Then the old man's glass was empty. He held it out in a hand that had steadied.
"That was just flavored water," he said. "Let's have another with more kick to it."
Delaney hesitated. Braun stared at him, face mangled into a gargoyle's mask.
All his bones seemed to be knobby, pressing out through parchment skin. Feathers of grayish hair skirted his waxen skull. Even his eyes were filmed and distant, gaze dulled and turned inward. Black veins popped in his sunken temples.
"I know what Martha told you," Braun said. "One weak drink a day. Right?"
"Right," Delaney said. Still he hesitated.
"She keeps the booze downstairs," the skeleton complained. "I can't get at it. I'm eighty-four," he added in a querulous tone. "The game is up. You think I should be denied?"
Edward X. Delaney made up his mind. He didn't care to analyze his motives.
"No," he said, "I don't think you should be denied."
He took Braun's glass, went back to the bathroom. He mixed two more Scotch-and-waters, middling strong. He brought them into the bedroom, and Braun's starfish hand plucked the glass from his hand. The old man sampled it.
"That's more like it," he said, leaning back in his wheelchair. He observed Delaney closely. The cast over his eyes had faded. He had the shrewd, calculating look of a smart lawyer.
"You didn't come all the way out here to hold a dying man's hand," he said.
"No. I didn't."
"Old 'Iron Balls,' " Braun said affectionately. "You always did have the rep of using anyone you could to break a case."
"That's right," Delaney agreed. "Anyone, anytime. There is something I wanted to ask you about. A case. It's not mine; a friend's ass is on the line and I promised I'd talk to you."
"What's his name?"
"Abner Boone. Detective Sergeant. You know him?"
"Boone? Boone? I think I had him in one of my classes. Was his father a street cop? Shot down?"
"That's the man."
"Sure, I remember. Nice boy. What's his problem?"
"It looks like a repeat killer. Two so far. Same MO, but no connection between the victims. Stranger homicides. No leads."
"Another Son of Sam?" Braun said excitedly, leaning forward. "What a case that was! Did you work that one, Captain?"
"No," Delaney said shortly, "I never did."
"I was retired then, of course, but I followed it in the papers and on TV every day. Made notes. Collected clippings. I had a crazy idea of writing a book on it some day."
"Not so crazy," Delaney said. "Now this thing that Boone caught is-"
"Fascinating case," Albert Braun said slowly. His head was beginning to droop forward on the skinny stem of his neck. "Fascinating. I remember the last lecture I gave at John Jay was on that case. Multiple random homicides. The motives…" His loose dentures clacked.
"Yes, yes," Delaney said hurriedly, wondering if he was losing the man. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about-the motives. And also, has there ever been a female killer like Son of Sam? A woman who commits several random homicides?"
"A woman?" the old man said, raising his head with an effort. "It's all in my lecture."
"Yes," Delaney said, "but could you tell me now? Do you remember if there was ever a case like Son of Sam when a woman was the perp?"
"Martha Beck," Braun said, trying to recall. "A woman in Pennsylvania-what was her name? I forget. But she was a babysitter and knew the victims. All kids. A woman at a Chicago fair, around the turn of the century, I think. I'd have to look it up. She ran a boardinghouse. Killed her boarders. Greed, again." His face tried to make a grin. "Ground them up into sausages."
"But stranger homicides," Delaney insisted. "Any woman involved in a series of killings of strangers?"
"It's all in my last lecture," Albert Braun said sadly. "Two days later I fell. The steps weren't even slippery. I just tripped. That's how it ends, Captain; you trip."
He held out his empty glass. Delaney took it to the bathroom, mixed fresh highballs. When he brought the drinks back to the bedroom, he heard the outside door slam downstairs.
Braun's head had fallen forward, sharp chin on shrunken chest.
"Professor?" the Chief said.
The head came up slowly.
"Yes?"
"Here's your drink."
The boiled fingers clamped around.
"That lecture of yours," Delaney said. "Your last lecture. Was it written out? Typed?"
The head bobbed.
"Would you have a copy of it? I'd like to read it."
Albert Braun roused, looking at the Chief with eyes that had a spark, burning.
"Lots of copies," he said. "In the study. Watch this…"
He pushed the controls in a metal box fixed to the arm of his wheelchair. He began to move slowly toward the doorway. Delaney stood hastily, hovered close. But Braun maneuvered his chair skillfully through the doorway, turned down the hallway. The Chief moved nearby, ready to grab the old man if he toppled.
But he didn't. He steered expertly into the doorway of a darkened room and stopped his chair.
"Switch on your right," he said in a faint voice.
Delaney fumbled, found the wall plate. Light blazed. It was a long cavern of a room, a study-den-library. Rough, unpainted pine bookshelves rose to the ceiling. Bound volumes, some in ancient leather covers. Paperbacks. Magazines. Stapled and photocopied academic papers. One shelf of photographs in folders.
There was a ramshackle desk, swivel chair, file cabinet, type-writer on a separate table. A desk lamp. A wilted philodendron.
The room had been dusted; it was not squalid. But it had the deserted look of a chamber long unused. The desktop was blank; the air had a stale odor. It was a deserted room, dying.
Albert Braun looked around.
"I'm leaving all my books and files to the John Jay library," he said. "It's in my will."
"Good," Delaney said.
"The lectures are over there in the lefthand corner. Third shelf up. In manila folders."
Delaney went searching. He found the most recent folder, opened it. At least a dozen copies of a lecture entitled: "Multiple Random Homicides; History and Motives."
"May I take a copy?" he asked.
No answer.
"Professor," he said sharply.
Braun's spurt of energy seemed to have depleted him. He raised his head with difficulty.
"May I take a copy?" Delaney repeated.
"Take all you want," Braun said in a peevish voice. "Take everything. What difference does it make?"
The Chief took one copy of Detective Sergeant Albert Braun's last lecture. He folded it lengthwise, tucked it into his inside jacket pocket.
"We'll get you back to your bedroom now," he said.
But there in the doorway, looming, was big, motherly Mrs. Martha Kaslove. She looked down with horror at the lolling Albert Braun and snatched the glass from his nerveless fingers. Then she looked furiously at Edward X. Delaney.
"What did you do to him?" she demanded.
He said nothing.
"You got him drunk," she accused. "You may have killed him! You get out of here and never, never come back. Don't try to call; I'll hang up on you. And if I see you lurking around, I'll call the cops and have you put away, you disgusting man."
He waited until she had wheeled Albert Braun back to his bedroom. Then Delaney turned off the lights in the study, went downstairs, and found his hat and coat. He called a taxi from the living room phone.
He went outside and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the cab. He looked around at the pleasant, peaceful street, so free of traffic that kids were skateboarding down the middle of the pavement. Nice homes. Private lives.
He was back in Manhattan shortly after 3:30 p.m. In the kitchen, taped to the refrigerator door-she knew how to communicate with him-was a note from Monica. She had gone to a symposium and would return no later than 5:30. He was to put the chicken and potatoes in the oven at precisely 4:00.