I went in closer until we had him sandwiched and made my voice quiet. "Tommy Gamboza sent us, Richie."

Surprised. "Tommy wants to see me?" Almost a little excited, like maybe Tommy had sent us around to tap him for the secret order, like we'd drive somewhere and he'd get to take the blood oath to become part of La Cosa Nostra.

"Yeah." I took him under the arm and pulled him toward the stairs. Pike looked back at the kids and told them that the game was over.

Richie said, "Hey, if Tommy wants to see me, how come he didn't come himself? How come he didn't send Tony or Frankie to get me? I don't know you guys."

"We're imported, Richie. Vegas." You say Vegas, they know it's bad.

He jammed on the brakes, pulling up short. You see how it is with Vegas? "Hey."

I leaned close and whispered in his ear. "The Gambozas know you're selling them out to Charlie DeLuca."

Richie Sealy's knees went weak and he sort of slumped. If I hadn't been holding his right arm he would've gone down the stairs like a runny egg. "Oh, Jesus," he said. "Oh, Jesus."

We took him down the stairs and around the corner into a little alley that smelled of grease and ammonia and put him into the wall against a metal dumpster. I held his collar and Pike patted him down and came up with a sharpened screwdriver and two ten-dollar packs of white powder. Pike opened the bags and poured out the powder. I said, "Don't you know this stuff is bad for you, Richie?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything about Charlie DeLuca. I swear to Christ on my mother's life." These junkies.

I said, "Richie. The Gambozas know. Vincent Ricci saw with his own eyes. Are you calling Ricci a liar?"

"Hey, no way, but, you know, like maybe he made a mistake-"

I jerked his collar once. "Knock off the s.h.i.t." Elvis Cole, Professional Thug.

Richard Sealy started to cry.

I said, "The Gambozas know that something is going on, but they don't know what. You know how they hate that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Charlie DeLuca. You know what Tommy thinks." I didn't know what Tommy thought, but if the blood between the DeLucas and the Gambozas was as bad as Roland George had said, whatever Tommy thought couldn't be good.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"Okay. They told us, give him one chance. They said, if he comes clean with you, let him live, but only if he comes clean and gives the whole thing." I looked at Pike. "Isn't that what they said?"

Pike nodded.

I looked back at Richie. "You hear that?"

Richie was sobbing. A ribbon of mucus ran down across his mouth and along his chin. He said, "I can't say anything. I can't."

I slapped him. "You made fools out of those guys, you moron. Ricci, Tommy, the Gamboza brothers. They grew up with you. They loved you like family and you have made them look like turnips, and you have done this with the help of Charlie DeLuca. Can you imagine how this makes Tommy and Nickie feel?" Elvis Brando. One step away from the Great White Way.

Richie Sealy was nodding and shaking his head at the same time and his eyes looked like dried apricots. He said, "Jesus Christ, we're talking Crazy Charlie DeLuca, Charlie the Tuna. Charlie will kill me. He'll cut out my eyes, for Christ's sake, can't I make it up to Tommy another way?"

I shook him and said, "Moron. You're worried about Crazy Charlie. Why do you think the Gambozas brought us in for this?" I looked at Pike again. Pike reached behind his back and brought out a twelve-inch Buck hunting knife. It was so bright you could shave in the reflection.

Richard Sealy tried to backpedal away, but the dumpster was there. "Okay," he said. "Okay. Whatever you want."

"What do you and Charlie have going?"

"I tell him when some of the dope shipments are coming in through Kennedy."

"Gamboza dope." There it was.

"Yeah. Sure."

"What about the Jamaicans? What about the cop out in Queens?"

"Jesus Christ, Tommy knows everything."

I pulled Richie close. "Tommy knows all and sees all."

Pike sighed and looked away.

Richie said, "Charlie sells the information to the Jamaicans. The Jamaicans hijack our stuff and sell it and then they give Charlie a piece."

"Is this DeLuca family, Richie, or is this just Charlie? If it's family, we're talking war." War. Mario Puzo, eat your heart out.

"I don't know, but I think it's just Charlie. Charlie's the guy turned me. He came to me and said he'd cut me in and I could have all the smack I wanted. It was Charlie's idea. You gotta tell Tommy that."

"Sure."

"I don't never see anyone else."

"So Charlie is violating the agreement the DeLuca family made with the Gamboza family. He's in business with the Jamaicans to steal from another family and Sal doesn't know."

"No. Sal doesn't know. Jesus Christ, Sal would have a fit. Tommy should know that. Sal, that old gumbah."

I looked at Pike and Pike looked at me. Pike said, "What do we do with him?"

Richie said, "Hey, I come clean. You said I come clean, Tommy said you should let me off."

Pike said, "He tells Charlie we know, it's over."

Richie said, "Hey, I won't tell Charlie nothing. I swear to Christ" He was crying again.

I looked into Pike's flat dimensionless gla.s.ses and saw little reflections of myself. Pike waited. I turned back to Richie and pulled him close again. "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to walk out of this alley and go to the Port Authority bus terminal and you are going to take a bus to Miami. You will not speak with Charlie DeLuca or the Jamaicans or anyone else about this, do you understand?"

"Yes."

"If you do, Tommy Gamboza swears that he will find out. If you do, the entire Gamboza family will seek you out no matter where you might hide, and we will kill you. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Get out of here."

