Yeah, I remembered those fellas. And this time, I had nowhere to hide.
Alger turned to the Ghost, who didn’t seem the slightest bit worried.
“We’ll have to part ways for the moment,” said Alger. “Tell the boys to meet us at home. Ready?”
He grinned and handed Alger his hat theatrically.
“Whenever you are, my friend.”
“In that case,” Alger said, “now.”
Everything happened at once. The Driver hit the gas, and the car took off like a racehorse. The acceleration slammed Alger and me against the back seats. At the same moment, the Ghost vaulted out of the car. A flurry of little star-shaped silver objects whistled away from the dark blur he’d become, leaving one of our pursuers with a set of blown tires. Then he somersaulted across the street and disappeared.
The two remaining cars screamed into motion as the chase began. We started with a leg up on them, darting between cars as we raced off. I just cowered, clutching the seat as tightly as the fear was clutching me, and trying not to scream. But that wasn’t good enough for Alger Slade.
“Sorry for the interruption,” I heard him say over the tumult. “Who’s next?”
It took me a second to realize that he was talking to me.
“What?”
“Rowles is irrelevant. Who was next on the list?”
His collected manner clashed wildly with the chaos around us, and I gaped at him.
“I…it was…”
I broke off and went back to cowering as the Driver took a hard right, balanced for a moment on two wheels. The momentum sent me tumbling into Alger, who caught me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes.
“Listen to me, Victoria,” he said. “Panicking is useless. Wasteful. So calm down and pay attention to the task at hand. Can you do that for me?”
I felt like he’d backhanded me. I was stunned, but the world cinched into focus. My thoughts sharpened, filtering out the growling engines and squealing tires. Think. The list. I nodded, trembling, but grappling my way back into control.
“Patrick McManus,” I recited shakily. “Two hundred and thirty thousand.”
“Interesting,” Alger responded, loosening his grip on my shoulders. “Irish, but not one of the families I’ve heard of.” He glanced up briefly. “Get down.”
We ducked just before bullets pelted the back bumper and buzzed over our heads. I clenched my teeth as the gunfire sent lancing pains through my ears; they weren’t bothering with silencers this time. Alger reached under the seat, fiddled with something, and opened a drawer I’d never known was there.
“Go on,” he said, raising his voice above the noise as he rifled through the compartment. I swallowed and blinked back tears.
“Next was…the woman. Um…” I tried to disentangle the pain in my head from the memory.
“Yes?” He started pulling out lengths of sharpened metal wound together into four-pronged barbs and throwing them out the back of the car. I heard tires screech, and a glance behind us told me that our enemies had managed to swerve and avoid the caltrops. Other cars on the road weren’t quite so lucky.
“Y-yeah,” I managed. “Yvonne Devereaux.”
“Devereaux,” he corrected me with a laugh, though the pronunciation sounded exactly the same to my ears. The Driver took a wide left, the back end of the car skidding treacherously. A wave of glass shattered over us, and we were suddenly weaving through the lobby of an office building. “How much did the Baroness spend?”
“Five hundred grand. We’re going to die, aren’t we?” By that point, the absurdity of the money (let alone the existence of a “baroness”) was eclipsed by the ridiculousness of having to dodge desks in a car.
“Well. It appears we may be paying her a visit,” he said, as we crashed through the other side of the building and into oncoming traffic. “And no, we’re not going to die,” he added calmly. “Not today, anyway.”
I tried my best to believe him, but it was hard to ignore the head-on collisions we kept narrowly avoiding. And the men in suits were still hot on our tail.
“That’s four,” my fearless leader reminded me, hunting for something else in the hidden drawer. “You still have two remaining, by my count.”
Our pursuers seemed to have run out of bullets, which helped my battered eardrums, but one of them was closing in fast. Don’t panic, I told myself over and over. Think. I licked my lips and concentrated.
“Tony Signorille. It was three hundred and twenty—” I flinched as the car rammed us, jerking with the impact and covering my ears reflexively at the explosive crunch.
“Tony? I believe that’s the first good news I’ve heard all day,” Alger said, apparently unconcerned with the enemies getting ready to crash into us again. Since I was concerned, I didn’t really care why that was good news at the time.
He handed me two metal cylinders.
“These are tear gas canisters. Throw them while I take care of something,” he said, giving me a demonstration with a third before turning back to say something to the Driver.
Well, I didn’t exactly have a chance to ask any questions, and insubordination was definitely a bad idea right then. So I leaned out the back of the car and threw with all my strength. Alger’s canister had hit the bumper, but I had better luck: my first one shattered the front window. I threw the second into the hole I’d created, and soon the car filled with something noxious. I stared as the occupants started to choke and writhe, and the car veered off the road into a ditch. When I turned around again, Alger was back.
“I got one!” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at the wreckage and the remaining pursuer.
“Yes,” he said impassively, “which means you must have thought it was a coincidence that I gave you two canisters for two cars.”
I sighed. What had I expected? Then mortal danger edged out my frustration when he yanked me back down behind the seat again as the hail of bullets resumed. Apparently, they’d reloaded.
