“It was dark,” Mr. Evans said apologetically. “But I did notice his hair.”
“What about it?” Thomas said.
“It was red. Carrot red. No—no. More like fire red.”
Thomas stiffened. Pippa felt a small thrill of excitement, and Sam looked quickly to Max.
They knew someone with fire-red hair—had just met him recently: Mr. Anderson’s nephew.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Max said, as soon as they had regained the street. She had a slight chocolate mustache above her lip.
“Oh! Have you learned to think?” Pippa said.
“Not now, Pippa,” Sam said. He turned to Max. “I’m pretty sure we’re all thinking the same thing.”
“Anderson’s nephew,” they chorused together.
Thomas blew out a long breath. “Okay,” he said. “So now we just have to track him down, and—and . . .”
“Ask whether he axed his uncle and poisoned Potts?” Max raised an eyebrow.
Sam thought of the boy’s pale face and spattering of freckles, the way he trembled and nearly keeled over when he saw his uncle on the ground. Could someone like that be a murderer?
He wasn’t sure. In gangster movies, killers almost always wore black. Reginald Anderson had worn green trousers and an orange-checkered shirt. Still, he supposed in real life murderers were just as likely to have bad taste as nonmurderers. “I don’t get it, though,” he said. “He worked for his uncle. Why kill him?”
“Maybe he wanted the business for himself,” Pippa said.
“Or maybe he made a deal with Potts.” Thomas’s face was scrunched, as it often was when he was thinking hard. “Maybe he wanted the head for himself. Maybe he was going to resell it.”
“And his uncle found out and got mad,” Sam said slowly, trying to follow Thomas’s reasoning.
“So Reggie bumped him off!” Max put in.
“And then Potts had to go,” Pippa added.
“Right.” Thomas’s eyes were shining. “It all fits.”
“But even if he did do it,” Pippa said, “he won’t just confess.”
Thomas looked at Sam. Then Max turned to look at him as well. Slowly, so did Pippa.
“What did Thomas say the other day?” Sam said, wishing his voice wouldn’t sound so squeaky. He cracked his knuckles. “We’ll just have to make him talk.”
“That’s the spirit,” Thomas said, and grinned.
The subway station at Lexington Avenue was packed with people: shoeshine boys carrying wooden boxes, families on their way to visit relatives in the distant suburb of Queens, beggars carting bags full of tin cans, and women stepping daintily around them—all of them jostling, muttering, and sweating in the dank air. Thomas worked his way through the thick knot of people, dodging elbows and ducking under briefcases, compressing himself in the negative space between couples, and Sam plunged after him, blushing and apologizing.
“Excuse me. So sorry. Didn’t see you there. Mind your toes. Excuse me.”
“Young man. Watch where you’re stepping.” An outraged woman wearing a large hat trimmed with ostrich plumes spun around to face him. The feathers on her hat whipped angrily in Sam’s face.
“I—I—I—” he stammered to apologize. But the feathers were tickling his nose, and all that came out was a gigantic sneeze. “Achoo!”
“Heathen!” she shrieked and turned around, once again treating him to a mouthful of feathers.
“Do you see a train?” Pippa called to Thomas as she struggled to circumnavigate an enormously fat man standing guard over a pile of luggage. Thomas had reached the edge of the platform and was peering into the cavernous mouth of the subway tunnel.
“I see lights,” he called back. “It shouldn’t be l—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. One second he was there on the platform, staring back at them. The next second he had vanished. It took Sam a moment to realize what had happened, and then the truth came to him on a sudden drumbeat of terror.
Thomas had fallen onto the tracks.
“Thomas!” Sam lunged forward but his long legs got tangled on the fat man’s luggage. Someone yelled. The people on the platform ping-ponged off one another and then re-formed, tighter than ever, like a vast wave dispersing and then regathering force.
“Thomas!” Pippa shrieked. She, too, was fighting to the edge of the platform. And Max—where was Max?
Then Sam heard it—a growing rumble from inside the tunnel.
