The third Deadly Sin

Chapter 6

On April 18th, the night Zoe Kohler was sipping white wine at Harry Kurnitz's party at the Chez Ronald on East 48th Street, Edward X. Delaney was dining with reporter Thomas Handry at the Bull amp; Bear Restaurant, a block away.

Handry was a slender, dapper blade who looked younger than his forty-nine years. His suits were always precisely pressed, shoes shined, shirts a gleaming white. He was one of the few men Delaney had known who could wear a vest jauntily.

The only signs of inner tensions were his fingernails, gnawed to the quick, and a nervous habit of stroking his bare upper lip with a knuckle, an atavism from the days when he had sported a luxuriant cavalry mustache.

"You're picking up the tab?" he had demanded when he arrived.

"Of course."

"In that case," Handry said, "I shall have a double Tanqueray martini, straight up with a lemon twist. Then the roast beef, rare, a baked potato, and a small salad."

"I see nothing to object to there," Delaney said, and to the hovering waiter, "Double that order, please."

The reporter regarded the Chief critically.

"Christ, you never change, never look a day older. What did you do-sell your soul to the devil?"

"Something like that," Delaney said. "Actually, I was born old."

"I believe it," Handry said. He put his elbows on the table, scrubbed his face with his palms.

"Rough day?" the Chief asked.

"The usual bullshit. Maybe I'm just bored. You know, I'm coming to the sad conclusion that nothing actually new ever happens. I mean, pick up a newspaper of, say, fifty or a hundred years ago, and there it all is: poverty, famine, wars, accidents, earthquakes, political corruption, crime and so forth. Nothing changes."

"No, it doesn't. Not really. Maybe the forms change, but people don't change all that much."

"Take this Hotel Ripper thing," Handry went on. "It's just a replay of the Son of Sam thing, isn't it?"

But then the waiter arrived with their drinks and Delaney was saved from answering.

They had ale with their roast beef and, later, Armagnac with their coffee. Then they sat back and Delaney accepted one of Handry's cigarettes. He smoked it awkwardly and saw the reporter looking at him with amusement.

"I'm used to cigars," he explained. "I keep wanting to chew the damned thing."

They had a second cup of coffee, stared at each other.

"Got anything for me?" Handry said finally.

"A story?" Delaney said. "An exclusive? A scoop?" He laughed. "No, nothing like that. Nothing you can use."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"I can give you some background," the Chief said. "The powers-that-be aren't happy with Lieutenant Slavin."

"Is he on the way out?"

"Oh, they won't can him. Kick him upstairs maybe."

"I'll check it out. Anything else?"

Delaney considered how much he could reveal, what he would have to pay to get the cooperation he needed.

"That last killing…" he said. "Jerome Ashley…"

"What about it?"

The Chief looked at him sternly.

"This is not to be used," he said. "N-O-T. Until I give you the go-ahead. Agreed?"

"Agreed. What is it?"

"They found nylon hairs on the rug in Ashley's hotel room."

"So? They've already said the killer wears a black nylon wig."

"These nylon hairs were a reddish blond."

The reporter blinked.

"Son of a bitch," he said slowly. "He switched wigs."

"Right," Delaney said, nodding. "And could switch again to brown, red, purple, green, any color of the goddamned rainbow. That's why nothing's been released on the strawberry blond hairs. Maybe the killer will stick to that color if nothing about it appears in the newspapers or on TV."

"Maybe," Handry said doubtfully. "Anything else?"

"Not at the moment."

"Slim pickings," the reporter said, sighing. "All right, let's hear about this research you want."

Edward X. Delaney took a folded sheet of typing paper from his inside jacket pocket, handed it across the table. Thomas Handry put on heavy, horn-rimmed glasses to read it. He read it twice. Then he raised his head to stare at the Chief.

"You say this has something to do with the Hotel Ripper?"

"It could."

The reporter continued staring. Then…

"You're nuts!" he burst out. "You know that?"

"It's possible I am," the Chief said equably.

"You really think…?"

Delaney shrugged.

"Gawd!" Handry said in an awed voice. "What a story that would make. Well, if your game plan was to hook me, you've succeeded. I'll get this stuff for you."

"When?"

"Take me at least a week."

"A week would be fine," Delaney said.

"If I have it before, I'll let you know."

"I need all the numbers. Percentages. Rates."

"All right, all right," the reporter said crossly. "I know what you want; you don't have to spell it out. But if it holds up, I get the story. Agreed?"

Delaney nodded, paid the bill, and both men rose.

"A nightcap at the bar?" the Chief suggested.

"Sure," the reporter said promptly. "But won't your wife be wondering what happened to you?"

"She's taking a course tonight."

"Oh? On what?"

"Assertiveness training."

"Lordy, lordy," Thomas Handry said.

He went over the dossiers on the three victims again and again. He was convinced there was something there, a connection, a lead, that eluded him.

Then, defeated, he turned his attention to the hotels in which the crimes had taken place, thinking there might be a common denominator there. But the three hotels had individual owners, were apparently just unexceptional midtown Manhattan hostel-ries with nothing about them that might motivate a criminal intent on revenge.

Then he reviewed again the timing of the killings. The first had occurred on a Friday, the second on a Thursday, the third on a Wednesday. There seemed to be a reverse progression in effect, for what possible reason Delaney could not conceive. But if the fourth killing happened on a Tuesday, it might be worth questioning.

He never doubted for a moment that there would be a fourth murder. He was furious that he was unable to prevent it.

Sergeant Abner Boone called regularly, two or three times a week. It was he who had informed Delaney that strawberry blond hairs had been found on the rug in the third victim's hotel room.

It had still not been decided whether or not to release this information to the media.

Boone also said that analysis of the bloody footprints on Jerome Ashley's rug had confirmed the killer's height as approximately five feet five to five feet seven. It had proved impossible to determine if the prints were made by a man or woman.

The sergeant reported that the scars on Ashley's hands were the result of burns suffered when a greasy stove caught fire. Boone didn't think there was any possible connection with the murder, and the Chief agreed.

Finally, the investigation into the possibility that all three murdered men were victims of the same disgruntled employee seeking vengeance had turned up nothing. There was simply no apparent connection between Puller, Wolheim, and Ashley.

"So we're back to square one," Boone said, sighing. "We're still running the decoys every night in midtown, and Slavin is pulling in every gay with a sheet or reported as having worn a wig at some time or other. But the results have been zip. Any suggestions, Chief?"

"No. Not at the moment."

"At the moment?" the sergeant said eagerly. "Does that mean, sir, that you may have something? In a while?"

Delaney didn't want to raise any false hopes. Neither did he want to destroy Boone's hope utterly.

"Well… possibly," he said cautiously. "A long, long shot."

"Chief, at this stage we'll take anything, no matter how crazy. When will you know?"

"About two weeks." Then, wanting to change the subject, he said, "You're getting the usual tips and confessions, I suppose."

"You wouldn't believe," the sergeant said, groaning. "We've even had four black nylon wigs mailed to us with notes signed: 'The Hotel Ripper.' But to tell you the truth, if we weren't busy chasing down all the phony leads, we'd have nothing to do. We're snookered."

Delaney went back to his dossiers and finally he saw something he had missed. Something everyone had missed. It wasn't a connection between the three victims, a common factor. That continued to elude him.

But it was something just as significant. At least he thought it might be. He checked it twice against his calendar, then went into the living room to consult one of his wife's books.

When he returned to the study, his face was stretched. The expression was more grimace than grin, and when he made a careful note of his discovery, he realized he was humming tonelessly.

He wondered if he should call Sergeant Boone and warn him. Then he decided too many questions would be asked. Questions to which he did not have the answers.

Not that he believed a warning would prevent a fourth murder.

Thomas Handry called early on the morning of April 28th.

"I've got the numbers you wanted," he said.

There was nothing in his voice that implied the results were Yes or No. Delaney was tempted to ask, right then and there. But he didn't. He realized that, for some curious reason he could not analyze, he was more fearful of a Yes than a No.

"That's fine," he said, as heartily as he could.

"I didn't have time to do any adding up," Handry continued. "No compilation, no summary. You'll have to draw your own conclusions."

"I will," Delaney said. "Thank you, Handry. I appreciate your cooperation."

"It's my story," the reporter reminded him.

The Chief wondered what that meant. Was it a story? Or just an odd sidebar to a completely different solution?

"It's your story," he acknowledged. "When and where can I get the research?"

There was silence a moment. Then:

"How about Grand Central Station?" Handry said. "At twelve-thirty. The information booth on the main concourse."

"How about a deserted pier on the West Side at midnight?" Delaney countered.

The reporter laughed.

"No," he said, "no cloak-and-dagger stuff. I have to catch a train and I'm jammed up here. Grand Central would be best."

"So be it," Delaney said. "At twelve-thirty."

He was early, as usual, and wandered about the terminal. He amused himself by trying to spot the plainclothes officers on duty and the grifters plying their trade.

He recognized an old-time scam artist named Breezy Willie who had achieved a kind of fame by inventing a device called a "Grab Bag." It was, apparently, a somewhat oversized black suitcase. But it had no bottom and, of course, was completely empty.

Breezy Willie would select a waiting traveler with a suitcase smaller than the Grab Bag, preferably a suitcase with blue, tan, or patterned covering. The traveler had to be engrossed in a book, timetable, or newspaper, not watching his luggage.

Willie would sidle up close, lower the empty shell of the Grab Bag over the mark's suitcase, and pull a small lever in the handled Immediately, the sides of the Grab Bag would compress tightly, clamping the suitcase within.

The con man would then lift the swag from the floor, move it ten or fifteen feet away and wait, reading his own newspaper. Willie never tried to run for it.

When the mark discovered his suitcase was missing, he'd dash about frantically, trying to locate it. Breezy Willie would get only a brief glance. He looked legit, and his suitcase was obviously black, not the mark's blue, tan, or patterned bag. When the excitement had died down, the hustler would stroll casually away The Chief moved close to Breezy Willie, whose eyes were busy over the top edge of his folded newspaper.

"Hullo, Willie," he said softly.

The knave looked up.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I'm afraid you've made a mistake. My name is-"

Then his eyes widened.

"Delaney!" he said. "This is great!"

He proffered his hand, which the Chief happily took.

"How's business, Willie?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm retired now."

"Glad to hear it."

"Going up to Boston to visit my daughter. She's married, y'know, with three kids, and I figured I'd-"

"Uh-huh," the Chief said.

He bent swiftly and picked up Breezy Willie's Grab Bag with one finger under the handle. He swung the empty shell back and forth.

"Traveling light, Willie?" He laughed and set the Grab Bag down again. "Getting a little long in the tooth for the game, aren't you?"

"That's a fact," the rascal said. "If it wasn't for the ponies, I'd have been playing shuffleboard in Florida years ago. I heard you retired, Chief."

"That's right, Willie."

"But just the same," Breezy Willie said thoughtfully, "I think I'll mosey over to Penn Station. I may visit my daughter in Baltimore, instead."

"Good idea," Delaney said, smiling.

They shook hands again and the Chief watched the scalawag depart. He wished all the bad guys were as innocuous as Breezy Willie. The jolly old pirate abhorred violence as much as any of his victims.

Then he spotted Thomas Handry striding rapidly toward him. The reporter was carrying a weighted Bloomingdale's shopping bag.

"I like your luggage," Delaney said, as Handry came up. "It's all yours," he said, handing it over. "About five pounds of photocopies. Interesting stuff." "Oh?"

Handry glanced up at the big clock. "I've got to run," he said. "Believe it or not, I'm interviewing an alleged seer up in Mt. Vernon. She says she saw the Hotel Ripper in a dream. He's a six-foot-six black with one eye, a Fu Manchu mustache, and an English accent."

"Sounds like a great lead," Delaney said.

The reporter shrugged. "We're doing a roundup piece on all the mediums and seers who think they know what the Hotel Ripper looks like."

"And no two of them agree," the Chief said.

"Right. Well, I've got a train to catch." He hesitated, turned back, gestured toward the bag. "Let me know what you decide to do about all this."

"I will," Delaney said, nodding. "And thank you again."

He watched Handry trot away, then picked up the shopping bag and started out of the terminal. He hated carrying packages, especially shopping bags. He thought it might be a holdover from his days as a street cop: a fear of being encumbered, of not having his hands free.

It was a bright, blowy spring day, cool enough for his putty-colored gabardine topcoat, a voluminous tent that whipped about his legs. He paused a moment to set his homburg more firmly. Then he set out again, striding up Vanderbilt to Park Avenue.

He turned his thoughts resolutely away from what he was carrying and its possible significance. He concentrated on just enjoying the glad day. And the city.

It was his city. He had been born here, lived here all his life. He never left without a sensation of loss, never returned without a feeling of coming home. It was as much domicile as his brownstone; New Yorkers were as much family as his wife and children.

He saw the city clear. He did not think it paradise, nor did it daunt him. He knew its glories and its lesions. He accepted its beauties and its ugliness, its violence and its peace. He understood its moods and its fancies. He was grateful because the city never bored.

There he was, trundling north on Park Avenue, sunlight splintering off glass walls, flags snapping, men and women scuttling about with frowning purpose. He felt the demonic rhythm of the city, its compulsive speed and change. It was always going and never arriving.

The city devoured individuals, deflated the lofty, allowed dreams to fly an instant before bringing them down. New York was the great leveler. Birth, life, and death meant no more than a patched pothole or a poem. It was simply there, and the hell with you.

Edward X. Delaney wouldn't have it any other way.

He had made no conscious decision to walk home, but as block followed block, he could not surrender. He looked about eagerly, feeding his eyes. Never before had the city seemed to him so shining and charged. It had the excitement and fulfillment of a mountaintop.

And the women! What a joy. Men wore clothes; women wore costumes. There they were, swirling and sparkling, with wind-rosied cheeks, hair flinging back like flame. Monica had called him an old fogy, and so he was. But young enough, by God, to appreciate the worth of women.

He smiled at them all, toddlers to gammers. He could not conceive of a world without them, and gave thanks for having been lucky enough to have found Barbara, and then Monica. What a weasel life it would have been without their love.

Treading with lightened step, he made his way uptown, glorying in the parade of womankind. His face seemed set in an avuncular grin as he saw and loved them all, with their color and brio, their strut and sway.

Look at that one coming toward him! A princess, not much older than his stepdaughter Sylvia. A tall, smashing beauty with flaxen hair down to her bum. A face unsoiled by time, and a body as pliant and hard as a steel rod.

She strode directly up to him and stopped, blocking his way. she looked up at him with a sweet, melting smile.

