“If she called me poor dear one more time . . . ,” Pippa said, shaking her head and making a vaguely threatening gesture with her fist. Max felt a brief flicker of admiration for her. But it was quickly snuffed out. “Ew,” Pippa said, looking around them. “What is this place?”
The air in Paulie’s was thick with the smell of boiled cabbage, cigarette smoke, and rancid meat. Behind the counter, a mammoth man wearing a blood-caked apron was frying up bacon. A waiter with the guilty look of an escaped convict was hurrying among the rickety tables, which were covered not with tablecloths but old, grease-spotted newspapers. In one booth, a man with dirt-encrusted fingers was noisily slurping coffee as black as tar; at the counter, two toothless women were dealing cards. The other patrons of Paulie’s looked as sad, scared, and pathetic as any Max had ever seen.
“What’re you doing in here?” The man in the butcher’s apron—Max assumed he was the owner—came bellying out from behind the counter. “We’re not buying nothing, so you can take whatever you’re sellin’ and get going.”
They needed to stall. Max wasn’t ready to risk another run-in with Angela von Stuck-up, or whatever her name was.
“We’re looking for our uncle,” she said quickly. Pippa and Thomas gave her a confused look, but Sam picked up on the game right away.
“That’s right,” he chimed in. They had practiced their parts all day long. “He wanders off sometimes. Gets confused.” Sam lowered his voice conspiratorially. “He’s not all there in the head.”
The man in the butcher’s uniform smiled. Half his teeth were rotting. “Sounds like one of our customers, all right,” he said, and then let out a booming laugh. Max was blasted by the smell of his breath and did her best not to flinch. “The name’s Paulie,” the man in the apron said. “This is my joint. I’m here all day, every day. I remember everybody who walks through those doors. What’s he look like, this uncle of yours?”
“Dark hair,” Sam said. “Tall—even taller than me. Wears a gray cap, pulled low, and has scars on his cheeks.”
It was the same description they had given to twenty other restaurant and pub owners that morning. But this time, Paulie began nodding slowly, so his many chins wobbled like a turkey’s neck.
“Yeah,” Paulie said thoughtfully, wiping his hands across his apron. “Yeah. Sounds familiar. This would have been . . . Wednesday, right?”
Max swallowed back a little cry of excitement. Thomas and Pippa exchanged a glance. Wednesday was the night Potts had been poisoned.
“Exactly,” Max said eagerly. “Wednesday.”
Paulie stepped aside as the waiter skirted by them, holding a stack of dirty plates. “Yeah, he was here,” Paulie said. “They sat right over there.”
This time, Max couldn’t conceal her excitement.
“They?” she asked. “He was here with somebody?”
“Sure was. Didn’t get a good look at the other guy. He was wearing a hat. Your uncle seemed worked up about something, though.”
The waiter was still hovering nearby. He had deposited the stack of plates and was now pretending to wash the counter, although Max felt sure that he had never washed a single surface in Paulie’s in his life. He was eavesdropping. She gave Sam a nudge.
“And you don’t remember anything about the—the other guy?” Thomas asked.
Paulie turned to him. “He your uncle, too?” He gave a mean smile. “Like I said, I didn’t get a good look at the other guy. All’s I know is your uncle was nervous.”
Thomas nodded, frowning a little. Pippa had closed her eyes and her face was very pale. Max realized, with a little start, that she was trying to read. She was trying to think her way into the folds of Paulie’s brain.
“Look,” Sam spoke up suddenly. “We’re going to be honest with you.”
Max shot him a look. This was not part of the script they had agreed on.
“It’s really important we find out who our, um, uncle was with on Wednesday,” Sam said. “The truth is he was poisoned, and—”
Sam did not get any further. Because the waiter, with a short, anguished cry, vaulted over the counter, knocking over the entire stack of dirty dishes, and sprinted for the door.
Sam was the first to move. He reached for the waiter but succeeded only in getting his apron, which promptly tore off in his hand.
The waiter ricocheted off a table, upsetting a bowl of soup and sending a chair crashing to the ground, where it promptly splintered. Everyone was shouting, and the women at the bar began to shriek.
The waiter made it to the door and tore off down Forty-Fourth Street.
The kids sprinted after him. Thomas was next out the door, and then Sam. Max followed them and Pippa came last, her breath high in her throat, her head pounding. Trying to read Paulie had left her exhausted and frustrated.