aWelcome to The Squad,a he said.

The Squad, Carella thought. Supreme egotism in that the designation completely dismissed every detective squad in this city and declared itselfThe Squad,The One and Only Squad. Welcome.

aNice to be here,a Carella said.

He was thinking he had not got to bed till almost eight-thirty this morning after being up all night on the kidnapping. He had been awakened by Byrnes at twelve-thirty and had spent the rest of the day either in court chasing court orders, or up in Loomisa office supervising the installation of the telephone-surveillance equipment. It was now ten-thirtyP.M. , and he was beginning to feel just a wee bit weary.

The usual modulation from night shift to day shift took place over a period of two days. You worked the midnight-to-eightA.M. shift for a full month, then you took two full days off and came back to work at eight in the morning, the theory being that youad caught up on your sleep by that time, just like a business traveler adjusting to jet lag.

Sure.

aYouare looking good, Steve.a aThanks. Do I still call you Corky?a aMost people call me Charles these days,a Corcoran said. aOr Lieutenant.a Still smiling, he said, aCome meet the team,a and led Carella across a vast lobby paved with ma.s.sive blocks of unpolished marble to a bank of elevators simply marked 19a"20. There were only two b.u.t.tons and a keyway in the elevator that arrived. Corcoran took a key ring from his pocket, slid a small key into the keyway, twisted it, and hit the b.u.t.ton for 19.

aI understand youave done some good work on this case,a Corcoran said.

aThank you,a Carella said.

The elevator whirred silently up the shaft. The door slid open onto the nineteenth floor. The men stepped out into a corridor that ran past a warren of tiny work cubes, occupied with men and women at computers. Carella followed Corcoran to an unmarked door at the end of the hall. He opened the door and allowed Carella to precede him into a room.

There were six smiling men in the room.

Carella recognized only Barney Loomis, who was wearing a brown jacket over beige slacks, a brown turtleneck sweater, and brown loafers. Three of the other five men were both wearing dark blue suits, white shirts, blue ties, and highly polished, black, lace-up shoes. Carella figured them for FBI. They even looked somewhat alike, all three of them square-jawed and dark-haired, sporting the sort of conservative haircut made famous by Senator Trent Lott, although presumably their own barber was not in Washington, D.C.

The Trent Lott Cut was a precision-tooled hair style that fit its weareras head like a carefully st.i.tched toupee. This tailored-rug look was softened somewhat on the trio of agentsa"Carella guessed one of them was Endicotta"because they were each in their thirties and were therefore presumed to be hipper than they actually were, especially since they carried nine-millimeter Glocks and FBI shields. The other two men could only be city detectives. Something in the way they carried themselves, something in their somewhat unpressed look, city detectives for sure. So what Carella had here was three smiling Feebs, two smiling d.i.c.ksa"well, three, when you counted Lieutenant Charles aCorkya Corcoran, standing behind him and presumably smiling as wella"and last but not leasta aDetective Carella,a Barney Loomis said, also smiling and stepping away from the other men, his right hand extended. aGlad you could come down.a Carella took his hand.

One of the FBI agents stepped away from the other blue suits. aIam Stan Endicott,a he said. aSpecial Agent in Charge. Welcome aboard.a Carella had been taught by a sergeant at the Academy never to trust a smiling man with a gun in his hand. He wondered if that same sergeant had ever said anything about a roomful of smiling men in suits, all of whom were packing if the bulges under their jackets were any indication.

aMeet the rest of the team,a Endicott said, and introduced first his lookalike in the blue suit, aSpecial Agent Brian Forbes,a and then another FBI agent whose name flew by like the Twentieth Century, and then the pair of city d.i.c.ks, one of them a Detective/First, the other a Detective/Second. Carella thought he recognized one of the names as belonging to a man whoad made spectacular headlines breaking up either a dope ring or a racketeering scheme or something of the sorta"but what had Endicott meant by aWelcome aboard?a Or Corcoran by aWelcome to The Squad?a Everyone was still smiling.

aI brought that stuff you asked for,a Carella said, and walked over to the large conference table in the center of the room and put down his dispatch case. Through the huge windows facing South, he could see across the square to the new red brick Police Headquarters building, ablaze with light even at this hour. He snapped open the latches on the case, lifted the lid, and removed from it first a sheaf of his own and Hawesa typed DD reportsa aOur reports on the crime scene witnesses,a he said.

aand then the reports Meyer and Kling had filed on their visits to the marina and their interview with the marina watchmana aThese are about the boat and the stolen Explorer.a aand then the report Willis had typed up on his and Parkeras visit to Polly Olson.

aAlso,a he said, athe report from Mobile was waiting when I got there. I havenat looked at it yet. I can leave it here with the other stuff, if you like.a aHe still doesnat get it,a Corcoran said, smiling.

