He had come out here to talk to DiBennedetti, and if necessary, squeeze out of the old man what he knew about Jack Brennan’s murder. Mobsters from Brooklyn, a connection to a man who was almost ninety. They said Devlin had made it personal, he and the Brennans. What did that mean? If he got through this, he was going to have to build a completely new life, a new identity. There would be no annulment. These people had known so many other things about him, they must have known he was petitioning Rome. Notorious figures didn’t get annulments, and now, thanks finally to the Post, among others, Devlin was a notorious figure. In that way these guys had hurt Eileen before he had cursed their old man. He was not sorry about what he had done to them now. It even felt good. Sick.

Ten minutes to twelve. He wanted to regroup, get himself together. A reaction was setting in. Jack Brennan had been buried this morning in Calvery Cemetery in Sunnyside, and this was the first that Devlin had thought of it. He had probably fractured the driver’s skull. His own head was spinning. Eileen, Major, the rooftops of his childhood offering a look at the funeral that probably marked the wrecking of what was left of his life.

Time to check into another motel, one that allowed him to park the car where it wouldn’t be seen.

12:27 P.M. …

12:27 P.M. …

He took the turnpike down to the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel, and then pulled off when he saw a six-story motel that looked back over the Meadowlands. He was feeling a little nauseous, his skin clammy with cold sweat. Maybe he hadn’t come as close to dying today as he had last night, but his body was telling him something about what it expected in the future. The DiBennedetti family was that kind of angry now. Because of his call to the old man last night, they had concluded he was crazy. Had their earlier information on him led them to believe that he was going to submit passively to being framed and having his life destroyed?