The Vaults by Toby Ball

keyboard. He decided he was willing to accept this explanation if his next inquiry produced unremarkable results.
    Replacing
Criminal Court Verdicts—1927
, he then walked two rows down and found
Incarcerated Persons, City and State Correctional Facilities—1927
. A slimmer volume than the
Verdicts
records,
Incarcerated Persons
contained lists of all prisoners in jails and prisons, their institution, the terms of sentence, as well as their confinement and release dates, if they occurred during 1927. The search did not take long. He scanned the alphabetical list of prisoners, then the list of prisoners in each of the twenty-three facilities listed. DeGraffenreid’s name did not appear. Puskis placed the volume into his cart, then returned and collected
Criminal Court Verdicts—1927
.
    Returning to his desk, he found that the courier had come and gone, taking the stack of files that Puskis had left for him and leaving a long list of new file requests. Puskis took the list and, before beginning his rounds, returned to the Stable to replace the two volumes. He had never been disturbed by anyone during his years in the Vaults, but understanding that these were becoming exceptional times, he did not want to be in possession of those books any longer than necessary.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

    “How you doing, Frankie?”
    Frings shrugged. Reynolds, the cop in charge of the crime scene at Altabelli’s place, was an acquaintance of Frings’s. They used to drink at the same neighborhood bar uptown before Frings had become a celebrity and Reynolds had gone on the wagon.
    “You still with Nora Aspen?”
    Frings smiled, ready to shoot the shit. “Still am. Not sure why she keeps me around.”
    Reynolds gave him a knowing look. The Theater District, usually so alive at night, was quiet this morning. The lights that attracted people to this or that theater were off, and where the usual throngs of tuxedos and furs milled around, waiting for the act 2 curtain, there were now merely a scattering of service people running errands, sweeping streets, stocking the bars with liquor. The streets here, impassable in the evening for all the theatergoers, were now impassable for the delivery trucks that stopped in the street, holding up traffic until their drop-offs were complete.
    “You want to look around?” Reynolds asked.
    Frings nodded.
    “I’m going to have to walk with you. Word from the Chief says no one in the site without an escort.”
    “Sure. We can talk.”
    Some of the debris had already been cleared by the uniformed officers, about ten of whom were still sifting through fragments. Something was different about this site, Frings thought. Where Block’s building had been blown out into the street, this one seemed to be blown back into itself.
    “This one,” Frings said. “The bomb was on the
outside
?” He was high. That was another problem with the migraines. He’d smoke a reefer to ease the headache, but then, when the headache was gone, he’d smoke because he liked being high. He had done that this morning, sitting on the fire escape outside Nora’s apartment with a juju as she showered. He’d tried toact straight when she emerged and even thought he’d succeeded, though he couldn’t completely trust his perceptions. Which was part of the point. But it also undermined his confidence in his own reasoning, so he used Reynolds to validate his observations.
    “That’s right. We think whoever it was put a bundle, maybe five sticks of dynamite in a bag, on the sidewalk and then lit a long fuse.”
    “That square with the bomb at Block’s?”
    Reynolds shrugged. “Well, that was dynamite, too. And, of course, there’s who they are, you know.” He looked to Frings, who nodded that, yes, he knew.
    “Off the record, I think we’re pretty sure they’re connected.
On
the record, we’re exploring a connection. Got it?”
    “Makes perfect sense.”
    “At Block’s,” Reynolds went on, “the bundle was thrown through a