Carella wondered if his fly was open.

aWhat?a he said.

aYouall be working with us,a Endicott said.

Carella figured they must be shorthanded. Some detective out sick or on vacation. Supposed to be twelve men on the Joint Task Force, only six of them in the room here, still smiling like drunken sailors.

aWe thought Mr. Loomis should be working with someone he liked and trusted.a aActually, I asked if that would be possible,a Loomis said, and nodded.

aWill that be okay, Steve?a Endicott asked.

aWellasure,a Carella said.

aNow youare p.i.s.sing with the big dogs,a Corcoran said, grinning, and clapped Carella on the back.

Hard.

FAT OLLIE WEEKSwas watching a cable television channel whose slogan was aEqual and Equitable,a which they hoped conveyed the promise of commensurate and unbiased reportage on any subject their reporters tackled. Tonightas burning question was aGay or Fey?a and its subject matter was the Tamar Valparaiso video Bison Records had generously provided.

The moderator was a man named Michael Owens, who was familiarly called aCurlya Owens by his colleagues because he happened to be bald. This reverse spin was something called airony,a a favorite figure of speech practiced in English-speaking countries where it was thought clever to express a meaning directly contrary to that suggested by the words themselves. Curly was, in fact, the very opposite of hirsute, his condition exacerbated by daily shavings and waxings that gave his head the appearance of an overripe melon.

His two guests tonight were at opposite ends of the political and cultural spectrum in that one of them was a minister who represented a Christian Right activist organization that called itself the aCitizens for Values Coalition,a or the CVC, and the other was a h.o.m.os.e.xual who was speaking for a group that called itself aPriapus Perpetual,a or PP for short.

Ollie didnat choose to waste time watching a f.a.g who called his p.r.i.c.k a pee pee debating a priest who was probably a f.a.g himself, but he happened to be eating at the kitchen table right then, and the clicker was on the coffee table in front of the TV set, and he didnat feel like walking into the adjoining room to go switch channels. Besides, he had just watched the clip from the Valparaiso video, and he had to agree that the little lady was splendidly endowed, ah yes, so maybe these two jacka.s.ses would have something interesting to say about her obviously fey a.s.sets. Ollie supposed the word afeya had something to do with female pulchritude, otherwise why had it been positioned opposite the word agaya?

aWell, youave seen the video,a Curly told his guests. aSo which is it? Gay or Fey?a The ministeras name was Reverend Karl Brenner. He was a man with a long sallow face and snow white hair, wearing for tonightas show Benjamin Franklin spectacles and a rumpled, dark gray suit with a white collar, the f.u.c.kin hypocrite, Ollie thought. Brenner himself thought the words agaya and afeya were synonymous; he had no idea what they were supposed to be debating here. If a man was fey, he was, ergo, gay. And the African-American man on the video was obviously both feyand gay.

The representative of Priapus Perpetual was named Larry Graham. He knew that the widely accepted meaning of afeya was astrange or unusuala but he himself had been considered strange or unusual long before he became gay. Dressed tonight in a purple turtleneck sweater over which he had thrown a beige cashmere jacket, he sat looking smug and self-satisfied, the little f.a.g, Ollie thought. Actually, Graham was as bewildered as the reverend was, even though he realized the question wasnat being asked about the black dancer whoad played the Banders.n.a.t.c.h, but rather about Tamar Valparaiso herself, whose father had warned aBeware the Jabberwock, myson, a mind you, and had later exulted, aCome to my arms, my beamishboy, a donat forget.

