They kept on, into a shadowy forest of masts and spars, bending and swinging on the heaving river. The searchlight picked up mist and banks of firecracker smoke. The water was full of debris, candy wrappers, wooden crates, bottles. Sometimes a bit of music could be heard from a nearby boat, or people’s voices, but for no more than an eerie second or two. In the intense white light of the searchlight, the water was a lusterless green, foamy in spots with a mustard-colored froth. A garbage bag, full and neatly tied, floated by. The launch passed the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The sky was black. The launch swung away, toward New Jersey.

The Statue of Liberty came into view, floodlit against the night sky, brilliant. Spotless, after the months of work. Gleaming. Devlin was focusing on Jim Brennan. The man had changed and aged, but not as much as he wanted people to think, according to his daughter-in-law Anita. Devlin wanted to blame him for Maryellen, but really knew better. When everything else was stripped away, Maryellen loved herself as she was. Maybe her father had helped, given her a nudge, but he had done that with everybody. If Brennan thought he was getting less than one hundred percent, he hounded people. Or they were gone. Maryellen was only a case in point. Of course there were more appropriate facilities for her, better professional care. But this way, she was out of sight, not an embarrassment.…

I’m being realistic.

Devlin could hear Brennan saying it.

If there was any truth to DiBennedetti’s story, even a grain, Jim Brennan’s whole life was a work of evil, and Brennan himself never had been far from knowing it. If DiBennedetti had not lied, most of the time the knowledge had breathed down Brennan’s neck, worse than DiBennedetti’s fear of death.…

The blip showed that the Seadancer was as close to the statue as the authorities were permitting ships to get. The man at the screen said, “The Seadancer won’t be hard to pick out in this parking lot. One of the new Italian jobs, a helicopter pad on the top deck. Probably has a hot tub, too.”

Not far away, a string of firecrackers went off. Light from the statue fanned out behind the Seadancer, three decks of futurism in white plastic. The bridge leaned forward at the same sharp angle as the bow. A radar dome crowned the bridge like the peak of a dictator’s cap. Jim Brennan wanted people to believe he was looking forward to the twenty-first century? Or was this the way he wanted to be observed, as close to 2001 as one could get this year, and by enjoying it, pronouncing himself its first master? The launch slowed.

“The Brennans don’t expect us,” John said. “At least, that’s what I was told.”