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JIMMY DRIVES US TO the city.

Even though the last thing I want is to have my phone back in my hand, I briefly use it to text Katherine Welsh, wanting to get that out of the way now, telling her what’s happened.

Despite the hour, she texts me back almost immediately, telling me she’ll contact Judge Horton and request the trial be pushed back another day, and for me to do what I need to do.

But she sends one more text before she’s done.

Who would do something like this?

I shoot her a short reply.

Sonny Blum would

“I should have done more to help him,” I say to Jimmy from the passenger seat.

We’re off the FDR by now and making our way across Manhattan to the West Side.

“He knew who he was dealing with,” Jimmy says.

“So do we.”

“Three people, at least three that we know of, have died in the past couple of weeks because they were betting with Sonny,” Jimmy says. “So the guardrails are clearly off with that crazy old fuck.”

“When were they ever on?” I ask him.

Jimmy told me when he picked me up that he’d just called NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island and that Blum had left without being released. So he’s gone, just not the way we both want him to be, and neither of us thinks he’s coming back anytime soon, if ever.

When we get to Café Martin, the crime scene unit’s van is still in front, along with three cruisers.

It’s three in the morning by now, but there are still onlookers on all sides of the yellow tape, with others watching from across the street, where I used to stand and look across at the front window of Café Martin, occasionally catching a glimpse of my ex-husband.

This is the big, bad city, of course, the one that never sleeps, especially when there’s a show like this, even in the middle of the night.

Detective Craig Jackson, Jimmy’s friend, the one who Jimmy says looks more than a little like Samuel L., is waiting for us on the sidewalk, Jimmy having called him when we were off the highway to tell him we were close.

I’ve known Jackson a long time, if not as long or as well as Jimmy has. He hugs me and says, “Sorry, Janie.”

“Me, too,” I say.

“Nothing taken,” Jackson says. “We already talked to the manager, people hardly ever pay cash, so there was really nothing to steal. This looks like a hit, all day and all night.”

“Only because it is,” I say.

Jackson says, “I understand you’ve had a couple like this out east recently.”

Jimmy nods. “Both clients of Sonny Blum’s, the way Jane’s ex was. He’d already been threatened once by one of Sonny’s goons about payments past due.”

“You happen to know which goon?” Jackson asks.

“I should have asked,” I say. “But I never did.”

“You think there’s any way to connect the three murders?” Jackson says.

“Sure,” Jimmy says. “When rats fly.”

“Front door was locked,” Jackson says. “Shooter must’ve come through the back.”

He turns to face me. “Body’s already gone, Janie. But you want to go inside, anyway, have a look around?”

“No,” I say.

Thinking again about all the times I was drawn here, knowing I was acting crazy but knowing that Martin was inside, even after he’d hurt me the way he had.

I tell Craig Jackson now about Rob Jacobson’s conversation with Sonny, Rob passing on Sonny’s message that I had now been warned.

Then I take out my phone and show him the first text, the one that says the same goddamn thing.

Jackson takes my phone, uses it to send the text, and the photograph of Martin, to his own phone.

“One to the head, one to the chest,” Jackson says, staring at my screen.

“We saw,” Jimmy says.

“Whoever Sonny’s guy is, he’s very predictable,” I say.

We all stand there on the sidewalk in silence now, in the reflection of the flashing lights of the cruisers. I’m still not quite sure why I’m here. I knew the body would be long gone by the time Jimmy and I arrived. But somehow I had to be here for Martin, even though I was too late.

“There’s one more thing,” Jackson says. “Like the cherry on top of the ice cream.”

He takes his phone back out and shows me the screenshot he found when he opened the laptop on Martin’s desk.

The image is the online preview of what I’m sure is going to be the front page of Newsday ’s print edition, probably on the trucks already.

It features a picture of Sonny Blum on the witness stand and me in front of him, pointing a finger like I’m pointing a gun at him.

The headline reads this way:

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