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According to my records, she was twenty-three years. old, but she seemed fourteen.”

"Did she tell you she was a nun?”

"A nun? No.”

"Did she mention the name Mary Vincent?" Brown asked.

"No.”

"Sister Mary Vincent?”

"No?”

"That's who she was," Brown said. "On leave when she came to see you?”

"I knew nothing of this?”

"We're trying to piece together past and present, Dr. Lowenthal. If there's anything you can tell us that might help ...”

"Like what?”

"Well ... the ME's Office said this wasn't reconstructive surgery. Is that correct?”

"Yes. It was strictly augmentative. After a mastectomy, we insert the shell behind tiae chest muscle and in front of the ribs. But Kate's implants were sub glandular That means the shell was placed behind the breast tissue and in front of the pectoral muscle. We make a small incision, usually in the crease under each breast. With saline implants ... these were saline, the silicone gel was outlawed in 1992.”

“So we understand.”

"With saline implants, we insert the envelope while it's still empty and fill it when it's in place. This enables us to adjust the size.

Kate didn't want outrageous breasts ... some women do, you know. You have to understand that breast augmentation is the third most common type of cosmetic surgery in the United States. Kate was ...”

"What are the other two?" Brown asked.

"Liposuction's number one. Eyelid surgery comes next.”

"Things. women do," Brown said, and shook his head.

"For us, usually," Lowenthal said and smiled somewhat ruefully.

"Nationwide, we do some fifty thousand saline implants a year. Before the silicone ban, and the attendant cancer scare, we were doing twice as many, maybe three times as many silicone gel operations. There's a lot of pressure on American women. They see all the supermodels in the magazines and on television, they think this is what men want. Maybe we do. I don't question it too closely. My job is to serve a patient's needs.”

Second time he's said that, Capella thought.

"Kate was doing this for professional reasons, of course. he wanted breasts that looked ... well ... rather more like a woman's than a child's.”

"How much did this cost her?" Brown asked.

"I don't remember what the manufacturers were charging back then. This was four years ago. I believe Mentor and McGhan were the only ones left in the market after the ax fell. It probably was something. like three, four hundred dollars for a set of implants.

My fee was the same back then as it is now.”

“And what's that, Doctor?”

“Three thousand dollars.”

Which is why she needed four grand from her brother, Brown thought.

"I must say she was rather pleased with the results," Lowenthal said.

"Kept touching them. Well, most women do that. Smile and touch. It's remarkable." He hesitated a moment, a frown furrowing his brow.

"There's something I don't understand.”

"Yes?”

"Did she go back to the church?”

"Yes. After a very short time.”

"That explains it then. She wanted to be a singer, you know. That's why she had the operation done. So she'd look good on a concert stage.

Already had a talent agent. In fact, it was Herbie who sent her to me.”

"Herbie who?" Carella said at once.

Herbie Kaplan's office was on the twelfth floor of the Krimm Building at 734 Stemmler Avenue in the Midtown North Precinct. The elevator up was packed with songwriters, musicians, and agents at ten o'clock that Friday morning, all of them speaking an arcane language neither Carella nor Brown understood. Kaplan's office was at the far end of a hallway lined with doors that had wooden lower panels and frosted glass upper panels. All up and down the hallway, there was the sound of pianos playing and voices singing. The cacophony reminded Carella of rehearsals for the sixth-grade production of Annie, in which his darling little daughter had played the evil Miss Hannigan, and his handsome son, Mark, had played Daddy Warbucks. Closed classroom doors all along the elementary-school corridor, and behind them, kids bleating "Tomorrow" and "A Hard Knock Life" to the solid accompaniment of the music department's thumping. The lettering on Kaplan's door read HK TALErT. Carella knocked and twisted the doorknob. Brown followed him in.

They were standing in a small entry lined with three sheets of Broadway shows, presumably those utilizing the talents of HK Talent. There were windows to the left, open to Stemmler Avenue and the noisy traffic below. Facing the entrance door, there was a desk with it blonde behind it, a phone to her ear. She glanced up as the detectives entered, and then went back to her conversation. They stood waiting. At last, she hung up and said, "Hi, can I help you?”

"Detectives Carella and Brown," Carella said. "We have an appointment with Mr. Kaplan.”

"Oh, sure, just a sec," she said, and picked up the receiver again. She pressed a button in the base of the phone, listened, said, "The cops are here," listened again, and then hung up. "Go right on in," she said, and indicated with a toss of her head a door to the right of her desk. The detectives went to it. Carella opened it. They both went in.

Herbie Kaplan appeared to be about forty-five or so, a short, not unpleasant-looking man with reddish hair and eyebrows, sitting behind his desk in shirtsleeves and a vest. He rose as the detectives came in, said, "Hey, how you doing?" and gestured to a pair of chairs in front of his desk. The detectives sat. There were windows behind Kaplan, facing the side street. On the wall to their left, there was an upright piano with framed pieces of sheet music above it, again presumably the efforts of HK clients.

"I should've called the minute I saw her picture in the paper, I know,”

Kaplan said. "But I figured a nun ? How could Katie Cochran end up being a nun? But you got to me, anyway, huh? A week later as it turns out, but you got to me. So it's okay in the long run. Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee? Something to drink?”

"Thanks, no," Carella said.

"Mr. Kaplan," Brown said, "we understand you once referred Kate to a p|astlc surgeon named Geoi Lowenthal, is that correct?”

"Yeah, I send a lot of my clients to him. Tits and ass, correct? That's the name of the song and the name of the game.”

"Tell us how you first met her.”

"She walked in off the street. This was, what, four years ago? Cute as could be, she looked thirteen, fourteen, she was twenty-three. Voice like an angel. I had this audition pianist at the time, a guy named Frank DiLuca, he since passed away. She sang two Janis Joplin tunes, are you familiar with "Cry Baby'? The and Bobby McGee'?”

es, Brown said.

"No," Carella said.

Brown looked at him.

"Knocked down the ceiling," Kaplan said. "I couldn't believe it. This big voice coming out of a kid looks like a war refugee. She told me she wanted to be a rock singer, wanted to know could I hook her up with a good band. She had in mind, like, REM." or Stone Temple Pilots, or Alice in Chains, fat chance. I told her first put on some weight and next buy herself a pair of tits. She asked me how much that would cost, I told her three, four grand, this doctor I knew. Then she asked me ... can you believe it? ... she asked me could I advance her the money against the time she was a big rock star. I told her take a walk, kid. She comes back two weeks later with four grand in the kip, wants to know the doctor's name. I sent her to Georgie, him and I went to high school together in Majesta. He does a very nice job. Next time she walks in here, she's wearing a tight cotton sweater, no bra, I tell her now you're talking We changed her name and I started selling her.”