete?" Murchison said, and shook his head. "Jesus, Pete, why didn't you guys say something? I mean, I was sitting down there all this time. I mean…" He stopped as Byrnes handed him the key. "Hey, is that what you meant by 'Forthwith'?"

Byrnes nodded tiredly. "That is what I meant by 'Forthwith,'" he said.

"Yeah," Murchison said. "I'll be damned." Roughly, he pulled Virginia Dodge from the chair. "Come on, prize package," he said, and he led both women from the squadroom, passing Kling in the corridor.

"Well, we got Miscolo off okay," Kling said. "The rest is in the lap of the gods. We sent Meyer along for the ride. The intern seemed to think that face needed treatment. It's over, huh, Pete?"

"It's over," Byrnes said.

There was noise in the corridor outside. Steve Carella pushed a man through the slatted-rail divider and said, "Sit down, Scott. Over there. Hello, Pete. Cotton. Here's our boy. Strangled his own… Teddy! Honey, I forgot all about you. Have you been waiting lo—"

He shut his mouth because Teddy rushed into his arms with such fervor that she almost knocked him over.

"We've all been sort of waiting for you," Byrnes said.

"Yeah? Well, that's nice. Absence makes the heart grow fonder." He held Teddy at arm's length and said, "I'm sorry I'm late, baby. But all at once the thing began to jell. Let me type my report and away we go. Pete, I'm taking my wife to dinner, and I dare you to say no. We're going to have a baby!"

"Congratulations," Byrnes said wearily.

"Boy, what enthusiasm. Honey, I'm so starved I could eat a horse. Pete, we book this guy for homicide. Where's a typewriter? Anything interesting happen while I was…?"

The phone rang.

"I've got it," Carella said. He lifted the receiver. "Eighty-seventh Squad, Carella."

"Carella, this is Levy down the Bomb Squad."

"Yeah, hi, Levy, how are you?"

"Fine. And you?"

"Fine. What's up?"

"I got a report on that bottle."

"What bottle?"

"We picked up a bottle there."

"Oh, yeah? Well, what about it?"

Carella listened, inserting a few "Uh-huhs" and "Yeses" into the conversation. Then he said, "Okay, Levy, thanks for the dope," and hung up. He pulled up a chair, ripped three D.D. sheets from the desk drawer, inserted carbon between them, and then swung a typewriter into place.

"That was Levy," he said. "The Bomb Squad. Somebody here give him a bottle?"

"Yeah," Hawes said.

"Well, he was calling to report on it."

Hawes rose and walked to Carella. "What did he say?"

"He said it was."

"It was?"

"That's what the man said. They exploded it downtown. Powerful enough to have blown up City Hall."

"It was," Hawes said tonelessly.

"Yeah." Carella inserted the report forms into the typewriter. "Was what?" he asked absently.

"Nitro," Hawes said, and he sank into a chair near the desk, and he had on his face the stunned expression of a man who's been hit by a diesel locomotive.

"Boy," Carella said, "what a day this was!"

Furiously, he began typing.

Killer's Wedge, 1958