Truly, a sobering thought. "The narcotics assistant who has the file wasn't in yet. I left a message for him to call as soon as possible and get a copy of all the police reports over to me." I pushed through the courtroom door and walked forward into the well.

The judge, defense attorney, and court officers were all waiting for me to appear. I apologized for keeping them waiting as Judge Zavin ordered the defendant produced from the pens. Behind each courtroom was a small holding cell to which incarcerated offenders were delivered from the correction department, brought to the building from the nearby Tombs or the longer bus ride from Rikers Island. From her desk in the far corner, the court clerk called the case for the record.

"Calendar number four. People against Harold Suggs. Indictment number 4362 of 1994. Matter is on for a hearing under the Sex Offender Registration Act. Counsel, state your appearances, please."

"For the People, Alexandra Cooper."

"Bobby Abramson for Mr. Suggs."

Since the murder of six-year-old Megan Kanka in a small New Jersey township several years earlier, every state in the country had responded with legislation mandating that convicted sex offenders be required to register their addresses upon release with a local police agency. In New York, before they could be paroled from prison, a hearing had to be held to establish a level of offender responsibility, which would determine how often that individual would have to report for monitoring of his home and work situations. It would also decide whether the public could be informed that Mr. Suggs had moved into the neighborhood.

These Megan's Laws, as they have come to be called, arose from the facts in that little girl's case. Her killer was a convicted child molester who settled in a home across the street from Megan's house, although no one in her family was aware of his background. After luring her into his yard with the promise that he would show her a puppy, the "rehabilitated" parolee molested and murdered the child.

"Ms. Cooper, Mr. Abramson-have you each had an opportunity to examine the recommendations made by the review board?"

"Yes, Your Honor," we answered at the same time.

"Do either of you wish to challenge the findings?"

Again, we each said, "Yes."

Of the three possible ratings, Suggs had been evaluated a 2 by the board. I had done a thorough background workup of him and wanted to argue that he was eligible for the most serious monitoring level, or a 3, while my adversary was fighting to reduce his exposure and take him down to a 1.

"I intend to call witnesses, Judge," Abramson said.

I glanced over to the row of benches behind him and saw a middle-aged woman with a scowl on her face, sitting beside a stack of folders. Just what I needed. An unanticipated witness for the defense to drag out the morning's proceedings.

"I'll hear Ms. Cooper first. Are you personally familiar with this matter?"

"Yes, Your Honor. I tried the case for our office in ninety-four."

"Perhaps you can give me more detail than the court file has." It was always an odd experience to appear before Frances Zavin on a sex crime. She was a very stern jurist, nearing retirement age, who had chosen to decorate her courtroom with two oversize canvases that hung on either side of her raised chair. Both were modern paintings in bold colors, and the one situated above the witness box portrayed a large, mangy dog with an exposed, erect penis. It was our practice to warn rape victims not to look up at it as they took the stand for fear that it would unnerve them, and we often wondered what jurors thought as they listened to graphic testimony and stared at the aroused mutt.

I talked to Zavin, framed as she was by her artwork. "Mr. Suggs was fifty-eight at the time he committed these acts. He is what I would call a classic pedophile, which is the reason-" "Objection, Judge. That's a prejudicial and conclusory-" "Mr. Abramson, hold your objections until Ms. Cooper completes her statement. There's no jury here, so you won't impress me with your interruptions."

"In the instant case, the defendant was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, who were five and six years old at the time.' The court officer standing at my back groaned softly. Score extra points for multiple victims. Score triple miles for children under the age of eleven. "Any force?"

"Absolutely none, Your Honor," Abramson interjected. "There's no allegation of force or the use of any weapons."

Like the five-year-old was willing to be fondled? "Most pedophiles don't use knives and guns, Judge. They don't need to. We never charged him under the forcible compulsion theory. These are statutory cases. Sexual abuse in the first degree, the same level of felony as if he had been armed. These babies were clearly unable to consent, in fact, and under the law."

"Oh, please," Abramson whined. "Babies? Can she call them something else?"

"Surely they are babies, sir. What do you think is more appropriate, 'young women'? Go on, Ms. Cooper."

I laid out the facts of the case, which involved allegations that Suggs, who was living with the mother of the children, regularly carried them into his bed when she left for work three nights a week as a nurse's aide at Metropolitan Hospital.

"Any priors?"

"Actually, yes, Judge. Although no convictions. Mr. Suggs was arrested several times throughout the eighties for similar offenses. None of those charges resulted in indictments. I pulled the papers on the cases, and because of the corroboration requirements still in place for child victims, the prosecution was not able to prove those matters at the time."

"The witness I have here today can speak to the defendant's efforts to control his own impulses." Abramson pointed at the woman seated behind him. "Dr. Hoppins with the MAC treatment program."

