“Jack Brennan and Octavio Lopez have already written their reviews. I think the Quinns, whoever they are, will turn up dead, probably unidentifiable. If you’re right and things are still in motion, then I have to move fast. If your friend in Levine’s office can keep his eye on D.B. calls—well, let me put it this way: If he finds a pair of corpses matching the Quinns’ description, I won’t have to go through all the actors’ directories looking for them. What you got from that real estate broker says that Lederer did everything himself, including hire the Quinns. All I need is corroboration that those people were in that house when I got there. Circumstantial evidence, testimony from anyone that one or the other had an unusual job, one time only, in New Jersey, will do it. Lederer ought to show up on FBI crime-flow charts. Even if we do lay hands on him, it won’t mean much, because he won’t talk. But that helps me, too. All I have to do is show that there is a conspiracy against me—that, and stay alive.”

With a paper napkin John dabbed a bit of cream cheese from the corner of his mouth. “It occurred to me that the deal might work better with you dead. You want to be careful.”

Devlin didn’t want to tell him about tripping in the subway. Instead, Devlin said that his car was stuck downtown with a flat tire. John sucked at his teeth.

“That’s just perfect,” he said. “You get the tire fixed, slide behind the wheel, turn the key, instant Cuisinart. You have that mechanic, Sal, don’t you? Have him go over it, inside and out, before you try to move it an inch.”

“Does that make sense?” Devlin demanded. “What would that prove, besides that there was a conspiracy, and that I was just one of the victims?”

“No,” John said. “The same reasoning you’ve applied to the Quinns will be applied to you—one small piece of the puzzle. You did your job, whatever it was, and met with the traditional Mafia layoff.”

“Mafia?” Devlin repeated.

“All right, CIA. Whatever. You know as well as I do that if you’re going to create a chain of evidence, you’d better build in a link weak enough to be broken. Lee Harvey Oswald might have been that link. You know what I think of that civilian in the Iran hostage deal. The Quinns had to go if, as you say, they were actors. If they lived to see you get it, or see you turn up in the newspapers and on television, talking to us and the press might have opened career doors for them. People dumb enough to take a job like that in the first place? Try to keep them quiet.”

“All right, Sherlock, how does killing me make sense?”