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turned
     to the left. Watching, the detective realized Black might not have been standing so long in front of the club where so many
     had died so horribly because of the feelings the event had engendered in him. Judging by what he seemed to be doing now, the
     good-looking patrolman might simply have been standing in front of the club’s doors, staring at his reflection in their glass
     panels.
    They were waiting for him when he got back to his hotel. Vinnie’s boys.
    “Hiyah, Lockwood,” Sleepy Pischetti said, leaning against the side of the building.
    Lockwood felt something jabbing into his side. From the corner of his eye he saw Eddie Coughlin pushing against him. When
     he glanced in the other direction, he could see Solly Malik grinning at him. “You boys looking for a fourth for bridge?” Lockwood
     asked.
    The toothpick Pischetti had been working in his mouth went still, and then slanted downward. “You been listenin’ to too much
     Jack Benny,” Pischetti said. “That kind of stuff don’t do you no good.”
    “I gather making whoopee with Griese’s girlfriend isn’t doing me too much good either,” Lockwood returned, looking Pischetti
     over. The gunman had a hand in one of his coat pockets, and seemed to be fondling something. At least two guns were pointed
     in his direction. Not the best of odds, he concluded.
    He heard Coughlin laugh. “So that’s why he wants you out of the way!” Coughlin cried, with a giggle. “Jesus. Did you guys
     know that?” he asked his two confederates.
    Pischetti ignored him. “We could drill you here, Lockwood, but if it’s all the same with you, I’d rather not. We got our escape
     routes picked out an’ everythin’, but it’d all involve running. I don’t like to run.” He pointed to a large black Packard
     parked half a block away. “Me—my idea of doin’ things right is to use a car.”
    Lockwood shrugged. He’d buy all the time he could. “If you can take the New York traffic, so can I.”
    They headed downtown, and then over the Bridge to Brooklyn.
    “Canarsie?” Lockwood asked. Malik was driving and Pischetti and Coughlin were in the back seat, on either side of him.
    “Where else?” Coughlin laughed. “Ground’s soft out there. Nice marshes, also, if you’re too lazy to dig.”
    They moved off Rockaway Parkway and onto a side-street, drove three blocks and then stopped. The area was empty of houses,
     just a large wooden fence in disrepair looming ahead.
    “Okay, out,” Pischetti said, and the four of them left the car.
    They pointed him toward the fence, Malik behind him, Pischetti and Coughlin alongside. Lockwood obeyed, curious about where
     they were leading him, curious about who might be on the other side of the fence.
    They passed through an opening, and Lockwood saw what appeared to be an abandoned lumberyard, another victim of the Depression,
     wood weathering badly in slumping piles, a weather-beaten framed wooden building standing at the top of a small rise, its
     windowpanes shattered. Off to the side and down was a medium-sized pond, half-choked with debris.
    “All right,” Pischetti said, as the three of them halted.
    “This is it?” Lockwood asked, surprised. There was no one else there.
    “You didn’t think that we were takin’ you to the Stork Club?” Coughlin giggled.
    “I expected Griese,” Lockwood answered.
    “You think he’s gonna waste his time with a mug like you?” Pischetti asked. “Okay, walk ahead a coupla steps, with your back
     to us.”
    Lockwood didn’t move. “It’s not just the fooling around then,” he said.
    “What?”
    “If it was the fooling around, you boys would rough me up, and Griese would be there to watch and enjoy, and maybe get in
     on the fun himself. But your wanting me put away, that suggests another motive.”
    “What the hell you talkin’ about?” Coughlin asked.
    Lockwood continued, eyes sizing up everything around him as he spoke. “The Palms night club. You