The Baron still remembered the summer of 1790. It was about five months since the Fall of Trust began. The Zombie had already made his appearance in Paris, but he’d left the Baron behind in order to hunt a Vatican bishop on the Continent. A Scottish moral philosopher, now in his final days, had invited d’Holbach to hide on his estate, and while that’d offered no more than a few months of respite, the opportunity had been gladly received.
The moral philosopher was named Adam Smith, and in his later years he’d taken an interest in what he’d labeled “political economy,” a philosophical theory explaining how the wealth of nations was born and how a political body might encourage its growth. This excursion had at first been a hobby pursued in the shadow of ethics, but over time it’d grown until it’d become Smith’s primary interest, even his obsession. He’d seen the petty struggles of mercantilism, the monopolies and cruel exploitations, the pained heartbeat of the British Empire, and in the patterns, he’d perceived how all men might be carefully led through a mixture of free market and government to promote the greater good for all.
The Baron had read a copy of Smith’s book shortly after its publication. It’d impressed him with its depth and perception, but nowadays he felt there were two inevitable flaws in it. First, it was a theory implicitly about the growing British Empire, yet it scarcely mentioned the wealth of direct conquest and colonization. Second, it failed to account for how that secular power had been multiplied or focused with the judicious application of prestige. Smith wasn’t ignorant either. By then, the London cult was already the world’s leading occult superpower, and he’d been an iconoclastic member of the inner circle before his retirement.
Better than anyone, he’d understood how cultic espionage gave momentum to existing secular authority and propped up shaky colonial claims with crucial wishes for knowledge. The British remained one step ahead of enemy resistance, and their advantage was snowballing. With every city captured and a new colonial cult forced into slavery before the barrel of a gun, London was able to spend more and more prestige on extravagant intelligence missions, thereby enabling even riskier conquests with overextended forces. Not once was this vital element even hinted at. No metaphor nodded to other cultists and said, yes, our Empire had an iron fist over the resources of others, and its grip was almost absolute.
The Baron hadn’t even known that much about the system of prestige at the time. It’d been introduced to him by way of the Fall, and while he’d instantly doubted most of its metaphysics, he’d understood most of its practical applications. He outlined his ignorance to Smith, explaining the three things he knew with certainty.
First, no wish could impede or alter man’s free will. Since the Baron didn’t believe in free will, he took this to mean that wishes couldn’t be used to harm or change other people, even indirectly. A wish could change the world, but it wasn’t itself a weapon.
Second, no wish could be made about wishes or the system of prestige, though the outcomes were always fair game. Some of history’s most important wishes had unmade the work of others during the Fall of Curses.
Third, wishes for knowledge were priced based on the gap of ignorance. The further your current state of knowledge stood from the truth you wanted to learn, the more expensive it was to purchase. This was the rule that moderated the London cult’s activities and demanded most of its prestige. This was also the rule that prevented people from simply wishing to know where the Baron had fled. Smith’s home was a terribly unlikely safe haven.
Of these rules, the first and second were always applicable, but the third rule would become obsolete during the Fall of Truth almost sixty years after this meeting, when the Apostate would gain her agelessness and all further wishes for knowledge would be banned. But around the time the Baron was seated by Smith’s death bed, the very notion of the Apostate and her Fall were beyond their imagination. They were limited by assumptions about the occult.
Coming back to the moment when the Baron laid out the bare minimum of his knowledge, Smith listened carefully and offered to explain the system of prestige in terms of his theory. The Baron was interested in seeing where Smith might find common ground between the occult and Wealth of Nations, and he waited patiently while Smith spoke:
“The fundamental economic activity of all things, occult or otherwise, is labor. Much like a farmer reaps his harvest or a glassier casts windows, a cultist collects prestige. Thus the gods offer us a selection of tasks, we labor at them for prestige, and that prestige is either spent on altering the world or traded for wealth and services.
