Archive of Our Own ^beta

He hadn't started his new hobby on purpose. He'd just grabbed onto Henry's coattails right after the sting and off they'd gone, every meal red meat and every day Christmas. The trains were locals, a whistle-stop tour of northerly towns to keep them out of Lonnegan's orbit until he was cooled (yeah, fat chance) or dead (likely, given the sharks he swam with and his blood now in the water).

Turned out the news outran them in the best way, and the next local crew they visited had already heard about the Lonnegan Wire.

"The Wire!" said a roper in Franksville, Wisconsin, a big grain-fed fellow with a red happy face. "Hell-fire, I thought that went out with the Passenger Pigeon!"

To Johnny it felt like they were all grinning at him, this roomful of old hands. And before he knew it he'd stepped forward and said in a voice to carry, "Only one pigeon in this game, boys, and his name's Lonnegan."

They roared, they pounded Johnny's back, they poured beer down his throat in waterfalls. And in moments here and there through the crowd, Johnny saw Henry watching him over the rim of his own mug, his eyes lit up bright blue. All Johnny knew then was that his neck shivered the same way it did when the roulette ball hit his number. It felt like winning, and he liked to win.

When they dropped in on the farm town New Berlin (and Johnny learned fast that they said it with the emphasis on the BER, not the LIN), they were taken aside for a private conference.

"Long story short," said Flora, the local Duchess, "we got a bet going with those ruffians over in Genesee Depot." She paused to light Henry's cigar. "A history lesson, you might say."

"What kind of history are we talking about?" asked Henry, between puffs.

"We were thinking of a wrestle-store."

Henry whistled. Johnny lazed back in his chair and looked bored, as if he knew all about it. But without being asked, Henry said, "Imagine the same game we pulled on Lonnegan, but instead of a horse race over the wire, it's wrestlers right in the actual damn room."

"I know, I know," said Flora apologetically. "But this mark don't play the horses. Nor the markets, neither. He likes sport, and he likes money, and most of all he likes a thrill right up close."

"Uh huh. So what's the trouble?"

"Our wrestlers." She looked glum. "Brothers. Bad harvest back home, and they hopped the next freight to go help out dear old Maw and Paw. And who else can we get at short notice who's got the meat on 'em?"

"Don't look at me," said Henry wryly.

The Duchess laughed. "No, suppose not. But I thought you might have some names."

Henry smoked thoughtfully, like Johnny imagined the bigwigs did in their fancy boardrooms. "How soon?"

"Soon," she admitted. "Yesterday."

"Nothing jumps out at me any closer than Chicago. You've sent word to the neighbors?"

"Milwaukee says they're on it. But I must admit, not sure how much those big-city boys feel like helping us out."

And Johnny thought that was that, until Flora turned a sudden bright eye on him. "You look fit," she said. "Do any wrestling?"

Johnny stared. "Uh...no ma'am."

"Don't suppose you box?"

"Well..." he said dubiously. He remembered some scuffles he'd been in, though that was back before Luther had taught him his manners. "Maybe not as such."

She looked at him a while. Johnny worked on not squirming in his seat, much as he wanted to glance pleadingly over at Henry.

And then suddenly: "Can you run?"

"Yeah," he said without having to think.

"Fast?"

"Fast." He didn't mean to sound belligerent there, but he thought he might've. She hadn't ever seen Johnny sprinting away from a Joliet short-con, let alone outrunning Detective Snyder up and down the unfamiliar byways of Chicago.

"Hmm." Still looking at Johnny appraisingly, Flora said, "Can he take a fall?"

In a half-second of held breath, Johnny again forced himself not to glance at Henry.

"What do you think," said Henry around his cigar. He sounded comfortable.

"A dead fall? Convincing?"

"'Course."

"We could get Ford's boy as the other runner, turn it into a foot-race store." She thumped the arms of her chair and stood up. "Come on, son, no time like the present."

Johnny spent some time that afternoon stripped to a borrowed pair of gym trunks and battered canvas shoes, practicing the race with the New Berlin crowd. He was the ringer, of course, the mark gleefully doping him to lose, and after the mark had bet it all on a sure thing Johnny would run his race and drop down dead. Oh no, quick, before the cops find out and charge you with murder, and the fellows would whisk the mark out and onto a train back to his distant and wealthy home—sadder, wiser, and definitely poorer.

Once, Johnny sat up from his latest try at the sprint and tumble, brushing dust off his chest. He'd done it just right, if he did say so himself. And he saw Henry watching him, a falling stripe of sun lighting his eyes up bright and hot.

Johnny felt that gaze in his bare shoulders, the nape of his neck, trickling down his spine with the sweat. He jumped up, laughed at someone cracking wise, trotted proudly to the starting line, more than ready.

Henry said their cut of the takings was a hundred percent Johnny's, by the sweat of his brow and all. Johnny took some time before their train out to get himself two brand-new fine silk neckties: bright but elegant, one in layered blues and one in browns and golds. And of course a few new shirts, something to show them off against. No time for tailoring...but he made sure they fit well.

So it sort of became his hobby. Johnny would see some new opportunity and fast as lightning he'd grab it, conquer the hell out of it, see Henry's eyes flash from across a room. He could live off a taste like that for days.

He never really thought about it directly, but he knew it when he saw it: like climbing up the side of a building to outwit a chase, moving from drainpipe to window ledge to niches in the brickwork, mind and eyes and body firing nimbly, up and up and up.

Outside of Lake Mills, a barful of carnival hucksters sat spellbound at Johnny's re-enactment of the Lonnegan Wire. And they welcomed him into their weekend plans, staffing a Razzle game that shook a traveling real estate magnate until his pockets were empty.

That night Johnny bought drinks for the whole bar, flying so high he didn't need a drop. He'd never run the Razzle before, but he knew he'd been pitch-perfect: the patter quick but calm, guiding the mark's attention, keeping him convinced all the time that he'd figured out how to beat the board and was always juuust on the verge of success.

It was Johnny who'd done that. And now here he was rubbing elbows with his colleagues, one of the group, with all the right in the world to be there.

"Another?" he asked Henry, lips to his ear to be heard over the crowd.

Henry shook his head, though his glass held nothing but the dregs of melting ice.

"Come on, we're celebrating!" If it had been Erie, his pal, he'd have socked his shoulder or bumped him with a hip. Even Luther he might have shaken around some. But something kept his hands off Henry, who stood there quiet and self-contained, a little smile brushing the corners of his mouth.

Henry leaned to him and said, his breath warm on Johnny's cheek, "Don't you worry about me. Enjoy yourself."

Johnny grinned at him. Then he headed off through the crowd and took his grin with him, filling the glasses, keeping everyone laughing. All the time he was aware of Henry turned toward him like a compass.

Into Madison to eat fried fish and nod soberly at the capitol building like a couple of swells; Johnny befriended a downtown monte artist and picked up some tips. Turning north and west across rivers and through farmland; Johnny used his new card-handling knowledge to take a few well-dressed travelers for their fat bankrolls in the club car.

He knew it was risky to take a mark on the same train with no way to cool him out after. He knew it was a bad idea to jump into that grey space between a short con, where you could slip off and run, and the big con, where you had the architecture to move the mark on his merry way. Still wet behind the ears from Joliet, he knew all this.

But every time he managed it, won the hand and dodged the bullet, he'd busy himself counting his pocketfuls of cash somewhere near Henry, and his heart beat a thrilling triple time.

He got himself a haircut and another manicure—playing it cool, like he was used to it. A wool topcoat and a new suitcase to put it in. A scarf, as the air turned a little brisk, the blues and greens of a peacock's tail.

Then came a stretch with no one for him to skim, no poker, no nothing. Johnny wandered around after dinner, but the club car and the smoker had nothing but tired geezers who didn't want to make friends.

He came back to their compartment after a few drinks, restless. Henry was reading, collar and tie undone and hat tipped far back on his head, a couple different papers scattered across the seats.

Johnny flung his hat and then himself onto his seat. A chilly night raced past outside the windows, frost forming in the corners where the warmth condensed. Henry's ghostly reflection there was calm, self-contained, and Johnny had nothing new to show him.

"Henry."

"Hmm?" Henry turned a page.

Johnny actually opened his mouth to ask, Did I invite myself along?, but stopped himself. Of course he had. You're not gonna stick around for your share? Henry had asked, surprised, seeing Johnny in his path with coat and case. For the first couple days Johnny had half-expected—okay, feared—that Henry would idly tell him to pass on a message to Alva and the kids when he went right back to Joliet where he belonged.

"Nothing," he said instead, and slouched, ankle on opposite knee.

The paper dipped to reveal Henry's eyes. They glowed like a daylight sky even in here. Johnny still felt them like a touch, but this time he shifted in his seat, undeserving.

"Here," said Henry, and tossed him one of the papers, crisply folded. "Two heads are better than one."

Johnny picked it up dubiously. "The stock market again?"

"Maybe. It's one of the spots the fat cows go to graze."

