Brian shrugged, careful.

Shea, who was slightly taller than Brian and thinner, jammed his hat back on his head and held out his arms expansively. "Sure it's a wondrous thing, protectin' all them marvelous automobiles from the plunder of pirates and such kind!" His imitation of McCallahan was good and funny. Brian liked Shea.

"What are the girls like, Ed?"

"These are not 'girls,' O'Malley. These are young ladies. In fact, these are the daughters of some of the most very important people on the face of the earth, if you take my meaning, lad." He cupped his hand over his mouth and said, "Mostly a hunch of dry-looking sticks. Half of them go stiff as soon as the music stops, when they realize they're actually in some guy's arms. You never saw such fast disengaging of couples in your life. Not that they get really close, there are more damn parents and nuns fluttering around. In fact and in summation, not a good lay in the house!"

Brian shrugged. "Can't win 'em all. How's the music. I can't hear a damn thing out here."

"Let's put it this way, O'Malley. They try very hard. The sax isn't bad but thank God they keep the trumpet muted. The poor bastard gets all revved up for a high note and can't get anywhere near it. They're all pretty good at facial expressions though. You know, all that narrowing of eyes stuff that's supposed to get to the girls."

Shea posed, hands in front of him, fingering keys, eyes narrowed and lashes batting. "You play anything, O'Malley?"

"I used to blow bugle." On a sudden impulse, because Ed Shea was so relaxed and easygoing, because it had been a long and lonely night and he was restless and felt like making noise, Brian brought his fingers to his lips, held the imaginary bugle, tilted his head back and played the invisible instrument. He felt his lips tingle with effort as he forced out "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."

"Oh, Jesus, on Memorial Day, down the length of the Grand Concourse," Ed Shea said. He hoisted a huge weight, sketched with his arms the bass drum, which had been his instrument. "Shea the dumdum man, boy wonder, who sets the marchin' feet to marchin' for St. Martin's of the Holy Cross!" He made a banging motion and emitted a hollow sound from his chest. "Thud! Thump! Thud! Thump!"

They didn't realize how loud they were in the silence of the parking lot.

Lieutenant Shea had a hand on each of them before either of them was aware of his presence. Brian froze with a terrible sense of humiliation and shame; his hands were poised foolishly at his lips, his head tilted back. He closed his eyes and wished reality away.

"Now you know where the real fun is," Ed Shea said calmly to his father.

Brian opened his eyes as he felt the hard hand relax on his shoulder. He glanced quickly at Ed, then at Lieutenant Shea. He felt his face turn hot "Well, I'll tell the pair of you this," Lieutenant Shea said quietly. "You'd be written off as a pair of fools or clowns if it was Sergeant McCallahan and not me came upon you. And you'd be taken as a pair of easy incompetents were I an auto thief. I'd have been able to make off with my choice beneath the beating of your drum and the tooting of your horn. What the hell tune were you attempting, anyway? It sounded nothing but noise to me."

Brian ran a hand quickly across his mouth and said, "Well, I think we were probably playing the 'Tools' March,' Lieutenant. And I guess we made a pretty good job of it."

Lieutenant Shea regarded him for a moment, then smiled tightly and nodded. He looked from Brian to his son, then told them, "Well, the pair of you could end up on report, larking like a pair of schoolboys. I didn't expect better sense out of you," he told his son totally without rancor, "but Brian O'Malley, I thought you were more of a grownup. Go on now, are you on meal relief or what?"

At the entrance to the car lot, Brian met Sergeant McCallahan. "Did you hear some noises back there, O'Malley? Sounded like some kids."

"Couple of kids walking down the street, Sergeant. They were playing parade."

The sergeant's face screwed into a puzzled expression. "Playing parade? What the hell does that mean, 'playing parade'?"

Brian shrugged. "You know how kids are, Sarge. They were tooting on make-believe horns and banging on make-believe drums."

The sergeant made a disgusted sound. "Ought to be home in bed. They'd get their asses kicked if they were mine, out this time of night, playing parade. I'd play them a parade."

