KALEIDOSCOPE II
Cynthia Hatch

---

PART 22

She woke -- to soft September sunlight streaming across the bed -- feeling oddly refreshed, and lay for a moment, deep in the memories of last night.

It had been traumatic for both of them, and she knew it would take him a while to put what had happened into perspective, to adjust his own harsh view of the ignobility inherent in his words to allow for her open-hearted acceptance of them. She couldn't assume that his betrayal of that inmost desire meant he would be willing to put it into effect with no concessions to the rational, sensitive spirit that governed him. The explosion necessary to bring them to light told her as much. But a door had been opened. A new step taken on that glorious journey, a step that meant coping with the demands of desire, not as a victim of instinct, but as a thinking, feeling man.

She stretched languidly, tingling with the memory of his words and her own unquestioned conviction that he could make them come true. The case. She had to finish this case, clear herself of the enormous mental and emotional burden it had become, so they could begin to talk of other things.

She took her morning coffee out on the terrace, pleased to note how profusely the little rosebush was pushing forth its buds. Tearing off the front pages of her legal pad on which she'd organized her notes yesterday, she sat looking at the blank piece of paper, willing this feeling of new promise to open her mind and allow her to look at the investigation from some different angle.

A faint summer breeze played around her hair, and she saw herself again, kneeling on the tunnel floor, drawing the little crowd of smiling faces, absurdly pleased when it was appreciated. She saw the battered tin pail with its shards of colored chalk, and her thoughts went back to that night in lower Manhattan -- the ransom left in the prescribed metal tackle box. designed for fishermen, widely used by artists to carry their supplies. Had they been wrong to abandon that line of questioning -- the one that assumed someone to whom art was a driving force might have stolen the painting?

They had all stopped referring to the perpetrator as an art thief, calling him a kidnapper, extortionist, madman, but it had all started with the theft of the masterpiece. If that had only been a setup for his larger plan, it was still significant. There must have been some reason that he felt it was a necessary token in his game.

But where to go from here? Who could she talk to that could shed any understanding on a man whose vision was so distorted, who ignored all the boundaries? Something obscure and decidedly fantastic stirred in her memory, and as the sun caught the crystal at her breast, awakening in it a prism of brilliant colors, she thought she knew just the man.

On Monday she opened the door to Joe's office with caution, never knowing when some bureaucratic snafu might compel him to take out his frustrations on the dart board, but he was busily at work. He looked up, and wiped the remains of a powdered doughnut from his mouth. "How's it going, Radcliffe? Want a doughnut?"

"No, thanks. Nothing new developed over the weekend. There's a task force meeting later today. In the meantime, I'm going to be out for a while. There's somebody I'd like to talk to about the case."

"Didn't you tell me you'd already questioned every living soul in New York?"

'Exactly," she said with a mysterious smile. "I think it's time we stopped being so selective, don't you?"

The bookstore was cool and quiet after the heat of the street. In fact, it felt unnaturally chilly, but that, she decided, was due less to the temperature than to the atmosphere her memories of it invoked, an atmosphere outrageously encouraged by its proprietor.

He looked up when she entered, and she thought she caught a hint of pleasure behind the round glasses, though he greeted her with the utmost formality.

"You're here alone this time?" he queried, looking past her to the door.

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

"Oh, I'd say we're quite alone here. Business is not what you'd call booming." He managed to give the last comment a tone of deep tragedy, although she'd already noted the new computerized cash register on the counter, and the sweater he wore was definitely cashmere.

"Well, I came in by myself, if that's what you mean."

"Good. I'm glad to see your class of companions has improved. Did you wish to see me about something specific -- a painting perhaps?"

"I was under the impression that this was a bookstore, Mr. Smythe, not a gallery."

"I'd forgotten how terribly literal you can be, young lady. It's a mistake, you know, taking everything at face value. What sort of a book were you looking for? Another Tennyson, perhaps?"

"You have a remarkable memory," she laughed in spite of herself.

"Well, when one has nothing but memories to sustain him, the faculty becomes acute."

She ignored his mournful tone. "I'd appreciate it, if you'd take a page out of those memories and tell me how I can get in touch with Kristopher. I need to talk to him."

"Do you? Well, now I seem to remember a medium, a lovely woman -- Madame Belinski, I believe she was called, who once assisted me in enjoying a delightful chat with my dear, departed Aunt Nelly. I believe she has an apartment in Soho."

"Who? Madame Belinski -- or your late Aunt Nelly? Look, Mr. Smythe. this is a matter of real urgency. A woman's life may be at stake. I want to talk to Kristopher -- and I want to be able to look at him when I do."

"These things are so unpredictable," he shrugged. "Who knows where a restless spirit is likely to materialize next?"

"How about," she said, mentally counting to ten, "in some place where he used to like to go . . . before. Say a cafe, like the one that I went to with him the last time. If I were to go there -- tonight --around six, do you think there's a chance he might be . . . visible?"

Mr. Smythe looked at her solemnly, as if ruminating on the schedules of the spirit world. "If you're afraid of ghosts," he said finally, "as alas, most people are, I should think it would be wise not to go there."

She had never been much of a clock watcher. Work was work, and you did it till it got done, but as the hours ground away, taking them closer to the Wednesday deadline enforced by the kidnapper, she wished she could slow time, stop it until a solid lead could be found.

The task force meeting held no new hope. Ironically. its only satisfying moment came when Greenwald leaned across the table.

"Did you do your civic duty, Ms. Chandler? Did you blow the whistle on the crowd down at the soup kitchen?"

"I tried. Agent Greenwald." She didn't look up from her note pad, where her newfound artistic bent had allowed her to doodle a passable likeness of his smirking face. It protruded from a wildly boiling kettle labeled "oil". "But apparently, they just recently came across some unexpected monies that will allow them to bring it up to code -- maybe even hire a part-time staff. Does that disappoint you?" she asked, glancing up with a look of concern.

