The third Deadly Sin

Chapter 8

On May 10th, the Saturday afternoon Zoe Kohler and Ernest Mittle were flying a red balloon in Central Park, Edward X. Delaney sat in a crowded office in Midtown North with Sergeant Abner Boone and other officers. They were discussing the murder of Leonard T. Bergdorfer at the Cameron Arms Hotel.

Present at the conference, in addition to Delaney and Boone, were the following:

Lieutenant Martin Slavin, who had been relegated to a strictly administrative role in the operations of the task force assembled to apprehend the Hotel Ripper…

Sergeant Thomas K. Broderick, an officer with more than twenty years' service in the Detective Division, most of them in midtown Manhattan.

Detective First Grade Aaron Johnson, a black, with wide experience in dealing with the terrorist fringes of minority groups and with individual anarchists…

Detective Second Grade Daniel ("Dapper Dan") Bentley, who specialized in hotel crimes, particularly robberies, gem thefts, confidence games, etc…

Detective Lieutenant Wilson T. Crane, noted for his research capabilities and expertise in computer technology…

Sergeant Boone opened the discussion by recapping briefly the circumstances of Leonard Bergdorfer's death…

"Pretty much like the others. Throat slashed. Multiple stab wounds in the nuts. This time the body was found on the floor. Take a look at the photos. The bed wasn't used. The autopsy shows no, uh, sexual relations prior-"

Bentley: "Sexual relations? You mean like my sister-in-law?" (Laughter) Boone: "He hadn't screwed at least twenty-four hours prior to his death. Like the others."

Crane: "Prints?"

Boone: "The Latent Print Unit is still at it. It doesn't look good. Two things that may help… The tip of a knife blade was found embedded in the victim's throat. It's a little more than a half-inch long. Lab Services is working on it now. There's no doubt it's from the murder weapon. Probably a pocket knife, jackknife, or clasp knife-whatever you want to call it."

Johnson: "How long was the blade do they figure?"

Boone: "Maybe three inches long."

Johnson: "Sheet! A toothpick."

Boone: "Victim suffered first-degree burns of the face, especially around the eyes and nose. The Medical Examiner's office blames phenacyl chloride used in CN and Chemical Mace. The burning indicates a heavy dose at close range."

Broderick: "Enough to knock him out?"

Boone: "Enough to knock him down, that's for sure. As far as the victim's background goes, we're still at it. No New York sheet. He was from Atlanta, Georgia. They're checking. Ditto the Feds. Probably nothing we can use. And that's about it."

Crane: "Was the Mace can found?"

Boone: "No. The killer probably took it along. What's the law on Mace? Anyone know?"

Slavin: "Illegal to buy, sell, own, carry, or use in the State of New York. Except for bona fide security and law enforcement officers."

Bentley: "Black market? Johnson?"

Johnson: "You asking me 'cause I'm black?" (Laughter) Johnson: "There's some of it around. In those little purse containers for women to carry. There's not what you'd call a thriving market on the street."

Boone: "Well, at the moment, the Mace and the knife blade tip are all we've got that's new. Before we start talking about what to do with them, I'd like you to listen to ex-Chief of Detectives Edward X. Delaney for a few minutes. The Chief is not on active duty. At the urging of Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen and myself, he has agreed to serve as, uh, a consultant on this investigation. Chief?"

Delaney stood, leaning on his knuckles on the battered table. He loomed forward. He looked around slowly, staring at every man.

"I'm not here to give you orders," he said tonelessly. "I'm not here to ride herd on you. I've got no official status at all. I'm here because Thorsen and Boone are old friends, and because I want to crack this thing as much as you do. If I have any suggestions on how to run this case, I'll make them to Thorsen or Boone. They can pick up on them or not-that's their business. I just want to make sure you know what the situation is. I'd like my presence here to be kept under wraps as long as possible. I know it'll probably get out eventually, but I don't need the publicity. I've already got my pension."

They smiled at that, and relaxed.

"All right," he said, "now I want to tell you who I think the Hotel Ripper is…"

That jolted them and brought them leaning forward, waiting to hear.

He told them why he thought the killer was a woman. Not a prostitute, but a psychopathic female. He went over all the evidence he had presented to Monica and to Thorsen. But this time he remembered to include the additional detail that the person who tipped off the Times could have been a woman.

He said nothing about Thomas Handry's research, nothing about the statistics showing the increased evidence of alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental disturbance among women.

These men were professional policemen; they weren't interested in sociological change or psychological motivation. Their sole concern was evidence that could be brought into court.

So he came down heavily on the known facts about the murders, facts that could be accounted for only by the theory he proposed. They were facts already known to everyone in that room, except for his suggestion that the timing of the killings was equivalent to a woman's menstrual period.

But it was the first time they had heard these disparate items fitted into a coherent hypothesis. He could see their doubt turn to dawning realization that the theory he offered was a fresh approach, a new way of looking at old puzzles.

"So what we're looking for," Delaney concluded, "is a female crazy. I'd guess young-late twenties to middle thirties. Five-five to five-seven. Short hair, because she has no trouble wearing wigs. Strong. Very, very smart. Not a street bum. Probably a woman of some education and breeding. Chances are she's on pills or booze or both, but that's pure conjecture. She probably lives a reasonably normal life when she's not out slashing throats. Holds down a job, or maybe she's a housewife. That's all I've got."

He sat down suddenly. The men looked at one another, waiting for someone to speak.

BOONE: "Any reactions?"

SLAVIN: "There's not a goddamned thing there we can take to the DA."

BOONE: "Granted. But it's an approach. A place to start."

JOHNSON: "I'll buy it."

BENTLEY: "It listens to me. It's got to be a twist-all those straight guys stripping off their pants."

CRANE: "It doesn't fit the probabilities for this type of crime."

DELANEY: "I agree. In this case, I think the probabilities are wrong. Not wrong, but outdated."

BRODERICK: "I'll go along with you, Chief. Let's suppose the killer is a woman. So what? Where do we go from there?"

BOONE: "First, go back and check the records again. For women with a sheet that includes violent crimes. Check the prisons for recent releases. Check the booby hatches for ditto, and for escapees. Go through all our nut files and see if anything shows up."

CRANE: "My crew can handle that."

BOONE: "Second, the knife blade… Broderick, see if you can trace the knife by analysis of the metal in the blade."

DELANEY: "Or the shape. Ever notice how pocket knife blades have different shapes? Some are straight, some turn up at the point, some are sharpened on both edges."

BRODERICK: "That's nice. There must be a zillion different makes of pocket knives for sale in the New York area."

BOONE: "Find out. Third, Johnson you take the business with the Mace. Who makes it, how it gets into New York. Is it sold by mail order? Can you get a license to buy it? Anyone pushing it on the street? And so forth."

BENTLEY: "And me?"

BOONE: "Pull your decoys out of the gay bars. Concentrate on the straight places, and mostly the bars and cocktail lounges in mid town hotels. And show photos of the victims to bartenders and waitresses. See if you can pick up a trail."

BENTLEY: "We've already done that, sarge."

BOONE: "So? Do it again."

DELANEY: "Wait a minute…"

They all turned to look at him but the Chief was silent. Then he spoke to Detective Bentley.

DELANEY: "Your squad showed photos of all the victims around in hotel bars and cocktail lounges?"

BENTLEY: "That's right, Chief."

DELANEY: "And you came up with zilch?"

BENTLEY: "Correct. That's understandable; most of the places were mobbed. What waitress would remember one customer's face?"

DELANEY: "Uh-huh. Boone, who was the victim with the badly scarred hands?"

BOONE: "The third. Jerome Ashley, at the Hotel Coolidge."

DELANEY: "Go back to the Coolidge. Don't show Ashley's photo. At first. Ask if any waitress or bartender remembers a customer with badly scarred hands. If they do, then show his photo."

BENTLEY: "Got it. Beautiful."

BOONE: "Any more questions?"

CRANE: "Are we releasing this to the media? About the Ripper being a woman?"

BOONE: "Thorsen says no, not at the moment. They'll decide on it downtown."

BRODERICK: "No way we can keep it quiet. Too many people involved."

BOONE: "I agree, but it's not our decision to make. Anything else?"

BENTLEY: "What color wig are my decoys looking for?"

BOONE: "Probably strawberry blond. But it could be any color."

BENTLEY: "Thank you. That narrows it down."

Laughing, the men rose, the meeting broke up. Delaney watched them go. He was satisfied with them; he thought they knew their jobs.

More than that, he was gratified by the way they had accepted, more or less, his theory as a working hypothesis. He knew how comforting it was in any criminal case to have a framework, no matter how bare. The outline, hopefully, would be filled in as the investigation proceeded.

But to start out with absolutely nothing, and still have nothing three months later, was not only discouraging, it was enervating; it drained the will, weakened resolve, and made men question their professional ability.

Now, at least, he had given them an aim, a direction. Policemen, in many ways, are like priests. No experienced cop believes injustice; the law is his bible. And Delaney had given them hope that, in this case at least, the law would not be flouted.

"Want to stay around, Chief?" Sergeant Boone asked. "Maybe you can suggest some improvements on how we're organized."

"Thanks," Delaney said, "but I better climb out of your hair and let you get to work. I think it would be smart if I stayed away from here as much as possible. Keep resentment to a minimum."

"No one resents your helping out, Chief."

Delaney smiled and waved a hand.

On his way out of Midtown North, he looked in at busy offices, squad and interrogation rooms. Most of his years of service had been spent in precinct houses older than this one, but the atmosphere was similar. The smell was identical.

He knew that most of the bustle he witnessed had nothing to do with the Hotel Ripper case; it was the daily activity of an undermanned precinct that patrolled one of the most crowded sections of Manhattan, usually the only part of New York City visited by tourists.

It would have been helpful, and probably more efficient, if the entire Hotel Ripper task force could have been accommodated in one suite of offices, or even one large bullpen. But they had to make do with the space available.

As a result, only Boone and his command squad and Slavin and his bookkeepers worked out of Midtown North. Johnson and Bentley, and their crews, were stationed in Midtown South. Broderick's men had desks in the 20th Precinct, and Lieutenant Crane's research staff had been given temporary space downtown at 1 Police Plaza.

Still, the organization creaked along, twenty-four hours a day, with three shifts of plainclothesmen and detectives turning up to keep the investigation rolling. Delaney didn't want to think about the scheduling problems involved-that was Slavin's headache.

And the paperwork! It boggled the mind. Daily reports, status updates, requests for record checks, and pleas for additional manpower were probably driving Sergeant Boone right up the wall. Delaney suspected he was sleeping on a cot in his office- when he had a chance to grab a few hours.

The Chief walked across town on 54th Street, musing on the size of the machine that had been set in motion to stop a single criminal and what it was costing the city. He didn't doubt for a moment that it was necessary, but he wondered if adding more men, and more, and more, would bring success sooner. Would doubling the task force break the case in half the time? Ridiculous.

He guessed that the size of the operation must be a matter of some pride and satisfaction to the murderer. Most mass killers had a desire for recognition of the monstrousness of their crimes. They wrote to the newspapers. They called TV and radio stations. They wanted attention, and if it came at the cost of slashed corpses and a terrorized city-so be it.

He lumbered along the city street, crowded this Saturday afternoon in spring, and looked with new eyes at the women passing by. He was as adept at observing himself as others, and he realized that his way of looking at women had changed since he became convinced that the Hotel Ripper was female.

His feelings about women had already undergone one revolution, spurred by Monica's interest in the feminist movement. But now, seeing these strange, aloof creatures striding along on a busy New York street, he was conscious of another shift in his reactions to the female sex.

He could only recognize it as a kind of wariness. It was an awareness that, for him at least, women had suddenly revealed a new, hitherto unsuspected dimension.

There was a mystery there, previously shrugged off, like most males, with the muttered comment: "Just like a woman." With no one, ever, defining exactly what was meant by that judgment, except that it was inevitably uttered in a condemnatory tone.

But now, attempting to analyze the mystery, he thought it might be nothing more complex than granting to women the humanity granted to men-with all its sins and virtues, ideals and depravities.

If one was willing to accord to women equality (superiority even!) in all the finer instincts and nobilities of which men were capable, was it such a wrench or so illogical to acknowledge also that they were capable of men's faults and corruptions?

It was a nice point, he decided, and one he would certainly enjoy debating with Monica. The first time he caught her in a forgiving mood…

He took an uptown bus on Third Avenue and arrived home a little before 4:00 p.m. Monica was asleep on the living room couch, a book open on her lap, reading glasses down on her nose. He smiled and closed the door quietly when he went into the kitchen.

Moving stealthily, he opened the refrigerator door and considered the possibilities. He decided on a sandwich of anchovies, egg salad, and sliced tomato on a seeded roll. Rather than eat it while leaning over the sink, he put it on a sheet of waxed paper and carried it, along with an opened beer, into the study.

