“Anyone hurt?” Mary shouted as she neared.

“Not me,” I said.

“No,” said Bill.

The bad news was there was no third answer. There was no one to give it: Alice was gone.

“I will never, never, never listen to you again.”

In Interview One at the Fifth Precinct, Bill and I watched Mary pace, or more like stomp, back and forth. Bill wasn’t saying anything, probably because he’s smarter than I am. I tried every now and then to apologize, or explain, or offer some optimistic angle on the situation, but eventually even I could see that every word I spoke was making things worse.

“Bullets flying all over the park!” Mary fumed. “You idiots almost got killed! And now Alice Fairchild’s gone, and the shooter’s gone, and citizens could have been shot, and cops could have been shot! And we have nothing!”

She yanked out a chair, took a breath, and said, “All right, go over it again. This time with details.”

“Only if you’re really going to listen.”

“Listen? So you can try one more time to twist everything and make me think it was okay to let you walk head-on into this ludicrous-All right! All right. I’m listening.”

My words edged out as though any quick sound might detonate her. When she sat seething but silent, I got more articulate, expanding the outline we’d already sketched. I told her everything Alice had said, including her plan to return the Shanghai Moon to Mr. Chen.

“My God, that’s insane! I’m surprised you didn’t go along with it.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Really? Now that I think about it, I’m surprised you didn’t dream it up. And you didn’t make her tell you where Wong Pan is, or how they get in touch?”

That was more like a disgusted statement of fact than a question, but I answered it anyway. “I don’t think she knows where he is. Obviously they talk by phone. If you tapped her cell-”

“You think we haven’t tried? She’s a lawyer and an American citizen and not a terrorist. You tell me where to find a judge to authorize that.” She turned to Bill. “What about you?”

“Me? If I were a judge I’d authorize it. I’d authorize anything you wanted.”

Mary stared. “Oh, the homegirl and the stand-up comic! What a team!”

“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “I’m not giving you a hard time.”

“No? What was that, then?”

“I don’t mean to. But I have nothing to add to what I already added to what Lydia said.”

“You’re both useless, you know that? The only good thing is, no one was hurt. I don’t mean you two. I’m tempted to hurt you myself. But citizens or cops. Next time someone sets you up to shoot you, Lydia, have them do it someplace private, okay? Oh, now, what could possibly be funny?”

“I just remembered how careful I was not to scratch my head. But Alice adjusted her hat right before the shots. Maybe she was using the same signal.” When all Mary did was stare, I said, “Okay, it’s the adrenaline talking.”

Maybe to keep my foot from getting any deeper into my mouth, Bill asked, “Mary? What if Lydia wasn’t the target?”

“What, you think it was you? Some yellow power gang doesn’t want whitey in the park?”

Being more generous than I am, he ignored her sarcasm. “If Alice set it up, why put herself in the middle? Whoever fired those shots could easily have done it while we were waiting. Maybe she was the target.”

“Alice? Who, Wong Pan? You say he needs her to unload the Shanghai Moon.”

“She thinks he does. But what if he’s decided he doesn’t? If he’s figured out who Chen is, or doesn’t care because he’s found another buyer?”

Mary glowered but stopped yelling, so I chimed in. “Or he doesn’t care because, buyer or not, Alice knows too much. Maybe he trailed her to the park.”

“How did he pick her up?”

“She’s probably not the world’s best track-coverer. Maybe he hung around the Waldorf dressed as a bellhop. Okay, I don’t mean literally, but it couldn’t have been real hard.”

“Well, this is just great. We’re saying Wong Pan killed two people, he just tried to kill another, we don’t know where he is, we don’t know where Alice is, and we don’t know what’ll happen next.”

“We may,” said Bill.

“What are you talking about?”

“She seemed pretty serious about wanting to make up for what happened. Manic about it, even. She may try it anyway.”

“What? Returning the Shanghai Moon to Chen?”

“It’s possible.”

“But if she didn’t set you guys up, she must have figured out by now she was the target and Wong Pan was the shooter.”

“So? Suppose she calls him, says, ‘Knock off trying to kill me, we’ll both make a fortune.’ She says to deliver her share to a post office box or something. He’d agree, with no intention of cutting her in, but she’ll have no intention of collecting. She’ll wait until Chen has the Shanghai Moon. Then she’ll call the cops.”

“That sounds crazy.”

“She may be crazy,” I pointed out. “Even she said so.”

Mary let a few moments pass. “So with the surveillance I have on Chen, I may get something yet.” She stood. “You two? Get out. Go home. Pretend we never met.”

“You want a cup of tea?” Bill asked as we left the precinct.

“No. I want to do something useful.”

“At one A.M.?”

“With my life. Maybe I should join the Peace Corps.”

“Maybe you should go home and go to bed.”

“How would that be useful?”

“You’d wake up fresh and sharp, ready to go out and fight crime.”

“Or create it. One thing Alice said is true: It just keeps getting worse and worse.”

“That’s your fault?”

“I’m not helping.”

“You don’t know that.”

“May I point out I just got us into a situation where bullets were flying all over a public park? My best friend lost a collar she’d have looked good making. The jewelry I was hired to trace hasn’t turned up, and some innocent old men might be about to get caught in a dangerous sting dreamed up by a client I’ve lost track of, who’s admitted to being involved with someone who’s admitted to being a killer. The killer, let me also point out, of the man I was working with.”

“For.”

“What?”

“You were working for Joel. He got you involved in this case.”

I stopped and eyed him accusingly. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not the center of the universe?”

“Of course you are. But things also happen on the periphery of the universe that have nothing to do with the center.”

“You,” I pronounced, “are full of baloney.”

“No argument from me.” Bill checked his watch and fished his phone from his pocket.

“It’s one A.M. Who’re you calling?”

He was busy identifying himself to whoever he was calling, so he didn’t answer. He listened. He said, “Are you sure?” and “Thank you.” He clicked off and turned to me. “Bingo.”

“Bingo what?”

“I told you I was doing legwork. That was payoff.”

“For?”

“Well, I got to wondering: If Wong Pan killed Joel, how did he get past security and up to Joel’s office?”

“In that building it’s not hard.”

“No, but it might be worth knowing. So I hit the Chinese restaurants around there and showed his photo. Nothing. But one’s open all night. They told me to call back when the night manager was in. He just had a look at the photo. He says that guy got a takeout order of General Tso’s chicken a few mornings ago. He remembers because the guy didn’t seem to care what he ordered. And he didn’t seem to care what it cost. And he ordered in Shanghai-accented English.”

I called Mary. “I have a peace offering.”

“What? A Trojan horse?”

I told her anyway. “He pretended to be a deliveryman,” I finished. “I bet no one in the building even registered they saw him.”

“How did Bill get this?” Mary wasn’t done being mad yet. “He didn’t throw around words like ‘government’ and ‘INS,’ did he?”

“More likely words like ‘fifty bucks.’ But Mary, this is something Mulgrew should have thought of. You can give it to Captain Mentzinger.”