"Then he's guilty, Edward?" she asked. "No doubt about it?"

"No doubt about it," he said. "Proving it is something else again."

"Uh, Chief," Jason said. "Sounds to me like we got motive now. And opportunity, if this lawyer guy chickens out on the alibi. No weapon, I admit. But enough to rack him up. No?"

Chief Delaney looked at Boone.

"What do you think, Sergeant?"

Abner Boone shook his head angrily.

"No way," he said. "I don't see it. Indictment maybe. Possibly. But I'll bet the DA won't prosecute him. Too thin."

"Thin?" Jason T. Jason cried. "My God, it seems to me the man's tied in knots."

"No, Jason," Delaney said. "Sergeant Boone's right. We'd never get a conviction on the basis of what we've got. Look, everyone thinks a Not Guilty verdict means innocence. Not necessarily. Sometimes it just means the prosecutor hasn't proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt. Usually in cases like that, the DA doesn't even go to trial. He wants to show a good conviction rate. Prosecuting an obviously weak case is a waste of time for him, the taxpayers, everyone."

"Look, Jase," Boone said to the disappointed cop, "everything we've got so far is circumstantial. That's not too bad; most homicide prosecutions are based on circumstantial evidence. How often do you get an eyewitness to a killing? But we've got nothing that will stand up in court."

"Right," Delaney nodded. "Belle Sarazen's report of the heavy argument between Maitland and Geltman is hearsay. Not admissible. And if J. Julian Simon decides to repeat his lie under oath, who do you think the jury's going to believe-a slick Madison Avenue lawyer or a been-around hooker ready for Social Security?"

"You mean Saul Geltman is going to get away with this?" Monica said indignantly.

"Ah," Chief Delaney said. "We shall see. Geltman knows now that we have an eyewitness placing him at the murder scene at the right time. Let's figure he saw those police drawings in the newspapers and on TV, so he knows we were looking for her. And he knows what a danger she represents to him because he saw Mama Perez and Dolores near Maitland's studio that Friday morning."

"So?" Monica said.

"So," Edward X. Delaney said dreamily, "let's help him find her."

But Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen wasn't enthusiastic when Delaney spelled it out for him on the phone that evening.

"Sounds like entrapment to me, Edward," he said.

"For God's sake," Delaney said, "entrapment is legal junk. It all depends on whether the judge got laid the night before. We're not luring him into committing a crime; we're giving him a choice. If he's really innocent-which he isn't-he'll laugh at us and walk away. Maybe even report it to the cops. But if he's guilty-which he is-he'll take the bait. Ivar, this guy is sweating; I know he is. He'll bite."

"The cost ..." Thorsen groaned.

"Not so much," Delaney said. "One or two tech men working a day or so. We'll keep the equipment simple. I've got enough personnel with Boone and Jason and the guys watching Mama Perez. What do you say?"

"A helluva risk to the Perez woman."

"She'll be protected."

"If it goes sour, it's my neck."

"I know that, Ivar," Delaney said patiently. "Want me to go ahead on my own, and we'll pretend this conversation never took place?"

"No," Thorsen said. "Thanks for the offer, but it wouldn't work. You need my okay to draw the equipment. And you need that to nail him-right?"

"Right. Well? Are you in?"

There was silence for a few minutes. Delaney waited.

"Look, Edward," Thorsen said finally, "let's do this: make the approach first. If he bites, I'll authorize what you need. If he doesn't go for it, then all bets are off and the bastard walks. Agreed?"

"After what he did to Mary and Sylvia?" Edward X. Delaney said. "Never."

20.

THEY WERE DAWDLING OVER their lunch coffee. Chief Delaney was reading an early edition of the Post, smiling over a story about a Chicago cat-burglar who had tried to squeeze through an iron-barred gate and got his head caught. He had to call the cops to pry him free. Monica, chin in hand, was listening to the kitchen radio.

"Piano Sonata Number Two," she said dreamily. "Prokofiev."

"Sam Prokofiev?" Delaney asked, not looking up. "Used to play third base for the Cincinnati Reds?"

