"At last," the critic concluded, "America has a painter of the first magnitude who devotes his art to the celebration of life."

But not for long, Delaney thought morosely. Then, standing, the better to view the illustrations in the oversized book, he began slowly to turn the pages engraved with the paintings of Victor Maitland.

He went through them twice, turned back a third time to a few that had particularly moved him. Then he closed the book softly, moved away from the desk. He saw his sandwich and beer, untouched. He took them to one of the club chairs, sat down, began to eat and drink slowly. The beer was warmish and flat by now, but he didn't care.

He was an untrained amateur when it came to the appreciation of art. He acknowledged this. But he loved painting and sculpture. And the cool, ordered ambience of museums, the richness of gilt frames, the elegance of marble pedestals. He had tried to educate himself by reading books of art history and art criticism. But he found the language so recondite that he wondered if it was not deliberately designed to obfuscate and confuse the uninitiated. But, he admitted, the fault might be his: an inability to grasp art theory, to follow the turgid logic of cubists, dadaists, abstractionists, and all the other art "schools" that followed one after another in such rapid and bewildering succession.

Finally, he was forced back to his own eye, his own taste: that much scorned cliche "I know what I like when I see it," sensing dimly that it served for the butcher who liked sunsets painted on black velvet as well as for the most ideological of art experts who wrote knowingly of asymmetrical tensions, ovular torpidity, and exogenous calcification.

Edward X. Delaney liked paintings that were recognizable. A nude was a nude, an apple an apple, a house a house. He found technique interesting and enjoyable; the folds of satin in the paintings of Ingres were a delight. But technique was never enough. To be truly satisfying, a painting had to move him, to cause a flopover inside him when he looked upon life revealed. A painting did not have to be beautiful; it had to be true. Then it was beautiful.

Munching his cold roast beef, sipping his tepid beer, he reflected that most of Victor Maitland's paintings were true. Delaney not only saw it, he felt it. There were a few still lifes, one or two portraits, several cityscapes. But Maitland had painted mostly the female nude. Young women and old women, girls and harridans. Many of the subjects were certainly not beautiful, but all of the paintings were bursting with that "celebration of life" the critic had noted.

But that was not what impressed Chief Delaney most about Maitland's work. It was the purpose of the artist, the use he made of his talent. There was something frantic there, something almost deranged. It was, Delaney thought, a superhuman striving to be aware of life and capture it with cold paint on rough canvas. It was a manic greed to know it all, own it all, and to display the plunder.

5.

"I'M HAVING LUNCH WITH Rebecca," Monica said.

"That's nice," Chief Delaney said, flapping a "commuter fold" into his copy of The New York Times.

"Then we might go shopping," Monica said.

"I'm listening, dear," he said, reading of the aborted plan of a Central American politico to sell 10,000 submachine guns to the Mafia.

"Then we'll probably come back here," Monica said. "For a cup of coffee. At three o'clock."

He put down his paper, stared at her.

"Do you know what you're doing?" he asked. "The man's a heavy drinker, a very heavy drinker."

"You said he's off it."

"He said he's off it. Do you really want to mate your best friend with an alcoholic?"

"Well, it surely wouldn't do any harm if they just met. By accident. It doesn't mean they have to get married tomorrow."

"I wash my hands of the entire affair," he said sternly.

"Then you'll bring him back here around three?" she asked.

He groaned.

Sergeant Abner Boone was parked in front of the Delaney home, reading the Daily News. When the Chief got into the car, Boone tossed the newspaper onto the back seat.

"Morning, Chief," he said.

"Morning," Delaney said. He gestured at the newspaper. "What's new?"

"Nothing much. They fished a car out of the East River. They opened the trunk, and lo and behold, there was old Sam Zuckerman, sent to his reward with an ice pick."

"Zuckerman? I don't make him."

"He owned a string of massage parlors on the West Side. I guess someone wanted to buy in, and Sam said no. We've been playing pitty-pat with him for years. We'd jail him and leave the door open because Sam would be out on the street in an hour. He must have spent a fortune on lawyers. But of course he had a fortune. Now Sam's gone to the great massage parlor in the sky."

"How did you make out?" Delaney asked.

Boone took out a small, black leather notebook and flipped the pages.

