Rapture E-Book

John Shirley

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 598

Beschreibung

The critically acclaimed and blockbuster video game world explored for the first time in a novel. As one of the most lauded franchises in the past decade, BioShock introduced gamers into an exciting world filled with fascinating characters, intelligent enemies and complex moral choices that define the foundation of the game world.

Leseprobe

TITAN BOOKS

BioShock: Rapture

Print edition ISBN: 9781848567047

E-book edition ISBN: 9780857686558

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group

144 Southwark Street

London

SE1 0UP

First edition July 2011

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright © 2011 by Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

BioShock and the BioShock logo are trademarks of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

All Rights Reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

www.titanbooks.com

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group UK Ltd.

Dedicated to the fans of BioShock and BioShock 2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Eric Raab and Paula Guran.

Special thanks to Dustin Bond for additional game research. Special thanks to everyone who put up with my bitching.

I am Andrew Ryan and I’m here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow? No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone. I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by Petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

—Andrew Ryan in BioShock

Imagine if you could be smarter, stronger, healthier. What if you could even have amazing powers, light fires with your mind? That’s what plasmids do for a man.

—The man who calls himself Atlas in BioShock

Contents

Prologue

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part Two

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Part Three

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

About the Author

PROLOGUE

Fifth Avenue, New York City

1945

Sullivan, chief of security, found the Great Man standing in front of the enormous window in his corporate office. The boss was silhouetted against city lights. The only other illumination was from a green-shaded lamp on the big glass-topped desk across the room, so that the Great Man was mostly in shadow, hands in the pockets of his crisply tailored suit jacket as he gazed broodingly out at the skyline.

It was eight o’clock, and Chief Sullivan, a tired middle-aged man in a rain-dampened suit, badly wanted to go home, kick off his shoes, and listen to the fight on the radio. But the Great Man often worked late, and he’d been waiting for these two reports. One report, in particular, Sullivan wanted to have done with—the one from Japan. It was a report that made him want a stiff drink, and fast. But he knew the Great Man wouldn’t offer him one.

“The Great Man” was how Sullivan thought of his boss— one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. The term was both sarcastic and serious, and Sullivan kept it to himself—the Great Man was vain and quick to sense the slightest disrespect. Yet sometimes it seemed the tycoon was casting about for a friend he could take to heart. Sullivan was not that man. People rarely liked him much. Something about ex-cops.

“Well, Sullivan?” the Great Man asked, not turning from the window. “Do you have them?”

“I have them both, sir.”

“Let’s have the report on the strikes first, get it out of the way. The other one...” He shook his head. “That’ll be like hiding from a hurricane in a cellar. We’ll have to dig the cellar first, so to speak...”

Sullivan wondered what he meant by that cellar remark, but he let it go. “The strikes—they’re still going on at the Kentucky mines and the Mississippi refinery.”

The Great Man grimaced. His shoulders, angularly padded in the current style, slumped ever so slightly. “We’ve got to be tougher about this, Sullivan. For the country’s good, as well as our own.”

“Sir—I have sent in strikebreakers. I have sent Pinkerton men to get names on the strike leaders, see if we can... get something on them. But—these people are persistent. A hard-nosed bunch.”

“Have you been out there in person? Did you go to Kentucky—or Mississippi, Chief? Hm? You need not await permission from me to take personal action—not on this! Unions... they had their own little army in Russia—they called them Workers Militias. Do you know who these strikers are? They are agents of the Reds, Sullivan! Soviet agents! And what is it they demand? Why, better wages and work conditions. What is that but Socialism? Leeches. I had no need of unions! I made my own way.”

Sullivan knew that the Great Man had the benefit of luck— he’d struck oil, as a young man—but it was true he’d invested brilliantly.

“I’ll... see to them myself, sir.”

The Great Man reached out and touched the glass wall, remembering. “I came here from Russia as a boy—the Bolshies had just taken the place over... We barely got out alive. I won’t see that sickness spread.”

“No sir.”

“And—the other report? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Both cities are almost entirely destroyed. One bomb apiece.”

The Great Man shook his head in wonder. “Just one bomb— for a whole city...”

Sullivan stepped closer, opened one of the envelopes, handed over the photographs. The Great Man held the glossy photographs to the window so he could make them out in the twinkling light of the skyline. They were fairly sharp black-and-white snaps of the devastation of Hiroshima, mostly seen from the air. The city lights were caught on their glossy surface, as if somehow the thrusting boldness of the New York skyline had itself destroyed Hiroshima.

“Our man in the State Department smuggled this out for us,” Sullivan went on. “Some in the target cities were... atomized. Blown to bits. Hundreds of thousands dead or dying in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A great many more dying from...” He read aloud from one of the reports he’d brought. “ ‘Flash burns, radiation burns and trauma... It is expected that an equal amount will be dead of radiation sickness and possibly cancer in another twelve months or so.’”

“Cancer? Caused by this weapon?”

“Yes sir. It’s not yet confirmed, but—based on past experiments... they say it’s likely.”

“I see. Are we indeed certain the Soviets are developing such weapons?”

“They’re working on it.”

The Great Man snorted ruefully. “Two gigantic empires, two great octopi struggling with one another—and equipped with monstrous weapons. Just one bomb to destroy an entire city! These bombs will only get bigger, and more powerful. What do you suppose will happen, in time, Sullivan?”

“Atomic war is what some are saying.”

“I feel certain of it! They’ll destroy us all! Still... there is another possibility. For some of us.” “Yes sir?”

“I despise what this civilization is becoming, Sullivan. First the Bolsheviks and then—Roosevelt. Truman, carrying on much of what Roosevelt began. Little men on the backs of great ones. It will only stop when real men stand up and say ‘no more’!”

Sullivan nodded, shivering. At times the Great Man could convey the power of his inner conviction, almost like a lightning rod transmitting a mighty burst of electricity. There was an undeniable power around him...

After a moment the Great Man looked curiously at Sullivan, as if wondering how much he could be trusted. At last his employer said, “My mind is made up, Sullivan. I shall move ahead on a project I was toying with. It will no longer be a toy—it will be a glorious reality. It entails great risk—but it must be done. And you may as well know now: it will take, perhaps, every penny I have to make it happen...”

Sullivan blinked. Every penny? What extreme was his boss going to now?

