O'Toole dropped, a black corsage blooming on her pale white forehead in the video. The gun skidded across concrete.

Kurtz dove for the Sig Sauer, came up with it, went to one knee in front of the parole officer, braced the pistol with both hands, and returned fire, the muzzle flare making the video bloom.

There were two figures, remembered Kurtz. Shadows. The shooter near the trunk of the car, and another man, taller, behind the bulk of the vehicle, just glimpsed through the car's glass. Only the shorter man was shooting.

Kurtz was firing on the screen. Suddenly he stopped, dragged O'Toole by the arm across the floor, lifted her suddenly, and began carrying her back toward the doors.

I Hit the shooter, remembered Kurtz. He spun and sagged against the car. That's when I tried to get O'Toole out. Then the other man grabbed the gun and kept shooting at us.

Officer O'Toole's arm seemed to twitch—a slug going through her upper arm, Kurtz thought, remembering the doctor's explanation—Kurtz's upper body twisted and his head jerked around to the left as he brought the Sig Pro to bear again, and then he went down bard, dropping the woman. The two sprawled onto the concrete. Black-looking blood pooled on the floor.

A full minute went by with just the two bodies lying entangled there.

"There was no coverage of the exit ramp," said Rigby. "We didn't see the car leave… at least until it got to the ticket station."

"Why didn't he come out to finish us?" said Kurtz. He was looking at his own body sprawled next to O'Toole's and thinking about the second shooter.

"We don't know," said Kennedy. "But a court stenographer comes out through those doors in a minute… ah, there she is… and she may have spooked the shooter."

Shooters, thought Kurtz. Remembering the adrenaline of those few minutes made his head hurt worse.

On the screen, a woman steps out, claps her hands to her cheeks, screams silently, and runs back in through the doors.

Kennedy stopped the tape. "Another three and a half minutes before she gets someone down there—a security guard. He didn't see anyone else, just you and Peg on the ground. He radioed for the ambulance. Then another ten minutes of people milling until the paramedics arrive. It's lucky Peg survived all that loss of blood."

Why didn't the second shooter finish us? wondered Kurtz. Whichever one of us he was trying to kill.

Kennedy pulled the tape and popped another one in. Kurtz looked at Rigby King. "Why was I handcuffed?" His voice wasn't pleasant.

"We hadn't seen this yet," she said.

"Why not?"

"The tapes weren't marked," said Brian Kennedy, answering for her. "There was some confusion. We didn't have this to show Officers Kemper and King until after they visited you yesterday evening."

I was handcuffed the entire fucking night, thought Kurtz, glaring at Rigby King. You left me helpless and handcuffed in that fucking hospital all night. She was obviously receiving his unspoken message, but she just returned his stare.

"This is the security camera at the Market Street exit," said Kennedy, thumbing the remote control.

A young black woman was reading the National Enquirer in her glass cashier's cubicle. Suddenly an older-make car roared up the ramp and out of the parking garage, snapping the wooden gate off in pieces and skidding a right turn into the empty street before disappearing.

"Freeze frame?" said Kurtz.

Kennedy nodded and backed the video up until the car was frozen in the act of hitting the gate. Only the driver was visible, a man, long hair wild, but his face turned away and his body only a silhouette. The camera was angled to see license tags, but this car's rear tag looked like it had been daubed with mud. Most of the numerals and letters were unreadable.

"Attendant get a good look?" asked Kurtz.

"No," said Kennedy. "She was too startled. Male. Maybe Caucasian. Maybe Hispanic or even black. Very long, dark hair. Light shirt."

"Uh huh," said Kurtz. "There could have been another man on the floor in the backseat."

"Do you remember a second man?" asked Rigby.

Kurtz looked at her. "I don't know," he said. "I was just saying there could have been a second man in the back."

"Yeah," said Rigby. "And the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the trunk."

"Detective Kemper thinks it's a Pontiac, dark color, maybe late eighties, rust patches in the right rear fender and trunk," said Brian Kennedy.

"That narrows it down," said Kurtz. "Only about thirty thousand of those in Buffalo."

Kennedy gestured toward the frozen image and the license plate. "We've augmented this frame and think that there may be a two there on that tag, perhaps a seven as the last digit."

Kurtz shrugged. "You check Officer O'Toole's computer files? See if she has any pissed-off parolees?"

"Yes, the detectives copied the computer files and went through her filing cabinets, but…" began Kennedy.

"We're pursuing the investigation with all diligence," said Rigby, cutting off Kennedy's info-dump.

Kennedy looked at Kurtz and smiled as if to say, man to man, Women and cops, whattayagonna do?

"I'm going home," said Kurtz. Everyone stood. Kennedy offered his hand again and said, "Thanks for coming, Mr. Kurtz. I thank you for trying to protect Peg the way you did. As soon as I saw the video, I knew you weren't involved in her shooting. You were a hero."

"Uh huh," said Kurtz, looking at Rigby King. You left me there handcuffed all night so that an old man in a wheelchair could slap me around. Anybody could've killed me.

"You want a ride home?" asked Rigby.

"I want my Pinto back."

"We're finished with it. It's still in the Civic Center garage. And I have your clothes and billfold down in my car. Come on, I'll give you a ride to the garage."

Kurtz walked to the elevators with Rigby King, but before the elevator car arrived, Kennedy hustled out. "You forgot your portfolio, Mr. Kurtz."

Kurtz nodded and took the leather folder holding Gonzaga's paperwork listing seventeen murders unknown to the police or media.

It wasn't a long ride. Kurtz pulled the little brown-paper package of his clothes and shoes out of the backseat, checked his wallet—everything was there—and settled back, feeling the reloaded.38 against the small of his back.

"You know, Joe," said Rigby King, "if I searched you right now and found a weapon, you'd go in for parole violation."

Kurtz had nothing to say about that. The unmarked detective's car was like every other unmarked police car in the world—ugly paint, rumbling cop engine, radio half hidden below the dashboard, a portable bubble light on the floor ready to be clamped onto the roof, and city-bought blackwall tires that no civilian anywhere would put on his vehicle. Any inner-city kid over the age of three could spot this as a cop car five blocks away on a rainy night.

"But I'm not going to search you," said Rigby. "You wouldn't last a week back in Attica."

"I lasted more than eleven years there."

"I'll never understand how," she said. "Between the Aryan Nation and the black power types, loners aren't supposed to be able to make it a month inside. You never were a joiner, Joe."

Kurtz watched the pedestrians cross in front of them as they stopped at a red light They were only a few blocks from the civic center. He could have walked it if he wasn't feeling so damned dizzy. Leaving the portfolio on the floor back at Kennedy's office showed Kurtz how much he needed some sleep. And maybe some pain medication. The pedestrians and the street beyond them seemed to shimmer from heat waves, even though it was only about sixty degrees outside today.