Mind the Gap

Page 15

Stevie led the way with the industrial torch Cadge had nicked that morning. Leela and Bill took up the rear, also carrying lights. Jazz and Hattie stayed on either side of Harry, just in case he stumbled. More than anything, he needed to rest and recuperate, but he refused to do so —re-fused even to let them begin the process of moving to their new sanctuary—until Cadge had been seen to.
Marco and Switch had gone with Stevie to get the body. Yeah, the body. Not Cadge. It's not Cadge anymore. Just the shell he left behind. Jazz figured if she kept telling herself that, she might stop wanting to scream every time she had to be near his corpse. In the shelter, their old home, they'd managed to find a suit bag —the kind business travelers carried—and zipped him into it. The sight troubled Jazz. It might not have felt so wrong if it had been black, but the bag was a bright cobalt blue. Marco and Switch carried it between them and, though the others offered to take a turn, they re-fused to share the burden.
They passed through a stone archway at the end of the corridor and emerged on a stone-and-earth embankment. Stevie clicked off his torch, for enough light filtered down through grates above them to see perfectly well.
A river flowed beneath the streets of London, thirty feet wide and deep enough that the water churned as it sped by. Jazz stared at it in amazement, then looked around at the crumbling foundations of the walls on either side, at the newer stone supports, and above at the concrete and steel in the roof that hung above the river.
"Where the hell did this come from?" she asked.
"Didn't come from nowhere," Stevie said, staring at the water. "River came first. Y'know Fleet Street? Named it af-ter the Fleet River. Once upon a time it was aboveground, but they buried it. Must run for four or five miles under the city."
Harry stepped between them, reaching out to put one hand on Jazz's shoulder and one on Stevie's.
"True, Mr. Sharpe. The River Fleet's got a great many stories, some of them full of mystery and some of sorrow. This part of the river here used to be called the Holbourne, which meant hollow stream or some such in the old Anglo-Saxon. That's where modern Holborn originated, with the river. But like so many other pieces of London's history, the river has been buried and forgotten."
Silence descended. The kids all gathered on the river-bank. Marco and Switch set down the suit bag with Cadge's body in it.
"Take a moment, my friends," Harry said at length, his voice a rasp of emotion. "Cadge was a good lad. One of the sweetest boys, one of the kindest hearts we'll ever know. The world above might have forgotten him, but we never will."
"Never," Hattie agreed.
"Never," the others all echoed, Jazz included.
Her chest tightened and she wiped moisture from the corners of her eyes.
"We won't forget what Cadge did for us nor what was done to him."
Jazz glanced at Harry, wondering if he would cry. But instead his face was grim and cold. He did not look like the kindly old thief she had always seen him as. Just then, Harry Fowler looked dangerous.
"All right, lads," he said, and nodded.
Marco and Switch picked up the suit bag, swung it once, and launched it as far out into the river as they could. It struck the water and went under, dragged by the weight of the dead boy inside, but then bobbed up again, moving swiftly in the current.
"Where —"Jazz began, but her voice broke. She cleared her throat and looked at Harry. "Where does 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, but Gob had assured him that the target had not made them. Too busy talking into thin air, he'd said. Thing plugged in 'is ear. Looked like someone out of Star Trek.
"So what now?" Jazz said. She'd been plucking up the courage to ask for several minutes, but Stevie shot her down.
"He comes out and goes to work the same time as before, and the nick's on."
Jazz sighed. "Don't mean here, this. I mean..." Us, she wanted to say But that sounded so intimate, and she was not sure there was any intimacy present in Stevie Sharpe. There really was no reason for her to think of her and Stevie as an us. But sometimes she got the feeling that he wouldn't have minded so much, and she couldn't deny that he intrigued her.
Stevie shifted on the bench. His hand dropped on her shoulder, light as a bird's touch, and she felt the warmth of his leg against hers. Was that an answer? she wondered. She shook her head slightly and smiled ruefully. She didn't want to play games like this.
Jazz stood and stretched, walking a few paces before squatting down and picking some daisies. It was hot already, even though it was barely nine in the morning. For the first time since going underground, it felt truly good to be out again. This was a wealthy street, the houses far apart and sep-arated by this small park, and the windows she could see were too far away to bother her. She did not feel spied upon, did not feel watched, and the sky above her was almost light enough to lift her away.
