liked being high. He had done that this morning, sitting on the fire escape outside Nora’s apartment with a juju as she showered. He’d tried to act straight when she emerged and even thought he’d succeeded, though he couldn’t completely trust his perceptions. Which was part of the point. But it also undermined his confidence in his own reasoning, so he used Reynolds to validate his observations.
“That’s right. We think whoever it was put a bundle, maybe five sticks of dynamite in a bag, on the sidewalk and then lit a long fuse.”
“That square with the bomb at Block’s?”
Reynolds shrugged. “Well, that was dynamite, too. And, of course, there’s who they are, you know.” He looked to Frings, who nodded that, yes, he knew.
“Off the record, I think we’re pretty sure they’re connected. On the record, we’re exploring a connection. Got it?”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“At Block’s,” Reynolds went on, “the bundle was thrown through a window, already lit. Again, a long fuse.”
“So why not toss through Altabelli’s window, like Block’s?”
“Altabelli says he had bars across the windows. Says the Theater District can get a little dicey late at night.”
They walked to a jagged hole in the pavement where a flag was stuck into the rubble.
“The detonation point,” Reynolds said.
“What’re those?” Frings pointed to two chalked circles drawn just outside the detonation crater.
“Shit. Yeah. Two kids. Found what was left of them across the street, but they were literally blown out of their shoes. They must have been curious, you know, come to have a look, and then . . .” Reynolds left the obvious unsaid, a rueful look on his face.
“Jesus.” Frings repressed a shudder. He bent down and picked up a scorched brick. “What about Altabelli?”
“He’s fine. Working late, or so he says. One of the lads heard that they had to track him down at a cathouse on the edge of the Heights.”
Frings tossed the brick to the side. There was a smell of burned chemicals and scorched brick. His eyes had begun to water from it, and his throat burned with each breath of air. Reynolds seemed impervious.
Two kids dead. Two innocent kids dead, while Altabelli, off whoring, gets away scot-free. Except for the house, of course. But still . . .
Frings asked Reynolds, still looking at the hole in Altabelli’s apartment building, “Off the record, do you have any idea who this might be?”
Reynolds laughed. “I thought you knew. You wrote a goddamn column about it, didn’t you? The brass were steaming about that, I can tell you. They won’t like me beating my gums with you, neither, but they know we go way back. Anyone else, I don’t think you’re going to get too far. So, the unions? The anarchists? But who exactly, we don’t know. And the why, well, they don’t really need a why, do they?”
Frings frowned slightly, not willing to affirm the statement. They usually had their reasons, he thought, though these were never acknowledged by the police, or the City, or the newspapers, for that matter. Whether it was a true lack of understanding or willful ignorance, Frings could not say—though he had his suspicions.
Back at the barricades, a uniformed officer was shouting for Reynolds. After admonishing Frings not to poke around while he was gone, Reynolds hurried over to the wooden barriers. Frings watched them talk calmly enough, the urgency nonetheless plainly evident in their postures. Reynolds turned to him and beckoned with a wave of his arm. Frings hurried over, holding his hat on his head with one hand.
“Problem?”
Up close, Frings could see the stress lines between Reynolds’s thick eyebrows.
“Yeah, you could say that. Seems to be some trouble across town at the strike. It sounds like the ASU moved in, and there’s some street fighting. We’re being called in.”
The ASU was the Anti-Subversion Unit of the police department. While it technically reported to the Chief, it was a badly kept secret that it took orders directly from Red Henry, which was a constant source of tension within the force. Frings thought Reynolds didn’t seem enthusiastic about going to the ASU’s rescue. Then again, it might be the reefer.
“I’m coming with you,” Frings said.
“Suit yourself.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was an hour before Puskis returned to his desk with the two books. The procedure was simple. He opened the two books to the alphabetical index; the one on the left listed defendants convicted in court, and the one on the right listed inmates in correctional facilities. Having found that DeGraffenreid, who should by