He glanced into the car again, drawn by the hazy honey color of her hair. It was strange and he hadn't noticed it before but Debbie Gladner's hair was the color of Rita's hair when Rita used the rinse he'd bought her. Debbie's face was down into her book and she didn't seem to be bothered by the jolting start and stop of the train. But something made her look up, and for one single moment, Debbie Gladner stared, expressionless, directly at him.

Brian stopped himself from leaning back and edging away from her recognition. She blinked rapidly, frowned, then smiled and he casually waved and started toward her, but Debbie stood up and came into the vestibule.

"Well, hello, Brian. How are you?"

He wondered how she could speak in so normal a voice and how he would be able to respond. Yet he answered and he sounded casual and almost normal.

"Hello, Debbie. You on your way to school?"

She pressed her collection of books against her chest. "Very astute observation. But then, you're a policeman now, aren't you?" She held her head to one side and smiled. "What's the matter, Brian? Don't they allow you to ride inside the car? Or are you working now?"

"I like to ride in here," he said. He was grateful for the darkness which hid his shame and self-anger and anger at her. For being. Just for being. He wanted to ask her who the creep was, what they had been talking about, why she had given all her attention, her concern, her promise of a later meeting, her touch, her essence to someone so obviously unworthy.

He wanted to reach out and slowly move his hands through her heavy long hair and down between her shoulder blades and along all the warm and secret places of her body. He wanted to find a way to tell Debbie Gladner that he had something to share with her, that he was worthy of her consideration. He wanted to tell her that she could no longer use that mocking, lilting, knowing tone and small, maddening, derisive smile when she spoke to him.

"Well, how's the cops-and-robbers business, Brian? You a gang-buster yet?"

The wrong words, unbidden, leaped from his mouth: an offering, foolish and unacceptable. "Why don't you stop making fun of the job, Debbie? You know, there were a lot of Jewish guys in my graduating class. In fact, one of my best buddies is a Jew."

"One of your best buddies is a Jew," Debbie said softly. She mouthed the words contemptuously, threw them back at him with a mysterious tough pride which contained an angry secret knowledge he could not even begin to comprehend. She shifted her stance, leaned her books on one hip and twisted her mouth at him.

"And what does that make you, Brian? Something really special, a guy who has a buddy who is a Jew?" She smiled wisely, then her voice went hoarse and she said, "No Jew should be a cop."

The conversation made no sense, left no room for other things, other words. His exasperation was so strong and so total that all other feelings toward her left him and anger broke through. "You know, Debbie," Brian said with just an edge of self-righteousness, "if I said that, you'd accuse me of being an anti-Semite."

She regarded him coldly, unimpressed by his dark-blue eyes and clear pale complexion and black hair and lean, long hardness and physical splendor and justifiable anger. She said tersely, "If you said it, you would be an anti-Semite."

"Jesus, I don't get you, Debbie."

"Good," she said. "Fine."

"What the hell are you always so mad about?"

She released her breath slowly and the sound was an insult, almost a bitter laugh. "Oh, Brian. Brian O'Malley, your world is a very fine and happy place, with no injustices and no honors and no terrors. You'll do all right, Brian. Your kind always does."

"My kind?"

The grossly generalized definition she assigned him infuriated Brian. He was as unknown and unknowable as she. "You are the smuggest little bitch on two feet," he said thickly. "Who the hell do you think you are anyway?"

She leaned back against the wall of the vestibule and her calmness seemed forced and very consciously controlled. She was white around the mouth and nostrils and there was a dry, clacking sound in her voice.

"I'm the hope of my people's future existence, that's who I am. I'm a separatist and a purist and an antiassimilationist. You don't even know what I'm talking about and I don't even care. It doesn't matter. I'm a Zionist and a zealot, and when the time comes and the need arises, I will become a fanatic!" She leaned forward and her eyes blazed at him but she spoke so softly he could hardly hear. "I am a fragment of my past and of the past of my people. I am an un-regenerate member of the Diaspora, committed to the future and survival of my people Israel, and I have watched you all stand by in your abysmal ignorance and indifference while that Austrian lunatic is planning the destruction of my people!"

