“How so?”

“It’s something I’d expect to hear from a southerner, and you’re very much a northeasterner.”

Good ear, Jack thought. “A man who taught me some things used to use that word.”

She looked as if she wanted to pursue that but changed her mind. Good.

“But back to Dragovic. His customers are committing crimes because of what he’s selling them.”

“And going to jail for them.” Jack finished his coffee and stood. “As for me, I believe I’ve seen enough of Dr. Monnet and Mr. Dragovic for a long time.”

“But it’s not finished.”

Jack sighed. “Yeah, it is. You wanted to know the connection between Dragovic and Monnet. It’s this drug. You wanted to know what Dragovic has over Monnet: nothing. They’re in this together, as in partners.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Monnet’s the guy who discovered the stuff, he’s the guy who’s testing the stuff, and if you take a trip out the GEM plant in Brooklyn I bet you find he’s manufacturing the stuff. Be objective for just two seconds, Doc, and there’s no other conclusion.”

Nadia half sat, half leaned on the desk and stared at the floor, saying nothing. Jack didn’t like the job of telling her that her hero had clay tootsies, especially with her fiancé missing…

“Tell you what, though,” he said. “I’ll ask around, see who’s been boosting in the DUMBO area, and find out if anybody knows anything about Sunday night.”

She looked up and smiled for the first time since he’d arrived. “Will you? I’d really appreciate it.”

Jack left her with at least a little hope. He emerged onto Seventeenth Street with the morning sun warming the air and the traffic back full force after the holiday. Had the rest of the day pretty much to himself. So why not drop in on Gia? Vicky would be off to school by now. That meant they’d have the house to themselves.

Yeah.

Started walking east. Passing Stuyvesant Square he wondered if its heavy-duty spear-topped wrought-iron fence was meant to keep people out or in. Came to a cluster of medical buildings and wove through a throng of people in white coats with stethoscopes draped around their necks like feather boas. Why wear them out on the street?

Wassamatta? he thought. Afraid someone won’t know you’re a doctor? His irritation surprised him.

Hung a left onto First Avenue when he reached the faded brick slabs of Stuyvesant Village. Gia was about forty blocks uptown from here. A cab would be faster but he decided to walk it. Felt so full of energy—Nadia’s coffee must have been superstrong—he’d be there in no time.

He was a good walker, had a stride that ate up distance. Strode up the east side of the avenue—one long strip mall—until he reached the Bellevue-NYU medical complex where every damn building seemed to be named after someone. That annoyed the hell out of him for some reason.

After he passed through the shadow of the brooding hulk of the Con Ed power plant, the street opened up into the UN Plaza with its big Secretariat building looking like something out of 2001, towering over the sway-backed block of the General Assembly.