"Stocks are boring," said Johnny, but he started reading anyway.

Henry let out an amused breath. "Yeah."

Their papers crackled companionably. Johnny thought about Henry's tale of the old days, when the big con was big business. It was boring then, and if they weren't careful it would be boring now. Henry should have more than that. And Johnny was gonna stop being a tagalong and make sure he got it.

Up in Eau Claire, at last, Johnny got a solid bite.

He'd mingled with the home guard until his shoe leather got thin, asking question after question even when it made him feel like a dumb kid. And finally one of the hungry young fellows on the edge of the group started complaining to him about a juicy mark over in St. Paul. Seems this boy Al had had a bunch of great ideas for wringing him out, but couldn't seem to get him roped and hooked properly, and eventually it all fell through.

"But Jesus Mary I was so close," he groused, kicking the bar. "Watch, one of those old St. Paul stick-in-the-muds is gonna try something dumb on him and botch it."

Johnny sympathized and bought him yet another drink. Which might've been a mistake, because before he'd extracted all the details, Al had begun leaning on his shoulder and tearing up at how nice it was to have someone actually listen to him for a change.

"Wait right here," Johnny said, and eeled off through the throng toward a familiar hat.

"Ready?" Henry checked his watch. "We better get going. The railroad hotel only serves dinner for another, what, half hour."

"Not for me. I got an appointment with Al and a plate of diner hash."

Henry's gaze flicked across the room and back, but he didn't pry. He tossed back the last of his drink, ice rattling. "Got your key?"

Johnny nodded.

"Well." Henry took a breath and smiled gently. "All right then." And Johnny watched him disappear into the crowd around the door.

"You came back," said Al, blinking bleary eyes.

"Sure." Johnny slipped a hand under his arm. "Hey, how about we blow this joint. Cuppa joe, huh? Pork chop, baked potato?"

Al brightened at once. "Liver and onions!" And he let Johnny steer him to their coats and out.

So Johnny fed him with good grub and black coffee, and in between bites Al shared as much about the lost mark as he knew, which was plenty. And what was even more useful, as the night stretched out and they ambled through the streets with their collars turned up, he got confidential enough to share the mistakes he'd made—why he'd never really hooked him right, where the mark was truly wise and where he only thought he was.

By the time they ended up at Al's rooming house, Johnny felt wide awake and ready to start immediately, despite the wee hour and the slumbering silence.

"C'mon," Al said, holding on to the crown of his hat as he peered up at something. Then he sprang into the air, grabbed the end of the fire escape, and expertly lowered it down. "I got a back window."

"S'okay, I'm in a hotel."

Al eyed him for a careful moment, then moved toward him with a spreading grin and leaned in. He smelled warm, like smoke and diner steam. "It's nicer here," he murmured.

Johnny blinked. He slowly smiled back. "I'm sure it is. But I gotta get home."

"Sorry, sorry. Didn't know you were on a leash." His tone was light and joshing, but Johnny frowned.

"Ain't no leash on me, friend."

"Hey." Al laid one hand on the fire escape ladder, leaning comfortably. "Pax, all right? I just think it must be rough, dancing attendance on the king."

Nothing rough about it would only confirm he was some kind of court jester— What King wouldn't be fair to Henry, the man everyone knew, the whole room listened when he spoke, grifters far and wide tipped their hats—

"Well," he muttered, feeling a fool, "that ain't it."

Al climbed a few rungs. "Okay. But if you ever need a little time off..." He must've seen something in Johnny's face, because he shrugged and clambered lightfoot up the ladder, into the shadows.

Johnny walked back to the hotel with his hands jammed in the pockets of his luxurious topcoat. His scarf was soft on the back of his neck. He kept pushing Al and his nonsense aside in favor of thinking about the St. Paul mark; there were a lot of decisions to make, and he had to get a head start. He wished he could bring it home to Henry all in one piece—

—like a good retriever dog, offered Al in his mind—

—but no one could expect him to have it all readymade. He'd do as much as he could and then spring it. Maybe he'd even make the first touch on the mark so he could tell Henry it was already on the way, a sure thing. Maybe Henry's lips would make that slight little curve and his eyes would glow like Lake Michigan in the summertime.

Johnny decided to tell him the night before the train pulled into St. Paul, in case Henry had some idea of hopping lines and going straight on. He listened, his face going from curious to sober to furrowed. And after Johnny finished, he sat in troubled silence.

"So?" Johnny asked at last.

"You got this all planned out," Henry said.

Johnny lifted his chin. "Yeah, soup to nuts. What's the matter with it?"

There was a loaded pause while Henry rolled his sleeves down and took some time fastening the cuffs. Finally: "What do you know about St. Paul, kid?"

"What the hell kind of a question is that?"

Henry looked up. "Not a rhetorical one. So take it easy, and think on it."

Johnny felt hot and uncomfortable. His foot jittered up and down, and he wished they were walking somewhere, anywhere, not stuck in this little compartment. "Okay, not much. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Henry waved him off. "You did good work digging up the facts, so here's a few more. I've spent some time in St. Paul, one way or another. And you should know that the heavy rackets there, the real gangsters, they're not as hands-off as the mobs in Chicago."

"Hands-off, sure," said Johnny, scoffing.

"No, I mean it. These guys pay attention to the grift. They're more likely to step in and want a cut. They have their territory and they don't like visitors."

"You're saying I can't do it."

Henry shook his head, a fast back-and-forth like a dog shakes water. "I'm saying we're in for the real high-dive. You ever seen those carnival stunts, a guy up a tower throwing himself off into a pool the size of a telephone booth?"

He didn't look like a ward boss handing down a verdict. He didn't look like some 'because I said so' officer back at the reformatory. He just looked worn around the edges, his brows drawn in and his eyes somehow soft.

Johnny met those eyes and smiled, small at first but letting it grow. "Yeah, I seen 'em. They make their landing and get paid like anybody else."

"Until the day they don't."

"It'll work, Henry." He leaned in. "I can make it work."

A long moment while Johnny kept their gazes locked, as confident as he knew how. At last Henry let out a puffing sigh and pressed both hands hard over his eyes. He rubbed his face briskly, emerging with a rueful smile. "We better get a good night's sleep," he said. "Last one for a while."

Johnny's plan resembled a version of the ancient "gold brick" ploy, but they didn't use a lead ingot painted gold—Hubert Cairn craved diamonds, and that's what he'd get. He'd only recently finished taking over his family's brokerage firm and pushing all his partners out, so hadn't had time to become an expert, but he knew what he liked.

All it took was a confidential packet addressed to a competitor "accidentally" falling into Cairn's hands, with exciting news about a newly-discovered diamond mine: strictest secrecy essential, representative arriving in town for negotiations.

Johnny took point as the representative, Henry coming along behind as a rival rep—an enemy for Johnny, so in case Cairn turned sour (betrayal being one of his hobbies), Henry could step in. They tossed Hubert Cairn back and forth, heightening his appetite, making him feel like he had a real inside line barely ahead of the rest—all due to his own skill and quick-thinking, of course.

Cairn was edgy, as Al had found out to his sorrow. He was prone to taking a quick turn, changing his mind, worrying. He'd backstabbed everyone else close to him; no wonder he spent half his time expecting a knife.

But Johnny, warned, knew to play him with a light hand. No direct challenges to his pride, like with Lonnegan. Lonnegan was a bull; Cairn was more of a jackrabbit, needing a lot of room to move. As long as you didn't spook him, he'd end up munching the bait while the box fell over him.

Johnny, though, Johnny was the sheepdog. He circled, he stop-started, he got friendly then eased off. But no one was whistling him up, not Luther, not even the great Henry Gondorff; this was his play, and he ran with it.

Every twitch on Cairn's side, every moment it almost fell apart, made Johnny's heart pound and his chest expand. He'd sneak by Henry's rented room at night (God help the con if Cairn ever saw them getting chatty) and describe the whole day of ups and downs, waving his hands and soaking in Henry's intense regard.

It was like jumping up a skyscraper staircase two, three steps at a time, the effort pumping the blood, the air getting thin, the height dizzying. He had Henry's eye on him, and he knew how to keep it there.

"How about a top-up, Freddy!"

Cairn always pressed his pal Freddy the diamond-mine-rep to keep up with him glass for glass, which meant part of Johnny's efforts had to be on making his drinks disappear without drawing attention. It was an old skill, but a little tiring, and tonight he'd actually consumed a bigger proportion than he'd meant to.

It was fine, though. His reflexes were still good; he was cheery and loose, which wouldn't do the sting any harm. One final exchange and they'd win.

So he waved his glass happily at his chum Hubert, who in turn waved his hand imperiously to a waitress. She served them out, avoided Cairn's sloppy pinches, and expertly wove away through the crowded tables. The motion of the boat underfoot didn't hitch her step for even a moment.