While he ate and drank, he added a few additional facts to the dossier of Leonard T. Bergdorfer. Then he shuffled the files of all four victims and tried to add to his list of commonalities.

The days of the week when the crimes were committed seemed to have no connection. Nor did the precise time of day. The exact location of the hotels, other than being in midtown Manhattan, suggested no particular pattern. The victims apparently had nothing in common other than being out-of-town males.

He threw his lists aside. Perhaps, he thought, he was deceiving himself by believing there was a link between the four killings that was eluding him. Maybe because he wanted a link, he had convinced himself that one existed.

An hour later, when Monica came into the study yawning and blinking, he was still staring morosely at the papers on his desk. When she asked him what he was doing, he replied, "Nothing." And that, he reflected sourly, was the truth.

There were days when he wanted to be the lowliest of plainclothesmen, assigned to ringing doorbells and asking questions. Or a deskbound researcher, poring over stacks of yellowed arrest records, looking for a name, a number, anything. At least those men were doing something.

It seemed to him that his role in the Hotel Ripper case was that of the "consultant" Boone had mentioned. He was the kindly old uncle whose advice was solicited, but who was then shunted aside while younger, more energetic men took over the legwork and the on-the-spot decision making.

He could not endure that inactivity. An investigation was precisely that: tracking, observing, studying, making a systematic examination and inquiry. A criminal investigation was a search, and he was being kept from the challenge, the excitement, the disappointments and rewards of searching.

Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen had been right; he had cop's blood; he admitted it. He could not resist the chase; it was a pleasure almost as keen as sex. Age had nothing to do with it, nor physical energy. It was the mystery that enticed; he would never be free from the lust to reveal secrets.

His opportunity for action came sooner than expected…

On Friday morning, May 16th, the Delaneys sat down to breakfast at their kitchen table. The Chief looked with astonishment at the meal Monica had prepared: kippers, scrambled eggs, baked potatoes, sauteed onions.

"What," he wanted to know, "have you done to justify serving a magnificent breakfast like this?"

She laughed guiltily.

"It's the last meal you'll get from me today," she said. "I'm going to be busy. So I thought if you start out with a solid breakfast, it might keep you from sandwiches for a few hours. You're putting on weight."

"More of me to love," he said complacently, and dug into his food with great enjoyment. They ate busily for a while, then he asked casually, "What's going to keep you busy all day?"

"The American Women's Association is having a three-day convention in New York. I signed up for today's activities. Lectures and a film this morning. Then lunch. Seminars and a general discussion this afternoon. Then dinner tonight."

"You'll take a cab home?"

"Of course."

"Make the driver wait until you're inside the door."

"Yes, Daddy."

They ate awhile in silence, handing condiments back and forth. Delaney liked to put the buttered onions directly on his steaming potato, with a little coarsely ground black pepper.

"Where is the convention being held?" he asked idly. "Which hotel?"

"The Hilton."

He paused, holding a forkful of kipper halfway to his mouth. He gazed up in the air, over her head.

"How do you know the convention is at the Hilton?" he asked slowly.

"I got a notice in the mail. With an application blank."

"But there was no notice in the papers?"

"I didn't see any. Today is the first day. There may be stories tomorrow."

He took his bite of kipper, chewed it thoughtfully.

"But there was nothing in the papers about it?" he asked again. "No advance notice?"

"Edward, what is this?"

Instead of answering, he said, "What other conventions are being held at the Hilton today?"

"How on earth would I know that?"

"What conventions are being held at the Americana right now?"

"Edward, will you please tell me what this is all about?"

"In a minute," he said. "Let me finish this banquet first. It really is delicious."

"Hmph," she said, with scorn for this blatant effort to placate her. But she had to wait until he had cleaned his plate and poured each of them a second cup of black coffee.

"You don't know what conventions are at the Hilton," he said, "except for the one you're attending. I didn't know there were any conventions at the Hilton today. Neither of us know what conventions are being held right now at the Americana or any other New York hotel. Why should we know? We're not interested."

"So?"

"So for weeks now I've been looking for a link between the Hotel Ripper homicides. Something that ties them all together. Something we've overlooked."

She stared at him, puzzling it out.

"You mean there were conventions being held at all the hotels where the murders were committed?"

He stood, moved heavily around to her side of the table. He leaned down to kiss her cheek.

"My little detective," he said. "Thank you for a great breakfast and thank you for the lead. You're exactly right; the killings were at hotels where conventions were being held. And this was as early as the middle of February. Not precisely the height of the convention season in New York. But the killer picked hotels with conventions, sales meetings, big gatherings. Why not? She wants lots of people around, lots of single, unattached men. She wants crowds in the lobbies and dining rooms and cocktail lounges. She wants victims ready for a good time, maybe already lubricated with booze. So she selects hotels with conventions. Does that make sense?"

"It makes sense," Monica said. "In an awful way. But how does she know which hotels are having conventions?"

"Ah," he said, "good question. I've never seen a list in the daily papers. Have you?"

"No."

"But it must exist somewhere. The city's convention bureau or tourist bureau or some municipal office must keep track of these things. I know they make an effort to bring conventions to the city. Maybe they publish a daily or weekly or monthly list. And maybe the hotel association does, too. Anyway, the killer knows where the conventions are and heads for them."

"It doesn't sound like much of a clue to me," Monica said doubtfully.

"You never can tell," he said cheerfully. "You just never know. But if you do nothing, you have no chance to get lucky."

He helped Monica clean up and waited until she had departed for her first meeting at the New York Hilton. By that time he had figured out exactly how he was going to handle it.

He locked the front door, went into the study, and phoned Midtown Precinct South. He asked for Detective Second Grade Daniel Bentley, the expert on Manhattan hotels.

"Hello?"

"Bentley?"

"Yeah. Who's this?"

"Edward X. Delaney here."

"Oh, hiya, Chief. Don't tell me we got her?"

"No," Delaney said, laughing. "Not yet. How's it going?"

"Okay. I can't cover every bar and cocktail lounge, but I'm putting at least one man in every big hotel between Thirty-fourth and Fifty-ninth, river to river, between eight and two every night. You know we had a guy at the Cameron Arms when Bergdorfer was offed?"

"Yes, I heard that."

"So much for decoys," Bentley said mournfully. "But maybe next time we'll luck out."

Delaney paused, reflecting how everyone took it for granted that there would be a next time.

"About that Jerome Ashley kill at the Coolidge," Detective Bentley went on. "We checked with the bartenders and waitresses in the cocktail lounges. No one remembers a guy with scarred hands. But two of the waitresses on duty that night don't work there anymore. We're tracking them down. Nothing comes easy."

"It surely doesn't. Bentley, I wonder if you can help me."

"Anything you say, Chief."

"I'd like to talk to a hotel security officer. Preferably an ex-cop. Are there any working in hotels now?"

"Oh hell yes. I know of at least three. Guys who took early retirement. The pay's not bad and the work isn't all that hard, except maybe in the big hotels. Why do you ask? Anything cooking?"

"Not really. I just wanted to find out how hotel security works. Maybe we can convince them to beef up their patrols or put on extra guards to help us out."

"Good idea. Here are the guys I know…"

He gave Delaney the names of three men, one of which the Chief recognized.

"Holzer?" he asked. "Eddie Holzer? Was he in Narcotics for a while?"

"Sure, that's the one. You know, him?"

"Yes. I worked with him on a couple of things."

"He's at the Hotel Osborne. It's not a fleabag, but it's not the Ritz either."

"I'll give him a call. Many thanks, Bentley."

"Anytime, Chief."

He hung up, wondering why he had lied-well, maybe not lied, but misled Detective Bentley as to the reason why he wanted to talk to a hotel security officer. He told himself that he just didn't want to bother a busy investigating officer with a slim lead and probably a dead-end search.

But he knew it wasn't that.

He looked up the number of the Hotel Osborne and called. He was told that Mr. Holzer wouldn't be at his desk until noon.

He had no sooner hung up than the phone rang. It was Ivar Thorsen. He said he was heading for a meeting and wanted to get Delaney's thinking on two subjects…

"This is with the brass and their public relations men from the offices of the Mayor, the Commissioner, and the Chief of Operations," he said. "About what we give to the media. First of all, do we release the business about the Hotel Ripper switching to a strawberry blond wig? Second, do we say we are definitely looking for a female killer? What do you think, Edward?"

Delaney pondered a moment. Then…

"Take the second one first… There's no way we can keep it quiet that we're looking for a woman. But fuzz the issue. Say the killer can be a man or a woman; we're looking for both."

"You still think it's a woman?"

"Of course. But I could be wrong; I admit it. The brass will want an out-just in case. Cover yourself on this one."

"All right, Edward; that makes sense. What about the wig?"

"Ivar, you've got to be definite on that. If the reporters print it was a blond wig, the killer will just switch to another color. That's what happened when Slavin fucked up."

"But if we don't warn tourists about a killer wearing a strawberry blond wig, aren't we endangering them?"

"Probably," Delaney said grimly. "But the decoys have got to have something to look for. We can't have her switching colors on us again."

"Jesus," Thorsen breathed, "if the papers find out, they'll crucify us."

"We've got to take the chance," the Chief urged. "And if the reporters dig it up, we can always say we didn't want the killer to go to another color-which is the truth."

"But meanwhile we're not warning the tourists."

"Deputy," Delaney said, his voice suddenly thick with fury, "do you want to stop this maniac or don't you?"

"All right, all right," Thorsen said hastily. "I'll try to get them to do it your way. I should be out of the meeting and uptown by late this afternoon. Can you meet me at Midtown North at, say, about four o'clock? I'll tell you how I made out and Boone can bring us up to date."

"I'll be there," Delaney said and hung up.

He was a little ashamed of himself for getting shirty with Ivar. He knew what the Admiral was up against: superior officers concerned with the image of the Department and the public relations aspects of this highly publicized case.

It was bullshit like that-image, public relations, politics-that had persuaded Edward X. Delaney it was time for him to retire from the New York Police Department. With his stubbornness, temper, and refusal to compromise, he knew he could never hope for higher rank.

"If you want to get along, you go along." That was probably true in every human organization. But being true didn't make it right. Delaney admitted he was a maverick, always had been. But he consoled himself with the thought that it was the mavericks of the world who got things done. Not the yes-men and the ass-kissers.

All they got for their efforts, he thought morosely, were success, wealth, and admiration.

Detective Bentley had been right; the Osborne wasn't much of a hotel. It could have been called the Seedy Grandeur. Located on 46th Street east of Seventh Avenue, it had a stone facade so gray and crumbled that it seemed bearded.

It was the type of Times Square hotel that had once hosted Enrico Caruso, Lillian Russell, and Diamond Jim Brady. Now it sheltered Sammy the Wop, Gage Sullivan, Dirty Sally, and others of hazy pasts and no futures.

Standing in the center of that chipped and peeling lobby, Delaney decided the odor was compounded of CN, pot, and ancient urinals. But the place seemed bustling enough, all the men equipped with toothpicks and all the women with orange hair. Tout sheets were everywhere.

Eddie Holzer was studying one, marking his choices. His feet were parked atop his splintered desk and he was wearing a greasy fedora. He held a cracked coffee cup in one trembling hand. Delaney guessed it didn't contain coffee.

Holzer glanced up when Delaney paused in the opened door.

"Chrissake," he said, lurching to his feet, "look what the cat drug in. Harya, Chief."

They shook hands, and Holzer brushed magazines and old newspapers off a straight chair. Delaney sat down cautiously. He looked at the other man with what he hoped was a friendly smile.

He knew Holzer's record, and it wasn't a happy one. The ex-detective had worked out of the Narcotics Division, and eventually the big money had bedazzled him. He had been allowed to retire before the DA moved in, but everyone in the Department knew he was tainted.

Now here he was, Chief of Security in a sleazy Times Square hotel, marking up a tipsheet and sipping cheap booze from a coffee cup. For all that, Delaney knew the man had been a clever cop, and he hoped enough remained.

They gossiped of this and that, remembering old times, talking of who was retired, who was dead. The Department put its mark on a man. He might be out for years and years, but he'd be in for the rest of his life.

Finally the chatter stopped.

Holzer looked at the Chief shrewdly. "I don't figure you stopped in by accident. How'd you find me?"

"Bentley," Delaney said.

"Dapper Dan?" Holzer said, laughing. "Good cop."

He was a florid, puffy man, rapidly going to flab. His face was a road map of capillaries, nose swollen, cheeks bloomy. Delaney had noted the early-morning shakes; Holzer made no effort to conceal them. If he was a man on the way down, it didn't seem to faze him.

The Chief wasn't sure how to get started, how much to reveal. But Holzer made it easy for him.

He said: "I hear you're helping out on the Hotel Ripper thing."

Delaney looked at him with astonishment. "Where did you hear that?"

