He glanced at her, hoped she'd do. He stood directly in front of the bathroom door.

"This is Chief Edward X. Delaney," he called in a loud, harsh voice. "Come out of there, Boone."

There was mumbling. Then a slurred, "G'fuck y'self."

"This is Chief Edward-" Delaney began again, then raised his right knee high, almost to his chin, and drove his right foot against the door, just above the lock and knob. There was a splintering crack, the door sprung wide, smacked the tiled wall, began to bounce back. But by then Delaney was inside, moving fast.

Abner Boone, sitting hunched over on the closed toilet seat, bottle close to his mouth, couldn't react fast enough. Delaney grabbed the bottle away with a wide swipe, tossed it behind him, heard it thump to the bedroom rug, heard Rebecca's gasp. He didn't glance back.

Boone was raising his head in a drunk's delayed response, features changing comically to surprise, outrage. Delaney, swinging an arm from the shoulder, hit the sergeant across the face with an open palm. It smacked the man's head around, left him quivering, face reddening.

"Cocksucker," Delaney said, without expression.

He stepped quickly back through the doorway into the bedroom. Waited tensely. Knees slightly bent. Sap held in his right hand, behind him. He heard water running in the kitchen. Heard Rebecca's loud sobs.

Boone came out with a rush, a roar of fury. Hands reaching. Delaney leaned to one side. Feet firmly planted. As Boone fell past, the Chief put the sap alongside his skull. Not a blow, but a tap. Just laying it on. Almost nestling it on. The street cop's gentling stroke: not enough to split the skin, concuss, or break the bone. A matter of experience. It made the knees melt, the eyes turn up. Boone dropped face down onto the bedroom rug.

The Chief stooped swiftly, found the sergeant's gun. He yanked it from the short holster, slid it into his own jacket pocket. Then he put his sap away. Hip pocket, out of sight. Rebecca came from the kitchen, carrying an empty whiskey bottle foolishly. She saw Boone stretched out, face down. She wailed.

"Is he-" she coughed.

"Passed out," Delaney said crisply. He took the empty bottle from her limp hand, tossed it onto the couch. "You did fine. Just fine. Do you have any money?"

"What?" she said.

"Money," he repeated patiently. "Where's your purse?"

They found her purse on the floor, alongside the couch. She had some singles and a five.

"Take a cab back to Monica," Delaney instructed her. "Wait downstairs in the lobby until the doorman gets you a cab. Give him a dollar. Got that? Take the cab to Monica. She's waiting for you. All clear?"

"Is he-? Will he-?"

"Understand what I just said? Take a cab. Monica is waiting for you."

She nodded, dazed again. He hung the purse on her arm, pushed her gently toward the door. When she was gone, he locked up behind her, put on the chain. Came back and searched for another bottle, another gun. Found nothing. Boone was beginning to stir. Mutter. Make thick, gulping sounds.

Delaney called Monica, gave her a brief report. He told her to watch for Rebecca and to call him if she didn't arrive within twenty minutes. Then he let down all the Venetian blinds, closed them. He stripped to his shorts. Boone was heaving in deep retches. He took him by the neck: collar of shirt and collar of jacket. He dragged him across the bedroom floor back into the bathroom, the sergeant's toes making rough furrows in the rug. He lifted and dumped him face down into the tub. Boone's head, arms, shoulders, upper torso were inside the tub. Balanced on the rim on his waist. Hips and legs outside the tub.

Immediately he began to vomit. Food, liquid, bile. It came out of him in a thick flood. Bits of spaghetti. Meatballs. Slime. The stench was something, but Delaney was a cop; he had smelled worse.

He turned on the shower, adjusted it to a hard, cool spray. He let it splay over Boone's head and shoulders. It washed the vomit down to the drain, which almost immediately clogged. The slurry began to back up. Delaney took hold of Boone's right wrist. The hand hung limply. Using the nerveless fingers as a soft claw, he brushed at the clogged drain until the liquid ran out. It didn't sicken him.

