He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Only that ultimate catharsis can save you from a lifetime of memory"

He tore aside his carefully constructed mental shields, gripped and broke a part of her mind. The pictures fluttered past behind her eyes. Nurse's hand hard on her chest, forcing her back. "Don't look." She looked. MONSTER! It lay in an incubator mewling out its life. Hidden away. Four days of watching it die. Disgust becoming love becoming hate. Nurses hand hard on her chest, forcing

And so it went. A never-ending replay of a nightmare. "Kill him, and it stops."

"Oh God! I don't believe you!" Her fingers writhed in her hair.

"That's unfortunate. For you really don't have any other option."

"Is it time yet?" Jack raised his head from the steel railing he was clutching.

Bagabond moved over to stand beside him. She put her arm around his waist. "Soon. It'll be soon." She reached up to push the sweat-soaked black hair away from his eyes. Obviously in pain, Jack stared back at her. Shadowed, his dark eyes blended invisibly with the night.

"You'll have to go in as yourself," she said. "I'll help you change when the time comes. I'll be there with you the whole time." Bagabond put her hand on top of his on the railing. He turned his hand over and clasped her fingers.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Jack said. He looked down at their plaited fingers, but didn't take his hand away. " I wish the cats were here."

"Me too."

"Anything goes wrong," he said, "you get out. I mean it. I can take care of myself."

Bagabond said nothing, but squeezed a bit harder. She looked over at Rosemary. "Can we start in?"

The lawyer walked back to the corner and peered around the dingy brick. "It looks clear." She touched her digital watch, squinting at the dim glow. "It's twenty past eight. Everybody who's coming should have gone in by now. Let's go."

The entrance to the Haiphong Lily was marked by a huge water lily limned in red neon. Its buzzing flicker lit the quiet street. Half a dozen limousines were pulled up at the curb outside the restaurant. The uniformed drivers stood in a group at the head of the line, smoking and gossiping like ordinary cabbies. Each car was guarded by one or two unsmiling men. A couple of the guards impassively watched Bagabond and her companions pass, eyes tracking their progress like the sights on an '160 machine gun. All the guards wore black armbands.

The cilantro, fish, and hot pepper smells of the Vietnamese cooking engulfed them before they reached the door. "Mon Dieu." Jack raised his eyes skyward and then looked toward Bagabond. "Can you believe it? Now I'm hungry."

"We'll eat as soon as we get this over with."

While the entrance was at street-level, the restaurant itself was up a flight of stairs. The stairwell was dimly lit and the red flocked wallpaper absorbed most of that light. In an alcove beside the inner doorway, a big man whose subdued suit matched those of the watchers outside stood gazing down the steps. He had stepped out at the sound of the outside door and now blocked the upstairs landing.

"Reservations?" he said.

"Of course." Rosemary didn't hesitate.

Bagabond felt the eyes behind the mirrored sunglasses checking them for the possibility of a threat. The big man shrugged. Apparently satisfied, he stepped back out of the way. He obviously did not recognize Rosemary.

Inside the restaurant was more of the dark wallpaper and a nervous, middle-aged Oriental man who greeted them with a sheaf of menus. "Good evening. Three? Yes?."

He had already started toward one of the many empty tables when Rosemary stopped him. "We're here for the meeting."

The small man halted abruptly. The dining room was nearly deserted. An elderly couple huddled in intimate conversation to one side. Nearer, a tall, gaunt man with a crooked mouth looked up from his meal. He and the Oriental manager exchanged looks. Bagabond thought fbr an instant that the lone diner looked awfully familiar, but her attention snapped back as Jack stumbled and nearly fell against a bubbling tank of carp. The maitre d' looked distressed.

Smiling weakly, he said, "No meeting."

"Yes," said Rosemary. "There is. In the private room."

"No meeting here."

"What we have here" Jack said slowly through taut lips"

"is a failure to communicate."

Rosemary surveyed the room, stopping when she spotted two men in dark blue suits and expensive sunglasses sitting at separate tables in the back of the room. They too wore the armbands of mourning.

She addressed the nearer. "Buon giorno… Adrian, isn't it? Tony Callenza's son?"

"Lady, you got the wrong person." The soldier on the right glanced at his companion, who shrugged. Bagabond tightened her hold on Jack, prepared to pull him to cover if shooting started.

"Adrian," said Rosemary. "We used to play together. You'd kidnap my dolls and hold them for ransom. I'm hurt you don't remember." The assistant DA had left Bagabond and stood a few feet away from the table and the man she'd addressed. There was no tension in her stance, head high, arms loose at her sides. Bagabond had watched her once at a trial. Bagabond thought that she herself had never been so self-assured as Rosemary.

She was even less certain now that Rosemary really intended to use the books solely as a means to influence the Family. There was too much of her father in her still. Bagabond remembered Rosemary's remark about wishing she had been a son, able to inherit control. Was she about to provide the means for Rosemary to get that control?

"I told you, my name isn't Adrian.'"

"Then I guess I'm not Rosa-Maria Gambione."

The man pulled off his mirrorshades. "Maria!" He smiled for the first time. "I remember once, I sent you the right hand from a kidnapped doll. You still wouldn't pay."

The other man spoke for the first time. "Be quiet" Adrian. Rosa Maria Gambione disappeared many years ago." He said to her, "You look more like a district attorney to me" Ms. Muldoon."

"Very good. I don't know you, do I?"

"No."

"My father fought for the Family in the old ways. I chose new ones."

"Like hounding us?" said the second man. "Prosecuting us?"

"To be a useful district attorney. I have to be a good district attorney."

The thin, inexpressive mouth below the sunglasses twitched at one corner. "Adrian, get your father. I think he'll be interested in this." He leaned back in his chair and said, "Please sit down, you and your friends, Ms. Muldoon."

Rosemary pulled out a chair and sat, crossing her legs and smiling at the man on the other side of the table. She barely turned her head. "Suzanne, I think now would be an appropriate time."

Bagabond turned Jack toward her and extended a hand toward his head. The man pulled back sharply. "Not here!"

"You're right." She caught Rosemary's eye and pointed her chin toward the door of the men's rest room.

"Good idea" said Rosemary. To the man across the table, she said "My friends will be rejoining me in just a moment. I can assure you they are not… armed." She looked directly into the opaque lenses. "Do you have a name?"

"Okay, make it quick." He waved idly at the rest room. "You always hang out with junkies?"

Rosemary reached across the table and poured herself a cup of tea. "No."

"Morelli," said the man. "Very pleased to meet you." Bagabond led Jack to the men's room door.

"Perhaps I'd best go first." Jack reached out to steady himself against the doorframe.

"You won't make it," Bagabond said matter-of-factly. "Your faith is touching." Then he gasped in pain. "On the other hand…"

Bagabond pulled open the door and walked in. No one stood at the urinal" but a Vietnamese man dressed in a soiled kitchen apron was just coming out of the stall. He squawked in surprise" managed hurriedly to wash his hands" then left, muttering in a language Bagabond was glad she didn't understand. "Get in here" she said to Jack. The door swung shut after him.