Tricks

The saw ripped through wood, ripped through flesh and bone along the middle of the wooden box and the middle of the woman. Blood gushed from the track the saw made, following the sharp teeth. The saw itself was bloody when at last he withdrew it from box and woman. He looked up at the wall clock--5:05 P.M. He nodded in grim satisfaction.

And lifted the lids on both sides of the box.

The woman stepped out in one piece, grinning, and held her arms over her head. The audience began to applaud and cheer.

"Thank you, thank you very much," the man said, bowing.

The audience was composed mostly of boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 18, because the performance was being held at the high school on North 11th. The woman who'd stepped out of the box now rolled it off the stage. She was a good-looking blonde in her late 20s, wearing a sequined costume that exposed to good advantage her long, long legs and her exuberant breasts. Most of the boys in the auditorium could not take their eyes off her. She wheeled a tall vertical box onto the stage.

The magician--whose name was Sebastian the Great--was wearing tails and a top hat. "Ah, thank you, Marie," he said to his assistant.

"You see here a little box--well, not so little, because I'm a pretty tall fellow--which I'm going to step into in just a moment.... Thank you, Marie, you can go now, you've been very helpful; let's have a nice round of applause for Marie, kids."

Marie held her hands up over her head, legs widespread, big smile on her mouth, and the kids applauded and yelled, especially the boys, and then she did a cute little sexy turn and went strutting off the stage in her high heels.

"That's the last you'll see of Marie tonight," Sebastian said. "And in just a few minutes, you'll see the last of me, too. What I'm going to do, kids, I'm going to step inside this box...."

He opened the door on the face of the box.

"And I'm going to ask you all to count to ten ... out loud ... one, two, three, four, and so on--you all know how to count to ten, don't you?"

Laughter from the kids.

"And I'm going to ask your principal to come up here--Mr. Ellington, would you come up here now, please?--and when you reach the number ten, he's going to open the door of this box, and Sebastian the Great will be gone, kids; I will have disappeared, vanished, poof! So ... ah, good, Mr. Ellington, if you'll just stand here beside the box, thank you. That's very good." He took off his top hat. Stepping part way into the box, he said, "I'm going to say goodbye to you now...."

Applause and cheering from the kids.

"Thank you, thank you. Now, the minute I close this door, I want you to start counting out loud. Goodbye, kids," he said, closing the door behind him.

"One!" the kids began chanting. "Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!"

Ellington opened the door on the box.

Sebastian the Great had, indeed, vanished.

The kids began applauding.

Ellington went to the front of the stage and held up his hands for silence.

He would have to remind the kids not to try sawing anybody in half, because that had been only a trick.

•

Marie Sebastiani seemed uncomfortable talking with a cop. Most honest citizens were; it was the thieves of the world who felt perfectly at home with law-enforcement officers.

Fidgeting nervously, she told Detective Cotton Hawes how she'd changed out of her costume and into the clothes she was now wearing--a tweed jacket and skirt, a lavender blouse and high-heeled pumps--while her husband, Sebastian the Great, a.k.a. Frank Sebastiani, had gone out behind the high school to load the Citation with all the little tricks he used in the act. And then she'd gone out (continued on page 187) Tricks (continued from page 104) back to where she was supposed to meet him, and the Citation was gone, and he was gone, too--disappeared, vanished, poof--and his tricks were scattered all over the driveway.

Hawes listened intently and then scratched at his back. He was sunburned and peeling. He had returned Monday morning from a week's vacation in Bermuda and his skin was still the color of his hair. He was a big, redheaded man with a white streak over the left temple, where he'd once been slashed.

"By little tricks ..." he said.

"Oh, you know, the rings and the scarves and the balls and the bird cage--well, all this stuff all over the place here. Jimmy comes with the van to pick up the boxes and the bigger stuff."

"Jimmy?"

"Frank's apprentice. He's a Jack-of-all-trades--drives the van to wherever we're performing, helps us load and unload, paints the boxes when they need it, makes sure all the spring catches are working properly ... like that."

"He dropped you both off today, did he?"

"Oh, yes. We drove the Citation in and he followed in the van."

"And helped you unload and all?"

"Same as always."

"And stayed for the performance?"

"No, I don't know where he went during the performance. Probably out for a bite to eat. He knew we'd be done here around five, five-thirty."

"So where is he now?"

"Well, I don't know. What time do you have?"

Hawes looked at his watch.

"Five after six," he said.

"Gee, I don't know where he is," Marie said. "He's usually very punctual."

"What time did you get done here?" Hawes asked.

"Like I said, around five-fifteen or so."

"And you changed your clothes."

"Yes. Well, so did Frank."

"What does he wear on stage?"

"Black tie and tails. And a top hat."

"And he changed into?"

"Is this important?"

"Very," Hawes said.

