With this in mind he set his alarm for six and crawled into bed. It was four thirty in the morning.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
There was a new shift of minders the next morning, a tall one with a crooked nose and his partner, a human pit bull, all jaw and shoulders. Puskis went through the conversation about keeping his own per diem all over again. Crooked Nose seemed less inclined to go along with it until Puskis told him that the previous day’s shift had allowed it, at which point the minder relented, his discretion lasting as long as his culpability.
Breakfast at Kostas’ was considerably busier than dinner—the turnover faster, the talking louder. The two officers had an intense conversation about a boxing match they had attended the other night. It sounded as if the Pit Bull had lost a fair amount of money when a fighter named Tino Juarez had knocked out his guy.
“When did that little wetback get cojones?” he complained to his partner, who made sympathetic noises.
The conversation gave Puskis time to think. Police officers had moved desks and two machines that looked like huge typewriters into the Vaults. The officer in charge said that more machines would be added as they progressed through the files and more room became available. Today the people who would actually use the machines were to arrive, and the converting of the files to the form used by Ricks’s machine would begin. The first day of the Vaults’ death throes.
The officers’ gabbing had slowed their eating, and their plates were still fairly full when Puskis finished.
“I’m going to pay my bill,” Puskis said as he stood.
The officers nodded at this and watched as he strode to the counter.
“Good morning, Mr. Puskis,” said Ferenc.
“Good morning. Are they watching us?” Puskis asked through a forced smile. His heart pounded and there was fear, but it was thrilling, not debilitating.
Ferenc smiled. “Yes.”
“I am going to give you two slips. Please put them both on the spike. When we’ve gone, I need you to find the one I’ve written on and get it to Francis Frings at the Gazette.”
Ferenc smiled and nodded. “I understand.”
Puskis handed him two fives. “Please only give me a couple of bills to make the transaction look legitimate.”
Ferenc kept the smile, but his eyes were concerned.
“Don’t argue with me please,” Puskis said. “I can’t afford to have attention drawn.”
Ferenc handed back the change and shoved both slips down on the spike.
Puskis had composed the note the previous night:
Dear Mr. Frings,
I am a prisoner. There are two men watching me at all times. They (I know that you know who I mean) are destroying the evidence held in the files. I write you this note so that you will know the reason for events that may follow. They can not destroy the past, but they can edit our memory.
A.P.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Poole was back in the Hollows, wondering why the hell it kept coming back to this. A bitter wind drove a mixture of rain and sleet like darts, challenging the limits of the turnout jacket he had received from a fireman as a gift for all the money the guy had made while Poole was playing football.
He was back at the old railroad tracks, trying to remember from which warehouse he had heard Casper’s name the previous day. He spent twenty minutes narrowing the choice down to three warehouses that fell within the span of two blocks. He stood outside the building on the far right, gathering his courage to enter. In the end, the sting of the freezing rain on his cheeks sent him inside for shelter, his adrenaline surging.
Inside, it was surprisingly warm. The smell of burning wood mixed with the smells of other, unidentifiable burning things. The warehouse seemed to be organized around a score of fires that danced like serpents out of oil drums. Each fire was encircled by people either standing around or sitting or even sleeping, but keeping close for the warmth. It was also surprisingly quiet. What conversation occurred was kept at a low murmur, and the sum of all the voices came to Poole as a low hum.
He walked through the center of the warehouse, looking for a group of kids. The floor was strewn with glass, debris, and the bones of small animals. He drew glances from hunched figures that seemed to be parts of their huddled groups rather than individuals. But he did not receive the amount of attention that he feared he might. He