"No. I swear I wasn't."

"You pay Belle Sarazen for the illicit fornication?" Boone asked. "For the spanking? Whipping, maybe?"

"Never! Never!"

"But you had a working relationship," Delaney said. "Right? She'd take a look at your models. Maybe for dates with her important friends. And maybe she'd provide models for you. For dirty playing cards. It worked both ways. And she posed for you. That aluminum-foil painting. A friend of hers bought it. You split the take-right? Real friends. Real cozy. Girls. Drugs on demand. Maybe even boys-who knows? All kinds of swell stuff. Orgies, maybe? Skin shows? The whole bit. Rich, freaky people. Plenty of cash. Something like that. Right?"

"I swear ..." the artist whispered. "I swear ..."

"Mr. Dukker," Chief Delaney said formally, "I wonder if you'd do us a favor?"

"What? What? Well ... sure."

"Take a look at these drawings. The ones we found in Maitland's studio. See if you recognize the girl."

He and Boone held the sketches up before the dazed and shattered Dukker. He looked at them with dulled eyes.

"The son of a bitch," he muttered. "He was so good. He didn't have to think. From the eye to the hand. Nothing in between. Instantaneous."

"You recognize the girl?"

"No. Never saw her before."

"Let's go downstairs," Delaney said. "Okay?"

On the lower level, the Chief went over to the corner drawing table. He spread out the sketches, weighted down the corners so they lay flat.

"You said you were as good as Maitland," he told Dukker. "You said you could imitate his style. You got a Maitland drawing on your wall. So good that he got sore when he saw it. But then he signed it. Now what I want you to do is look at these three drawings and complete the girl. As Victor Maitland would. Just the face. He suggested the shape and features. You fill in the details."

"Jesus Christ," Jake Dukker said, "you don't want much, do you? There's hardly anything to go by."

"Do what you can," Delaney said. "We know you'll be happy to cooperate."

The artist found an 11x14 sketchpad, searched around and picked up a soft carpenter's pencil. He glanced at the three drawings and began to sketch. Hesitantly at first, then with more confidence. They watched him, fascinated. He limned the girl's face with bold outline strokes, then began to fill it in. Hollows. Shadows. Fullness. Glint of eyes. Angle of chin and bulge of brow.

"Son of a bitch!" he said enthusiastically. "A beauty! This is how Vic would have done her. Young. Maybe like fourteen. Around there. Innocent. And dumb. Nothing but beauty. That's it. That's her. There you are."

Less than three minutes, Delaney estimated. And he had the portrait of a young, beautiful, empty-eyed girl. A flood of dark hair spilling down. Sensual mouth. Lips parted to show glistening teeth. High cheekbones. All of her bursting with youth, but vacant. Untouched.

He took the three Maitland sketches and Dukker's drawing and rolled them carefully together.

"Thank you very much," he said. "We'll be seeing you again."

"Soon," Sergeant Boone added.

They left Jake Dukker slack-jawed and shaken. In the elevator, going down, Delaney said. "We're beginning to work pretty good together."

"Just what I was thinking, Chief," Boone grinned. "He's going to call Belle Sarazen now, and scream at her."

"Oh yes," Delaney nodded. "The animals are nipping and clawing at each other. I think we have most of what we need right now."

Boone looked at him, astounded.

"You mean you've ... ?"

"Got it figured?" Delaney said, amused. "No way. I'm just saying I think we've got the main pieces. Putting them together is something else again. Sarazen will be on her guard. I'll play the heavy; you play the friend. We'll dazzle her with our footwork."

"I like this," Abner Boone said.

"It has its moments," Edward X. Delaney said. "Filthy people! Messy lives!"

The Filipino houseboy showed no surprise when he opened the door and saw them planted there. "Thith way, gentlemens," he said.

He led the way to a small room, almost a corridor between the blood-red bedroom and a bathroom that seemed to be all varicose marble and gold fixtures. The passageway held a massage table and, on a track just below the ceiling, a battery of lighted ultraviolet lamps. They cast a cold blue-white glow that filled the chamber and made it look like a fish tank.

The massage table was covered with a flowered sheet. Belle Sarazen lay face down, her cheek resting on her forearms. She was apparently naked; a pink towel was spread over her rump. She wore black goggles: two disks of semi-opaque glass the size of half-dollars, held together by an elastic.