A train was coming.
He forgot about being polite. He shoved forward, ignoring the outraged yelps and muttered curses of the people waiting for the train. When he reached the platform edge, he saw that Max had dropped onto the tracks, and she was trying to coax a dazed Thomas to his feet. Her face was lit white, drawn and terrified, and she looked almost unreal; in that second Sam realized that she was bathed in light—they both were—lit up like a photographic still.
Sam felt as if he were moving through oatmeal. Light—light growing—two vast points of light as big as moons.
Like a huge mechanical monster, the train was blazing down on Max and Thomas.
“Max!”
Still holding on to Thomas, Max reached up her free hand. Sam wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled. She felt like nothing, like a feather. Her face contorted in pain and she let out a cry as she was yanked onto the platform just as the train hurtled into the station, brakes screeching, horn blaring.
“Are you crazy?” she shouted, rubbing her shoulder. “You nearly tore my arm off!”
“I saved your life!” he answered. He was shaking.
Suddenly, Max’s face went white.
She had let go of Thomas.
Still on her knees, Pippa was frantically trying to peer into the three-inch gap between train and platform. Tears were streaming down her face. “Thomas!”
All around them, people were shouting. At the very front of the train, a little door flew open and the driver burst out and came running toward them.
“Oh God, oh God! I tried to stop but—”
“Wait!” cried Pippa, pressing her ear to the gap. “QUIET!”
From underneath the train came the muffled sound of someone saying, “I’m okay. Would you mind getting this train off me?”
In another instant, the driver had jumped back in his compartment and slowly driven the train out of the station. As the crowd on the platform cheered, they saw Thomas squeezed between two rails, lying as flat as he could make himself, wide-eyed, clothes spotted with grease. Alive.
“It’s a miracle,” someone shouted, as Thomas climbed to his feet carefully, wincing with every other step.
Sam was moving before he knew it. He dropped to his knees and grabbed Thomas around the wrist, lifting him onto the platform and to safety. Pippa barreled into his arms, nearly knocking him back into the tracks again.
“It’s all right, Pip. It’s all right,” Thomas said, patting Pippa awkwardly on the back.
“I thought—well, I thought—” Pippa’s voice, muffled by Thomas’s shoulder, broke.
“Let him breathe,” Sam said, laughing. His whole body was full of an electric joy. He felt he could leap down into the tracks and stop an oncoming train, if he had to. He wondered why he had not thought to try it before.
“You idiot.” Max whacked Thomas on the arm as Pippa pulled back, drying her face with her sleeve. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“You?” Thomas grinned, raising his eyebrows at Max. “You were scared?”
Instantly, she scowled. “Only a little.”
Pippa reached and gave Max’s hand a quick squeeze. “I was terrified,” she said, and Max almost—almost—smiled. Then both girls took a quick step apart, as though remembering that they hated each other.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asked, as Thomas shifted again and then immediately winced.
“I think I twisted an ankle,” Thomas said, testing it.
“You could have done much w
orse than that.” Pippa had regained her composure and was glaring at Thomas in her usual disapproving way. “What were you thinking? How could you slip onto the tracks?”
“Did you know,” he said, ignoring Pippa’s question, “that the probability of accidentally slipping onto a subway track on any given day is one in one-and-a-half million?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Max asked. Her voice was thin and high.
Thomas’s face grew serious. “It means I didn’t slip,” Thomas said simply. “I was pushed.”
They split up to do a sweep of the platform, even though Thomas doubted it would be of any use. He’d felt a hand on his back and a shove, but he hadn’t caught even a glimpse of his attacker. Besides, whoever it was might have easily slipped aboard the train and been halfway to Thirty-Third Street by now.
Still, they combed the crowd, looking for anything or anyone suspicious—someone who looked familiar or someone who stared too long or someone trying not to stare.