Holzer flipped a palm back and forth. "Here and there. The grapevine. You know how things get around."

"They surely do," Delaney said. "Yes, I'm helping out. Deputy Commissioner Thorsen is an old friend of mine. I hunted you down because I-because we need your help."

He had pushed the right button. Holzer straightened up, his shoulders went back. Light came into his dulled eyes.

"You need my help?" he said, not believing. "On the case?"

Delaney nodded. "I think you're the man. You're a hotel security chief."

"Some hotel," Holzer said wanly. "Some security chief."

"Still…" Delaney said.

He explained that all the Ripper slayings had occurred at hotels in which conventions were being held. He was convinced the killer had prior knowledge of exactly where and when conventions and sales meetings and large gatherings were taking place.

Eddie Holzer listened intently, pulling at his slack lower lip.

"Yeah," he said, "that washes. I'll buy it. So?"

"So how would someone know the convention schedule in midtown Manhattan? It's not published in the papers."

Holzer thought a moment.

"These things are planned months ahead," he said. "Sometimes years ahead. To reserve the rooms, you understand. Someone in the Mayor's office would know. The outfit trying to bring new business to the city. The tourist bureau. Maybe there's a convention bureau. The Chamber of Commerce. Like that."

"Good," Delaney said, not mentioning that he had already thought of those sources. "Anyone else?"

"The hotel associations-they'd know."

"And…?"

"Oh," Holzer said, "here…"

He bent over with some effort, rooted through the stack of magazines and newspapers he had swept off Delaney's chair. He came up with a thin, slick-paper magazine, skidded it across the desk to the Chief.

"New York hotel trade magazine," he said. "Comes out every week. It lists all the conventions in town."

"This goes to every hotel?" Delaney asked, flipping through the pages.

"I guess so," Holzer said. "It's a freebie. The ads pay for it. I think it goes to travel agencies, too. Maybe they send it out of town to big corporations-who knows? You'll have to check."

"Uh-huh," Delaney said. "Well, it's a place to start. Eddie, can I take this copy with me?"

"Be my guest," Holzer said. "I never look at the goddamned thing."

The Chief stood, held out his hand. The other man managed to get to his feet. They shook hands. Holzer didn't want to let go.

"Thank you, Eddie," Delaney said, pulling his hand away. "You've been a big help."

"Yeah?" Holzer said vaguely. "Well… you know. Anything I can do…"

"Take care of yourself," Delaney said gently.

"What? Me? Sure. You bet. I'm on top of the world."

Delaney nodded and got out of there. In the rancid lobby, a man and a woman were having a snarling argument. As the Chief passed, the woman spat in the man's face.

"Aw, honey," he said sadly, "now why did you want to go and do that for?"

Pierre au Tunnel was Delaney's favorite French restaurant on the West Side. And because it was Friday, he knew they would be serving bouillabaisse. The thought of that savory fish stew demolished the memory of Monica's scrumptious breakfast.

He walked uptown through Times Square, not at all offended by the flashy squalor. For all its ugliness, it had a strident vitality that stirred him. This section was quintessential New York. If you couldn't endure Times Square, you couldn't endure change.

But there were some things that didn't change; Pierre au Tunnel was just as he remembered it. The entrance was down a flight of stairs from the sidewalk. There was a long, narrow front room, bar on the right, a row of small tables on the left. In the rear was the main dining room, low-ceilinged, walls painted to simulate those of a tunnel or grotto.

It was a relaxed, reasonably priced restaurant, with good bread and a palatable house wine. Most of the patrons were habitues. It was the kind of neighborhood bistro where old customers kissed old waitresses.

The luncheon crowd had thinned out; Delaney was able to get his favorite table in the corner of the front room. He ordered the bouillabaisse and a small bottle of chilled muscadet. He tucked the corner of his napkin into his collar and spread the cloth across his chest.

He ate his stew slowly, dipping chunks of crusty French bread into the sauce. It was as good as he remembered it, as flavorful,; and the hard, flinty wine was a perfect complement. He ordered espresso and a lemon ice for dessert and then, a little later, a pony of Armagnac.

Ordinarily, lunching alone at this restaurant, he would have amused himself by observing his fellow diners and the activity at the bar. But today, with the hotel trade magazine tucked carefully at his side, he had other matters to occupy him.

His original intention had been to take a more active role in the investigation. He had hoped that he alone might handle the search for persons with access to a list of current conventions in New York.

He saw now that such an inquiry was beyond his capabilities, or those of any other single detective. It would take a squad of ten, twenty, perhaps thirty men to track down all the sources, to make a list of all New Yorkers who might have access to a schedule of conventions.

It was a dull, routine, interminable task. And in the end, it might lead to nothing. But, he reflected grimly, it had to be done. Sipping his Armagnac, he began to plan how the men selected for the job should be organized and assigned.

He arrived at Midtown Precinct North a little after 3:30 p.m. Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen was already present, and Delaney met with him and Abner Boone in the sergeant's office. Thorsen told them of the results of his meeting with the police brass.

"You got everything you wanted, Edward," he said. "I'll hold a press conference tomorrow. The official line will be that new leads are enlarging the investigation-which is true-and we are now looking for either a female or male perpetrator. Nothing will be released about the killer switching to a strawberry blond wig."

"Good," Boone said. "They picked up more blond hairs when they vacuumed Bergdorfer's suite at the Cameron Arms. What about the knife blade tip? And the Mace?"

"We'll keep those under wraps for the time being," Thorsen said. "We can't shoot our wad all at once. If the screams for action become too loud, we'll give them the investigation into the knife, and later into the tear gas. The PR guys were insistent on that. It looks like a long job of work, and we've got to hold something back to prove we're making progress."

Delaney and Boone both sighed, the Machiavellian manipulations of public relations beyond their ken.

"Edward," Thorsen went on, "we're keeping a lid on your involvement in the case for the time being."

"Keep it on forever as far as I'm concerned."

"Sergeant, all inquiries from the media will be referred to me. I will be the sole, repeat, sole spokesman for the Department on this case. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Make certain your men understand it, too. I don't want any unauthorized statements to the press, and if I catch anyone leaking inside information, he'll find himself guarding vacant lots in the South Bronx so fast he won't know what hit him. Now… I don't suppose you have any great revelations to report, do you?"

"No, sir," Boone said, "nothing new. We're just getting organized on the knife and tear gas jobs. Lieutenant Crane's research hasn't turned up anything."

"I have something," Delaney said, and they looked at him.

He told them of his belief that the killer had prior knowledge of the location and dates of conventions held in midtown Manhattan. He listed the sources of such information and showed them the hotel trade magazine he had been given by Eddie Holzer.

"It's got to be someone connected with the hotel or convention business in some way," he argued. "We'll have to compile a list of everyone in the city who has access to the convention schedule."

Thorsen was aghast.

"My God, Edward!" he burst out. "That could be thousands of people!"

"Hundreds, certainly," Delaney said stonily. "But it's got to be done. Sergeant?"

"I guess so," Boone said glumly. "You want men and women listed?"

"Yes," Delaney said, nodding. "Just to cover ourselves. No use in doing the job twice. What do you figure-twenty or thirty more detectives?"

"At least," the sergeant said.

Thorsen groaned. "All right," he said finally, "you'll get them. Who's going to handle it?"

"I'll get it organized and rolling," Sergeant Boone said. "We better call in Slavin on the scheduling."

Delaney left them discussing the exact number of men needed and the office space that would be required. He walked uptown from the precinct house until he found a telephone booth in working order.

He called Thomas Handry.

He told the reporter there would be a press conference held at police headquarters the following day. An expanded investigation would be announced and it would be stated that the killer could be either a man or a woman. Delaney said nothing about the blond wig, the knife blade tip, or the Chemical Mace.

"So?" Handry said. "What's so new and exciting? An expanded investigation-big deal."

"What's new and exciting," Delaney explained patiently, "is that actually the investigation is zeroing in on a female killer."

A moment of silence…

"So that research convinced you?" Handry said. "And you convinced them?"

"Half-convinced," Delaney said. "Some of them still think I'm blowing smoke."

He then went over the evidence that had persuaded him the Hotel Ripper was female. He ended by telling Handry that the; timing of the homicides matched a woman's menstrual periods.

"Crazy," the reporter said. "You're sure about all this?"

"Sure I'm sure. I'm giving you this stuff in advance of the press conference for background, not for publication. I owe you one. Also, I thought you might want to prepare by digging out old stories on women killers."

"I already have," Handry said. "It wasn't hard to figure how; your mind was working. I started looking into the history of mass murders. A series of homicides in which the killer is a stranger to the victims. One criminologist calls them 'multicides.'"

"Multicides," Delaney repeated. "That's a new one on me. Good name. What did you find?"

"Since 1900, there have been about twenty-five cases in the United States, with the number of victims ranging from seven to more than thirty. The scary thing is that more than half of those twenty-five cases have occurred since 1960. In other words, the incidence of multicides is increasing. More and more mass killings by strangers."

"Yes," Delaney said, "I was aware of that."

"And I've got bad news for you, Chief."

"What's that?"

"Of those twenty-five cases of multicide since 1900, only one was committed by a woman."

"Oh?" Delaney said. "Did they catch her?"

"No," Handry said.

Monica came out of the bathroom, hair in curlers, face cold-creamed, a strap of her nightgown held up with a safety pin.

"The Creature from Outer Space," she announced cheerfully.

He looked at her with a vacant smile. He had started to undress. Doffed his dark cheviot jacket and vest, after first removing watch and chain from waistcoat pockets. The clumpy gold chain had been his grandfather's. At one end was a hunter that had belonged to his father and had stopped fifty years ago. Twenty minutes to noon. Or midnight.

At the other end of the chain was a jeweled miniature of his detective's badge, given to him by his wife on his retirement.

Vest and jacket hung away, he seated himself heavily on the edge of his bed. He started to unlace his ankle-high shoes of black kangaroo leather, polished to a high gloss. He was seated there, one shoe dangling from his big hands, when Monica came out of the bathroom.

He watched her climb into bed. She propped pillows against the headboard, sat up with blanket and sheet pulled to her waist.

She donned her Benjamin Franklin glasses, picked up a book from the bedside table.

"What did you eat today?" she demanded, peering at him over her glasses.

"Not much," he lied effortlessly. "After that mighty breakfast this morning, I didn't need much. Skipped lunch. Had a sandwich and a beer tonight."

"One sandwich?"

"Just one."

"What kind?"

"Sliced turkey, cole slaw, lettuce and tomato on rye. With Russian dressing."

"That would do it," she said, nodding. "No wonder you look so remote."

"Remote?" he said. "Do I?"

He bent to unlace his other shoe and slide it off. He peeled away his heavy wool socks. Comfortable shoes and thick socks: secrets of a street cop's success.

When he straightened up, he saw that Monica was still staring at him.

"How is the case going?" she asked quietly.

"All right. It's really in the early stages. Just beginning to move."

"Everyone's talking about the Hotel Ripper. At the meetings today, it came up again and again. In informal conversations, I mean; not in lectures. Edward, people make jokes and laugh, but they're really frightened."

"Of course," he said. "Who wouldn't be?"

"You still think it's a woman?"

"Yes."

He stood, began to take off tie and shirt. Still she had not opened her book. She watched him empty his trouser pockets onto the bureau top.

"I wasn't going to tell you this," she said, "but I think I will."

He stopped what he was doing, turned to face her.

"Tell me what?" he said.

"I asked people I met if they thought the Hotel Ripper could be a woman. My own little survey of public opinion. I asked six people: three men and three women. All the men said the killer couldn't possibly be a woman, and all the women I asked said it could be a woman. Isn't that odd?"

"Interesting," he said. "But I don't know what it means-do you?"

"Not exactly. Except that men seem to have a higher opinion of women than women do of themselves."

He went to shower. He brushed his teeth, pulled on his pajamas. He came out, turned off the overhead light in the bedroom. Monica was reading by the bedlamp. He got into his bed, pulled up the blanket. He lay awake, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

"Why would a woman do such a thing?" he asked, turning his head to look at her.

She put down her book. "I thought you weren't interested in motives."

"Surely I didn't say that. I said I wasn't interested in causes. There's a difference. Every cop is interested in motives. Has to be. That's what helps solve cases. Not the underlying psychological or social causes, but the immediate motive. A man can kill from greed. That's important to a cop. What caused the greed is of little consequence. What immediate motive could a woman have for a series of homicides like this? Revenge? She mutilates their genitals. Could she have been a rape victim?"

"Could be," Monica said promptly. "It's reason enough. But it doesn't even have to be rape. Maybe she's been used by men all her life. Maybe they've just screwed her and deserted her. Made her feel like a thing. Without value. So she's getting back at them."

"Yes," he said, "that listens; it's a possibility. There's something sexual involved here, and I don't know what it is. Could she be an out-and-out sadist?"

