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her.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Ernst Hausman.”
    “Has he ever been to this country?”
    “No. I hear from my sister several times a year; I think she’d have told me if he came here.”
    “Where does he live?”
    “In Hamburg. I don’t have his address. He works at a cigarette factory, I believe.”
    “Social work, huh? Helping out his fellow man.”

    Mitteldorfer shrugged. “He doesn’t have my conscience.”
    “Stone, you got any questions?”
    “Mr. Mitteldorfer,” Stone said, “do you have any regular correspondents besides your sister?”
    Mitteldorfer hesitated for a moment. “There’s a woman I once worked with,” he said finally. “We write from time to time.”
    “Anyone else?”
    “No.”
    “Do you have any regular visitors?”
    “Just the woman,” he replied.
    “What is her name?”
    “I do hope you won’t drag her into whatever this is about,” Mitteldorfer said, pleading in his voice.
    “What is her name?” Dino demanded.
    “Eloise Enzberg,” he replied softly.
    “She live in the city?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where?”
    He gave Dino an address in the East Eighties. “I hope you won’t find it necessary to visit her. She’s a very proper sort of person, and she would be shocked if the police knocked on her door.”
    “What sort of work do you do here?” Stone asked.
    “I’m the office manager,” Mitteldorfer said. “I oversee the prison bookkeeping, and I hire and train other prisoners to do office work.”
    Dino broke in. “Have you cut anybody’s throat lately, Herbert?”
    Mitteldorfer looked horrified. “Please. I think you’re aware that my crime was one of passion. I’mnot the sort of person ever to repeat it.”
    “Does Ms. Enzberg know what you’re in here for?” Dino asked.
    “Yes, she does. She read about it in the papers when you arrested me, and after the trial she wrote to me.”
    Stone was becoming uncomfortable with this. Mitteldorfer was a mild little man, much different than Stone remembered. He seemed to have served his time well, and there was no point in persecuting him. “That’s it for me, Dino,” he said. “You ready to go?”
    Dino ignored him. “Something I remember about you, now, Herbert,” he said. “You enjoyed killing your wife, didn’t you? She was fucking somebody else, and when you found out about it, you took pleasure in cutting her throat, didn’t you?”
    Mitteldorfer looked at the tabletop. “Please,” he said.
    “Let’s go, Dino,” Stone said.
    “All right, get out of here,” Dino said to Mitteldorfer.
    Mitteldorfer rose and, without another word, let himself out of the room. They heard him lock the door behind him.
    Stone stood up and tried the door by which they had entered. “Locked,” he said. “I wonder how long it’ll be before Captain Warkowski remembers to let us out of here.”
    It was nearly an hour before Captain Warkowski turned up and unlocked the door. Stone made a point of keeping his body between Warkowski and Dino.
    Dino drove like a wild man all the way back to the city.

8
    THEY WERE CROSSING THE HARLEMRiver Bridge when Dino’s cell phone rang. He got it out, said hello, then held it away from his ear.
    Stone could hear a woman’s voice, practically screaming.
    “Not so loud!” Dino yelled into the phone, still holding it away from his head.
    “It’s me!” the woman yelled.
    “Mary Ann? What’s going on?”
    She was still shouting, but not screaming; Stone could hear her clearly. “A man just attacked me! I shot him!”
    “Are you all right?”
    “I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean.”
    “Where did this happen?”
    “On the street, outside the building.”
    “Where are you now?”

    “I’m in the apartment.”
    “I’m on the West Side; I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll have a squad car sent. Lock the door, and don’t let anybody in but cops.”
    “All right.”
    Dino hung up and dug out the flasher again. “Did you get that?” he asked