Ghosts of Manhattan (4 page)

"Inspector?"

Donovan turned to see Mullins standing sheepishly behind him. The sergeant was a portly man who sported a short, clipped moustache and appeared to Donovan to have a permanently ruddy complexion. He was currently dressed in a long, gray overcoat, which covered his disordered blue suit: a symptom of being roused from his bed at such an ungodly hour of the morning. The inspector could forgive him that. Donovan himself, however, was dressed immaculately, as usual; his black suit and crisp white collar were pressed and pristine, and he had taken the time to freshen up before driving out to the scene of the crime. It was a small, fruitless rebellion, but it made him feel better just the same. After all, he was alive and the victim was dead, and the dead man wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. Regardless, the man had been an odious toad. Politicians, Donovan found, were very rarely anything else.

He regarded Mullins with an impatient eye. "What is it, Sergeant? Have you finally managed to search out some coffee?"

Mullins wouldn't meet his eye. "No, sir. Not coffee. But there's a gathering crowd of reporters out front, and they're calling for a statement. Are you planning to say anything?"

Donovan looked round at the tall revolving doors of the lobby. Beyond, through the glass panes, he could see a gaggle of reporters and photographers being shepherded back from the sidewalk by a couple of uniformed men. Flashbulbs blinked, reflecting in the glass and causing miniature, shimmering coronas to burst momentarily to life.

He and Mullins were standing in the lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel, all plush modernity and chandeliers. It was a bit rich for Donovan's decidedly down-to-earth palate. He gritted his teeth. "No. They can wait." He looked back at Mullins. "They can wait like everyone else. We haven't even informed his wife yet, for God's sake." He was muttering now, as if to himself more than to his sergeant. "How the hell are we going to break it to his wife?" A sigh. "And then there's the matter of the scandal. The Commissioner might want to keep the details out of the press." He gestured at Mullins. "Tell them to get back to the gutter."

Mullins sucked in his breath. For a moment Donovan thought he looked even redder in the face than usual. He hadn't thought that was possible. "They're asking, sir, if it's the work of the Roman."

"Well, yes. I'd very much imagine they are." Donovan gave another, plaintive sigh. His voice was tinged with weariness. "Mullins, do me a favor and find that coffee. And let's have another look at the crime scene. Then the ambulance crew can take the bodies to the morgue. After that-we'll see about facing those reporters."

"Yes, sir." Mullins nodded and shot off in the direction of the kitchens.

The murder of James Landsworth Senior had taken place in the early hours of the morning on the top floor of the Gramercy Park Hotel. It was a sordid affair, and Donovan, standing on the threshold of the room with a cigarette dangling from his lips, didn't quite know what to make of it.

The dead man was a senator-a well-respected one at that-and this whole affair, Donovan had concluded, had been set up to discredit him. There was no doubt the scene inside the hotel room had been posed; a grisly diorama intended to embarrass the government.

Landsworth was-or had been, Donovan corrected himself-a middle-aged man of about fifty, with a full head of graying hair and a significant paunch, and he had built his career on a foundation of right-wing policies and conservative opinions. He supported Prohibition. He had a healthy hatred for the British Empire and he campaigned against "progress," claiming that science was "dehumanizing" the American people. He sold himself as a family man, and was often seen around town with his wife and two young children. He never attended parties or large social gatherings, and the newspapers had a dog of a time digging up anything about the man that could even be considered controversial.

But nevertheless, here he was, his pants round his ankles, chained to a bedpost, wearing rouge, a half-drunk bottle of illegal whisky on the bedside table. His chest was covered with cigarette burns and there was lipstick all over his prick. His mouth was hanging slack-jawed and two small Roman coins had been placed over his eyelids. They glinted in the lamplight as if they had been freshly minted.

Across the room, a dead whore lay on the floor, her skirt pulled up around her hips, stockings torn, her face bruised and split where she had been viciously beaten. Donovan couldn't even tell what she had looked like before the beating, except for the fact that the lipstick smeared across her lower face matched the color of that now found on Landsworth's corpse. Mullins had told him she'd been asphyxiated, but Donovan hadn't yet brought himself to take a proper look. He'd needed a coffee and a cigarette before even contemplating that.

Donovan looked from one body to the other, and shuddered. The reporters were right to be asking. This was clearly the Roman's handiwork. It was the third murder in as many weeks, and each victim had been a man of standing: a councilor, a surgeon, and now a senator. Each of them had also been found with identical Roman coins resting on their eyelids, a calling card, of sorts, from the mob boss responsible for their deaths. Donovan had had the coins analyzed, assuming them to be recent copies that he could somehow trace through the city's dealers, but had been startled to discover they were actual Roman coins, dating from the reign of Vespasian. They looked as fresh and new as if they had been pressed the day before, not nearly two thousand years in the past. He didn't know what to make of that, either.

The Roman had seemingly come from nowhere, but had quickly risen to become one of the most powerful mob bosses in the city. His network of heavies, informants, and petty criminals was unparalleled, and he managed to inspire an unflinching dedication in his men. Donovan suspected it was a reign of terror, but so far he hadn't managed to get close enough to find out.

No one had ever seen the Roman. That was the most bizarre factor in the whole matter. It was supposed he was Italian-thus the moniker-but the truth of the matter was that the police had been unable to establish any information regarding who he really was, or even where he could be found. Whoever he was, the only certainty was that he had somehow managed to bring the city to its knees. And it was Donovan's job to find a means to stop him.

