''… can't get it right,'' LaChaise roared. ''Why'd he wear a vest to go home

…''

The television brought the news that Franklin wasn't dead-that he wasn't even in particularly dangerous condition, that he'd been saved by a bulletproof vest.

''What do I gotta do?'' LaChaise shouted at Martin. ''What the fuck do I gotta do?''

''You did right,'' Martin said. ''You hit him four times in the chest, is what the news says.''

But Martin's efforts to calm him down only made LaChaise angrier. Already full of beer, he got Harp's Johnnie Walker and started drinking it off, carrying a water tumbler full of ice cubes, pouring the whiskey over them, gulping it downlike Coca-Cola. He paced as he drank, watching the television.

A blond newscaster from TV3-''She's the one we want to get,'' Martin said,

''Davenport's woman''-reported that ''Police are searching for an informant who provided critical information earlier this week, but who has disappeared. They ask that you call the department on the 911 line, as you did the last time, or any police line and ask for Chief Lucas Davenport. Police said they would offer the informant absolute protection from retaliation from Richard LaChaise or any of his accomplices.''

''Yeah? How are you gonna do that?'' LaChaise brayed at the screen. Then: ''I'd like to fuck her,'' and then: ''Who could be talking to them? We don't know anybody.''

Sandy shrank back: she knew.

''Probably whoever told them about the house we was in,'' Martin said. ''Ansel had to ask around, talking to a bunch of dopers. Somebody probably gave him up.''

''Yeah… Goddamn, ol' Ansel. I miss that sonofabitch.''

LaChaise's face crinkled, and Sandy thought he'd begun to weep. He turned abruptly, marched down the hall into Harp's stereo room and began tearing the vinyl record albums out of their covers and smashing them, three and four at a time.

Martin looked at Sandy, but showed no sign of disapproval-or approval, either.

He showed nothing, she thought.

To the sound of the breaking records, Sandy went back to the bedroom and shut the door. Martin was nuts, but he was controlled. But the booze had pushed

LaChaise over the edge, and the very air of the apartment carried the smell and taste of insanity, of the expectation that something crazy was about to happen.

She had to get out.

A moment later, she heard Martin's arrows start to whack into the target outside her door. Martin had put the target nextto the window at the end of the main hall. If he pulled an arrow to the right, she thought, it'd go right through the window shade and glass, out over the fire escape and into the roof of the next building…

She was sitting on the bed when LaChaise stopped breaking records. A moment later, LaChaise and Martin were shouting at each other, and she heard the thumping of heavy bodies colliding in the front room. She ran to the door and down the hall again, and found Martin on the floor, on top of LaChaise, with a heavy arm around LaChaise's neck. LaChaise was facedown, and trying to get to his hands and knees.

''Let me up, you motherfucker,'' LaChaise roared.

''Can't do that; can't do that,'' Martin was saying urgently. ''We need the goddamn TV…''

He saw Sandy and said, ''Tried to kick in the TV.''

''Fuckers don't do nothing but lie,'' LaChaise said, but he sounded calmer.

''But we need to see what they're saying, and what happens with the cops,''

Martin said.

After a moment of silence, LaChaise said, ''Let me up. I won't kick it.''

Martin nodded. ''All right.''

Martin stood up, between LaChaise and the television, and LaChaise grunted as he stood up, a tight grin: ''You kicked my ass.''

''You're drunk as a skunk.''

''Well, that's true,'' LaChaise said. ''But you're pretty fuckin' drunk yourself.'' Sandy moved away, stepping back toward the bedroom, but LaChaise turned and saw her and said, ''What're you lookin' at?'' and then, ''Hey, wait a minute.''

Sandy padded back toward the room, looking for a place to hide, and heard

LaChaise say to Martin, ''If I can't kickthe TV, might as well jump me a little puss.''

Sandy turned around inside the bedroom: looking for a way out. There wasn't any.

LaChaise came to the doorway and leaned in, and she said, ''Dick, don't.''

''Bullshit,'' he said.

''I won't fuckin' move. I'll lie there like a brick. And if I get a chance to kill you, I will.''

He stepped toward her and she thought he'd hit her. Instead, his eyes wavered, and he said, ''Fuck you,'' and staggered away.

She shut the door. Had to get out. Had to.

LUCAS AND SLOAN BROUGHT WEATHER INTO THE BACK of the hotel, while Sherrill and

Del brought in Jennifer and a TV3 crew. Weather went to fix her hair and check makeup, and Jennifer, standing aside with Lucas, muttered, ''I wouldn't let

Weather look at this Sherrill chick too long.''

''What?''

''Give me a break, Davenport. Never in your life would you fail to appreciate the young woman's qualities.''

''Well, I do appreciate them,'' Lucas said stiffly. He suddenly felt like an asshole, broke down and grinned. ''But I'd never do anything about it.''

Jennifer looked at him in an appraising way, and said, ''Maybe you really have changed.''

''Yeah, well…''

Weather came back out and they went down to the lobby for the interview, a two-minute no-brainer on the cops' families suffering from cabin fever, how it felt to be barricaded inside. Jennifer did another quick interview with Sloan's flustered wife, and then went out the back door with her protection.

''That should do it,'' Weather said, when they got back to her room.

''I hope so. I hope they're watching television,'' Lucas said. ''Jen says they'll run the tape every time they do the updates.''

''Are you still angry with me?'' Weather asked. She sounded slow, depressed.

''No. I never was as much angry as I was… cranked up,'' Lucas said.

She patted the bed: ''You need to get some sleep, I can see caffeine leaking out of your eyes.''

''Maybe a few hours,'' he agreed.

SANDY COULD HEAR LACHAISE TALKING TO MARTIN, both of them still drinking. She got up twenty times to go to the window, to look at the ledge. Long way down.

Higher than the hayloft in the barn. She'd lie on the bed, close her eyes, try to rest. Nothing worked.

Eventually, the talk in the living room stopped, and the television was turned off. She went to the window, looked out again. Then a sudden THUMM-whack outside her door. Martin was at it again, shooting the bow down the hall. He fired it twenty times, then quit.

The apartment was quiet for a half hour, an hour, the hands creeping around her watch. She went back to the door, listened, cracked it, looked out. If she could get sheets-or if she could just get out the door, for that matter. The men had been very drunk…

The hall light was on, and one more in the living room. A half-dozen arrows stuck out of the target at the end of the hall, five feet away. But nobody was moving. She went down the hall on her tiptoes: the door to the master bedroom was open, and in the half-light, she could see LaChaise sprawled across the king-sized bed.

Martin was wrapped in a blanket, lying on the floor by thefront door. She tiptoed down toward him and whispered, ''Bill?''

He stirred, but his breathing remained even. She looked back down the hall toward the basement door. Martin's voice, thick with sleep, said, ''The door's locked. I got the key in my pants.''

She jumped: it was as though he'd snatched her thought from midair. ''I wasn't going to the door. I was just making sure that Dick's sleeping it off,'' she said.

''Are you…?'' she was going to ask, all right? Before the words could get out of her mouth, he'd rolled and was pointing a pistol at her head. She stepped back and said, ''Please… ''