"Wanna fuck, pop?" she said.

The roiling was too much; he hadn't the wit to reply. He crossed to the other side of Park Avenue, lumbering now, his big feet in heavy, ankle-high shoes slapping the pavement. He climbed tiredly into the first empty cab that came along and went directly home, clutching the Bloomingdale's shopping bag.

Later, he was able to regain some measure of equanimity. He admitted, with sour amusement, that the brief encounter with the young whore had been typical of the city's habit of dousing highfalutin dreams and romantic fancies with a bucketful of cold reality tossed right in the kisser.

He ate a sandwich of cold corned beef and German potato salad on dill-flavored rye bread while standing over the sink. He drank a can of beer. Resolution restored, he carried Handry's research into the study and set to work.

At dinner that night, he asked Monica what her plans were for the evening.

"Going out?" he said casually.

She smiled and covered one of his hands with hers.

"I've been neglecting you, Edward," she said.

"You haven't been neglecting me," he protested, although he thought she had.

"Well, anyway, I'm going to stay home tonight."

"Good," he said. "I want to talk to you. A long talk."

"Oh-oh," his wife said, "that sounds serious. Am I being fired?"

"Nothing like that," he said, laughing. "I just want to discuss something with you. Get your opinion."

"If I give you my opinion, will it change yours?"

"No," he said.

The living room of the Delaney home was a large, high-ceilinged chamber dominated by a rather austere fireplace and an end wall lined with bookshelves framing the doorway to the study. The room was saved from gloom by the cheerfulness of its furnishings.

It was an eclectic collection that appeared more accumulated than selected. Chippendale cozied up to Shaker; Victorian had no quarrel with Art Deco. It was a friendly room, the old Persian carpet time-softened to subtlety.

Everything had the patina of hard use and loving care. The colors of drapes and upholstery were warm without being bright. Comfort created its own style; the room was mellow with living. Nothing was intended for show; wear was on display.

Delaney's throne was a high-back wing chair covered in burnished bottle-green leather and decorated with brass studs. Monica's armchair was more delicate, but just as worn; it was covered with a floral-patterned brocade that had suffered the depredations of a long-departed cat.

The room was comfortably cluttered with oversized ashtrays, framed photographs, a few small pieces of statuary, bric-a-brac, and one large wicker basket that still held a winterly collection of pussy willows, dried swamp grasses, and eucalyptus.

The walls held an assortment of paintings, drawings, cartoons, posters, etchings, and maps as varied as the furniture. No two frames alike; nothing dominated; everything charmed. And there always seemed room for something new. The display inched inexorably to the plaster ceiling molding.

That evening, dinner finished, dishes done, Monica moved to her armchair, donned half-glasses. She picked up knitting needles and an Afghan square she had been working on for several months. Delaney brought in all his dossiers and the Handry research. He dropped the stack of papers alongside his chair.

"What's all that?" Monica asked.

"It's what I want to talk to you about. I want to try out a theory on you."

"About the Hotel Ripper?"

"Yes. It won't upset you, will it?"

"No, it won't upset me. But it seems to me that for a cop not on active duty, you're taking a very active interest."

"I'm just trying to help out Abner Boone," he protested. "This case means a lot to him."

"Uh-huh," she said, peering at him over her glasses. "Well… let's hear it."

"When the first victim, George T. Puller, was found with his throat slashed at the Grand Park Hotel in February, the men assigned to the case figured it for a murder by a prostitute. It had all the signs: An out-of-town salesman is in New York for a convention, has a few drinks, picks up a hooker on the street or in a bar. He takes her to his hotel room. They have a fight. Maybe he won't pay her price, or wants something kinky, or catches her pinching his wallet. Whatever. Anyway, they fight and she kills him. It's happened a hundred times before."

"I suppose," Monica said, sighing.

"Sure. Only there were no signs of a fight. And nothing had been stolen. A prostitute would at least have nicked the cash, if not the victim's jewelry, credit cards, and so forth."

"Maybe she was drugged or doped up."

"And carefully wiped away all her fingerprints? Not very probable. Especially after the second murder in March. A guy named Frederick Wolheim. At the Hotel Pierce. Same MO. Throat slashed. No signs of a struggle. Nothing stolen."

"The paper said the victims were mutilated," Monica said in a small voice.

"Yes," Delaney said flatly. "Stabbed in the genitals. Many times. While they were dying or after they were dead."

His wife was silent.

"Black nylon hairs were found," Delaney continued. "From a wig. Now the prostitute theory was dropped, and it was figured the killer was a homosexual, maybe a transvestite."

"Women wear wigs, too. More than men."

"Of course. Also, the weapon used, a short-bladed knife, probably a pocket knife, is a woman's weapon. It could still figure as a female, but the cops were going by probabilities. There's no modern history of a psychopathic female murderer who selected victims at random and killed for no apparent reason. Lots of male butchers; no female."

"But why does it have to be a homosexual? Why not just a man?

"Because the victims were found naked. So Lieutenant Slavin started hassling the gays, rousting their bars, pulling in the ones with sheets, criminal records. The results have been nil. After the third murder, it was determined the killer was five-five to five-seven. That could be a shortish man."

"Or a tall woman."

"Yes. No hard evidence either way. But the hunt is still on for a male killer."

She looked up at him again.

"But you think it's a woman?"

"Yes, I do."

"A prostitute?"

"No. A psychopathic woman. Killing for crazy reasons that maybe don't even make sense to her. But she's forced to kill."

"I don't believe it," Monica said firmly.

"Why not?"

"A woman couldn't do things like that."

He had anticipated a subjective answer and had vowed not to lose his temper. He had prepared his reply:

"Are you saying a woman would not be capable of such bloody violence?"

"That's correct. Once maybe. A murder of passion. From jealousy or revenge or hate. But not a series of killings of strangers for no reason."

"A few weeks ago we were talking about child abuse. You agreed that in half the cases, and probably more, the mother was the aggressor. Holding her child's hand over an open flame or tossing her infant into scalding water."

"Edward, that's different!"

"How different? Where's the crime of passion there? Where's the motive of jealousy or revenge or hate?"

"The woman child abuser is under tremendous pressure. She was probably abused herself as a child. Now she's locked into a life without hope. Made into a drudge. The poor child is the nearest target. She can't hold her husband's hand over a flame, as she'd like to, so she takes out all her misery and frustration on her child."

He made a snorting sound. "A very facile explanation, but hardly a justification for maiming an infant. But forget about motives for a minute. Right now I'm not interested in motives. All I'm trying to do is convince you that women are capable of mindless, bloody violence, just like men."

She was silent, hands gripping the needles and wool on her lap. Her lips were pressed to thinness, her face stretched tight. Delaney knew that taut look well, but he plunged ahead.

"You know your history," he said. "Women haven't always been the subdued, demure, gentle, feminine creatures that art and literature make them out to be. They've been soldiers, hard fighters, cruel and bitter foes in many tribes and nations. Still are, in a lot of places on the globe. It used to be that the worst thing that could happen to a captured warrior was to be turned over to the women of the conquering army. I won't go into the details of his fate."

"What's your point?" she snapped.

"Just that there's nothing inherent in women, nothing in their genes or instincts that would prevent them from becoming vicious killers of strangers if they were driven to it, if they were victims of desires and lusts they couldn't control. As a matter of fact, I would guess they'd be more prone to violence of that kind than men."

"That's the most sexist remark I've ever heard you make."

"Sexist," he said with a short laugh. "I was wondering how long it would take you to get around to that. The knee-jerk reaction. Any opinion that even suggests women might be less than perfect gets the 'sexist' label. Are you saying that women really are the mild, ladylike, ineffectual Galateas that you always claimed men had created by prejudice and discrimination?"

"I'm not saying anything of the kind. Women haven't developed their full potential because of male attitudes. But that potential doesn't include becoming mass killers. Women could have done that anytime, but they didn't. You said yourself that was the reason the police are looking for a male Hotel Ripper. Because there's no precedent for women being guilty of such crimes."

He looked at her thoughtfully, putting a fingertip to his lips.

"I just had a wild thought," he said. "It's got nothing to do with what we've been talking about, but maybe men did their best to keep women subjugated because they were afraid of them. Physically afraid. Maybe it was a matter of self-preservation."

"You're impossible!" she cried.

"Could be," he said, shrugging. "But to get back to what I was saying, will you agree women have the emotional and physical capabilities of being mass killers? That there is nothing in the female psyche that would rule against it? There have been women who killed many times, usually from greed, and they have always been acquainted with their victims. Now I'm asking you to make one small step from that and admit that women would be capable of killing strangers for no apparent reason."

"No," she said definitely, "I don't believe they could do that. You said yourself there are no prior cases. No Daughters of Sam."

"Right," he agreed. "The percentages are against it. That's why, right now, Slavin and Boone and all their men are looking for a male Hotel Ripper. But I think they're wrong."

"Just because you believe women are capable of murder?"

"That, plus the woman's weapon used in the murders, plus the absence of any signs of a fight, plus the fact that apparently heterosexual victims were found naked, plus the wig hairs, plus the estimated height of the killer. And plus something else."

"What's that?" she said suspiciously.

"One of the things I checked when Boone told me about the first two murders was the day of the month they had been committed. I thought there might be a connection with the full moon. You know how crime rates soar when the moon is full."

"Was there a connection?"

"No. And the third killing had no connection either. Then I looked at the intervals between the three murders. Twenty-six days between the first and second, and between the second and the third. Does that suggest anything to you?"

She didn't answer.

"Sure it does," he said gently. "Twenty-six days is a fair average for a woman's menstrual period. I checked it in your guide to gynecology."

"My God, Edward, you call that evidence?"

"By itself? Not much, I admit. But added to all the other things, it begins to make a pattern: a psychopathic female whose crimes are triggered by her monthly periods."

"But killing strangers? I still don't believe it. And you keep saying the percentages are against it."

"Wait," he said, "there's more."

He leaned down, picked up a stack of papers from the floor. He held them on his lap. He donned his reading glasses, began to flip through the pages.

"This may take a little time," he said, looking up at her. "Would you like a drink of anything?"

"Thank you, no," she said stiffly.

He nodded, went back to his shuffling until he found the page he wanted. Then he sat back.

"The probabilities are against it," he agreed. "I admit that. Going by experience, Slavin is doing exactly right in looking for a male killer. But it occurred to me that maybe the percentages are wrong. Not wrong so much as outdated. Obsolete."

"Oh?"

If she was curious, he thought mournfully, she was hiding it exceedingly well.

He looked at her reflectively. He knew her sharp intelligence and mordant wit. He quailed before the task of trying to elicit her approval of what he was about to propose. At worst, she would react with scorn and contempt; at best, with amused condescension for his dabblings in disciplines beyond his ken.

"I've heard you speak many times of the 'new woman,'" he started. "I suppose you mean by that a woman free, or striving to be free, of the restraints imposed by the oppression of men."

"And society," she added.

"All right," he said. "The oppression by individual men and a male-oriented society. The new woman seeks to control and be responsible for her own destiny. Correct? Isn't that more or less what the women's liberation movement is all about?"

"More or less."

"Feminism is a revolution," he went on, speaking slowly, almost cautiously. "A social revolution perhaps, but all the more significant for that. Revolutions have their excesses. No," he said hastily, "not excesses; that was a poor choice of words. But revolutions sometimes, usually, have results its leaders and followers did not anticipate. In any upheaval-social, political, artistic, whatever-sometimes the fallout is totally unexpected, and sometimes inimical to the original aims of the revolutionaries.

"When I was puzzling over the possibility of the Hotel Ripper being female, and trying to reconcile that possibility with the absence of a record of women committing similar crimes, it occurred to me that the new woman we were speaking about might be 'new' in ways of which we weren't aware.

"In other words, she might be more independent, assertive, ambitious, courageous, determined, and so forth. But in breaking free from the repression of centuries, she may also have developed other, less desirable traits. And if so, those traits could conceivably make obsolete all our statistics and percentages of what a woman is capable of."

"I presume," Monica said haughtily, "you're talking about crime statistics and crime percentages."

"Some," he said, "but not all. I wanted to learn if modern women had changed, were changing, in any ways that might make them predisposed to, uh, self-destructive or antisocial behavior."

"And what did you find out?"

"Well…" he said, "I won't claim the evidence is conclusive. I'm not even sure you can call it evidence. But I think it's persuasive enough to confirm-in my own mind at least-that I'm on the right track. I asked Thomas Handry-he's the reporter; you've met him-to dig out the numbers for me in several areas. I took the past fifteen years as the time period in which to determine if the changes I suspected in women had actually taken place."

"Why the past fifteen years?"

He looked at her stonily. "You know why. Because that period, roughly, is the length of time the modern feminist movement has been in existence and has affected the lives of so many American women. And men too, of course."

"You're blaming everything that's happened to women in the past fifteen years on women's liberation?"

"Of course not. I know other factors have been influential. But a lot of those factors, in turn, have been partly or wholly the result of feminism. The huge increase in the women's work force, for instance. Now do you or do you not want to hear what Handry discovered?"

"I'd feel a lot better if your research had been done by a woman."

He gave her a hard smile. "She would have found the same numbers Handry did. Let's start with the most significant statistics…"

He began speaking, consulting pages on his lap, letting them flutter to the floor as he finished with them.

"First," he said, "let's look at drugs… Statistics about illegal drugs are notoriously inaccurate. I'm talking now about marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. It's almost impossible to get exact tallies on the total number of users, let alone a breakdown by sex and age. But from what reports are available, it appears that men and women are about equal in illicit drug use.

"When we turn to legal drugs, particularly psychoactive drugs prescribed by physicians, we can get more accurate totals. They show that of all prescriptions issued for such drugs, about 80 percent of amphetamines, 67 percent of tranquilizers, and 60 percent of barbiturates and sedatives go to women. It is estimated that at least two million women have dependencies-addiction would be a better word-on prescription drugs. More than half of all women convicted of crimes have problems with prescription drug abuse. Twice as many women as men use Valium and Librium. Fifty percent more women than men take barbiturates regularly. They're a favored method of suicide by women."

"There's a good reason for all that," Monica said sharply. "When you consider the frustrations and-"

"Halt!" Delaney said, showing a palm. "Monica, I'm a policeman, not a sociologist. I'm not interested in the causes. Only in things as they are, and the effect they may have on crime. Okay?"

She was silent.

