Heat

First Look at a new novel

author of the 87th Precinct mysteries

They were driving back to the station house on a swelteringly hot day in August after having spent two fruitless hours questioning the wife of an apparent suicide victim. Carella was at the wheel, inching the car through heavy traffic, his shirt sodden and sticky, his dark-brown eyes squinted against the glare of the late-afternoon sun. Kling, younger and taller than his partner, blond and blue-eyed, with a clean-shaven, boyish look that belied his line of work, sat silently beside him for the longest time. And then, suddenly, as though he could no longer contain it, he said, "Steve, I think my wife is playing around with somebody."

Carella glanced at him swiftly, a sidelong sweep that confirmed that Kling was serious, and then immediately brought his eyes back to the road.

"Tell me," he said.

"I'm not sure I want to talk about it."

"Then why'd you bring it up?"

" 'Cause it's been driving me crazy for the past month."

"Let's start from the beginning, OK?" Carella said.

The beginning, as Kling painfully and haltingly told it, had been on the Fourth of July, when he and his wife, Augusta, were invited to a big party--"That was when I got the first inkling, at the party."

He had never felt too terribly close to his wife's friends and associates, Kling said; they had, in fact, had some big arguments in the past over what he called her tinsel crowd. He supposed much of his discomfort had to do with the fact that as a Detective/Third, he was earning $24,600 a year, whereas his wife was earning $100 an hour as a top fashion model. Moreover, most of Augusta's friends were also earning that kind of money, and whereas she felt no qualms about inviting eight or ten of them for dinner at any of the city's most expensive restaurants and signing for the tab afterward, he always felt somewhat inadequate at such feasts, something like a kept man. Kling himself preferred small dinner parties at their apartment with friends of his from the police force.

"Well, what the hell," he said, "you make allowances, am I right? I'm a cop, she's a model, we both knew that before we got married. So, OK, you compromise. If Gussie doesn't like to cook, we'll send out for Chink's whenever anybody from the squad's coming over with his wife. And if I've just been in a shoot-out with an armed robber, then I can't be expected to go to a gallery opening or a cocktail party. Gussie'll just have to go alone, am I right?"

Which was just the way they'd been working it for the past few months now, Augusta running off to this or that glittering little party while Kling took off his shoes and sat wearily before the television set, drinking beer till she got home, when generally they'd go out for a bite to eat. After dinner, maybe, and nowadays less and less frequently, they'd make love.

At the party, they had an argument and barely spoke to each other all through dinner, served on their host's deck overlooking the crashing sea; and by the time the fireworks started at nine p.m., Augusta (continued on page 188)Heat(continued from page 163) had drifted over to a group of photographers with whom she'd immediately begun a spirited conversation. The little blonde who sat down next to Kling while the first of the fireworks erupted was holding a martini glass in her hand, and it was evident from the first few words she spoke that she'd had at least four too many of them already. She was wearing very short white shorts and an orange blouse slashed deep over her breasts and exposing at least one of them clear to the nipple. She said "Hi" and then asked him in a whiskey-slurred voice where he'd been all afternoon, she hadn't seen him around and she thought sure she'd seen every good-looking man there. The fireworks kept exploding against the blackness of the sky.

The girl went on to say that she was a junior model with the Cutler Agency (the same agency that represented Augusta) and then asked whether or not he was a model himself, he was so good-looking. Kling told her he was a cop and before she could ask to see his pistol (or anything else) promptly informed her that he was here with his wife. The girl, who seemed no older than 18 or 19, and who had the largest blue eyes Kling had ever seen in his life, asked him who his wife might be, and when he pointed her out and said "Augusta Blair," the name she still used when modeling, the girl raised her eyebrows and said, "Don't shit me, man, Augusta's not married."

Well, Kling wasn't used to being told he wasn't married to Augusta, though at times he certainly felt that way. He explained, or started to explain, that he and Augusta had been married for----But the girl cut him off and said, "I see her all over town with guys," and shrugged and gulped at her martini. Kling knew, of course, that undoubtedly Augusta talked to people at parties and that some of those people were possibly men. But the blonde's words seemed to imply something more than simple cocktail chatter, and he was about to ask her what she meant, exactly, when she said, "One guy, especially."

"What do you mean, exactly?" Kling managed to say this time.

"Come on, what do I mean?" the blonde said, and winked at him.

"Tell me about it," Kling said. His heart was pounding in his chest.

"Go ask Augusta, you're so interested in Augusta," the blonde said.

"Are you saying she's been seeing some guy?"

"Who cares? Listen, would you like to go inside with me? Don't fireworks bore you to death? Let's go inside and find someplace, OK?"

"No, tell me about Augusta."

"Oh, fuck Augusta," the blonde said, and untangled her legs from under her bottom and got unsteadily to her feet, and then said, "And you, too," and tossed her hair and went staggering into the house through the French doors.

The blonde later disappeared into the night, as suddenly as she had materialized. But before leaving, Kling asked some discreet questions and learned that her name was Monica Thorpe. On Monday morning, he called the Cutler Agency, identified himself as Augusta's husband, said they wanted to invite Monica to a small dinner party and got her unlisted number from them. When he called her at home, she said she didn't know who he was and didn't remember saying anything about Augusta, who was, anyway, her dearest friend and one of the sweetest people on earth.

•

"So that's it," Kling said.

"That's it, huh?" Carella said. "Are you telling me...?"

"I'm telling you what happened."

"Nothing happened," Carella said. "Except some dumb blonde got drunk and filled your head with----"

"She said she saw Augusta all over town. With guys, Steve. With one guy, especially, Steve."

"Uh-huh. And you believe her, huh?"

"I don't know what to believe."

"Have you talked to Augusta about it?"

"What am I supposed to do? Ask her if there's some guy she's been seeing? Suppose she tells me there is? Then what? Shit, Steve...."

"If I were in a similar situation, I'd ask Teddy in a minute."

"And what if she said it was true?"

"We'd work it out."

Kling was silent for several moments. His face was beaded with sweat, he appeared on the verge of tears. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at his forehead. He sucked in a deep breath then and said, "Steve...is it...is it still good between you and Teddy?"

"Yes."

"I mean...."

"I know what you mean."

"In bed, I mean."

"Yes, in bed. And everywhere else."

"Because...I, I don't think I'd have believed a word that blonde was saying if, if I, if I didn't already think something was wrong. Steve, we...these past few months...ever since June, it must be...we...you know, it used to be we couldn't keep our hands off each other, I'd come home from work, she'd be all over me. But lately...." He shook his head, his voice trailed.

Carella said nothing. He stared through the windshield ahead. Kling shook his head again, and again dabbed at his brow with his handkerchief.

"It's just that lately...well, for a long time now...there hasn't been anything between us. I mean, not like before. Not the way it used to be, when we, when we couldn't stand being apart for a minute. Now it's...when we make love, it's just so...so cut and dried, Steve. As if she's...tolerating me, you know what I mean? Just doing it to, to, to get it over with. Aw, shit, Steve," he said, and ducked his face into the handkerchief, both hands spread over it, and began sobbing.

"Come on," Carella said.

"I'm sorry."

"That's OK, come on."

"What an asshole," Kling said.

"You've got to talk to her about it," Carella said.

"Yeah." The handkerchief was still covering his face. He kept sobbing into it, his head turned away from Carella, his shoulders heaving.

"Will you do that?"

"Yeah."

"Bert? Will you talk to her?"

"Yeah. Yeah, OK," Kling said, and sniffed, and took the handkerchief from his face, and dried his eyes, and sniffed again, and said, "Thanks," and stared straight ahead through the windshield.

•

The neighborhood had changed.

He hadn't expected it to look the same, not after 12 years, but neither had he expected so overwhelming a transformation. He got off the elevated train at Cannon Road, and then came down the steps onto Dover Plains Avenue.

He was back here today to see his daughter.

He had last seen this neighborhood when he was 27 years old. A young man. Twenty-seven. He would be 40 in November, 12 years of his life blown in prison. Moira had been six when they sent him away, she'd just turned 18 this past June, he hadn't seen her in all that time.

This was Saturday, the neighborhood seemed drowsy and peaceful in the blistering midday sun. Suddenly, Halloran was sweating. Now that he was closer to seeing her, he found himself a little short of breath, his heart pounding in his chest as he made the familiar turn onto (continued on page 232)Heat(continued from page 188) Marien and walked past half a dozen little Puerto Rican girls skipping rope, and then stopped several yards from the clapboard-and-brick house he'd once lived in with Josie and the kids before he'd had to kill her, the same house--his daughter Moira was living here in the same house he'd shared with Josie for seven years.

She was standing just inside the picket fence, a tall, slender blonde wearing sandals, white slacks and a tomato-red tube top. Even from this distance, he could see the startlingly blue eyes, and for a moment he thought he was looking at Josie, thought he was looking at his dead wife, and told himself that this beautiful woman was his daughter, his----

"Moira?" he said.

She must have recognized him, she remembered him, Jesus, she remembered him! She kept staring at him over the low picket fence, and then she said, "What do you want here?"

"I came to see you."

"OK, you've seen me."

"Moira, I just want to say hello, that's all."

"Then say it. And leave."

"I never did anything to you," he said plaintively, and spread his arms wide in supplication, the fingers on both hands widespread.