Yeah, it was a riverboat, and hadn't Henry been stiff about that. Chartered by the mark and his fellow businessmen, so it wasn't even neutral ground like an ocean liner—too small, closed-in, no escape. They'd have to keep the mark happy and ignorant all night even after they made the touch, until the Fraternal Order Of Whosis' excursion was over and they could disembark and hot-foot out of town.

But Johnny wasn't worrying, and why should he? He knew Cairn the best, had had to sit and listen to him puff hot air about why he deserved all his good fortune (and why the people he'd ruined deserved what they got too). He knew the riverboat trip was Cairn's favorite event of the year, where he'd be relaxed and distracted and have his guard down.

Of course he also knew how he himself felt about it, though he hadn't shared this part with Henry. A big sting on a riverboat! It'd be a wonder, a tale to tell ever after all down the railway lines. To write to Erie, maybe even to Alva, and they were family so they'd know what they were hearing: Johnny had jumped through a ring of fire and never scorched a hair. And of course Henry would understand it too, from the inside, to see Johnny fly so high and justify Henry's faith in him.

Across the room, Henry mingled with some of Cairn's enemy associates. He had a lot of those, given how he'd climbed to the top by stepping on their necks. And Henry being cozy with them kept Cairn goaded just the right amount—if he didn't finally pony up and get Johnny to buy the mine claims tonight, who's to say Henry wouldn't find out and acquire the deeds for one of those guys instead?

Henry looked great over there. This character smoked a pipe, not a cigar; he drank fiery sipping liqueurs from tiny glasses. He was spinning some involved story or other that had his group spellbound. The crisp cut of his evening clothes, the old-fashioned pocketwatch in his waistcoat, he was rich and smooth but warm, welcoming, like your favorite professor had come into an ancestral fortune. He was perfect.

It was almost a shame to have to make the touch and end the game. Almost.

"A little fresh air?" Johnny asked Cairn meaningfully.

Cairn bent to the briefcase leaning against his leg under the table. "Yes," he said self-consciously, in a way he surely thought was subtle, "it is a bit stuffy."

They went down to the cloakroom for their coats and took their fresh cocktails up onto the top deck. The night was cool and cloudy, threatening rain or maybe worse. Little tables were clamped to the deck-rail here and there, but in this weather nobody was using them.

They settled at one, and Johnny used his handkerchief to wipe river-mist off the lacquered surface. He wished he could make the final touch inside, wished that ol' Hubert wasn't such a paranoid sonofabitch. If only Henry could see him do it. But of course he'd know afterward, and that wasn't nothing.

"So..." Cairn leaned in. "You got a look at the new survey?"

"A good long look. It's just like you predicted: that whole slope is crammed with kimberlite rock, big fingers of it threading down from the river."

Cairn suppressed his triumph (poorly) and groped for his cigarette case. "Well, sure, but the rock is one thing. The diamonds are another."

"New sample's right here." Johnny patted his pocket, and Cairn fixed his eyes on it so hard that he fumbled his first couple match strikes.

"You're sure nobody's caught on?"

"Sure I'm sure!" Johnny said. "The claims on the slope are still for sale—as of lunchtime today, anyway. I'm sure you can get 'em."

"If anybody saw you nosing around that survey, though..."

The first instinct might have been to reassure such a nervous mark. Oh, no, of course nobody saw me. But Johnny knew by now that Cairn didn't respond as well to a friendly hand from the front as a gentle press from behind.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I mean, I did my best for you. But any minute now Ostergard and those other fellows are going to wise up, and then, I can't really say."

He let that lie there and sink in while they watched the dark water churn by. Finally, Cairn hoisted the briefcase onto the table and clicked it open. They both rummaged through the packets of hundreds, and Johnny's training reassured him: no wastepaper, nothing counterfeit.

"It's all here," said Cairn impatiently. "Can you get the deeds tonight? I mean, even this late?"

"I think so. He said he'd be waiting for our call." Another great reason for the paddleboat, of course: no telephone, which would make the mark tense as all hell, imagining some landlubber beating him to it.

Cairn stashed the case under the table and brooded some more. The door to the party opened briefly, bringing a gust of loud talk, laughter, clinking glass. Something about the sound of all those men who hated him seemed to spark his battery, because he suddenly said, "I can trust you with it, can't I, Freddy."

Johnny leaned back from the table, openly rolling his eyes. "You'll pay for that, Hubie. I got a birthday coming up, and I expect you to reward me in big fat shiny rocks."

Cairn grinned. "Of course," he said, lying to Johnny the way he had to everyone else in his life. "I owe you, and I won't forget it. But, it's only..."

He got no help from Johnny, who waited brows up, so finally he got it out: "It's only, you'll have the case, and before I get the deeds, what'll I have?"

Excellent. Johnny flung out impatient hands. "Jesus, I don't know! What does anyone have after a deal goes through but before he buys his first yacht?"

"Collateral." He said it like such a smirking call-and-raise move that Johnny could have laughed out loud. Not Freddy, though: as Freddy, he looked confused.

So Cairn went on, "It's not that I don't trust you, Fred. You've been a real brick, especially keeping that Ostergard off the scent. But I guess I'd feel better if I had a little something to do in the meantime."

"Besides yacht shopping."

"Yeah."

"Well, name it, you're the boss."

He knew what Cairn was going to say, but it was still a real glory to hear, after all the juggling and herding and tedious scenes. "I could take care of the samples, have 'em valued."

A gentle pull back: "Aww, look, you know my contact gets squirrely about that. He'll do it, but he doesn't want to meet anybody."

Cairn mm-hmmed innocently around his cigarette. "I figured I'd take 'em to someone else, is all."

Now of course he was waiting to see Johnny startle. But of course the little bag of dreams was already supposed to go to the mark, even though it contained a real diamond that was actually worth something, bought with the last of their traveling money, a showy one they'd already been waving around and letting him have a close look at. The rest was cut glass, cheap diamond chips, and polished chunks of likely rock pretending to be ore, making it satisfyingly heavy in the hand.

"Someone you trust?" Johnny asked, glancing around. "Someone who won't try to find out where it's all coming from?"

"Sure."

"Because the deal could still be scotched if anyone gets wise."

"You worry too much," said Cairn, which was rich coming from him.

"You got that right." Johnny drew the pouch from his pocket, holding it on his knee.

"Show me," Cairn said suddenly. This was expected, and the whole reason for the real diamond, a sweet convincer that no one could doubt. So Johnny opened the pouch and as if at random, without looking, plucked the diamond out onto his palm. Cairn stared at it the way some men stared at showgirls, but the kind the showgirls warned each other about.

It was going so well. Perfectly. Cairn was already looking forward to getting away with the deeds and the diamonds, which he thought were worth millions more than the paltry tens of thousands in the case. And then he could tell his secretaries to forget Freddy's name and have office security keep him out. Poor ole Freddy could join the legions of sore losers who'd trusted Cairn to treat them fairly.

But what if, Johnny thought suddenly.

What if he held back the real diamond? They'd needed the convincer to make it look good close up, even though a jeweler's lens—but now surely Johnny could hold it back if he played it right. It raised the challenge even higher, on top of the twitchy mark, the hazards of the St. Paul mob, the riverboat. And this would be some close-up hand-work, Cairn sitting right there and staring.

He could do it.

In one easy move, he tipped the pouch and poured out more of the junk into his palm.

They admired the glittering pile for different reasons as it shone luxuriously in the low amber lights of the deck. Johnny passed his thumb through it a few times to make it shift and sparkle, and, not so coincidentally, to scoot the real diamond to the base of his fingers.

"And this is only the first little scoop he could reach," said Johnny. "Never seen such a high count of the good stuff right out of the gate."

Cairn shrugged, but his eyes gleamed as brightly as the bait.

Johnny plucked up one of the polished rocks and held it out to him. "When they crack this one open, whaddya think: you and me, matching tie pins?"

Automatically Cairn took it, not quite snatching, and in that bare couple seconds, Johnny carefully dumped the handful back into the pouch. As he did so, he closed his fingers together just enough to trap the diamond in the flesh between his middle and ring so it didn't slide in.

Quick and casual, he brought his other hand over to help tie the pouch closed, and his thumb flicked the diamond up that sleeve. Then his perfectly empty hands lay harmlessly open on the table.

His heart clattered in his ears and his throat, like a timebomb ticking down. If Cairn noticed, it would blow the whole gaff. And if he did, it would happen right...about...now.

But Cairn took the pouch, smiled at the rock, tucked it all into his inner pocket. With one foot he scooted the case across the deck to bump into Johnny's leg. Johnny lifted his glass in a casual toast. With all the noise and fire roaring inside him, he couldn't taste a thing.

Being from a short-con background, Johnny had never actually been forced to still hang around with a mark even after the touch.

It was terrible.

His entire body felt hot, like being high on top-shelf hooch. It was harder than it should've been to stay in Freddy's head—to keep from jumping up and letting loose with a coyote howl. And the diamond burned like an icicle where it rested in the crook of his arm.

Worst, though: he was sitting here looking across a damp little table at Hubert Cairn, for God's sake, which was the last phiz he wanted at a time like this.

