Carmen Ruiz rested her hip against the Athena Diner's front counter as she made a quick but thorough survey of her section of booths and tables. She had assumed her relaxed posture without really thinking about it; when you work waitress for a living, you learn to take the weight off your feet any way you can, every chance you get.

    Carmen was about to go on her break, and she wanted to be sure that all of her customers had what they needed before she left the floor. If you make people wait fifteen minutes before they can get a soft drink refill or an extra order of toast, they tend to get annoyed, and they usually take it out on your tip. Carmen was trying to save as much money as she could these days; she was planning to start classes part-time at the local community college in the fall. Out of high school almost four years, Carmen Ruiz had come to the conclusion that serving club sandwiches and meatloaf at the Athena was not a career with a lot of potential for advancement.

    She checked her tables first, then ran her analytical gaze along the row of booths. The young couple with the two small children were just digging into their burgers and fries, and seemed happy with them. The cute guy in 15 who had been mildly flirting with Carmen was still working on his steak and eggs; the four teenage girls in 17 were eating ice cream and giggling over some adolescent gossip; and the three guys in the corner booth were about halfway through their steaks and pork chops. They should all be good for another fifteen minutes, at least.

    Carmen let her eyes linger for a moment on those three in the corner. When taking their order, she had tried to hide her surprise upon noticing that two of the men were handcuffed together. She had never seen that before in real life, but it was easy to figure that one of them must be some kind of cop, and the other one his prisoner. It wasn't a tough call as to who was who, either. The nice-looking guy in the short blond hair and classy gray suit was certainly a policeman, and the older man sitting opposite must be his partner. The other one, with the dingy sport coat, no tie, and brown hair that kept falling into his eyes, had "menace to society" written all over him.

    Carmen made a mental note to call her mother tomorrow and tell her about tonight's interesting customers. Then, after one more quick survey of her area, she was gone ... off to a small salad, a cigarette, and maybe another chapter of Pride and Prejudice.

***

    As Carmen Ruiz headed for the employees' break room, FBI Special Agent Kenneth Frain put his fork down and used the same hand to push his brown hair out of his eyes for the fifth or sixth time since the meal had begun. His left hand was useless for that purpose, being connected by handcuffs to Jimmy Platt, master counterfeiter. Jimmy was known in some circles as "the Plate" ... a reference both to his skill at engraving the image of fifty dollar bills and his habit of dressing expensively and well, like a true fashion plate. His work was lucrative enough so that Jimmy could afford to indulge his taste in fine clothes ... although the work had recently been brought to an abrupt end, and the expensive wardrobe was likely to follow very soon.

    Jimmy Platt took another bite of the Athena's perfectly-cooked steak fries and looked across the table at Frain's partner, Special Agent Mark Rodelle. The FBI man, who, at 47, had almost twenty years on his partner, was using a paper napkin to mop up a little spilled coffee from his saucer before any could get on his sleeve. Unlike Frain, Rodelle was fastidious about his appearance, even if he couldn't afford to emulate Platt's pricey tailoring.

    The three men had all been hungry, so once their meal had arrived, conversation had been tacitly suspended in favor of nourishment. The silence went on for several minutes before Platt suddenly broke it by saying, "So, I guess you guys are pretty hot to nail that dude they call The Reverend, aren't you?"

    Rodelle's brow furrowed. "Who? What Reverend?"

    It was Frain who answered. "Serial killer. Guy's been active in the Northeast the last year or so. He's done, I don't know, seven or eight women in three states. Rape, murder, mutilation ... more or less in that order."

    Rodelle's forehead smoothed out as he nodded. "That's right, I remember seeing some advisory stuff on my office e-mail about him, now that you mention it. But I can't bring to mind why they call him by that weird name."

    "Some reporter came up with it," his partner replied, "on account of this freak carves crosses on the bodies of his victims. The exact number of crosses and the locations've both been kept out of the papers, to help weed out the usual confessions from nuts, but the alert sheet that I saw mentioned that he leaves his mark on each breast and just below the navel."

    Jimmy the Plate made a face. "Sick bastard," he commented. "But you guys are looking for him, right?"

    Frain shrugged, a movement that Platt, because of the handcuffs, could feel as much as see. "We're not assigned to the case, if that's what you mean," he said. "I'd guess that it's being worked out of Behavioral Science down at Quantico. But it's an open case file, sure. Murder's not a federal crime, but crossing state lines to do it, or to avoid prosecution for it, definitely is. So, yeah, if I fell over the guy I'd bust him."