"You didn't, huh? You killed my mother, you son of a bitch! Get out of here!" she said, screaming now. "Get out of here, leave me alone, get out, get out!"

He looked at her a moment longer, and then lowered his arms and walked silently past her. Their eyes met for only an instant before he turned away from the hatred in them and began walking swiftly toward the avenue.

•

The note, tacked with a magnet to the refrigerator door, read:

Bert--

I waited for you till six o'clock and then had to leave for the party at Bianca's. We will probably be going on to dinner later, so I'll see you around ten. Fix yourself something from the fridge.

Love ya, A.

She did not get home until almost 11.

He was watching the news on television when she came into the apartment. She was wearing a pale-green, silk-chiffon jump suit, the flimsy top slashed low over her naked breasts, the color complementing the flaming autumn of her hair, swept to one side of her face to expose one ear dotted with an emerald earring that accentuated the jungle green of her eyes, a darker echo of her costume. As always, he caught his breath at the sheer beauty of her.

"Hi, sweetie," she said from the front door, and took her key from the lock, and then came to where he was sitting in front of the television set, a can of warm beer in his hand. She kissed him fleetingly on top of his head and then said, "1 have to pee; don't go away."

Kling sipped at his beer. He had eaten a TV dinner consisting of veal parmigiana with apple slices, peas in seasoned sauce and a lemon muffin. He had also consumed three cans of beer; this was his fourth. The thawed meal had been lousy. He was a big man and he was hungry again. He heard her flushing the toilet, and then heard the closet door in their bedroom sliding open. He waited.

When she came back into the living room, she was wearing a wrap-around black-nylon robe belted at the waist. Her hair fell loose around her face. She was barefooted. The television newscaster droned on.

"Why don't you turn it off?" she said, and without waiting for his reply, went to the set and snapped the switch. The room went silent. "Another scorcher today, huh?" she said. "How'd it go for you?"

"So-so."

"What time did you get home?"

"Little after six."

"Did you forget the party at Bianca's?"

"We're working a complicated one."

"When aren't you working a complicated one?" Augusta asked, and smiled.

He watched as she sat on the carpet in front of the blank television screen, her legs extended, the flaps of the nylon robe thrown back, and began doing her nightly exercises.

"How was the party?" he asked.

"Fine."

"She still living with that photographer, what's his name?"

"Andy Hastings. He's only the most important fashion photographer in America."

"I have trouble keeping them straight," Kling said.

"Andy's the one with the black hair and blue eyes."

"Who's the bald one?"

"Lamont."

"Yeah. With the earring in his left ear. Was he there?"

"Everybody was there. Except my husband."

"Well, I do have to earn a living."

"You didn't have to earn a living after four p.m. today."

"Man dies of an overdose of Seconal, you can't just let the case lay there for a week."

"First twenty-four hours are the most important, right?" Augusta said, and rolled her eyes.

"They are."

"So I've been told."

"You mind if I turn this on again?" he asked. "I want to see what the weather'll be tomorrow."

She did not answer. She rolled onto her side and began lifting and lowering one leg, steadily, methodically. He put the beer can down, rose from where he was sitting in the leather easy chair and snapped on the television set. The female weather forecaster was a brunette with the cutes. Smiling idiotically, bantering with the anchor man, she finally relayed the information that there was no relief in sight; the temperature tomorrow would hit a high of somewhere between 98 and 99, with the humidity hovering at 64 percent.

"So what else is new?" Augusta said to the television screen, her leg moving up and down, up and down.

"Marty Trovaro is next, with the sports," the anchor man said. "Stay tuned."

"Now we get what all the baseball teams did today," Augusta said. "Can't you turn that off, Bert?"

"I like baseball," he said. "Where'd you go after the party?"

"To a Chinese joint on Boone."

"Any good?"

"So-so."

"How many of you went?"

"About a dozen. Eleven, actually. Your chair was empty."

"On Boone, did you say?"

"Yes."

"In Chinatown?"

"Yes."

"All the way down there, huh?"

"Bianca lives in the Quarter, you know that."

"Oh, yeah, right."

Augusta was doing push-ups now. She did 25 of them every night. As the sportscaster read off the baseball scores, he watched her pushing against the carpet, watched the firm outline of her ass under the nylon robe and unconsciously counted along with her. She stopped when he had counted only 23; he must have missed a few. He got up and turned off the TV set.

"Ah, blessed silence," Augusta said.

"What time did the party break up?" he asked.

Augusta got to her feet. "Would you like some coffee?" she asked.

"Keep me awake," he said.

"What time are you going in tomorrow?"

"It's my day off."

"Hallelujah," she said. "You sure you don't want any?"

"I'm sure."

"I think I'll have some," she said, and started for the kitchen.

"What time did you say?" he asked.

"What time what?" she said over her shoulder.

"The party."

She turned to him. "At Bianca's, do you mean?"

"Yeah."

"We left about seven thirty."

"And went across to Chinatown, huh?"

"Yes," she said.

"By cab, or what?"

"Some of us went by cab, yes. I got a lift over."

"Who with?"

"The Santessons," she said, "you don't know them," and turned and walked out into the kitchen.

He knew he would have to discuss it with her, knew he had to stop playing detective here, asking dumb questions about where she'd been and what time she'd got there and who she'd been with, had to ask her flat-out, discuss the damn thing with her, the way he'd promised Carella he would. He told himself he'd do that the moment she came back into the room, ask he? whether or not she was seeing somebody else, some other man. And maybe lose her, he thought. She came back into the living room, holding a mug in her hand, and sat cross-legged on the carpet and began sipping at the coffee.

He told himself he would ask her now.

"What time did you leave the restaurant?" he asked.

"What is this?" she said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" he said. His heart had begun to flutter.

"I mean...what is this? What time did I leave Bianca's, what time did I leave the restaurant--what the hell is this?"

"I'm just curious."

"Just curious, huh? Is that some kind of occupational hazard? Curiosity? If you're so damn interested in what time I got someplace, then why don't you come with me next time, instead of running around the city looking for pills?"

"Pills?"

"You said Seconal, you said----"

"It was capsules."

"I don't give a damn what it was. I left Bianca's at seven twenty-two and fourteen seconds, OK? I entered a black Buick Regal bearing the license plate----"

"OK, Augusta."

"Double-oh-seven, a license to kill, Bert, owned and operated by one Philip Santesson, who is the art director at----"

"I said OK."

"Winston, Loeb and Fields, accompanied by his wife, June Santesson, whereupon the suspect vehicle proceeded to Chinatown to join the rest of the party at a place called Ah Wong's. We ordered----"

"Cut it out, Gussie!"

"No, goddamn it, you cut it out! I left that fucking restaurant at ten thirty and I caught a cab on Aqueduct and came straight home to my loving husband, who's been putting me through a third degree from the minute I walked through that door!" she shouted, pointing wildly at the front door. "Now, what the hell is it, Bert? If you've got something on your mind, let me know what it is! Otherwise, just shut up! I'm tired of playing cops and robbers."

"So am I."

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing," he said.

"I told you about the party, I told you we were supposed to----"

"I know you----"

"Be there at six, six thirty."

"All right, I know."

"All right," she said, and sighed, her anger suddenly dissipating.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I wanted to make love," she said softly. "I came home wanting to make love."

"I'm sorry, honey."

"Instead----"

"I'm sorry." He hesitated. Then, cautiously, he said, "We can still make love."

"No," she said, "we can't. I just got my period."

He looked at her. And suddenly he knew she'd been lying about the party at Bianca's and the ride cross-town with the Santessons and the dinner at Ah Wong's and the cab she'd caught on Aqueduct, knew she'd been lying about all of it and putting up the same brave, blustery front of a murderer caught with a smoking pistol in his fist.

"OK," he said, "some other time," and went to the television set and snapped it on again.

•

If every cop on the force had the same days off, then there'd be nobody out there in the streets on those days and the bad guys would run amuck. That was only logical. That was why cops had different days off on a rotating schedule. This week, Kling had been off on Monday and Tuesday, and now it was Sunday and he was off again. So was Augusta. That is to say, she was off visiting a model named Consuela Herrera, who had come down with hepatitis and who was at the moment languishing in the city's posh Physicians' Pavilion. Kling didn't mind; he planned to work, anyway, today.

The work he had in mind was detective work of a sort, but it had nothing to do with the 87th Squad. The moment Augusta left the apartment, Kling opened the Isola telephone directory and searched out an address and telephone number for a restaurant called Ah Wong's. Wearing blue jeans, loafers and a blue T-shirt, he went downstairs, hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to 41 Boone Street, down in Chinatown. The moment the cabby threw his flag, Kling looked at his watch. It was precisely 11 minutes past noon.

The traffic on a Sunday was so light as to be almost nonexistent. Augusta had told him that the cab ride from Ah Wong's last night had taken a half hour. That had been Saturday night, though, the busiest night of the week, and given the number of people out on the town howling, and the attendant vehicular congestion, Kling figured he'd have to add maybe 10, 15 minutes to however long it took him to get downtown now.

