I left the money orders in a neat stack for Max to take to Mama's laundry, shrugged into my coat, bowed to Immaculata and the baby.

"Burke…"

"What?"

"Max can take care of this thing for you."

"What thing?"

"This man…the one you met…the one with the machine gun."

"Max told you about that?"

Her lovely dark eyes shone under lashes like butterfly wings. "Do you think that was wrong?"

"I'm glad he has someone to tell."

"You have someone too, Burke. You have us. You know that."

"There's nothing to tell. Wesley's not a problem."

"Not like before?"

"Let it go, Mac."

"That's what you must do," she said.

I'M A GOOD THIEF. Two words- two separate things. When I had that name, I was out of the loop. Safe. The old rules are the best rules- you dance with the one who brought you to the party.

I made some calls, put the team together.

"THIS'LL REALLY WORK?" I asked the Mole. He was bent over a lab table in his workroom, a pile of gold Krugerrands spread out before him.

He didn't answer. Terry was standing next to him, his little face vibrating with concentration, nose two inches from the Mole's hands.

Michelle was perched on a stool, her sleek nyloned legs crossed, smoking one of her long black cigarettes. Heart-shaped face peaceful. She could have been a suburban housewife watching her husband teach their son how to build a ham radio.

Outside, dogs prowled the night-blanketed minefield of junked cars. Ringed in razor-wire and dotted with pockets of explosives. The safest place I know.

Time went by. The Mole's stubby paws worked tiny probes under a huge magnifying glass he had suspended over the workbench. I heard the clink of coins, saw the red laser-beam shoot from a black box. I picked up one of the Krugerrands, turned it over in my hand. It looked like it was minted yesterday.

"I thought these things weren't allowed in the U.S. anymore. No more trading with South Africa, right?"

The Mole looked up. Hate-dots glinted behind the thick lenses. "No new Krugerrands. Illegal since 1984. But it's still legal to trade in older coins if they were made before that date."

I looked at the coin in my hand. Gleaming new. "This says it was minted in 1984," I said.

"It was minted a month ago," the Mole said. "This country always looks the other way for its Nazi friends."

Michelle threw me a warning look. Don't get him started. The Mole was never far from critical mass when it came to his reason for living.

I lit a smoke, patted my brother on the back, willing him to be calm, go back to work.

Soon the Mole pushed back his chair. Pointed at a pile of a half dozen gold coins. "Which one?" he asked.

I took them in my hand. Felt their weight. Held them up to the light. Tried to bend them in half. They were all the same. I tried the magnifying glass. Nothing. Handed them back to the Mole.

He picked out the one he wanted. Handed me a jeweler's loupe. "Look around the edge- where the coin is milled."

It took me a minute, even when I knew what I was looking for. A tiny dark dot standing between the ridges. I gave it back to the Mole.

"Go outside," the Mole said to Terry. He handed me the coin. "Hide it," he said.

"Put it in your purse," I told Michelle.

Terry came back into the bunker holding a transmitter about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

"Find it," the Mole said.

The boy pulled a short antenna from the corner of the transmitter. Hit a switch. Soft electronic beeps, evenly spaced. He moved toward the far wall. The beeps separated, a full second between them. The beeping got more intense as he neared the workbench. The boy was patient, working the room in quadrants. When he got near Michelle, the transmitter went nuts. He worked around her, closing in. When he put it next to her purse, the beeps merged into one long whine. "In there," he said, a smile blasting across his face.

Michelle gave him a kiss. "You're going to take Harvard by storm, handsome."

"Will it work through metal?" I asked the Mole.

"Even through lead," Terry assured me solemnly. I lit a cigarette, satisfied.

"This is the way we're supposed to work," Michelle said. "This is us. I'll see the doctor tomorrow."

THE DOCTOR wouldn't blink at a transsexual for a patient. He didn't judge his clients, he just wrote their needs on his Rx pad. He sold what the customer wanted, and he didn't take checks. Quaaludes, steroids, amphetamines, barbiturates. That kind of traffic wouldn't make him rich. But the page from the prescription pad told me what I wanted to know: the doctor was selling Androlan, Malogex…all the injectable forms of testosterone. Even threw in a supply of needles. There's a new program for child molesters. The shrinks still haven't figured it out- the freaks, they don't want to be cured. This new program, it's only for special degenerates. Ones with money. Counseling, therapy…and Depo-Provera. Chemical castration, they call it. Reduces the sex drive down to near-zero. Supposedly makes the freaks safe, even around kids. Methadone for baby-rapers. Some judges love it. The freaks are crazy about the program- it's a Get Out of Jail Free card. The maggots do their research better than the scientists and all their federal grants. They figured out that a regular dose of testosterone cancels the Depo-Provera. Gets them back to what they call normal.

Testosterone's not a narcotic. The feds don't check on how much you dispense. The doctor was doing all right. Medicine changes with the times. When I was a kid, the underground plastic surgeons would give you a new face if you were running from the law. Now some doctors will put a new face on a kid- a kid whose face is on a milk carton. It would do until they outlawed abortions again.

Michelle bought such a big supply that the doctor must have figured she was going into business for herself. The word I got was that he'd wholesale the stuff if the price was right. Michelle paid him in Krugerrands. A dozen gold coins, almost six grand.

The doctor lived up in Westchester County. He had two kids- a boy away at college and a fifteen-year-old girl. We watched the Mercedes pull out of the driveway, his wife next to him in the front seat. The girl was already out for the evening. We figured on a few hours.

The back of the house was protected by an unbroken row of thick hedges. Max unscrewed the top of a cardboard tube, the kind you keep an expensive fishing rod in. Pulled out two aluminum poles. They telescoped like car antennas. He cross-latched the two poles with some X-braces, making a ladder. Max went up first, climbing backwards as easy as if he was using a staircase. The Mole followed him, satchel on a strap over his shoulder. I came next- the Mole was no athlete.

It was a short drop to the ground. The windows were free of burglar-alarm tape. The doctor's wife wouldn't like the look. The Mole fluttered his hand- a flag in a breeze. Motion sensors. "Hard-wired," he whispered. "Expensive."

"Can you take it out?" I asked.

The Mole didn't answer, looking through the window with some kind of lens held up to his glasses. "There," he said, pointing.

I saw a wooden box in a corner of the living room. Some kind of dark wood, a slim crystal vase standing on top. A tiny red light glowed near the base.

The Mole fumbled in his satchel. Max braced the pane of glass with his hands as the Mole fitted a tiny drill against the surface. He nodded. Scratched an X on the glass with a probe, fitted the drill point into it. Pressed the trigger. A split-second whine. He reversed the drill bit, pulling it free of the glass. Then he threaded a wire through the hole. Attached the other end of the wire to something inside his satchel. The Mole pushed a toggle switch and the red light on the box inside the house winked out. I could have opened the back door with a credit card.