The crowd was getting ever larger, and uniformed cops were having difficulty keeping it contained. A tall, skinny cop near the front used his nightstick as a probe to move a man back, but the man brushed it aside and pushed forward.

“I will go to jail first!” Adelaide screamed. “I mean it! I pledge that I will go to jail!”

“We got rights!” a woman in the crowd screamed.

“And sometimes we have to fight for them!” Adelaide responded. The crowd roared its agreement. She set her jaw and gave them her left profile. Cute as a feisty twelve-year-old, only with a grown woman’s sexuality. “This is one of those times.” She raised her dainty fist high above her head, as she had when she auditioned for Les Miz.

The half dozen men Barry had hired began chanting, “Adelaide! Adelaide! Adelaide!” The crowd joined in, many of them pumping their fists in the air. At a subtle signal from Barry, his hirelings pushed forward, knocking over a police barricade. The crowd followed, surging toward City Hall.

The cops moved fast, but they’d been taken by surprise and there weren’t enough of them. A line had been crossed, an invisible switch thrown. Suddenly the crowd became a mob. It was held back only a few seconds before it surged forward, knocking over some of the media, sending equipment smashing to the ground.

“Holy shit!” Adelaide thought.

“Barry!” She began calling for Barry, but in the maelstrom of motion and shouting no one heard her. “Barry!”

Adelaide could count crowds, and she estimated that at least five hundred frenetic people were charging toward her. A uniformed cop was on the ground and couldn’t climb back to his feet. He scooted backward, his soles scraping on the pavement, then he was lost from sight in the rush of humanity. That really scared her.

“Barry!”

She saw Barry emerge from the left side of the crowd and start toward her. His face was flushed an improbably bright red and he looked out of breath. He staggered, went down, and disappeared.

God! Barry, don’t have a heart attack, please!

Adelaide began backing up the steps, afraid to turn away from the crowd, almost falling as her heel caught. She realized her face was frozen in a meaningless smile that masked near panic.

The blue of a police uniform appeared in the corner of her vision, then another. More and more cops were on the steps. Some of them had long, curved shields as well as nightsticks and were forming a kind of line that was meant to hold back the crowd.

Adelaide turned and saw uniformed cops streaming out of City Hall and down the steps. It was like the cavalry coming to her rescue in an old Technicolor western. And she was overjoyed to see them. She whirled and ran toward her rescuers with her arms spread wide, dropping her crumpled jury summons. A big cop who looked like a young Gary Cooper was gazing deadpan at her. She veered toward him.

She fell sobbing into his arms.

“Arrest me!” she gasped. “Arrest me, please!”

They didn’t arrest Adelaide, didn’t charge her for inciting a riot, maybe because Barry and his—her—lawyers almost came right out and dared them to. Or maybe she was simply too cute to arrest.

But they did take her into protective custody, and she spent the night by herself in a tiny, smelly holding cell. The bed was hard as a plank, and it was impossible for her to sleep. The place was noisy, too. There were voices she couldn’t understand because of the way they echoed, and someone was snoring not far away. Now and then people came by to look in at her. Most of them were in uniform. They didn’t say anything, only looked.

But there was something in their expressions that Adelaide recognized, a kind of reserved awe. Only a few other times had people looked at her that way, the way they looked at real celebrities they knew were beyond their reach and envied. At stars.

In the morning, they drove her home under police escort. Some of the people on the sidewalk seemed to recognize Adelaide and waved. As the lead cruiser she was in slowed to take a corner, a woman began hopping up and down, mouthing her name. Ad-e-laide, Ad-e-laide. Three of the cops asked for her autograph, and she smilingly obliged and asked how the siren worked.

Her attorneys told her that next week, when she was due to appear in court in answer to her jury summons and wouldn’t be present, the police would issue a warrant for her arrest. She shouldn’t be alarmed. It was according to plan.

Scared as she was, she was also excited. She was sure, as she had been all along, that Barry was an absolute genius and one of the truly sweet men in her life.

Marge trusted Manfred Byrd enough to lend him a key to her apartment. That always seemed to Manfred to be the Rubicon, marking a client’s complete faith in him, the equating of decorator talent with honesty. A man less honest would take advantage of Marge.

She was having lunch with a friend, she’d told him, to discuss some sort of charitable contribution, and would meet him immediately afterward. Manfred thought it interesting that a woman could become suddenly very rich and give some of it away to those less fortunate. He didn’t completely understand the impulse, but he found it commendable.

Apparently her lunch had run later than anticipated. It was past two o’clock and he was alone in the unfurnished living room of her apartment. No matter. He could take the measurements he needed without her. He’d already decided that the sofa she chose would go well with the slightly burnt umber tint to the previously dead white walls. When he was finished, the room would be much warmer, and with a sense of order and stability, which was what Marge wanted.

Manfred took off his gray silk sport jacket, carefully folded it lining out, and laid it on the carpet. Then he removed his tape measure from his briefcase on the floor and prepared to go to work.

He was headed for the corner where the tall étagère was going to be, when a slight sound made him turn.

And there was a man with a gun.

Guns were not part of Manfred’s universe. All he could manage to say was, “Huh?”

There was something bulky on the gun’s barrel, and while Manfred knew next to nothing about firearms, he recognized it as a silencer. It was all he could stare at as the man moved toward him.

The gun didn’t waver as the man said, “Slip your jacket back on.”

Manfred quickly did as he was told, so hurriedly he might have heard a seam rip in the silk fabric. Dreadful sound.

“Now go out on the balcony,” said the very calm voice behind the gun. It might have been an invitation to step outside and admire the breathtaking view.

“No. You’re—”

“Outside!”

Manfred turned his back on the gunman, opened the French doors to the balcony, and reluctantly stepped outside. Though the day was calm, at this height there was a steady breeze. He couldn’t help but notice that fear was making his movements stiff. At the same time, there was an unreality about all of this.

He was shoved roughly from behind, stumbled forward, and caught himself on the waist-high iron railing just in time to keep from tumbling out into space. He gasped and began to turn around. He was dizzy, terrified.

The rudeness! This really shouldn’t be happening!

He was only halfway around when he was shoved again. This time he felt his right ankle grasped and lifted, and his perspiring hand slipped off the railing.

Along with the momentum of the shove, it was enough to tip the balance.

Manfred Byrd was airborne and for several seconds too astounded to be simultaneously frightened.

It’s all so fast!

Ten floors down he began to scream.