Devlin lit a cigarette and flicked the match into the gutter. “You’ve reminded me of the things on Levine’s mind last night. He wants to get through this without problems.”

“Spoken like a true civil servant,” John said. “Good luck to him. Are you going to check on Lake Tranquility?”

“I want to think a little more about that. What’s the point of making a trail that might point Levine in the wrong direction? Why would I go up to Sussex again if I wasn’t worried about it? Suppose it’s simply this: A guy said he was a cop because it was the only way he could get his brother-in-law into the program. My car is around on Second Avenue. There’s something back home I want to get my hands on.” Devlin didn’t want anything happening to the Nelson tape. He turned back toward Second Avenue and caught the morning sun in his eyes. The day was going to be splendid. “How do I fit into this? Why would I want to strike out at Jack Brennan or anyone else? I want to get married! Wouldn’t I want to keep my nose clean?”

“Oh, she called. Eileen.”

“Yeah, I know. When I just spoke to her, she knew I wasn’t at the station.”

“She asked me how you were taking it. I told her I thought you were all right. You had a call from another woman. She wouldn’t leave her name. She said she’d get back to you.”

Déjà vu. A woman had called him last night before he had come home from New Jersey. There had been something as familiar about her voice as there had been about Antonucci’s face. Devlin could almost hear her voice now. Three words. Now he remembered he had her on tape, too.

“What’ll I tell people if they ask about you?”

“Tell them you haven’t seen me,” Devlin said. “That’s the easiest way.”

Now Island-bound BQE traffic was bumper-to-bumper from the Brooklyn end of the Williamsburg Bridge to Newtown Creek. Devlin was trying not to jump out of his skin. He was getting plenty of input. Over the radio WCBS was reporting the shooting death of the alleged Brennan assassin, Octavio Lopez, outside the Tombs early this morning, by Bobby Antonucci of Brooklyn. Knocked off the air by this latest development was the sidebar on Jane Milburn, last night’s other victim, a Vassar girl from Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, an affluent community of one-acre estates. Neighbors there said …