“Anything else?”

She knew his voice was too calm. But he was not fighting back, so it was all going well, wasn’t it? “You attached a lot of charges and a bad review to Coffey’s record-you might want to rethink that. Markowitz always said, ‘What goes around comes around.’ ”

She could hear the old man saying that now, but Markowitz was saying it to her-a prickling warning from the back of her mind.

Blakely was silent. She wished she could see his face. He continued to stare out the window, and the only sound in the room was the soft drumming of his fat fingertips on the red leather arm of his chair.

Well, what had she expected, a signed contract? Their deal was concluded. There was nothing left to say. But she stood up with the uneasy feeling of unfinished business.

Mallory was across the room and through the door before she heard the squeak of Blakely’s chair swiveling around again.

Riker sat at the desk in Mallory’s private office, holding a telephone to his ear, and making an occasional scribble with his pen.

Charles sat down in the metal chair opposite the desk. He hated the decor of this room and wished Mallory would let him furnish her office with a few Oriental rugs and perhaps a desk from the last century. But he knew she was more comfortable in this atmosphere of stark simplicity.

Riker was speaking into the telephone. “What’s Blakely doing with the inventory sheet on Markowitz’s house?‘’ And now he listened and his face was clouding over with anger. ”Robin Duffy was the family lawyer. He got a ruling on the old man’s personal papers. All the personal papers belong to the estate and the estate belongs to Mallory. There’s no way he’s gonna get any of it.“ Now he covered the mouthpiece with one hand and spoke to Charles. ”You got a number for Duffy?“

“He’s on a fishing trip in Canada. He’s due back in a few days, but I suppose I could track him down if it’s important.”

Riker shook his head and spoke into the mouthpiece again. “Duffy’s out of town. I’ll have him call Blakely’s office when he gets back… Right.”

Riker put the receiver back on the cradle of Mallory’s state-of-the-art phone center, which spread tentacles to a fax machine, a recording device, and other equipment Charles could not readily identify.

Riker was not a happy man. “That was Coffey. He says Blakely wants all of Markowitz’s personal notes, and he’s doing paperwork with the DA’s office right this minute. Claims they relate to an ongoing case. Now I’ve got a charge on my record because my name is on the inventory for the old house in Brooklyn. Blakely claims I improperly handled department property.”

“This sounds serious. Let me track down Robin. He can probably fix this with a phone call.”

“A phone call from God wouldn’t fix this-not unless He’s got some good dirt on Blakely.”

The old Koozeman Gallery in the East Village was on a narrow street in Alphabet City, and just off a lettered avenue which had boasted ten predators to every taxpayer in the days when Koozeman ran this gallery. On foot, artists and hookers had passed through this neighborhood they called home. Yuppies had only come by cab and limo, reveling in dangerous chic. That trend had passed, and the galleries abandoned this section of town, moving to the safer chic of SoHo and its better class of criminals.

The storefronts had For Rent signs on the doors. Mallory stared at the dark windows, up and down the street. This was a good place to do murder with no witnesses. But even twelve years ago, the artist and the dancer could have screamed all through the night and no one would have come to their aid. Such sounds were common then-like crickets to country people.

She never turned to look directly at him, but she was aware of the thin man walking toward her at a cautious pace. As he slowed his steps, she realized she was his mark. The body movement she detected in peripheral was twitched and jazzed. A crackhead. Closer now. He must be thinking this was his lucky day-a woman alone on the street, and the nearest branch of authority was the Hell’s Angels clubhouse on the next block. Lucky day for the junkie-no waiting in line to pick off the suckers at the cash machines. Would he rush her? No. He would wait for the fear response, and then use it to his advantage. Closer now, all excited, he could probably taste her money, feel it gliding into his veins or up his nose in a cloud of white dust.

Mallory continued to stare at the building across the street, never even turning to look at him, and that made him a little crazy. He had to know she was aware of him. He circled around in front of her, and now she saw the perp in all his sick glory, eyes runny with infection, sores on his face. He smelled rank from soiling his clothes with his vomit and his bowels.

Did she want to touch that?

No way.

Hands behind her back, she worked on a pair of kid-skin gloves.

He was grinning at her, hovering. One hand was in the pocket of his jacket, and that would be where he kept the razor or the knife. There was not enough bulk for a gun.

The hand was pulling slowly from the jacket pocket. But now the junkie was all surprise as Mallory’s arm flashed out, and his straight razor went flying into the gutter. He was even more surprised to find himself kneeling on the sidewalk, feeling the pain in his testicles and staring at the hard steel of a large gun forced into his mouth. The gun barrel was set between an old man’s rotting rows of teeth, but he was just twenty-one, if that.

A car with NYPD markings was gliding silently to the curb alongside her. She never took her eyes off the terrified thin man, not even when she heard Heller’s deep voice.

“Mallory, you know the rules. If you can’t play nicely with the animals, you can’t play with them at all.”

After the backup unit arrived and the debris of the mugger was cleared off the street and shoved roughly into the back of the car, Mallory and Heller were alone again in front of the deserted gallery.

“Poor bastards,” said Heller, staring after the departing vehicle. “Their car is gonna smell like a junkie for the rest of their shift.”

He turned around now to see Mallory working a wire in the lock of the gallery door. It opened under her hand. Heller took her by one arm and pulled her away from the door. He reached around the wooden frame to depress the lock button in the knob, and then pulled the door shut. Mallory only stared at him as though he had lost his mind.

“Markowitz never taught you that,” said Heller. “I gather you don’t have a warrant.”

“I’m not supposed to be working the old case. How am I going to get a warrant?”

Heller said nothing. He only looked at her the way Markowitz did when he was waiting on a better explanation for what she’d done wrong this time.

“I’m not violating anybody’s civil rights. Before he died, Koozeman put the gallery up for sale. If you want, I’ll go find the real estate agent. But that will take time. This is-”

“Do that. I’ll wait.”

“Heller-”

“Get the key from the real estate agent. Do it right.”

He was a solid man, a large bear of a man. Bears did not back down. Why should they?

She returned to the gallery twenty minutes later, her wallet lighter by one fifty-dollar deposit, and she was holding the legal key. Heller was waiting by the door, comfortable in his slouch and his cigar.

“It was a sad business,” said Heller as they legally passed through the door and into the small reception area. He flicked on the wall switch. A panel of fluorescent bulbs made buzzing noises overhead as the lights flooded the main room of the deserted gallery.

“We found the artist and the dancer over there.” He pointed toward the center of the back wall.

Mallory reached into her tote and pulled out a floor plan. According to the crime-scene diagram, this part of the gallery was sixty feet in length, and twenty-five feet wide. Beyond the side wall was another five feet of storage space running the length of the room.