"I have an idea," Gaga said.

I looked up from my plate. "What is it?"

"We hold a memorial service for Simone."

We were sitting at the granite-topped eating island in her kitchen area that had just been redone, having our breakfast that Esperanza made.  

She picked up a piece of toast. "Before we ship her body."

"Anyone special you're expecting to be there?"

We both knew who that would be.  

"Exactly," she said. "We'll set it up so he can't resist. And besides, I owe it to Simone."

"You're falling into it," I said, "Dempsey using you."

"I want to do it."

"That's what he's counting on."

"So be it. We can't have this guy running around forever."

She was about to bite the toast when Esperanza came in from doing her house chores.

"Excuse me, Miss Gaga."

"Yes Esperanza?"

"A package come for you."

"Thank you. Just leave it here."

Esperanza was still a little shaken from last night, had cleaned up the blood from her boyfriend's head wounds, had told us he was on the mend and OK. She put the small package down next to Gaga and went to finish her chores.    

Gaga bit into her toast.

I said, "You don't think he'll smell it's a trap?"

"Of course he will. But I'm betting he won't be able to resist. He's a narcissist. He thinks he's beyond getting caught."

"How do you know he's a narcissist?" Me not totally sure of the term.

"Trust me."

I knew by now that if she said he's a narcissist, then that's what he was.

"We'll hold it in a place where afterward I can leave to be by myself. Go off and be alone with my thoughts. Lure him. With you watching my back."

"I can wear my Sponge Bob disguise."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Anyway, the cops will have it staked out."

"You make it sound easy."

"Yeah, well, we know better than that." She took another bite of toast.

I took a sip of coffee and glanced at her package. "You going to open that?"

"It'll keep."

"What is it?"

"Probably some costume thing from Roberto. I get them all the time."

I took another sip and thought about what she was proposing. She wanted to do this to avenge Simone, which I could understand, me having revenge issues over Tanya and Szu.

"How do you know he wouldn't just sniper you?" I asked.

"Not his style. He'd want to do it his signature way."

"Which has to be getting tougher for him to pull off."

"So we set it up so it looks easy."

"Why'd I know you'd say that?"

She smiled and brushed her hands together and pulled the package over. Picked up her butter knife to pry it open.

I thought about possible places to stage the setup. A place where he could get close, but still give me and the cops time to grab him. The cops would naturally have their own ideas, which would probably include snipers, so the place would have to be open, for sightlines. And it would have to be free of chances for some citizen getting shot. Maybe the cops already had such places mapped out, in case a situation like this...

"Ayeeeee!"

Gaga screamed and I jumped.

She'd opened the package and batted it away and what was inside fell out. Laid there on the polished granite counter between our breakfast plates.

A human tongue.

"Oh, Jesus," she said. She was freaked but couldn't take her eyes off it.  

Neither could I. We both knew whose tongue it had to be. A piece of folded paper had fallen out with it and I reached to pick it up. Was careful how I unfolded it so as not to smudge anything useful to the cops. It was meant for Gaga to see and I could hear her moan when she read the hand-printed words over my shoulder:

She was alive when I did this. The last sound she made was your name.     

                                                #          #          #

Sickblade looked up at the big view windows in the building across the street, watching from the grove of trees where he hid in the park. Could imagine her opening the package and probably going bullshit. It was a tossup, he thought, as to which had given him more pleasure – the tongue thing or what had inspired him to send it in the first place; a flashback to that time in school when he cut off the cat's head. Sent it to that girl who stiffed him who had the hots for the football asshole. Double satisfaction since it was her cat. And where was she now? Probably fat with balloon tits. But maybe she had a daughter.    

He smiled at how easy it had been to get the package past the cops parked in front there, how he'd flagged down this courier kid on his bike couple blocks over and gave him twenty bucks to make the delivery.    

Getting her address was a no-sweat Google search in the gossip sheets. Nobody had privacy anymore. Him saying her name like a mantra last night while he stood right here across from the building, testing how he could panic her, or maybe draw her out if the two of them really were connected someway. But the mantra thing set off that shitstorm with the maid when their wires apparently crossed. Like he was on a wavelength with people Gaga had feelings for whenever he put himself near them.         

He'd never had a situation like this, sensed he could use it with people besides just her. Like there had to be others. Do some research, learn how to play them.

He stood there in the trees going over it all, the possibilities. Stayed there for he didn't know how long...   

What the hell's this?

He jumped back from something at his feet.

Looked down and saw a dog. A little beagle dragging a leather leash.

"Where the hell'd you come from?"

He squatted down and grabbed the end of the leash.

"C'mere, boy."

