went to the eight-thirty meeting at St. Paul's. On the way over it had crossed my mind that I might run into Pete Khoury there, but he didn't show up. Afterward I helped fold chairs, then joined a group of people for coffee at the Flame. I didn't stay there long, though, because by eleven I was at Poogan's Pub on West Seventy-second Street, one of the two places where Danny Boy Bell could generally be found between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. The rest of the time you couldn't count on finding him anywhere.

His other place is a jazz club called Mother Goose on Amsterdam. Poogan's was closer, so I tried it first. Danny Boy was at his usual table in back, deep in conversation with a dark-skinned black man with a pointed chin and a button nose. He was wearing wraparound sunglasses with mirrored lenses and a powder-blue suit with more in the shoulders than God or Gold's Gym could have put there. A little cocoa-brown straw hat perched on top of his head, adorned with a flamingo-pink hatband.

I had a Coke at the bar and waited while he finished his business with Danny Boy. After five minutes or so he uncoiled himself from his chair, clapped Danny Boy on the shoulder, laughed heartily, and headed for the street. I turned around to get my change from the bar, and when I turned back again his place had been taken by a balding white man with a brushy mustache and a belly straining at his shirtfront. I hadn't recognized the first fellow, other then generically, but I knew this man. His name was Selig Wolf and he owned a couple of parking lots and took bets on sporting events. I had arrested him once ages ago on an assault charge, but the complainant had decided not to press it.

When Wolf left I took my second Coke with me and sat down. "Busy evening," I said.

"I know," Danny Boy said. "Pick a number and wait, it's getting as bad as Zabar's. It's good to see you, Matthew. I saw you before but I had to suffer through the hour of the Wolf. You must know Selig."

"Sure, but I didn't know the other fellow. He's head of fundraising for the United Negro College Fund, right?"

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste," he said solemnly. "To think you would waste yours judging by appearances. The gentleman was wearing a sartorial classic, Matthew, known as the zoot suit. That's a zoot suit, you know, with a drape shape and a reet pleat. My father had one in his closet, a souvenir of his flaming youth. Every now and then he would take it out and threaten to wear it, and my mother would roll her eyes."

"Good for her."

"His name is Nicholson James," Danny Boy said. "It should have been James Nicholson, but the names were reversed on some official document early on and he decided it had more style that way. You might say it goes with his retro fashion statement. Mr. James is a pimp."

"Go figure. I never would have guessed."

Danny Boy poured himself some vodka. His own fashion statement was one of quiet elegance, a tailored dark suit and tie, a boldly patterned red-and-black vest. He is a very short, slightly built albino African-American— it would be way off the mark to call him black, since he's anything but. He spends his nights in saloons, and he's partial to dim lighting and low noise levels. He's as rigid as Dracula about not venturing out in daylight, and rarely answers the phone or the door during those hours. Every night, though, he's in Poogan's or Mother Goose, listening to people and telling them things.

"Elaine's not with you," he said.

"Not tonight."

"Give her my love."

"I will," I said. "I brought you something, Danny Boy."

"Oh?"

I palmed him a pair of hundreds. He looked at the money without flashing it, then glanced at me with his eyebrows elevated.

"I have a prosperous client," I said. "He wants me to take cabs."

"Did you want me to call you one?"

"No, but I thought I ought to spread a little of his dough around. All you have to spread is the word."

"What word is that?"

I ran through the official story without mentioning Kenan Khoury's name. Danny Boy listened, frowning occasionally in concentration. When I finished he took out a cigarette, looked at it for a moment, then put it back in the pack.

"A question arises," he said.

"Go."

"Your client's wife is out of the country, and presumably safe from those who would harm her. So he assumes they'll direct their attention at someone else."

"Right."