"That's the man."

"Fast hands," he murmured. "But he couldn't hit."

Then he looked up. They stared at each other solemnly.

The news came on at 2:00 P.M., and Delaney put his paper aside. The first items dealt with a flood in Ohio, a famine in Pakistan, and the indictment of a California Congressman for malfeasance and misfeasance.

"And mopery," the Chief muttered.

Then the announcer said: "The body of a middle-aged man was removed from the ruins of a luxury apartment on the upper East Side of Manhattan early this morning following a three-alarm fire that routed almost a hundred tenants of the building and caused extensive fire and water damage. The dead man has been tentatively identified as J. Julian Simon, a prominent attorney ... In Italy, sources close to the-"

Delaney reached across the table, clicked off the radio.

"Did he say ... ?" Monica faltered.

"That's what he said," Delaney snapped. "J. Julian Simon. Sometimes I'm too fucking smart by half," he added savagely.

He had his hand on the kitchen phone when it shrilled under his fingers. He jerked it off the hook.

"Edward X. Delaney here," he said furiously.

"Edward," Ivar Thorsen said breathlessly, "did you hear the-"

"I heard," the Chief said angrily. "God damn it to hell! It's my fault, Ivar."

"Then you think-"

"Think, shit! The little bastard knocked off his old handball buddy when he started to come apart. Now all we got is Simon's original statement, and Geltman's still got his alibi. He thinks! Ivar, you've got to handle this. I haven't the clout. Where's the body now?"

"I don't know, Edward. On the ME's slab, I suppose."

"Will you call and tell them to carve the roast very, very carefully? Especially look for knife wounds, particularly in the back."

"All right," Thorsen said faintly.

"Or evidence of drugging or heavy drinking. Then call your contact at the Fire Department, and put a bee in his ear. Victim was involved in hanky-panky, foul play suspected, and so forth and so on. Was the fire deliberately started? Evidence of arson? Tell them to go over that apartment with a comb."

"Will do, Edward."

"Get back to me as soon as you've got anything. Please, Ivar?"

He banged the phone back on the hook. He couldn't look at Monica.

"Edward," she started, "it isn't your-"

"He's gone," he said loudly. "He's just gone."

She thought he meant J. Julian Simon-but he didn't. He stamped into the study, slammed the door behind him. He threw himself into his swivel chair. He held out his hands before him, saw them trembling. It was, he knew, the rage of humiliation. It was his bruised ego that was suffering. Snookered and made a fool of, again. He wondered just how much of his successful career had stemmed from an exaggerated sense of his own talents and shrewdness. Well, he reflected ruefully, little Saul Geltman was giving him a lesson in humility.

He tried to put the man together. It was a crossword puzzle with too many clues. Geltman was this, he was that. He was cruel, he was tender. He was profound, he was frivolous. Edward X. Delaney, struggling with reports, notes, memories, couldn't get a handle on the man. The "handle" he was looking for was motivation.

He had been a cop long enough to know that only rarely did people act with singleness of purpose. Motives were usually jungles, a complexity of drives and incentives. A son who fed an arsenic sandwich to his aged, ailing father might say, "I did it to ease the pain," and believe it. Dig a little deeper, and you found that the killer was in hock to the shys and needed his legacy to keep his kneecaps from being splintered; that he had the hots for a young twist who demanded he show some green before she said Yes; that his sick father was a whining, incontinent, spiteful invalid. But it was also true that the victim was in extreme and constant pain. So?

Delaney's analysis of Saul Geltman was interrupted by a call from Ivar Thorsen. The Deputy Commissioner was excited.

"Edward? They were way ahead of us. They'd already found them. Multiple stab wounds in the back. Similar to the MO on Maitland. It was definitely a homicide, according to the ME who did the autopsy. He happens to be the guy who did Maitland, and he says it could be the same knife. I've alerted the Fire Department. Their investigators are already there."

