The Shadow Read online

  Who am I kidding? Of course he’s my problem. He’s my goddamn inheritance! I hear a loud bang behind me. I duck! But it’s only some old guy dropping the lid on a dumpster.

  After a few minutes, I peek over the hood and ease the car out of the garage. I turn north. About a block from the World President’s Residence a huge black SUV moves up behind me, right on my bumper. Shit! But the next second, it pulls around me and speeds ahead down the street. I slow to a crawl to create some space. Then I hear my passenger door opening. Am I getting carjacked? I pop my door latch and get ready to roll out and ditch the car.

  “Maddy, stop!”

  Lamont’s voice?

  When I turn back, it’s him! He’s sitting in the passenger’s seat like nothing happened.

  “What are you waiting for?” he says. “Drive!”

  “What happened?” I say. “They let you go?”

  “Not really,” says Lamont. “I just…left.”

  I move the car forward. Slow this time. Let’s not attract attention.

  “I don’t understand.”

  I’m running out of patience now. I took it easy on Lamont at first. Didn’t want to send him into a mental tailspin. I did what he said, took him where he wanted to go. Which almost got him killed. Now I need some answers.

  “Okay,” I say. “That’s it. I’m tired of the mysteries. Tell me the truth. Who the hell are you?”

  “I thought I made it perfectly clear,” he said. “I’m Lamont Cranston.”

  I pound the door panel and shout. “Lamont Cranston is a character from the radio! He’s totally made up! Maybe somebody gave you a false identity before you…you know…went under! Maybe all those chemicals turned your brain to mush!”

  “Lamont Cranston is very real,” says Lamont, calm and smooth. “And so is the Shadow. Same coin, two sides.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “What’s your story?”

  “It’s a very long story.”

  “Try me. How long?”

  “Ten thousand years.”

  “Ten thousand years? Lamont, you’re not making any s—”

  The windshield shatters into a million tiny pellets. The air cushion hits me like a hard punch in the chest. I hear the crunch of metal and fiberglass. When I look up, I see the front end of the L20 wedged under the back end of a dump truck. In the few seconds it takes me to realize what happened, the driver of the truck is already at my door, his fists clenched. He’s huge and red in the face.

  “Hey!” he shouts, leaning in to my window.

  I shove the door open, forcing him backward. When I stand up outside the car, I come up to about his chest. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to punch a girl half his size, but he’s really pissed.

  “You rich bitch!” he says.

  Of course. He thinks I actually own this thing. And now he thinks he can wring some cash out of me to pay for the minor scrapes on the underside of his ten-ton truck.

  “It’s all fine,” I tell him. “Go back to your rig and just drive away.”

  And that’s exactly what he does. Lamont opens his door and gets out. I reach into the back of the car and retrieve my scooter as the truck drives off.

  “Impressive,” says Lamont. Or is it the Shadow? Or is it just a crazy man who has no idea who he really is? At this point, I don’t really give a crap. We just need to get out of here. New plan.

  The front of the L20 is a crumbled mess. The scrappers will show up soon. An hour from now, there won’t be anything left. Which is good. Because that means there won’t be anything to trace.

  “We’re going home,” I say. “My home this time.” I head through an alley, moving south. Lamont is right on my heels. I still haven’t gotten any real answers to my questions. But that can wait.

  For right now, I just need to keep us both alive.

  CHAPTER 23

  THE CITY STREETS were crowded at this time of day. Now that his vision had cleared, Lamont realized how conspicuous he looked in his dinner jacket. Just about every person they passed was wearing worn-out clothes, stained and sooty from smoke. He was getting a lot of stares. Here in midtown, the congestion and filth were even thicker than by the docks. More misery per square block. A lot of people wore goofy masks, the kind Lamont remembered from Halloween parties. But this didn’t look like a party.

  “What happened to these people?” asked Lamont. “Why is everybody so poor and dirty?”

  “That’s the way it is,” said Maddy. “The people at the top get everything. The rest of us just get by.”