"No," Monica said, "I don't think so. Physical sadism amongst women isn't all that common. And sadists prefer slow suffering to quick death."

"Emotional?" he said. "Could it be that? She's been jilted by a man. Betrayed. The woman scorned…"

"Mmm…" his wife said, considering. "No, I don't believe that. A woman might be terribly hurt by one man, but I can't believe she'd try to restore her self-esteem by killing strangers. I think your first idea is right: it's something sexual."

"It could be fear," he said. "Fear of sex with a man."

She looked at him, puzzled.

"I don't follow," she said. "If the killer is afraid of sex, she wouldn't go willingly to the hotel rooms of strange men."

"She might," he said. "To be attracted by what we dread is a very human emotion. Then, when she gets there, fear conquers desire."

"Edward, you make her sound a very complex woman."

"I think she is."

He went back to staring at the ceiling.

"There's another possibility," he said in a low voice.

"What's that?"

"She simply enjoys killing. Enjoys it."

"Oh Edward, I can't believe that."

"Because you can't feel it. Any more than you can believe that some people derive pleasure from being whipped. But such things exist."

"I suppose so," she said in a small voice. "Well, there's a fine selection of motives for you. Which do you suspect it is?"

He was silent for a brief time. Then…

"What I suspect is that it is not a single motive, but a combination of things. We rarely act for one reason. It's usually: a mixture. Can you give me one reason why the Son of Sam did what he did? So I think this killer is driven by several motives."

"The poor woman," Monica said sadly.

"Poor woman?" he said. "You sympathize with her? Feel sorry for her?"

"Of course," she said. "Don't you?"

He had wanted to play a more active role in the investigation, and during the last two weeks of May he got his chance.

All the squad officers involved in the case came to him. They knew Deputy Commissioner Thorsen was in command, transmitting his orders through Sergeant Boone, but they sought out Edward X. Delaney for advice and counsel. They knew his record and experience. And he was retired brass; there was nothing to fear from him…

"Chief," Detective Aaron Johnson said, "I got the word out to all my snitches, but there's not a whisper of any tear gas being peddled on the street."

"Any burglaries of army posts, police stations, or National Guard armories? Any rip-offs of chemical factories?"

"Negative," Johnson said. "Thefts of weapons and high explosives, but no record of anyone lifting tear gas in cans, cartridges, generators, or whatever. The problem here, Chief, is that the Lab Services Section can't swear the stuff was Chemical Mace. But if it was carried in a pocket-size aerosol dispenser, it probably was. So where do we go from here?"

"Find out who makes it and who packages it. Get a list of distributors and wholesalers. Trace it to retailers in this area. Slavin says it's against the law for a New Yorker to buy the stuff, but it must be available to law enforcement agencies for riot control and so forth. Maybe prisons and private security companies can legally buy it. Maybe even a bank guard or night watchman can carry it-I don't know. Find out, and try to get a line on every can that came into this area in the past year."

"Gotcha," Johnson said.

"Chief," Sergeant Thomas K. Broderick said, "look at this…"

He dangled a small, sealed plastic bag in front of Delaney. The Chief inspected it curiously. Inside the bag was a half-inch of gleaming knife blade tip. On the upper half was part of the groove designed to facilitate opening the blade with a fingernail.

"That's it?" Delaney asked.

"That's it," Broderick said. "Fresh from Bergdorfer's slashed throat. We got a break on this one, Chief. Most pocket knives in this country are made with blades of high-grade carbon steel. The lab says this little mother is drop-forged Swedish stainless steel. How about that!"

"Beautiful," the Chief said. "Did you trace it?"

Broderick took a knife from his pocket and handed it to the Chief. It had bright red plastic handles bearing the crest of Switzerland.

"Called a Swiss Army Knife," the detective said. "Or sometimes Swiss Army Officers' Knives. They come in at least eight different sizes. The largest is practically a pocket tool kit. This is a medium-sized one. Open the big blade."

Obediently, Delaney folded back the largest blade. The two men bent over the knife, comparing the whole blade with the tip in the plastic bag.

"Looks like it," the Chief said.

"Identical," Broderick assured him. "The lab checked it out. But where do we go from here? These knives are sold in every good cutlery and hardware store in the city. And just to make the cheese more binding, they're also sold through mail order. Dead end."

"No," Delaney said, "not yet. Start with midtown Manhattan. Say from Thirty-fourth Street to Fifty-ninth Street, river to river. Make a list of every store in that area that carries this knife. The chances are good the killer will try to replace her broken knife with a new one just like it. Have your men visit every store and talk to the clerks. We want the name and address of everyone who buys a knife like this."

"How is the clerk going to do that? If the customer pays cash?"

"Uh… the clerks should tell the customer he wants the name and address for a free mail order catalogue the store is sending out. If the customer doesn't go for that scam and refuses to give name and address, the clerk should take a good look and then call you and give the description. Leave your phone number at every store; maybe they can stall the customer long enough for you or one of your men to get there. Tell the clerks to watch especially for young women, five-five to five-seven. Got it?"

"Got it," Broderick said. "But what if we come up with bupkes?"

"Then we'll do the same thing in all of Manhattan," Delaney said without humor. "And then we'll start on Brooklyn and the Bronx."

"It looks like a long, hot summer," Detective Broderick said, groaning.

"Chief," Lieutenant Wilson T. Crane said, "we've got sixteen possibles from Records. These are women between the ages of twenty and fifty with sheets that include violent felonies. We're tracking them all down and getting their alibis for the night of the homicides. None of them used the same MO as the Hotel Ripper."

"Too much to hope for," Delaney said. "I don't think our target has a sheet, but it's got to be checked out. What about prisons and asylums?"

"No recent releases or escapes that fit the profile," Crane said. "We're calling and writing all over the country, but nothing promising yet."

"Have you contacted Interpol?"

The lieutenant stared at him.

"No, Chief, we haven't," he admitted. "The FBI, but not Interpol."

"Send them a query," Delaney advised. "And Scotland Yard, too, while you're at it."

"Will do," Crane said.

"Chief," Detective Daniel Bentley said, "we went back to the bars at the Hotel Coolidge and asked if anyone remembered serving a man with scarred hands. No one did. But two of the cocktail waitresses who worked in the New Orleans Room the night Jerome Ashley was offed, don't work there anymore. We traced one. She's working in a massage parlor now-would you believe it? She doesn't remember any scarred hands. The other waitress went out to the Coast. Her mother doesn't have an address for her, but promises to ask the girl to call us if she hears from her. Don't hold your breath."

"Keep on it," Delaney said. "Don't let it slide."

"We'll keep on it," Bentley promised.

"Chief," Sergeant Abner Boone said, "I think we've got this thing organized. The hotel trade magazine gave us a copy of their mailing list. We're checking out every hotel in the city that got a copy and making a list of everyone who might have had access to it. I've got men checking the Mayor's office, Chamber of Commerce, hotel associations, visitors' bureau, and so forth. As the names come in, a deskman is compiling two master lists, male and female, with names listed in alphabetical order. How does that sound?"

"You're getting the addresses, too?"

"Right. And their age, when it's available. Even approximate age. Chief, we've got more than three hundred names already. It'll probably run over a thousand before we're through, and even then I won't swear we'll have everyone in New York with prior knowledge of the convention schedule."

"I know," Delaney said grimly, "but we've got to do it."

From all these meetings with the squad commanders, he came away with the feeling that morale was high, the men were doing their jobs with no more than normal grumbling.

After three months of bewilderment and relative inaction, they had finally been turned loose on the chase, their quarry dimly glimpsed but undeniably there. No man involved in the investigation thought what he was doing was without value, no matter how dull it might be.

It was not the first time that Edward X. Delaney had been struck by the contrast between the drama of a heinous crime and the dry minutiae of the investigation. The act was (sometimes) high tragedy; the search was (sometimes) low comedy.

The reason was obvious, of course. The criminal acted in hot passion; the detective had only cold resolve. The criminal was a child of the theater, inspired, thinking the play would go on forever. But along came the detective, a lumpish, methodical fellow, seeking only to ring down the curtain.

On May 30th, all the detectives met at Midtown Precinct North. If Delaney's hypothesis was correct-and most of them now believed it was, simply because no one had suggested any other theory that encompassed all the known facts-the next Hotel Ripper slaying would take place, or be attempted, during the week of June 1-7, and probably during midweek.

It was decided to assign every available man to the role of decoy. With the aid of the hotels' beefed-up security forces, all bars and cocktail lounges in large midtown Manhattan hotels would be covered from 8:00 p.m. until closing.

The lieutenants and sergeants worked out a schedule so that a "hot line" at Midtown North would be manned constantly during those hours. In addition, a standby squad of five men was stationed at Midtown South as backup, to be summoned as needed. The Crime Scene Unit was alerted; one of their vans took up position on West 54th Street.

Monica Delaney noted the fretfulness of her husband during the evenings of June 1-3. He picked up books and tossed them aside. Sat staring for an hour at an opened newspaper without turning a page. Stomped about the house disconsolately, head lowered, hands in his pockets.

She forbore to question the cause of his discontent; she knew. Wisely, she let him "stew in his own juice." But she wondered what would happen to him if events proved his precious theory wrong.

On the night of June 4th, a Wednesday, they were seated in the living room on opposite sides of the cocktail table, playing a desultory game of gin rummy. The Chief had been winning steadily, but shortly after 11:00 p.m., he threw his cards down in disgust and lurched to his feet.

"The hell with it," he said roughly. "I'm going to Midtown."

"What do you think you can do?" his wife asked quietly. "You'll just be in the way. The men will think you're checking up on them, that you don't trust them to do their jobs."

"You're right," he said immediately and dropped back into his chair. "I just feel so damned useless."

She looked at him sympathetically, knowing what this case had come to mean to him: that his expertise was valued, that his age was no drawback, that he was needed and wanted.

There he sat, a stern, rumpled mountain of a man. Gray hair bristled from his big head. His features were heavy, brooding. With his thick, rounded shoulders, he was almost brutish in appearance.

But she knew that behind the harsh facade, a more delicate man was hidden. He was at home in art museums, enjoyed good food and drink, and found pleasure in reading poetry-although it had to rhyme.

More important, he was a virile, tender, and considerate lover. He adored the children. He did not find tears or embraces unmanly. And, unknown to all but the women in his life, there was a core of humility in him.

He had been born and raised a Catholic, although he had long since ceased attending church. But she wondered if he had ever lost his faith. There was steel there that transcended personal pride in his profession and trust in his own rightness.

He had once confessed to her that Barbara, his first wife, had accused him of believing himself God's surrogate on earth. She thought Barbara had been close to the truth; there were times when he acted like a weapon of judgment and saw his life as one long tour of duty.

Musing on the contradictions of the man she loved, she gathered up the cards and put them away.

"Coffee?" she asked idly. "Pecan ring?"

"Coffee would be nice," he said, "but I'll skip the cake. You go ahead."

She was heating the water when the phone shrilled. She picked up the kitchen extension.

"Abner Boone, Mrs. Delaney," the sergeant said, his voice at once hard and hollow. "Could I speak to the Chief, please?"

She didn't ask him the reason for his call. She went back into the living room. Her husband was already on his feet, tugging down vest and jacket. They stared at each other.

"Sergeant Boone," she said.

He nodded, face expressionless. "I'll take it in the study."

She went back into the kitchen and waited for the water to boil, her arms folded, hands clutching her elbows tightly. She heard him come out of the study, go to the hallway closet. He came into the kitchen carrying the straw skimmer he donned every June 1st, regardless of the weather.

"The Hotel Adler," he told her. "About a half-hour ago. They've got the hotel cordoned, but she's probably long gone. I'll be an hour or two. Don't wait up for me."

She nodded and he bent to kiss her cheek.

"Take care," she said as lightly as she could.

He smiled and was gone.

When he arrived at Seventh Avenue and 50th Street, the Hotel Adler was still cordoned, sawhorses holding back a gathering crowd. Two uniformed officers stood in front of the closed glass doors listening to the loud arguments of three men who were apparently reporters demanding entrance.

"No one gets in," one of the cops said in a remarkably placid voice. "But no one. That's orders."

"The public has a right to know," one of the men yelled.

The officer looked at him pityingly. "Hah-hah," he said.

The Chief plucked at the patrolman's sleeve. "I am Edward X. Delaney," he said. "Sergeant Boone is expecting me."

The cop took a quick glance at a piece of scrap paper crumpled in his hand.

"Right," he said. "You're cleared."

He held the door open for Delaney. The Chief strode into the lobby, hearing the howls of rage and frustration from the newsmen on the sidewalk.

There was a throng in the lobby being herded by plainclothesmen into a single file. The line was moving toward a cardtable that had been set up in one corner. There, identification was requested, names and addresses written down.