"Second," he said, consulting more pages, "the number of known female alcoholics has doubled since World War Two. Alcoholics Anonymous reports that in the past, one in ten members- was a woman. Today, the ratio of women to men is about one to one. Statistics on alcoholism are hard to come by and not too accurate, but no one doubts the enormous recent increase of female alcoholics."

"Only because more women are coming forward and admitting their problem. Up to now, there's been such social condemnation of women drinkers that they kept it hidden."

"And still do, I imagine," he said. "Just as a lot of men keep their alcoholism hidden. But that doesn't negate all the testimony of authorities in the field reporting a high incidence of female alcoholism. Women make the majority of purchases in package liquor stores. Whiskey makers are beginning to realize what's going on. Now their ads are designed to attract women drinkers. There's even a new Scotch, blended expressly for women, to be advertised in women's magazines."

"When everyone is drinking more, is it so unusual to find women doing their share?"

"More than their share," he answered, with as much patience as he could muster. "Read the numbers in these reports Handry collected; it's all here. Third, deaths from lung cancer have increased about 45 percent for women and only about 4 percent for men. The lung cancer rate for women, not just deaths, has tripled."

"And pray, what does that prove?"

"For one thing, I think it proves women are smoking a hell of a lot more cigarettes, for whatever reasons, and suffering from it. Monica, as far as I'm concerned, alcohol and nicotine are as much drugs as amphetamines and barbiturates. You can get hooked on booze and cigarettes as easily as you can on uppers and downers."

She was getting increasingly angry; he could see it in her stiffened posture, the drawn-down corners of her mouth, her narrowed eyes. But having come this far, he had no intention of stopping now.

"All right," she said in a hard voice, "assuming more women are popping pills, drinking, and smoking-what does that prove?"

"One final set of numbers," he said, searching through the remaining research. "Here it is… Women constitute about 51 percent of the population. But all the evidence indicates they constitute a much higher percentage of the mentally ill. One hundred and seventy-five women for every 100 men are hospi- talized for depression, and 238 women for every 100 men are treated as outpatients for depression."

"Depression!" she said scornfully. "Hasn't it occurred to you that there's a good explanation for that? The social roles-"

"Not only depression," he interrupted, "but mania as well. They're called 'affective disorders.' and it's been estimated that more than twice as many women as men suffer from them."

"As a result of-"

"Monica!" he cried desperately. "I told you I'm not interested in the causes. If you tell me that drug addiction-including alcohol and nicotine-and poor mental health are due to the past role of women in our culture, I'll take your word for it. I'm just trying to isolate certain current traits in women. The 'new women.' I'm not making a value judgment here. I'm just giving you the numbers. Percentages have no conscience, no ax to grind, no particular point to make. They just exist. They can be interpreted in a hundred different ways."

"And I know how you interpret them," she said scathingly. "As a result of the women's liberation movement."

"Goddamn it!" he said furiously. "Are you listening to me or are you not? The only interest I have in these numbers is as a statistical background to my theory that the Hotel Ripper is a woman.

"What the hell is the connection?"

He drew a deep breath. He willed himself to be calm. He tried to speak reasonably. She seemed to be missing the point-or perhaps he was explaining it badly.

"Monica, I'm willing to admit that the things I've mentioned about women today may be temporary aberrations. They may be the result of the social upheavals and the rapidly changing role of women in the last few years. Maybe in another ten or fifteen years, women will have settled into their new roles and learned to cope with their new problems. Then their mental health will improve and their drug dependency decrease.

"But I'm only concerned with the way things are today. And I think women today are capable of making irrelevant all the existing criminal data dealing with females. Those numbers were accurate for yesterday, not today. The new women make them obsolete.

"I think enough hard evidence exists to justify believing the Hotel Ripper is a woman. I asked Handry to do this research in hopes that it might provide statistical background to reinforce that belief. I think it does.

"Monica, we have shit-all evidence of what the killer looks like. We know she's about five-five to five-seven and wears wigs. That's about it. But we can guess at other things about her. For instance, she's probably a young woman, say in the area of eighteen to forty, because she's strong enough to rip a man's throat and she's young enough to have menstrual periods.

"We also know she's smart. She plans carefully. She's cool and determined enough to carry through a vicious murder and then wash bloodstains from her body before leaving the scene. She makes certain she leaves no fingerprints. Everything indicates a woman of above average intelligence.

"This research gives us additional clues to other things she may be. Quite possibly she's addicted to prescription drugs, alcohol, or nicotine-or a combination of two or all three. The chances are good that she suffers from depression or mania, or both.

"All I'm trying to do is put together a profile. Not a psychological profile-those things are usually pure bullshit. I'm trying to give the killer certain personal and emotional characteristics that will give us a more accurate picture of the kind of woman she is."

"You think she's a feminist?" Monica demanded.

"She may be; she may not be. I just don't know and can't guess. But I do believe the great majority of women in this country have been affected by the women's liberation movement whether they are active in it or not."

Monica was silent a moment, pondering. She stared down, her eyes blinking. Then she asked the question Delaney had hoped to avoid. But, he admitted wryly, he should have known she'd go to the heart of the matter.

She looked up, directly at him. "Did Handry research current crime statistics?"

"Yes, he did."

"And?"

"The arrest rate is up for women. Much higher than that for men."

"What about murder?" she asked.

He had to be honest. "No, there's no evidence that murder by women is increasing. But their arrests for robbery, breaking-and-entering, and auto theft are increasing at a higher rate than for men. And much higher for larceny-theft, embezzlement, and fraud. Generally, women's crimes against property are increasing faster than men's, but not in the category of violent crimes such as murder and manslaughter."

"Or rape," she added bitterly.

He said nothing.

"Well?" she questioned. "If you think your research is justification for the Hotel Ripper being a woman, wouldn't there be some evidence of murder by women being on the increase?"

"I would have thought so," he admitted.

"You hoped so, didn't you?" she said, looking at him narrowly.

"Come on, Monica," he protested. "It's not giving me any great satisfaction to know the Hotel Ripper is a woman."

She sniffed and rose, gathering up her knitting things.

"You don't know any such thing," she said. "You're just guessing. And I think you're totally wrong."

"I may be," he acknowledged.

"Are you going to tell Boone about your wild idea?"

"No. Not yet. But I'm going to call him and warn him about May seventh to May ninth. If I'm right, then there will be another killing or attempted killing around then."

She swept grandly from the room.

"You're making a damned fool of yourself!" she flung over her shoulder.

After the door slammed behind her, he kicked fretfully at the pages of research discarded on the carpet.

"Won't be the first time," he grumbled.

On the morning of May 9th, a little before 9:00 a.m., Monica and Edward X. Delaney were seated at the kitchen table, having a quiet breakfast. They were sharing a pan of eggs scrambled with lox and onions.

Since their heated debate on the significance of Thomas Handry's research, their relation had been one of careful politesse:

"Would you care for more coffee?"

"Thank you. Another piece of toast?"

"No more, thank you. Would it bother you if I turned on the radio?"

"Not at all. Would you like a section of the newspaper?"

It had been going on like that for more than a week, neither willing to yield. But on that morning, the Chief decided it had continued long enough.

He threw down his newspaper, slammed his hand on the table with a crack that made Monica jump.

"Jesus Christ!" he said explosively. "What are we-a couple of kids? What kind of bullshit is this? Can't we disagree without treating each other like strangers?"

"You're so damned bullheaded," she said. "You can never admit you're wrong."

"I admit I might be wrong," he said. "On this thing. But I haven't been proved wrong-yet. You think I'm wrong? All right, how about a bet? Put your money where your mouth is. How much? Five, ten, a hundred? Whatever you say."

"It's too serious a matter to bet money on," she said loftily.

"All right, let's make a serious bet. The windows are filthy. If I'm proved wrong, I'll wash every goddamned window in the house. If I'm proved right, you wash them."

She considered that a moment.

"Every window," she insisted. "Including basement and attic. Inside and out."

"I agree," he said and held out his big paw. They shook hands.

"Turn the radio on," she ordered.

"Pour me some more coffee," he commanded.

Things were back to normal. But they both froze when they heard the first news item.

"The body of a murdered man was discovered in a suite at the Cameron Arms Hotel on Central Park South last night around midnight. The victim has been identified as Leonard T. Bergdorfer, an airline broker from Atlanta, Georgia. A police spokesman has definitely linked the slaying with the series of Hotel Ripper murders. The death of Bergdorfer is the fourth. No further details are available at this hour."

Monica and Edward stared at each other.

"The Windex is in the cupboard under the sink," he said slowly.

She began to cry, silently, tears welling down her cheeks. He rose to put a heavy arm about her shoulders, pull her close.

"It's so awful," she said, her voice muffled. "So awful. We were joking and making bets, and all the time…"

"I know," he said, "I know."

"You better tell Abner," she said. "About what you think."

"Yes," he said, "I guess I better."

He went into the study, sat down heavily behind the desk. He had his hand on the phone, but then paused, pondering.

He could not understand why he had not been informed. The newscaster had said the body was discovered around midnight.

Delaney would have expected Sergeant Boone to call him as soon as it had been verified as a Ripper killing.

Perhaps Boone had been commanded by Lieutenant Slavin to stop discussing the case with Delaney. Or perhaps enough evidence had been found to wrap up the investigation with no more help from a retired cop. Or maybe the sergeant was just too busy to report. Anything was possible.

He called Boone at home, at Midtown North, and at the Cameron Arms Hotel. No success anywhere. He left messages at all three places, asking the sergeant to call him back as soon as possible.

He started a new dossier: a sheet of paper headed: "Leonard T. Bergdorfer, midnight May 8, from Atlanta, Georgia. Fourth victim. Body found at Cameron Arms Hotel." Then he went back into the kitchen to listen to the ten o'clock news. Monica was gathering a pail of water, clean rags, Windex, a roll of paper towels.

"You don't have to do the windows," he told her, smiling. "It was just a stupid joke. We'll have someone come in and do them. Besides, it looks like rain."

"No, no," she said. "I lost the bet. Also, I think I'd like to keep busy with physical work today. Therapy. Maybe it'll keep me from thinking."

"Well… just do the insides," he said. "Stop when you get tired."

The news broadcast added a few more facts. The victim had come to New York to attend a convention at the Cameron Arms Hotel. His body was discovered by friends who stopped by his suite for a drink and found the door unlocked.

There were indignant statements from a Deputy Mayor, from travel agents, from the president of the hotel association. All called for quick apprehension of the Hotel Ripper before tourist trade in New York dwindled to nothing.

Edward X. Delaney waited all morning in his study, but Sergeant Abner Boone never called back. The Chief concluded that his aid was no longer being sought. For whatever reason, he was being ignored.

He pulled on his raincoat, homburg, took an umbrella from the hall closet. He yelled upstairs to Monica that he was going out and would be back shortly. He waited for her shouted reply before he left, double-locking the front door behind him.

It wasn't a hard rain. More of a thick, soaking mist that fell steadily from a steely sky. And it was unpleasantly warm. There were puddles on the sidewalks. The gutters ran with filth. The day suited Delaney's mood perfectly.

His pride was hurt; he acknowledged it. He had cooperated with Boone and, through him, with Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen. He had made suggestions. He had warned of the May 7-9 time period.

The only thing he hadn't passed along was his theory that the Hotel Ripper was a woman. Not a prostitute, but a psychopathic female posing as one. And he hadn't told Boone about that simply because it was a theory and needed more evidence to give it substance.

He thought the timing of the murder of Leonard T. Bergdorfer made it more than just a hypothesis. But if they didn't want his help, the hell with them. It was no skin off his ass. He was an honorably retired cop, and for all he cared the Department could go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

That's what he told himself.

He walked for blocks and blocks, feeling the damp creep intow his feet and shoulders. His umbrella soaked through, his un-gloved hands dripped, and he felt as steamed as if the city had become an enormous sauna with someone pouring water on heated rocks.

He stopped at an Irish bar on First Avenue. He had two straight whiskies, which brought more sweat popping but at least calmed his anger. By the time he started home, he had regained some measure of serenity, convinced the Hotel Ripper case was past history as far as he was concerned.

He was putting his sodden homburg and raincoat in the hall closet when Monica came out of the kitchen.

"Where have you been?" she demanded.

"Taking a stroll," he said shortly.

"Ivar Thorsen is in the study," she said. "He's been waiting almost an hour. I gave him a drink."

Delaney grunted.

"You're in a foul mood," Monica said. "Just like Ivar. Put your umbrella in the sink to drip."

He stood the closed umbrella in the kitchen sink. He felt the shoulders of his jacket. They were dampish but not soaked. He passed a palm over his iron-gray, brush-cut hair. Then he went into the study.

Deputy Commissioner Thorsen stood up, drink in hand.

"Hullo, Ivar," the Chief said.

"How the hell did you know there'd be a killing last night?" Thorsen said loudly, almost shouting.

Delaney stared at him. "It's a long story," he said, "and one you're not likely to hear if you keep yelling at me."

Thorsen took a deep breath. "Oh God," he said, shaking his head, "I must be cracking up. I'm sorry, Edward. I apologize."

He came forward to shake the Chief's hand. Then he sat down again in the armchair. Delaney freshened his glass with more Glenlivet and poured himself a healthy shot of rye whiskey. They held their glasses up to each other before sipping.

Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen was called "The Admiral" in the NYPD, and his appearance justified the nickname. He was a small, slender man with posture so erect, shoulders so squared, that it was said he left the hangers in the jackets he wore.

His complexion was fair, unblemished; his profile belonged on postage stamps. His white hair, worn short and rigorously brushed, had the gleam of chromium.

His pale blue eyes seemed genial enough, but subordinates knew how they could deepen and blaze. "It's easy enough to get along with Thorsen," one of his aides had remarked. "Just be perfect."

"How's Karen?" Delaney asked, referring to the deputy's beautiful Swedish wife.

"She's fine, thanks," Thorsen said. "When are you and Monica coming over for one of her herring smorgasbords?"

"Whenever you say."

They sat in silence, looking at each other. Finally…

"You first or me first?" Thorsen asked.

"You," Delaney said.

"We've got problems downtown," the Admiral announced.

"So what else is new? You've always got problems downtown."

"I know, but this Hotel Ripper thing is something else. It's as bad as Son of Sam. Maybe worse. The Governor's office called today. The Department is taking a lot of flak. From the politicians and the business community."

"You know how I feel about the Department."

"I know how you say you feel, Edward. But don't tell me a man who gave as many years as you did would stand idly by and not do what he could to help the Department."

"Fiddle music," Delaney said. '"Hearts and Flowers.'"

Thorsen laughed. "Iron Balls," he said. "No wonder they called you that. But forget about the Department's problems for a moment. Let's talk about your problems."

