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Then I got hoe to call Mr Bell I dialed the number on the slip and they answered at the Top Knot and called Danny Boy to the phone "You could stop by," he said, "and I was going to suggest that, but it’s easier to pass this on over the phone Unless you feel the need to coan’s, in which case I’d welcome your company"

I told hiht

"Then write this down, Matthew Francis Paul Doo-kosh, except that’s not how it’s spelled" He spelled it out for arian, I think, or et in the papers whenever the Russians send in their tanks"

"Frankie Dukes"

"The h I could probably find out more But that may be all you need to track him down"

And indeed it was I opened the book as soon as I got off the phone, and there he ith a listed phone and an address all the way east on Seventy-eighth Street That put him south and east of the furnished room where Jack had been shot to death, but not h for Jack to find hiht Or for him to find Jack

I called a couple of ti machine, so I took a bus across Seventy-ninth and found his address in the middle of a row of brownstones I pushed the buzzer for Dukacs, got no answer, and a framed note on the wall led me next door, where I was able to find the super She lived in a basement apartment, and I don’t knohat she had on the stove, but I wanted so for one of her tenants, a Mr Dukacs I istered approval In good but accented English she told me I would probably find him at his shop on First Avenue, Dukacs & Son He was the son Dukacs, God rest his soul, was his father If the younger Dukacs wasn’t there, he wasa break next door at Theresa’s He had all his ets," I said, "I’ll bet it’s not as good as what you’ve got cooking"

"My lunch," she said levelly "Only enough for one"

Theresa’s would have been a standard New York coffee shop, but the specials were kielbasa and goulash instead of spanakopita andeither a late breakfast or a very early lunch, and an olda cup of coffee I suppose he could have been Frankie Dukes, but the odds were against it

The shop next door was a Korean greengrocer, but next to it was a n overhead read DUKACS & SON You could see where a final S had been long since painted out Aa rack of lamb into individual rib chops He was short and stout, a fireplug of a lossy black hair and a luxuriant ray hairs in the mustache, and in his abundant eyebrows He wielded his cleaver with an efficiency that made it clear he’d done this before

When I went in he put down the cleaver and asked what he could get for"Beautiful chops here," he said, and held one up for me to admire "On special, matter of fact"

"I’m afraid I’m not here as a customer"

"Oh?"

"You’re Francis Dukacs?"

"Why?"

I dug out a wallet, flipped it open at rando the cleaver, but he was standing close enough to it so that I was just as happy to have him assume I was an officer of the law

"I have a couple of questions," I said, "about a man named Jack Ellery"

"Never heard of him"

"I believe you had a recent visit from him"

"Did he come to buy meat? That’s the only people come here Customers"

"He would have coy--"

"That son of a bitch!"

I took a step backward In an instant Dukacs was transformed from a stolid shopkeeper into a wild-eyed madman

"That fucker! That cocksucker! You know about him, that son of a bitch? You knohat he did?" He didn’t wait for my answer "He walked in here, he waited until un in my face ‘Give me all your o"

"So? Not so goddaun in your face, you remember"

"Then what happened?"

"I was shaking My hands, shaking I tried to open the register I couldn’t open the fucking thing"

"And he struck you?"

"With the gun Back, forth Split my head open, blood down my face like a curtain Here, you see the scar? I woke up in the hospital Stitches, concussion, two teeth out" He tapped an incisor "Bridgework," he said "All thanks to hi! He couldn’t open the cash box either Fucking thing was ja for nothing"

"Did the police--"

He waved a hand, dis," he said "They showedWhat did he look like? It’s like I went blank, I couldn’t see his face in o to sleep and I’d see it in my dreams"