Chapter Eleven

Chapter ElevenHeading home, finally, I told myself to try to calm down. I was determined to help Sarah get over her trauma, though truthfully I was too tired to really think straight at that mo­ment. So instead I decided to let everything rest for a few hours and try for some distance. In fact, I began imagining myself in a hot bath, gazing at my now-wilting roses. Home Sweet Home.Mine was a standard one-bedroom in a building that had been turned into a co-op five years earlier, the owner offering the individual apartments to the tenants. I'd stayed a renter, however, passing up the "low" insider price, $138,000, be­cause I didn't really have the money, and when I did have it someday I would want something bigger. I wished I had more space—a real dining room and a bigger bathroom would do for starters, along with some place for more bookcases. And if a baby should someday miraculously come along . . .I'd often thought you could tell a lot about somebody from where and how they lived; it's revealing as a Rorschach test. What, I often wondered, did my apartment say about me?A decorator might conclude I'd done up the place with love, then lazily let it go. They'd decide I cared about nice things, but once those nice things were there, I neglected them. It would be true.I'd covered the walls of the living room with pale blue cloth, then hung a lot of framed pictures and old movie post­ers. Okay, I like movies. For me even the posters are art. My couch was an off-white, more like dirt-colored actually, and covered with pillows for the "feminine" touch. I'd hoped you'd have to look twice to realize it was actually a storage cabinet in disguise, with drawers along the bottom of the front. The floor was polished hardwood, rugs from India here and there, in sore need of a vacuuming, and even a couple of deceased insects that'd been there for over a week. That sort of said it, I thought glumly. I'm a workaholic slob.The bedroom revealed even more about me. The bed was a brass four-poster, queen-size, partly covered by an heirloom quilt. It hadn't been made in a week. (Who has the time?) The room itself was long and divided into areas for work and sleep. Opposite the bed itself was an antique English desk, on which sat my old Macintosh, and next to that was my file cabinet, the indispensable part of the "home office" the IRS loves to hate. On top of it was a stack of marked-up scripts, notes scribbled all over them in six different colors. You never re­alize movies are so complicated till you see a breakdown sheet. Camera angles and voice-overs and . . .Next to the bed was a violin case and three books about Indian ragas. What was that about? somebody might wonder. Some kind of Indian music nut? I was, albeit a very mini­mally talented nut.The kitchen was the New York efficiency kind painted a glossy tan, the color of aerosol olive oil. The cabinets con­tained mostly packages of pasta, instant soup, and coffee filters. Not even any real food. I live on deli takeout these days. An inventory of my fridge at this moment would clock two cartons of "fresh squeezed" orange juice, a half quart of spoiling milk, a bag of coffee beans, plastic containers of wilting veggies from the corner salad bar, and three bottles of New York seltzer. That was it.God help me, I thought, my mind-state turning even moremorose. This is my life. I had become that retrograde Woman of the Nineties: works ninety hours a week, makes ninety thou a year, weighs ninety pounds, and thinks (pardon my French) Cooking and Fucking are provinces in northern China. Well, the ninety-pounds part of that obscene quip didn't fit—and it wasn't the nineties anymore, anyway.In any case, was my apartment a place to raise a child? No earthly way. Like Carly, I'd have to spring for some decent space, preferably with a washing machine. . . .A parking slot was open right in front of my building, a minor miracle on this day of uncertain events. As I was pull­ing in, I glanced over to see a man walking past, not catching the face but sensing something familiar in the walk. He was in the process of unbuttoning a Federal Express uniform, peeling away the top to reveal a dark suit. He certainly seemed to be in a big hurry, carrying an unmarked shopping bag. Maybe, I thought, his shift was over and he was meeting his wife, or a friend.I wondered if he'd left a package for me, and told myself to check with the super. Not the usual delivery guy—did they come on Sunday now?—and also . . .Where was the truck? They always parked right here by the building.I was still so upset over Sarah, I couldn't immediately process those illogical observations, so I just grabbed my pink roses, dripping from the bottom of their paper wrapping, and opened the car door. It was definitely good to be home. I loved my Chelsea neighborhood, where you got to know the locals, running into them in the delis, the little restau­rants, the dry cleaners. Just like a small town. If you worked at home, the way I sometimes did, you even got to know the mailman and the delivery guys for UPS and FedEx. . . .Hey! That guy. I finally placed the walk, a kind of a strut. He was the slimeball who'd been outside Paula Marks' building last week, carrying a gun and threatening me. What's he doing here?My pulse went off the charts. Was he one of Nicky Russo's wiseguy crew after all? Had he come back, with his pistol, to pay me a return engagement?My God.Chill out, I told myself, take a deep breath. He's leaving. Just try and find out who he is.Roses in one hand held up awkwardly around my face, I slowly ambled down the street after him. I didn't have to go far. Within about a hundred feet, he unlocked a long black Lincoln Towncar, stepped out of the FedEx camouflage, tossed it onto the seat along with the bag he was carrying, pulled the cap off his bald head got in, and sped away.The license plate looked different from the usual, but I got what I needed: DL and a string of numbers.Uh-oh, I thought. Was he leaving a package bomb for me?I turned back and let myself into the outer lobby, glancing around as I did. There were no parcels anywhere, just blank, brown tile.My apartment was 3A. The name on the bell was M. James. As I stepped through the inner lobby—still no pack­age—a rumpled face appeared in the doorway just to my left. The sign on it, flaking, said SUPER."Oh, hi." The voice was Patrick Mooney, our superinten­dent, who did not normally emerge to greet those arriving. But there had been complaints from the building's managing agent that he could never be found for emergencies, so he probably wanted to appear available, even on Sundays. His voice was slurred from some midday medicinal Irish whisky. "Thought you were home. FedEx guy was here earlier look­ing for you."Oh, boy. "Did he leave a package?""He had something with him, if that's what you mean. Like a bag of some kind.""And you let him go up?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt a rush of dismay."Said he had to. Needed a signature." Patrick Mooney then shrugged and reached for the dooijamb to steady himself, his whisky breath wafting across the hall. Great security.I stepped into the elevator as the door was clanking shut, and watched as he rubbed his eyes and eased his own door closed.Now I was really puzzled. If the FedEx guy came "earlier," why was he just now leaving? A lot of scary theories went through my mind as I pushed the button for the third floor.I took a deep breath as the elevator opened, but again I saw no packages. So far so good. Getting off, I set down my roses on the hall carpet and fumbled for my key. When I inserted it, the lock felt a little rough, causing me to think for an instant I'd used the wrong key, but then it responded.What had caused that? I wondered. Had the guy been fid­dling with my door, wiring a bomb? Using one hand I pushed it open, again holding my breath and standing aside, but it opened okay. I exhaled, then reached back to drag in the flow­ers.But if he didn't leave a package, what was he doing here? Casing out where I lived? Planting a bug in the elevator? And why was he here so long?The place was dark when I stepped in, the drapes drawn. I relocked the door, then surveyed the gloom. No explosions, so I guessed he didn't plan to kill me. Yet. Here I was, home, safe and sound. I just stood a minute, still uneasy.Then I remembered the flowers, my dripping bouquet, and headed for the kitchen. Deal with them, and then maybe get a bottle of white wine out of the fridge and sip some in the bath.After my unnerving sequence with Sarah, thoughts of going to the office had zero appeal. Time to lighten up, way up.Preoccupied, not looking around, I stuffed the roses into a vase by the sink, and then I thought again about the white wine and opened the refrigerator. I'd still not bothered to turn on any lights, but the kitchen and its ancient fridge were dimly illuminated by the tiny window just across. I wasn't sure where I'd put the bottle, since I'd had to rearrange things to make room for the dup of Carly's interview. (I was also planning to take home a safety dup of Paula's interview sometime later in the week.)Why was I doing that? Taking home copies? It was a sign of deep compulsion. You couldn't really make a professional- quality second negative from a first positive—by that time it would be third-generation—but I'd brought it anyway. Now and then I just have a raw instinct that keeping a safety backup around is a good idea. But the canister had ended up devouring the entire lower shelf of the fridge.I opened the white door and peered in. The light was out, and for a moment I stared numbly at the dark, half-filled shelves. The only thing that struck me as odd was that I could see the pure white of the empty bottom shelf.For a second I could only stand and stare, but then I backed away, trying to figure out what was wrong, and stumbled over something. I regained my balance and flipped on the overhead light."What!"The floor around me was littered with bottles, my old toaster, my tiny microwave. It was a total shambles.I recoiled stumbling again, this time over cans strewn across the linoleum. My kitchen, it was slowly sinking in, had been completely trashed.I felt a visceral wave of nausea. It's the scariest thing in the world having your space invaded like a form of psychic rape. I sagged against the refrigerator as I gazed around. The cabinets had been emptied out, a hasty and haphazard search. Quick and extremely dirty, as glass containers of condiments, including an old bottle of dill pickles, were shattered and their contents smeared into the floor."I don't believe this." I marched back into the living room and reached for the lights. This