The Great Man chuckled, evidently enjoying Sullivan’s astonishment. “Oh yes! At first it was an experiment. Little more than a hypothesis—a game. I already have the drawings for a smaller version—but it could be bigger. Much bigger! It is the solution to a gigantic problem...”

“The union problem?” Sullivan asked, puzzled.

“No—well, yes, in the long run. Unions too! But I was thinking of a more pressing problem: the potential destruction of civilization! The problem, Sullivan, is the inevitability of Atomic war. That inevitability calls for a gigantic solution. I’ve sent out explorers—and I’ve picked the spot. But I wasn’t sure I would ever give it the go-ahead. Not until today.” He peered again at the photos of the devastation, turning them to catch the light better. “Not until this. We can escape, you and I—and certain others. We can escape from the mutual destruction of the mad little men who scuttle about the halls of government power. We are going to build a new world in the one place these madmen cannot touch...”

“Yes sir.” Sullivan decided not to ask for an explanation. Better to just hope that whatever overblown scheme the Great Man was caught up in, he’d drop it, in the end, when he faced the full cost. “Anything more, sir? I mean—tonight? If I’m going to break up those strikes, I’d better leave early in the morning...”

“Yes, yes go and get some rest. But there’ll be no rest for me tonight. I must plan...”

So saying, Andrew Ryan turned away from the window, crossed the room—and tossed the photos aside. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki skidded across the glass-topped desk.

* * *

Left alone in the shadowy office, Ryan slumped in the padded leather desk chair and reached for the telephone. It was time to call Simon Wales, give him the go-ahead for the next stage.

But his hand hovered over the phone—and then withdrew, trembling. He needed to calm himself before calling Wales. Something he’d said to Sullivan had sparked a painful, harshly vivid memory. “I came here from Russia as a boy in 1918—the Bolshies had just taken the place over... We barely got out alive...”

Andrew Ryan wasn’t his name, not then. Since coming to the USA he’d Americanized his name. His real name was Andrei Rianofski...

Andrei and his father are standing at the windswept train station, shivering in the cold. It is early morning, and both of them are staring down the tracks. His father, heavily bearded, his lined face grim, is holding their single bag in his left hand. His large right hand is resting on young Andrei’s shoulder.

The dawn sky, the colors of a deep bruise, is closed by clouds; the cutting wind is serrated by sleet. A few other travelers, huddled in long dark coats, stand in a group farther down the platform. They seem worried, though a woman with a round red face, her head in a fur wrap, is smiling, talking softly to cheer them up. Beside the door to the station, an old man in a tattered coat and fur hat tends a steaming samovar. Andrei wishes they could afford some of the old man’s hot tea.

Andrei listens to the wind hiss along the concrete platform and wonders why his father stands so far from the others. But he guesses the reason. Some from their village, on the outskirts of Minsk, know that father was against the Communists, that he spoke up against the Reds. Now many who’d once been their friends were beginning to denounce all such “betrayers of the People’s Revolution”...

His father had word from the priest the night before that the purge was to begin today. They were first in line when the station opened, Father and Andrei, purchasing a ticket to Constantinople. Father carries traveling papers, permissions to purchase Turkish rugs and other goods for import. The papers might be good enough to get them out of Russia...

Father fiddles with the money in his pocket he’d brought to bribe customs officials. They will probably need it all.

His father’s breath steams in the air... the train steams as it approaches, a big dark shape hulking toward them through the grayness, a single lantern above the cowcatcher projecting a rain-scratched cone into the mist.

Andrei glances toward the other travelers—and sees another man approaching. “Father,” Andrei whispers, in Russian, turning to look at a tall lean man in a long green coat with red epaulets, a black hat, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Is that man one of the Red Guard?”

“Andrei.” His father grips his shoulder, brusquely turns him so that he looks away from the soldier. “Don’t look at him.”

“Pyotr? Pyotr Rianofski!”

They turn to see his father’s cousin Dmetri standing with his arm around his wife, Vasilisa, a stocky, pale, blond woman in a yellow scarf, her nose red with the cold. She rubs wetness from her nose and looks at Andrei’s father imploringly.

“Please, Pyotr,” she whispers to Andrei’s father. “We have no more money. If you pay the soldiers...”

Dmetri licks his lips. “They are looking for us, Pyotr. Because I spoke at the meeting yesterday. We have train tickets, but nothing more. Not a ruble left! Perhaps a bribe will make them let us go.”

“Dmetri, Vasilisa—if I could help, I would. But we will need every kopek! I have to think of this boy. We have to pay our way to... our destination. A long journey.”

The train chugs into the station, looming up rather suddenly, reeking of coal smoke, making Andrei jump a little as the engine furiously sprays steam.

“Please,” Vasilisa says, wringing her hands. The militiaman is looking toward them... and another Red guardsman and then a third step onto the platform from the station door, all of them carrying rifles.

The train is grinding slowly past. It slows, but to Andrei it seems it will never completely stop. The militiaman is calling out to Cousin Dmetri, his voice a bark. “You! We wish to speak to you!” He takes his rifle off his shoulder.

“Dmetri,” Father hisses. “Keep your peace—do not make a sound!”

The train is still shuddering as it finally stops, and Andrei feels his father’s hand clamping the back of his neck—feels himself propelled up the metal stairs, onto the train. He almost falls on his face. His father clambers on after him.

They bang through a door into a smoky car, the windows greasy and steam-coated. They find a seat on the wooden benches, and, as father hands the scowling conductor their tickets, Andrei wipes the window enough to see Dmetri and Vasilisa talking to the militiamen. Vasilisa is weeping, waving her arms. Dmetri is standing stiffly, shaking his head, pushing his wife behind him.

The discussion goes on, as the armed men frown at the travel papers.

“Andrei,” Father mutters. “Don’t look...”

But Andrei cannot look away. The tall militiaman tucks Dmetri’s papers away somewhere and then gestures with his rifle.

Dmetri shakes his head, waving his train tickets. The train shudders, a whistle blasts...

Vasilisa tries to pull him toward the train. The soldiers wave their guns. Andrei remembers Dmetri coming to the feast for his tenth birthday, smiling, bringing with him a wooden saber carved as a gift.

The train whistle screams. The guards shout. One of them jabs at Vasilisa with his rifle, knocking her to her knees. Dmetri’s face goes white as he grabs at the rifle barrel—the man turns it toward him and fires.

