Susan and Liza designed outdoor display lighting for tall buildings, and they were frequently in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur. In New York, one of their jobs was choosing and installing the colored lights used on special occasions in the tower atop the Empire State Building. Both were in Salisbury, Connecticut, for two weeks, lighting a new Indian casino's full-scale replica of a Las Vegas reduced-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower-the developer had made it clear that he didn't want the Parisian tower, but

"the Vegas one"-so I had the apartment to myself.

It was just before two when I undressed, turned on the shower, and switched on the radio in the bathroom to the WINS all-news station. The traffic and weather reports had shifted to "moderate" and "warm with showers," and the J-Bird report had changed too, but not for the better.

The news announcer said, "Police have stepped up their efforts to locate Jay Plankton, the talk-radio personality who was abducted Saturday afternoon. Rescuing Plankton turned even more urgent tonight when a package was dropped off at the newsroom of the New York Post. Inside the package was a note and an object in a refrigerator bag. The note claimed that the object was Jay Plankton's tongue.

"The note also said that since Plankton had convinced the kidnappers that he could never be 'reeducated,' in their words, he would have to pay an even heavier price. The next piece of Plankton to be sent out would be 'an even more important part of him,' the note said. It was signed by the FFF, or Forces of Free Faggotry, the radical gay group that had been harassing Plankton.

"Police were not certain that the package was sent by the real kidnappers, or if the object inside was an actual human tongue. The package and its contents are being ana-lyzed, a police spokesman said, and NYPD is taking the threat very seriously."

Next was an update on negotiations over an upcoming Bush-Gore debate, but I didn't hang around to listen to it. I postponed the shower, dressed again, found Barner's cellphone number, sat at Susan and Liza's desk, and dialed.

"Barner."

"It's Strachey. I heard."

"This is bad."

"Does it look legit?"

"They think so at the precinct. The tongue thing's at the lab."

"Are you still in Brooklyn?"

"For now. The assholes aren't back yet. I'd have every cop on Long Island looking for them if I knew what they were driving. Diefendorfer's truck is still here, and no vehicle is registered to a Samuel Day in the state of New York."

I said, "I'm coming back out there. I think I know who's got Plankton. It's not Day or Thad or any of them."

"Oh yeah? Then who is it?"

"Lyle, you don't want to know."

"Gotcha. I do but I don't."

"It's Dave."

"Dave who?" It was as if he hadn't heard me.

"Dave Welch, your beau."

"That's bullshit." But he hesitated just perceptibly before he said it.

"I'll explain when I get out there. I'm coming out. Can you get me a ride?"

There was a silence, and then Barner said, "Have you had a couple of drinks, or what?"

"No, just get me over to Williamsburg, and you'll see."

"You're crazy, Strachey. You're nuts."

"Uh-uh. I can explain it. You're smitten with this guy, but you're smarter than you are smitten, and you'll get it. You're not always a smart gay man, Lyle, but you're a smart cop, and that's the Lyle Barner who will see it right away."

"This is nuts. You're nuts."

"Can you send a patrol car for me? I'm on the Upper West Side." I gave him the address.

He said, "No."

"No what? You won't even get me a ride?"

"Nah. Uh-uh."

"What if they saw Plankton's dick off? It looks like that's where these dementos are headed next. Do Dave and his pals get high? What do they use? They couldn't be com-miting atrocities like this stone cold sober. What all do you know about Dave Welch that you haven't told me, Lyle?"

The line went dead. Barner had hung up.

Chapter 20

I caught a cab at Broadway and Seventy-second, and the cabbie, Ahmed something, was willing to take me to Brooklyn. We sped crosstown toward the FDR and the East River bridges. The cab's suspension seemed to fall out at Seventy-second and Third, but Ahmed exhibited no concern over what had happened, so neither did I.

I brought along the cellphone I kept stashed at Susan and Liza's. I had another one I kept in my desk drawer in Albany, and a couple of others in strategic locations. I did not like the things. Nobody who carried them around had enough privacy. You couldn't just bask in your immediate natural surroundings without fear of interruption from afar, or have any kind of uninterfered-with interior life.

Timmy considered my "cellphone phobia" both neurotic and impractical for anyone in my line of work, and I had to agree with him on the last point. Also, as he had explained to me more than once, you can just shut the damn things off. Nor was it required of cellphone owners that they make blabby spectacles of themselves in public places like restaurants, airports and trains. You could own one and still use it considerately.

Logic was on Timmy's side, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I was transmittered- and antenna-ed up, if not 24/7/365, then maybe 18/5/312. Still irrationally, sentimentally, uselessly-I longed for a return to the days when public telephones were black things hung inside stand-up boxes with doors that accordioned shut and that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and Audrey Tbtter's perfume. And, like Marlowe in The Big Sleep, you could pop a nickel in a slot and turn a rotary dial. And then while you waited for whatever bad news or treachery was at the other end of the line, you could sooth your apprehensions by listening to a series of exquisite, subtly mechanical clicks followed by a string of perfectly rolled Rs that could have been created by the tongue of a Catalonian countess or a sloe-eyed bullfighter.

I brought the cellphone along, even switched it on. Not that I was likely to divulge the number to anyone but Lyle and risk having the thing start twittering next to my pancreas. Of course I would give Thad the number, once I was satisfied, as I was sure I soon would be, that he was not a liar and a kidnapper and a seriously unrighteous, duplicitous Mennonite.

Traffic was lighter than it had been earlier, but even at a quarter to three in the morning the city's main roads felt like workday rush hour in Milan. New York was not just a city that never slept; its nighttime existence constituted a kind of parallel universe to its regular-hours self, and being in that New York night world always felt to me like exciting world travel, like going to Barcelona or Cairo.

The cab rolled up to the Lorimer Street apartment at 3:10 AM. The street was much quieter now, with no sign of the cops who had been watching the building earlier, or of their patrol car. The rain had let up, and the air was fresher in the lungs than it had been, with just an undertone of steamed asphalt and the variegated human smells of the city.

I paid the cabbie, and was turning toward the building when three young people came up the street. One of them said to me in a sarcastic tone, "Hi, schmuck."

"Hey, Charm, it's you. Did you escape from Sing-Sing?"

"I'm not in Sing-Sing yet-no thanks to you, asshole."

"What brings you to Brooklyn, Charm? Are you making a woolly cheese delivery to the Williamsburg Incas?"