He ran out of the alley, knocking into a garbage can, then bouncing off a wall, then disappearing around the corner and into the street.

Pike said, "'Seek you out'?"

"Too dramatic?"

Pike frowned.

Everybody's a critic.

Thirty-two.

Karen Lloyd gave me confused. "He's stealing from other criminals?"

"Yes."

"How can you go to the police with that?" She was leaning against the front edge of her desk at the bank with her arms crossed. Pike and I were sitting in the two chairs opposite. It seemed colder in Chelam than it had in New York, but maybe that was because it was later and the damp clouds and the cold air pushing down from Canada had gained greater purchase over the woods and the fields and the small clean buildings.

I said, "We won't go to the police. We'll go to Charlie. He isn't just stealing money and hiding it from his father and the other capos capos in his own family, he's stealing from another family in direct violation of a treaty that the DeLucas made with the other families." I gave her what Rollie George had given me, how the families had divided up territory and crime, and how n.o.body much liked it but everybody had been living with it. "Until now." in his own family, he's stealing from another family in direct violation of a treaty that the DeLucas made with the other families." I gave her what Rollie George had given me, how the families had divided up territory and crime, and how n.o.body much liked it but everybody had been living with it. "Until now."

She nodded, seeing it as a banker would see it, IBM and Xerox negotiating a market arrangement. "All right. He's violating a trade agreement."

"Yeah. Only he's got more to worry about than the Securities and Exchange Commission. If the Gambozas found out that Charlie DeLuca was stealing from them in collaboration with the Jamaicans, they'd kill him and they'd probably try to kill Sal, too."

Karen blinked at Pike, then at me. "Does Sal know?"

"Probably not, but it doesn't matter. If he doesn't know, it makes things cleaner because we only have to deal with Charlie. If Sal's in on it, then we have to deal with him, too. A little more complicated, but the outcome is the same."

She wet her lips, getting anxious with it, thinking it through and seeing the potential, but unwilling to commit until all the i i's were dotted and the t t's crossed. She shook her head. "Even if he goes along, we'll still know. Charlie's going to think that. He's going to think that the only way to keep himself safe is to kill us."

I said, "He'll think about it, but we'll set things up so that he can't. We'll bring in Rollie George. We'll make sure that other people know what we know, and we'll prove it to Charlie so that he knows it, too. If he kills us, he gets screwed. Do you see?"

She wet her lips again and made a very small nod, still thinking it through. "We go to Charlie, we say that he has to let go of me or we tell the Gambozas."

"Yes."

"We tell him that people we trust know, too, so that if anything happens to us, the Gambozas will still be told."

"Yes. If we die, he dies. We make this deal, it's a deal we honor forever. We can't change our minds. Do you see?"

She nodded again, stronger. "Of course. When are you going to do this?"

"I'll call Rollie this evening and maybe drive down to the city to talk with him. He knows people in publishing and on the cops we can trust. We'll have to get together with them and set up what we know and how to prove it to Charlie. It'll take a couple of days."

"And then we do it."

"Yep. We do it."

She wet the lips again and looked at Pike, then me. "What if it doesn't work?"

"If it doesn't work, we go to the Gambozas and you go in to the cops for witness protection. It isn't what you want, but it's the best hand we've got."

She made a hissing sound and her eyes sort of fluttered for a moment, but then she nodded. "Yes. I believe it's the best we can hope for, too." She went around behind her desk and sat with her fingers laced in front of her, very much like she did the first time I came into her office. Businesslike. "I've thought about what you said last night. I've decided that you're right. It would be best for everyone if Toby went back to California with Peter until this is resolved."

"Okay."

"Peter can take Toby as soon as possible. I'd like him to be in California before we meet with Charlie."

"All right. I'll stop by the motel and set it up."

She nodded tightly. "Thank you. I'll tell Toby when I see him after school."

Pike and I drove to the Howard Johnson's looking for Peter, but the limo was gone. We went in to the front desk and asked if they knew when Mr. Nelsen would be back. They said they didn't, but that his friends were in the bar and that they might know. We went into the bar.

Nick and T.J. were sitting at a little round table, drinking Heinekens and eating hamburgers. Nick said, "Hey, look, it's Mike Hammer and his sidekick, Tonto."

T.J. laughed with his mouth full.

I said, "Where's Peter?"

Nick said, "Peter said you're canceled, pal, so he's taking care of business himself. We don't need you anymore."

I said, "What do you mean, Peter's taking care of business?"

"He got tired of waiting around. He and Dani went to straighten out the wop."

"He and Dani went to see DeLuca?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"A little while ago."

Pike moved next to me.

"Where?"

Nick gave me the smirk. "Hey, f.u.c.k you. It's not your business."

Pike stepped in close, took out his .357, and touched it to Nick's upper lip. "Tonto wants to know."

Nick stopped smirking and T.J. stopped laughing. Nick said, "Some meat place. He got the address from the operator."

Pike and I ran out of the Ho Jo and pushed the Taurus hard back along the state road to the expressway and then down to Manhattan.

We were half a block from the meat plant when a brown Nissan Sentra nosed out of the parking lot and into the street. Two guys I hadn't seen before were in the front seat and Ric was in the back with Dani and Peter. Peter's head was sort of lolling to the side.