"Look at the man in your corner deli," I used to tell everybody, "the dishwasher in the restaurant on your block whose shift ends at oneA.M., right before the attacks started. Your doorman, the super down the street, the guy next to you on the subway platform."

"So why couldn't he show up in your favorite restaurant, Coop?"

"It's certainly in the zone. So next time, Giuliano, make sure you get the glass he was drinking from before it goes in the dishwasher. A little saliva for his DNA is all we need. C'mon, Mike. I'm whipped."

He drove me the short distance to my apartment and waited until one of the doormen let me inside and walked me to the elevator.

I flipped on the lights and stopped to hang up my coat and scarf in the hall closet. I picked up the pile of mail that my housekeeper had left on the credenza and carried it into my bedroom. There was no flashing light on my answering machine, one more sign of my newly unattached lifestyle. Somehow, wherever in the world Jake Tyler had been on assignment, he left loving messages for me that cheered me when I returned at whatever ungodly hour from a day too full of violence and heartbreak.

I clicked on the television and listened to the local all-news channel as I undressed, washed up, and crawled into bed. After reports of a suspicious breach of security at a nuclear power plant upstate and a car accident in Times Square that killed three tourists, the commentator replayed the police commissioner's seven o'clock statement.

Mercer was behind the commissioner's shoulder as he announced that the Manhattan Special Victims Squad had identified a sexual assault pattern within the confines of the Nineteenth Precinct on the Upper East Side. Reporters at the foot of the podium furiously scribbled details of the cases, holding Xeroxed copies of the sketch that was posted on an easel next to Mercer.

"This is Manhattan SVS pattern number three of the new year," he said.

"How'd you slip the first two by us?" the Post veteran, Mickey Diamond, called out.

Here it was, only the last week in January, and three serial rapists had each claimed a corner of the island to terrorize.

"The first is in Chinatown, Mickey. Three cases involving abductions of women who are here illegally. Their status has not in any way affected our investigation of the cases, but it has made some of the victims' families reluctant to report details to us, and we're happy for any information the public has to offer." The subliminal message was that the rest of us weren't in danger from a criminal targeting poor immigrant women, who were unlikely to seek police assistance because of their immigration status.

"Pattern number two is in Washington Heights," the commissioner continued. "Five cases, starting at the end of last year. These have all occurred at known drug locations."

"Junkies?" Mickey interrupted again. "Junkies and hookers?"

"The victims have alternative lifestyles, Mickey. So far, they've been very cooperative. We have a couple of suspects and are making great progress on the investigation."

No wonder there had not been a press conference to announce patterns one and two, which my unit had been working on with the crew at SVS, around the clock and on all cylinders. Those cases weren't seen as impacting the lives of most Manhattan residents. Location, location, location, as they say in real estate. The Upper East Side made for different concerns and flashier headlines.

The commissioner tried to pick up his narrative about the new case. "On January twenty-sixth, at 0300 hours, a twenty-two-year-old female was attacked as she entered a brownstone at Three Thirty-seven East Sixty-sixth Street, between Second and First Avenues."

He described the physical assault in graphic detail. The stabbing would raise more alarm and attract more attention than a sex crime. Often, when people heard the word "rape," they foolishly assumed something had occurred as much because of the woman's behavior as the man's. Rape remained the only crime that too many people considered "victim precipitated," and scores of listeners would thereby distance themselves from their potential vulnerability by assuming it was an act that couldn't happen to people like them.

Now the commissioner gave the press hounds the news hook they were waiting for. "You may recall that several years back, the department declared a pattern of cases, also in the Nineteenth Precinct, that remained unsolved when the perpetrator seemed to have vanished four years ago. You gentlemen and ladies dubbed him the Silk Stocking Rapist, which is far too elegant a name for the vile things he does."

The gallery came alive. "Same guy?" one reporter called out.

"The ME's office has confirmed through serological testing that-"

"I thought this week's case wasn't a rape. How'd you get DNA?" another said.

"We're not going to tell you what physical evidence we do have, but a match to genetic material from the crime scene has been declared by the lab, so that we have confirmed our belief that the cases are related. We have reassembled a task force and we'll give you the details of that," the commissioner said, stepping back so the chief of detectives could describe the operation he had hurriedly put in place.

"Last time around, how many cases were there?" a young kid on the City Hall beat asked.

"Five completed rapes, four other attempts," the chief answered.

I thought of another eight crimes that rested in my case folder, which had not been connected by forensics but which had the same nuances of language and order of sexual acts the rapist performed to make me certain it was the work of the same man. The mayor had ordered the PC not to heighten the public's fear by including those other cases.

"This new attack, what'd the girl look like?"

A question like that could only have come out of the mouth of Mickey Diamond. In no other kind of case would a news reporter ask for a description of the woman. But the tabloid's titillating version of sexual assault stories required the flaxen-haired filly or the buxom blue-eyed beauty to fill in the blanks occasioned by the media rule of not naming rape victims in their stories.

"Still using silk stockings, or has he aged into support hose since the last time we saw him?" Diamond asked, to amuse the reporters around him.

I clicked off as they were appealing for the public's help and offering reward money for tips leading to the arrest of the attacker.

When I opened my door at seven the next morning, the rapist's face stared up at me from the front page of both tabloids, and above the fold on the Metro section of the Times. I showered and dressed for work, and drove downtown in my SUV to grab a parking space as close to my building as possible, sparing myself a cold, slippery walk.

I spent the morning reviewing notes of phone messages that my secretary, Laura Wilkie, had downloaded from the unit's hotline. For a bit of reward money, people were willing to turn in ex-husbands, unfaithful lovers, and ne'er-do-well nephews. All the leads would be turned over to Special Victims for follow-up calls.

Then I studied the file of Darra Goldswit's case, readying a checklist of questions for her grand jury presentation.

I heard Chapman's voice outside my office, in Laura's cubicle, just after 11A.M. "Morning, Moneypenny. Give us a kiss, will you?"

I knew she'd be in a good mood for the rest of the week. Laura was a perfect foil for Mike's flirtatious humor.

He ambled through the door, ran his fingers through the thick slice of black hair that rested on his forehead. "Carmine Cappozelli, purveyor of the purest and most potent rat poison this side of the Mississippi, sends his warmest personal regards. Told me he manufactured his first batch of rodent botulism in 1978."