"Yes, Sergeant."

The nun behind the long gray-painted table in the basement of the Holy Mary Academy dispensed chopped-egg and tuna-fish-salad sandwiches as though she were rendering a great charity to those accustomed to grabbing with both hands.

"One of each," she instructed Brian as he held the paper plate over the meager supply of food. "You're entitled to one of each and some potato salad"-a finger pointed out each item as she named it-"and some coleslaw, but go easy on that, please. We've four more policemen besides you to feed and the policemen who ate on the first shift weren't very considerate of their fellow officers. Besides," she advised him, "you're late, seems to me."

She blinked her thick, short red eyelashes over her pale-blue eyes and faced Brian with her accusation. He immediately declined both the potato salad and the coleslaw and her mouth pursed in disapproval for she had no more patience with martyrs than she did with gluttons.

All the physical signs indicated that Sister Margaret St. John was a warm, jolly, robust young woman with a friendly and open manner. She was large-boned, heavy-fleshed and the pale skin of her broad-nosed face was splashed with deep-orange clusters of freckles that looked like water paint. The backs of her hands were similarly stained, and from the heavy dark-orange eyebrows, there was no question that her hair, what was left of it cropped beneath her habit, was as riotously bright as any red hair could be. Physical appearances aside, she was a dour, sharp, cold, alert and antagonistic woman accustomed to dealing with a roomful of adolescent girls who were accustomed to being told what to do, when and how to do it.

"It's been provided for you men," she said as she spooned a scant amount of salad next to Brian's sandwiches, "and we've no wish to have it left over."

Brian murmured, "Thank you, Sister."

He walked across the gray-painted concrete floor to a folding table, managed to get the cup of coffee and paper plate of food set down without dropping his hat, which had been tucked under his arm. He put the hat on his lap. He didn't think Sister Margaret St. John would be too pleased if he put it on the table and he didn't want to put it on the floor, so there was nowhere else to put it.

Music vibrated overhead. They were playing "Moonlight and Roses" and the trumpet was trying a solo with mixed results. The other musicians must have thought so too; they joined in and the trumpet got lost. But the sound was nice; filtered through the ceiling, it had a rich mellow feel. Brian imagined how it would be to hold one of those pink girls against him. He'd had a quick glimpse when he entered the building, not of any particular girl, just of fluffy pink-and-white forms drifting around the room, being led and guided by their carefully selected escorts. As they breezed by the doorway through which he watched, they gave off an essence of soft, sweet femininity and innocence and perfection, but mostly of softness.

The thought of all that softness, of all those female legs moving against the pink material, making contact through the pinkness with the hard masculine legs, the quick suggestive touch, the sudden unexpected whirl in time to a flurry of music, which would bring the pink body close for a fleeting, exciting contact, made Brian nearly gag on the dry egg-salad sandwich.

He was glad that the light was dim, that there was a table between him and Sister Margaret St. John, that he had his hat on his lap. That made it more exciting, the hiddenness of his excitement. It occurred to him that he should have better control, that he should not let the close inaccessibility of faceless young girls get him into this state. At the same time, he felt a warmth and strange pleasure in the fact that he could get an erection so easily.

An unconvincing vocalist wailed "Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you" in a monotone. Brian chewed a hunk of sandwich slowly, visualized how he would stride across the room, reach out for a juicy pink body, show her what it meant to embrace, to hold against each other, to press against each other and crush the billow of pink skirt between them.

Christ. A crumb of egg went into his windpipe. Brian coughed with a chest-deep pain and hacking that brought tears to his eyes and Sister Margaret St. John to his side. She thumped the center of his back soundly several times until he nodded that he was all right. Then she gave him a tremendous blow, right in the small of his back. It nearly knocked him to the floor.

"There," she said, "that will do the trick."

Brian felt pain run down his spine, shoot into his right buttock and knot the calf of his leg. "Sister," he sputtered, "you could paralyze a person hitting him like that." Carefully, he tested his leg and stood up.

