Friday

11:00 a.m.

Eddie's pulse slowed in the cool darkness of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The more he thought about it, the more he understood what had happened. He'd been around bosses like French Cuffs before. Public service was invented for them. One of the many ways they avoided taking action was by suggesting the possibility of some serpentine scheme that would undermine the plan's success. Take no chances. This ensured the longevity of the mediocre. Eddie couldn't prove he'd chased the woman in the wool coat, so French Cuffs hinted at his possible duplicity. God forbid they embarrass the Bureau. Careerwise, it was always safer to do nothing. Paulie the Priest had called it "empty-suit disease."

All Eddie had learned in 26 Federal Plaza was from Boland as he chased him across the plaza. Boland said that Sergei Zhukov lived in Rego Park. They had agents sitting on his house, as well as the Eurobar and a restaurant he frequented in Queens named the Registan. Other agents were interviewing friends of Misha. Boland told him he needed to calm down. Eddie said he'd calm down when someone besides Babsie Panko came up with a decent lead. He told him to concentrate on Sergei. Find him and all would be forgiven.

Out of the tunnel, in the sunlight again, Eddie squinted to find the sign for the Belt Parkway. He could think like French Cuffs, too. His own natural paranoia had already created a dozen scenarios, some involving the FBI in the kidnapping. But they were all too complicated. Answers are always simpler than that. Keep it simple, he reminded himself, or you'll wind up with your head up your ass, like Special Agent French Cuffs.

The Howard Beach Boccie Club sat on a quiet street of one- and two-family homes, surrounded and shaded by old trees. There were no signs outside. Those inside knew who they were and why they belonged. Behind the trees, the club was protected by an eight-foot chain-link fence and the reputation of its members.

Eddie pushed the gate open. A quartet of old men in flowered shirts and dark pants had congregated under a gazebo near the far corner. Eddie waited as they spoke softly in a lyrical Italian. Sotto voce. They spoke softly in English, as well. In fact, these men had spent their lives in hushed conversations. Eddie waited for Angelo Caruso to acknowledge him. It was Angelo's move. After a minute, three men stood up and walked away.

"How ya doin', champ?" one of them said as he bobbed and weaved in a fighter's stance, feinting short slow-motion jabs at Eddie. Eddie still got this every now and then, despite the fact that his fight career had ended over thirty years ago. Guys like Ali and Frazier must get it all the time, he thought. People dancing around them, throwing punches. He wondered if they were tempted to reach out and smack them down. He bet nobody tried this with Mike Tyson.

Angelo called Eddie over and welcomed him with an affectionate hug.

"The court looks good," Eddie said. "New Scoreboard, ball holders, the works."

"Looks ain't everything," Angelo said. "It still don't drain right. Every time it rains, we sweep puddles. Cost us twelve grand for this, and we're bowling through mud half the time. Is it asking too much to slope a piece of ground so it drains? It's not rocket science, is it?"

In his early seventies now, Angelo had just begun to look as old as his younger brother had-the last time Eddie saw Paulie the Priest, that is. The mob guy had led a healthier life than the cop. The Priest used to say that for every five years Angelo spent in prison, he came out looking ten years younger. A ring of white hair circled the well-tanned bald head. Silver-framed glasses sat on an aquiline nose.

"I heard about your daughter. I have people sniffing around about this. It's not right, this kidnapping thing the Russians do. Fucking animals, if you ask me."

"Richie Costa is working on it, too," Eddie said.

"Richie is off-limits to you now, Eddie. I heard all about it, and interceded on your behalf. I can understand one time, your emotions all jumbled. Our kids make us crazy, and this situation is a heartache. But once is all we can forgive. Capisce?"

Angelo picked up an unlabeled gallon jug of red wine. He filled a pair of clear plastic cups two-thirds full. He handed one to Eddie and held his up in a toast.

'To Paulie," he said.

Without drinking to his ex-partner, Eddie put the cup back down on the table. "What the hell is going on, Ange?"

"I should ask you that question. They threw his head at your door, not mine."

"Was Paulie in business with the Russians?"

"I should know? Paulie was Paulie. Nobody could predict my brother. Not even when he was a little baby. Paulie lived like he wanted to. Caution to the wind. You know that, the shit he pulled with you."

They both turned to watch a white-haired man in a Panama hat as he tossed a small natural-colored ball, the pallina, or "little nut," down the other end of the clay court. There would be no serious play today, in deference to the death in the family. They were playing only to take the focus off the conversation between the ex-cop and the old mob boss.

"Sunday is the service," Angelo said. "Our Lady of Consolation, two o'clock. I didn't think they would do it on a Sunday, but the priest was kind enough to allow a small Mass for my brother."

