Maybe I wouldn’t share my other news. Rube would never rat on me, but what if he decided reporting the theft might push his agenda with Rousseau, like, see what your rules and regulations make people do? Anyhow, better know my own mind about the papers before I asked anyone else what to do with them.

At 20th, we neared the old mansions of Gramercy Park, with their kitchen basements awash with the swelling river and a faint, airy glow from the unusual number of still-inhabited upper floors.

Rubio gazed up at a high row of lit windows. “Really old money is set in its ways. A lot of them supported the Venice plan.”

“The way you tell it, the Venice idea was seen as too radical.”

“Too romantic.” He nudged my arm. “You’re going up by the Causeway? Walk west to the park and we’ll say hi to Mr. Booth.”

“Causeway’s the quickest route, right?”

He nodded. “But kind of exposed. All civilians up there.”

He meant, not denfolk. “Time I learned to deal with that.”

A block over, we stopped to peer through tall iron fencing at the sodden paths inside Gramercy Park proper, where the statue of Edwin Booth surveyed dead formal gardens and bare ranks of trees drowning in the rising water table.

“What Jenn said about security patrols? Try to look like you belong, or they’ll nab you. The Causeway is uptowner turf.”

“What’re they gonna do, arrest me? No more jails.”

“No, but they might have some fun with you, before tossing you over the edge.”

To contain my shudder, I studied the sturdy bronze man who’d weathered so many storms up there on his pedestal. One hand pressed reverently to his chest, the other raised as if about to speak. Actor cliché, Jake called it. When he gave us lessons in walking and talking like someone we weren’t, he was big on looking natural.

“Spunk says there’s rich kids going feral, like in that speedster, and maybe one of them got Rivera.”

Rubio leaned back against the fence, tilting his chin toward the luminous cloud cover. His mind was elsewhere. “If anyone asks, say you’re a friend of the Murrays.”

“Who’s that?”

“The Murrays of Murray Hill.” His gaze had softened. “Long ago, they built on an actual glacial hill, now the east 30s. Later, it became fashionable. With all the storms the years have thrown at them, those grand old brownstones have barely got their feet wet.”

I grabbed his arm. “Engine!”

We backed into deeper darkness as a robo-taxi bumped along the ruts of Lexington and dropped a fare at the top of the square. Two people hurried up steep iron stairs. Steel gates squealed on corroded hinges, then slammed as the couple vanished inside. The cab locked up, blacked its windows, and scooted back north.