Devlin looked around quickly. Maybe somebody up the block would have the sense to feel the Falcon’s hood. It was still hot—and maybe somebody would deduce, like a real detective, that Frank Devlin was not far away. Then what? In the same situation, Devlin would look for the man on the street, heading away. They weren’t going to look for him in a luncheonette, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get lucky and find him when they were stopping here for an egg cream. He’d do himself a favor by staying away from the window. And hiding Jack Brennan’s letter. He turned to the old woman. “I can’t see what it is from here, but at least I know to take another way home.”

She nodded and turned her back to him. Something else entered Devlin’s mind: as soon as somebody thought of it, the cops up the street would see that the cops in Antonucci’s apartment knew that Devlin’s car had been found less than a mile away. So Devlin had to get his plan working. He took the half sandwich over to the telephone, even though he wasn’t going to be able to eat while he was talking. From the booth he couldn’t see anything of the street. He called the Antonucci number. It was picked up quickly, and a cop said, “Yeah?”

“Kevin McQuaid,” Devlin said through his teeth. “Who am I talking to?”

“Detective Anthony Corella. What can I do for you?”

“We now have reason to believe that Frank Devlin is on his way to Brooklyn, maybe to your location. I want to make sure that we have all the names developed from those telephone records.”

“The Hoboken cops finally got to look in the apartment over there and it looks like it belonged to that actor who took the hit out by the airport, what’s his name, Matthews—”

“Fuck the corpses,” Devlin said as McQuaid. “We’re trying to come up with some names of living conspirators here. Do you have anybody east of the Hudson? What the hell, I’ll settle for east of the Mississippi.”

“We thought what we got yesterday was working out,” Corella whined.

“That was yesterday,” Devlin said quickly. “Today they all talked to their lawyers. What about those local numbers that weren’t called much? What are you getting on them? For instance, we want to know if anyone used Antonucci’s telephone to talk to that bookmaker in Queens.” Trying not to use too heavy an accent, Devlin gave Corella Major’s whole name and telephone number. “Go back as far as you can. I’ll wait.”

“Just a minute.”