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recapture the mayor’s office and deliver the patronage. It wouldn’t be easy. Henry George had the labor backing. Teddy Roosevelt at twenty-eight had all the strength to make a lot of noise. Whoever Squire Croker chose to run against those two would need total support in every district. All that work plus Monk Eastman’s gang tearing up the district night after night, which kept Paddy in judge’s chambers and filled his head. However, he had some time. And he had his own competent information service. Over the next few weeks he was able to put together a dimensional picture of the girl. Her father had sent her to the old country, then to Paris to study dancing. In the fall she’d start as a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Company. What she did was a mystery to him until he found out it was only “toedancin’,” then he knew all about it. For whatever ideas a young girl gets, she used the name Mary Courance instead of Maria Corrente. Her father was opposed to her becoming a professional dancer and offended that she had decided to change her name, even though one canceled out the other. That part of it, the father’s opposition and the girl’s rebellion, gave Paddy pause as to the Sicilian upbringing being in his favor, but he reasoned that this was America and God knew everything was different in America.
    He moved automatically through his work, never once able to concentrate on it. She was in his mind all the time. The need for her intensified even after prayer. He clung to his patience and waited for a sign, but he would not make an overt move because risk to Paddy was what bubonic plague is to a public health officer—something to be stamped out forever.
    Then the sign came. It was in the form of an urgent message from Don Carmelo “the Wolf” Lumia, president of the Unione Siciliane, asking him to meet with his consigliere , Don Salvatore Purpi, in a Broome Street restaurant. There was no doubt about the unusual urgency of the summons, all the more extraordinary because Don Carmelo was very much the “man of respect,” never exigent or ruffled. Paddy went to the meeting with the hope that Lumia or the Unione faced total disaster or at least big enough trouble to obligate them to him far beyond any payment with money.
    He was shown to a table at the back of the restaurant, which smelled gloriously of cheeses, salamis, garlic, and cooking sauces, looking as out of place among the other diners as a hod carrier singing tenor at La Scala. Purpi and two of Don Carmelo’s caporegimi stood up as he approached the table. Paddy was the personification of political power, and nothing took precedence over that among mafiosi . Don Salvatore was a dear little old man with murderer’s eyes, not as cold as Paddy’s but perhaps cold enough to chill a magnum of champagne with a glance. He had never worked a day in his long life, and all the rich experience he had acquired along the way had made him counselor to the boss.
    Paddy insisted on shaking hands ponderously, calling each man by name, asking for their children. He accepted a cup of coffee. Don Salvatore asked, equally politely, how the election would go.
    â€œCroker will run Congressman Hewitt, Sal,” Paddy said. “We’ll be all right. He’s rich enough to hurl charges of nihilism and socialist peril at Henry George, and that kid Roosevelt don’t mean nothin’.” He sipped the coffee. “What’s this trouble in Don Carmelo’s letter, Sal?”
    â€œIt’s no good, Paddy. Two cops is dead and a kid. She’s Italian, so we can handle it, but the cops are Polacks and Judge Gant won’t lift a finger because he says the Polacks vote like they was one man.”
    Paddy whistled.
    â€œThey have three of our soldiers, and the lawyers can’t even find out where they have them, so we can’t do nothing.”
    â€œHow did they get picked up?”
    Don