Riker said his good night as he stood up. He ambled off toward the roof door. Then he stopped and turned to face Charles. “The kid’s all grown up now. I feel like I’m out of a job.”

Charles smiled. Riker did not.

For another hour, Charles continued to sit on the roof with a blanket around his shoulders, staring at the lunatic on the roof of Bloomingdale’s. He looked at his watch. The minute hand was coming up on the hour when Mallory would relieve him, and she was never late.

“Hello, Mallory.” He said this to the night air, for he had not heard her open the door, nor any footsteps. He had absolutely no sense of her presence.

“So, how’s it going, Charles?” She settled a grocery bag on the ground beside him.

Did she seem disappointed that he hadn’t given her a chance to sneak up and frighten him? Yes, she did, and he was delighted. Mallory had a strange and unsettling sense of gamesmanship, but he was definitely getting the hang of it.

He lowered his binoculars. “I think Andrew might be dying.”

She took the binoculars from his hand and stared at the thin figure of Andrew Bliss lying on the down quilts, barely moving anymore. “No, he’s okay. I just saw him twitch. Good night, Charles. Thanks for the help.”

And now he pressed his luck. “You know this man is obviously not in his right mind.”

“He’s hiding out from a killer. That sounds like a pretty sane game plan to me.”

“Hiding out on the roof of Bloomingdale’s with full media coverage from dawn to dusk? This is hiding? This is sane?”

Oh, right.

It was, now that he thought about it, and smart too. And after dark, Andrew could be assured of a hundred voyeurs among the thousand windows that looked down on the roof. If they could count on a sane killer, and Mallory certainly did, then who would be fool enough to harm the man without cover? Yet Charles could not shake the idea that this poor lunatic was Mallory’s idea of a good piece of lean meat, a bit of bait for a serial killer.

It was with some reservation that he made his way across the roof and left a helpless fellow human in the hands of Mallory. And now another thought occurred to him as he descended the stairs: She would always view civilians as a class of defenseless, witless sheep, and she would lay down her own life for any one of them, without hesitation. She was a cop.

If God was not listening to Andrew’s prayers, Mallory was, and she had grown tired of the slow drone of intonations. She lowered her directional microphone, picked up her cellular phone and dialed the number of the priest. Before she could speak, she heard the old man’s voice saying, “Yes, Kathy?”

“I want to make confession, but I don’t remember the words.”

“There’s a good reason for that, Kathy. You never made a confession in your entire life, not in or out of the church,”

“Tell me what to say.”

“Do you remember the last time we discussed confession in my office? I remember your very words. That’s not the way it works,‘ you said. ’If you can’t catch me doing it, then I didn’t do it. I’ve got rights, and you can call Markowitz, he’ll tell you. I don’t ever have to confess to anything.”

“And did you call Markowitz?”

“Yes, Kathy, I did.”

“And?”

“He said, ‘The kid is absolutely right.’ Then he hung up on me.”

“So tell me the words. I want to take communion. I can’t do that until I confess my sins, and I need the damn words.”

“Actually, the church has loosened up a bit since you were with us. You can take communion if you-”

“No, I want to do this right.”

“Why don’t we just talk about it first?”

“Is this under the seal of the confessional? You can’t tell anyone, right?”

“That’s right. You were so young when your mother died. There is no fault attached to your actions. You were frightened, you ran away. That’s what children do. I only wish you had told me about this when you were still a child. You shouldn’t have had to carry that-”

“You would have told the others.”

“Still the same trusting little soul you always were.”

“Sarcasm is unbecoming in a priest. I think you spend too much time hanging out with Rabbi Kaplan.”

“An occasional poker game.”

“I knew it. If you’d known, you would’ve talked. You would have told them all.”

“No, that would never have happened. But what if they had known? Helen wanted to adopt you. If your mother was dead, that would’ve been possible. Was your father still living?”

“This is not about my father.”

“You witnessed your mother’s murder?”

“I saw her after the bastard left her for dead. She was crawling toward me, covered with blood. Any one of those wounds should have killed her. You know what kept her going? She had to crawl a long ways with mortal wounds. But she thought I would get to her in time to save her. That’s why she was holding on.”

“No, Kathy. She wanted to touch you before she died, to say goodbye. That’s what kept her going. It was for you that she kept going. She must have loved you more than her own life.”

“No. She believed I was going to save her. But I ran away.”

“And you survived. So she did not go through that ghastly ordeal for nothing. Do you know who killed her?”

“No. I never saw him.”

“You never spoke of this to anyone?”

“No.”

“That would explain a lot.”

“The bruises on Sister Ursula’s shins? She had that coming.”

“I won’t argue that. But you know, there’s a kind of innocence in insanity. Ursula still wonders what you’re up to. If she knew this about your birth mother, she would send up the flames of a thousand candles each night for the rest of her life. You tend to linger in her memory. You have that effect on people.”

“You can’t tell her or anyone.”

“Of course not. Why are you telling me now?”

“I’m confessing. Now what do I do with the guilt? I’ve confessed. What now?”

“You were a blameless child.”

“I don’t want to hear that crap, Father. So let’s say I’m guilty, and I’ve confessed. What now?”

“God forgives you.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Yeah, right.” She hung up on him.

He walked around the roof, occasionally pausing to anchor himself by touching the corner of the table or some object, fearing he might float away if he did not hold on to something solid, something real. He picked up an empty wine bottle and set it down again. At each turn of the roof, he kept his eyes to the design of the plush rugs which carpeted the tarpaper. He avoided looking at the decorative mirror in a small art deco frame, skirting it with a tremor of terror. The last time he had looked at his reflection, it had been like viewing the remains of a familiar corpse.

His eyes, oh his eyes.

There were two dead flies lying on the table, sun-dried and so light, they were carried off on the next breeze. He turned away. His hand worked over his eyes and left them closed, the way that service was done for the deceased.

He sat down on the tarmac and addressed the upholstery of the chair. “I couldn’t stop what happened.”

There was no response from the upholstery.

“There was nothing I could have done.”

He took the chair’s quiet repose for agreement. He opened his eyes and leaned over to touch the brocade arm, as though to gain the chair’s confidence, and then he went on in a louder monotone. “What good would it have done to tell?”

He stood up and walked twice around the chair in the way of a child who believes that the circle has a magical and protective charm. He came to rest beside the chair and put one arm around the back of it. “Oh, what would have been the good of it?” His voice was rising more. Hysteria came stealing up his throat, surprising him and scaring him with a shrillness in his voice. “Well, it’s crazy, that’s all-just crazy!”