“Turned out it was black powder — not smokeless. That's the weakest explosive you can find. And most of it was wet and didn't go off. Didn't do anything more than knock me on my ass and blister my palms. But I said to myself, 'Healy, time to stop being an asshole.' That helped me get over her pretty well. And that's where I am now.”

“Over her.”

“Right.”

After a moment Rune said, “Marriage is a very weird thing. I'm not sure it's healthy. My mother's always after me to get married. She has a list of people for me. Nice boys. Her friends' sons. She's nondenominational. Jewish, WASP... doesn't matter to her. Okay, they are sort of ranked by professions and, yeah, a doctor's first — but she doesn't really care as long as I end up rich and pregnant. Oh, and happy. She does want me to be happy. A rich, happy mother. I tell you, I have a great imagination but that's one thing I can't picture, me married.”

Healy said, “Cheryl was real young when we got married. Twenty-two. I was twenty-six. We thought it was time to settle down. People change, I guess.”

Silence. And Rune sensed he felt they'd gone too far into the personal. He shrugged in a dismissing way, then noticed a uniformed cop he recognized and asked what had happened to a live hand grenade someone had found in the Bronx.

“S'in the captain's office. On his chair.”

“His chair?” Healy asked.

“Well, we took the TNT out first.”

He turned back to Rune and to fill the silence she asked, “You ever happen to talk to that witness?”

Healy drank most of his soda but left half his sandwich. “What witness?”

“The guy who was hurt in the first bombing? The first angel?”

The wind came up and whipped smoke from a burning pit toward them.

“Yeah.”

“Ah,” Rune said. “Was he helpful?”

Healy hooked his thumbs into his thick belt, which really made him look a lot like a cowboy.

“Aren't you going to tell me what he said?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Doesn't concern you.”

“You just filed it away, what he said. And that's it?”

“No, that's not it.” Healy debated for a moment. Finally he said, “The witness wasn't helpful.”

“So there're no leads.”

“There're leads.”

“But nobody's following up on them,” she said cynically. “Because of the word, right? From downtown.”

“I'm following up,” Healy said.

“What?” she asked quickly. “Tell me!” And she guessed he was wondering whether the date had been a good idea.

“I checked the fingerprints from the phone where the killer called her the night of the bombing.”

“And —”

“Nothing. I'm also tracking the explosives. The wrapper I mentioned. I think we can trace the inventory.”

“So, you going to get fired for doing all this? Because of the word from headquarters?”