"I didn't find out anything," Delaney said. "Nothing these men can't tell you."

"You'll have our report tomorrow, lieutenant," Lou Gorki said sweetly.

"Maybe later than that," Tommy Callahan put in. "Lab Services have a lot of tests to run."

Slavin glared at them, back and forth. Then he turned his wrath on Delaney again.

"You got no right to be here," he repeated furiously. "This is my case. You're no better than a fucking civilian."

"Deputy Commissioner Thorsen gave his okay," Sergeant Boone said quietly.

The four men looked at the lieutenant with expressionless eyes.

"We'll see about that!" Slavin almost screamed. "We'll goddamned well see about that!"

He turned, rushed from the room.

"He'll never have hemorrhoids," Lou Gorki remarked. "He's such a perfect asshole."

Sergeant Boone walked Delaney slowly back to the elevators.

"I'll let you know what the lab men come up with," he said. "If you think of anything we've missed, please let me know. I'd appreciate it."

"Of course," Delaney said, wondering if he should tell Boone about the phoned tip to the Times and deciding against it. Handry had admitted that in confidence. "Sergeant, I hope I didn't get you in any trouble with Slavin."

"With a rabbi like Thorsen?" Boone said, grinning. "I'll survive."

"Sure you will," Edward X. Delaney said.

He decided to walk home. Over to Sixth Avenue, through Central Park, out at 72nd Street, and up Fifth Avenue. A nice stroll. He stopped in the hotel lobby to buy a Montecristo.

A soft morning in early April. A warming sun burning through a pearly haze. In the park, a few patches of dirty snow melting in the shadows. The smell of green earth thawing, ready to burst. Everything was coming alive.

He strode along sturdily, topcoat open and flapping against his legs. Hard homburg set squarely. Cigar clenched in his teeth. Joggers passed him. Cyclists whizzed by. Traffic whirled around the winding roads. He savored it all-and thought of Jerome Ashley and his giant mouth.

It was smart, Delaney figured, for a detective to go by the percentages. Every cop in the world did it, whether he was aware of it or not. If you had three suspects in a burglary, and one of them was an ex-con, you leaned on the lag, even if you knew shit-all about recidivist percentages.

"It just makes common fucking sense," an old cop had remarked to Delaney.

So it did, so it did. But the percentages, the numbers, the patterns, experience-all were useful up to a point. Then you caught something new, something different, and you were flying blind; no instruments to guide you. What was it the early pilots had said? You fly by the seat of your pants.

Edward X. Delaney wasn't ready yet to jettison percentages. If he was handling the Hotel Ripper case, he'd probably be doing exactly what Slavin was doing right now: looking for a male killer and rounding up every homosexual with a rap sheet.

But there were things that didn't fit and couldn't be ignored just because they belonged to no known pattern.

Delaney stopped at a Third Avenue deli, bought a few things, carried his purchases home. Monica was absent at one of her meetings or lectures or symposiums or colloquies. He was happy she was active in something that interested her. He was just as happy he had the house to himself.

He had bought black bread, the square kind from the frozen food section. A quarter-pound of smoked sable, because sturgeon was too expensive. A bunch of scallions. He made two sandwiches carefully: sable plus scallion greens plus a few drops of fresh lemon juice.

He carried the sandwiches and a cold bottle of Heineken into the study. He sat down behind his desk, put on his reading glasses. As he ate and drank, he made out a dossier on the third victim, Jerome Ashley, trying to remember everything Sergeant Boone had told him and everything he himself had observed.

Finished with sandwiches and beer, he read over the completed dossier, checking to see if he had omitted anything. Then he looked up the number of the Hotel Coolidge and called.

He told the operator that he was trying to locate Sergeant Abner Boone, who was in the hotel investigating the crime on the 14th floor. He asked her to try to find Boone and have him call back. He left his name and number.

He started comparing the dossiers of the three victims, still hoping to spot a common denominator, a connection. They were men from out of town, staying in Manhattan hotels: that was all he could find.

The phone rang about fifteen minutes later.

"Chief, it's Boone. You called me?"

"On the backs of the stiff's hands," Delaney said. "Scars."

"I saw them, Chief. The assistant ME said they looked like burn scars. Maybe a month or so old. Mean anything?"

"Probably not, but you can never tell. Was he married?"

"Yes. No children."

"His wife should know how he got those scars. Can you check it out?"

"Will do."

After Boone hung up, Edward X. Delaney started a fresh sheet of paper, listing the things that bothered him, that just didn't fit:

1. A short-bladed knife, probably a jackknife.

2. No signs of struggles.

3. Two victims with no records of homosexuality found naked in bed.

5. Estimated height from five-five to five-seven.

6. Phoned tip that could have been made by a man or woman. He reread this list again and again, making up his mind. He thought he was probably wrong. He hoped he was wrong. He called Thomas Handry at the Times.

"Edward X. Delaney here."

"There's been another one, Chief."

"So I heard. When I spoke to you a few weeks ago, you said you'd be interested in doing some research for me. Still feel that way?"

Handry was silent a moment. Then…

"Has this got anything to do with the Hotel Ripper?" he asked.

"Sort of," Delaney said.

"Okay," Handry said. "I'm your man."

Chapter 5

Zoe Kohler returned home after her adventure with Jerry. She slid gratefully into a hot tub, putting her head back. She thought she could feel her entrails warm, unkink, become lax and flaccid. All of her thawed; she floated defenseless in amniotic fluid.

When the tub cooled, she sat up, prepared to lather herself with her imported soap. She saw with shock that the water about her knees and ankles was stained, tinged a light pink. Thinking her period had started, she touched herself tenderly, examined her fingers. There was no soil.

She lifted one ankle to the other knee, bent forward to inspect her foot. Between her toes she found clots of dried blood, now dissolving away. There were spots of blood beneath the toes of the other foot as well.

She sat motionless, trying to understand. Her feet were not wounded, nor her ankles cut. Then she knew. It was Jerry's blood. She had stepped into it after he-after he was gone. The blood between her toes was his stigmata, the taint of his guilt.

She scrubbed furiously with brush and washcloth. Then she rinsed again and again under the shower, making certain no stain remained on her skin. Later, she sat on the toilet lid and sprayed cologne on her ankles, feet, between her toes. "Out, damned spot!" She remembered that.

She dried, powdered, inserted a tampon, clenching her teeth. Not against the pain; there was no pain. But the act itself was abhorrent to her: a vile penetration that destroyed her dignity. That little string hanging outside: the fuse of a bomb.

All her life, as long as she could remember, she had beer daunted by the thought of blood. As a child, with a cut finger or skinned knee, it had been incomprehensible that her body was a bag, a sack, filled with a crimson viscid fluid that leaked, poured, or spurted when the bag was punctured.