"Well, why should he care? I love the idea of a public-spirited dope dealer, like all those marijuana growers in Oregon who make huge anonymous cash donations to Earth First and the eco-saboteurs. Well, when I was growing up I liked Robin Hood, as far as that goes. But what difference does it make to your man if the bad guys snatch somebody else's sweetie? They get the ransom and that just leaves one of his competitors in a negative cash-flow situation, that's all. Or they screw up and that's the end of them. As long as his own wife's out of the picture—"

"Jesus, it was a perfectly good story until I told it to you, Danny Boy."

"Sorry."

"His wife didn't make it out of the country. They snatched her and they killed her."

"He tried to stonewall? Wouldn't pay the ransom?"

"He paid four hundred large. They killed her anyway." His eyes widened. "Your ears only," I added. "The death isn't being reported, so that part of it shouldn't get out on the street."

"I understand. Well, that makes his motive easier to grasp. He wants to get even. Any idea who they are?"

"No."

"But you figure they'll do it again."

"Why quit on a winning roll?"

"Nobody ever does." He helped himself to more vodka. At both of his regular places they bring him the bottle in an ice bucket, and he drinks great quantities of it without paying much attention to it, just drinking it down like water. I don't know where he puts it, or how his body processes it.

He said, "How many bad guys?"

"Minimum of three."

"Splitting four tenths of a mil. They might be taking cabs a lot themselves, don't you think?"

"I had that thought myself."

"So if somebody's throwing a lot of money around, that would be useful information."

"It might."

"And the drug dealers, especially the major players, should get the word that they're at risk for kidnapping. They might just as easily grab a dealer, don't you think? It wouldn't have to be a woman."

"I'm not sure about that."

"Why's that?"

"I think they enjoyed the killing. I think they got off on it. I think they used her sexually, and I think they tortured her, and then when the novelty wore off they killed her."

"The body showed signs of torture?"

"The body came back in twenty or thirty pieces, individually wrapped. And that's not for the street, either. I hadn't planned on mentioning it."

"I'd just as soon you hadn't, to tell you the truth. Matthew, is it my imagination or is the world turning nastier?"

"It doesn't seem to be lightening up."

"It doesn't, does it? Remember the Harmonic Convergence, all the planets lining up like soldiers? Wasn't that supposed to signal the dawn of some kind of New Age?"

"I'm not holding my breath."

"Well, they say it's always darkest before the dawn. I see what you mean, though. If killing's part of the fun, and if they're into rape and torture, well, they won't pick some raggedy-ass dope dealer with a beer gut and a five o'clock shadow. Nothing queer about these fellows."

"No."

He thought for a moment. "They'll have to do it again," he said. "They could hardly be expected to quit after a score like that. I wonder, though."

"If they've done it before? I was wondering the same thing myself."

"And?"

"They were pretty slick," I said. "I get the feeling they had some practice."

FIRST thing after breakfast the next morning I walked over to the Midtown North station house on West Fifty-fourth. I caught Joe Durkin at his desk, and he caught me off balance by complimenting me on my appearance. "You're dressing better these days," he said. "I think it's that woman's doing. Elaine, right?"

"That's right."

"Well, I think she's a good influence on you."

"I'm sure she is," I said, "but what the hell are you talking about?"

"That's a nice-looking jacket, that's all."

"This blazer? It must be ten years old."

"Well, you never wear it."

"I wear it all the time."

"Maybe it's the tie."

"What's so special about the tie?"

"Jesus Christ," he said. "Did anybody ever tell you you're a difficult son of a bitch? I tell you you look nice and the next thing I know I'm on the fucking witness stand. How about we start over? 'Hello, Matt, it's great to see you. You look like shit. Have a seat.' Is that better?"

"Much better."

"I'm glad. Sit down. What brings you here?"

"I had the urge to commit a felony."

"I know the feeling. There's hardly a day goes by that I don't get the urge myself. You got any particular felony in mind?"

"I was thinking of a class D felony."

"Well, we got lots of those. Criminal possession of forgery devices is a class D felony, and you're probably committing that one at this very minute. You got a pen in your pocket?"