"Then let me get it absolutely correct," Marie said. "He put on a pair of blue slacks and a blue sport shirt--no pattern on it, just the solid blue--and blue socks and black shoes and a ... what do you call it? Houndstooth; is that the weave? A sort of jagged little black-and-blue weave. A houndstooth sports jacket. No tie."

Hawes was writing now.

"How old is your husband?" he asked.

"Thirty-four."

"How tall is he?"

"Five-eleven."

"Weight?"

"One-seventy."

"Color of his hair?"

"Black."

"Eyes?"

"Blue."

"Does he wear glasses?"

"No."

"Is he white?"

"Well, of course," Marie said.

"Any identifying marks, scars or tattoos?"

"Yes, he has an appendectomy scar. And also a meniscectomy scar."

"What's that?" Hawes asked.

"He had a skiing accident. Tore the cartilage in his left knee. They removed the cartilage--what they call the meniscus. There's a scar there. On his left knee."

"How do you spell that?" Hawes asked. "Meniscectomy?"

"I don't know," Marie said.

"What's your address?"

"Well, I'll give you Frank's card," she said and dug into her shoulder bag and came up with a sheaf of cards. She took one from the stack and handed it to Hawes. He scanned it quickly, wrote both the home and the office numbers on his pad and then tucked the card into the pad's flap.

"Did you try calling home?" he asked.

"No. Why would I do that?"

"Are you sure he didn't go home without you?"

"He never has."

"This Jimmy ... what's his last name?"

"Brayne. B-R-A-Y-N-E."

"And his address?"

"He lives with us."

"Same house?"

"A little apartment over the garage."

"And his phone number?"

"Oh, gee," she said, "I'm not sure I remember it."

"Well, try to remember," Hawes said, "because I think we ought to call back home, see if either of them maybe went back there."

"They wouldn't do that," Marie said.

"Let's find a phone, OK?" Hawes said.

"There's one inside," she said, "but calling them won't do any good."

"How do you know?"

"Because Frank wouldn't have dumped his tricks all over the driveway this way. These tricks cost money."

"Let's try calling them, anyway."

"It won't do any good," Marie said. "I'm telling you."

He dialed Sebastiani's home and office numbers from a phone inside the school and got no answer at either. Marie at last remembered the number in the room over the garage, and he dialed that one, too. Nothing.

"Well," he said, "let me get to work on this. I'll call you as soon as----"

"How am I going to get home?" Marie asked.

They always asked how they were going to get home.

"There are trains, aren't there?"

"Yes, but----"

"I'll drop you off at the station."

"What about all those tricks outside in the driveway?"

"Maybe we can get the school custodian to lock them up someplace. Till your husband shows up."

"What makes you think he'll show up?"

"Well, I'm sure he's OK. Just some crossed signals, that's all."

"I'm not sure I want to go home tonight," Marie said.

"Well, ma'am----"

"I think I may want to ... could I come to the police station with you? Could I wait there till you hear anything about Frank?"

"That's entirely up to you, ma'am. But it may take a while before we----"

"And can you lend me some money?" she asked.

He looked at her.

"For dinner?"

He kept looking at her.

"I'll pay you back as soon as ... as soon as we find Frank. I'm sorry, but I've only got a few dollars on me. Frank was the one they paid; he's the one who's got all the money."

"How much money, ma'am?"

"Well, just enough for a hamburger or something."

"I meant how much money does your husband have on him?"

"Oh. Well, we got a hundred for the job. And he probably had a little something in his wallet; I don't know how much."

Which lets out robbery, Hawes thought. Although in this city, there were people who'd slit your throat for a nickel. He suddenly wondered how much money he himself was carrying. This was the first time in his entire life that a victim had asked him for a loan.

"I'm sort of hungry myself," he said. "Let's find the custodian and then go get something to eat."

•

At 7:35 on a Friday night, there were a lot of restaurants open, but Marie felt like pizza, and so he chose a little place just south of the avenue, on Fourth. Red-checkered tablecloths, candles in chianti bottles, people waiting in line for tables. Hawes rarely pulled rank, but now he casually mentioned to the hostess that he was a detective working out of the 87th and he hadn't had anything to eat since he came on at four o'clock.

"This way, officer," the hostess said at once and led them to a table near the window.

As soon as the hostess was gone, Marie said, "Does that happen all the time?"

"Does what happen?"

"The royal treatment."

"Sometimes," Hawes said. "You sure you only want pizza? There's plenty other stuff on the menu."

"No, that's what I really feel like. Cheese and anchovies."

"Would you like a drink?" he asked. "I'm on duty, but...."

"Do you really honor that?"

"Oh, sure."

"I'll just have beer with the pizza."

Hawes signaled to the waiter and then ordered a large pizza with cheese and anchovies.

"Anything to drink?" the waiter asked.

"A draft for the lady, a Coke for me." The waiter went off again.

"This is really very nice of you," Marie said and reached across the table to touch his hand briefly. A whisper touch. There and then gone.

"I'm sure he's OK," Hawes said.

"I hope so."

"I'm sure."