"Nonsense," Sister Margaret St. John told him briskly. "That was done scientifically. There's a nerve center between the two vertebrae and a good solid blow, properly done, clears up any difficulties." As she spoke, she gathered the half-filled paper plate, the empty paper cup and brushed a few crumbs from the table. "I take it you're finished eating, officer."

The pale eyes informed him that he was finished eating. Brian felt a tingling down to the toes of his right foot, but by the time he climbed the iron stairs to the main floor, he was all right. He put on his hat and pulled the visor so that it was at a slightly jaunty angle.

"O'Malley, step in here a minute," Sergeant McCallahan called to him.

On the door, in gold letters, was the word "Principal." As he approached the door, Brian had the totally irrational feeling of a schoolboy. There was a thud in the pit of his stomach; his heart pumped so hard he could feel a vein pulsating along his temple. An awareness of imperfections, guilt for all his shortcomings, filled him.

"Come over here for a minute." Lieutenant Shea stood near the huge stained-glass window which covered most of one of the thick whitewashed stone walls. Brian tried to assume an expression of innocence. Miraculously, Lieutenant Shea spoke pleasantly; Brian hadn't done anything wrong, or been found out.

"Brian, a bit of a problem has come up. One of the lads seems to have slipped some whiskey into himself along with the punch and it seems he can't handle it. I've sent Patrolman Shea along to see he gets home without killing himself in the process."

Sergeant McCallahan reappeared at the doorway. "Lieutenant, I've your car ready and waiting, sir."

"Right, Sergeant, thanks." With a gesture, he sent the sergeant away. Shea shook his head slightly. "We've a fire at 230th Street. An apartment house, pretty bad from all reports, and I've been dispatched to supervise our lads on the scene. They've had one fireman seriously hurt and two overcome from the smoke. Oh, but here's what I wanted to know, Brian. You've your driver's license, haven't you?"

He didn't but he wasn't about to disappoint Lieutenant Shea. He did know how to drive. "Yes, sir."

"Fine, that's fine." He dug in his pocket and came up with a set of keys. "The girl has to be taken home, you see. The lad was in no condition, and we're responsible." He handed the keys to Brian. "Now, these are for my own car, Brian. It's the '38 Ford you'll see off to the left." He grinned. "Hell, it's the only Ford you'll see, so no problem in finding it."

"Black Ford, right, sir?" Brian asked, displaying his alertness.

"That's the one. Now, briefly, O'Malley, here's the assignment." The steady brown eyes searched Brian's face and the confidential voice advised him of the importance of the task. "You're to take the girl directly home, see she gets inside the house, and all with no fuss and bother." He reached out and fingered Brian's tunic. "Slip this off, and the hat, and leave them in the car. We wouldn't want the girl's neighbors to start all kinds of stories and speculation about a policeman bringing the girl home. Then just bring my car back here and leave it and I'll get it later. I hope to God there'll be no more injured at that fire. Oh, and, Brian, you can take off for home once you've returned."

Brian touched his cap quickly and felt the weight of the keys inside his palm. That was a break. His whole tour would only have lasted four hours; maybe that was the special part of the special assignment.

The music drifted through the grimly lit corridor and he waited just outside the principal's office. Waited for one of the pink and soft and female bodies to be presented to him.

Brian clenched his hand tightly over the rough edges of the keys. Hell, he had to stop thinking like a goddamn schoolboy.

She was a head taller than the tiny nun who glided along beside her, but to Brian she was as small and delicate as a doll. She had soft, long pale hair, caught up on each side of her face with narrow pink ribbon. Vague, unruly curls, the color of moonlight, cascaded along her shoulders, which were covered by a shawl the same color and material as her dress. In his one encompassing glance, Brian saw the fragility of the girl's body. Her waist was so small his two hands could span it easily.

"Are you Patrolman O'Malley?" the nun asked.

Brian touched his cap respectfully. "Yes, Sister."

The nun patted the girl's arm. "Don't you worry, Mary Ellen. This officer will see you home. You're not to worry now."

