New York Dead
by
Stuart Woods


                           STUART WOODS AND
                          DEAD IN THE WATER

"...filled with enough humor, sex, and clever surprises all the way to
the last page to make it thoroughly entertaining amusement."
--Publishers Weekly

"Trying to make this neat tale last more than one sitting would be like
staying up all night nursing a Godiva truffle."  
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Blackmail, murder, suspense, love-what else could you want in a book?"
--Cosmopolitan

"Dirty fun."  
--People

"This slickly entertaining suspense displays Woods at the top of his
game...Subtly reminiscent of the waggish P. G. Wodehouse, Woods
delivers a marvelously sophisticated, thoroughly modern,
old-fashioned read."  
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"There is something delightfully nasty about, the way Stuart Woods
settles every account in his crime capers.  Even more delightful is the
juggling act that lasts almost to the last page, when payoffs fall like
autumn leaves."  
--New York Daily News

"[Woods] does show a reader a good time."
--The Washington Post Book World

"Engage[s] the reader's imagination in an unconventional way. Compel[s]
us, in our mind's eye, to place [the novel's] events on the silver
screen in the shadow of a latter-day Hitchcock, and somehow it
works."
--Chicago Sun Times

"High melodrama and unexpected twists make this Teflon-coated
blockbuster business as usual in Woods's practiced hands."
--Publishers Weekly

"A high-concept action thriller."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Keeps you reading."
--Cosmopolitan

"A slick, often caustically funny tale."  --Los Angeles Times

"Stuart Woods is a wonderful storyteller who could teach Robert Ludlum
and Tom Clancy a thing or two."  
--The State (Columbia, SC.)

"Suspensful and surprising."  
--Atlanta Journal & Constitution

"Hollywood slick and fast-moving."  
--Los Angeles Daily News

"Will keep you riveted."
--USA Today

"At once chilling and pleasing.  And the climax makes New York Dead as
unnerving as a midnight stroll through Central Park."  
--Chicago Tribune


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Under the Lake

Deep Lie*

Run Before the Wind

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If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that
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This is a work of fiction.  The characters, incidents, and dialogues
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Copyright 1991 by Stuart Woods

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This book is for

Nick Taylor and Barbara Nevins, who are New York Alive

CHAPTER

- laine's, late.  The place had exhausted its second wind, and half the
customers had gone; otherwise she would not have given Stone Barrington
quite so good a table number4 along the wall to your right as you
enter.  Stone knew Elaine, had knbwn her for years, but he was not what
you would call a regular--not what Elaine would call a regular,
anyway.

He rested his left leg on a chair and unconsciously massaged the knee.
Elaine got down from her stool at the cash register, walked over, and
pulled up a chair.

"So?"

"Not bad," he said.

"How about the knee?"  Anybody who knew him knew about the knee; it had
received a .22-caliber bullet eleven weeks before.

"A lot better.  I walked up here from Turtle Bay."

STUART WOODS

"When's the physical?"  ,

"Next week.  I'll tap-dance through it.

"So what if you fall on your ass, tap dancing?"  Elaine knew how to get
to the point.

"So, then I'm a retiree."

"Best thing could happen to you."

"I can think of better things."

"Come on, Stone, you're too good looking to be a cop.

Too smart, too.  You went to law school, didn't you?"

"I never took the bar."

"So take the bar.  Make a buck."

"It's fifteen years since I graduated."

"So?  Take one of those cram courses."

"Maybe.  You're coming on kind of motherly, aren't you?"

"Somebody's gotta tell you this stuff."

"I appreciate the hought.  Who's the guy at the bar?"

To a cop's eye the man didn't fit in somehow.  He probably wouldn't fit
anywhere.  Male Caucasian, five-six, a hundred and seventy, thinning
brown hair, thick, black-rimmed glasses adhesive-taped in the middle.

"In the white coat?  Doc."

"That his name or his game?"

"Both.  He's at Lenox Hill, I think.  He's in here a lot,

late, trying to pick up girls."

"In a hospital jacket?"

"His technique is to diagnose them.  Weird, isn't it?"

Doc reached over to the girl next to him and peeled back her eyelid.
The girl recoiled.

Stone laughed out loud and finished the Wild Turkey.

"Bet it works.  What girl could resist a doctah?"

"Justabout all of them is my guess.  I've never seen him leave with
anybody."

Stone signaled a waiter for the check am put some cash on the table.

NEW YORK DEAD

"Have one on me," Elaine said.

"Rain check.  I've had one too many already."  He stood up and pecked
her on the cheek.

"Don't be such a stranger."

"If I don't pass the physical, I'll be in here all the time.  You'll
have to throw me out."

"My pleasure.  Take care."

Stone glanced at Doc on the way out.  He was taking the girl's pulse.
She was looking at him as if he were nuts."

Stone was a little drunk--too drunk to drive, he reckoned, if he had
owned a car.  The night air was pleasant, still warm for September.  He
looked up Second Avenue to see a dozen cabs bearing dowI on him from
uptown.  Elaine's was the best cab spot'in towS' he could never figure
out where they were all coming from.  Harlem?  Cabdrivers wouldn't take
anybody to Harlem, n if they could help it.  He turned away from them;
he'd walk, give the knee another workout.  The bourbon had loosened it
up.

He crossed Eighty-eighth and started downtown, sticking to the west
side of the street.  He lengthened his stride, made a conscious effort
not to limp.  He rem em ..beed walking this beat, right out of the
academy; that was when he had started drinking at Elaine's, when he was
a rookie in the 19th Precinct, on his way home after walking his tour.
He walked it now.

A cop doesn't walk down the street like anybody else, he reflected.
Automatically, he checked every doorway as he swung down Second Avenue,
ignoring the pain, leaning on the bourbon.  He had to prevent himself
from trying the locks.  Across the street, half a dozen guys spilled
out of a yuppie bar, two of them mouthing off at each other, the others
watching.  Ten years ago, he'd have broken it up.  He would have now,
but it didn't look like it would last long.

The two guys turned away from each other, hurling insults.  Neither was
willing to throw the first punch.  At Eighty-sixth Street, two hookers
were working the traffic.  He'd have ignored them on his beat; he
ignored them now.  He remembered when Eighty-sixth was Germantown, when
the smell of sauerbraten wafted from every third doorway.  Somewhere
along here there had been a place called the Gay Vienna that served
kalbshaxe--a veal shank that looked like a gigantic drumstick.  The
place had had a zither player, the only one he'd ever heard.  He'd
liked it.  He'd lived over on Eighty-third, between York and East End,
had had a Hungarian landlady who made him goulash.  She'd put weight on
him, too much weight, and it had stuck.  He'd lost it now, five weeks
on hospital food.  He was down to a hundred and eighty, and, at
six-two, he looked slender.  He vowed not to gain it back.  He couldn't
afford the alterations.  Stone rubbed his 'neck.  An hour in one of
Elaine's hard, armless chairs, leaning on the table, always made his
neck and shoulders tight.  About Seventieth Street, he started to limp
a little, in spite of himself.  In the mi Sixties he forgot all about
the knee.  It was just luck.  He was rolling his head around, trying to
loosen the neck muscles, and he happened to be looking up when he saw
her.  She was free-falling, spreadeagled like a sky diver.  Only she
didn't have a parachute.  Con Edison was digging a big hole twenty
yards ahead, and they had a generator going, so he could barely hear
the scream.  Time slowed down; he considered whether it was some sort
of stunt and rejected the notion.  He thought she would go into the Con
Ed hole, but she didn't; instead, she met the earth, literally, on the
big pile of dirt the workmen had thrown up.  She didn't bounce.  She
stuck to the ound as if she had fallen into glue.  Stone started to
run.  A Con Ed man in a yellow hard hat jumped backward as if he'd been
shot gunned  Stone could see the terrified expression on his face as he
approached.  The man recovered before Stone got there, reached down,
and gingerly turned the woman onto her back.  Her eyes were open.

Stone knew her.  There was black dirt on her face, and her red hair was
wild, but he knew her.  Shit, the whole city knew her.  More than half
the population--all the men and some of the women--wanted to fuck her.
He slowed just long enough to glance at her and shout at the Con Ed
man.  "Call an ambulance!  Do what you can for her!"  He glanced up at
the building.  Flush windows, none open; a terrace up top.

He sprinted past the scene, turned the Corner of the white-brick, 1960s
apartment building, and ran' into the lobby.  An elderly, tmifrmed
doorman was sound asleep in a chair, tilted back against the wall.

"Hey?  Stone shouted, and the man was wide awake and on his feet.  The
move looked practiced.  Stone shoved his badge in the old man's face.
"Police!  What apartment has a terrace on the Second Avenue side?"

"12-A, the penthouse," the doorman said.  "Miss Nijinsky."

"you got a key?  ..... "Yeah."  "Let's go!"

The doorman retrieved a key from a drawer, and Stone hustled him toward
the elevators.  One stood open and waiting; the doorman pushed
twelve.

"What's the matter?"  the man asked.

"Miss Nijinsky just took a dive.  She's lying in a pile of dirt on
Second Avenue."

"Jesus God."

"She's being introduced to him right now."

It was a short building, and the elevator was slow.  Stone watched the
floor numbers light up and tried to control his breathing.  When they
hit eleven, he pulled out his gun.  As the elevator slowed to a stop on
twelve, he heard something, and he knew what it was.  The fire door on
twelve had been yanked open so hard it had struck the wall.  This noise
was followed by the sound of somebody taking the steel steps of the
fire stairs in a hurry.  The elevator door started to open, and Stone
helped it.

"Stay here, and don't open the apartment door!"  he said to the
doorman.

The fire door was opposite the elevator; he yanked it open.  From a
floor below, the ring of shoe leather on steel drifted upward.  Stone
flung himself down the stairs.

The guy only had a floor's start on him; Stone had a chance.  He
started taking the steps two at a time.  "Stop!  Police?  he shouted.
That was procedure, and, if anybody was listening, he wanted it heard.
He shouted it again.

As he descended', Stone got into a rhythm--bump de bump, bump de bump.
He concentrated on keeping his footing.  He left the eighth floor
behind, then the sixth.

From the sound of it, he was gaining.  Aiming carefully, he started
taking the steps three at a time.  Whoever was below him was hitting
every one.  Now Stone was barely a flight of stairs behind him.  At the
third-floor level he caught sight of a shadow.  The ringing of the
steel steps built to a crescendo, echoing off the cinder-block walls of
the staircase, sounding much like a modern composition a gift had once
dragged him to hear.

The knee was hurting badly now, and Stone tried to think ahead.  If the
man got out of the stairwell before he could be caught, then he'd have
the advantage on level ground, because Stone wouldn't be able to run
him down before the knee went.  Stone made a decision; he'd go for a
flight at a time.

On the next landing, he took a deep breath and leaped.  He landed
tight, pushed off the wall, and prepared to jump again.  One more leap
down the stairs, and he'd have his quarry in sight.  This time, as he
jumped, something went wrong.  His toe caught the stamped tread of the
steel step--not much, just enough to turn him in midair--and he knew he
would land wrong.  When he did, his weight was on the bad knee, and he
screamed.  Completely out of control now, he struck the wall hard,
bounced, and fell backward down the next flight of stairs.

AS he came to rest hard against the wall, he struggled to get a lo.  ok
down the stairs, but he heard the ground-floor door open, and, a moment
later, he heard it slam.  He hunched up in the fetal position, holding
the knee with both hands, waiting for the pain to subside just enough
to allow him to get to his feet.  Half a minute passed before he could
let go of the knee, grab the railing, and hoist himself up.  He
recovered his pisl, and, barely letting his left foot touch the floor,
lurched into the lobby.  The guy was gone, and there was no hope of
catching him now.  Sweating, he hammered the elevator button with his
fist.

He pressed his cheek against the cool stainless steel of the elevator
door, whimpering with pain and anger and sucking in deep breaths.

The bust of the century, anti he hid blown it,.

CHAPTER

here were only two apartments on the twelfth floor, and the doorman was
standing obediently in front of t2-A.  The door was open.

"I told you not to open it," Stone said irritably.

"I didn't," the old man said indignantly.  "It was wide open.  I didn't
go in there, either."

"Okay, okay.  You go on back downstairs.  There'll be a lot of cops
here in a few minutes; you tell them where I am."  "essir," the doorman
said and headed for the elevator.  "Wait a minute," Stone said, still
catching his breath.  "Did anybody come into the building the last half
hour?  Anybody at all?"

"Nope.  I wake up when people come in.  I always do," the old man said
defensively.

Sure.  "What time did Miss Nijinsky come home 'tonight?"

"About nine o'clock.  She asked for her mail, but there wasn't any.  It
had already been forwarded to the new address."

"She was moving?"

"Tomorrow."

'qNhat sort of mood was she in?"  Stone asked.  "Tired, I'd say.  Maybe
depressed.  She was usually pretty cheerful, had a few words to say to
me, but not tonight.  She just asked for her mail, and, when I told her
there wasn't she just sighed like this."  He sighed heavily.  "And she
went straight into the elevator."  "Does she normally get many visitors
in the building?"  "Hardly any.  As a matter of fact, in the two years
she's here, I don't remember a single one, except delivery-men--you
know, frotp the department stores and UPS and

'qlanks," Stone said.  "You go on back to your post, and we'll probably
have more to ask you later."  Stone stepped into the apartment.  He
reached high to avoid messing up any prints on the door and pushed it
nearly shut.  A single lamp on a mahogany drum table illuminated the
living room.  The place was not arranged for living.  The cheap parquet
floor was bare of carpets; there were no curtains or pictures; at least
two dozen cardboard cartons were scattered or stacked around the room. 
A phone was on the table with the lamp.  Stone picked it up with two
fingers, dialed a number, waited for a beep, then, reading off the
phone, punched in Nijinsky's number and hung up.  He picked his way
among the boxes and entered the kitchen.  More packed boxes.  He found
the small bedroom; the bed was still made.  Some penthouse.  It was a
mean, cramped, three-andahalf-room apartment, and she was probably
paying twenty-five hundred a month.  These buildings had been thrown up
in a hurry during the sixties, to beat a zoning restriction that would
require builders to offset apartment houses, using less of the land. If
they got the buildings up in time, they could build right to the
sidewalk.  There were dozens of them up and down the East Side.

The phone rang.  He got it before it rang a second time.  "Yes?"

'l'his is Bacchetti."

"Dino, it's Stone.  Where are you?"

"A joint called Columbus, on the West Side.  What's up?"  "Hot stuff."
Stone gave him the address.  "Ditch the girl and get over here fast.
Apartment 12-A I'll wait five minutes before I call the precinct."

"I'm already there."  Bacchetti hung up.

Stone hung up and looked around.  The sliding doors to the terrace were
open, and he could hear the whoop-whoop of an ambulance growing nearer.
There was an armchair next to the table with thePlamp and the phone,
and next to it a packed carton with a dozen sealed envelopes on top.
Stone picked up a printed card from a stack next to the envelopes.

Effective immediately,

Sasha Nijinsky is at

1011 Fifth Ave.

New York 10021.

Burn this.

The lady was moving up in the world.  But, then, everybody knew that.
Stone put the card in his pocket.  The ambulance pulled to a halt
downstairs, and, immediately, a siren could be heard.  Not big enough
for a fire truck, Stone thought, more like an old-fashioned police
siren, the kind they used before the electronic noisemaker was
invented.

He walked out onto the terrace, which was long but narrow, and looked
over the chest-high wall.  Sasha Nijinsky had not fallen--she had
either jumped or been muscled over.  Down below, two vehicles with
flashing lights had pulled up to the scene--an ambulance and a van with
scoop VIDEO painted on the top.  As he watched, another vehicle pulled
up, and a man in a white coat got out.

Stone went back into the apartment, found a switch, and flooded the
room with overhead light.  He looked at his watch.  Two more minutes
before this got official.  Two objects were on the drum table besides
the lamp and the phone.  He unzipped her purse and emptied it onto the
table.  The usual female rubbishwmakeup of all sorts, keys, a small
address book, safety pins, pencils, credit cards held together with a
rubber band, and a thick wad of money, held with a large gold paper
clip.  He counted it: twelve hundred and eleven dollars, including half
a dozen hundreds.  The lady didn't travel light.  He ooked closely at
the gold paper clip.  Cartier.

Stone turned to the other object: a red-leather book with the word
DIARY stamped in gold.  He went straight to the last page, today's
date.

Hassle, hassle, hassle.  The moving men are giving me a hard time.  The
paparazzt'have been on my.  ass all day.  The painters haven't finished
in the new apartment.  My limo caught on fire on East 52nd Street this
afternoon, and I had to hoof it to the network through hordes of
autograph-seekers.  And the goddamned fucking contracts are still not
ready.  For this I have a business manager, a lawyer, and an agent?
Also, I haven't got the change-of-address cards done, and the ace
researchers don't have notes for me yet on the, Bush interview, and
What's-his-name just called and wants to come over here right now!  I
am coming apart at the seams, I swear I am.  As soon as he leaves, I'm
going to get into a hot tub with a gigantic brandy and open a

SrUAR?  WOODS

vein.  I swear to God it' just not worth it, any of it.  On Monday, I
have to smile into a camera and be serious, knowledgeable, and
authoritative, when all I want to do with my life is to go skydiving
without a parachute.  Fuck the job, fuck the fame, fuck the money! 
Fuck everybody!!!

Skydiving without a parachute: his very thought, what, ten minutes ago?
He gingerly picked up the phone again and dialed.  "Homicide," a bored
voice said.  "It's Barrington.  Who's the senior man?"  "Leary.  How's
the soft life, Barrington?"  "Let me speak to him."  "He's in the can. 
I just saw him go in there with a Hustler, so he'll be awhile."  'l'ell
him I've stufiabled onto a possible homicide.  Lady took a twelve-story
dive.  I'm in her apartment now."  He gave the address.  "An ambulance
is already here, but we'll need a team to work the scene.  Rumble
whoever's on call.  Bacchetti and I will take the case."  "But you're
on limited duty."  "Not anymore.  Tell Leary to get moving."  "I'll
tell him when he comes out."  "I wouldn't wait."  He hung up.  He had
not mentioned the victim's name; that would get them here in too much
of a hurry.  He heard the elevator doors open.  "Stone?"  Bacchetti
called from outside the door.  "It's open.  Careful about prints." 
Dino Bacchetti entered the room as he might a fashionable restaurant. 
He was dressed to kill, in a silk Italian suit with what Stone liked to
think of as melting lapels.  "So?"  he asked, looking around, trying to
sound bored.  "Sasha Nijinsky went that away Stone said, pointing to
the terrace.

"No shit?"  Dino said, no longer bored.  'hat explains the crowd on the
sidewalk."  "Yeah.  I was passing, on my way home."  Dino walked over
and clapped his hands onto Stone's cheeks.  "I got the luckiest partner
on the force," he said, beam Stone ducked before Dino could kiss him.
"Not so lucky.  I chased the probable perp down the stairs and blew it
on the last landing.  He walked."  "A right-away bust would have been
too good to be true," Dino said.  "Now we get to track the fucker down.
much better."  He rubbed his hands together.  "Whatta re got here?"
"She was moving to a new apartment tomorrow," Stone said.  He beckoned
Dino to, the table and opened the diary with

"Not in the best of moods, was she?"  Dino said, reading.  "Skydiving
without a parachute.  The papers are going to love that."  "Yeah,
they're going to love the whole thing."  Dino looked up.  "Maybe she
jumped," he said.  "Who's to say she was pushed?"  "Then who went
pounding down the stairs at the moment I arrived on the scene?"  Stone
asked.  'ac moving

"No sign of a struggle," Dino observed.  "In a room full of cardboard
boxes, who can say?"  "No glasses out for a guest, if What's-his-name
did show."  :. "The liquor's packed, like everything else.  I've had a
look around, I didn't see any.  She didn't sound in any mood to offer
him a drink, anyway."  Stone sighed.  "Come on, let's go over the place
before the Keystone Kops get here."  "Yeah, Leary's got the watch,"
Dino said.  The two men combed the apartment from one end to the other.
Stone used a penlight to search the corners of the terrace.

"Nothing," Dino said, when they were through.

"Maybe everything," Stone said.  "We've got the diary, her address
book, and a stack of change-of-address cards, already addressed.  Those
are the important people, I reckon.  I'll bet the perp is in that
stack."  He took out his notebook and began jotting down names and
addresses.  Apart from the department stores and credit card companies,
there were fewer than a dozen.  Had she had so few friends, or had she
just not gotten through the list before she died?  He looked over the
names: alphabetical.  She had made it through the

They heard the elevator doors open, and two detectives walked in,
followed by a one-man video crew.  He was small, skinny, and he looked
overburdened by the camera, battery belt, sound pack, and glaring
lights.

"You, out," Dinoaid.  'qhis is a crime scene."

"Why do you think I'm here?"  the cameraman said.  He produced a press
card.  "Scoop Berman," he said.  "Scoop Video."

'q'he man said this is a crime scene, Scoop," Stone said, propelling
the little man toward the door.

"Hey, what crime?"  Scoop said, digging in his heels.  "Possible
homicide," Stone replied, still pushing.  "There's no homicide," Scoop
said.  "Yeah?  How do you know?"  "Because she ain't dead," Scoop
said.

Stone stopped pushing.  "What are you talking about?  She fell twelve
stories."

"Hang on a minute, guys," Scoop said.  He rewound the tape in his
camera and flipped down a tiny viewing screen.  "Watch this," he
said.

Stone and Dino elbowed the other two cops out of the way and focused on
the screen.  An image came up; the camera was running toward the Con Ed
site downstairs.  It pushed past an ambulance man and zoomed in on the
form of Sasha Niiinsky.  She was wearing a nightgown under a silk robe.
"Easy, now, lady," someone was saying on the soundtrack.  "Don't try to
move; let us do the moving."  A white-clad back filled the screen, and
the camera moved to one side, then zoomed in tight on her face.  She
twice, and her lips moved.  "Okay, here we go," the voice said, and the
ambulance her onto a stretcher.  The camera followed as they stretcher
into the back of the ambulance.  One man in with her and pulled the
door shut.  The ambulance 'drove away, its lights flashing and its
whooper sounding.  "I had to make a choice then," Scoop said.  "I
called in the inddent, and then I went for the apartment."  "It's
impossible," Dincvsmd.  '"you saw her move, saw her blink," Scoop said.
"Holy shit," Dino said.  "Okay," Stone said to the two cops.  "You
work the scene with the technical guys, and then knock on every door in
the I want to know if anybody saw anybody come into building after nine
o'clock tonight." He grabbed Dino's elbow.  "Let's get out of here."

CHAPTER

Stone hung up the car phone.  'qae company dispatcher says the wagon is
going to Lenox Hill Hospital, but the driver hasn't, radioed in to
confirm the delivery yet."

"Seventy-seventh and Park," Dino said, hanging a right.

Dino always drove as if he'd just stolen the car.  Being Italian didn't
hurt either.

The two had been partners for nearly four years when Stone had got his
knee shot up.  It hadn't even been their business, that call, but
everybody responded to "officer needs assistance."  The officer had
needed assistance half a minute before Stone and Dino arrived On the
scene; the officer was dead, and the man who had shot him was trying to
start his patrol car.  He'd fired one wild shot before Dino killed him,
and it had found its way unerringly to Stone's knee.  It had been
nothing but a run-of-the-mill domestic disturbance, until the moment
the officer had died and the bullet had changed Stone's life.

Dino had won an automatic commendation for killing a perp who had
killed a cop.  Stone had won four hours in surgery and an extremely
boring amount of physical therapy.  He rubbed the knee.  It didn't feel
so terrible now; maybe he hadn't screwed it up as badly as he had
thought.

They screeched to a halt at the emergency entrance to Lenox Hill, and
Stone limped into the building after Dino.

"You've got a woman named Nijinsky here," Dino said to the woman behind
the desk, flashing his badge.  "We need to see her now."

'4 didn't get her name, but she's in room number one,

first door on your right.  Dr.  Holmes is with her."

Dino led the way.

"I'd never have gUessed her name was Nijinsky," the woman said after
them,

They found the room and a resident taping a bandage to i a woman's
forehead.  The woman was black.  "Dr.  Holmes?"  Stone said.  The young
man turned.

Stone limped into the room.  "Yoa've got another a woman, here."

"Nope, this is it," Holmes said.  "An uncommonly slow night."

"You're sure?"  Stone asked, puzzled.

The doctor nodded at the black woman.  "The only customer we've had for
two hours," he replied.  He watched Stone shift his weight and wince.
"What's wrong with you?"

"I just banged my knee; no problem."  ,

"Let's have a look."

"Yeah," said Dino, "let's have a look."

Stone pulled up his trouser leg.

Dino whistled.  "Oh, that looks great, Stone."

"Tell me about it," the doctor said.

Stone gave him an abbreviated history.

The doctor went to a refrigerator, came back with a flat ice pack, and
fastened it to Stone's knee with an Ace bandage.  Then he retrieved a
small box of pills from a shelf.  "Keep the ice on until you can't
stand it anymore, and take one of these pills now and every four hours
after that.  See your doctor in the morning."

"What are the pills?"  Stone asked.

"A non steroid anti inflammatory agent.  If you haven't completely
undone your surgery, the knee will feel better in the morning."

Stone thanked him, and they left.

"What now?"  Dino asked as they turned onto Lexington Avenue.

Stone was about to answer when they saw the flashing lights.  At
Seventy-fifth and Lexington there was a god-awful mess, lit by half a
dozen flashing lights.  "Pull over, Dino," he said.

Dino pulled over.  Stone got out and approached a uniformed officer. He
pointed at a mass of twisted metal.  "Was that smoking ruin once an
ambulance?"  he asked the cop.

"Yeah, and what used to be a fire truck hit it broadside."

He pointed at the truck, which was only moderately bent.  "Whatabout
the occupants?"

"On their way to Bellevue," the cop said.  "Seven from the fire truck,
two or three from the ambulance."  "Anybody left alive?"

"I just got here; you'll have to check Bellevue."  Stone thanked him
and got back into the car.  "Is that the same ambulance?"  Dino
asked.

"It's the same service."  Stone suck a flashing light on the dashboard.
"Stand on it, Fittipaldi."

Fangio stood on it.

The emergency room.  at Bellevue was usually a zoo, but this was
incredible.  People were lying on carts everywhere,

overflowing into the hallways, screaming, crying, while harried medical
personnel moved among them, expediting the more serious cases.

"What the hell happened?"  Dino asked a sweating nurse.

"Subway fire in the Twenty-third Street Station," she re plied, "not to
mention half a dozen firemen and a couple of ambulance drivers.  We
caught it all."

"l'here's nobody at the desk," Stone said.  "How can we find out if
somebody's been admitted?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," she said, wheeling a cart containing a
screaming wcgnan down the hallway.

Paperwork's out the windbw."

"Come on," Stone said, "let's start looking."

Fifteen minutes later, they hadn, t found her.  Dino was unwell.

"I gotta get outta here, Stone," he said, mopping his not cut out for
this blood-and-guts stuff."

'qNait a minute," Stone said, pointing across the room at a man on a
stretcher.  "A white coat."

They made their way across the room to the stretcher.

The man's eyes were closed, but he was conscious; he was holding a
bloody handful of gauze to an ear.

"Are you an ambulance driver?"  Stone asked.  "The one the fire truck
hit?"

The man nodded, then grimaced at the pain the motion

"What happened to your patient?"  Stone asked.

"I don't know," the man whimpered.  "My partner's " dead; I don't know
what happened to her."

Stone straightened up.  "Then she's got to be here," he said.

"But she's not," Dino replied.  "We've looked at every

1'9

human being, alive or 'dead, in this place.  She is definitely not
here."  They looked again, anyway, even though Dino wasn't very happy
about it.  Dino was right.  Sasha Nijinsky wasn't there.  "Downstairs,"
Stone said.  "Do we have to?"  "You sit this one out."  Stone walked
down to the basement and checked with the Bellevue morgue.  There had
been two admissions that evening, both of them from the subway fire,
both men.  Stone looked at them to be sure.  He trudged back up the
stairs and went to the main admissions desk.  "Have you admitted an
emergency patient, a woman, named Nijinsky?"  he asked.  "Probably a
private room."  "We don't have a private room available tonight," the
nurse said.  "In fact, we don't have bed.  If she came into the
emergency room, she's on a gurney in a hallway somewhere."  Stone
walked the halls on the way back to the ER, where he found Dino in
conversation with a pretty nurse.  "Say good night, Dino," Stone said. 
"Good night, Dino," Dino replied, doing a perfect Dick Martin.  The
nurse laughed.  "She's not here," Stone said.  "So, now what?"  "The
city morgue," Stone said.

Compared with Bellevue, the city morgue, just up the street, was an
island of serenity.  "Female Caucasian, name of Nijinsky," Dino told
the night man.  "You got one of those?"  The man consulted a logbook.
"Nope."  "You got a Caucasian Jane Doe?"

"I got three of them," the man replied.  He pointed.  "They're still on
tables."

Stone walked into the large autopsy room, the sound of his heels
echoing off the tile walls.  "Let's look," he said.  The first was at
least seventy and very dirty.  "Bag lady," the attendant said.

The second was no older than fifteen, wearing a black leather micro
skirt

"Times Square hooker, picked up the wrong trick."  "Let's see the
third," Stone said.

The third fit Sasha Nijinsky's general description, down to the hair
color, but she had taken a shotgun in the chest.  "Domestic violence,"
the attendant said smugly.

Stone couldn't tell if the man was for it or against it.  "It's he
said.

"Don't talk like that," Dino3ahispered.  "It's not her."

"It is not she," Stone said again.  He produced a card and wrote his
home number on the back then handed it to the attendant.  "This is
extremely important," he said.  "If you get a

, in here, or a white Jane Doe in her thirties, call me.  And pass that
on to whoever relieves you.  If someone overlooks her, heads will
ricochet off these walls for days to come.

"I got ya," the man said, and he stapled Stone's card to his logbook.
'aey won't miss it here."

In the car, Dino, who was usually the most cheerful of souls, sighed
deeply.  "I got a feeling," he said.  : "Oh, God, don't get a feeling,"
Stone whimpered.  "Don't

Italian on me."

"I got a very serious feeling that this one is going to be i
nightmare," Dino said.  : Thanks, Dino.  I needed that."

"And, Stone," Dino added, "never say, "It's not she' to some guy at the
morgue.  He'll think you're a jerk."

CHAPTER

When Stone and Dino got to the precinct, the two detectives who had
been at the Nijinsky apartment were sitting at their desks, cataloging
evidence.  "So?"  one of them asked.  "Is she alive, or what?"  "Or
what," Dino said.  "So she croaked, then, or what?"  "Or what."  Stone
tugged at his partner's sleeve.  "Let's see Leary."  Lieutenant Leafy,
the squad's commanding officer, was in his tiny, glassed-in cubicle,
reading Sasha Nijinsky's diary.  He looked up and waved the two
detectives in.  "Well, it took a fuckin' celebrity swan dive to get you
back on the street, didn't it, Barrington?"  "I saw it happen," Stone
said.  "From the street."  He took Leary through everything that had
happened at the apartment.  "So, where's Nijinsky now?"  he asked.

"It's like this, I think," Stone said.  "The ambulance was her to Lenox
Hill when it got broadsided by a fire Another ambulance was called and
took the driver his partner to Bellevue.  The driver's alive, but
doesn't to Nijinsky.  The partner's dead."  "So, to ask my question
again, where's Nijinsky?"  'qNe don't know.  She wasn't at Bellevue. 
We looked at there."  'Not in the Bellevue emergency room," Leary said.
No.  Not anywhere at Bellevue.  We checked it out thor[ghly.  N,o,t at
the city morgue either.  They'll call me if she [Shws up.  Leary looked
bemused.  "What the fuck is goin' on tlhere?"  "Probably
homicide--attemlted homicide, if she's still

"Because of the guy you chased down the stairs?"  "Yes."  "Maybe he was
the pizza deliveryman, got there in time see her take the dive, then
ran."  "Maybe.  It feels like a homidde."  "And maybe a kidnapping,
too. If the lady fell twelve then her ambulance got whipped by a fire
truck. ck, fin't walking around out there somewhere, right?"  ' Dino
piped up. "If she's dead, is it a corpse napping a crime?"  Leary
tapped the diary with a stubby finger.  "You read

"Only the last page," Stone said.

"The last page was one of her better days.  This was a lady."

"She was about to become the only female news anchor

I would have thought she had it all."

"Anybody would think so.  But she sounds scared to me.

Maybe afraid she couldn't cut it."

"Maybe.  It's a natural enough reaction."  'qhe diary makes her sound
like a suicide."  "Maybe," Stone said.  "I don't think so."  "Okay,
here's what happened, maybe," Leary said.  "You get this big pileup on
Lex, and two ambulances respond.  You know how competitive they are.
One goes to Bellevue with the driver and the other guy, and the other
ambulance goes to some other hospital."  "I'hat's what I figured," Dino
said.  "Run it down," Leary replied.  He handed the diary to Stone.
"Read that and tell me she didn't try to knock herself off."

Stone and Dino spent the rest of the night calling every hospital in
Manhattan and reading Sasha Nijinsky's diary.  When the day shift cam
on, Lieutenant Leafy called a meeting and brought the new group up to
date.  "Okay, now you know everything we know," he said to the four
assembled teams.  'qlae press knows about the dive, because guy Scoop
What'shis-name?--" "Berman," Stone said.  "--Berman shows up and gets
his tape.  They don't seem to know that the lady hasn't been seen
since, and I want to keep it that way as long as possible.  This is
Barrington and Bacchetti's case, reporting directly to me.  Barrington,
Bacchetti, go sleep.  I don't want you back here before noon.  The rest
of you, check on every private clinic, every doctor's office in the
five boroughs, if you have to.  Check Jersey and Westchester, too.  On
Long Island, just check the fancy private clinics.  I want this woman
found this morning, dead or alive.  When you find her, Stone and
Bacchetti get the interview, unless it's deathbed stuff.  Nobody, but
nobody says a word to the press except me, for the moment.  I don't
have to tell you what this celebrity shit is like.  The mayor'll be on
the phone soon as he wakes up, and he'll want to know.  I'll ask him us
a few hours to find the woman."  As the detectives shuffled out, Leafy
called Stone and back.  "Barrington, I'm assuming you're up to this.
still on limited duty, officially."  "I'm up to it, Lieutenant."  "I
mean it about the sleep," Leary said.  '(You grab four five hours. 
This one ain't likely to be over today, and I shape to fuckin' handle
it." "Yes sir," they replied in unison.

Stone limped up the stairs of the Turtle Bay brownstone, Inet by the
combined scent of decay and fresh wood sna No messages on the '"amwerin
machine in the down

flag hallway Too tired and sore to take the stairs, he.  took

Bh' elevator ;' the third floor.  It creakeit a lot, but it made it.

"' His bedroom looked ridiculous.  An ordinary double

IRood against a wall, with only a television set, an exercise machine,
an old chest of.  drawers,?nd.a cr to hyl.p fill the enormous room. He
switched on the television ano starreo images.  "

"Television journalist Sasha Nijinsky last night fell from the terrace
of her twelfth-floor East Side penthouse.  An offiiduty police
detective who was at the scene gave chase to me one who had apparently
been in Ms. Nijinsky's apartment, but was, himself, injured and lost
the possible perpetrator.  Astonishingly, Ms.  Nijinsky may have
survived the

She was ken to a hospital, and we have.  had no further word on her
condition.  We 11 keep you posteo as news cones " il "v"{'re messin
about the Manhattan hospital, sport,

'ii!"  Stone said to the new caster, q'hat was my guess, too.

"I::

He stripped off his clothes and stretched out on the bed,

switching the channel to The Morning Show.  "Sasha Nijinsky has done
just about everything in broadcast journalism, and she's done it fast,"
a pleasant young man was saying.  They cut to a montage of shots from
Nijinsky's career, and he continued, voiceover.  "Daughter of the
Russian novelist Georgi Nijinsky, who was expelled from the Soviet
Union more than twenty-five years ago, Sasha was six years old when she
came to this country with her parents.  She already spoke fluent
English."  There were shots of a bearded man descending from an
airplane, a surprised-looking little girl in his arms.  "Sasha
distinguished herself as an actress at Yale, but not as a student.
Then, on graduation, instead of pursuing a career in the theater, as
expected, she took a job as a reporter on a New Haven station.  Four
years later, she came to New York and earned a reputation as an ace
reporter on the Continental Network affiliate.  She spent another three
years here, on The Morning Show, where she honed her interviewing
skills, then she was sent to Moscow as the network's correspondent in
the Soviet Union for a year, before being expelled in the midst of spy
charges that she has always maintained were fabricated.  "On returning
to this country, she further enhanced her growing reputation, covering
both national political conventions before the last election.  Then her
Sunday morning interview show, Newsmakers, pitted her against the
nation's top political figures.  She proved to be as tough as ever in
those interviews, and it was said in Washington that nobody wanted to
go on her show, but everyone was afraid not to.  "Earlier this month,
the industry was not surprised when it was announced that Sasha
Nijinsky would join anchorman Barron Harkness as co-anchor on the
network's evening news, which, although still the leading network
newscast, had recently slipped in the ratings.  Harkness, an old
colleague of Sasha's on The Morning Show, could not be reached for
comment, as he is not due back until today from assignment in the
Middle East."

Stone switched off the set.  Make a note to talk to, Harkness, he told
himself, then he put the case from his mind.  He thought, as he always
did when he wanted to clear his head, about the house and his plans for
it.  It was in terrible condition.

He turned his thoughts to plumbing fixtures.  In minutes, he was
asleep.

CHAPTER

Stone arrived at the station house at one o'clock sharp.  The squad
room was abuzz with detectives on the phone.  He raised his eyebrows at
one, and the man gave a huge shrug.  A moment later, he hung up.

"Gather round," Stone said to the group.  "Any luck?"  he asked when
they had assembled.

"Zilch.  She's nowhere," a detective said.

"How many more places to check?"  Stone asked.

"Not many."

"Add all the funeral parlors in the city to your list," Stone said.
"Start with the ones in Manhattan.  What else we got?"

"We got a suspect," Detective Gonzales said.  He referred to a sheet of
paper.  "One Marvin Herbert Van Fleet, male Caucasian, forty-one, of a
SoHo address."

"What makes him a suspect?"  Stone asked.

"He's written Sasha Nijinsky over a thousand letters the past two
years."  Gonzales held up a stack of paper.

Stone took the letters and began to go through them.  "I

want you all to myself," he quoted.  "Come and live with me.  I've got
a nice place You and my mother will get along great."  He looked up.
'q'his is pretty bland stuff.  Not even anything obscene.  He doesn't
so much as want to sniff her underwear."

"Nijinsky wanted him arrested, but apparently he didn't do anything
illegal.  She finally got a civil court order, pre venting him from
contacting her."

"What else have we got on him?"

"Interesting background," Gonzales said.  "He went to

Cornell Medical Shool, graduated and all, but never completed his
interns his '.

'vYhere?"

"At Physidans and Surgeons Hospital."

"P

3' ritzy.  Why didn't he.  finish "File says he was dropped from the
program as 'unsuited for a medical career."  There have been some
complaints about him posing as a doctor, but since he apparently never
actually treated anybody, there was nothing we could do.  He worked at
the Museum of Natural I-Iistorfor a while:" 'vVlat's he do now?"

"He's an embalmer at Van Fleet Funeral Parlor."

Stone felt a little chill.  "Pick him up for questioning."

"Here's a photograph."  Stone looked at the picture of Marvin Herbert
Van Fleet.  "Hang on, this guy's got an alibi."  "How do you know that?
We haven't asked him yet."  "Because I saw him at the bar at Elaine's
twenty minutes before Nijinsky fell."  There was a brief silence.
"Twenty minutes is a long time," Gonzales said.  "You're right," Stone
agreed.

"I

left and walked down Second Avenue.  He could have taken a cab and
gotten there before I did.  Pick him up.  No, give me that address.
Dino and I will talk to him."

Dino arrived, waving a magazine.  He tossed it onto Stone's desk.  "I
had to wrestle two women for his," he said.  "It just hit the
newsstands this morning, and this must be the last copy in the city."

Stone picked it up.  The new issue of Vanity Fair, and Sasha Nijinsky
was on the cover.  SASH!  I HI RAM B.RKER, WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANNIE
LE1BOVITZ, a headline read.  Stone laughed.  "Now, that's timing.  You
read it yet?"

"Not yet," Dino said.  "Be my guest."

The tone of the piece reeled back and forth between sycophancy and
bitchiness.  Nijinsky's career was recapped briefly, but a lot of space
was devoted to her social and sex lives..  All the unflattering stuff
came from unnamed sources, including a report of a secret affair
between Nijinsky and her old colleague on The Morning Show, and new
co-anchor on the evening news, Barron Harkness.  "l'hey were never seen
together in public," the source said, "and a lot of the staff thought
they were screwing in her dressing room.  She would never go into
his."

Stone finished the piece and added Hiram Barker to his list of
interviewees.  He picked up the phone, dialed the Continental Network,
and asked for Barron Harkness.

"Mr.  Harkness's office," an interesting female voice said.  "This is
Detective Stone Barrington of the Homicide Division, New York City
Police Department," he said.  "I'd like to speak with Mr.  Harkness."

"I'm afraid Mr.  Harkness is on an airplane somewhere over the
Atlantic," the woman said.  "This is Cary Hilliard, his assistant.  May
I help you?"

Stone remembered the television report that the anchor-roan' had been
on assignment in the Middle East.  "I want to speak to Mr.  Harkness
regarding the ... (What was it?  Not a homicide--not yet, anyway.) "
about Sasha Nijinsky.  Can you tell me what time his plane is due in?"
"He won't be in the office before about five thirty," the woman said.
"And he'll be going on the air at seven o'clock, on the evening news."
....... '-e to know the air Stone liked the woman's voice.  a u, line
and flight number, please.  It's important."

The woman hesitated.  "What was your name again,

please?"

"Detective Stone Barrington.  I'm in charge of the

Nijinsky case."

"Of course.  He's due in on an Alitalia flight from Rome at four
twenty, but he'll be met and helicoptered, in.  You'd do better to see
him here.  I know he'll want to talk to you.  He's very fond of
Sasha."

"At what time?

"It'll be hell from the moment he arrives until the news cast is over.
Come at a quarter to seven, and ask for me.  I'll take you up to the
con.tr" room, and you can talk to Barton as soon as he's off the

"Six forty-five.  111 see you the .

"Oh, we're not in the Continental Network building.

We're at the Broadcast Center, at Pier Blineteen, ak the west end of
Houston Street."

I'll see you at six forty-five."  Stone hung up.  He really liked her
voice.  She was probably a dog, though.  He'd made the voice mistake
before.

Dino had turned on the television, and a doctor was being interviewed
on CNN about Nijinsky.

"Doctor, is it possible that Sasha Nijinsky could have survived her
fall from twelve stories?"  ' "Well," the doctor replied, "as we've
just seen on the videotape, she obviously survived, at least for a few
moments, but it is unlikely in the extreme that she could recover from
the sort of injuries she must have sustained in the fall.  I'd say it
was virtually impossible that she lived more than a minute or two after
striking the earth."

'q'hat still don't make it a homicide," Dino said.  "It's honucude,
Stone said.  "If she's dead."

"Whaddaya mean 'if she's dead'?"  Dino asked.  "Didn't you hear the
doctor, there?  She's a fuckin' pancake."

"Look," Stone said, "do you know what terminal velocity is?"

"Nope," Dino replied.  Nobody else did either.

"An object in a vacuum, when dropped from a height, will accelerate at
the rate of thirty-two feet per second, and continue accelerating--in a
vacuum.  But in an atmosphere, like the earth's, there will come a
point when air resistance becomes equal to acceleration, and, at that
point, the object will fall at a steady rate."

"But it'll keep falling," Dino said, puzzled.

"Sure, but it'll stop ac pounds lerating."  Stone had everyone's
undivided attention now.  "I read a piece in the Times a few weeks ago
about cats, and how cats have been known to fall from a great height
and survive.  There was one documented case where a cat fell twenty-six
stories, landed on concrete, and survived with only a couple of broken
bones."

"How the fuck could it survive a fall like that?"  a detective asked.

"Like this," Stone said.  He held out his hand, palm down.  "When a cat
starts to fall, he immediately orients himself feet first--you know
that cats will always land on their feet, right?"

"Right," the detective said.

"Not only does he get into a feet-first position, but he spread-eagles
into what's called the flying-squirrel position, like this."  He spread
his fingers.  "Flying squirrels don't fly, like birds, they glide,
because they have a membrane connecting their front and back legs, ,a,
nd, when they spread out, they're sort of like a furry Frisbee.

"But a cat ain't a flying squirrel," another detective said.  "No,"
Stone agreed, "and he can't glide like one.  But by presenting the
greatest possible area to the air resistance, a cat slows down his rate
of acceleration and, consequently, his terminal velocity."

"You mean he falls slow," Dino said.

"Compared to a human being, anyway.  A cat's terminal velocity is about
sixty miles an hour.  But a human being's terminal velocity is a
hundred and twenty miles an hour.  That's why a cat could survive a
fall from twenty-six stories, when no human could."

The group digested this for a moment.

"But Sasha Nijinsky ain't no cat," Dino said.

"No," Stone said, "she's not."  He looked up to see that Lieutenant
Leary had joined2 he group.  "But," he continued, "she fell from twelv
stories?  not twenty-six.  And not onto concrete, but into a large pile
of freshly dug earth.  And look at this."  He opened the Vanity pounds
Fair to its center spread and showed a photograph to the assembled
detectives.

The shot was of Sasha Nijinsky, and she seemed to be flying.  The earth
was thousands of feet below her, and she was wearing a jumpsuit and a
helmet and had an unopened parachute strapped to her back.  She was
grinning at the camera, exposing rows of large, wite teeth; her eyes
were wide behind goggles.

/

"$asha Nijinsky was sky diver," Stone said.  "An experienced one, too,
with more than a hundred jumps.  And that'--he thumped the photograph
with his forefinger--"was the position she was in when I saw her
falling.  Also, she was wearing a full-length nightgown and a bathrobe
when she fell, and she might have gotten some extra air resistance by
the ballooning out of those garments.  When she fell, she automatically
assumed the position she'd been trained to assume when free-falling.
And, by doing that, she slowed down her rate of acceleration and,

most important, her terminal velocity."  No.  one spoke for a long
time. Finally, Dino broke the rapt silence.  "Horseshit," he said. 
"Maybe not," Stone said.  "Let me tell you something, Stone--I read
that lady's diary, and I say she was suffering from too much fucking,
too much fuckin' ambition, and too much fuckin' fame, all of it too
fuckin' soon."  Dino closed the magazine and, with his finger, drew an
X over her face.  "That girl iumved race.  She ain't no cat, and she
ain't no t'yin sq';i;,?-' terI think somebody helped her," Stone said. 
"And she may still be alive."  Dino shook his head slowly.  "I'll tell
you what she is.  She's New York Dead."

CHAPTER

TVan Fleet Funeral Parlor had a Gramercy Park address, but it was
around the corner,

off the square.

"Italians know all about death," one said to Dino.

"What do you know about this place?"

Dino shrugged.  "It's not Italian, so what could I know?

The location tells us, don't it?  Good address, not so good location.
If you don't want to pay for a first-class funeral at

Frank Campbell's, where the glite meet to grieve, then you go to, like,
Van Fleet's.  It's cheaper, but it's got all the fuckin'

pretensions, you know?"  /

Dino parked in a loading zone and flipped down the sun visor to display
the car's ID.  They walked back half a block and entered the front
door, following a well-dressed couple.  They stopped in a vestibule
while the couple signed a visitors' book, presided over by a man in a
tailcoat.

"The Wilson party?"  the man asked Dino, in unctuous tones.  "The NYPD
party," Dino said, flashing his shield.  "Who runs the place?"  The man
flinched at the sight of the badge.  "That would be Mrs.  Van Fleet,"
he said.  "Please stay here, and I:ll get her.  Please remember there
are bereaved here."  "Yeah, yeah," Dino said.  "You don't like the
fellow?"  Stone said when the man had gone.  "I don't like the
business," Dino said.  "It's a creepy business, and people who do it
are creepy."  "Somebody's got to do it," Stone said.  "We'll do better
if you don't give them a hard time."  Dino nodded.  "You talk to the
creeps, then."  As they waited, Stone looked around.  In a large,
somewhat overdecorated sitting from to their left, two dozen people
talked quietly, while some gathered around an elderly woman who seemed
to be receiving the condolences.  He looked right and was surprised to
see a bedroom.  On the four-poster bed, under a lace coverlet, lay a
pretty woman in her late thirties.  Several people stood around the
bed, and one knelt at some sort of altar set at the foot.  It took
Stone a moment to realize that the woman on the bed was the guest of
honor.  She appeared to be sleeping.  the mA door opened at the end of
the hallway ahead of and a short, thin, severely dressed woman of about
sixty approached them.  She walked with her hands folded in front of
her; it would have been an odd posture anywhere but here.  "Yes?"  the
woman said, her face expressionless.  "Good afternoon," Stone said.  "I
am Detective Barrington, and this is Detective Bacchetti, New York City
Police.  I believe you have an employee here named Marvin Herbert Van
Fleet."

"He's not an employee," the woman said.  "He's a partner in the firm,
he's our chief.."  technical person, and he's my son."  Stone nodded.
"May we see him, please?"  "Now?"  "Please."  "I'm afraid he's busy at
the moment."  "We're busy, too," Dino said, apparently unable to
contain himself.  Stone shot him a sharp glance.  "I'm afraid we can't
wait for a more convenient time," he said to the woman.  "One moment,
please," Mrs.  Van Fleet said, not happy.  She walked down the hallway
a few paces, picked up a phone, dialed two digits, and spoke quietly
for a moment.  She hung up and motioned the detectives.  They followed
her dowa-the hallway.  She turned right through a door and walked
rapidly down another hall.  The decor changed to utilitarian. 
A,vaguely chemical scent hung in the air.  She stopped before a large,
metal swinging door and indicated with a nod that they were to enter. 
Then she brushed past them and left.  Stone pushed the door open and,
followed by Dino, entered a large room with a tile floor.  Before them.
were six autopsy tables, two of them occupied by bodies coveed with
sheets.  At the far end of the room, the body of a middle-aged woman
lay naked on another table.  A man stood with his back to her, facing a
counter built along the wall.  Memories of dissecting frogs in high
school biology swept over Stone; the smell of formaldehyde was
distinct.  "Marvin Van Fleet?"  Stone said.  A sharp, metallic sound
was followed by a hollow rattling noise.  The man turned around and
Stone saw a soft drink can on the tabletop.  "Herbert Van Fleet," the
man said.  "Please call me Doc.  Everybody does."

The man was not handsome, Stone thought, but his voice was--a rich
baritone, expressive, without any discernible accent.  A good bedside
voice.  The detectives walked briskly to the end of the room, their
heels echoing off the tile floor.  They stopped at the head of the
autopsy table.  Stone introduced himself and Dino.

"I've been expecting you," Van Fleet said.  He stepped over to the
naked body on the table and picked up the forceps that rested beside
the head.

"Oh?  Why is that?"  Stone replied.

"Well, of course I heard about Miss Nijinsky on television this
morning.  Given the nature of our relationship, I thought perhaps
someone would come to see me."  He produced a curved suturing needle
and damped it in the jaws of the forceps.

"Did you and Sasha Nijinsky have a relationship?"  Stone asked.

Van Fleet looked thoughtful for a moment.  "Why, yes, we did.  I was
her correspondent, although she seemed to think of me as an antagonist,
which I never intended myself to be.  She was my... He paused.  "She
was an object of interest to me, I suppose.  I greatly admired her
talents.  Do you know how she's doing?"  he asked, concernedly.  "She's
in the hospital, they said on television."

"We don't have any information on her condition," Stone said.  God knew
that was true.

