The age of the old theater showed itself far less gracefully in the areas out of public view. Walls were in bad need of a paint job, occasional corners graffitied in bright colored markers by members of visiting dance companies whose signatures provided a riotous splash of color against the drab beige paint.

"Did she have a dressing room?" Mike asked. "A place where she could be alone?"

" City Center isn't like the Met. We don't have a star system here. There are changing rooms, certainly, but nothing with Galinova's name on it. Is it possible she found an empty office to park herself in? Well, just try a few of the doors-there's always something available. Dusty but available."

Dancers-women and men-brushed by us as they passed out of a class. They all looked like teenagers-perfectly toned bodies, unlined skin covered with sweat, most of them in black leotards and tights topped by colorful woolen leg warmers.

"This is Julio Bocca's Argentine company. Fabulously talented young people. I think the oldest member of the corps is seventeen."

Stan said, waiting until they cleared through. The accompanist was still working on the timing of a tango and the music drifted into the corridor and followed the dancers down the hall.

We walked into the studio they had just vacated and I was aghast at its dimensions and decor. "This is fabulous," I said to Stan. "I've never seen rehearsal space like this in the city."

"Do you dance?"

"No, no. But I've studied ballet for years, taken lots of classes."

The room was unusually large, in length and depth. The painted ceilings and even the door frame were rich in architectural detail and color. What was most unique for a Manhattan rehearsal studio was that there were no columns at all, a completely open space in which the dancers could stage numbers as they would be performed in a theater.

Mike wasn't listening. He headed directly to the far end of the room and climbed a few steps, seating himself in an oversize wooden chair, carved with elaborate stars and crescents that I recognized now as symbols of the Middle Eastern influence.

"What about this?"

"The potentate's throne, detective. It was in these old lodge rooms that many of the secret rituals of the Shriners were conducted. In almost every one of these studios, there's an altar or shrine that played some part in the daily life of the members. I don't have a clue what went on in here, but most of us are just grateful that all this rich detail survived what the city did to the rest of the common space," Stan said, gesturing back to the hallway.

Mike was down the steps and back to the door. "Where else did Ms. Galinova spend time?"

Stan passed him and retraced his steps in the hallway. "This dressing room is for the women. I suppose that's the one she had to use." He looked over his shoulder at me. "Although I can't imagine for a minute that a prima like Galinova enjoyed sharing it with anyone else."

From within we could hear the voices of the dancers, speaking in Spanish, and the sound of the running water from the shower.

Mike nodded at me. "Your territory, Coop. Check front."

I pushed open the door and entered the room.

The first area had been converted into a small lounge. Several sofas and chairs were against the wall, and three of the dancers-barefoot and robed, waiting their turn for the shower-were curled up and chatting with one another.

I passed by them to another section of the room. Instead of lockers, there were only open cubbies for their belongings and a coatrack on which their clothing hung.

The last chamber was the bathroom area: several toilet stalls, a row of sinks, and one entire wall that was mirrored. There were backpacks on the floor, magazines and iPods stacked beside them, and makeup on every flat surface.

One of the girls emerged from the shower, wrapped in a bath sheet with her head turbaned in a towel. She excused herself as she slid in front of me, and I pressed my back to the wall to let her pass.

My hands were flat against the surface, a smooth, glazed tile that was cold to the touch. I looked around and noticed the same old ceramic squares-undoubtedly the original 1920s design-covering the wall opposite the showers and creating a border along the ceiling edge and floor.

I walked to the empty shower stall, which was also elaborately tiled, then turned to study the dark blue and pale green of the mosaics worked into a white ground. What had Hubert Alden called the typically Islamic motifs? A foliate design, he had said.

I ran my fingers over the beautiful image. The flowers looked familiar to me-their shape and colors-and I tried to recall where I had seen something like them.

Foliate, of course. Beautiful flowers. They were tulips, Arabic style, created specially for the Mecca Temple. And the other time I had seen them was on the monitor in Joe Berk's bedroom.

The images we suspected Berk of watching-of stealing for some personal perversion by means of a hidden surveillance system-must have come to him from a camera that had been surreptitiously installed here in the dressing room used by many of the dancers who rehearsed at City Center, including Lucy DeVore and the late Natalya Galinova.

The eight dancers looked at me as though I were crazy when I asked them to get dressed so that I could bring a man into the lounge. "For favor-vistase! Avance! Tengo que traer un hombre aqui."

I raised my voice, urging them to step out into the hallway, and even though I added a few "por favors," they didn't move.

I walked briskly past the cubbyholes to the door, again calling to them to dress themselves because a man was entering.

The three who had been changing wrapped towels around their slim bodies and stood speechless as I called to Mike to come into the bathroom.

He was too embarrassed to even make a joke, so he marched behind me to the area near the showers that the girls had been smart enough to clear.

"Look familiar?"

"Twenty dollars, Coop. The question is, What was Joe Berk looking at when the monitor in his bedroom caught these tulips?"

"I'll take your twenty. Who was he looking at? That's the answer I want."

Mike ripped back the opaque shower curtain and stepped into the wet stall. He was trying to find signs of a concealed device, and repeated his search in each of the three cubicles.

I watched him run his hands around the tops of the metal frames, and in the last booth he came up with what he wanted.

"You got it?"

"Not a camera. But there's a recess drilled in the wall there. Can't see into it-we need a ladder. But it feels like there's a mounting that could have held a small camera, and it's slanted so that focus would be on the tiled wall in the background. C'mon, let's move. Be sure and thank the young ladies on your way out. We're going back to Berk."

Mercer and Stan were waiting for us in the hallway, and Mike took Mercer aside to explain what we had seen.

"Are you done now?" Stan asked.

"Haven't even started yet," Mike called back to him. "Who's the best tech guy you know?"

Mercer answered. "Vito. Vito Taurino. Right, Alex?"

"The guy's a genius," I said. "Does all Battaglia's wiretaps and video surveillance. The kind the courts allow."

"We gotta find him now. Yesterday. Get him up here."

"I'll call Battaglia. But could someone really transmit video images from inside that shower stall?" I asked.

"It's all wireless now, Coop. It's called microwave technology- and I don't mean the kind you cook with. We used it in that murder investigation at the social club on Mulberry Street. You just need a board camera the size of a computer chip-the lens sits flat up on it-and mount it almost any place with brackets, like in that recess. Wire it through the back of the wall. Or maybe there's a dropped ceiling in the bathroom. Vito can check."