The cabby dropped him off in front of the restaurant at exactly 12:26 by Kling's watch. Fifteen minutes. So, OK, it could have taken Augusta a half hour last night. On the other hand, with him or without him, she'd probably taken taxis to and from Chinatown at least a dozen times this year; she knew how long the trip took, she wouldn't have come up with something absurd like ten minutes on a Saturday night. Kling paid and tipped the cabby, and then walked toward the front door of the restaurant.

Ah Wong's was sandwiched between a Chinese five-and-ten and the station house for the Chinatown precinct. Kling realized how hungry he was the moment he stepped into the restaurant and a swarm of exotic aromas assailed his nostrils. He took a table near the wall, ordered a gin and tonic and an assortment of fried shrimp, egg rolls, barbecued spare ribs and dumplings. When the waiter came back to the table to ask him if there would be anything else, Kling debated flashing the tin before asking his questions, and decided against it.

"That was delicious," he said. "My wife told me about this place; she was here last night with some friends."

"Yes?" the waiter said, smiling.

"Big party. About a dozen people."

"Ah, Miss Mercier party," the waiter said, nodding.

Miss Mercier was Bianca Mercier, a dark-haired beauty with a Nefertiti look that was currently driving the city's fashion editors wild.

"Yes, that's the one," Kling said.

"But no dozen," the waiter said. "Only ten."

"Eleven, I guess," Kling said.

"No, ten. Only one big table here," he said, pointing to a round table across the room. "Seat ten people. Was only ten last night, Miss Mercier party."

"My wife thought it was eleven," Kling said.

"No, only ten. Which one you wife?" "The redhead," Kling said.

"No redhead," the waiter said.

"Tall redhead," Kling said. "Wearing a green jump suit."

"No redhead," the waiter said again, shaking his head. "Only three lady. Miss Mercier, black hair, another lady black hair and one lady yellow hair. No redhead."

"Did you serve the party?" Kling asked him.

"I am Ah Wong," he said. "Miss Mercier very good customer, I wait on her myself last night."

"What time did it break up?"

"Finish eat, sit around, drink. Leave here eleven o'clock."

"Eleven o'clock," Kling said. Eleven o'clock was when Augusta had walked into their apartment. "Well, listen, thanks," he said, "that was really delicious."

"Come back soon," Ah Wong said.

Kling paid the check and left. He debated going cross-town and uptown to where Bianca lived in the Quarter, asking her whether Augusta had, indeed, been at that predinner cocktail party last night. He decided against it. Whether she'd been there or not was a matter of small concern. She'd left their apartment uptown at six p.m. (or so the note on the refrigerator door had said) and had presumably been at Bianca's party till a little before 7:30. An hour and a half didn't matter too much when there were a missing three hours to account for--the time between when she said she'd left Bianca's and, later on, the restaurant. Three hours, Kling thought. He had known Augusta to climax in three minutes.

He took a deep breath and walked toward the subway kiosk on Aqueduct.

•

Halloran was just sober enough to recognize that the girl sitting there beside him in the bar with her hand close to his groin was maybe 17, 18 years old, and he was drunk enough, more than enough, to think she looked just like his wife, Josie, when she was that age, or his daughter Moira the way she'd looked yesterday when she'd given him his walking papers. He said to the girl on the stool beside him, "You shouldn't have done that, Moira."

"Let's go have a party, huh?" she whispered in his ear, her hand moving closer to his groin.

Halloran had been in prison for 12 years, and he wouldn't have understood the expression even if he'd been sober enough to hear it correctly. He simply nodded.

"This is the first time I've been with a woman in twelve years," he said.

"How come? You been on the wagon or something?"

"No, I...I've been in jail," he said.

"Oh?" she said, and shrugged. Half the people she knew had spent at least some time behind bars.

"Spent twelve years up there," he said, "twelve long years."

"Listen," she said, "if you don't mind, I'd really like to----"

"Went to see my daughter yesterday," he said. "She's eighteen now. All I wanted to do was see her, you know? Talk to her a bit." He shook his head. "Told me to get lost. Sent me on my way."

"Yeah, kids," she said, hoping that would be the end of it. "Mister, what is it you'd like? Because, you see----"

"It's not her I blame," he said.

But neither could he blame himself for what he'd done 12 years ago, when he'd learned that Josie was having an affair with another man. Arguing in the living room of the Marien Street house, his two young sons asleep in the end bedroom, his daughter, Moira, in the room closest to where he and Josie were yelling at each other, Josie finally shouting that it was true, yes, she was seeing another man, she was in love with another man, and naming him, hurling the name at him, and then bursting into tears.

"A working girl, you know?"

"What?" he said.

"I said I'm a working girl. So what do you say? What'll it be?"

"You know what I did time for?"

"No, what?" she said, and sighed.

"Murder," he said.

She looked at him.

"I killed my wife," he said.

She kept looking at him.

"With a hatchet," he said.

He used to keep the hatchet on a shelf just inside the basement door, above the steps; he remembered moving away from her wordlessly, and opening the basement door, and taking the hatchet from where it was resting on the shelf, and then going back into the living room and hitting her with it, hitting her repeatedly, opening her skull and her face, and continuing to hit her even after she was dead and gushing blood onto the pale-green living-room rug.

"It wasn't my fault," he said, and turned to look at the girl.

She studied him silently, trying to figure out whether or not he was putting her on. Lots of guys tried to impress you with their big macho bullshit, tried to show you what men they were--some kind of men, all right, who had to pay to get laid. But all at once, when it sank in that she was sitting next to a man who'd maybe really killed somebody, she was afraid.

"Listen," she said, "maybe we oughta just forget it, you know what I mean?"

He kept staring at her. He seemed not to know she was with him. He kept staring at her but not seeing her.

"I mean, I...really, I'm a working girl, you know? I...." She wet her lips. "If you're not interested, you know, in doing anything, then why don't I just leave?"

"Yeah, OK," he said.

"Well, OK," she said, getting off the barstool quickly and picking up her bag.

The night he'd killed her (well, it hadn't been his fault), he'd driven downtown afterward to search for the man Josie had named. Found him standing outside a sleazy hotel on Culver Avenue, chased him down the street with the bloody hatchet in his hand, finally caught up with him and yanked him to the sidewalk and was about to do to him what he had already done to Josie when a car pulled up to the curb and a young guy in plain clothes jumped out, waving a gun and yelling.

He remembered that son of a bitch coming out of the car, waving his pistol in the air--"Police! Stop or I'll shoot!"--remembered telling him stupidly and in tears all about what had happened in the clapboard-and-brick house on Marien Street. "It wasn't my fault," repeating the words again and again, "It wasn't my fault." And the cop had answered, the son of a bitch had answered, "It's never anybody's fault, is it?" Those words had echoed in his head for 12 long years--"It's never anybody's fault, is it?"

That son of a bitch, he thought.

Twelve years in prison, he thought.

You son of a bitch.

The tears running down his face, his fists clenched, he knew whose fault it was, all right, never mind it never being anybody's fault, never mind that fucking shit! Knew just who was responsible for all those years in prison, exactly who to blame for all of it ("It's never anybody's fault, is it?").

Detective/Third Grade Bertram A. Kling, he thought.

And nodded grimly.

•

Kling should have realized his marriage was doomed the moment he began tailing his wife.

In any good marriage, there were arguments and even fights--but you fought fair if you wanted the marriage to survive. The minute you started hitting below the belt, it was time to call the divorce lawyers. That's why Carella had asked him to discuss this thing with Augusta.

Instead, Kling decided he would find out for himself whether she was seeing another man. He made his decision after a hot, sleepless night. He made it on the steamy morning of August 11, while he and Augusta were eating breakfast. He made it ten minutes before she left for her first assignment of the week.

He was a cop. Tailing a suspect came easily and naturally to him. Standing together at the curb outside their building, Augusta looking frantically at her watch, Kling trying to get a taxi at the height of the morning rush hour, he told her there was something he wanted to check at the office and would probably be gone all day. Even though this was his day off, she accepted the lie; all too often in the past, he had gone back to the station house on his day off. He finally managed to hail a taxi, and when it pulled in to the curb, he yanked open the rear door for her.

"Where are you going, honey?" he asked.

"Ranger Photography, 1201 Goedkoop."

"Have you got that?" Kling asked the cabby through the open window on the curb side.

"Got it," the cabby said.

Augusta blew a kiss at Kling, and the taxi pulled away from the curb and into the stream of traffic heading downtown. It took Kling ten minutes to find another cab. He was in no hurry. He had checked Augusta's appointment calendar while she was bathing before bed last night, when he was still mulling his decision. It had showed two sittings for this morning: one at Ranger Photography for nine a.m., the other at Coopersmith Creatives for 11. Her next appointment was at two in the afternoon at Fashion Flair, and alongside that she had penned in the words Cutler if time. Cutler was the agency representing her.

Standing across the street from 1201 Goedkoop, where he had asked the cabby to let him out, Kling looked around for a pay phone and then went into a cigar store on the corner of Goedkoop and Fields, where he looked up the phone number for Ranger Photography. From a phone booth near the magazine rack, he dialed the number and waited.

"Ranger," a man's voice said.

"May I speak to Augusta Blair, please?" he said. It rankled every time he had to use her maiden name, however damn professionally necessary it was.

"Minute," the man said.

Kling waited.

When she came onto the line, he said, "Gussie, hi, I'm sorry to break in this way."

