From out of the parking lot strode a uniformed officer in a plastic, visored helmet and wearing what looked like a very thick nylon vest. Kevlar. Bulletproof. Cadillac fender-proof, too, one imagined. The parking lot was as bright as a ballpark lit for a night game: the bomb squad’s trucks came equipped with that kind of candle power. From inside Harry Levine’s sedan, Devlin saw other Darth Vader look-alikes quickly release the pneumatic jacks under the Seville, which bounced on the pavement. Harry Levine lowered the electric window next to him.

“Well?”

“Nothing,” said the vested officer. “Clean as a whistle.”

“What about that tire that you changed?”

“Cut. Slashed. A broken bottle could have done it.”

“Nah. He wouldn’t have noticed a flat like that right away? He wouldn’t have seen it when he was getting out of the car? Give me a break.” Levine closed the window and turned to Devlin. John Lord and Kevin McQuaid, Levine’s man, were in the backseat. Devlin didn’t have to be told McQuaid was John’s connection in Levine’s office. “Devlin, it looks like if they took a shot at you, they did it down in the subway station. You were kicked as you ran for the train, you say?”

“That’s the way it felt.”

“Why didn’t you mention this to me?” John asked.

“I thought of it later.” Right, Devlin told himself. Levine had come up from Police Plaza to Times Square in the middle of the evening for the chance to talk to Devlin alone. Devlin thought of the subway incident after Levine told him that telephone company records showed calls from Devlin’s apartment to the numbers of both Antonucci and Octavio Lopez.

Earlier, while Devlin had been on the telephone with Levine, Lord had been talking to his contact in Levine’s office, and apparently Levine heard Lord’s version, too, before meeting Devlin at Times Square. What Levine knew was that Devlin had come in with his story, more or less confirmed by John Lord, before being told that Levine’s office had found trouble in the telephone records. Levine had already checked the times of some of the calls made from Devlin’s number—all times department logs showed Devlin on duty. This evening, John’s notes corroborated the official documents. Devlin had been working when someone had been using his telephone. For Levine, it didn’t look like anything but a ham-handed frame. Somebody had been breaking into Devlin’s apartment for more than six months. Levine was sure the telephone records were going to connect to a mile-wide trail leading to the perpetrators.