11:21 P.M. …

11:21 P.M. …

“Devlin,” the message tape began, “this is sergeant Mariano of the Chief of Detectives’ office. Would you call in, please, as soon as possible? I’m going to give you the chief’s private number. Under no circumstances are you to give it to anybody else.” Devlin was ready with a pen when Mariano gave the number.

The answer machine was on the dresser in his bedroom. Devlin stopped the tape. Rewinding it when he had come in had taken almost a minute. Five or more calls, according to the indicator light. In the fifteen months he had had the machine, a gift from Eileen, it had never recorded so many; most of the time he was at Eileen’s, and most of his friends knew it. Devlin, barefoot on his thick, brown carpet, a cup of decaffeinated coffee in hand, could not remember the last time he had been called by anyone from the Chief of Detectives’ office. Years ago. A decade or more. He didn’t know Mariano. Now the window air conditioner turned itself on and Devlin reached over and turned it off. If the department wanted him for more time this weekend than he had already been assigned, he was going to have to find a way to get out of it. He started the machine, and after a moment, Mariano’s voice came on again. The message was the same, but the tone was a bit more urgent. Devlin wasn’t being asked to work more overtime, that was clear. As he stopped the tape a second time, the telephone rang.

He couldn’t let it go, or the machine would record over the messages he still hadn’t heard. Devlin picked up and said hello. It was John Lord, his partner.

“I’ve been calling you every half hour since eight o’clock, Frank. Vito Mariano, in Harry Levine’s office, called me twice before—”

“You know Mariano?”

“He was in the Two-six with me. You want to know about him?”

“Yeah.” The Twenty-sixth Precinct was West Harlem, black and Hispanic, graffiti scarred and garbage strewn, where young rookies learned in their first tour that the rules were the same as prison: you went along, and as soon as somebody looked at you funny, you hurt him. The Two-six wasn’t the toughest precinct in the city, but it had all the necessary elements.

“As I understood it, Vito had a rabbi in the Chief of Operations office,” John said. “He wasn’t any kind of a cop on the street and he couldn’t wait to move up. People weren’t supposed to see it, but I could.”

In the N.Y.P.D., a rabbi was an older, highly placed cop who steered a favored youngster in the right directions. “Did Mariano play the game, or just mind his business?”