"Two pens and a pencil."

"Gee, it sounds as though I better Mirandize you and get you booked and printed. But I don't suppose that's the class D felony you had in mind."

I shook my head. "I was thinking of violating Section Two Hundred Point Zero Zero of the Criminal Code."

"Two Hundred Point Zero Zero. You're gonna make me look that up, aren't you?"

"Why not?"

He gave me a look, then reached for a black looseleaf binder and flipped through it. "It's a familiar number," he said. "Oh, right, here we are. 'Two Hundred Point Zero Zero. Bribery in the third degree. A person is guilty of bribery in the third degree when he confers, or offers or agrees to confer, any benefit upon a public servant upon an agreement or understanding that such public servant's vote, opinion, judgment, action, decision or exercise of discretion as a public servant will thereby be influenced. Bribery in the third degree is a class D felony.' " He went on reading silently for a moment, then said, "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to violate Section Two Hundred Point Zero Three?"

"What's that?"

"That's bribery in the second degree. It's the same as the other only it's a class C felony. To qualify for Bribery Two, the benefit you confer or offer or agree to confer, Jesus, don't you love the way they word these things, the benefit has to be in excess of ten thousand dollars."

"Ah," I said. "I think class D is my limit."

"I was afraid of that. Can I ask you something? Before you commit your class D felony? How many years has it been since you were on the job?"

"It's been a while."

"So how'd you remember the class of felony, let alone the article number?"

"I've got that kind of memory."

"Bullshit. They've renumbered the sections over the years, they've changed half the book at one time or another. I just want to know how you did it."

"You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"I looked it up in Andreotti's book on my way up here."

"Just to break my balls, right?"

"Just to keep you on your toes."

"Only my best interests at heart."

"Absolutely," I said. I'd set aside a bill in my jacket pocket earlier, and I palmed it now and tucked it into the pocket where he keeps his cigarettes, except during those intervals when he swears off and smokes other people's. "Buy yourself a suit," I told him.

We were all alone in the office, so he took the bill out and examined it. "We'll have to update the terminology. A hat's twenty-five dollars, a suit's a hundred. I don't know what a decent hat costs these days, I can't remember the last time I bought one. But I don't know where you'd get a suit for a hundred bucks outside a thrift shop. 'Here's a hundred bucks, take your wife to dinner.' What's this for, anyway?"

"I need a favor."

"Oh?"

"There was a case I read about," I said. "Had to be six months ago and it could have been as much as a year. Couple of guys grabbed a woman off the street, rode off with her in a truck. She turned up a few days later in the park."

"Dead, I'm assuming."

"Dead."

" 'Police suspect foul play.' Can't say it rings a bell. It wasn't one of our cases, was it?"

"It wasn't even Manhattan. I seem to remember that she turned up on a golf course in Queens, but it could as easily have been somewhere in Brooklyn. I didn't pay any attention at the time, it was just an item I read while I drank a second cup of coffee."

"And what do you want now?"

"I want my memory refreshed."

He looked at me. "You're getting pretty free with a buck, aren't you? Why make a donation to my wardrobe fund when you could go to the library, look it up in the Times Index?"

"Under what? I don't know where or when it happened or any of the names. I'd have to scan every issue for the last year, and I don't even know what paper I read it in. It may not have made the Times."

"Be easier if I made a couple of phone calls."

"That's what I was thinking."

"Why don't you take a walk? Have yourself a cup of coffee. Get yourself a table at the Greek place on Eighth Avenue. I'll probably drop in there an hour from now, have myself some coffee and a piece of Danish."

Forty minutes later he came to my table in the coffee shop at Eighth and Fifty-third. "Just over a year ago," he said. "Woman named Marie Gotteskind. What's that mean, God is kind?"

