Devlin, the recovering alcoholic, knew what was in Torres’s heart. Torres only believed he had gotten lucky—he knew he was empty inside. He would be more guarded about indulging his pleasures otherwise. Hamilton was another story. Devlin was sure that Hamilton was a profoundly sick man. Absolutely everything was fodder for his ambition, including his own sexuality. Most of the city needed no proof that the mayor was a homosexual, but Norman Hamilton and all his people kept insisting he wasn’t. Over the years, free-lance spies had gathered other rumors, and now, with more and more of Hamilton’s cronies and allies going belly-up in almost-weekly scandals, the common threads wove a tapestry different only in style from those Hollywood fall-of-Rome epics of the fifties. At the center of the New York City version, instead of Nero making music while the city burned around him, was a desperately sad little creature who had sold the city so he could be its mayor. Devlin took Norman Hamilton to be another example of that certain kind of American personality that wants to self-destruct before the greatest number of people. Richard Nixon had done it, and so had John Belushi. Here I am as I really am—destroy me. But if Hamilton was going to follow the pattern, he was going to fight like hell, kick, scratch, and bite, if necessary, to postpone his exposure. He didn’t want the murders in the Waldorf Towers turning into a political sex scandal. Levine was supposed to clean it up as quickly as he could. Levine had played fair with Devlin in the questioning about Lopez and Jack Brennan. Devlin could consider himself lucky. With another guy, Devlin might even be in custody.

1:07 A.M. …

1:07 A.M. …

Two uniformed officers stood at Lopez’s door, and as Devlin, Gerrity, and Levine approached, a plainclothesman Devlin didn’t know stepped out of the room. A young, skinny Irishman with curly hair down the back of his neck. His collar was open and a twenty-year-old knitted string tie was pulled up to it. “Good,” he told Levine, glancing at Devlin. “Downstairs they said you were on the way up. The Daily News is onto it. I just got the call from downtown. Some night guy called your office to confirm, blah, blah—”

“Mariano? What did Mariano say?”

“He directed the guy to public relations. How do you think it got out?”

“Anybody at the Waldorf could have called it in,” Levine said. “A lot of old-timers still think the newspapers pass out fives and tens the way the gossip columnists used to do. You don’t remember that, but Devlin does. Excuse me. Frank Devlin, Kevin McQuaid.”

They shook hands. “How are you?”