Until You

Harry picked up on the first ring.

"Okay," Conor said, "what have you got?"

"Not much more than I had the first time."

"And for that, we're playing spy games?"

"We're exercising appropriate caution, something you seem to have decided to ignore."

"Skip the lectures, Harry. Just tell me what we know now that we didn't know before."

Thurston sighed with impatience. "Nothing vital, I assure you. I can tell you where Moratelli was born."

"Don't you mean where he was hatched?"

"At Bellevue Hospital," Harry said, in the tones of a man whose feelings have been deeply wounded.

"Great. At least now we know that he had a mother. What else?"

"He was raised on Anton Street. That's down around—"

"I know where it is," Conor said. He sure as hell did. Anton Street was in the middle of his father's old precinct. "What else?"

"Nothing else. I kicked over every rock I could find. There's nothing on the man. Nothing official, anyway. You need more, you'll have to turn it up yourself."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do. Meanwhile, do the digging I asked for on the Winthrops."

"Are we back to that? I'll remind you again, they've been checked out. You told them so."

Conor smiled coldly into the telephone.

"You have a conveniently short memory, Harry. I also told them I'd check out the note Eva had received." He turned his back to the door and let his voice drop to a whisper. "That's what you want me to keep on doing, isn't it?"

There was a short silence and then Harry Thurston sighed.

"You know, O'Neil, you're one of the few people I know who can say the words, 'or else,' without speaking them."

"There's something that one or the both of them isn't telling us, and I need to know what it is."

"What about you? Have you come up with anything new?"

"Nothing."

"I see you've insinuated yourself appropriately into the Beckman girl's life."

Conor's jaw tightened. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning, you've managed to get into her bed—not that I'm chiding you for it, mind. Living with her, sleeping with her, may be the only way to keep her alive until we find out what's spooking the Winthrops."

"I don't give a flying fuck about the Winthrops," Conor said furiously. "You got that, Thurston? If they get through this, it'll only be because Miranda makes it. And what I'm doing or not doing with her isn't any of your goddamn business."

"Temper, temper, my boy."

"I told you not to call me that."

"You told me a lot of things, Conor. Perhaps you've forgotten who's in charge here."

"You want your pal's nose kept clean or not?"