  On light poles across the street, Lamont saw glass panels hanging at eye level. Like movie screens. But so much smaller. Amazing! On every screen, a man was talking. Lamont wasn’t close enough to see his face, and his words were lost in the rumble and rush of midday truck traffic.

  “Who’s that?” Lamont asked, pointing at one of the screens.

  “Are you kidding?” Maddy asked. “That’s him. Gismonde. The world president. The guy whose home you just tried to break in to.”

  “What’s he saying?” asked Lamont. He saw small groups of people gathered at the base of the poles, faces tilted up, listening intently.

  “It’s his daily message. New rules. New warnings. Words of inspiration,” said Maddy. “Depends on his mood. I never pay much attention.”

  At Forty-Third Street, they saw a transport stopped at the corner. It was a converted city bus filled with families, mostly mothers and kids. An armed guard stood on a wide platform near the front door. Most of the children inside were crying, some scratching or banging on the thick plastic windows. The mothers, stone-faced, were trying to calm them.

  “Who are those people?” Lamont asked. “What’s happening?”

  “Suspects. Strays. Violators,” Maddy replied. “Just part of the daily roundup.”

  “Where are they going?” asked Lamont. “Where are they taking them?”

  “Quiet,” said Maddy, tucking her head down. “Stop asking questions.”

  Lamont felt his insides stirring. An old feeling. Anger rising up. He pulled Maddy to a halt.

  “We have to do something!” he said. “We can’t just let this happen.”

  Lamont was determined. Some primal instinct was kicking in, and he was aching for action. Maddy nudged him forward.

  “Are you insane?” she said.

  “You distract the guard,” said Lamont, “and I’ll get everybody off the bus. I can do it, I promise!”

  “You do that,” said Maddy, “and ten minutes later, the TinGrins will round them up on another corner and beat the crap out of them for escaping. Keep moving. We can’t be hanging around like this.”

  Already, Lamont’s furious gesturing had caught the bus guard’s attention. The guard’s prime responsibility was to keep the prisoners in line. It was boring duty and it didn’t require much effort, so he was always watching for random deviations in his vicinity. Those two across the street definitely stood out.

  Maddy glanced up in time to see the guard looking their way. A passing truck blocked him for a few seconds. In the interval, Maddy spun Lamont around and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket.

  “Follow me,” she said. “Now!”

  Maddy tucked her scooter under one arm and tugged Lamont hard. They broke into a run. The entrance to the abandoned subway station was a half-block away. When they reached the crumbling station entrance, Maddy took the steps down two at a time. Lamont did his best to keep up, but his coordination was still not quite back to normal. A couple of times, he almost fell headfirst onto the cement.

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Maddy led the way across the deserted platform and down to the far end, where a rusted metal ladder reached down to track level. She looked back at the entrance and saw the guard profiled by the light from outside. Maddy scrambled down the ladder. Lamont followed. She pulled him down into a crouch at the base of the ladder and put a finger to her lips. They heard the sound of footsteps and the cold jangle of metal equipment. Lamo
nt leaned back into the darkness, trying to find his footing in the uneven gravel. The footsteps on the platform stopped. A green laser dot danced across the wall at the end of the platform.

  “Let’s go!” Maddy mouthed. She tugged Lamont’s sleeve and led him past the edge of the platform into the dark tunnel beyond. When she looked back, she spotted the silhouette of the guard moving down the platform slowly, rifle in firing position.

  “Move!” she whispered to Lamont. He stumbled over a rotted railroad tie. When he recovered his balance, his foot sank into something mushy.

  “Good God!” he whispered. “It smells like a crapper down here!”

  “Welcome to the underground,” whispered Maddy. She led the way by feel, a few yards at a time, keeping one hand against the damp cement wall.

  The guard reached the end of the platform and spotted the ladder. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and started down. As his right boot landed heavy on the bottom rung, the ladder pulled free of its rusted mounts, opening a jagged hole in the cement wall. Suddenly the gravel bed and tracks were alive with scurrying shapes. The guard heaved himself back up onto the platform, flat on his belly, eyes wide. He looked down into a solid sea of wriggling, greasy rats.