"I'm sure you'll be generous."

"We must do all we can for the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, Eddie. No burial ceremony, though. We'll add his name to the stone, underneath his brother's. If his body turns up later, we'll cremate. They let you cremate now, as long as you promise not to throw the ashes."

"Paulie always said he wanted his ashes spread in Vegas," Eddie said.

"The Mirage, that's right. He loved the Mirage. Maybe I can make a call."

"Why did he leave Sicily?" Eddie asked.

"Who knew he left? Three weeks ago, I talked to him; he was home. Maybe a little more than three, but everyone thought he was in Sicily. My sister talked after I did, a few days maybe."

"He got over here somehow," Eddie said.

"You figure that out all by yourself?"

I figured out more than you can imagine, Eddie thought. Partners spend a lot of long hours together. Eddie knew a few Caruso family secrets.

"Was he using other identities?" Eddie asked. "There's no record of him leaving Sicily. Any other name he might have on a bogus passport?"

"I think he was dead when he got here, Eddie. I know some people in Sicily-they went over and looked at his house. His villa was wrecked, his safe emptied. They said there was blood all over the place."

"This safe," Eddie said, measuring his words. "What did Paulie have in it?"

Angelo smiled. Eddie held his arms out as if inviting Angelo to search him for a wire.

"My brother should have been more like you," Angelo said. "He was not careful."

"Too many people are careless, Ange. That's why there's so much trouble in the world."

"I don't know what he kept in his safe," Angelo said, blowing a smoke ring. "Maybe the panties of his old girlfriends." Eddie noticed the stump of his little finger. Angelo bragged that it had been chopped off by a hit man from Calabria. Paulie told him it was a woodworking accident in his garage.

Eddie said, "Did Paulie ever mention a set of black loose-leaf binders that belonged to Marvin Rosenfeld? They contained phony corporations."

"Yeah, Paulie sold them to Anatoly Lukin. Why the hell do you think Lukin hired you? I thought partners told each other everything."

"We know different about Paulie, don't we, Ange?"

"Let's not speak ill of the dead, my friend."

Wooden balls rolled across the deep red clay. A red ball close to the pallina was knocked away by the green ball. The old man in the Panama hat slapped dust off his hands, pleased with himself.

Angelo said, "You ever see Paulie's villa?"

"Never had the pleasure."

"You never went, really?"

Eddie took a deep breath and looked away. A breeze blew, shuffling papers on the tabletop: a Racing Form, a copy of the New York Post Eddie had read from cover to cover in the FBI office a few hours earlier. Angelo took a metal tape measure and used it as a paperweight on the Racing Form.

"My brother, the ex-cop," Angelo said, "he builds a house that should have been on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I tried to talk to him, but he never listened. He thinks because he's in Italy he can spend like a drunken sailor and no one will notice. Called attention to himself, that's what he did."

"Paulie keep a lot of money in the safe?" Eddie asked.

Angelo laughed and shook his head.

"If the motive was robbery," Eddie said, "why did they throw his head at my house?"

"Because someone knows more than they should, my friend."

"Knows what?" Eddie asked.

"My brother is dead. Stop playing games, Eddie."

"If there was some secret to know," Eddie said, "how would these people who killed Paulie hear about it?"

"Maybe Paulie told them. They beat him, tortured him, and he told them."

"How would they know enough to ask Paulie the question in the first place?"

"It has been my experience over the years," Angelo said, "the bigger the secret, the shorter its life."

"I would think the opposite."

"You are some piece of work," Angelo said, "you know that? I remember the first time my brother brought you to my house. You had the balls to tell that joke about a little kid playing with shit in the street. Remember that? A kid making a statue with shit. When someone asked him what he was doing, he said he was making a statue of an Italian cop. At first, I thought my friends were going to throw you on the barbecue pit. I said to Paulie, 'Who is this stupid Irish bastard telling guinea jokes here, of all places?'"

"They didn't."

"I know. You got their attention, got it good, and then you delivered the punch line: The person asked the little kid why he didn't make an Irish cop instead. The kid said he was going to but he didn't have enough shit."

Angelo laughed; the joke still had a bite for him. Eddie was struck by the peacefulness of all the sounds. The soft breeze through the leaves of the trees, the wooden boccie balls rolling, a rake combing lines in the copper-colored clay, the voices.

"So I shouldn't be surprised," Angelo said, "you have the balls to come here and accuse me of being a rat."

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Angelo. I'm trying to figure out how many eyes I should keep open at night."

"Keep them all open, Eddie. Just like I do. And stay away from Richie Costa. That's your last warning."