"Good," he said. "Maybe we'll stir something up. I haven't had a row about being on the pad for years."

"Rookie, I'm out of it. Everybody knows that."

"And you were saying that before I was born."

O'Lochlain smiled, downed another cup of coffee. "Kojak you're not."

The lean black attendant was getting used to it. "Twenty-three again?" he asked, pulling the card.

"Right."

"How long's this guy been there?" O'Lochlain asked.

"Since March fourth."

"Christ."

"They pumped him full of something. They're kind of in a tight spot. Can't get rid of him."

"Oh, Christ!"

The attendant had rolled out the corpse. Cash glanced at O'Lochlain. "What?"

"It's him. The sonofabitch. Only it can't be, can it?" He stared, stared.

Cash felt like the Hindenburg, after. Down in flames. There was just no way to keep that bastard from being Jack O'Brien. "You know anybody else that might remember him?"

He shrugged. "Looking for an out, Rookie?"

O'Lochlain was quick. He had seen the whole problem without being told.

"You won't get it from me. I know it's impossible, you know it's impossible, but you park my butt on the stand, I'm going to say it's him. That's how it hangs. Sorry."

"You're sorry? You don't have to live with it."

"Are you finished with me? I'd better make a Mass. I feel the need coming on. You know, when you called, I figured you was going to be after me about Hoffa."

"Hoffa?"

"Sure. Every cop in the country is after every guy that's ever been even remotely connected, trying to make a name by being the guy who finds out what happened. Going to be some heat on over that one. Hope the guys who did it got paid off in suitcases full of money."

"I haven't been paying much attention. He asked for it."

"Yeah."

As they walked down exterior steps to where O'Lochlain's driver had parked his limo in a No Parking zone, the Irishman asked, "You got any angles?"

"Not that I can believe. Either it's O'Brien and he's been moved fifty-four years, without damage, or it's not, and nobody in the whole goddamned country knows who he is."

"Maybe he's a Russian spy."

"Maybe." Cash chuckled, didn't bother giving details which made that answer less than satisfactory. He said goodbye and returned to the station, where Railsback was waiting with the third degree about consorting with known hoodlums. The lieutenant was sorry he asked.

John came in later, looking glum. "Gardner won't help."

"Why not?"

"I laid it all out. He only asked one question."

"What?"

"Did we have any evidence that a crime had been committed."

"Yeah. I should've figured."

"But I do have a new angle." And suddenly he seemed frightened and nervous. Cash was puzzled by it.

"Norm, if I tell you something personal, will you keep it quiet?"

"Eh? Sure."

"I mean really. Not even tell Annie. Especially not Annie. Or any body."

"Hey, if you're that worried about it, you better keep it to yourself. That way nobody can tell."

"Well, if I tell my news, I have to tell the other thing too."

What the hell? Cash thought. He had known John since Michael's second day of grammar school, didn't think there was much he didn't know about the younger man. "It's up to you. But I'll keep it under my hat."

"Well, there's this girl. We went to high school together."

A ghost of a smile fleeted across Cash's lips. So John was messing around. He almost confessed his own secret, in the matter of the doctored photograph, but remembered his own advice. There was no way he would risk getting that stirred up again.

"She works at the Post. In Classifieds. I had this wild hunch last night, see, so I called her and asked her to do some checking."

He had turned a startling red. Cash began to suspect a name: Teri Middleton. John and Michael both had pursued her during their senior year, and, Cash suspected, had caught her. They had vied for her weekends while in college. She had gotten married somewhere along the way, about the time that Nancy and Carrie had come into the picture, and had dropped from sight. Cash thought he remembered Annie saying she had gotten a divorce after two and a half years and two kids. For a while there, the girl had been as much a part of the family as John.

"Anyway, we had lunch and she gave me this." He offered a pink, scented bit of stationery covered with numbers. "She's going to check some more."

"I can't make anything out of this. What is it?"

"Dates and codes. These first numbers are the dates they ran classified ads for a certain party."

"Miss Groloch?"

"I think so. They were put in by her accountants. And get this. When she showed me this, I asked her to check her subscription file. She got back to me a few minutes ago. Sure enough. They've got one to Rochester, New York, in the name of Fial Groloch, that's been going out regular as long as they've been keeping track."

It was a breakthrough of sorts, proof that there was more than one Groloch, and pinned him or her to a specific address.

"Kind of corny, don't you think? And clumsy. And slow. But secure, I guess. Lucky you thought about it."

"Carrie's fault, really. She was reading the paper and asked me what I thought some Personal meant. You know how cryptic some of them are. Anyway, I started thinking about spy stories where they sent messages that way. And Sherlock Holmes. He was always putting ads in. Then I remembered you said she took the paper. Decided to check it. But I never thought I'd find anything."

"Serendipity, that's what you call it when you get something good when you don't expect it. Still good thinking, though. You get any of the ads?"

"Not yet. She's going to check through their file copies. She has to do it on her own time. You won't say anything, will you?"

Cash tried for a bemused expression. "About what? I haven't heard anything yet. I can't tell what I don't know."