hen I went to sleep that night the videocassette was on the table next to the clock, and it was the first thing my eyes happened to hit the next morning. I left it there and went out to meet the day. That was Thursday, and while I didn’t chase out to Maspeth to watch the fights that night, I did get home in time to catch the main event on television. Somehow it wasn’t the same.

Another day passed before it occurred to me that the cassette belonged in my safety-deposit box, and by then it was Saturday and the bank was closed. I saw Elaine Saturday; we spent the late afternoon browsing through art galleries in SoHo, ate at an Italian place in the Village, and listened to a piano trio at Sweet Basil. It was a day of long silences of the sort possible only for people who have grown very comfortable together. In the cab home we held hands and didn’t say a word.

I had told her earlier about my conversation with Joe, and neither of us returned to the topic that afternoon or evening. The following night Jim Faber and I had our standing Sunday dinner date, and I didn’t discuss the case with him at all. It crossed my mind once or twice in the course of our conversation but it wasn’t something I felt the need to talk about.

It seems odd now, but I didn’t even spend that much time thinking about it for those several days. It’s not as though I had a great deal of other things on my mind. I didn’t, nor did sports provide much in the way of diversion, not in that stretch of frozen desert that extends from the Super Bowl to the start of spring training.

The mind, from what I know of it, has various levels or chambers, and deals with matters in many other ways than conscious thought. When I was a police detective, and since then in my private work, there have not been that many occasions when I sat down and consciously figured something out. Most of the time the accretion of detail ultimately made a solution obvious, but, when some insight on my part was required, it more often than not simply came to me. Some unconscious portion of the mind evidently processed the available data and allowed me to see the puzzle in a new light.

So I can only suppose that I made an unconscious decision to shelve the whole subject of the Stettners for the time being, to put it out of my mind (or, perhaps, into my mind, into some deeper recess of self) until I knew what to do about it.

It didn’t take all that long. As to how well it worked, well, that’s harder to say.

TUESDAY morning I dialed 411 and asked for the number for Bergen Stettner on Central Park South. The operator told me she could not give out that number, but volunteered that she had a business listing for the same party on Lexington Avenue. I thanked her and broke the connection. I called back and got a different operator, a man, and identified myself as a police officer, supplying a name and shield number. I said I needed an unlisted number and gave him the name and address. He gave me the number and I thanked him and dialed it.

A woman answered and I asked for Mr. Stettner. She said he was out and I asked if she was Mrs. Stettner. She took an extra second or two to decide, then allowed that she was.

I said, “Mrs. Stettner, I have something that belongs to you and your husband, and I’m hoping that you’re offering a substantial reward for its return.”

“Who is this?”

“My name is Scudder,” I said. “Matthew Scudder.”

“I don’t believe I know you.”

“We met,” I said, “but I wouldn’t expect you to remember me. I’m a friend of Richard Thurman’s.”

There was a pronounced pause this time, while I suppose she tried to work out whether her friendship with Thurman was a matter of record. Evidently she decided that it was.

“Such a tragic affair,” she said. “It was a great shock.”

“It must have been.”

“And you say you were a friend of his?”

“That’s right. I was also a close friend of Arnold Leveque’s.”

Another pause. “I’m afraid I don’t know him.”

“Another tragic affair.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He’s dead.”

“I’m very sorry, but I never knew the man. If you could tell me what it is you want—”

“Over the phone? Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“My husband’s not here at the moment,” she said. “If you would leave your number perhaps he’ll call you back.”

“I have a tape Leveque made,” I said. “Do you really want me to tell you about it over the phone?”

“No.”

“I want to meet with you privately. Just you, not your husband.”

“I see.”

“Someplace public, but private enough that we won’t be overheard.”

“Give me a moment,” she said. She took a full minute. Then she said, “Do you know where I live? You must, you even have the number. How did you get the number? It’s supposed to be impossible to get an unlisted number.”

“I guess they made a mistake.”

