Tricks

CHAPTER 1

The pair of them came down the street streaming blood.

No one paid any attention to them.

This was the city.

The taller of the two wore a blood-stained blue bathrobe. Blood appeared to be oozing from a half-dozen crosshatched wounds on his face. His hands were covered with blood. The striped pajama bottoms that showed beneath the hem of the robe were splattered with blood that seemed to have dripped from an open wound in his belly, where a dagger was plunged to the hilt.

The shorter person, a girl—although it was difficult to tell from the contorted mask of her face—wore only a paisley-patterned nightgown and high-heeled, pink pom-pommed bedroom slippers. Her garments screamed blood to the unusually mild October night. An ice pick was stuck to her chest, the handle smeared with blood. Blood was matted in her long stringy hair, bright red blood stained her naked legs,her ankles, and the backs of her hands, and her narrow chest where it showed above the top of the yoke-necked nightgown.

She couldn't have been older than twelve.

The boy with her was perhaps the same age.

They were both carrying shopping bags that seemed stained with blood as fresh as that of their wounds. There could have been something recently severed from a human body inside each of those bags. A hand perhaps. Or a head. Or perhaps the bags had become blood-soaked only from proximity to their own bodies.

They came running up the street as though propelled by the urgency of their wounds.

"Let's try here," the boy said.

Several teeth appeared to be missing from his mouth. The black gaps were visible when he spoke. A thin line of red painted a trail from his lower lip to his chin. The flesh around his right eye was discolored red and black and blue and purple. He looked as if someone had beaten him severely before plunging the dagger into his belly.

"This one?" the girl asked.

They stopped before a street-level door.

They knocked frantically on the door.

It opened.

"Trick or treat!" they shouted in unison.

It was 4:10 p.m. on Halloween night.

The four-to-midnight shift at the 87th Precinct was only ten minutes old.

"Halloween ain't what it used to be," Andy Parker said.

He was sitting behind his desk in the squadroom, his feet up on the desk, his chair tilted dangerously, as if burdened by the weight of the shoulder holster slung over its back. He was wearing rumpled trousers, an unpressed sports jacket, unshined black shoes, dingy white socks, and a wash-and-wear shirt with food stains on it. He had got his haircut at a barber's college on the Stem. There was a three-day-old beard stubble on his face. He was talking to Hawes and Brown, but they were not listening to him. That didn't stop Parker.

"What it is, Devil's Night steals from it," he said, and nodded in agreement with his observation.

At their own desks, the other detectives kept typing.

"Years ago," Parker said, "tonight was when the kids raised hell. Nowadays, you got church dances, you got socials at the Y, you got all kinds of shit to keep the kids out of trouble. So the kids figure Okay, they want us to be good on Halloween, so we'll pick another night to behave like little bastards. So they invented Devil's Night, which was last night, when we got all the windows busted and the eggs thrown."

Across the room, the typewriters kept clacking.

"You guys writing books or what?" Parker asked.

No one answered him.

"I'm gonna write a book one of these days," Parker said. "Lots of cops write books, they make a fortune. I had plenty experience, I could prolly write a terrific book."

Hawes looked up for a moment, and then scratched at his back. He was sunburned and peeling. He had returned only Monday morning from a week's vacation in Bermuda, but his skin was still the color of his hair. Big red-headed man with a white streak in the hair over the left temple, where he'd once been slashed. He had not yet told Annie Rawles that he'd spent some very pleasant hours with a girl he'd met down there on the pink sands.

"This guy Wamburger in L.A., he used to be a cop," Parker said, "I think with Hollywood Division. He writes these big bestsellers, don't he? This other guy, Kornitch, he writes them, too, he used to be a cop in New York. Ain't nobody who didn't used to be a cop can write books sound real about cops. One of these days, I'm gonna write a big fuckin' best-seller, I'll go live on a yacht in the south of France. Get these naked broads diving off the boat while I sit there doing nothing."

"Like now," Brown said.

"Yeah, bullshit, I already finished my work," Parker said. "This shift's been too fuckin' quiet. Whose idea was it to put on extra men, anyway?"

"The lieutenant's."