  Suddenly, bus duty didn’t look so bad.

  CHAPTER 24

  FIFTY BLOCKS SOUTH, Maddy’s grandmother, Jessica, reached into the refrigerator and tossed a cube of cheese to her scrappy Scottish terrier, Bando. As always, he caught it on the fly.

  “Good boy!” said Jessica. The brown-haired mutt chomped twice and swallowed hard. Then he scooched forward on the floor—head angled, tail wagging. Jessica held her hands up and spread her fingers wide. “Sorry, kiddo, no more where that came from.”

  Actual dog food, like everything else, was hard to come by. But Jessica always said she’d rather starve herself than deprive her crazy pup. He was one of the two loves of her life—the other being her granddaughter, who was not nearly as obedient.

  “I might be late, Grandma,” Maddy had said as she left for school that morning. “Something big is happening today!” No hint about what it was. But Jessica knew that an eighteen-year-old girl couldn’t be expected to share everything with her grandmother. God knows Jessica had kept a few secrets from her.

  The lights in the apartment flickered and dimmed. The bulbs buzzed from the lower voltage. They were rerouting the power again, and this part of the city was always the last priority. Jessica was lucky to have electricity at all, along with four walls and a few actual rooms. A lot of her friends were not so fortunate. She knew families who were crowded into a single open space, and others who moved every few nights, just one step ahead of the housing police and the street gangs.

  Jessica heard footsteps on the stairs. Boot thuds. Maddy. That girl stomped like a construction worker. Bando ran to the door, tail wagging, body shaking with excitement. For Bando, Maddy coming home never got old.

  The door opened a crack.

  “Grandma?” Maddy called out. Bando was already poking the front half of his body through the door opening, pawing at Maddy’s lower leg. She reached down to scratch his head. Then Bando suddenly backed up and growled.

  “Shhhh!” said Maddy. “It’s okay, Bando. He’s a friend.”

  Lamont tucked himself behind Maddy in the dark stairwell.

  “Get back here, you little brute!” called Jessica. “Maddy? Is there someone with you?”

  Jessica saw Maddy step through the door into the tiny apartment, pulling in a man behind her. The sight of him brought Jessica up short. He was dressed like an old-time lounge singer. Good-looking, but in his early forties—way too old to be hanging around a teenage girl like Maddy.

  “Well,” Jessica said cautiously. “Hello.” Maddy never brought anybody home. Scooter parts, yes—people, no.

  “Grandma,” said Maddy. “This is Lamont. Lamont, this is my grandma—and that’s Bando.” Bando yipped, still suspicious.

  Jessica reached out to shake Lamont’s hand. Smooth. Certainly doesn’t work for a living, she thought. And what’s that mess on his shirt?

  “Welcome,” she said. “Call me Jessica.”

  Maddy had been thinking about this little meeting for the whole nasty trek home. Grandma was pretty sharp, and this would not be easy to explain.

  “‘Lamont,’” Jessica repeated. “Is that French—‘from the mountain’?”

  “Ancient Norse, actually,” said Lamont. “‘Man of law.’”

  “Interesting,” said Jessica.

  At the moment, the only man of law on Maddy’s mind was Poole. The reason she hadn’t told her grandmother about the lawyer’s letter was that she hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up.

  Maddy, of course, had been thinking that she might inherit money, preferably cash. What a treat that would have been! For starters, she would have bought her grandmother some clothes that actually fit and a heater that actually worked. Instead, she was bringing home a strange guy covered in dried vomit.

  “Do you teach at Maddy’s school?” Jessica asked. A shot in the dark for sure, but she had to start somewhere.

  Lamont looked at Maddy.

  “Grandma,” said Maddy, “we need to talk.”

  First things first, thought Jessica. In a world lacking comforts or even basic sanitation, she remained a stickler for hygiene. She leaned toward her guest.