room too had been turned upside down. The TV, stereo, VCR, all had been swept onto the rug. But they were still there. That guy, that animal, who did this wasn't a thief. He'd been looking for something.My breath now coming in pulses, I edged into the bedroom and switched on the light. The bed was the way I'd left it, the covers thrown back and the pillows in a pile. The clock radio was there, and so was the old Mac, still on the table in the far corner, my "workstation." Again nothing seemed to be missing.I headed back to the kitchen, where the refrigerator door was still open. I gazed at the interior a moment, still puzzled, trying to figure out what wasn't right. . . .Shit! Shit! Shit! That's what was wrong. The field of white bottom shelf was empty. Totally empty. The film canister of Paula's interview was gone.For a moment I just leaned against the kitchen counter, barely pushing aside an impulse to throw up in the sink. Think, I told myself, get a grip and think. . . .It was the film he'd wanted. And he'd wanted it badly enough to pick the lock, then rip my home apart looking for it.I pulled at a tangle of hair, feeling my mind in chaos, and tried to reason out the situation. Why? Why would he steal a positive that couldn't be used for anything?Finally the real truth of what had happened hit me like a fist in the chest. My Home Sweet Home had been violated.Seething, I went into the living room and reached for the phone, the only thing not on the floor.My first instinct was to call David, but then I decided he'd just go into a tizzy of hysteria and be no support at all. So instead I called Lou, praying I wouldn't wake Sarah. In an unsteady voice, I tried to tell him what had happened.He seemed puzzled to hear from me again so soon, but then he quickly turned FBI, concerned for my safety."Guy sounds like a professional," he declared. "Probably got in with an electric picker, like the Edge. Any asshole can buy one for a hundred and thirty bucks. It'll rake cylinders at a hundred times a second. Pro like that, you can be sure there'll be no prints.""But why would . . . ?" My voice was still a croak. "I mean, my God, all for a lousy reel of film?""Fucker wants you to know he's in town. So how he did it's as important as what he did. It's a time-proven scare tac­tic." He paused. "Morgan, I don't like this one bit. There could be more before this is over.""Think I should call the cops?""Damned right you should," he said, slowly and sadly, "but to tell you the truth, they ain't gonna do all that much. Somebody messed up your apartment and lifted a third-hand copy of a woman talking. They'll say it sounds more like malicious mischief than a crime. Then they'll write it up and that'll be the last you'll hear from them.""Well," I said, my anger welling up, "maybe I don't feel quite so laissez-faire. Tell me, you know anybody who can run a plate for you on a Sunday?""You got the prick's license number?" he exclaimed. "Why the hell didn't you say so?""Honestly, it sort of slipped my mind. I'm having a little trouble thinking straight right now."Fortunately my short-term memory is pretty good, even when I'm stressed, so I spewed it out."Don't go anywhere," he declared. "I'll get back to you in five minutes."I hung up the phone and lay down, flat out on the carpet, trying a breathing exercise to calm down. The problem was, it wasn't working. Having had some experience with being robbed—I once got completely cleaned out when I had a ground-floor apartment down in the Village—I know you go through certain Kubler-Ross-like stages of anger, denial, de­pression, acceptance. You also go through a predictable series of recriminations: I should have had window bars and gates; I should have had a different lock; I should have had two different locks. In the instance just recalled, I'm virtually certain an apartment painter duplicated a set of my keys on his lunch break and then passed them on to a second-story artist. No way to prove that, mind you, but it had to be what happened. I also suspect he checked my appointments cal­endar to see when I was going to be out of town.But in this case the lock was definitely picked. Nobody had a set of my keys except the super, and Steve. So the guy with the Spanish accent knew how to slip through doors and he had no financial interest in my old VCR. He only had an interest in my film. What had he said there on the sidewalk outside Paula Marks's apartment? Something about how making this picture was a big mistake?I jumped as the phone erupted by my ear."The name Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos Grijalva mean anything to you?" Lou asked."How could it? I'm not sure I can even pronounce it.""Well, Colonel Ramos declares himself to be a military attaché at the Guatemalan Consulate here. You've got a big shot in the Guatemalan Army rummaging through your apartment. This is even worse than I thought. Those guys are killers.""Jesus." I was still coming to grips with the horrifying fact he'd been in my apartment, in my only refuge. "Think I could bring charges against him?""Well, let's consider this a minute. Probably no prints, no credible witness. You'd have a damned hard time proving anything." He sighed. "Truth is, I doubt you could even get a restraining order, given what little you've got to work with.""The bastard." I sat a moment, feeling the logical, left side of my brain just shut down. My mind went back to its most primitive level, running on adrenaline. "Look, I need to check out something. I'll call you in the morning.""Well, be careful," he said warily. "And for God's sake don't go running off anyplace alone. I'm telling you you're not safe. Always be around people.""I'll keep it in mind." With that I gently hung up the phone and exhaled.Think. Some colonel from Guatemala just broke into my apartment looking for what I might know about Children of Light, where I've been going to see about having a baby. So why is he so interested in what I'm doing?I remembered Alex Goddard wanted me to go to a "clinic" he had somewhere in Central America. Ten to one that clinic was in Guatemala. That was what this whole thing was about. And now he'd just gone back there; at least that was what he'd said.Guatemala was a long way off, but his other operation was right up the river. I hadn't seen all of it this morning, but that was about to change. A lot of things were about to change. It was time to start getting the playing field level again.Chapter TwelveIarranged with Patrick Mooney to have his sister in Queens, a full-figured woman named Rosalyn, come in and finish the job of reconstructing my wrecked home. She ar­rived an hour and a half later, and was hard at work when I left. I also agonized over the police-report issue, but finally decided to forgo the bother. Lou was right: It would be a two-hour ordeal of futility. Besides, I had better things to do with my time. I was going to return the favor of an infor­mation-gathering expedition.Alex Goddard had said he'd be absent from Quetzal Manor—who knows for how long—and this time around I was going to do the place right, the next step in my under­cover research. The first, and main, thing I wanted to do was explore the new high-tech clinic that sat nestled in the woods across from the old building. Everything about it was the exact opposite of a "Manor." Not a shred of New Age "spiri­tuality," just a lot of digital equipment and ultrasound and . . . what else? Chief among my questions: What was behind that big, white door?Maybe I was being impulsive, but I was completely wired and the truth was, I wasn't going to sleep till I knew a lot more than I did. And if I went late tonight, Sunday, I probably wouldn't have to deal with Ramala.I called Roger Drexel, my unshaven cameraman, and asked him to come up and meet me at Applecore. It was Sunday and he was watching the third quarter of a Knicks game and into his second six-pack, but he agreed. After all, I was his current boss.All I really wanted was his Betacam and some metal tape, which would be broadcast quality. (I'd wanted to do it yes­terday, but now the time had definitely come.) We met at the office, and he unlocked the room with the camera gear and loaded in a fresh tape. With any luck, he made it home for the end of the game.I then had a sinful cheeseburger and fries at a Greek diner two blocks down the avenue. It was my idea of a courage- bolstering indulgence.My watch read six thirty-five and daylight was waning when I revved my old Toyota and started my northbound trek back to Quetzal Manor. When I was passing the George Washington Bridge, the first drifting flakes of a freak late-season snowstorm began pelting my windshield. Good I thought, turning on my wipers, the less visibility, the better. At least I believed that till the road started getting slippery and I had to throttle back. It was only then I realized I'd been pushing eighty on the speedometer, passing a lot of cars. Lou's warning not to go anywhere alone was still filed in the back of my mind but I kept trying not to think about it. Sometimes there are things you've just got to do.The highway grew more treacherous the farther north I went, but the traffic was thinning out and by the time I reached the turnoff to Quetzal Manor, total darkness had set in, in addition to which the paving was covered with at least an inch of sparkling-new pristine snow.As I eased up the roadway, my headlights made the trees around me glisten with their light dusting of white, like frost­ing on the tips of a buzz cut. I switched off my lights as I made the last turn in the road but not before catching a glimpse of Quetzal Manor, and I must confess to feeling a shudder, of both anger and apprehension, run through me as I watched its magisterial turrets disappear into the snowy dark.I parked my car at the back of the lot and retrieved the flashlight I'd brought, a yellow plastic two-battery model. I hadn't realized there'd be snow when I left home, so I was just wearing some old sneakers, but they'd do. I then sat there in the dark for a long minute, listening to the silence and thinking. The first thing was to find out if anybody was guarding the place. The next was to get some video of the new building.I grabbed the bag carrying the Betacam, tested my flash­light against the floorboard, and then headed up the snowy driveway. I marched straight through the open arch that was the front door, and I was again in the drafty hallway where I'd met Ramala Saturday morning. It was empty and dark now, no lights anywhere, not even out in the courtyard be­yond. The stony quiet—no music, no chants—felt unnatural, but it also suggested that Alex Goddard's adoring acolytes were safely tucked away. Early to bed . . . you know the rest. So maybe I really had come at the right time.A chilly wind was blowing in from the far end of the hallway, and I felt like I'd just entered a dank tomb, but I tightened my coat and pressed on. When I got to the end and looked out, the snowy courtyard was like a picture postcard. And completely empty.All right, I thought, move on to what you came for.But when I turned and headed back down the hallway, toward the entry arch, I caught a glimpse of a furtive form, dark and shadowy, lurking just outside. Shit! I froze in my tracks, but then the figure stepped inside, wearing something that made me think of Little Red Riding Hood, like a tiny ghost in a cowl.It was Tara, Alex Goddard's spacey waif, who was moving so oddly, I thought for a moment she might be sleepwalking.She wasn't, of course. She'd just been out strolling around the driveway in the snow. I soon realized she lived her life in something resembling a trance, as though she were a per­manent denizen of the spirit world. For her it was a natural condition."It's so beautiful like this," she mumbled dreamily, as though we'd been in the middle of a lifelong conversation. "I just love it." