It was hard to keep from looking over my shoulder, but I kept walking west away from the park, eyes front, and stayed on the phone with Gaga.

"You sure?" I said.

"It's him. I can sense it."

"Shit. How close?"

"Maybe a hundred feet."

"Can you take a picture?"

"Too far away. And I'm about to lose you both at the corner. I'm calling the cops downstairs."

"Wait, before you do," I said, cutting across the Broadway intersection at the Time Warner Center, people around me going in and out of the two glass towers. "Maybe there's a chance to set something up. Grab him. He's not going to pull anything in the middle of all this."

"Set what up?" she said. "And whatever it is, hurry up."

I tried to think while I kept walking and turned west again onto Fifty-Eighth. "There's a coffee shop on Ninth Avenue called Khave's. The cops'll know it. I'll go there and watch who comes in. You tell the cops that's where I'll be and they can block it off front and back. I'll call you from there."

"You know what he looks like?"

"I'll try to get a look between here and there."

I got off the phone so she could call the two cops assigned to her, kept walking on Fifty-Eighth, eyes ahead until I got to Roosevelt Hospital. I crossed Ninth Avenue and turned left to go to Khave's, checking reflections in the store windows to see if I could spot anyone back there who looked likely. Had to ask myself, Why follow me? What' did I have for him? And was he still back there? I'd just about gotten to Khave's when somebody yelled out my name.

"Hey, Rausch!"

I whipped around and looked across Ninth. Saw Harvey Campanella, a kid from the block I grew up on who always had the latest scheme for making us all millionaires. The last one had us fencing stolen car parts and almost got the whole crew a stint on Riker's Island.

"Hey, what's up?" I said as he came jogging across Ninth, ignoring the pissed-off honks around him.

"Not much," he said, pointing his scraggy goatee toward Khave's. "Can I buy you a cup?"

I thought for a second, realized he'd probably make a good cover for me, make it look like less of a setup. "Why not?" I said, holding Khave's door for him. We went inside, me darting a look behind me, seeing no likely suspects.

Half a block back, across the street, Sickblade had ducked into a doorway. He stood here now, out of sight, trying to process the yell he'd just heard.

Rausch?

That's what the other kid called him.

Same name as the hooker they were blaming him for killing, the one that he didn't.

Tanya.

This was, what, her brother?

Like how many Rausches could there be around here?

All of a sudden a lot of questions for why he'd bother following the kid (it started with vibes) just got answered.

And a lot of other ones just opened up.

# # #

Police Commissioner Sherner wasn't especially fond of pizza, but the back booth in the hole-in-the-wall on the Lower East Side was his preferred spot for confidential meetings. The owner was an ex-cop who knew to keep his mouth shut.

Sherner needed to talk to Dempsey, serious talk, and the rear of his official car with two detectives sitting up front wasn't the place to do it. Neither was his office at One Police Plaza, not his townhouse either, where Doris was having people back for lunch after the museum meeting.

So here he was sitting with Dempsey at the booth's table with all the initials carved in it, a sausage pizza between them that neither one had touched.

"Tell me again," Sherner said, "exactly how it was done."

"You mean the procedure?"

"I mean the fucking fetus. How was it destroyed?"

"The way anything they remove from anybody in the operating room is. They burn it."

"You saw them do it? The burning?"

"No, I didn't see it. They put it in a haz-mat bag and took it out of the room."

"Who took it out?"

"One of the assistants," Dempsey said. "A nurse I think."

"You think."

"Yes, it was a nurse. What's going on here?"

"I want her cross-examined."

"What?"

"Alone. I want her to tell you exactly how she did it. You watch for the slightest tell-tale to see if she's lying."

"And what if she is?"

"You make her tell you what the hell she did with it."

Dempsey flicked his eyes around to make sure no one else had come into their part of the dimly-lit eatery. "With all respect, we're getting into some risky shit here."

"You don't think facing a murder charge would be risky?" Sherner let his eyes bore into the detective. Kept them there, letting the words sink in.

Dempsey sat there looking uneasy. No place to look but back at Sherner. Then his phone chirped and he quickly reached to his pocket. Stopped and raised his eyebrows.

"Take it," Sherner said.

Dempsey put the phone to his ear. "What?"

Sherner watched him on the call, Dempsey giving a few grunts and nods.

Then Dempsey said, "Wait for me. Don't go in until I'm there. I'm leaving right now. I'll call from the car." He clicked off and slid over to get up.

Sherner said, "What was that?"

"They're about to put a move on Sickblade. They've got him staked."

"Where?"

"Coffee shop on Ninth Avenue."

"They're sure it's him? How did they find him"

"Lady Gaga saw him following the kid Toko." Dempsey slid out of the booth and turned for the door.

"Mark?"

Dempsey stopped, looked back.

"You make sure it's him."

