Contact with Levy and constant reading started to pay off. Hawkins passed the detective exam ahead of Ableson, and he made sergeant; then Elaine left and took their daughter. His sister got married and moved to Weehawken and his mother retreated into TV and born-­again Christianity. He told Levy how lonely he was and Levy had listened, with an expression of pain in his dark eyes.

Then Hawkins met Alma and, on a hot day in May, when he and Levy were walking on a pebble beach on the Sound side of the Island, he told Levy about her.

Levy stopped walking and sat on a boulder facing the water. “Would you marry this girl Alma?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Hawkins said.

“You’re lonely,” Levy said, “vulnerable. You married wrong once and now should be very careful.”

“I’ll try.”

“Tell me what she’s like.”

Hawkins wanted to do her justice, but nothing about her seemed worth mentioning. He tried anyway. “She’s pretty. She plays pool, dances, loves sex . . . she’s . . . fun . . .” he finished lamely.

“Ah . . . fun,” Levy said. “I, on the other hand, loved a serious woman. . . .”

Hawkins saw Luria and Dworkin coming across the beach, holding their hats against the wind.

“Why are they always with us?” Hawkins asked suddenly.

“Because you’re an outsider,” Levy said, “and they don’t trust you.”

“The shvartze, right?”

Levy smiled. “That makes it worse,” he said gently. “But they’d be suspicious of anyone.”

“What are they to you?”

“Old friends,” Levy said, looking out at the Connecticut shore.

“Just them?” Hawkins asked.

“No. There’re more. You know them. Fineman, Walinsky . . . the old man, Feldsher.”

They were only a few yards away and Hawkins asked, “What do they think I’ll do to you?”

Levy leaned over and whispered to Hawkins, “Kill me and eat me. . . .”

They laughed so hard Levy fell off the boulder, and Hawkins helped him up. They were still laughing when Luria and Dworkin got to them. Dworkin smiled to keep them company, but Luria stood like a post with his black jacket whipping in the wind. They stopped laughing, Hawkins put his jacket back on, and arm in arm, he and Levy walked back across the beach to the parking lot. Dworkin and Luria followed, and Hawkins could feel Luria watching his back. For the first time he realized that Luria hated him and wanted to get rid of him.