“Why did you do this?” I asked.

She was in my chair, her back to me, and she replied without turning around or slowing her finger; on the keyboard. “It makes more sense this way.”

“Lucy, you can’t just go into someone else’s office and move everything around. How would you feel ft I did that to you?”

“There would be no reason to rearrange anything of mine. It’s all arranged very sensibly.”

She stopped typing and swiveled around. “See, now you can reach the printer without getting up from the chair. Your books are right here within reach, and the modem is out of your way completely. You shouldn’t set books, coffee cups, and things on top of a modem.”

“Have you been in here all day?” I asked.

“Where else would I be? You took the car. I went Jogging around your neighborhood. Have you ever tried to run on snow?”

Pulling up a chair, I opened my briefcase and got out the paper bag Marino had given me. “You’re saying you need a car.”

“I feel stranded.”

“Where would you like to go?”

“To your club. I don’t know where else. I’d simply like the option. What’s in the bag?”

“Books and a poem Marino gave me.”

“Since when is he a member of the literati?” She got up and stretched. “I’m going to make a cup of herbal tea. Would you like some?”

“Coffee, please.”

“It’s bad for you,” she said as she left the room.

“Oh, hell, “I muttered irritably as I pulled the books and poem out of the bag and red fluorescent powder got all over my hands and clothes.

Neils Vander had done his usual thorough examination, and I had forgotten his passion for his new toy. Several months ago he had acquired an alternate light source and had retired the laser to the scrap heap. The Luma-Lite, with its “state-of- the-art three-hundred- and-fifty- watt high-intensity blue enhanced metal vapor arc lamp,” as Vander lovingly described it whenever the subject came up, turned virtually invisible hairs and fibers a burning orange. Semen stains and street drug residues jumped out like solar flares, and best of all, the light could pick up fingerprints that never would have been seen-in the past.

Vander had gone the gamut on Jennifer Deighton’s paperback novels. They had been placed in the glass tank and exposed to vapors from Super Glue, the cyanoacrylate ester that reacts to the components of perspiration transferred by human skin. Then Vander had dusted the slick covers of the books with the red fluorescent powder that was now all over me. Finally, he had subjected the books to the cool blue scrutiny of the Luma-Lite and purpled pages with Ninhydrin. I hoped he would be rewarded for all of his trouble. My reward was to go into the bathroom and clean up with a wet washcloth.