    Rodelle swallowed some pork chop, then smiled slightly. "What do you care, Jimmy? Are you planning to confess to the murders once we get you in front of the U.S. Attorney? It doesn't seem like your kind of thing, somehow. Too much mess and no money to be made at all. No pun intended."

    Platt shook his head. "No, you're right ... it's not my kind of thing," he assured the FBI men. "I'm not The Reverend." He ate another French fry before continuing. "But I've seen his face."

    Rodelle and Frain glanced at each other cynically. "Do tell," Rodelle said. He was not sounding especially impressed.

    Heedless of the sarcasm, Platt went on. "Look, a couple of months ago," he said, "I'm in Warwick, Rhode Island, doing a little business."

    "Printing up about 250,000 bucks in bogus fifties, or so I heard," Frain said.

    "Don't matter why," Platt said. "Anyway, I have to work late, and the little apartment where I'm doing this job is kind of stuffy, you know?"

    Rodelle nodded. "Sure, I can see that. Can't exactly open the windows and let the neighbors get a glimpse of all that funny money, can you?"

    It was Platt's turn to shrug. "Whatever you say." He ate another fry. "At any rate, I'm finally done for the night, so I decide to take a little walk, get some air, clear my head out before I try to grab some sleep. So I'm wandering around this neighborhood, not going anywhere special, when I see this guy come out the front door of this house just up ahead. He slips down the steps from the porch, quiet as a ghost, takes a right, and almost cannons into me on the sidewalk. He's moving pretty fast, you understand, and I guess he's not expecting to find anybody outside at that hour, which is like two-something in the morning. So he pulls up short about a foot away, looking real surprised, mumbles 'Sorry' or something, steps around me, and keeps on truckin'. But feature this: there's this street lamp not ten feet away. So when he stopped, I got a good, clear shot of his face."

    "So, what made you decide this guy was The Reverend?" Frain asked, and this time there was no sarcasm in his voice.

    "The smell, man," Platt answered. "He was wearing a long coat, even though it wasn't all that chilly out, so I couldn't see his clothes underneath. But there was this stench of blood on him, no doubt about it. It was strong, and it was fresh. I mean, I worked in a slaughterhouse one summer when I was in high school. I don't guess that's a smell I'm gonna mistake for anything else."

    "So maybe this guy you ran into works in a slaughterhouse, too," Rodelle suggested. "Just another wage slave home from the night shift."

    "Could be," Platt said. "Except that I don't think they do meatpacking anyplace in Rhode Island. And, oh yeah, there was that story in the Providence Journal the next day about this woman ..." He turned sideways to look at Frain.

    "... 'raped, murdered, and mutilated, more or less in that order' being found in a house in that same block where I took my little stroll. They put time of death at around 2:00 a.m. That was the first time I ever heard anything about this Reverend guy, but then I don't follow the news much, usually."

    After a silence of several seconds, Frain asked, "So why are you telling us all this, Jimmy? You want to go look through some mug books when we get to D.C., is that it? See if you can spot his picture among the known sex offenders, and maybe deal yourself a reduced sentence?"

    Platt shook his head, and there was a strange expression on his face. "No, I don't need to mess around with a zillion mug shots just to see this guy's face again. I know a much better way to ID him."

    Jimmy Platt looked at Frain next to him, then over at Rodelle. His voice was almost calm as he said, "He's in here. In the diner. Right now."

***

    The FBI men ate in silence for the next half minute or so until Frain remarked, "If that joke's got a punch line, you might as well deliver it and get it over with, Jimmy."

    Jimmy Platt shook his head. "No punch line. No joke," he said quietly.

    Rodelle looked over at Platt, then past him. The wall behind where Platt and Frain sat was mirrored, and gave a wide view of the dining area. Rodelle made an unobtrusive survey of the room that the mirror revealed to him. There must have been at least fifty people eating in this part of the Athena Diner, about half of them adult males. Rodelle saw no obvious psychopaths among them, although he would have been the first to acknowledge that most serial killers look just like anyone else ... except to their victims.

    Rodelle returned his gaze to the man sitting across from him. "Just for the sake of argument, Jimmy, if he was actually in here, which one would he be?"

    Platt was looking at his food and did not raise his eyes to meet Rodelle's. "Well, that's kind of a problem, actually."

    "Why?" Rodelle asked. "You said you already recognized the guy. You don't have to stand up, point your finger, and yell "I accuse!" or whatever. In fact, I'd really prefer you didn't do that. Just tell us where he's sitting and what he's wearing, and whether he's alone or with somebody."

