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“The reason I chose this place is that it has a little-known exit to the building next door, and that building has an exit on the alley behind.

“But even if that wasn’t true, I got three guys outside with all kinds’a firepower. I sent them photos with my cell phone and they’re the kinda guys that know when an ambush is set up.”

I smiled and told him about the conversation.

“He’s already in somebody’s crosshairs,” Mel pronounced.

“But who?”

Mel’s cell phone sounded.

“Yeah?” he answered. Then: “All right. Thanks.”

He put away the phone and said to me, “Nobody’s out there. The inspector and his man left in the same car.”

I picked up a crustless cucumber sandwich and took a nibble.

“You got a place to stay, King?”

“Storage unit in the West Village.”

“Huh.”

“Look, Mel, I appreciate your help. But right now I’m gonna look into some stuff. I’ll call you later on and maybe, if you got the time, you could help me again.”

“You sure the fuck need it.”

26.

There’s a beautiful high-rise apartment building on Forty-Second Street a block or so east of Tenth Avenue. It’s constructed from plate glass and steel girders with a thirty-foot-high atrium for an entrance.

“May I help you, sir?” a caramel-colored, red-jacketed man asked. He was standing behind a four-and-a-half-foot-high green marble counter.

“Miranda Goya,” I said, happy to have at least one sentinel treat me with decorum.

He picked up a phone receiver, but before bringing it to his ear he said, “Your name?”

“Joe Oliver.”

Making all the right moves, the man said into the phone, “A Mr. Oliver for you, Miss Goya.”

He was younger than I by at least five years and had generous lips that were exactly the same tone as the rest of his skin. This unusual aspect gave the guardian a kind of specialized, almost synthetic, air.

“Twenty-eight thirteen,” he said to me.

“Thank you.”

The elevator was large and my only companion was a woman, probably in her eighties, who had mastered makeup well enough to take at least fifteen years off her appearance. She had a small black-and-white dog on a leash that was straining to get at me.

I like dogs. If some evolutionist had told me that men had descended from canines I would have believed her. All the brotherly passion, fang-baring hunt lust, and fear I feel on a daily basis I see in dogs.

I was a dog. I’d been told that my entire life—by men and women alike.

“I can’t let him greet you,” the lady said. She was wearing a fox wrap over an emerald cashmere sweater.

“He bites?”

“Pisses. He pisses on any man’s foot that gets close enough. He’s a bad boyfriend, but I love him.”