Marlene grinned, waved, and stepped over the crime tape.

Shanahan called after her, "And may I say, Marlene, that your a.s.s is holding up pretty good, considering your age."

She wiggled that unit parodically in the interest of good police relations and entered the building.

The pattern of shot had come in high, judging from the pits marking the wall above the receptionist's desk. Either the guy had rushed his shot or he intended to miss; in any case the woman sitting behind the desk had retained her brains in her skull. She was still at her post, carefully sorting through charred files. A couple of other women and a man in rough work clothes were sweeping burnt trash into a barrel. Marlene asked the receptionist where the director's office was; a weary motion pointed her down the hall, toward where a television crew-camera, sound, and glistening reporter-was recording an interview with Alice Reiss-Kessler, the director herself. The reporter, the same Gloria Eng who had reported on the Asia Mall killings, was wearing a peach-colored suit miraculously free of the fine soot that covered every other surface in the place, and at the moment she was asking the inane and inevitable "How do you feel" question. Ms. Reiss-Kessler, a good-sized brunette with a strong, plain face that tended to go jowly under ten-thousand-candlepower light, was not looking her best, but she was gamely doing her duty as a patriotic American by allowing television to share her pain. Marlene wished fervently for her to say something like, "I feel really great, Gloria. We've wanted to redecorate this crummy barn for ages, and since we're insured up to the nipples, we'll be able to do it right and also pay for about six hundred late-term abortions." Instead, she did the usual victim moan, and Marlene could see Eng calculating behind her faux-sympathetic matte face how to get an eight-second sound bite out of this farrago. Marlene backed away, intending to lurk in a corner until the newsies left, but her heel came down on a pile of trash and she stumbled noisily.

At the sound Eng looked up and, without missing a beat, broke in with, "Is it true that you've retained a private investigator in this matter?"

Reiss-Kessler hesitated. "Ah, well, we're looking into increased security, but-"

"Does that mean you approve of counter-violence against the kind of people who might want to bomb abortion clinics?"

"No, I believe that the police should do their job and protect the legally recognized right to choose."

"Then why have you hired Marlene Ciampi? Isn't Ms. Ciampi a.s.sociated with the kind of 'security' not very distinguishable from vigilantism?"

"We haven't hired anyone," said Reiss-Kessler. "We're talking to consultants."

Nice block, girl, thought Marlene, but a moment later she was bathed in the unforgiving light herself, as the reporter directed camera and microphones toward an even more interesting subject.

"One of those consultants is apparently Marlene Ciampi, who has just entered this ruined clinic," Eng said. "Ms. Ciampi has been involved in several fatal shootings in the last few years, and in other acts of violence against people she claimed were hara.s.sing her clients. Marlene! Could you tell us what your response will be to whoever perpetrated this attack?"

"No comment," said Marlene, and moved to pa.s.s the reporter, who counter-moved to remain in her path.

"Give me something, Marlene," said the reporter. "Have you spoken with the police? How do they feel about your involvement?"

Marlene kept her smile, checked, faked, got by, and in a moment had clutched Ms. Reiss-Kessler by the elbow and steered her into her own office, kicking the door shut in the camera's face.

"Well," said the director, "you certainly know how to make an entrance. I'd offer you coffee, but the coffee room was a casualty. Have a seat."

Marlene brushed plaster dust off a side chair and sat down. Reiss-Kessler settled on the edge of her desk. "You don't care for the media, I take it."

"They do their job, I do mine," Marlene said. "In fact, I had no comment."

"I'd think that getting your face on television would be good for business."

"I have enough business, Ms. Reiss-Kessler-"

"Please, Alice."

". . . Alice, and I don't particularly want to encourage the kind of business Gloria is interested in promoting for me. I'm here representing the Osborne Group. Security? I a.s.sume that's what you're interested in." She indicated the wreckage with a wave.

The woman let out a bitter chuckle. "Yes, locking the barn door. Security, but mainly I want the people who did this caught and punished."

"Uh-huh. I bet. Fortunately, you don't need me for that. The cops have a good lead on the perps here, and they should make an arrest fairly soon."

Reiss-Kessler's eyes widened. "Really? They didn't say anything about that to me."

"I try to cultivate good relations with the police."

An expression of astonishment tending toward sneer appeared on the woman's face. "You like those chauvinist b.a.s.t.a.r.ds?"

