Whistleblower

'Did you tell him?'

'That jerk?' Jack laughed. 'I wouldn't bother to give him the time of day. I sure as hell wasn't going to tell him about—' Jack paused and cleared his throat. 'I wasn't going to tell him anything. Even if I knew. Which I don't.'

Polowski slipped his badge into his pocket, all the time gazing steadily at Jack. 'I think we should talk, Mr. Zuckerman.'

'What about?'

'About your ex-wife. About the fact she's in big trouble.'

'That,' sighed Jack, 'I already know.'

'She's going to get hurt. I can't fill you in on all the details because I'm still in the dark myself. But I do know one woman's already been hit. Your wife—'

'My ex-wife.'

'Your ex-wife could be next.'

Jack, unconvinced, merely looked at him.

'It's your duty as a citizen to tell me what you know,' Polowski reminded him.

'My duty. Right.'

'Look, cooperate, and you and me, we'll get along just fine. Give me grief, and I'll give you grief.' Polowski smiled. Jack didn't. 'Now, Mr. Zuckerman. Hey, can I call you Jack? Jack, why don't you tell me where she is? Before it's too late. For both of you.'

Jack scowled at him. He drummed his fingers against the door frame. He debated. At last he stepped aside. 'As a law-abiding citizen, I suppose it is my duty.' Grudgingly, he waved the man in. 'Oh, just come in, Polowski. I'll tell you what I know.'

The window shattered, raining slivers into the gloomy space beyond.

Cathy winced at the sound. 'Sorry, Hickey,' she said under her breath.

'We'll make it up to him,' said Victor, knocking off the remaining shards. 'We'll send him a nice fat check. You see anyone?'

She glanced up and down the alley. Except for a crumpled newspaper tumbling past the trash cans, nothing moved. A few blocks away, car horns blared, the sounds of another Union Street traffic jam.

'All clear,' she whispered.

'Okay.' Victor draped his windbreaker over the sill. 'Up you go.'

He gave her a lift to the window. She clambered through and landed among the glass shards. Seconds later, Victor dropped down beside her.

They were standing in the studio dressing room. Against one wall hung a rack of women's lingerie; against the other were makeup tables and a long mirror.

Victor frowned at a cloud of peach silk flung over one of the chairs. 'What kind of photos does your friend take, anyway?'

'Hickey specializes in what's politely known as 'boudoir portraits.''

Victor's startled gaze turned to a black lace negligee hanging from a wall hook. 'Does that mean what I think it means?'

'What do you think it means?'

'You know.'

She headed into the next room. 'Hickey insists it's not pornography. It's tasteful erotic art....' She stopped in her tracks as she came face-to-face with a photo blowup on the wall. Naked limbs—eight, maybe more—were entwined in a sort of human octopus. Nothing was left to the imagination. Nothing at all.

'Tasteful,' Victor said dryly.

'That must be one of his, uh, commercial assignments.'

'I wonder what product they were selling.'

She turned and found herself staring at another photograph. This time it was two women, drop-dead gorgeous and wearing not a stitch.

'Another commercial assignment?' Victor inquired politely over her shoulder.

She shook her head. 'Don't ask.'

In the front room they found a week's worth of mail piled up beneath the door slot, darkroom catalogues and advertising flyers. The roll of film Cathy had mailed the day before was not yet in the mound.

'I guess we just sit around and wait for the postman,' she said.

He nodded. 'Seems like a safe-enough place. Any chance your friend keeps food around?'

'I seem to remember a refrigerator in the other room.'

She led Victor into what Hickey had dubbed his 'shooting gallery.' Cathy flipped the wall switch and the vast room was instantly illuminated by a dazzling array of spotlights.

'So this is where he does it,' said Victor, blinking in the sudden glare. He stepped over a jumble of electrical cords and slowly circled the room, regarding with humorous disbelief the various props. It was a strange collection of objects: a genuine English phone booth, a street bench, an exercise bicycle. In a place of honor sat a four- poster bed. The ruffled coverlet was Victorian; the handcuffs dangling from the bedposts were not.

Victor picked up one of the cuffs and let it fall again. 'Just how good a friend is this Hickey guy, anyway?'

'None of this stuff was here when he shot me a month ago.'

'He photographed you?' Victor turned and stared at her.

She flushed, imagining the images that must be flashing through his mind. She could feel his gaze undressing her, posing her in a sprawl across that ridiculous four-poster bed. With the handcuffs, no less.

'It wasn't like—like these other photos,' she protested. 'I mean, I just did it as a favor....'

'A favor?'

'It was a purely commercial shot!'

'Oh.'

'I was fully dressed. In overalls, as a matter of fact. I was supposed to be a plumber.'

'A lady plumber?'

'I was an emergency standin. One of his models didn't show up that day, and he needed someone with an ordinary face. I guess that's me. Ordinary. And it really was just my face.'

'And your overalls.'

'Right.'

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

'I can guess what you were thinking,' she said.

'I don't even want to tell you what I was thinking.' He turned and glanced around the room. 'Didn't you say there was some food around here?'

She crossed the room to the refrigerator. Inside she found a shelf of film plus a jar of sweet pickles, some rubbery carrots and half a salami. In the freezer they discovered real treasures: ground Sumatran coffee and a loaf of sourdough bread.

Grinning, she turned to him. 'A feast!'

They sat together on the four-poster bed and gnawed on salami and half-frozen sourdough, all washed down with cups of coffee. It was a bizarre little picnic, paper plates with pickles and carrots resting in their laps, the spotlights glaring down like a dozen hot suns from the ceiling.

'Why did you say that about yourself?' he asked, watching her munch a carrot.

'Say what?'

'That you're ordinary. So ordinary that you get cast as the lady plumber?'

'Because I am ordinary.'

'I don't think so. And I happen to be a pretty good judge of character.'

She looked up at a wall poster featuring one of Hickey's super models. The woman stared back with a look of glossy confidence. 'Well, I certainly don't measure up to that.'

'That,' he said, 'is pure fantasy. That isn't a real