"What? No . . . no... hell, that's great. I'm happy for them."

He sat back in his chair, rather huffily she thought, and happily she added a few more bubbles rising from the pot.

She entered the cafe a little after six, feeling the same confusion that always beset her when thoughts of Kristopher arose. A quick survey of the room showed no sign of him, and she was about to go back outside when she caught the flash of his grin behind a potted plant. She trudged to the table, steeling herself for an ordeal that was likely to threaten everything from her patience to her most basic ideas of how the world worked.

"Kristopher, when you agree to meet somebody, it's not the best idea to hide behind a plant."

"What -- you don't like this plant?" He looked faintly scandalized. "This is a great plant, a terrific plant. I've been talking to it while I was waiting. They thrive on that, you know, but now that you're here, I'd rather talk to you."

"That's . . . really thoughtful of you."

"You look lovely, Cathy -- more beautiful than ever."

"Thank you," she smiled. "You look very . . . very well, yourself. Have you had anything to eat yet?"

"Not yet," he grinned, looking at her expectantly.

"Okay." His enthusiasm was infectious, and she found herself returning his grin. as she said, "this will be my treat."

The waitress who took their order seemed only mildly annoyed by Kristopher's frank appraisal.

"You can get slapped, you know," Catherine warned him, "staring at women like that."

"I know. I have the bruises to prove it, but it's necessary. It's research. It's part of suffering for my art."

"And how is your art? Have you done any new things?"

"My art's fine," he said softly, adapting the vacant look that inevitably made her uncomfortable. He had to have done very well from the sale of his paintings that Jenny had arranged, but still he was wearing the same kind of clothes he'd chosen before -- even to the scarf, though the weather was stifling. She supposed it was a kind of eccentric signature. "Do you mind if I sketch you -- you know, while we're talking?"

"Would it matter if I did?"

"Well, kind of, yeah -- I don't have any paper.., or a pencil."

His eyes were so forlorn, his smile so wistful that she had to laugh. "All right, here -- use this, but be careful of my notes." She extracted a legal pad and pencil from her bag, and he accepted them, gleefully, setting to work.

"So, how is he, Cathy?"

"How's . . .? He's fine, Kristopher, just fine."

"And you two are happy, aren't you?" The pencil never stopped moving, even when he glanced up to study her face.

"Yes, we're very happy."

"But you still haven't slept with him."

"Wha-- . . . Kristopher, you just don't say things like that to people!"

"But I'm right. I know I'm right."

Curiosity got the best of her outrage, and hesitantly she asked, "Why... what makes you think that?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter." He seemed to have lost interest in the subject, staring at her intently, the pencil moving in swift, sure strokes across the paper. After a few minutes, he glanced down at the page, half smiling, seemingly enthralled by his own work. "Perfect," he announced.

"Can I see it?"

"You can have it." He flipped the pages over and handed the pad to her. "But you can't see it. Not now. If you didn't like it, it would upset me. I wouldn't be able to eat."

"Somehow I find that hard to believe," she laughed, but his face was suddenly serious as he leaned across the table.

"You've got to do that, Cathy. You and he -- you have to make love. It's part of your destiny."

"It's none of your business, Kristopher." Boyish charm had its limits as an excuse for rudeness. "I didn't come here to discuss my sex life with you. I came to talk about art."

"That is what I'm talking about," he crowed, suddenly expansive. "Art! Perfection! Kismet! You do believe in Fate, don't you Cathy?"

"I...well..."

"Do you know how to sculpt a statue of an elephant?"

"Do I . . . ?" Talking to Kristopher was like being run down by a truck -- that kept altering its course, but at least the change of subject was welcome. "No, how?"

"You take a beautiful piece of marble," he explained, eyes shining, "and you gradually, and very carefully, chip away all the part that isn't an elephant, and what's left.., is."

"Uh-huh," she nodded gravely.

"Don't you see? That's what you and Vincent have to do. You have to chip away all the parts around you that aren't about your love, and then . . . and then, you know what you'll have left?"

"An elephant?"

"No! -- Destiny! The divine plan! The music of the spheres! Your love was meant to happen, Cathy. It has to happen for wonderful things to exist. Promise me, you'll think about it."

The thinking about it -- that she understood only too well, though the rest of what he'd said was typically cryptic. "I promise, Kristopher, that I will think about it."

The food came, and while he preceded his attack on the sandwich by wolfing down the garnish -- a lemon twist and a sprig of parsley -- she tried again to get back to the subject of their meeting. "I wanted to talk to you about the Vermeer."

"What Vermeer's that?"

"The stolen one, the one that's being held hostage along with the . . ." His blank look confounded her. "You have to have heard about this, Kristopher. It's been everywhere -- on TV, the radio, the papers."

'Sorry. I guess I missed it."

He could be so exasperating, but no doubt she'd get further playing by his rules than insisting that he drop them, so she patiently detailed the story for him.

"We've gotten nowhere on this case, and time is running out. I can't help thinking the clue lies in the kind of man that would do this, and since it started with the painting. I wondered if you thought he could be a failed artist -- someone who wanted desperately to make his mark in the art world and when he didn't, developed a resentment toward those who had."

"Artists don't destroy, Cathy -- they create."

"But they can go mad, just like anyone else."

"Is that why you're asking me -- cause you think I'm a little crazy?"

"No, I'm asking you because . . . I don't know why I'm asking you. I guess I just didn't know where else to turn."

Between enthusiastic bites, he managed to say, "I think what you have to do, Cathy, is turn around." At first, she thought he meant it literally, but he shook his head and took a drink before adding, "You're looking at it the wrong way. The painting is an advertisement. All art is advertising."

"That's a pretty cynical viewpoint."

"It's true. Michelangelo's ceiling is an ad for the Sistine Chapel, the Parthenon was an ad for Athena. The illustration on the cover of a book is a commercial for what's inside. If you ask me . . . " He paused, breaking into a grin. "You already did, didn't you?"

