Of Mice and Murderers

Book #1 in the Z-Detective Series

John G. Stockmyer

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 John G. Stockmyer

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Acknowledgements

Cover Art: Ronald L. Brink

Ronald L. Brink, a self-taught artist and illustrator, has been drawing and painting most of his adult life. Watercolor is his medium of choice. He has illustrated the covers of several published works. His work was chosen for the President's Christmas card at William Jewell College for six years. He has created over 40 paintings for the College; most of them for clients and has sold many works of pets and homes. He has taught at Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City for over 40 years. His works are displayed annually at the on-campus gallery. Brink received a B.A. degree from Missouri Valley College in 1964; an M.A. degree in 1967 from the University of Denver; and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1983. He served as Chair of the Communications Division at Maple Woods from 1990-1998. He resides in Kansas City.

Ebook Conversion: John L. Stockmyer

John L. Stockmyer is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico. In his spare time, he dabbles in ecommerce, audio-book production and eBook design. He is also an avid disc golfer. His current ambition is to help talented "undiscovered" authors (like his dad) find an audience through the use of non-traditional media and innovative technology. Thank you for helping us shake up the publishing industry!

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Introduction

The time: 1990.

The place: Kansas City, Missouri.

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Chapter 1

After supper, Bob Zapolska (Z, for short) was back in front of the Maddox house, prepared to stay until he was certain no one inside could still be awake. Six-thirty was Un-Daylight-Savings-Time dark in January, the night unusually black because someone with an air rifle had shot out the streetlight down the block. Dark enough to have frightened off the trashy Ford; dark enough to bury the Cavalier in deepest shadow; dark and cold.

For this job, Z had put on his heavy black jacket, thick dark pants and black boots. Then gotten his detective case out of its hidey hole under his fireplace -- had the satchel on the passenger's seat.

Prepared to wait for hours if necessary, he caught a break at 7:30 when the silver car zoomed out and off again, the lady remembering this time (unfortunately) to close the garage door by pressing the Miata's "genie" button. Was the young wife off to spend time with girlfriends? Could she be out on this frosty night to tend a "sick aunt"? (When a Sugar Daddy bought the high school queen, he got what he deserved. Not much. And not often.)

The young woman whizzing off, Z had a wrenching thought about where Susan was at that moment -- remembered about her night school class. At least, that's where she should be; where she'd told him she would be.

The wife gone, Z took the black ski mask out of his detective suitcase on the seat beside him, pulling on the wooly hood to complete his all black, nighttime rig.

Next, he stretched on the skin-tight leather gloves he'd packed under the ski mask, then shut the case, the rubber band-wrapped catch locking silently.

Though he wouldn't need all the items he had with him, his modified black bag held the standard tools of the detective trade, each secured with wide elastic bands: lock-picks, jimmy, a length of nylon rope, straight razor, small jar of gas plus the rubber tubing he'd used to siphon it from his tank after getting home that afternoon. (He hated siphoning gas! Always sucked some into his mouth.)

He'd also brought the coil of dynamite fuse -- never could tell what he might need until he'd looked over the situation -- and the honed hunting knife. The padded blackjack with its flexible, woven leather handle was already in the pocket of his night fighter jacket, his "dog detector" in his right pants pocket.

An elasticized pocket in the traveling bag contained his insignias of authority: authentic-looking paper or embossed metal badges proclaiming him to be an inspector for K.C. Power and Light, insurance investigator, dog catcher, or the license he could use to knock on any door, pastor of the Church of the Living Word. (Forged credentials like these were the kind of thing Johnny Dosso could get for him. Looked like the genuine article. Even came in billfold-worn plastic protectors.) Z also had his camera in the suitcase.

Ready, Z pulled back the car's door trigger, the greased fastener releasing the door with little sound.

Elbowing the door open, picking up the valise, swinging his body out with a single, fluid motion, Z eased the door shut behind him with only the lightest of metallic clicks.

A half moon in a cloud-patched sky had Z staring into every shadow. Little snow left, but still a danger of slipping on black ice.

Seeing no one, he allowed himself to limp across the blacked-out street, pulled himself over the rough, unmortared limestone wall, and disappeared into the shrubbery.

Once on the Maddox grounds, taking his time, he quick walked from decorative grove -- to shrub -- to statuary; keeping to the shadows; approaching the mansion downwind of the outside dog. What little smell he could detect in the quiet night was of pine trees and clipped, fur hedge.

Confident he had what he needed (he'd left his air rifle in the Cavalier's trunk,) Z worked his way up the Maddox lawn, across the front, then turned right to hug the left side of the mansion, coming to the last of the three, garage bays, ducking around it to hide in the inky dark of the house's far side.

Breathing hard by this time, Z took time to rest. And to rub the pain out of his knee.

This job had been phoned in by a Professor Hugh Calder, a psychology instructor at Bateman College in nearby Liberty, Missouri, Dr. Calder saying he needed help in recovering money from a bungled construction job. The Dr. had tried to reason with Maddox Construction, but had gotten nowhere. He'd called the Better Business Bureau. No dice. Phoning his home owner's insurance company, he's also struck out. It was when he'd looked in the Yellow Pages for his insurance agent's parent company that he'd seen Z's ad; noticed that the Zapolska Detective Agency was located North-of-the-River.

Dr. Calder didn't think he'd need a private detective, but.....

Before taking the case, Z had gone to the young prof's home to assure himself Calder had been wronged, finding that the sunroom Maddox Construction had been hired to build had been butchered -- rain allowed to destroy the insulation's "R" value, windows crooked, walls cracking. From what Z knew about construction, Maddox owed Calder two thousand in damages.

Phone calls plus a visit to the construction firm failing to settle the matter, it had come to this: a "black bag" job in the elegant Briarcliff section of Kansas City North.

Z had taken a look at the property this afternoon, of course, arriving at seventeen twenty-four Willow Drive without difficulty.

Drifting past the Maddox mansion in the old Cavalier, Z's first helpful discovery was that the "estate" was so large no other houses were in sight, Z glimpsing the Maddox property through a screen of woods, plantings, and sculptured hedge. Tudor-style. Dark-stained half-timbers; used brick; diamond-pane windows of antique glass.

He'd also noticed the streetlight on the corner, detectives supposed to pick up on details like that.

Another discovery was a eight feet high, chain link fence -- enclosing half a football field of timbered lawn out back.

Big money.

At least two thousand dollars of it stolen from Dr. Calder.

Z had kept on driving down other streets-of-the-rich-and-Northland-famous, pushed to the side of the road as luxury cars (Lincoln, Caddy, Jag) sighed by -- all the while considering his first problem: how to stake out the target property. Stated simply, could his sheep of a Cavalier graze near the Maddox place without attracting attention in these Jaguar-haunted hills?

Circling back to the Maddox home, Z had been able to hide the Cavalier behind a leprous '64 Ford ... a car that had to be owned by the "help" (cook, cleaning lady,) the old car giving Z's Chevy protective cover.

Shutting off the motor, he'd levered back the thinly padded, reclining bucket seat until, like a hippo in a slime-scummed lake, only his nose and eyes were visible above the dash.

The result of three hours of boredom? A silver Miata backing out of one of the three garage doors, coming down the curving drive, and buzzing off into the late afternoon, Z getting a glimpse of the young, pretty woman at the wheel. Late twenties. Too old to be a daughter; must be the wife. Fur coat. Dressed up to go to work which, in the case of that gift-wrapped package, was shopping on the Plaza.

At least the second wife. Probably the third, later wives of successful men with that glossy, never-had-to-sacrifice-to-build-the-business look.

Cute, but careless, the bimbette forgetting to push the remote that would lower the garage door.

Finding what he'd come for -- a crack in the Maddox armor -- Z had started the Cavalier, at the same time having a guilty thought about a middle-aged Robert Zapolska's relationship with beautiful, glamorous, and much too young for him, Susan Halliwell; banished the ugly thought with the certain knowledge that Z had won Susan, not bought her! Unless stopping a Susan-bound bullet could be conceived as payment for her continued services.... No!

It hadn't been like that. At all!

The engine warm enough not to stall, Z had pulled a U-turn, then turned right at the street flanking Mr. M's estate.

Drifting by, Z looked into the whale mouth of the far garage bay through which the little minnow of a Miata had escaped.

Small garage window at the end of the left stall.

Past the house, a twist of the rear view mirror had given him a fast look through the open garage door.

Three, unpartitioned stalls.

No cars inside.

A door leading from the far bay into the house.

No cars meaning that hubby was out humping on the job. Working hard to steal the kind of money that would have his girl scout of a wife keep selling him her cookies.

So, what were the problems?

First, that long, tall fence enclosing the grounds out back.

Not to keep in little nippers. Any children old man Maddox might have whelped by his cast-off wife now grown to be the cheating image of their Dad.

No babies by Barbie. Stretch marks were a violation of the third wife deal.

Back to the fence, a fence like that meaning....

Dog.

Outside guard dog. Shepherd, Doberman.

No way the lady of the house would have a vicious inside dog. Not even let "Adolf" in the garage, would be Z's guess. Might chew up -- then bury -- her Miata.

Good.

Outside dogs were no problem.

Which didn't mean there wasn't a lapdog within. A yappy Pomeranian. Even worse, a Pekinese -- those little lions not afraid to jump a tiger.

Fortunately, Z knew a way to cancel the small dog threat.

And that had been that. All in all, a good day's work.

That was then. This was now.

His breathing back to normal, Z edged down the back wall to discover what he'd found on other occasions; that the far, end window was locked with nothing more than a simple, circular catch.

Strange, how nobody thought to safeguard the window in an attached garage.

To be fair, it was easy to overlook a small opening in a structure with big, wide doors to worry about.

His entry point discovered, Z popped open the case and took out the knife -- was able to reach up and slip the blade between the center window frames and snap back the catch.

The window unlocked, he gentled up its lower half, the rising sash making an acceptable squeal, the garage's insides smelling of gas, oil, plastic, polish, wax, and chamois.

So far, so good.

Knife back in the case, Z measured the window with his hands.

Small, but not too small.

And not that high. Ignoring the risk of further damage to his knee, he could pull himself up and in.

First, the case. Lifting the satchel, he pushed it through the window, lowered it as far as he could, and let it clunk softly to the concrete floor inside.

As ready as he was going to get, he put his head through the frame. Placing his hands on the sill to push himself up, at the same time "climbing" the outside walls with his rubber boots -- P.I.'s were not called gumshoes for nothing -- pushing, pulling, scraping, he got the upper half of his body inside the narrow window.

Now for the bad part. Taking a deep breath, he stretched out his arms in an attempt to cushion his fall.

Nothing else to be done, he wriggled past the balance point, turned loose the sash and let his body weight pull him the rest of the way through the window.

Thud!

Even breaking the tumble with his hands, Z hit in a heap.

Getting up slowly, painfully ... his head ringing ... his left arm paralyzed from the "funny" bone down, he checked for other injuries ... finding that, except for scuffing some meat off his ribs, he was in one piece.

Halted for the moment, Z fumbled out, then gulped down a number of the aspirin he'd poured in his pocket before leaving home this evening. (Not a doubt in his mind that he'd need them before the night was over.)

Rubbing feeling into his left hand and forearm, Z used the time to let his eyes adjust to the heavier gloom of the garages; made out a long, black shape in the middle garage bay.

A Lincoln.

Figured.

Another minute of rubbing to bring his arm back to normal, bending down, Z groped until he located the satchel.

Picking up the case, stepping quietly, he crossed the empty Miata bay, squeezed past the front of the Lincoln in the center stall, and crept through the other unused bay.

Stopped at the house wall, more by feel that by sight, he located the door handle, wiggling it ... to find that, true to form, nothing but a spring lock protected the door, the kind everyone knew how to open with a credit card.

Putting down the case, Z slipped out his wallet, again by feel, extracted the plastic card he always carried for these purposes.

Carefully, quietly, he inserted the stiff plastic in the crack between the leading edge of the door and the doorframe, slipped back the lock tongue, then shouldered the door forward enough to keep the latch from springing back.

Holding the door in that position, Z thumbed the card back in his billfold and returned the wallet to his back pocket.

The latest in locks and alarms had to be protecting the mansion's other windows and doors; the house was too big, too rich, and too alone to be left unguarded. He could only guess (judging by the garage door slip-up) that Maddox had installed the security system himself, the builder too "know-it-all" to hire a professional.

Ready, Z pushed the door until the smallest possible crack appeared; put his ear to the slit; listened with absolute attention. Hearing ... for an eon ... nothing but his breathing.

Punctuated by the pounding of his tell-tale heart.......

No other precautions to take, he opened the door enough to peek inside.

Laundry room.

Partially open door across the way with a dim light coming through.

No doubt, the kitchen.

Carefully, the leather glove on his hand making it difficult, Z dug into his pants pocket for his silent dog whistle.

Found it; began raking out the small tube, feeling, at the same time, the inside of the pocket coming with it.

Stopping instantly, Z took his time working the whistle clear. (Attention to detail was his specialty. In his business, lack of concern for simple things -- in this case, the accidental raking out that pocket's car keys -- messing up his escape.)

The whistle out, Z shifted the small, metal cylinder to his other gloved hand, at the same time fingering the pocket back inside his pants.

Ready at last, putting the business end of the whistle in his mouth, he blew. Two long, inaudible shrills.

Soundless to humans.

A shrieking challenge to any self-respecting dog.........

No whining.

No barking.

No eager sound of slipping doggy toenails on the tiled kitchen floor.........................

No inside dog.

Satisfied (not liking the idea of dealing with a house dog), he slid the whistle back in his pocket. Z didn't like dogs, but didn't want to hurt them, either.

The way clear at last, Z picked up his satchel, opened it, by feel found his blackjack and put it in a coat pocket, snapped shut the case, and slipped inside the house where, certain there was nothing left to stop him, he padded like a midnight menace through the laundry room ... the lighted kitchen ... a dark dining room ... living room ... guest room ... library --walls of books. Piano.

Until, valise in hand, a shadow blending in with shadows, he approached a spacious, lighted recreation room at the back.

Edging an eye around the side of the archway leading to that room, he saw the lumpish contractor's back, the man sitting on a comfortable-looking riot-of-large-pink-and-white-flowers-on-solid-black-fabric sofa.

Along the back of the divan (on Z's side) was a dark, wood credenza with "pretties" on it: figurines, vases of cut flowers, small pictures in filigreed frames. Beyond the couch, facing the room from either side, were deeply upholstered, bright red chairs, their legs skirted in the same vermilion fabric. End tables between the sofa and chairs completed the conversational grouping, one table sporting a red lacquer lamp, the other, a lamp of sparkling faceted crystal, both lamps switched on, their light softened by white pleated shades.

Leaded windows dominated the blush-pink outside wall to the left, the windows decorated with bunched half-drapes of floral-patterned fabric.

No glassed in break front on the far wall.

Good!

Flush with the dark oak floor across the room was an arched, open-fronted fireplace, Z seeing ashes inside and a burned-rusty, cast-iron grate. To the right of the hearth were brass fire implements -- tongs, brush, leather bellows -- held upright in a shiny, golden stand.

What looked like two impressionist paintings in gilt frames had been hung on the right end wall. Seemed to him to be either second-rate paintings or first-rate prints.

The room's cathedral "spire" soared another story -- the first floor "ceiling" marked by horizontal, open, brown-stained beams.

Z was particularly interested in the fireplace on the far wall and in a white-painted, cast iron radiator adjacent to it. Steam heat? Perhaps the home wasn't as new as he'd thought: only looked that way because of loving, detailed maintenance. He inhaled delicately. Yes. There was a light paint smell about the place.

Could there be a doubt that a professional had "done" this freshly redecorated room? On the other hand, it took a special kind of courage for a young wife to let herself be guided by an expert's judgment. Perhaps the little lady wasn't as shallow as he thought. More than ever, he was glad she'd found somewhere else to be on this icy January night, a sensitive woman apt to be traumatized by being hog-tied by a hulking, hooded terrorist.

Even a cursory examination of the place told Z the room could not reflect the "taste" of Maddox, the dumpy man's paunch showing even from the back; not that hairy-gorilla-in-a-beer-stained-undershirt plunked down on the flowered sofa; not this coarse, balding piece of fatty meat; not this bull-necked redneck -- sucking beer while leafing through a girly magazine ....

Something else caught Z's attention.

Another ... odor.

Besides belched beer, the room gave off the smell of ... flowers ... and ... of furniture polish.

So! The Ford of this afternoon belonged, not to a maid, but to the cleaning woman.

It always pleased him to be able to snap in every piece of a detective puzzle.

Maddox hadn't heard a thing, of course. Nor was there a glassed-in piece of furniture -- Z had checked -- in which Maddox could glimpse the wavering reflection of an assailant, weighted sap in hand, skulking up behind him.

Careful appraisal making Z sure of his invincibility, two soft steps and a quick tap over Maddox's right ear had Z opening the detective case to get down to business. (For the young wife's sake, Z hoped the beer the man spilled didn't make a permanent stain on the pretty couch.)

As for the job itself, the first difficulty was getting the fat man's clothes off; shirt, pants no difficulty but proving easier to take a razor to the man's "jockey" underwear than to slip his "unmentionables" off over his awkwardly sprawling arms and legs.

What as hard, was dragging Maddox off the couch and over to the fireplace. Why was it that "dead" weight was so much heavier than "live"?

No problem getting a rope end tied around the man's ankles, or tossing the rest of the coil over the center of the beam just in front of the fireplace.

What presented the most difficult part of the operation (a squared-off beam making a poor pulley,) was hoisting the man's limp body off the floor.

Finally, though, after considerable strain, Z had hauled the man high enough for Z's purposes, Z lashing the other end of the stretched, sharply slanted rope to the radiator in the corner.

The rope tied off, he had the man where he wanted him -- strung-up so that, while Maddox's hands dangled far enough to touch the wood parquet in front of the fireplace, his head cleared the floor by a couple of feet.

After that, Z tore up the porno magazine Maddox had been reading, crumpled its pages and stuffed them under the fireplace grill. Finding wood in a built-in storage bin in the hearth wall, Z put some kindling on the grate, then a generous pallet of split oak logs.

To neaten up the place, he finished by tossing in what was left of the man's clothing, placing Maddox's steel-toed work boots on top of the firewood.

As a final preparation, Z got the half-pint Mason jar of gasoline from his suitcase and screwed off the flimsy top, setting both the lid and the open jar beside the hearth.

By this time sweating from all these preparations -- his black ski mask unbearably hot and scratchy -- Z was impatient for the man to wake up so Z could reason with him (one more time) before things got serious. Z liked to provide even cheaters with more chances than a hard life had given him.

It was even possible, he believed, to end it here. Experience had shown that the men he'd stripped buck naked and tied up by the heels were often more cooperative than they might have been under other circumstances.

As for Maddox, the man had started to twitch -- a good sign. He'd also begun to move his arms, his hands dragging on the shiny floor.

"Son' a bitch," were the first words Maddox uttered, said groggily, thickly. By degrees, the man was waking up, the strange look on his reddened, upside-down face saying that the contractor was at a loss to explain how he'd come to be hanging from the ceiling like an albino bat.

It was time, Z squatting down so Maddox could see Z's black-hooded bulk.

"Sir," he rasped, still trying to be polite, the rough purr of his voice sounding even stranger through the loosely knitted mask, "you owe me three thousand dollars." No sense bringing in Calder's name. Z never tied a client to any action the cops might view suspiciously -- part of the Zapolska code.

"What?" Maddox was rolling his eyes, not yet fully recovered.

Z could afford to wait.

Another half-minute serving to bring the man around, Z could tell that the contractor's thought processes had now shifted, if not to fear, at least to thoughtful consideration of his circumstances.

"Time to settle up, you piece of shit!"

Z checked himself immediately. There was no reason to get angry. It was just that he'd gone to considerable trouble to motivate this man.

Z also knew that part of the reason he was feeling snappish was that his knee had begun to ache in earnest. Scrambling through the garage window had been punishing, to say nothing of the lacerating strain his ligaments had undergone in stringing up Maddox's rubbery thick body.

"You've got money in the house."

Though Z was guessing, it was a good guess. A cheat like Maddox would want his "resources" in cash, to keep from paying income tax. "Get it and we stop the game."

"You son of a bitch!" the man shouted in his rough, used-to-cursing-at-his-men, outdoors voice.

With that, he spit, only Z's superior reflexes allowing Z to duck in time.

Spirit.

The man had spirit.

Z hated that -- Z feeling his temper fray its leash.

But ... was able to calm himself.

"The police'll get you!"

Police? At least this explained why the man was so belligerent, Maddox under the delusion that Z could not have broken into the house without tripping one of the home's elaborate burglar systems, silent alarm to the police station, all that.

Z had seen the alarms, of course: the perimeter sensors attached to the doors and windows -- the Buzztop door stopper.

"You can forget the cops," Z rasped soberly. "I knocked out your security."

As for the man, he just hung there, his paunch looking ridiculous as it flopped down (up?) on his chest -- not the only part of him that looked ridiculous dangling upside down.

"Instead, we play the game. Turn your head and you'll see you're almost in the fireplace." The man refused to even try to move.

Choosing to ignore Maddox's insolence, Z continued.

"I'm going to make a fire. Already got it laid."

Maddox's curiosity aroused at last, he twisted to get an upside-down look in the fireplace.

With that, Z bent over (keeping his bad knee out of the contractor's sight,) picked up the jar of gasoline he'd put by the hearth, and splashed gas on the kindling. For effect, hurled in the empty jar, the glass shattering nosily on the grill and firebrick.

Taking one of the extra long, fireplace matches from the mantel, a scratch on the inside grate was all it took to touch off the acrid-smelling gasoline, a blue flame roaring up, the kindling immediately crackling into life.

"Hey!" cried Maddox, the man using his hands to "walk" himself backward until he was holding his upper (lower?) body as far from the flames as possible, as far as he could and still keep his palms on the floor to balance himself.

"Good. That's one thing you can do. May get tired, though."

A change of expression on Maddox's lumpy face said the man was catching on, Maddox now paying attention, something in his upside-down eyes that said Maddox might soon be more reasonable. (The bulging blood veins in his neck and on the man's weathered forehead were nothing but the result of being upside down so long.)

"There's a better way to keep from getting roasted -- at least for now," Z added, anticipating the man's limited options. "You ever read 'The Pit and the Pendulum'?" The man didn't answer, perhaps because he'd already discovered that holding himself back from the burgeoning flames was a losing strategy. "Here. Let me help."

Bending down, Z grabbed a handful of what was left of the man's gray-flecked hair, hauled Maddox a reasonable distance to the side, then let him go, Maddox swinging past the fireplace like a wrong-way Tarzan.

Stopping at the top of the arc on the other side of the hearth, the contractor swept back again, past the blazing wood, his pivoting body fanning the flames to new brightness.

Maddox had also begun a slow rotation, winding up in one direction until the rope unwound him in the other.

Roast more evenly that way.

"Better keep swinging," Z advised. "Slow down and you get a permanent tan."

Though by this time the builder had begun to make moaning sounds, the man still said nothing.

The contractor twirling on the rope, first one way, then the other, at the same time swinging back and forth before the growing, fascinating fire, almost put Z in a trance. First one way. Then the other. ......

But in ever shortening crescents, Maddox's head spending more time in front of the fire on each successive swing, the fire more respectable by the second, the charred edges of the split oak glowing with hardwood heat.

This fire was beautiful to watch. And it smelled good, too. Nothing but the best in seasoned oak for the criminal element.

"I've got to go," Z wheezed. "But I'll be back after awhile; to see if you need basting."

"Wait!" Maddox cried.

The rest had gone smoothly enough. First, Z had taken pictures of the man as he swung so gracefully before the fire, the photos to be circulated should Maddox continue to be troublesome. Elbert Orledge Maddox the Second was not the kind of man who'd enjoy having these kind of "bondage" pictures spread around.

After that, sure enough, Maddox had told Z about a wall safe hidden behind the traditional picture in the library, Z cutting Maddox down so Maddox could work the combination. The man having a bad case of the shakes, taking awhile.

But a rewarding "while" as it turned out, the safe stuffed with stacks of rubber-banded bills. (Z's little joke about Z being from the IRS hadn't even produced a chuckle from the man. Among Maddox's other unattractive qualities was his lack of humor.)

Two thousand for Z's client, Dr. Calder, plus an additional thousand for Z's fee -- a sum that was fair. Why should Professor Calder -- the victim -- have to stand the expense of hiring a private eye to catch this criminal? (While P.I.s without Z's standards would have taken the bundle, Z counted out only what Maddox owed: the legal three thousand.)

Tying Maddox up again, Z left the man on the recreation room floor, the other end of the rope knotted to the radiator. He even suggested that Maddox might think of a way to get a coal out of the fireplace; use it to burn through the rope to set himself free. (If the man got loose on his own, it would spare his little woman from having to learn what had happened in her absence.)

A half-hour later, Z was home and taking a long, knee-relieving soak in water as hot as he could stand it, Z having time, at last, to judge that the evening had gone well. The good guy had gotten justice; the bad guy had been made to pay.

Viewed right, since Maddox didn't know what future illegality on his part might make those pictures surface, the snapshots Z took had done a work of rehabilitation.

All things considered, a satisfying conclusion to the Calder case.

* * * * *

Chapter 2

Z came awake with a bad, thick taste in his mouth -- just another trick that age played on you. He hadn't slept well, though he'd gotten more sleep than if he'd persuaded Susan to invite him over. Too busy for him. She was always too busy these days. Big Bob Zapolska. The big Z. High school hero in the long ago. Had dropped another pass.

More awake, he remembered to reach for the bottle of aspirin on the stand, groped out a quantity of pills; managed to get them in his mouth. Crunching up the aspirin, he swallowed the acid powder with the first spit of the morning.

Though it'd been a full day since the Maddox break-in, his knee still felt bad, a bum knee his excuse for not yet seeing Dr. Calder.

He yawned, the sour bite of the aspirin helping him to wake up.

As soon as the pain killer took hold, he'd be ready to face the day.

Lying there, he reflected that, except for woman trouble, things were going as well as they ever did. He'd made money from the Calder case, for instance. A small job, to be sure. Low class P. I.'s not hired to hunt for the killer who'd strangled ladies of the evening in Gilliam park, the man croaking as many hookers as Jack the Ripper. (Of course, seven murders meant less in Kansas City than in London, Londoners not in the habit of gunning down the innocent.)

It wasn't like the detective novels said, that the P.I. got the hard cases, the ones the cops had muffed. It was more like a private detective scavenging jobs no one wanted (like being hired to join the search party for the runaway who turned up dead in a Johnson County field.)

It didn't really matter, though. He liked the detective business more than any of the lifting jobs he'd had since high school. For one thing, a little checking on possible clients meant you didn't have to work for bastards.

Z moved his left knee. Better give the aspirin another couple of minutes.

He looked at his watch, eyes still blurry. Eight o'clock? Nine? He couldn't tell in the winter light of his bedroom's north window. Maybe, when his eyes had a chance to clear, he'd be able to see those wiggly dial numbers.

If he could keep from thinking about Susan, this was going to be the day he'd collect the rest of his money from the security client; from that secretary at Bateman College. Ogden. Beth Ogden.

Good-looking for a woman Z's age -- but nervous. Too scary to be living all alone way out there. Still, she hadn't liked his suggestion to sell her barn of a farm house and move into a security apartment. Sentimental about the old homestead, he guessed. She said she'd just inherited it.

Most security installers would have put in deadbolts right away, deadbolts the kind of lock all his customers knew about. But, flighty as the woman was, he'd tried to do his best for her peace of mind by telling her she'd be just as safe if she propped chair backs under the doorknobs, front door and back. While he concentrated on buttoning up the rest of her house.

He'd have normally put in a silent alarm to the cops. It was just that, out in the country like she was, an "Injun" could shoot a dozen like her and ride off before the cavalry arrived. So he'd started by putting bars over the windows: the fancy filigreed steel ones, all vines and flowers, but bars none the less; first, over the windows that needed it most, the first-floor windows, then the windows on second, then on third. Bolted all the steel work from inside.

Not wanting to think about standing on a long ladder with his bum knee, he'd been fortunate to be able to do the job from inside. (Stiff and painful, he could live with. Having his knee give way while three floors up .... Enough said.)

He'd installed peepholes in the doors.

All he had to do now was buy deadbolts for the front and rear doors and collect the money for his labor, the lady then able to put her chairs under the dining room table where they belonged.

Short of living in a vault (something he didn't tell Ms. Ogden,) there was no way to be completely safe. As a boy, he remembered reading about Japan, how the people there lived in houses with rice paper walls. At the time, he'd thought how stupid the Japs must be -- this was before the word Jap changed its meaning to Jewish American Princess -- to think they were protected by paper panels. As an adult in the P.I. business, he'd come to realize that any house could be cracked.

The steel window filigree he'd installed for the lady would slow somebody down, at least. Give the lady time to call 911. (He'd also taken the trouble to bury the phone line so nobody could cut it.)

What she hadn't done was take the hint and hire him to run off whoever was giving her a problem; she'd just said it was living alone that frightened her. And maybe that's the way it was.

Z bent his knee again. Better. The pills were doing their job.

Just for good measure, he chewed up another couple of aspirin; sucked them down.

Moving his knee again, it felt OK. OK in the sense it would never get any better.

Gritting his teeth, he slid out of the covers and eased himself up on the linoleum floor, the slick floor shivering cold. He'd heard they didn't make linoleum any more, and certainly not in the shade of purple to match the walls.

His feet adjusting to the chill (by going numb,) no one to see him, he let himself limp to the bathroom.

Showered, teeth brushed, shaved, hair combed -- all without looking -- he finally found the courage to stare at himself in the steamy bathroom mirror.

God, he was ugly! Limp, iron gray hair; lines in his face gone deep as August cracks in a Kansas prairie; under it all, a Dick Tracy jaw that still had some skin attached; narrow, mucus-colored eyes.

At least he'd found employment where ugly was an asset. Reared up like a grizzly, looked larger than his six feet plus. Even bigger with his paunchy, two hundred twenty pounds. Big and ugly.

Plus a croaking voice as a bonus extra. (Another couple of hits on the old squawk box and he'd be down to a whisper.)

He made himself look in the mirror again ... to find he didn't look his age. ... More like twice his age.

His body wisping steam on reentry into the cold bedroom, Z got his good blue suit out of the closet. Had to look your best when you were going on campus, Susan had said.

Dressed, he slipped the change from the dresser top into his pants pockets. Also his lighter, billfold, and keys.

Putting on the suit helped. Then again, dressed up like people, even chimps looked human.

Giving himself a final once-over in the dresser mirror ... deciding he didn't seem too frightening ... Z brightened with an idea. He'd get his pay, then go to the Nelson to have lunch in the gallery's Rozzelle Court. Expensive, but what the hell. Lunch, and then lose himself for an hour in all that beauty.

No matter what else happened (or didn't happen) with Susan, he had her to thank for the Nelson Art Gallery. When the job she'd hired him to do had gone wrong, to help him recover from the gunshot wound, the doctor proscribed walking as the best way to recuperate, Susan suggesting he shuffle through the gallery. Too weak to argue with either of them, he'd given in.

Slow-walking in the gallery for those two months had him falling in love with art, Z first liking the suits of Medieval armor. As a knight in steel, Z guessed he'd feel ... invulnerable -- the way a green, high school football player felt in pads. You never thought about your knees when you were in high school.

High school. The good old days when being dumb was your shield against the world.

He'd then become fascinated with the life-sized marble lion in the Ancient room.

Now, everything in the gallery interested him. Living the hand-to-mouth life he did -- dealing with the worst kind of people -- he needed beauty in his life ... for balance.

"Satisfied" with the way he looked, Z limped down the short hall into the kitchenette, where he hung his coat over the back of a straight chair at the dinette table.

As always, got the bread, grape jelly, Skippy smooth, and a can of Diet Coke from the fridge. No decisions to be made here. That was all the food he kept in the house.

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast, and when low on money, the same for his other meals. He used to feel bad about eating so much peanut butter until he read that a doctor had invented the sticky stuff as a way to get more protein into the diet of the poor, making it obvious that peanut butter and a poverty-stricken Bob Zapolska were meant to "stick together."

Toast the bread? Not today, though he did that sometimes, for variety.

Sandwich on a paper plate, Diet Coke hissed open, both transferred to the table, and he was ready to build his morning fire.

Stepping to the wood box, he got a handful of kindling and stuffed it in the stand-alone fireplace he'd put in the 10 X 12 living room. Stooping again, he picked up the jar of kerosene from under the circular fireplace rim and splashed a little coal oil on the stovewood. The fire "primed," first tossing in a couple of split oak logs, he fished out his lighter and touched off the coal oil.

He'd installed the black steel fireplace himself; had even climbed the rose trellis outside his door to fix the chimney pipe through the tar paper roof of his add-on apartment. And never regretted the money he spent.

Nothing like a fire to take the chill off winter mornings.

Trying to be as honest as his Mom had wanted him to be, Z had to admit that he built a fire every day in the summer, too. Had plugged up both living room windows with air conditioners -- to cool down the summer fire's heat.

The flames catching, kindling popping -- smelling of white pine -- oak bark beginning to blaze, he looked at his watch, holding it at arm's length .....

With the little hand nearing 10:00, he'd better speed up if he was to get to his office before 11:00.

Z's true office was his answering machine. Oh, he'd rented a tiny two-holer of a workplace in the cheap rent district on Chouteau. Had even added a second desk just inside the splintered door for a "soon-to-be-hired" secretary. In reality, though, his business was a couple of phone numbers in the Yellow Pages: one for Robert Zapolska Detective Agency -- the other for Robert Zapolska Security Systems Installation. You didn't have a lot of walk-in business in either the detective or the security game.

Still, he liked having what office there was; gave him a reason to get out in the mornings; provided him with another place to read in peace.

But first things first. Like getting the paper so he could eat.

Hurrying, Z got his heavy coat from the divan where he'd thrown it last night, and struggled into the coat. Scarf stuffed in. Gloves on. But no hat. (A real man didn't need a hat.)

Three, painful steps, plus a ham-handed twist of the door knob put him out the front (side) door.

Shutting the door, swinging right, he started the long walk to the front to retrieve the Star, refusing to let himself limp -- never could tell who was watching out a window -- the weak sunlight reflecting from ice patches on the walk, making it easier to dodge them. Little snow so far. None left on the ground.

Z hated winter because his nose got so cold he couldn't smell; in summer, liked to make a game out of guessing odors – helped pass the time on stakeout.

The old trees along the curb cut off most of the raw, January wind.

Back straight, hands in his pockets, Z tried not to limp down the crumbled concrete leading to the front of the moldering, brown house that, for longer than even it remembered, had been chopped into cheap apartments.

Strange, how every twist in a person's life forced you down a path that led you to where you were at the moment. Looking back, it seemed to have been ordained that he move into this two-room-with-kitchenette apartment.

A "dry spell" a couple of years ago had him living in his office until he got a call from an old lady named Urquhart. It seemed that a street gang was keeping her awake "to all hours" and would he do something about that. She'd read his ad in the yellow pages. (The detective ad that concluded with: "Inexpensive. Results Guaranteed.")

He'd quoted her a price she could live with.

The "gang" turning out to be some kids playing basketball in the alley behind the old lady's apartment house on North Troost, the guys stringing lights so they could play at night. (The night Z went to have a talk with them, he'd gotten a laugh out of watching them play. A bunch of slow, short, white kids. Playing basketball.)

He'd watched awhile from the shadows until he'd identified the "gang's" leader; called him over; tried, gently, to talk a little sense into him.

Now when Bob Zapolska was a punk kid, getting a lecture from Frankenstein's monster would have given him the picture. Quick! But not with today's youth. (Z realized the smart-mouthed kid could have been in his 20s, everyone looking young to an aging P.I.) Anyway, Z's little talk about how kids should respect helpless old ladies hadn't done the trick. (Since when had today's kids started saying "piss off" and "fuck off" to grownups?)

In short, Z had to figure another way to convince the "gang leader" to give up late night B-ball. Thinking about that made Z smile. It must have been a shock when the kid woke up to find that mournfully deflated basketball on the pillow beside his head, a wicked looking butcher knife stuck in the ball. (Almost as scary as finding a horse head in your bed.) What was important was that "beheading" the basketball had gotten results.

Instead of paying her bill in cash -- it turned out Mary didn't have the money after all -- the old lady offered him a discount on an apartment. Said it'd make her feel safe to have him, "permanent-like," on the premises.

So, he'd moved in. Low rent? Translate no rent most of the time.

Not paying made Z feel guilty, though, a sick old lady like that. Fat. One leg lost to diabetes.

On the other hand, putting in the fireplace had made up for some of the rent. Still, he was determined that part of what the secretary paid him today would go to Mrs. Urquhart.

Rounding the broad front porch but with still a ways to walk to get the paper, the idea of getting paid had brightened his spirits so much he'd begun to consider having another go at the Rental Equipment case.

An old guy had come to Easy Rental to get a jack hammer, large ventilator fan, three powerful halogen lights, four kerosene heaters, and a hell of a lot of heavy-duty electric cable. Then disappeared as if he'd fallen off the edge of the earth. It seemed the thief had used a stolen driver's license when signing the rental form.

Easy Rental's owner had called the cops.

When that didn't get him his merchandise back, he'd called the Bob Zapolska Agency.

All Z had done was the same thing the police did: interview the owner of the driver's license. Walters. Hiram Walters, who said he'd lost his license at a party he'd gone to; a blowout for the staff of Bateman College, a doings where he'd had too much to drink. (The drunk part, Z could belief, the man's cirrhosis-yellow skin and cherry tomato nose saying the guy abused the bottle.)

And that was it, Z's investigation stopping there (just like the cop's had,) a failure particularly unfortunate in Z's case since he didn't get paid until the equipment was returned.

A year ago. And in all this time, the vanished goods had never turned up.

What was so irritating was there had to be a clue in the odd bunch of items the robber stole. Had to be. All Z could come up with, though, was the image of a modern caveman "building" a second bedroom with the jackhammer; ventilating it with the fan; lighting and heating supplied by the halogens and heaters. The cable? For tapping into someone else's power source? (Sometimes the best sense you could make was nonsense, given the sad condition of the world.)

All the way down the walk of Mary Urquhart's grand-house-gone-bad, bending down on his good right leg, Z picked up one of the three papers there. (He got one paper, Mary a second, the Rogers family on the second floor, the third.)

Pivoting neatly on his stiff leg to make it seem more useful than it was, he started back.

Grumbling.

For he'd just remembered that the damn newspaper owners had axed the evening paper. Oh, there'd been a smokescreen at the time, about how having only a morning paper would make everyone's life better in Kansas City. They'd even named the morning paper with the name of the evening paper, the Star!

Bull shit! (Z tried never to swear. Not even to himself. His Mom had drilled it into him that people who swore did so because they had limited vocabularies. It was just that canceling the evening Star was one of those messing-around-with-your-life issues that provoked a man's passions.) All that smoke and mirrors about how one paper was going to be so much better, about how surveys showed no one in Kansas City cared about the evening paper, that everybody was getting their evening news on TV. Bull! The owners had axed the evening paper to cut costs, thinking everybody was so dumb they wouldn't notice.

That was mainly what was wrong with America. People couldn't leave things the way they were!

Z had tried to be reasonable about this, had tried to cope. First, by dividing the paper by sections, reading some parts in the morning, others in the evening. But that didn't work. (Who wanted to read local and national news one time of day and the rest of the paper another?)

Next, he'd tried tearing the paper in half at the fold, reading the upper half of the paper in the morning, the lower half in the evening. And while that worked pretty well for the comics, it didn't work for news. (Unless half a story was more than you wanted to know.) He'd thought of calling the Star and suggesting they print all of a story either in the top half of the paper or in the bottom half, so people tearing the paper in two like he was, would have complete articles to read -- some in the morning, some at night. But he knew they wouldn't listen to him. People with big money didn't listen to the little guy. Never had.

Thinking about the paper problem long enough to get him up the path, Z pawed open his apartment door and was quickly inside, the cold shut out once more.

Leaning across the coffee table to drape his coat on his davenport, he moved forward to sit at the two-seater dining table. Stripping off the paper's rubber band as he settled in, he turned to toss the band in the fireplace.

Burning rubber. You could never mistake that smell.

All preparations made, he spread the news beside his sandwich and coke.

Behind him, the fire was blazing, the rivets in the sheet iron firebox snapping as the heated steel expanded.

Satisfied that things were as they should be, he took a big bite of sandwich, washed it down with a swig of Coke, and was ready to read his paper -- back to front like any sensible person. (The end of an article was where you found most of the information.)

Even before he could flop the paper over, though, a bold, front page headline caught his eye.

ART THEFT AT THE GALLERY

The Nelson?

According to a spokesman for the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, the gallery's most famous Monet was stolen sometime Wednesday night. The "Boulevard des Capucines"....

Z almost upset his coke. He knew that painting; it was his favorite in all the gallery! In the Impressionist room. In fact, there was a bench in front of the "Boulevard" where Z sat to gaze at the "Boulevard." And they let somebody steal it!?

Cat quick, Z was up and pacing, his lighter in hand, thumb flipping the spark wheel. Flame on. Flame off. Flame on.....

Steal his favorite painting, would they! Not without big Bob Zapolska doing something about that!.........................

But ... what?

* * * * *

Chapter 3

By the time Z had read the rest of the paper, rolling up a section at a time, twisting it, and placing it in the fireplace like he always did, he'd settled down. Checking out the rest of the art theft report had been a waste of time, however. All that seemed to be known was that, night before last, a substitute painting of the "Boulevard des Capucines" had been taped in the picture's place, the real "Boulevard" spirited off. The theft discovered too late to make it into yesterday morning's paper, and hadn't been in the evening addition because THOSE RICH BASTARDS HAD STOPPED PRINTING AN EVENING PAPER! Probably been on TV last night, for those who liked their news to be brief and mostly wrong.

Oh, there was a speculation that one of the Nelson's own guards might have stolen the painting, a quick check of gallery personnel finding a missing guard named George Hobson. There was even a theory that a terrorist had kidnapped both the painting and the guard.

Anyone knowing of the whereabouts of Mr. Hobson -- thought to be in his seventies -- was urged to call the police hot line. (No picture yet available).

What it all came down to was that somebody had cut the Monet out of its frame and stolen the painting.

On the other hand, if there were puzzle pieces the police were not revealing -- as was often the case -- Z had a way of finding out. He could call Teddy Newbold.

He hated to do that. Ted's rat-faced captain -- an incompetent named Scherer -- didn't like Bob Zapolska; didn't want Ted having anything to do with Z. An attitude problem on the part of Captain Scherer that could be traced to that time Z had turned up evidence that the Betterton woman (who Scherer had taken noisy credit for arresting) wasn't a drug dealer, after all, spoiling the bust that was to be Captain Scherer's ticket to Clay County politics. Too bad.

This was one time, though, when Z was going to put in a call to Ted; take advantage of their high school friendship.

At the same time, he had to be careful not to get Teddy in trouble -- which wasn't easy. To be fair, it wasn't so much that Ted was dumb. He'd managed to finish a year of college before he became a cop. It was just that, when trouble came knocking, it generally paid a call on Ted.

In and out of high school, Z had been Ted's "fixer." Even the yardage Ted piled up as a running back was do to the blocking of Z and Andy Smith, the two of them pounding holes in the line a lovesick moose could amble through.

One way to look at it was that Z was still making "holes" for Ted by calling in tips Teddy could use. In return, Teddy was good for that odd bit of information that police departments turned up.

Z got up and edged behind the rickety coffee table to sink down on the worn sofa beside his coat, the divan's springs declaring their immediate surrender. Picking up the receiver, he dialed the regular Gladstone police number, Gladstone, the KC suburb where Z lived.

"Gladstone police." In the usual, underpaid, female voice.

"Could you connect me with Detective Newbold?"

"Who's calling, please?"

"Just say, one of the Musketeers."

"Give me your name, please, sir."

"Newbold will understand."

"Detective Newbold is not available at the moment." -- Ted being in the john -- "Is there a number where he can reach you?" A number they could run a computer check on in 20 seconds; just the sort of information Z needed from time to time.

"No." Z hung up.

Like most suburban satellites of Kansas City, Gladstone had no instant check on phone calls, Z needing to call Ted from a public booth if they ever got it -- like he had to do if he wished to reach Northtown High's quarterback and the third member of the "Musketeers," Johnny Dosso.

Of the three of them, Z was the only one who'd actually read The Three Musketeers. He used to read a lot. Still did, though now, it was mostly science fiction and detective novels; science fiction to stretch his mind; detective novels to learn ... anything they could teach.

Since Ted would call him at his office, it was time for Z to get there himself.

On the other hand, thinking about the Musketeers had made him realize there was another way to go, a process he'd better start -- because it also involved a difficult call.

Z dialed another number.

"International Imports," said a classy, very female voice, the voice of someone who didn't worry about things like paying the rent, child care, fending off either an abusive husband or annoying ants. Considering who did and who didn't have everyday, ordinary problems, the International Imports secretary was probably a white-haired grandmother of comfortable means -- like most of the "girls" who talked dirty over the phone for five dollars for the first minute, three dollars for each additional, masturbating minute.

"I'd like to reach John Dosso."

"I don't believe anyone of that name ...."

"Tell him it's an old friend. From high school.."

"I'm sorry, sir. But no one of that name is associated with International Imports."

"I must have the wrong number," Z agreed, hanging up. It was always the same. By the time he got to the office, there'd be a phone number on the answering machine. He'd then have to leave his office, find a public phone, and dial that number.

Presto!

Johnny Dosso. The man who never was, nor ever would be, associated with International Imports.

Always a different number so that Z, the man who memorized easily, had given up learning John's phone numbers. It didn't make sense to clutter your mind with facts you needed only once.

The "game afoot," using his good leg and his hands to pry himself out of the sagging divan, Z put on his coat and gloves.

Out the door again, he locked up. Deadbolt. Even he'd been sold on them. Since the wind had come up since he'd retrieved the paper, Z pulled up his coat collar and buttoned the top button, the temperature a wind-chill ten degrees.

Taking the back walk, this one meandering past patches of yellow winter grass, clumps of dead-looking spirea bushes, rotting scraps of leaves, and assorted trash, Z headed for the house's single-car garage, its yard-side wall propped up by two-by-fours stuck into the ground, then angled up to jam under clapboards on the leaning side, the garage's back doors rotting off some time ago.

Squealing open the garage's shaky front door, Z squeezed himself inside to sidestep along the wall 'till he reached the middle of his car.

Opening the driver's door as wide as possible, he backed into the seat, using both hands to pull his bum knee in after him.

Whatever the Cavalier's limitations of style and power -- of room and comfort -- and of trade-in value -- it was a good car for surveillance work. What was less noticeable that a light blue '86 Cavalier? GM had sold a literal million of 'em.

Backed out and headed off -- not having to stop until the light at Chouteau and Vivion -- a green had him winding through an under-developed residential section: big trees, open tracts seeking development, scattered homes, churches, and a small park.

Under the "Worlds of Fun" overpass, he made the hard right turn into the mostly dirt lot of a two-story building, the structure renovated with a strange-looking black and white rocks.

While the overpass "uglied up" the building, the gas station to the left crowded it, and the commercial-sized trash cans to the rear smelled up the place, it was "scenery" like this that held down the rent!

Parked, out of the car, Z flanked the building to drag open the heavy glass door that had just been added in the latest futile attempt at modernization.

Stepping inside, the smell of the new, orange-colored, polyester carpet in the foyer urged him to hurry past the center stairs.

Veering left, walking down the dark, door-pierced hall to the back, he keyed himself into the last cavity on the right, BOB ZAPOLSKA DETECTIVE AGENCY, right there on the door in black vinyl stick-on letters. (At least the office -- two small "I-formation" rooms connected by a central arch -- was on the first floor, his knee ruling out stairs.

Inside, shutting the door behind him, he paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom in the windowless outer cubby hole.

No sense turning on the light or taking off his coat because, on the answering machine would be .....

Reaching over the front of the "secretary's" desk, Z pushed rewind. Then play, the button that made the machine spill its guts. (Private Eye talk).

Beep. ..... "555-9907," said a voice.

Not John's voice.

It never was.

Z allowing himself three curse words, he now had to backtrack twenty blocks, the closest phone inside the southwest entrance of the Antioch Shopping Center, to this side of Payless Cashways.

Ten minutes later, the Cavalier slanted into the mall's parking area, Z was out and pushing his way through the shopping center's doors, the public phone just inside the entrance way.

Stepping to the phone, he took off the receiver, fed in a quarter, and punched the silver buttons. Noticed, as he did so, there were no benches near the phone where people might sit and listen to other people's conversations. Johnny would like that.

One ring, and the pickup.

"Hey," said the high-for-a-man's voice on the other end. "Is this one of the Musketeers? Is it Annette, maybe?" Johnny tended to confuse Musketeers with Mouseketeers.

"It's Z."

"Sure. Listen, Z-man. I'm glad you called. Been thinking about you a lot lately and how we never get together anymore. It just so happens that I got a job for you that would make you five grand, easy. Let me do something for you." Always the same.

"I'm fine," Z said. Though he didn't call Johnny often, the two of them seemed cast in the same, eternal play.

"Fine? Listen. I know better. I know everything about you. I'm sittin' here in my silk shirt. Got on my Gucci shoes -- just like that prick who thinks he's a U.S. Senator. I'm suckin' a cigar rolled special for me by Fidel himself. And you're callin' from some God-damned public phone booth 'cause you don't have shit to pay your phone bill with." Johnny Dosso -- making sure Z was using a pay phone.

"Right."