This operation was being supervised by Sergeant Broderick. When Delaney caught his eye, the sergeant waved and made his way through the mob to the Chief's side. He leaned close.

"Fifth floor," he said in a low voice. "A butcher shop. An old couple next door heard sounds of a fight. The old lady wanted to call the desk and complain; the old geezer didn't want to make trouble. By the time they ended the argument and decided to call, it was too late; a security man found the stiff. I swear we got here no more than a half-hour after it happened."

"Decoys?" Delaney asked.

"Two," Broderick said. "A hotel man in the pub, one of our guys in the cocktail lounge. Both of them claim they saw no one who looked like the perp."

The Chief grunted. "I better go up."

"Hang on to your cookies," Broderick said, grinning.

The fifth floor corridor was crowded with uniformed cops, ambulance men, detectives, the DA's man, and precinct officers. Delaney made his way through the crush. Sergeant Boone and Ivar Thorsen were standing in the hallway, just outside an open door.

The three men shook hands ceremoniously, solemn mourners at a funeral. Delaney took a quick look through the door.

"Jesus Christ," he said softly.

"Yeah," Boone said, "a helluva fight. And then the cutting. The ME says not much more than an hour ago. Two, tops."

"I'm getting too old for this kind of thing," Thorsen said, his face ashen. "The guy's in ribbons."

"Any doubt that it was the Ripper?"

"No," Boone said. "Throat slashed and nuts stabbed. But the doc says he might have been dead when that happened."

"Any ID?"

Sergeant Boone flipped the pages of his notebook, found what he was seeking.

"Get a load of this," he said. "His paper says he was Nicholas Telemachus Pappatizos. How do you like that? Home address was Las Vegas."

"The hotel security chief made him," Thorsen said. "Known as Nick Pappy and Poppa Nick. Also called The Magician. A smalltime hood. Mostly cons and extortion. We're running him through Records right now."

Delaney looked through the doorway again. The small room was an abattoir. Walls splattered with gobbets of dripping blood. Rug soaked. Furniture upended, clothing scattered. A lamp smashed. The drained corpse was a jigsaw of red and white.

"Naked," Delaney said. "But he did put up a fight."

The three men watched the Crime Scene Unit move about the room, dusting for prints, vacuuming the clear patches of carpet, picking up hairs and shards of glass with tweezers and dropping them into plastic bags.

The two technicians were Lou Gorki and Tommy Callahan, the men Delaney had met in Jerome Ashley's room at the Hotel Coolidge. Now Gorki came to the door. He was carrying a big plastic syringe that looked like the kind used to baste roasts. But this one was half-filled with blood. Gorki was grinning.

"I think we got lucky," he announced. He held up the syringe. "From the bathroom floor. It's tile, and the blood didn't soak in. And we got here before it had a chance to dry. I got enough here for a transfusion. I figure it's the killer's blood. Got to be. The clunk was sliced to hash. No way was he going to make it to the bathroom and bleed on the tile. Also, we got bloody towels and stains in the sink where the perp washed. It looks good."

"Tell the lab I want a report on that blood immediately," Thorsen said. "That means before morning."

"I'll tell them," Gorki said doubtfully.

"Prints?" Boone asked.

"Doesn't look good. The usual partials and smears. The faucet handles in the bathroom were wiped clean."

"So if she was hurt," Delaney said, "it wasn't so bad that she didn't remember to get rid of her prints."

"Right," Gorki said. "That's the way it looks. Give us another fifteen minutes and then the meat's all yours."

But it was almost a half-hour before the CSU men packed up their heavy kits and departed. Deputy Commissioner Thorsen decided to go with them to see what he could do to expedite blood-typing by the Lab Services Section. In truth, Thorsen looked ill.

Then Delaney and Boone had to wait an additional ten minutes while a photographer and cartographer recorded the scene. Finally they stepped into the room, followed by Detectives Aaron Johnson and Daniel Bentley.

The four men leaned over the congealing corpse.

"How the hell did she do that?" Johnson said wonderingly. "The guy had muscles; he's not going to stand there and let a woman cut him up."

"Maybe the first stab was a surprise," Bentley said. "Weakened him enough so she could hack him to chunks."

"That makes sense," Boone said. "But how did she get cut? Gorki says she bled in the bathroom. No signs of a second knife- unless it's under his body. Anyone want to roll him over?"

"I'll pass," Johnson said. "I had barbecued ribs for dinner."

"They may have fought for her knife," Delaney said, "and she got cut in the struggle. Boone, you better alert the hospitals."

"God damn it!" the sergeant said, furious at his lapse, and rushed for the phone.

Delaney hung around until the ambulance men came in and rolled Nicholas Telemachus Pappatizos onto a body sheet. There was no knife under the body. Only blood.

The other detectives went down to the lobby to assist in the questioning. Delaney stayed in the room, wandering about, peeking into the bathroom. He saw nothing of significance. Perhaps, he thought, because he was shaken by the echoes of violence. Tommy Callahan came back and continued the Crime Scene Unit investigation.

He pushed the victim's discarded clothing into plastic bags and labeled them. He collected toothbrush, soap, and toilet articles from the bathroom and labeled those. Then he popped the lock on the single suitcase in the room and began to inventory the contents.

"Look at this, Chief," he said. "I better have a witness that I found this…"

Using a pencil through the trigger guard, he fished a dinky, chrome-plated automatic pistol from the suitcase. He sniffed cautiously at the muzzle.

"Clean," he said. "Looks like a.32."

"Or.22," Delaney said. "Gambler's gun. Good for maybe twenty feet, but you'd have to be Deadeye Dick to hit your target. Find anything else?"

"Two decks of playing cards. Nice clothes. Silk pajamas. He lived well."

"For a while," Delaney said.

He left the death room and took the elevator to the lobby. The crowd had thinned, but police were still quizzing residents and visitors. Out on the sidewalk, the mob of noisy newspapermen had grown. In the street, two TV vans were setting up lights and cameras.

Delaney pushed through the throng and crossed the avenue. He turned to look back at the hotel. If she came out onto Seventh, she could have taken a bus or subway. But if she was wounded, she probably caught a cab. He hoped Sergeant Boone would remember to check cabdrivers who might have been in the vicinity at the time.

He walked over to Sixth Avenue and got a cab going uptown. He was home in ten minutes, double-locked and chained the door behind him. It was then almost 2:00 a.m.

"Is that you, Edward?" Monica called nervously from upstairs.

"It's me," he assured her. "I'll be right up."

He hung his skimmer away, then went through his nightly routine: checking the locks on every door and window in the house, even those in the vacant children's rooms. Not for the first time did he decide this dwelling was too large for just Monica and him.

They could sell the building at a big profit and buy a small cooperative apartment or a small house in the suburbs. It made sense. But he knew they never would, and he supposed he would die in that old brownstone. The thought did not dismay him.

He left a night-light burning in the front hallway, then climbed the stairs slowly to the bedroom. He was not physically weary, but he felt emptied and weak. The sight of that slaughterhouse had drained him, diminished him.

Monica was lying on her side, breathing deeply, and he thought she was asleep. She had left the bathroom light on. He undressed quickly, not bothering to shower. He switched off the light, moved cautiously across the darkened room, climbed into bed.

He lay awake, trying to rid his mind of the images that thronged. But he kept seeing the jigsaw corpse and shook his head angrily.

He heard the rustle of bedclothes. In a moment Monica lifted his blanket and sheet and slipped in next to him. She fitted herself to his back, her knees bending with his. She dug an arm beneath him so she could hold him tightly, encircled.

"Was it bad?" she whispered.

He nodded in the darkness and thought, of what Thorsen had said: "I'm getting too old for this kind of thing." Delaney turned to face his wife, moved closer. She was soft, warm, strong. He held on, and felt alive and safe.

After a while he slept. He roused briefly when Monica went back to her own bed, then drifted again into a deep and dreamless slumber.

When the phone rang, he roused slowly and reached to fumble for the bedside lamp. When he found the switch, he saw it was a little after 6:00 a.m. Monica was sitting up in bed, looking at him wide-eyed.

He cleared his throat.

"Edward X. Delaney here."

"Edward, this is Ivar. I wanted you to know as soon as possible. They've run the first part of the blood analysis. You were right. Caucasian female. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Delaney said.

Zoe Kohler came out of the hairdresser's, poking self-consciously at her new coiffure. Her hair had been shampooed, cut and styled, and treated with a spray guaranteed to give it gloss and weight while leaving it perfectly manageable.

Now it was shorter, hugged her head like a helmet, with feathery wisps at temples and cheeks. It was undeniably shinier, though it seemed to her darker and stiffer. The hairdresser had assured her it took ten years off her life, and then tried to sell her a complete makeup transformation. But she wasn't yet ready for that.

She walked slowly toward Madison Avenue, still limping slightly although the cut in her thigh was healing nicely. Everett Pinckney had asked her about the limp. She told him that she had turned her ankle, and that satisfied him.

She passed a newsstand and saw the headlines were still devoted to the murder at the Hotel Adler. She had not been surprised to read that the victim had a police record. One columnist called him a "nefarious character." Zoe Kohler agreed with that judgment.

Two days after the homicide, the police had announced that the Hotel Ripper was definitely a woman. The media had responded enthusiastically with enlarged coverage of the story and interviews with psychologists, feminists, and criminologists.

At least three female newspaper columnists and one female TV news reporter had made fervent pleas to the Hotel Ripper to contact them personally, promising sympathetic understanding and professional help. One afternoon tabloid had offered $25,000 to the Ripper if she would surrender to the paper and relate her life story.

Even more amazing to Zoe Kohler was a casual mention that in a single day, the New York Police Department had received statements from forty-three women claiming to be the killer. All these "confessions" had been investigated and found to be false.

Zoe had asked Mr. Pinckney how the police could be so certain that the Hotel Ripper was a woman. He said they obviously had hard evidence that indicated it. Bloodstains, for instance. They could do wonderful things with blood analysis these days.

Barney McMillan, who was present during this conversation, slyly suggested that another factor might have been the results of the autopsy which could show if the victim had sexual intercourse just before he was killed.

"He probably died happy," McMillan said.

Zoe Kohler wasn't particularly alarmed that the police investigation was now directed toward finding a female murderer. And she had read that plainclothesmen were now being stationed in hotel cocktail lounges in midtown Manhattan. She thought vaguely that it might be necessary to seek her adventures farther afield.

She had been fortunate so far, mostly because of careful planning. She was exhilarated by the fearful excitement she had caused. More than that, the secret that she alone knew gave her an almost physical pleasure, a self-esteem she had never felt before.

All those newspaper stories, all those television broadcasts and radio bulletins were about her. What she felt came very close to pride and, with her new hairdo and despite her limp, she walked taller, head up, glowing, and felt herself queen of the city.

She paused on Madison Avenue to look in the show windows of a shop specializing in clothing for children, from infants to ten-year-olds. The prices were shockingly high for such small garments, but the little dresses and sweaters, jeans and overalls, were smartly designed.

Zoe stared at the eyelet cotton and bright plaids, the crisp party dresses and pristine nightgowns. All so young, so-so innocent. She remembered well that she had been dressed in clean, unsoiled clothing like that: fabrics fresh against her skin, stiff with starch, rustling with their newness.

"You must be a little lady," her mother had said. "And look at these adorable white gloves!"

"You must keep yourself clean and spotless," her mother had said. "Never run. Try not to become perspired. Move slowly and gracefully."

"A little lady always listens," her mother had said. "A little lady speaks in a quiet, refined voice, enunciating clearly."

So Zoe avoided mudpuddles, learned the secrets of the kitchen. She did her homework every night and was awarded good report cards. All her parents' friends remarked on what a paragon she was.

"A real little lady." That's what the adults said about Zoe Kohler.

Seeing those immaculate garments in a Madison Avenue shop brought it all back: the spotlessness of her home, the unblemished clothing she wore, the purity of her childhood. Youth without taint…

On the evening of June 14th, a Saturday, Zoe had dinner with Ernest Mittle in the dining room of the Hotel Gramercy Park. They were surprised to find they were the youngest patrons in that sedate chamber.

Zoe Kohler, glancing about, saw Ernest and herself in twenty years, and found comfort in it. Well-groomed women and respectable men. Dignity and decorum. Low voices and small gestures. How could some people reject the graces of civilization?

She looked at the man sitting opposite and was content. Courtesy and kindness were not dead.

Ernest was wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt, maroon tie. His fine, flaxen hair was brushed to a gleam. Cheeks and chin were so smooth and fair that they seemed never to have known a razor.

He appeared so slight to Zoe. There was something limpid about him, an untroubled innocence. He buttered a breadstick thoroughly and precisely and crunched it with shining teeth. His hands and feet were small. He was almost a miniature man, painted with a one-hair brush, refined to purity.

After dinner they stopped at the dim bar for a Strega. Here was a more electric ambience. The patrons were younger, noisier, and there were shouts of laughter. Braless women and bearded men.

