So it seemed logical and sensible to put that experience to good use while he was still around. A sort of legacy while he was alive. A living will.

Detective Sergeant Abner Boone called on the morning of March 26th. He asked if he could stop by for a few moments, and Delaney said sure, come ahead; Monica was at a feminist meeting where she was serving as chairperson for a general discussion of government-financed day-care centers.

The two men had talked almost every day on the phone. Boone had nothing new to report on the killer who was now being called the "Hotel Ripper" in newspapers and on TV.

Boone did say that Lieutenant Martin Slavin was convinced that the murderer was not a prostitute, since nothing had been stolen. Most of the efforts of the cops under his command were directed to rousting homosexuals, the S amp;M joints in the Village, and known transvestites.

"Well," Delaney said, sighing, "he's going by the percentages. I can't fault him for that. Almost every random killer of strangers has been male."

"Sure," Boone said, "I know that. But now the Mayor's office has the gays yelling, plus the hotel associations, plus the tourist people. It's heating up."

But when Sergeant Abner Boone appeared on the morning of March 26th, he was the one who was heated up.

"Look at this," he said furiously scaling a flyer onto Delaney's desk. "Slavin insisted on sending one of these to the head of security in every midtown hotel."

Delaney donned his glasses, read the notice slowly. Then he looked up at Boone.

"The stupid son of a bitch," he said softly.

"Right!" the sergeant said, stalking back and forth. "I pleaded with him. Leave out that business about the black nylon wig, I said. There's no way, no way, we'll be able to keep that out of the papers if every hotel in midtown Manhattan knows about it. So it gets in the papers, and the killer changes his wig-am I right? Blond or red or whatever. Meanwhile, all our guys are looking for someone in a black wig. It just makes me sick!"

"Take it easy, sergeant," Delaney said. "The damage has been done; nothing you can do about it. Did you make your objections to Slavin in the presence of witnesses?"

"I sure did," Boone said wrathfully. "I made certain of that."

"Good," Delaney said. "Then it's his ass, not yours. Getting many false confessions?"

"Plenty," the sergeant said. "Every whacko in the city. Another reason I wanted to keep that black nylon wig a secret. It made it easy to knock down the fake confessions. Now we've got nothing up our sleeve. What an asshole thing for Slavin to do!"

"Forget it," Delaney advised. "Let him hang himself. You're clean."

"I guess so," Boone said, sighing. "I don't know what to tell our decoys now. Look for anyone in any color wig, five-five to five-seven. That's not much to go on."

"No," Delaney said, "it's not."

"We checked out that suggestion you gave me. You know-both victims employing the same disgruntled guy and firing him. We're still working on it, but it doesn't look good."

"It's got to be done," Delaney said stubbornly.

"Sure. I know. And I appreciate the lead. We're grabbing at anything. Anything. Also, I remembered what you said about the time between killings becoming shorter and shorter. So I-"

"Usually," Delaney reminded him. "I said usually."

"Right. Well, it was about a month between the Puller and Wolheim murders. If there's a third, God forbid, I figure that going by what you say-what you suggest, it may be around April third. That would be three weeks after the Wolheim kill. So I'm alerting-everyone for that week."

"Won't do any harm," Edward X. Delaney said.

"If there is another one," Boone said, "I'll give you a call. You promised to come over-remember?"

"I remember."

But April 3rd came and went, with no report of another hotel homicide. Delaney was troubled. Not because events had proved him wrong; that had happened before. But he was nagged that this case wasn't following any known pattern. There was no handle on it. It was totally different.

But wasn't that exactly what Albert Braun had said in his last lecture? "Cases of mass homicide are too uncommon to reveal a sure pattern. Each massacre different, each slaughter unique."

Early on the morning of April 10th, about 7:30, Delaney was awake but still abed, loath to crawl out of his warm cocoon of blankets. The phone shrilled. Monica awoke, turned suddenly in bed to stare at him.

"Edward X. Delaney here," he said.

"Chief, it's Boone. There's been another. Hotel Coolidge. Can you come over?"

"Yes," Delaney said.

He got out of bed, began to strip off his pajamas.

"Who was that?" Monica asked.

"Boone. There's been another one."

"Oh God," she said.

Delaney came off the elevator on the 14th floor and looked to the left. Nothing. He looked to the right. A uniformed black cop was planted in the middle of the corridor. He was swinging a nightstick from its leather thong. Beyond him, far down the long hallway, Abner Boone and a few other men were clustered about a doorway.

"I'd like to see Sergeant Boone," Delaney told the cop. "He's expecting me."

"Yeah?" the officer said, giving Delaney the once-over. He turned and yelled down the corridor, "Hey, sarge!" When Boone turned to look, the cop hooked a thumb at Delaney. The sergeant nodded and made a beckoning motion. The cop moved aside. "Be my guest," he said.

Delaney looked at him. The man had a modified Afro, a neat black mustache. His uniform fit like it had been custom-made by an Italian tailor.

"Do you know Jason T. Jason?" he asked.

"Jason Two?" the officer said, with a splay of white teeth. "Sure, I know that big mother. He a friend of yours?"

Delaney nodded. "If you happen to see him, I'd appreciate it if you'd give him my best. The name is Delaney. Edward X. Delaney."

"I'll remember," the cop said, staring at him curiously.

The Chief walked down the hallway. Boone came forward to meet him.

"Sorry I'm late," Delaney said. "I couldn't get a cab."

"I'm glad you're late," the sergeant said. "You missed a mob scene. Reporters, TV crews, a guy from the Mayor's office, the DA's sergeant, Deputy Commissioner Thorsen, Chief Bradley, Inspector Jack Turrell-you know him?-Lieutenant Slavin, and so on and so on. We had everyone here but the Secretary of State."

"You didn't let them inside?"

"You kidding? Of course not. Besides, none of them wanted to look at a stiff so early in the morning. Spoil their breakfast. They just wanted to get their pictures taken at the scene of the crime and make a statement that might get on the evening news."

"Did you tell Slavin I was coming over?"

"No, sir, but I mentioned it to Thorsen. He said, 'Good.' So if Slavin comes back and gives us any flak, I'll tell him to take it up with Thorsen. We'll pull rank on him."

"Fine," Delaney said, smiling.

He looked around the corridor. There were two ambulance men with a folding, wheeled stretcher and body bag, waiting to take the corpse away. There were two newspaper photographers, laden with equipment. The four men were sitting on the hallway floor, playing cards.

The Chief looked inside the opened door. The usual hotel room. There were two men in there. One was vacuuming the rug. The other was dusting the bedside radio for prints.

"The Crime Scene Unit," Boone explained. "They'll be finished soon. The guy with the vacuum cleaner is Lou Gorki. The tall guy with glasses is Tommy Callahan. The same team that worked the Puller and Wolheim kills. They're sore."

"Sore?"

"Their professional pride is hurt because they haven't come up with anything solid. They want this guy so bad they can taste it. This time they rigged up that little canister vacuum cleaner with clear plastic bags. They vacuumed the bathroom, took the bag out and labeled it. Did the same thing to the bed. Then the furniture. Now Lou's doing the rug."