Delaney looked up in surprise. "I've got no problems."

"You say. I know better. I've seen a lot of old bulls retire and I've watched what happens to them after they get out of harness A few of them can handle it, but not many."

"I can handle it."

"You'd be surprised how many drop dead a year or two after putting in their papers. Heart attack or stroke, cancer or bleeding ulcers. I don't know the medical or psychological reasons for it, but studies show it's a phenomenon that exists. When the pressure is suddenly removed, and stress vanishes, and there are no problems to solve, and drive and ambition disappear, the body just collapses."

"Hasn't happened to me," Delaney said stoutly. "I'm in good health."

"Or other things happen," the Admiral went on relentlessly.; "They can't handle the freedom. No office to go to. No beat to pound. No shop talk. Their lives revolved around the Department and now suddenly they're out. It's like they were excommunicated."

"Bullshit."

"Some of them find a neighborhood bar that becomes their office or squad room or precinct. They keep half-bagged all day and bore their new friends silly with lies about what great cops they were."

"Not me."

"Or maybe they decide to read books, visit museums, go to shows-all the things they never had time for before. Fishing and hunting. Gardening. Hockey games. And so forth. But it's just postponing the inevitable. How many books can you read? How many good plays or movies are there? How many hockey games? The day arrives when they wake up with the realization that they've got nothing to do, nowhere to go. They may as well stay in bed. Some of them do."

"I don't."

"Or become drunks or hypochondriacs. Or start following their wives around, walking up their heels. Or start resenting their wives because the poor women don't spend every waking minute with them."

Delaney said nothing.

Thorsen looked at him narrowly. "Don't tell me you haven't felt any of those things, Edward. You've never lied to me in your life; don't start now. Why do you think you were so willing to help Boone? So eager to get his reports on the Hotel Ripper case? To make out those dossiers I saw on your desk? Oh yes, I peeked, and I make no apology for it. Maybe you're not yet in the acute stage, but admit it's starting."

"What's starting?"

"The feeling that you're not wanted, not needed. No reason to your life. No aims, no desires. Worst of all is the boredom. It saps the spirit, turns the brain to mush. You're a wise man, Edward; I'd never deny it. But you're not smart enough to handle an empty life."

Delaney rose slowly to his feet, with an effort. He poured more whiskey. Glenlivet for Thorsen, rye for himself. He sat down heavily again in the swivel chair behind the desk. He regarded the Deputy Commissioner reflectively.

"You're a pisser, you are," he said. "You want something from me. You know you've got to convince me. So you try the loyalty-to-the-Department ploy. When that doesn't work, you switch without the loss of a single breath to the self-interest approach. Now I've got to do as you want if I hope to avoid dropping dead, becoming a lush, annoying my wife, or having my brain turn to mush."

"Right!" the Admiral cried, slapping his knee. "You're exactly right. It's in your own self-interest, man. That's the strongest motive of them all."

"You admit you're manipulating me-or trying to?"

"Of course. But it's in your own best interest; can't you see that?"

Delaney sighed. "Thank God you never went into politics. You'd end up owning the world. What is it, precisely, you want of me, Ivar?"

The sprucely dressed deputy set his drink aside. He leaned forward earnestly, hands clasped.

"Slavin has got to go," he said. "The man's a disaster. Releasing that black nylon wig story to the media was a blunder. We're beefing up the Hotel Ripper squad. Another hundred detectives and plainclothesmen for a start, and more available as needed. We'll put Slavin in charge of administration and scheduling of the task force. He's good at that."

"And who's going to be in command?"

Thorsen sat back, crossed his knees. He adjusted the sharp crease in his trouser leg. He picked up his drink, took a sip. He stared at Delaney over the rim of the glass.

"That's what I was doing all morning," he said. "A meeting downtown. It started at about three a.m., and went through to eleven. I've never drunk so much black coffee in my life. Everyone agreed Slavin had to go. Then we started debating who the CO should be. It had to be someone high up in the Department, to send a signal to the politicians and businessmen and public that we're giving this case top priority."

"Cosmetics," Delaney said disgustedly. "The image."

"Correct," Thorsen said levelly. "When you don't know where you're going, you rush around busily. It gives the impression of action. What more could we have done? Any suggestions?"

"No."

"So we needed a top man in command. It couldn't be the Chief of Detectives. He's got a full plate even without the Hotel Ripper. He can't drop everything and concentrate on one case. Besides, we figured we needed higher brass. Someone close to the PC. No one was willing to volunteer."

"Can't say I blame them," the Chief admitted. "Too much risk for the ambitious types. Failure could break them. End their careers."

"Right. Well, we finally got one guy who was willing to stick out his neck."

"Who's the idiot?"

The Admiral looked at him steadily. "Me," he said. "I'm the idiot."

"Ivar!" Delaney cried. "For God's sake, why? You haven't worked an active case in twenty years."

"Don't you think I know that? I recognized the dangers of taking it on. If I flop, I might as well resign. Nothing left for me in the Department. I'd always be the guy who bungled the Hotel Ripper case. On the other hand, if I could possibly pull it off, I'd be the fair-haired boy, remembered when the Police Commissioner's chair became vacant."

"And that's what you want?"

"Yes."

"Well…" Delaney said loyally, "the city could do a lot worse."

"Thank you, Edward. But it wasn't just wishful thinking on my Part. When I agreed to take it on, I had an ace in the hole."

"Oh? What was that?"

"Who was that. You."

Delaney banged his hand down on the desktop in disgust.

"Jesus Christ, Ivar, you gambled on getting me to go along?"

Thorsen nodded. "That's what I gambled on. That's why I'm here pulling out all the stops to persuade you to help me, help the Department, help yourself."

Delaney was silent, staring at the composed man in the armchair, the small foot in the polished moccasin bobbing idly up and down. Thorsen endured his scrutiny with serenity, slowly sipping his drink.

"There's one stop you didn't pull, Ivar."

"What's that?"

"Our friendship."

The deputy frowned. "I don't want to put it on that basis, Edward. You don't owe me. Turn me down and we'll still be friends."

"Uh-huh. Tell me something, Ivar-did you instruct Sergeant Boone not to call me about that killing last night, figuring to give me a taste of what it would feel like to be shut out of this thing?"

"My God, Edward, do you think I'd be capable of a Machiavellian move like that?"

"Yes."

"You're perfectly right," Thorsen said calmly. "That's exactly what I did for the reason you guessed. And it worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, it worked."

"You've got cops' blood," the Admiral said. "Retirement didn't change that. Well… how about it? Will you agree to work with me? Serve as an unofficial right-hand man? You won't be on \ active duty, of course, but you'll know everything that's going on, have access to all the papers-statements, photographs, evidence, autopsy reports, and so on. Boone will act as our liaison."

"Ivar, what do you expect of me?" Delaney asked desperately, "I'm no miracle man."

"I don't expect miracles. Just handle it as if you were on active duty, assigned to the Hotel Ripper case. If you fail, it's my cock that's on the block, not yours. What do you say?"

"Give me a little time to-"

"No," Thorsen said sharply. "I haven't got time. I need to know now."

Delaney leaned back, laced his hands behind his head. He stared at the ceiling. Maybe, he thought, the reason for Ivar Thorsen's success in threading his way through the booby-trapped upper echelons of the New York Police Department was his ability to use people by persuading them that they had everything to gain from his manipulation.

Knowing that, the Chief still had to admit that Thorsen's sales pitch wasn't all con. There was enough truth in what he had said to consider his proposal seriously.

But not once had he mentioned a motive that cut more ice with Delaney than all the dire warnings of how retirement would flab his fiber and muddle his brain. It was a basic motive, almost simple, that would have sounded mawkish if spoken.

Edward X. Delaney wanted to stop the Hotel Ripper because killing was wrong. Not just immoral, antisocial, or irreligious. But wrong.

"All right, Ivar," he said. "I'm in."

Thorsen nodded, drained his glass. But when Delaney started to rise, to pour him more Glenlivet, the deputy held his hand over his glass.

"No more, thank you, Edward. I've got to go back downtown again."

"Tell me about the killing last night."

"I don't know too much about it. You'll have to get the details from Boone. But I gather it was pretty much like the others, with a few minor differences. The victim was naked, but his body was found on the floor between the bed and the bathroom. The bed hadn't been used."

"Throat slashed?"

"Yes."

"Genitals stabbed?"

"Yes."

"How old was he?"

"Middle forties. One odd thing-or rather two odd things. The body was discovered by a gang of pals who barged in for a drink. They said there was a sweet odor in the bedroom where the body was found."

"A sweet odor? Perfume?"

"Not exactly. One of the guys said it smelled to him like apple blossoms. The other odd thing was that the victim's face was burned. First-degree burns. Reddening but no blistering or charring."

"Tear gas," Delaney said. "It smells like apple blossoms in low concentrations and it can cause burns if applied close to the skin."

"Tear gas?" Thorsen said. "How do you figure that?"

"I don't. Unless the killer couldn't get behind the victim, like the others were slashed, and gassing was the only way to handle him."

"Well, they'll find out what it was in the PM. We've been promised the report tomorrow morning. Now… let's get back to my original question: How the hell did you know there'd be a killing last night?"

"I didn't know. I guessed. And I didn't specify last night; I warned Boone about May seventh to ninth. Did you put on more men?"

"Yeah," Thorsen said sourly. "As a matter of fact, we had a decoy in the Cameron Arms Hotel last night while it was going down."

"Shit," Delaney said.

"He was in a disco, figuring that would be the logical place for the killer to make contact. It didn't work out that way. Edward, we can't cover every bar, cocktail lounge, disco, dining room, and hotel lobby in midtown Manhattan. That would take an army."

"I know. Still, it burns my ass to be so close and miss it."

"You still haven't told me how you figured it might happen last night."

"It's a long story. You better have another drink."

The Admiral hesitated just a moment.

"All right," he said finally. "After what I've gone through in the last twelve hours, I've earned it."

Delaney repeated everything he had previously related to Monica: how he had slowly come to believe the Hotel Ripper might be a woman; the research he had done; and how some of it substantiated his theory.

And how the implied circumstances of the murders lent further credence: the absence of any signs of struggles; the heterosexual victims found naked; the attacks (except for the last) all made from the rear, the victims apparently not expecting sudden violence.

Midway through his recital, Delaney took two cigars from his desk humidor. Still talking, he rose and leaned forward to hand one to the Admiral, then held a match for him. He sat down again and, puffing, resumed his discourse.

He argued that only presuming the perpetrator was a woman wearing a wig-not a prostitute, but a psychopath-could all the anomalies of the murders be explained.

"She kills at regular intervals," he concluded. "In, say, twenty-five to twenty-seven-day cycles."

"During her periods?"

"Probably. Maybe a few days before or a few days after. But every month."

"Well…" Thorsen said with a rueful smile, "that gives us an age approximation: twelve to fifty!"

"What do you think, Ivar? About the whole idea?"

Thorsen looked down at his drink, swirling the whiskey around slowly in the glass. "Not exactly what I'd call hard evidence. A lot of shrewd guesses. And a lot of smoke."

"Oh hell yes. I admit it. But have you got any better ideas?"

"I haven't got any ideas. But on the basis of what you've told me, you want us to-"

"I don't want you to do a goddamned thing," Delaney said furiously. "You asked me for my ideas and I gave them to you. If you think it's all bullshit, then I-"

"Whoa, whoa!" the deputy said, holding up a hand. "My God, Edward, you've got the shortest fuse of any man I know. I don't think it's all bullshit. I think you've come up with the first new idea anyone has offered on this mess. But I'm trying to figure out what to do about it. Assuming you're right, where do we go from here?"

"Start all over again," Delaney said promptly. "They've been checking out escaped mental patients and psychos, haven't they?"

"Of course. All over the country."

"Sure they have-male crazies, and probably just homosexual male crazies. We've got to go back and do it all over again, looking for psychopathic women, escaped or recently released. And pull out all the decoys from gay bars and send them to straight places. These killings have nothing to do with homosexuals. And go back through our records again, looking for women with a sheet including violent crimes. There's a hell of a lot that can be done once you're convinced the killer is female. It turns the whole investigation around."

"You think this should be released to the media?"

Delaney pondered that a long time.

"I don't know," he admitted finally. "They're going to find out sooner or later. But publicity might frighten the killer off."

"Or spur her on to more."

"That's true. Ivar, I'd suggest keeping this under wraps as long as possible. Just to give us a little time to get things organized. But it's not my decision to make."

"I know," the Admiral said mournfully, "it's mine."

"You volunteered," the Chief said, shrugging. "You're now the commanding officer. So command."

"I'd feel a lot better about this, Edward, if you could be more positive about it. If you could tell me that, yes, you absolutely believe that the killer is definitely a woman."

"My gut instinct tells me so," Delaney said solemnly, and both men burst out laughing.

"Well," Thorsen said, rising, "I've got to get going. I'll spread the news-at least to the people who count."

"Ivar, there's no need for the media to know I'm working with you."

"I agree. But some of the brass will have to know, and some of the politicos. And Sergeant Boone, of course. Call him tomorrow morning. I'll have a system set up by then on how he's to liaise with you."

"Fine."

"Edward, I want to tell you how happy I am that you've decided to help out."

"You're a supersalesman."

"Not really. You can't sell something to someone who really doesn't want to buy. Not to someone as stubborn as you, anyway. But having you with me makes all the difference in the world. May I use your phone?"

"Of course. Want me to step outside?"

"No, no. I want you to hear this."

Thorsen dialed a number, waited a moment.

"Mary?" he said. "It's Ivar Thorsen. Put himself on, will you? He's expecting my call."

While he waited, the Deputy Commissioner winked at Delaney. Then…

"Timothy?" he said. "Ivar Thorsen here. All right, Timmy, I'll take the job."

He hung up and turned to the Chief.

"You bastard!" Delaney gasped. "You've got to be the biggest son of a bitch who ever came down the pike."

"So I've been told," the Admiral said.

After he had shown Thorsen out, Delaney wandered back into the kitchen. Monica was readying a veal roast for the oven, laying on thin strips of fat salt pork. The Chief took a celery stalk from the refrigerator crisper. He leaned against the sink, chomping, watching Monica work.

"I told Ivar I'd help him out on the Hotel Ripper case," he offered.

She nodded. "I thought that was probably what he wanted."

"He's in command now. I'll be working through Abner Boone."

"Good," she said unexpectedly. "I'm glad you'll be busy on something important."

"Have I been getting in your hair?"

