"Edward, I got there about ten minutes after it happened. The streets were crowded, lots of people on the sidewalks, and they saw Sam go down. I swear we had to tear this guy away from them. If someone had had a rope, he'd have been swinging. I've never seen people so infuriated. To this day it scares me to think about it. And of course the clincher is that this guy was facing a GTA back in Michigan, or Illinois, or whatever. Even if Sam had asked for his ID, which, knowing Sam, I doubt he'd have done, the guy faced three-to-five at most, and probably less. But he panicked, and I lost the best street cop in my precinct."

Delaney nodded somberly, rose to pour fresh drinks, add ice cubes to his glass. Then he sat down again opposite Thorsen.

"That's the way it goes," he said. "But what's that got to do with Maitland's murder?"

"Well ..." Thorsen said. He drew a deep breath. "Sam had a son. Abner Boone. He joined the Department. I kept an eye on him. I figured I owed him. Abner Boone. He's a detective sergeant now. You know him, Edward?"

"Abner Boone?" Delaney said, frowning. "I remember him vaguely. About six-one. One-eighty. Sandy hair. Blue eyes. Long arms and legs. Nice grin. Slightly stooped. Looks like his ankles and wrists are sticking out of his clothes. White scar on the left neck. Wears glasses for reading. That the guy?"

"Remember him vaguely?" Thorsen mimicked. "I should have your memory! That's the guy. Edward, you know when the son of a slain patrolman joins the Force, we've got to keep an eye on him. Maybe the kid did it to get revenge, or to prove he's as good as his daddy was, or to prove he's a better man than his daddy was. It can be sticky. Anyway, I kept an eye on Abner Boone, and helped when I could. The kid did just great. Made detective sergeant, finally, and about two years ago they gave him one of those commando homicide squads that are supposed to help out the regular units when the workload piles up or when a big case comes along."

"How are they working out?" Delaney asked. "The special squads?"

"Still being evaluated," Thorsen said. "But I don't think they'll last. Too much jealousy from the regular units. That's natural. Anyway, this Abner Boone got this squad, and after a year or so, he had a good record. Some important busts and a lot of good assists. Then he started hitting the sauce. Hard. His squad covered for him for awhile. Then it couldn't be covered. I did what I could-counseling, doctors, psychiatrists, AA, the lot-but nothing worked. Edward, the kid is trying. I know he is. He's really trying. If he falls again, he's out."

"And this is the man you want to assign me on the Maitland case? A lush?"

Thorsen laughed shortly.

"You got it," he said. "I figured we can keep J. Barnes Chapin happy with an on-going investigation, even if it comes to zilch. At the same time, I can get Abner Boone out of the office on detached assignment, and maybe he can straighten himself out. It's worth the gamble. And even if he goes off again, who's to see? Except you."

Delaney looked at him with wonder. Perhaps, he thought, this was the secret of Thorsen's success. You manipulate people, but as you do, you tell them exactly why and how you are doing it. Bemused by the honesty, won by the candor in the ice-blue eyes, they agree to do what you want. It all sounds so reasonable.

"I'll sleep on it," he repeated.

Two hours later, he sat with Monica on the living room couch. The TV screen was dead. They were sipping decaf coffee. He told her exactly what Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen had said. He had almost total recall.

"What do you think?" he finished.

"He's an alcoholic?" she asked.

"Abner Boone? Sounds like it from what Ivar said. Or on his way. But that's not important. If Boone fucks up, they'll give me someone else. The question is, should I do it?"

"Do you want to?"

"I don't know. In a way I do, and in a way I don't. I'd like a chance to stick Maitland's killer. A human being shouldn't be destroyed, and the killer walks away. That's not right. I know that sounds simple, but it's the way I feel. My God, if ... Well ... On the other hand, I'm retired, and it's the Department's migraine, not mine. Still ... What do you think?"

"I think you should," she said.

"Want me out of your hair?" he said, smiling. "Out of the house? Working?"

"Nooo," she said slowly. "You're a pain in the ass at times." He looked up sharply. "But I think this is something you should do. But it's really up to you. It's your decision."

