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"Of course not!" Byrnes shouted. "The two of them are probably shacked up with that blond woman, whoever the hell she was, planning how to murder Scanlon when we fail to deliver the payoff money. Get Danny Gimp or Fats Donner, find out if they know a fellow named Dom who dropped a bundle on a big fight two weeks ago. Who the hell was fighting two weeks ago, anyway? Was that the championship fight?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, get cracking. Does anybody use Gimp besides Carella?"

"No, sir."

"Who uses Donner?"

"I do, sir."

"Then get him right away, Willis."

"If he's not in Florida, sir. He usually goes south in the winter."

"Goddamn stool pigeons go south," Byrnes grumbled, "and we're

stuck here with a bunch of maniacs trying to kill people. All right, go on, Willis, get moving."

"Yes, sir," Willis said, and left the office.

"Now what about this other possibility, this deaf man thing? Jesus Christ, I hope it's not him, I hope this is La Bresca and Calucci and the blond bimbo who drove him clear out of sight last night, Meyer …"

"Yes, sir …"

"… and not that deaf bastard again. I've talked to the commissioner on this, and I've also talked to the deputy mayor and the mayor, and we're agreed that paying the fifty thousand dollars is out of the question. We're to try apprehending whoever picks up that lunch pail and see if we can't get a lead this time. And we're to provide protection for Scanlon and that's all for now. So I want you two to arrange the drop, and saturation coverage of that bench, and I want a suspect brought in here today, and I want him questioned till he's blue in the face, have a lawyer ready and waiting for him in case he screams Miranda-Escobedo, I want a lead today, have you got that?"

"Yes, sir," Meyer said.

"Yes, sir," Kling said.

"You think you can set up the drop and cover without fouling it up like you fouled up the surveillance?"

"Yes, sir, we can handle it."

"All right, then get going, and bring me some meat on this goddamn case."

"Yes, sir," Kling and Meyer said together, and then went out of the office.

"Now what's this about a junkie being in that room with the killer?" Byrnes asked Hawes.

"That's right, sir."

"Well, what's your idea, Cotton?"

"My idea is he got her in there to make sure she'd be stoned when he started shooting, that's my idea, sir."

"That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard in my life," Byrnes said. "Get the hell out of here, go help Meyer and Kling, go call the hospital, find out how Carella's doing, go set up another plant for those two punks who beat him up, go do something, for Christ's sake!"

"Yes, sir," Hawes said, and went out into the squadroom.

Andy Parker, awakened by the grumbling of the other men, washed his hand over his face, blew his nose, and then said, "The painters said to tell you good-by."

"Good riddance," Meyer said.

"Also, you got a call from the D.A.'s office."

"Who from?"

"Rollie Chabrier."

"When was this?"

"Half-hour ago, I guess."

"Why didn't you put it through?"

"While you were in there with the loot? No, sir."

"I've been waiting for this call," Meyer said, and immediately dialed Chabrier's number.

"Mr. Chabrier's office," a bright female voice said.

"Bernice, this is Meyer Meyer up at the 87th. I hear Rollie called me a little while ago."

"That's right," Bernice said.

"Would you put him on, please?"

"He's gone for the day," Bernice said.

"Gone for the day? It's only a little after ten."

"Well," Bernice said, "nobody likes to work on Saturday."

The black lunch pail containing approximately fifty thousand scraps of newspaper was placed in the center of the third bench on the Clinton Street footpath into Grover Park by Detective Cotton Hawes, who was wearing thermal underwear and two sweaters and a business suit and an overcoat and ear muffs. Hawes was an expert skier, and he had skied on days when the temperature at the base was four below zero and the temperature at the summit was thirty below, had skied on days when his feet went and his hands went and he boomed the mountain non-stop not for fun or sport but just to get near the fire in the base lodge before he shattered into a hundred brittle pieces. But he had never been this cold before. It was bad enough to be working on Saturday, but it was indecent to be working when the weather threatened to gelatinize a man's blood.

Among the other people who were braving the unseasonable winds and temperatures that Saturday were:

(1) A pretzel salesman at the entrance to the Clinton Street footpath.

(2) Two nuns saying their beads on the second bench into the park.

(3) A passionate couple necking in a sleeping bag on the grass behind the third bench.

(4) A blind man sitting on the fourth bench, patting his seeing eye German shepherd and scattering bread crumbs to the pigeons.