I kneeled next to Dempsey who looked dead, eyes halfway shut like that, and reached over to pull the knife out of his chest.

But then stopped, not wanting to do more damage if he was still alive (me having done enough not mentioning Gaga's Sickblade vibes). Didn't want to put my prints on the handle either, or mess up any that were already on there.

I put my ear down next to his nose, heard wheezy breathing, not much, but some. Had a close view of the blood that was pumping out from around the knife, soaking his shirt.

Get his people here.

I jumped up and took a quick look around. Where was Gaga? I had a flash of Sickblade grabbing her and then stabbing Dempsey when he came to check on her. Which I should have been doing myself. But how did Sickblade get in here with nobody seeing?

I squeezed back out the door and ran down the hall for help.

Went to where I knew the nearest SWAT guy would be and brought him running back.

"Jesus Christ," he said, when he saw Dempsey. Blurted into his earbud mic, "Emergency, all units. Emergency in the dressing rooms. We have an officer down."

In less than a minute the room filled with SWATs. Three or four of them bent over Dempsey, one of them calling EMS for an ambulance. They moved him further away from the door, being careful, so people could go in and out. The knife was still in his chest, a long one, by the look of the handle, so it must have gone deep. Dempsey had to be breathing his last.

"Oh, shit" one of the SWATs bent over him said. He was poking around Dempsey's hip, his holster. "The prick took Dempsey's gun."

I could see the holster was empty.

Pissed-off sounds went around the room and out to the hall. Sickblade was sticking it to these guys, showing them he was the man.

"You didn't see anybody?"

Somebody speaking to me, a black cop in civvies, one of the undercover people.

"I found the place just like this," I said. "Gaga asked me to meet her here."

"Where is she?"

"That's what I'd like to know."

He was about to ask something else when a cop leaning over Dempsey called to him. "Sergeant Gibb..."

The black cop turned. "What?"

"He took Dempsey's cuffs."

# # #

Sickblade had Gaga handcuffed and gagged, the gun he took from Dempsey pointed at her face.

"One bad move," he hissed, "and your head is hash. I got nothing to lose."

They were both sitting on the floor in the small elevator that Belasco had long ago installed to connect his apartment upstairs with the speakeasy that had been in the basement. The lift, which wasn't much more than a glorified dumbwaiter, could be accessed from the star's dressing room (Belasco being a hospitable letch) by a seamless secret door that was built into the wall of the room's wardrobe closet. Because the former speakeasy was now a storage space filled with junk, the elevator was never used. Hardly anybody knew it was there.

But Sickblade knew.

Once he'd gotten Gaga inside the elevator, after pulling the closet door shut behind them, he slid the wall section closed so it blended perfectly, and no one would be the wiser. Then he ran the elevator down to the basement. To wait until everything was clear.

If anyone did find them, he had Gaga as hostage.

He could just make out her features in the dark, and the scarf tied around her mouth. "I told you we'd meet again." Bitch probably couldn't believe he'd actually pulled this thing off, had gotten this far. The only problem was the knife. He'd left it in that asshole's chest, didn't have it to do his tongue number on her. So he'd get another one. He leaned his head back against the wall to think.

After a couple minutes, sitting on the dark floor and running his options, listening for any sounds out there in the basement, he felt something in his lap.

Put his hand there and felt a foot. "What're you doing?"

Gaga had slipped her shoe off and was rubbing her bare foot against his fly, wriggling her toes to massage the lump there.

She couldn't speak, not with the scarf gag. Instead she hummed, seductive, like she was enjoying this.

Sick bitch.

But he had to admit, it felt good.

He didn't say anything.

Then she stopped.

"Why you stopping?"

Still, she couldn't answer.

He reached over and jerked the scarf down around her neck. "You yell, you're dead."

Now she could talk. "I'm dead anyway."

"So why the footsie?"

"I want to make a bet."

"What bet?"

"You ever hear of Scheherazade?"

"Who?"

