Lately, the big product was art, mostly painting, with some light sculpture. And Plains photography studio.

A half-dozen St. Paul cop cars were gathered in the street when Lucas rolled up. He dumped the Porsche in a furniture-store parking lot, flashed his badge at a clerk who stood in the window. The clerk nodded, and he headed across the street. A St. Paul cop at the door recognized him, and said, "Nice to see you, chief," when Lucas said "Good morning."

Another cop pointed him at the elevator: "Up to seven, take a right."

A St. Paul police lieutenant named Allport was standing over Amnon Plain's body, making notes on a steno pad with a yellow pencil. Plain, shirtless and shoeless, was facedown in a puddle of drying blood that had spread across a pale hardwood floor. A brown paper grocery bag lay a few feet from his head, its contents spilled out across the floor: bakery, a cereal box, a six-pack of mineral water. Just beyond the grocery bag, a stainless-steel spiral staircase led down to the floor below.

Lucas took it in for a minute, then the St. Paul cop looked up. "Ah, thank God. The Minneapolis cops. We were just about to call for help."

"We heard you had a murder, and thought you probably needed some advice on how to handle it," Lucas said.

"We certainly would. What would you advise?"

"Get your PR guy out of bed and get his ass over here," Lucas said. "In about one hour, you're gonna be up to your knees in CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and every goddamn channel that's got initials."

"Yeah." Allport scratched behind his ear with the pencil point Then he turned and looked at a cop. "Get the chief on the line."

"So what happened?" Lucas asked.

Allport spread his hands over the body. "They just had this big Alie'e spread inThe Star have you seen it?"

"Yeah. Sexy."

"You see the boner on that guy?"

"Yeah. So what happened here?"

"I'll tell you what, if I had a dick like that, I sure as shit wouldn't be a welder Anyway, everybodywas screaming for pictures. That's what Plain's assistant says. They were sending them out by phoneI don't know how, exactly."

"So"

"So the assistant was here until four-thirty, and then they decided to break. He said Plain wanted to take a shower, and they needed some food. It was too early for any regular store to be open and they didn't like any of the all-night restaurants, so the assistant drove over to White Bear Avenue. There's an all-night supermarket"

"Where all the cops hang out."

"Used to, when they had the all-night restaurant. Anyway, he bought some rolls and fruit and shredded wheat and a carton of milk and some bottled water." His pencil dipped toward the bag on the floor. "When he came back, he let himself in downstairs, because he thought Plain might still be in the shower, and then he came up the stairs and he found this."

"He dropped the bag?"

"Yup."

"Got a cash-register receipt?" Lucas asked.

"Yup. And the time of the receipt says four-fifty-four. Already worked it out, and it fits."

"You believe him?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"Because he was freaked out in a way that's hard to fake. Because we had an off-duty cop working at the supermarket who saw the assistant checking the food through, and she said he was mellow enough to bullshit both the cashierand the cop."

"Shit."

"I sorta thought the same thing, until it occurred to me that I'll probably get a lot of airtime outa this."

The cop that Allport had sent to the make the phone call came back with a cell phone and handed it to him. "Chief," he said.

Allport took the phone and said, "I got Lucas Davenport here. He says we're gonna need some heavy PR bullshit here, and right away. Yeah. Yeah here he is." He handed the phone to Lucas.

"You working up a new handload?" Lucas asked, when he took the phone.

"Well, uh, not at the moment. Why?"

"All the stray dogs have been disappearing from the neighborhood," Lucas said.

"Yeah, bullshit, Davenport. Listen, how bad's this gonna be?"

"Can't tell. All depends on how you handle itthe movie people are like flies over in Minneapolis right now, and you can bet your ass they'll be over here as soon as the word leaks. I'd be surprised if you got more than an hour. If I were you, I'd get the mayor in and get him briefed, so he doesn't say anything stupid. And I'd talk to Rose Marie. Get her to ship our PR guy here, to brief you on our case If you sound half bright and on top of all the questions, you'll be okay. For now."

"Until we catch the killer. You guys getting anything over there?"

"No."

"Then spend some time with Allport. If you aren't doing any good over there, maybe something'll catch your eye over here."

When he got off the phone, Lucas went back to the body, squatting as close as he could get without disturbing the puddle of blood. All he could see was the red stain in the middle of Plain's back. An exit wound, he thought; but the cloth was too soaked to show a hole. Lucas looked around the room. "You find a bullet hole anywhere?"

"Yeah. The problem is, the whole place is poured concrete. There's a big goddamn dent in the wall over there." He pointed, and Lucas saw the gray pit. "The slug went somewhere else. I wouldn't be surprised if it more or less evaporated. Hit the wall straight-on."

"When are you gonna roll him over?" he asked.

"We'reready." Allport nodded to an assistant medical examiner, who was sitting on a chair in the kitchen, reading a comic book. "But our photo guy is checking what he got on filmwe don't want any mistakes on this."

"So how lone?"

"He's been out of here for half an hour, so it should be anytime."

"Where's Plain's assistant?" Lucas asked.

"Down in the studio."

"Mind if I chat with him?"

"Go ahead. I'll call you when we roll him."

The studio consisted of five roomsone big open space with pull-down paper rolls mounted on the walls; a smaller room full of strange-looking tables with curved milky-white plastic tops; a small room with a group of hooded lights and a half-dozen chairs of different kinds, apparently a portrait studio; an office and storage space; and an entry.

Lucas found James Graf in the office. He was dressed in a black turtleneck and black slacks, and had a thin black beard. He looked, Lucas thought, like a picture of one of the old-time beatniks. Graf was lying on a couch, an arm thrown over his eyes. Lucas dragged a director's chair across the floor and sat down next to the couch. Graf lifted his head and looked wordlessly at Lucas. He'd been crying, Lucas thought.

"Did you see or hear anybody outside the studio or the apartment when you left for the grocery store?"

"I already talked."

"I'm from Minneapolis. I'm working on the Alie'e murder," Lucas said. "I just have a couple of questions. Did you see or hear anybody?"

"I didn't see anyone, but we heard people from time to time, when we were working. There'salways somebody around," Graf said. "People here work all night sometimes. They're always out wandering around in the hallways."

"But you didn'tsee anybody."

"No, but I did recognize one voice. Joyce, I don't know her last name, she's an artist, down the hall. I heard her yelling, and running in the hall. Laughing. This was a few minutes before I went out. I told the St. Paul police."

"How about cars in the parking lot?"

Graf dropped his head back, refocused on the ceiling, thinking, then shook his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't notice anything unusual. We did have a wrong-number phone call about two o'clock, which was pretty unusual, but I told St. Paul and they're checking."

"This artist, Joyce, was wandering around. For what?"

"I don't know." Graf pushed himself up on the couch. "But you know, she was downhere. He was killed upstairs, and to get upstairs, you have to go all the way to the middle of the building and take the elevator or the public stairs. Unless you take a fire escape. So if he was waiting up there, she probably wouldn't have seen him."