"Yes, Kristopher, that's why I'm here."

"That means you don't think I'm crazy," he said, as if it were the most touching of compliments.

"I won't know that until you tell me your theory. You do have one, don't you."

"What? Oh, sure -- the Vermeer. It's an ad -- to get everybody's attention for what he really wants to say."

"It's a pretty dramatic ad."

"He sounds like a pretty dramatic guy -- explosives, Alexander Pope, TV spots, people with bags on their heads. He makes me feel sort of... dull."

"You're far from dull, Kristopher. but you are maddening. Tell me what you mean."

"I mean. if the painting's the promotional part, then the other --this kidnapped woman is what it's really all about."

"But he went to such great lengths for the painting. To just pick a victim off the streets because it's convenient -- it doesn't make sense. He could have had Byron Stark as a hostage -- somebody well known, somebody wealthy, but he chose to hold onto this poor woman instead."

"See?" he said brightly.

"See what?"

"You just answered your own question. He could have had somebody else, and he didn't want him. He chose the homeless woman. So." he shrugged, "she's got to be the reason for everything."

"You mean he has something against the homeless?"

"Oh, Cathy." he rolled his eyes, dearly as exasperated with her as she was with him. "This crazy artist you've dreamed up -- he doesn't resent his own work, his life's passion. He resents the people who won't take it seriously, who won't even look. He doesn't feel like an artist, because nobody will recognize him as one. Believe me, I know what that's like."

"If the point of everything this guy is doing comes back to a street person, then maybe that's his passion. Maybe he's tried to help people like her -- only nobody will listen. Everybody looks the other way. That's who he resents -- the people who ignore his work and make him feel worthless." He reached over snatching the parsley off her plate, popping it into his mouth. "You're not looking for a failed artist, Cathy. You're looking for a failed human being."

Preoccupied, she went back to the office. Plenty of her co-workers were keeping late hours these days, and as she went to her file cabinet, searching for the notes she thought should be looked at again, Rita came up behind her.

"Excuse me, Cathy, but has anything been done about that affidavit from the janitor?"

"Yeah, I picked it up this afternoon. It's there in my folder if you want to take it."

She was still rummaging through what seemed like hundreds of largely useless pages, when Rita exclaimed, 'Wow, I didn't know you were into fantasy stuff. This is wild, Kind of gives you goose bumps."

"What?" She turned to find Rita stanng at her legal pad.

The girl looked up with a wide smile.  "There's something about it -- I don't know -- it's kind of sexy."

The drawing. Kristopher's impromptu sketch. She was damned sure she'd kept her clothes on in the cafe, but that would be a minor detail to anyone with so little respect for the boundaries. God only knew what he'd turned her into. She approached Rita with some trepidation and looked down at the drawing in utter shock.

The figure had been captured in a few bold, sweeping strokes, one knee bent as he stood, looking up a flight of stone stairs, his hair whipping around his face, power implicit in every line. He looked exactly as she'd seen him that night in the Chamber of the Winds, and she was nowhere to be found in the picture.

"I'm sorry," Rita said cautiously, noting her stunned expression, "Wasn't I supposed to see this?"

"No, it's okay. I . . . I have this friend who's an artist. He has a pretty vivid imagination."

"I'll say. It's really intriguing. You ought to frame it -- put it on your desk."

Not likely, she thought, feeling that the walls between the worlds weren't meant to grow that thin. But how substantial could they be, when a charming eccentric in a baseball cap could look into her eyes and see the image of her heart?

Breakfast must come early at the Hope and a Hearty Meal. Remnants of it were being cleaned away, as she stepped inside the next morning. Besides the volunteers busy at the sink, there were several men in work clothes, tools at their belts, tapping the walls and measuring the baseboards. Gladys Hopper was sitting at a table, a ledger spread out in front of her. She greeted Catherine with little more enthusiasm than she'd displayed the last time.

"I told you everything I know about Roberta Gomes when you were here before."

"I know, and I appreciate it, but I wanted to ask you something else. The people that have worked here in the past . . . you mentioned there had been several. Did you ever have any problems with any of them?"

"Problems? No, why?"

"I'm just curious about the kind of people that might have been on staff. Can you tell me about them? Who they were?"

"I'm afraid I can't see any good reason to tell you such things."

"Or any good reason not to?" Catherine implored gently. Gladys Hopper looked at her uncertainly a moment and sighed,

"Well, there was Dr. Whittier. He was a psychologist that we had some time back. He teaches now at the university, and Martha Phelps from Job Placement. There was our nurse; usually that was Mrs. Larson, though they'd send us different ones. And our two social workers -- Martin and little Susan Fetter. They stuck it out the longest."

"Martin. Can you tell me about him?"

"There's not much to tell. He had a masters in social work, and he did some counseling. There wasn't anything remarkable about him."

"Did he ever mention an interest in art?"

Mrs. Hopper looked vaguely annoyed, as if she'd rather be getting back to her books, but she answered the question. "No, never."

"What about video cameras? Did he ever talk about explosives? Had he been in the service, perhaps?"

"Not that I can remember. Miss Chandler, what kind of wild ideas are you getting about poor Martin Pruitt? He was a hard worker, sympathetic to the people who came in here. Why, if it wasn't for him, we'd probably have had to close this place months ago. He'd go uptown and fight for every penny he could get to keep us on our feet. Martin's a quiet little man, but he knew how to stand up to the ones holding the purse strings. He gave those people at the Ellis Foundation a good talking to."

"The Ellis Foundation -- that's a philanthropic group, isn't it?" She was conscious that her breath had become shallow, tiny little electrodes of possibility, quickening in her mind. "They helped fund this place?"

"For a while they were our chief contributor -- back in the early seventies when it was chic to take on charitable causes. But over the years, our piece of the pie kept getting smaller and smaller. Martin said they were more interested in building a high profile than really helping anyone."

"What kind of things was the money going for?" she asked. Her mouth had gone completely dry.