"Right. Long story short, she was the wife of a sultan, long time ago. Guy married a new virgin every day, and would cut off the head of the one from the day before. Never mind why, but when it was Scheherazade's turn, she started telling him stories that were so hot, he let her live so he could hear more. I want to bet I can keep you turned on enough so you won't want to kill me. Use my porn abilities to keep me alive. At least for a bit."

"You're nuts."

"So I'm told."

He stared at her, the foot still in his lap.

"So what about it?" she said, giving her toes a little push. "And besides, you got to get yourself another knife, you want to do me the way you're famous for."

Bitch had all the answers.

Then he shushed her, put the gun in her face, him hearing the sounds of distant voices outside the junked-up room the elevator opened into. Distant like they were in another section of the basement, probably cops posted down here, yelling to each other about something that was going on upstairs (him knowing, of course, what that was). The voices didn't get any closer, and finally they went away.

After he lowered the gun, Gaga said, "What's your place like?"

"What place?"

"Where you do your thing. Your throats and tongues. It'd be a rush for me to see it."

He tried to see her well enough to tell if she was serious.

"Before I'm one of the chosen," she said, "my tongue in your collection. We could do our Scheherazade there, see how long I can keep you on the edge. Hold back the big blowout."

"The big stall. You think I don't know what you're doing?"

"Of course you know. That's half the fun. For both of us."

She let him chew on that. He stayed quiet.

"We're not so different," she said.

"Yeah, how?"

"My friends tell me I'm a risk junkie. I get off on stuff like this."

"So?"

"So take some risk yourself."

"I do that all the time."

"But not with Gaga in the act. Lady Fucking Gaga."

He squinted at her, like where did this one come from?

She looked at the pistol. "And besides, you've got the gun."

She started working her foot again, the arousal rub.

He didn't stop her.

# # #

I could tell that the cops, for whatever reason, thought I had something to do with Dempsey getting knifed, with Gaga disappearing. The EMS guys were here lifting Dempsey onto a gurney to take to the ambulance, him apparently still alive. I couldn't tell if the doc who'd come with them had pulled the knife out or not, me in the hallway now, keeping my distance.

I was trying to figure where Sickblade could have taken Gaga, the guy a slippery sonofabitch who knew places no one else did.

Then I got an idea.

I told Sergeant Gibb, the black undercover cop, him just now clipping his badge to his sportcoat, that I was going to get myself out of the way, go sit in one of the orchestra seats and try to figure where Gaga could be.

He gave me a look like I was top of his shit list. "Don't leave the building," he said.

"I won't."

I went up and took the same seat I'd listened to Gaga from. The musicians who'd played with her were taking a break, probably wondering what all the SWATs running around and yelling were about. They'd know soon enough. I pulled out my phone and called Curly Sasso.

"Hey, it's Toko. I need another favor. A big one."

I told him the situation with Gaga and Sickblade, telling him to keep it to himself, and after he'd made some remarks about deep shit, told him I needed some technical help - needed to talk to his guy in the cop crime lab.

"Why can't the cops there call him?"

"They probably could, but this'll be faster, what I have in mind. And I want to see if your guy thinks it'll work." Plus I wanted to keep some control, me still on bodyguard duty for the client I'd lost to a fucking psycho killer. Not to mention my personal feelings for her, which I knew weren't likely to be mutual now.

"See if what'll work?" Curly said.

"Pinging - her cell phone. If you can conference us, I'll explain what I'm thinking to the both of you."

Curly gave it a moment, then called his friend, who picked up, thank you, on the second ring. Curly introduced me on the conference hookup, and I went into my plan.

Because the bad guys these days are doing so much business electronically (yours truly included), cell phone makers by law have to put surveillance chips or whatever in all their devices. Any cell phone, throwaways included, has to be traceable 24-7 by its connection with cell towers and the network. I wanted Curly's tech cop to have his people send a silent electronic pulse - pings - to Gaga's phone and pinpoint her location (me sincerely hoping she had her phone with her).

"And then what?" the guy asked.

