Dance Of Death

'Dinnie? Vin? Sure you don't want any help in there?'

'No!' Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta tried to keep his voice cool and even. 'No. It's all right. Just a couple more minutes.'

He glanced up at the clock: almost nine. A couple more minutes. Yeah, right. He'd be lucky if he had dinner on the table by ten.

Laura Hayward's kitchen-he still thought of it as hers; he'd only moved in six weeks before-was usually an oasis of order, as calm and immaculate as Hayward herself. Now the place looked like a war zone. The sink was overflowing with soiled pots. Half a dozen empty cans lay in and around the wastebasket, dribbling out remnants of tomato sauce and olive oil. Almost as many cookbooks lay open on the counter, their pages obscured by bread crusts and blizzards of flour. The lone window looking down on the snowy intersection of 77th and First was speckled with grease from frying sausages. Although the vent fan was going full blast, the odor of burned meat lingered stubbornly in the air.

For weeks now, whenever their schedules allowed time with each other, Laura had thrown together-almost effortlessly, it seemed- meal after delicious meal. D'Agosta had been astonished. For his soon-to-be-ex-wife, now up in Canada, cooking had always been anordeal accompanied by histrionic sighs, clanging of pans, and- more often than not-disagreeable results. It was like night and day with Laura.

But along with his astonishment, D'Agosta also felt a bit threatened. As a detective captain in the NYPD, not only did Laura Hayward outrank him, but she outcooked him as well. Everybody knew men made the best chefs, especially Italians. They blew the French out of the water. And so he'd kept promising to cook her a real Italian dinner, just like his grandmother used to make. Each time he repeated the promise, the meal seemed to grow in complexity and spectacle. And at last, tonight was the night he would cook his grandmother's lasagna napoletana.

Except that once he got in the kitchen, he realized he didn't remember exactly how his grandmother cooked lasagna napoletana. Oh, he'd watched dozens of times. He'd often helped out. But what precisely went into that ragu she spooned over the layers of pasta? And what was it she'd added to those tiny meatballs that-along with the sausage and various cheeses-made up the filling? He had turned in his desperation to Laura's cookbooks, but each one had offered conflicting suggestions. And so now here he was, hours later, everything at varying stages of completion, frustration mounting by the second.

He heard Laura say something from her banishment in the living room. He took a deep breath.

'What was that, babe?'

'I said I'll be home late tomorrow. Rocker's having a state-of-the-force meeting with all the captains on January 22. That leaves me only Monday evening to get status reports and personnel records up to date.'

'Rocker and his paperwork. How is your pal the commissioner, by the way?'

'He's not my pal.'

D'Agosta turned back to the ragu, boiling away on the stove. He remained convinced that he'd gotten his old job on the force back, his seniority restored, only because Laura had put a word in Rocker's ear. He didn't like it, but there it was.

A huge bubble of ragu rose from the pot, burst like a volcanic eruption, and spewed sauce over his hand. 'Ouch!' he cried, dousing the hand in dishwater while turning down the flame.

'What's up?'

'Nothing. Everything's just fine.' He stirred the sauce with a wooden spoon, realized the bottom had burned, moved it hastily onto a back burner. He raised the spoon to his lips a little gingerly. Not bad, not bad at all. Decent texture, nice mouth feel, only a slight burned taste. Not like his grandmother's, though.

'What else goes in the ragu, Nonna?' he murmured.

If there was any response from the choir invisible, D'Agosta couldn't hear it.

Suddenly, there was a loud hissing from the stove. The giant pot of salted water was bubbling over. Swallowing a curse, D'Agosta turned down the heat on that as well, tore open a box of pasta, dumped in a pound of lasagna.

The sound of music filtered in from the living room: Laura had put on a Steely Dan CD. 'I swear I'm going to speak to the landlord about that doorman,' she said through the door.

'Which doorman?'

'That new one who came on a few weeks ago. He's the surliest guy I've ever met. What kind of a doorman doesn't even open the door for you? And this morning he wouldn't call me a cab. Just shook his head and walked away. I don't think he speaks English. At least, he pretends he doesn't.'

What do you expect for twenty-five hundred a month? D'Agosta thought to himself. But it was her apartment, so he kept his mouth shut. And it was her money that paid the rent-at least for now. He was determined to change that as soon as possible.

When he'd moved in, he hadn't brought any expectations with him. He'd just gone through one of the worst times in his life, and he refused to let himself think more than a day ahead. Also, he was still in the early stages of what promised to be an unpleasant divorce: a new romantic entanglement probably wasn't the smartest thing for him right now. But this had turned out far better than he could ever have hoped. Laura Hayward was more than a girlfriend or lover-she'd become a soulmate. He'd thought that their both being on the job, her ranking him, would be a problem. It was just the opposite: it gave them common ground, a chance to help each other, to talk about their cases without worrying about confidentiality or second-guessers.

'Any new leads on the Dangler?' he heard Laura ask from the living room.

The Dangler was the NYPD's pet name for a perp who'd recently been stealing money from ATMs with a hacked bank card, then exposing his johnson to the security camera. Most of the incidents had been in D'Agosta's precinct.

'Got a possible eyewitness to yesterday's job.'

'Eyewitness to what?' Laura asked suggestively.

'To the face, of course.' D'Agosta gave the pasta a stir, regulated the boil. He glanced at the oven, made sure it was up to temperature. Then he turned back to the messy counter, mentally going over everything. Sausage: check. Meatballs: check. Ricotta, Parmesan, and mozzarella fiordilatte: all check. Looks like I might pull this one out of a hat, after all…

Hell. He still had to grate the Parmesan.

He threw open a drawer, began rummaging frantically. As he did so, he thought he heard the doorbell ring.

Maybe it was his imagination: Laura didn't get all that many callers, and he sure as hell didn't get any. Especially this time of night. It was probably a delivery from the Vietnamese restaurant downstairs, knocking at the wrong door.

His hand closed over the box grater. He yanked it out, set it on the counter, grabbed the brick of Parmesan. He chose the face with the finest grate, raised the Parmesan to the steel.

'Vinnie?' Laura said. 'You'd better come out here.'

D'Agosta hesitated only a moment. Something in her tone made him drop everything on the counter and walk out of the kitchen.

She was standing in the front doorway of the apartment, speaking to a stranger. The man's face was in shadow, and he was dressed in an expensive trench coat. Something about him seemed familiar.

Then the man took a step forward, into the light. D'Agosta caught his breath.

'You!' he said.

The man bowed. 'And you are Vincent D'Agosta.'

Laura glanced back at him. Who's he? her expression read.

Slowly, D'Agosta released the breath. 'Laura,' he said, 'I'd like you to meet Proctor. Agent Pendergast's chauffeur.'

Her eyes widened in surprise.

Proctor bowed. 'Delighted to make your acquaintance, ma'am.'

She simply nodded in reply.

Proctor turned back to D'Agosta. 'Now, sir, if you'd kindly come with me?'