"Oh, you know -- the kinds of things that get noticed -- a fancy fountain for a park, a sculpture in front of the hospital -- things like that."

"Mrs. Hopper, do you have Martin Pruitt's address? Do you know where he is now?"

"Well, I have an address. I wouldn't know if he's still there. It's been a couple of months since he's been in here." She gave Catherine a peculiar look but got up and disappeared into one of the little offices, returning with a yellow card. "This is all we still have on him."

There was little information on the card -- simply his job title, an address and a photo, showing a slight, sandy haired man wearing glasses.

"Can I keep this, Mrs. Hopper? It will be returned to you later."

"I hope so," she said as Catherine rose to leave. 'We might be wanting to contact him again. You see, Miss Chandler, we received a sizeable donation just a few days ago. There are people who still care about the less fortunate, people who think of them as real human beings and not just a job."

She tried not to let that one sting her, as she hurried out to flag a cab.

The address on Martin Pruitt's card led her to a neighborhood in transition. Some of the buildings looked rundown, possibly abandoned. Others had already benefited from the face-lifting that would soon raise the rents as well.

She hesitated only briefly before climbing the short flight of steps. The state of the building told her that whatever security it had once enjoyed had probably been long neglected, and, in fact, the door to the foyer wasn't locked. There was no way she was going beyond here, but it seemed senseless to alert anyone else to what was, after all, only a hunch, until she was sure that Pruitt even lived here. His name was on the mailbox. Impossible to tell whether the characterless block letters might match those on the tapes they'd been sent.

Satisfied, she slipped back out and crossed the street to a laundromat, where thankfully the phone was in working order.

"There isn't time to explain it all, Joe, but I really think this is a possibility."

"Fine, Cathy, I believe you, but you sit tight until we can get somebody down there with a search warrant."

"I will. I'll be in the laundromat across the street and, Joe, make sure they understand that this could be a hostage situation and that we'd better have somebody from the bomb squad."

"I'm on it, Radcliffe. Don't move."

She hung up and stood looking through the fly-specked glass. The windows of Pruitt's apartment building were unlike that in the video tape, but the ones in the back could be different. The mailbox had indicated that he lived on the top floor, and she was trying to imagine whether the sun would enter such a room in the way that had been shown in the pictures when the door of the building opened and a man came down the steps.
 

He was walking quickly in the opposite direction, and she recognized him immediately. As he disappeared around the corner, the renlization struck her of how much better it would be, if he were not in the apartment when the police arrived, not in a position to hold them off, blow up the painting, the woman, himself. Alone up there, Roberta Gomes might be safer than she'd been since the kidnapping, but once he returned, rescue could be impossible.

No one had seriously entertained the notion that there might be an accomplice. This could be the best -- the only -- time to try to get Roberta Gomes out of there. Telling herself there was no danger, she darted across the street and into the building, hurrying up the six flights to the top floor. At the door to the apartment she paused, placing her ear against it. There was no sound except for the pounding of a jack hammer down the block.

It didn't surprise her to find it locked, and she called out softly, "Roberta, are you in there?" It wasn't a particularly heavy door, but she heard no response. The woman could be gagged or unconscious. She was checking the landing for an exit -- maybe there was a fire escape, some access to the window -- when she heard the creaking of the stairs and turned to find Martin Pruitt staring at her.

He was standing a few steps down, an ice cream cone in his hand. "Were you looking for me?" His voice was thin, a little high-pitched, totally unlike the distorted whisper of the tapes.

"No, I'm afraid the person I wanted isn't home."

"Everybody's home that lives here. I'm the only one on this floor."

She changed tactics quickly, grasping for a way to get him away from the apartment and the advantage it would give him. "Well. I was looking for a man named Pruitt. Martin Pruitt."

"What's me," he said. still staring at her expressionless.

"Oh. that's wonderful. I got your name from Mrs. Hopper at the Hope and a Hearty Meal House. I'm a new volunteer there, and they've just received some unexpected funding. They were hoping that perhaps you could come and work with them again, and Mrs. Hopper asked if I'd try and find you."

"Is that right?" The ice cream was beginning to melt in the stuffy stairwell, but still he stood there holding it in a raised hand, reminding her strangely of the Statue of Liberty.

"She asked that I bring you a check -- a kind of retainer to prove they can really afford a full-time counselor." She rummaged in her purse, wishing she had her gun. "Well. that's really dumb of me. It isn't here. I must have left it in my car. If you'd like to come down with me, I can get it."

"I know who you are, Miss Chandler. I watch television too." She looked up to see that the ice cream was melting onto his hand and that in the other he held a gun. He levelled it at her and without a word came forward until he stood beside her at the door.

"Could you hold this, please." He handed her the ice cream and took some keys from his pocket, unlocking the door. There was nothing to do but precede him inside.

With a sense of deja vu she surveyed the room before her. The familiar window, shedding a dreary light on the painting that nevertheless appeared luminous, leaning against the far wall. Roberta Gomes sitting in the straight-backed chair, bound at the waist, though her hands were free and she held them folded in her lap, like an obedient child. She regarded Catherine a moment with mild interest and then looked at Martin Pruitt expectantly. There was a video camera on a tripod, a table where cereal had dried on two bowls. The wires leading from the twin explosive devices snaked across the floor to an ominous metal box near the table.

She took it all in, cataloguing it, willing her mind to ignore the fear that she couldn't indulge. Never had she understood so clearly the meaning of being afraid of fear itself, of what it might bring,

"Here's your ice cream, Roberta." Pruitt took the dripping cone from her, handing it to the woman, who took it without comment, seemingly oblivious to the danger surrounding her.

"This wasn't supposed to happen yet," Pruitt said. "You're making me have to change my plans."

"Martin," she said, striving for a reasonable tone. "You can change your own plans. You don't have to do this. What are you going to gain?"