“The fundamental mistake of cultic religion is to believe that tasks are valuable for any other reason. It’s commonly said that man imposes the gods’ good will on the world—I say nonsense! The gods’ tasks are arbitrary. Their agenda is ineffable. Mankind cannot recognize what the gods intend, nor even judge if it is good. Not that I’m advocating the heresy that some tasks are evil; I’m merely making a point of humility. We are not equipped to understand and only delude ourselves if we claim to interpret and impose the divine will on the clay of civilization.
“The whole economic structure of the occult is eerily empty of any other purpose. The tasks offered are difficult, obscure, often disgusting labors with no other reward than the prestige itself. After handing over this prestige, the gods offer to take it back in exchange for intervention, but the prices they set for their favors are excessively expensive. Cultists are scarce but prestige is scarcer, and there’s never enough to go around. The only way to ensure a useful concentration of power is to create cults, to form a company with the sole purpose of dominating a region and driving out all others. They monopolize the resource of tasks, rapidly produce and concentrate prestige at a density that allows the cult to act, usually in the interest of maintaining or expanding its dominion over the land.
“I played an important role in the development of the growing British Empire, Baron, and I regret it, because I have encouraged the worst elements of mercantilism in an environment which is naturally hostile to cooperation and well-regulated markets. Gods give tasks, tasks give prestige, prestige creates wishes, and I watched the company of my peers turn this simple exchange into a blood feud stretching across the entire globe.
“But I can’t blame them. Try how I might, the gods deserve the greater responsibility. They set the prices. Small changes cost us great volumes of labor. Baron, you aren’t wrong to distrust the occult system. It’s cruel, artificially so, and maybe more so than any other market. It’s as if the gods must entertain our desires, but they would rather not.”
The cruelty of the system could be seen in Piazzi’s stark apartment. There were indents in the carpet where furniture had settled with the weight of years. Dust traced patterns on the wallpaper; the shadows of lamps and couches cast outwards in clean lines. There was a single pot on the kitchen stove beside a wooden spoon and a tin of beans. It was barren beyond aesthetic minimalism. Piazzi had removed everything except for himself, a sleeping pad, and two guns.
Reading their open expressions, Piazzi said, “I sold it all.”
“Did you sell your dishes?” the Baron asked. “You’re eating out of a pot.”
“Eh. I sold the furniture for money, but when I saw the apartment, it felt right. I just kept going, and the pawn shop cleaned it out.”
Piazzi was in his mid-50s, with a stubble-streaked babyface and a thin patch of short greying hair—a military cut maintained since the war. He had heft to him. He wasn’t exactly out of shape, but he was large and seemed to move his gut before the rest of him followed. Only three years ago, he must’ve been fit to fight, not for the Allies but for the Italian military. The US wouldn’t have drafted someone so old. Since then, he’d stopped exercising, which made his spartan accommodations all the stranger. This wasn’t a place for an old man to relax and eat rich food. This was the home of a zealous soldier ready to deploy.
The Zombie had kicked down the door less than a minute ago, and Piazzi’s first words to him had been, “Please, don’t kill me. Not today.”
It’d only taken a moment and a shout from Lips outside to convince Piazzi that they were working with the Ozone Park Boys. After that, they’d introduced themselves as the legendary Baron and Zombie, and they’d glanced over the room and Piazzi himself, checking for any additional threats. In that brief search, the Baron had continued to feel out the gap in this scenario, like a tongue probing a lost tooth. The empty apartment stank of desperation.
“What did you need the money for?” he asked.
“Prestige,” Piazzi answered. “I was buying it from Tammany. We did this boat task on Thursday. It was a big deal and I got a big share, but I was still short a few years, and my health isn’t so good these days. After making my wish, I was stuck in the Sanctuary for six months. Before my debt was paid off.”
“We’ll need to leave soon,” the Zombie reminded the Baron.
The Baron offered Piazzi a hand. He’d been sitting on the floor when they came in. “What did you wish for?”
Piazzi smiled wanly and stood. He balanced briefly on his left foot. No difficulty there—he was still physically strong. “Look at that. This leg was lame yesterday. Couldn’t hold half my weight. Fixing it was my first wish.” He hopped once. “Good, huh?”