He turned off the shower, dragged Boone back to the bedroom rug. Let him drain a minute, then turned him over. Now the sergeant was hacking and coughing. But his tracheal passage seemed reasonably clear; he was breathing in harsh, grating sobs.

Delaney kneeled beside him and wrestled him out of his sodden clothes. It took a long time, and the Chief was grunting and sweating by the time he got Boone down to his stained briefs. He levered him onto the bed, atop a crumpled sheet and light wool blanket. It seemed to him Boone was breathing okay, but muttering occasionally, twisting, head whipping side to side.

Delaney went into the kitchen, found some paper napkins. He cleaned up the solid vomitus in the bathroom tub as best he could, and flushed the mess down the toilet. He looked in at Boone. No change. So Delaney took a hot shower in his underwear, soaping everything. He wrung out his underwear, hung it on a towel rack. He rubbed himself dry with one of Boone's towels, then knotted it about his thick waist and padded barefoot back into the bedroom. Boone was snoring, mouth open, fretful line between his eyebrows.

Delaney called Monica again, and they talked awhile. She had Rebecca calmed and lying down in the spare bedroom. He told her everything was under control, and he'd be home in the morning. They spoke briefly, sadly, and both said, "I love you," before they hung up. It was necessary.

Still wearing the knotted towel, he checked the apartment again. Everywhere. He could find no more whiskey nor another gun. There were small containers of after-shave lotion and rubbing alcohol. He poured both down the sink, and dropped the empty bottles into the kitchen garbage can. He also looked for money, but found only Boone's wallet in the hip pocket of his damp trousers. It held eighteen dollars in fives and singles. Delaney slid the wallet under a cushion of the living-room couch.

Boone was still sleeping restlessly in the bedroom. Snoring, twitching, turning. Delaney left him there, found a linen cupboard with a scant supply of unpressed sheets and pillowcases. He put a sheet over the living-room couch, an empty pillowcase over the couch arm. He covered himself with another sheet. Before he settled down, he slid his leather-covered sap and Boone's revolver under the couch, within easy reach. Then he put his head on the hard couch arm. He could hear Boone in the bedroom. Stertorous breathing, gasps, moans. An occasional cough. A sob.

Delaney dozed. Light sleep. Awake. Light sleep. Alert. Then, much later, he heard Boone moving, groaning. Delaney reached for the sap, swung his feet onto the floor. He padded gently over to the bedroom door, peeked in. In dim nightlight he could see Boone sitting on the edge of the bed. He was fumbling with pencil and pad on the bedside table, muttering to himself. He wrote something with the exaggerated attention, the tongue-out care of a drunk. Still muttering. Then fell back into bed, began to snore again.

Delaney went in silently, lifted Boone's lower legs and feet onto the wrinkled sheet, covered him with the wool blanket. The man stank stalely. Delaney took the scratchpad back to the bathroom, switched on the light. He read what Boone had scrawled. As far as he could make out, it read: "Mon two clean." Delaney put it aside, turned off the light. He stumbled back to the lumpy couch. He went through the motions of settling down to sleep.

He woke early the next morning, stared wrathfully about at strange surroundings. He remembered the operatic night with disgust, and was thankful things had not been worse. He rose groggily and looked in on Boone. The sergeant was sleeping in the center of the bed, head bowed, spine curved, knees drawn up in the fetal position.

Delaney went into the bathroom. He rubbed cold water on his face, felt the bristle. He looked in the mirror. White. An old man's beard. Boone's shaving gear was in the medicine cabinet, but the Chief didn't use it. He squeezed some toothpaste onto his forefinger and scrubbed his teeth. And he used Boone's comb and brush.

He went into the kitchen. The spareness of supplies and equipment dismayed him. What a way for a man to live! An expensive apartment with sticks of furniture, and nothing in the refrigerator but a hunk of store cheese, an opened package of dried bologna, and two bruised tomatoes.