"What have I got to lose? I see you've spotted my detonator. It has two buttons -- one for the picture, one for Roberta. Would you like a closer look, Miss Chandler?" Still holding the gun on her, he leaned down and picked up the metal box, and with a grin -- the first expression of any kind he had displayed, he hurled the lethal object toward her.

She caught at it, reflexively, her heart in her throat. Unbelievably, her finger was on a button, pressed against it, and unbelievably, nothing had happened.

"Surprised?" Pruitt said, still grinning. "I would have hooked it up, but the truth is I don't know how. You know where I got the Semtex? Some kids that came into the foundation. It got so they'd come in all the time, because I was their friend. I was going to get them into job training, give them something better to do than blowing things up, but the waiting list was too long. They told me about the explosives, and I talked them into handing them over to me, but I didn't know what to do with them."

"So you never really intended to destroy anything?" she said softly, still holding the useless box in her hands.

"There you go. The bureaucratic mind at work -- seeing only what it wants to see, pretending everything's fine. See this gun, Miss Chandler? I can use it to put my friend Roberta out of her misery." He thrust it close to the woman's head, but she ignored him, licking the ice cream from her fingers. "I can put a hole right between the little Dutch lady's eyes," he said, pointing it at the painting. "Or I have a third choice now, and really it's the most sensible one. You don't know how many of your kind I've wished I could control this way --just once, and here you are, like a sacrificial lamb."

"You haven't hurt anyone, Martin. You can still drop this game and salvage something."

"Like what? The rest of my life in prison -- the guest of yet another socially responsible institution?"

"I don't think that would happen," she said loudly, hoping he hadn't heard the faint sounds from somewhere down the stairway. "You could get help."

His laugh was terrible -- dry. shaking and noiseless. "Maybe that's not such a bad idea. In a few months I might get dumped out with the rest of their garbage, like Roberta here. The two of us could search through trash cans together. Would you like that, Roberta?"

The woman smiled. "We had bananas on our cereal."

"Roberta, my name is Catherine. I'd like to help you. Are you all right?" She didn't expect a very reliable answer, but talking might help to mask the sounds she thought she'd heard outside. It helped to focus her, to maintain the crucial detachment necessary not to feel the fear that could trigger disaster.

"Roberta's not crazy about the system either, Miss Chandler. She's been better off here with a roof over her head and me feeding her."

"Bananas," the woman repeated.

"I know you want to help people, Martin. You won't be able to, if you do something irrevocable."

"I've never been able to. People like you with your rules and screwed up priorities -- you've always seen to that. I've got their attention now -- all the good citizens of New York. I've finally got their attention. They want to know what all this is about, and you're going to be the answer. One less civil servant standing between the people who need help and those who'd like to give it."

She saw his finger on the trigger, heard the explosion of sound as the door burst in. Pruitt whirled to level his gun at the figure that hurdled towards him, and she threw the detonator with all her strength, striking his arm a solid blow. The gun went off as it hit the floor, the bullet shattering the glass in the grimy window, its intended target already taking Martin Pruitt to the floor in one clean lunge.

In a dream she noted the woman with the pitcher still placidly peering out her 17th century casement, Roberta Gomes beginning to cry soft, quiet tears, and Agent Greenwald picking himself up to turn to her with a grin.

"Women," he said. "Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em."

Strangely, she didn't feel a thing.

It was nearly two hours before she left the apartment. People kept streaming in -- the police, FBI, photographers, the bomb squad, the paramedics -- like so many guests fashionably late for a party. Two representatives from the museum who came to kneel before the painting, satisfying themselves that it was, in fact, the original, fell into debate with officials about its role as evidence. The rational argument deteriorated into heated remarks about "over whose dead body" a priceless masterpiece was going to spend even one hour in the dubious security of a police property room.

It occurred to her that Martin Pruitt would have felt a grim sympathy for the two dignified art historians reduced to spluttering fury by bureaucratic red tape. Ultimately, its unsnarling allowed them to disappear with the painting into an armored truck. The disposal of Pruitt himself raised no such controversy, and he had long since been removed in a police ambulance.

Catherine sat holding Roberta Gomes' hand, trying her best to soothe the woman who registered more fear at the influx of authority figures unaccountably invading this peaceful place, than she had ever shown toward her kidnapper. But she didn't protest when gently led away toward another waiting ambulance, and Catherine wondered what was going through her beleaguered mind -- what was she feeling? But then she seemed curiously unable to identify her own feelings. A part of her registered the victory here: the painting recovered, the woman safe, Pruitt taken alive with little blood shed, the lifting of the burden this case had become. Still, her own emotions seemed queerly isolated from the dramatic events.

The numbness continued even back at the office, where reporters were already massed. She answered their questions. sensing that she handled even the television interviewers naturally, responsibly with the appropriate tone of satisfaction at the outcome of the investigation.

It was impossible not to answer Joe's ear-to-ear grin with one of her own as he met her with in an exuberant bear hug. "You did it, kiddo. I'm so proud of you!"

"Not alone," she cautioned him. "I'm afraid we're going to have to share the credit with our friend Albert. I didn't exactly capture anybody."

"Come on, Cath. You found him. Without your phone call Albert would still be out there measuring street signs. Anybody can do the strong-arm business, but you're the one that cracked this. What put you onto Pruitt anyway?"

"I can't say really -- just a hunch, a way of looking at things differently." It seemed vaguely dishonest not to be giving credit where it was due -- to the person who had turned her thinking around, but the case was tying up so neatly. To blithely add that she'd taken her cue from someone, who in anybody's book would be regarded as bizarre, and as far as most of the world was concerned had the additional awkward disadvantage of being dead -- well, that was a thread that might never be knotted. "It's quite possible that Albert Greenwald saved my life -- and Roberta's."

"You think Pruitt would really have pulled that trigger?"

"I don't know. I'll never know. I like to think he wouldn't have -- that he'd made the point he wanted to make after all."

