Tricks

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"Is this your husband's handwriting?" Brown asked.

"Yes," Marie said. Same soft reverential voice.

They led her inside.

The morgue stank.

She reeled back from the stench of human gasses and flesh.

They walked her past a stainless-steel table upon which the charred remains of a burn-victim's body lay trapped in a pugilistic pose, as though still trying to fight off the flames that had consumed it.

The four pieces of the dismembered corpse were on another stainless-steel table. They were casually assembled, not quite joining. Lying there on the table like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle.

She looked down at the pieces.

"There's no question they're the same body," Carl Blaney said.

Lavender-eyed, white-smocked. Standing under the fluorescent lights, seeming neither to notice nor to be bothered by the intolerable stink in the place.

"As for identification hellip;"

He shrugged.

"As you see, we don't have the hands or the head yet."

He addressed this to the policemen in the room. Ignoring the woman for the time being. Afraid she might puke on his polished tile floor. Or in one of the stainless-steel basins containing internal organs. Three cops now. Hawes, Brown, and Genero. Two cases about to become one. Maybe.

The lower half of the torso was naked now.

She kept looking down at it.

"Would you know his blood type?" Blaney asked.

"Yes," Marie said. "B."

"Well, that's what we've got here."

Hawes knew about the appendectomy and meniscectomy scars because she'd mentioned them while describing her husband. He said nothing now. First rule of identification, you didn't prompt the witness. Let them come to it on their own. He waited.

"Recognize anything?" Brown asked.

She nodded.

"What do you recognize, ma'am?"

"The scars," she said.

"Would you know what kind of scars those are?" Blaney asked.

"The one on the belly is an appendectomy scar."

Blaney nodded.

"The one on the left knee is from when he had the cartilage removed."

"That's what those scars are," Blaney said to the detectives.

"Anything else, ma'am?" Brown asked.

"His penis," she said.

Neither Blaney nor any of the detectives blinked. This wasn't the Meese Commission standing around the pieces of a corpse, this was a group of professionals trying to make positive identification.

"What about it?" Blaney asked.

"There should be a small hellip; well, a beauty spot, I guess you'd call it," Marie said. "On the underside. On the foreskin."

Blaney lifted the corpse's limp penis in one rubber-gloved hand. He turned it slightly.

"This?" he asked, and indicated a birthmark the size of a pin-head on the foreskin, an inch or so below the glans.

"Yes," Marie said softly.

Blaney let the penis drop.

The detectives were trying to figure out whether or not all of this added up to a positive ID. No face to look at. No hands to examine for fingerprints. Just the blood type, the scars on belly and leg, and the identifying birthmark mdash;what Marie had called a beauty spot mdash;on the penis.

"I'll work up a dental chart sometime tomorrow," Blaney said.

"Would you know who his dentist was?" Hawes asked Marie.

"Dentist?" she said.

"For comparison later," Hawes said. "When we get the chart."

She looked at him blankly.

"Comparison?" she said.

"Our chart against the dentist's. If it's your husband, the charts'll match.'"

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Well hellip; the last time he went to a dentist was in Florida. Miami Beach. He had this terrible toothache. He hasn't been to a dentist since we moved north."

"When was that?" Brown asked.

"Five years ago."

"Then the most recent dental chart hellip;"

"I don't even know if there is a chart," Marie said. "He just went to somebody the hotel recommended. We had a steady gig at the Regal Palms. I mean, we never had afamily dentist, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah, well," Brown said.

He was thinking Dead End on the teeth.

He turned to Blaney.

"So what do you think?" he said.

"How tall was your husband?" Blaney asked Marie.

"I've got all that here," Hawes said, and took out his notebook. He opened it to the page he'd written on earlier, and began reading aloud. "Five-eleven, one-seventy, hair black, eyes blue, appendectomy scar, meniscectomy scar."

"If we put a head in place there," Blaney said, "we'd have a body some hundred and eighty centimeters long. That's just about five-eleven. And I'd estimate the weight, given the separate sections here, at about what you've got there, a hundred-seventy, a hundred-seventy-five, in there. The hair on the arms, chest, legs, and pubic area is black mdash;which doesn't necessarily mean thehead hair would match it exactly, but at least it rules out a blonde or a redhead, or anyone in the brown groupings. This hair is very definitelyblack. The eyes mdash;well, we haven't got a head, have we?"

"So have we got a positive ID or what?" Brown asked.

"I'd say we're looking at the remains of a healthy white male in his late twenties or early thirties," Blaney said. "How old was your husband, madam?"

"Thirty-four," she said.

"Yes," Blaney said, and nodded. "And, of course, identification of the birthmark on the penis would seem to me a conclusive factor."

"Is this your husband, ma'am?" Brown asked.

"That is my husband," Marie said, and turned her head into Hawes' shoulder and began weeping gently against his chest.

The hotel was far from the precinct, downtown on a side street off Detavoner Avenue. He'd deliberately chosen a fleabag distant from the scene of the' crime.Scenes of the crime, to be more accurate. Five separate scenes if you counted the head and the hands. Five scenes in a little playlet entitled "The Magical and Somewhat Sudden Disappearance of Sebastian the Great."

Good riddance, he thought.

"Yes, sir?" the desk clerk said. "May I help you?"

"I have a reservation," he said.

"The name, please?"

"Hardeen," he said. "Theo Hardeen."

Wonderful magician, long dead. Houdini's brother. Appropriate name to be using. Hardeen had been famous for his escape from a galvanized iron can filled with water and secured by massive locks. Failure Means a Drowning Death! his posters had proclaimed. The risks of failure here were even greater.

"How do you spell that, sir?" the clerk asked.

"H-A-R-D-E-E-N."

"Yes, sir, I have it right here," the clerk said, yanking a card. Hardeen, Theo. That's just for the one night, is that correct, Mr. Hardeen?"

"Just the one night, yes."

"How will you be paying, Mr. Hardeen?"

"Cash," he said. "In advance."

The clerk figured this was a shack-up. One-night stand, guy checking in alone, his bimbo mdash;or else a hooker from the Yellow Pages mdash;would be along later. Never explain, never complain, he thought. Thank you, Henry Ford. But charge him for a double.

"That'll be eighty-five dollars, plus tax," he said, and watched as the wallet came out, and then a hundred-dollar bill, and the wallet disappeared again in a wink. Like he figured, a shack-up. Guy didn't want to show even a glimpse of his driver's license or credit cards, the Hardeen was undoubtedly a phony name. Theo Hardeen? The names some of them picked. Who cared? Take the money and run, he thought. Thank you, Woody Alien.

He calculated the tax, made change for the C-note, and slid the money across the desk top. Wallet out again in a flash, money disappearing, wallet disappearing, too.

"Did you have any luggage, sir?" he asked.

"Just the one valise."

"I'll have someone show you to your room, sir," he said, and banged a bell on the desk. "Front!" he shouted. "Checkout time is twelve noon, sir. Have a nice night."

"Thank you."

A bellhop in a faded red uniform showed him to the third-floor room. Flicked on the lights in the bathroom. Taught him how to operate the window air-conditioning unit. Turned on the television set for him. Waited for the tip. Got his fifty cents, looked at it on the palm of his hand, shrugged, and left the room. What the hell had he expected for carrying that one bag? Rundown joint like this mdash;well, that's why he'd picked it. No questions asked. In, out, thank you very much.

He looked at the television screen, and then at his watch.

A quarter past nine.

Forty-five minutes before the ten o'clock news came on.

He wondered if they'd found the four pieces yet. Or either of the cars. He'd left the Citation in the parking lot of an A P four blocks north of the river, shortly after he'd deep-sixed the head and the hands.

Something dumb was on television. Well,everything on television was dumb these days. He'd have to wait till ten o'clock to see what was happening, if anything.

He took off his shoes, lay full length on the bed, his eyes closed, and relaxed for the first time today.