"I think it means 'child of God.' "

"That's better, because God wasn't kind to Marie. She was reported abducted in broad daylight while shopping on Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven. Two men drove off with her in a truck, and three days later a couple of kids walking across the Forest Park Golf Course came upon her body. Sexual assault, multiple stab wounds. The One-Oh-Four caught the case and bounced it back to the One-Twelve once they ID'd her, because that was where the original abduction took place."

"They get anywhere?"

He shook his head. "Guy I talked to remembered the case well enough. It had people in the neighborhood pretty shook up for a couple of weeks there. Respectable woman walks down the street, couple of clowns grab her, it's like getting struck by lightning, you know what I mean? If it can happen to her it can happen to anybody, and you're not even safe in your own home. They were afraid there'd be more of the same, gang rape on wheels, the whole serial-killer bit. What was that case in L.A., they made a miniseries out of it?"

"I don't know."

"Two Italian guys, I think they were cousins. They were doing hookers and leaving them up in the hills. Hillside Strangler, that's what they called it. Stranglers, it should have been, but I guess the media named the case before they knew it was more than one person."

"The woman in Woodhaven," I said.

"Right. They were afraid she was the first of a series, but then there weren't any more and everybody relaxed. They still put a lot of effort into the case but nothing led anywhere. It's an open file now, and the thinking is that the only way they'll break it is if the perps get caught doing it again. He asked if we had anything tied into it. Do we?"

"No. What did the woman's husband do, did you happen to notice?"

"I don't think she was married. I think she was a schoolteacher. Why?"

"She live alone?"

"What difference does it make?"

"I'd love to see the file, Joe."

"You would, huh? Whyntcha ride out to the One-Twelve and ask them to show it to you."

"I don't think that would work."

"You don't, huh? You mean there are cops in this town won't go out of their way to do a favor for a private license? Jesus, I'm shocked."

"I'd appreciate it."

"A phone call or two's one thing," he said. "I didn't have to commit a flagrant breach of departmental regulations and neither did the guy on the job in Queens. But you're asking for disclosure of confidential materials. That file's not supposed to leave the office."

"It doesn't have to. All he has to do is take five minutes to fax it."

"You want the whole file? Full-scale homicide investigation, there's got to be twenty, thirty pages in that file."

"The department can afford the fax charges."

"I don't know," he said. "The mayor keeps telling us the city's going broke. What's your interest in it, anyway?"

"I can't say."

"Well, Jesus Christ, Matt. You want it all flowing in one direction, don't you?"

"It's a confidential matter."

"No shit. It's confidential, but departmental files are an open book, is that it?" He lit a cigarette and coughed. He said, "This wouldn't have anything to do with a friend of yours, would it?"

"I don't follow you."

"Your buddy Ballou. This got anything to do with him?"

"Of course not."

"You sure of that?"

"He's out of the country," I said. "He's been gone for over a month and I don't know when he's coming back. And he's never been big on raping women and leaving them in the middle of the fairway."

"I know, he's a gentleman, he replaces all divots. They're looking to put together a RICO case against him, but I suppose you already knew that."

"I heard something about it."

"I hope they make it stick, tuck him away in a federal joint for the next twenty years. But I suppose you feel differently."

"He's a friend of mine."

"Yeah, so I've been told."

"Anyway, he's got nothing to do with this matter." He just looked at me, and I said, "I have a client whose wife disappeared. The MO looks similar to the Woodhaven incident."

"She was abducted?"

"It looks that way."

"He report it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I guess he had his reasons."

"That's not good enough, Matt."

"Suppose he's in the country illegally."

"Half the city's in the country illegally. You think we catch a kidnap case, the first thing we do is turn the victim over to the INS? And who is this guy, he can't swing a green card but he's got the money for a private investigator? Sounds to me like he's got to be dirty."

"Whatever you say."

"Whatever I say, huh?" He put out the cigarette and frowned at me. "The woman dead?"

