The day bugs him like a hangnail. He can’t quit tugging on it. The Boss with his cancer. The man, Candlefly and what was surely a Snakeface associate. Casimir’s request. Four-Top spotting that black shadowy thing.

And over all of it, his daughter. Nora. Looking down like he’s trapped in the belly of a big iron cauldron and she’s the witch stirring the soup. Standing here just last night. She’d known the Boss was sick. Said something big was coming. Then she poisoned him.

For months he thought she’d quieted down. Gone dark. Maybe even gone home. Not that he’d bothered to check. Now she’s back. Messing with him again. Messing with his life, his work. With the Organization.

On the bar top, his phone. He knows he should pick it up. Call his ex-wife, Jess. Tell her about Nora. They could talk. He could check in. Maybe she doesn’t hate him anymore. Or maybe the hate has quieted, like a campfire gone to gray ash.

He pulls out an old picture from behind the bar. Pops out the thumbtack that kept it hanging there. The photo’s faded. Fraying on the edges. A Polaroid. Little blurry. Twenty years ago, wasn’t it? Coney Island. Bleary carnival lights in the background. Mookie smiling. (When was the last time he smiled?) Looking thinner, too. His arms had shape – biceps under white T-sleeves like a mountain range under a blanket of snow. Now they’re just big hams. He’s still strong but… well.

And Jess – goddamn, so beautiful. She always reminded him of autumn. Lips painted like the leaves fallen off a red maple. Hair the color of apple cider. Freckles like the flecks of cinnamon floating in the mug. He grunts. Reaches over, tacks the picture back.

Looks at the phone.

Call her.

5

The Sandhogs. Local 147. The unsung architects of New York City’s past, present, and future. The men of that union are the ones that go hundreds of feet below the city and they dig. They dug all the water tunnels. They dug all the subway tunnels. They sank the caissons for the Brooklyn Bridge. For a long time they owned the underground. That is, of course, until they opened a hole to hell in 1976. That happened at the start of the biggest Sandhog project yet: Water Tunnel #3, a tunnel 800 feet below the surface of Manhattan that would run 60 miles upstate to pull water from a new reservoir. They’d never gone deeper. They had no idea what waited for them there, but they would soon find out what horrors lurked beneath the schist.

– from the Journals of John Atticus Oakes, Cartographer of the Great Below

He’s got one option left before he heads off to see Smiley: the Sandhogs.

Come morning it’s back into the city. He slings his satchel over a beefy shoulder. Throws some loose provisions in there: some jerky, couple bottles of water, bandages, some other odds and ends. Then it’s off to the dig site.