The girl ran off, and Mary waited patiently, refusing to engage any of the other Afterlights in conversation, because she knew that would challenge Pugsy’s power, and she didn’t want to do that. Not yet, anyway.

Ten minutes later the girl came back, running as quickly as she had run off.

“His eminence will see you now.”

“His eminence!” said Mary. “Isn’t that a title reserved for the Pope, and other holy men?”

The girl looked down modestly. “I wouldn’t know, your highness.”

“You don’t have to call me that,” Mary said. “You can just call me Miss Mary.”

“Yes, Miss Mary,” the girl said dutifully, and when she looked up at Mary, she had the slightest hint of a smile— perhaps the first smile she’d had in ages.

She led Mary from the Court of Honor to a huge building labeled TRANSPORTATION. The doorway stood beneath a high golden arch. Apparently the boss of Chicago was receiving her with royal treatment.

“They said to bring you here,” said the girl, but she wouldn’t step over the threshold into the building.

“They?” asked Mary. “Whom do you mean?”

Suddenly figures emerged from the dark doorway, and hands grabbed her arms more forcefully than she was accustomed to.

“She means us.”

They pulled her inside, shut the door in the little girl’s face, and Mary was pulled forward into a huge, dimly lit space the size of an airplane hangar by a trio of beefy thugs.

The Hall of Transportation had been stripped of any transportation whatsoever. The towering space was empty except for a single wing-footed statue of Mercury in the center, to which the three thugs chained Mary, and as they closed the shackles around her wrists and ankles, she felt all her hopes fizzle.

“Which one of you buffoons is Pugsy Capone?” Mary snarled, disturbed not only by her situation, but by the viciousness of her own voice. She thought she could find poise in every circumstance. Apparently not.

“The Death Boss has better things to do than deal with prisoners,” said the largest of the thugs. It appeared the “Death Boss” chose his personal foot soldiers for their strength, their intimidating faces, and for the clothes they had been wearing when they died. All three of them wore suits. From different time periods, of course, but suits nonetheless. They were all fifteen or so, although they looked older in their suits. The gray-suited thug to her right stepped forward, and recited for her the same thing he probably recited to every Afterlight unlucky enough to stumble into this miserable enclave.