The train lurches into motion—as Dmetri stumbles back. “Oh, Father!” Andrei cries out.

“Look away, boy!”

But Andrei can’t look away. He sees Vasilisa flailing at the soldiers, weeping—and two more guns fire. She spins and goes down in a heap atop Dmetri. The two of them lie there, dying together on the platform, as the steam from the train cloaks them, and the past cloaks them too. The train, like time, moving away...

Andrew Ryan shook his head. “Workers Militia,” he muttered bitterly now. “A revolution for the poor. To save us all... for a cold death on a train platform.”

And that had been just the beginning. He’d seen far worse things traveling with his father.

Ryan shook his head and looked at the pictures of Hiroshima. Madness, but no worse than the devastation of Socialism.

His dream had always been to build something that would survive anything the little madmen could throw at him.

If only Father could be there to see it rise from the shadows, magnificent, unafraid, a fortress dedicated to freedom.

Rapture.

PART ONE

The First Age of Rapture

The parasite hates three things: free markets, free will, and free men.

—Andrew Ryan

1

Park Avenue, New York City

1946

Almost a year later...

Bill McDonagh was riding an elevator up to the top of the Andrew Ryan Arms—but he felt like he was sinking under the sea. He was toting a box of pipe fittings in one hand, tool kit in the other. He’d been sent so hastily by the maintenance manager he didn’t even have the bloody name of his customer. But his mind was on earlier doings in another building, a small office building in lower Manhattan. He’d taken the morning off from his plumbing business to interview for an assistant engineer job. The pay would start low, but the job would take him in a more ambitious direction. They had looked at him with only the faintest interest when he’d walked into the Feeben, Leiber, and Quiffe Engineering Firm. The two interviewers were a couple of snotty wankers—one of them was Feeben Junior. They seemed bored by the time they called him in, and their faint flicker of interest evaporated completely when he started talking about his background. He had done his best to speak in American phraseology, to suppress his accent. But he knew it slipped out. They were looking for some snappy young chap out of New York University, not a cockney blighter who’d worked his way through the East London School of Engineering and Mechanical Vocation.

Bill heard them say it, through the door, after they’d dismissed him: “Another limey grease monkey...”

All right then. So he was a grease monkey. Just a mechanic and, lately, a freelance plumbing contractor. A dirty little job screwin’ pipes for the nobs. Heading up to some rich bloke’s penthouse. There was no shame in it.

But there wasn’t much money in it either, working on assignment for Chinowski’s Maintenance. It’d be a long time before he could save up enough to start a big contracting outfit of his own. He had a couple of lads hired on, from time to time, but not the big contracting and engineering company he’d always envisioned. And Mary Louise had made it clear as polished glass she was not really interested in marrying a glorified plumber.

“I had enough of fellas that think they’re the cat’s meow because they can fix the terlet,” she said. A pretty girl from the Bronx was Mary Louise Fensen and raring to go. But not terribly bright, after all. Probably drive him barmy anyway.

The moment he’d got home the phone rang, Bud Chinowski, barking about getting his ass to an address in Manhattan, on Park Avenue. Their building maintenance was AWOL— probably drunk somewhere—and the Bigshot at the penthouse needed plumbers “fast as you can drag your lazy ass over there. We’ve got three bathrooms to finish installing. Get those witless wrench-jockeys of yours over there too.”

He’d called Roy Phinn and Pablo Navarro to go on ahead of him. Then he’d changed out of the ill-fitting suit, into the gray, grease-stained coveralls. “Limey grease monkey...” he’d murmured, buttoning up.

And here he was, wishing he’d taken time for a cigarette before coming—he couldn’t smoke in a posh flat like this without permission. He stepped glumly out of the elevator, into an antechamber to the penthouse, his toolbox clanking at his side. The little wood-paneled room was scarcely bigger than the elevator. An artfully paneled mahogany door with a brass knob, embossed with an eagle, was its only feature—besides a small metal grid next to the door. He tried the knob. Locked. He shrugged, and knocked on the door. Waiting, he started to feel a little claustrophobic.

“‘Ello?” he called. “Plumbin’ contractor! From Chinowski’s! ‘Ello!” Don’t drop your Hs, you bastard, he told himself. “Hel-lo!”

A crackling sound, and a low, forceful voice emanated from the grid. “That the other plumber, is it?”

“Uh...” He bent and spoke briskly into the grid. “It is, sir!”

“No need to shout into the intercom!”

The door clicked within itself—and to Bill’s amazement it didn’t swing inward but slid into the wall up to the knob. He saw there was a metal runner in the floor and, at the edge of the door, a band of steel. It was wood on the outside, steel inside. Like this man was worried someone might try to fire a bullet through it.

No one was visible on the other side of the open doorway. He saw another hallway, carpeted, with some rather fine old paintings, one of which might be by a Dutch master, if he remembered anything from his trips to the British Museum. A Tiffany lamp stood on an inlaid table, glowing like a gem.

This toff’s got plenty of the ready, Bill thought.

He walked down the hall, into a large, plush sitting room: luxurious sofas, a big unlit fireplace, more choice paintings and fine lamps. A grand piano, its wood polished almost mirrorlike, stood in a corner. On an intricately carved table was an enormous display of fresh flowers in an antique Chinese jade vase. He’d never seen flowers like them before. And the decorations on the tables...

He was staring at a lamp that appeared to be a gold sculpture of a satyr chasing an underdressed young woman when a voice spoke sharply to his right. “The other two are already at work in the back... The main bathroom’s through here.” Bill turned and saw a gent in the archway to the next room already turning away from him. The man wore a gray suit, his dark hair oiled back. Must be the butler. Bill could hear the other two lads, faintly, in the back of the place, arguing about fittings.

Bill went through the archway as the man in the suit answered a chiming gold and ivory telephone on a table in front of a big window displaying the heroic spires of Manhattan. Opposite the window was a mural, done in the sweeping modern-industrial style, of burly men building a tower that rose up out of the sea. Overseeing the workers in the mural was a slim dark-haired man with blueprints in his hand.

Bill looked for the WC, saw a hallway with a gleaming steel and white-tile bathroom at its end.

That’s my destination, Bill thought bitterly. The crapper. A fine crapper it might be, one of three. My destiny is to keep their WCs in working order.