He motioned, and she came over to sit on his lap, a soft weight. He put an arm about her waist. She put an arm around his neck.

"Am I really a pain in the ass?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she nodded. "Sometimes I am too. I know. Everyone is. Sometimes. I really think you should do this thing, Edward. Ivar said he doesn't really expect results, but that was just to convince you to take the job, to challenge you. He really does think you can do it, and so does this Chapin. I don't like that man; he's such a reactionary. Do you think you can find Maitland's killer?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "It's a cold, cold trail."

"If anyone can, you can," she said, and that ended it as far as she was concerned. "Coming to bed?" she asked.

"In a while," he said.

She rose, kissed the top of his head, took their cups and saucers into the kitchen. He heard running water, then the sound of her footsteps going upstairs.

He sat another half-hour by himself, slumped, pondering. It was an injustice to Monica, but he thought of what Barbara, his first wife, would have counseled. He knew. Exactly what Monica urged. He was lucky with his women. It was odd how they felt, their lust for life, their passion for children and plants. They were right of course, he acknowledged. You nurtured it. The spark. You breathed on it to keep it alive. You punished people who destroyed it. The spark ...

He sighed again, stood up and stretched, began his rounds. First into the basement to test windows and doors. Then, moving upward, checks to make certain chains and locks were in place to keep out the darkness. Mary and Sylvia were sleeping placidly, secure. The whole house was secure. An island.

He undressed as quietly as he could, and slid into bed. But Monica was still awake. She turned to come into his arms. Warm and waiting.

3.

THE MATERIAL ON THE Maitland case was delivered to the Delaney brownstone by an unmarked police car shortly before noon. It came jammed into three battered liquor cartons with a note from Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen: "Sorry it's not in order, Edward-but you're good at that! Boone will call you tomorrow to set up a meet. Luck."

The Chief had the cartons brought into the study and piled on the floor next to his broad desk. He went into the kitchen and made himself two sandwiches: salami and sliced Spanish onion (with mayonnaise) on rye, and ham and cheese (with mustard) on a seeded roll. He took the sandwiches and an open bottle of Heineken back into the study, placed them carefully aside on a small end table, and set to work.

He went through the three cartons slowly and steadily, glancing briefly at each document before adding it to one of four loosely classified piles: 1. Official reports of the investigating officers.

2. Signed statements of those questioned, and photographs.

3. Photos of the victim alive and as a corpse in situ, and reports of the Medical Examiner.

4. Miscellaneous bits of paper, most of which were informal reactions of detectives to those they had questioned, or suggestions for additional lines of inquiry.

Working methodically, stopping occasionally for a bite of sandwich, a gulp of beer, Delaney had all the records broken down by 3:30 P.M. He then went through each stack arranging it by date and time, switching a few documents from one pile to another, but generally adhering to his original division.

He put on his heavy reading glasses, pulled the green-shaded student lamp close. He sat down in his swivel chair and began with the photos and PM, since this was the smallest stack. Finished, he started on the pile of official reports. He was halfway through when Monica called him to dinner.

He washed up and joined the family in the dining room. He tried to eat slowly and join in the conversation. He made a few ponderous jokes. But he left the table early, declining dessert, and took a mug of black coffee back into the study with him. He completed the initial reading shortly after 9:00 P.M. He then began a second reading, slower this time, with a pad of yellow legal paper nearby on which he occasionally jotted brief notes and questions.

Monica brought him a thermos of coffee at 11:00 and announced she would watch TV for an hour and then go to bed. He smiled absently, kissed her cheek, went back to his reading. He completed the second review by 1:00 A.M. He then filed the material in folders in the bottom drawer of a metal cabinet equipped with a lock. He dug out his street map and street guide of Manhattan and located the scene of the killing, on Mott Street between Prince and Spring.

He knew the section; about twenty years previously, when he was a dick two, he had been assigned temporarily as a summer replacement for precinct detectives going on vacation. The neighborhood was practically 100 percent Italian then, part of Little Italy. Delaney remembered how, later in the year, he had enjoyed the Feast of San Gennaro on Mulberry Street, one of the city's big ethnic festivals.

