When Payne explained about the "gallons" of piss all over the lawyer's office, Carlucci shook his head and said, "If I'd known, I might have contributed. Never did like that Gartner."

Matt chuckled.

Carlucci went on, "So, piss and prints. Could be the doer's just careless or stupid-or worse."

"Or maybe he wants to get caught?" Harris offered.

Payne raised an eyebrow. "Maybe. He's damn sure leaving ample opportunity for that to happen. Just a matter of time…"

"So," Carlucci said, "again, all we have for sure is one doer linked to the first five pop-and-drops-"

"That's correct," Payne said.

"-and maybe at least two of last night's three-the two who were shot-if we find that the prints on them match those prints on the first five. Same for the third, even though he wasn't shot."

"Exactly," Payne said.

"Strangled and beaten," Carlucci then wondered aloud. "What could be the significance of that?"

Payne shrugged. "Maybe the doer ran out of bullets."

Carlucci snorted.

"Let's hope so," he said. "If not, then we have two or more goddamn doers to collar. So when do you get the prints that were taken last night back from IAFIS? Before noon, in time for the statement?"

IAFIS, the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, was the largest biometric database in the world. It held the fingerprints and other information collected from local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies on more than fifty-five million people. Law-enforcement agencies could access it at any time and run a search with the fingerprints they lifted from a crime scene. It wasn't uncommon, provided the submitted print or prints were clean, to get a response in a couple hours as to whether there was a match in the database.

Payne shook his head. "We're still waiting for Forensics to process the prints that were lifted. You know what their motto can sometimes be…"

"Enlighten me," Carlucci said dryly.

" 'If we wait until the last minute to do it, it'll only take a minute.'"

There suddenly was a cold silence in the room, and Payne then realized from the furious look on Walker's face that, given difference circumstances-say, the absence of Walker's three immediate bosses-he would have reamed the hotshot Homicide sergeant a new one.

Nice job, Payne ol' boy, Matt thought. Forensic Sciences belongs to Walker.

Screw it. Maybe this will get them moving faster.

Payne remembered one night at Liberties Bar when, more than a couple of stiff Irish whiskeys under both their belts, Coughlin had let slip that he was not a fan of Walker's. Walker, who spoke with a cleric's soft, intelligent voice, cultivated a rather pious air. Coughlin felt that Walker used all the bells and whistles of Science amp; Technology as smoke and mirrors to disguise his incompetence.

"But Ralph said he had his reasons for asking me to give Walker the job. And, write this down, Matty, never argue with your boss. Still, I'd love to know what angle Walker is working on Ralph."

Mayor Carlucci guffawed, breaking the tension.

"I'm going to have to remember to use that line back at City Hall. Nothing gets done there, not even in the last minute. It's always late, if at all."

There were the expected chuckles.

"Okay," Carlucci said, "then I won't ask about NCIC. If we don't have prints to run, we don't have a name to run."

The National Crime Information Center-also maintained by the FBI and available to law enforcement at any time, day or night-had a database containing the critical records of criminals. Additionally, NCIC tracked missing persons and stolen property. Its data came not only from the same law-enforcement agencies that provided IAFIS, but also from authorized courts and foreign law-enforcement agencies.

"I'll go stoke the fire under them for those prints," Walker then offered lamely. He stood and went over to use one of the phones at the other conference table.

Bingo, Payne thought. That'll get 'em moving faster.

Ralph Mariana then spoke up: "Jerry, what should be done about Frank Fuller?"

Payne put in: "I've had an unmarked sitting on Fuller's Old City office."

"That's fine, Matt," Mariana said, "but I meant what should be done about his now-infamous rewards."

Carlucci, his face showing a mixture of anger and frustration, said, "I've spoken with Fuller privately about that bloodthirsty reward system of his. I've tried to dissuade him, suggesting that it's encouraging criminal activity. He said he didn't care, that he'd spend his last dime on lawyers defending that eye-for-an-eye thing-"

"The law of talion," Payne offered.

Carlucci shot Payne a look of mild annoyance for the interruption, then went on: "-especially, he said, after what happened to his wife and child."

"What happened to his family?" Mariana asked.

Quaire offered: "I had that case in Homicide. It never got solved, primarily because, we believe, the doers involved killed each other before we could get statements, let alone bring charges. Anyway, the wife and the girl, a ten-year-old, I believe, made a wrong turn at the Museum of Art and wound up a half-mile or so north in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. Cut down in a crossfire of single-aught buckshot."

"Jesus!" Mariana said, shaking his head. "That's tragic."

The table was silent a moment.

Carlucci then said, "But I have no choice but to denounce him, or at least what he's accomplishing with his reward."

Denny Coughlin cleared his throat.

"You have something, Denny?" Carlucci said. "Say it."

"Just a point, Jerry. Giving credit where it's due, Matt did bring up that for us to condemn the reward system would be somewhat hypocritical."

Carlucci made an unpleasant face.

"You can't be a little pregnant," Payne said.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Carlucci asked, looking at Payne.

"We can't say that Five-Eff's paying out ten-grand rewards-"

" 'Five-Eff '?" Carlucci interrupted.

Payne nodded. "Francis Franklin Fuller the Fifth long ago had his name boiled down to simply Four-Eff."

"You said 'Five,'" Carlucci challenged.

Payne looked around the table, and all eyes were watching him with more than a little curiosity. He thought there may have been a trace of wariness in Coughlin's.

Payne raised an eyebrow, then said, "Francis can be pompous, as you well know, and when he annoys me, I call him Five-Eff, short for Fucking Francis Franklin Fuller the Fifth."

Carlucci guffawed again. A couple others followed his lead by chuck-ling. Coughlin shook his head.

"All right," Carlucci said, "as he's come to annoy the hell out of me, I'll now say: How does my denouncing Five-Eff make me pregnant?"

Payne grinned. He knew Carlucci understood what he'd meant by the analogy.

"My point is, sir, that our department has partnerships with other agencies that offer rewards. The FBI Violent Crimes Task Force, for example."

He gestured with his thumb in a southerly direction. The FBI's office, at 600 Arch Street, across from the Federal Reserve Bank, was damn near outside the back door of the Roundhouse.

"And I'm sure you'll recall that we have our own tips hotline," Payne went on, "that, through the Citizens Crime Commission, pays out rewards that go from five hundred bucks or so on up to thousands. And when a cop gets murdered, the FOP administers rewards for info that leads to catching the doers. So we already do what Five-Eff does. We just don't, as was pointed out to me"-he exchanged glances with Coughlin-"encourage the killing of the critters."

Carlucci started nodding. "All right. I take your point. We can massage that in the message, so to speak. Now, let's boil all this down to what I'm going to say." "Thirty seconds, Mr. Mayor," Corporal Kerry Rapier said from behind the control panel.