"Sorry," McLain said. "I hope we can maintain our business relationship."

Domeier said, "Milwaukee PD, Zeke."

"I just… I just… I needed…" Zeke waved his hand, unable to find the right word, and then said, "Money."

They were standing in his office, a cool cubicle of yellow-painted concrete block, with a plastic-laminated desk and two file cabinets. Zeke was short and balding, wore his hair long and combed it in oily strands over his bald spot. He wore a checked sport coat and his hands shook when he talked. "I just… I just… Should I get a lawyer?"

"You gotta right…" Domeier started.

Lucas broke in: "I don't care about your goddamn printing business. I just don't have time to fuck around. I want the goddamn negatives or I'll put some handcuffs on you and we'll drag you outa the school by your fuckin' hair, and then we'll get a search warrant and we'll tear this place apart and your house and any other goddamn thing we can find. You show me the fuckin' negatives and I'm gone. You and Domeier can make any kind of deal you want."

Zeke looked at Domeier, and when the Milwaukee cop rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, he said, "I keep the negatives at home."

"So let's go," Lucas said.

"How about me?" McLain asked.

"Take off," said Domeier.

Halfway to his house, Zeke, in the backseat of Domeier's Dodge, began to weep. "They're gonna fire me," he gasped. "You're gonna put me in jail. I'll get raped."

"Do you print for more than Bobby McLain or is he the only one?" Domeier asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.

"He's the only one," Zeke said, his body shuddering.

"Shit. If there was more, you had some names, maybe we could work something out."

The weeping stopped and Zeke's voice cleared. "Like what?"

An aging black labrador with rheumy eyes met them at the door.

"If I went to jail, what'd happen to Dave?" Zeke asked Domeier.

The dog wagged his tail when his name was mentioned. Domeier shook his head and said, "Jesus Christ."

The dog watched as they went through a closet full of offset negatives. The negatives were filed in oversized brown envelopes, with the name of the publication scrawled in the corner. They found the right set and the right negative, and Zeke held it up to the light. "Yup, this is it. Looks pretty sharp."

They trooped back to the vo-tech. The printer was the size of a Volkswagen, but the first print was done in ten minutes. Zeke stripped it out and handed it to Domeier.

"That's as good as I can get it," he said. "It's still a halftone, so it won't be as sharp as a regular photograph."

Domeier glanced at it and handed it to Lucas, saying, "Same old shit. You wasted your time."

The print was still black-and-white, but considerably sharper. Lucas put it under a table light and peered at it. A man with an erection and a nude boy in the background. Nothing on the walls.

"The guy's leg looks weird." He took the folded newsprint version out of his pocket. The leg was so washed-out that no detail was visible. "Is this… whatever it is… is this the picture or is there something wrong with his leg?" Lucas asked.

Zeke brought a photo loupe over to the table, put it on the print, bent over it, moved it. "That's his leg, I think. It looks like it's stitched together or something, like a quilt."

"Goddamn," Lucas said. His throat tightened. "Goddamn. That's why he wants Weather. She must've fixed his leg."

"You got him?" asked Domeier.

"Got something," Lucas said. "Is there a doc around I can talk to?"

"Sure. We can stop at the medical examiner's on the way to the airport. There'll be somebody on duty."

"Can I go home now?" asked Zeke.

"Er, no," Domeier said. "Actually, we gotta go get a truck, the two of us."

"What for?"

"I'm gonna take every fuckin' envelope out of your house, and we're gonna find somebody to print them up for us. And I'm gonna want those names."

Lucas stopped on the way out of the house to call the airport, and got the pilot in the general aviation lounge. "It didn't take long. I'm on my way."

"Hurry. That storm's coming in fast, man," the pilot said. "I want to get out of here quick."

The assistant medical examiner was sitting in his office, feet on his desk, reading a National Enquirer.

He nodded at Domeier, looked without interest at Lucas and Zeke. "Breaks my heart, what the younger women have done to the British Royal Family," he said. He balled up the paper and fired it at a wastebasket. "What the fuck do you want, Domeier? More pictures of naked dead women?"

"Actually, I want you to look at my friend's photograph," Domeier said.

Lucas handed the doc the print and said, "Can you tell what's wrong with his leg?"

Zeke asked, "You don't really have pictures of naked dead women, do you?"

The doctor, bent over the photo, muttered, "All the time. If you need some, maybe I can get you a rate." After a minute he straightened and said, "Burns."

"What?"

He flipped the photo across his desk to Lucas. "Your man's been burned. Those are skin grafts."

Lucas tried to get Carr or Lacey from the airport; the dispatcher said they were out of touch. He called Weather at home, got a busy signal. The pilot was leaning against the back of a chair, impatiently waiting to go. Lucas waited two minutes, tried again: busy.

"We gotta go, man," the pilot said. Lucas looked out the lounge windows. He could see airplanes circling ten miles out. "It looks pretty clear."

"Man, that storm is coming like a fuckin' train. We're gonna get snowed on as it is."

"Once more…" Weather's line was still busy. He punched in the dispatcher's number again: "I'm on my way back. Got something. And if the chopper crashes, a guy named Domeier has the negative. He's with the Milwaukee sex unit."

"If the chopper crashes…" the pilot snorted as they walked out of the lounge.

"Got the heater fixed?" Lucas asked.

They lifted out of Milwaukee at seven o'clock, six degrees above zero, clear skies, Domeier standing at the gate with Zeke until the chopper was off the ground. Zeke waved.

"Glad you called," the pilot said. He grinned but he didn't look happy. "I was getting nervous about waiting until ten. The storm's already through the Twin Cities. The weather service says they're getting three to four inches of snow an hour, and it's supposedly headed right up our way."

"You're not out of Grant, though," Lucas said.

"Nope, Park Falls. But we're both gonna get it."

The ground lights were sharp as diamonds in the dry cold air, a long sparkling sweep north and south along the Lake Michigan waterfront, fed by the long, living snakes of the interstates. They headed northwest, past the lesser glitter of Fond du Lac and Oshkosh, individual house lights defining the blankness of Lake Winnebago. Later, they could see the distant glow from Green Bay far off to the east; to the west, there was nothing, and Lucas realized that they'd lost the stars and were now under cloud cover.

"Do any good?" the pilot asked.

"Maybe."

"When you catch the sonofabitch, you oughta just blow him away. Do us all a favor."

They caught the first hint of snow twenty miles from Grant. "No sweat," said the pilot. "From here we're on cruise control."

They settled down five minutes later, Lucas ducking under the blades, fumbling for the key to the airport Quonset. As soon as he was inside, he could hear the chopper's rotors pick up, and a moment later it was gone.

He rolled out of the Quonset, locked the door, and started for town. The snow was light, tiny flakes spitting into his windshield, but with authority. This wasn't a flurry, this was the start of something.

Weather's house was lit up, a sheriff's Suburban in the drive. He used the remote to lift the garage door, drove in, parked.