"What would you like to do, Zoe?" Ernest asked, holding her hand and stroking her fingers lightly. "A movie? A nightclub? Would you like to go dancing somewhere?"

She considered a moment. "A disco. Ernie, could we go to a disco? We don't have to dance. Just have a glass of wine and see what's going on."

"Why not?" he said bravely, and she thought of her gold bracelet.

An hour later they were seated at a minuscule table in a barnlike room on East 58th Street. They were the only customers, although lights were flashing and flickering and music boomed from a dozen speakers in such volume that the walls trembled.

"You wanted to see what's going on?" Ernest shouted, laughing. "Nothing's going on!"

But they were early. By the time they finished their second round of white wine, the disco was half-filled, the dance floor was filling up, and newcomers were rushing through the entrance, stamping, writhing, whirling before they were shown to tables.

It was a festival! a carnival! What costumes! What disguises! Naked flesh and glittering cloth. A kaleidoscope of eye-aching colors. All those jerking bodies frozen momentarily in stroboscopic light. The driving din! Smell of perfume and sweat. Shuffle of a hundred feet. The thunder!

Zoe Kohler and Ernest Mittle looked at each other. Now they were the oldest in the room, smashed by cacophonous music, assaulted by the wildly sexual gyrations on the floor. It wasn't a younger generation they were watching; it was a new world.

There a woman with breasts swinging free from a low-cut shirt. There a man with genitals delineated beneath skin-tight pants of pink satin. Bare necks, arms, shoulders. Navels. Hot shorts, miniskirts, vinyl boots. Rumps. Tits and cocks.

Grasping hands. Sliding hands. Grinding hips. Opened thighs. Stroking. Gasps and shiny grins. Flickering tongues and wild eyes. A churn of heaving bodies, the room rocking, seeming to tilt.

Everything tilting…

"Let's dance," Ernest yelled in her ear. "It's so crowded, no one will notice us."

On the floor, they were swallowed up, engulfed and hidden. They became part of the slough. Hot flesh poured them together. They were in a fevered flood, swept away.

They tried to move in time to the music, but they were daunted by the flung bodies about them. They huddled close, staggering upright, trying to keep their balance, laughing nervously and holding each other to survive.

For a moment, just a moment, they were one, knees to shoulders, welded tight. Zoe felt his slightness, his soft heat. She did not draw away, but he did. Slowly, with difficulty, he pulled her clear, guided her back to their table.

"Oh wow," he said, "what a crush! That's madness!"

"Yes," she said. "Could I have another glass of wine, please?"

They didn't try to dance again, but they didn't want to leave.

"They're not so much younger than we are," Zoe said.

"No," he agreed, "not so much."

They sat at their table, drinking white wine and looking with' amusement, fear, and envy at the frenzied activity around them. The things they saw, flashing lights; the things they heard, pounding rhythm-all stunned them.

They glanced at each other, and their clasped hands tightened. Never had they felt so alone and together.

Still, still, there was an awful fascination. All that nudity. All that sexuality. It lured. They both felt the pull.

Zoe saw one young woman whirling so madly that her long blond hair flared like flame. She wore a narrow strip of shirred elastic across her nipples. Her jeans were so tight that the division between buttocks was obvious… and the mound between her thighs.

She danced wildly, mouth open, lips wet. Her eyes were half-closed; she gasped in a paroxysm of lust. Her body fought for freedom; she offered her flesh.

"I could do that," Zoe Kohler said suddenly.

"What?" Ernest shouted. "What did you say? I can't hear you."

She shook her head. Then they sat and watched. They drank many glasses of wine. They felt the heat of the dancers. What they witnessed excited them and diminished them at once, in a way they could not understand.

Finally, long past 1:00 a.m., they rose dizzily to their feet, infected by sensation. Ernest had just enough money to pay the bill and leave a small tip.

Outside, they stood with arms about each other's waist, weaving slightly. They tasted the cool night air, looked up at stars dimmed by the city's blaze.

"Go home now," Ernest muttered. "Don't have enough for a cab. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, dear," she said, taking his arm. "I have money."

"A loan," he insisted.

She led him, lurching, to Park Avenue. When a cab finally stopped, she pushed Ernest into the back seat, then climbed in. She gave the driver her address.

"Little high," Ernest said solemnly. "Sorry about that."

"Silly!" she said. "There's nothing to be sorry for. I'll make us some black coffee when we get home."

They arrived at her apartment house. He tried to straighten up and walk steadily through the lobby. But upstairs, in her apartment, he collapsed onto her couch and looked at her helplessly.

"I'm paralyzed," he said.

"Just don't pass out," she said, smiling. "I'll have coffee ready in a jiff. Then you'll feel better."

"Sorry," he mumbled again.

When she came in from the kitchen with the coffee, he was bent far forward, head in his hands. He raised a pale face to her.

"I feel dreadful," he said. "It was the wine."

"And the heat," she said. "And that smoky air. Drink your coffee, darling. And take this…"

He looked at the capsule in her palm. "What is it?"

"Extra-strength aspirin," she said, proffering the Tuinal. "Help prevent a hangover."

He swallowed it down, gulped his coffee steadily. She poured him another cup.

"Ernie," she said, "it's past two o'clock. Why don't you sleep here? I don't want you going home alone at this hour."

"Oh, I couldn't-" he started.

"I insist," she said firmly. "You take the bed and I'll sleep out here on the couch."

He objected, saying he already felt better, and if she'd lend him a few dollars, he'd take a cab home; he'd be perfectly safe. But she insisted he stay, and after a while he assented-but only if she slept in her own bed and he bunked down on the sofa. She agreed.

She brought him a third cup of coffee. This one he sipped slowly. When she assured him a small brandy would help settle his stomach, he made no demur. They each had a brandy, taking off their shoes, slumping at opposite ends of the long couch.

"Those people…" he said, shaking his head. "I can't get over it. They just don't care-do they?"

"No, I suppose not. It was all so-so ugly."

"Yes," he said, nodding, "ugly."

"Not ugly so much as coarse and vulgar. It cheapens, uh, sex."

"Recreational sex," he said. "That's what they call it; that's how they feel about it. Like tennis or jogging. Just another diversion. Isn't that the feeling you got, watching them? You could tell by the way they danced."

"All that bare flesh!"

"And the way they moved! So suggestive."

"I, ah, suppose they have-they make-they go to bed afterwards. Ernie?"

"I suppose so. The dancing was just a preliminary. Did you get that feeling?"

"Oh yes. The dancing was definitely sexual. Definitely. It was very depressing. In a way. I mean, then making love loses all its importance. You know? It means about as much as eating or drinking."

"What I think," he said, looking directly at her, "is that sex-I mean just physical sex-without some emotional attachment doesn't have any meaning at all."

"I couldn't agree more. Without love, it's just a cheap thrill."

"A cheap thrill," he repeated. "Exactly. But I suppose if we tried to explain it to those people, they'd just laugh at us."

"I suppose they would. But I don't care; I still think we're right."

They sat a moment in silence, reflectively sipping their brandies.

"I'd like to have sex with you," he said suddenly.

She looked at him, expressionless.

"But I never would," he added hastily. "I mean, I'd never ask you. Zoe, you're a beautiful, exciting woman, but if we went to bed together, uh, you know, casually, it would make us just like those people we saw tonight."

"Animals," she said.

"Yes, that's right. I don't want a cheap thrill and I don't think you do either."

"I don't, dear; I really don't."

"It seems to me," he said, puzzling it out, "that when you get married, you're making a kind of statement. It's like a testi-monial. You're signing a legal document that really says it's not just a cheap thrill, that something more important is involved. You're pledging your love forever and ever. Isn't that what marriage means?"

"That's what it's supposed to mean," she said sadly. "It doesn't always work out that way."

She pushed her way along the couch. She sat close to him, put an arm about his neck. She pulled him close, kissed his cheek.

"You're an idealist," she whispered. "A sweet idealist."

"I guess I am," he said. "But is what I want so impossible?"

"What do you want?"

"Something that has meaning. I go to work every day, come home and fry a hamburger. I watch television. I'm not complain-ing; I have a good job and all. But there must be more than that. And I don't mean a one-night stand. Or an endless series of one-night stands. There's got to be more to life than that."

"You want to get married?" she asked in a low voice, remembering Maddie's instructions.

"I think so. I think I do. I've thought a lot about it, but the idea scares me. Because it's so final. That's the way I see it anyway, I mean, it's for always, isn't it? Or should be. But at the same time the idea frightens me, I can't see any substitute. I can't see anything else that would give me what I want. I like my job, but that's not enough."

"An emptiness," she said. "A void. That's what my life is like."

"Yes," he said eagerly, "you understand. We both want sorne-thing, don't we? Meaning. We want our lives to have meaning."

The uncovering that had started that afternoon in Central Park had progressed to this; they both felt it. It was an unfolding, a stripping, that neither wanted to end. It was a fearful thing they were doing, dangerous and painful.

Yet it had become easier. Intimacy acted on them like an addictive drug. Stronger doses were needed. And they hardly dared foresee what the end might be, or even if there was an end. Perhaps their course was limitless and they might never finish.

"There's something I want," she said. "Something. But don't ask me what it is because I don't know, I'm not sure. Except that I don't want to go on living the way I do. I really don't."

He leaned forward to kiss her lips. Twice. Tenderly.

"We're so alike," he breathed. "So alike. We believe in the same things. We want the same things."

"I don't know what I want," she said again.

"Sure you do," he said gently, taking her hand. "You want your life to have significance. Isn't that it?"

"I want…" she said. "I want… What do I want? Darling, I've never told this to anyone else, but I want to be a different person. Totally. I want to be born again, and start all over. I know the kind of woman I want to be, and it isn't me. It's all been a mistake, Ernie. My life, I mean. It's been all wrong. Some of it was done to me, and some of it I did myself. But it's my life, and so it's all my responsibility. Isn't that true? But when I try to understand what I did that I should not have done, or what I neglected to do, I get the horrible feeling that the whole thing was beyond my…"

But as she spoke, she saw his eyelids fluttering. His head came slowly down. She stopped talking, smiled, took the empty brandy glass from his nerveless fingers. She smoothed the fine hair, stroked his cheek.

"Beddy-bye," she said softly.

He murmured something.

She got him into the bedroom, half-supporting him as he stumbled, stockinged feet catching on the rug. She sat him down on the edge of the bed and kneeled to pull off his socks. Small, Pale feet. He stroked her head absently, weaving as he sat, eyes closed.

She tugged off his jacket, vest, tie, shirt. He grumbled sleepily as she pushed him back, unbelted and unzipped his trousers, peeled them away. He was wearing long white drawers, prac-tically Bermuda shorts, and an old-fashioned undershirt with shoulder straps.

She yanked and hauled and finally got him straightened out under the covers, his head on the pillow. He was instantly asleep, didn't even stir when she bent to kiss his cheek.

"Good night, darling," she said softly. "Sleep well."

She washed the coffee things and the brandy glasses. She swallowed down a salt tablet, assorted vitamins and minerals, drank a small bottle of club soda. After debating a moment, she took a Tuinal.

She went into the bathroom to shower, her third that day. The wound on her thigh was now just a red line, and she soaped it carefully. She lathered the rest of her body thickly, wanting to cleanse away-what?

She dried, powdered, used spray cologne on neck, bosom, armpits, the insides of her thighs. She pulled on a long nightgown of white batiste with modest inserts of lace at the neckline.

She crawled into bed cautiously, not wanting to disturb Ernie. But he was dead to the world, breathing deeply and steadily. She thought she saw a smile on his lips, but couldn't be sure.

Maddie had instructed her to determine Ernest's attitude toward marriage, and she had done it. She thought that if she were a more positive woman, more aggressive, she might easily lead him to a proposal. But at the moment that did not concern her.

What was a puzzlement was her automatic response to Maddie's advice. She had obeyed without question, although she was the one intimately involved, not Maddie. Yet she had let the other woman dictate her conduct.

It had always been like that-other people pushing her this way and that, imposing their wills. Her mother's conversation had been almost totally command, molding Zoe to an image of the woman she wanted her daughter to be.

Even her father, by his booming physical presence, had shoved her into emotions and prejudices she felt foreign to her true nature.

And her husband! Hadn't he sought, always, to remake her into something she could not be? He had never been satisfied with what she was. He had never accepted her.

Everyone, all her life, had tried to change her. Ernest Mittle, apparently, was content with Zoe Kohler. But could she be certain he would remain content? Or would the day come when he, too, would begin to push, pull, haul, and tug?

It came to her almost as a revelation that this was the reason she sought adventures. They were her only opportunity to try out and to display her will.

She knew that others-like the Son of Sam-had blamed their misdeeds on "voices," on hallucinatory commands that overrode their inclinations and volition.

