The path to the truth is as slippery as ice – in a city whose heart is just as cold. The cops of this precinct know that anyone can be a victim. Anyone can be a perp. And killers keep killing until you put them on…

Once she’d been a dancer. Now she lies on a sidewalk, her blood seeping into the snow. Detectives Carella, Kling, Meyer, and Brown are learning all about ice: in a multimillion-dollar showbiz scam, in the glittering diamonds that spill out of a dead man’s vest, in the veins of a small-time pusher. As the cops scramble for evidence, as the city shivers, a killer is one step ahead, and the heat is still up.

They’re up against a master criminal. A man so slick that no one knows how to stop him, or whom he will kill next. Now, with the murders of two prominent citizens to his credit, the infamous Deaf Man is about to unveil his piece de resistance of extortion and homicide. But the 87th Precinct cops have been out pounding the frozen streets, lying in stinking alleyways, making calls, tapping phones, wearing disguises. They deserve a break. Or at least a chance to came home alive…

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Chapter 1

IT WAS STILL SNOWING hard when she came out of the theater. The snow, wind driven, struck her face sharply as she stepped into the alley and closed the stage door behind her. She glanced upward, shaking her head as though reprimanding God, and grimaced at the myriad tiny darts of white swirling in the reflected glow of the hooded light hanging over the door. Reflexively, she lifted the collar of her coat, and then yanked the muffler from around her throat and draped it over her head like a scarf. Holding the ends together just under her chin, she began walking toward the street at the end of the alley.

In this city, there were only two good seasons, and even they were sometimes lousy. Winter and summer, you could forget entirely; they were either too hot or too cold. Like this winter, which had started in November instead of when it was supposed to. London was worse, she supposed. No, London was better. Well, at least London was dependable; London was always lousy. Well, that wasn’t quite true, either. She could remember days, when she was living there–ah, those lovely balmy summer days, strolling up Piccadilly, blond pony tail swishing behind her, nineteen years old then and worlds ahead to conquer. Summertime in London.

The snow underfoot was at least a foot deep.

Luckily, she had decided to put on boots before leaving her apartment for the performance tonight, not because she was expecting snow–the snow hadn’t begun until sometime after the curtain went up–but only because it was so damn cold. The boots afforded at least some protection. They were shin-high, her blue jeans and leg warmers tucked into them, her long gray cavalry officer’s coat coming almost to their leather tops. There wasn’t a taxicab in sight. Naturally. This city. She had lingered too long in the dressing room, leisurely cold-creaming off her makeup, getting out of the silver-spangled costume all the dancers wore for the finale, and then into her sweater, jeans, socks, leg warmers, and boots. She’d made her big mistake in listening so long to Molly. Molly was having trouble with her husband again. Molly’s husband was an unemployed actor who seemed to hold her responsible for having landed a part in a hit musical while he was still running around town auditioning. Never mind that Molly’s weekly salary paid the rent and put food on the table. Never mind that Molly, like all the gypsies in the show, busted her ass doing complicated routines six nights a week, not to mention Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Molly’s husband kept railing at her, and in the dressing room Molly kept repeating his angry tirades, and it was all you could do to get out of there by eleven if you weren’t careful. It was twenty past eleven now; Molly had gone on forever.

All the cabs had been snatched up by audiences pouring out into the night when the shows broke up and down the street. She could either walk north to Lassiter and hope to catch an uptown bus on the corner there, or she could walk south to the Stem, and then four blocks east to the subway station, where she could catch an uptown train. The avenue bordering the theater on the north was perhaps the roughest in the entire city, thronged with hookers and pimps at all hours of the day, but especially after dark. Besides, with this snow, would the buses be running on schedule? No, the subway would be best.

When she reached the brightly lighted Stem, however; she was surprised to find that it was still crowded with people, despite the rotten weather. She stood on the street corner for a bit, debating whether it wouldn’t be simpler just to walk home. She lived only ten blocks from the theater. If she took the subway, it meant walking the four blocks to the station, and then another block to her apartment building when she got off the train. Besides, would the subway be safer than the Stem at this hour of the night?

She decided to walk.