It had been so long since Bob Z had seen Johnny D, that Z wondered if he would recognize John. Johnny would still be short, of course, but would he have his trademark curly hair? When was the last time Z had seen Johnny? At the funeral? More flowers than a green house. More priests than the Vatican. But when was that? Could it have been ten years ago? (Though nobody mentions it, time also flies when you're not having fun.)

"You can do something for me," Z said, hating to admit it.

"Sure I can. Anything." The scary thing about John's promise to do "anything" was that Z believed him, anything for Johnny's friends.

Z liked Johnny Dosso ... but didn't want to be like him, not that John could have helped how his life turned out. Like the sons of butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, John had "inherited" the family business.

"You know anything about the painting that was stolen from the Nelson?"

"I heard about it, naturally. Been on TV. But high-toned work like that is not my line. I'm more in the entertainment business." Translate hookers. Gambling. Nothing more lethal, Z hoped. "Why you want to get in on this, Z? You got some personal interest in this matter? Something to trade, maybe?"

"Nothing like that. I just ... like ... that painting. Want to get a line on it."

"For a client, maybe?"

"No. For me. I want to know."

"I'll ask around. Just for you. ... Hey!" Johnny D, changing the subject now that "business" was over. "You blow anything up, lately? You mixed up in that construction bang over by the caves?" Bob Z and Johnny D swapped personal favors from time to time. For instance, Johnny had gotten Z a few hard-to-get items that Z needed for his detective work, John referring to the dynamite fuse John had gotten for him. Not a money deal either way. More a friendship "deal" that went back to grade school and to Cub Scout ball.

"No. Like I told you, just for me to set off fireworks."

"Hey. Must be a ton of TNT to need that much fuse to set it off. Think I'll spend the next fourth in my basement with you messin' around with shit like that. What you doin'? Building some bad-ass cherry bomb?" ... Another Johnny Dosso shift of thought was coming. ... "And speakin' of cherry, how you hangin'? How's that pretty lady of yours?" It always made Z uncomfortable to have John know so much about Z's business. Just uncomfortable, nothing more. Any fear between them was Johnny Dosso's fear of Bob Zapolska, John knowing Z long enough to understand that when the Z-man lost it, he didn't care.

Over the years, Z had managed to get a grip on his emotions, no doubt why he was still alive, the last time he'd "lost it" putting him in the hospital for a month. "She's goin' to college now, I hear," John continued. "At night. Maple Woods College. Hey! Johnny looks out after his friends. So they don't get hurt." From anyone but Johnny D, that might have been a threat: play ball or something happens to your lady. But not John.

"Listen, Z-man." Z hated it when the conversation turned serious. "You got a rat's ass of a business. You got no insurance. No retirement. What's goin' to happen to you when you get old? You need family to look after you. Come to work for me. I promise. Nothing rough for my old friend. Just doin' what you're doing now. Collecting overdue bills. Protectin' ladies." ... Of the evening, Z thought, fleshing out John's meaning. "Except, with me, you get paid decent wages. Have steady work." The standard pause. "Did you know we got retirement now? Major medical?" Another space in time. "I know you got reservations. But viewed the right way, what I'm selling is just adult entertainment. The kids got Worlds of Fun. But who takes care of the needs of old guys like us? I got my needs same as you. And one of 'em isn't getting turned upside down on some Goddamn roller coaster!" Z didn't know what to say. "Hell. I know you. You think you're so Goddamned independent? Nobody is, my friend. Come to work for Johnny D. Let me do you some good. Hell, man. You'll always be a star to me. Best fuckin' football player that Northtown ever had. Me, I couldn't even see over the Goddamned line. Had to jump to see my receivers. Every pass was a jump pass.

"I'm not dumb. Not like that asshole cop. I know it was you that got me my scholarship at K.U. I couldn't hit anybody but you, jumpin' up like I had to do all the time. It was you that made me look good. Best fuckin' pair of hands I ever saw. I cried when they said you couldn't play any more. You know that? I cried!" Z could believe that Johnny had cried, Johnny always emotional. Even as a child. Laughed more than most; cried too loud and too long when he got hurt.

Susan thought Z should let his emotions out more than he did. Maybe he should.

"I know."

"Well. You think about it. Don't be stubborn. You got to think about your old age."

Z never knew what to say at this point. So he said nothing.

"OK. So you're not ready yet. So even if you're an asshole, I love you. And believe me, there are not many lovable assholes in the world."

"Yeah."

"Don't be a stranger. And about that picture, I'll ask around. But don't expect anything. If guys I knew had been involved, I would have heard. But you never know. Got some kids working for us these days that are fuckin' scary. A man needs to pull his old friends around him. You think about that."

"Yeah. And thanks."

"I'll get back to you. Same way." Click.

Scary. Scary because in some ways, Big Bob Z wasn't that different from Johnny D when it came to doing favors for a friend. Z had been known to do almost anything for his friends, too, the line between good and evil sometimes dangerously thin.

An uneventful ride back down Chouteau to Z's office had him pushing his answering machine's button to find another message, to call Ted Newbold.

It was a day for memories, Bob Zapolska, coat still on, sitting down on the outside desk until he warmed up.

While it mattered that the Musketeers had been on Northtown's championship team when they were seniors, what had cemented their friendship was the fake murder when they were juniors.

They'd decided to raise a little hell in Riverside after football practice one fall afternoon, Riverside a scraggly town clinging to the bank of Kansas City's mighty Mo.

So they planned a fake murder.

First, they'd driven John to his house -- a home more lavish by far than anything either Bob or Ted's parents could afford. (At least the house seemed so on the outside. They'd never been invited in.)

In no time, John came out with a pistol. (Funny, how kids who think they know it all -- don't. At the time, neither Ted nor Bob had seen anything strange about Johnny D being able to get a gun -- complete with silencer!)

After that, they'd driven up and down what passed for residential streets in Riverside on what was now a warm fall evening, until they found a family sitting out on an old-fashioned front porch.

Driving past, halfway down the block, Z swung the car around, parking it by the broken curb.

Letting Ted out, he'd walked back down the sidewalk, Bob and Johnny screeching up just as Teddy arrived in front of the family, John firing out the window, Ted screaming and falling like he was hit.

Bolting from the car, John dragged a limp Ted into the car's back seat, the three of them peeling out of there.

Dumb. A dumb, kid thing to do. Just having a little harmless fun. Thought it was comical to scare that family half to death.

So much for old times. Not, as most people thought, the best of times.

Warmed up now, Z took off his coat, laid it on the desk, then walked through the small arch into his inner office, going around to ease his bulk into his old swivel chair.

Cocking his bad leg across the desk's corner, he picked up the receiver. (At least things hadn't gotten so bad he had to call the cops from a public phone).

Z dialed, after the same routine, was routed through.

"Detective Newbold speaking," said the too confident voice of one Ted Newbold -- a better friend than he was a cop.

The last time Z had seen Ted -- not that long ago -- Teddy's dyed brown hair had been more "retreating" than "receding." He'd lost his little boy look in other ways, as well: too much softness bisected by his belt, too much flash of gold from his front teeth.

At their age, everybody's warranty was running out.

"Z, here. How goes it?"

"Great."

"Me, too," Z said -- wondering if the friendly lies people told each other would register on a polygraph. "I got an interest in that stolen painting. At the Nelson."

"Yeah? Why?" Z could picture Ted sitting up primly in an attempt to be "worthy" of his tiny office in the new Gladstone government and police building on Holmes. He would have his door closed, of course, so that nobody -- translate Captain Scherer -- would discover Ted talking to Z.

Z had seen Ted's office in the new building only once, when the ferret-faced captain was in Washington at an F.B.I. seminar. Made-to-resemble Danish Modern furniture didn't square with Z's expectations of what a cop's office ought to be. Everything about police work should be traditional; like a good cop's pledge to honesty and duty.

"I ... like the Monet."

"You don't say." Ted's taste in art ran to Rambo posters, as Z's used to.

"Yeah."

There was silence on the line -- Ted, trying to figure Z's angle. "Not my case." Ted giving up. "It's KC's business."

"I know. But you detectives," Ted liked being called a detective, "are all connected. I figured you could find out."

"Could be you've got a client who wants to know?"

"No. Just me. My word on it."

"Your word's always been good, Z, though my captain don't think so."

"Thanks."

"Until you prove me wrong." Always the warning.

Ted had gone cautious, the way you had to if you hoped to move up in the department. "So. I'll call a friend of mine in KC who owes me."

"I'd be grateful."

"It'll be our little secret, though."

"Sure."

"And listen, Z-man." Like the rest of him, the brass in Ted's voice had also tarnished. "I know you. You don't have the proper patience for police work. How the hell you ever got into the P.I. business beats me."

"If I knew, maybe I could have prevented it." Z -- trying to lighten the mood.

"What I want to say is, don't try an end run on this. You hear me? It don't pay to be connected to him any more. We stopped being kids a long time ago."

"That's one thing I can promise you. I won't call him."

Though saying that was less than honest, Z comforted himself with the knowledge that he was telling the strict truth. Since he'd already called Johnny Dosso, he wouldn't be contacting him again. When it would do the job, telling the truth was always best. Part of the Zapolska code.

"OK. I'll get back to you."

"Thanks Teddy. Sorry to bother you."

"No bother. But let's keep this just between us."

"Right."

"You did me some favors in the past." Teddy -- being himself for a change rather than the tough detective he so much wanted to be: grateful and a little scared. "I haven't forgotten. You may think I'm just a dumb cop. But I'm not so dumb that I don't know who the smart one of the group was." Time for the lecture. "It's just that you never grew up."

"I'm still for the American way. For sticking it to the bad guys."

"I'm not meaning to be too critical. I like old-fashioned guys. What I'm saying is, you keep your nose clean and I'll do what I can."

"I will."

"Yeah." Ted being more hopeful than convinced. "You'll hear from me." .... Click.

So what had Bob Zapolska, ace private eye, discovered from his morning of phone calls? Nothing much. At least not yet. (Z being hopeful.)

Mostly, he'd learned that growing older hadn't done any of the Musketeers a hell of a lot of good.

* * * * *

Chapter 4

Finished with the phone calls, it was eleven-thirty, not too late to eat, then collect his money from Beth Ogden. Except ... he was out of the mood to track the lady down. Nor did the thought of having lunch at the gallery give him pleasure any more.

Why?

He decided it was the depressing combination of the stolen painting, Susan's slipping away, and having to face up to the fact that he and his friends were aging -- a witches' brew enough to sadden anyone!

He shook himself. Time to follow the sage advice of that great Kansas City baseball player, Satchel Paige, who said: "Never look back -- somethin' might be gainin' on you." (Not what you'd call a positive view of life, either!)

In Bob Zapolska's case, an antidote for depression was to force himself to make progress on a case or cases ... that very day.

But first ... lunch. No sense trying to "make progress" on an empty stomach.

Hauling his leg off the desk, struggling up from his battered swivel chair, he went to the right-hand filing cabinet where, after the usual struggle, he worked open the warped top drawer and took out the Philip Jose Farmer paperback he was reading.

Closing the drawer, limping through the narrow arch to the front room, he retrieved his overcoat from his "secretary's" desk and put it on.

Leaving the office, closing the door, he made himself nod in response to the greeting of the thin, middle-aged woman coming out of the office across the hall. Millie. She'd done his income taxes last year; had saved him a little money; hinted that if he made more, she could save him more.

Like Z, the building's other occupants were headed out for food before going back to the grind of income tax preparing, accounting, working in the employment office, peddling insurance, selling real estate, repairing vacuum cleaners, or attending the sleazy secretarial school on second.

Outside, cranking up the Cavalier's undersized engine, he maneuvered his way into the line of drivers trying to pull out on Chouteau.

Finding a hole in traffic, he was left turned out of the lot, and trying to keep pace with the other cars.

Drove (in traffic) the width of residential Gladstone in fifteen minutes, ending at the Pizza Hut on what was the Northland's true business street, North Oak.

Pizza Hut. A small place that was never crowded.

Also cheap.

Also quiet. A spot where he could read.

Seated by a high school-looking waitress who took his order, surrounded by the red and white checkered atmosphere of Pizza Huts everywhere, Z read a chapter in his paperback while waiting for his double pepperoni personal pan pizza and Diet Coke.

Weird. (Not the food, the novel.)

But that was why he read SF: to shake up his mind.

After eating (with nothing else going for him,) he turned the Cavalier south on Oak, the day as sunny as Western Missouri got in January.

The lunch-crowd cars thinning out, he drove a quick ten blocks, cranking right into the crowded lot of Easy Rental, Z slowing to edge around an old truck that was clogging up the already U-haul-jammed entrance, the truck's back doors swung wide, warmly dressed men with buff-colored work gloves feeding metal folding chairs into the van.

Past the truck, he pulled in at the end of a row of rusty cars, jeeps, and light trucks.

Getting out of the Cavalier, Z crossed in front of the chair gobbling six-by-six to push through the jingling door of Easy Rental.

Looking the same inside as out -- like what it was -- a sometime-in-the-long-ago-painted-bilious-green Quonset hut, Easy Rental had a cavernous, iron-and-rivet-braced, corrugated steel interior, its ceiling arched high above a riotous assortment of items someone -- sometime -- might want to "borrow."

The room's age-stained concrete floor supported rows of dilapidated folding tables piled with power tools, garden equipment, picnic baskets (already packed with plastic tableware,) china, folding church chairs, propane torches, airless sprayers, drain-cleaning snakes, candelabras, coffee makers, grills, and table skirting.

At one time, Easy Rental also offered jack hammers, ventilator fans, halogen lights, kerosene heaters, and electric cable -- the reason Z was there.

Old men in work clothes and colorful, quilted jackets were side-stepping along the tables, pawing through tools in the belief that, if they could locate the right gizmo, they could find a use for it.

To center left was the rental counter with its hand-crank cash register, cardboard box of rental forms, scratched phone, credit card machine, and the same clerk Z had seen there a year ago -- a teenage mutant dingy girl named Myrtle.

"Something I can do for you, fellow?" Asked in the whiskey rasp of Jake, Easy Rental's owner. Waddling up, Jake was dressed in greasy, out-sized bib overalls and dirt-encrusted, checked shirt. Except for the smell of kerosene and a grime-inspired tan, Jake resembled nothing so much as a short, two-ball snowman in cast off clothing.

"Any of last year's stolen items ever turn up?"

"Huh?" You had to speak up around Jake, his ears seriously plugged with fat. "Oh. I know you. You're ... You're ....." A dirty, split-nail finger poked at Z, hand and finger tattooed with crank case grease.

"Bob Zapolska."

"Yeah. The private dick I hired who couldn't find my stolen goods no better than the cops." Fighting the weight of three hundred pounds of gravity, Jake tried a multiple chin sneer; managed only to twitch his Rudolph-red nose. Why anyone would rent from unpleasant Jake when Glad Rents was just down the street, Z couldn't figure.

"Not yet."

"You ain't given up?" If Z could have seen Jake's blubber-buried eyes, they'd be registering disgust.

"Never. Anyway, you don't owe me 'til I produce. Results Guaranteed."

From his lack of eagerness to get back his merchandise, Z wondered if Jake had listed more stolen items on his insurance claim than had actually vanished. "Just checking. Wanted you to know I'm still on it ...." Wasted words, Jake already toddling off.

For Z, headed home to strap a heating pad to his knee, another imperfect ending to another imperfect day.

* * * * *

Chapter 5

"You're sure I don't owe you anything?"

They were seated in the smoking section of the Golden Corral on Oak, defending their corner of the restaurant from barbaric hordes of hungry, noontime diners. Picking up silverware, napkins, light orange plastic trays, and drinks, they'd made it through the ordering line, past the smells of the crowded salad bar and, finally, to the sturdy table tucked into an out of the way spot where they waited for the purple-uniformed post-high school waitress to bring their food.

It had been about nine A.M. that Thursday morning when Z had called Dr. Calder at Bateman College to suggest lunch at the Golden Corral. And here they were, overcoats and scarves draped over the backs of two of the four maroon-bottomed chairs, Calder across from Z at the table. (Because of Z's knee, this was the first time in the last two days that he'd been able to do anything. He could only hope he'd recover faster with a knee brace and by following the sports store salesman's advice: not to soak his damaged knee in hot water but to use ice on it.)

Z had just pushed a fat business envelope across the wood-grained, Formica-topped table, the professor using a steak knife to slit open the envelope, a glance inside and a quick thumb ruff showing the young prof the envelope was crammed with hundred-dollar bills.

"I figured two thousand should fix the damage to your house," Z said, the prof nodding.

A boyish grin spreading across Calder's chubby face, the doctor stuffed the envelope, rather casually Z thought, in the inside breast pocket of the professor's corduroy sports jacket.

At the moment, Dr. Calder was staring across the table, the Dr.'s light blue eyes focused on Z as if he was an exotic animal. Which, in a way, he was.

"And you don't owe me anything. He paid my fee, too," Z lied. "Which I've pocketed."

White lies could hardly be considered lies at all, Z had always thought, accounting for why they were called "white."

"Amazing!" Dr. Calder ran the soft fingers of his right hand through his finely textured hair. "After I talked to him I had a totally different impression of Maddox. You must have extraordinary powers of persuasion."

Something of an understatement, Z thought.

"I'm supposed to be a student of the human animal," Calder said slowly, "and yet, I've just been confronted with three completely unexpected human behaviors. First, I hire you and don't have to pay you. Secondly, I get my money back from someone I'd thought wouldn't give me a nickel unless tied down and stepped on."

"And the third thing?" Z rasped, the accuracy of Calder's insight fascinating him.

"I've met an honest man."

"Who?"

"You."

"How's that?"

"You could just as easily have told Maddox your fee was a thousand, taken that plus the two thousand from him, then gotten another thousand from me for a job well done. Collected double. No one would have ever known."

"Not my way." Z hated to be always whispering. What must Dr. Calder think?

"So," the prof said, still something of a wary look about him, "all that detective fiction I absorbed as a teenager was wrong. P.I.s are not hard-boiled like Spade, Carter, and Hammer." Calder shook his head like a golden retriever shedding water, a mist of chamois-colored hair wisping down his forehead.

Tray in hand, the jiggly young waitress now interrupted them, the same one who'd taken their order slip when she'd brought them their complimentary rolls. "And who has the shrimp?" she asked in a little girl's voice.

Calder raising his hand like a kindergartener pleading to go potty, the girl set down the professor's plate. Then put down Z's hamburger and buttered potato pieces.

"Is there anything else I can get you gentlemen?"

"Nothing for me, thank you," Calder said politely.

Z just shook his head to the waitress's question. "Alright, then. I'll be back to check on you in a little while to see if you want more tea." She smiled at the doctor. Turned to Z. "And you drink ... Diet Coke, right?"

"Right."

She grinned, pleased with herself for remembering. "I'll be back after awhile to get you some more Diet." And she was prancing off to the beat of youth, but on less than Susan-perfect legs, Z couldn't help but notice.

After tearing up, then dumping a couple of pink packs of sweetener into his tea, Calder then whipping around the teaspoon, the young doc gave his full attention to his food.

Z with nothing else to say -- they ate in silence. Except when wrestling each other for the salt.

As for Z's thoughts, they were on Susan, Z not able to reach her all week. (He'd called her twenty times, the evening generally the best time.) Had told himself for the twentieth time that she didn't pick up because she'd turned off her phone to get some sleep.

Leaving Susan aside, this morning -- mornings having the magic of new beginnings -- it had felt good to see peg-legged Mary's gap-toothed smile when she'd fumbled a three hundred dollar rent payment into her front dress pocket.

On the other hand, not staying to have coffee with her had made Z feel bad again. He could have stayed. Should have stayed. But ... couldn't make himself.

"... solved ... successfully ... feeling great," Dr. Calder said, wiping his mouth with small, precise dabs of his paper napkin.

Whatever Calder said, Z's mind was too late in trotting home to the "Corral" to pick it up. "I didn't catch ...."

"What I was saying was, in spite of your success, you don't seem to be happy." Calder was right, but .... "It showed in the angry way you forked the gravy off your hamburger," the professor continued, explaining how he knew about Bob's mood, at the same time discounting the "magic" of his own "revelation."

So. Not only had Calder been concentrating on his own food, he'd been watching Z's. "Even as you gave me the envelope, I thought your smile was forced."

"I guess our jobs are pretty similar," Z said, half-believing it. "Details count in my trade, too."

"Sounds right. .... Well ....?"

"What?"

"Well ... would you like to tell me about it?" When Calder smiled, he looked like a small boy, Z thought. "Here you are, having lunch with a psychologist who, in his private practice charges 100 dollars an hour to help people with their problems." Calder was waving his left forefinger like a symphony conductor attempting to get more volume out of flutes. "Moreover, a man who's feeling guilty about getting your services for free -- valuable to the tune of two thousand dollars. I don't want to press, but if something's bothering you, that's the kind of work I do."

"It's nothing. Just woman trouble," Z said, surprised he was saying anything about the way he felt.

"Woman trouble is never nothing," Dr. Calder said quietly, taking off his glasses and holding them up and away from him as far as his arms would reach, checking for spots by looking through the lenses toward the light of the table's low-wattage lamps.

Satisfied, Calder put his glasses back on, adjusted them at the temples, then tapped the nosepiece with one finger to lock them into place.

"You can say that again," Z said, feeling it was his turn to pick up the conversation.

Calder grinned playfully. "OK. I will. ... Woman trouble is never nothing." The prof gave him a round and rumpled wink.

Z found himself chuckling. He hadn't expected to discover a sense of humor in an intellectual, not that he knew many intellectuals -- not that he knew any intellectuals.

Maybe his ex-wife was an intellectual by now, Z thought bitterly. Paula. Paula Perfect. She'd wanted to go to college. Dumped him fast after she did.

Their break-up had started the night Paula said she needed college because he didn't provide her with enough mental "stimulation" -- a nasty thing to say because nothing hurt as much as having the truth told on you, her comment going a long way to account for why he'd lost his temper. In a calmer frame of mind, he'd never have torn off Paula's clothes and held her down while using the indelible laundry marker to write "bitch" and "whore" (as well as a number of tasteless sayings) on her skin. Though she'd fought him all the way, he'd even drawn arrows on her, pointing out the location of her private parts by way of providing directions to other men who might have the misfortune to run into her.

Nor should he have thrown her out of the house they'd been renting, naked as she was and all marked up that way. (At least it had been a warm November night).

As for burning Paula's clothes the next day ... to say nothing of mailing the ashes to her mother ......

"I had a wife, once," Z said, deliberately interrupting his own train of thought. "She wanted to go to college. We quarreled over that."

"Was it about the money it would cost?"

"No." Z was speaking in such a low rasp he was having trouble hearing himself over the general background noise of the "Corral."

Calder seemed to hear him without difficulty, however. Did psychologists have sharper senses than normal people?

"It sounds like that was a long time ago."

"It was."

"And it still hurts? Badly enough to spoil your day?"

"Not really. Not anymore."

"Something else, then. Something related?" If getting people to tell you their troubles was what a doctor of psychology was supposed to do, the doc knew his business. He was sharp. Seemed to know about real people, another thing Z hadn't counted on. He'd expected intellectuals to know about ideas, but not about people.

"My lady friend's gone back to college."

"And that makes you remember your wife and how her going back to college destroyed your marriage." What could Z say? He'd been trying to deny it to himself.

"So -- what are you going to do about it?" A foolish question from the prof, even though the man was a Ph.D.

"Nothing I can do."

"There's always something you can do -- about anything." Z just sat there, not knowing what to say. "For instance, you can feel bad about her going to school."

"If that's what you mean by doing something," Z said, smiling his best, but still ugly, smile, "that's what I'm doing. It doesn't seem to help, though," he finished lamely.

"Right. But that's only one thing you can do in this situation."

"I don't see I've got much choice ....."

"For instance, you can go to college with her."

"I couldn't do that."

"No? Why not?"

"I ... just couldn't. Don't have the brains for it."

Calder threw back his head and laughed like a quiet, crazy man, pudgy hands waving in the air.

Just as suddenly, was sober again, the doctor staring at him with icicle eyes. "Here you are ...," Calder explained, "having just put two thousand dollars in my hand after solving a problem I had no idea about how to tackle. And you tell me you've got too few smarts to go to college?"

The professor stopped; looked as blank as if he'd had a seizure. ..... Recovered.

"Where's your girl going to school?"

"Maple Woods College."

"An excellent choice." The doctor nodded to himself. "Bateman, where I teach, offers advantages a small college like Maple Woods can't. But mostly it's the sort of activities that appeal to the younger student. Frats. Sororities. Parties. Football and basketball.

The waitress was at their table now, filling the professor's glass with tea, Calder thanking her, Z motioning her away from his coke glass.

"There's something else I'll just say in passing," the young prof added, picking up the paper napkin from his lap, folding it carefully before placing it beside the empty paper cup of cocktail sauce and mournful pile of shrimp tails on his plate. "What I know as a marriage counselor is that people who are satisfied with themselves also have the best marriages. If both you and your girl are happy with work, social life, with friends -- it's almost certain you will be pleased with each other and with your relationship."

"I'll think about it," Z said, knowing that nothing else he could say would turn Calder off.

"That's a good start. After thinking about it, of course, you must do something about it. If I could only get my clients to make positive changes in their lives when they're unhappy, I'd be a happier man, myself. But a lot poorer." The doctor winked again; as if he and Z shared secrets. "My clients would get well and stop paying me."

There was movement at Z's shoulder ... someone else ... there.

Though generally feeling safe in crowded places, Z didn't like the idea of becoming so involved in conversation that a third party could get close to him without him being aware of it.

"Pardon me," said a deep voice above and behind Z's back.

Half turning, Z saw a man he didn't know. Tall. Skinny. Long neck and big Adam's apple. Eyes blinking slowly like an ostrich in a zoo. Long lashes. A man of Calder's age.

"Oh, hi, Fritz," said Calder, Calder knowing the man meaning Z could relax. "I don't believe you two have met. Fritz, this is Bob Zapolska, a friend of mine. Bob's a detective. You won't believe what he's been able to do for me. You know how Maddox Construction screwed me? Well, Bob got my money back from them, and ....." Calder seemed to run down suddenly, as if he'd forgotten to wind himself up all the way. "Oh. ... And, Bob, this is Fritz Furlwangler, American historian at Bateman."

"Pleased to meet you," said the gangly professor, extending a long arm to Z, shaking Z's hand with a stronger grip than Z would have imagined. (Today was a day for surprises, Z feeling like a space voyager landed among shape shifters. "Screwed?" Not the language he thought a college teacher would use. Ever.)

"I don't want to interrupt," the new man said in a firm, low voice, "but I saw you over here and thought you might not have heard. I just found out myself."

"Sit down, why don't you," Calder said, pointing at one of the empty chairs, beginning to pull his overcoat off the chair's spindled back."

"I can't. I've got to run. Got a one o'clock." The man paused. "It's about Victor."

"Victor?"

Looking over, Z saw that Calder's face was as blank as a robot who'd had his OFF switch punched. An illusion only; it was the way Calder looked when thinking.

"Tommy Victor. The janitor," the stranger prompted.

Calder brightened; began burbling like water gurgles from an uncorked jug.

"Sure. The custodian. I was just talking to him yesterday, in fact. I didn't think of him because I always call him Tommie V. V for victory. If you need something done -- temperature regulated, floor cleaned, anything in maintenance -- call Tommie V. V, for victory." Calder could tell he wasn't making himself clear. Grinned. "I got a theory that what's important in life is not big victories like winning a war, but prevailing in small battles like getting the heat regulated in your office. Tommie V always helps you win the 'dinkys' which, because they're so numerous and because they bug the hell out of you, are more important than what people call life's 'big' victories."

"I felt that way about him, too. Everybody did."

"Did?"

Calder's mind was snake-strike fast. No doubt at all of that. When he wanted, he could pick up every - little - shade - of - meaning in a person's voice or look.

"That's what I said, unfortunately. It's bad news. Tommie is dead."

"Dead!" Again, the cyborg look, this time with a twitch at the corner of a Calder-robot eye.

"Worse than that, if that's possible. He was shot."

It was as if time had stopped in that silence-smothered corner of the restaurant.

Though Z didn't know the dead man, the others made Z feel the loss.

"When?"

"Sometime last night, apparently. I just heard it from Washburn. Shot in a sub-basement of Bateman Hall. When he didn't report for work this morning, there was a search. He never failed to come in, you know, no matter how sick he was. The way I hear it, it took a long time to find him. It seems no one goes where they found his body."

"Who would do a thing like that?" Calder -- cold sober.

"I don't know. And all I heard was shot. Said like it could be suicide. But I don't think so."

"No."

Pared down, a janitor at the school where the professors taught had been killed. Maybe suicide, maybe not.

"Well, I've got to go. Just thought you'd want to know, Hugh." Hugh was Calder's first name. Z knew that because the professor had introduced himself over the phone, not as Dr. Calder, but as Hugh Calder.

"Thanks, Fritz." Calder -- being polite -- no matter what the circumstance; the kind of man who'd thank the hangman for a well-adjusted noose.

The other man nodded soberly, blinked his eyes, turned, and walked with long, slow, overcoat-stretching strides toward the cash register table up front.

"You knew the victim well?"

"Not well," the professor said. "But I liked him. He did his job. Did it with style. And that's about all anyone can do when it comes right down to it." Even while saying that, Calder began to look ... strange. Agitated. "I don't like this at all. There's something wrong, here. Nobody in his right mind would.............

"Listen!" Calder floating off, he'd pounced back. "Have you got cases piled up or do you have some free time?"

"Some, free time," Z said, knowing Calder wouldn't miss his meaning.

"I'd like to hire you to look into this."

"The police will ...."

"I know. But I have an ... odd feeling .... I get those occasionally." Dr. Calder twitched out a curious smile; looked over at Z as if he'd like to explain something ..... but had decided not to. "If I told you why I went into the study of psychology, you'd laugh," he continued, looking embarrassed.

Calder paused to reload his mind. "Anyway ... I'd like to hire you to look into this. You got money back for me I thought I'd never see again. Didn't charge me. So it's like I've suddenly found money I can use."

"OK. Got a cop friend I can check with. But I'll need help. Didn't know the victim. Don't know the school. I'd need to see where he was shot."

"When you're ready, I can help there. In the meantime, I'll find out all I can." That settled, Calder snapped over his wrist to look at his watch, the doc a man of quick-shifting moods. In fact, if someone asked you to describe the professor in a single word, quick would do it. Wouldn't describe his body, maybe, but everything else about him. "I've got to go. Thanks again. Thanks twice."

All settled, at least to the professor's satisfaction, Calder got up smoothly.

"I'll stay. Have another glass of coke," Z said.

"Sure. Call me."

"Right."

With what seemed like one motion, Calder picked up his white wool scarf from the chair back; snapped the scarf around his neck; lifted his brown coat and swung into it; fished out his billfold (left a dollar tip); picked up his "adding machine" check and disappeared into the crowd of people who were headed for the cash register up front.

Leaving Bob Zapolska at the table -- to think.

First, about how good it felt to be alone. Then, though Calder could wear you out, about how interesting it had been to talk to the fleshy prof.

Since Z was to look into the Tommie Victor case, he'd have the chance to talk to Calder again, probably more than once.

For now, the question was: who'd want to shoot a janitor?

Almost all killings in the sleepy backwater that was Kansas-City-North-of-the-River -- and there weren't many -- were either family, or drug-related. But in this instance, knowledgeable people knew and liked the dead man, neither personal quarrels nor drugs coming up in the conversation.

So, Bob Zapolska stayed behind to think.

And to burn the paper packet the prof's artificial sweetener had come in, Z holding the pink paper between thumb and forefinger, firing up his lighter to ignite the packet's bottom corner, tossing the flaming remains in the ashtray as the fire was about to burn his fingers.

Z remembered his Mom worrying about him playing with fire.

Looking back from the advantage of adulthood, he could see she thought there was something unusual about a boy who liked fire as much as he did. .......

Z smiled his warmest grimace at that memory of his Mom's concern.

* * * * *

Chapter 6

Friday was colder, a sharp wind from the north playing veg-o-matic with Bob Zapolska's coat and heavy winter slacks as he came back from his daily pilgrimage to pick up the morning paper. Morning paper! It was the daily paper!

Breakfast sandwich, Coke, and cheery blaze waiting for him when he got back inside, he sat down at the table, slipped the rubber band off what was now laughably called the Star and tossed the tangled rubber in the rivet-popping fireplace. Pugh! But the smell wouldn't last long.

Sighing, he unfolded the "greatly expanded" paper.

Again today, there was nothing about a Maddox break-in. No sense even checking for that anymore.

Though over a week had gone by, the front page still sported coverage of the Monet theft, today's headline promising in-depth coverage of the case, the paper's article turning out to be officials saying they knew nothing; officials refusing to be quoted; officials reluctant to reveal what they hinted they knew.

Printing a great big zero on the front page would have saved a lot of ink.

The article of interest was in Section B (the area of the paper reserved for news that didn't press on the nerves of the K. C. power structure.) EMPLOYEE FOUND DEAD AT COLLEGE.

Before burning that section, Z memorized the piece -- not hard to do because it was so short.

Thomas B. Victor, custodian, was discovered shot to death yesterday in a basement room on the campus of Bateman College. A college spokesman revealed that the weapon found beside the body was one that had been used in a detective play some years ago, stored, with other theater props, in a largely unused sub-basement in the college's theater building: Bateman Hall.

Bateman College custodial supervisor, Harold Yerkes, said that Mr. Victor, a long time maintenance worker at the college, had been missing since Wednesday evening.

No second party in the shooting is being sought at this time, according to an informed source. "Mr. Victor had been suffering from severe depression of late," said Calvin Gurthrie, college president.

Funeral arrangements are pending the identification of surviving relatives.

Possible suicide? Not according to Professors Calder and Furlwangler.

While Z had taken the Victor case as a favor to Calder, Z was beginning to get interested in what really happened to the man who "everybody" liked.

The phone rang.

Susan!

Almost had to be. She was the only one who had his home phone number.

He'd let his pride stop him from calling Susan at work yesterday afternoon. Something he regretted when he failed to get her at home again last night.

With rising excitement, Z got up, dodged the coffee table, and squeaked down into the sofa. His hand a little shaky, he picked up the phone.

"Z."

"Ted."

Z almost cursed -- an irrational reaction, Z calming himself with a deep breath. He owed it to Ted to be polite, particularly since he'd asked Teddy to get back to him about the Monet theft. What had thrown Z off was that he'd expected a call from Ted at the office rather than at home. The police no doubt had Z's home phone number because that rat-faced Captain had ...

"Z? You there?"

"Got something?"

"Yes and no." Teddy Newbold, practicing politics. "Like you wanted, I put in a call to a friend of mine on the K.C. force. Wasn't his case, but he said he'd check and, late yesterday afternoon, I got a call from a lieutenant, wanting to know what my interest was in this. I'll be honest with you, I didn't expect that. I thought my 'good buddy' could keep his mouth shut and just throw something my way, casual like. Anyway, this lieutenant, name of Willis Addison, wanted to know my interest. And I had to give him your name, Z." Since Z hadn't called the K.C. cops, it had to be that Ted's friend on the K.C. force was the one with verbal diarrhea. "Sorry about that, buddy." An apology that rang as true as Republicans sympathizing with the poor.

"Yeah."

"Anyway, this lieutenant is heading up the painting squad. So, I had to tell him about you. And he wanted a description and what your interest was in the matter and all that kind of thing. After that, he seemed mostly interested in you, which I couldn't figure. So I asked him why. And he tells me they're checking absolutely every lead on this one, no matter how small. Hell, they're making up clues just so they can have something to do, if I got his meaning. Everybody up and down the line is desperate to make progress on this and you know what that means? It means that they don't got shit and that the heat's on all the way from the mayor, to the commissioner, to the captain, to every pissant uniform on the street. Hell, from the way he talked, almighty God himself is interested in this one and threatnin' to blast everybody with a lightning bolt if they don't get that friggin' picture back by yesterday.

"So what I think, is that this lieutenant, who's going to take the fall for this big time if he screws it up, is delighted to have any reason to look busy and get the hell away from his desk and from a million questions from the Goddamn newspaper reporters to say nothin' about the bastards from TV. So, the bottom line is, he wants to come north to talk to you."

"Me?"

"Like I said, it doesn't make any sense except for giving the poor schmuck a place to hide out for awhile. So, here's what I did. I told him that, unless I called him back, he was to meet you at your office, ten o'clock sharp tomorrow morning. All very unofficial and hush hush."

"I can make that. But I still don't ...."

"It's nothing, Z." The ominous pause. "Well ... maybe not nothing. Somehow, I got the idea that this guy Addison thinks there's a Northland connection to the heist. Hell, I don't know. But it's nothing to do with you, either way. I scratch his back, he don't kick me in the balls. You scratch his back ... or you can kick him in the balls, for all I care. I'm just trying to stay the hell out of this."

Z could believe that.

"But like I was saying, this guy's the big daddy on the painting case. So, here's what's in it for you. While you're doing the poor bastard the courtesy of gettin' him out of the public eye for a time, you can pump him. Find out what you want to know from the horse's mouth."

"OK." Ted, for all his duck and cover-his-ass instincts, might just have something there. Maybe Z could find out something from the lieutenant. Worth a shot, anyway.

"Well, that's it, good buddy. And, Z?"

"Yeah?"

"Unless it's about something else, it's like they say: don't call me -- I'll call you. 'Bye." Click.

Z hung up the phone. Thinking. Wondering if the K.C. police did have a lead that pointed over the bridges. And something else. If Ted was right about Northland involvement in the disappearance of the Monet, then it wasn't likely this Detective Addington ... Addison ... "don't got shit," as Ted had put it. While knowing the approximate location of the criminal (or better yet, of the painting) wasn't the kind of fertilizer to grow an arrest, it might provide enough of a smell to start the bloodhounds baying.

Whatever the truth of that, Z knew he'd better be careful with the lieutenant. Z damn well didn't want that kind of stink stuck to him.

All in all, a lively way, maybe even a productive way, to begin a Friday morning.

No reason to quit now.

So Z placed two quick calls of his own, both to Bateman College; got the secretary, Beth Ogden, right away; asked if he could come on campus about 2:00 to get his last payment so he could buy the deadbolts and get them installed for her. Got an affirmative to that.

The other call had taken longer. Calder was in class, said the psychology department's high-toned secretary. Z would have to call back after ten.

Calling back "after ten" as instructed, Z found that Calder hadn't learned much about the janitor's death, but that he wasn't buying the suicide talk in the morning paper: was downright indignant about that.

Calder said he'd discovered how to get to the spot where the custodian had met his maker -- that great big Sweeper Upper in the sky, Z figured. Calder also said he'd be in his office all afternoon, his office in the Social Science building.

The calls made, Z's plan was to see the lady first, then locate Calder.

Two birds with a single stone. Which was pretty good in a world where, most of the time, you couldn't knock a bird from a flock with a double-barreled, trigger-wired, spread pattern twelve gauge.

With the prospects of money coming in this afternoon, Z decided he could afford lunch at Tippin's; treat himself to the best (and most expensive) Reuben in the city.

After that, he could decide whether or not it was a good move to call Susan at her work.

* * * * *

Chapter 7

Except for being unable to feel his toes and his difficulty seeing through the small hole Z had to keep wiping through the frosted windshield -- the Cavalier's heater waiting until the coldest afternoon of the year to surrender -- he had little difficulty driving along a lightly trafficked I-35. He was in the right lane, going slowly, his attention divided between keeping his car on the wind-gusted road and looking for a Bateman College sign, finally finding a Bateman placard attached to the Two-Miles-to-Liberty marker.

Continuing into Liberty, driving past the square, Z was now on North Elm -- a residential street lined with old growth trees and dignified houses.

Another mile, and what had to be the college loomed ahead, Bateman College (like so many institutions of higher learning) built on a hill.

As he closed on the school, he saw that the rise of ground did provide a beautiful location, at least it would be pretty when spring resurrected the wooded campus' trees, their branches now waving a skeletal plea for mercy to the wind-swept, sky.

This was the first time Z had been to Bateman Collage, Ms. Ogden doing business with him over her office phone or from her farmhouse. He'd had an itch to see where the lady worked, however; just not on such a cold day.

Approaching the college hill, following another Bateman marker, he turned onto a campus drive that led around the base of the Bateman "mountain," the road taking him past the college's athletic facilities -- stadium, track, gym -- then to a gravel parking lot on the back side of the hill, a large lot crammed with row on row of cars. Cars and more cars. New -- expensive -- foreign. Obviously a student, rather than a faculty, lot.

Luckily, he found an open "visitor's" slot in the front row at the base of the hill, the last place to park except for three government-mandated, handicapped parking spaces -- those slots likely to remain empty until Bateman College provided a helicopter to fly the "physically challenged" from this "below sea level" lot to "Mt. Mckinley" college high above.

Engine switched off, barely able to see through his rapidly "healing" peek hole, he groaned as he surveyed the steep stairs leading from base camp to summit.

Triggering the door latch, Z had to shoulder the door open to defeat a particularly strong gust.

Swinging out his bad knee, careful to keep the door from slamming on him, he wedged himself into a wind that was icy enough to slice flesh.

Pulling back on the door handle to counter the blast, he managed to shut the car door without wind damage, the little Cavalier rocked and rocked again as it hunkered down against the yellow-painted curb.

Dry grass swirled in wind-whipped waves at the hill's base. Farther up, stick-bare bushes wailed near the circular graves of interred flowers. Higher still, scarecrow trees waved bony arms to frighten Z away.

Turning his back to the wind, he pulled up his coat collar and made sure his glove tops were fitted into the coat's sleeves.

Surveying the dismal, wind-swept parking area, the only "life" he saw was a car that had just turned in at the near end of the lot, a sedan that, in the vain hope of finding an empty space close to the hill, had begun a slow spiral through the maze of lined-up cars. The driver had Z's sympathy. It was a poor day for hiking off across the tundra.

Scanning the lot, keeping his back to the wind as he jammed his scarf more firmly into the hollow between his collar and windpipe, Z saw the other car nose into a space at last, a blur of students piling out.

From a distance came the cold, crisp, wind-assisted slams of rolled steel doors.

Judging by how many parking spaces were filled, he figured most students were snugly in their classes up above, the newly arriving students -- girls by the loose-hipped outline of them -- missing their 1:00 o'clock class. Or maybe, to be wildly optimistic about today's youth, were early for their 2:00 o'clock.

Scuffing back his coat-cuff, he looked at his watch. One-forty-five. Fifteen minutes to climb the cracked, concrete steps at his back, find the Administration building, and locate Beth Ogden.

Z rolled his sleeve back down, his bare wrist already turned into an icy bracelet.

Pivoting, the cold crisping his nose and the leading edges of his ears, he stepped to the front of the Cavalier and over the lot's curb to shuffle through the dead grass on the parking.

Crossing a brick sidewalk to the stairs, he began to climb, griping the piece-of-pipe handrail to keep himself on course. (It didn't help his frozen frame of mind to be passed, halfway up, by the parking lot girls: Zip -- Zip -- Zip.)

At the top of the hill at last, Z followed a cement path past a small, solid-stone maintenance building. (Maintenance, because heavy power lines ran into it.)

Emerging on the other side of the hill, he was now on Bateman College's front walk.

Looking down the front of the hill, he saw two, more gently pitched walkways mounting the campus at either end, distant students climbing each stairway.

Near the center of a line of mostly red brick classroom buildings, he turned to face the only sizable structure on the hill. This building of limestone, a metal sign proclaiming it to be: Bateman Hall.

The building for which the school was named.

On closer observation, the college "Hall" was a gothic monstrosity of ill-fitting, water-stained blocks, nothing unusual about it, except for a row of ten, closely spaced columns supporting the old structure's two-story roof, columns with "asparagus" capitals??

To one side of the Bateman plaque was another metal sign, an arrow directing newcomers to: Administration.

Following the sign, he was pleased to find that the Administration building was the next one over, shorting what was becoming an increasingly freezing hike.

Turning up the Administration building's walk, Z arrived to pull open the brick structure's heavy wood door, entering to find himself in what a sci-fi book would call an "air lock," a bare, cream-colored, five-foot-long hall with a single door in front of him.

All that mattered at the moment, though, was that the hall was warm.

Pausing in the short entrance to thaw out -- no one there to bother him -- he thought about the lady he was going to see.

When Ms. Ogden called in answer to his security ad, he'd made the deal over the phone. No other way to do it. A lady living alone (as she'd described herself) would never have hired him once she'd gotten a look at him.

He'd worked on installing window guards and peepholes at her place for several weekends before she'd come out of hiding; sometime after that, had gained the courage to talk to him. (She was lonely, he guessed; enough so to date a serial killer on short acquaintance.)

Getting used to Z at last, she'd followed him from window to window, telling him about her job as secretary at Bateman College.

Though he'd never seen her at work, he supposed he'd find her much the same as she was at home in the country, a competent, precise kind of women -- but shy. Timid, really. And, coming full circle, that was why she'd hired him to install a security system for her.

Ms. Ogden was what you might call attractive, Z supposed, had regular features topped by dark blond hair-turned-under-at-the-neck with wrinkle-hiding bangs above blue eyes.

He'd heard how her husband died a year ago, her husband's death followed closely by that of her Father and Mother. After inheriting her parent's weathered, clapboard farmhouse in the country, she'd moved in, she'd said; was living alone in the house's three "gingerbread" stories (plus basement and attic) the house standing in the middle of flat fields. Not even a ramshackle barn to keep the faded old place company.

"Remote" was the word that came to mind when -- after he'd laid a trail of dust and gravel down five miles of private drive off north 40 -- he'd first seen Ms. Ogden's farmhouse.

He remembered her saying her nearest neighbor was three miles the other way.

Just the lady and her much-loved cat, a scraggly inside cat. Missy. Never allowed outside for any reason because a previous owner had all of Missy's claws removed. (The house was also far enough in the country to have foxes and coyotes, Missy a one bite lunch for a squirrel.)

There were days, more of them recently, when Z wished the solution to his problems was a pet. Pretty sad, though, to be down to your last cat for company.

The Ogden business reviewed, tingly feelings coming back to most of his extremities, Z approached the second door, took a deep breath, and pushed through into a wide entrance hall.

The first thing he noticed, spaced out at eye level to either side of the foyer's vanilla walls, were thick-framed, faded photographs of severe-looking men, each dressed in a turn-of-the-century, ill-fitting three piece suit, most of the elders tricked out with dangling watch chains draped across antique vests. To a man (all men) they wore oval, wire-rimmed granny glasses. Each head propped up by a celluloid collar.

Clearly, these were blowups of the school's patriarchs, their zombie eyes glaring down at anyone unlucky enough to pass by.

Except for the daguerreotypes, the entrance area had been modernized, its walls and ceiling newly decorated. The floor had deep pile, wall-to-wall carpet of palest blue, inset with a six inch, azure border.

Maple benches were spaced along both walls. Down the right wall a long, walnut, end table sported full-color brochures, a pot of leafy vines, and a blue and white striped decorative lamp.

The hall's light came from florescent tubes in the ceiling, the harsh flicker of that light softened by honey-combed diffusers.

Not counting the fierce, not so dearly departed elders impaled on the walls, the place had the look of success; also of a building where everybody worked, the hall as empty as a cathedral on a Tuesday.

At the far end of the vestibule, beyond a bisecting corridor, was a double wide door of thick, clear glass, vertical lines of print running down it (unreadable at that distance.)

Walking softly down the center of the empty hall, Z had almost reached the lobby's end when a severely dressed young woman charged out of the right corridor to bang into him.

Bouncing off his solid bulk, she gave him a disrespectful toss of her nearly hairless head and a goodbye-forever frown, the woman?? ramming herself in front of him to drag open the glass door and fling her bony body into the space beyond.

Just another young lady, he thought, who, with malice aforethought, had turned herself into a loutish version of the kind of man she most despised.

Z extra careful to look both ways, a little spooked by this time, he "crossed the T" to approach the transparent door that had "absorbed" the mannish woman.

Leaning forward to look through the glass, he saw that the room back of the doors, while large, was partitioned by diagonals of beige dividers.

Backing away a step, Z read the door's black letters:

College President

Dean of Continuing Education

Dean of the School of Business

Dean of Arts and Sciences

Academic Dean

Certain he'd come to the right place, Z pulled back the door's vertical steel handle and stepped into the room. To find what he thought he would, a maze of five-foot-high, nubby-cloth, L-shaped panels defining secretarial stations.

Glancing into the open ends of the work spaces as he shuffled past, he saw the standard office furniture: imitation wood desks, lower echelon chairs, female secretaries, buff filing cabinets, and computers-on-stands.

Sometimes, two women worked in larger shells.

Though providing little privacy, these work units were better than the secretarial "pools" where Susan's insurance company kept its bond-slaves chained.

Glancing at each cubicle's name plate as he went past, he eventually saw .... Ms. Beth Ogden.

Underneath the Ogden plate, a second rectangle of white-lettering-on-shiny-black-plastic saying: Ms. Ingrid Nielsen.

Stepping from the hall to the open side of the Ogden L, Z looked in to see, faced away from him at side-by-side desks, two women, one of them Beth Ogden -- dressed in a navy blue suit with a starched white collar, an outfit that featured her shoulder-length brown-blond hair. She was doing -- what else? -- typing.

Beth's hairless-headed cell mate tipped him to who she was. The female?? who'd muscled her way past him in the hall.

"Ms. Ogden?" Z whispered, careful to keep his voice at its least frightening burr.

"Oh!" Swiveling smartly, the Ogden woman looked up, and up some more, to see him standing awkwardly in the cubicle's opening.

"Though I can't make it this Saturday, I'll have your deadbolts installed by the end of next week, Ma'am," he said. "Then you can put your chairs back under the table."

