He took a swig of brandy. "Nonsense. I've dealt with female criminals before. Some of them killers."

"But none like Zoe Kohler-right? All the female murderers in your experience killed from passion or greed or because they were drunk or something like that. Am I correct?"

"Well…" he said grudgingly, "maybe."

"You told me so yourself. But now you find a female killer who's intelligent, plans well, kills coldly with no apparent motive, and it shatters all your preconceptions about women. And not only does it destroy your romantic fancies, but I think it scares you-in a way."

He was silent.

"Because if a woman can act in this way, then you don't know anything at all about women. Isn't that what scares you? Now you've discovered that women are as capable as men. Capable of evil, in this case. But if that's true, then they must also be as capable of good, of creativity, of invention and art. It's upsetting all the prejudices you have and maybe even weren't aware of. Suddenly you have to revise your thinking about women, all your old, ingrained opinions, and that can be a painful process. I think that's why you want more than the killings ended. You want revenge against this woman who has caused such an upheaval in all your notions of what women are and how they should act."

"Thank you, doctor, for the fifty-cent analysis," he said. "I'm not saying you're completely wrong, but you are mistaken if you think I would have felt any differently if the Hotel Ripper was a man. You have to pay for your sins in this world, regardless of your sex."

"Edward, how long has it been since you've been to church."

"You mean for mass or confession? About thirty-five years."

"Well, you haven't lost your faith."

"The good sisters beat it into me. But my faith, as you call it, has nothing to do with the church."

"No?"

"No. I'm for civilization and against the swamp. It's as simple as that."

"And that is simple. You believe in God, don't you?"

"I believe in a Supreme Being, whatever you want to call him, her, or it."

"You probably call it the Top Cop."

He laughed. "You're not too far wrong. Well, the Top Cop has given us the word in a body of works called the law. Don't tell me how rickety, inefficient, and leaky the law is; I know better than you. But it's the best we've been able to come up with so far. Let's hope it'll be improved as the human race stumbles along. But even in the way it exists today, it's the only thing that stands between civilization and the swamp. It's a wall, a dike. And anyone who knocks a hole in the wall should be punished."

"And what about understanding? Compassion? Justice?"

"The law and justice are not always identical, my dear. Any street cop can tell you that. In this case, I think both the law and justice would be best served if Zoe Kohler was put away for the rest of her life."

"And if New York still had the death penalty, you'd want her electrocuted, or hanged, or gassed, or shot?"

"Yes."

July 25; Friday…

Her pubic hair had almost totally disappeared; only a few weak wisps survived. And the hair on her legs and in her armpits had apparently ceased to grow. She had the feeling of being peeled, to end up as a skinless grape, a quivering jelly. Clothing rasped her tender skin.

She took a cab to work that morning, not certain she had the strength to walk or push her way aboard a crowded bus. In the office, she was afraid she might drop the tray of coffee and pastries. Every movement was an effort, every breath a pain.

"Did you bring it in, Zoe?" Everett Pinckney asked.

She looked at him blankly. "What?"

"The tear gas dispenser," he said.

She felt a sudden anguish in her groin. A needle. She knew her period was due in a day, but this was something different: a steel sliver. But she did not wince. She endured, expressionless.

"I lost it," she said in a low voice. "Or misplaced it. I can't find it."

He was bewildered.

"Zoe," he said, "a thing like that-how could you lose it or misplace it?"

She didn't answer.

"What am I going to do?" he asked helplessly. "The cop will come back. He'll want to know. He'll want to talk to you."

"All right," she said, "I'll talk to him. I just don't have it."

He was not a man to bluster. He just stood, wavering…

"Well…" he said, "all right," and left her alone.

The rest of the day vanished. She didn't know where it went. She swam in agony, her body pulsing. She wanted to weep, cry out, claw her aching flesh from the bones. The world about her whirled dizzily. It would not stop.

She walked home slowly, her steps faltering. Passersby were a streaming blur. The earth sank beneath her feet. She heard a roaring above the traffic din, smelled scorch, and in her mouth was a taste of old copper.

She turned into the luncheonette, too weak to continue her journey.

"Hullo, dearie," the porky waitress said. "The usual?"

Zoe nodded.

"Wanna hear somepin nutty?" the waitress asked, setting a place for her. "Right after you was in here last night, a guy comes in and buys the iced tea glass you drank out of. Said he had glasses just like it at home, but his kid broke one, and he wanted to fill the set. Paid a dollar for it."

"The glass I used?"

"Crazy, huh? Din even want a clean one. Just wrapped up the dirty glass in paper napkins and rushed out with it. Well, it takes all kinds…"

"Was he tall and thin?" Zoe Kohler asked. "With a sour expression?"

"Nah. He was tall all right, but a heavyset guy. Middle sixties maybe. Why? You know him?"

"No," Zoe said listlessly, "I don't know him."

She was still thinking clearly enough to realize what had happened. Now they had her fingerprints. They would compare them with the prints on the wineglass she left at the Tribunal. They would be sure now. They would come for her and kill her.

She left her food uneaten. She headed home with stumbling steps. The pains in her abdomen were almost shrill in their intensity.

She wondered if her period had started. She had not inserted a tampon and feared to look behind her; perhaps she was leaving a spotted trail on the sidewalk. And following the spoor came the thin, dour man, nose down and sniffing. A true bloodhound.

At home, she locked and bolted her door, put on the chain. She looked wearily about her trig apartment. She had always been neat. Her mother never had to tell her to tidy her room.

"A place for everything and everything in its place," her mother was fond of remarking.

She slipped shoes from her shrunken feet. She sat upright in a straight chair in the living room, hands folded primly on her lap. She watched dusk, twilight, darkness seep into the silent room.

Perhaps she fainted, dozed, dreamed; it was impossible to know. She saw a deserted landscape. Nothing there but gray smoke curling.

Then, as it thinned to fog, vapor, she saw a cracked and bloodless land. A jigsaw of caked mud. Craters and crusted holes venting steam. A barren world. No life stirring.

How long she sat there, her mind intent on this naked vision, she could not have said. Yet when her telephone rang, she rose, quite sane, turned on the light, picked up the phone. The lobby attendant: could Mr. Mittle come up?

She greeted Ernie with a smile, almost as happy as his. They kissed, and he told her she was getting dreadfully thin, and he would have to fatten her up. She touched his cheek lovingly, so moved was she by his concern.

The white wine he carried was already chilled. She brought a corkscrew and glasses from the kitchen. They sat close together on the couch. They clinked glasses and looked into each other's eyes.

"How do you feel, darling?" he asked anxiously.

"Better now," she said. "You're here."

He groaned with pleasure, kissed her poor, shriveled fingers.