“Raison d’etre,” Nola said.

“Very impressive.” Beam wasn’t kidding. “She says we symbolize the system he’s acting out against, so he wants to keep us alive.”

“As symbols.”

“Yeah.”

“There are other symbols, like Adelaide Starr.”

“The killer wants her alive, too” Beam said. “She’s practically become his biggest asset. Helen says Adelaide’s adding to the killer’s celebrity and feeding his delusions. Besides, she’s so cute, who could kill her?”

“Helen could be wrong about all that symbolism and its value to the killer,” Nola said, “in whatever language.”

“Da Vinci doesn’t think so. Sometimes he says he does, but he doesn’t. Not really. She’s having more and more of an influence on him.”

“You think they might be in love?”

“Might,” Beam said.

Beam had lunch the next day with Cassie at a recently opened restaurant called Mambo, near the vast concrete and marble indoor park in the financial district. There were a lot of new businesses and new construction in this part of town, the city still coming back strong from the 9-11 horror. New York, the city that never sleeps and never surrenders. The city of scars with yet another.

Artificial potted palms flanked the restaurant’s canopied entrance. It had a dance motif, life-size silhouetted figures on the walls doing what looked to Beam more like tango than mambo. There were more potted palms inside, lots of ferns, and soft background music that sounded like samba.

The food couldn’t make up its mind what it was, either, though the menu was in Spanish. It wasn’t bad, just not as good as one of Cassie’s homemade dinners. And who was Beam to assume that Irish potatoes weren’t eaten south of the border?

“Been a while since we’ve seen each other,” said Beam’s sister.

“As you might guess, I’ve been busy into the evenings.” With Nola. Missing Cassie’s cooking so I could be with Nola. Twisting back and forth between man’s two essentials: food and women. Beam knew that if Cassie or Nola could somehow know the thought had entered his mind, they might seriously injure him.

“Nola,” Cassie said, pausing before taking a bite of something supposedly Latin.

Beam actually felt himself blush. He’d forgotten how preternaturally insightful Cassie could be. From the time they were children, she’d occasionally astounded him.

“She’s forgiven me,” he said.

“Wonderful,” Cassie said, inserting food in her mouth and smiling simultaneously. She’d said it as if she knew everything Nola’s forgiveness entailed, and she probably did know.

“How’s the investigation going?” she asked. Seeing that Beam was surprised by the abrupt question, she added, “I was sure you wanted to change the subject.”

He laughed. “You should play poker for a living.”

“It would bore me.”

He brought her up to date on the hunt for the Justice Killer. As he talked, her expression changed from intensely interested to concerned.

“So Looper thinks the killer might be a woman,” she said. “He didn’t strike me as such an independent thinker.”

“He’s real independent on that one,” Beam said. “Nobody agrees with him.”

“You don’t think it’s possible the killer’s a woman?”

“Possible. Sure. In the way that just about anything’s possible. But what we know about serial killers suggests it’s highly unlikely. Which camp are you in?”

“Not Looper’s,” Cassie said. “I don’t see the Justice Killer as female.”

“It’s nice to have my opinions confirmed,” Beam said.

“Shored up, anyway,” Cassie said.

Beam recalled how she’d almost always won every game she played as a kid. How she consistently beat the other kids at guessing where someone would move a checker, which sweaty little clenched fist held the coin, which was the short straw, which cards would turn up.

“Maybe you really should play poker,” he said. “It’s only a game, but these days there’s big money in it to go with the risk.”

“Life’s only a game, and it contains all the risk we need.”

Beam raised his water glass and drank to that.

After the waiter brought them coffee, and bread pudding (was that a Latin dish?) for dessert, Cassie said, “You need to be careful.”

“Of the bread pudding?”

“I’m serious.”

“You think something bad is about to happen?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I have no idea, bro. I’d tell you if I could. I’m not God.”

“You’re his messenger,” Beam said.

“Trouble is,” Cassie told him, “the message is always in code.”

Despite the ordinariness of the rest of the food, the bread pudding was delicious. Better than Cassie’s. Who would have guessed?

The next morning the Times ran a feature about Adelaide Starr being mistreated in jail. Beam sliced, toasted, and buttered a poppy seed bagel for breakfast, then poured a cup of coffee and sat at his kitchen table with the paper. He chewed, sipped, read.

Adelaide was a pest, but she sure had charisma, not to mention chutzpah. She was awaiting trial, like many of the other prisoners in the Bayview women’s correctional facility, but her treatment was actually better. The food she complained was causing her to waste away was the same as the other prisoners’, but because of her special status, she had a private cell. Under media pressure, she’d even been supplied with an electric typewriter. A hardship, she proclaimed, because she didn’t know how to type. Why couldn’t she have a computer she could talk to, like other writers? Or a tape recorder, so she could express her thoughts more completely to her editor, who had to type a lot of Adelaide’s story herself, from interview notes and memory? The truth was getting lost here, Adelaide said. The truth was a victim again. And the place where they held her was noisy. It was heck for a creative person. How could she possibly write with such distractions?

On its editorial page, the Times suggested that Adelaide might be confined to a hotel room and wear an electronic anklet. Beam had to smile.

After breakfast, he went into the living room and switched on the TV, and there was Adelaide, being interviewed in her cell by a blond woman he recognized from local cable television.

Adelaide had apparently gotten permission to wear a frilly blouse, and dangling pearl earrings. Her bright red hair looked professionally mussed. She didn’t appear to Beam in any way malnourished.

She twisted her lipsticked mouth into a sexy moue, her head cocked to the side, listening intently to her interviewer’s questions.

I—Do you think justice is in any way being served by your confinement, Adelaide?

A—Oh, not at all. There’s justice on both sides of the law. I think we’ve all learned that.

I—Could you explain that statement?

A—I mean, look at the statistics I saw in the papers. Since the Justice Killer has come to our city, it’s become much safer. Women and majorities no longer have to fear for their lives every day.

I—You mean women and minorities?

A—Them, too. (Big smile.) I love everybody!

I—Do you even have love for the Justice Killer?

A—In a way, yes I do. I was taught as a child to hate the sin and love the singer.

I—“Sinner,” you mean?

A—Of course. I’m sorry. (Sheepish grin. Cute.) I guess I’ve been in too many musicals.

I—Then you hate what the Justice Killer is doing, but for the killer himself, you do harbor some compassion?.

A—(Huge grin. Toss of hair. Darling.) I try, I really do, but I can’t hate anyone.

I—How’s the book coming?

A—Of course, it’s a struggle. But I—

Beam had had enough. He aimed the remote like a gun and switched off the TV. The silence and blank screen were an immediate relief.

Some world, especially the New York part of it.