The next morning there was a three-inch article on page six of The New York Times. It reported that a prostitute named Gloria Uribe and a man believed to be her pimp, one Jesus Santiago, were found shot to death in a warehouse in lower Manhattan. Authorities had no leads as to the circumstances of their deaths. In a separate article on page eighteen a Jamaican national and known drug dealer named Urethro Mubata was found murdered in the front seat of his late-model Jaguar Sovereign in Queens. His throat was cut so deeply that the head was almost separated from the body. Police speculated his death to be the result of a drug deal gone sour. The New York Post reported that Richard Sealy, a drug addict, had been found dead in a Port Authority men’s room with multiple fractures of the head, neck, both arms, and left leg. Guess junkies don’t rate the Times.

Loose ends were being tied.

Two days later, in the afternoon, I was walking down Central Park West across from the Hayden Planetarium when a blue Cadillac Eldorado pulled up beside me. Pike was maybe forty yards back and across the street. Vito DeLuca opened the door and looked out at me. “Get in.”

I got in. Freddie was in the front seat, driving. Vito was in back, alone. Vito said, “I’m capo de tutti capo. You know what that means?”

“You’re Marlon Brando.”

Vito smiled, but there was something hard and tired in it. The weight of responsibility. “Yeah. You killed a lot of our guys.”

“Charlie’s people.”

“Some of the capos, they don’t like it. They think something should be done.”

“What do you think?” Out the window, past Vito, I could see Joe Pike moving closer, talking to a guy who was selling Middle Eastern food from a little cart.

Vito looked out the window but saw only people on the street. “I think Charlie came very close to bringing dishonor to the family. He was my nephew, my blood, but Sal was my brother. Sal knew how a man acts. You behaved like a man behaves. These guys, they talk about California and granola and Disneyland, I say, Christ, he put ten of our guys in the ground. If he was Sicilian, I’d kiss him on the mouth. He could be a made guy.”

“What about Karen Lloyd?”

Vito turned back and looked at me. He said, “Sal DeLuca was capo de tutti capos, and when he spoke, he spoke for the family. The DeLucas honor their word. Capisce?”

“Charlie wouldn’t.”

“Charlie’s dead.”

I nodded.

“She’s out. She will never be seen by DeLuca family eyes again. The DeLuca family will always honor that.”