The little bartender said, "Jesus."

Ric straightened his jacket, then came back over to me and pushed me through the red naugahyde door out into the light. It took Tudi a couple of steps to catch up. I said, "He gets sort of carried away, doesn't he?"

Ric said, "Shut up and let's go."

We went up along the street, then turned into a little alley. The alley was black and wet and gritty, with dumpsters and steel garbage drums sprouting like mushrooms along the base of the buildings. A couple of six-wheeler vegetable trucks were parked to the side, enveloped by restaurant steam venting from greasy pipes. Surly white kids and Puerto Rican kids in dirty aprons hung around outside of the kitchen doors, smoking and scratching at tattoos that someone had cut into them with Bic pens and sewing needles. Rotten cabbage was the big smell. I said, "Gee, fellas, I think I can find my way from here."

Tudi said, "We get finished with you, mook, you ain't even gonna be able to find the hospital."

Ric didn't say anything.

Tudi took the little.38 out of his coat pocket and pointed it at me and that's when Joe Pike stepped out from behind one of the vegetable trucks, twisted the gun out of Tudi's hand, cocked it, and pressed it against Tudi's right temple. It had taken him maybe a tenth of a second.

Pike said, "Do you want to die?"

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It happened quickly and without apparent effort, as if Pike had somehow assembled himself from the air and the trucks and the earth.

Tudi blinked and looked confused, response lagging behind event, and then his eyes bulged and he sucked in a single sharp breath. "Jesus Christ." His right hand stayed up and out, as if he were still holding the gun.

I said, "You're five minutes too soon. I was just about to let these guys have it."

Pike's mouth twitched. He never smiles, but sometimes he'll give the twitch.

Pike is maybe six-one and lean, all taut cords and veins. He was in straight-legged blue jeans and Nike running shoes and an olive-green Marine Corps parka over a gray sweatshirt and G.I. pilot's glasses so dark that they were without depth or dimension. He cocked his head to look at Ric. He had to look up.

Ric lifted his hands to the sides, letting Pike see that they were empty. He moved with great care, but he didn't look scared. Outside in the light, his skin was so pale I wondered if he used makeup, his eyes black dots set far back in dark hollows, angry weasels staring out of ice caves.

Pike said, "Your call."

Ric smiled. His teeth were small and yellow and angled backward like a snake's. If he bit you, you'd have a helluva time getting away from him. He reached out and pushed Tudi's gun hand down. "He's got your gun, stupid. All you're holding is air."

Tudi looked at his hand, maybe wondering where his gun had gone. "The guy japped me."

Pike stepped back and lowered the gun.

I gave Tudi the tsk-tsk. "First Joey the Potato, now you. Charlie's gonna love it."

Tudi's face was red and angry. He looked at his empty hand again like maybe he had made a mistake the first time, like maybe if he looked again, it wouldn't be empty and he could shoot Pike and me and he wouldn't have to tell Charlie that he'd been japped by a guy who came out of nowhere. Only when he looked, the hand was still empty. He looked back at Pike, then grunted and charged, head down. Pike's right knee snapped up hard, and Tudi popped over as if he'd been jerked backward by a leash. He hit the ground flat on his back with a loud slapping sound and that was the end of it.

"Dumb," I said. "This man has the market cornered on dumb."

Ric smiled some more. "He thinks he's good. All these guys, they think they're good."

Pike was back to looking at Ric. "How about you?"

Ric reached down with the emaciated white scarecrow arm and picked up Tudi and lifted him over his shoulder like a bag of dirty laundry. Tudi had to go two-thirty-five, at least. It was a long way to lift two-thirty-five. "We'll talk again," he said.

Pike nodded, then opened Tudi's gun, shook out the bullets, and dropped the gun into a steel garbage drum. We walked away, me leading and Pike walking backward, keeping an eye on Ric until we got to the street, then we moved against the traffic down toward Broome, trying to blend in with the natives.

I said, "How'd you find me?"

"Went by Rollie's when I got in and dropped off my stuff. He said you'd be here. He said you were going to go one-on-one with the mafia." He shook his head, unimpressed. "The mafia."

"What they lack in skill, they make up for in numbers. Except for Ric. Ric is maybe pretty good."

Pike shrugged, still giving it unimpressed. You want to impress Pike, you've got to use the neutron bomb.

We picked up a cab at the corner of Mott and Broome. The cabbie was an older guy with a bald, misshapen head and a lot of ear hair. He said, "Where to?"

I told him an intersection near Rollie's. "You know where that is?"

He flipped down the flag on the meter. "Hey, I'm driving the Big Apple thirty-five years."

We went west on Broome.

The cabbie said, "You guys here on business?"

"Yeah."

"You from California?"

I said, "We're from Queens."

The cabbie laughed. "Yeah, right. I got you made for somewhere out west, L.A. or maybe San Diego." So much for blending with the natives.

We picked up Pike's things and the Taurus from the parking garage across from Roland George's building, and worked our way out of the city and then north through the countryside to Connecticut and Chelam. While we drove I told Pike about Peter Alan Nelsen and Karen Lloyd and their son, and Karen's involvement with the DeLuca family. Pike sat in the passenger seat and never once moved or spoke or acknowledged what I was saying. As if he weren't even in the car. Maybe he wasn't. You hang around Pike enough, you begin to believe in out-of-body experience.

Twenty minutes after four we pulled off the highway into the Ho Jo, and I used the phone in my room to call Karen Lloyd at the bank. She said, "Charlie called." Her voice was low, as if Joyce Steuben might be outside the door, listening.

"I thought he might."

"He was livid. He told me I shouldn't have brought you in."

I said, "It's not anything we didn't expect, but we had to try. Did you print out a record of the transactions for me?"

"Yes. I have them here."

"Okay. I need to see them."

"Don't come to the bank." There was a pause, as if she had to think through the variables and find the best one. "Come to the house, say at seven-thirty. We'll be finished with dinner then and Toby will be doing his homework. Is that all right?"

"Fine."

There was another pause and then she said, "Thank you for trying."

"Don't mention it."

I put down the phone and looked at Pike. "We'll go out to her place at seven-thirty."

Pike nodded, then went out to the lobby and checked in, taking one of the rooms adjoining mine. I stood in the door and watched him bring in an olive-green Marine Corps duffel bag and a long metal gun case that looked like something for a Vox guitar. Anyone saw it, they'd think Pike played bass for Lou Reed. After he was settled he came back into my room and we looked at each other. It was four-forty-five. He said, "Anything around here to do until seven?"

"Nope."

"Any good places to eat?"

I shook my head.

Pike looked out of my window down onto the parking lot and crossed his arms. "Well," he said. "We didn't have it this good in Southeast Asia."

Nothing like support from your friends.

At five o'clock we went down to the bar and drank beer, then enjoyed an early dinner in the restaurant. I had a very nice chicken-fried steak. Pike had lentil soup and a large mixed vegetable salad and four slices of whole-wheat toast and a thick wedge of Jarlsberg cheese. Vegetarian.