Hawkins stopped at the bookstore every morning and when his shift changed, and every afternoon but Saturday. The little shop turned into a refuge. He would see old men and women who’d been bludgeoned, stabbed, robbed, and ten- or twelve-­year-­old girls who’d been raped, holding bloodstained skirts around them, too frightened and abused to even cry, and he would run to Levy’s. He would fight with his wife and slam out of his house, leaving his wife, mother, sister shouting at the kitchen table and his daughter in her high chair with her eyes wide with shock at all the noise, and he would run to Levy’s. He started bringing Levy gifts of food he searched the city for. Pickles from Max’s on Essex Street, homemade herring from the BG, sturgeon from Zabar’s, and blueberry knishes from Delancey Street.

Every June, Levy would go to Israel to see his son and Hawkins dreaded the month. Luria kept the shop open, but Hawkins never went in. He’d walk by and look in the window, and once Luria saw him. The two men stared at each other through the glass and across the rows of books; Luria didn’t wave at him to come in, and after a minute, Hawkins turned away and didn’t go back until Jacob was there again. July first was the best day of the summer. He’d take the squad car out to Kennedy to wait for the El Al flight that brought Jacob home.

Hawkins had seen pictures of the son, and Levy talked about him, but he stayed shadowy in Hawkins’s mind, and there were times—when the plane had finally landed, and Levy was waving up to him from the customs hall—(that it almost seemed to Hawkins that he was the son Levy was coming home to.

Hawkins bought his own car and started taking Levy for drives into the city or out on the Island. Luria came with them, and he brought another man, Abe Dworkin, who was as short as Levy and had soft brown eyes and thick, curly hair.

Levy loved the ocean. He would walk for hours on the beach with Hawkins. People stared at the big black man walking with a little Jew who wore a black skullcap held on his head with a bobby pin, and a white tieless shirt. Levy never rolled up his sleeves, but he would fold over the bottoms of his trousers, take off his shoes, and wade out a few feet into the Sound, looking for shells. Luria and Dworkin stayed behind in whatever shelter was available, and little Dworkin would hold his jacket across his thin chest and complain about the cold. But Luria watched Levy, and if he lost sight of him for a few minutes, he would come after them.