“I’m sure. But the Giddreauxs must be planning a ribbon cutting, that sort of thing, a gathering of their ilk.”

“Again, sir, I’m hoping to be done summer’s end, somewhere thereabouts.”

McKenna placed his arm on the wrought-iron railing that curved out from the Coughlin stoop. “I need you to dig a hole.”

“A hole?”

McKenna nodded, his trench coat flapping around his legs in the warm spring breeze. “A vault, really. I’ll want you to be sure to make it weather-tight. I’d recommend poured concrete, if I could be so bold.”

Luther said, “And where do you want me to build this vault? Your house, sir?”

McKenna leaned back from the suggestion, an odd smile on his face. “I’d never let your kind in my home, Luther. Good Lord.” He exhaled a small whoop at the entire idea, and Luther could see the weight of carrying a fake self for Luther’s benefit leave him, the man finally ready to show Luther his depths. With pride. “An ebon on Telegraph Hill? Ha. So, no, Luther, the vault is not for my home. It’s for these ‘headquarters’ you’re so nobly aspiring to build.”

“You want me to put a vault in the NAACP?”

“Yes. Under the floor. I believe last time I was over there, you’d yet to lay in the floor of the rear room in the east corner. Used to be a kitchen, I believe?”

Last time he was over there?

“What of it?” Luther said.

“Dig the hole there. The size of a man, we’ll say. Weatherproof it, then cover it with the flooring of your choice, but make sure that flooring is easy to lift. I don’t presume to tell you how to do your job, but you may consider hinges in that regard, an inconspicuous handle of some sort.”

Luther, standing on the sidewalk by now, waited for the punch line. “I don’t understand, Lieutenant, sir.”

“You know who’s proven my most irreplaceable intelligence source these last couple of years? Do you?”

“No,” Luther said.

“Edison. They’re grand ones for tracking the movements of a person.” McKenna lit a half-smoked cigar and waved at the air between them once he got it going. “You, for example, terminated your electric service in Columbus in September. Took my Edison friends some time to discover where you started it up again, but eventually we got it. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, in October. It’s still being supplied to your Tulsa address, so I can only assume you left a woman there. Maybe a family? You’re on the run, Luther. Knew it the moment I laid eyes on you, but it was nice to have it confirmed. When I asked the Tulsa PD if they had any unsolved crimes of note, they mentioned a nightclub in niggertown that someone shot the hell out of, left three dead. A full day’s labor someone did.”

Luther said, “Don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Of course, of course.” McKenna nodded. “Tulsa PD said folks there don’t get too riled up when their niggers start shooting each other, ’specially when they can put the blame on one of the dead niggers. Far as they’re concerned, it’s a closed case with three coons in the grave no one’ll miss. So on that score, you are in the clear.” McKenna raised his index finger. “Unless I were to call Tulsa PD back and ask them, as a professional courtesy, to question the sole survivor of said bloodbath and in the course of questioning mention that a certain Luther Laurence, late of Tulsa, was living up here in Boston.” His eyes glittered. “Then I’d have to wonder how many places you’ve got left to hide.”