By tomorrow night at this time, he'd be in San Francisco.

CHAPTER 6

Eileen came out of the ladies' room and walked toward the farthest end of the bar, where a television set was mounted on the wall. Quick heel-clicking hooker glide, lots of ass and ankle in it. She didn't even glance at Annie, sitting with her legs crossed at the cash-register end of the bar. Two or three men sitting at tables around the place turned to look at her. She gave them a quick once-over, no smile, no come-on, and took a stool next to a guy watching the television screen. She was still fuming. In the mirror behind the bar, she could still see the flaming imprint of his hand on her left cheek. The bartender ambled over.

"Name it," he said.

"Rum-Coke," she said. "Easy on the rum."

"Comin'," he said, and reached for a bottle of cheap rum on the shelf behind him. He put ice in a glass, short-jiggered some rum over it, filled the glass with Coke from a hose. "Three bucks even," he said, "a bargain. You be runnin' a tab?"

"I'll pay as I go," she said, and reached into her shoulder bag. The .44 was sitting under a silk scarf, butt up. She took out her wallet, paid for the drink. The bartender lingered.

"I'm Larry," he said. "This's my place."

Eileen nodded, and then took a sip of the drink.

"You're new," Larry said.

"So?" she said.

"So I get a piece," he said.

"You get shit," Eileen said.

"I can't have hookers hangin' around in here 'cept I get a piece."

"Talk to Torpedo," she said.

"I don't know nobody named Torpedo."

"You don't, huh? Well, ask around. I got a feeling you won't like talking to him."

"Who's Torpedo? The black dude was slapping you around?"

"Torpedo Holmes. Ask around. Meanwhile, fuck off."

"You see the lady sittin' there at the end of the bar?" Larry said.

Eileen looked over at Annie.

"I see her."

"She's new, too. We had a nice little talk minute she come in. I'm gettin' twenty percent of her action, just for lettin' her plant her ass on that stool."

"She ain't got Torpedo," Eileen said. "You want to get off my fuckin' back, or you want me to make a phone call?"

"Go make your phone call," Larry said.

"Mister," Eileen said, "you're askin' for more shit than you're worth."

She swung off the stool, long legs reaching for the floor, picked up her bag, shouldered it, and swiveled toward the phone booth. Watching her, Annie thought God, she's good.

In the phone booth, Eileen dialed the hot-line number at the Seven-Two.

Alvarez picked up.

"Tell Robinson to get back here," she said. "The bartender's hassling me."

"You got him," Alvarez said, and hung up.

Detective/Second Grade Alvin Robinson worked out of the Seven-Three, near the park and the County Court House. The team at the Seven-Two was certain he wouldn't be made for a cop here in the Canal Zone, and were using him tonight only to establish Eileen's credentials as a bona fide hooker. He wouldn't be part of the backup team, though Eileen might have wished otherwise. She was still annoyed that he'd hit her that hard mdash;even though she knew he'd been going for realism mdash;but in the Caddy on the way over he'd sounded like a tough, dependable cop who knew his business.

He walked into the bar not ten minutes after she placed her call. Eyes challenging, sweeping the room under the wide brim of his hat, everyone in the joint looking away. He did a cool pimp shuffle over to where Eileen was sitting, and put his hand on her shoulder.

"That him?" he asked, and cocked his head to where Larry was filling a jar with tomato juice. Eileen merely nodded. "You," Robinson said, and pointed his finger. "Come here."

Larry took his time ambling over.

"You givin' my fox trouble?" Robinson said.

"You got a phone in that pussy wagon of yours?" Larry said, toughing it out though he'd never seen a meaner-looking black man in his life. Everybody in the bar was looking at them now. The guys at the tables, the one who'd been watching television a minute earlier.

"I ast you a question," Robinson said.

"I read her the rules, pal," Larry said. "The same rules hellip;"

"Don't palme , pal," Robinson said. "I ain't your fuckin' pal, and I don't live by no rules. If you never heard of Torpedo Holmes, then you got some quick learnin' to do. Nobody cuts my action, man. Nobody. Less he's lookin' for someother kinda cut I'd be mighty obliged to supply. You got that?"

"I'm tellin' you hellip;"

"No, you ain'ttellin' me nothin', mister. Youlist'nin' is what you doin'." He reached into his wallet, took a frayed piece of glossy paper from it, unfolded it, and smoothed it flat on the bar. "This's fromL.A. Magazine ," he said. "You recognize that picture there?"

Larry looked down at a color photograph of a big black man wearing a red silk lounge robe and grinning cockily at the camera. The room in the background was opulent. The caption under the picture read: Thomas "Torpedo" Holmes at Home.

>

Robinson thought the resemblance was a good one. But even if it hadn't been, he firmly believed that most white men mdash;especially a redneck like this one mdash;thought all niggers looked alike. Thomas "Torpedo" Holmes was now doing ten years at Soledad. The article didn't mention the bust and conviction, because it had been written three years earlier, when Holmes was riding too high for his own good. You don't shit on cops in print, not even in L.A.

"I'm assumin' you don't know how to read," Robinson said, "so I'll fill you in fast." He snatched the article off the bartop before it got too much scrutiny, folded it, put it back into his wallet again. Eileen sat looking bored. "Now what that article says, man, is that not even L.A.'s finest could lay a finger on me, is what that article says. An' the same applies right here inthis city, ain't no kinda law can touch me, ain't no kinda shitty bartender hellip;"

"Iown this place!" Larry said.

"You list'nin' to me, man, or you runnin' off at the mouth? I'm tellin you I don't cut my action with nobody, not the law, not nobody else runnin' girls, and most of all notyou ."

"This ain't L.A.," Larry said.

"Well, no shee-it?" Robinson said.

"I mean, I got rules here, man."

"You want me to shove your rules up your ass, man? Together with that jar of tomato juice? Man, don't tempt me. This little girl here, she's gonna sit here long as she likes, you dig, man? An' if I'm happy with the service she gets, then maybe I'll drop some other little girls off every now an' then, give this fuckin' dump some class." His wallet came out again. He threw a fifty-dollar bill on the counter. "This is for whatever she wants to drink. When that's used up, I'll be back with more. You better pray I don't come back with somethin' has a sharp end. You take my meanin', man?"

Larry picked up the bill and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He figured he'd won a moral victory. "What's all this strong-arm shit?" he asked, smiling, playing to the crowd now, showing them he hadn't backed down. "We're two gentlemen here, can't we talk without threatening each other?"

"Was you threatenin' me?" Robinson said. "I didn't hear nobody threatenin' me."

"What I meant hellip;"

"We finished here, man? You gonna treat Linda nice from now on?"

"All I said to the lady hellip;"

"What you said don't mean shit to me. I don't want no more phone calls from her."

"I don't mind a nice-looking girl in the place," Larry said.

"Good. An' I don't mind her bein' here," Robinson said, and grinned a big watermelon-eating grin. He put his hand on Eileen's shoulder again. "Now, honey," he said, "go easy on the sauce. 'Cause Daddy got some nice candy for you when the night's done."

"See you, Torp," she said, and offered her cheek for his kiss.

Robinson gave Larry a brief, meaningful nod, and then did his cool pimp shuffle over to the door and out to the white Cadillac at the curb.

From the other end of the bar, Annie said, "I wishI had a man like that."

The third liquor-store holdup took place while Alvin Robinson was doing his little dog-and-pony act for the owner of Larry's Bar, but the blues didn't respond till nine-thirty, and Carella and Meyer didn't arrive at the scene till nine thirty-five, by which time Robinson was already driving back toward the Seventy-Third Precinct.

