But he never finishes his sentence.
Because a blinding shot of Tommy and Rose’s lightning cuts right through him.
RIGHT-HAND
ALEX
My focus should be trained on McEvoy’s gun, which is aimed at the goon who’s kneeling on the side of the Jefferson Davis Highway, but I can’t stop thinking about Joan. I replay the two of us at the Den together in the hall yesterday evening, surrounded by my magic, hidden together inside that gazebo without another care in the world. Birds chirping, a magic sun shining on her raven hair, her laughter and relief that I helped coax right out of her. I picture us a motion picture, black and white. I run the reel again in my mind, and then watch it once more in color.
I want her. And not in the way I’ve “wanted” other women before, when I know I have them—when I’ve gotten some vague sort of satisfaction as their eyes reflect interest, then fascination, then hunger. Joan’s different. She’s easy and tough in all the right ways. Smart. Beautiful.
In a strange way, I almost find myself needing to see her. Not just her, I guess, but the way she sees me—as someone to know, maybe even someone to trust. After my blowup with Howie, working around the clock on the street at McEvoy’s side, I sometimes feel less than human. I’m so far in, so committed to playing this figment-gangster Alex Danfrey, that I’m starting to feel like a manipulation myself.
“Alex,” McEvoy snaps. “Where the hell are you right now?”
“Right here, sir.” I banish the daydreams away, the spell Joan’s starting to have on me, and focus back on the sad thug McEvoy’s got at gunpoint on the side of the road.
“Your story doesn’t add up, friend.” McEvoy bends down, so that he’s eye-to-eye with John, some low-level gambling bookie for the Shaws, and the latest object of McEvoy’s wrath. “If Sullivan forced you to tell our contacts the wrong winner, that means Sullivan is lying to me.” McEvoy smiles a wide, taunting smile. “Do you think my underboss would lie to me, John?”
John is shivering, convulsing, and I have to look away. Traffic whizzes by on both sides, the Jefferson Davis Highway bumper-to-bumper with weekday traffic coming in and out of the city, but no one will spot us. From either side of the road, we’re protected by my sorcered walls. The passing cars see nothing but a thin grass shoulder.
“Don’t have all day, John—”
“No, sir, I mean, I don’t know, sir.” John gasps for air. “I just do what Mr. Sullivan tells me. He was the one who heard the sorcerer’s forecast about the horses, and I passed on what he told me to the list of Shaw clientele.”
McEvoy nods at me, my cue, and I cast my gaze away from John’s pleading eyes. I hate days like this. I have nightmares about days like this. I wish there was a way to obliterate all magic on days like this.
I whisper, “Knife and slice,” and a knife no larger than a switchblade appears right above John’s left hand, and slashes itself in one hot burst right across the top of his knuckles before it vanishes.
“What the hell, AHHHH!” John grabs his hand.
McEvoy flicks me an approving look, and then circles around our capture.
“Well, we have a real problem, John. I told my contacts that I could deliver a sure thing. You told all those contacts that the winner was going to be Maisy-Gray. And yet, here we are, the day after the race, where my short list of very important people watched as Royal Flush took the crown.” McEvoy raises his gun to John’s temple once more. “Now the way I see it, the mistake is either the sorcerer’s—which doesn’t seem right, seeing as he’s fucking magic—my underboss’s, who knows I’d turn him inside out if he ever dared to betray me.” McEvoy bends down, rests his gun on John’s nose. “Or yours.”
I keep my face blank as I try to connect the dots, for the next time I can sneak a call to Agent Frain. I’ve already got a laundry list of McEvoy’s crimes and indiscretions, the many men and fingers he’s—we’ve—broken on the side of the road. But this sounds like something McEvoy didn’t have a hand in. Something involving Sam Sullivan, McEvoy’s underboss who helps with the Shaws’ gambling operation. Something happening at the racetrack, from what I can piece together, a natural forecast from a sorcerer somehow getting boggled, leaving McEvoy’s clients—who bet on a sure winner—empty--handed.
McEvoy’s right about one thing. Sorcerers who are capable of forecasting nature—the ones who have learned to communicate with the natural world, who can see the fastest and strongest animals, see the way the winds blow and forecast a storm down to the hour—they’re rare. Cagey, and smart. They don’t come out of hiding and lend their insight to the mob unless they’re damn well sure of their talents to judge the animals, the conditions, the track—and forecast the winner.