Marlene stiffened and smiled falsely to cover. "Not like. They're hard to like. A great many of them are boorish, violent, corrupt, and stupid. But I do love them. In a manner of speaking. My heart goes out to them. They see stuff and do stuff every day that if you did it, it would make you cry for a week, and they've got no real training to deal with it and they get no support for it, except that silly macho cynical business they're all into, which makes it all worse, and includes the idea that only the p.e.n.i.s-equipped can do the job. So they make comments to me, technically s.e.xual hara.s.sment, technically clear violations of the Patrol Guide, and what I do is, I mean within limits, I don't give them the 'that's not funny' line and utter threats, I grin like a bimbo and give them a shot back or two. And when I need some help from them, which I do a lot in my business, I usually get it."

"It's nice that you're one of the boys," said Reiss-Kessler.

Marlene ignored the icy tone, kept her smile, and replied, "Yes, it is nice. Let's turn to business, Alice, if you don't mind. We both have a lot to do."

Alice gave a stiff nod, and Marlene went into her spiel, laying out what the Osborne Group could and could not do in the way of protection and site hardening. This included building surveys, installation of equipment and architectural mods, security seminars for clinic staff, and the provision of bonded square-badge guards. The woman listened, took some notes, asked the usual questions. Marlene could see she was disappointed, had expected something else, something more ardently feminist, a source of emotional support rather than a security firm functionary, which is why she had called Osborne and asked for Marlene by name. Marlene couldn't help that (it happened a lot), nor could she help what she felt about the clinic. This emerged, too, in the conversation.

At the end, the director made some noncommittal remarks that they'd be in touch. Marlene doubted this; she was being given the boot. She was not exactly famous, but she'd been in the news enough over the past decade so that there were people who would call for an appointment just to take a look, and others who wanted the cachet of having her guard their bodies, and others who thought she was in the business of shooting unwanted males on order. Marlene figured that Alice Reiss-Kessler's initial thought in the immediate aftermath of the attack had been punishment and revenge, and since she came from a cla.s.s and subculture that did not trust the police to have the right att.i.tude toward feminist issues, she had sought a private enforcer.

Which Marlene was not, and had made that clear, and now, leaving the sooty storefront, wondered why it was easier for her to be nice to horrible male-chauvinist cops than to a perfectly decent woman with the right liberal opinions on every subject. To be fair, she was just as impatient with the right-wing verities of most cops. And of her mother.

She walked now, head down and grumpy, to her car, an old Volvo 240 station wagon in the usual faded orange, parked illegally on Tenth. Her personal a.s.sistant was sitting in the pa.s.senger seat. He grunted a greeting as she entered.

"I don't know, Sweets," she said when the car was moving in the south-bound flow. "I screwed that up for no reason. I had to give that dumb speech about the cops, and what she wanted was the us girls against the men business, oh, bite my tongue, not girls, of course, and I had to sound off about abortion, but when she said that about those abortion-is-murder nuts, and said well, it is and they're not all nuts, and she gave me that you can't be serious look, and I said well, yeah, legal, safe, and available, sure, I'm for that, but you're also killing babies, you should stand up for that, and be sad, I'd like to see more tears, more anguish, I mean it's not a haircut and a rinse, is it? And she got chillier and chillier, and then I cracked wise about me partic.i.p.ating in a number of post-natal abortions and I didn't care for those either, and then we went back to talking about doors and bomb barriers. And of course, she's big in New York feminist circles, and she's going to spread the word about what a traitor I am to the cause, which will not help with the celebrity jobs either, and Osborne is going to start having second thoughts about bringing me in. I mean, really, Sweets, what is going on here? How can you be more of a feminist than me? Huh?"

Sweety offered a shrug and a sympathetic look.

"Do I put my f.u.c.king body on the line? Do I actually protect women from men? I do. And what do I get for it, huh? I'll tell you what I don't get. I don't get no respect. My husband hates what I do. My daughter just hates me whatever I do, poor Marlene, and after today I doubt I'll be invited to sit on the dais at the NOW meeting, and I bought the most darling little black dress. . . . Sweety! Talk to me! I need advice."

In response to this, Sweety dropped his ma.s.sive head on her lap and dispensed a half cup of saliva directly onto her crotch. Marlene hooted maniacal laughter and made a dramatic turn across two lanes to catch her left onto 14th.

