21

Corey wasn’t sure if Speed Horse Stall Mucking was a rodeo event. But when Quinn managed to excavate a mountain of manure before Corey could muck out one stall, the entire precinct burst into applause.

Except for Blunt.

Quinn had bet the precinct captain that he could do the job in under a half hour. Amazingly, he’d won. Not so amazingly, the prize for winning was the use of a horse to train Corey.

Quinn’s negotiating skills were impressive. But now Corey was on said horse. And he was fast becoming the afternoon comedy entertainment for New York’s Finest.

“Ride high in the saddle!” Quinn shouted, looking at Corey as if he were a space alien. “High in the saddle!”

“I d-d-don’t even kn-kn-know what that m-m-means—ow!” Corey bit his tongue so hard he nearly fell off. For a moment the rafters of the stable seemed to go rubbery.

Riding was nothing like he expected. It looked so easy. Even Zenobia knew how to do it. But to Corey, it was like sitting on a jackhammer. He was already aching in places he’d never felt pain before. Through the door of the police stable, he heard the whistle of a freight train running up the far West Side. Just beyond it was the silver-blue expanse of the Hudson. He had a great urge to hop onto one or jump into the other.

Officer Blunt had promised this horse was gentle. But its name, Chaos, should have been a clue. All Corey was supposed to do was ride him in a wide circle. But Chaos was zigzagging around as if he were at a dance audition.

The police had all gathered off to the side of the stable. Some of them were doubled over with laughter. Tears rolled down Officer Blunt’s sideburns.

“Take control!” Quinn shouted. “Show him who’s boss!”

Corey pulled back on the reins. “Come on, Chaos!” he said desperately. “You’re embarrassing me. Go right!”

Chaos snorted and went left, his eyes on a salt lick near the exit. Next to the salt lick were a few bales of hay. Corey noticed one of them twitch. A moment later, a giant rat emerged.

As the rodent scurried toward the open door, one of the cops began racing after it with a baseball bat. Chaos reared up and whinnied. And Corey fell over backward onto the dirt floor, landing on his behind.

“Well, that was successful,” he said through a grimace.

Quinn raced over, grabbing Chaos’s reins. “Whoa, easy, feller! Easy. That’s my buddy you just threw. Go on. Apologize. Say you’re sorry.”

“He’s . . . a horse!” Corey said, nearly choking on the blood of his bitten lip.

“Sometimes you gotta talk to them like babies,” Quinn said, pulling a handkerchief from his jeans pocket. “Take this. Clean yourself up. You did great.”

“I did?” Corey said.

“Well, you have potential.” Quinn led Chaos to a hitching post by the door, tied him up, and then returned to Corey. “Tell me again, how is it you are alive and thirteen years old and you don’t know how to ride a horse?”

“I prefer camels?” Corey said.

Before Quinn could answer, Officer Blunt announced, “Gentlemen, on your feet! We have us an extinguished visitor!”

The two boys stood. Officer Blunt stepped aside to reveal the skinniest man Corey had ever seen. His face looked like it had been chiseled in chalk and his body was bent like a parenthesis. A top hat was perched on his head, and he stared at Quinn through a set of smudged glasses perched at the end of a twiglike nose. When he spoke, his voice was like the creak of an old hinge. “How fortunate you boys happened to be here on my daily visit to the precinct.” He walked toward Quinn with a sharp, appraising glance. “I am impressed by your ease with horses. Officer Blunt tells me you are a cowboy seeking employment.”

“Two cowboys,” Quinn corrected him. “Quinn Roper and Corey Fletcher at your service! I came all the way from Wyoming to answer your flyer. Corey here is from . . . Egypt. Once he gets the hang of horses, he’ll be an expert!”

“Wait,” Corey said. “No!”

“Pleased to meet you,” the man said. “Randall Lyme.”

He stuck out his hand. Shaking it was like squeezing eels and Corey quickly let go.

But Quinn pumped the old man’s hands with great enthusiasm. “You’re the guy on the flyer—R. Lyme! In the flesh! Pleased to meet you, sir!”

“Very well,” Lyme croaked, “I will expect to see you tomorrow morning at seven for evaluation.”

“We’ll both be there!” Quinn said.

“Yes, well . . . ,” Lyme said, casting a disapproving glance at Corey. “I trust things will work out. Otherwise I am sure Officer Blunt will have further duties commensurate with your skill level. Are we in agreement?”

“Oh, yes!” Quinn said.

“Baller,” Corey drawled.

Mr. Lyme narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“That’s Ancient Egyptian,” Corey said, “for yee-hah.”

Quinn was practically bouncing down Morton Street. Which was dangerous when there were people sleeping in shadows between the sidewalk’s gas lamps. Saloons lined both sides of the block, and at 7:00 on a fall night, the bars were full. “What are you so excited about?” Corey asked.

“Our job!” Quinn shouted, nearly stomping on the head of an unconscious guy sprawled in the gutter. “Yee-hah! Watch out, New York!”

