The cop reached out with her free hand to run one finger down the dirty glass pane and through the painted name of the company. "Do you do windows, Frances?"

"I do now," said Miss Byrd.

A detective from the Greenwich Village copshop stood by the curb collecting notes from a patrolman. Flynn was his mother's son, tall and dark-skinned with features of Africa. Only the ten freckles across his nose came down from his Irish side. He smiled as his erstwhile drinking buddy lumbered toward him. "Hey, you're lookin' great, man!"

Untrue. Riker had not shaved this morning, nor had he taken the time to select the least dirty clothes from a wardrobe of flannel shirts and faded jeans, and his leather jacket was unzipped, exposing the worst of his stains. Hungover and dragging, he stopped to thank Flynn for the phone call to tell him that one of his employees might need a friend.

Riker moved on toward the playground at the other end of the block. Though this was not his own precinct, there was no trouble getting past the men in uniform posted at the entrance. They stood aside for him, all but saluting as he passed through the gate. He was royalty now that he had been shot. Apparently, these men had not heard the news of his separation from NYPD via a stack of unopened mail. Even the medical examiner's men paused to slap him on the back, mumbling their greetings as they rolled a gurney toward the waiting meat wagon. Though the corpse was concealed in a zippered bag, Riker knew that Flynn had revised his earlier call of suicide, upgrading this case to murder. No lesser offense would merit the attentions of Crime Scene Unit. He watched one CSU investigator overturn a trash barrel and sift through the contents while others walked with their eyes to the ground, stopping now and then to collect small objects and map their locations on a sketch pad.

Jo was seated on a bench near a sandbox, bent forward, her long hair covering her face. Riker sat down beside her and gingerly encircled her with one arm. The hump on her back was a mystery to him, and it crossed his mind that he might hurt her if he held her tight. She raised her face to show him her red and swollen eyes. She had been crying, but now she seemed oddly calm. Shock could do that. The case detective was walking toward them. Flynn was a first-rate cop and a decent one. Riker trusted him to go light and easy with Jo.

The detective sat down on the other side of the bench and leaned forward to catch her eye. "Ma'am? I understand you knew the victim pretty well."

"Everybody knew that freak," said Riker. "He's been a pest in this neighborhood for – "

"Let the lady talk." Flynn turned back to his witness, prompting her. "Ma'am? What can you tell me about this guy?"

"I know his mother lives in Vermont," said Jo, "but she hasn't seen him in years."

Riker was stunned to hear her rattle off the long-distance telephone number for a homeless bum's next of kin. And now she gave another number that she had memorized, that of a local attorney who could supply more current information.

Detective Flynn's pen hovered over the notebook. "A vagrant with a lawyer!"

"New York City versus Bunny's Foot." She was quoting a tabloid headline that had been pinned to the bulletin board at Ned's Crime Scene Cleaners as homage to a neighborhood celebrity. Flynn nodded. "I remember that case."

Even Riker knew this story, though he never read newspapers anymore. His only tie to the world was office gossip. According to his crew, an ACLU lawyer had defended the homeless man's right to die rather than lose his diseased foot to a surgeon's saw, thus nicely defeating the city's criteria for hospitalizing a vagrant as a danger to himself. The court, weary of drawn-out appeals by the American Civil Liberties Union, had decided that Bunny was legally entitled to a slow painful death on the street, though that initial plan had gone awry this morning.

Detective Flynn flipped through the pages of his notebook. "There's just a few things we need to clear up. We canvassed the block where this man spent most of his time. According to the neighbors, you match the description of a woman who went round and round with this guy three nights a week. So this freak attacks you on a regular basis, but you don't even cross the street to avoid him. Can you explain that, ma'am?"

No, apparently she could not. Jo closed her eyes.

Flynn moved closer, trying to connect with her. "So when this bastard used you for a human punching bag, did he lead with his left or his right?"

"He was right-handed," said Jo, "and he never hit me."

"I know. He just threatened you" said Flynn. "He scared you. and you gave him money. That's what the neighbors say. Are you right or left-handed?"

"Hold it," said Riker. "I can give you at least twenty people who wanted this bum out of the neighborhood – permanently. Just walk along that street and count the houses. The tenants must've filed a hundred complaints with you bastards."

"Hey." Flynn splayed one hand to say that the lady was not a serious suspect, and would Riker please shove his head up his butt so they could get on with this interview.

"Back off," said Riker. "Her lawyer's the same guy who defended the bum." He was making this up as he went along. "And now that you know the lady has counsel, that ends the interview."

"She's a witness, not a suspect," said Flynn, "I can question her all damn day long."

"Wrong. She was a suspect the minute you asked her what hand she used to hold the murder weapon. I think a judge is gonna see it that way, too. You like the idea of getting your ass reamed out in court? No, I guess not." Riker gently raised Jo from the bench. She was docile and made no resistance to going with him. "Now, if you don't plan to book her – with squat for evidence – I'm taking the lady home."

Flynn had a bewildered look about him as his eyes turned skyward. Riker, a fourth-generation police, had chosen the wrong side; and, though the sun was where it ought to be, the world was definitely out of order this morning. After clearing the playground gate, Riker turned back to see the detective hovering over a crime-scene technician, watching the man dust the bench for fingerprints – Jo's prints.

Long after Riker had left her hotel suite, Johanna Apollo sat in a patch of direct sunlight and never felt the warmth. It was a spider's business that called her attention to the window. Hours ago, the little spinner had begun a delicate web stretching across the sill. The ambitious project was complete, but horrific in light of the arachnid's nature. The web's pattern was flawed, strange and twisty, with ugly knots in the silk and gaping holes where a fine network of threads should be. Before the web was half done, all attempt at weaving symmetry had been abandoned. Johanna flirted with the idea that the tiny creature had lost its mind. She glanced at the cat curled on his red pillow, as if he might be the cause of the spider's affliction, but Mugs was in a mood of rare calm and watching her through half-closed eyes. He was the sane one this morning.

Or was it afternoon?

Johanna turned back to the problem of the spider spinning chaos. It was said by some that the observer influenced the outcome of the thing observed.

The telephone rang. It was jarring, frightening, this ordinary thing, this common sound. Her answering machine picked up the call. She recognized the voice of a veterinary surgeon reminding her that Mugs's checkup had been rescheduled. The cat padded toward her and sat down at her feet. Odd, but he seemed unwilling to touch her. Was he sensing something unhealthy in the air – something not quite sane?

Johanna would not look at the spiderweb again. Half the day had been lost before she rose from her chair and felt the hundred needles of limbs gone to sleep. She walked to the closet to fetch the plastic pet carrier. Even before she pulled it out, the cat was backing into a corner, baring his teeth and hissing the sentiment, No! No way! You can't put me in there, not again! After a cab ride across town and uptown to Sixtieth Street, Johanna and the screaming Mugs entered the animal hospital. Behind the front desk, the teenage receptionist suddenly tensed every muscle in her young body, bracing for a touch of hell in the afternoon. The pet carrier in Johanna's hand was shaking with rage. And the poor beast's last howl conveyed the message, I'll kill you all!