"I know what's right," Delaney said woodenly.

The Admiral took a deep breath.

"I'll give you another week," he said. "That's, uh, Friday the twenty-fifth. If we have nothing more on her by then, I'm bringing her in anyhow. I just can't take the risk of letting her try another slashing."

"Shit," Delaney said.

He strode home through the sultry twilight. He went through Central Park, trying to walk off his anger. Intellectually, he could understand the reasoning behind Ivar Thorsen's decision. But that didn't make it any better. It was all political.

"Political." What a shifty word! Political was everything weak, sly, expedient, and unctuous. Political was doing the right things for the wrong reasons, and the wrong things for the right reasons.

Ivar had his career and the Department's reputation to think about. In that connotation, he was doing the "right" thing, the political thing. But he was also letting a murderess stroll away from her crimes; that was what it amounted to.

Delaney planned how they could smash her. It would be an audacious scheme, but with foresight and a bit of luck, they could pull it off.

Not letting her out on the prowl to pick up some innocent slob, going with him to his hotel room, and then ripping his throat. With the cops tailing her and breaking in at the last minute to catch her with the knife in her hand and the victim-to-be still alive. That would never work.

It would have to be a carefully plotted scam, using a police decoy. The guy selected would have to be a real cowboy, with quick reflexes and the balls to see it through. He'd have charm, be physically presentable, and have enough acting ability to play the role of an out-of-town salesman or convention-goer.

He would have a room in a midtown hotel, and they would wire it like a computer, with mikes, a two-way mirror, and maybe a TV tape camera filming the whole thing. A squad of hard guys in the adjoining room, of course, ready to come on like Gangbus-ters.

She'd be tailed to the hotel she selected and the cowboy would be alerted. He'd make the pickup or let her pick him up. Then he'd take her back to his hotel room. The pickup would be the dicey part. Once the cowboy made the meet, the rest should go like silk.

It would be important that even the appearance of entrapment be avoided, but that could be worked out. With luck they'd be able to grab her in the act, with her trusty little jackknife open and ready. Let her try to walk away from that!

Delaney admitted it was a chancy gamble, but Goddamnit, it could work. And it would cut through all the legal bullshit, all the court arguments about the admissibility of circumstantial evidence. It would be irrefutable proof that Zoe Kohler was a bloody killer.

But the politicians said No, don't take the risk, all we want to do is stop her, and start booking conventions again, and if she walks, that's too bad, but we stopped her, didn't we?

Edward X. Delaney made a grimace of disgust. The law was the law, and murder was wrong, and every time you weaseled, you weakened the whole body of the law, the good book it had taken so many centuries to write.

By God, if he was on active duty and in command, he would smash her! If the cowboy didn't succeed, then Delaney would try something else. She might kill again, and again, but in the end he'd hang her by the heels, and the best defense attorney in the world couldn't prevent those words: "Guilty as charged."

By the time he arrived home, he was sodden with sweat, his face reddened, and he was puffing with exhaustion.

"What happened to you?" Monica asked curiously. "You look like you've been wrestling with the devil."

"Something like that," he said.

July 22; Tuesday…

She did not wake pure and whole-and knew she never would. The abdominal pains were constant now, almost as severe as menstrual cramps. Weakness buckled her knees; she frequently felt giddy and feared she might faint on the street.

She continued to lose weight; her flesh deflated over her joints; she seemed all knobs and edges. The discolored blotches grew; she watched with dulled horror as whole patches of skin took on a grayish-brown hue.

Everything was wrong. She felt nausea, and vomited. She suddenly had a craving for salt and began taking three, four, then five tablets a day. She tried to eat only bland foods, but was afflicted first with constipation, then with diarrhea.

Her dream of happiness, on the night following Ernest Mittle's proposal of marriage, had vanished. Now she said aloud: "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."

When Madeline Kurnitz called to ask her to lunch, Zoe tried to beg off, not certain she had the strength and fearful of what Maddie might say about her appearance.

But the other woman insisted, even agreeing to lunch in the dining room of the Hotel Granger.

"I want you to meet someone," Maddie said, giggling.

"Who?"

"You'll see!"

Zoe reserved a table for three and was already seated when Maddie arrived. With her was a tall, stalwart youth who couldn't have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three. Maddie was hanging on to his arm possessively, looking up at his face, and whispering something that made him laugh.

She hardly glanced at Zoe. Just said, "Christ, you're skinny," and then introduced her escort.

"Kiddo, this stud is Jack. Keep your hands off; I saw him first. Jack, this is Zoe, my best friend. My only friend. Say, 'Hello, Zoe, how are you?' You can manage that, can't you?"

"Hello, Zoe," Jack said with a flash of white teeth, "how are you?"

"See?" Maddie said. "He can handle a simple sentence. Jack isn't so great in the brains department, luv, but with what he's got, who needs brains? Hey, hey, how's about a little drink? My first today."

"Your first in the last fifteen minutes," Jack said.

"Isn't he cute?" Maddie said, stroking the boy's cheek. "I'm teaching him to sit up and beg."

It was the other way around; Zoe was shocked by her appearance. Maddie had put on more loose weight, and it bulged, unbraed and ungirdled, in a straining dress of red silk crepe, with a side seam gaping and stains down the front.

Her freckled cleavage was on prominent display, and she wore no hose. Her feet, in the skimpiest of strap sandals, were soiled with street dirt. Her legs had been carelessly shaved; a swath of black fuzz ran down one calf.

It was her face that showed most clearly her loss: clown makeup wildly applied, powder caked in smut lines on her neck, a false eyelash hanging loose, lipstick streaked and crooked.

There she sat, a blob of a woman, all appetite. It seemed to Zoe that her voice had become louder and screakier. She shouted for drinks, yelled for menus, laughing in high-pitched whinnies.

Zoe hung her head as other diners turned to stare. But Maddie was impervious to their disapproval. She held hands with Jack, popped shrimp into his mouth, pinched his cheek. One of her hands was busy beneath the tablecloth.

"… so Harry moved out," Maddie chattered on, "and Jack moved in. A beautiful exchange. Now the lawyers are fighting it out. Jack, baby, you have a steak; you've got to keep up your strength, you stallion, you!"

He sat there with a vacant grin, enjoying her ministrations, accepting them as his due. His golden hair was coiffed in artful waves. His complexion was a bronzed tan, lips sculpted, nose straight and patrician. A profile that belonged on a coin.

"Isn't he precious?" Maddie said fondly, staring at him with hungry eyes. "I found him parking cars at some roadhouse on Long Island. I got him cleaned up, properly barbered and dressed, and look at him now. A treasure! Maddie's own sweet treasure."

She was, Zoe realized, quite drunk, for in addition to her usual ebullience, there was something else: almost an hysteria. Plus a note of nasty cruelty when she spoke of the young man as if he were a curious object.