Van Fleet nodded sadly.  He bent over the corpse, peeled back the lips
with rubber-gloved fingers, and inserted the needle in the inside of
the upper lip, passing it through the inside of the lower lip, then
pulled it tight.

Stone stopped asking questions and watched with a horrible fascination.
So did Dino.  Van Fleet continued to skillfully manipulate the forceps
and the needle, until the web of thread reached across the width of the
mouth.  Then he pulled the thread tight, and the mouth closed,
concealing the

stitching on the inside of the lips.  Van Fleet made a quick surgical
knot, snipped off the thread, and tucked the end out of sight at the
corner of the mouth.  "Shit," Dino said.  "Mr.  Van Fleet, could you
leave that until we're finished, please?"  Stone said.  "Can you
account for your whereabouts between two and three A.M. this morning?" 
"You can account for my whereabouts at two," Van Fleet said, smiling. 
"I was where you were."  "I remember," Stone said.  "At what time,
exactly, did you leave Elaine's?"  "A few minutes after you did," Van
Fleet said. "About two twenty, I'd say.  Maybethe bartender would
remember."  "Where did you go thetr?."  "I drove down Second Avenue,
and in the sixties I saw a sort of commotion.  It seemed that someone
had been hurt.  I have some medical skills, so I stopped to see if I
could help.  They were loading a stretcher into an ambulance.  I didn't
know it was Sasha until this morning, when I turned on The Morning
Show."  "Who else was at the scene'-when you stopped.  ?"  Stone asked.
"Fwo ambulance men, two or three Con Ed men, and a man with a telewson
camera.  'hat did you do then?"  :"I went home."  "What route did you
take?"  "I continued down Second Avenue all the way to Houston, then
turned right, then left on Garamond Street.  That's where I hv .  "Did
you see anyone you knew?" "At two thirty in the morning?"  "Anyone at
all.  Someone else in your building?"

"There is no one else in my building.  I live over a former glove
factory."

"We'd like to see your apartment.  May we go there now?"

"Why?"

"It would help us in our investigation.  If you had nothing to do with
what happened to Miss Nijinsky, then we'd like to be able to cross you
off our list of suspects."

"I'm a suspect?"  Van Fleet asked, surprised.  "What do you suspect me
of?."

"Well, we haven't established the cause of... what happened, yet."

"Was there a crime?"

"We haven't determined that yet."

"My impression from the news was that Sasha's fall was a suicide
attempt."

"That's certainly a possi6ility.  We treat any unknown cause of death
as homicide, until we know otherwise."

"Then.  you suspect me of a homicide you're not sure was committed?"

"As I said, Mr.  Van Fleet, everyone who had anything to do with her is
a suspect, until we know for sure what happened.  Do you object to our
seeing where you live?"

Van Fleet shrugged.  "Not really, but I think I should ask my lawyer
how he feels about it."

"That's your right."

"Unless you have a search warrant."  "We can get one if we feel it's
necessary."  "If a judge feels iris necessary, you mean."  "We can get
a search warrant."

"I watch a lot of police shows on television, you see.  I understand
these things."

"You object to our seeing your apartment, then?"

"No, I don't, not really.  However, I don't think you have a good
enough reason to ask.  If you do have a good enough

4O

reason, then you can get a search warrant, can't you?"  "It would
certainly make us feel better about you if we had your cooperation, Mr.
Van Fleet."  "Please don't misunderstand me, Detective Barrington, I'm
most anxious to help.  I greatly admire Sasha, and I would do an thing
I could to help you resolve what happened to be Bt I don't really see
how visiting my home would help you, and I think such a visit would be
an unwarranted invasion of my privacy.  Of course, a judge may feel
differently, and, if so, I'll be happy to cooperate."  "i see," Stone
said.  He was getting nowhere.  "Is there anything else I can do to
help you?"  "Not at the moment, Mr.  Van Fleet.  I expect we'll talk
again."

Van Fleet nodded.  "Any,time.  My pleasure.  But there's something I
think yoU'ghould Consider."

"What's that?"  "It's quite true that I have a Jxistory of what some
people would call annoying Sasha Nijinsky.  But I'm sure you can tell
from the letters I wrote her that I had only adrxiration for her, that,
certainly, I had no reason to cause her harm."

"We'll take that into consideration in our inquiry," Stone said.

""I

hope you will, Detective Barrington, because while I will help you in
any way I feel I reasonably can, I do not intend to have my privacy
unduly disturbed, nor do I wish to have my name splashed about in the
tabloids, nor my professional reputation besmirched."  "Well, we'll
leave you to your work, Mr.  Van Fleet."

"Call, if you think of anything else."

The front of the funeral parlor was deserted when they passed back
through.

"He's dirty," Dino said, when they were on the street again.  "I don't
know," Stone replied.  "He said pretty much what I'd have said in the
circumstances, if I were innocent."  "Maybe he's not dirty on Nijinsky,
but he's dirty on something," Dino said emphatically.  "He's a gold
miner, for a start."  "A what?"  "A gold miner.  You're so fucking
naive, Stone, you really are.  When we got there, he had just finished
pulling that corpse's gold teeth.  He put 'em in the Coke can.  Didn't
you hear it rattle?  Why do you think he was sewing her mouth shut? 
Doesn't want anybody poking around in there, that's why ."  "Jesus
Christ, Dino, how do you think of this stuff?"  "I got a suspicious
nature, didn't you know that?"  "I knew that."  "I think when this
Nijinsky thing is over, we want to take a closer look at fuckin' Doc
Van Fleet."  "Let's not wait until then," Stone said.  They reached the
car, and Dino looked at his watch.  "You still want me to meet Barron
Harkness's plane?  "Yeah. I wanted us to see Hiram Barker this
afternoon, but seeing if Harkness is on that airplane is more
important."  "You go on and see Barker, and I'll meet the plane."  "It
would be better if we both were there."  "Fuck procedure.  We got a lot
to do, right?  I'll meet you at the TV studio at six forty-five, and
we'll do Harkness together."  "Okay, you take the car, and I'll get a
cab."  As Dino drove away and Stone looked for a cab, he drew deep
breaths of fresh, polluted New York City air into his lungs.  From now
on he'd have different memories when he caught the scent of
formaldehyde.

CHAPTER

tone went to the Vanity

Fair offices in midtown and, after a phone call was made, he was given
Hiram Barker's address.  As he entered the lobby of United Nations
Plaza, he remembered a line about the apartment house from an old
movie: "If there is a god," character had said, "he probably lives in
this building."  After another phone call, the deskman sent him up to a
high floor.

"I can just imagine why you're here," Barker said as he opened the
door.

He was larger than Stone had expected, in both height and weight, a
little over six feet tall and broad at the middle.  The face was not
heavy but handsome, the hair sleek and gray, slicked straight back.

"I'm Hi Barker," he said, extending a fleshy hand.  He waved Stone into
a spacious, beautifully furnished living

room with a view looking south toward the United Nations.

Stone introduced himself.  He heard the tinkling of silver in the
background; he saw a woman enter the dining room and begin to set the
table.

"Can I get you something to drink?"  Barker asked solicitously.

Stone was thirsty.  "Perhaps some water."

"]canine, get the gentleman some Perrier," Barker said to the woman.

She left and returned with a heavy crystal glass, decorated with a
slice of lime.

"Sit you down," Barker said, waving at one end of a large sofa, while
flopping down at the other end, "and tell me what I can do for you." He
cocked his head expectantly.

"You can tell me where you were between two and three this morning,"
Stone said.

Barker clapped his hands together and threw his head back.  "I've been
waiting all my life for a cop to ask me that question!"  he crowed.

Stone smiled.  "I hope I won't have to wait that long for an answer."

"Dear me, no."  Barker chuckled.  '"i got home about one thirty from a
dinner at the de la Rentas', then went straight to bed.  The night man
downstairs can confirm that--ah, the time, not the bed part.  Security
is ironclad here, you know.  We've got Arabs, [sraelis, and Irish in
the building, and nobody, but nobody, gets in or out without being
seen." Stone didn't doubt it.  "Am I a suspect, then?"

"A suspect in what?"  Stone asked.

"Oh, God, now I've done it!  I'm not even supposed to know there s a
crime!"

"Is there?"

"Well, didn't somebody help poor Sasha out into the night?"

"I'd very much like to know that," Stone said, "and I'd like to know
why you think so."

"She wasn't the sort to take a flying leap," Barker said more
seriously.

"that's why I've come to see you, Mr.  Barker."

"Hi, please call-me Hi.  I'll be uncomfortable if you don't."

"Hi it is then."

"And why is it you've come to see me?"

"Because of your Vanity Fair piece.  I've read it, and it seemed
extremely well researched."

"That's a very astute observation," Barker said.  "Most people would
have thought it produced from gossip.  No, I spent a good six months on
that.  I was researching it even before Tina at the magazine knew I
vLanted to do it."

"And you talked with M'fss Nijins'ky at some length?"  'q did, a good
hours over three meetings."  "Did you make any tape recordingr'

'2 did, but when I finished the piece I returned the tapes to her, as
agreed."

"You didn't, perhaps, make a copy?"

Barker's eyes turned momentarily hard.  "No.  That's not the way it's
done."

"How well did you know her before you began research for the
article?"

'qfi/e had a cordial acquaintance.  We'd been to a few of the same
dinner parties.  That was before the piece.  By the time I finished it,
I think I knew her as well as anybody alive."

"You can do that in six hours of conversation?"

"If you've done six months of research beforehand, and if nobody else
knows the person at all."

"She had no close friends?"

"None in the sense that any normal person would call close."

"She hardly ever saw them after she left home to go to college.  I
think she was close to her father as a young girl, but she didn't speak
of him as a confidant, not in the least."  "Did she have any
confidants?"

"Not one, as far as I could tell.  I think by the time we had finished,
she thought of me as one."  Barker shook his head.  "But no, as well as
I got to know her, she never opened up to me.  I took my cues as much
from what she didn't say as what she said.  There was a sort of
invisible, one-way barrier between that young woman and the rest of the
world; everything passed through it to her, but very little passed
Out."

"Do you think she was a possible suicide?"

"Not for a moment.  Sasha was one tough cookie; she had goals, and she
was achieving them.  Christ, I mean, she was on the verge of the
biggest career any woman ever had in television news.  Bigger than
Barbara Walters.  That sort of person commits suicide only in trashy
novels."

"All right," Stone said, "let's assume murder."  Barker grinned.
"Let's."  "Who?"

Barker crossed his legs, clasped his hands behind his neck, and stared
out at the sweep of the East River.  "Two kinds of people might have
murdered Sasha Nijinsky," he said.  "First, people she hurt on the way
up--you know, the secretary she tyrannized, the people she displaced
when she got promotions--there was no shortage of those.  But you'd
have to be a raving lunatic to kill such a famous woman just for
revenge.  The chances are too good of getting caught and sent away."

'hat's the other kind of person?"  Stone asked.

Barker grinned again, still looking at the river.  "Whoever had the
most to lose from Sasha's future success," he said.

"That's an interesting notion," Stone said, and he meant it.  "Who did
you have in mind?"  "I'll tell you," Barker said, turning to face him,
"but if you ever quote me, I'll call you a liar."  Stone nodded. 
"It'll be just between us."  "Well," Barker said, drawing it out. 
"There's only one person in the world I can think of who would suffer
from Sasha Nijinsky's future success."  "Go on," Stone said.  "Her new
co-anchor, who else?  The estimable Mr.  Barron Harkness, prizewinning
television journalist, square jawed credible, terribly vulnerable
Barron Harkness."  "I take it you don't like Mr.  Harkness."  "Who
does, dear boy?  He lacks charm."  Barker said this as if it were the
ultimate crime.  "Sasha would have blown him out of the water in legs
th ana year.  His ratings had slipped badly, you know--after a winning
streak last year, he has slipped to a point or two behind Brokaw,
Jennings, and Rather, and he's still sinking.  He's already worked at
ABC and NBC, and neither would have him back; and I know for a fact
that Larry Tisch despises him, so that shuts him out of CBS.  Then here
comes Sashat hip ping him over at the anchor deslqloaded for bear.  A
power struggle began the day the first rumor hit the street about
Sasha's new job, an'd, if Harkness lost, where would he go?  He'd be
making solemn pronouncements on Public Radio, like Clan Schorr, and his
ego would never accept that.  No, sir, Barron Harkness is a man with a
motive." "I think I should tell you," Stone said, looking at his watch,
"that Barron Harkness got off an airplane from Rome just about an hour
ago." Barker's face fell.  "I'm extremely sorry to hear it," he said. 
"But," he said, brightening, "if I were you I'd make awfully sure he
was really on that plane."  "Don't worry," Stone said, "that's been
done. Tell me,

would it violate some.  journalistic ethic if you gave me a list of the
people you interviewed about Miss Nijinsky?"  Barker shook his head.
"No.  I'll do even better than that; I'll give you a paragraph on each
of them and my view as to the value of each as a suspect."  "I'd be
very grateful for that."  The writer turned sly.  "Ifll have to be a
trade, though."  "What do you want?"  "When you find out what's
happened to Sasha and who is responsible, I want a phone call before
the press conference is held."  Stone thought for a moment.  It wasn't
a bad trade, and he needed that list.  "All right, you're on."  "Ifil
take me a couple of hours."  "You have a fax machine?"  Barker looked
hurt.  "Of course."  Stone gave him a card.  "Shoot t to me there when
you're done."  He got up.  Barker rose with him.  "I'm having a few
friends in for dinner this evening, as you can see," he said, waving a
hand at the dining room.  "Would you like to join us?"  "Thanks," Stone
said, "but until I've solved the Nijinsky problem, there are no dinner
parties in the picture."  "I understand," Barker said, seeing him out. 
"Perhaps another time?"  "Fhank you," Stone said.  While he waited for
the elevator, he wondered why Hi Barker would ask a policeman to
dinner. Well, he thought, as he stepped from the elevator into the
lobby, if he solved this one, he would become a very famous policeman. 
As it turned out, he didn't have to wait that long.  A skinny young man
with half a dozen cameras draped about him was arguing with the doorman
when he turned and saw Stone.  "Right here, Detective Barrington," he
called, raising a camera.

The flash made Stone blink.  As he made his way from the building,
pursued by the snapping paparazzo, he felt a moment of sympathy for
someone like Sasha Nijinsky, who such trash.

CHAPTER

one ad almost an hour and a half to kill before his appointment with
Barron Harkness at the network.  Rush hour was running at full tilt,
and all vacant cabs were off duty, so he set off walking cross town. 
He reckoned his knee could use the exerdse anyway.  He was wrong.  By
the time he got to Fifth Avenue, he was limping.  He thought of going
home for an hour, but he was restless, and, even though he had another
interview to conduct, he wanted a drink.  He walked a couple of blocks
north to the Seagram Building and entered a basement door.  The Four
Seasons was a favorite of Stone's; he couldn't afford the dining rooms,
but he could manage the prices at the bar.  He climbed the stairs,
chose a stool at a corner of the big, square bar, and nodded at the
bartender.  He came in often enough to know the man and to be known,
but not by name.

"Evening, Detective," the bartender said, sliding a coaster in front of
him.  "What'll it be?"  "Wild Turkey on the rocks, and how'd you know
that?"  The man reached under the bar and shoved a New York Post in
front of Stone.  - The photograph was an old one, taken at a press
conference a couple of years before.  They had cropped out Stone's face
and blown it up.  DETECTIVE SEES SASHA'S FALL, the headline said. Stone
scanned the article; somebody at the precinct to a reporter.  "So,
what's the story?"  the bartender asked, pouring over ice.  He made it
adouble without being asked.  "What's your name?"  "torn."  "When I
find out, Torn, you, ll be long the first to know.  I'll be here
celebrating."  The bartender nodded and moved down the bar to help a
new customer, a small, very pretty blonde girl in a business suit.  The
bar wasn't the only reason Stone liked the Four Seasons.  He looked at
the woman and felt suddenly, ravenously hungry for her.  Since his
hospital time and the course of libido-dampening painkillers, he had'
give little thought to women.  Now a rush of hormones had him breathing
rapidly.  He fought an urge to get up, walk down the bar, and stick his
tongue in her ear.  cop IN SEX CHARGE AT FOUR SEASONS, tomorrow's Post
would say.  The bartender put a copy of the paper in front of her.  She
glanced at it, looked up at Stone, surprised, and smiled.  Here was his
opening.  Stone picked up his drink and shifted off the stool.  As he
took a step, an acre of black raincoat blocked his view of the girl.  A
man built like a pro linebacker had stepped between them, leaned over
some distance;ndpecked the girl on the cheek.  He settled on a barstool
between her and Stone.  The girl leaned back and cast a regretful
grimace Stone's way.

Stone settled back onto his stool and pulled at the bourbon.  His
fantasy raged on, out of control.  A five-minute walk to his house and
they were in bed, doing unspeakable things to each other.  He shook his
head to dear it and opened the paper, looking for something to divert
him.  His view of the girl was now completely obliterated by the hulk
in the black raincoat.  Stone suppressed a whimper.

The Post was the first paper to get the Nijinsky story in time for a
regular edition, and they had made the most of it.  There was a
retrospective of photographs of Sasha, from tot-hood to The Morning
Show.  There were shots of her as a schoolgirl, as a teenager in a
beauty contest, performing as an actress at Yale, on camera as a cub
reporter--even shots of her at the beach in a bikini, obviously taken
without her knowledge.

Sasha looked damn good in a bikini, Stone thought.  He wondered where
that very fine body was resting at the moment.

He read the article slowly, trolling for some new fact about her that
might help.  When the bourbon was finished, he looked at his watch,
left a ten-dollar bill on the bar, in spite of the bartender's
wave-off, and walked down to the street.  The worst of rush hour was
past, but rain was threatening, and half a dozen people were looking
for cabs at the corner.  The light turned red, and an off-duty cab
stopped.  Stone flipped open his wallet and held his badge up to the
window.  The driver sighed and pushed the button that unlocked the
doors.

"Houston Street and the river," Stone said, and leaned his head back
against the seat.  Heavy raindrops began pounding against the windows.
If he had been off women for a while, Stone reflected, he had been off
booze, too, and the double shot of 101-proof bourbon had made itself
felt.  He dozed.

CHAPTER

one was jerked awake by the short stop of the cab.  He fumbled for some
money, gave the cabbie five dollars, and struggled out of the cab.  It
was pouring rain now, and he got across the street as:'quickly as he
could with his sore knee.  A uniformed secudty guard sat at a desk, and
Stone gave him Cary Hilliard's name.  Before the man could dial the
number, an elevator door opened, and a young woman walked out.

"Detective Barrington?"  she asked, offering a hand.  "That's right,"
Stone replied, thinking how long and cool her fingers were.  All of
her, in fact, was long and cool.  She was nearly six feet tall, he
reckoned, slim but not thin, dressed in a black cashmere sweater that
did not conceal full breasts and a hounds tooth skirt that ended below
the knee.

"I'm Cary Hilliard," she said.  "Come on, let's go up to the studio.
Barton will be on the air in a few minutes, and we can watch from the
control room."  They turned toward the elevator.  "By the way, a
Detective Bacchetti called and left a message for you.  He said, and I
quote, "Your man was where he was supposed to be' and "Fell Detective
Barrington that I've been detained, and I'll see him tomorrow.""

'qaank you."  Detained, my ass, Stone thought.  Detained by some
stewardess, maybe.

She led him upstairs and through a heavy door.  A dozen people worked
in a room that held at least twenty-five television monitors and
thousands of knobs and switches.  "We can sit here," she said, showing
him to a comfortable chair on a tier above the control console.

The whole of the top row of monitors displayed the face, in close-up,
of Barron Harkness, "the idol of the air lanes someone had called him,
stealing Jan Garber's sobriquet.  Tissue paper was tucked into his
collar, and a woman's hand entered the frame, patting his nose with
asponge.  "You've got a good tan, Barton," a voice said.  "We won't
need much of this."

Harkness nodded, as if saving his voice.

"One minute," somebody at the console said.

"I've got a thirty-second statement before the music," Harkness said
into the camera.

"Barron," a man at the console said, "it's too late to fit it in; we're
long as it is."

"Cut the kid with the transplant before the last commerciaL" Harkness
said.

"Barron...," the man nearly wailed.

"Do it."

Someone counted down from ten, and stirring music filled the control
room.  Barron Harkness arranged his face into a serious frown and
looked up from his desk into the camera.  "Good evening," he said, and
his voice let the viewer know that something important was to follow.
"Last night, a good friend of this newscast and of many of us
personally was gravely injured in a terrible accident.  Sasha Nijinsky
was to have joined me at this desk tonight, and she is badly missed.
All of us here pray for her recovery.  All of us wish her well.  All of
us look forward to her taking her place beside me.  We know you do,
too."  Music swelled, and an announcer's voice heralded the evening
news.  Stone watched as Harkness skillfully led half a dozen
correspondents through the newscast, reading effortlessly from the
TelePrompTer and asking an occasional informed question of someone in
Tehran, Berlin, or London, while the control room crew scrambled to
squeeze his opening statement into their allotted time.  During a
commercial break, Cary turned to Stone.  "What do you think?"  she
asked.  "Very impressive," he said, looking direct at her.  She
laughed. "I meant about the nwscast."-"Not nearly as impressive." 
"Well, Barron's a little serf-important," she sod, "but nobody does
this better."  "Read the news?"  She laughed again.  "Oh, come on, now,
he's reported from all' over the world; he doesn't just read."  : "I'll
take your word for it."  '" The newscast ended, and she led Stone out
another door and down a spiral staircase to the newsroom set.  A dozen
people were working at computer terminals.  "They're already getting
the eleven o'clock news together," Cary said.  Barron Harkness was
having the last of his makeup removed.  He stood up and shook Stone's
hand firmly.  "Detective," he said.  To Stone's surprise, Harkness was
at least six four, two twenty, and flat bellied.  He looked shorter and
fleshier on camera.  "Come on, lego up to my office," Harkness said.

5TU/q' WOOD5

They climbed another spiral staircase, entered a hallway, and turned
into Harkness's office, a large, comfortably furnished room with a big
picture window looking down into the newsroom.  Harkness waved Stone to
a leather sofa.  "Coffee?  I'm having some."

"I'hank you, yes," Stone said.  He could use it; he fought off the
lassitude caused by the bourbon and the newscast.

Cary Hilliard disappeared without being told, then came back with a
Thermos and two cups.  Both men watched her pour, then she took a seat
in a chair to one side of Harkness's desk and opened a steno pad.  "You
don't mind if I take notes?"  she asked Stone.

"Not at all," he replied.  "Forgive me if I don't take any; I remember
better if I do it later."  He turned to Harkness.  "Mr.  Harkness--'

"Please call me Barron; I'd be more comfortable.  And your first
name?"

"Stone."

"A hard name," he said, smiling slightly.  "I'll try not to be too hard
on you."  "Where is Sasha Nijinsky?  What hospital?"

"I'm afraid I don't have any information on that."

Harkness's eyebrows went up.  "I understood you were in charge of this
investigation."

"That's nominally so, but I'm not the only investigator on the case,
and I don't have all the information."  That wasn't strictly true; he
did have all the information there was; there just wasn't much.

"I trust somebody knows what hospital she's in.  Certainly nobody at
the network does."

"I expect somebody knows where she is," Stone said.  "I understand you
were traveling last night?"

"Yes, from Rome.  I expect you've already checked that out."

"What time did you arrive at Kennedy?"

"Four thirty or five."

Stone nodded.  "Mr.  Harkness, did Sasha Nijinsky have any enemies?"

Unexpectedly, Harkness broke into laughter.  "Are you kidding?  Sasha
climbed over half the people at the network to get where she is, and
the other half are scared shitless of her."

"I see.  Did any of them hate her enough to try to kill her?"

"Probably.  In my experience, lots of people kill who have less cause
than Sasha's victims."

That was Stone's experience too, but he didn't say so.  "Who among her
enemies do you think I should talk to?"

"Christ, where to begin!"  Harkness said.  "Oh, look, I'm overstating
the case.  I don't think anybody around here would try to kill Sasha.
Do you think someboSy kicked her off that terrace?"

"We have to investigate all the possibilities," Stone said.

"Well, I can't imagine that, not really.  Maybe the caught a burglar in
the act?  Something like that?"

"It's possible," Stone said.  It was, too, given that the doorman spent
his evenings sound asleep.  "We're looking at known operators in her
neighborhood."  On the other hand," Harkness said, "Sasha was one tough
lady; I don't think a burglar could get the best of her.  I'll tell you
a story, in confidence.  After the last elections, Sasha and I left
this building very late, and, before we could get to the car that was
waiting for us, a good-sized black guy stepped out of the shadows. He
had a knife, and he said whatever the ghetto version of 'your money or
your life' is these days.  Before I even had time to think, Sasha stuck
out her left arm, straight, and drove her fist into the guy's throat. 
He made this gurgling noise, dropped the knife, and hit the pavement
like a sack of potatoes.  Sasha stepped over, kicked the knife into the
river, and said, "Let's go."  We got into the car and left. Now that is
what Sasha can be like.  She'd been studying one of those martial arts
things, and, when most people would have turners, to jelly in the
circumstances, she used what she knew.  Me, I'd have given the guy
anything he wanted."  Harkness put his feet on his desk.  "Now, do you
think a burglar--or anybody else, for that matter--could heave somebody
like that over a balcony railing?"

"You could be right," Stone said.  You could be the guy who heaved her
over the edge too, he thought.  You're big enough and in good enough
shape to handle a woman--even one who had martial arts training.  "That
brings us to another possibility.  Did Sasha strike you as the sort of
person who might take her own life?"

Harkness looked down at the carpet for a moment, drumming his fingers
on the desk noisily.  "In a word, yes," he said.  "I think there was
something of the manic-depressive in Sasha.  She was high at a lot of
times, but she was down at times, too.  She could turn it off, if she
was working; she could look into that camera and smile and bring it
off.  But there must have been times, when she was all alone, when it
got to her."

"Did you ever see it get to her?"

"Once or twice, when we were doing The Morning Show together.  I
remember going into her dressing room once, five minutes before
airtime, and she was in tears over something.  But when we went on the
air, she was as cheerful as a chipmunk."

"Do you know if she ever saw a psychiatrist?"

"Nope, but I'd bet that, if she did, she didn't tell him much.  Sasha
plays her cards very close to that beautiful chest."

Stone nodded, then stood up.  "Well, thank you, Mr.--ah, Barron.  If
anything else comes up, I hope I can call you."

"Absolutely," Harkness said, rising and extending his hand.  "Just call
Cary; she always knows where to find me."

"Come on, I'll walk you down," Cary said, leading the way.  Passing
through the outer office, she tossed her steno pad on a desk and
grabbed a raincoat from a rack.  On the elevator, she turned to Stone.
"Well, now you've had the

Harkness treatment," she said.  "What did you think?"  Stone shrugged.
"Forthright, frank helpful."  She smiled.  "You got Barron's
message."

The elevator reached the lobby, and, when the doors opened, they could
see the rain beating against the windows.

"Can I give you a lift?"  she asked.  "I've got a car waiting, and
you'll never get a cab down here at this time of the evening."

"Sure, I'd appreciate that."  He took a deep breath.  "If you're all
through with work, how about some dinner?"  "You're off duty now?"

"The moment you say yes."

She looked at him frankly.  "I'd like that."

They ran across the pavement to the waiting Lincoln Town Car, one of
hundreds that answer the calls of people with charge accounts.

"Where to?"  Cary said, as they settled into the back seat.  "How about
Elaine's?"  Stone said.

"Can you get a table without a reservation?"

"Let's find out."

"Eighty-eighth and Second Avenue," she said to the driver.

Stone turned to her.  "I got the impression from what you said in the
elevator that I shouldn't necessarily believe everything Barron
Harkness tells me."

"Why, Detective," Cary said, her eyes wide and innocent.  "I never said
that."  She scrunched down in the seat and laid her head back.  "And,
anyway, you're off duty, remember?"

CHAPTER

laine accepted a peck on the cheek, shook Cary's hand, and gave them
Woody Allen's regular table.  Stone heaved a secret sigh of relief.
This was no night for Siberia.  "I'm impressed," Cary said when they
had ordered a drink.  "Whenever I've been in here before, we always got
sent to Siberia."  "You've clearly been coming here with the wrong
men," Stone replied, raising his glass to her.  "You could be right,"
she said, looking at him appraisingly.  "You're bad casting for a cop,
you know."  "Am I?"  "Don't be coy.  It's not the first time you've
been told that."  Pepe, the headwaiter, appeared with menus.  Stone
waved them away and asked for the specials.

do

"No, it's not the first time I've been told that," Stone said, when
they had chosen their food.  "I'm told that every time a cop I don't
know looks at me."

"All right," she said, leaning forward, "I want the whole biography,
and don't leave anything out, especially the part about why you're a
cop and not a stockbroker, or something."

Stone sighed.  "It goes back a generation.  My family, on my father's
side, was from western Massachusetts, real Yankees, mill owners."

"Barrington, as in Great Barrington, Massachusetts?"

"I don't know; I didn't have a lot of contact with the Massachusetts
Barringtons.  My father was at Harvard--rather unhappily, I might
add--when the Stock market crash of 'twenty-nine came.  His father and
grandfatlr were hit hard, and Dad had to drop out of school This
tr6abled him not in the least, because it freed him to do what he
really wanted to do."

"Which was?"

"He wanted to be a carpenter."

"A carpenter?  You mean with saws and hammers?"  "Exactly.  He took it
up when he was a schoolboy at Exeter, and he showed great talent.  My
grandfather was horrified, of' course.  Carpentry wasn't the sort of
thing a Barrington did.  But when he could no longer afford to keep his
son in Harvard,

wei ..."

"What does this have to do with your being a cop?"  "I'm coming to
that, eventually.  Dad got to be something of a radical, politically,
as a result of the depression.  He gravitated to Greenwich Village,
where he fell in with a crowd of leftists, and he earned a living
knocking on people's doors and asking if they wanted anything fixed. 
He lived in the garage of a town house on West Twelfth Street and
didn't own anything much but his tools.

"He met my mother in the late thirties.  She was a painter

SIJAR?  WOODS

and a pianist and from a background much like Dad's--well-off
Connecticut people, the Stones--who'd been wiped out in the crash.  She
was younger than Dad and very taken with the contrast between his
upper-class education and his working-class job."  Cary wrinkled her
brow.  "Not Matilda Stone."  "Yes."  "Her work brings good prices these
days at the auctions.  I hope you have a lot of it."  "Only three
pictures; her favorites, though."  "Go on with the autobiography." 
"They lived together through the war years--the army wouldn't take Dad
because he was branded as a communist, even though he never joined the
party.  They had a tough time.  Then, after the war, Dad rented a
property on Hudson Street, where he finally was able to have a proper
workshop.  Some of Mother's friends, who had done well s artists, began
to hire him for cabinetwork in their homes, and, by the time I was
born, in 'fifty-two, he was doing pretty well.  Mother's work was
selling, too, though she never got anything like the prices it's
bringing now, and, by the time I was old enough to notice, they were
living stable, middle-class lives.  "When I was in my teens, Dad had
quite a reputation as an artist-craftsman; he was building libraries in
Fifth Avenue apartments and even designing and making one-of a-kind
pieces of furniture.  The Barringtons and the Stones were very far
away, and I didn't hear much about my forebears.  Somehow, though, my
parents' backgrounds filtered down into my life.  There were always
books and pictures and music in the house, and I suppose I had a sort
of Yankee upbringing, once removed."  "Did you go to Harvard, like your
father?"  "No; that would have infuriated him.  I went to NYU and
walked to class every day.  By about my junior year, I

had decided to go to law school.  I didn't have any real dear idea
about what lawyers actually did--neither did a lot of my classmates in
law school, for that matter--but, somehow, it sounded good.  I did all
right, I guess, had a decent academic record, and, in my senior year,
the New York City Police Department had a program to familiarize law
students with police work.  I worked part-time in a station house, I
rode around in a blue-and-white, and I just loved it.  The cops treated
me like the white bread college kid I was, but it didn't matter, the
bug had bit.  I took the police exam, and, almost immediately after I
got my law degree, I enrolled in the Police Academy.  In a way, I think
I was imitating my father's choice of a working-class life."

"You never took the bar?"

"I couldn't he bothered with that.  I was hot to bea cop."  "Are you
still?"

"Yes, sort of.  I love investigative work, and I'm good at it.  I had a
couple of good collars that got me a detective's shield; I had a good
rabbi--a senior cop who helped me with promotion; he's dead now,
though, and I seem to have slowed down a bit."

"But you're different from other cops

Stone sighed again.  "Yes, I guess I am.  I've been an outsider since
the day I started at the academy."

"So you're not going to be the next chief of police?"  Stone laughed.
"Hardly.  You could get good odds at the

19th

Precinct that I'll never make detective first grade."  "What are you
now?"  "Detective second."

"So, you're thirty-eight years old, and..."

"Essentially without prospects," Stone said, shrugging.  "I can look
forward to a pension in six years; a better one, if I can last
thirty."

"Why are you limping?"

Stone told her about) the knee, keeping it as undramatic as possible.
She listened and didn't say anything.  "Now it's your turn," he said,
"and don't leave out anything."  "My bio is much simpler," she said.
"Born and grew up in Atlanta; the old man was a lawyer, now a judge;
two years at Bennington, which my father thought was far too radical--I
was wearing only black clothes and not washing my hair enough--so I
finished at the University of Georgia, in journalism.  Summer between
my junior and senior years, I got on the interns' program at the
network, and, when I graduated, they offered me a job as a production
assistant.  I'm thirty-two years old, and I'm still a production
assistant."  "But at a higher level, surely?  After all, you're
assisting Barron Harkness."  She laughed.  "It's a nice place to work,
if your father can afford to send you there.  The perks aren't bad."
She looked at him sideways.  "You skipped something."  "What?"
"Married?"  "Nope."  "Never?  Why not?"  "Just lucky, I guess." 
"Cynic." "Probably."  "No girl?"  "Not at the moment.  I was seeing
somebody for a couple of years.  When I was in the hospital, she
accepted a transfer to LA."  "Sweet."  Stone shrugged.  "I didn't come
through with the commitment she wanted; she took a hike."  He imitated
her sidelong glance.  "Whatabout you?"  She sighed.  "The usual
assortment of yuppies during my twenties.  I'm just out of a
relationship with a married man."  "hose don't work, I'm told."  "This
one sure didn't.  He kept me on the hook for four years, and then he
just couldn't bring himself to leave his wife."  'rhat's the drill. 
Still hurting?"  "Now and then, if I don't watch myself.  I think I'm
relieved, more than anything else."  "Was it Harkness?"  "No; he wasn't
in the TV business. Advertising."  "For what it's worth, I think the
guy's nuts."  She smiled, a wide mouth full of straight, white teeth. 
She started to speak, but didn't.  Instead, she concentrated on her
pasta.  Stone watched her, and he felt the possibilities in his gut.

When they left Elaine's, the rain had stopped, and the air was cool.
The car still waited for them.  "Can I drop you?"  she asked.  "It's
One o-the perks of the job; I think I probably spend more of the
network's money on cars than they pay me."  "Sure, thanks.  It's early;
I'll give you a nightcap at my house."  "Sold."  They got into the car,
and Stone gave the driver his address.  "She looked at him, eyebrows
arched. "That's a pretty expensive neighborhood.  You on the take?" 
Stone laughed.  "Nope.  I'll explain later."  They drove straight down
Second Avenue, and al Sixty-ninth Street they ran into a wall of
flashing lights.  A uniformed cop was waving traffic through a single
open lane. "Pull over here," Stone said to the driver.  He opened the
car door and turned to Cary.  "Give me a couple of minutes, will you?" 
He flashed his badge at a uniform and crossed the yellow tape.  A
Checker cab was stopped at the intersection, and a small group had
gathered around the driver's open door.  Stone saw Headly, from the
detective squad.

Headly nodded.  "Cabdriver caught one in the head," he said to Stone.
"Looks like he was stopped for the light, somebody pulled up next to
him, and just popped him one."

Stone glanced into the cab at the dead driver, sprawled across the
front seat.  There was a lot of blood.  "You got it covered?"  he said
to Headly.

"Yeah," the detective replied.

Suddenly the cab was bathed in bright light.  Stone turned, shielding
his eyes..

"Howdy, Stone," Scoop Berman said, still operating his camera.  "You on
this one?"

"It's Headly's," Stone said.  "You can give him the hard time."  He
stepped out of Scoop's lights and bumped into Cary Hilliard, who was
staring at the dead driver.  He took her elbow.  "You don't want to see
that," he said, turning her toward their car.  "How'd you get past the
tape?"

"Press card," she said, showing a blue, plastic shield on a string
around her neck.  She took it off and stuffed it into her handbag.

In the car they were both quiet for a block or two.  "You see a lot of
that stuff?"  she asked finally.  "Enough.  More than I'd like to see.
Did it upset you?"

She shook her head.  "I didn't get a good enough look," thank God.  I
faint at the sight of blood."

They turned into Turtle Bay, and the car stopped.  "Wait for me," Cary
said to the driver.

They climbed the steps, and Stone opened the front door of the house.

"You've got the duplex?"  Cary asked, surprised.

"I've got the house," Stone rep?ed.  He flipped on the hall light.

"You are on the take," she said, laughing.  "No honest cop could ever
afford a house in Turtle Bay."  "Would you believe I inherited it?" 
"No, I wouldn't."

"I did.  My Great-Aunt Elizabeth, my grandfather's sister married well.
 She always had a soft spot for my father,

and she willed it to him.  She outlived him, though, only died early
this year at the age of ninety-eight, and so her estate

' me ' came to Stone led her into the library.  "It's a mess," she
said, looking around at the empty shelves, stripped of their varnish,
the books stacked on the floor, the rug rolled up, the furniture
stacked in a corner, everything under sheets of plastic.  "It is now,"
Stone said, "but I'm working on it.  My father designed and built this
room; it was his first important commission, right after World War II. 
Everything is solid walnut.  You could still buy it in those days; now
all you can get is veneer, and that's out of sight."  ,

"It's going to be magnificent," she said.  He led her through the other
rooms, pointing out a couple of pieces that his father had built.
"Mostof the upholstered furniture is out being re-covered.  My plan is
to do the place up right, then Sell it and retire on the proceeds, one
of these days."

"Why not just sell it now?."  she asked.

'q had a real estate lady look at it.  She says I can triple the price
if I put it in good shape--new heating, plumbing,

kitchen-- the works."

"How can you afford to do that?"

"There was a little money in Aunt Elizabeth's estate.  I'm putting it
all into the house and doing most of the work myself, with a couple of
helpers and the occasional plumber and electrician."

"Where are your mother's pictures?"

"In my bedroom."

"May I see them?"

Stone took her up in the old elevator.  "I keep meaning to get this
thing looked at," he said over the creaking of the machinery, 'qut I'm
afraid they'll tell me it needs replacing."

She stood in the bedroom and looked around.  "This is going to be
wonderful," she said.  "I hope to God you've got decent taste."

"I'm not all that sure that I do," he lied.  "I could use some
advice."

"You may get more of that than you want; doing interiors is almost my
favorite thing."  She walked across the room and stood before the three
Matilda Stones.  There were two views of West Ninth and West Tenth
streets and an elevated view of Washington Square.  "These are superb,"
she said.  "You could get half a million for the three, I'll bet, but
don't you dare."

"Don't worry  They're a permanent fixture."

'q'hey belong in a house like, this," she said, "and so do you.  Can't
you think of some way to hang on to it?  Go on the take, or
something?"

"I have this fantasy," he said.  "I'm Ii, ting in this house; it's in
perfect condition; there are servants in the servants' quarters, a cook
in the kitchen, and money in the bank.  I don't dare let myself dwell
on it; it's never going to happen, I know that."  He turned from the
pictures and looked at her.  "You said interior decorating was almost
your favorite thing.  What's your favorite?"

She stepped out of her heels and turned to face him.  "I'm five-eleven
in my stocking feet; does that turn you off?"

Stone looked her up and down--the luxuriant, dark hair; the chiseled
face; the full breasts under the black cashmere; the long legs
finishing in slender feet.  e hooked an arm around her narrow waist and
pulled her to him.

She smiled and rubbed her belly against his.  "Apparently not," she
said, then kissed him.

Stone slid down a long, velvet tunnel of desire, made no attempt to
slow his fall.  Their clothes vanished, and they found the bed.  Stone
made to move on top of hertthen cried out when his swollen knee took
his weight.

She pushed him onto his back, kissed the knee, kissed his lips and his
nipples, kissed his navel and his penis, took him in her mouth, nearly
swallowed him, brought him fully erect, then slid him inside her.

Stone looked up at the long body, the firm breasts, freed from the
cashmere, the lips parted in ecstasy, the glazed eyes.  She sucked him
inside her again and again.  When he thought he would come, she stopped
and sat still, kissing his ears and his eyes, then she began again.
Half an hour seemed to stretch into weeks, until, bathed in sweat, his
face buried between her breasts, he came with her, and their cries
echoed around the under furnished room.

They lay in each other's arms, spent, breathing hard, caressing.

"You never told me what your'-favorT-thing was," Stone said.

'hat was it," Cary replied, kissing him.

Stone woke to broad daylight, and she was gone.  A card was propped on
the mantelpiece.  There were phone numbers for home and work and an
address: 1011 Fifth Avenue.

CHAPTER

one arrived in the detectives' squad room of the 19th Precinct feeling
rested, refreshed, fulfilled, and in an extremely good mood.  The good
mood was tempered somewhat by the rows of empty desks in the room.
Twenty-four hours earlier, they had been filled with detectives doing
his bidding, chasing down every lead on the Sasha Nijinsky
disappearance, leaving only to interview her co-workers and
acquaintances, again at his bidding.  He had the sickening feeling that
his time at the head of the investigation had come to an end.

Dino was in Lieutenant Leary's glassed-in office at the end of the
large room.  Stone rapped on the glass and joined them.  "Where is
everybody?"  he asked Dino as he pulled up a chair.

"On the cabdriver thing,"-Dino said.

Stone turned to Leary.  "Lieutenant, you're not going to my guys off
this investigation and put them on a cabdriver murder, are you?" 
"eah," Leary said, "but it's three murders."  "The cabdriver and who
else?" Stone asked.  "The cabdriver and two other cabdrivers," Leary
said. "Don't you watch TV or nothing?"  "I got a late start this
morning," Stone said.  "You mean three cabdrivers on the same day?" 
"On the same night, all within an hour of each other," Leary said.  "We
got a fucking wildcat cabdrivers' strike going, you know that?  Park
Avenue is a parking lot.  There's two thousand cabs just sitting there.
You didn't notice?"  "Park Avenue isn't on my way to work," Stone
said. "You're lucky you and Bacchetti are still on Nijinsky," Leary
said. "The mayor wasn't interested personally, you wouldn't be. 
What've you got on the lady?"  "Zip," Dino said.  "Some ideas," Stone
said, shooting Dino a'glance.  "What ideas?"  Leary asked.  "We want a
search warrant on Van Fleet," Stone said.  "Dino's been telling me
about him," Leary replied.  "I like him for this.  You got enough for
the warrant?"-'-"The letters ought to do it.  We can demonstrate his
undue interest in Nijinsky."  "See Judge O'Neal," Leary said.  "She's
got a hair up her ass about anything to do with any crime against
women. She'll buy the letters."  "Right."  "What else you got?"  "Zip,"
Dino replied.  Stone shrugged.  "It's not as though the effort hasn't
been made.  Every single co-worker has been inteva'ewed; every
hospital, clinic, and funeral parlor in the city, Long Island, and New
Jersey has been contacted.  I want to go through all her stuff

CHAPTER

Stone arrived in the detectives' squad room of the 19th Precinct
feeling rested, refreshed, fulfilled, and in an extremely good mood.
The good mood was tempered somewha't by the rows of empty desks in the
room.  Twenty-four hours earlier, they had been filled with detectives
doing his bidding, chasing down every lead on the Sasha Nijinsky
disappearance, leaving only to interview her co-workers and
acquaintances, again at his bidding.  He had the sickening feeling that
his time at the head of the investigation had come to an end.

Dino was in Lieutenant Leary's glassed-in office at the end of the
large room.  Stone rapped on the glass and joined them.  "Where is
everybody?"  he asked Dino as he pulled up a chair.

"On the cabdriver thing,"-Dino said.

Stone turned to Leary.  "Lieutenant, you're not going to pull my guys
off this investigation and put them on a cabdriver murder, are you?"

"Yeah," Leary said, 'qut it's three murders."

'ffhe cabdriver and who else?"  Stone asked.

"The cabdriver and two other cabdrivers," Leary said.  "Don't you watch
TV or nothing?"

"I got a late start this morning," Stone said.  "You mean three
cabdrivers on the same day?"

"On the same night, all within an hour of each other," Leary said.  "We
got a fucking wildcat cabdrivers' strike going, you know that?  Park
Avenue is a parking lot.  There's two thousand cabs just sitting there.
You didn't notice?"

"Park Avenue isn't on my way to work," Stone said.  "You're lucky yoE
and Bacchetti are still on Nijinsky," Leary said.  "The mayor wasn't
interested personally, you wouldn't be.  What've you got on the
lady?"

"Zip," Dino said.

"Some ideas," Stone aid, shooting Dino a glance.  "What ideas?"  Leary
asked.

"We want a search warrant on Van Fleet Stone said.

"Dino's been telling me about him," Leary replied.  "I like him for
this.  You got enough for the warrant?"

"The letters ought to do it.  We can demonstrate his undue interest in
Nijinsky."

"See Judge O'Neal," Leary said.  "She's got a hair up her ass about
anything to do with any crime against women.

She'll buy the letters."

"Right."

"What else you got?"

"Zip," Dino replied.

Stone shrugged.  "It's not as though the effort han't been made.  Every
single co-worker has been interviewed; every hospital, clinic, and
funeral parlor in the city, Long Island, and New Jersey has been
contacted.  I want to go through all her stuff today, just as soon as
we've searched Van Fleet's place."

"I buy the effort," Leary said.  "It's a bitch, ain't it?"

"It '"

rs, Dino agreed.  "I never knew of nobody going up the pipe like this
broad.  It's spooky."

"I'Ll call the chief this morning; he'll talk to the mayor.

I'll tell 'em we need more time."

"We do," Stone said.

"Go to it."  Leary put his feet on his desk and picked up the
telephone.

Stone followed Dino out of Leary's office.  "You call Judge O'Neal's
secretary for an appointment.  I've got a call to make."  He sat down
at his desk, dug out Cary's card, and called her direct line.  He got
her on the first ring.  "Cary Hilhard."  "Morning."

"Well, good morning to you?  She was laughing.  "How are you?"

Her voice moved nearer the phone, and she whispered.  "I'm sore as
hell, and I feel great!"

"Same here'--Stone laughed--"but I'm not sure great describes it; it's
somewhere above that,"

"I'm free this evening," she said.

"No you're not; you've got'a dinner date."

"I'll be done here by seven forty-five.  Have you been to the Tribeca
Grill?"

"Is that De Niro's new place?"  'qaat's it.  Shall I book us a table?"
"Come to my house first, for a drink."

"You're on.  I'll book for nine o'clock.  See you at eight."  "You
betcha."

When Stone hung up, Dino was looking at him.

"You got laid, didn't you?"

"What are you talking about?"  Stone dissembled.

"I can tell."  Dino batted his eyes rapidly.  "You're just glowing all
over."

"Jesus Christ!  Do I have to take this shit from my own partner?"

"You betcha," Dino said, imitating Stone.

"Whatabout Judge'OO'Neal?"

"Half an hour."

"What are we going to do for some help with the search?"  Stone asked.
"Nobody here."

"Well, shit," Dino replied, "if you and me between us can't find a
corpse in a funeral parlor, we ought to turn in our Pars."

Stone led the way out.  "She's still alive, Dino.  I can feel

"When I can feel her, I'll believe it," Dino called after hLm, hushing
to keep up.

Judge O'Neal was youngish, blonde, and extremely g-looUng.  She sat in
her high-backed, leather chair, her robes thrown oPe and her legs
crosse<l, and contemplated Stone.

Stone contemplated right back.  The woman had been wearing an
engagement ring during the year since he had first come across her.;-or
he would have asked her out.

"The letters are enough for me," O'Neal said, "even if he doesn't talk
directly.  A thousand letters is weird enough for a warrant. 
Nolcx}dy's going to overrule."

"I shouldn't third so," Stone said.  "By the way, we've included his
place of work in the warrant."

"Off the record, Detective, for my own curiosi, what do you third
happened to this woman?"

"Off the record, Judge, I am completel baffled, but I think she may
still be alive."

O'Neal's eyebrows went up.  "Get serious."

Stone explained his terminal vel'i theory.

O'Neal shook her head vigorously, and the blonde hair swirled around
her shoulders.  "That," she said, "is the wildest theory I ever heard."
"It may not be plausible, but it's possible."  Judge O'Neal uncrossed
her legs and leaned on her desk, resting her chin in her hand.  "I've
got a hundred bucks says she's stone dead--you should excuse the
expression."  Stone laughed.  I'll take your bet, but the loser buys
dinner."  O'Neal pursed her red lips for a moment, then smiled. 
"You're on," she said, signing the warrant.

In the car, Dino looked sideways at Stone while dodging a bicycle
messenger.  "Jesus, Stone, why didn't you just fuck her right there on
the desk?  I'd have been happy to watch."  "Come on, Dino."  "She's got
the hot for you, I'm telling you."  "She's wearing an engagement ring."
"So what the fuck?  She was wearing a wedding ring, that's maybe cause
for pause, maybe.  A diamond ring is an open door.  Anyway, you got a
dinner date, just as soon as we find Sasha, dead or alive."  Stone
glanced at his watch.  "Van Fleet should be at the funeral parlor by
now.  We'll serve him there, then do the apartment."

CHAPTER

1:2

Herbert Van Fleet's mother didn't like it.  Stone and Dino waited
quietly while Mrs.  Van Fleet called her lawyer.

She returned grim faced.  "All, right, how do you want to go about
this?"

"We'd like to see every room in the building," Stone said.

"What are you looking for?"  she demanded.

"Anything that might help us in our investigation," Dino said, none too
politely.

Seething, the woman took them through the building.  Stone saw nothing
out of the ordinary--at least, out of the ordinary for a funeral
parlor.  They finished up in the embalming room, where Herbert Van
Fleet was working on a corpse.  A tube ran from the man's stomach to a
pump, and the machine whirred quietly.  Stone looked away.

Van Fleet looked up without surprise.  "Well, well, look who's back.
I'm not answering any further questions, gentlemen, except in the
presence of my lawyer."

Stone handed him the warrant, and, while Van Fleet read it carefully,
he went to a row of large drawers.

"I'll do this," Stone said to Dino.  "I wouldn't want you to faint on
me."

Two elderly men were the only occupants of the refrigerated storage
drawers.  Stone and Dino had a look in an adjacent storage room, then
returned.

"All right," Van Fleet said, "when do you want to go to my
apartment?"

"Immediately," Stone replied.

Van Fleet turned to his mother.  "But what about Mr.  Edmonson?"  he
asked plaintively, gesturing toward the corpse on the table.

"Just pop him in the fridge," Dino said.  "He'll keep."

"You'd better go with them," Mrs.  Van Fleet said to her son.  "They'll
wreck your place if you're not there,"

Van Fleet nodded, went to a sink, washed his hands, removed his rubber
apron, revealing that he was dressed in a three-piece suit, and said to
the officers, "I'm ready."

Van Fleet didn't speak on the way downtown.  His building was in SoHo,
near the river, and the street seemed to have been missed in the
gentrification of the area.  A sign on the dusty windows of the empty
ground floor read WE-STaiN'S FE GLOVES.  Van Fleet unlocked a steel
door and led them into a vestibule and onto a freight elevator.

