Have a seat,” I acknowledged. Dave touched the proper stem of his glasses and bellied up. I signaled Mai for Dave’s soiled ashtray, and he or she retrieved it from his favourite spot and positioned it in entrance of him. Dave lit a smoke and outfitted it into the groove of the tray. “What’s bought you stumped? ” he stated. I informed him concerning the case, and in regards to the names, and concerning the calls I had made. Dave stared on the names for a couple of minutes. Then he grew to become over one of many sheets of notepaper, withdrew a pen from the plastic holder in his breast pocket, and started writing down phrases in parallel columns. later on he enable the glasses off his nostril and set the pen down at the notepaper. He driven the paper alongside the bar until eventually it rested in entrance of me. I seemed the phrases over and acknowledged, “What’d you do? ” “You stated the notes seemed to be in code, partly not less than. ” “I acknowledged I didn’t comprehend them—it’s now not an analogous factor. ” Dave acknowledged, “So you’re definite Pyshak and Bonanno are people’ names. ” “Not solely. What do you're thinking that? ” Dave tapped the clear out at the cigarette that used to be wedged within the ashtray. He permit it burn there and checked out me. “I imagine Bonanno’s a reputation. It’s universal sufficient. And if you holiday it out phonetically, and syllabically, screw round with it a little”—he pointed to the column of phrases at the right—“you get a hold of not anything. ” My eyes traveled to the column at the left. “Go on. ” “Now do a similar factor with Pyshak,” Dave acknowledged, twitching excitedly, placing his glasses on back and adjusting them at the tip of his nostril. “Look what you get. ” He ran his finger down the column of jumbled Pyshak mutations—Piss Hack, Pishe Ak—and stopped on the final phrases. The phrases learn Pie Shack. “It’s a business,” I stated. “It’s a possibility,” Dave stated, smiling. I smiled again, getting prior to issues. “A bakery? ” Dave shook his head and watched me from the nook of his eye. “Think, Nick—the dating to Bonanno. what percentage Italian bakers you recognize? ” I thumped my fist at the bar till it hit me like a stone. “Pie Shack,” I acknowledged quietly. “As in pizza pie. ” “If i used to be you,” Dave stated, “that’s the place I’d begin. ” 3 PIE SHACKS have been indexed less than Pizza within the Spot’s year-old, tattered replica of the phone book. I wrote down the addresses and call numbers after which had Mai position the bar’s sticky black Rolodex in entrance of me. I withdrew the cleanest enterprise playing cards of a number of meals and beverage vendors, positioned them in my pockets, and grabbed a few comparable expense books that have been left at the back of via quite a few salesmen. Then I lifted my overcoat off the corridor rack and exited the Spot. i ended uptown at my house for a bath and a shave, and to feed my cat. Out of the bathe, I dressed the lower at the inside my hand and left the bandage off. I wear denims and a black V-necked sweater over a white T-shirt, and slipped my document Martens oxfords onto my toes. prior to I left I stroked my cat’s head until eventually her eye closed. She slinked around the room to her dish. Her eye was once nonetheless closed as her crimson tongue lapped water from the dish.