“The other night you mentioned an actress.”

“Lisa Wagner. She was there with Jack. Charlotte was there. And Jim. Jack and Wagner went out into the backyard, and Charlotte went upstairs.” Devlin heaved a huge, shuddering sigh. “Turn left. When you get to Forty-eighth Avenue, turn right. I was standing at the French doors, watching Jack and his lady friend outside. I was beginning to feel uneasy as well as sick, but I still didn’t have a clue to what was going on. When the hairs on the back of my neck were straight up, Jim Brennan said, ‘Okay, fuckhead, into the library.’”

“Did he usually talk to you that way?”

“He did a couple of times. Once when he thought I’d organized an orgy for his sons—I hadn’t—and another time when Maryellen ran home after one of our arguments. He was wise to me, he said, and he was just waiting for me to fall on my face. Those were his words both times.”

“Why?”

“He considered me a drunk—and a nobody who didn’t love his daughter. He was two for three. I loved her more than I knew.”

Levine made the right turn and allowed the car to roll the short block to Devlin’s apartment house. Outside the building, a four-door sedan was double-parked. Levine pulled up behind it. A rental, by the sticker on the rear bumper. Devlin turned his eyes upward. The windows on the third floor were dark. The scene was so still, it looked like a photograph of itself. Devlin was about to say he wanted to finish his story when a middle-aged woman with the beginnings of a dowager’s hump emerged from the building entrance and walked quickly past their car. Levine spoke just as Devlin felt a shock of recognition.

“I know that woman,” Levine said.

Devlin watched her cross the street: she was headed home. “You know her as Liz Weinstein. She’s in the Queens D.A.’s office.”

“How do you know her?”

“I’ve known her since she was seven years old. I went to junior high with her brother.”

“I hear more than that in your voice. She looks ten years older than you. What is she doing here?”

“Probably leaving a note for me,” Devlin said. “The FBI questioned her last week about my connection to Jack Brennan, and she got around to telling me about it yesterday morning. I asked her to pass along the message that I hadn’t seen Jack Brennan or heard from him since 1971.I asked her to tell me how they reacted.”

“Let’s get that note.” Levine turned the engine off and set the brake. He shoved a snub-nosed .38 in his jacket pocket. “It’s a hell of a thing when you need a backup to enter your own home, but in this case, you do.”

“We’ll take the stairs,” Devlin said.