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silence it seemed to ricochet off the stone walls. "I want to take them out, show them God's paintbrush. Will you help me?""Take who out?" I asked, immediately deciding to go with the moment.Finally she looked directly at me and realized whom she'd been talking to."You were here before. I tried to give you herbs to help you, but then he came and . . ." Her voice trailed off as she walked back through the portico and out again into the drift­ing snow. Then she held up her hands, as though attempting to capture the flakes as keepsakes. "I so want to show them. They've never seen it before." She glanced back at me. "Come on. Let's do it."As I followed her out into the drifting white and across the parking lot, the accumulation of snow was growing denser, enough now to start covering the cars, but still, some­thing told me the flurry was going to be short-lived. I took a long, misty breath of the moist air and clicked open the case holding the Betacam, readying myself to take it out the minute we got inside.Well, I thought, maybe I've gotten lucky. She was headed for the new clinic, which was exactly where I wanted to go. It was nestled in the trees, up a winding pathway, and as I slogged along I could feel the snow melting through my sneakers.When we got to the front door, large and made of glass, she just pushed it open."We never lock anything," she declared, glancing back. "It's one of our rules."The hallway was dark, silent, and empty except for the two of us. Still, I felt a tinge of caution as we entered. At some level this was trespassing."Come on," she said, casually flipping a switch on the right-hand wall and causing the overhead fluorescents to blink on. "He's away now, and everybody's in bed. But I'll bet they're still awake in here. It's a perfect time."I didn't feel anything was perfect, but I did know I wanted to learn what was behind the door I'd seen when I was leav­ing. It was at the end of the hallway, wide and steel and painted hospital white. And, sure enough, that was exactly where Tara was heading.She just kept talking nonstop, in her dreamy, little-girl voice. "We've got to try and make them understand it's okay. That it'll be just for a minute."She shoved open the door without knocking, and my ears were greeted by the faint strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," one of my favorites. For an instant I was caught up in the music, a poignant moment drawing me in.The room itself was spacious, with a row of white bassi­nets along one side and subdued lighting provided by small fluorescent bulbs along the walls. It was, I immediately re­alized, a no-frills nursery. Alongside the bassinets were tables with formula and boxes of Pampers and Handi-Wipes. Two short women of indefinable nationality—they looked vaguely Asian—were in attendance, and at the moment one was facing away and bouncing a baby on her shoulder. Her infant looked like a boy—or was that just my imagination?—and I felt my heart go out. The light was dim, but I could tell he was a gorgeous sandy-haired kid plump and peachy, so sublime in his tender vulnerability as he gazed around with eyes full of trust. He was staring directly back at me and before I could stop myself, I gave him a little wave and wrinkled my nose. He stared at me a second then responded with a tiny smile. Hey, I thought, I've got the touch."Come on," Tara said ignoring the women, "let me show you. They're all so beautiful."By then my eyes were adjusting to the subdued light, and as we walked down the middle of the long room, I confirmed my assumption that the bassinets next to the tables all con­tained infants. I'm no expert on babies, but I'd guess they were all around six weeks old maybe a couple of months at most.This is the nest, I thought. Ground zero. Kevin and Rachel were both probably in this room at one time too. . . ."Aren't they wonderful?" Tara was saying, still in her squeaky, spaced-out voice.I was opening the Betacam bag when the first woman, the one holding and lightly bouncing her little boy, absently put her hand under his quilt, then spoke to the other in deeply accented English."He's wet again."It was the first words either of them had uttered. Then she turned to me in exasperation, assuming, I suppose, that I was one of Alex Goddard's flock. "And I just changed him." Again the accent, but I still couldn't identify it. She made a face, then carried him over to a plywood changing table in the center of the room.I felt a great baby-yearning as I moved over beside her, but she was behaving like a typical hourly wage-earner, glumly going about her job, and I just stood there a moment, vainly wanting to hold him, then turned back to Tara."Where do all these children come from?""Ramala says they're orphans or abandoned or something. From overseas or wherever." She sighed. "They're so per­fect."She was completely zombied-out. It felt like talking to a marshmallow on downers."But how, exactly, do—?""People bring them here." She seemed uninterested in the question, just plunging on as she wandered on down the line of bassinets.I'd finally come to my senses enough to take out the Betacam, though the light wasn't actually enough to really work with, certainly not broadcast quality.She stopped and picked up one of the infants out of its bassinet, then turned back to me, her eyes turning soft as she hugged it the way she might a small puppy. "Isn't this one cute? I'd so love to have him."Was she on some kind of drug that suppressed curiosity? I found myself wondering as I panned the camera around the room. There must have been at least twenty bassinets, all just alike, wicker with a white lace hood. A couple of the babies were sniffling, and the one Tara had picked up now began crying outright, much to her annoyance. The room itself smelled like baby powder."And then what happens?" I asked finally, zooming in on one of the women."What happens when?" Now Tara was twirling in a circle, humming futilely to the shrieking child. "You mean, after they come here?""Right." God, getting answers from her was making me crazy."The girls here take them to their new mothers." Her eyes had turned even more dreamy as she lightly bounced the bawling bundle she was holding one last time, after which she returned it to its bassinet. Then she gazed around the room. "It's so sad to see them leave."Did Paula and Carly get their babies that way? I found myself wondering. Probably, but it was one more thing I'd neglected to ask."Come on," Tara continued. "Let's take some of them out. He makes the nurses try and speak English around the chil­dren, but they don't really know much. Maybe you could figure out a way to, like, explain—""Tara, I don't think taking any of these babies out into the snow is a very hot idea. Not tonight. Maybe in the morn­ing." Stall her, I thought. She's completely out of it. Then I looked at the woman changing the baby. Sure enough, I was right. It was a boy."But I want to." Tara turned crestfallen. "To show them how beautiful—""Well, I don't speak whatever language they're speaking," I said, cutting cut her off. "I'm not even sure I could make it sound reasonable in English. So you'll have to do it without my help."Then I turned to the woman who'd been changing the baby."Do you know where this child came from?" Why not take a shot?She just stared at me, alarmed, then turned away. Nothing. She clearly wasn't going to tell me anything, even if she could. She and the others were just cheap hired help, prob­ably illegal immigrants without a green card and scared to death for their jobs. They weren't going to be doing an in-depth tell-all to anybody.I thought about the situation for a moment, and decided I'd seen what I came to see. This was pay dirt. Alex Goddard was running a full-scale adoption mill, just as Lou had sus­pected. He was collecting beautiful white babies from "overseas or wherever," and selling them here at sixty thousand a pop.Which went a long way toward explaining why he didn't want Children of Light to be featured in my film. And the Guatemalan colonel who'd just trashed my home was almost certainly in on the operation. Alex Goddard might be a New Age miracle worker rediscovering ancient Native American herbal cures, but he also was running a very efficient money machine.Still, the big question kept coming back: Where did he get all the babies? To extract any more information about that from Quetzal Manor, I'd have to break into an office somewhere, and I wasn't quite up to that yet. I didn't have the nerve of Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos."Tell you what, Tara, I think I'm out of here." I was re­turning the Betacam to its bag. Nothing I'd shot was remotely broadcast quality, but I did have proof of what was going on. My "undercover" investigation was making some head­way."Okay." She sighed her expression increasingly glazed.I took one last look around the room, at the row of bas­sinets, then gave her a parting pat and headed for the exit."Look," I said turning back as I reached the door. "Don't say anything to anybody about me being here tonight, okay? Can we just let it be our secret?""Sure, whatever." She shrugged absently. Like, why not."And Tara, do yourself a favor. Get out of this place.""But there's nowhere else I can go," she said sadness in her eyes. As I slowly closed the door, the last thing I heard was the sound of the Beethoven sonata dying away.What a day . . . and night. As I walked down