"I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to deal. You're a goddamned dirtbag, and it makes me feel nasty to be here. What I'm telling you is, I want you to put the word out on your network. And I want you to call me. Lucas Davenport. Midtown South. If you don't, I will fuck you up six different ways. I'll talk to the New York Times and I'll talk to the News and I'll talk to Eye Witness News and I'll give them pictures of you and tell them you're working with Bekker. How'd that help business? And I might just come back and fuck you up personally, because this is a serious matter with me, this Bekker thing."

He turned in a half-circle, his breath slowing, took a step toward the door, then suddenly whipped the club into the kitchen like a helicopter blade. It knocked a copper tureen off a wall peg, bounced off the stove, and clattered to the floor with the tureen. "Never was any fucking good with the long irons," he said.

On the way out of the building, Fell watched him until Lucas began to grin.

"Nuttier'n shit, huh?" he said, glancing at her.

"I believed it," she said seriously.

"Thanks for the backup. I don't think blondie would've done much…"

She shook her head. "That was funny; I mean, funny-strange. I didn't know Jackie Smith was gay until I saw this guy. That's like dealing with spouses, only worse. You whack one and the other's liable to come after you with a knife…"

"Are you sure they're gay?"

"Does Raggedy Ann have a cotton crotch?"

"I don't know what that means," Lucas said, laughing.

"It means yes, I'm sure they're gay," she said.

"How come he called you Dr. Fell?" Lucas asked. "Are you a doctor?"

"No. It's from the nursery rhyme: 'I do not love thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell; but this I know, and know full well: I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.' "

"Huh. I'm impressed," Lucas said.

"I know several nursery rhymes," Fell said, digging in her purse for the pack of Luckys. "Want to hear 'Old King Cole'?"

"I mean with Smith. Knowing the rhyme."

"I don't impress you, huh?" She flipped the cigarette into her mouth, her eyes slanting up at him.

"Don't know yet," he said. "Maybe…"

Barbara Fell lived on the Upper West Side. They dropped her city car at Midtown South, found a cab, and she said, "I've got a decent neighborhood bar. Why don't you come up and get a drink, chill out, and you can catch a cab from there."

"All right." He nodded. He needed some more time with her.

They went north on Sixth, the sidewalk traffic picking up as they got closer to Central Park, tourists walking arm in arm along the sidewalks.

"It's too big," Lucas said, finally, watching through the window as the city went by. "In the Twin Cities, you can pretty much get a line on every asshole in town. Here…" He looked out and shook his head. "Here, you'd never know where it was coming from. You got assholes like other places got raindrops. This is the armpit of the universe."

"Yeah, but it can be pretty nice," she said. "Got the theaters, the art museums…"

"When was the last time you went to a theater?"

"I don't know-I really can't afford it. But I mean, if I could."

"Right."

In the front seat, the taxi driver was humming to himself. There was no tune, only variations in volume and intensity as the driver stared blank-eyed through the windshield, bobbing his head to some unheard rhythm. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. Lucas looked at the driver, looked at Fell and shook his head. She laughed, and he grinned and went back to the window.

The bar was small, carefully lit, convivial. The bartender called Fell by her first name, pointed her at a back booth. Lucas took the seat facing the entrance. A waitress came over, looked at him, looked at Fell, said, "Ooo."

Fell said, "Strictly business."

"Ain't it always," the waitress said. "Didja hear Louise had her kid, baby girl, six pounds four ounces?"

Lucas watched Fell as she chatted with the waitress. She looked a little tired, a little lonesome, with that uncertain smile.

"So," she said, coming back to Lucas. "Do you really freeze your ass off in Minnesota? Or is that just…"

Small talk, bar talk. A second drink. Lucas waiting for a break, waiting…

Getting it. A slender man walked in, touched a woman on the cheek, got a quick peck in return. He was blond, carefully dressed, and after a moment, looked at the back of Fell's head, said something to the woman he'd touched, then looked carefully at Lucas.

"There's a guy," Lucas said, leaning across the table, talking in a low voice. "And I think he's looking at you. By the bar…"

She turned her head and lit up. "Mica," she called. To Lucas she said, "He used to be my hairdresser. He's, like, moved downtown." She slid out of the booth, walked up to the bar. "When did you get back…?"

"I thought that was you…" Mica said.

Mica had been to Europe; he started a story. Lucas sipped the beer, lifted his feet to the opposite seat, caught Fell's purse between his ankles, pulled it in. Fumbled with it, out of sight, watching. The waitress glanced his way, lifted her eyebrows. He shook his head. If she came over, if Mica's story ended too soon, if Fell hurried back to get a cigarette…

There. Keys. He'd been waiting all day for a shot at them…

He glanced at the key ring in his hand, six keys. Three good candidates. He had a flat plastic box in his pocket that had once held push pins. He'd dumped the pins and filled both the bottom and the lid with a thin layer of modeling clay. He pressed the first key in the clay, turned it, pressed again. Then the second key. The third key he did in the lid; if he made the impressions too close together, the clay tended to distort… He glanced into the box. Good, clean impressions, six of them.

Fell was still talking. He slipped the keys back into her purse, gripped it with his ankles, lifted it back to her seat…

Pulse pounding like an amateur shoplifter's.

Jesus.

Got them.

Lily called the next morning, "Got them," she said. "We're going to breakfast…"

Lucas called Fell, catching her just before she left her apartment.

"O'Dell called," he said. "He wants me to have breakfast with him. I probably won't make it down until ten o'clock or so."

"All right. I'll run the guy Lonnie told us about, the guy with the Cadillac in Atlantic City. It won't be much…"

"Unless the guy's into medical supplies. Maybe the syringes weren't his only item."

"Yeah…" She knew that was bullshit, and Lucas grinned at the telephone.

"Hey, we're driving nails. I'll buy you lunch later on."

The Lakota Hotel was old, but well-kept for New York. It was close to the publishing company that produced Lucas' board games, convenient to restaurants, and had beds that his feet didn't hang off of. From this particular room, he had a view over the roof below into the windows of a glass-sided office building. Not wonderful, but not bad, either. He had two nightstands, a writing table, a chest of drawers, a window seat, a color television with a working remote, and a closet with a light that came on automatically when he opened it.

He went to the closet, pulled out a briefcase and opened it on the bed. Inside was a monocular, a cassette recorder with a phone clip, and a Polaroid Spectra camera with a half-dozen rolls of film. Excellent. He closed the briefcase, made a quick trip to the bathroom, and rode back down to the street. A bellhop, loitering in the phone-booth-sized lobby, said, "Cab, Mr. Davenport?"

"No. I've got a car coming," he said. Outside, he hurried down the street to a breakfast bar, got a pint of orange juice in a wax carton, and went back outside.