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identify himself. Says he needs to talk to you and no one else will do. Says he’s at this number for the next ten minutes. I ran it by Panos, but wasn’t sure if it was worth rousting you. Anyway, he said to go ahead, so I tried to reach you at your place and then Ed said to try you here. So, I guess you’ve got maybe two or three minutes to ring him.” Merrick read the number.
    “Francis Frings?” It was more of a rasp than a proper speaking voice—an effective mask.
    “That’s right.”
    “Listen, I need to meet with you. Soon. I know things you might find very interesting.”
    “Who am I talking to?”
    “No. Not now. Listen. I have information about corruption in the mayor’s office. I have information about murders and disappearances.”
    “Any evidence to back up all this information?”
    “When you hear what I have to say, you’ll be able to find your own evidence. The day after tomorrow. You know the Harrison Bridge? Under the City side. Eleven at night. I’ll watch you arrive and then show myself. We can talk there.”
    “I’ll see you then.” Frings sighed. He’d heard this kind of thing manytimes before. It never panned out, but neither could he simply ignore it. Should even one of these shadowy tips turn out to have legs . . .
    Frings hung up as Nora came into the living room wearing a white terry-cloth robe with her hair up in a towel wrapped like a turban. Drops of water still clung to the skin around her collarbone. Her lips were swollen from the hot shower.
    “Who called?”
    “Nobody. It was for me.”
    Nora swirled the coffee in her cup and tapped her toast around the plate with her middle fingers. She wasn’t eating, and it bothered Frings.
    “Not hungry?”
    She gave him a long look.
    “What’s wrong?”
    She shook her head. Light from the kitchen window illuminated half of her face, and Frings saw the concern there and thought it made her look only more . . . desirable. Something about the angle of her mouth, maybe, pursed slightly with anxiety.
    “Come on. Spill.” He wondered if she was still angry with him for smoking the reefer.
    “I don’t know. It’s nothing.”
    Frings waited her out, watching the coffee do circuits inside her cup.
    “It’s . . . It’s a feeling I have. Nothing in particular. You know I’m working with Dick Riordan’s band right now, and he’s such a creep. The way he looks at me, and I can
hear
the things he says to the boys.”
    Frings nodded sympathetically. Riordan considered himself a rake, he knew, but was harmless. That wasn’t what Nora wanted to hear from him, however, so he kept his mouth shut.
    “And I’ve been getting more hate mail. Marty won’t let me see them, but he told me all about it. I get a lot of mail, Frank. Most of it is really nice, but some of it is so vile . . .”
    There wasn’t much to say to that, but he tried. “Look, there are unpleasant people in the world. They see someone like you and they want to take you down a peg. Only they don’t have the guts to do anything, so they send you a letter blaming you for all their problems.”
    He knew she needed more from him, though she gave him a sad smile for his effort.
    After too long a pause he tried again. “I—”
    She cut him off. “It’s okay, Frank. It’s nothing. I’m tired is all. I just have tonight and then I’m off for a few days, so I can get some rest. My voice needs a break. Things always seem worse when I’m tired.”
    Nora returned to staring into her coffee. Frings wondered who the man on the phone was.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Puskis had not used his home phone in years. It had been even longer than that since he had actually received a call. Which made it all the more unusual that he would receive three phone calls in a single morning.
    Puskis lived in an efficiency above a bakery seven blocks from the Vaults. His furnishings were sparse, a single bed in the corner, a small dinner table with one chair, and the easy chair that he now sat