The girl nodded and kept her face down as they walked to the parking lot. Brian felt awkward and clumsy. There was too much of him; his feet were too heavy; he was afraid he might brush one of the tiny pink-satin shoes or that his rough arm might brush against her, that he might hurt her in some way. She seemed so vulnerable; if he sneezed, she'd be blown right down the front stairs of the school.

Christ. She was beautiful.

Her face was delicate perfection: high cheekbones clearly outlined by the fine, nearly translucent skin which was just slightly flushed by her agitation; a delicate straight nose; lips just palely pink and moist. Her brows were dark accents for her large mysterious eyes. They slanted slightly and in the dim light were of indeterminate color, the kind of blue that changed to gray or green, protected by long spidery lashes.

She gathered her full skirt into her small hands as they crossed the parking lot. The sound of her legs against layers of exotic material nearly maddened Brian. He wondered what it would be like to carefully, deliberately peel away layer after layer after layer...

She walked around the car and waited as he got the driver's door opened, leaned across, pulled the lock up, then raced around the front of the car to help her get settled in.

He leaned down, caught the sweet fragrance that floated from her. He brushed the edge of her skirt. "It'll get caught in the door," he said.

Her hands grabbed and pulled distractedly and he saw her bite her lower lip. Tears shimmered around the rim of her huge eyes and she turned her face away.

Brian started the car without any trouble and pulled out of the parking lot before he realized he hadn't turned on the headlights. He risked a glance at the girl, but she was turned from him, one handkerchief-clutching hand pressed to her face.

"Well, you live up near Manhattan College, right? You'll have to direct me, I'm afraid."

"All right. Just keep going up this street to Fort John, then a left turn."

Brian suddenly remembered something. He pulled the car to the curb. She turned to him, her face showing alarm. "I forgot to take off my uniform tunic and hat." He tossed them onto the back seat, felt a little uncomfortable in his checked sports shirt. She had a terrible, stricken look. In the shadowed light from the streetlamp, she seemed like one of those ageless, sexless, beautiful, oddly provocative but eternally untouchable little princesses in storybooks.

Brian dug a cigarette from his shirt pocket, then dug again for the pack and offered her one. She accepted the cigarette and leaned over his cupped hand, touched it lightly as she inhaled. As he lit his own cigarette, the girl suddenly started to choke.

"Hey, you okay?" Brian asked.

She gasped, held her hand over her face for a moment, then handed him the cigarette. In a bewildered, totally helpless voice, she said, "I don't smoke."

Brian regarded her curiously, then said, "Then why did you take a cigarette?"

She stared at him for about two seconds, then her face melted, collapsed. She brought both hands to her face and tried to stifle the sobs.

Brian felt pure panic. She was a small heap of misery. He rolled the window down, tossed both cigarettes away, had a fleeting wave of anxiety: Jesus, what if the sergeant or lieutenant should come by now? This was immediately replaced by a feeling of shame for that unworthy concern.

"Hey, come on," he said softly, "don't cry. Look, it's no big deal. I don't care if you smoke or not." She shook her head from side to side, and Brian said gently, "I'm only teasing. I know that's not why you're crying. What happened, you have a fight with your boy friend?"

She raised her face and her voice surprised him: it was strong and almost angry. "He's not my boy friend. I hate Teddy Fairley. He's a sloppy, messy fool of a boy."

Brian rested his elbow on the steering wheel and his face against his hand. "Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. That means he's not worth crying about, right?"

Brian took out a clean white handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to her. The gesture made him feel wise and mature and protective and strange. When she refused to accept it, he cupped her small heart-shaped face in the palm of one hand and carefully blotted her cheeks.

"Now, you gonna blow your nose by yourself or do I have to do everything?"

She smiled slightly and took the handkerchief.

"Fine. By the way, now that you've blown your nose into my handkerchief, it's only right that we introduce ourselves properly. I'm Brian O'Malley."

"I'm Mary Ellen Crowley." It was a soft, elegant, musical announcement. He had never heard a voice as clear and sweet.

