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Janek
nodded. "He said Hart wanted me to drive back with him. I did and that's when he gave me Switched Heads."

"So what's the insight?"

"Say he recognized you as Tommy Wallace's daughter. He also knew Al had been my rabbi. Al kills himself and doesn't leave a note. It would be natural for me to try and find out why. Hart doesn't want any trouble. He's come to the funeral to check me out. He spots you and, worse, notices me watching you. I make a move toward you. He gets worried. So he sends over Sweeney to intercept."

"Sweeney's the sergeant."

"Right. So now he's got me in his car. He wants to distract me really good. So he gives me this crazy case to tie me up, the kind of case that can destroy a detective's brain. Maybe he figures by the time I'm done with it, solved or unsolved, Al's suicide will be very old news and if anything ever turns up about Al's investigation into your father's death it will look more or less like what it was, namely a farce."

"You don't think he was going to give you the case anyway?"

"Maybe. He certainly had it in reserve.
But
what makes me think he hadn't thought it through was the mistake he made, that lie about not knowing Al."

She'd been watching him closely. He had the feeling she was struggling to keep something in. "Quite an improvisation. Is Hart that slick?"

"To get to be Chief of Detectives you got to be very slick."

"Well," she said, "what are you going to do about it?"

"Haven't decided yet. Al couldn't do anything, could he? Except make a lot of empty threats."

"I don't understand." She looked angry. "You just finished telling me Hart played you for a fool."

"He even called me in after a week on the pretext of discussing Ireland/Beard. Then the first thing he does is ask me was how Lou is getting along."

"You told him—"

"That she was coming along all right. Now that I think back on it I remember he lost interest after that."

"But that's outrageous." She was full of indignation.

"I'd say less outrageous than the rest of it. Wouldn't you?"

"So you're just going to let it go at that?"

He stared at her. "I didn't say I was going to let it go."

"You have to do something."

"Sure, I do. So, tell me—what would you suggest?"

She pulled herself up, sat still by the side of the bed, then pulled on her robe and walked toward the galley. Halfway there she stopped and turned. "I don't get it. Last night you tell me you're going to nail Lane. But that's just a case you were assigned. Now, this morning, I don't hear you saying anything about nailing Hart even though it seems he killed my father and drove your best friend to suicide."

There was something marvelously confrontational in the way she was standing—defiant, angry, outraged.

"The first rule for a detective," he said as softly as he could, "is don't take your cases home."

"
Oh, screw that shit!
"
She was furious now; the explosion had finally come. "That may be the first rule for you. But I'm not a detective, thank God." She paused. "Think I'll go to Hart and confront him. Fling Lou's story in his face. How would you like that?" She turned on her heel.

He walked up to her in the galley, stood behind her, put his arms around her and grasped her. She struggled to get away.

"I've been waiting to hear you say that."

She continued to twist and squirm. "What are you talking about?"

"To hear you come after me, mad, and push."

She stopped struggling. He loosened his grip. She turned. "You mean this was a setup? You were trying to get me mad?"

"Something like that."

"Then
you
are
going to do something?"

He nodded.

"Then that was bullshit about how you haven't decided yet?"

"Yeah," he said. "But I'm not going to do it alone. You're going to help me. Because if it isn't important enough to you it's not important enough to me."

L
ater, when she was dressed, he escorted her to the tennis club. He carried her racquets; she walked her bike.

"Al had a great case," he said, "tie the CD to a murder. But he botched it. Hart had a hold over him because Al had taken money, too. That's what they mean when they say a good detective doesn't get personal. When the guy you're after has that kind of leverage on you there's nothing you can do."

She glanced at him. "Are you all that free of leverage?"

"The job's the only thing he's got over me and I don't want the job if it means he gets to yo-yo me around." He paused. "Remember how we got to the point one night where you admitted maybe you were hiding from certain things? Well, I've been thinking about that and I've decided I've been hiding, too."

"Behind what?"

"My shield, my profession. Playing the detached detective. And, you know, I'm getting tired of telling myself we're all criminals at heart and that the only worthy feeling I can have is to be filled with pity for us all. Maybe my dear ex-spouse was right—it's an awfully heavy burden I've been carrying around. Maybe that's why I've felt so tired the last few years, as if every new case was just an added weight."

"Oh,
Janek
, what brought all this on?"

"Lane and Hart. Hart especially. I really hate that son-of-a-bitch. I'd like to get very personal and stick it to him. It's been years since I felt anything like that."

"But still you feel funny about it."

She was right, but he found it difficult to explain. They walked a block in silence. "Maybe I feel you won't like me so much," he finally said.

She looked surprised. "I don't understand."

"That afternoon it rained—"

"When the loft turned dark while we were making love." He nodded. "I told you about the burden then."

"Yes?"

He glanced at her, then turned away. "You said it was the thing you loved about me most."

"Yes. But that doesn't mean—"

"I was wondering if you'd feel that way if you found me full of hate."

"But you're not full of hate. You just hate Lane and Hart." She searched his face, then reached out to him. He gave her his hand; she took it and held it tight. "Don't be afraid I'm not going to care for you because you're a human being." She stood on her toes to kiss him. "That's wonderful, you see. Makes you fuller, a man struggling with a contradiction. If anything it makes me love you even more."

When they reached the tennis club he waited on the terrace while she went to the locker room to change. Her opponent, the tall woman he'd watched play with her the other time, had called to say that she'd be late.