"Well, Greenwald's convinced if it wasn't for you, Pruitt would have plugged him when he came through that door. Kinda nice, isn't it? Watching Albert have to give you the credit? At least he's done that. He's such a stickler for detail -- maybe he couldn't do anything else. That's why it surprises me that he just barged in there when he did -- without the usual prescribed warning."

"I've suspected for a long time, Joe, that he must be very sharp as an investigator. He does have an eye for details. When I wasn't in the laundromat and the doorknob was still sticky with ice cream, he knew that someone had just recently gone inside the apartment, that Pruitt might be ready to defend his position. He had to take him by surprise."

Joe was watching her speculatively. "Are you all right on this thing, Radcliffe? I mean, I don't exactly see you jumping for Joy, and you've got every right to."

"I'm great on this thing, Joe. It Just hasn't sunk in completely, that's all, but the pressure's off now. You haven't forgotten your promise to take a vacation?"

"Hey -- Friday afternoon I'm out of here. I'm just a little worried that when I get back. your name's gonna be on my office door. This is a big one, Cathy. You're going to get the recognition you deserve. It wouldn't be a bad time to request a vacation yourself."

"Maybe I will, Joe. We'll see when you get back."

She knew she could use the break, but for what? The thought of going away, out of reach of the arms she needed, holding her, was more frightening than anything she'd been through. To go below -- to spend a week, maybe two, close to him -- was too heavenly a possibility to hope for. She wasn't even sure she'd be allowed to do it. For all their progress, the path before them seemed to have brought them no closer to their destination. No sooner had one obstacle been dealt with than another loomed up to take its place. The completion of this investigation had seemed like a way to reduce the complications, but now with the spotlight turned on her, they seemed instead to have increased.

Extricating herself from the glare of attention at last, she said a prayer of thanks for the open passage beneath her building that meant she needn't wait for darkness to go below. As she descended into the tunnels, it occurred to her that the sense of detachment, of being one step removed from her own feelings, was thwarting her ability to sense his presence, but try as she might, the numbness persisted. She felt no inner voice guiding her to where he was and simply headed for his chamber, hoping the feeling would return as she drew nearer to him.

She had entered a long tunnel, dim but for the amber light that bathed the junction at the other end, where three figures appeared deep in conversation. They were walking slowly to accommodate Father's labored pace. Gillian was speaking with great animation, though Catherine couldn't hear what she was saying, her silver-blonde hair catching the light, giving her the look of a fairy sprite. The golden head was lowered to better hear the words, but suddenly he raised it, and he was smiling, laughing as she hadn't seen him do since that night she had reveled in the rain. A feeling snaked through the icy block of calm that had been with her all day, cracking it, an uncommon feeling that she shrunk from identifying.

Abruptly, he had stopped. He stood staring at her down the length of the long tunnel. Even from here she could see the mystification in his expression, and she remained immobile, unable to do anything but return it. Vaguely, she was aware of Gillian looking curiously at them both, of Father murmuring something to her, and the two of them disappeared down the connecting passage. He was coming toward her now, each mesmerizing step, splitting wider the hard shell that had solidified around her emotions, but she resisted the flood that threatened to pour into the void, certain that she needed to keep a rational perspective, certain suddenly, of little else.

"Something's happened," he said, stopping in front of her, his eyes still puzzled. He hadn't sensed her approach. That was it, she realized. The detachment she'd clung to had blocked his ability to feel it.

She nodded. "The investigation, Vincent. It's over. The man's in custody."

"And the woman, the painting?"

"Both safe." She managed a smile.

For a moment the questions left his eyes. There was only his love that melted through her. making it hard to breathe, and a look of admiration for which she knew she should be grateful, yet it felt strangely like a reproach. Its presence reaffirmed the pride he took in her accomplishments, the joy she brought him from another world, and her own pleasure at being able to give him this small gift was mixed with the painful irony that it condemned her to exile. The price of it was the sacrifice of her own most fervent wish, the one she knew lived deep within him, as well, torn only briefly from its secret place the last time they met.

"Catherine . . ." The confusion had returned to his expression, and she was suddenly afraid of the questions he would ask.

"Vincent, I want to tell you all about it, but I know Father's going to want to hear it too. Why don't we join him, and I can explain it all to both of you?"

He didn't speak, and she knew she hadn't fooled him for a second. He was perfectly aware of her reluctance, but he acquiesced silently, turning toward Father's chamber, not taking her hand.

It was with a sense of relief that she found not only Father and Gillian, but Mouse. and Jamie in the study. Ridiculous to feel this safety in numbers, ridiculous to think it could do anything but forestall the moment of reckoning she knew was inescapable. They were all avid to hear the story of Pruitt's capture, breaking into her commentary frequently with expressions of amazement or requests for more details. In fact, their affectionate presence did nothing to decrease her awareness of the intense scrutiny he was leveling her way, the silent tenacity with which he was concentrating on every nuance of her words, her expressions, even her feelings themselves.

She hoped she was the only one aware of it, but twice she caught Gillian throwing Vincent a curious look, perhaps because -- of everyone gathered here -- he was the only one who hadn't said a word. Even Mouse seemed aware that something wasn't quite right. He frowned openly from one to the other of them, fidgeting uncomfortably.

"You can see, Gillian," Father said, when she had finished, "why Catherine has won the admiration of us all. Her courage and commitment are of a kind too seldom seen in that world, and sorely needed."

He reached out to squeeze her hand, but the warmth of his affection was buried under the dismay she felt at his words, words that seemed like nails relentlessly driven into the barrier that kept her from truly belonging here.

"My God, Catherine, weren't you scared to death? I know I would have been too petrified to even think of throwing that box."

She looked into Gillian's eyes, so wide with concern and open admiration, but she felt only Vincent's fastened on her. She wanted to answer the girl, but the words were choked by the almost palpable sensation pulsing through their bond. Fortunately, Mouse broke the silence.

"Just a box, right? No real gismo inside?"

"That's right," she said gratefully. "It was perfectly harmless. There was never any danger of an explosion."

