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F ollowing my twilight encounter with the mystery intruder, I gave up on convincing Matthias or anyone else it had happened. Río’s peace of mind was already suffering without inviting Morgan’s paranoid attention to the tank or, failing that, more cops.

Río demanded I stop visiting him at night for my welfare, which was ridículo . I told him he was in no position to decide whose welfare was at risk; with the city wallpapered in Prince of Atlantis flyers, who knew how many goons would risk the end of Joey’s baton for a shot at stealing a live merman? If keeping watch meant having to sleepwalk through my daytime duties, then so be it.

And sleepwalk I did, until Río brought me back to life in the tank.

He was a patient swimming teacher when he wasn’t scolding me for being so distracted; though, in my defense, Río’s lithe backstroke would wreck the focus of a monk. He’d often hang off to the side to observe or let me propel him around, and by early May, I’d learned to tread water and hold my breath for as long as it took to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in my head twice. I could even dive down and pluck his carved shells from the sand, which came as a shock to us both the first time I did it.

I hadn’t had an asthma fit in days.

Río said I had natural talent, though if you asked me, learning to swim is easy when catching a merman in your arms is the reward at the end of a lap. The thrill I felt just being allowed to touch him. To be the person who, in the peaceful moments between telling stories and teaching me not to drown, he reached for and kissed.

I’d never wanted someone like this. Like a drought was inside me that a kiss alone couldn’t quench. Along with the possibility of ever breathing freely, I’d accepted that physical intimacy wasn’t in the realm of things I could do. With anyone. After Ramón, my body had become a greater mystery to me than any of the human curiosities I lived with now, so skilled was I at suffocating everything I was into oblivion—my language, my island, even my name. My stunted heart had become another foreigner in a sea of extranjeros , but when I was with Río, it seemed to come back home.

What would become of it if Río left?

The thought got interrupted on the way to Río’s tank when I noticed a lamp was already lit behind the curtain. Someone had turned off the pump. I froze.

“I did not sink a chunk of brass into this joint to have you tell me two weeks ahead of opening day that you caught a sea monster who don’t do nothin’ but look at us like we’re on the menu at Lombardi’s,” came a gravelly voice I didn’t recognize.

Morgan’s nervous laughter followed. “Now, now, Little Frankie—”

“It’s Mr. Agostinelli to you,” the man snarled. “I will carve it into your face the next time you call me ‘little,’ pezzo di merda!”

Miércoles .

Crouching close to the ground, I crept toward the gap between the curtain and the proscenium to get a better look. Morgan stood in the space between Río’s tank and a set of three dark-suited men, the shortest of which stood in the center, flanked by his taller, slightly dim-looking cohorts.

Sonia stood stiffly to the side, her face paper white despite a generous daub of rouge on both cheeks.

“My deepest apologies, Mr. A-Agostinelli,” Morgan stammered. “I’m simply articulating the modifications we’ve had to make for our star performer. The merman came to us wild, practically untamable. This actually represents a marked improvement in its ability to communicate. To think it was unwilling to even look in our direction when we first pulled it from the river!”

Saltwater estuary , I thought darkly.

“I’m hearing an awful lot of excuses and no solutions,” said Little Frankie. He turned to the man on his right. “Qual è la tua opinione?”

“No solutions,” Righty repeated.

“Ah, but we do have a solution!” Morgan insisted. “We will plan the entertainment around the creature until such time as it is properly trained to engage with the human world. And we do have reason to believe it will eventually engage, don’t we Miss Kutzler?”

Sonia’s face blanched further. She’d be a ghost before the night was over. “Yes,” she squeaked. “We got a new member of the company who’s taking care of the merman. He’s been spending loads of time with it. I’ve even heard him talk to it.”

My mouth fell open. That night. The mystery intruder hadn’t been a goon. Or a thief.

It had been Sonia .

“I think,” she added, taking her cue from Morgan to keep talking, “the merman could even be a willing performer.”

Little Frankie shifted his feet into a wide stance. “ Could be? Or will be?”

“Will be,” Morgan answered confidently. “I’ll make it my personal priority.”

“That you will, Sammy.” Glancing first at Righty, then Lefty, Mr. Agostinelli turned his sneer on Morgan and started walking toward Sonia. “Because we got a business partnership, you and me. And so far”—he lifted Sonia’s hand and ran his fingers over her knuckles—“I been holding up my end of it while you let us play with your pretty puttana like that’s gonna pay back the five grand I loaned you outta the goodness of my heart.”

