Linda was there at ten of eleven. Without any booze in her she looked tight and pinched and scared and embarra.s.sed and shy and as restless as a willow in a windstorm.

I smiled when she got into the car.

"I hope I'm dressed okay," I said. "I've never been to a granny party before."

Linda didn't speak. She looked straight ahead. As I slid away from the curb I said, "We need a plan."

She nodded.

"Who'll be there?" I said.

"Me and Margy," she said. "And Jerry and Butch and Claude and Jimmy and the two grannies."

"And moi," I said.

She nodded.

"Who'll be watching through the one-way mirror?"

"Just me and Margy."

"Okay," I said. "I'll wait outside. You and Margy go ahead and get comfortable in the bathroom. Then when the four men and the two ladies get to it, you go out through the other bedroom and around through the living room and open the apartment door.

"What if they catch me?"

"I'll protect you."

"Against four guys?"

I made a muscle in my upper arm. "My strength, little lady, is as the strength of ten."

"And you have a gun," she said.

I shrugged. "That's part of it," I said.

"How come there's no other cops with you? Don't you have any back-up?"

Everybody watches television.

"If I had back-up, honey, I couldn't cover up for you."

She nodded and looked at me for the first time.

"You really are going to let me off, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said. "I am."

We stopped on M Street in sight of Gerry's building. I looked up at the apartment windows. "The window in the bathroom is blacked out, for the one-way mirror. The last windows on top there must be the spare bedroom."

Linda said, "Yes."

"After you open the door for me, open the bedroom window. I'll see it and come up."

"Okay."

We sat quietly. Linda was pale. Her swallowing was audible. Two well-dressed women in maybe their early forties walked past up on M Street and turned into the building. The grannies? In another minute Linda said in a strained voice, "There's Margy."

"Okay," I said. "Go to it."

Linda looked condemned as she got out of the car. But she went, pa.s.sively. She fell in beside Margy, and as they talked Margy glanced back once, toward the car, and then nodded, and together she and Linda went into the apartment.

At 11:15 three college boys came down the hill on Thirty-fifth Street and went into Gerry's building. I took a Polaroid camera out of the Speedo gym bag I used to carry gear in. Casey, Crime Photographer. It was almost noon when I saw the bedroom window go up. I got out of the car and walked across the street into the apartment building. I had no more trouble with the outside door than I had the last time.

At the third floor the front door to Gerry Broz's apartment was open a crack. I pushed it open. There were faint sounds of rock music in the apartment. I walked the length of the living room, past the dining nook, and into the spare bedroom. The bathroom door was closed. I opened it. The two girls stood half-watching through the one-way mirror, half-looking for me. The sound of rock music was a little louder, but still very m.u.f.fled. He must have soundproofed the bedroom. Margy had red hair done in a long braid. I smiled politely and gestured both girls away from the window. They edged back against the rear wall of the bathroom, afraid, but excited too. They looked at everything I did.

I looked through the mirror. The two well-dressed women I'd seen earlier were there, only they weren't well dressed anymore. They were both naked. So were the four college boys.

The women looked naked, in a way that women never do in skin magazines. These women were real, with the fine roughening of skin here and there, the tiny sag at the breast, the small folds across the stomach that real women, and men, have. It made them more, rather than less, seductive, I thought, because it emphasized their nakedness, and in a sense their vulnerability. It also made me feel a little sadder for them. That kind of vulnerability shouldn't be handed around. It was for someone who loved you and was vulnerable too.

I began to take pictures through the mirror as the four boys and two women engaged rather raucously in group s.e.x. I made sure that I got at least one full-face shot of all the partic.i.p.ants, and enough of the larger scene so that it was clear what was going on.

It took me no more than ten minutes and when I was through there was a great deal more still going on behind the mirror. I had what I'd come for. I smiled at the two girls and took the learner's permit and the c.o.ke from my pocket and gave both to Linda. Her eyes widened as she took them.

I said softly, "I can still cause you a lot of grief, my love, if you or Margy were to rat on me."

They both nodded.

"Enjoy," I said, and walked out with my pictures.

At 4:12, when the two once-again well-dressed women came out of the apartment, I was waiting for them, with the car headed in the direction they'd come from, into town on M Street. A block and a half down they got into a silver-gray Subaru wagon and drove toward Wisconsin Avenue. I followed them. It had worked so well with Linda I thought I'd try it again. I was beginning to have a plan.

Chapter 24.

The Subaru dropped a pa.s.senger on P Street and continued on for three more blocks. At random I decided to stick with the driver. It would be harder for her to claim she was dragged against her will. She pulled into the driveway of a handsome brick-front town house. The brick was painted an antique white and there was a bow window to the right of the entrance with the wood trim painted Williamsburg blue.

I pulled in next to the curb and got out and joined her at the door.

"Excuse me," I said, "but we need to talk."

She was a little under the influence, and she looked frightened at being braced by a stranger at her doorway. I held out a picture of her, recently taken, and said, "I mean you no harm. I just want to talk."

She looked at the picture. "Jesus Christ," she said.

"Yes," I said. "I agree."

"Where did you... ?"

"We need to talk. We can sit in my car if you wish, or walk on the street if you'd feel safer, or go in your house."

"What do you want?"

She had olive skin and blond hair. Her cheekbones were high and her dark eyes were almond-shaped. There were pleasant crow's feet at the corners of her eyes.

"Want to walk?" I said. I still held the picture so that she could see it. As she looked at it a faint flush tinged her skin. Embarra.s.sment. A good sign.

She nodded and we descended her front steps and walked east along her street.

"Are you going to blackmail me?" she said.

"In a sense, yes," I said. "May I see your driver's license?"

"I..."

"I merely wish to know your name. I'll give it back. If you won't show it to me, it's all right. I'll get your name anyway. I know your address and the registration number of your car."

"Then why don't you just ask me my name?"

"Because I'd have no way to know if you'd given me the right name without checking anyway. Your license will save me that trouble."

"What if I tell you to go to h.e.l.l?" she said.

"I'll make the pictures public."

"I'm not ashamed," she said.

"I'm not telling you you should be," I said. "But do you want the pictures public?"

She was silent as we walked. I could sense her fighting to get lucid. Finally she stopped and turned and looked directly at me.

"No," she said.

"License please," I said.

She took a wallet from her purse, and the license from the wallet and gave it to me. Her name was Cynthia Knox.

"Thank you, Cynthia. What I need is information."

"No money?"

I shook my head. "What I want is information about Gerry Broz."

"You're not a policeman?"

"No."

She looked puzzled. "What do you want to know?"

"How'd you meet him?"

She gave a short, joyless laugh. "Actually I met him through my husband."

"How does your husband know him?"

"He... he just knows him."

"What's your husband do?"

She hesitated.

"I can find it out," I said. "I could even hang around your house until he came home and ask him."

She shook her head. Her dark eyes looked a little clearer. "You really aren't a cop?"

"No."

She sighed. "Cocaine," she said. "My husband used to score c.o.ke from him."

"And what does your husband do?"

"He's with the Department of Transportation."

"How'd he meet Gerry?"

"A friend that teaches at Georgetown."

"What could be more natural?" I said.

"c.o.ke's a fact of life in D.C.," she said.

"How about the woman that was with you today?"

"I don't think I should tell you about someone else."

"Same old answer. I can find out. I know where she lives. I know what she looks like. I have her picture too."

"I still don't feel right."

"Don't use her name," I said. "How'd she meet Gerry?"

"I introduced her."