"So what's the use of seven guys when nothin's happening? Who's on, anyway? And where the fuck are they?"

"Cruising," Hawes said. "Out there looking for trouble."

He was thinking he himself would be looking for trouble if he told Annie what had happened in Bermuda, even though his arrangement with her was a loose one. Separate apartments, occasional conjugal visits, like they gave prisoners down in Mexico. Anyway, he'd asked Annie to come with him to Bermuda, hadn't he? Annie said her vacation wasn't till February. He asked her to change her vacation. She said she had to be in court all that week. She also said she hated Bermuda. He went down alone. Met this girl who practiced law in Atlanta. She'd taught him some legal tricks.

"It's so quiet, you could hear a pin drop," Parker said. "I coulda been home sleeping."

"Instead of sleeping here," Brown said, and went to the water cooler. He was a hefty, muscular black man, standing some six-feet four-inches tall and weighing two hundred and twenty pounds. There was a glowering look on his face as he pulled a paper cup from the holder and then stabbed at the faucet button. He always looked glowering, even when he was smiling. Brown could get an armed robber to drop his piece just by glowering at him.

"Who's sleeping?" Parker said. "I'm resting, is all. I already finished my work."

"Then why don't you start writing your book?" Hawes said.

"You could write all about how Halloween ain't what it used to be," Brown said, crumpling the paper cup and going back to his desk.

"It ain't," Parker agreed.

"You could write about it's so quiet on Halloween, your hero has nothing to do," Hawes said.

"That's the truth," Parker said. "This phone ain't rung once since I come in."

He looked at the phone.

It did not ring.

"I'll bet that bothers you a lot," Brown said. "The phone not ringing."

"Nothing to do," Hawes said.

"No ax murders out there," Brown said.

"I had an ax murder once," Parker said, "I could maybe write about that."

"It's been done," Hawes said.

"Be a big fuckin' best-seller."

"I don't think it was."

" 'Cause maybe a cop didn't write it. You got to be a cop to write best-sellers about cops."

"You got to be an ax murderer to write best-sellers about ax murders," Brown said.

"Sure," Parker said, and looked at the phone again.

"You got nothing to do," Hawes said, "whyn't you go down the hall and shave?"

"I'm working on my Miami Vice look," Parker said.

"You look like a bum," Brown said.

"I am a bum," Parker said.

"You got to be a bum to write best-sellers about bums," Brown said.

"Tell that to Kennedy," Hawes said.

"Teddy? I didn't know he wrote books," Parker said. "What does he write about? Senators?"

"Go shave," Hawes said.

"Or go write a book about a barber," Brown suggested.

"I ain't a barber," Parker said.

He looked at the phone again.

"You ever see it this quiet?" he asked.

"I never even heard it this quiet," Brown said.

"Me, neither," Parker said. "It's like a paid vacation."

"Like always," Brown said.

"I once had a lady choked to death on a dildo," Parker said. "Maybe I could write about that. I had a lot of cases I could write about."

"Maybe you could write about the case you're working now," Brown said.

"I ain't working nothing right now."

"No kidding?"

"I finished all my work. Everything wrapped up till the phone rings."

"Maybe the phone's out of order," Hawes said.

"You think so?" Parker said, but he made no move to lift the receiver and listen for a dial tone.

"Or maybe none of the bad guys are doing anything out there," Brown said.

"Maybe all the bad guys went south for the winter," Hawes said, and thought again about Bermuda, and wondered if he should come clean with Annie.

"Fat chance," Parker said. "This weather? I never seen an October like this in my entire life. I once had a case, this guy strangled his wife with the telephone cord. I'll bet I could write about that."

"I'll bet you could."

"Hit her with the phone first, knocked her cold. Then strangled her with the cord."

"You could call it Long Distance," Brown said.

"No, he was standing close to her when he done it."

"Then how about Local Call?"

"What's wrong with Sorry, Wrong Number?" Parker asked.

"Nothing," Hawes said. "That's a terrific title."

"Or I could write about this guy got drowned in the bathtub. His wife drowned him in the bathtub. That was a good case."

"You could call it Glub," Brown said.

"Glub ain't a best-selling title," Parker said. "Also, she cut off his cock. The water was all red with his blood."