'qho else lives in the building?"  Stone asked.  "Nobody," Van Fleet
replied genially.  "My mother and I bought it as an investment last
year.  I had planned to renovate the rest of the building and rent
lofts, but I ran out of money.  Maybe next year."

'q)id the glove factory occupy the whole place?"  "No, there was a
kosher meat-processing plant and a piecework sewing business, and
offices on the top floor, where I live."  The elevator stopped.  Van
Fleet pushed back the gate and unlocked another large steel door. 
"It's sort of like a fortress, isn't it?"  Dino said.  "I shouldn't
have, to tell you what a problem burglary is in this city," Van Fleet
said. Inside the door, he tapped a code into a keypad.  "I've got a
very decent alarm system, too."  Stone watched him.  Van Fleet led them
into a large, open space.  A kitchen had been built in a corner at the
far end and a bedroom in the other corner.  These rooms were separated
from the rest of the loft by a framework of lumber that had not yet had
plasterboard appliec-to it.  "I'm doing most of the work on the place
myself," Van Fleet said.  Light flooded the loft from three sides; the
other abutted another building.  "Nice place, Herb," Dino said
admiringly.  "You may call me Mr.  Van Fleet," Van Fleet said, almost
sweetly.  He turned to Stone.  "You may call me Herbert, if you wish."
"rhank you, Herbert," stone said.  "I feel for you, doing your own
remodeling.  I'm doing the same, myself."  He said this while walking
the length of the highly polished oak floor, the expanse of which was
broken only by an occasional Oriental rug.  A sofa, two chairs, a lamp,
and a television set had been placed on one rug, an island of a living
room surrounded by hardwood.  The two detectives went methodically
through the place, but there was hardly anywhere to hidg anything.  Van
Fleet's desk rested against one wall.  Stone opened the drawers and
found nothing he wouldn't have seen in his own desk drawers: bills,
stationery, office supplies.  "Let's see the rest of the building,"
Stone said to Van

Fleet.  His warrant did not cover the whole building, but he hoped the
man wouldn't notice.

Van Fleet didn't.  He went to a kitchen drawer and retrieved a large
key ring, which jangled as he led them to the elevator.  They walked
through the building a floor at a time.  Van Fleet may not have had the
money to complete his development project, but he had cleaned out the
building; it was as empty as any place Stone had ever seen.  "Anything
else?"  Stone said to Dino.  Dino shook his head.

"Can we offer you a lift uptown, Herbert?"

"Thank you, no," Van Fleet replied.  "As long as I'm here, I'll have my
lunch and get a cab later.  Sorry I couldn't be more helpful," he said
sweetly.

"You've been very helpful, Herbert," Stone said, "and we appreciate
your cooperation."

"Have you found out anything else about Sasha?"  Van Fleet asked.

"I'm afraid we can't discuss an investigation in progress," Stone
said.

"The papers said you're making no progress at all," Van Fleet said,
walking them to the front door.

"Don't believe everything you read in the papers," Dino said, as Van
Fleet closed the door behind them.

Back in the car, Stone sighed.  "Clean as a hound's tooth," he said.

"Yeah," Dino agreed, disconsolately.

"LeSs go up to Sasha's and go through those boxes."

"Okay."

There was a different doorman on duty when the detectives arrived at
the building.  Stone flashed his badge and asked for his key to the
Nijinsky apartment.  The man handed it over silently.

The moment they stepped off the elevator, it was obvious that something
was wrong.  The police notice fixed to the apartment door had been
removed.  'l'he seal's broken," Dino said.  "What the fuck?"  Stone led
the way into the apartmenL It was completely empty.  The two men stood
there looking helplessly about them, as if waiting for inspiration.
Stone bent over and picked up a card from the floor.

Effective immediately, Sasha Nijinsky is at 1011 Fifth Ave.  New York
10021.  Burn this.

"The movers," Stone said.  "What?"  "l'he moverS.  "She was moving the
next morning."  "What's the new address?"  "Ten-eleven Fifth."  Stone
didn't mention that he knew someone else at that address.  "Let's go
see the doorman Downstairs, Stone braced the doorman.  There was a
police seal on the door of the Nijinsky apartment," he said.  'ho broke
it?"  'esus, Officer," the man pled, "I don't know nothing.  The moving
people showed up and took her stuff; that's all I know."

They drove uptown in silence.  The builting was across the street from
the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The doorman greeted them.  "Can I help
you, gentlemen?"  he said, blocking the entrance.

Stone showed his ID.  "Miss Nijinsky's apartment."

"Yes?  Whatabout it?"

'q6/e'd like to see it.  This is part of a police investigation.

Did some moving people bring some furniture and boxes here
yesterday?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid I can't let you into the apartment without
permission, unless you've got a search warrant, of course."

Dino sighed loudly.  "I guess you know the lady's in no condition to
give permission."

The doorman shrugged.  "My hands are tied," he said, "unless you get
permission from the cooperative's board of directors.  If one of them
says it's okay, I'll let you in."

"Who's the chairman of the cooperative's board?"  Stone asked.

The doorman went to a tin box on his desk and produced an index card.
He handed it to Stone.

The name on the card was Barron Harkness.

Stone registered this for a moment, then showed the card to Dino.  "May
I use your telephone?"  he asked the doorman.

"Sure," the man said, placing a phone on the desk.

"An interesting connection, wouldn't you say?"  he asked Dino.  He
checked his notebook and dialed the number of the network.

CHAPTER

woman answered Harkness's phone, a voice Stone didn't recognize.
"Barron Harkness, please.  My name is Barrington; he knows me."  '"
"I'm sorry, Mr.  Barrington, Mr.  Hrkness is in a meeting.  May I have
him return the call?"  "Let me speak with Cary Hilliard, please."  "Ms.
Hilliard is in the same meeting."  Stone tried not to sound annoyed.
"Please take a note to Mr.  Harkness.  Tell him Detective Stone
Barrington would like to speak with him at once, and that it's
important."  "I'm sorry, but--" , "Please do it now.  This is police
business."  The woman hesitated.  "All right," she said finally.  "What
is your number?"  I'll hold."

An irritating minute passed, then: "Barron Harkness."  "Mr.  Harkness,
this is Stone Barrington.  I'm at your apartment building, and I want
your permission to enter Sasha Nijinsky's apartment.  The doorman
insists on speaking with you before allowing entry."

"But why?"  Harkness asked.  "Sasha never moved into the apartment;
there's nothing there.  Legally, she didn't even own the apartment; she
was supposed to have closed on it the morning after she..."

"It appears that a moving Company followed instructions she gave before
her disappearance and moved her belongings into the apartment.  The
doorman let them in."

Harkness hesitated, then spoke.  "I'll be right over there," he said,
and hung up before Stone could speak further.

Stone replaced the receiver and turned to Dino.

'q-tarkns is coming over here."

"Why?"  Dino asked.

"Who knows?  Maybe he's being protective of his building's
reputation."

The doorman spoke up.  "That sounds like Mr.  Harkness," he said.  "He
and the board are very picky about what goes on here.  That's why I
wouldn't let you in.  It woudda been my job, y'know."

Stone nodded, then joined Dino on a sofa in the lobby to wait for
Harkness.

They didn't have to wait long.  A black Lincoln Town Car pulled up at
the curb, and Harkness strode into the building.  He shook hands with
Stone and was introduced to Dino.  "All right," he said, "let's get
this over with.  I've got to get back to the office."

"We don't really need you for this," Stone said, "if you'd like to go
back now."

Harkness fished a letter from an inside pocket and handed it to Stone.
It was from a midtown law firm.

"You're her executor?"  Stone asked.  "But we don't even know that
she's dead."  "I got the letter this morning; it was the first I'd
heard of it."  He shrugged.  "I guess I'm representing Sasha in this,"
he said, "so, unless you want to get a search warrant, I'm going to
have to go into that apartment with you."  "All right," Stone said. 
"Eddie," Harkness said to the doorman, "I'll use my pass-key.  We won't
need you' On the elevator, Stone turned to Harkness.  "You say you
didn't know that Ms.  Nijinsky had appointed you executor of her will?"
"Didn't have a clue," Harkness replied.  "I was astonished, to tell you
the truth."  "Mr.  Irkness, did you and Sasha Nijinsky ever have a
romantic relationship?"  Harkness looked him in the eye.  "Stone, I
haven't the slightest intention of answering that."  The elevator door
opened, and they stepped into a vestibule; only two apartments opened
onto it, 10-J and 10-K.  Harkness opened the door to 10-J and led the
way in.  There was an entrance hall, then a large living room.
Furniture had ben dumped here and there, as if the moving men had no
instructions, and the boxes Stone had seen at Sasha's old apartment
were piled in the middle of the floor.  Every one of them had been
opened, and the woman's belongings were strewn across the floor.  "Now
that's interesting," Dino said.  Stone picked up a yellow movers'
receipt from the floor and handed it to Dino.  "See if there's a
working phone; if not, go down and use the doorman's.  Get hold of the
movers' supervisor and ask him what the hell went on here."  Dino took
the receipt and went in search of a phone.  fTe one in the kitchen's
working, he called out."

"Do you have any idea who might have opened these boxes?"  Stone asked
Harkness.  "Not a clue," Harkness replied.  "As I said earlier, she
didn't even own the apartment yet.  It would have been like Sasha,
though, to have her stuff moved at the moment she would have been
closing the sale.  She wasn't a woman who liked to be kept waiting." 
"I want to go through her belongings," Stone said, "and I may want to
remove some things for evidence.  Have I your permission to do that?"
Harkness hesitated.  "I think maybe I should talk to a lawyer, first. I
want to do the right thing, here.  "Look, Barron," Stone said, "Sasha
trusted you enough to put you in charge of her estate.  There may be
something here that will help us find out what happened to her, and
we're going to need your cooperation."  Dino rettltned from the
kitchen. 'he supervisor at the movers' says his guys didn't open any
boxes.  I called the doorman on the house phone, and he confirms that
they were sealed when he signed the receipt and let the movers out." 
"So," said Stone, turning, to Harkness, "somebody has been in here
since the movers left."  "Don't look at me," Harkness said.  "You've
got a passkey, right?"  "I'm chairman of the cooperative board.  Look,
I thought the apartment was empty.  Why would I want to come in here?" 
"Who else besides the doorman has a key to this apartment?"  "The
owners would, the people who were selling to Sasha.  They live in
Connecticut; I'll get the phone number for you."  'qBho lives in the
other apartment across the vestibule, number 10-K?"

"My assistant, Cary Hilliard.  You met her the other night."

Stone nodded.  "And would she have a key?"

"No."

"Did she know that Sasha was moving in here?"

"No.  $asha wanted her change of address kept quiet until she had
moved.  She liked to control what people knew about her."

"Where do you normally keep your passcey.

Harkness held up a gold key ting.  "Here, with my other keys.  They're
always in my pocket.  Always.  I lost some keys once, and it was such a
pain in the ass that I've had a thing about it ever since."

"Who else knew that $asha was buying the apartment?"  "The owne; the
board of directors, four other people me--the-had to approve the
buyer--the doorman, and, of course, anybody Sasha might have felt like
telling."

Stone remembered $asha's change-of-address cards, unmailed.  "I want to
go through this stuff.  Are you going to cooperate, or am I going to
have to go to the trouble of getting a search warrant?"

"All right'--Harkness sighed--"do what you have to do, but I'm going
to'be here while yoU're doing it."  He walked across the room and
settled his large frame in a chair.  "Have at it," he said.

Nearly two hours later, Stone wrote a receipt and handed it to
Harkness.  "I want her checkbook and her other financial records--these
two boxes here."

"When do I get them back?"  ,

'fiVhen I've had a chance to go over them thoroughly, or when Sasha
turns up alive, whichever comes first."  Harkness stared at the two
boxes.

"Is there something you want to tell me?"  Stone asked.

"No," Harkness replied.  "If it will.  help to find out what happened
to Sasha, you're welcome to the records."

They parted at the front door of the building, and the detectives
lifted the two boxes into the trunk of their car.  As.  they got in,
Dino spoke up.  if Harkness keeps his keys in his pocket all the time,
then his wife might have gotten to them when he was asleep.  If he was
fucking Sasha, the lady might have taken an interest in her moving into
the building."

"I didn't think of that," Stone said.  "I don't even know if Harkness
has a wife."

"He's a big guy, isn't he?  Wouldn't have much trouble tossing a lady
off a balcony, he felt like it."

"I thought of that," Stone said.

CHAPTER

f you're going to start out the evening kissing like that, then we're
never going to make it to dinner," Stone said, feeling her breasts
against him.  The front door was still-open, and he kicked it shut.

"Couldn't help myself."  She grihned.  "Say, all the way over here,
I've been wondering where in this house you're going to offer me a
drink.  I mean, the place is a wreck."

"Follow me," he said, and he led her to the kitchen.

She stood and looked around the room.  "It's beautiful," she said. "You
didn't do this yourself."

"I did, with a little help.  I didn't build it, I just restored it,
refinishing all the original cabinetwork, and fitting in the new
appliances.  It's the only room in the house that's done, except for
the floors."

"It's like a turn-of-the-century dream," she said, opening a cabinet.
"And you've got your aunt's china, too."

"Hers and my mother's.  I could feed an army, if I had a working dining
room."

"We've got to find a way for you to keep this house, Stone.  You
deserve to live in it, really you do.  I hate to think of your turning
it over to some stranger, just for the money."

"I hate the idea, too, but that's the way it has to be.  What would you
like to drink?"

"Scotch."

They sat at the kitchen table.

"So bow's the Sasha investigation going?"

"Stranger and stranger.  Did you know she was going to be your
next-door neighbor?"

Cary's jaw dropped.  "In 10-J?  You're kiddingS"

"Barron didn't tell you?"  '

"Jesus, no."  She looked thoughtful.  "I wonder why not.  I

know most of what goes with him, and if he got her into the building,
why on wouldn't he tell me that?"

"Did he get you into the building?"

"Yeah.  Daddy paid, of course.  Dammit, I'll bet Sasha paid less.  The
co-op market is soft right now, and I've been there two years; I bought
in at the top."

"Did you know the people who lived there before?"  "The Warrens?  Sure.
I mean, they had me in for a drink when I moved in, and I had them in
for a drink in return, and after that I just saw them in the elevator.
The place was just a pied-h-terre for them; they live in Westport.  He
was in a Wall Street law firm, and he just retired."

"Did you have a key to 10-J?"

"No."

Stone told her about the day's events.

"Spooky!"  she said.  "And you wondered if I went through her stuff?"

"Had to ask."

"Did you talk to the Warrens?"

"I tried.  The maid said they're in London.  That lets them have been
in and out of there, but I guess 'finished up before Sasha's stuff
arrived.  Anyway, the them in and locked up after them."  "Well, enough
shoptalk.  How was your day?"

It was nine before they reached the Tribeca Grill, riding inevitable
black Lincoln.  The headwaiter knew Cary gave them a good table.

place," Stone said.  "I've read about it.  Is De Niro i "From time to
time.  Sometimes I think a third of the people came just to catch a
glimpse of him."

"Like'those two couples," Stone said, nodding at a table less desirable
part of the restaurant.  They watched as one the men, dressed.,n a silk
suit and a pearl gray tie, offered e headwaiter money and had it
refused.

' outs," .

ii "Not your ordinary tourists, Stone replied.  "They re

"

"Mafia?  You know-them?.  ". I know the look.  The suits, the women's
clothes.  Just bout eye, body else in here is casual, but they're
dressed, to i'ikill.  Here s how it goes: the wise guys like places
they re where they're known to be connected; they're treated best
tables, the best wines on the house.  though, the ladies wanted to
break out, wanted to come to De Niro's restaurant and see him up close.
The guys went for it, because De Niro is Italian, he's their hero,
and

"re already regretting it.  They got the worst table in the and the
headwaiter won't be bought.  They'll sulk all through dinner, and it'll
be the last time for a while the ladies will get to go to a new
restaurant."

STUART woods

Cary laughed.  A wonderful sound, Stone thought.  "Do you deal much
with Mafia guys?"

"Not unless there's a homicide.  My partner, Dino, grew up with them,
though.  Dino says that everybody he was in school with is either dead,
in prison, or has his phones tapped by the FBI."

"I'd like to meet Dino."

"He'll charm you right out of your pants," Stone said.  She leaned
close.  "Only you can do that."  "I'm glad to hear it."

They dined well, and Cary pointed out the regulars to him, told him who
the producers and directors were.  When coffee came, she was quiet for
a while.

"That's really strange, Barron not telling me that Sasha and I were
going to be next-door neighbors," she said finally.  "It really seems
to bother you," Stone said.

"It does.  During the time I've been with Barron, he's come to trust me
on just about everything, I think, and then, when there's something
you'd think he would just naturally tell me about, he clams up.  If
Sasha's stuff hadn't got moved in there, I'd never have known about her
buying the place."

"Is Barron married?"

"Sure.  He and Charlotte celebrated their twentieth anniversary last
year.  Now, that could have something to do with it.  Maybe he didn't
want Dolly to know--but hell, that doesn't make any sense either.  How
could he move her into the building and expect to keep it from Dolly?
And why would he think I would tell her, anyway?  I've never told her
about anything else he's done.  I hardly know her."

"What's Charlotte like?"

"Straight arrow; utterly conventional.  They were college sweethearts,
and she worships the ground he slithers on."

"Now, that is the first hard word I've heard you say about him.  He
slithers, does he?"

"Oh, I guess I'm just mad because he didn't tell me into the building."
'q/Vas Barron fucking Sasha?"  She turned and looked at him.  "Are you
on the job, or is this a personal conversation?"  He didn't blink.
"Every cop is always on the job.  There times when I can't separate my
work from my personal ,. This is one of them."  She didn't blink
either. "If you want to interrogate me boss, see me at my office.  And
I might lie to you."  "You should never lie to a policeman," he said. 
"I will if I feel like it," she replied evenly.  The evening suddenly
turned cool. Later, when her black car stopped in front of the Turtle
"Bay house, she declined to come in with him.  BefOre he gOt out, he
turned to face her.  "I'm sorry.  I apologize.  I stepped over the
line, and I'll try not to do it again."  She nodded, but didn't say
anything.  He kissed her on the cheek, got out of the car, and closed
the door.  She rolled down the window.  "Stone," she called after

He turned and walked back to the the car, leaned to her.  "Barron was
fucking Sasha," she said.  "Secretly, regularly, and for a long lime.
And I think I'm falling in love with She rapped on the back of the
front seat and the car drove away, leaving Stone slmding in the
street.

CHAPTER

When Stone arrived at the precinct, a well-dressed, obviously irritated
man was sitting next to Dino's desk.  Dino, unaccountably in the
station house early, was interviewing him.

"Look, I've already explained," he said, looking uncomfortably around
him.  A very dirty, handcuffed black man was sitting at the next desk,
admiring the man's clothes.

"Mr.  Duncan, this is my partner, Stone Barrington.  Stone, this is Mr.
Evan Duncan, who has something interesting to tell us."

"How do you do, Mr.  Duncan," Stone said, extending his hand.  He
stepped between Duncan and the black man.

"Would you please tell Detective Barrington what you saw, Mr.  Duncan?"
Dino asked politely.

Shielded from the black man and seeming to take confidence from the
presence of Stone, who probably looked like of the people he knew,
Duncan nodded.  "I'm an invest-banker," he said.  "My office is in
Rockefeller Plaza."  established that.  he was a person worthy of
belief, he "Last evening, about six thirty, a friend and I were the
Harvard Club, on West Forty-fourth Street.  We ordered a car from the
club's service, and a black car up and let a man out.  I looked at the
number on the and thought it was car number twelve, which was number on
the slip the steward had given me, so I opened the door and started to
get into the car."  He paused, uncertain as to whether he should
continue. "Go on, Mr.  Duncan," Stone said, nodding reassuringly. 
"Well, there was a woman in the backseat.  She turned to , surprised
that someone was getting into her car.  "I apoloBgized and began baking
out, and she said, "Don t worry bout it, all these cas look alike."  I
closed the door and checked the fiumber again, and it was number
twenty-one, not twelve."  He stop led and looked to Stone as if for :'
approval.  ' ' ' " r -' Stone wondered if he had missed something.  M
.

"Dino didn't tell him, Mr.  Duncan," Dino said to the "Oh, I'm sorry, I
quite missed the main point, didn't I?"  Duncan chuckled.

"What is the main point?"  Stone asked, baffled.  "Oh, well, the woman
was Sasha Nijinsky," Duncan replied, as if Stone should have known it
all along.  The hairs stood up on the back of Stone's neck.  Here was
an obviously solid citizen with a close-up sighting.  Why did you think
it was Sasha Nijinsky?"  Stone asked, hoping against hope that the man
was not simply some upper-class fruitcake.  "Well, I've seen her on
television several hundred times."

"Sometimes people on television look different in person," Stone
said.

"And I sat across the table from her at a dinner party less than two
weeks ago," Duncan said firmly.

Stone looked at Dino.  Dino made a how-about-that face.  "Did she
recognize you?"  Stone asked.

"I don't think so, and I was in and out of the car so fast that I never
really engaged her in conversation.  But it was Sasha Nijinsky, I'm
absolutely certain of it.  I wouldn't really have come in here about
this, but my wife said it could be important, since Sasha is
missing."

"Missing?"  Stone asked.  Nobody knew she was missing.  The press still
thought she was in some hospital or other.

Dino held up a fresh copy of the Daily News.  SASI-IA VANISHES, a
headline screamed.

Stone picked up the paper and opened it.  "A source in the New York
City Police Department confirmed last night that, since her fall from
the terrace of her East Side penthouse apartment, Sasha Nijinsky has
been missing, and no one knows if she is alive or dead."  He didn't
read the rest.  Somebody, probably somebody in this room, was talking
to a reporter.

"You did the right thing, Mr.  Duncan," Stone said.  "Now the car
number was twenty-one, the time was about six thirty, you said?"

"That's right, just about exactly six thirty.  That was the time I had
ordered the car for."

"And the name of the car service?"

"Minute Man.  I use them all the time."

Stone held out his hand.  "Thank you very much for this information,
Mr.  Duncan," he said.  "You may be sure that we'll check this out
thoroughly."

Dismissed, Duncan retrieved his trench coat from Dino's desk and made
his way out of the room, giving the leering black man a wide berth.

"Cat's out of the bag, huh?"  Stone said to Dino.

"I think a more appropriate description of the situation that the shit
has hit the fan," Dino said.  "Leary wants to

US."

"At least we've got some sort of lead," Stone said.  "Let's Minute Man
first."  After a long wait for the information, Stone was told that i
Minute Man car had picked up a Ms.  Balfour at the

Hotel at six thirty and had delivered her to an

Street address.  Stone scribbled it down.  'e is right down the block
from the Harvard Club;

have been stopped in traffic when Duncan mistOOk it for his."

"Sounds good to me," Dino said.

Armed with their new information, the two detectives aced Leary, 'who
wasn't unhappy man.  "I hope to God this is no fuckin' wild-goose
chase," he said, when he had heard their story.  "The chief of. 
detectives has already been on the phone this mo .rping, and I'm
expecting a call from the mayor any minute."

As if on cue, the phone rang.  Le.ary put his hand on it.  "Get out of
here and run down that lead," he said.  "I'll buy you as much time as I
can.""' Stone and Dino sat in their car outside the address, an elegant
town house on East Sixty-third Street.

"I'm scared," Dino said.

"I know how you feel," Stone replied.

"You know how much we need this to be something, don't you?  I'd like
to get a shot at the balls of the guy who leaked to the papers.  I'd
cut 'em off and make him eat 'em."

"I'd hold him down while you did it," Stone said.  "All right, let's
go."

They trudged up the front steps and rang the bell, then watched through
iron grillwork as a uniformed maid approached the door.  "Yes?"  she
said, opening the door slightly.  Stone showed his badge.  "My name is
Detective Barrington.  Is there a Ms.  Balfour at this address?"  "Just
a minute," the maid said, closing the dOOr and shutting them out.  She
went to a telephone in the entrance hall, spoke a few words into it,
then returned and opened the front door wide.  "Please come in," she
said.  "Mrs.  Balfour will be right down."  As they entered, Stone saw
half a dozen pieces of matched luggage piled to one side of the front
door.  The detectives were shown to a small sitting room, and, as they
sat down, the maid opened the door to another man, who began removing
the baggage.  A moment later, there was the click of high heels on the
marble floor of the entrance hall and Sasha Nijinsky walked into the
sitting room.  As the detectives got to their feet, Stone was swept
with an overwhelming sense of relief that made him lightheaded.  "I'm
Ellen Balfour," $asha Nijinsky said.  "How may I help you?"  Something
is wrong here, Stone thought.  Relief began to be replaced by panic.
'qell?"  the woman said into the stunned silence.  "Aren't you..."
Stone couldn't get the words out.  "Oh, I see," the woman said, nodding
her beautiful head gravely.  "It's the third time this week I've been
mistaken for her."  "Oh, shit," Dino said, involuntarily, then
recovered him The woman turned and looked at him.  "Excuse me, please,"
Dino pled. "I wonder, Mrs.  Balfour, if you have some personal
identification?" Stone said, hoping against hope that this woman was
Nijinsky and hiding it.  "Something with a photograph?"  The woman
opened her handbag and produced a New York driver's license with a very
nice picture.  "I can only apologize for the intrusion," Stone said,
returning the license to her.  "A gentleman turned up at the precinct
this morning and reported having seen Sasha Nijinsky."  "I'll bet it
was the man from the Harvard Club last night," she said.  "It was." 
"He looked as if he'd seen a ghost."  "He was cry certain.  He'd met
Miss Nijinsky only a couple of weeks ago."  "I've been putting up with
this for years," Mrs.  Balfour said, and IV resisted changing my hair,
but now I'm just going to have to go for a new look, I guess.  And
after the newspaper stories this morning, I'm getting out of town."  "I
don't blame you," Stone said.  "If you get any reports of sightings in
the Hamptons, please ignore them," Ellen Balfour said.  "My husband
doesn't think this is funny anymore."

Back in the car," neither detective spoke until they were nearly back
to the precinct.  "I guess we'd better get into Sasha's financial
records," Stone said finally.  "Yeah," Dino replied disconsolately.
Dino's idea of a financial record was the color of the sock he kept his
money in.  "fell you what, I'll go through the interview reports again
on the people you and I didn't talk to personally; you do the finandal
records, okay?"  "Okay," Stone said.

CHAPTER

Stone was impressed with Sasha's records.  She kept the kind of system
that he kept meaning to set up for himself..  Her checkbook was the
large, desk model, and every stub was fully annotated; she kept a
ledger of the bills she received and paid; there was no preparer's
signature on her tax returns, so she must have done them herself.  It
seemed that Sasha Nijinsky had never been late on a payment for
anything, and, periodically, there was a large check writ-ten--usually
between twenty-five and a hundred thousand dollars to a brokerage
account.  The lady had been making a lot of money for years, and she
knew how to save it.  Stone was surprised, then, when her most recent
brokerage statement showed the value of her holdings was only
thirty-seven thousand dollars and change.  He began back tracking
through the brokerage statements, which were bun-died by year and
secured with strong rubber bands.  They made good reading.  Figuring
roughly, Stone estimated that Sasha had saved just under eight hundred
thousand dollars during the past five years and that, through shrewd
trading, this had grown to just over two million during that time.
Then, eight months back, an even two million had been withdrawn, paid
by the broker with a cashier's check made out to Cash.

Having an easily negotiable instrument of that size in her possession
seemed at odds with Sasha's character as revealed in her records, Stone
thought; the consequences of losing it would have been catastrophic for
her, and he could find no re corf the sum having been placed in any
other of her accounts.  Two million dollars was just gone. 
Furthermore, at the time she had disappeared, Sasha had been about to
close a substantial real estate transaction which, according to her
records, she had no ready funds to cover.  And there was no record of a
mortgage application or commitment letter.  S. trang.  :

"Dino, you keep at the'interview.:reports," Stone said.  "I

think I'm going to pay Sasha's lawyer a visit."

"You find something?"

"No, I'm missing something.  Or rather, Sasha is."

It was five o'clock when Stone presented himself at the midtown law
offices of Woodman & Weld, and the receptionist fled her desk,
clutching her coat, as soon as she had announced him.

"I'm Frank Woodman," a tall, athletic man in his fifties said,
extending his hand.  "Come on back to the conference room; there's a
meeting still going on in my office."

"I'm sorry if I've come at a bad time," Stone said, following Woodman
down a plushly carpeted hallway.

"Not at all," Woodman said over his shoulder.  "I'm happy to do
anything I can to help Sasha."  He led the way into an elegant
conference room, which was furnished in English antiques, and sat down
at the head of the table.

Stone took a chair.  "Mr.  Woodman, to get right to the point, two
million dollars seems to be missing from Sasha's brokerage account."

Woodman nodded.  "I know about that," he said, 'qut only because Sasha
mentioned it in passing.  I should tell you that, even as her sole
attorney, I know less about Sasha's affairs than most lawyers in my
position would know.  She was.."  well, secreti,e, I guess I'd have to
say."

"You say you know where the money is?"

"I said I knew about it," Woodman replied.  "Sasha told me a few months
ago that she had cashed in her chips after having done well in the
market for several years.  She showed me a cashier's check made out to
Cash for two million."

"I thought you said she was secretive."

"She was, but we were having a drink in the Oak Bar of the Plaza one
evening, and I guess she'd had a couple, and she showed me the
check."

"Did she say what she was going to do with it?"

"Only that she was Federal Expressing it to a bank in the Cayman
Islands the following morning.  She said she was making an investment
with a friend."

"She didn't say who the friend was?"

"No."

"Have you any idea who it might have been?"  "None."

"Is there some way I might trace the money?"

"I shouldn't think so.  Cayman Islands banks are a lot like their Swiss
counterparts, in that their transactions are held secret.  It's said
there's a lot of drug money down there.  Even if I knew the name of the
bank, and I do not, they wouldn't give you the time of day.  They won't
even give the IRS the time of day."

"It appears from her records that she had paid the taxes on her profits
in the market," Stone said.

"I've no doubt of that," Woodman replied.  "Sasha was punctilious in
her financial dealings.  But when people put large sums of money into
Swiss or Cayman banks, they're often trying to avoid paying taxes on
the income from that investment.  That  "he may very well have been
trying to do, although I would have advised her against it, if she had
asked me."

"Do you know how Sasha had planned to pay for her new apartment?"

"What new apartment?"  Woodman asked, surprised.  "You didn't know that
she was moving?"

"She never menticihed it to me," WOodman said.  "Oh, a couple of years
back she called me about the availability of mortgages on coops in the
city, add I told her I would be happy to help her with an application,
but, as far as I know, she never applied for a mortgage.  Certainly,
she had the income to raise one, if she had wished."

"Was Sasha the kind of client who might have been lured into a
fast-buck investment by a friend?"  Stone asked.

Woodman thought about that.  "Yes," he said.  "Sasha loved money, loved
making it.  But she would only have taken that sort of plunge if she
had checked it out carefully, and if she trusted the friend
implicitly."  Woodman's eyebrows went up.

"I find myself speaking of her in the past tense," he said.  "Of
course, I did read the papers this morning."

"Is that why you let Barron Harkness know that Sasha had appointed him
executor of her estate?"

"I did that before I saw today's papers.  When I heard about her fall
and when I was unable to locate her, I wrote to Harkness simply as a
precautionary step.  It seemed the prudent thing to do."

Stone stood up.  "Thank you for your time, Mr.  Woodman," he said.  "If
you think of anything else that might help me, I'd appreciate a call,
day or night."  He gave Woodman a card.

"Of course," the lawyer said.  "Do you think you can find your way back
to reception?  I'd like to rejoin my meeting."

"Sure, thanks," Stone replied.  The two men shook hands, and StOne
turned back toward the front of the office.

Halfway there, someone called his name.  Stone stopped and backtracked
a few steps to an open office door.  A grinning man was rising from a
desk.

Stone straggled for a name.  "Bill Eggers?"  he managed finally.

Eggers stuck out a hand.  "Haven't seen you since graduation day," he
said, "although I've seen your picture in the paper from time to
time."

"So what have you been doing with yourself for all these years?"  Stone
asked.  He remembered Eggers as a companionable fellow; they'd had a
few beers after class more than once.

Eggers spread his hands.  "This," he said.  "I joined a downtown firm
after law school, but I've been here for the past eight years."

-"What sort of law are you practicing?"

"Oh, I'm the general dogs body around here," Eggers said.  "I do
whatever needs doing--some personal injury, a little domestic work, the
odd criminal case, when one of the firm's clients crosses the line."

"Sounds interesting."  Stone looked around the plush office.  Looked as
though Eggers had done well at it too.

"More interesting than you would believe."  Eggers laughed.  "You
seeing Woodman about Sasha?"

"Yeah."

"I wondered when you'd get around to him."

"It took me a few days; I've been pretty busy."

"Funny you turning up here; I've been thinking about you lately."

"Kind thoughts, I pc."

"The kindest, I assure you."  Eggers looked at his watch.  "I've got a
client coming jn any second, but I'd like to buy you a drink sometime,
chew over some things."

"Sure," Stone said, fishing out a card.  "Give me a week or two,
though.  The Sasha thing is taking a lot of time."

"Of course," Eggers said, extending his hand again.  "We'll make it
dinner, when you've got the time."

On his way home, Stone reflected on Bill Eggers's prosperous
appearance, the handsome office, the prestigious law firm.  Was it
possible that-Woodman & Weld might need someone with his background?

When he got home, there was a notice from the, NYPD: his return-to-duty
physical had been scheduled.  Stone flexed the knee.  Not bad; he'd
begun to forget about it.  He tried a couple of half knee bends.  It
was sore, but he could ace the physical.

CHAPTER

'an I buy you breakfast?"  her Low, pleasing voice said on the phone.
"It's the first real day of autumn outside, and we'll have a walk in
the park, too."  "Oh, yes."  Stone exhaled.  He was pitifully glad to
hear from Cavy.  Their last, uncomfortable evening had been eating at
him, and, in spite of her parting words, he had been unsure of his
reception, should he call her.  "There's a little French place called
La Goulue, on East Seventieth, just off Madison.  I've got a table
booked in half an hour."  "You're on."

They sat in the warm, paneled restaurant, a pitcher of mimosas between
them, and drank each other in.

"I don't know when I've been so glad to see anybody," Stone said.  "I'm
glad it's me you're glad to see," she replied.  She slipped off her
shoe, and, under the tablecloth, rested her foot in his crotch.  "Oh,
you are glad to see me, aren't you?"  She rolled her eyes.

"That's not a pistol in my pocket."  He grinned.

Her eyebrows went up.  "You're supposed to wear a gun all the time,
aren't you?"

"That's right."

"Are you wearing one now?"

He nodded.

"So that could be a pistol in your pocket."

He laugheck "It could be, but it isn't."

"Where are you wearing it?"  "Strapped to my ankle."  He hated the
bulge under his coat, hated being careful bout inadvertently revealing
the weapon.  "You have a badge, too, I guess."

"That's right.  I wouldn't be a policeman without a badge, would I?"
'"

"Let me see it."  Stone produced the little leather wallet and laid it
on the table.  She flipped it open and ran a finger around the badge.
It's gold," she said.

"A detective's badge is always gold.  It's what every cop wants, a gold
badge."  ,

The waiter came and refreshed their mimosas from the pitcher, leaning
over, eyeing the badge.

Stone flipped the wallet shut and put it back in his pocket.

"I want it," she said.

"Want what?"

"The badge."

Stone laughed and shook his head.  "To get that badge, you'd have to
sign up for the Police Academy, walk a beat for a few years, spend a
few more in a patrol car, then get lucky on a bust or two, and have a
very fine rabbi."  "Rabbi?"

"A senior cop who takes an interest in your career."  "Do you have a
rabbi?"

"I did.  His name was Ron Rosenfeld."

"And he helped you?"

"He helped me a lot.  I would never have made detective if not for
him."

"Why did he help you?"  she asked.

"That's a funny, question  Why do people ever help each other?"

"But there must have been some specific reason, apart from just liking
you.  Did he help all young policemen?"

"No," Stone admitted.  He thought about it for a moment.  '4 think it
may have been because he was a Jew and I was such an obvious WASP."

"That doesn't make any sense.  Why didn't he help Jewish cops, instead
of you?"

"I think because he had been discriminated against when he was a young
patrolman, so he felt some empathy with my situation.  He saw me
getting passed over for good assignments, and it rankled, I guess.  Oh,
he helped a lot of young Jewish cops, too.  It wasn't just me."

'id he retire?"

"He died.  It was a lot like losing my father."

"So who helps you now?"

Stone shrugged.  "Nobody.  Well, Dino helps me."

"But he's junior to you, isn't he?"

"Yes, but he's more inside than I am.  I think he defends me sometimes;
I think it's made a difference, too."

"It's a funny situation, isn't it?"

"I guess.  I can live with it, though.  At least I get to keep doing
what I like; I have enough rank to get good cases, and I have a good
reputation as an investigator."

"I don't want to pry, but I worry about you sometimes.  How are you
doing on Sasha?  I read the papers."

"The papers were accurate.  It's a brick wall; very frustrating."

"Are you getting a lot of pressure from above?  Political pressure, I
mean?"

"So far, my commander has been able to keep the heat off Dino and me.
The taxi murders diverted some attention from us at a good time, but
they also took all the manpower we had on Sasha's case.""

"Is that hurting your investigation?"

Stone sighed.  "Not really; not much.  The greater part of the legwork
had already been done when the taxi shootings happened.  We'd interview
et eve body whQ.  had anything to do with Sasha by that time. Dino's
going over the reports now, just to be sure we haven't missed
anything."

"What's going to happen on the Sasha investigation?  I mean, what's
likely to happen?"

'qe'll get a tip," Stone said.  "Eventually.  That's how most cases are
solved--never mind all the sdentific stuff: fingerprints, DNA
matchingmmost cases are solved Jcause somebody finally tells us
something."

Their eggs Benedict came, and they ate hungrily.

When the check came, Stone paid the waiter, then looked Cary in the
eye.  "Sometimes, in cases like this, the person waits a long time to
come forward.  Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing."  She kept
his gaze for a moment, then looked down at his jacket and frowned. 
"Where do you buy your clothes?"  She wasn't going to talk to him; not
yet, anyway.  He glanced at the brown herringbone.  "Different places.
There are a couple of discount places downtown that have nice stuff,
sometimes."  "I said I'd help you furnish the house; I think I'd better
start by furnishing you."  "Okay," Stone said, "I guess I could use
some furnishing."  "Come with me."  Stone followed her out of the
restaurant. She led him briskly around the block to the corner of
Seventy-second and Madison and into a handsome stone building.  He had
seen the place, but he had never been in.  It wasn't the sort of place
cops bought their clothes.  The store was a wonderland of beautiful
things.  She led him to the third floor, where she found a rack of
tweed jackets.  In seconds she had extracted one and helped him into
it.  A salesman sidled up.  "Our forty-two long fits you perfectly," he
said.  "That jacket won't require the slightest alteration."  Stone
felt for the tag, but Cary ripped it off and handed it to the salesman.
"Never look at price tags," she said.  "That's not the way to shop. 
Buy what's right for you, and worry about the money later.  That's what
credit cards are for."  She found another jacket, then some trousers,
then she started on the suits.  He managed to hold her to two, but they
were beautiful, he had to admit, and they did fit him perfectly.  She
shook his wallet out of the old jacket and handed the garment to the
salesman.  "Send this," she said.  "He'll wear the plaid one."  "I
guess I should get some shirts," Stone said.  "Downstairs," the
salesman said, handing him a credit card chit to sign.  Stone followed
instructions and didn't look at the amount.  He tried to stop in the
shirt department, but she pulled him away.  "I'hey're wrong for you,"
she said.  "We'll get those elsewhere."  She hailed a cab.  Shortly,
they were in a Fifth Avenue department store; she guided him to a shop
within the store.  'nese are English," she said, hauling out a stack of
shirts from a shelf, "and they suit you."  A dozen shirts later, they
were in anltalianhoe store, trying on loafers and featherweight
lace-ups.  By the time they reached Central Park, Stone felt like a new
man.  The mimosas still buzzed in his veins, and the clear, autumn air
elated him.  Autumn always seemed like the beginning of the year to
Stone; New Year's was an anticlimax.

"You look wonderful in that jacket," Cary said.  "I feel wonderful in
it," he replied.  "I feel wonderful with you."  'l'hat's the way you're
supposed to feel," she said.  They walked north along the Fifth Avenue
side" enjoying the color in the trees, and, at Seventy-ninth Street,
she led him from the park.  "My place," she said.  The doorman didn't
seem to recognize him.  "On her floor, he glanced at Sasha's door.
"Don't think about that," she said, pulling him into her apartment. 
The place was a mirror image of Sasha's, and it was beautifully put
together--feminine, without being cloying, beautiful fabrics, good
pictures, expensive things.  "This is wonderful," Stone said.  "You're
hired as my decorator."  "You know the best thing about this
apartment?" cary asked.  "What's that?"  "It has a bedroom.  And a
bed."  "Oh.  I'd better have a look at that."  "Yes, I think you'd
better," she said, unbuckling his belt.

Later, when they fell asleep, exhausted, it was with his soft penis in
her hand.  He liked sleeping that way.

When he got home, the following evening, the Saturday mail awaited him.
There was a letter from his bank: Dear Mr.  Barrington: Just a reminder
to let you know that your note is due at the end of the month. The note
is, of-course, adequately collateralized by your house, and I will be
happy to renew it, but I must tell you that, with the softening market
in large properties, the bank's new lending policy will require a
substantial reduction of the principal when renewing.  I might be able
to persuade the loan committee to accept a reduction of $25,000. And,
of course, there will be $4800 interest due."  The letter hit him like
a blow to the belly.  He'd borrowed the money to renovate the house,
but the banker had promised to keep renewing until he had a buyer. 
Then he had another thought.  He dug out the receipts for the clothing
he had bought.  The total came to nearly four thousand dollars. Stone
went into the bathroom and lost his lunch.

CHAPTER

'tone was twenty minutes late to work.  When he walked into the squad
room, the place went quiet.  Dino stood up from his desk and waved
Stone toward the stairs.  '"

"What's up?"  Stone asked as they trotted' up the steps together.

"Leary wants us in the conference room.  There's brass here."

"Oh, shit," Stone said.

Down one side of the long table Were arrayed the detective squad
commander, Lieutenant Leary; Chief of Detectives Vincent Delgado, a
slim, rather elegant man in his fifties; and an imposing black man
Stone recognized from his photographs, who was wearing the well-pressed
uniform of a deputy commissioner.  Deputy commissioners were mayoral
appointees.  Stone didn't know the other man, who looked like a banker,
in a pin-striped suit, white shirt, and sober necktie. "Chief, you
already know Barrington and Bacchetti," Leary said.  Delgado nodded,
managing a tight smile.  "Commissioner Waldron, these are detectives
second grade Barrington and Bacchetti," Leary said unnecessarily.  "I'm
glad to meet you, men," Waldron said.  "I've heard a lot about both of
you."  "Oh, shit," Dino said under his breath, not moving his lips. 
"Right," Stone whispered back.  Waldron had been a hot assistant DA
when he had joined the campaign staff of the mayor, and, after the
election, he had been the mayor's first appointee to a law enforcement
position.  It was said Waldron had mayoral ambitions of his own, since
the mayor had let it be known that he would not be running for a third
term.  Waldron had a reputation for meddling in police investigations. 
"And, Detectives," Leary continued, "this is John Everett, special
agent in charge of the New York office of the

FBI."

Everett, expressionless, nodded sleepily.  "If you'll forgive me,
gentlemen," Waldron said to Leary and Delgado, I'll tell the detectives
why we're here."  "Of course, sir," Leary said.  Delgado merely nodded.
Waldron turned to the detectives.  "I want to forget what I've read in
the reports and what I've read in the papers.  I

want to hear from you every step that has been taken in the Sasha
Nijinsky investigation, from day one.  From minute one.  And don't
leave anything out."

Goddamn Leary, Stone thought.  If he'd given them a few hours' notice
he could have put together some kind of presentation.  Now he would
have to wing it.

"From minute one," Waldron repeated.  "Go."

"Sir," Stone began, "I was proceeding on foot down the west side of
Second Avenue at approximately two a.M. on the night of the.."
occurrence.  I was off duty, I happened to look up, and I witnessed
the... Ms.  Nijinsky's fall."  He was still having trouble calling the
event a crime and Nijinsky a

"rhis actually haplSed?"  Waldron interrupted.  "The papers got it
right?"

"Mostly, sir."  He continued to relate the events of that night.  When
he got to the collision of the ambulance with the fire engine, Waldron
started shaking his head.

"Jesus H. Christ," he said, "that's the god damndest worst piece of
luck I ever heard of."

"My sentiments exactly, si," Din said.:.

Leary and Delgado laughed.

"Go on," Waldron said.

Stone took the man through his and Dino's actions for the rest of the
night, then asked Dino to describe the subsequent investigation by the
detective squad.  Neither detective referred to his notebook.

When they had finished, Waldron spoke again.  "Detectives, have you
left any avenue un investigated

"Sir," Stone said, "the detective squad of this precinct interviewed
sixty-one witnesses, coworkers, and friends of Ms.  Nijinsky and made
more than eight hundred telephone calls, all within thirty hours of the
occurrence.  Since that time, Detective Bacchetti has reviewed each of
the interview reports, and he and I have conducted a search of the home
and business premises of the possible suspect, Van Fleet."  "Is Van
Fleet still a suspect?"  Waldron asked.  "Officially, of course, sir.
But we haven't got a thing on him, except that he wrote Ms.  Nijinsky a
great many very polite letters."

"Do you have any other suspects?"  Waldron asked.  "No, sir," Stone
replied.

There was a brief silence in the room.  Nobody seemed to have anything
else to say.

Except the FBI man, Everett.  "Why didn't you call the FBI?"  he
asked.

Stone turned to face lverett; he had felt this coming.  "Because no
federal crime has been committed," he replied.  "As far as we know."

"How about kidnapping?"  Everett asked.

Chief of Detectives Delgado spoke up.  "l'he lady took a twelve-story
dive," he said laconically.  "What's to kidnap?"  "Good point," Waldron
said.

Everett leaned forward.  "Perhaps Detective Barrington would tell us
about his terminal velocity theory," he said encouragingly.

Stone felt color creeping up his neck into his face.

"His what theory?"  Delgado asked sharply.

"Terminal velodty," Stone said, clearing his throat.  "It's just a
theory, sir.  There's nothing really to support it."  "I'd like to hear
it anyway," Delgado said.  "So would I," echoed Waldron.

Leary rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

Stone briefly explained what terminal velocity is and what part it
might have played in Sasha Nijinsky's fall.

No one spoke.  No one took his eyes off Stone.

"Of course," Dino interjected suddenly, "the lady's gotta be dead.  You
don't fall twelve stories and write about it in your memoirs."

"We've treated this as a homicide from the beginning," Stone said.

"But you've no evidence of a homidde," Everett said, a little too
smoothly.  "In fact, the available evidence--the diary--points to a
suicide attempt."

"In any case, the lady's dead," Delgado said irritably.

"But Detective Barrington doesn't think so," Everett replied.  "Do you,
Detective?"

Everybody turned back to Stone.

"I think it's.."  just possible she may be alive," Stone said
uncomfortably.

"I think Detective Barrington thinks it's more than just possible,"
Everett said.  "But what counts is, was she alive when she was taken
from that ambulance?"

"She may have been," Stone said.

"We know she was alive at the' scene f her fall, because of the
videotape evidence Detective Barrington has told us about," said
Everett, spreading his hands, the picture of reason.  "And the
ambulance collision occurred only minutes later."

"It's possible," Delgado said, glaring at Stone.

"All that matters to me, gentlemen," Everett said, "is that she may
have been alive when she was taken.  Kidnapped.  Kidnapping, in the
United States of America, is a federal crime."

"Granted," Waldron said.  "But, surely, you see our position in
treating this as a homicide?"

Everett nodded.  "I'm not here for a jurisdictional dispute,
Commissioner; honestly, I'm not.  But your own chief of detectives has
just admitted that Nijinsky may have been alive when she was taken, so
I'm calling it kidnapping, for the purposes of investigation, and the
FBI is, from this moment, on it.  Any objections?"

No one said anything.

Everett stood up.  '"well, if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, my purpose
here is accomplished.  I have an investigation to conduct."  He shook
hands with those on his side of the table, nodded to the two
detectives, and left.

When Everett had gone, Delgado turned to Stone.  "Nice going," he said.
"Now we've got the feds on our backs."

"If you'll excuse me, sir," Stone said, "I'm glad to have them in.
Maybe they'll stunle on something we haven't."  "l'hat's all we
need."

Waldron spoke up.  "I'm inclined to agree with Detective Barrington,"
he said to Delgado.  "If this case isn't solved, we can share the,
uh... credit."  He turned back to Stone and Dino.  "Detectives," he
said seriously, "I think you've done a first-class job on this, and I
want you to know you have my support.  Is there anything you need for
your investigation?  Anything at all?  Just name it."

"We need a break," Dino said.

CHAPTER

Dino snatched a file off his desk.  "Let's get out of here," he said to
Stone.

Stone waited until they were in the squad car before speaking.  "What
do you think?""

"I think we're in the shit," Dino said.

"I don't know; Waldron seemed to be on our side.  Said we'd done a
first-class job, remember?"

"You trust Waldron?"  Dino asked incredulously.  "You're so fucking
naive sometimes, Stone."

"Look, among the deputy commissioners, Waldron is the best of a bad
lot.  I mean, we could have drawn Ithat guy who was in advertisifig
before the mayor made him a

"Waldron's a politician, and that makes him dangerous.  And I can tell
you Delgado is not happy with us for being

involved in something that gets Waldron's attention--plus, he blames us
for the FBI."

"Come on, Dino, how can he blame us for that?  We're lucky we got this
far in our investigation without the feds stepping in.  Delgado knows
that."

"Delgado's Italian, like me," Dino said.  "When there's bad news,
Italians shoot the messenger, remember?  Right now, "Messenger' is
tattooed right across your forehead and mine, buddy."

Stone shook his head.  "I think you're overreacting.  If we'd made some
huge blunder in the investigation, then I think we really would be in
trouble, but we haven't done that; we've run it by the book--well,
mostly by the book--and we've covered all the bases."

"Well, we haven't cover our asses," Dino said.  "The only way we can do
that is by making a bust."

"By the way," Stone Said, "where are we going?"

"To the network," Dino said, handing him the manila file.  "Out of all
the interview reports, this is the only one that looked worth doing
again."

"Hank Morgan," Stone read from the file.  "Makeup artist."

"Look down at the bottom of the sheet."

Stone read the last line.  "Subject was nervous, wary, and gave only
the briefest answers to questions, without elaboration."  Most innocent
people, Stone knew, tended to blabber to the cops when questioned, not
clam up.  There were those who didn't like cops, who were short with
them, but this was interesting.  "Did you call to say we were coming?"
Stone asked.

"Nope," Dino replied.

"Good."

Hank Morgan was casually but elegantly dressed: Italian loafers, brown
tweed trousers, a striped silk dress shirt open at the throat, a green
cashmere sweater draped over the shoulders, the arms hanging loose. The
hair was carefully barbered, the skin tan, the teeth white and even.  A
handsome character, Stone thought.  And a woman, though just barely. 
"I'll be the bad cop," Dino said through his teeth, as Morgan led them
down the hall.  "I hate dykes."  Morgan led them into a room lit by
rows of small bulbs around a large mirror.  A barber's chair was the
only furniture.  "What can I do fOr you.Yshe asked, her eyes blinking
rapidly.  "We're investigating the Saha Nijinsky mater," Stone said. 
"We'd like to ask you some questions."  "I've already talked to two
policemen," Morgan said combatively.  "I don't feel much like talking
anymore."  Dino was on her like a tiger.  'Well, e didn't like your
answers, lady," he snarled at her, "and I don't much: care if you feel
like talking or not."  "Dino .... "Stone began.  "This is an
investigation into the disappearance, maybe the death of a human being
that you knew and worked with, and we intend to find out what you knew
about it," Dino continued, unabated.  "We can do it up at the precinct,
if you like."  Morgan appeared to wither under this barrage.  Stone
tugged at an earlobe.  Dino caught the signal.  Where's the men's
room?"  he said to Morgan.