As Graham saw it, the question being asked was: Who or what is this person with the exuberant b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a torn and tattered costume? A girl or a boy? A daughter or a son? A male or a female? In short, gay or fey? A revealed h.o.m.os.e.xual or merely a female eccentric, a whimsical adolescent girl, ora"dare one even suggest ita"a visionary? A Joan of Arc, mayhaps, wielding an invisible vorpal sword?

aWhat do you say, gentlemen?a Curly asked, and then immediately said, aOoops, excuse me, Larry,a and then, compounding the felony, said, aBut thatas what the debate tonight is all about, isnat it?Is the person on that tape supposed to be h.o.m.os.e.xual, like Larry Graham here, who admits it freely? And if soaa aOf course he is,a Graham said.

aReverend?a aAre we talking about the African-American in the mask? If so, he is verydefinitely h.o.m.os.e.xual.a aAnd how do you knowthat? a Graham asked at once.

aWell, the very way hemoves, a Brenner said.

aHe moves like a dancer,a Graham said.

aFred Astaire didnat move that way. Neither did Gene Kelly.a aBesides, weare not talking about thedancer. The question does not refer to thedancer. a aIt certainly doesnat refer to thegirl, a Brenner said.

aThatas exactly the metaphor,a Graham said.

The Reverend Brenner didnat know what metaphor meant, either. He thought it meant simile. If so, was this little h.o.m.os.e.xual person here implying that the girl being a.s.saulted was somehow a simile for a h.o.m.os.e.xual?

aI do not see any connection,a he said. aThe problem with organizations like yours, Mr. Graham, is that you presuppose everyone in the world is eitheralready h.o.m.os.e.xual or else would like tobecome h.o.m.os.e.xual. That is the implicit threat to family values, and the entire reason for the existence of groups like CVCaa aI do believe, yes,a Larry said, athat aBanders.n.a.t.c.ha is about a young boy coming out of the closet, yes. If we study the video carefully, weaa aOh, please,a Brenner said, athatas utter nonsense.a aWhy donat we take another look at it?a Curly said, and to someone off camera, aCan we roll it again, boys?a Ollie thought, Good, letas watch the strip tease again.

This was not the tape Honey Blair and her crew had shot on the night of the kidnapping. This was the studio-shot video with its animated footage and a skimpily but fully clothed Tamar larking under a yellow sky with pastel colored clouds and whimsical budding flowers and fanciful floating insects while the sound of a synthesizera She looks like a shepherd boy, Ollie thought, and suddenly understood what Larry Graham had meant a moment ago.

She did not look like a boy for very long.

Within seconds after the black guy in his gray mask came whiffling out of the woods, he was clawing and biting at her and tearing her clothes to ribbons, exposing a ripe female form that Ollie was sure would promote perpetual Priapic emissions from teenage boys all over America, not to mention even more mature males in the population.

aThatas exactly what I mean,a Grahamas voice said over the video. aThe boy has to recognize himself as female before he can realize his full power.a Bulls.h.i.t, Ollie thought, and the telephone rang.

He hit the mute b.u.t.ton and picked up the receiver.

aWeeks,a he said.

aOll?a Patricia.

He grinned.

aHey,a he said, ahow are you?a aFine, Oll,a she said. aWhatcha doing?a aWatching television. You familiar with this kidnapping the 8-7 caught?a aYeah, this new singer.a aSome f.a.g is saying sheas a boy.a aGet out,a Patricia said.

aDid you see the video?a aSure, itas all over the place.a aThatas some boy, huh?a aIad like to look like a boy like that,a Patricia said.

aYou look fine just the way you are,a Ollie said.

aThanks, Oll,a she said, and was silent for a moment. aI was calling toauhasee if weare still on for Tuesday night,a she said.

aWhy shouldnat we still be on?a aI just wondered, thatas all. Also, thereas this old movie playing at the Atlantisa"thatas like an art house, yaknowa"I thought Iad like to see again, if youad like to see it. Itas with Al Pacino, itas calledLooking for Richard. Thatas Richard the Third, the Shakespearean character, yaknow. Well, itas also a real king, but Shakespeare wrote the play.a Patricia hesitated again. aDo you think you might like to see it?a aSure,a Ollie said. aWhatever you say, Patricia.a aYouare sure?a aPositive.a aGood. Youall like it, I promise. Itas not at all what you expect Shakespeare to be.a aHey, Ilove Shakespeare,a he said.

aWell, good. Then I made a good pick, huh?a aYou certainly did.a He had never seen a Shakespeare play in his entire life.

aAlso, how should I dress?a she asked. aI told you, Iall be working Tuesdayaa aMe, too.a aSo I wonat have time to go home and changeaa aMe, neither. Just put on whatas in your locker. Whatever you wear to work that morning.a aIt wonat be anything fancy,a Patricia said. aJust slacks and a sweater, probably.a aThatall be fine.a aOkay then. You working tomorrow?a aOh sure.a aSee you up the precinct then.a aSee you,a Ollie said.

There was a click on the line.

