“You don’t know nothin’. You can’t. He doesn’t want anybody to know what an evil motherfucker he is. He doesn’t even want himself to know.” DiBennedetti’s little eyes bulged. “But don’t you bullshit me about him framing you! That file had everything you’ve been doing with the Brennan task force for the past sixteen years, the secret trips to Washington, the stuff from the N.Y.P.D. you fed to the Brennan brothers—everything. It had your whole fucking life, even shit about where you spent your summers as a kid. What it didn’t have is why Brennan sent his kids and you against us, and that’s because it was the one thing he couldn’t tell you.” He studied Devlin, but then suddenly waggled a finger. “You aged! You got gray hair!”

Rizzo said, “Why are we wasting our time? All he’s got to do is tell us where that gun is.”

The old man waggled the finger at Devlin again. “See? That’s all.” He stood up straight, looking down at Devlin. “It’s a straight deal.”

“I was listening. This goes back twenty years?”

“Double. More than that. It goes back before you were born.”

Devlin struggled against showing emotion. He decided to play his card. “The gun is in Manhattan. At an apartment.”

“And you’ll tell us there?”

“I’ll take somebody there.”

“What is this?” Rizzo demanded. The red-haired guy waved him off.

“The man knows. We’re makin’ sense to him. He hands over the gun and goes free. We are not going to kill a cop! It’s absolutely unnecessary.” He rubbed his brow. “It’s a fuckin’ rule, for Christ’s sake.”

The rest of them looked at one another and laughed. Couldn’t they see they weren’t fooling him? “Right,” said one. “Now how do we get them to stop killin’ us?”

“That’s another rule,” the red-haired guy said. “When the cops kill us, they give themselves a medal.” Everybody laughed again.

“You caused Joe Brennan’s death,” Devlin said to the old man.

Vittorio DiBennedetti moved closer again, searching Devlin’s eyes as if there were enough left of his own to reveal something beyond shape, color, and size. “Why do you want to know? What’s the point?”

“There isn’t any. As soon as I show you where the gun is, I’m headed to Kennedy and the midnight flight to London. You searched me. That’s what the passport’s all about.”

The old man gave him a toothless smile. “And the traveler’s checks. We noticed the traveler’s checks. Makes you wonder how a cop puts together so much money.”

Devlin sat up. “Did you notice eleven grand in cash?”