He wasn't at all sure.

"I just keep thinking something terrible has happened to him."

He didn't want to tell her that maybe her husband had driven off on his own, heading for the wild blue yonder. Let the lady enjoy her pizza and her beer. If her husband had, in fact, abandoned her, she'd learn it soon enough. If he was lying dead in an alley someplace, she'd learn that even sooner.

He didn't bring up Jimmy Brayne again until after they'd been served.

She was digging into the pizza as if she hadn't eaten for a week. She ate the way that woman in the Tom Jones movie ate. Licked her lips, rolled her eyes, thrust pizza into her mouth as if she were making love to it. Come on, he thought. Strictly business here.

"He's normally reliable, is that right?" he said.

"Who?"

"Jimmy Brayne."

"Oh, yes. Completely."

"How long has he been working for you?"

"Three months."

"Started this July?"

"Yes. On the Fourth."

"Did he know where he was supposed to pick you up tonight?"

"Oh, sure. He dropped the stuff off at the school; of course he knew."

"Is it possible he went someplace with your husband?"

"Like where?"

"For a drink or something? While you were changing?"

"Then why was all that stuff on the sidewalk?"

"It's just that ... well, both of them disappearing...."

"Excuse me," the waiter said. "Officer?"

Hawes looked up.

"Officer, I hate to bother you," the waiter said.

"Yes?"

"Officer, there's somebody's arm in one of the garbage cans out back."

•

"What we have is three cards here," Marie said. "The ace of spades, the ace of clubs and the ace of diamonds." She fanned the cards out, the ace of diamonds under the ace of spades on the left and the ace of clubs on the right. "Now I'm going to put these three aces face down in different parts of the deck," she said and started slipping them into the deck.

Three detectives were watching her.

She had done four card tricks since Hawes came back to the squad room with her. He had called in to report the arm in the garbage can. Artie Brown, Hawes's partner, had rushed on over with Genero. Three pieces of a naked corpse had been found--the upper torso and a pair of arms. No head, no hands, no legs.

Hawes was standing closest to Marie. He could smell her perfume. He was hoping her husband had abandoned her and run off to Hawaii. He was hoping her husband would call her from Honolulu to say he had left her. This would leave a cold, empty space in Marie's bed. Her proximity now was stupefyingly intoxicating. Hawes guessed it was her perfume. Maybe hubby and his apprentice had flown off to Hawaii together. Maybe hubby was gay. Hawes glanced at Marie's pert little behind as she leaned over the desk to pick up the deck of cards. He was sorely tempted to put his hand on her behind.

"OK, Detective Brown," she said. "Pick one of those three cards. Either the ace of clubs, the ace of diamonds or the ace of spades."

"Clubs," Brown said.

He was a hefty, muscular black man, standing some 6'4" tall and weighing 220 pounds. There was a glowering look on his face. He always looked glowering, even when he was smiling. Brown could get an armed robber to drop his piece just by glowering at him.

Marie riffled through the deck, the cards face up, searching for it. When she found the ace of clubs, she pulled it out and tossed it onto the desk.

"Where's the trick?" Genero said. "If you're looking at the cards, of course you're going to find them."

"Right you are," she said. "Which card do you want?"

"The ace of diamonds."

"OK," she said and handed him the deck. "Find it for me."

Genero started looking through the deck.

"Have you found it yet?" she asked.

"Just hold on a minute, OK?" he said.

He went through the entire deck. No ace of diamonds. He went through it a second time. Still no ace of diamonds.

"Have you got it?" she asked.

"It isn't here," he said.

"Are you sure? Take another look."

He went through the deck a third time. Still no ace of diamonds.

"I give up; where is it?"

"Right here," she said, grinning, and reached into her blouse and pulled the ace of diamonds out of her bra.

"How'd you do that?" Hawes asked.

"Maybe I'll tell you sometime," Marie said and winked at him.

The telephone rang. Brown picked up.

"Eighty-seventh Squad," he said. "Detective Brown." He listened. "OK," he said. "And the name on it? Thanks, we're rolling." He put the receiver back on the cradle. "Let's go," he said. "We just got ourselves the lower half. Name tag on it this time."

"This trick is The Mystic Prediction," Marie said and began shuffling cards.

"What do you mean, name tag?" Genero asked.

"The dead man's carrying a wallet," Brown said.

"How?"

"What do you mean how? In his pocket is how."

"I'm going to ask any one of you to write down a three-figure number for me," Marie said.

"You mean he's wearing pants?" Genero said.

"Unless there's a pocket sewn on his ass," Brown said.

"You mean there's pants on the lower half of the body?"

"Whyn't we run on over and see for ourselves, OK?"

"Who wants to write down three numbers for me?" Marie asked. "Any three numbers."

"And his name's in the wallet?" Genero said.

"On his driver's license," Brown said. "Let's go."

"So what's his name?" Genero asked.

"Frank Sebastiani," Brown said.