She gave him a quick, mischevious grin. "Not any more than usual. You told Ivar you think it's a woman?"

"Yes."

"Did he agree?"

"He didn't agree and he didn't disagree. We'll check it out. He'll want to move cautiously. That's all right; his reputation and career are on the line. He wants to be Police Commissioner some day."

"I know."

"You know? How do you know?"

"Karen told me."

"And you never told me?"

"I thought you knew. Besides, I don't tell you everything."

"You don't? I tell you everything."

"Bullshit," she said, and he kissed her.

It wasn't so much a weakness as a languor. Her will was blunted; her body now seemed in command of all her actions. An indolence infected her. She slept long, drugged hours, and awoke listless, aching with weariness.

Each morning she stepped on the bathroom scale and saw her weight inexorably lessening. After a while she stopped weighing herself; she just didn't want to know. It was something beyond her control. She thought vaguely it was due to her loss of appetite; food sickened her: all that stuff going into her mouth…

Her monthly had ended, but the abdominal cramps persisted. Sometimes she felt nauseated; twice she vomited for no apparent reason. She had inexplicable attacks of diarrhea followed by spells of constipation. The incidents of syncope increased: more of them for longer periods.

It seemed to her that her body, that fleshy envelope containing her, was breaking up, flying apart, forgetting its functions and programs, disintegrating into chaos. It occurred to her that she might be dying. She ran into the kitchen to take a Valium.

She looked down at her naked self. She felt skin, hair, softness of fat and hardness of bone. Undeniably she was still there; warm and pulsing. Pinched, she felt hurt. Stroked, she felt joy. But deep inside was rot. She was convinced of it; there was rot. She knew more wonder than fear.

She functioned; she did what she had to do. Dropped the broken knife down a sewer grating. Wrapped the empty Mace can in a bundle of garbage and tossed it into a litter basket two blocks from her home. Inspected her body and clothing for bloodstains. She did all these things indolently, without reasoning why.

She bathed, dressed, went to work each day. Chatted with Ernest Mittle on the phone. Had lunch with Maddie Kurnitz. It was all a dream, once removed from reality. Anomie engulfed her; she swam in a foreign sea.

Once she called Sergeant Coe to ask if he was available for moonlighting. Coe's wife answered the phone and Zoe said, "This is Irene-" stopped, dazed, then said, "This is Zoe Kohler."

Something was happening to her. Something slow, gradual, and final. She let it take her, going to her fate without protest or whimper. It was too late, too painful to change. There was comfort in being a victim. Almost a pleasure. Life, do with me what you will.

On May 10th, a Saturday, she met Ernest Mittle at the entrance to Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. It was only a few blocks from the Cameron Arms Hotel. They exchanged light kisses and, holding hands, joined the throng sauntering toward the menagerie and children's zoo.

It was more summer than spring. A high sky went on forever; the air was a fluffy softness that caressed the skin. The breeze was scarcely strong enough to raise kites; the fulgent sun cast purplish shadows.

People on the benches raised white, meek faces to the blue, happy with the new world. Coats and sweaters were doffed and carried; children scampered. Bells and flutes could be heard; the greening earth stirred.

"Oh, what a day!" Ernest exulted. "I ordered it just for us. Do you approve, Zoe?"

"It is nice," she said, looking about. "Like being born again."

"Would you like an ice cream? Hot dog? Peanuts?"

"No, nothing right now, thank you."

"How about a balloon?" he said, laughing.

"Yes, I'd like a balloon. A red one."

So he bought her a helium-filled balloon and carefully tied the end of the string to the handle of her purse. They strolled on, the little sun bobbing above them.

A carnival swirled about: noise, movement, color. But they felt singularly alone and at peace, a universe of two. It seemed to them the crowd parted to allow passage, then closed behind them. They were in a private space and no one could intrude.

There were other couples like them, hand in hand, secret and serene as they. But none of them, as Ernest pointed out, had a red balloon. They laughed delightedly at their uniqueness.

They stared at a yak, watched a tiger pace, heard an elephant trumpet, saw the cavortings of sea lions, listened to the chattering of baboons, and were splashed by a diving polar bear. Even the caged animals seemed pleased by that blooming day.

Finally, wearying, they bought beers and sandwiches and carried them out of the zoo to a patch of greensward where the sounds of carnival and the cries of animals were muted.

They sat on the warm earth, Zoe's back against the trunk of a gnarled plane tree. They sipped their beers, nibbled their sandwiches. A fat squirrel came close to inspect them, but when Zoe tossed a crust, it darted off. Two pigeons fought over the crust, divided it, waited hopefully for more, then flew away.

Dappled light melted through the foliage above them. The world was solid beneath them. The air was awash with far-off cries and the faint lilt of music. They could see joggers, cyclists, horse-drawn carriages move along a distant road. A freshening wind brought the sweet smell of growing things.

Ernest Mittle lay supine, his head on Zoe's lap, eyes closed. She stroked his hair absently, looking about and feeling they were alone on earth. The last. The only.

"I wish we could stay here forever," she murmured. "Like this."

He opened his eyes to look up at her.

"Never go home," he said softly. "Never go to work again. No more subways and buses and traffic. No more noise and dirt. No violence and crime and cruelty. We'll just stay here forever and ever."

"Yes," she said wonderingly. "Just the two of us together."

He sat up, took her hand, kissed her fingertips.

"Wouldn't that be fine?" he said. "Wouldn't that be grand? Zoe, I've never felt so good. Never been so happy. Why can't it last?"

"It can't," she said.

"No," he said, "I suppose not. But you're happy, aren't you? I mean right this minute?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Happier than I've ever been in my life."

He lay back again; she resumed smoothing the webby hair back from his temples.

"Did you have a lot of boyfriends, Zoe?" he asked quietly. "I mean when you were growing up."

"No, Ernie," she said, just as dreamily. "Not many."

On a lawn, beneath a tree, blue shadows mottling, they were in the world but not of it. Locked in lovers' isolation. Away from the caged and uncaged animals, and somehow protected from them by their twoness.

"My mother was strict," she said in a memory-dulled voice. "So strict. The boy had to call for me and come inside for inspection. I had to be home by eleven. Midnight on weekends, but eleven during the week."

He made a sound of sympathy. Neither moved now, fearing to move. It was a moment of fragile balance. They knew they were risking revealment. Opening up-a sweet pain. They inched cautiously to intimacy, recognizing the dangers.

"Once I went out with a boy," she said. "A nice boy. His car broke down so I couldn't get home in time. My mother called the police. Can you imagine that? It was awful."

"It's for your own good, my dear," he said in a high-pitched feminine voice.

"Yes. That's what she said. It was for my own good. But after that, I wasn't very popular."

They were silent then, and content with their closeness. It seemed to them that what they were doing, unfolding, could be done slowly. It might even cost a lifetime. All the safer for that. Knowing was a process, not a flash, and it might never end.

"I was never popular," he said, a voice between rue and hurt. "I was small. Not an athlete or anything like that. And I never had enough money to take a girl to the movies. I didn't have any real girlfriends. I never went steady."

It was so new to them-this tender confession. They were daunted by the strange world. Shells were cracking; the naked babes peered out in fear and want. They understood there was a price to be paid for these first fumblings. Involvement presaged a future they could not see.

"I never went steady either," she said, determined not to stop. "Very few boys ever asked me out a second time."

"What a waste," he said, sighing. "For both of us. I didn't think any girl could be interested in me. I was afraid to ask. And you…"

"I was afraid, too. Of being alone with a boy. Mother again. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't let a boy-you know… get personal."

"We were robbed," he said. "Both of us. All those years."

"Yes. Robbed."

Silence again. A comfortable quiet. The wind was freshening, cooling. She looked down at him, cupped his pale face in her palms. Their eyes searched.

"But you married," he said.

"Yes. I did."

She bent, he craned up. Their soft lips met, pressed, lingered. They kissed. They kissed.

"Oh," he breathed. "Oh, oh."

She traced his face, smiling sadly. She felt his brow, cheeks, nose, lips. He closed his eyes, and lightly, lightly, she touched the velvet eyelids, made gentle circles. Then she leaned again to press her lips softly.

She straightened up. She shivered with a sudden chill.

His eyes opened, he looked at her with concern.

"Cold?"

"A little," she said. "Ernie, maybe we should think about leaving."

"Sure," he said, scrambling to his feet.

He helped her up, picked twigs from her skirt, brushed bits of bark from the back of her tweed jacket.

"What should we do with the balloon?" he asked.

"Let's turn it loose," she said. "Let it fly away."

"Right," he said, and untied the string from her purse.

He handed it to her and let her release it. The red balloon rose slowly. Then, caught by the strengthening wind, it went soaring away. They watched it fly up, pulled this way and that, but sailing higher and higher, getting smaller and smaller until it was lost in the sky.

They wandered slowly back to the paved walkway.

"Something I've wanted to ask you, Zoe," he said, looking at the ground. "Is Kohler your married name or your maiden name?"

"My married name. It was on all my legal papers and driver's license and so forth. It just seemed too much trouble to change everything. My maiden name is Spencer."

"Zoe Spencer," he said. "That's nice. Zoe is a very unusual name."

"I think it's Greek," she said. "It means ' life.' It was my mother's idea."

"What's her name?" he asked.

"Irene," she said.

Dr. Oscar Stark's receptionist had Zoe's home and office telephone numbers in her file. On the afternoon of May 13th, the doctor called Zoe at the Hotel Granger and asked how she was feeling.

She told him she felt better since her period had ended, but sometimes she felt torpid and without energy. She reported nothing about her nausea, the continued loss of weight, the increasing incidents of syncope.

He asked if she was taking the doubled cortisone dosage and the salt tablets. She said she was and, in answer to his questions, told him she suffered no stomach upset from intake of the steroid hormone and experienced no craving for additional salt.

He then said that he had received the results of her latest blood and urine tests. They seemed to indicate a slight cortisol deficiency. Dr. Stark said it was nothing to be concerned about, but nothing to disregard either. He instructed her to take her medication faithfully, and he would reevaluate the situation after her office visit on June 3rd.

Meanwhile, he wanted Zoe to stop by and pick up a new prescription. It would be left with his receptionist, so Zoe would not have to wait.

The prescription would be for two items. The first was an identification bracelet that Stark wanted Zoe to wear at all times. It would give her name and Stark's name and telephone number. It would also state that Zoe Kohler suffered from an adrenal insufficiency, and in case of an emergency such as injury or fainting she was to be injected with hydrocortisone.

The hydrocortisone would be in a small labeled kit that Zoe was to carry in her purse at all times. The solution was contained in a packaged sterile syringe, ready for use.

Dr. Stark repeated all this and asked if Zoe understood. She said she did. He assured her the bracelet and kit were merely a precautionary measure and he doubted if they'd ever be used. He was having them made up at a medical supply house down on Third Avenue. Zoe would have to pay for them, but a check would be acceptable.

She copied the name and address he gave her.

On the following day, during her lunch hour, she picked up the prescription at Dr. Stark's office, then cabbed down to the medical supply house and purchased the bracelet and kit. When she returned to the Hotel Granger, she put them in the back of the bottom drawer of her desk. She never looked at them again. On the night of May 16th, Zoe was alone at home. She had just showered and was wearing her old flannel robe and frayed mules. She was curled on the couch, filing her nails, wondering about the slight discoloration in the folds of her knuckles, and watching Rebecca on TV.

A little before ten o'clock her phone rang and the doorman reported that Mrs. Kurnitz was in the lobby and wanted to come up. Zoe told him to let her in and went to the door to wait.

Maddie came striding down the corridor from the elevator. She had a soiled white raincoat over her shoulders like a cape, empty sleeves flapping out behind her. Her makeup was a mess, smudged and runny. Zoe thought she had been weeping. "Maddie," she said, "what are-"

"You got anything to drink?" Maddie demanded. "Beer, whiskey, wine? Or cleaning fluid, lye, hemlock? I don't give a good goddamn."

Zoe got her inside and locked the door. Maddie flung her coat to the floor. Zoe picked it up. Maddie tried to light a cigarette and broke it with trembling fingers. She dropped that on the floor, too, and Zoe picked it up. Maddie finally got a cigarette- lighted and collapsed onto the couch, puffing furiously.

"I have some vodka," Zoe said, "and some-"

"Vodka is fine. A biiig vodka. On the rocks. No mix. Just more vodka."

Zoe went into the kitchen to pour Maddie's drink and a glass of white wine for herself. Because her supply of Valium was getting low, she took two Librium before she went back into the living room.

Maddie drained half the vodka in two throat-wrenching gulps. Zoe turned off the TV set and sat down in an armchair facing her visitor.

"Maddie," she said, "what on earth is-"

"That bastard!" Maddie cried. "That cocksucker! I should have kicked him in the balls."

"Who?" Zoe said bewilderedly. "Who are you talking about?"

"Harry. That asshole husband of mine. He's been cheating on me."

"Oh, Maddie," Zoe said sorrowfully, "are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. The son of a bitch told me himself."

She seemed halfway between fury and tears. Zoe had never seen her so defeated. Heavy breasts sagged, fleshy body spread. All of her appeared slack and punished. Chipped fingernails and smeared lipstick. Gaudy had become seedy.

She lighted a new cigarette from the butt of the old. She looked about vaguely.

"First time I've been up here," she said dully. "Christ, you're neat. Clean and neat."

"Yes," Zoe said. Then, when Maddie finished her vodka, she went into the kitchen again and brought back the bottle. She watched Maddie fill her glass, bottle clinking against the rim.

"It's not the cheating I mind," Maddie said loudly. "You know I play around, too. He can screw every woman in New York for all I care. We had this understanding. He could play, and I could play, and neither of us cared, and no one got hurt."

"Well then?" Zoe said.

"He wants to marry the bitch," Maddie said with a harsh bark of laughter. "Some stupid little twist in his office. He wants to divorce me and marry her. Did you ever?"

Zoe was silent.

"I met her," Maddie went on. "She was at that party you went to. A washed-out blonde with tits like funnels. A body that doesn't end and a brain that never starts. Maybe that's what Harry wants: a brainless fuck. Maybe I threaten him. Do you think I threaten him?"

"I don't think so, Maddie."

"Who the hell knows. Anyway, I'm out and she's in. God, what a bummer. What hurts is that he knows how much a divorce is going to cost him-I'm going to take the fillings right out of his teeth-but he still wants it. Like he'll pay anything to get rid of me. I even suggested we stick together and he could set her up on the side-you know? I wouldn't care. But no, he wants a clean break. That's what he said: 'a clean break.' I'd like to cleanly break his goddamned neck!"