"We haven't started yet," she said. "I just got here a few minutes ago. What is it, Bert?"

"I wanted to remind you, we're having dinner with Meyer and Sarah tonight."

"Yes," she said, "I have it in my book. Where are you now, Bert?"

"Just got here," he said. "You want to try that new Italian joint on Trafalgar?"

"Yes, sure. Bert, I have to go. They're waving frantically."

"I'll make a reservation," he said. "Eight o'clock sound OK?"

"Yes, fine. 'Bye, darling, I'll talk to you later."

There was a click on the line. OK, he thought, she's where she's supposed to be. He put the phone back on the hook and then went out into the street again. It was blazing hot already, and his watch read only 9:27. He crossed the street to 1201 Goedkoop and entered the building, checking to see if there was a side or a back entrance. Nothing. Just the big brass doors through which he'd entered and through which Augusta would have to pass when she left. He looked at his watch again and then went across the street to take up his position.

She did not come out of the building until a quarter to 11.

He had hailed a taxi five minutes earlier, and flashed the tin, and had told the cabby he was a policeman on assignment and would want him to follow a suspect vehicle in just a few minutes. As Augusta came out of the building, another taxi pulled in some three feet ahead of her. She raised her arm, yelled "Taxi!" and then sprinted for the curb, her shoulder bag flying.

"There she is," Kling said. "Just getting in that cab across the street."

"What'd she do?"

"Maybe nothing," Kling said.

"So what's all the hysteria?" the cabby asked, and threw the taxi in gear and made a wide U turn in an area posted with No U Turn signs, figuring, what the hell, he had a cop in the back seat.

"Not too close, now," Kling said. "Just don't lose her."

The melodramatic chase might have been more meaningful if Augusta's taxi hadn't taken her to 21 Lincoln Street, where Coopersmith Creatives had its studios. She was exactly where she was supposed to be.

The sitting was a short one. She came out of the building again at a little past noon and walked directly to a plastic pay-phone shell on the corner. Watching from a doorway across the street, he saw her fishing in her bag for a coin and dialing a number. He wondered if she was calling the squad room.

He saw her nodding. She nodded again and then hung up. She was smiling. He expected her to hail another taxi, but instead she began walking uptown, and it took him another moment to realize she was heading for the subway kiosk on the next corner. He thought, protectively, Jesus, Gussie, don't you know better than to ride the subways in this city? And then he quickened his pace and started down the steps after her, catching sight of her at the change booth. A train was pulling in. He flashed his shield at the attendant in the booth and pushed through the gate to the left of the stiles just as Augusta entered one of the cars.

Kling stood at the far end of the car, his back to Augusta. The glass panel here had been spray-painted on the outside, with a dark-blue paint that made through visibility impossible but that served to create a mirror effect. Even with his back to Augusta, he could clearly see her reflection.

He counted nine stops before she rose suddenly at the Hopper Street station and moved toward the opening doors. He stepped out onto the platform the instant she did. She turned left and began walking swiftly toward the exit steps, her high heels clicking; his wife was in a goddamn hurry. He followed at a safe distance, reached the end of the platform, pushed through the gate and saw her as she reached the top of the stairs leading to the street, her long legs flashing, the shoulder bag swinging.

He took the steps up two at a time, looked swiftly toward the corner, turned to look in the opposite direction and saw her standing and waiting for the traffic light to change. A sidewalk clock outside a savings and loan association told him it was already 12:30. Augusta's next appointment was uptown, at two p.m. He guessed she planned to skip lunch. He hoped against hope that he was wrong. He'd have given his right arm if only she walked into any one of the delicatessens or restaurants that lined the streets in this part of the city. But she continued walking, swiftly, not checking any of the addresses on the buildings, seemingly knowing exactly where she was going. She was heading toward the Scotch Meadows park in the heart of the Hopscotch artists' quarter. He's an artist, Kling thought. The son of a bitch is an artist.

He followed her for two blocks, to the corner of Hopper and Matthews. Then, suddenly, without breaking her stride for an instant, without looking up at the numerals over the door, she walked into one of the old buildings that had earlier been factories but that now housed tenants paying astronomical rents.

Kling stood on the sidewalk and looked up, shielding his eyes against the sun. Five stories. Four windows fronting the street on each floor, but he supposed most of the loft space was divided, and he couldn't even guess how many apartments there might be. He jotted the address in his notebook--641 Hopper Street--and then went into a luncheonette on the corner across the street and sat eating a soggy hamburger and drinking a lukewarm egg cream while he watched the building. The clock on the grease-spattered wall read 12:40 p.m.

It was one o'clock when he ordered another egg cream. It was 1:30 when he asked the counterman for an iced coffee. Augusta did not come out of the building until a quarter to two. She walked immediately to the curb and signaled to a cruising taxi. Kling finished his coffee and then went into the building and copied down all the names on the lobby directory. Six of them in all. Six suspects. There was no rush now; he suspected the damage had already been done.

He took the subway again and went home.

•

That night, Kling and Augusta dined with Meyer and his wife. When they left the restaurant at ten, Meyer offered to give them a lift, but they were only a few blocks from where they lived, and so they all said good night on the sidewalk outside.

As they moved away from the restaurant, a man stepped out of a doorway across the way and began walking parallel to them on the other side of the street.

He was a huge man with the broad, powerful shoulders of a weight lifter, his dark eyes shadowed by the brim of a hat pulled low on his forehead and covering his black hair. He followed Kling and Augusta all the way home, and after they went inside, he stood on the sidewalk across the street and watched the lighted windows on the second floor of the brownstone. He did not leave until the lights went out at a little past 11.

Then he went uptown to look for a gun.

•

The air conditioner was humming in the second-floor bedroom of the brownstone. The room was cool, but Kling could not sleep. It was two in the morning. He was tempted to confront Augusta with it now, tell her he'd seen her go into the building at 641 Hopper Street, ask her what possible business she could have had in that building. Get it over with here and now. He remembered what Carella had advised him.

"Augusta?" he whispered. "You awake?"

"No," she said, and rolled over.

"Gussie, I want to talk to you."

"Go t' sleep," Augusta mumbled.

"Honey, this is important," he said.

"Shit."

"Honey...."

"Shit, shit, shit," she said, and sat up and snapped on the bedside lamp. "What is it?" she said, and looked at the clock on the table. "Bert, it's two o'clock, I have a sitting at eight thirty, can't this wait?"

"I really feel I have to talk to you now," he said.

"I have to get up at six thirty!" she said.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but, Gussie, this has really been bothering me."

"All right, what is it?" she said, and sighed. She took a pack of cigarettes from beside the clock, shook one free and lighted it.

"I'm worried," he said. "About us."

"Us?"

"I think we're drifting apart."

"That's ridiculous," she said.

"I think we are."

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, we...for one thing, we don't make love as often as we used to."

"I've got my period," Augusta said. "You know that."

"I know that, but...well, that didn't used to matter in the past. When we were first married."

"Well," she said, and hesitated. "I thought we were doing fine."

"I don't think so," he said, shaking his head.

"Is it the sex, is that it? I mean, that you think we don't have enough sex?"

"That's only part of it," he said.

"Because if you, you know, if you'd like me to...."

"No, no."

"I thought we were doing fine," she said again, and shrugged, and stubbed out the cigarette.

"You know this girl who's with the agency?" he said. Here it is, he thought. Here we go. "Little blonde girl. She models junior stuff."

"Monica?"

(continued on page 250)Heat(continued from page 244)

"Yeah. She was out there at the party. On the Fourth. Do you remember?"

"So?"

"We got to talking," Kling said.

"Uh-huh," Augusta said. "Must've been fascinating, talking to that nitwit."

"She said she's seen you around town with a lot of guys," Kling said in a rush, and then caught his breath.

"Oh, that rotten little bitch!" Augusta said. "Seen me around, seen me----"

"One guy in particular," Kling said.

"Oh, one guy in particular, uh-huh."

"That's what she said."

"Which guy?"

"I don't know. You tell me, Augusta."

"This is ridiculous," Augusta said.

"I'm only repeating what she said."

"And you believed her."

"I...listened to her. Let's put it that way."

"But she couldn't tell you which guy, in particular, I'm supposed to have been seen around town with, is that it?"

"No. I asked her, but----"

"Oh, you asked her. So you did believe her, right?"

"I was listening, Gussie."

"To a juvenile delinquent who's only been laid by every photographer in the entire city, and who has the gall----"

"Calm down," he said.

"To suggest that I'm----"

"Come on, Gussie."

"I'll kill that little bitch!"

"Then it isn't true, right?"

"Right, it isn't true. Did you think it was?"

"I guess so."

"Thanks a lot," Augusta said.

They were silent for several moments. He was thinking he would have to ask her about 641 Hopper Street. He was thinking he'd done what Carella had suggested he should do, but he still wasn't satisfied, he still didn't have the answers that would set his mind at ease.

"Gussie ..." he said.

"I love you, Bert," she said, "you know that."

"I thought you did."

"I do."

"But you keep going places without me...."

"That was your idea, Bert, you know it was. You hate those parties."

"Yeah, but still...."

"I won't go anywhere else without you, OK?"

"Well...."

What about during the day? he wondered. What about when I'm out chasing some cheap thief, what about then? What about when I have the night watch? What will you be doing then? he wondered.

