“Pietro, Pietro,” said Raffaello, shaking his head. “You never were the brightest, Pietro.”

“He’s a lawyer,” shouted Dante. “A fucking lawyer. You think you can threaten us by taking as a hostage a lawyer?”

Cressi stopped backing up. The arm around my throat tightened. I could feel the blackness starting to expand in my brain even as the gun barrel left my temple and pointed at the Cadillac. I stopped scrabbling at the arm and went limp as I reached into my pants pocket and gripped the handle of the pairing knife. With a last burst of conscious energy I pulled it out and jabbed it as hard as I could into the forearm squeezing my neck.

There was a scream, whose I wasn’t then sure, and I dropped to the pavement, grappling at my throat and letting out a constricted wheeze as the scream raced away from me. Then there were two shots and the whine of angry bees over my head. The screaming suddenly stopped. I heard still another thud of death and the scrape of Peter Cressi’s monster gun skidding freely along the cement of Pier Four.

On my knees, on the cement, my hands still at my throat, I looked up and saw Earl Dante, smiling his evil smile, pointing a gun straight at my head, the smoke still curling upward from the barrel in a narrow twist. And as if that sight wasn’t scary enough, from out of the corner of my eye I saw a dead man rising.

IT WAS ANTON SCHMIDT, rising to his knees, still holding onto the black leather bag with one hand, feeling around the cement of the pier for his glasses with the other. I stared at him in amazement, waiting for a bullet to take him down again as he found his glasses and then his hat and stood, dusting himself off. His thick glasses finally on, he looked around and saw me kneeling on the cement, with Dante’s gun trained at my face. He prudently backed away.

“I received a call last night on my private number,” said Raffaello. “It was from a Morris something-or-other.”

I started to yammer about Calvi coming at me in my apartment and my having no choice but to go along when Raffaello silenced me with his words.

“You gave my private number to a stranger,” he said softly. “You involved a stranger in our business.”

I pressed my palms to the ground and pushed myself to standing. “Morris is absolutely trustworthy,” I said. “I would trust him with my life.”

“That’s exactly what you did,” said Raffaello.

I almost sagged back to the ground with fear before I saw Raffaello smile and Dante lower his gun.

“This Morris person,” said Raffaello, “he told me that you had signaled him that this meeting was a betrayal. That was very brave of you to get out such a signal. As you can tell, I had matters already well in hand.” He nodded toward Anton Schmidt. “But still, such loyalty as you have shown, it touches my heart. Of course Earl, he is disappointed. He so wanted to kill you.”

Dante shrugged as he put away his gun.

“What happened here never happened,” said Raffaello.

“It’s a bit messy for that, isn’t it?” I said, gesturing to the street of corpses.

“It will be taken care of. You are to leave now. Our agreement is satisfied. Simply finish what you must finish and then you and Earl will meet to settle what needs to be settled and then you are free of us. Word of this may get out, Victor, but let’s hope not from you, or Earl will no longer be disappointed.”

He turned weakly toward the car. I noticed now that Lenny was holding onto his arm, as if even simply standing for Raffaello was a struggle. Anton Schmidt, with the black leather bag, and Dante and the weightlifter walked around the car. The doors opened and they entered the Cadillac while Raffaello was still maneuvering toward his door. I hadn’t realized before how serious his injury had been from the firefight on the Schuylkill. It wouldn’t be long before the trophy passed to Dante. Well, he could have it.

Just as Raffaello was about to step into the car he stopped, and turned again toward me. “Your friend, this Morris,” said Raffaello. “He seemed an interesting man. It is a precious thing to have somebody who you trust so completely. Maybe someday I will meet this friend. I suspect we have much in common. Do you know if he paints?”

“I don’t, actually.”

“Ask him for me,” said Raffaello before dropping into his seat in the car. Lenny closed the door behind him, entered the car himself, and started the engine. The Cadillac turned toward me, wheeled past, and slowly left Pier Four.

I followed it out with my eyes and then, for the first time since we began our walk down Pier Four, I thought about Caroline in the car with that Cuban. I started running.

Off the pier I turned left and sprinted to the dry dock where I turned right and ran along its edge to where we had left the car and then bit by bit I slowed myself down until I stopped and spun in frustration.

I spit out an obscenity.

The four garbage trucks that I had seen parked on the side of the road with their cabs empty now passed me by and turned left at the wharf on their way to Pier Four, their cabs no longer empty, men in overalls hanging onto the backs. The cleanup was about to begin, but that wasn’t what had set me to cursing.

What had set me to cursing was that the black Lincoln that should have been parked right there where I stood was gone.

“PSSSST.”

I twisted around.

“Psssst. Victor. Over here.”

It came from down the way a bit, from behind one of the green and yellow cranes that tended to the dry dock. I walked cautiously toward the sound.

“Victor. You can’t know how relieved I am to see your tuchis, Victor.” Morris Kapustin stepped out from behind the crane. “Such shooting I haven’t heard since the war. I was so worried about you. What was it that was happening there?”

“Where’s Caroline, Morris?”

“I left her with the car, of course. With Beth. How was I to know what it was that was happening, who was shooting who or what?”

When I came up to him I didn’t stop to say anything more, I just reached down and gave him a huge hug.

“Couldn’t you maybe just thank me instead of this hugging business,” said Morris, still tight in my grip. “Me, I’m not the new man they are all talking about.”

“You saved my life.”

“I did, yes. But such is my job and really, really, it wasn’t much. Just a phone call and following such a car as that through the gate, it really wasn’t much. It was your friend, Miss Beth, who did most of it. I gave her the job of watching your apartment. It was getting late and I was tired and I needed some pudding. Rosalie, mine wife Rosalie, she made for me last night some tapioca. So Beth is the one you should be hugging. Now let go already, Victor, before I get a hernia.”

I released him and looked down to the wharf, where the garbage trucks had disappeared on their way to the pier. “This is a dangerous place to stay.”

“This way,” he said, leading me across a street and through an alleyway between warehouses. “I hid the car as best I could.”

“What about the man who was with Caroline?” I asked.

“What was I to do? I didn’t know what I was to do so what I did is I put him in the trunk. I figured later we’ll figure out what is to be done with him.”

“But he had an automatic assault rifle.”

“Yes, well, a rifle in the hand it is powerful, but not as powerful as a gun at the head, no? So the rifle, now, it is in the river and the man he is in the trunk.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

The Lincoln sat in a small parking area behind a deserted factory building, the engine still running. Morris’s battered gray Honda rested beside it. Caroline and Beth were leaning together on the side of the Lincoln. When Beth saw me she ran up to me and hugged me and I hugged back.