I put everything back the way I found it and packed my camera away. Before leaving, I rinsed the snifter in the executive washroom and set it carefully in line on a glass shelf above the bar. I had planned on leaving it on Krusemark's desk so he'd have something to think about Monday morning, but it no longer seemed like such a cute idea.

When I hit the street it was raining. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees. I turned up my jacket collar and dodged across Lexington Avenue to Grand Central, calling Epiphany from the first empty phone booth. I asked how long it would take her to get ready. She said she'd been ready for hours.

"Sounds inviting, sweetheart," I said, "but I'm talking about business. Take a cab. Meet me at my office in half an hour. We'll have dinner and then go uptown to hear a lecture."

"What lecture?"

"Maybe it's a sermon."

"Sermon?"

"Bring my raincoat in the front closet and don't be late."

Before heading for the subway, I found a newsstand with a key cutter and had a copy made of Howard Nussbaum's submaster. The original I sealed in the little preaddressed envelope and dropped in a mailbox by a row of pay lockers.

I took the shuttle over to Times Square. It was still raining when I left the subway, and the reflections of neon signs and traffic lights writhed on the wet pavement like fire snakes. I dodged from doorway to doorway trying to keep dry. The pimps and pushers and teenage hookers huddled in the juice bars and penny arcades, forlorn as rain-soaked cats. I bought a pocketful of cigars at the store on the corner and glanced up through the drizzle at the headlines moving across Times Tower ... TIBETANS BATTLE CHINESE IN LHASA ...

When I got to my office at ten past six, Epiphany was waiting in the Naugahyde chair. She was all dressed up in her plum-colored suit and looked fantastic. She felt and tasted even better.

"Missed you," she whispered. Her fingers lightly traced the bandage covering my left ear and hovered over the spot where my scalp was shaved. "Oh, Harry, are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Maybe not so pretty anymore."

"The way the side of your head is stitched makes you look like Frankenstein."

"I've been avoiding mirrors."

"And your poor, poor mouth."

"How's the nose?"

"About the same, only a little more so."

We ate at Lindy's. I told Epiphany if anyone stared at us, the other customers would think we were celebrities. No one stared.

"Did that Lieutenant come and see you?" She dunked a shrimp into a bowl of cocktail sauce packed in crushed ice.

"He brightened my breakfast hour. Smart of you to say you were the answering service."

"I'm a smart girl."

"You're a good actress," I said. "You fooled Sterne twice the same day."

"I am not one woman, but many. Just as you are more than one man."

"Is that voodoo?"

"That's common sense."

By eight o'clock we were driving uptown through the park. As we passed the Meer, I asked Epiphany why she and her group were out sacrificing under the stars that night, instead of at home in the humfo. She said something about tree loa.

"Loa?"

"Spirits. Manifestations of God. Many, many loa. Rada loa, petro loa: good and evil. Damballa is a loa. Bade is the loa of the wind; Sogbo, the lightning loa; Baron Samedi, the keeper of the cemetery, lord of sex and passion; Papa Legba watches over homes and meeting places, gates and fences. Maitre Carrefour is the guardian of all crossroads."

"He must be my patron loa," I said.

"He is the protector of sorcerers."

The New Temple of Hope on 144th Street had at one time been a movie house. The old marquee hung out over the sidewalk with EL cIFR in foot-high letters on all three sides. I parked further down the block and took Epiphany's arm as we walked back toward the bright lights.

"What're you interested in cifr for?" she asked.

"He's the magician in my dreams."

"cifr?"

"The good Doctor Cipher himself."

"What do you mean?"

"This swami business is just one of several roles I've seen him play. He's like a chameleon."

Epiphany's grip tightened on my arm. "Be careful, Harry, please."

"I try to be," I said.

"Don't joke. If this man is what you say, he must have plenty power. He is no one to fool with."

"Let's go inside."

A life-sized cardboard cutout of Louis Cyphre in his sheik's outfit stood by the empty ticket booth, beckoning the faithful with an outstretched arm. The lobby was a gilded plaster pagoda, a movie-palace pleasure dome. In place of popcorn and candy, the refreshment stand carried a complete line of inspirational literature.

We found seats off the side aisle. An organ murmured behind the closed red-and-gold curtains. The orchestra and balcony filled to capacity. No one but me seemed to notice that I was the only Caucasian in sight.

"What denomination is this?" I whispered.

"Basic Baptist, with frills." Epiphany folded her gloved hands in her lap. "This is the Reverend Love's church. Don't tell me you haven't ever heard of him?"

I confessed my ignorance.

"Well, his car is about five times bigger than your office," she said.

The houselights dimmed, the organ music swelled, and the curtain parted to reveal a one-hundred-voice choir grouped in the shape of a cross. The congregation rose to their feet, singing "Jesus Was a Fisherman." I joined in the hand clapping and bestowed my smile upon Epiphany who surveyed the proceedings with the stern detachment of a true believer among the barbarians.

As the music reached a crescendo, a small brown man dressed in white satin appeared on stage. Diamonds flashed on both hands. The choir broke ranks as he stood there, marching with drill-team precision, and formed around him in white-robed rows, like rays of light reflecting from the risen moon.

I caught Epiphany's eye and mouthed the question, "Reverend Love?"

She nodded.

"Please be seated, brothers and sisters," Reverend Love spoke from center stage. His voice was comically high and shrill. He sounded like the emcee at Birdland.

"Brothers and sisters, I welcome you with love to the New Temple of Hope. I rejoice in the happy sound you make. Tonight, as you know, is not one of our regular meetings. We are honored to have with us this evening a very holy man, the illustrious el cifr. Although not of our faith, this is a man I respect, a man of great wisdom with much to teach. It will profit us all to listen closely to the words of our esteemed guest, el cifr."