Then he caught himself. No self-pity, now, Bill McDonagh. Play the cards you’re dealt, the way your Da taught you.

Bill started toward the door to the bathroom hall, but his attention was caught by the half-whispered urgency of the man’s voice as he growled at the telephone.

“Eisley, you will not make excuses! If you cannot deal with these people I will find someone who has the courage! I’ll find someone brave enough to scare away this pack of hungry dogs! They will not find my campfire undefended!”

The voice’s stridency caught Bill’s attention—but something else about it stirred him too. He’d heard that distinctive voice before. Maybe in a newsreel?

Bill paused at the door to the hall and had a quick look at the man pressing the phone to his ear. It was the man in the mural— the one holding the blueprint: a straight-backed man, maybe early forties, medium height, two thin, crisply straight strokes of mustache matched by the dark strokes of his eyebrows, a prominent cleft chin. He even wore a suit nearly identical to the one in the painting. And that strong, intense face—it was a face Bill knew from the newspapers. He’d seen his name over the front door of this very edifice. It never occurred to him that Andrew Ryan might actually live here. The tycoon owned a significant chunk of America’s coal, its second biggest railroad, and Ryan Oil. He’d always pictured a man like that whiling the days away playing golf on a country estate.

“Taxes are theft, Eisley! What? No, no need—I fired her. I’ve got a new secretary starting today—I’m elevating someone in reception. Elaine something. No, I don’t want anyone from accounting, that’s the whole problem, people like that are too interested in my money, they have no discretion! Sometimes I wonder if there’s anyone I can trust. Well they’ll get not a penny out of me more than absolutely necessary, and if you can’t see to it I’ll find a lawyer who can!”

Ryan slammed the phone down—and Bill hurried on to the bathroom.

Bill found the toilet in place but not quite hooked up: an ordinary Standard toilet, no gold seat on it. Looked like it needed proper pipe fittings, mostly. Seemed a waste of time to send three men out for this, but these posh types liked everything done yesterday.

He was aware, as he worked, that Ryan was pacing back and forth in the room outside the hall to the bathroom, occasionally muttering to himself.

Bill was kneeling to one side of the toilet, using a spanner to tighten a pipe joint, when he became aware of a looming presence. He looked up to see Andrew Ryan standing near him.

“Didn’t intend to startle you.” Ryan flashed his teeth in the barest smile and went on, “Just curious how you’re getting along.”

Bill was surprised at this familiarity from a man so above him—and by the change in tone. Ryan had been blaring angrily into the phone but minutes before. Now he seemed calm, his eyes glittering with curiosity.

“Getting on with it, sir. Soon have it done.”

“Is that a brass fitting you’re putting in there? I think the other two were using tin.”

“Well, I’ll be sure they didn’t, sir,” said Bill, beginning not to care what impression he made. “Don’t want to be bailing out your loo once a fortnight. Tin’s not reliable, like. If it’s the price you’re worried about, I’ll pick up the cost of the brass, so not to worry, squire...”

“And why would you do that?”

“Well, Mr. Ryan, no man bails water out of privies built by Bill McDonagh.”

Ryan looked at him with narrowed eyes, rubbing his chin. Bill shrugged and focused on the pipes, feeling strangely disconcerted. He could almost feel the heat from the intensity of Ryan’s personality. He could smell his cologne, pricey and subtle.

“There you are,” Bill said, tightening with the wrench one last time for good luck. “Right as the mail. These pipes, anyhow.”

“Do you mean the job’s done?”

“I’ll see how the lads are getting on, but I’d guess it’s very nearly done, sir.”

He expected Ryan to wander back to his own work, but the tycoon remained, watching as Bill started the water flow, checked it for integrity, and cleaned up his tools and leftover materials. He took the receipt book from his pocket, scribbled out the cost. There’d been no time for an estimate, so he had a free hand. He wished he were the sort to pad the bill, since he gave a percentage to Chinowski and Ryan was rich, but he wasn’t made that way.

“Really!” Ryan said, looking at the bill, eyebrows raised.

Bill just waited. Strange that Andrew Ryan—one of the richest, most powerful men in America—was personally involved in dealing with a plumber, scrutinizing a minor bill. But Ryan stood there, looking first at the bill, then at him.

“This is quite reasonable,” Ryan said at last. “You might have stretched your time, inflated the bill. People assume they can take advantage of wealthy men.”

Bill was mildly insulted. “I believe in being paid, sir, even being paid well—but only for the work I do.”

Again that flicker of a smile, there and gone. The keen, searching gaze. “I can see I’ve struck a nerve,” Ryan said, “because you’re a man like me! A man of pride and capability who knows who he is.”

A long, appraising look. Then Ryan turned on his heel and strode out.

Bill shrugged, gathered up the rest of his things, and returned to the mural room, expecting to see some Ryan underling awaiting him with a check. But it was Ryan, holding the check out to him.

“Thank you, sir.” Bill took it, tucked it into a pocket, nodded to the man—was he mad, staring at him like that?—and started hastily for the front door.

He’d just gotten to the sitting room when Ryan called to him from the archway. “Mind if I ask you a question?”

Bill paused. Hoping it didn’t turn out that Andrew Ryan was a poof. He’d had enough of upper-class poofs trying to pick him up.

“Where do you think a man’s rights should end?” Ryan asked.

“His rights, sir?” A philosophical question asked of a plumbing contractor? The old toff really was mad. McDonagh humored him. “Rights are rights. That’s like asking which fingers a man should do without. I need all ten, me.”

“I like that. Now—just suppose you lose one or two fingers? What would you do? You’d think yourself unable to work, and you’d have a right to a handout, as it were, eh?”

Bill hefted the toolbox as he considered. “No. I’d find something to do, with eight fingers. Or four. Make my own way. I’d like to be able to use my talents more—that’s right enough. But I don’t take handouts.”

“And what talents are those? Not that I discount a gift for plumbing. But—is that what you mean?”

“No sir. Not as such. I’m by way of being an engineer. In a simple way, mind. Could be I’ll start me own... my own ... building operation. Not so young anymore, but still—I see things in my mind I’d like to build...” He broke off, embarrassed at being so personal with this man. But there was something about Ryan that made you want to open up and talk.