"It's beginning to look that way. If it's the same people—"

"Yeah, but why would it be the same people? What's the connection, the MO of the abduction?" When I didn't say anything he picked up the check, glanced at it, and tossed it across the table to me. "Here," he said. "Your treat. You still at the same number? I'll call you this afternoon."

"Thanks Joe."

"No, don't thank me. I have to figure out if there's any way this is going to come back and haunt me. If not I'll make the call. Otherwise forget it."

I WENT to the noon meeting at Fireside, then back to my room. There was nothing from Durkin, but a message slip indicated that I'd had a call from TJ. Just that— no number, no further message. I crumpled the slip and tossed it.

TJ is a black teenager I met about a year and a half ago on Times Square. That's his street name, and if he has another name he's kept it to himself. I'd found him breezy and saucy and irreverent, a breath of fresh air in the fetid swamp of Forty-second Street, and the two of us had hit it off together. I let him do some minor legwork on a case a little later on with a Times Square handle on it, and since then he'd kept in infrequent contact. Every couple of weeks there would be a call or a series of calls from him. He never left a number and I had no way of getting in touch with him, so his messages were just a way of letting me know he was thinking of me. If he really wanted to contact me he'd keep calling until he caught me at home.

When he did, we sometimes talked until his quarter ran out, or sometimes we would meet in his neighborhood or mine and I would buy him a meal. Twice I'd given him little jobs to do in connection with cases I was working, and he seemed to get a kick out of the work that couldn't be explained by the small sums I paid him.

I went to my room and called Elaine. "Danny Boy says hello," I said. "And Joe Durkin says you're a good influence on me."

"Of course I am," she said. "But how does he know?"

"He says I'm better dressed since we started keeping company."

"I told you that new suit is special."

"That's not what I was wearing."

"Oh."

"I was wearing my blazer. I've had the damn thing forever."

"Well, it still looks nice. Gray slacks with it? Which shirt and tie?" I told her, and she said, "Well, that's a nice outfit."

"Pretty ordinary, though. I saw a zoot suit last night."

"Honestly?"

"With a drape shape and a reet pleat, according to Danny Boy."

"Danny Boy wasn't wearing a zoot suit."

"No, it was an associate of his named— well, it doesn't matter what his name was. He was also wearing a straw hat with a shocking-pink band. Now if I'd worn something like that to Durkin's office—"

"He would have been impressed. Maybe it's something in your stance, honey, maybe it's an attitude thing that Durkin's picking up on. You're wearing your clothes with more authority."

"Because my heart is pure."

"That must be it."

We kibitzed a little more. She had a class that night and we talked about getting together afterward but decided against it. "Tomorrow's better," she said. "Maybe a movie? Except I hate to go on the weekend, everything decent is mobbed. I know, maybe an afternoon movie and dinner after it, assuming you're not working." I told her that sounded good.

I hung up and the man on the desk rang to say I'd had a call while I was on the phone with Elaine. They've changed the phone system a few times since I've been at the Northwestern. Originally all calls had to go through the switchboard. Then they fixed it so you could dial out directly, but incoming calls were still routed through the board. Now I have a direct line for making or receiving calls, but if I don't pick up after four rings it gets transferred downstairs. I get my own bill from NYNEX, the hotel doesn't impose any charges, and I come out of it with a free answering service.

The call was from Durkin, and I rang him back. "You left something here," he said. "You want to pick it up or should I toss it?"

I said I'd be right over.

He was on the phone when I got to the squad room. He had his chair tilted back and he was smoking a cigarette while another one burned up in the ashtray. At the desk next to his, a detective named Bellamy was peering over the tops of his eyeglasses at the screen of his computer.

Joe covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, "I think that's your envelope there, it's got your name on it. You left it when you were here earlier."

Without waiting for a reply he went back to his conversation. I reached over his shoulder and picked up a nine-by-twelve manila clasp envelope with my name on it. Behind me, Bellamy told the computer, "Well, that makes no fucking sense at all."

I didn't argue the point.