"Why'd she do that?" Brown asked, truly interested now.

"He was fuckin' around with some other broad," Parker said. "You shoulda seen the guy, he was a tiny little runt. His wife came in while he was taking a bath, she shoved him under the water, good-bye, Charlie. Then she cuts off his cock with his own straight razor, throws it out the window."

"The razor?"

"No, the cock. Hit an old lady walking by in the street. Hit her right on top of the head, knocked this plastic flower off her hat. She bends down to pick up the flower, she sees the cock laying on the sidewalk. Right away she wonders who she can sue. She picks it up, runs to her lawyer with it. Goes running down the street with this cock in her fist, in this city nobody even blinked."

"Carella and I once worked a case," Hawes said, "where this guy cut off another guy's hands."

"Why'd he do that?"

"Same reason. Love."

"That's love?"

"Love or money," Hawes said, and shrugged. "The only two reasons there are."

"Plus your lunatics," Brown said.

"Well, that's a whole 'nother ball game," Parker said. "Your lunatics. I once had a lunatic, he killed four priests before we caught up with him. We ast him why he was killing priests. He told us his father was a priest. How could that be, his father a priest?"

"Maybe his mother was a nun," Brown said.

"No, his mother was a registered nurse. Fifty years old, but gorgeous. Peaches Muldoon, her name was. Her square handle, I mean it, she was from Tennessee. Told me her son was nuts for sure, and she was glad I nailed him. Peaches Muldoon. A redhead. A real racehorse."

"Who'd she say the father was?"

"Her brother," Parker said.

"Nice case," Hawes said.

"Yeah. Maybe I oughta write about that one."

"You're not a priest."

"Sometimes I feel like a priest," Parker said. "You know the last time I got laid? Don't ask."

"Maybe you oughta go look up Peaches," Brown suggested.

"She's prolly dead by now," Parker said, giving the idea serious consideration. "This was maybe ten years ago, this case."

"She'd be sixty by now," Hawes said.

"If she ain't dead, yeah. But sixty ain't old, you know. I laid a lot of sixty-year-old broads. They have lots of experience, they know what they're doing."

He looked at the phone again.

"Maybe I will go shave," he said.

The two women knew each other well.

Annie Rawles was a Detective/First working out of the Rape Squad.

Eileen Burke was a Detective/Second who worked out of Special Forces.

They were in Annie's office discussing murder.

The clock on the wall read 4:30 p.m.

"Why'd they drag you in?" Eileen asked.

"My experience with decoys," Annie said. "I guess Homicide's getting desperate."

"Who caught the squeals?"

"Guy named Alvarez at the Seven-Two."

"In Calm's Point?"

"Yes."

"All three?"

"All three."

"Same area of the precinct?"

"The Canal Zone, down by the docks. You'd think you were in Houston."

"I've never been to Houston."

"Don't go."

Eileen smiled.

She was five-feet nine-inches tall, with long legs, good breasts, flaring hips, flaming red hair, and green eyes. There was no longer a scar on her left cheek. Plastic surgery had taken care of that. But Annie wondered if there were still internal scars.

"You don't have to take this one," she said. "I know it's short notice."

"Well, tell me some more," Eileen said.

"Or it can wait till next Friday. Shit, Homicide only called me an hour ago. Told me Alvarez wasn't making any headway, maybe the spic needed a helping hand. Homicide's words, not mine."

"Good old Homicide," Eileen said, and shook her head knowingly.

She wondered if Annie had doubts about her handling this one. She hadn't handled a really difficult one since the accident. Calling it an "accident" made it easier to think about. An accident was something that could happen to anyone. Something that needn't necessarily happen again. An accident wasn't a rapist slashing open your left cheek and then taking you by force.

Annie was watching her.

Eyes the color of loam behind glasses that gave her a scholarly look, black hair cut in a wedge, firm cupcake breasts on a slender body. About the same age as Eileen, a bit shorter. As hard and as brilliant as a diamond. Annie used to work out of Robbery, where she'd blown away two guys holding up a midtown bank. Blew them out of the air. If she hadn't been frightened by two seasoned hoods facing a max of twenty, would she have any sympathy for a decoy cop running scared?

