He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over her dressing table. For a man of his age, he was in helluva good shape. He put his hand on his flat stomach, admired his long body, which hadn't gone to flab, had remained hard and muscular and responsive.

Christ, for a man his age, he felt like a man of any age. He pulled on his clothes and brushed his hair with her heavy brush.

Then he went into her kitchen and to surprise her, and to his own surprise, he put on a pot of coffee.

It lasted because they made no unrealistic demands on each other. She was absorbed in her career and Brian viewed her achievements with pride. She knew how to channel her energies and she moved ahead steadily to larger and more important news assignments.

He kept his private life separate and apart from her; she never pried but merely surmised. There were times when he was tempted to speak to her about certain things, but he knew instinctively what to keep private. He felt a new joy in his own achievements when he was with her, for she was not easily impressed, yet was impressed by him.

For two years, while neither took the other totally for granted, there had at least developed a sense of reliability. She was not a woman given to wounded feelings. A quick phone call canceling an expected meeting was as easily accepted by her as by him. She'd been in Los Angeles for three weeks on assignment and he felt slightly lonely and unfulfilled. She'd been preparing an hour-long special on sensitivity training centers and she'd called him once to announce that she was involved with the greatest collection of kooks ever assembled in one place at one time.

He was about to dial her number when she called him. It was one of the things that happened between them all the time and if either said, "I was just reaching for the phone to call you," it was invariably true and they both knew it.

"Tonight okay?" she asked. When he said yes, that was all there was to say at the moment, but she added uncharacteristically, "Good. Hell, I think I missed you, O'Malley."

He hung up the receiver and attacked the work on his desk in a lighthearted mood.

THIRTY-EIGHT.

THE FIFTH ARTICLE IN the series in the Daily News was the one that caused the commotion they had been hoping to avoid.

"I had been at the precinct for four weeks," the author asserted, "when I was approached about going on 'the pad.'"

Lieutenant Fitzgerald was at his desk when Deputy Chief Inspector Brian O'Malley arrived at a quarter to eight. Fitzgerald had read the article in the first edition of the newspaper, which came out the previous evening, and he knew he could expect his boss early. He brought a cup of hot coffee to Brian's desk and waited for instructions.

Brian scanned a list of notes he'd written to himself, glanced at his wristwatch, then instructed Lieutenant Fitzgerald.

"Get Chief Aaron Levine on the phone. If he's not in yet, keep trying. I wanna get to him before Chief Pollack arrives."

Aaron Levine, Deputy Chief Inspector in Charge of Internal Affairs, New York City Police Department, leaned back in the corner of his chauffeur-driven unmarked Department car and sighed. He was running a little late this morning. Probably the Commissioner would want to see him because of this dope's article. As far as Aaron Levine was concerned, the less he saw of the P.C., the happier he was.

Not that he had anything against the Commissioner. The reverse was true. He was a fine man, if a bit of a dreamer, but truly, a better man than the Department he headed.

It hadn't taken Aaron more than a month on his assignment to get the feeling that the Department was rotting from the center on out. He had no great inclination to take on a crusade for honor and integrity within the New York City Police Department. What he had in his mind, actually, was putting in the remaining year and four months that would make him eligible for retirement at three-quarter pay. Then, at fifty-five, he would be able to step into a position as Dean of Law Enforcement at any of three upstate universities which had been bidding for him for the last three years, ever since law enforcement began to excite academic imaginations.

In a way, Aaron regretted his decision to stick it out until the three-quarter pay. At least in this new capacity. It had been pleasant as a captain. He did his supervisory work in a nice, easygoing manner in his nice, easygoing, white, middle-class precinct in Kew Gardens.

He'd needed a promotion like he'd needed an ulcer. He'd never had any reason to anticipate either; now he seemed to have attained both.

The new Commissioner had approached him after a careful study of what the Commissioner called Aaron's "fantastic academic achievements." The Commissioner was known to be impressed by higher education and Aaron Levine, in the course of thirty-three years as a member of the New York City Police Department, in addition to having achieved the rank of captain, had simultaneously earned a master's degree in criminology, a master's degree in social psychology, a doctorate in urban planning and an LL.D. from Brooklyn Law School. He'd obtained his teacher's license; he'd taught a few courses at the Police Academy; and when moonlighting became legal, he'd conducted courses in basic criminology and penology at John Marshall College of Criminal Justice.

