I knew exactly what I wanted, but it was ages before it all came together."

"You did a great job," Boone assured him.

"By the way, I'm Sergeant Boone, and this is Edward Delaney."

"Pleased, I'm sure," Symington said.

"Forgive me for not shaking hands. I'm afraid I've got a thing about that."

He took their damp hats and coats, handling them with fingertips as if they might be infected. He motioned them to director's chairs: blond cowhide on stainless-steel frames. He stood lounging against an antique brick fireplace with a mantel of distressed oak.

He was wearing a jumpsuit of cherry velour that did nothing to conceal his paunch. A gold medallion hung on his chest, and a loose bracelet of chunky gold links flopped on his wrist when he gestured. His feet were bare.

"Well," he said with a trill of empty laughter, "I suppose you know all about me."

"Beg pardon, sir?" Boone said, puzzled.

"I mean, I suppose you've been digging into Doctor Simon's files, and you know all my dirty little secrets."

"Oh, no, Mr. Symington," Delaney said.

"Nothing like that. We have the names and addresses of patients-and that's about it."

"That's hard to believe. I'm sure you have ways… Well, I have nothing to hide, I assure you. I've been seeing Doctor Simon for six years, three times a week. If it hadn't been for him, I'm sure I would have been a raving maniac by now.

When I heard of his death, I was devastated. Just devastated."

And, Delaney recalled, the lobby attendant at Sylvia Mae Otherton's apartment house said she was devastated. Perhaps all of Ellerbee's patients were devastated. But not as much as the doctor…

"Mr. Symington," Boone said, "were your relations with Doctor Simon friendly?"

"Friendly?" he said with a theatrical grimace.

"My God, no! How can you be friendly with your shrink? He hurt me.

Continually. He made me uncover things I had kept hidden all my life. It was very painful."

"Let me try to understand," Delaney said.

"Your relations with him were kind of a duel?"

"Something like that," Symington said hesitantly.

"I mean, it's not all fun and games. Yes, I guess you could say it was a kind of duel."

"Did you ever attack Doctor Simon?" Boone asked suddenly.

"Physically attack him?"

The gold chain clinked as Symington threw out his arm in a gesture of bravura.

"Never! I never touched him, though God knows I was tempted more than once. You must understand that most people under analysis have a love-hate relationship with their therapist. I mean, intellectually you realize the psychiatrist is trying to help you. But emotionally you feel he's trying to hurt you, and you resent it. You begin to suspect him.

You think he may have an ulterior motive for making you confess. Perhaps he's going to blackmail you."

"Did you really believe that Doctor Simon might blackmail you?" Delaney asked.

"I thought about it sometimes," Symington said, stirring restlessly.

"It wouldn't have surprised me. People are such shin, you know. You trust them, you even love them, and then they turn on you. I could tell you stories…"

"But you stuck with him for six years," Boone said.

"Of course I did. I needed the man. I was really dependent on him. And, of course, that made me resent him even more.

But kill him? Is that what you're thinking? I'd never do that. I loved Doctor Simon. We were very close. He knew so much about me."

"Did you know any of his other patients?"

"I knew a few other people who were going to him. Not friends, just acquaintances or people I'd meet at parties, and it would turn out that they were his patients or former patients."

"To your knowledge," Boone said, "was he ever threatened by a patient?"

"No. And if he was, he'd never mention it to another patient."

"Did you notice any changes in his manner?" Delaney asked' "In the past year or six months."

L. Vincent Symington didn't answer at once. He came over to the long sectional couch opposite their chairs and stretched out. He stuffed a raw silk cushion under his head and stared at them.

He had a doughy face, set with raisin eyes. His lips were unexpectedly full and rosy. He was balding, and the naked scalp was sprinkled with brown freckles. Delaney thought he looked like an aged Kewpie doll, and imagined his arms and legs would be sausages, plump and boneless.

"I loved him," Symington said dully.

"Really loved him.

He was almost Christlike. Nothing shocked him. He could forgive you anything. Once, years ago, I went off the deep end and punished my parents. Really hurt them. Doctor Simon got me to face that. But he didn't condemn. He never condemned. Oh, Jesus, what's going to happen to me?"

"You haven't answered my question," Delaney said sternly.

"Did you notice any change in him recently?"

"No. No change."

Suddenly, without warning, Symington began weeping.

Tears ran down his fat cheeks, dripped off, stained the cushion. He cried silently for several minutes.

Delaney looked at Boone and the two rose simultaneously.

"Thank you for your help, Mr. Symington," Delaney said.

"Thank you, sir," Boone said.

They left him there, lying on his velvet couch in his cherry jumpsuit, wet face now turned to the ceiling.

Outside, they ran for the car, splashing through puddles.

They sat for a moment while Boone lighted a cigarette.

"A butterfly?" he said.

"Do you think?"

"Who the hell knows?" Delaney said roughly.

"But he's a real squirrel. Listen, I'm hungry. There's a Jewish deli on Lex, not too far from here. Great corned beef and pastrami.

Plenty of pickles. Want to try it?"

"Hell, yes," the Sergeant said.

"With about a quart of hot coffee."

The delicatessen was a steamy, bustling place, fragrant with spicy odors. The decibel level was high, and they shouted their orders to one of the rushing waiters.

"Good scoff," Boone said to Delaney when their sand wiches came.

"How did you happen to find this place?"

"Not one of my happier moments. I was a dick two, and I was tailing a guy who was a close pal of a bent-nose we wanted for homicide in a liquor store holdup. The guy I was hoping would lead us to the perp came in here for lunch, so I came in, too. The guy ordered his meal, and when it was served, he got up and headed for the rear of the place. the john is back there, so I figured he was going to take a leak, then come back and eat his lunch. But when he didn't return in five minutes, I thought, Oh-oh, and went looking. That's when I found out there's a back door, and he was long gone. I guess he spotted me and took off. So I came back and finished my lunch. The food was so good, I kept coming here every time I was in the neighborhood."

"Did you get the perp?"

"Eventually. He made the mistake of belting his wife once too often, and she sang. He plea-bargained it down to second degree. That was years ago; he's probably out of the clink by now."

"Robbing more liquor stores."

"Wouldn't doubt it for a minute," Delaney said with heavy good humor.

"It was the only trade he knew."

"You know," said Boone, "that Symington didn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd own a ball peen hammer."

"Or galoshes either. But it wouldn't surprise me if he owned a pair of cowboy boots. These people we're dealing with are something. They hold down good jobs and make enough loot to see a therapist three times a week. I mean they fuction. But then they get talking, and you realize their gears don't quite mesh. They think that if A equals B, and B equals C, then X equals Y. We've got to start thinking like that, Sergeant, if we expect to get anywhere on this thing. No use looking for logic."

They were silent awhile, looking idly at the action in the deli as customers arrived and departed, the sweating waiters screamed orders, and the guys behind the hot-meat counter wielded their long carving knives like demented samurai.