Reverend Love turned and held out his open arms toward the wings. The choir broke into a chorus of "A New Day Is Dawning." The congregation clapped their hands as Louis Cyphre swirled onto the stage like a sultan.

I rummaged in my attache case for the ten-power Tri-novids. Wrapped in his embroidered robes and crowned by a turban, el cifr might well have been another man, but when I brought his features into focus through the binoculars, it was unmistakably my client in blackface. "It is the Moor, I know his trumpet," I whispered to Epiphany.

"What?"

"Shakespeare."

El cifr greeted his audience with a fancy salaam. "May prosperity smile upon you all," he said, bowing low. "Is it not written that Paradise is open to those who dare but enter?"

A smattering of "Amens" rippled through the congregation.

"The world belongs to the strong, not the meek. Is this not so? The lion devours the fold; the falcon feasts on the blood of the sparrow. Who denies this denies the order of the universe."

"That's true, that's true," an impassioned voice called from the balcony.

"Sounds like the flip side of the Sermon on the Mount," Epiphany quipped out of the side of her mouth.

El cifr paced the apron of the stage. He held his palms together like a supplicant, but his eyes were ablaze with raw fury. "It is the hand holding the whip that drives the wagon. The rider's flesh does not feel the sting of the spurs. To be strong in this life requires an act of will. Choose to be a wolf, not a gazelle."

The congregation responded to his every suggestion, clapping and shouting agreement. His words were chorused like Scripture. "Be a wolf ... be a wolf ..." they called.

"Look about you here on these crowded streets. Do not the strong rule?"

"They do. They do."

"And the meek suffer in silence!"

"Amen. They surely suffer."

"It is a wilderness out there, and only the strong shall survive."

"Only the strong ..."

"Be like the lion and the wolf, not the lamb. Let other throats be exit. Do not obey the herd-instinct of cowardice. Steep your hearts in bold deeds. If there can be but one winner, let it be you!"

"One winner ... bold deeds ... be a lion ..."

He had them eating out of his hand. He whirled on the stage like a dervish, robes billowing, his melodic voice exhorting the faithful: "Be strong. Be bold. Know the urge to attack as well as the wisdom of retreat. When opportunity comes, seize it, as a lion seizes the fawn. Tear success out of defeat; rip it free; devour it. You are the most dangerous beast on the planet. What is there to be afraid of?"

He danced and chanted, ranting of power and strength. The congregation howled a frenzied litany. Even members of the choir shouted angry responses and shook their fists in the air.

I found myself daydreaming, not paying attention to the rhetoric, when suddenly my client said something out of left field that brought me up short.

"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out," el cifr said, looking, or so it seemed, straight at me. "That is a fine quotation, but I say also, if anyone's eye offend you, rip it out. Claw it out! Shoot it out! An eye for an eye!"

His words shot through me like a spasm of pain. I sat forward in my seat, alert as I could be.

"Why turn the other cheek?" he continued. "Why be hit at all? If hearts are steeped against you, cut them out. Don't wait to be the victim. Strike first at your enemies. If their eyes offend you, blow them out. If their hearts offend you, rip them out. If any member offends you, cut it off and shove it down their throats."

El cifr was shrieking above the roars of his audience. I felt numb, transfixed. Was I imagining it all or had Louis Cyphre just described three murders?

At last, el cifr thrust both hands above his head in a victory salute. "Be strong," he yelled. "Promise me to be strong!"

The audience was frantic. "We will ... we promise," they screamed. El cifr disappeared into the wings as the choir regrouped onstage and burst into a lusty arrangement of "The Strong Arm of the Lord."

I grabbed Epiphany's hand and pulled her with me into the aisle. There were others ahead of us, and I hauled her along, shouldering past with a murmured "Excuse me, please." We hurried on through the lobby and out onto the street.

The silver-grey Rolls waited at the curb. I recognized the uniformed chauffeur lounging against the front fender. He jumped to attention as a door marked FIRE EXIT opened and a rectangular carpet of light reached across the pavement. Two Negroes in three-button suits and dark glasses stepped out and surveyed the situation. They looked as solid as the Great Wall of China.

El cifr joined them on the sidewalk, and they started for the car, flanked by another pair of heavyweights. "Just a minute," I called, and made my move. I was immediately strong-armed by the lead bodyguard.

"Don't go be doin' nothin' you're likely to regret," he said, blocking my path.

I didn't argue. A return trip to the hospital was not on the agenda. As the chauffeur opened the rear door, I caught the eye of the man in the turban. Louis Cyphre stared at me without expression. He lifted the hem of his robes and climbed into the Rolls. The chauffeur closed the door.

I watched them drive off from around the bodyguard's bulk. He stood there, impassive as an Easter Island statue, waiting for me to try something. Epiphany came up from behind and linked her arm through mine. "Let's go home and build a fire," she said.

FORTY-THREE.

Palm Sunday was slumberous and sensual, the novelty of waking up beside Epiphany compounded by finding myself on the floor, nestled among couch cushions and tangled blankets. Only a single charred fragment remained in the fireplace. I started a pot of coffee and brought the Sunday papers in off the doormat. Epiphany was awake before I finished the comics.

"Sleep well?" she whispered, curling in my lap. "No bad dreams?"

"No dreams at all." I ran my hand over her smooth brown flank.

"That's good."

"Maybe the spell is broken?"

"Maybe." Her warm breath fanned my neck. "It was me dreamed about him last night."

"Who? Cipher?"