Ghosts of Manhattan (12 page)

Celeste took aim again, and this time she was ready for the noise. Gabriel watched her out of the corner of his eye, saw the look of intense concentration on her face. He tried to hold the car steady for a moment. She loosed a bullet.

For a moment, Gabriel thought that she'd missed, that her shot had gone wide or had no effect. But then he saw the driver of the other car collapse over the steering wheel, and the vehicle careened off the road at high speed, mounting the curb and hurtling directly for the park. He watched in the rearview mirror as it shot across the grass verge, through Atlas's flickering blue foot, and over a wall, rolling onto its roof and sliding, with a loud crunch, into a large stone fountain. Hot coals spilled out across the plaza, and steam was gushing out of the engine housing in long, hissing jets. He had no doubt that the people inside were dead; there was no way anyone could have survived a crash like that.

Gabriel turned to Celeste. She'd collapsed back into her seat, the gun discarded in the footwell, and she was weeping uncontrollably. He felt his heart break, then and there. All he wanted to do was take her somewhere, anywhere, away from all of this, to hold her in his arms and tell her she was safe. But he knew she would never be the same again. He knew that she was different, now. He remembered how it had felt to take his first life, back in the war, and how you never, ever recovered from the experience. He'd tried to shield her from that, to stop her from being damaged, like him. He knew that there was nothing he could say, now. Nothing he could do to make it better.

The car was losing power as they pulled into a nearby side street, rolling up to the curb. Black smoke was curling dramatically from the funnels at the rear of the vehicle. And Gabriel was smarting, from the glass fragments that were still embedded in his back, and from the gunshot wound that had scorched his leg.

He turned to Celeste, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I love you, Celeste. Whatever else, you need to believe that."

She nodded, almost imperceptibly. Mascara was streaming down her cheeks and her hair had come loose, spilling down the side of her face. Gabriel thought she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

She wiped ineffectually at her eyes with the back of her gloved hand. Then, turning her head fractionally to look at him, she whispered the words: "I'm sorry."

He knew that they carried more weight, and more meaning, than he could possibly understand.

"Come on, we need to keep moving. We don't want to be here when the police arrive. I'm taking you back to Long Island. I'm not sure you'll be safe at your own place for the time being."

She didn't argue as he clambered out of the vehicle and circled round the front to help her out of the passenger seat. He stooped to collect the discarded weapon, too, slipping it safely into his pocket.

Then, moving as quickly as they could to get away from the scene of devastation, they set off to find a taxi driver prepared to take them out to Long Island at this hour of the night.

ight. That was his time. That was when the miscreants and crooks, the monsters and the nightmare things all spilled out into the open. That was when the city needed him most, and when he felt most alive. The city breathed that life into him, at this hour; gave him energy, gave him freedom. And in turn he coursed through its network of arteries and veins, searching out the demons, purging the rotten elements like a wrathful flame. He was the spirit of vengeance.

The Ghost drifted lazily over the lip of a tall tenement building, firing his propulsion jets to give him enough lift to carry him over to another nearby roof terrace. Below, the city was stark in miniature; cars slid silently along the roads, their headlamps pooling on the black tarmac; revelers swarmed from restaurant to bar, and then back again, their voices lost on the wind.

His ankles were still smarting from the blisters they'd received a couple of nights earlier, and his other injuries-although minor-were a constant, nagging reminder of his failure to take down the moss men. Now, though, he was ready for them. When he encountered them again, things would be different. He would make short shrift of their moss-covered bodies and brass frames. But for the time being he had a task to perform. He needed to speak with someone. He was looking for Jimmy the Greek.

Jimmy the Greek was one of the lowliest, sniveling life-forms that the Ghost had ever encountered. He wasn't even Greek, but Cypriot, although that hadn't stopped the other felons he associated with from saddling him with the moniker by which he had become known. Jimmy was a minor crook, a pickpocket, a messenger boy for the mob. But more than that: he was also a snitch.

The Ghost despised everything that Jimmy stood for. The man didn't even have the decency to honor his own kind. He couldn't be trusted, not for a moment. He would just as soon turn his own mother in for a free pass, or else a hit of his favorite drug. But that fact, in itself, made him useful to the police, and even more so to the Ghost, who was prepared to go even further in his exploitation of the criminal if it meant he could get closer to the crooks that really mattered. The men he had vowed to bring down.

He'd already checked out most of Jimmy's usual haunts: the drinking place down on 12th, the whorehouse on 17th. Now, determined, the Ghost was heading over to the hovel that Jimmy called home, a small apartment in Greenwich Village. He'd been there once before, and the idea of spending any time there was repulsive to him, but he needed answers, and Jimmy was the most likely candidate to give them to him. He wanted information on the shoot-out that had gone down at the Sensation Club the previous evening: who was behind it, and what they wanted with the girl, Celeste.

He had his own ideas, of course. The presence of the moss men had to mean it was the Roman. But if he could find out who was actually there-the name of the thin man in the evening suit-it might be enough to put him on the trail of the Roman himself. And that still didn't answer the question about Celeste, and why the Roman felt the need to try to kidnap her. He couldn't believe for one minute that it was down to a sudden appreciation of her music. There was something rotten at the core of it, and he very much intended to find out what.

