“We can drop the charade as long as he’s not close enough to overhear you.”

“And who would that be?” Manny asked.

“You’ve got a busboy, early twenties, red-haired, tattoo on the inside of one arm.”

“Oh, sure, that’s Roger Gillespe. Not to worry, Stan. He never comes back here, except to pick up his check, and that’s on Friday. He couldn’t overhear us even if he had ears on him like an elephant.”

“Great,” I said. “How long has this Gillespe worked for you?”

“He’s been with us over a year, I know that. Could be as long as eighteen months. You want I should look it up?”

“No, that’s OK; it doesn’t make much difference. But what I would like you to look up is his schedule, and whether he’s gonna be working tomorrow.”

“That I can do.” I heard the chair creak again, then the sound of a file drawer opening. “This busboy of mine – he’s in some kind of trouble, Stan?”

“Not necessarily,” I lied. “That’s something I’m still trying to find out. Could be he’s just an innocent bystander who might be a useful witness in a case I’m working.”

Manny’s got a temper, and I knew he’d have trouble controlling it if I told him his busboy was dealing drugs right there in the restaurant. Even if he didn’t fire the kid – or break both his arms and then fire him, which was more likely – he’d act differently toward Gillespe, which might spook the redhead into a disappearing act. And that bastard wasn’t going anywhere until we’d had some conversation.

Manny came back on the line. “Stan? Roger works six in the morning till two in the afternoon. His days off are Monday and Tuesday, which means he should be here tomorrow – unless he calls in sick, which he doesn’t do often, it looks like.”

“Have you got a home address for him?”

I listened to papers rustle for a second or two. “Yeah, here it is – 144 Spruce Street, Apartment 9.”

“Terrific. Thanks, Manny. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t let this guy know that we’ve talked. In fact, it would be good if you didn’t give him any indication that something’s up.”

“Not a problem, Stan. I hardly see him anyway, except for two minutes on payday.”

“I’ll be done with him before then,” I said.

I finally got home around noon. As I undressed, I told Quincey about the latest developments in the case. The little guy always seems interested in what I have to tell him, which is more than I can say for some of the people I know. I went to bed and grabbed about five hours’ sleep.

Over breakfast, I told Christine what I’d learned in the last twenty-four hours. It didn’t amount to much.

She looked at me over the rim of her mug. I noticed she’d slept in a T-shirt that said in front, “‘For the blood is the life’ Deut. 12:23.”

“What are you going to do about this busboy?” she asked.

“Talk to Karl about him,” I told her. “Then we’ll see.”

“Whatever his customer base is, he’s not selling to vampires – not at work, anyway. Manny doesn’t have vamp food on his menu.”

“How do you know?”

“I know,” she said. “Word gets around – about the places we’re welcome, and the ones where we’re not.”

“Manny’s not prejudiced,” I said. “If he doesn’t sell blood, it’s probably some kind of religious thing.”

“Maybe,” she said, and took another sip of warm Type O, her favorite. “But the result’s the same.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say about that.

Christine put her mug down. “I went for a walk last night, during my break,” she said. “Came across something interesting.”

“What was that?”

“A Patriot Party rally. They were holding it at Abington High School’s football field.”

I smiled a little. “Home of the Fighting Warlocks.”

“That’s the place. They’ve done some renovations since I was there last. It looks nice.”

“Good turnout?”

She nodded. “The bleachers were packed.”

“The Patriot Party’s gone from zero to sixty in, like, six months,” I said. “And they’re local, not part of some bigger movement, far as anybody knows.”

“Maybe they’ll catch on,” she said with a shudder. “But I hope not.”

I drank some of my coffee, which wasn’t remotely as good as McGuire’s. “Yeah, they don’t care much for supes, do they?”

She snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. Phil Slattery, their candidate for Mayor, was speaking when I passed by. He called supernaturals ‘a cancerous growth that threatens our city’s purity.’”

“I never could stand a politician who mixes his metaphors,” I said.

“I wish that was the worst you could say about him. But he’s quite the rabble-rouser – got a standing ovation when he was done and everything. That was when I decided it was time for me to get back to work, before the audience noticed me and turned into a lynch mob.”

“That bad, huh?”

“At least,” she said.

“Good thing you can fly, if need be.”

“Good thing I didn’t have to.”

I got to work a few minutes early and was catching up on my email when Karl plopped down into his desk chair opposite mine.

“I thought vampires were supposed to be silent as death,” I said, without looking up.

“We are,” he said. “When death is the objective. But since it’s just you, I figured it was OK to be my old, noisy self.”

“Works for me,” I said. “It beats having to jump halfway out of my chair every time you appear from out of nowhere.”

While Karl’s computer was booting up, he asked me, “So, what went down at Ricardo’s Ristorante last night?”

“Not a damn thing, far as I can tell.”

He tilted his head a little. “False alarm?”

“All depends on how you define your terms,” I said.

I explained how we’d found nothing in the street outside Ricardo’s except some bullet holes that would surely prove worthless as evidence, and some fresh stains on the street that might have been blood – the lab report hadn’t come back yet.

“Sounds like Calabrese won that round,” Karl said.

“How do you figure?”

“If the Delatassos had taken out a bunch of Calabrese’s soldiers again, what incentive would they have to clean up after themselves? They’d want plenty of evidence lying around, just like last time. They probably figure all the carnage is gonna intimidate Calabrese into giving up.”

“Yeah, and good luck with that,” I said.

He nodded. “I don’t figure you could scare Calabrese with anything less than a nuclear bomb – and it would have to be a big bomb to do the job.”

“That’s a pretty good theory you came up with, though – that the lack of bodies means a win for Calabrese. You should share it with McGuire.”

“OK, if you think it’s worth the effort.”

“Everything’s worth the effort at this point,” I said. “But I’m not done with my story yet – it gets better. We canvassed the neighborhood and came up with absolutely shit, as you might expect. So, after a couple of hours, they finally let us leave. I was in no hurry to go home, since Christine was already sacked out, so I headed down to Wohlstein’s Deli for something to eat….”

I told him about the busboy who I’d observed in what had to be a covert business transaction with Barney Ghougle’s brother, Algernon.

Karl shook his head a couple of times. “Stupid fuck. First indecent exposure, now street drugs. Looks like Algernon’s bucking for a slot in the Loser Hall of Fame.”

“He’ll get my vote,” I said. “But I’m a lot more interested in that busboy, Gillespe.”

“Yeah, he’s a link in the chain – the first one we’ve come across so far.”

Thor and Car, the two gun-toting elves, had hired attorneys and now weren’t saying anything to anybody. I figured the DA would eventually offer one of them a deal that would have the little bastard singing like a drunk on karaoke night, but it hadn’t happened yet. Like everything else in city government, the District Attorney’s office is understaffed and underfunded.