“He asked me what you thought. I told him we hadn’t had a chance to talk. The squawk was another rape. Same guy. An old lady, sodomy and fellatio.”

“We owe Lee big.” Devlin’s stomach rolled, and he put the sandwich down.

John grinned. “How is it?”

“You have to ask for lean,” Devlin said. “All this fat on here, I’m going to get too much cholesterol and take a heart attack.”

“‘Take a heart attack,’” John mimicked. “Bug off. You had me going until you said that.”

“Don’t tell me about little old ladies getting their butts reamed while I’m trying to eat.”

“How have you been today?”

Devlin shrugged, still chewing. “My brain is working better. The Quinns were professional actors who may have never worked together before. Only an actor would drink enough to make himself sick just to add realism to the part. But that’s what Tom Quinn, whatever-his-real-name, did. And when his towel fell down, exposing his penis, she stared. She’d never seen it before. Wives don’t stare at their husbands, not like that.”

“Right. After a while they look only to make you feel good.”

John had never been married. Women really did look, Devlin was thinking, you just had to catch them at it. With Eileen, Devlin always acted as if he never saw her do it. “I have a thought about Lederer, too, and that plane ticket in his car.”

Devlin could see John growing wary in spite of himself. Devlin said, “I think Lederer is a professional hitter. If I were running a deal like this and wanted to get Frank Devlin out of touch and without a believable alibi, I’d get two eager-to-please dummies to put on a show, and then I’d park them where they couldn’t tell anybody about it.”

John smiled. “A bare-knuckle scenario, I must say.”