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dark and a little grim. The only light comes from a single low-watt table lamp, and the desperation in the close air is a palpable thing. It’s hard to imagine that both she and Dante can live in here together.
    “We’re here to help,” says Clarence, “and the first step is getting Dante to turn himself in.”
    “You’re here to help? How is that? Dante and Michael had nothing to do with these crimes,” says Marie. “NOTHING! Dante is very aware of the chance he has been given, and earned, and what that could mean.”
    “I know that,” says Clarence, heartbreak in his voice too. “But the police don’t. The longer he stays out, the worse it looks for him.”
    “My grandson could have entered the NBA draft,” says Marie as if she hasn’t heard a word Clarence said. “This home was filled with vultures waving cars and money under his nose, and Dante turned them all down. Dante told me that when he does go pro, he wants to buy me a new house and a new car. I asked him, What’s wrong with this house? What’s wrong with my car? I don’t need those things.”
    Marie fixes us with a hard stare. Her tiny place is immaculate, and you can see the defiant effort to create a semblance of middle-class stability. Barely visible on the wall directly behind Marie is a formal photograph of Dante, his older brother, and his parents all dressed up outside the Baptist Memorial Church in Riverhead. In the picture, Dante looks about ten, and I know from Clarence that soon after that picture was taken, Dante’s father was stabbed to death on the street and his mother went to jail for the first time. I also know that his brother, who many thought was almost as good a pro prospect as Dante, is serving a two-year sentence in a corrections center upstate.
    “Marie,” says Clarence, “you got to get Dante to give Tom a call. Tom used to be a heck of a ballplayer. Now he’s a heck of a lawyer. But he can’t help Dante if Dante won’t let him.”
    Marie stares at me, her face not revealing a thing. “This neighborhood is full of folks who used to be great ballplayers,” she says.

Chapter 22
    Loco
    ON A SLEEPY midweek afternoon in the teeming metropolis that is downtown Montauk, Hugo Lindgren sits at the counter of John’s Pancake House, killing time like only a cop can, turning a free cup of coffee into a two-hour paid vacation.
    Since Lindgren’s all alone at the counter—the only “customer” in the whole place, in fact—I do the sociable thing and take the stool beside him. Now, how many other drug dealers would make a gesture like that?
    “Loco,” he mutters.
    As I sit, luminously green-eyed Erin Case comes over bearing a nearly empty pot of coffee.
    “Good afternoon, darlin’,” says Erin in her still-strong Ulster brogue. “What can I get you?”
    “I’d love a double-vanilla latte decaf, if it’s not any trouble.”
    “No trouble at all, darlin’. Got it right here,” says Erin, filling my mug with the dregs of the pot in her right hand. “You said double-vanilla latte decaf, right?”
    “Must be my lucky day.”
    “Every day’s your lucky day, darlin’!”
    Pancake John is getting ready to close up shop and flip the sign, so when Erin excuses herself to wipe the maple syrup off the red Naugahyde booths, me and Lindgren shyly return to our so-called coffee. And when Erin stoops under a table to pick up a fallen menu, I slide him my
Newsday.
    “John Paul Newport’s column on Hillary,” I say. “It’s hilarious. Kind of thing your lieutenant might get a hoot out of too.”
    “Thanks, pal,” says Lindgren.
    He cracks the editorial section just enough to see two fat envelopes, then slides over his
New York Post.
    “Crossword’s a bear today,” he says, “but maybe you’ll have better luck with it than I did.”
    “Coffee’s on me, Hugo,” I say, dropping five dollars on the counter as I head to the door.
    I don’t open my
Post
until I’m safely back in the Big Black Beast stationed