"Mr. Montvale, let's begin with this morning. I'm going to ask you some questions about what happened today, in an apartment at 246 West Sev-' "Well, shit, Miss Cooper. I don't want to talk about that.

I don't want to discuss that with you or your dumbass detective friend here." Montvale's voice began to escalate as he rose to his feet and began pounding on the desk.

"I WANT A LAWYER. GET ME A FUCKING LAWYER.".

Mercer was around the desk and slammed the defendant back into his seat by his shoulders before I could even open my mouth again.

"Bannion, keep this video rolling," Mercer shouted.

"Get every minute of this, so the judge can see how gently I treated this scumbag. You, Cooper, out of the room, now. NOW."

I hesitated and Mercer screamed at me again. On my way out I was almost trampled by three other detectives who heard the shouting and ran in to give Mercer a hand.

There was the sound of scuffling from the small room, punctuated by laughter from Montvale, who knew these guys were dying to land a few gut punches on him, but thanks to Mercer's quick thinking, the video was actually keeping him safe.

I was annoyed and deflated. I thought we had been so close to getting admissions to the string of rapes. They were not essential to a prosecution, just icing on this particular case, but I wanted to hear how it felt, from the rapist's perspective, to do these despicable things to other living beings.

I wondered if it was my approach that made him flip, as I paced back and forth in the filthy hallway. Sometimes these guys will talk to men, but not to women and I kicked myself for not having had one of my male colleagues from the unit here as a backup to try to do the interrogation in case the suspect went dry on me. I knew Mercer would tell me not to take it personally, but whenever this kind of thing happened, I did.

"Hey, Coop, nothing personal," Mercer said, as if on cue, when he stuck his head out of the room a few minutes later.

"Montvale had this one planned. He was no more gonna give you a story on videotape than I'm gonna give t on him a lobster dinner. He was just in the mood to play with you a little variety in his day for the last time in a very long while." He stepped out of the way as two teammates led the shackled prisoner out of the sergeant's office and back to est his wooden bench. Montvale laughed out loud all the way down the hall, and I fought to hold my tongue so my comments wouldn't be repeated back to whichever judge we stood before together tomorrow morning.

Mercer had no time to deal with my long face and wounded ego.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Alex. You got everything you need here, plus whatever we get from the warrant. D'you really think that a guy with that many felony convictions and so much state time behind him's gonna sit here and weave you some kinda tale of his exploits? You got a rock-crusher of a case, what more do you need? Now just take yourself outta here and get some sleep. I'll do the warrant first thing, then we'll have the arraignment by early afternoon and you can make the Grand Jury dates for next week."

As high as I had let the adrenaline and caffeine carry me, as quickly did I drop when Montvale brought it all to an abrupt end.

"I hate it when they beat me," I moaned in disgust.

"Beat you. How long you figure this guy's gonna spend in Dannemora? A hundred, a hundred-fifty years? That enough for you, or you want longer?" Mercer asked me.

"I'll take three lifetimes, consecutive. No parole."

"Not likely that anybody's gonna parole Mr. Montvale early again. I bet they've got the editorials written for the morning edition already.

Give it a rest."

"I'm ready to pack it in," I told him.

"Do you need anything else from me tonight? I'd like to get out of here before that press conference starts. Battaglia will never believe I tried to talk them out of doing it. Whew, those guys are stubborn."

"I'm fine. Want me to call downstairs and see if they can free up someone who can take you home?"

I looked at my watch.

"No, it's not even ten-thirty. If there's anybody loose, I'll grab him. If not, I can get a yellow right on Columbus Avenue. It's still early."

"Want the phone? Some privacy? You can use the sergeant's office I'll close the door."

"Mercer, I am going directly home. Not passing Go, not collecting two hundred dollars. Directly home. I'll return my calls from there. I'm whipped."

"Thanks for coming out on this. I'll be in your office right after we hit his mother's apartment."

Mercer picked up his case folder, escorted me to the stairwell, and held the door as I walked out. Most of the guys were too busy chowing down their hero sandwiches and uncapping bottles of beer to notice my departure, but I gave a general wave in the direction of the squad room and leaned on the banister as I plodded down the steep flights of steps to make my exit.

When I reached the ground floor, I could see through the glass partition that the lobby was swarming with activity.

Men and women officers were beginning to trickle in for the late tour, and several uniformed cops were trying to hold reporters and cameramen at bay on the front steps of the station house.

I pushed through the door, lowered my head, and began to wind my way through the ranks of thick, uniformed bodies and around the side of the news crews. The reporters were listening attentively to an announcement from the desk sergeant about the fact that the Deputy Inspector would be speaking in a few minutes, and there would, indeed, be a photo-op of Montvale himself being booked at the desk.

Dammit. I kept walking and was only made by one cameraman as I reached the pavement.

"Hey, Miss D.A. this your case?"

I shook my head in the negative and kept going, turning right to head to Columbus Avenue and the steady flow of cabs that I assumed would be making their way to nearby Lincoln Center for the after-theater pickups.

"Alex? Alexandra Cooper?"

My head lifted up at the sound of my name, and I saw Ellen Goldman step toward me from the front of the car she had been leaning against, at the edge of the precinct driveway, adjacent to the station house.

I smiled in relief. She didn't have a camera in her hand and she wasn't on a deadline for an 11 P.M. broadcast or a morning tabloid.

"The news of the case is all over the radio and local TV.

My editor called me at home and asked me to get over here. We thought perhaps I could watch you do a line-up or something like that for our profile."

I kept walking and her shorter legs tried to keep pace with my stride.

"Sorry, I could have saved you the trouble of coming out. I couldn't have let you up there you might have become a witness in the case, you know, if you had been present for any of the crucial events, or the defense claimed you had seen or heard something important. Sorry.

I wish I had known you were there I could have told you not to waste your time."

"That's okay. I kept trying to call upstairs but they wouldn't put me through to you."

"I know," I told her.

"My orders. Again, I apologize."

"Don't be silly. That's the kind of job this is. You know we always keep trying. Listen, can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

"Ellen." I stopped to face her, dropping my shoulders and letting her look at the dark circles I'd been growing under my eyes for the past week.

"Coffee? I think I've had half of El Exigente's North American supply in the last eight days.

I don't want to be rude, but I just need to go home and get a decent night's sleep."

I didn't mean to be as clipped as I was when I spoke to icy her, but I heard the edge in my own voice and I immediately 0 n tried to soften my response with a small bribe..