the hallway carrying the camera bag, I tried to process my new informa­tion. I'd just seen some of the most incredibly lovable babies ever. That part of it was a beautiful experience, one that pulled at my heartstrings more strongly than I'd ever imag­ined something like that could. The part that troubled me was, the babies were so alike, so fair, and . . . they all could have been perfect siblings for Kevin and Rachel.No, I told myself, surely that was my imagination. Though they did look amazingly related. . . .As I moved across the parking lot, I thought I saw a movement in the shadows just inside the entry archway, a quick change in the pattern of dark. Was it Ramala or one of the girls, I wondered, or was it just my paranoia?Keep walking, I told myself. Lose yourself in the snow. The only way they can stop you from exposing this racket now is to kill you.When I got back to my car, I gazed up at the imposing turrets of Quetzal Manor one last time, wishing there was enough light to film them, and collected my thoughts. Was the story about the babies being orphans or abandoned chil­dren or "whatever" really true? I didn't believe it, not for a minute.But as Carly Grove said, Alex Goddard could "make it happen." The problem for me was, he wouldn't tell me where he got the children, and nobody I'd talked to so far seemed to want to know, not really.I wanted to know.Chapter ThirteenIn moments I was heading down the snowy drive, south toward my home (which had been hopefully put back to­gether). I pushed the pace, mesmerized by the snow, and tried to decide what to do next. The thug Ramos had stolen some second-generation interview footage from me, but now I had a tape of something a lot more interesting.When I pulled into my street, the time was just past eleven and I was thinking about calling Lou, or Steve, or both. But then I saw something odd. A woman was walking down the steps from the lobby of my building, a woman I recognized from somewhere.Her hair was tangled and she was wearing black jeans and a black sweater. It took a second before I finally processed the fact it was Carly Grove. And she seemed frantic. I as­sumed she’d come in a cab, but she had my home phone number, so why would she come over if I didn't answer? New Yorkers don't just drop in. A social no-no.Maybe the reason had something to do with how she looked. I felt like I was seeing a specter."Thank God you're here," she blurted out, striding up. She was actually shaking, and I could tell she'd been crying. Nothing like the gutsy woman I'd seen a few days earlier. "I kept getting your machine, but I thought maybe you were hiding."I looked at her, and forgot all about my own issues. It was hard to remember ever seeing a human being in such distress, except for Sarah."Why would I be hiding?" I was taking out the Betacam bag and closing my car door, hoping to seem normal and professional."They called me about six o'clock tonight. Children of Light." She could barely get the words out. "They'd seen my interview with you. How did they get it?"I looked down at the snowy—make that slushy—street and felt a chill go through me, followed immediately by an­ger. Ramos, that bastard."They . . . Somebody took a copy this morning." Stated like that, it sounded pretty lame. "I'm so sorry—""He threatened Kevin. He actually said if I signed a re­lease to let you use the film, my child would 'meet with an accident.' And then he said something about you, that your own—""Who? Who called you? Did he tell you his—?""He wouldn't give a name. Just some man. He had a for­eign accent." She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her back as best I could."Where's Kevin now?" I was so concerned about Carly that I'd repressed the information that he'd also mentioned me."Marcy was there, so I told her to take him with her. To her mother's place in the Bronx, where she lives." Carly was still trembling as she loosened her grip on me. "I called a car service to drive them up.""Well, come on in. Let's talk." Truthfully, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to tell her about what I'd just seen at Quetzal Manor. It would probably just distress her more. Where had Kevin come from? Did I really want to de-legitimize him in her eyes?As I led her through the lobby, hoping to appear com­posed, Patrick Mooney greeted us, announcing that his sister, Rosalyn, had been gone for an hour and that she appreciated my memorable tip.The place looked like nothing had happened, and Carly immediately collapsed onto my "earth-tone" couch. I hadn't told her my apartment had been tossed along with the rob­bery and, thanks to Rosalyn, I didn't need to. In fact, it ac­tually looked cleaner than it had in months. Maybe, I thought, I should reprioritize my life and hire her more often.Then I got a glass of water for Carly and sat down next to her."I'm really sorry," I began, deeply meaning it. "If I'd known all this was going to happen, I'd never—""It's not your fault." She took a long drink. I hadn't both­ered with ice, and I immediately felt I'd been inhospitable. Kind of a vagrant, minor concern, considering. Then she went on. "I guess I knew down deep I shouldn't have given you that interview. But I wanted the world to know about Kevin. Now, though . . . should I call the police or some­thing?"The short answer to that was yes, but my mind was already skipping on to a different topic."Carly, do you know where Kevin came from? Really came from? Did you ever actually try to find out?"She sighed and took another sip."I told you I don't care. When they brought him, all pink and helpless, I just—""Who brought him?" I interrupted."Well, I'd been up there the day before, signing all the papers. I was supposed to go up that day, but then somebody called and said one of the girls who was staying in the clinic or whatever it is was bringing him to me. So don't come.""You're saying one of the girls—?""Yeah." She looked wistful for a moment, as though re­membering. "Then she just showed up, looked like some blond college dropout. I guess a little more fanfare would've been nice, but Marcy was there to help me and that was it. That's the last contact I ever had with Children of Light." She shuddered involuntarily. "Till now."Well, I thought, the last thing I'm going to do is tell her about what I just saw. She's the ideal customer for Alex God­dard: She truly doesn't want to know details."Carly, there's not much I can do about what's already happened, but I can try to keep you from getting into any more trouble. Why don't you call them in the morning and tell them you've yelled at me and rescinded your permission for Applecore to use the film? And say I've promised I won't. You've threatened to sue me or something. That should get you off the hook.""You really think so?" Her look brightened slightly."Yes, it's me they're worried about, not you. I represent some threat to them, because of the film I'm making. Just bail out and you'll be okay.""Thanks. I did get the feeling that's all they really want." She took another drink of water. "But if they wanted to scare me, they're doing a hell of a good job.""Well, then, why not take Kevin and go away for a couple of weeks? On a vacation someplace? And while you're doing that, I'm going to have a one-on-one with Alex Goddard. I've got a little leverage now."She looked at me. "What . . . what are you going to do?"I couldn't tell her about my videotape of his baby cache without explaining a lot more about Children of Light than I thought she wanted to hear."Don't you think the less you know the better?" I said, taking her hand. "I've caused you enough trouble already.""No, I caused myself trouble." She was getting up. "Can I use your bathroom?""Sure." I pointed the way.While she was gone, I went to the kitchen and surveyed it, checking the cabinets. Again, the place was cleaner than it had been in ages. The look of it momentarily bucked me up.When Carly came back, she hugged me and then an­nounced she wanted to go check on Kevin."I'll do what you said about calling them," she concluded, reaching for her bag. "I think you're right. That ought to get them off my case. At least for the moment. As for the long run—“"Carly," I said, taking her hand again, "we'll get through this. Just trust me."We hugged one more time and then she was gone. I took the moment to double-lock the door, and then collapsed on the couch. What should be my next move? I closed my eyes and tried to review all the insidious things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The illegal drugs, the break-in and theft of my film, the suspicious nursery of Children of Light, the threats to Carly . . .Then it finally came back that she'd mentioned Ramos saying something about me. By now I was getting used to being threatened by the man, so one more time was hardly news. But I wished I'd asked her the specifics.That was when I roused myself and reached for the phone. The time was pushing eleven, but I still wanted to check in on Sarah, see how she was doing. Had she come back to reality after I left?I was listening to the phone ring, my mind drifting to thoughts of how to gently ask Lou about her, when I realized nobody was picking up.What's going on? I wondered, immediately coming alert. Mrs. Reilly had probably gone home for the day, but no way would Lou be in bed before midnight. He always had trouble settling into sleep.Maybe, I then hoped, I'd just dialed the wrong number. But when I tried again, still no answer.I clicked off the phone and felt a wave of concern. If Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos could find out I was making a movie, and then find out where I lived, he sure as hell could locate my extended family. Was that what he'd meant when he mentioned me to Carly?I grabbed the set of Lou's keys I had stored in my bedroom's desk drawer and flew out the door.The streets were plastered with a grimy veneer of city snow, melting fast, but I pushed the limits of safety and ran a couple of lights since the traffic was spotty. There was a parking space just across the street from Lou's building, and as I pulled in I looked over at his windows.Through the curtains I could tell a dim light was on, probably coming from Sarah's bedroom. The front room, how­ever, was dark.My pulse was pounding as I raced up the steps to the street door. I thought about pushing his bell, but I didn't have the patience. Instead I just fumbled with the key set till I found the biggest one and shoved it into the lock.The building had no lobby, just a row of stairs leading up to the next floor, with Lou's own door set off to the left. I shoved his Medeco key into the deadlock and pushed it open. The room was pitch-dark.