She jutted her face toward him and in a shaking voice she told him, "I am a daughter of Zion and you can just stop looking at me with your sneaky looks, Brian O'Malley, because I won't have anything to do with any gentile, ever. Never!"

The train stopped at 23rd Street and Debbie Gladner, without a glance at him, exited. It was the City College station. Brian gnawed at a loose piece of skin around his thumbnail.

Debbie Gladner was some kind of nut, he thought to himself.

TWENTY-THREE.

BRIAN LISTENED TO SERGEANT O'Connor's monotonous droning voice and nodded occasionally, not to convince the sergeant that he was listening but to keep himself awake.

Sergeant O'Connor had two passions in life. One was the decorating of his Christmas tree and the other was the preparation of unique hand-tied flies with which to lure trout from mountain streams into his waiting frying pan. Since Christmas had long since come and gone it was hard for Brian to understand what his reaction to the sergeant's detailed, endlessly instructive flow of words should be.

Sergeant O'Connor handled several telephone calls, spoke crisply and authoritatively, then resumed his lecture to Brian and within minutes created a total aura of unreality which Brian was afraid would cause him to drop the pen from his hand and let his head slump on the large sheets of duty charts he had been set to prepare. He wondered if Mackay, the regular clerical man, was forced to listen to the dry and ceaseless voice, night after night, tour after tour. That might be one of the reasons for Mackay's blank, glassy-eyed, expressionless countenance.

"You see," Sergeant O'Connor explained, "the Germans make these fine little light bulbs in the shape of cottages and elves and Santas and such. They call him Father Christmas, you might or might not know. And I've a whole line of them, of the light bulbs, and they're quite rare, you know, and you won't come upon them in the general run of things. I've a feeling, too, that they won't be making them again for a long time, what with their Hitler and their great interest in the military things and all.

"But the point is, O'Malley, that I've probably collected the finest examples of the craft-'art' might he the better word, for my collection is indeed a fine example of art. Now some might think to put their tree up on Christmas Eve, when the little ones are asleep, and there are those who let the children help, but no one in my house touches the tree but yours truly, and I'll have you know, it takes me over a week to do it up right."

Sergeant O'Connor peered down over the top of his eyeglasses at Brian, who sat, pen poised, neck craning, body aching, at the clerical desk three feet below the sergeant's desk. There was no fooling around with Sergeant O'Connor's Christmas tree, and if he spoke about its decoration at the end of March, it was in loving memory of ornaments that had been polished, caressed, cherished, counted and carefully put away until their resurrection in early December.

Brian wondered how he would ever complete the duty chart he had been set to prepare. He wondered how long Mackay's illness would keep him at home and how in God's name he could convey to Sergeant O'Connor that he would rather be out on the street than stuck behind a desk. Any such indication would be considered sheer ingratitude. After all, the assignment had been given with a series of winks, nods and nonverbal indications that it was by nature of a special favor, an acknowledgment that Patrolman O'Malley knew how the game was played as evidenced by his handling of the case of Captain Toomey's brother (over which he had no control, and if he had, the little bastard would be banging his head against bars somewhere).

By ten o'clock, the pastrami sandwich which he had devoured at nine o'clock caused bitterness along the back of Brian's throat as he bent over the dimly lit desk and blacked out tiny squares in progressive rows of steps along the graph paper. Sergeant O'Connor's meal was taken in the empty office of the captain and Sergeant Horan sat quietly engrossed in his study manual for the lieutenant's examination which would be held some time in the indefinite future.

The duty chart had a look of abstraction. Random lines ran through squares from left lower corner to right upper corner, then switched to the alternate, then moved relentlessly to a series of black steps. Squad 7: Mid-to-8A, Tues.-Wed. RDO; Squad 8: 8A-to-4P, Thurs.-Fri. RDO. Squad 9. Squad 10. Which squad got the long swing? Which squad got the short swing? What the hell is this all about?