Max had reached the far side of the platform, where a broad staircase led up to the street level and people came flowing in from above, when she spotted him. He was standing at the shadowy end of the platform as far from possible as the other commuters, wearing a great coat with its collar pulled halfway up his head. The rest of his face, except for his eyes, was concealed by a big, wide-brimmed slouch hat.
Her heart stopped. A second train had just arrived and he shouldered his way onto a subway car. As the doors slid shut, he turned around to face her. Max ducked, fearing he would see her. When she looked again, the train was moving off into the black mouth of the tunnel.
“Rats,” she said loudly, and a woman shook her head. Max moved at a jog down the platform, scooting between commuters, until she reached the others.
“What is it?” Thomas said, as she approached.
“Hugo.” Saying the name made her feel sick. She liked the elephant man. Her first night at Dumfrey’s, when everyone was busy ignoring her and Pippa was acting like Max was a piece of dried dog turd that had accidentally been dragged inside on someone’s shoe, Hugo had smiled at her and placed one of his massive hands on her shoulders and said, “If there’s anything you need, just ask.” But facts were facts. “I saw him. He got on the train.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Max was uncomfortably aware of the way Sam was staring at her, as though it was her fault. She jammed her hands in her pockets and glared at him, and finally he looked away.
“I can’t believe it,” Pippa said, in a whisper. “Hugo wouldn’t . . . He couldn’t . . .”
“I saw him,” Max said stubbornly.
Sam sighed and raked a hand through his hair. It immediately flopped back over his forehead. “So what should we do?”
They turned instinctively to Thomas. “Nothing,” he said, after a pause. “We stick with the original plan. We go and talk to Reggie. We’ll deal with Hugo later.”
They boarded the next subway but didn’t speak again until they’d reached Brooklyn.
Max had a bad taste in her mouth, as if she’d accidentally swallowed a hunk of moldy cheese. She had the uncomfortable feeling they were farther than ever from the truth. Unconsciously, she squeezed the handle of the knife in her pocket—her oldest, smallest, and best knife. She wished the truth were like a target and she could stake it out, pin it down, as easily as she could put a blade through a bull’s-eye.
She was getting the feeling, however, that the truth was more like a very wriggly fish. Every time she thought she was close to understanding, it slipped from her grasp.
It was after five o’clock when they finally emerged from the subway in Brooklyn, several blocks away from Anderson’s Delights. But they were disappointed when they arrived. The door was locked. A single bit of police tape still fluttered forlornly from the bars of one ground-floor window. A sign hanging on the door said CLOSED.
“Rats,” Max muttered, for the second time in an hour. “What now?”
Before anyone could answer, a voice called out from across the street.
“If you’re looking for the Anderson boy, you won’t find him in there.”
They turned around and saw an old woman, clomping painstakingly down the street, a wooden cane in each hand. Her skin hung in loose folds around her face.
“Try Gary’s on Nevins,” said the old woman. “You’ll have better luck in Gary’s.”
Gary’s was a vast, dark bar, with lots of polished wood everywhere and walls stained from years of smoke to a color resembling the skin of an eggplant. As soon as they stepped inside, Max was assaulted by the smell of old leather shoes. The light was dim. At the bar, various people were slumped over their glasses, practically motionless, looking in the smokiness like large mountains seen from a distance.
“No kids allowed,” growled the bartender, who was busy wiping a glass.
“We’re just looking for a friend.” Sam spoke up quickly. “Reginald Anderson . . . ?”
The bartender gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Yeah, kid. Me, too. If you see him, tell him I’m still waiting on the ten bucks he owes me. He hasn’t shown his mug around here since I creamed him at the tables.” And the bartender nodded, slightly, toward a group of men playing pool in the corner.
They were halfway to the door when a man with bleary red eyes and a face covered in stubble put a hand on Max’s arm.
“Try Honest Louie’s, on Third Avenue,” he whispered, blasting Max with hot breath.
“Thanks,” she said, wrenching her arm away from his.