"I bring in the troops." Me then dropping Sergeant Gibb's name to add some credibility.

After some more back and forth, I gave him Gaga's number and he went to work.

First he had to connect with Gaga's service provider and start the pinging. Hopefully she was in a place where the pulses could reach her. If they did, he'd fix where the longitude and latitude crossed and email me a link to Mapquest showing where that was. Where she was.

This all took about twenty minutes, which under the circumstances seemed a lot longer. I was tempted to call Gaga's phone myself, was glad now I hadn't, with Sickblade likely to be right there to get nasty.

The lab guy's silent pinging found its target and the Mapquest link came through. I could see by what showed on my phone that Gaga was still here in the building.

But it didn't show a specific spot where she was and this was a big place, nooks and crannies to hide in all through it.

"If she was moving we could be more exact," the tech cop said.

I said, "How about if I move and you track me? Then see if you can connect the two pulses and beam me in on her?" Which had pretty much been my plan from the first.

"We can try. What's your number?"

I gave it to him and went to find Sergeant Gibb.

He was where I'd left him, outside Gaga's dressing room. No need for him to go back to being undercover, since Sickblade had already made his score. I wasn't about to point that out, first because it was snarky, and second because I'd screwed up as much as he had.

He was talking to two other SWATs, guys in battle gear. When he looked my way I said, "Gaga is still in the building."

He gave me a brushoff look. Most of the SWATs had spread out already to search the place. Some had been posted outside in case Sickblade tried to make a break. So what I'd just said wasn't news.

"I think I can find exactly where she is."

That got his attention. "What do you mean?"

I told him about the pinging plan.

"It's kind of like a Geiger counter," I said.

"Why didn't you go through me on this?"

Because you're a ball-breaker I wanted to say, but gave him a non-answer instead. "The lab's already tracking me, I better keep moving."

Which I did, heading down the hall to the door that opened to the stairs going up to Belasco's old apartment, where Gaga had her session with his ghost. I started up the stairs, Gibb and the two other SWATs close behind, and me on the phone with the lab guy tracking me.

"You're getting weaker," he said when I was almost at the top.

"Got it, thanks." I turned around and started back down.

Kept going on down to the basement, Gibb and the SWATs still with me.

"You're getting stronger," the lab guy said.

"Good," I said, and gave Gibb a thumbs-up.

I could hear the SWATs rack their weapons.

Gibb got on his earbud mic and gave a heads-up to everyone in the building and outside that we were closing in on Gaga, and that she was likely being held by Sickblade. "No cowboy stuff if he's got her," Gibb said. "He's got Dempsey's weapon."

We were in the basement passage now that had the storage spaces on each side that were crammed with old scenery and props - and maybe Gaga, still alive, I hoped.

When we got to the old coal bin, the guy on my phone spoke up. "Your signal is very strong now."

The tunnel. He was taking her out through the tunnel.

But weren't there guys posted there?

And wouldn't her signal be getting weaker the further into the tunnel he took her?

Anyway, check it out.

I led Gibb and the two SWATs down the narrow aisle that ran along the side of the coal bin, stepping around the paint cans I'd helped Gaga stack on the floor. At the end, where the storage shelves had been that hid the tunnel, there was the SWAT team that had been posted to guard it.

"Anyone come through here?" Gibb asked, chances being zero that these guys would have let them pass.

"Not since we got back," one of them said.

"What do you mean, got back?"

"When word went out that Dempsey got stabbed, we responded."

"Shit." All of us knowing that's when Sickblade could have taken off with Gaga.

But then someone behind us spoke up. "Sarge?"

It was one of the two SWATs who had come down with us, who had hung back and had his head cocked like he was hearing something.

"Listen," he said.

Everyone went quiet.

"You hear it?"

Not really.

And then, yeah, I did. A kind of distant thumping.

Except it wasn't distant. It was coming from behind one of the walls.

I looked at Gibb. He heard it, too.

Someone was sending a signal.

(To be continued...)