The Driver turned sharply into Carl Schurz Park, terrifying the brave souls who’d gone for a walk in the cold. We toured the plaza in the middle of the grounds, taking a precarious circuit around it and avoiding at least a few of our pursuers’ shots.
“So,” Alger resumed, having given me only a few seconds to cringe in peace. “Who’s the last one?”
I was ready this time.
“John Cyrus Kingston,” I shouted in reply as we jostled down a few stairs and swerved around a grove of trees, heading into an open field.
“That’s to be expected. How much?”
The terrain flattened out, and pavement appeared. I could see that it soon narrowed—into a pier. We weren’t slowing down at all, but the car behind us was falling back a little.
“Are we catching a boat?” I asked, as the shooting tapered off again.
“No,” Alger answered. “How much?”
“Then…”
The remaining blood drained from my face as I began to understand what we were about to do. I just trailed off, my eyes widening as I caught sight of the water—far, far below us.
Alger snapped his fingers an inch in front of my face.
“Victoria. Focus. Answer the question. How much?”
I turned and stared at him.
“Two million,” I answered, blank with astonishment. “And you’re out of your mind.”
We were still hurtling forward at full speed, and the car chasing us had stopped, dwindling into the distance behind us.
“Two million! Now that’s very interesting,” he said. “And no, I’m not.”
As we approached the edge, he reached out and grabbed me, holding me tightly and hiding my face against his shoulder.
“Trust me,” he whispered.
And we drove off the pier.
It seemed we were suspended in mid-air for a moment. The world was blissfully silent, hollow and clear. When I dared to look, every image was razor-sharp below us: barges headed down the river, and the men shivering
on their decks; the grey-blue mouth of the water, not yet frozen this season. Then time began again and we fell.
We dropped like a stone through the empty air, the rushing wind shrieking in my ears. If I’d been one to pray, I’m sure I would have. As it was, Alger was all I really had faith in, and I clung to him for dear life.
Hitting the water was like slamming into a brick wall. The impact sent a shock wave through me, compacting my spine and spiking into my neck, knocking my teeth together and shoving my knees into my chest. But I was in one piece, and a quick look around told me that that went for all three of us. Relief slowly trickled into my limbs, and I started to breathe again.
Then the water wrapped its icy arms around us as we sank, and our escape was complete.
Chapter 12 —That’s A Lie
By the time we’d dragged ourselves out of the East River, stowed away on a ferry, and walked all the way home, it was evening. The Ghost having apparently followed Alger’s directions, the rest of the Gang was waiting inside with a ready supply of brandy to warm us, and I was elated to see them for the first time in what felt like ages. I darted around the room, collecting warm greetings from Screwdriver and the Doc, bear hugs from the twins that nearly suffocated me, and a crack from Shifty about how I’d ruined all his hard work from that morning—which, from him, I took as a sign of affection. And I was delighted to see that the Ghost had stuck around, so I hugged him too, then started to interrogate him about his star-shaped knives, which he told me were called shuriken.
Finally, when we’d all settled down, Alger explained the situation for those lucky enough to have missed out on the excitement. He finished by informing everyone that we had a few leads and running me through a much less stressful recitation of the precious list.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough information to be sure who has the box yet,” he told us. “Kingston is an obvious choice, with that price tag. And of course, when it comes to expensive and sought-after prizes, one can’t rule out the Baroness.” That drew out a few snickers and piqued my curiosity. “But this McManus—I don’t recognize the name, so it’s likely that he isn’t connected, but I can’t be certain. That makes Tony Signorille the safest place to begin, which I’ll be doing tomorrow. And speaking of safety,” he continued seamlessly, cutting off any chance I might have had to ask questions, “given what happened today, we clearly still have a shortage of it at the moment. That being the case, I’d strongly suggest that you stay close. There should be enough space here for all of you here, in the short term. So if there are no objections”—he looked around and, of course, found none—“then make yourselves at home, gentlemen.”
I guess they’d seen this coming, because they lost no time in doing just that. After some discussion of who was staying where, a card game broke out in the living room, and everyone embraced the suggestion that the proceeds go towards the Driver’s next car. Delighted that my friends had transformed into my housemates, I ignored the fact that this development was a result of imminent danger, and I joined the game.
Lacking any money of my own, I had to team up with someone, and a few arm-wrestling matches predictably made the Torpedo my partner for the evening. We started out winning, of course, but then I got distracted, cheerfully chattering on about our dramatic escape, and how much more easily I thought it would have gone if he’d been there. He was a great audience, asking for details, cheering at all the right moments, and telling me how brave I’d been. We were so absorbed in conversation that he’d made a healthy contribution to the car fund an hour or so later when Alger came by and pulled me aside.
“I know you’re enjoying yourself,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “but don’t get too carried away. I’ll need you well-rested when we go to see Tony tomorrow.”
“‘We?’” I said hopefully.
“Indeed.” He led me into the kitchen and handed me a towel for my still-soaking hair. “If you’re to be involved in the more nuanced aspects of this profession’s social interactions, you’ll need to observe them.”