A similar pair of protective goggles was worn by the muscular young man bending over the table, kneading the muscles of her upper arms and shoulders with long, powerful strokes. He was dressed in white sneakers, white duck trousers, a white T-shirt that had obviously been altered to display his brawny torso. He had the bulging biceps and deltoids of a weightlifter. His flaxen hair was artfully arranged in a cap of Greek curls, with divine bangs that dangled over his forehead.

"Halloo, darlings!" Belle Sarazen sang cheerily, not raising her head. "Don't come into the room or you're liable to go blind or become impotent or something. This gorgeous hunk of meat is Bobbie. Bobbie, say hello to these nice gentlemen, members of New York's Finest."

Bobbie turned his blank goggles toward them and showed a mouthful of teeth as square and white as sugar cubes.

"Take a walk, Bobbie," Chief Delaney said gruffly. "Do your nails or something."

A tambourine laugh came from Belle Sarazen.

"Run along, Bobbie," she advised. "Go play games with Ramon. But don't leave. This won't take long. Will it, Edward X. Delaney?"

He didn't answer.

The goggled Bobbie departed, not forgetting to inflate his massive chest and ripple his triceps as he pushed by the two officers. They stood at the bedroom entrance, outside the glow of the suntan lamps. Belle Sarazen's head was toward them, but they couldn't see her face. Just the long, oiled back. Roped muscles of thighs and calves. Within her reach was a small table and tall glass of something orange with chunks of fresh fruit floating in bubbles.

"Poor Jake," she murmured. "He called me, you know. I'm afraid you upset him dreadfully."

"You were selling poppers to Maitland," Delaney said wrathfully.

"Selling?" she said. "Nonsense. He was up here frequently. He might have taken a few from my medicine cabinet."

"You have a prescription for those?" Delaney demanded.

"Of course, dear," Belle Sarazen said lazily. "I can give you the name of my doctor. If you care to check."

"Goddamned right I'll check," Delaney thundered.

"Hey, Chief," Boone said nervously. "Take it easy."

"Oh, let him bellow, Scarecrow," she said. "He'll huff and he'll puff, but he won't blow my house down."

"You could have made it to Maitland's studio from Jake Dukker's place," Delaney told her. "We timed it. You and Dukker could have skinned out to the elevator, gone down to Mott Street and zonked Maitland. You come back the same way, and no one downstairs in the studio is any the wiser."

"Now why would I do a silly thing like that, Edward X. Delaney?"

"Because you hated his guts," he yelled at her. "He called you a whore in public. You've got the kind of ego that couldn't take that. And maybe he-"

"Chief," Sergeant Boone said urgently, "for God's sake, cool it. We don't-"

"No, by God!" Delaney said. "I'm going to pin her. Maybe Maitland was ready to blow the whistle on her sweet little rackets. The call girls, the drugs, the sex shows, the whole bit. That would be motive enough."

"Listen here," Belle Sarazen said, raising her head, beginning to lose her flippancy. "What right have you-"

"Oh yes," Delaney nodded. "Dukker told us plenty. Things he didn't tell you he told us. We know all about the models and your important friends. And Bobbie? That muscle-bound butterfly! Is he in on it, too? I'll bet he is! We've got-"

"Guessing," she said sharply. "You and your dirty little mind. You're just guessing."

"How often did Maitland come up here?" Delaney demanded. "Once a week? Three times? Every day? We can check the doorman, so don't lie about it."

"I have no reason to lie," she said, her voice getting colder and thinner. "Victor Maitland was a personal friend of mine. A very special friend. Is it a crime to have friends visit?"

"He gave you money?"

"He gave me gifts, yes. I've already told you that."

"Gifts!" Delaney said. "That's good, that is! Maybe you raised the rates. Maybe he wanted to end it. Maybe he-"

"Chief, Chief," Boone groaned. "Take it easy. Please! We've got no evidence. You're just spit-balling. There's no way we can-"

"I don't care," Delaney shouted. "She killed once and walked. She's not going to do it in my city. She's guilty as hell. If not murder, then procuring and the drug thing. I'm going to rack her up. I swear, I'm going to hang her ass!"

Now Belle Sarazen had raised the upper part of her torso to stare at her tormentor with blank, goggled eyes. She propped herself on her forearms. They could see her small, muscled breasts, like hard shields with shiny pink bosses.

"You just try!" she spat at him. "Just try! I'll make you the laughing stock of New York. I'll sue, and believe me I can afford the best lawyers in the country. By the time I've finished with you, you'll be lucky to have your pension left. I'll drain you dry!"

"You're finished," he screamed at her. "Can't you get that through your scrambled brain? It's all over for you, kiddo. You're finished and down the drain."

