“One of the boys saw them working together at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He’s not from New York. It looks like Bell brought him in special.”

“He’s the one. Tommy, I want him watched real close.”

“What for?”

“I’m going to send Bell a message. Give him something to wonder about.”

“I’ll not have my Gophers kill any Van Dorns,” Tommy repeated stubbornly.

“You let Weeks take a shot at Bell,” O’Shay pointed out.

“The Iceman was different. The Van Dorns would have seen it was personal between Weeks and Bell.”

Brian “Eyes” O’Shay regarded Tommy Thompson with scorn. “Don’t worry—I’ll leave a note on the body saying, ‘Don’t blame Tommy Thompson.’ ”

“Aw, come on, Brian.”

“I’m asking you to watch him.”

Tommy Thompson took another swig from his glass. He glanced at O’Shay’s thumb gouge and quickly looked away. “I don’t suppose,” he said petulantly, “I get any say in this.”

“Follow him. But don’t tip your hand.”

“All right. If that’s what you want, that’s what you get. I’ll use the best shadows I got. Kids and cops. No one notices kids and cops. They’re always there, like empty beer barrels on the sidewalk.”

“And tell your cops and kids to keep an eye on Bell, too.”

JOHN SCULLY CRUISED UP the Bowery and into the narrow, twisting streets of Chinatown. Staring at the men’s long pigtails and gawking up at the overhead tangle of fire escapes and clotheslines and signs for Chinese restaurants and teahouses, he was disguised as a “blue jay”—an out-of-town hayseed who was wandering the big city for a good time. He had just appeared to find it in the arms of a skinny streetwalker who had also ventured over from the Bowery when a pair of corner loafers visiting from that same neighborhood flashed a rusty knife and a blackjack and demanded his money.

Scully turned out his pockets. A roll of cash fell to the pavement. They snatched it and ran, never knowing how lucky they were that the ice-blooded detective had not felt sufficiently threatened to spoil his disguise by opening fire with the Browning Vest Pocket tucked in the small of his back.

The woman who had observed the robbery said, “Don’t expect nothin’ from me with your empty pockets.”

Scully tugged open some stitches of his coat lining and pulled out an envelope. Peering into it, he said, “Looky here. Enough left to make both our nights.”

She brightened at the sight of the dough.

“What do say we get something to drink first?” said Scully, offering a kindness to which she was unaccustomed.