Nevins looked out the window again. Marshall saw him chewing on possibilities. Fumes implied a cool engine, no fumes implied a warm engine. He wanted to know how long they’d sat out there, thinking about the hit. He was murder police. He didn’t come out to do the work, only to let someone squirm out of culpability, plead down to Manslaughter in the Second. He needed death, and the proof of human planning: Murder in the First Degree. He came out looking for Murder One.

He said, ‘How’d you know this guy? Friend of yours?’

‘Yeah, former colleague. We were NYPD.’

He told Nevins about his and Vialoux’s history, the taskforce back in 2010, Brooklyn South narcotics.

Marshall said, ‘Then I got moved to a different unit, and I didn’t really see him again until today. He called me up about two o’clock, said he needed to meet.’

Nevins nodded as he listened, and then he wrote: VIC X/MOS and WIT X/MOS, which was a shorthand meaning both victim and witness were ex-members of service, ex-NYPD.

Nevins said, ‘So he knew someone wanted to clip him?’

Marshall told him about the sixty-seven-k debt.

‘And let me guess: he couldn’t pay?’

Marshall stretched a leg down the aisle, reached in his pocket for the envelope Vialoux had given him. He placed it on the table.

‘What’s this?’

‘He said he had until Tuesday to make the payment. They sent him that as encouragement.’

He watched Nevins examine the contents. The two photos, the written threat. Money by Tuesday. No cops. For a moment, the pen hovered again above the notebook, and Marshall sensed his internal debate, whether to transcribe the message or not. He obviously deemed it sufficiently memorable.

‘Wife and daughter, I take it?’

‘Yeah.’

Nevins leaned back in his chair, looked at the broken window. ‘O’Malley?’

The cop who’d made the steak joke glanced over. ‘Yeah?’

‘Put a unit on the victim’s address when you get it. Hold until further notice.’

‘You got it.’

Nevins returned the papers to the envelope. ‘No cops. But he told you.’

Marshall nodded. ‘We go back. He thought I could help him on the quiet.’

‘But you hadn’t seen him in a while, right? How’d he make contact?’

‘Through a lawyer I know. Harry Rush. Vialoux went to Harry first, and Harry put him on to me.’

‘And who suggested this place for the meeting?’

‘Ray did. He lives around here – Fiftieth Street, something like that. Haven’t been there in a while.’

‘And how do you know Mr Rush?’

Marshall worked for him as an unlicensed P.I., but he didn’t want that going in Nevins’ notebook. He said, ‘I know him from my cop days.’

Half the story, at least.

Nevins said, ‘So who was leaning on Vialoux? Who’d he owe?’