heard about the bombings around the City recently.”
“Yes.”
“We have reason to believe that you may be a target of these madmen.”
Puskis was astonished. “Why would you think that?”
One of the ASU officers stepped forward. “We have reasons, sir, but they’re confidential at this time.”
Confidential? Puskis saw every file generated by the City’s justice system. Nothing was confidential from him. But this was not about an actual threat. This was an excuse. He shrugged. “I apologize for any . . . anxiety that I’ve caused.”
“You’re safe and sound now, Mr. Puskis. That’s what matters,” said the Bear. “Two guards are being assigned to you at all times for the foreseeable future. They’ll be with you down in the Vaults and will stay outside your door when you are at home. Six officers rotating in eight-hour shifts.”
“Is this necessary? Even in the Vaults?”
“The order came directly from the mayor himself, sir.”
That’s that, Puskis thought. No way around it.
“There are two officers already stationed in the Vaults. Pretend they’re not there, go about your business as usual. I imagine there’s quite a bit of work for you, what with the bombings and whatnot.”
Puskis nodded and went to the elevators. Dawlish wasn’t there. Instead, a much younger man was at the one elevator that descended to the Vaults.
“Good morning, sir,” he said pleasantly.
“Mmmh, yes. Where’s . . . where’s Mr. Dawlish?”
“Mr. Dawlish, sir?”
“Ummm.” Puskis then seemed to break out of a trance. “Oh, yes. Mr. Dawlish. The man who normally works this elevator.”
“Sorry. I don’t know anything about the previous chap. Just told me to take my post at this elevator. This is going to be my elevator, they told me. I’m new, see?”
Yes. Puskis did see. Puskis saw that he was now under house arrest and that his inquiries into the Navajo Project had come to an end.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Nora decided that her glimpse of her captor’s forearms had put her at ease. A strange thought, but there it was. His forearms were thin, but looked as though they were made from intertwined cables, reminding her of the arms of a former lover, Tino Juarez, a boxer whom the Americans called the Magician and the Mexicans called el Matador. He had been small, like this man, and hard. He had been a sophisticate. Nora had been out at the Palms with him when he was approached by a fan who said that he thought Tino was a great fighter.
“I am not a fighter, I am a boxer,” Tino had replied. “Fighters are barbaric, unskilled, sadistic. I am a scientist, an artist, a philosopher.”
And to an extent, she thought, he was. He earned his nickname because he was nearly impossible to corner or hit to any effect. He rarely knocked an opponent down but so thoroughly confused and eluded him that the judging was a foregone conclusion. Tino’s skill worked against everyone but the champion, a brawler named Phil Lawson, who was as quick as Tino and more brutal. Tino had twice fought for the title and twice been knocked out by Lawson.
The trauma of the second fight (she had not known him at the time of the first) ended their brief relationship. She remembered him, though, as a gentleman and as her kindest lover. It was irrational to draw a parallel with her captor based merely on the similarity of their forearms. But once this connection was made, she noticed other similarities. The way he carried himself. The way he looked at her. Something in his eyes was the same as in Tino’s, and it made her think of kindness, though the expression on his face betrayed nothing. What had Tino’s eyes revealed? Kindness? Or had they been the window on the part of his soul that caused pain to other men? Because, his style and philosophizing notwithstanding, his career as a boxer was rooted in his past as a storied street brawler.
Nora shuddered and rolled over onto her side, staring at the wall. She began to think about how to escape.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
That morning Frings came across a headline reading, “Woman Pulled from River Identified,” buried on page 11, with other minor news items printed below the obits. The woman had been found lying on the rocks at the river’s edge by indigents who were there to fish. The body had been identified, the article said, as that of Lena Prosnicki. No other information was given about her, not even an address, which was standard in these types of articles. The last name he