He sighed heavily and put the receiver back on its cradle.

The f.a.g and the priest were still going at it.

He hit the mute b.u.t.ton again.

aasending this message to adolescent boys all over America,a the Reverend Brenner was saying. aIf you want to slay wild dragonsaa aIt isnat a dragon,a Graham said.

aathen you have to declare yourself to be h.o.m.os.e.xual! What kind of a messagea?a aIam sure that isnat Tamar Valparaisoas messaa aYou justsaid the boy in that videoaa aGentlemen, gentlemen!a aIam sure her message is simply aBe what you wish to be. In choice, there is freedom.a a aOh, are we going to get into theabortion issue now?a aNot on my time,a Ollie said out loud, and turned off the set, and wondered if any of that scrumptious apple pie his sister had baked was still in the refrigerator.

WHAT WAS CALLED CSIin some cities was called MCU here in the big bad city, and never the twain shall meet. The Mobile Crime Unit had struck out twice last night, once on the Rinker and again on the Ford Explorer, but that didnat mean they werenat as sharp or as perceptive as their television counterparts. On the contrary, the package they had messengered over to Carella at seven-thirty this evening, and which he now presented to The Squad downtown, included one piece of very important information.

As expected, theread been no latent fingerprints on any of the railings or bulkheads the perps may have touched in boarding theRiver Princess and then descending into the ballroom where Tamar was performing. The intruders were wearing gloves. So much for that.

But they were also wearing running shoes with identifiable soles. And whereas they hadnat left any recoverable footprints on the rubber ladder-treads that ascended to the second level of the yacht, they had left behind some discernable prints on the mahogany steps and the parquet dance floor inside.

Together, Carella and The Squad looked over the report prepared by an MCU Detective/First named Oswald Hooper.

The report stated, unsurprisingly, that the recovered footprints had been left behind on stairway and dance floor by two separate males wearing running shoes later identified from laboratory comparison soles as Reeboks. That the persons wearing the shoes were both male was established by the size and type of the shoe and also by the angle of the foot, definitively different for male and female.

What was revealing about the separate prints, however, was the separate walking pattern for each man. The pattern for the man whose prints were consistently recovered on thestarboard side of the stairway and dance floor was remarkably different from the pattern for the man whoad been on theport side of all the action.

aStarboard is right, port is left,a Corcoran told Endicott.

Endicott gave him a look intended to convey the knowledge that his father had taken him sailing on Chesapeake Bay when he was still a toddler. Corcoran missed the meaning of the look.

aThe guy on the right was the one who did all the hitting,a Carella said. aHave you seen the tape yet?a aOnly on television,a Endicott said.

Forbes, the other FBI agent, said, aItas all over the place.a aIave requested a copy from Channel Four,a Corcoran said.

aAre they giving you one?a Carella asked, surprised.

aWhy not?a aWell, when I seized it as evidence, they threatened to sue the city.a Corcoran raised his eyebrows and gave him a look intended to convey the knowledge that this was the Joint Task Force here, kiddo, this was TheSquad.

aWell, good luck,a Carella said, and shrugged, but he felt he had been reprimanded. Or perhaps warned. And he realized all at once that Lieutenant Charles Farley Corcoran did not want him on this team. He almost walked out. Something kept him there. Maybe it was the fact that Barney Loomis had requested his presence as someone he liked and trusted.

aWhatas this about a walking pattern?a Endicott asked, and they all went back to reading Hooperas report.

Apparently, the man on the left possessed a normal walking pattern. That is to say, an imaginary line drawn in the direction of his walk had run through the inner edges of his heel prints. The distance between the footprints of a man walking slowly would be about twenty-seven inches. The distance for a running man would be forty inches. A man walking fast would measure thirty-five inches between footprints. The guy on the left had been moving very fast. Thirty-three inches between footprints. But it was a normal walking pattern, and not a broken one.

The guy on the right, howevera"the one whoad rifle-stocked the black dancer and slapped Tamar Valparaisoa"had been moving more slowly, twenty-eight inches between footprints. And his walking line indicated that he was partially leaning on his left foot and slightly dragging the right foot.

aLeaning?a Endicott said.

aDragging?a Corcoran said.

Carella almost said aShhhhh.a Absent any perfectly flat footprints for the right foot,Hooperas report went on,and given the slower gait and broken walking line, it would be safe to conclude that the suspect sustained a past injury to the right leg that manifests itself now in an existent noticeable limp.

aThataswhat it was!a Carella told them.