The Baron suppressed the urge to frown. Piazzi would’ve mistaken it for disapproval, but d’Holbach’s frustration was with Tammany Hall. Piazzi’s only wish was to heal himself, and he still hadn’t earned enough after scuttling a boat? His share must’ve been minuscule. That task was unquestionably worth many times the needed prestige. “Did you make the wish yesterday?” the Baron asked.
“Yeah, nearly got me killed. I’ve got no prestige; couldn’t dodge the men outside.”
“They were picking your lock when we arrived. Why didn’t you shoot them through the door?” Piazzi had both a Beretta and a pump-action shotgun on the floor.
“Oh!” Piazza barked once he realized what the Baron was looking at. “They wished them broken before I was anywhere near them. They knew how many I had, what I had. Some man shouted right through the door and woke me up.”
“Did you recognize any accent?”
“No. He was just loud.”
“Someone sell him that knowledge, you think?”
“I honestly don’t know, Baron. Not many people come here.”
That was deeply worrying. It suggested someone had already been watching the place long before they arrived. Someone was a full step ahead of them. There wasn’t any need to inform Piazzi however. They’d be shipping him out of town. Only one detail still needed clarification: “How’d you fire the slug anyways?”
Piazzi knelt to pick up the shotgun. “The sear and magazine spring were broken, so it was like the trigger was always pulled and the gun was unloaded. I put a shell in the ejection port and slam-fired it, like a trench-sweeper. Smart, huh? Like the Great War!”
The Baron looked meaningfully at the Zombie. The killers hadn’t disabled the shotgun in a reliable manner. Instead, they’d treated it like a rifle and attempted to cover for an incomplete disable by making sure it couldn’t load shells. However, once the magazine was effectively disengaged, most guns could be loaded through the ejection port, bypassing the problem. The person making the wish hadn’t been familiar with firearms, that much was clear. “Did both of those men seem like competent shooters to you?” he asked his partner.
“Both of them,” the Zombie agreed.
“The third man is a civilian then,” the Baron said. “He made a shitty wish to break that shotgun, and he either hired the other two or is the underling of the man who hired them.”
The Zombie nodded. “Either that or he’s an idiot.”
The Baron looked around the room. “Piazzi, we need to go. Do you want to keep any of this stuff? Anything you don’t carry, the cops will take it as evidence.”
“Do you think they’ll find me?” Piazzi asked.
“They’ll probably stop the investigation once Tammany is done talking to the NYPD. From their point of view, it’ll be a gang shootout without any bodies.”
“Yeah,” Piazzi said, “only one person would miss me anyways.”
There was something heartbreaking to hear the man admit this so readily. “Come on,” he said to Piazzi. They stepped outside, leaving everything else behind.
Lips and No-Chin were working together on the balcony to lift the dead killer. “No wallet, no ID,” No-Chin said.
Piazzi looked over the Baron’s shoulder at the corpse.
“Know him?” the Baron asked.
“Sure don’t,” Piazzi said. “I still don’t understand why they were here.”
“Wait—they didn’t say anything about what they wanted?”
Piazzi shook his head.
The Baron frowned. Why wouldn’t they ask for something? Who’d told them everything they’d needed to know. “It’s Lucci,” the Baron realized, thinking of the man that’d died earlier that morning. “They figured out everything they needed from Lucci.”
“They’re far ahead of us then,” the Zombie said.
“Not too far ahead. They just lost a man, maybe two. They’ll regroup to lick their wounds.”
“Are you talking about Bettino?” Piazzi asked.
“Yes, Bettino Lucci is dead,” the Baron said. “They were going to kill you too.”
“Fuck me,” Piazzi muttered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Did anyone else die?”
“Jacono yesterday. A man they called Dug died trying to save you a few minutes ago.”
“Marcus!” Piazzi was visibly distressed. He quickly looked over the balcony and saw the blood-stain on the road. “They fucking shot Marcus?”
Lips spat on the corpse in front of him. “This is the fucker who did it.” He started to descend the stairs with No-Chin, quickly spiralling down with the body hanging between them like a hammock.
Piazzi put a hand over his eyes and groaned. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“We really need to go,” the Zombie said. “The cops will come soon.”
