hair and big wide chops.” Smith scratched his cheeks to make the point.
“Christ almighty,” Henry said. “Whiskers?”
“We’re pretty sure. I’ll get to that in a minute. So this gink—probably Whiskers—visits the kids and lays out the whole Navajo Project to them, if you can believe it. The whole bit. You can guess how this goes over with a pack of boys, and they get all belligerent. Then this gink tells them he has a present for them, and, according to this kid, he has a trunk with him that turns out to be filled with dynamite and everything else they need to make those bombs. He shows these kids how to make them, you know, wrap them in rope, tie a long fuse. Then he takes one of them, the leader I guess, on a trip around the City. Shows him all the points of interest.”
“Block’s house. Altabelli’s, Bernal’s, mine.” Henry still hadn’t moved.
“Those and some others. That’s how you get at these people who have ruined your lives, he says. You bomb their fucking houses. So when this kid gets back to his buddies, they decide to screw the orphanage, and they head out to the warehouse village with their trunk and start putting the bombs together.”
Pesotto straightened and Henry obligingly stepped out of his pants. He now stood in only his boxers, socks, and a sleeveless undershirt. Pesotto took the pants and, with a nod to Henry and the others, shuffled into a back room.
“Where’s Whiskers?” Henry asked.
“Well, that’s another thing,” Smith said. “Once we heard this, I got in touch with Kragen out at Freeman’s Gap and he went by Whiskers’ and says he’s not there. I said to go check Otto’s place, and Otto isn’t there either. He’s checking on the others right now.”
Henry was reddening. “What else?”
“You remember Poole?” Smith asked.
“The Red dick?”
“That’s him. I worked him over a little a few days back. Told him to lay off the Prosnickis.”
“I remember.”
“Well, funny thing, he turns up at the warehouses as we’re taking the kids out.”
“The hell’s he doing there?” Henry’s shoulders were becoming mottled with red patches as his blood pressure rose.
“Didn’t I tell you? The leader of those little shit kids is Casper Prosnicki. He was there looking for Casper, just like I told him not to.”
Henry sighed with impatience. “So you have Poole.”
Now Smith looked nervous. “No. We went after him, but he got away.”
“You’ve got the Prosnicki kid?”
Smith stared at the floor.
“You don’t have the goddamn Prosnicki kid?” Henry roared.
Smith kept his gaze on the floor.
Henry calmed himself a little. “How the hell did you let that happen?”
Smith shrugged, knowing that nothing he could say would do him any good.
“You’ve got people looking for Poole?” Henry asked quietly, a deliberate attempt to keep his temper in check.
“Everybody. ASU, police, the whole bit. We have his place staked out and people on the street.”
Henry rubbed his bald scalp thoughtfully. “That it?”
Peja answered this time, getting it out quickly. “We think Frings might have gone to see Otto.”
Henry didn’t answer. His body tensed, producing visible fear in Smith and Peja. Feral continued to stand silent and relaxed.
“He was seen coming back on the road to Freeman’s Gap and then straight to the Palace.”
“And Whiskers and Otto are missing.”
“That’s right,” Peja said.
“Where is Frings now?”
“He’s at the Gazette.”
Henry looked at Feral. “Hurt the girl. Send Frings a piece of her. He doesn’t take us seriously, but we can change that in a hurry.”
With his eyes, Feral acknowledged that he had heard, a display of unresponsiveness that would have infuriated Henry if it had come from Peja or Smith. But from Feral it just confirmed Henry’s impression of efficiency and ruthlessness; and it helped him relax somewhat.
Henry looked at Smith and Peja. “Take care of these things now. I do not want anything going wrong at the signing or the party tonight. Understand?”
The Berlioz had ended and the needle skipped, filling the silence with its rhythmic banging against the center of the record.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
In Little Lisbon, merchants were setting out their wares as blue sky emerged from the clouds and the remnants of the deluge washed into the storm drains. The streets were so congested with pedestrians, merchants, and delivery trucks that the hack let Poole out at the fringes.
Poole waded through the crowd, holding his hand gingerly against his body. His wet, disheveled appearance drew occasional glances. There was, he knew, a café in the neighborhood that was a headquarters of sorts for the