It was at times like this, when he was at his weakest, that unbidden memories flooded his mind. He covered his eyes, as if that would help him block out an image of the wild-eyed teenager sitting on his bloody chest. The young psycho had been so disappointed that there was not one bullet left so that he might shoot out Riker's eye. In the mornings, in that small space of time when dreams were not yet shaken off, he could feel the cold metal pressed to his eyeball and hear the click.

His head tilted back, and he stared at the sky where the stars ought to be. There were none. Chains of thought on the subject of heaven led him back to Mexico and starry nights in Cholla Bay. If he could only make it back to that place, that summer. He had finally found a way to kill his waking nightmare, replacing it with a picture of his younger self standing on the beach under a Mexican sun. This boy was waiting for the man to wise up, to come back to the only place where he had been truly happy. If Jo would go with him, he might save himself. A cop's pension would buy a life for two.

He shook his head.

No, you damn jerk. That's a pipe dream.

The boy with the guitar had had his chance and blown it, thrown it all away and gone home to New York. And the man, full grown and going gray, would surely die in this town. Falling short of salvation tonight, Riker thought he might settle for a drink or ten. He rose to his feet and headed down the street to a bar.

Hours later, closing time, he was home again and entering the apartment building, feeling insufficiently smashed and counting on a quart of bourbon in his kitchen cupboard to finish the job. Riker was off to his bottle and his bed, and, with any luck, a blackout night with no dreams.

When he stepped out of the elevator, the hall was pin-drop quiet. Pausing at the door, he fumbled with a ring of keys. Unlike most New Yorkers who only bothered with one lock out of three, he had lately picked up the habit of locking them all. The process of opening them took longer when he was drunk. Finally, after all combinations of keys and locks had been exhausted, he opened the door and felt along the wall till he found the switch and flicked it. No light.

The door was slammed shut, but not by his hand, and Riker only had time to track the sound of an intruder's quick shuffling footsteps in the dark. The gunshots were four explosions in rapid fire, and he did not stiffen this time. He folded to the floorboards, hitting with both knees and feeling no pain. Kneeling now, he faced a wall of blackness and never saw the light from the hall when the shooter opened the door behind him. Riker closed the door himself as his body completed its fall to the floor, toppling backward and slamming into the wood. Dust motes drifted down to settle on the lenses of his open eyes. He never blinked.

Chapter 15

Mrs. ortega's rolling wire arsenal was armed with liquids, powders, pastes and every tool of her trade. Intent on braving a cleaning woman's vision of purgatory, she walked toward Riker's apartment with grim resolve and squeaking cart wheels. Her apron pockets jingled with quarters for the laundry machines on the floor below, wagering that Riker's sheets had not been changed in months. She planned to root him out in this early morning hour, while he was half asleep and helpless to prevent her from completing her mission. The real beauty of her strategy was Riker's heavy drinking. All she had to do was fire up the vacuum cleaner and jack up the pain of his hangover to drive him out so she could get on with her job. This was going to happen.

Her attitude abruptly changed.

Riker's door was not quite closed, and this was enough to set off a siren in the breast of every New Yorker. In this town, locking up was such a primal instinct that dogs would do it if they only could. A sage voice inside her head screamed, No, don't go in there! Yet she put out one tentative hand and pushed the knob inward by a few inches before meeting resistance from an obstacle blocking the door. She could see a revolver lying at the center of the rug, and now she knew what the obstacle was. Using all her slight weight, she pushed hard against the sturdy oak door, then slammed herself into the wood, again and again. Riker's inert body slowly, grudgingly moved inch by inch. Dead or alive, he would yield to Mrs. Ortega's great will.

When the telephone rang in Johanna Apollo's hotel suite, it was Mallory who answered. First she heard the voice of the excited cleaning woman. Then Charles Butler was on the line, and he was only marginally calmer.

"Listen to me," said Mallory. "Mrs. Ortega is absolutely right. Don't touch his body. Don't do anything till I get there. I'm only a few minutes away." After hanging up the phone in the middle of Charles's protest, she rapped on the bathroom door, shouting to be heard above the sound of running water, "Doctor, we have to leave! Now!"

Mallory stood before the open closet, reaching for her coat, then suddenly turned to see the small animal just released from the master bathroom, where he had spent the night. He had been softly creeping up behind her when a tiny squeak of excitement gave him away. Now he paused as their eyes met, and they mutually agreed that she could kill him any time she liked.

Mugs, wise cat, retreated to his basket pillow.

She said not to touch anything," said Mrs. Ortega, "and that includes him."

"Mallory says a lot of things." Charles could no longer bear to see Riker lying there, eyes wide and staring, seeing nothing. He lifted the man's body in his arms, then laid him down on the couch. "I can't think why I let you talk me out of calling – "

"No phone calls." Mrs. Ortega came running from the bedroom with a blanket to cover Riker. "Trust me on this one. He wouldn't want anybody to see him like this." Her only betrayal of emotion was the way she tucked the blanket around the still body, then smoothed out all the folds in the material. If she could not mend him, she could at least neaten him up a bit.

Charles glanced at his watch. Just as he was thinking that Mallory should be here by now, given the reckless way she drove a car, the detective came striding through the open doorway.

"I told you not to move him." Mallory only glanced at Riker, then turned her back on him, as if he were a piece of evidence at a crime scene instead of the more obvious victim of a life gone terribly awry. She drew her gun, opened the doors to the closet and the bathroom, then disappeared down the hall to the bedroom. Reappearing a moment later, gun bolstered, she said, "Tell me you didn't call anyone else."

"No," said Charles. "But I should have. He needs a doctor."

"I brought one." Mallory nodded toward the front door.

Johanna Apollo stood in the hallway, gladstone bag in hand. Her wide brown eyes were fixed upon the gun on the floor. "You didn't say he'd been shot."

"Not a mark on him," said Mrs. Ortega, suspiciously eyeing the medical bag in the hunchback's grip. "You're a doctor?" Her tone implied fraud, quackery.

Apparently, Johanna Apollo was not satisfied with a cleaning woman's assessment of Riker's bullet-free status. She ripped the blanket away, then shifted him onto his side and checked for overlooked bloody holes. Finding none, she rolled him on his back again.

"He doesn't blink much," said Mrs. Ortega, "but he's not dead."

Taking the cleaning woman's arm, Mallory led her away from the couch, saying, "Show me were you found the body."

The body? Charles winced.

"He was right there." Mrs. Ortega's pointing finger made the vague outline of a prone figure on the rug in front of the door.

Mallory stared at the weapon on the floor. Beside it lay a round metal object ringed with deep bullet-size chambers. The cleaning woman had earlier identified it as a speedloader, this intelligence based on extensive television viewing.