He'd never been so thankful for dirty weather. When grains of icy water (or was it watery ice?) started spitting down from the sky, he rose and tucked his cold hand in his trouser pocket, letting the diamond roll down to safety.

His muscles were quivering as he followed Cairn back to the party. At least now he could walk off some of this fire.

But after the cold, dim outdoors, the top deck saloon smote him in the face with a rising roar of bright sound and heat. And all at once he couldn't bear to sit back down with Cairn and think of things to say—not right away.

He wondered where Henry was.

Like a real helpful boy, he got Cairn a fresh drink to distract him, and offered to take the coats back to the cloakroom. He wandered away through the party and his feet felt like they never touched the ground.

Every time one of these big fancy drunks in a ritzy suit turned away from Johnny for being a nobody, Johnny thought about the money in his case and the diamond in his pocket. He thought about how he'd made this job happen, he himself, with elbow grease and smarts and a fast line of talk.

And he thought about Henry, the king, willingly playing second man. Back in Chicago, Henry'd risked his reputation, even his life—he'd bet on Johnny with everything he had. Now the longshot had come in.

Scarcely looking where he was going, Johnny sidled through a gap in the crowd. And he caught sight of a figure across the room: elegant black back, hair just dusted with silver, a fine clever hand gesturing with a cigar. Those rubes had no idea what that hand could do to a deck of cards.

Johnny stared at him. And as if he felt a touch on his shoulder, Henry casually turned around to ash his cigar in a tray on a table and suddenly met his gaze.

Johnny widened his eyes, shifted his armful of coats, and stepped backward into the crowd again. Ever casual, he made for the stairwell down to the cloakroom. His heart tapped against his breastbone fast and faster; he took the stairs in a couple of jumps.

No coat-checker here—guess these money-men trusted each other one day a year. So Johnny waded in to the little room, brushing through close-hung topcoats. He dumped his and Cairn's coats on a chair against the wall, piled the briefcase on top of them, and turned around in time to see Henry slipping in and closing the door.

"What's the trouble?" asked Henry quickly. And Johnny knew that if there were trouble, he'd be ready for it, and would back Johnny's play.

He couldn't help it: he laughed, just a little, choking it off as best he could. "Nothing. No trouble in the world."

A quick scan of the case. "Is it real?"

"Real as rubies."

Henry, startled, put a hand behind him for the doorknob. "Then get—"

"—Wait," said Johnny. "C'mere."

"Hooker, what's the matter with you."

"C'mere and I'll show you something."

A moment of hesitation, Henry's jaw working. Then he stepped forward between the coat racks, into the rich, wool-smelling dimness where Johnny waited.

Johnny smiled, dizzy with triumph and fat as a cat in cream. "Look what I got for you."

With a flourish he brought his hand out of his pocket empty—turned it over, empty—turned it back with a little shake, and there was the diamond.

Henry gazed down at it for a few long seconds. When he looked up, his face was calm again, his eyes heavy-lidded and almost amused. "Oh."

"I know you didn't like to give it away."

"Well, depends," said Henry. "The convincer has a job, and I like to see it do its job."

He was already shifting his weight backward to get out of there, dammit all. Johnny reached out and took him by the sleeve. "Just call it a gift, then."

Henry heard something in his voice, he supposed, because he held still. Johnny slid his grasp down to Henry's warm hand, tucked the diamond into it, folded the fingers closed.

There was a rasp in Henry's throat. He said hoarsely, "What?"

Johnny could have laughed again, if he'd had the air for it, but he was breathing sharp and shallow. "You shoulda seen it," he said. "You shoulda—"

A crisis in his body, his chest, like he was underwater and needed to break the surface. You didn't think about that—everything in you just did it.

He slid both hands behind Henry's lapels, tugged him sharply in, and brought their mouths together. He was grinning helplessly, kissing with heedless appetite, like crashing through into sweet fresh air. Henry made some kind of noise— seized his wrists— wrenched backward with a stare—

—the knob rattled, and next thing he knew they were already two feet apart and Hubert Cairn loomed in the doorway.

"What's this?" he said, his voice heavy with menace.

Henry eyed him irritably. "Bragging, I guess," he said, dusting off his shoulder where the cloakroom door had hit it. "He wanted to rub my nose in your new mines. You did a nice job teaching your boy manners, Cairn."

Johnny saw it like someone was sketching it on a blackboard: Henry taking the opposition, roping Cairn to Johnny as the winning team.

Cairn took Henry by the upper arm, and against Henry's leanness his hand looked huge, powerful, clenching till the knuckles whitened. "Let's talk manners," he said, and yanked Henry out through the door.

Johnny hurried after them, out and then out again, onto the empty lower deck. His good shoes slithered in the wet slush.

"—because you got there first," Henry was scoffing.

He knew his next take as if Henry had handed him a script. "I always figured you for a sore loser, Ostergard," he said from Cairn's shoulder.

Cairn had a grip on Henry's collar now, and shook him like a dogfighter. "You think that means you can cut in line?"

"Aw," said Henry, disgusted. Johnny could see that he was sagging, hanging heavy in Cairn's hand, forcing him to make an effort. "I know you'da gotten a better deal with me. But I also know when I'm beat."

"Do you?" Cairn rattled him back and forth and then pushed him hard backward into the rail. Henry's head knocked against a post with a startling sound and he staggered—looked real this time. Johnny's arms and legs surged hot; he clenched his fists.

"Well, look." Henry was breathless, but still and always in character. "Next time, give me a call. Can't hurt to diversify."

Johnny forced himself to think like Freddy and gave a mean little laugh. But it felt maybe a beat behind the time.

Cairn's hand stayed bunched up in Henry's collar, and he was slowly leaning into him, pressing his throat. "You know what I think? I think you had some plans to di-ver-si-fy my money right into your pockets."

His voice was thick, slurring. He wasn't cooling out, and too late, Johnny saw how drunk he'd gotten. All those slugs to get him relaxed, then to salve his nervousness, and then to celebrate, they were coming down like a sledgehammer.

Henry's face was red, but he was still getting some air. "S'a lot of effort," he managed. "D'rather— make a deal."

The sound of Cairn's other fist striking Henry's cheekbone was muffled and flat. Johnny winced reflexively, an electric shock all through his body.

"Ow," Henry gasped.

"I'll show you a deal," said Cairn between clenched teeth. "I will show you—" —a clumsier punch, glancing off his ear— "—a God damned—" —square in the center, and Henry's nose started bleeding— "deal." The last one got him in the brow as Henry collapsed forward, and it seemed to hurt Cairn, who hissed and shook his hand, glaring as if Henry were the one who'd dented it with his mean ole skull.

Henry sagged and slid. Was it still purposeful? The last strike had cut his forehead, and there was blood running into his eyes. He squinted them open. In the dark, in the sleet, in the blood, they shone.

"Hey, Hubie," said Johnny, before he knew he was speaking. He looked away from Henry's bloody warning glare and patted Cairn on the back. "I think he got the message. C'mon in, I'll pour you a top-up."

Cairn muttered something. But he paused, and everyone was still breathing, and for a second Johnny thought he'd managed it.

Then the big head swiveled, and Cairn fixed him with an enraged and cloudy eye. "You."

"Can't we discuss this inside?" Johnny said.

"What, in the God damn cloakroom?"

"Upstairs," he said peaceably. "Have that cute gal bring you another, and I can get the brag out of my system over a card game."

"Cloakroom." Cairn grabbed Johnny's arm, though he hadn't switched entirely over from Henry just yet. "Where you left my money."

"Sure, it's right in there." He drew the sounds out reassuringly, like you talked to a sour drunk or a mean dog. "Where's it gonna go, huh?"

"Back in my safe!" Cairn roared.

"Come on in. Forget about this guy. Let's you and me talk it over." He pulled against the grip on his arm, and at last Cairn dropped Henry and seized on to Johnny with both hands.

He could bring it back from the brink. Even though he'd fouled everything up, even though he'd burned Henry's role as the secondary ally, even though he'd made sure the paranoid in Cairn had really woken up— He had it.

He thought he had it. So he tried a smile.

Wrong choice.

"What're you laughing at!" Cairn shouted. "I'm done with talking! I'm done with you!" With his powerful hold on Johnny's arm, he yanked him to the side, braced, and whipcracked him away with all his might.

Johnny's leather soles found no purchase— the railing slammed him hard in the hip— he was upside down, stuck for one airless moment, his foot blazing in agony—

Then the river came up to meet him, struck him, swallowed him, down into the filthy freezing dark.

Water in his mouth, his stomach, squeezing his chest. He flailed, and his right foot screamed again. Groping, paddling, he managed to get his face to the surface and gulped some air along with river water.

His head spun, his belly heaved. He knew how to swim— kind of— but his body couldn't seem to sort itself out, hands and legs jerking out of rhythm. Every other breath got him slopped in the face with a little wave, floating cigarette butts, the taste of oil. His evening togs were soaked and heavy, dragging on him.

