Eddie had been drifting in and out of sleep when he heard Babsie's voice in the living room. She was talking to Kevin about the hand grenade. Kevin told her about

Eddie yelling into the phone, then an old story about their dad. Whenever the smoke alarm had gone off in the restaurant, Kieran, going deaf at the time, paid no attention to it. When one of the customers at the bar mentioned that maybe Kieran should look into it, he would say he assumed it was just the battery on his hearing aid going bad. Listening to Kevin and Babsie talk, Eddie felt removed, outside of himself. They both seemed to be amazed that someone would throw a hand grenade. He wasn't. Maybe that was Eddie's problem: Nothing ever surprised him. Nobody was ever more evil than he expected them to be.

Babsie came by his room as he was starting to pull on his pants, but a back spasm flopped him back on the bed.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"Getting up."

"Looked more like a twisting half gainer."

"What time is it?"

"Early. You've got time. Grab another hour or so."

Babsie had dressed for the trip to NYPD headquarters. Her grayish blond hair was back in a ponytail, all business. She wore a black pantsuit that had a short waist-length jacket. She even wore lipstick.

"Thomas Edison used to doze in a chair, holding a pencil," Eddie said, struggling with his pants. "When the pencil fell out of his hand, he'd get up and go back to work."

"Nobody was throwing grenades at Edison," she said.

"Is Grace here?" Eddie asked, squinting at the clock. He knew he'd slept too long.

Babsie said she'd picked Grace up from school, and now she was over at Kevin's house, jumping on the pogo stick.

"She's coming over for dinner in a few minutes. If you're getting up, fix your pants. I don't want Martha coming in and seeing this. She'll be calling me a Polack whore."

With Babsie's help, Eddie got to his feet. The repercussions of rolling around Stillwell Avenue had set in. A pain shot from his hip down his right leg. Babsie said it was probably sciatica. Her brother had it from jumping off the bleachers after a softball game. Eddie managed to get his pants up, but then reaching for his shoes was a challenge.

"I need to talk to you before they come over," she said. "I saw your personnel folder today."

"And you weren't struck blind?"

"What the hell happened? You had a great career going. Came on the job in 1966, made detective in only three years. That's damn fast for the NYPD. Couple of years in the best detective squads in Manhattan. Rated number one in the thirteenth precinct squad. I read all those glowing evaluations. I could see all the commendations in your file. Then comes 1974 and you get transferred to Brooklyn. It's like you fell off the face of the earth."

"Coney Island," Eddie said. "The Irish always get burned at the beach."

"You got scorched. Mostly petty IAB bullshit, at first. Then you got serious. Three serious rips for drinking on duty. You still made some good collars, but in between was party time. Despite that, you somehow hung in there and survived for ten years. Then you went down in flames in 1984. Right after the Rosenfeld case. I can't help it, Eddie, everything circles back around to that case."

Eddie knew he couldn't avoid rehashing the Rosenfeld homicide. He told her again how the couple were murdered in their home by Ray Nunez and Santo Vestri, who stole over four million dollars in cash from them. He was getting sick of repeating this story; he should have cards printed. He told her again that Rosenfeld was a lawyer whose expertise was in setting up phony corporations and moving money through them. He moved millions for Evesi Volshin, a Russian criminal. The cash was dirty, mostly from the gasoline-tax scheme. Nunez and Vestri entered the Rosenfeld house in Manhattan Beach, killed the couple in front of their little girl, and took off with the cash. Eddie and the Priest spotted them leaving, followed them to a nearby park, where a gun battle broke out. Nunez and Vestri were both killed.

"I called around," Babsie said. "They have old rosters stored in Queens. I got a few names of old Brooklyn squad detectives. Some of them are working big jobs in private security. I got pointed to this former squad boss, Jack Ferguson."

"I know 'Tomato Juice' Jack."

"He lives in Palm Beach, Florida now. He tells me that Nunez and Vestri were shitbird junkies."

"I told you that."

"Not exactly. But forget that. Did you know that six weeks before the Rosenfeld murders, Nunez and Vestri were suspected of ripping off the wedding of one of Angelo Caruso's nieces? They grabbed the cash bag right out of the bride's hands as she was leaving the reception. Four radio cars responded and the Six-oh is pretty specific. They estimated that over twenty grand was taken. Ferguson said they knew it was Nunez and Vestri, but they were never arrested. The complainant, one Angelo Caruso, later denied the robbery'd ever happened, said it was all a big misunderstanding."

"How much did you take in at your wedding?"

"Not enough to pay for the booze. I had to go and marry into the only cheap Italian family in New York. But that's not the point."

"I get the point. Somebody dropped the complaint, most likely because they made some other deal with Nunez and Vestri. Maybe Angelo Caruso takes these guys aside and tells them if they want to live, they had to do a job for him. The Rosenfelds were that job."

"Sounds like you've thought about this before, Eddie."

"It's easier than thinking about my own problems."

"I figure Nunez and Vestri weren't supposed to kill the Rosenfelds, but it got out of hand."

"Why think that?" Eddie said. "Maybe the murder was intentional. Part of the plan. Marvin Rosenfeld was a smart guy. He could link Nunez and Vestri back to Angelo. Makes sense they had to kill him."

"So you agree with me that Nunez and Vestri were hired by Angelo Caruso?"

"Walking dead men. And the Priest and I executed them, leaving no witnesses."

"You're being a jerk now. If you knew it was set up, you wouldn't have turned all that money in. You would have known the Rosenfelds were already dead, and there'd be no one to say how much money was stolen. Guys like Paulie the Priest don't let four million dollars slip through their fingers that easily."

He could see Grace and Martha walking across the lawn. They both were laughing. No one else but Grace could get a laugh out of Martha.

Babsie's phone rang as Grace came through the bedroom door. She'd tiptoed down the hall and peeked into the room. When she saw him sitting on the bed, she ran and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. The first thing she said was that someone named Roberto had to go to the principal's office for using bad words.

"You want to know which ones?" she said.

My God, he thought holding her close, has anyone ever missed out on more of his life than I have? He looked over at Babsie, who'd put her phone away and was standing there staring at him, eyes moist.

"Bad?" he asked.

"The lab compared the hair samples," she said. "It's a match."