Well, I've been on the job, Eileen thought, I'm not running scared.

But she was.

"When was the first one?" she asked.

"The tenth. A Friday night, full moon. Alvarez thought maybe a loonie. Then the second one turned up a week later, the seventeenth. And another one last Friday night."

"Always Friday night, huh?"

"So far."

"So tonight's Friday, so Homicide wants a decoy."

"So does Alvarez. I spoke to him right after I got the call. He sounds smart as hell, but so far he hasn't got a place to hang his hat."

"What's his thinking on it?"

"You don't know the Zone, huh?"

"No."

"Then you missed what I was saying about Houston."

"I guess so."

"There's an area bordering the Ship Canal down there, it's infested with hookers and dope. Sleaziest dives I've ever seen in my life. The docks on the Calm's Point Canal run a close second."

"Are they hookers then? The victims?"

"Yes. Hookers."

"All three?"

"One of them only sixteen years old."

Eileen nodded.

"What'd he use?" she asked.

Annie hesitated.

"A knife," she said.

And suddenly it all played back again in Eileen's head…

Her hand going for the Browning .380 automatic tucked into her boot, Don't force me to cut you, the pistol coming free of its holster, moving into firing position—and he slashed her face. Sudden fire blazed a trail across her cheek. She dropped the gun at once. Good girl, he said. And slashed her pantyhose and the panties underneath…

And…

And thrust the cold flat side of the knife against her… against her…

"Want me to cut you here, too?"

She shook her head.

No, please, she thought.

And mumbled the words incoherently, No, please, and said them aloud at last, "No, please. Please. Don't… cut me again. Please."

"Want me to fuck you instead?"

"Don't cut me again."

Annie was watching her intently.

"Slit their throats with a knife," she said.

Eileen was covered with cold sweat.

"So… I… I guess they want me to play hooker, is that it?" she said.

"That's it."

"New girl in town, huh?"

"You've got it."

"Cruising? Or have they set up… ?"

"They're planting you in a place called Larry's Bar. On Fairview and East Fourth."

Eileen nodded.

"Tonight, huh?"

"Starting around eight."

"That's early, isn't it?"

"They want to give him enough rope."

"Where do I check in?"

"The Seven-Two. You can change there."

"Into what? The hookers today look like college girls."

"Not the ones working the Canal Zone."

Eileen nodded again.

"Has Alvarez picked my backups?"

"One. A big beefy guy named…"

"I want at least two," Eileen said.

"I'm your other one," Annie said.

Eileen looked at her.

"If you want me."

Eileen said nothing.

"I'm not afraid of using the piece," Annie said.

"I know you're not."

"But if you'd feel better with another man…"

"Nothing's going to make me feel better," Eileen said. "I'm scared shitless. You could back me with the Russian army, and I'd still be scared."

"Then don't do it," Annie said.

"Then when do I stop being scared?" Eileen asked.

The room went silent.

"Homicide asked me to get the best decoy I knew," Annie said softly. "I picked you."

"Thanks a lot," Eileen said.

But she smiled.

"You are, you know."

"I was."

"Are," Annie said.

"Sweet talker," Eileen said.

And smiled again.

"So… it's up to you," Annie said, and looked up at the clock. "But you've got to let me know right away. They want everything in place by eight tonight."

"Who's this big beefy guy?"

"His name's Shanahan. Irish as Paddy's underwear, six-feet tall, weighs at least two hundred pounds. I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, believe me."

"I would," Eileen said. "I'd like an hour with him before I hit the street. Can he be in the squadroom by seven?"

"You'll do it then?"

"Only 'cause you're the other backup," Eileen said, and smiled again.

But she was trembling inside.

"This guy who killed them," she said. "Do they have any idea what he looks like?"

"Alvarez says he's got some statements that seem to jibe. But who knows what he'll look like tonight? If he comes in at all."

"Terrific," Eileen said.

"One thing for sure, though."

"Yeah?"

"He's passing himself off as a trick."

The saw ripped through wood, ripped through flesh and bone along the middle of the wooden box and the middle of the woman. Blood gushed from the track the saw made, following the sharp teeth. The saw itself was bloody when at last he withdrew it from box and woman. He looked up at the wall clock. 5:05 p.m. He nodded in grim satisfaction.

