“Anyway, I went down with Sir Edward and checked out the men’s room. There was nobody in there but the attendant. I was waiting outside the door for him to finish when the woman came downstairs.”

“Describe her.”

“White female, thirty to forty, five-six or -seven, a hundred and thirty pounds, long, dark hair, wearing a black cocktail dress and black gloves.” He looked longingly at the glass on the bar. “A real looker.”

“Very good description,” Dino said. “At least you learned something at the academy. What happened next?”

“She asked me if I was armed, and I showed her my gun. She pulled a black, small-caliber pistol with a silencer from her handbag, took my gun, and pushed me ahead of her into the vestibule inside the men’s-room door. She must have clocked me with either her weapon or mine. I passed out. When I came to, she hit me again. I only woke up five minutes ago, and I got on my radio.”

“So where are all your people?”

“On the way.”

Dino looked at the back of the man’s head. “Get him to a hospital,” he said to the EMT. “He’s going to need lots of stitches.”

The EMT and his partner escorted the agent down the stairs; Dino and Stone followed. They had only just seen him into an ambulance when a procession of dark vans drove into the block, and men in body armor and helmets, carrying automatic weapons, began spilling out of them, “FBI” emblazoned on their backs.

Dino stood in front of the door and held up his badge. “NYPD,” he said. “Who’s in command?”

A man in a suit got out of the front seat of a van and walked over, flashing his ID. “I’m Jim Torrelli, agent-in-charge of the New York office of the FBI,” he said. “You’re in the way of my men.”

“No, I’m not,” Dino replied. “They’re in the way of this city’s traffic. Please get them out of here.”

“We have a crime scene to secure,” the man said.

“It’s an NYPD crime scene, and it’s already secured,” Dino replied, not budging.

“We have an injured FBI agent in there,” Torrelli said.

“No, you don’t. He’s already on the way to a hospital. There are no other FBI personnel inside, just two murder victims, and murder, if I may remind you, is not a federal crime. Now, if you want to hang around and see what happens, you may do so at my invitation, but don’t get in my way, and get these storm troopers out of here, now.”

Torrelli thought about it for a moment. “Everybody back in the vehicles,” he said. “Return to base and wait for my call.” The men got back in the vans and drove away. “Now, Detective . . .”

“Lieutenant Bacchetti,” Dino said, “commander of the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct.”