"I promise," she said. "No place else without you. Now lie down."

She pulled the sheet off him.

"Just lie still," she said.

"Gussie...."

"Shh," she said. "Shh, baby. I'm gonna take care of you. Poor little neglected darling," she said, and her mouth descended hungrily.

•

At ten minutes to nine on Tuesday night, Kling stood outside the building on Hopper Street and looked up at its facade. There were five floors to the building, four windows on each floor.

Augusta had told him they'd be shooting a commercial outdoors tonight, at Long General Hospital downtown, something to do with juxtaposing the new line of ski fashions with the stark, monolithic architecture of the hospital and the crisp white starched uniforms of the staff nurses they'd be using as background extras. She was not looking forward to the assignment. Modeling ski parkas in the stifling heat under bright lights was not her idea of an ideal way to spend a summer night.

Kling hadn't believed a word of it.

A call to the senior security officer at the hospital had informed him that no plans had been made for anyone to take pictures in or around the place that night. "This is a hospital," the security man said somewhat testily, "there are sick people here, we don't allow such shenanigans here."

Kling went to the front door of the building on Hopper now and shook the knob. Locked. He found a bell button marked Service in the doorjamb and pressed it. A loud ringing sounded inside someplace. He rang the bell again.

He heard footsteps within, approaching the door, and then a man's voice saying, "I'm coming, I'm coming."

He waited.

"Who is it?" the man asked from behind the door.

"Police," Kling said.

He heard a lock being turned, the tumblers falling. Good secure lock, he thought, looking at the keyway. The door opened a crack. An eye and a narrow slice of face appeared in the wedge.

"Let's see it," the man said.

Kling held up his shield. "Detective Atchison," he said.

There was no Detective Atchison on the Eight-Seven. His name was not on his shield. Beneath the police-department legend and the city's seal, there were only the word Detective and his shield number.

The man opened the door wide.

He was a white man in his 60s, wearing only a tank-top undershirt and baggy cotton trousers. He looked Kling over and then said, "I'm Henry Watkins, superintendent of the building. What's the violation this time?"

"No violation. I'm looking for a runaway," Kling said. "I have information she may be living in the building here."

He normally carried, stuffed into the back of his notebook, a dozen or more photographs of teenage runaways who might have found their way uptown to the headier narcotic climate of the Eight-Seven, where the grass was presumably greener and more easily obtainable than it was elsewhere in the city. He took his notebook from his hip pocket now and leafed through the pictures, selecting a graduation photo of a chubby 17-year-old girl beaming at the camera, black-rimmed eyeglasses perched on her freckled nose, blonde hair neatly combed, eyes sparkling. He wondered what she looked like now. If she'd come to this city----

He showed the photograph to Watkins.

"This is the girl," he said. "Her name's Heather Laughlin; have you seen her in the building at any time?"

"Get a lot of traffic here," Watkins said, looking at the picture. "Two photographers in the building, we get girls coming and going all the time."

Photographers, Kling thought. Maybe Augusta had been here on business, after all. He took out the list of names he'd copied from the directory.

"Which one of these would be the photographers?" lie asked.

Watkins scanned the list.

"Well, there's Peter Lang on the third floor and Al Garavelli on the fourth. They're both photographers."

"Do these people live here as well? Lang and Garavelli?"

"No, they just got their studios here. Nine to five."

"How about the rest of these people?" Kling said, and showed him the list again.

"Yeah, they're residents."

"Any of them home right now?"

"Well, I'm not obliged to check on the comings and goings of any of my tenants. They all got keys to the outside door here, they come and go as they please, same as anywhere else in this city."

"I'll have to talk to them," Kling said.

"Well," Watkins said. "Third and fourth floor're dark, that's where Lang and Garavelli work. You can take the steps up, try your luck with the others."

Kling took the iron-runged steps up to the first floor. Below, he could hear Watkins closing and locking the door to his own apartment. The steps and the first-floor landing were badly lighted. There was only one door on the landing. He went to it. No bell. He knocked on the door. Silence. He knocked again.

"Yo?" a voice inside said. A man.

"Police," Kling said.

"What?" the man said.

"Police," Kling said again.

"Just a second," the man said.

Kling waited.

The door opened a crack, held by a night chain.

"What is it?" the man said.

"May I come in a moment, please?" Kling said, holding up his shield. "I'm Detective Atchison, Isola Police, I'd like to ask a few questions, sir." He had not mentioned the precinct for which he worked. He put the shield in its leather case back into his pocket almost at once.

"Yeah, just a second," the man said, and took off the night chain and opened the door.

He was wearing running shorts and track shoes, nothing else. He was perhaps 5'8? tall, a spare, balding white man with dark-brown eyes and a thin nose under which there was a mustache the color of the black hair curled on his naked chest. A fan was going somewhere in the apartment. Kling could hear the whir of its blades and could feel the faint breeze it stirred.

"Well, come in," the man said. "Kind of late to be making a visit, ain't it?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but we have to follow leads whenever we get them."

"What kind of lead are you following?" the man asked. "Come in, come in."

"I'm sorry, sir," Kling said, stepping into the apartment. "Are you...?" He consulted the list of names he'd copied from the directory downstairs. "Mr. Lucas?"

"Michael Lucas, yes," he said, and closed and locked the door, and then put on the night chain again.

The apartment was a converted loft that obviously served now as a combined living space and artist's studio. An easel was set up near the windows to the north, a large abstract painting shrieking its colors into the room. A cot was set up against one wall, a tabletop burner and a refrigerator on another. The loft was vast. The wooden floors were paint-spattered. A rack against the third wall supported at least a dozen huge canvases that seemed to have been spattered in the same haphazard fashion as the floor had been.

"So, what's so urgent?" Lucas asked.

"We're looking for a runaway," Kling said, and took the picture from his notebook. "We have information she may be living in this building. Ever see this girl?"

Lucas looked at the picture.

"No," he said at once.

"You're an artist, I see."

"I try to be."

"So you haven't seen her, huh?"

"No," Lucas said.

"Are you here all day long?" Kling asked.

"I'm here all day, this is where I work," Lucas said.

"She was seen here yesterday, that's what our informant told us. Were you here yesterday?"

"I was here yesterday."

Kling made a show of consulting his notebook. "Between the hours of twelve thirty and one forty-five?"

"I didn't see her."

"Maybe your model...."

"I don't use a model."

"Did you have any visitors at all between those hours?"

"I was alone during that time," Lucas said.

"No visitors?"

"None."

"And you haven't seen her?"

"I haven't seen her."

Kling thanked Lucas for his time, and then went out into the hall again, and climbed the dimly lighted stairway to the second floor of the building. Two doors here, one at either end of the hallway. He pressed the bell button outside the door to the right of the stairwell. Apartment 21. Healy, M. and Rosen, M. A buzzer sounded inside.

"Who is it?" a woman's voice called.

"Police," he said.

"Police?" The voice sounded totally astonished. He waited until she opened the door for him, and then he went through the routine of identifying himself as Detective Atchison, and giving her a brief glimpse of his shield, and then asking her if he might come in and show her a picture of the runaway he was looking for.

The woman's name was Martha Healy. There was another woman in the apartment, a small, dark-eyed brunette in her 20s, wearing only panties and a T-shirt. She was lying on a sofa against one of the walls, leafing through a magazine and smoking. She looked up when Kling came in, and then went back to the magazine.

Kling smelled marijuana in the air and realized that what the girl on the sofa was smoking was pot. Nobody bothered flushing a joint when the law arrived these days; he had been in movie theaters where the cloud of marijuana smoke was enough to produce a high if you just inhaled deeply. Augusta smoked marijuana. So did Kling himself, on occasion.

"Have you seen her around?" he asked.

"No," Martha said. "How about you, Michelle?"

"What?" the brunette said.

"You see this kid around anyplace?" she asked, and moved to the couch, a dancer's walk, somewhat stiff-legged and duck-footed. She handed the photograph to Michelle, who studied it through a marijuana haze.

"No," Michelle said. "Don't know her."

"Are you both here most of the time?" Kling asked.

"In and out," Martha said.

"How about yesterday between twelve thirty and one forty-five?"

"I was in class. Michelle?"

"I was here."

"Alone?" Kling asked.

"Alone," she said, and looked at him, and smiled suddenly and radiantly. She had Bugs Bunny teeth.

"Because if you had any visitors, one of them might've seen----"

"We save our visitors for the nighttime," Martha said. She looked at Michelle, who was still smiling.

"Well, thanks," he said, and went to the door. "Good night." He closed the door behind him. He heard the lock tumblers fall and then the night chain rattle into place. He went to the door at the other end of the hall and knocked on it. That would be Harris, F. in the directory downstairs. He knocked again. Still no answer. He knocked once more, to be certain, and then took the steps up to the third floor. There was only one door on the landing, marked with a white-on-black plastic name plate: Peter Lang. One of the photographers gone for the day. He continued up to the fourth floor. The lights were out there, too. He picked his way through the dark and up the stairs to the fifth floor.