Already recovered from seeing Z-in-the-flesh, she smiled wistfully. "I'm afraid I don't need but a couple of dining room chairs anymore.

"Oh!" She stopped as if pole-axed. "This is Ingrid. Ingrid Nielsen," Beth said, smiling as she indicated the other woman, the woman twisting just enough to give Z a vengeful glare before turning her back on him.

Women's lib gone wrong.

While Z believed in equal pay for equal work, he also believed in birching bitches.

With a practiced motion, Beth wheeled back her chair, then "footed" it over from the computer extension to the knee-hole in her desk.

Reaching down, pulling out a ball bearing-suspended drawer, she lifted out her flap-top imitation-leather purse, putting her pocketbook on the desk before her. Popping the snap, flipping back the top, she fumbled inside the sundries-stuffed handbag and took out a green plastic checkbook. "I believe that I owe you $800?"

"That's right, Ma'am. Thirty dollars for the two locks and for my labor installing them. And that finishes your payments."

It was the first time, Z realized, that the lady had paid him by check. Always before, she'd dribbled out cash for the supplies he'd needed and for their installation. (Part of his "satisfaction guaranteed" promise was that he didn't accept money for the job he'd done until he'd finished it.) Cash before this. He supposed, to help him dodge the tax man. Which wasn't a part of his deals, no matter what other people thought.

"You can't know how much better I feel with you fixing the house like you did." Even in her workplace, the lady's voice was thin.

Picking up a ballpoint on the desk, she wrote as she continued speaking. "After living in town all those years, a lot of other people around me, being alone way out there ...." She did concentrate on recording the check in the back of the checkbook. Check number. Date. Amount.

Finished, rolling around neatly, she tore out the check and handed it to him, Z taking it, glancing at it casually ......

Looking more closely, saw that Beth Ogden had not signed her name. Instead, had signed Beth Walters, even the check not seeming to be hers since at the top, the printing said Hiram B. or Beth O. Walters.

"Oh ... the check," the lady said, noticing his confusion. "I haven't changed my account at the bank. I've been so busy I couldn't seem to do the routine things. It's just that, after my husband died, I began using my maiden name again ... Ogden. But don't worry. The check is good, signed the way it is."

"Of course, Ma'am," Z said, hitching his coat in back to drag out his billfold, putting in the check, returning the billfold to his back pocket.

Instead of being satisfied with that answer, however, Z was ... troubled. (Dr. Calder wasn't the only one who had insights.) What the lady said about being busy made a kind of sense. What didn't was her taking back her maiden name. A divorcee would reclaim her maiden name on the day her divorce was final -- if not before. The question was, why would a widow revert to her old name? To say nothing of doing that so soon after her husband's death?

Thoughts along those lines triggered another consideration. Her husband's first name. Hiram. An uncommon name, Hiram. Hiram Walters.

Then, he knew! "Ma'am, may I ask a question?"

Turned to put away her checkbook, she spun back again. Gave him a puzzled look. "Certainly."

"I think you know I'm a private investigator as well as a security installer."

"Yes."

"Just over a year ago, I was working on a case where some equipment had been stolen by someone using a Hiram Walters' driver's license. There can't be too many Hiram ...."

"I remember that. My husband did lose his billfold with his driver's license in it. The police questioned him about it. Something about someone else using it to steal something. Rental equipment, I believe?"

"That's right. I interviewed him myself at his place of business. He told me he'd lost his license at a party."

"Yes." Said with a razor voice and eyes as cold as polar ice.

She folded her hands in her lap. Squeezed. Her knuckles white. "At a staff party. Bateman staff. My husband ... drank ...." Remembering Hiram Walters' red-veined nose and sickly yellow skin, Z could believe it. "Those days were not a good chapter in my life. Now that we're divorced, I wanted a new start." She shook herself like a person flinching at spider webs. Smiled wanly. "So, what better way to do that than become myself again and move out to the country. What I didn't figure on was being so ... jumpy ... all by myself. Not that I wasn't by myself most of the time I was married to ... him."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Though the woman's explanation didn't solve the missing rentals case, Z was glad to see another piece of the stolen equipment puzzle click in. It also pleased him to be able to lock in a sensible explanation for why an anxious lady like this was living in the country.

As for Ingrid Nielsen, she just had time to give him another spiteful look between goodbye ... and gone.

Backing out of the secretarial station, grumping his way through the large room, pushing through the glass door and tramping down the hall, all Z could think of was that a day would come when a less sensitive man would detach this Ingrid "person's" head; then use it for the purpose for which it was so obviously intended: a bowling ball. ... At least until the head bit off the bowler's thumb!

Able to calm himself by the time he'd arrived at hall-end, he was ready for the second of the day's "adventures" – the Calder meeting -- Z launching himself through the double "airlock" doors to the outside, Ms. Ogden-Walters check in his billfold helping to shield him from the cold.

* * * * *

Chapter 8

The trouble with life was that, when you had a fifty-fifty chance, things went against you seventy-five percent of the time. Knowing this to be a law of nature, Bob Zapolska was not surprised when he reached the end of the line of campus structures without finding the Social Science building. On the other hand, a man didn't have a right to complain if all it took was effort to nullify bad luck.

Occupying himself with these thoughts as a way to avoid thinking about the wind and cold, he backtracked past Science and Technology, Student Services, Administration, Bateman Hall, Continuing Education, and Humanities -- coming, at last, to the farthest building at the other end of the line, its wind-oscillated metal sign lettered: Social Science.

A change of wind blowing Z down the connecting walkway, he was soon inside his second ugly-brick-building-of-the-afternoon, finding himself in a wind break duplicate of the Administration "air lock," going through the second door into an out-sized corridor that had also recently been remodeled, the Social Science building's walls hung -- not with pictures of disapproving elders -- but with framed prints in several styles of art ranging from Piranesi etchings, Sunflowers, an oil painting of a French boating scene, to the photo realism of Don Eddy.

Then too, this was a classroom building, a building with students coursing through its veins.

Ahead and to his right, a cute blond coed in a red wrap-around was bent over a modernistic stainless steel water fountain. Down the hall, a well-dressed boy and girl were seated on the same kind of blond maple benches he'd seen in Administration.

A serious-looking male student in comfortable blue dress slacks was approaching. Notebook in hand, he passed the drinking fountain girl (who, by this time, was sashaying off.)

As Z paused to take off his gloves, he noticed other students further down the hall, several of them tucked into an alcove to the right, a couple of boys and a girl, all sitting on green-and-brown-patterned wing chairs, pulled up around a low, wood frame, glass-topped table.

Except for the decorative wall hangings and a few students in the pleasingly wide hall, the place was empty, the corridor accessing dark-stained numbered doors spaced twenty feet apart, all doors closed except for one.

Careful to keep from limping in this upper class company, Z walked slowly down the dark blue-bordered carpet, when parallel to the open door, glanced in to see what he thought he would: old wood, tablet arm chairs lined up in rows, the teacher's desk in front, a rollover set of U.S. maps standing to one side. Behind the desk was a green chalkboard -- no doubt still called a "black"-board.

Beyond the open classroom, he went past the student conversation area, one of the boys nodding to him politely.

It was at the end of the corridor that he found what had to be the heart of the first floor: an extensive open area fed by right-angle halls; a gathering place with ten to twelve chrome-and-Formica tables, each square table flanked with tubular steel, straight chairs -- seats and back rests of durably molded blue, yellow, or red plastic.

Three vending machines stood against a partition in the room's center, one dispensing Dr. Pepper (and other unhealthy colas,) a second putting out chips and candy, a third offering what looked like soup cans. A four-foot-high grey metal, trash bin was placed to the left of the vending machines, the receptacle's metal "mouth" jammed with cellophane "Twinkie" packages, candy bar wrappers, and macho-crushed cans.

As he watched, two designer-jean, cable-knit-sweater boys came into the food area from the left hall, thick wool overcoats draped over their arms. Pausing, they fed coins into the drink machine, the money rattling down, the machine whirring them its thanks before thumping down their drinks.

Bending over, picking cola cans from the dispenser slot, popping in the can's tab openers with soft hisses, the boys moved to the nearest table and sat down.

A solitary "pleasantly plain" girl sauntered in from the right, bisecting hall, to sit across from the boys.

So few students for the space.

Why?

A glance at a no-nonsense, white with black hands clock over the food machines, cleared up the mystery.

Two-thirty.

If Bateman's courses changed on the hour, most students were in class. The students he was seeing waiting for the next class.

He might have been proud of himself for figuring out the "student shortage" except that he should have guessed the location of the rest of the young people from seeing the closed classroom doors he'd passed coming down the hall. Closed doors meant students and teachers inside. (On the other hand, he was on foreign ground. Couldn't be expected to understand everything at first glance.)

Coming to the end of the entrance corridor, Z zigzagged through the tables until he was in the center of the commons, from that position able to look down each of the connecting halls, seeing something better than what he'd hoped to find -- FACULTY OFFICES -- on a plaque fastened to the right hall wall.

Sidling to the right, weaving between tables, pushing in a chair that was in his way, he exited the lunch room area to pad down the right hallway.

Past more closed doors.

Past more pictures mounted on clear plastic display frames. Early world maps with fanciful borders entwined with mythical beasts. A painting of Grant and Lee at Appomattox. George Washington in a toga. A steam boat on the Mississippi.

The hall's only occupant was a vacant-eyed coed dressed in an understated, brown silk dress who was sitting in the middle of a bench. Did her stunned look tell him she was facing an examination? Could it be she was blind? Was it possible she had drunk embalming fluid? So many questions. So little time to ask them.

Ignoring the girl (who was certainly ignoring him) Z continued to walk until he found what he was looking for: a black-lettered "Faculty Offices" sign on the upper part of a chicken-wire-buried-in-frosted-glass, old-fashioned door.

Pausing to take a deep breath, he turned the wobbly doorknob, pushed the door into the room, and eased himself inside, to find a secretary behind a well-ordered desk to the left of the entrance. An older, blue-haired woman. Efficiency to a fault.

As he entered, the secretary looked up sourly from her task of straightening items on her immaculate desk: paper clips, stapler, typing paper, bottle of correction fluid, ballpoint pen, rubber thumb stall. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

"Dr. Calder?" Z whispered, the woman answering with a shrug in the general direction of an open archway, the secretary back to arranging those naughty paper clips before he had time to ask another stupid question.

Once again experiencing that grade school feeling (the same weakness of stomach he'd gotten when Miss Harrison sent him to the principal's office,) he escaped through the partition to find himself in a windowless workroom.

Battered, gray filing cabinets lined the nearest wall. An old paper cutter and a broken-spined unabridged dictionary on a scarred wood table in the room's center.

A sturdy, library table against the left wall held a copy machine.

Beyond the work table were four, cracked-varnish doors, each with a nameplate.

Skirting the table, moving from right to left, he walked past each door tag in turn: Dr. Jenkins -- Dr. J. D. Paul -- Dr. Washburn -- Hugh Calder.

Sighing his arrival, Z rapped gently on the Calder door; heard a faint "Come in."

Rotating the doorknob, Z pushed, then one-stepped into a narrow space. Wheeling to shut the door he turned back to see that the office was made even smaller by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at each end of the cubicle. Between the bookcases, a scruffy Calder-occupied desk, the professor faced away and tipped back in his chair.

Hearing Z come in, Calder glanced over his shoulder, smiled when he recognized who it was, and wheeled back his desk chair, completing the motion by spinning the chair on a polymer slab designed to protect the room's thin carpet.

An open book and yellow legal pad on the desk said that Dr. Calder had been reading and taking notes.

Less of an office than a vertical coffin, it was probably still the case -- as in business -- that it was more prestigious to inhabit your own rathole than to share luxury space with a colleague.

Dr. Calder now launched himself to his feet to shake Z's hand. "Glad you could come."

The greeting over, Z saw the doctor's welcoming smile sag like a "happy face" gone wrong, a sober Calder taking a step around him to get the professor's overcoat off a metal hook on the back of the door.

"I still don't believe Tommie Victor killed himself." While Dr. Calder had been trying to read and take notes, it was obvious he'd just spoken the final words in a mental dialogue he'd been having about the fate of the dead janitor. "You've got to understand the situation here." Wrapping a pocket stuffed, white wool scarf around his neck, Calder struggled into his coat. Began buttoning it. "This is a private school, newly purchased by a religious outfit." A quick grimace said a lot. "By 'newly', I mean two years ago.

"And you have to give it to them." The professor paused to pat both coat pockets -- nodded his satisfaction that the bulges meant his gloves were in them.

"They've poured in money. Fixed the place up."

Calder seemed to be the kind of guy who was always fair -- even to people he didn't like. A noble trait more talked about than practiced.

"Fixed up the halls?" Z said.

Calder nodded. "Though most of the improvements have been cosmetic, this outfit also put in a central system with ducts to all the buildings for both heat and air conditioning." In his absent-minded way, Calder paused while rummaging out his gloves. "I can't tell you how moldy it was in these buildings, particularly in old Bateman Hall, before they did that. Must have cost a fortune to put in a big forced-air system like that.

"But like I was saying," the prof continued, transferring both gloves to one hand as he continued to explain, "this is a private school. And that means it's expensive to come here. That being the case, the reputation of the school is all-important in attracting students. Which leads me ... finally," he said, grinning boyishly, "to my point. The-powers-that-be will do anything to hush up a scandal that might tarnish the good name of Bateman College."

"Like when a college official hints that the Victor death was a suicide," Z purred.

"Right. Very perceptive." Z was suddenly the focus of Calder's shrewd appraising look. "Particularly for a man too dumb to go to college."

Calder grinned again before doing his instant sober shift of mood. "What I think ... and I have no proof of this except my knowledge of how the administration of this place operates ... is that they're scared to death that a student might have shot Tommie V."

"Why would that ...?"

"Remember. At this college, a student murderer would be the son -- or daughter -- of someone pretty well-fixed -- because that's the only kind of kids who can afford to go here. Not only would having a murderer for an offspring sour a rich daddy on the school, but a murder on campus would scare off other students."

"Why would a student kill the janitor"?

"Who knows?" Calder nudged his chair to one side and leaned back against his desk, bracing himself there with both hands.

Z remembered something. "There's no doubt that what Professor Furlwangler said is true, that the murder happened in the basement of Bateman Hall?"

Again, an unexpected grin from the prof. "I'd be embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to remember Fritz's name." Quickly serious, Calder nodded his agreement about the basement.

Forgetting entirely about leaving the office, backing up to his desktop, pushing down on it with his hands, Calder hopped up to sit. Laid his gloves beside him.

"Any student business in that basement?" Z asked.

"I don't think so. Mostly, Bateman's a hollow shell. Built around the school's auditorium. Some classes are held in Bateman, of course, in smaller rooms around the theater's perimeter. Dramatics. Speech.

"All the rooms upstairs are used for storage, I believe.

"As for the building's basement, from what I've heard, there's nothing down there that would be of interest to students."

Wanting to be entirely accurate, Calder paused to rethink that answer. "Maybe to a drama student. The place was described to me as having old props -- set storage -- that kind of thing. We'll go over in a minute to see for ourselves."

The chubby professor paused; assumed his introspective look. "If what I've been told is true, the place where Tommie V was killed is just about as far off the beaten track as possible. Even with directions, it may take me awhile to locate the spot. Got my map coordinates from Allen Kaiser -- American Lit. He got them from Lucas himself."

"Lucas?"

"Terbrugghen. Speech -- Drama. He's the director of what passes for theater on this campus. If Bateman Hall is anybody's building, it's Terbrugghen's." Calder paused again; leaned back on one arm; contemplated the cracked plaster ceiling. "All I can think of is that Tommie V might have stumbled onto a drug buy." He looked at Bob again. Shrugged. "Students here have a lot of money. Some are spoiled rotten. I've had run-ins with students who think that, because they're rich, they can get away with anything."

"A place to take your girl? Out of the way like that?"

"Could be." Calder shrugged. "As I said, I haven't seen the room myself."

Dead sober again.

"The only thing I'm certain of is that Tommie V didn't kill himself! I know him. He was happy here at Bateman."

"Happy ... being a janitor?" Z immediately regretting sounding so snobbish. Nor was he unaware that some people considered a custodian's job to be a cleaner way to make a living than being a P.I. There were even times he would agree with them.

"Not everybody wants to be a nuclear physicist," Calder was saying. Scooting back, the prof put his palms on the desk to either side of him. Crossing his ankles, Dr. Calder began to swing his legs. "Tommie liked being a custodian. It was a step up for him."

"Up?"

"His father cleaned Greyhound buses for a living. Tommie V was 'Cleaning a college.' That's the way he put it to me. He was proud of the work he was doing here. And it showed! He was doing a hell of a job.

"But enough of that. What I wanted to impress on you is that Tommie V was a happy man." The professor hesitated to consider that assertion one more time. "I'm a psychologist. I think I could tell if he had mental problems. And he didn't. His death wasn't suicide."

Warm enough to begin unbuttoning his coat, Z thought about the likely conclusion to the Victor case. Though it wasn't the sort of thing you told civilians, he was certain the verdict would be suicide. If only because little effort would be expended unraveling a janitor's demise. Turn the world upside down to find a stolen Monet, but deep-six an investigation into the death of a common worker.

Z was unexpectedly embarrassed to realize that even his interest was in the missing painting. He knew and loved that painting. Didn't know the janitor. Simple as that.

The situation reviewed, Calder was up again, gloves in hand, waving Z though the door ahead of him.

Shutting the door behind them, the prof led Z through the workroom, past the look-busy secretary, Calder opening the door to the hall.

A hall radically changed!

Jammed with students!, young people popping out of open doorways, talking to one another in cheerful, raised voices -- students calling to friends down the hall -- students holding books and notes and pens and parts of each other's anatomy. Some of the boys had lumpy backpacks strapped to their shoulders. Fresh-faced coeds lugged carryalls.

Z looked at his watch. Five minutes until two.

So this was what college looked like between classes.

The boys, as he'd expected, were dressed in slacks and shirts -- here and there a "rebel" (radically garbed in tailored, hand-stitched jeans.) Girls attire ran to smart wool skirts with matching jackets, most girls wearing blouses of color-coordinated, curve-enhancing silk.

Following Calder's brisk lead through the student throng, they arrived at the open central area, the place alive with the younger set. Lines had formed before the machines while, at the buzzing tables, young women (no doubt because of overcrowding), sat in young men's laps.

A number of students -- all smiles -- spoke to the prof as he skirted their tables. Hearing Calder's name, students across the room turned to call and wave.

For his part, Calder went out of his way to speak to students. To smile. To hold his gloves in the air like a fighter celebrating victory. A friendly kind of guy. If, Z thought, he ever did decide to go to college -- unlikely as that might be -- he could do worse than have Calder for a teacher.

Past the tables, a left turn aimed them at the outside door, Z buttoning up, Dr. Calder putting on his gloves.

As Z had imagined they would be, the classroom doors were open; students rushing in; others rushing out.

Still following Calder's enthusiastic lead, the two of them pushed through the double exit doors at the building's front, Z again assaulted by the wind's bite, a gale that didn't seem to "nip" a well-padded Calder, the prof starting a running monologue about the college and its buildings.

At the end of the Social Science path, they turned left to hike along the crowded front sidewalk.

Here, too, they moved through cross migrations of bundled-up students, scarves wrapped around mouths and noses.

For two more minutes when, like magic, Z and the professor were alone.

Three o'clock.

Once more, the classrooms had sucked in the school's students. Would spit them out again at ten 'til four.

Z and Calder arriving at the walkway to Bateman Hall, they turned in, the wind blowing them from the "promenade" toward the porch of what was undeniably the architectural atrocity of the campus, Bateman Hall, a building of fanciful cupolas, ginger breading and corner towers to no purpose, topped by a multi-gabled roof, the roof's high points pierced by blue-ball lightening rods, the tallest roof-point crested with a copper-eagle weather vane.

"This is the original school," Calder said as they penetrated the "asparagus"-topped colonnade to step up on the low Bateman porch. "All of it. In just this one building."

Stopped by a massive double-door portcullis, Calder dragged back the hammer-marked wrought iron handle of the right hand door, the door groaning out slowly -- like all doors in all movies -- about all monsters.

The professor then held the heavy door while motioning Z to go inside.

Sure. Let Big Bob Zapolska confront whatever lurked in there!

No help for it without declaring himself a wimp, Z entered, Calder trailing, the slam of the heavy door behind them severing the wind's wail as cleanly as the chop of a guillotine.

Calder resuming the lead, they went through a more modern door into the building's entrance way -- again, newly painted.

Urn-bone white.

Incandescent bulbs in high old-fashioned, bubble glass fixtures provided what little light reached the worn hardwood floor. Even with recent renovation, the building showed its age. Was dark and echoey.

At the far end of the entrance hall, a solitary student scuttled, roach-like, out of view.

Pausing to pocket their gloves and unbutton their coats, Bob looked around to see that the building's empty two-story lobby featured a high-backed bench to the left. Beyond the bench, old-fashioned, dark wood display cases mounted above a vertically grooved walnut-varnished dado.

In the showcases were what looked like old photographs of nineteenth-century graduating classes.

Z seeming to show interest in the exhibits, Calder resumed his historic monologue. "The founder of the school was an eccentric named P. T. Bateman. Seemed to have made his fortune in the gold rush of '49 when he was young. In his old age, he bought the land here, land that turned out to cover a rich vein of native limestone. In fact, this building is built out of the stone quarried from beneath it. Old Bateman used student labor for the most part. That's why the building's so lop-sided and has such surprising nooks and crannies. In some ways, he was before his time. Had the vision that the School of the Ozarks later carried out -- of poor students sweating out their tuition on the job. That was before Bateman became a rich kid's school.

"Straight ahead," Calder said, pointing, "is the school's auditorium. Through those arches."

The access ways Calder was indicating were located fifteen feet to either side of another moldering trophy case, both horseshoe arches robed in black velvet. Through the curtained entrances would be the standard old-barn-of-an-auditorium: gray cement floor falling precipitously from back to front, wood-laminate arena seats bolted to the floor in curving rows, orchestra pit between the front row and the elevated stage, a two-story, many-folded curtain mantling the platform.

Grand style, dark wood staircases curved up to either side to give access the theater's balcony. The kind of stairway Rhett Butler mounted to sweep a feebly protesting Scarlett up to bed.

Glancing at the ceiling above the end-of-the-hall-trophy-case, Z noticed two soaring plaster eagles sculpted in old-fashioned high relief, the eagles flying at each other.

Prowling the ten steps it took to stand beneath the birds, he pointed up. "Eagles?"

"That's the school's original mascots," the professor called, his raised voice rebounding from the walls. "We're the Lions, now."

"Two of them?"

Left behind, the professor quick marched his approach. A hollow silence came with his arrival. "Just another thing you can put down to the quirkiness of Old Man Bateman."

Z looked up again. No doubt about it, the birds were either going to kamikaze into one another or smack into the top of what looked like a stylized mountain placed between them.

"It was a long time before I knew the significance of the eagles," Calder continued. "It was Oliver Washburn, our Classics man, who told me what the eagles represent. Bateman got them from a Greek myth." Calder, lecturing.

"The Greeks believed that, in the beginning of the world, the head god set two eagles loose, one from the eastern edge of the earth, one from the western. Flying inland, the eagles met at the exact center of the world."

Calder pointed up, between the eagles. "See that funny-looking thing between them, that conical lump that looks like a big thimble?"

"Yeah."

"That's the Omphalos – the elaborately crosshatched, bullet-shaped rock that ancient Greeks set up to mark the center of the world where the eagles met. You find this bird-and-Omphalos motif in the strangest places in this building. In carved wood panels; outlined in tile on the bathroom floors." He grinned. "My guess is that this place was the center of old Bateman's life. And that's the reason for this kind of symbolism."

Though Z didn't know what to say to "symbolism" -- it wasn't a word much used in the detective trade -- he had a flash of insight about where he'd seen that fancy engraved rock. "Old Man Bateman" had used, not asparagus tops, but Omphaloi for capitals on the columns outside.

Finished with his lecture about the college's former mascot(s), Calder stuck out his arm like a cavalry commander signaling troops, then took off to the left, Z following, the two of them skirting the front of the assembly hall, their footsteps ricocheting down a dark and empty, grim-doored corridor until they'd "cleared" the auditorium's width.

Turning right at that point, they single filed down a too-narrow hall, sidling past sallow-skinned students, a boy then a girl, coming their way. Drama majors?

Finally, Calder still in the lead, the two of them angled sharply right to rattle down a rickety flight of warped, splintery stairs, the steps descending into ... blackness.

At the pitchy bottom, patting his hand around the wall, Calder found, then snapped a switch, banks of industrial fluorescents flickering on to show a dirty-walled, windowless basement jammed with scabby tables topped with cardboard boxes, wrought iron light stands, and rusty cylindrical klieg lamps.

The floor was littered with colored squares of filter gel, crumpled play bills, pieces of ragged scrim, grease pencils, rusty tools, saws, old-fashioned ball-peen hammers, screwdrivers, a wood T-square, corroded nails, and decaying screws.

Leaning against the far wall were stacks of ripped-up canvas flats.

The pungent scent of spirit gum spiced up the room's stale air; the background odor ... oil paint gone bad.

In front of the ruined flats were racks of clothing (costumes?) -- all these items no doubt used at some time in some play.

A series of free-standing wardrobe-like wooden stalls had been built along the right wall, their warped doors swung wide.

At the back of each cell, a dusty full-length mirror.

A low shelf was fastened inside each partition. Straight chairs inside.

Dressing rooms for student actors, was Z's guess.

Dr. Calder still in the lead, they threaded their way through the room's junk; stepped over bent nails; passed a hundred cankerous paint cans stacked along the walls, Z tripping up a wad of dirt-encrusted muslin near the back.

After a brief search at the far wall, the professor gave a chuckle as he pointed out a narrow, wood door behind a square stone buttress.

"This wasn't so hard to find, after all," the professor bragged, beaming.

But only if you'd been given detailed directions, Z thought, Z wondering how many years it would take someone to stumble across that recessed door. Decided it would be longer than a student was likely to be enrolled at Bateman.

Meanwhile, Calder had turned the dented doorknob and squeaked the door open.

Moving behind the professor, looking over Calder's shoulder, Z could see shadowy stairs that, after four steps, plunged into gloom.

Again by feel, Calder found an old-fashioned circular switch, turning it to snap on a faint light far below.

Now with at least some light to see by, in single file because the ladder-like stairs were so constricted, Calder in the lead as always, they started down, the doctor going cautiously, the walls and ceiling of the cramped stairway wedging in as they descended through murky semi-darkness toward the light source at the bottom, Z buttoning his coat with one hand as they "fell" into the ever-colder pit, using his other hand to clutch a handrail loosely pinned to the right stone wall.

Determined to keep up, he was on Calder's heels as the professor clopped off the last step into the rakish light of what must have been a 150 watt bulb -- its dazzling steel coil blazing through clear glass -- the bulb dangling from twisted, cloth-wrapped wires hung in the center of the low room's limestone ceiling.

Squinting in the glare of the tungsten filament, shielding his eyes, Z saw that the floor of this subterranean cavity -- like the basement above -- was crammed with theater decor, a room filled with padded chairs and gangrenous divans, all of them long banished to this theatrical graveyard. Plainly, this was the place where old props came to die.

Junked at the front were two festering horse hair sofas, multiple rips in their brown cloth cushions leaking dirty kapok.

Mangled end tables had been piled on the divans, scrofulous throw rugs draped over the sofa's backs.

A squat coffee table rested on its back before a sofa -- the table's sawed-off leg no doubt a casualty of the Civil War.

Art deco lamps with dented cardboard shades stood on wobbly stands.

Moldering dressers, taborets, stools, and sideboards were tumbled here and there. One spindly gate-leg -- too infirm to stand on its own -- was propped up by an ottoman.

Two dressers with cracked mirrors, were shoved against the right wall, the wood veneer of the vanities' sides sloughed off in the underground wet.

Limp rolled-up rugs were stacked in a long, unlovely pile against the far wall.

Z's quick appraisal of the place was that, while a junky could do drugs in a hole like this, it was no place to take a girl. Certainly not one of the upscale cutes in the college world above.

Three of the room's walls looked like they'd been hacked from solid rock, the one to the left built of hastily cemented cinder blocks.

No wasted paint down here in the damp.

A second once-over confirmed Z's first impression. The place was as dank as any crypt.

"This is where it happened?" A scrubbed spot. Blood cleaned up?

"Yes. According to Kaiser quoting Terbrugghen, Tommie V was found over there in front of the fireplace." Though speaking in a normal tone, Calder's voice twanged from the stone walls like the thump of a one-string, steel guitar.

Fireplace? Yes. Against the left wall, a fireplace. As absurdly placed as in a room designed to chill cadavers!

Fascinated by finding a fireplace in this hole, Z stared at it.

Until ... he saw something ... truly odd.

Casters.

The fireplace had casters.

Casters? ......

Of course!

Like everything else in the room, the fireplace was a counterfeit -- a theater prop, the casters there to make it easier for stagehands to roll it on and off the stage above.

Observing the hearth, Z noticed a flying eagle engraved in the limestone floor before it, the bird hell-bent on self-immolation in the fake fireplace.

Eagles in odd places, Calder had said -- this being one of them.

Had Old Man Bateman considered even this room to be the center of his world? (Z fervently hoped that, while investigating the Victor case, the center of Z's world would not become this blighted place.)

A further reconsideration of the room had Z noticing that, beside the sinkhole's "grave-like" odor, the space had ... another smell. Equally unhealthy. Acrid. Poisonous.

Testing the air carefully, trying to categorize that stench, he wondered if he'd smelled anything like it.

On the other hand, why wouldn't the room smell bad? Everything here was ... filthy, the crumbling limestone sifting rock dust to the floor.

"The paper said the gun was a prop." In this morgue, even Z's whispered voice hissed back. He could imagine how deafening the report of a gun would be down here.

"Used in a play before my time. A detective thriller, Kaiser said," Calder continuing to explain. "As a safety measure, a modified starter's pistol is generally used in plays, a gun that fires nothing but blanks. It was just that this particular drama took a number of guns, some of them borrowed from who-knows-where. The gun that was used on Tommie V had never been returned to its owner, it seems. Lucas said the police found the gun beside Tommie V. Also the cardboard box the gun came in, the box nearby on the cushion of a sofa." Calder pointed to the most likely place the box could have been: about the only open spot on the rug-strewn, table-piled divans. "The box had extra bullets in it."

"So anyone might have run across the gun. Loaded it." Z thought of something else. "All this comes directly or indirectly from the same professor?"

"Oh. Yes. It was Lucas who found the body. Led the police down here."

Figured. Calder had said this was the director's building.

"What was the janitor doing here? Not cleaning." Z waved a finger at the dusty furniture.

"Doesn't look like it. But, in fact, that's just what he was doing. Or, I probably should say, was getting ready to do. The powers-that-be had ordered the school cleaned from top to bottom or, in this case, from bottom to top. Part of the on going facelift of the college. Even I knew a general clean-up was in the works." Calder paused. "Some of us thought that faculty offices should be next in line at the renovation trough, but ....." Calder shrugged. Smiled the smile of the good loser. "Tommie V was on overtime that night. Someone remembered hearing him say he was going to start at the bottom and work his way up. He'd brought a bucket of water and a string mop down here."

"Mop and pail? Doesn't seem like someone bent on suicide."

"Not to me," Calder agreed.

"Do you know where he was shot?" Using his forefinger for a gun barrel, Z pointed to his own temple.

"In the chest," Calder corrected. "Twice!" Calder's meaning: a suicide couldn't have pulled the trigger more than once.

It was Z's turn to shrug. "In K.C. sometime back, a suicide shot himself three times -- with two different guns."

"Oh." Calder was disappointed.

"Pretty rare, though. The old rule generally holds. Jumpers are crazy or on drugs -- trying to fly as often as not. Women take pills, but not enough. Men drive into bridge abutments, run their cars in closed garages, or shoot themselves in the temple. Cops eat their gun barrels -- which is the best way. Blows off the top of your head."

Calder turned even paler in the unflattering light.

"Actually," Z said quickly, changing the subject more to distract Calder than to point it out, "while the furniture is dirty, the floor looks pretty clean -- except for that white, rock dust along the left wall."

And that was it for "clues."

Nothing helpful -- no surprise there. Detective work was nothing like on T.V., clues found at the crime scene rarely pointing to the criminal. As for fingerprints, a seasoned crook hadn't left his prints in 40 years. The bad guys were caught -- if and when -- because a "friend" made a deal with the D.A. -- or out of revenge -- or for money. Under police pressure, hookers ratted out Johns. Cops rarely busted anyone without a tip.

So, what about this case? Like Calder, Z saw it as a killing. Even more so because the janitor had brought his cleaning gear. Also because, while two shots to the chest was possible like he'd told the professor, it was rare.

What the death could not be was an accident -- the janitor finding an unloaded gun (the most deadly gun of all,) fooling with it until he accidentally zapped himself. The second shot ruled out accidental death.

Had the custodian's prints been on the gun? Had they discovered powder burns on the janitor's hand? Had big money warned the cops off this case? Or more likely, had someone dropped what seemed to be a low-class ball.

If honest, the fuzz were wrong. Again.

Maybe, Z thought, if he'd been able to see the body before the police removed it .......?

Still .... something could turn up ... somewhere ... sometime. Luck, be a lady tonight.

And that was that.

Hardly any chance of luck either, Z knew, as he followed Calder up the stairs. Luck never happening to the little guy. Not to the Tommie Victors of this world.

From his own experience, Z knew the only luck that poor folks could expect was bad ... day after day ... in all the sorry, humdrum corners of the world.

* * * * *

Chapter 9

As Z waited in his office -- the metal incinerator lids behind the office complex reflecting interesting light patterns through the grime of his "front" window -- he thought about how rare it was to have everything go right.

In the first place, he was making money; had most of the Maddox thousand. In addition, except for what the locks would cost, he still had the eight hundred he'd collected from Ms. Ogden. (A couple hours work next Saturday and the Ogden project would be finished.) He'd also make an indeterminate amount of money from Calder for looking into the Victor murder.

Because he had no illusions about being able to find the janitor's killer, he felt uneasy about accepting Calder's money. Technically, of course, all he'd been hired to do was look for the murderer. (Certainly more than anyone else was going to do.) Still, knowing there was little chance of success was a violation of "results guaranteed."

To make himself feel better, he decided to limit Dr. Calder's fee to two hundred dollars, the Victor case almost over, after all, Z needing only to put in a call to Ted Newbold to find out if the local cops knew anything they weren't telling. And that would be it. Two hundred dollars for half the Bateman College trip, plus a phone call -- a fee that compared nicely with the hourly rate of plumbers.

The best news was not about money but that he'd gotten Susan on the phone. (Since he'd remembered she didn't have classes on Friday nights, he'd called her early.) When he'd asked, Susan had confirmed his deductive powers by admitting she'd been pulling the plug on the phone after getting home from night school, then going right to bed.

Talking to Susan, he realized for the first time that going to school was like Susan taking on a part-time job after working all day. "Moonlighting" like that, it figured she'd be too tired to see him all that much; also too exhausted to party with her brand-new college friends.

The best news of all was that Susan had invited him over for dinner tomorrow night, dinner and what would develop later -- the best of reasons to be in a great, good mood.

Even the day had turned out to be a warm 20 degrees. Pretty good for January in Western Missouri. A perfect day -- except that the K.C. detective would soon be arriving.

Without being aware of it, Z found himself with lighter in hand, nervously flicking the flame off and on.

Stopped himself.

Slipped the lighter back in his pocket.

Wanting to calm himself some other way, he got up from his desk to get the latest paperback out of the top file drawer, a Hillerman novel.

At the desk again, leg propped up comfortably, Z was soon "beamed" to the Arizona desert -- all sand and wind and sheep and Navahos and Indian customs. A place as far removed from the life of Big Bob Zapolska as the Man-Kinz space wars were from Kansas City.

A knock on the hall door transported him from the life of smart Jim Chee of the Navaho police to being plain Bob Zapolska sitting in his starkly furnished office in the drafty Northland.

Again, the knock.

Since Z never had walk-in trade, this had to be the K.C. fuzz. (It was Z's ability to reason like that that had made him what he was today. ... Not much.)

Feeling less comfortable than he should in his own office, Z eased down his leg, got up, hobbled around his desk, and went through the arch to open the hall door.

"Mr. Zapolska"? Under the black unbuttoned overcoat was a black suit on an equally black man. Close-cropped black hair. Short black mustache.

You didn't see that many blacks North-of-the-River; the detective from downtown Kansas City where blacks were no big deal.

"I'm Bob Zapolska."

Z found himself expecting the man to introduce himself as Detective Black. Silly thought.

"Willis Addison." A leather flip-over badge appeared in the man's hand.

Reflexes of a cat.

Voice, a leopard's cough.

"Come in."

The K.C. detective sliding in, Z closed the door behind him. "Just put your coat on my secretary's desk. She won't be in today." Or any other day, Z muttered beneath his breath. Though he'd told the strict truth about his "secretary" not coming in, it was at least a gray-white lie to deliberately mislead a K.C. detective. Had Z "fibbed" because he needed the prestige of a secretary to help him hold his own?

"Thanks."

With his coat off, the detective was short of six feet. Wiry. Forty, maybe. Some paunch at the belt line of the suit. A small bulge in the hollow under his left shoulder.

Z didn't own a gun; couldn't afford the insurance to carry one. Another reason he didn't "pack heat" was he'd never known anybody without a "piece" to shoot someone.

So what else did he know about the K.C. cop? Shoulder holster on the left meant he was right-handed. Spoke "standard American." More and a better quality of education than Z had. Adding up to a bright big-time cop with a big-time case saddled to his back.

The man shedding his coat and folding it over the "secretarial" desk, Z led the detective into the main office.

Z going around to sit behind his own desk, he motioned Addison to bring up the straight chair.

Trailing, Addison turned, got the chair, placed it facing the front of the desk, eased himself around the chair and lowered himself on the seat.

The lieutenant leaning forward just a little, putting both feet on the floor in a semi-wide stance. Used his left hand to unbuttoned his single-breasted coat (to make it easier to draw his thirty-eight or fourth-five or whatever the hell K.C. detectives carried these days?) Having a touch of paranoia helped in the detective business.

Looking over the desk, Z saw that a notebook had appeared in the detective's lap, a pen in the lieutenant's hand.

"A Gladstone detective, Ted Newbold," Addison began, "told me you've got an interest in the stolen Monet." Said in a flat, measured voice.

There had been a change in the cop's attitude. From the door to the desk, this cop had become all business, his round brown eyes turned into shiny steel balls.

Z caught himself fingering the slug-dent through his shirt. Made himself stop. Susan didn't like to be reminded that he took that hit shielding her from her maniac husband.

"I take it that you and Detective Newbold are personal friends."

"High school."

"He didn't seem clear about your interest in the painting."

If Z couldn't convince Ted that Z just liked that painting, how was Z going to explain that to this Addison guy? ... When all else fails, try the truth.

"I like it."

Z leaned back in his groaning swivel chair. Thinking that, if he could just relax, maybe he could get the detective to ease up as well.

Trying to at least look comfortable, Z lifted his foot up on the desk, a gesture that ... seemed to do the trick, Addison smiling suddenly. Not a big grin, but a smile, nevertheless. The black man settled back as well. Crossed his legs.

"I like that painting, too. Everybody does." The smile widened. "I think we can say everybody without including your cop friend."

Since Addison's teeth were more than a little crooked, he hadn't had a rich teeth-fixin' Daddy, either. ....

Another thought. With a black working on the painting case, Z couldn't help but wonder if some higher-up had stuck Addison with a loser; to let a black man take the fall when things went wrong.

A chicken shit strategy that could backfire, though. You give a man a case that's supposed to make him look bad -- he solves it -- and the next thing you know, that man is your boss and you're in the department crapper cleaning toilets.

Whatever the politics, if Addison pulled this off, he'd go up in the department. No way they could hold him back after that. Too many important people, even the mayor, would know Addison was the man who'd delivered.

However this came down, this was one black man who'd been given a chance to prove himself. When looked at realistically, getting a chance to shine was more than most folks got. Black or white.

Z thought of Lincoln Carver Thompson. Everybody cheered when Lincoln made an extra point or kicked a field goal. But after high school, nobody in town would offer him a job. When Lincoln got caught with hot tires, Z was the only one to say a good word for him at the hearing. That was a lot of years ago, of course. If Lincoln couldn't have found a job today, he'd qualify for food stamps. Trade the stamps for cocaine. Become a dealer. Make a million. And be shot dead at twenty-two. ... If there was any truth to what you saw on the TV news.

"I hear you're feeling heat," Z said, returning to the topic at hand, trying to be sympathetic.

"Part of the job."

They were a lot different. And a lot alike.

"My girlfriend likes art," Z offered, feeling something needed to be said. "She dragged me to the Nelson. Got to be a habit. The "Boulevard" -- that's my favorite. I used to sit and look at it."

"I know."

"Yeah?"

Wetting his thumb, the detective flipped pages in his notebook like an old-time bank teller ruffles paper money. Faster than the eye can see.

Stopping at the page he wanted. Looked up at Z. "Several museum guards reported that a number of patrons were especially interested in that painting. One of them was described as ...," Looking down, he began to read, "... a big man, over 6 feet, middle-aged, narrow-set eyes, prematurely gray hair. Eastern European-looking. Reported to sit on the bench in front of the "Boulevard des Capucines" every few weeks and for long periods. Quiet man. A man who limped." Looking up, Addison smiled his friendly smile while flipping to an unused page in the notebook, pen still held loosely between thumb and forefinger, ready to jot more notes.

"The next day," the cop explained, "Like magic, I get this call from a Gladstone detective that a friend of his is interested in the painting." The man shrugged. "I'm checking every lead. Asked for a description. And ... here I am."

"Not too many people fit that make," Z agreed.

"Hurt your leg on the force? That why you're private, now?"

"Never a cop."

"Pretty rare for a P.I."

"I know. I hurt my knee playing football."

"College?"

"High school."

"Tough break ... no pun intended." A sharp guy, this Addison.

"Killed a college scholarship. The last game of the season, too. Against the enemy, Raytown." Z didn't generally talk so much. Was he rattling on because he was still a little nervous?

For his part, Addison didn't look like he had anyplace else to be. "Hiding out" had been Ted's guess for why Addison wanted to come North-of-the-River.

"Pony Express Conference?" Addison asked, Z nodding. "I played for Central. I wasn't very big ... but I sure was slow." The detective grinned.

Addison was something pretty rare: a black man with a sense of humor. Z didn't find much humor in the blacks he read about in the paper. Or saw on TV. ... Except for comedians.

"The knee wasn't that bad. Just couldn't make cuts. After high school, I drove a Pepsi truck. Worked for a landscaping outfit. Did carpentry. Heavy construction. Moving boxes at a warehouse." (Z left out the year he'd worked for a locksmith; thought that was the prudent thing to do.) "It was labor jobs that took out what was left of the knee. So I got into the P.I. business. Sort of backed into that. Did some favors for friends. Installed security systems. Got hired as bodyguard or to scare away thugs." There was another pause. "You think my interest in the painting is more than just interest?" Z's voice, never good, was about to desert him with all this talk.

"No."

"Then ...?"

"It was something else your cop friend said over the phone. Said you were one hell of a football player. High school hero, was the way he put it." Addison smiled a funny kind of wish-I'd-been-a-hero smile.

Z and Addison had football in common, too. Football and crooked teeth. "Anyway," the K.C. detective continued, "I got the idea that one of your friends was a wise guy."

The way Ted could run off at the mouth, Z wondered if Addison knew what kind of underwear Z wore.

Damn, Ted!

Thinking about the current situation, in the keeping-your-mouth-shut department, how much should private eye Bob Zapolska tell the K.C. dick about Johnny? How much did Z know about Johnny D?

"I got one or two former friends that you hear rumors about, but ...."

"Don't get me wrong," Addison interrupted, the leopard sound of his voice pitching up when he talked fast. "I don't want names. And I don't judge a man by his friends. I know how a P.I.'s got to work. You need your sources, same as we do." Again, the intelligent grin. "I'd be in jail myself, judged by my sources." Z nodded.

A sensible man, this Willis Addison. Most of the blacks you saw on TV or read about in the paper acted like crazy people. Always yelling. Speaking some kind of shit language nobody could understand. Into drugs; shooting one another. At the same time, Z knew that TV gave you the wrong impression of practically everything. That's why he didn't watch it much. That's why you needed newspapers. That's why you needed both a morning and an EVENING paper! So you could find out what was really going on.

"My only interest is in finding the missing painting," Addison was saying, his voice back to its throaty rumble. "Just that." He waved the notebook. "Oh, I'd like to catch the son-of-a-bitch who stole it." Said with controlled heat. "But that's not the thrust of this kind of case. It's the painting that's important. You, me, and the perp will all be dead in fifty years. But the painting ...." Addison waved the book again. "And something else that's not a secret is that the insurance company that's holding the paper on the 'Boulevard' will deal. To get the painting back, they'll pay more than whoever took it can get by trying to fence it. No questions asked."

Addison didn't like it. He was a cop's cop. Wanted to get the bad guys. Something else that he was, though, was a realist. "So I've got to play every angle. Which comes down to you having a connection I don't have. Your high school friend."

"Think he's involved?"

"No. That's not what I mean. What I mean is, is there any chance he'd know who might be? I could use a middle man here, someone to deal through."

"I can ask." A pretty easy task since he'd already done it.

"Good."

Now was the time to establish the ground rules that Z wanted. "The way I see it, I got to be the only one involved."

"Sure."

"No taps, nobody trailing me."

"You got it."

"This is going to be a dry hole, that's my guess."

It made sense to be completely honest about this. You didn't want to get a desperate cop's hopes up if you couldn't deliver. Any more than it was a bright idea to snatch a hunk of meat from a starving dog.

"Probably." He knew.

And now, a favor for a favor -- just like with the mob itself.

"My friend Ted thinks you've got a Northland connection to the theft."

"Possible."

"Anything you can tell me? It might make a difference when I ask around."

"I don't know how much I should say."

The detective paused, looked thoughtful. Shrugged. "The truth is, we've got so little, it doesn't matter."

"I'm not interested in shooting off my mouth about it."

"I believe it." Addison paused to organize his thoughts. Used a thick black finger to smooth both sides of his short mustache. "You've been reading the articles in the Star?"

"Yeah."

"You remember that a painting was substituted for the real one?" Z nodded. "In the process of painting the fake, whoever did it set the back of the picture down on wet paint, then on a newspaper. We got a scrap of newsprint that way. A fragment from a newspaper that got torn off because it was stuck in dried paint. It turns out to have been from one of those weekly papers printed in the Northland. The Dispatch.

"So you think the phony could have been painted in this area?"

"Possible."

"Sounds more than possible. Sounds probable." It was Z's turn to consider that little piece of news. "And you hoped that, since I was from the Northland too, and had shown some interest, I might be involved."

The detective smiled his crooked-toothed smile. "Too much to hope for. Still, when you've got nothing ....."

A small silence grew between them.

"Speculation in the paper's been that one of the gallery's own guards took it," Z said at last.

"Except he wasn't a real guard."

"No?"

The detective smiled ruefully. "Somebody playing guard."

The black cop snapped his notebook shut at that; slipped it inside his breast coat pocket.

The interview was over. They were just talking now. Off the record.

"It worked like this. A few months ago, an old guy applies for a position of guard at the Nelson. They got a lot of them -- work part time for peanuts. Retirees." Z nodded. "Called himself George Hobson. Gave as an address a rented room in one of the big houses just to the north of the gallery. Did guard duty three afternoons a week.

"After the confusion of the first day, there's never been a question of who took the painting. George Hobson took it. Not his name, naturally. What we got is the fake he left behind -- and the single-edged razor blade he used to cut the original out of its frame. We even got the safety strip he took off his razor blade. Found that in the coat pocket of this "Hobson's" guard jacket he left in a gallery locker.

"The old guy wore white cotton gloves all the time. He told the gallery people when they hired him he had a skin condition on his hands. Eczema. They hired him because what harm could wearing cotton gloves do? When the gallery personnel have to handle the gallery's items, the staff always put on white cotton gloves themselves."

"So, no prints," Z said dryly.

The detective smiled. Not ever any prints was an inside joke.

All this was interesting, if not important. Though it could mean the pretend-guard had known that wearing cotton gloves wouldn't keep him from getting hired: meaning, in turn, that the thief wasn't somebody right off the street.

"We got his rented room across from the gallery," Addison continued. "Cleared out, naturally. Except for some more of the same cotton glove fibers and makeup stains on the dresser." Addison cleared his throat. "So here's how it comes down. There never was a legitimate guard. Maybe, there never was an old man. What we got is someone -- young or old -- play-acting guard. In makeup and gloves.

"He's in the gallery as it closes, hides somewhere, cuts the painting out of the frame, substitutes a copy -- probably to fool the end-of-the-day security checks -- and just walks out the back door with the original.

"How he smuggled the painting out with him, we don't know. The Nelson people are worried sick he folded it -- really done it damage that way.

"Anyway, after he steals the painting, he goes across the street to his rented room, takes off his disguise and disappears ... as himself."

"Professional," Z said, nodding. "And that's why you think there might be a mob connection?"

"That's what I'd like to have you check out -- if you could."

"Do my best."

"As for anyone thinking it might be you. No way it could have been. Oh, there for a moment ...." Another black man's toothy grin. "Did I tell you that 'George Hobson' limped?"

"No."

"Slick as he was, we don't even know if that's for real." The detective shook his head. "One thing he couldn't fake, though, was his height. Not more than five-eleven. Sure, he walked bent over like an old man. But so many people say he was of average height, it has to be. A man can't put on makeup to make himself shorter than he is."