“Oh, fuck me.” Piazzi took his hand away, and he was crying silently. Tears came without any other expression, and then words, just as small and freely given. “Yeah, fuck it. Let’s go. Come on. Let’s go.” He rubbed his eyes again. “Fuck me.”
The Baron started walking ahead, and the Zombie fell in line behind him. He wouldn’t dictate feelings to Piazzi either, but he did stop when he realized that Piazzi wasn’t following. “Need something before we go?” he asked the old soldier.
“No,” Piazzi said, blinking rapidly. “No. He just, uh, he used to come here a lot.”
“Is seeing his body going to bother you? They’re about to put the other man in the trunk.”
Piazzi swallowed. “Yeah, um, let me get in the car first. I’ll—I’ll ride shotgun.” He moved, then nearly ran ahead of them down the stairs. His legs were fine now. This neophyte had gotten everything he wanted from the system of prestige in less than a year, but the Baron had the painful suspicion that Piazzi wouldn’t be sharing his newfound health with anyone he cared about.
The Zombie sniffed the air, as if he smelled the mood. He didn’t make fun of Piazzi. “Blood and gunpowder. For the free world,” he whispered to the Baron, who immediately cast him a scowl. “Hey, don’t look like that. You saved Piazzi’s life.”
“For the low price of three more.” The Baron shook his head, dismayed at the exchange rate. “On top of that we’ve learned almost nothing we didn’t already know. What a bargain.”
After Piazzi sat down in the Packard, Lips and No-Chin opened the trunk and laid the killer’s corpse over Dug behind the back seat bench. There’d be blood in the carpets, but Dug’s vehicle wouldn’t see the streets after today. It’d be pulled off into some garage in a junkyard by Jamaica Bay, where four or five men with power tools and a lot of muscle would break it down and throw the incriminating parts into a trash compactor with the rest of the detritus. They shut the trunk with a slam and locked it. The suspension creaked, a full load.
The Baron sat behind the driver’s seat with the center console between him and Piazzi. No-Chin took the wheel, and the Zombie sat between the Baron and Lips on the back bench. “We should set up Piazzi’s ride out of town as soon as possible,” he said.
No-Chin started the vehicle. “We’ll drop this baby off where we can dispose of it.” He shifted into gear, pulled out onto the street, and aimed for the first alley on the right, pulling through the block and out of sight of anyone along the main street.
“What’s our alibi?” the Baron asked.
No-Chin glanced in the rearview mirror. “If any of you meet a cop asking questions, you were with the crowd at Lucci’s all morning. I’ll put a call in, they’ll spread the alibi.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” the Baron asked.
“Shoot,” No-Chin replied.
“Don’t tell stories. If you need specifics, talk about each other. I was a private investigator brought in for Lucci. The Zombie here was my partner. You didn’t catch our names, and we didn’t catch yours. It was just the neighborhood crowd, just worrying about Lucci. If they ask for details, they want you to say something incriminating. Tell them to check the police report. Plead the fifth.”
“How many witnesses were at the building?” the Zombie asked.
“Dozens, all peering out of windows,” Lips said. “Enough to pick us all out of a lineup.”
“The Zombie is right. We need to get off the streets soon,” the Baron said. “Do you have a garage where we can lock the Packard up for the week?”
No-Chin pulled out onto a quiet street. “Yeah, it’s about three blocks from here. Don’t worry, the police station is in the other direction and most patrols are on foot. We’ll make it.”
“Good.” The Baron pivoted back to the subject of interest. “Piazzi, we need a couple of pieces of information, and it’s important. The killers were there to keep us from meeting you.”
He had red streaks under his eyes. “Sure, what do you need to know?” He wasn’t questioning their motives. Showing up with members of the Ozone Park Boys had paid off. The Baron was confident that Piazzi would tell the truth.
“You were there for the scuttling of the SS John G. Paines?”
“The liberty ship? Yeah, I prepped the charges, helped wire them up. It was a goddamn disaster though. I heard gunshots, then Jacono showed up on the deck. He told me the rest were dead but me and Lucci, and Lucci was already down at the launch. I wanted to look for them, but with my lame leg—where was I going? Jacono armed the timer, we got out of Dodge.”