And Marie fainted into Hawes's arms.

•

They led her inside.

The morgue stank.

She reeled back from the stench of human gases and flesh.

They walked her past a stainless-steel table upon which the charred remains of a burn victim's body lay trapped in a pugilistic pose, as though still trying to fight off the flames that had consumed it.

The four pieces of the dismembered corpse were on another stainless-steel table. They were casually assembled, not quite joining. Lying there on the table like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle.

She looked down at the pieces.

"There's no question they're the same body," medical examiner Carl Blaney said.

Lavender-eyed, white-smocked. Standing under the fluorescent lights, seeming neither to notice nor to be bothered by the intolerable stink in the place.

The lower half of the torso was naked now.

Marie kept looking down at it.

"Would you know his blood type?" Blaney asked.

"Yes," Marie said. "B."

"Well, that's what we've got here."

"Do you recognize anything, ma'am?" Brown asked.

"The scars," she said.

"Would you know what kind of scars those are?" Blaney asked.

"The one on the belly is an appendectomy scar."

Blaney nodded.

"The one on the left knee is from when he had the cartilage removed."

"Anything else, ma'am?" Brown asked.

"His penis," she said.

Neither Blaney nor any of the detectives blinked. This wasn't the Meese commission standing around the pieces of a corpse, this was a group of professionals trying to make positive identification.

"What about it?" Blaney asked.

"There should be a small ... well, beauty spot, I guess you'd call it," Marie said. "On the underside. On the foreskin."

Blaney lifted the corpse's limp penis in one rubber-gloved hand. He turned it slightly.

"This?" he asked and indicated a birthmark the size of a pinhead on the foreskin, an inch or so below the glans.

"Yes," Marie said softly.

Blaney let the penis drop.

The detectives were trying to figure out whether or not all of this added up to a positive I.D. Just the blood type, the scars on belly and leg and the identifying birthmark on the penis.

"How tall was your husband?" Blaney asked Marie.

"I've got all that here," Hawes said and took out his notebook. He opened it to the page he'd written on earlier and began reading aloud. "Five-eleven, one-seventy, hair black, eyes blue, appendectomy scar, meniscectomy scar."

"If we put a head in place there," Blaney said, "we'd have a body some hundred and eighty centimeters long. That's just about five-eleven. And I'd estimate the weight, given the separate sections here, at about what you've got there, a hundred seventy, a hundred seventy-five, in there. The hair on the arms, chest, legs and pubic area is black--which doesn't necessarily mean the head hair would match it exactly, but at least it rules out a blond or a redhead or anyone in the brown groupings. This hair is very definitely black. The eyes--well, we haven't got a head, have we?"

"Is this your husband, ma'am?" Brown asked.

"That is my husband," Marie said and turned her head into Hawes's shoulder and began weeping gently against his chest.

•

He yanked the phone from the receiver the moment it rang.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hi," Marie said. She was standing on a platform in the train station.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Metro West. I'm catching the ten forty-five home."

"How'd it go?"

"Tough night," she said. "Any trouble on your end?"

"Nope. They made identification, huh? I saw it on television."

"I was the one who made it. Where'd you leave the Citation?"

"Behind an A&P near the river."

" 'Cause they already found it, you know."

"Who's on the case?"

"A salt-and-pepper team. Hawes and Brown. Big redhead, big black guy. In case they come shopping."

"Why would they?"

"I'm saying in case. They're both dummies, but you oughta be warned. They got a bulletin out ... they asked me for descriptions. They're gonna be watching all the airports. What flight are you on?"

"TWA's one twenty-nine. Leaves at twelve-oh-five tomorrow afternoon."

"What time do you get to Frisco?"

"Four forty-seven."

"I'll try you at the hotel around six-thirty. You'll be registered as Theo Hardeen, am I right?"

"All the dead ones," he said and laughed. "Like Sebastian the Great."

"Give me the number of the Hong Kong flight again."

"United eight-oh-five. Leaves Frisco at one-fifteen Sunday, gets there around seven the next evening."

"When will you call me?"

"Soon as I'm settled."

"You think these passports'll work?"

"They cost us four hundred bucks; they better work. Why? You running scared?"

"Nerves of steel," she said. "You shoulda seen me with the cops."

There was a long silence on the line.

"Be careful."

"Oh, yeah."

"They know what you look like."

"Don't worry."

Another silence.

"Maybe you oughta call me later tonight, OK?"

"Sure."

"Be careful," she said again and hung up.

•

She'd have to call Frank's mother as soon as she got home, and then his sister, and then, she guessed, some of his friends in the business. Had to get in touch with that detective again, find out when she could claim the body, arrange for some kind of funeral; she wondered how soon that would be. Today was Friday; she didn't know whether or not they did autopsies on the weekend--probably wouldn't get around to it till Monday morning. Maybe she could have the body by Tuesday, But she'd better call an undertaker first thing in the morning, make sure they could handle it. Figure a day in the funeral home--well, two days, she guessed--bury him on Thursday morning. She'd have to find a cemetery that had available plots, whatever you called them; maybe the undertaker would know about that. Had to have a stone cut, too--Here Lies Frank Sebastiani, Rest in Peace--but that could wait; there was no hurry about a stone.

