"The first thing that occurred to me."

"Most cops say the same thing: too much of a coincidence. But I wasn't surprised. We drove by that house all the time. Sometimes ten, twenty times a tour. Paulie was always trying to get a glimpse of Lana. Like he was sixteen years old."

"Vestri and Nunez were patsies," Babsie said. "Set up to be killed, weren't they?"

"Paulie's brother Angelo engineered the robbery. He arranged for Nunez and Vestri to do it. Paulie had all the inside information. He knew where the safe was. He knew there was a ton of money in it, although I don't think he ever imagined how much."

"Paulie knew the exact day and time Vestri and Nunez would be there," she said.

"Probably down to the minute. After the robbery, Nunez and Vestri went to a prearranged spot in Marine Park. They were probably thinking they'd meet one of Angelo's men, switch cars or something. When Paulie followed them, he hung so far back on the Belt Parkway, I thought he was going to lose them. But he knew exactly where they were going. He drove to a spot hidden in a grove of trees. There they were. The shoot-out happened fast. As soon as we got out of the car, Paulie fired the first shot, but they already had guns in their hands."

"When they saw Paulie, they knew it was a setup. They had to be stupid not to smell something strange about Angelo giving them this big a job."

"Stupid, sure, that's why they were picked. But they did better than I did, because I didn't smell anything. None of it seemed forced or manipulated. Paulie was patient. He waited until we came up in normal rotation for that divisionwide burglary assignment. I fully expected him to ride by the house that day. It's what he did every chance he got."

"How much did the Carusos get?"

"Millions."

"How did they get the money out of the park?"

"I'm not exactly sure. After we shot Vestri and Nunez, I left to look for a telephone to call for an ambulance and the bosses. We had no radio in the car. I know, I know… part of the setup. I had to drive out of the park to find a phone. When I got back, ten or fifteen minutes later, I noticed Paulie had grass and twigs clinging to his pant legs. I asked him what had happened. He said he went into the woods to take a piss. He either took the money out of the trunk and hid it or passed it off to someone waiting."

"When did you figure it out?"

"It took me longer than I like to admit," Eddie said. "Maybe I didn't want to believe it. That night, we were heroes, our pictures in all the papers."

"I can't believe you didn't tell somebody about it. It's murder we're talking about here, Eddie. Why didn't you just leak it to IAB?"

"You're not going to like this."

"Oh no."

"Tell me if you don't want to hear it, Babsie. I'm serious. It implicates me."

He could feel her body tensing. Gone was the soft, warm drowsiness. He understood that it was natural for her to start thinking like a cop.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," she said. "I already know more than I want to. If you don't tell me, I'm always going to wonder how bad you really are."

Eddie said, "After the big press conference the next day, we're leaving police headquarters in Manhattan. We get in Paulie's car to go back to the precinct. Cops and brass are walking past us as we're parked there. Uniforms all over the place. Paulie tosses me a stack of bills, mostly fifties and hundreds. I say something like "Oh shit," and I shove it under my coat so no one will see it. I don't look until we're back over the bridge. Total of ten grand. He says he grabbed two stacks off the top, one for me, one for him. No big deal. He says no one has any idea how much money was there. The money was just going to Uncle Sam, and he'd never miss it."

"You kept the ten grand."

"I kept it. Eileen was sick; I owed everyone. It didn't seem like that big of a chunk of the four point two million we turned in. Remember, at that point I still thought it was a good shoot. I thought we were heroes. The only other choice I had was to turn on my partner. And, yes, as weak and wrong as it sounds now, I kept the money."

"Paulie was slick," she said. "He put you in a position where you were in it together. You couldn't go against him because you were equally guilty. No telling how much the bastard really grabbed."

Babsie thought, Five minutes after I tell this guy I love him, he drops a piano on me. That has to be a new record. What the hell is the rest of our life going to be like? But she had to admit, she thought the story was going to be worse.

"Next question," she said. "How did Zina find out about it?"

"Listen to me for a second," he said.

"Oh, Eddie. Don't do this again."

"I didn't know this until tonight," he said. "Mrs. Borodenko's maiden name is Sophie Ross. She's a model who grew up in Russia."

"I know that."

"She's also the daughter of Marvin and Lana Rosenfeld, Babsie."

"I thought their kid drowned in Russia."

'That's what I thought. Ludmilla told me tonight that Sophie's grandparents created that story to avoid a custody battle with the Rosenfelds. They hid her in some small village in the Ukraine."

Babsie could put the rest together herself. After Sophie moved over here, she somehow found out about her mother's nights on Paul Caruso's boat. She sent Sergei looking for Paulie. Paulie the Priest filled in the rest.

"One thing bothers me, Eddie. You said Paulie really loved Lana?"

"Like crazy."

"He put her in a hell of a dangerous position for someone he loved like crazy. In the middle of the robbery, with two nut jobs like Vestri and Nunez."

"That will always bother me, too," he said softly.

"What happens now?" Babsie said.

"This puts me more in the middle than I thought. Maybe Sophie blames me for what happened to her parents. I need to confront Borodenko, get it settled once and for all. Whatever he wants. Then I'll beg him to save Kate. She had nothing to do with this."

"I meant what happens between us," she said.

"Wait until this unfolds," he said. "Whatever you decide then, I won't blame you."

Chapter 41

Friday, April 17

7:25 A.M.

"Knock, knock," Grace said, as they walked down Roberts Avenue.

"Who's there," Babsie said.

"Banana," Grace said.

"I've heard that one a hundred times," Babsie said. "Don't you know any other jokes?"

"Okay, let me think."

Matty Boland had called early that morning. Yuri Borodenko had been burning up the telephone on the flight home from Moscow. Whatever he'd said, the offices of both the Mazurka and Flushing Salvage were buzzing with activity. Babsie knew the investigators working the plant could hear only one side of the telephone conversations, mostly a series of grunted replies that meant Yes, Yuri; yes, Yuri. Both operations were fully in motion before dawn. So many half-assed mobsters were on the road, the task force couldn't follow all of them. That was part of the plan, Boland figured. Lose the Keystone Kops in the clown chase. In the confusion, one trusted associate hides the evidence, or plants the bombs. It would all be over before 2:00 p.m., when Borodenko landed at JFK. Boland told Babsie he'd prefer it if Eddie wasn't there.

She'd let Eddie sleep. He needed it, and she needed time to think about her own moves. Fifty years old, might be a little late for a new life. She'd been independent for too long. She owned her own house, had a good job with a decent pension right around the corner. Now this Eddie Dunne thing, happening too fast. The trick was not to jump too far. Eddie was great, but maybe she needed to keep an escape route open. She remembered an old Yeats poem an English teacher from Sacred Heart used to spout when he got his load on. Something about "never give all the heart." Always keep a little of yourself back. Good advice. Now how the hell do you do it? she wondered.