He was assigned as partner to Detective first-grade Alberto Di Lucca. Big Al was a jowly, pot-bellied, wine-swilling pasta fiend, and had introduced Delaney to the glories of Italian cooking. He had also taught him a lot of tricks of the trade.

In July of that year, there was a ripoff of a wholesale warehouse on Elizabeth Street. Four masked men, armed, forced their way in, tied up the night watchman, and drove off in a huge semitrailer loaded with imported olive oil. This, to Di Lucca, a man who worshipped spaghetti al' olio, was sacrilege.

"Now what you got to know," Di Lucca told Delaney, "is that we got a lot of bad boys in this precinct. But generally they go outside the neighborhood for their fun and games. It's like an unwritten law: you don't shit in the living room. Howsomever, in this case I think it was locals."

"How do you figure?" Delaney asked.

"Now take the watchman. Outsiders would have blasted him, cold-cocked him, or treated him rough. But no, this old man is asked politely to lie down on a pile of burlap bags, he's tied up, and a piece of tape put gently across his mouth. And before the goniffs leave, they ask him is he comfortable? Can he breathe okay? They did everything but serve him breakfast in bed. I figure he knew them, and they knew him. Maybe he fingered the job. He's got a lot of relatives, a lot of young, hot-blooded nephews. One of them, Anthony Scorese, isn't nice. He runs with three pals: Vito Gervase, Robert Scheinfelt-a Wop, but you'd never know it from that name, right?-and a punk named Giuseppe something. I don't know his last name, but they call him Kid Stick. I think those four desperadoes pulled this job. Let's ask around and see if they're spending."

So Di Lucca and Delaney asked around, and sure enough the Fearsome Four had been spending. Not a lot, but enough to indicate they had come into sudden wealth: good wine and Strega with their meals, blonde broads from uptown, new alligator shoes.

"Now we're going to break them," Di Lucca told Delaney. "They swore undying allegiance to each other. On their mothers' graves. They'll die before they talk. They swore. Now watch this. I'm going to break these stupidos. I'll talk Italian to them, but later I'll tell you what they said."

Di Lucca questioned each of the suspects alone. He'd ask Anthony Scorese, for instance, where he was at the time of the heist. "In bed," Scorese said, then laughed. "I got a witness. This broad, she'll tell you."

"In bed with a broad?" Di Lucca said. He smiled enigmatically. "That ain't what Vito Gervase says."

He let it go at that, and moved to Gervase.

"I was out in Jersey at my uncle's place."

"So?" Di Lucca said softly. "That ain't what Scheinfelt says."

And so forth, over a period of two weeks. He worked on them, asking more questions, playing one against the other. They thought they knew what Di Lucca was doing, but they couldn't be sure. They began staring at each other. Then Di Lucca concentrated on Kid Stick, telling him that because of his youth, he'd probably get nothing more than probation if he cooperated. The Kid began to weaken, but it was Robert Scheinfelt who cracked first and made a deal.

"And that's how you do it," Di Lucca told Delaney. "Honor among thieves? My ass! They'd turn in their twin for a suspended sentence."

Now, staring at the street on the map, the street where Victor Maitland had been knifed to death, Delaney remembered Detective Alberto Di Lucca and wished he was still around with his house-by-house knowledge of the neighborhood. But Big Al had retired a long time ago, had returned to Naples, and had probably suffocated his heart with just one more helping of costoletta di maiale alla napoletana.

Delaney sighed, turned out the study lamp, started his security check. He wasn't depressed by what he had read, but he wasn't elated, either. The investigation of Maitland's murder had been a good one, he acknowledged. Thorough. Energetic. Imaginative. A lot of bells had been rung. A lot of pavements pounded. A lot of people questioned. A lot of records had been dug up and reviewed. It all added up to zero, to zip, to zilch. A cipher case.