"I guess not.

"Of course," the grin, "a shorter man can make himself look taller." Addison cocked his head to the side; ran a stubby finger over his mustache again. "Did you know that John Wayne wore elevator shoes? That's why he walked like a girl. He was always in high heels -- walking down hill all the time."

Casually, Addison pointed the same thick black finger in the general direction of Z's foot on the desk. "Nobody wearing elevator shoes would put his foot up on a desk like that. Only a man wearing regular shoes would do it." Now, a knowing grin. "Even though you limp a little, no way you could have grown three -- four inches in just a week. The guy who took the painting was shorter than you."

Just another indication, if Z needed any, that Addison was a sharp cop. When Addison had seen Z at the office door, the K.C. cop had noticed Z fit what the guards had said about the thief -- except that Z was taller.

When Z put his foot up on the desk, the K.C. cop had checked to see if Z had jacked himself up with lifts as a means of disguise -- but saw Z wearing regular shoes. Bob Zapolska, private eye, was too tall to be the perp, Addison scratching Z as a suspect.

Addison stood up.

First lifting down his leg, Z stood up, too.

"If you got something for me, call me direct." With more sleight-of-hand, Addison picked a card from thin air. Leaned across the desk to hand his phone number card to Z.

Accepting the card, tucking it in his shirt pocket, Z came around the desk.

They shook hands.

"Remember," Addison cautioned. "The guys on top are calling the shots on this. Let your contact know a deal can be cut to get the painting back." The detective looked disgusted. "And don't ever let anybody tell you crime doesn't pay. It all depends on the crime."

"Always been that way."

"Always will be." Said with a "not if I can help it" look.

So ended the meeting with the city's finest.

A black man who was a credit to his race.

Or maybe not. Maybe most blacks were as smart and as law-abiding as most whites. It sure didn't look that way on TV, but then, that was TV.

The additional bit of news was that it was possible the fake Monet had been painted North-of-the-River.

Interesting.

At the very least, another reason to look forward to Johnny Dosso's call.

* * * * *

Chapter 10

The waves had finally settled on the waterbed. Good. Though sex was ten times better (as some wise man said) than whatever came in second, making love took too much out of Z these days for him to want to do it on a queasy stomach. Was it the Midwestern in him, or was he right to believe that sex and surfing didn't mix?

It was cuddling time, something he did because Susan liked it; something he hadn't done with Paula. (Though he'd learned to cuddle, correcting all his mistakes would leave little time left to enjoy being perfect.)

Susan lay curled on her side under the sheet, Z folded around her.

She'd looked great at dinner, dressed as she was, in slinky black to match her hair, her blue eyes flashing. They'd eaten in the ultra modern, almost cubist dining room at her apartment in the Bircane complex off North Oak. Had dinner on her black metal table; no way to settle back on the spine crunching rods of her steel backed chairs. Blue seat pads so thin you'd feel more comfortable on concrete.

Susan's whole apartment was made of metal. Iron, aluminum, and brass -- painted shiny shades of blue.

Didn't look a thing like Susan.

Even the fireplace dividing the kitchen from the dining room was a low blue cube. (Z still thought of this as her new apartment, even though she'd had it more than a year.)

He'd liked her old apartment on Highland better, all soft and curvy.

In apartments, Susan had gone overboard trying to put the bad old days behind her.

She'd made a special casserole for him, her way of apologizing for giving him so little of her time. To accept her apology, he'd eaten a second helping of ... whatever it was.

It wasn't food that was the way to a man's heart, anyway, but the short hall from the dining room to the bedroom.

They were still naked beneath the sheet and sheened with a light sweat, dulled down with the desperate pleasure/pain of doing it one more time than either of them wanted.

Still enveloped in the rich smell of too much sex, all that Z wanted now was sleep.

Why was it women thought that falling asleep after lovemaking was the ultimate insult instead of the highest compliment? (At least his bum knee helped to keep him awake after sex. Funny, how he could do the damndest things to the knee during the act itself and never feel a hint of pain.)

From experience, Z knew that Susan -- younger and stronger -- would soon be jumping out of bed, refreshed, invigorated, ready to go out on the town. (That old business about women "giving" and men "taking" had to be a women's libber fantasy.)

It was a miracle how he and Susan had come to meet (over the phone, of course.) Susan had been frantic. Her ex, she said, was a crazy man -- which was the reason she'd divorced him. Except the nutcase wouldn't leave her alone. Even a restraining order against him wasn't working, Bill (the husband) lurking outside her apartment -- but never when anyone else could see him.

He'd begun to threaten her life.

Naturally, the police could do nothing -- until the psycho killed her.

So she'd hired Z as a bodyguard, Z looking up Susan's ex to find Bill Aston to be a sneaky little bastard. (Five feet five -- to Susan's five feet ten -- giving him a complex, was what Z thought.)

The way things usually went when Big Bob Zapolska warned somebody off, that they stayed warned off. ... But not Bill. The man was, as Susan said, crazy. Not "certifiable, locked up forever" crazy; more like "cold-blooded murder" crazy.

Next, Z had tried staking out Susan's apartment to catch the bastard violating his restraining order, but saw only shadows, husband-shadows said Z's gut.

Meanwhile, animals kept dropping dead at Susan's door, a mouse with a trap-broken neck, a bird with its head blown off, a poisoned rat.

Neighbor kids playing pranks, said the cops.

Z knew better.

So he'd decided to bring things to a head. First, he'd arranged a stakeout; Ted Newbold outside in an unmarked car; another cop in an empty apartment across the hall from Susan's place. The plan, to make it appear to the husband -- who was always watching -- that Susan had fallen in love with Z.

On the set-up night, Susan and Z, acting all lovey-dovey, had gone out to dinner in Susan's car, returning just after dark to stop outside the apartment building's entrance for passionate kisses -- this play-acting designed to flush out the jealous husband.

It didn't.

So they'd gone inside to kiss some more, making sure they were framed in a lighted window.

What Z hadn't expected was that, seeing them outside, crazy Bill had circled the house to find an open window at the back. That he was inside, waiting for them, the sick bastard jumping out of nowhere with a gun.

No talk.

No bluster.

Just taking dead aim at Susan's head.

It was then than Z had lost it!

It could have been he'd seen so much of Susan he was already half in love with her. Or the effect of all those kisses. Or that he prided himself on giving clients full value for their money. Whatever it was, he'd jerked Susan to the side and thrown himself at the husband, the husband firing just as Z crashed into the little maniac.

The rest had been explained to him in the hospital; how the cop across the hall had heard the shot, followed by the crash; had come busting in to find Z and the husband on the floor, blood all over -- Z's blood, unfortunately; how the hubby had managed to get off a shaky round at the boy in blue.

Now you could shoot a P.I. North-of-the-River and receive police praise. You could pop a woman and not make the police too mad. But if you tried to kill a cop, one way or the other, you ended up dead, in this instance, the psycho ending up one way and the other. (Were four shots to the chest and one to the head what you would call "overkill"?)

When taking care of their own, policemen had their little ways.

Big as "Big" Bob Zapolska was, it was still hard for him to believe he'd been taken down by a single slug, and from a crummy little snub-nosed twenty-two. (Z's surgeon had explained to him later that, at point-blank range, even an underpowered hunk of lead could do a lot of damage, in Z's case, had blown a lung.)

Z didn't remember the trip to the hospital or having surgery to get the bullet out, a groggy Bob-Z waking in time to half-hear the surgeon explain what a miracle worker the doctor had been to have saved Z's life.

The doc had explained later how lucky Z had been that the bullet hadn't hit his heart or clipped an artery.

All this coming with a graphic description of the all-night fight waged to keep Z from bleeding to death because, for some reason, his blood didn't want to clot.

Buoyed by this happy talk, it had only taken a month to get out of the hospital and another two months to gain enough strength to pick a flower, time for Susan Halliwell (she'd taken back her maiden name) to fall in love with him.

Susan had come to see him every day at the hospital; drove him around in her car after he'd gotten out; arranged interesting places for them to go when he was on his feet again, like the Nelson. At first, because she was grateful to him. He knew that. But then, it had been more.

Two years ago. And in all that time, they'd never lived together. (After the disaster of her marriage, Susan wanted to maintain her independence. Anyway, Z's work was too unstable for him to have a live-in girlfriend, to say nothing of another wife.) They'd decided to "settle" for being more in love than ninety percent of the married people in the world. .......

"That was great!" said a low, sexy voice beside him, the sound popping bubbles in Z's mind. He'd almost committed the unpardonable sin of slipping into sleep!

Susan had a low, sensual voice; Z, a strangled whisper -- even when fully awake.

For a moment, her fingers reached back to trail along his enclosing flank as he pulled her tighter.

Then, struggling loose, Susan bounced out of bed like a thirteen-year-old gymnast on a trampoline; was up and swishing off to the bathroom on those fashion-model legs. Miles of shapely shank on the bottom; a delicate, but strong-mouthed, face on top; separated by a damned good figure. Stacked. Endowed. Built like a brick shithouse. Words that modern Susan wouldn't like.

A little tall for most guys, but just right for Big Bob Z.

It was all he could do to keep from calling her back to bed; at the same time, all he could do to keep from throwing up. As usual after these Susan-bouts, he felt like the man in the magic act, the one who'd been sawed in half.

Humming. Susan was humming in the bathroom. What was it that was always said about the sex drives of men and women? Men reached their peak at sixteen; went down hill after that. Women reached seventh heaven at thirty; stayed there for another twenty years.

A frightening thought!

Susan had a year to go before she climaxed (so to speak,) and another twenty years of top performance.

It was time he made a will.

"Z?" Susan, from the bathroom. The water had stopped running.

"What?"

"I hate to do this to you, but I've got to ask you to leave."

"Leave?"

Showered, Susan rippled from the bathroom, combing her disheveled black hair with the slender fingers of one hand, a gauzy white negligee molded to her where it counted, swinging loose from there to graze the fuzzy bedroom rug.

"I've got to study."

"Tonight?" He wasn't hearing right, was still half asleep.

"There's so much to learn and so little time to do it."

Sitting at her dressing table, Susan pulled open a little drawer on her vanity, looking for, then finding, her mother-of-pearl comb.

God, Z loved to watch her -- doing anything. She was all unconscious grace and curves and muscled softness. He couldn't believe his luck to have a girl like that.

Three strokes of the comb to whip her windblown style into its tousled best, and she was up and at the bureau.

Swirling off the peignoir, floating it to a chair beside the dresser, she opened the top drawer to take out a t-shirt and jeans, piling them on top the bureau. Opening another dresser drawer, she picked up a pair of panties, turning to high-step into them -- slowly -- like a long-legged wading bird walking in the shallows.

Taking the rest of the clothing to the chest of drawers, she pulled on her Harvard t-shirt, fluffing her hair into its loose tangle once again.

Picking up the Levi's, she sat to the side of the vanity's seat. Bending, blue jeans in hand, she drew up a delicious knee to her loose breasts, then slipped her left leg into one side of the tight old pair of hip huggers. Did the same with the other gorgeously long leg.

Standing, she stretched the pants up. Buttoned. Zipped.

She meant it. She wasn't coming back to bed.

Turning her back on him, Susan moved around the bench again; sat down at the vanity to touch up her makeup while glancing at Z's reflection in the dressing table mirror.

Groaning, Z sat up ... in pieces ... the wiggle of the waterbed doing its quicksand best to suck him back.

At last managing to get his feet over the side and on the floor, he sat on the edge of the rocking bed to wait for the swells (and his head) to settle.

"Did you know the Aztecs sacrificed thousands of human captives every year to their sun god?"

"What?" First his sight, now his hearing had deserted him.

"Their belief was that the sun needed strength to keep coming up every day, strength it got from the shedding of human blood. They cut out their victims' hearts with a flint knife. Tried to get the heart out and hold it overhead while it was still beating." This she said while dusting on a little powder.

"Oh."

"And they didn't spare themselves, either. To bleed for their god, they would drill holes in their tongues and run homemade barbed wire through the holes."

Crazy talk like that wasn't helping the hole where Z's stomach used to be.

"Those are the kind of fascinating details we always hear in Dr. Rogers' class. You know, American History ... the class I'm taking." Z hoped Susan would interpret his groan as agreement. "But there's so much of it. And everybody else in the class knows more than I do. I'm sweating to get down every word, and the young kids just sit there, as cool as can be. Of course, just out of high school, they still remember a lot of American history. It's just a review for them. But I can't recall a thing from high school. Not a thing. And the first big test is coming up. Which is why I've got to study all the time. You understand, don't you, Z?"

Susan paused in the act of applying blush-of-color lipstick to look at his reflection in the mirror.

If he hadn't understood before, he was beginning to. His girl had turned into this wild woman who loved learning about people who cut out hearts, more than she liked cuddling after sex. She still looked the same -- tawny, beautiful. A peach, soft to the bone.

On the other hand, though he couldn't tell much from her expression in the semi-dark dressing table mirror, there were times at dinner when she'd looked almost as ... hunted ... as she had when he'd first met her. The only reason he could think of for these changes was that going to school was making her upset.

"Don't worry," he said, first having to pause to suck in enough breath to make a voice. "Those Indians all died off."

"Of course," she said, wrinkling her nose at herself in the glass, picking up the lipstick again. "But don't you think their ideas about the sun are fascinating? In their day, their capital -- where Mexico City is today -- had twice the population of London. They were so well-organized, and still had these barbaric religious ideas."

Though it wasn't the time to say it, barbaric religious ideas weren't peculiar to the Aztecs. A trial was coming up for a religious nut who'd shot a bunch of people in a barn in order to make it easier for him to find a lost, sacred sword, a sword that would signal the end of the world, the lunatic to be king of whoever survived the earth's destruction. And that guy got his religious ideas in Kansas City.

"You sure that going to school is what you want?"

"It's exactly what I want," Susan said -- quickly -- defensively -- a lightning strike of frown lines crossing her forehead. "It's opening up my mind. Dr. Rogers is brilliant."

"Oh."

Finished with her touch of makeup, Susan floated up, then flowed across the floor on her small bare feet to sit beside him on the bed, her long legs temptingly close. If only the bed (that she'd started bobbing again) would settle, Z thought his stomach might, too.

Thank God he and Susan traded apartments to make love. Next time they'd do it at his place.

"I know that going to school has made it hard for you, Z. Hard for me, too." She touched his shoulder with cool fingers. "It's just something I've got to do. The job's not enough anymore. I need to find out about... me. I need to think new thoughts ... to see more of the world. I don't know why, exactly. Maybe it has something to do with turning thirty next year." She took a deep breath. "All I know is that going to Maple Woods is the most exciting thing I've done in a long time."

"Oh."

"And don't give me that pathetic little 'Oh' of yours." Her hand left his shoulder. "You know what I mean. I love you, Z, like I always have. But this is something different. This is more ... mental. With us, it's partly mental ... sure. We love each other. But the truth is you never talk to me about anything important."

Z had always thought Susan talked enough for the both of them. If he couldn't remember what she said sometimes, it was because he was so busy looking at her he forgot to listen. Susan was one gorgeous piece -- no doubt of that, an adorable, man-sized sex kitten. (She would like being called that, either.)

"For instance," she said, rushing on as she sometimes did, "you never tell me about your work."

"Nothing interesting to tell."

"I don't believe that. It's just that you're not a talker. But you could be if you tried. So ... tell me something about what you're doing right now." She took his big hand in her small ones; squeezed encouragement.

He didn't know what she wanted from him; had never known what any woman wanted -- either before or after making love.

"I just got some money back for a guy who'd been cheated."

"And how did you do that?

"Talked to the guy who did the cheating." Silence followed. Though Susan wanted ... more ... he didn't know what else to tell her.

"You know how you described saving my life?

"What? ... How?"

"I heard you tell that fascist cop friend of yours -- when he came to see you in the hospital -- that all you did was fall on Bill after he shot you."

"So?"

"What is it with you?" She was pleading more than criticizing. "Is it that you're so modest you can't admit to being brave or is it you don't give a damn about anything?" She stopped holding his hand. A bad sign.

Thinking about Susan's questions, Z remembered the high school football player who played for Raytown, a back, just like him. Piled up a lot of yards his senior year like Z had. Except the other guy seemed to get articles written about him in the local papers, even special write-ups in the Saturday "Times" after Friday night games. The kid was good, alright, but as conceited as they came. The rumor was he cut out those press reports; had all his clippings in his billfold so he could whip them out to read to people.

Z was playing both defense and offense in the last game of the season -- like he always did. On defense, it was his job to stop the Raytown hotshot. In those days, you didn't call what Z was doing being a Monster or Rover back, but that's what he was. And he'd done such a good job of stopping Mr. Wonderful that, when Raytown's quarterback could, the QB was running his plays away from Big Bob Z.

On offense, it was Z who added up the yards that night, making him the target of Raytown defenders. As a kind of compliment, they began working him over when they could get away with it, hit him high and low, hit late. Tried to twist off something when they got him at the bottom of a pile. And by the fourth quarter, they'd done a pretty good job on his left knee.

Late in the game, it was Northtown up by six, Raytown at mid-field with the ball. With two minutes left, Raytown was driving, their whiz kid taking bites out of the tired Northtown line. It had come down to a guessing game, the kid trying to run away from Z, Z trying to guess which way the kid would cut so Z could cover him.

Third and short, running desperately, Z had thrown himself into a hole just as the kid came barreling through from the other side. A noisy clash of pads and they both went down, Z feeling his knee go crunch.

And that was all she wrote for both of them in that game. The Raytown back was out cold; had to be dragged off on a stretcher. Z, with one arm over a trainer's shoulder, was hopped to the sideline, his knee dangling, useless.

Northtown had won the game, making Z a crutches hero and a former football player. As for the other kid, he recovered. Got a full ride athletic scholarship to K.U. After college, played five years with the Bears.

Z had learned two things from his experience with the Raytown back. First, not to be an asshole about your accomplishments. And second, that being an asshole doesn't handicap a football player as much as a bum knee.

"This is just like you, Z," Susan was saying in her resigned voice, Susan getting up quickly, the bed quivering like a freezing dog. "You clam up. You never talk to me." She paraded across the room to mount her vanity chair, backwards, facing him by spreading her long legs impossibly wide so she could straddle the short bench's back. Oh ... God .....!

As for Susan, she just sat there, looking angry. Kitten-with-a-whip.

"OK." All he could do was try. "Here's what I did yesterday. Had a talk with a K.C. cop who thought I might know something about the Monet theft."

"Now that's interesting. Do you know something about that?" Susan looked like a kid who'd just found out there was a Santa.

"No." ....

"That's ... it?"

"Yep."

"Nothing else?"

"The cop was black. You don't see too many of them North-of-the-River."

"African-American."

"What?"

"It's not right to call them black any more. The proper term is African-American."

"You hear that in college, did you?"

"Yes. Dr. Rogers gave a lecture on Africa -- to set up what we'll learn about the slave trade."

Z remembered how his parents hadn't liked being referred to as Polish-Americans, particularly, since both had been born in this country. They wanted to be just plain old Americans, like everyone else.

But maybe just being Americans wasn't good enough for blacks. Hell. Maybe most blacks were crazy; so mixed up they didn't know what they wanted to be called. He remembered how his parents had trouble remembering to call them anything but niggers. (Though he noticed that a black comic like Richard Pryor could say "nigger" and that seemed to be OK.) Then it was polite to call them colored. Then Negroes. Then it was black, though they weren't any more black than most white people were white. Now African-Americans, as if they were ashamed to be just plain Americans like everybody else. Maybe it took going to college to figure all this out.

Now would be a good time to tell Susan he was glad she was doing what she wanted -- going to college. Maybe Calder was right, that if Susan was happy with school she'd be happy with Z. It was just that he couldn't say he was glad, when he wasn't.

"Any other cases going?" Susan asked hopefully.

"Not really. Got hired to look into the shooting of a janitor."

"I know about that." Susan brightened; smiled her generous-mouth smile; folded her hands on top the bench back. One thing Susan didn't have was perfect teeth. Another thing he liked about her.

"Dr. Rogers said something about having a friend at Bateman who told him about the janitor. There was also something in the 'Dispatch' about it."

"What kind of lecture was that?"

"What do you mean?"

"How did a janitor's death fit in with the Aztec or ... African-Americans?"

"Not in lecture," Susan explained. "We always get a short break in the middle of lecture. It was on a break -- in the hall."

"How old is the professor?"

"Dr. Rogers? I'd say about my age." Susan frowned and bit her lip. "And that doesn't make me feel any better either. Here's a man with a Ph.D. who can't be more than a year or two older than me, and look what he's done with his life already? You don't know how far behind I feel when I'm talking to him."

Wait until you're my age, Z thought, and see how far behind you feel. He could have said that, except his never-failing instinct told him that wasn't the kind of conversation Susan had in mind.

"And that's why I've got to study tonight." Susan with her palms up, asking him to understand. "I've got to make a good grade in this class, Z. I've just got to!"

In his car driving home, his body stitching itself together, Z tried to make sense out of it all. Susan still loved him -- but maybe more for his body than his mind, not that he was too mad about that. It was only women libbers who bitched about how they wanted to be loved for their minds, not their bodies. Real women liked to be attractive to their lovers, liked to dress up for them, wear perfume. As for men, most men were like him, he thought, so much in love with women and so mystified by them that the poor, pussy whips were glad to take whatever they could get.

He wondered what this Dr. Rogers looked like. Wondered if the prof was married -- not that a little thing like wedding vows mattered anymore.

Reflecting on the evening, he was sure Susan hadn't been faking it in bed, helping to cancel his fear that he'd lost Susan somewhere along the line. At the same time, he could be losing her. Education changed a person. He'd had personal experience with that.

In all fairness -- fairness about all he had to offer any more -- he couldn't blame the loss of Paula on her education. She was always something of a bitch. What kind of woman, after all, would hook up with a no-prospects man like Bob Zapolska?

What counted now was what he should do about Susan.

For a mad moment, Z thought of talking to Calder about this -- only to realize he'd already done that, Calder saying he could go to college himself.

What? And show himself to be as stupid as Susan suspected that he was.

There had to be another option. But what?

What did women like? (Besides sex, that if he couldn't provide in quantity anymore, he could still supply in quality.) Nothing else that he knew of except, maybe, money ....

Since he now had a little money, perhaps the thing to do was to buy Susan something nice.

What he needed to please Susan in the long run, though, was big money; no way to get that short of working for Johnny Dosso.

Z also had to consider that Susan had been lying to him when she said she'd been turning off her phone so she could get to sleep after her night class. For as Susan had walked him to the door tonight, he'd seen her flick the off switch on her phone. And she wasn't going to bed. She was going to study. Meaning, he hadn't been able to get her on the phone all those times, not because she'd turned the phone off to get to sleep like she'd said, but because she'd been turning it off to study.

It was only a little lie that, looked at positively, was meant to spare his feelings.

Viewed on the dark side, though, it meant Susan would rather study in the evening than talk to him.

As a way of holding onto Susan, maybe he should consider a money job for Johnny Dosso -- just every now and then.

* * * * *

Chapter 11

Laid up with ice packs for the first three days of the week, reading a lot to pass the time, Z found the knee to be in pretty good shape by Friday morning. (Susan was always worth it, though.)

Today, he'd wrap up the Victor case by phoning Ted Newbold. And if, as Z expected, the call came to nothing, he'd ring up Professor Calder, admit defeat, and suggest a hundred dollars as payment. In a gray area like agreeing to take the Victor case without checking into it, a lowered fee would be best for Professor Calder, and also for Z's self-respect.

But first, came the Zapolska breakfast sandwich and the paper.

Settling down with Coke, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, paper, and fire, he found nothing that held his interest until he got to the C section.

Then, what a shock!

In a million plus metropolis like Kansas City, you never expected someone you knew personally to make the paper, and certainly not in an important way. But there it was, a short account of the accidental death of Beth Ogden!

In the C section, for God's sake, was Z's first thought! If a tragedy like that had occurred South of the river in wealthy Johnson County, the lady's death would have been front page news!

Scanning the article, his mind still numbed to the fact of Ms. Ogden's death, he found himself ambushed by conflicting emotions: a selfish relief that the lady had already paid him; a flash of guilt to find he was, in part, responsible for the woman's death.

Not really.

Still, if he'd been thinking about every possibility -- no matter how remote -- he could have done something to prevent what happened.

Shock turning to sadness, he re-read the article, this time more carefully.

Summarized, the paper said Beth Ogden had locked herself out of her house on Wednesday night. Unable to get back in, not having her car keys with her, she'd died of exposure.

What had killed the lady had been a combination of what Z had done for her and what he hadn't. Barring the windows had kept her from breaking a pane to re-enter her house; leaving the old-style, spring activated door locks to be the last thing to be changed, had gotten her trapped outside. (Turning the inside doorknob unlocked a deadbolt-guarded door. The door staying unlocked until you keyed the lock-bolt back into its keeper. But shut a door with an old-time lock and the lock-tongue would "sprung back" to lock the door again.

What had happened, the paper theorized, was that the lady had gone outdoors late Wednesday night, the wind slamming the door behind her, the door's spring lock latching so she couldn't get back in. (Since the article said Beth Ogden had called a friend at 9:30 Wednesday night, Beth had to have died after that. Before midnight, the coroner thought, though a frozen corpse made it difficult to fix an accurate time of death.)

The more Z thought about Ms. Ogden freezing to death outside her home -- neighbors too far away for her to reach, no car key -- most people (but not the Ogden woman) keeping a spare key in a magnetic box, "sticking" the magnet under the car's fender, or behind a bumper, or back of a steel frame -- the worse he felt.

On top of that, he felt guilty because he'd taken the lady's money before finishing the job. Results guaranteed.

Sorting through his emotions, quieting down, Z figured the least he owed the lady was to find out as much as possible about what had happened.

Determined to learn more about the tragedy, he sat down on the protesting couch, reached for the phone, dialed, and got transferred through.

"Detective Ted Newbold, speaking."

"Z."

"What's up?" A question lacking sincerity.

"Nothing about the painting. I did talk to the K.C. detective and you're completely out of that."

"Good"! That was what sincere sounded like.

"This is about the lady who got locked out and froze to death. I installed her security. What happened?"

"That's what happened."

"What?"

"She got locked out and froze to death."

"Why did she go out?"

"Hell, I don't know. Why do people do a lot of stupid things?"

"Anything else"?

"It's not my case. Esser was assigned to that." In addition to Captain Scherer, Dennis Esser was the kind of cop you could learn to hate on short acquaintance.

"And ...?"

"And, nothing." Silence. "OK, Z. You get off on the gory details? Is that it?" Silence. "Alright, then. I had a look at Esser's report." Ted loved to be "in the know"; almost as much as he loved "sharing" his knowledge -- provided he could blame someone else for "making him" tell all. "When the woman didn't show at her job on Thursday morning and didn't call, they sent someone to see about her. Found her body outside a window. Her hands were all scratched up and bruised from beating on her front door, trying to get back in. She also had time to get a stick. Used it to reach through the iron work to break out a window. But too little heat came out to keep her alive." A pause. "Let's see," Ted said good-naturedly "What else would a sick person like you want to know?" Ted had been busting to tell someone the "juicy" details, his love of gossip a weakness that made Ted a good source. Handled right, Ted had never been able to keep his mouth shut. "She was in a flimsy nightie, ready to go to bed, when she got locked out. Answering Z's question about why she didn't have her house or car keys with her. Any more questions?"

"What about the lady's cat?"

"Cat? What cat?"

"She had a cat. Anybody find it in the house?"

"Not that I know of." Silence. "Listen. Let me give you a piece of sound advice. You keep away from this. It wasn't news to me that you'd been doing security for the woman. You want to know why? It was in the Esser report. Which, because of a rumor around the station that you were mixed up in this, was why I looked at the report in the first place." Ted's excuse to himself for snooping. "While giving the lady's house a once-over, Esser noticed the security was newly installed. Asking around at the lady's workplace, he came up with you as having done the job, the person giving him your name suggesting you might have done the woman in."

Z had a good idea who that unnamed accuser might have been: that frigid butch in Ms. Ogden's office. Ingrid Nielsen. "As you can imagine," Ted crowed, "that little piece of good news got around the station mighty fast. Reached Captain Scherer's ear in about ten seconds. He's been smiling ever since." The fact that someone had tried to rat-out Big Bob Zapolska had put Ted in high good humor, Ted not taking the charge seriously because even his captain -- shit-for-brains Scherer -- hadn't bought it. "As you'll recall," Ted burbled, now at his witty best, "Captain Scherer knows you. Which accounts for why he don't ... doesn't ... like you. Knowing you like he does from past experience, he has it figured you'll stick your nose into this. The rumor is that he ordered Esser, who don't like you much either, to make sure you don't mess with the crime scene."

"Just wanted to be sure the death was accidental."

"It was."

"No footprints that shouldn't have been there?"

"If there had been, the captain would have been delighted if they'd led to you! Footprints? You crazy? The ground's frozen so hard you couldn't leave prints with a Sherman tank!"

Z had been thinking about inside the house: dust prints on the waxed, kitchen floor; marks in the living room rug.

If clues like that hadn't been looked for, it was too late now. They'd been erased by Esser's fat cop feet.

"You're right."

"Damned right, I'm right! You stay the hell away from there!"

"Nobody will catch me there. You've got my word."

"That's at least a little relief."

"And thanks, Ted."

"Sure." Click.

You never knew when a cop like Scherer would tap his own man's phone. If so, Z could only hope the snoop didn't give much thought to Z's promise not to get caught near the lady's house.

First putting the dead receiver back on its cradle, Z tried to rub the tension from his shoulders and neck. Failing to do any good, dug out his pocket-bottle of pills; ate a few aspirin.

Tommie Victor! Z had Ted on the phone and hadn't ask about the Tommie Victor case. Showing how upset Z really was.

The emotion of the morning exhausting him, he leaned back on the divan.

But couldn't help thinking about Beth Ogden's cat. Z used to have a cat when he was a kid. And when that cat didn't want to show himself, Pretty Kitty had hiding places where no one could find him. Cats were sneaky-clever.

Thinking about what he'd heard from Ted, the way Z saw the Ogden accident was that Beth was ready to go to bed when she'd heard a noise outside. Coming downstairs, she'd opened the door to take a peek -- and that was the part that was most troubling, trying to imagine that timid lady opening the door for any reason. ..... Ogden opening the door, Z saw the cat bolting outside. No way Beth Ogden would ever leave her house at night. No way, unless it was to chase after that damned cat. An indoors cat, she'd said; couldn't survive outside.

The wind could then have slammed the door shut behind her, the old spring lock clicking in. Lightly clothed as she'd been, she'd frozen to death in short order, not even a barn nearby where she could get out of the wind. Cover herself with straw. Dressed for bed, she wouldn't have had her house key with her. No car key on her either, so she couldn't start her car for either warmth or transportation.

That was one way it could have happened. Another, was that Ms. Ogden had left the house ... for unknown reasons.

Imagining that shaky lady unlocking her door after dark -- was difficult.

On the other hand, Z liked the "escaped" cat supposition. How the lady loved that cat!

As he saw it, if the cat got out, his obligation to the Ogden woman was over. If something ... unexplained ... had happened, and the cat was still in the house, the least he could do for the lady was keep her "Missy" from starving. An odd way to provide Results Guaranteed, but the best he could do.

The aspirin taking effect, Z got up; went back to the table to begin feeding sections of the Star to the fire.

Staring into the flames as they gobbled the paper ... calmed him, at the same time reinforced his belief that he had a moral obligation to check on that damned cat, a course of action that would mean overcoming difficulties, the first: how to defeat the Ogden security he'd installed himself. (He couldn't credit card his way past a spring lock because Esser would have a bug set there -- wired to the police station.)

Thinking about Ted, Z smiled, Teddy doing his best to get the point across that Esser had bugged the Ogden house, at the same time, alerting Z in such a way that no one overhearing Ted's spiel would take it as a warning. (Though Teddy had his faults, he could be counted on to help his friends -- provided the help came free of cost to Ted.)

Back to the two-part problem, the first obstacle, the security Z himself had done a good job putting in. The second difficulty, steering clear of Esser's traps once Z had thought of a way to get inside Beth's house.

As Z saw it, of the two obstacles, the hardest to overcome was getting past his own security installations; he'd done a hell of a job buttoning up the Ogden house!

Oh, he could cut his way through a window grating with a torch ... it was just that breaking in that way would tell the world (the cops would think Z) that someone had been inside illegally.

Knowing how much Captain Scherer hated him -- added to that ball-buster trying to finger him -- meant Z had to avoid attracting suspicion to himself. Best, if he could keep his break-in a total secret.

Warned about Esser's bugs -- while trip wires and other devices could be troublesome -- defeating Z's safety job would be (if not impossible) the closest thing to it; adding to the difficulty of entry, the need to get in and out on the sly ....

Just the sort of puzzle Big Bob Zapolska liked!

* * * * *

Chapter 12

As he sat rubbing his sore knee in the sable dark of the Ogden attic, Big Bob Zapolska found he was breathing hard and sweating freely. Sweating less from the climb than from the fear he'd felt that his knee might give way.

After the noise he'd made sawing through the attic vent, he wanted to pause for a minute to listen. No sense getting careless now.

When driving out to the Ogden place half an hour ago, he'd taken every precaution to make sure no one was following him down the country road, that no one turned in after him as he drove along the lady's long, gravel access lane. He'd even swung the Cavalier past the Ogden Subaru and around to the far side of the house.

Ted had been right about the ground. Iron hard. No worry about someone picking up the Cavalier's small hoof prints.

Parked out of sight, he'd gotten out under a crystalline cold sky, the black vault above him banded with the sequins of the Milky Way. Unlike the day, the night air was so still a cloud of his frosted breath enveloped him as he'd circled the place on foot, Z as invisible in his "night fighter" clothing as the tar-black sky between the stars.

Pacing around the house, he'd found both the front and back doors "wrapped" with yellow plastic tape: POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. And beyond the doors? Ted's warning about inside protection made entrance through either door a risk.

As for the window guards -- professionally installed -- no chance there.

Finished with his call to Ted, Z had spent time thinking how to gain entrance to the Ogden place without anyone finding out he'd broken in. A difficult problem; though, as it turned out, one he'd solved.

Putting his plan into action just after midnight, he'd already gained the attic, Z continuing to listen for sounds other than his own breathing. One minute. Two minutes.

Hearing ... silence ... inside the house and out ... he was ready for the operation's second part.

Still careful to keep from making unnecessary noise, he unbuckled the leather tool-adorned lineman's belt he'd strapped around his waist, easing the heavy belt to the attic's rough pine floor. A little noise, but nothing compared to what he'd made hacking through the attic vent. He could only hope the roar of the battery operated power saw hadn't tripped a sonic detector. The odds were against that, though. He couldn't see Esser doing more than putting pressure and beam sensors inside the first floor of the house.

Next, needing as much "touch" as possible in the dark, Z took off his leather gloves and stuffed them in his jacket pockets.

Not needing to see to do routine things, he unbuckled the lineman's boot spikes, laying them out beside the wide-pocketed tool belt.

This was the second time he'd used these lineman's spikes, the last time for their intended purpose -- climbing utility poles. In that earlier case, he had to stake out a house in the middle of nowhere, a location where his car would stand out; a place where he would stand out. It was when thinking of how he was going to get that earlier job done, that he'd seen a couple of Power and Light men park their truck in the back lot of the Golden Corral, the men going in for lunch. That truck had given Z the inspiration.

Once past the lock on the truck's back doors, he'd picked up these climbing spikes, also a lineman's tool belt (with its clip-on tools,) and the small canvas tent that linemen put up at the top of power poles so they could work out of the weather. For good measure, he'd lifted a yellow plastic hard hat, too.

The next day, dressed like a K.C. Power and Light lineman, he'd climbed a utility pole outside the home to be staked out, figured how the tent went on the pole and "disappeared" under canvas. After that, day after day, he'd spiked his way up the pole to become just another electrical worker, doing his job. Though it was a nervous time -- high voltage wires humming around him like maddened bees -- he'd gotten the surveillance job done for his client.

Z regretted liberating those items from the power truck, Z making it a personal rule never to take anything -- unless absolutely necessary. Not that it could be called stealing with you picked up something from the government, the government belonging -- as it did in a democracy -- to the people. In this case, considering what he paid for electricity, he figured that K.C.P. and L. had gotten its money back.

All quiet in the Ogden house below, he rubbed his hands together to warm them a little more, then felt along the utility belt at his feet until he found the pocket with the penlight. Took out the small cylinder.

Switching on the light, Z pointed the narrow beam at the end-of-the-house aluminum air vent he'd just sawed his way through, to find it not too badly bent, except along the "hinge" side.

The difficult part had not been sawing through the vent, but spiking his way up the corner of the old house. (His feet still ached from the pressure the climbing spikes put on the inside of his arches.) As he'd thought, he had no trouble digging the spikes into the boards on either side of the house's northwest corner. What was untried were the ice picks he'd bent into "cargo hooks," Z 's plan, to use these sickle-shaped picks (one in each hand) to grapple his upper body to the corner of the house while he spiked himself up.

Though jerry-rigged, his "house-climbing system" had worked, Z alternately digging the hand-hooks into the boards while he climbed with his lineman's spikes.

"Spidering" his way up all three floors, he'd pulled himself on the roof. Climbing to the top, digging the inwardly slanted spikes into the house's old shingles with every step, he'd walked the ridge line until reaching the large louvered aluminum air vent under the back end of the house's peaked roof. Swinging down to stand on a dormer that jutted up beneath the vent, he'd unclipped his Sawz-all and cut a three-sided passage for himself, pushing in the vent, the intact side serving as a hinge.

After this evening's cat-check, he'd leave the same way, bending the vent out as he emerged, gluing it in place with globs of Liquid Nail, no one tumbling that he'd broken in that way. True, there would be those vertical rows of holes in the clapboards on either side of the corner where he'd spiked his way up. (It was a good bet that, even if some observant person noticed those dig marks at some later date, that person wouldn't guess the purpose of those "holes.")

By this time breathing almost normally, he debated opening the can of cat food he'd put in one of the belt's pockets.

No need to do that yet. If the cat was still in the house, it should be hungry enough to come out without being baited. Better to spend time looking the place over before he did anything else; find the security systems Esser may have planted.

That decided, Z swung the little flashlight back and forth across the attic floor, seeing dented cardboard boxes, broken furniture, a pile of old clothes, and finally, what he was looking for, the framework of the trap door accessing the third-story hall. Now he knew where he was in the house; had seen the painted wooden ladder fastened to the wall below; the ladder that provided entry to the attic.

Getting his feet under him but crouching beneath the sharply sloping rafters, he duck-walked to the trap door, as he did so, scuffing up enough dust to make the attic smell like a mummy's tomb.

Kneeling at the edge of the trap door, flashing his light on the wooden hatch, he saw an iron ring, Z lifting the ring to squeak the trap door up and over to one side.

His entrance to the house established, he leaned down to play the thin shaft of the penlight through the square attic hole, shining the beam, first on the leaf-green access ladder attached to the hall wall, then on the dark green carpeted floor directly below.

No sensors in evidence, at least, no sensors he could see. Esser could have set a photoelectric beam across the upper hall ...... But Z didn't think so.

Until he got into the house, of course, he could only rely on his instinct that Esser would only think to "booby trap" the first floor, hoping to catch Z entering the house through one of the "unprotected" doors.

Satisfied so far, sitting back on the attic floor, Z swung his legs through the trap door.

Warm.

Warm air rising from the house.

Bob Zapolska thought about that for a moment. What "warm" meant was that the police had left the heat on. To keep the pipes from freezing? Maybe at the request of Beth Ogden's next-of-kin? ... It didn't matter.

Positioning his right foot on the third rung of the ladder, letting that leg take some of his weight, he eased himself forward until his lower body was through the hole, his armpits supporting him in the square-framed access well. Catching a lower rung with his left foot, he transferred his right hand to the ladder's top rung. And ... swung himself completely onto the ladder, the flashlight still in his left hand.

Clinging to the vertical ladder like some bug-lump on the wall, he flashed the light around the base of the ladder once again. To see ... nothing out of the ordinary.

Snapping off the light, slipping the little flashlight into his jacket pocket, he grabbed a crosspiece with his left hand and climbed down the rest of the way.

Stepping off the last rung as lightly as he could, still hugging the ladder, he got out the light again and played its beam along the short upper hall.

Two bedrooms on this side of the hall, one on the other side, all three doors closed. An old-fashioned bathroom was at the end of the enclosed stairs, stairs that led (with a right turn at the second floor landing) to the first floor.

Taking his time, the beam making no more than a scalpel width of light in all that darkness, he saw nothing but worn green carpet on the hall floor.

Confident that no security devices had been set up in the third-floor hall, Z "pussy-footed" to the top of the stairs leading to the largely unfinished second floor. (As he had the first time he'd seen this arrangement, he wondered who would finish the third floor and not the second? Someone more interested in the view than in convenience? ... It didn't matter.)

Wanting to make sure, he shot the light down the green carpet runner tacked to the center of the steps. Saw nothing unusual.

Slowly, taking one cautious step at a time -- looking for loose places at the edge of the carpet where Esser could have slipped a pressure-sensitive pad -- Big Bob Zapolska descended the stairs. One floor. A right turn. Another floor. Until he was two steps above the first-floor entry way.

There, he paused to flash the light on the worn oak floor below the steps.

And ... found the first device.

Esser had set metal sensors on either side of the stairs, just below the last step -- one to project (the other to receive) an invisible photoelectric beam. Break that ribbon of light and an alarm would go off, probably a silent one keyed to a phone line that would signal the police.

Smiling, Z sat down on the steps; began slicing the flashlight beam back and forth below the stairs, gradually working the light forward into the stubby front hall that led to the outside door.

To find, as he'd expected, nothing but an umbrella stand along the left wall -- plus the straight chair (moved to one side) that the lady had been using to prop shut the front door.

Further on, however, just before the outside door itself, he located what he was looking for, the second "trap." As he'd figured, Esser had bugged the front door, this time with a laser system. (The back door had to be similarly rigged.) First shining the light on the door sensor, he then used the beam to follow the attached wire until it trailed out of sight along the baseboard to the right, that wire leading to an automatic telephone dialer. Had to be. Disturb the infrared ray, and the dialer called the nearest police station. Ted's station.

Still sitting on the steps, Z snapped off the flashlight.

No need to dismantle the systems Esser had set up, those gimmicks already telling him what he'd come to learn.

No cat.

Had Ms. Ogden's cat been left behind, it would have broken a beam by now, most likely the one at the foot of the stairs. The result? A false alarm at the station that would have had Esser out here putting in a more "cat-proof" system.

Z smiled. The fact that the cat was missing tallied nicely with his theory of why Beth Ogden had gone outside on the night of her death. Unless .. when the police were blundering around in here ... they'd let the cat out by accident. ....

Unlikely.

When strangers entered a house, cats hid.

No cat in the house.

In one way, he was pleased to see the confirmation of his best theory for why timid Beth Ogden would rush out into the night. In another way, he was disappointed. Rescuing Ms. Ogden's animal would have been a good way to pay the lady his last respects.

In order to soak in more warmth before going back to the attic and out the vent (to say nothing of postponing the harrowing climb to the ground,) he leaned back on the stairs, bracing himself comfortably with his elbows.

Again, he thought about the Ogden death. The cat had gotten out, Beth going after it, the door locking shut behind her. That much seemed clear. What he couldn't picture was the timid lady opening her door at night for any reason. He just didn't see her taking away the chair propped under the doorknob, then unlocking the door. Surely not as a result of a non-threatening noise outside. And certainly not after hearing a threatening sound. A "dangerous" racket would have had her phoning the police.

Stretched out on the stairs in the absolute dark -- no car lights to brighten the night, too far from Kansas City to see the eternal sky-glow of city lights, he tried once more to put himself in the lady's place; tried to imagine her being upstairs, getting ready for bed, hearing something outside, going down the stairs, looking through the door's peephole, taking the chair out from under the doorknob, opening the door .......

And simply couldn't believe that sequence of events. If the lady had heard something out there, the last thing she would have done was unlock the door.

What Big Bob Zapolska needed was a new perspective; the place to get it -- where this "noise" supposition started: the lady's bedroom.

Warmed up at last, he switched on the flashlight, levered himself to his feet, and climbed the stairs trying, as he passed the second floor, to remember which room on third was the lady's bedroom. He'd installed that room's window guards, of course, as he had in all the house's windows, but ....

Puffing his way to the upper hall, he thought he remembered that the bedroom was the first door to the right.

Stepping along the short hall, he tried the doorknob, when it turned, pushed the door open, shining in the light to see he'd been right; this was the lady's bedroom.

Checking the threshold, seeing nothing threatening, Z stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Immediately, felt there was something ... odd ..... about the room! ........

What was strange, was the room's ... smell. A ... heavy odor ... but a pleasant one. If he'd smelled .. that scent ... when he was in this room installing window guards, he would have remembered, the unexpected fragrance making him cautious, Z checking for more of Esser's traps.

Found none.

At least so far, Z continued to be right about Esser, Esser wiring the outside doors, putting a secondary system across the stairs ... and that was it. After all, who would believe anyone could "spiderman" his way up the outside of the house to cut into the attic through the air vent? Even Big Bob Zapolska hadn't considered that possibility at the time he'd installed the lady's security!

Of course he had thought about the likelihood that somebody could get to the vent with a three-story ladder. But realistically, who had a three-story ladder, to say nothing of having a lug a long ladder out here in the middle of nowhere?

Back to the bedroom.

Sweeping the thin beam around the room, he saw it was the same as it had been when he was working on the windows. The headboard of the bed was against the middle of the left wall, the bed commanding the center of the small room.

Flush with the wall on Z's side of the bed was a dark wood chest of drawers; beyond the bed, a stand with its frilly table lamp.

The room's windows pierced the wall across from the door.

To the right was an open space, the entrance to a walk-in closet, a closet installed long after the house was built.

Further down the right wall, opposite the bed, was the lady's dressing table, its oval mirror rising at the back, brown padded bench in front.

A higher sweep of light showed Ms. Ogden's cosmetics on the vanity, even higher, reflected off the dressing table mirror to bounce back to the wall behind the lady's bed.

Across the way, a small bent-wood rocker had been put between the room's two separate windows, on the chair, items of apparel: either the clothes Ms. Ogden had taken off before putting on her night gown or clothes she intended to wear the next day.

A quick sweep of the room at eye level showed pictures hanging on the buff papered walls. Rural scenes: a dilapidated red barn, hedges surrounding a field, a pasture of grazing cows.

The bed ... was still made ... the first observation that added something new to the equation. After getting ready for bed, the lady had gone downstairs to check out ... what? Going down before actually getting into bed.

The order of events appeared to be this. Beth had come up to her bedroom, taken off her clothes, put on her night gown and immediately gone downstairs again.

Z played the light around the room once more. Bed in the center. Walk-in closet to the right. Beyond the closet was the vanity, Ms. Ogden's cosmetics jars lined up just so, seconding his impression that the lady was a meticulous person.

He was now aware of ... another odd feeling ... a sensation he'd learned to pay attention to, a perception that usually meant he'd just seen something ... wrong. Something in addition to the smell, but ... what?

Troubled, he started over, this time oscillating his line of light from ceiling to floor, moving the light forward at dead slow.

Bureau to the left.

Bed backed up to the wall just past the bureau.

Barn picture above the bed.

Table lamp and stand beyond the bed.

Turning the corner, there was a window, its blind pulled down behind frilly, white gauze curtains.

The rocking chair. With clothes on it. Clothes neatly folded .... the fresh change of clothing Ms. Ogden had intended to put on the next morning.

Then the other window, shade drawn.

Coming back from the far right, for the first time, low to the floor, he saw a wicker clothes hamper. That's where the lady had put the clothing she'd been wearing.

The dressing table with its padded bench was next; on the vanity, a neat row of cosmetics bottles.

Flashing the light from jar to jar, he could even identify the beauty aids. There were several bottles of red fingernail polish, for instance. Also squat, larger jars of creams, a compact for face power, a white plastic container of talcum -- brush, and comb -- all neatly arranged, one beside the other. And ....

That was it! That was what had disturbed him; what had tripped his inner "contact"!

A container ... out of line.

Clearly, Ms. Ogden had been using that little bottle when "something" had called her downstairs -- to her death.

Yes.

Looking closer, Z could see the space in the line of cosmetics, the place reserved for the bottle when not in use.

Either Ms. Ogden had not finished using that small vessel when she'd gone downstairs to investigate ... something ... or she'd just finished with the bottle, leaving in a hurry before putting the bottle back in its "hole" in the line of other cosmetic jars.

Five steps took him to the vanity where he stooped to get a better look at the "out-of-line" receptacle -- containers like that sometimes called vials, the flask small and oddly shaped; tall for its width; a misshapen cylinder about the size of a butane lighter, its cap unscrewed -- the cap lying on its side beside the bottle.

He played the flashlight full on the small flask. Then on its flaring cap. ... No. Not unscrewed, the container top seeming to be little more than a ground glass stopper, its stem meant to be fitted directly into the narrow neck of the vial.

Once more, Bob Zapolska concentrated the light on the receptacle.

Though the small flask was turned away, the vial's shiny paper label was reflected in the vanity mirror -- oobaT. ... T-a-b-o-o. Taboo.

Taboo ... perfume!

Real perfume. Not toilet water. Not cologne. Perfume -- the expensive, sixty dollars a half-ounce kind.

With that revelation, another piece of the Beth Ogden puzzle snapped in place. The lady had been sitting right here, putting on her perfume, when something had happened downstairs that had interrupted her. It had to be that way.

