He’d been big when I knew him before, but another hundred or so had been added.

We shook hands. That fat paw of his could generate real power.

Barney Baker, who looked fifty and was probably forty, had been one of Ben Siegel’s bouncers at the Flamingo in Las Vegas back in ’46. Siegel (Don’t Call Him Bugsy) had hired me to train security personnel at his new casino with an emphasis on spotting pickpockets—I’d been on the Pickpocket Detail of the Chicago PD a thousand years ago.

Even back at the Flamingo, Barney had been such a hulking presence he merely had to tap the shoulder of a troublemaker, who would turn and get a gander of the looming bouncer and look for the nearest exit with no further inducement. Not that Barney couldn’t do damage if need be. He had come with an impressive résumé—a waterfront collector in his teens who did a prison stretch in New York for throwing stink bombs in theaters during a union drive.

“You had lunch, Nate?”

He was the sort of guy who kept track of such things.

“No,” I said. “I thought I’d catch something at the airport.”

He settled a catcher’s mitt hand on my shoulder. “Listen, let me buy you lunch. We got things to talk about.”

We do?

“All right,” I said, “just let me check out.”

Which I did, leaving my overnight bag at the desk, and Barney slipped an overwhelming arm around my shoulder and walked me across the lobby to the coffee shop like a parent escorting an apprehensive child to the doctor’s office.

We took a table—Barney couldn’t fit into a booth—and I asserted myself. “Who told you I was in Kansas City?”

He was looking at the menu. “That colored cab driver who drove you to the Greenlease place in Mission Hills.”

“Why would he confide that to anybody?”

“The cab company keeps track of public-figure types who come to town. Can be valuable information. You should feel complimented.”

I smirked. “Why would you be privy to such valuable information?”

His big shoulders shrugged. “I’m their union representative. Ace Cabs are run out of St. Louis, which is where I’m out of, too, these days. I was in K.C. on union business and got the call about this just, oh, half an hour ago.”

“What call?”

“The call pertaining to you.”

I squinted at him. “When did you get so goddamn eloquent, Barney? I recall you being a dese, dem and doser.”

He waved a plump thing with fingers. “A union organizer has to be both a man of the people and a decent public speaker. I give a hell of a speech, Nate. You should hear me on Civil Rights. Nobody stirs up the colored vote like yours truly. I’m a good Democrat, you know.”

So was I, but that was enough to make me question my party affiliation.

“Ah,” he said, and his eyes glittered, “here’s the waitress. Pretty little babe, don’t you think?’