Marlene was about to meet (speaking of her peculiar problems with feminism) a woman who made Ms. Reiss-Kessler look like Nancy Reagan. This person lived and worked in a five-story tenement-plus-storefront on Avenue B in the neighborhood called the East Village, if you were placing real estate ads, and Alphabet City if you were a resident, or a cop. Unlike other poor and crime-plagued sections of New York, most of which had declined from better days, this one had been designed as a slum in the previous century and was a slum still. Marlene parked her car behind a burned sofa across the street, and walked blithely away with the window open and the doors unlocked. A 200-pound dull black, red-eyed, attack-trained Neapolitan mastiff in the front seat is the sort of car alarm that still works in Alphabet City.

The building had a small sign over the door that said east village women's shelter, and the door itself was a steel industrial model in a steel frame. In the center of this door was a bell b.u.t.ton and a small notice: ring. we are always open.

If you're looking for shelter,

you are welcome,

and if you're looking for trouble

we have that, too.

The former shop windows had been replaced by bolted-on galvanized sheets backed by thick plywood. Marlene rang the bell. A whirring noise from above. She looked up and waved to the camera. Buzz. Ke-chunk. The outer door opened, and Marlene walked through and down a short blank entry corridor faced by a windowed door, behind which was a steel desk, behind which was a fullback-sized brown woman with beaded hair. This person ascertained that Marlene was really Marlene and not the spearhead of an invasion, and clicked her through the gla.s.s. The EVWC was hard to get into. Its clientele consisted exclusively of women and children under credible threat of death from that small cla.s.s of men who will not be deterred from expressing their devotion to their loved ones in this unusual way even by the full pressure of the law. Almost all women's shelters are at secret locations, to prevent the loved ones from coming by and trying to get in. This one was blatantly public, because its proprietor rather hoped the loved ones would try something, and especially that they would engage in the sort of behavior that ent.i.tles the invaded party to use lethal force.

"What's up, Vonda?"

"Besides the murder rate? Not that much. We got a rare one last night. Buck-a.s.s naked and beat."

"Really? Anyone I know?"

The woman shrugged and shifted the Remington 870 on her lap. "She'll tell you about it. I just got on."

Marlene went through another door into the shelter proper and was. .h.i.t first by the smell-cooking and disinfectant and too many people-and second by a four-year-old on a Big Wheels. A thin woman chasing the child apologized in heavily accented English and dragged the child away to the play area that took up much of the first floor of the building. The children who lived here did not get out much.

The owner was in the kitchen, dressed in her usual black jumpsuit, supervising the preparation of the evening meal, which, like most meals at the EVWS, was highly spiced, hearty, and well balanced, if plain. Marlene often reflected on the medieval aspects of this establishment: noise, squabbling, gouts of steam, the sound of a slap and a wail, hectic activity under the command of a benevolent tyrant. It must have been so in the castle when the knights were away at war. Mattie Duran was a strong, stocky Mexican woman with a fierce indio ax face set off by two thick black braids tied with red wool. She looked up, saw Marlene, nodded, settled the business she had begun, and walked out of the kitchen, Marlene following.

Duran had a tiny office off the dining room fitted with a steel desk, industrial shelving holding what pa.s.sed for her record system, a swivel chair for her, and a ratty armchair for guests. She drew a couple of cups of black coffee from an urn, sat behind the desk with a grateful sigh, and gave her guest the once-over, focusing on Marlene's soaked crotch.

"What happened, you p.i.s.s yourself or are you just glad to see me?"

"The dog."

Mattie raised an eyebrow. Then they both guffawed. Mattie had a deep, wet laugh, like an old man. Marlene had worked with the EVWS for a couple of years. Their clientele overlapped to some extent, and they more or less agreed on the principle that guys who persisted in trying to kill women should get their lumps. They were both unindicted felons, but Marlene was guilty about it and Mattie was not. Marlene related her recent experiences at the Chelsea clinic. Mattie was not sympathetic.

"That's what they get for having gla.s.s windows. Uptown a.s.sholes!"

"I think they were trying to make the place more inviting. Not everybody likes to work in a fort."

"Let 'em open a G.o.dd.a.m.n yarn shop, then. Speaking of uptown a.s.sholes, your pal Brenda Nero is back with us."

"How nice for you."

"You got to help me out, Marlene. The b.i.t.c.h is driving me crazy."