She picked another flower and remembered the daisy chains her mother used to make. When she was a little girl, she'd thought they were magical, and when her mother showed her how they were done, she remembered being disappointed.
Maybe she'd make one for Stevie.
"Jazz," Stevie said.
She glanced back at him. He was looking at her with lazy, lidded eyes, trying to affect a casualness that neither of them felt. "Is he out?" Jazz asked.
"Front door's open; he's gone back in to set the alarm."
"Same again," she said. The target had done the same yesterday and the same the day before. Three days in a row meant routine. And routine meant an easy score.
Jazz looked back at the ground before her, picked an-other daisy, and stood. As she turned around, keeping her head down, she lifted her eyes to glance across the street. The house's facade was tall and imposing, three stories high with four windows on each floor, an attic window in the steeply sloping roof, and plant pots on balconies outside the first- and second-floor windows. The pots held the dried re-mains of last summer's flowers. There was a large gate in the cast-iron fence around the small garden and a set of steps up to the front door. Beside these steps, in the shadows, hid a smaller gate that must lead down to a basement access. The light stonework was darkened from years of exhaust fumes and London smog, and Jazz wondered at someone who could live somewhere so opulent without caring about its appearance.
The front door stood open, and she saw the shadow of the owner approaching from inside. He'd set the alarm, and now he had however long the delay lasted to close and lock the front door.
Jazz heard Stevie counting very quietly beside her.
Something about the man caught Jazz's attention. She should be turning away from him, she knew that —they'd seen enough to know he had his set routines—but as he emerged backward from the house and slammed the front door closed, she realized what had grabbed her.
He had a ponytail.
Plenty of people have ponytails, she thought. Her heart stut-tered. The first time she'd met the ponytailed Uncle, he'd said to her, Hello, little Jazz, you can call me Mort. She never had. When they visited her mother, she always avoided speak-ing to them, if at all possible. But over the past few weeks, when she thought back to that fateful day, she'd often won-dered whether he had been joking with her even then. Playing with her. Giving her a clue as to how their relation-ship would inevitably end.
You can call me Mort.
"What is it?" Stevie whispered.
She'd dropped the daisies and grabbed Stevie's upper arms, fingers digging in. She heard his sharp intake of breath, but she could not loosen her fists.
Turn away, she thought. If it's him, and he glances across here and sees us, it's all over. Cadge died because those people knew me. I can't have Stevie on my conscience as well.
"Jazz?" Stevie said. "You're hurting, and you're going to draw attention."
The man dug his car keys from his pocket.
Black suit, black sunglasses, like a reject from Reservoir Dogs, and it should look ridiculous, but it doesn't because I know how dan-gerous these people are.
"Jazz, for fuck's sake."
The man began to turn around, and when Jazz saw his profile she dipped her head, turned, and buried her face against Stevie's neck. She gasped, breathed in his scent, and managed to ease her hold on his biceps.
Uncle Mort, she thought, and any thoughts of revenge or retribution were swallowed by a moment of outright terror.
"Stevie," she whispered. She put her arms around his waist and held him tight, and Stevie lowered his own face against her neck and hugged her as well.
"Hey," he said. She felt his warm breath against her ear, and it gave her some comfort. He was no longer acting the part but playing it for real, and she hoped that later he did not suspect she had put this on.
She wasn't yet sure what she was going to tell him —her mind was a muddle—but she grabbed this moment as hard as she was grabbing Stevie Sharpe. She felt his dark hair mingling with hers. She let out a sob, one shuddering exhalation that shook her body.
Jazz raised her head, careful not to turn around. Stevie looked up as well. They were so close that she could not focus on his eyes.
"Has he gone?" she asked.
"Just getting into his Porsche."
"Porsche," she said. "Tacky. Yeah, tacky suits him, I guess."
"You know this guy?"
Jazz shook her head. "Not yet. Tell me when he's gone. And I mean away, completely out of the square."
She heard the motor start behind her. A horn beeped and another beeped back, and she sensed Stevie's expressions change as he smiled.
"He can't drive for shit," he said.
Jazz giggled, and it felt good. There was suddenly some-thing uniquely thrilling about being here, thirty yards away from a man who had probably spent weeks looking for her and who would likely kill her if they ever crossed paths. If she'd been on her own it would have been different, but al-though she knew Stevie would be in danger as well, they were accomplices in this deceit. Tires screeched, and Mort drove away from the girl the Uncles wanted most.