"And how do we play that?" I said, having a pretty good idea what was next, Gaga not moving away from the tunnel door.

"It wouldn't hurt to check it out," she said, "see what we've got."

Like I said.

I watched her take a step toward the darkness, said to her back, "You don't want to wait till we've got the cops here?"

"The better we know the setup, the better input we'll have." Her meaning the plan to sandbag Sickblade. She took out her phone and turned on the flashlight and pointed the beam into the gloom.

I took out my own phone and did the same. "At least let me go front," I said, and stepped around her like the loyal bodyguard she was paying me to be.

Ten steps in I caught my foot on some bump and almost fell on my face. "Careful," she said, me feeling like an asshole. The floor was a mix of cinders and dirt and grit that had accumulated over the years. I scanned my light over the concrete walls, no graffiti, its glory days yet to come.

Knowing Gaga was back there trying to get a feel for how she wanted to play the Sickblade thing, I started realizing that whatever she came up with was likely to conflict with me trying to use him to get a line on who killed Tanya, though I'd pretty much had to put that on hold. Realized that all I could do was wait and see what her and the cops came up with and take it from there.

While we made our way I tried to think what it would be like carrying cases of booze through here to Belasco's speakeasy, stuff that maybe some of my ancestors had trucked down from Toronto or Montreal, the Canadians not into prohibition. Or maybe my people had mixed it themselves in their bathtubs. And then, knowing the nature of that business, which wasn't too different from running drugs these days, it hit me that some of them could be lying right under our feet now, for diverting or diluting some of the goods.

And like she read me, Gaga said, "You feel anything?"

"Like what?"

"Like ghosts. Folks buried here."

The dark air around us took on a chill. You there, uncles?

But it wasn't my ancestors who made an appearance.

It was Sickblade's avatar.

Or whatever that glow ahead of us was.

# # #

Stuart Sherner didn't get to be Commissioner of the NYPD by being dumb. But sometimes, like with everybody at some point, there'd been lapses. And his biggest one by far was letting himself fall for the hooker, Tanya. And on top of it getting her pregnant.

He drove his SUV, his personal vehicle, past the old whorehouse where she'd lived, where she'd worked undercover for the department, and where that big bald guy who looked familiar, Curly something, was going up the steps now, probably for a two-on-one given the size of him. Seeing the place made Sherner feel all the dumber, for having a fuck-fest with that trash who tried to shake him down.

Not to mention that here he is on the brink of one of the biggest jobs in the world, master of the intelligence universe, and it's in the hands of the trash's brother.

The kid having that fetus.

Dempsey had told him he was sure of it. Could see it in the kid's eyes when he went to his hole in the basement here. Saw it in the nurse's eyes, the one supposed to have gotten rid of it in the first place. The thing had to be in that house somewhere.

So how to get to it.

He stopped for the light at the corner of Tenth and thought.

Sat behind the wheel and considered things like maybe torching the place, him being that pissed at himself. Have Dempsey get a bomb planted, say that one of the girls had terrorist ties, had been hiding the bomb for someone else and it went off. Burn the house to the fucking ground, fetus with it. Let Dempsey earn his keep if he expected to come with him to Langley. In for a penny, in for the works. The man had already had the trash whore killed for him. All that would be left then was killing Sickblade.

The light changed and he drove east, back home, the fire still in his head.

# # #

It was actually Gaga who called it an avatar, her having more knowledge of such things, plus she had that radar for Sickblade. (A definition I read later said that an avatar was, "a visible representation of something abstract," which I guess was as good a description as any for what we had in front of us.)

It was like a presence more than something you could touch, a kind of glow like that one up in Belasco's apartment, and there was some magnetic thing about it that when it started moving away through the tunnel it drew us with it.

Or it drew Gaga and I followed her.

I have to say, watching the way she set off without flinching, silhouetted against the jouncing lights from our phones, the girl had more balls than most guys I know. Not that I hadn't respected her before. But something about the situation down here, the eeriness of it and probably some rats, and seeing that screw-the-risk attitude at work made me, I don't know - really like her.

Anyway, I realized I had feelings for her.

"Turn your light off," she said, turning off hers. "We'll see it better."

The glow up ahead had been drawing away, getting harder to follow.

I turned off my light and she was right, the sight of it improved. Except it made for trickier footing, my macho still smarting from that stumble back there. And I could picture myself stepping on some rat's tail. 

We were able to follow the glow for another few minutes, but it kept moving further ahead, further away. And then finally it disappeared.

"So much for that," I said, "whatever it was."

"I'm betting it's going to work for us," she said, both of us with our lights off in the dark.

I turned to her voice. "What do you mean?"

"That it's on its way to Sickblade, like some kind of signal that there's a back way into the theater."

"You think?" Me thinking that was wishful thinking, if she meant we could turn it into a trap. 

"We'll see."

"What's to stop it from tipping him it's a setup?"

"We'll play it as it comes."

# # #

The dinner dishes had been cleared from the candlelit dining room table and the butler was pouring coffee for the lady of the house.

"Shall I bring dessert, ma'am?"

"Thank you, Thomas," said Doris Sherner, "but I think we'll have it in the den later,"

"Very good," said Thomas. He stepped around the table and filled Stuart Sherner's cup, gave a small bow and let himself out through the paneled door.

Doris took a sip and peered over the rim of her cup. "You've been quiet."

"Just thinking," Sherner said.

"Anything we haven't talked about?"

"Not really." Sherner took a sip himself. "I mean, it doesn't get much bigger than what the president is offering."

"Except a run at what's there when he leaves."

Sherner gave her a stare that suggested they'd best keep such thoughts to themselves, even though both of them had visions of extending Sherner's upcoming CIA appointment to that most coveted of offices. 

"What else?" Doris said.

"The only thing that could upend it is what we've discussed."

Doris eyed the door Thomas left by to make sure it was closed. "Which would be a non-issue if Dempsey killed Sickblade."

Sherner nodded and started to take another sip.

"But?"

Sherner paused. "But what?"

"That would still leave a loose end, wouldn't it? Someone who knows all the secrets to come back at you with."

Again Sherner stared at her.

"A loose end that should be tied up," Doris said. "Like the girl was."

And, of course, Sherner knew she was talking about Dempsey.

(To be continued...)