And this means no sudden moves, no grabs for the purse.

  So what do we do?

  Wait for Carella? And what time will he be back? What time is it now?

  He looked up at the wall clock. 5:07.

  Still broad daylight outside-well, maybe a hint of dusk-but still a golden afternoon, really. Does anyone out there know we're playing footsie with a bottle of soup?

  No one, Byrnes thought. Not even meat headed Captain Frick. How do you set a fire under that man, how do you get the wall of bricks to fall on his head?

  How the hell do we get out of this mess?

  I wonder it she smokes, Byrnes thought.

  If she smokes ... Now wait a minute ... now, let's work this out sensibly. Let's say she smokes. Okay. Okay, we've got that much.

  Now.." if we can get her to put the purse on the desk, get it off her lap. That shouldn't be too hard ... Where's the purse now? ... Still in her lap ... Virginia Dodge's goddamn lap dog, a bottle of nitro .. Okay, let's say I can get her to put the purse on the desk, out of the way ... Then let's say I offer her a cigarette and then start to light it for her.

  If I drop the lighted match in her lap, she'll jump a mile.

  And when she jumps, I'll hit her.

  I'm not worried about that .38-well, I'm worried, who the hell wants to get shot but I'm not really worried about it so long as that soup is out of the way. I don't want to have a scuffle anywhere near that explosive. I've faced guns before, but intro is another kiling one uun want them blotting me off the wall.

  I wonder if she smokes.

  "How have you been, Virginia?" Byrnes asked.

  "You can cut it right now, Lieutenant."

  "Cut what?"

  "The sweet talk. I didn't come here to listen to any of your crap. I heard enough of that last time I was here."

  "That was a long time ago, Virginia."

  "Five years, three months, and seventeen days. That's how long ago it was."

  "We don't make the laws, Virginia," Byrnes said gently.

  "We only enforce them.

  And when a person breaks ..

  "I don't want a lecture. My husband is dead. Steve Carella sent him up. That's good enough for me."

  "Steve only arrested him. A jury tried him, and a judge sentenced him."

  "But Carella..

  "Virginia, you're forgetting something, aren't you?"

  "What?"

  "Your husband blinded a man."

  "That was an accident."

  "Your husband fired a gun at a man during a holdup and deprived that man of his eyesight. And he didn't fire the gun by accident."

  "He fired because the man began yelling cop. What would you have done?"

  "I wouldn't have been holding up a gas station to begin with."

  "No, huh? Big simon-pure Lieutenant Byrnes. I heard all about your junltie son, Lieutenant. The big shot cop with the drug addict son."

  "That was a long time ago, too, Virginia.

  My son is all right now."

  He could never think back to that time in his life without some pain. Oh, not as much as in the beginning, no, there would never again be that much pain for him, the pain of discovering that his only son was a tried and-true drug addict, hooked through the bag and back again. A drug addict possibly involved in a homicide. Those had been days of black pain for Peter Byrnes, days when he had withheld information from the men of his own squad, until finally he had told everything to Steve Carella. Carella had almost lost his life working on that case. It had been touch and go after he'd been shot, and no man ever had prayed the way Byrnes did for any other man's recovery.

  But it was all over now, except for the slight twinge of pain whenever he thought of it. The habit had been kicked, the household was in order. And now, Steve Carella, a man Byrnes almost considered as another son, had a rendezvous with a woman in black. And the woman in black spelled death.

  "I'm glad your son is all right now," Virginia said sarcastically.

  "My husband isn't. My husband is dead. And the way I read it, Carella killed him. Now let's cut the crap, shall we?"

  "I'd rather talk awhile."

  "Then talk to yourself. I'm not interested."

  Byrnes sat on the corner of the desk. Virginia shifted the purse in her lap, the revolver pointing into the opening.

  "Don't come any closer, Lieutenant. I'm warning you."

  "What are your plans, exactly, Virginia?"

  "I've already told you. When Carella gets here, I'm going to kill him. And then I'm going to leave. And if anyone tries to stop me, I drop the bag with the nitro."

  "Suppose I try to get that gun away from you right this minute?"