They headed to Third Avenue. But there, too, they learned that Reggie Anderson owed money, and had not been seen for at least a week. The bartender directed them to try the Empire Diner, but there they found out that Anderson hadn’t paid his last two tabs and had been banned from the restaurant. One of the waitresses, a big blond woman with candy-colored lips, said they might find him at Deluxe Lounge, on Denton Place.
“Let’s hurry,” Thomas said. The sun was a large round drop hovering just over the horizon, and the sky above them was a deep, electric blue. It was nearly seven o’clock. “Dumfrey’ll skin us if we don’t get back before dark.”
The Deluxe Lounge was very small and very dirty. A bartender with the sad, drooping look of a wilted lettuce leaf was quietly mopping under one of three large oak tables that dominated the center of the room. A skinny black cat was perched on the bar, picking at a plate of sardine bones. Dusty bottles lined the shelves, and the air smelled like rubbing alcohol and old potatoes.
There were only four patrons, and every one of them turned to stare when Max and the others pushed through the door. Two of them had been throwing darts; one of them was bucktoothed and bleary-eyed. A man with a long, curly beard, which looked like an overgrown hedge tacked to his chin, paused with his hand raised. And the largest person Max had ever seen except for Smalls, with fists as big as pork chops and a face as broad and flat as a stone, stopped with a mug halfway to his lips.
“S-s-sorry,” the old bartender stuttered. “No kids allowed.”
“Let ’em stay.” The man with the bushy beard lowered the dart he’d been about to throw. The bartender gave a nervous squeak and scurried through the swinging doors at the back of the bar.
The bearded man smiled. His teeth were yellow and very crooked. “Well? What do you want?”
The others had gone quiet. Sam was studying his shoes, Pippa was opening and closing her mouth like a fish. Even Thomas seemed nervous.
Max lifted her chin. “We’re looking for Reginald Anderson,” she said.
The bearded man snickered. “You are, are you? What do you want with that sorry scrap?”
“He’s a friend of ours,” she said, forcing herself to hold the man’s stare.
All four men exchanged a look and chuckled unpleasantly.
“What’s so funny?” Max said. She didn’t like feeling as though she were on the outside of a joke that didn’t include her.
“A friend of yours, huh?” The bea
rded man took several heavy steps forward, hitching his belt up over his stomach. “Then maybe you’ll be so kind”—he emphasized the word by spitting into a polished brass spittoon in the corner—“as to take care of a few of your friend’s debts.”
“He owes me two dollars,” grunted the huge man, cracking his knuckles. Each sound was like a thunderbolt.
“He owes me five,” said the man with the bleary eyes.
“We don’t got any money,” Max said.
“Have,” Pippa whispered. “We don’t have any money.”
“Well, that’s too bad for you.” The bearded man took another menacing step forward, so he was standing only a foot away from Max. He leaned forward. “Because any friend of Reggie Anderson sure ain’t no friend of mine. Jerry, how about you show Reggie’s friends the door.”
Jerry was the man with the hands like pork chops and a chest as broad as a barrel. He stood up from the table. Max reached into her pockets, but before she could withdraw her knives, Sam stepped in front of her.
“All right, look,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “Everybody just calm down. We don’t want to hurt you—”
The bearded man roared with laughter. “Did you hear that, fellas? This little pipsqueak’s worried about hurting us.” He shoved a sausagelike finger in the middle of Sam’s chest. “You’ve got some nerve, boy.”
Max tried to swing at him, but Sam held her back with one arm.
“You’re the pipsqueak!” she cried.
“Max, stay out of this,” Sam said.
“Yeah, Max.” Pippa’s mouth was a fine white line. “These idiots aren’t worth it.”
“You better watch your mouth, sweetheart,” growled the bearded man.
“Don’t threaten her,” Thomas said, eyes flashing.
“Cute. All of you. Very cute.” He spit again, and a glob of milk-white saliva just missed the toe of Sam’s shoe. “This is the last time I’ll ask you nicely,” the bearded man said, once again turning his attention to Sam. His eyes shone like two dark stones. “Actually, you know what? Forget being nice. Jerry?”