  “Lamont, let me clean that shirt for you.”

  CHAPTER 25

  SONOR BREECE REVIEWED the surveillance clip for the third time. The resolution was excellent, but the angle from the drone was not ideal. He ran one finger down the curve of his prominent nose and tapped his lips. On one side of his office, right in front of the window, a trio of king parrots squawked incessantly.

  At first, he considered whether this was something the world president even needed to see. Most surveillance videos were routine, showing the endless procession of curiosity-seekers trying to get a glimpse of the Residence, or of Gismonde himself. There was the occasional protestor, quickly disposed of. At times, groups of small children would walk up to peek through the gates. Depending on their mood, the guards might toss them candy or knock them away with the butts of their rifles. It was the responsibility of the local police to keep disturbances away from the Residence gates, and the officers had done their job.

  But something in the frantic reactions at the end of this incident had caught Breece’s attention. This was not a neat cleanup. At the very least, it would be a point of discussion, and besides, it would give Breece some valuable face time with his mentor.

  He took the vid-card and walked down the short hallway from his office to Gismonde’s reception area. Several ministers waited nervously in straight-backed chairs. A menacing guard, the largest in the residential detail, stood squarely in front of Gismonde’s double doors. But at the sight of Breece, he immediately lowered his head and stepped aside. Breece brushed past him and pushed the doors open.

  “Mr. World President,” he said. “I have something you may find interesting.”

  Gismonde did not look up. He was busy reviewing a sheaf of plans and figures on his ornate desk. He gestured toward a conversation area, where a computer sat on a low wooden table between a pair of leather-covered sofas. Breece walked over and tapped the vid-card against the screen. The computer blinked to life, with the video already in motion. Breece let it run, then froze it just at the point where a man in a vintage tuxedo stepped out of a luxury sedan. The man’s wardrobe had caught his attention instantly. Nobody dressed like that. Not in this century.

  Breece hadn’t heard Gismonde get up from his desk, but now he was looming over him, inches from his neck.

  “What’s this?” asked the world president.

  “A disturbance near the perimeter earlier today,” said Breece. “Probably nothing. But it’s a bit out of the usual.”

  Gismonde watched intently as the video played.

  “Field in,” he ordered.

  Breece magnified the image. The man
in the tux seemed to be defying the guards. Brave? Stupid? A decoy?

  “Freeze it,” said Gismonde.

  Breece tapped again. The man’s face filled the screen.

  Gismonde exhaled slowly and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Lamont Cranston,” he said. There was a touch of admiration in his voice.

  “Is he on the list?” asked Breece. All known agitators were.

  “No, he wouldn’t be,” said Gismonde. “He hasn’t been in the city for a very long time.”

  Gismonde was silent for a few moments. Breece, as always, was eager for orders.

  “Shall we…”

  “Find him,” said Gismonde finally. “Eliminate him.”

  “Of course,” said Breece. It was exactly the kind of order he lived for. He slipped the vid-card into his pocket and turned toward the door.

  “Mr. Breece.” Gismonde called out to stop him.

  “Sir?”

  “Be thorough,” Gismonde said. “Mr. Cranston has a way of not staying dead.”

  CHAPTER 26

  I’M SITTING ON the sofa with Bando in my lap, Grandma right next to me. Lamont is in an armchair facing us. We’re all sipping tea, like this is a completely normal get-together. But it’s not. Not at all.

  It’s a good thing Grandma collects cast-off clothes in her spare time. She managed to find a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for Lamont that almost fit. His fancy tux jacket and pants are hanging from a hook in the bathroom. His shirt is soaking in the sink. I’m hoping that soap is really strong.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” asks Grandma.

  There’s no easy way to answer that question. I decide to start at the beginning.

  “Okay, Grandma, a lot of this is going to sound strange.” I take a deep breath and then release it. “Right. Here we go. About a week ago, I got a letter at school. From a lawyer.” Grandma’s head tilts and her eyebrows lift.