There were witnesses. On the sidewalk of the neighboring buildings. Standing and watching in the darkness.

Eph went to them. He found the silver-backed mirror in his jacket pocket and grabbed one of them to check his reflection. No shaking. The kid—no older than fifteen, done up in sad-eyed Goth paint and black lipstick—shook away from Eph’s grip.

Setrakian checked the others with his glass. None of them was turned.

“Fans,” said Nora. “A vigil.”

“Get out of here,” snarled Eph. But they were New York kids, they knew they didn’t have to move.

Setrakian looked up at Bolivar’s building. The front windows were darkened but he could not tell, at night, if they were blacked out or just in the process of renovation.

“Let’s climb up that scaffolding,” said Eph. “Break in a window.”

Setrakian shook his head. “No way we can get inside now without the police being called and you being taken away. You’re a wanted man, remember?” Setrakian leaned on his walking stick, looking up at the dark building before starting away. “No—we have no choice but to wait. Let’s find out some more about this building, and its owner. It might help to know first what we are getting into.”

Daylight

DAYLIGHT

Bushwick, Brooklyn

Bushwick, Brooklyn

Vasiliy Fet’s first stop the next morning was a house in Bushwick, not far from where he had grown up. Inspection calls were coming in from all over, the normal two-to three-week wait time easily doubling. Vasiliy was still working off his backlog from last month, and he had promised this guy he’d come through for him today.

He pulled up behind a silver Sable and got his gear out of the back of his truck, his length of rebar and magician’s cart of traps and poisons. First thing he noticed was a rivulet of water running along the gangway between the two row houses, a clear, slow trickle, as from a broken pipe. Not as appetizing as creamy brown sewage, but more than enough to hydrate an entire rat colony.

One basement window was broken, plugged up with rags and old towels. It could have been simple urban blight, or it could have been the handiwork of “midnight plumbers,” a new breed of copper thieves ripping out pipe to sell at salvage yards.

The bank owned both houses now, neighboring investment properties that, thanks to the subprime mortgage meltdown, flipped back on their owners, who lost them to foreclosure. Vasiliy was meeting a property manager there. The door to the first house was unlocked, and Vasiliy knocked and called out a hello. He poked his head into the first room before the staircase, checking baseboards for runs and droppings. A broken, half-fallen shade hung from one window, casting a slanting shadow onto the gouged wood floor. But no manager in sight.