She'd call the insurance company on Friday morning.

Tell them her husband had been murdered.

Make her claim.

Two hundred thousand dollars, she thought.

Invest it at ten percent, that'd bring them $20,000 a year, more than enough to live on like a king and queen. A maharaja and maharani was more like it. Go to the beach every day, have someone doing the cleaning and the cooking, have a man polishing the car and doing the marketing, buy herself a dozen saris, learn how to wrap them, maybe get herself a little diamond for her nose. Even at eight percent, the money would bring in $16,000 a year. More than enough.

And all they'd had to do for it was kill him.

•

There were a lot of things bothering Brown about the Sebastiani case.

The three most important things were the head and the hands. He kept wondering where Jimmy Brayne had dropped them.

He also wondered where Brayne was right now.

"You think they're making it?" he asked Hawes.

"Who?"

"Brayne and the woman."

"Marie?"

The possibility had never occurred to Hawes. She had seemed so honestly grieved by her husband's disappearance and death. But now that Brown had mentioned it....

"I mean, what I'm looking for is some motive here," Brown said.

"The guy could've just gone berserk, you know. Threw those tricks all over the driveway, ran off in the Citation...."

"Yeah, I'm curious about that, too," Brown said. "Where'd he chop up the body, Cotton?"

"Coulda done it anywhere in the city. Found himself a deserted street, an abandoned building...."

"Yeah, you could do that in this city. So he chops up the corpse, loads the pieces in the trunk and starts dropping them all around town. When he gets rid of the last one, he leaves the car behind the A&P and takes off."

"Yeah."

"So where's the motive?"

"I don't know."

"She's an attractive woman," Brown said.

Hawes had noticed that.

"If she was playing house with Brayne in that apartment over the garage...."

"Well, you've got no reason to believe that, Artie."

"I'm snowballing it, Cotton. Let's say they had a thing going. Brayne and the woman."

"OK."

"And let's say hubby tipped to it."

"You're thinking movies or television."

"I'm thinking real life, too. Hubby tells Brayne to lay off; Brayne's still hungry for her. He chops up hubby, and him and the woman ride off into the sunset."

"Except Brayne's the only one who rode off," Hawes said. "The woman's----"

"You think she's home yet?" Brown asked and looked up at the clock.

•

The house was a white clapboard building with a white picket fence around it. A matching white clapboard garage stood some 20 feet from the main structure. Both buildings were on a street with only three other houses on it, not too far from the turnpike. It was two minutes past midnight when Hawes and Brown reached the house.

There were no lights burning on the ground floor of the house. Two lighted windows showed on the second story. As the two men walked to the front door, their breaths plumed from their mouths. Hawes rang the doorbell.

"Probably getting ready for bed," he said.

"You wish," Brown said.

They waited.

"Give it another shot," Brown said.

Hawes hit the bell button again.

Lights snapped on downstairs.

"Who is it?"

Marie's voice, just inside the door. A trifle alarmed. Well, sure, midnight already.

"It's Detective Hawes," he said.

"Oh."

"Sorry to bother you so late."

"No, that's all ... just a minute, please."

She fumbled with the lock and then opened the door. She had been getting ready for bed. She was wearing a long blue robe. Laced ruff of a nightgown showing in the V-necked opening. No slippers.

"Have you found him?" she asked at once.

"No, ma'am, not yet," Brown said. "OK for us to come in?"

"Yes, please," she said, "excuse me," and stepped back to let them in.

Small entryway, a sense of near shabbiness. Worn carpeting, scarred and rickety piece of furniture under a flaking mirror.

"I thought ... when you told me who you were ... I thought you'd found Jimmy," she said.

"Not yet, Mrs. Sebastiani," Hawes said. "In fact, the reason we came out here----"

"Come in," she said. "We don't have to stand here in the hall."

She backed off several paces, reached beyond the doorjamb for a light switch. A floor lamp came on in the living room. Musty drapes, a faded rug, a thrift-shop sofa and two upholstered armchairs, an old upright piano on the far wall. Same sense of down-at-the-heels existence.

"Would you like some coffee or anything?" she asked.

"I could use a cup," Brown said.

"I'll put some up," she said and walked back through the hall and through a doorway into the kitchen.

The detectives looked around the living room.

Framed photographs on the piano--Sebastian the Great doing his act hither and yon. Soiled antimacassars on the upholstered pieces. Brown ran his finger over the surface of an end table. Dust. Hawes poked his forefinger into the soil of a potted plant. Dry. The continuing sense of a house too run down to care about--or a house in neglect because it would soon be abandoned.

She was back.

"Take a few minutes to boil," she said.

"Who plays the piano?" Hawes asked.

