LIKE MOST COPS, HE was superstitious, and so he considered it a good omen that he was able to find photographs of all the principals in the folders of the Maitland file. The photos of J. Julian Simon and Ted Maitland had been taken with a telephoto lens by a police photographer at Victor Maitland's funeral. They were grainy enlargements, but clear enough for identification.

He put all the photos in a manila envelope, and added a set of photostats of the three sketches found in Maitland's studio. At the last minute he also added the clippings of the New York Times article describing the Maitland gala at the Geltman Galleries. The article included photos of Belle Sarazen and Saul Geltman.

The Chief had everything prepared by the time Abner Boone called at nine A.M. on Saturday morning. The sergeant and Jason T. Jason had the Perez tenement under surveillance. Mama was still up in her sixth-floor apartment. They had investigated a paved rear courtyard, but the only exit from that was by a narrow walkway alongside the building. It emerged on Orchard Street, so Boone didn't think there was any way for Mama to leave the building without their seeing her.

"Unless she goes across the roofs," the Chief said.

Delaney told the sergeant to stay right where he was, that he'd join them within an hour. He figured he'd take the subway down, then thought the hell with it, and stopped the first empty cab he saw. He was keeping a careful account of his expenses and, even with cabs and gas for Boone's car, they seemed modest enough to the Chief. In any event, the expenses were Thorsen's problem, not his.

He sat in the back of Boone's car, the two active-duty cops in the front seat, while they told him what they had turned up-which wasn't much. Mama's real first name was Rosa, though everyone on the street called her Mama. Apparently she was a hooker-Jason Two confirmed that-but Boone guessed she was drawing some kind of public assistance; even in that neighborhood the successful prosties were younger and flashier.

They had also collected a few facts about Dolores. The young girl wasn't related to Mama Perez. Her full name was Dolores Ruiz, and she was the daughter of Maria Ruiz, who lived on the sixth floor, right next to Rosa Perez. Maria Ruiz apparently didn't have any man. She worked long hours, cleaning office buildings, and Mama Perez befriended Dolores during the day: took her shopping, to the movies, etc. Dolores, the neighbors said, wasn't right in the head.

"Does the Perez woman peddle the girl's ass?" Delaney asked them.

Jason said he didn't think so. During his chat with Mama in the Ludlow Street alley, he had politely rejected her proposition but hinted broadly that he might be interested in a younger girl. She hadn't taken the bait.

The three sat there, aware of the noisy, bustling street but staring at the entrance of Mama Perez' tenement. It was an ugly grey building, the front stones chipped and covered with graffiti, most of it in Spanish. Overflowing garbage cans almost blocked the sidewalk. There was a pack of scrofulous cats darting up and down the stoop, into and out of the narrow alley, and even prowling across the rusty fire escape bolted to the front of the tenement. As they watched, sidewalk vendors began setting up their folding tables and arranging their stocks of plastic sunglasses and sleazy T-shirts.

"Well," the Chief said finally, "let's go have a talk with Mama."

"How do you want us to handle it, sir?" Boone asked. "Come on strong?"

"No," Delaney said. "I don't think we'll have to do that. Nothing physical anyway. Jason, did she make you as a cop?"

"No way, Chief."

"Well ... come up with us just the same. It'll blow your cover, but she'll realize we've got her on soliciting, at least, and that'll give us an edge."

The three got out, and Boone locked the car carefully.

"I hope I'll still have wheels when we get back," he said mournfully.

The entrance and hallways of the walk-up tenement were about what they expected: scummed tile floors, walls with the rough, puckered look of fifty years' painting, the outside coats chipped away in places to show multicolored pits-green, pink, blue, brown, green, blue-like archeological digs revealing the layers of ages. Electric bulbs were broken, landing windows cracked, the wooden banisters carved with dozens of initials or just whittled carelessly. And the smell. It hung in the air like a mist, as if someone had sprayed this place and the fog would never disappear or even diminish.