Heading home, finally, I told myself to try to calm down. I was determined to help Sarah get over her trauma, though truthfully I was too tired to really think straight at that mo­ment. So instead I decided to let everything rest for a few hours and try for some distance. In fact, I began imagining myself in a hot bath, gazing at my now-wilting roses. Home Sweet Home.

Mine was a standard one-bedroom in a building that had been turned into a co-op five years earlier, the owner offering the individual apartments to the tenants. I'd stayed a renter, however, passing up the "low" insider price, $138,000, be­cause I didn't really have the money, and when I did have it someday I would want something bigger. I wished I had more space—a real dining room and a bigger bathroom would do for starters, along with some place for more bookcases. And if a baby should someday miraculously come along . . .

I'd often thought you could tell a lot about somebody from where and how they lived; it's revealing as a Rorschach test. What, I often wondered, did my apartment say about me?

A decorator might conclude I'd done up the place with love, then lazily let it go. They'd decide I cared about nice things, but once those nice things were there, I neglected them. It would be true.

I'd covered the walls of the living room with pale blue cloth, then hung a lot of framed pictures and old movie post­ers. Okay, I like movies. For me even the posters are art. My couch was an off-white, more like dirt-colored actually, and covered with pillows for the "feminine" touch. I'd hoped you'd have to look twice to realize it was actually a storage cabinet in disguise, with drawers along the bottom of the front. The floor was polished hardwood, rugs from India here and there, in sore need of a vacuuming, and even a couple of deceased insects that'd been there for over a week. That sort of said it, I thought glumly. I'm a workaholic slob.

The bedroom revealed even more about me. The bed was a brass four-poster, queen-size, partly covered by an heirloom quilt. It hadn't been made in a week. (Who has the time?) The room itself was long and divided into areas for work and sleep. Opposite the bed itself was an antique English desk, on which sat my old Macintosh, and next to that was my file cabinet, the indispensable part of the "home office" the IRS loves to hate. On top of it was a stack of marked-up scripts, notes scribbled all over them in six different colors. You never re­alize movies are so complicated till you see a breakdown sheet. Camera angles and voice-overs and . . .

Next to the bed was a violin case and three books about Indian ragas. What was that about? somebody might wonder. Some kind of Indian music nut? I was, albeit a very mini­mally talented nut.

The kitchen was the New York efficiency kind painted a glossy tan, the color of aerosol olive oil. The cabinets con­tained mostly packages of pasta, instant soup, and coffee filters. Not even any real food. I live on deli takeout these days. An inventory of my fridge at this moment would clock two cartons of "fresh squeezed" orange juice, a half quart of spoiling milk, a bag of coffee beans, plastic containers of wilting veggies from the corner salad bar, and three bottles of New York seltzer. That was it.

God help me, I thought, my mind-state turning even more

morose. This is my life. I had become that retrograde Woman of the Nineties: works ninety hours a week, makes ninety thou a year, weighs ninety pounds, and thinks (pardon my French) Cooking and Fucking are provinces in northern China. Well, the ninety-pounds part of that obscene quip didn't fit—and it wasn't the nineties anymore, anyway.

In any case, was my apartment a place to raise a child? No earthly way. Like Carly, I'd have to spring for some decent space, preferably with a washing machine. . . .

A parking slot was open right in front of my building, a minor miracle on this day of uncertain events. As I was pull­ing in, I glanced over to see a man walking past, not catching the face but sensing something familiar in the walk. He was in the process of unbuttoning a Federal Express uniform, peeling away the top to reveal a dark suit. He certainly seemed to be in a big hurry, carrying an unmarked shopping bag. Maybe, I thought, his shift was over and he was meeting his wife, or a friend.

I wondered if he'd left a package for me, and told myself to check with the super. Not the usual delivery guy—did they come on Sunday now?—and also . . .

Where was the truck? They always parked right here by the building.

I was still so upset over Sarah, I couldn't immediately process those illogical observations, so I just grabbed my pink roses, dripping from the bottom of their paper wrapping, and opened the car door. It was definitely good to be home. I loved my Chelsea neighborhood, where you got to know the locals, running into them in the delis, the little restau­rants, the dry cleaners. Just like a small town. If you worked at home, the way I sometimes did, you even got to know the mailman and the delivery guys for UPS and FedEx. . . .

Hey! That guy. I finally placed the walk, a kind of a strut. He was the slimeball who'd been outside Paula Marks' building last week, carrying a gun and threatening me. What's he doing here?

My pulse went off the charts. Was he one of Nicky Russo's wiseguy crew after all? Had he come back, with his pistol, to pay me a return engagement?

My God.

Chill out, I told myself, take a deep breath. He's leaving. Just try and find out who he is.

Roses in one hand held up awkwardly around my face, I slowly ambled down the street after him. I didn't have to go far. Within about a hundred feet, he unlocked a long black Lincoln Towncar, stepped out of the FedEx camouflage, tossed it onto the seat along with the bag he was carrying, pulled the cap off his bald head got in, and sped away.

The license plate looked different from the usual, but I got what I needed: DL and a string of numbers.

Uh-oh, I thought. Was he leaving a package bomb for me?

I turned back and let myself into the outer lobby, glancing around as I did. There were no parcels anywhere, just blank, brown tile.

My apartment was 3A. The name on the bell was M. James. As I stepped through the inner lobby—still no pack­age—a rumpled face appeared in the doorway just to my left. The sign on it, flaking, said SUPER.

"Oh, hi." The voice was Patrick Mooney, our superinten­dent, who did not normally emerge to greet those arriving. But there had been complaints from the building's managing agent that he could never be found for emergencies, so he probably wanted to appear available, even on Sundays. His voice was slurred from some midday medicinal Irish whisky. "Thought you were home. FedEx guy was here earlier look­ing for you."

Oh, boy. "Did he leave a package?"

"He had something with him, if that's what you mean. Like a bag of some kind."

"And you let him go up?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt a rush of dismay.

"Said he had to. Needed a signature." Patrick Mooney then shrugged and reached for the dooijamb to steady himself, his whisky breath wafting across the hall. Great security.

I stepped into the elevator as the door was clanking shut, and watched as he rubbed his eyes and eased his own door closed.

Now I was really puzzled. If the FedEx guy came "earlier," why was he just now leaving? A lot of scary theories went through my mind as I pushed the button for the third floor.

I took a deep breath as the elevator opened, but again I saw no packages. So far so good. Getting off, I set down my roses on the hall carpet and fumbled for my key. When I inserted it, the lock felt a little rough, causing me to think for an instant I'd used the wrong key, but then it responded.

What had caused that? I wondered. Had the guy been fid­dling with my door, wiring a bomb? Using one hand I pushed it open, again holding my breath and standing aside, but it opened okay. I exhaled, then reached back to drag in the flow­ers.

But if he didn't leave a package, what was he doing here? Casing out where I lived? Planting a bug in the elevator? And why was he here so long?

The place was dark when I stepped in, the drapes drawn. I relocked the door, then surveyed the gloom. No explosions, so I guessed he didn't plan to kill me. Yet. Here I was, home, safe and sound. I just stood a minute, still uneasy.

Then I remembered the flowers, my dripping bouquet, and headed for the kitchen. Deal with them, and then maybe get a bottle of white wine out of the fridge and sip some in the bath.

After my unnerving sequence with Sarah, thoughts of going to the office had zero appeal. Time to lighten up, way up.

Preoccupied, not looking around, I stuffed the roses into a vase by the sink, and then I thought again about the white wine and opened the refrigerator. I'd still not bothered to turn on any lights, but the kitchen and its ancient fridge were dimly illuminated by the tiny window just across. I wasn't sure where I'd put the bottle, since I'd had to rearrange things to make room for the dup of Carly's interview. (I was also planning to take home a safety dup of Paula's interview sometime later in the week.)

Why was I doing that? Taking home copies? It was a sign of deep compulsion. You couldn't really make a professional- quality second negative from a first positive—by that time it would be third-generation—but I'd brought it anyway. Now and then I just have a raw instinct that keeping a safety backup around is a good idea. But the canister had ended up devouring the entire lower shelf of the fridge.

I opened the white door and peered in. The light was out, and for a moment I stared numbly at the dark, half-filled shelves. The only thing that struck me as odd was that I could see the pure white of the empty bottom shelf.

For a second I could only stand and stare, but then I backed away, trying to figure out what was wrong, and stumbled over something. I regained my balance and flipped on the overhead light.

"What!"

The floor around me was littered with bottles, my old toaster, my tiny microwave. It was a total shambles.

I recoiled stumbling again, this time over cans strewn across the linoleum. My kitchen, it was slowly sinking in, had been completely trashed.

I felt a visceral wave of nausea. It's the scariest thing in the world having your space invaded like a form of psychic rape. I sagged against the refrigerator as I gazed around. The cabinets had been emptied out, a hasty and haphazard search. Quick and extremely dirty, as glass containers of condiments, including an old bottle of dill pickles, were shattered and their contents smeared into the floor.

"I don't believe this." I marched back into the living room and reached for the lights. This room too had been turned upside down. The TV, stereo, VCR, all had been swept onto the rug. But they were still there. That guy, that animal, who did this wasn't a thief. He'd been looking for something.