"About the safety pin ..." he said. "The way I get it, the guy in the lab was making out the physical-evidence list. In the middle, he gets a call from the lieutenant of the homicide unit asking about the pin. The lab guy tells him it's an ordinary pin, no way to trace it, no fibers caught in it, no hair, nothing. They talk about the pin for a couple of minutes and hang up. Then the lab guy was interrupted. His words, and I quote: 'Then I was interrupted,' unquote. He didn't say whether he went to lunch, got a call from his wife, or went to the can, and I didn't push it. After the interruption, whatever it was, he continues typing out the list. But because the conversation with the lieutenant is fresh in his mind, he thought he had already included the safety pin. So, naturally, it got left out."

Delaney was silent. Boone looked sideways at him.

"It was just a human error, Chief."

"Is there any other kind?" Delaney asked sourly. "All right, we'll forget about it. Did you make any calls to the men who worked on the Maitland case?"

Boone sat quietly a moment, tapping his notebook on his knee, staring straight ahead.

"Chief," he said finally, "maybe I'm not the right guy for this job. I called three men who worked the case. I've known them for years. They were friendly, but cool. They all know the trouble I'm in, and they didn't want to be too buddy-buddy. You understand? Like I had a contagious disease, and they might catch it."

"I understand," Delaney said. "A natural reaction. I've seen it before."

"That's one thing," Boone said. "The other is that they all know I'm working with you on the Maitland thing. I don't think they'll be too happy to see us break it. They put in long hours, a lot of hard work, and came up with a horse collar. Then we come along-and bingo? It doesn't set so good. It would make them look like bums. So they're not too anxious to cooperate."

Delaney sighed.

"Well ..." he said. "That, too, is a normal reaction. I guess. I should have anticipated. So you got nothing?"

"I called three. Nothing from two of them. In fact, they got a little sore. They said I was hinting their records weren't complete, that they had left something out. I tried to explain that it wasn't like that at all, that we just wanted the little useless junk that every cop runs across in an investigation. But they said there was nothing that wasn't in their reports. The third guy was more sympathetic. He understood what we were after, but he said he had nothing."

"So that's that," Delaney said resignedly.

"No, no," Boone protested. "There's more. That third guy called me back about an hour later. He said he had been thinking about what I said, and he remembered one thing he saw that he didn't put in his report. He was one of the guys who questioned Jake Dukker, Maitland's artist friend. This Dukker is a rich, fancy guy with a studio on Central Park South. He's even got a secretary. This dick goes up to question Dukker, and the secretary shows him into the studio and says Dukker will be with him in a few minutes. So while the guy is waiting, he looks around. The walls of Dukker's studio are covered with drawings and paintings, apparently all of them by friends of Dukker. And this dick sees a signed drawing by Victor Maitland in a frame with glass over it. But what he remembered was that the drawing had been torn. It had been torn down the middle, and then the two pieces had been torn across. But the four pieces had been put back together again with Scotch tape, and then framed. This cop I talked to didn't know what that meant, if anything. I don't either."

"I don't either," Chief Delaney said. "Not now. But it's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to learn. Keep at it, sergeant; maybe we'll pick up some more bits and pieces."

"Will do."

"I called the widow and Saul Geltman, and set up appointments to see them today. Mrs. Maitland is first at ten this morning. It's on East Fifty-eighth. You know the address?"

"Sure. Chief, how come you called them first? Wouldn't it make more sense to walk in on them unexpectedly, so they have no time to set up a con?"

"Ordinarily it would," Delaney agreed. "But everyone involved in this case has been questioned a dozen times already. They've got their stories down pat. True or false. Let's get started."

Boone drove over to Second Avenue and turned south. Morning traffic was heavy; they seemed to hit a red light every block or so. But Delaney made no comment. He was engrossed in his own little black notebook, flipping pages.

"How did you handle the questioning?" he asked Boone.

"By the book. We sent three or four different guys for the first three or four sessions with each subject. Then those guys would get together with the lieutenant and compare notes. Then they'd figure which guy got the most, which guy had established the best relationship with the subject. That guy would go back for a final session, or more if needed."

"Who did you handle?"

"Me personally? I had one session with Mrs. Maitland, one with Geltman, and two with Belle Sarazen, the woman Maitland was screwing. Then I got taken off the case."

Chief Delaney didn't ask for Boone's reactions to these witnesses, and the sergeant didn't volunteer any.