This time, nobody had been killed mdash;but not for lack of trying. Martha Frey, the forty-year-old woman who owned and operated the store on Culver and Twentieth, told them that four of them mdash;wearing clown suits, and pointed pom-pommed clown hats, and white clown masks with bulbous red noses and wide grinning red mouths mdash;had started shooting the minute they walked in. She'd grabbed for her heart and fallen down behind the counter in what she hoped was a very good imitation of someone who'd been mortally wounded. It had occurred to her, while they were cleaning out the cash register, that one of them might decide to put a "coop dee gracie," as she called it, in her head while she was lying there playing possum. None of them had. She considered it a miracle that she was still alive, four little guns opening up that way, all of them at the same time. She wondered if maybe they'd hit her after all. Was it possible she was now in shock and didn't know she'd been hit? Did the detectives see any blood on her?

Meyer assured her that she was still in one piece.

"I can't believe they missed me," she said, and made the sign or the cross. "God must have been watching over me."

Either that, or they were nervous this time around, Carella thought. Three times in the space of four hours, even your seasoned pro could spook. No less a handful of grade-schoolers.

"Did you see who was driving the car?" Carella asked.

"No," Martha said. "I was tallying the register for the night. I usually close at nine on Fridays, but this is Halloween, there's lots of parties going on, people run short of booze, they make a last-minute run to the store. This was maybe twenty after when they came in."

The Mobile Lab van was pulling up outside the store.

"Techs'll be here a while," Carella said. "They'll want to see if there's anything on that register."

"There ain't anythingin it, that's for sure," Martha said mournfully.

"Did they say anything to you?" Meyer asked. "When they came in?"

"Just 'Trick or Treat!' Then they started shooting."

"Didn't say, 'This is a stickup,' anything like that?"

"Nothing."

"Hello, boys," one of the techs said. "Kiddy time again?"

"School let out again?" the other tech said.

"How about when they were cleaning out the register?" Meyer asked, ignoring them.

"One of them said, 'Hold it open, Alice.' I guess he meant the shopping bag."

"Alice?" Carella said. "A girl?"

"A woman, yes," Martha said.

Carella thought this was carrying feminism a bit too far.

"Well, this little girl hellip;" he started to say, but Martha broke in at once.

"Awoman ," she said. "Not a little girl. These weren'tchildren , Detective Carella, they weremidgets ."

He looked at her.

"I used to work the high-wire with Ringling," she said. "Broke my hip in a fall, quit for good. But I still know midgets when I see them. These weremidgets ."

"What'd I tell you, Baz?" one of the techs said. "I shoulda taken your bet."

"Midgets," the other tech said. "I'll be a son of a bitch."

Me, too, Carella thought.

But now they knew what they were looking for.

And now they had a pattern.

Peaches and Parker were the only ones not in costume.

"What are you supposed to be?" a man dressed like a cowboy asked.

"I'm a cop," Parker said.

"I'm a victim," Peaches said.

"I'll be damned," the cowboy said.

Parker showed his shield to everyone he met.

"Looks like the real McCoy," a pirate said.

Peaches lifted her skirt and showed a silent-movie director a black-and-blue mark on her thigh.

"I'm a victim," she said.

She had got the black-and-blue mark banging against a table on her way to the bathroom one night.

The silent-movie director, who was wearing jodhpurs and carrying a megaphone, said, "That's some leg, honey. You wanna be in pictures?"

The girl with him was dressed as Theda Bara. "That's an anagram for Arab Death," she said.

Parker looked into the front of her clingy, satin, low-cut dress, and said, "You're under arrest," and showed her his shield.

In the kitchen, Dracula and Superman and Scarlett O'Hara and Cleopatra were snorting cocaine.

Parker didn't show them his shield. Instead, he snorted a few lines with them.

Peaches said, "You're kinda fun for a cop."

This was the first time in a good many years that anyone had told Parker he was kind of fun, for a cop or anything else. He hugged her close.

She went, "Oooooo."

A white man in blackface, dressed as Eddie Murphy dressed as the Detroit detective inBeverly Hills Cop said, "I'm a cop," and showed Parker a fake shield.

"I'll go along quietly," Parker said, and hugged Peaches again.

"Way I figure it," Kling said, "we go over there soon as we're relieved. Maybe get to the Zone around midnight, a little after."

"Uh-huh," Hawes said, and looked up at the wall clock.

Ten minutes to ten. Less than two hours before the relieving shift began filtering in.

"They don't even need to know we're there," Kling said. "We take one of the sedans, just cruise the streets."

They were sitting at his desk, talking in whispers. Across the room, Brown was getting a description of Jimmy Brayne. He was right now ready to bet the farm that Sebastian the Great's apprentice was the one who'd done him in and chopped him up in pieces.

"This guy's extremely dangerous," Kling said. "Juked three people already."

"And you think they may need help, huh?" Hawes said. "Annie and Eileen?"

"More the merrier," Kling said.

"White or black?" Brown asked.

"White," Marie said.

"His age?"

"Thirty-two."

"Height?"

"About six feet."

"Annie never even mentioned she was going out on this," Hawes said. "I talked to her must've been hellip;"

"She didn't get the call from Homicide till late this afternoon. That's the thing of it, Cotton. They pulled this whole damn thing out of a Cracker Jack box."

"Weight?" Brown said.

"About a hundred and eighty? Something like that."

"Color of hair?"

"Black."

"Eyes?"

"Brown."

"I mean, wouldyou go out there with only two backups?" Kling said. "Where the guy's armed with a knife, and already boxed three people?"

"Those don't sound like bad odds," Hawes said. "Three to one? All three of them loaded. Against only a knife."

"Only, huh? My point is, if Annie and this Shanahan guy stay too close to her," Kling said, "he won't make his move. So they have to keep their distance. But if he breaks out, who's covering the backfield?"

"Any identifying scars, marks, or tattoos?" Brown asked.

"Not that I know of."

"Any regional accent or dialect?"

"He's from Massachusetts. He sounds a little like the Kennedys."

"What was he wearing when you left the house today?"

"Let me think."

She was sitting on a bench under the squadroom bulletin board, her hands folded on her lap. Her face was still tear-stained. Brown had one foot up on the bench, a clipboard resting on his knee. He waited.

"Blue jeans," she said. "And a woolen sweater, no shirt. A V-necked sweater. Sort of rust-colored. And sneakers. And hellip; white socks, I think. Oh, yes. He wears a sort of medallion around his neck. A silver medallion, I think he won it in a swim meet. A high school swim meet."

"Wears it all the time?"

"I've never seen him without it."

"Have you discussed this with Eileen?" Hawes asked.

"Yeah, I mentioned it at dinner," Kling said.

"Told her you want to go over there?"

"Yeah."

"To the Zone?"

"Yeah."

"What'd she say?"

"She told me she could handle it."

"But you don't think she can, huh?"

"I think she can handle it better with a few more people on the job. They shoulda known that themselves, Homicide. And also the Seven-Two. Putting two women on the street against hellip;"

"Plus Shanahan."

"Well, I don't know this Shanahan, do you?"

"No, but hellip;"

"For all I know hellip;"

"But you can't automatically figure he's a hairbag."

"I don't know what he is. Ido know he's not gonna care as much about Eileen asI care about her."

"Maybe that's the problem," Hawes said.

"Does he wear a wristwatch?" Brown asked.

"Yes," Marie said.

"Would you know what kind?"

"One of those digital things. Black with a black band. A Seiko, I think. I'm not sure."

"Any other jewelry?"

"A ring. He wears it on his right pinky. A little gold ring with a red stone. I don't think it's a ruby, but it looks like one."

"Is he right-handed or left-handed?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?" Kling said.

"I mean, why don't you leave it to them?" Hawes said.

Kling looked at him.

"They're experienced cops, all of them. If Homicide or the Seven-Two hasn't put an army out there, it's maybe 'cause they think they'll spook him."

"I don't see how two more guys is gonna make anarmy ," Kling said.