    Jimmy the Plate was looking at Rodelle now. "Yeah, I guess I could do that," he acknowledged. "But that kind of ignores the bigger question."

    Rodelle tilted his head to one side. "Which question is that?"

    The counterfeiter shrugged. "The one it always comes down to, sooner or later: what's in it for me?"

    Frain brushed his errant hair out of his eyes yet again, then asked, irritably, "What the hell do you want? An extra dessert?"

    Jimmy Platt looked at the place mat for several moments, then returned his gaze to Rodelle. His face had a determined look the two agents had not seen there before, but his voice was matter-of-fact as he said, "I want you guys to turn me loose."

***

    After a few seconds had passed, Rodelle began to chuckle softly. "You had me going for a little while there, Jimmy, I admit it. And you said there was no punch line. Shit." He stretched the last word out, so that it seemed to contain three or four syllables.

    Rodelle's partner was less inclined to be indulgent. Frain took another bite of his steak, chewed thoroughly and swallowed before speaking. "You know, Jimmy," he said musingly, "if it weren't for the damn airline strike, we could have flown you back to Washington, and you'd have been there yesterday. As it is, we've got another day on the road ahead of us tomorrow, and unless you want to spend the rest of the trip riding in the trunk with the luggage, you'd better think twice before you go yanking our chains like that again."

    Jimmy Platt's lips were compressed into a thin line. "I'm not yanking anybody's chain, dickhead," he said tightly.

    Rodelle's rueful smile remained in place. "Give it a rest, Jimmy. It was a good gag, but don't beat it into the ground."

    Jimmy Platt was reasonably bright, in his own way. He knew everything there was to know about the art of engraving, the chemistry of ink, and the physical properties of the paper used by the U.S. Treasury, but that didn't exactly make him a genius when dealing with people. "You guys were taking me serious a minute ago," he protested, "and you should have, because I was serious. Now, all of a sudden, I'm yanking everybody's chain. How come?"

    "Because you're treating us like idiots, that's why," Frain told him. "I mean, J. Edgar Hoover's dead and gone, it's true. That's why I can sometimes get away with not wearing a tie on the job. But the Bureau is still pretty anal about a lot of things. And when it comes to their Special Agents letting prisoners in custody just walk away, well when it comes to stuff like that, the Bureau's downright constipated, know what I mean?"

    "Seems like a pretty good trade, if you ask me," Platt replied stubbornly. "A counterfeiter, I mean alleged counterfeiter, who wouldn't hurt a fly, in exchange for a dude who's killed ... how many did you say? Eight women? Compared to him, man, I'm a choir boy."

    Frain looked over at his partner. "How about I smack him one, once we get out to the car? Just to teach him some manners. We can always say he fell down, or tried to escape, or something." Rodelle knew the younger man was kidding; at least, he thought Frain was kidding.

    "Jimmy," Rodelle began patiently, "I'm going to assume for a minute that you're actually sincere about this bargain you're trying to make here. You may not be, but let's pretend. Just for the sake of discussion."

    Rodelle took a sip of coffee, then put his cup down. "You're probably right, in theory," he continued. "If we could exchange you for this Reverend guy, it would definitely be a trade up. We might even manage to sell it to our boss, who might possibly be able to sell it to his boss. After all, nailing a serial killer always makes the Bureau look good, and the House is supposed to start hearings on the Justice Department budget next month. Congressmen love it when we catch a major bad guy, because it's something they can understand, instead of all those dull crime statistics. But all that's in theory."

    "If only life were so friggin' simple," Frain muttered.

    "Well, why isn't it that simple?" Jimmy Platt demanded.

    "Because you're already in custody," Rodelle said. "We know who you are, and we have a pretty good idea of what laws you're broken. But we'd only have your unsupported word that some guy you pointed out was actually the killer. Let's say you tell us that it's that young fella three booths over, the one with the woman and the two kids. You swear up and down to us that he's The Reverend. Well, unless he jumps up and starts carving crosses in the waitress with his steak knife ..."

    "Which is none too sharp," Frain interrupted, looking at his own cutting utensil.

    "... with his none-too-sharp steak knife," Rodelle went on, with a nod toward his partner, "how are we supposed to know he's really the guy? What prevents you from just making the whole thing up and then picking some customer at random to star in your little melodrama? Huh?"

