Pike said, “He shouldn’t be having anything to do with a police officer, either.”

“Yeah.” Something hard came into Roland’s voice. “The officer in question is employed by Kennedy Airport Security. He is not undercover.”

“Okay.”

I hung up. Joe Pike came into the living room from the kitchen and said, “I make it for a hijacking setup. Something coming into Kennedy.”

“It sounds right, but why’s Charlie sneaking around? He gets a tip that something worth stealing is coming in, he uses the Jamaicans to pull the heist, then they split the take with him. Big deal. Why does he want to keep it from Sal?”

“Because he doesn’t want to split the money.”

I thought about it some more and shook my head. “It’s not a world breaker. Charlie shows a little initiative, he makes a few extra bucks. What’s Daddy going to do?”

Pike said, “There’s the hype.”

I nodded. The hype didn’t figure. You want to keep secrets, you don’t do business with a hype. “Maybe Charlie doesn’t have a choice. Maybe, whatever he’s doing, he can’t do it without the hype.”

Pike grunted. “Makes you wonder what he’s got going, that he can’t do it without a hype.”

I said, “Yes, it does. Maybe we should ask the hype and find out.”

“What if the hype won’t cooperate?”

“He’ll cooperate. Everyone knows that a hype can’t keep secrets. They have low self-esteem.”

We put on our coats and our guns and made the drive into Manhattan in less than fifty minutes.

We parked by a subway entrance near 92nd Street and Central Park West, then walked two blocks to an eight-story gray-stone building with painted windows and a lot of crummy shops on the ground floor and a fire escape.

Pike said, “Third floor in the back. Three-F.”

We entered the lobby of the apartment building between a place that sold discount clothing and a place that sold donuts. The lobby had a white and black linoleum floor, circa 1952, probably the last year it had been waxed, and someone had scotch-taped a little handwritten sign that said out of service to the elevator. Someone else had urinated on the floor. You watch Miami Vice or Wiseguy, the criminals always live in palatial apartments and drive Ferraris. So much for verisimilitude.

We walked up the two flights, then down a dingy hall past a stack of newspapers four feet tall, Pike leading. An empty plastic Cup-A-Soup was lying on its side atop the newspapers. Three-F was the third apartment on the left side of the hall. When Pike got to the door, he stood there a moment, head cocked to the side, and then he shook his head. “Not home.”

“How do you know?”

Shrug. “Knock and see.”

I knocked, then knocked again. Nothing.

Pike spread his hands.

I said, “Why don’t we be sure?”