He loitered about the front of the luncheonette. He looked at his watch occasionally to give the impression of a man waiting for a late date. He saw Zoe Kohler pat her lips with a paper napkin, gather up purse and check, begin to rise.
He was inside immediately, almost rushing. As she moved toward the cashier's desk, he brushed by her.
"I beg your pardon," he said, raising his hat and stepping aside.
She gave him a shy, timorous smile: a flicker.
He let her go and slid onto the counter stool she had just left. In front of him was most of a tunafish salad plate and dregs of iced tea in a tall glass. He linked his hands around the glass without touching it.
A porky, middle-aged waitress with a mustache and bad feet stopped in front of him. She took out her pad.
"Waddle it be?" she asked, patting her orange hair. "The meat-loaf is good."
"I'd like to see the manager, please."
She peered at him. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," he said, smiling at her. "I'd just like to see the manager."
She turned toward the back of the luncheonette.
"Hey, you, Stan," she yelled.
A man back there talking to two seated customers looked up. The waitress jerked her head toward Delaney. The manager came forward slowly. He stood at the Chief's shoulder.
"What seems to be the trouble?" he asked.
"No trouble," Delaney said. "This iced tea glass here-I've got a dozen at home just like it. But my kid broke one. I'd like to fill out the set. Would you sell me this glass for a buck?"
"You want to buy that glass for a dollar?" Stan said.
"That's right. To fill out my set of a dozen. How about it?"
"A pleasure," the manager said. "I've got six dozen more you can have at the same price."
"No," Delaney said, laughing, "just one will do."
"Let me get you a clean one," the porky waitress said, reaching for Zoe Kohler's glass.
"No, no," Delaney said hastily, protecting the glass with his linked hands. "This one will be fine."
Waitress and manager looked at each other and shrugged. Delaney handed over a dollar bill. Touching the glass gingerly with two fingers spread inside, he wrapped it loosely in paper napkins, taking care not to wipe or smudge the outside.
He had to walk two blocks before he found a sidewalk phone that worked. He set the wrapped glass carefully atop the phone and called Sergeant Abner Boone at Midtown Precinct North. He explained what he had.
"God damn it!" Boone exploded. "We're idiots! We could have had prints from her office or apartment a week ago."
"I know," Delaney said consolingly. "It's my fault as much as anyone's. Listen, sergeant, if you get a match with that wineglass from the Tribunal, it's not proof positive that she wasted the LaBranche kid. It's just evidence that she was at the scene."
"That's good enough for me," Boone said grimly. "Where are you, Chief? I'll get a car, pick up the glass myself, and take it to the lab."
Delaney gave him the location. "After they check it out, will you call me at home and let me know?"
"Of course."
"Better call Thorsen and tell him, too. Yes or no."
"I'll do that," Abner Boone said. "Thank you, sir," he added gratefully.
Delaney was grumpy all evening. He hunched over his plate, eating pork roast and applesauce in silence. Not even complimenting Monica on the bowl of sliced strawberries with a sprinkle of Cointreau to give i! a tang.
It wasn't until they had taken their coffee into the air-conditioned living room that she said: "Okay, buster, what's bothering you?"
"Politics," he said disgustedly, and told her about his argument with Ivar Thorsen.
"He was right and I was right. Considering his priorities and responsibilities, picking the woman up and getting her out of circulation makes sense. But I still think going for prosecution and conviction makes more sense."
Then he told Monica what he had just done: obtaining Zoe Kohler's fingerprints for a match with the prints found on the wineglass at the Tribunal Motor Inn.
"So I handed Ivar more inconclusive evidence," he said wryly. "If the prints match, he's sure to pick her up. But he'll never get a conviction on the basis of what we've got."
"If you feel that strongly about it," Monica said, "you could have forgotten all about the prints."
"You're joking, of course."
"Of course."
"The habits of thirty years die hard," he said, sighing. "I had to get her prints. But no one will believe me when I tell them that even a perfect match won't put her behind bars. Her attorney will say, 'Sure, she had a drink with the guy in his hotel room-and so what? He was still alive when she left.' Those prints won't prove she slashed his throat. Just that she was there. And another thing is-"
The phone rang then.
"That'll be Boone," Delaney said, rising. "I'll take it in the study."
But it wasn't the sergeant; it was Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen, and he couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice.
"Thank you, Edward," he said. "Thank you, thank you. We got a perfect match on the prints. I had a long talk with the DA's man and he thinks we've got enough now to go for an indictment. So we're bringing her in. It'll take all day tomorrow to get the paperwork set and plan the arrest. We'll probably take he Saturday morning at her apartment. Want to come along?"
Delaney paused. "All right, Ivar," he said finally. "If that's what you want to do. I'd like a favor: will you ask Dr. Patrick Ho if he wants to be in on it? That man contributed a lot; he should be in at the end."
"Yes, Edward, I'll contact him."
"One more thing… I'd like Thomas Handry to be there."
"Who's Thomas Handry?"
"He's on the Times."
"You want a reporter to be there?"
"I owe him."
Thorsen sighed. "All right, Edward, if you say so. And thank you again; you did a splendid job."
"Yeah," Delaney said dispiritedly, but Thorsen had already hung up.
He went back into the living room and repeated the phone conversation to Monica.
"So that's that," he concluded. "If she keeps her nerve and doesn't say a goddamn word until she gets a smart lawyer, I think she'll beat it."
"But the murders will end?"
"Yes. Probably."
She looked at him narrowly.
"But that's not enough for you, is it? You want her punished."
"Don't you?"
"Of course-if it can be done legally. But most of all I want the killings to stop. Edward, don't you think you're being vindictive?"
He rose suddenly. "Think I'll pour myself a brandy. Get you one?"
"All right. A small one."
He brought their cognacs from the study, then settled back again into his worn armchair.
"Why do you think I'm being vindictive?"
"Your whole attitude. You want to catch this woman in the act, even if it means risking a man's life. You want, above all, to see her punished for what she's done. You want her to suffer. It's really become an obsession with you. I don't think you'd feel that strongly if the Hotel Ripper was a man. Then you'd be satisfied just to get him off the streets."
"Come on, Monica, what kind of bullshit is that? The next thing you'll be saying is that I hate women."
"No, I'd never say that because I know it's not true. Just the opposite. I think you have some very old-fashioned, romantic ideas about women. And because this particular woman has flouted those beliefs, those cherished ideals, you feel very vengeful toward her."
He took a swig of brandy. "Nonsense. I've dealt with female criminals before. Some of them killers."