My breath now coming in pulses, I edged into the bedroom and switched on the light. The bed was the way I'd left it, the covers thrown back and the pillows in a pile. The clock radio was there, and so was the old Mac, still on the table in the far corner, my "workstation." Again nothing seemed to be missing.

I headed back to the kitchen, where the refrigerator door was still open. I gazed at the interior a moment, still puzzled, trying to figure out what wasn't right. . . .

Shit! Shit! Shit! That's what was wrong. The field of white bottom shelf was empty. Totally empty. The film canister of Paula's interview was gone.

For a moment I just leaned against the kitchen counter, barely pushing aside an impulse to throw up in the sink. Think, I told myself, get a grip and think. . . .

It was the film he'd wanted. And he'd wanted it badly enough to pick the lock, then rip my home apart looking for it.

I pulled at a tangle of hair, feeling my mind in chaos, and tried to reason out the situation. Why? Why would he steal a positive that couldn't be used for anything?

Finally the real truth of what had happened hit me like a fist in the chest. My Home Sweet Home had been violated.

Seething, I went into the living room and reached for the phone, the only thing not on the floor.

My first instinct was to call David, but then I decided he'd just go into a tizzy of hysteria and be no support at all. So instead I called Lou, praying I wouldn't wake Sarah. In an unsteady voice, I tried to tell him what had happened.

He seemed puzzled to hear from me again so soon, but then he quickly turned FBI, concerned for my safety.

"Guy sounds like a professional," he declared. "Probably got in with an electric picker, like the Edge. Any asshole can buy one for a hundred and thirty bucks. It'll rake cylinders at a hundred times a second. Pro like that, you can be sure there'll be no prints."

"But why would . . . ?" My voice was still a croak. "I mean, my God, all for a lousy reel of film?"

"Fucker wants you to know he's in town. So how he did it's as important as what he did. It's a time-proven scare tac­tic." He paused. "Morgan, I don't like this one bit. There could be more before this is over."

"Think I should call the cops?"

"Damned right you should," he said, slowly and sadly, "but to tell you the truth, they ain't gonna do all that much. Somebody messed up your apartment and lifted a third-hand copy of a woman talking. They'll say it sounds more like malicious mischief than a crime. Then they'll write it up and that'll be the last you'll hear from them."

"Well," I said, my anger welling up, "maybe I don't feel quite so laissez-faire. Tell me, you know anybody who can run a plate for you on a Sunday?"

"You got the prick's license number?" he exclaimed. "Why the hell didn't you say so?"

"Honestly, it sort of slipped my mind. I'm having a little trouble thinking straight right now."

Fortunately my short-term memory is pretty good, even when I'm stressed, so I spewed it out.

"Don't go anywhere," he declared. "I'll get back to you in five minutes."

I hung up the phone and lay down, flat out on the carpet, trying a breathing exercise to calm down. The problem was, it wasn't working. Having had some experience with being robbed—I once got completely cleaned out when I had a ground-floor apartment down in the Village—I know you go through certain Kubler-Ross-like stages of anger, denial, de­pression, acceptance. You also go through a predictable series of recriminations: I should have had window bars and gates; I should have had a different lock; I should have had two different locks. In the instance just recalled, I'm virtually certain an apartment painter duplicated a set of my keys on his lunch break and then passed them on to a second-story artist. No way to prove that, mind you, but it had to be what happened. I also suspect he checked my appointments cal­endar to see when I was going to be out of town.

But in this case the lock was definitely picked. Nobody had a set of my keys except the super, and Steve. So the guy with the Spanish accent knew how to slip through doors and he had no financial interest in my old VCR. He only had an interest in my film. What had he said there on the sidewalk outside Paula Marks's apartment? Something about how making this picture was a big mistake?

I jumped as the phone erupted by my ear.

"The name Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos Grijalva mean anything to you?" Lou asked.

"How could it? I'm not sure I can even pronounce it."

"Well, Colonel Ramos declares himself to be a military attaché at the Guatemalan Consulate here. You've got a big shot in the Guatemalan Army rummaging through your apartment. This is even worse than I thought. Those guys are killers."

"Jesus." I was still coming to grips with the horrifying fact he'd been in my apartment, in my only refuge. "Think I could bring charges against him?"

"Well, let's consider this a minute. Probably no prints, no credible witness. You'd have a damned hard time proving anything." He sighed. "Truth is, I doubt you could even get a restraining order, given what little you've got to work with."

"The bastard." I sat a moment, feeling the logical, left side of my brain just shut down. My mind went back to its most primitive level, running on adrenaline. "Look, I need to check out something. I'll call you in the morning."

"Well, be careful," he said warily. "And for God's sake don't go running off anyplace alone. I'm telling you you're not safe. Always be around people."

"I'll keep it in mind." With that I gently hung up the phone and exhaled.

Think. Some colonel from Guatemala just broke into my apartment looking for what I might know about Children of Light, where I've been going to see about having a baby. So why is he so interested in what I'm doing?

I remembered Alex Goddard wanted me to go to a "clinic" he had somewhere in Central America. Ten to one that clinic was in Guatemala. That was what this whole thing was about. And now he'd just gone back there; at least that was what he'd said.

Guatemala was a long way off, but his other operation was right up the river. I hadn't seen all of it this morning, but that was about to change. A lot of things were about to change. It was time to start getting the playing field level again.

Iarranged with Patrick Mooney to have his sister in Queens, a full-figured woman named Rosalyn, come in and finish the job of reconstructing my wrecked home. She ar­rived an hour and a half later, and was hard at work when I left. I also agonized over the police-report issue, but finally decided to forgo the bother. Lou was right: It would be a two-hour ordeal of futility. Besides, I had better things to do with my time. I was going to return the favor of an infor­mation-gathering expedition.

Alex Goddard had said he'd be absent from Quetzal Manor—who knows for how long—and this time around I was going to do the place right, the next step in my under­cover research. The first, and main, thing I wanted to do was explore the new high-tech clinic that sat nestled in the woods across from the old building. Everything about it was the exact opposite of a "Manor." Not a shred of New Age "spiri­tuality," just a lot of digital equipment and ultrasound and . . . what else? Chief among my questions: What was behind that big, white door?

Maybe I was being impulsive, but I was completely wired and the truth was, I wasn't going to sleep till I knew a lot more than I did. And if I went late tonight, Sunday, I probably wouldn't have to deal with Ramala.

I called Roger Drexel, my unshaven cameraman, and asked him to come up and meet me at Applecore. It was Sunday and he was watching the third quarter of a Knicks game and into his second six-pack, but he agreed. After all, I was his current boss.

All I really wanted was his Betacam and some metal tape, which would be broadcast quality. (I'd wanted to do it yes­terday, but now the time had definitely come.) We met at the office, and he unlocked the room with the camera gear and loaded in a fresh tape. With any luck, he made it home for the end of the game.

I then had a sinful cheeseburger and fries at a Greek diner two blocks down the avenue. It was my idea of a courage- bolstering indulgence.

My watch read six thirty-five and daylight was waning when I revved my old Toyota and started my northbound trek back to Quetzal Manor. When I was passing the George Washington Bridge, the first drifting flakes of a freak late-season snowstorm began pelting my windshield. Good I thought, turning on my wipers, the less visibility, the better. At least I believed that till the road started getting slippery and I had to throttle back. It was only then I realized I'd been pushing eighty on the speedometer, passing a lot of cars. Lou's warning not to go anywhere alone was still filed in the back of my mind but I kept trying not to think about it. Sometimes there are things you've just got to do.

The highway grew more treacherous the farther north I went, but the traffic was thinning out and by the time I reached the turnoff to Quetzal Manor, total darkness had set in, in addition to which the paving was covered with at least an inch of sparkling-new pristine snow.

As I eased up the roadway, my headlights made the trees around me glisten with their light dusting of white, like frost­ing on the tips of a buzz cut. I switched off my lights as I made the last turn in the road but not before catching a glimpse of Quetzal Manor, and I must confess to feeling a shudder, of both anger and apprehension, run through me as I watched its magisterial turrets disappear into the snowy dark.

I parked my car at the back of the lot and retrieved the flashlight I'd brought, a yellow plastic two-battery model. I hadn't realized there'd be snow when I left home, so I was just wearing some old sneakers, but they'd do. I then sat there in the dark for a long minute, listening to the silence and thinking. The first thing was to find out if anybody was guarding the place. The next was to get some video of the new building.

I grabbed the bag carrying the Betacam, tested my flash­light against the floorboard, and then headed up the snowy driveway. I marched straight through the open arch that was the front door, and I was again in the drafty hallway where I'd met Ramala Saturday morning. It was empty and dark now, no lights anywhere, not even out in the courtyard be­yond. The stony quiet—no music, no chants—felt unnatural, but it also suggested that Alex Goddard's adoring acolytes were safely tucked away. Early to bed . . . you know the rest. So maybe I really had come at the right time.

