The original Guardians, he thought, as he started looking at it through their eyes.

No sense telling IAD or his CO what he’d learned about Hill.

Two hours later, he was knocking on Joe Dalrymple’s apartment door.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Dalrymple said. Rousted from bed, he was wearing boxer shorts and a Yankees T-shirt.

Addison encouraged his partner to step onto his fourteenth floor balcony, which overlooked downtown Forest Hills.

“Cut your losses while you can, Joe.”

Dalrymple didn’t know Addison had a temper. “I don’t-”

Addison held up his hand.

“What?” Dalrymple said. “What do you think you know?”

“I know Andy Hill worked a deal with Fat Philly and held a grudge against Ciccanti.”

“Oh. You know?” he sneered.

“Little Flaps jacked him in the Aqueduct lot, and he gave up eight hundred dollars.”

“Never. Andy wouldn’t give up a dime, especially if he was carrying.”

Addison said, “Easier to get Fat Philly to return the eight hundred and then double dip through insurance.”

“You don’t-”

“And Hill lets Fat Philly stay in business as long as he kicks back.”

Dalrymple frowned.

“We’ve seen his jacket, Joe. IAD looked at him. The insurance company called on the mink claim. He didn’t tell you?”

Dalrymple hesitated. “Take it up with Andy,” he said finally.

“Hill is tight with the Gambinos, and Fat Philly going to the Genoveses puts him in the middle. Maybe you too.”

That was out-of-the air conjecture, but both cops knew Hill was dirty. Killing Fat Philly’s Little Flaps told the Gambinos Hill was still their boy; at the same time, it kept Fat Philly’s business in Hill’s pocket.

As for setting up a fellow member of NYPD…

“Black man bothers you so much, Joe, you want to take his career?”

“Get lost.”

“That’s it, isn’t it? Hate owns your soul, Joe.”

“Listen to yourself,” Dalrymple said. “Black this, black that, and I’m riding with you. You’re a pain in the tail, Luther, and you don’t get it. There’s no room for you. None.”

“In what? No room for me in what?”

Shivering in the late-night air, Dalrymple said, “Nobody’s going to stand by and let it happen. NYPD ain’t going equal opportunity, Luther. Your father knew to shut up, but you…” He stopped. “Hell, Luther, you know this.”

“So I’m a killer, Joe? I killed that kid?”

“It is what it is-”

“Hill knows I’m riding with you,” Addison said. “He remembers all the times you told him what I said. He figures two birds: He gets Ciccanti and you get rid of your partner-”

Suddenly, Addison ’s heart crashed, his stomach jolted, and he understood it as clear as if his stepfather had told him what had happened.

He grabbed Dalrymple and rushed him to the balcony’s edge, bending him back over the rail.

“Luther!”

“Hill pulled the throw down to shoot me, didn’t he?”

“Luther, wait-” Dalrymple was halfway into the night, dangling a few hundred feet above the concrete, parked cars, and prickly bushes below.

“I go down, you take out Ciccanti and the Cobra throw down winds up in his hand.”

“For God’s sake, Luther-”

“To kill off the Guardians,” Addison barked. “To keep it-Say it’s so.”

“Luther, Jesus-”

“Say it!”

“Luther,” he screamed, “Luther, yeah, all right. But I saved your life, Luther. Andy set you up. You and Ciccanti. Two dead, but when I heard, Luther-”

Addison spun his partner and tossed him to the balcony floor.

“Luther, listen. I told him, we can’t shoot a cop. I told-I mean, I didn’t want you dead.” He scrambled to his feet. “I wanted you gone. Shut up, gone, not dead. You’re ruining this good thing, you and your other nig-”

Addison stepped hard and slapped Dalrymple across the face. Panting, he stared as his partner crashed into the sliding-glass window and tumbled back into the apartment, pulling a curtain off its rods.

“That story about Hill and Little Flaps at the track back in ‘78 is in the morning’s Times,” Addison said. “So you have a choice. You call IAD now and make good. Or you take a few steps back and get a running start on a dive off this balcony.”

Dalrymple stared up at Addison, who glowered, spittle flying with each word, chest heaving.

As Dalrymple crawled backward toward his bed, Addison said, “Pick up the phone, Joe. Pick it up before I think better of it and toss you off the balcony myself.”

Steele and August couldn’t decide, so they both went, and they found Fat Philly solo in a booth in a diner on Cross Bay Boulevard.

Little Flaps Ciccanti’s funeral mass at Saint Helen’s was due to begin in two hours.

“What?”

Steele and August knew how to walk it so no badge was required. They eased in across from Fat Philly, his three eggs over easy and home fries in marinara sauce.

Luther told them Flaps was carrying an Instamatic, so they knew the kid went in for more than he could carry in a duffel bag.

“The Gambinos can’t decide whether to pull off your head first or just stick it up your butt while it’s still on your shoulders,” August said.

“As for the Genovese family…” Steele had learned it was often better to let a worm’s imagination complete his sentences.

“Andy Hill is talking,” August said. It wasn’t true-W.E.’s kid said it was Dalrymple who rolled over-but a plausible lie well told was at least as good as fact. “You want the Genoveses to back your move on the Gambinos’ turf, and they’re supposed to do it for a couple hundred Gs’ worth of mink stoles?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fat Philly scoffed as he pushed a butter-laden piece of toast into a yolk. “Flaps was on his own, looking for baseball cards or something. Who don’t know that?”

“Flaps cases the plant and he can keep anything he can carry,” Steele said. “You and the crew go back a couple days later when everyone relaxes. At least that’s what you told the Genoveses: UPS is moving stoles-sable, lynx, and upper-end mink from Russia and Finland.”

“You got nothing,” Fat Philly said unconvincingly. “Mink stoles, Russia…”

“You believe they won’t hit you in church,” Steele asked.

“Who?” Fat Philly said.

“That is the question, isn’t it?” Steele.

“No, I mean who is-”

August said, “Both. They’ll kill you twice.”

“Or three times,” Steele added. “Once the Ciccantis find out you tipped Hill that Little Flaps was alone.”

“Whoa. You’re saying I set up Flaps-”

August said, “You set up Flaps. Yeah.”

Fat Philly slammed his palm on the table, sending coffee over the cup’s side. “I knew it. I knew it,” he said. “This is our thing, not your thing. Our th-”

Without breaking eye contact, August drove a fork an inch into the back of Fat Philly’s hand.

Handcuffed and perp-walked, Andy Hill’s photo was on the front page of the News. The Post had turned its attention to a meeting between Reagan and the pope.

Addison drove out to Cambria Heights, retrieved his stepfather, and brought him all but roundtrip. He had considered taking him late to a jazz club, the Vanguard, maybe, or Sweet Basil’s, but they were both tired of being the only black men in the room minus the musicians on the bandstand. He wanted their time together to be nothing but contentment. So back to Smokey’s.

Over fall-off-the-bone ribs, W.E. Addison said, “Luther, it’s time for me to say good-bye to my grandson.”

Addison tapped his stepfather’s hand. “I know, Pop. Next stop.” Once again, he tried to make it light. “First we’ve got to wipe that barbecue sauce off your face.”

The old man looked at his stepson, who he couldn’t have loved more had he been his own blood. His tired old heart still swelled from the pride of knowing he could do right by him one last time.