And lifted the lids on both sides of the box.

And the woman stepped out in one piece, grinning, and held her arms over her head, and the audience began to applaud and cheer.

"Thank you, thank you very much," the man said, bowing.

The audience was composed mostly of boys and girls between the ages of thirteen and eighteen because the performance was being held at the high school on North Eleventh. The principal of the school, Mr. Ellington, beamed contentedly. Hiring the magician had been his idea. A way to keep these restless teenagers happy and occupied for an hour or so before they hit the streets. He would make a little speech after the performance was over, which should be any minute now. He would tell them all to go home and have a good dinner and then put on their costumes and go out for a safe and sane Halloween in the secure knowledge that among the rights granted in a democracy was freedom of assembly—like the assembly they'd had this evening—and also freedom of assembly in the streets, but not the freedom to perform malicious mischief, definitely not. That would be his pitch. The kids, grateful for an hour's entertainment, would—he hoped—follow his directives. No one from Herman Raucher High would become involved in vandalism tonight. Nossir.

He watched now as the magician's assistant rolled the wooden box off the stage. She was a good-looking blonde, in her late twenties Ellington guessed, wearing a sequined costume that exposed to good advantage her long, long legs and her exuberant breasts. Ellington noticed that most of the boys in the auditorium could not take their eyes off the assistant's long legs and the popping tops of her creamy white breasts. He himself was having a little difficulty doing that. She was back on stage now, wheeling a tall box. A vertical one this time. The magician—whose name was Sebastian the Great—was wearing tails and a top hat. Ellington looked up at the clock. This was probably the closing number of the act. He hoped so because he wanted to make his little speech and get the kids the hell out of here. He had promised Estelle he would stop by on the way home from school. Estelle was the lady he stopped by to see every Wednesday and Friday afternoon, when his wife thought he had meetings with the staff. Estelle's legs weren't as long, nor were her breasts as opulent as those on the magician's assistant, but then again Estelle was forty-seven years old.

"Thank you, kids," Sebastian the Great said, "thank you. Now I know you're all anxious to get out there in the streets for a safe and sane Halloween, and so I won't keep you much longer. Ah, thank you, Marie," he said to his assistant.

Her name's Marie, Ellington thought, and wondered what her last name was, and wondered if she was listed in the phone book.

"You see here a little box—well, not so little because I'm a pretty tall fellow—which I'm going to step into in just a moment… thank you, Marie, you can go now, you've been very helpful, let's have a nice round of applause for Marie, kids."

Marie held her hands up over her head, legs widespread, big smile on her mouth, and the kids applauded and yelled, especially the boys, and then she did a cute little sexy turn and went strutting off the stage in her high heels.

"That's the last you'll see of Marie tonight," Sebastian said.

Shit, Ellington thought.

"And in just a few minutes, you'll see the last of me, too. What I'm going to do, kids, I'm going to step inside this box…"

He opened the door on the face of the box.

"And I'm going to ask you all to count to ten… out loud… one, two, three, four, and so on—you all know how to count to ten, don't you?"

Laughter from the kids.

"And I'm going to ask your principal, Mr. Ellington, to come up here—Mr. Ellington, would you come up here now, please?—and when you reach the number ten, he's going to open the door of this box, and Sebastian the Great will be gone, kids, I will have disappeared, vanished, poof! So… ah, good, Mr. Ellington, if you'll just stand here beside the box, thank you. That's very good." He took off his top hat. Stepping partially into the box, he said, "I'm going to say good-bye to you now…"

Applause and cheering from the kids.

"Thank you, thank you," he said, "and I want to remind you again to please have a safe and sane Halloween out there. Now the minute I close this door, I want you to start counting out loud. And when you reach ten, Mr. Ellington will open the door and I'll be gone but not forgotten. Mr. Ellington? Are you ready?"

"Ready," Ellington said, feeling like an asshole.

"Good-bye, kids," Sebastian said, and closed the door behind him.

"One!" the kids began chanting. "Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!"

Ellington opened the door on the box.

Sebastian the Great had indeed vanished.