“Goodness of his heart,” parroted Lefty.

Frankie dropped Sonia’s hand. She let out a visible breath and resumed staring at the floor. “It’s already May. I came to see some return on my investment. But you’ve disappointed me.” Then, tipping his head gently to the right, he added, “Vincenzo, show Sammy what happens when I’m disappointed.”

In three long strides, Lefty reached Morgan, but before the showman could move in his defense, the goon sank his square fist into Morgan’s gut—then backhanded him across the face.

Sonia shrieked as Morgan crumpled, a thin strand of pink spit dangling from his bleeding lip. Vincenzo straightened his tie back out and reclaimed his spot next to Frankie, abandoning Morgan in a writhing heap on the floor.

Río backed straight into his corner, horrified.

“What’d you do that for?” gasped Sonia.

“Aw, don’t worry, principessa . That was a little love tap.” Frankie grinned, baring a set of tiny teeth. “An incentive to earn back my good opinion. ’Cause me and my brothers here are gonna be back on preview day to see if Mr. Morgan’s made good on our arrangement, or else Vincenzo will have something of a more permanent nature to exchange for my disappointment. Understand me, Sammy?”

He was on his hands and knees, looking up at them through watery eyes like a kicked dog. “C-completely,” he choked.

“Next time, don’t stutter when you say my name.” Then, turning to his brethren, he said, “ Andiamo . We got a ferry to catch.”

They filed down the stage steps and out of the building like they’d just been let out of Catholic Mass. As their footsteps faded into silence, Sonia’s strangled terror gave way to tears.

“Oh my God, Sam, are you all right?” She knelt beside him, but Morgan was already fencing off her ministrations.

“Stop,” he croaked. “I’m fine.”

She tugged at the arm he held against his belly. “ Fine? You need a doctor—”

“I don’t need a damn doctor.”

“Just let me see it—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, get out of my sight, you useless whore!”

Sonia’s tears seemed to retract back into her eyes. While Morgan scowled at the ground, she took an unsteady step away from him, then dashed noiselessly out of the theater.

It was just the showman, the merman, and me now. Haltingly, a red welt rising on his cheekbone, Morgan rose off the ground and faced the tank.

“Bet you enjoyed that,” he mumbled, his words slightly slurred. “We’re all about the fucking thrills here at Luna Park.”

Río watched wide-eyed from his shadowy corner. Morgan straightened as much as his injured gut would allow and scoffed at him.

“Look at you. Sitting in that exquisite enclosure bought and paid for by some of the most powerful people in New York City, looking down your nose at me like you’re some kind of J.D. Rockefeller instead of the misshapen mackerel you really are,” he hissed.

“I oughta tell the world the truth about you. Heartless, soulless devils who think nothing of watching children drown,” he continued, his voice rising. “If you had half a brain in that briny head, you’d thank me for rescuing you from the river, you ungrateful brute! While the rest of your race goes the way of the dodo bird, you’ll be preserved and glorified by the masses because of me , but you won’t even cooperate! Do you think people will come from miles around to see the Eighth Wonder of the World if all it does is glower at them from the bottom of a tank? Well? Say something , goddamn you!”

Morgan waited for an answer Río would never give him. As the seconds ticked, Morgan’s bitter scowl degraded into something noxious and terrifying.

“But of course, you’d rather converse with the hired help,” he sneered. “I’d ask what’s so special about that greasy dock rat, but I suppose one bottom-dweller recognizes another.”

Every muscle in my body wrapped itself around my rage like a tourniquet, and not because he’d insulted me.

That yanqui pendejo had called Río heartless.

Morgan stabbed a finger at the tank. “I’ve eliminated bigger obstacles than you. Just see what happens when you outlive your usefulness. I’ve an entire museum full of things that were once pretty and profitable, and a bit of stuffing can turn anything into a curiosity people will pay a nickel to—”

Suddenly, Río was out of his corner. In a streak of blue and green, he rushed at the glass wall where Morgan stood and, at the last second, swerved his long tail to send a massive tidal wave of water over the tank side—and directly on top of Morgan’s head.

The sound of Morgan’s roar was so completely removed from his manicured speaking voice, not even I could impersonate it.

“So help me, God, I will tame your savage spleen if it’s the last thing I do!”

Uneven footsteps came alarmingly close, then faded as Morgan stomped away from Río’s tank, soaked in water down to his skin, clutching his stomach and snarling cusses furiously to himself. I thought back to that conversation with Matthias in the shadow of Dreamland’s plaster angel, because there he was.

Offstage Sam.