The Maitland apartment was a duplex occupying the top two floors of what had originally been a private townhouse on East 58th Street between First Avenue and Sutton Place. It was an elegant building, with a uniformed doorman and tight security. Boone gave their names and showed his ID. They waited while the doorman announced their arrival over an intercom. When he got approval, he directed them to the single elevator at the side of the small lobby.

"Fourth floor rear, gents," he told them, but Delaney didn't move.

The doorman was big, fleshy, red-faced. His uniform might have fit him once, a few years ago. Now the jacket was straining at its brass buttons.

"We're investigating the Maitland murder," Delaney said.

"Still?" the man said.

"You knew him?" Delaney asked.

"Sure, I knew him," the doorman said. "Listen, I told this to a dozen cops. I answered a hundert questions."

"Tell me," Delaney said. "What kind of a guy was he?"

"Like I told the others, an okay guy. A heavy tipper. Very heavy."

"Ever see him drunk?"

"Does a goat smell? Sure, I seen him drunk. Lots of times. He'd have a load on, and I'd help him out of the cab, into the elevator, up to his door. Then I'd ring the bell for him. The next day he'd always give me a little something."

"They have many friends, the Maitlands?" Delaney asked. "Guests? Did they entertain a lot?"

"Not so much," the doorman said. "Mrs. Maitland, she has lady friends. Once or twice a year maybe they'd have a party. Not like Jacobson on two. That guy never stops."

"Maitland ever bring a woman home with him?"

The doorman's jaw clamped, his beefy face grew redder.

"Come on," Delaney urged.

"Onct," the doorman whispered. "Just onct. The wife raised holy hell. A real bimbo he brought home. She came flying down out of here about five minutes after she came."

"When was this?"

"About a year ago. The only time since I been dooring here. Seven years come July."

"The son ever bring a girl home?"

"I never seen one. Maybe a couple would come in with him. Not a single girl."

"You smoke cigars?" Delaney asked.

"What?" the doorman said, startled. "Sure, I smoke cigars."

Delaney reached into his inside pocket, brought out a pigskin case, a Christmas gift from Monica. He took off the top, held the filled case out to the doorman.

"Have a cigar," he said.

The doorman took one daintily, with the tips of his fingers.

"Thanks," he said gratefully. "Would you believe it, it's the first time in my whole life a cop gave me something."

"I believe it," Delaney said.

Alma Maitland was waiting for them outside the door of her fourth-floor apartment.

"I was afraid you got lost," she said. Cold smile.

"The elevator was busy," Delaney said, taking off his homburg. "Mrs. Maitland? I am Chief Edward X. Delaney. This gentleman is Detective Sergeant Abner Boone."

She offered a cool hand to each of them.

"I've already met Sergeant Boone," she said.

"Yes," Delaney said. His manner was weighty, almost pompous. His voice was orotund. "It is indeed good of you to see us on such short notice. We deeply appreciate it. May we come in?"

"Of course," she said, impressed by his solemnity. She led the way into the apartment, closing the door. "I thought we'd talk in the family room. It's cozier there."

If Mrs. Maitland considered her family room cozy, Delaney hated to think of what the rest of the apartment was like. The austere chamber into which Mrs. Maitland led them looked like a model room in a department store. It was so coldly designed, so precisely arranged, so bereft of any signs of human use that a cigarette ash or a fart seemed a blasphemy.

They sat in undeniably expensive and uncomfortable blonde wood armchairs. They placed their hats on a cocktail table that seemed to be a sheet of plate glass floating in space. There was a slight odor of lemon deodorant in the air. The room had all the warm charm of an operating theatre. Delaney had expected blazing Maitland paintings on the walls. He saw a series of steel etchings depicting London street cries.

"Mrs. Maitland," he said formally, "may I first express my sincere sympathy and condolences on the tragic death of your husband."

"Thank you," she murmured. "You're very kind."

"He was a great artist."

"The greatest," she said loudly, raising her head to look directly at him. "The obituary in the Times called him the greatest American painter of his generation."

She was, Delaney saw, a handsome woman, big-boned, with a straight spine and the posture of a drill sergeant. She sat in the middle of a couch upholstered in beige wool, sitting toward the edge, not relaxing against the back. Her hands were folded demurely in her lap. Her ankles were crossed, lady-like, both knees bent slightly to one side.