STJAT

"Down the hall to your left," she replied.

"I thought you'd know," Dino shot back as he left the room.

When he had gone, Stone closed the door.  "I'd like to apologize for my
partner's conduct," he said to her gently.  "He's under a lot of
pressure on this case-we both are and he sometimes gets a little worked
up."

Morgan looked relieved.  '"i understand," she said.  "It's been a
strain on me, too."

Has it?  Stone wondered.  "I take it you knew Sasha quite well," he
said.  He had no reason to suppose that; it was a shot in the dark.

Morgan nodded, but did not speak.

"Did... Stone stopped.  Another stab.  "Were you in love with her?"  he
asked softly,

Morgan nodded again, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Stone said.  "I know how hard all this must have been for
you."  Yet another stab.  "Was Sasha in love with you?  Morgan wiped a
cheek and looked directly at him.  "Yes," she said firmly.

"Did she tell you so?"

"She showed me," Morgan replied.

"How long had the two of you been.."  seeing each other?"

"A couple of months," Morgan said, drying another tear.  She was
composing herself now.

"And when was the last time you saw Sasha?"

"le night before she.."  disappeared."  She was calm now, and ready to
talk.

"Where did you see her?"

"At my apartment.  We always met there."

"Did she stay the night?"

"Most of it.  Sasha always left around four.  She couldn't

"I understand."

"Ms.  Morgan, do you think Sasha might have been inclined to try to
take her own life?"

"I... I don't know.  She was up and down a lot.  She'd have these
highs, when nothing could get her down; then 'she'd sink into these
depressions.  They never lasted long,

but they were intense.  She could be difficult to be with during those
times.  Maybe, in the depths of one of those, she might have.."
impulsively.."  done something.  I just don't

"Would you characterize these mood swings as mnic-'depressive?"

"I'm not Sure.  From what I know about that condi people who have it
are unable to function When

: they're depressed.  Sasha could always function, and function
brilliantly, no matter what her m.o. od.  Shoe had a wilt of iron."

Stone looked Hank Morgan up and down.  She was five nine or ten, a
hundred and forty-five, with an athletic, even muscular build.  She
looked as though she worked out regularly.  "Ms.  Morgan," he asked,
"where were you after midnight the night Sasha fell?"

"I was at home in bed," she replied firmly.

"Were you alone?"

Now Morgan looked away.  "No."

"I think I'd better have the name of that person," Stone said.

"Is it absolutely necessary?"

"I'm sorry, but it is.  I want you to know, though, that I'll do what I
can to keep this information from becoming public.  I understand your
position."  "Her name is Chelsea Barton.  She's a set designer here."
I'll have to speak with her."  "Her office is the other side of the
reception area, on this floor."  Dino came back into the room.  "I
think we're about finished here," Stone said.  "Thank you, Ms.  Morgan.
I very much appreciate your cooperation."  Dino stepped back into the
hall, and Stone followed, then stopped.  He turned back to the woman.
"Ms.  Morgan, was Sasha seeing anyone else that you know of?"  Morgan
flushed.  "Yes, she was.  A man.  She would never tell me who, but I
had the feeling it had been going on for a long time."  "Do you think
it might have been someone she worked with?"  "I honestly don't know.
Sasha didn't give much away."  "Thank you again."  On their way down
the hall, Stone filled Dino in on his conversation with Hank Morgan. 
Dino whistled.  "So Sasha swung both ways, huh?  How about that?" 
"I'here was nothing in her diary to indicate it," Stone said.  "She had
a lot to lose," Dino replied.  "She wouldn't have written that down." 
They found the office of Chelsea Barton.  A rather dumpy young woman
looked up from her desk as they knocked.  Stone started to introduce
himself.

"Yes," Barton said, interrupting him.  "I was with Hank Morgan.  All
night.  Anything else?"

'q'hank you," Stone said, "no."

Back in the car Dino turned to Stone.  "So, if Morgan is in love with
the gorgeous Sasha, what's she doing in the sack with Miss Beanbag the
very next night?"

"That crossed my mind," Stone said.

"I think Morgan looks good for it.  Pansies are always bashing each
other's heads in with hammers, and all for love."

"Lesbians don't fit that mold."

"Still, you see the build on the bitch?  Sasha was little, compared to
her.  I think Morgan could have tossed her, no problem."

"I think so, too.  But how are you going to break that 'alibi?  Miss
Beanbag looked pretty tough to me."

"She was on the interview list, so we've got her address.  I think I'll
do a little checking into hr whereabouts that night," Dino said. "Maybe
I can place her somewhere else:'

"You do that, and we might have something for Deputy Commissioner
Waldron."

CHAPTER

"T

he phone was ringing as

Stone reached his desk.  He picked it up.  "Hello."  "Detective
Barrington?"  a husky voice said.  "Yes, speaking."

'his is Hank Morgan."

"Yes, Ms.  Morgan.  Did you think of something else?"  "I... I lied to
you, I'm afraid."  "How so.)"

"I was at home alone the night Sasha fell.  Chelsea wasn't with me. She
said that to protect me, but I realize this is serious, and I don't
want to involve her.  I hope you'll forget that I didn't tell you the
truth the first time; I'm telling you the truth now."

"All right, we'll forget your first statement and leave Chelsea out of
it."

"Thank you."  "What time did you get home that night?"  "I worked on
the evening news, so it would have been about eight thirty."  "Did
anyone see you?  The doorman, may ve "I live in a walk-up in the West
Village. There's no doorman."  "Anybody else?  A neighbor?"  "No. 
There are only two apartments in the building, and my downstairs
neighbor was on vacation."  "Did you go out again for any reason?" 
"No.  I read until about eleven, then I went to sleep."  "I see.  Ms. 
Morgan, I'd like you to come up to the Nineteenth Precinct to be
fingetPrinteIt might help us eliminate you as a suspect."  She paused
for a long time.  "I don't think I want to do that," she said.  "I've
already talked to a lawyer, and he advised me not to cooperate any
further than this."  "That's your right," Stone said.  "But I have to
tell you that the Supreme Court doesn't considgr being fingerprintcl to
be self-incriminating.  We may have to insist."  "I suppose that's your
right," she replied.  "But I haven't done anything wrong, and you don't
have any real reason to suspect me.  So I won't be having anything else
to say."  "I'm sorry you've derided to do it this way, Ms.  Morgan." 
"Good afternoon, Detective Barrington."  She hung up.  Stone told Dino
about their conversation.  "Bingo?  Dino cried.  "Let's go see Leary." 
"Wait a minute," Stone said, "I just remembered something."  He went to
the evidence room, dug out Sasha Nijinsky's financial records, and
began leafing through her checkbook.

"What are you looking for?"  Dino asked.  "I remember some checks Sasha
wrote.  Here!  One... two.."  three of them, all made out to Henrietta
Morgan!  The name meant nothing to me at the time."  He totted up the
amounts in his head.  "Fotal of twenty thousand dollars over eight
weeks, listed as loans.  You know what this smells like, Dino?"
"Blackmail?  Dino yelled.  "Miss Hank says, "Pay me, Sasha, or I'll
tell all!"  Let's go see Leary!"

Leary beamed at them.  "I knew good police work was going to break this
case."  He chortled.  "Pick her up right now."  He reached for the
phone.  "I'll call Delgado; he'll call Waldron."  * "I don't think
that's a good idea, Lieutenant," Stone said, "not yet, anyway.  Let's
get her up here and hear her story first."  "Get your asses out of here
and bring in the dyke!"  Leary said, dialing.

"This is insane!"  Hank Morgan said, interrupting Stone in his reading
of her rights.  "You aren't handcuffing me!"  "If you can't afford an
attorney, one will be appointed for you," Stone concluded.  "I'm sorry
about the cuffs; it's department policy."  He took her raincoat from a
hook on the wall and placed it over her shoulders.  "Don't worry, no
one here will see them."  "Let's go, lady," Dino said.  "I want to call
my lawyer," she said shakily.  "You can call her from the precinct,"
Dino said.  "Let's go."

Stunned into silence, Hank Morgan accompanied the two detectives out of
the building and into their car.

"Is there anything you want to tell us before we get to the station?"
Stone asked her.

Morgan shook her head.  "I want my lawyer," she said.

"Uh, oh," Dino said as they pulled up to the entrance of the 19th
Precinct.  "What's this?"

"Leakiest precinct in the city," Stone said, slamming his fist against
the dashboard in frustration.

A knot of reporters crowded the sidewalk.  Television lights went on.
Stone and Dino got Morgan out of the car arid hustled her into the
building, shoving the shouting reporters out of the way.

"No comment," Dino kept yelling.

"I want to call my lawyer," Morgan said, when they were safe from the
howling mob.

"Just as soon as we've fingerprinted and photographed you," Stone said,
unlocking her han.  cuffs

She gave the fingerprints without further protest, then, while Stone
had her photographed, Dino hand-carried the prints upstairs.  Stone
took Morgan into the squad room and put her in an empty cubicle, away
from the stares of the other detectives.

Morgan put her face in her hands.  "This is so humiliating," she
said.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way," Stone replied, "but you've made it
harder on yourself by refusing to cooperate."  "I want my lawyer now,"
she said.

Stone handed her the phone, and, hands shaking, she dialed a number.
Stone noted that she didn't have to look it up.  He wondered how many
innocent people knew their lawyers' phone numbers off the tops of their
heads.

Fifteen minutes passed, and Dino came breathlessly into the cubicle and
hauled Stone out.

"Listen to this," he said.

"Was one of her prints in Sasha's apartment?"  Stone asked.  It would
be too good to be true.

"Better than that, pal--we've got a palm print--and on the outside of
the sliding glass door to the terrace.  We can put her on the
terrace!"

A weak, warm feeling flooded through Stone.  "Jesus Christi" He
exhaled.  All the work, all the sweat had been worth it.  He had not
realized until that moment how afraid he had been of this case and what
it might do to him.  "Let's have another shot at her before her lawyer
gets here," he said, heading back for the cubicle.

Morgan was sitting rigidly in the steel chair, her hands clenched in
her lap.

"Listen to me, Ms.  Morgan," Stone said, pulling up a chair.  "You've
already admitted to me that you and Sasha were having an affair, and
that she was also having an affair with a man; that would make you
pretty jealous, wouldn't it?  We've got canceled checks showing that
Sasha paid you twenty thousand dollars in less than two months; your
palm print was found on the terrace that Sasha fell from.  We've got
all that, Ms.  Morgan, and we're going to get more.  Now, don't you
think it's time you told us about it?"

Morgan's shoulders began to shake, and tears rolled down her face.

Stone thought it was the only moment she had looked feminine since he
had met her.

"Oh, God!"  she moaned, "I want to tell you... '

"Excuse me, gentlemen," a rumbling voice said from behind them.

Stone and Dino turned to see a tall man in a beautiful overcoat
standing there.

"My name is Carlton Palmer; I'm Henrietta Morgan's attorney; I know you
won't mind if I consult with my client.  Alone," he added for good
measure.

The two detectives reluctantly gave up the field.

"Shit," Dino muttered.  "She was going to confess.  We had her in the
palm of our hands, and that slick bastard had to show up."

"She had a right-to seeim, Dino," Stone said.  "To tell you the truth,
I'd have been uncomfortable with a confession made before her lawyer
got here.."

"She won't say another fucking word now," Dino complained.  "We'll just
have to work our fucking balls off, making the case.  If we'd had that
confession, you and I would have made detective first by tomorrow
morning."  .

"Well, you're fight about one'hing?  Stone commiserated.  "She'll never
say a word to us now."

Ten minutes later, Palmer came out of the cubicle.  "Gentlemen," he
said, "my client will answer your questions now."

CHAPTER

They had moved to the conference room.  Tape and video equipment was up
and running.  Leary had joined them for the big moment.

"I'd like to say something for the camera before you begin," the lawyer
said.

Stone nodded.

He got up, walked around to where Hank Morgan sat, placed a fatherly
hand on her shoulder, and spoke to the camera.  "I am Carlton Palmer,
the attorney representing Henrietta Morgan, and I would like this
record to show that Miss Morgan is giving this statement voluntarily
and of her own free will in a spirit of cooperation with the police."
He returned to his seat.

Stone's hands were sweating.  "State your full name and address and
place of employment for the record," he said to Morgan.

"My name is Henrietta Maxine Morgan; I live at Seventy-one West Tenth
Street in Manhattan.  I am employed as a makeup artist by the news
division of the Continental Network."  Her voice quavered a bit, but
she was calm.  "Ms.  Morgan, have you been advised of your rights under
the Constitution of the United States?"  "I have been."  "Are you
making this statement voluntarily?"  "I am."  "Have you been subjected
to any duress with regard to this statement?"  "No."  "Ms.  Morgan, how
long have you been employed by the Continental Network?"  "Just over
three months."  "And when did you first mget Sasha Nijinsky?"  "Shortly
after I joined the network.  I did her makeup once, substituting for
someone who was out sick, and she began asking for me."  "Did you and
Ms. Nijinsky borne friends?"  : "Yes."  How long ago?"  "We were on
friendly terms from the beginning.  We began to become.."  close about
eight weeks ago."

"Did you, in fact, enter into a romantic relationship with Ms.

Nijinsky?"

"Yes."

"A relationship of a sexual nature?"  ,

Morgan gulped.  "Yes."

"Were you in love with Ms.  Nijinsky?"

"Yes."

"And was she in love with you?"

"Did she tell you she loved you, in so many words?"  "Yes.  Many
times." "Were you aware that, during the same period Ms.  Nijinsky was
seeing you, she was also having an affair with a man?"  Morgan looked
away for the first time.  "Yes.  She told me so."  "Did she tell you
who this man was?"  "No."  "Did she give you any indication, any hint
at all as to his identity?"  "No.  She referred to him as
"What'shis-name."" That rang a bell from Sasha's diary.  "How often did
you see Ms.  Nijinsky outside cfi working hours?"  'l'wo or three
nights a week; sometimes four." "Where did these meetings take place?" 
"Either at my apartment or at hers."  "And when was the last occasion
you saw Ms.  Nijinsky?"  'he night before she disappeared."  "Where did
this meeting take place?"  "At her apartment."  Stone paused.  "Did you
not tell me on a previous occasion that this meeting took place at your
apartment?"  "I have no recollection of that," Morgan replied smoothly.
Why was she changing her story?  What did it matter where that
particular meeting took place?  "Did anyone see you in Ms.  Nijinsky's
building that night?" "The doorman saw me when we came in together.  It
must have been around nine o'clock.  He was asleep when I left.  That
was around four in the morning."

"What did you and Ms.  Nijinsky do that evening?"

"I helped her pack her things; she was moving to a new apartment in a
day or two.  We had a late dinner and drank a bottle of wine together."
She paused.  'q/Ve made love.  It was a very happy evening."

"And when did you next see Ms.  Nijinsky?"

"I never saw her again."

"We'll come back to that.  You were taking money from Ms.  Nijinsky,
weren't you, Ms.  Morgan?"

Morgan frowned.  "Taking money?  Certainly not.  I borrowed some money
from her, and only at her insistence.  I was remodeling my apartment,
and I ran out of cash.  I had some six-month CDs that were not due to
mature for another three months, and Sashaid it would be crazy to cash
them and lose the interest, and that she wanted to loan me the money to
finish the project, It came to twenty thousand dollars out of the
eighty that I spent on the project."

This was not going the way Stone had meant it to.  "You want us to
believe that Ms.  Nijinsky just loaned you the money-- you, a person
she ha.al, only recently met?"

"I don't much care what you believe," Morgan said coldly.  "The money
was a loan; I insisted on giving Sasha a promissory note for the
amount, although she wouldn't accept interest."

"You're aware that we have Ms.  Nijinsky's financial records and that
we can search them for this note?"  He was faltering now.  Why hadn't
he gone through those records more carefully?  ,

'q'hat's fine with me.  I have a copy, if you need it."

"Ms.  Morgan, after the disappearance of Sasha Nijinsky, police experts
removed a palm print from the outside of the sliding glass door of her
apartment's terrace.  That palm print has since been identified as
yours.  On the outside of the door, Ms.  Morgan, on the terrace from
which Ms.  Nijinsky fell.  How do you explain that?"

"I told you that I had seen Ms.  Nijinsky many times over the past
weeks, often at her apartment.  In fact, I think I remember when I
could have left that palm print.  On our last night together, Sasha and
I took our wine out onto the terrace.  There was no furniture out
there, but it was a nice evening, and there was one break in the
surrounding buildings where you could see some city skyline.  I got
something in my shoe, and I leaned against the sliding door while I
shook out the shoe. I'm sure that must be the palm print you're
referrh3g to."

Leary, sitting next to Stone, was becoming restive.

Stone hurried.  "Ms Morgan, when Sasha told you she was seeing a
man--at the same time she was making love to you--how did you feel
about that?"

"I didn't like it much, at first, but, as we became closer, I realized
that Sasha's sexuality was truly dual--not like mine.  When you've gone
through what most lesbian women go through to live their lives openly,
you become more tolerant of other people's desires.  There was a part
of Sasha that liked sex with men, and I soon knew I couldn't change
that.  I told her I understood that, and the subject ceased to be a
sore point between us."

This simple, rational explanation stopped Stone.  He turned to Leary.
"Lieutenant, do you have any questions for Ms.  Morgan?"

Leary shook his head slowly.  His face was red.  "Detective
Bacchetti?"

"Yes, I have a question," Dino replied.  His voice was cold and hard.

Stone wanted to stop him, but he knew he could not.  "This is the way
it happened, M/z Morgan," Dino spat at her.  "You fell madly in love
with Sasha Nijinsky, and then you found out she was screwing a man, and
that drove you crazy, didn't it?"  He continued before she could
answer. "So then, to get back at Sasha, you started blackmailing her,
didn't you?  Demanding money not to talk to the tabloids about her
swinging both ways.  And when she got tired of paying and told you so,
there was a fight, and you heaved her off that' terrace, didn't you? 
Isn't that the way it happened, Miz Morgan?"

Hank Morgan leaned forward and looked directly at Dino.  "You're
insane," she said.

Carlton Palmer s'the up, his deep voice resonating around the room.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I think that will be all."  .

CHAPTER

Leary kept Stone and Dino in the conference room.  His face was very
red now.  "I thought you told me we were going to get a confession," he
said, glaring at Dino.

Dino spread his hands.  "Boss, how could I know for sure?  It felt that
way when Palmer said she'd talk to us."  "It did feel that way,
Lieutenant," Stone interjected.  "That's a completely unusable tape,"
Leary said.  "Palmer might as well have written and directed it
himself."

"She's dirty, Lieutenant," Dino said.  "She did it.  I can feel it."

"I think so too," Leary said, "but you're going to have to fit her up
for it."

"What?"  Stone said, alarmed.

"I mean, you're going to have to prove it, get some evidence," Leary
said, correcting himself.

"We'll get it," Dino said firmly.  "I mean, shit, Lieutenant, we just
got on this bitch.  Give us a little time, okay?"

"Okay," Leary said.  "I'll give you twenty-four hours to come up with
one piece of evidence that will put her in Nijinsky's apartment on that
night."

"Lieutenant," Stone said, worried now, "that's unreasonable.  Morgan is
a whole new development in this case--a promising one, I'll grant you,
but we're going to need some time."

"You got it" Leary said.  "Twenty-four hours."  He turned and walked fm
the room.

Dino flopped down in a chair.  "What now?"

"We'd better get going, don't you think?"

Dino nodded.  "Okay, I'll check Nijinsky's records for the promissory
note from Morgan."

"I'll check out Morgan's address, see if anybody saw her that night.
What are you going to do after you check the records?  It won't take
you very long."

Dino thought for a minute.  "Shoot myself, if the note is there," he
said.

Stone drove downtown faster than he usually drove, resisting the
temptation to using the flashing light and siren.  He parked in front
of a fire hydrant on West Tenth Street and put down the visor to ward
off tickets.

Hank Morgan lived in a handsome brownstone that had been divided into
two duplexes; he wondered how she could afford it.  Well, hell, he. 
was only a cop and he lived in a whole brownstone in Turtle Bay.  Must
be her daddy's money.  He rang the second bell, the one that said vcrr.
"Yes?"  a woman's voice said over the intercom.

"Good morning, I'm Detective Barrington, NYPD.  May I speak to you for
a moment, Ms.  Vincent?"

A pause.  "All right, but I want to see a badge through the
peephole."

"Of course."

She buzzed him through the outer door, and he held his badge so she
could scrutinize it.

She opened the door but kept the chain on.  "How about some ID with a
photograph?"  she said warily.

Stone handed his ID wallet through the opening.

She closed the door, unhooked the chain, and let him in.  "Sorry about
that but you can't be too careful," she said.

Ms.  Vincent was a pleasingly plump woman in an apron.  "I was just
about to have some coffee.  Can I offer you some?"

'q'hanks," Stone said.  UI'd like that."  He welcomed the opportunity
to stretch out his visit.

She led him into the kitchen and gestured for him to take a seat at the
breakfast table.  When she had poured them both a cup, she joined
him.

"What can I do for you?"  she said.

"I want to talk with you about your upstairs neighbor," Stone said.

Ms.  Vincent's eyebrows went up.  "Really?  Is Morgan in some kind of
trouble?"

"She's helping us with an investigation, and the credibility of
witnesses is always important.  Also, I wanted to see if there was
anything you could add to her information."

"Sure."

He took her back to the night of Sasha Nijinsky's fall.  "Did you see
Ms.  Morgan at all that evening?"

Ms.  Vincent thought for a moment.  "We were in Bermuda," she said. "My
husband's sister lives there, and we go at least once a year."

"Did anyone stay in your apartment while you were gone?"

She shook her head.  "Nope."

"How well do you know Hank Morgan?"

"Not very well.  We set up this place as condominiums four years ago
with some friends.  Then the friends got transferred, and they sold the
place to Morgan about three months ago."

"Did you know.  Hank Morgan before that?"

"Nope.  Neither did our friends; a real estate agent found her.  I was
a little worried at first.  Shit, I'm still worried."  "Why?"

"Have you met Ms.  Morgan?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't ha veto tell you she's a lesbian."

"No.  She was quite' rank about it."

"Well, it's not just that she's a lesbian--hell, I don't have anything
against gays in general--it's that she's so... involved."  "Involved in
what?"

"Well, she's apparently in two or three organizations about gay rights,
and something to do with AIDS--you know those people who did that
sit-in in St.  Patrick's Cathedral?"

"I know the group."

"Well, she's always doing things like that; she's a real activist,
which is, all too often, another way of saying 'pain in the ass."

"Why does that bother you?"  "She's always having meetings upstairs,
and, believe me, there are some pretty weird people at those meetings.
My God, there have been women in this house who should be playing pro
football!  It gives me the willies.  I'm here by myself a lot; my
husband travels in his work."  "Have these people behaved oddly toward
you?"  "No, it's not that.  I'm not really afraid of being raped, I
guess.  It's just that I'm an Italian girl from Queens, a Catholic, and
I'm nervous about things like that.  I was brought up to be nervous
about things like that."  "Did you ever recognize any of Ms.  Morgan's
visitors?"  Ms.  Vincent grinned.  "Yeah, I recognized Sasha Nijinsky,
once."  "Was she he for a meeting?"  "Nope, she was alone.  I guess
that means Sasha was a dyke, too, huh?"  "How often did you see her
here?" "Only once, and then through the peephole.  It was her, though. 
She and Morgan were holding hands."  She gave a little shudder.  "Do
you remember the date you saw her here?"  Ms.  Vincent shook her head. 
"Not exactly.  Must have been a month or so ago."  Stone finished his
coffee. "Do you know any of Ms.  Morgan's other friends?"  "Nope.  We
don't socialize.  I mean, we're polite to each other, but it's obvious
we have absolutely nothing in common, except this house."  "Has Ms. 
Morgan been doing some work on her place?"  I'll say she has!  She's
had builders in the house almost since the day she moved in; she must
have done something pretty major to her place.  They've stopped coming,
though; they must be finished."  She paused.  "Did I mention that
Morgan has a gun?"

"No, you didn't."

"I saw it when she moved in.  I ran into her on the front steps--the
first time I'd met her--and she was carrying a cardboard box full of
stuff, and right on top was this pretty good-sized pistol in a holster.
She made some joke about how you can't be too careful in New York."

Stone stood up.  "Well, thank you for your help, Ms.  Vincent."

"Wouldn't you like another cup?"  She seemed anxious for company...
'qaanks, but I have a lot to do today."

Stone left the building and walked up and down both sides of the
street.  He checked at a bar, a dry cleaner, and a shoe repair shop;
all of them were acquainted with Hank Morgan, but nobody had seen her
on the night of Sasha's disappearance.  He checked his notebook for the
home phone number of the door ma  at Saha's old building, called him,
and ascertained that Morgan had been there before Sasha's fall.  The
doorman hadn't seen Morgan that night.  Discouraged, he drove back to
the precinct.

Dino was at his desk, looking pleased with himself.

"There wasn't any promissory note," he said, grinning.  "Morgan lied to
us."  '

"Not necessarily," Stone replied.  "Nijinsky might have kept them
someplace else."

"Nah," Dino said.  "She kept perfect records, and they were perfectly
complete.  If Morgan had given her a note,

that's where it'd be.  What did you come up with?"

Stone gave an account of his investigation.  'q'he downstairs neighbor
was on vacation, like Morgan said.  The lady doesn't like lesbians, but
she had nothing to say that would have incriminated Morgan.  I had the
feeling she wished she'd had something to tell me."

"Morgan's our killer," Dino said.  "I can feel it in my

"I can't feel it in mine, Dino.  I know how bad we need a bust on this
one, but Morgan's just not it.  The lady's clean, except maybe on a
weapons charge.  The neighbor saw a pistol, but Morgan may have a
permit."

"I'll check on that, but, take my word for it, the lady's no lady,"
Dino said.  "And she's dirty."

CHAPTER

On his way home, Stone was stopped in his tracks by a headline in the
Post: ^gPST S^SA CASE!  He grabbed a copy... Henrietta "Hank" Morgan,
32, a makeup artist at the Continental Network and a leading activist
in lesbian-rights demonstrations, was taken in handcuffs to the 19th
Precinct this morning and questioned for more than three hours about
the disappearance of TV anchorwoman Sasha Nijinsky.  In what a police
source described as a "breakthrough" in the investigatien, Morgan is
reported to have given a detailed statement on videotape, while her
lawyer, Carlton Palmer, was present.  While the NYPD has not disclosed
the contents of the tape, a source has said, 'tis all but wraps

SllJART OODS

up the investigation."  The source would not reveal what the NYPD
thinks has become of Sasha.

Ace criminal trial lawyer Palmer said, in a telephone interview at
press time, "My client is innocent of any wrongdoing, and the police
know that.  This entire episode is a perversion of justice."

Morgan, the daughter of a prominent Pennsylvania manufacturer, has been
in and out of a dozen makeup jobs in the film and television industry
over the past ten years and is known to have been Sasha Nijinslof s
personal choice as her makeup artist at the Continental Network

The story made Stone grind his teeth.  The precinct seemed to be
leaking from every pore, and whoever had given the Post the st cry had
either not known what he was talking about or had deliberately misled
the newspaper.  There was going to be hell to pay.

The phone was ringing as he entered the house, tripping over a number
of boxes in the hallway.  The dentist in the professional suite
downstairs received packages for him when he was at work and put them
inside the front door.

Dino was on the phone.  "Leary wants us downtown at the DA's office
tomorrow morning at nine."  'qVhat's going on?"  "He didn't say."

A thought struck Stone.  "I'm scheduled for a department physical
tomorrow morning."

"If you want, I'll do the meeting, you get checked out."

Stone thought for a moment.  "I'd better be there, I think.  I don't
much like the sound of it."

"You seen the Post?"

"Yeah.  Who do you think is leaking to the press?"  "Could be anybody."
"I guess so."

"I'll see you tomorrow morning."  Dino hung up.

Stone turned his attention to the boxes in the front hall.  A glance at
the libels told him what they were.  Shit, he had intended to cancel
the clothes orders.  How could they have gotten them here so fast? 
Furious at himself and annoyed by being called to the DA's office for
no apparent reason, he tipped through the day's mail and nearly threw
away an invitation, thinking it some sort of classy junk mail.  It was
for dinner on Saturday, at the.  apartmgnt of Hiram Barker.  That
should be an interesting evening, he thought.  He rang the number, got
an answering machine, and accepted, adding that he would bring a date,
if that was all tight.  tell, he thought, sighing, at least he'd be
able to dress well for the occasion.

They were at Elaine's, at a small table all the way in the hack.  It
was a crowded night, as usual, and Lauren, the singer-piano player, was
straining to be heard above the din.

"Want to go to dinner at Hi Barker's on Saturday night?"  he asked
Cary.

She nearly choked on her scotch.  "No kidding?"  "No kidding.  The
invitation came in today's mail."

"You're really coming up in the world.  Dinner at Barker's is a hot
ticket."

"I interviewed him about Sasha, and he said come to dinner sometime.  I
thought it was just the usual chat."

"I am definitely available," she said.  "Now, what am I going to
wear?"

"I don't have any problem about what to wear," he said.  "All that
stuff we ordered came today.  You know what you made me spend?"

She waved away his question.  "My daddy always said, "Buy the things
you want, and then figure out how to pay for them.  Debt is a great
motivator.""

Stone laughed.  'qOell, I guess I'd better get motivated."

"Come on, sweetheart, that's what credit cards are for.  How do you
think everybody else in this town dresses?"

"I never did it that way.  I never bought anything on a credit card
that I couldn't pay for at the end of the month."  "A very stuffy
attitude."

"A very necessary one, when you're on a cop's salary."  "I've been
meaning to talk to you about that."  "About my salary?"

"About making a lot more money than you are.  You've got a law degree,
after all; why don't you use it?"  "I never took the bar exam."  "How
about a--"

"I know, a cram course.  You're as bad as Elaine.  She's been at me
about that."

"She's right.  You're a highly intelligent man, and a highly handsome
one, too, I might add.  That counts for more than you might think, and
not just with women."

"So, I could just quit the force and live on my looks?"

She laughed.  "If it were up to me, you could.  Does the practice of
law repel you so much?"

"Look, I'm thirty-eight years old.  I can't just get in line at the big
finns with this year's grads and expect to get taken on.  "So, Mr.
Barrington, what have you been doing with yourself in the fifteen years
between getting your law degree and passing the bar?"  "Oh, I've been
arresting drug dealers and investigating murders and other sordid
crimes."  "Wonderful, that experience will stand you in good stead in
our estate planning department.  Will a hundred thousand a year be
enough?

She laughed again.  'q'here are other facets of the law besides estate
planning, you know."

"Sure there are.  You know which ones I'd be qualified for?  I'll tell
you; I'd be qualified to hang around the criminal courts picking up
burglary defenses, drug busts, and drunk driving cases.  That's what
ex-cops who are lawyers do--they go to night school, get a law degree,
and, when they retire, they pick up an extra income by leaning on their
old buddies on the force and in the DA's office to go easy on the sc
tun they're defending."

"You underestimate yourself," she said.  "Still, that's an endearing
quality in a world where overconfidence is a way of life."

"Let' sorder,"-' Stone said, picking up a menu.

"I think I'd like you for dinner," Cary said.

"Let's start with a Caesar salad, and go on to the osso buco," he said.
"Then we can have each other for dessert."

"I always have room for dessert," she said.

And she did.  Stone lay panting in the darkness when she had
finished---spent, but still full of desire for her.  He had never felt
anything quite like it.  He was in love with her, but he had been in
love before.  It was obsession, and that was foreign to him.

She wrapped herself around him.  "I'hat as delirious," she breathed,
kissing him behind the ear.  'q'll want more soon."

"You'll kill me," he panted, "but I can deny you nothing."  "Don't even
try," she said.

CHAPTER

The meeting took place in the district attorney's private conference
room, but the DA himself didn't attend.  Al Hagler, the chief
prosecutor, sat at the end of the table.

Stone had the distinct feeling that this room had not been chosen just
because it was available; Hagler believed in effect, and the venue
added authority to his position.  It was just as significant that the
DA was not present, though his presence was felt.  The proceedings,
whatever they were, had his tacit support, but, this way, he could not
be personally tainted by the outcome.  It was interesting, too, that
Deputy Commissioner Waldron was not in attendance, nor was Chief of
Detectives Delgado.  It was just Hagler, Leary, Dino, and Stone.

"What have you most recently uncovered?"  Hagler asked the room at
large.

Leary nodded at Dino.  "There is no promissory note in Nijinsky's
files, although they seem complete in every other respect," Dino said. 
"And Morgan has no gun permit, nor has she ever applied for one." 
"Good," Hagler said, looking pleased.  "Why good?"  Stone asked.  "Just
because there is no note in Nijinsky's files doesn't mean it never
existed, and what does Morgan's owning a pistol have to do With
anything?  Nijinsky wasn't shot."  "How do you know that?"  Leary
asked.  "I saw her, "Stone replied.  "I didn't see a bullet wound." 
"She was covered in dirt, wasn't she?"  "Yes."  " "And how long did you
see her for?"  "A few seconds."  "Hardly time for a postmortem," Hagler
chimed in.  "I heard no gunshot either," Stone said.  "Whether Nijinsky
was shot is not relevant to this meeting," Hagler said.

"Just what is the purpose of thi meeting?  Stone asked.

"I just wanted to hear from you and Detective Bacchetti before
proceeding."

'?roceeding with what?"

Hagler reached into an inside pocket and tossed a document onto the
table.

Stone picked it up.  "A search warrant for Morgan's apartment?  What
are we supposed to look for?"

"Anything that might relate to the Nijinsky case,"

Hagler said.

"On what basis did you get the warrant?"  Stone persisted.

'he basis don't matter to you," Leary spoke up.  "You

just execute the warrant, you and Dino, right?"  Stone shrugged.  "Yes,
sir."  "Detective Barrington has a physical at ten o'clock," Dino said.
Stone looked at him, surprised.  "I can postpone," he said.  "No, no,
that's important," Leary said.  "You go on and get examined so we can
get you restored to full duty."  He turned to Dino.  "You pick up a
uniformed team and conduct the search."  "I'll send an assistant DA
with you," Hagler said.  "I'd like one of my people on the spot."  "We
won't need you further, Barrington," Leary said, looking at his watch. 
"You go see the doctor."  Stone looked around the table.  Everyone
seemed to be avoiding his gaze.  "All right," he said, standing up. 
"I'll see you back at the precinct, Dino."  Dino nodded without looking
at him. Stone took his leave feeling shunned, shut out.  What was going
on?

The doctor took his time getting around to the knee.  "Strip down to
your shorts," he said.  He took Stone's blood pressure, listened to his
heart and lungs, looked into his ears, eyes, and mouth, checked his
vision and hearing, and a nurse took blood and urine samples.  Only
then did the doctor turn his attention to the knee.  "Swelling seems to
be gone," he said, feeling the joint in a gingerly fashion.  "I hardly
notice it anymore," Stone replied, not quite truthfully.  "Stand up and
give me five half knee bends," the doctor said.

Stone complied, clenching his jaw against possible pain.  The exercise
went well.

"Now give me five deep knee bends."

This was harder, but Stone managed it.  The knee was hurting a little
now.

"Now give me five half knee bends on the left leg."

This seemed extreme to Stone, but, again, he managed.  Now the knee
hurt like hell.

"Get dressed," the doctor said.

"What do you think?"  Stone asked, pulling on his trousers.

"You've healed nicely."

"So, I'm restored to duty?"

"Oh, I expect sO but that's not my decision, of course.

I'll just make my report; you'll hear from your commander."  "How
long?"

"He'll have my report by the first of the week."

"So long?"

"I'll dictate it today; getting it typed is the problem.  We've taken
some staff cuts this year

Stone got dressed and called the p;ecinct.  Dino wasn't back yet.  He
went down to the street and hailed a cab.  When he arrived at Hank
Morgan's building, Dino's unmarked car and a squad car were still
outside, and the downstairs door was propped open.  Stone ran up the
stairs.

The niceties had not been observed.  The search warrant was taped to
the door, which had been opened with a sledgehammer; the jamb was
splintered, and the apartment was a mess.  Stone walked through the
disarrayed living room and followed the sound of voices to a
beautifully designed kitchen.  Dino, the assistant DA, and two uniforms
sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.  Knives, silverware, and
kitchen implements were scattered around the floor.  "It-Icy, Stone!"
Dino called.  "You want some coffee?"  "No thanks.  You really tore up
this place, didn't you?"  "And look what we found!"  Dino crowed,
dangling a pistol from his finger by the trigger guard.  "Three
fifty-seven

Magnum, and loaded, too."

'qSrhat else?"

"No copy of a promissory note."

"And I'll bet she won't be able to come up with it when it counts."

"You all finished here, then?"

"Justabout.  We'll finish our coffee."

There was a noise from the living room, and Stone turned to see Hank
Morgan standing in the doorway, the search warrant in her hand.

"What the hell is going on here?"  she demanded, her voice shaking with
anger.

"A legal and proper search," Dino said, standing up.  "You got the
warrant right there."

Morgan turned to Stone, as if she expected she might be able to reason
with him.  "Just what are you looking for, for Christ's sake?"

Stone shook his head.  "I just got here myself, Ms.  Morgan, but, I
assure you, the search is legal and proper.  I'm sorry about the
mess."

"So, Officers," she said with withering contempt, "did you find
anything?  A joint, maybe?  Or did you plant some cocaine?"

"We don't plant stuff in searches," Dino said, 'qut we did find this."
He held up the pistol.

"That's mine," she said.

"And do you have a permit for it?"  She started to speak, then stopped
herself.  "I wart to call my lawyer," she said.  "You can do that at
the precinct," Dino said.  He walked over and handed her another
warrant. "Right now, you are under arrest for the possession of a
firearm without a permit."  He began to read her her rights.  Morgan
turned to Stone again.  "This can't be happening," she said, as if she
expected him to make everything all right.  "I'm sorry, but it is
happening," Stone replied.  He lowered his voice.  "And I'd advise you
not to say anything further until you've seen your lawyer."

Downstairs, Stone watched as the patrolmen bundled Morgan, now
handcuffed, into the squad car.  "You coming back to the precinct?"
Dino asked, his hand on the car's door handle.  "Not right now," Stone
said.  "How'd the physical go?"  "Okay, I think.  He said I'm oka',."
"Glad to hear it."  "Dino, where'd you get the arrest warrant for the
weapons charge?"  "Hagler had that, too.  He came up with it right
after you left."  Stone nodded.  Dino got into the unmarked car and
drove away. Stone walked briskly down the street to the corner
drag-store and found a phone.  He got the number from information, and,
when he told the secretary who he was, she immediately put him
through.

smAeTwooos

"Hello, Detective Ban'ington?"

"Mr.  Palmer, Hank Morgan has been arrested on a weapons charge.  If I
were you, I'd get up to the precinct without delay."

There was a stunned silence from Palmer's end of the line.

"Good-bye," Stone said.

"Thank you, Detective," Palmer managed to sputter before Stone hung
up.

Stone walked slowly up Sixth Avenue, not looking for a cab yet.  He
felt something of the traitor, but he had wanted to do something to
redress the balance.  He was in no hurry to get to the precinct.  He
didn't want to be involved in what was going to happen there.

CHAPTER

spite of his lengthy walk,

Stone got to the precinct before Morgan's lawyer did.  Dino's desk was
empty.

"Dino's got the dyke in interrogation room three," a detective at a
nearby desk told Stone.

Three had a two-way mirror.  Stone walked hurriedly down the hall and
let himself quietly into the adjacent viewing room, which was empty. He
sat down on a folding chair and took in the scene next door.  Morgan
was seated at the steel table facing the mirror, with Dino and the ADA
on either side of her.  She sat rigidly in the uncomfortable chair,
gripping the arms.  Her knuckles were white.  Tears streamed down her
face.  A tape recorder was on the table.

Stone looked at his watch.  She would have been in the interrogation
room for nearly an hour.  Where was Palmer?

"I want my lawyer," Morgan sobbed.

"You already had your lawyer," Dino replied, "and now you're going to
talk to me."

"I have nothing to say to you," Morgan said adamantly, her voice
quavering.

Stone could tell she was near breaking.  Anything could happen now.

"We've got you cold on the weapons possession charge," Dino said.
"That's five to ten, and you won't get sent to a country club.  You'll
be in there with all the other bull dykesthe muscle freaks, the
murderers."

"I have nothing to say," Morgan nearly screamed.

"Let's put the weapons thing aside for the moment," Dino said, his
voice kinder.  "Let's talk about Sasha."

"I don't want to talk about Sasha," Morgan said.  Her head sagged
forward until her chin touched her chest.  "I don't want to talk about
anything."

Dino leaned forward and low, red his voice.

Stone strained to hear him over the speaker.

"Look, nobody's saying you murdered Sasha; I know you loved her, and
you wouldn't hurt her on purpose.  It was an accident, I know that. You
just had a little tussle, and Sasha fell, that's all.  You must have
felt terrible."

To Stone's astonishment, Morgan nodded slowly.  Her face was shiny with
tears, and she made no effort to wipe them away.

"That's it," Dino said soothingly, "let it all come out;

you're going to feel a lot better when you tell me about it."  Morgan
continued to nod but said nothing.

"Look, Hank, tell me about it, and I gUarantee you won't do any time.
You had a tussle, and Sasha fell; no judge is going to send you to
prison."

At the word prison, Morgan's body jerked convulsively.  "I don't want
to go to prison," she said.

Stone stared at her.  The woman was starting to come apart; in another
minute she would plead to the Kennedy assassination, if Dino wanted her
to.  "I won't let them send you to prison," Dino said, "if you'll just
tell me the truth, tell me what happened.  It was Sasha's fault, wasn't
it?"  Morgan broke down now.  The sobbing shook her body, and she made
a terrible keening noise.  She grabbed hold of Dino's forearm.  "I'll
say anything you want," she wailed, "just don't send me to prison." 
"All right," Dino said, "I'm going to tell you what it was like, and
we're going to write it down."  He handed her a pen and shoved a legal
pad in front of her.  Stone began to feel ill.  He wanted to pick up a
chair and throw it through the mirror.  Then the door to the
interrogation room opened, and Lieutenant Leafy walked in, accompanied
by Carlton Palmer.  "That will be quite enough of this!"  Palmer
shouted, going to Morgan's side and putting an arm around her.  "You've
got a lot of nerve pulling this sort of stunt!"  he yelled at Dino. 
"I'll have your badge before I'm done."  "Aw, go fuck yourself,
Counselor," Dino said, and walked out of the room, slamming the door.

Stone found him pacing up and down alongside his desk in the squad
room.  "Two more minutes!"  Dino said, slamming his fist into his palm.
"Two more fucking minutes, and I'd have had her!"  "Come on, Dino,"
Stone said.  "It would never have stood up; you know that.  She'd have
recanted on the stand, and the jury would have believed her."  "I've
still got her for the gun, though," Dino said.  "I'll nail her for
that.  I won't let the DA deal on it either.  I'll send her up for it."
"Dino, stop it.  You're dreaming.  You can't even convince me she had
anything to do with Nijinsky, so how is the DA going to convince a
grand jury, let alone get a conviction?  The woman had nothing to do
with it."  A hard voice behind him caused Stone to spin around.
"Horseshit," Leary said.  "You better get with the program, Barrington,
or the world's gonna fall on you."  "You mean Deputy Commissioner
Waldron?"  "And the chief of detectives, and the district attorney, and
me, and the whole world.  We've got a chance for a good bust on this
one, after you've fucked around getting nowhere all this time, and
you'd better not get in the way of it."  Stone felt anger rush through
him.  "That woman had nothing to do with Nijinsky's fall, and you're
not going to prove she did.  If I thought you could make a jury believe
it, I'd testify for the defense myself."  "If you pull something like
that," Leary said, his voice low and cold, I'll take you out in the
alley and shoot you myself."  The lieutenant turned and walked away.
Stone turned to Dino.  "Whatabout you?  Is that how you feel?"  I'll
hold you while he pulls the trigger," Dino said, his voice shaking.

CHAPTER

s Stone trudged up the front steps of the Turtle Bay house, his
downstairs tenant, dressed in a white nylon coat, came out.  of the,
professional suite and caught up with him.

"Mr.  Ban'ington?"

"Hello, Dr.  Feldstein," Stone said.

Feldstein was a short, stocky, pink-faced man in his late sixties.
Stone had always liked him, not least because he had overlooked chronic
problems with the downstairs plumbing in return for a reasonable rent.
Feldstein thrust an envelope at Stone.

"What's this?"

"It's my notice of leaving, Mr.  Barrington.  Thirty days,

as my lease requires.  I'm sorry I couldn't give you more notice, but
my wife's recent illness has made me decide to retire.  We're moving to
Venice, Florida, next month."

The news struck Stone like a spear in the ribs.  That was twelve
hundred dollars a month of income gone, and he knew he couldn't rent
the place again without major improvements, which he could not afford.
"I'm sorry to hear you're going, Dr.  Feldstein.  You've always been a
good tenant."  "And you a good landlord, like your great-aunt before
you," Feldstein said.  "I wish you and your wife a happy retirement in
Florida."  "She'll like the sunshine; she always has."  They both
seemed at a loss for words for a moment, then Feldstein shook Stone's
hand and walked back down the front steps.  Stone let himself into the
house and tossed Feldstein's letter onto the front hall table with the
mail. Nothing but bills there, and he didn't bother opening them.  He
had a nearly overwhelming urge to call Car;, he needed desperately to
talk with somebody, but he couldn't forget that technically, .  at
least, Cary was press, and he couldn't let his thoughts escape in that
direction.  Normally, Dino would be the one to talk to, but he and Dino
were on opposite sides this time.  He wished his father were still
alive.  He changed into jeans and a work shirt and went down to the
kitchen.  He had hardly cooked anything since the room had been
completed, and now all he could manage in his mood was to microwave
some frozen lasagna.  He had a bourbon while he waited for the oven to
do its work.  He felt a curious numbness, a distance from reality.  Not
even the loss of his income-producing tenant, on top of everything
else, could penetrate.  He simply felt nothing.  When the microwave
beeped, he took out the lasagna and ate it immediately, in spite of the
instructions to let it sit for five minutes.  His was a simple, animal
hunger, and he didn't care what he was eating or how it tasted.  It was
like taking aspirin to make a headache go away.  You don't enjoy the
aspirin.

MEW YORK DEAD

He finished the meal and put his plate in the dishwasher, then poured
himself another bourbon and went into the study.  The room was
spotlessly clean now, and an air cleaner was running to remove the dust
caused by the constant sanding by his helpers for the past week.

The bookshelves stood empty and bare of finish, ready for varnish, the
first of ten coats he planned.  Tomorrow, the helpers would come back
to sand again.  He opened a gallon can of varnish, selected a brush,
climbed the ladder, and started at the very top, spreading the sealer
with long, straight strokes.  It was simple, mindless work, the sort
that he needed for thinking.  He let his mind wander at will over the
events of the past days,.

Stone knew he was not the first honest policeman to find himself in
this position When a police department had a major crime on its hand,
especailly one where the victim was a celebrity, what it needed was an
arrest--preferably, but not necessarily, of the actual perpetrator.  As
time passed without a resolution of the crime, pressure increased on
the department to produce results, and after a while the pressure could
become too much for certain of its members.  Assignments were at
stake--promotions, careers, pensions:-and policemen, just like
everybody els) woult finally am to protect themselves.  Stone reckoned
that most of the innocent people in prison had been sent there by
police officers and prosecutors who reasoned that these victims were,
after all, probably guilty of something, and better a conviction of an
innocent person than no conviction it all.

He had seen it happen, but always from a distance.  Now he was
involved, whether he liked it or not, and he had a decision to make: he
could keep his mouth shut and let Dino, Leary, and their superiors try
to railroad Hank Morgan; or he could speak up--go directly to the mayor
or the newspapers and create a stink.  The first course would protect
his job, his career, and his pension; the second would subject

him to the contempt that came to any policeman who went against his
partner and his department.  He would be transferred to some hellish
backwater, shunned, ridiculed, perhaps even set up to be killed--sent
first through some door with death waiting on the other side.  It had
happened before.  Most of all, he would be separating himself from the
work to which he had devoted his whole adult life.  He would be a man
alone, with enemies, and with no friends or support.  It was the law of
the cop jungle, and no man could last long on the force when he was
subjected to it.  It was time for him to deride if he was, after all
these years, a cop.  The doorbell rang, causing him nearly to topple
from the high ladder.  He climbed down, moving carefully, cautious of
the bourbon inside him.  He went to the front door.  Dino stood there.
He was dressed to kill in a new suit, obviously on his way to some
girl.  "We got to talk," he said.  "Come on in."  Stone led him tg the
study.  "The booze is in the kitchen.  I've got wet varnish going here;
I can't stop."  He climbed back up the ladder and started to paint
again.  Dino came back with something in a glass with ice.  "What are
you going to do?"  he asked.  He didn't have to explain; he knew Stone
understood the situation.  "I don't know," Stone replied, brushing on
the varnish.  "You know what's going to happen, you go against the
grain on this one."  "I know."  Dino still hadn't drunk from his glass.
"Stone, you got a lot of time in.  A little more than five years, you
can walk away with half pay and go practice law, you know?"  "I know."
"You and I got four years in together.  You're my partner.  I respect
you."  Dino shook his head.  "Jesus Christ, Stone, I love you like you
was my brother."  Stone kept brushing.  "Thanks, Dino, I knew that, but
I'm glad you told me."

"I don't want nothing to happen to you, Stone.  I'll feel
responsible."

"Dino, whatever I decide to do, it's on my head, not yours.  I know the
score; I know what can happen.  It wouldn't be your doing."

"Well, thanks for that, anyway."

"You're welcome."

Dino stood looking up at him.  "Stone, I gotta know what you're going
to do."

Stone stopped painting and looked down at his partner.  "Dino, I swear
to you, I just don't know."

Dino looked down at the floor and shook his head.  He set the untouched
drink on the floor and left without another word.

Stone heard the front door close  He kept painting, smooth and even
strokes.  He kept sipping the bourbon.

CHAPTER

Stole woke at seven and turned on The Morning Show.  Nothing on the
national news.  He waited impatiently for twenty-five minutes past the
hour and the New York affiliate's news.  Nothing.  Surprised, he got
out of bed and dressed.

His decision had been made while he slept.  Over an English muffin, he
reflected that he had always wondered what would happen if he had to
choose between the right thing and the department.  His choice
surprised him.

He picked up a Daily News at the corner newsstand, expecting another
headline about the arrest of Hank Morgan.  Nothing.  Suddenly, for some
reason, the leaks in the precinct had dried up.

The squad room was filling up with the morning shift of detectives, and
Dino was already at his desk.

"Hi," he said.  "Leary wants to see you."

"I figured," Stone said.  "You decide?"  Dino asked.  "Yeah."  He
turned away and started for the lieutenant's cubicle; he'd let Dino
stew for a while before he told him.  He knocked on the glass door, and
Leary waved him in.  Stone sat down and waited.  He'd make Leary ask
him. Leary looked at him for a long time before he spoke.  He reached
into a large, yellow envelope and extracted a letter.  "Stone," he said
finally, "the results of your physical came in."  Stone was surprised.
"The doctor said it'd be next week."  "It's today."  "Great.  The
sooner I'm officially back on full duty, the better."  "You're
officially retired, "for mecal reasons."  Stone stopped breathing,
stared at Leary, unable to speak... Leary handed him the letter.  Stone
read it.

