“This Nolan seemed more like Tony’s servant than like a friend,” Shai said. “Ton—Hersh would show up with these kids—kids our age. He knew a bunch of them. Most of them were like these skinny, wimpy-type kids. But this Nolan or Noam…First off, he was big. Second, you could tell right away that he was raised frum. For some reason I think Tony liked Nolan because he was frum. Also ’cause Nolan was bigger and a bully. He wasn’t a bully to us, Eli’s bigger than him. But you had the feeling, Nolan liked to boss around little kids. Also, he wasn’t put off by Hersh’s knives—”

“Knives?” Decker said.

“Hersh loves knives,” Shai said. “He’s always showing them off. He has lots of them.”

Swell, Decker thought. Noam’s possibly involved with a psycho. Maybe Noam was a psycho. He said, “Did Hersh ever threaten you with his knives?”

“Not me,” Eli said. “But once…this was real weird…” He knitted his brow. “He asked me what my father did for a living. I told him he was a rabbi and a mohel—”

“Oh, yeah,” Shai interrupted. “He started asking all these questions on the kind of knife used for circumcisions. Then he offered to trade Eli…” The boy sighed. “He offered to trade stuff for his father’s bris milah knife. He liked the fact that it was sharp on both sides.”

“Did you do it?” Decker asked.

Eli shook his head vehemently. “I don’t steal.”

One point in his favor. Decker said, “So Hersh liked knives. What about Noam?”

“No idea,” Shai said. “I only saw Nolan once or twice.”

“And from what you saw, Noam and Hersh didn’t relate as equals,” Decker said.

“Not at all,” Shai said. “Hersh used to boss Nolan—or Noam—around. ‘Move here, go there, get that, take that.’ Nolan just took it.”

“Did he threaten Noam with the knife when he was ordering him around?”

Shai thought a long time. “I don’t think so. I would have remembered if he did. But I do remember him waving this big long knife around. Just showing it off. It was very scary.”

Decker kept his face impassive and turned to Eli. The boy shrugged, said he didn’t remember if Hersh ever threatened anyone. While Decker had Eli’s attention, he said, “Your friend Shai tells me he’s clean, he’s not a user. You smoke solo.”

Eli nodded.