No response. Just heavy breathing.

'When and if you finally smooth it over, Ross, you might be able to convince Chief Kelsey that you and Wexlersh and Manuello weren't involved in a plot to s.n.a.t.c.h the girl and kill her mother, but the press will still figure something was going on, and they'll never quite trust you again. Reporters will always be sniffing around you for the rest of your career, waiting for you to put a foot wrong.'

Silence.

'You hear what I'm saying, Ross?'

Silence.

'At best, you'll hold on to your captain's bars, but you won't be on the mayor's short list for chief. Not anymore. Now, see, this is a warning, Ross. This is why I called you. Listen close. Listen good. If you keep coming after the McCaffreys, you'll be completely completely ruined. I'll see to it. I'll personally guarantee it. You're half ruined now, but if you keep coming after them, you won't even remain a captain. I'll bring you down all the way. No matter who put you up to this, no matter how powerful and influential he is, he won't be able to save your a.s.s if you try to touch the McCaffreys again. He won't be able to save you from ruined. I'll see to it. I'll personally guarantee it. You're half ruined now, but if you keep coming after them, you won't even remain a captain. I'll bring you down all the way. No matter who put you up to this, no matter how powerful and influential he is, he won't be able to save your a.s.s if you try to touch the McCaffreys again. He won't be able to save you from me. me. You get the picture?' You get the picture?'

Silence. But it was a silence with an emotional quality now, and the emotion it radiated was hatred.

Dan said, 'I still have to worry about the FBI, and I have to worry about whoever was financing Dylan McCaffrey and w.i.l.l.y Hoffritz, because somebody out there wants that little girl real bad, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm going to keep worrying about you, Ross. Tonight, you're going to relinquish your place on the special task force and hand the whole case over to someone else until you've cleared up this cloud of suspicion hanging over Wexlersh and Manuello. Understand? I'm not suggesting this, Ross. I'm telling you.'

'You s.h.i.thead.'

'Sticks and stones. Listen good - if you don't say what I want to hear, Ross, I'm going to hang up, and when I hang up, it's too late for you to change your mind.'

Silence.

'Well ... good-bye, Ross.'

'Wait.'

'Sorry, got to go.'

All right, all right. I agree.

'What?'

'What you said.'

'Make it plainer.'

'I'll take myself off the case.'

'Very wise.'

'I'll even take a week of sick leave.'

'Ahhh, not feeling well?'

Mondale said, 'I'll get out of this, walk away from it, but I want something from you.'

'What?'

'I don't want Benton or you or the McCaffreys giving any statements about Wexlersh and Manuello.'

'Fat chance.'

'I mean it.'

'Nonsense. The only way we have a hold on you is if we get those two creeps booked for attempted murder.'

'Okay. Let Benton give his statement. But in a couple days, when you feel the McCaffreys are safe, then Benton retracts his accusations.'

'He'd look like a fool.'

'No, no. He can say someone else beat him up and that he took a bad knock on the head, he was confused and he mistakenly accused Wexlersh and Manuello. In a couple days, he can say his head cleared and then he remembered what really happened. He can say it was some other b.u.m who beat on him and that Wexlersh and Manuello actually saved his a.s.s.'

'You're in no position to demand anything from me, Ross.'

'G.o.ddammit, if you don't give me an out, a glimpse of light, then I don't have any reason for playing along with you.'

'Maybe. But if we're bargaining, then I want something else too. I want the name of the man who got to you, Ross.'

'No'.

'Who wants the girl, Ross? Tell me, and we've got a deal.'

'No.'

'Who convinced you to use Wexlersh and Manuello this way?'

'Impossible. I tell you, and I'm really finished. I'm dog meat. I'd rather go down now, fighting, than rat on anybody and maybe wind up like those bodies in Studio City - or worse. I give you the McCaffreys, and after a few days, you give me Wexlersh and Manuello. That's the deal.'

'You've got to at least tell me if he's the one who financed the work in that gray room.'

'I think so.'

'Is he government?'

'Maybe.'

'You have to do better.'

'I just don't know. He's the kind of guy who could be a conduit for the government, or maybe he financed it himself.'

'Rich?'

'I'm not giving you his name, and I'm not giving you so many details you could guess guess his name. h.e.l.l, I'd be signing my own death warrant.' his name. h.e.l.l, I'd be signing my own death warrant.'

Dan thought a moment. Then: 'He say anything about what they were trying to prove in that gray room?'

'No.'

'This guy, this one who got to you, this one who financed that crazy research ... is he doing the killing, Ross?'

Silence.

'Is he, Ross? Come on. Don't be afraid to talk. You've already said too much. I'm not insisting on his name, but I've got to have an answer to this one. Is he responsible for Scaldone and those bodies in Studio City?'

'No, no. Just the opposite. He's scared that he's going to be the next target.'

'Well, who's he afraid of?'

'I don't think it's a who.'

'What?'

'This is crazy ... but the way these people talk, they're so scared you'd think it was Dracula who was after them. I mean, from things I've heard, I somehow get the idea it's not a person they're afraid of. It's a thing. Some thing thing is killing everyone connected with the gray room. I know that sounds like horses.h.i.t, but it's the feeling I get. Now, d.a.m.n it, do we have a deal or not? I back out of this, give you the McCaffreys, and you give me Wexlersh and Manuello. Is that agreeable?' is killing everyone connected with the gray room. I know that sounds like horses.h.i.t, but it's the feeling I get. Now, d.a.m.n it, do we have a deal or not? I back out of this, give you the McCaffreys, and you give me Wexlersh and Manuello. Is that agreeable?'

