Mich.e.l.le caught a cue from the floor manager. "We'll be back with Dr. Pamela Metcalf, author of The Murderer Within Us, right after this ..."

The news director's door was open, so Mich.e.l.le walked in. Jerry Abrams was devouring a bacon cheeseburger. Late thirties, bushy mustache, disheveled, overweight. He chewed noisily, occasionally burping as he kept his eyes on one of three TV screens in his gla.s.s-enclosed cubicle.

"Hey, Mich.e.l.le, get a load-"

"Me-ch.e.l.le."

"Okay, Meeee-ch.e.l.le, get a load of this turkey."

On the screen a crew-cut blond man with a string tie was reciting baseball scores. The sound was turned low. Jerry Abrams always reviewed audition tapes this way. Watch the way they look, n.o.body listens anyway, he explained.

"Wanna play?" Jerry Abrams asked.

"I dunno, Jerry."

"C'mon, guess.

"El Paso?"

He shook his head.

"Albuquerque?"

Jerry fished a french fry out of a paper sack. The office smelled of grease and charred meat. "The Wyatt Earp tie's throwing you off. Smaller market, farther north."

"North Platte, Nebraska," she said.

"Good guess. Quad Cities, Iowa. Hayseed wants to come to Gomorrah-by-the-Sea."

He punched a b.u.t.ton on the remote control and grabbed another ca.s.sette. More than a hundred were stacked around his desk.

"Jerry, I'd like you to relieve me on the five o'clock. Just for a couple weeks."

"What? During sweeps? Jesus, no!"

"But I'm working on an investigative piece ..."

He stopped in mid-bite. A glob of ketchup clung to his mustache. "What investigative piece? Who a.s.signed you?"

"No one. I've been working on my own. A blockbuster I can't tell you about, yet. I've got a confidential source."

Jerry loosened his tie, which was already at half-mast. He plugged another ca.s.sette into the VCR. After the color bars and the countdown, a pet.i.te Oriental woman appeared in front of a burning building. She held a microphone and showed a dazzling smile likely used for stories of quintuplet births and plane crashes alike. Mich.e.l.le noticed that her orange helmet clashed with her green flak jacket. She wondered if the teeth were real.

"Meee-ch.e.l.le, baby," Jerry said, "you're not Bob Friggin' Woodward. You're a face, a very good face, and your numbers are catching up with Gilligans Island reruns on Channel Four."

She tried to give him a tough look she learned from numerous Jane Fonda films. It had the effect of crinkling her collagen-injected lips.

"Now, don't pout at me," Jerry said. "Hey, that was a great interview today. What's a looker like that doing with ma.s.s murderers: "Serial murderers."

"Whatever," Jerry Abrams said.

The bedroom's jalousie windows were cranked open, and Mich.e.l.le could hear nighttime traffic on Ocean Drive. The trendy club and barhopping crowd. Mich.e.l.le smiled, relieved to be free of the feigned happiness of the South Beach full-time floating-disco-party team, junior varsity, second string. What with chlamydia, herpes, and gonorrhea creeping around, not to mention AIDS. Hadn't they just done a show on the misery of venereal warts, images of rashes and itches giving her the w.i.l.l.i.e.s right on the set.

Having one man-even a part-time married man-was better than a bunch of sweaty one-night stands. Even though her man was, more often than not, a thirty-minute slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am stand. Which is why she didn't consider it cheating to spend an occasional night with a carefully chosen lover in a more leisurely mode.

Mich.e.l.le stretched a hand across the sheets and touched a warm thigh. She heard the regular, measured breaths of peaceful sleep and smiled again. It had been wonderful for them both, better than she had dared hope for something so new, a warmth that had grown slowly, gently caressing her, building into a flame that had nearly consumed her. Better than with ...

There was a stirring next to her and she watched her lover turn to one side. Great body, too. Silently, Mich.e.l.le climbed out of bed. She had tossed her blue silk dress, specially chosen by her fashion consultant, across a chair. Her matching spike-heeled shoes, her panty hose, and discarded uplift bra formed a trail from living room to bedroom. Naked, Mich.e.l.le entered the bathroom and closed the door. She removed the tinted contact lenses and scrubbed three layers of makeup from her face. There hadn't been time before, it had happened so fast. She slipped into a black silk camisole, headed for the tiny kitchen, and grabbed a low-fat vanilla yogurt from the refrigerator. Then she sat down at a desk in a corner of the living room and turned on her computer.

Mich.e.l.le punched up the directory labeled "INVST-1" and started typing: When your platoon entered the village of Dak Sut on January 9, 1968, what orders did you give?

"No," she said to herself. "Too direct." Christ, this wasn't like interviewing celebrity authors. She tried to imagine how Geraldo Rivera would do it.

For the next hour she kept typing and retyping questions.

Was there evidence of NVA or VC in the village?

He's going to say yes. Then what? How do you follow up? This is harder than it looks.

The last time you saw Lieutenant Ferguson alive, was he- Forget it. She could try again tomorrow. She punched a b.u.t.ton and magically transported the questions to her computer's hard memory. She exited the word-processing program, then hit the keys for the modem, which automatically dialed a local number. After a few seconds the computer tinkled a romantic ballad and the medical symbols for the male and female of the species appeared on the screen, the male's arrow piercing the female's circle. The symbols changed shape, becoming the figures of a nude man and woman, until they, too, electronically unwound and formed letters and then a word. "Compu-Mate."

> DO YOU WISH TO ENTER THE MATING ROOM?.

> YES.

> YOUR HANDLE, PLEASE.

> TV GAL.

