Recognizing she was in shock and fighting tears, Laurie replaced the receiver. She thought she’d call Jack, but she knew he wouldn’t be home yet. So, instead of calling anyone for the moment, she tenderly packed her pet in a Styrofoam box with several trays of ice cubes. Then she went into the bathroom to check out her own wounds.

Jack’s bike ride from the morgue home was not the ordeal he expected. In fact, once he got under way, he felt better than he had for most of the day. He even allowed himself to cut through Central Park. It had been the first time he’d been in the park after dark for a year. Although he was uneasy, it was also exhilarating to sprint along the dark, winding paths.

For most of the trip, he’d pondered about GenSys and Equatorial Guinea. He wondered what it was really like in that part of Africa. He’d joked earlier with Lou that it was buggy, hot, and wet, but he didn’t know for sure.

He also thought about Ted Lynch and wondered what Ted would be able to do the following day. Before Jack had left the morgue, he’d called him at home to outline the unlikely possibility of a xenograft. Ted said that he thought he’d be able to tell by checking an area on the DNA that specified ribosomal proteins. He’d explained that the area differed considerably from species to species and that the information to make a species identification was available on a CD-ROM.

Jack turned onto his street with the idea of going to the local bookstore to see if there was any material on Equatorial Guinea. But as he approached the playground with its daily late afternoon and evening game of basketball under way, he had another idea. It occurred to him that there might be expatriate Equatoguineans in New York. After all, the city harbored people from every country in the world.

Turning his bike into the playground, Jack dismounted and leaned it up against the chain-link fence. He didn’t bother to lock it, though most people would have thought the neighborhood a risky place to leave a thousand-dollar bike. In reality, the playground was the only place in New York Jack felt he didn’t have to lock up.

Jack walked over to the sidelines and nodded to Spit and Flash, who were part of the crowd waiting to play. The game in progress swept up and down the court as the ball changed hands or baskets were made. As usual, Warren was dominating the play. Before each of his shots he’d say “money,” which was aggravating to the opponents because ninety percent of the time, the ball would sail through the basket.

A quarter hour later the game was decided by one of Warren’s “money” shots, and the losers slunk off the court. Warren caught sight of Jack and strutted over.

“Hey, man, you going to run or what?” Warren asked.

“I’m thinking about it,” Jack said. “But I’ve got a couple of questions. First of all, how about you and Natalie getting together with Laurie and me this weekend?”