“You sent people out to find him … more likely, somebody to pump him for information about me,” Devlin said. “For all I know, you killed him, too.” Yes, that was true, too. Devlin suddenly believed it with all his heart. He could feel his anger leaping out of control. “You wanted to know who I was. I remember you asking the question.”

“I knew who you were!” Brennan roared. “You were the male bimbo humping my daughter and everything else that moved, the guy who’d crawled out of the worst kind of Irish shit and thought he’d caught a lifetime free ride. Mr. Lucky, the golden tit in his mouth.”

“You thought I was the guy who was going to take it all away from you! You thought I was the guy who was going to do to you what you did to the man whose daughter you raped and stole! You poisoned him and stole his business! Then you beat the life out of the man who helped you do it. Vittorio DiBennedetti never worried about you going to the authorities for protection because he knew you didn’t want anybody looking into that part of your life.” Rockets went off directly overhead, red, white, and blue. Brennan seemed to jump with surprise. He blinked at Devlin, who said, “Among the papers left behind at Antonucci’s apartment were some about me that had been stolen from Jack’s office. We’ll be able to tie them to you.”

“You’re going to punish her!” Brennan roared. “What do you think the newspapers are going to print? Who in all the world would that hurt most? My wife is seventy-six years old. Are you going to let that woman read in the newspaper that her whole life was a fraud perpetrated by her husband? That I stole her trust? That she might as well not have lived?” More explosions made his face shimmer suddenly, intensely. He was scared. “That I used her? It’s a lie! It’s all lies! When Jack and Joe were talking years ago about taking on the crime families, I warned them that these were dangerous people. You were around. You may have even heard me, if you weren’t too drunk to remember.” Several ear-rattling bangs went off. Brennan kept talking, but for a moment Devlin couldn’t hear. “… Maryellen, too. Leave them their dreams.”

“Dreams? What dreams? An old woman’s of dead sons? Or a woman so confused that not only doesn’t she know what sex she is—I’ll take her father’s word for that—she doesn’t know what she wants, doesn’t know what she’s saying, or even that she’s saying it. You know that. You’ve seen it.”

“Transient psychotic episodes, they’re called. That’s enough—”