There had been no names in the slots of the broken bells, but the bank of mailboxes-some of them with jimmied lids-showed R. Perez in apartment 6-D. It also showed M. Ruiz in 6-C. On the second floor, Delaney checked the tin letters nailed to apartment doors and found that D was the farthest to the rear. They continued their slow climb upward, stepping aside to let children clatter down, laughing and screaming, and once to allow the slow descent of a painfully pregnant woman dragging along two smeary-faced tots.

They paused in the sixth-floor hallway to catch their breath, then moved back to stand alongside the door marked D. The tin letter was missing; the D had been scrawled on the green paint with a black Magic Marker. Boone put his ear close, listened a moment, then looked at the others and nodded. Delaney motioned them clear, so no one was standing directly in front of the door. Then he reached out and rapped sharply.

No answer. He knocked again, louder. They heard movement, the scuff of dragged steps.

"Who?" a woman's voice called.

"Board of Education," Delaney said loudly. "About Dolores Ruiz."

They heard the sound of locks being opened, a chain unhooked. The door opened. Jason T. Jason immediately planted one of his enormous feet on the sill.

The woman looked down at that protruding foot, then up to the face of Jason Two. Then she looked slowly at Delaney and Boone.

"Sonnenbitch," she said bitterly. "You got badges?"

Boone and Jason flashed their ID. She didn't seem to notice that Delaney showed her nothing.

"Can we come in, Mama?" the Chief asked pleasantly.

"You got a warrant?" she demanded.

"A warrant?" Delaney said. He looked at the other two men, then back to Rosa Perez. "Why should we have a warrant? This isn't a bust, Mama. We don't want to toss your place. Just talk, that's all. A few questions."

"About what?" she said suspiciously.

Delaney dug the photostats of the Maitland sketches from his envelope. He held them up for the woman to see.

"About these," he said.

She stared, and her punished face softened. She almost smiled.

"Beautiful," she said. "No?"

"Very beautiful," Delaney nodded. "May we come in and talk about them?"

Grudgingly, she stepped aside, swinging the door open wider. The three men filed in. The Chief took a quick look around. A one-room apartment. A box. About thirteen by thirteen, he guessed. A narrow closet with a cloth curtain pulled aside. A kitchenette hardly larger than the closet: sink, cabinet, two-burner gas stove, a small, yellowed refrigerator. There was one window in the room, a closed door opposite. Delaney glanced at the door, looked at Jason, motioned with his head. The cop took three steps, stood to one side, opened the door slowly, peered inside cautiously. Then he closed the door.

"Small bathroom," he said. "Sink, tub, toilet, cabinet. And another door on the other side."

"Another door?" Delaney said thoughtfully. He turned to Mama Perez. "You share the bathroom with Maria and Dolores Ruiz?"

She nodded.

"Sure," he said. "Originally this was all one apartment, but the landlord broke it up into two for more money-right?"

Again she nodded.

"Mama, can we sit down?" he asked her. "We want to talk-just friendly talk-but it may take a few minutes."

She told the story without hesitation, speaking fluently. They listened gravely and never interrupted her.

On that Friday morning, she had taken Dolores Ruiz out to Orchard Street to buy the girl a pair of summer sandals. This crazy man had rushed up to them on the street and grabbed Mama's arm. He said he was an artist and wanted to paint pictures of Dolores. He would pay if Dolores posed for him. In the nude. Mama could be there while he worked, to protect Dolores' honor. But he wanted to see Dolores' body, to see if it was as good as he thought it was.

So they all piled into a cab, and he took them to the Mott Street studio. Dolores undressed, and the crazy man did three drawings and said he wanted Dolores to pose for him. He said he'd pay five dollars an hour, so they agreed to come back on Monday morning. Then they went away. They came back Monday morning at eleven, and found out the man was dead. Later she learned he had been murdered. She read it in the newspapers and saw it on TV. And that's all that happened.

There was a short silence after she finished. They believed every word she had said. Then ...

"Did you have a drink?" Sergeant Boone asked. "In the studio?"

"Yes. Wan."

"Did Maitland have a drink?" Delaney asked.

