"Suspicions ofwrtat?" Day asked. "Agriculture?"

"It never made sense to me either," I said. "Anyway, I think I know who's got Plankton. It's someone Barner doesn't want to believe would do such a thing, so he may need to abuse the three of you uselessly for a short time before he confronts the obvious. But there's not a lot of time to waste." I described the latest news reports about Jay Plankton's tongue having turned up in the Post newsroom.

Thad said, "I'm surprised. I figured these guys to be jokers. Like tattooing Leo Moyle and then letting him go. But this is… how could anybody do something that vicious just because the guy was some jerk on the radio?"

Kemmerer said, "How would anybody even know how to cut somebody's tongue out?"

"Yes," Day said, "I would expect that to be a lost art on Long Island."

But in fact I had read a month or so earlier about just such a practice. "It's still done by some of the nastier security forces in the Middle East," I said. "You blindfold a man, hold him down, somebody pinches his nose shut, out pops his tongue, and then snip, snip."

They all considered this somberly.

Day said, "So do you think it's Middle Eastern terrorists who have Jay Plankton?"

"No, I think it's some gay cops, high on potent recreational pharmaceuticals, and on resentment and rage. What I have to do now is convince Lyle Barner of this with no hard evidence to go on. But if I can convince him, and if I can get Lyle to accompany me out to his boyfriend Dave Welch's house in Hempstead, I think we can free Jay Plankton before an unavoidable kidnapping and assault charge against the man Lyle loves turns into something even worse."

Day and Kemmerer regarded me with apprehension, and Thad listened thoughtfully, as if he was not altogether convinced. Then Day let us into the building with his key, and the three of them followed me up to Day's apartment on the second floor. The apartment door was locked, and when Day opened it we saw that the lights had been left on, but Lyle Barner was gone.

"Maybe Barner came to the same conclusion you came to, Strachey," Day said, "and he went out to Hempstead to rescue Jay Plankton and arrest his own boyfriend."

Kemmerer said, "Arrest him or warn him," and it occurred to me that Lyle, in the state he must have been in at that moment, might have been capable of either.

Chapter 21

Thad had a map of the New York metropolitan area in the glove compartment of his pickup truck, and I navigated as he drove east across Brooklyn and then Queens. A light drizzle was falling again, and Thad drove with determination but care on the slick highways, dodging both potholes, where he could, and early-Sunday-morning drunks.

Day and Kemmerer had offered, without enthusiasm, to ride along and help in any way they could, but that made no sense so they were off the hook. Two of the four of us would have had to ride in the bed of the pickup, either exposed to the weather or under a tarp with eggplant debris. Anyhow, what were they going to do when we arrived at Welch's house, the address of which was conveniently listed in the Nassau County phone book? Thad and I assured Day and Kemmerer that once we became convinced that Jay Plankton was in fact being held in Hempstead, we would notify the local police department before proceding.

The radio news reports offered no substantive late developments. The headlines were still the tongue arriving at the Post and the threat of additional gruesome bodily harm to Plankton. The reporter did add that following Sunday morning services at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Archbishop Egan was expected to make a personal appeal to the kidnappers for the J-Bird's release. Joining the cleric in his plea would be Babette Gallagher, a woman who described herself as Jay Plankton's "fiancee." Interviewed by WINS, Gallagher spoke with emotion but said in a controlled voice that her boyfriend "did not deserve to be mutilated." She added, "Jay is no saint, but who is?"

Just after 4:30, Thad and I pulled into a Dunkin' Donuts near the West Hempstead Long Island Rail Road station. I went in and asked for directions to Parsons Drive.

This produced an elaborate confab involving all of the shift personnel. The consensus was that Parsons Drive was just four blocks away. I bought two black coffees and a bag of crullers, and went back out to the truck.

"It's nearby. Go down that way three blocks, and turn right."

"Then what?" Thad said.

"I don't know."

"When should we call the police?"

I got out my cellphone, switched it on, and told Diefendorfer, "I don't know the answer to that, either. When the time comes, we'll recognize it, I think."

Thad drove out onto the highway. "This is kind of exciting," he said.

"Do you have goose bumps?"

"I think so. But I'm developing a lot of gas, too. I guess I'm not nineteen anymore."

We soon turned off the commercial street onto a leafy avenue of ample wood-frame and shingled single-family residences with small but tidy lawns and glistening, rain-drenched late-model sedans and SUVs in the driveways. Few lights were on in the houses, but the streetlights at the intersections cast enough illumination for us to read some of the house numbers, and we soon spotted Dave Welch's place.

"Go on by," I told Thad.

"Right. Let's think this through."

Welch's house was a two-story, brown-shingled place with a chalet-style A over the front door, a couple of big oaks on either side of the structure, and bushy shrubs under all the first-floor windows. A screened porch on the left side of the house was dark, as were the other first-floor rooms. Up above, though, dim lights were visible behind drawn curtains at two second-story windows. Three cars were parked out front: a gray Toyota Previa and a black VW Passat, one behind the other in the driveway, and a beige Ford sedan on the street. The Ford looked as though it could have been an NYPD unmarked car, maybe Lyle's.

"The Toyota could be the getaway car," I said. "After they grabbed Plankton, they put him in a stolen Lincoln Navigator and then they switched to what one witness thought was a light-colored van. The Previa could be mistaken for a van."

"It's funny that they wouldn't hide it," Thad said.

"It's a vague description that fits a lot of vehicles in the state of New York."

Thad cruised down the block, made a U in an intersection, then slowly backtracked.

"Let's park here," I said, and Thad pulled in front of a darkened house two doors up and across the street from Welch's. We had a clear view of the Welch house. The second-floor lights remained on, but no movement was detectable behind the curtains. Thad doused his headlights and cut the engine. No lights had been on in any of the other nearby houses, and none came on when we parked. If our activities aroused the interest of any neighborhood insomniacs, they were not letting us know it.

"Now what?" Thad said.

"I'm thinking this over."

Thad rolled his window down, and after a moment he said, "I don't hear anything."

"No."

"They'd probably have Plankton gagged. Don't you think?"

"Yes, although if they actually cut out his tongue, I guess he'd be limited in the sounds he could make. Anyway, he would be physically traumatized by that ordeal, and maybe not even conscious."

"That's awful. I sure hope they didn't do it."