His wife had found a tall, thin man who made book in Jersey. He wore raw silk suits that hung on him like Alston’s did. He had long skinny legs that were always moving, and he wore a heavy ring set with diamonds on one of his long, thin fingers.

Adam had stared earnestly at Hawkins. “She was a fool.” Then he added in his soft Israeli accent, “I think you very dashing. . . .”

Adam . . . Adam, Hawkins thought. He started crying again and pressed his damp handkerchief to his eyes. Johnny Baer watched him in the rearview mirror.

“You okay, Inspector?”

“No,” Hawkins choked.

“I’m sorry . . . you want me to . . .”

“Just drive, Johnny,” Hawkins said gently. “Keep driving.”

He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again until they’d reached Flatbush. The street was long and crummy, lined with delis, pizza stands, and discount stores. It didn’t look like New York anymore, but like the strip in any depressed town. A few bums sat in doorways, kids leaned wearily against cars and store windows.

They left the lit stores behind and swung around Grand Army Plaza and into Nostrand and the neighborhood that had been his beat after he came back from Vietnam.

They turned off Nostrand at Sterling, a dark, tree-­lined street with short stoops leading to once neat two-­family houses. But now, Hawkins saw litter in the gutters and on the sidewalk. Red-­and-­white-­labeled cans, brown paper bags, silver foil that caught the street light. In the next block the litter was sparser, and in the block after that it almost disappeared. Baer pulled up in front of Levy’s building, and Hawkins got out, his head throbbing as he moved. Someone had scratched initials on the mailboxes; half-­washed-­out graffiti covered the walls and the elevator was broken. He rang the downstairs bell.

Adam’s wife called, “Adam?” and Hawkins stopped on the stairs and untied his bow tie because he felt like he was choking. Then he went up the stairs.

She didn’t move when she saw him; he stopped a few steps down from the landing and she raised her hand to her throat.

“Is Adam with you?” she whispered.

“No,” he said.

She went on looking at him, hand at her neck. Then in her eyes he saw that dawning intuition that he’d seen other people have at times like this. The hand dropped to her side and she said without hope, “He’s dead. . . .”