“I didn’t challenge you to anything.”
“Two minutes,” Corinne said. “That’s all I need, I swear.”
Gabriel glanced around them at the passersby, who weren’t paying them any mind. He sighed his consent.
“What are you holding?” Corinne asked.
“My hat.”
“ ‘ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre—’”
“What the hell are—”
Corinne pressed her finger against his lips. He let out a startled breath, warm even through her glove. She forged ahead. Her left hand was in her pocket, gloved fingers wrapped around the brass timepiece. Its familiarity helped her find focus.
“ ‘Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’ That ought to do it.”
Corinne stepped back and crossed her arms in satisfaction.
“Do what?”
“What are you holding?”
“My hat.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I—” Gabriel looked down and saw that he was holding a soft black rabbit.
He cried out and dropped it, stumbling back a few steps into a hunched old lady in a Sunday hat who whacked him across the back with her walking stick.
Corinne was laughing so hard, she gripped her stomach and doubled over. People were starting to stare now. Gabriel regained his dignity and approached the animal with the caution of a soldier approaching a land mine.
“It’s not real,” he said, but it came out as more of a question.
“Touch it,” Corinne said. “It won’t bite. Probably.”
Gabriel knelt down and prodded the fur hesitantly. The rabbit looked at him and twitched its nose.
“I find Carroll especially potent for animals,” Corinne said. “There are some wordsmiths who swear by Blake, but Carroll captures the motion best, I think.”
Gabriel shook his head, still prodding at the rabbit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m just proving that you have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Stone. Now pick up your hat. You’re causing a scene.”
Gabriel started to protest, but before he could make a sound, the rabbit had become his hat once again. He picked it up, carefully, and put it back on his head. He stood up, watching Corinne with a new look in his eyes. Fear with a smidgen of awe. Her favorite.
“Come on,” she said. “Ada will be waiting.”
Corinne tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and tugged him gently along. The brick and stone businesses of the financial district dominated the cityscape, casting vast shadows across the lines of sleek black Oldsmobiles and low-riding roadsters in the street. As they got closer to the heart of the district, the car horns and sputtering exhaust fumes drowned out all memory of the Cast Iron’s sleepy neighborhood.
“I don’t get it,” Gabriel said after a few minutes, his hand drifting again to his hat. “I knew it was an illusion. How did it feel so real?”
“You’ve heard the phrase mind over matter?” she asked. “Well, that doesn’t apply here. When I recite, I give you whatever image I want, but I don’t have to convince you it’s real. Your own imagination does it for me. It’s a rare person who can overcome their own mind, and the better your brain works, the stronger the illusion.”
“Making the smartest person in the room the easiest one to fool.”
“Now you’re on the trolley.”
Gabriel just shook his head.
“What?” Corinne looked up at him.
“It’s bizarre. Poetry of all things.”
“Why not poetry? Makes perfect sense to me,” Corinne said. “When a reg quotes Lewis Carroll at you, what happens?”
“I think they’re off their rocker.”
“You might imagine the gyring and gimbling of the slivy toves or the mimsy borogoves, and as the poem progresses you might start to feel the Jabberwock coming closer, picture the vorpal blade in the hero’s hand.”
“I suppose.”
“When I quote Lewis Carroll at you, I can make you see so much more than that. I can make you see anything I want.”
His brow was wrinkled in concentration. Corinne imagined he probably tackled most problems in his life with that exact same expression.
“So Ada is a songsmith?” he asked.
“Probably the best in Boston. She’s the only reason we can pull off any con.”
“Why’s that?”
“I can make you see all the rabbits I want, but you said it yourself—I can’t make you trust me.”
Gabriel’s thoughtful frown deepened, but before he could formulate a question, they had reached their destination. Corinne led the way down a side street, away from the busiest thoroughfares. Ada was waiting for them in front of an empty storefront, buttoned into her navy blue coat and adjusting the satin lining in her cream-colored cloche. Her hair was styled into flat twists, protected against the dry winter. When she saw them, she replaced her hat and picked up her violin case from the sidewalk.
“How’s your mother?” Corinne asked.
“Angry that I disappeared for two weeks,” Ada said. “She yelled at me for ten minutes in Swahili, then another five in Portuguese. It was a lovely visit.”
She cast Gabriel a curious glance.
“He’s playing tourist,” Corinne said. “Johnny asked us to show him the ropes.”
“Well, have a seat,” Ada told him, pointing to a bench just across the street. “We don’t have a lot of time. Corinne—the jeweler will be here any minute.”
“I’m ready. You’re the one who hasn’t tuned yet.”
“Wait,” Gabriel said as Ada knelt to open the case and retrieve her instrument. “Are you two pulling a job right now?”
“We have to hit him today,” Corinne said. “He only carries cash every second Friday.”
“You might have told me,” Gabriel said.
“What, did you think this getup was all for you, Mr. Stone?” Corinne twirled to show off the flounce of her dress under her coat.
Gabriel glanced briefly heavenward. “It never occurred to me to assume anything about your wardrobe, Miss Wells.”
Ada laughed and plucked at the strings of her violin.
