"Give me a minute," I told him.

He gave me nearly five, playing out the string, doing what he was supposed to do. The cop and I were the same right then: I was holding the point for my brothers so they'd make their break-and he was a hundred yards ahead of the rest of his boys. It was only him and me that'd get blown to hell if this didn't work. The soldier had a lot of guts-too bad he worked with such a lame crew.

"You're really getting the plane?" I asked him.

"It's in the works," he said, "you have my word. One soldier to another."

Maybe he did understand it. I was running in luck-an infantryman would know all about falling on grenades. If he'd been a Tunnel Rat in ' Nam he'd be thinking flamethrowers by now. But he was just doing his job. I let him persuade me.

It took another ten minutes for us to work it out, but he finally came back down the tunnel with the belt and lofted it gently in my direction. I could see it gleaming in the tunnel's soft light. I reached out for it gingerly, feeling the sniper's telescope on my face. Fuck them-I'd have the last laugh in hell.

But they didn't shoot.

"I got it!" I yelled to him.

"Just like I promised," he shouted back.

"I'm putting it back in," I said, my hands shaking for just the right touch of authenticity. I swear I could feel all their breath let out at once when I went back into the blackness.

"I'm going to sit right here," I yelled. "Just like I said. If any of you come even close…"

"All you need now is patience, my friend," said the cop. "I'll sit right down here and wait with you." And he was right about both parts.

IT WENT on for hours. I knew the game-the soldier kept coming back down the tunnel to talk to me, reassure me everything was okay, ask me if I wanted some cigarettes, some coffee, anything-waiting for me to get sleepy. They had all the time in the world.

It was well past midnight. Either my people had made it or they hadn't. I was seeing spots in front of my eyes, jumping every time the cops made a noise at their end. I don't drink coffee, but I knew what would be in the coffee they kept offering me, so I finally said yes.

The soldier brought two Styrofoam coffee cups down on a tray, halfway to me, turned around, and went back. I told them it wasn't close enough, so he brought it even closer.

Then he played out the string. "Pick one, friend. The other one's for me." It didn't matter which one I picked-they'd have pumped the cop so full of stimulants that I'd pass out before he would anyway. I popped open the lid of the one I picked and drank it all down like a greedy pig. The drugs hit me like a piledriver before I could even take the cup away from my mouth. I remember thinking just before I passed out how I wouldn't even feel the beating I was going to get.

SO I WENT back to prison, but only for possession of explosives. Possession of thirty-two kilos of sugar and quinine isn't against the law. And even Blumberg the lawyer was able to make something out of the fact that I was drugged and unconscious at the time of my arrest, so they didn't hit me with too stiff a jolt.

I wasn't in population more than a week before one of Julio's gorillas asked me where I'd stashed the heroin. I told him I didn't know what he was talking about-as far as I knew, the cops had the stuff. And, anyway, I told him, it hadn't been me who roughed off the stuff in the first place. Some guy had contacted me-offered fifty grand for me to handle the exchange.

Another man came to see me in the prison about the dope, but this guy came through the front gate. When the hack told me my attorney was there to see me, I knew something was wrong-Blumberg wouldn't make the trip to Auburn even if I had paid him for representing me at the trial. This guy was all pinstripes and old school tie, with a pretty leather briefcase and a gold wedding band to match his Rolex. The new breed of mob lawyer, although I didn't know it then. He didn't even pretend he was representing me-he came there to be judge and jury, and I was on trial for my life.

Okay-I was ready for him. We went over the thing a dozen times. He had me tell my story out of sequence, did his best to trip me up-it always played the same. But slowly he got a few more details out of me.

"Tell me again about this guy who approached you.

"I already told you," I said. "About thirty years old, long hair, almost like a hippie, dirty army jacket. He was carrying a piece in a shoulder holster-didn't care if I saw it or not. Said his name was Smith."

"And he told you?"

"He told me he had this stuff, right? And it belonged to your people, okay? And I should make arrangements to sell it back to him for two hundred grand. And all I had to give him was one fifty-the rest was for me."

"You thought he stole it?"

"I didn't know how he got it, right? What did I care? I figured the old man would be happy to get his stuff back-I'd make some heavy coin-it'd be a wash, right?"

"You ever see this 'Smith' character again?"

"He didn't show up at my trial, that's for fucking sure."

"Mr. Burke, think back now. Is there anything about this guy that would help us find him?"

"You got pictures I could look through? Maybe he's one of your own.

"He's not," snapped the lawyer.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I acknowledged. "He was like one of those buffs, you know? A real whacko."

"A 'buff'?"

"Yeah, like those guys who carry around PBA cards and pretend they're fucking off-duty cops and shit. You know what I mean."

His eyes flickered, just for a second, but I'd been watching for it. "Why do you think this individual was in that category?"

"Well," I said slowly, "two things, really. Besides the shoulder holster, he had another gun strapped to his ankle. And when he reached in his wallet to come up with the front money I wanted…for the supplies…I saw a gold shield. I guess it was one of those complimentary badges the cops give you if you make some contribution."

The lawyer screwed around for another hour or so, but his heart wasn't in it. I read in the Daily News three weeks later how an undercover narcotics officer was killed in East Harlem. Shot four times in the face, but they left his money alone. Only his gold shield was missing.

BUT THAT was years ago. Today I left seven grand with Mama. Max would know that five was for him and he should hold the rest for me. There was no time for Mama's endless nonsense about Max, but I did have time to eat before I went back to the office to change. I had a court appearance for the afternoon, and I wanted to look my best.

Even though it was just a preliminary hearing, I normally wouldn't go into a criminal court. There wasn't any point pretending I had a private investigator's license, and even a flyweight defense attorney would have a ball asking me where I'd spent twelve years of my life. I testify a lot in civil court, though-matrimonials and crap like that. And I'm a lot more honest than the lawyers: I charge a flat rate for perjury, not so much an hour. But this was a special case.

It really started in Family Court, where this woman came in to get an Order of Protection against her husband. Seems they were showing a film about child sexual abuse in school and one of her daughters started crying and the whole sleazy story came out. Anyway, she gets this Order, and he's supposed to leave the house, but he comes right back in and starts screaming at the kid how the whole thing is her fault and how she's going to go to an orphanage and stuff like that. And the poor little kid just plain snaps out-she was only ten years old-and they take her to this psychiatric hospital and she's still up there. The slimeball naturally takes off, and the woman hired me to find him. It only took a couple of days. I threw a quarter into a pay phone and the Warrant Squad picked him up.