Doc lifted his head. “You’re one of Sullivan’s people—can you talk to him? Convince him to make a donation or something?”
“I can try?” Sam said doubtfully. “I’m supposed to have dinner with him tonight.”
Doc looked hopeful at that, which made Sam feel bad, since he didn’t think he really had a chance of swaying Sullivan. What did the gangster have on Doc, to force him into this position? A gambling debt, blackmail, something else? It seemed rude to ask, so Sam only said, “What are we supposed to be doing here? Mr. Bellinowski didn’t say.”
“Inventorying all of this.” Doc gestured to the stacks of crates. “I’m sure some of it is hexed, so you can look at those items and see if there’s anything interesting. And I believe I’m supposed to report to your hexworks tomorrow evening, after my work at the museum is done for the day.”
“All right.” Sam pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “Let’s get to work.”
10
“It was amazing,” Sam gushed as Wanda drove them to Sullivan’s mansion that evening. “Just holding something made by a person three thousand years ago, knowing they were as real as me, that they had their own life and hopes and dreams…”
“Sounds like a profound experience,” Wanda said. “And you say this all belonged to a woman pharaoh?”
“Neferneferuaten, yes. You should see the artwork on, well, everything. Doc says it’s done in a style particular to the Amarna Period, which…”
Alistair tuned the conversation out. He rode in the rumble seat in cheetah form, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who might be following them on the road or in the air.
It was nice to see Sam gain another enthusiasm, though. He was talking about this long-dead pharaoh and her life the way he talked about hexes: with an intense excitement and need to share his discoveries with his friends.
It was probably a good sign, too, given Alistair couldn’t imagine Sam’s awful family listening to him ramble about magic or history or anything else. Another way he was blooming, after the long winter they’d kept him in.
The gates to Sullivan’s mansion were closed, and large men in dark suits peered at their faces before waving them through. Alistair hopped out of the rumble seat and took back human form, though he remained on the alert. Sullivan probably had owls aloft, keeping watch in the trees and on the roof, but he wasn’t about to trust strangers with their lives.
He opened Sam’s door and helped him out, grinning at the light blush that touched his freckled skin. Sam looked amazing in the bespoke suit Joel had tailored for him back in the spring, when they infiltrated the Black Rabbit. Alistair wore his best suit as well. For once, Wanda had forgone her suits and chosen a yellow evening dress with a draped cape back. It contrasted beautifully with her dark brown skin and brought out her golden eyes even more.
A maid met them at the entrance of the sumptuous mansion and whisked away their coats and hats. Though he imagined Sullivan had a huge dining room for entertaining, the one they were led to was smaller and more intimate, befitting the size of their group. Even so, the floor was marble, the walls covered in gold-leaf paper.
Another portrait of Sullivan’s dead son hung on one wall, draped in black crepe. It seemed none of the public rooms in the house were spared from mourning.
“Mr. Sullivan will join you in a moment,” said a man awaiting them in the room. A butler, maybe? Alistair didn’t know anything about how rich people lived or what gradations of servants they employed. “In the meantime, a glass of vermouth as an aperitif for Mr. and Miss Gatti, and a spritz for Mr. Cunningham.”
More servers appeared, pulling out their chairs, then pouring the drinks into little glasses. Wanda took a sip of hers. “Very nice,” she told the butler, or whoever he was.
“Excellent, madam. Is there anything else you require?”
As they were shaking their heads, the door opened and Sullivan strode in. A thin red line showed on his cheek where flying glass from the bomb had caught him, but to all appearances he was completely recovered from the experience.
Another figure followed, this one moving much more slowly and leaning on a cane: Turner, Sullivan’s right-hand man.
Sam’s eyes lit up. “Mr. Turner! You’re out of the hospital!”
Turner grinned at him. “I sure am, Choirboy.” He sat heavily in a chair between Wanda and Sam. “And it’s Lenny to you.”
Alistair kept his expression neutral only with effort. Fur and feathers, it was one thing to be a lowly worker in Sullivan’s criminal enterprise. But being on a first-name basis with the number two man in the organization?
Sam was in deep and getting deeper all the time. Which was bad news if things went south for Sullivan. Maybe bad news anyway, since working for a syndicate wasn’t exactly the most stable career path.
Then again, Sullivan had invited Wanda and him for a private dinner, and Fabiano had dropped by with an “offer.” They were all in deep, not just Sam.
The servants whisked back in, serving the first course of lobster cocktail, followed by baked sea trout, roast leg of lamb with carrots and potatoes, and finishing with chocolate cake, each course accompanied by a different wine or mock cocktail.
It was entirely too much. Sullivan was displaying his wealth, his generosity, his largesse. Which meant he wanted something from them. Just as Fabiano had.
But it seemed he wasn’t a man to talk business over dinner, and they took his lead. Turner regaled them with stories of the foibles of his fellow hospital patients, Sullivan reminisced about his childhood on the streets of New York, and Wanda contributed to the conversation with stories of amusing drunks she’d dealt with at The Pride. Sam jumped in here and there with an anecdote of his own, but Alistair kept his mouth shut except to chuckle or grunt at the appropriate points.
The dinner felt like an action in enemy territory, one where they weren’t sure exactly where the Germans were hiding. Was an ambush coming up? A hidden concrete bunker that would open on them with machine gun fire before they ever saw it? Or just an impersonal shell, launched from over a mile away by men they’d never meet? By the time the chocolate cake was cleared away, his nerves were taut as steel wires.