He touched down gently on the roof of the building, pulling the cord inside his trench coat to shut off the flames that roared from his propulsion canisters. He scanned the rooftop, the red lenses of his goggles flashing in the wan light. Just as he had expected, there was a fire escape on the roof. Jimmy the Greek kept his apartment on the third floor. It would only take a matter of moments to descend the emergency stairs down through the five intervening floors, and he knew there was less chance of being seen when coming in from the roof. He didn't want to alert Jimmy to his presence, didn't want to give him the opportunity to flee. That way, it would only get messy when he finally caught up with the snitch.

The Ghost crossed the rooftop at a swift pace and tested the door that led down into the apartment block. Locked. He thought about using his flechette gun, but then reconsidered. It wouldn't do to make too much noise. Instead, he backed up a few paces and charged the door with his shoulder, slamming into the wooden panel with all of his weight behind it. The door didn't resist, bursting open on its hinges and bashing against the interior wall. The sound reverberated down the metal stairwell. The Ghost hesitated, waiting to see if the noise would attract any attention.

A few moments later, when he was sure that the way was clear, he began his swift but cautious descent to the third floor, being careful not to miss his footing on the narrow, cramped stairwell in the darkness.

The building seemed almost deserted. He could hear the distant rumble of music coming from somewhere down below, but on many floors the lights were out and there was little or no evidence of habitation. He wondered what had driven people away, aside from the squalor. Most likely the mob. If they were operating their usual protection rackets in these parts, it was unlikely that the residents would have been able to maintain their payments. They might well have been terrorized out of their homes, or have fled to escape the beatings. Or worse.

Jimmy would have been looked after, of course. Jimmy had a hand in that sort of business, and that was exactly what made him useful.

The Ghost reached the third-floor landing. He crept forward, peering through the glass pane in the door. A light was on in the corridor, and he could see three other doors branching off from it and a stairwell at the other end. Garbage had been heaped up in front of one of the doors: discarded food wrappers, some old blankets, a child's toy. He guessed that the residents of that apartment had been gone for some time. Now it was most likely infested with rats. He shuddered at the thought. Across the hall was the door to apartment number nine. Jimmy's place.

Easing the fire escape door open, wincing as the hinges moaned, the Ghost slipped through into the corridor. Treading lightly, he paced along the hallway toward Jimmy's apartment. Then, when he was sure that there was no one else around, he rapped loudly on the wooden panel and waited for a response.

There was the sound of cursing from inside, followed by a cupboard door banging shut. What was he hiding from view? The Ghost knocked again, louder this time.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." The voice was muffled, but the Ghost smiled at the sound of it, all the same. There was no mistaking Jimmy's weasel-like tones.

A moment later the door cracked open a fraction and Jimmy's thin face peered out. He looked pale and sweaty, and his eyes were tiny pinpricks in the half-light. He was either high on something, or coming down. He wasn't pleased to see the Ghost standing on his threshold. "Aww, shit." He tried to slam the door shut, but the Ghost was too quick and managed to get a booted foot between the door and the frame.

"That's not very polite, Jimmy."

The other man looked sheepish. "Now's not a good time. It's really not. You can't come in here."

The Ghost gave him an appraising look. "Are you going to stop me, Jimmy? Do you think that's wise?"

Jimmy backed away from the door, allowing it to swing open. "Well, if you put it like that ..." He looked pained, as if he was scared that the Ghost might discover something, as if he'd been up to something nefarious that he didn't want anyone to see.

The Ghost stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him with a deliberate click. "Very wise, Jimmy. Just what I would have done, if I were you." He glanced around. He couldn't see any signs that the man had been up to anything he shouldn't have been. And if he were honest with himself, he didn't much care. Jimmy was too smalltime to be a real concern.

The Ghost wrinkled his nose. The place smelled like a cesspit. It didn't look much better, either. He couldn't understand what led a man to want to live like this. Poverty was one thing, but Jimmy worked for the mob. Perhaps he just found it comforting in some sick, twisted way.

The man himself was skinny and unshaven, and was dressed only in a pair of brown felt trousers. His hair was long and unkempt, and fell about his shoulders. His rib cage was showing through his papery skin, and his hands were describing nervous gestures in the air as he tried to work out what this man-this bizarre, terrifying manwanted in his apartment.

The Ghost decided to oblige him with an explanation. "I'm looking for some answers, Jimmy, and I think you're the man to help me out."

"Wh ... wh ... what makes you s ... s ... say that?"

"I know who your friends are." He rubbed a hand over his chin. "I know what company you like to keep."

Jimmy continued to twitch nervously. "My friends, they won't like it. They don't like what you did at the bank the other night. They think you're trouble."

"I am trouble, Jimmy. More trouble than you could ever imagine. What you need to decide is how much of that trouble do you want?"

The man was visibly shaking now. "I don't want any trouble. No trouble at all. But mister, I'm telling you, if I spill to you, those friends of mine, they'll give me trouble of their own."