Hey, listen," he said, unconsciously doing the Twist again as he blindly scanned Eldridge. "I already told all this to the Asian detective earlier, at this point my memory's getting worse, not better-"

"All right, look, this is got to be hard for you. I understand, but-"

"I didn't do anything wrong" his voice starting to break.

"No one said you did," Matty said carefully. Nazir rapped on his window to get Matty's attention. He looked furious.

"Just bear with me, Eric. I know you want to catch these guys who shot your friend as much-"

"I told you, he isn't my friend. I don't even really know him."

Matty noted Eric's use of the present tense, wondered if this kid knew that Marcus was dead. Cash had yet to ask how the other guy, friend or not, was doing.

"Can you describe the gun at all?"

Eric sagged, took a deep breath. "I think it was a .22."

"You know your guns?"

"I know my .22s. My father made me take one when I moved to New York. I ditched it the minute I got here."

"OK," Matty said after a pause, "then what happened."

"What?"

"They shot Ike and ran off. Then what happened."

"I tried to call 911 on my cell, but I couldn't get any reception, so I ran into the, the vestibule there to try indoors."

"You ran indoors."

"It must've been dead altogether, so then I ran back out to the street to get help, and all of a sudden there's these four cops pointing guns at me." Eric took another breath. "Huh. "

"What?"

"I just realized . . . I've had five guns pointed at me in the last two hours."

As a patrol car took a weakly protesting Eric Cash back to the Eighth Precinct, Nazir rapped angrily on his glass again, beckoned for Matty.

Bobby Oh said the guy hadn't seen anything, but the store was in Matty's bailiwick so he would give him a few minutes to complain about being shut down, rail about how he was going to make the city pay for his broken window.

As he stepped to the storefront, the Yemeni raised his riot gate from inside the shop.

"Nazir, Crime Scenes is a little backed up, but I'll have you opened as soon as I can, buddy.""No. That too, but I want to tell you something. That son of a bitch you were talking tor Whatever he said to you, don't trust him. He's no damned good."

"Oh yeah?" Matty eyed the jagged branches of the window fracture. "Why is that?"

"We had the Virgin Mary in here yesterday, did you know that?"

"Yeah, I heard. Congratulations."

"Congratulations? That bastard came in with a friend and they wiped her out like this." He snapped his fingers. "Broke everybody's heart."

"Disappointed a lot of her fans, huh?" Matty said, then, glancing at his watch, "All right, boss, I'll get you open as fast as 1 can."

"Hold on," Nazir said, digging in his pocket and pulling out a cell phone. "This is what that bastard threw at my window," handing it over. "I'll be goddamned if 1 give it back to him."

Flipping it open, Matty discovered that not only was Eric Cash's phone fully charged, not only wasn't the last outgoing call to 911, but, as Matty scrolled down the Recent Calls screen, none of the others were either. When he pressed the send button, the phone rang through to the last number dialed, Cafe Berkmann, getting a recorded message at this nonhour, but the reception clear as a bell.

OK, maybe the guy in shock had just imagined he called. Or maybe there was a temporary power glitch, or a signal glitch. Or Matty hadn't heard him right, or . . .

Daley, one of the Quality of Lifers, a weight lifter made twice as big by the bulk of the vest under his sweatshirt, caught his eye and waved him over to where he stood with two kids, a tall, husky carrothead, his long frizzy hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail, and an equally tall black girl, slender as a gymnast, her chopped hair laquered down into pixie bangs.

"He's the guy you talk to." Daley gestured to Matty.

"What's up?" Matty asked.

"As I was just saying to this officer, me and my girlfriend were listening to that guy tell you what happened?" the redhead said.