"Uh, Maddie," Zoe said timidly, "I can understand your being upset, but you've been divorced before."

"I know, sweetie, I know. That's why I'm so down. I'm beginning to worry. What's wrong with me? Why can't I hold a guy? It lasts two or three years and then it falls apart. I get bored with him, or he gets bored with me, and off we go to the lawyers. Shit!"

"But you love-"

"Love?" Maddie said. "What the fuck is love? Having laughs together and moaning in the hay? If that's what love is, then I love Harry. A great sense of humor and a stallion in the sack. Generous with money. I had no complaints there. And he never bitched. Then whammo! Out of a clear blue sky he dumps on me."

"Is she younger?"

"Not all that much. If she was like nineteen or twenty, I could understand it. I'd figure he was going through a change of life and had to prove he could still cut the mustard with a young chick. But she's got to be thirty, at least, so what the hell does he see in her? I'm drinking all your booze, kiddo."

"That's all right. Take as much as you want."

"Harry dumps on me and I dump on you. I'm sorry. But I had to talk to a woman. I don't have any close women friends. A lot of guys, but all good-time Charlies. They don't want to listen to my troubles. And they're not going to be overjoyed to hear I'm getting unhitched. Zapping a married woman is fun and games, and no problems. When you haven't got a husband, a lot of men steer clear. Too much risk."

"Is there anyone you…?"

"Anyone I can snare on the rebound? No one in the picture right now. Another thing that scares me. Let's face it, luv, we're both getting long in the tooth. You've kept your body, but the rare beef and bourbon are catching up with me. Plus more than my share of one-night stands. I look like an old broad; I know it."

Zoe murmured something about going on a diet, cutting down on the drinking, buying some new clothes. But Madeline Kurnitz wasn't listening. She was staring off into the middle distance, the glass of vodka held near her lips.

"I've got to be married," she said. "Don't ask me why, but I've got to be. What the hell else can I do in this world? I wouldn't know how to earn a living if my life depended on it. I'm too old to peddle my ass, and just the idea of spending eight hours a day in some stinking office is enough to give me the up-chucks. I don't know how you do it."

"It's not so bad."

"The hell it isn't. While other women are having lunch at the Plaza and buying out Bonwits… I couldn't stand that."

Zoe went to the kitchen again and brought back the bottle of white wine and a bowl of ice cubes for Maddie. They sat in silence for a few moments, sipping their drinks. Maddie kicked off her shoes, pulled up her feet, began picking reflectively at the silver polish on her toenails.

"You know, sweetie, my whole life has revolved around men. It really has. I mean I've depended on them. My daddy spoiled me rotten, and then I went from husband to husband like there was no tomorrow. And what have I got to show for it? A dead father and four flopped marriages. I suppose the women liberationists would say it's my fault, I should have done something with my life. Been more independent and all that horseshit. But Goddamnit, I like men. I like to be with men. Why the hell should I work my tuchas to a frazzle when there was always a guy ready to pick up the tab?"

"You'll find someone new."

"Yeah? I wish I could believe it. I'll take enough out of Harry's hide so that money won't be a problem. For a while at least. But I Just can't live alone. I can't stand to be by myself. You can handle it, but I can't."

"Sometimes you have no choice," Zoe said.

"That's what scares me," Maddie said. "No choice. Thank God I never had any kids. Life is shitty enough without worrying about brats. Did you ever want to have kids, Zoe?"

"Once maybe. Not anymore."

"That fucking Harry sure pulled the plug on me. He's got me feeling sorry for myself-something I've never done before. That lousy turd. God, I'm going to miss him. Two years ago, for my birthday, he bought me a purple Mercedes-Benz convertible with my initials on the door."

"What happened to it?"

"I totaled it on the Long Island Expressway. I was drunk or I would have killed myself. But that's the way he was. Anything I wanted. He spoiled me rotten like my father. Oh Jesus, baby, I must be boring you senseless."

"Oh no, Maddie. I'm glad you came to me. I just wish there was some way I could help."

"You've done enough just listening to me. I don't know what-"

Suddenly Madeline Kurnitz was weeping. She cried silently, tears welling from her eyes and straggling down her powdered cheeks. Zoe went over to the couch, sat next to her, put an arm across her shoulders.

"God, God," Maddie wailed, "what am I going to do?"

Zoe Kohler didn't know. So she said, "Shh, shh," and held the other woman until she stopped crying. After a while, Maddie said, "Shit," blew her nose, took her bag and went into the bathroom.

She came out about ten minutes later, hair combed, makeup repaired. Her eyes were puffy but clear. She gave Zoe a rueful smile.

"Sorry about that, luv," she said. "I thought I was all cried out."

"Maddie, would you like to stay the night? You can take the bed and I'll sleep out here on the couch. Why don't you?"

"No, kiddo, but I appreciate the offer. I'll have one more drink and then I'll take off. I better get home before that shithead changes the locks on the doors. I feel a lot better now. What the hell, it's just another kick in the ass. That's what life is all about- right?"

She sat again on the couch, put more ice in her glass, filled it with vodka. She stirred it with a forefinger, then sucked the finger. She bowed her head, looked up at Zoe.

"Seeing as how it's hair-down time," she said, "how about the sad story of your life? You never did tell me what happened between you and-what was his name? Ralph?"

"Kenneth. And I told you. Don't you remember, Maddie? At that lunch we had at the hotel?"

"You mean the sex thing? Sure, I remember. You never got your rocks off with him. But there's got to be more to it than that."

"Oh… it was a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Silly things."

"Other people's reasons for divorce always sound silly. First of all, how did you meet the guy?"

"He was with an insurance company and was transferred to their agency in Winona. He handled all my father's business policies, and Daddy brought him home for dinner one night. He called me up for a date and we started going out. Then we began getting invited to parties and things as a couple. Then he asked me to marry him."

"Handsome?"

"I thought so. Very big and beefy. He could be very jolly and charming when there were other people around. But about six months after we were married, he quit the insurance company and my father hired him as a kind of junior partner. Daddy was getting old, slowing down, and he wanted someone to sort of take over."

"Oh-ho. And did your husband know this when he asked you to marry him?"

"Yes. I didn't know it at the time, but later, during one of our awful arguments, he told me that was the only reason he married me."

"Nice guy."

"Well… a handsome man says you're beautiful, and he's in love with you, and you believe it."

"Not me, kiddo. I know all he wants is to dip Cecil in the hot grease."

"I believed him. I guess I should have known better. I'm no raving beauty; I know that. I'm quiet and not very exciting. But I thought he really did love me for what I am. I know I loved him. At first."

Maddie looked at her shrewdly.

"Zoe, maybe you just loved him for loving you-or saying he did."

"Yes. That's possible."

They were subdued then, pondering the complexities of living, the role played by chance and accident, the masks people wear, and the masks beneath the masks.

"When did the fights start?" Maddie asked.

"Almost from the start. We were so different, and we couldn't seem to change. We couldn't compromise enough to move closer to each other. He was so-so physical. He was loud and had this braying laugh. He seemed to fill a room. I mean, I could be alone in the house, and he'd come in, and I'd feel crowded. He was always touching me, patting me, slapping my behind, trying to muss my hair right after I had it done. I told you they were silly things, Maddie."

"Not so silly."

"He was just-just all over me. He suffocated me. I got so I didn't even want to breathe the air when he was in the house. The air seemed hot and choking and smelled of his cologne. And he was so messy. Leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor. Throwing his dirty underwear and socks on the bed. I couldn't stand that. He'd have dinner, belch, and just walk away, leaving me to clean up. I know a wife is supposed to do that, but he took it for granted. He was so sure of himself. I think that's what I hated most-his superior attitude. I was like a slave or something, and had no right to question what he did or where he went."

"He sounds like a real charmer. Did he play around?"

"Not at first. Then I began to notice things: women whispering about him at parties, his going out at night after dinner. To see customers, he said. Once, when I took his black suit to the cleaners, there was a book of matches in his pocket. It was from a roadhouse out of town. It didn't, ah, have a very good reputation. So I guess he was playing around. I didn't care. As long as he left me alone."

"Oh, Zoe, was it that bad?"

"I tried, Maddie, really I did. But he was so heavy, and strong, and sort of-sort of uncouth."

"Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am?"

"Something like that. And also, he wanted to do it when he was drunk or all sweated up. I'd ask him to take a shower first, but he'd laugh at me."

"Hung?"

"What?"

"Was he hung? A big whang?"

"Uh, I don't know, Maddie. I don't have much basis for comparison. He was, uh, bigger than Michelangelo's David."

Madeline Kurnitz laughed. How she laughed! She bobbed with merriment, slopping her drink.

"Honey, everyone is bigger than Michelangelo's David."

"And he wanted to do disgusting things. I told him I wasn't brought up that way."

"Uh-huh."

"I told him if he wanted to act like an animal, I was sure he could find other women to accommodate him."

"That wasn't so smart, luv."

"I was past the point of worrying if what I said was smart. I just didn't want anything more to do with him. In bed, I mean. I would have kept on being married to him if he just forgot all about sex with me. Because I felt divorce would be a failure, and my mother would be so disappointed in me. But then he just walked out of the house, quit his job with my father, and left town. Lawyers handled the divorce and I never saw him again."

"Know what happened to him?"

"Yes. He went out to the West Coast. He got married again. About a week ago."

"How do you know that?"

"He sent me an invitation."

Maddie exhaled noisily. "Another prick. What a shitty thing to do."

"I was going to send a gift. Just, you know, to show him I didn't care. But I, ah, tore up the invitation and I don't have the address."

"Screw him. Send him a bottle of cyanide. All men should drop dead."

"Oh, Maddie, I don't know… I guess some of it, a lot of it, was my fault. But I tried so hard to be a good wife, really I did. I cooked all his favorite foods and I was always trying new recipes I thought he'd like. I kept the house as clean as a pin. Everyone said it was a showplace. We had all new furniture, and once he got angry and ripped all the plastic covers off. That's the way he was. He'd put his feet on the cocktail table and use the guest towels. I think he did those things just to annoy me. He swore a lot-dreadful words-and wouldn't go to church. He wanted me to wear tight sweaters and low-cut things. I told him I wasn't like that, but he could never understand. He even wanted me to wear more makeup and have my hair tinted. So I guess I just wasn't the kind of woman he should have married. It was a mistake from the start."

"Oh, sweetie, it's not the end of the world. You'll find someone new."

"That's what I told you," Zoe said, smiling.

"Yeah," Maddie said, with a twisted grin, "ain't that a crock? Two old bags drinking up a storm and trying to cheer each other up. Well… what the hell; tomorrow's another day. You still seeing Mister Meek?"

"I wish you wouldn't call him that, Maddie. He's not like that at all. Yes, I'm still seeing him."

"Like him?"

"Very much."

"Uh-huh. Well, maybe he's more your type than Ralph."

"Kenneth."

"Whatever. You think he's interested in getting married?"

"We've never discussed it," Zoe said primly.

"Discuss it, discuss it," Maddie advised. "You don't have to ask him right out, but you can kind of hint around about how he feels on the subject. He likes you?"

"He says he does."

"Well, that's a start." Maddie yawned, finished her drink, stood up and began to gather her things together. "I've got to get going. Thanks for the booze and the talk. You were right there when I needed you, honey, and I love you for it. Let's see more of each other."

"Oh yes. I'd like that."

After Maddie left, Zoe Kohler locked and bolted the outside door. She plumped the cushions on couch and armchair. She returned the bottles to the kitchen, washed the glasses and ashtrays. She took a Tuinal and turned off the lights. She peeked through the Venetian blind but could see no sign of the watcher across the street.

She got into bed. She lay on her back, arms down at her sides. She stared at the ceiling.

Those things she had told Maddie-they were all true. But she had the oddest feeling that they had happened to someone else. Not her. She had been describing the life of a stranger, something she had heard or read. It was not her life.

She turned onto her side and drew up her knees beneath the light blanket and sheet. She clamped her clasped hands between her thighs.

He was probably trying to get his new wife to do those disgusting things. Maybe she was doing them. And enjoying them.

It was all so common and coarse…

There was a luncheonette near 40th Street and Madison Avenue that Zoe Kohler passed on her way to and from work. It opened early in the morning and closed early in the evening. The food, mostly sandwiches, soups, and salads, was all right. Nothing special, but adequate.

On her way home, the evening of May 21st, Zoe stopped at the luncheonette for dinner. She had a cheeseburger with French fries, which she salted liberally. A cup of black coffee and a vanilla custard.

She sat by herself at a table for two and ate rapidly. She kept her eyes lowered and paid no attention to the noisy confusion churning about her. She left a fifteen percent tip, paid her check at the cashier's counter, and hurried out.

She went directly home. Her alimony check was in the mailbox and she tucked it into her purse. In her apartment, door carefully locked, bolted, and chained, she drew the blinds and changed into a cotton T shirt and terry cloth shorts.

She took out mops, brooms, vacuum cleaner, cans of soap and wax, bottles of detergent, brushes, dustpan, pail, rags, sponges, whisks. She tied a scarf about her hair. She pulled on rubber gloves. She set to work.

In the bathroom, she scrubbed the tub, sink, and toilet bowl with Ajax. Washed the toilet seat with Lysol. Removed the bathmat from the floor, got down on her knees, and cleaned the tile with a brush and Spic and Span.

It had not been a good day. On the street, she had been pushed and jostled. In the office, she had been treated with cold indifference. Everyone in New York had a brusque assurance that daunted her. She wondered if she had made a mistake in coming to the city.

Emptied the medicine cabinet of all her makeup, perfume, medical supplies, and soap. Took out the shelves, washed them with Glass Plus and dried them. Replaced everything neatly, but not before wiping the dust from every jar, bottle, box, and tin.

The very size of the city demeaned her. It crumbled her ego, reduced her to a cipher by ignoring her existence. New York denied her humanness and treated her as a thing, no more than concrete, steel, and asphalt.

Shined the mirror of the medicine cabinet with Windex. Changed the shower curtain. Brought in a clean bathmat. Hung fresh towels, including two embroidered guest towels, although the old ones had not been used.

In the city, people paid to hear other people sing and watch other people feel. Passion had become a spectator sport supported by emotional cripples. Love and suffering were knacks possessed by the talented who were paid to display their gifts.

Emptied the wastebasket and put in a fresh plastic liner. Flushed Drano down the sink and tub drains. Changed the Vanish dispenser in the toilet tank that caused blue water to rush in with every flush. Sprayed the whole bathroom with lemon-scented Glade. Washed fingerprints from the door with Soft Scrub. Turned off the light.

