Collins begins to weep. “Vanished into thin air. Just like my little girl. Except she wasn’t hurting nobody. But Eyes and me, we sure as hell was trying.”

“What if I told you Eyes came back?”

“I rather you told me my little girl came back.”

“From where?”

“I don’t know. Tiny little thing.”

“Your child?”

“Child? I got no child . . . Eyes came back, I heard.”

“Yes, he did. Tommy saw him.”

“Didn’t come to see me . . . But who the hell would?” He closed his eyes and began to snore. The sandwich fell from his fingers.

“Billy.” Isaac Bell shook him awake. “Who was the old man?”

“Rich old guy in a green coat.” He slipped toward sleep again.

“Billy!”

“Leave me be.”

“Who was your little girl?”

Billy Collins screwed his eyes shut. “No one knows. No one remembers. Except the priest.”

“Which priest?”

“Father Jack.”

“What church?”

“St. Michael’s.”

AFTER BELL LEFT HIM, Billy Collins dreamed that a dog clamped its jaws around his foot. He kicked it with his other foot. The dog grew a second head and bit down on that foot, too. He awoke in terror. A figure was hunched over his feet, working at his laces. A goddamned hobo who wouldn’t have dared touch him in the old days was trying to steal his shoes.

“Hey!”

The hobo tugged harder. Billy sat up and tried to punch him in the head. The hobo dropped his shoe, picked up a broken board, and hit him. Billy saw stars. Stunned, he was vaguely aware that the guy was winding up with the board to hit him again. He knew the guy would hit him hard, but he couldn’t move.

Steel flashed. A knife materialized out of nowhere. The hobo screamed and fell back, holding his face. The knife flashed again. Another scream, and the hobo scrambled away on all fours, clambered to his feet, and ran for his life. Billy sank back. Hell of a dream. Everything was strange. Now he smelled perfume. It made him smile. He opened his eyes. A woman was kneeling over him, her hair brushing his face. Like an angel. It seemed he had died.

She leaned very close, so close he could feel her warm breath, and whispered, “What did you tell the detective, Billy?”

Chapter 48

48

THE LADY OF THE HOUSE IS NOT A FORTUNE-TELLER,” Eyes O’Shay assured the anxious captain of his Holland submarine torpedo boat.

Hunt Hatch was not assured. “There’s signs all over the house advertising that Madame Nettie tells fortunes. She’ll have customers in and out all hours of the day and night. You’ve put us in a parlous situation keeping us here, O’Shay. I won’t stand for it.”

“The fortune-telling is a blind. She doesn’t tell fortunes.”

“What’s it a blind for?”

“A counterfeit ring.”

“Counterfeiters. Are you crazy, man?”