As we walked, Roland’s eyes flicked over faces and storefronts on both sides of the street, sometimes lingering, mostly not. Still a cop. He said, “Sal DeLuca is your old-line dago. Came up as a hitter through the Luchesi mob back in the forties, and by the time that broke up, he had a big enough crew and enough power to form his own family. Sal the Rock, they call him. These dagos are big on the names.”

“What are they into?”

“Gambling and loan-sharking and the labor rackets here in lower Manhattan. We’re in DeLuca family territory right now.”

I looked around for shadows lurking in doorways or people with tommy guns, but I didn’t see any. “How can you tell?”

“Over in OCCB they got a territory map hung on the wall with New York carved up so it looks like its own little United States, here to here the DeLucas, here to here the Gambozas, here to here the Carlinos, like that. A bunch of guys called capos each have their own crew of soldiers and run their own businesses, but the capos all answer to the capo de tutti capo, the boss of the bosses.”

“The godfather.”

“That’s it. In the DeLuca family, that’s Sal. Charlie’s got his own crew, and his own business, but he’s still got to answer to Sal. Most of the time, the capo de tutti capo retires, he passes it on to his kid. He’s lined things up so that the kid has the biggest crew, the most money, like that. Sal bought Charlie a meat-packing plant.”

“I’ve been there.”

Rollie made his hand like a gun and touched his temple. “He’s a nut case. Absolutely out of control. They call him Charlie the Tuna. You see, with the names? They call him the tuna because he’s put so many guys in the ocean.”

Great. Just what you want to hear.

We turned off Fourth onto Sixth and started south toward Little Italy. When we were waiting for a light to change, Maxie suddenly growled and ran sideways, back legs moving faster than his front legs, drool trailing from the corners of his wide shovel mouth like wet streamers, trying to bite something that wasn’t there. A couple of guys in watch caps waiting next to us traded looks and moved out of range.

Roland looked sad and said, “It’s hardest when their minds go.”

Maxie snapped at the air until he wore himself out and then he broke wind again and sat down. One of the guys who had moved away frowned and shook his head. I said, “Sounds like digestion problems, too.”

Roland made more of the sad nod. “Yes.”

When the light changed, Roland helped Maxie up and got him pointed in the right direction and we crossed.