Another wave smacked him, making his eyes burn. Then suddenly rhythmic splashing, and a voice. "Stop thrashing, will ya."

He couldn't answer. He couldn't think, let alone speak. But a body slid close behind him, arms wrapping around his chest, and he stopped thrashing.

Henry started kicking under the water, sort of a backstroke with Johnny against him, moving them both backward. Johnny tried to help with his arms, but they didn't work so good. Once Henry's churning feet hit Johnny's leg and he yelled.

He was getting cold. Downside of not thrashing. His consciousness wavered, narrowed to two things: his foot, throbbing and burning like a phosphorus match. And Henry, solid and strong all down his back.

That solid warmth was gone now—he was lying on a splintery boardwalk, shivering uncontrollably. Hands rolled him on his side, thumped him between the shoulders.

"Jerusalem!" piped a little voice. "Where'd you come from?"

"Nowhere good," said Henry from behind him, thumping away. "What's your name, kid?"

"Who wants to know."

Johnny coughed up what felt like half a lake. Henry's hands braced him till he was easier. Then: "How about we say a customer."

A cracked little laugh. "You kiddin'?"

"Not like that, come on." Even soggy as used coffee grounds, Johnny could hear the strain underneath Henry's calm. "I just need you to run a message."

"Let's see the money, then."

One of the bracing hands left Johnny, presumably to rummage around. Johnny's shivering kicked into high gear, and the vibrating made his right ankle flare with pain like someone was chewing it.

"Money was in a clip," said Henry. "Fell out and sank."

"Zat so."

"Hang on, hang on. Something must be in here somewhere."

"Uh huh." The piping voice sounded scornful, but unsurprised.

"...Du-hi-himon," Johnny croaked.

Gentle and quick, Henry turned him over. Now Johnny could see him, outlined by an amber streetlight and the pale cloudy sky. He was hatless; water matted his hair and trickled down thinly mixed with blood from the cut on his head.

Johnny tried again: "Diamond."

A crackle of laughter drew Johnny's eyes to the owner of the piping voice: a little girl, grubby and trousered and wearing a sweater too big for her puny frame. She'd stitched the biggest holes back together with twine.

"A diiie-mund!" she laughed in a singsong.

Henry rummaged, but his face spoke to Johnny before he did. "Gone."

Johnny closed his eyes. Of course. Oh, yes. The topper on the whole fine sundae. Everything he'd reached for, everything he'd been crowing over. His teeth hurt from clacking together.

"Here," said Henry. "I got a watch."

"S'broken."

"Well, it took a swim."

"What'm I sposed to do with some old busted watch?"

Johnny let his eyes stay closed against the chaffer. Their voices went back and forth, the little curious squeak and the reasonable baritone. It was a good match. Maybe the alley kitten could teach them a thing or two. In the meantime he'd lie here, pulling in hard breaths against the foot stepping on his chest. At least his ankle was floating off somewhere where it wouldn't bother him. And the shivering was fading away—a few bursts, still, but further and further between. Not so cold anymore.

His face stung, sharp on both cheeks, and he hadn't even been beaten up against the rail of a paddleboat. He made a protesting noise. He was moved— hoisted— and a jarring pain in his ankle made him open his eyes.

"Don't you dare go to sleep," said Henry, angrier than Johnny'd ever known him. He had his arms around Johnny now, had him sort of cradled in his lap. Johnny started shivering again. Henry rubbed his back hard, with a fierce friction.

"If you want," the kid offered, sounding serious now, "I could maybe get a cop."

"Yeah."

"No!" Johnny writhed against Henry's arms and managed to turn enough to lock gazes with her. "No. No cops." After everything he'd done to Henry, no way was he going to risk him in the hands of the law. Maybe the fix was all right and he'd get out... but maybe he wouldn't.

"Don't listen to him." Henry sounded like he thought he was still in charge. But the kid stared at Johnny and then shrugged.

"I guess this late the dock bulls're somewhere drinkin' off the cold anyway."

Johnny smiled at her, trying to clench the chatter out of his teeth. She looked at him suspiciously.

"I could get somebody from over there." She jerked her grimy chin toward a couple waterfront dives down the boardwalk. "Bouncer or som'n."

"No," said Henry regretfully. "I can't be sure who's connected and who's not. And we don't want the mob to know we're here, get it?"

"You don't want no cop and you don't want no mob, what do you want?"

"How much to run a message?"

She kicked a toe against the boards. "Dollar."

"You don't start with a dollar," Henry said. "You say, 'couldn't do it for less than five'."

"Five dollars?"

"Then I say, 'not worth more than a buck fifty.' Then you say..."

Johnny eased a crick in his neck by turning his face into Henry's chest. His jacket was open; his shirt was wet, but warmer than the air.

"I say a dollar fifty."

"You say, 'well, maybe for you, four fifty,'" said Henry patiently. She caught on pretty quick after that, and they haggled their way to three twenty-five. Johnny shivered under the friction of Henry's hand, but didn't drift off any more.

"So where is it, then?"

Henry shifted Johnny's weight. "Gimme ten minutes. Deal?"

"Deal."

A painful minute later, and Johnny was sitting propped against a crate with Henry's wet dinner jacket wrapped around him. Henry peered close into his face, then got up without a word and headed off along the boardwalk, shambling, scuffing his feet.

"He awright?" she asked from her perch on a crate.

Johnny couldn't answer.

From a distance, they saw a little show: a rummy came staggering along, nearing a crowd of swells who were slumming down by the docks for cards and booze and worse. They laughed. Some young blood imitated his laboring walk, then mockingly bowed and tipped his shiny hat. The rummy tried to return the bow, overbalanced, toppled right into the middle of the group, clutching at the youth with both arms. Cries of disgust, some untangling of limbs. A good solid shove.

And Henry Gondorff, gentleman and artist, king of the big con, tumbled into a pile of garbage against a dirty brick wall. The fine citizens strolled away down the boardwalk.

Five bills from the young blood's shiny leather wallet ("And keep the change," Henry said gruffly) sent their new friend on the run for someone whose name Johnny didn't catch. Johnny sat hunched miserably inside Henry's jacket, neither of them speaking, until a man arrived in a battered grey coupe.

Now Johnny was laid out on an armless couch, and the man was standing over him with a scowl. He looked maybe forties, tall, with a craggy olive-skinned face and hair the shiny black of shoe polish.

"I don't like that chest," he said.

"Now you're getting per—" Johnny coughed— "personal."

"You be quiet." He turned to Henry. "Haven't even listened to it properly yet, and I don't like it."

"Just tell me what to do." Henry's white shirt was filthy and one knee of his dinner suit was ripped open.

"You'd be in the way. Go clean yourself up."

Henry hesitated, then left. The man called after him: "Anything but the Harris Tweed. Or the herringbone. Try the dresser!"

Then he rolled up his sleeves and stripped Johnny down in a quick and businesslike manner. Even the wet skivvies, which he unbuttoned himself, impatient with Johnny's shaking hands. He tossed a scratchy wool blanket over Johnny's naked body like he was flinging a dust sheet over a beat-up jalopy.

Despite his manner, though, he was careful as he inspected the swollen, purpling ankle. When he gave Johnny a shot of something or other in the arm, Johnny hissed but didn't yelp.

"What do I—" Johnny coughed— "—call you?"

He flipped back the blanket from Johnny's chest. "You call me at a more reasonable hour," he said. "Now breathe in."

He listened to Johnny's chest and back with a stethoscope that felt even colder than the river. Then he tapped him here and there, shushing him irritably at any attempt at a question.

Johnny started to feel properly warm under the blanket, even sleepy, despite the chest pressure and the ankle. The shot, maybe. And he wasn't supposed to talk, or in fact do anything other than breathe when he was told. So he let his eyes close. Let himself drift. Maybe if he went to sleep he could forget everything.

"Well?" Henry's voice was hushed.

"You look dreadful."

"This never was my color. Maybe if you had something in blue."

"Hilarious. Hold still... now tip your head back. This hurt? How about here."

"No, just—" —with sudden strain— "—yeah, that."

"You got off lightly, compared to Icarus over there." Some rustling, a bottle of liquid being shaken. "...Now what?"

"I was thinking about how Icarus didn't make the bad wings, Daedalus gave 'em to him. But let's—never mind."

A sigh. "Of course. Head a little forward..."

"Ouch."

"Agreed. I don't think you need any stitches, just keep it clean."

"So how is he?"

"I suppose you want to stay out of the limelight? No hospital?"

"I don't care. Whatever you say."

"Hey," Johnny said with great effort. His eyelids weighed a hundred pounds apiece, but he got 'em up.

Henry was standing by the doctor, looking strangely small next to his height. He was wearing a thick knitted sweater now, but the hem hung down and the sleeves were rolled up. And the grey wool had a greenish undertone that didn't suit him, made him seem worn and sickly. He'd looked better out on the end of that boardwalk.

"No hospital," Johnny told him. "Need some sleep is all."

