“Have you ever defended someone accused of a killing?”

“No. I deal mainly in business affairs, which brings us to the matter in hand. I can only tell you what I told the police. The warehouse was once a storehouse for the Rheingold brewing company. It closed in 1974, and the warehouse was sold. It was acquired by a gentleman named August Welsh, who subsequently became one of my clients. When he died, some legal difficulties arose over the disposal of his estate. Take my advice, Mr. Parker: make a will. Even if you have to write it on the back of a napkin, do it. Mr. Welsh was not so farsighted. Despite repeated entreaties on my part, he refused to commit his intentions to paper. I think he felt that making a will would in some way be an acknowledgment of the imminence of his mortality. Wills, in his view, were for people who were dying. I tried to tell him that everyone was dying: him, me, even his children and his grandchildren. It was to no avail. He died intestate, and his children began to bicker among themselves, as is often the case in such situations. I tried to manage his estate as best I could in the interim. I ensured that his portfolio remained watertight, that any funds accruing were immediately reinvested or lodged to an independent account, and I endeavored to produce the best results from his various properties. Unfortunately, the Rheingold warehouse was not one of his better investments. Property values in the area are improving, but I could find no one who was willing to commit sufficient funds to the redevelopment of the building. I left the matter in the hands of Ambassade Realty, and largely forgot about it until this week.”

“You are aware that Ambassade is no longer in business?”

“I’m sure that I must have been informed, but passing on responsibility for the leasing of the building was probably not a priority at the time.”

“So this man, Garcia, had signed no lease with either Ambassade or your firm.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Yet some work had been done on the top floor of the warehouse. There was power, and water. Someone was paying the utilities.”

“Ambassade, I assume. There may be an arrangement in place.”

“And now there’s nobody at Ambassade left to ask.”

“No, I’m afraid not. I wish I could be of more help.”

“That makes two of us.”

Sekula composed his features into an expression of regret. It didn’t quite take, though. Like most professionals, he wasn’t fond of those outside his field casting doubts upon any aspect of his business. He stood, making it clear to me that our meeting was over.

“If I think of anything that might be of help to you, I’ll try to let you know,” he said. “I’ll have to tell the police first, of course, but under the circumstances I would have no objection to keeping you informed as well, as long as the police confirmed that to do so would not interfere with the progress of their investigation.”

I tried to interpret what Sekula had just said, and came to the conclusion that I had learned all that I was going to from him. I thanked him, and left him with my card. He walked me to the office door, shook my hand once again, then closed the door behind me. I tried one last time to chip away at his secretary’s permafrost exterior by expressing my gratitude for all that she’d done, but she was impervious to insincerity. If Sekula was keeping her company at night, then I didn’t envy him. Anyone sleeping with her would need to wrap up against the cold first, and maybe wear a warm hat.

My next call was to Sheridan Avenue in the Bronx, where Eddie Tager had his office. There was a lot of competition for business, and the streets east of Yankee Stadium, and near the courthouse, were lined with bondsmen. Most were at least bilingual in their advertising, and the ones that could afford neon usually made sure that the word “fianzas” was at least as conspicuous as “bail” in their windows.

There was a time when the bail industry was the preserve of pretty nasty characters. They still existed, but they were strictly minor players. Most of the bigger bail bondsmen were backed by the major insurance firms, including Hal Buncombe. According to Louis, he was the bondsman that Alice was supposed to call if she ever found herself in trouble. The fact that she hadn’t called him indicated the animosity she felt for Louis, even when she was in the most desperate of situations. I met Buncombe in a little pizzeria on 161st, where he was eating the first of two slices from a paper plate. He was about to wipe his fingers on a napkin in order to shake hands, but I told him not to worry about it. I ordered a soda and a slice, and joined him at his table. Buncombe was a small wiry man in his fifties. He radiated the mixture of inner calm and absolute self-belief that is the preserve of those who have seen it all and who have learned enough from their past mistakes to ensure that they no longer repeated them too often.

“How’s business?” I asked.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Could be better. We’ve taken some skips already this month, which isn’t good. We figure we gave up $250,000 to the state last year, which means we’re playing catch-up from the start of this one. I’ll have to stop being nice to people. In fact, I’ve already stopped.”

He raised his right hand. I noticed that his knuckles were bruised, the skin broken in places.

“I pulled a guy off the streets earlier today. Just had a bad feeling about him. If he skipped, he’d cost us fifty thou, and I wasn’t prepared to take that chance.”

“I take it he objected.”

“He took a couple of swings,” Buncombe conceded. “We hauled him out to Rikers, but they aren’t taking bodies, and the judge who set bail is on the West Coast until tomorrow, so I have him in a room in back of the office. He claims he has an out-of-state asset that he can offer as collateral-a house in some crack alley in Chicago-but we can’t take out-of-state or out-of-country property, so we’ll just have to hold him overnight, try to get him locked up safe in the morning.”

He finished his first slice and started in on his second.

“Tough way to make money,” I said.

“Not really.” He shrugged. “We’re good at our job, my partners and me. Like Joe Namath said, it’s only bragging if you can’t do it.”

“What can you tell me about Eddie Tager?” I asked. “Is he good at his job too?”

“Tager’s bad news, a scavenger. He’s so desperate he works mostly Queens, Manhattan, and they’re hard, real hard. The Bronx and Brooklyn are picnic boroughs by comparison, but beggars can’t be choosers. Tager deals with small-time beefs: not just bonds, but fines too. I hear most of the hookers don’t like turning to him if they’re in trouble-he likes them to give up a little extra as a show of thanks, if you catch my drift-which is why I was surprised when I heard that he supplied the cut slip for Alice. She would have been warned about him.”

He stopped eating, as though he had suddenly lost his appetite, and dropped the remains of the slice onto the plate before dumping it in the trash.

“I feel bad about what happened. I was trying to deal with paperwork over here and doing what I could over the phone. Someone told me in passing that the cops had pulled Alice in on a drug trawl, but I figured I had a couple of hours and that she could just sit tight until I picked up a few more bonds to make it worth my while heading over there to check up on her. It’s a pain in the ass waiting for Corrections to release one inmate. Makes more sense to build up four or five, then wait for them all to be cut loose. By the time I got over there, she was already gone. I saw the slip and figured that she decided to go with Tager. I knew she had a problem with our ‘mutual friend,’ so I didn’t take it personally. You know, she was a mess by the end. Last time I saw her, she wasn’t looking good, but she didn’t deserve what happened to her. Nobody deserves that.”