  "I wouldn't if I were you."

  "Suppose I tried?"

  "I'm banking on something, Lieutenant."

  "What's that?"

  "The fact that no man is really a hero. Whose life is more important to you-yours or Carella's? You make a try for the gun, and there's a chance the nitro will go off in your face.

  Your face, not his. All right, you'll have saved Carella. But you'll have-destroyed yourself."

  "Carella may mean a lot to me, Virginia. I might be willing to die for him."

  "Yeah? And how much does he mean to the other men in this room? Would they be willing to die for him, too? Or for the crumby salary they're getting from the city? Why don't you take a vote, Lieutenant, and find out how many of your men are ready to lay down their lives rig at now? Go ahead. Take a vote."

  He did not want to take a vote. He was not that familiar with courage or heroics.

  He knew that each of the men in the room had acted heroically and courageously on many an occasion. But bravery in action was a thing dictated by the demands of the moment. Faced with certain death, would these men be willing to take an impossible gamble? He was not sure. But he felt fairly certain that given the choice "Your life or Carella's?" they would most probably choose to let Carella die. Selfish?

  Perhaps.

  Inhuman? Perhaps. But life was not something you could walk into a dime store to buy again if you happened to use one up or wear it out. Life was a thing you clung to and cherished. And even knowing Carella as he did, even (and the word was hard coming for a man like Byrnes) loving Carella, he dared not ask himself the question "Your life or Carella's?" He was too afraid of the answer he might give.

  "How old are you, Virginia?"

  "What difference does it make?"

  "I'd like to know."

  "Thirty-two."

  Byrnes nodded.

  "I look older, don't I?"

  "A little."

  "A lot. You can thank Carella for that, too. Have you ever seen Castleview Prison, Lieutenant? Have you ever seen the place Carella sent my Frank to? It's for animals, not men. And I had to live alone, waiting, knowing what Frank was going through.

  How long do you think youth lasts? How long do you think good looks hang around when you've got sorrow and worry inside you like a... like a thing that's eating your guts?"

  "Castleview isn't the best prison in the world, but ..

  "It's a torture chamber!" Virginia shouted.

  "Have you ever been inside it? It's dirty, filthy. And hot, and cramped, and rusting. It smells, Lieutenant. You can smell it for blocks before you approach it. And they crowd men into that hot ifithy stench.

  Did my Frank cause trouble? Yes, of course he did. Frank was a man,

  not an animal-and he refused to be treated like an animal, and so they labeled him a troublemaker."

  "Well, you can't ..

  "Do you know you're not allowed to talk to anyone during work hours at Castleview? Do you know they still have buckets in each cell buckets-no toilet facilities! Do you know what the stink is like in those sufferingly hot cubicles?

  And my Frank was sick! Did Carella think about that, when he became a hero by arresting him?"

  "He wasn't thinking of becoming a hero. He was doing his job. Can't you understand that, Virginia? Carella is a cop. He was only doing his job."

  "And I'm doing mine," Virginia said flatly.

  "How? Do you know what you're carrying in your goddamn purse? Do you realize that it might go up in your face when you fire that gun?

  Nitroglycerin isn't toothpaste!"

  "I don~t care."

  "Thirty-two years old, and you're ready to kill a man and maybe take your own life in the bargain."

  "I don't care."

  "Talk sense, Virginia!"

  "I don't have to talic sense with you or anyone.

  I don't have to talk at all." Virginia moved violently, and the purse jiggled in her lap.

  "I'm doing you a goddamn favor by talking to you."

  "All right, relax," Byrnes said, nervously eyeing the purse.

  "Just relax, willya? Why don't you put that purse on the desk, huh?"

  "What for?"

  "You're bouncing around like a rubber ball. If you don't care about it going off, I do."

  Virginia smiled. Gingerly, she lifted the purse from her lap, and gingerly she placed it on the desk top before her, swinging the .38 around at the same time, as if .38 and nitroglycerin were newlyweds who couldn't bear to be parted for a moment.

  "That's better," Byrnes said, and he sighed in relief.

  "Relax. Don't get upset." He paused.

