"How's that?" Mallard asked.

"I don't think any of the other phones will be this thoroughly wiped," he said. "Looks like she sprayed it with Windex."

AN HOUR AFTER they arrived, now convinced that they were wasting their time, Lucas bought a purple-flavored Popsicle, took Malone aside, recited the Rinker conversation as close to word-for-word as he could, through the crumbling bits of faux-grape ice, and said, "I want to talk to Gene. Maybe Clara's got some other reason for trying to push us away from him."

"We've got some pretty good guys talking to him," Malone said.

"I know, I know. I just want to chat with him. See what he has to say. Look him over."

"Can I come?"

"You can listen if you want, but I'd rather you not be inside with me. I'm looking for a nonfederal vibe."

She thought about it for a second, then said, "Okay."

"I want to bring another guy to listen. Old-cop type."

"Your friend Del?" She'd met Del in Minneapolis.

"No. A guy from down here. Old buddy, he's got a good ear. Maybe he could pick up something local, if Gene knows anything local. A hint, a little… anything." He looked around, finished with the Popsicle. "Where do I throw the sticks?"

She said, "No. Not the floor." Then: "I'll set it up for this afternoon. It's getting late, so it'll have to be soon. The Gene thing."

"What about Levy? You were all set to walk in on him."

"We're still go on that," she said. "We'll take him home, and when he gets there, we'll knock on the door."

THEY TOOK AN HOUR to get organized, get in touch with Andreno, and make it to Clayton, where Gene Rinker was being held in a rented cell at the county lockup. "I thought it was better from a security point of view, given Clara's style, to hold him here," Malone said, as they went up in the elevator. "We're not moving him in and out of an obvious spot when we want to talk to him."

Andreno, who'd been waiting for them in the parking lot, said, "So, you guys been working day and night on this thing? Round the clock?"

Malone glanced at him. Andreno had changed to a lush gray double-breasted chalk-striped suit that he'd apparently bought from Mafia Tailors. "Pretty much," she said. "We have more than fifty agents in the field right now."

"Got some great Italian restaurants in this town," he said.

Lucas shook his head. "She already has romantic entanglements," he said.

Andreno worked his eyebrows. "Yet another reason she might want to try the local rigatoni."

Malone looked troubled, and turned to Lucas: "He's not even a very good Sheetrocker. I realized that last night."

Andreno was puzzled: "A Sheetrocker?"

"The bottom line is, her heart belongs to another," Lucas said. "We're just trying to identify him."

Andreno shook his head. "If…"

"Ask me later," Lucas said to Andreno. "We'll get a cup of coffee and talk about feelings."

"Fuck you," Malone said, but she didn't say it in a mean way.

The elevator bell dinged, the doors opened, and they got out.

GENE RINKER WAS already in the interview room. Malone hung back, while a jailer let Lucas and Andreno into the room. The jailer gave Rinker the be good look, and shut the door.

Rinker sat wordlessly as Lucas and Andreno settled in. Rinker was an inch sort of six feet, and slender, but not thin: unhealthy, as though he ate bad food, his face so weathered that it actually seemed to be pitted with grains of sand. His hands were rough, as weathered as his face, slack in his lap; the roughness made them dark, but the first two fingers of his right hand were nicotine-stained. His hair was limp, dishwater blond, and fell lifelessly to his slumping shoulders. He wore a gray T-shirt and jeans a size too big, with white gym shoes-the clothing appeared to have been given to him by somebody who'd guessed at sizes. He didn't look straight at either Lucas or Andreno.

If Lucas had seen him on the street, he would have thought, Loser, a throwaway kid, a street kid, probably did a little dope, probably stole a little, probably too unsure of himself to go violent. As Lucas and Andreno sat down, he rubbed one finger between his eyes, nervous, then dropped his hands back to his lap.

"We're not feds," Lucas started. "I'm a cop from Minneapolis, this other guy's a cop from St. Louis… I've actually talked to your sister a couple of times. Talked to her yesterday."

Rinker was skeptical, but too scared to say anything. Lucas grinned at him. "You would've liked it. She called me in the FBI building, right in the middle of a meeting, and told me to get the feds off of you. There were FBI agents running around like chickens. We figured out where she called from, but by the time we got there, she was gone."

Rinker nodded, cleared his throat. "Good," he ventured.

"Listen, son, the feds only got one handle on Clara, and you're it, and they're pissed," Andreno said. "They're gonna stuff you in a drawer someplace if we don't catch her pretty soon, and you're not gonna like it. They got some tough goddamn prisons in the federal system." He was using his sincere voice, and it came off. He sounded absolutely paternal, Lucas thought.

"Catching Clara would be the best thing for everybody," Lucas said. "I know you don't want to hurt your sister."

"Not gonna hurt her," Rinker said.

"That's good, that's family feeling. I'm Italian, and we got that feeling," Andreno said. "The problem is, Clara's gonna get hurt. There's no way around it. The feds are gonna hunt her down, and they're probably gonna kill her. If we could get her off the street… I mean, hell, she has to have a trial and everything."

A spark of intelligence showed in Rinker's eyes: "They're gonna put her to sleep anyway, no matter what you say," he said. "One way she's free, and maybe she'll get away. If you get her in jail, they're just gonna put her to sleep. Better to get shot than that, having to wait around in a place like this"-he flipped one hand at the sterile room-"and then have somebody tie you to a table and put a thing in your arm."

"Maybe, but maybe not," Lucas said. "But I'll tell you this: She's not only hurting herself, and you, she's hurting her friends. She's crashing someplace around here, with one of her friends, and whoever that is… she's just as guilty now as Clara is. She's taking her friends down with her. Does that sound right?" He put a little authority into it, and watched Rinker's wavering intelligence crawl back in a hole.

Rinker mumbled, "I guess not," and he looked at his hands.

"Do you know her friends here?" Andreno asked.

Rinker said nothing at all, didn't seem to have heard the question. His eyes flattened, he seemed even slacker in the shoulders, as though his mind had slipped away.

Andreno repeated himself: "Do you know her friends?"

Rinker stayed away for another few seconds, then his eyes focused and he pulled himself out of wherever he'd gone. He shook his head. "She never said nothing about friends around here. I didn't know anything about St. Louis. I took off for Los Angeles as soon as I was old enough." He stopped, catching himself.

Lucas pushed: "Then where were her friends? She must have had friends back home somewhere."

"Maybe," Rinker conceded. He licked his lips. "I wouldn't know nothin' about that. She was older'n me."

They worked on him for another fifteen minutes, but nothing came out of it. He was not only a thrown-away kid, Lucas realized; he did have some mental deficit, or otherness. He slipped away when they pressed him, and only reluctantly came back.

When they ran out of questions, Lucas and Andreno sighed simultaneously, and Lucas said, "Well, hell," and Andreno said, "Wish we could help you, son. These goddamn feds… they can be real assholes."

"I gotta get out of here," Rinker said, struggling to come alive. "I got all my stuff back in L.A. If I don't get back, Larry or Jane is gonna find it and they'll just flat sell it. They'll sell it first chance they get. Got some good stuff, there. Got a suit. Got a radio."