“Lewinsky talked to Joey Silva,” Nate says, hanging up the phone.

It is barely three hours since he and Ranes left our office, which is even faster than I could have imagined. Now Jessie has called and says she’s got the audio of the call, ready for us to hear.

Nate and I head for her office immediately, and she says, “Here’s a surprise; Lewinsky didn’t initiate the call. Silva did.”

She presses the button, and the first voice we hear is someone answering the phone with, “Hello?”

The caller says, “You know who this is?”

There’s a delay, and a very nervous-sounding Lewinsky says, “Mr. Silva.”

“I understand you had a conversation with the cops?”

“Yes.” He seems surprised that Joey knows about that, as am I. Could they be tailing him? He continues.

“So?” Joey is proving to be quite a conversationalist.

“The police questioned me.”

“Local or Federal?”

“State. That guy Brock.”

“And they asked you about drugs?” Joey asks.

“How did you know that?”

“I know a lot of things. What did you tell them?”

“That I didn’t know what they were talking about,” Lewinsky says. “But then they asked me a couple of names.”

“Which names?”

“One of them I don’t remember; I don’t know who it is. The other one was William Simmons. He was a homeless guy who was murdered, and died in the hospital. We’ve talked about him before.”

“I don’t see no problems here. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“It’s making me nervous,” Lewinsky says.

“So be nervous. Just don’t do or say anything stupid.”

“I think we should delay our plans for the sixteenth; there’s too much risk. Maybe push it back at least a couple of weeks.”

“It goes as scheduled,” Joey says. “You worry about your end.”

“I think we should cancel it. Tony told me that…”

“Tony ain’t here no more.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just don’t think we should be doing this anymore.”

Joey laughs. “Are you a religious guy, Lewinsky?”

“In a way.”

“Do you know the line about giveth and taketh away?”

The calls clicks off with the sound of Joey continuing to laugh at his joke, whatever the hell it means.

We contact Bradley, who tells us to come in immediately. We say that it’s best he come to Jessie’s office, and he’s here almost before we can hang up the phone. Bradley was making this a priority before, but after the meeting with the Feds, it’s inched up a few notches.

“Lewinsky received this call a few hours after he left here,” she says. Bradley listens intently, making eye contact with me when Lewinsky uses Joey’s name in the call.

When it’s finished, Bradley asks Jessie to play it again. After that, he says. “Get me a transcript ASAP.”

“You need to get this to Wiggins,” I say. “The Feds need to know this.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” says Bradley.

“There’s plenty we don’t know.”

“Well, figure it out. And then hang that son of a bitch.”