Quiet after that: splinters and blood exploding through the room in near-silence under the ringing in his ears. Marshall crouched and dived and caught Vialoux in a tackle chest-high, crashed him backward off his chair and onto the floor. The second shot blew out more glass and wood chips. Paulie was on his stomach beneath another table, hands crushed to his ears like a skull vise. Marshall risked a glance, saw the man with the gun cross the street to a car idling at the far curb, lights off, exhaust misting at its fender. The guy jumped in back and the car took off hard, cutting right onto Fourth through a red light.

No chance of catching them.

No chance of helping Vialoux, either: he lay on his back bleeding from the chest, eyes open in that distant stare the dead have, looking all the way to heaven.

TWO

Paulie had turned very white. Marshall kept him on his side under the table and called it in on the phone at the maître d’ station, told the operator what happened and gave a description of the car: silver Impala, maybe an oh-four model.

Six minutes later, a couple of uniformed guys from the seven-two precinct showed up in a radio car, full lights and noise. They came in with guns drawn, one guy staying up by the door while his partner came down for a look at Vialoux and decided, yeah, they definitely needed detectives.

Three more radio cars from the seven-two and an ambulance arrived. The paramedics took Paulie out on a stretcher and gave him oxygen, and twenty minutes after that, two detectives showed up.

One guy was Hispanic, early thirties, looked to be something of a bench-press enthusiast. His partner was a black guy nearing sixty, tall and lean enough the act of getting out from behind the wheel of the unmarked looked mechatronic: joint and limb motion like the sequenced unfolding of some prototype robot. They took a look at the broken glass and the table out on the sidewalk and then came into the restaurant.

Marshall was at a table by himself up front. The younger cop paused at the maître d’ station, like reflex obeyance of the WAIT TO BE SEATED sign, but the older guy came straight through without breaking step, everything about him dialed in on Vialoux.

Outside, one of the uniformed cops said, ‘Kinda looks like they overcooked his steak or something, tossed the table out the window.’

The younger detective smiled, and it got some chuckles going around cop-to-cop for a moment – ‘I asked for it fucking rare’ – but the older guy didn’t laugh or say anything. Marshall liked that. He was probably into his fourth decade of police work, maybe sacrified plenty, but he hadn’t lost any deference. He knew walking up to a body and standing over it demands a certain attitude, certain manners.