files, was almost certainly a detective who had retired several years previously. A margin note strongly suggested that Dersch had not actually been involved in the case, but simply offered that piece of information to one of the transcribers, who had dutifully recorded it. But who was Feral Basu? And why was his name worthy of comment when his role in the affair was peripheral at best?
Puskis knew that attempting to force order on random pieces of information would be fruitless. The pattern would come to him only when the necessary information had been gathered. Until then he was left with questions.
Two blocks from his apartment building in the wealthy Capitol district, Puskis’s cab encountered a police roadblock.
“Christ,” the cabbie said through locked teeth. He took a left to circumvent the cordoned-off area and attempted to circle around to Puskis’s block. A right turn, however, brought them to another police cordon.
“You can drop me here,” Puskis said.
Behind the police line was a crowd, five people deep, straining to see what was happening a couple of blocks down. Puskis excused and pardoned his way to the front, where two imposing officers manned the barricade, nightsticks out and postures aggressive.
“Excuse me,” he said to them, “my name is Arthur Puskis. I’m trying to get to my apartment building, which is around the corner at the end of this block.”
“Yeah, well, nobody’s get—” the officer on the left began, his round, red face a mask of ill-humor.
“Shut up,” the other said. “What’s your name again?” he asked Puskis.
“Ahh, Arthur Puskis.”
“Jesus Christ, Danny, this is Mr. Puskis.” Then to Puskis: “Sir, you say you live on Sinclair?”
Puskis nodded. Sinclair ran perpendicular to the avenue that they’d cordoned off.
“We’d be happy to let you through.”
“Of course,” Puskis said. “What’s happening here?”
“Bomb, sir. Somebody threw a bomb through a window two blocks down. Blew the front off the building.”
“Oh dear. Do you know whose place it was?”
“Yes, sir. Individual by the name of Ian Block.”
Block. The name was familiar. An industrialist, one of the mayor’s inner circle. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Trying to ascertain that at this very moment, sir. Haven’t heard yet. Keep you apprised, though, if you like, sir.”
“No. No, that won’t be necessary.” The two officers moved the barricade to let Puskis through. As he approached his street, he could see a brownstone a block farther down, with a hole like a shotgun wound hemorrhaging blue and black smoke that, to Puskis’s eye, seemed also to contain wisps of red. He stopped at the corner, noticing the ash that had fallen to the sidewalk and the papers that fanned out from the damaged building into the street.
Puskis watched the firemen saturate the smoldering building with thousands of gallons of water while policemen stood around watching or acting menacingly toward members of the public whom they deemed too curious.
He walked down his street, leaving the chaos of the bomb scene behind. Ian Block. Puskis reflected on the consequences of someone bombing Block’s house. The mayor would doubtless take this as a personal affront. The force was going to be under intense pressure from both the mayor’s office and the press. If Puskis clung to one precept that informed his sense of how the world worked, it was that the past was a sentient guide to the present and future if one knew how to evaluate it. That was the crucial importance of the Vaults and the files contained within. The consequences of the bombing did not require the close examination that Puskis prided himself on. Before this affair ended, blood would be spilled.
CHAPTER FOUR
Frank Frings strode quickly through the crowded newsroom of the Gazette, trailed by an assistant named Ed something.
“There was a bomb in the Capitol district,” Ed said, struggling to keep up.
“Shit, you’re kidding.” Frings did not break stride.
“No, a bomb exploded in the district. Details are coming in, but Panos wants you out there pronto.”
“What was bombed? A store, a house, what?”
“Well, we haven’t got anything confirmed . . .”
“Of course not, but what the hell do you know?” Frings spoke quickly, without pauses between words, his sentences pouring forth as single, extended words with a disconcerting number of syllables.
“Reports are that it was Ian Block.”
“Ian Block?” Frings stopped and fixed on Ed, who took an extra step before stopping to face him. “Holy shit. Do you have any idea what that would mean?” Frings was of average height and lanky; still, he could intimidate with the intensity of his gray eyes, the