Dan pretended to think about it. Then: 'Okay.'

'We got a deal?'

'Yeah.'

Mondale laughed nervously. His laughter had a filthy edge to it, as well. 'You realize what this means, Haldane?'

'What's it mean?'

'You make a deal like this, you drop charges against men you believe to have intended murder ... well, then you're just as dirty as anybody.'

'Not as dirty as you. I could float in a sewer for a month and eat whatever drifted by, and I still wouldn't be half as dirty as you, Ross.'

He hung up. He had eliminated one threat. No one would be using police badges to get close to Melanie. They still had an army of enemies, but now there was one less variety of them.

And the beauty of it was that he had not given up anything in return for Ross Mondale's retreat, had not even slightly dirtied his hands, because he didn't intend to uphold his end of the bargain. He would never ask Earl to withdraw his accusations against Wexlersh and Manuello. In fact, when the case was finally broken and it was safe for Laura and Melanie to appear in public, Dan would encourage them to testify, as well, against the two detectives, and he would add his own testimony to the record. Manuello and Wexlersh were finished - and by extension, so was Ross Mondale.

30.

At twenty-five past midnight, the hospital released Earl Benton.

Laura was shocked by the bodyguard's battered appearance even after the blood had been cleaned off his face. On the side of his head, doctors had shaved a spot half as large as the palm of a hand and had closed the wound with seven sutures. Now it was covered with a bandage. His lips were purple and swollen. His mouth was distorted. One eye was black. He looked as if he'd had a close encounter with a truck.

His appearance affected Melanie. The girl's eyes cleared. She seemed to swim up from her trance to peer more closely at him, as if she were a fish rising to the surface of a lake to examine a curious creature standing on the sh.o.r.e.

'Ahhh,' she said sadly.

She seemed to want to say something more to Earl, so he leaned toward her.

She touched his battered face with one hand, and her gaze moved slowly from his bruised chin to his split lips, to his black eye, to the bandage on his head. As she studied him, she chewed worriedly on her lower lip. Her eyes filled with tears. She tried to speak, but no sound came from her.

'What is it, Melanie?' Earl asked.

Laura stooped beside her daughter and put one arm around her. 'What're you trying to tell him, honey? Think one word at a time. Take it nice and slow. You can get it out. You can do it, baby.'

Dan, the doctor who had treated Earl, and a young Latino nurse were watching attentively, expectantly.

The child's tear-blurred gaze continued to move over Earl's face, from one battle scar to another, and at last she said, 'For m-m-me.'

'Yes,' Laura said. 'That's right, baby. Earl was fighting for you. He risked his life for you.'

'For me,' Melanie repeated with awe, as if being loved and protected was an entirely new and amazing concept to her. Excited by this crack in Melanie's autistic armor, hoping to widen it or even shatter the armor completely, Laura said, 'We're all fighting for you, baby. We want to help. We will will help you, if you'll let us.' help you, if you'll let us.'

'For me,' Melanie said again, but she would say no more. Although Laura and Earl continued to coax her, Melanie did not speak again. Her tears dried, and she lowered her hand from Earl's injured face, and that faraway look returned to her eyes. She bowed her head, weary.

Laura was disappointed but not despairing. At least the child seemed to want to come back from her dark and private place, and if she had a strong desire to recover, she would probably do so, sooner or later.

The emergency-room physician suggested that Earl stay overnight for observation, but in spite of the drubbing that he had taken, Earl resisted. He wanted to return to the safe house and make a statement to the police, thereby pounding a few nails into a tandem coffin for Wexlersh and Manuello.

They had all come to the hospital in Dan's car, but now Dan didn't want to go back to the safe house. He didn't want Laura and Melanie to be near any other cops, so they called a taxi for Earl.

'Don't wait with me,' Earl said. 'You guys get out of here.'

'We might as well wait,' Dan said, 'because we've got a few things to talk over anyway.'

Without discussing it, they grouped around Melanie, shielding her. They stood just inside the front entrance of the medical center, where they could see the rain-lashed night and the place where the taxi would pull up. Half the fluorescent lights in the lobby were switched off, for it was well after visiting hours, and the other half cast fuzzy bars of cold, unpleasant light across the large room. The air smelled vaguely of rose-scented disinfectant. Except for the four of them, the place was deserted.

'You want Paladin to send someone out here to take over from me?' Earl asked.

'No,' Dan said.

'Didn't think you would.'

'Paladin's d.a.m.ned good,' Dan said, 'and I've never had reason to doubt their integrity, and I still don't have reason-'

'But, in this particular case, you don't trust anyone at Paladin any more than you trust anyone on the police force,' Earl said.

'Except you,' Laura said. 'We know we can trust you, Earl. Without you, Melanie and I would be dead.'

'Don't credit me with anything heroic,' Earl said. 'I was plain stupid. I opened the door to Manuello.'

'But you had no way of knowing-'

'But I opened the door,' Earl said, and the expression of self-disgust on his face was unmistakable in spite of the way his injuries distorted his features.

Laura could see why Dan and Earl were friends. They shared a devotion to their work, a strong sense of duty, and a tendency to be excessively self-critical. Those were qualities seldom found in a world that seemed daily to put more stock in cynicism, selfishness, and self-indulgence.