"These guys can smell traps," Hawes said, "they're like animals in the jungle. Anyway, they'll be carrying walkie-talkies, won't they? Annie, Shanahan? Maybe even Eileen. There'll be rmp's cruising the Zone, they're not gonna be alone out there. Any one of 'em calls in a 10-13 hellip;"

"I don't want her getting cut again," Kling said.

"You thinkshe wants to get cut again?" Hawes said.

"Tell me what happened before you left the house today," Brown said. "Was he behaving differently in any way?"

"Same as always," Marie said.

"Did he get along okay with your husband?"

"Yes. Well, he wants to be a magician, you see. He studies all the tricks the famous magicians did mdash;Dai Vernon, Blackstone, Audley Walsh, Tommy Windsor, Houdini, Ballantine mdash;all of them. He keeps up with all the new people, too, tries to dope out their tricks. And my husband is hellip;"

Her face almost broke.

"My husband hellip; was hellip; very patient with him. Always willing to explain a sleight, or a pocket trick, or a stage illusion hellip; helping him with his patter hellip; taking the time to hellip; to hellip; show him and hellip; and guide him. I don't know how he could've done something like this. I'll tell you the truth, Detective Brown, I'm willing to give you anything you need to find Jimmy, but I can't believe he did this."

"Well,we don't know that for sure, either," Brown said.

"That's just what I mean," Marie said. "I just pray to God something hasn't happened tohim , too. I just hope somebody hasn't hellip; hasn't killed themboth ."

"How doyou get along with him?" Brown asked.

"Jimmy? I think of him as a brother."

"No friction, huh? I mean, the three of you living in the same house?"

"None whatever."

"So what does that mean?" Kling asked. "You won't go with me?"

"I don't thinkyou should go, either," Hawes said.

"Well, I'm going."

"She knows her job," Hawes said flatly. "And so does Annie."

"Shedidn't know her job when that son of a bitch hellip;"

Kling caught himself. He took a deep breath.

"Take it easy," Hawes said.

"I'm going out there tonight," Kling said. "With you or without you."

"Take it easy," Hawes said again.

Brown walked over.

"Here's the way I figure it," he said to Hawes. "You caught the Missing P, I caught the pieces. Turns out it's the same case. I figure maybe Genero ought to go back to cruising, find all that trouble in the streets the loot's worried about. You and me can team up on this one, how does that sound to you?"

"Sounds good," Hawes said.

"I'll go tell Genero," Brown said, and walked off.

"You okay?" Hawes asked Kling.

"I'm fine," Kling said.

But he walked off, too.

The precinct map was spread out on the long table in the Interrogation Room. Meyer and Carella were hunched over the map. They had already asked Sergeant Murchison to run a check on any circuses or carnivals that happened to be in town. They did not think there'd be any at this time of year. In the meantime, they were trying to figure out where the midgets would hit next.

"Midgets," Meyer said, shaking his head. "You ever bust a midget?"

"Never," Carella said. "I busted a dwarf once. He was a very good burglar. Used to crawl into vents."

"What's the difference?" Meyer asked.

"A midget is a person of unusually small size, but he's physically well-proportioned."

"So? Dopey and Doc were well-proportioned, too."

"That's the movies," Carella said. "In real life, a dwarf has abnormal body proportions."

"Can you name all the Seven Dwarfs?" Meyer asked.

"I can't even name Snow White," Carella said.

"Go on, give it a try."

"Anyone can name the Seven Dwarfs," Carella said.

"Go ahead, name them."

"Dopey, Doc hellip;"

"I gave you those two free."

"Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy hellip; how many is that?"

"Five."

"Bashful."

"Yeah?"

"And hellip;"

"Yeah?"

"Who's the seventh one?" Carella said.

"Nobody can name all seven of them," Meyer said.

"So tell me who he is."

"Think about it," Meyer said, smiling.

Carella hunched over the precinct map. Now the goddamn seventh dwarf would bother him all night long.

"First hit was here," he said, indicating the location on the map. "Culver and Ninth. Second one here. Still on Culver, three blocks east. Next one was Culver and Twentieth."

"They're working their way uptown on Culver."

"First one at hellip; have you got that timetable?"

Meyer opened his notebook. "Five-fifteen," he said. "Second one at a little after seven. Third one about forty minutes ago."

"So what's the interval?"

"Five-fifteen, seven-oh-five, nine-twenty. Figure two hours, more or less."

"Time to change their costumes hellip;"

"Or maybe we're dealing withthree gangs here, did that occur to you?"

"There aren't that many midgets in the world," Carella said.

"You figured out the seventh dwarf yet?"

"No." He looked at the map again. "So the next one should be further uptown on Culver, and they should hit around eleven, eleven-thirty."

"Ifthere's a next one."

"And unless they speed up the timetable."

"Yeah," Meyer said, and shook his head again. "Midgets. I always thought midgets were law-abiding citizens."

"Just be happy they aren't giants," Carella said.

"You got it," Meyer said.

"Huh?" Carella said.

"Happy. That's the seventh dwarf."

"Oh. Yeah."

"So what do you want to do?"

"First let's check Dave, see if he came up with any circuses or carnivals."

"That's a long shot," Meyer said.

"Then let's call Ballistics again, see if they got anything on the bullets."

"We'll maybe get a caliber and make," Meyer said, "but I don't see how that's gonna help us."

"And then I guess we better head uptown," Carella said, "case Culver, see which stores are possibles for the next hit."

"You figuring on a plant?"

"Unless there's a dozen of them."

"Well, it's getting late, there won't be many open."

Carella folded the map.

"So," he said. "Murchison first."

She was still sitting on the bench, weeping softly, when Hawes approached her.

"Mrs. Sebastiani?" he said.

Marie looked up. Face tear-streaked, blue eyes rimmed with red now.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he said.

"No, that's all right," she said.

"I wanted to tell you hellip; we found the van, but we still haven't located the Citation. You said Brayne drove the van into the city today hellip;"

"Yes."

"So maybe the techs'll be able to lift his prints from the wheel. He hasn't got a criminal record, has he?"

"Not that I know of."

"Well, we'll run him through the computer, see what we come up with. Meanwhile, if the techs lift anything, and if we find the Citation, then maybe we'll know if he's the one who drove it away from the school. By comparing prints from the two wheels, do you see?"

"Yes. But hellip; well, weall drove both cars a lot. I mean, you'll probably find my prints and Frank's together with Jimmy's. If you find any prints."

"Uh-huh, yes, that's a possibility. But we'll see, okay? Meanwhile, Detective Brown has already put out a bulletin on Brayne, and we'll be watching all railroad stations, bus terminals, airports, in case he hellip;"

"You'llbe watching?"

"Well, not Brown and me personally. I mean the police. The bulletin's gone out already, as I said, so maybe we'll get some results there. If he's trying to get out of the city."

"Yes," Marie said, and nodded.

"Brown and I are gonna run back to the high school, see if anybody there saw what happened in that driveway."

"Well hellip; will anyonebe there? I mean, won't the teachers hellip;?"

"And the kids, yes, they'll be gone, that'll have to wait till morning. But the Custodian'll be there, and maybehe saw something."

"Will it be the same custodian who was there this afternoon?"

"I don't know, but we're going to check it out, anyway."

"Yes, I see."

"Meanwhile, I wanted to know whatyou plan to do. Do you have any relatives or friends here in the city?"

"No."

"Then will you be going back home? I know you're short of cash hellip;"

"Yes, but there was money in Frank's wallet."

"Well, the lab'll be running tests on the wallet and everything in it, so I can't let you have that. But if you want me to lend you train fare, or bus fare hellip; what I'm asking is whether or not you plan on going home, Mrs. Sebastiani. Because, honestly, there's nothing more you can do here."

"I hellip; I don't know what I want to do," she said, and began crying again, burying her face in an already sodden handkerchief.

Hawes watched her, awkward in the presence of her tears.

