"Why not just take the idea and run with it?" I said.

"Could," Arnie said. "Thing is, we ain't really interested in being in the whore business. Dion don't actually approve of it. But this thing falls in our lap. We consider it. But we got to start from scratch. We got better things to do."

"How'd they get to you in the first place?"

Arnie smiled.

"Brooks," he said.

"Figures," I said. "How'd he know them?"

"Knew Farnsworth in Allenwood."

"Brooks has done time?" I said.

"You wanna call it that," Arnie said. "Six months watching TV."

"So Brooks likes this idea?"

"Brooks trying to be a player."

"Genes seem to thin out, don't they," I said, "as the generations proceed."

"He ain't Dion," Arnie said. "But he's Dion's kid. We look out for him."

"So it doesn't matter whether he likes this deal or not."

"No, not really," Arnie said.

"So without Patricia Utley, there's no deal."

"We might go for an arrangement," Arnie said, "where we had one of our people running it."

I nodded.

"You have people that know the whorehouse business?" I said.

"The broad and Lionel can run that part," Arnie said. "Our guy would run the books."

"Where do you stand now with them?" I said.

"They'll get back to us," Arnie said. "Why you after April Kyle?"

"I'm trying to save her," I said.

"From what?"

"I don't know," I said.

When I got back to the hotel, there was a message on my voice mail.

"Corsetti. Meet me at Farnsworth's place."

Talkative.

I decided I could walk there as fast as I could cab, so I did. When I got to Central Park West I saw the police vehicles, five or six of them, including the coroner's wagon. Half a dozen uniforms were standing outside, giving the hard eye to pedestrians. The doorman was standing around in a state of proprietary uncertainty.

"Detective Corsetti told me to meet him here," I said to a thick uniform by the front door.

"Yeah? What's your name?" the uniform said.

"Spenser," I said.

"What's he want to see you about?"

"He didn't say."

The cop looked annoyed. He turned and opened the little brass door and took out the house phone. He looked at it for a moment, then turned to the doorman.

"You," he said. "Dial the apartment, ask for Corsetti, gimme the phone."

"You bet," the doorman said and did it.

"Flanagan, on the front door, Detective. Guy down here named"-he looked at me-"whaddid you say your name was?"

"Spenser."

"Spenser," the cop said into the phone. "What, okay Detective, okay."

He handed the phone back to the doorman. And jerked his head at me.

"Go ahead," he said.

It sounded as if he didn't like saying it.

When I got off the elevator, there were two more uniforms in the hallway outside Farnsworth's apartment.

"Corsetti?" I said.

"You Spenser?"

"Yeah."

One of the cops jerked his head at the apartment door, and I went in. There were technicians at work and several detectives standing around with notebooks. One was Corsetti.

On the floor among them was a body, with a crime-scene guy crouched beside it.

"Farnsworth?" I said to Corsetti.

"Probably," Corsetti said. "You know him, take a look."

I stepped over and looked. It was not a fresh kill.

"Yeah," I said. "Farnsworth."

"Cleaning service comes once a week," Corsetti said. "They came in this morning and found him."

"How long?" I said.

Corsetti glanced at his notebook.

"Yesterday sometime," he said. "Small-caliber gun. Several wounds. Won't know exactly how many until they get him on the table downtown. No shell casings."

"So probably a revolver," I said.

"Or a neat shooter," Corsetti said.

"And a cool one," I said. "Fire off several rounds in a residential building and stop to police the brass?"

"If he did, he got away with it," Corsetti said.

"Good point," I said.

"You know anything about this?" Corsetti said.

"No."

"Where's your little girl friend?"

"April? I don't know."

It was technically not a lie. I didn't know exactly where she was.

Corsetti nodded.

"How about Patricia Utley?" he said.

"Wow," I said, "you remembered."

"Of course I remembered. How do you think I made detective?"

"I was wondering about that," I said.

"You got any reason to think she could have shot Lionel?"

"You know what I know," I said. "There was some conflict over this deal with the DeNuccis. But nothing should make her shoot him."

"Just run through it again for me," Corsetti said.

I did, including the part where April smacked her around.

"Maybe she lied about who hit her," Corsetti said. "Maybe it was Farnsworth slapped her around. Maybe she got even."

"Doesn't seem like Farnsworth's style," I said.

Corsetti nodded.

"Small-caliber gun," he said, "like a woman would use."

"Yeah," I said, "sure. You know and I know that most people use the gun they can get their hands on, not the gun ideally suited to them."

"Just a thought," Corsetti said. "What do you think about the DeNuccis?"

"My guess, no," I said. "Talking to Arnie Fisher, I think they will do the deal on their terms or not at all, and they don't much care which."

"'Course that's what Arnie says."

"And I'm a gullible guy," I said.

"Aren't we all," Corsetti said.

"Lionel let the shooter in?" I said.

"Apparently," Corsetti said. "No sign of forced entry. No sign of socializing, either, no wineglasses, no coffee cups. Bed was made. Cleaning people say he normally left it on made on the day they came, so they could change the linen and make it."

"So he didn't sleep in it last night," I said.

Corsetti nodded, looking down at the corpse.

"Lionel probably slept right here last night," he said. "You run into April, you'll let me know."

"You bet," I said.

I got home from New York around two in the afternoon. I stood for a while and enjoyed it. The silence in my apartment. The lack of clutter. The mine-ness. I looked at Susan's picture on my mantel. She'd be with patients until five today. Then she had a seminar she was giving at Harvard. Tomorrow she was mine. I went into the bedroom and unpacked. At quarter to three, Hawk showed up and we sat at my kitchen counter and had a beer.

"Where is April?" I said.

"In the mansion," Hawk said. "I stopped by, told her I was in the neighborhood. See if she was okay."

"She okay?"

"Oh, yeah," Hawk said.

We were quiet. Hawk's face showed nothing. But there was something.

"What?" I said.

"I think she have a new man in her life," Hawk said.

"Who?"

Hawk studied the label on the beer bottle. Blue Moon Belgian White.

"How come this Belgian stuff brewed in Denver?" he said.

"Nothing is as it seems," I said. "Who's the new man?"

Hawk smiled. There was always something radiant about Hawk's smile. It came so suddenly and passed so quickly, and yet seemed so genuine in its short span.

"Me," Hawk said.

I was silent for a moment.

Then I said, "Oh, Christ."

"Yep," Hawk said. "She say since she first saw me she attracted."

"Isn't everybody," I said.

"True," he said. "She say she tried not to let herself feel that way, but she wasn't strong enough. She suggested carnal relations."

I waited.

"I tole her I tried to take Thursdays off," Hawk said. "Rest up for the weekend."

"How'd she take that?"

"Sort of rattled her," Hawk said. "But she kept her focus. She say, 'Okay, let's have dinner tomorrow.' "

"What does she want?" I said.