“Did Jacono tell you what happened?”
“He said there was a killer down below. A stone-cold murderer, worse than Jacono himself. Jacono told me the parable of the hungry tiger, you know that one?”
The Zombie laughed harshly. “You don’t have to be the fastest. You just have to be faster than your slowest friend. He used one of the others as bait.”
“He used all of the others,” Piazzi said, “and it still took him five or six minutes to finish the guy off. Jacono was cross with Barilla, about as mad as someone like him can get.”
“Federico Barilla?” the Baron asked, recalling Piazzi’s induction on the record.
“That’s him. He’s the dock boss who signed me up. Emanuele was our leader though—just some guy with contacts, but he could pull money for the job in exchange for some of the prestige. I don’t know which one of them actually convinced New York to let us scuttle the boat. Still, nobody in charge told us there’d be someone defending the task or sniping it.”
“Poor intel?” the Baron guessed.
“None. That’s what got Jacono pissed. He thought there was a reason that Barilla should’ve known. He found something down in the hold, something on the guy’s body.”
That didn’t quite sound right to the Baron’s ears, but he couldn’t identify why, and he didn’t want to interrupt Piazzi’s explanation. “Did Jacono tell you what it was or show you?”
“No. He took the evidence to Barilla. I thought he was going to kill the man.”
“And Lucci knew this?”
“Yeah, he was driving the boat, but we left Jacono at the docks that night. I think he knew as much as I did. They wanted to kill me over this stuff?”
The Baron glanced at the Zombie, who was vaguely scowling at the air. Something about this interview was rubbing him the wrong way as well, but it wasn’t clear to either of them yet what was wrong. The Baron answered Piazzi’s question to the best of his ability: “No. They must’ve broken Lucci. They got the stories, the guns—everything they needed. Killing you was just about hiding any evidence pointing to Barilla.”
The Zombie’s scowl became sharp. The Baron’s friend had come to a realization, and he didn’t like the flavor of it.
“Something wrong?” the Baron asked.
“Later,” the Zombie said curtly.
The Baron suspected that the Zombie had just figured out what was wrong with this conversation, but if he wasn’t interrupting it, then these answers were good enough. He pivoted to wrapping up the business at hand: “Piazzi, you’ll need to get out of town before lunch. Even if you didn’t see them, you’re dealing with the kind of men who don’t want any witnesses. Do you know anyone? Is there a relative you can stay with?”
“I have an old war buddy in Atlantic City,” he answered reluctantly, but he didn’t explicitly argue with the Baron. He was only implying that he wanted another solution, but implications could be steamrolled in the right setting.
“Good, the strong New York presence there will keep you safe. I’ll give you twenty dollars.” He opened up his wallet. “You stink of gunfire, so wash yourself at the garage, buy some new clothes, and be on a train in less than an hour. The NYPD will start looking for you once they’ve figured out who lived in your apartment.” He pressed a crisp bill in Piazzi’s hand and balled his hand around it into a fist. “If they catch you, assume these killers will find you.”
“Okay,” Piazzi said, a little shocked.
“You didn’t survive today to die tomorrow. Understand me?”
A memory of Dug must’ve come sweeping back like a thick wave. Piazzi was suddenly very tired. “I get it,” he said quietly. They were pulling up to a car garage at the end of the street. “Thank you.” It was an automatic thanks, but it meant the man was still functioning.
No-Chin pulled them into a dimly lit garage with men standing all around. Behind them, the door remained open. He rolled down his window and shouted, “Got a couple warm ones in the trunk. Shut her down.” Someone palmed a button, and behind them the garage door slowly shut, bringing down the light until the dim bulbs seemed bright. Before they were out of the car, they heard police sirens yowling in the distance. Cities were complex though, hard to search.
If the cops even found the bodies, it’d be long after and in a far distant place.
“Piazzi needs a cleanup,” No-Chin told a man in navy-blue overalls.