“I can do that,” I told him enthusiastically, wringing out half of the East River into the towel.
“I should hope so,” he said with a smirk, starting to walk away. But I followed him and he stopped. “Is there something else?”
“Well—yeah.” I hesitated, suddenly uncertain and he waited. “Um. Will it…be dangerous?”
Understanding lit in his eyes, and the smirk softened into a kinder smile.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” he said, brushing the remaining droplets of water like tears off my cheeks. “Compared to today, it’ll be nothing at all.”
The card game lasted past midnight, and of course after it ended, I was up for hours talking to the Ghost. After I’d hated the Iliad, he’d gotten me started on Shakespeare, and we had a serious disagreement over which was better, Hamlet or King Lear. We finally decided that we’d have to go see them both before we could really settle the matter, and I drifted off on the couch around two or three in the morning.
I had such a wonderful evening that I didn’t even regret it when we ended up walking what felt like the length of Manhattan at least twice the next day, since Alger didn’t like the idea of telling any outsiders our destination after what had happened yesterday. So we just walked instead, and after literally hours, it was obvious that we were going in circles. By the afternoon, I noticed Alger’s movements getting slower and stiffer, and I wondered why I wasn’t tired or even cold in the icy, damp December air. On the other hand, I supposed, it was nothing compared to being dunked in the East River. And then, reminded of the less deadly things about yesterday, I started to ask questions.
“So,” I said, “who’s Tony?”
“I was wondering when you’d ask,” Alger said. “She’s an Italian mob boss. In this city, you might say the mob boss.”
“Um—‘she?’ But Tony—isn’t that…Anthony?”
“Antonia,” he corrected with a smirk. “Various men act as her public face, but she’s been the true power behind the local Cosa Nostra since her husband was killed years ago. Her revenge was quite spectacular, evidently, and no one has dared to cross her since.”
“Okay,” I said, assimilating that information. “Well, if she’s so scary, why is going to see her the safest choice?”
“We have something of a prior business relationship,” he said. “I helped her with a little ledger problem a few months ago—as did you, in fact, though you didn’t know it at the time. I’ll be certain to tell you the entire story at some point, but now isn’t the moment.”
I sighed, knowing he probably wouldn’t.
“If you’re so cozy with her, what am I going to do?”
“Watch,” he said. “Listen. Pay attention to what she says, and what she omits. It’ll be good practice for you.”
I shrugged. It was more of a lesson than a job, which made it feel like going backwards—but if it was about the box, then at least it was something important.
“If you say so,” I finally told him.
“I do. And you also might be interested to know that we’re here.”
I jumped. I’d been so busy listening that I hadn’t realized our long slog was at an end. When I examined our surroundings, I was a little taken aback. The place was practically a fortress. The three-story mansion, elegant and tastefully trimmed with carvings around the doorway and trellises climbing the walls, was surrounded by expansive grounds that would’ve been glorious in the spring, but looked forbidding in the ice-coated winter. A wrought-iron gate boxed all of that in, and that was surrounded by armed guards: two at the entrance, pairs posted around the sides, and a few roaming around the house with dogs.
As we approached, the guards at the gate shifted into defensive positions. Trained to pay attention, I could tell by the way they carried themselves and their guns that they were the real thing. I could also tell that they recognized Alger, because the larger one stepped forward as soon as we stopped, and they nod
ded to each other in acknowledgement. He checked Alger for weapons—as if they would find anything he was carrying—and then he walked over to me. Unsure what I was supposed to do, but knowing I couldn’t say anything, I shied away from him reflexively, and Alger came to my rescue.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said calmly.
The bimbo’s brow furrowed and he looked at me suspiciously.
“Wait here,” he instructed, and walked back over to his partner. I stared at my toes and pretended not to listen.
“Think I need to search the skirt?” the guard asked quietly.
“Dunno. Do you want to?” I could hear the leer in his voice, even at a whisper.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Guard One. “But seriously. You know this fella. I don’t want to make trouble with him over this. It’s not worth it.”
The rustling from Guard Two was probably a shrug.
“Whatever you want. It’s not gonna matter anyway.”
Wait. What did that mean? Suddenly, I was worried, but Guard One was coming back.
“Okay, come on,” he said gruffly and let us through the gate. Part of the way down the long sidewalk, I took Alger’s arm and pulled him a little closer to me.
“Did you hear that?” I muttered under my breath.
“Hear what?” he asked.
“He said it was okay not to search me because it wasn’t going to matter anyway,” I told him urgently.
“And?” Alger said, losing patience with me already.
“Well, why wouldn’t it matter if I had a gun or something?”
“Because you don’t look as if you’d have the first notion what to do with one. Not to mention that there are twenty of their cohort in our immediate proximity that I’ve seen, and that they know me well enough to know that I don’t begin physical altercations without provocation. Now listen,” he said sternly. “I brought you here in the hopes that you’d learn something. If you want to do that, you’ll have to stop jumping at shadows. Can you manage that?”
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