“They wouldn’t make that sort of mistake. Oh, of course, you got it from Richard. But—”

“What?”

“Nothing. You know the address. There is a cocktail lounge right here in the building, it’s always quiet during the day. Meet me there in an hour.”

“Fine.”

“Wait a minute. How will I recognize you?”

“I’ll recognize you,” I said. “Just wear the mask. And leave your shirt off.”

* * *

THE cocktail lounge was called Hadrian’s Wall. Hadrian was a Roman emperor, and the wall named for him was a fortified stone barrier built across the north of England to protect Roman settlements there from barbarous tribes. Any significance the name may have had was lost on me. The decor was expensive and understated, running to red leather banquettes and black mica tables. The lighting was subdued and indirect, the music barely audible.

I got there five minutes early, sat at a table and ordered a Perrier. She arrived ten minutes late, entering from the lobby, standing just inside the archway and trying to scan the room. I stood up to make it easier for her and she walked without hesitation to my table. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” she said. “I’m Olga Stettner.”

“Matthew Scudder.”

She held out her hand and I took it. Her hand was smooth and cool to the touch, her grip strong. I thought of an iron hand in a velvet glove. Her fingernails were long, and the scarlet polish matched her lipstick.

In the video she’d had the same color on the tips of her breasts.

We both sat down, and almost immediately the waiter was at our table. She called him by name and asked for a glass of white wine. I told him he could bring me another Perrier. Neither of us said a word until he had brought the drinks and gone away again. Then she said, “I’ve seen you before.”

“I told you we’d met.”

“Where?” She frowned, then said, “Of course. At the arena. Downstairs. You were skulking around.”

“I was looking for the men’s room.”

“So you said.” She lifted her wine glass and took a small sip, really just wetting her tongue. She was wearing a dark silk blouse and a patterned silk scarf, fastened at her throat with a jeweled pin. The stone looked like lapis and her eyes looked blue, but it was hard to tell colors in the dimly lit lounge.

“Tell me what you want,” she said.

“Why don’t I tell you what I have first.”

“All right.”

I started by saying that I was an ex-cop, which didn’t seem to astonish her. I guess I have the look. I had met a man named Arnold Leveque when we’d pulled him in on a sweep designed to clean up Times Square. Leveque had been a clerk in an adult bookstore, I said, and we’d arrested him for possession and sale of obscene materials.

“Later on,” I said, “something came up and I had occasion to leave the NYPD. Last year I heard from Leveque, who got the word I was working private. Well, I hadn’t seen Arnie in years. He was the same. Fatter, but pretty much the same.”

“I never knew the man.”

“Suit yourself. We got together, and he was being cagey. He told me a story about making a film in somebody’s basement, a home movie with a professional touch in that they hired him to be the cameraman. Personally I don’t think I could get into the mood with a creepy guy like Arnie watching, but I guess it didn’t put you off stride, did it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I wasn’t wearing a wire, but I could have been miked like a soundstage and it wouldn’t have made any difference. She wasn’t giving away a thing. Her eyes made it very clear she was following everything I was saying, but she was very careful not to get caught speaking for the record.

“Like I said,” I went on, “Arnie was cagey. He had a copy of the tape and he was making arrangements to sell it for a lot of money, but of course he was careful not to say how much. At the same time he was afraid the buyer might pull a fast one, and that was where I came in. I was supposed to back him up, make sure the buyer didn’t take him out.”

“And did you do this?”

“That’s where Arnie outsmarted himself,” I said. “See, he wanted a backup man but he didn’t want a partner. He wanted it all for himself. Maybe he’d give me a grand for my troubles. So he kept me in the dark to protect himself from me, and in the meantime he forgot to protect himself from his buyer, because he got knifed to death in an alley in Hell’s Kitchen.”

“How sad for him.”

