"Noir," Thinnes said, "see if the manager'll take this dog off our hands. If not, call Animal Control, then take it out for a walk before it has another accident."

Noir nodded, without enthusiasm, and took the leash. Thinnes went back in the apartment to watch the tech photograph Abner West.

Fifty.

"What're you doing tomorrow night?" Rick's voice.

Caleb stood at the window of his office as he listened to the phone, watching the traffic crawl down Michigan Avenue. The Loop was aglitter with lights and feverish with the urgency of the season. Christmas shoppers. He tried to picture Rick in a Christmas context-shopping, stringing lights, or singing Christmas carols. What came to mind was a fantasy involving red ribbon and mistletoe. He blushed at the thought and said, "I have tickets for the opera."

"Tickets?"

"Wagner. Die Walkre."

"You're going with someone."

Nothing like being subtle, Rick, he thought. "No..."

"Well?"

Caleb took a deep breath and wondered why he couldn't just say no. It was symptomatic that he felt he was being pressured into what he should have freely offered. And he resented it. What am I doing, going with this man?

"I've never been to an opera," Rick was saying.

"Die Walkre is not the one to start with."

"I'll be good."

"That's not what I meant."

"What's the drill?"

"Business attire-"

"No T-shirts?"

"The performance starts at six-thirty and runs nearly five hours. Latecomers aren't seated until there's a break or an intermission. Clearing one's throat is frowned upon; talking is grounds for murder."

"Sounds pretty stuffy."

"You don't have to come."

"Where do I meet you?"

He took a cab. The usual hustle and rush of Loop traffic was intensified by the urgency of the season. Hanukkah. Headlights and brake lights flashed, and turn signals and Four-ways. There was the usual glitter and neon of the Loop, and all the Downtown trees were bejeweled with white Italian lights. For the first time in years, he felt the manic joy of the season. Ebenezer Caleb transformed by Christmas spirits. The words for the song, "You're Just in Love," mingled in his head with the carols and madrigals he'd heard recently on WFMT-Wa.s.sail and Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel. Being in love-he recognized it as infatuation-was closely akin to insanity and probably biochemically congruent with the manic phase of bipolar affective disorder. He was-in strictly clinical terms-hyperrthymic. But the "dis-ease" was strictly self-limiting, so he decided to enjoy it.

As the cab let him out in front of the opera house, Caleb's excitement built like an electric charge in the dry, cold air. Rick was waiting.

He looked gorgeous in a dark-gray mohair coat, gray suit, and gray paisley tie with traces of red and the same slate blue as his eyes. His only concession to the season was a small cloisonne wreath of holly leaves with a tiny, red AIDS-awareness ribbon in place of a bow. His greeting was more effusive than Caleb felt comfortable with under the circ.u.mstances-an awkward hug.

For a brief moment, Caleb felt like an old cat in the company of a puppy. "Shall we go in?" he said.

The art deco doors opened, creating a temporary vacuum, and a great whoosh of cold air propelled them inside.

"The Lyric is a world-cla.s.s ensemble," Caleb said. "And the Civic's one of the world's premier houses. It's acoustically perfect, and there aren't any bad seats."

They had drinks, then went to their seats. Caleb had a box, on the mezzanine, with a superb view of stage, orchestra, and audience. The spectacle was dazzling: bronze and marble, gold and glitter, and golden light.

He tried to see it as Rick must. There were upper-middle-cla.s.s people, middle-aged and older couples, gays as well as straights.

"So what's the appeal?"

"Ritual, spectacle, and drama." Bread and circuses. Opera and hockey. Different metaphors for the same spiritual experience. In opera, the emphasis was on verbal a.s.sault. "It fills the same need as soap opera, professional wrestling, and Kabuki. Or Greek tragedy."

"Pretty heavy."

He was being polite. Ponderous was the word more often applied, particularly to Wagner.

"How did you get interested?"

"My mother was the quintessential opera buff."

As a child, Caleb had resisted his mother's efforts to interest him in opera. But, since his father always managed to have "emergency" surgery on opera nights, Caleb accompanied his mother to performances from the time he was seven. He'd never enjoyed it. The music wasn't bad, but as with Gregorian chant, he'd liked it better before he understood the words-which in translation frequently were insipid. And there'd seemed no point in ruining a perfectly good drama-or dressing up a silly one-with songs in foreign languages.

Then one day he'd heard Maria Callas on the radio. It had been an epiphany.

"So tell me about this show," Rick said.

"In Act One, Siegmund, the hero, arrives dest.i.tute and exhausted at Hunding's house, built around the trunk of an ash tree. Hunding's wife, Sieglinde, offers him sanctuary. When Hunding arrives, he reiterates the offer of shelter-until he hears Siegmund's story and discovers Siegmund is his kinsmen's enemy, whom he's sworn to kill. He tells his guest that he can safely stay the night, but in the morning, he's a dead man. Hunding and Sieglinde go off to bed, but she drugs him and returns to Siegmund. She shows him a sword a mysterious stranger once drove into the trunk of the ash. Siegmund retrieves the sword. They talk and discover that they're siblings, separated long ago. They fall madly in love and elope-"

"'Vice is nice, but incest is best,' eh? Who said that?"

"Oscar Wilde, I think."

"So, does this sordid little tale of dysfunctional family living have a happy ending?"

"I'm afraid not."

Just before the lights went down, he spotted a profile that was infuriatingly familiar, but which he couldn't connect to a name. The man was tall and powerfully built, and considerably older than the blond beauty on his arm. She was patently bored by the conversation he was having with two men Caleb recognized as real-estate heavyweights.