Delaney found a jar of instant coffee in the cupboard above the sink. He made himself a cup, not bothering to boil water but using hot water right out of the tap.

He was sitting there, sipping slowly, brooding grumpily, when Boone came in. The sergeant was wearing a threadbare robe. His feet were bare. Neither man said anything nor looked at the other. Boone did what Delaney had done: made a cup of coffee with water from the tap. He also took a little bottle from the cupboard over the sink and popped two aspirin, dry. Then he sat down at the rickety table, facing Delaney.

Boone couldn't lift the full cup. He leaned forward and slurped up a few mouthfuls of the hot brew. Then, the level of coffee well below the rim, he picked up the cup slowly, using both trembling hands. He moved it cautiously to his lips, his head bending far down to meet it.

"You prick," Chief Delaney said tonelessly. "You shit-eating son of a bitch. Bastardly piss-hole. You rotten, no-good motherfucker. You can crawl into a bottle and pull the cork in after you for all I care. But when you hurt a good woman who believed in you, a woman I like and admire, then it becomes my business. And what you've done to my wife. We invited you to our home. You ate at our table. And Ivar Thorsen, who stuck his neck out for you. Not once, but a dozen times. And you shit on all of us, you filthy cocksucker."

Then Boone looked up at him. Eyes dulled and swollen. Bits of white matter in the corners. Smutty shadows below.

"Forget it," he said. Voice thready, he almost coughed. "You're just blowing off. You don't understand."

"Tell me then."

"If I don't count, then no one counts."

"Oh?" Delaney said. "Like that, is it?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you count?"

"I just don't. I'm nothing."

"You say," Delaney said furiously. And, not knowing how to refute this without praising a man he had just damned, said nothing more.

They both sat in silence. After awhile Delaney made himself another cup of coffee. When he was seated again, Boone rose and did the same thing. This time he was able to get the cup to his lips.

"Am I out?" he asked hoarsely.

"It's up to Thorsen."

"You going to tell him?"

"Of course. I'm not going to cover for you. I'll tell him just how it was."

"He'll take your recommendation," Boone said hopefully. "In or out."

Delaney didn't reply.

"If I told you it won't happen again," the sergeant said, "would you believe me?"

"No."

"I don't blame you," Boone said miserably. "I'd be lying. I can't make a promise like that."

Delaney looked at him pityingly.

"What in Christ's name set you off?"

"I called one of the dicks who worked the Maitland thing. He had just come off a long stakeout, and he and two of his buddies were unwinding in a Yorkville joint. Not too far from here. I figured it was a good chance to talk to him, so I walked over. They were drinking boilermakers, but no one was juiced. Yet. So I sat in a booth with them. It's been a long time; I had forgotten how good that can be; four cops sitting around drinking, blowing smoke, and kidding. After awhile they noticed I wasn't drinking and said I was spoiling the party. I'm not blaming them. No one twisted my balls. So I had a beer. The best I've ever tasted. Ice-cold. Moisture running down the bottle. Creamy head on the glass. That tart, malty taste. After awhile I was drinking boilermakers with them. Then we were all zonked. I don't remember getting home. I remember Rebecca being here."

"You called her," Delaney said.

"I suppose I did," Boone said sadly. "And I remember, vaguely, your being here. Did I call you?"

"No. Becky did."

"Most of it's a blackout," Boone confessed. "Jesus!" he said, and touched his head tenderly behind his ear. "I got a lump. Sore as hell. I must have fallen."

"No," Delaney said, "You didn't fall. I sapped you."

"Sapped me?" the sergeant said. "Well, I guess I needed it."

"You did," Delaney said grimly.

He rose, stalked into the living room, came back with the scrap of paper. He thrust it at Boone.

"What the hell's this?" he demanded. "You wrote it last night. After I got you into bed. You passed out, then got up, scribbled this thing and went back to sleep. 'Mon two clean.' What does that mean?"

Abner Boone stared at the piece of paper. Then he covered his eyes with his hand.