Furthermore, whatever "called" the lady to the first floor must have been of major importance. Why? Because only a "biggy" would have made Beth Ogden rush away before replacing the stopper in such an expensive bottle of perfume.

A woman just didn't let something as valuable as real perfume ... evaporate.

And that fit, too. What he'd smelled on entering the room was the generalized "Taboo" odor that had evaporated from that little bottle.

It was then, as suddenly as if the expensive flask had spoken, that the container told him two additional things, the first, something about Ms. Ogden as a person -- a startling fact that, in his brief contact with the lady, he'd not suspected.

The second? That there was a possibility that, like the "suicide" of the janitor, the lady's death had been no accident!

* * * * *

Chapter 13

Noon. Snowflakes had begun to fall from a solid Friday sky. Inside, Z and Calder had put their overcoats on a coat rack, made there way to a window booth, to sit on the newly varnished benches.

After waiting, they'd given their orders to the busy, middle-aged waitress with the dyed red hair and almost-matching artificial bun. "Ma' name's Janice. Y'all call out if ya need anythin', ya hear?" Another wait and she was back to deliver their drinks -- a hopeful sign that someone, somewhere was functioning in this new "southern-theme" restaurant.

"Nothing about the janitor's death from my police contact. Not yet." Though Z had already told Calder as much over the phone, he repeated it because it was the only thing he had to report. It was the professor who'd suggested lunch -- for reasons Z had yet to discover.

They were at the recently opened "Po' Folks" on Oak, waiting, like most of the "folks" around them, for their lunch. (Before Z could say anything, Calder had answered "non-smoking" to the hostess who seated them, making Z feel anxious at not having an ashtray for tidying up paper scraps).

Around them, diners fidgeted as uniformed waitresses darted here and there, pausing only to consult one another in low voices, unsure of what they were supposed to do. New places were like that, the confusion adding to the excitement some people liked about dining out.

It was Calder who'd suggested "Po' Folks," any experience with food interesting the chubby professor.

For the moment, Z could only hope the "grub" was better than the deliberately phony "Southernisms" of the place -- like apostrophes replacing letters in the long brown menu. (Po' folks don't speak the language s'good, don't ya know.)

"No more rumors to report on my part," Calder said, running his fingers through his sandy hair. "The tragic death of one of our secretaries, Beth Ogden, has been the sole topic of conversation around campus."

Death -- translated murder; two murders too many for the sleepy Northland -- a thought that led the detective in Big Bob Zapolska to wonder if the killings were related in some way.

"Want me off the janitor case?"

"No."

No? Z had thought that might be the reason for this meeting.

Though they'd placed their orders, Dr. Calder hadn't let the waitress take his menu; was concentrating on it more than he was paying attention to the conversation. Next to eating it, the professor enjoyed reading about food.

"I worked for Ms. Ogden," Z admitted, still feeling guilty.

Calder put down the brown "news-flier" menu and looked at Z with interest, Z wondering if there was something about over-sized lenses that gave people an academic appearance or if Calder just looked owlish.

"Installed her security," Z explained. "No way she could get back in."

"Is that bothering you?" Calder said as he whipped off his glasses to polish them on the inside of his striped tie.

"No."

"Good. We all do enough rotten things to feel guilty about. No sense blaming ourselves for unfortunate happenstance."

Calder's advice delivered, it was time to find out if the professor knew something about Beth Ogden that could shed light on the lady's murder.

"I met her husband a year ago. When on another case."

"You do get around, don't you?" The Calder grin.

"Died right after that."

Putting his glasses back on, it was the professor's turn to nod. "Her husband had a drinking problem. I've heard it said that's what killed him."

"She must have been lonely after her husband's death," Z added, watching the doctor carefully.

"I ... imagine," the hesitation between "I" and "imagine" telling Z that Calder knew more than the prof was letting on.

"There's an old saying," Z continued, pressing, nothing about the professor's "look" escaping him, "that you should be totally honest with your lawyer, your doctor, and your private eye."

"Could it be that you modernized that aphorism?" Calder winked.

Z nodded, almost smiling. Calder's good humor was infectious. "But its sound advice." At that, Calder frowned, seemed mystified. Z explained. "You don't think Ms. Ogden has been lonely."

The doctor nodded sheepishly. "You should be a psychologist. You read people quite well." Calder paused. Pursed his lips. "It's just that there's a difference between telling it like it is and spreading rumors."

"Rumors can be clues."

Calder made a wry face; took a quick drink from his mason-jar-for-a-glass.

"Can I get anything for y'all?" It was their waitress, pausing beside their table.

"Just the food," said Calder, soberly, the easygoing professor serious about important matters. Like death. And lunch.

"I'll go check on that right now, honey." Smiling her quick, down-home smile, she charged off toward what had to be the kitchen.

The waitress gone, Calder explained. "Bateman College is a small school. Even at large schools, there's a lot of gossip." He hesitated, thinking before continuing. "In Beth's case, the rumor was that, shortly after her husband's death, she found herself a boyfriend."

"Figured."

Calder looked startled. Should Z tell Calder about the perfume? ... He decided against it, at least, not yet.

"A good-looking woman like that," Z said, as a substitute for the strict truth.

"Oh. ... Yes." Clearly, Calder wasn't attracted to Beth Ogden. (Men were seldom interested in older women. One of the few good things about being "older," Z thought cynically, was that he was now attracted to most women. For all the good that did.)

"This rumor have a name?"

"Lucas."

"Terbrugghen"?

"You do have an amazing capacity to remember names, don't you?" Calder smiled in his disarming way, shook his head, his powdery hair wisping down his broad forehead. "Tough names, at that."

"Maybe." One of the reasons high school had been fun, was that Z could concentrate on football and still memorize facts quickly enough to make A's. "So, what's Terbrugghen's story?"

"He's the prof who directs our plays."

"Think the rumor about Ogden and the professor is true?"

"Though I don't know in the sense that I have firsthand knowledge ....." Calder nodded yes.

"See them together on campus?"

"Not any more than anyone else could be said to be 'together' on campus. Like I said, Bateman's a small place." Calder's eyes looked inward for a moment before returning to glance about the room. "There were hints, though. Like how much better Beth was dressing. That, and the psychological fact that women tend to fall for the same type of man, over and over."

"Oh?" Ms. Ogden's husband was a salesman. The Z shrug.

"Men who have the same character, not the same job."

"Which means ...?"

"That Lucas -- has problems with the bottle, too. I'd guess that Beth Ogden's father was an alcoholic, which is why she'd be attracted to a man with that kind of weakness -- acting out what she'd become used to as a child. Father substitute. Trying to find, in her adult life, the father she loved, but who paid little attention to her."

"A rumor that Terbrugghen drinks?"

"More than conjecture on that score. And again, for all the standard reasons. Most of his family's fortune lost. Several wives who took the rest. Career going downhill for years. It's common knowledge that every Wednesday night Lucas locks himself in his apartment and drinks himself blind. Something to do with his father losing the family fortune on a Wednesday in the crash of '29."

"Every Wednesday?"

"I've heard that from so many people I've got to believe it. That, plus the way Lucas looks on Thursdays -- if he manages to get to school at all."

At that moment, their "Howdy, y'all" waitress -- who was really quite nice -- brought the tray with their food. "Southern-fried" chicken for Z; Chicken-fried steak, Southern-style, for the professor. As side dishes, Z had "Cajun" corn and "Georgia" mashed potatoes with "cream-of-the-sunny-South" gravy. Calder had "Texas" green beans and "down home" french fries -- meaning charred in a greasy pan. No doubt, fixed "cornpone" style.

The food on the table, Calder ate.

With single-minded intensity.

In total silence. (Just like during lunch at the Golden Corral.)

Silence -- if you failed to count the general buzz of conversation around them.

It was only after Calder had sucked in the last corn kernel that he got down to business.

Pushing back his plate, putting his elbows on the table to prop his chin on his hands, he said: "Do you believe in coincidence?" Something was bothering the professor; just not vexing him enough to get between the doctor and his food.

"In my business, no."

"I suppose." The professor leaned back to fold his napkin before putting it in its place beside his plate. "But you'd say that coincidences sometimes occur?" Z shrugged. "For instance, Fritz told me that two ex-presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died on the same day in 1826. The really odd thing was that the day they died was the 4th of July." Calder shrugged eloquently. "Nobody in his right mind would believe a work of fiction that had two former presidents dying on the same day, to say nothing of that day being the 4th of July! But it actually happened."

"Furlwangler. American history."

Calder grinned. "Yeah." The professor paused as if having trouble thinking what to say next. "My coincidence is that too many... odd ... things are happening on the Bateman campus on Wednesday nights."

"The Victor killing."

"Yes." The professor cleared his throat.

"The secretary's death, too."

"I ... guess." Beth Ogden had died on a Wednesday night, but not on campus; too much of a stretch for Calder's "coincidences."

Derailed for a moment by Z's observation about the secretary, the professor began again. "I wouldn't know about this except that I've started walking on the campus -- at night. I'd like to lose some weight and climbing stairs will do it." A quick smile. "But maybe I'd better start at the beginning." The prof cleared his throat again. "I almost told you once, why I got into psychology. I didn't tell you, because the reason is so stupid." He tapped the shiny new wood table with the fingertips of both hands. "It was something that happened to me when I was a boy." Making the decision to tell all, Calder settled back; was more relaxed. "One warm Halloween night, some friends of mine and I decided to pit our courage against our small town's haunted house. Every town has one, I suppose, a lonely old place at the end of a cul-de-sac, going to ruin. So we got our bikes and rode out there.

"We didn't go in, of course. Our parents had threatened us enough to prevent that. The floors were supposed to be all rotted away. We could fall through and hurt ourselves. That kind of thing. But we dared each other to get close to the house.

"Leaving our bikes by the street, we crept up to the decomposing structure, whispering and giggling. It was then that the moon came out, one of those silver November moons that casts a lot of light. And with the moon came a sudden gust of wind that made the old house creak.

"At that, my friends took off. But not me. This was my chance to go one-up on them." The professor paused; smiled to himself at the remembrance. "It was when they were running for their bikes that it happened. The grass around the old place hadn't been mowed forever, and I saw a patch of moonlit weeds begin to part ahead of me, as if something invisible was walking from around the side of the house right toward me." Calder paused again. "That's it. But that was enough to send me tearing off for my bike, too." He grinned. "I believed in ghosts for several years after that. Later, of course, I realized it was just the wind in the grass. Or maybe a raccoon or a cat making the grass move. Still, it was real to me at the time.

"Later -- sometime during my freshman year in college -- that scary incident got me to thinking about how our minds control our bodies. It's what we think that governs the chemicals our bodies secrete, for instance. You only have to think that a tiger is hiding behind a tree for your glands to pump you full of adrenalin. It's immaterial whether or not there really is a tiger behind the tree. In bodily response, at least.

"And coming to respect the enormous power of the mind over thoughts, feelings, even over body chemistry, I went into psychology to learn as much as possible about how people's thoughts affect their lives."

Interesting. Like much of what Calder had to say. Where this was leading -- if anywhere -- Z couldn't tell.

"Did you know," Calder said, looking across the table with that peculiar focused stare of his, "that Bateman college has the reputation of being haunted?"

Not knowing where this sudden shift in conversation was going, Z waited.

"Gives the place some class, don't you think?" It was Z's turn to lift an eyebrow. "The rumor is that Old Man Bateman -- the school's founder -- is still hanging around. In Bateman Hall, actually."

"Noises?"

"I don't know. I haven't been at Bateman college all that long. And I'm almost never in Bateman Hall. Plus, the story of the haunting comes up infrequently. Certainly, nothing anyone's serious about when it is brought up. I think it was a couple of years before I heard about it. Like everyone else, didn't give it any credence ... until recently."

"Oh?"

"I've taken to walking on the campus at night, like I said. After night school lets out. When the place is quiet. Not really on campus, actually, but up and down the front campus stairs. I've been gaining a little weight. Always do in the winter. In summer, I play tennis and that helps, but in the winter there isn't much to do physically." Calder waved a pudgy hand as if to stop himself from going down the wrong track. "Anyway, a couple of weeks ago on a Wednesday night, I was climbing the front stairs. Up one side, across the top of the campus walk, then down the other stairs -- that's been my pattern. It was when I was top side, crossing over to the other stairs that I saw ... it."

"Something in Bateman Hall?"

"Right. A kind of ... light. High up. Shining -- no -- more like glowing -- through the windows of one of the corner turrets on the third floor. Faint. But ... there.

"What's odd about that is that nothing is supposed to be happening on the third floor of Bateman. That's all storage, now. Plus the fact that Bateman is locked at night. No one should even be in the building after dark."

"Except for the janitors."

"You're thinking about overtime and the clean-up campaign? And you'd be right ... except that, after Tommie V got shot in Bateman, no one's been going in the building late at night. I'm not the only one who's edgy about Tommie V's alleged suicide. So, when I see a faint light in that tower window, I've got to wonder who is in there. The place was locked up tight. I tried all the doors.

"Next morning, I called maintenance to find out that it was just like I thought. No one should have been in the building."

"Lucas Terbrugghen? You said it was 'his' building."

"I thought that, too. But, if you'll remember, Wednesday is Lucas' drinking night. That would put the odds heavily against his being on campus. Anyway, he wouldn't have any reason for being up in one of Bateman's corner turrets."

"You don't think the light is ... a ghost, do you?" Z didn't want to offend the professor, but ....

"Of course not," Calder said quickly. Too quickly? "I've outgrown that childish fantasy."

"You think whoever made the light could have been the one who shot the janitor? Same night of the week that he was killed. Wednesday night. Something illegal going on in that building on Wednesday nights? Something the janitor stumbled into?"

"It's a hope, anyway."

"Did you check last Wednesday?"

"No. I was going to, but then forgot about it. I did have a look the Thursday and Friday nights following the Wednesday I saw the light. And there was nothing."

"Maybe what you saw was a reflection?"

"Maybe." Calder picked up his spoon; twirled it at the narrow spot just above the bowl. "It's just that I feel so helpless. I have this notion that Tommie V was murdered and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to help prove it."

"Let me ask a question."

"Shoot." The prof put down the spoon.

"When you saw the light -- if you could -- would you have gone inside?"

"I ... don't know."

"Going in would not be smart."

"I suppose."

"You've hired me to do dumb dangerous things." Z smiled his ugly smile to show he wasn't criticizing but also that he was serious. "I'm being paid to find the bad guy. To take the risks."

"I know it."

"So. You discover the light again, you call me."

"Agreed."

And that was it. The reason for the lunch. A "ghost" light.

The meal over, Z palmed his and Calder's empty sweetener packs into his pants pocket, to burn when he got home. Felt better about that.

They left tips. Slid out. Stood. Put on their coats. And ambled through the crowd that was still coming in.

In front, they paid their checks at the counter. Separate checks.

Outside, the snow had thickened; was floating straight down; big puffy flakes -- almost as beautiful as the artificial stuff.

Calder said goodbye and walked off toward his Datsun.

Z found his Cavalier.

While driving back to his office in the icy cold of his heater-less car, the road not yet snow-slick enough to command his full attention, Z thought about what he'd learned from Calder. Z's judgment? That it was too early in the game to call "Ghostbusters."

Seriously, he had to admit that the "ghost" light added another piece to the Bateman puzzle; was another strange event connected with the college on a Wednesday night. Major events and minor ones.

Bob Zapolska ticked them off in his mind. In the "major" category, was the death of the janitor on a Wednesday night. (Too little was known about that to be sure it was murder.) And the suspicious death of Ms. Ogden, also on a Wednesday night.

In the "minor" category, was the "ghost" light -- only to be seen on Wednesdays? -- and what seemed to be a certainty, that Wednesday evening was Lucas Terbrugghen's drinking night.

Wednesday coincidences?

Maybe.

And maybe not.

Of more importance to him was the other bit of information he'd learned from Calder: that shy, reserved Beth Ogden had a boyfriend. Simply the confirmation of something he already knew.

Figuring that the woman had taken a lover had been easy. All you had to do was ask yourself: "How many loveless ladies put on perfume before going to bed?" ... The answer? ... None. Perfume, particularly the expensive kind, was worn to please a man.

No doubt about it. The "event" that had gotten Beth downstairs in the middle of the night -- perfumed and dressed in a gauzy nightgown -- was the anticipated arrival of her lover. Ditto for why that timid woman had opened her front door.

Had the expected "guest" been Lucas Terbrugghen?

Or was it that Lucas was supposed to come, but fell into his Wednesday night pattern of boozing it up alone? Could it be that someone else came to the door that night, that Ms. Ogden, thinking it was Terbrugghen, opened the door to her murderer? (In either case, the lady would surely have used the peephole Z had installed. Meaning, whoever Beth Ogden let in that fateful night was no stranger.)

An ugly picture was forming in Z's mind as he turned down Chouteau; a picture of an Ogden "friend," being ushered in, only to let out Beth's "indoor" cat, Beth rushing outside after the helpless animal. Of the "friend" then closing the self-locking the door; staying inside while Beth pounded on the door until her hands were bloody. Until Beth Ogden froze to death.

Theories.

Coincidences.

None of them leading to a conclusion.

Still, if the events of a crime were like pieces of a jigsaw, Z felt he'd reached the stage of having "framed" the picture.

Viewed positively, all that remained for him to do was fill in enough interior pieces for the dark image of the murderer to take shape.

Did he say, all?

* * * * *

Chapter 14

Except for Susan's call Tuesday evening, a slick spot on the back walk had made it a wasted week. After that, ice packs and a couple of Anne McCaffrey's dragon books had helped keep Z off the streets during the first major snowfall of the winter.

Susan's call made the difference, though, first, because she had called him; secondly, because Susan would be at his place Saturday night.

It was Thursday before Z risked going out to get the papers, finding the Monday through Thursday dailies almost dry in their orange plastic, foul-weather bags.

Inside his apartment, thumbing through the back issues before burning them, Z was grateful for the delay in having to read about the latest tanker disasters, revolutions, financial scandals, earthquakes, and politicians wrapping themselves in the flag as a way of hiding from the nation's ills.

Reading one paper after the other also made it clear that stories about the stolen Monet were slipping to the paper's back sections. Nor was there any more brave talk about a quick solution to the case. Public officials who had earlier displayed confidence that the Monet would be returned, were now covering their asses by complaining about police incompetence.

Z felt sorry for Detective Addison. Wondered what beat he'd soon be pounding.

It was too early to call Ted again -- so there was no chance for Z to learn anything else about what really happened to Tommie Victor. (If there was anything else to learn.)

He was also stuck on the Ogden case. Actually, he'd been hoping Professor Calder would come up with a new tidbit of gossip about the lady, like maybe (sex-starved as she was) she'd taken up with more than one lover. A rumor like that providing Z's murder theory with something it lacked -- a motive. LOVE TRIANGLE LEADS TO MURDER -- would be the headlines in all the papers. Even make page one of the "Star."

But Calder didn't call.

Sure, Z could do the obvious; begin following the boyfriend. But ... he hadn't, telling himself that snow prevented a man with a bum knee from doing much surveillance work.

Wanting to learn where the semi-mysterious director lived, at least, he'd "let his fingers do the walking," first in the small Northland directory, then in the huge K.C. phone book.

No luck.

Thinking about it, Z decided that having an unlisted number wasn't so unusual for teachers, a silent number keeping students from making harassing calls.

On a whim, he looked up Calder. Found him in both the K.C. and the Northland books -- a piece of evidence that confirmed what he'd observed. Favorable student reaction to the man made it unlikely that Calder's students would make prank calls.

Wednesday passed with nothing but snow and more snow, Bob Zapolska starting to read Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. Two-trunked baby elephants from outer space? Why not?

No call Wednesday evening from Calder. Either the ghost light had been Calder's overactive imagination -- with people dying around him, perfectly understandable -- or, like Z, Calder was staying close to home in bad weather.

Thursday and Friday were spent finishing Footfall, Z now feeling well enough to make brief sorties to the office to thrown away the junk mail piling up under the mail slot in his door and to discover "nothing doing" on his answering machine.

At long last, it was 6:00 on a snowy Saturday night.

Susan would be appearing soon. Braving the weather to go out to eat, they'd come back to make love on his solid bed -- the end to every perfect evening.

In spite of having all week to do it, he had to rush to get the place picked up before Susan's arrival. After they got back, he'd lay a fire; nothing like an old-fashioned fireplace to stimulate romance.

The doorbell rang.

Z's knee was even feeling good as he hurried to the door, rotated the deadbolt, pulled the door in and.....

* * * * *

Z came awake slowly to the driving beat of pain inside his skull. Where was he? ... Lying on his side. ... On a floor. On his floor, he thought ......

"Get up, old man," said a harsh voice from the ionosphere.

Z felt a stabbing pain in his ribs.

Looking through fog-blurred eyes, he saw a man standing over him. Tall.

Z closed his eyes to clear the film away, then opened them.

Starting at the floor, concentrating, he looked up and up, from the man's snake skin boots to expensive pants (sharp crease) to the suit coat (double-breasted) to the man's elongated head that rose to touch a too-tall ceiling.

Dark face. Dark hair.

The man wore an overcoat. Unbuttoned. Had ... ten fuzzy fingers on each hand, fingers too full of diamond rings.

"I said, get up, Daddy." The pain in Z's side was worse this time, the man's boots having sharp, rib-kicking toes.

Fighting dizziness, Z rolled over on his stomach.

Using his arms to push, struggled to his knees.

There, dragging his good leg under him, pushing with his hands, he fought his way to his feet, barely making it, swaying, swept with dizziness. More than a little sick, he almost fell, His head ringing like a bell clapper was loose inside. ......

Knocked out.

Though he could barely think, it didn't take much to figure out he'd been knocked out; that the stranger had done the knocking.

Why?

It was then that he lost his balance, Z staggering back a step, at the last moment guiding his fall so he hit the groaning divan.

Jarred awake, he saw he was sitting on the side of the couch away from the phone. Funny, but this could be the first time he'd ever sat on that side of the divan. Funny ....

Impossibly far away at his feet was the shaky coffee table.

He tried again to focus on the man on the other side of the low table, a man ... whose eyes were black holes in a swarthy face.

Young.

Powerful.

No gun in sight.

If Z's head would only clear ....

"I'm not goin' to screw with you," the dark man said, every word a threat. "I know you got it. And you're gonna' get it for me. You got it here?"

"What?" It hurt to talk. Z must have hit his jaw on something when he went down. The coffee table? It looked like it might be out of place.

"The picture. You got it." The man had an ugly voice. Foreign accent. Never get a job with Ma Bell with that accent. Or with that attitude.

Z almost smiled.

Picture? Z's mind wouldn't make connections. Even though he felt more in control ......

Bob Zapolska's first clear thought was about how stupid he'd been to open the door without looking through the peephole. Detectives made enemies. He hadn't made any new ones lately -- that he knew of -- but there were old ones.

His second lucid moment was the realization that the man had called him old.

Big Bob Zapolska didn't like that. He also didn't like the way his head was hammering to the rhythm of his pounding heart. The whole of him felt like he was in a drum, still echoing to the "big bang" of the first day of creation.

"I heard about you," the man sneered. "Supposed to be so tough. Big football player. You're not so tough now, are you? Just an old gray-haired man that's gonna give me what I want."

There it was again. The man calling him old.

Gray hair.

That was the reason. Just because Z had gray-flecked hair didn't mean he was old. Bob Zapolska had an idea about that ... Something ....

"What do you want?" Z asked thickly, even his tongue feeling strange. Had he bitten it when he fell?

Floating a hand all the way to his mouth, he felt his lips with numb fingers. Took his hand away. Turned his hand over to look at it. ... No blood.

"I want the picture that you stole. You got it. And you're gonna give it to me." The man was leaning over the small table now, his ugly face closer.

No visible scars.

If the man killed him, Z would have to remember to tell that to the cops. No visible scars.

"Head hurt?" The man had a crooked grin. "You ain't felt nothin' yet. You get stubborn on me and you'll wish you'd never got born."

Z's mind was suddenly clearer.

Picture?

It clicked!

The dark man meant the Monet. Somehow, word had gotten out that Z had stolen the painting.

He would have laughed -- if he could.

Because he'd been asking about the painting, somebody had gotten his wires crossed; heard that he'd stolen it. If that wasn't such a dangerous rumor to have spread around, it would have been funny.

Where had the man heard that? From Ted? From the K.C. cop? And who was this man, anyway?

What was stupid was opening the door before looking out. If Z had been alerted to a stranger outside, he could have defended himself. He was still quick; far from the "old man" this thug thought he was.

Big Bob Zapolska was getting angry -- was too weak to check his temper.

Anger! Building. Building. Against the man for calling him old. Gray in your hair didn't mean you were old!

The reason Z had opened the door without looking was that he was expecting Susan ....

For the first time, Z was recovered enough to be afraid! Not for himself. But for Susan. Susan was coming. Would be here any minute!

He tensed his muscles. Felt them starting to respond.

Good.

The rush of adrenalin at the thought of Susan walking into danger had brought him back to life. All he needed to take this bastard was ....

The doorbell rang. Susan! Susan coming into danger causing a wild flash of rage to energize Z's mind and body!

With the roar of a blood-crazed leopard, he kicked the end table with his good leg, the table's legs sheering off, the table top slamming forward into the thug's shin.

Howling, the swarthy man was reaching down to grab his leg as Z leaped over the flattened table, the criminal unable to avoid the punch Z drove into his belly. After that

* * * * *

As if touched by a miracle, Z could hear again. See the vague outlines of the room, the walls pulsing. Hear ... a noise.

Susan.

Susan screaming.

"Z!" She was yelling. "Z! Stop!"

Swimming back from the pool of red rage into which he'd fallen, Bob Zapolska realized Susan wanted something from him.

Susan wanted him to stop.

So he ... stopped.

Looked around.

Was bewildered.

Z's breath exploding in harsh pants, he was calm enough to see Susan standing beside him, her face white. She'd been crying.

Recognizing her, he put his arm around her shoulder, drew her to him, patted her on the head.

She looked disheveled.

Gently, he brushed sweaty strands of hair from her eyes. As tall as she was, at that moment, she looked ... delicate.

Around them, the apartment had been wrecked.

There had been a fight.

A man was on the floor beside the fireplace.

Tied-up.

More than tied-up. Unconscious.

Someone had swung the fireplace to the side, Z's detective case on the floor beside the man -- open -- the satchel's contents littering the room.

It now seemed clear that Z had lost his temper; something he rarely did, the last time, when Susan's husband had waved that little gun at her.

This time, he guessed, it was also because of Susan, the man on the floor a danger to Susan ... in some way.

Z was breathing more easily.

Releasing Susan to wipe the sweat from his eyes, he was beginning to remember what had happened.

The man on the floor had broken in. Had threatened him. The man thought he had the painting that had been stolen from the Nelson.

Then, Susan had rung the bell .....

Though Z couldn't remember much after that, it was clear to him what had happened. Enraged because Susan was in danger, he'd overpowered the man.

He'd also gotten out his detective case; dumped out the coil of nylon rope; tied the man up while the crook was still knocked-out.

A bloody lump on the man's jaw matched a corresponding ache in the knuckles of Z's left hand.

Tied the man up. But ... in a strange way.

Concentrating on the man on the floor, Z saw that the fellow's hands were tied behind his back. Which wasn't the odd part. What was unusual was that there were turns of rope around the man's throat. Too loose to choke him. Just wrapped there. Why?

Susan stepped away to sit down heavily on the divan. Still too white, she was weeping softly.

The guy on the floor ... Ah! It wasn't rope that was wrapped around the man's throat. It was the dynamite fuse.

An open box of kitchen matches was on the floor beside the man. Apparently, before Susan had gotten him stopped, Z had been about to light the fuse -- the fuse to burn round and round the fellow's throat.

Nasty! A powder burn like the fuse would make was no joke.

Big Bob Zapolska had been known to do odd things when in a temper.

On the other hand, even out of control, he realized he must do something to make an impression on the man. The criminal knew Z's address; Z didn't want him coming back. But not by teaching the thug his manners by using up Z's fuse. Dynamite fuse was hard to get.

"I'm OK," Z said, to quiet Susan.

"I heard a terrible noise," Susan whispered. "The door was ajar, so I came in. I couldn't make you understand." She was looking up at him with her large blue eyes, dry sobs still shuddering her. "You wouldn't listen to me. You were like a crazy man."

"I went haywire. I almost never do that anymore."

"Who ... is that?" she asked in a small voice, pointing at the man.

"I don't know. He hit me. Then you came. I was afraid for you."

"Like when my husband shot you."

She knew. That was the last time Z had blacked-out.

"If you're in danger, I get violent." Z managed a weak smile. "I'm OK now but I've got to get him out of here."

"What were you going to do to him?" Susan still looked unnaturally white. Shaken.

"Don't know. But it's OK now."

"You aren't going to ... hurt him ... are you, Z?"

"No." Z didn't know why not; the guy had certainly hurt him!!

"Don't hurt him. Promise me!"

"I promise."

Susan struggled off the divan. Though her knees were weak, at least her smile was stronger. There was more color in her face. "You keep your promises. I think you're the only person I ever knew like that."

And that was true. A real man never went back on his word. A promise was ... sacred.

"Give me an hour. Get something to eat. Then come back."

"I'll need some time to pull myself together," Susan said, agreeing. Z noticed she hadn't unbuttoned her coat.

"You'll be alright."

Stepping over to her, he put his arm around her again to walk her to the door.

Outside, hand-in-hand, they strolled down the back path, the two of them alone in a soft shower of night-silver snow, Z getting Susan safely into her gray-blue Stanza that she'd parked beside the garage, waving to her as she eased off down the alley.

She would be alright.

Back in his apartment, Z wiped his feet on the throw rug just inside the door, then got his overcoat; put it on to warm himself after the chilly trip outside in his shirt sleeves.

Pausing to slug down a quantity of aspirin, feeling better after a time, he busied himself getting the fuse off the man's neck. Found the case. Looped in the fuse.

The man still out, Z had time to pick up the room and to pack the scattered detective items in the satchel (except for his blackjack, putting that in his coat pocket.) After that, he returned the valise to the slot he'd made under the fireplace then pivoted the fire box back on its base.

He even had time to think of a way to impress this thug -- while still keeping his promise to Susan not to hurt the hoodlum.

Continuing to finalize the details of his plan, he got a Hy-Vee sack from under the sink. Began to put in what he would need: a safety pin and piece of twine from the kitchen's "junk" drawer; also last year's eight-inch-in-diameter Christmas candle, its wick burned almost to the bottom of the hard wax shell.

Perfect.

Rummaging in the kitchenette cupboard, he found a quart-sized mason jar to add to the sack.

Since the idea he'd gotten was an afterthought, he had to retrieve his detective case to get the rubber siphon, putting the flexible tube in the sack, as well.

Taking his thin skin-tight leather gloves out of the satchel also, he pulled them on before putting the case in its slot under the hearth and dragging the fireplace back on its base.

A couple of kitchen matches in his left coat pocket ....

The man on the floor was beginning to twitch as a prelude to waking up.

Hurrying, Z dumped the contents of the sack on the living room table, returning the jar and siphon to the grocery bag.

Getting a thin-bladed kitchen knife from the utility drawer, picking up the candle, he bored side-by-side holes through the candle's bottom edge.

Next, threading one end of the twine through the holes he'd made, looping back the string to tie it to itself, he secured that end of the string to the bottom of the candle. Picking up the other end of the three-foot length of twine, he tied that to the bottom hole of the safety pin, putting the pin-string-candle combination in the sack with the jar and siphon.

Standing, glancing at his watch, Z saw he'd done all this in ten minutes. If the crook would just wake up, there was plenty of time to finish the job and get back here before Susan returned.

Z bent down to shake the man. Repeated the "shake" at two minute intervals.

"Wha ...?" the muscle man mumbled. "What ...?"

Waking up with a start -- still looking good in his expensive overcoat -- the thug opened his deep-set eyes and rolled them all around, finally seeing Z standing over him.

The man looked puzzled. Being knocked out wasn't good for anybody.

The first sign the criminal understood what was happening was when he pulled hard on the rope binding his hands behind his back.

Realizing he was tied, a look of fear spread across the man's ugly face, his thick eyebrows drawing together in a frown.

Good.

At least it was a beginning.

"You think I stole the Monet. You're wrong." Z could tell the man understood what Z was saying. "So wrong that that idea could get you killed." Z was emphasizing the words but keeping his voice down to his usual rasp. He couldn't talk much louder, anyway.

All he got from the crook was another groan and a further attempt to pull free. "We're going to your car."

Not that easily done with the felon's hands tied securely, it taking a knee-straining effort just to get the man up.

After that, Z carrying the paper sack, it was no trouble to walk the crook out the door and through the heavy snowfall to the man's car in front.

A rented car.

Figured.

Putting the paper bag on top the snow-feathered car, opening the back door, facing the thug toward the car, Z slipped out the blackjack and sapped the crook, at the same time, shouldering the man inside onto the car's back seat.

A moment to kick in the criminal's legs, and Z was able to slam shut the back seat door.

None of the neighbors would be looking. Anyway, it was full dark. Plus, the snow was coming down too thick for anyone to see.

Remembering to retrieve the sack from the car roof, opening the driver's door, he got in and shut the door.

Brushing the snow off the bottom of the sack, he put the paper bag on the passenger seat.

Twisting to the back, rolling the man over, Z dug the rental keys out of the criminal's pants pocket.

Satisfied that things were going well, starting the car, turning on the wipers to clear the windshield, switching on the lights, Z pulled away from the curb.

Skidding around the next corner, Z drove the new Ford down a cleared-off 72nd.

Took a right at the light.

Continuing another mile on Oak, he turned left onto Barry, finding the traffic to be unusually light for that time of night.

Past the U.S. Super on Barry, past the new bank building and the Metro North shopping mall, he made a left to travel up a narrow road that trailed through lightly wooded land toward the modern black and yellow metal-paneled police station on top the hill. (Not Ted's Gladstone station. This was far enough north to be K.C. cops.)

Trees hiding the car from the police station a half-mile ahead, Z pulled off to park in a wide spot in the scrub brush lined road.

Put the car in park.

Switched off the motor and the lights.

Cars rarely used this road anymore, even when it wasn't packed with snow. Like the cops, people took the access road to the new highway, the concrete two-lane down the hill's other side.

Back to the ... experiment. No sense in getting the man out of the car until the final preparations had been made.

Sitting there in the dark, the thick fall of snow quieting the world, Z steeled himself. He hated this part. If they could put a man on the moon, you'd think someone would invent a way to siphon gas without the risk of getting it in your mouth!

Finding the dome switch where he thought he would, he snapped on the ceiling light so he could see to get what he needed from the sack. Took out the flexible rubber siphon and the mason jar.

The dome light still on, he got out with the tube and jar, shutting the car door with a crisp thunk.

A bed of leaves by the roadside giving him surprisingly good footing, he circled the back of the car, at the passenger side rear, flipped out the gas flap and unscrewed the cap.

Wiping a clean space on the trunk lid, he set the cap there -- top up -- to keep snow from sifting inside the cap. This was no time to risk water in the gas tank -- no matter how little.

Next, Z poked one end of the thin tube down the throat of the gas tank, snubbing up on it to push it past the spring-loaded inner seal, the inside "lid" designed to prevent fumes from escaping if you forgot to put the gas cap on after filling the tank.

Feeding in the tube until he was certain the end of it was below the level of the tank's gas, squatting, setting the jar beside him in the snow, he put the other end of the tube in his mouth.

Sucked gently.

Damn! As careful as he was being, he still got a raw, cold sip!

Gagging, he stuck his tongue over the tube end.

Quickly reaching inside his mouth, he capped the end of the tube with his thumb, even more quickly, spit the oily-tasting gas into the snow. Bending down further, using his free hand, Z swiped snow inside his mouth, spitting and spitting until he'd washed away the worst of the gasoline taste.

Picking up the jar but keeping it low, placing the end of the tube inside it, he took his thumb off the tube end.

And waited ...... until he'd siphoned off a quart of gasoline.

Good. Almost ready.

Lifting the tube above his head to break the flow of gas, Z set the open container of gasoline on the ground, making sure the jar was well out of the way. Standing, he pulled the tube out of the fuel tank, spun the gas out of the thin siphon, coiled the rubber piping and slipped it into his right coat pocket. .... No. ... He didn't forget to replace the gas cap and close the aerodynamic flap. Big Bob Zapolska had always been good at remembering details.

Opening the back door of the car now, he got a hand on the crook, tumbled as he was, half on the seat, half on the floor, and dragged him out, the man sprawling on the snowy ground.

Using his foot, Z rolled the man face up, the man lying at a crumpled angle because his tied up arms were underneath his back.

Wanting to get this over with before a stray car came down the road, Z bent down to scoop snow on the bully boy's face, the crook groaning.

With the criminal moving restlessly, on the way to waking up, Z opened the front passenger door and rummaged around in the bag again. Got out the safety pin -- tied to the twine -- the other end of the string tied through the hole in the bottom of the fat, hollowed-out candle.

Setting the candle and twine beside the man, Z reached down and pinned the safety pin to the lapel of the gangster's coat.

Since the man was starting to function again, at least enough to stand, Z hoisted him to his feet, the man leaning back on the car to keep from falling. As for the candle, it hung upside down at knee level, dangling there at the end of the pinned on string.

Seeming to be fully awake at last, the crook's shadowy face took on a wild look in the feeble glow coming from the Ford's dome light.

Good.

Without explanation, Z jerked the crook off the car and marched him the five steps it took to lean him back against the trunk of a spindly tree.

Big Bob Zapolska was ready at last.

"Listen as if your life depended on it. Because it does."

Z reached down now, and picked up the candle. Righted it. Brought it up to the crook's eye level so the man could see it.

Z dug the matches out of his coat pocket.

Shifting the candle so that Z had it under his right arm, he transferred one of the matches to his other hand.

A match in each hand, he struck the match heads against each other, the heads flaring, making quite a light on that dark night, Z putting both matchsticks side by side to hold them in one hand, the double match burning nicely.

Transferring the candle to his other hand, he tipped the candle so he could push the flaming heads of the matchsticks inside it, the wick near the bottom softening, then catching fire.

Throwing away the matches to hiss out in the snow, Z held the lighted candle upright, the wick blazing higher, the flame glowing merrily through the candle's translucent shell. As Z had figured, the candle's wax casing protected the candle flame from what feeble wind gusts blew on that silent snowy night.

Though there was too little candlelight for him to see the criminal's black eyes beneath the man's deep brow ridges, the rest of the ape man's face looked puzzled.

Carefully, Z lifted the lighted candle and balanced it on the man's head, the string, tied to the candle's base, trailing down past the thug's face to the safety pin pinned to the man's coat. .... Too much slack in the string.

Gathering the twine in the middle, Z tied a loop-knot there to tighten the line.

Turning away, Z walked back to the car, bent down, picked up the jar of gas, walked back to the criminal, and carefully sloshed the volatile liquid down both the front and back of the gangster's coat, the cold, thin fuel quickly soaking to the crook's skin.

The fumes from that much gas made quite a stench, even in the air of all outdoors.

"Hey ...!" the man cried, the upward rush of poisonous vapor choking off his voice.

"Here's the game." Even Z's hiss could be clearly heard in the thick air. "The candle's fastened to the string, the string to the safety pin, the safety pin hooked to your coat. If the candle falls off your head, the string swings the burning candle back against your body, touching off the gasoline."

"You're fuckin' crazy, man!" the thug said hysterically, his voice cracking like a teenager's.

"Something you should remember," Z said, dryly. "If you get out of this alive."

At last, he had the man's attention. "Got the candle balanced on your head?" The man rolled his eyes. "Good. It's half a mile to the police station." Z pointed. "Make it without the candle falling off your head, and you stay alive. If the candle falls, it touches off the gas."

"You can't do that ...." It was the criminal's turn to have lost his voice.

"And remember this. Even if you make it, you're roasted if I see your face again."

The man just stood there, trembling, trying to catch a breath without coughing, his eyes rolled up as if to see the candle on his head.

"There are other ways to play it." Big Bob Zapolska liked to be as fair as possible in these situations. "You can stand right here until the gas evaporates. Might freeze your balls off first.

"Or, you could fall down; hope the flame blows out on the way.

"Me, I don't care."

His job over, Z's final glimpse of the thug came after swinging the Ford around, the rear view mirror showing the man standing as rigidly as a Christmas tree with a lighted star on top, exactly where Z left him.

Whatever decision the criminal made to get free, Z felt reasonably certain the tough would never trouble him again. The bottom line of this whole deal.

All that remained was to ditch the car in some parking lot, call a cab, and get home for his delayed date with Susan.

Thinking of Susan, Z was glad he'd kept his promise to spare the hoodlum.

Susan was right. Big Bob Zapolska did make a special point to keep his promises!

* * * * *

Chapter 15

Susan had come back later that night but it hadn't gone well. For his part, a throbbing head, the constant need to pass bloody urine, and the sore, red and blue bruises on his lower back had made lovemaking difficult. (Being kicked in the kidneys was no better for you than being hammered on the head.)

Susan was not herself, either.

The next morning over breakfast -- Susan just had toast -- Z could tell she wanted to talk; but was still so disturbed she couldn't. Seeing his dark side again had shaken her.

The detective business was pulling them apart.

College was pulling them apart.

Increasingly uneasy with each other, even what they'd always had in common -- sex -- was no longer all that good, these facts so depressing he again had the feeling he was losing her.

After Susan said goodbye, he'd found only a measure of peace in burning the wreckage of the coffee table. Nor did needing to use less ice on his knee put him in a better frame of mind.

Sunday. A day of rest and aspirin, the day when smaller bruises on his lower back fused into a massive, tender, purplish display. A long day to think about the possibility that, if the detective business was what was driving Susan away, he'd have to find new work.

The question was, what could he do that would make a lot of money?

So much for Sunday.

Monday morning -- the weather warming, the streets melted off -- things picked up. Feeling better generally, Z drove to the office to balance his SF reading with detective fiction, Z keeping mostly mystery novels in his file cabinet.

Inside the "shop," his coat off and laid out on his "secretary's" desk, he leaned over to trigger the rewind on his answering machine -- after the whine and beep, heard a voice say: "45-637 ...."

Distorted as the tape sounded, it was the receptionist at International Imports, the place where Johnny Dosso never worked.

A pause ... and another beep. "This is Hugh Calder." Why did answering machines have to fuzz up people's voices like they did? "Would it be possible for you to call me Monday morning? At Bateman, about 9:30?"

Those were the calls -- two more than he'd gotten all last week.

Going down the hall to use the public restroom -- still blood in his urine -- Z returned to call the college at 9:20; got routed to Calder's impersonal secretary, then punched through to Calder's office.

"Hugh Calder speaking."

"This is Bob Zapolska."

"Right, Bob. I was wondering if we could have dinner together some place on Wednesday evening. My treat. There's an illness in my wife's family in Kentucky and she flew back there this morning. She'll be gone all week. With the weather clearing up, I thought Wednesday night might be a good time to do a little ghost light hunting. If you're free, that is. I also owe you some money for what you've done so far in looking into Tommie V's death."

"Fine."

"Tippin's?"

"Yeah." Tippin's was more "upscale" than Z could usually afford; but if Calder was buying ....

Then, too, a payment from Calder would help Z buy an expensive present for Susan, the kind that would patch things up between them while he sorted out his life.

"About 6:00? The weather report says we're to have this good run of weather throughout the rest of the week. Just right for ghost hunting." Z heard Calder's soft chuckle. A regular laugh or a nervous one? He couldn't tell over the phone.

"See the light last Wednesday?"

"No. I didn't get out." As Z had figured. "But I did get up to the campus later in the week. No light then. What I figure is that Wednesday night is still our best shot."

"Sounds like fun." Not really, but more "fun" than anything else he had to do that week. "Any more rumors?"

"About Tommie V?"

"That, and other rumors."

"Nothing about Tommie. I did get a chance to talk to Lucas. As I figured, he's all broken up about Beth's death."

"The boyfriend."

"Right."

"She didn't have two boyfriends, maybe?"

"Not that I know of. Have you found out anything ...?"

"Just asking."

"Did I get a hint from you that you think there was something ... funny ... about Beth's death?"

"Maybe."

"You're not alone. Lucas said as much. He blames himself because he was going to go over to her place that night and got drunk instead.

"He said if he'd been there, the tragedy would never have happened. If it's any help, he said he couldn't understand her going out after dark that way."

"Yeah."

"He's taking it hard. Has missed all his classes since. I found him where I knew I would: in a bar near the campus. By the time I got there, he was stinking. Said he couldn't sleep and he looked it. Said he kept going over and over it in his mind; that he couldn't rest until he knew what happened." A pause. Calder shifting thoughts? "I could give him some hope there. I told him about you. That you had worked for the lady. He knew that. Knew your name. I told him you were fond of the lady, too, and maybe would look into her death. I told him I'd let him know if you found out anything. He seemed ... pleased to hear that."

Cynically, Z wondered if there would soon be an announcement from U.N. headquarters that Big Bob Zapolska was looking into the Ogden death. And the Tommie Victor death. And, of course, that Z was a suspect in the Monet heist. Didn't anyone pay attention to the word private in the title Private Detective?

No harm done this time, he supposed. Realistically, you had to expect loose talk when dealing with civilians.

"What does Terbrugghen look like?" Though Z knew it wouldn't help to know, his plan was to keep Calder talking in hopes the prof would add an interesting detail. A long shot, but ....

"Look like?"

"Just curious."

"Oh." Another pause. Calder turning inward to think. "He has longish, straight blond hair. Used to be blond. Mostly gray now. Average size. Stocky. Not as much of a beer belly as he should have. Blue eyes. He's very Dutch-looking, if that means anything. That's his lineage. Dutch. I think women find him attractive. ... Will that do it?"

"I guess."

"Listen. On Wednesday night, I'll bring a Bateman yearbook. All the faculty are pictured there. I'll show you Terbrugghen's picture."

"If it's too much trouble ...."

"Not at all. On one condition."

"Yeah?"

"That I don't have to show you my picture."

"Yeah."

"Wednesday at Tippin's at 6:00?" Calder was a teacher alright. A little review was always to be expected from teachers.

"Right."

One call down, one to go. The hard one.

With a sigh, Z reached for his coat. At least it was a nice day for a drive to the pay phone at the Antioch Shopping Mall.

This time, ten rings. "That you, Z?" Johnny Dosso's sleepy voice, the number Zapolska had dialed no doubt to the apartment of Johnny's latest bimbo.

In some ways, Bob Z wished he could trade women as easily as Johnny D; that is to say, he wished he didn't love Susan as much as he did.

"It's me."

"Hey, good to hear from you, Z-man."

"Yeah."

"I got something, but nothin' you want to hear."

"Shoot."

"Remember, Z. It was your idea I should ask around." What was Johnny leading up to?

"Yeah."

"Remember what I told you before? How we've got a shitty bunch of pimpled peckers working for us these days?"

"You said scary."

"If they had any brains to blow out, I myself would be in the market for dynamite fuse." You just had to wait Johnny Dosso out. "But it's worked out in the end."

"What?"

"That shit-ass punk kid name of "little Antony"; Antony Caetani. The one somebody told me came after you." Though the home base of the thug wasn't a major topic on Z's mind, this answered the question.

"You send him?"

"Hell no! Nobody sent him. That nutcase got it into his head that he'd impress somebody if he rousted you. Must have overheard someone -- could even have been me, since I've been asking around -- say you had an interest in the painting. Took that to mean you were the one who stole it. And hey, Z. What'd you do to him?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing, my ass! Before we shipped him off to Chicago, I got a first-hand look at him. This being my deal, sort of."

"What did he tell you?"

"Nothing. Hell, he don't talk. Don't make anything but noises. Just sits and shakes. They don't make 'em like you and me anymore."

"He OK physically?"

"I guess. Got a couple of bruises. Maybe a cracked rib. Big lump on his jaw. Knot on his head where a pro would have tapped him. The only reason I know this punk is connected to you at all is that another piece of filth that we got working for us heard him braggin' that he was headed your way."

Idly, Z wondered how the thug had kept from catching fire.

No matter. What was important was that Z had been right; he no longer had anything to fear from "little Antony."

"Anything on the painting?"

"You still after that? After this sleazeball came lookin' for you?"

"I need to know."

"Nothing. I asked around, like you wanted. And the feeling here is that it wasn't a professional job. Certainly not local. I put the word out and, near as I can tell, the job's not connected to associated enterprises. It's almost sure to have been a private party."

"I appreciate it, Johnny."

"I'm sorry about that pissant who thought he was some kind of old-time pistolero."

"Not your fault."

"Just in case I could've been more careful, I owe you one, Z-man."

"Accidents happen."

"Some kind of fuckin' accident happened to the punk, that's for sure. His head's all messed up. Small loss, though."

"Yeah. Well ... thanks again."

"See ya, Z-man." Click and click.

Now, Bob Zapolska had another call to make.

Feeding in more coins, he pushed the steel buttons and waited.

"I'm calling Detective Addison," he said to the female voice that finally answered.

"May I have your name, Sir?"

"Bob Zapolska. The detective wants to talk to me."

"I'll see."

It took awhile.

"Addison here." Amazing! A Kansas City dick at his desk.

"Bob Zapolska."

"I know. You got something for me?" By the sound of him, Addison was bone-tired.

"It's not good. My lead says, not a professional job. Checked all over the country, he said." Johnny hadn't said exactly that, but that was what he meant."

"You trust him?"

"Yeah."

"It's good to know anyone you can be that positive about." Z heard the detective sigh. "Knowing what something isn't is a step toward knowing what it is." Not a hell of a big step, Z thought, though a man on Addison's kind of hot seat had to keep thinking positive. "If you hear anything else, I'd appreciate a call."

"You got it."

