attendant emotion.
The one thing she had supplied him with was the address where they had lived at the time. It was, at least, a starting point.
These thoughts were interrupted by Carla’s return from the picket line at Roderigo Bernal’s plant. Poole was, as always, relieved that she had come back safe.
“How was it?”
She gave him a thin smile. “It was fine.”
“Fine?” The wine had relaxed him.
“We shut down the plant. The cops came and watched.”
“But?”
“Too quiet. The cops, management, everybody. Nothing happened. It worries me.”
“You think they have something in the works?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Spill.”
Carla shrugged, her eyes narrowing with worry. “I have no idea.”
“You’ve faced these things before. I’m sure it’s nothing that you haven’t seen or that you can’t handle.”
“That’s true if they’re planning some kind of action against the union. What I’m worried about is whether Bernal is holding off until he can do something about you.”
Poole sat back, pondering this. “I’ve done this before, Carla.”
“Just listen for a second. I was thinking about this on the line today. On the same day that Block gets his building blown up, Bernal gets burned. I’m concerned that maybe the mayor sees two of his little pals get pressured—”
“And figures maybe it’s coordinated,” Poole finished for her.
“So, if Bernal tells Henry, and Henry thinks it’s some kind of plot against his inner circle, he’ll be very anxious to get his mitts on the blackmailer.”
Poole nodded slowly. “Maybe. But would Bernal go to Henry with this? Normally, I would say not a chance. He doesn’t want to show that kind of weakness. But with the bombing, I don’t know, like you said . . .”
Carla shrugged. “I have no idea if he would tell Henry or not, but you need to be very careful tonight, okay?”
Poole had the feeling he had stepped off a precipice with no idea of the distance to the bottom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He’s a scary little bastard, Red Henry thought, which was as high a compliment as anyone was likely to receive from him. Henry leaned against a concrete stanchion, sucking on an unlit Cuban, casting an enormous shadow in the empty warehouse deep in the Hollows. Facing him, standing relaxed, with his feet shoulders’ width apart, his knees and shoulders loose, was Feral Basu. Feral was fully a foot and a half shorter than Red Henry and a third of his weight, but if the mayor didn’t fear anyone, he also didn’t relish the thought of Feral coming after him.
“Know who Arthur Puskis is?” Red Henry asked.
Feral shook his head. His skin was dark and smooth, and even in the dim light of the warehouse, his eyes were somehow arresting.
“Everyone on the force does,” Henry explained. “He’s the police Archivist. Works under City Hall. Something of a legend, in truth.”
Feral waited.
“He’s trying to find Reif DeGraffenreid.”
Again Feral said nothing, though Henry noticed a subtle tensing in his slender frame.
Henry said, “So, we tipped him as to where DeGraffenreid is.”
“You did?”
Henry was always perplexed by Feral’s accent. He thought he detected a trace of the Carpathians or maybe the Muslim south of Russia, which might have explained his coloration. He looked as if he might be from India.
“Yes. We need to discourage him from continuing this line of inquiry.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“I mean that you need to make him understand that looking for Reif DeGraffenreid, or any other actions he plans to take regarding DeGraffenreid and/or Prosnicki, is folly.”
“Don’t kill him?”
Red Henry had considerably more patience with Feral than with anyone else. “No. Don’t kill him. Two things are important. The first is that he understands that his pursuit of this inquiry will have consequences for him. The second is that he does not talk to DeGraffenreid. That something you can take care of?”
“Yes.”
With that, Henry knew that it would be taken care of, that he did not need to think about it further.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Puskis turned the unmarked Nash borrowed from the police pool off the pitted road that ran through what there was of Freeman’s Gap and pulled into a petrol station. Three men sat on folding chairs around a card table playing rummy. Their clothes and skin were the color of the dust that blew through the street. They were war vets, Puskis thought.
He got out of his car and approached them. A perimeter around the table was discolored with tobacco spit. Two of the men projected streams of the brown juice and looked up from their cards.
“Excuse me. I was wondering if you could tell