"He drank," she nodded. "From the boatal. Crazy man."

"When Dolores undressed," the Chief said, "did she have a safety pin somewhere on her clothes? Did she drop it?"

Rosa Perez shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Maitland was alive when you left the studio?" Boone asked.

She turned her head slowly, looked at him shrewdly.

"You tink I keel heem?"

"Was he alive?" Boone repeated.

"He was alive," Mama Perez nodded. "Why should I keel heem?"

"Is Dolores here?" Chief Delaney said. "Now? In her apartment?"

The woman straightened slowly. The stone eyes focused on him.

"What you want weeth Dolores?"

"Just to see her, ask her a few questions."

Mama Perez shook her head.

"Dolores she don' onnerstan'."

"Get her," Delaney said.

She sighed, rose to her feet. She was wearing a cheap cotton wrapper, a thin, flowered shift. She smoothed the cloth down over her bulging hips in a gesture that was coquettish, almost girlish.

"You hurt Dolores," she said casually, "I keel you."

"No one's going to hurt Dolores," the Chief told her. "Jason, go with her."

Rosa Perez went to the bathroom door, Jason right on her heels. She went through the bathroom, knocked on the far door. Delaney and Boone heard a chatter of Spanish.

They sat waiting. The summer sun streamed through the big window. The little apartment, right under the roof, was suddenly a hotbox, steaming. Chief Delaney rose, stalked to the window, pulled it open. He had to struggle with it; the heavily painted frame was swollen. But he finally got it open wide. He leaned far out, hands propped on the low sill. He looked down. Then he came back into the room, closed the window halfway.

"Six stories straight down to the cement courtyard," he reported to Boone. "You'd think she'd have a window guard-one of those iron grilles you screw on. If this kid-"

"Dolores," Mama Perez said, "Beautiful, no?"

They looked at the vacant-faced girl standing near the doorway to the bathroom. Her arms hung straight down at her sides. They saw what Victor Maitland had seen. The youth. Ripe youth. Ready. And long, glistening black hair. Empty perfection in that mask-face. Eyes of glass. Erupting flesh.

"Hello, Dolores," Delaney said, smiling. "How are you?"

She didn't answer, didn't even look at him.

Delaney took the photostats of the Maitland sketches to her and held them up.

"You, Dolores," he said, still smiling.

She looked at the drawings but saw nothing. Her face showed nothing. She scratched one arm placidly.

"Ask her to sit down," the Chief said to Mama Perez.

The woman muttered something in Spanish. The girl walked slowly to the unmade bed, sat down gently. She moved like bird flight, as pure and sure. She was complete. She composed space.

"You sit down, too, Mama," Delaney said. "A few more questions."

"More?"

"Just a few."

He and Rosa Perez took their seats again. Boone and Jason T. Jason stood at opposite walls.

"We've been looking for you," Chief Delaney said. "You and Dolores. Drawings of you were in the newspapers and on TV. You saw them?"

For the first time she hesitated. Delaney saw she was calculating how the truth might hurt her.

"I saw," she said finally.

"But you didn't come forward. You didn't come to us to ask why we wanted to find you."

"Why should I?" she asked.

"Right," he said equably. "Why should you? Well, Mama, we wanted to find you to ask you about someone you and Dolores may have seen that Friday morning."

"Someone we seen?" she said. "We seen lots of peoples that morning."

"In the building where Maitland's studio is," Delaney said patiently. "On the stairs maybe. Or coming up the outside steps. Somewhere close."

Rosa Perez shook her head.

"I don' remember," she said. "So long ago. I don' remember."

"Let me help you," Delaney said. He took all the photographs and newspaper clippings from his manila envelope. He arranged them neatly on the Formica-topped table, all facing Mama Perez.

"Take a look," he urged her. "A good long look. Take your time. Did you see any of these men or women near Maitland's studio that Friday morning?"

She glanced quickly at the photos, then shook her head again.

"I don' remember," she said.

"Sure you do," Chief Delaney said quietly. "You're a smart woman. You notice things. You remember things. Take another look at them."