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noticed that. I got an uncle with hair like that.”
    Tommy had mentioned a man with white hair. “Go on.”
    â€œA couple of times lately, I picked up the phone by mistake, and I heard him talking. All I heard was him saying the word ‘strike’, but when he realized I was on the line, he lost his temper. I’ll tell you this, he’s obsessed with the Mob. He’ll do anything to nail one of them Mob guys, and they’re in bed with the Longshoreman, so what can I say?” He was whispering. “Logan nearly socked me. Told me to fucking stay off his phone line.”
    â€œListen to me, Jimmy, you keep me posted. Yeah, and where’s the forensics people? There’s no one here? No reporters. Brass like Logan usually love getting their pictures in the Daily News.”
    â€œI heard Logan say to keep the pier clear until he got a good look.”
    â€œHow come you’re so talkative? You’re not afraid of Logan?”
    Jimmy looked at me. “He saw to it my brother’s career came to a sudden end. He mentions the word corruption at his precinct, and he’s done. I knew somehow Logan fixed it so he got canned. Bastard.”
    â€œThat’s it?”
    Jimmy hesitated.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIn the car on the way over, I heard him mention your name to his pal in the back seat.”
    â€œWho was he, this pal?”
    â€œI don’t know. A uniform. Brass. Logan says, ‘This Wynne, I don’t want him anywhere near this case. If he gives me trouble, you pay attention,’ and the other one says, ‘Sure. Be my pleasure, what’s the problem?’ ‘He’s a Red,’ says Logan. ‘He’s a goddman Red-lover.’”
    â€œWhere is he, the pal in the backseat?”
    â€œOver there, checking out the body.”
    A hard soaking rain was coming down in sheets. There was no point taking on Logan. He didn’t want to hear from me. But I knew it was connected: the dead girl on the High Line last July; the dead man on the pier. Both had the tattoo, the worm and the words ‘Cuba Libre’. Two dead. Same tattoo. Both had been too young to die.
    I turned my back on the scene, and started towards the street.
    â€œYou going home, Wynne?” Logan called out.
    â€œWhatever you say, Logan.”
    As I left, Logan looked up again from his courtiers in their dark coats and he tipped his hat to me. It was a strange, sarcastic gesture, and it made me feel colder than even the miserable rain.
    I didn’t go home. I left the pier and went north to the High Line.
    *
    I had already spent too many nights on the High Line. I had been up there night after night, July, August. I had to go back one more time. It had been July 4th when they slaughtered the girl, tortured her and left her hanging from the iron railings of the overhead viaduct a few blocks from the pier.
    As soon as I get the call—I’m pretty much alone at the station house because it’s the 4th, and everybody is at the beach or out partying—I drive like crazy over to Gansevoort Street and leave my Corvette on the corner.
    Independence Day, I can hear people on rooftops clapping, watching the fireworks, green, red, gold, white, lighting up the sky and the river. Somewhere through a loudspeaker “America the Beautiful”, followed by “Let’s Twist Again”. Somebody’s having a party. All over the city people are partying, celebrating July 4th. Goddamn 4th of July, and I’m on the job.
    Where’s the cop who called the homicide in? I can’t see him. I can’t see anyone at all. It’s stinking hot, and I’m half blinded by the fireworks that light up the sky.
    Thirty feet up, running over Tenth Avenue parallel to the river, the freight line—everyone calls it the High Line— goes from the 32nd Street railyards to the terminal at Spring Street. Use to go all the way downtown. Warehouses stand along the