The man who opened the door to apartment 51 could have been an idealized mirror image of Kling himself, slightly taller, 6'2? or 6'3?, Kling guessed, with a shock of blond hair not unlike his own, brown eyes set in a handsome, rough-hewn face, a nose any male model in New York would have pillaged and killed for, a cleft chin and a petulant mouth. He was wearing designer jeans and nothing else. He'd lifted weights when he was younger, Kling was certain of that. His shoulders were enormous, his chest and his arms were bulging with muscles.

"Detective Atchison," Kling said, "Isola Police."

"Let me see that again," the man said.

Kling held the shield up again.

"What precinct is that?" he asked.

"The Three-Two," Kling lied.

"What is it you want?"

"I'm looking for a runaway. Ever see this girl anywhere in the building?" Kling said, and showed him the picture. "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"Bradford Douglas," he said, taking the picture.

Bradford Douglas. Douglas, B. in the directory downstairs, apartment 51.

"Recognize her?" Kling said.

"No, I don't know her," Douglas said, and handed back the picture.

"Do you live here, or work here, or what?" Kling asked.

"I live here."

"What kind of work do you do, Mr. Douglas?"

"What's that question got to do with your runaway?"

"I'm trying to find out whether you were here in the building yesterday between----"

"Why do you want to know that?"

"Because the girl was seen here sometime between twelve thirty and one forty-five yesterday...."

"I was only here till noon."

"You left at noon?"

"Yes. I was waiting for a friend of mine...."

"What time did your friend get here?"

"At a little past twelve. What the hell can that have to do----"

"A visitor might've seen her," Kling said. "If somebody came to visit, he...or she...might've seen the girl." He hesitated. "Who was here, can you tell me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Let's say it would be indiscreet of me, OK?"

"In what way?"

"Let's say marriage is a delicate arrangement, OK?"

"Oh, are you married, Mr. Douglas?"

"No."

"Then your visitor----"

"End of conversation," Douglas said.

"I wish you'd help me, Mr. Douglas. Because, you see, this girl's been missing for two years now, and if there's anyone who might've seen her----"

"End of conversation," Douglas said again.

"You left here at twelve, huh?"

"A little after twelve, yes."

"Left your visitor here alone, huh?"

"I don't want to talk about any visitors," Douglas said.

"Where'd you go? When you left here."

"To work."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I'm a model," Douglas said.

"Photographer's model?"

"Yes."

"Fashion or what?"

"Mostly fashion, occasional beefcake."

"Uh-huh," Kling said.

"Will that help you find your runaway?" Douglas asked.

"No, but----"

"I didn't think it would. If you'll excuse me now, I've got company."

"Company?"

"In the other room."

"Could she possibly have seen----"

"Is that a trick question?"

"What?"

"The she. Are you trying to find out if my company's a woman?"

"Well, no, I'm----"

"She is, OK?"

"Fine," Kling said.

"That it?"

"Could she possibly have seen the girl I'm looking for?"

"No."

"How do you know that?"

"Because she wasn't here yesterday afternoon when you say your runaway was spotted."

"Ah, OK, then," Kling said.

Douglas led him to the door.

"Hope you find her," he said.

"Yes, thanks a lot," Kling said.

The door closed behind him. He waited until Douglas had locked it and chained it, and then put his ear to the wood.

"It's OK, honey," he heard Douglas call. "He's gone now."

•

The first shot came as he was walking out of the building. It took him completely by surprise.

He heard the roar of the gun somewhere off to his left, beyond the circle of light cast by the street-corner lamppost, heard the slug as it whacked home against the brick of the building, saw from the corner of his eye the brick a foot away from his head shatter with the impact of the bullet, throwing flying pieces of soot-stained red into the air. By the time the second shot came, he was flat on his belly on the sidewalk, his pistol in his hand, his heart beating wildly, his eyes scanning the darkness beyond the circle of light. There was a third shot, triggered off in haste, and then the sound of footsteps pounding away into the darkness. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw the running man crossing the pool of light under another lamppost. Dark windbreaker and fedora. Gun flailing in his right hand as he pumped the air like a track star. He disappeared around the corner just as Kling began chasing him, and was gone when Kling reached the lamppost there.

Out of breath, Kling walked back to where he thought the shots had come from. On his hands and knees, he began searching the pavement, touching, feeling with his palms and his fingers, looking for spent cartridge cases. All he got was dirty hands. Either this wasn't the exact spot or the man had been firing a revolver rather than an automatic. He went back to where he'd been standing when the shooting started. The hole in the brick wall was at least six inches in diameter; his assailant had been using a high-powered gun. The area was dark. He looked up and down the street, hoping to find a radio motor-patrol car; the patrolmen would be carrying torchlights. The street was empty of traffic. Never a cop around when you needed one. He got down on his hands and knees again, in the dark, and began feeling the sidewalk, searching for bullets. He found only one, in pretty good shape, not too badly deformed. He pocketed the slug, debated phoning this in to the local precinct and decided against it. Instead, he walked up to the lighted avenue two blocks away, and hailed a taxi there, and told the driver to take him to Long General.

There were no photographers and no models outside the hospital.

•

She came into the apartment at a little after midnight. He was sitting before the television set, watching the beginning of an old movie. "Hi," she said, and came into the living room, and kissed him on top of his head.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"It was called off," she said.

"Oh?"

"Some trouble with the hospital. They didn't want us shooting outside. Said it would disturb the patients."

"So where'd you end up shooting?" Kling asked.

"We didn't. Had a big meeting instead. Up at Chelsea."

"Chelsea?"

"Chelsea TV, Inc."

"Who are they?" he asked.

"The ad firm shooting the commercial."

"Oh," he said. "So what was the meeting about?"

"Rewriting, rescheduling, picking a new location, the same old jazz."

"They needed you for that, huh?"

"For what?"

"Rewriting, and rescheduling, and----"

"Well, Larry wants me for the spot."

"Larry?"

"Patterson. At Chelsea. He wrote the spot and he's directing it."

"Oh, yeah, right."

"So we had to figure out my availability and all that."

He found himself staring at her, just the way he'd stared at her on their first date so long ago, couldn't stop staring at her. When finally she'd told him to stop it, he was forced to admit he'd never been out with a girl as beautiful as she was, and she simply said he'd have to get over it, he could still remember her exact words.

"Well, you'll have to get over it. Because I think you're beautiful, too, and we'd have one hell of a relationship if all we did was sit around and stare at each other all the time. I mean, I expect we'll be seeing a lot of each other, and I'd like to think I'm permitted to sweat every now and then. I do sweat, you know."

Yes, Gussie, he thought, you do sweat, I know that now, and once when you got drunk with all those flitty photographer friends of yours, I held your head while you vomited, and I put you to bed afterward and wiped up the bathroom floor, yes, Gussie, I know you sweat, I know you're human, but, Jesus, Gussie, do you have to...do you have to do this to me, do you have to behave like...like a goddamn bitch in heat?

"Thinking of going down to South America to do it," Augusta said.

"What?" Kling said.

"Larry. Shoot the spot down there. There's snow down there now. Forget the symbolic mountain, do it on a real mountain instead."

"What symbolic mountain?"

"Long General."

"So you'll be going to South America, huh?"

"Just for a few days. If it works out."

"When?"

"Pretty soon, I guess. While there's still snow. This is like their winter, you know."

"Yeah," Kling said. "Like when? This month sometime?"

"Probably."

"Did you tell him you'd go?"

"I don't get many shots at television, Bert. This is a full minute, the exposure'll mean a lot to me."

"Oh, sure, I know that."

"It'll just be for a few days."

"Who'll be going down there?" he asked.

"Just me, and Larry, and the crew."

"No other models?"

"He'll pick up his extras on the spot."

"I don't think I've met him," Kling said. "Have I met him?"

"Who?"

"Larry Patterson."

"No, I don't think so," Augusta said, and looked away.

•

He chose Ah Wong's downtown on Boone Street for three reasons: First, Augusta had told him she'd be working that Wednesday morning at Tru-Vue, a photography studio close to the restaurant; second, it was here that she was supposed to have been last Saturday night, and when he baited his trap, he wanted her to remember, if only unconsciously, that she was a woman involved in an affair, a woman searching for opportunities to deceive; and third, the restaurant was close to the various courthouses downtown, where he hoped to go for his search warrant the moment he got the quick report Ballistics had promised him.

They met a little after 12 noon.

She looked so radiantly beautiful that he almost forgot his resolve.

She complained about having to work all morning under the hot lights, and he told her all about what a hard day it had been in court all morning, where he'd been testifying on a burglary arrest he'd made two months back; he did not mention that he had gone to the lab first, to drop off the bullet that had been fired at him the night before. Gingerly, he approached the trap he had carefully constructed.

"Damn thing is," he said, "I've got night watch again tonight."

"How come?" she asked.

"Parker's sick," he said.

He had deliberately chosen Parker because he was one of the few cops they did not see socially; he did not want to risk using Meyer or Brown or any of the other cops Augusta knew; a call from a wife or a girlfriend could blow the whole scheme.

"He came down with a cold," Kling said. "I think he's faking, but who can tell with Parker? Anyway, Pete asked me to sub for him tonight."

"So what does that mean?"

"One to nine in the morning."

Augusta said nothing. He thought he noticed her chopsticks hesitating on the way to her mouth. Her eyes were lowered, she kept looking at her plate.

"So where will you be?" she asked.

"At headquarters. But we'll be out on the street most of the time," he added.