After getting out of the car, someone handed Piazzi a bar of soap and told him to strip down. They refilled batteries in this garage, and an emergency shower was set over a drain for eye and body washing. A young man with a hook nose, probably once broken, pulled the release and shouted, “Three minutes.” Naked and cold, genitals shrinking under the icy wash, Piazzi ran the soap over his body as quickly as possible, legs bouncing and muscles shivering.
“Does anyone else need a clean-up?” No-Chin asked.
“If I need it, I’ll clean myself with prestige,” the Baron said. “Zed can’t keep his jacket though.”
The Zombie removed the grey wool jacket and grinned. “Ruined already.” He folded it over twice, outside in, and handed it to No-Chin. “Too bad.”
“We’ll wash up after we clean the car,” Lips said.
“What’s the news?” asked the man in the mechanic’s overalls.
The Baron answered, “Marcus was killed, but his killer is dead. We’ve got them both in the trunk. Get someone on the line for disposal of one, funeral home for the other.”
At that command, men scattered, making calls. For the moment, this was no longer an automotive business opening early on a Sunday. It was a Cosa Nostra base of operations, phoning home for support.
The mechanic was immediately worried. “What happened?”
“Shootout a few blocks from here,” Lips said.
“Is that what that fucking was?”
“Yeah, but we got ‘em.”
“I’m a private investigator,” the Baron said, “one of the mafioso was killed yesterday across the river. I came here on a lead looking for his killers. Did you hear about Bettino Lucci?”
“Killed just this morning, I heard,” the man said.
“They were going to kill Piazzi too. Marcus died saving his life.”
“Mary, mother of Christ.” The mechanic crossed himself. “Today is a bad morning. I should’ve gone to church.” He looked at an old nickel watch. “Still time, I guess.”
The Baron briefly inspected his clothes and shoes. Clean enough, the classic appearance of a man who’d stood in the back and commanded the fight. He addressed the mafioso. “We need to talk with Federico Barilla. Is he in a safe place?”
Someone cracked open the trunk behind him. He paused. An arm flopped out, dark red smears on pale skin. Men balked. The Baron stopped breathing through his nose. The garage immediately filled with the sibling stenches of blood, urine, and shit.
“Good God,” No-Chin said.
“The smell of the battlefield!” the Zombie shouted, “Bring me horses and steel!”
A bystander moved away from the Zombie. The Baron put a hand out to quiet him down. While he understood the Zombie’s nostalgia, he didn’t share it, and a token amount of discipline would encourage the crowd’s trust. Here and now, he couldn’t afford the Zombie’s natural intimidation. At least for the next few minutes, these men were strict allies.
“What the hell?” the mechanic asked.
The Zombie laughed.
“One of them must’ve relaxed after death,” the Baron said, choosing to ignore the possibility that the mafioso was asking about the Zombie’s reaction. “You’ll want to wash them before you move them. I hate to be crass, but where is Barilla? Time is essential.” He gestured back at the dead. “His life may be in danger, and I need to see him in person.”
“He’s at his office,” the mechanic said.
The corpse was putting him off guard. Now was the time to strike for vital info. “Where?” the Baron asked. “We needed to be in a cab half an hour ago.”
“Alright,” the man said, “alright. Jesus. He’s in Red Hook somewhere, in an old Dutch factory. They made shoes or something, I don’t go there. Joey?”
The hook-nosed boy helping Piazzi wash shouted, “Clinton Wharf, in the shadow of the cruise terminal. You can see Governor’s Island, and Barilla’s name over on the door.” He shut off the water and tossed a clean cloth wipe at Piazzi. “Squeegee down,” he said.
Piazzi was shaking. “What am I, a goddamn window?”
The mechanic was gagging even as he breathed through his mouth.
“Thanks for your help,” the Baron said, “can you send us out the back?”
“These guys good to go?” the mechanic asked No-Chin.
“Yeah!” No-Chin shouted. He was pinching his nose over the killer’s corpse.
The Baron and the Zombie last saw Piazzi covering his chilled penis with a scrap of sopping, ice-cold cotton. The mechanic waved them out, and the door to the back of the garage was shut behind them, a lock dropping into place.