I turned to catch Chapman's eye. "Everybody's got a frigging acronym," he mouthed to me. We knew this one well. The Modality Alteration Center on East Ninth Street, right off Lower Broadway, a private clinic with psychologists who specialized in counseling for admitted offenders. Half of our convicted felons went to that office as a condition of their parole, and I had yet to see any of them rehabilitated. The shrinks working there were some of the same geniuses who had declared Megan's killer ready to rejoin society.

"Dr. Hoppins will tell you that Mr. Suggs was already in therapy when he was arrested in ninety-four. He was trying to do something about his problem, without the intervention of the court."

"What Dr. Hoppins, and perhaps counsel himself, may not be aware of-since Mr. Suggs was represented by Legal Aid at that time-is that when the defendant was apprehended for these charges, he had just left Dr. Hoppins's office. Suggs was picked up for public lewdness directly across the street from the clinic, standing against the wire fence. That's the playground at the Grace Church School, where he had exposed himself while watching the kindergarten class playing kickball in the yard. Unfortunately, the center is a magnet for all sorts of sex offenders."

"Judge, my client is sixty-four years old now. He's hardly able, well-hardly likely"

"The crimes Mr. Suggs has been charged with are not assaults that require the use of Viagra for a perpetrator to commit them. We're not claiming that he's completing sexual assaults like rape, which require penetration. No matter how old and how infirm he gets, these are acts he'll still be able to perform. This is a man who should never be allowed in the unsupervised presence of children." I knew the NYPD's monitoring unit had designated Megan-mappers, officers who worked with parole and probation to make sure pedophiles did not move out of jail and into apartments on the same blocks as elementary schools and day-care centers.

"Mr. Suggs has been a model prisoner during the term of his incarceration. No disciplinary infractions, no positive drug testing."

"I spoke with the warden at Fishkill last week, Judge. He told me that when they moved Mr. Suggs down here for this hearing on Wednesday, they conducted a routine search of his cell. There were more than five hundred photographs of naked children under the mattress of his bed.

"And one more thing on that point." Abramson and Suggs both glared at me as I spoke. "Mr. Suggs has his own Web site."

Zavin was about to turn against me. "I'm well aware, Ms. Cooper, that no prison in this country allows inmates access to the Internet. Don't undermine your entire case by making claims you can't support."

I slipped a downloaded series of papers from my folder and handed copies to the court officer to deliver to counsel and the judge. "There's a woman in Missouri who operates a third-party Internet service for prisoners. Ten dollars bought Harry Suggs his own biographical sketch, his photo, and the opportunity to have this woman forward to him-by regular U.S. mail-any responses he gets to his inquiries. I'd like to read this into the record:

Hi, I'm Harry. I'm caring, honest, and lonely. I'm sixty-four years old, looking for a home with someone who shares my love for kids and animals. I've got a few grandchildren of my own, and there's room in my heart for you and yours. I've been traveling a lot these last few years, but I'm ready to settle down. Write anytime. Send family photos. I'm a good correspondent.

"I think this goes directly to his behavior while incarcerated." Add ten points, I thought. There aren't many other ways to act out your interest in child abuse from behind bars.

"What I would like to do, Your Honor," I went on, "is to keep this defendant in state prison for another twenty years. Unfortunately, he has served the maximum sentence that the court was able to impose for these crimes, and with his good time factored in, he will be eligible for parole by February tenth. It is imperative, I think, that he be re-rated as a Level Three offender, with all the attendant consequences."

"If you're done, Ms. Cooper, I think I would like to hear from Dr. Hoppins. Would you please call your witness to the stand, sir?"

Suggs was trying to get Abramson's attention. He was angered by my remarks and clearly agitated. Abramson ignored his client.

"I'd like a few minutes to talk with my witness." He turned and walked out of the well, as the judge announced a five-minute break and stepped off the bench to go to her robing room.

I reached for my pad to draw up a list of questions for cross-examination. With a deafening crash, Suggs lifted the massive oak counsel table off the floor in front of him and heaved it on its side. At the same time, he charged across the well and threw himself at me with outstretched arms, screaming my name and spitting as he came flying through the air. Court officers rushed from every direction to grab for a piece of the prisoner and subdue him, while the captain of the team picked me up from the floor, where I had landed when Suggs's body collided with my own.

Chapman vaulted over the railing and helped the guys lead the laughing pedophile back into the holding pens. "You okay? Did he hit you?"

I sat at the table and tried to will myself to stop shaking. "I'm fine. He just bounced himself off me."

"And here I thought you were way too old to be my type, no less his. You're safer in the field with me and my murderers than with these pervs of yours. Let's go, blondie."

Mike picked up my folders and we started out of the courtroom, while Abramson and Hoppins followed us down the aisle. "Hey, Alex. Don't hold that flying tackle against me," Bobby urged. "I'll just adjourn the case till the middle of next month. Have Ryan or Rich stand up on it for you next time. They won't collapse like a house of cards."

"Thanks, Bobby, I'll be sure to do that."

"Ms. Cooper? May I have a word with you?" Hoppins asked.