Then the lights began to fade-he never failed to feel a surge of joy, of antic.i.p.ation-and the magic drove all else from his notice.

He could tell, before the end of the overture, that Rick was going to hate it. At first, he divided his attention between Siegmund and Sieglinde and watched the surt.i.tles translating for them. Then he began to study people in the audience. By the time Hunding arrived onstage, Rick was examining the architecture, and the pattern of the carpet. He shot his cuffs, adjusted his tie, and surrept.i.tiously sc.r.a.ped imaginary dirt from under his fingernails. Then he shifted around in his seat to the sleep position adopted by bored students worldwide. Just as well, Caleb thought.

Caleb was no musician. Apart from long exposure and a general music-appreciation course in college, he'd had no formal musical training. Over the years he'd learned to listen and to understand beyond the literal translation of the story. Maybe it was only the morbid fascination engendered by all tragedy, from DUI accidents to Hamlet-he hadn't seen enough Wagner to have thought of a.n.a.lyzing it-but he found he was hanging on every word. Even if you hated Wagner, there was power in the words and in the story. It reminded him of old newsreel films of Hitler's speeches a German teacher had showed him, long ago, trying to fire his students with some pa.s.sion for the language, some inkling of the power in the words.

And there were moments between the pomp and pomposity that overwhelmed his senses, moments that sent him home sated, moments when the glorious sound swelled him like an o.r.g.a.s.m, threatening to burst his skin and explode his entire being like a star gone nova.

Maybe part of the anomie in the country was the absence of relevant epic and contemporary myth. There were occasional attempts-the hero's journey in Star Wars, the creative retelling of the Christian incarnation tale in Starman and The Terminator- but for the most part, modern mythologizers retold the old stories without understanding. JFK was not really Macbeth, Apocalypse Now missed the point made in Heart of Darkness. Caleb thought of David Bisti and the old chestnut "Those Whom the G.o.ds love die young." What he knew of the Navajo way of life-with its balance, and honesty and abhorrence of incest-was so opposite this story of incest, power struggle, and deception, that it must belong to a different species.

"Who's my rival?" Rick sat up and yawned as the lights went up.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The old gent with the expensive suit and the Barbie doll on his arm? You've been watching him all night."

It was the sort of exaggeration that was fueled by pique; Caleb didn't consider jealousy a virtue. "His name is Harrison Wingate, and I've met him once."

"Well, he obviously made an impression that once."

"Your claws are showing." As soon as he said it, Caleb was sorry. Rick stiffened as if he'd been slapped. To make amends, Caleb said, "He was one of the attendees at a reception where the guest of honor was murdered."

"The Bisti case!"

"Yes."

"You were there! You've been holding out on me."

"It's a police matter-an open investigation. I was asked not to discuss it."

"I'll quote you as an anonymous source."

"I'm afraid it would be a conflict of interest."

"And you'd know."

"Maybe we should get a drink."

After intermission, as they were making their way back to their seats, Caleb noticed Wingate going the other way. He was obviously not a fan.

The "flight" of the Valkyries, in the third act, held Rick's attention. Young women-gymnasts-had been drafted for the parts and armed with "neon" weapons. They bounded across the stage, from one hidden trampoline to the next, giving the appearance of flight. It was a d.a.m.ned good show.

Then Rick began to cough softly, and he excused himself and went out. Caleb made up his mind that he wouldn't let it spoil his enjoyment of the rest of the performance. But just as quickly, he decided he would have to leave.

He spotted Rick outside the front doors, just lighting a cigarette. He seemed embarra.s.sed to be caught, but nevertheless took a deep drag before saying, "Caught me."

"Hmmm."

"Listen, I didn't mean to spoil the show for you. I could meet you here afterward." Caleb shook his head. "Well...You've seen it before, right?"

"We can leave if you'd like."

"As a matter of fact, I'm starved." Caleb nodded. "Do you think you could get us into Planet Hollywood?"

Fifty-One.

Thinnes was in the front room, directing the photographer to shoot all the empties, when Oster came back from talking to the manager. Thinnes had sent him to get addresses for the next of kin. There were two burly uniforms trailing behind him, one carrying a stretcher, the other an empty body bag.

"The ME's going with your call on this one, Thinnes," Oster said, "but he wants a copy of your report ASAP. And he wants us to find out who West's doctor was." He added, unnecessarily, "Oh, and Bendix is here."

Bendix had come up quietly and was standing right behind him.

"I was in the neighborhood," Bendix said. "Thought I'd offer to help you guys out."

"There's nothing for you to do here," Thinnes said. "There's no crime, so there's no crime scene."

"Then why'd you call for evidence?"

"Doc.u.mentation. Just a death investigation-natural causes. I thought those were beneath you."

"Long as I'm here, mind if I have a look?"

"Be my guest."

Bendix walked into the front room, followed by the uniforms. Oster pointed to the hall and led the coppers to the john.

Meanwhile, Officer Noir came back with the dog and stood in the hall outside, waiting for further orders. The dog sat, quiet and alert, at his side. Its huge feet and off-white coat were black, in spots, with West's dried blood.

"Landlord said he won't take it," Noir told Thinnes. "And Animal Control can't get here for at least an hour."

Situation normal, Thinnes thought, all f.u.c.ked up.

"Well," he told Noir, "tell the landlord, if he wants us to take it away, he's gonna have to let us hose the blood off somewhere."

"Us?"

"Please."

"This isn't in my job description."

"Sure it is. We serve and protect."

Noir looked ready to do murder himself.