"It's the best way," he repeated. "I'll just drop off the package and be on my way. And you'll be on your way to Puerto Rico. How does that sound?"

"All ri', I guess," she said. "Today?"

"Not today," he said. "I can't get the money today. It's after three; the banks are closed. How about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow I work," she told him. "Saturday?"

"Fine," he said. "I'll have it by then. Noon on Saturday? How's that?"

"Hokay," she said. "Eet sounds hokay. Five tousan' een small beels."

"You'll get it," he said confidently. "Now what's your name and where do you live?"

She gave him the address on Orchard Street, and told him to come to Apartment 6-D. Rosa Perez.

"Fine," he said heartily. "Your daughter will be there?"

"Oh sure."

"Good. Thank you for calling. I'll see you at noon Saturday."

He hung up. Mama Perez replaced the receiver gently. Edward X. Delaney leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

"You're beautiful, Mama," he said.

Sergeant Boone and Jason T. Jason came in beaming from the hallway, carrying their tape recorders.

"Got every blessed word," Boone said happily.

22.

CHIEF DELANEY HAD THEM all wait around until he got through to Ivar Thorsen. He played the tape over the phone and then, at the Deputy Commissioner's request, ran it through again.

"All right, Edward," Thorsen said, after the second hearing, "you can have what you want. Let's get this over with."

"Sure," Delaney said. "I'll keep you informed on what's happening. I think you better plan to be in your office on Saturday so I-"

"I always am," Thorsen said ruefully.

"-so I can reach you afterward," Delaney went on. "You might be thinking about a press statement."

"You're awfully confident," the Deputy Commissioner said.

"That's right," the Chief acknowledged, "I am. I think it would be best if you kept me out of it. The publicity I mean. Let the Department take the credit. You know-'A cooperative effort of all concerned.' That kind of shit."

"I understand."

"Can we get a search warrant for his home and office? To look for the Maitland sketches and the weapon?"

"I don't see why not-with that tape."

"We won't use it until noon on Saturday. Also-say on Friday night-you might call J. Barnes Chapin and give him the bad news about his sister's tax scam."

"I'm not looking forward to that."

"Take my word for it, Ivar, he'll thank you for the advance notice and owe you one."

"When are you tipping the IRS?"

"I'm not; you are. Goodwill for the Department. I suggest you hold off until Saturday morning. That'll give Chapin time to find a lawyer for Dora and Emily Maitland. Let's see, what else ... ? Well, I guess that about covers it. If there's anything more I need, I'll let you know."

"I'm sure you will," Thorsen said. "Congratulations, Edward."

"Jesus!" Delaney cried. "Not so soon! You'll put the whammy on it."

He hung up and turned to the others.

"It's going down," he told them. "Let's get organized ..."

The first thing he ordered was closer surveillance of Rosa Perez.

"This monkey may get an attack of the smarts," he said, "and decide to show up a few hours or even a day early. I wouldn't like that."

So they moved the plainclothesman inside Mama's building, and sat him on a milk crate in the back of the ground-floor lobby, where he could observe anyone entering from the front or the rear door from the concrete courtyard. And they made certain the trap to the roof in the sixth-floor ceiling was bolted from the inside.

Rosa was a problem; she refused to stay put in her own apartment. So Jason Two was assigned as her personal bodyguard. He accompanied her on shopping trips to drugstore and bodega, and even went drinking beer with her on Thursday night. The other cops started calling him Papa Perez, which he didn't think was so funny.

Arrangements were made for Dolores and Maria Ruiz to stay with relatives on Friday and Saturday, and Maria agreed to let her apartment be used temporarily by the police. She gave her permission after a long, sparkling argument with Mama Perez. Chief Delaney could understand a few words and phrases in Spanish, but he couldn't follow that loud, fiery exchange. It sounded to him mostly like threats and curses, but Jason told him later it was really a friendly business discussion; they were deciding how to divide Mama's hundred-dollar bounty.

The tech man selected by Sergeant Abner Boone arrived early Friday morning, and Delaney told him what was needed. The electronics specialist made a survey of the Perez and Ruiz apartments, took some measurements, and departed. He was back by noon with a van loaded with equipment. Boone helped him upstairs with his gear, and they set to work.

It was decided to leave the cloth curtain of the narrow closet pulled aside. It revealed a rod of hanging dresses and coats, shoes on the floor, a shelf above with odds and ends: a carroty wig on a plastic form, a cigar box of sewing materials, a small overnight bag, three hats, some assorted junk. To this collection they added a small, round vanity mirror held upright on a brass easel. But the mirror was two-way glass, and behind it they concealed a miniature TV camera with wide-angle lens and a sensitive omnidirectional microphone. The tech figured they'd be able to pick up all of the one-room apartment except for the bathroom and the near corner of the kitchenette.

The flat cable was run down the inside of the closet and out a hole drilled through the base close to the floor. The linoleum was then lifted to conceal the cable between floor covering and baseboard. It continued in similar manner across one end of the bathroom and through a hole drilled in the far wall at the floor.

Inside the Ruiz apartment, the cable was connected to both a videotape machine and a small black-and-white TV monitor with an eight-inch screen. A transmitter provided backup protection by sending a simultaneous signal to another monitor and videotape recorder in the electronics van parked across Orchard Street. The van, with antennae on the roof, was painted white with blue signs on both sides: BIG APPLE TELEVISION REPAIR & SERVICE: YOUR SATISFACTION IS OUR REWARD.

