"No, no it doesn't. But there's power behind the investigation. Tinely wants somebody to go down for the murders. His assistant calls me every morning for an update."

Carson Kitteridge glanced at me while bringing the rancid coffee to his mouth.

"I have no idea who the hit man was or why he'd kill Wanda Soa," I said. "Those are facts."

"I didn't think so. Tinely said that you probably knew something. I told him that this wasn't your M.O., but he doesn't care. He wants to burn somebody, and if you're anywhere around, he'll set fire to you."

"So… you're protecting me?"

"That's just not the way I do things."

Kitteridge left me to drink my espresso and consider his words-also to pay the check when it came.

No one was safe where the upper echelons on the NYPD and the prosecutor's office were concerned. The government, even in a democracy, has the power to indict and condemn with impunity-below a certain income bracket, that is. And even though I was working for Rinaldo, that didn't mean he would protect me. My independent status made me expendable, and if I tried to bring him down with me I'd end up one of those lamentable suicides hanging from the bars of a subterranean cell.

They don't call them "the Tombs" for nothing.

As if to accent these dark thoughts, a cold breeze wafted across my neck.

"Hey, Juan," a tall black man said. He was standing to my right, wearing clothes that would turn into rags in most people's homes.

"Chester," my waiter said. "Wait a minute."

Juan reached under the counter and came out with a medium-sized brown paper bag. This he handed to the man he called Chester.

"Thanks, brother," Chester said.

"Go on now," Juan replied. "The boss is in the back."

Chester grinned-he was missing a couple of amber teeth-and mimed the motions of running in slow motion as he made his way back toward the door.

I suppose I was staring because Juan said to me, "He lives in my neighborhood in the Bronx. When nobody's looking I give him some soup and bread."

"What's he doing around here if he's from the Bronx?"

"This time of year people usually give," Juan said, "because of Christmas and Thanksgiving. But not so much this year. This year there isn't enough to go around."

I TOOK A CAB back to my office. Mardi was gone by then.

Hunting up Broderick Tinely using Bug's special browser, I discovered that his specialty was prosecuting real estate cases against abusive landlords mainly. He hadn't tried a violent case in eight years. He was getting on in age, fifty-two the previous April, and wasn't making much headway in the prosecutor's office.

That had to mean something, I just didn't know what.

Lamont Jennings didn't need to have a website. The cases he was related to in the news always concerned wealthy, high-profile clients. In a practice covering everything from DUI to murder, he represented the children of wealthy magnates, and wealthy magnates who lived like children. He rarely lost. His clients were never convicted of the worst crimes they had been charged with.

Neither Tinely nor Jennings had anything to do with Angie, at least not on the World Wide Web. And they had nothing to do with each other. As far as I could see, Tinely was just trying to change his position in the DA's office and Jennings was the right lawyer for a young woman being railroaded by the law.

AT TEN I DECIDED that there was nothing else for me to do, so I pulled an extra trench coat out of my closet and headed down to the street. I took the 1 train uptown to Eighty-sixth and Broadway. From there I walked north and then west to our apartment building on Ninety-first Street, only a stone's throw from Riverside Drive.

I was just getting the key out for the outside door when somebody yelled "McGill!" with a slight Eastern European accent.

As I turned I saw two men-one large and the other of medium build-walking hurriedly in my direction. I dropped the keys and shook out my arms.

When they were two and a half paces from me the smaller man spoke.

"Where's the girl?" he demanded.

They were both still coming fast.

The big man had a longer stride and so stepped within striking distance first. His hand darted out, intending to take me by the arm, no doubt. I squatted down below the hand and came up to hit him in the gut with a right uppercut. He grunted like he meant it and I stood up, hitting him in the nose with my bald crown.

Head-butting is illegal in the ring but there was no referee around to take a point away. The big guy wasn't down but he was hurt enough for me to take into account his smaller friend.

This guy was wearing black trousers and a thin sheepskin jacket. In his left hand was a pretty frightening-looking knife.

"Where's the girl?" he asked again.

In boxing they call it ringmanship-that's when you master the canvas better than your opponent does. In life the concept is pretty much the same.

I turned toward the big fellow in the army jacket and hit him a few more times-twice in the gut and once on the jaw-while the little guy took another step and a half toward us. I grabbed the big guy's arm and flung him at his partner.

They both went down.

I walked over the larger man's back and fell upon the knifewielder, hitting him more than twice. I wrested the knife from his grip, picked him up by his sheepskin, and threw him against the wall. Using my left forearm, I held him steady while pressing the knife under his throat. I took a quick glance at the other guy. He wasn't moving. There was some blood pooling next to his left arm. That's when I noticed that there was blood on the knife.

"What do you want?" I asked my attacker.

"It vas mistake," he replied, his accent getting deeper.

"So what the fuck you jumpin' on me about?"

"Ve vere looking for a boy, a young man. He knows where is a friend of ours."

"What friend?"

"You do not know her."

"What's her name?"

"Tatyana. She is our friend. Our friend."

The big man on the ground groaned.

"Who sent you?"

"Gustav. Ve vork for Gustav."

"Where can I find this Gustav?"

My attacker hesitated, so I let the tip of his knife break the skin next to his Adam's apple.

"He owns pool hall on Houston. Shandley's Billiards. He is there every day."

I dropped the knife and hit my informant with a so-so left hook; more force than a jab but still less than a power shot. He fell to the sidewalk, dazed by the blow. I went through his clothes, and then his partner's, but neither one of them had a gun.

The big guy was bleeding from his arm but wouldn't die.

So I retrieved my keys and left the men to gather themselves and go make their report to Gustav.

KATRINA WAS SITTING IN the dining room, having a cup of chamomile tea and humming to herself.

On the way up in the elevator I had gone through all the actions I had to take in order to get to the desired end for me and my wife. Dimitri was in trouble. There's no way that the Russian leg-breakers would mistake my physique for Twill's. Dimitri was mixed up with a girl, and there were thugs who were willing to bruise and cut him until he gave up her whereabouts.

But the Russians didn't know where to look, and as long as Dimitri was with Twill they probably wouldn't find out. I had at least until morning to come up with some kind of plan.

I knew that the Eastern European gangsters couldn't find my sons because I made it a full-time practice keeping up with Twilliam, and two times out of every five I failed.

"Hi," I said, entering the dining room.

"Have you heard from them?" were her first words.