‘I was about to say that,’ Evariste muttered. More loudly, he said in the Language, ‘You men with the guns perceive that we are not the people you’re looking for, and that we’re just terrified bystanders who should be allowed to leave.’
The gangsters both frowned, then the second one waved them up the stairs with his gun. ‘Just keep on going and don’t hang around,’ he instructed them in a friendly but casually menacing way. ‘What’s going on here ain’t none of your business.’
‘Absolutely,’ Kai agreed. He caught Evariste’s elbow, surreptitiously supporting the other man as they headed up the stairs. ‘Can’t you go any faster?’ he hissed.
‘Maybe if I wasn’t carrying several large heavy books . . .’ Evariste muttered back.
They passed the two gangsters and hurried up to the ground floor.
‘This is bad. I don’t know how they tracked us here.’ Evariste looked round, orienting himself, then nodded to the left. ‘Through that way, to the Great Hall and the way out. Try and act natural—’
‘Stop!’ came a yell from behind them.
Footsteps came running from the direction of the Great Hall, loud on the marble. Kai and Evariste made a hasty diversion to their right, past Egyptian sarcophagi and clay models of tomb entrances, followed by the echoing yells of their pursuers.
‘How many – people – has he got hunting me?’ Evariste panted.
‘Too many,’ Kai grunted. They swung into a wide room whose east wall was covered with slanting windows. What looked like a genuine sandstone Egyptian-temple entrance was erected in the middle. Unfortunately, the gunmen in front of the window were of a much more recent vintage. Their tommy-guns gleamed under the strong museum lights.
‘Let’s not do anything too hasty,’ one of them said. He shifted his gun so that it was pointing at the floor in front of Kai and Evariste. ‘Now you boys have had a good run. I can respect that. But I only need one of you. So in the interests of both of you staying alive, how about we have a little agreement of no more funny business?’
‘When you say you only need one of us,’ Kai asked in a tone of academic interest, ‘do you mean that either of us would do, or is it a case of you only want a specific one of us, and the other is unfortunately expendable?’
‘Bang on the mark,’ the gangster said. ‘I only need Mr Evariste Jones over there. So if Jones wants you to stay alive . . .’ He shrugged meaningfully at Kai.
‘Be careful what Jones says, boss,’ someone called from behind them. It sounded like the man they’d passed on the stairs. ‘He can do some sort of hoodoo with his voice.’
That provoked stirring and mumbles among the assembled gunmen, but unfortunately it didn’t convince any of them to point their guns elsewhere.
Kai scanned the room. Their position wasn’t good. They were too far away from the sandstone edifice to take cover behind it. While the windowed west wall offered certain possibilities, the glass looked too thick for a man to break through it easily. And Evariste couldn’t deploy the Language faster than a speeding bullet.
Fortunately he had a plan.
‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked.
‘As long as you’re real careful with your hands and don’t try anything stupid,’ the leader said.
Kai ignored the way Evariste was looking at him – somewhere between desperate hope that Kai could sort this out, and disbelief that Kai would choose this moment to have a cigarette – and reached carefully into an inner pocket of his suit. While he didn’t normally smoke, he’d collected a cigarette case and lighter while he and Irene had been equipping themselves last night at the department store. One never knew when such things might be useful. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘My nerves are a bit on edge. And would you mind if my friend here puts his books down before we go along with you? No need to crowd the car.’
The leader cocked his head to one side. ‘That’s not the way we’re playing it, fellow. The way I was told it, we’re to bring in Jones and his books. Half the city’s been looking for them, so I don’t think we’ll be letting him take a rain check with them now.’ It sounded as if Kai was much more expendable than the books.
‘The city’s full of readers,’ Kai said to Evariste. He flicked the lighter open and touched the flame to the cigarette. ‘Who’d have thought so many people would want a copy of,’ and he switched to Chinese, ‘be ready to break the glass window when I tell you.’
Evariste kept a straight face, but his eyes lightened. ‘It’s the New York education system,’ he said. ‘I hear it’s the finest in the world.’
Kai nodded. Then he dropped the cigarette to the floor, caught Evariste’s shoulder to pull the armful of books within reach and held the lighter flame to them, a fraction of an inch from setting fire to the volumes. ‘Lower the guns,’ he said calmly. ‘Everyone. Or the books go up in smoke. And then you have to explain that to your boss.’
A dozen gun barrels pointed directly at him. ‘Try it and you’re dead,’ the leader snapped.
‘What are you doing?’ Evariste struggled in Kai’s grip, trying to pull away from the naked flame. ‘You can’t do that!’
‘Can and will.’ Kai put all the command that he’d learned at his father’s court into his voice, all the firmness and certainty of royal blood. ‘Back away. All of you. Or you’ll have the man but not the book, and Qing Song will have all your heads.’
‘We’re not working for him,’ the leader sneered. ‘You might want to check the facts before raising on a hand like that.’
Kai blinked. ‘Jin Zhi, then.’ He kept the lighter flame steady.
The leader shrugged. ‘Never heard of him. We work for Lucky George.’
Kai wasted a moment wondering exactly why the local crime boss had joined the hunt. ‘Nevertheless,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want the books going up in smoke, you’ll stand back.’ He took a pace sideways himself, dragging Evariste with him, moving towards the shelter of one of the sandstone arches.
‘You can’t get out of here.’ The leader made a surreptitious signal in the direction of the men behind Kai and Evariste, and they started to close in. ‘The boss ain’t going to be happy about this. And when George ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.’
‘Then we’ve all got a problem, because if we don’t walk out of here, then my boss is going to be unhappy,’ Kai said. Another couple of sideways steps. They were almost under the curve of the arch now. ‘Bosses. Go figure.’ A final step. ‘But you’ve got a point.’
‘So you’re going to stop being a wise guy?’ the leader said suspiciously.
‘Now,’ Kai said out of the side of his mouth to Evariste.
Evariste had been waiting for the word. ‘Glass, break!’ he shouted.