"I'm not sure I want to go home," she said, her voice muffled by the handkerchief. "With Frank gone hellip;"

The sentence trailed.

She kept sobbing into the handkerchief.

"You have to go home sometime," Hawes said gently.

"I know, I know," she said, and blew her nose, and sniffed, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "There are calls I'll have to make hellip; Frank's mother in Atlanta, and his sister hellip; and I guess hellip; I suppose I'll have to make funeral arrangements hellip; oh God, how are they going to hellip; what will they hellip;?"

Hawes was thinking the same thing. The body was in four separate pieces. The body didn't have hands or a head.

"That'll have to wait till autopsy, anyway," he said. "I'll let you know when hellip;"

"I thought they'd already done that."

"Well, that was a prelim. We asked for a preliminary report, you see. But the M.E.'ll want to do a more thorough examination."

"Why?" she asked. "I've already identified him."

"Yes, but we're dealing with a murder here, Mrs. Sebastiani, and we need to know hellip; well, for example, your husband may have beenpoisoned before the body was hellip; well hellip;"

He cut himself short.

He was talking too much.

This was a goddamn grieving widow here.

"There are lots of things the M.E. can tell us," he concluded lamely.

Marie nodded.

"So hellip;will you be going home?" he asked.

"I suppose."

Hawes opened his wallet, pulled out two twenties and a ten. "This should get you there," he said, handing the money to her.

"That's too much," she said.

"Well, tide you over. I'll give you a ring later tonight, make sure you got home okay. And I'll be in touch as we go along. Sometimes these things take a little while, but we'll be work hellip;"

"Yes," she said. "Let me know."

"I'll have one of the cars drop you off," he said. "Will you be going home by train or hellip; ?"

"Train, yes."

She seemed numb.

"So hellip; uh hellip; whenever you're ready, I'll buzz the sergeant and he'll pull one of the cars off the street. I'd drive you myself, but Brown and I want to get over to the school."

Marie nodded.

And then she looked up and said mdash;perhaps only to herself mdash;"How am I going to live without him?"

CHAPTER 7

Genero was annoyed.

He was the one who'd found the first piece of the body, and now allfour pieces were out of his hands. So to speak. He blamed it on seniority. Both Brown and Hawes had been detectives longer than he had, and so they'd immediately taken charge of a juicy homicide. So here he was, back on the street again, cruising like a goddamn patrolman. He was more than annoyed. He was enormously pissed.

The streets at a quarter past ten were still teeming with people hellip; well, sure, who expected this kind of weather at the end of October? Guys in shirt sleeves, girls in summer dresses, everybody strolling up the avenue like it was summertime in Paris, not that he'd ever been there. Lady there on the corner with a French poodle, letting the dog poop right on the sidewalk, even though it was against the law. He wondered if he should arrest her. He considered it beneath his dignity, a Detective/Third having to arrest a lady whose dog was illegally pooping. He let the dog poop, drove on by.

Made a cursory tour of the sector.

Who else was out here?

Kling?

Came onto Culver, began heading east.

Past the first liquor store got robbed tonight, then the second one hellip;

What had they been talking about back there in the squad-room? Meyer and Carella. Midgets? Was it possible? Midgets holding up liquor stores? Those little Munchkins fromThe Wizard of Oz holding upliquor stores, for Christ's sake? He didn't know what kind of a world this was getting to be. He thanked God every night before he went to sleep that he had been chosen to enforce law and order in the kind of world this was getting to be. Even if sometimes he had a good ripe murder yanked out of his hands. The only way to get ahead in the Department was to crack a good homicide every now and then. Not that it had done Carella much good, all the homicides he'd cracked. Been a detective for how many years now? Still only Second Grade. Well, sometimes people got passed over. The meek shall inherit the earth, he thought. Still, he wished he'd had an honest crack at that homicide tonight. He was the one found the first piece, wasn't he?

Onto Mason Avenue, the hookers out in force, well, Halloween, lots of guys coming uptown to look for the Great Pumpkin. Went home with the Great Herpes and maybe the Great AIDS. He wouldn't screw a Mason Avenue hooker if you gave him a million dollars. Well, maybe he would. For a million, maybe. That one on the corner looked very clean, in fact. But you could never tell. Anyway, she was Puerto Rican, and his mother had warned him against fooling around with any girls who weren't Italian. He wondered if Italian girls ever got herpes. He was positive they never got AIDS.

Swinging north again, up one of the side streets, then onto the Stem, all gaudy and bright, he really loved this part of the hellip;

"Boy One, Boy One hellip;"

The walkie-talkie lying on the seat beside him. Dispatcher trying to raise hellip;

"Boy One."

Answering.

"10-21 at one-one-four-one Oliver, near Sixth. Apartment four-two. 10-21 at one-one-four-one Oliver, near Sixth. See the lady."

"What was that apartment again?"

"Four-two."

"Rolling."

A burglary past, couple of blocks down and to the south. No need for a detective on the scene. If it had been a 10-30, an armed robbery in progress, or even a 10-34, an assault in progress, he'd have responded along with the blues. He guessed. Sometimes it was better not to stick your nose into too many things. A 10-13 mdash;an assist officer mdash;sure. Man called in for help, you got to the scene fast,wherever you were.

Ran uptown on the Stem for a couple of blocks, made a right turn at random, heading south toward the park. He'd swing onto Grover there, parallel the park for a while, then run north to the river, come back down Silvermine, take a run around the Oval, then back south on hellip;

Up ahead.

Four teenagers.

Running into the building on the corner.

Just a glimpse of them.

Blue jeans and denim jackets.

Something in their hands.

Trouble?

Shit, he thought.

He eased the car over. No parking spaces on the street, he double-parked in front of the building and picked up the walkie-talkie.

"Eight-Seven," he said, "D.D. Four."

Calling home, identifying himself. One of the six unmarked sedans used by the Detective Division.

"Go ahead, Four."

"Genero," he said. "10-51, four in number, at twelve-seven-teen North Eleventh."

"Stay in touch, Genero."

He'd identified the four teenagers as a roving band, a non-crime incident, and he hoped that was what it turned out to be. Getting out of the car, he pulled back the flap of his jacket and was clipping the walkie-talkie to his belt when a loud whooshing sound erupted from inside the building. He almost dropped the walkie-talkie. He looked up sharply. Flames! In the lobby there! And running out of the building, the four teenagers, one of them still carrying in his right hand what looked like a Molotov cocktail. Instinctively, Genero yelled, "Stop! Police!" and yanked his service revolver from its holster.

The kids hesitated for only a moment.

"Police!" he shouted again.

The one with the firebomb held a Zippo lighter to the wick and hurled the bottle at Genero.

The bottle crashed at his feet. Flames sprang up from the sidewalk. He threw both hands up to protect his face, and then immediately stepped back and brought his right hand down again, pistol level, firing into the wall of fire, through the wall of fire, two quick shots in succession.

Somebody screamed.

And suddenly they were on him. They jumped through the names like circus performers, three of them hitting him almost simultaneously, knocking him to the pavement. He rolled away from the fire, tried to roll away from their kicks. He brought the gun hand up again, fired again, three shots gone now, heard someone grunt. Don't waste any, he thought, and one of them kicked him in the head. He went blank for an instant. His finger tightened reflexively on the trigger. The gun exploded wild, close to his own ear. He blinked his eyes. He was going. He fought unconsciousness. Someone kicked him in the shoulder, and the sharp pain rocketed into his brain and brought him back. Four shots gone, he thought. Make the next ones count. He rolled away again. He blinked them into focus. Only two of them on their feet now. The third one flat on his back near the entrance to the building. Fourth one lying on the sidewalk dangerously close to the fire. He'd hammered two of them, but there were still two to go, and only two shots left in the gun.

His heart was pounding.

But he took his time.

Waited till the lead kicker was almost on him, and then shot for his chest.