It took most of Friday to install the equipment in the Perez and Ruiz apartments, and it was almost midnight before it was working to the satisfaction of the specialist. Men observing the monitors in the Ruiz apartment and in the parked van had a reasonably clear TV picture of activity in Mama Perez' apartment, and the sound was loud and clear. The videotape recorders picked up both.

Chief Delaney treated everyone to coffee when the task was completed. They discussed job assignments, and the electronics specialist promised to bring along a buddy on Saturday to handle the equipment in the van while he took care of the hardware in the Ruiz apartment. The Chief said he wanted Boone and Jason upstairs. The plainclothesmen who had been on surveillance would cover the entrance of the tenement from across the street and warn by walkie-talkie when Saul Geltman arrived. Delaney asked everyone to show up by eight A.M. for final tests and run-throughs.

Then Sergeant Boone drove him home. During the ride they discussed how they would handle it: The door of the bathroom on the Perez side would be left open, so Geltman could glance in there if he was suspicious of being mouse-trapped. The bathroom door on the Ruiz side would be locked. If Geltman asked about it, Mama Perez would explain that it led to the adjoining apartment, but no one was home there. After Geltman was settled in the Perez apartment, the Ruiz door would be quietly unlocked. The turn-bolt had already been oiled, and Delaney was satisfied it could be opened slowly and quietly without alerting Geltman.

In case of emergency-and both Delaney and the sergeant knew that "emergency" meant a Geltman assault on Mama Perez-Jason T. Jason would go in first, fast, followed by Boone and Delaney, all armed. In addition, the surveillance men across the street would move over to take backup positions on the sixth-floor landing and on the stairs.

They went over it two or three times, trying "what ifs" on each other, and planning their response to a variety of possible situations. By the time Boone pulled up in front of the Delaney brownstone, they figured they had done as much plotting as they could. The rest depended on chance and luck.

Before they parted, the Chief offered his hand to a surprised Sergeant Boone. They shook once, a hard up-and-down pump.

He knew Monica would still be awake, and called upstairs to let her know he was home. Then he made his security rounds before he turned off the downstairs lights and tramped up to the bedroom. Monica had been reading in bed, covered only with a sheet, but her glasses were pushed up and her novel was face down when he entered the room. He went over to kiss her cheek.

"You smell like a goat," she smiled.

"Don't I though?" he said. "I'm tired and dusty and grumpy. A hot shower for me."

"Did you eat, dear?"

"Sure I did."

"What did you have?"

"Pizza for lunch and chili for supper."

"My God," she said, "your stomach will be rumbling all night."

"I suppose so," he agreed. "But I really enjoyed it."

"Edward, do you realize that I've hardly seen you for the past two days?"

"I realize," he said.

"Well ... tell me: what's going on? What have you been doing? The Geltman thing?"

"Let me get my shower first."

They kept a bottle of brandy and two small snifters on the shelf of his clothes closet. When he came from the shower, tying the drawstring of his pajama pants, he saw that Monica had left the bed long enough to pour each of them a good snort. She was back under the sheet, but sitting up, her heavy, tight breasts exposed. She was warming her glass between her palms. His drink was on the bedside table.

"Oh my," he said happily. "Oh my, oh my, oh my."

He sat on the edge of the bed and touched the brandy to his lips, taking a sip so small the liquid seemed to evaporate on his tongue. He realized, almost with a shock, that he was content. He put a hand on the sheet covering his wife's hard thigh.

"I love you," he said.

"No romance, buster," she said sternly. "Just talk. What have you been doing?"

He hadn't wanted to tell her, hoped he wouldn't have to, knowing it might diminish him in her eyes. But he could not plead "top secret" or "official business." Not to her. So he sighed and spelled it out, going through it rapidly but making no effort to conceal the fact that he was using Mama Perez as bait, and no matter how detailed and careful their plans, there was still a good possibility the woman would be hurt. Or worse ...

"If Geltman tries to take her," he said, "Jason will be right there, on top of him. Boone says he's fast. But still ..."

Monica was silent, thoughtful, her lips on the rim of her glass, but not sipping.

"Was it your idea, Edward?"

"Yes. I suppose you think I'm some kind of a monster."

She smiled. "Some kind."

She never ceased to surprise him.

"Then you think it's worth the risk?"

"Will it put Geltman away?" she asked.

"Oh, it'll put him away all right. Or help to. I can't let him walk, Monica. I'd never forgive myself if I let him off the hook."

"I know," she said, almost sadly. "God's surrogate on earth."

"Oh Jesus," he said, "I don't see myself that way at all. Not anymore. It's a personal thing. Like he slapped my face, or hurt someone I loved."

She looked at him, astonished.

"Edward, you never even knew Maitland."

"What difference does that make?"

"What if he hadn't been an artist whose work you admire? What if he had been a shoemaker, say, or a butcher?"

"No difference at all," he said doggedly.

"I believe you," she sighed. "I just wish I could understand you. Completely."

"And I you," he said. "I can never get to the end of you."

"Maybe it's best this way," she said.

"Sure it is. Like Maitland's paintings. I can't understand the attraction. Can't analyze it. But I can feel it. Respond to it. Know it provides something I want. Like you."

"Like you," she said. "Tired?" she asked.

"Oh yes. Beat."

"Maybe we'll finish our drinks, you get into bed, and we'll just hold each other."

He looked at her. She looked at him.

"We can start that way," he said.