"Finally, punk rock, punk fashion, punk souls. Not 'Small is better than big,' but 'Nothing is better than something.' So, what's new? Surely there were a few wild-eyed Neanderthals rushing about the caves, screaming, 'Down with up!' "We can afford a low-kilowatt smile at combat boots worn with gold lame bikinis, at the splintered dissonance of punk rock, at the touching fervor with which punkists assault the establishment. We can smile, oh yes, knowing how quickly their music, fashions, language, and personal habits will be preempted, smoothed, glossed, gussied-up, and sold tomorrow via 30-second commercials at highly inflated prices.

"But there are a few punk souls whose nihilism is so intense, who are so etched by negativism and riddled by despair, that they will never be preempted. Never! Anarchy was not invented yesterday; the demons of Dostoevski have been with us always. To the man who believes 'Nothing is evil,' it is but one midget step to 'Everything is good.' "The nihilist may murder to prove himself superior to the tribal taboo (the human tribe): 'Thou shalt not kill.' Or he may slay to prove to his victims the fallacy and ephemerality of their faith. In either case, the killer is acting as an evangelist of anarchy. It is not enough that he not believe; he must convert-at the muzzle of a revolver or the point of a knife.

"Because the hell of punk souls is this: if one other person in the world believes, he is doomed. And so the spiritual anarchist will kill before he will acknowledge that he has spent his life in thin sneers while other, more ignorant and less cynical men have affirmed, and accepted the attendant pain with stoicism and resolve.

"The acrid stink of nihilism followed Charles Manson and his merry band on all their creepy-crawlies. And a charred whiff of spiritual anarchy rises from the notes and deeds of Son of Sam. But I do not believe this his sole goad. Two or more motives are interacting here.

"And that is the thought I wish to leave with you tonight. The motives of mass killers are rarely simple and rarely single. We are not earthworms. We are infinitely complex, infinitely chimerical organisms. In the case of multiple random killings, it is the task of the homicide detective to pick his way through this maze of motives and isolate those strands that will, hopefully, enable him to apprehend the murderer.

"Any questions?"

There was nothing wrong with the dinner. The chicken was crisp and tasty. The baked potatoes, with dabs of sweet butter and a bit of freshly ground pepper, were light and fluffy. The sauce for the romaine leaves was not too spicy. And there was a chilled jug of California chablis on the table.

But the meal was spoiled by Monica's mood. She was silent, morose. She picked at her food or sat motionless for long moments, fork poised over her food.

"What's wrong?" Delaney asked.

"Nothing," she said.

They cleaned the table, sat silently over coffee and small anise biscuits.

"What's wrong?" he asked again.

"Nothing," she said, but he saw tears welling in her eyes. He groaned, rose, bent over her. He put a meaty arm about her shoulders.

"Monica, what is it?"

"This afternoon," she sniffled. "It was a symposium on child abuse."

"Jesus Christ!" he said. He pulled his chair around next to hers. He sat holding her hand.

"Edward, it was so awful," she said. "I thought I was prepared, but I wasn't." "I know."

"They had a color film of what had been done to those kids. I wanted to die."

"I know, I know."

She looked at him through brimming eyes.

"I don't know how you could have endured seeing things like that for thirty years."

"I never got used to it," he said. "Never. Why do you think Abner Boone cracked up and started drinking?"

She was shocked. "Was that it?"

"Part of it. Most of it. Seeing what people are capable of. What they do to other people-and to children."

"Do you suppose he told Rebecca? Why he started drinking?"

"I don't know. Probably not. He's ashamed of it."

"Ashamed!" she burst out. "Of feeling horror and revulsion and sympathy for the victims?"

"Cops aren't supposed to feel those things," he said grimly. "Not if it interferes with doing your job."

"I think I need a brandy," she said.

After the brandy, and after they had cleaned up the kitchen, they both went into the study. Monica sat behind the desk. The lefthand stack of drawers was hers, where she kept her stationery, correspondence, notepaper, appointment books, etc. She began to write letters to the children: Eddie, Jr., Liza, Mary, and Sylvia.

When she was finished, Delaney would append short notes in his hand. Usually things like: "Hope you are well. Weather here cold but clear. How is it there?" The children called these notes "Father's weather reports." It was a family joke.

While Monica wrote out her long, discursive letters at the desk, Edward X. Delaney sat opposite her in the old club chair. He slowly sipped another brandy and read, for the third time, the last lecture of Albert Braun, Det. Sgt., NYPD, Ret.

What Braun had to say about motives came as no surprise. During thirty years in the Department, most of them as a detective, Delaney had worked cases in which all those motives were involved, singly or coexistent.

The problem, he decided, was one that Braun had recognized when he had made a brief reference to labels satisfying the criminologist or psychologist, but being of little value to the investigating detective.

An analogy might be made to a man confronting a wild beast in the woods. An animal that threatens him with bared fangs and raised claws.

In his laboratory, the biologist, the scientist, would be interested only in classifying the beast: family, genus, species. Its external appearance, bone structure, internal organs. Feeding and mating habits. From what previous animal forms it had evolved.

To the man in the forest, menaced, all this would be extraneous if not meaningless. All he knew was the fear, the danger, the threat.

The homicide detective was the man in the woods. The criminologist, psychologist, or sociologist was the man in the laboratory. The lab man was interested in causes. The man in the arena was interested in events.

That was one point Delaney found not sufficiently emphasized in Braun's lecture. The other disappointment was lack of any speculation on why women were conspicuously missing from the rolls of multiple killers.

Braun had made a passing reference to Martha Beck and other females who had killed many from greed. But a deep analysis of why random murderers were invariably male was missing. And since Braun's lecture had been delivered, the additional cases of the Yorkshire Ripper and the Chicago homosexual butcher had claimed headlines. Both murderers were men.

Delaney let the pages of the lecture fall into his lap. He took off his reading glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose. He rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Another brandy?" he asked his wife.

She shook her head, without looking up. He regarded her intently. In the soft light of the desk lamp, she seemed tender and womanly. Her smooth skin glowed. The light burnished her hair; there was a radiance, almost a halo.

She wrote busily, tongue poking out one cheek. She smiled as she wrote; something humorous had occurred to her, or perhaps she was just thinking of the children. She seemed to Edward X. Delaney, at that moment, to be a perfect portrait of the female presence as he conceived it. "Monica," he said. She looked up inquiringly.

"May I ask you a question about that child abuse symposium? I won't if it bothers you."

"No," she said, "I'm all right now. What do you want to know?" "Did they give you any statistics, national statistics, on the incidence of child abuse cases and whether they've been increasing or decreasing?"