Somebody would shout Down in front! but needn’t have bothered; Delevan, seventy pounds overweight and a heavy smoker, would be struck by a fatal heart attack before the complainer even got to the second word. The man in the blue suit who approached their cruiser that day and told them about his stolen wallet didn’t look like the star of the movie, but the dead delivery of words had been the same; so had been the somehow relentless yet graceful way he moved.

The movie, of course, had been The Terminator.

8

The cops exchanged a glance. The man Blue-Suit was talking about wasn’t Clements, but almost as good: “Fat Johnny” Holden, Clements’ brother-in-law. But to have done something as totally dumb-ass as simply stealing a guy’s wallet would be—

—would be right up that gink’s alley, O’Mearah’s mind finished, and he had to put a hand to his mouth to cover a momentary little grin.

“Maybe you better tell us exactly what happened,” Delevan said. “You can start with your name.”

Again, the man’s response struck O’Mearah as a little wrong, a little off-beat. In this city, where it sometimes seemed that seventy per cent of the population believed Go fuck yourself was American for Have a nice day, he would have expected the guy to say something like, Hey, that S.O.B. took my wallet! Are you going to get it back for me or are we going to stand out here playing Twenty Questions?

But there was the nicely cut suit, the manicured fingernails. A guy maybe used to dealing with bureaucratic bullshit. In truth, George O’Mearah didn’t care much. The thought of busting Fat Johnny Holden and using him as a lever on Arnold Clements made O’Mearah’s mouth water. For one dizzy moment he even allowed himself to imagine using Holden to get Clements and Clements to get one of the really big guys—that wop Balazar, for instance, or maybe Ginelli. That wouldn’t be too tacky. Not too tacky at all.

“My name is Jack Mort,” the man said.

Delevan had taken a butt-warped pad from his back pocket. “Address?”

That slight pause. Like the machine, O’Mearah thought again. A moment of silence, then an almost audible click.

“409 Park Avenue South.”

Delevan jotted it down.

“Social Security number?”

After another slight pause, Mort recited it.

“Want you to understand I gotta ask you these questions for identification purposes. If the guy did take your wallet, it’s nice if I can say you told me certain stuff before I take it into my possession. You understand.”

“Yes.” Now there was the slightest hint of impatience in the man’s voice. It made O’Mearah feel a little better about him somehow. “Just don’t drag it out any more than you have to. Time passes, and—”

“Things have a way of happening, yeah, I dig.”

“Things have a way of happening,” the man in the blue suit agreed. “Yes.”

“Do you have a photo in your wallet that’s distinctive?”

A pause. Then: “A picture of my mother taken in front of the Empire State Building. On the back is written: ‘It was a wonderful day and a wonderful view. Love, Mom.’ ”