I turned off most of the lights and went down the hall to the room where Joe Pike and I were bedding. Karen Lloyd’s room was at the end of the hall in the back of the house, and Toby’s room was across from Karen’s, in the front. Both of their doors were closed, but I could hear them crying, she in her room and he in his. I felt a very great urge to knock and say the word or make the touch that would make them feel better. I went into my own room and I closed the door.

You do what you can, but you can’t do everything.

Chapter Thirty

Thirty

When I woke the next morning, the sky was dark with clouds and the air was as cold as the edge of a hunting knife. The snow above us waiting to fall was a physical thing, heavy and damp and alive with turbulence.

Toby was sullen and Karen was unhappy and nobody said very much as we went through the house and prepared for the day. Karen drove into the office early and I took Toby to school. Pike stayed at the house, waiting for Roland George to call. Neither Toby nor I spoke on the way to school, but when I dropped him off I told him to have a good day. He didn’t answer. It was as if the bad feelings and restless, logy sleep had carried over into wakefulness.

At nine-forty-two that morning Roland George called. I took it in the living room. Pike picked up in the kitchen. Roland George said, “The Jag you saw is registered to a Jamaican named Urethro Mubata. Came up here in 1981. Fourteen arrests, two convictions, assault, armed robbery, like that. He’s mostly in the dope business.”

“Not exactly a good-will ambassador.”

“Unh-unh. He did eight months at Rikers for possession with intent and another fourteen at Sing Sing for attempted murder. When he was at Ossining, he did cell time with a man named Jesus Santiago, another Jamaican. Santiago served out, but Mubata’s on parole.”

“Santiago in for pimping?”

“That’s it. Sorta curious how this guy Mubata got the forty grand for a new Jaguar when his employment of record is being a busboy at Arturo’s Tapas Stand in Jackson Heights.”

Pike said, “What about Sealy and the cop?”

“Sealy is a hype, registered in the methadone program at St. Vincent’s. He’s a nobody with a string of minor busts, mostly hijack and street boosting, run a little policy, steal a few stereos, that kind of thing.”

“Is he part of DeLuca’s crew?”

“It’s not in the files, but it’s possible. The guy’s a drop of pus, but he’s a known associate. Hard to figure, though. Hype like this, Charlie DeLuca shouldn’t be having anything to do with him.”