“There’s someone behind every door. Watching me, waiting for me, changing the locks,” he rambles. “I need to be all eyes, all ears, all the time.” His hands shake as they grip the wheel. “Can’t sleep. Not with them watching me.”
Christ, he’s high as a kite. He shouldn’t be driving. He’s unraveling, dangerous, a liability at this point. The conversation I overheard between Gunn and the underbosses last night flashes across my mind. The boat party out on Magic Row—
McEvoy starts his engine.
“Sir—”
“I trusted you, Alex.” McEvoy slams on the gas and screeches into the alley full throttle. “You told me you could get to the bottom of this, you could find the monsters for me, but you’re a liar.”
“I am getting to the bottom of this, sir, just like you asked—”
“NAMES, Alex! I need names!” He swerves his car onto P Street, nearly crashing into a Buick as his car rights itself on the road, and a barrage of beeps and honks blare through his half-open window. “Who’s after me? Who thinks they can take me down? Time’s up, Alex. I’m tired of twiddling my goddamned thumbs. Is it Gunn?”
But I can’t confirm Gunn’s involved, not for sure. If I give him Gunn, or hell, Win, or any of the underbosses planning to take him down, then McEvoy’s likely to start a war in this state. And all my work, for nothing. No, I want all these animals behind bars. I want to stand right beside Frain as we lock these monsters away—
McEvoy digs under his seat hastily. He pulls out a gun, snaps it hard against my left temple, and the car goes skidding out.
“Sir, the road!” We nearly jump the curve, drive right into the park at Iowa Circle, but McEvoy manages to swerve back onto the boulevard with one hand. He presses his pistol harder against my skull.
I close my eyes, try and stay as calm as I can as the boss of the Shaws holds me at gunpoint, on a drugged-up joyride through town. Don’t use magic don’t take him down you need to stay in control. Think about the endgame—
“Know what, Alex? I think you’re in on this.” McEvoy spits his words at me.
“That’s not true, sir.”
“I think it is. I’m thinking you orchestrated all of this, that you’re the one working me.”
I steal a quick look at him, see the dust practically pumping through his veins, the paranoia that has him in a choke hold. He’s going to kill me if I don’t give him something, he’s going to shoot, right here right now—
“No, I got a lead last night!” I sputter in a rush. Get him out of the city, out of your way, give him a new scent to track, one of his loyal underbosses— “Apparently Murphy has been working on the side with the Bahama Boys smugglers. He’s going to try and make some kind of deal at a big voodoo party out on the water. He got word you aren’t planning to be there, thinks he can land a score while the big fish is away.” I shoot McEvoy a look and raise my arms higher. “He thinks he’ll get away with it, sir.”
“Murphy.”
I gulp, but keep my eyes trained on him. I remind myself that handing Murphy to McEvoy is only speeding up the inevitable. That the Unit will get all these thugs, for one crime or another. Besides, Paul Murphy’s no angel. Murphy’s smuggled thousands of gallons of obi—a haunted elixir that’s actually scared people insane—into this- -country. Murphy’s claim to fame is bashing a young smuggler’s face in when the kid decided to sample the island brew himself and came up a little short on a delivery. Murphy deserves no mercy—none of these thugs deserve mercy.
“That’s right. Murphy. Sir, you—you might want to consider being on that boat.”
But McEvoy doesn’t lower his gun. Instead he puts it under my chin, snaps my head back. “A monster’s coming for you, too, Alex. It’s been watching you, waiting for the right time. You think you’re safer than me?” He leans over, his day-old breath wrapping its noxious scent around me. “I go down, I’m taking you with me.”
His dust-haunted words pierce right through my skin. “You get on that boat, sir, and you catch the deal as it happens.” I try to sound convincing. “And then you make a public example of Murphy. He’s the one who arranged for half of Kerrigan’s men to stand down in that Baltimore mix-up. He’s the one who bought the sorcerer off to tell him his real horse forecast at the tracks. I heard it all. I amplified a late-night meeting at the Den.”
McEvoy finally, slowly, lowers his gun. He puts both hands on the wheel, mutters, “Going to rip Murphy’s eyes out.”
He pulls over on some random corner in the heart of Hell’s Bottom—sagging town houses, smashed windows, shouts from inside broken homes. I must be miles from my own place at this point. I don’t know if McEvoy’s so high he doesn’t realize that we’re in one of the most dangerous pockets of the city, or if he doesn’t care.
“Get out,” he says flatly. “Apparently, I have a party to attend.”
My heart is stuttering, clawing up my chest, wants to fly. I barely manage, “Good luck, Boss,” as he screeches away with my car door still half-open, flapping like a doomed bird against the wind.