"It's not your call," Henry said. He was matter-of-fact, not harsh, but it took Johnny's breath away as hard as any punch. Closing his eyes again, he thought of all the calls he'd made along the way that put them here.

"The ankle's a sprain," said the doctor with a yawn. "Nothing for it but time. Eventually some liniment, massage, help the circulation, but no need for a medical degree."

"You said you didn't like the chest."

"Depends on which way it goes. Could just be a cough and a thick throat for a while, as everything swells up and settles back down."

"Or?"

"Could turn toward pneumonia. Oh, don't look like that. It's not as bad as it used to be. They have these brand-new sulfa drugs."

"We'll go right now, if he needs 'em."

"He doesn't. They'd only toss him in a bed and play wait-and-see, and you can do that anywhere."

"All right. Thanks again, Gus. I owe you one."

"I'll put it on the pile. Now listen, Henry. When I say 'anywhere', I don't mean some cross-country train or a smoky backroom full of grifters with bright ideas. He needs rest. Complete rest. No half-measures. Understand?"

"Yeah."

"None of your lamming around like real life doesn't apply to you."

"I got it. I do. Can I use your phone?"

"It's the middle of the night, you ridiculous man. Lie down and get some sleep. Summon your myrmidons in the morning."

While Johnny was wondering what the hell myrmidons were when they were at home, between one breath and the next, he was yanked under into sleep.

He might've opened his eyes for a second, sometime in the dark wee hours. Henry sat in an armchair, wearing that sad sweater, barely visible in a low light burning on a sideboard. His eyes were shadowed sockets, directed right at Johnny, staring at him like a skull.

Or it might've been a dream.

Everything at the resort was white. The walls of the deluxe cabins facing the long slope to the lake. The sheets and coverlets and heaps of plump pillows. The food, creamed this and mashed that. Even the other guests, rich pale women draped over lounge chairs—half were invalids like Johnny, but the other half just seemed bored. Those ones had secretaries or paid companions to take their tempers out on.

Johnny, well, he had Henry. Henry handled everything. "Complete rest" was the watchword, and that was all there was, every day nothing but ticking off items on Gus's handwritten list of symptoms and treatments. Next day, start again.

The wounds on Henry's face healed quickly, leaving him remote and quiet and handsomer than ever. A few days in, they were sitting bundled up in the autumn sun staring out at the lake, and in the light through the changing leaves all golden brown and dying red, he was like some kind of artwork. One of those richly-painted people sitting lonesome in an Automat or a hotel, the strong bones of his face casting smudgy shadows, his eyes turned down at the corners.

But as the echoes of the beating left Henry, somehow Johnny felt like they were moving inside him: an ache like a swollen nose, a sting like a cut.

"Henry," he said one morning, during the regular routine of temperature and aspirin.

"Keep that thing under your tongue."

He gripped the thermometer with his teeth and said from the corner of his mouth like Jimmy Cagney, "Where'd the money for all this come from?"

"Give it here." Henry retrieved it, examined it, wrote something on a tablet, shook the mercury down in a few sharp flicks.

Johnny knew there was no point in arguing. And yet he said, "You call in IOUs for this? Huh? You go into debt?"

"What're you worrying about that for," said Henry absently. "You know it's no good for you."

"Not getting my question answered ain't so good for me either!" Yelling made him cough, which made Henry pound him on the back. He finally sat up again and buried his face in the glass of water from the nightstand, scowling.

Henry turned with a fresh undershirt from the drawer, neatly folded. "All right, all right. You're flush. At least part of this is coming out of your share of Lonnegan, so relax."

Johnny caught the shirt and moodily took his old one off. "I left that share for the rest of 'em."

A shrug from Henry, who was tidily reorganizing the aspirin and other nonsense with his back turned.

"I thought maybe they'd send it to Alva."

"You earned it. It's not like you have a pension." He turned around. "Put your clothes on, for God's sake. Just like you to get pneumonia on purpose to show me a thing or two."

That caused a surprisingly bad twinge, remembering their journey up here a million years ago, how much he'd wanted to show Henry. Savoring those shining eyes from across a crowded room.

"Well," he muttered, deflated. He yanked the undershirt on and reached for the pullover draped across the headboard. "I told you I'd only blow it. Didn't I."

These pullovers and flannel trousers: his invalid costume. They were soft and broken-in but well-made, rich, not at all shabby. No idea where they came from.

He had a hazy memory of the first day when he'd mostly just dozed, propped up on pillows like a marshmallow sundae. Visits from a few unfamiliar well-dressed men and women who shook hands with Henry, yarned about names and places Johnny'd never heard of. And in their wake they left the suitcases from the rented rooms in St. Paul—he supposed they'd paid off the rents, too, and cleaned up any other evidence.

Johnny's new wool topcoat and scarf hadn't made it, of course. Maybe they were still paddleboating up and down the river in that cloakroom, forever and ever, like the Flying Dutchman. But his nice shirts, his silk ties, they hung neatly in the cabin wardrobe. He could barely stand to look at them. Like the cast-off cocoons of a squashed moth.

Complete rest seemed to mean that Johnny wasn't supposed to do anything. Maybe it only got people healed up faster because otherwise they'd explode.

Reading made his eyes cross. He sat on his chaise and got his fresh air and left Henry's offered newspapers and magazines piled up in his lap. Instead he ended up watching his fellow invalids. The closest neighbor was nice, an old lady both friendly and frail. She and Johnny took to waving from their distant lounges like they were ships passing on the sea. Unlike him, she was reading her way through a big fat stack of books, her white head bent for hours at a time.

The man in the cabin beyond her, though—

"Afternoon!" said his best friend Sylvester, strolling up from the direction of the lake. "Good to see you!" As always, he plopped himself down on the other chaise, the one with no Henry in it. "Mind if I sit?"

"Well howdy," said Johnny. A week had confirmed his cordial dislike, but on the other hand, he supposed regular irritation kept the nerves in condition.

"Where's your nursemaid?" Sylvester asked, like he did every afternoon whenever Henry was off handling something. "Ha ha!"

"Ha ha," Johnny agreed. "Care for a paper?"

"Oh, me, no, I already read those over my breakfast. Eat 'em up along with the eggs! My grandad always used to tell me, he'd say boy, knowledge is more important than food. Some food can be bad for you! But knowledge? Never."

"Never."

"Right!" He spread himself out over the chaise, hands behind his head. No invalid costume for him: a three-piece suit cut to fit his rangy shoulders, a showy gold wristwatch on a sleek leather strap.

"So how you feeling?" he went on, very casual. "Can't help but notice you're not up and about yet! No offense."

"No, no offense." Johnny looked at his ankle, still bandaged and wrapped, an overlarge woollen sock pulled over all against the traumas of cold toes or, he supposed, getting pneumonia just to show Henry a thing or two. "It's getting there."

"Slow, though. Mighty slow." It was time for the pitch, and he did what he usually did, which was pull a medicine bottle out of his inner pocket. "Sometimes, you know, the flesh and blood need a little help."

He wiggled the bottle enticingly at Johnny. The label was bright, big and clear: NEWVILLE'S CURATIVE TONIC. Course it might as well have said SNAKE OIL.

"That's awfully kind of you," Johnny said. "But I figure I'm all right as-is."

Sylvester held the bottle up and beamed at it like his firstborn something, or a kitten with a bow round its neck. "Sure! I understand. And you worry about what your nurse might say, ha ha! Well, can't blame a guy for trying. Stock is low, but I'll keep this one set aside." He slid the bottle out of sight.

"Can't tell you how much I appreciate that, Sylv," said Johnny truthfully.

"Now, of course— we've spent some time together, right? We're not just passing strangers?"

"Not at all."

"Glad to hear that! It's how I feel too. I feel I can trust you. So let me tell you in confidence that when I say stock is low, I don't mean forever."

This was a whole a new move in the game. Johnny listened intently, gazing off into the distance.

"No, our new facility will be opening up real soon. And once we cut the ribbon on the factory, why, our Curative Tonic will be flying off the shelves!"

"Is that right?" Johnny stretched. He didn't yawn, for fear of overplaying it.

Sylvester tapped the pocket where the miracle bottle sat. "Take it from me. Anyone who happens to get on board now will find themselves on an express train to easy money." The moment the word 'money' was out of his mouth, he started waving a deprecating hand. "But of course, not everyone is interested in easy things, I understand that. Some people get nervous! I sympathize."

Johnny wished Henry were there to get an earful of the tale. He gave Sylvester an innocent smile, thinking how much he was going to enjoy this. Didn't even have to go looking, and a juicy new target jumps right in his lap. Boredom be gone!

"Well," he said timidly, "do you think—"

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. "Sorry to interrupt you fellows," said Henry, with no apparent regrets at all. "Time for his nap."

Johnny's mind ran in place for a few seconds. Surely this was slotting in to the start of a plan, but Johnny hadn't even had time to let Sylvester properly hook him yet! He looked up fast at Henry for some kind of sign. Henry's face was still and closed, and his hand slid off Johnny's shoulder—no clues, no character, no nothing. By God, he really meant it about the nap.

