Babsie came sprinting from the dock. Other cops, half her age, tried to keep up. Matty Boland knelt down and opened the jacket. Zina had strapped a massive arsenal to herself, including hand grenades, ammunition, and three other handguns. Eddie picked up the dusty uniform hat. Inside, under the plastic, was a picture of a ten-year-old redhead with more freckles than Howdy Doody.

Chapter 45

Sunday, April 19

Noon

They were sitting on a park bench in Yonkers, looking down at the grass infield of Lennon Park. Two dozen little girls were playing soccer, kicking the ball in whatever direction appealed to them. The ball would suddenly appear before them and-whack-they'd kick it away, almost in self-defense. Most of them were content to get in a kick and jump back. They'd been playing for almost twenty minutes and the ball had not approached either goal. The goalies, their interest lost, gazed up at the crowd.

"If I had legs like that," Babsie said, pointing to Grace, "I would have kissed this job good-bye and tried out for the Rockettes."

She looked over at Eddie. "What the hell's so funny?" she said.

"I was thinking you'd make one hot Rockette."

Eddie had been at Coney Island Hospital earlier that morning. Kate had made remarkable strides. Her stomach had been pumped. Doctors weren't sure exactly what drugs she'd ingested. They went ahead and flushed her system as well as they could. Her main problem, serious dehydration, had responded well to the IV fluids. She looked much better. The bruises, abrasions, and broken bones would heal with treatment and rest. Kate said she'd been slapped a few times, but her injuries came from struggling. Her doctor, the son of a cop himself, predicted she'd be home by Tuesday. As soon as the soccer horn sounded, they were going to take Grace to see her.

Kevin Dunne remained in the hospital, a long road ahead of him-at least two surgeries and lifelong speech therapy. Martha was at the North End Tavern, supervising the cleanup crew and drawing new construction plans. Eddie promised to supply the labor.

"I filed the warrant for Sophie," Babsie said.

"We'll never see her again."

"Not without an army of lawyers. She was already on the Concorde when Zina was trying to kill you. Probably eating shrimp on the Riviera before we got home to Yonkers. Must be nice to be rich and beautiful."

"You are beautiful," he said.

"I'd rather be rich."

Bit by bit, it was all coming back to Kate. Eddie filled in some holes for her. She said she was first held in the apartment above Coney Custards. She remembered the smell of sour milk and the sound of the machines. The following night, they moved her to the boat, where she was guarded by two or three different people. She said that after the initial struggle with Zina, Sophie was the only one who had actually hit her. She'd come in drunk or high, start sobbing, then slap Kate around, yelling at her in Russian.

"Kate said she could smell mothballs," Eddie said.

"Your old uniform."

"I was so close to her that first day, Babsie. The day I met Lukin on the boardwalk. Just a few blocks. I could see Coney Custards. She was upstairs. If I'd walked a little farther, maybe I would have heard her voice, a scream."

"No second-guessing. You promised we wouldn't do any second-guessing."

Kate had told him that when she was on the boat, she could hear a band practicing nearby. They played the same songs, in the same order, every day. Kate memorized them. One of the nurses had kids in New Dorp High School. She called the director of the music program and read off Kate's list. It was the New Dorp High School marching band Kate had heard.

"So the love story of Zina and Sophie starts to go sour on April sixth," Babsie said. "Kate surprises Zina when she's breaking into your house. Zina panics and snatches her. To make matters worse, later that day Sergei shows up with Paulie's head and reports everything Paulie blabbed about the Rosenfeld millions, plus the romance between you and Lana. That day changed everything for them."

"April sixth was a bad day for all of us."

"But from that point, Zina knew she had to go for broke. It was about winning Sophie, and she'd stepped over the line. She gets Sophie in this emotional state about her mother, then tries to keep her in a sick dream. That's why Zina gets up the next morning and shoves Anatoly Lukin under the train for his part in the murder of the Rosenfelds. Now she's Sophie's secret hero. Couple of days later, she ices Angelo Caruso for his part; poor Ann Marie is just there. And that leaves you, but she can't kill you, because you've become the central figure in an imaginary romantic triangle."

"As I said before, you can be a bit melodramatic."

"It slipped into a sex game," Babsie said. "Zina wore your uniform. Sophie wore the old dresses from thrift shops, like the ones she thought her mother wore. They had the original Bright Star as the setting. If she had known that story earlier, the one about Lana singing Irish lullabies, that would have gone into the script, too. Kate being there probably added to the excitement. Maybe that saved her life."

"What about the DNA? The possibility I was Sophie's father."

"That was an afterthought. Secondary to the wine and weird sex."

"Did you have these erotic ideas in Sister Mary Elizabeth's class?"

"Sexual role-playing is big these days. We locked up a high-priced hooker on Central Avenue a few months ago. She had a closetful of costumes. She had nurses' uniforms and nuns' habits for every order you could think of, including some that would make you hide your knuckles."

"It was Paulie the Priest who saved Kate's life," Eddie said. "Zina would have killed her without blinking. But when Paulie told them about me and Lana, it raised the possibility that I was her father. Sophie couldn't let Zina kill her sister."

"So tell me the truth about the fight at the Caruso graduation party," Babsie said. "That whole choreographed Raging Bull thing, that was bullshit."

"Finally, you're right about something. That night, I hit Paulie Caruso harder than I'd hit anyone in years, and I meant it. He was spitting his teeth out in his hand."

"You went there hunting for him," Babsie said.

"I wasn't invited."

"How did he find out about you and Lana?"

"Tailed her is my guess. He had to've known for a while, but I never noticed any change in him. Most guys, there'd be a fistfight, and it'd be over. Paulie internalized it, brooded. Even the day of the robbery, I never had a clue he was pissed. Then immediately after the press conference, he starts treating me like garbage. Didn't want to be near me. It took me a couple of weeks. Then I went after him."

"Ever consider turning him in? You could have made a deal for yourself."

"I needed proof. The only evidence I had was the ten grand Paulie gave me. He would have denied it. I would have gotten locked up; he would have walked. Unless I could get an admission on tape."

"That's the reason you went there," she said.

"On the day of the graduation party, I wired myself up and drove to Howard Beach. Paulie was in the backyard. I came in through the garage, as always, through the basement. Angelo was down there cooking, checking the gravy. He had a few vinos in him and was singing and stirring the gravy. It was just me and him down there, and he said to me, 'How does it feel to be a millionaire?'"

"Pauhe never told him he kept your share."

"I played along. I asked what Paulie was going to do with his. Angelo tells me he's taking care of washing Paulie's share. 'Two point eight million is not easy to keep in your sock drawer,' he says."