The kids began applauding.

Ellington went to the front of the stage, and held up his hands for silence.

He would have to remind the kids not to try sawing anybody in half, because that had been only a trick.

The station wagon pulled up to the curb in front of the liquor store on Culver and Ninth. The big woman behind the wheel was a curly-haired blonde in her late forties, wearing a blue dress with a tiny white floral print, a cardigan sweater over it. A kid was sitting beside her on the front seat. Three more kids were in the back of the car. The kids looked perhaps eleven or twelve years old, no older than that.

They threw open the doors and got out of the car.

"Have fun, kids," the blonde behind the wheel said.

The kids were all dressed like robbers.

Little black leather jackets, and little blue jeans, and little white sneakers, and little billed caps on their little heads, and little black masks over their eyes. They were all carrying shopping bags decorated with little orange pumpkins. They were all holding little toy pistols in their little hands. They went across the sidewalk in a chattering little excited group, and one of them opened the door to the liquor store. The clock on the wall behind the counter read 5:15 p.m. The owner of the store looked up the moment the bell over the door sounded.

"Trick or treat!" the little kids squealed in unison.

"Come on, kids, get out of here," the owner said impatiently. "This is a place of business."

And one of the little kids shot him in the head.

Parker had shaved and was back in the squadroom, rummaging through the file cabinets containing folders for all the cases the detectives had successfully closed. In police work, there was no such thing as a solution. You never solved a case, you closed it out. Or it remained open, which meant the perpetrator was already in Buenos Aires or Nome, Alaska, and you'd never catch him. The Open File was the graveyard of police detection.

"I feel like a new man," Parker said. In fact, he looked like the same old Parker, except that he had shaved. "Muldoon," he said, "Muldoon, where are you, Muldoon?"

"You really gonna call a sixty-year-old lady?" Brown asked.

"Peaches Muldoon, correct," Parker said. "If she was well-preserved at fifty, she's prolly still got it all in the right places. Where the fuck's the file?"

"Look under Aging Nurses," Hawes said.

"Look under Decrepit Broads," Brown said.

"Yeah, bullshit, wait'll you see her picture," Parker said.

The clock on the squadroom wall read 5:30 p.m.

"Muldoon, here we go," Parker said, and yanked a thick file from the drawer.

The telephone rang.

"Who's catching?" Parker asked.

"I thought you were," Brown said.

"Me? No, no. You're up, Artie."

Brown sighed and picked up the phone.

"Eighty-Seventh Squad," he said, "Brown."

"Artie, this is Dave downstairs."

Sergeant Murchison, at the muster desk.

"Yeah, Dave."

"Adam Four just responded to a 10-20 on Culver and Ninth. Liquor store called Adams Wine & Spirits."

"Yeah?"

"They got a homicide there."

"Okay," Brown said.

"You got some people out, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Who? Can you take a look for me?"

Brown reached across the desk for the duty chart.

"Kling and Carella are riding together," he said. "Meyer and Genero are out solo."

"Any idea which sectors?"

"No."

"Okay, I'll try to raise them."

"Keep in touch."

"Will do."

Brown hung up.

"What?" Hawes asked.

"Homicide on Culver. There goes the neighborhood."

The telephone rang again.

"Take a look at this picture," Parker said, coming over to Brown's desk. "You ever see a body like this one?"

"Eighty-Seventh Squad, Hawes."

"Look at those tits," Parker said.

"Hello, who am I talking to, please?" a woman's voice asked.

"Detective Hawes."

"Legs that won't quit," Parker said.

"My husband's gone," the woman said.

"Yes, ma'am," Hawes said, "let me give you the number for…"

"My name is…"

"It'll be best if you call Missing Persons, ma'am," Hawes said. "They're specially equipped to deal with…"

"He disappeared here in this precinct," the woman said.

"Still…"

"Does that look like a fifty-year-old broad?" Parker asked.

The telephone rang again. Brown picked up.

"Eighty-Seventh Squad, Brown," he said.

"Artie? This is Genero."

"Yeah?"

"Artie, you won't believe this."

"What won't I believe?" Brown asked. He looked up at Parker, covered the mouthpiece, and whispered, "Genero."