But her adventures were the only time in Zoe Kohler's life when she listened to her own voice.

She turned onto her side, moved closer to Ernie. She smelled his sweet, innocent scent. She put one arm about him, pulled him to her. And that's how she fell asleep.

During the following week, she had cause to remember her reflections on how, all her life, she had been manipulated.

The newspapers continued their heavy coverage of the Hotel Ripper investigation. Almost every day the police revealed new discoveries and new leads being pursued.

Zoe Kohler began to think of the police as a single intelligence, a single person. She saw him as a tall, thin individual, sour and righteous. He resembled the old cartoon character "Prohibition," with top hat, rusty tailcoat, furled umbrella. He wore an expression of malicious discontent.

This man, this "police," was juiceless and without mercy. He was intelligent (frighteningly so) and implacable. By his deductive brilliance, he was pushing Zoe Kohler in ways she did not want to go. He was maneuvering her, just like everyone else, and she resented it-resented that anyone would tamper with her adventures, the only truly private thing in her life.

For instance, the newspapers reported widened surveillance of all public places in midtown Manhattan hotels by uniformed officers and plainclothesmen.

Then a partial description of the Hotel Ripper was published. She was alleged to be five-seven to five-eight in very high heels, was slender, wore a shoulder-length wig, and carried a trenchcoat.

She also wore a gold link bracelet with the legend: why not? Her last costume was described as a tightly fitted dress of bottle- green silk with spaghetti straps.

These details flummoxed Zoe Kohler. She could not imagine how "police" had guessed all that about her-particularly the gold bracelet. She began to wonder if he had some undisclosed means of reading her secret thoughts, or perhaps reconstructing the past from the aura at the scene of the crime.

That dour, not to be appeased individual, who came shuffling after her told the newspaper and television reporters that the Hotel Ripper probably dressed flashily, in revealing gowns. He said her makeup and perfume would probably be heavy. He said that, although she was not a professional prostitute, she deliber- ately gave the impression of being sexually available.

He revealed that the weapon used in the first four crimes was a Swiss Army Knife, but it was possible a different knife was used in the fifth killing. He mentioned, almost casually, that it was believed the woman involved was connected, somehow, with the hotel business in Manhattan.

It was astounding! Where was "police" getting this information? For the first time she felt quivers of fear. That dried-up, icily determined old man with his sunken cheeks and maniacs glare would give her no rest until she did what he wanted.

Die.

She thought it through carefully. Her panic ebbed as she began to see ways to defeat her nemesis.

On the night of June 24th, a Tuesday, Zoe Kohler was awakened by a phone call at about 2:15 a.m.

At first she thought the caller, a male, was Ernest Mittle since he was sniffling and weeping; she had witnessed Ernie's tears several times. But the caller, between chokes and wails, identified himself as Harold Kurnitz.

She was finally able to understand what he was saying: Maddie Kurnitz had attempted to commit suicide by ingesting an overdose of sleeping pills. She was presently in the Intensive Care Unit of Soames-Phillips-and could Zoe come at once?

She showered before dressing, for reasons she could not comprehend. She told herself that she was not thinking straight because of the shocking news. She gave the night doorman a dollar to hail a cab for her. She was at the hospital less than an hour after Harry called.

He met her in the hallway on the fifth floor, rushing to her with open arms, his face wrenched.

"She's going to make it!" he cried, his voice thin and quavery. "She's going to make it!"

She got him seated on a wooden bench in the brightly lighted corridor. Slowly, gradually, with murmurs and pattings, she calmed him down. He sat hunched over, deflated, clutching trembling hands between his knees. He told her what had happened…

He said he had returned to the Kurnitz apartment a little before 1:30 a.m.

"I had to work late at the office," he mumbled.

He had started to undress, and then for some reason he couldn't explain, he decided to look in on Maddie.

"We were sleeping in different bedrooms," he explained. "When I work late… Anyway, it was just luck. Or maybe God. But if I hadn't looked in, the doc says she would have been gone."

He had found her crumpled on the floor in her shortie pajamas. Lying in a pool of vomit. He thought at first she had drunk too much and had passed out. But then, when he couldn't rouse her, he became frightened.

"I panicked," he said. "I admit it. I thought she was gone. I couldn't see her breathing. I mean, her chest wasn't going up and down or anything."

So he had called 911, and while he was waiting, he attempted to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But he didn't know how to do it and was afraid he might be harming her.

"I just sort of blew in her mouth," he said, "but the guy in the ambulance said I didn't hurt her. He was the one who found the empty pill bottle in the bathroom. Phenobarbital. And there was an empty Scotch bottle that had rolled under the bed. The doc said if she hadn't vomited, she'd have been gone. It was that close."

Harry had ridden in the ambulance to Soames-Phillips, watching the attendant administer oxygen and inject stimulants.

"I kept repeating, 'Don't do this to me, Maddie.'" he said. "That's all I remember saying: 'Please don't do this to me.' Wasn't that a stupid, selfish thing to say? Listen, Zoe, I guess you know Maddie and I are separating. Maybe this was her way of, uh, you know, getting back at me. But I swear I never thought she'd pull anything like this. I mean, it was all friendly; we didn't fight or anything like that. No screaming. I never thought she'd…"

His voice trailed away.

"Maybe now you'll get back together again," Zoe said hopefully.

But he didn't answer, and after a while she left him and went in search of Maddie.

She found a young doctor scribbling on a clipboard outside the Intensive Care Unit. She asked him if she could see Mrs. Kurnitz.

"I'm Zoe Kohler," she said. "I'm her best friend. You can ask her husband. He's right down the hall."

He looked at her blankly.

"Why not?" he said finally, and again she thought of her gold bracelet. "She's not so bad. Puked up most of the stuff. She'll be dancing the fandango tomorrow night. But make it short."

Maddie was in a bed surrounded by white screens. She looked drained, waxen. Her eyes were closed. Zoe bent over her, took up a cool, limp hand. Maddie's eyes opened slowly. She stared at Zoe.

"Shit," she said in a wispy voice. "I fucked it up, didn't I? I can't do anything right."

"Oh, Maddie," Zoe Kohler said sorrowfully.

"I got the fucking pills down and then I figured I'd make sure by finishing the booze. But they tell me I upchucked."

"But you're alive," Zoe said.

"Hip, hip, hooray," Maddie said, turning her head to one side. "Is Harry still around?"

"He's right outside. Do you want to see him, Maddie?"

"What the hell for?"

"He's taking it hard. He's all broken up."

Maddie's mouth stretched in a grimace that wasn't mirth.

"He thinks it was because of him," she said, a statement, not a question. "The male ego. I couldn't care less."

"Then why…?"

Maddie turned her head back to glare at Zoe.

"Because I just didn't want to wake up," she said. "Another day. Another stupid, empty, fucking day. Harry's got nothing to do with it. It's me."

"Maddie, I… Maddie, I don't understand."

"What's the point?" she demanded. "Just what is the big, fucking point? Will you tell me that?"

Zoe was silent.

"Ah, shit," Maddie said. "What a downer it all is. Just being alive. Who needs it?"

"Maddie, you don't really feel like-"

"Don't tell me what I feel like, kiddo. You haven't a clue, not a clue. Oh, Christ, I'm sorry," she added immediately, her hand tightening on Zoe's. "You got your problems too, I know."

"But I thought you were-"

"All fun and games?" Maddie said, her mouth twisted. "A million laughs? You've got to be young for that, luv. When the tits begin to sag, it's time to take stock. I just figured I had the best of it and I didn't have the guts for what comes next. I'm a sprinter, sweetie, not a long distance runner."

"Do you really think you and Harry…?"

"No way. It's finished. Kaput. He had a toss in the hay with his tootsie tonight, and then came home and found me gasping my last. Big tragedy. Instant guilt. So he's all busted up. By tomorrow night he'll be sore at me for spoiling his sleep. Oh hell, I'm not blaming him. But it's all over. He knows it and I know it."

"What will you do now, Maddie?"

"Do?" she said with a bright smile. "I'll tell you what I'll do. The worst. Go on living."

Out in the corridor, Zoe Kohler leaned a moment against the wall, her eyes closed.

If Maddie, if a woman like Maddie, couldn't win, no one could win. She didn't want to believe that, but there it was.

Dr. Oscar Stark called her at the office.

"Just checking on my favorite patient," he said cheerfully. "How are we feeling these days, Zoe?"

"I feel fine, doctor."

"Uh-huh. Taking your medication regularly?"

"Oh yes."

"No craving for salt?"

"No."

"What about tiredness? Feel weary at times? All washed out?"

"Oh no," she lied glibly, "nothing like that."

"Sleeping all right? Without pills?"

"I sleep well."

He sighed. "Not under any stress, are you, Zoe? Not necessarily physical stress, but any, uh, personal or emotional strains?"

"No."

"You're wearing that bracelet, aren't you? The medical identification bracelet? And carrying the kit?"

"Oh yes. Every day."

He was silent a moment, then said heartily, "Good! Well, I'll see you on-let me look it up-on the first of July, a Tuesday. Right?"

"Yes, doctor. That's correct."

"If any change occurs-any weakness, nausea, unusual weight loss, abdominal pains-you'll phone me, won't you?"

"Of course, doctor. Thank you for calling."

She thought it out carefully…

Newspapers had described the Hotel Ripper as being "flashily dressed." So she would have to forget her skin-tight skirts and revealing necklines. Also, it was now too warm to wear a coat of any kind to cover such a costume.

So, to avoid notice by the doorman of her apartment house and by police officers stationed in hotel cocktail lounges, she would dress conservatively. She would wear no wig. She would use only her usual minimal makeup.

That meant there was no reason for that pre-adventure trip up to the Filmore on West 72nd Street to effect a transformation. She could sally forth boldly, dressed conventionally, and take a cab to anywhere she wished.

She could not wear the why not? bracelet, of course, and her entire approach would have to be revised. She could not come on as "sexually available." Her clothes, manner, speech, appearance-all would have to be totally different from the published description of the Hotel Ripper.

Innocence! That was the answer! She knew how some men were excited by virginity. (Hadn't Kenneth been?) She would try to act as virginal as a woman of her age could. Why, some men even had a letch for cheerleaders and nubile girls in middies. She knew all that, and it would be fun to play the part.

There was a store on 40th Street, just east of Lexington Avenue, that sold women's clothing imported from Latin America. Blouses from Ecuador, skirts from Guatemala, bikinis from Brazil, huaraches, mantillas, lacy camisoles-and Mexican wedding gowns.

These last were white or cream-colored dresses of batiste or crinkled cotton, light as gossamer. They had full skirts that fell to the ankle, with modest necklines of embroidery or eyelet. The bell sleeves came below the elbow, and the entire loose dress swung, drifted, ballooned-fragile and chaste.

"A marvelous summer party dress," the salesclerk said. "Comfortable, airy-and so different."

"I'll take it," Zoe Kohler said.

She read the weekly hotel trade magazine avidly. There was a motor inn on 49th Street, west of Tenth Avenue: the Tribunal. It would be hosting a convention of college and university comptrollers during June 29th to July 2nd.

When Zoe Kohler looked up the Tribunal in the hotel directory, she found it was a relatively modest hostelry, only 180 rooms and suites, with coffee shop, dining room, a bar. And an outdoor cocktail lounge that overlooked a small swimming pool on the roof, six floors up.

The Tribunal seemed far enough removed from midtown Manhattan to have escaped the close surveillance of the police. And, being small, it was quite likely to be crowded with tourists and convention-goers. Zoe Kohler thought she would try the Tribunal. An outdoor cocktail lounge that overlooked a swimming pool. It sounded romantic.

Her menstrual cramps began on Sunday, June 29th. Not slowly, gradually, increasing in intensity as they usually did, but suddenly, with the force of a blow. She doubled over, sitting with her arms folded and clamped across her abdomen.

The pain came in throbs, leaving her shuddering. She imagined the soles of her feet ached and the roots of her hair burned. Deep within her was this wrenching twist, her entrails gripped and turned over. She wanted to scream.

She swallowed everything: Anacin, Midol, Demerol. She called Ernie and postponed their planned trip to Jones Beach. Then she got into a hot tub, lightheaded and nauseated. She tried a glass of white wine, but hadn't finished it before she had to get out of the tub to throw up in the toilet.

Her weakness was so bad that she feared to move without gripping sink or doorjamb. She was uncoordinated, stumbled frequently, saw her own watery limbs floating away like feelers. She was troubled by double vision and, clasping a limp breast, felt her heart pound in a wild, disordered rhythm.

"What's happening to me?" she asked aloud, more distraught than panicky.

She spent all day in bed or lying in a hot bath. She ate nothing, since she felt always on the verge of nausea. Once, when she tried to lift a glass of water and the glass slipped from her strengthless fingers to crash on the kitchen floor, she wept.

