The Dead Gentleman by Matthew Cody Read Free Book Online Page A

shade, appropriately, in her closet behind a hanging shoe rack and some poster tubes. As she did so, she tested the walls for hollow sounds that might indicate a hidden door or false floor. But it all felt solid; there were no exits except for the door itself. It occurred to her as she closed it tight that it was a shame closets didn’t lock from the outside. She knew she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight anyway, so she busied herself with one last sweep of the room. Trophy-mallet in hand, she peered behind every book, under the bed and in every corner, looking for any trace of her attackers, but there was no sign of them. It was just another rainy night and her closet was just a closet.

CHAPTER FOUR

T OMMY
N EW Y ORK, 1900
    I stared at the bird. The bird stared back at me. This had been our routine for the better part of two weeks. The contest would go on for most of the night until I finally mumbled, “What are you looking at, you stupid bird?” and rolled over, hugging the frayed, moth-eaten woman’s coat I’d been using for a blanket, and closed my eyes.
    Sleep didn’t come easily. It hadn’t ever since I’d looked into the face of a dead man and seen him smiling back at me. My dreams had rarely been pleasant things, but they’d lately turned downright nightmarish. Grinning skulls and pauper’s graves visited me now. When I was very young, I’d been taught to say prayers for the well-being of loved ones before bed. Since taking to the streets, and since I had no more loved ones to speak of, I’d altered the practice more to my liking and offered up a nightly list of curses instead.
    “A pox on Nate the Twist for taking more than his fair share of last week’s score,” I recited. “May boils burst on Eaglesham the Scrivener for running me off his shop’s stoop yesterday. May Quick-Bladed Jenny’s knives snap for telling me there were meat pies being tossed out near Brown’s Bakery when there weren’t any. A curse on Copper Bryant, Copper Scott, Copper Black and that big, hairy-knuckled Copper who walks the beat near Church but whose name escapes me now. A curse on …” My little list had been getting longer of late, lasting ten minutes or more until I reached the end: “Lastly, may this squawking piece of junk rust its beady little eyes shut, and may my own eyes be cursed for ever looking upon it. Amen and good riddance.” And with this, Merlin would cock its head at me quizzically and let out a long, tired whistle.
    In the weeks since my daring robbery of the fantastic clockwork bird, I’d made quite the discovery—that it was impossible to make any money from a fantastic clockwork bird when the entire underworld of New York was looking for it. Sure, I’d been on the lam before, but never like this. Within hours of the heist, word had gone out to every ne’er-do-well and vagabond in Manhattan that something very valuable had been stolen by a common street boy matching my description. The missing item was a shiny metal bird statue, a toy for the very rich, and a very rich man was willing to pay a king’s fortune to get it back. And beneath those rumors were darker whispers that this very rich man was actually someone very well-connected and spiteful, and he was preparing to make life hell for all the street folk of Lower Manhattan if he didn’t get his pet prize back in a hurry. Greed and fear were working together to make a nasty little brew on the streets out there.
    And there were
other
things after me as well. They’d been waiting for me when I returned to my hideout—the small attic of an abandoned tannery near the riverfront. I’d heard their chattering as I perched on the fire ladder that I normally used to come and go. Peeking through the loose slats over the boarded-up window, I made out smallish shapes moving around in the darkened room, but I’d never managed to get a good look—they kept to the shadows, the unused nooks and crannies, the very places where I used to feel safe.