    "Can you see our problem now, Jimmy?" Frain asked. He changed the pitch of his voice to show that he was playacting, then said, "'Excuse me sir, we're with the FBI. Sorry to bother you, but the man who was just here, that's right, the one walking out the front door even as we speak, well, he told us that you were a notorious serial murderer, so we'll have to ask you to come with us so we can straighten this out. Your wife can start lining up a good lawyer for the false arrest lawsuit while she's waiting for you to be released for lack of evidence, which you sure as hell will be."

    Jimmy Platt looked at Frain bleakly. "You need some kind of proof before you can bust him."

    "That's right," Frain said. "It one of those annoying Constitutional things. They call it 'probable cause,' I think."

    The three men ate in silence for another couple of minutes. Then Platt looked up again and said, "If you knew which one it was, you could follow him when he leaves here, right? Tail him, like they say on TV?"

    "Now, why would we want to do that, Jimmy?" Rodelle asked. He didn't seem amused any longer.

    Platt waved his fork, as if the answer were self-evident. "See where he goes, where he lives! There's got to be a ton of evidence in his apartment, or hotel room, or wherever he's staying. And in his car, too, probably. Don't most of these wackos keep souvenirs from their victims?"

    "They're called 'trophies,' moron," Frain said. "We're not talking about a weekend in Atlantic City here, you know?"

    "But, call them what you like, Jimmy ... yeah, you're probably right," Rodelle said. "Might be all kinds of incriminating stuff in his car, his living space, maybe even in his pockets ... and we couldn't go near any of it without a warrant, signed by a judge."

    "For which we'd need to show probable cause, just to get the judge to consider the damn thing," Frain chimed in.

    "Exactly," Rodelle said.

    "I don't freakin' believe this!" Jimmy Platt said. "You're telling me that there's not one damn thing you can do? Even if I hand you this guy on a platter?"

    "That's about it," Rodelle said. "Under the circumstances, we couldn't even question him."

    Platt narrowed his eyes for a few moments, then opened them wide. "All right, what about this, then? I go in front of the judge with you, tell him what I know about this guy. Hell, I could be your probable cause! Then you could get your warrant, tail him, search his place, all that stuff you were talking about."

    "Great idea," Frain said with a sneer in his voice. "But while we're finding out where the closest Federal District Judge is, and driving there, and getting a hearing on our petition for one or more warrants, what do you suppose your buddy The Reverend is gonna be doing? Think he'd wait right here for us until, I don't know, lunchtime tomorrow?"

    "That long?" Jimmy the Plate asked incredulously.

    "It's entirely possible," Rodelle said. "Plus, that assumes that the judge agrees to give us a hearing right away, and that we'd get the damn warrant ... which we might not, since a convicted felon in custody, no offense, Jimmy, might not be the most credible basis for an application."

    "And let's not forget the biggest problem of all," Frain said. "Assume, just for giggles, that all this stuff we're talking about could actually happen ... and that's an assumption the size of Utah. But, okay, say we get the search warrants, we follow the guy that you finger as The Reverend, search his room, his car, his pockets, and so on. And say that we turn up some major evidence: Polaroid pictures of all the victims' bodies, maybe. You know ... something totally incriminating. So, all right, we bust the guy, and eight or nine months from now the case comes to trial. His lawyer challenges the search and seizure, and we say 'Well, we had warrants," and the lawyer says, 'What was your probable cause?' and we say 'we had an ID, courtesy of Jimmy Platt, counterfeiter extraordinaire,' and the lawyer says, 'Let's put Mister Platt on the stand and hear about this so-called probable cause of yours,' and we say, 'Well, uh, you see, there's kind of a problem with that, counselor. 'Cause right about now Jimmy's probably laying on a beach in Pago Pago or someplace, sipping rum punch and drawing fifty dollar bills freehand, since we kind of agreed to let him escape right after he fingered your client for us.' And like that."

    "'And like that' means what?" Jimmy Platt asked sourly.

    "It means the search warrants would probably be thrown out," Rodelle told him. "Which means the fruits thereof, such as those hypothetical photos of the victims, also get thrown out. Which means the accused walks. Oh, and it also means that Frain and I get fired, for whatever that's worth."

    Jimmy Platt swore, softly but vilely, for several seconds. Then he took in a deep breath, let it out, and picked up his fork again.

    As Platt went back to work on his dinner, by now mostly cold, Frain and Rodelle exchanged looks. The two agents had worked together for almost six years, and they did not always need to speak to each other in order to communicate.

    At the end of this brief, unspoken dialogue, Frain shrugged in a resigned way, which his partner interpreted to mean, "Go ahead, if you want to."