"'Mon two clean,'" he repeated, then looked up. "Yes. Right. I remember now. When I first got there, before we were all gibbering like apes, I asked the dick who worked the Maitland case if there was anything not in his reports. Anything he heard, saw or found. Or guessed. He said no, nothing. Then, almost five minutes later, he snapped his fingers and said there was something. A little thing. The clunk was discovered on Sunday-right? So naturally they put up sawhorses and sealed off the house. The local precinct sent over a couple of street cops to keep the rubbernecks away. Then, on Monday, they were letting tenants in and out, but Maitland's studio was still off-limits. Some of the lab guys were working in there and there was a precinct cop on the landing to guard the door."

Sergeant Boone got up, went to the sink, drank off two glasses of water as fast as he could gulp them. He brought a third glassful over to the table and sat down again.

"A couple of days later-the dick who told me the story says maybe it was Wednesday or Thursday; he can't remember-the precinct cop who had been guarding the door of Maitland's studio on Monday came to him and said that on Monday morning two women started up the last flight of stairs to Maitland's studio. He asked them what they wanted. The older woman said they were looking for cleaning work to do-you know, dusting, vacuuming, washing windows, and so forth. The cop told them they couldn't come up; the guy who lived there was dead. So they split."

"'The older woman'?" Delaney said. "Then there was a younger one. How young? What were the ages, approximately?"

"The dick didn't know," Boone said. "He just said the cop had mentioned two dames, and the older one did the talking."

"Accent?"

"He didn't know."

"White? Black? Spanish? What?"

"The dick didn't know. The cop didn't say."

"Why did the cop wait two or three days before he told the detective about this?"

"He said he thought at first it was nothing. That the two women really were looking for cleaning work. Then, when he heard the investigation was getting nowhere, he thought it might possibly be something."

"Smart cop."

"Sure, Chief," Boone nodded. "And also, the cop probably figured if he told a detective, then he was off the hook. Then it was the dick's problem, not his."

"Right. Did the dick remember the cop's name?"

"No. Never saw him before or after. Says he was a black. That's all he remembers."

"Did he try to check it out? Find the women?"

"No. He thought it was nothing. Just what the older woman said: they were looking for cleaning work to do."

"All right," Delaney said, "now here's what you do: Go down to the Mott Street precinct and check their rosters. Get the name, home address, and badge number of the cop who was on guard duty at Maitland's studio that Monday morning. Don't try to brace him. I want to be there. Just identify him. Then go back to Maitland's Mott Street address. Go during the day, and also in the evening, when most of the tenants will be home from work. Ask them if anyone came around looking for cleaning work to do. During the week Maitland was burned, or any other time before or after. Call me at home tonight. Got all that?"

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Boone said. "Chief, does this mean I'm still in?"

"For today," Delaney said. "Until I have a chance to report to Deputy Commissioner Thorsen. You shithead!"

By the time he had showered, shaved, donned blessedly fresh linen and his favorite flannel slacks (double pleats at the waist), Monica was just putting the finishing touches to his late breakfast: scrambled eggs, onions and lox, toasted bagels with cream cheese, and coffee that didn't taste as if it came out of the tap.

She sat at the oak kitchen table with him, nibbling on half his bagel, sipping coffee. She told him of her problems with Rebecca the previous night.

"She wanted to call every five minutes," Monica said. "She was afraid you'd hurt him. You didn't, did you, Edward?"

"Not enough," he growled.

"Well, she's over there now. She went as soon as I told her you were coming back-to see if he's all right."

"He's all right," Delaney assured her. "And she's a fool. There's no guarantee he won't do it again. He admitted that himself."

"Did you give him back his gun?"

"Yes. He's a cop on active duty and needs it. It makes no difference; if he's intent on suicide, he'll find a way, gun or no gun. Rebecca should stay away from him. Just drop him. He's bad news."

"What are you going to do about him?"

"I don't know. If I bounce him and ask Thorsen to get me another man, he'll flush Boone down the drain."

"Everyone deserves a second chance, Edward."