The body had been discovered by Saul Geltman, owner of Geltman Galleries on Madison Avenue, and Victor Maitland's exclusive agent. Maitland had promised to be at the Galleries at three o'clock Friday afternoon to work with Geltman and an interior designer on plans for a new exhibition of Maitland's work. When he hadn't shown up by four, Geltman had called the Mott Street studio. No answer. He had then called Maitland's home on East 58th Street. He spoke to Alma Maitland, the artist's wife. She didn't know Maitland's whereabouts, but said he had mentioned he was meeting Geltman at the Galleries at three that afternoon.

Neither wife nor agent was particularly concerned about Maitland's absence. It was not the first time he had failed to keep an appointment. Apparently, he was a chronic liar, broke promises carelessly, often disappeared for a day or two at a time. When working in the Mott Street studio, he frequently took the phone off the hook or simply didn't answer calls. He slept there occasionally.

Saul Geltman stated that he continued trying to reach Maitland at his home and the studio all day Saturday, with no success. He also called a few acquaintances of Maitland's. None knew where the artist was. Finally, by noon on Sunday, Geltman was becoming worried. He cabbed down to the studio. The door was closed but unlocked. There were roaches in the blood. Geltman promptly vomited, then called 911, the police emergency number, from the studio phone.

A two-man precinct squad car was first to respond. They put in the call reporting an apparent homicide; police machinery began to grind. Within an hour, the tenement building was roped off. Upstairs, the fifth-floor studio was crowded with officers from the precinct, detectives from the homicide unit covering that area, a doctor from the Medical Examiner's office, lab technicians, photographers, the district attorney's man, and Sergeant Abner Boone and two men from his special commando homicide squad.

The autopsy report stated laconically that Victor Maitland had died of "exsanguination resulting from multiple stab wounds." In other words, the man had bled to death; internal cavities were full, and he was lying in a coagulated pool. The weapon was described as "a knife, a single-edged weapon approximately five or six inches in length, tapering to a fine point." Analysis of stomach contents revealed ingestion of a moderate amount of whiskey just prior to death, which occurred, the ME's surgeons estimated, between 10:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. on Friday. They refused to be more precise.

A double investigation was begun. On the assumption that the artist was killed by a thief, a mugger, one team of detectives began searching the files for similar attacks, began questioning neighbors and nearby shopkeepers, copied down license-plate numbers of parked cars in the vicinity, later to question their owners. Catch basins, sewers, garbage cans, and litter baskets in a ten-block area were searched for the weapon. Snitches were queried, police and court records were reviewed for recent releases of knife-wielding smash-and-grab experts.

A second team, working on the assumption that Victor Maitland had opened his locked door to someone he knew and was dirked by that someone, began looking into the painter's private life and personal affairs, questioning anyone they could find who knew Maitland and might, conceivably, have closed him out. Eventually, they concentrated their efforts on seven people.

Before limiting their inquiries to this group, detectives questioned a depressingly long list of artists, models, art dealers, art critics, prostitutes, drinking companions, and a few distant relatives, none of whom seemed particularly distressed by the sudden blanking of Victor Maitland, and made little effort to hide their indifference. Depending on the education and/or social status of the acquaintance questioned, the dead man was described as everything from "an offensive and disagreeable individual" to "a piece of shit."

But after a heavy investigation that lasted almost six weeks, after the expenditure of thousands of man-hours of slogging work, the Department was no closer to the solution of the crime than they had been when Saul Geltman made his call to 911. Everything was gone over three times. New detectives were brought in for a fresh look at the evidence collected. Researchers went back to Maitland's two-year hitch in the army, even to his school days, looking for a possible motive.

Nothing.

One of the homicide dicks summed up the feelings of all of them: "What the hell," he said wearily. "Why don't we say the son of a bitch stabbed himself in the back, and forget about it?"

Monica Delaney devoted every Thursday to volunteer work at a local hospital. Before leaving the house, she delivered a written list of instructions to Chief Delaney: a timetable detailing when he was to put the roast in the oven, at what temperature, when he was to put the potatoes in the stove-top baker, when he was to take the Sara Lee chocolate cake from the freezer. He inspected the list solemnly, his glasses sliding down his nose.

