“I know. Charlotte supports the arts, she’s active in the charities, she even stands up straight. She’s a good example. She was born with the proverbial silver spoon, convent schools, Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, and she’s spent her whole life thinking she’s been putting something back into the world. The woman has a shell around her you couldn’t penetrate with an Exocet missile. The shell has been up so long I’m not sure there’s anyone inside. She knows how she’s supposed to behave in any and all circumstances, and she never fails herself. But don’t misunderstand: Jim Brennan is an Irish type, too. He started with nothing and got lucky. He believes she’s everything he really wants for himself. I don’t mean she’s an ornament in his life, because it’s more. Maybe he once hoped some of what she is would rub off on him. She added class to his image of power broker and wheeler-dealer. The Brennans are lace-curtain. That’s what we call them. In their case, because of their millions, it’s lace-curtain raised to the ten-thousandth power.”

“All from a few bus lines in Queens,” Harry Levine said.

“Just about all the bus lines in Queens and most of Brooklyn. I don’t see how this is helping you.”

“I don’t take Jack Brennan’s murder to be politically motivated. Not politics per se.” Levine chewed on his unlit cigar. “Give me credit for being on this case a few hours longer than you have. The marks on Jack Brennan’s body tell more than his own story. If the people who put Octavio Lopez up to killing Brennan only wanted to take him out of the race for the Senate, all they had to do was confront him with evidence of his private behavior and threaten to go public. If they knew Brennan was in the Waldorf Towers, they knew about the sadomasochism, too.”

Devlin said, “They wanted the disgrace. A little more than murder.”