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tossing the beer can under the Dumpster? Plus I had a guy go down there and photograph the beer can—there’s some graffiti on the wall behind the Dumpster so you can tell it was really in that spot. And when my guy took the photo, he put a copy of the Times against the wall so you can see the date. I now have the can and I’m about a thousand percent sure it will have your fingerprints on it.
    “There’s one other thing you need to think about, Officer Quinn,” Carmine said. “When this witness comes forward and tells what you did, you ain’t gonna be the only guy who gets in trouble. Whoever investigated the shooting and helped you hide the truth is also going to have their dicks lopped off. Think about that, Officer Quinn. How’s that going to look, you getting the whole department in trouble because you lied your ass off?”
    At first Quinn tried to bluster and bullshit his way out, saying how his pals on the force would come down on Carmine’s operation like a ton of bricks, but in the end he caved.
    “So what do you want?” he asked.
    “Just information,” Carmine said. “You keep me informed of things that can help me. And if you don’t produce, then I don’t need you, and my witness talks to the press and Connors’s widow gets a big-mouth lawyer to sue the department.”
    A month goes by and Carmine gets nothing out of Quinn. He knows what Quinn’s trying to do: he’s trying to find the eyewitness and trying to find something he can use against Carmine. And this was about the time that Jerry Kennedy gets nabbed by the feds. Carmine called up Quinn and told him: “You find Kennedy for me and if you don’t, I’m gonna end your fuckin’ career.”
    Carmine walked through the bingo room in the basement of St. Sebastian’s, a hundred crazy women there, shrieking every time a number was called. The grand prize that night was fifty bucks and the women acted like they were playing for a million.
    Quinn was waiting for him in a little room that looked like a workshop, a bunch of tools hanging off a pegboard, a broken cradle they used for the Nativity scene sitting on the floor. Carmine had donated all the statues and shit for the Nativity scene.
    “So where is he?” Carmine said.
    “I don’t like meeting with you,” Quinn said. “Why couldn’t we do this over the phone?”
    “A, I don’t give a shit what you like, and B, I don’t like talking on the phone. So where is he?”
    Quinn told him: a crummy motel outside Poughkeepsie, more than an hour’s drive from New York.
    “Are they protecting him?” Carmine asked.
    “No,” Quinn said. “I mean they don’t have agents or federal marshals guarding him. They figure as long as only a couple people in the U.S. attorney’s office know where he is, he’s safe.”
    “Aren’t they afraid he might split?”
    “No. He doesn’t have any money and he doesn’t have a car and he’s got too many people looking for him. He’s safer in that motel than he would be on the street.”
    “How did you track him down?”
    “I took a couple days off work and started following the most likely attorneys.”
    Carmine nodded. Smart guy.
    Carmine didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stared at Quinn while Quinn glared back at him. The young cop really hated him.
    “I want you to kill him,” Carmine said.
    “Forget it,” Quinn said.
    “Quinn, if you take care of Kennedy, you’ll be all paid up with me. I’ll never contact you again.”
    “And I’m supposed to just take your word for that?”
    “No. I’ll give you the name of the witness who saw you shoot Connors. I’ll also give you the beer can with your fingerprints on it. But the main thing is, you’ll have the name of the witness. You can whack her for all I care. She don’t mean shit to me. But the easiest thing to do is just scare her if she becomes a problem. You’re a smart guy. You’ll figure something out once you have her name.”
    Carmine could now see the gears spinning