The house was quiet; the detectives were out on a squeal; a couple of them were cruising; a few derelicts were booked; one lost kid, reported found before anyone was sent out; a noisy card party, no action necessary; disorderly kids, warned, admonished, sent on their way.

"I gotta take a personal," Brian told Sergeant Horan, who glanced at his wristwatch and nodded.

Bastard. Go ahead and time me.

He took his time in the bathroom. He washed his face with cold water, rinsed his eyes, swallowed from his cupped palm and felt heavy with boredom. He blotted his face with scratchy toilet paper, stared at his image in the scarred mirror. A dynamic-looking guy, no doubt about it. He glanced around, made certain he was alone, then posed for himself and admired the fierce policeman who regarded him with professional suspicion. A hard face, wise and knowing and shrewd, capable of great earth-shaking things. He turned slightly to one side, then glanced from the corner of his eye to see how he looked sideways.

His hand fled to his chin; he wiped an imaginary spot from his eye as Sergeant O'Connor entered the lavatory.

"Ah, here you are, Brian. Hmm, the lighting in here's not what it should be. I know a great deal about lighting and electricity. When I get interested in something, you see, I pursue it completely. Yes. If I didn't do that, I'd long ago have ruined my Christmas lights and they are irreplaceable, O'Malley, make no mistake about that. Yes, absolutely irreplaceable."

Brian edged toward the door and nodded. "I better get back to the duty chart, Sergeant I don't seem to be making much progress."

"Oh, well, there's tomorrow night, and the night after, lad," Sergeant O'Connor said and winked. "One thing you can say for certain, O'Malley, nobody's pressuring you, eh? Eh?"

"Right, Sarge. Absolutely right."

Horan watched him closely as he settled at the clerical desk, checked his watch and his mouth tightened but he didn't say anything. After all, he was just a relief; he'd be going out in a few minutes. Even if O'Connor didn't run a tight ship; no skin off him.

Julie Horowitz headed directly for him, as though he'd been waiting for Brian. He clamped a hand on Brian's shoulder. As he spoke, bits of saliva collected at the corners of his mouth and his eyes gleamed. "Hey, kid, you must have some rabbi, getting yourself a desk job, huh? Listen, O'Malley, you missed it, but I want you should see what we got upstairs, me and Kelly. Huh, Sarge? Good stuff up there?"

Horan shrugged and turned the page of his manual.

"What have you got?" Brian asked warily.

Horowitz prodded Brian with an elbow and jerked his head several times toward the iron staircase. "Cute, O'Malley, something pretty damn cute. C'mon, the sergeant can spare you for a minute. Hey, no shit, kid, not that old battle-ax the guys pulled on you when you first started." Horowitz nearly strangled on that one. "They really got you with old 'Filthy Florence' and her Albert routine, huh? Jeez, she's been around so long lookin' for the guy, he must be about sixty by now. Not that he's alive. But listen, kid"-Horowitz cupped his thick hand around his mouth-"look, this is nice stuff. Not that you can have any, not here anyway, but like maybe you can connect later on. Jeez, we had a lieutenant here coupla years back, the damn place was like a regular cat house on midnights." Horowitz laughed and shook his hand in the air. "Them was the days, kid."

Horan ignored them and Brian felt that anything was better than falling under the spell of the graph paper and the inevitable return of Sergeant O'Connor. He figured Horowitz and Kelly were about to pull something on him, to break their monotony, but he might be able to pull something off on them.

They had two prostitutes in custody. One of them he had never seen before.

The other one was Rita Wasinski.

Her face went ashen under the bright application of powdery rouge. Her eyes darted from Horowitz to Brian and a small, tentative smile pulled her lips with the regularity of a twitch. Her small hands, first one, then the other, touched and poked and played with the bleached, untoned hair.

Horowitz threw a familiar arm around her shoulders, squeezed her and breathed words into her ear. Rita shrugged, smiled, giggled, then her hands dangled loosely as Horowitz moved so that her hands came to rest on the fly of his trousers.