"Well, Mary Ellen Crowley, would you please tell me how to get to your house because this Bronx boy doesn't know this section of the Bronx at all."

It took less than ten minutes for them to reach the long, steep winding hill which outlined one edge of the Manhattan College campus.

At the top of the hill was the world of Riverdale.

It was a wooded, carefully groomed village of huge English Tudor and sprawling French Normandy houses, with an occasional colonial. Each house was set far back from the street, protected behind thick hedges and stone fences with deep lawns and thick shrubbery. The streets curved and circled and the streetlamps glowed dully from ornate posts. The whole area had a shrouded, mysterious look: foreign, remote.

Brian thought, Nobody really lives in these houses.

"The third house on the right," Mary Ellen Crowley said.

Even as he slowed the car and turned onto the long driveway, he didn't believe it. Even though he caught sight of the numbers on the signpost and they were the same as the numbers on the slip of paper Lieutenant Shea had given him, he couldn't believe that he was sitting beside a girl who actually lived in a huge stone castle in Riverdale. Which was in the Bronx.

She fumbled at her skirt. Her fingers dug and grappled with the billowing material. She asked him not to get out, but he was out and around to her side before she could protest again. A breeze caught at her dress, whipped it around her for a moment. There had been just the smallest hint, suggestion, of a body beneath the material and Brian wanted to plunge his hands through the fabric and find the body that hid within, feel its shape and dimension and warm fleshiness. At the same time, he felt rigidly proper and respectful and didn't even touch her arm as she alighted from the car.

She turned her face from the brightly lighted house and her voice was so thin it almost trembled. "Thanks very much, but you don't have to walk to the door with me." She added "Please" and it sounded almost desperate.

Before he had a chance to reply, the massive front door opened inward, bright lights flashed on overhead so that they were spotlighted from hidden lights all around the driveway. Mary Ellen put her hands over her face and ran into the house. For a split second, Brian imagined a flurry of sympathetic family gathering around her, comforting the stricken princess of the manor.

"Get the hell over here and let's have a look at you, you little bastard!"

The voice was as raw as a flesh wound, ragged and tough and ugly. It didn't go with the house, the lawn, the stone wall. Most of all, it didn't go with anyone connected in any way with Mary Ellen Crowley. Brian felt a stiffening down the back of his neck, a tightening along his throat. He rolled his fingers into the palms of his hands and stepped forward, not in response to the command directed at him, but for some vaguer reasons: curiosity or anger or even from some misguided notion of valor. He was not about to leave Mary Ellen Crowley without finding out to what it was she was abandoned.

"Get over here, in the light where I can see you," the voice ordered.

Since the lights were shining directly on his face, Brian was at a distinct disadvantage. The owner of the raspy voice was seen as a dark faceless outdone who leaned, right-handed, on a long walking stick which he abruptly raised toward the interior of the house.

The man turned and limped in without the slightest doubt that Brian would follow and go where directed. Brian entered and found himself in a vast entrance hall, as large as any three ordinary living rooms he'd ever seen. It was high-ceilinged, stone-floored, with a wide stairway which led to upper floors and balconies.

There were arches and heavy polished doors and a feeling of age and wealth and splendor, but Brian wasn't permitted time to look around. The man knocked a door open with the head of his stick and Brian followed as his host limped into a room as massive as the entrance hall. There was a stone fireplace that took up one entire wall, side to side, floor to ceiling.

The man spun around unexpectedly and his face was six inches from Brian's. It was thin and tense and filled with building rage, but the focus of his glare went past Brian, for he hissed, "Get upstairs, you little hussy! You get upstairs. I'll deal with you later!"

Brian turned and caught just the flutter of pink as Mary Ellen Crowley fled, wordless, from the room. She was followed by a silent, tear-stained little woman.

Christ, this crazy old bastard had to be her father.

"Look, Mr. Crowley," he began carefully.

The walking stick was raised to an inch below his chin. "You shut up until I put a question to you, and then you give an answer!"