“I guess I’ll have to borrow Rawls’s shotgun again.”

“Whatever.”

They stopped at the Dark Harbor Shop. “I have to get a Times,” he said. “It gets here later than in the city.”

Dino got out and came in with him, had a look around the shop. A slender man with blond hair and beard was having a cup of coffee, and Dino glanced at him.

When they were back in the car, Dino said, “You saw the guy at the soda fountain, right?”

“Sort of. You know him?”

“Yeah, and so do you. We busted him for more than a hundred burglaries about seven, eight years ago, back when you were earning an honest living.”

“Harold Rhinehart? That was him?”

“Yeah. He has a beard now, and his hair is shorter, but that’s the guy.”

“How much time did he get?”

“He plead out for five to seven, which means he could have been out two and a half years ago, if he kept his nose clean in the joint and really impressed the parole board. You had any burglaries up here?”

“Not that I’ve heard about, but I’ll ask Rawls; he seems to know everything that’s going on. Maybe Rhinehart took his ill-gotten gains and retired up here.”

“I doubt it,” Dino said. “The guy was a pro, but he was obsessive about stealing. I don’t think there are any New York State parole officers on this island, either. If he got out in half his sentence, he should be reporting to a P.O. every week.”

“Dino, you’re a wonder; you’ve been here fifteen minutes, and already you’ve spotted a perp.”

“They’re everywhere,” Dino said. “Maybe I’ll just clean up this burg while I’m here.”

“How long can you stay?”

“I got a lot of vacation time built up; we’ll see.”

“How’s it going with Mary Ann?”

“Everything’s squared. We’re just waiting for a judge to sign off on the agreement and give us a decree, then I’ll be a free man.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Relieved.”

“No regrets?”

“Can’t think of any. It wasn’t like it was a marriage made in heaven, y’know. If the kid hadn’t been in the picture, we’d have screwed each other for a few months and called it a day the first time she complained about something. She knew it, I knew it.”

“Any luck on the apartment hunt?”

“Yeah, I found a nice six on Park in the sixties.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“By the time it’s done up I’ll have a couple mil in it.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Had to be; the court has to approve it for Benito’s visits.”

“When do you close?”

“Yesterday,” Dino said. “Things move fast when it’s an all-cash deal. I’ve already got a designer working on the renovations and buying me some furniture.”