"I thought we were going to a movie tonight," Augusta said.

"Yeah, well, what can you do?"

"Actually, we could still go, couldn't we? If you don't have to be downtown till one?"

"I'll be in the squad room till then hon," he said. "Paperwork on this suicide we're working."

Augusta hesitated. "Maybe I'll go to the movies alone; would you mind that?"

"Why would I?" he said.

"Well, after what that twerp Monica told you...."

"I've forgotten all about that," Kling said.

"She'll be wearing a wig next time we meet," Augusta said. "Pull out all her hair, that bitch."

"Don't do anything I'd have to arrest you for," Kling said, and forced a smile.

"I still can't get over her; I mean it."

"Why don't you put it out of your mind?" he said, and covered her hand with his own. "I have."

"Well, good," she said, and smiled.

"What time do you have to be back up there?" he asked.

Augusta looked at her watch. "I still have a few minutes," she said. "So will we be going out to dinner tonight, or what?"

"I planned on catching a sandwich in the squad room."

Augusta pulled a face. "Great," she said. "That means I won't be seeing you till nine tomorrow morning." She looked at her watch again. "I've got to run," she said. "Before they start screaming up there." She pushed back her chair, came around to where he was sitting, kissed him on the cheek and said, "Be careful tonight, OK?"

"You, too," he said.

"I'll be home with the door locked," she said, "you won't have to worry."

"I mean, on the way home from the movies."

"I will. Bye, darling," she said, and kissed him again on the cheek, and then walked swiftly to the front door, and turned at the door to throw a kiss to him before she went out. He sat at the table for several moments longer, and then paid the check and went to the telephone booth near the doors to the kitchen. He dialed the squad-room number directly, bypassing the muster desk. Carella picked up on the third ring.

"I was just going down to lunch," he said. "Where are you?"

"Downtown here," Kling said. "I just got out of court. Did I get a call from Ballistics?"

"Yeah, from Dorfsman. He said to tell you the bullet's a Remington .44-caliber Magnum, soft point. Average velocity of such a bullet is something like seventeen hundred feet, with a resulting paper energy of almost fourteen hundred foot-pounds. Dorfsman said that's enough to stop a grizzly dead in his tracks."

"Did he say what kind of gun?"

"A Ruger Blackhawk." Carella paused. "Which case is this, Bert? I don't remember any----"

"I'll see you later," Kling said, and hung up before Carella could ask him anything more.

•

For the first time in his capacity as a police officer sworn to uphold the laws of the city, state and nation, Kling lied on an official application. Moreover, he lied both in writing and later orally to a Supreme Court magistrate. Kling's affidavit read:

1. I am a detective of the Police Department assigned to the 87th Detective Squad.

2. I have information based upon my personal knowledge and belief and facts supplied to me at the scene by the victim that an attempted murder occurred outside 641 Hopper Street at 11:10 p.m. this Tuesday past, August 12.

3. I have further information based upon my personal knowledge and belief and facts disclosed to me by the victim of the attempted murder that several shots were discharged during the attempt.

4. I have further information based upon my personal knowledge and belief that the firearm used in the murder attempt was a .44-caliber Ruger Blackhawk firing .44-caliber Remington Magnum cartridges, as confirmed by Michael O. Dorfsman of the Ballistics Unit this day, August 13, working from a bullet I personally recovered from the sidewalk outside 641 Hopper Street.

5. I have further information based upon my personal knowledge and belief and on information supplied to me, that a tenant named Bradford Douglas is in possession of a pistol of the same caliber and answering the description of the pistol used in the attempted murder.

6. Based upon the foregoing reliable information and upon my personal knowledge, there is probable cause to believe that the pistol in possession of Bradford Douglas would constitute evidence in the crime of attempted murder.

Wherefore, I respectfully request that the court issue a warrant in the form annexed hereto, authorizing a search of the person of Bradford Douglas and the premises at 641 Hopper Street, apartment 51. No previous application in this matter has been made in this or any other court or to any other judge, justice or magistrate.

The judge to whom Kling presented his signed affidavit read it over carefully, and then looked up over the rims of his eyeglasses.

"What were you doing all the way down there, son?" he asked.

"Your Honor?"

"Long way from the Eighty-seventh, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, your Honor. I was off duty. Just coming from a restaurant when I heard the shooting."

"Did you see the perpetrator?"

"No, your Honor."

"Then you only have the victim's word that a murder attempt was made."

"I heard the shots, your Honor, and I recovered a spent bullet from the pavement, which would seem conclusive evidence that a pistol had been fired."

"But not necessarily in a murder attempt."

"The victim says the gun was fired at point-blank range, your Honor."

"I see. And you believe this gun might be in the apartment you want to search?"

"Yes, your Honor, that's my firm belief."

"Where'd you get this information?"

"From the super of the building, a man named Henry Watkins. He's seen the pistol, your Honor."

"When did you plan to conduct this search?"

"Tonight, your Honor. As soon as I can ascertain that Mr. Douglas is at home."

"Mm," the judge said.

"Your Honor, I would also like a no-knock provision."

"On what basis?"

"Information and belief that there is a lethal weapon in that apartment, your Honor. A .44-caliber Magnum is a high-powered----"

"Yes, yes," the judge said. "All right," he said, "I'll grant the warrant. And the no-knock."

"Thank you, your Honor," Kling said, and took his handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow.

The lie, as he rationalized it, was only a partial falsehood. An attempted murder had taken place, and the weapon he'd described was the one used last night. But neither Henry Watkins nor anyone else had told him Bradford Douglas was in possession of such a gun; if, indeed, he found it in Douglas' apartment tonight, that would be strictly a bonus. He would be going there tonight looking for Augusta. The no-knock provision gave him the right to kick in the door, no hiding in a closet or a bathroom, catch her there dead to rights.

As he came down the broad white steps of the courthouse, the heat enveloping him like a shroud, he felt a gloomy certainty that tonight would be the end of it. And he longed for it to be the beginning instead, when he and Augusta were both fresh and new and shining with hope.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

•

Halloran watched him as he came down the courthouse steps.

He wondered what he'd been doing up there. Went to court this morning, met the redhead for lunch at 12, then went back to the courthouse again. Busy with his little cases, the bastard. The redhead would be living with a corpse tomorrow morning.

He had missed last night, but he wouldn't miss again.

Tonight, he wouldn't miss.

Tonight, he'd shove the gun in that bastard's face and do the job right, make the bastard eat the barrel and chew on the slug before it ripped off the back of his head.

Tonight.

•

He wanted to make sure he'd given her enough time to get here.

She had called him at the squad room at nine o'clock, to say she would be catching the 9:27 show, just around the corner, he didn't have to worry about her getting home safe, the avenue was well lighted. She had then gone on to reel off the name of the movie she'd be seeing, the novel upon which it was based, the stars who were in it, and had even quoted from a review she'd read on it. She had done her homework well.

It was now a little past ten.

The windows on the first floor of the Hopper Street building were lighted; Michael Lucas, the painter, was home. On the second floor, only the lights to the apartment shared by Martha and Michelle were on. The lights on the third and fourth floors were out, as usual. Only one light burned on the fifth floor, at the northernmost end of Bradford Douglas' apartment--the bedroom light, Kling thought.

He waited.

In a little while, the light went out.

He crossed the street and rang the service bell. Henry Watkins, the superintendent he'd talked with last night, opened the door when he identified himself.

"What's it now?" Watkins asked.

"Same old runaway," Kling said. "Have to ask a few more questions."

"Help yourself," Watkins said, and shrugged. "Let yourself out when you're finished; just pull the door shut hard behind you."

"Thanks," Kling said.

He started up the iron-runged steps. On the first floor, a stereo was blaring rock-'n'-roll music behind Lucas' closed door. On the second floor, he heard nothing as he passed the door to the apartment shared by the two women. He walked past the studio belonging to Peter Lang, the photographer on the third floor, and then took the steps up to the fourth floor. The light was still out in the hallway there. He picked his way through the dark again and went up the stairs to the fifth floor.

His heart was pounding.

He stood outside the door to apartment 51 and listened.

Not a sound.

He took his gun from his shoulder holster. Holding it in his right hand, he backed away from the door and then leveled a kick at the lock. The door sprang open, wood splinters flying. He moved into the room swiftly, slightly crouched, the gun fanning the air ahead of him, light filtering into the room from under a door at the end of the hall, to his left. He was moving toward the crack of light when the door flew open and Bradford Douglas came into the hall.

He was naked and holding a baseball bat in his right hand. He stood silhouetted in the lighted rectangle of the doorway, hesitating there before taking a tentative step into the gloom beyond.

"Police," Kling said. "Hold it right there!"

"What the hell? Who...?"

Kling moved forward into the light spilling from the bedroom. Douglas recognized him at once, and the fear he'd earlier felt was replaced by immediate indignation. And then he saw the gun in Kling's hand, and a new fear washed over him, struggling with the indignation. The indignation triumphed. "What the hell do you mean, breaking down my door?" he shouted.

"I've got a warrant," Kling said. "Who's in that bedroom with you?"

"None of your business," Douglas said. He was still holding the bat in his right hand. "What warrant? What the hell is this?"

"Here," Kling said, and reached into his pocket. "Put down that bat."