He'd managed to raise and educate two daughters and one son; all three were married, professionals with graduate degrees, successful in their respective communities in Long Island, Connecticut and Westchester.

Aaron's wife, a former schoolteacher, was kept very busy in her social involvements in Great Neck. She stressed his academic accomplishments and played down his "connection" with the Police Department among her friends. To her, Aaron was a scholar and an academic; she liked to feel that he was a police officer merely as a means of studying law enforcement at first hand to enhance his professional knowledge. At any rate, she referred to him as a "law enforcement specialist; one of the few in the country"; as such, her friends were most impressed.

When the new Commissioner appointed Arthur Pollack as his Chief Inspector, Aaron Levine nodded with approval. Good. He had more than just his showcase Jew. He had selected a thoroughly competent man who had always done a good job and who always brought credit to himself and his fellow members of the Sholem Society, which was an important consideration.

When Aaron was offered the assignment of Deputy Chief Inspector in Charge of Internal Affairs, there were two considerations he had to keep in mind. The first was that he, personally, had no ambition to rise to any great heights in the New York City Police Department He liked his small, cozy, safe office in Kew Gardens. The second consideration was more pointed.

"A Jew to head the spy squad, Aaron? You hafta be crazy to even consider it." That was the opinion of Sergeant Sam Markowitz, president of the Sholem Society. "That's all they'd need, Aaron, to point us out as their persecutors. Don't give them any ammunition. Listen to me."

"Bullshit," volunteered Max Chumberg, a lieutenant and vice-president of the organization. "We gotta move when we can, where-ever we can. Look, Artie Pollack is right up there at the top. It's time to stop being afraid of making a bad impression with these guys. Aaron, take the job."

"Aaron," their rabbi-adviser said, "do your duty. Go with God."

Aaron took the job. His main tasks were to root out corruption in the New York City Police Department; to institute departmental charges against those derelict in their duties; to investigate civilian complaints. In his new position, he heard plenty and took action wherever it seemed feasible.

Philosophically, Aaron Levine considered his position with a sense of ironic amusement. He'd spent a lifetime in the Police Department attending one course or another, taking one degree or another, often on city time and once, for a year on scholarship at Berkeley, on city money. He'd long ago decided that there was nothing intrinsically dishonest with how he'd spent his life. His accumulation of knowledge and academic credentials served the Department and the city well. He used his knowledge for the good of his job, in a way. Certainly, he tried to bring an enlightened approach to his job. He never harmed anyone.

That was about the only way to view his life: through rationalization, with a grain of humor and a smile at the turnings and twistings of life and fate or whatever it was that decided things for a man.

Patrolman Jacobs, the only other Jew in the office, since Aaron heeded the Society's advice not to load the division with Jews, greeted him abruptly. Jacobs was a very tense young man, eyes always glowing with a sense of excitement and alarm.

"Chief, you got a call already from Chief O'Malley. He wants you to call him back. Right away as soon as you get in he said."

"Okay, Stu. And relax. You're making me nervous and it's going to be a long nervous day. Go, type a report or something for the meeting."

Aaron Levine sat and contemplated the telephone. Call Chief O'Malley. It was funny. He hadn't thought of Brian O'Malley as any connection to himself for years; not since they'd both been appointed captain together had he even realized there was a Brian O'Malley in the Department. The son of his father. Well. It was a strange world all right.

He didn't have much to do with O'Malley. They had an occasional conference about how to handle certain corruption issues with the media. O'Malley impressed Levine as being very much in the mold of that still strange, still remote hard breed of men whom Aaron had dwelt among all of his working life, yet had never come to feel anything toward but a sense of alienated wonder and curiosity. He never could figure how little Arthur Pollack had slid right into the midst of them, the strangers, and come up on top.

He dialed, waited for the first ring to be interrupted.

"Hello, Chief O'Malley? This is Chief Levine. You got a minute?"

Karen called just as Brian was leaving his office for the conference with Arthur Pollack. "Listen, Karen, can I get back to you? You at the office or home? I have a conference."

"This is business, Brian."

He hesitated, felt a sharpening sense of awareness. Her voice was businesslike and insistent. Carefully, he said, "What business do we have pending?"

In the past, he'd given her small things, fed her leads if there was a particularly sensational crime current and if she was assigned to it. But it had been understood between them that she'd never initiate any inquiry. Brian had the vague feeling that she was violating some unstated agreement "This newspaper article, Brian. What's a 'pad'?"

"Karen, I'll see you tonight."