"If you're so sleepy, you can have it," he said tightly.

But the spell was already broken, and Sylvester climbed up out of Henry's chaise. "Don't you let me interrupt!" he said. "Always listen to your nursemaid, that's what I say, ha ha!"

"Afternoon," said Henry, folding Johnny's blanket over his arm.

And the fish who thought he was a fisherman wandered away, toward Miss Millicent's cabin, whistling.

Johnny needed Henry's arm to get inside, but the minute the door closed, he tossed himself onto his bed and glared. "Did you have to stick your foot in? Jesus, he was handing me a line so sweet you could make Christmas candy!"

Henry looked down at him, his jaw tight. "No."

"What!" Oh, yelling, that was a mistake. He tried to suppress the coughing, but it burst out anyway.

"You heard me...if you can hear anything over all that. Doctor's orders are—"

Johnny waved his hands, and strangled out amid coughs, "Complete! Rest! Got it, yes, swell!"

And so Henry took himself out to the porch, and Johnny took his nap. That is to say, lay on the bed, seething.

After a long and heavy hour, Henry reappeared. He stood by the bureau, holding the liniment bottle and a towel.

"All right?" For the first time since they'd landed here, he looked uncertain.

"Yeah," Johnny said, sighing. "Doctor's orders." It didn't come out as mean as it might have.

Henry spread the towel under Johnny's ankle, lifting the bad leg with care. He poured, rubbed his hands together briskly, and with steady strokes worked the liniment up and around the whole foot, the arch, the heel. Johnny, propped up on the marshmallows, watched his bowed head. When the touch moved along the bruises and swellings of the ankle itself, he was braced to flinch, but never did. Henry was some kind of pro by now. Johnny guessed he'd given him enough practice.

It hurt, to watch him. And he didn't mean the ankle. But he made himself do it, watching the play of tendons in Henry's forearms, the focused tilt of his head. He watched until his eyes almost watered.

And when Henry was finished, puttering around cleaning up, Johnny lay and looked at the ceiling for a while, before he could be ready to get up for dinner.

The dining room was next to the solarium, a big elegant glass cavern that looked like a relic of the Victorian age. Johnny found it pretty but tedious, like the resort itself and all its guests. He scooped glumly at his fancy chicken in fancy sauce, wishing like an ingrate for a hamburg and a piece of pie.

Sylvester waved to him from across the room. He was really getting cozy with neighbor Millicent by now, sitting attentively at her side, nodding at everything she said.

"That can't be good," he said to Henry. Of course Henry saw the direction of his thoughts at once, and all it got was a frown.

"Complete rest," Johnny said sullenly, and concentrated on whatever chopped-up vegetable this was supposed to be.

Other guests drifted away early, for their beds if they were ill, for interminable bridge-playing in the lounge if they were bored. Sylvester tossed Johnny a salute as he escorted Millicent carefully out.

Johnny, leaning on chair backs, teetered his way into the solarium and planted himself in a cushy chaise facing one of the grand walls of windows. The sun was down; clouds were rolling in from the north and the trees were starting to sway in the wind.

"You gotta stay off that," Henry said mildly. He sat on the next chair and stretched out, crossing his legs at the ankle. Showoff.

No one else seemed to want to sit in a sunroom with no sun, because before long the dining room was cleared and empty, and they were alone. Johnny tipped his head back to watch the looming clouds. Eventually little spatters of rain started tapping on the sloping glass roof.

"I could find a light," said Henry after a while. It was so dark that he was barely even a silhouette anymore.

"Nah."

The rain was sparse but hard, making tick-tick-tick noises as it hit, and Johnny wondered with a shudder whether it was sleet. He remembered the deck of the boat. He remembered the flecks of ice-water blowing in over the side and catching in Henry's hair. Pinned there against the railing, reaping all the rewards Johnny had brought him.

"Hey," said Henry, from a hundred miles away. "You listening?"

"What did you say?"

"Asked if you're sure. About the light."

Johnny clenched his fists. "What do I need light for?"

Some soft sounds, and then flick Henry's lighter blazed up and dazzled him. Henry took his time lighting a cigar, rotating it in the flame, shadows dancing on his fingertips and his mouth.

Then at last, the flame was gone, and Henry was a voice and a glowing coal in the night. "I don't know. You could write some letters."

Tick, tick-tick, went the sleet against the windows.

"Guess I could," Johnny managed thickly. "Don't you want to write some letters too?"

The cigar glowed, dimmed. "Sure."

"Sure! Write home, tell 'em all about it. Huh? The big success of the century." His throat and chest hurt with the double-thumps of his heart, and he felt it echoed all the way down in his ankle. His night vision returned. He stared out at the leaves flying in liquid whirls and drifts.

Henry's chair creaked under his weight as he moved. Then he said, subdued, "You should get some sleep."

But Johnny sat and listened to the sleet, and the wind roaring like a river. The faint scent of Henry's cigar. The sounds of him in the dark.

Johnny grabbed on to his chair's frame and awkwardly hauled himself up onto his good foot.

And of course Henry was there in a second, hand sliding under his elbow, body close with warmth. "Easy, kid."

This time he didn't grin when he kissed Henry. Nothing in the world to grin about. But he still couldn't help himself—he ran his hands up Henry's chest to his shoulders, aiming fast and awkward, knowing at least that the cigar was smoldering safely in Henry's other hand. His mouth touched Henry's jaw, traced to his lips, settled there.

He was an utter fool. An unlocked cloakroom on a little boat?, he thought. I'll see that, and raise you a room made entirely of glass. At least in this darkness he wouldn't have to see poor Henry's face, aghast, shoving him away.

But Henry made a little sound like he'd been punched in the ribs. His supporting arm wrapped around Johnny's back and clutched a handful of his jacket. They swayed, uneven, grappled close.

He slid his hands around the back of Henry's neck. His breath was shallow and his chest tight—soon he'd run out of air, and who cared. For this last long endless moment he had Henry's mouth, bitter with cigar smoke, tasting him, opening to him, gasping and shaky.

The roaring in his ears might have been the last crest of the rain and wind. Might have been his blood, rising hot. He pushed against Henry's body and tried to plant his feet, desperate for more pressure.

The ankle flared and protested— he'd forgotten the damn thing— and he staggered. Henry caught him, with both arms this time, and with a couple of muscular heaves lowered him down onto the chaise. His supporting touch withdrew.

Heavy breath filled the darkness. Henry was a shadow against shadows, just sound and scent and warmth. He shifted, moved— leaving? Sure, of course— but he was only following the little glow of the cigar on the floor. The ember disappeared with the smell of snuffed smoke.

Now with the distance between them, Johnny could hear that the rain had mostly blown over. The remaining drops were sparsely scattered and soft, nothing at all like those crystal ticks.

Say something, Johnny commanded himself.

"Ah... I guess that was stupid." Oh, perfect.

"Yeah."

"Someone could've come in."

A long breath. "That too." Henry's warmth moved close again, and his hand fumbled from Johnny's shoulder down to his elbow. "Come on."

If ever there were a time Johnny wished he could walk by himself, this was it. Henry's closeness was maddening. But his ankle hurt from the jar he'd given it, and it was still too stiff to be reliable. Not to mention that the wind and rain had blown down heaps of leaves: the paths were slippery with them, and even with Henry helping on one side, it was a hard slog.

He had too much time to think on the way back to the cabin. And there was far too much to think about.

At last he was back on his bed, with his damp stocking feet propped up and a towel around his shoulders. Henry tinkered at a side table and returned with a little glass of liquid. For a moment Johnny thought it was something nice, bourbon and branch maybe, but it had a clear and fizzy medicinal look that ruined that idea.

"Which is this?"

"Sleeping," said Henry.

Johnny set it firmly on the nightstand.

"At least get those socks off."

"What, my feet gonna catch pneumonia?" But he leaned down and peeled them off, especially careful with the big woolly number on the bad foot. He eyed Henry, who was mixing himself a drink more to the purpose. "And how about you?"

A long swallow from a glass that looked like lots of bourbon and little branch. "What about me?"

"Don't tell me that pneumonia would never dare bother the Great Henry Gondorff."

Henry's eyes over his glass narrowed slightly. He drank down the rest and thumped the empty glass on the side table.

"The Great Henry Gondorff," he echoed back.

Johnny shrugged. "Hell, if the shoe fits."

Henry looked about to say something, closed his mouth, and then said, "Speaking of which: that bandage needs changing."

So Johnny lay back on his pillows and waited for Henry's touch on his bare, cold ankle. He remembered how hard he'd worked to keep things from Henry during the Lonnegan job. And now that he'd find it a blessing to actually be able to talk about whatever the hell was going on, Henry was glassed-in tight as a phone booth.