"And I'll try to get the windows done," he told her.

She laughed, and stuck out her tongue at him.

He went into the study, sat down at his desk. He left the door open. He was alone in the house; he wanted to hear every unfamiliar and unexpected creak and thump.

He took a new manila file folder from a desk drawer. He had intended to write on the tab: "Killing of Victor Maitland." But he paused. Perhaps he should write: "Murder of Victor Maitland." There was a difference, he felt, between a murder and a killing. It went beyond the legal definition of First Degree: "With malice aforethought ..."

Delaney tried to analyze his feeling, and decided that the difference he saw between the two was in the deliberation of the act. The soldier in war usually killed, he didn't murder. But an assassination was a murder, not a killing. Unless the assassin was hired. A fine line there that involved not only deliberation but passion. Cold passion.

If Victor Maitland had been offed because he resisted a thief, that would be a killing. If he had been stabbed to death by someone known to him, someone who had pondered and planned, for whatever reason, it would be a murder. Delaney shook his head ruefully. This decision was to color his whole approach to the case, he knew. He was hardly into it, and already he was faced with the very basic question that had flummoxed the Department. Finally, taking a deep breath, he wrote on the folder tab: "Murder of Victor Maitland," and let it go at that.

Inside the folder he placed two pages of notes and questions he had jotted down while reviewing the Department's records. Then he drew the legal pad to him and began listing the things he planned to do in his private investigation. He wrote them down in no particular order, just as they occurred to him.

When the list was as complete as he could make it, when he ran out of ideas, he began putting the items in the proper sequence. As important as the ideas themselves. He struggled with it, juggling, trying to construct the most logical order. That completed, he added the final sequence to the manila folder. It pleased him. This was his paper. Up to now, the Maitland case had consisted solely of other men's paper. The phone rang while he was preparing additional file folders, labeled VICTIM, AGENT, WIFE, MISTRESS, etc.

"Edward X. Delaney here," he said.

"Chief, this is Detective Sergeant Abner Boone."

There was a pause, each waiting for the other to speak again. Finally ...

"Yes, sergeant," Delaney said. "Thorsen said you'd call. When can we get together?"

"Whenever you say, sir."

The voice was slightly twangy, not quite steady. There was no slur, but the agitation was there, controlled but there.

Delaney's first impulse was to invite the man for dinner. With a standing rib roast and baked potatoes, there'd be plenty of food. But he had second thoughts. It would be wiser if his initial meeting with Boone was one-on-one. Then he could evaluate the man. Before introducing him to the family.

"Would this evening at nine inconvenience you, sergeant?" he asked. "At my home? Do you have anything planned?"

"No, sir. Nothing planned. Nine will be fine. I have your address."

"Good. See you then."

Delaney hung up and went to his file cabinet for the stacks of official reports and signed statements. He began to divide these into his new folders: VICTIM, AGENT, WIFE, MISTRESS ...

He had a sandwich and a glass of milk at noon, went for a short walk along the streets of Two-five-one Precinct, smoking a cigar. He returned home in the early afternoon and continued his filing chores. This was donkey work, but most police work was. In fact, he found a curious satisfaction in this task of "putting things in order."

That's what a cop's job was all about, wasn't it? To restore and maintain order in a disordered world. Not only in society, but in the individual as well. Even in the cop himself. That was the reason for the multitude of forms, the constantly increasing mass of regulations. That was the reason for the formalistic, and sometimes ridiculous officialese. A cop never nabbed a crook. Not in a filed report or court testimony he didn't. He apprehended a suspect, or took a perpetrator into custody.

"Officer, when did you first encounter the accused?"

"I approached the defendant at nine-fifteen on the morning of April two, of this year, as he was exiting the premises of Boog's Tavern, located on Lexington Avenue and Ninetieth Street, City of New York, Borough of Manhattan. I identified myself as an officer of the law. I thereupon recited to this person his legal rights, as required, and placed him under arrest, charging him with the criminal act specified. I then accompanied the accused to the Two-five-one Precinct house, where he was duly incarcerated."

A touching search for precision in a lunatic world ...