He took another draw on his cigarette and then stubbed it out on the doorframe, ignoring the appalled look this inspired from his sergeant. As if in response, he nonchalantly handed the butt to Mullins, who accepted it with a surprised expression, and then, seeing no obvious place to discard it, slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat without a word.

Donovan crossed to the bed, screwing his face up in disgust. Landsworth was a mess. He couldn't let the papers get hold of the details, of that much he was certain. He might not be able to put right what the Roman had done, but he could prevent him gaining any satisfaction from it. He turned to Mullins. "Do you think he was already here, with the good-time girl, before the Roman's men ... interrupted things?"

Mullins shook his head. "No. I think he was killed elsewhere and brought here later. The girl was killed here, though. There're signs of a struggle." He indicated for Donovan to follow him across the hotel suite. "Watch you don't step on the bloodstains, sir."

Donovan swallowed. The girl had been viciously brutalized. He couldn't be sure, but she must only have been nineteen, twenty years old.

Mullins lowered his voice, as if trying to mask his horror. "What a waste of life."

Donovan didn't know whether he meant the fact that she'd been murdered, or the fact that such a young girl had been forced into whoring herself to unscrupulous politicians and gangsters. Either way, the sergeant was right.

Donovan glanced around. An overturned table, a smashed lamp, a rug all ruffled up at one end. Yes, there'd been a struggle here. She'd been a spirited girl. "She probably thought she had a good paying gig here, at this hotel, before all this." He shook his head and glanced at the uniformed officer who was still lurking in the doorway. "Cover her up," he said, with a resigned gesture. He wondered what they'd made her do before they killed her. It didn't bear thinking about.

"Is there anything here, Mullins, that might give us any clues? Anything different about this one? Different from the others?"

Mullins shook his head but remained silent. Just like Landsworth's corpse, splayed out on the bed, unable to tell Donovan what the hell he should say to the Commissioner when he got back to the station. Unable, too, to bring him any closer to understanding who the Roman was, or how on earth he was going to set about bringing him to justice for his crimes.

he man looked out, surveying the scene across the city. Electric lights glowed like pinpricks in the darkness, causing apartment blocks to take on the appearance of jewel-encrusted towers. Police dirigibles drifted lazily overhead, their searchlights punctuating the gloaming with long, brilliant columns of white. Above them, a full moon hung low over the city like the smoldering tip of a cigarette, shrouded in wispy clouds.

He'd heard it said that New York was a city that never slept, but his own experience told him that wasn't entirely true; Manhattan spent its days in a state of bleary-eyed lethargy, only truly coming alive after nightfall. That was the city that most people didn't see, the city full of urgency and emotion and life, the city he had grown to know and to need, and that-more than ever-needed someone like him in return. The police operated with one hand tied constantly behind their backs. They could never do what was necessary, bound as they were by law and convention. Yet the city was falling to crime and corruption, the government and politicians giving way to an endless series of crime lords. It was a war, and it called for brutal measures. The wound needed to be cauterized before the festering grew worse.

The man the newspapers were calling "the Ghost" shifted slightly, reaching inside his long coat to produce a packet of cigarettes. He popped the lid and extracted one of the thin white sticks. With his gloved fingers he pulled the tab on the end of it and watched it flare, briefly under-lighting his face, before bringing the cigarette to his lips and taking a long, deep draw. The nicotine flooded his lungs, giving him a light-headed rush. He left the cigarette drooping from his bottom lip as he once again surveyed the city streets below.

From his vantage point atop the roof terrace on Fifth Avenueabove his city apartment-the Ghost watched the comings and goings of the people down below. Coal-powered cars hissed along the road, whilst lonely pedestrians drifted along the sidewalks, solitary specters in the wan light thrown down from the surrounding buildings. If it hadn't been for-

He stopped, suddenly, snapping his head to the right. He'd caught a sound, carried to him on the stiff breeze that rumpled the tails of his long coat. The sound of a man calling out in pain, from somewhere far below. Leaving his position at the front of the building, he rushed over to the other side of the terrace. He scanned the streets below. Nothing.

Reaching up, the Ghost felt under the brim of his hat until his fingers located the rim of his goggles. He tugged them down over his eyes, turning the lenses slowly away from the bridge of his nose. Everything took on a red sheen. Targeting circles floated, disembodied, before his vision. He cranked the lenses once again, tiny cogs whirring inside the device, and the view suddenly magnified, becoming sharp and bright. He could see the sidewalk five stories below as if he were only a few feet away.

The sound came to him again, a stifled cry. The Ghost tracked along the sidewalk toward where he thought it had originated. There, by the mouth of an alleyway, was a large armored car, thick iron plates cladding its sides to form a tank-like vehicle, the windshield just a slit in the otherwise impenetrable metal sheeting. The engine was running, and the exhaust chimney was belching oily black smoke as it burned coal at a furious rate. Behind this, in the alleyway itself, he sensed movement. He decided to investigate.

The Ghost flicked a switch on the side of his goggles and the lenses snapped back into place, returning his vision to normal. He glanced along the edge of the building, looking for the quickest route down to street level. Just a few feet away, a steel fire-escape ladder was fixed to the outside of the building. Shrugging to loosen his shoulders, the Ghost pulled himself up onto the stone lip of the building, ran sure-footed but carefully along the top of it, and dropped easily onto the metal platform below. His heavy boots rang out into the quiet night. Then, gripping the railings with his gloved fists, he used his weight to slide down from platform to platform, hitting the sidewalk a matter of moments later.