Detective Barrington has suffered severe, perhaps irreparable damage to
his left knee as a-eesult of a gunshot wound received in the line of
duty.  In spite of extensive surgery and physiotherapy, the knee has
not responded to treatment sufficiently to permit a return to active
police duty.  The prognosis is unfavorable.  It is therefore
recommended that Detective Barrington be retired from the force with
immediate effect and with full line-of-duty disability benefits.

Stone dropped the letter and stared at Leary's desktop, his eyes
unfocused.  "You can ask for a reexamination after a year," Leary said,
"and, if the results are favorable, apply for reinstatement  Of course,
if you were reinstated, that would mean a transfer to other duty and
probably a loss of seniority."

That was clear enough to Stone.  Don't come back.  In a flash, he saw
himself floundering through a series of unsuccessful appeals.

"here's no point in appealing this," Leary said, reading his mind.
"You're out, and that's it."

"I see' Stone said, for lack of anything else to say.

"Let me have your ID card," Leary said.

Mechanically, Stone removed it from his wallet and handed it over.

Leary took some sort of stamp from a desk drawer, imprinted the card,
and handed it back.  The word retired had been punched into the card.
"You can keep your badge, and you're entitled to carry your gun, like
you were off duty."  He handed Stone a thick envelope.  "Here are your
papers.  Fill out the insurance forms and send tlem in; you'll still be
covered under the department medical plan for life.  Your pension will
be three-quarters of your highest grade pay, tax free.  That's a good
deal.  There's a check in the envelope for the first month."

Stone couldn't think of anything to say, and he couldn't seem to
move.

Leary leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk.  "Look, Stone,"
he said, not without sympathy, "you're a good investigator, but you're
a lousy cop.  What you have never understood is that the NYPD is a
fraternal lodge, and you never joined.  You always bothered people.
Being white-bread didn't make it any better; I mean, just about
everybody on the force is micks, guineas, yids, spies, or niggers. They
got that in common.  But you're fuckin' J. Stone Barrington, for
Christ's sake.  That sounds like a brokerage house, not a cop, and you
never even let anybody call you Stoney.  A lot of the men respect
you--do; but nobody trusts you, and nobody's ever going to.  You were
never really a cop; you were always a college boy with a law degree and
a badge."  Stone took a deep breath and struggled from the chair. 
Leary started shuffling papers.  "Good luck," he said.  "Thanks," Stone
managed to say as he turned for the door.

"And Stone," Leary said.

Stone turned and looked at him.

"Stay out of the Nijinsky thing, you hear me?  I don't want to read any
of your theories in the papers."

Stone left, closing the door behind him.  Numbly, he walked back to his
desk.  Dino was gone.  On top of Stone's desk was a cardboard box
containing his personal effects.  He looked around the place; everybody
was busy doing something.

Stone picked up the cardboard box and walked out of the squad room.
Nobody looked him.

CHAPTER

he phone was ringing as Stone walked into the house.  He picked it up.
"Hello?"  "Detective Barrington?"  "Yes?"  "This is Jack Marcus at the
Post.  We're doing a followup on the Nijinsky story; does your leaving
the force have anything to do with your dissatisfaction with the way
the investigation is being conducted?"  Stone was taken aback for a
moment.  The precinct was leaking again.  "I'm leaving the force for
medical reasons," he said.  "Weren't your superiors happy about the
arrest of Henrietta Morgan?"  "You'll have to ask them about that." 
"Do you think Hank Morgan pushed Sasha off that terrace?"

"I don't have an opinion about that.  I'm a dvilian."  He hung up the
phone.  It rang again immediately.

"It's Cary.  It just came over the AP wire."

"That's pretty fast reporting.  I only heard myself an hour ago."  He
had walked home from the precinct.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm okay.  Let's have dinner tonight."  "I wish I could.  Barron's
doing a prime-time special on murder in New York for Friday night. He's
shooting every day, and we're editing every night."

"Come over here when you finish tonight."

"I wish I could, Stone; God knows, I'd rather be with you, but you have
to understand about my job.  I'll be working fifteen-hour days all this
week."

"I'm sorry I pressed you; I know the job's important."  "It is, but
I"11 see you Sturda-night for dinner at Barker's."

"Sure."

"Why don't you relax for the rest ofhe week?  Do some work on the
house."

"I don't have anything else to do."

"We'll talk about that Saturday.  I've got to run now."

"See you."  " "Take care."

Stone put down the phone.  He could hear the noise of sanding coming
from the study.  The shelves would be ready to varnish again by late
afternoon.

He went upstairs to his bedroom and stood looking at himself in the
mirror over the chest of drawers.  Nothing seemed different.  He
unstrapped the gun from his ankle,

took the badge wallet from his pocket, and put them both in ,

the top drawer, at the back, under his socks and underwear.

As always, he felt naked when he wasn't carrying them.  He would have
to get used to feeling naked.

He was suddenly overcome with fatigue.  He stretched out on the bed,
still wearing his trench coat, and closed his eyes for a minute.

When he woke, it was dark outside, and the noise of sanding had
stopped.  He still felt exhausted, but he struggled out of his trench
coat and suit and into work clothes.  Downstairs, he repeated his
actions of the evening before--ate lasagna, made a drink, varnished. By
the time he went to bed, he was drunk.

The next morning, he forced himself, in spite of the hangover, to work
out on the exercise equipment; then he took a cab to Central Park and
ran twice around the reservoir.  It was a dear autumn day, the sort of
day he loved in New York, and it lifted his spirits somewhat.  He got a
andwich at the zoo and watched the seals cavort in their pool.  What
would he do tomorrow, he asked himself, and the week and the month
after that?  He knew how easy it would be to let himself descend into
depression.

He finished his sandwich and found a pay phone, which, miraculously,
had an intact yellow pages.  He found the number and learned that the
next bar exam was in three weeks, and the next cram course began the
following Monday.  He signed up on the spot, giving them a credit card
number to hold his place.  The thought of sitting in a classroom
repelled him, but the thought of doing nothing was worse.

He bought the Daily News and the Times and looked for news.  Hank
Morgan had been arraigned the previous afternoon on the weapons charge
and had been released on bail, which her father had covered.  The Times
report went no further than that, but a News columnist tied her to the
Nijinsky case:

There is little doubt that Henrietta "Hank" Morgan is the chief suspect
in the fall of Sasha Nijinsky from the terrace of her East Side
penthouse.  While everyone connected with the case has declined
comment, police sources say that it is only a matter of time before
enough evidence will be marshaled for the D.A. to seek an indictment.
But an indictment for what?  At the moment, there seems to be no proof
that Sasha Nijinsky is dead, and even the police have not tried to link
Morgan to her disappearance.  It looks to this observer that the best
the cops can hope for is an indictment for attempted murder, and one
wonders how they could get a conviction on even that charge without
produdng either Nijinsky or her dead body.

It was starting now.  The grouadworkvas being laid for a failure to
convict Hank Morgan of anything, the implication being that, even
though the police coulc[n't get enough evidence against her, they knew
she was the guilty party.  They had solved the crime, and that would
get the department off the hook; never mind that Morgan, supposedly
innocent until proven guilty, would be branded as a murderer and would
live the rest of her life under a cloud.

For the first time, he felt glad to be out of the department.  He
looked at the photograph of Hank Morgan leaving the court with her
attorney, mobbed by photographers and reporters, their lips curled
back, screaming their questions.  The woman looked terrified, even
worse than she had looked in the interrogation room.  There was the
real victim in all this; Sasha herself had become a secondary figure to
the newspapers and television news programs.

Stone forced himself to jog home, and he arrived thoroughly winded.

The answering machine was blinking; he pushed the button.

STUAR?  WOODS

"Hello, there Det... uh, Mr.  Barrington.  This is Herbert Van Fleet. I
was very sorry to read in the newspapers about your lxrement from the
police force.  I hope my mother's letters to the mayor didn't have
anything to do with this.  She has been a big contributor to his
campaigns, you know, and she's known him for years.  I don't guess I'll
be seeing you in the line of duty anymore--the FBI seems to have taken
over, anyway.  Can I buy you lunch sometime?  You can always get me at
the funeral parlor."  He chuckled.  "I guess you have the number." 
Stone gave a little shudder at the thought of having lunch with Herbert
Van Fleet.  There was a message from Cary, too.  "Sorry I couldn't get
over. We worked past midnight, and I was exhausted.  I wouldn't have
been any good to you.  It's all over on Friday, though, and I promise
to be fresh and ready for anything on Saturday night.  I'll have a car;
pick you up at eight?"  There was one more message.  "Gone, it's Bill
Eggers, your old law school buddy, of Woodman & Weld?  I heard about
your departure from the cop shop.  I'm in LA right how on a case, but
I'll be back in the office on Monday.  Let me buy you dinner next week?
I want to talk about something that might interest you.  I'll call you
Monday."

Stone spent the rest of the week working furiously on the house, making
remarkable progress, now that he had the time.  There were five coats
of varnish on the bookshelves by the weekend, and they were looking
good.  He got all the floors sanded with rented equipment and got the
tile floor laid in the kitchen.  A few weeks more, and the place would
start to look like home.  A bill came from the upholsterer that put a
serious dent in his bank account, and he remembered the letter from his
banker and the note, which would be due soon.  He tried to put money
out of his mind.  It didn't work.  Dino didn't call.

CHAPTER

a Saturday night, Cary turned up not in just a black car but in a
limousine.  Stone was waiting at the curb, and he slid into the
backseat laughi, ig.

He gave the driver the address and turned-to Cary.  "Are you sure the
network can afford this?"

She raised the black window that separated them from the driver and
slid close to him.  "Don't worry about it.  I've been putting in so
much overtime, they owe me."  She pulled his face down to hers and
kissed him.

"l'here goes the lipstick," he said.

"Fuck the lipstick."  She kissed him again and ran her hand up his
thigh to the crotch.  "Fuck me, too."

"In a limousine?"

"Why not?  The driver can't see anything."  "We'll be at Barker's
building in three minutes."  "That's just time enough," she said,
unzipping his fly.

Before Stone could move he was in her mouth.  She was very good, and he
was very fast; by the time the chauffeur opened the door, Stone had
already adjusted his clothing, and Cary had reapplied her lipstick.
"You're amazing," Stone whispered as they entered the building.  He was
trying to bring his breathing back to normal.  "It was the least I
could do," she said, "after I abandoned you in what must have been a
very bad week."  "I think being alone helped me make the adjustment
better," he said, 'qut I like the way you make up for Slights."  The
doorman took their names and directed them to the elevator.  When the
door had closed, she moved close to him.  "I wonder how long we have
before the elevator reaches Barker's floor?"  she said.  Stone leaned
down and kissed the top of a breast, accessible above the low-cut
dress.  "Noting enough for what I have in mind," he said.  "By the way,
you look spectacular.  It's a wonderful dress."  She laughed.  "You
like cleavage, don't you?"  "l'he sight of breasts is good for morale."
"You look pretty sharp yourself.  The suit suits you."  "I had good
advice."  The elevator door opened.  A uniformed maid answered the door
and took their coats.  "Well, good evening," Hi Barker said, sweeping
into the hall from the living room.  Stone introduced Cary.  "You're a
fine judge of women, Stone," Barker said, kissing Cary's hand.  "Why,
thank you, sir," Cary responded.  She turned to Stone.  "You didn't
prepare me for this man."  "How could I?"  Barker ushered them into the
living room, where two other couples and a woman waited.  "Meet
everybody," he said. "This is Frank and Marian Woodman."

Stone shook their hands.  "Mr.  Woodman and I have met," he said.

"Oh?"  Barker said.  "You're better acquainted around town than I
thought."

"All in the line of duty' Stone said, "just the way I met yOU?

"rhat's right," Woodman said.  "Sasha Nijinsky was my client, and
Detective Barrington came to see me.  Or, I should say, Mr. Barrington.
My congratulations; I hear that sort of medical retirement is every
police officer's dream."

"Most of the cops I know would rather serve the thirty years healthy,"
Stone said.

"Oh, the penny just dropped," Mrs.  Woodman said.  She was a small,
handsome woma!3 some ears her husband's junior.  "You're the detective
in the papers."

"I'm afraid so," Stone said.

"You'll have to interrogate him late" Marian," Barker said, pulling
Stone and Cary away.  "He has other guests to meet."  He took them to
the other couple.  "This is Abbott Wheeling and his wife, India.  Stone
Barrington and Cary Hilliard."

Wheeling was an elderly man, a former editor of the New York Times, now
a columnist on the Op-Ed page.  He shook hands warmly, and, before
Stone had a chance to speak to him, the other woman in the room
approached.

"I'm Edith Bonner," she said, shaking hands with both of them.  She was
tall, on the heavy side, but quite pretty and elegantly dressed.

"Edith is my date for the evening," Barker explained.

A waiter approached and took their drink orders.  Bonner excused
herself, and Cary pulled Stone to the window.

"It's quite a view, isn't'it?"  she said, pointing at the United
Nations building.

IS

"I hadn't seen it at night," Stone said.  "Do you know who Edith Bonner
is?"  "No, the name doesn't ring a bell."

"She's a sort of society psychic," Cary explained.  "She's a wealthy
widow who does readings of her friends---strictly amateur--but she has
quite a reputation."

The Wheelings joined them at the window and admired the view.  "Your
leaving the force at this particular time has caused quite a bit of
speculation," he said to Stone.

"Well, I was scheduled for the physical some time ago," Stone replied.
"It was unfortunate that I was in the middle of an investigation at the
time."

"I don't mean to interview you, Mr.  Barrington... ' "Please call me
Stone."

"Thank you, and you must call me Ab; everyone doesl As I was saying, I
don't mean to interview, and this is certainly off the record, but do
you think This Morgan woman had anything to do with the Nijinsky
business?"

Stone nodded toward Bonner, who was returning to the room.  "Maybe we
should ask Mrs.  Bonner," he said.  "I expect she has just as good an
idea about it as anyone assigned to the case."

Wheeling smiled.  "You should have been a diplomat, Stone, or
somebody's press secretary.  That was as neat an answer as I've ever
heard, and I couldn't quote you if I wanted to."

The maid entered the room.  "Dinner is served," she said.  People
finished their drinks and filed into the dining room.

Stone was seated between India Wheeling and Edith Bonner and across
from Frank Woodman.

"Stone, what are you going to do with yourself, now that you're a free
man?"  Woodman asked in the middle of the main course.

"I'm returning to the law," Stone said.  "It seems to be the only thing
I know anything about."  He didn't mention

that he would soon be cramming for the bar exam.

"Your career as a detective makes for an interesting background for a
certain kind of lawyer," Woodman said.  "I believe Bill Eggers may have
an idea for you."

"I had a message from him this week," Stone replied.

"When he's back from Los Angeles, I hope you'll listen to what he has
to say."

"Surely.  At this point, I'm certainly open to suggestions."

Edith Bonnet, who had been quiet up until now, spoke up.  "Mr.
Barrington ..."

"Stone."

"Stone.  Of course I'm aware of what you've been investigating
recently.  I read the papers like everybody else."

'of/hy, Edith," Woodman broke in, "Ldidn't 'know you had to read the
papers; I thought yu had gdirect line to the central source of all
knowledge."

Bonner smiled.  "You'll have to excuse Frank; he's a very bright man,
but his curiosity extends only to the literal--what he can see and hear
and touch."

"That's right, Edith," Woodman said.

"What Frank doesn'tJunderstand is that some of us see and hear and
touch things that are not quite SO liter il  Do you see what I mean,
Stone?"

"I believe I do, Edith, but I have to tell you that my experience as a
police officer has made me not unlike Frank.  I tend to put my faith in
what I can see and hear, and I don't have your gifts with the less than
literal."

"I believe I might be able to tell you something about what happened to
Sasha Nijinsky," Bonner said.

All conversation ceased at the table.

'q/ould this be something material, or would it be more ephemeral?"
Stone asked, trying to keep the tone light.

Bonner smiled.  "I believe you might think it ephemeral," she said,
'qut I assure you it is material to me.  I would not speak if I didn't
feel quite certain about what I want to tell you."  "I'm all ears,"
Stone said.  "I feel strongly that two persons are responsible for what
happened to Sasha Nijinsky," Bonnet said.  'q/Veil, since two things
happened to Sasha--her fall and her disappearance--it seems quite
possible that two people could be involved."  "I was referring to
Sasha's fall from her terrace," Bonner said, "and only one of these
persons was present when she... fell."  "That's very interesting,"
Stone said.  It's not very interesting at all, he thought.  So much for
ESP. '4 warn you, Stone," Barker said, "Edith does not make such
statements lightly.  You should take her seriously."  "Unfortunately,"
Stone replied, "I'm no longer in a position to do so, and I have no
reason to believe that anyone assigned to the case would be interested
in hearing from me about any theory whatsoever.  Edith, if you feel
strongly about this, perhaps you should contact Lieutenant Leary, who
is commander of detectives at the 19th Precinct."  Bonner shook her
head.  "No,u she said, "he wouldn't listen to me.  I've done what I
can, now; I'll have no more to say on the subject."  She returned to
her dinner and her silence.  Soon the party moved back to the living
room for coffee and brandy.  Stone chatted at some length with Frank
Woodman and found that he liked the man.  Later, when people made a
move to leave, Bonner appeared at Stone's elbow.  "There's something I
didn't want to mention at the table," she said.  "Yes?"  "Sasha
Nijinsky is not finished with you."  "Well, I'm afraid the NYPD has
finished with me."  "But not Sasha. There's a connection between the
two of you that you don't seem to know about."

"A connection?"  "A... well, a spLtual connection."  "But I never knew
her."  "Do you think it was a coincidence that you were there when she
fell from that balcony?"  "It couldn't be anything else."  "It was no
coincidence.  You and Sasha are bound together, and you won't be
released until she is found and you know what happened to her." 
"Edith, I'm going to do everything I can to put Sasha out of my mind
permanently."  Bonner smiled.  "I'm afraid you won't be able to do
that."  Then her expression turned serious.  "There's something else,"
she said.  "What's that?"  "I feel that you are, or will be'in somsort
of jeopardy, resulting from your connection with Sasha."  "Jeopardy? 
How?" "I don't knOW.  I only know that you are at risk, and, if you are
not very careful indeed, this thing with Sasha could destroy you." 
"Some would say it already has," Stone said.  "At least with regard to
my career as a police officer."  He was near to confiding in her, now,
and it surprised him.  "I mean destroy you entirely--mortally.  In
fact, I have the very strong feeling that your chances of surviving
this crisis are poorertainly, you will not come through without help,
and you may not get it."  Stone pushed away the chill that threatened
to run through him.  "Edith," he managed to say, "I appreciate your
concern for me, but please don't worry too much.  It's my intention to
stay just as far away as I can from the Nijinsky case or anything to do
with it."  "You won't be able to do that," Bonner said.  She looked
away from him. "I'm sorry."

CHAPTER

Stone was awakened in the best possible way.  "You're going to kill
me," he said.

"Mmmmmmm," she replied, concentrating her efforts.  "It's only fair;
you nearly killed me last night."

"I couldn't think of anything else to do," he gasped.  Sunlight
streamed into the room, and his blurring vision made the sparsely
furnished chamber seem somehow heavenly.  ^ moment later, everything
came into sharp focus, and he closed his eyes and yelled.

"You're noisy," she said.

"It's your fault.  You made me."

"I want some breakfast."

"You just had breakfast, and I'm not sure I can walk."

She got up and went into the bathroom.  Stone heard the water running,
and he had nearly dozed off when she came back.  She crawled into bed,
and, suddenly, there was something icy on his belly.

He yelled again and leapt out of bed.  "Jesus Christ, was that your
hands?"

"New York City tap water gets very cold in the wintertime," she said.
"As long as you're up, could I have an English muffin, marmalade,
orange juice, and coffee?"

"I suppose if I get back into bed you'll just attack me with the
iceberg hands again."

"Right.  But they'll warm up while you're fixing breakfast."

Defeated, Stone got into a bathrobe and went downstairs to the kitchen.
He stuck the muffins into the toaster oven, got coffee started, and
went to the front door.  He peeked up and down the street, then tiptoed
out onto the frosty stoop and retrieved the Sunday Tzrne.  He was back
inside before he registered all that he had taken in.  He cracked the
door again and looked up the block.  A plain green, four-door sedan was
parked on the other side of the street, and two men inside it were
sipping coffee from paper cups.  He didn't know them, but he knew who
they were.

He went back to the kitchen, got the breakfast together, loaded it onto
a cart, and wheeled it into the old elevator, which made the usual
creaking noises on the way up.

Cary was asleep, sprawled across the bed, the sunlight streaming across
her naked body.  He stopped and looked at her for a moment, that length
of delicious woman, the flat belly, the swelling breasts with their
small, red nipples, the dark hair strewn across the pillow.  Slowly,
quietly, he sneaked onto the bed and carefully set a glass of chilled
orange juice onto a nipple.

"Oooooo," she said without moving.  "What a nice way to wake up.  Could
I have something on the other one, please?"

"You're unsurprisable," he said, setting the orange juice

TO ART

on her belly and returning for the rest of the breakfast.  He put the
tray on the bed between them while she struggled into a sitting
position and fluffed up the pillows.  "I like the sun in the morning,"
she said.  "It's better than blankets."  He drank his juice and reached
for the Times.  "I get the front page," she said, snatching it away. 
He settled for the book review and munched on a muffin.

"Oh, shit," she said suddenly.  "What is it?"  She clutched the front
page to her breast.  "You aren't at fault here," she said.  "You have
to get that through your head.  This is not your fault."  "What the
hell are you talking about?"  He tugged at the newspaper, and she gave
it up reluctantly.

SUSPECT IN NIJINSKY CASE IS APPARENT SUICIDE

Henrietta Morgan, a makeup artist for the Continental Network who
police sources say was implicated 'in the fall of television
anchorwoman Sasha Nijinsky from the terrace of her East Side penthouse
apartment, last night apparently took her own life in her Greenwich
Village apartment.  Ms.  Morgan, who was known as "Hank" and who was
active in gay and lesbian rights issues in the city, had been
questioned about Ms.  Nijinsky's fall, then last week was arrested and
charged with possession of an unlicensed pistol.  She had been released
on bail, but sources in the New York Police Department had told the
press that Morgan was the chief suspect in the Nijinsky case.  In a
late-night statement from City Hall, Deputy Police Commissioner
Lawrence Waldron announced

: that the death of Ms.  Morgan had effectively closed the
investigation into Ms.  Nijinsky's fall.  Waldron said that Ms.
Nijinsky's disappearance after an ambulance ,[i.I collided with a fire
truck while on her way to a hospital was still being investigated by
the F.B.I."  who are treating her incident as a kidnapping, which is a
federal crime.

Stone felt ill.  He rubbed his face briskly with his hands and tried to
fight back the nausea.  "It's not your fault," Cary said again, rubbing
the back of his neck.  He got out of bed, went into the bathroom, and
splashed cold water onto his face.  Then he thought about the unmarked
car downstairs.  He went back into the bedroom got back into his robe.
:"I'll be' right back," he said.  ' He trotted downstairs to the main
hall, retrieved a flashlight from the utility closet, and unlocked the
basement door.  It took him a minute or so to find the main telephone
junction box, and only seconds to find the wires leading from it to a
small FM transmitter a few feet away.  Angrily, Stone ripped out the
wires, then smashed the transmitter with the heavy flashlight. He
walked back up to the main floor; then took the elevator upstairs.
"What's the flashlight for?"  Cary asked.  "It's broad daylight."  "I
needed it to find the phone tap," Stone said.  "Somebody's tapped your
phone?"  "New York's Finest," Stone said.  'q'wo of them are sitting
out in the street in an unmarked car, waiting either to follow me
wherever I go or to record my telephone conversations."  "Why?" 
"Because they think that when I hear about Hank Morgan's death, I might
start talking to the press."

"Stone, I'm confused.  If you want me to understand what you're talking
about, then you'd better fill me in."

Stone took a deep breath.  "This is not something you can discuss with
anybody at work."

"Of course not," she said indignantly.

He went back to his and Dino's initial questioning of Hank Morgan and
told her everything that had happened since.

"I see," she said when he had finished.  "So you think

Hank had nothing to do with Sasha's fall."

"Nothing whatever."

"But the NYPD and the DA's office were going to try and railroad her
for it?"

"Not exactly; they knew they would never get a conviction.  They just
needed a strong suspect to take the heat off the department. Somebody's
been telling a reporter or two that Morgan really did it, but they
didn't have enough evidence against her for a conviction."

"SO everybody would think Hank did it, even though they couldn't prove
it?"

"Right.  Except it worked out even better than they had planned.  They
didn't know that she wouldn't be strong enough to handle the suspidon
and the publidty; they couldn't predict that she would finally break
and kill herself."  "SO what happens now?"  "Nothing."  "Nothing?"

'qrhe investigation into Sasha's fall is over.  Hank's sui-{fide was as
good as a confession."

"But they still don't know what happened to her, do they?"

"No, but the FBI very kindly stepped in and took responsibility for
that part of the investigation, so the department is out of it."

"Are you going to do anything about it?"

"What can I do?"

"Go to the press.  I can arrange for you to talk with one investigative
reporters."

"It wouldn't work.  There's just enough substance to the against Morgan
to justify the department's actions.  I can't prove that she didn't do
it."  He picked up the and dialed a number.

"Hello?"  Dino said.  He had obviously been asleep.  "Dino, it's Stone;
I want you to give Leary a message for

"What?"  He was waking up now.

"Fell him I found the phone tap, and it's now in several so there's no
need to come back for it."

"Stone, what are you talking--"

"Also tell him'--Stone glanced at the bedside clock--"that it's nine
forty-five now, and at n o'clock I'm going to go downstairs and look up
and down the street.  If the police car is still sitting out there--or
if I ever see any cops taking an interest in me again at any time--I'm
going to take a full-page ad in the New York Times and publish my
complete memoirs.  Did you get that?"

"Yeah, but Stone hung up the phone and put his face in his hands.  Cary
sat up and began massaging his shoulders.  "Just-take it easy now; you
told them off, and that's it.  They won't bother you again, and none of
this is your fault."  "You don't understand," Stone said.  "Understand
what?  It's not your fault."

Stone could not look at her, but he told her what he had been telling
himself over and over again.  "I would have gone along with it," he
said.  "If they had let me stay on the force, I would have stood by and
let them pillory Hank Morgan.  I would have done anything to keep my
job."

Cary put her cheek against his back.  "Oh, baby," she said.  "Oh, my
poor, sweet baby."

CHAPTER

Stoe filed into the huge room with at least three hundred other
aspirants to the bar of New York State, burdened like the rest with
course materials, his bank account lighter by the substantial tuition.
For eight hours, with a one-hour break for lunch, the instructor
drilled the class, and Stone found the lectures to be well organized,
to the point, with the fat trimmed away.  The volume of material was
daunting; when the day ended, he felt as if he'd been beaten up.

Back at home, he called Cary.  "I'm near death," he said, "but my
incipient corpse is yours for the evening, if you want it."

"I'd love to have it, but I'm stuck again," she replied.  "Friday
night's ratings were terrific, for a documentary, and we're
brainstorming after hours all week to come up with ideas for six more
specials."

"St."

"I know, but you should be concentrating on passing bar instead of
lusting after me.  You can lust after me on though.  Around here, not
even Barton Harkness

; '"you're on.  I wish I didn't have to wait so long."

'q'he law is a jealous mistress, remember?"

; "rhank you, Madame Justice Hilliard."

"Until Saturday."

"You'd better get ready for this," he said.  "On Saturday, going to
tell you I love you."  He could hear the smile in

"It's beginning to sound like a perfect weekend."

Stone hung up, then checked the messages on his

"It's Dino, Stone.  I didn't knbw anything about that that was going
on.  It was Leary's doing, maybe at the somebody upstairs.  I just
wanted you to know yourself."

:: "Stone, this is Bill Eggers.  I'm stuck in LA for at least i another
ten days--unforeseen circumstances, I believe the term is.  It means
all hell has broken loose on my case, and to be putting out fires until
pretty near the end of next week, so we'll have to postpone dinner. You
impressed "Woodman at dinner the other night, and he isn't easily tm
pressed  I'll call you in a couple of weeks."

'q'his is Abbott Wheeling, Stone.  I enjoyed our conversation at dinner
the other night.  It occurred to me that, in light of subsequent
events, you might be willing to talk about the Nijinsky case for
publication.  Should you feel that way, either now or at any time in
the future, I'd be grateful if you'd call me at the Times.  I can
promise you that your views on the case will get the sort of serious
public attention that only this newspaper can command.  I won't pester
you about this, but please be assured of my continuing interest."

Stone endured a moment's temptation to call Wheeling and tell him
everything, but the moment passed, and he returned to putting as much
emotional distance as possible between himself and the Nijinsky case
and the suicide of Hank Morgan.  He made himself some supper and
resumed his varnishing of the bookshelves, trying to let his mind run
over the day's lecture.  He was surprised at the familiarity of the
material after so many years, and he was encouraged to think he might
pass the bar exam after all.

On Saturday night Elaine gave Stone and Cary a table next to the piano.
Stone liked piano music, and he was particularly enjoying the way
Lauren was playing Rodgers and Hart.  When they had finished dinner,
Elaine joined them.  "Remember that guy, Doc?  At the bar awhile back?
The diagnostician?"  "Yeah.  In fact, I saw a lot of him during the
Nijinsky thing."  "We had a weird thing in here with him last night. 
He was playing doctor with some little girl at the bar, and they left
together, and, a minute later, she's back in here, nearly hysterical.
She said Doc had tried to muscle her into a van, and she was scared to
death."  "Did you call the prednct?"  "Nah, it didn't seem as serious
as that.  I gave her a brandy and calmed her down; she didn't want to
take it any farther.  I'm going to throw the bum out the next time he
walks in here, though."  "He wrote Sasha Nijinsky a thousand or so
letters over the past couple of years."  "No kidding?"  "It didn't get
in the papers, but we had a look at his place and where he works.  He's
an embalmer for a funeral parlor, you know."

"He's not a doctor?"  "Nope.  He did graduate from medical school, but
he never licensed.  I thought the guy was harmless, but flying to drag
girls into vans, well ..."  "He's never setting foot in here again,"
Elaine said

In bed, Cary seemed tired and distracted, and their lovemaking was
brief and perfunctory, something that had never happened before.  The
extra work seemed to be getting her down, and, God knew, Stonewas tired
himself.  Eight hours a day of class and another four of varnishing was
wearing him down.  On Sunday morning, Cary ate her breakfast
listlessly. "Are you as zonked as I am?"  she asked.  "Yeah.  It's
okay; we're both under the gun at the moment."  "Thanks for
understanding.  I've been lo king forward to seeing you all week, and
now I'm a wreck."  "It's okay, really it is."  "If you don't mind, I
think I'll go home and try to get some sleep this afternoon."  ..... He
did his best to hide his disappointment.  "Next Saturday?" 
"Absolutely."

The next Saturday was much the same.

Another letter came from the bank, this time a flat-out demand.  Stone,
his back against the wall now, called a real estate agent.  "I think
it's wonderful what you're aiming at for the place," she said, "but I
guess you know what the New York residential property market is like
right now.  In good times, with the place finished and ready to move
into, we might get three, three and a half million for this house.
Right now, for an immediate sale, we might be lucky to get three
hundred thousand."

Stone was shocked.  "Is the market that bad?"

"It is.  Listen, you're lucky; at least you'd get something out of a
sale.  I've got clients with perfectly beautiful town houses who are
being forced to sell for far less than they paid, and they're having to
pay off the rest of the mortgage out of savings."

Bright and early on a Monday morning, Stone presented himself to be
examined for admission to the bar of New York State, along with about
fifteen hundred ct hers  Like everyone else, he labored over the
questions.  There were occasional gaps in his knowledge, but, on the
whole, he thought he did well; certainly, he aced the questions on
criminal law.  Now there was only the waiting.

He got home feeling enormously relieved.  He had finished his study for
the bar and the varnishing of the library at the same time.  Now, if
Cary could just get a break in her work schedule, maybe they could...
The phone rang.  "Hello?"

"Hi, it's Bill Eggers."

"Hi, Bill."

"How'd you do today?"

"How'd you know?"

"I have spies everywhere."

'q/Veil, I did okay on criminal law, at least."  "Good.  How about
dinner tomorrow night?"  "Fine."

'q'he Four Seasons, at eight thirty?"

"Sounds good."

"Don't bring anybody.  It's just you and me."

"If you promise not to put your hand on my knee."

"Don't worry, you're not cute enough.  By the way, I

might have some news for you."  'qfihat sort of news?"  "Let's wait and
see."

CHAPTER

he Four Seasons was busy, as always.  The hum of voices from the Pool
Room echoed enjoyment of the surroundings and the food, but Bill Eggers
had a table in the Grill, next to the bar.  "It's quieter here," Eggers
said.  "It's crazy at lunch, but at dinner everybody wants to be in the
Pool Room.  Here, we can talk."  Stone wondered exactly what they would
be talking about.  This felt something like a job interview, but he
couldn't see Woodman & Weld hiring a thirty-eight year-old novice as an
associate.  They had a drink and dawdled over the menu.  Eggers seemed
in an expansive mood, relieved over the resolution of his Los Angeles
case.  "It was a bastard," he said.  "A bicoastal divorce case of one
of our biggest clients.  He was claiming New York residence, and she
claimed they lived in community property."

""hO won?"

: "I did.  The LA office is mostly into entertainment work,

did the dog work while they fronted for me in court.

' about the lady; she's doing very well out of this,

getting the thirty million that community prop division would have
given her.  She's pissed off now,

get used to living on the income from six million."

"You do a lot of divorce work?"

"I'm sort of the firm general practitioner.  I have a lot of whose
personal legal work I handle, and that often to divorce work.  It's
nasty sometimes, but, if you can a certain detachment, you can live
with it."

"Must be lucrative."

"Not all that much.  We only-do divorce work for the existing clients,
and we don't rharge them the earth.

case of the men, when they see what the wife's lawyer they're grateful
to us for not taking them to in the case of the women, tey're grateful
to us for not demanding high fees.  That builds client loyalty."

"I should think so."

They ordered their food, and Eggers chose what Stone t expensive bottle
of wine on a very expensive list.  If Stone had been interested before
in what" Bill Eggers had to say, now he was really interested.

tasted the wine and nodded to the sommelier.

had gone, he turned to Stone.  'hat do you know about Woodman &
Weld?"

"Not very much," Stone admitted.  "I get the impression that it's a
prestigious firm, from what I read in the papers, but I'm not very
clear on why it might be so."

"Good.  That's pretty much the impression we like to convey.  We see
that the people who might need us know a lot more, but we keep a fairly
low public profile."

Stone sipped the wine; he thought he had never

tasted anything so good.  "It's a lovely burgundy," he said to Eggers.
"Thank you."  Eggers nodded, pleased that his largess had been noted.
"Let me give you the scoop on us.  We've got eighteen partners at the
moment, and thirty-six associates.  That's certainly not big by
Manhattan standards, but it's big enough for us to be able to cover a
lot of bases.  There are seven corporate specialists--we tend to
attract companies somewhat below the Fortune Five Hundred level,
outfits that don't have huge legal departments; we have four estate
planners that very important to wealthy individuals--and, just as
important, four tax specialists, all Jewish.  Nobody seems to take a
tax lawyer seriously who isn't Jewish.  We're something of a polyglot
firm--blacks, women, Irish, Jews, Italians--not unlike the New York
Police Department, I expect.  That's important to us, because the firm
is active in liberal Democratic causes-you'd be surpiqsed how much
business comes in that way.  Finally, there are three generalists--two
of them Woodman and me."  'q liked Woodman when I met him."  "Woodman
is a genius, as far as I'm concerned.  He's a client man, first and
last; he inspires trust.  Also,.he has a facility for going into a
meeting---corporate, tax, whatever--and immediately grasping the issues
involved.  Clients think he knows everything, which isn't exactly true,
but he can give that impression effortlessly.  I'd be willing to bet
that he could engage you in conversation about a homicide investigation
and make you think he was an ex-cop."  Their first course arrived, and
they dug in.  'you didn't mention any criminal lawyers," Stone said
between bites.  "We don't have a criminal lawyer as such, although
you'd be surprised at how much criminal work comes our way.  Nowadays,
it's the corporate executive or stockbroker who's stepped over the
line; also, our clients' kids get into

/194

trouble drugs rape, sometimes even murder."

"How do you handle that?"

"In different ways.  If it's something big, we refer to a hotshot
mouthpiece; more often, we bring in a consultant and i handle it
internally.  A client likes it when his own lawyer i seems to be in
charge.  Of course, there's a fine line there; we

-have to make the judgment on when an outsider best serves the client's
needs.  We can't afford to make a mistake and under represent a client.
We're very, very careful in the matter of malpractice, and we've never
had a suit against us."

'q'hat seems a good area to be careful in."

"In short, Stone we're a class act.  Every single partner is s good as
any lawyer in town at what he does and better than ninety-nine percent
of the field.  We're low profile, high ethical, and extremely
profitable-.  I will tell you, in confidence, that no partner in our
firm is taking home less than half a million a year, and that's the low
end.  I made a million year, and it wasn't my best year.".

Stone sucked in a breath at the thought of so much money and what he
could do with it.

"Now that I've stunned you," Eggers said, noting

"Stone's expression, "let me tell you why we're interested in i you."
-- ::i;: Somehow, Stone didn't think that he was here to be partnership
and half a million dollars a year.

' "As I've said, we're taking on more and more criminal and domestic
work, without even trying.  We've handled

'. me ourselves, farmed out some, and brought in consultants on others,
but we're still spread thin.  Sometimes we investigative work done, and
we're troubled by the people available to do that sort of thing.  There
some high-class people around, but they charge more a good lawyer gets;
generally, what we see in the investigative area is sleaze--the worst
sort of ex-cop, the ones the boot."

"You might say I got the boot," Stone said.  "But for all the right
reasons," Eggers replied.  "We have a pretty good idea of why you were
pensioned off."  He took a deep breath.  "Another thing about
investigators, they have a tendency to look wrong for some of the work
we give them.  They dress badly, drink too much, and sprinkle a lot of
'dems, deezes, and dozes' around their conversation.  You, on the other
hand, look right and sound right."  Stone shrugged.  Eggers was looking
for a private detective, and the thought didn't interest him much.
Eggers must have read his mind.  "Don't get me wrong, we're not looking
for somebody to just kick down bedroom doors, although I wouldn't rule
that out.  What's interesting about you is a combination of things: you
understand how the police department and the DA's office work; you have
a fine grasp of criminal justice procedure; you are a highly
experienced investigator; anal, unusually with all that, you have the
background, education, demeanor, and the language skills that will let
you fit easily into any upper-level social situation.  In short, a
client would be perfectly comfortable explaining his problem to you."
"What exactly do you have in mind, Bill?".  "You could be very useful
to us; let me give you some typical examples.  One: a client's son and
heir, who has a three-hundreddollara-week allowance, is, inexplicably,
caught selling an ounce of cocaine on his college campus.  We need
somebody who can show up at the station house, talk to the cop in
charge, deal with the DA, and get the charges dropped or reduced to a
misdemeanor that the kid can plead to as a youthful offender and that
will, in time, be expunged from his record.  Two: the kid does
something really bad--rapes his date, batters, maybe even murders her.
We'll need our own investigation into the events, and we'll need to
know how the cops and the DA are thinking.  A third: A client suspects
his wife of having an affair; we need to know for sure, before we can
proceed for him.

That's not the whole range of problems that might arise, but it's a
good sampling."  "I see."  This sounded better than hanging around the
criminal courts, picking up burglary and drunk-driving cases.  "Let me
lay it out for you.  We don't want you to join the firm, as such.  Not
yet, anyway.  What we'd like you to do is set up your own practice, a
professional corporation, which would be associated with us."  "You
realize I haven't even passed the bar yet."  "Oh, I forgot; that was my
news.  You passed."  "Now how the hell could you know that?  I only
took the exam yesterday."  "Friend of a friend had access.  He pulled
your papers, looked them over, and he reckons you'll finish in the top
third, and, since the New YorState bar is the toughest in the country,
that's damn good.  It's not official, of course, but you've got nothing
to worry about' "Bill, this friend of a friend didn't.."  improve my
score, did he?"  Eggers looked shocked.  "Absolutely not.  There's been
no tampering here, you don't need to worry about that.  I you, we're an
ethical firm.  Information was all we were after, and that's all we
got; no law was broken; we doli't do that."  "Well, in that case,
thanks.  It's a load off my mind."  "Anyway, as I was saying, we want
you to be at our disposal.  Of course, you can't actually practice law
until your admittance to the bar is official, but you can advise and
investigate.  In a trial, you can sit at the defense table and whisper
into our man's ear.  Then, when you're admitted, you can accept cases
of your own.  We just want priority."  "On what basis?"  "When we hire
a freshly admitted assodate, the current starting salary is fifty-five
thousand.  We propose to offer you

511"J'A.qT WOODS

a retainer of seventy-five thousand dollars annually, against an hourly
rate of a hundred and twenty-five dollars."  "What's your hourly rate,
Bill?"

"Two 67 to three fifiT, depending, but I've been with the firm for
twelve yea and a partner for eight.  Don't misunderstand me, Stone,
it's not our intention to keep you at arm's length forever.  We're
k.cling our way, here, with a new kind of association for us.  ILl this
works out the way I hope it will, then you would eventually join the
firm, and, sometime in the future, a partnership might come into the
picture."

'q/Vould you care to be a little more specific about 'eventually' and
'sometime hn the future'?"

"No.  I can't be.  This is simply too new a situation for us.  But I'll
tell you what I tell our new associates: there are no guarantees, but
if you work your ass off for the firm, if you show you can bring in
business of your ow-, and if you can make our clients trust you, ten a
partnership is almost inevitable.  That's what they told me when I
joined, and it was true.  Of course, under the terms we're offering
you, any new business you bring in wi[] be yours entirely.  Then, if
and when you join us, you bring your clients with you."

Stone leaned back in his chair and smiled.  'Bill, I accept.  I'm
delighted to accept.  And, I'll tell you the truth, this could not have
come along at a better time."

Eggers leaned forward.  "A cash pinch?"

Stone told him about the situation with the house and his bankers.

Eggers took out a pad and made some notes.  "You're being badly
treated, and I think we can correct that.  May I

represent you in this matter?"

"Of COurse."

"Good.  I'll get you an advance against your first quarter's retainer,
too."

"Thank you, Bill; that would certainly take the pressure

Eggers stuck out a hand.  el come aboard."

Stone shook it.  "When do I start to work?"

"Tomorrow.  We've got a couple of things in-house you can look at and
advise on.  And I think I'll have an investigative job for you soon."

Stone walked home, not even noticing the light rain.  He was employed.
He wouldn't have to sell the house.  The thought of
marriage---suppressed because of his financial condition--broke through
into his frontal lobe.  He flashed ahead five years: he was a partner
at Woodman & Weld; the house was beautiful, and it was his; he and Cary
were throwing elegant dinner parties in his elegant dining room; maybe
there was a child.  Mayb two.  Things were suddenly falling into
place.

A miracle had occurred.  He didn't pause to wonder what it might cost
him...

CHAPTER

'33

When Stone got home, Dino was standing on the front stoop, back against
the door, trying to stay out of the rain.  "Hi, Dino," Stone said. 
"Hi. Can I buy you a drink?"  "Come on in, let me buy you one."  "Nah,
I hate the smell of paint and sawdust.  Let's go someplace."  "All
right."  They walked silently up Third Avenue to P. J. Clarke's and
leaned on the corner of the bar.  "The usual?"  "Fine."  "A Wild Turkey
and a Stoly, both rocks," Dino said to the barman.  "Make 'em doubles."
 They both looked idly around until the drinks came.

Dino held up his glass.  "Better days."

Stone nodded and drank.  Dino gulped a quarter of the vodka.  "I feel
bad about what happened," he said.  "It's okay, Dino.  Maybe it was all
for the best."  He told Dino about his dinner with Bill Eggers. 
"That's great, Stone, and I'm happy for you, but it's still not okay
with me. You were my partner, and I should have at least warned you
what was coming.  I didn't know myself until that morning."  "You were
my partner, too, and I didn't back you up," Stone said.

"Yeah, but you were right, that's the difference.  I was wrong, and
because of What I did Morgan croaked herself."  Stone said nothing.

"I took the call," Dino saidTblinking.

Stone still said nothing.  "She was in the bathtub, anti it looked like
the tub was full of blood."

"Jesus," Stone allowed himself.  "She had a straight razor.  God knows
what she was doing with it, even if she was a dyke.  You think she was
keeping it in case she grew a beard?"  '

Stone shrugged.

"She stuck it in right under her left ear and pulled it all the way
around, deep."

Stone winced.  "She had guts, I'll say that for her.  I couldn't never
do that, not in a million years.  Pills, maybe.  Maybe eat your gun,
but you don't die right away when you cut your own throat.  It must
hurt like all hell, and you got time to think about, what you done
before you go under."  Dino shifted his weight and took another deep
pull from his glass.  "She left a note."  "The papers didn't say
anything about that," Stone said, surprised.

Dino took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to
Stone.

Stone read it.

I have never harmed another human being in my life.  I did not harm
Sasha Nijinsky.  I loved her, and she loved me, and I would never have
done anything to hurt her.

I want my friends to know that this is not a suicide.  This is murder,
and the police are the murderers.

"You can see why you didn't read about it in the papers," Dino said,
taking the note back.  He took a pack of matches from an ashtray on the
bar, lit the note, watched it burn.  "You know something?  I went to
confession.  I didn't go to confession since I was fourteen, but I went
yesterday.  As part of my penance, I had to tell you this stuff.  I
didn' tab the rest of the penance; I'm not going to.  But I wanted to
do this part."

'q'hanks, Dino, I know what it cost you."

"Don't be so fucking nice about it, Stone.  I wouldn't have said a word
to you, but I know you won't say nothing to nobody about this."

Stone nodded.

"I always been good at looking out for my own ass," Dino said.
"Sometimes I fall in the shit, but I come up smelling like a rose, you
know?"

Stone laughed.  "I know."

"Nah, you don't know.  I made detective first grade today.  Ain't that
a kick in the balls?  I get a promotion I would have killed for--" He
stopped and laughed ironically.  "Shit, I guess I did kill for it,
didn't I?"

"Congratulations, Dino."  Stone raised his glass.

Dino drank with him.  "They made me deputy squad commander, too.
Leary's retiring the end of the year, and I'm getting the job, Delgado
says."

"hat's great, Dino," Stone said, but it was a statement of sympathy.
"Yeah, get me off the street some, I guess.  Teach me a sense of
responsibility."  "You'll be good at it.  Look out for the politics,
though."  "What politics?  I'm not going anywhere after that.  I'm
never going to be chief of detectives they know it, and I know it. 
Shit, I never expected to make detective first, to tell the truth. 
Nah, there's no politics to worry about.  I'm bought and paid for. 
I'll do what I'm told and like it."  Stone couldn't think of anything
to say. "Sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself, don't it?  Well, I
am, I guess.  I found out how far I'd go to cover my ass, and I feel
terrible about it."  He tossed down the rest of his drink and squared
his shoulders.  "i'll get ovgr it, though.  In a week or two, or when I
get Leary's lift]e cubicle, I'll look around and say to myself, "Hey,
this ain't half bad, you know?  These fuckers have to do what I tell
'em now!  I'm the fucking boss!"  And I'll start to feel okay about it.
And come spring, I'll forget all about Hank Morgan and how she took a
bath in her own blood.  I'm good at that--forgetting what a shit I was
about something.  I'll forget that I wasn't the world's greatest
detective, too, that I was lazy and shiftless a lot of the time, that I
didn't we much a shit about my job.  I'll forget all that, and when the
next hatch of detective thirds cruises into the precinct, I'll give 'em
the pep talk, tell' em how it was when I was scratching for promotion,
-how hard I worked on a case, how many righteous busts I had.  I'll be
a hard ass, just like Leary--shit, worse than Leafy."  "Sure, you
will." Dino picked up the heavy doubles glass and heaved it across the
bar. The mirror on the other side shattered, and chunks of glass fell
among the liquor bottles, breaking some of them.  The dozen people
standing at the bar and the two bartenders froze, staring at Dino.

Finally, a bartender, a red-haired, freckle-faced Irishman who looked
right off the boat, spoke up.  "The last one o' dose got broke cost
eight hundred bucks, Dino," he said sadly.  "And that was six, seven
years ago.  They prob'ly went up."  He looked at the mess, shaking his
head.  "And dere's the booze, too."

Dino put a fifty-dollar bill on the bar.  "That's for our drinks,
Danny," he said calmly, "and the change is for your trouble.  Send me a
bill for the rest."

The bartender nodded and began picking up glass.  The customers went
back to their drinking as if nothing had happened.

Outside, the rain had stopped, and the night had turned clear and
frosty.  Dino hailed a cab.  "Stone," he said, while the cab waited, "I
owe you.  I'm always gonna owe you.  You call me any time you need
something.  Anytime."

Stone nodded.  They shook lnds.  Dino got into the cab and drove off
into the night.  Stone walked home thinking that both he and Dino had
done all right out of Sasha Nijinsky's trouble.

The only loser had been Hank Morgan.

CHAPTER

the sat in Frank Woodman's large office and sipped strong coffee.

"Stone, I'm very pleased that you're going to be... asso-dated with
us," Woodman was saying: "I think that, with your help, we can take
what has been a non gainful irritint and turn it into a profit center
for the firm.  That's with you fully on board, of course, after our
initial feeling-out period."

"Frank, I should tell you that, for the long term, I'm really more
interested in a general practice than solely criminal work, and I'd
appreciate it if, after I'm admitted to the bar, you'd consider putting
me on an occasional noncriminal case."

"I understand your feelings, and I'll keep that in mind."

Warren Weld, the other name on the door, spoke up.  "Are you interested
in corporate work, Stone?"

"Not really, Warren.  I think I'd prefer to represent individuals."

"That puts you right back in Frank's bailiwick, then."  Weld stood up.
"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I've got a meeting.  Welcome aboard,
Stone."

They shook hands, and Weld left, leaving only Frank Woodman and Bill
Eggers in the room with Stone.

"Bill, you take Stone back to your office, will you?  I've got a client
coming in."  Woodman stood and shook Stone's hand.  "I think Bill
already has a couple of things for you, Stone.  He'll brief you."

They returned to Eggers's office and sat down.

"Frank had a word with your banker yesterday--we keep our trust account
at your branch, so we have a little pull there.  You're off the hook
for the principal reduction they were demanding.  You'll still have to
make the interest payment, though."

"hank you, Bill, that's good news."

Eggers handed him an envelope.  "And here's ten grand against your
retainer."

"You're full of good news," Stone said.  "Thanks again."

"Not at all."  Eggers looked at his watch.  "There's somebody

I want you to meet, Stone.  He's due in here in ten minutes."  "A
client?"

"Son of a client.  The father is Robert Keene, of Keene,

Bailey & Miller advertising."

"I don't know them."

"The partners left Young & Rubicam fifteen years ago and set up on
their own.  Now they're a medium-sized agency well known for good
creative work.  Warren Weld represents the agency, and I represent Bob
personally.  Bob

Keene is as nice a guy as you'd want to meet."

"And the boy?"

"That's why I want you to meet him.  I want your opinion.  Bobby Junior
is a senior at Brown, and there's a date-rape accusation against him by
a girl student.  She turned him in to the administration, and, when she
wasn't happy with

2O6

the level of support she got, she added his name to a list of alleged
date rapists on the ladies' room wall in her dormitory.  Bobby denies
everything, and he seems credible.  No criminal charges have been
filed, yet, but if they are, and, if we feel he's innocent, I want to
go on the offensive--sue the girl for defamation, sue the university
for allowing his name to remain painted on a bathroom wall, really
blast them.  And we'll call in a top gun to defend him.