“You’re British. Not one of the... the gentry types, certainly.”

“Right as rain, sir.” Bill wondered if he’d get the brush-off now. There was a touch of defensiveness when he added, “Grew up ‘round Cheapside, like.”

Ryan chuckled dryly. “You’re touchy about your origins. I know the feeling. I too am an immigrant. I was very young when I came here from Russia. I have learned to control my speech—reinvented myself. A man must make of his life a ladder that he never ceases to climb—if you’re not rising, you are slipping down the rungs, my friend.

“But by ascending,” Ryan went on, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and taking a pensive turn about the room, “one makes one’s own class, do you see? Eh? One classes oneself!”

Bill had been about to make his excuses and walk out— but that stopped him. Ryan had articulated something he fiercely believed.

“Couldn’t agree more, sir!” Bill blurted. “That’s why I’ve come to the USA. Anyone can rise up, here. Right to the top!”

Ryan grunted skeptically. “Yes, and no. There are some who don’t have the stuff. But it’s not the ‘class’ or race or creed that they were born into that decides it. It’s something inside a man. And that’s something you have. You’re a true mugwump, a real individual. We’ll talk again, you and I...”

Bill nodded good-bye, not believing for a second that they’d speak again. He figured a rich bloke took it into his mind to have a natter with “the little people,” patronizing a chap to prove to themselves how fair and kindly they could be.

He headed to check on Pablo and Roy before he made his way to the lobby and went about his business. This had been an interesting encounter—it’d be a story to tell in the pub, though no one would likely believe him. Andrew Ryan? Who else did you hobnob with—Howard Hughes? Yer ol’ pal William Randolph Hearst?

Bill McDonagh’s head was only moderately sore the next morning, and he answered his flat’s clangorous telephone readily enough, hoping for work. A good sweat always cleared his head.

“This Bill McDonagh?” said a gruff, unfamiliar voice.

“Right enough.” “My name’s Sullivan. Head of Security for Andrew Ryan.”

“Security? What’s ’e say I’ve done, then? Look here, mate, I’m no crook—”

“No no, it’s nothing like that—he just set me to find you. Chinowski didn’t want to give up the number. Claimed he lost it. Tried taking the job himself. I had to get it from our friends at the phone company.”

“What job?”

“Why, if you want it, Andrew Ryan’s offering you a job as his new building engineer... Starting immediately.”

2

The Docks, New York City

1946

Sullivan sometimes wished he were back working the Meatball Beat in Little Italy. Ryan paid him well, sure, but having to dodge G-men on the docks was not his idea of a good time.

It was a bracing, misty evening, supposed to be spring but didn’t feel much like it. The waves were choppy and the gulls were huddled on the pylons with their beaks under their wings, their feathers ruffled in the cold northeast wind. Three hulking great ships were tied up at the beat-up old dock, all freighters. This was not one of the fashionable wharfs, with passenger liners and pretty girls waving hankies. Just a couple of red-faced, sour-looking salts in pea jackets tramping by, trailing cigarette smoke, boots crunching on old gull droppings.

Sullivan walked up to the gangplank of the Olympian, the largest of the three ships in the fleet Ryan had bought for his secretive North Atlantic project. He waved at the armed guard, Pinelli, huddled into a big coat on the top deck. Pinelli glanced down at him and nodded.

Ruben Greavy, head engineer for the Wales brothers, was waiting on the lower deck at the top of the gangplank. Greavy was a fussy, pinch-mouthed, bespectacled little man in a rather showy cream-colored overcoat.

Sullivan hesitated, glancing back down the dock—just making out the dark figure of the man who’d been following him. The guy in the slouch hat and trench coat was about seventy yards down the wharf, pretending to be interested in the ships creaking at their moorings. Sullivan had hoped he’d dodged the son of a bitch earlier, but there he was, lighting a pipe for a bit of realistic spycraft.

The pipe smoker had been tailing Sullivan since he’d gotten a cab at Grand Central and maybe before. There wasn’t much the guy could learn following him here. The ship was already loaded. The feds would never get an inspection warrant before it sailed at midnight. And what would they make of the prefabricated metal parts, giant pipes, and enormous pressure-resistant sheets of transparent synthetics? It was all stuff you could legitimately call “export goods.” Only it wasn’t being exported across the ocean. It was being “exported” to the bottom of the ocean.

Sullivan shook his head, thinking about the whole North Atlantic project. It was a crazy idea—but when Ryan put his mind into something, it got done. And Sullivan owed the Great Man a lot. Almost ruined him, getting kicked out of the NYPD. Shouldn’t have refused to grease those palms. They’d set him up to look like a crook, fired him, and taken away his pension. Left him with almost nothing.

Sullivan took to gambling—and then his wife ran off with the last of his dough. He’d been thinking about eating a bullet when he crossed paths with the Great Man, two years earlier...

Sullivan reached into his coat pocket for the flask—then remembered it was empty. Maybe he could get a drink from Greavy.

Sullivan waved at Greavy and climbed the gangplank. They shook hands. Greavy’s grip was soft, fingers puny in Sullivan’s big grasp.

“Sullivan.”

“Professor.”

“How many times... I’m not a professor, I have a doctorate in... never mind. You know someone’s shadowing you on the dock back there?”

“Different gumshoe this time. Probably FBI or IRS.” He turned his collar up. “Kind of chilly out here.”

“Come along, then, we’ll have a drink.”

Sullivan nodded resignedly. He knew what Greavy’s idea of a drink was. Watered brandy. Sullivan needed a double Scotch. His father had sworn by Irish whiskey, but Sullivan was a Scotch man. Sure, the black betrayal of yer heritage, it is, his pa would say. A steady liquid diet of Irish whiskey had killed the old rascal at fifty.

Greavy led him along a companionway to his cabin, which was not much warmer. Most of the little oval room that wasn’t the narrow bed was taken up by a table covered with overlapping blueprints, sketches, graphs, intricate designs. The Wales brothers’ design sometimes looked like Manhattan mated with London—but with the power of a cathedral. The designs were overly fancy for Sullivan’s taste. Maybe he’d get to like it once it was done. If it ever was...

Greavy took a bottle from under his pillow and poured them two slugs in glasses, and Sullivan eased the stuff down.

