The café was packed and filled with the babble of three or four different languages. Ted looked around. Three young bearded Sikhs in turbans. A tall, thin man with tribal scars on his cheeks sitting with his family, his wife and daughter in brightly colored head scarves—all three of them in white shirts buttoned to the neck, while the preteen son slumped in low-cut baggy black jeans and a Knicks jersey. A long table of brown-skinned men, women, and children, all with the distinctively Mayan facial features, none of them taller than four foot ten, all talking at once. The café offered the privacy of the bazaar, their conversation overwhelmed by the cacophony around them. Ted could speak freely without fear that anything he said might be overheard and repeated.

He began with the cops coming to question him—twice—about the death of Richie, murdered almost a week before, and finished with his conversation that morning with Jill. He hit all the high points but didn’t dwell on details. Ted didn’t excuse himself or apologize, nor did he attempt to play the hero for cutting a deal with Barbara Miller.

“Her property was key,” Kenzie said. “Without those plots, Reisner was stuck.”

Ted nodded and plunged on. “Kenzie cares about stopping the tower. I know you’re firmly in that camp. But I’m juggling a lot of other issues. If I keep pursuing this, I will hurt someone who cares about me. We may be divorced, but she is my closest friend. Her family will be devastated, and if I’m right her spouse will likely go to jail. On top of that, the local power elite will want my scalp, the biggest real estate developer this side of Manhattan will try to bury me with bullshit legal filings, and then there’s the Russians.”

The Preacher understood. “Nowhere is safe with those people. You cross them Russians once, and you’ll pay for it every day until you die.”

“On the other hand, if I pull the filing, I can walk away with my career restored and a fair amount of green in my pocket. Miss Miller won’t get her buildings back—or her money—but she’s ninety-whatever and being well taken care of. Mrs. Rubiano won’t get any money either, but I believe she’s as crooked as any of them.” There would still be the not-so-small matter of Cheryl’s mysterious giant, but Ted kept that to himself.

“And the tower goes up,” Kenzie said. She had a good poker face, but there was steel in her voice.

“That’s not my fight,” Ted said.

“It should be,” she said.