"On the other hand, if he's really guilty, I'll insist that he abjectly
apologize to the girl and the administration, and try to avoid criminal
proceedings and keep him in school.  That would certainly be cheaper
for his father, but Bob Senior is willing to do yrhat it takes to
defend the boy if he's innocent."

"What does the father think about the boy's guilt or innocence?"

"Oddly, he doesn't salem to hit ve an opinion.  I think that,

what with the work it's taken to build his business, he hasn't spent a
hell of a lot of time with the boy and they've grown apart.  We can't
solve that problem for them, but I hope we can give Bob Senior good
advice on how to proceed."

"I'll be glad to meet the boy."

"As a cop, you must have gained some insight over the years as to
whether an accused man is'-guilty or not--I don't mean reading the
evidence, I mean reading the man."

"I think I have.  It doesn't always work, of course.  I've been fooled
before; so has every cop."

"I want you to question the boy, pull out all the stops,

see if you can shake his story."

"You want him cross-examined, as if I were representing the girl?"

"I want him questioned, as if he were a suspect."

The phone on Eggers's desk rang.  "Yes?  Send him in."

He hung up and turned to Stone.  "Ready?"  "You be the good cop," Stone
said.  "Right."

Bobby Keene was a large young man, whose neck was wider than the top of
his head.  Stone thought there had been a handsome face in that head
once, before the boy had discovered weight training.

"Bobby, how are you?"  Eggers said, sticking out a hand.

"I'm very well, Mr.  Eggers," Bobby said earnestly.  "Bobby, I want you
to meet another lawyer who's helping us out with your case.  This is
Stone Barrington; Stone's had a lot of experience in this sort of
thing, and I think he'll be able to help us a lot."

"Gosh, I hope so."  Bobby stuck out a ham-sized hand.  "How do you do,
Mr.  Barrington?"

Stone kept a poker face, shook the hand limply, but did not return the
greeting.  "Sit down," he said, and it was an order.

Bobby sat, looking worriel.

"tell me about it," Stone said, sounding bored.

"Sir?"

Stone turned to Eggers.  "Jesus Christ, Bill, is the kid stupid, or
what?"

"Bobby," Eggers said gently, "tell Mr.  Barrington what happened on the
evening you went out with"--he glanced at a pad on his desk--"Janie
Byron."

"Oh, of course, sir.  I'm sorry, I didn't know what Mr.  Barrington
meant."

"Just tell me," Stone said.

"Well, there isn't much to tell.  We went to a movie" "What kind of a
movie?"

"An old one; a John Ford western."  "Downtown, shopping mall,
drive-in?" "Oh, a drive-in, right outside town."  "rhen what
happened?"

"Well, we got some popcorn, we ate it, we watched the movie, we made
out a little."

"Define 'made out."  Exactly."

Bobby retained his earnest tone.  "We kissed a few

"Did you touch her breasts?"

"Well, yeah, she seemed to want that."

"Oh, she said to you, "Bobby, please, please grab my tits," i that how
it happened?"

'ell, not exactly."

"Just how did she show you that she wanted you to touch her breasts?"

"Well, when I did, she didn't object much."

"But she did object."

"Well, she played hard to get a little, I guess."

"Then what happened?"

"We started to get heated u pounds little, and I--"

"Go on, boy, be graphic.  We're all grown up here."

'rhen she said she wanted to leave, she got all hurry and all, and so I
took her back to her dorm."

"Immediately?"

"As soon as I was sure she meant it."

"How long did that take?"

"A few minutes, I guess."

"How many minutes?  Exactly."

"Five, I guess."

"Did you lie down on the seat of the car?"

"For a minute or two."

"Did you get your hand in her pants?"

'/es, sir."

"Did you get your finger inside her?"

"Yes, sir, for a minute."

"Did you get her pants off?"  ,

"No, sir.  I didn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Sir?"

"Well, it sounds to me like you were doing real well,

there, Bobby; you got at her tits, you got your finger in her crotch,
why stop?"

"I guess she didn't want to."

"if she didn't want to, how'd you get your hand in her crotch?"

"Well, I--"

Stone leaned across to Eggers's desk and picked up a legal pad.  "It
says here you forced her to have sex with you."  "That's a lie!"

"It says here, you ripped off her underwear, pinned her down with your
weight, and fucked her against her will."  "It wasn't against her
will!"

"So you fucked her, didn't you?"

"No, I... you're getting me confused."

"It says here that when she got back to her dorm, her roommate took a
cotton swab and collected a semen sample from her pubic hair and saved
it on a glass slide.  Her roommate is a biology major.  That's your
misfortune."

Bobby's eyes widened, and his jaw worked, but nothing came out.

"Do you know what a DNA matching is, Bobby?"  "I... well, I read
something in the paper about it."  "Give me that lab report," Stone
said to Eggers.

Eggers promptly found a sheet of paper on his desk and handed it across
to Stone.

Stone looked at the paper, an interoffice memo, and shook his head.

"Listen, I can give you the names of three guys who've screwed Janie
Byron," Bobby said.  His face was red.  "I--"

"I see," Stone said.  "So the guys at the frat house are going to back
you, huh?  They're stand-up guys, so they're all going to go into court
and perjure themselves for you and risk going to prison."

Bobby put his face in his hands for a moment.

Stone turned to Eggers.  "You can't go into court with

2;0

this guy, Bill.  He can't even convince his own lawyers, how the hell
is he going to convince a jury?"

"Bobby," Eggers said gently, "you see what we're up against, don't you?
I mean, Mr.  Barrington is on your side, and he can't bring himself to
believe you.  Now listen, if you'll just tell us the truth, all of the
truth, then we may be able to get you out of this."

"He'll never tell you the, truth," Stone said harshly.  "He's a lying
little piece of shit.  Bobby came half off the sofa, but, when Stone
stood up, sank back.  "Can I talk to you alone, Mr.  Eggers?"  he said
plaintively.

"Sure you can, kid," Stone said, heading for the door.  "I wouldn't
waste any more of my time."  At the door, he turned back to Eggers.
"I'll tell you one thing, I wish I was prosecuting this one, instead of
defending."  He walked out, slamming the door behind him.

In the hall, Stone leaned against the door and took a deep breath.
Jesus, it had been awhile, iino usually played the bad cop.

CHAPTER

Bill Eggers leaned back in his chair and rested his feet on his desk.
"That was good work, Stone.  The boy has told me everything, I thh&; I
don't believe he actually screwed the girl, though God knows he meant
to.  He's down the hall in an associate's office right now, writing
letters to the girl and the university administration.  I think I can
negotiate him out of this.  The girl wasn't entirely blameless, and she
does have a reputation for sleeping around."

"I'm glad it worked out," Stone said.

"Well, you saved his father seventy-five or a hundred thousand in legal
fees.  Bob Keene will always be grateful to us for that."

"Frank said you had something else for me."

"I do, and this one's sticky.  Or, at least, it could be."  "Tell me
about it."

2i2

"I'm going to have to be a little circumspect in talking even to you
about this," Eggers said.  "l'here's a lot at stake, and I'm going to
have to proceed strictly on a need-to-know basis, all fight?"

"I have a client I've known since I was in high school, whose wife is a
prominent businesswoman.  They've never had much of a marriage, but
there were a couple of kids, and they stuck it out.  Trouble is, the
wife has had a couple of affairs.  In fact, there've been other men all
along, I think, but he's finally run out of patience, and, even against
my best advice, he's determined to proceed his own way on this."  "What
does he want to do?"  "He wants custody of one of the two kids, the
boy, and that means he has to nail her with the other guy--photographs,
the works.  Actually,he wants a videotape of her in bed with him."  "Do
you often proceed this way in divorce cases?"  "No, and I've advised
him agains this, but he's absolutely determined.  He wants a quick,
clean divorce with no haggling about money, and, I have to admit, if he
gets his little video, there won't be any haggling.  The wife has too
much to lose to allow a Rob Lowe-type tape to be circulated, If her
board of directors so much as got wind of such a thing she'd be
finished. Nobody would ever take her seriously again."  "Well, even in
an era of no-fault divorce, I suppose there are still certain
advantages to having that sort of evidence.  What exactly is it you
want me to do? Kick down the bedroom door and film them in living
color?"  "I definitely do not want you to do that.  The firm can't
afford to have anybody as closely associated with us as you are be
directly involved in such a distasteful affair."  "You mean you want me
to find someone else who'll do it."

Eggers grinned.  "Right.  Someone who can be trusted to be discreet,
even if he's caught in the act of doing it.  Do you know somebody like
that?"

Stone did.  The man's face popped immediately into his mind.
"Possibly," he said.  "But this could get expensive.  He's going to
have to stalk the lady until he can catch her in the act, and that may
not be easy."

"I think it's going to be easier than you think," Eggers said,
smiling.

"Oh?"

"My client has been very helpful.  His wife's company maintains two
apartments in a rather elegant building that specializes in company
flats---you know the sort of thing--the out-of-town executive stays in
the company apartment instead of at the Plaza.  It's supposed to save
money for the company, but, mostly, it's regarded as just a perk for
the upper-level executive.  Anyway, my client has been tipped that his
wife has been using one of the company apartments on a rather regular
basis for her assignations with her male bimbo--a soap-opera actor no
less, and he has thoughtfully supplied us with a key to the apartment."
He held up a key.

"Your client has been very helpful indeed," Stone agreed.

"As I said, there are two apartments, My client, as a spouse, also has
access to them, and what he is prepared to do, next time he thinks his
wife is dallying, is to book your man into the other flat for the
night.  That gets him access to the building."  He tossed the key to
Stone.  "And this gets him access to the other apartment."

"That's very neat," Stone admitted.  "Your client is a very cunning
fellow."

"I hope I never have the misfortune to be married to somebody as
smart," Eggers said.  "Can you think of any reason why this wouldn't
work?"

Stone laughed.  "There are only a few dozen things that could go
wrong," he said, "but it'll be up to our man to han-idle those.
Actually, your client has made it look pretty straightforward.  When
does he want this done?"  "Within the next few days.  Next time the
lady says she's late, he'll call, and it's on.  Can you find your man
in a hurry?"  "I'll make some calls."  "Let me know what he wants for a
fee. I'm authorized to ten grand."  Eggers reached behind his desk and
pulled a fat aluminum briefcase.  "My client has even supplied us with
some very neat, lightweight video equipment."  He to laugh.  "It
belongs to the wife."  Stone had to laugh with him.

Teddy O'Bannion was a thick-set, gray-haired man of, maybe, fifty-five,
who had been unfortunate enough to be chosen to take the heat for his
precinct .a few years back, when one of the periodically instituted
crime commissions ?  was going about its work of rooting out corruption
in the police department.  The evidence allowed against him.  had: been
slim, and he had simply been dismissed from the force without
prejudice, which allowed him to Collect a-twenty-year pension, in
addition to the very nice monthly stipend his old companions on the pad
still paid him.  Teddy could easily pass for your typical out-of-town
businessman, in the city for meetings.  He looked around the house
carefully, obviously trying to figure out how Stone could afford it.
"Jesus, Stone, the pad must be bigger than ever," he said, wonderingly.
"I inherited it, Teddy, from a great-aunt, and now I have to spend the
rest of my life scrambling to keep it."  "Whatever you say, lad." 
Stone handed Teddy a stiff scotch.  "I've got a night's work for you.
There's five grand in it."

"How many children and dogs do I have to murder?"  "It's a
straightforward bedroom job, that's all."

Teddy laughed aloud.  "Straightforward?  Shit, the last bedroom job I
did, the woman flew out of the bed and nearly bit my ear off!"

"Rose are the risks you take, Teddy."

'aat they are, lad.  What's the setup?"

Stone explained about the apartment building.  "There are only two
apartments to a floor; you'll be booked into 9-B.  The wife will be
across a vestibule in 9-A.  You let yourself in--late, I'm
advised--find the bedroom, wake the occupants, and take their picture."
He opened the aluminum case and showed Teddy how the camera worked.
"You switch on the light; the camera is autofocus, so you just point
and shoot.  Make sure you get good shots of both faces, and show us a
little flesh, if you can.  The juicier the better."

"I think I understand your needs," Teddy said.  "And I've used this
camera before.  Is there anything else I should know?"

Stone shook his head.  "If there's trouble, don't hurt any~ body; if
you're apprehended, say nothing and call me.  My client will cover any
costs.  If a case against you comes.  to anything, there'll be another
five thousand for you, if you do the right thing."

'on't worry, I'm not getting myself apprehended, and if I do, I'll take
the rap.  Nobody' Il trace me back to you.  Can I get a look at the
place ahead of time?"

Stone shook his head.  "I don't want the concierge to see you twice.
I'll look it over myself."

"l'hat's okay with me."

"Good.  When you've done the job, take a cab to P. J. Clarke's and have
a drink at the bar.  Make sure nobody's after you.  I'll be there, and,
when I'm sure you're clear, I'll leave an envelope above the urinal in
the men's room with the five grand in it.  You go in immediately after
me, leave the camera case, take the money, and go home.  That's it."
Teddy nodded.  "Sounds fine."

"I don't want you recognized, Teddy.  What can you do about that?"

Teddy put on his hat, took a pair of heavy, black glasses from his coat
pocket, put them on, then produced a fat cigar and stuck it in his
mouth, distorting his face.

Stone laughed.  "Good.  Simple and good.  Oh, and wear want to look
prosperous."

Teddy nodded.  "When is it?"

"Probably this week.  Stay loose, and I'll give you as much notice as I
can.  You can pick up the camera stuff here, on your way."  Stone gave
him a hundred-dollar bill.  "Here's cab fare."  *,

Teddy shook his hand at the door.  hanks, Stone.  I'll do it right for
you."

Stone hadn't the slightest doubt he would.

CHAPTER

Yur name is Willoughby," Eggers said.  "Just check in with the
concierge, and he'll give you the key to 9-B.  I gave you the key to
9-A, but be Careful, there may be somebody in residence."  "Okay,"
Stone replied.  "I take it you found your man."  "I did.  He's waiting
for my call."  "Looks like Friday night."  Stone breathed a sigh of
relief.  He hadn't wanted this to interfere with his Saturday night
with ary.  "All right.  When will we know for sure?"  "Maybe not until
that day.  You sure you have to go to the building yourself?"  '/es.  I
don't want my man seen there more than once, and, anyway, I'm in no way
at risk today."  "Okay, it's your call."

The building was a small postwar apartment building in East Sixties
that had been refurbished for its current purAn elderly man in a blue
suit was behind the desk.  "Good afternoon," Stone said.  "My name is
Willoughby;

The man consulted a list.  "Yes, Mr.  Willoughby, you're just need it
for the afternoon, I believe?"  even that.  I just needed a place to do
a little work, 'were kind enough to offer me the apartment."  The man
produced a key.  'q'o your right as you leave Do you have any.
luggage?"  "Just my briefcase," Stone said, holding it up.  "Is there
using the apartment next oor?  I may have to do on the teleph he."
He*smiled.  "Shout all you like," the man said.  "9-A is empty at the

Stone thanked the man and went'(0 the elevator.  When off, he put an
ear to the door of 9-A and listened for a moment.  No sound.  He let
himself into 9-B and looked The place was handsomely, if impersonally
fur-with good upholstered piece' and One or two There were two
bedrooms, a m-aster and a smaller and two baths.  After a quick look
around, he went next and let himself into 9A.  The apartment seemed to
be a mirror image of the other, there was a difference.  9-A had been
lavishly done to particular taste, and probably by a very expensive The
furnishings were richer and more distinctive those in 9-B, and the art
on the walls was probably a of the company's collection of expensive
paintings.  He both bedrooms and decided that the master was the
assignation would take place.  There was a gor-canopied bed, with a
matching silk bedcover, and every stick of furniture in the room dated
from the eighteenth century, Stone reckoned.  He was about to reenter
the living room when he heard the front door open and close.

Oh, shit, he thought, trying to think of some plausible 'reason why he
should be in the apartment.  There was a rustling of what sounded like
paper bags, followed by a feminine cough.  He looked around the bedroom
for someplace to hide, should the woman come his way.  Her footsteps on
the carpet told him she was doing just that.

He ran on tiptoe across the room and practically dove behind the bed.
She came into the bedroom, then he heard the hollow click of the
bathroom light being turned on.  Please close the door, he said to
himself, be modest.  She did not.  He peeped above the edge of the bed
and saw it standing wide open and her shadow against the door.  There
was the sound of water running, then the toilet seat being raised.  The
water continued to nm while she peed.  Sitting on the toilet, she would
be facing the bathroom door, he knew, so he could not make a run for
it.  He arranged himself more comfortably and waited.

The woman came out of the bathroom, and he could hear her footsteps
approaching the bed.  Stone pressed himself closer to it.  He heard the
rustle of the silk bedcover being turned down and the creak of the
springs as the woman lay down.

Stone lay motionless for the better part of a half hour, while the
woman tossed and turned, then finally settled down for her nap.  When
her breathing told him she was sound asleep, he stirred from his
position as silently as possible, wincing at the cramps that had formed
in his legs.  He slipped off his shoes and started for the bedroom
door.  As he approached the door he glanced back at her, just as she
stirred, her back to him.  He froze until he was certain she had not
actually awakened.  Then he made his way across the deep Oriental
carpet in the living room to the front door,

he spent several seconds turning the knob as silently As he closed the
door, he saw two large shop-bags from Bergdorf Goodman lying next to a
living-chair.

A moment later, he was back in 9-B, running cold water his face in the
master bathroom.  He had done some work in his time, but nothing in his
police career ever prepared him for being a second-story man.  Now knew
that burglars are just as frightened as their victims.

He let himself out of the flat and left the building before next door
finished her nap.

At home, there was only one message on his answering "Hi, it's me.  I'm
sorry yo aren't in; I wanted to your voice.  And now I ave to o to a
production meet so you can't even call me back.  I'm so looking forward
to

I want to hear this important news of yours--and must be important, if
you want a table at Lutce.  I booked ; that, which was no problem.
Barron goes there all the time, they know me.  After dinner, and after
hearing your aews, I'm going to make you the happiest man in New York
City, I promise.  I've missed you so.  Until'$aturdy night, my

Stone felt the sort of glow that comes with a double Saturday night was
no longer the loneliest night in the week; it was the only night in the
week.

The phone rang.  "Hi, it's Bill.  We're on for Friday.  My client
reckons they won't be in the apartment until near midnight."

"Right.  I'll let my man know."

"Stone, my client says that this is likely to be the only shot we're
going to get at this, so tell him not to fuck it up, okay?"

"Don't worry, he's as steady as they come."

SIUAR?  WOODS

He hung up and called Teddy.  "It's Friday night," he said.  "I've
cased the place already, so be at my house at nine, and I'll brief you
and give you the camera."

"Looking forward to it, lad," Teddy said.

"And, Teddy, no booze that night, all right?"

"Lad," Teddy replied, sounding hurt, "I only drink after work."

Stone hung up the phone feeling a certain order in his life.  There was
money in the bank, and he had handled his first assignments for Woodman
& Weld in a way that was earning their confidence.

He allowed himself to be troubled for a moment about the ethics of what
he was doing, but he brushed the thought aside.  An errant Wife
deserved whatever came her way.  Stone was on the side of the
angels---or, at least, on the side of the wronged party, his client.

He put the last coat of vanaish on the library shelves that night, then
slept the sleep of the righteous.

CHAPTER

L'ate Friday morning it started to snow.  The big flakes floated
straight 'down, with no wind to blow them into drifts, and, gradually,
the city grew silent as traffic decreased and' the noise of what.  was
left was muffled by the carpet of white.

- As delighted as a child, Stone forgot working on the and trudged up
to Central Park, where he watched children sledding and building
snowmen.  As it started to get dark, he biked down Park.  Avenue,
watching the lights come on and the taxis and buses struggle through
the deepening snow.  By the time he got home, twelve inches had fallen
on and it seemed to be getting heavier.  Then it occurred to him that
Teddy O'Bannion lived in Brooklyn.  He grabbed the telephone.

"Don't worry, Stone' Teddy chuckled--"the subway is just down at the
corner, and I can get a cab from your

?

place.  I'll start early, so I'll be sure to be on time."  Stone hung
up relieved.  The thought that he might have to replace Teddy on this
mission had never occurred to him, and even the possibility made his
knees tremble.  In the study, he pulled the drop cloths off the crates
holding his books--his and his great-aunt's and his father's and his
mother's.  He estimated there were more than two thousand of them.  He
took them from their boxes and began arranging them carefully on the
shelves.  This was a job he would not want to do again.  He arranged
them by category-art books, fiction, philosophy, politics,
biography--and alphabetically by author.  It was slow going, and he
often had to shift books to keep them in order.  At eight o'clock, he
fixed himself some dinner and ate it at the kitchen table, watching the
news on CNN.  When he had finished his dinner, he returned to the
arranging of the books and became so absorbed in the job that it was
nine forty before he realized that Teddy O'Bannion had not arrived.
Worried, he called Teddy's number.  It was busy, and it remained busy
during his next ten attempts.  He called the operator and had the
number checked: out of order, she would report it.  What was going on?
At ten thirty, he began to face the reality that' he was going to have
to walk into Apartment 9-A and take videotapes of a strange woman and
man in bed together.  The thought made his bowels weak.  He wished he
had not eaten such a large dinner.  Teddy's phone number still would
not ring.  At a quarter to eleven, Stone realized that he would have to
shower and change, so that he would be presentable to the doorman at
the apartment building.  He hoped to God it would be a different
doorman; he couldn't afford to be seen twice by the same man.  In the
shower he ran over what might go wrong.  The wouldn't be there--that
was the best thing that could happen.  The man would overpower him and
call the would end his relationship with Woodman &

and he would end up in court, if not in jail.  The man a pistol from a
bedside drawer and... The doorbell rang as he stepped out of the
shower.  He into a terry-cloth robe and raced down the stairs.  Teddy

I O'Bannion stood, knee deep in snow, on the front stoop.

"Jesus, I'm sorry, Stone," he began.  "There was a fire in subway
station at the corner, and it knocked out not only trains but every
phone in the neighborhood, including mine."

:."  "Come on in, Teddy," Stone said, nearly trembling with relief.
"I'm double-parked out there," Teddy said, brushing mow from his co fit
"I had to come in the wife's Jeepster.

Good thing I had something with four-wheel drive, but it still took me
an hour and a llf from the Brooklyn Bridge."

Stone pointed him at the camera case.  "Look that over

'while I change."

;- When he came back down, Teddy was impatient to go.

going to get a cab in this," he said.  "I'll come along and wait for
you in the car Stone

Five minutes later, they were grinding slowly up Park Stone turned into
the right street and stopped the Jeepster a few doors down from the
apartment building.  You, d better hurry," he said to Teddy.  "You
don't want to nm into these people in the lobby and let them get a look
at

Teddy reached inside his coat and produced a nine-millimeter automatic
pistol.  "Don't worry," he said, grinning, 'q'm ready for anything."
Stone grabbed at the pistol.  "Are you crazy, Teddy?"  Then he laughed.
The thing was a water pistol, albeit an extremely realistic one.  "What
the hell are you doing with this?"  Teddy took the water pistol back.
"I'll explain later," he said, getting out of the car.  "Keep the motor
running, no matter how long it takes."  "Don't worry, I don't want to
freeze to death."  Stone handed him the key to 9A.  Teddy pointed at
the car phone.  "I'll call you, if I can, when I have some results." 
He closed the door and trudged through the snow toward the building,
finally disappearing into the entrance.  Stone turned the radio to a
jazz station and settled down to wait.  Five minutes later the car
phone rang.  "Hello?"  "They were in before me, but I think they're
still awake.  I can hear music and voices, if I put a water glass
against the wall."  * "Take your time," Stone said.  "We've got all
night, if

"It won't take that long," Teddy said.  "In my experience, people who
are fucking illicitly don't waste much time getting down to it."  He
hung up.  Stone turned the heater up a notch, pushed the seat back, and
made himself comfortable.

A sharp rapping against the window woke him.  He was momentarily
disoriented, and, by the time he figured out where he was, the rapping
came again on the window.  The car's windows were blocked by a blanket
of white, and, when he rolled down the driver's side window, snow fell
into the car.  "Teddy?"  Stone said to the figure outside the car.
"What's up, here, mister?"  a voice said.  Jesus, a cop.  "Oh, Officer,
I'm just waiting for a friend,"

said, scrambling around in his sleepy mind for a story.  "You been here
half hour, pal," the cop said.  "Let's see

"Well, to tell you the truth," Stone said, "there's some-in there with
my wife, and I mean to find out who it is.  She thinks I'm in Chicago
on business."  This was fairly close the truth.

The cop shook his head.  "Listen, pal, let me give you advice.  Go to
Chicago, and forget about it, then come forgive her.  You don't want to
know who the guy

"I'm not breaking any laws, am I--parked outside my own house?"  Stone
tried to sound annoyed.

"I guess not," the cop said.  "I won't wish you luck, He turned and
waded away through the snow.  Stone took a fw deelbreaths of fresh air
before he raised the window.  He looked at his watch: ten past
midnight. Teddy had been in there less than an hour.  He i. trranged
himself again and settled down to wait, switching the windshield wipers
to clear the snow.  As he did, walked out of the apartment building and
startedi toward the car.  He didn't seem to be in much of a hurry.

"Get in, and let's get out of'-here, "Stone said: opening the door for
him.

"No hurry," Teddy said.  "Nobody's going to be following me.  Not for a
while, anyway."

"Tell me what happened," Stone said, guiding the Jeepster up the block
through the deep snow.  "You can hear pretty good with a glass against
the wall,

"So what did you hear?"

"I heard the music for a while, and their voices, and then I heard the
voices move away, so I figure they'd gone to the

He shifted in his seat to get comfortable.  "Now, two ways you can do
this," he said.  "One, you can wait for them to go to sleep and then
wake them up.  That's good enough, really; I mean, you got them in bed
together, right?  But the best way is to catch them doing the actual
horizontal bunny hop.  That way, there's no talking their way out of
it."

"So, what happened?"

"You can hear pretty good with a glass against the wall," Teddy said
again, maddeningly.  "I could hear them talking over the music.  I
reckoned they were sitting in front of the fireplace.  But then I heard
them move away, so I figure they're headed for the bedroom, right?"

"And?"

"I was right.  That's where they were going.  So I wait, maybe three
minutes, and I go in."

Stone's heart was in his mouth.  "Teddy, for Christ's sake, tell me
what happened."

"I'm telling you, Sfbne; just be patient.  Anyway, I leave the camera
case and my shoes outside the door, I unscrew the bulb in the
vestibule, and I go in real easy like with my key, and, right from the
front door, I can hear them going at it, you know?"

"Feddy, spit it out.  Did you get the shot we need?"

"So, what I do is, I switch on the camera, but not the light, so I'm
recording sound, right?"

"All right, Teddy, go on, give me the gory details."  "Then I tippy-toe
to the bedroom door, and there they are in the moonlight.  I think it's
probably good enough without the light."

Stone was alarmed.  "You didn't use the light?"

"SO I run a few feet with just the moonlight.  The lady's on top, she's
really taking a ride on the guy, you know?  And they're building up to
it.  Both of them are sounding like something at the zoo, no kidding.
SO, I'm grinding away in the moonlight, and they're grinding away in
the bed, and I can tell things are coming to a head, so to speak, so I
wait right moment, when they're both bellowing like and I hit the
light!"  Teddy was sounding absolutely

"Thank God you hit the light."  Stone breathed, his heart

"Now, tell me, Stone, what's your first reaction, some!  suddenly
shines a bright light on you?"  "Oh, shit,"-Stone said.  "I'd throw up
a hand to shield my didn't get their faces?"  "Stone," Teddy said,
sounding hurt, "you underestimate He held up the water pistol.  "That's
where this came

"You shot them with a water pistol?"  Stone asked, baffled.

"Right.  I mean, here you got these two naked people,

on top of' the covers, and they're throwing their across their faces to
shield their eyes or to keep me photographing their facs, so with one
hand, I give 'em shot or two with the water pistol, aiming at tender
spots armpit or the ribs, and, what do they do?  Why, they at the
places I squirted them, don't they?  And they their faces exposed, just
long enough for me to record posterity."  .... "Great!  Then what
happened?"  "Then the guy, who's on the bottom, remember, tosses in the
air, and he starts for me.  But I'm outta there, all the way, of
course, and outside the door I got this that goes one end over the
doorknob and the other hooked to the door molding, so the guy can't
open the from the inside, right?"  "Wonderful," Stone said.  "So, I
ring for the elevator, and, while it's coming, and the guy is trying to
break down the door, no doubt bruising his shoulder pretty badly, I
slip into my shoes, stick the camera back into its case, and then the
elevator comes, I

$IIJA WOODS

ride down and walk right out of the building.  To make it even nicer,
the doorman is asleep!"

"Perfection," Stone said.  "Feddy, you're a wonder."

"Of course, our guy is going to have to call downstairs and get the
doorman to open the door for him, and that's going to be just a little
embarrassing for him."

Stone pulled up in front of his house.  He reached into a pocket and
handed Teddy a thick envelope.  "Five thousand, as agreed," he said.

"I thank you, sir," Teddy said, glowing.  He handed over the case.
'"your camera, and your videotape."

Stone got out of the car, and Teddy drove away.  He let himself into
the house and called Bill Eggers.

"Jesus, Stone, I haven't slept a wink.  How'd it go?"  "It went
perfectly, absolutely perfectly."  "You've seen the tape, then?"

"Well, no, I haven't; I don't have a VCR.  But my nan says he got it
all, and he's a good man."

"You gave him the five grand without seeing the tape?"  "fake it easy,
Bill, it went well, believe me."

"I hope so, for all our sakes.  Meet me at the office at nine tomorrow
morning, and we'll have a little private screening."

"All right, but don't worry, Bill.  It went well."

"If you say so," Eggers said.  "I'll see you in the morning."

Stone wearily got undressed and went to bed, but it was his turn not to
sleep.  If he'd known where to get a VCR in the middle of the night,
he'd have gone out and gotten one.  He hoped to God that Teddy
O'Bannion's confidence in his own work was not in any way misplaced.

2;o

CHAPTER

$$

before leaving the house, shoveled the steps and the sidewalk in front.
The had said there had been eighteen inches of snow and Stone believed'
it.  Hcould not.  remember in the city.

- There were no cabs to speak of, and, since the sun was brightly
anyway, Stone hiked the distance to the Woodman & Weld, walking in the
paths broken by and the odd cab with chains.  The only people in sight
to be those who had come out to play.  He passed than one group of
adults building snowmen or throwing snowballs at each other.  That, and
the memory of task veil accomplished, made the day seem festive.

He arrived a little early and waited in the lobby for Eggers.  When the
lawyer arrived, he introduced Stone to the security guard and had him
put on the list for after-hours entry to the Woodman & Weld offices.

"JesUs," Eggers said as they rode up in the elevator, "I hope your man
did this right.  If we don't have what we need on that tape, it's going
to put my client in a very awkward position.  I mean, his old lady will
be on her guard, and she could make it tough for him."

"My man says he got it," Stone said, "and that's good enough for me."
At least, until we see the tape, he thought.  It was not going to be
good for his position with the law firm if the tape was not good.

Eggers unlocked the front door and relocked it behind them.  "Fake that
stuff down to the small conference room," he said to Stone.  "That's
where our video system is.  Third door on your right.  I'll be with you
in a minute."

Stone went to the conference room, unsnapped the camera case, took out
the camera, and pushed the reject button.  The cassette fell outnto his
hand.  He turned to the wall of video equipment but wasn't sure which
piece of equipment to use.

Eggers came in.  "Pretty impressive, isn't it?  We tape depositions,
and we have other capabilities, too.  You'll see in a minute."  He took
the cassette from Stone inserted it into a machine, and flipped a
number of switches.  Snow filled the screen of a large monitor, then
the picture snapped on.

"Here we go," Stone said, sitting down and resting his elbows on the
conference table.  "Hey, your camera worked pretty well in the low
light.  Listen."

The sound of two people making love came faintly from the bedroom.  The
camera moved slowly, smoothly across the living room to the bedroom
door.  The moonlight was as Teddy O'Bannion had described it, bright as
day.  The figure of a woman was clearly visible, and she was moving
rhythmically in sync with the noises heard a moment before.  She was
sitting on a man, who was also clearly visible, though neither of their
faces could be made out.

"this is sensational!"  Eggers said wonderingly.  "Hang on a second."
He picked up a remote control and froze the frame, then he walked to
the wall of equipment and turned on another piece of gear.  There was a
whirring noise, and, a few moments later, a color photograph slid out
of the machine.  Eggers looked at it approvingly, then handed it to
Stone.  "Very artful, wouldn't you say?"

"You're right," Stone said.  "It's a beautiful shot, but the faces are
shadowed."

"He did turn on the goddamned light, didn't he?"  "Yes, but later; hang
on."

Eggers started the tape again.  The lovemaking was growing in
intensity, and the couple's voices rose with it.  Then, at the moment
when both seemed to be reaching a climax, the floodlight me on.
Instinctively, both the man and the woman threw up'a hand to shield
themselves from the light.  Eggers froze the frame again and made
another print.  "This is where the.  water pistol comes in," Stone
said.

Eggers stopped what he was doing.  "Water pistol?"  he asked
incredulously.

'hat's how my man gets shots of their faces," Stone replied. 
"Watch."

J

Eggers started the tape aain and pressed the Slow motion button.  A jet
of water could be seen to enter the frame and strike the man in the
chest.  His hand started down.  Another jet struck the woman just below
the armpit, and her arm followed, too.

"There!  That's it!"  Eggers shouted, freezing the frame.  "That's our
shot!"  He ran to the printer and pressed the button again.

Stone froze to his chair, unable to move, unable to speak.  The man's
face had surprised him, but the woman's rendered him nearly catatonic.
The man was Barron Harkness; the woman was Cary Hilliard.

"Perfect, perfect!"  Eggers yelled in triumph, shoving the print in
front of Stone.  "You can have that for your scrapbook."  He pressed
the button for another print.  "The cat's out of the bag now, though. 
I'm sorry for my little subterfuge, but I guess you recognize the guy. 
His wife is my client."

Stone was unable to speak.  His eyes ran up and down the two forms
frozen on the screen.  Harkness was clearly furious, Cary terrified.
Her breasts shone with sweat in the bright light, the nipples erect;
her lips were swollen and her eyes round with fright.

"Let's see the rest!"  Eggers cried.  "Here we go!"  He started the
tape again.

Harkness reared up in the bed, upsetting Cary from her perch atop
him.

"Jesus, the guy's hung!"  Eggers said admiringly.  "And look at the
tits on that-broad!  Shit, I don't blame the guy!"

The camera bacled out of the room as Harkness rose from the bed and
came after it.  In the nick of time, the front door closed, and the
camera wobbled out of control.  Teddy's hand could be seen applying his
latch to the knob and the molding.

"An absolute goddamned Academy Award winner!"  Eggers yelled, jumping
out of his chair and doing a little dance.  "Gotta call my client;
she's waiting on tenterhooks."  He grabbed a phone and started dialing.
"Stone, you win the Oscar for best.  producer," he was saying.

Stone willed himself to move.  He shoved the photograph into his
overcoat pocket and got shakily to his feet.

"Hello, Charlotte?  This is Bill Eggers.  My dear, your settlement is
assured!"  Eggers crowed into the phone.  "I'm going to come over to
your house right now and show you the videotape that's going to do it.
Hang on a minute..."  Eggers looked up to see Stone leaving the room.
"Stone, where are you going?"

Stone didn't reply.  He continued down the hallway to

the reception room and straight to the waiting elevator.  Riding down
in the car, he tore at his collar; he couldn't seem to get enough air.
Ignoring the security guard's pleas to sign out, he rushed into the
street, gulping the cold air, trying to keep his breakfast down.  He
stumbled through the deep snow, gasping for still more air.  Mter a
while, he slowed to a walk; a little while later, he found himself
inside his house, leaning against the front door, weeping.

When he had calmed himself a little, he noticed the blinking light on
the answering machine.  There was only one message.

"Stone, darling," she said, "I've had a little family emergency, and
I'm going to have to go to Virginia to see the folks for a few days.
I'm leaving this morning, so I'm afraid I can't see you tonig!3t.  I'll
call you when I get back.  Take care."

CHAPTER

The rest of the weekend was awful.  Stone felt ill and stayed in bed,
getting up only to make soup and bring in the newspapers.  He couldn't
concentrate on the papers, and, for the first time in months, the house
did not intrude into his thoughts.  He thought of nothing but Cary.

He tried to think of something else, but nothing worked.  Sunday sports
on television were a blur; the news meant nothing; he couldn't keep his
mind on the book review or the Sunday magazine.  The crossword puzzle
worked for a few minutes, but every time he stopped to think, Cary
popped into his head--Cary and the awful photograph in his overcoat
pocket.

She had lied to him from the beginning; the married man in her life had
always been Harkness; Stone had been just a diversion.  As Sunday wore
on, Stone began to find a way to deal with his thoughts of her; he
hardened himself, belittled the weeks they had had together, made her
unimportant.  By Monday morning a scab was beginning to form on the
wound.  He would force it to heal.

On Monday morning a gossip columnist in the News had the story:

The Barron Harknesses are calling it a day, after more than twenty
years together and two children.  We hear the ice age crept up on the
marriage long ago, and the split is just a final acknowledgment of
reality.

Insiders say that Barron is being uncommonly generous, that Charlotte
Harkness is getting both the house in Easthampton and the ten-room
Fifth Avenue digs, where Barronohas long been chairman of the
cooperative's board.

We hear, too, that as part of their agreement, a certain other
apartment owner has to leave the building immediately, surely a new
wrinkle in divorce settlements.

Since Barron has never been seen squiring ladies around town,
speculation on his paramour centers on the Continental Networl"
insiders figure it must be somebody at the office.  Watch this space.

Stone threw the newspaper at the wall, then concentrated on forming the
scab again.  The phone rang.

"Hi, it's Bill.  I just wanted to let you know that the outcome of
Friday night's little opus has been most satisfactory for my client."

"I read the item in the news," Stone said.  "I'm happier than you know
that it worked out so well for her."  He did his best to mean this.

"Woodman is deJghted, too.  He was very, very nervous about your being
involved in something like this, and it's unlikely he'll want to do it
again soon, but he asked me to express his gratitude."

"Tell him I was glad to be of help."

"I've got nothing on my plate at the moment that I might need you for,
so take it easy for a while.  Why don't you take a vacation?  The
islands or someplace?"

"Thanks, but I've got a lot more work to do on the house; I'll use any
free time for that.  I have to get an office together, too."

, Right, whatever you say.  I'll let you know when I have something
else for you."

Stone hung up and glanced out the window.  A moving van had pulled up
outside, and furniture was being loaded into it.  Feldstein was moving
out of the downstairs professional suite.  That suited Stone fine; he'd
need the space now.

For the rest of the week, Stone turned his attention to the study. When
the books hal all been unpacked, dusted, and arranged 'on the shelves,
he waxed the floor, then unrolled the beautiful Aubusson carpet that
had come back from cleaning.  He got the old desk, now refinished, back
in its place, then hung two of his mother's paintings, along with some
of his great-aunt's pictures.  By Saturday, the room gleamed, but it
looked as though someone had always lived in it.

Stone spent a month on the professional suite, ripping out the
partitions Feldstein had installed for his treatment rooms, hiring a
plumber to replace the old pipes, ducting the new central heating into
the space, and stripping and refinishing the original oak paneling.  He
finished up with a reception room and two offices, plus a storeroom for
a copying machine and supplies; He had a discreet brass plate made for
the front door that read THE BARRING TON PRACTICE.  He would install it
when news of his passing the bar exam came.

He began thinking about a secretary, but, before he could place an ad,
Bill Eggers came up with someone who return to Woodman & Weld after
raising children.  was a plump, motherly woman named Helen Wooten, very
bright and capable, and she suited his needs perfectly.  having much
else for her to do yet, he put her in charge his personal finances and
the construction costs on the saving him money immediately.  Bill
Eggers arranged a three-hundred thousand-dollar mortgage on the house
that let him pay off his old bank loan gave him the funds to complete
work and furnish the Three months passed.  Cary never called.  Every
couple of weeks he had dinner with Dino, usually at Elaine's.  Elaine
liked Dino; he made her laugh.  "Stone," Dino said one evening, "you're
not going to believe this."  "What?"  "I'm thinking of getting
married."  "You're right, I don't believe it."  "A girl from the
neighborhood.  We know each other since grammar school."

"I don't believe it."  "Mary Arm Bianchi, a good Italian girl."  Stone
turned to Elaine.  "He'S'hallucinating."  "I think you're right,"
Elaine said.  "It must be the Sambuca; he's had too much."  "I kid you
not," Dino said.  "Will you stand up for me, be , best man?"  : "I know
what this is," Stone said to Elaine, "it's an elaborate practical joke.
I'll turn up for the wedding, and the 19th Precinct will be there,
laughing like hell, because I I believed this ridiculous story."
"Stone, I swear to God, I'm doing it.  We already got the church
booked.  I bought her a ring, for Christ's sake."  "You stole it from
the evidence room."  Dino looked wounded.  "I paid cash money.  I know
a

guy in the Diamond District."  "This means you can't bring any more
girls in here, Dino," Elaine said.  "Don't worry, Mary Arm would kill
me in my sleep.  She's Sicilian."  "You're in a lot of trouble," Stone
said, "but sure, I'll stanc up for you."  "It's a week from Sunday,"
Dino said.  "That's moving pretty quick," Elaine said.  Dino shrugged. 
"So, it'll be a seven-month kid, so what?  Happens all the time in my
neighborhood."  Elaine waved at a waiter.  "Bring a bottle of
champagne, the good stuff.  Dino's got a lot to celebrate, here."  They
celebrated. Elaine looked at Stone closely.  "You're looking almost
human these days," she said.  "A few weeks ago you looked like death." 
"Hard work on the house," Stone said.  "I'm getting used to it."  "He's
getting over the broad," Dino said.  "Ahhhh," Elaine said.  "You're
right," Stone agreed, "I am."  And he was, except for an occasional
spear through the heart, when he thought about her.  He had stopped
thinking at all about Sasha Nijinsky and Hank Morgan.

On the Friday morning before Dino's wedding, Stone received a letter.
He recognized the handwriting immediately.

Dear Stone, Please pardon the familiarity, but, although we've never
met, our lives have been so intertwined that I feel you are a friend.
I'm sorry that my problems at least indirectly resulted in your leaving
the police force, but I understand that you are now doing well.  I saw
your name in the Times, on the list of those who had passed the bar
exam.

I think, perhaps, the time is coming when we should meet.  Maybe you
would come to dinner sometime soon?  It would be so nice to mee you, at
last.

I'll be in touch.

S.

CHAPTER

hey sat at a table in the little room in back of the bar at Clarke's.
The mirror behind the bar had been replaced; everybody seemed to want
to forget the inddent, and Dino was obviously welcome.

"You're looking better," Dino said.  "You put the girl behind you for
good?"

"What else can I do?"

"We've all been there, Stone, believe me.  Thank God that's all over
for me."

"I'd like to think so, Dino."

"Believe me, it's over.  When you marry a Sicilian, it's for life, and
that can be short if you fool around."

"How are things at the office?"

"Looks like we got two serial killers on our hands."  "The taxi
killings, I guess."

"That's one of them.  It's the most trouble, too, because time another
cabbie gets greased, the rest of them go a major artery for the day."
"I read about it.  Any suspects?"  "Negative."  "What's the other
case?" "That one's even weirder.  We got two men and two the past seven
weeks who just went poof.  Right off

"Where?"  "Everywhere.  All over Manhattan."  "No bodies?"  "No
nothing." "What do they have in common?"  "Fuckall.  The women were
twenty-six and thirty-two; men were thirty-seven and thirty-nine.  The
guys were a and a P0tsche salesman; the women were an ; art director
and a VP at a cosmetics company."  "No ransom notes?"  "Nope.  They
only got one thing in common I can see."  "What's that?"  'q'hey're
good looking, all of them.  Good dressers, real yuppies."  "Where were
they last seen?" "Leaving work; restaurant; leaving exercise clas; jog
Park Stone shrugged.  "Good luck, Dino."  "I'm going to need it. 
What're you working on at the law

"A fairly juicy one.  A client--chairman of an electronics accused of
beating up a high-class hooker in the Towers.  Looks like it'll go to
trial, and I'll assist in

"They're not giving you nothing to try yourself, huh?"  "Not yet.  I
think they expect me to come up with my Any ideas?"

"I'll keep it in mind, tell a couple of the guys.  You never know."

Stone took the letter, in a plastic envelope, from his pocket.  "I've
got something to show you."  He handed it over.

Dino read it and stopped chewing his salad.  Then he started again and
swallowed.  "So?  Who's "S'?"

Stone stared at him, unbelieving.  "Come on, Dino, you read her diary;
don't you recognize the handwriting?"

"Can't say that I do," Dino said, concentrating on the salad.  "I never
had much memory for handwriting."

"I didn't expect this."

"Expect what?  You expect me to recommend reopening the investigation
based on this?"  He tossed the letter back across the table.

"I didn't expect you to stonewall me."

"I ain't stonewalling you Stone.  You come up with something
substantial, and I'll go with you on it."

"Substantial?  A letter from a dead woman isn't substantial?"

"Where was it mailed?"

"Penn Station."

"Any prints?  I know you checked."

Stone held the plastic holder at an angle and pointed.  "Three.  Will
you run them against what we found in her apartment?"

Dino looked skeptical, then shrugged.  "Okay, I'll do that.  It may
take a few days; the records have probably left the precinct."

"As soon as you can.  And will you have the handwriting analyzed?"

"Against what?"

'q'he diary, the other stuff in evidence."

"The case has been cleared.  I expect all that stuff has gone back to
her estate, to her family, by now."

"Dino, if I can get a good analysis donej and the prints out to be
hers, will that be enough for you to reopen?"  "Tell you the truth, I
don't know.  I'd have to go to he'd have to go to Waldron; he might
even have to go The thing is, even if an analyst says it's her
hand-even if the prints are hers, what have we got to go on?  can't
trace the letter.  It looks like pretty ordinary stationery it was
mailed in the biggest post office in the city.  What

"We'd know she's alive."  He pushed the letter back the table.  "That's
a start."  Dino laughed and shook his head.  "You still got a hair your
ass about that, ain't you?  All that crap about cats off concrete and
walking away.  You know, if I had with that kind of a tlory, you'd have
kicked my

Stone laughed.  "I don't know, Dino, I think I'd have your idea a
hearing."  "I gave your idea a hearing," Dino said.  "For about fifteen
seconds."  "That was all I needed."  "Okay, okay, but will you have the
lab look at the paper 'can find?  ..... "All right, but I'll have to
get somebody to do it or his time.  If word got around about this, I'd
be pounding a

"Thanks, Dino."  "I'll owe somebody a favor, too."  "I'll owe you one."
They paused outside the restaurant.  "One forty-five, Sunday, at the
church?"  Dino said.  "You the address?"  "I've got it."  "Tuxedo. 
I'll pick up the rental."  "I own one."

STJAIT

'/e're coming up in the world, aren't we?"  "I've actually used it a
couple of times.  A firm party, that sort of thing."  I'll see if I can
have something for you on the letter by then.  Otherwise, it'll have to
wait till after the honeymoon."  "Where you going?"  "Vegas--where
else?" "Sounds great.  I'll see you Sunday."  "You ever been to an
Italian wedding?"  "No."  "You got an experience coming."  Dino turned
out to be right.

CHAPTER

Enk Woodman was at his dictating something into a recorder, but, when
he saw at the door, he waved him in.  "How are you, Stone?"

pointing at a chair.  "

Stone sat down.  "I'm fine, Frank.  There's something I

to ask you about."

"First," Woodman said, "there's something I want to say and I'm sorry I
didn't seek you out and say it sooner.  only B. ill Eggers, Charlotte
Harkness, and I have seen and I'm the only one who knows you knew Cary
I want you to know that it won't go any further that."  ' Stone nodded.
He couldn't think of anything to say.  "You did a fine job for us, and
I'm sorry the result had to you pain."

'q'hank you, Frank."

STUARI' WOODS

"Enough said about that.  What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if you have the effects of Sasha

Nijinsky that the NYPD took."

'q'hey sent them back to me a couple of weeks ago.  After going through
them myself, I sent them to Sasha's father."

"I see."

"Why?  Did you want to see them again?"

"Yes, I wanted to get a look at her handwriting again."

"Why?"

Stone handed Woodman a copy of the letter.

Woodman read it through twice, and his expression revealed nothing.
'qhat do you make of this?"  he asked at last.

"I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.  A friend of mine at the
19th Precinct is getting it looked at by the lab, but

I wanted to compare the handwriting to something of

Sasha's."  '

'l'hat's no problem," Woodman said, rising and going to a file cabinet.
"Sasha didn't type.  She told me once that she refused to learn, so
that she wouldn't get shunted aside into 'woman's' work."  He flipped
through a folder, extracted a letter, and handed it to Stone.  "She
did-all her correspondence by hand."

Stone laid the two letters side by side on the desk, and both men bent
over them.  Woodman produced a magnifying glass, and they examined them
closely.

"They're a lot alike, I'd say, but the one sent to you looks a little
cramped," Woodman said.

"The lines are not as straight, either," Stone added.  "This is over my
head," Woodman said, picking up the phone.  "Sophie, please find the
name of that handwriting man we used on the mineral rights case last
year, then see if you can get him over here right away."  He hung up.
'qNhen did you get this, Stone?  It's not dated."

"Friday.  It was posted the day before at Penn Station."

"It must be some kind of crank who read your name in apers as being
associated with the case."  "That seems more than just possible. 
Still, there's the

"i suppose someone who knew Sasha might have had a to make a forgery."
"But why?"  "Maybe someone who isn't satisfied with the outcome of
case. ^ lot of people aren't; I'm one of them.  Maybe trying to get you
interested again."  "The letter certainly had that effect," Stone said.
phone rang, and Woodman picked it up.  "Good," said, then hung up.
"Man's name is Weaver.  His office is a couple of blocks away; he's
coming over."  Woodman uncomfortabl for a t[moment.  "Stone, I get the
that you are at least onsidering the possibility be alive.  Is that
right?"  '"yes," Stone replied.  "I think' it just possible."  He ex
the circumstances of Sasha's fall and his terminal

"Jesus Christ," Woodman said.

Weaver was a tall, thin man in his sixties.  He looked at letters
carefully.  Woodman had folded the letters so that did not show.  "This
is a Xerox copy, I pre-he said, holding up Stone's letter.  "Yes, I
don't have the original at the moment."  : "I'd like to see it, but it
probably wouldn't make much

"What is your opinion, Mr.  Weaver?"  Woodman asked.  "I'd say there's
about an eighty percent chance that the both letters."  "Why can't you
be sure?"  Stone asked.  "Well, the similarity in the shaping of the
letters is pro249

found, but there's anomaly that could mean it's a forgery.  You see,
here, the spacing in the more recent letter is closer; it has a cramped
quality.  Its lines aren't as straight, either."  "We noticed that,"
Woodman said.  "Could there be some other reason than forgery for the
difference between the two letters?"  "Well, yes.  The recent letter
doesn't have quite the vitality of style that the earlier one exhibits.
That's a common trait of forgeries, but it often turns up, too, when
the writer is ill or injured or is convalescing."  Weaver held his
right elbow close to his side and demonstrated.  "A person who is
weakened or in pain would characteristically hold his arm in like this,
restricting the movement of his hand.  This would especially be true in
the event of injury--say, a broken arm or ribs.  That could quite
easily account for the cramped nature of the second letter."  Stone and
Woodman exchanged a look.  Woodman raised his eyebrows.  Weaver
continued.  "In my experience, this characteristic of what you might
call the 'wounded writer' would be more evident in the writing of a
woman, but both these letters were, of course, written by a man."  "By
a man?"  Stone asked, incredulously.  "In my opinion, yes; definitely,"
Weaver replied.  "-- Is there anything else you can tell us?"  Woodman
asked. "That'ss about it, I think, though I would like to see the
original of the second letter."  Woodman escorted the man to the door. 
"Thank you, Mr.  Weaver, and please send me your bill."  Woodman came
back to his desk and sat down.  "This is the god damndest thing I ever
heard," he said.  "Frank, are you certain that Sasha, herself, wrote
you this letter?"  Woodman went back to his file and extracted a small
sheet of paper.  "I watched her write this," he said.  "She was sitting
where you are now."