"Like I said, it's good to know someone who gives you straight answers." Click.

Funny. But over the phone, even though Z knew Addison was black, Z couldn't tell. Just another cop that anybody'd invite out for a beer. Of course, it'd be a shock to a Klans-man to invite Addison over the phone, and have a black show up. Still, Z could sympathize with the Klan; lower-class guys calling themselves Imperial Wizards and Grand Dragons and who dressed up in funny-looking Halloween suits did have to be careful who they associated with. Had to take care to choose friends from people as dumb as them -- so they wouldn't be shown up.

Thinking about the three calls on the short drive back to his office, the only thing he'd learned was that the thug was gone for good. Other than that, no one was getting anywhere, including him. If misery loved company, Z's circle of friends was widening.

Back at the office, he remembered one more thing. Johnny wasn't kidding about owing Bob Z a favor; Johnny D didn't kid about favors. Now that Z was thinking of quitting his dead-end detective job -- for Susan -- and about how to make big money -- for Susan -- he wondered if he shouldn't try to cash in on Johnny's favor.

Cash. More and more, the most important word in Big Bob Zapolska's bleak life.

Still besieged by dark thoughts as he left his office, he was too upset to notice the old car back of him.

All the way home.

* * * * *

Chapter 16

After his bladder got him up Tuesday morning -- Z with less back pain but still leaving considerable urine-blood in the stool -- he was as depressed as he'd ever been. For obvious reasons. Nothing in his life was going right.

Heading the "wrong" list was losing Susan, Z coming to realize that going to college was a symptom of Susan's discontent with her life: a life that included Big Bob Zapolska.

Contributing to Susan's unhappiness was the unsavory nature of Z's work. Though it was the detective business that had brought them together, what he sometimes had to do as a P.I. scared Susan. Or to be more accurate, because of the pressures of his job, there were times when he scared her.

The work itself was going nowhere, Z no nearer a solution to the Ogden/Victor "murders" than ever. (To say nothing of the missing rental tools.) On top of that, there seemed no prospect of other more-solvable cases coming his way. And why should they? People hired private detectives who got results. If word of mouth said no results: no new cases.

He'd even been too paralyzed to do routine things -- like check on Ms. Ogden's lover.

Depression was not new to him, of course, anyone living in a hovel -- worn linoleum floors, cracked, violet-painted walls, cast-off furniture -- anyone with as few prospects for a better life as he, was bound to get discouraged now and then.

As he ate his peanut butter sandwich that morning -- the sandwich not tasting good to him, either -- he knew what he must do to get himself going: inject beauty into his life, the only way to do that, take a trip to the Nelson Art Gallery.

By nine-thirty that morning, driving to the Nelson on autopilot -- I-35, Southwest Trafficway, Plaza, and into the Nelson's parking lot -- Bob Zapolska's attitude had improved.

He felt better still as he walked up the broad front steps of the Nelson to enter the deep shadow of the building's soaring limestone-pillared portico.

After entering the building through its always impressive glass-and-bronze doors, Z checked his overcoat at free checking to the right. (Gallery security prevented patrons from taking loose-fitting coats into the gallery proper, clothing in which they might hide a stolen object.)

Buying an admittance ticket, he went past an aged ticket-taker and through the turnstile.

Normally, he would have swung to the right to enter a short, dark, squiggly corridor leading to the large room called "Classical Hall," Classical's out-sized, rectangular room housing the gallery's display of ancient artifacts: from Sumeria, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Today, however, he was feeling so "down" that he wanted to get where he was going -- fast. So he walked straight ahead through the cavernous space of Kirkwood Hall, centering himself between the room's widely spaced double row of sixty-foot, Corinthian-style columns: four-foot-in-diameter pillars of glassy smooth, black granite, their mirrored surfaces crazed with brilliant lightning strikes of white.

He was headed for the second floor and much needed therapy in the room of the Impressionists.

It was a quiet day at the gallery, stray people wandering here and there, teachers herding small groups of children, little kids stopping to look up in awe at the antique suits of armor on their tall stone pedestals.

A right at the back of Kirkwood took him to the slow 30s elevator. (People who weren't cripples took the sweeping, worn, white marble stairway.)

Arriving on second, he went through the vestibule, then down the long room of modern art, past the free-standing "Old Guard" and the life-sized, stick horse, past large canvasses that could only have been painted by drug-maddened lunatics.

At the end of "Modern," he took another right into the Spencer Impressionist Gallery, a brightly lit, elongated space filled with paintings that were the envy of the world. Susan said the reason there were so many fine impressionist paintings in America was that American collectors began to buy this style before Europeans realized this, too, was "art," the paintings on this side of the Atlantic eventually finding their way into American museums.

Padding slowly around the room's perimeter, Z paused at the early Van Gogh, "Head of A Peasant." But soon moved on. He didn't need to see paintings that mirrored his own depression. He stopped at Van Gogh's "Olive Grove," painted just a year before the deranged artist committed suicide by shooting himself in the groin.

Z hurried on.

Seurat's "La Baignade" had never impressed him. Gauguin's "Reverie" was, as its title suggested, more peaceful, Gauguin painting this portrait of his placid South Seas "wife" in her rocking chair.

Z spent a little time looking at Pissarro's "Le Jardin Des Mathurins, Pontoise." A French garden. Restful. Colorful.

Farther on, the giant "Nympheas" of Monet dwarfed him. Water lilies. Painted on an heroic scale because the old man's sight was failing.

Finally, to stop before a work painted in Claude Monet's youth: "View of Argenteuil."

Nice, but no comparison to the "Boulevard des Capucines."

Seeing the "inferior" Monet made him realize that another part of his discontent was his inability to do anything to track down the stolen masterpiece.

Except become a suspect himself!

Logically, there was nothing he could do; it was just that this was not a day for rationality.

It was then, forcing himself to look, that he saw what he'd been dreading ... the blank space on the central, wood partition where the "Boulevard" had always been displayed.

Though he thought he'd prepared himself, the shock of seeing empty space where his favorite painting used to "live" caused him to be even more depressed.

For instead of experiencing the "rightness" of the universe -- how he often felt in the gallery -- all he could sense today was ... loss. Loss, and a grudging respect for the "guard" who'd stolen the "Boulevard des Capucines." At least, the thief had the brains and the nerve to take something beautiful, at little risk to himself, apparently.

Sitting down on the bench in the middle of the room, rubbing his sore knee, he stared at the vacant central panel.

Sat and thought. About the sorry life of one Bob Zapolska, that big, dumb, old, ugly guy who was trying, against the odds, to live an honest life. Trying to live by his own code, his concept of morality being to stretch legality no more than he had to. And only then, to solve his client's problems. That, and making it a point not to hurt innocent people in the process.

What he was also coming to understand was that his sense of virtue barely applied to art theft, if at all.

Sitting there on the black, plastic-padded bench, Z had a difficult time believing the person who stole the painting had harmed anyone, the possible exception being big, dumb, old, ugly guys like Big Bob Zapolska.

The one remaining bright spot in the floundering Monet case was that the painting was so important the thief who took it would treasure it. (Cutting the painting from the frame would cause the "Boulevard" little damage; after recovery, restorers would soon make the painting as good as new. While most people didn't know it, large parts of many paintings on display in the world's galleries were, in actuality, the re-paintings of nameless "restorers" throughout time. Susan had told him that.)

On the plus side, Z could see a number of good things happening because the "Boulevard" had been pirated. First, for the criminal, of course. Whoever lifted the Monet would have the unequaled pleasure of having it for a time, of looking at it as long as he wished.

Eventually satiated with the painting's beauty, the crook would offer (for a substantial sum) to return the canvas to the gallery. (No way a painting that famous could be fenced to a third party.)

Just another example of high-class criminals getting away with their crimes. Prosecution, was for blacks who, made desperate by ghetto lives, robbed the corner liquor store.

The Nelson would also benefit from the painting being pinched. After the Monet's triumphant return, people who'd never heard of Impressionists would flock to the gallery to see the "Boulevard."

Then, too, the painting's theft would add to the legend of the "Boulevard," a romantic past increasing a painting's value.

The only loss would be the ransom paid by the company that insured the gallery: an amount far less than the actual value of the Monet.

Thinking straight, had anyone ever seen an insurance company lose money? To the contrary, the insurer would gain so much publicity from the theft that a sane man could suspect the company of being implicated in the heist! Besides which, in Z's book, insurance companies were the country's richest robbers of the poor. (Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with banks and S and L's.) If Robin Hood were alive today, his target would surely be insurance companies! (That's what Z's Mom had always thought, particularly after the insurance company had defaulted on his father's policy!)

How long Bob Zapolska sat there -- his mood darkening by degrees -- he didn't know; long enough for three guards to gather at his back; long enough to hear them whispering. (He supposed it was unusual for someone to stare so long at a blank space on the wall. Then again, these could be the guards who'd noticed him before, the ones who'd reported his description to the K.C. cops.)

Time to move on.

Backtracking through Parker-Grant, limping down the broad stairs, Z turned left to cross the back of the Nelson, the gallery's east wing housing European paintings.

Rather than concentrating on what he was seeing, though, he'd begun to think about what would happen if he stole a painting. (And he didn't have a doubt that he could do it -- and get away with it.) Art galleries were between the famous rock and the equally notorious hard place when it came to safeguarding their collections. Adequate protection systems interfered with the viewing pleasure of patrons. That being the case, since galleries were designed to give pleasure to gallery-goers .....

Thinking about how he might steal a painting, the best way was to do what the thief had done: hide himself in the gallery at closing time, plenty of nooks to take cover in, the Nelson a warren of small rooms flanking the gallery's halls.

After the Nelson was closed for the night, Z would emerge.

Copying the M.O. of the thief, he'd cut a small picture out of its frame. Except, in Z's case, he would stash the painting somewhere -- along with himself -- overnight.

In the sleepy mid-afternoon of the following day, he'd roll up the picture, emerge from his hidey-hole, "retire" to a restroom stall, slip the painting inside his shirt, wrap the canvas around his body, button up, emerge from the john and walk out the front door.

Thinking about how easy it would be to steal a painting -- picking up speed as he entered one European room after the other -- Z grew more excited.

Brushing past other gallery-goers, ignoring their disapproving looks, he began to search for the cubbyhole he'd need; a space above a room's false ceiling; a ventilator shaft connected to the gallery's public restroom.

He could hide both himself and a canvas in one of the huge wooden 18th-century wardrobes on display. No one ever looked in them because:

A. you were not supposed to touch the cabinets, to say nothing of opening the cabinets' doors!

B. nothing was on display inside the wardrobe.

He could crawl under a bed in one of the three, roped-off colonial chambers -- displays decorated to simulate rooms in early, middle, and late colonial American homes.

If he were a midget, he could tuck himself inside the canopied Japanese bed in the gallery's oriental wing.

A giant would fit behind the out-sized wood statue of Buddha at the darkened end of the "Indian temple."

Or he could duck through one of those doors marked Personnel Only to find who knew what inaccessible spot in the building's bowels.

A plus would be that the disappearance of a second painting would be attributed to the "guard" who took the "Boulevard," the thief assumed to have brazenly returned to the gallery for more loot.

The person no one would suspect would be Big Bob Z, especially since he'd been "given-up" as a "possibility" in the theft of the first painting.

The more Z thought about grabbing a work of art, the more excited he got -- owning any of the gallery's treasures putting lowly Bob Zapolska in a class with kings! Later, should he need big money to hold on to Susan, all he had to do was return the painting and collect the inevitable (no questions asked) reward. As a private investigator, he could return the painting in the open, claiming he'd been chosen as an agent for the anonymous thief, a thief "unknown" even to him.

The trouble with these plans was ... they conflicted with the iron-hard code of rules he'd made for himself to follow, particularly, the provision preventing him from stealing ... anything ... ever ... unless absolutely necessary.

With his remembered honor came a sense of guilt for even considering such a crime. Moreover, with the guilt came .... what? The feeling that, if he did take a painting, he'd be looking behind him for the rest of his sorry life, the feeling he was having ... even now ... of being followed?

He peered over his shoulder; saw nothing but an elderly man, stopped as Z was, the man turning to shuffle into a side room of Tibetan artifacts. Had Z seen that old gentleman before? Was the man following him? Could the Gallery have put in additional security disguised as museum patrons?

Unlikely. It was more probable that the only thing trailing Z was regret for even thinking about stealing from the Nelson.

So much for his Gallery experience.

Winding back to the Nelson's front entrance, trying to keep from limping when passing other more "arty" people, getting his coat from check-in, putting it on, he pushed his way out the heavy bronze entrance doors.

Easing down the front steps, then along the circular "river rock" walk that led to the sunken parking area, Z located his car and dragged himself behind the wheel.

Backing out, having to angle as sharply as a front-wheel drive car could to keep from hitting a yellow school bus nosed in behind him, straightening, he urged the car to chug off for the exit ... and almost flattened someone darting out in front of him!

Surprisingly enough, it was the old guy he'd seen in the gallery.

Brakes on in time, Z waved the fellow across, the man shambling forward, his head bowed against what little wind there was on that comparatively warm winter's day.

Where had that spry old gent come from? Surely, he hadn't passed Z in the gallery's halls, yet, here he was, waving one hand behind him as a thank you for being allowed to live.

Spry was not the word for it. The fellow should run the hundred meters --- in the over-eighties category of the Senior Olympics. (Thinking about it, always the detective, never satisfied until he tied up loose ends, he figured the old guy had taken one of the Nelson's gentle elevators to beat him to the parking lot.)

The oldster shuffling out of sight, checking all directions, Z started up again, bumping out on the street at last.

Turning left, then left again at the Art Institute, he took a right on 47th.

Another right beyond the Plaza business area and he was slotted into the noontime rush, northbound on the Southwest Traffic way.

There, drifting along in the right of three lanes of heavy traffic, he had time to sell himself on the idea that, though he might have toyed with the possibility of theft, he could never have stolen anything from the gallery.

Certainly, his self-knowledge told him, never a lesser work than the "Boulevard des Capucines"!

* * * * *

Chapter 17

Z was awake in the dark of night! Something was wrong. Some ... sound .... Popping noises ...

It was then that he smelled smoke, began to cough, to gag, to try desperately to catch his breath!

Now that he'd opened his eyes, they were burning, tearing.

Reflexively, he struggled out from under the sheet and dropped to the floor where the air was clearer. Holding his breath, crawling on his hands and knees over the cool slick linoleum, he made it around the end of the bed, through the narrow space between the bed and dresser and into the bathroom. Reaching up, he got a water tap in the basin turned on; found a towel on the low rack; shoved it up and under the running water.

It took ten fluttery heartbeats before he could drag the soaking towel down to floor level and wring it out, Z quickly wrapping the sodden cloth around his nose and mouth, tying the ends behind his head so he had the use of his hands again.

Only then, his lungs dissolving into asphyxia, did he risk a tiny tortured breath.

To find that his system ... worked! A little -- the wet towel filtering out enough smoke so he could take shallow breaths once more.

Keeping his head jammed to the oxygen-rich floor, he backed from the bathroom and belly-crawled across the bedroom floor, then through the short hall into the living room.

There, as he'd feared, the smoke was heavier, an oily kind of reek, thick, sooty. ... But no flames. Not even ... heat.

Getting as much water-filtered air into his lungs as he could by sipping in a long, slow breath, Z hauled himself to his feet and fumbled on the living room ceiling lamp, the light making little headway against the black smoke.

Still, no actual fire.

At least, not in the apartment, the air... cool ... the floor ... cool.

Quickly blinded by the room's roiling vapor, Z picked his way to the front door, where, slowly leaking out his last oxygen-starved breath, he got the door unlocked, jerked it open, and threw himself into the yard.

Stumbling, staggering out of the boiling pea-soup cloud that followed him into the midnight dark, he clawed the wet towel down around his neck and sucked in a lung full of clean winter air.

Coughed it out. Breathed deep again.

Coughed some more ....

Breathed/coughed. Breathed/coughed. Breathed/coughed ... until he felt better, at least good enough to realize his naked body was ... freezing.

Though tears still stung his eyes, by blinking rapidly, he could see fuzzy images again; looked back to see dark plumes of vapor continuing to roll out his apartment door.

In spite of being naked, he had to warn the other tenants that the place was on fire.

And yet ... the house didn't seem to be on fire.

All was quiet.

No flames. No lights except the one in his own living room.

Drawing a deep breath, slipping the towel over his lower face -- leaving the door wide open to let smoke continue to billow from his apartment -- he limped back inside to discover that the source of the poisonous cloud was his fireplace. Somehow, the fire that Z had let die out before going to bed had rekindled during the night to smoke up the place.

Had he done a dumb thing like close the damper? ..... No. He never shut the damper. Letting a nickel's worth of warm air leak out the metal chimney during the night was a small price to pay for not having to remember to open the fireplace damper next morning.

Hurrying through the smog that continued to boil out of the fireplace, still on the breath of fresh air he'd gasped in outside, he hobbled to the bedroom to jerk up the window sash in an attempt to make cross-ventilation, the frigid air that came through the window beginning to blow the bedroom free of all but sooty wisps that floated near the ceiling.

Able to think again, he limped into the bathroom.

Shivering, standing in the puddle of cold water he'd wrung from the towel, he turned off the tap that, in the emergency, he'd left running.

Untying the face towel, able to breath directly if he took his time, Z left the bathroom.

His first panic subsiding, careful to balance himself to keep his wet feet from slipping on the slick floor, he crossed the bedroom to snap on the light.

Tossing the life-saving towel on the floor beside the bed, he turned to get his robe from the open closet. Put it on, through force of habit, clicked off the light.

His feet dried off enough to reduce the danger of slipping, he edged into the living room to find that, except for black spirals of vapor still rolling from the fireplace, most of the smoke had made its way through the open door.

Limping to the sink in the kitchenette, continually brushing tears from his eyes so he could see, he filled a couple of old jelly jars with water, brought them back to the living room, and streamed the water over the smoldering fire.

One more jar of water ... and the fire was ... out.

A strange fire. Like nothing he'd seen.

Another minute to let more of the smoke clear, and Z went over to shut the front door.

Returning to the fireplace, he examined the damper handle to find it open -- as it always was.

It was only then, after settling down even more, that he became aware of ... the strange odor of the smoke, something quite different from the perfumed smell of burning wood. Nor was he inhaling the rich scent of roasting peanut butter on blazing crusts of bread.

Where had he smelled that odor? Somewhere. Recently ... the smell reminding him of old basements or of oily rags.

Bending down to look in the fireplace box, Z did find what looked like charred rags ... except laced with ... goo? This sticky substance, apparently, that was the source of the smoke.

The question was, how did that ... whatever it was ... get in Z's fireplace? Not to mention how it caught fire, to say nothing of why the smoke didn't go up the chimney like smoke from any kind of fire!

No need to hire a detective to tell him something was very wrong here; nor did it take his full powers of deduction to conclude that the solution to the mystery of the smoking fireplace lay, not in the living room, but ... on the roof. (No one had been in the living room; the door had been locked, delaying him when he was desperate to get out.)

First, though, Z had to return to the bedroom to stick his bare feet in his shoes.

Back in the living room, he got his heavy overcoat from the closet and pulled it on over his robe, buttoned up the coat, got his regular winter gloves out of his overcoat pockets, and slipped them on.

Going to the kitchen drawer for his flashlight, he was finally ready.

The early panic over, more cautious now, he snapped off the living room ceiling light so he could peer outside without being seen by anyone ... out there.

Seeing no one, he cracked open the door to spent some time peeking out, giving close attention to the side yard that separated his apartment house from the similar house next door.

But saw nothing and no one, Z unhappy that most of the snow that had amplified last week's moonlight was gone.

In spite of shadows so dark they could hide Godzilla, he felt sure there was little danger that anyone was out there. Why? Because he'd already been outside, logic saying that, if someone had been waiting to waylay him, the attacker would have jumped him the first time Z stumbled out; before Z's eyes cleared enough to see; while he was coughing -- naked -- defenseless.

Big Bob Zapolska cursed! Any competent detective would have thought of the possibility of being ambushed. ... Except, maybe, someone who's life hung on a seconds worth of air. (No sense beating himself up for being forced to take his only option.)

Z, his own guinea pig in the demonstration that there was nothing to fear outside, he opened the door and slipped out.

A quiet, peaceful night, Z at last convinced that the only person under threat -- in the house -- on the block -- in the entire city, for all he knew -- had been ... him. (For the person who wishes to feel special, Z could recommend a narrow escape from assassination!)

He was outside for a reason. ... Yes. To climb up on the roof.

No need to get the termite weakened ladder hung on the inside wall of the garage when he could repeat what he'd done when installing the fireplace: climb the stout rose trellis beside his door.

And climb he did, moving carefully, over and around the interwoven rose cane -- only stabbing himself once on a winter-hardened thorn. Was soon standing on the flat one-story roof.

Flashlight switched on, he crunched across the frozen tar paper roof to reach the roof's center, where he squatted beside the dull metal cylinder that was the top of the fireplace chimney.

Playing the light at the chimney's four-foot pipe, Z saw ... nothing ... everything as it should be, the chimney top crowned with a circular "pointed hat" of metal to keep rain from falling directly down the pipe into the firebox, the chimney's smoke slots tucked under the "cap."

Taking off one glove, reaching under the metal hood, he gingerly poked a finger into a vent slot ... discovering that the opening was clogged with something ... sticky.

Withdrawing his finger, shining the flashlight on what he'd raked out, he found it to be a gob of gunk.

Puzzled, he smeared the goop between thumb and forefinger; saw that his first impression had been correct. Thick. Oily.

Bringing his fingers to his nose, Z sniffed the substance ... the sticky mess smelling like the goo that congeals at the bottom of rancid lard cans.

No doubt about what this stuff was doing in the chimney slots. Someone had smeared it there to plug the pipe.

Sobered, picking up his glove where he'd tossed it beside him, Z tried to imagine how it must have been. ... Could only come to one conclusion. Someone had attempted to murder him by smoke inhalation!

This very night, an unknown assailant had climbed on the roof -- probably gone up the same trellis Z had used. Standing where he was now, this person had poured something down the chimney pipe; probably set this "something" on fire by dropping a wad of flaming rags down the flue.

After that, the "great unknown" had deliberately clogged the vent slots to force smoke into the apartment down below.

Shivering for the first time (and from more than the cold,) it was beginning to sink in just how close Z's intended killer had come to succeeding. Except for great, good luck, Z might still be in bed, breathing in the smoke until he was unconscious, until he suffocated.

Something had awakened him. .... What? ..... Popping noises. Popping? .......

Then, he knew! It was the ticking the fireplace rivets made when warming up. Rivets, expanding as the "gunk" fire heated the firebox.

Lucky!

Lucky to have installed a cheap steel fireplace rather than one of expensive, brick ones. Lucky because, while sleep wiped out your sense of smell, a sleeping man could hear. The reason a smoke detector's alarm would wake you, when the smoke that set off the alarm, wouldn't. (Time to install a smoke alarm. Or two. Or three.)

Fifteen minutes later -- a thorn scratch on his naked wrist to show for his trip down the trellis, a second puncture received on the way back up -- this time with an empty jelly jar and a kitchen knife in his coat pocket -- Z used the knife to scrape the goo out of the chimney slots, scooping the oily gunk into the jar.

His body, his bones freezing solid -- up-drafts no joke without pants and underwear -- it was time to get off the roof.

Pocketing the jar and knife, the final descent gave him one more ankle scratch before Z could get back inside the apartment and slam the door.

Shivering in spite of his heavy coat, he unpocketed the sample jar and knife to set them on the table.

Putting the flashlight back in its drawer in the kitchenette, getting another jar and a second knife, he returned to the living room to dig a sample of the smoke-producing substance out of his fireplace, scraping that specimen in the second jar.

Comparing containers, it was easy to see that the stuff that had been set on "smolder" in the fireplace was the same as the goop used to plug the chimney. Both thick. Both sticky.

Holding first one jar, then the other to the ceiling light, Z found that the material used to clog the chimney and to smoke up the place was laced with thin streaks of several colors. ... Odd.

Still cold to the bone -- in spite of his fireplace almost killing him -- Z decided to light a fire. First scooping the rest of the gunk out of the firebox, put in some kindling and a split, oak log, lighting paper, kindling, and oak to produce both warmth and properly scented, skyward bound smoke.

Warmed up at last, he doused the remaining embers and twisted shut the damper. (For the rest of the night, at least, he wanted to be certain that nothing else could be poured down the chimney to the fireplace box.)

Satisfied that a similar "trick" could not be played on him again, Bob Zapolska took off his coat and hung it in the closet, after that -- careful to lock the front door -- he returned to his bedroom.

Deciding, as an extra precaution, to leave the bedroom window open, Z dug extra blankets out of the dresser to spread on his bed to compensate for the open window's draft.

All defenses complete, hanging up his robe, he got back in bed.

But not to sleep.

Z had to face it. Someone had tried to murder him.

"What goes around comes around," his Mom had always said, the climate of murder "going around" Bateman College, now "coming around" him.

Lying in the dark, straining to hear sounds that weren't there, Big Bob Zapolska felt ... good; was surprised to discover that, for the first time that day, he was ... optimistic.

Why?

Because the murderer -- surely the same person who'd done in either the janitor or Beth Ogden (or both) -- thought Z was so close to the truth that the killer wanted ... Z ... dead. (Attracting the attention of your target in the late stages of an investigation was one of the hazards you had to expect in the P.I. business.)

It could even be that Z already knew enough to solve both Bateman murders -- just hadn't recognized the facts as clues.

No question about it, Big Bob Z was in danger because he was a threat to someone.

Trying to review what he'd found out about the killings, Z still thought there must be pieces missing. Or that the reverse was true. Perhaps the problem was that he had extraneous puzzle pieces, some of them needing to be eliminated before the genuine clues fell neatly into place. (Nothing would screw up a jigsaw puzzle freak like slipping in extra pieces from a puzzle other than the one being put together.)

No problem. The solution to something was at hand -- provided he could keep himself alive.

As for loose ends that might be getting in the way of the solution, Z must eliminate them as soon as possible, meaning he had to check again with Johnny Dosso.

This time, face-to-face.

The best way to separate truth from fiction.

If the Dosso possibility came to nothing -- as Z expected -- and if Z could remember where he'd smelled something similar to the poisonous goop that had produced that choking smoke -- he'd be back in the detective business with a vengeance!

A few more days was all he'd need -- staying alive that long, his immediate goal.

His course of action laid out, Z raced through all the ways he could increase security, deciding that the best survival strategy was to relocate at one of the city's "hot sheet" motels. Something he'd check into tomorrow, perhaps getting a deal on a weekly rather then an hourly rate.

Feeling safe at least for the night, he found that, like his grudging respect for the "guard" who'd stolen the Monet, he was developing a reluctant admiration for the Bateman murderer.

Relaxing toward much-needed sleep, Z realized he'd even come to admire the murderer; most of all, for the killer's judicious use of fire.

To be completely fair about it, he'd have to say "well done" when, at long last, he caught that slippery son of a bitch!

* * * * *

Chapter 18

Calder was right. The Wednesday night light in the third-floor northwest turret room of Bateman could best be described as a glow.

Calder had also described the "ghost light" correctly as the only sign of "life" in the entire building.

Z Keeping his collar turned up against the raw wind that always seemed to slice across the Bateman Campus hill, he'd been around the building. Twice – the cold at least keeping his bruised back from aching.

Again in front of the grotesque monstrosity that was Bateman Hall, standing in the dark near the northwest edge of the brooding building, he was convinced he saw a dim luminescence coming from the third-floor corner room. So faint it would be invisible to anyone but a superstitious professor and a tipped-off detective.

Just to triple-check, he went back to the front sidewalk. Moved to the right. Then to the left. Once more to make sure the light remained the same from any angle, making it unlikely it was a reflection from the institution's streetlights bordering the front of the campus down below. No. There was a "glow" seeping from the turret windows. As for a ghost causing it -- you had to be a child to believe in ghosts. (Just as you had to be an adult to imagine how many forms of authentic evil stalked the world.)

The chubby psychologist had said to meet him in front of Bateman Hall at eleven. By then, Calder said, they'd have the campus to themselves.

What about security, Z asked?

Just one man who was more night watchman than guard, was Calder's reply, an older gentleman who was unlikely to venture outside the security building on cold nights. The Z/Calder meeting to take place later that same night.

Returning to the Bateman porch, peeling down his glove, Z looked at his watch, angling the dial until there was enough star shine on the hands for him to guess at eleven-ten -- time to get out of the wind as best he could by hunching behind one of the building's outlandish topped columns.

Because of Z's need to see Johnny Dosso, Z had set up a later on-campus meeting as a substitute for Calder's offer of a free supper. ("First things first," his Mother would have said, killers living by another of his Mother's mottos: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.")

Seeing Johnny D was so important to Bob Z that the first business that morning had been to call International Imports (the firm where his old friend "didn't work",) Z demanding an immediate personal meeting with the firm's non-employee.

After that, Z had spent the rest of the day in his office, waiting for Johnny's call and speculating about whether or not an old Ford he'd noticed behind him in the morning's traffic had been following him. He also did some musing about earlier feelings of being watched, the last time by that old man at the gallery. Z must have been followed all the way home by someone, somewhere, sometime. The proof? People kept showing up at the house to do him bodily harm. (What his enemies couldn't be doing was finding him in the phone book. Z's business made it necessary to have his home phone, and therefore his address, unlisted.)

Taking it one more step, if the "smoke man" and "little Antony" were not one and the same, two trackers had followed Big Bob Zapolska to his lair, moreover, within the space of a few days.

Pretty sloppy for a detective to have failed to notice he was being tailed -- at the same time, an understandable slip. P.I.'s were hunters; sometimes forgetting that, to another hunter, they could also be the prey.

Other than theorize about how long the "smoke man" had been behind him, there was nothing Z could do but wait for John's return call.

But not this time. When the call came at 4:00, it had just been a message: "Meet your party where you last met. Nine o'clock. Tonight." Click.

And where was that?

Thinking back, Z was sure the last time he'd seen Johnny had been at the funeral ten years ago, the eulogy given for Johnny's young son who'd shot himself while "cleaning" a handgun. (When you needed a comforting word for grieving parents, where were the lobbyists for the N.R.A. with their reassuring slogan: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people?)

The ceremony had been in a nineteenth-century, downtown cathedral, the church now cowering beneath the glass-and-steel construction of the financial temples of the city.

A tragic accident, the priest said during the long service. (Priests had been known to lie, of course; never more eloquently than when presiding at funerals.)

Flowers everywhere. Flowers and priests. Flowers and priests and well-dressed, hard-eyed mourners. Flowers and priests and well-dressed, hard-eyed mourners, and immaculate morticians -- undertakers, the only men in America who's job required them to look sad about the way they made their living.

No. ... The very last time he'd seen Johnny D had been when they'd stood side-by-side before the young man's coffin, the casket positioned above the new-dug grave in the raw Northland cemetery of Lakeside.

More meaningless rituals to disguise the truth. Flowers and priests and Johnny's "business associates" and a plain-clothed Kansas City dick who took the usual surreptitious pictures of the crowd. And Big Bob Z, standing to the left of a balding, paunchy, red-eyed Johnny D.

A thousand mental miles to Johnny's right was John's estranged wife. Nothing left for them to share but the mutuality of their pain.

Almost as depressing as the priestly assurances of heaven -- promised to "believers" who were doing everything they could to avoid going -- was the cemetery itself, a recently established graveyard of shiny granite tombstones thinly scattered over treeless ground -- small jars of eternally plastic flowers placed before the graves.

For melancholia, nothing beat a brand new boneyard.

So -- it was to be the cemetery.

Z wondered if Bob Z and Johnny D would recognize each other after all these years? No matter. At nine o'clock in the dead of night, who else but the two of them would haunt a lonely place like Lakeside?

Earlier that same night, not wanting to risk the possibility of making a mistake about the loyalties of Johnny D, Bob Z had arrived at the cemetery at 8:00. Had driven up the circular drive before pulling into the shadows at the back of the worker's building, the shed where Lakeside's personnel kept the back hoe, shovels, and the yards of plastic grass used to soften the shock of new-dug dirt. Parked there, he would have the first look at whoever came up the approach road from the street, the cemetery path curving along the edge of an ice-encrusted pond that the graveyard's owners laughingly called a lake.

It was a chilly wait until 8:30, when a black Lincoln pulled in, coming slowly past the "lake" to stop 20 yards from "Z's" building. Switched off. Doused its lights.

Not wanting to take unnecessary chances either, Johnny D had also come before the appointed hour.

How many years would it be before Z and John no longer trusted each other, even when safely separated by phones?

Big Bob Zapolska opened the Cavalier's door quietly; slid out of the seat; stalked from the shadows. "Johnny?"

There was a solid click as the Lincoln's door cracked open. No dome light showed.

"That you, Z?"

"It's me."

The big sedan's door opened then, after a pause, thunked shut with a solid tank-hatch sound. Thick steel and heavy glass.

A short pear-shaped shadow detached itself from the larger darkness of the limo; walked heavily up the sloping concrete path.

As Johnny lumbered up, his shallow breaths white in a scrap of moonlight, Z saw that Johnny D had aged a solid twenty years in the ten they'd been apart.

"Good to see you in the flesh, Z," Johnny said, as quiet in person as he was noisy on the phone.

The place, perhaps.

And memories of his son.

Solemnly, like aliens meeting on a bleak, but neutral, planet, they shook hands.

"Sorry about this ... place," Johnny said with a sigh and a feeble shrug. "It's just that only you could'a known about it. Some people might get nervous if they thought I was talkin' to a dick, public or private. But you and me, we got memories that nobody listenin' in could have."

"Not all good."

"Too Goddamn many of them bad." Said with the weight of years ... rather than with the heat of youth.

They stood there. For a long moment. Remembering the bad.

While only fools believed the lover's maxim, "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," Z wondered if the adage could be true for sons ... a sudden shredding of the clouds freeing the moon to cast its cold fluorescence on the headstone-littered field.

And so, to business.

"It's your party." Johnny bowed.

"Something I got to know. Did our mutual friend get to the windy city?"

"Yes."

"Could he be back?"

"Don't worry. Way I hear it, he's gotten into somethin' permanent there. Real estate. Jimmy Hoffa Real Estate."

As cold as it had been on that stony plain, it was the first time Z had shivered.

"He have a friend? Picking up where he left off?"

"No way."

"You would ... know?"

"I would know."

Face to face, it was the simple truth that Bob Zapolska had come to hear.

Little remained to be said. Johnny asked and Z told him (without being specific) that the reason for the meeting was a personal problem -- like before.

Johnny offered his protection, said it would be superior to the best the feds could give.

Z declined politely.

And that was it, the long sedan crunching gravel as it backed. Made a brontosaurus turn. Rolled down the lane to lumber off on Highway 1.

All day in the planning, the meeting had lasted only minutes -- a spark of time in which Z had learned two things. First, what he'd come to hear: that the "smoke man" was an independent, meaning there was no longer a doubt that the attempt on Z's life came from the Bateman murderer himself. The second revelation, that Big Bob Z could never work for Johnny D. No amount of cash was worth the price of working for an organization that made you meet old friends ... in brand new cemeteries ... in the dead of night.

Once again retreating to the protective porch on Bateman hill, Z was now waiting for Doctor Calder. Using the "down time" to pick the old lock on Bateman Hall's front door. He'd even thought about going inside for a solitary look at the "ghostly" tower room -- but rejected that idea. No sense blundering about in an unfamiliar building when Calder could probably take him right to the spot. In addition, the professor might have learned something new that Z should be aware of before their "ghost hunt."

There was nothing left for him to do but "cool his heels" under the portico of the strange old building; try, while waiting, to keep to the leeward side of a fat stone column.

Twenty minutes passed, Z occasionally braving the wind to look out past the low porch and down the hill, before he saw Calder's portly figure halfway up the right front steps. Halfway up and mounting at a faster clip than Z would have thought possible. Maybe climbing stairs as a form of exercise was doing the chubby professor good.

Ducking back behind the column where it was warmer, he gave the doctor time to reach the top and approach the Bateman walk before Z stepped out again.

"Sorry I'm late," Calder called softly, pivoting off the main sidewalk, continuing until he'd stepped up on the porch to shake hands. "Most nights I want to climb up here there's no trouble finding a parking place. But tonight I had to park a lot further away than usual. That's where the frat houses are." His wave encompassed a quarter mile of city down below. "Probably a party going on, accounting for all the cars." Even in the feeble light of a cloud-streaked sky, Z saw Calder's teeth flash in an apologetic grin.

"No problem. It gave me time to see your light."

"In the northwest tower?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad someone else can see it."

The doctor sounded relieved that the light was more than his own overactive imagination. The Prof plagued by the fear -- of what seemed obvious to Z -- that an advanced education did not necessarily cut you loose from childhood superstitions. "It's just that ... now that you've also seen the light ... I don't know what to do next."

"Go inside. Out of the cold."

"That's probably impossible. The building's locked at night."

"It's unlocked now." No need to tell Calder that Bob Zapolska had done the unlocking. Along with keeping clients out of danger, Z tried never to involve them in illegalities, no matter how slight.

"Unlocked? That's ... odd ... don't you think?" Z shrugged. "Could mean somebody's inside?"

"If so, they're warm."

"A good point. I guess if a janitor is in there we can make up an excuse about why we're there, too. Say we saw a light and are investigating. Which isn't far from the truth, after all."

That settled, they crossed the tarry darkness of the porch, Z finding the door handle, opening it, letting Calder in ahead of him, going in himself, then pulling shut the heavy door.

Inside, the noise of silence stunning them momentarily, they passed quickly through the inner "air lock" to be swallowed by the total blackout of the entrance hall.

The smell was of ... floor wax ... and desiccated wood. The echo -- nothing but their footsteps fading.

Taking off his gloves, stuffing them in his coat pockets, Z hooked out the penlight he'd brought with him. Flicked it on to wonder, as always, how a single, triple-A battery could make such a bright, if only foot-wide, circle in that windowless kind of dark.

"Shall we go up? I've never been there, but I know where the turret room's got to be." Now that they'd actually gotten into the building, Calder's tone belied his cheery talk. He wasn't all that eager to rush up to the "ghost light" room.

Nor had it escaped Z's notice that Calder, for all his supposed interest in the "ghost," had not been curious enough to check out the turret room when Bateman was open -- in the daytime.

Z flicked off the light, saving the battery.

"A question or two?"

"OK. Sure," Calder whispered.

Instinctively, they were keeping their voices down in the midnight of the reverberating chamber.

Z flipped on the penlight again to light their way to the pew-like bench along the left wall.

After sitting side-by-side, he snapped off the light, plunging them into darkness once again.

"Let's assume," Z said, even his rough purr a degree lower in the inky cave of Bateman-after-dark, "that something funny is going on. That the ghost light figures in."

"Mostly, I've wanted to find out about the light. But you're the detective."

"Probably nothing." Soothing the client's fears was part of a P.I.'s job. "But no sense rushing it." Z could feel the old bench vibrate from the professor's nod.

"Any reason someone would be sneaking around at night?" There was a long pause.

"Not really. The first thing that comes to mind these days is ... drugs." Calder's voice had become even more hushed, the prof finally getting the picture that snooping around this way could be dangerous. "But I don't see why people would do drugs here anymore than any place else. Even if you're postulating some smart student setting up his own designer lab, you're talking about pretty fancy chemicals and apparatus, the kind of thing they have in the chemistry department. And chemistry's in another building.

"Something valuable here? Something worth stealing?"

"Colleges like this don't own anything like that. Oh, I suppose we've got a few, hundred-dollar prints of famous artworks on the walls. Original paintings would be the work of students: the starving artist kind. Something you'd pay thirty-nine ninety-nine for -- if it matched the color of your divan. Anyway, the art department's down the line, too."

"Payroll in a safe? Here or in an adjoining building? Something you'd tunnel for?"

"Not a chance." Though still speaking softly, Calder's voice had tone again. "Everyone from the president to the custodian is paid by check. Oh, there could be some cash kept overnight as a result of student fees at the start of a semester. But that kind of money would be kept in a safe in Administration." Again, Calder paused to think. "The only college in the entire Kansas City area that might own something valuable enough to steal would be Baker College in Baldwin, Kansas. They have an important Bible collection. Nothing even remotely like that at Bateman."

"Legend of gold? Bateman's 'ghost' guarding treasure?"

"No. Quite the contrary. Old Man Bateman's supposed to have put every cent he had into the construction of this building. Died poor but proud."

Another of the false trails any detective had to travel.

Too bad.

Finding a simple motive always made things easier. Of course, adopting the view of the K.C. detective, discarding phantom puzzle pieces was a kind of help.

One down, one to go. "Tell me about Terbrugghen."

"What do you want to know?"

"Still think he was Beth Ogden's lover?"

"Yes."

"And that she wasn't playing the field?"

"I'd be very surprised if she were." Z would have been, too.

"Terbrugghen taught here long?"

"Longer than I have." If thinking could have produced a noise, Calder's mind would be grinding his thoughts fine. "I remember someone saying -- I can't remember who -- that Lucas has been here five or six years."

"Where's he from?"

"Back East. New York. I've heard that from a lot of people. He has a New York accent, too. New York or New Jersey."

"He teach there?"

"Ah ... no. I don't think so. I think he was in the theater."

"Actor?"

"I really don't know. Maybe. Could be he was a set designer." Calder's voice brightened. "I think that's right. Assistant set designer -- something like that. Built sets for New York plays -- musicals."

"Then came ... here?"

"I know. Here isn't much if you come from the New York stage." Calder paused. In the silence of the dark, Z could hear him catch his breath. "My guess would be his drinking. You can't do professional work if you drink like that."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing you don't know already. A lot of marriages. He's supposed to be from old money, a good part of it disappearing in the crash. Alimony eating up the rest. He's kind of a romantic character in some ways. Like he's his own Greek tragedy. Hubris. A great man brought low by his weaknesses."

"Talented?"

"Drunk or sober, no doubt of that. In spite of the fact that Bateman's student actors are sometimes less than professional, I always go to the school plays. Mostly because the sets are gorgeous." Calder hesitated, then rushed on. "And that would fit, wouldn't it? The rumor that Lucas used to be a set designer." Raise your voice at all and the echo of the hall came creeping back.

"Figures. ... Anything else?"

"That's about it." Calder had heard the reverberation, too. Was speaking softly once again.

Nothing new of value.

"Before we go up," Calder said quickly, "there's the money I owe you." Was the professor still hesitant about confronting the "ghost"? Z smiled in the dark.

"After the job -- Z's standard procedure. "Though I'll accept a hundred for expenses."

Hearing Calder fumble with his coat, Z flashed on the little light to help Calder count out a hundred in twenties and hand it over.

First, still wanting to conserve the battery, Z switched off the light before unbuttoning his coat to transfer the money to his billfold.

"I guess I'm ready then, if you are," Calder said, still seeming less than enthusiastic.

"Ready."

Ready, depending on what they found in the third-floor "ghost light" room, of course -- something Z didn't say.

About to walk into the "unknown," Bob Zapolska felt good that, along with his picks and light, he'd brought his sap. Another fact he'd keep from the nervous prof.

Switching on the little light, handing it to Calder, Calder taking it, the two of them stood up and set off slowly down the hall, the professor in the lead, the light's narrow beam providing a bouncing circle as a guide.

Going too far and nearly running into the velvet-draped auditorium entrance, Calder backtracked to turn right toward one of the staircases that swirled up grandly to its side of the auditorium front.

First mounting the riser, they began to climb, Calder leading, the professor trying to be quiet but squeaking noisily up the middle of the wide, deep, darkly varnished steps.

Though it probably didn't make a difference with all that racket, Z glided up quietly to the side where the stairs were joined solidly to the outside wall.

A lack of evidence that someone was at the top didn't mean they had the building to themselves.

As a precaution, Z moved the sap from his hip pocket to his right coat pocket. "Armed," he could concentrating on getting his bum knee up the building's three -- long -- stories.

Fortunately, he'd already belted down a handful of aspirin after he'd struggled to the top of Bateman Hill.

Off the last step and moving down the third-floor corridor (both men winded and trying not to show it) Calder turned down a branching hallway, the bobbing light before him pointing the way over a worn wooden floor, the tiny beam taking them past shadowed doorways, none harboring a murderer. Z hoped.

In the narrow side corridor, the empty hall echoed their careful footsteps in short sharp barks.

Calder stopped before the hall's last door.

Shining the light on the door as if wanting to be sure, Calder nodded.

The prof's job as "ghost guide" over, he stepped back to let Z approach the door, at the same time surrendering the penlight, Z switching it off.

In total darkness, the men ... listened ....... Heard nothing. ........ Continued to hear nothing.

Additional waiting not likely to gain him anything, Z flicked on the light to find the room's old-fashioned metal doorknob. Grasping it, he snapped off the light to listen for what seemed like fifteen minutes and was probably thirty seconds ... again hearing nothing but the sound of his own blood pulsing behind his eyes.

Carefully rotating the doorknob, the tongue still making shrill, metallic scrapes in the deep quiet of the hall, Z pushed the door in -- an inch.

Still straining to hear, he put his eye to the crack.

No sound, no movement inside ... but several somethings in the room's faint light.

The chamber's smell was of dust and age ... and little else.

He pushed the door in further to see that, what he'd glimpsed through the crack were hulks of wood filing cabinets and other shadow shapes of similarly aged furniture. The room was used for storage. As Calder had thought.

Still undiscovered was the source of the room's illumination.

Snapping on the flashlight and whipping it back and forth, up and down, he saw that the turret room was too barren and too small to make much of a hiding place.

Satisfied, he stepped inside.

Turning, motioning Calder in, Z shut the door behind the professor, any danger now coming from the hall -- if there was a threat.

Now all business, Z's flashlight supplementing the room's weak radiance, he threaded his way past stacked metal chairs and around up-ended desks to stand before the convex windows on the tower side.

Looking down though the wavy panes, he could see the front walk -- a thin moonlit ribbon -- beyond that, the hill as it fell away to the street.

Dotted at regular intervals on the college's side of the road below, were the school's old-fashioned street lamps on their ten-foot fluted poles.

Past the hill, the town of Liberty showed itself as double rows of houselights twinkling through swaying branches of large trees.

One thing was certain. The room's light had to come from some source other than lamps and distant homes.

"There," Calder said, any sound a shock in all that stillness.

"What?" Z spun around.

"There."

Calder, who'd stayed by the door, was pointing to a rectangle of light just under the ceiling to the right of the door, the illumination coming from what looked like -- what was -- a louvered metal ventilator cover of some kind. Probably a cold air return.

There could be no doubt about it. The grate was the source of the room's "ghost light."

Discovering the source of the light they'd come to investigate, Z swerved his way through the room's "furnishings" to join the professor at the vent.

Standing directly beneath the grill -- in addition to confirming this duct as the origin of the room's "glow" -- he thought he could hear noises from the slotted cover. A humming sound ... far away. A thrumming small-engine noise? "Do you hear something?" It was Z's turn to point up at the vent.

"Sure. That's the fans of the new forced-air system. They make that kind of noise in all the buildings -- day and night. It's more noticeable in my classroom. But not too bad there, either."

"That's your ghost light. Coming up from below."

"Good enough for me," Calder said, smiling, visibly relieved, and obviously embarrassed because he was relieved. "There had to be some explanation for the light. I just wanted to find out what."

Good enough for the prof, maybe, but not for Big Bob Zapolska, Z after something bigger than finding the tower ghost. "Any chance of tracking down the light?"

"I ... don't think so. At least I wouldn't know how to go about it. Though Bateman's mostly auditorium, there are a lot of rooms around the auditorium's perimeter. It's probably somebody leaving his classroom lights on after night school on Wednesdays, the light bouncing around in the ventilator system until it comes out here. Considering that you've got three floors of rooms to search, and the basement area, too ....." Calder shook his head.

With no help to be expected from the professor, Z's mind turned to other ways of identifying that "classroom" light.

If he could get the air grate off, for instance, he might be able to stick an eye in the vent hole to see what was making the glow.

Looking around for something he could use to climb up to the vent, flashing his penlight here and there, he spotted an old secretarial chair that seemed to be intact.

"I'm going to try to look down the vent by standing on that chair." He pointed at it.

"The chair's got casters," Calder warned, the chair in question closer to the professor than to Z.

"I'll be careful."

"I can steady it some."

That decided, Calder grabbed the swivel chair and wheeled it over, the casters squeaking in protest.

Calder getting out of Z's way, Z stepped up on the cushioned seat, Calder clamping down on the chair's handles to keep it from rolling.

Z's head now at vent level, he flashed the penlight all around the duct's metal frame. .....

No luck. If, as he suspected, screws were holding the vent cover in place, they'd been painted over so many times their heads had disappeared. Not that he had a screwdriver, anyway.

"How are you coming?" Calder asked, too busy steadying the chair to look up and see.

"Can't get the cover off."

"Want down?"

"Yes."

"Be careful. I'm backing away to give you room."

Calder out of the way, Z pointed the penlight at the floor. Bending on his good leg to step down stiffly in his bad one, checking out his weak knee before lowering his good leg to the floor.

"Too bad," Calder said, his inflection saying, but not that bad.

A long ways from giving up, Z had already had another idea; was flashing the light about the room to look for what he needed: a looking glass that could be broken into slivers. .........

No mirror.

Failing to find a mirror, he began pacing about to search for any kind of glass, Calder standing still, watching -- puzzled.

"I'm searching for a piece of glass," Z explained.

"Glass? There are the windows ...."

A good suggestion as a last resort ......

Continuing to look, Z spied an old desk -- a thin sheet of clear, protective glass on the desktop.