"Hey, look at that, O'Malley. The kid can't restrain herself when I'm around."

Rita pulled her hands away, bit her lip, closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, avoided Brian. She fidgeted with her dress, her pocketbook, the corners of her lips, her fingernails, the belt which tightly circled her waist. She frowned and worried over a run in her stocking and Horowitz followed her concern and ran his thick finger up along the run and said, "Hey now, that's a shame, kiddo. Where the hell did it start?"

His hand moved slowly and Rita said weakly, "It must have got caught on the edge of the chair when I sat down."

Horowitz' hand disappeared under her dress, his tongue licked at the spittle in the corners of his mouth, and Rita endured, with a slight, uncertain smile, until he finally released her and kissed a fingertip at her.

"In the old days, Brian, we'd a' had a ball. But we gotta get these kids on their way. Rita baby, tell me how many you got on the sheet, and don't shit me, 'cause we're gonna see it by morning anyways."

For a moment, she held her face down, then she breathed deeply, raised her face and said softly, "Only three, Mr. Horowitz."

Horowitz gurgled, hugged her to him, patted her round bottom. "I love this kid. Only three, she says. How about you, Viola? Tell me only three and I'll drop my pants and you'll die 'cause I won't let you have it."

Viola was older, maybe thirty. Her face was too heavy for her thin body; it looked misplaced. She moved with the slow, languid, unreal motion of a sleepwalker. "I dunno. What's the difference anyways?"

"What's the difference anyways is right," Horowitz said and laughed as though he'd cracked a tremendous joke. He wrapped an arm around both of them and squeezed the women. "Now, if you see this policeman here, see, this is Patrolman O'Malley, and if he wants some stuff, you take good care of him, right?" Horowitz winked at Brian. "See, O'Malley, we take care of our own. Holy Christ," he said to Kelly, "take a look at junior here. I swear to God, the kid's blushing!"

His mother watched his face anxiously and warned the kids not to make any commotion and not to bother Brian with their nonsense.

There was a man beneath his smooth boyish face now and he was a stranger to her, as all men are to all women. Whatever caused the hard faraway cast to darken his eyes and pull at his black brows would forever remain secret to her. Even if she were to know, she could have no hand in it.

Margaret wondered if it was the job that did that to them or was it just the very fact of being men. They seemed to turn into themselves at times, become remote and far away, and when they emerged it was in sudden quick bursts of anger which made them slash out at the young ones. She had seen it with her own husband and with his brothers. She didn't like seeing it now with her son.

Mother of God, there were enough things she knew about to cause her worry without poking and prodding into places that could only reveal more trouble.

Roseanne was working herself into a regular state with her endless concerns and complaints. Well, she'd tell Roseanne, over and over again, if Billy is driving those big trucks huge distances, there's every reason he'd be gone for days at a time. For the love of God, child, the man provides the food on the table and the rent to the landlord, so just let him be.

And oh, this thing with poor John. Well, Brian would have to know about that.

Margaret brought the second cup of steaming black coffee to Brian. She hesitated before she removed the untouched plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, but he pushed it toward her with his fingertips and reached for the coffee. He'd said he didn't want any breakfast.

"You'll have to go around to see Uncle Peadar today, Brian."

"Uncle Peadar? What for?"

The dishcloth moved rapidly over the spot where the plate of food had been. "Yes. It's about our John. Gene and Matt will be there too. At about noon, Peadar said. There's something needs to be discussed about poor John."

What the hell did they want him in on it for? They were probably going to make a shoemaker out of the kid; he'd sew his damned fingers together. Or maybe they were going to let him work full time with Matt.

"He's been working on the wagon with Uncle Matt before school every morning, hasn't he, Mom?"

Margaret's lips tightened and her face was set. She moved her thin bony shoulders slightly and her hand moved on the table before him in fast, unnecessary circles. "It's not about that, Brian. It's something more."

