"Ah."

Lucas hadn't been badly hurt, so Lily flagged a cab, took him to Beth Israel, then reported the attack. Because she'd fired her weapon, there had been forms to fill out. She'd started that night, and called Kennett to tell him about it.

"Should I ask why he was at your place at two in the morning?" Kennett had asked. He'd sounded amused, but he wasn't.

"Um, you don't want to know," Lily had said. "But it was strictly business, not pleasure."

"And I don't want to know."

"That's right."

After a moment: "Okay. Are you all right? I mean, really all right."

"Sure. I've got a busted window I've gotta get fixed…"

"Good. Get some sleep. I'll talk to you tonight."

"That's all? I mean…?"

"Do I trust you? Of course. See you tonight."

Lily looked out the car window, at the city rolling past. Maybe she was betraying Lucas. Maybe she was betraying Kennett. She wasn't sure anymore.

O'Dell said, "Cretins," and his paper shook with anger.

The reporters came and went, the naive ones swallowing Lucas' story that he had been mugged, others not so sure. A reporter from Newsday said flatly that something else was going on: that Bekker had a gang, or that somebody else was trying to stop Lucas' investigation.

"I don't know about muggers in Minneapolis, but in New York they don't work in professional tag teams. Unless you're lying, you were done by professionals…"

After they were gone, Lucas took a few more Tylenol, wandered down to the bathroom and got back in time to see Lily coming down the hall.

"You look… pretty rough," she said.

"It's my cheek. My cheek hurts like hell," he said. He touched a swollen magenta bruise with his middle finger. "At least the headache's going away. They're letting me out after lunch."

"I heard," Lily said.

"Thanks for sending the jeans over. The other pants…"

"Are shot." Lily said.

"Yeah."

"O'Dell's fixed the Mengele speech-there'll be a notice in all the papers this afternoon, the Times tomorrow morning, and we're asking everybody to do a note about it. TV, too. We found a guy, a legit guy, who already lectures on Mengele."

"Terrific," Lucas said. "When?"

"Monday."

"Jesus, that quick?"

"We gotta do everything quick. Maybe we can get him before he does another one…" Lily backed into a hospital chair, dropped her purse by her foot. "Listen, about last night. Are you absolutely sure they were cops?"

"Fairly sure. They could have been professional bone-breakers, but it didn't feel that way. They felt like cops. Why?"

"I was thinking about another possibility."

"Smith?"

"Yeah. After you chopped up his putting green…"

Lucas pulled his lip. "Maybe," he said. "But I doubt it. One thing you learn as a sleazoid businessman is to roll with the punches."

"Have you talked to Fell this morning?"

"She's on her way over. We have a line on a couple of people who might know something about Bellevue. She's been talking to Kennett, to make sure we don't step on any toes…"

"Okay. I've got Bobby Rich coming over. He's the guy who took the tip about the witness."

"The witness Petty found…"

"Yeah, the day he got killed. And there's still some more paper to look at."

"That's pointless, I think," Lucas said. "With these guys, the dead guys, we won't find anything in their lives that'll point to the killers. It has to be bureaucratic: who pulled their files, and when…"

"That's impossible."

"Yeah, I know."

"So we're stuck?"

"Not quite, but it's getting sparse. Maybe Rich'll have something. We've still got Fell. I want to take a look at Petty's apartment, his personal stuff. And I wouldn't mind seeing the place where he was shot."

"That's about a half-mile from my apartment-we could walk. His apartment's sealed. I'll get some new seals and take you over. When?"

"Tonight? After we talk to Rich?"

"Fine."

"What'd you tell Kennett…?"

"About you being at my apartment? I said you came over to visit. I told him that sex was not a consideration, last night or in the future. I told him that you weren't making any moves on me and I wasn't making any moves on you, but that we had things to talk about."

"Sounds pretty awful," Lucas said, grinning.

"It could have been, but I just came out with it. I also told him O'Dell was there part of the time. John will back that up."

A few minutes later, Kennett and Fell arrived together, and Lily blew up: "For Christ's sakes, Dick, what're you doing here? Did you walk all the way in?" Hands on hips, she turned to Fell, angry. "Barbara, did you let him…?"

"Shut up, Lily," Kennett said. He touched her cheek with an index finger. To Lucas, he said, "Well, you look like shit."

"What do you think, Barb?" Lucas asked.

Fell had taken cover behind Kennett, and she peered out and said, "He's right. You look like shit."

"Then it's unanimous," Lucas said. "That's what Lily said when she came in. The only one who didn't was a twenty-four-year-old Times reporter with a great ass, who thought I looked pretty good and would probably like to hear more about this case from the hero of it…"

"Gotta be a concussion," Fell said to Lily.

"He's always been like this," Lily said. "I think it's native stupidity."

Kennett, shaking his head, said, "Goddamn women, they're always impressed by a beat-up face. I used to get beat up whenever I needed to get laid. Worked like a charm…" He stopped, and frowned at Lucas: "Are you trying to get laid?" and his eyes flicked sideways at Lily.

Fell said, "Not very hard."

Lucas and Kennett laughed; Lily didn't.

Kennett said, "Listen, I wanted to tell you. Go ahead with those names you got. Barb's run them down…"

"One good address and one probable," Fell said.

"Junkies?"

"Nope. Neither one of them. Not the last anybody heard, anyway."

"All right." Lucas eased down from the hospital bed. "Let's go down to the nursing station. Maybe I can talk my way out before lunch."

The charge nurse said the attending physician wanted another look at him: she'd send him down as soon as he arrived, which should be within the next few minutes. "We'll see you first," she said.

"All right, but pretty quick?"

"Soon as he gets here."

Lily said, "I've gotta go. Take it easy today."

"Yeah."

He walked gingerly back to the room with Fell, trying not to move his head too quickly. At the door, he looked back toward the elevators. Kennett and Lily were waiting, looking up at the numbers above the door, then Kennett leaned toward Lily, and she went up on her toes, a kiss that wasn't taken lightly by either of them. Lucas turned away, and caught Fell watching him watch Lily and Kennett.

"True love," he said wryly.

The hot, hazy sun left him feeling faintly nauseous, and the headache lurked at the back of his skull.

"You look pale and wan," Fell said.

"I'm all right." He looked up at the storefront: Arnold's TV and Appliance, Parts amp; Repair. "C'mon, let's do her."

A bell tingled when they went through the door; a heavyset woman looked up from a ledger, slapped it shut, and moved ponderously to the counter. "Can I help ya?" She had a cheerfully yellow smile and an improbable West Virginia hills accent. To Lucas: "Whoa, you look like you've been in a dustup."

"We're police officers," Fell said. She lifted the flap of her purse, flashed the badge. "Are you Rose Arnold?"

The woman's smile sagged into a frown. "Yeah. What'd you want?"

"We're looking for a guy," Lucas said. "We thought you could help."