hard, his eyes yellow around the pupils and red around the edges.
“This is him,” Floyd said to Frings.
Frings extended his hand, but the man didn’t even look at it, instead zeroing in on Frings’s eyes.
“Floyd tell you why I want to talk to you?” Frings asked.
The man nodded.
“Who do you get your supply from?”
The man gave Frings a hard look. Frings wondered how Floyd had persuaded him to come.
“I don’t see that it makes sense for me to tell you.” His voice was thick and carried some kind of accent. African?
“Why’s that? I guarantee that none of this comes back to you. Floyd’ll vouch for me.”
The man shook his head in disgust. “Why would I turn in this man? If he’s gone, how do I make my money? Where do I get the mesca?”
Frings had anticipated this. “I know where they grow it. If they go down, I’ll show you where the fields are and then you can cut out the middleman. It’ll be more for you. You’ll control the whole process.”
The man stared at Frings. Without moving his eyes, he asked Floyd, “He on the level?”
Floyd said he was.
“Better be,” the man said. “Better be.”
“So?” Frings prompted.
“Ofay. Big. Calls himself Mr. Green. Not his real name. Don’t see him much. Usually sends some hard men with the pounds. But Mr. Green is the man in charge.”
Frings described Smith.
“That’s him.” The man spoke as if half-asleep or drugged. His eyes still held Frings’s.
“How does it work?”
“His boys come with a shipment once every two weeks. I pay them for the last shipment and then I spread the supply around to the people who sell it.”
“Like Floyd.”
The man nodded.
“Does he deliver to anyone else?”
“Sure. Plenty of others down here.”
“East Side?”
“Yeah.”
“What about other parts of the City?”
“Just here.”
“Not in the white parts of the City?”
“No.
“How do you know?”
“You buy mesca in Ofaytown?”
“I . . .”
“No. That’s why you come here to buy. Because there isn’t any mesca in Ofaytown. Mr. Green told me that I was not to distribute to Ofaytown. I told him maybe someone I give it to decides to take it there themselves. Mr. Green says he’ll take care of that. I should just worry about where I sell.”
“So you stay on the East Side?”
“No angle in crossing Mr. Green,” the man said with a sad shake of his head.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Pesotto, Red Henry’s tailor, was on his knees, marking with chalk where the hem of the mayor’s tuxedo pants should be let out. This was the usual ritual before any black-tie event in the City, and tonight’s celebration of the Poles’ decision to locate their factory in the City was to be a black-tie affair. Henry was obsessive about how he looked at such occasions and had his tux altered the day of, so that it would fit perfectly. Often, Pesotto merely went through the motions, the tux fitting perfectly as it was. The important thing was for Henry to feel for his satisfaction and confidence that some minute adjustment had been made.
As was the case at all these fittings, Pesotto had followed instructions and Berlioz flowed tinnily from the Victrola. Henry stood with his eyes closed, seemingly lost in the music as the stooped tailor made chalk marks on his pants.
Henry’s rapture was broken by the arrival of Peja, along with Smith and Feral. Henry opened his eyes slowly, keeping the rest of his body motionless. Pesotto ignored the interlopers and continued with his work.
“We need to talk,” Peja said.
Henry nodded.
Peja said, “In private.”
Henry grunted. “Pesotto is discreet. Aren’t you?”
Pesotto did not answer because he was deaf.
“You see?”
Peja looked uncomfortably at Feral and Smith, both of whom ignored him, then said, “First, we got some of the kids and we were right, they are the bombers.”
“Some?”
“Some got away. It was chaos, apparently.”
“Chaos?”
“I’ll get to that.”
“Did you at least find out why they’re bombing the houses of the most important goddamn people in this City?”
“Yes, they—”
Smith interrupted, “One of the boys broke down in the wagon on the way to the station. It was a little hard to get exactly what he was saying because he . . . well, he doesn’t seem to know a whole lot of words. But we have the basic story. He says that several months ago—that’s our guess, he couldn’t be more specific than not a long time and not a short time—anyway, someone went to the orphanage to visit the boys. He said it was a man who had red and gray