They were standing in a small reception room, with three easy chairs and a coffee table. The coffee table had three deer-hunting magazines, a four-wheeler magazine, a battered copy of The New Yorker, and sales literature for automated meat cutters.

Culver came out of the back, said "Hi, sweetie" to Barstad and "Dave Culver" to Lucas. Lucas shook his hand and introduced himself, and outlined what they hoped to do.

"Is Miss Crazy Quilt gonna get her ass in trouble?" Culver asked.

"That's why we need to be close," Lucas said. "We don't think he'll pull anything, but just in case…"

"All right," Culver said. "My only other problem is, I don't want to be dealing with some gang or something that's gonna be coming by here afterward and tear up the place. I've got a quarter-million bucks' worth of new equipment in the back."

"It's one guy," Lucas said. "He's not connected to anyone. If we take him off, he won't be out of Stillwater for thirty years minimum."

Culver nodded. "So, use the place. You got any friends in the restaurant business, give them my card."

CULVER'S SHOP WAS divided into three: a front reception area with the coffee table, only a few feet deep; two offices behind the reception area; and a big warehouse area behind that. Gibson looked at it, measured it, walked over to Barstad's, did some more measuring, and wound up in one of the middle offices. "I can go right through the wall here, and here, no permanent damage," he told Culver. "Is that okay?"

"Fine with me… Get some of my stuff out of your way."

"How good will the sound be?" Lucas asked.

"Should be great," Gibson said. "When I get done miking the place a goddamn cockroach couldn't sneak through on its hands and knees. We won't need any transmitters-we can hard-wire everything. Digital sound. You want a camera?"

"I don't know. Is there a problem with a camera?" Lucas asked.

"It's a little more intrusive," Gibson said. "I think we could fix it so he couldn't see it-in the big room, anyway; there's no good place in the bedroom or the bathroom-but there's always the chance that he'll spot it. If the camera can see him, he can see it. The lens, anyway."

"See what you can do," Lucas said.

"There's also a privacy question," Gibson said.

Barstad was there, and said, "What's that?"

"If you are… luring him… and if you've slept together, then he may expect some physical contact. Sound is one thing, pictures are something else."

She shook her head. "Go ahead. I'm not body-shy."

They both looked at her. Lucas shook his head and said to Gibson, "Whatever you can do."

When they were done, and the equipment had tested out, Lucas looked at his watch and said, "We're all done for the day. Jim, if you'd drop Ellen off at the hotel on the way back, I'd appreciate it. We all gotta be back here, in place, at noon tomorrow. Ellen, you and I can talk about your approach to Qatar when we're back here tomorrow-think of some possible things you might say, and I'll think of some, and we'll work it out tomorrow. Okay? Everybody know what we're doing?"

Everybody knew.

LANE CALLED LATER, about Qatar: "I missed the sonofabitch-there're just too many doors here, and I don't know where the hell he's gotten to. He's not home. But I've seen him, I know who he is, and I'll wait outside his house. If he comes in too late, I'll get here early tomorrow. I'll get him tomorrow for sure."

"Soon as you can, man."

"I know, I know."

24

MARCY CALLED LUCAS at eight-thirty and caught him still in bed. He picked up the phone and said, "What?"

"The docs had a talk with Randy late yesterday afternoon," she said. "They told him he might not walk again and all the rest of it. He freaked out. I called over there today, to this Robert Lansing guy, to set up a rush-rush deal to get the photos over there when Lane gets them… and Lansing says it's all off for now. He said Randy won't talk to anyone-he won't even talk to Lansing. He screams at everybody who comes in the room. He ripped out all his IVs-the nurses had to tie him into the bed."

"Jesus."

"Well, you know, if it was one of us…"

"Yeah." If it was him, Lucas thought, he might sooner or later stick a gun in his mouth. "What about Lane? Do we have anything to work with?"

"Not yet. We're still on hold. He got Qatar in the parking lot, but just couldn't get around in front of him enough. The whole problem is getting in front of him. He's gonna sit on the car all day, and get him coming in."

"Goddamnit, Marcy. Tell him to push it," Lucas said.

"Even if he takes a chance on being seen?"

"No, no, no… He can't be seen. That'd mess up everything."

"Then you gotta be patient, Lucas," she said.

"No, I don't. I'm the fuckin' boss."

QATAR WAS SITTING at his desk, trying to get through a deck of photographic slides he used in lecture. He didn't like to use more than twenty per class-they couldn't be absorbed, he felt, and forced him to rush the analyses; when all was said and done, he was a decent teacher-and they had to be arranged in a certain aesthetic order. He hated to have light, bright slides immediately before or after dark-colored slides. That was like serving heavy, strong-flavored food with light, delicate wine; you couldn't appreciate either one.

Beyond that, as a buzz in the back of his mind, lingered the fear created by the growing media spectacle of the gravedigger. The state forensics team was still working on his hillside, and there were daily alarms, later retracted, of more bodies. And speculations about the ogre who could have killed so many women. Two of the stations had paid retired FBI agents to profile the killer; the profiles were generally similar, with one of the agents specifying a "fastidious dresser" who would be as meticulous in his personal habits as he was in his graveyard.

All of this was humming in the background of his slide-sort, when the phone rang. He picked it up, thinking, Ellen, and it was.

"I'm back," she said. She seemed uncharacteristically breathless. "Did you get my message?"

"Yes. This afternoon would be fine. How much do you have for the wine?"

"A thousand. I sold a huge star quilt, the rippling light. I thought with a thousand, I could get a really good start."

"A fine start," Qatar said. "I'll bring my book and we can work through the list before we go."

"Listen… I don't want to give anything away, but… have you ever heard of sexual asphyxiation?"

"What?"

"I saw it in a movie last night. Some art film. A guy hanged himself-not completely, but enough to choke off the air-and when the police asked him about it, he said you have the most wonderful orgasms."

"Well… I've heard of it, but it sounds painful. I understands it's often done with silk neckties, but I think it might be dangerous. I mean, brain damage."

"Oh. But, if you were really careful…"

"Ellen, I don't know. Let's wait until I get over. We don't want to go too far."

"Okay. I'll see you this afternoon." Again, a little breathless. She must've been busy. "But, James… think about it."

He couldn't stop thinking about it. He kept thinking about it as he finished sorting, and developed an erection so intense that it was almost painful. He might have done something about it immediately, but for his class. And during his class…

One of the young virgins in his Matrix of Romanticism class was nearly perfect: blank, clueless blue eyes, fine slender body, punky blond hair. She would be perfect, he thought, except for her incessant gum-chewing, and the constant presence of an earphone in one ear. She even tried to listen to music during his class, until he questioned it. She unplugged, annoyed, and told him that she was only listening to background music for his lecture and the art. She always tried to find something appropriate.