“We don’t have the job yet,” Corey said. “We have to try out. Well, you do. They wouldn’t hire me in a million years, unless they need a comic act.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky tonight and find what was stolen from you,” Quinn said. “Then, poof, you’ll be gone. Back to . . . ?”

“Egypt,” Corey said. “According to you.”

“Ha! Sorry, first thing that popped into my head,” Quinn replied. “Now look here, in case it takes a while to find your stolen goods, you’ll need a job. Just give me one, maybe two hours to train you. They’ll be begging you to be a West Side cowboy. You’ve got talent, Corey.”

“How can you tell?” Corey said.

“I can tell things about people, things even they don’t know. I’ve had practice.” Quinn turned and started walking up the street again. “Come on, let’s do this.”

They went three steps before a man with a bloody forehead came running out of a brick building, followed by a woman brandishing a cast-iron skillet. A group of men barreled out of a bar, eyes on the chase like it was some kind of sports event, whooping and cheering at the top of their lungs. Corey pulled Quinn back, and they watched the couple disappear down the block.

Corey knew this street from the twenty-first century. He had taken music lessons from a teacher in this neighborhood. But the Village he knew had sleek glass condos, bright streets, traffic, and lots of people strolling to and from the river.

Now, it creeped him out.

They stayed to the middle of the street. There weren’t many cars or horses at this hour, and as many people seemed to be walking in the street as on the sidewalk. In the upper windows of some buildings, children stared out listlessly. The tinkling sound of piano music spilled out from bar after bar, even from some apartment windows. At least five or six people were belting songs loudly and off key. A bored-looking old man gazed down from an apartment window and spilled foul-looking liquid onto the sidewalk. It splashed on the face of a sleeping drunk, who just smiled and turned to the other side.

“Guess we’re not in Wyoming anymore, huh?” Corey said.

“The nightlife isn’t so different out west,” Quinn said, “just not so squashed together. Are you looking at the faces? Should we be peeking into the bars to find those two guys who robbed you?”

“I don’t know,” Corey said. “That’s a lot of people, and I don’t think they’ll let me in at my age. Can we go back to the place where I woke up—you know, the Gash? There were two guys there who tried to help. I’m pretty sure I can recognize their faces. They gave me the thieves’ names. Maybe they can help us find them.”

“And if they give you any trouble . . .” Quinn pulled aside his leather vest, to reveal a holstered bowie knife.

Corey swallowed hard. “You don’t really use that, do you?”

“Not unless I have to,” Quinn said.

“That’s reassuring,” Corey replied, heading up the street.

In a couple of blocks, they reached the subway construction. At night the Gash was a thick strip of black stretching all the way up to Seventh Avenue and down to Varick Street. Pinpoints of candlelight flickered inside as people moved around like giant glowworms. Corey heard the strains of a banjo below and caught sight of a fire pit where an unidentified animal was being roasted on a stick. At each block, the dim reflection of the gas lamps from the cross streets cast a dull glow on the makeshift bridges.

Standing close to the edge and looking uptown, Corey had a sudden realization of where he was. “This is Seventh Avenue South . . . ,” he murmured.

“They have a name for this disaster area?” Quinn said.

“Not yet, but they will,” Corey said. “See that big street up north? That’s Seventh Avenue. It used to end at Fourteenth Street, I guess. Couldn’t extend any farther south because buildings were in the way—but those buildings were torn down to make the Gash and are gone forever. So once they put in the train, they’ll cover the tunnel with a new street, and they’ll need a name for it. But the address numbers on Seventh Avenue start at single digits and increase as you go uptown. You can’t use negative numbers as addresses—minus-ten Seventh Avenue or whatever. So that’s why they’ll give the street a different name—Seventh Avenue South! Huh. Interesting. I always wondered about that.”

Quinn scratched his head. “That’s the kind of thing you find interesting?”

But Corey had his eyes on the flickering candles below. Three of them were moving together. Lighting up a group of faces.

They were all men, bearded and smiling, their eyes fixed on Corey and Quinn. Lit from underneath, they looked ghoulish. Corey couldn’t tell if they were young or old. “Fella, can you help a fallen pal?” one of them called out in a raspy voice. “It’s my buddy Clarence here. He was up where you are, but he was in his cups and fell in. Can you see him? He’s hurt pretty bad.”

The guy was holding his candle away from himself now, trying to illuminate something—or someone—on the ground below.

Corey and Quinn walked closer, straining to see the outline of a man who let out a pitiful moan. “Maybe we should go back to the precinct house,” Quinn suggested. “Get him some help.”

Before Corey could answer, a kid dressed in loose clothes and a cap scurried up a ladder from inside the Gash, leaped onto the street, and grinned at both of them. “Have a nice trip,” he said.

With a sudden, sharp jab, he shoved them in the chest, away from the dark trench.

Corey felt the underside of his legs hit against something hard. They gave out from under him and he tumbled backward, flying over the backs of two guys who had crouched on all fours behind them.

As Corey smacked to the ground, he took a kick to his head. He drew himself into a ball, but the kicks kept coming.