Somebody grabbed him. People pulled him up, looking quickly into his eyes. He felt like the last guy in a school yard game of Crack the Whip. Blood was beading up in the grime ground into his palms. Kicked. He looked around, past the faces of the crowd around him. No one was looking back over his shoulder at Devlin. If the kick at his ankle had been deliberate, the attacker had learned the trick in grammar school.

“You want to sit down?”

“No, I’m all right.” He was going to have to clean up and change clothes. His pants were torn, the shoulder seam of the jacket split. His knee was scraped, too, and he had felt something in his back he knew wouldn’t begin to hurt until the end of the week.

First he had to get uptown and show his face—and the rest of him. Any other time, he would be told to go home. In any other circumstance, he would do it. If Levine really suspected him of being involved in Brennan’s assassination, the story of Devlin’s accident would get to him almost instantly. Devlin wanted to be on the record. John was right about that. There was nothing to hide.

Devlin was shaking, his heart rate up, sweat running unpleasantly down the backs of his legs. The pain began to tune up, not so much like a section of violins as a set of fingernails across a blackboard. People had moved away, replaced by newcomers who gave him a wary once-over before averting their eyes. His ankle throbbed. Kicked! No doubt about it. What Devlin couldn’t decide was the question of intent. It could have been an accident, someone not watching where he was going. No one had been looking back at Devlin in the moment after he had been pulled to his feet. And no one near him now seemed to be feigning lack of interest in him.

He had returned to the parking lot to find his tire flat, and then minutes later he had taken a near catastrophic fall on the subway platform. Was his thinking too paranoiac? Had somebody anticipated he would take the subway, or had he simply presented that somebody with an early opportunity?

To do what? Kill him?

Why would anybody want to kill him? The platform began to shake as another train approached. Devlin could feel the strength draining from him, as if he might not stand up long enough to get inside the car. Was anybody watching him? Was he presenting another opportunity?

The train rolled in. Devlin was thinking that he could have gone in any direction from the parking lot. All anybody would have had to do was follow him.…

Wheels still in motion: Devlin to New Jersey, unalibied Devlin to the Tombs, summoned by a man who didn’t exist. Why not Devlin dead? Maybe the plot didn’t work unless Devlin was dead.