He thrust the roll of Maitland drawings into Boone's hands, spun around, stalked off. They heard his thumping footsteps and, far off, the slam of the outside door. Belle Sarazen stared at Abner Boone through her black goggles.

"Wow!" he said. "I've never seen him like that before."

She grunted, got off the table, wrapping the big towel around her, covering herself from breasts to upper thighs. She switched off the sunlamps. She ripped away her goggles.

"The son of a bitch!" she said. "That fucking cocksucker! I'll have his balls!"

"I want to apologize, Miss Sarazen," Boone said earnestly. "He's not going to do those things he said. He's been under so much pressure lately ... Please, I wish you'd forget what happened."

"Forget?" She laughed-or tried to. It caught in her throat. "No way, baby! Mister Chief Edward X. Delaney has no idea how much clout I can swing in Fun City. He's dead and doesn't know it."

She pushed by him, went into the bedroom. She fell into a blood-red armchair, hooked a knee over one of the arms, foot swinging crazily. She began sucking frantically on a thumb, a maniacal baby with a long-nailed pacifier.

"Look, Miss Sarazen," Sergeant Boone pleaded. "He's retired. You know that. You can't touch him. But I'm on active duty. You go to your important friends, and I'm the one they'll come down on. I'll be walking a beat in Richmond. You know that. I think he was way out of line. Is it right my career should be ruined because he blew his cork? Look, I'm on your side. We've got nothing on you. Not a thing. He was just shooting off at the mouth."

Finally, the hooked leg stopped its mad jerking, the thumb came from her lips with a plop! sound. She smiled at him.

"Scarecrow," she said, "I like you. Get me that glass from the other room."

Obediently, he brought her the glass of fruit chunks floating in bubbles. She sipped it slowly, reflectively. He sat down cautiously, bent forward, hands clasped in supplication.

"Is that the truth?" she asked. "You've got nothing on me?"

"The truth," Boone vowed. "All gossip and hearsay. Even what Jake Dukker told us about you. I mean the drugs and girls and all. How can we use that? He's in on it, too, isn't he?"

"Is he ever!" she said.

"Well, there you are," the sergeant said, sitting back. "Now you know he's not going to make any kind of a signed statement or testify if it means his own ass, too. Right?"

"Right," she said, nodding. "Jake's a weak sister; I've known that all along. If push comes to shove, he'll clam up. I have ways of making sure he does."

"Of course," Boone said encouragingly. "And what Delaney said about Maitland paying you for the sex-hell, that's your personal business. No ones going to court with that."

"Vic paid me for sex?" Belle Sarazen said. She moved her head back and laughed. A genuine, deep laugh that made the towel about her middle billow in and out. "That'd be the day when Victor Maitland paid for a fuck. No way, Scarecrow! No, Vic and I had a little business deal going. You might say we were partners. It was all strictly business."

"Well, I'm certainly glad to hear that," Boone said, smiling. "I didn't think you were that kind of a woman, Belle. In spite of what Delaney said."

"That bastard," she growled.

"As long as it was just business," the sergeant said, with a deep sigh of relief. "What kind of a business were you two in?"

"I helped him out a few deals," she shrugged. "I have some rich friends. All over the country. Everywhere. Here and in Europe."

"Oh, I see," Boone nodded, still smiling. "You mean you helped his career? His reputation? Helped him sell his paintings?"

"Something like that," she said.

"Nothing wrong with that," Boone said. "Perfectly legit. I imagine you must know a lot of people in the art world."

"Everyone, baby. Everyone."

"I mean, like rich collectors?"

"You better believe it. Top-dollar collectors."

"Well, you could certainly be a big help to any artist," Boone said enthusiastically. "But I thought Saul Geltman handled all of Maitland's stuff?"

"Well, he did and he didn't," Belle Sarazen said vaguely. "There's more than one way to skin a cat. Listen, Scarecrow, are you sure what Delaney said-all that bullshit about procuring and drugs and all-that was bullshit, wasn't it? He hasn't got anything to take to the DA, does he?"

"Don't worry," the sergeant assured her. "It's all smoke. It's just that he wants to break this thing so bad he can taste it. Listen, just between you, me and the lamp post, were you really with Jake Dukker every minute from, say, noon till two o'clock on the Friday Maitland was killed? The reason I ask is because right now, Jake's our Number One suspect."

She stared at him a long moment, clinking the rim of the glass against her gleaming teeth. She stared at him, but he could see she wasn't looking at him. Her gaze was unfocused, going through him, off into the distance.