But excited, too. Things are twisting out of her grip, but Nora knows that if she can just regain her hold – even one finger’s worth – then as it all falls apart she’ll be there to make something of the pieces.

The plan is still in play.

She’s already gone to the Sinner Kids – those white faux church-boys from the Upper West Side. Already secured the promises of the Haitians and Jamaicans of the Black Sleeves in Harlem (and just now she wishes she’d grabbed a cup of goat curry to go since they do their business out of a little restaurant called Oxtail Billy’s). It wasn’t easy to get the gangs to follow her: but offering them some low-cost Peacock Powder was a good start – and puts some money in her pocket.

Plus, claiming to have killed Casimir Zoladski gets her mad respect. You have to listen to me now, she thinks. What she tries not to think about is just what that respect has cost her. Look forward, not backward. What’s behind you is just a big stupid wall of pain. Ahead is the promised land.

Now: time to meet the Majestic Immortals in Washington Heights.

They’re a mean-ass crew. Strange mix, too: Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, couple Jewish kids. They wear hoodies with a crown and halo on the backs and fronts. Nora was just a kid when it happened, but she’s heard that, ten years back, they pushed out another gang trying to step on their corners, the Electric Mongols. Chaos-sowing lunatics, anarchy-with-the-circled-A types. Wore 3D glasses. Dropped a lot of acid. The Immortals ran them out, but not before stringing up the bodies from streetlights. Hands and feet chopped off. The crown and halo carved into their foreheads.

She hears the Mongols have resurfaced recently – sometimes they pop up in the Bronx, sometimes in Queens. But they’re not her problem. Not today.

Today is about the Immortals.

Nora wants them on board. Needs them on board. After the Mongols came through and the Immortals handled it, the Organization punished them for taking action on their own. Cut their supply. “Rezoned” their territory.

They’ve got an axe. She wants to help them grind it.

The Immortals operate out of the top floor of a new-law tenement house in one of the old Irish blocks of the city. Nora expects to have to plead right at the front door. Usually they’ve got a guy watching the stairs – walk in, and there he sits. Now it’s just an empty stool. They’re usually more careful than that.

Into the stairwell.