  "Why don't we have a smoke?"

  "I don't want one," Virginia said.

  Byrnes took a package of cigarettes from his pocket. Casually, he moved to her side of the desk, conscious of the .38 against the fabric of the purse. He gauged the distance between him sell and Virginia, gauged how close he would be to her when he lighted her cigarette, with which hand he should slug her so that she would not go flying over against the purse. Would her instant reaction to the dropped match be a tightening of her trigger finger? He did not think so. She would pull back. And then he would hit her.

  He shook a cigarette loose.

  "Here," he said "Have one."

  "Don't you smoke?"

  "I smoke. I don't feel like one now."

  "Come on. Nothing like a cigarette for relaxation.

  "Here."

  He thrust the package toward her.

  "Oh, all right," she said. She shifted the38 to her left hand. The muzzle of the gun was an inch from the bag. With her right hand, she took the cigarette Byrnes offered.

  Standing at her right, he figured he would extend the match with his left hand, let it fall into her lap, and then clip her with a roundhouse right when she pulled back in fright. Oddly, his heart was pounding furiously.

  Suppose the gun went off when she pulled back?

  He reached into his pocket for the matches. His hand was trembling. The cigarette dangled from Virginia's lips. Her left hand, holding the gun against the purse, was steady.

  Byrnes struck the match.

  And the telephone rang.

  CHAPTER 5

  VIRGINIA WHIPPED THE CIGARETTE FROM HER MOUTH

  and dropped it into the ash tray on her desk.

  She switched the gun back to her right hand and then whirled on Bert Kung who was moving to answer the telephone.

  "Hold it, sonny!" she snapped.

  "What line is that?"

  "Extension 31," Kung~answered.

  "Get away from this desk, Lieutenant," Virginia said. She gestured at him with the gun, and Byrnes backed away. Then, with her free hand, she pulled the telephone to her, studied its face for a moment, and then pushed a button in its base.

  "All right, answer it," she said, and she lifted her receiver the moment Kung did.

  "Eighty-seventh Squad, Detective King."

  He was very conscious of Virginia Dodge sitting at the next desk, the extension phone to her ear, the snout of the .38 pointed at the center of the big black purse.

  "Detective Kung? This is Marcie Snyder."

  "Who?"

  "Marcie." The voice paused.

  "Snyder."

  Intimately, it whispered.

  "Marcie Snyder.

  Don't you remember me, Detective Kung?"

  "Oh, yes. How are you, Miss Snyder?"

  "I'm just fine, thanks. And how's the big blond cop?"

  "I'm ... uh ... fine. Thanks."

  He looked across at Virginia Dodge. Her lips were pressed into a bloodless smile.

  She seemed sexless, genderless, sitting opposite him with the lethal38 pointed at the black hulk of the bag. And, in contrast to the thin shadow of death she presented, Marcie Snyder began to ooze life in bucketfuls. Marcie Snyder began to gyrate with her voice, undulate with her whispers so that Kung could visualize the nig reoneaci lying Oil a ~itai~ in a gossamer negligee, cuddling up to the ivory telephone in her hand.

  "It's nice talking to you again," she said.

  "You were in such a hurry last time you were here."

  "I had a date ~xith my fiancee," Kung said flatly.

  "Yes. I know. You told me. Repeatedly." She paused. Her voice dropped slightly.

  "You seemed nervous. What were you nervous about.

  Detective Kung?"

  "Get rid of her," Virginia Dodge whispered.

  "What?" Marcie said.

  "I didn't say anything," Kung answered.

  "I was sure I heard ..

  "No, I didn't say anything. I'm rather busy, Miss Snyder. How can I help you'?"

  Marcie Snyder laughed the dirtiest laugh Bert Kung had ever heard in his life. For a moment, he felt as if he were sixteen years old and entering a whorehouse on La Via de Putas. He almost blushed.

  "Come on," he said harshly.

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing. We've recovered the jewels."

  "Oh, yeah? How?"

  "It turns out they weren't burglarized at all. My sister took them with her when she went to Las Vegas."

  "Are you withdrawing the complaint then, Miss Snyder?"

