Subbasement B of the Criminal Courts Building looked like a breeding ground for cops with green cement walls and tile floors that were maybe a thousand years old and the faraway smells of disinfectant and urine. Cops of both sexes moved through the halls, uncomfortable in spotless, starched uniforms, called in by prosecutors to rehearse before appearing in court. Defense attorneys on their way into or out of interview rooms glared at the cops with angry eyes that were looking to cut a deal for clients everyone knew were guilty. The lawyers looked like chronic gamblers. The cops looked like drunks.

When I got to B28, Rollie George and a fireplug-shaped guy with a blond crew cut were standing outside the door. Rollie said, “Elvis, this is Sid Volpe. Sid’s with the Justice Department, and he’s the guy who’s letting us see Balcom.”

We shook. Volpe’s hand was dry and hard. He said, “I got you sandwiched in between the IRS and the feds. You can have him for twenty minutes starting now, so let’s not waste time.”

We went in.

Walter Lee Balcom was a pale man in his late forties with fine, straw-colored hair that was thinning on top. He was sitting at a narrow wooden table, chain-smoking Lark cigarettes and wearing gray prison fatigues. A boxy Nagra reel-to-reel tape recorder sat to his side on the table, along with a couple of gray legal pads. There were four metal chairs scattered around the table, but there weren’t any pencils or pens or other sharp things.

Walter Lee Balcom gave me a nice smile as we walked in. “Hello, Mr. Volpe, hello, Mr. George, is this the gentleman you told me about?” His voice was soft and papery.

Volpe said, “This is him, Walter.” Volpe sat in one of the chairs and turned on the Nagra. “Don’t let Walter’s manner fool you, Cole. Walter recruited a sixteen-year-old male prostitute named Juan Roca to help him kidnap a nineteen-year-old nurse’s aide named Shirley Goldstein. They took her over to a tank farm outside Newark where Roca raped her and tortured her to death with a butane torch while Walter here got it all on videotape. Then Walter walks out in front of the camera in a Groucho Marx nose and shoots Roca four times in the chest and back with a .45 automatic butt-packed with hollowpoints.”

Walter Lee Balcom sat impassively while Volpe said it, using the stub of one Lark to light another. The air smelled of pipe tobacco from the Larks.

Volpe said, “There’s no business like show business, right, Walter?”

Walter said, “That wasn’t me in the videotape, Mr. Volpe. That was someone made up to look like me.” A voice like whispers.

Volpe said, “Shit,” then grinned at Rollie. “This asshole is so fucking perverted even the goddamned DeTillio family wouldn’t touch half the smut he handled.”