The clerk looked up at her from behind a Plexiglas security barrier that distorted his features. A thin man, hair slicked back, wearing a dress shirt and rust-colored corduroy pants. The shirt had dark stains, the pants, light.

"Yeah?" he called.

"I'm a social worker from Brooklyn?" Rune said.

"You asking me?"

"I'm telling you who I am."

"Yeah, a social worker."

"I'm trying to find some information about a patient of mine, a man who stayed here for a month or so."

"Don't you call 'em clients?"

"What?"

"We get social workers here all the time. They don't have patients. They have clients."

"One of my clients," she corrected herself.

"You got a license?"

"A license? A driver's license? Look, I'm older than I-"

"No, a social work license."

A license?

"Oh, that. See, I was mugged last week when I was on assignment. In Bedford Stuyvesant. Visiting a client. They took my purse-my other purse, my good purse- and that had my license in it. I've applied for a new one but you know how long it takes to get a replacement?"

"Tell me."

"Worse than a passport. I'm talking weeks."

The man was grinning. "Where'd you go to social work school?"

"Harvard."

"No shit." The smile didn't leave his face. "If there's nothing else, I'm pretty busy." He picked up a National Geographic and flipped it open.

"Look, I have my job to do. I have to find out about this man. Robert Kelly."

The clerk glanced up from his magazine. He didn't say anything. But Rune, even through the scuffed plastic, could see caution in his eyes.

She continued. "I know he stayed here for a while. I think somebody named Raoul Elliott recommended that he come here."

"Raoul? Nobody's named Raoul."

Summoning patience, Rune asked, "Do you remember Mr. Kelly?"

He shrugged.

She continued. "Did he check anything here? A suitcase? Maybe a package in the safe?"

"Safe? We look like the kinda hotel's gotta safe?"

"It's important."

Again, the man didn't respond. Suddenly Rune understood. She'd seen enough movies. She lifted her purse slowly and opened it, reached in and took out five dollars. She slid it seductively toward him. Just like an actor in a movie she'd seen a month or so ago. Harrison Ford, she thought. Or Michael Douglas.

That actor'd gotten results; she got a laugh.

Rune gave the clerk another ten.

"Look, kid. The going rate's fifty for information. That's the way it is all over the city. It's like a union."

Fifty? Shit.

She handed him a twenty. "That's all 1 got."

He took the money. "I don't know nothing-"

"You bastard! I want my money back."

"-except one thing. About your client Kelly. This priest or minister, Father so-and-so, called, I don't know, a couple days ago. He said Kelly'd dropped off a suitcase for safekeeping. He couldn't get him at his apartment and had this as his only other number. This priest figured I might know where Kelly was. He didn't know what to do with the suitcase."

Yes! Rune thought. Remembering the scene in Manhattan Is My Beat where Roy buried the money in a cemetery next to a church!

"Excellent, that's great! You know where the church was? You have any idea?"

"I didn't write nothing down. But I think he said he was in Brooklyn."

"Brooklyn!" Rune's hands were up against the grimy Plexiglas. She leaned forward, bouncing on her toes. "This's awesome!" _s

The man slipped her money into his pocket. "Well, happy day." He opened the magazine again and began reading an article about penguins.

Outside, she found a pay phone and called Amanda LeClerc.

"Amanda, it's Rune. How are you?"

"Been better. Missing him, you know? Robert… Only knew him for a little while but I miss him more than some people I knew for years and years. I was thinking about it. And you know what I thought?"

"What's that?"

"That maybe because we weren't so young no more we got to be more closer faster. Sort of like there wasn't a lot of time ahead of us."

"I miss him too, Amanda," Rune said.

"Haven't heard nothing about Mr. Symington."

"He hasn't been back?"

"No. Nobody's seen him. I was asking around."

"Well, I've got good news." She told her about the church and the suitcase.

The woman didn't answer for a moment. "Rune, you really thinking there maybe's some money? They keep coming after me for the rent. I'm trying to find a job. But it's tough. Nobody hires old ladies like me."

"I think we're on the right track."

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

"Start calling churches in Brooklyn. See if Mr. Kelly left a suitcase there. You can go to the library and get a Brooklyn phone book. We've got one at the video store. I'll take A through L. You take M through Z."

"Z? Do any churches start with a Z?"

"I don't know. St. Zabar's?"

"Okay. I'ma start calling first thing in the morning."

Rune hung up. She looked around her. The sun was down now and in this part of the city the bleakness was wrenching. But what she felt was only partly the sorrow of the landscape; the rest was fear. She was vulnerable. Low buildings-a lot of them burned-out or in various stages of demolition-a few auto repair shops, an abandoned diner, a couple of parked cars. Nobody on the street who'd help her if she was attacked. A few kids in gang colors, sitting on steps, sharing a bottle of Colt.45 or a crack pipe. A hooker, a tall black woman on nose-bleed-high heels, leaned against a chain-link fence, arms crossed. Some bums shoring on grates or in doorways.

She felt very disoriented. She was back in Manhattan but she still felt that something separated her from her element, from the Side.

Starting down the street, eyes on the filthy pavement, keeping close to the curb-away from the alleys and the buildings, where muggers and rapists lurk.

Thinking back to Lord of the Rings. Thinking how quests always start off in springtime, with nice weather, good friends around to see you off, hearty food and drink in your pack. But they end up in Mordor-the bleakest of kingdoms, a place full of fire and death and pain.

It seemed to her that someone was following, though when she looked back she could see nothing but shadows.

She worked her way to Midtown and caught a subway. An hour later she was back home, in the loft. No note from Richard. And Sandra was out-a date on Sunday? Totally unfair! Nobody ever had a date on Sunday. Hell. She slipped Manhattan Is My Beat in the VCR and started it once more. The movie was halfway through before she realized that she'd been reciting the dialogue along, with the actors. She'd memorized it perfectly.

Damn scary, she thought. But kept the film running till its end.

Haarte was angry.

It was Monday morning and he was sitting in his town house. Zane had just called and told him that the one witness, Susan Edelman, was about to be released from the hospital and that the other girl, the one with the weird name, was investigating the case harder than the NYPD.

Angry.

Which was a difficult emotion in this business. Haarte wasn't allowed to be angry when he'd been a cop. There was nothing he could do with his anger as a soldier and mercenary. And now-as a professional killer-he found anger to be a liability. A serious risk.

But he was mad. Oh, he was furious.

He was in his town house. Thinking about how messy this fucking job had become. Killing a man ought to be simplicity itself. He and Zane had gotten drunk a month ago, sitting in the bar in the Plaza hotel. They'd both grown maudlin and philosophical. Their job, they decided, was better than most because it was simple. And pure. As they poured down Lagavulin Scotch, Haarte had derided advertising execs and lawyers and salesmen. "They've got complicated, bullshit lives."