He heard a man shout. The sound had the tone of an insult. Briefly someone's head became visible over the top of a car parked about fifty yards away. The voice again, screaming insults. A second figure appeared, moving toward the car.

Lomax sucked in his breath and removed the automatic from his waistband holster. He put his left hand on the door handle, ready to push it open if necessary. It was possible his silhouette could be detected in the very dim light cast by a streetlamp not far away. He remained motionless for several minutes. Some more screaming. No one else around. The old city. The abandoned core.

The second figure moved off, toward the warehouse. Lomax opened the door of the shack. There was a gunshot. He moved quickly to the nearest car, crouching down behind it. Someone passed within twenty yards of him, moving quickly, a man, head down, as if he were walking into a stiff wind. Lomax looked over the trunk of the car. Someone was walking in the opposite direction, slowly. Also male. He disappeared behind the freight car.

Lomax stayed where he was for three full minutes, listening. Then he headed toward the car where the shooting had taken place. He held his gun against his thigh. That arm he kept stiff, not swinging naturally as the other arm was. He saw himself leaving the scene. A jump in time. He saw himself getting off a plane at National in Washington. He saw himself selling condominiums on the Gulf Coast.

Both doors were open. On the ground on the driver's side was a man, breathing deeply. Lomax crouched five feet away, his gun directed at the man's head.

"Who are you?"

The same worried breathing. The deadweight respiration of a deep sleeper.

"Who are you?" Lomax said.

"Fuck off. I'm hit."

"I know you're hit."

"The slug's in my throat. I feel something."

Lomax leaned to his right for a better look. The man had been shot on the left side of the face, below the cheekbone. With the doors open, the car's interior light had come on and Lomax could see powder burns rimming the hole in the man's cheek. There was blood all over his mouth.

"What's your name? Who are you?"

"Mind your own business. Let me breathe."

"I can get you an ambulance. Would you like that?"

"If I start choking, put your finger down my throat. I'd appreciate your doing that. I hate that feeling of choking. I fucking dread it."

"No promises," Lomax said, "unless you tell me who you are."

"I'm Sherman Kantrowitz."

"Who are you, Sherman? Who were those other people?"

"I'm the son of Sophie and Nat."

"Who were those people?"

The same uneven deep breathing. The search for a rhythm.

"Who do you work for, Sherman?"

"I want to swallow but I'm afraid."

Lomax saw himself playing eighteen holes a day. The sun is shining. There's a sweet breeze from the Gulf.

Tran Le.

The fields were tawny and sparse. Three-quarters of the wheel and more. Winter's pure alcohol in the air.

Tran Le standing by the window.

Her eyes were large and dark and had a special dimension inward, an element of contriteness, as of a child always on the verge of being punished. Without this softening depth, her face might have had too much contour. The lines of her cheekbones and jaw were strong and exact, and she had a full mouth, wide and silver-pink and sensual, and a little greedy in a certain light, a little coarse. Again a counterpoise. It mocked the childlike eyes.

She moved from window to window now. Small lamps swung on the patio. A cane chair stood beneath a tree. The end of a red canoe jutted from one of the stables. She crossed to the other side of the room. Leaves turned slowly in the pond. The scarlet runner hung over the edge of a small shed. It was quiet, minutes till sundown, a tinted light in the fields. She watched the ponies graze.

5

It took the cabdriver about sixty seconds to write out a receipt. Moll watched a pair of dog-walkers stop near the curb to give their pets a chance to sniff each other. Cute. She took the receipt and went up the stairs to the front door of the brownstone.

In the vestibule she rang the bell and waited for Grace Delaney to buzz her in. Nothing happened. She rang again. It was after eleven but this was Monday and Grace always stayed until midnight, or later, on Mondays.

Moll had a set of keys. Before opening the door, she peered through the glass panel, her view obscured by the crosshatched metal grating on the other side of the pane of glass.

She entered the building and started climbing to the third floor. She walked with her head twisted to the left and angled upward so that she might see ahead to the landing and the next bend in the staircase.

Both doors on the third floor were locked. She climbed the final flight. Two keys to the door of the outer office. On the second try she fitted each to its respective lock. Only one lock had been fastened.

All the lights were on. She entered hesitantly, calling Grace's name. She walked through the outer area into Grace's office. The usual clutter. Proofs, correspondence, photographs. A bottle of hand lotion on the coffee table. A paper cup nearly filled with vegetable soup.

She stood in the middle of the room, feeling a dim presentiment. Something about to happen. Someone about to appear. She picked up the phone and dialed Grace's home number, if only to break the mood. A recording came on, overamplified and dense: "_This is Grace Delaney. I'm not here right now. No one is here. At the beeping sound, leave your name and number-_"

Of course. Nobody is where they should be. Moll realized how wrong she'd been to feel apprehensive. The action was elsewhere, and included everyone but her. By refusing sexual alliance with Earl Mudger, she'd sealed herself off from the others. That was the effect, intended or not. There was no danger here. No one watched or listened any longer. Security. Why did it feel so disappointing?

She fastened both locks and walked slowly down the stairs and out of the building.

Grace Delaney sat near the immense Victorian birdcage in the lobby of the Barclay, off Park Avenue. She checked her watch several times and eventually walked over to one of the house phones. A man answered.

"I'm checking the vent in the bathroom."

"First you get me here," Grace said. "Then you make me wait."

"I'm in the middle of checking the vent."

"I'm coming up."

"We want to be sure the room's lily white. Don't we want that?"

"We want that."

"Of course we do," he said.

Fifteen minutes later she got off the elevator at 12. The room was located along the main corridor. Lomax let her in. The curtains were drawn. Only one light was on-a small table lamp-and he'd placed it on the floor, apparently to make the lighting as indirect as possible. He helped her off with her coat and hung it in the closet.

"That dress is a winner."

"Second-string," she said. "A relic."

"You know how to wear clothes. Clothes hang well on you. You have a sense of what looks good."

He sat on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes.

"You're a New York woman," he said. "A classic type."

"Shut up, Arthur, will you?"

"No, really, in the best sense."

She took off her dress and put it over a chair.

"I never thought I'd end up in bed with a man who wears Clark's Wallabees."

"I don't wear them in bed."

"At least they're not Hush Puppies," she said. "Good Christ, think of it."

Lomax stood up to get out of his pants.

"What's wrong with Clark's Wallabees? They're a damn good shoe."

A pair of chambermaids talked and laughed as they walked past the door.

"What about some room service, Gracie? Scotch, bourbon? This is Scotch weather. This is the season."