“Well, these things happen. You know what they say, sometimes it’s a dog-eat-dog world and the rest of the time it’s the other way around. Soon as I heard what happened I went over to his apartment, flashed some tin at the super and had a look around. I didn’t expect to find much because the cops had already been there, and I don’t think they were the first ones in, either, because Arnie’s keys were missing when they found his corpse. So I don’t think I even got sloppy seconds, if you’ll pardon the sexual innuendo, Mrs. Stettner.”

She looked at me.

“The thing is,” I said, “I knew Arnie kept a copy of the tape, because he already told me as much. So I gathered up every cassette in his place. There must have been forty of them, all these old movies that you’d turn off if they were on television. He ate that stuff up. What I did, I sat in front of my set and cranked up my VCR and went through the lot of them. And surprise, one of ’em wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I was zooming through it with the Fast Forward, same as all the others, when all of a sudden the regular picture’s gone and we’re in a room with a teenage boy all hooked up to a metal frame like something out of the Spanish Inquisition, and there’s a beautiful woman in leather pants and gloves and high heels and nothing else. I notice you’re wearing leather pants again today but I don’t suppose they’re the same ones, because the ones on the tape were crotchless.”

“Tell me about the film.”

I recounted enough of it to make it clear I’d seen it. “It wasn’t much on plot,” I said, “but the ending was a pip, and there was this symbolic last shot of blood flowing across the floor and down the drain. That was Arnie at his most creative, you have to give him that, and the black-and-white checkerboard floor was the same as the basement of the arena in Maspeth, and isn’t that a hell of a coincidence?”

She pursed her lips and blew out a stream of air in a soundless whistle. She had half a glass of wine left but she didn’t touch it, reaching instead for my glass of Perrier. She took a sip and put the glass back where she’d found it. The act managed to be curiously intimate.

“You mentioned Richard Thurman,” she said.

“Well, that’s the thing,” I said. “See, I had Arnie’s tape, but what was I going to do with it? The devious bastard never got to the point of saying who the people were. Here I got a tape the principals would be happy to get back, and it would be very much worth my while to perform them the valuable service of recovering it, but how do I find them? I went around with my eyes and ears open, but short of bumping into a man walking down the street in a rubber suit with his dick hanging out, how was I going to get anywhere?”

I picked up my Perrier and turned the glass so that I was sipping from where her lips had touched the glass. A kiss by proxy, you could call it.

“Then Thurman turns up,” I said. “With a dead wife, and public opinion pretty much divided as to whether or not he had anything to do with it. I run into him in a ginmill and because he’s in television we get on the subject of Arnie, who worked for one of the nets before I ever knew him. And strangely enough your name came up.”

“My name?”

“You and your husband. Very distinctive names, easy to remember even after a long night in a saloon. Thurman put away more booze than I did, but he got very cute, lots of hints, lots of innuendo. I figured we’d talk more, but the next thing you knew he was dead. They say he killed himself.”

“It’s very sad.”

“And tragic, like you said over the phone. The same day he got killed I was out in Maspeth. I was going to meet him at the fights and he was going to point out your husband. Thurman didn’t make it, I guess he was already dead by then, but I didn’t need him to point out your husband, because I recognized the two of you. Then I went downstairs and recognized the floor. I couldn’t find the room where you made the movie, but maybe it was one of the locked ones. Or maybe you redecorated since the taping session.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what Thurman was getting at, either, and it doesn’t matter what kind of help he might have had going out the window. What matters is I’m in the fortunate position of being able to do something useful for someone in a position to make it all worth my while.”

“What do you want?”

“What do I want? That’s easy. I want basically the same thing Arnie wanted. Isn’t that pretty much what everybody wants?” Her hand was on the table, inches from mine. I extended a finger and reached to touch the back of her hand. “But I don’t want to get what he got,” I said. “That’s all.”

FOR a long moment she sat looking down at our hands on the tabletop. Then she covered my hand with hers and fastened her eyes on mine. I could see the blue of her eyes now, and the intensity of her gaze held me.