Second one right behind him, almost knocked off his feet when his buddy blew back into him. Genero fired again. Took the second one in the left shoulder, sent him spinning around and staggering back toward the wall of the building.

Genero could hardly breathe.

He got to his feet, fanned the empty gun at them.

Nobody seemed to be going anywhere.

He backed off a pace, pulled cartridges from his belt, loaded them into the cylinder, counting hellip; four, five, six and ready again.

"Move and you're dead," he whispered, and yanked the walkie-talkie from his belt.

Detective/Third Grade Richard Genero had come of age on the eve of All Hallows' Day.

The school custodian who answered the night bell was the same one who'd locked Sebastian the Great's tricks in a storeroom earlier this afternoon. Peering through the grilled upper glass panel of the door at the back of the building, he recognized Hawes at once, unlocked the door, and let him in.

" 'Evening, Mr. Buono," Hawes said.

"Hey, how you doing?" Buono said.

He was a man in his late sixties, thinning gray hair, thin gray mustache over his upper lip. Pale blue eyes, somewhat bulbous nose. He was wearing coveralls. A flashlight was in one of the pockets. He clipped his ring of keys to a loop on the pocket.

"This is my partner, Detective Brown," Hawes said.

"Nice to meetcha," Buono said. "You come back for the stuff?"

"Well, no," Hawes said. "Few questions we'd like to ask you."

Buono immediately figured they knew he was stealing supplies from the classroom closets.

"Hey, sure," he said, and tried to look innocent. He locked the door behind them, and said, "Come on over the office, we can talk there. My friend and me were playing checkers."

They walked down a yellow-tiled, locker-lined corridor. They passed a wall clock that read twenty minutes past ten. They made a left turn. More students' lockers on either wall. A bulletin board. A poster reading:

COME CHEER THE TIGERS!

Saturday, Nov. 1, 2:00 p.m.

RAUCHER FIELD

To the right of that, another poster announcing:

SEBASTIAN THE GREAT!

HALLOWEEN MAGIC!

Auditorium. 4:00 p.m.

Beneath the lettering was a black-and-white photograph of a good-looking young man wearing a top hat and bow tie, grinning into the camera.

"Okay to take that poster?" Brown asked.

"Which one?" Buono said.

"The magician."

"Sure," Buono said, and shrugged.

Brown began pulling out the tacks.

"Come in handy, we find the head," he said to Hawes, and then folded the poster and put it in his inside jacket pocket.

Buono led them further down the hall, opened a door at the end of it. A sparsely furnished room. An upright locker, green in contrast to the reds, yellows, and oranges of the lockers in the halls. Long oak table, probably requisitioned from one of the administration offices. Four straight-backed chairs around it, checker board on one end of it. Coffee pot on a hot plate on one wall of the room, clock over it. Framed picture of Ronald Reagan on the wall opposite.

"This here's my friend, Sal Pasquali," Buono said.

Pasquali was in his late sixties, early seventies, wearing brown trousers, brown shoes and socks, a pale yellow sports shirt, and a brown sweater buttoned up the front. He looked like a candy-store owner.

"These people here are detectives," Buono said, and looked at Pasquali, hoping he would understand what the look meant: Watch your onions about the chalk, and the paste, and the pencils, and the erasers, and the reams of paper.

Pasquali nodded sagely, like a Mafia don.

"Pleased to meetcha," he said.

"So," Buono said, "sit down. You want some coffee?"

"Thanks, no," Hawes said.

The detectives pulled out chairs and sat.

Buono could see Brown's gun in a shoulder holster under his jacket.

"We were just playing checkers here," Pasquali said.

"Who's winning?" Brown asked.

"Well, we don't play for money or nothing," Pasquali said.

Which meant that they did.

Brown suddenly wondered what these two old farts were hiding-"I wanted to ask whether you saw anything that happened outside there this afternoon," Hawes said.

"Why?" Buono said at once. "Is something missing?"

"No, no. Missing? What do you mean?"

"Well, what doyou mean?" Buono said, and glanced at Pasquali.

"I meant when the cars were being loaded."

"Oh."

"When Mr. Sebastiani was out there loading his tricks in the Citation."

"I didn't see him doing that," Buono said.

"You weren't out there after he finished the act, huh?"

"No. I didn't come on till four o'clock."

"Well, he'd have been out there around five-thirty."

"No, I didn't see him."

"Then you have no idea who might've dumped that stuff out of his car hellip;"

"No idea at all."

"And driven off with it."

"No. Five-thirty, I was prolly down the north end of the building, starting with the classrooms there. I usually start cleaning the classrooms down the north end, it's like a routine, you know. Tradition."

"That's near the driveway, isn't it? The north end?"

"Yeah, the back of the building. But I didn't see anything out there. I mean, Imighta seen something if I was looking mdash;there's windows in the classrooms, you know. But I wasn't looking for nothing. I was busy cleaning up the classrooms." You say you came on at four hellip;"

"That's right. Four to midnight."

"Like us," Brown said, and smiled.

Yeah?" Buono said. "Is that your shift? Whattya know? You hear this, Sal? They got shifts like us."

"What a coincidence," Pasquali said.

Brown still wondered what they were hiding.

"So you came on at four hellip;" Hawes said.

"Yeah. Four to midnight. There's a man relieves me at midnight." He looked at the clock on the wall. "Be here in a few hours, well, less. But he's like just a watchman, you know."

"If you came on at four hellip;"

"Yeah." A nod.

"Then you weren't here when the Sebastianis arrived, were you? They would've got here about a quarter after three. You weren't here then, is that right?"

"No. Sal was here."

Pasquali nodded.

"Sal works from eight to four," Buono said. "He's theday custodian."

"Shifts," Pasquali said. "Like you."

"He can't stay away from the place," Buono said. "Comes back to play checkers with me every night."

"I'm a widower," Pasquali explained, and shrugged.

"Did you see the cars when they arrived?" Brown asked him. "Tan Ford Econoline, blue Citation?"

"I seen one of them out there," Pasquali said. "But not when it came in."

"Which one did you see?"

"Little blue car."

"When was this? When you saw it?"

"Around hellip; three-thirty, was it?"

"You asking me?" Buono said. "I wasn't here three-thirty."

"Three-thirty, it musta been," Pasquali said. "I remember I was heading out front, where the school buses come in. I usually go out there, talk to the drivers."

"They'd have been setting up the stage by then," Hawes said.

Brown nodded.

"And the van was already gone."

Brown nodded again.

"Did you see any people out there?" Hawes asked Pasquali. "Carrying things in? Unloading the cars?"

"All I saw was the one car mdash;"

"Blonde woman in her late twenties? Two men in their early thirties?"

"No," Pasquali said, and shook his head.

"Were the doors open?"

"What doors?"

"On the car."

"They looked closed to me."

"Anything lying in the driveway there?"

"Nothing I could see. What do you mean? Like what?"

"Tricks," Hawes said.

"Tricks?" Pasquali said, and looked at Buono.

"They done a magic show this afternoon," Buono said. "For the kids."

"Oh. No, I didn't see no tricks out there."

"You didn't happen to wander by that driveway later on, did you? Around five-thirty? When they were loading the hellip;"

"Five-thirty I was home eating my dinner. I made a nice TV dinner for myself."

Hawes looked at Brown.

"Anything?" he asked.

Brown shook his head.

"Well, thanks a lot," Hawes said, and shoved back his chair.

"I'll let you out the building," Buono said.

The detectives followed him out of the office.

As soon as they were gone, Pasquali took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow.

At twenty minutes past ten, Larry's Bar was buzzing with activity.

Not a table empty. Not a stool unoccupied at the bar.