Stone picked up the paper.  It was the address and phone of Sasha's
new, Fifth Avenue apartment.  He compared the note with the first
letter, then the second.  "The hand writing seems identical to me," he
said, handing papers.

"Me, too," Woodman said, poring over them.

"Now, why would Weaver think the writer was a man?"  "Well," said
Woodman, "for a lady, 5asha always had balls."

At home, Stone built a fire in the study, poured himself a and
stretched.  out on the leather sofa before the fireplace.  the drink
and cast his mind back over the events susan N'insky'dive from the
terrace, letting them though his mind without hindrance, comparing one
event listening to fragments of conversation from people interviewed.
Something nagged at him, something he be remembering.  The phone
rang.

He reached out to the extension on the coffee table.

"Hello."

Stone tightened his grip on the phone  Images flew his breast, a wrist.
He felt her body against her hair in his face, her legs locked around
him, her penis.

"I want to see you," she said.

Stone wanted to speak, but his throat tightened.

"I want to see you tonight," she said.

He made a huge effort to control himself, to make his to tamp down the
rage and hurt inside him.  It

He lay on the sofa through what should have been din-until past
midnight, waiting for a knock on the door or

Neither came.

CHAPTER

Dino Bacchetti and Mary Arm Bianchi were married at San Gennaro's
Church in Little Italy on Sunday.  Stone had never worn a tuxedo at two
o'clock in the afternoon, but he stood as best man for Dino, and he was
impressed with the elaborate and somber Roman Catholic ceremony.  Dino
kissed his bride, and the wedding party began moving back down the
aisle, the happy couple leading the bridesmaids and groomsmen.  Near
the back of the church, Stone glanced to his right and stopped in his
tracks.  Cary Hilliard was sitting in the back pew, bundled in a mink
coat.  Somebody behind Stone stepped on his heels, and he moved on with
the wedding party.  Stone was trapped on the front steps of the church
as the party posed for photographs, then the group was bundled into
limousines and driven to a restaurant for the reception, so he did not
see what became of Cary.

blEW YORK DEAD

The restaurant was not large, and two hundred happy were crammed into
it, singing, dandng, and generally hell.  The only non-Italians,
besides Stone, were the Puerto Rican, and black cops who worked with or
for the bride and was surprised at the enthu-with which she responded.
He shook Dino's hand.  "Well, you did it," he said, laughing.

Dino looked supremely happy.  "You goddamned right I

"Speaking of paisans," Stone said, nodding at a group of people across
the room, "who's that?"  "That's Mary Ann's people," Dino replied. 
"Her old a capo in the Bonanno family.  Well respected."

"No kidding,"

"No kidding."

"Why do they look so... unhappy?"

"Because their, most beautiful daughter got knocked up a cop, that's
why.  The old man's really pissed off.  If I

I'd be at the bottom of Sheepshead Bay with a block stuck up my ass."

"Dino, you better be very, very good to that girl," Stone

"Don't worry."  Dino took an envelope from his inside

"Here's your report on the letter," he said.  "I don'tabout it again,
okay?"

Stone put the envelope in his pocket.  "Okay."

"Guess who sent us a real nice piece of silver?"  Dino

"Who?"

Dino nodded.  "l'he very beautiful lady ver there," he said.

Stone followed Dino's gaze and found Cary standing on the opposite side
of the dance floor.

"See you later, pal," Dino said, and vanished.

Stone stood and watched her make her way across the dance floor toward
him.  Under the mink coat, she was wearing a very short silk dress that
made her legs seem longer than he remembered.  Stone's mouth went
dry.

She took his hand and led him onto the floor; the band was playing
something romantic and Italian; he followed her dumbly.  They began to
move together; she laid her head on his shoulder and kissed him on the
neck.

"God, but I've missed you," she said.

Stone was unable to say anything; he put his hand inside the coat and
pulled her to him.  The familiarity of those curves pressed against his
body made him light-headed, and he lost himself in the music and the
feel of her.  Her cool hand was on the back of his neck, her fingers in
his hair, her tongue played at his ear.  The music continued--a
medley--and she seemed to become more and more a part of him. 
Suddenly, she stopped dancing.

"Come with me," she said, tugging at his hand.

He followed her across the dance floor, through the crowd, along a wall
to a door.  She opened it, looked in, then pulled him inside with her.
They were in a small office--only a desk, a chair, and an old sofa. She
closed the door and locked it.

"Where have you--"

"Shhhh," she whispered, throwing the mink coat onto the sofa and
snaking an arm around his neck.  "Don't say anything."  She was
unzipping his trousers; in a moment, she had him in her hand.

After that, things happened effortlessly.  They were on the sofa, on
the'haxurious coat, his trousers around his knees, her legs around him.
She wasn't wearing underwear.  They both gave themselves to the moment,
made it last, then came with a roar of blood in the ears, her cries
mixing with the music, loud through the thin walls.

They lay limp in each other's arms for a few minutes,

Cary found a toilet off the office, and Stone tried to himself
presentable again.  She was a long time in the and, when she came out,
Stone was reading the lab

"What's that?"  she asked, putting a hand at the back of neck and
reading over his shoulder.

Stone handed her the letter without comment.

She read it, and her eyes went wide.  "Sasha's alive?"  she stunned.

"It would seem so," Stone said, reading the report.  "An says it's
almost certainly her handwriting, and her fingerprints are on the
letter."  He read on.  "They were very because she had olive oil on her
fingers--extra virgin oil, according to this."  "It doesn't possi,b,
le," she said, incredulously.  "No, it doesn't," he replied. 
"Nevertheless ... '

She walked over to the sofa and retrieved her coat,

lost in thought.  "that means she's going to be able 'whoever pushed
her off that balcony, doesn't it?"  '"i hope so.  I wonder why she
hasn't done it already."  Cary slipped into her coat and walked to the
door,

it.

"You're leaving?  When ca]"I see /0u'

"I'll call you," she said.  "I've left my job, and I'm staying a
friend.  Don't worry, we'll see each other.  You'll see sooner than you
think.  Pay no attention to what you

"What am I going to hear?"  he asked.

She ignored his question; her brow was furrowed.

something I never told you," she said.  "I should told you a long time
ago."  She seemed to be wrestling tell him now.

i "What is it?"

She looked at the floor.  "Barron wasn't on that airplane

Rome."

Stone stared at her.  "But Dino saw him... ' She looked up at him, then
slipped through the door.  "Dino didn't do his job," she said, then
closed the door behind her, leaving him alone in the room.  Stone went
to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face, his mind
racing.  Then he rejoined the crowd and found Dino, who was making his
way out of the party with Mary Arm.  He could see the car outside,
festooned with tin cans and old shoes.  "Dino, when you went to the
airport to meet Barron Harkness's plane, did you actually see him get
off?"  "Stone, c'mon, okay?"  He kissed an old lady on the lips.  Stone
managed to stay alongside him.  "You didn't actually see him, did you?"
"I checked the manifest, all right?  Hey, Cheech, how you doin'?" 
Stone bodily even ted a fat woman from squeezing between them.  "Dino,
you didn't see him."  "Stone, I'm leaving on my honeymoon; gimme a
major fucking break, will you?"  Stone stopped moving, and the crowd
surged past him.  He watched Dino carried along by the crowd to the
car, then he was driving away, waving.

CHAPTER

Later in the evening, as was drifting off to sleep, the telephone rang.
 He fumbled for it.  "Hello?"

"Mr.  Barrington?"  The VOice was vaguely.(amiliar.

"Yes?"  "his is Herbert Van Fleet."

Stone looked at the clock.  "Jesus Christ," he muttered breath.  "What
is it?"  "I know I must have awakened you.  I'm very sorry."

'a6hat do you want, Mr.  Van Fleet?"

"I want to retain you."

"Retain me?"

"I

understand that you are practidng law now."  "Yes, that's right, but
why do we need to talk about this eleven o'clock on a Sunday night? 
Can you call my office tomorrow morning?"

"I'm afraid it's more urgent than that.  I've been arrested."  Stone
sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed.  aW hat were you
arrested for, Mr.  Van Fleet?"  'lease call me Herb."  j Annoyed. "What
were you arrested for, Herb?"  "They're calling it attempted rape. They
want to arraign me in a couple of hours, in night court."  "Where are
you now?"  "I'm in a place called the Tombs.  They let me make this one
call."  "You're going to need to raise bail, Herb.  Can you lay your
hands on some money?"  "How much money?"  "I should think that, with no
previous arrests, the judge might want as much as twenty-five thousand
dollars in cash, or you can put up ten percent and some property to a
bail bondsman.  You w 'h't get the ten percent back."  '"i've got about
forty thousand dollars in a money market account," Van Fleet said.
"That should do it," Stone said.  "All right, Herb, I'll represent you
at the arraignment.  My fee for that will be a thousand dollars.  If
you want me to represent you after that, we can talk about a further
retainer."  "All right, that's acceptable."  I'll meet you at night
court."  Stone hung up, oddly elated.  Herbert Van Fleet was a strange
person, but this was the first time somebody had asked Stone to
represent him, his first client outside Woodman & Weld.  It promised to
be a fairly lucrative representation too.  He began to get dressed.

Night court was a zoo.  Every prostitute, vagrant, and petty criminal
arrested during the past few hours would be arraigned there, and the
crowd was colorful and noisy.  From of the huge courtroom, Stone could
barely hear the who was shouting.

Stone counted.  Standing before the bench, looking at the and shifting
their weight from one foot to the other,

men, all neatly dressed in business He took a seat down front and
listened, curious.  The had been gambling in the basement of a
restaurant in only a few blocks away, and an old lady next had turned
them in.  Their Anglo lawyer, in unctuous to the somewhat amused judge
that his were all respected members of the community, busi-out for an
evening of diversion.  They were not not really, and were very sorry to
have disturbed old woman's sleep.  The judge released the men on
their

Stone got ip, intruced himself to the bailiff at the door the holding
cells, and, shortly, Herbert Van Fleet in handcuffs.  Stone sat him
down in one of the lit-for consultation with attorneys.  "All right,
tell me exactly what happened."

Van Fleet sighed.  "I was at the Tribeca Grill, having a and I got to
talking to this girl.  I offered her a ride said she lived it the I/est
Villag..e---and, on the getting sort of friendly, and--"

"Exactly what do you mean by 'getting sort of friendly'?"  '/e were
holding hands, and she was sitting close to We stopped at a traffic
light on Sixth Avenue, and we

"Did you put your hands between her legs or on heres on her breasts,
and she seemed to like that.  It was

I put my hand down the front of her dress that she

"Difficult?"

"She started screaming at me.  I didn't realize how drunk she was until
that moment.  She started to get out of the van, and I tried to
persuade her to calm down, and then she started screaming for help."

'q/Vere you fighting?"

"I had hold of her wrists and was talking to her, trying to get her to
calm down, when a police car pulled up alongside us at the light, and
she jumped out of the van and started screaming hysterically about how
I had tried to rape her."

"Did you ever get your hand on her breast--inside her dress, I mean?"

"es, but just for a minute."

"Herbert, is that all that happened?  Is there any more?  I have to
know if I'm going to be able to give you a proper defense."

"I swear to you, that was all there was to it.  If the police car
hadn't just happened to show up, it would have been all over in a
minute.  She would either have calmed down, or she would have gotten
out of the van.  This whole thing about attempted rape is completely
crazy.  Oh, I forgot, the policemen gave me a breath test--made me blow
up one of those balloons."

"Did they indicate what the results were?"

"No, I asked them, but they didn't answer."

"Did they give the girl the same test?"  ' "I don't know, I didn't see
them do that.  They put me in the back of the police car while they
were talking to her and calming her down."

"All right, you go with the officer back to the holding cell and, when
they bring you before the bench, I'll be waiting for you."

Van Fleet stuck out his hand.  "Thank you for coming, Stone; I really
appreciate this.  I didn't want to get my mother involved, you know?"

"I know, Herb.  Maybe we can deal with this without her knowing about
it; we'll see."

When the charges were read against Herbert Van Fleet, Stone pointed out
to the judge that Van Fleet had no record of arrests or of criminal
activity, that he was gainfully employed in a supervisory position, and
that he was a responsible member of the community.  He mentioned also
that the woman making the complaint was unharmed, unless she had a
hangover, and that there were no witnesses to sup'.  port her
complaint.  He asked that Van Fleet be released on his own
recognizance.  The judge thought for about three seconds, then set bail
at ten thousand dollars and ordered the release of Van Fleet's vehicle.
An hour later, Stone and Van Fleet met in front of the courthouse, and
Van Fleet thanked him profusely.  ,

"What happens next?"  Va' Fleet asked.

"If you want me to represent you, what I'll do first is to try to
prevent the case going to.  trial.  The district attorney might offer
us a deal, but I don't think we'd take it.  If what you've told me is
the truth, and there were no witnesses to any of this, then it's your
word against the girl's.  In fact, it sounds to me as though the police
officers should have.  dealt with this on the spot, just put the "girl
in d cab and sent her home, then lectured you and let you go."

"I'd like you to represent me," Van Fleet said.

"All right; my fee will be ten thousand dollars, including ht's court
appearance--that's if I can negotiate this without a trial.  If we have
to go to trial, I;11 represent you on ithe basis of two hundred dollars
an hour, with a guaranteed minimum of twenty-five thousand dollars,
which will include any previous pretrial negotiations.  And my fee will
in advance, as is customary with criminal cases."

Van Fleet thought for a moment.

"Of course, I'm sure you can find another lawyer who will do it for
less, and you're free to retain anyone you wish.

At the moment, all you owe me is a thousand dollars."  Stone watched
the man think.  He didn't mention that he knew of the altercation
outside Elaine's some months before, and he thought that Van Fleet
might be guiltier than he was admitting.

"All right, that's acceptable," Van Fleet said finally.  "I'll give you
a check for ten thousand dollars right now."

Stone nodded and watched while Van Fleet wrote the check.  They shook
hands.  "I'll call you as soon as I find out which assistant DA your
case has been assigned to, and after I've had a chance to talk to
him."

"Good night, then, and thank you again for coming down here and getting
me out."

Stone watched the man walk to his van and drive away, then he caught a
cab uptown.

Later in the week, Stone visited the offices of the district attorney
and found the assistant DA assigned to Van Fleet's case.  She was a
rather plain young woman named Mendel.  She offered him the other chair
in her tiny cubicle, then flipped quickly through the file.

"Your client is a potentially dangerous man, Mr.  Barrington," she
said. "If the police had not arrived on the scene, chances are this
young woman would have been raped."

"Come on, at a traffic light?"  Stone said derisively.  "This was
nothing more than a quick grope, and the girl encouraged it."

She glanced at the file again.  "Your client had been drinking."

'q3ut he wasn't even over the limit for driving, was he?"  Stone asked,
taking a stab.  "And what was the girl's blood-alcohol content?"

Mendel snapped the file shut.  "I can't discuss that."

"Come on, Ms.  Mendel, the police didn't even test her, did they?  How
is that going to look in court?"  "I might be able to reduce to simple
battery," she said.  "Your client, as a first offender, wouldn't do any
time.  I'd recommend counseling and community service."  "How long have
you been on the job?"  Stone asked.  "That's not relevant to this
discussion," she replied primly.  "As little time as that, huh?"  She
had probably been a member of the bar longer than he had, but she
didn't know that.  "Look, if this went to trial, I'd blow you right out
of the water.  In fact, I could insist on going down the hall to the
chief prosecutor right now and get this one tossed, but that would
embarrass you and take up my time.  Please don't think I'm patronizing
you, but I want to give you some advice.  The traffi(is too heavy in
this office to give your time to anything but cases you have a real
chance of winning.  This one is a nonstarter, and we both know it.  Why
don't you just drop charges now--you have that authority--and let's
save ourselves for something worth going to that on?"  He smiled.  "Oh,
shit, all right, if she said, tossing the file on her desk.  "But I'm
going to take it out of your ass.  when I do get you into court."  She
smiled seductively.  Stone thanked her and fled the premises.  Back in
his new office, with Helen typing in the reception room, he called Van
Fleet and gave him the news.  "Oh, thank you so very much," Van Fleet
breathed into the phone.  "I can't tell you what a load off my mind
this is."  "Glad to be of help, Herb," Stone said, "but let me give you
some advice.  Stop picking up girls in bars This was a close call, and,
if you keep it up, you're going to get in trouble.  I don't want to see
that happen."  "Don't worry, Stone," Van Fleet said.  "you won't have
to defend me again."

Stone hung up and reflected on what an easy ten thousand dollars he had
made.

Helen came into his office.  "A Ms.  Hilliard called while you were on
the phone.  She dictated this message to me."  Stone read the
message:

Please meet me in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel at four o'clock this
afternoon.  Don't disappoint me.

Stone felt an involuntary stirring in his crotch.  The hell with her,
he thought; he wouldn't do it.

2)4

CHAPTER

Stone arrived at the Algon-at four on the dot.  The Japanese had bought
the hotel, they had seemed to  buy nearly everything else, and had the
lobby.  It das beautiful, he thought, gazing at the oak paneling and
the new fabrics.  He looked for Cary; she had not yet arrived.  He
snagged the and was given a table.  He ordered a drink and

Five minutes later, a bellman walked among the tables

"Mr.  Barrington, message for Mr.  Barrington!"

Stone accepted an envelope and tipped the man.  It was a

, and inside was a plastic card with a lot of holes in it.  A number
had been written on it with a marking to seep from his armpits and
crotch, and he was a little faster than he normally did.

The room was at the end of the hall.  He inserted the card in a slot,
there was an audible click, and the door opened into a nicely furnished
sitting room.  The door to the bedroom was closed, and he opened it,
letting a shaft of light into the darkened room.  He closed the door
behind him and took off his overcoat.  There was a slit of light from
under the bathroom door and the sound of water running.  Breathing
harder now, Stone began ridding himself of his clothes.  When she
opened the door, the bathroom light illuminated her from above for just
a moment.  She was wearing only a terry-cloth robe, and it fell open.
She switched off the light and crossed the room to him.  Somewhere
along the way, the robe disappeared.

He rolled off her and sprawled on his back, panting and sweating.  It
had been the third time in two hours; he hadn't known he was capable of
that.  In the time since he had entered the room, neither of them had
spoken a word that had not been connected with what they were doing to
each other.  She handed him a glass of water from the bedside.  He
drank greedily from it, then handed it back.  "Turn on a light," he
said. "It's on your side."  "No."  "I want to see you."  "No."  "Why
are we doing this in a hotel room?  I have a home; you could have come
there."  "It would have been an unnecessary risk," she said.  "Risk? 
What risk?"  "We can't be seen together."  "Cary, for Christ's sake!  I
think you owe me some sort of explanation for your behavior."  "My
father always said to me, "Never explain, never apologize."

He got angrily out of bed and went into the bathroom.  He then turned
on the light and looked at himself in the mirror-his hair awry, his
face streaked with sweat.  He found a and cleaned himself, brushed his
hair with his fingers.  rinsed his mouth.  When he came out of the
bathroom, she dressed and pulling on a coat.  A silk scarf was tied
around r hair.

"Cary, stay here and talk to me."

"I can't."

The photograph of her and Harkness in bed together still in his
overcoat pocket.  He felt an urge to thrust it face, but he held back.
It disgusted him that he still her but he did, and he could not afford
to push her

"Did you checkn the Rome flight?"  she asked casually.  "Yes.  Dino
didn't see Harkness.  His name was on the though; that means someone
used his ticket."  "Probably a crew member."  She was buckling the belt
of trench coat.

"I can't prove he wasn't on the airplane, and, if he then I can't prove
where else he was.  Not without help."

"I can't do that."

"Why not?  If he murdered her, don't you want him

She went into the bathroom and began putting on lip "There's something
else you could look into, though."  'q/What's that?"

"Sasha gave him a very large amount of money; I'm not

Stone remembered the funds missing froth Sasha's

"Could it have been as much as two million dol "Yes.  She wanted it
back, and he couldn't come up with

Motive, he thought.  Finally, a solid motive.  Harkness borrowed the
money, then lost it somehow--gambling?  Bad investments?  "Why did she
give him the money?"  'qTo invest.  Barron thinks of himself as God's
gift to Wall Street.  Wall Street thinks of him that way, too; he's
lost millions in his time."  She put her makeup back into her purse and
snapped it shut.  "How can I get in touch with you?"  "I told you
before, you can't.  I'll call you soon."  She was in the living room
and opening the front door before he could move to stop her.  She
paused there and looked back.  "You were wonderful," she said.  "You're
always wonderful."  She closed the door behind her.  He nearly went
after her, then remembered he was naked.

When he got home, them was an invitation in the mail, postmarked Penn
Station:

The pleasure of your company is requested for dinner, Saturday evening
at nine.  A car will call for you at eight thirty.  Black tie

A handwritten note was in a corner:

I so look forward to meeting you.

S.

CHAPTER

"tone spent a good part of the night restless in his bed, wondering how
he could use the new information Cary had given him about Barton
Harkness.  He found a possible answer in the television columr of the
following morning's New Yo;k Times

BARKER GETS LATE-NIGHT SHOW

Hiram Barker, the writer and social gadfly, has landed his own
interview show, Sunday nights at 11:30 P.M."  on the Continental
Network, beginning this Sunday.  Barker, contacted for comment, said
that negotiations had been going on for several weeks and that he
expected to bffable to attract guests who did not ordinarily give
interviews.

Stone picked up the phone and called Hi Barker.

"Hello, Stone, how are you?  I hear good things about you from Frank
Woodman."

"I'm very well, Hi.  I see in this morning's Times that you've landed a
television show."

"That's right.  In fact, I had hoped to interview you about the Sasha
business."

"It's a little early for that, I think, but you may remember that when
we first met I agreed to tell you what I knew first, in return for your
help."

"I remember that very well indeed, dear boy, and that's an IOU I intend
to collect."

"Well, I'm not ready for you to publish just yet, but I am ready to
start telling you what I know about the case."  "I'm delighted to hear
it."  "How about lunch today?"  "You're on.  Where?"

"The Four Seasons at twelve thirty?"

"Fine.  Use my name; you'll get a better table."  "There's just one
thing, Hi."  "What's that?"

"If I'm going to tell you all, you're going to have to do the same."

"But I thought I already had,.  Stone."  Barker sounded wounded.

"You held something back, Hi, something important, and today I want to
know all about that."

"Hmmmm," Barker said, "I wonder if you're fishing."  "Today, I'm
catching," Stone replied.  "See you at lunch."  He was fishing, indeed.
He didn't know what Barker was holding back, but he figured there must
be something.  Most people held back something.

Stone arrived first, and Barker's trip to their table was slowed as he
stopped at half a dozen others to greet their occupants.

' love this place," Barker sighed as he slid his bulk into seat.  "It's
just so... perfect."

"I'm glad I chose it," Stone said.  He ordered a bottle of "All right,"
Barker said when their lunch had come,

first."

Stone began at the beginning and took Barker through investigation of
the Nijinsky case.  He glossed over the with Hank Morgan's suicide to
protect Dino, and didn't call him on it.  When he had finished, Barker
skeptical.  "Then you're still nowhere on this?"

"Not quite nowhere," Stone replied.  "I have some new

"Tell me, dear boy,

"I've learned that Barron Harkness wasn't on the air Barker's eyebrows
went up in delight.  "And how did

"I must protect my source."

"So now you'll have him arrestdd?"  Barker seemed at the prospect.

"No.  I can't prove he wasn't on the airplane.  His ticket used, so his
name appears on the manifest."

"How about questioning the flight attendants?  Surely, , would remember
such a celebrity."

"Not necessarily.  Months have passed.  The flight at ten testify that
they don't remember seeing him, but couldn't credibly swear that he was
not on the plane."  "Hmmmm.  I see your problem."

"There's something else.  Sasha gave Harkness to mil-dollars to invest,
and he was having trouble returning

"Now that's very interesting."

"Yes, but again, I can't prove it.  The money seems to have been
laundered through a Cayman Islands bank, so there's no paper trail. The
only person who could testify to the transaction is Sasha, and she's
not available at least, not yet."

"Not yet?  You sound as if you think she might still be alive."

Stone took Barker through his terminal velocity theory.

larker looked doubtful.  "That's pretty farfetched, Stone.  I think
you're grasping at straws."

Stone took the note and the invitation from his pocket and put them on
the table.

"Jesus H. Christ," Barker said.  He took out his glasses and examined
the note carefully.  "I've had a couple of letters from Sasha in the
past, and that certainly looks like her handwriting."

"An expert says it almost certainly is," Stone said.  'q6hat's more,
her fingerprints were on the note."

Barker forgot about his food.  "Her fingerprints?"

"I kid you not."

"Well, if Sasha is alive, and if you are having dinner with her on
Saturday night, then you'll soon have her testimony about Harkness."

"If she's alive, and if the dinner isn't some sort of elaborate hoax
perpetrated by some demented Sasha fan.  I can't depend on that to nail
Harkness.  I need your help."

"I would be absolutely delighted," Barker said, grinning.  "Barron has
never been one of my favorite people.  What is it you want me to do?"

"I want you to invite him to be your first guest on your new television
show."

"And?"

Stone told him.

Barker chuckled as he listened.  "I love it," he said.

"That's even better than writing about it in Vanity Fair, isn't it?"
Stone asked.

"Oh, I could do that, too," Barker said, laughing..  "Print the
details."  He laughed again.  "You know, I'm going to Barron this
afternoon at a social event.  I'll corner him and get him to agree to
do the show.  He's never given " you know."  "I'd heard that.  Now, Hi,
it's your turn.  I Want to know you didn't tell me about Sasha." 
Barker looked at Stone appraisingly.  "I've underestimat-you," he said.
"I wouldn't have told anybody in a million , but now you've trapped
me." Stone sat back and waited.  "There is one promise I must extract
from you," Barker

"What's that?"

"If Sasha is alive, you will never tell a living soul what I am about
to tell you.  If'you find out she's dead, then I'll tell world."  "All
right, I agree."  Sddenly, Stone knew what he was hear.  "This really
has no relevance to your investigation, at I can't imagine how it could
be relevant, but who

"Come on, Hi, tell me."" "It came out in my research.  I do a great
deal more profiles than anybody imagines.  I use only a of what I
learn, but I learn everything."  Barker leaned and wagged a finger.
"You must never let me do a you, if you have anything to hide."  Stone
sat back and relaxed.  Barker was going to stretch it

"At the time I was researching the Sasha piece, l, knew a in the
American embassy in Moscow.  I asked him to me a copy of Sasha's birth
announcement and fax it to with a translation.  Her father was a member
of the and a very famous writer in the USSR, so I knew there would be
an announcement in Pravda or Izvestia.  And there was."  He paused for
effect.

"Go on," Stone said.

"And what do you think the baby was named?"  Stone let Barker have his
moment.  "I can't imagine."  "The baby was named Vladimir Georgivich
Nijinsky."  Barker rested his chin on his folded hands, looking pleased
with himself.

"A boy's name?  But when her family came to America six years later,
all the pictures showed a little girl.  Whatabout the passport?"

"rhey had no passports.  They were thrown out of the Soviet Union and
given asylum here.  They had no records of any kind, not even birth
certificates.  The Soviets refused to supply them.  The State
Department, as was usual at the time, issued them documents based on
sworn statements from the parents."

"And Georgi Nijinsky swore that little Vladimir was a girl named
Sasha?"

"Precisely.  I never got the whole story--God knows, I would never have
asked Sashambut I surmise that, from birth, the little boy exhibited
female traits, and the parents accepted that and raised him as a girl.
I did find out that they took her to Morocco on a six-week vacation
when she was twelve, and Ibelieve she must have had hormone treatments
and a sex-change operation at that time.  After all, the onset of
puberty was at hand, and people would have begun to notice if little
Vladimir wasn't developing breasts, etcetera."  Barker looked at Stone
closely.  "You don't seem particularly surprised.  I thought I would
knock you right out of your chair with this story."

"I figured it out when you began to tell me, but I had the advantage of
an important due."

"What was that?"

"l'he handwriting expert who compared this note to a of Sasha's writing
said that both letters were written r a man."

"Oh, that's a wonderful touch for my Vanity Fair piece!"

crowed.  Then he became serious.  "But tell me, Stone, happens if
neither of these things works if Sasha isn't and if Barron refuses to
do my show?"

"Well, I have an ace up my sleeve--my source for the about the flight
and the money.  This would be a witness, but a subpoena can work
wonders, espe if the witness may be an accessory to the crime because
withholding information."

Barker looked down at the table.  "Stone, I know you

Cary Hilliard--you brought her to my house,

source?"

Stone played cagey.  "Why do you ask?"

"I didn't want to bring this up; I got the impression at that you and
Cary were close."

"You could say that."  .

Barker's voice was sympathetic.  "Stone, I have to tell that Barron
Harkness and Cary Hilliard are being mar-this afternoon, at three.  I
was invited to the wedding."  Stone took a quick breath.  "I wasn't,"
he said.

"And, Stone, after they're married Cary cant be sub to testify against
her husband, can she?"

"No," he said.

CHAPTER

he carpet layers took up much of Stone's time on the afternoon of Cary
Hilliard's wedding, but his mind was not on the work.  He walked
through the house looking for the thrill that usually came when he
thought about its completion, but it did not come.

He mustered his defenses and thrust the thought of Cary into a corner
of his mind from which he was determined not to let it escape. Instead,
he thought about Barron Harkness, of his every contact with the man,
their every conversation, trying to remember something that would help
connect him with Sasha's fall.

He told himself that his desire to nail Harkness had nothing to do with
the loss of pounds ry, but, when he looked at his watch and saw that it
was a little after three, he fantasized that he was interrupting the
ceremony at the point

for reasons why the marriage should take place.  "Reverend," he would
say loudly from the the congregation, "I am here to arrest the groom
for I should think that sufficient cause for the wedding take place."
For some reason, in his fantasy, he spoke an English accent.

He used an old technique for when he was stumped on ca sego back to the
beginning and review possible suspects-But in his attempt to
incriminate Barron Harkness, he dry.  There was only one other
conceivable suspect, that Hank Morgan had removed herself from the
scene:

Van Fleet.  But, in spite of his obsession with Sasha, Fleet had come
up clean.  Dino didn't think so, he and Dino's instincts were often
good; but, for matter, so were his ow and he could not bring himself
dislike Van Fleet, strange as he was.

Then, he remembered something else odd about Van though it did not seem
connected to Sasha.  Van Fleet finished medical school but had been
rejected during his as "unsuited for a medical career."  That was the
Dino had read to him, something one of the inves-had turned up, a
statement from somebody at & Surgeons Hospital, 'there Van Fleet had
served internship.

When the carpet layers had finished, Stone retrieved his from a dresser
drawer and caught a cab uptown.  Dino still on his honeymoon, he
reasoned, and there was he could turn to for the original record of the
investi-so he would have to do this himself.  Anyway, it kept mind off
Cary.

The hospital was the most prestigious of its kind in the having treated
the great and near great for more than a There was as much cachet
attached to checking into & Surgeons as there was to moving into a
Fifth

"Can you tell me who is in charge of interns?"  he asked at the front
desk.  "The chief resident"' a young woman replied.  No good.  The
chief resident would not have been at the hospital long enough.  "And
who does he report to, ultimately?"  "The chief of medicine," the young
woman replied.  "His name is Garfield.  Did you wish to see an intern,
sir?"  "No, I just need some information, and I think the chief of
medidne is the person I should see."  "Well, his office is on the fifth
floor, but I shouldn't think he'd see you without an appointment."
"Thanks, I'll just have a word with his secretary.  By the way, how
long has Dr.  Garfield been chief of medicine?"  The woman shrugged.
"I've been here for twelve years, and he had the job when I arrived.
Since Adam, I guess."  Stone took the elevator to the fifth floor and
followed the signs.  The chief of medicine occupied a spacious corner
suite, and two secretaries guarded his door.  Stone showed the badge to
one of them.  "My name is Barrington.  I'd like to see Dr.  Garfield."
"I'm afraid he's in a staff meeting at the moment, and he has another
appointment immediately after that," the woman replied, unimpressed.
"Would you please take him a note saying that I'm here and that I would
like to see him?  This is a serious matter."  The woman seemed
uncertain, but she disappeared through a door for a minute, then
returned.  "Dr.  Garfield will be finished with his staff meeting in
just a few minutes.  He asked that you wait."  Stone took a seat and
picked up a magazine.  Shortly, a tall elderly man dressed in a long
white coat appeared in the reception room.  "I'm Garfield.  What can I
do for you?"

"I wonder if we could talk privately?"  Stone asked, at the two
secretaries.  "I suppose so," Garfield said, striding toward his office
"but I haven't got a hell of a lot of time."  'ffhis won't take long,"
Stone said, following him.  The doctor did not sit, and he did not ask
Stone to.  he said impatiently.  "I'm inquiring about a former intern
at this hospital Herbert Van Fleet," Stone said.  Garfield didn't reply
immediately.  "There was some here about him a few months ago," he said
finally.  '"Nell, somebody's here again, Doctor, and it's impor'why is
it important?"  "Let's just say- that iZ' in connection with a
serious

'qArhat do you want to know?"  "Were you in charge when Van Fleet was
interning

"I was."  "Why was he terminated from his internship?"  Garfield stared
at him for a moment.  "Am I going to end testifying in a court of law
ab(3ut this2" "That's unlikely," Stone said.  "This is purely for back
"It's about the Nijinsky woman, isn't it?"  "I can't say, sir."  'ell,
Mr.  Barrington, you'd better say, if you want to out of me.  I read
the tabloids, from time to time, aware that you are retired from the
police depart Stone tried to keep from showing embarrassment.

"Then why are you flashing a badge around here?"  "Retired officers are
allowed to keep their badges."

"I don't have to talk to a retired detective, you know."  "I know that,
sir, but I think the information I'm asking for could be important."
"You don't have the slightest notion of whether it's important, do you?
You're just curious."  'go tell you the truth, sir, I am.  I couldn't
break this one when I was on the force, and it bothers me that it's no
longer being investigated."  "l'he Morgan woman didn't do it, then?"
"No, sir, she didn't."  Garfield sat down behind his desk and waved
Stone to a chair.  "Let me explain something to you, Mr.  Barrington.
This is a very highly regarded institution of healing, and we get some
very well-known people in here as patients."  "I'm aware of that,
Doctor."  "It's conceivable that if the information' you're asking for
got into the papers, there ould be... repercussions for this hospital."
"I assure you, Doctor, nothing you tell me will become a part of any
public record, and I certainly won't pass it on to the press."  The
doctor looked at Stone thoughtfully.  "I'd like to know what happened
to Sasha Nijinsky myself," he said.  "So would I, Doctor; that's why
I'm here."  "All right, but if it ever comes up, I will deny I ever
told you any of this."  Stone nodded.  "I understand."  Garfield took a
deep breath and began.  'ffhis happened, whatmtwelve, thirteen years
ago?" "That sounds about right."  "You have to understand that interns,
like everybody else, have their own little,."  eccentricities.  I have
seen yea rend pranks pulled that would stand your hair on end--cadavers
in the cafeteria, you know?  We try to be a little tolerant of these
things--after all, these young people are

2;O

a lot of pressure, and they don't get much time off--we keep a close
eye on them, all the same.  I've had alco-addicts, nymphomaniacs all
sorts of problems and, usually, with a little counseling, we keep the
offender in the program, maybe make a fine ' out of him later on. We're
not out to wreck careers, these kids come to us with eight years of
higher educathey've worked hard.  But we have to draw the line

"Where did you draw it with Herbert Van Fleet?"  "Van Fleet was one of
our brighter interns," Garfield placing his feet on his desk, unwilling
to be hurried.  finished I don't know, sixth or seventh in his med
class at Columbia, and he exhibited an inclination Might haveJen good
at it, too; unfortu-that was not the only inclination he exhibited." 
He

"Go on, Doctor," Stone encouraged.  "Van Fleet appeared to be attracted
to sick people."  "hat seems like a desirable quality in a physician."
Garfield shook his head.  "I'm not making myself clear," said.  "I mean
he exhibited a sexual attraction for the ill.  that is.  He seemed very
utiomfottable with: male didn't like to touch them.  One of his
professors at told me that, as a med student, he had refused to work on
a male cadaver, except when forced to study the My guess is that he was
suppressing homosexual, at least bisexual, tendencies, and that he had
difficulty these tendencies or dealing with them."  "How did this
attraction to ill women manifest itself?."  "The chief resident noticed
that he was spending a lot of time with young women patients,
especially those from injury or surgery, looking frequently into rooms
of these patients.  If someone else was in attenhe'd leave; he'd wait
until they were alone before he visited them.  The nurses noticed him,
and there were jokes about it.  The patients always seemed to be those
who had IV's running.  We started to keep a watch on him,
surreptitiously.

"About that time, we had a very well-known actress in here as he result
of an automobile accident.  She had to have extensive recons ve surgery
done on a hand, and, as you can imagine, the reaction among the interns
to the presence of this famous and beautiful woman was startling.  A
lot of them suddenly exhibited a keen interest in surgery of the hand.
Van Fleet, in particular, was aentive.

"Then one night, only a few hours after a surgical procedure, a nursing
supervisor walked into the woman's room and found Van Fleet on top of
her."

"On top of her?"  Stone asked, unbelieving.

"He'd taken a syringe of morphine from a drugs cabinet, injected it
into her, which immediately put her to sleep; then he had removed his
clothes, had removed her clothes,

and he was.."  copulating with her."

"Jesus Christ."

"Indeed.  I was summoned from my bed and told the circumstances.  The
actress was still sleeping peacefully, and Van Fleet, as you might
imagine, was distressed at having been caught in the act.  While they
were waiting for me to arrive, he threatened the nursing supervisor if
she reported him.  She did, of course, and I made short work of young
Dr.  Van Fleet."

"I can imagine."

"The nursing supervisor cleaned up the patient and put her clothing in
order, and no more was said about it.  I should have called the police,
I suppose, and had him charged with rape, but you see the position I
was in: the papers would have had an absolute field day, the actress
would have sued us--and won--and this hospital would have been done
irreparable harm as a result."

"And the actress never knew?"

Garfield shook his head.  "I lived in fear for months that
pregnant--she didn't, thank God.  I'm not would have done if that had
happened."  Garfield why I'm concerned that this go no further."

"i do, and I promise you it won't."

Garfield stood up and slipped out of his white coat.  "I'm

I'm going to have to run now."  He got into his suit

"I hope this story might somehow help you."

"It might, Dr.  Garfield, and I thank you for confiding in shook the
doctor's hand and turned to go.

"Mr.  Barrington," Garfield said, "whatever became of now?"

"He's a mortician," Stone said.

Garfield gavE a little.  shudder  "How very appropriate,"

said.

CHAPTER

"W

When Stone woke on

Thursday morning, his first thought was that only three days remained
until Sasha's dinner party.  His second thought was that there was
someone in his bathroom.

It could be only one person, he knew; she had a key, and she knew the
code for the security system.  He was flabbergasted and revolted that
she should be in his house only days after her marriage, but his
revulsion vanished when she came out of the bathroom.

She was naked, and the sight of her body had always had a powerful
effect on him.  It came to him at that moment that he was lost; that
she could, if she wished, lead him around by the cock for the rest of
his life.  So this is obsession, he thought, as she silently slid under
the sheets and drew close to him.  He gave himself to it.

"You know this was a completely disgusting and immoral thing to do,
don't you?"  he asked when they had finished and lay panting in each
other's arms.  He was not

"Of course, my darling," she replied.  'q'hat's why it's so much
fun."

"Has anyone ever completely satisfied you?"

"You satisfy me, for a time, but to answer your question honestly, no.
At least, no man ever has.  I knew a girl in college who could satisfy
me longer than anyone.  She was only twenty, but she knew everything
about pleasing a woman,

because she was a woman, I suppose."

"Do you still see her?"

"No.  She committed suicide our senior year, shot herself with a pistol
borrowed from a boy we knew.  She left a note saying she had done it
fog' me because she knew she could never have me, and she wanted to
prove she really loved me.  The housemother in the dorm found the note
and showed it to me, then destroyed it."

"How did you react to that?

"I was elated.  It did wonders for my self-esteem, that someone could
love me so much.  I never loved her, of course, I just liked having her
make love to me."

"You don't make love, Cary.  You merely fuck.  ii

Cary raised he, elf on an elbow and looked at him.  "Do you really
think so?  she asked wonderingly.

She nodded.  '"you're right, I think, but I do fuck you well, don't

I?"

"You do," Stone said; then he fucked her again.

: When they had exhausted each other, she lay on.  her back, her
breasts pointing at the ceiling.  "You think it's terrible that I'm
still fucking you, now that I'm married," she said "Yes And it's just
as bad that I'm still fucking you."

"You wait.  One of these days, perhaps before very long, you'll get
married, but you'll still want to fuck me.  And believe me, my darling,
you will.  Because I'll never let go of yOU."

"Yes," he said, "I will."  Whenever she wanted him, for as long as she
wanted him.

On Thursday nights at Elaine's, the big table across from the bar was
kept for the guys--the regulars who had been coming for years, whom
Elaine had fed when they were broke, the starving writers who might not
have made it in New York without the nurturing and bonding that went on
in an uptown neighborhood saloon.  They wandered in and out during the
evening, bitching about their agents and the promotion budgets for
their most recent books, moaning about the pitiful advance sales and
the huge reserve for returns on their royalty statements.

There were guys who were getting a million dollars a book
now--sometimes more--and others who were getting twenty-five thousand
and pretending it was two hundred.  There were guys who had given up.
on writing fiction and were churning out screenplays for the movies and
television, and there were guys who were doing it all--bo ks,
magazines, television series--the works.  They were bonded by the
common knowledge that nobody--not their wives, sweethearts, or
publishers--believed they really worked for a living, and, sometimes,
they weren't too sure of that themselves.

Stone often sat with the bunch these days, and he liked them.  He
wasn't exactly sure he was working for a living either, so they had
something in common.  Most Thursday nights, somebody would bring a
girl, and they were always smart and pretty.  Stone envied them their
girls.

This Thursday night, drained of desire by Cary, relaxed,

and depressed, Stone got drunk.  He had three Wild Turkeys before
dinner--which was, in itself, a big mistake drank most of a bottle of
wine with his pasta, and, when Elaine said she was buying, couldn't
resist a Sambuca or two.  He switched to mineral water for a while,
until he felt steadier, then started on cognac.  By the time he and a
couple of other guys closed the place at 4:00 A.M."  he was ambulatory,
but

He walked carefully from the place, uncharacteristically the bum on
duty a buck, and thought for a minute whether he should walk.  He
usually walked; it was igood for the knee and for the gut, but tonight
walking out of the question.  He flagged a cab, gave the driver the
exact address, explaining that he wished to be driven to door, not to
the comgl, then hunkered way down in the trieffto keelFfrom passing
out.  That was what doing when the shooting started.

They had pulled up to.  the light, and the cabbie had derided he felt
like talking.  "You follow baseball?"  he asked, toward the backseat.

Stone was trying to answer him when there was a sound like a watermelon
being dropped from a great height, and driver's face exploded, leaving
huge hok spouting As Stone hit the floor of the backseat, the screech
of rubber on pavement told him the shooter was on his way.

Stone scrambled out of the cab, and, operating inst inc-yanked the left
side door open, shoved the dead driv-aside, and got the cab in gear.  A
block and a half ahead, a was roaring away.  Stone stood on it.  He
switched the caution lights on, leaned on the horn, and streaked off
down Second Avenue after the van.

There was almost no traffic on the avenue at 4:00 A.M. the fuck are the
blue-and-whites?"  he demanded suddenly aware that he was now cold
sober.  "Where you, you sons of bitches?"  The cab was new, and he

gained on the van for a minute, until the driver realized he was being
pursued.  Still, Stone was keeping pace a block behind.  He wasn't sure
he wanted to get any closer, since he wasn't armed; all he wanted to do
was to attract a blue-and-white or two.  He tried to make out the
license plate on the van and failed.

At Forty-second Street, the van hung a left and nearly turned over.
"That would be good," Stone said, "turn the fucking thing over and save
me some trouble?  Good luck, too.  On Forty-second Street a
blue-and-white was parked in front of an all-night joint, the cops
drinking coffee from paper cups.  Stone glanced in the rearview mirror
as he passed and saw the cups go out the windows on both sides and the
car start after him.

The van turned left again and started up First Avenue, keeping all four
wheels on the ground this time.  Stone managed a wide four-wheel drift
and made up a few yards on him.  The blue-and-white was doing even
better; it was faster than both the van and Stone's cab.  At
Fifty-seventh Street, the blue-and-white overtook Stone, and the cop in
the passenger seat was waving him over.  Stone shook his head and
pointed ahead.  "No{ Get him{ Get him!  He's the cab killer!"  The cop
didn't seem to understand, but the driver floored it and went after the
van.  Stone followed.  At Seventy-second Street, another blue-and-white
joined the chase.  At Eighty-sixth Street, the van driver made his
mistake.  He started a turn to the left, then saw a hooker crossing the
street.  He wavered, missed her, then, too late, tried to get the van
around the corner.  It teetered on two wheels, then went over and slid
twenty feet on its side, coming to rest against a parked car.

"This is one for Scoop Berman," Stone cackled, skidding to a halt
behind a blue-and-white.  "I wonder where the little guy is tonight."

The little guy came out of the driver's window, holding impossibly
large pistol equipped with a silencer.  He one shot, which shattered
the window of a blue-then a returning fusillade knocked him back the
van.

Four cops approached the van warily now, three pistols front, another
with a riot gun.  They hesitated, then the of the shotgun crept around
the front of the van and in through the windshield.  The shotgun went
off, and made it around the van in time to see the cop reach into and
remove Scoop

The cop used the butt of the shotgun to clean out a larg-area of the
windshield, and with help, pulled Scoop out of onto the pavement.

"You the cabdrivg,r?"  a cop asked Stone as they crowded

"No, the passenger.  The driver's in the front seat, there,

most of his head"

"Well, we finally got the fucker," another cop said.

cabbie number six he's offed.  We'll get a fucking for this one."  He
pulled out his notebook.  your name," he said to Stone, "and we'll want
a you."  '"

"My name's Barrington.  I was fourteen years on the job,

second, most recently out of the 19th."

"I know you," another cop said.  "You were Dino partner."

"Right."

"Let him write out his own statement," the cop said to

"He'll do it better than you."

"I know this guy," Stone said, nodding at Scoop.  "His

Berman; he's a free-lance television cameraman.  You me to talk to
him?"

"Yeah," said the cop.  "If you know him."

Stone went and knelt over Berman.  "Scoop, how are you feeling?  An
ambulance is on the way."

Scoop was gutshot, twice, and there was blood around his lips.  His
eyes focused.  "Hey, Stone," he said.  "I thought you was out to
pasture."

"I was, buddy, but I was in the cab."

Scoop looked worried.  "I'm sorry about that," he said.  "You okay?"

"I'm okay.  Scoop, did you shoot the other cabdrivers?"  "Yeah, the
bastards always got in my way when I was on a story.  Other cars would
get out of the way, you know?  But not hacks, the sons of bitches."

Stone turned to a cop, who had a notebook out.  "You get that?"

"Yeah," the cop said.  "You know, I wanted to shoot a few cabbies
myself, at times."  "Stone," Scoop said.  "Yah, Scoop?"

"There's something I never told you.  I should da told you, but I
didn't.  I wanted it for myself."

"What's that, Scoop?"  He could hear the ambulance approaching.

"The night Sasha took her dive, remember?"  "You bet I remember."-"I
was there, remember?"

"I remember.  You got her on tape.  It was a good job."

'l'here was a guy on the scene had these black glasses, with tape on
them."

"I remember.  His name is Van Fleet."  "l'hat's right.  He works on
stiffs."  "Right."

"I think he knows something.  I think he saw who tossed Sasha, or
something.  He was acting funny at the scene.  I tried to find him
after I showed you the tape, but he was gone.  I bought him a drink
later, tried to get it out of him, but he wouldn't talk to me."

"Okay, Scoop, I'm glad to know that.  Thanks."

The ambulance screeched to a halt, and two men came a stretcher.  Stone
stood up to let them at Scoop, and, as did, he saw Scoop's eyes glaze
over and his head fall to side.  A paramedic produced a stethoscope and
listened his chest.

"This one's had it," he said to a cop.  "No ticker at all,

nd, with those kind of holes in him, he ain't gonna resuscitate,
believe me."

"Ah, shit," the cop said.  "I wanted to see him stand

"No, it's better this way," Stone said.  "All neat and tidy; got your
confession."

Later that morning, when Stone finally got into bed, he discovered was
drunk again.

CHAPTER

On Friday, Stone sat down and thought about his options.  He should
have gone to the FBI, he knew, when he got the first letter.  Their
kidnapping case was still open and would remain open until there was
some sort of resolution, but they had already conducted their own
investigation of Van Fleet and had turned up nothing.  Neither had
their search of his loft produced anything, and they were unlikely to
find Stone's new information compelling.  Anyway, his years as a police
officer had made him very nearly constitutionally incapable of going to
the FBI for anything.

He could, too, have gone to the police, maybe approached Delgado
directly, but it had already been made abundantly dear to him that the
police hierarchy considered the case closed and did not want it
reopened.  If he could deliver Van Fleet and Sasha, handcuffed
together, Delgado might listen to him, but not otherwise.  His best
alternative was Dino.  Dino was even less anxious than Delgado to
reopen, because he didn't want to piss off his superiors, but Dino was
his friend, and he still felt guilty about the treatment Stone had
received from the department.  The trouble was, Dino was in Las Vegas.
Stone called Dino's mother and learned that he was due back from his
honeymoon sometime the following day.  Stone heaved a sigh of relief.
Dino wasn't going to be easy, but at least he would be in town.  The
phone rang.  "Stone.  It's Hi Barker."  "What's happening, Hi?"  "I got
him.  He's mine for the Sunday-night show.  Is there anything.  else I
slould know before I interview him?"  "I told you everytling at lunch.
I'll leave it to you how to handle him."  "Will you be there?".  "I'll
be there with a cop," Stone said.  "Where do I go?"  "We're
broadcasting from what the network calls the 'executive studios," on
the top floor of their headquarters building on Seventh Avenue.  You
know the building?"

I'll leave your name with the securit guard--and what's the name of
your cop?"  "Bacchetti.  What time?"  "Be there at a quarter to eleven,
sharp, and go straight to the control room and stay there.  We go on
the air, live, at eleven thirty, and I don't want Barron to see you."
When Stone hung up, he was starting to feel excited.

At noon Saturday, Stone called Dino's new apartment in the West
Villagl'A woman answered.  "Hello?"

STUAJTr WOODS

"Is Dino back in town yet?

"No, who is this?"

'q'his is Stone Barrington."

"Oh, yes, we met at the wedding.  This is Mary Ann's mother.  I'm just
over here tidying up a little so the place will be nice when they get
in."

'qhat time are they due, Mrs.  Bianchi?"

"I'm not sure exactly.  They were supposed to come home last night, but
Dino was on a winning streak, and they missed their plane.  He said
they'd get whatever flight was available today.  Dino wanted Sunday to
rest before going back to work."

