If you pop somebody now, after Cheryl, the media'd crucify us, and the grand jury'd be on us like a hot sweat: the politics would kill us.''

''Well, who in the hell's side is everybody on?'' Del asked. ''What about

Cheryl?''

''Don't ask that question,'' Lucas said. ''The answer'll piss you off.''

They were in Lucas's Explorer, Lucas driving, beating through the desolate streets to the near south side. Lights showed on the laundromat's second floor.

Below them, behind the storefront windows of the laundromat, five women, all of them black, folded clothes, read magazines or sat and stared at the dirty pink plaster walls.

Lucas stopped in a bus zone on the corner, twenty yards up the street from the windows. ''When I talked to Lonnie, he said if you go up the main stairway, you get to the top and there's a bunch of junk, cardboard boxes and stuff, all piled up. You can't get through to the door, not in a hurry, anyway,'' Del said, peering up at the second-story windows. ''There's a back stairs that comes down inside the garage. But the garage door's locked, and you can't get through that.''

''So you go up the stairs and make a lot of noise-kick the boxes out of the way, bang away on the door,'' Sloan said to Del. ''We'll wait out back. If he opens up the front door, you call us; and if he runs, we'll be the net.''

''All right,'' Del said, ''but I think we might be barking up the wrong tree. I can't see Harp having anything to do with a bunch of…'' He stopped in midsentence, pointed through the windshield. ''Hey-look there.''

A woman was walking toward them, half skating on the slippery sidewalk, holding what appeared to be a small white bakery sack. She passed under a streetlight and then into the brighter lights from the laundromat window.

''That's Jas Smith, Daymon's old lady,'' Del said.

Lucas said, ''Let's take her. Maybe she'll invite us up.''

''Yeah.'' Del and Sloan hopped out of the right side, while Lucas walked around the nose of the truck, converging on Jasmine. She was wearing a brimmed hat, and her head was down against the snow: she didn't see them coming until they were on top of her.

Then she jumped, and put her hand across her heart: '' Goddamn, Capslock, give me some warning.''

''Sorry…''

''If I was carrying a little piece or something, I might of shot you outa self-defense, popping out like that.''

She looked at Lucas and Sloan, worried, and Del said, ''This is Chief Davenport and Detective Sloan. We got something we need to talk to Daymon about. Not bust him; just talk.''

''Whyn't you call him up?''

''Because we didn't want him hanging up on us,'' Sloan said pleasantly. ''You hear about all those cops' husbands and wives getting shot today?''

''Everybody heard,'' she said.

''My wife was one of them,'' Del said. ''She's in the hospital now, and she's hurting. We want you to know how serious this is-so why don't you just open up the garage and we'll go on up and talk to Daymon.''

She looked from Del to Sloan to Lucas, and said, ''He'd kick my ass if I done that. I mean, he'd kick me so bad.''

Del looked at Lucas and nodded: he would.

''What happened to your hand?'' Lucas asked. Jasminewasn't carrying a bakery sack; her hand was professionally wrapped in a huge white bandage.

She looked down at it, and her lip trembled: ''Paper cutter,'' she said. ''Cut my finger right off.'' She started to blubber. ''It was just layin' there, and I knew it was off, and then the blood squirted out…''

Lucas said, ''Jeez, that's too bad. Look, Daymon must have an unlisted number, right? Of course he does.''

He nodded, and she nodded. He took a cellular phone out of his pocket.

''So why don't you dial him up, and tell him we're down here by the garage, and then he can go brush his teeth or whatever, and we can go on up.''

''I'll try,'' she said, after a moment.

HARP LET THEM UP, UNHAPPY ABOUT IT. THE APARTMENT smelled of marijuana, but nothing fresh, just old curtainandrug contacts, enough to get you started if you'd gone to college in the sixties. Harp was waiting for them in the kitchen, his butt against the edge of the table, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked at Jasmine as if she were at fault, and she said, ''Honey, they snatched me right off the street, they knew you was up here…''

Del said, ''That's right, Day; we were coming up, one way or another.''

''What you want?'' Harp grunted.

''You heard about the killings?''

''Didn't do it,'' Harp said.

Lucas felt a tingle: Harp was a little too tough. ''We know you didn't do it personally, but we think you might have a connection,'' Lucas said. ''Two of the people involved met down in your laundromat. We have a witness. We want to know why these two white assholes would come halfway across the country to meet in

Daymon Harp's laundromat.''

''You think I'd help them peckerwoods?'' Harp asked indignantly. ''I been inside with those motherfuckers. Daymon Harp ain't helping them no way, no place, no time.''

''How'd you know they were peckerwoods?'' Sloan asked. ''We didn't say they were peckerwoods.''

''They all over the TV,'' Harp said. ''They're Seeds, right? I know all about it-you can't get nothin' but TV news. They canceled Star Trek.''

''Who's your cop friend?'' Lucas asked.

Harp's eyelid flickered, a quick twitch. ''What kind of bullshit you talkin'?''

They pushed him for twenty minutes, but he wouldn't move. He knew nothing, saw nothing, had heard nothing. On the way out the door, Lucas said to Jasmine,

''Take care of the hand.''

OUTSIDE, THEY HURRIED ALONG TO THE TRUCK, blown by the breeze. Sloan said, ''I don't know what he knows, but I think he's got a corner on something.''

''I'll talk to Narcotics. We'll shut him down,'' Lucas said. He looked back up at the apartment lights. ''Twenty-four hours, maybe he'll be ready.''

Del shook his head: ''He can't talk. Too many dead people, now. If he's got a connection, he'll do everything he can to bury it.'' He looked back at the apartment: ''I'll bet you anything he books it.''

LACHAISE HAD CALLED STADIC WITH THE NUMBER OF his new cell phone: Stadic had been in the office, and he scribbled it down, stuck the paper in his wallet.

Two hours later, the shit hit the fan. He tried calling the number, but there was no answer. Then he was swept up in the chaos of the response, and eventually found himself wearinga doorman's uniform, working the door at the hotel where the families were hidden. No time to call…

At ten o'clock the night of the attacks, the bank time and temperature sign down the block said -2°. Stadic traded his doorman's uniform for street clothes and hurried down the street to his car. The ferocity of the attacks had stunned him.

Near panic, he'd spent the evening pacing in and out of the Sandhurst, wondering whether he should run for it. He had almost enough money…

But he realized, with a little thought, that it was too late. Cops' families had been attacked. That was worse than killing the cops themselves. If anyone found out that he'd been involved, there'd be no place to hide. If he were to be saved now, salvation would come in one form: the death of La-Chaise and all of his friends. Which wasn't impossible…

He sat in his car, took out his cellular phone, punched in his home number. Two calls on the answering machine. The first was Daymon Harp, who said two words:

''Call me.'' The second call was nothing.

Stadic erased the tape, hung up, found LaChaise's number in his wallet and punched it in. The phone was answered on the first ring.

''Hello?'' A man's voice, a southerner.

''Let me speak to Dick,'' Stadic said.

LaChaise came on a second later: ''What?''

''You're fucked now. You can't walk a block without bumping into a cop.''