Lifting a broken chair leg off a small table, Z slid an edge of the quarter-inch glass away from the desktop, Z tapping the unsupported glass with the chair leg, the blow knocking off several shards, the fractured pieces tinkling to the floor like out-of-tune chimes.

"Quite a noise," Calder muttered.

"If anybody's around, they've already heard us.

"True."

Kneeling, careful to keep from cutting himself on the sharp fragments, Z picked up a slender wedge of glass between his thumb and forefinger.

But what to do for backing?

He'd have to improvise.

"Could you hold the chair for me again? This could be tricky."

"Sure. What are you ...?"

"I'm going to make a mirror. A poor one maybe, but it ought to work. Going to lay a finger of my glove along the apex of this fragment. Turn the downside into a mirror. Stick the glove-backed glass though a louver. See down the shaft that way."

"Brilliant!"

"Maybe," Z said, doubtfully, climbing up again.

Dragging a glove from his coat pocket, topping the glass point with a black leather finger.

Wrapping the palm of the glove around the glass where he was holding it, Z climbed up again to stick the shard through the vent, trying angles, saw what he thought was a light source deep within Bateman Hall. At least that's the way it seemed.

One more thing to try, Z thought as he struggled down from the chair. "Does the campus run on city power?"

"Yes ... and no. Though the college buys its electricity from the city, the power is fed into our own substation at the back of the campus."

"The small, limestone building at the back?"

Calder nodded. "From there, electricity feeds out, I think by underground cables, to all the other buildings."

"Transformers in that building? Stepping down the power?"

"I guess."

Though Calder was of little help describing the campus power grid, what he was saying about a concentration of power made sense. Having all the school's current originating from one spot would let campus authorities monitor the school's electrical consumption.

"Well ... that's it, then," Calder said, smiling in the room's faint -- but earthly -- light. "You've solved another problem. No ghost."

"Might have been more interesting to have found one."

"I know. Still, it's been fun clearing up the mystery."

Which was precisely what they hadn't done -- though Z didn't want to make a point of it. Never expecting a ghost in the first place, Z was determined to find the source of the light.

Leaving the room, Z pulling the tower door shut with a click, they passed through the hall and down the stairs, Calder clattering enthusiastically -- with as little care as Tommy Victor used, Z speculated gloomily, when descending what would be his final flight.

Though Z still wanted to find a connection between the Victor murder and the Wednesday "ghost light," it was clear that the good doctor's only thought was to get out of Bateman as soon as possible. A brilliant man in some ways, in others ......

Across the chamber, they buttoned up in the "air lock." Shook hands outside on the porch, glove-to-glove, Z telling a white lie about parking in the lot at the back of the campus.

With that, Calder sauntered off to trot down the right stairs, his cheerful whistle thinning into the whine of the hillside wind.

"Goodbye, Dr. Calder," Big Bob Zapolska whispered to himself. "Hello to some extracurricular investigation of my own!"

* * * * *

Chapter 19

After Big Bob Zapolska locked up Bateman Hall's front door, it didn't take long for him to reach the dilapidated power station at the back of Bateman Hill. No light inside. Nothing to be seen through the dirt-scummed window in the building's decaying door.

For some reason, he hesitated. ... Because he was ... afraid ... of the building?

But ... why?

Since much of his success as a detective came from instinct, he thought it wise to back away; to began circling the power station, finding it nothing but what it seemed: a one-story affair.

The question was, why did Z feel so ... spooky ... about a squatty, rectangular building built of limestone blocks ...?

Then, he knew! The drab little structure reminded of him of the last house he'd lived in with his Mother. The house where his Mother ... died.

His Mother's death had come at the end of a long decline for them both, a downward spiral starting with his father's accident when Bob was in sixth grade, his salesman Father killed instantly in a single-car crash, a freak happenstance the insurance company claimed was deliberate. Since the policy was brand new, using the "suicide escape clause" as an excuse, the company refused to pay on his father's life insurance.

After that, things had been difficult for Bob and his Mother.

First, his Mom had to sell their house to pay off some unforeseen debts his Father had run up.

Then, there were the moves. In the same neighborhood, but to increasingly undesirable apartments, finally, to end up in what could only be described as a one-room, stone shack.

He'd wanted to drop out of high school his junior year to get a job, but his Mother refused to let him. "A little learning is a dangerous thing," she always said.

By the time his Mother got sick in the spring of his senior year, she'd been reduced to taking in wash and doing ironing to get by. After football was over in the fall, he'd planned on getting an afternoon job to help out -- except that his injury was slow to heal.

His Mother's dream for him had always been college, his Mother dying not long after his knee injury ruined all hope of an athletic scholarship. Brain cancer was the diagnosis. Death from bitter disappointment was Z's belief.

Next to his Mother dying there, what Z hated most about that stone house was that it was cheek-to-jowl with a furniture factory, chairs and tables stripped of varnish by being dipped in vats of volatile chemicals. So suffocating was the stench from the plant's solvent that, in time, he'd lost his sense of smell.

Graduation and the first of the lifting jobs got him away from the refinishing plant, his ability to smell returning over time, the restoration of his sense of smell making him unusually appreciative of odors. (Dr. Calder would probably say that being able to smell was symbolic of Z's escape from total poverty.) One thing for certain. After losing it, he would never take smell for granted! (When Z read that a lady in New York's Central Park had lost her ability to smell after being mugged, no one sympathized with her plight more than he!)

Z's teenage review telling him his fear of the power station was irrational, it took only another minute for him to extract the proper picks from his case and open the formidable-looking but simple padlock that "secured" the door's hasp.

Ducking inside, closing the rotted door behind him, he pocketed his picks and gloves before bringing out the penlight, Z reminding himself to take care that the school's guard -- wherever he might be -- didn't see a light shining from this building.

Avoiding all possibility of discovery, Z covered the business end of the light with his hand before switching it on.

Releasing his grip on the bulb so that only a crack of light seeped through his fingers, he gave the walls of the place a dark once-over.

Except for the small window at the top of the door behind him, there seemed to be no other openings through which someone might see his light.

In the days before Old Man Bateman build his college on this hill, had this stone building been some kind of animal shelter? A sheep barn? A place for goats?

Feeling safe to do so, he uncovered the penlight to give the room another quick appraisal.

Whatever the former use of this one-room structure, the sole purpose now was electrical; three old-time humming transformers as tall as a short man but thicker, lined the right wall of the narrow room. On the left wall, a maze of quarter-inch cloth-wrapped cables were tied into several rusted fuse boxes. Large wooden "spools" wrapped with cable had been turned on end and shoved under the boxes.

Taking up most of the space in the room's center was a cobbled-together workbench, assorted electrician's tools scattered on the table's splintered top: needle-nosed pliers, old rolls of black electrical tape, wire cutter, wood-and-plastic-handled screwdrivers -- Phillips and regular. Mixed in with the jumble of tools was a partially used coil of rosin-core solder and an old-fashioned soldering iron.

At the far end of the room near the building's ten-foot ceiling, was an unpainted wooden shelf, on the shelf, what looked like a pile of copper repair wire.

Nothing here to help him pinpoint the origin of the ghost light. ... Not that he couldn't do something.

More minutes of looking around showed Z little more than big wires and little wires -- trailing here and there. Down the walls. Across the ceiling.

What finally caught his interest, were inch-in-diameter, parallel cables that entered the building through the end wall just under the shelf -- clearly the outside power source.

Following these foot-apart heavy-load cables with the thin penlight beam, Z traced them across the ceiling to blue ceramic insulators high on the right wall, the power wires bending down the wall at that point to enter the top of the center transformer.

Other smaller wires then sprouted from that outdated dull-black transformer box to the tops of flanking step-down units.

The thinner wires that led away from these humming metal boxes were pegged up the wall through round, white ceramic insulators, to march across the width of the ceiling and down the opposite wall to a central fuse box.

The rest of the room's wiring was hooked up in the same fashion to the middle electrical box.

How the power left the building to travel through Calder's underground cables was a mystery.

Z studied the incoming power lines more closely, moving around and along the table to stand under the cables where they entered near the ceiling at room end.

Old, was his first impression, the cables' insulation an early twenty's black cotton wrap.

Looking above the entering leads, he saw he'd been right, that the high shelf over the power lines held copper wire. Coils of it. Also, measured lengths of wire, stacked up on the shelf to make a dull-yellow pyramid.

Looking down, he found that one end of the worktable was positioned near enough to the end of the wall to give him a better look at the feed lines' entry point.

Sweeping back tools and bits of wire to make a place for him, Bob Zapolska sat back on the cold table. Swung his legs up. Rolled over to push with his hands.

Getting his good leg under him, he stood up carefully; found he only had to bend his head a little to keep from brushing the spider-webbed ceiling.

This was the tricky part. Stepping to the end of the table, keeping his head to one side of the lines, he played the flashlight on the cables, found that their cloth insulation was as powdery as the wrapping on Egyptian mummies.

Getting an idea, he squatted again.

Shifting the penlight to his left hand, flashing it along the tabletop, he found what he wanted within easy reach: a large, regular-tip screwdriver, the kind with the yellow plastic handle.

Putting the light down beside the screwdriver, pulling his gloves out of his pockets, he stretched them on -- you couldn't be too careful around electricity.

Picking up the light and the screwdriver, making sure he was holding the screwdriver by the handle so he didn't run a risk of touching its metal shank, standing painfully, he directed his light to the top of the nearest cable, just past its entrance point. Reaching over warily, he touched the tip of the screwdriver to the top of the nearest wire.

No spark.

Shouldn't be, he thought, unless he touched both cables at the same time. Even then, there would be no danger unless both cables were stripped of the last remaining shreds of cloth protection. (Trying to reassure himself like that set his teeth on edge; he'd never felt safe around electricity.)

Forcing himself, he lifted the screwdriver; began scraping the tip of it back and forth along the top of the nearest cable, the cable's crisp cover scratching off to shower down in thin black flakes.

Back and forth until he heard the metallic sound of steel on copper.

Though standing in the stone room's tomb-like cold, the noise of bare-metal made him sweat!

Pulling back the screwdriver with exaggerated care, lifting the penlight, Z saw that the tinny scraping sound had told the truth: a bright red-gold line of new-scratched copper showing along the top of the wire.

Dead slow now, having to reach over the first, infinitely more dangerous uninsulated cable to do it, he raked the cloth off the top of the second power line; checked with the light to make sure the second cable also had a stretch of denuded copper along its top.

Delighted to be able to squat again -- where he was away from those dangerous high-voltage leads -- he played the light up through them, concentrating on the wooden shelf above the cables.

Yes. It was as he'd thought. The shelf was in as bad a shape as the wooden door at the building's entrance. Termite-riddled. Particularly the brace holding the end of the shelf over the power feeds.

Standing, using the light, reaching up carefully, he hooked the screwdriver around and above the bare leads to poke the steel blade into the crumbly looking brace, a shower of rotted wood fragments falling through the light circle to the darkness below.

A good tug and the shelf mounting would give way, an understanding that stopped the world as Bob Zapolska considered what to do next.

Something, he fervently hoped, short of his own electrocution!

What he needed was to be out of the building when the "accident" occurred. But how?

Squatting again, he reviewed the problem. If what he planned went the way it should, the result would be an electrical fire. ..... And that was the answer!

Sitting down on the tabletop, swinging his legs over the side, Z eased himself to the floor, playing the light above his head to see the cables and the shelf brace over them.

Satisfied that what he planned would work, first finding a solid wood box, dragging it over, standing on it, he fumbled his lighter out of his pants pocket with a clumsily gloved hand.

Penlight in one hand, lighter in the other, he flicked the spark wheel of the butane match, the lighter's small quick flame adding significantly to the flashlight's illumination.

Sweating now, using meticulous care, he lifted the flaming lighter above his head; began pushing his lighter-hand up between the dangerous cables, hoping the inch-and-a-half clearance between his fist and the wires to either side was enough to keep the cable's voltage from shorting through his hand. Continued to ease up the cigarette lighter ... higher ... higher, until the tip of the lighter flame touched the bottom of the rotted shelf support.

Shakily, Z held the lighter there until he saw its feeble blaze lick into the porous wood.

Still not out of danger, he eased down the lighter, keeping his hand in the exact center of the wires until hand and lighter were below the hazardous power lines.

Stepping down with relief, he let his thumb off the propane release, the lighter flame winking out, Z allowing the hot, lighter top to cool before returning it to his pocket.

Only then did he use the penlight to back off to the door, the fire near the ceiling at the other end of the room building nicely, tongues of blue-and-yellow flame spreading upward toward the bottom of the shelf.

Turning, he opened the door a crack. Looked out cautiously. To see ... that the way was clear.

And he was out into the wind, closing the door behind him, padlocking the door, and retreating up the walkway that paralleled the side of Bateman Hall. Ten steps. Twenty. Thirty.

At the front of the campus but still within sight of the power building, Z turned to wait and watch in the cold and windy dark.

But not for long.

Without warning, the tiny window in the power house door lit up like a welding torch, the flash followed by an angry sizzle!

Then ... silence. Silence, and "lights out" everywhere on campus.

Though the sun-bright flash was gone, did he see a flicker of light through the distant window? A shelf on fire, perhaps?

The question now was, what would the fire department make of this "accident"? Not much, he thought. The logical thing for the authorities to believe was that a decaying shelf had fallen in the night, the copper wire on top of the ledge sliding off to bridge the incoming power lines. The result? A nasty short because of the cable's rotted insulation.

The shelf fire would be seen as a result of the electric discharge, the fire attributed to the intense electrical flash of melting high-voltage lines that, had the building not shielded the spectacle, would have lit up the Kansas City night!

If the fire department did come to this conclusion, Z speculated, his careful work had done the taxpayers of Kansas City a favor. An accidental interpretation of the Bateman power failure sparing the city the expense of a futile criminal investigation.

Smiling to himself, satisfied with a job well-done, Bob Zapolska finished his leisurely walk to the front of Bateman Hall.

There, ignoring the razor wind that gusted up, he looked down the hill to see ... no campus lights at the hill's base. Even at the perimeter, the college lights had all winked out.

Moving purposely to the northwest side of Bateman Hall once more, he looked up at the third-floor turret.

Surprise!

No "ghost light."

Like other campus illumination, Old Bateman's "ghost" refused to "glow" without electric current.

Satisfied at last, Z took the broad walkway to the left front stairs.

Starting his descent -- his underpowered little car waiting patiently for him down there in the dark -- he smiled again.

Assuming something illegal was underway at the other end of the third-floor turret's cold air vent, also speculating that the illicit activity took electric lights, Big Bob Zapolska had just put a stop to it.

If, as Z thought likely, this "ghost light" business was somehow tied to the killings -- including the killer's attempt to murder Z -- it pleased Z to know that, in a small but subtle way, he'd been able to strike back!

* * * * *

Chapter 20

Bob Zapolska had just passed some blood in the motel stool, but not much. As for the small of his back, the bruise was darker (blue-black with lighter greenish-yellow splotches,) but smaller, these health improvements raising his spirits. He was coming back, physically as well as mentally. (His prospect for continued good health had also improved since he'd begun hiding out at the Happy Hollow Inn.)

While dressing in his knotty-pine and plastic room in the Happy Hollow that Thursday morning, he chanced to see the report on the room's black-and-white TV: a one-minute, late-morning spot on the power failure at Bateman College. There had been an electrical short sometime during the night, said the willowy blond news lady with the stiff-perfect hair and starry eyes. No one had noticed the power was out until people began arriving for work that morning. (Z took this to mean that the campus "security" guard had gotten a good night's sleep.) Other than knowing a power failure and small electrical fire had occurred, she continued, officials had yet to determine the cause of the accident. Fortunately, no one had been injured. (She said all this in newscaster-cheery, the sunny tone TV reporters used when rejoicing with million-dollar lottery winners, talking to children in need of adoption, sympathizing with maimed bomb victims, and patronizing starving Africans.) More on the channel's "award-winning news" at five.

Of more importance to Z was awakening with the feeling that the tumbling pieces of the Bateman puzzle were about to settle into place. (Knowing for certain that the recent attempt on his life was from someone other than the Mafia man, had helped.)

Paired down to what the old "Dragnet" show would have called "Just the facts, Ma'am," two threads ran through the Bateman puzzle: Wednesday night and Bateman Hall.

Considering that the Northland was normally a quiet backwater of Kansas City, a lot of weirdness had been happening on Wednesday nights. In the criminal category, that's when both the janitor and Ms. Ogden had been murdered. In the non-criminal -- but odd -- sub-group, Wednesday was the only night you could see the "ghost light." (At least according to Dr. Calder, who Z had no reason to doubt.) Of passing interest was the rumor that Wednesday was the night Lucas Terbrugghen stayed home to drink, an increasingly sensible thing to do considering recent events.

So much for right-out-of-bed thoughts.

Entering the Happy Hollow's lunch room for a late breakfast, Z choose to sit on a badly sprung booth in a purple-paisley nook near the kitchen, the only other "customer," a waitress in clunky shoes, the thick-legged woman having a cup of coffee while paging through the morning paper.

Slack time.

After breakfast and before the luncheon crowd.

His waitress delivering his breakfast (Z having Diet Coke and "Eggs Peculiar",) a quick reflection of what he'd seen down the tower vent firmed up his opinion that the "ghost light" came from deep within the building.

Since Bateman Hall was the school's drama building, a light that was powerful enough to travel three floors had to mean high-watt theater lights -- kliegs or a carbon-arc lamp, the kind used in early movie projectors and World War II search lights. (No matter what Professor Calder thought, classroom lights didn't have the punch to "climb" floor after floor of ventilator shaft.)

Thinking "stage" lights, the name Terbrugghen came to mind, the director so linked to Bateman Hall that Dr. Calder had described the old ruin as "Lucas' building."

To the Wednesday night "follies," Z could now add his own piece of detective work: the discovery that, on the night of her murder, Beth Ogden had been in her bedroom putting on perfume. Rushing downstairs to let in her director/lover (or someone else she knew intimately,) the unknown guest had let Missy out, Ms. Ogden rushing outside to retrieve her cat.

An important final fact had fallen into place when Johnny D had convinced Bob Z that the "smoke man" was not an operative of the mob.

The mob-Monet distraction put to rest, Z's would-be assassin had to be someone Z was threatening to unmask in the Victor-Ogden-ghost light case, moreover, someone who knew that Big Bob Zapolska was investigating the murders.

Continuing to play with his mysterious eggs, Z itemized the people who knew he was a player.

Ted Newbold.

Though Z had called Ted to ask about Ms. Ogden death, he doubted if Ted would tell anyone of Z's interest in the lady's demise. The last thing Teddy wanted was for Captain Scherer to discover that Ted was Z's pipeline to police department business.

Dr. Calder.

The professor had hired Z to investigate the Tommie Victor killing.

Lucas Terbrugghen.

The director had been so "broken-up" about Ms. Ogden's death that Calder had told Terbrugghen that Bob Zapolska might be investigating the matter.

Did Newbold, Calder, and Terbrugghen complete the list? Or had these worthies spread "the word" to others?

Time for a follow-up round of questions, starting with ....

Had Ted shot off his mouth on this matter?

Normally, yes.

This time, no.

Terbrugghen ... doubtful.

Leaving Dr. Calder. The Doc already admitting he leaked Z's involvement in the Ogden killing to Terbrugghen, had Calder told others that Bob Zapolska was poking around?

Breakfast over, rested for a change -- nothing as sleep-inducing as being confident you'd not be murdered in your bed -- Z drove to the office.

Eleven o'clock.

Not late considering last night's meeting in the graveyard, followed by the "ghost light" search, followed by the tinkering he'd done out back of Bateman Hall, followed by the post-midnight precautions he'd taken to make sure no one followed him to the Happy Hollow Inn.

Z took off his coat, laying it across the front desk; pushed the rewind button on his answering machine.

Whir. Beep.

"Z, this is Susan." Even though Susan's voice was being filtered through the scratchy play back of the old machine, he knew immediately something was wrong. Her rich timbered sound was ... off. "I don't quite know what to say, Z, but ... I think someone's been in my apartment. I tried to get you at your place this morning, but couldn't. I'm at work now. Would you please give me a call sometime this morning"?

Beep.

Without waiting for the start of what was clearly a second message, Z pushed the off button. Nothing like Susan being plaintive to get his attention.

Z's adrenaline up, he forced himself to take deep breaths until he was calm enough to reason the situation through.

A break-in. Happened all the time. Even North-of-the-River.

For the moment -- with Susan safe at work -- things were under control. For the future, he'd check the deadbolt he'd put in at her apartment. If necessary, install additional security.

There was also the possibility Susan was mistaken ... though not much chance of that. Susan was anything but a flighty female.

Now calm enough to keep from alarming Susan even more, Z leaned forward, picked up the phone, and spun the dial.

Susan asking him to reach her at work was just another indication of how upset ....

"American Insurance," said a slippery-bitch voice. "Here, only to serve you."

As concerned as he was about Susan, American Insurance's standard greeting irritated him. Since when had insurance companies been in business to help anyone -- but themselves!?

"Susan Halliwell."

"One moment." He was impatient with the time it took to ....

"Susan Halliwell, Correspondence."

"Z. Got your message."

"I'm alright now, Z. I was just a little upset when I couldn't get you this morning."

"Anything missing?"

"Nothing I saw."

"Tell me."

"I got home late last night after an office function at the Golden Ox. It's called a bonding dinner. The company just started doing that so I don't know if I told you about it."

"No." Bonding dinner. A sticky term for a get-together; just the kind of low-class/high-class/no-class jargon to be expected from an insurance company.

"Anyway, from my class at Maple Woods, I went to the apartment, changed, then drove to the restaurant. It was a nine o'clock dinner so I wasn't too late. I got home after midnight, dead-tired. Went right to bed. No problems. But this morning ...."

"Did you lock up?"

"I can't remember."

Z almost said that the deadbolt couldn't be expected to work if she didn't use it -- but caught himself in time.

"Locking the door's so automatic," Susan continued in a defensive rush, "that half the time when I'm sure I've forgotten to lock up, I haven't."

"Always good to check. ................ But I know what you mean," he continued, filling the unpleasant silence from Susan's side of the phone with what he hoped sounded like an apology for giving unasked-for advice. Susan didn't like to be lectured -- except by college instructors. "What tipped you?"

"It was when I was about to get the milk out of the fridge this morning. I'm sure that someone ... moved a couple of items in there. The milk was too far back on the shelf. Little things like that."

"Last night, you were tired. Could you have moved things ...?"

"No," she said quickly. "I came home and went to bed. Didn't open the fridge."

"Had a friend over, maybe. Someone who used the icebox?"

"No."

Though Z was relieved to hear that Susan hadn't had a "friend" over, his brain was starting to wind up like a hand-cranked siren. "Nothing missing" was not necessarily good news.

"Touch anything?"

"Would a detective's girl mess up the evidence?"

"Good. I want to see the apartment. I'll pick you up. Eleven-thirty?"

"Right."

It was unlike Susan to let him dictate activities that included her. For all her talk about being "alright," she was still scared.

"Goodbye."

"'Bye, Z." Relief. Affection.

Hanging up the phone, Z reflected that he'd only seen Susan this cooperative once before: when her maniac husband was threatening her. She'd been afraid then, too.

The living room smelled like Susan. Delicious.

Looking professionally cute in her long, gray notched-collar coat, Susan had just let them into her too-modern apartment.

Today, she wore an adorable, bright blue schoolgirl hat over her mop top of shiny black hair.

While Susan looked around with a practiced eye, Z squatted at the door to check the deadbolt. ... No sign of tricks being used on the lock.

Standing, he took off his gloves and stuffed them in his pockets. No sense thinking about fingerprints. At this time of year, even honest people wore gloves.

"The living room's OK," Susan said, looking back at him. "And there was nothing out of place in my bedroom or I would have noticed it when getting dressed this morning."

Unwinding her white scarf, stuffing a length of it into her pocket (the rest trailing down a curvy thigh until the fringe brushed the top of her shiny black boot,) Susan led him past the square fireplace into the kitchen.

"Nothing out of the ordinary here, either," Susan said, looking the small space over carefully.

There was rather little to get out of place in a kitchen, of course. Stove fastened down. Steel sink build it. Small, but heavy, cast iron patio table.

"That leaves the refrigerator," he said. "Show me."

"OK."

Opening the small refrigerator's door, she pointed. "I always put the milk on the top shelf to the left and at the very front because I seem to use milk more than anything else. In cooking. For breakfast food." He'd heard Susan's views about keeping much-used items in what she called "prime space."

Susan holding the door open for him, Z bent down to get a look inside. Tried to remember what he'd seen when he'd gotten something out of Susan's icebox, but ... couldn't. The milk had been shoved quite a ways back on the chromium grill.

It was then, sticking his head in the fridge to get a better look at the milk carton, that he knew something was wrong, something other than the position of the milk.

Concentrating, closing his eyes, he sniffed.

Yes.

The icebox smelled ... funny.

Z opened his eyes to see what was causing that odor but found nothing to pin it on. No "left overs" going bad. No open sardine can improperly wrapped in plastic. Even an open box of smell gobbling baking soda in the back.

"Smell anything ... funny ... in there?" Z stood up and stepped out of the way so Susan could bend down and sniff.

"I don't think so ... Maybe, now that you mention it .... An aroma like ... vinegar?"

Only if all acids smell the same to you, Z thought.

Susan getting out of the way, he bent down again; took another whiff, delicately.

Warmed up, the odor would be even sharper, stronger.

Thinking about that stench being intensified, Z believed he might have registered something similar recently.

He sniffed again.

It certainly wasn't the oily reek of the gunk the "smoke man" had dumped down his fireplace. And yet, in the back of his mind, the two odors were associated.

Strange ....

But back to the present.

Z hated what he had to do next.

"Susan. This may be because of me."

Standing, shutting the refrigerator door, he turned to look down at her, Susan peeking up at him from under her broad-brimmed hat, her blue eyes trusting.

"Something I should sit down to hear?" Said in a weak imitation of her rich, low voice.

"Nothing to worry about. I'll take care of it. I just hate telling you."

"Probably not as much as I'll hate hearing it," she said, her generous full-lipped smile a little crooked.

"Someone was here."

Susan's face lost color.

"When was the last time you ate at home?"

As what he was saying sunk in, Susan gripped the curved back of the nearest steel-mesh kitchen chair. Leaned on the chair back to steady herself.

"I guess ... breakfast yesterday morning." Susan squinted her eyes like she sometimes did -- as if trying to see into the distance. When she concentrated like that, kitten-whisker-lines feathered the outside corners of her dark blue eyes. "For lunch yesterday, I had a salad at Mary's Sandwich Shop right across the street from American. I came home after work last night, but just to get my books. Left for Maple Woods. After class, I was back here to make a quick change into something more formal. Didn't eat anything. Went right to the bonding dinner. And I didn't get anywhere near the kitchen after I got home last night. I just came in and hit the bed."

"Didn't go to the bathroom?"

"None of your business." Though Susan had gone pale enough for him to see her blush, he'd gotten her to smile -- which was the idea.

The smile faded. "If you know what this is all about, tell me."

Did she really want to know?

"It's not serious. You can relax."

Susan didn't give much of an impression of someone relaxing. At that moment, she looked more like a little girl who'd just been told the big needle in the nurse's hand wouldn't hurt.

"I'm on this case. Someone's following me. Maybe linked me to you. This man wants to ... discourage me. My guess is, by upsetting you. Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

Susan smiled wanly. Nodded.

"For now, throw everything away." He pointed at the refrigerator. "Just in case."

Looking frightened again, Susan dragged a chair out from under the filigreed iron table, scraped the small but heavy seat around, and sagged down on it.

"It's not that bad," he continued. That it probably was that bad, was the best reason he could think of for lying to Susan.

"We dump this stuff while I'm here to help."

Susan nodded, folded her hands in her lap, demurely.

"After that, I'll drive you back to work. I'll pick you up. Take you to night school. Wait for you. Then take you to this romantic place I've found where you'll spend the night. After we ditch the food, pack an overnight case."

Susan was still nodding.

A wild idea struck Z that this was the time to ask Susan to quit her job, drop her class, and marry him.

Just a stray thought, one that was unworthy of him. Big Bob Zapolska didn't take advantage of frightened ladies. Part of the Zapolska Code.

"Tomorrow or the day after, you come back here without a worry in the world."

"You wouldn't ... lie to me, Z ... to make me feel better?"

"No." To make her feel better, he might not tell her everything -- which was well within the parameters of the Zapolska Code.

"Can you let me know more about the case and about the person ...?" She pointed to the refrigerator.

"Soon."

"Just a night away from home ...."

"Two nights, maybe. But that doesn't matter. What does is I'll protect you."

"I know." Said with the first hint of a genuine smile since he'd plucked her from the sidewalk in front of American Insurance. The kind of smile to make a man proud.

With Susan settled down at last, they carried the food to the trash bin in back of the Bircane parking lot -- liquid items, jars, paper wrapped packages, twist-tied plastic bags (even Susan's non-refrigerated edibles) -- Z then taking Susan back to her job.

Susan safely at work, Z "burned rubber" to beat the trash truck to the Bircane apartments, Z wanting to have a solitary look at the food he and Susan had just thrown out. And sure enough. As he was poking through the industrial-sized trash bin, taking out, then sniffing each - discarded - package without interference from the odors of the rest, he found what he'd suspected. That it was the milk that had been contaminated.

Emptying a small pickle jar, Z transferred some milk into it, capped the jar and put the container in his pocket. A chemical analysis of the jar's contents might tell him something.

Finished at the Bircane, a flying trip to his apartment to refrigerate the milk-in-jar, and he was back to his office to wait for Susan to get off work.

Sitting at his desk, rubbing his bad knee, Z decided it was time to call Calder to see who else the good doctor had "spilled the beans to" about Z tackling the Tommie/Beth case.

And yet ... something seemed to be ........

Yes! It was that -- because of his concern for Susan's safety -- he'd failed to play the second message on his phone recorder!

Pushing back, prying himself up with his good leg, he took the short limp to his imaginary secretary's desk to poke the answering machine button.

Beep.

"Mr. Zapolska? This is Hugh Calder. Just wanted to know if you'd heard about last night's power outage on campus. If you want to talk about it, give me a ring. Goodbye, and thanks again."

With Calder inviting Z to call, this was the perfect time to "capture" what Z hoped would be the last "puzzle piece."

Sitting on the outer office desk, he dialed the college; got switched around as usual, only to discover Dr. Calder had gone home.

A good memory for numbers, Z dialed the Doctor's Liberty address. ........ "Hugh Calder, here."

"Z."

"Hear about the power failure?"

"Yeah."

"It must have happened soon after we left the campus, don't you think?"

"Yes." Soon after you left the campus, Z thought -- but didn't say. "I got a question."

"Shoot."

"Did you tell anyone but the director I might be working on the Ogden death? Or working on the Victor case?" Silence. Calder thinking.

"No."

"Keep it that way. I'd appreciate it."

"You got it. Anything else I can do?"

"You got Terbrugghen's address?"

"I can get it from my copy of the faculty directory. Give me a minute."

Silence. ... Until the phone was picked up again. "On Rush Street. 224. Anything else?"

"No."

"Making progress?"

"Maybe."

"Anything you can tell me?"

"Not yet."

"OK. You're the detective."

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Click and click.

With no extra people to add complications to the plot, Big Bob Zapolska could be certain of the following information:

Bateman Hall was Terbrugghen's building.

Tommie Victor had been killed in Terbrugghen's storage area.

Beth Ogden was Terbrugghen's "friend."

On the night of her murder, Beth was expecting Terbrugghen.

The ghost glow was caused by a powerful light, possibly the kind of stage illumination Terbrugghen would use.

Besides Teddy and Dr. Calder, the other person who knew that Z was investigating the Odgen murder was Terbrugghen.

That was ... Z counted ... six Terbrugghen's. Four more than necessary to alert any down-at-the-heels P.I.

Z knew he had no actual proof the director was the murderer. To be honest, he didn't have the evidence to win a small claims case against the man. Was certainly not ready to plead before Judge Judy!

Fortunately, it was truth, not proof, that mattered at this stage of the game. Give Big Bob Zapolska a respectable number of clues leading to the Bateman college director -- and conclusive evidence would follow! (If Z was good at anything it was getting guilty parties to confess their crimes.)

As Big Bob Zapolska saw it, it was just another of his judicious uses of fire before and the Bateman College murders were in the history books!

* * * * *

Chapter 21

Picking up Susan after her night school class, getting her settled at the Inn (a nervously exhausted Susan turning in at 10:00,) Z drove to Terbrugghen's old turn-of-the-century, four story apartment house, the moldering building located several blocks behind the college. After letting himself into the musty-smelling entrance hall, he checked the battered mailboxes before going back outside to see if the lights were on in what had to be the windows of Terbrugghen's third-floor apartment.

No lights.

Not necessarily meaning the director was inside, asleep.

Though a quick check of parked cars along the street turned up Terbrugghen's, brown '68 Fairlane. (The Ford belonging to Terbrugghen came courtesy of the registration in the car's glove compartment.)

Increasingly convinced it was a vintage Ford that had been following Z's Cavalier, Z took the Fairlane to be another indicator that the director was Z's man.

Parked out front, Lucas' car suggesting the director was upstairs asleep, but .....

With all night to accomplish his purpose, Z got back in his own car and parked it a short way down the street to wait until an ultra-safe three A.M.

By that time feeling confident the director had been asleep inside all along, Z picked up his equipment case and jiggered his way inside the "locked-up-for-the-night" entrance hall.

Quickly inside, he soft peddled up the metal-edged rubber-tiled steps that led past two, ten-watt-lighted landings (three apartment doors at each level.)

On the third floor at last (after gobbling some aspirin that he should have taken in preparation for the climb,) a quick flash of the penlight showed the name "Terbrugghen" on a faded card in a bent tin frame, the name tag holder tacked to the center of the right-hand door.

Gloves on, with a minimum of noise, Z finessed Terbrugghen's lock ... listened ... entered ... crept (satchel-hand dimming the penlight's bulb) into all five rooms ........ the director no where to be found.

With the man's car parked outside?

Possibly spirited off by friends? Taken a taxi?

Surely by this time, all the taverns were closed -- certainly the ones within walking distance.

What was clear was that, wherever the director was -- pouring gunk down someone else's chimney?? -- Z would have to "catch" him later.

Ninety percent safe in assuming that, if Terbrugghen wasn't home, he wouldn't be coming home that night, Z began a quick search of the place (taking in as much as he could with a flashlight that did no more than punch small, self-healing holes in the dark.)

Finding nothing but the basics: Terbrugghen's clothing in closets, his toothbrush and shaving kit in the bathroom, one set of dirty dishes on the kitchen table, fresh food in a well-provisioned refrigerator.

Though Bob Zapolska had started out to have a quiet (if somewhat painful) talk with Terbrugghen, Z's backup method was to "get the goods" on the director by making a thorough search of the man's apartment. Something best done by light of day.

Determined to come back tomorrow when the director was at school, Z gave it up for the night.

That was Thursday.

Friday morning had Z listening to Susan's complaints as he drove her to work, all of them boiling down to how tacky her room was at the Happy Hollow Inn.

Dropping her off at her insurance company, he again drove to Terbrugghen's apartment, parking the Cavalier around the corner.

Ambling down the block and into the building as if he belonged there, Z hiked up the stairs to pick the director's lock again (no challenge the second time) Z slipping inside the apartment.

Door closed, Z took a quiet look in every dilapidated fire-sale-decorated room.

No Terbrugghen.

Good.

Next, Z scouted the apartment for other entrances. Didn't find any.

Tried the windows. All locked; none of them overlooking a fire escape. (In the back of Z's mind, he could hear Mr. Rogers encouraging the young viewers of his kiddie show by saying: "Can you say fire trap? I knew you could."

The big bottom line was that the only door Z had to worry about was the front door. No chance of Lucas Terbrugghen jumping out from an unexpected hiding place.

His preparatory work finished, careful to keep from leaving clues that he'd been there, Z started his search with the drawers. After that, switched to cupboards, finding a couple of hundred dollars hidden in a jar in a glassed-in breakfront. (He left the money where it was, of course.)

As he went along -- efficiently, thoroughly, quietly -- everything Z discovered confirmed what he'd already been told about Terbrugghen. He found liquor bottles around the place, for instance -- two, pint bottles of gin still in a paper sack on the kitchen counter, according to the sales slip, three pints recently purchased from the Berbiglia on North Antioch.

Other bottles turned up here and there, some partially filled, some empty.

Gin. Vodka. Whiskey. Scotch. Wine. Beer.

Terbrugghen a man of discriminating taste, drinking nothing but alcohol.

Z came across used tubes of artist's paint and an assortment of small brushes in a bureau drawer -- dovetailing nicely with Calder's notion that Terbrugghen was a set designer. Also tying Terbrugghen to the theater, were jars of actor's makeup plus a collection of wigs in a lower drawer.

Rolled up on a closet shelf was a faded blueprint of Bateman Hall, the diagram arguing strongly that the director himself thought of the "Hall" as "Terbrugghen's building."

Except for the food stains being drier (if possible) on the same dirty dishes Z had seen on the kitchen table the night before, nothing had changed.

And that was that.

This time when Z closed the front door behind him, he pulled out, then placed one of his hairs in a tight spot between the door's leading edge and the doorframe. Invisible to anyone not looking for it, the absence of the hair letting Z know that someone had entered Terbrugghen's apartment after Z's departure.

Through Saturday and Sunday, the hair stayed put, making it a thoroughly unproductive week.

At McDonald's Sunday night (Z taking a break to feed Susan,) he had to listen to her: 1. complain about having to stay at the Inn longer than the "couple" of days Z had promised and 2. make a series of off-color remarks about what Susan was now calling the Whorehouse Motel.

Not that Z minded.

Particularly, since -- shepherding Susan to night school last Thursday night -- he'd gotten a look at her Maple Woods professor.

A nice man for a geek.

Z and Susan finishing their Big Macs and returning to the motel, Z found that Susan was unhappy about her sleep being disturbed by a parade of unattached -- a better description might be briefly attached -- women cruising the Happy Hollow's halls.

Next morning, after delivering an increasingly sulky Susan to American Insurance, Z returned to his office to call Calder.

No. Calder couldn't remember seeing the director on Friday, but stressed it wasn't likely he would have, since Calder and Terbrugghen taught halfway across the campus from one another.

Nothing gained by that conversation.

Nothing gained by further chitchat with Susan after picking her up after work. Worst of all, Susan increasingly serious about returning to her apartment.

Strange. As Z's apprehension grew at failing to locate the director, Susan's fears seemed to dissipate.

Women.

Taking her to a reduced price, late night movie in an attempt to sweeten her mood, the two of them returned to the inn where the Z/Susan relationship continued to deteriorate. (Even when Susan was mad, of course, she was adorable.) "I actually remember that, before bringing me here," Susan said, flicking her fingers at the greenish wallpaper in the darkly lit hall outside her door, "you called this dump 'romantic'."

"It'd be more romantic if we shared a room," he suggested, not too hopefully.

"Here, just thinking about sex could give you a disease!" Translation. Hands off until you get me out of here.

Women.

By Monday, Susan safely back at work (Z safe from Susan's serrated tongue,) he'd come to the conclusion that, if he didn't wrap up this case, and soon, he'd have to move Susan to new quarters -- even if it cost him $30 a night to put her up in luxurious accommodations. It was either that or have Susan return to her apartment. (Susan was so upset by this time that he didn't dare suggest what he should have thought of in the first place, Z moving into her apartment as the best way to protect her -- Susan now as apt to invite him into her home as into her motel room to share Happy Hollow's piped-in porno.)

By late Monday morning (the strand of his hair at Terbrugghen's still in place,) Z returned to his office to put in another call to Calder.

Finding the doctor in class at that time, Z left his new, Happy Hollow number just in case, Z still in his office when the professor called at five after twelve.

"See Terbrugghen yet?"

"I've asked around this morning -- talked to a couple of people who teach speech in Bateman Hall -- and neither of them has seen Lucas since last Wednesday morning."

Though they talked "small" after that, Z had the information he wanted with Calder's first sentence.

Z checked Terbrugghen's apartment again Monday afternoon -- no change -- Z picking the lock to go inside once more ... because he couldn't think of anything else to do. Of course, found everything as it had been Thursday night.

Z trapping his "telltale hair" back in the door jam, he went down to have another go at Terbrugghen's car ... to discover that not the smallest fraction of an extra mile had registered on the Fairlane's speedometer.

So -- where was the drama instructor-turned-murderer?

On Tuesday morning -- finally! -- Bob Zapolska picked up his daily, coin-dispenser Star in the Inn's front lobby, to find the article he'd been expecting, a short piece on the third page under the headline: "Cloud Over Bateman College."

Starting with a review of the deaths of the janitor and of the secretary, the news item hinted darkly that the school's director had also met a mysterious fate. Reading between the lines, it was apparent that Bateman's administration had known for some time that Terbrugghen was not on campus, but had been trying to cover it up. (To be charitable, college bigwigs had every reason to believe the director would eventually materialize after sobering up from a prodigious drunk.)

If the paper had the story of the director's disappearance, could the police be far behind?

Not too far, Z's four o'clock check on Terbrugghen whereabouts turning up the traditional, yellow plastic "DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE" tape, tacked across Terbrugghen's apartment door.

The hair was gone too. The cops had been inside.

At the office again. Time for another call.

"Detective Ted Newbold," Ted answered pompously.

"Z. What's with the missing college prof?"

"He's missing."

"Anything else?"

"Not my case." Rather like Andy Griffith's Mayberry, Ted's station with just the three detectives -- Ted, Bayliss, and Esser -- everyone knowing everyone's cases. Ted just liked to be coaxed.

"No rumor about when?"

"After Wednesday, is what I heard."

"Any leads on where he went?"

"Nope. Just gone." Conspiratorially, Ted lowered his voice. "But it don't look good." Z knew why. It never looked good when someone vanished without making preparations. Clothes still in the "Dutchman's" closet. And most telling of all, his toothbrush and alcohol disguising mouthwash still where they should be.

Z didn't let on that he knew the Terbrugghen apartment was intact, of course. Knowing about the unaltered state of the director's apartment might lead to nasty questions -- like how Z happened to have found that out.

"Guesses?"

"When a citizen disappears, it's for limited reasons. Wife/girlfriend trouble. Some kind of insurance fraud -- get himself declared dead so his wife can collect on him. The guy goes nuts. Or the guy gets kidnapped. Kidnapped, he's either dead already or he's being held until the family pays, then gets dead."

"Sounds right. He have a wife?" It was often better to play it too dumb than too smart.

"Not that anybody who's been interviewed knows about."

"Big life insurance policy?"

"Don't think so. At least no talk of that around here."

"Anything from a kidnapper?"

"No."

"So ... what do you think?"

"Some funny business goin' on around the college, if you ask me."

"Janitor killed there, too."

"That was a suicide."

"Oh?"

"Powder burns on his hand."

"Right." Z had been on target about the cops kissing off the janitor's death as a suicide.

"Thanks, Ted. Don't know what I'd do without you."

"You better believe it!" Click.

Powder burns on Tommie Victor's hand. That's also what Z had figured.

Suicide?

One shot, yes.

Two shots .....?

For Big Bob Zapolska's money, any self-respecting murderer, wishing to disguise his crime, would have wrapped his dead victim's hand around the gun butt before taking the second shot. While there could be exceptions (and he had told Calder about one) the odds said that getting powder burns on a "suicide's" hand was the best reason for a second shot.

Z hadn't expected to learn anything from Ted about the director's disappearance, checking with Teddy just one of the "shots" he had to take.

Another quick call to Calder didn't help, either. Except to confirm that the Bateman administration had known for several days that the director was missing.

And that "burned" Tuesday.

It was Wednesday that Z woke up with the realization he was back to what was always called -- for some unexplained reason -- square one. Back before square one, actually, square one being his certainty that Lucas Terbrugghen was the murderer.

What Z now had to consider was the possibility that, rather than being the murderer, the director might be the murderer's latest victim.

Lucas Terbrugghen, the victim? But ... what about the clues?

Thinking about clues always put Z in mind of something he'd heard about diagnoses in the medical profession: a timeless piece of advice Med School teachers routinely passed on to their students.

When hearing hoofbeats, expect horses not zebras.

A common sense admonition also applying to the detective business. Law enforcement clues that seemed to point to the guilty party -- usually did.

But not always.

With Lucas Terbrugghen missing, Z was forced to consider the proposition that the Bateman murders might fall within this "but not always" category. In short, it was time to consider speculations that the folk singer John Denver used to call "far out."

Determined to contemplate the most bizarre of possibilities, Z began with the one piece of solid detective work he'd contributed himself: Beth Ogden's putting on perfume late at night before going out in the dark to freeze to death, "dolling herself up" for her lover still seeming to be the best explanation for the lady's actions on that fateful night.

Find the lover, and you found Ms. Ogden's murderer.

So he'd thought. So he still thought.

The question that now must be considered, was whether or not Ms. Ogden's lover was the school's director, that query leading Z to consider how he'd first discovered the romantic connection between the lady and the drunk. An easy answer: from Dr. Calder. The prof even maintaining that the relationship between the pair was an open secret.

But ... maybe not.

Since Z had been too inactive, of late, to check this juicy bit of gossip with anyone else, he decided to start his review by considering the "fact" of the Ogden-Terbrugghen "romance."

Calder had said that Ogden and Terbrugghen were an item.

On the other hand, Calder could have been mistaken about who the lady's real lover might be ... maybe, because Ms. Ogden was so ashamed of her actual affair she wished everyone to think it was Terbrugghen?

A light came on!

To put it bluntly, could Beth Ogden's lover be ... a female ... the Ogden woman opening her door to a female "friend" as readily as to a "gentleman caller"?

This line of thought, warped though it was, suggested the possibility that the murderer could be a woman!

Or, thinking far, far out, could it be that shy-seeming Beth Ogden had two lovers: the one that people knew about – the director – and an additional, but secret, female lech? Could a possessively jealous dyke have first killed Beth Ogden, then found a way to dispose of the director? ....

Still, Ms. Ogden's marriage had to be thrown into the balance. ....

Which might indicate – far, far, far out – that Beth Ogden was bisexual.

Bob Zapolska closed his eyes; tried to envision the Ogden woman, both at home, and as he'd seen her in her office; at the office sitting beside that stick-figured praying mantis of a ball-breaker. The uppity bitch who Z had little doubt was the one who'd tried to finger him for the Ogden killing. Ingrid Nielson. That femme, that butch .....

Bob Zapolska's head was spinning. To settle himself before he threw up, he reached for the phone. Dialed. Got routed through.

"Hugh Calder, here."

"Z. Got a strange question."

"Shoot."

"Any chance Beth Ogden was bisexual?"

Silence. Calder thinking.

"Not that I know of. Not a hint of that from anyone at Bateman, either. And there would have been if someone had known. As enlightened a community of scholars as a college thinks it is, people love to talk scandal here, as much as any place else." Silence. Calder thinking some more. "I'd say the chance of Beth Ogden being a lesbian, to say nothing of bisexual, is nonexistent."

"Thanks."

"Does all this talk about Beth Ogden's love life mean you think she was murdered?"

No sense denying it at this stage of the game. "Yes."

"Do you have Lucas pegged for the murderer?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because he was Beth Ogden's lover. A sad truth is that most murders are family related."

A pause. Both of them thinking.

"He ever disappear for this long?"

"A detective asked me the same question just a little while ago, the cops talking to people here on campus this morning. And the answer is no. It was pretty common for Lucas to miss a day or two, but not this long a stretch."

"Thanks. That's helpful."

"Any time." Click.

And what Calder said had been helpful – if not in the way the professor thought.

Helpful because it pointed Z down a new avenue of investigation.

The Calder connection.

With something of a shock, Z realized that almost everything he knew about both murders came directly from the chubby prof. It was Calder who'd said that Victor was too content with his life to have shot himself, for instance; that Terbrugghen was a drunk (something the liquor bottles in the director's apartment confirmed); that Terbrugghen was Ogden's lover.

What – now thinking farther out that the Milky Way – if Calder had a reason to lie? ............

A detective on campus? Another good idea.

But that avenue of thought also came to nothing when a late afternoon of snooping about Bateman College – people willing to talk, even to a private detective – served only to confirm Calder's views. Like Calder said, Terbrugghen had the reputation of being a talented drunk. Always with a buzz on, but blotto on Wednesday nights. He was also thought to have been seeing the widow Ogden. Nor had there been any takers when Z had steered the conversation to make it easy for someone to hint that Ms. Ogden was a butch.

So in the end, all Z's imaginative speculation had done was loop him back to Lucas Terbrugghen as the prime suspect in the murders.

Calder – even that bitch, Ingrid Nielsen – were zebras.

Terbrugghen was the horse.

Leaving unsolved the question of the man's whereabouts.

No sign that the director had been planning to ... disappear. Meaning ... what? That he had "disappeared" ... by accident?

Holed-up somewhere, drunk?

Holed-up somewhere, sick?

Holed-up somewhere ... trapped?

Not in his apartment, nor in any place the cops had looked.

For Big Bob Zapolska's money, that left Terbrugghen hiding in a Lucas-hole in the warren of "his" building ... Bateman Hall.

Z didn't like what came next. On the other hand, nobody had forced him into the detective business.

Clearly, it was time to go back to Bateman Hall, if for no other reason than to take a second look at the sub-basement where the janitor had been murdered.

Thinking back, Z tried to remember how he'd felt when he'd first seen that grimy limestone rathole.

Uneasy....

As if something was ... wrong ... down there.

All this mental tacking going a long way toward explaining why, just before midnight, dressed in black, lock-pick case and blackjack in separate pockets, Z was once again atop Bateman hill.

Though it was likely to be a long night ... first things first. Moving quietly, blending with the wind swept shadows, he walked along the front of blacked-out Bateman Hall until he came to the building's opposite corner.

