Turner yanked his arm free and left the room. Ableson stared at Hawkins in amazement, so did Mary Ryker who was in the row ahead. Hawkins sat down and tried to concentrate on Pescado and the commissioner on the podium.

Pescado was at the mike first. The boys had been beaten to death, he said; they’d put up a fight, but either they were outnumbered two or three to one or the killers were much bigger. The dead boys accounted for the blood types identified, which meant that either their assailants had the same blood types as the boys, or they weren’t injured enough to bleed. The press wrote, and Pescado waited for questions. One of the stringers asked about weapons; Pescado said they hadn’t found any except the boys’ knives; then a News steady said, “We saw mud all over the place.”

Fluorescents on the ceiling speared Hawkins’s eyes.

“Yes. . . . But we don’t know what it was doing there. It’s just clay. We’re checking, but I don’t think we’ll be able to pinpoint it. It’s too common.”

The chief came to the mike. “Right now, we’re operating on the assumption that the clay was used as a gesture of contempt.”

A short, very thin, dark man stood up. He had light blue eyes, like the Eagle that Hawkins had seen in the station the night they murdered Adam. “Giorgio,” the little man said, “Times.” The commissioner and Pescado waited.

“ ‘Gesture of contempt’ implies a rival gang,” Giorgio said. “Is that how you see it?”

Pescado and the commissioner nodded in unison, and Hawkins thought they looked like dummies on strings.

“Any line on which rival gang?” Giorgio asked.

The chief answered, “No, uh . . . no idea . . . at this time.”

Oliver Ames from the Journal stood up next. He was the best crime reporter in the country. Hawkins knew what he was going to ask and he wanted to get out of there, but the aisle was packed, people stood against the door, and he was trapped.

Ames said, “The Eagles were arrested for murder last week.”

The chief nodded.

“Then what about the family of the man they were arrested for killing?”

Hawkins put his hand over his eyes.

“Roger—” Ableson whispered.

The chief said, “There’s only a father and wife. The father’s over sixty and the wife’s seven months pregnant.”

The pain in Hawkins’s head turned into a sick headache, and if he didn’t get to the toilet he was going to throw up on the floor. He pushed his way through the crowd and made it to the men’s room, but wasn’t sick after all, and when Ableson found him, he was half sitting on the combination radiator and windowsill.

“That was some performance,” Ableson said.

Hawkins didn’t say anything.

“They probably think you were drunk or scared for Levy.”