Parker rolled his eyes.

"It happened again," Genero said.

"My name is Marie Sebastiani," the woman on Hawes's phone said. "My husband is Sebastian the Great."

Hawes immediately thought he was talking to a bedbug.

"Ma'am," he said, "if your husband's really gone…"

"I'm at this restaurant, you know?" Genero said. "On Culver and Sixth?"

"Yeah?" Brown said.

"Where they had the holdup last night? I stopped by to talk to the owners?"

"Yeah?"

"My husband is a magician," Marie said. "He calls himself Sebastian the Great. He's disappeared."

Good magician, Hawes thought.

"And I go out back to look in the garbage cans?" Genero said. "See maybe somebody dropped a gun in there or something?"

"Yeah?" Brown said.

"I mean he's really disappeared," Marie said. "Vanished. I went out back of the high school where he was loading the car, and the car was gone, and so was Frank. And all his tricks were dumped in the driveway like…"

"Frank, ma'am?"

"My husband. Frank Sebastiani. Sebastian the Great."

"It happened again, Artie," Genero said. "I almost puked."

"What happened again?"

"Maybe he just went home, ma'am," Hawes said.

"No, we live in the next state, he wouldn't have left without me. And his stuff was all over the driveway. I mean, expensive tricks."

"So what are you saying, ma'am?"

"I'm saying somebody must've stolen the car and God knows what he did to Frank."

"Artie?" Genero said. "Are you with me?"

"I'm with you," Brown said, and sighed.

"It was in one of the garbage cans, Artie."

"What was in one of the garbage cans?"

"Which high school is that, ma'am?" Hawes asked.

"Herman Raucher High. On North Eleventh."

"Are you there now?"

"Yes. I'm calling from a pay phone."

"You stay right there," Hawes said, "I'll get somebody to you."

"I'll be waiting out back," Marie said, and hung up.

"Artie, you better come over here," Genero said. "The Burgundy on Culver and Sixth."

"What is it you found in…?"

But Genero had already hung up.

Brown slipped into his shoulder holster.

Hawes clipped his holster to his belt.

Parker picked up the telephone receiver.

"Peaches Muldoon, here I come," he said.

5:40 P.M. on Halloween night, the streets dark for almost an hour now, the city off daylight savings time since the twenty-sixth of the month. All the little monsters and goblins and devils and bats out in force, carrying their shopping bags full of candy from door to door, yelling "Trick or Treat!" and praying no one would give them a treat with a double-edged razor blade in it.

Brown looked at his watch.

Along about now, his wife, Caroline, would be taking Connie around. His eight-year-old daughter had previewed her costume for him last night. She'd looked like the most angelic witch he'd ever seen in his life. All next week, there'd be sweets to eat. The only people who profited from Halloween were the candymakers and the dentists. Brown was in the wrong profession.

He had chosen to walk to the Burgundy Restaurant on Culver and Sixth. It wasn't too far from the station house, and a cop—if Genero could be considered one—was already on the scene.

The night was balmy.

God, what an October this had been.

Leaves still on the trees in the park, dazzling yellows and reds and oranges and browns, daytime skies a piercing blue, nighttime skies pitch-black and sprinkled with stars. In a city where itchy citizens took off their overcoats far too early each spring, it now seemed proper and fitting that there was no need to put them on again quite yet. He walked swiftly toward Culver, turning to glance at E.T. hurrying by with Frankenstein's monster on one side and Dracula on the other. Smiling, he turned the corner onto Culver and began walking toward Sixth.

Genero was waiting on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

He looked pale.

"What is it?" Brown asked.

"Come on back," Genero said. "I didn't touch it."

"Touch what?" Brown asked. But Genero was already walking up the alleyway on the right-hand side of the restaurant.

Garbage cans flanked either side of the restaurant's back door, illuminated by an overhead flood light.

"That one," Genero said.

Brown lifted the lid on the can Genero was pointing to.

The bloody upper torso of a human body was stuffed into the can, on top of a green plastic garbage bag.

The torso had been severed at the waist from the rest of the body.

The torso had no arms.

And no head.

"Why does this always happen to me?" Genero asked God.