Page 7

I asked Mr. Morgan to drop me off at the ironworks. Goodness knows a giant tarp-covered cage couldn’t just roll down the Cobble Hill main drag near my neighborhood without drawing the kind of attention Morgan especially wanted to avoid.

The coach rocked as I stepped off, jolting Madam Navya awake. “ Arey, kya? Are we home yet?”

“We’re dropping off Benny,” whispered Sonia, and the madam promptly nodded off again.

Morgan followed me onto the gravel. “As promised,” he said, digging into his pocket and producing a clip of wet banknotes. “Twenty for the labor and an additional ten for your secrecy.”

Cristo , this was more than I made in two weeks . I glanced at the notes, then at the gap in the tarp where el tritón was still out cold, and said, “Twenty’s more than enough.”

He side-eyed me like I’d left my good sense in the river, put away his clip and touched his top hat brim. “Suit yourself. Messrs. Thompson and Dundy appreciate your services, Mr. Caldera. Fare thee well,” he said and turned back toward the driver’s seat.

Before I could leave, Sonia draped her elegant hand out the window for me to kiss. I shook it instead, and her grip was so limp it was practically undetectable.

“Perhaps one day you shall come to see us at Luna Park, ja ?” she said, smiling through that fake German accent.

“Perhaps.”

Twenty minutes and several blocks later, I turned the corner of Verandah Place ready to take up permanent residence next to my shitty coal stove, even if the smoke it leaked made my lungs stick. It might have been a simple enough plan, seeing as my tub, stove, and bed all occupied the same thirteen square feet.

Except when I arrived at my tenement, my tub, stove, and bed were out on the corner with the trash.

“No me digas ...”

I ran up the steps. Crammed my key in the lock and jiggled it. But the door stayed shut. Knocking was pointless when I knew my landlady could hear me; that woman slept so light, she practically levitated over her bed at night. Changed locks and my stuff on the curb could only mean she’d found out I’d lost my job—and my belongings were too cruddy to keep.

Two guesses who told her I was newly unemployed.

“ Cono carajo , that’s what I get for turning down those last ten bucks!”

By some small miracle, no one had taken my cuatro , which I found lodged under the mattress in its crumbling leatherette case and thrown out of tune. But most of my clothes were missing and my bedsheets too, no doubt pilfered by any number of the down-on-their-luck bums in this neighborhood. And now I was one of them, because I wound up doing the same.

There was just enough feeling left in my limbs to climb the Rosenblums’ fence and steal some dry clothes off their line. Then I dumped what belongings I could salvage onto the mattress and dragged it behind me to the alley that ran alongside the Unitarian church across the street.

Sonia’s blanket slid off my shoulders. I started shucking my boots on the only clean lamplit spot on the pavement before something bright in the church window caught my attention. I looked again.

As my eyes took in my reflection—and the dark red stain that stretched across my stomach and lap—all the wind rushed out of me.

I was covered in merman blood.

My coat came off so fast it might as well have been on fire. I shed my shirt next, then my trousers, until I was standing in the alley in nothing but my union suit and Emmett’s stockings, vibrating like a hammered round.

An especially icy breeze skated over my palm when I noticed my bandage had slipped off, too.

“Pero, ?qué demonio ...?”

Where was my burn?

In case getting my ass poached in ice-cold river water had made me forget which hand I’d scalded, I checked my other palm, but both were clean. There wasn’t so much as a scar left!

I was panting now. My heart batted at my ribs. Memories of the day’s events were already blurring at the edges. When I tried to remember anything that might have altered the state of my injury after taking off Sonia’s hankie, the only thing that came to mind was how my burn screamed at me when that thing grabbed my hand.

No, not “that thing.”

She .

As soon as I thought it, the reasoning fell into place. La sirena had healed me. She must have done it in the trickle of seconds it took her to wash my palm in salty water and wring the life out of it—as she was shouting “sálvalo” into my mind knowing I’d understand it. And didn’t that fit Morgan’s definition of an agreement? “Something you need for something I want”?

Of course, thanks to Morgan, she hadn’t stayed alive long enough to ensure I kept up my end of the deal.

I stared at my patched-up lifeline, and for a long, unnerving moment wondered if healing an enemy’s wound in a trade for their companero ’s salvation meant the mermaid had a soul. Because if so, then... Jesucristo.

No one had to know. I had my hand back; in a couple hours, I could beg McCoy to rehire me and go right back to sweating ashes, stripping molds, and hacking up blood until New York City was lousy with skyscrapers for every sucker who believed there was a place uptown with their name on it. All I’d have to do is never let my leather gloves out of my sight again. I’d seal the mermaid’s murder in the same vault where I kept all my painful memories and make good on my promise to Tití Luz —as soon as I found a new place to live.

I laid down, pulled Sonia’s blanket over me and dragged in a shivery breath. Only my eyes wouldn’t close. My thoughts kept drifting to the creature in the tank; his horrified gaze and his echoing cry—like the whole river was in agony with him.

After the dozenth inspection of my pristine palms, I sat up and pressed them together.

I didn’t know if I still believed in God, and praying for myself was a lost cause, but maybe the universe could spare some favor for someone else’s pain.

“Dale consuelo al tritón, Senor,” I whispered. “Amén.”

The effort didn’t cost me anything. I just figured the merman needed solace more than I needed God to exist.

The wind carries my name.

Benigno... Milagrito mío...

The sand of Playa del Condado is rough and gritty under my toes. Soft breezes loosen my hair and sweep my black curls into my eyes. I breathe in salty air—deeply, for once—and instantly recognize the warm embrace of a Caribbean night. Overhead is a moon so large, the waves swell vertically in a bid to touch it.

On the water stands a figure I’d recognize anywhere: Tití Luz , dressed in the same lacy pink traje she’d worn in her casket. Her gloved hand reaches out to me. Her mouth doesn’t open when she speaks.

Ven... Ven a la isla, milagrito.

“?La isla?” I repeat.

Ven conmigo, mi luna.

“No puedo,” I whisper back.

Ven... Sálvalo, Benigno...

My bare feet step into the waves. They walk and walk, but Tití Luz remains a small figure on the water. I look back over my shoulder where the shore is disappearing behind me. I should be sinking.

“I can’t reach you,” I call out, but she turns her head, distracted. Like she’s being called away herself.

“?Tití?”

With the deafening crescendo of an arriving subway train, a gale blows in from the sea. Behind Tití Luz , the ocean waves suddenly ascend, moving like a living thing, rising like skyscrapers to block out the moon. They crest over her head...

When I start running to reach her, the water gives out under my feet. My arms flail for an anchor to the air, but there’s nothing to hold on to.

A spray of foam swallows us alive—

“?Tití Luz!”

I woke up wheezing her name. Quaking with cold and coughing wisps of steam. I searched the alley like a ghost had followed me back from Lawrence Point, and either it was out to save me from dying of exposure in my sleep or it wanted me to get off my mattress and go to “la isla.”

To the merman in Coney Island.

Twenty clams and a week’s pay. After buying clothes and something hot to pour down my throat, I wondered how much I’d have left.

Enough for a train ticket, I hoped.