“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, Dad.”

“It’s a fantastic idea, trust me.”

I concede, looking back, that this was, in fact, not a fantastic idea. I was not unaware of the harm I could do to the public’s perception of us, even of Jacob. I think I had some vague notion I would throw a scare into Cigarette Man without doing any real harm. More to the point, I felt like I could run through a wall, and I wanted to do something finally. I’m not sure how far I meant to take it, honestly. In the event, I never got the chance to find out.

As I reached the sidewalk in front of my own house, an unmarked police cruiser-a black Interceptor-raced up between us. It seemed to come out of nowhere, its wigwags and blue flashers lighting up the street. The cruiser parked at an angle to the front of the Lincoln, blocking it from leaving.

Out popped Paul Duffy, in plain clothes except for a state police windbreaker and a badge clipped to his belt. He looked at me-I think by now I had dropped the bat to my side, at least, though I must have looked ridiculous anyway-and he raised his eyebrows. “Get back in the house, Babe Ruth.”

I did not move. I was so shocked, and my feelings about Duffy were so mixed at this point, that I could not really listen to him anyway.

Duffy ignored me and went to the Lincoln.

The driver’s window opened with an electric hum and the driver asked, “Is there a problem?”

“License and registration, please.”

“What did I do?”

“License and registration, please.”

“I have a right to sit in my car, don’t I?”

“Sir, are you refusing to provide identification?”

“I’m not refusing anything. I just want to know what you’re bothering me for. I’m just sitting here minding my own business on a public street.”

The driver relented, though. He popped his cigarette into his mouth and leaned far over so he could wiggle his wallet out from under his ass. When Duffy took the license and went back to his cruiser, the guy looked at me from under the brim of his scally cap and said, “How ya doin’, pal?”

I did not answer.

“Everything okay with you and your family?”

More staring.

“It’s good to have a family.”

I did not answer again, and the guy went back to smoking his cigarette with theatrical nonchalance.

Duffy came out of the cruiser again and handed the guy his license and registration.

Duffy: “Were you parked here the other night?”

“No, sir. I don’t know anything about that.”

“Why don’t you move on, Mr. O’Leary. Have a good night. Don’t come back here again.”

“It’s a public street, isn’t it?”

“Not for you.”

“All right, Officer.” He leaned way over again and grunted as he wedged his wallet into his back pocket. “Sorry. I move a little slow. Getting old. Happens to everyone, right?” He grinned up at Duffy then at me. “You gentlemen have a nice evening.” He pulled his seat belt across his chest and made a show of clicking it. “Click it or ticket,” he said. “Officer, I’m afraid you’ll have to move your car. You’re blocking me.”

Duffy went to his cruiser and backed it up a few feet.

“G’night, Mr. Barber,” the man said, and he cruised off slowly.

Duffy came up to stand beside me.

I said, “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

“I think we better talk.”

“You want to come in?”

“Look, Andy, I understand if you don’t want to have me around, in the house, whatever. It’s okay. We can just talk here.”

“No. It’s all right. Just come in.”

“I’d rather-”

“I said it’s okay, Duff.”

He frowned. “Is Laurie up?”

“You afraid to face her?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not afraid to face me?”

“I’m not thrilled about it, to be honest.”

“Well, don’t worry. I think she’s asleep.”

“You mind if I take that?”

I handed him the bat.

“Were you really gonna use it?”

“I have the right to remain silent.”

“Probably a good time to do that.”

He tossed the bat into his cruiser and followed me inside.

Laurie stood at the top of the stairs in flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt with her arms crossed. She said nothing.

Duffy said, “Hi, Laurie.”

She turned away, went back to bed.

“Hi, Jacob.”

“Hi,” Jacob said, constrained by manners and habit from expressing any sense of anger or betrayal.

In the kitchen I asked what he had been doing outside our house.

“Your lawyer called me. He said he wasn’t getting any traction in Newton or Cambridge.”

“So he called you? I thought you were in public relations now.”

“Yeah, well, I did this as kind of a personal project.”

I nodded. I don’t know how I felt about Paul Duffy at that moment. I suppose I understood that he did what he had to do in testifying against Jacob. I could not think of him as my enemy. But we would never be friends again either. If my kid wound up in Walpole doing life without parole, it would be Duffy who put him there. We both knew that. Neither of us had the words to address any of this directly, so we ignored it. This is the best thing about men’s friendships: most any awkwardness can be ignored by mutual agreement and, true connection being unimaginable, you can get on with the easier business of parallel living.

“So who is he?”

“His name is James O’Leary. They call him Father O’Leary. Born February 1943, so sixty-four years old.”

“Grandfather O’Leary, more like.”

“He’s no joke. He’s an old gangster. His record goes back fifty years and it reads like a statute book. It’s all there. Weapons, drugs, violence. The feds had him up on a RICO charge with a bunch of other guys back in the eighties but he beat it. He used to be a muscle guy, that’s what I was told. A leg-breaker. Now he’s too old for that.”

“So what does he do now?”

“He’s a fixer. Hires himself out, but it’s just small-time stuff. He makes problems go away. Whatever you need, collections, evictions, shutting people up.”

“Father O’Leary. So what’s he got against Jacob?”

“Nothing, I’m sure. The question is who is paying him and for what.”

“And?”

Duffy shrugged. “I have no idea. Must be somebody who’s got a beef with Jacob. That’s a big group at the moment: anybody who knew Ben Rifkin, anybody who’s ticked off about this case-hell, anybody with basic cable.”

“Great. So what do I do if I see him again?”

“Cross the street. Then call me.”

“You’ll send the public relations department?”

“I’ll send the Eighty-Second Airborne if I have to.”

I smiled.

“I still got a few friends,” he assured me.

“Are they going to let you go back to CPAC?”

“Depends. We’ll see if Rasputin lets them when he becomes DA.”

“He still needs one big hook before he runs for DA.”

“Yeah, that’s the other thing: he’s not going to get it.”

“No?”

“No. I’ve been looking into your friend Patz.”

“Because you got crossed on it?”

“That and I remember you asking about Patz and Logiudice and whether there was any connection between them. Why would Logiudice not want to look at him for this murder?”

“And?”

“Well, maybe it’s nothing but there is a connection there. Logiudice had a case with him when he was in the Child Abuse Unit. It was a rape. Logiudice broke it down to indecent A amp;B and pleaded it out.”

“So?”

“It might be nothing. Maybe the victim was reluctant or could not go through with it for whatever reason, and Logiudice did the right thing. Or maybe he dumped the wrong case, and Patz went off and committed a murder. Not the kind of thing you put on a campaign poster.” He shrugged. “I don’t have access to the DA’s files. That’s as far as I could get without calling attention to what I was doing. Hey, it’s not much, but it’s something.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” he murmured. “It kind of doesn’t matter if it’s true, does it? If you just mention something like that in court, kick up a little dust in people’s eyes, know what I mean?”