Henry's hands were warm. The fresh bandage was clean and dry. The new woolly sock was soft. He could have felt drowsy, but he set his teeth against it: he'd be damned if he gave Henry the satisfaction.

With a casual pass of his hand over the nightstand, Henry made three aspirin tablets appear. Even when he wasn't doing sleight, he was. "You took kind of a bad step back there."

Johnny picked them up and scowled at the glass of sleeping stuff. He stared Henry right in the eye and dry-swallowed the aspirin, all three at once. They left a terrible chalky stripe down his tongue and he made himself smile.

"Have it your way," said Henry. He waved dismissively at the medicine. "If you're not gonna take it, at least get your head down a while."

"Yes boss," Johnny said.

Henry's brows drew together. "Or— I don't know, suit yourself."

"Yes, boss." he scooted down in the heap of marshmallows, meanly innocent.

"Look!" Henry said with sudden, startling emphasis. Johnny stared at him. Henry raised both hands and dropped them; his whole body seemed to sag. Then there was a long silence, while Henry looked at him with a face that said he'd rather be anywhere else.

Johnny's ears felt hot. "Yeah," he prompted. "Spit it out."

"Look." Henry's voice was quieter now, but he drew himself up straight, shoulders braced square. "I understand. And I guess you're entitled. But I just want you to know that you can't blame me half as much as I blame myself."

Johnny stared at him hard as if the answer would resolve itself on his forehead. Finally he said, feeling a fool, "But I kissed you first."

"No, I— No! What gave you— that's not what I meant."

"Then what?"

"What do you mean what!" He took a big breath. "I didn't even try to save the con, of course. That's what."

Johnny heaved himself more fully upright, which was always a challenge, given the pillow real estate. Questions all battered in a line to be first, but for once in his life, he swallowed and thought. At least for a few seconds. Meanwhile Henry stood there like a prisoner before the judge's bench.

"You mean diving in after me off that damned boat even though I can swim."

"Right."

"Instead of sticking around and figuring how to cool him out."

Henry rolled his eyes. "And to think I forgot to ask Gus if that river water would hurt your brains. Yes!"

"You're not trying to tell me that all this is your fault?"

That tense straight-backed posture finally wavered, and he sat down heavily on the cabin's little desk chair. "Kid—" he started.

"—That means yes," Johnny interrupted.

"It means I had a chance to pick up the ball, and I didn't. That's all."

Johnny whipped the towel from over his shoulders and flung it across the room. "You're screwy! You know what? Maybe you been on top so long—"

"—The Great Henry Gondorff."

Johnny fixed him with a pointing finger. "Shut your trap. I'm saying maybe you forgot what a failure actually looks like! So come on!" He lunged off the bed and stood up, spreading his arms wide. "Take a good look! If I hadn't dug such a deep hole you wouldn't have been stuck in it. Can't tell me you never thought of that!"

He wobbled, tried to correct for it, and his ankle stabbed at him, the leftover warmth from Henry's ministrations gone all at once. He didn't think he flinched, but Henry was up and at his side. "Hey."

Johnny didn't want to lean on him, and he didn't. His leg cursed a red streak.

"Hooker," Henry said more firmly. "This job is about people, and people zigzag. Someone eats an egg that morning instead of a doughnut and the line of dominoes falls the wrong way." He made a flowing gesture with his beautiful hands, a conjurer revealing the vanished coin. "Things go south."

"I know it."

"Sticks in your craw, though."

He wasn't shoving his help on Johnny but he wasn't stepping away, either. He stood right there, and his eyes were the kind of sad that made Johnny's throat ache.

"I just—" Johnny put out one tentative hand and leaned in, let Henry's shoulder take some of his weight. "I wanted..."

There weren't words for the dream he figured he'd been having, where he rose up and up and up and caught the brass ring, and Henry's watching eyes went from warm to hot, and he'd made it all come true like it was something that should happen for him. He'd known he could do it. And he'd been wrong.

He closed his eyes.

Henry's hand slid gingerly onto his hip. Part steadying, but part something else entirely. There was a touch, a tracing of warmth along his cheek, tingling as if with electricity. He turned toward it and Henry's fingers passed softly along his lips.

Johnny opened up to them, bit down just enough, and the noise in Henry's throat... Oh, Christ, he'd take it, he'd take pity if he couldn't deserve this fair and square, any way he could he would—

He opened his eyes to Henry's flushed and serious face, and immediately pulled on him hard enough to tumble them both onto Johnny's bed with the marshmallows everywhere. He wrestled him around until he was kneeling astride his waist—lopsided, because of having to favor the ankle, but he made it happen.

Henry was staring up with a little furrow between his brows to match the dimple in his chin. Johnny swooped in and kissed him, hard this time, and bit at that damn dimple for good measure. He flicked open the fastening for each side of Henry's suspenders, plus the button, and got his hand down inside the trousers for a visit.

"Ahh," said Henry, tensing.

"Yeah?" Johnny sat up, stripped off his pullover, dropped it. The air in the room felt startlingly cold on his bare arms and shoulders, but he ignored that the way he ignored the increasing signals from his ankle. Instead he toyed with the hem of his undershirt and watched Henry watching him. There was that glow—he'd found it and he'd keep it. So he leaned back, drew in a breath—suppressed a cough—and peeled the undershirt up and over his head. His ankle jolted with a shock of pain, but when he emerged from the shirt, he gave a slow grin.

"What're you doing?" Henry's voice didn't sound accusatory, and his hands were stroking gently enough along Johnny's tensed thigh muscles to tell him he wasn't unhappy. But it didn't really sound smoky, either. That furrow was still there on his brow.

Johnny struggled against feeling like he'd tried a dance step and slid on a banana peel. At least those hands on him, they told him otherwise. "You want me to show you?"

"I don't want you to keel over." He didn't sound like a nursemaid when he said that.

He knew, he always knew, when Johnny was hiding something. Johnny would have given him an earful about it, if he could've stayed kneeling where he was another minute.

"Well," he said instead, "I don't want you to get bored."

It was supposed to be a joke. Henry didn't seem to find it funny.

So Johnny followed up, breezy and confident: "Oh, I was only thinking, you know... you must be used to things like this."

Henry swallowed. Sweat shone at the base of his throat, despite the chill in the air. "Listen..." his voice was husky and raw. "There are no things like this."

His hands helped steady Johnny down, and his arms enfolded him. It was warm there against him, so warm that Johnny shivered, and Henry stroked up and down his back. His body remembered this from the riverbank—shuddering and helpless, the touch bringing him back to life—but with each second the pain of that other moment was fading under Henry's hand.

Then Henry pulled away—but not at all like before. Now he held Johnny gently by the shoulders, his thumbs rubbing back and forth, and he just looked at him. He saw him, Johnny Hooker, half naked and banged up and raw. And there was a glow in his eyes like something set loose, like all those glimpses across rooms were a candle to the rising sun.

He didn't have to reach for it...it was just there. No sign of pity, and no need for a jump through a burning hoop. All for Johnny. Like a bright new sky.

"Henry."

"Yeah."

"Up already?"

Henry continued sliding his way out of their warm tangle under all the covers. "I got a bed needs messing up before the morning towels get here."

Johnny watched him pad naked across the floor in the cold dawn light from the edges of the blinds. Henry swiftly punched his pillow and blankets into mashed-down chaos like an expert. Then he looked up and caught Johnny's eye.

"Serve you right if I did chicken out again."

They grinned. Even this was already grist for reminiscing. He beelined back into the warmth of the bed, and Johnny slung his bad leg over Henry's hip, taking pressure off his ankle.

During the long night, Henry had been really careful of the ankle...at first. That was good. But when he'd forgotten himself and been less careful—a lot less careful—oh, that was even better.

Henry was sliding the fingers of one hand through Johnny's hair. Idly, savoringly.

Johnny shivered, and sighed into his neck. "Now that you mention it..."

"I didn't mention anything."

"How come you didn't stay on the boat?"

The hand tightened in his hair and pulled just hard enough for sparks. "Okay...how come you didn't stand there and let me take my lumps? Huh?"

Johnny groped upward and touched his fingertips to Henry's cheek where bruises had been. He breathed, and felt the morning bristles of Henry's jaw against his lips.

He knew they were asking the same question, with the same answer.

As always, Henry mother-henned him out to the chaise in the afternoon and heaped him with outdoor blankets, for more of his fresh air treatment. He solemnly piled newspapers and magazines on the spot where Johnny's lap would have been, had it not been for all the covers.

Then without a wink or a sign—and who needed 'em—Henry straightened up and went on his way. He had important and boring nursemaid things to do.

It was perfectly timed, of course: here came Sylvester wandering up from the lake. Look at that. He paused, and instead of turning toward Miss Millicent's cabin, he started for Johnny's chair. Even from a distance Johnny could see the sleek smugness on his face, the hunter excited for another easy bag.

"Well hi, Sylv!" Johnny called, thinking innocent, thinking like a fresh fish. And thinking of how much fun they were gonna have running rings around this guy, he and Henry.

Rest time was over.