Prasko waited until the tow truck had disappeared around the corner of the front row of rooms, and then he walked to the door of room 138. There he took his pistol and knocked three times on the door with the butt.

It took Mr. Ketcham a long time to respond.

Come on, Ketcham. I know you're in there, and I know you can't get out.

"Who is it?" Ketcham finally inquired.

"Police, open up," Prasko called.

The door opened.

"Is something wrong, Officer?" Ketcham asked.

"You know fucking well what's wrong, Ketcham," Prasko said, somewhat nastily.

He spun Ketcham around, then twisted his left hand and arm around his back and upward and propelled him into the room, where he pushed him facedown on the bed and quickly handcuffed him.

"May I say something?" Ketcham inquired.

"Don't open your mouth. Don't turn over, don't even move," Prasko said, and holstered his pistol.

Then he searched the room methodically until he found what he was looking for under the cushion in the room's one armchair: two business-size envelopes held closed with rubber bands. Each was stuffed with ten rubber-band-bound sheafs of one-hundred-dollar bills, ten bills to a sheaf, for a total of $20,000.

Prasko put the envelopes on the table beside the armchair, then went to the bed and rolled Ketcham over.

"You got something to say?" he asked.

"I really have no idea what all this is-"

Prasko interrupted Ketcham by striking him with the back of his open hand.

"Bullshit time is over," Prasko said.

"Am I under arrest?" Ketcham asked after a moment.

"Not yet."

"Why don't you take that money and leave?" Ketcham asked, reasonably.

Prasko considered the suggestion.

"Your father would be very embarrassed if you had to call him and tell him you had been arrested for dealing in drugs," Prasko said. "It would probably cause him trouble at the bank."

"Oh, Jesus!" Ketcham said.

"Who's the girl?" Prasko asked.

"What girl?"

Prasko struck him again with the back of his hand.

"I already told you, bullshit time is over."

"My girlfriend," Ketcham said. "She doesn't know anything about this. You could let her go."

"What did you do," Prasko inquired sarcastically, "tell her that tonight you were going to do something new? You were going to rent a motel room and go in, and she was going to sit outside in the car?"

"Take the money. Who'd ever know?" Ketcham said.

Prasko considered that again, then reached down and unlocked one of the handcuffs. He then motioned Ketcham to get to his feet.

"This is really the mature way to deal with this situation, " Ketcham said, extending the wrist that still had a handcuff attached, obviously expecting Prasko to free him of that cuff, too.

Instead, Prasko firmly took Ketcham's arm and led him into the bathroom, where he ordered him to sit on the floor beside the toilet. Then he attached the free end of his handcuff to the pipes running to the flushing mechanism of the toilet.

"What are you doing?" Ketcham asked.

Prasko ignored him, went out of room 138 to the car, and tried the passenger-side door. It was locked.

"Come out of there, honey," he ordered.

He saw the blonde looking up from the floor with horror in her eyes.

"Open up," Prasko ordered.

The blonde tried to move away as far as she could.

Prasko unholstered his revolver and used the butt as a hammer to shatter the window. Then he reached inside and unlocked the door.

"You can come out," he said, "or I can drag you out."

She scurried across the floor to the open door, which caused her skirt to rise even higher.

Peggene had legs like that when I first met her. Now her legs look like shit.

He took the girl's arm and led her into room 138 and closed and locked the door without letting go of her arm.

When she saw Ketcham handcuffed to the crapper, she sucked in her breath.

"What you are, honey," Prasko said, "is an accessory to a felony, possession of controlled substances with the intent to distribute."

"Ronny?" the girl asked, looking into the bathroom.

"We're working something out, Cynthia," Ketcham said. "Just take it easy."

The girl looked at Prasko defiantly.

Prasko walked to the bathroom door and closed it.

"He had some money," he said to the girl. "I may let him go. What have you got to trade?"

"I've got a little money," she said.

"He had twenty thousand. You got that much?"

"No!"

"Then I guess you're both going to jail."

"I could probably get you some money," the girl said.

"Twenty thousand? That kind of money?"

She shook her head, no.

"How about five minutes of your time?" Prasko asked.

"Five minutes of my time? I don't understand."

"Yeah, you understand," Prasko said.

"Oh, my God!"

"That's probably what your mother'll say when you call her from Central Lockup and tell her you need bailing out, and for what."

The girl started to whimper.

"You gonna start taking your clothes off, or not?" Prasko said. "I don't have all night."

Sobbing now, the girl unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged out of it, then unfastened her skirt and let it fall to the floor.

"All of it, all of it," Prasko said.

The girl unfastened her brassiere and then, now moving quickly, pushed her white underpants down off her hips. Then she backed up to the bed and lay down on it, her legs spread, her face to one side, so she didn't have to look at Prasko.

Officer Prasko dropped his trousers and then his shorts and moved to the bed.

When he was done, he went into the bathroom and struck Ketcham in the face with his revolver, hard enough to draw blood and daze him. Then he unlocked the handcuffs.

"Stay where you are for five minutes or I'll come back and blow your fucking brains out," Prasko said.

Then he went into the bedroom, glanced quickly at the naked, whimpering girl on the bed, took the twenty thousand dollars from the table, and left room 138.

As soon as Ketcham heard the sound of the car starting, and then driving away, he got off the bathroom floor and went into the bedroom and tried to put his arms around the girl.

She pushed him away and shrieked.

"Cynthia," he said, trying to sound comforting, and again tried to put his arms around her.

Cynthia shrieked again.

The District Attorney of Philadelphia, the Hon. Thomas J. "Tony" Callis-a large, silver-haired, ruddy-faced, well-tailored man in his early fifties-looked up from his desk, and saw Harrison J. Hormel, Esq.-a somewhat rumpled-looking forty-six-year-old-standing in the door, waiting to be noticed.

Harry Hormel was arguably the most competent of all the assistant district attorneys Callis supervised. And he had another characteristic Callis liked. Hormel was apolitical. He had no political ambitions of his own, and owed no allegiance to any politician, except the current incumbent of the Office of the District Attorney.

"Come in, Harry," Mr. Callis called.

Hormel slipped into one of the two comfortable green leather armchairs facing Callis's desk.

"What do you want to happen to James Howard Leslie? " Hormel asked, without any preliminaries.

"Boiling in oil would be nice," Tony Callis said. "Or perhaps drawing and quartering."

Mr. James Howard Leslie, by profession a burglar, had been recently indicted for murder in the first degree. It was alleged that one Jerome H. Kellog, on returning to his home at 300 West Luray Street in Northwest Philadelphia, had come across Mr. Leslie in his kitchen. It was further alleged that Leslie had thereupon brandished a blue. 38 Special five-inch-barrel Smith amp; Wesson revolver; had then ordered Kellog to raise his hands and turn around; and when Kellog had done so, had shot Kellog in the back of the head, causing his death. It was further alleged that after Kellog had fallen to the floor of his kitchen, Leslie had then shot him again in the head, for the purpose of making sure he was dead.