  "Why, yes. If there was no burglary, what have I got to complain about?"

  "Nothing. I'm glad you located the jewels. If you'll drop us a letter to that effect, stating that your sister-" "Why don't you come by and pick it up, Detective Kung?"

  "I'd do that, Miss Snyder," Kung said, "but there's an awful lot of crime going on in this city, and I'm just about damn near indispensable.

  Thanks for calling. We'll be waiting for your letter."

  He hung up abruptly, and then turned away from the phone.

  "You're a regular lover boy, aren't you?"

  Virginia Dodge said, putting her receiver down.

  "Yeah, sure. A regular lover boy," Kung answered.

  He was, to be honest, embarrassed by the fact that Virginia had listened to Marcie Snyder's come-hither conversation. Bert Kung was twenty-five years old and not exactly adept at the sort of fencing Marcie Snyder did. He was a tall blond man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, his face bearing the clean stamp of milk and strawberries. He was, in a sense, handsome-but his good looks were overshadowed by the innocence with which he carried them. Kung was engaged to a girl named Claire Townsend, whom he'd been dating steadily for the past year. He really wasn't interested in Marcie Snyder or her sister, or the countless Marcie Snyders & Sisters to be found everywhere in the city. And so it annoyed him that Virginia Dodge might have thought he'd promoted this particular phone call. He didn't want her to think that.

  He knew it was odd that he should care what a bitch like Virginia Dodge was thinking, but somehow it became a matter of pride to him that she should not think he was diddling around when he was supposed to be investigating a burglary.

  He walked over to the desk where she sat.

  The black purse made him nervous.

  Suppose someone fell against it? Jesus, you had to be absolutely nuts to go around carrying a bottle of nitroglycerin.

  "About that girl," he said.

  "Yes?"

  "Don't get the wrong idea."

  "Why, what idea would that be?"

  Virginia Dodge said.

  "Well, I mean... I was investigating a burglary, that's all."

  "Why, what else would you be investigating, honey lamb?" Virginia asked.

  "Nothing. Oh, forget it. I don't know why I'm bothering explaining it to you anyway."

  "What's the matter with me?" Virginia said.

  "Well, I wouldn't say you were exactly a stable person, would you? No offense meant, Mrs. Dodge, but the run of-the-mill citizen doesn't run around waving a gun and a bottle of soup."

  "Don't they?" Virginia was smiling now, enjoying herself immensely.

  "Well, it's a slightly crazy stunt. I mean, even you have to admit that. I can see the gun, okay. You want to kill Steve, that's your business. Listen, am I going to fight City Hall? But the nitro's a little dramatic, don't you think? How'd you manage to get it over here without blowing up half the city?"

  "I managed," Virginia said.

  "I walked gently. I didn't sway my hips."

  "Yeah, well, that's a good way to walk, I guess. Especially when you've got a high explosive in your bag, huh?" King smiled disarmingly. The clock on the wall read 5:33. It was beginning to get dark outside.

  Dusk spread across the sky, washing a deeper blue behind the color-riot trees in the park. You could hear the kids shouting for a last innings of stickball before real darkness descended. You could hear mothers shouting from windows. You could hear men greeting each other as they entered bars for their before-dinner beers.

  You could hear all the sounds of life outside the grilled windows and you could hear, too-a sound as real as any of the others-the silence inside the squad room

  "I like this time of day," King said.

  "Do you?"

  "Yes. Always did. Even when I was a kid. Something nice about it. Quiet." He paused.

  "Are you really going to shoot Steve?"

  "Yes," Virginia said.

  "I wouldn't," Kung said.

  "Why not?"

  "Well .

  "Is it all right to turn on some lights in here, Virginia?" Byrnes asked.

  "Yes. Go ahead."

  "Cotton, snap on the overheads. And can my men get back to work?"

  "What kind of work?" Virginia asked.

  "Answering complaints, typing up reports, making calls to ..

  "Nobody makes any calls. And nobody picks up a phone unless I'm on the extension."

  "All right. Can they type? Or will that disturb you?"

  "They can type. At separate desks."