"You said it's been years since you felt the way you're feeling now." Caroline, looking good in her tennis clothes, settled down beside him. They were the only ones on the terrace. "What made you change—way back then, I mean?"

"I went into the deep-freeze when I killed my partner."

"You mention that a lot, but you don't talk about it."

"Because that was the turning point: After that I
had
to feel detached." He paused. "Was either Terry or me, you see. Terry Flynn. My partner and my friend.

"He was a very good detective, had a sixth sense that made him extraordinary. But he was crazy too, full of anger, and he hated the criminal-justice system with a passion. What happened was that we were being taunted by this minor hood, a creep named Tony
Scarpa
, a 'scumbag,' as Terry used to say. And Terry got it into his head that we were going to execute the guy, take the law into our hands, become rogue cops and take him out. I didn't think he was serious. He'd talk about it and laugh. But he was serious. I found that out too late, one night in a coffee warehouse on
Desbrosses
Street where we cornered
Scarpa
with enough dope to make a fairly decent case. But Terry wasn't interested in making a case; he was out for blood. So there was
Scarpa
down on his knees and Terry pressing a revolver against his head, a clean gun he'd gotten hold of, and I was yelling at him to stop before he pulled one off. Then I knew he wasn't going to stop, that he was going to kill the guy, and that if he did he'd ruin his life, so I knew I had to take that gun away. I tried. He fought me off. Then he pointed it at me and I could see he was way out of control. He started firing.

"I had to shoot him. Unfortunately I aimed too well. Tony got
Scarpa
in the head, but the creep survived. I got Terry in the chest. He was dead before the ambulance came.

"Funny—for years I wondered if I'd chickened out. Took me a long while to realize I hadn't. It was later that I acted like a coward, when something closed up inside. That thing with Terry held me back, so I had to work up my pity-us-all theory which I've been using ever since as an excuse not to feel—anger, rage, revulsion, even love. You see, it's been more than Switched Heads and the thing with Al that's brought me back. It's been you. I know now I started to really feel again when I began to fall for you."

She'd been watching him as he spoke, peering at him, as if he was an exiled king restored to a stolen throne. Just seeing that look on her, of admiration and awe, filled him with courage.

"I have to tell you something, Frank," she said. "I think you and I are alike."

"How do you mean?"

"I love to hear confessions. At least the kind in which I'm the rescuing heroine."

T
he restaurant wasn't a cop place. It was an expensive seafood restaurant in the South Street fish-market area, a stockbroker's paradise full of guys yapping about liquidity and arbitrage. They knew Hart, greeted him as "Chief" when he and
Janek
walked in. The headwaiter seated them in a booth. Hart ordered Manhattan clam chowder, grilled sole and a bottle of white wine. "Lovely wine," he said after he chewed it awhile. Then he signaled the waiter to pour.

While
Janek
talked he watched Hart eat his soup. There was a rhythm to the way he dipped his spoon.
Janek
tried not to let that annoy him as he toured the perimeters of Switched Heads and Peter Lane. Just as he was finishing the waiter brought their fish.

"That it?" asked Hart as he began to bone his sole. He
fileted
it like a surgeon.

"Isn't that enough?"

Hart looked up from his handiwork. "No, Frank. Not nearly enough."

"You heard what I—"

"I heard every word. You got a goddamn kiss and some alleged artistry you think you saw in the crime-scene photos. And then you got a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo that adds up to exactly zilch. You got no physical evidence, no witnesses and no plausible motive. Your suspect is a famous film director. The only connection between him and one of your victims is that he happens to have a view."

"We know he goes to whores."

"Screw the whores. So what that this guy Lane goes to whores? Half the men I know go to them and the other half are married to them. Take that to the DA and he'll puke all over it. What's worse, Lane will sue us for harassment." Hart lifted the skeleton out of his fish and laid it carefully on his bread-and-butter plate. "It's crap, Frank. A real crock. So tell me—what do you want?"

"Extra men."

"How many?"

"Enough to watch Lane full time."

"That's an awful lot of detectives. I don't know. If he's as smart as you say he is he's not going to do anything anyway."

Janek
didn't argue or nod. He watched Hart eat for a while. There was something disgusting about the way Hart chewed his fish. And the look on his face—the look of a man who had the world by the tail.
Janek
reached into his pocket and pulled out the snapshot Al had given Caroline. He propped it up against the salt and pepper shakers.

Hart glanced at it. "So what's that?" He squinted at
Janek
to show he wasn't impressed.

"Another case."

"Looks like three young cops having a laugh." There was a sneer in his voice. He turned back to his food.

"Three young cops. Except now two of them are dead."

Hart shrugged.

"You told me you didn't know Al when we drove back from the burial."

"So I bullshitted you. So what? I invited you into the car to give you a case, not to reminisce about the past."

"Why do you think he shot himself?"

Hart puffed out his cheeks. "Beats me."

"What do you mean it
beats
you? He called you that morning. What did you say to him?"

"I didn't say anything. He started telling
me
."

"Now,
look
—"

"
You
look. Guy shot himself. No doubt of that. He did it—not me or anybody else. Whatever I said or didn't say,
he's
the one who pulled the trigger." Hart picked up the snapshot, squinted at it again, laid it down on
Janek's
side of the table, then gazed steadily into
Janek's
eyes. "You know I think very highly of you, Frank. Consider you one of my best detectives. There's a precinct command coming up in Brooklyn. Ever think about a captaincy?"