Sorago stands in an alley between an open-air grocer and a small bakery. The human herd passes him by, bleating and bubbling. Unaware of who he is. To them he looks small, unassuming – a weak man unworthy of their gaze.

Camouflage, of course.

He dials Candlefly.

“My friend,” Ernesto says.

Sorago explains what happened. Then adds: “Pearl is more of a problem than we anticipated.”

He heard Candlefly tut-tut-tut on the other end.

“Surely, you don’t think he can best you.”

“Never.” Sorago feels his pulse-beat quicken in his neck. The thought of some… lumpy, gone-to-seed human besting him? Is that even a meaningful question? Why would Candlefly ask him such a thing? A test. That’s what it is. Always a test.

“He is but one problem of many. We have greater concerns.” On the other end, a liquid sound: Candlefly sipping a drink. An espresso, most likely. “Sirin and Sarnosh are on the task?”

“Lieutenants. Then the gang-heads.”

“Excellent. I want you to coordinate the next attack. If all is to go as designed, we need the gateway opened.”

“I shall lead the charge directly.”

“No. We have the numbers. You won’t be needed there. The gob-folk will overwhelm those dead fools. You’ll take one of the Vollrath. Find the miner again. Morgan. Get what we need from him. Don’t let him escape without giving it up, this time.”

“Yes, of course.”

“And Sorago?”

“Master?”

“If you see Pearl or his daughter: end them yourself.”

Sorago smiles. “I will deliver them into shadow.”

“We didn’t get the drop wrong?” Benny Scafidi asks, licking his lips again and again – so often that the lips and the skin around them are chapped. He just can’t help it. He licks ’em to get ’em wet, but then they get dry again and it’s all: lick slurp lick.

The other Mole, Jenny Greenteeth, scowls at him and bares her rotten chompers. “This is the place. I’m not a goddamn idiot, Benny.”

The two of them stand underneath the High Line Park trestle. Benny’s clutching a brown paper bag to his chest, a narrow shoulder-width alley to his back.

“I’m just saying,” he says. “Mookie would’ve been here by now. Right?”

“Somethin’ fuckin’ goofy is going on,” Jenny says, picking at a pimple embedded in her eyebrow. “You know how I’m stickin’ it to that bag-boy from the Bronx? Raza?”

“Yeah, I know.” A bag-boy: another drug runner like them. Carry the drugs in a bag, pass it along to whatever dealer, soldier or lieutenant it goes to. Benny nods and tries to repress a shudder thinking about crusty-ass Jenny getting all sloppy with some heroin mule in the Bronx. “But I think the one with the dick is the one that does the sticking?”