"That's fine, Ivar," Delaney said heavily. "But nothing to the press on this. Nothing! Let that midget think he's scammed us. Can you send some men around with photos of Geltman? Maybe someone saw him at the scene-doorman, neighbors, anyone. It's a long shot, but we've got to go through the motions."

The Deputy Commissioner said he'd take care of it, but it wouldn't be easy; the manpower cuts were hurting.

"I know," Delaney said consolingly, "but it's only for a few days. A week at the most."

Thorsen was silent for a beat or two.

"Think you can wrap it up by then?" he asked casually.

"One way or another," Delaney said, deliberately enigmatic. "Did Boone tell you about the tax fraud?"

Thorsen said he had, and that he supposed they'd have to tip the IRS eventually. He wondered what effect that would have on the sympathies of J. Barnes Chapin, learning that the NYPD had blown the whistle on his sister.

"It could be a plus if you handle it right," Delaney told him. "Have a meet with Chapin and lay it out for him. Tell him we'll hold off tipping the Feds if he can convince his sister to get religion and spill her guts about the whole con-how it was set up, who was involved, and so forth. Tell Chapin the IRS probably won't even charge Dora and Emily; they'll be so happy to find that treasure house of Maitland paintings. It'll mean that Dora and Emily inherit zilch, and Alma and Ted Maitland become wealthy, but that's the way the cream curdles. At least Chapin's sister and niece won't go to the slammer. In return, he should be happy to cooperate on that bill you want passed."

"Edward, you should have been a politician," Thorsen said.

"God forbid."

"Well, I like it. And I think it'll work."

"Hold off talking to Chapin until I give you the go-ahead."

"Will do. Anything else?"

"Could you come up with, say a few hundred dollars from the discretionary fund? You know, the money put aside for grabbers and dope buys?"

"A couple of hundred? What for?"

"Don't you trust me, Ivar?"

"Sure I do, Edward. For a hundred, tops."

"All right," Delaney laughed. "I'll try to get by on that. It's for Mama Perez. I'll lay it out of my own pocket, and you make good. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

Then Edward X. Delaney went back to his analysis of the character of art dealer Saul Geltman. He made a list of possible motives and, on the basis of what he knew or guessed about the man, gave each motive a value rating of one to ten. Then he eliminated minor or superficial goads that might drive a man to murder. What he was left with was the obvious and simple spur of greed.

The problem with covetousness-for money, physical possessions, power-was that it was an open-ended motive; there was no end to it. A man compelled by a desire for revenge, for example, might kill, and that would finish it. Act committed, need satisfied. But there was no end to greed. It fed upon itself. More never led to satiety; more led to more. In a way, it was an addiction. "Yes," says the multimillionaire, "I have a lot of money. But I don't have all of it!"

In Geltman's case, Delaney decided, greed was driving him to acts he had never imagined. Obsessed with a passion for more, with a fear of losing what he had already gained, he had surrendered to his addiction, whirling down into a maelstrom of deceit, treachery, murder. All the while stroking his zinc-covered dining table, sipping fine cognac from a Baccarat snifter, and murmuring, "Mine, mine, mine!"

The Chief was still at his musings when Monica came into the study bearing two rye highballs. She gave her husband his, then perched on the edge of the desk next to him, her good legs dangling.

"God bless you, child," he said, taking an appreciative sip, stroking her bare calf. "I'll remember who offered aid in my hour of need."

"What's the need?" she asked. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to understand why Saul Geltman is Saul Geltman, and not Edward X. Delaney, say, or even Jake Dukker. Here's a philosophical question for you: Which is worse-to want all the good things of life and never get them, or to get them and then lose them?"

She considered a moment, her glass at her lips.

"You understand the question?" he asked.

"Oh, I understand it," she said. "I'm just trying to decide. I guess it would be worse to want things and never get them."

"Why?"

"Because if you had them and then lost them, at least you could console yourself with the thought that, for awhile, you had it all and were happy. But not having, never having, would just be constant frustration."

"Mmm," he pondered. "That's your personal reaction."

"Of course," she said. "That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

"Yes. No. Actually, I was wondering how Saul Geltman would answer that question."