There, turning, Z looked up.

One story.

Two stories.

Three stories.

To see that, once again, the Bateman "ghost" haunted the northwest tower!

Wednesday night.

Figured.

* * * * *

Chapter 22

Remembering that he and the professor were well below ground at this point, Z switched on the basement room's lights, the cold fluorescent tubes flickering to life in their dirty enamel fixtures. Without Calder to lead him, it had been difficult to find the door he wanted in the vastness of Bateman Hall at night. Tiny battery lights were for picking out the right key on the ring, not for negotiating pitch black corridors to say nothing of stumbling down warped wooden stairs.

No chance of the light down here showing outside the building; almost no possibility the light would attract inside attention, either. Was anyone, ever, in Bateman Hall past midnight? Security? Cleaning people? ... Anyone? ...

He doubted it. While Calder might call Bateman Hall the director's building, it seemed equally true that, in the depths of night, the building belonged as much to Big Bob Zapolska as to anybody.

The basement was the same: tables piled with assorted theater junk, the actors' dressing stalls lined up along the right wall, their doors, like open mouths, pleading that, "The show must go on."

Mercifully, Z found that the core of him had warmed up at last; a beneficial by-product of all the time he'd spent getting lost on his way down here.

While waiting for his eyes to adjust to the flickering glare of the long, bare tubes, Z unbuttoned his coat, took off his gloves, and stuffed his gloves in his pockets, his fingers now better able to rub feeling into his nose and ears.

While warming up the extremities, he looked around to orient himself.

What he was looking for was at the back left: a crooked door to steps that plunged to the sinkhole where the janitor had been killed.

Unaware of it, Z had taken out his lighter. Was nervously flicking the spark wheel, the lighter's flame spurting up, dying, flaming up -- rhythmically. Not a bad habit as bad habits went. It was just that Z was determined to show no outward emotion of this kind.

His feelings of apprehension under control, he slipped the lighter into his pants pocket.

Reluctant to descend even lower into Terbrugghen's world, chiding himself for unnecessary delay, Bob Zapolska became aware of a scent his nose had just "warmed" to.

Faint.

A smell similar to the odor of the oily, rubbery, multi-colored "goop" someone -- all clues pointing to the theater director -- had touched off in Z's fireplace.

Yes. Sniffing again, he was certain this was the place he'd smelled that odor for the first time.

No. Not the first time.

It came to him that his earliest association with the scent was a happy time in his childhood when his father had made bird houses in the garage. Not the fresh warm-amber odor of sawed white pine, but a smell that fit generalized construction, both of bird houses and of theater flats. An old-fashioned smell of........

Paint?......

Not quite.

The smell of oil-based paint.

Z remembered playing with his father's quart-sized paint cans in the garage, most of them scarred, dented, rusty, drips of paint hardened on the rim so the can lids didn't seal. What Z was smelling now was the odor of discarded paint cans; the smell of linseed oil and pigment, evaporating turpentine, and finally, a thick, wet scum of paint at the bottom.

What had Terbrugghen done? Scraped out old paint cans until he had enough crud to do Z in?

Looking around the room in the dead-white stare of the room's warehouse lights -- nothing else sounding like the buzz of worn-out starter coils -- Z saw what he thought he'd remembered from his previous visit: scabby cans of paint shoved against the walls of the dirty workroom. Gallons, rather than quarts.

He closed his eyes to visualize the room as he remembered it the last time he was here. Opened them to look at the room as it was now.

Had there been a ... rearrangement of the cans? ... Z thought so.

Again playing bloodhound-on-the-trail, threading his way around littered tables, stepping past scarred, splatter-painted flats, he made his way to the left wall, stopping there to pick up an empty paint can.

Yes. Drifting through the edge of the battered lid was that smell.

Looking around for something he could use to open the can, finding a beat up coat hanger, he pried up at the rim ... And found the proof! The film at the bottom had been torn away, a wet trail of oil and pigment sloshed up one side where the bottom gunk had been scraped out into another container!

At random, Z opened another can to find its bottom "leavings" had also been scraped out. Opened another can. Found the same.

Funny, how it was easier to identify an odor if you smelled it in its proper context. At home, all he could tell was that the mess he'd found in his fireplace smelled like something he'd experienced before. Here, the gunk smell was clearly of rancid, oil-based paint.

As if he needed it, this rotted paint was the final clue pointing to Terbrugghen as the murderer.

The missing Terbrugghen.

Missing because he was holed-up somewhere.

Missing because he was holed-up ... here. In the bowels of "his" personal building!

As sharply as the snapping of a switch, Z felt fear -- the fear the big game hunter knows when, nearing a beast's lair, the advantage of the chase swings from hunter to hunted!

Here, Lucas Terbrugghen would turn and fight!

To settle himself, Z felt for the sap in his coat pocket -- a blackjack a weapon of short range and of surprise.

The overriding question of the moment was, when he found the director (another story down?,) would Terbrugghen have a gun?

Earlier, Terbrugghen had a gun, first used as a prop, then to kill the janitor. Probably knew the gun was there; no doubt picked it up as a last-minute inspiration.

No problem.

That pistol was in the police's property room.

Unfortunately, living in America, the land of the free and the home of the N.R.A. -- a frontier land where children carried loaded guns to school -- it was more than possible that Lucas Terbrugghen would have a second gun.

Z about to run his quarry down, it was at times like these that Bob Zapolska wished for an automatic. Or a revolver. Or even for a single-shot .22. Anything to put himself on a more equal footing with an armed opponent.

It was just that, refusing to carry a gun was part of Z's detective style. Sometimes, the scary part.

A few deep breaths settling him down (if he failed to count the clammy feeling at the back of his neck,) Z reversed direction to shuffle back through the room's litter, thankful -- in case "someone" should be in the room below -- that the floor was sound-absorbing concrete rather than squeaky wood.

Backtracking to the base of the stairs, he flicked down the switches to the parallel rows of overhead fluorescents, plunging the room into a cave-like, pre-Zapolska dark.

As ready as he'd ever be, extracting the penlight, snapping it on, moving carefully by the shine of the light's slender beam, he picked his way back across the room to the far wall, found (as much by feel as by sight) the narrow door that led to the cramped sub-basement down below.

Closed.

Had Calder closed this door when they were here last? ... Z couldn't remember.

Flicking off the tiny flashlight, putting it in his coat pocket, Z pressed his ear against the old, warped door.

Heard ... nothing.

Somewhere, just inside that door, Calder had found the switch that snapped on the bare bulb at the bottom of the narrow stairs.

What Z had to decide was ... should he do the same?

If Terbrugghen was down there -- sleeping in the dark? -- switching on the light might awaken him, warn him that someone was about to descend into the netherworld of the director's "realm." If, on the other hand, Z tried to get down the stairs with just his penlight -- and if the director had already been alerted to Z's presence in the room above -- the director could, in the perfect cover of the small room's blackness, use Z's light to get off a "can't-miss" shot.

Deciding quickly that it was better to light your enemy's position than your own, Z opened the sub-basement door and felt around in the dark until he'd located the antique switch.

Holding his breath, he clicked the switch, the heavy-watt bulb below glaring into life, a shadow of the bulb's dawning drifting up the steeply descending stairs.

Light.

And ... silence from the depths; a stillness stretching into minutes as Bob Zapolska froze at the top of the stairs...................................

Ploy No. 2.

Backing away, digging out the penlight, snapping it on, Z backed away until he could reach an empty paint can by the wall. Picked up the rusty can by its wire handle.

Returning to the sagging door, opening it wider (finding a grim satisfaction in also being able to play with paint,) he tossed the can down the stairwell, the can going CLANG! on a top step, then bouncing down to hit another, then another, the container sounding like a broken gong, the can noise fading until the paint can jolted to the floor of the sub-basement room, where it rolled to silence against an object down below.

No panicky gunfire at the clangor charging down the stairs.

No sound after the can stopped rolling, the "fearsome paint can ploy" the last trick Z knew how to play.

Nothing else he could do to protect himself, sap out, Bob Zapolska took the first timid step down.

Waited.

Then took another.

Sweating, gliding cautiously, descending quietly, he "floated" ... step ... by spooky step ... into the pit.

To stop ... near the bottom.

Taking a deep now-or-never breath, crouching to make himself as small a target as he could, Z hurdled the final steps to pounce into the harsh light of the smallish room!.............

Nothing.

With the exception of a dented paint can rolled to a stop against an old divan, the place was as it had been when Calder brought Z here.

Sofas, throw rugs, lamps, coffee table, occasional tables with splintered legs, dressers, cracked mirrors.

Just a chilly, damp, unpleasant, bare stone room .....

Aware he'd been holding his breath, starved for air, Bob Zapolska blew like a surfaced whale, to gasp in a lung-full of long dead air.

A minute -- two minutes for his breathing to return to normal -- and he could relax.

Though the director might be hiding in another room in the building, he wasn't here, a fact Z found difficult to regret.

Noticing that fear-produced sweat had him shaking in the chilly room, pocketing his blackjack, Z buttoned his coat and put his hands in his pockets.

Feeling warmer, he noticed he was standing where the janitor had been shot; that fact, alone, enough to jar the nerves.

And yet ... it was something else that was making him feel ... restless. The room itself seemed ... out of joint.

Was it ... the air?

Z took another breath....

A smell. Something apart from the room's background scent of mold and damp.

Different from the odor of decaying paint, yet somehow, familiar.

An acrid odor; one he'd noticed when he'd been here with Calder.

Like the paint smell Z had failed to recognize in Z's fireplace, though he'd first picked up this astringent scent down here, he'd also smelled in the world above. ............ In Susan's refrigerator!

Excited again, aping an out-of-shape gorilla, Z bent to sniff his way around the room, moving past derelict sofas, threading his way between wrecked chairs and discarded end tables, pausing to sniff at pieces of ruined furniture.

Getting nowhere this way, he began a systematic dissection of the room -- north-south, east-west -- weaving his way past upended tables, slipping on moldering rug-rolls -- smelling everything ... to find it definitely stronger near the fireplace prop.

Z squatted to take a deep whiff....

More powerful still....

Going to his hands and knees on the tomb-cold floor, he took another sniff.

And then was certain. The smell was coming from a line of white powder along that wall.

When he'd been in the room before, he remembered seeing that chalky substance; had thought it might be age old stone, sifting down from the limestone wall.

Now paying more attention, it made no sense at all to explain away the sprinklings as rock dust. If the powder lay along the room's other walls, maybe. But not this left partition. Not from the one wall in the room made of cinder block!

Dumb.

He could be so dumb sometimes, it was scary!

Reaching out, he pinched up a little of the whitish material, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger to find it was grittier than talcum powder.

Brought his fingers to his nose.

Strong! Acidic!

Dusting off his fingers, Z sat back on his haunches, as he did so, looking about the floor for what he needed, finding what would work: an old theater program. Picked up the stiff paper, using the program as you would a dust pan to scoop up a small quantity of powder.

Pulling his glove out of his coat pocket, bending the program into a rounded V, he trickled an ounce of the granular material in his pocket.

Tossing away the program, Z replaced the glove.

If necessary, the police could determine the compound, comparing it to what Z's nose had told him was the same substance put into the milk in Susan's icebox.

No need for chemical analysis, though. An additional moment to think, told him what the police report would say. Rat poison! The type of deadly powder vermin ingest by licking it off their fur.

Why else would someone sprinkle a strong-smelling chemical along the walls of a basement room -- or any room, for that matter? (Part of the college's cleanup campaign?)

Hot meaning replacing cold analysis, Z realized that Terbrugghen tried to kill Susan! Or (Z getting instant control of himself,) at the very least had plotted to make her sick -- as a warning to Z to drop the Bateman murders case.

Lucas Terbrugghen. Another clue that said so.

Standing, both knees popping loudly in the room's thick silence, glancing around the dismal place once more, Z found that the discovery of the toxic material ... hadn't satisfied him as much as he thought it should. In addition to the poison, there was ... still something about the room that ... wasn't right.

Backing up the five steps it took to reach the foot of the stairs, checking around again, careful to observe the room itself as well as the room's contents, he noticed the eagle carved in the floor before the left wall, an eagle flying toward the phony, caster-equipped fireplace. He'd seen that bird the last time, too.

What had Calder said about this eagle symbol?

Z remembering it was from a legend of ancient Greece, a story about two eagles, one set loose from one edge of the world, the other from the world's opposite side, the eagles flying inland to meet at the earth's exact center. The Greeks had set up a marker where the eagles met, the myth said.

Omphalos.

That was the name for the stone marker placed between the approaching eagles.

Only one eagle carved on this floor. Flying ... into the fireplace?

Did that solitary eagle have something to do with the ... unease ... Z felt in the room?

He stepped forward. Squatted down by the eagle.......

Yes. It's direction would take it directly into the hearth.

Could what was disturbing him be that there should be two eagles, a pair of eagles flying toward each other -- with the cross-hatched, bullet-shaped marker between them? (That was the way it had been in the plaster casting on the ceiling over the auditorium entrance above.)

Could it be that Z was seeing a single eagle because the fireplace (just a prop, after all) had been rolled against the wall so it covered the second eagle?

Standing, Z walked to the side of the fireplace to judge its depth. .... Finding the mantled firebox too thin to cover the missing Omphalos and the other eagle. Or so, it looked.

No problem. On this point, at least, it would be easy to set his mind at rest.

Never content with guessing when he could check, Z stepped to the side of the fireplace with its mock mantle attached and pushed on the prop to shove it down the wall out of the way. ...

The fireplace didn't budge.

Rusted casters.

Bending, he put his shoulder to the side of the fireplace and pushed, gradually increasing the force until he was shoving hard enough to roll a heavy car. ..... The prop still didn't move.

Strange.

Z walked to the other side of the fireplace and tried to push the prop the other way, toward the stairs.

Nothing.

Giving up for the moment, sweat streaking his forehead, he came around the fireplace to stand in front of it.

Reflexively, Z dug out his pill bottle; unscrewed the cap; tipped a few aspirin in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, twisted on the cap, and slipped the bottle back in his pocket. All the time "lost" in thought.

Could the casters be that rusty?

His medical routine completed, Z squatted to examine the nearest wheel, the caster not seeming to be all that corroded.

He touched it.

Oil.

Someone had oiled that caster.

Recently.

Certainly a freakier discovery than if he'd found the wheel locked up by rust!

Who would oil the casters on a fake fireplace prop in this hell-hole of a basement room?

Furthermore, why wouldn't lubricated casters budge before the weight Z had thrown at them?

Still squatted down, taking as much pressure on his good knee as possible, Z stared at the fireplace's front two casters...........

To discover that, in addition to the casters recent oiling, something else was wrong with them. ....... Something about their ... placement.

Could it be that what was bothering him was the way the casters were positioned on their off-center pivots -- each wheel pointing straight back at the wall?

A little imagination was in order.

If someone had rolled the prop along the wall from the stair side of the room, the casters should be pointing back toward the stairs. In like manner, if the prop had been wheeled into place down the wall from the room side, the casters would be facing away from the stairs. Someone maneuvering the fireplace prop into its present position, by pushing it straight back from the center of the room until the prop hit the wall, would have the casters facing out into the room. That was the law of casters. Casters trailed behind the direction they were moving. (Rather like the tail of a fish points back along the path the fish has been swimming.) Change direction and casters swivel about, ending up pointing back along the new direction they were being rolled.

And yet ... this prop had its front two casters pointing straight back at the wall.

To check on the position of the back casters, he stood; walked around to look at one side of the fireplace, then the other.

Same position as the front ones. Pointed straight back.

A direction that could only mean .......

But that didn't make sense!

Z paused to think through what he knew about caster direction; came to the same conclusion he'd reached before. That casters always point backward.

With the fireplace casters positioned the way they were -- pointed at the wall -- there was no escaping the conclusion that the fireplace prop had been moved into its present position ... from inside the wall, out. The "Law of Casters" said so. Casters trailed behind the direction they were traveling.

Feeling foolish in spite of what reason said "had to be," Z walked to the front of the fireplace.

Putting his hands on the mantle, he pushed ... to feel the fireplace give ... at the same time hearing a grinding sound.

Letting up, Z looked down to see what had produced that noise. ... Of course! As the fireplace had begun to move into the wall, the fireplace's casters had swung around on their swivels; were now facing directly out into the room.

The secret of the prop revealed, Z pushed again, the fireplace giving ... until he'd rolled the prop back into a space behind the wall, Z now seeing something else that "had to be." There! On the floor! The Omphalos and a second eagle behind it.

Looking past the fireplace -- no longer a theater prop but a door to conceal a passageway -- he saw that a rough tunnel had been carved through living rock.

Farther on, around a turn, light streamed through the aperture from its other end, a gleam of light, an electronic humming sound, and ...

Odor!

Big Bob Zapolska knew that smell, first facing it when finding the teenager's body on a farm in rural Johnson county.

The girl dead a week.

Just another runaway. Another young girl missing -- this time, from the Northland. It was Z who'd had to tell the girl's parents (the father hiring Z to look for their daughter) that the girl was dead. Told them while sparing them the grim details. The Zapolska Code.

Steeling himself, pinching his nose with thumb and forefinger, Z ducked to enter the passage, the sub-basement's bare bulb lighting this end of the tunnel.

Sidling past the fireplace doorway, hunching toward the interior light, ten yards and a sharp left turn brought him into an expanded cave of native stone: eighteen-by-twenty-five; a seven-foot ceiling; a rocky vault ... brightly lit.

Choking on the putrid smell that thickened as he approached, using both hands to filter his nose and mouth, a sweeping glance tied up a month of frayed loose ends.

Faced away from him, slumped in a moth-eaten upholstered chair, was Terbrugghen ... built as Calder had said, blond hair aging into gray ... a sketchy, but adequate description under the circumstances.

Lucas Terbrugghen. Very ... dead.

On an end table flanking the director's chair: a nearly empty bottle of gin. No glass.

Was that what killed him? Drinking so much, so fast, that the booze had poisoned him? Could it be that, knowing Z was closing in, the director had chosen this way to commit suicide?

One thing for certain; Z didn't begrudge the job of the coroner whose task it would be to find out.

Beyond the dead director was a picture. Mounted on the wall. The room's only decoration.

Set back from the wall's base were three, floor-mounted halogens, vividly lighting the rocky wall, heavy-duty cable strung from the lights to a ragged hole in the left wall, spliced there into the school's power grid.

Kerosene heaters at the director's feet completed the tableau.

The irate buzzing?

Looking up, Z saw a ventilator fan mounted to the ceiling, its blades frozen, the fan's frustrated motor humming angrily.

Before its blade bearings had burned out, the fan had blown air into a home made, metal conduit, the duct work from the fan patched into the school's cold air return.

Why cobble up a fan to connect with the school's ventilation system? ....... Because of the kerosene heaters, grouped before the dead director. Though none of the heaters seemed to be working now, when lit, they provided heat for this chilly crypt. Heat ... and deadly fumes that must be vented.

A jack hammer lay against the wall to the left. Used ... to drill holes through the walls to reach the school's electric lines -- lines that provided power for the auxiliary fan-ventilation system and for the halogens.

No doubt about it, the director had transformed this place into his private drinking room, a space -- using the fireplace prop for a secret door -- that he'd taken extraordinary measures to conceal.

Z now at gag-point, swallowing desperately, he thought he could reconstruct the Wednesday night Tommie Victor died.

The school's administration ordering the custodians to heroic cleaning efforts, the janitor had come down here to start. And seen ... what? The fireplace ajar? Terbrugghen about to enter the secret passage?

Whatever Tommie Victor witnessed, had meant his death. Though it made no sense, Terbrugghen had been willing to do anything -- literally -- to protect this private place.

Going further, what had the director's girl, Ms. Ogden, discovered about this secret room? ... Whatever it was had been too much.

Pinching his nose tighter, Bob Zapolska forced himself forward and around the body, an insane desire driving him to look into the murderer's face. To know the murderer's soul. .........

A disappointment. Nothing there but bloated skin, mottled in slick red patches surrounded with cottony tufts of moldy gray.

Turning, almost retching, Z stooped to examine the kerosene heaters the director had lined up before his chair.

Not working, but why?

Holding his breath, Z unscrewed their fuel caps.

Upended each heater, in turn.

No fuel in any of their tanks.

Standing quickly, running out of air, Bob Zapolska tried to filter another strangled breath through his hands as he retreated to the back of the room to give the secret place a final sweeping glance, this time noticing a red five-gallon can beside the right wall, a can with a goose-neck nozzle; certain to be the heaters' kerosene supply.

Stepping over, he picked up the metal container by its wood-and-wire handle. Felt it slosh. Set it down with a high-pitched hollow ring.

A good two gallons of kerosene still in the can.

And yet ... no fuel in the individual heater's tanks.

What had happened here?

And what about that red look to Terbrugghen's swollen face?

Days ago when the man had died -- a week ago to the day, was Z's belief -- the man's face would have been a cherry red, red the result of carbon monoxide poisoning, carbon monoxide the gas that made automobile exhaust so dangerous.

Sick of the world? Close your garage door, stuff up the cracks, sit in your car, start the engine .....

A suicide? Or had Terbrugghen's ventilator fan failed, with the resultant build-up of lethal gas.

Eventually, the heaters had run out of fuel. Too late to save Terbrugghen's life.

For the director to have failed to notice his fan had stopped, he must have been asleep.

What was troubling was that, when blowers of that type went dry, they squealed a warning -- for hours, sometimes for days -- before their blades locked up. Why the director hadn't noticed that characteristic, dry bearings, high-pitched, fingernails raking on the blackboard screech ... was anybody's guess.

And what was Terbrugghen doing down here, anyway, in this cold and clammy place? Surely, it made more sense to drink himself to death in the comparative comfort of his own apartment.

Just sitting here, drinking. ......... Drinking and ... staring at the picture hung before him on the brightly lighted wall?

For the first time, sighting past the dead man's back, Z paid attention to the cheaply framed painting.

But only for a moment, the nauseating odor of rotting death finally defeating him.

Gagging, turning, stooping, he staggered back through the low tunnel, careened past the fireplace-prop, floundered into a far sub-basement corner ... and threw up.

No longer able to keep the smell of death at bay, the stench following him into the prop room like an unlaid ghost, Z vomited again.

And again.

Dry retching himself into exhaustion.

Only when he'd stopped heaving up the void at the center of his being -- weak, faint, hollow – did Big Bob Zapolska finally stumble on the truth.

Terbrugghen had designed this limestone vault to guard ... the "Boulevard des Capucines"!

* * * * *

Chapter 23

Shaking, sick, dizzy, Bob Zapolska stumbled up the endless basement stairs, then lurched through miles of thick black corridors.

Somehow, he got out of the building, the frigid night air helping to stabilize him enough so he could stagger down the hillside campus stairs.

In his car below, sweating great drops that burned his face like lumps of sliding ice, he fought for control.

Dimly, he remembered using his final burst of strength to pull the fireplace back to fit into the wall of the basement room -- to block away ... the smell.

Slowly reviving in the steel embrace of the Cavalier, Z came to himself.

He had shut the secret fireplace door. ...

Good.

That meant he could follow his first impulse, which was to ......

Run! Distance himself physically and mentally from the decaying ghost in the abyss of Bateman Hall!

The fireplace closed, no one would stumble across the concealed entrance. Even the smell that had shrieked after him into the sub-basement room would dissipate in time. All would be as it was before; the director "missing"; no one guessing at the ugly truth.

For how long?

Perhaps forever.

Considering forever, Z wondered, dully, what would happen if he simply blanked the discovery from his mind. Told no one.

The secret room's ventilator fan had already frozen solid. From the sound of it, the motor would burn out within the week. The halogens would only last so long. Then, no more "ghost light" to attract the attention of the superstitious. (As for the tower light, there could no longer be a doubt that it was the result of the powerful theater lights echoing up the ventilation duct to the third-floor turret room.)

His mind veering off on tangents, he theorized that Terbrugghen had deliberately spread the word that Wednesday was the director's night to drink. More fact than fiction, Terbrugghen had let it be known that he was "indisposed" on Wednesdays, this semi-fiction allowing the sly showman to slip off to the basement room.

Back to ... the problem.

If Z told no one of the hidden cavity, the process of decay would continue until Terbrugghen's body was reduced to bone, the close fit of the fireplace door sealing in the putrid smell of the director's decaying corpse. (Even if a whiff of death's putrescent-sweet odor found its way into the school's cold air return, it would do nothing but prompt complaints that, because dying rats had crawled off to decay in the building's walls, poisoning them had been a bad idea.)

Z shuddered.

Three deep arctic breaths helped fight back his gorge.

He had to think of other things.

Like ... noting that the windows of the Cavalier were quickly frosting out the world.

At low ebb, Z was grateful to his little car for providing the sanctity of a crystalline cocoon.

Feeling better presently -- though still shaken -- Z forced his mind back to the decision of what to do.

Letting the room be Lucas' crypt ... seemed fitting.

But what to do about the painting? ...........

Anything he liked!

Drained as Bob Zapolska was, the thought of the "Boulevard des Capucines" excited him.

If his shattered mind would only work .......

Z pressed icy fists into his distended temples. Hard. To contain the pressure in his head. To keep his skull from cracking. .........

One option was to smuggle out the painting. Put in a call to Ted, telling him of Terbrugghen's whereabouts. It wouldn't be easy for Ted to fake-up a story about how Ted had "figured out" Terbrugghen was in a secret compartment off the sub-basement in a campus building called Bateman Hall -- but Z could help. Displaying the "initiative" it took to "find" Terbrugghen's body might get Ted another promotion. That's what had happened five years earlier after Z had put a bug in Ted's ear about the location of the Hoffstetter kidnapper. Without that bust, Ted would still be policing rat infested alleys.

Or, playing it in reverse, he could remove the painting, hide it somewhere, then tip Detective Addison where to find it.

And the body? Move it? .... No. ... Burn it? ...

For himself, cremation had always had appeal. Ashes to Ashes. Dust to Dust. The Monet to the Gallery. Ted Newbold coddled. Addison, Big-Banged into a shining star.

Though the school would never know, Bateman College would also benefit, Terbrugghen's incineration sparing the school from having to admit that it had an art thief on its staff. To say nothing of a murderer.

Actor that he was, even Lucas Terbrugghen would approve the use of the vault-like room for his funeral urn. What ham actor wouldn't like to "check out" with a flamboyant disappearance, exit stage right to the startled speculation of adoring fans?

Madness.

What madness had driven the man to murder?

Z could understand wanting the Monet enough to steal it. He himself had casually considered pilfering a work of art by way of compensating himself for the nasty blows life had dealt him.

Minor illegalities were one thing. Politicians, athletes, corporate executives, insurance companies, the advertising industry -- cheated as a way of life.

But murder -- no.

He supposed the director's larceny was a kind of striking back at a universe that had failed to fulfill its pledges to one so talented. Murder, on the other hand, could never be justified by the complaint that life came with a faulty guarantee.

While there could be no doubt that the Great Void at the center of the universe had dealt the director severe blows, was Z's existence all that different? Had not the cosmos made exaggerated promises to him ... Susan his only payoff -- even that gift, slipping from his grasp.

Remembering Susan and the money it would take to keep her, he weighed the obvious compromise. He could call Addison to say that Z's mob connections had come through, that Z was to be the intermediary for a third party, a swap arranged (through him,) the painting to be exchanged for the insurance company's payment – say, for a the nice round figure of a million bucks. No questions asked. That way, the gallery would get the painting; Addison would save his job; Kansas City politicians would find a way to take credit for the painting's return; the local wise guys would enjoy the reputation of moving into a higher class of crime; and Z would get the money -- call it a finder's fee – that he needed to keep his girl.

The trouble was, doing it that way, Z would get the reputation of someone willing to deal with criminals -- a violation of his first rule: never work for questionable clients. If it got out that he was the "middle man" on the return of the Monet (and it would) people seeking his help from then on would be ... undesirable. It would almost be the same as working for Johnny Dosso. (Though Z might look less than virtuous to other people, he maintained his honor with the Zapolska Code.)

Yet here he was, struggling for money, struggling to keep his girl ....

Bob Zapolska's stomach twisted like a wounded snake.

In the numbing cold inside the ice-encrusted glass of his poor man's car, his head pounded.

Fumbling the pill bottle from his pants pocket, his fingers numb because he'd forgotten to put on his gloves, he unscrewed the top, put the bottle to his lips, and poured in the remaining aspirin; crunched them up; dry-gulped them; the caustic powder burning his vomit-ravaged throat like Drano!

Z's mind was in shock; his body in collapse.

He desperately needed sleep.

If only he could focus well enough to see the road, he should drive back to the Inn.

Z tried to see his watch; had to roll down the frosted side window to let in light from one of the campus street lamps across the way.

Five o'clock.

Too late to get any sleep this night.

Though it was as cold inside the car as out, he rolled the glass back up.

Tomorrow morning -- this morning -- he'd tell Susan she could move back home. He could move back home.

Still ... Z couldn't let the problem go.

Perhaps the way to keep his honor was to do nothing. The director was dead. Susan was safe.

In a strange way, Big Bob Zapolska could do nothing and have the painting for himself. Some gasoline to "sanitize" Terbrugghen's body, and Z could return to view the painting after dark -- any time he liked -- rather like the director had been doing.

And why not?

Discovering the painting had put lowly Bob Zapolska in the same position as a person who, after buying a farm, strikes oil beneath the land. That person didn't know the oil was there, and yet, the oil was his.

Was the painting not Z's strike? The kind of gift an embarrassed universe had provided to compensate him for his shabby life? Keep the painting, and no matter what, he'd have a talisman with the power to transmute his leaden soul to gold!

And when, at last, his luck ran out, a gun shot having him throbbing out his life in a filthy alley, he'd die knowing he was the last man on earth to view the "Boulevard des Capucines"!

The last man alive to see the "Boulevard"? No. Even that would be denied him. Someone would eventually discover the concealed niche. A moth-eaten Bateman Hall would be torn down, workmen breaking into the sanctuary with its grizzly skeleton and priceless masterpiece.

To make certain Z was the last man to see the Monet's beauty, he would have to ... destroy the painting ...........

With a start, Bob Zapolska was awake. He'd fallen sleep, his head banging forward into the steering wheel.

Disorientated for a moment ... he came to realize It was still dark.

Z rolled down the window again. Stuck out his wrist to see his watch. Five thirty-five.

Back to the problem.

Though it seemed he had time -- weeks, months -- to figure out this ... horror ... he knew himself well enough to realize he couldn't rest until he'd decided what to do. To keep his sanity, he must make up his mind ... tonight.

Frozen, the darkness slipping down the sky toward another frigid dawn, Z sat in the Cavalier to puzzle out ... his life ... finally making up his mind, gaining new strength from the decision.

With the direction he must take now clear to him, he twisted to the back. Got his case and flopped it forward to the passenger seat.

Unlatched the satchel.

Took out the siphon and the mason jar.

* * * * *

Chapter 24

It was six o'clock by the time Z got to the theater workroom.

He figured an hour was all he'd need.

After that, even if he met an early morning teacher or student as he exited the building, he would wave and keep on walking.

Leaving on the basement lights, dodging litter, Z swivelled past the shabby tables until he was standing at the head of the stone stairs to the sub-basement. There, he steeled himself in the hope that being prepared for the macabre scene below would help him keep control.

Still needing ... time ... he paused to review what he would do. And to spit!

Siphoning gasoline. Nasty!

Though his first idea had been to go directly to the sub-basement, he realized it would be better to make his preparations first. That decision made, backing away from the narrow paint-scarred wooden door, he set the jar of gas on the corner of a junk-piled table.

Looking around, he found what he knew he'd seen on the floor -- a wadded piece of dirty muslin, Z bending down to pick up the cloth, its dusty smell blending with the room's odor of old paint.

Standing, he straightened out the cloth, finding what he was looking for: a relatively clean spot near one edge.

Though his hands were so cold he had difficulty starting a rip, he was finally able to tear off a thin, three-foot long strip.

Tossing the rest of the cloth to the floor, Z picked up the jar of gasoline; unscrewed the top; and trailed the length of muslin into the yellowish liquid.

The strip of coarsely woven cloth quickly soaked, he hooked out the cloth, careful to hold the dripping band away from his body while screwing the lid back on the jar with the other hand.

Leaving the jar on the table, Z looped the oozing ribbon of cold cloth around his head, centering the gas-soaked band beneath his nose. The wet strip in place, he tied the ends of the cloth in a bow behind his head, drops of gas squeezing out to shiver down his neck.

Tying a gas-soaked cloth under his nose was what John D. McDonald's detective, Travis McGee, did when having to approach a putrid body, the smell of gasoline blocking the sickly odor of decay. Z hoped this worked.

An additional benefit he could see to using gas, was it would keep him from losing track of time. When the gas evaporated, the festering smell of Terbrugghen's body would drive Z back upstairs.

Sniffing hard at the pungent stink beneath his nose, he opened the sub-basement door to find that the bare bulb was still glaring far below. (Snapping off the switch was something he'd forgotten to do.)

Stepping on the stairs, twisting back to close the warped door, he turned to limp down the stairs, at the bottom throwing his weight into the fireplace, the disguised door sliding back into the wall.

Ducking, he dodged the prop to enter the passageway.

A turn and, once more, he stood in the brightly lighted room, the putrefying corpse of Lucas Terbrugghen sprawled in the chair facing the far wall, the fan motor humming toward burn-out, the lights glaring ahead.

The only difference was that the rank smell of gas masked the noxious stench of rotting flesh.

A long, long time ago, passed out in the car, coming awake, the light of truth had dawned on Z: that a man could possess but never own a masterpiece. Not the artist. Not the previous owner of the "Boulevard." Not the gallery. Not Lucas Terbrugghen.

And not Big Bob Zapolska.

No short-lived mortal could own infinite beauty. All anyone could do was drink, for a moment, from the healing waters of a "Boulevard des Capucines."

In the hundred years since the work's conception, many men had thought they owned the "Boulevard." At first, those who loved this new Impressionism. After that, the rich, a capitalist more interested in art as an investment than in surrounding himself with loveliness.

Then the Nelson Gallery.

Then Terbrugghen.

Now, Bob Zapolska.

Approaching Monet's masterpiece with reverence, Z gazed past Terbrugghen's body at what, in that millisecond of the universe, now belonged to common Bob Zapolska: the "Boulevard Des Capucines!"

His alone -- until the stench of death out-dueled the reek of gasoline.

Nose band discarded, exiting Bateman Hall, Z found the sun had thawed itself from the horizon. Jar of gasoline in hand, descending the wind-swept stairway down the campus front, he passed two students climbing by the pale morning's light, so bundled they could hardly see.

The start of another winter day at tiny Bateman College.

As Z poured the remaining gas into the tank of the Cavalier, he remembered reading that the smell of gasoline might give you cancer.

Not too high a price to pay for having once possessed ... eternity!

* * * * *

Chapter 25

"Time to tell me about it," Susan said quietly. "Past time."

It was a late Tuesday morning, the two of them having lunch by the splashy "Signs of the Zodiac" fountain in the center of the limestone-walled Rozzelle Court.

Under the filtered haze of the two-and-a-half-story skylight, he and Susan had picked up thick, Chinese noodle soup, crisp pieces of finger-broken bread, and thick-buttered blueberry muffins. If "brunch" was what you called mid-morning meals, they were having an early "lupper" -- lunch and supper.

Looking her black-haired, fashion model best in a dark blue wool crepe dress with round white collar, statuesque Susan was drinking wine.

Z had water. (While he liked to eat at the Nelson, the gallery's prices made him cut corners any way he could.)

Susan, who'd taken a half day of her vacation to be with him, had insisted on buying their gallery tickets.

It had taken no more than a day or two for TV reporters to lose interest in what was universally called at the time, the sensational discovery that a Bateman college professor was the man who'd stolen the Monet. To be fair to the media, TV rarely spent two days on drug assassinations in Colombia, earthquakes in Mexico and Armenia, the erosion of democracy in the Philippines, the latest election in America.

As for the once-a-day Star, its coverage of the Monet recovery had been the same.

Z sighed. Like foul weather in the winter, the fact of some greedy bastard turning the K.C. paper into a daily was something you must live with. A real man bore up before what couldn't be changed: part of Zapolska's Code.

He and Susan had just "done" the gallery -- "sans Boulevard des Capucines" as Susan put it. No telling how long restorers would take to have the painting back in place.

"You're not going to duck out of this."

"What?"

"You weren't listening -- again."

"I was." How could a normal man listen to a girl who looked like a World War pinup!?

"Then tell me about the Bateman case."

"The paper said it all." It was time for Z to try his most soothing purr. And to busy himself eating the last of his butter-spread muffin.

"You don't know much about women, do you?" Susan fixed him with solemn, blindingly blue eyes.

While Z's track record in the "woman department" indicated she could be right, what he was counting on was Susan liking the present he would give her later that evening.

Who would have thought that the money for the gift would come from his percent of the merchandise returned to Easy Rental? But then, no one could have foreseen that the missing equipment of a year ago would turn up in a secret room in Bateman Hall.

It was, of course, Terbrugghen -- in theatrical disguise similar to the get-up he'd used as gallery guard – who'd stolen the gear to modify his hideaway. (A costume again modified so he could shadow Z that time in the Nelson.)

As for the secret room itself, it had begun as a "hollow" space, stone quarried from there to build Bateman Hall, the hole sealed off when the building was complete. (So said an embarrassed college official in a TV interview.)

Now that Bob Zapolska was thinking about that hidden cavity, he remembered the Bateman College schematic he'd found in the director's apartment. There was more truth than anyone knew to the belief that Terbrugghen had made Bateman Hall his own.

The director had also built the false wall over the Omphalos and eagle: custom-made to fit the fireplace prop.

The jack hammer was for tunneling to the hiding place and for boring holes to tap into the school's electrical power and ventilator duct.

"You don't seem to know, for instance," Susan continued as the silence lengthened, "that what a woman wants from her man -- besides the obvious -- is conversation. One of the reasons I went back to school was to hear ideas discussed. To hear good ... talk."

"I see that."

A sharp look from Susan told him he'd better pay attention -- making her happy seeming like a good idea at the moment.

"Now, like you promised, I want you to tell me your part in this whole business. No more putting it off."

"You know already," he said, pleading innocence. "Calder hired me. The director tried to stop me. Put poison in your milk. Now, it comes out that, disguised as a Nelson guard, he'd stolen the painting." Z shrugged. Put his palms up as a plea for understanding.

"That's not going to get it, Z." Something about the quick shake of Susan's elegant head got his attention. "I'm not as dumb as you think."

"I don't think you're dumb." Z's voice was beginning to tire with the strain of having to speak over the fountain's splatter.

"Maybe not. But that's the way you treat me. You don't take me into your confidence about anything."

She could be right about that, too. Mostly, because of what he had to do as a detective and partly because of the code he'd made for himself to follow. If a man couldn't keep his mouth shut ....

"For instance, you are the 'source' that both your storm trooper buddy and the African-American detective keep mentioning when being interviewed. The one who 'tipped' them." Though Z wasn't sure what Susan wanted, she definitely had his attention. While it was probably true he didn't know everything about women, he had a clue this conversation was crucial to their future. "You were the one who traced that man to his hideaway; the one who found the painting. Neither cop turned up anything on his own. They're taking the credit, of course." Susan sounded disgusted that Z wasn't on center stage. Good. She was still on his side, at least. "Someone else did their work for them. Someone, they say, who wants to remain in the background. A reliable informant. You." Susan's stare became a drill. "And how do I know that the so-called 'reliable informant' is none other than Big Bob Zapolska?"

"How?" Z made increasingly uncomfortable because all four legs of his wrought iron chair weren't solidly on the flagstone floor, he shifted his seat to stabilize it.

"Because they both said they got their 'tips' at 9:00 A.M. a week ago Thursday. They were quoted as saying that by the Star and I heard that K.C. detective say it on TV."

"So?"

"You had to have known the man was dead before 8:00 on the same day. Because that's when you told me it would be safe for me to move back to my apartment. I remember the exact time because I'd been looking for you. You'd just come dragging into the Happy Whorehouse, looking like the wrath of God and smelling like ...." Susan shuddered; dropped her spoon in her half-eaten bowl of soup and pushed the bowl away. "Sometime that night, you found out that the man who'd poisoned my food was dead. The only way you could have known was if you were the one who found him and found the painting with him." Susan paused as if waiting for him to deny it. "I don't care what you had to do to discover the hiding place. I want to hear about it from you. And I want to hear it now!"

When Susan raised her throaty voice, her sound could shatter glass. If there'd been a crowd in the food court, everyone would now be staring. Fortunately, the only other couple in the sunken dining area was seated on the far side of the noisy fountain. The Laotian waiter and the cash register woman were over by the serving line, too distant to hear.

What could Bob Zapolska do? He might not know what women wanted, but he did know enough about Susan to realize he'd better give Susan more information than he normally would.

So, reluctantly, he told her. About the unstopped bottle of perfume. About suspecting the director. About the casters. ...

He failed to mention the condition of the director's body, of course, hurrying to explain how he'd tipped both Ted and Addison as soon as he'd gotten back to his room in the Happy Hollow, arranging for the two of them to make a joint discovery of the secret passage. How, earlier that morning, he'd deliberately left the fireplace door ajar so that, even if the cops didn't notice the casters, they'd be able to locate the tunnel. He finished with what she already knew, how he'd checked Susan out of the Inn.

"Thank you, Z," Susan said when both he and his voice were finished, Susan reaching across the table to cover his hand with her soft tapered fingers. "That wasn't too bad, was it?"

God, that girl was a peach! When she looked at him that way ... he swallowed hard to get his throat to work.

"No. Not too hard," he lied.

Maybe the secret of getting along with women was to tell them whatever they thought they wanted to hear. Make up things when there was nothing much to tell. He was slow, but he was learning.

"I've been thinking about something else, too. In our relationship, we've had only one thing in common." Susan at least had the grace to smile so he'd be able to tell she was mostly kidding. "And I know that with me going to school, we haven't had much time together. I'd like to see more of you. Have more ... talks."

"I'd like that, too." And he would. He enjoyed watching Susan while she talked -- except when she was going on about how wonderful that young MW prof was. Anyway, after Susan had talked awhile, talk always led to ....

"What I've been thinking is that maybe we could take a night course together this summer."

Something about the way Z looked must have registered opposition. "I've already learned a lot this semester." Susan, being dead serious. "I've learned a lot about myself. That I'm smart, for one thing. That I can compete with the kids. More than compete. And I've gotten new ideas to think about. My job doesn't do much for me and I've been worried that my brain's rotting." A concern, Z noted to himself, that Susan hadn't "shared" with him.

In a way, though, he knew what she meant. Knew it because of Professor Calder, the man saying interesting things, going on about ideas Z hadn't thought about.

"I was frightened when I first went back to school." The restless tapping of Susan's fingertips on the round, glass-topped table-for-two confirmed what she was saying. "I hadn't done much the first time I tried college right out of high school. But when you're older, it's different. You want to learn. You've got the discipline to study."

"I don't know if I ...."

"Yes, you could! And that's another point I wanted to make. You're the smartest man I know. The whole city's looking for the missing Monet and who finds it?" He shrugged. Finding the painting was an accident. "It's just that you don't think you're smart. And you're never going to be convinced until you take the risk of finding out." If Bob Zapolska knew anything, it was that the peculiar flip of Susan's shaggy hair meant that Susan's mind was made up.

Actually, Susan had a point, if not about how "smart" he was, about how it would be good for the two of them to see more of each other. Going to class with her in the evenings would get them together. He'd also be by her side to discourage lecherous young profs.

"OK."

"OK? Just like that?"

"You're right."

Z would remember Susan's smile. It was brighter than the one she gave him when he took her to his apartment later that evening and presented her with her gift. Brighter than any smile he'd seen from Susan for a long time.

Not that this success at communicating mean you told civilians everything. In this case, as a "for instance," he'd been careful to leave out an important detail, one that hadn't even occurred to him until he'd gotten a good ten hours sleep the day following his discovery of the director's body. (It was odd how you sometimes got ideas just as you were waking up. The mind was mysterious. Even exciting. With Susan pressuring him to go to college, perhaps he could get Susan to take a course with him that he might like; psychology, for instance. If she'd switch schools, they could have Professor Calder ....)

The insight? Nothing less than the solution to the problem of why Terbrugghen's fan had failed to ventilate the director's secret room.

What made the fan's malfunction a problem was that, on Wednesday nights for weeks, the fan had worked. Z knew that because the director was down there on those nights, the prof's halogen lights reflecting through the vents to become the "ghost light" in the northwest turret. Yet on that particular Wednesday night two weeks ago, Terbrugghen had suffocated as a result of the build-up of carbon monoxide fumes from his heaters. (People had seen the director around the school Wednesday morning, Terbrugghen not "disappearing" until that Wednesday night.)

By the time Z found the body a week later, though the halogens still worked, the director's fan had frozen up, the kerosene heaters cold because they'd run dry. About the fan, Z had tried to tell himself it had jammed because of an over-heated bearing, the stopping of the fan causing the director's death.

The trouble with that theory was that Lucas Terbrugghen, while a drunk, was a brilliant and meticulous man. He had to be to have built his secret room; to execute the gallery theft. So painstaking was the director that it was difficult to believe he would fail to check his systems before beginning his solitary Wednesday night party in his own, very private gallery.

It was after Z had the rest he needed that the solution to the "fan" problem had come to him.

It was not because the ventilator fan had locked up that the director died. (Not meant to be run twenty-four hours a day, day after day, the fan's bearings had frozen sometime during the following week.)

Early that deadly Wednesday evening, everything was working in the director's secret room -- heaters, lights, fan.

What had caused Terbrugghen's death was something that had happened later that same Wednesday night, an occurrence the paper had reported as an electrical failure throughout the Bateman campus, a campus-wide black-out that had shut off all campus power, including the hidden room's ventilator fan, the director already passed out, so not noticing that the room was -- too quiet.

Since the kerosene heaters didn't run on electricity, of course, they'd kept putting out both heat and poisonous fumes, the lethal gas continuing to build up for the rest of that night. (After completing their deadly work, the heaters had finally run out of kerosene, of course, all four of them dry by the time Z found the hidden room.)

With electrical power restored the next day -- Terbrugghen already dead by then -- the director's fan and lights had come back on, the fan seizing up later that week.

A brilliant man, the director. An excellent artist -- painted the substitute Monet. Hell of a set designer. Also able to make his murders look like either suicide or "accidents." He'd everything planned to the last detail, starting with the lifting of Beth Ogden's husband's billfold at a campus party so Terbrugghen could steal the rental equipment to modify the secret room: jack hammer, halogens, wire, kerosene heaters......

And yet, it was sometimes true that, "The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-gley." That's what Z's Mother would have said.

In the end, all Terbrugghen's planning had "gang aft a-gley" because of an "accidental" power failure on the Bateman campus.

And Big Bob Zapolska knew another thing. No matter how talkative he became in the future, why the power at Bateman College had shorted out that fateful Wednesday night was not the kind of thing a P.I. told his girl!

###

Author's Note

While Of Mice and Murderers is set in Kansas City, Missouri (largely in Kansas City North), the book is a work of fiction -- all the way. For instance, while the book's detective suggests a way to steal a painting from the Nelson Art Gallery, neither he (nor I) know anything about gallery security. Nor did I attempt to learn about how the Nelson guards its collection in case, trying for verisimilitude, I might write something that would give someone the idea they could rob the gallery.

Fiction in this book also means that, in addition to the characters being fictitious, so are many aspects of the city. While major roads, shopping centers, theaters, restaurants, etc., appear in the books, the reader will find that little is "as it should be." The roads don't go where they should; buildings that don't exist have been "created"; actual buildings sometimes changed and/or relocated. (One of the joys of fiction-writing is that you're not bound by the truth.) Besides "manufacturing" locales where I needed them, I also "rearranged" the city to keep readers with nothing better to do from trying to find the detective's home or his office, or the homes and businesses of friends. (People are still writing to Sherlock Holmes at Number 221 B Baker Street -- because it is an actual address!) What this means is that no one will be annoying you by showing up at your house or place of business to ask stupid questions about your connection to Big Bob Zapolska.

* * * * *

About the Author

John G. Stockmyer is an individual whose irrepressible creativity has manifested itself in many ways: as a poet, teacher, produced playwright, author, co-owner of an educational materials business, creator of a time-machine simulator, and, more recently, as a podcaster and producer of eBooks. During his career he has received awards for scholarship, numerous teaching awards and, as a writer, was a Thorpe Menn finalist.

He is the co-author of three non-fiction books: Unleashing the Right Side of the Brain - The Stephen Greene Press, Life Trek: The Odyssey of Adult Development - Humanics, and Right Brain Romance - Ginn Press. He is also the author of over 20 works of fiction, including the Crime/Hard-Boiled "Z-Detective" Series, and the Science-Fiction/Fantasy "Under The Stairs" Series. He has also written a quirky vampire novel titled, The Gentleman Vampire.

John G. Stockmyer is now semi-retired from a 40+ year career as an Ancient/European History Professor at Maple Woods Community College, but still teaches and writes part-time. He currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife Connie.

For more information about the author, and to download or purchase Print Books, eBooks and Audio-Books from the "collection," please visit the John G. Stockmyer "Books" Web site at: www.johnstockmyer.com/books

If you enjoyed Of Mice and Murderers, you'll probably also like Book #2 in the Z Series: Good Lord, Deliver Us. Book #2 (eBook) is currently free to download. . . so why not check it out?

To send questions or comments to the author, send an e-mail to: mail@johnstockmyer.com (all e-mails are screened/forwarded by the author's son: John L. Stockmyer)

Table of Contents

Of Mice and Murderers