"Frank did. A little."

She'd grown used to the past tense.

"Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "we were wondering if we could take a look at Brayne's room."

"Jimmy's room?" she said. She seemed a bit flustered by their presence, but that could have been normal, two cops showing on her doorstep at midnight.

"See if there's anything up there might give us a lead," Brown said, watching her.

"I'll have to find a spare key someplace," she said. "Jimmy had his own key; he came and went as he pleased."

She stood stock-still in the entrance to the living room, a thoughtful look on her face. Hawes wondered what she was thinking, face all screwed up like that. Was she wondering whether or not it was safe to show them that room? Or was she merely trying to remember where the spare key was?

"I'm trying to think where Frank might have put it," she said.

A grandfather clock on the far side of the room began tolling the hour, eight minutes late.

One ... two....

They listened to the heavy bonging.

Nine ... ten ... eleven ... twelve.

"Midnight already," she said and sighed.

"Your clock's slow," Brown said.

"Let me check the drawer in the kitchen," she said. "Frank used to put a lot of junk in that drawer."

They followed her into the kitchen. Dirty dishes, pots and pans stacked in the sink. The door of the refrigerator smudged with handprints. Telephone on the wall near it. Small enamel-topped table, two chairs. Worn linoleum. Only a shade on the single window over the sink. On the stove, the kettle began whistling.

"Help yourselves," she said. "There's cups there and a jar of instant."

She went to a drawer in the counter, opened it. Hawes spooned instant coffee into each of the cups, poured hot water into them.

She turned from the drawer, handed Brown a brass key that looked like a house key.

The telephone rang.

She was visibly startled by its sound.

Brown picked up his coffee cup, began sipping at it.

The telephone kept ringing.

She went to the wall near the refrigerator, lifted the receiver from its hook.

"Oh, hello, Dolores," she said at once. "No, not yet; I'm down in the kitchen," she said and listened. "There are two detectives with me," she said. "No, that's all right, Dolores." She listened again. "They want to look at the garage room." Listening again. "I don't know yet," she said. "Well, they ... they have to do an autopsy first." More listening. "Yes, I'll see you soon. 'Bye, Dolores."

She put the receiver back on its hook.

"My sister-in-law," she said.

"Taking it hard, I'll bet," Hawes said.

"They were very close."

"Let's check out, that room," Brown said to Hawes.

"I'll come over with you," Marie said.

"No need," Brown said. "It's getting cold outside."

She looked at him. She seemed about to say something more. Then she merely nodded.

"Better get a light from the car," Hawes said.

•

The apartment over the garage was perhaps 12 feet wide by 20 feet long. There was a neatly made double bed in the room and a dresser with a mirror over it and an upholstered chair with a lamp behind it. The wall surrounding the mirror was covered with pictures of naked women snipped from men's magazines banned in 7-Eleven stores. All of the women were blondes--like Marie Sebastiani. In the bottom drawer of the dresser, under a stack of Brayne's shirts, the detectives found a pair of crotchless black panties. The panties were a size five.

"Think they're Brayne's?" Hawes asked dryly.

"What size you think the lady wears?" Brown asked.

"Could be a five," Hawes said and shrugged.

"I thought you were an expert."

"On bras, I'm an expert."

Men's socks, undershorts, sweaters, handkerchiefs in the other dresser drawers. Two sports jackets, several pairs of slacks, a suit, an overcoat and three pairs of shoes in the single small closet. There was also a suitcase in the closet. Nothing in it. No indication anywhere in the apartment that Brayne had packed and taken off in a hurry. Even his razor and shaving cream were still on the sink in the tiny bathroom.

A tube of lipstick was in the cabinet over the sink.

Brown took off the top.

"Look like the lady's shade?" he asked Hawes. "Pretty careless if it's her, leavin' her o.c.p.s in the dresser and her----"

"Her what?"

"Her open-crotch panties."

"Oh."

"You think she was dumb enough to be makin' it with him right here in this room?"

"Let's see what else we find," Hawes said.

What else they found was a sheaf of letters rubber-banded together. They found the letters in a cardboard shoe box on the top shelf of the closet. The letters were inside lavender-colored envelopes, but none of the envelopes had been stamped or mailed. The name Jimmy was scrawled on the front of each envelope.

"Hand-delivered," Hawes said.

"Mmm," Brown said, and they began reading the letters.

They were written in purple ink.

The first one read:

Jimmy,Just say when.Marie

It was dated July 18.

"When did he start working for them?" Brown asked.

"Fourth of July."

"Fast worker, this lady," Brown said.

The second letter was dated July 21. It described in excruciatingly passionate detail all the things Marie and Jimmy had done together the day before.

"This is dirty," Brown said, looking up.

"Yes," Hawes said. He was reading over Brown's shoulder.

