The laundry truck hit a pothole.
Junior screamed.
It was a wet, gurgling sound. He was lying on a pile of stolen hotel sheets in the back, clutching his stomach. The white linen was turning dark red.
"Drive smoother!" Jason yelled at the partition.
"I am dodging burning trash cans!" Alta shouted back from the driver's seat. She swerved hard, sending Jason sliding across the metal floor.
Jason crawled back to Junior. The wound was bad. The bullet had entered the lower abdomen. It hadn't exited.
Junior's eyes were rolling back in his head. He was muttering.
"Our Father... who art in... sell at forty... hallowed be thy... margins..."
He was delirious. Praying to God and Mammon at the same time.
"He's bleeding out," Sarah said. She was pressing a towel against the hole, her hands steady but slick with blood. "His pulse is thready. If we don't get him surgery in twenty minutes, he's dead."
"Hospital," Alta yelled. "There's one in Queens!"
"No!" Jason barked. "If we go to a hospital, the police report it. If the police know we have Junior, Adolf knows. And if Adolf knows, he sends a mob to finish the job."
"So we let him die?" Alta demanded, looking in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were cold. "If he dies, we forge the will. We take control."
Jason looked at Junior. The man was a hypocrite. A nuisance. An enemy.
But he was also the shield. Without Junior, the government would tear the company apart.
"O'Malley!" Jason shouted. "Where's that vet clinic you use for the racehorses?"
"Three miles," O'Malley grunted from the passenger seat. "Dr. Vinnie. He's a drunk, but he's discreet."
"Go."
The clinic smelled of horse manure, rubbing alcohol, and stale gin.
Dr. Vinnie was exactly as advertised. A short, sweating man with shaking hands and a stain on his tie.
He looked at Junior lying on the metal examination table meant for Great Danes.
"I don't do humans," Vinnie stammered. "I lose my license."
O'Malley racked the slide of his Thompson submachine gun. Clack-clack.
"You're doing a human today, Vinnie," O'Malley said.
Vinnie swallowed. "Right. Scrub up."
Sarah took over. She pushed Vinnie aside.
"I need ether," she ordered. "Scalpel. Clamps. And verify his blood type."
"We don't have human testing kits!" Vinnie squeaked.
"He's Type O," Jason said. "He bragged about it once. Said he was a 'Universal Donor' like Christ."
Sarah looked at Junior's pale face. "He's lost too much. He needs a transfusion. Now."
She looked at O'Malley. "Type?"
"A Positive," O'Malley said.
"Alta?"
"AB," Alta said, checking her nails.
Sarah cursed. "I'm B."
Jason rolled up his sleeve.
"I'm O," Jason said. "Hook me up."
Sarah hesitated. "Jason, you're exhausted. You haven't slept in two days. A direct transfusion could make you pass out. If the mob comes..."
"Just do it," Jason said, climbing onto the table next to Junior.
Sarah found a rubber tube and two large needles. She sterilized them with vodka.
She stuck Junior's vein. Then Jason's.
There was no pump. Just gravity and heartbeats.
Jason watched the red fluid flow through the clear tube. Leaving his arm. Entering Junior's.
It was grotesque. Intimate.
The billionaire and the outcast, connected by a lifeline of blood.
Junior stirred. The color was returning to his cheeks. His eyes fluttered open. He looked at the tube. Then at Jason.
"Ezra?" he whispered. His voice was raspy.
"Don't talk," Jason said, feeling lightheaded. The room was spinning slightly.
"Why?" Junior wheezed. "Why didn't you let me go? It would have been... cleaner."
"I don't do clean, Junior," Jason muttered, closing his eyes. "I do profitable."
"You are... putting your sin... into me," Junior mumbled.
"It's just blood, Junior. Try not to spend it all in one place."
An hour later.
Junior was stable. Sleeping.
Jason sat in the waiting room, drinking orange juice from a carton. His arm throbbed. He felt weak, like his bones were made of glass.
Alta was standing by the window. She had found a telephone. She was reading the ticker tape from a machine Dr. Vinnie used to bet on horses.
"Standard Oil is down sixty points," Alta said. Her voice was flat. "Germany defaulting triggered a global panic. The banks are calling in our loans."
She turned to Jason. She looked like a statue made of ice.
"We are insolvent, Ezra."
Jason crushed the juice carton. "We have assets. The refineries. The ships."
"Illiquid," Alta snapped. "We need cash. Now. Or the creditors seize everything by Monday."
She walked over to him. She leaned down, smelling of expensive perfume and sewer water.
"We have to cut Junior loose," Alta whispered.
Jason looked up. "What?"
"He's alive. That's good. But he's weak. We declare him incapacitated. We forge a power of attorney. We sell the remaining assets—the tankers, the reserves—and we move the cash to Switzerland. We leave him here."
Jason looked at her.
She was talking about stripping the company—her father's company—for parts and leaving her brother to face the mob alone.
She was a survivor. A shark.
And Jason realized, with terrifying clarity, that if he stayed with her, she would eventually eat him too.
"We can't leave him," Jason said carefully. "He's the face. If he disappears, the stock goes to zero."
"Then what is your plan, genius?" Alta hissed. "Wait for Adolf to find us?"
Jason stood up. He swayed slightly.
He signaled Sarah with his eyes. A tiny nod.
Sarah understood. She touched her pocket, where the deed to the Princeton Institute was hidden.
"I have a plan," Jason lied. "But I need to make a call."
"Who?"
"Henry Ford."
Alta frowned. "Ford hates us."
"Ford hates Communists more," Jason said.
Just then, the clinic door opened.
O'Malley raised his gun.
It was a kid. A messenger boy in a bike cap, soaking wet from the snow.
"Telegram!" the boy chirped, oblivious to the weapon pointed at his face. "For Mr. Prentice. Urgent."
Jason took the envelope. He ripped it open.
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a subpoena.
It was three words.
I AM BUYING.
Jason smiled. It was a tired, jagged smile.
"Pack up," Jason said to the room. "The cavalry is coming. And he's bringing a checkbook."
He looked at Alta.
"Get the car ready. We're going to the airfield."
Alta nodded, seeing a way out. She hurried to the door.
Jason hung back. He grabbed Sarah's arm.
"When we get to the cars," Jason whispered, "you, me, and Junior get in the second one."
Sarah's eyes widened. "And Alta?"
"Alta takes the lead car," Jason said. "With the decoy luggage."
"Jason," Sarah whispered. "You're going to leave her?"
"She just tried to kill her brother for a bank transfer," Jason said cold. "The marriage is over, Sarah. Tonight, the divorce becomes final."