She took two Tuinal and had a fitful sleep thronged with evil dreams. She awoke, not remembering the details, but filled with dread. Her nightgown was sodden with sweat, and she showered and changed before trying to sleep again.

She awoke late Monday morning, and told herself she felt better. She had inserted a tampon, but her period had not started. The knifing pain had subsided, but she was left with a leaden pressure that seemed to force her guts downward. She had a horrific image of voiding all her insides.

She dared not step on the scale, but could not ignore the skin discolorations in the crooks of her elbows, on her knees, between her fingers. Remembering Dr. Stark's test, she plucked at her pubis; several hairs came away, dry and wiry.

She called the Hotel Granger and spoke to Everett Pinckney. He was very understanding, and told her they'd manage without her for the day, and to take Tuesday off as well, if necessary.

She lay on the bed, blanket and sheet thrown aside. She looked down with shock and loathing at her own naked body.

She hadn't fully realized how thin she had become. Her hipbones jutted, poking up white, glassy skin. Her breasts lay flaccid, nipples withdrawn. Below, she could see a small tuft of dulled hair, bony knees, toes ridiculously long and prehensile: an animal's claws.

When she smelled her arm, she caught a whiff of ash. Her flesh was pudding; she could not make a fist. She was a shrunken sack, and when she explored herself, the sphincter was slack. She was emptied out and hollow.

She spent the afternoon dosing herself with all the drugs in her pharmacopeia. She got down a cup of soup and held it, then had a ham sandwich and a glass of wine. She soaked again in a tub, washed her hair, took a cold shower.

She worked frantically to revive her flagging body, ignoring the internal pain, her staggering gait. She forced herself to move slowly, carefully, precisely. She punished herself, breathing deeply, and willed herself to dress.

For it seemed to her that an adventure that night-all her adventures-were therapy, necessary to her well-being. She did not pursue the thought further than that realization: she would not be well, could not be well, unless she followed the dictates of her secret, secret heart.

It became a dream. No, not a dream, but a play in which she was at once actress and spectator. She was inside and outside. She observed herself with wonder, moving about resolutely, disciplining her flesh. She wanted to applaud this fierce, determined woman.

The Mexican wedding gown was a disaster; she knew it would never do. It hung on her wizened frame in folds. The neckline gaped. The hem seemed to sweep the floor. She was lost in it: a little girl dressed up in her mother's finery, lacking only the high-heeled pumps, wide-brimmed hat, smeared lipstick.

She put the gown aside and dressed simply in lisle turtleneck sweater, denim jumper, low-heeled pumps. When she inspected herself in the mirror, she saw a wan, tremulous, vulnerable woman. With a sharpened knife in her purse.

The rooftop cocktail lounge was bordered with tubs of natural greenery. The swimming pool, lighted from beneath, shone with a phosphorescent blue. An awning stretched over the tables was flowered with golden daisies.

A few late-evening swimmers chased and splashed with muted cries. From a hi-fi behind the bar came seductive, nostalgic tunes, fragile as tinsel. Life seemed slowed, made wry and gripping.

A somnolent waiter moved slowly, splay-footed. Clink of ice in tall glasses. Quiet murmurs, and then a sudden fountain of laughter. White faces in the gloom. Bared arms. Everyone lolled and dreamed.

The night itself was luminous, stars blotted by city glow. A soft breeze stroked. The darkness opened up and engulfed, making loneliness bittersweet and silence a blessing.

Zoe Kohler sat quietly in the shadows and thought herself invisible. She was hardly aware of the gleaming swimmers in the pool, the couples lounging at the outdoor tables. She thought vaguely that soon, soon, she would go downstairs to the crowded bar.

But she felt so calm, so indolent, she could not stir. It was the bemused repose of convalescence: all pain dulled, turmoil vanished, worry spent. Her body flowed; it just flowed, suffused with a liquid warmth.

There were two solitary men on the terrace. One, older, drank rapidly with desperate intentness, bent over his glass. The other, with hair to his shoulders and a wispy beard, seemed scarcely old enough to be served. He was drinking bottled beer, making each one last.

The bearded boy rose suddenly, his metal chair screeching on the tile. Everyone looked up. He stood a moment, embarrassed by the attention, and fussed with beer bottle and glass until he was ignored.

He came directly to Zoe's table.

"Pardon me, ma'am," he said in a low voice. "I was wondering if I might buy you a drink. Please?"

Zoe inspected him, tilting her head, trying to make him out in the twilight. He was very tall, very thin. Dressed in a tweed jacket too bulky for his frame, clean chinos, sueded bush boots.

Thin wrists stuck from the cuffs of his heavy jacket, and his big head seemed balanced on a stalk neck. His smile was hopeful. The long hair and scraggly beard were blond, sun-streaked. He seemed harmless.

"Sit down," she said softly. "We'll each buy our own drinks."

"Thank you," he said gratefully.

His name was Chet (for Chester) LaBranche, and he was from Waterville, Maine. But he lived and worked in Vermont, where he was assistant to the president of Barre Academy, which was called an academy but was actually a fully accredited coeducational liberal arts college with an enrollment of 437.

"I really shouldn't be here," he said, laughing happily. "But our comptroller came down with the flu or something, and we had already paid for the convention reservation and tickets and all, so Mrs. Bixby-she's the president-asked me if I wanted to come, and I jumped at the chance. It's my first time in the big city, so I'm pretty excited about it all."

"Having a good time?" Zoe asked, smiling.

"Well, I just got in this morning, and we had meetings most of the day, so I haven't had much time to look around, but it's sure big and noisy and dirty, isn't it?"

"It sure is."

"But tomorrow and Wednesday we'll have more time to ourselves, and I mean to look around some. What should I see?"

"Everything," she told him.

"Yes," he said, nodding vigorously, "everything. I mean to. Even if I stay up all night. I don't know when I'll get a chance like this again. I want to see the fountain where Zelda Fitzgerald went dunking and all the bars in Greenwich Village where Jack Kerouac hung out. I got a list of places I made out in my room and I aim to visit them all."

"You're staying here in the hotel?" she asked casually.

"Oh yes, ma'am. That was included in the convention tickets. I got me a nice room on the fifth floor, one flight down. Nice, big, shiny room."

"How old are you, Chet?"

"Going on twenty-five," he said, ducking his head. "I never have asked your name, ma'am, but you don't have to tell me unless you want to."

"Irene," she said.

He was enthusiastic about everything. It wasn't the beer he gulped down; it was him. He chattered along brightly, making her laugh with his descriptions of what life was like at the Barre Academy when they got snowed in, and the troubles he already had with New York cabdrivers.

She really enjoyed his youth, vitality, optimism. He hadn't yet been tainted. He trusted. It all lay ahead of him: a glittering world. He was going to become a professor of English Lit. He was going to travel to far-off places. He was going to own a home, raise a family. Everything.

He almost spluttered in his desire to get it all out, to explain this tremendous energy in him. His long hands made grand gestures. He squirmed, laughing at his own mad dreams, but believing them.

Zoe had three more glasses of white wine, and Chet had two more bottles of beer. She listened to him, smiling and nodding. Then, suddenly, the swimmers were gone, the pool was dimmed. Tables had emptied; they were the last. The sleepy waiter appeared with their bill.

"Chet, I'd like to see that list you made out," Zoe said. "The places you want to visit. Maybe I can suggest some others."

"Sure," he said promptly. "Great idea. We don't have to wait for the elevator. We can walk; it's only one flight down."

"Fine," she said.

She carried her glass of wine, and he carried his bottle and glass of beer. As he had said, his room was nice, big, and shiny. He showed it off proudly: the stack of fluffy towels, the neatly wrapped little bars of soap, the clean glasses and plastic ice bucket.

"And two beds!" he chortled, bouncing up and down on one of them. "Never thought I'd get to stay in a room with two beds! I may just sleep in both of them, taking turns. Just for the sheer luxury of it! Now… where's that list?"

They sat side by side on the edge of the bed, discussing his planned itinerary. Never once did he touch her, say anything even mildly suggestive, or give her any reason to suspect he was other than he appeared to be: an innocent.

She turned suddenly, kissed his cheek.

"I like you," she said. "You're nice."

He stared at her, startled, eyes widening. Then he leaped to his feet, a convulsive jump.

"Yes, well…" he said, stammering. "I thank you. I guess maybe I've been boring you. Haven't I? I mean, talking about myself all night. Good Lord, I haven't given you a chance to open your mouth. We could go downstairs and have a nightcap. In the bar downstairs. Would you like that? Or maybe you want to split? I understand. That's all right. I mean if you want to go…"

She smiled, took his hand, drew him back down onto the bed.

"I don't want another drink, Chet," she said. "And I don't want to go. Not yet. Can't we talk for a few minutes?"

"Well… yeah… sure. I'd like that."

"Are you married, Chet?"

"Oh no. No, no."

"Girlfriend?"

"Uh, yes… sort of. Sure, she's a girlfriend. A junior at the Academy, which is against the rules because we're not supposed to date the students. You know? But this has been going on for, oh, maybe six or seven months now. And she's been sneaking out to meet me, but vacation started last week and we've got plans to see each other this summer."

"That's wonderful. Is she nice?"

"Oh yes. I think so. Very nice. Good fun-you know? I mean fun to be with. Alice. That's her name-Alice."

"I like that name."

"Yes, well, we usually meet out of town. I mean, the place isn't so big that people wouldn't notice, so we have to be careful. I have wheels, an old, beat-up crate, and sometimes we go to a roadhouse out of town. Sometimes, on a nice night, we'll just take a walk and talk."

"Is she pretty?"

"Oh yes. I think so. Not beautiful. I mean, she's not glamorous or anything like that. She wears glasses. She's very nearsighted. But I think she's pretty."

"Do you love her, Chet?"

He considered that a long moment.

"I don't know," he finally confessed. "I really don't know. I've given it a lot of thought. I mean, if I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I really don't know. But it's not something we have to decide right now. I mean, it's only been six or seven months. She's coming back for her senior year, so we'll have a chance to get to know each other better. Maybe it'll just, like, fade away, or maybe it'll become something. You know?"

She put her lips close to his ear, whispering…

"Have you had sex together?"

He blushed. "Well, ah, not exactly. I mean, we've done… things. But not, you know, all the way. I respect her."

"Does she have a good body?"

"Oh God-oh gosh, yes! She's really stacked. I mean, she's a swimmer and all. Doesn't smoke. Has a beer now and then. Keeps herself in very good shape. Very good. She's almost as tall as I am. Very slender with these big… you know…"

"Why haven't you had sex with her?"

"Well, uh… you know…"

She wouldn't let him off the hook. It was suddenly important to her to learn what Chet and Alice had done together.

"She wants to, doesn't she, Chet?"

"Oh yes. I think so. Sometimes we get started and it's very difficult to stop. Then we cool it. That's what we say to each other: 'Cool it!' Then we laugh, and get, uh, control again."

"You'd like to, wouldn't you?"

"Oh yes. I mean, at the moment, when we get all excited, I'd like to. I forget all my good intentions. I know that someday- some night rather-neither of us will say, 'Cool it!' And then…"

"Is she on the Pill?"

"Oh no! I asked her that and she said, 'What for?' I mean, she doesn't play around. She's right. Why should she take those dangerous drugs?"

"But what if you both get excited and don't say, 'Cool it,' and it happens, like you said? What if she gets pregnant?"

"No, no. I mean, I'd, uh, like take precautions. I'm not a virgin, Irene. I know about those things. I wouldn't do that to Alice."

She leaned forward, whispered in his ear again.

"Well, ah, yes," he said. "Yes, she could do that. If she wanted to. And I could, too, of course. I know about that."

"But you've never done it?"

"Well, uh, no. No, I've never done it."

"Why don't you take your clothes off?" Zoe Kohler said in a low voice. "I'd like to do it to you."

"You're kidding!"

"No, really, I want to. Don't you? Wouldn't you like the experience?"

She had said the right word. He wanted to experience everything.

"All right," he said. "But you must tell me what to do."

"You don't have to do anything," she assured him. "Just lie back and enjoy it. I have to go into the bathroom for a minute. You undress; I'll be right back."

His innocence was a rebuke to her. She was confused as to why this should be so. She didn't want to corrupt him; that would come soon enough. What she wanted to do, she decided, was to save him from corruption.

She thought this through as she undressed in the bathroom. It made a kind of hard sense. Because, despite how blameless he was now, she saw what would eventually happen to him, what he would become.

Years and the guilt of living would take their toll. He would lie and betray and cheat. His boy's body would swell at the same time his conscience would atrophy. He would become a swaggering man, bullying his way through life, scorning the human wreckage he left in his wake.

What was the worst, the absolute worst, was that he would never mourn his lost purity, but might recall it with an embarrassed laugh. He would be shamed by the memory, she knew. He would never regret his ruined goodness.

So she went back into the bedroom and slit his throat.