"I see.  Mrs.  Bianchi, would you write a note to Dino and ask him to
call me the moment he gets in?  Say that it's important."

"Okay, I'll tack it to the door, so he'll be sure to see it."  Stone
thanked her and hung up.

The day droned on with no word from Dino, and Stone began calling every
hour on the hour.  There was no answer.  At seven thirty, he got out
his tuxedo and began to get dressed.  At eight, he called Dino again
and still got no reply.  At eight thirty, the doorbell rang.  Stone
thought about it for a moment, then he retrieved his badge and gun from
the dresser drawer and strapped on the ankle holster.

When Stone opened the front door, a limousine was at curbside and a
mustachioed, uniformed chauffeur stood on the stoop.  Stone asked the
chauffeur to wait.  He went to the living-room phone and called Dino's
number again.  "Yeah?"  Dino--sleepy, exhausted.

"Dino, it's Stone, hang on."  He ran back to the front door.  "What
address are you taking me to?"  he asked the chauffeur.

"Sorry, sir," the man said, with what seemed to be an Italian accent,
"I can't tell you; it's supposed to be a surprise.  I'm not supposed to
wait either; I've got a schedule to keep.

If you can't come now, I'll have to leave."  "I'll be right with you,"
Stone said and ran for the phone again.  "Dino."  "Fluh?"  "Listen to
me now.  I need your help."  "You listen to me, Stone.  I've hardly had
any sleep for the past three nights, you know?  Now, I'm going back
to

"Fomorrow may be too late, Dino.  Sasha has invited me to a dinner
party."  "Oh, Jesus," Dino moaned, "will you ever let go of that?  I
told you I don't want to hear about it again."  "I've got some new
stuff on Van Fleet, Dino, and he may be mixed up in this thing
tonight."  "I told you, I don't want to hear it."  "Dino, I need some
backup.  I don't even know where I'm going."  "I suggest you call
nine-one-one when you get there, Stone.  I'll call you when I'm
coherent.  In the meantime, fuck off!"  He slammed down the telephone. 
Stone ran back to the front door to see the chauffeur heading for the
car.  "Wait!"  he called out, locking the door behind him.  The
chauffeur came' wearily around be car and opened a door for him.  The
limo was an old one, sixties vintage, but well cared for.  The was
well-worn velour, and black velvet drawn over the side and rear
windows.  "Come on," he said to the driver, "where are we going?" 
"Sorry, sir," the driver said cheerfully and raised the glass partition
between his compartment and the rear seat. Stone found himself looking
into a mirror.  He picked at the side curtain; it was sewn or glued
down.  He immediately felt that he had walked into a nineteen-forties B
movie.  Bela Lugosi would be waiting for him at his destination.  He
decided to sit back and enjoy the experience.  For a few minutes he
tried counting the left and right turns and estimating his position,
but he became disoriented.  The car seemed not to stay long on any
street, not taking any avenue up or downtown, as far as he could tell. 
He found a light and glanced at his watch from time to time.  They had
left his house at eight thirty-two.

At exactly nine o'clock, the car stopped, and Stone could hear a garage
door being raised.  He was being taken indoors without getting out of
the car first, and he didn't like it.  He tore at the side curtain, but
by the time it came loose he could hear the garage door winding down
again.

The chauffeur opened the left-hand door for him, and, as he got out of
the car, Stone saw another door leading off the garage.  The chauffeur
opened that one for him too, then quickly closed it behind him.

Stone looked around.  He was in a nicely decorated vestibule with one
other door, probably leading to the street.  He tried that door and the
one behind him; he was locked in.  There was nowhere to go but up.  An
open elevator awaited him, and there was only one button.  He pressed
it, and the elevator rose slowly, creaking, reminding him of the one in
his own house.  Old.  The elevator stopped, and the door opened.

Stone stepped out of the car into another vestibule, much like the one
downstairs.  There was an elegant, gilded mirror and a vase containing
a large flower arrangement resting on an antique table.  A hallway led
away from the vestibule, and from that direction he could hear a murmur
of conversation and the tinkle of silver against china.  They had
apparently started without him.  A woman's laugh rose above the talk,
then subsided.  Was that voice familiar?

Stone walked slowly down the hallway and emerged into a very large,
rectangular room, which had been divided into two areas.  Ahead of him
was a living area, with two leather sofas facing each other before a
fireplace, in which a

merrily burned.  So chamber music came from speakers somewhere.  There
was something familiar about the room.  To his le was a dining table
set for eight, and, apparently, Stone was not the only one late for
dinner, for three places were empty.  The conversation was louder now. 
A woman in a backless dress sat with her back to him, a man next to
her, and a couple faced him from across the able.  Both the men were in
evening clothes.  At the end of the able, to his right, dressed to
kill, her elbow resting on the able, her hand holding a glass of wine,
her face turned to greet him, smiling invitingly, was Sasha Nijinsky. 
Stone took a step forward and opened his mouth to speak.  Instead of
what he had intended to say, a scream burst from his liPs.  A searing
pain had thudded into his buttocks; his back arched, his knees bent,
and he fell heavily onto the polishedhardwOtd floor, his body
convulsing.  He had only a moment of consciousness to grasp that Sasha
and the other people.  at the able were immobile; were glassy eyed;
were, of course, dead.

CHAPTER

Stone came awake slowly.  His first sensation was that his ass was on
fire; the second was that every joint, every muscle in his body hurt
like hell.  His vision was cloudy for a moment, and he blinked his eyes
rapidly to clear it.  He became aware that he could not move.

He was naked.  His shoulders lay on a hard table, his hands were bound
behind him, and his feet were tied and suspended from a block and
tackle above him, which raised him half in the air.  Instinctively, he
squirmed, tugging at his bonds, but they were too tight.  His hands
were numb.

He could move only his head, and he craned his neck to see as much as
he could.  He was in a long, narrow room; the walls and ceiling were
covered in white tiles, aged and cracking.  Two overhead bulbs were
protected with steel screens.  The tabletop was made of metal and
sloped from head to foot.  There was a faint chemical smell, something
he couldn't identify.

He craned his neck farther.  Near the other end of the room, just at
the edge of his vision, was a vertical object, but he could not swivel
his head and eyes far enough to make it out.  He tried the bonds again,
trying at least to stretch them enough to allow the flow of blood to
return to his hands.  No luck.

Minutes passed, and he wracked his brain for some other means of
escape.  He found that by manipulating his shoulders he could creep
sideways on the table, but it became apparent to him that, since his
feet were elevated, if he slipped over the edge, his head would strike
the floor very hard.  He stopped moving and waited.

Perhaps twenty minus passed before he heard a scraping noise somewh're
behind him, followed by hollow footsteps striking the cement floor. The
chauffeur appeared, upside-down, the collar of his uniform hanging
open.  He reached up and ripped the mustache from his upper lip.

"l'here, thatsa better," he said in his Italian accent.  Then he
laughed.

"Herbert?"  Stone said.

Van Fleet laughed againi'""Didn't recogni.,e me, did you?"

"No, I didn't.  Listen, Herb, could you loosen whatever you've got
around my wrists?  The circulation has stopped."

"Sure," Van Fleet said.  He grabbed Stone under the arms, lifted him,
and flipped him over on his stomach.  He fiddled with the bonds.

Stone's ankles hurt now, but he could feel the blood flowing back into
his hands.  "Thank you," he said.  "low, could you turn me back over,
please?"

Van Fleet turned him over on his back again.  "Are you cold?"  he asked
solicitously.

"No, it's quite warm in here.  Where am I, exactly?"

"You are in what used to be part of a kosher meat-processing plant.  It
runs along one side of my loft, and it is accessed by moving the
refrigerator in my kitchen, then removing a panel from the wall."  He
laughed again.  "Neither you nor the FBI were able to figure it out."
"It's very clever, Herb.  Now, can we talk about what's going on here?"
Van Fleet stepped forward and began feeling around Stone's neck. 
"Don't do that," Stone said, irritably.  He didn't like the man's hands
on him.  Van Fleet took his time at whatever he was doing.  "Sorry to
disturb you," he said.  "Just to rest your mind, I have no sexual
interest in you.  I don't like men that way."  Stone was relieved to
hear that, but not much.  "How much did you take in before I used the
stun gun?"  Van Fleet asked.  * "So that's what it was."  "That's
right. Something like fifty thousand volts, but only for a few
milliseconds." 'q'hat was enough."  "It was, wasn't it?"  "To answer
your question," Stone said, "I took in a number of corpses sitting at a
dining table." "Let's not refer to them that way, please," Van Fleet
said.  "They are my friends, and, if they could hear you, they'd be
very upset."  "As you wish.  How did you get, uh, meet these people?" 
"Oh, here and there. You might say I picked them up around town. 
They're all very interesting people who do interesting work.  I find
that interesting work makes an interesting person, don't you?"  Stone
realized that he had now solved the disappearance of Dino's yuppies,
not that it mattered much.  "Sure, I think that's true.  But, somehow,
I don't think they make very interesting conversationalists at the
moment."

"You're quite wrong," Van Fleet said.  "I know you think of them as
dead, but they're not, you know.  In fact, I've given them a whole new
kind of life.  It's a technique I've developed myself, over the years,
one I refined both in my work at the funeral parlor and in my previous
job, at the Museum of Natural History.  They remain as supple as when
they were alive, in the usual sense of the word."

Stone could think of nothing to do but keep the conversation going.
Besides, there was more he wanted to know.  "Tell me about Sasha,
Herb."

"Ah, Sasha."  Van Fleet sighed.  "She is the centerpiece of my little
dinner party, of course.  Everybody likes a celebrity at the table.
Adds spice to the evening."

"Was she alive when you brought her here?"

"I told yo6, they'ri,all alive," Van Fleet said emphatically.  "Please
don't make it necessary for me to mention that again, or I will
terminate/lxis conversation immediately."

"I'm sorry," Stone said.  "I meant alive in the usual sense of the
word.  What I meant to ask was, after her fall and the ambulance wreck,
what sort of condition was she in?"

"Well, when I took her out of the wreck," Van Fleet said, "she was in
very poor condition; indeed.  Theall had broken some bones, but, oddly,
not the skin.  The traffic accident had done somewhat more damage.  It
took me quite a long time to bring her back to her present
condition."

"Was she.."  breathing when you took her?"  "Amazingly enough, yes,"
Van Fleet said.  "In fact, I believe that, if not for the traffic
accident, she might have continued to breathe.  As it was, she lasted
only a few days, in spite of the very excellent medical care she
received from me."

Stone winced at the thought of Sasha alive for days with this creep.
His terminal velocity theory, though, had panned out, sort of.  "Who
wrote me the letter?"  Stone asked.

"Oh, Sasha did--with my help, of course.  She wrote me two letters, you
know, when I first began writing to her, so we had something to help us
with her handwriting."  "Nhy did she have olive oil on her hands?" 
"Oh, you noticed that, did you?  Well, I wanted an agent that would
make a good fingerprint, and, since I was in the kitchen at the time,
the oil was handy."  "Herb, we have to talk seriously now.  We have to
get you some help."  "Help?"  Van Fleet sounded surprised.  "I don't
need any help.  I've done all this work on these people alone, without
any help at all.  And it was pretty good work, don't you think?  Let me
explain it to you.  I'll skip the technical parts, but have a look." 
Van Fleet took hold of the table and dragged it until Stone was facing
down the room, then he put a hand under Stone's head and raised it, so
he could , At the other end of the room was the object Stone had not
been able to make out before.  The body of a young woman hung by its
heels, the fingertips just brushing the floor.  She had been opened
with one long incision from her pubic hair to her sternum, and the
abdominal cavity had been emptied.  "Oh, God."  Stone breathed.  He
turned his head away.  "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Van
Fleet said, turning Stone back to his original position.  "I was going
to take you through the process, but if you'd rather not... ' "I'd
rather talk," Stone said.  "When I said you needed help; I didn't mean
with your work."  "Oh, you mean a psychiatrist.  That was suggested to
me once, a long time ago."  "By Dr.  Garfield?"  Van Fleet walked
around Stone so that he could look at him.  "What do you know about
Garfield?"  "Oh, Dr. Garfield and I had a long chat about you the other
day, Herb.  He told me about your internship, about why you didn't
complete it."

Van Fleet bristled.  "Ilxis is not an amusing conversation," he said.
"I hope when you're at the table you can find something more
interesting to talk about."  He turned and walked out of Stone's line
of vision, then seemed to leave the mom.

At the table?  Stone began to sweat, then, almost immediately, to
shiver.

Van Fleet returned.  "Sorry, I had to get my instruments.  Since you're
going to be such a boring conversationalist, I may as well start work
on you now."

"Wait a minute, Herb," Stone said quickly.  "We have more to talk
about."

"Do you think you can refrain from referring to past unpleasantness?"

"Oh, yes.  i'm terribly sorry about that; it was rude of me."

Van Fleet dragged a. stool over and sat down facing Stone.  "All right,
what would you like to talk about?"

"tell me about the night Sasha fell from her balcony."  "Oh, that. 
I've told you about taking her from the wreck of the ambulance.  Before
that, well, I left Elaine's a bit after you did, I guess, and, on the
way home, I thought I'd drop by Sasha's building.  I often did that on
the way home, just to catch a glimpse of where she lived.  When I
turned into the block, I could see the doorman through the glass front
of the building.  He was asleep in a chair, and I saw somebody walk
right past him into the building, and he never woke up.

"I found that very interesting, so I parked the van and went into the
building.  I just walked right past him, and he never turned a hair.  I
took the elevator up to the 4welfth floorwI knew Sasha's apartment
number from my research--and, to my surprise, her door was open.  I had
just planned to leave a little present and go, but there was that open
door.  I couldn't resist.

"I crept into the apartment, and I could hear these angry voices from
out on the terrace.  I peeped out there, and she and this other person
were having a knock-down, drag-out fight, and, all of a sudden, Sasha
was just dumped over the rafting.

"I jumped back behind the door, and I could hear this other person
rummaging around the room, looking for something, I guess.  That went
on for a minute, then I heard the elevator start up, and I guess the.."
well, the murderer heard it too, and ran.  I heard the fire stairs door
open, then the elevator door open, and I heard somebody running down
the stairs.

"I peeped out the door, and the doorman was standing at the top of the
stairs, looking down, so I just popped into the open elevator and rode
down.  I got out on the second floor and tiptoed down the stairs.  When
I saw you get back into the elevator, I left the building, got into the
van, and drove around the block to where Sasha was.  The ambulance
arrived about that time, and I followed it.  I wanted to see which
hospital Sasha was being taken to, so I could send flowers.

"Then, wham!  That fire truck came out of nowhere, and the ambulance
got hit.  You know the rest."

"Herb, who threw Sasha off the balcony?"

Van Fleet shrugged.  "Nobody I knew," he said.

"Can you describe him?"  Stone asked.

Van Fleet started to speak, then stopped.  "No, I don't think I will,"
he said petulantly.  "You were unkind enough to bring up the past, so I
don't think you deserve to know, at least not yet.  Later, if you're
nice, you can bring it up at dinner, and maybe I'll tell you."  Van
Fleet stood up, reached down, and picked up his case.  He set it on the
stool, opened it, and took out a large scalpel.  "Don't worry, I'm very
good at this; it'll be absolutely painless, I promise."

Stone had thought about dying before, but never in such proximity to
the event.  Would his whole life flash his eyes?  Would it be less
painful if he just relaxed and let it happen?  He discovered he could
not give in to it; he with what meager resources he had left.  "Wait a
minute, Herb!"  he said.  "There's something I have to tell you."

"You can tell me at the dinner table," Van Fleet said, sliding his hand
under Stone's chin and pulling it up to extend his neck.

Stone jerked his head free.  "It's about Sasha!"  he said, and watched
Van Fleet's face.

Van Fleet showed interest.  "Whatabout Sasha?"  "Something you don't
know about her, something

I wouldn't want to say this in front of her at the table."

"What is it?"

"You like guys, don't you, Herb?"

"What do you mean?"  Van Fleet replied indignantly.  "I'm no queer.  I
like women."

"Whatabout your relationship with the men at the table?"  Stone
asked.

"You have a filthy mind," Van Fleet said.  "I have no kind of
relationship with anybody but the fable.  Except Sasha, of course.  We
have a perfectly normal sex life."

Perfectly normal?  Stone laughed aloud, "Come on,

you're as queer as a three-dollar bill."  Words were all Stone had left
to fight with, and he was at least going to get a few punches before
this maniac slaughtered him.  "That's a lie!"

"Then why do you think you like fucking Sasha so much?"

"Sasha's a woman, you idiot," Van Fleet said.  "We have a heterosexual
relationship!"

"Sasha's not a woman, Herbert.  I found out.  When she was born in
Russia, her parents named her Vladimir, because she was a boy.  They
raised her as a girl, though, and, when she was twelve, she had a
sex-change operation in Morocco!"  "You're insane!"  Van Fleet cried.
"You're fucking a guy, Herbert, you goddamned faggot!"  Stone screamed.
"All this time you've been fucking a guy's corpse, a dead guy,
Herbert!"  Van Fleet was making animal noises now, and spittle had
formed on his lips.  He raised the scalpel over his head, and his voice
became a howl.  Stone braced himself, baring his teeth.  He'd bite the
bastard's arm off, if he could.  Then a huge noise filled the room,
echoing off the tile walls, and, simultaneously, a hole appeared in Van
Fleet's throat; a moment later, the noise came again, and another hole
appeared under his right eye.  Van Fleet reeled backward and
disappeared from Stone's view.  Stone was nearly deaf from the noise,
which was now settling into a constant ringing in his ears.  Then Dino
walked into Stone's view and looked down at him.  "Jesus, Stone," he
said, shaking his head.  "How do you get yourself into these
situations?"

CHAPTER

ell, I always told you Van Fleet was dirty, didn't I?"  Dino said.  He
and Stone were sitting facing each other on the sofas in front of
Herbert Van Fleet's fireplace.  '"

Stone was dressed again and was rubbing his ankles where they had been
bound.  "Jesus, Dino, I guess I should have just listened to you all
along," he said sourly.  He took a of Van Fleet's bourbon.

"I wouldn't have recognized this place," Dino said.  "He's sure done a
lot to it since we were here before."

"I didn't recognize it either," Stone said.  "I didn't remember the
garage door in the building.  I hac no idea where I was.  How did you
figure it out?"

"You mentioned Van Fleet; that was all I had to go on.  I had to take a
tire iron to the downstairs door, or I would have been up here
sooner."

"How much of my conversation with Van Fleet did you hear?"  "Most of
it, I guess.  I had to duck out when Van Fleet came back to the kitchen
to get his tools."  "Well, why did you wait so fucking long to stop the
bastard?"  "I wanted to hear it all.  Anyway, you were in no trouble; I
wasn't going to let him carve you up."  "I wish I'd known that.  He
gave me about the worst hour of my life."  Dino picked up the phone on
the coffee table.  "I guess I'd better call it in."  "No!"  Stone said,
snatching the phone away from him.  "Look, Stone, I'm beat.  Between
screwing Mary Arm twice a day and shooting craps all night every night,
I'm coming apart.  Let's get this over with."  "You can' call it in,
yet.  We still don't have the guy who tossed Sasha off the balcony,
and, if he finds out Sasha's dead, he'll feel safe."  "It's Harkness,
then?"  "Damn right, and, if you'd done what I asked you to at the
airport, we might have had him long ago."  "Come on, Stone, his' name
was on the manifest; let's not go over old stuff again, okay?"  "All
right, let's not.  But tomorrow night, Hi Barker is going to have
Harkness on his TV show, and I mean to see him nailed, right there on
television.  I want you to be there to bust him."  Dino thought for a
minute.  "I gotta cover my ass some way, here, in this place."  "Do
this: seal the place, and put a blue-and-white outside to make sure
nobody disturbs the scene."  "Not until I get the medical examiner in
here.  We can't just let Van Fleet's corpse rot for a couple days, you
know."  "Look, we have no solid evidence against Harkness,

unless Barker can force some admission out of him on air, we'll never
get him.  If somebody in the ME's office this to the press, we're
cooked; we'll never get him."  "Too bad you pissed off Van Fleet when
you were on table in there.  He might have given us Harkness."

"He might have given us Harkness anyway, if you blown him away."

"What was I supposed to do?  Stand there and watch the slaughter? Shout
'freeze!"?  What if he didn't freeze?

fucking ungrateful."

"Ungrateful?  I've dragged you kicking and screaming this whole thing,
and now, when you turn up at the like the cavalry, you want
gratitude?"

the second time I've taken out somebody who kill you and, come to think
of it, you didn't thank first time either' Dino was standing up now.

Stone stood up too.  "If you'd been a little quicker the first time, I
wouldn't b hobbling around on this knee, and I'd probably still be on
the force!"

"Yeah, instead of a tax-free pension and a big-time law

I really did you a fucking disservice, didn't I?  And, now, you got the
cabbie killer, you cleared four murders, and you're going to bring down
Baron Harkess--all in one week!  It's a rough life you're gonna be
living, ain't it, Stone?"

Stone opened his mouth, then shut it.  Then he started to

So did Dino.  They sat down again and laughed until they were
exhausted.

"Okay," Dino said, "you get out of here."  He handed Stone his car
keys.  "I know a guy in the ME's office who can keep his mouth shut.
I'll get him to check Van Fleet into the morgue as a John Doe, then
I'll seal this place until Monday morning."

"Okay.  You meet me tomorrow night at ten forty-five sharp at the
Continental Network headquarters building on Seventh Avenue.  We'll go
up to the studio control room

STUAIT

together.  And have a blue-and-white waiting downstairs."

They both got up and walked toward the door, passing the dining table
where the five mute conversationalists still carried on.

Dino walked over to Sasha's corpse and ran the back of a finger along
her cheek.  "Soft as a baby's ass," he said.  "I wonder how the son of
a bitch did it?"

CHAPTER

one could not concentrate the Sunday papers.  Oddly, he gave little
thought to the events of the night before.  What he thought about was
the 'evening ahead and what it'might'mean to him'.

From the point of view of solving the case, he was unconcerned about
proving the guilt of Barron Harkness, ibut, he was convinced, his
future happiness depended upon that proof.

Throughout his adult life, it had been Stone's habit to go out with one
woman at a time.  Some of these affairs had been important--marriage
had been discussed, although it had never happened.  Others were less
important, even unsatisfactory, but he had usually stuck with them for
a time, : because it was easier.

But now he was in love, with all that implied; he had not so much as
thought of another woman since the moment he had met Cary.  She had
consumed his body and his mind from the beginning, and, when she had
suddenly disappeared from his life, he had clung to the belief that
there was a reasonable explanation for her conduct, if he could only
know it.  Now, on this late-winter Sunday afternoon, with a high wind
howling around his house, he sought that explanation and found it.

From the beginning of their relationship, Cary had urged him to improve
his position in life, to leave the police force and practice law.  He
had steadfastly refused even to consider this.  Then, when he had been,
in rapid succession, kicked off the force and offered an opportunity by
Woodman & Weld, he was suddenly in a position to offer her what she
wanted.  It was at that moment, before he had had a chance to tell her
what the future held, that she had returned to Barron I-Iarkness.

It had always leen Harkness, he now believed.  When she had told him of
her long affair with a married man and had disguised his identity, it
was Harkness she was protecting.  Then, in despair of Stone's ever
getting anywhere, she had returned to Harkness, and Stone had, himself,
made it possible for her to marry him, by making Harkness's divorce
inevitable.  Now she had the position and money she coveted, although
she still loved Stone.  He was certain of that.  Why else would she
still be sleeping with him?

All that remained to correct this situation was to put Harkness away
for attempted murder.  Hounded by publicity, Cary would seek shelter
with Stone, who would now have the means to give her the life she
wanted.  That result was what he wanted of tonight's events.  Dino
could have the bust--it was his anyway.  All he wanted was Cary, in his
life and in his bed, all the time.  Tonight, he would go as far as
necessary to make that happen.

Dino was late.  There was nothing new about this, but waited
impatiently in the lobby of the network, build afraid that Harkness
would arrive before Dino did.  Dino arrived at eleven, and Stone
hustled him into an elevator.

"Jesus, Dino," Stone said as the car rose, "I thought that, " you would
be on time."

"Stone, I made it, didn't I?  Don't I always make it?"

"Is there a car downstairs?"

"They're ready and waiting, don't worry."  "This is your bust, Dino.  I
don't want any of it."  "Thanks," Dino said.  "Maybe it'll help take
the curse off

Morgan thing."

'q hope so."

The elevator doors opened, and an anxious Hi Barker

"You're lae," he said, and he was sweating.  just arrived downstairs
and is on the way up.  Come with me."  He led them to the control room
door and ushered them in.  "Jimmy," he said to a man wearing a headset,
"these are police officers.  I don't want Harkness to see them."

"Don't worry, Hi," Jimmy replied.  "I've got a light on glass partition
that will make a reflection; Harkness won't be able to see into the
control room."

"Good," Barker said.  "Tvegot to go and met.  him now.  Anything else
you want to tell me, Stone?"

Stone shook his head.  "If you get into trouble, I've got an ace up my
sleeve.  I'll send you a note."

Barker nodded, then fled.

Stone looked around the control room; it was a smaller,

version of the one he had seen months ago at the news division.  The
executive studios, he had learned, were a couple of sets designed for
small-scale interviews, like The Hi

Barker Show.  The backdrop of the set was simply the New

York

City skyline, looking south, as seen from the sixty-fifth their current
level.  The exterior windows were of non reflective glass, and the view
was spectacular.

Hi Barker appeared on the set, followed by Barron Harkness and, to
Stone's surprise, Cary.  He hadn't expected her to be here.  Harkness
looked flushed, and he tripped on the carpeting and nearly fell as he
stepped up to the platform where his seat would be.

"They must have been out somewhere before this," Dino said.  "This is
going to be even easier, if he's a little drunk."

Stone nodded.  He watched as Harkness sat down and had a microphone
clipped to his lapel.  Hi Barker was flitting about, putting his guests
at ease; Cary was given a folding chair just out of camera range.  The
whole group was no more than twelve feet from where Stone stood.
"You're sure they can't see us?"  he asked the director.

"Not a chance," Jimmy replied.  "I checked it out earlier."  Two other
people, a man and a young woman, came into the control room now and
took seats on either side of Jimmy, paying no attention to Stone and
Dino.  "Ten minutes," the woman said, looking up at a clock above the
row of monitors.

Stone watched the monitors as cameras were pointed at Barker and
Harkness.  For a moment, a camera rested on Cary, sending Stone a pang
of desire.  She looked beautiful and serene in her mink coat.

"One minute," the young woman said, jostling Stone from his reverie. He
had been fantasizing about life after Barron Harkness.

"Ten seconds," she said, then counted down from five.  Jimmy pushed a
button, and lively music filled' the control room.

The man next to Jimmy leaned into a microphone.  "From the executive
studios of the Continental Network, high above Manhattan, we bring you
the premiere of The Hi Barker Show."

A camera moved in on Hi Barker.  "Good evening," he said amiably "We're
off to a flying start with this new series.  Our aim is to bring you
guests who don't often appear on programs like this one, and our guest
tonight is one who, although he appears on television five nights a
week, rarely talks about himself.  I welcome my old friend, Barron
Harkness.  Good evening, Barron."

"Good evening, Hi," Harkness said, managing a smile.  "I'm glad to be
here... I think.  It's been a long time since I let myself in for the
sort of grilling I ordinarily hand out tooth-i.  ers, and I'm not sure
I'm looking forward to the experience."

Barker laughed.  "You're not trying to get my sympathy, are you,
Barron?  I think you know how to take care of yourself in a clinch."

Smart, Stone tlought.  Set him up as somebody who can't be sandbagged'
on television, then sandbag him.  He watched as Barker skillfully put
Harkness over the jumps, starting with his early.  career and
occasionally interjecting a sharp, almost rude question about the
newsman's behavior on some occasion.  Harkness fenced well, and he was
beginning to relax.  Twenty-five minutes of the program passed in this
vein, with Barker increasingly pressing Harkness for his personal views
on politicians' and even[s.  Then Barker paused and sorted through his
notes for a moment.

Now we begin, Stone thought.  He leaned forward and grasped the railing
in front of him.

"Barton," Barker began, "I know you were as shocked as we all were at
the disappearance and probable death of Sasha Nijinsky, who was to have
been your co-anchor on the evening news."

"Yes, I certainly was," Harkness said, looking a little uncomfortable.
He crossed his legs and tugged at the knot of his necktie.  "A horrible
and tragic event."

"You were.."  elsewhere at the time all this happened, I believe."

That's right, Stone thought, let him set his own trap.  "Yes, I was.  I
had been reporting from the Middle East.  Not for the first time, I
might add--more like the twentieth--and I was returning to New York on
a flight from Rome."  "I see," Barker said, looking regretful.  "I'm
extremely sorry to hear you say that, Barron; I had hoped for a little
more candor on this subject."  Harkness looked alarmed.  "I don't know
what you mean," he said, as if he couldn't think of anything else to
say.  Dino laughed aloud.  "Sure, sure, Harkness; go ahead and paint
yourself into the corner."  Barker shook his head.  "Barron, in light
of information that has come into my possession, I should warn you now
to abandon this pretense."  "What pretense?"  Harkness asked weaklyl
"What on earth are you talking about?"  "Barron, I hae it on the
authority of an unimpeachable source that you were not on the flight
from Rome that day, that your ticket was used by another person.  Tell
us, now, Barron, where were you when Sasha Nijinsky was thrown from her
balcony?"  Harkness said nothing for a moment, clearly stunned; then
his eyes narrowed and he sat up straight.  Stone was reminded of a
contentious interview with Richard Nixon many years before, when
Harkness had gotten angry with good effect.  What was he up to?  "Let
me tell you something, Hi," Harkness said, with tightly controlled are.
"I don't know who has misinformed you, but I have made that particular
flight from Rome six times in the past twelve months, and I've gotten
to know some of the crew.  When that airplane landed at Kennedy, I was
sitting in the cockpit jump seat, watching the captain execute an
instrument approach.  His name is Bob Martinez, he's a senior captain
with the airline, and he will vouch for my presence in his cockpit
during that flight."  Harkness took

a breath.  "What's more, I was traveling on that occasion in the
company of Herman Bateman, the president of Continental Network News,
and he will vouch for my presence on that flight.  Now, do you have any
other questions?"

Dino leaned forward and looked at Stone.  "What the fuck is going
on?"

"Shhh," Stone said.  He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket
and handed it to the director.  "Please get this to Hi at once."

Jimmy nodded and handed it to the young woman.  "Just walk out on
camera, and hand it to him."

The woman left as Hi Barker continued his questioning.  "Yes, I do have
another question, Barron," Barker said, not intimidated.  "A police
source has informed me that when detectives went through Sasha
Nijinsky's financial records, it was discovered that around of two
million dollars was missing from her funds.  Another source has now
told me that Sasha had transferred those funds to you for investment,
and that they have not been seen since, that you have been unable to
return these funds.  Would you care to comment on that?"

"I certainly would," Harkness said, not missing a beat.  "It is true
that Sasha asked me to invest such.  a sum for her; she had
considerable faith in my financial judgment.  In January of last year,
she gave me a cashier's check for two million dollars made payable to
an offshore bank with which I sometimes invest.  In the autumn of last
year, she asked me to withdraw her cash in the investment, so that she
could purchase a cooperative apartment.  I did, in fact, receive into
my account on the day Sasha disappeared the full amount of her
investment, plus a considerable profit.  The following day, not knowing
of Sasha's whereabouts or condition, I personally delivered a cashier's
check in the amount of two million, four hundred and thirty-nine
thousand dollars to Mr.  Frank Woodman, Sasha's personal attorney."

Before Harkness had finished speaking, Stone was dialing Frank
Woodman's home number.  "Hello?"  "Frank, it's Stone; I must be
brief--are you watching The Hi Barker Show, by any chance?"  "As a
matter of fact, I am."  "Is what Harkness just said true?  Did he
deliver those funds to you?"  "Yes, he did.  They were disbursed as a
part of Sasha's estate."  "Thanks."  He hung up and watched as the
young woman walked onto the set and handed Barker the unfolded sheet of
paper.  Last chance.  Barker read the paper, and his eyebrows shot up.
"Barron," he said, "I have just received a news bulletin, and I wonder
if you would like to modify any of your statements in the light of
ais."  He read from the paper.  "The New York City Police Department
has just announced that Sasha Nijinsky has been found in a downtown
Manhattan loft, alive and well."  That's all it says.  What is your
response?"  Barron Harkness smiled.  '"gVhy, that's wonderful news!  Is
there anything about where she's been?"  "No, but clearly Sasha will
now be able to identify the person who threw her from that balcony to
the street."  Stone missed Harkness's response to this, because his
attention had been caught by a movement near the set.  Cary Hilliard
had stood up.  Her eyes as wide as those of a frightened deer, she
stood still for a moment, then walked quickly across the set, directly
in front of the cameras.  Barker and Harkness, distracted by the
movement, both turned and watched her.  The director pushed a button,
and the show's theme music came up again.  The announcer spoke up.
"This has been the first Hi Barker Show.  Tune in next Sunday night
when Hi's guest will be... '

Stone burst out of the control room and ran for the elevators.  Cary
was banging on the button as he approached, and, when she saw him, she
bolted.

"Cary!"  he shouted down the length of the hallway.  "Stop!  Wait!"

She ducked down another corridor, out of his sight.  He followed and
was met with an expanse of closed doors.  He began trying them.

A dozen doors down the hall, one was unlocked.  He opened it and heard
the dang of footsteps on fire stairs.  He stopped for a moment and
leaned against the wall.  The memory of another set of steel stairs in
another building flooded back to him.  Now he knew whose footsteps
those had been.

He started down, only to realize that the sound of footsteps was oming
from above.  He reversed his direction and followed the sound.

One floor up, the exit door stood open, and he found himself on a
gravel roof.  A gust of wind nearly knocked him off his feet.  He
grabbed at a ventilator pipe and held on.  The view was all the more
spectacular because there was nothing between him and the lights of the
city but blustery air.  Twenty feet away, only the modern buildings'
low railing separated him from the lights.  He looked around and saw a
flash of mink coat disappear behind an air-conditioning unit.  He
followed.

He came around the unit, and she stood perhaps thirty feet from him,
her feet spread in something like a fighting stance, leaning against
the wind.  She was no more' than six feet from the low railing.  Stone
began walking toward her.

"Stop, Stone," she said.  "Stop right there, or'I'll jump."

He stopped, but he had already covered twenty feet; only ten separated
them.

"You made me believe you were protecting him, but all along you were
protecting yourself, weren't you?  Right from

STUART WCK)DS

the very beginning," he shouted over the wind.

"No," she said.

"You wanted to be with me so you would know what I knew about Sasha's
case, that's all."

"No, Stone," she said.  "I loved you from the start.  I love you now,
believe me.  Get me out of this, and I'm yours.  Barron can go to hell.
Just get me out of this, and I'll make your life wonderful.  Really, I
will."

"You were sleeping with Sasha, weren't you?"

"Yes, but it meant nothing.  It was just another erotic experience,
don't you see?"

' It was coming together for him now.  "You were fucking Sasha, and so
was Harkness.  Harkness wanted her, not you, didn't he?"  ,

"We were all fucking each other, sometimes all at once," she said. "She
wanted him--not because she loved him, but because she cotld destroy
him if she was married to him.  She only wanted to cut off his balls,
and then the evening news would have been all hers."

"And you, what did you want?"  He edged a little closer.  She backed up
a couple of steps.  The edge was nearer now.  The wind was gusting, and
she leaned into it for a moment.  "Well, you were useless, weren't
you?"  She spat.  "You wouldn't free yourself of that dead-end job, so
that you could get ahead.  Barron was simply the best alternative.  I
didn't love him, though; I loved you.  Why do you think I kept seeing
you?"

"You didn't love me any more than you loved Barron or Sasha, Cary."  He
stepped closer; he could grab her now.  He put a foot forward but kept
his weight on the rear one.  He reached out and snaked a hand around
her waist.

There was a howl from behind him, and the wind struck his back,.
Involuntarily, his weight shifted onto the forward foot, and then to
the toe.  He let go of Cary.  Slowly waving his arms for balance, he
fell toward her, still pushed by the wind.  Cary stepped instinctively
back from him, and her calf struck the railing.  In desperation, she
reached out and grabbed at his coat lapel.  Then they both toppled over
the railing, out into the night.  Sixty-five stories of thin air
welcomed them.  Stone stopped short; something had his ankle.  He
ignored it, watched Cary slip from him and fall, facing him, revealed
by flashes from lighted windows, all the way down until she struck the
top of what looked like a Yellow cab.  Chunks of gravel were spilling
from the top of the building now, falling past Stone to the street.
Whoever had him i was slipping over the side with him.  He'll let go,
Stone thought, and I'll join her.  Then he stopped moving.  There was a
chorus of grunts and muffled shouts from above, and, inch by, inch he
was hauled back to the top of the building scraping his shin quite
badly.  When he was back on top, lying with his cheek pressed
gratefully to the gravel, he could see Dino hanging on to his ankle,
and Barron Harkness and Hi Barker hanging on to Dino.  They let go of
each other reluctantly.  Stone crawled over to a ventilator and sat
down with his to it.  "Thanks, Dino," he was finally able to say.  "You
did it again."  "

"And it's the first time you ever thanked' me for it," Dino puffed.

"I don't believe any of this," Hi Barker said to nobody in particular.
"But it's going to make one hell of a story."

Only Barron Harkness seemed to give a thought to Cary.

"She's gone," he said absently.  "My wife is gone."

Dino was the first to answer him.  "Get used to it, pal."  He snorted.
"She's New York Dead."

CHAPTER

Stone sat with his client and watched the jury file back into the
courtroom.  He had a sinking feeling about this.  He didn't like his
client much, and he wasn't sure the man was innocent.  He was afraid
the jury didn't share his indecision.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"  Judge O'Neal asked.

Stone thought she was looking particularly attractive today, as much as
she could in judicial robes.

The foreman stood.  "We have, Your Honor," he replied.  "The foreman
will hand the verdict to the clerk."

The clerk received the verdict, read it to himself, then handed it to
Judge O'Neal.  She read it and handed it back to him.

"The defendant will rise and look upon the jury; the jury will look
upon the defendant."

Stone stood with his client.

The clerk will read the verdict."  The clerk looked at the piece of
paper.  "We, the jury, unanimously find the defendant guilty as
charged."  Stone's client sighed audibly.  Well you might sigh, Stone
thought.  I tried to get you to plead to the lesser charge, you dumb
schmuck.  But you thought you could beat it.  'qThe jury is released
with the thanks of the court for a job well done," Judge O'Neal said.
"Sentencing is set for the twenty-fifth of this month; bail is
continued pending."  She struck the bench with her gavel and rose.  The
courtroom rose with her.  Stone turned to his client.  "I'm sorry we
couldn't get a better verdict."  "You warned mR" the man said: "Can I
go home now?"  "Yes.  Wehave to' decide whether to appeal; I really
think you should consider the expense."  The man sighed again.  "Why
bother? I'll do the time."  "You're free until sentencing, but you'd
better be prepared not to go home after that.  Bring a toothbrush." 
They shook hands, and the man walked sadly away.  Stone began gathering
his notes. "Mr.  Barrington?"  '" Stone looked up.  Judge O'Neal was
stan ling to one side of the bench, behind the railing.  "In my office,
please," she said primly.  Stone groaned.  He had pressed his luck
often in cross-examining the prosecution's witnesses, and she had
repeatedly called him down for it.  Now, the lecture.  Hell, he
thought, I'm lucky not to have been held in contempt.  He trudged into
her chambers, ready to take his medicine.  She had perched on an arm of
the big leather sofa.  She undid her robes, and they fell aside to
reveal a bright red dress that went particularly well with her blonde
hair.  She crossed her legs.

They look awfully good, he thought.  Something stirred in him or the
first time in a long while.

"I read about the Nijinsky case, of course," she said.  "I believe you
discovered Ms.  Nijinsky in a thoroughly dead condition."

"That's right, Judge.  She was what a friend of mine calls

"In that case, I will remind you of our wager of some time past,"
O'Neal said, uncrossing her legs and recrossing them in the other
direction.

He had iorgoRen.

"You, sir, owe me a dinner," she said.

Stone smiled.  "Yes, Your Honor," he replied.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Public Affairs Department of the New York City Police Department
was not helpful in the search for this book.  Individual officers were,
however, and I would particularly like to thank Detective Jerry Giorgio
of the 34th Squad Homicide Team for some enlightening conversations.

I thank Elaine Kaufman for keeping the home fires burning on Second
Avenue and for running a piece where a writer can get a decent table.

I am grateful to my editor, Ed Breslin, my London publisher, Eddie
Bell, and all their colleagues at HarperCollins for their appreciation
of this book and their hard work on its behalf.

Once again, I want to extend my gratitude to my a agent, Morton
Janklow, his associate, Anne Sibbald, and all the people at Janklow &
Nesbit for their continuing care and concern for my career.

Here is an excerpt from

SWIMMING TO

CATALINA

STUART

WOODS

HarperCollins Publish

CHAPTER

, laine's late.  Stone Barrington sat a very good table ith his Mend
and former partner Dino Barebetti, who ran the detective division at
the NYPD's 19th Precinct, and with Elaine, who was Elaine.

The remnants of dinner were cleared away by Jack, the headwaiter, and
brandy Was brotght for Stone and Dino.  It was very special brandy;
Dino had the bottle of his own stuff stashed behind the bar, and it
annoyed Elaine no end, because she couldn't charge him for it, not that
she didn't find other ways to charge him for it.

"Okay, I want to know about Arrington," Elaine said.  "Elaine," Dino
interrupted, "don't you know that Stone is still suffering a great deal
of emotional pain over-Arrington's dumping him?"

"Who gives a fuck?  Elaine asked, quite reasonably.  "I want to know
how he let her get away.  She was something, that girl."

CHAPTER

laine's late.  Stone Barrington sat a very good table ith his friend
and former partner Dino Bachetti, who ran the detective division at the
NYPD's 19th Precinct, and with Elaine, who was Elaine.

The remnants of dinner were cleared away by Jack, the headwaiter, and
brandy w's brought for Stone and Dino.  It was very special brandy;
Dino had the bottle of his own stuff stashed behind the bar, and it
annoyed Elaine no end, because she couldn't charge him for it, not that
she didn't find other ways to charge him for it.

"Okay, I want to know about Arrington," Elaine said.  "Elaine," Dino
interrupted, "don't you know that Stone is still suffering a great deal
of emotional pain over :a.  rrington's dumping him?"

"Who gives a fuck?"  Elaine asked, quite reasonably.  "I want to know
how he let her get away.  She was something, that girl."

"There's a large body of opinon," Dino said, "that holds that she
didn't want to be known as Arrington Barrington."

"And who could blame her?"  Elaine asked.  "Come on, Stone, spill
it."

Stone took a deep breath and sighed.  "I have to take a lot of shit
from you two, you know?"

"I think you better cough it up," Dino said, "or we're going to start
getting tables in Siberia."

"You bet your ass," Elaine confirmed.

Stone sighed again.  "It was like this," he said, then stopped. 
"Yeah?" Elaine encouraged.

"We were supposed to have ten days sailing in St.  Marks, in
February."

"I never heard of St.  Marks," Elaine said.  "Where is that?"  "It's a
nice little island, tucked between Antigua and Guadeloupe.  Anyway, we
were supposed to meet at Kennedy for our flight down, but she got tied
up, and she was supposed to be on the next plane, but then the blizzard
hit."

"I know about the blizzard," Elaine said, exasperated.  ' Tell me about
the girl."

"While the blizzard was going on she got the New Yorker assignment to
do a profile of Vance Calder."

' The new Cary Grant," Dino explained, as if Elaine had no idea who a
major movie star was.

"Yeah, yeah," Elaine said.

"Apparently, he hadn't given an in-depth interview for twenty years,"
Stone continued, "so it was quite a coup.  Arrington had known Calder
for a while wing fact, she was with him at the dinner party where we
met."

"So much for social history," Elaine said.

"All right, I'm in St.  Marks, sitting on the chartered boat, waiting
for Arrington to show up, when this blonde sails in on

SWIMMING TO CATALINA

a big beautiful boat, all by herself.  But she had left the Canary
Islands with a husband, who was no longer present.  So, she gets
charged with his murder, and I end up defending her."

"Like I don't read a newspaper?"  Elaine interjected.  "Like the
western hemisphere didn't read about this trial?"

"All right, all right; I keep getting faxes from Ardngton, saying she's
all tied up with Calder, then I get a fax saying that she's going to
L.A. with him for more research."

""Research'; I like that," Elaine smirked.

"So I write her a letter, pouting out my heart, practically asking her
to marry me ..."

""Practically'?  What is that."?"  Elaine demanded.

"All right, not in so many words, but I think she would have gotten the
idea."  .,.

"She didn't get the idea."?"

"She didn't get the letter.  I gave it to a lady headed for Florida to
Fedex for me, am her plane crashed on takeoff."

"Wow, that's the best excuse I ever heard for not writing," Elaine
said.  "You sure your dog didn't eat it?"

"I swear, I wrote her the letter.  T. eh, before I could write it
again, I get a fax from Arrington saying that she and Calder were
married in Needles, Arizona the day before.  What am I supposed to
do?"

"You were supposed to do it a long time ago," Elaine said.  "Why should
this gorgeous girl wait around for you to get your ass in gearT'

"Maybe, but there was nothing I could do at this point, Elaine.  I was
going to trial in a couple of days; the wonllm's life depended on
me."

"Whe woman might have been better off if you'd gone after Ardngton,"
Dino said, "considering how the trial went."

"Thanks, Dino, I needed that."

"Any time."  "So now Arrington is married to the guy People says is the
sexiest man in America, and I'm..."  His voice trailed off.  "How long
they been married."?"  Elaine asked.  "I don't know--two and a half,
three months."  "It's probably too late," Elaine mused.  "Unless it's
going really badly."  "I've had a couple of letter from her telling me
how gloriously it's going," Stone said glumly.  "Oh," Elaine said. 
There followed a long silence.  Jack came over to the table.  "Phone
call for you, Stone," she said, pointing at one of the two pay phones
on the wall nearby.  "Who is it?"  "I don't know," Jack replied, "but
he's got a beautiful speaking voice on the telephone."  "Must be Vance
Calder," Dino deadpanned.  Elaine burst out laughing.  Stone got up and
trudged over to the phone.  "Hello?"  he said, sticking a finger in the
other ear to blot out some of the noise.  "Stone?"  "Yeah?  Who's
this?" "Stone, this is Vance Calder."  "Yeah, sure; Dino put you up to
this?" "What?"  "Who is this'?."  "It's Vance, Stone."  Stone hung up
the phone and went back to the table.  "Nice," he said to Dino." 
"Huh?"

SWIMMING TO CATALINA

"Guy on the phone says he's Vance Calder.  Thanks a lot."  "Don't thank
me," Dino said.  "I never met the guy."

"You put whoever that was up to it, didn't you?  It was a setup."  He
looked at Elaine.  "You were probably in on it, too."

Elaine placed a hand on her ample bosom.  "Stone, I swear."

Jack came back.  "Same guy on the phone again; says you hung up on him.
You know who it sounds like?"  "Vance Calder?"  Dino suggested. 
"Yeah!" Jack said.  "Sounds just like him!"

After a glare at Dino and Elaine, Stone went back to the phone.
"HelloT'

"Stone, we've met; don't you know my voice?"  "Vance?"  .

"Yes," Calder replied, sounding relieved.  "I'm sorry, I thought
someone ..."  "It's all right; it happens a lot."

"Hello, Vance; how'd you find me here?"

"There was no answer at your house, and I remembered that Arrington
said you were at Elaine's a lot, I took a el,ance."  "How is Arrington,
Vance?"  , "That's what I'm calling about, Stone.  Arrington has
disappeared."

"What do you mean, disappeared?"  "Just that; she's vanished." 
"When?"

"The day before yesterday."

"Have you been to the police?  '

"I can't do that; the tabloids would be all over me.  I need your help,
Stone."

"Vance, you'd really be a lot better off going to the police; there's
nothing I can do."

"Any time."  "So now Arringt0n is married to the guy People says is the
sexiest man in America, and I'm..."  His voice trailed off.  "How long
they been married?"  Elaine asked.  "I don't know--two and a half,
three months."  "It's probably too late," Elaine mused.  "Unless it's
going really badly."  "I we had a couple of letter from her telling me
how gloriously it's going," Stone Said glumly.  "Oh," Elaine said. 
There followed a long silence.  Jack came over to the table.  "Phone
call for you, Stone," she said, pointing at one of the two pay phones
on the wall nearby.  "Who is it?"  "I don't know," Jack replied, "but
he's got a beautiful speaking voice on the telephone."  "Must be Vance
Calder," Dino deadpanned.  Elaine burst out laughing.  Stone got up and
trudged over to the phone.  "Hello?"  he said, sticking a finger in the
other ear to blot out some of the noise.  "Stone?"  "Yeah?  Who's
this?" "Stone, this is Vance Calder."  "Yeah, sure; Dino put you up to
this?" "What?"  "Who is this?"  "It's Vance, Stone."  Stone hung up the
phone and went back to the table.  "Nice," he said to Dino."  "Huh?"

SWIMMING TO CATALINA

"Guy on the phone says he's Vance Calder.  Thanks a lot."  "Don't thank
me," Dino said.  "I never met the guy."

"You put whoever that was up to it, didn't you?  It was a setup."  He
looked-at Elaine.  "You were probably in on it, too."

Elaine placed a hand on her ample bosom.  "Stone, I

swear."

Jack came back.  "Same guy on the phone again; says you hung up on him.
You know who it sounds like?"  "Vance Calder?"  Dino suggested. 
"Yeah!" Jack said.  "Sounds just like him!"

After a glare at Dino and Elaine, Stone went back to the phone.
"Hello?"

"Stone, we've met; don't you know my voice?"  "Vance:?"

"Yes," Calder replied, sounding relieved.  "I'm sorry, I thoulht
someone..."  "It's all right; it happens a lot."

"Hello, Vance; how'd you find me bereT"

"There was no answer at your house, and I remembered that Arrington
said you we at Elaine sa lokI took a el,anceHow is Arrington, Vance?"

"That's what I'm calling about, Stone.  An'ington has disappeared."

"What do you mean, disappeared?"  "Just that; she's vanished." 
"When?"

"The day before yesterday."

"Have you been to the police?"

"I can't do that; the tabloids would be all over me.  I need your help,
Stone."

"Vance, you'd really be a lot better off going to the police; there's
nothing I can do."

'

"Have you heard from her?"  "I had a letter about a month ago; she
sounded very happy."  "She has been very happy, but all of a sudden,
she's gone, with no explanation."  "Vance, I don't know what I can do
to help."  "You can find her, Stone; if anybody can, you can.  I want
you to come out here."  "Vance, really..."  'q'he Centurion Studios jet
is at Teterboro Airport right now, at Atlantic Aviation, waiting for
you. You can be here by morning."  "Vance, I appreciate your confidence
in me, but ..."  "Stone, Arrignton is pregnant."  Stone felt as if he'd
en struck in the chest.  He could count.  "Stone?"  "I'll be at
Teterboro in an hour, Vance."  '3aere'll be a car waiting for you at
the Santa Monica airport."  "Write down everything you can think of,
Vance; we'll have a lot to talk about."  "I will.  And thank you." 
"Don't thank me yet," Stone said, then hung up.  He returned to the
table.  "You're buying dinner, Dino," he said.  "I'm off to Lala Land."
"About what?"  Dino asked.  "I'll tell you later," Stone said.  "Say
hello to Arrington for me," Elaine said, looking at him over her
glasses.  "You bet, Elaine." He pecked her on the cheek, walked out of
the restaurant, and started looking for a cab.