Harry Levine was putting the telephone down. His hair was completely gray now. He was wearing a summer-weight, short-sleeved white shirt, even though he lived all but a few minutes each day in conditioned air. The cigar was out. He told Devlin to sit down and then dismissed Mariano with a thank you. Mariano’s eyes darted suddenly; he was surprised to be excluded. He knew what was coming, and was just now seeing that his boss wanted to give Devlin—what? The appearance of privacy? Perhaps only the temporary appearance of privacy. Levine wanted to tell Devlin something known to Mariano, a sergeant. Maybe there were others who knew, all the way up to the rank of super chief. Why not above, too? A little insight into the situation had an oddly calming effect, Devlin realized. He saw, too, that he was staring at the lights of Brooklyn through Levine’s two windows, Brooklyn and the bridge, red and white lights trickling sluggishly in all directions. The public parts of this building looked like what you expected to find in the Moscow subway, but this office was a bit better. On two walls Levine had pictures of himself with politicians and figures from show biz, like the owner of a nightclub. Upper-echelon New York cops saw themselves as celebrities, too; Devlin himself had been on the same track before he had derailed.

Devlin watched Mariano close the door. Levine relit his cigar. “You still A.A.?”

“You’re always A.A.—if you’re lucky,” Devlin answered. The Quinns? Had something happened in New Jersey?

“How long? For you, I mean?”

“Thirteen years.”

“That’s wonderful … I guess. I don’t know. I was married and had little kids before I was twenty-five years old. That’s the truth, Devlin. I took myself as too busy to get into the kind of trouble you and a lot of other guys made for yourselves. I mean no offense, it’s just the difference between us.” He leaned back. “Do you know a man named Octavio Lopez?”

A little guy with a crater face, wispy goatee and mustache, and a navy blue beret. “He’s a dope dealer on Fourth Street between B and C.”

“The Ninth? The Lower East Side?”

“Alphabet City,” Devlin corrected, being facetious. Real estate interests had dreamed up the new name for the area encompassing the lettered avenues, which was the same as calling cancer a freestyle cellular development. Levine snorted.

“He’s your informer?”

Mariano knew this? Why? “Oh, yeah. Very small potatoes. I want him to work the kids, the young burglars. Octavio deals to them. I want him to keep his ears open, not ask questions. Sooner or later he’ll help us on something worthwhile. In the meantime, he’s good for small stuff and background. You know the game.”

“He deals to burglars.” Levine picked up a computer printout. “He caught nine months on Riker’s back in ’81. Your collar.”