“Is right now good for you?” Gordon asked.

“Right now is just fine.”

Gordon corralled a couple of nurses, and in five minutes Dino was down the hall in his suite and on the bed. His IV was hung on a stand and checked, and the remote controls for the bed and the TV were put at his hand. Dino got the bed just right, then turned on the TV. “Nothing,” he said after a minute.

“I expect they’ve been holding this tight, until they could make a complete statement.”

“I believe that’s happening right now,” Gordon said, looking at his watch. “I’d better get out there and lend some authority to the occasion.”

“Don’t leave it to the cops,” Stone said. “They can mangle any simple statement into unintelligibility.”

The doctor left, and the three of them sat and looked at each other.

“Okay, what now?” Dino asked.

“Now you get better,” Viv said. “Take a few days, get it right. I don’t want you to go back to work too early, then faint at your desk.”

“No police commissioner of New York City, not since Teddy Roosevelt, at least, has ever fainted at his desk.”

“Then let’s not start now,” she said.

“Listen to the woman, Dino,” Stone said.

“I always do.”

“Anything I can do for you?”

“Yeah, tell Dan Harrigan to find Gene Ryan, and I don’t care if they shoot him on sight.”

“Got it,” Stone said, getting up. “I’m going to leave you two to whatever married people say to each other when one of them has a swollen head.”

“Thanks for being here, Stone,” Viv said, standing up and kissing him.

“Yeah, sure,” Dino said, “but I’m not kissing you.”

Stone left and went downstairs. To his surprise, Fred was sitting in the car, sipping coffee from a cardboard cup. Stone had forgotten to tell him to go home. He got into the car.

“I wish I’d told you to go home to bed,” Stone said.

“Not to worry, I slept very nicely in the rear seat,” Fred said, starting the car. He picked his way through the rush-hour traffic and delivered Stone to his home.

Joan was at her desk when he entered through the street door. “How is he?”

“He’s good, and he’s going to be better in a couple of days.”

“How about you?”

“I slept amazingly well in a reclining chair, then had some breakfast with Viv. She’s fine, too, now that Dino is out of the woods.”

“Then if everybody is fine, you’d better read this. It was stuck to the front door,” she said, handing him a single sheet of paper with a scrawl on it.

ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO, it read.

On Monday morning Stone sat down at his desk and called Captain Dan Harrigan, chief of detectives. Harrigan had been on the squad at the 19th Precinct when Stone and Dino were partners; he had been a good guy and a good detective, enough of both that Dino had wanted him for chief. Dan affected an Irish brogue, even though he was three generations away from the Old Sod.

“How’s Dino?” Harrigan asked. “Sure, he won’t see anybody but you and Vivian.”

“He’ll come around, Dan. He’s a little too worried about how he looks. He’ll be more receptive to visitors when the swelling goes down.”

“Man, he’s lucky to be alive.”

“He is that, and he already has a theory of who the shooter was.”

“No kidding? I heard he didn’t see or hear anything.”

“He knows that the shooter was wearing motorcycle clothes and a helmet, and he has a strong feeling that he’s Gene Ryan.”

“The ex-cop who’s been after you? We’ve been looking everywhere for that guy.”

“Well, keep looking—Dino’s convinced that Ryan is the perp.”

“Why would Ryan want Dino dead? What’s his motive?”

“He wants me, and I was unavailable, so he went after Dino.”

“That’s his motive? That he’s pissed off at you?”

“Stranger things have happened. Ryan drove a motorcycle, you know, he used it when he fired a pistol into my car.”

“And we found the thing in the East River. My theory is that he was riding it when it went in, and his body just hasn’t turned up yet.”

“That’s a plausible theory, Dan, but Dino isn’t buying it, and I think it would be a good idea to get your thumb out of your ass and find Ryan before Dino gets out of the hospital. You and I both know that once he has an idea in his head, he’s not going to let go of it until it’s been nailed to the wall and thoroughly inspected.”

“I’ll give you that, Stone, but I don’t want to waste a lot of resources hunting a dead man. Does Dino want us to drag the East River?”

“I think you’d better work on the theory that Ryan is still walking and talking. Why don’t you roust Gino Parisi’s kid, Al? The two of them were partners when they were working for Gino.”

“Didn’t you hear? Al inherited his daddy’s part of that drinks distribution business, and his uncle, Jerry Brubeck, bought him out of it. He’s rich now—he bought a Mercedes.”

“I’m happy for him, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know where Gene Ryan is, and it ought not to be hard to find Al. You might start by finding out at what address he registered the Mercedes.”

“The kid’s from Jersey, I’ll make a call.”

“While you’re at it, why don’t you ask if Gene Ryan has registered a motorcycle in Jersey?”

“I’ll call right this minute,” Dan said. “Give my best wishes to Dino when you see him.”

“Certainly, Dan.” Stone hung up.

—

At that moment, Gene Ryan was standing in line at the New Jersey Motor Vehicles Department, with the registration documents for his motorcycle in hand, along with an application to exchange his New York driver’s license for a New Jersey one. Ryan was an orderly guy, and he liked to keep things neat. He looked at his watch and at the display of the number being called. It was 52, and his number was 72. He sighed deeply.

—

Half an hour after Stone’s call, Dan Harrigan called back. “Stone, we ran Gene Ryan’s name in Jersey and came up with zilch.”

“How about Al Parisi?”

“Him, we found. There’s two of New York’s finest on the way to brace him as I speak. I’ll get back to you.”

—

Al Parisi looked out the window of his new house and saw two guys get out of an unmarked car with New York plates and start up his front walk. He pulled his necktie snug and went to the front door.

He got there before they even rang the bell. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Alfredo Parisi?”

“That’s me.”

“Mind if we come in for a minute?” The man flashed a gold badge.

“Not at all,” Al said, unlatching the screen and holding the door open. “Come right in.”

Al’s first thought was that somebody in the poker game had called the cops, but why the NYPD? He showed the two detectives into the living room, like the upright citizen that he believed himself to be.

“Are you the Alfredo Parisi formerly employed by a New York City beverage distribution business?”

“I’m a former owner of such a business,” Al said. “I sold out to my partner.”

“Yeah, we heard that,” the detective said. “Your old man, Gino Parisi, left you his half.”

“That’s correct. If you gentlemen have any business with the company, you should contact Mr. Jerry Brubeck. I’ll be happy to give you his number.”

“Yeah, we got that. When you were with the company, you worked with a Mr. Eugene Ryan, is that correct?”