Michael nodded. He took out his small notebook, wrote on it. “This is my e-mail address and my cellphone number. You contact me whenever you want. Don’t even look at the clock.”

Falynn took the piece of paper. She unbuckled her seatbelt, leaned over.

“Is it okay to hug you?” she asked.

Michael smiled. “It’s okay.”

They hugged, parted.

As Michael watched her climb the steps, he knew everything was in place. She was going to testify fully against Patrick Ghegan, and the man who had killed her father was, at the very least, going away for life.

Michael Roman was going to win.

Life was good.

THE BAR WAS PACKED. The gathering was for retiring ADA Rupert White who, it was rumored, was getting ready to join a white-shoe firm on Wall Street.

Michael looked around the room. It was a who’s who of the movers and shakers in Queens politics.

For the first hour it was a standard roast – other prosecutors, defense attorneys, city councilman, judges, all recounting stories and anecdotes, PG-rated ditties that brought casual laughter and mild reproach from the ostensibly dignified Rupert White. In the second hour, after enough Jameson had flowed under the bridge of propriety, the vulgarity was unleashed, and the stories recalled a number of less-than-public episodes, including the time Rupert White was stalked by a disturbed juror from an old case and, of course, a cache of embarrassing inter-office romantic moments.

“As I live and breathe. Tommy Jesus and The Stone Man.”

The voice came from behind Tommy and Michael.

Michael’s nickname, The Stone Man, grew out of two sources. He originally acquired it because he was of Estonian descent, and a lot of the street people he knew in the early years – most of whom he prosecuted – had no idea what or where Estonia was. They couldn’t pronounce it. The second meaning came later, due to Michael’s reputation as an ace prosecutor. As he began to try and win the bigger cases, he had to square off against more and more hardened criminals, at least those whose defense attorneys were dumb enough to put them on the stand. Michael Roman, even in those heady early days, was unflappable, solid as a rock. Thus the Stone Man.

For Tommy, the nickname also had a dual meaning. Tommy Jesus came first out of the obvious. Tommy’s last name was Christiano. But his reputation in the office was one of a prosecutor who could take a dying or dead case, and bring it back to life, like Lazarus from the tomb.

Michael turned around. Behind him stood an inebriated Gina Torres. When Michael had started at the Felony Trial Bureau, Gina Torres had been a paralegal; a slender, leggy knockout, given to skin-tight business suits and expensive perfume. Now, a few years later, she had moved on to a private firm – they all did – and put on a few pounds, but they all landed in the right places.

“You look fucking great,” she slurred at Michael.

“Gina,” Michael said, a little taken aback. “You too.” And it was true. The café au lait skin, the shiny black hair, the pastel lipstick. That tight skirt.

“I heard you were married,” she said.

Michael and Gina had had a brief, sparking romance for a few months when he’d gotten to Kew Gardens. It ended as abruptly as it started. But Michael recalled every tryst, every coffee-room kiss, every elevator encounter. He held up his ring finger. At least he hoped it was his ring finger. He was getting hammered.

Gina leaned forward and planted one, hard and sloppy, on the mouth.

Michael almost fell off the stool.

She pulled back, ran the tip of her tongue over his lips. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

When Michael was able to speak, he said “I kinda do.”

Gina slid her business card onto the bar in front of Michael, took one of the full shot glasses, downed it, then walked away. Every man at the bar – actually, every man at the Austin Ale House – watched the show.

Michael glanced at Tommy. For the moment, for the first time in his life, he was speechless.

“Dude,” Tommy said. “You’re my fucking hero.”

Michael picked up a napkin, wiped the lipstick from his lips. He drank a shot, shivered. “Abby’s going to know, isn’t she?”

Tommy laughed, sipped his drink. “Oh yeah,” he said. “They always do.”

NINE

On a busy street in the Astoria section of Queens, two men sat in an SUV near the corner of Newtown Avenue and 31st Street, beneath the rumbling steel canopy of the El. They had stopped at a Home Depot on the way, paying cash for a total of twelve items. The cashier had been Pakistani. Aleksander Savisaar wondered if there were actually any Americans in America.

Aleks took what he needed from the plastic bag, and put it in his leather shoulder bag.

The address they sought was a narrow doorway lodged between a funeral parlor and a store that sold pagers. The cracked stone steps and grimy door told Aleks that this portal did not lead to a flourishing enterprise of any sort. Next to the door was a verdigris-covered bronze plaque that read:

PEOPLE’S LEGAL SERVICES, LLC.

VIKTOR J. HARKOV, ESQ.

SUITE 206

They circled the block, then parked across the street. An aged sign in the window on the second floor declared Attorney / Notary Public. It appeared to be from the 1970s.

“Check to see if there is a back entrance,” Aleks said.

Kolya slipped on his sunglasses, glanced at the side-view mirror, and stepped out of the vehicle.

Aleks reached into the box on the back seat. Inside were a half-dozen prepaid cellphones. He extracted the printout from his pocket, one he had made at the Schlössle Hotel in Tallinn, the address and phone number of Viktor Harkov. He punched in the number. After five rings there was an answer.

“People’s Legal Services.”

It was a man, older, Russian accent. Aleks listened to the background noise. No sounds of anyone typing, no conversation. He spoke in broken Russian. “May I speak to Viktor Harkov please?”

“I am Harkov.”

Aleks noted an asthmatic wheeze in the man’s breathing. He was ailing. Aleks glanced at the bank on the corner. “Mr Harkov, I am calling from First National Bank, and I would like to – ”

“We do not have an account with your bank. I am not interested.”

“I understand. I was just wondering if I might make an appointment to – ”

The line went dead. Aleks closed the phone. The brief conversation told Aleks a few things, first and foremost was that, unless the man subscribed to call forwarding, Viktor Harkov was indeed in his office, and that he did not have a secretary or receptionist. If he did, she was not in the office, or perhaps she was in a restroom. By the looks of the building, the signs, and the fact that Harkov answered his own phone, he doubted it. Harkov may have answered the phone with a client in his office, but Aleks doubted this, too.

Kolya got back in the vehicle.

“There is a rear entrance, but you have to go by the back door of the Chinese restaurant,” Kolya said. “Two of the bus boys are back there right now catching a smoke.”

Aleks glanced at his watch. He opened his laptop. Within moments he got on a nearby wi-fi network. He entered the address for People’s Legal Services on Google Maps and zoomed in. If the image was accurate, there was access to the target building via a fire escape from the roof to the top floor. He pointed to the image.

“Is this still there?”

Kolya squinted at the screen. He probably needed glasses but was far too vain to get them. “I didn’t see it. I wasn’t looking up.”

Aleks had given the man a simple task, an undemanding reconnaissance of the rear of the building. He was clearly not his father.

Aleks knew he needed Kolya. But not for long.

“Wait here,” he said. “And keep the engine running.”