“Could you drop a few coins in there?” she asked Gabriel, nodding toward the case at her feet. “I’m trying to look like a busker.”
Gabriel obliged, though he was still watching them both warily.
“There he is,” Corinne said, whirling to face them. “Gabriel, go sit down. For cripes’ sake, you look about as inconspicuous as a smoking gun.”
Gabriel frowned at her, but Ada started playing, and he seemed to forget what he was going to say. He crossed the street and sat down on the bench. Corinne patted her hat down and then started to pace up and down the sidewalk. This street was emptier than most in the district, with only a few businesses and negligible traffic. Corinne had seen their mark turning the corner up ahead, his brimmed hat low over his ears, his chin tucked into his collar against the cold. There was no one else in sight. It was now or never.
“Help me out with a little tragedy, won’t you?” she murmured to Ada. “I’m no thespian.”
Ada obligingly sailed through a few minor chords. Corinne felt the wave of sorrow almost instantly. She had no trouble summoning tears after that. Provided they were focused, hemopaths could generally remain unaffected by other hemopaths, but if they were caught off guard—or wanted to be—they were just as susceptible as regs.
By the time the man had reached them, Corinne’s eyes were red and swollen. She paced more quickly, wringing her hands and making short, intermediate sobs. As the man tried to pass, she bumped into him and sprawled backward to the concrete.
“Sorry about that, miss,” the man said, tucking his newspaper under one arm and offering her a hand.
Corinne took it and immediately felt the iron of his ring, even through her glove. She jerked her hand away and made a show of dusting herse
lf off. She hoped her weeping was enough to hide her wince.
“Oh,” she said, between gasps. “Oh, he’s going to be so angry.”
The man watched her for a moment, hesitant. Ada changed her tune, very slightly, and his expression changed with it.
“Is there something the matter?” he asked Corinne. He was a short man in a fine black suit, gripping a brown leather briefcase in his left hand.
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t want to trouble you, sir, only—only—I wonder if perhaps you could help me.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing past her down the street. Ada slowed her song to a leisurely pace, drawing out each note with ringing clarity. The man set down his briefcase.
“Perhaps I can,” he said to Corinne.
“I’ve lost a huge sum in a bet—nearly a year’s worth of savings! My beau is going to be furious with me. The money was set aside for when we’re married, and I promised him I wouldn’t gamble anymore—only I thought for sure that this would pay out.”
“Gambling is a terrible vice for a young lady,” the man said.
Corinne started sobbing again. “I know,” she wailed. “If he finds out, he’ll leave me. I know he will.”
The man was starting to look impatient again. “Miss, I’m sorry, but I don’t see how I can help.”
“That’s just it,” Corinne said. She grabbed his sleeve, careful to avoid the hand with the ring. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve been in that pawn shop all morning trying to make the clerk see reason, but he doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m a . . . a . . . woman of the night.” She spoke the last in an exaggerated whisper.
Ada sniggered and dropped a few notes but quickly righted herself.
The man scratched his head beneath his hat, revealing a receding hairline.
“I’m still not sure how I can help,” he said.
“Can I tell you something first?” Corinne asked, her voice softer.
The notes of Ada’s violin wafted above and around them. The man’s face was lax, and Corinne could see a familiar blurriness in his eyes. She had learned to recognize it a long time ago. Clear eyes were a warning sign—there were those rare few who weren’t as receptive to Ada’s gentle nudging.
Corinne’s hand moved to his lapel, and she tugged him closer. She whispered in his ear for almost thirty seconds. When he stepped back, he blinked at her, expression even more dazed. She had opted for a few lines from a volume of poetry that Ada had given her a couple of years ago. Edna St. Vincent Millay hadn’t gained much renown yet, but Corinne was betting on a Pulitzer by the time she turned forty.
“I’m not sure I catch your meaning, miss,” the man said, still blinking.
If Ada hadn’t been churning out a healthy dose of trust mingled with confusion, he would no doubt have fled after the first couplet. Or garroted her with the thin iron chain she could see peeking out from beneath his collar. There was no truth in the belief that pure forged iron made the wearer immune to hemopathy, but it didn’t stop regs from paying through the nose for it.
“Look at what I have here,” Corinne said, holding up her cupped hands. “Do you see it?”
The man nodded fervently.
“It’s a golden brooch,” she said, firming the illusion. “Studded with real diamonds. Have you ever seen the like?”
He shook his head.
“That’s a mighty fine trinket, miss,” he said. “Where did you get such a thing?”
“My grandmother gave it to me. I’m sure it must be worth at least a hundred dollars. That’s all I need—only I can’t get the clerk to buy it from me. He keeps threatening to call the police.”
She sniffled and watched the befuddled man through her eyelashes. She and Ada had been keeping tabs on him for two months. He was one of the jewelers in Boston who had made a small fortune selling iron jewelry to regs as a ward against hemopaths, but it was what he sold under the counter that caught their attention. Iron knuckles, iron-braced clubs, and iron barbs, no bigger than a needle, that were designed to break off in the skin—a special kind of torture for hemopaths, whose blood had a visceral aversion to iron that science had yet to explain. They were the sorts of weapons that would appeal only to ironmongers, those citizens who had decided in the past year that the surest way to stop hemopaths from scamming them was to grab any hemopaths they could find—criminal or not—and string them up in straitjackets of iron chains.