A chilly wind was blowing in from the far end of the hallway, and I felt like I'd just entered a dank tomb, but I tightened my coat and pressed on. When I got to the end and looked out, the snowy courtyard was like a picture postcard. And completely empty.

All right, I thought, move on to what you came for.

But when I turned and headed back down the hallway, toward the entry arch, I caught a glimpse of a furtive form, dark and shadowy, lurking just outside. Shit! I froze in my tracks, but then the figure stepped inside, wearing something that made me think of Little Red Riding Hood, like a tiny ghost in a cowl.

It was Tara, Alex Goddard's spacey waif, who was moving so oddly, I thought for a moment she might be sleepwalking.

She wasn't, of course. She'd just been out strolling around the driveway in the snow. I soon realized she lived her life in something resembling a trance, as though she were a per­manent denizen of the spirit world. For her it was a natural condition.

"It's so beautiful like this," she mumbled dreamily, as though we'd been in the middle of a lifelong conversation. "I just love it." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silence it seemed to ricochet off the stone walls. "I want to take them out, show them God's paintbrush. Will you help me?"

"Take who out?" I asked, immediately deciding to go with the moment.

Finally she looked directly at me and realized whom she'd been talking to.

"You were here before. I tried to give you herbs to help you, but then he came and . . ." Her voice trailed off as she walked back through the portico and out again into the drift­ing snow. Then she held up her hands, as though attempting to capture the flakes as keepsakes. "I so want to show them. They've never seen it before." She glanced back at me. "Come on. Let's do it."

As I followed her out into the drifting white and across the parking lot, the accumulation of snow was growing denser, enough now to start covering the cars, but still, some­thing told me the flurry was going to be short-lived. I took a long, misty breath of the moist air and clicked open the case holding the Betacam, readying myself to take it out the minute we got inside.

Well, I thought, maybe I've gotten lucky. She was headed for the new clinic, which was exactly where I wanted to go. It was nestled in the trees, up a winding pathway, and as I slogged along I could feel the snow melting through my sneakers.

When we got to the front door, large and made of glass, she just pushed it open.

"We never lock anything," she declared, glancing back. "It's one of our rules."

The hallway was dark, silent, and empty except for the two of us. Still, I felt a tinge of caution as we entered. At some level this was trespassing.

"Come on," she said, casually flipping a switch on the right-hand wall and causing the overhead fluorescents to blink on. "He's away now, and everybody's in bed. But I'll bet they're still awake in here. It's a perfect time."

I didn't feel anything was perfect, but I did know I wanted to learn what was behind the door I'd seen when I was leav­ing. It was at the end of the hallway, wide and steel and painted hospital white. And, sure enough, that was exactly where Tara was heading.

She just kept talking nonstop, in her dreamy, little-girl voice. "We've got to try and make them understand it's okay. That it'll be just for a minute."

She shoved open the door without knocking, and my ears were greeted by the faint strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," one of my favorites. For an instant I was caught up in the music, a poignant moment drawing me in.

The room itself was spacious, with a row of white bassi­nets along one side and subdued lighting provided by small fluorescent bulbs along the walls. It was, I immediately re­alized, a no-frills nursery. Alongside the bassinets were tables with formula and boxes of Pampers and Handi-Wipes. Two short women of indefinable nationality—they looked vaguely Asian—were in attendance, and at the moment one was facing away and bouncing a baby on her shoulder. Her infant looked like a boy—or was that just my imagination?—and I felt my heart go out. The light was dim, but I could tell he was a gorgeous sandy-haired kid plump and peachy, so sublime in his tender vulnerability as he gazed around with eyes full of trust. He was staring directly back at me and before I could stop myself, I gave him a little wave and wrinkled my nose. He stared at me a second then responded with a tiny smile. Hey, I thought, I've got the touch.

"Come on," Tara said ignoring the women, "let me show you. They're all so beautiful."

By then my eyes were adjusting to the subdued light, and as we walked down the middle of the long room, I confirmed my assumption that the bassinets next to the tables all con­tained infants. I'm no expert on babies, but I'd guess they were all around six weeks old maybe a couple of months at most.

This is the nest, I thought. Ground zero. Kevin and Rachel were both probably in this room at one time too. . . .

"Aren't they wonderful?" Tara was saying, still in her squeaky, spaced-out voice.

I was opening the Betacam bag when the first woman, the one holding and lightly bouncing her little boy, absently put her hand under his quilt, then spoke to the other in deeply accented English.

"He's wet again."

It was the first words either of them had uttered. Then she turned to me in exasperation, assuming, I suppose, that I was one of Alex Goddard's flock. "And I just changed him." Again the accent, but I still couldn't identify it. She made a face, then carried him over to a plywood changing table in the center of the room.

I felt a great baby-yearning as I moved over beside her, but she was behaving like a typical hourly wage-earner, glumly going about her job, and I just stood there a moment, vainly wanting to hold him, then turned back to Tara.

"Where do all these children come from?"

"Ramala says they're orphans or abandoned or something. From overseas or wherever." She sighed. "They're so per­fect."

She was completely zombied-out. It felt like talking to a marshmallow on downers.

"But how, exactly, do—?"

"People bring them here." She seemed uninterested in the question, just plunging on as she wandered on down the line of bassinets.

I'd finally come to my senses enough to take out the Betacam, though the light wasn't actually enough to really work with, certainly not broadcast quality.

She stopped and picked up one of the infants out of its bassinet, then turned back to me, her eyes turning soft as she hugged it the way she might a small puppy. "Isn't this one cute? I'd so love to have him."

Was she on some kind of drug that suppressed curiosity? I found myself wondering as I panned the camera around the room. There must have been at least twenty bassinets, all just alike, wicker with a white lace hood. A couple of the babies were sniffling, and the one Tara had picked up now began crying outright, much to her annoyance. The room itself smelled like baby powder.

"And then what happens?" I asked finally, zooming in on one of the women.

"What happens when?" Now Tara was twirling in a circle, humming futilely to the shrieking child. "You mean, after they come here?"

"Right." God, getting answers from her was making me crazy.

"The girls here take them to their new mothers." Her eyes had turned even more dreamy as she lightly bounced the bawling bundle she was holding one last time, after which she returned it to its bassinet. Then she gazed around the room. "It's so sad to see them leave."

Did Paula and Carly get their babies that way? I found myself wondering. Probably, but it was one more thing I'd neglected to ask.

"Come on," Tara continued. "Let's take some of them out. He makes the nurses try and speak English around the chil­dren, but they don't really know much. Maybe you could figure out a way to, like, explain—"

"Tara, I don't think taking any of these babies out into the snow is a very hot idea. Not tonight. Maybe in the morn­ing." Stall her, I thought. She's completely out of it. Then I looked at the woman changing the baby. Sure enough, I was right. It was a boy.

"But I want to." Tara turned crestfallen. "To show them how beautiful—"

"Well, I don't speak whatever language they're speaking," I said, cutting cut her off. "I'm not even sure I could make it sound reasonable in English. So you'll have to do it without my help."

Then I turned to the woman who'd been changing the baby.

"Do you know where this child came from?" Why not take a shot?

She just stared at me, alarmed, then turned away. Nothing. She clearly wasn't going to tell me anything, even if she could. She and the others were just cheap hired help, prob­ably illegal immigrants without a green card and scared to death for their jobs. They weren't going to be doing an in-depth tell-all to anybody.

I thought about the situation for a moment, and decided I'd seen what I came to see. This was pay dirt. Alex Goddard was running a full-scale adoption mill, just as Lou had sus­pected. He was collecting beautiful white babies from "overseas or wherever," and selling them here at sixty thousand a pop.

Which went a long way toward explaining why he didn't want Children of Light to be featured in my film. And the Guatemalan colonel who'd just trashed my home was almost certainly in on the operation. Alex Goddard might be a New Age miracle worker rediscovering ancient Native American herbal cures, but he also was running a very efficient money machine.

Still, the big question kept coming back: Where did he get all the babies? To extract any more information about that from Quetzal Manor, I'd have to break into an office somewhere, and I wasn't quite up to that yet. I didn't have the nerve of Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos.

"Tell you what, Tara, I think I'm out of here." I was re­turning the Betacam to its bag. Nothing I'd shot was remotely broadcast quality, but I did have proof of what was going on. My "undercover" investigation was making some head­way.

"Okay." She sighed her expression increasingly glazed.

I took one last look around the room, at the row of bas­sinets, then gave her a parting pat and headed for the exit.

"Look," I said turning back as I reached the door. "Don't say anything to anybody about me being here tonight, okay? Can we just let it be our secret?"

"Sure, whatever." She shrugged absently. Like, why not.

"And Tara, do yourself a favor. Get out of this place."

"But there's nowhere else I can go," she said sadness in her eyes. As I slowly closed the door, the last thing I heard was the sound of the Beethoven sonata dying away.