“We need to be ready for any kind of raid,” Greavy said, distractedly looking past Sullivan at the blueprints, his mind already back in the world of the Wales’s design—and, very nearly, Ryan’s new world.

Sullivan shrugged. “With any luck he’ll get the place finished before they can screw with us. The foundation’s already laid. Power’s flowing, right? Most of the stuff’s in place on the support ships. Just a few more shipments.”

Greavy snorted, surprising Sullivan by pouring himself a second drink—and irritating Sullivan by not offering him one. “You have no idea of the work. The risk. It’s enormous. It’s the very soul of innovation. And I need more men! We’re already behind schedule...”

“You’ll get some more. Ryan’s hired another man to supervise the—‘foundational work’ he calls it. Man named McDonagh. He’s going to put him on the North Atlantic project once he proves he really can be trusted.”

“McDonagh. Never heard of him—don’t tell me, he’s not another apple picked from an orange tree?”

“A what?”

“You know Ryan, he has his own notions of picking men. Sometimes they’re remarkable, and well, sometimes they’re— strange.” He cleared his throat.

Sullivan scowled. “Like me?”

“No, no, no...”

Meaning yes, yes, yes. But it was true: Ryan had a way of recruiting black sheep, people who showed great potential but needed that extra chance. They all had a spirit of independence, were disillusioned with the status quo—and sometimes willing to skirt the law.

“The problem,” Sullivan said, “is that the government thinks Ryan is hiding something because he’s trying to keep people from finding out where these shipments are going and what they’re for... and he is hiding something. But not what they think.”

Greavy went to the blueprints, shuffling through them with one hand, his eyes gleaming behind his thick spectacles. “The strategic value of such a construction is significant, in a world where we’re likely to go toe-to-toe with the Soviets— and Mr. Ryan doesn’t want any outsiders going down there to report on what he’s building. He wants to run things his way, ’specially once it’s set up. Without interference. That’s the whole point! Or to be more accurate—he wants to set it up to run itself. To let the laissez-faire principle free. He figures if governments know about it, they’ll infiltrate. And then there’s the union types, Communist organizers... suppose they were to worm their way in? The best way to keep people like that out is to keep it completely secret from them. Another thing—Ryan doesn’t want any outsiders to know about some of the new technology... You’d be amazed at what he’s got—new inventions he could patent and make a fortune on, but he’s holding it back... for this project.”

“Where’s he getting all these new inventions?”

“Oh, he’s been recruiting people for years. Who do you think designed those new dynamos of his?”

“Well, it’s his call,” Sullivan said, looking wistfully into his empty glass. Weak brandy or not, a drink was a drink. “You’ve been working for him twice as long as I have. He don’t tell me much.”

“He likes information to be compartmentalized on this project. Keeps a secret better.”

Sullivan crossed to the porthole and peered out. Saw his shadow, out there, still clamping that pipe in his mouth. But now the G-man was pacing by the Olympian, looking the freighter up and down. “Son of a bitch’s still out there. Doesn’t seem empowered to do anything but ogle the ship.”

“I’ve got to meet the Wales brothers. You know what they’re like. Artists. All too aware of their own genius...” He frowned at the blueprints. Sullivan could see he was jealous of the Waleses. Greavy sniffed. “If there’s nothing else—I’d better get on with it. Unless there’s something else besides this new man that Ryan’s taken on?”

“Who? Oh, McDonagh? No, I’m here to confirm the time you ship out. Ryan wanted me to come down personally. He’s beginning to think they might be listening in on the telephones somehow. I’m thinking if you can leave earlier than midnight, it’d be better.”

“As soon as the captain’s back. I expect him within the hour.”

“Leave soon as you can. Maybe they’ll get a warrant after all. I don’t think they’d find anything illegal. But if Ryan wants to keep them from knowing what he’s up to, the less they see, the better.”

“Very well. But who could imagine what he’s up to? Jules Verne? Certainly not these drones at the IRS. But Sullivan, I assure you—Ryan is correct: if they knew what he really has in mind, they’d be quite worried. Particularly considering how little help he gave the Allies in the war.”

“He took no sides at all. He didn’t care for Hitler or the Japs neither.”

“Still—he showed no special loyalty to the United States. And who can blame him? Look at the wreckage the ant society made of Europe—for the second time in the century. And the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... I can’t wait to leave all that behind...” Greavy escorted Sullivan toward the door. “Ryan has every intention of creating something that will grow—and grow! First across the seabed, and then, in time, above the surface of the sea—when they’ve done such damage to themselves, these so-called nations of the earth, that they can no longer pose a threat. Until then, he is right to mistrust them. Because he is creating something that will compete with them. A whole new society. Indeed, in time a whole new world! One which will utterly replace the vile, squirming anthill humanity has become...”

New York City

1946

“Merton? Get outta my bar.”

Merton was gaping at Frank Gorland from behind the beer-stained desk of The Clanger’s smoky little office. Harv Merton was a man with a large round head and thick lips, a skinny body, and a brown turtleneck sweater. Hell, he looked like a damn turtle—but a turtle in a bowler hat. “Whatta hell ya mean, your bar?” he asked, tamping a cigarette out in a butt-filled ashtray.

“I’m the owner, ain’t I? As of tonight anyhow.”

“Whatta hell ya mean you’re the owner, Gorland?”

The man who called himself Frank Gorland smiled without humor and leaned against the frame of the closed door. “You know any expressions besides whatta hell? You’re about to sign this bar over to me, is whatta hell.” Gorland ran a hand over his bald head. Prickly, needed to shave it. He took the papers from his coat, all legal down to the last period, and dropped them on Merton’s desk. “That look familiar? You signed it.”

Merton stared at the papers, eyes widening. “That was you? Hudson Loans? Nobody told me that was—”

“A loan is a loan. What I seem to recall is, you were drunk when you signed it. Needed some money to pay off your gambling vig. A big fucking vig it was too, Merton!”

“You were there that night? I don’t remember—”

“You remember getting the money, don’t you?”

“It—it don’t count if I was drunk!”

“Merton, if there was no business done drunk in this town, half its business wouldn’t get done.”

“I think you put something in my drink, that’s what I think; the next day I felt—”

“Stop whining; you cashed the check, didn’t you? You got the loan, couldn’t pay the interest, time’s up—now this place is mine! It’s all there in black and white! This dump was your collateral!”