There were 27 letters in all. They chronicled a rather active sex life between the lady and the sorcerer's apprentice, Marie apparently having been compulsive about jotting down everything she had done to Jimmy in the recent past and then outlining everything she hadn't done to him but that she planned to do to him in the foreseeable future, which--if the chronology was faithful--she had, indeed, gotten around to doing to him.

She had done a lot of things to him.

The last letter was dated October 27, four days before the murder and dismemberment of the lady's husband. She suggested in this last letter that one of the things she wanted to do to Jimmy on Halloween night was tie him to the bed in his black-silk undershorts and spread herself open over him in her black crotchless panties and then----

"You see any black-silk undershorts in the dresser there?" Brown asked.

"No," Hawes said. "I'm reading."

"A celebration, do you think?" Brown asked. "All this stuff she planned to do to him on Halloween?"

"Maybe."

"Do hubby in, chop him up in little pieces, then come back here and have a witches' Sabbath."

"Where does she call it that?"

"Call it what?"

"Witches' Sabbath."

"I'm calling it that," Brown said. "Black-silk undershorts, black o.c.p.s."

"So where's Brayne?" Hawes asked. "If they were planning a celebration...."

"Did you look under the bed?" Brown asked and then turned suddenly toward the window.

Hawes turned at exactly the same moment.

An automobile had just pulled into the driveway. It was silver-sided, with a black hardtop--a 1979 Cadillac Seville, still in seemingly excellent condition.

The woman who got out of the Caddy was in excellent condition herself, tall and leggy, wearing a black-cloth coat the color of her hair. Hawes and Brown watched her from the upstairs window as she went directly to the front door of the house and rang the bell.

Hawes looked at his watch.

•

Dolores Eisenberg was Frank Sebastiani's older sister.

Five feet ten inches tall, black hair and blue eyes, 38, 39 years old. Hugging Marie to her when Brown and Hawes came over from the garage. Tears in the eyes of both women.

Marie introduced her to the cops.

Dolores seemed surprised to see them there.

"How do you do?" she said and glanced at Marie.

"We're sorry for your trouble," Brown said.

An old Irish expression. Hawes wondered where he'd picked it up.

Dolores said, "Thank you," and then turned to Marie again. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here," she said. "Max is in Cincinnati, and I had to find a sitter. God, wait'll he hears this. He's crazy about Frank."

"I know," Marie said.

"Poor baby," Dolores said and hugged her sister-in-law close again. Her arm still around her, she looked at Brown and said, "My mother told me you think Jimmy did it; is that right?"

"That's a strong possibility," Brown said and looked at Marie.

"You haven't found him, though?"

"No, not yet."

"It's hard to believe," Dolores said and shook her head. "My mother said you have to do an autopsy. I wish you wouldn't, really. That's really upsetting to her."

It occurred to Brown that she did not yet know her brother's body had been dismembered. Hadn't Marie told the family? He considered breaking the news, opted against it.

"Well, ma'am," he said, "an autopsy's mandatory in any trauma death."

"Still," Dolores said.

Brown was still looking at Marie. It had further occurred to him that on the phone with Dolores not an hour ago, she herself had told her sister-in-law about the autopsy. He tried to remember the exact content of the phone conversation. Marie's end of it, anyway.

Hello, Dolores; no, not yet; I'm down in the kitchen.

Which meant that her sister-in-law had asked her if she was in bed or getting ready for bed or whatever, and she'd told her, "No, I'm down here with two detectives." Which meant that Dolores knew there were two detectives here, so why had she looked so surprised to find them here?

Brown decided to play it flat out.

He looked Dolores dead in the eye and said, "Did you call here about an hour ago?"

And the telephone rang.

Brown figured there had to be a God.

Because if the earlier ringing of the phone had visibly startled Marie, this time the ringing caused an immediate look of panic to flash in her eyes. She turned toward the kitchen as if it had suddenly burst into flames, made an abortive start out of the entrance hall, stopped, said, "I wonder ..." and then looked blankly at the detectives.

"Can't be Dolores again, can it?" Brown said.

"What?" Dolores said, puzzled.

"Better go answer it," Brown said.

Marie hesitated.

"Want me to get it?" Brown asked.

"No, I'll ... it may be my mother-in-law," she said and headed immediately for the kitchen, Brown right behind her.

Marie lifted the receiver from the hook.

"Hello?" she said.

And listened.

Brown kept watching her.

"It's for you," she said, sounding relieved, and handed the receiver to him.

•

They were sitting in the living room when Brown got off the phone--Marie and her sister-in-law side by side on the sofa, Hawes in an easy chair opposite them.

Brown walked in, looking very solemn.

"Genero," he said to Hawes.

"What's up?" Hawes said.

Brown tugged casually at his ear lobe before he started talking again. Hawes picked up the signal at once: little dog-and-pony act on the way.

"They found the rest of the body," Brown said.

Marie looked at him.

"The head and the hands," he said. "In the river. I'm sorry, ma'am," he said to Dolores, "but your brother's body was dismembered. I hate to break it to you this way."

"Oh, my God!" Dolores said.

