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La Bresca had been tailed from his place of employment, a demolition site in the city's downtown financial district, by three detectives using the ABC method of surveillance. Mindful of the earlier unsuccessful attempts to keep track of him, nobody was taking chances anymore - the ABC method was surefire and foolproof.

Detective Bob O'Brien was "A," following La Bresca while Detective Andy Parker, who was "B," walked behind O'Brien and kept him constantly in view. Detective Carl Kapek was "C," and he moved parallel with La Bresca, on the opposite side of the street. This meant that if La Bresca suddenly went into a coffee shop or ducked around the corner, Kapek could instantly swap places with O'Brien, taking the lead "A" position while O'Brien caught up, crossed the street, and maneuvered into the "C" position. It also meant that the men could use camouflaging tactics at their own discretion, changing positions so that the combination became BCA or CBA or CAB or whatever they chose, a scheme that guaranteed La Bresca would not recognize any one man following him over an extended period of time.

Wherever he went, La Bresca was effectively contained. Even in parts of the city where the crowds were unusually thick, there was no danger of losing him. Kapek would merely cross over onto La Bresca's side of the street and begin walking some fifteen feet ahead of him, so that the pattern read C, La Bresca, A, and B. In police jargon, they were "sticking like a dirty shirt," and they did their job well and unobtrusively, despite the cold weather and despite the fact that La Bresca seemed to be a serendipitous type who led them on a jolly excursion halfway across the city, apparently trying to kill time before his seven-o'clock meeting with Calucci.

The two men took seats in the tenth row of the theater. The show was in progress, two baggy-pants comics relating a traffic accident one of them had had with a car driven by a voluptuous blonde.

"You mean she crashed right into your tail pipe?" one of the comics asked.

"Hit me with her headlights," the second one said.

"Hit your tail pipe with her headlights?" the first one asked.

"Almost broke it off for me," the second one said.

Kapek, taking a seat across the aisle from Calucci and La Bresca, was suddenly reminded of the squadroom painters and realized how sorely he missed their presence. O'Brien had moved into the row behind the pair, and was sitting directly back of them now. Andy Parker was in the same row, two seats to the left of Calucci.

"Any trouble getting here?" Calucci whispered.

"No," La Bresca whispered back.

"What's with Dom?"

"He wants in."

"I thought he just wanted a couple of bills."

"That was last week."

"What's he want now?"

"A three-way split."

"Tell him to go screw," Calucci said.

"No. He's hip to the whole thing."

"How'd he find out?"

"I don't know. But he's hip, that's for sure."

There was a blast from the trumpet section of the four-piece band in the pit. The overhead leikos came up purple, and a brilliant follow spot hit the curtain stage left. The reed section followed the heraldic trumpet with a saxophone obbligato designed to evoke memory or desire or both. A gloved hand snaked its way around the curtain. "And now," a voice said over the loudspeaker system while one-half of the rhythm section started a snare drum roll, "and now, for the first time in America, direct from Brest, which is where the little lady comes from … exhibiting her titillating terpsichoreal skills for your pleasure, we are happy to present Miss … Freida Panzer!"

A leg appeared from behind the curtain.

It floated disembodied on the air. A black high-heeled pump pointed, wiggled, a calf muscle tightened, the knee bent, and then the toe pointed again. There was more of the leg visible now, the black nylon stocking shimmered in the glow of the lights, ribbed at the top where a vulnerable white thigh lay exposed, black garter biting into the flesh, fetishists all over the theater thrilled to the sight, not to mention a few detectives who weren't fetishists at all. Freida Panzer undulated onto the stage bathed in the glow of the overhead purple leikos, wearing a long puple gown slit up each leg to the waist, the black stockings and taut black garters revealed each time she took another long-legged step across the stage.

"Look at them legs," Calucci whispered.

"Yeah," La Bresca said.

O'Brien sitting behind them, looked at the legs. They were extraordinary legs.

"I hate to cut anybody else in on this," Calucci whispered.

"Me, neither," La Bresca said, "but what else can we do? He'll run screaming to the cops if we don't play ball."

"Is that what he said?"

"Not in so many words. He just hinted."

"Yeah, the son of a bitch."

"So what do you think?" La Bresca asked.

"Man, there's big money involved here," Calucci said.

"You think I don't know?"

"Why cut him in after we done all the planning?"

"What else can we do?"

"We can wash him," Calucci whispered.

The girl was taking off her clothes.