Still, the anonymity of life in New York had its secret rewards. Where else but in this thundering chaos could she experience her adventures? If the city denied her humanity, it was big enough and uncaring enough to tolerate the frailties, vices, and sins of the insensate creatures it produced.

In the bedroom, she changed all the linen, replacing mattress cover, top and bottom sheets, and pillowcases. Made up the new bed with taut surfaces and sharp hospital corners. Turned down the bed, the top sheet overlapping the wool blanket by four inches.

Why had she sought adventures, and why did she continue? She could not frame a clear and lucid answer. She knew that what she was doing was monstrous, but that was no rein. The mind may reason, but the body will have its own. Who can master his appetites? The blood boils, and all is lost.

Dusted the dresser, bureau, and bedside table with Pride. Not only the top surfaces, but the front, sides, and legs as well. Cleaned the telephone with Lysol. Washed and polished the mirror with Windex. Wiped the ashtrays clean and dusted the bulbs in the lamps.

During her adventures, she quit the gallery for the stage. Never had she felt so alive and vindicated, never so charged with the hot stuff of animal existence. It was not that she donned a costume, but that she doffed a skin and emerged reborn.

Used her Eureka canister vacuum cleaner on the wall-to-wall carpeting, moving furniture when necessary. Dusted the slats of the Venetian blinds. Cleaned fingerprints from the doorjambs. Lubricated the hinges of the closet with 3-in-One Oil.

Why her desire to live should have taken such a desperate form she could not have said. There were forces working on her that were dimly glimpsed. She felt herself buffeted, pushed this way and that, by powers as impersonal as the crush on city streets. The choice was hers, but so limited as to be no choice at all.

Rearranged all her clothing into precisely aligned stacks, piles, racks. Put a crocheted doily under the empty glass vase on the bedside table. Replaced the Mildewcide bags in the closet. Added more lavender sachets to the dresser and bureau drawers. Looked around. Turned off the lights.

She smiled at the theatricality of her existence. She relished the convolutions of her life. It was a soap opera! Her life was a soap opera! All lives were soap operas. At the end, just before the death rattle, a whispered, "Thank you, Procter and Gamble."

In the kitchen, she took everything from the cupboards, cabinets, and closets. Washed the interiors with Mr. Clean. Dusted every item before putting it back. Wiped the doors. Applied Klean 'n Shine to get rid of fingerprints.

Who was she? The complexities defeated her. It seemed to her that she lived a dozen lives, sometimes two or more simultaneously. She turned different faces to different people. Worse, she turned different faces to herself.

Used Fantastik on the range top and refrigerator. Scrubbed away grease and splatters with Lestoil. Cleaned the stainless steel with Sheila Shine. Took all the food out of the refrigerator. Washed the interior. Put in a new open package of Arm amp; Hammer baking soda. Replaced the food.

Age brought not self-knowledge but a growing fear of failure to solve her mystery. Who she was, her essence, seemed to be drifting away, the smoke thinning, a misty figure lost. Her life had lost its edges; she saw herself blurred and going.

Used Bon Ami on the sink. Polished the faucets. Poured a little Drano down the drain. Threw away a sliver of hand soap and put out a fresh bar of Ivory. Replaced the worn Brillo pad. Hung fresh hand towel and dishtowel.

She wished for a shock to bring her into focus. A fatal wound or a conquering emotion. Something to which she could give. She thought surrender might save her and make her whole. She felt within herself a well of devotion untapped and unwanted.

Mopped the tiled floor with soapy water. Dry-mopped it. Mopped again with Glo-Coat. Waited until it dried, then waxed it again with Future. Looked around at the sparkle.

She wondered if love could be at once that emotion and that wound. She had never thought of herself as a passionate woman, but now she saw that if chance and accident might conspire, she could be complete: a new woman of grace and feeling.

In the living room, she dusted with an oiled rag. Used Pledge on the tabletops. Wiped the legs of tables and chairs. Plumped pillows and cushions. Put fresh lace doilies under ashtrays and vases.

To Madeline Kurnitz, love was pleasure and laughter. But surely there was more. It might be such a rare, delicate thing, a seedling, that only by wise and willing nurture could it grow strong enough to make a world and save a soul.

Wiped picture frames and washed the glass. Ran a dry mop along baseboards. Washed fingerprints from doors and jambs. Polished a lamp with Top Brass. Cleaned the light bulb. Straightened the kinked cord.

If such a thing should happen to her, if she knew the growth, her body would heal of itself, and all the empty places in her life would be filled. She dreamed of that transfiguration and lusted for it with an almost physical want.

Vacuumed the wall-to-wall carpeting. Moved furniture to clean underneath. Replaced the furniture so the legs set precisely on the little plastic coasters. Used a vacuum cleaner attachment to | dust the drapes. Another attachment on the couch and chair cushions. Another attachment to clean the ceiling molding.

Her vision soared; with love, there was nothing she might not do. The city would be created anew, she would have no need for adventures, and she would recognize herself and be content. All | that by the purity of love.

Straightened the outside closet. Shook out and rehung all the garments, including her hidden gowns. Dusted the shelves. Wiped off the shoes and replaced them on the racks. Fluffed her wigs. Dusted the Venetian blinds. Sprayed the whole room with Breath o' Pine.

Her penance done, she put away all the brooms, mops, vacuum cleaner, cans of soap and wax, bottles of detergent, brushes, dustpan, pail, rags, sponges, and whisks. She undressed in the bedroom while her bath was running. She went into the kitchen, swallowed several vitamin and mineral pills, capsules of this and that. A Valium. A salt tablet.

She started to pour a glass of wine, but changed her mind before opening the bottle. Instead, she poured vodka on the rocks. A big one. Like Maddie. She took that into the bathroom with her.

She eased cautiously into the hot tub. Added scented oil to the water. She floated, sipping her iced vodka. Her weariness became a warm glow. She looked down at her wavering body through half-closed eyes.

"I love you," she murmured aloud, and wondered who she addressed: Kenneth, Ernest Mittle, or herself. She decided it didn't matter; the words had a meaning of their own. They were important. "I love you."

Ernest Mittle arrived promptly at noon on Sunday, May 25th. He brought an enormous bunch of daffodils, so large that Zoe could fill vases in the living room and bedroom, with a few stalks left over for the kitchen. The golden yellow brought sunlight into her dark apartment.

She had prepared a Sunday brunch of Bloody Marys, scrambled eggs with Canadian bacon, hot biscuits, a watercress salad, and a lemon ice for dessert. She also served chilled May wine with a fresh strawberry in each glass.

They sat at the seldom used dining table, a small oval of mahogany with four ladder-back chairs set before the living room window. The china and plated silver service had been wedding gifts. Zoe had bought the crystal salad bowl and napery after she moved to New York.

Ernest complimented her enthusiastically on everything: the shining apartment, the dining table prepared just so, the excellence of the food, the fruity, almost perfumed flavor of the wine.

"Really," Zoe said, "it's nothing."

They were at ease with each other, talking animatedly of their jobs, summer clothes they were thinking of buying, TV shows they had seen.

They spoke as old friends, for already they were learning each other's habits, likes and dislikes, prejudices and fancies. And they were building a fund of mutual memories: the dinner at the Italian restaurant, the Kurnitz party, the meatloaf Ernest had made, the balloon in Central Park.

Each recollection was in itself insignificant, but made meaningful by being shared. They knew this pleasant brunch would be added to their bank of shared experience, and seemed all the more precious for that. An occasion to be savored and recalled.

After the brunch, Ernest insisted on helping Zoe clear the table. In the kitchen, she washed and he dried, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. He even replaced all the clean dishes and cutlery in their proper racks in the correct cupboards.

Then they moved to the living room. The May wine was finished, but Zoe served vodka-and-tonics, with a wedge of fresh lime in each. She brought her little radio in from the bedroom, and found a station that was featuring Mantovani.

The dreamy music played softly in the background. They sprawled comfortably, sipping their iced drinks. They smiled at each other with satiety and ease. It seemed to them they recaptured the mood they had felt in the park: they owned the world.

"Will you be getting a vacation?" he asked casually.

"Oh yes. Two weeks."

"When are you taking it?"

"I haven't decided yet. They're very good about that. I can take off in June, July, or August."

"Me, too," he said. "I get two weeks. I usually go home for a few days. Sometimes a week."

"I do, too."

"Zoe…" he said.

She looked at him questioningly.

"Do you think… Would it be possible for us to go somewhere together? For a week, or maybe just a weekend? Don't get me wrong," he added hastily. "Not to share a room or anything like that. I just thought it might be fun to be together this summer for a while in some nice place."

She pondered a moment, head cocked.

"I think that's a fine idea," she said. "Maybe somewhere on Long Island."

"Or New England."

"There's a woman in the hotel who arranges tours and cruises and things like that. I could ask her to recommend some nice place."

"No swinging resorts," he said. "Where we'd have to dress up and all."

"Oh no," she said. "A quiet place on the beach. Where we can swim and walk and just relax."

"Right!" he said. "With good food. And not too crowded. It doesn't have to be supermodern with chrome and glitter and organized activities."

"Nothing like that," she agreed. "Maybe just an old, family-run tourist home or motel. Where no one would bother us."

"And we could do whatever we want. Swim and walk the beach. Collect shells and driftwood. Explore the neighborhood. I'd like that."

"I would, too," she said. She took their glasses into the kitchen and brought them fresh drinks. "Ernie," she said, sitting alongside him on the couch and taking his hand, "what you said about our not sharing a room-I was glad you said that. I suppose you think I'm some kind of a prude?"

"I don't think anything of the sort."

"Well, I'm not. It's just that going away together would be such a-such a new thing for us. And sharing a room would just make it more complicated. You understand?"

"Of course," he said. "That's exactly what I think. Who knows-if we're together for three days or a week, I might drive you batty."

"Oh no," she protested. "I think we'll get along very well and have a good time. I just don't think we should, you know, start off knowing we were going to sleep together. I'd be very nervous and embarrassed."

He looked at her with admiration.

"Just the way I feel, Zoe. We're so much alike. We don't have to rush anything or do anything that might spoil what we've got. Don't you feel that way?"

"Oh, I do, Ernie, I do! You're so considerate."

She had turned to look at him. He seemed a quiet, inoffensive man, no more exciting than she. But she saw beauty in his clear features and guileless eyes. There was a clean innocence about him, an openness. He would never deceive her or hurt her; she knew that.

"I don't want you to think I'm sexless," she said intently.

"Zoe, I could never think that. I think you're a very deep, passionate woman."

"Do you?" she said. "Do you really? I'm not very modern, you know. I mean, I don't hop around from bed to bed. I think that's terrible."

"It's worse than terrible," he said. "It just reduces everyone to animals. I think sex has to be the result of a very deep emotional need, and a desire for honest intimacy."

"Yes," she said. "And physical love should be gentle and tender and sweet."

"Correct," he said, nodding. "It should be something two people decide to share because they really and truly love each other and want to, uh, give each other pleasure. Happiness."

"Oh, that's very true," she said, "and I'm so glad you feel that way. It's really valuable, isn't it? Sex, I mean. You just don't throw it around all over the place. That cheapens it."

"It makes it nothing," he said. "Like, 'Should we have another martini or should we go to bed?' It really should mean more than that. I guess I'm a romantic."

"I guess I am, too."

"You know what's so wonderful, dear?" he said, twisting around to face her. "It's that with both of us feeling this way, we found each other. With the millions and millions of people in the world, we found each other. Don't you think that's marvelous?"

"Oh yes, darling," she breathed, touching his cheek.

"Just think of the odds against it! I know I've never met a woman like you before."

"And I've never met a man like you."

He kissed her palm.

"I'm nothing much," he said. "I know that. I mean, I'm not tall and strong and handsome. I suppose someday I'll be making a good living, but I'll never be rich. I'm just not-not ruthless enough. But still, I don't want to change. I don't want to be greedy and cruel, out for all I can get."

"Oh no!" she cried. "Don't change, Ernie. I like you just the way you are. I don't want you different. I couldn't stand that."

They put their drinks aside. They embraced. It seemed to them they were huddling, giving comfort to each other in the face of catastrophe. As survivors might hold each other, in fear and in hope.

"We'll go away together this summer, darling," she whispered. "We'll spend every minute with each other. We'll swim and walk the beach and explore."

"Oh yes," he said dreamily. "Just the two of us."

"Against the world," Zoe Kohler said, kissing him.

Something was happening. Zoe Kohler read it in the newspapers, heard it on radio, saw it on TV. The search for the Hotel Ripper had been widened, the investigating force enlarged, the leads being followed had multiplied.

More important, the police were now discussing publicly the possibility that the killer was a woman. The "Daughter of Sam" headline was revived. Statements were issued warning visitors to midtown Manhattan of the dangers of striking up acquaintance with strangers, men or women, on the streets, in bars and cocktail lounges, in discos and restaurants.

The search for the slayer took on a new urgency. The summer tourist season was approaching; the number of canceled conventions and tours was increasing. Newspaper editorialists quoted the dollar loss that could be expected if the killer was not quickly caught.

Surprisingly, there was little of the public hysteria that had engulfed the city during the Son of Sam case. One columnist suggested this might be due to the fact that, so far, all the victims had been out-of-towners.

More likely, he added, familiarity with mass murder had dulled the public's reaction. The recent Chicago case, with more than a score of victims, made the Hotel Ripper of minor interest. There now seemed to be an intercity competition in existence, similar to the contest to build the highest skyscraper.

But despite the revived interest of the media in the Hotel Ripper case, Zoe could find no evidence that the police had any specific information about the killer's identity. She was convinced they were no closer to solving the case than they had been after her first adventure.

So what happened to her on the afternoon of May 28th came as a numbing shock.

Mr. Pinckney had originally obtained the Chemical Mace for her as a protection against muggers and rapists. She did not want to risk telling him it had been used, lying about the circumstances, and asking him to supply another container. So she said nothing. The Mace wasn't an absolute necessity; a knife was.

She had purchased her Swiss Army pocket knife at a cutlery shop, one of a chain, in Grand Central Station. This time she determined to buy a heavier knife at a different store of the same chain. During her lunch hour, she walked over to Fifth Avenue and 46th Street.

An enormous selection of pocket knives, jackknives, and hunting knives was offered. Zoe waited patiently at the counter while the customer ahead of her made his choice. She was bemused to see that he picked a Swiss Army Knife, but with more blades than the one she had owned.