Corinne thought it was only fair to exact a tax on the profits he made at the expense of hemopaths. The only question was whether his lack of scruples extended to taking advantage of a wide-eyed, desperate girl. The brooch he could see in her hands would be worth three or four times what she was asking. She could practically read the thoughts flashing across his face in quick succession. He wasn’t a particularly subtle man.
She knew that they had him.
“Maybe I can help,” he said. “I’ve been looking for an anniversary present for my wife. What if I bought it from you?”
“You would do that for me?” she asked. Ada would tell her later that she was laying on the innocent doe act a little thick, but the jeweler was too entranced by his own greedy imagination to notice.
“You said it was worth a hundred dollars, right?” He knelt down to open his briefcase and pulled out a fat envelope. “I was just on my way to the bank.”
“Oh, I can’t do that,” Corinne said, clutching her hand to her chest. “What if it’s worth much less than that? I don’t want to cheat you. Maybe this was all a mistake. I’ll just find another pawn shop.”
“My wife will love the brooch,” the man said. “That’s worth the money to me.”
He spoke with such gentle reassurance that Corinne had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“Only if you’re sure,” she said, hesitantly extending her hand.
The illusion might not hold much longer—it depended on how well the poem stuck in his mind. He was thinking so hard about the profit he would make selling the brooch that the verses were probably being crowded out with every passing moment.
He counted out five twenty-dollar bills and pressed them into her palm.
“My wife will be so pleased,” he said, tucking the envelope and the brooch into his briefcase. Before he could snap it shut, Corinne let out a small gasp as the breeze caught one of the bills in her hand. It swirled into the road.
“Oh no,” she cried, trying to sound as helpless as possible.
“I’ll get it,” he told her, checking for oncoming traffic and then ducking into the street. While he stooped to pick up the bill, back turned, Corinne opened the briefcase and pulled the rest of the bills out of the envelope. She shoved them into her coat pocket and straightened right as he turned around.
“You’re too kind.” She summoned a few more tears for effect. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s my pleasure, miss,” he said, beaming. “We’ve both had a run of good luck today.”
“No more luck for me, sir,” she said. “I’ll never place another bet in my life.”
Ada’s violin trilled, and the jeweler smiled blandly. Corinne knew the music was scattering his memories of the past few minutes. Ada couldn’t make him forget completely, but she could blur Corinne’s face in his mind and make the details of their conversation impossible to recall with any accuracy.
Corinne recognized her cue and bade the man a hurried farewell. She went the opposite way down the sidewalk, quickening her pace until she turned the corner, where she broke into a run. Hopefully Gabriel had enough sense to follow Ada to their rendezvous point. Corinne twisted and turned through the streets without slowing to check her direction. When she made it to the Central Burying Ground, she stayed across the road from the weathered gravestones, a safe distance from the iron fence encircling them. She knew that somewhere among those stones lay the bones of several of her more illustrious ancestors. She wondered what the stodgy old men would think about their descendant running cons a few blo
cks away from their final resting place.
Ada and Gabriel arrived before she even had a chance to catch her breath. The three of them took the path leading through the frostbitten grass and bare-branched trees of the Common.
“There’s at least four hundred here,” she told Ada, patting her coat pocket.
“His mistress is a lucky woman,” Ada said.
“Mistress? But didn’t you hear? He was going to the bank.” Corinne had regained enough breath to laugh. “That’s why he just happened to have an exorbitant amount of cash on him.”
Gabriel was looking between them, eyebrow raised slightly.
“I don’t suppose it’s even worth asking what just happened back there,” he said.
“Probably not,” Corinne agreed.
“You two seem to have everything under control.”
“We’ve been at this for years,” Ada said.
“Then you won’t be at all concerned about the beat cop who’s about to catch up with us.”
Both girls stopped and whirled. Corinne cursed. “Ada,” she said.
But Ada was already yanking her violin free from its case. She threw the case at Corinne and tucked the instrument beneath her chin. She had barely coaxed out a few notes before the policeman roared into earshot, shouting at them to stop. Ada kept playing, the sound barely carrying above his cries. He started to slow. The expression on his face grew lax. He was almost upon them now.
Ada closed her eyes and played on.
The policeman kept walking, brushing elbows with Corinne and Gabriel. He didn’t turn around. Ada played until he was out of sight, then with Corinne’s help repacked the violin. The three of them ducked down another path. They took the long way back to the club, slipping through side streets with eyes always cast backward, alert for followers.
There weren’t any patrons in the Cast Iron this early in the day, and Danny was busying himself polishing glasses.
“Little early to be raising hell, isn’t it?” he said by way of greeting.
“Some of us work for a living,” Corinne said, and ducked the rag he threw at her.
Danny retrieved another cloth from under the bar and cast Gabriel a glance.
Iron Cast Page 6