“Look, Mr. Gorland...” Merton licked his thick lips. “Don’t think I disrespect you. I know you’ve hustled—uh, worked your way to a good thing, this end of town. But you can’t just take a man’s bidness...”

“No? My attorneys can. They’ll come after you hammer and tongs, pal.” He grinned. “Hammer, Tongs, and Klein, attorneys at law!”

Merton seemed to shrivel in his seat. “Okay, okay, whatta ya want from me?”

“Not what I want—what I’m taking. I told you, I want the bar. I own a bookkeeping operation. I own a drugstore. But—I don’t have a bar! And I like The Clanger. Lots of dirt on the fights, what with the boxin’ setup and all. Might be useful... Now you call that fat-ass bartender of yours in here, tell him he’s gotta new boss...”

Gorland. Barris. Wiston. Moskowitz. Wang. Just some of the names he’d had the last few years. His own name, quite another Frank, seemed like it belonged to somebody else.

Keep ’em guessing, that was his way.

The Clanger wasn’t just a cash cow—it was the place for Frank Gorland to hear the right conversations. It was just a short walk from the docks—but it was not just a nautical bar. There was a big boxing bell on the wall behind the bar; when they tapped a new keg, the bell was loudly clanged and the beer lovers came running, sometimes from down the street. Best German-style brew in New York City. The walls of the dusty, cavelike bar were decorated with worn-out boxing gloves, frayed ropes from rings, black-and-white photos of old-time boxers going back to John L. Sullivan. He had a bartender, an old Irish lush named Mulrooney, working down at the other end. But Gorland liked to work the bar so he could hear the talk. Good for his bookmaking action, and you never know how it might fit the next grift. When you serve a beer— cock an ear.

The talk at the crowded bar tonight was full of how Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, back from the war with a pocketful of nothing and a big tax debt, was going to defend his world heavyweight title against Billy Conn. And how the retired Jack Johnson, first Negro to win the heavyweight champ title, had died two days before in a car accident. None of which was what Gorland needed to know. But there were a couple of guys here who’d have the skinny on the up-andcomer Neil Steele versus the fading boxing-circuit bum Charlie Wriggles.

Gorland had heard a rumor that Steele might be throwing the fight, and he had a theory about how that information might pay off—way past the usual payoff. Only, Gorland needed more assurance that Steele was taking the fall...

Gorland hated bartending because it was actual physical work. A great grifter should never have to do real work. But he wiped down the bar, made small talk; he served a beer, and cocked an ear.

The jukebox was finishing a rollicking Duke Ellington number, and in the brief interval before it switched over to an Ernie “Bubbles” Whitman big-band cut, Gorland zeroed in on the conversation of the two wise guys in the white ties and pinstripes whispering over their Sambocas. He wiped at an imaginary spill on the bar, edging closer. “But can we count on Steele?” said the one some called Twitchy. He twitched his pencil-thin mustache. “Thinks he’s going to challenge the Bomber next year...”

“So let him challenge; he can lose one fight. He needs the payoff, needs it big,” said the chunkier one of the two, “Snort” Bianchi—with a snort. Bianchi scowled, seeing the bartender hanging around too nearby. “Hey bartender—there’s a broad over there trying to get a drink, how’s about you fuck off and serve ’er!”

“I’m the owner here, gents,” Gorland said, smiling. “You want to come back in here, show some respect for the establishment.” Wasn’t good to let these greasers get the upper hand.

Bianchi frowned but only shrugged.

Gorland leaned closer to the wise guys, adding in a murmur, “Psst. Maybe you better take a powder if these feds are looking for you...” He nodded toward the door where an FBI flatfoot by the name of Voss stood in his gray snap-brim and overcoat, glaring about with his piggish little eyes. He looked about as “undercover” as the Statue of Liberty.

The wise guys slipped out the back way as the federal agent made his way to the bar. He was reaching into his coat when Gorland said, “Don’t bother with the badge, Voss, I remember you.” He didn’t want badges flashed anywhere near him if he could avoid it.

Voss shrugged and dropped his hand. He leaned across the bar so he could be heard over the noise. “Word on the street is, this here’s your joint now.”

“That’s right,” Gorland said evenly. “Lock, stock, and leaky barrels.”

“What you calling yourself now? Gorland still?”

“My name’s Frank Gorland, you know that.”

“That’s not the name you had when we tried to connect you to that interstate bookmaking operation.”

“You wanta see my birth certificate?”

“Our man’s already seen it. Says maybe it was forged.”

“Yeah? But he’s not sure? Not much of an expert, if he doesn’t know for sure.”

Voss snorted. “You got that right... You going to offer me a drink or not?”

Gorland shrugged. Decided not to make a smart remark about drinking on duty. “Bourbon?”

“Good guessin’.” Gorland poured the G-man a double. “You didn’t come in here to cadge drinks.”

“You got that right too.” He took down a slug, grimaced appreciatively, and went on, “I figure you’re gonna hear stuff in a place like this. You give me something now and then—we might lay off finding out who the hell you really are.”

Gorland chuckled. But he felt a chill. He didn’t want his past poked into. “If I tip you, it’ll be because I’m a good citizen. No other reason. Anything special going on?”

Voss crooked a finger, leaned even farther across the bar. Gorland hesitated—then he leaned close. Voss spoke right in his ear. “You hear anything about some kind of big, secret project happening down at the docks? Maybe bankrolled by Andrew Ryan? North Atlantic project? Millions of bucks flowing out to sea...?”

“Nah,” Gorland said. He hadn’t heard about it—but the millions of bucks and the name Andrew Ryan got his attention. “I hear anything, Voss, I’ll tell you. What kinda deal’s he up to?”

“That’s something we don’t... something you don’t need to know.”

Gorland straightened up. “You’re killing my back, here, with this. Listen, I gotta make it look like... you know.” He’d been seen talking to the fed a little too chummily.

Voss nodded, just slightly. He understood.

“Listen, flatfoot!” Gorland shouted, as the jukebox changed records. “You won’t find out anything from me! Now charge me with something or buzz outta my place!”

Some of the customers laughed; some grinned and nodded. Voss shrugged. “You better watch your step, Gorland!” He turned and walked out. Playing his part.