He pulled the dog to him, patted its head, calming it down. Read the name plate on the collar.

"Looks like you're a runner, Rowdy."

He looked around, didn't see anyone close by, just some kids in the field over by the carousel playing Frisbee.

"Somebody's gonna be looking for you."

He stood up, took another look around, tugged on the leash and started leading Rowdy toward one of the park's bridle paths. Made soothing sounds and went along easy, following the horse tracks like the two of them were just strolling. He stayed on the path until they came to one of the old stone bridges that Park Drive ran over, him leading the little dog to the tunnel underneath.

"Hey, mister?"

He turned around.

A girl about thirteen or fourteen, wearing a backward baseball cap, came running toward him. "That's my dog," she yelled.

She ran up to him, breathing hard, and held out her hand for the leash. "Thank you for catching him. He ran off after a rat while I was blowing my nose."

Sickblade kept hold of the leash. "How do I know he's yours?"

The girl's expression went blank. Suddenly she was wary. She looked at the dark tunnel behind him, narrowing her eyes. Then she dropped to her knees and opened her arms.

Rowdy ran to her, jumped up and started licking her face.

Sickblade watched them. After a moment he nodded. Tossed her his end of the leash.

"Be more careful," he said, turned and disappeared into the tunnel.

                                                #          #          #

A few blocks away, on East Sixty-Sixth, Police Commissioner Stuart Sherner was on the phone in his bedroom suite, on a call that was rearranging the start of his day. 

"I'll stop by there on my way downtown," he said, and hung up.

His wife Doris was watching him in her dressing table mirror as she made ready for her trustees meeting at the museum. "What was that about?" she asked.

Sherner stood at the window in his white shirt and silk tie staring down at the street.

"Stuart?"

He turned to her. "You know Lady Gaga?"

"Not personally, but I know who she is."

"She just got one of Sickblade's tongues sent to her."

Doris gave her lipstick another dab. "That could be a little off-putting."   

Sherner picked his suit jacket off the bed. "I'll remember that for the press conference, Doris."

Downstairs in the marble entrance hall, one of the detectives permanently assigned to Sherner was waiting by the door. He could tell by the way the commissioner came down the circular staircase that he'd best have the door open.

The two exchanged a quick good-morning, went out and down the front steps to the waiting black car. Sherner got in the back and told the detective behind the wheel they'd be going to Central Park South. The other detective got in the front, the car pulled out and headed down the block toward Fifth Avenue.

While they waited for the light at Fifth, Sherner stared out the window, watching a girl in a baseball cap coming out of the park with a beagle on a leash. The two of them probably did this every day, him envying them their innocence. Life's short innocence. The girl would be exchanging that backward cap for a style-cut before she knew it.

For a couple of seconds it had taken his mind off the Sickblade thing. Jesus, why couldn't he let it go? And of course he knew why.  

The light changed and the car turned onto Fifth, heading south. And still he thought about it. Something in the back of his head, for whatever reason, was keeping at him like some irritating chant.  

That fetus had not been destroyed.  

                                                #          #          #

I left Gaga's building and started walking west on Central Park South, on my way to pick up some clothes and stuff at my place, thinking about how far this thing had come. I mean even the police commish himself had showed up. For a tongue. Two seconds in the room and you could tell he was the man, all the cops and detectives who'd responded to our call-in almost standing at attention. He had a hard look about him, which I guess goes with the job, but it seemed he put a little extra into it when he looked at me.

"Sickblade killed Toko's sister," Dempsey told him when we were introduced. The detective had been one of the first on the scene after Gaga called in the issue.

(Like I've been saying, I had strong reasons, going back to that note Curly's copfriend found, to think it wasn't Sickblade who killed Tanya, even if he did do Szu and all the others, but we didn't get into that.)  

They listened to Gaga's plan for luring Sickblade to Simone's memorial service, them saying that if it went forward it would likely be a sniper and SWAT operation, details of that part kept to as few people as possible, which I got the feeling didn't include me.

After some questions and conversation about Gaga's upcoming schedule and such, they left together, and eventually all the others did too, taking the tongue with them. The two detectives on Gaga detail split up, one of them stationing himself in the lobby (better late than never). I was still the upstairs bodyguard – we'd see how long that lasted. When I left Gaga, she was standing at the big windows, staring out at the park. Not a great place to hang with creeps probably looking back, but I didn't say anything. Anyway, I'd be back soon.

I jogged across Columbus Circle, was just the other side of the fountain at the corner of the park when I felt my phone vibrate. Took it out and saw it was Gaga.

"What's up?"

She was still at the window. "You're being followed."

        (To be continued...)