The gardenias breathed their fragrance into the room mingling with the smell of coffee, which still lingered from the morning, and the pungent scent of incense. The rest of the table was swept clean but for a large photo book. All Those Girls in Love With Horses by Robert Vavra. Roulette rested the book in her lap, and turned the pages.

"And which do you love? The girls or the horses?"

"Which do you think?" Tachyon responded with an impish smile. He was playing back his phone messages, most of which seemed to be from women. The final message ended, and he switched off the machine and unplugged the phone. "So we can have at least a few hours of privacy." She found herself unable to meet the hunger in his gaze, and she dropped her eyes back to the book.

"Would you like a drink?"

"No thanks."

Tension filled the room, forming almost-tangible lines between them. Agitated, Roulette rose and roamed about the room. Two walls were covered by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with works in several different languages, and in an alcove formed by an outthrust of the wall and flanked by two windows was what could only be described as an altar. A low table covered by an embroidered gray cloth held a simple but profoundly beautiful flower arrangement, a single candle, a small knife, and a tiny Hopi seed pot holding a long, thin incense stick.

"Is this really for…"

"For worship?" he said, turning from the small efficiency kitchen where he was pouring himself a drink. "Yes. That's that ancestor business I told you about."

That opened a whole set of disturbing memories: singing in the choir at the Methodist church back home, her mother rehearsing the angels for the Christmas pageant, her head bobbing energetically as she pounded out the melody on their old piano, and the children's voices like piping crickets filling the house. Being frightened by a hell-and-damnation sermon by a visiting missionary, and clinging to her father for comfort.

She flung herself to the piano, seating herself on the cushioned bench. A violin, its smooth golden curves softly reflecting back the light from a brace of track lights, lay on the piano. And for the first time she found some disorder in this perfect room. A jumble of scores and music sheets marched across the stand. Roulette frowned and leaned in, studying the notation on one of the hand-scored pieces. The notes seemed to be in the familiar positions, but there were odd notations in the clefs. The piano cover fell back with a thud, and she sightread through the music.

She was very aware when Tachyon came up behind her, for the sense of tingling magnetism increased, and the delicate scent he favored washed over her. Ice tinkled in the glass as he attempted to clap.

"Bravo, you are quite accomplished."

"I should be, my mother's a music teacher."

"Where?"

"Philadelphia public school system."

There was a slight pause, then the Takisian asked, "What did you think?"

"Very Mozartian."

A tiny line appeared between Tachyon's arching brows, and he closed his eves as if in pain. "What a blow"

"I beg your pardon?"

"No artist likes to be told they are derivative."

"Oh, I'm sorry-"

He held up a small hand. Grinned. "Even when they know it's true."

She turned back, and shuffled the sheets, and went on to the second page. "Derivative or not, it's pretty."

"Thank you, I'm glad my small effort pleased you, but let us play a true master. I so rarely find someone I can-" he paused, and shot her a glance alight with mischief "-jam with."

He flipped quickly through the piles of music, and pulled out Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano in F, the so-called Spring sonata.

She watched, held by the way his small, elegant hands caressed the polished surface of the violin, tightening a string here, plucking a single quivering note from another. "Which do you prefer?" she asked, indicating the piano and the violin. "I can't choose. I am partial to this." Another stroke to the wood of the violin. "For it kept me on the edge of the gutter rather than in it for a number of years."

"Pardon?"

"Old history. Shall we tune?"

The A hung trembling in the room matched by a floating tone from the violin.

"Good God, what is that? A Stradivarius?"

"Don't I wish. No, it's a Nagyvary."

"Oh, that chemist in Texas who thinks he discovered the secret of the Cremona school."

The violin dropped from his chin, and he smiled down at her. "What a delight you are. Is there nothing on which you're not informed?"

"I daresay a thousand things," she replied dryly.

His lips pressed against the corner of her mouth, drifted down her neck, the breath puffing gently and warmly across her skin.

"Shall we play?" And she noticed with embarrassment and anger the catch in her voice.

They began in perfect unison, the violin singing the first held note then gliding into the elegant ornamentation. She echoed the phrase, and time ceased and reality withdrew.

Twenty minutes of perfect harmony and graceful genius. Twenty minutes without word or thought or worry. A perfect moment. Tachyon stood transported; eyes closed, lashes brushing at his high cheekbones, metallic red hair curling across the violin, joy on his narrow face.

Roulette laid her hands in her lap, stared down at the keys while Tachyon, also remaining silent, placed the violin in its case. Moments later his hands touched her shoulders, resting like nervous birds, as though frightened to remain.

"Roulette, you make me feel… well, something that I haven't felt for many, many years. I'm very glad you came walking down Henry Street today. Perhaps there was even a reason for it."

She watched with rather distant interest as her fingers tightened about each other, knuckles whitening with strain. "You're looking for significance again."

" I thought you only warned me against looking for comfort. "

"Well, add significance to it." She lifted a corner of the numbing blanket with which she had covered her emotions, and found panic throbbing in time to her rushing heartbeats.

She probed at her soul, and found a bleeding wound. Fear, hate, guilt, regret, hopelessness.

She blamed him.

"Let's go to bed." And she was startled by the flatness of the words when they masked so much anguish.

It would have been quicker to travel crosstown underground. Jack had clattered down the steps at the West 4th Street station. One level, two levels, three. Few people other than maintenance workers went down to the fourth level. He went through an anonymous steel door and entered an eastwest maintenance tunnel. In their little cages, the dim safety bulbs shed a brittle yellow glow, casting islands of illumination along the passageway. Jack's shoes scuffed in dirt.

It was exhilarating to be able to stride along without having to account for endless numbers of slower pedestrians getting in his way. Jack checked his watch, and then looked at it again, unbelieving. It was only a little after two. It seemed as if he'd been searching the city for Cordelia for davs. More to the point, he'd completely lost track of time. He wondered if maybe he was squandering his time now. Maybe he should be calling Rosemary, checking with Bagabond, phoning the police, anything… He should have been watching instead of thinking.

When he swung around a dogleg in the passage and slammed into someone coming the other way at a dead run, he had, at first, only the briefest impression of a dark figure. He glimpsed one huge eye centered in the other's face, a monocle glittering in the dim light-

"Son of a bitch!" said the other person, raising one hand toward Jack. Red flame erupted from the fist, a rolling wave of painful sound crashed against Jack's ears, and he heard something buzz past his head, sprnging against the concrete wall of the corridor. Cement chips sprayed the side of his face. There was no pain yet.