“Kevin told me somebody broke into Jane Milburn’s apartment and pulled up the carpet in her room. Did you find something good?”

“I have to hit the road,” Devlin said. “It’s getting late.”

“Don’t give me that. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. If you’re spotted, I’ll just say you surrendered to me and I’m taking you in. No assistance required, thank you, good night, and good-bye. You’re safer with me than with anybody else in the city.”

“Why did you ask where I got DiBennedetti’s name?”

“He’s related to two of the men who were in Babylon Monday night. Father of one, uncle of another. Now do you want to tell me how you got his name? You’re onto something.”

“Maybe you won’t think so.” Devlin shifted to Kevin McQuaid’s voice. “I got it from Detective Anthony Corella, who was working Bobby Antonucci’s apartment.”

Levine couldn’t suppress his mirth. “Now I really would like to see Kevin’s face. Why did Corella tell you that?”

“This McQuaid asked him if he had anything new on the telephone calls from the apartment.” Devlin told Levine what Corella had developed out of the Sunday morning call to the liquor store in Paterson. The neighborhood guy who had opened the store for DiBennedetti last January might wind up buried under Jimmy Hoffa. Devlin had to figure out something for that man. No good deed goes unpunished. Devlin realized he had thought that about himself recently, and now he remembered: after Tom Quinn had vomited on him. Method acting. The world’s a stage.

And remembering that made Devlin remember something else, something that intrigued him.

Levine said, “I didn’t hear about the DiBennedetti connection before I took my walk on Hamilton and Torres. The old man took the call outside his house? Does he think his line is being tapped? When Kevin calls here again, I’m going to tell him to see what New Jersey and Washington are up to, if anything. Even so, what was so important to the old fart? Guys his age spend their winters indoors. They don’t want to take chances catching the flu. And for a man like him, who knows he’s going to hell, it had to be pretty important.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s always had close ties to the Gambinos. Last summer I saw a photograph of John Gotti listening to him respectfully at a wedding. I’m going to tell Kevin to ask some questions of the New York Organized Crime Task Force.”

“Maybe you can find out who went to Eileen’s door.”