Without turning, Douglas tossed the bat back into the bedroom. Kling waited while he read the warrant.

"Attempted murder?" Douglas said. "What attempted murder?" He kept reading. "I don't have this gun you describe; I don't have any gun. Who the hell said I----"

"I haven't got all night here," Kling said, and held out his left hand. "The warrant gives me the right to search both you and the apartment. It's signed by----"

"No, just wait a goddamn minute," Douglas said, and kept reading. "Where'd you get this information? Who told you I've got this gun?"

"That doesn't matter, Mr. Douglas. Are you finished with that?"

"I still don't----"

"Let me have it. And let's take a look inside."

"I've got somebody with me," Douglas said.

"Who?"

"Your warrant doesn't give you the right to----"

"We'll worry about that later."

"No, we'll worry about it now," Douglas said.

"Look, you prick," Kling said, and brought the pistol up close to Douglas' face, "I want to search that bedroom, do you understand?"

"Don't get excited," Douglas said, backing away.

"I am excited," Kling said, "I'm very excited. Get out of my way."

He shoved Douglas aside and moved into the bedroom. The bed was against the wall at the far end of the room. The sheets were thrown back. The bed was empty.

"Where is she?" Kling said.

"Maybe the bathroom," Douglas said.

"Which door?"

"I thought you were looking for a gun."

"Which door?" Kling said tightly.

"Near the stereo there," Douglas said.

Kling went across the room. He tried the knob on the door there. The door was locked.

"Open up, or I'll kick it in," he said.

From behind the door, he could hear a woman weeping.

He heard the small oiled click of the lock being turned. He caught his breath and waited. The door opened.

She was not Augusta.

She was a small dark-haired girl with wet brown eyes, holding a bath towel to cover her nakedness.

"He's got a warrant, Felice," Douglas said behind him.

The girl kept weeping.

"Anybody else here?" Kling asked. He felt suddenly like a horse's ass.

"Nobody," Douglas said.

"I want to check the other rooms."

"Go ahead."

He went through the apartment, turning on lights ahead of him. He checked each room and every closet. There was no one else in the apartment. When he went back into the bedroom, both Douglas and the girl had dressed. She sat on the edge of the bed, still weeping. Douglas stood beside her, trying to comfort her.

"When I was here last night, you told me you'd had a visitor the day before," Kling said. "Who was your visitor?"

"Where does it say in your warrant----"

"Mr. Douglas," Kling said, "I don't want to hear any more bullshit about the warrant. All I want to know is who was here in this apartment on Monday between twelve thirty and one forty-five."

"I...I'd feel funny telling you that."

"You'll feel a lot funnier if I have to ask a grand jury to subpoena you," Kling said. "Who was it?"

"A friend of mine."

"Male or female?"

"Male."

"What was he doing here?"

"I told him he could use the apartment."

"What for?"

"He's...there's a girl he's been seeing."

"Who?"

"I don't know her name."

"Have you ever met her?"

"No."

"Then you don't know what she looks like."

"Larry says she's gorgeous."

"Larry?"

"My friend."

"Larry who?" Kling said at once.

"Larry Patterson."

Kling nodded.

"He's married, so's the broad," Douglas said. "He needed a place to shack up; I've been lending him the pad here. I do a lot of work for him. He's one of the creative people at----"

"Chelsea TV," Kling said. "Thanks, Mr. Douglas, I'm sorry for the intrusion." He looked at the weeping girl. "I'm sorry, Miss," he mumbled, and quickly left the apartment.

•

It was almost 11:30 when he got home.

He inserted his key into the lock, and then opened the door. The apartment was dark, he reached for the switch just inside the door and turned on the lights. He was bone-weary and suddenly very hungry. He was starting toward the kitchen when he heard the sound in the bedroom.

The sound was stealthy, the sound a burglar might make when suddenly surprised by an unexpected arrival home, nothing more than a whisper, really, a rustle beyond the closed bedroom door; he reached for the shoulder holster and pulled his gun. The gun was a .38 Smith & Wesson Centennial Model with a two-inch barrel and a capacity of five shots. He knew this was not a burglar in there, this was Augusta in there, and he knew further that she was not alone, and hoped he was wrong, and his hand began sweating on the walnut grip of the pistol.

He almost turned and left the apartment. He almost holstered the gun, and turned his back on that closed bedroom door, on what was beyond that closed bedroom door, almost walked out of the apartment and out of their life as it had been together, once, too long ago, almost avoided the confrontation, and knew it could not be avoided, and became suddenly frightened. As he crossed the room to the bedroom door, the gun was trembling in his fist. There could have been a hatchet murderer beyond that door, the effect would have been much the same.

And then the fear of confrontation gave way to something alien and even more terrifying, a blind, unreasoning anger, the stranger here in his own home, the intruder in his bedroom, the lover who was Larry Patterson, here with his wife, the trap sprung, she thought he would be working the night watch, she knew she would be safe till morning, there hadn't been a movie at all, there was only the movie here in this bedroom, his bedroom, an obscenely pornographic movie behind that closed door.

He took the knob in his left hand, and twisted it, and opened the door. And he hoped, in that final instant, that he would be wrong again, he would not find Augusta in this room, not find Augusta with her lover but instead find a small, brown-eyed girl who went by the name of Felice or Agnes or Charity, a mistake, somehow, a comedy of errors they would laugh about in later years.

But of course it was Augusta.

And Augusta was naked in his bed, absurdly clutching the sheet to her breasts, hiding her shame, protecting her nakedness from the prying eyes of her own husband, her green eyes wide, her hair tousled, a fine sheen of perspiration on the marvelous cheekbones that were her fortune, her lip trembling the way the gun in his hand was trembling. And the man with Augusta was in his undershorts and reaching for his trousers folded over a bedside chair, the man was short and wiry, he looked like one of the squad's file clerks, curly black hair and brown eyes wide in terror, looked absurdly like one of the clerks, but he was Larry Patterson, he was Augusta's lover, and as he turned from the chair where his trousers were draped, he said only, "Don't shoot," and Kling leveled the gun at him.

He almost pulled the trigger. He almost allowed his anger and his humiliation and his despair to rocket into his brain and connect there with whatever nerve endings might have signaled to the index finger of his right hand, cause it to tighten on the trigger, cause him to squeeze off one shot and then another and another at this stranger who was in that moment a target as helpless as any of the cardboard ones on the firing range at the academy--do it, end it!

But then--and this was against every principle that had ever been drilled into him throughout the years he'd spent on the force, never give up your gun, hang on to your gun, your gun is your life, save the gun, keep the gun--he suddenly hurled it across the room as though it had become malevolently burning in his hand, threw it with all his might, surprised when it collided with a vase on the dresser top, smashing it, porcelain shards splintering the air like the debris of his own dead marriage.

His eyes met Augusta's.

Their eyes said everything there was to say, and all there was to say was nothing. He turned away swiftly and rushed blindly out of the bedroom, hurling open the front door to the apartment, and rushing for the stairway without closing the door behind him, his eyes burning with unshed tears, down the steps to the entrance foyer, opening the door there, the heat of the night striking him like a closed fist--and suddenly he was seized from behind and pulled back into the foyer.

The arm around his throat was thick and powerful, his hands came up at once, groping for the arm, and a voice whispered close to his ear, "Hello, punk," and he felt the barrel of a pistol against his temple, and he thought only, I threw away my gun. And then, because he had been trained over the years to believe that a bad situation could only get worse, you made your move at once or not at all, he brought up his right foot instinctively, and smashed the heel of his shoe down hard on the man's instep, and shot his elbow back piston-hard at the same time, into the man's gut, and whirled into his embrace, knocking the pistol aside with his left hand and gouging at the man's eyes with the curled fingers of his right. The gun went off with a shockingly loud explosion, plaster falling from the foyer ceiling, the man screaming as Kling tore at his eyes and then brought his knee up into his groin and struck him across the bridge of the nose with the flat edge of his hand, going for the kill, hitting him hard enough to drive bone splinters into his brain. The man reeled away, the gun still in his hand, and Kling butted him with his head, driving it fiercely against the man's jaw, fall, you bastard, the gun going off again, the shot reverberating like the roar of a cannon in the small hallway, the sudden stench of cordite on the sodden air. He pulled back his fist and drove it with all his might at the man's Adam's apple, and felt him yield at last, saw him go limp at last, and topple at his feet like a giant oak, the gun clattering to the floor beside him.

Breathing hard, Kling looked down at him.

He did not recognize the man.

He took his handcuffs from his belt, and braceleted the man's hands behind him, and then he sat down on the hallway steps, still breathing harshly, and clasped his own hands in front of him as though in prayer, and lowered his head, and allowed the tears to come at last.

•

Carella found him later that night in the swing room downstairs. The room was dark, Carella hadn't bothered to turn on the overhead lights because he was only on his way through to the back door of the building and the parking lot, where he'd left his car. At first he saw only someone lying face downward on one of the cots. Then he realized that the person was crying. And then he recognized him as Bert Kling.

He went to the cot.

He sat on the edge of it.

He put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Tell me," he said.

"The little blonde was wearing short white shorts and an orange blouse slashed deep over her breasts."

"He was watching the news when she came in. As always, he caught his breath at the beauty of her."