What a day . . . and night. As I walked down the hallway carrying the camera bag, I tried to process my new informa­tion. I'd just seen some of the most incredibly lovable babies ever. That part of it was a beautiful experience, one that pulled at my heartstrings more strongly than I'd ever imag­ined something like that could. The part that troubled me was, the babies were so alike, so fair, and . . . they all could have been perfect siblings for Kevin and Rachel.

No, I told myself, surely that was my imagination. Though they did look amazingly related. . . .

As I moved across the parking lot, I thought I saw a movement in the shadows just inside the entry archway, a quick change in the pattern of dark. Was it Ramala or one of the girls, I wondered, or was it just my paranoia?

Keep walking, I told myself. Lose yourself in the snow. The only way they can stop you from exposing this racket now is to kill you.

When I got back to my car, I gazed up at the imposing turrets of Quetzal Manor one last time, wishing there was enough light to film them, and collected my thoughts. Was the story about the babies being orphans or abandoned chil­dren or "whatever" really true? I didn't believe it, not for a minute.

But as Carly Grove said, Alex Goddard could "make it happen." The problem for me was, he wouldn't tell me where he got the children, and nobody I'd talked to so far seemed to want to know, not really.

I wanted to know.

In moments I was heading down the snowy drive, south toward my home (which had been hopefully put back to­gether). I pushed the pace, mesmerized by the snow, and tried to decide what to do next. The thug Ramos had stolen some second-generation interview footage from me, but now I had a tape of something a lot more interesting.

When I pulled into my street, the time was just past eleven and I was thinking about calling Lou, or Steve, or both. But then I saw something odd. A woman was walking down the steps from the lobby of my building, a woman I recognized from somewhere.

Her hair was tangled and she was wearing black jeans and a black sweater. It took a second before I finally processed the fact it was Carly Grove. And she seemed frantic. I as­sumed she’d come in a cab, but she had my home phone number, so why would she come over if I didn't answer? New Yorkers don't just drop in. A social no-no.

Maybe the reason had something to do with how she looked. I felt like I was seeing a specter.

"Thank God you're here," she blurted out, striding up. She was actually shaking, and I could tell she'd been crying. Nothing like the gutsy woman I'd seen a few days earlier. "I kept getting your machine, but I thought maybe you were hiding."

I looked at her, and forgot all about my own issues. It was hard to remember ever seeing a human being in such distress, except for Sarah.

"Why would I be hiding?" I was taking out the Betacam bag and closing my car door, hoping to seem normal and professional.

"They called me about six o'clock tonight. Children of Light." She could barely get the words out. "They'd seen my interview with you. How did they get it?"

I looked down at the snowy—make that slushy—street and felt a chill go through me, followed immediately by an­ger. Ramos, that bastard.

"They . . . Somebody took a copy this morning." Stated like that, it sounded pretty lame. "I'm so sorry—"

"He threatened Kevin. He actually said if I signed a re­lease to let you use the film, my child would 'meet with an accident.' And then he said something about you, that your own—"

"Who? Who called you? Did he tell you his—?"

"He wouldn't give a name. Just some man. He had a for­eign accent." She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her back as best I could.

"Where's Kevin now?" I was so concerned about Carly that I'd repressed the information that he'd also mentioned me.

"Marcy was there, so I told her to take him with her. To her mother's place in the Bronx, where she lives." Carly was still trembling as she loosened her grip on me. "I called a car service to drive them up."

"Well, come on in. Let's talk." Truthfully, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to tell her about what I'd just seen at Quetzal Manor. It would probably just distress her more. Where had Kevin come from? Did I really want to de-legitimize him in her eyes?

As I led her through the lobby, hoping to appear com­posed, Patrick Mooney greeted us, announcing that his sister, Rosalyn, had been gone for an hour and that she appreciated my memorable tip.

The place looked like nothing had happened, and Carly immediately collapsed onto my "earth-tone" couch. I hadn't told her my apartment had been tossed along with the rob­bery and, thanks to Rosalyn, I didn't need to. In fact, it ac­tually looked cleaner than it had in months. Maybe, I thought, I should reprioritize my life and hire her more often.

Then I got a glass of water for Carly and sat down next to her.

"I'm really sorry," I began, deeply meaning it. "If I'd known all this was going to happen, I'd never—"

"It's not your fault." She took a long drink. I hadn't both­ered with ice, and I immediately felt I'd been inhospitable. Kind of a vagrant, minor concern, considering. Then she went on. "I guess I knew down deep I shouldn't have given you that interview. But I wanted the world to know about Kevin. Now, though . . . should I call the police or some­thing?"

The short answer to that was yes, but my mind was already skipping on to a different topic.

"Carly, do you know where Kevin came from? Really came from? Did you ever actually try to find out?"

She sighed and took another sip.

"I told you I don't care. When they brought him, all pink and helpless, I just—"

"Who brought him?" I interrupted.

"Well, I'd been up there the day before, signing all the papers. I was supposed to go up that day, but then somebody called and said one of the girls who was staying in the clinic or whatever it is was bringing him to me. So don't come."

"You're saying one of the girls—?"

"Yeah." She looked wistful for a moment, as though re­membering. "Then she just showed up, looked like some blond college dropout. I guess a little more fanfare would've been nice, but Marcy was there to help me and that was it. That's the last contact I ever had with Children of Light." She shuddered involuntarily. "Till now."

Well, I thought, the last thing I'm going to do is tell her about what I just saw. She's the ideal customer for Alex God­dard: She truly doesn't want to know details.

"Carly, there's not much I can do about what's already happened, but I can try to keep you from getting into any more trouble. Why don't you call them in the morning and tell them you've yelled at me and rescinded your permission for Applecore to use the film? And say I've promised I won't. You've threatened to sue me or something. That should get you off the hook."

"You really think so?" Her look brightened slightly.

"Yes, it's me they're worried about, not you. I represent some threat to them, because of the film I'm making. Just bail out and you'll be okay."

"Thanks. I did get the feeling that's all they really want." She took another drink of water. "But if they wanted to scare me, they're doing a hell of a good job."

"Well, then, why not take Kevin and go away for a couple of weeks? On a vacation someplace? And while you're doing that, I'm going to have a one-on-one with Alex Goddard. I've got a little leverage now."

She looked at me. "What . . . what are you going to do?"

I couldn't tell her about my videotape of his baby cache without explaining a lot more about Children of Light than I thought she wanted to hear.

"Don't you think the less you know the better?" I said, taking her hand. "I've caused you enough trouble already."

"No, I caused myself trouble." She was getting up. "Can I use your bathroom?"

"Sure." I pointed the way.

While she was gone, I went to the kitchen and surveyed it, checking the cabinets. Again, the place was cleaner than it had been in ages. The look of it momentarily bucked me up.

When Carly came back, she hugged me and then an­nounced she wanted to go check on Kevin.

"I'll do what you said about calling them," she concluded, reaching for her bag. "I think you're right. That ought to get them off my case. At least for the moment. As for the long run—“

"Carly," I said, taking her hand again, "we'll get through this. Just trust me."

We hugged one more time and then she was gone. I took the moment to double-lock the door, and then collapsed on the couch. What should be my next move? I closed my eyes and tried to review all the insidious things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The illegal drugs, the break-in and theft of my film, the suspicious nursery of Children of Light, the threats to Carly . . .

Then it finally came back that she'd mentioned Ramos saying something about me. By now I was getting used to being threatened by the man, so one more time was hardly news. But I wished I'd asked her the specifics.

That was when I roused myself and reached for the phone. The time was pushing eleven, but I still wanted to check in on Sarah, see how she was doing. Had she come back to reality after I left?

I was listening to the phone ring, my mind drifting to thoughts of how to gently ask Lou about her, when I realized nobody was picking up.

What's going on? I wondered, immediately coming alert. Mrs. Reilly had probably gone home for the day, but no way would Lou be in bed before midnight. He always had trouble settling into sleep.

Maybe, I then hoped, I'd just dialed the wrong number. But when I tried again, still no answer.

I clicked off the phone and felt a wave of concern. If Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos could find out I was making a movie, and then find out where I lived, he sure as hell could locate my extended family. Was that what he'd meant when he mentioned me to Carly?

I grabbed the set of Lou's keys I had stored in my bedroom's desk drawer and flew out the door.

The streets were plastered with a grimy veneer of city snow, melting fast, but I pushed the limits of safety and ran a couple of lights since the traffic was spotty. There was a parking space just across the street from Lou's building, and as I pulled in I looked over at his windows.

Through the curtains I could tell a dim light was on, probably coming from Sarah's bedroom. The front room, how­ever, was dark.

My pulse was pounding as I raced up the steps to the street door. I thought about pushing his bell, but I didn't have the patience. Instead I just fumbled with the key set till I found the biggest one and shoved it into the lock.

The building had no lobby, just a row of stairs leading up to the next floor, with Lou's own door set off to the left. I shoved his Medeco key into the deadlock and pushed it open. The room was pitch-dark.

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