Eileen was sitting at one of the tables now, talking to a blonde hooker named Sheryl who was wearing a red skirt slit up one side, and a white silk blouse unbuttoned three buttons down. There was nothing under the blouse. Sheryl sat with her legs spread, her high heels hooked on the chair's top rung. Eileen could see track marks on her naked white thighs. She was telling Eileen how she'd come to this city from Baltimore, Maryland. Eileen was scanning the room, trying to figure out which one of these guys in here was her backup. Two waitresses, who could have passed for hookers themselves mdash;short black skirts, high heels, overflowing white peasant blouses mdash;were busily scooting back and forth between the tables and the bar, avoiding grabs at their asses.

"Got off the bus," the girl said, "first thing happens to me is this kindly old man asks can he help me with my valise. Had to be forty years old, am I right, a nice old man being friendly. Asks me have I got a place to stay, offers to get me a taxi to the Y, says 'I'll bet you're starving,' which I was, takes me to a hamburger joint, stuffs me with burgers and fries, tells me a nice young girl like me mdash;I was only seventeen mdash;had to be careful in the big, bad city, lots of people out there waiting to victimize me."

"Same old bullshit," Eileen said.

She figured there were only two men who could be Shanahan. Guy sitting there at one of the tables, talking up a hooker with frizzied brown hair, he had a hook nose that could've been a phony, black hair and blue eyes like Shanahan's, about his height and weight, wearing horn-rimmed eyeglasses. He could've been Shanahan.

"Well, sure, you know the story already," the girl said. "Mr. Nice turns out to be Big Daddy, takes me to his apartment, introduces me to two other girls living there, nice girls like me, he says, has me smoking pot that same night and shooting horse before the week is out. Turned me out two days later with a businessman from Ohio. Guy ast me to blow him, I didn't know what the fuck he meant. Man, that seems like ages ago."

"How old are you now?" Eileen asked.

"Twenty-two," Sheryl said. "I'm not with Lou no more hellip; that was his name, Lou hellip; I got me a new man, takes good care of me. Who you with?"

"Torpedo Holmes," Eileen said.

"Is he black, or what?"

"Black."

"Yeah, mine, too. Lou was white. I think the white ones are meaner, I really do. Lou used to beat the shit out of me. That first time, after the guy from Ohio, you know, where I didn't know what to do, Lou beat me so I couldn't walk. Had a dozen of his buddies come up the next morning, one after the other, twelve of them, teach the little hayseed from Baltimore how to suck a cock. Broke in my ass, too. That was when Ireally got turned out, believe me. The guy from Ohio was child's play. In fact, everything after that night with Lou's buddies was child's play."

"Yeah, they can be rotten when they want to," Eileen said.

Guy sitting there talking to Annie was the other possibility, though she doubted Shanahan would've made such obvious contact. Brown eyes, but those could be contacts if he was playing this real fancy. Wearing a plaid jacket that made him look wider than Shanahan. Sitting on a stool, so Eileen couldn't tell how tall he was. But he was a possibility.

"This guy I got now hellip; you know Ham Coleman?"

"I don't think so."

"Hamilton? Hamilton Coleman?"

"Yeah, maybe."

"Black as his name. Coal, you know. Coleman. Hung like a stallion, likes to parade around the pad with only a towel around him, dares the girls to snatch it off. Quick as a bullfighter. You snatch off the towel, he gives you a little treat. My poison is still hoss mdash;well, you know, that's what Lou hooked me on. But some of the girls mdash;there's six of us with him mdash;they dig the nose candy, and he gets them whatever they need, good stuff too, I think he has Colombian connections. It's like a game he plays with the towel, snatch it off, suck his big dick, he lays the dope on you. I mean, it's just a game, 'cause he keeps us supplied very nice, anyway. It's kind of cute, though, the way he struts around in that towel. He's really okay. Ham Coleman. You ever think of moving, you might want to come over. We don't have any redheads. That your real hair?"

"Yeah," Eileen said.

" 'Cause mine is straight from a bottle," Sheryl said, and laughed.

She still had a little-girl's laugh. Twenty-two years old, hooked on heroin, in the life since she was seventeen. Thought Ham Coleman with his towel was "kind of cute."

"What I'm really hoping for hellip; well, this is just adream , I know," she said, and rolled her eyes, "but I keep asking Ham about it all the time, who knows, it might really come true one day. I keep asking him to set us up like real call girls, you know, hundred-buck tricks, maybe two hundred, never mind dropping us here in the Zone where we're like commonwhores , you know what I mean? I mean, you and me, we're just common whores, ain't we? When you get right down to it?"

"Uh-huh. And what does he say?"

"Oh, he says we ain't got the class yet to be racehorses. I tell him class, shit. A blowjob's a blowjob. He says we still got a lot to learn, all six of us. He says maybe in time he'll set up a class operation like what I got in mind. So I tell himwhen? When we're all scaley-legged hookers, thirty, forty years old? Excuse me, I guess maybe you're in your thirties, I didn't mean no offense, Linda."

"Don't worry about it," Eileen said.

"Well, we all have our dreams, don't we?" Sheryl said, and sighed. "My dream when I first came to this city was I'd become an actress, you know? I was in a lot of plays in high school, in Baltimore, I figured I could make it big as an actress here. Well, that was just a dream. Like being a hundred-dollar call girl is probably just a dream, too. Still, you got to have dreams, am I right? Otherwise hellip;"

"You girls gonna sit here talking to each other all night?"

The man standing by the table had padded up so quietly that he startled both of them. Blond guy, Eileen figured him at five-eleven, around a hundred and seventy pounds, just like Shanahan Wearing dark glasses, she couldn't see the color of his eyes. The blond hair could be a wig. Moved a bit like Shanahan, too, maybe hewas Shanahan. If so, he'd just won the bet. One thing he wasn't was the killer. Not unless he'd lost three, four inches, thirty pounds, a pair of eyeglasses, and a tattoo near his right thumb.

He pulled out a chair.

"Martin Reilly," he said, and sat. "What's a nice Irish lad doing in a joint like this, right?"

Voice heavier than Shanahan's. Calm's Point accent. Turtle Bay section, most likely. Lots of Irish families still there.

"Hi, Morton," Sheryl said.

"Martin," he corrected at once.

"Ooops, sorry," Sheryl said. "I'm Sheryl, I know just how you feel. When people call me Shirley, it really burns my ass."

"You know what really burns my ass?" Reilly said.

"Sure. People calling you Morton."

"No," Reilly said. "A little fire about this high."

He held out his hand, palm down, to indicate a fire only high enough to burn a man's ass.

"That one has hair on it," Eileen said, looking bored.

"Like the palm of my hand," Reilly said, and grinned. "All those months at sea, ladies, a man marries his hand."

Still grinning. Rows of even white glistening teeth, the better to eat you with, my dear. If Shanahan had capped teeth like that, he'd be starring on Hill Street Blues.

>

"You just get in?" Sheryl asked.

"Docked tonight."

"From where?"

Lebanon."

"Ain't there no girls there in Lebanon?" Sheryl said, and rolled her eyes.

"Not like you two," he said.

"Oooo, my," she said, and leaned over the table so he could look into the front of her blouse. "So what are you looking for?" she asked, getting straight to the point. "A handjob's fifteen," she said, quoting high, "a blowjob's twenty-five, and Miss Puss is forty."

"How about your friend here? What's your name, honey?" he asked, and put his hand on Eileen's thigh.

"Linda," she said.

She let his hand stay on her thigh.

"That means beautiful in Spanish."

"So they tell me."

"How much for both of you? Do I get a better price for both of?

"You're getting a bargain as it is," Sheryl said.

"Tell you what," Reilly said, and slipped his hand up under Eileen's skirt. "I'll give you hellip;"

"Mister," Eileen said, and caught his hand at the wrist. "You ain't given usnothing yet, so don't grope the goods, okay?"

"I'm sampling it."

"You get what you see, you don't need samples. This ain't a grocery store honors coupons."

Reilly laughed. He folded his hands on the table top.

"Okay, let's talk numbers," he said.

