“I don’t know that I have any more to tell, except for childish rumors.”

“Let me think about it. I don’t want John giving up his bed for us unless we have good reason.”

He thought of her waiting for bombs at the end of the street, or pistol shots in the next street over. It was unimaginable to him, but the fact was that she had lived it for many, many years before quitting and deciding to carve out her own life—with Frank Devlin, as it had turned out. Her presence honored him; her conduct just now had only given him another reason to think of it.

Devlin knew the shortcuts down to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, Fiftieth Avenue down past Vandam Street, picking up the upper ramp on the Thompson Avenue Bridge. The sky looked like it was building up to a day-long rain. The harder, the better, as far as Devlin was concerned; anything to keep the suckers indoors.

The upper ramp exited north of the bridge, on a west-bound street. Eileen’s office was in midtown. Devlin headed down Park, made one round-the-block loop, and let her out in front of her office. Almost two hours early. Any other day, Devlin would park the car, put his “Police” card on the dashboard, and have breakfast with her. There was no place in her office where they could make love—in the morning. One evening he tagged her on a desk, like a kid. She laughed about it for weeks afterward.

“I’m sorry …” he said suddenly.

“I can see how unhappy you are. We will get through this—we. Do you hear me?”

“Of course. I was thinking of something else: John’s place. Maybe you ought to go up there after work tonight.”

“I’ll need fresh clothes.”

“Make a list, we’ll get them for you.”

“That does seem to get the unhappiness out of your eyes. All right, I’ll do it.” She kissed him. “We’ll talk later.”

He looked unhappy? Threatened was really the word. Why chained dogs go wild when approached. He wanted to keep Eileen as far from this as he could. “Look, I do want you to be careful.”

“I will be, I promise.” She put her arm around his neck and kissed him again.

At Bellevue, Kevin McQuaid and John were waiting for him in the vestibule. “The shit we had to go through to get these stiffs over here,” McQuaid said, leading the way inside. “I don’t want anybody in Queens touching this case. The whole fucking borough is rotten from the top to the bottom, and I don’t trust anybody out there.”

Behind McQuaid’s back, John smiled. They were approaching Gerrity, standing at a desk, talking on the telephone. He gave Devlin a nod.