They were alone in a tarmac-lined alley with a rusting dumpster and scraps of newspaper dried like paper mache over the grill of a drain. One end was blocked with a high fence. The other end opened out onto a blank brick wall. Grass sprouted beneath the spouts of gutters. It was a barren and unused strip of road, abandoned to the point that ancient, fragile garbage was evenly spread over the gravel. Neither tire nor footstep had ground them down, and only the blasting gales of an autumn storm could’ve so casually strewn these plastic scraps through the narrow gap.
“I’m surprised nobody comes back here to drink themselves stupid,” the Zombie said.
“It’s too lonely for depressed people,” the Baron replied.
“When did you become an expert on depression?”
“I’m not. I just know that people go where people go.”
They walked to the end of the alley, where it junctioned into its orthogonal twin, dividing the block into four parts. Picking a direction away from the apartment building, they walked south towards the next road. The Baron glanced back at the Zombie, who was literally staring up at the rising sun with both eyes wide open. “What bothered you in the car?”
“Hmm?” the Zombie asked, with sunshine plainly reflecting off the wet whites of his eyes.
“I asked if there was something wrong, you said, ‘Later.’”
The Zombie looked down, shading his eyes beneath the brim of his bowler. “Oh, I was thinking about what Piazzi said about Jacono. The whole thing felt wrong, but I finally figured out why.”
“I had the same feeling,” the Baron said. “The man in the ship must’ve been Nagy, and Jacono must’ve killed him and taken the Cat o’ Nine Lives to Barilla the next morning. At least, that’s the only theory that fits Piazzi’s testimony. Still, Denisov will be glad to know that Nagy’s killer is dead.”
“Right, but yesterday, what did you say that Jacono knew?”
“Outside the temple? I said he knew about the Cat.” The Baron paused—that wasn’t right. “No, I said he didn’t know what the Cat was—wait.” He tried to recall exactly what thoughts Jacono had inserted into his head during their conversation in the Greenwich Temple.
“Yeah, now you’re getting it,” the Zombie said. “You said Jacono didn’t know where the Cat was, but Piazzi suggested that Jacono had taken something to Barilla.”
The Baron snapped his fingers. The exact thought was still there, finally recalled. “I asked him what the killers were looking for. He said there was an artifact called the Cat o’ Nine Lives. He hadn’t heard of it before, but his killer had expected it to be on the boat.”
“Exactly. He hadn’t heard the name, but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t found the artifact. Jacono knew everything important, but you only asked for the identity of the other survivors, and that led us here, into a shootout. Now I’m a fan of bloodshed, but if you’d only asked—”
“Wait, wait!” the Baron said.
“What?” the Zombie asked.
“Yes, you’re right. If I’d asked Jacono for more information about the Cat, he could’ve told us about Barilla, but I couldn’t ask him squat. The Greenwich Oracle was right there, taking notes. If I’d mentioned the Cat—if I’d even described the shape of it—New York would’ve raised an army before sunset.”
The Zombie frowned. “True…”
“I couldn’t risk exploring the situation beyond what Jacono volunteered, and he was playing the Cat close to his chest. Think about it. He definitely didn’t tell the killers anything.”
“Right,” the Zombie said, “so they went looking for Lucci and Piazzi. I’d wager Jacono gave those names to them yesterday?”
The Baron smiled. “Sure, to see if they’d go away, maybe save his own life. Look, my point is—I asked everything I could, and I didn’t have any reason to believe Jacono had left something out. We were that close—” the Baron pinched his fingers together “—to learning everything yesterday, but it couldn’t be done. My hands were tied by Maurice and his pen.”
The Zombie chuckled. “Well, shit.”
The Baron finished his point: “Only Lucci or Piazzi could tell us what we needed to know, and now we have a name and an address.” They reached the street. It was mostly empty, but they could see the information booth for a subway stop a few blocks west. A handful of Checker taxis were parked beside the stairway descending into the earth.
“Federico Barilla, the man who has the Cat o’ Nine Lives,” the Zombie said.
“He did on Friday,” the Baron noted, “but a lot can change in three days.”
Author’s Note:
Through strange ways, we’ve found the artifact… probably.
As always, thank you to the beta readers for helping with this chapter!
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