"Brian, hold it a minute-"

"Tonight," he said tersely and hung up.

At the Chief Inspector's office, there were, in addition to Deputy Chief Inspectors Levine and O'Malley, two inspectors and two deputy inspectors.

"Go ahead, Brian," the Chief Inspector said, "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Right, Chief. I've sent someone over to the News to pick up an advance of the article they're going to run tomorrow, but the gist of it is what I've already gotten over the telephone."

Arthur Pollack rubbed his horn-rimmed glasses with a clean handkerchief but didn't put them back over his tired eyes as he spoke. "So, he doesn't actually name names?"

"Well," Brian answered, "he indicates the position of the men he claims were on the pad. I mean, what the hell. If he's accusing the squad commander of the precinct's detectives, that could be only one guy, right?"

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose with his slender fingers and closed his eyes for a moment, then put on the glasses and said, "Aaron, you're on top of this?"

Arthur Pollack's tone was more hopeful than authoritative. He hadn't developed the tone of command, yet his reputation for getting things done, all things considered, was strong.

Aaron Levine consulted the list of neatly typed notations which were attached to his clipboard. "We've sent someone over to this reporter's home and someone to his office to interview him. He's not around and nobody seems to know where he is, so we're looking into that." He made a small check mark next to the item and continued down his list, checking as he spoke. "I have a man over at the D.A.'s office to see how he feels about a grand jury appearance for this Jerry Smith. Incidentally, that's his real name, and as Jerry Smith, he was in the Department on the dates and in the locations he's indicated in his articles.

"I have two men over at the Seventeenth Precinct now interviewing anyone he ever worked with. I have an appointment with Lieutenant Cavanaugh, the squad commander of the precinct detectives, scheduled for two-thirty this afternoon, in my office.

"The Legal Department is studying the articles for possible action, et cetera." Aaron Levine looked up finally and ventured, "Along with all the usual possible bases to be touched whenever any allegations such as these arise, that's it to date, Chief."

Arthur Pollack nodded and stood up. The men in his office, taking this for a signal that the meeting was over, stood up too. He glanced at them in some surprise, looked slightly startled, then gestured them back into place. Standing, he looked about as tall as his subordinates did seated.

"No, no, stay put, please. I just wanted to stretch my legs. Oh, one other thing, Aaron. I assume you've thought of this, but just to be sure. Aside from checking out the accusations, you're also checking on this reporter?"

Levine scanned his list, snapped his fingers. That particular notation was neatly jotted on the other side of his paper. "Yes, Chief, I've somebody on his background from day of birth up to the present. We should have that by late this afternoon."

"Well, then let's hope he's a convicted perjurer at least. It would make things easy, wouldn't it? Now, Brian. We'll handle this along the lines we've previously discussed. The Commissioner feels we're still in a position to adopt a wait-and-see attitude."

"No problem there, Chief."

Arthur Pollack stared blankly for a moment; one eye turned in slightly until he blinked, held up his hands, looked around the room as though for confirmation. "Okay, then, that's it for now, gentlemen."

Karen swallowed some Scotch, wrinkled her nose, extended her glass toward him. "Brian, drop a couple of cubes in this for me, will you? Look, I don't know what you're so angry about. I did call you first thing this morning and I did say it was business."

"Look, babe, if you're going to be stepping on my toes, at least make sure you've got some weight going for you. What the hell kind of crap was that to pull: The Police Department was not available for comment on the allegations contained in today's published article.'" He handed her the drink and sat opposite her, his feet on the cocktail table between them.

Karen rolled the drink between her palms. "Look, Brian, you know I'm working up to my own show. It's all set, three nights a week, Talk About Your City. I'm going to be dealing with every city agency from the mayor's office down to the Department of Sanitation."

"You ought to reverse the order: Department of Sanitation down to the mayor's office. Look, I still think you hit low tonight and it bounces right back to me."

She shrugged, played a finger over an ice cube. "Okay, want to give me some detailed information? My show's scheduled to start in two weeks. The Police Department might be for openers."

"Forget it," he said tersely. "I'm not kidding, Karen. Don't try to use me."

Slowly, she leaned forward and put her glass on the table. She shook his foot lightly from side to side. "Why not, sweetie? We've been using each other for a long time."

He was surprised at how angry he felt. "Look, kid, I'm serious. If the Department's got a problem, it's internal, and I'm not about to give you a few tidbits to feed your voracious audience and get your show going in style. My job is to keep the lid on. There's nothing involved that requires full-scale TV coverage."