"Uh-huh. The solution is simple. Walk up to her and say, 'Sugar, get your young white a.s.s out of my shelter.' "

Mattie frowned, taking on even more of the aspect of a Toltec idol than she normally carried. "Marlene, h.e.l.l, you know I can't do that."

Marlene did know. "What's she done now?"

"Oh, you know. Nothing you can put your finger on, but I got three women threatening to leave if I don't get rid of her. That's a laugh, huh?" She laughed dully to ill.u.s.trate. "They're threatened with death and dismemberment, and they'd rather skip than hang with Brenda."

"That's Brenda," said Marlene, and looked long at her pal, and observed that she was genuinely suffering under the hard-girl mask. Blaming the victim was one of the three remaining cardinal sins among the liberati of New York, along with littering and smoking in restaurants, and Marlene struggled daily to resist it. That it was always the Man was not, however, an article of faith for her, as it was for Mattie. In many cases it turned out to be an unconscious conspiracy between a man and a woman to continue mutual torture until they were both dead. Thus she could see Brenda as a mere problem and not as a holy cause.

"You've talked with her, naturally."

"I've talked with her, I yelled at her, I made her cry. I came this close"-Mattie held thumb and index finger a pea-diameter apart-"to punching her face out." She snorted. "That'd be rich, huh? Shelter operator pounds victim."

"Why's she here?" asked Marlene with a surrept.i.tious glance at her watch.

"Oh, the usual. Chester's acting up again."

"She says."

"She's got a big bruise on her jaw, G.o.ddammit!"

Marlene adopted the calming tone she used with dangerous fanatics, of which there were some few in her life. "Okay. Well, why don't I go and have a little talk with Chester this afternoon? Maybe we can work things out."

"Break his legs."

"It's an option. Was that why you wanted to see me today?"

"No, it's this new one. Won't talk, won't say who she is. Looks like she's been pimp-beat, but don't look like a hooker."

"What, with a wire hanger?"

"Some kind of thin whip anyway. Looks like it's been going on for a while, the scars. She says he put his cigar out on her a.s.s."

"And she won't say who she is?"

"No, but-"

"But me no buts, girl. You got rules, I got rules. You know I don't touch a client unless she goes for the whole legal business . . ."

"Marlene, just see her . . ."

". . . naming the abuser, prosecuting for a.s.sault . . ."

"Marlene, five minutes. She asked if she could see you."

". . . and so on. What is this now, the cute puppy school of bodyguarding? If I like her looks, I'll waive the rules?"

Mattie turned up her glower a notch and thrust forward her heavy jaw. "Don't be a b.i.t.c.h, Marlene."

"Oh, that's delightful, coming from you." She rose and gathered up her bag. "I have to go. I will drive out and see Chester, and then I will go home. I have children. And a husband."

Mattie's face darkened to mahogany, and her heavy brows almost met in the middle. An interesting moment pa.s.sed, during which both of them realized that, manlike as were some of their doings, they were not in fact men and didn't have to carry on so. The big woman sucked in breath and said, "Marlene, please. For me. Just see her and maybe she'll talk to you. If she don't, no harm. You can just forget her, okay?"

A request in these terms from Mattie Duran was so unusual as to stun Marlene's normal prudence, and, of course, she was intrigued.

"Okay, I'll see her."

Mattie smiled, brightening the room with a show of gold and bright enamel against her dark skin. "Great! You're a pal, chica. She's in 37."

She would be. Room 37 was the only single room for clients in the EVWS, tiny, in the center of the building, windowless, its doors and walls heavily reinforced. It was the most secure place in the shelter, and was reserved for people that Mattie had determined were under threat from people who knew what they were doing when it came to dispensing lethal violence. Some time back, the shelter had been attacked by a group of actual international terrorists, who had made off with a young girl, and Mattie wanted to make sure it would not happen again.

Marlene climbed the stairs against the flow of women and children descending for the evening meal. She greeted those she knew, a substantial proportion. Marlene's role at the EVWS was to represent clients in court, to move them to (they hoped) safe apartments, to train them in self-defense, and to provide her brand of counseling to the significant others. Given Marlene's rep around town, this often sufficed. Marlene had not lost a client in some years, and her clientele was selected from among the most endangered women in the city, or rather those of the most endangered who had the sense and the nerve to get out.