The furious scrubbing irritated him. He caught at his mother's wrist and tried to break through the small mystery. "Well, how about telling me what it is about then, Ma? Come on, will you quit wiping at that table? There's nothing there."

"And there's nothing in your stomach neither, for you've not touched your breakfast. Let go my hand and don't tell me how to clean my own table." She gave it a few more swipes, then bunched the damp cloth into her hands. "Your uncles will tell you in their own good time. Ah, Brian. The poor simple lad." She turned quickly to the sink and ran water over the dishes.

He spent his morning in aimless rambling but his mind was filled with scenes of wild violence. He would find her tonight, at the end of his tour. She would be waiting at Arthur's apartment. She would scream, cry out, plead, weep. She would throw herself on the floor, grab at his legs, sob and twitch, and tears would cut long seams on her powdery cheeks. With the cold, emotionless wrath of the deeply wronged, he would beat her with his fists and kick at her body, at all the warm, moist, soft, exciting, vulnerable and secret places of her body. Her lips would plead for his touch but his touch would not be what she expected or longed for.

The scene changed. Rita was not on the floor but on the bed, her body stretched and expectant, arched and waiting. He would approach her slowly, his hand to her hair, fingers twisting slowly. Slowly, she would come to realize his intention and slowly the soft corrupted features of her face would freeze with the knowledge of how he was about to destroy her.

He thought of the moment in terrible and endless variations of cruelty and pleasure, but they all ended with the same empty, hollow sense of despair.

He wanted last night not to have happened. He wanted reality not to have ruined a part of his life which he knew he would never be able to recapture. He didn't want to let go, yet he knew he had no choice, and faced with the fact, he wanted revenge.

He wanted to kill her. He wanted to destroy her, to hurt and humiliate her.

At the same time, he wanted the warm, familiar comfort and the unspeakable excitement of her body.

John O'Malley had been caught in what could only he described as a compromising situation with Anna Caprobella by Anna Caprobella's father, Dominick.

"But for Christ's sake, Uncle Peadar," Brian said, "there isn't a guy over seventeen doesn't know about Anna Caprobella."

Gene O'Malley leaned against the refrigerator and raised his brows. "Well, is that a fact now? And what's your particular knowledge of the girl?"

Peadar's large heavy fist smashed down on the table and the coffee cups raided. "This is not time for a bunch of smart aleck remarks," he said. "We know the girl's reputation, by God. The point of the thing is that the old guinea bastard caught poor John, right outside the door of their apartment. His precious daughter's hand was inside the damn fool's pants and I've no need to tell you what was in her filthy hand or what the condition of that something was."

"And Caprobella actually thinks we'd let John marry her?" Brian asked.

"Not just thinks it, lad. He's those three hulking apes of sons of his brought poor John over to Father Donlon at one this morning and woke the poor man with the commotion similar to the end of the world and announced that first banns were to be published this very Sunday. And didn't I have to get over there and fetch our Johnnie home and try to make some sense out of the whole mess." Peadar shook his head in disgust and with weariness. He'd been up half the night.

"He's a simple-minded fool, our John," Gene commented. "Christ, hasn't anyone ever spoken to the kid about...things'?"

Brian felt accused and angry. "Don't look at me, Uncle Gene. I've got enough to do taking care of the kids and giving John house-room every time his nut mother takes off."

Matthew spoke for the first time, slowly, quietly. "Well now, there's no point in anyone getting all worked up and blaming anyone else. The thing of it is, you see, there's the situation and we've to find the solution to the whole thing as of where it is now."

Gene jerked his thumb toward his older brother and said caustically, "He's all for wedding bells, isn't that a fact, Matt?"

The milkman sucked on his pipe for a moment, shrugged and spread his hands. "Well, I think the girl's been talked about a great deal more than the facts might warrant. She doesn't come from a bad family. They're all hard workers and honest enough and concerned for her future."

"Concerned?" Peadar roared. "And it's us should be concerned. They're trying to palm off used goods on our poor John and that simple boy has no one but us to protect him."