He got a room on the fourth floor with a view of the parking lot, and he was barely inside when his stomach started heaving. Devlin had not had his head in a toilet in thirteen years. As a child he’d wanted to know what caused the roar of a flushing toilet, and his mother had told him, “Blitzen the whale.” This wasn’t the time to be remembering such things—why was it happening? His stomach heaved again, and involuntarily he yelled, bellowed, as his empty gut kept seizing. He knew what came next. It was as if he had been on a three-week bender. Sweats. Chills. Weakness. In the old days, when he was hung over and still drinking, hours passed before his strength returned. He was in better shape now, and knew how to put himself right.

He was still thinking about the DiBennedettis having so much misinformation about him. It gave him an edge, strengthened his resolve. Killing those two in Paterson wouldn’t have helped—that was a kid’s solution. In his old age his father had said he was grateful that he had never had to kill anybody. By then Devlin had come to terms with the reasons why he had become a cop, and it had warmed him to hear the old man express his own feelings about killing. Too late for that now, even if he didn’t feel any remorse about Lederer. He had always wondered how people could kill and not feel remorse. Now he knew. Lederer had been human garbage. If you were going to kill and get away with it, you had to know that about your victim. Not feel or believe. Know.

If Devlin had come close to killing again today, it had been when he had conked the driver of the Lincoln. Rizzo, James Rizzo, according to his driver’s license. The credit cards were in five different names. The other guy was George Gentile, with an even richer assortment of cards. Both guys were in their late thirties. They’d been kids when Devlin had made plainclothes. Why had he bothered with police work? Maybe it was time to retire—as if Devlin had another alternative now.

He cleaned up and got out of his clothes and eyeballed the car in the lot below. It was in a corner, its battered front end tight against a wall so it could not be seen. Devlin turned on the television set. A notice laminated to the top said the motel had a satellite dish, and listed scores of channels available. Local news wouldn’t start until five o’clock. With the set tuned to Headline News Service and the sound turned very low, Devlin called John Lord.