the river come out?"
The old thief reached into his pocket and came out with a * handful of coins. He shook them in his
fist and they clinked together.
"Depends what you believe. The River Fleet goes along under the city, all the way to the Thames,
and spills out there. But I figure there's another river here, and that's the Styx, Jazz girl. Runs beneath the
surface of everything, all the way to the underworld."
Harry hurled the handful of coins into the river. They plinked into the water and were gone.
"What was that for, Mr. F.?" Gob asked, wiping at his eyes.
"To pay the ferryman, lad. Always got to pay the ferryman."
Several minutes passed in relative silence, each of them saying good-bye to Cadge in their own way.
Jazz found it hard to accept that he was gone —that she would never see him again. Only hours ago he'd
been smiling shyly at her, stealing a momentary touch of her hand. But she'd seen him brutalized, seen the
broken, hollow thing that they'd made of him.
Death came swiftly. She'd seen it with her mother and now with Cadge. Before that, when she'd
been just an in-fant, her father had been taken from her just as abruptly. It was a lesson she wished she had
never had to learn.
Stevie began herding the others back into the corridor. Time for them all to see their new home, and
then the process of moving would begin. But as they moved back into the ancient cellar, heading for the
labyrinth of the forgotten Underground, Harry touched her shoulder.
"A moment, love."
Jazz watched Stevie disappear through the archway, then studied Harry's face. "What is it?"
"Curiosity, really. You've been quiet. I wondered if that meant you'll be moving on now? Many do,
you know. Some let the Crown care for them, others live on the streets. No way to live, really. I won't stop
you, of course. Godspeed and all that. But I hope you'll stay with us."
Jazz turned from him and stared at the river, watching it churn away and disappear into darkness and
stone.
"Cadge said he heard you talking, that you had big plans for me. Grand ambitions."
"You've quite a talent, there's no denying it. You're a natural. I think we could accomplish great
things together."
"Would any of those things involve hurting the men who killed Cadge?"
Harry narrowed his eyes. His face betrayed no trace of his usual smile. What she saw now was a
different man, per-haps a man he had been in his mysterious past.
"Thieving is what we do, Jazz. We steal to survive. To live. We make a life for ourselves that others
would deny us, and we do no real harm. But you have such a gift that it makes a man ambitious. It may be
possible to do better than merely survive, and I'd like to provide those opportunities for all of you. But
there's a way to do that and to hurt Mayor Bromwell and his lackeys along the way. I swore I would make
the bastards pay, and I will. To our benefit, and their detriment. And so yes, there is a role for you to play in
all of this."
The river seemed too loud in her ears. Jazz nodded.
"Then I'm not going anywhere."
Chapter Ten
finding cruel patterns
Jazz and Stevie Sharpe were sitting on an old bench beneath an oak tree in Willow Square. They
listened to the bustling sounds of rush hour around them, watched people in suits march briskly through the
small park, and purposely did not stare too long at number 23. They pretended to be young lovers, yet
though they sat close, Stevie's shoulder just avoided touching Jazz's, and his thigh was a whisker away
from com-ing into contact with hers. He sat with his arm splayed casu-ally along the back of the bench, but
his hand did not rest on her shoulder. She wished he would touch her, but it was the last thing she was going
to ask.
She turned to him and he smiled, but she knew that he was merely keeping up appearances.
The previous morning, Hattie had sat on the other side of the small park reading a trashy paperback
novel. The morning before that, Gob and Switch had been here, playing Frisbee with a stray dog they had
befriended. They'd fed it well before bringing it here, bought it a collar, brushed its matted fur, and made up
a name that it seemed to like. They said they'd had a lot of fun, and the target had even lobbed the Frisbee
back at them when it sailed out of the park and across the residential street. Harry had been concerned
about that,
| <<Previous page | |
Next page>> |