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warmth, and he had no idea what she was up to.
    “Before we start, Lieutenant, I want to thank you for last night,” she said. “I know you could have been a lot tougher on us. I feel badly about leaving some things out.”
    “Maybe I should have been tougher,” was all that Stefanovitch said for now. He had to admit, though, she’d thrown him a beauty of a change-up curve, absolutely caught him leaning the wrong way in the batter’s box.
    “Anyway, I’m sorry.” She pulled back her hand, but held him with her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed a soft pink. If it was an act, it was a good one. “I had to think a lot of things through first. I had to choose sides carefully.”
    “Kupchek said you had something to show me?” Stefanovitch finally said. “Anything you give me now might be considered a peace offering. We’ll see.”
    “All right, Lieutenant.” Kay pointed toward a mirror that took up half of one wall of the sitting room. “We can start over there.”
    She stood and walked to the mirror. She stooped down and pressed something metallic at the bottom of one pane of glass. Then, she straightened up and pushed on the upper-right corner of the glass.
    The mirror opened outward like a free-swinging door. Stefanovitch craned his neck to see inside.
    Kay flicked on fluorescent lights, and then he could see everything. It was a peace offering, all right.
    A small compartment, about six by eight, was hidden behind the mirror. Stefanovitch followed her across the longer room and inside the smaller one. He whistled softly as he entered.
    “They could make movies in any of three master bedrooms from here,” Kay said, answering two of his questions right away.
    Stefanovitch nodded as he peered around the compact room. He had quick eyes in a new place, taking everything in, making connections and mental notes.
    There were two sleek, black Sony videotape cameras. One wall was covered with stacks of videocassettes, hundreds of cassettes in black boxes. The blue-movie history of Allure? A complete library of tender and touching moments?
    He asked the $64,000 question next. “Was this room being used last night?” There was nothing like having a homicide filmed to help catch the murderer.
    “I don’t know, Lieutenant. I don’t remember seeing Johnny around all last night. Johnny D.’s the guy who usually runs the cameras. He’s one of the managers.”
    “But last night might have been filmed by this guy Johnny D.?”
    “Sure…we’ve been filmed a lot. Sometimes they told us they were going to be in here. Sometimes they didn’t. That was supposed to keep us in line, I guess. Actually it did, a little. You never knew who was watching, or why they were watching.”
    Bear Kupchek had entered the parlor again. He was standing in the doorway of the room, a huge shape looming behind Stefanovitch’s chair, something like a big brother, something like a friendly gorilla.
    “Hmmm? What have we here? Did they get last night on film?” he asked with a frown. “ Look at all the home movies. What’s this, the New York porn-film festival?”
    Stefanovitch looked back over his shoulder. “We don’t know if they filmed last night or not. You’d better get the lab techs here again.”
    “This might even be where the hitters hung out.”
    “We’ll check that, too. Let’s get all the cassettes packed up and shipped down to Police Plaza in the meantime. We’ll need a private screening room. I don’t want word to get out until after we’ve looked at some of the tapes ourselves.”
    Stefanovitch’s gaze returned to Kay. He thought that she’d lost a little of her city-cool look, the confident slickness he’d seen the night before. She kept changing, and he couldn’t figure her out.
    “We owe you one,” he finally said to her. “You can go home now. Like they say in the movies, though, don’t try to leave town. We’ll be in touch.”

16
    John Stefanovitch and Bear Kupchek;
West Ninety-ninth Street
    AFTER