She grabbed him by one arm, spun him around and slammed him back against the wall of the elevator. With one foot, she knocked his legs apart. When he was spread-eagle and somewhere between surprise and soiling his pants, she said, "If you move, I'm going to hurt you. You got that?"

He nodded and then froze. She padded him down, and then her free hand moved around to the front of his belt and unhooked the heavy metal object.

"You can turn around now, Herbert."

He was still for a moment longer in the attitude of a specimen mounted on a collector's wall. He slowly straightened up and turned to face her, looking up and clearly hating her for being tall, amongst her other crimes against him.

"What's this?" She dangled the speedloader by its strap.

"I bought it from a guy at my gun club."

"Where's the gun?"

"I don't have one."

"That doesn't work for me, Herbert. A speedloader and no gun?"

"I don't have a gun. The city's jerking me around on the license. My lawyer's working on it. Ask Edith Candle. She knows. I asked her for the name of a lawyer. I only practise shooting with the guns at the club."

"Where's the gun club?"

"West Fourteenth Street."

"Barry Allen's place?"

"Yes. He'll tell you the same thing. Check it out. Ask Barry, ask Edith."

"I will."

She pressed the button to open the doors to the third-floor hallway. She stepped out of the elevator, turned and tossed the speedloader back to him. He reached out for it and clutched air as it fell between his outstretched hands and rolled to the back of the elevator. He was on his knees when the doors closed on him.

It made sense to her. Herbert wasn't the type to have connections to buy stolen, unregistered guns. Barry Allen was an ex-cop with a good reputation – no worries there. But how long would it be before a buddy at the gun club sold the little jerk a gun?

She dismissed the little man and turned her thoughts back to the argument with Charles. She had understood him well enough. She would have done serious damage to anyone who had maligned Helen or Markowitz. So she would let the stock scam go by. But damned if she would let slide the mention of Pearl Whitman of Whitman Chemicals in the SEC reports. Markowitz had once told her half of police work was tracking down the linkages of persons known to those unknown. Pearl Whitman had known her killer. Perhaps Edidi Candle knew him too. This was her thought as she pressed the buzzer of apartment 3B.

There were muffled interior sounds of footsteps approaching, but no metallic clicks of locks being undone. The door opened on a comfortably rounded woman with white hair and the whitest skin Mallory had ever seen on a living human. It was luminous. Edith Candle smiled as though she were facing a long-anticipated friend, and not an unannounced, total stranger. Mallory found this attitude far from the basic New York religion of security which mandated one deadbolt and two sturdy Yale locks, a Dobermann, a pit bull, and a peephole in the door. "I'm a friend of Charles Butler."

"Well, any friend of Charles is welcome in my home." She stood to one side, inviting Mallory to pass through the door. As they walked into the brighter light of the living room, Edith Candle failed all of Mallory's expectations for a stock-swindler. She was small in stature. Her head was disproportionately large, and a neat bun gathered at the nape of her neck. The lace collar of her wildly out-of-date dress disappeared under three chins. Her hands were knots of arthritis, and she wore glasses with thick lenses which made her eyes into expectant blue saucers.

Mallory was being pulled into the room by the gentle touch of a warm pudgy white hand on her arm. "Sit down, – dear. I'll put on the coffee pot. Or would you rather have wine?"

"Coffee is fine, thanks."

She had learned enough from Charles to know the antique furniture was not a collection of cheap knock-offs. The room also housed a clutter of pricey bric-a-brac, porcelain figurines and silver candy dishes, frilly lampshades, small clusters of photographs on each broad window-sill, everything designed to catch and trap dust, yet nothing did. The air smelled of pine scent and furniture wax, all the sensory cues of Helen Markowitz, world's foremost homemaker. Another familiar aroma was emanating from the kitchen, lingering after-dinner traces of pot roast from a thousand Sunday dinners and Monday-morning lunch boxes.

"Who was she?"

Mallory spun on the woman suddenly and startled Edith Candle backward a step to collide with a chair and set it to rocking. The old woman adjusted her balance and her glasses. The chair continued to rock as though inhabited.

"There are memories of a woman here, aren't there?" The old woman sat down on the couch and automatically readjusted a doily on the padded arm. "There's certainly nothing in this room to say a man lived here. Was it your mother you were thinking of?"

"I never knew my mother."

"You breathed deep. There are no flowers in the air, only the smell of a good cleaning. And you approved the order of things. That was in your face. Apparently, you were raised right. Someone loved you. Who was she?"

"Helen. You say was. How did you know she was dead?"

"You were looking at a memory."

Oh Christ. So this is where Charles got it from.

"Yes, dear," she was saying when they were seated in the spacious kitchen and sipping their coffee. Edith Candle pushed a plate of brownies across the table. "His parents used to visit quite often when Charles was a child. Did you know his mother gave birth at the outrageous age of fifty-six? The Butlers were lovely people. Max and I took care of little Charles when his parents attended university conferences out of town. I used to take him to the park and watch him make false starts with the other children. He was always so hopeful and always being crushed to death. His IQ alone was enough to set him apart, but then his appearance didn't help. He was born with that nose, you know. The only newborn I ever saw with a big nose. I also spent a lot of time with him when he was doing post-doc research. He used me as a test subject. I used to be a psychic, you know."

"I know. We're working on a case with a fake medium now."

There was a humorous glint in the woman's eye at the drop of the word fake.

"Oh well, you came to the right person. I probably know every scam there is. But you should be a bit more open-minded. Charles can tell you that some of them have genuine gifts, an aptitude for reading souls. What I read in yours, my dear, is pain… killer pain."

Two cups of coffee later, Edith Candle was opening the door at the end of the hallway. Mallory followed the old woman onto the small platform which joined the wrought-iron staircase in the progress of its winding. The railing spiraled down and around in a pattern of stark white walls and black metal. Spindle shadows slanted against the rounding stairwell, and naked light bulbs radiated from the doors of the lower platforms leading to each level of the building.

Mallory descended the stairs in the wake of Edith Candle's foray into the world beyond her five rooms. They walked down and around the circling stairs, passing the doors marked for the second and first floors, on down to the basement level and the last door. This had to be the only door without a lock in all of New York City. She put out one hand to gently restrain the old woman. She was aware of the heavy gun in her shoulder holster as she pushed through the door and into the darkness. One hand felt along the wall left of the door, seeking and rinding the light switch. It didn't work.

"There's a flashlight on top of the fuse box, dear," said the old woman behind her.

Mallory opened the door wide to admit more light from the stairwell. A fuse box was mounted on the wall to the left of the door frame. She reached up and touched the flashlight on the top of the box. It lit up at the press of the button and she turned it on the fuse box. All the fuses were good. She tested a fuse connection, turning the glass knob.