He looked down at the stacks of money on the floor in front of the Buddha. And then something was happening to him and he wondered what it was. He had no idea what it was.

It hit him hard, and then harder. It was the twinge very high on his thigh near his groin.

Now it hit him very hard and he stood still not making a sound. Yet somehow he could hear the laughter; it was crazy laughter, aimed at himself.

His hand moved slowly, going toward the rear pocket of his trousers, sliding in and coming out with the wallet. He opened the wallet and looked at the badge pinned to the upper flap. For the better part of a minute he went on looking at the badge.

Then he focused on the lower flap of the wallet, seeing the card under the Celluloid. He was reading the two words that were rubberstamped across the card. It reads Night Squad, he told himself. It says here you’re a member of the Night Squad.

It says you’re a policeman, that’s what it says.

On a teakwood table nearby there was a phone. He moved toward it, picked it up and dialed a number. A switchboard operator answered and he gave her an extension number.

While he waited for the connection to be made, he glanced toward the sofa where Lita was mumbling incoherently, gradually regaining her senses and slowly sitting up. She looked around dazedly, then sat up straighter as she saw the stacks of money on the floor in front of the Buddha.

Lita made a move to get up from the sofa. Corey told her to stay there. He said it quietly and there was no need to repeat it. The wallet was still in his hand and he was showing her the badge. Then he spoke into the phone. He was talking to Detective-Sergeant McDermott.

It was less than two hours later and the stacks of paper money amounting to one million five hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars were in a vault in City Hall. Held without bail on charges of attempted extortion and criminal conspiracy, Lita was in a cell in County Prison. The bodies taken from the house on Second Street were in the morgue, along with the bodies found in the house on Harold Street. The coroner had turned in his report, confirming the report submitted by the Night Squad to the office of the district attorney. The district attorney applied his signature to both reports, then quickly returned to his home in the suburbs to resume his interrupted sleep. The reports were placed in a filing cabinet, the index card reading “Investigations Completed—Cases Closed.”