    Rodelle turned his attention to their prisoner. "Jimmy, listen," he said. "We might be able to manage this much: if you tell us which one of these customers is the guy you saw that night, we'll stick around until he's ready to leave. I'll follow him outside and get the license number of whatever he's driving. In the morning, I'll call a guy I know in the Behavioral Science Section at Quantico. If he's not working this Reverend case, he'll know who is. I'll pass on the license number, along with a physical description. If the car is registered or rented in the suspect's real name, they'll be able to make an ID, then check him out. If any of that should lead to an arrest, we'll make sure the judge knows about it at your sentencing hearing. It could make a difference, who knows?" Rodelle shrugged. "Best we can do, under the circumstances. What do you say?"

    Jimmy Platt put down his fork, picked up an almost-full glass of water, and drank deeply, gazing at Rodelle over the rim. Then, as he replaced the glass on the table, a ratty grin suddenly spread across Jimmy Platt's face. He began to chuckle softly. "By God, I really had you two clowns going for a while there, didn't I? I thought for a minute or two that you were actually going to go for it, just for a chance to bust that evil killer, Mister Reverend." Platt shook his head in apparent amazement. "Do you guys still put out milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve? Or do you maybe get frostbite every Halloween from spending the night in a real sincere pumpkin patch?"

    Frain looked across at Rodelle and murmured, "I told you."

    Platt glanced at him, then let the grin disappear. He leaned as far over the table as the handcuffs would let him, and took on a conspiratorial manner. "Listen," he said to Rodelle, "I don't know anything about this Reverend dude that I didn't see in the paper, but I can still make this evening worth your while. I've got some land in South Florida that I can let you have at a bargain price, since I probably won't be able to visit it for the next ten years or so. It's a place called Everglades Acres, and ..."

    Frain yanked angrily at the handcuffs and brought Jimmy Platt back to his former position. "I want you to sit still and shut up, asshole," he said through clenched teeth. "Just remember, it's still possible that you could fall down and hurt yourself before we get to Washington. You might even fall down two or three times, know what I mean? So just shut your mouth."

    To Rodelle, whose face was flushed with anger and embarrassment, Frain said gently, "The waitress is over your right shoulder, Mark. Why don't you flag her down and get us the check? Let's get out of this roach palace."

    The three of them left the Athena a few minutes later. As they walked toward the door, Jimmy Platt kept his gaze straight ahead of him. He did not look at any of the diner's other customers. He especially did not glance in the direction of the man with short black hair who was eating alone in booth 15.

***

    "You look tired. Long shift?"

    Carmen Ruiz glanced up from the dinner check she was totaling. The cute guy in booth 15 looked about thirty, good build, blue eyes, black hair worn fashionably short. The only unattractive thing about him was something that Carmen had noticed while taking his order earlier: he had a crucifix tattooed on the palm of each hand. Maybe he was some kind of religious nut, but at least he wasn't acting weird; he had been polite, even a little flirty, each time she had stopped by his booth to take his order or bring him something.

    Was he trying to seriously hit on her now? If so, he was due for disappointment, cute or not. Carmen absolutely refused to go out with guys she met while working. You could never really tell about strangers, and there were an awful lot of dangerous people loose in the world.

    But his question seemed innocent enough, so she gave him a medium smile and said, "Not yet. Dinner rush is always pretty hectic, you know, but I only came on at five."

    He glanced around the dining room. The three men from the corner booth, who had seemed to be having some kind of intense conversation throughout their meal, were just departing. "Seems to be clearing out a little. Maybe things will slow down for you soon."

    "Could be," Carmen said, placing his check in front of him. "But I don't mind working hard, and most of what I make comes from tips, anyway."

    The man smiled gently. "A good point," he said, "and a timely reminder, too." He reached around to his hip pocket and pulled out a wallet. "Do I pay you, or up front?"

    "At the register, please," Carmen told him. "And come back and see us again, okay?"

    The man nodded slowly. "Yes, I'm sure I will."

    Carmen smiled a quick farewell, then moved off to attend to her other customers. The man in booth 15 put down a generous tip next to his plate and prepared to leave. He had learned what he needed to know.

    In a prior existence, before the Change had come over him, he had spent some months working as a busboy, so he was familiar with restaurant routine. The typical shift for a waitress was usually eight hours, which meant the pretty young woman whose nameplate read "Carmen" would probably be done at 1:00 a.m. She would then go back to the break room, add up her tips, and fill out the tax form that the government requires of those whose income involves a lot of gratuities. She would leave the Athena Diner, probably by the rear door, between 1:15 and 1:30.