"We're listening," Sheryl said, and glanced at Eileen.

"Fifty for the both of you," Reilly said. "Around the world."

"You talking fifty foreach of us?" Sheryl said.

"I saidboth of you. Twenty-five each."

"No way," Sheryl said at once.

"Okay, make itthirty each. And you throw in a little entertainment."

"What kinda entertainment?" Sheryl asked.

"I wanna see you go down on the redhead here."

Sheryl looked at Eileen appraisingly.

"I hardly know her," she said.

"So? You'll get to know her."

Sheryl thought it over.

"Make it fifty apiece, we'll give you a good show," she said.

"That's too much," he said.

"Then fuck off," Sheryl said. "You're wasting our time here."

"I'll tell you what," Reilly said. "I'll make it forty apiece, how's that?"

"What are you?" Sheryl said. "A Lebanese rug merchant?"

Reilly laughed again.

"Forty-five," he said. "For each of you. And a ten-dollar bonus for whoever brings me off first."

"Count me out," Eileen said.

"What's the matter?" Reilly asked, looking offended. "That's a fair and honest deal."

"It really is, you know," Sheryl said.

"Sheryl can show you a good time all by herself," Eileen said, doing a fast tap dance. "I don't work doubles."

"Then what the fuck were we talking about here?" Reilly asked.

"You were doing all the talking," Eileen said. "I was only listening."

Reilly dismissed her at once.

"You got any other girlfriends in here?" he asked Sheryl.

"How about the frizzied brunette over there?" she said.

Reilly looked over to where the brunette was still in conversation with one of the other Shanahan possibilities.

"That's Gloria," Sheryl said. "I worked with her before."

"Is she a muff-diver?" Reilly said. "Or is she like your friend here?"

"Sheloves pussy," Sheryl said, lying. "You want me to talk to her?"

"Yeah, go talk to her."

"That's forty-five apiece," Sheryl said, cementing the deal, and a ten-buck bonus." She was figuring they'd do a little show, and take turns blowing him, and share the extra ten for fifty each. Which wouldn't be bad for an hour's work. Maybe less than an hour if he'd been at sea as long as he'd said. "A hundred in all, right?"

"A hundred is what I said, ain't it?"

"It's just I have to tell Gloria," Sheryl said, and got up, long leg and thigh flashing in the slit skirt. "Don't go away, honey," she said, and walked over to the other table.

"You're in the wrong business," Reilly said to Eileen.

Maybe I am, Eileen thought.

There were four liquor stores on Culver Avenue between the last one hit on Twentieth, and the eastern edge of the precinct territory on Thirty-Fifth. After that, it was the neighboring precinct's problem, and welcome to it. They drove up Culver to the last store, and then doubled back to the one on Twenty-Third. The digital dashboard clock read 10:32 p.m.

The store was empty except for a man behind the counter who was slitting open a carton of Jack Daniels sour mash. He looked up when the bell over the door sounded, saw a burly bald-headed guy and another big guy with him, and immediately placed his hand on the stock of the shotgun under the counter.

"What'll it be, gents?" he asked.

Hand still on the shotgun stock, finger inside the trigger guard now.

Meyer flashed the potsy.

"Police," he said.

The hand under the counter relaxed.

"Detective Meyer," he said. "Detective Carella. Eighty-Seventh Squad."

"What's the problem?" the man said.

He was in his early fifties, not quite as bald as Meyer, but getting there. Brown eyes, slight build, wearing a gray cotton work jacket with the words ALAN'S WHISKIES stitched in red on the breast pocket.

"Who are we talking to, sir?" Meyer asked.

"I'm Alan Zuckerman."

"Is this your store, sir?"

"It is."

"Mr. Zuckerman," Carella said, "there've been three liquor-store holdups on Culver Avenue tonight. Starting on Ninth and working uptown. If there's a pattern mdash;and there may not be mdash;your store's next in line."

"I'm closing in half an hour," Zuckerman said, and turned to look at the clock on the wall behind the counter.

"They may come in before then," Meyer said.

"You don't know me, huh?" Zuckerman said.

"Should I know you?" Meyer said.

"Alan Zuckerman. I was in all the papers last year this time." He looked at Carella. "Youdon't know me, either, do you?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't."

"Some cops," Zuckerman said.

Meyer glanced at Carella.

"This very precinct, they don't know me."

"Why should we know you, sir?" Carella asked.

"Because last October I shot two people came in the store to rob me," Zuckerman said.

"Oh," Carella said.

"Withthis !" Zuckerman said, and yanked the shotgun from under the counter.

Both detectives backed away.

"Bang!" Zuckerman said, and Meyer flinched. "One of them falls on the floor screaming!Bang , the other barrel! And the second one goes down!"

"I seem to recall that now," Meyer said. "Mr. Zuckerman, you can put up the shotgun now, okay?"

"Made all the papers," Zuckerman said, the gun still in his hands, his finger inside the trigger guard. "Shotgun Zuckerman, they called me, the papers. They had the story on television, too. Nobody tried no tricks here since, I can tell you that. It's been a year already, a little more than a year."

"Well, these people tonight," Meyer said, "Mr. Zuckerman, could you please put up the gun?"

Zuckerman slid the gun under the counter again.

"Thank you," Meyer said. "These people tonight, there are four of them. All of them armed. So your shotgun there, if all four of them start shooting hellip;"

"Shotgun Zuckerman can take care of them, don't worry."

"What we were thinking," Carella said, "is maybe we could lend you a hand."

"Sort of ride shotgun to your shotgun," Meyer said, nodding.

"Backups, sort of," Carella said.

"Only in case you need us."

"Otherwise we'll butt out."

Zuckerman looked at them.

"Listen," he said at last, "you want to waste your time, that's fine by me."

He yanked the phone from the receiver the moment it rang.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hi," Marie said.

"Where are you?"

"Metro West. I'm catching the ten forty-five home."

"How'd it go?"

"Tough night," she said. "Any trouble on your end?"

"Nope. They made identification, huh? I saw it on television."

"I was the one who made it. Where'd you leave the Citation?"

"Behind an A P near the river."

" 'Cause I don't think they found it yet."

"Who's on the case?"

"A salt-and-pepper team. Brown and Hawes. Big redhead, big black guy. In case they come snooping."

"Why would they?"

"I'm saying in case. They're both dummies, but you oughta be warned. They got a bulletin out hellip; they asked me for descriptions They're gonna be watching all the airports. What flight are you on?"

"TWA's one twenty-nine. Leaves at twelve-oh-five tomorrow afternoon."

"What time do you get to Frisco?"

"Four forty-seven."

"I'll try you at the hotel around six-thirty. You'll be registered as Jack Gwynne, am I right?"

"All the dead ones," he said, and laughed. "Like Sebastian the Great."

"Give me the number of the Hong Kong flight again?"

"United eight-oh-five. Leaves Frisco at one-fifteen Sunday, gets there around eight the next morning."

"When will you call me?"

"Soon as I'm settled."

"You think that passport'll work?"

"It cost us four hundred bucks, itbetter work. Why? You running scared?"

"Nerves of steel," she said. "You shoulda seen me with the cops."

"No problem with the ID, was there?"

"None."

"You did mention the cock?"

"Oh, sure."

"Little birthmark and all?"

"Come on, we went over this a hundred times."

"You went over it a hundred times."

"And hated every minute of it."

"Sure."

"Youknow that, damn it."

"Sure."

"You going to start on me again?"

"I'm sorry."

"You oughta be. All we've been through."

"I said I was sorry."

"Okay."

There was a long silence on the line. "So whattya gonna do till noon tomorrow?"

"Thought I'd go down for a drink, then come back and get some sleep."

"Be careful."

"Oh yeah."

"They know what you look like."

"Don't worry." Another silence.

"Maybe you oughta call me later tonight, okay?"

"Sure."

"Be careful," she said again, and hung up.