While the clerk was writing up the sales check, he said, "Could I have your name and address, sir? We'd like to send you our mail-order catalog. Absolutely no charge, of course."

The customer left his name and address. Then it was Zoe's turn.

"I'd like a pocket knife as a gift for my nephew," she told the clerk. "Nothing too large or too heavy."

He laid out several knives for her inspection. She selected a handsome instrument with four blades, a horn handle, and a metal loop at one end for clipping onto a belt or hanging from a hook.

She paid for her purchase in cash, deciding that if the clerk asked for her name and address, she would give him false identity. But he didn't ask.

"I heard you offer to send that other customer your mail-order catalog," she said as the clerk was gift-wrapping her knife.

"Oh, we don't have a catalog," he said. He looked around carefully, then leaned toward her. "We're cooperating with the police," he whispered. "They want us to try and get the name and address of everyone who buys a Swiss Army Knife. And if we can't get their names, to jot down a description."

Zoe Kohler was proud of her calmness.

"Whatever for?" she asked.

The clerk seemed uncomfortable. "I think it has something to do with the Hotel Ripper. They didn't really tell us."

Walking back to the Hotel Granger, the new knife in her purse, Zoe realized what must have happened: the police had identified the knife used from the tip of the broken blade found at the Cameron Arms Hotel.

But nothing had been published about it in the newspapers. Obviously the police were keeping the identification of the weapon a secret. That suggested there were other things they were keeping secret as well. Her fingerprints, perhaps, or something she had dropped at the scene, or some other clue that would lead them inevitably to her.

She should have felt dismayed, she knew, and frightened. But she didn't. If anything, she felt a sense of heightened excitement. The exhilaration of her adventures was sharpened by the risk, made more intense.

She imagined the police as a single malevolent intelligence with a single implacable resolve: to bring her down. To accomplish that, they would lie and deceive, work in underhanded and probably illegal ways, use all the powers at their command, including physical force and violence.

It seemed to her the police were fit representatives of a world that had cheated her, debased her, demolished her dreams and refused to concede her worth as a woman or her value as a human being.

The police and the world wanted nothing but her total extinction so that things might go along as if she had never been.

The evening of June 4th…

Zoe Kohler, alert, erect, strides into the crowded lobby of the Hotel Adler on Seventh Avenue and 50th Street. She pauses to scan the display board near the entrance. Under Current Events, it lists a convention of orthopedic surgeons, a banquet for a labor leader, and a three-day gathering of ballroom dancing teachers.

The hotel directory she had consulted listed the Adler's two restaurants, a "pub-type tavern," and a cocktail lounge. But Zoe is accosted before she can decide on her next move.

"See anything you like?" someone asks. A male voice, assured, amused.

She turns to look at him coolly. A tall man. Slender. A saturnine smile. Heavy, drooping eyelids. Olive skin. Black, gleaming hair slicked back from a widow's peak. The long fingers holding his cigarette look as if they have been squeezed from tubes.

"I don't believe we've met," she says frostily.

"We have now," he says. "You could save my life if you wanted to."

She cannot resist…

"How could I do that?"

"Have a drink with me. Keep me from going back into that meeting."

"What are you?" she challenges. "An orthopedic surgeon, a labor leader, or a ballroom dancing teacher?"

"A little of all three," he says, the smile never flickering. "But mostly I'm a magician."

He takes a silver dollar from his pocket, makes it flip-flop across his knuckles. It disappears into his palm. It reappears, begins the knuckle dance again. Zoe Kohler watches, fascinated.

"Now you see it," he says, "now you don't. The hand is quicker than the eye."

"Is that the only trick you know?" she asks archly.

"I know tricks you wouldn't believe. How about that drink?"

She doesn't think he is a police decoy. Too elegantly dressed. And a cop would not make the first approach-or would he?

"Where are you from?" she asks.

"Here, there, and everywhere," he says. "I've got a name you could never pronounce, but you can call me Nick. What's yours?"

"Irene," she says. "I'll have one drink with you. Only one."

"Of course," he says, plucking the silver dollar from her left ear. "Let's go, Irene."

But the cocktail lounge and the tavern are jammed. People wait on line. Nick takes her elbow in a tight grip.

"We'll go upstairs," he says, "to my room."

"One drink," she repeats.

He doesn't answer. His confidence daunts her. He pulls her along. But she cannot stop, cause a scene. No identity in her purse. But a knife with a sharpened blade.

His room looks as if he had moved in five minutes ago.

Nothing to mark his presence but an unopened suitcase on a luggage rack.

He locks and chains the door behind them. He takes her coat and bag, throws them onto a chair.

"You want to see more tricks?" he says. "How about this?"

He unzips his fly, digs, pulls out his penis. It is long, dark, slender. Uncircumcised. He strokes it.

"Nice?" he says, his sardonic smile unwavering. "You like this trick?"

"I'm going," she says, reaching for her coat and bag.

He moves quickly between her and the door.

"What are you going to do?" he says. "Scream? Go ahead- scream."

She fumbles in her bag. He is there, and plucks it from her hands. She cannot believe anyone can move that swiftly. He is a blur.

He takes out her wallet, flips through it.

"No ID," he says. "That's smart."

He picks out the closed knife, dangles it by the steel loop.

"What's this for?" he asks. "Cleaning your toenails?"

He laughs, drops the knife back into the bag. He tosses it aside.

"You know the old saying," he says roguishly. "When rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it."

"Why me?" she cries desperately.

He shrugs. "Just to pass the time. Something to do. You want to get undressed like a lady or do you want your pretty dress ripped?"

"Please," she says, "what about a drink? You promised me a drink."

"I lied," he says, grinning. "I'm always doing that."

He begins undressing. He stays between her and the door. He takes off his jacket, unknots his tie, unbuttons his shirt. He drops all his clothes onto the floor.

"Come on," he says. "Come on."

She takes off her clothes slowly, fingers trembling. She looks about for a weapon. A heavy ashtray. A table lamp. Anything.

"No way," he says softly, watching her. "No way."

She takes off shoes, dress, pantyhose. She drapes them over the back of a chair. When she looks up, he is naked. His penis is beginning to stiffen. He touches it delicately.

"Try it," he says. "You'll like it."

He takes one quick stride to her. He clamps his hands on her shoulders. His strength frightens her. She cannot fight that power.

He pulls the strapless bra to her waist. He pinches her nipples. He strips her panties down, lifts her away from them.

"Bony," he says, "but okay. The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat."

He presses her down. His hands on her shoulders are a weight she cannot resist. Her knees buckle. She flops onto the rug.

"I don't want to mess the bed," he says. "The floor is best. Harder. More resistance. Know what I mean?"

It is a whirl, beyond her control. Things flicker. She is swept away, protests stifled. Her puny blows on his head, arms, chest, mean nothing. He laughs throatily.

She squirms, moving by inches toward her discarded shoulder bag. But he pins her with his weight, a hard knee prying between her clamped thighs. He makes thick, huffing sounds.

She continues to writhe, and he strikes her. The open-palmed slap stings, flings her head aside. Her eyes water, ears roar. His teeth are on her throat. His body twists, pressing, pressing…

"What the hell is this?" he says, finding her tampon. He makes a noise of disgust. He yanks it out roughly, tosses it aside.

Then she does what she has to do, telling herself it is the only way she might survive.

Her body stills. Her punches stop. Untaloned, she begins to stroke his shoulders, his back. She moans.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Oh yeah…"

Her thighs ache. She thinks he will split her apart, rip her, leave steaming guts on the carpet. She feels hot tears, tastes bile.

He ramps and plunges, crying out in a language she does not recognize. His hands beneath her, gripping cruelly, pull her body up in a strained arch.

Eyes shut tightly, she sees pinwheels, whirling discs, melting blood. She wraps herself about him, feeling cold, cold. She endures the pain; within she is untouched and plotting.

His final thrusts pound her, bruise. Her moans rise in volume to match his cries. When he collapses, shuddering, sobbing, she shakes her body in a paroxysm. She flings her arms wide-and her fingertips just touch the leather of her discarded shoulder bag.

She opens her eyes to slits. He props himself up, stares down at her, panting.

"More!" she pleads. "More!"

"Wait'll I turn you over," he says, glee in his voice. "It's even better.

He pulls away from her savagely; she feels she is being torn inside out. He rolls onto his back, lies supine, chest heaving.

She turns onto her side, onto hip and shoulder, pulling herself a few inches closer to her purse. Digs toes and feet into the rug, moving herself with cautious little pushes.

"Oh, that was so wonderful," she tells him. "So marvelous. What a lover you are. I've never had a man like you before."

He closes his eyes with satisfaction. He reaches blindly, finds her vulva, squeezes and twists roughly.

"Good, huh?" he says. "The greatest, huh?"

Moving slowly, watching his closed eyes carefully, her right hand snakes into the shoulder bag, comes out with the knife.

"Ohh… I feel so good," she murmurs quietly.

Stretches up her left arm. Above her head, she opens the big, sharpened blade. She eases it into position so it will not click when it locks. She brings her arms gradually down to her sides. Her right hand, gripping the knife, is concealed behind her.

She sits up, pulling herself closer to him. She puts her left hand on his hairless chest, toys with his nipples.

"When can we do it again?" she whispers. "I want more, Nick."

"Soon," he says. "Soon. Just give me a chance to-"

His closed eyelids flutter. Immediately she raises the knife high, drives the blade to the hilt into his abdomen, a few inches below the squinched navel.

She twists the knife, yanks it free, raises it for another blow.

But he reacts almost instantly. He rolls over completely, away from her. He springs to his feet. He stands swaying, hands clasped to his belly.

He looks down at the blood welling from between his fingers. He raises his head slowly. He stares at her.

"You stuck me," he says wonderingly. "You stuck me."

He lurches toward her, claws reaching. She scrambles out of his way. She stumbles to her feet. A floor lamp goes over with a crash. One of his grasping hands comes close. She slashes it open with a backhanded swipe.

Roaring with rage and frustration, he blunders toward her unsteadily. Blood pours down his groin, his legs, drips from his flaccid penis. His slit hand, flinging, sends drops of blood flying.

An endtable is upset. An armchair is knocked over. Someone bangs on the adjoining wall. "Stop that!" a woman shouts. Still he comes on, mouth open and twisted. No sounds now but harsh, bubbling breaths. And in his eyes, terror and fury.

She trips over his discarded clothing. Before she can recover, he is on her, grappling close. His blood-slick hand finds her wrist, presses down, turns.

In a single violent movement, the naked blade edge sweeps across her right thigh, opens it up six inches above the knee. She feels the burn. Hot and icy at once.

He tries to force her down, to lean her to the floor. But his strength is leaking out, pouring, dripping, leaving pools and puddles and dribblings.

She squirms from his clutch. She whirls and begins plunging the knife into his arms, belly, face, shoulders, neck. Shoving it in, twisting it out, striking again.

She dances about him, meeting his lunges and stumbles with more blows. His life escapes from a hundred ragged wounds. His head comes lower, arms drag, shoulders sag.

He totters, goes down suddenly onto his knees. He tries, shuddering, to raise his bloodied head. Then falls, slaughtered, thumping to the floor. He rolls over once. His reddened, sightless eyes stare meekly at the ceiling.

She bends over him, hissing, and completes the ritual: throat opened wide, a blade to the clotted genitals again and again.

She straightens up, sobbing for breath, looking with dulled eyes at the butchery. His blood is smeared on her hands, arms, breasts, stomach. Worse, she feels the warm course of her own blood on leg, knee, shin, foot. She looks down. How bright it is! How sparkling!

In the bathroom, she stands naked on the tiled floor. She wipes her body clean of his blood with a dampened towel. She washes the knife and her hands with hot, soapy water. Then, using a washcloth tenderly, she cleans and examines her wound.

It is more than a scratch and less than a slash. No arteries or veins appear to be cut, but it bleeds steadily, running down to form a stain and then a shallow puddle on the tile.

She winds toilet paper around and around her thigh, making a bandage that soon soaks through. Over this, she wraps a hand towel as tightly as she can pull it. She limps back into the bedroom to retrieve Nick's necktie. She uses that to bind the towel tightly to her thigh.

She dresses as quickly as she can, leaving off her pantyhose, jamming them into her bag. She wipes her fingerprints from the sink faucets. She makes no attempt to mop up her own blood-an impossible task-and leaves the sodden towels on the floor of the bathroom.

She dons her coat, slings her shoulder bag. At the last minute, she picks up her discarded tampon from the floor. It is not stained. She puts it into her purse. She takes a final look around.

The punctured man lies slack on the floor, wounds gaping. All his magic is gone, soaking into the rug. He is emptied. Of confidence, brute strength, surging life.

She took a cab from the hotel and was back in her apartment a little after 11:00 p.m. She had worn her trenchcoat, although it was much too warm a night for it. But she feared the towel about her leg might soak through her dress.

It had; the front of her gown was stained with blood. She stripped, gently unwound the towel, pulled the wet paper away. The flow had lessened, but the thin line still oozed.

She washed it with warm, soapy water, dried it, wiped it with Q-Tips dipped in hydrogen peroxide. Then she fastened a neat bandage of gauze pads and adhesive tape. The wound throbbed, but nothing she could not endure.

Only after the bandage was secured did she go into the kitchen and, standing at the sink, drink off a double shot of iced vodka almost as quickly as she could gulp. Then she held out her right hand. The fingers were not trembling.

She took Anacin, Midol, vitamins, minerals, a salt tablet, a Darvon. She poured a fresh drink, took it back to the bathroom. She washed her face, armpits, and douched with a vinegar-water mixture. She wiped herself dry and inserted a fresh tampon. It was painful; her vagina felt stretched and punished.

Then she went into the bedroom, sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. She felt bone-weary, all of her sore, rubbed, and pulsing. Not with pain but with a kind of rawness. She felt opened and defenseless. A touch would bring a scream.

Already her adventure was fading, losing its hard, sharp outlines. She could not limn it in her memory. She had chaotic recollections of noise, violence, and the spray of hot blood. But it had all happened to someone else, in another time, another place.

She went back into the kitchen and washed down a Tuinal with the last of her second drink. She pulled on her batiste cotton nightgown with the neckline of embroidered rosebuds. She padded through her apartment to check the bolted door and turn off the lights.

She opened the bedroom window, but made certain the shade was fully drawn. The sheets felt cool and comforting, but the blanket was too warm; she tossed it aside.

As she lay awake, drugged, heart fluttering, waiting for sleep, she tried to recall those moments when she had been convinced that love would be her soul's salvation.