I pulled to the curb by a pay phone, called information, and got the numbers for the Figaro Social Club and the Lucerno Meat Company. I called the social club first and asked if Charlie DeLuca was there. A guy with a voice like a rusty gate said no. I called the meat plant and said, “Charlie’s office, please.” A woman came on and I told her that my name was Mike Waldrone and that Charlie’s dad Sal had said that I should call and could I speak to him. She told me that he was on the other line and asked if I wanted to hold. I said no thanks, hung up, and went back to the car. “Meat plant,” I said. “Piece of cake.”

Twenty-eight minutes later we parked the Taurus just off Grand around the corner from the meat plant, walked back to a fruit shop with a little juice bar in the window, ordered a couple of papaya smoothies, and sat down to watch for Charlie DeLuca. Elvis and Joe go hunting in the city.

Econoline vans and eight-wheel delivery trucks came and went and guys in stained smocks loaded and unloaded packages of meat. At nineteen minutes after ten Ric the Vampire came down the sidewalk carrying a little white bag and took it into the meat plant. Danish, no doubt. At eleven-fifty-one Charlie and Ric came out and got into the black Town Car. Charlie was wearing a three-thousand-dollar Johnson & Ivers topcoat and climbed into the front seat. Pike and I hustled back to the Taurus and followed them northwest up across the Village to a little café two doors down from Foul Play Bookstore on Abingdon Square. Charlie went into the restaurant and Ric stayed in the car. In the café, Charlie met three other men, also in Johnson & Ivers topcoats, and sat in the window where they laughed and talked and read racing forms. Power lunch, no doubt. Who will we rob today? Who will we kill?

An hour and ten minutes later Charlie came out and got into the Town Car, and he and Ric drove to the Figaro Social Club, members only. Ric went in with him this time, instead of staying in the car. Shoot a little pool, drink a little espresso, hang out with the other wiseguys. They still hadn’t cleaned the front door.

Neither Charlie nor Ric came or went for the next two hours and twenty-five minutes. A couple of old men hobbled in and another old man hobbled away, and strong younger men with broad backs and sturdy necks drifted in and out, but Charlie never moved. Probably weren’t a lot of command decisions to be made at a meat plant, anyway.

At ten of four Pike said, “Maybe it’s a pass.”

At four Pike said, “We can forget the Jamaican connection.”

At six minutes after four Pike said, “You wanna check on this Santiago guy, anyway?”