He had not known about the pouch, nor had he ever heard his father talk about anything from his past that would suddenly cause a gang of killers to show up on their doorstep. Gilbert had given her the huge sum of $240, which was all of the family savings he dared spare. It represented a fortune to Faye, and was nearly half the cost of an automobile.
The first few dollars went to purchase the train ticket to San Francisco, and then another ten was spent at the hardware store for a used Iver Johnson revolver and a box of fifty.32 S amp; W cartridges. The owner had sold tools to Grandpa for twenty years, and promised her that it worked fine, but she went behind the shop and shot two cylinders' worth of ammunition into an old stump to make sure. Grandpa had taught her how to use a shotgun, but the revolver was a lot harder to aim. It was loud and kind of scary, but she hit wood most of the time.
The stubby little gun fit snuggly in the pocket hidden in the pleats of her traveling skirt. She just knew she would see the one-eyed man again, and when she did, she was going to pretend he was that stump behind the hardware store.
Grandpa's bag had a strange mechanical implement inside. It was a bunch of metal cylinders twisted together inside a wire frame. It looked like it was part of something bigger, like an engine. The mystery object fit in the palm of her hand, and she couldn't understand what could possibly make it worth killing people over. There was a hole in the top where the other part she had lost had probably gone, and a slot in the bottom where it had to connect to something bigger. A few words had been stamped on the back! N. TESLA. 1908 WARDENCLYFFE GEO- TEL. MK. 1.
Faye listened to the radio. She knew that Tesla was the brilliant Cog inventor who had designed many incredible things, including the amazing Peace Ray that had ended the Great War, and that kept all nations at peace today. The news said that the rays had made it so that there could never be a big war again. Maybe Grandpa's device was part of a Peace Ray? The radio had always talked about those things in hushed tones. She had never seen one, but knew there were mighty fortress towers on the coasts, guarded by hundreds of soldiers and fleets of balloons. But how had Grandpa got a piece of one? All he had ever done was milk cows.
There had been one other thing in that bag, a scrap of old paper with a few words, a rough map and an address in San Francisco. She did not know who J. Pershing, B. Jones, R. Southunder, or S. Christiansen were supposed to be, but Gilbert had told her that the Presidio was some sort of army base right on the ocean.
The train pulled into the Merced station nearly twenty minutes late and Faye boarded, alone but determined.
Faye did not know exactly what she was going to do when she got to the spot on the map, but she would figure it out when she got there. She was Portuguese now, and Grandpa had always told her what brave explorers their people had been. Chicago, Illinois Jake Sullivan had slept most of the last couple of days, trying to shake his miserable cold. He still felt like death warmed over when he walked out that evening. He didn't know his way around the city, so he hailed a cab outside his hotel.
Staying in hotels had gotten to be second nature. He did not really have a home, other than a $10 a month rented room on top of a diner in Detroit. It was a place to sleep, stash some guns, his library, and served as his office, not that he'd had many regular clients lately. The money was tight for everyone, even for wives who would normally want their husbands tailed to check for mistresses. His only real work recently had been standing around intimidating the striking labor lines at the UBF factory, and J. Edgar's assignments.
Sure, there was always honest work to be had for a Heavy. Somebody like him was worth five normals on a construction crew, but that seemed too much like breaking rocks, and Sullivan had already had his fill of breaking rocks.
The cab smelled like Burma Shave. 'Where to, buddy?'
When Sullivan had a question that he couldn't answer, it tended to just stick in his craw, bugging him, gnawing away until he figured it out. Hoover had lied to him and his own agents about Delilah, and he wanted to know why. Purvis had mentioned that she had been coming into town to do a job for the mob, so that was where he would start.
'Lenny Torrio's place.'
The speakeasy was in a warehouse near the new super-dirigible station. For something that was supposed to be a secret, it sure was busy, especially on a Saturday evening. There were two dozen automobiles parked inside the fence, including some Packards and even an expensive Dusenburg, plus there were three cabs waiting to drop off at the curb ahead of his and more coming up behind. The Chicago cops knew about this place, but the upper crust needed a place to kick back.
Sullivan had traveled the country extensively since his parole. Prohibition was brutally enforced in some states, especially in the South and Midwest, and in others… not so much. It hadn't been that long ago that one Eastern governor had promised to keep his state as wet as the Atlantic Ocean. The 18th Amendment was a joke from the start, and most everyone outside Kansas knew it. It was just American nature that when some authority told you that you couldn't do something, that just made you want to do it all the more.
Sullivan was not much of a drinker by nature. Mostly because he was too cheap, and the only thing Prohibition had truly succeeded in doing was raising the price of booze. On the other hand, if somebody else was buying he was in favor of violating the Volstead Act as much as the next guy.
He followed a group of well-dressed men and women down the stairs to a large metal door. The others were far more presentable than he, the men in crisp seventy-five dollar jackets and the dames in silk dresses with their hair in tight curls. Sullivan looked a little ragged, since his good black suit had fallen through a train car, so all he had left was his old brown suit, and it had already been unfashionable when he'd bought it used for $3 the day he'd gotten out of jail. He waited his turn while they gave the password, some of the rich kids giving him the crusty eyeball.
The door opened and music spilled out. The sheiks went through the metal door and it clanged shut behind them. Sullivan waited a moment, then knocked.
A slot opened and two beady eyes scoped him. 'Password?'
'I need to talk to Mr. Torrio.'
The eyes looked him over suspiciously. 'You the law?'
'Do I look like the law?'
Apparently. 'We got a dress code.' The bar slid back into place.
Sullivan just shook his head. He waited a moment, and then knocked again, harder this time. The slot opened. 'Password?'
Sullivan stuck a gold eagle through the hole. 'Tell Mr. Torrio that Sullivan from the First Volunteer needs a minute of his time.'
The goon grumbled as he closed the peep. Sullivan pulled out his pack of smokes and settled down to wait. He had one on his lips when he remembered what the blonde, most likely a Mender, had said on the stolen dirigible. She'd certainly got the part about picking up a cold right. These things were supposed to be good for you, but Healers could see your insides… He frowned and put the cigarette back.
Maybe that was why he was so spun up about this case. There were enough magicals around nowadays that you were bound to have some in gangs. With the times being so tough, there were four times as many people making a living from crime as there were from carpentry, so you were bound to have Actives in there too. They had to make a buck, just like everybody else.
But this crew that picked up Delilah had been different. They weren't just magical. They had all been hardcore Actives. The German had shadow-walked while being tossed around when every other Fade he knew could barely pull it off taking their time without getting stuck in the wall. The Mouth and the Mover had been better at their Powers than any other he'd met. And the way the blonde had diagnosed him, she had to have been some sort of Healer, and those were so rare they were worth their weight in gold. Even a weak Passive Healer could write their own ticket, so it didn't make any sense to have one slumming around in a gang.
Sullivan's thoughts were interrupted when the door flew open. There were two burly toughs there. One leveled a Remington Model 8 rifle at his chest. The other had a Winchester pump and stuck it against his nose. Jake slowly raised his hands. 'Bad time? I can come back later.'
'Mr. Torrio says he knew three Sullivans in the Volunteers,' the one with the shotgun said. 'Which one is you?'
'Well, I ain't the dead one. So I guess I'm the pretty one,' Sullivan answered. The goon pumped a round into the shotgun's chamber for emphasis. 'Jake… Sergeant Jake Sullivan. The one that saved Lenny's sorry ass at
