it back when the opportunity presented itself. In this case, however, if Dawlish, that fastidious elevator man, didn’t call, Smith would take the frustration out on his hide.
Just thinking about it got him in a state again, so he threw back the scotch and ordered another.
Two men in cheap suits sat just down the bar, talking. One was saying he thought that people could be divided into two groups: one that thought that their mood should affect everyone around them; and the other that thought that they should keep their moods to their own goddamn selves. The talker placed himself in the second group and his boss in the first. His companion nodded and started in about his wife.
Smith thought about this. He didn’t feel as if he really had any moods. Or maybe it was that he had only one mood all the time—pissed off. Did he let it affect the people around him? Not if they kept their goddamn distance.
The mayor definitely had his fucking moods. He didn’t have to say anything, though. People recognized his moods and acted accordingly. Even Smith steered clear when he sensed Red Henry’s rage. It wasn’t that he feared the mayor. Smith didn’t fear anyone. But hard men understand the pecking order, and Henry was right at the top. Smith was right there after him, but Henry was still number one. Smith could live with that, and with the fact that he could always put a bullet in the mayor’s head if he needed to. No one was safe from anyone. Not the mayor and not Smith. Exactly the way he liked it.
He had worked his way through his scotch when the phone rang. It was Dawlish, saving himself a beating. Puskis was on his way home.
Smith stood beneath the awning of the building across the street from Puskis’s. The flow of afternoon pedestrian traffic rendered Smith essentially invisible. Puskis was hard to miss, looking like a praying mantis with his long, skinny frame and his odd, stooped lope. Smith watched him as he made his slow progress along the sidewalk, approached his front door, and paused to fish keys out of his pocket. Puskis stopped suddenly and turned his head as though someone had called out to him. He stood looking to his left, and even from across the street the tension in his body was evident. Smith took an unconscious step forward for a better look.
A man was now talking to Puskis. A hat obscured the man’s face, but something about him was familiar. They talked some more and the man gestured and Puskis nodded. Puskis turned back and unlocked the door. The man held the door as Puskis entered, then followed him in. At the threshold, however, the man stopped and took a brief look back at the street.
Jesus Christ, Smith thought, it’s goddamn Frankie Frings.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Frings kept his eyes on his notebook. Avoiding eye contact calmed people who were nervous about talking to him. Puskis had been nervous from the start, down on the street. The way he froze when Frings called his name. The look on his face as Frings approached. He was scared of something, though not of Frings. Puskis was merely nervous about talking to him. Possibly, Frings thought, Puskis was nervous about talking to anyone. So he concentrated on his notebook and asked his questions gently.
“I know you aren’t in the habit of talking to reporters.”
“I’m . . . no, I actually am prohibited from giving information to reporters. A stipulation of my contract. I’m afraid I will not be of much, um, assistance to you.”
“I understand. Let me just ask you what I want to ask, and you can decide whether you want to answer.”
Puskis considered this. “Well, I suppose that is fine. Though, again, I’m afraid I will disappoint you.”
“That’s fine. I’m looking for information on a man by the name of Otto Samuelson.” Frings stole a glance up at Puskis and saw the same look as when this odd man had first heard his name on the street; bewilderment and fear. “Do you know that name?”
Puskis was slow to speak. “Why do you . . . why do you want to know about this man?”
“Because someone I talked to told me Samuelson is the key to a big story I’m working on. Because it is important that I talk to him. Because when I did research into his story I learned that he was convicted of murder but couldn’t find any