"Well, it's a good story when it involves investigating the investigators, Brian. Your job may be to keep the lid on. My job is to open it all up to the public eye."

"Then I think maybe we'd better not discuss it when we're together, Karen. You do your job, I'll do mine, right?"

She chewed on her index finger for a moment, then grinned. "If I do my job properly, you won't be able to do yours."

Brian leaned back and returned the challenging smile tightly. "Yeah, baby, but if I do my job properly, same thing applies. You know, it's so damned nice and comforting to have an understanding woman."

"Screw you, O'Malley."

THIRTY-NINE.

PATROLMAN JOHNNIE MORRISON PRIDED himself on his appearance. He was of medium height, slender build and he knew how to dress and how to wear clothes. He had his hair styled and groomed at an expensive men's salon. He had the look of today and the look of the crowd he most admired and had been assigned to work around. He liked vice assignments; they meant action and a chance to mix it up with the real swingers. Sometimes, he felt he'd been born too early. It was a great time to be twenty-five instead of thirty-five, but for a man of thirty-five, he held his own pretty good.

He didn't think much of Patrolman Pete Caputo. As far as appearance goes, the kid was a slob. Johnnie Morrison had seen guys with beards look dapper and cool. This kid was just plain motley; no style, no class, nothing. He wasn't exactly the kind of partner Johnnie Morrison would have selected for himself, but he was, nevertheless, the partner given him in the new shake-up.

The word on the kid was that he was a little strange but basically okay. If the word was a little vague, that didn't bother Morrison too much. He'd size the kid up in short order. At least he'd heard the kid had moxie and that always came in handy, since no matter how you played it when you worked an unmarked out on the street, you never knew what the hell you might come on and it was good to have a bit of backbone behind you besides your own.

"You got much going out in the Seventy-first?" Morrison asked. "I don't know Brooklyn. I'm strictly a Manhattan boy myself."

"The Seventy-first is pretty quiet, I guess."

"Well, the Fourteenth is pretty active," Morrison said. He glanced sideways at his young partner and added, "You know. In lotsa ways. Hey, speaking of which, did you catch that on the radio?"

They both leaned forward and Morrison picked the words out right away. He was attuned to anything that might mean his particular sector. "Yeah, that's us, Pete. Go. Oh, Jesus, Emporium Furs. Hell, I know that place. It's wholesale."

There were signs of breaking and entering, but by the time they arrived at the huge store on West 32nd Street, there were no further signs of the intruders. There were three patrol cars on the scene when Morrison and Caputo arrived in their unmarked black Plymouth.

A slightly built sergeant leaned toward one of the patrol cars, which had obviously arrived just moments before the unmarked. "Okay, okay, there's no fucking sideshow to be seen here. You guys can just take off; there's nothing around for all you guys. Go on, go on, it's under control."

"What do you say, Johnnie," Pete Caputo asked, "should we scout the area? They've probably been scared off by now but we could ride around a little and take a look."

Johnnie rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, his fingers lingering on the soft curl of hair, newly styled. "Take it easy, kid. I just wanna go have a look around."

As they got out of the car, the sergeant approached them, his face a tight, questioning glare. "Oh, it's you, Johnnie. Who the hell is this? Bearded Sam?"

"This here is my new partner. Pete Caputo, meet Sergeant Edgar. So, what's doing?"

"The owner's been notified. He'll be here in about forty-five minutes."

It seemed somewhat irrelevant information, but Morrison nodded as though that was what he wanted to know. He scanned the patrolmen on the scene, one stationed at the door, two inside the store, then turned to Pete.

"Hey, partner, look I'm just gonna have a look-see. You keep on the radio, okay?" He winked and as he walked into the store he casually hung an arm over the sergeant's shoulder.

Pete sat in the car and smoked a few cigarettes. They were parked directly across from the front of Emporium Furs and he had a fairly good view into the shop. The whole block had a middle-of-the-night three-thirty feeling to it. He remembered the summer he'd worked in a dress shop, not two blocks away. Christ, he shoved racks down these streets when they were jammed with trucks and cars and shoving people. Funny, he hadn't thought of that for years, but one day, a truck actually knocked him down. The truck backed up suddenly, and Pete and his rack of cheap dresses barreled right into the truck. Pete went under the truck and all he worried about was the fucking merchandise. Jesus, the boss would kill him if he didn't make delivery.