“Have a good weekend, Al?” he asked, taking the seat beside me.

“So-so.”

“How’s Bill?”

“Fine.”

Lots of people knew Bill. He ran a lucrative sideline in fireworks and had staged many private displays for friends and associates of The Cardinal’s. Bill was honest but realistic. If you were a cop in this city you could be straight but not antagonistic. It didn’t pay to get on the wrong side of The Cardinal.

“Hear about the stairs?” Frank asked.

“What about them?”

“We’re to keep off them, nights, till further notice.”

“How come?”

Frank shrugged. “Orders from above. No patrols. No guards on the doors.” He wasn’t happy. “You use the stairs a lot, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Keeps me in shape.”

He glanced about to make sure no one was listening. “You working overtime this week?”

“Three or four nights, most likely.”

“Mind if I assign you to the upper floors?”

I smiled. “I go where I’m told.”

“Good. And, y’know, I might send word a few times a night that I need to see you down below, and, when you’re coming—”

“—I’ll take the stairs?”

“Right,” he grinned. “Unofficially, of course. Just taking the opportunity to grab a spot of exercise.” He stood, checked the TV — two bare-chested giants were using their teeth and lengths of rope to haul trucks in a race against each other — and shook his head. “Don’t like leaving the stairs unguarded. The orders come from The Cardinal, but try reminding him of that if something goes wrong…”

Still shaking his head and muttering, he clapped me on the back and went about his rounds.

Cloak-and-dagger stuff like that was par for the course in Party Central. The Cardinal moved in mysterious ways. You often saw men and women of power roaming the corridors of Party Central, pulling their hair out by the roots. The braver ones — like Tasso and Frank — took matters into their own hands and plotted behind The Cardinal’s back, doing their best to protect him from his crazy flights of whimsy. It was fine if he didn’t find out, but if he did…