"Of course."

"You make sure and then you eliminate him. Fast. However you have to do it."

Dempsey stood there a second - then nodded and turned to go.

"Mark?"

Again Dempsey stopped.

"And then you find out about that fetus."

# # #

I could tell it was Gaga but no one else could, her coming into Khave's in her Mets cap and dark glasses and taking a seat by herself. She pulled out her iPhone and sat there texting until Wilma the waitress came by. Wilma didn't give any sign of recognition, took the lady's order and went to get her coffee.

We didn't look at each other, but after a minute we hooked up on our phones.

"Who's your friend?" Gaga said quietly.

Harvey Campanella was still sitting with me. He'd been pitching his latest scheme, bootleg theater passes he said he could get for standing room at the sold-out shows. Sell them to folks outside trying to get in and give a cut to the ushers. Been there done that, I told him, but thought how he could make some decent change off Gaga's shows alone.

"He's from the neighborhood," I told Gaga on the phone. "A show biz entrepreneur."

Harvey gave me a funny look, like Who was I talking to?

I turned away and spoke low so he couldn't hear me. "What's the deal with the cops?"

"They're all set outside," Gaga said. "Dempsey just got here."

"Dempsey's here?"

"Sickblade's his show now."

That figured. "How many more are out there?"

"Just him and his driver and the two assigned to me."

"And you're the bait, your vibes with this guy."

"We'll see. I mean, he was following you, not me."

"So why are you here?"

"I don't want to miss the finale."

Something wasn't right. There should be more cops, a SWAT team. Or maybe there were and Gaga didn't see them. They wouldn't exactly be holding a rally.

I watched Wilma work her way back between the tables, bringing Gaga her coffee and a piece of pastry. Across the room behind her, a man I'd never seen before came in the door. He looked around, saw Gaga and went over and sat with her. He said something to Wilma who nodded and went off.

"Who's he?" I asked Gaga on the phone.

"The detective who brought Dempsey." Her being more diplomatic than to say Dempsey's driver.

I went back to bullshitting with Harvey Campanella, keeping one eye on the door.

About five minutes later another man came in, work clothes and a little scruffy, no one I recognized. Right away he got the detective and Gaga's attention, the detective pulling out his phone. The man said something to Khave's owner, who was tallying checks by the register. The owner turned around and looked over at me, nodded in my direction. The man nodded thanks and started towards me, making his way around the tables.

Shit, was this Sickblade? I'd never really seen him.

When he was just about to our table, he stuck his hand inside his jacket pocket and started to pull something out.

Knife? Gun? He almost had it out now.

And now the front door banged open and here was Dempsey in that two-handed pistol stance, his piece on Sickblade or whoever.

"Freeze!"

But Sickblade didn't. He turned and faced Dempsey, hand still in his pocket.

Dempsey wasn't going to chance getting whacked. Had his Glock aimed at Sickblade's chest. I could see his finger squeezing the trigger.

Just before the shot got off, Sickblade went sprawling onto the floor, knocking over tables and sending drinks and food flying every which-way.

Harvey Campanella was on top of him.

"The fuck're you doing?" I yelled at him.

"He was gonna get shot," Harvey said.

"He was gonna shoot me!"

"You're nuts. Marty never hurt no one."

"Who?"

Then Dempsey was there, grabbing Harvey and flinging him off the guy on the floor. The guy still had his hand inside his pocket. Dempsey whipped his gun up. People ducked and screamed.

"No!" Gaga yelled and ran over.

BAM!

She shoved the gun down just as it fired, the shot going into the floor. "That's not him!" she said, sounding like an echo of herself last night. She put herself between Dempsey and the guy.

Dempsey was furious. "Take your hand out of your pocket," he told the guy. "Slow."

The guy did. All he had in his hand was a folded piece of paper.

The poor jerk's name turned out to be Marty Halloran, a local who, like Harvey said, never hurt no one.

He looked up at me. "Are you Rausch?"

"Yeah?"

"Here." He held out the folded paper. "Guy give me five bucks to bring it here to you. Jesus Christ."

"When?" Dempsey said, grabbing the paper before I could.

"Couple minutes ago," Halloran said, wheezing, his watery eyes going back and forth between Dempsey and me.

"Which direction was he?" Dempsey again.

"Uptown."

Dempsey jerked his head at the detective who'd been sitting with Gaga to get his ass moving. The guy did, was out the door, whatever good it would do now.

I saw my chance and snatched the paper from Dempsey. Opened it and saw the same printing I'd seen this morning. Read it quick before Dempsey grabbed it back and pushed me away.

I acted pissed. "That was for me."

"You're lucky I don't bust you," Dempsey said. He shoved the note in his pocket, pointed at Halloran to stay put, and took off out the door.

But I'd seen what the note said:

I didn't kill your sister.

(To be continued...)