“Matthew,” she said, testing my name on her tongue. “No, I think I will just call you Scudder.”

“Whatever you like.”

She stood up. I thought for a second she was going to leave, but instead she came around the table and motioned for me to inch over to my left. She sat down beside me on the banquette and again put her hand on top of mine.

“Now we’re on the same side,” she said.

She was wearing a lot of perfume. It was musky, which was no great surprise. I hadn’t figured her to go around smelling like a pine tree.

“It was hard to talk,” she said. “You know what I mean, Scudder?” I don’t know that she had an accent, but there was the slightest European inflection to her speech. “How can I say anything? You could be tricking me, all wired up so that anything I say would be recorded.”

“I’m not wearing a wire.”

“How do I know this?” She turned toward me and put her hand on my necktie just below the knot. She ran her hand the length of my tie, slipping it inside the front of my suit jacket. She stroked my shirtfront thoroughly.

“I told you,” I said.

“Yes, you told me,” she murmured. Her mouth was close to my ear and her breath was warm on the side of my face. Her hand dropped to my leg and swept upward along the inside of my thigh. “Did you bring the tape?”

“It’s in a bank vault.”

“That’s a pity. We could go upstairs and watch it. How did it make you feel when you saw it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What kind of an answer is that? Of course you know. It made you hot, didn’t it?”

“I suppose so.”

“You suppose so. You’re hot now, Scudder. You’re hard. I could make you come right now, just by touching you. How would you like that?”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m all hot and wet,” she said. “I have no underpants on. It’s wonderful to wear tight leather pants and no underwear and get all wet inside the leather. Do you want to come upstairs with me? I could fuck you stupid. You remember what I did to that boy?”

“You killed him.”

“You think he had it so bad?” She moved closer, took the lobe of my ear between her teeth. “For three days we fucked his brains out, Bergen and I. We fucked him and sucked him and let him have whatever drugs he wanted. He had a lifetime of pleasure.”

“He didn’t like the ending much.”

“So he had pain. So what?” Her hand stroked me in rhythm with her words. “So he didn’t live a hundred years, he didn’t get to be an old man. Who wants to be an old man?”

“I guess he died happy.”

“That was his name, Happy.”

“I know.”

“You knew that? You know a lot, Scudder. You think you give a shit about the boy? If you care so much about him, how come you got a hard-on?”

A good question. “I never said I cared about him.”

“What do you care about?”

“Getting money for the tape. And living long enough to spend it.”

“And what else?”

“That’s enough for now.”

“You want me, don’t you?”

“People in hell want ice water.”

“But they can’t have it. You could have me if you wanted. We could go upstairs right now.”

“I don’t think so.”

She sat back. “Jesus, you’re tough,” she said. “You’re a hard case, aren’t you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Richard would be under the table by now. He’d be trying to eat me through the leather pants.”

“Look where it got him.”

“He didn’t have it so bad.”

“I know,” I said. “Who wants to be an old man? Look, just because you can give me a hard-on doesn’t mean you can lead me around by it. Of course I want you. I wanted you when I first saw the tape.” I picked up her hand, put it back in her own lap. “After we’ve done our business,” I said, “then I’ll have you.”

“You think so?”

“I think so.”

“You know who you remind me of? Bergen.”

“I don’t look good in black rubber.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“And I’m circumcised.”

“Maybe you can get a transplant. No, you’re like him on the inside, you both have the same hardness. You were a cop.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever kill anybody?”

“Why?”

“You did. You don’t have to answer, I can feel it in you. Did you like it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Are you so sure that’s the truth?”

“ ‘What is truth?’ ”

“Ah, an age-old question. But I think I will sit across the table from you. If we are going to talk business it’s better if we can look at each other.”

* * *

I told her I wasn’t greedy. I wanted a single payment of fifty thousand dollars. They had paid that much to Leveque, although they hadn’t allowed him to keep it. They could pay the same to me. “You could be like him,” she said. “He had a copy, even though he swore he didn’t.”