She had been meaning to change her handle after several Compu-Mate correspondents asked whether she enjoyed cross dressing. She typed a numerical pa.s.sword, and after a moment the computer purred, and a new message scrolled down the monitor.

> HERE'S WHO'S IN THE MATING ROOM NOW: SUPER STUD.

CANDY FEELGOOD.

Pa.s.sION PRINCE.

BUSH WHACKER.

HELEN BED.

ICE G.o.dDESS.

CHARLIE HORSE.

BIGGUS d.i.c.kUS.

TV GAL.

ORAL ROBERT.

HOT BUNS.

A sound came from the bedroom. A sliver of light appeared under the door. Mich.e.l.le punched into the chat mode and made some connections. Oral Robert told her he'd save her a.s.s and to h.e.l.l with her soul. Bush Whacker tried to type dirty but couldn't spell any word over four letters. Biggus d.i.c.kus, a nearly normal guy she remembered from last week, asked about her work. Bor-ing! She brushed them off.

> h.e.l.lO, TV GAL. LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION-Pa.s.sION PRINCE.

A little jolt went through her, as it always did. A new name, a voice in the dark. Maybe this time. She heard the bathroom shower turning on. It wouldn't be an all-nighter after all.

> h.e.l.lO, Pa.s.sION PRINCE. WHAT ARE YOU UP TO.

> NO GOOD.

Just dancing around and she didn't have all night.

> TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF, PP.

> EIGHT FEET TALL, GREEN SCALY SKIN, A LONG SNOUT, AND LARGE TEETH . . .

Christ, a comedian. Why not just a sincere, single, self-sup porting male, thirty-five, gainfully employed, likes dining out, movies, and romantic walks on the beach?

> . . .AND YOU, TV PERSON?.

Might as well give him a cheap thrill.

> FIVE-NINE WITH LONG, LONG LEGS. LARGE ROUND b.r.e.a.s.t.s, A FLAT, SMOOTH STOMACH, AND FULL HIPS.

She stared at the screen. Nothing. Maybe scared him off. She waited. Outside, an ocean breeze rattled the windows.

> WHAT ABOUT YOUR a.s.sHOLE?.

Oh brother. One of those.

> IS IT NICE AND TIGHT?.

She started to hit the escape b.u.t.ton but stopped. In the bathroom, the water was turned off, the pipes clanking in the old apartment. The prince of pa.s.sion was still typing.

> DO YOU LIKE POETRY?.

> NOTHING DIRTY, Pa.s.sION GUY.

> WHEREOF MY FAME IS LOUD AMONGST MANKIND, CURED LAMENESS, PALSIES, CANCERS. THOU, O G.o.d, KNOWEST ALONE WHETHER THIS WAS OR NO. HAVE MERCY, MERCY! COVERALL MY SIN!.

> THATS POETRY? SOUNDS LIKE FATHER McCORKLE IN WILKES BARRE.

She hoped that would stop him, but the electronic blips kept coming, the words marching across her screen.

> THEN, THAT I MIGHT BE MORE ALONE WITH THEE, THREE YEARS I LIVED UPON A PILLAR, HIGH.

> I BEEN STONED, TOO, BUT THREE YEARS? THATS HEAVY.

> NO, NO TV-GAL. DO YOU KNOW NOTHING OF THE STYLITES?.

Jeez, I don't know what's worse, Mich.e.l.le thought, a pervert or a bore. She looked toward the bedroom. The door was open, the light off.

> A MO-TOWN GROUP, RIGHT?.

> AH, PERHAPS MUSIC IS MORE TO YOUR TASTE.

Ought to sign off now, Mich.e.l.le thought, play hostess, offer a good-bye drink and exchange lies about next time. So quiet, the only sound the hum of the computer, the only light the luminous black-and-white display of the monitor. Now what was he typing? Rock 'n' roll lyrics. What's with this guy? Can't he think for himself? Trying to tell me I shake his nerves and rattle his brain. He was rattled long before tonight. And don't tell me what drives a man insane. But there he goes, hammering out the whole d.a.m.n song. And he probably can't even carry a tune. She heard footsteps behind her.

> OK, OK, PRINCE . . . I BROKE YOUR WILL AND GAVE YOU A SUPER-DUPER THRILL, BUT I REALLY GOT TO GO NOW.

A shadow crossed the screen, then stopped.

She didn't turn.

She expected a caress, a lover's hug.

"h.e.l.lo, darling," Mich.e.l.le said.

There was no reply.

She hit the escape b.u.t.ton, punching out of the program, and stared into the black background of the screen. The outline of shoulders ...

Two hands grabbed Mich.e.l.le's neck from behind and yanked her out of the chair. For a moment she thought it was a joke. But it wasn't funny, and rough s.e.x after tender loving didn't make sense. She thought of a man who wanted her to choke him just before he came. Oxygen deprivation to enhance the o.r.g.a.s.m.

Weird. Now this.

The hands slipped from her neck, then closed again. Mich.e.l.le clawed at the hands as they pressed harder. She kicked backward and tried to scream, but nothing came out. She gasped for air, fought off the nausea, and sucked in a breath as the hands relaxed again. But she was losing consciousness and her strength was gone.

She barely felt the hands this time, and her last memory would be a tiny sound, a sickening crack like a wishbone snapped in two.

The hands continued to squeeze for a full minute, then dropped her back into the chair. A moment later, they grabbed Mabel Dombrowsky by the hair and roughly jammed her head forward into the monitor, shattering the screen, shards of gla.s.s piercing her eyes. From inside the broken screen, an electronic pop and fizzle and a puff of flame.

"Great b.a.l.l.s of fire!" sang a voice she never heard.

CHAPTER 1.