He was referring to what head noticed on the tape, but hadnat been able to pinpoint until just this minute. None of the others knew what the h.e.l.l he was talking about.

aSo what do we do?a Endicott asked. aPut out a medical alert?a aThe report says apastinjury,a a Corcoran said.

aHow far in the past? Couldave been last week.a aA physicianas bulletin canat hurt,a Carella said.

aYou want to take care of that?a Corcoran suggested.

And all at once, Carella got it.

He was going to be the errand boy.

aWhatas my role here going to be?a he asked. Flat out. Head to head.

aWhat would you like it to be?a Corcoran asked right back. Straight on. Toe to toe.

aI donat want to be a gopher, thatas for sure.a aWho says thatas what we want?a aWhatdo you want?a aI think itas whatI want that counts, isnat it?a Loomis said, stepping in. aIamthe one those men will be contacting,Iam the one theyall be expecting to pay the ransom, whateverthatas going to be. If you donat mind, gentlemen, I believe Detective Carella is as qualified as any man in this room to handle whatever may come up in the next few days. So Iad appreciate it if you didnat a.s.sign him to running out for coffee and sandwiches.a aIad be happy to put out that physicianas alert,a Carella said.

aThank you, Steve,a Loomis said.

aIall get someone in the cubbies to do it, donat sweat it,a Corcoran said.

aWhoeverdoes it, letas get itdone, a Endicott said, reminding everyone that he was the SAC around here. aLetas take a look at these DD reports, see if anything pops out at us. Steve, you want to walk us through?a THE WHOLE IDEAof this thing was to keep the girl alive for forty-eight hours. That was all the time they needed.

Avery had got all the fake stuff for the gig from a man head done business with before, a purveyor of false ident.i.ty doc.u.ments like social security cards, birth certificates, divorce decrees, gun permits, college diplomas, driversa licenses, press credentials, and of course credit cards that actually worked when you used them. The manas name was Benny Lu, or at least that was the name he used here in the United States, preferring the nickname to the full Benjamin Lu that was on his Hong Kong birth certificate, if even that was real. Benny had migrated to the United States four years ago, after head almost been busted by Hong Kongas ICAC.

Avery had met him two and a half years ago, when head needed several false doc.u.ments in order to casually prove to a certain rich fat lady in Palm Beach that he was, in fact, one Judson Fears of Gloucester County, Virginia, before she would let him into her luxurious waterfront mansion and incidentally her bed, the suspicious old b.i.t.c.h. He had later run off with $200,000 worth of her nice jewelry, thank you, but it served her right for not accepting him at face value, and besides, the jewelry was insured.

aI used to work in a Hong Kong restaurant,a Benny told him the first time they met. Benny was tall and slender, with a droll smile and eyes that always seemed amused. He had the long narrow fingers of a Flower Dancer, precious a.s.sets in the delicate operations he performed. aI was making coolie wages,a he told Avery, auntil I realized I was in a position to be of valuable a.s.sistance to certain people who had need of certain information.a Avery thought it odd that a Chinese man would use an expression like acoolie wages,a but he made no comment because he believed it was important for a person to listen carefully while he was being educated.

aThis was six years ago,a Benny said, awhen the economy in j.a.pan was still very big. You had all these j.a.panese tourists coming to Hong Kong, spending lots and lots of money, and paying for everything with credit cards. These certain people came to me with what is called a askimmer.a What it isaa A skimmer, Avery learned, was a battery-operated, wireless device that cost some three to five hundred dollars, and that fit easily into the inside pocket of Bennyas jacket. Whenever Benny swiped a customeras credit card through this little machine, it read onto its very own computer chip all the data embedded in the cardas magnetic security stripe.

aIam not just talking name, number, and expiration date,a Benny said, grinning at the simplicity of it all. aWhat the skimmeralso copies is the cardas verification code. This is whatas electronically forwarded from the merchant to the card companyas central computer anytime a purchase is made. The code tells the company the card is valid. Once youave copied that code, you have everything you need to make an exact clone of the card.a He was still grinning three weeks ago, when Avery went to see him again. Benny Lu lived in a small development house out on Sands Spit, a half-hour drive from the city. Avery told him what he needed. A fake credit card that would enable him to rent a cara He told Benny head be renting a car instead of a boat because over the years he had learned that you shouldnat trust anyone but your mother, and maybe not even hera aand a fake driveras license to back up the name on the phony credit card.