“John, you ever have a ‘dis’ murder?”

Creavey frowned and stroked his mustache. No answer. Mike looked from face to face. “Any of you know what I’m talking about? Dis-that’s the motive to kill another human being.”

Professore Vicario attempted to inject a note of humor. “You mean, Signore Chapman, dis or dat?”

“No, professor. I mean disrepect. Last week, I got called to the scene of a homicide. The killer was fifteen years old. Deals heroin. Snoopy tabs, we call ‘em. Glassine envelopes with cartoon characters like Snoopy on the label. Big seller with kids, right outside the fence at an elementary school.

“His victim? A five-year-old girl who dissed him. She stepped on his shadow after he told all the kids not to. He turned and put a bullet through her head just as a lesson to the others not to ignore him. Not to dis him.”

The theoreticians were silent.

“Maybe this was a culture in which guns were in the hands of the upper class-hunting grouse and pheasants and wild boar on weekends in the country. But if you don’t start acknowledging these problems today, you’ll be right up there in the record books with your American cousins.”

“Well, I think we’ll all need a bit of refreshment, now, don’t we?” Lord Windlethorne announced, trying to put a smile on the end of the day’s work. He looked at his watch. “It’s half past six. There will be cocktails in the library at seven-thirty, followed by dinner. Thank you all for your presentations and we’ll see you later.”

I pushed back my chair and turned to Chapman. “As usual, Mikey, we’ve added the stamp of our personal cheer and spirit to another event.”

“C’mon, they needed a dose of reality. Too many ivory tower types to suit me. Let’s go up to the room. I want to call the office.”

It was a cloudy evening and we walked together the short distance back to the main building. I checked with Graham but there were no telephone messages, so we continued on to the suite. I went into the bathroom to freshen up while Mike called the squad. The running water had drowned out his short conversation, and by the time I emerged he was pouring us each a drink from the crystal decanters on the table in the sitting room.

I sat in one of the stuffed fauteuils and kicked off my shoes, pressing on the remote control device of the television set to find CNN.

“Turn it off a minute.”

“I just want the top of the news.”

“Turn it off so I can tell you something.”

I pressed the clicker and looked at Mike, who sat opposite me on the footstool and rested his drink on the tray.

“Everything’s fine now, Coop. But there was a problem during the night.”

“What kind of problem?” I raced through thoughts of the stabbing victim at Columbia-Presbyterian, my parents, to whom I hadn’t spoken in days, my friends, and-

“Maureen-”

“Oh!” I gasped and slammed my right palm across my mouth, my left one already quavering with the full glass of Scotch. Ever since I had tried to call her earlier in the day I had assumed that she was safe at home with Charles and the kids.

“She’s fine, Alex. Trust me.” He placed his hand on my knee and, as Mercer had done at the airport, he eyeballed me to reassure me that he was telling the truth. “I swear to you she’s okay.” He took the drink from my hand and stood it beside his.

My panic turned to anger at the thought that we had left Mo in any real danger. “What happened to her?” We spoke over each other as I fired questions at him while he reminded me he would never have let us take off unless he had been assured that Maureen would be fine.

“If you calm down I’ll tell you what I know.”

“I want to speak to her first. I want to hear her voice myself. Then I’ll listen to you.”

“You can’t speak to her. That’s half the point. She’s been moved out of Mid-Manhattan and, forher sake, no one except Battaglia and the Commissioner know where she and her husband are. You want to screw it up for her by making a phone call that somebody could intercept? Mercer’s in the office now. He was with her this morning and she is absolutely perfect. Somebody just tried to scare her out of the hospital, not kill her. Honestly.”

“What do you mean ‘somebody’? I assume the video surveillance caught whoever it was, right?”

“Look, sometime around midnight, whoever it was that did this entered Maureen’s room. Dressed like a nurse.”

“Like a woman nurse?”

“Yeah. Uniform with a skirt. The schmuck on surveillance-don’t worry, he’ll be out looking for a new job in a few days-looked up at the screen, saw the nurse’s outfit and cap, assumed that it was business as usual, and dozed back off.

“Mo doesn’t know what hit her. She was sound asleep. But this ‘nurse’ covered her mouth, which is what startled her and woke her up. Then a second later she was jabbed with a hypodermic needle in her arm.

“When the real nurse went in to check on Maureen a bit later, she was completely motionless. They rushed in some oxygen, pumped her stomach, and got her the hell out of that nuthouse.”

“What-”

“They’re waiting for toxicology, if that’s what you’re about to ask. Nobody has a clue what was injected into her system but she rebounded pretty quickly, which is why they don’t think it was lethal.”

“And the nurse?”

“Probably one of the boys we’re looking at for Gemma. A bit of late-night disguise. Found a very large white uniform-a dress and a little nurse’s cap-in a garbage pail in the parking garage behind the hospital. Plus a woman’s wig. Brunette, kind of a Donna Reed do from the fifties.”

“Now I guess we’ve got to figure out how they knew she was a cop. Any ideas on how she got made?”

“Easy, despite our best intentions. Timmy McCrenna, the DEA delegate-know him?”

“Yeah.” McCrenna was the squad’s representative to the Detective Endowment Association.

“He heard a rumor she was in the hospital and never figured it to be on business. Sent her a huge flower arrangement and a bunch of cards with the DEA insignia all over the place sticking out of every lily and carnation. Almost got her killed ‘cause he’s such a fruitcake about hospitalizations and funerals. Everything’s a goddamn Hallmark occasion with McCrenna. He must get a kickback from his local florist.”

Mike was on his feet to pick up the phone and redial the office so I could speak to Mercer. “I called back home to the squad during the break in the afternoon session, after the German’s presentation. I wasn’t holding out on you, Coop, I just didn’t want to upset you right before you had to deliver Battaglia’s speech.”

I stirred the ice in my drink with my finger and took a swallow of the Scotch while he waited for the connection to be put through.

“Hey, big guy. Coop needs to talk to you. Uh-huh, just told her now. No, no, she’s not. Speak to her yourself or I think she’ll be on the next flight outta here.”

He extended the cord to its full length and carried the phone to my chair.

“I have had just about all the bullshit I can take, Mercer, so please tell me exactly what’s going on with Mo now.”

“She’s good, Alex. They moved her to New York Hospital in the middle of the night right after this happened-to check her out and do some tests on her blood. I saw her there and held her hand this morning. Then they transferred her out of the city for safekeeping. None of us knows where but she’s cool about that. And Charles is with her.

“Mo said that if I mentioned four little words to you, you’d know she’s just fine.”

I tried to think if she and I had ever discussed a code word but nothing came to mind.

“ ‘Canyon Ranch. Your treat.’ You tell me, is she alive and well?”

I smiled. We had often joked about going to an elegant spa for a week-to be pampered with massages and mud baths and facials-but had never taken the splurge. “Tell her she’s on, first break Battaglia gives me.”