"Hey, chef," he said. "Do you know how to separate the whites of the egg from the yolk?"

"Is the yolt the same as the shell?"

"No, the 'yolt' is the yellow."

"Okay, you just put the yolts on a dish, and the other stuff just goes in a bowl."

Eddie returned to the sink for one more close read. Elbows on the sink, he held the smudged recipe card under the fluorescent light. He'd put the fluorescent light in at the same time he'd installed the bay window over the sink. Installing the bay window had been easier than baking this cake. He'd put the window in for his wife, who had seen all the world she cared to through those panes. In the last years of her life, Eileen went to Mass every morning, stopped at the superette, came home, and that was her day. The more Eddie's life revolved around things outside the house, the more Eileen became its prisoner.

The window needed work. They all probably did. With his finger, he scraped the molding around the window frame. Dried-out caulking chipped off in his hand. He brushed the flakes into the trash as he watched a light-colored Chevy Impala move slowly down the street. The driver had the interior light on, reading something from a notepad. Not to worry. A marked NYPD car sat idling across the street. With another two detectives in the living room, there was nothing they couldn't handle.

"This sounds like a lot of eggs," Eddie said. "Are you sure it's not a restaurant recipe?"

"Restaurants don't have recipes, Granpop," Grace said, setting the pan on the counter. "If the cake is too big, I'll just take some next door. Mom says that whenever you make a cake, you're supposed to give a piece to someone. So I'll take a big piece over to Uncle Kev and Aunt Martha."

"That reminds me. You didn't answer my question before. How come you don't want to stay with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Martha?"

"She watches Oprah."

"That's a good reason," he said. "Why don't you just go in and watch Uncle Kev's TV?"

"'Cause Uncle Kev only has a little tiny black-and-white TV. Like the kind the baby Jesus had."

Grace had not asked him a single question about Kate. Eddie figured that Aunt Martha, the wife of his brother Kevin, had already told her more than she wanted to know. Aunt Martha didn't believe in coddling. But when Eddie tried to reassure Grace by saying, "Your mom is going to be fine," she simply looked at him and said, "I know."

The white Impala circled the block again. They should grab him, Eddie thought. But the guy was too obvious to be bad. He was just searching in the dark for a street address on a block where the houses were too old to bother with numbers. He floated past.

Eddie's house, one of the newer ones, had been built in 1927. The nine-room brick Tudor with its odd gables and arched doorways was a handyman's special when they bought it with his biggest fight purse. Those first few years, he did most of the work himself, but he lost interest in the house long before Eileen died. The three most dire needs were a new slate roof, new plumbing, and a new heating system.

Eddie's bank account didn't show nearly enough money to handle all three. His checking account held just enough money to cover a few regular bills: insurance, phone, and electric. Eddie Dunne hated banks, credit cards, and other paper trails. He paid cash every chance he got. At present, his only income came from working nights in his brother's bar, but Eddie lived frugally. He fixed things himself, bought old cars, and dressed as if he were applying for welfare. Since he'd stopped drinking, his only vice was gambling: sports betting with a local bookie, lottery tickets, and a once-a-week trip to Yonkers Raceway.

Grace dragged the chair from the pantry toward the kitchen sink. She wore Kate's old apron, a green one with shamrocks. It said, kiss the cook, she's irish. It came down to her ankles. She'd found a clear glass cake plate and a yellow-and-green tin cover painted with Pennsylvania Dutch symbols. Eileen had bought it on a trip to the Amish country thirty years ago and then used it for every cake after that.

"Aunt Martha wants to buy a gun for the bar," Grace said.

"A gun in a bar? Oh, that'll turn out good."

"It's because of all that stuff, you know. But Uncle Kev doesn't want to. He says she'll just shoot him in the ass."

The white Impala backed down the street and stopped next to the marked Yonkers police car. It was a short conversation; then the Impala pulled in behind Eddie's Olds.

"We have company," he said

"Aunt Martha and Uncle Kev-o," Grace sang out.

"Wrong-o," he sang back. "Somebody in a car-o."

A tall man in a dark suit got out of the Impala. Under the glare of a single streetlight, he flicked a cigarette on the pavement, then ground it out with his shoe. He was slender, with a full head of hair. From the way his upper body cleared the roof of the car, Eddie figured he was about six four, maybe taller. He leaned back down and picked something off the seat, a cell phone or a pager. As soon as he started coming up the long driveway, Eddie recognized the walk. Walks never change. People get old, get fat, but the way they walk remains a signature. Their guest was Detective Matty Boland, the NYPD's gift to women. During the waning days of Eddie's police career, Boland was a hotshot rookie in the Detective Bureau.

Grace put her finger in the vanilla extract and tasted it. She made a pained face as the front doorbell rang. Eddie had assumed Boland would walk around back. Only people who didn't know them rang the front doorbell. Grace wiped her tongue with her apron.

"Why don't you go watch TV for a while, babe. I have to talk to this guy."

"Is he going to help find Mommy?" she asked softly.

"Absolutely. I just have to fill him in. Then we'll get this cake rolling after that."

"We don't want it rolling, silly," she said.

Monday

8:30 P.M.

Both detectives hustled to the front door as Detective Matty Boland rang the bell again. As he yanked on the antique door, Eddie reassured them he knew the guy. The hand-carved wood, curved on top to fit the arched doorway, swelled up and stuck in damp weather. It was the original door, and he'd been babying it for years, not wanting to think about the hassle of replacing it. Then he wondered what the hell he was worried about. Would it really matter if it crumbled today? He put some muscle into it and it popped open.

"Jesus Christ," Boland said, smiling. "We kicked down steel doors in Harlem faster than that."

"Nobody ever uses this door. I thought you knew that."

"How many years since I was here? I'm supposed to remember doors?"

Eddie had always liked Matty Boland. He was cocky, but not afraid to back it up. His looks and Manhattan social life made him a media darling, but he was a tough street cop. When Eddie was under the IAB microscope,

Boland went out of his way to support him. After Eddie was forced to resign, Boland came up to him and said that if he ever needed anything, he should just call.

"Anything new on your daughter?" Boland asked, as Eddie led him into the kitchen. "Jesus, I can't even imagine-"

"How did you find out?"

"Detective Panko, Yonkers PD, called the office, asking about certain names in the Russian mob."

"She called the Seventeenth squad?"

"No, I'm outta the Seventeenth, be a year in June. I made a move into a federal task force working Russian organized crime."

"Is that why you're here?"

"C'mon, Eddie. I'm being up-front about this. I'm working with the feds on the Russians. What more can I say?"

"Let me guess," Eddie said. "The feds smell an opportunity. They sent you because they think you'll raise my comfort level with whatever deal they're offering."