Marie was still looking at Brown.

"Guys dredging the river pulled up this aluminum case, head and a pair of hands in it," he said.

Hawes was trying to catch the drift. He kept listening intently.

"Did you know this?" Dolores asked Marie.

Marie nodded.

"You knew he'd been ... ?"

"Yes," she said. "I didn't tell Mom because I knew what it would do to her."

"Genero responded," Brown said to Hawes. "I hate to have to go over this another time, Mrs. Sebastiani, but I wonder if you can give me a description of your husband again."

"I have it right here," Hawes said. He was beginning to catch on. He took his notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, flipped through the pages. "Male, white, thirty-four years old ..." he said.

"That right?" Brown asked Marie.

"Yes," she said.

"Five-eleven," Hawes said, "one-seventy...."

"Mrs. Sebastiani?"

"Yes."

Eyes flashing with intelligence now. Hawes figured she was beginning to catch on, too. Didn't know exactly what was coming but was bracing herself for it. Hawes didn't know exactly what was coming, either. But he had a hunch.

"Hair black," he said. "Eyes----"

"Why do we have to go over this again?" she said. "I identified the body; you have everything you----"

"My brother's hair was black, yes," Dolores said softly and patted Marie's hand.

"Eyes blue," Hawes said.

"Blue eyes, yes," Dolores said. "Like mine."

"Will I have to come into the city again?" Marie asked. "To look at ... at what they ... they found in the ... ?"

"Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "the head we found in the river doesn't match your husband's photograph."

Marie blinked at him.

Silence.

Then:

"Well ... does ... does that mean ... ?"

"It means the dead man isn't your husband," Brown said.

"Has someone made a mistake, then?" Dolores asked at once. "Are you saying my brother isn't dead?"

"Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "would you mind very much if I read you this description you gave me of Jimmy Brayne?"

"I really don't see why we have to go over this a hundred times," she said. "If you were doing your job right, you'd have found Jimmy by now."

Brown had already taken out his notebook.

"White male," he read, "thirty-two years old. Height six feet, weight a hundred and seventy...."

"Yes," she said impatiently.

Eyes alert now. Hawes had seen those eyes before. Desperate eyes, trapped eyes. Brown was closing in, and she knew it.

"Hair black, eyes brown."

"Yes," she said again.

"Mrs. Sebastiani, the eyes were brown."

"Yes, I just told you----"

"On the head in the river. The eyes were brown." He turned to Dolores. "Does your brother have an appendectomy scar?" he asked.

"A what?"

"Did he ever have his appendix removed?"

"No. I don't understand what you----"

"Was he ever in a skiing accident? Did he ever tear the cartilage on his----"

"He never skied in his life," Dolores said.

She looked extremely puzzled now. She glanced at Marie. "Marie, what is he talking about?" she asked.

"I think she knows what I'm talking about," Brown said.

Marie said nothing.

"If the prints come up blank," Brown said, "we've still got the head. Someone'll identify him. Sooner or later, we'll get a positive I.D."

She still said nothing.

"He's Jimmy Brayne, isn't he?" Brown asked.

Silence.

She sat quite still, her hands folded on the lap of her robe.

"Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "would you like to tell us where your husband is?"

•

"Police," Brown said and knocked on the door again.

Silence inside the room.

Then the sound of a window scraping open.

"He's moving!" Hawes said.

Brown was already backing away from the door and raising his right leg for a piston kick. Arms wide for leverage, he looked like a football player going for the extra point. His leg lashed out, the sole and heel of his shoe hitting the door flat, just about at the knob. The latch sprang, the door swung inward, Brown following it into the room, gun extended. Don't let there be another gun in here, Hawes thought.

A man in his undershorts was halfway out the window.

"That's a long drop, mister," Brown said.

The man hesitated.

"Mr. Sebastiani?" Hawes said.

The man still had one leg over the window sill. There was no fire escape out there; Hawes wondered where the hell he thought he was going.

"My name is Theo Hardeen," he said.

"So your wife mentioned," Hawes said.

"My wife? I don't know what you're talking about."

They never knew what anyone was talking about.

"Mr. Sebastiani," Hawes said, "at this very moment, your wife is driving in from Collinsworth with two detectives from the Eighty-seventh Squad----"

"I don't have any wife in----"

"They also have a chain saw in the car," Brown said.

"We found a chain saw in your garage," Hawes said.

"There's a lot of blood on the saw," Brown said.

"And a lot of blood in the garage," Hawes said.

"Sir, we're arresting you for the crime of murder," Brown said and then began reeling off Miranda-Escobedo. Sebastiani listened to the recitation as though he were being lectured. He still had one leg over the window sill.

"Mr. Sebastiani?" Hawes said. "You want to come in off that window now?"

Sebastiani came in off the window.

"She blew it, huh?" he said.

"You both did," Brown said.

"He was gone--disappeared, vanished, poof--and his tricks were scattered all over the driveway."