“He was stupid.”

“To keep a copy?”

“To lie about it. Of course I’ve made a copy. I’ve made two of them. One’s with a lawyer. The other’s in the safe of a private detective. Just in case I get mugged in an alley, or fall out a window.”

“If you have copies you could extort more money from us.”

I shook my head. “The copies are my insurance. And my own intelligence is your insurance. By selling you the tape once I’m not extorting money from you. I’m doing you a favor. If I tried it a second time you’d be better off killing me, and I’m smart enough to know that.”

“And if we don’t pay the first time? You go to the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the tape’s not enough to put you away. No, I’d go to the press. The tabloids could run with the story. They’d know you’ve got too much blood on your hands to bring a libel suit. They’d make things awfully hot for you. You might never face a criminal charge, but you’d get more attention than you’d ever be comfortable with. Your husband’s friends in California wouldn’t be very happy to see you in the limelight that way, and your neighbors might look at you funny in the elevator. You’d pay fifty grand to avoid that kind of publicity, wouldn’t you? Hell, anybody would.”

“It’s a lot of money.”

“You really think so? I don’t know if I could get that much from a tabloid, but I could get half that. If they can’t sell papers with a story like that they’re in the wrong business. I could walk into an office this afternoon and walk out with a check for twenty-five thousand and nobody’d say I was a blackmailer, either. They’d call me a hero investigator, and they’d probably give me an assignment to go out and dig up more dirt.”

“I will have to talk to Bergen. You say it’s not so much money, but it will take time to get it together.”

“The hell it will,” I said. “When a man runs a money laundry it’s not terribly hard for him to put his hands on some cash. You probably keep five times that sitting around the apartment.”

“You have some funny ideas about how business works.”

“I’m sure you can have the money tomorrow night,” I said. “That’s when I want it.”

“God,” she said, “you’re so much like Bergen.”

“Our tastes are different.”

“You think so? Don’t be so sure what your tastes are until you’ve sampled everything on your plate. And you haven’t yet, have you?”

“I haven’t missed too many meals.”

“Bergen will want to meet you.”

“Tomorrow night, when we carry out the transaction. I’ll bring the tape so you can see what you’re buying. Do you have a VCR in Maspeth?”

“You want to make the exchange there? At the arena?”

“I think it’s the safest spot for both sides.”

“God knows it’s private,” she said. “Except for Thursday nights the whole area is a wasteland. And even Thursdays it’s not so busy. Tomorrow is what, Wednesday? I think perhaps that’s possible. Of course I’ll have to talk with Bergen.”

“Of course.”

“What time would you prefer?”

“Late,” I said. “But I can call you later on and we’ll work out the details.”

“Yes.” She looked at her watch. “Call me around four.”

“I will.”

“Good.” She opened her purse, put money on the table for our drinks. “I’ll tell you something, Scudder. I really wanted to go upstairs with you before. I was sopping wet. I wasn’t just putting on an act.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“And you wanted me just as much. But I’m glad we didn’t do anything. You know why?”

“Tell me.”

“Because this way we’ve still got the sexual tension going between us. Can you feel it?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t go away, either. It will still be there tomorrow night. Maybe I’ll wear the crotchless pants to Maspeth. Would you like that?”

“Maybe.”

“And long gloves, and high heels.” She looked at me. “And no shirt.”

“And lipstick on your nipples.”

“Rouge.”

“But the same shade as your lipstick and nail polish.”

“Perhaps we’ll play,” she said. “After we’ve made the switch. Perhaps we’ll have some fun, the three of us.”

“I don’t know.”

“You think we’d try to take the money back? You’d still have the copies. One with the lawyer, one with the private detective.”

“That’s not it.”

“What then?”

“ ‘The three of us.’ I was never one for crowds.”

“You won’t be crowded,” she said. “You’ll have all the room you need.”