killed.'
'The little whore,' he said. 'She heard my first name.'
'I know your last name, too.'
'Prove it.'
'Why should I? Look it up for yourself, it's right there on the calendar.'
'Who are you?'
'Can't you figure that out for yourself?'
'You sound like a cop.'
'If I'm a cop, why isn't there a pack of blue-and-whites lined up in front of your house?'
'Because you don't know where it is.'
'Try Middle Village. Penelope Avenue.'
I could almost feel him relax. 'I'm impressed,' he said.
'What kind of cop plays it this way, Ray?'
'You're in Landau's pocket.'
'Close. We're in bed together, we're partners. I'm married to his cousin.'
'No wonder we couldn't—'
'Couldn't what?'
'Nothing. I should bail out now, cut the bitch's throat and get the hell out.'
'Then you're dead,' I said. 'An all-points goes out nationwide in a matter of hours, with you on the hook for Gotteskind and Alvarez, too.
Do the deal and I guarantee I'll sit on it for a week, longer if I can.
Maybe forever.'
'Why?'
'Because I won't want it to come out, will I? You can go set up shop on the other side of the country.
Plenty of dope dealers in L.A. Plenty of fine-looking women out there, too. They love to go for a ride in a pretty new truck.'
He was silent for a long moment. Then he said, 'Go over it again.
The whole scenario, from the time we arrive.'
I went through it. He interrupted with a question from time to time and I answered them all. Finally he said, 'I wish I could trust you.'
'Jesus Christ,' I said. 'I'm the one who has to do the trusting. I'll be walking up to you unarmed with a bag of money in each hand. If you decide you don't trust me you can always kill me.'
'Yes, I could,' he said.
'But it's better for you if you don't. It's better for both of us if the whole transaction goes off just the way it's scheduled to. We both come out winners.'
'You're out a million dollars.'
'Maybe that fits in with my plans, too.'
'Oh?'
'You figure it out,' I said, leaving him to puzzle out my own interfamilial secret agenda, some strategy I must have for getting the upper hand on my partner.
'Interesting,' he said. 'Where do you want to do the switch?'
I was ready for the question. I had proposed enough other sites in earlier phone calls, and I'd been saving this one. 'Green-Wood Cemetery,' I said.
'I think I know where that is.'
'You ought to. That's where you dumped Leila Alvarez. It's a distance from Middle Village, but you found your way there once before. It's nine-twenty. There are two entrances on the Fifth Avenue side,
one around Twenty-fifth Street, the other ten blocks south of there.
Take the Twenty-fifth Street entrance and head south about twenty yards inside the fence. We'll enter at Thirty-fifth and approach you from the south.'
I laid it all out for him, like a war-games tactician re-creating the Battle of Gettysburg. 'Ten-thirty,' I said. 'That gives you over an hour to get there. No traffic at this hour, so that shouldn't be a problem. Or do you need more time?'
He didn't need anything like an hour. He was in Sunset Park, a five-minute drive from the cemetery. But he didn't need to know that I knew that.
'That should be time enough.'
'And you'll have plenty of time to set up. We'll enter ten blocks south of you at ten-forty. That gives you ten
