Dance Of Death

back to 'our paper.'

Our paper. Oh, God.

Everything had been going his way. He was a rising star at the Times, had nailed half a dozen great scoops in as many months. Fen-ton Davies, his editor, had started turning automatically to Smithback when it came time to hand out the big assignments. He'd finally convinced his girlfriend Nora to stop chasing old bones and digging up pots long enough to get hitched. And their honeymoon at Angkor Wat had been a dream-especially the week they'd spent at the lost temple of Banteay Chhmar, hacking through the jungle, braving snakes, malaria, and stinging ants while exploring the vast ruins. He remembered thinking, on the plane ride home, that life couldn't possibly get any better.

And he'd been right.

Despite Harriman's smarmy collegiality, it was clear from day one that he was gunning for Smithback. It wasn't the first time they'd crossed swords, but never before at the same paper. How had he managed to get rehired by the Times while Smithback was halfway around the world? The way Harriman sucked up to Davies, bringing the editor lattes every morning, hanging on his every word like he was the Oracle of Delphi, made Smithback's gorge rise. But it seemed to be working: just last week, Harriman had bagged the Dangler story, which by rights belonged to Smithback.

Smithback quickened his jog. Sixty-fifth and Broadway-the spot where some guy had reportedly fallen right into the midst of dozens of people eating lunch-was just ahead now. He could see the cluster of television cameras, reporters checking their cassette recorders, soundmen setting up boom microphones. This was his chance to outshine Harriman, seize the momentum.

No briefing under way yet, thank God.

He shook his head, muttering under his breath as he elbowed his way through the crowd.

Up ahead, he could see the glassed-in cafe of La Vielle Ville. Inside, police were still working the scene: the periodic flash of the police photographer lit up the glass restaurant. Crime scene tape was draped everywhere like yellow bunting. His eye rose to the glass roof of the cafe and the huge, jagged hole where the victim had fallen through, and still farther, up the broad facade of Lincoln Towers, until it reached the broken window from which the victim had precipitated. He could see cops there, too, and the bright bursts of a flash unit.

He pushed forward, looking around for witnesses. 'I'm a reporter,' he said loudly. 'Bill Smithback, New York Times. Anybody see what happened?'

Several faces turned to regard him silently. Smithback took them in: a West Side matron carrying a microscopic Pomeranian; a bicycle messenger; a man balancing a large box filled with Chinese takeout on one shoulder; half a dozen others.

'I'm looking for a witness. Anybody see anything?'

Silence. Most of them probably don't even speak English, he thought.

'Anybody know anything?'

At this, a man wearing earmuffs and a heavy coat nodded vigorously. 'A man,' he said in a thick Indian accent. 'He fall.'

This was useless. Smithback pushed himself deeper into the crowd. Up ahead, he spotted a policeman, shooing people onto the sidewalk, trying to clear the cross street.

'Hey, Officer!' Smithback called out, using his elbows to dig through the gawking herd. 'I'm from the Times. What happened here?'

The officer stopped barking orders long enough to glance his way. Then he went back to his work.

'Any ID on the victim?'

But the cop ignored him completely.

Smithback watched his retreating back. Typical. A lesser reporter might be content to wait for the official briefing, but not him. He'd get the inside scoop, and he wouldn't even break a sweat trying.

As he looked around again, his eye stopped at the main entrance to the apartment tower. The building was huge, probably sported a thousand apartments at least. There'd be people inside who knew the victim, could provide some color, maybe even speculate on what happened. He craned his neck, counting floors, until he again reached the open window. Twenty-fourth floor.

He began pushing his way through the crowd again, avoiding the megaphone-wielding cops, tacking as directly as he could toward the building's entrance. It was guarded by three large policemen who looked like they meant business. How on earth was he going to get in? Claim to be a tenant? That wasn't likely to work.

As he paused to survey the milling throng of press outside, his equanimity quickly returned. They were all waiting, like restless sheep, for some police brass to come out and begin the briefing. Smithback looked on pityingly. He didn't want the same story everybody else got: spoon-fed by the authorities, telling only what they wanted to tell with the requisite spin attached. He wanted the real story: the story that lay on the twenty-fourth floor of Lincoln Towers.

He turned away from the crowd and headed in the opposite direction. All big apartment buildings like this had a service entrance.

He followed the facade of the building up Broadway until he finally reached its end, where a narrow alley separated it from the next building. Thrusting his hands back into his pockets, he turned down the alley, whistling jauntily.

A moment later, his whistling stopped. Up ahead lay a large metal door marked Service Entrance-Deliveries. Standing beside the door was another cop. He was staring at Smithback and speaking into a small radio clipped to his collar.

Damn. Well, he couldn't just stop dead in his tracks and turn around-that would look suspicious. He'd just walk right past the cop like he was taking a shortcut behind the building.

'Morning, Officer,' he said as he came abreast of the policeman.

'Afternoon, Mr. Smithback,' the cop replied.

Smithback felt his jaw tighten.

Whoever was in charge of this homicide investigation was a pro, did things by the book. But Smithback was not some third-rate line stringer. If there was another way in, he'd find it. He followed the alley around the back of the building until it turned a right angle, heading once again toward 65th.

Yes. There, not thirty yards in front of him, was the staff entrance to La Vielle Ville. Deserted, with no cop loitering around outside. If he couldn't get to the twenty-fourth floor, at least he could check out the place where the man had landed.

He moved forward quickly, excitement adding spring to his step. Once he'd checked out the restaurant, there might even be a way to get into the high-rise. There had to be connecting passages, perhaps through the basement.

Smithback reached the battered metal door, pulled it ajar, began to step in.

Then he froze. There, beside a brace of massive stoves, several policemen were taking statements from cooks and waiters.

Everybody slowly turned to look at him.

He put a tentative foot in, like he was going somewhere.

'No press,' barked one of the cops.

'Sorry,' he said, flashing what he feared was a ghastly smile. 'Wrong way.'

And, very gently, he closed the door and stepped back, walking back around to the front of the building, where he was once more repelled by the sight of the vast herd of reporters, all waiting like sheep to the slaughter.

No way, not him, not Bill Smithback of the Times. His eye cast around for some angle of attack, some idea that hadn't occurred to the others-and then he saw it: a pizza delivery man on a motorbike, hopelessly trying to work his way through the crowd. He was a skinny man with no chin wearing a silly hat that said Romeo's Pizzeria, and his face was splotched and red with frustration.

Smithback approached him, nodded toward the carrier mounted on the back. 'Got a pizza in there?'

'Two,' the man said. 'Look at this shit. They're gonna be stone-cold, and there goes my tip. On top of that, if I don't get it there in twenty minutes, they don't have to pay-'

Smithback cut him off. 'Fifty bucks for your two pizzas and the hat.'

The man looked at him blankly, like a complete idiot.

Smithback pulled out a fifty. 'Here. Take it.'