Danny took that seat, close enough to the small, dark-eyed man to reach out and stroke the whiskers of his neatly trimmed beard. Fraina’s eyes never left Danny’s face. They were not the blazing eyes of a fanatic. They were the eyes of an animal so used to being hunted that some boredom had settled in. He crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned back in his chair. “Tell me what happened after we left.”

Danny jerked a thumb behind him. “I’ve told Nathan and Comrade Glaviach.”

Fraina nodded. “Tell me.”

“Where is Nathan, by the way?”

Fraina said, “Tell me what happened. Who was this man who tried to kill me?”

“I never got his name. Never even spoke with him.”

“Yes, he seems quite the ghost.”

Danny said, “I tried to. The police attacked immediately. They hit me, they hit him, they hit me some more. Then they threw us both in the back of the car and drove us to the station house.”

“Which one?”

“Roxbury Crossing.”

“And you exchanged no pleasantries with my assailant on the ride there?”

“I tried. He didn’t respond. Then the copper told me to shut my hole.”

“He said that? Shut your hole?”

Danny nodded. “Threatened to run his nightstick through it.”

Fraina’s eyes sparkled. “Vivid.”

The floor was caked with old flour. The room smelled of yeast and sweat and sugar and mold. Large brown tins, some the height of a man, stood against the walls, and bags of flour and grain were stacked between them. A bare lightbulb dangled from a chain in the center of the room and left pools of shadow where rodents squeaked. The ovens had probably been shut off since noon, but the room was thick with heat.

Fraina said, “A matter of feet, wouldn’t you say?”

Danny put a hand in his pocket and found the button among some coins. He pressed it to his palm and leaned forward. “Comrade?”

“The would-be assassin.” He waved at the air around him. “This man no one can find a record of. This man who went unseen, even by a comrade I know who was in the holding cell at Roxbury Crossing that night. A veteran of the first czarist revolution, this man, a true Lett like our comrade, Pyotr.”

The big Estonian leaned against the large cooler door, his arms crossed, and gave no indication he’d heard his name.

“He didn’t see you there, either,” Fraina said.

“They never put me in the holding pen,” Danny said. “They had their fun and shipped me in a paddy wagon to Charlestown. I told Comrade Bishop as much.”

Fraina smiled. “Well, it’s settled, then. Everything is fine.” He clapped his hands. “Eh, Pyotr? What did I tell you?”

Glaviach kept his eyes on the shelving behind Danny’s head. “Everything fine.”

“Everything is fine,” Fraina said.

Danny sat there, the heat of the place finding his feet, the underside of his scalp.

Fraina leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Except, well, this man was only seven or eight feet away when he fired. How do you miss at that range?”