“I got a line on Nora.”

“Good. Whatcha got?”

“She’s with the Get-Em-Girls.”

Werth sniffs. “You don’t say.”

“Yeah. They got a little place carved out of the Great Below. It’s a warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen. I think I know the place. Couple blocks from Port Authority. I think the place is a gateway to the Deep Downstairs.” Upstairs, downstairs. This world, that world. Earth, and Hell. Werth doesn’t like that place. He likes it up here.

“And you think Nora’s with them,” Werth says.

“I talked to Smiley. He’d know.”

“Good. I’ll meet you there.”

“How close are you?” Mookie asks.

“I’m uhh, a ways away yet.”

“I’m in Chinatown. Meet there?”

“See you inside of an hour – 46th and 10th.”

Werth punches the end call button.

Then he looks up at the warehouse where the Girls are hiding Nora Pearl. He reaches in the trunk of his 1988 Cadillac Seville, pulls a Winchester Super X 12 gauge from inside. Thumbs five shells into the gun’s undercarriage, saving the sixth for the chamber.

He slides the action forward, thumbs the safety off, and heads toward the warehouse door. It’s a vertical warehouse – tall, narrow, brick the color of dried blood. Looks like an old fire station.

Door’s got a cage over it. Locked with a chain-and-padlock.

If Mookie were here, Werth might be able to ask the big lug to just punch it into smelt. Or bite through it like a circus performer. But this isn’t a job Mookie needs to be around for. It’s 4am, nobody’s really up yet, and it’s the same city it always was where something bad happens and nobody calls the cops…

Werth stands back. Levels the gun.

Choom.

The lock blasts open.

The cage grate squeaks open.

Werth tries the door behind it. Unlocked. Good.

Into darkness, then. He can make out shapes. A desk to his right. Ahead, narrow shelves with narrower aisles. They look empty, but it’s hard to tell. He thinks to pull out the little flashlight he’s got in his pocket, but all a flashlight does in a situation like this is give someone something to shoot at.

Instead, he creeps. Let’s his eyes adjust. Creeping doesn’t come naturally for him. He’s got a limp and, to those who can see them, a pair of cracked goat hooves that would easily fit a set of Clydesdale horseshoes. Even if someone were looking at him blind, they’d still hear the way he clomps around like a clumsy donkey.

So, creeping takes extra effort. It’s almost comical, he figures – raise one leg up, bent at the knee, gentle fall. Like Elmer Fudd sneaking up on that asshole rabbit.

He manages.

And his eyes adjust.

He keeps his finger on the shotgun trigger. Just in case.

He does a serpentine. Down one aisle. Up another. Sees now that the stacks are metal frames with splintery plywood shelves. And, like he figured, nothing on them but cobwebs and little herds of tumbling dustballs.