Only he was going to find out, one of these days, that “Frank Gorland” wasn’t going to play along with anything the feds wanted. He’d feed them some hooey—and find out for himself what Andrew Ryan was up to. That kind of money— must be some way to tap into it...

Especially as this was Frank Gorland’s territory. He was owed.

He didn’t hear anything about Ryan for a couple of days, but one day he heard a drunk blond chippie muttering about “Mr. Fatcat Ryan... goddamn him...” as she frantically waved her empty glass at him.

“Hey wherezmuh drinkie?” demanded the blonde.

“What’ll you have, darlin’?”

“What’ll I have, he sez!” the frowsy blonde slurred, flipping a big, mussed curl out of her eyes. Her eye shadow had run from crying. She was a snub-nosed little thing but might be worth a roll in the hay. Only the last time he’d banged a drunk she’d thrown up all over him. “I’ll have a Scotch if I can’t have my man back,” she sobbed, “that’s what I’ll have! Dead, dead, dead, and no one from that Ryan crew is saying why.”

Gorland tried out his best look of sympathy. “Lost your man, didja? That’ll get you a big one on the house, sweet cakes.” He poured her a double Scotch.

“Hey, spritz some goddamn soda in there, whatya think, I’m a lush ’cause I take a free drink?”

“Soda it is, darlin’, there you go.” He waited as she drank down half of it in one gulp. The sequins were coming off the shoulder straps of her secondhand silver-blue gown, and one of her bosoms was in danger of flopping out of the décolletage. He could see a little tissue sticking up.

“I just want my Irving back,” she said, her head sagging down over the drink. Lucky the song coming on the juke was a Dorsey and Sinatra crooner, soft enough he could make her out. “Jus’ wannim back.” He absentmindedly poured a couple more drinks for the sailors at her side, their white caps cocked rakishly as they argued over bar dice and tossed money at him.

“What became of the unfortunate soul?” Gorland asked, pocketing the money and wiping the bar. “Lost at sea was he?”

She gawped at him. “How’d you know that, you a mind reader?”

Gorland winked. “A little fishy told me.”

She put a finger to one side of her nose and gave him an elaborate wink back. “So you heard about Ryan’s little fun show! My Irving shipped out with hardly a g’bye, said he had to do some kinda diving for them Ryan people. That was where he got his lettuce, see, what they call deep-sea diving. Learned it in the navy salvage. They said it’d be pennies from heaven, just a month at sea doing some kinda underwater buildin’, and—”

“Underwater building? You mean like pylons for a dock?”

“I dunno. But I tell ya, he came back the first time real spooked, wouldn’t talk about it. Said it was much as his life was worth to talk, see? But he tol’ me one thing—” She wagged a finger at him and closed one eye. “Them ships down at dock 17—they’re hidin’ something from the feds, and he was plenty scared about it! What if he was in on somethin’ criminal, not even knowin’, and he took the fall? And then I get a telegram... a little piece of paper... saying he ain’t comin’ back, accident on the job, buried at sea...” Her head wobbled on her neck; her voice was interrupted by hiccupping. “... And that’s the end of my Irving! I’m supposed to jus’ swallow that? Well, I went over to the place that hired him, Seaworthy Construction they was called—and they threw me out! Treated me like I was some kinda tramp! All I wanted was what was comin’ to me... I came out of South Jersey, and let me tell you, we get what we’re owed ’cause...”

She went on in that vein for a while, losing the Ryan thread. Then a zoot-suiter put a bebop number on the juke and started whooping it up; the noise drowned her out, and pretty soon she was cradling her head on the bar, snoring.

Gorland had one of those intuitions... that this was the door to something big.

His lush bartender came weaving in, and Gorland turned the place over, tossing over his apron, vowing inwardly to fire the bastard first chance. He had a grift to set up...

First thing Gorland noticed, coming into the sweat-reeking prep room for the fight, was that hangdog look on Steele’s face. Good.

Sitting on the rubdown table getting his gloves laced on by a black trainer, the scarred, barrel-chested boxer looked like his best friend had died and his old lady too. Gorland tucked a fiver into the Negro’s hand and tilted his head toward the door. “I’ll tie his gloves on for ’im, bud...”

The guy took the hint and beat it. Steele was looking Gorland up and down, his expression hinting he’d like to practice his punching right here. Only he didn’t know this was Frank Gorland, what with the disguise. Right now, the man the east side knew as “Frank Gorland” was going by...

“My name’s Lucio Fabrici,” Gorland said, tying Steele’s gloves nice and tight. “Bianchi sent me.”

“Bianchi? What for? I told him not an hour ago it was a done deal.” Steele showed no sign of doubting that he was talking to “Lucio Fabrici,” a mobster working with Bianchi.

“Fabrici” had gone to great lengths for this disguise. The pinstripe suit, the toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth, the spats, the toupee, the thin mustache—a high quality theatrical mustache carefully stuck on with spirit gum. But mostly it was his voice, just the right Little Italy intonation, and that carefully tuned facial expression that said, We’re pals, you and I, unless I have to kill you.

Not hard for him to pull off the character, or almost any character. Running off from the orphanage, he’d taken a job as a stage boy in a vaudeville theater—stuck it out for three years though they paid him in pennies and sausages. He’d slept on a pile of ropes backstage. But it had been worth it. He’d watched the actors, the comics—even a famous Shakespearean type who played half a dozen parts in his one-man show. Young Frank had sucked it all up like a sponge. Makeup, costumes— the works. But what most impressed him was the fact that the people in the audience believed. For a few minutes they believed this laudanum-addicted Welsh actor was Hamlet. That kind of power impressed young Frank. He’d set himself to learn it...

Judging from Steele’s reaction, he’d learned it good. “Look here, Fabrici, if Bianchi’s gonna welsh on my cut... I won’t take it! This is hard enough for me!”

“You ever hear of a triple cross, kid? Bianchi’s changed his mind!” Gorland lowered his voice, glanced to make sure the door was closed. “Bianchi doesn’t want you to throw the fight... we’ve let it out you’re throwing the fight so we can bet the other way! See? You’ll get your cut off the proceeds, and double!”

Steele’s mouth hung open. He jumped to his feet, clapped his gloved hands together. “You mean it? Say, that’s swell! I’ll knock that lug’s socks off!” Someone was pounding on the door. The audience was chanting Steele’s name...

“You do that, Steele—I hear ’em calling you... Get out