Trahan took out his cell phone and made a call. He tssked after a few seconds, snapped it shut.

"Damn confidential informants," he said. "She's not picking up."

"It's a woman?" I said.

"Of course," Detective Marut said. "She was sleeping with Mark Ordonez until he left her for another lady. There's no better informant than a woman scorned."

"When did you last hear from her?" I asked.

"Right before we picked you up," Trahan said. He bit the antenna of his radio in frustration.

"I wanted to hit it fast, flash-bang through the front door, get everybody down. Now I'm not so sure. My CI there said that the place was packed. We can't risk somebody getting hurt, especially us, unless the Ordonez brothers are definitely in there. Then, fuck everything!"

"Hey, wait a second," I said. "Where's the Emergency Service Unit? They live for this kind of stuff. Why don't we let them handle it?"

"Scott was our brother," Khuong said gravely, his eyes hard and dark as coal. "This stays in the family."

Good lord. I didn't like the sound of that. I was getting a scary vibe off everyone, actually. These guys were too keyed up. Letting their emotions get the best of them. This thing felt more like a war party than an arrest procedure. Whatever happened to removing the emotionally involved from the case? Like I of all people should talk.

"Did somebody say that the place was packed?" I said, staring dubiously at the desolate establishment. "It's coming on nine a.m."

Thaddeus's gold tooth winked. At least I think that's what I saw. He racked his 10mm Smith amp; Wesson.

"Some people never want the party to end, girl," he said.

"Wait a second. How are we going to do a recon?" Detective Marut chimed in. "If these guys killed Scott, then they're going to be superparanoid about anybody who looks suspicious. We've all been on surveillance. Who knows if they made us."

"I have an idea," I said.

I stared at the club. It looked evil, like an inner-city entrance to Hell. But I was the one whose charade had put us here, and I could barely live with myself at that moment. If somebody else got hurt, I didn't know what I would do.

"Wire me up," I said.

Trahan shook his head. "No way."

"What are you, nuts?" Mike said. "No way are you going into that pit alone. I'll do it."

I stared into my partner's eyes. He meant what he'd just said. Like I said, he's the best.

"You listen to me," I said. "I'm going in. They don't know me from Eve. They won't expect a woman. Oh, and if that's not good enough for you, I'm the primary investigator. And to answer your first question, Yes, obviously I'm nuts."

IT TOOK ABOUT A MINUTE AND A HALF for DEA agent Thaddeus Price to attach a tiny wireless Typhoon mike under the button of my suit jacket. I kind of wanted to tell him I wasn't in that big a hurry, but I kept that particular news flash to myself.

"Okay, here's the set," he said. "This place is a shit hole, but believe it or not, on Friday mornings they get a slumming, hard-partying Manhattan crowd. Go up, knock on the door, and tell the bouncer you're looking for your boyfriend, DJ Lewis. Don't worry, he's not there. But the bouncer will probably let you in."

"Why's that?" I said.

Thaddeus's tooth glittered again as he smiled at me.

"Look in the mirror, Detective. Pretty white girls like you don't need to be on the list."

"You see either of our buddies, Mark or Victor," Trahan advised, "I want you to call out, 'Code red,' and find the nearest corner. Same goes if there's trouble, if you feel you're in any danger at all. We'll be there before you can draw another breath, okay?"

"Code red," I said. "Got it." Hell, I'd been in code red for the past twenty-four hours.

"All right, what else?" Trahan said. "Oh, yeah. Cough up your weapon and badge. The bouncer might want to search you."

The walls of the cramped van suddenly seemed to shrink in on me, until I felt like I was lying in a coffin. My own coffin.

Dear Holy Christ!

I could hand over my Glock and badge without any problem whatsoever.

But Scott's gun, the one that Paul had used to murder him, was in my handbag. That might raise a few eyebrows in the van. What the hell was I going to do now?

I reached into my purse and handed Trahan my Glock. Then I gave him my gold badge.

But I left Scott's murder weapon right where it was, under my wallet and a box of Altoids. "Wish me luck," I said.

"Code red," Trahan repeated. "Don't be a hero in there, Lauren."

"Trust me, I'm no hero."

The door of the van suddenly slid open, and I stepped out, blinking, onto the cracked and stained sidewalk. I looked around. I didn't know which was bleaker, the inner-city horizon or my dwindling chances of pulling this crazy charade off alive.

"Don't worry, partner," Mike said. "We'll be watching you every step of the way."

Yeah, I thought, hefting my bag as the door slammed shut.

That was precisely the problem.

I stared at the establishment in question, the so-called club. The steel shutters. The lightless doorway between them like a vertical open grave.

What in the name of everything holy could happen to me next?

Code red was the least of my problems.

IN THE SMALL ALCOVE just inside the crummy front door was a crimson velvet rope and behind it, an ink-black stairwell leading down.

The bouncer standing next to it was wearing champagne-colored sunglasses and a three-piece suit that could have been made of red Mylar. I silently debated what made me more uneasy as I approached him, the fact that he was six and a half feet tall or the fact that he was morbidly obese.

A steady thumping rose from the raw concrete stairwell at his side, as if blasting were going on in the depths of the earth.

"Lewis spinning tonight?" I asked.

The bouncer shook his huge head almost imperceptibly.

Did he understand English? Did he automatically know I was a cop? I felt suddenly very glad Mike and the other guys were just a yell away.

"Is it a private party, or can I get in?" I said.

Private party, I prayed, glancing down into the black of the stairwell. I had no problem with going back to the van a failure. We could figure something else out. I was leaning toward a nap at that point. Or maybe a three-week vacation out of the country.

"Depends," the bouncer finally spoke.

"On what?" I said.

The bouncer lowered his shades and adjusted himself in a way that made me glad I hadn't eaten any breakfast.

"On how bad you want in," he said.

"That's really romantic," I said as I turned on my heel. "But there's nothing on this earth I want that bad."

"Come back, come back," the unsavory bouncer said, booming nasty laughter as he unclipped the velvet rope. "Don't get so testy, white girl. Just a little joke. Bouncer humor. Welcome to Wonderground."