“Hrm,” Mookie says. Normally he wouldn’t trust a story like that. But while Four-Top might be twitchy, he’s trustworthy. And, surprisingly, not hooked on the Blue. Some guys control it. Some don’t, or can’t. Four-Top handles it. Mookie does, too – though even now he feels the need for Blue crawling through him like ants through a tunnel. He’s just lucky enough he doesn’t have to give into it. Some folks, they get a taste for it and need more and more and more. Some’ll even kill for a tin.

Which is why it’s important to have loyal crews like this one. Once in a while, the Moles try to steal what’s in the walls. That’s where guys like Four-Top come in. They tell Mookie and Mookie steps in. Might break some fingers. Pop off some kneecaps, use them as candy dishes. They get paid in Blue if they play nice. They get paid in pain if they take more than they’re owed.

“Never seen one,” Mookie says. “But I’ll keep my eyes out.”

“I could feel it, yo. Thing was like a… hole in space with a pair of eyes. Like it wanted to suck me up, vacuum-style. I hid behind some busted-ass boulders. Thing that got me was, the gobbos followed behind like it was leading them somewhere.”

“Gobbos don’t like to be led.”

“Damn straight.”

It’s strange. Still, could’ve been a trick of the eyes. Easy to lose your way down here, think you’re seeing something you’re not. Especially the deeper you go. You leave the Shallows and wander around the Tangle for a few days, every shadow jumps out at you, every glint of light on wet stone is a pair of eyes, every underground river has shapes swimming beneath the milky waters. Once Mookie was down here and he swore he saw his wife – er, ex-wife – Jess. That’s how this place is: it makes you see crazy shit.

Mookie tells Four-Top to keep an ear to the ground for anything. Another “reaper-cloak” sighting, any hints of Death’s Head, whatever.

Then, tired, Mookie ascends back up out of the Underworld. He’s got boltholes and doorways everywhere, some everybody knows about, others only for him. This one takes him up through a shattered piece of old sewer where the bricks are the color of old blood. It dumps him out into the basement of an Irish bar – McGlinchey’s – on the Lower East Side.

It’s night. The city’s lighting up with night time traffic. Streaks of brake lights. Bleary headlights. Honking. A whiff of perfume. Club kids shuttling past.

Mookie’s tired. And hungry again.

Tomorrow, it continues. For tonight, home.

Mookie sits at the bar. Sipping a Yuengling, eating some blood sausage. The TV’s on: some bullshit sports game. Mookie doesn’t give a shit about any kind of sports and usually he’d change the channel, watch an old WWII movie on AMC or maybe pop on the Food Network and see what they’re cooking up. But now he’s zoning out.