"But the man had a gun, Catherine." Father reiterated, totally unnecessarily. There had been no way to eliminate that detail from her narrative. Even if she could have pulled off the dishonesty required to do so, there was always a chance that with all the publicity above, the real story would find its way below. "The man is clearly unbalanced. We may have come very close to losing you."

"I just don't think he was really a killer, Father. I was probably in less danger than you think."

She wished she could make her voice sound more convincing, but the dark sensation coursing through her made it sound uncertain to her own ears.

"Catherine's had a trying day. She should be getting back now." They were the first words he had spoken, and she was conscious that, having delivered them in an ominously level tone, he had risen beside her. Automatically, she stood and tried her best to adapt an expression of relief and happiness, appropriate to the occasion. She had looked forward to this moment, when the case would be solved, imagining that it would be a time of celebration, but all she could feel was a gathering dread.

The warm goodbyes of the little group followed them out into the passageway. She didn't dare meet his eyes, and he didn't speak again until they were some distance from the populated tunnels. Her heart was beating erratically with trepidation when he stopped, his voice quiet, controlled, his eyes fastened somewhere in the distance.

"Today, Catherine, I reached for the warmth of your presence inside of me, a sense of your feelings, and I found nothing. At first I was terrified that something had happened to you. but it was not as if you were not there, only as if you were no longer accessible to me, as if you were . . . hiding yourself from me."

"I'm sorry, Vincent. I didn't mean for that to happen. I don't ever want to hide from you, from our connection. It just seemed . . . there was one thing that I didn't want . . . want you to feel, and somehow in blocking that everything else got lost too."

"The fear, Catherine. You were blocking the fear." The statement had the ring of an accusation.

"You told me once." she said unsteadily, "that we can't let fear control us. I was just trying not to give into that."

"Fear can keep you safe. It can protect you. I can protect you." He had turned his eyes on her now, and she saw the blue incandescence of anger that could only be ignited by a volatile mixture of fear and pain. "Catherine, you might have died up there today."

"What could you have done, Vincent? It was broad daylight. There--"

"I would have done something." His hands were on her arms now, rigid with the same tension that rasped in his voice.

"I know you would have," she said, trying to stand up to the conflagration that threatened her. "But even if you could have helped me, Vincent, it wouldn't have been worth it. I've seen what it does to you -- what it costs you -- and I won't be responsible for that -- not anymore."

Her words might have been brushwood, easily turned into fluttering ash in the relentless flames. His grip that held her motionless before the blaze tightened until it almost hurt. "Catherine, you must promise me you will never do that again -- never when your life is endangered. Promise me."

As his voice had hardened, her own had grown frustratingly weak, but she met his fierce look with all the defiance missing in the slightly breathy syllable. "No."

He released her, taking a backward step, and she wondered if he feared what the combination of his vehemence and great strength might do, but she stood as if he still held her there, watching him draw in a long breath. "Catherine, you speak of cost. Do you think there is any cost more terrifying than harm to you? Do you imagine that your death could offer any escape for me except my own? Yet you would deny me even the . . . chance . . . to protect you. You would deny yourself even the reality of your own feelings -- the warmth, Catherine, the spirit that is yours. How can I bear being the cause of that -- of watching you arm yourself against all that you are -- against hope and joy and love, as well as fear?"

"Against love?" she said shakily, unable to hold back the tears. "Oh, I can't deny the love, Vincent. It fills every corner of who I am." A sob choked her, reducing her voice to a whisper. "Sometimes, I think I'll die of the love."

"Catherine . . . don't." He stepped forward, pulling her into the comfort of his arms, holding her as if she might break, his face buried in her hair. "Please . . . don't." His voice echoed the anguish of her own tears, and she pressed her lips fervently against the soft homespun vest -- above his heart, whose aching she could feel as clearly as her own.

"Vincent, I don't understand what's happening. I don't understand how we could be hurting each other, when all I've ever wanted is to make you happy. All I've ever needed is to love you."

He drew back, one powerful hand holding her face Just inches from his. "There is such pain in your eyes, Catherine. I never meant to put it there."

"I can deal with the pain," she said, her voice husky from crying. "But surely you can see other things in my eyes, Vincent. Other things that only you could have put there. Can you deal with those?"

His lashes glistened with unshed tears, as he lowered them, his eyes drawn to her parted lips, his soul flowing inexorably into the emptiness of hers, an emptiness that echoed with the promise of lush and undreamed of fulfillment. A sigh shook him, as his mouth touched hers -- tentatively at first -- the soft, downy curves whose gentleness coaxed a wanton tingling in every nerve, the sensual lower lip that seemed created to shape itself to hers, the taste of him that jolted through her like the first breath of life, even as her breathing faltered under its power.

She sensed that he had meant this kiss to be a comfort, a pledge of his love amidst the turmoil they were suffering, but the unanswered need made promises of its own, kindling flames within her, and she felt him tumble willingly into their heat, his passion pulsing through her veins. The sob that rose in her throat was no longer one of sadness or frustration, but a desperate longing that only he could still.

"Vincent," she whispered against his mouth, "what you said the other night.., what you wished for... You have the power to make it real. Do that now. Let it happen . . .Take me to your chamber and make it all come true."

He pulled her tighter, every muscle tensed against her, and she waited, willing him to sweep her up in his arms or to murmur the words that would tell her at long last he had ceased to fight. When he didn't, when he gradually released his hold and stepped away. she sank against the huge steam pipe that dominated this tunnel, its faint warmth insufficient against the cool despair that was numbing her through and through.

It was too much: the incessant desire, the continual denial. Soon, she thought, her body would be as hopelessly confused as her mind, with every natural impulse subverted by the mixed messages that assaulted it. Fleetingly, it occurred to her that this must be what it was like to go insane, when rational argument got you nowhere, when feelings became so convoluted that it was safer to feel nothing. Only the faint sense of humiliation for having offered herself, yet again, to be met with rejection made any sense.

Once again, he was keeping a careful distance between them, not meeting her eyes. "Catherine . . . what I said that night . . . you must not think of it. Those words were never meant to be spoken."

She bit her lip, unsure what emotion would seethe to the surface and find its way into her tone. "What were they, then, Vincent? Inadmissible evidence? Am I supposed to pretend I didn't hear them, even though . . . even though I feel like I've waited all my life to hear them? Are you saying they weren't true?"

"No." The word came softly from behind the bright curtain that shielded his face. "They were part of the truth, Catherine, a part that I am not proud of. There are other truths more important, more . . . right. Do you remember when you came to us -- after your father's death? You told me then you wished to stay.., here.., below. Those were true words. I could feel your sincerity, yet a greater truth drew you back to your world."

The possibility that her frustration would give rise to anger promptly faded. The hurting -- it hadn't started just now. She had hurt him then, and so many times before, only she had been too wrapped up in her own feelings to notice, and he -- he had never said a word, suffering in silence, accepting her thoughtlessness as a small price to pay for what they shared. "But things are different now, Vincent," she said in a softer tone. "What you said . . . took my breath away. I want you to love me like that. I don't need anything but you.  It's the way I've felt for so long, and to hear you say it--"

"Catherine, it was a dream."

"No . . . no, you said the words were true."

"It is because they are true that we dare not continue it." He turned to her then with that determination in his eyes that was far more daunting than his uncertainties. She knew that look, knew when rationality had won in his troubled mind, and it frightened her. "Catherine, it has never been easy to let you go, to watch you disappear back into that world that has no place for me. And holding you... kissing you has made it nearly unbearable. The fault is mine. For so long I doubted that anything more between us could ever be, that the risk was too great. And now.., now when it seems that perhaps there is the possibility . . . that somehow I could give you what you need, what you cry out for, Catherine, with every look, every touch . . ." He stopped as if his own words were working against the logic he had to make her see, and his eyes closed for a moment.

When he continued it was in the tone of a confession -- one that could cleanse the soul only through its own damnation. "There is something in me that cannot love you, Catherine, only to let you go. Your hand in mine becomes my hand. You become a part of me, just as I'm a part of you. To possess you completely and to let you go would be to lose myself, to lose everything. How can I hold you so close, cherish you, protect you, try with everything I am to give you some small part of the joy that you have given me . . . and release you to walk alone in a world where hatred and violence flourish? Alone, Catherine, because our secret has drawn you from the warmth and comfort of those who would love you. And now you would deny me even the promise of protecting you there. If I had the strength to do it, Catherine... I would.., for you.., but I know I cannot."

Hope, like a tiny spark of light, trailed in the wake of the dark things, the things that spilled from the Pandora's box their Journey seemed to have become. "I understand those feelings, Vincent. They're my feelings too. I don't want to leave you. If I were here --with you -- we could love each other.., we could be so happy --"

"There is still no certainty of that." he reminded her with merciless honesty. "If you were to come here only to find it was impossible, the torment we've faced these last few weeks would be nothing.., to have you so close and yet not to..."

"I don't believe that," she said fiercely. "I never have, and I don't think you do either -- not deep down. It's been your fear for so long. Vincent, so long that it's almost become a part of you. I understand that. I know how hard it is to let go of the things we've always believed about ourselves. I've been learning to do it too, and everything I've learned, everything I've discovered about myseff points in one direction." She took a deep breath. This would be the third time she'd asked it. The third time had to be a charm. If it wasn't... if he turned from her now..

"Catherine, don't. Don't say it... not now."

She looked at him in shock, the words never having reached her lips, yet she never doubted for a second that he knew what they would be and that he wasn't even waiting to hear them before he rejected her plea.

"Catherine. you are still very much a part of that world. Something -- or someone -- calls you back there. I can feel it in you --a commitment that perhaps you do not fully understand yourself. Until you do, until you face that, it would be wrong for you to consider any other life."

She stared at him, wondering how the limitless love, the intense longing that never abated, could leave any room for the crushing weariness that settled over her. "Let me get this straight, Vincent," she said in a voice not her own. "You won't let us love each other because if we did, you wouldn't want to let me go back up there, but when I try to tell you I don't want to go back, you say I do. Is that about it?"

The pain she was trying desperately to rise above was reflected in his eyes, but so too was the quiet conviction she knew no power on earth could get around. "You believe you have made a choice, Catherine, when I can feel deep within that you have not."

She nodded, though she didn't understand at all, reaching for a false cynicism that could get her through the ordeal the conversation had become. "This journey we're taking, Vincent -- this path that we're on . . . It isn't a path at all. It's a circle. No matter which way we try to go, we end up in the same place."

He didn't answer, taking her hand with great tenderness, leading her back towards the entrance to her building. At the ladder she turned to him, but she didn't know what to say. It seemed for a moment as if she'd fallen into that Pandora's box. devoid now of troubles and of hope, and that the lid had swung down, trapping her in the darkness, but when she met his eyes the impression fled, the blackness pushed away by the light she saw there, the light and the unwavering strength of his love.

"Please, Catherine . . . don't worry. There may be a way out of this wilderness, this confusion. We must face everything, no matter how painful, disregard nothing and perhaps, if we open our eyes, as well as our hearts, we may find the path again."

"Why does it have to be so complicated?"

"Perhaps it isn't," he said softly, brushing a wisp of hair from her furrowed brow, his eyes dark with sympathy for her turmoil. "Perhaps in the end it will prove to be so simple that we overlooked it."

She closed her eyes, savoring even this light touch of his fingers coaxing her hair into place, drawing strength from his cautious words of encouragement. When she opened them, he had withdrawn his hand, and he made no further move toward her.

"Take care, Catherine."

She had to be content with his loving look, the sure sense of him deep in her heart, as she turned and left him standing in the pool of light. It seemed as she climbed the ladder that here, suspended between their two worlds, she might have found the only place in which she truly belonged.