The Metropolitans Read online

  “I wish to make a statement,” Mr. Akiyama announced in a loud voice. “I am an agent of the imperial government of Japan, and I have knowledge of a plot to destroy New York City. But I will only divulge it to Agent Hilary Chester of the FBI.”

  29

  THE FLEA FLICKER

  NONE OF THE two dozen policemen in the basement of police headquarters could get Mr. Akiyama to budge or say a word. He closed his eyes and sat perfectly still. Madge was impressed. She didn’t think she could stay still and quiet for so long.

  “Take the rest of them into a cell and call the chief inspector,” Officer Harvey barked. “And call that guy at the FBI he mentioned—”

  “Chester,” Dr. Bean said. “Hilary Chester.”

  “I’m not leaving my father,” Kiku said when a policeman tried to lead her into a cell.

  “That’s fine, missy,” Officer Harvey said. “Pete, Hank . . .” He called over two burly policemen and gestured at Mr. Akiyama. “Haul this fellow into holding cell B and throw the lot of them in there with him. Might as well have all the crazies together when the G-men come to visit.”

  Mr. Akiyama allowed himself to be led into the cell only on the condition that Dr. Bean and Madge were uncuffed. He still refused to talk, and once he was inside the cell, he sat back down on the floor in the same cross-legged position with his eyes closed.

  They all sat on narrow benches along the wall, except for Kiku, who sat on the floor next to her father. Madge stared at a tiny window high up on the wall. She could just make out a square of pavement that turned from black to gray as they waited.

  “What’s taking so long?” she complained. “It’s morning already and no one’s come to see us. Do you think your fellow Chester could be on the take, too, Doc?”

  “Not Hil Chester,” Dr. Bean said. “They might have had trouble tracking him down, though. He’s been awfully busy since Sunday.”

  The reference to the day just made Madge more nervous. It was Wednesday now, the tenth of December. January’s spies—the men they’d seen in their vision—would be getting ready to go to their jobs at the steam factories, cyanide canisters hidden away in lunch pails or satchels. Madge shifted nervously on the hard bench and then got up to pace back and forth. She had counted the number of paces in the little cell ten times when she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.

  “Hey, someone’s coming,” she called to the others, pressing her face to the bars to see who was walking down the stairs. She could make out two pairs of dark pant legs followed by a pair of stockinged legs and alligator shoes. “Two fellows and some dame . . .” Her voice curdled in her throat when the two men reached the bottom of the stairs. It was Mr. January, his face reassembled beneath his fedora, but Madge thought she could see now the seams where it attached to the skull. It looked rubbery and wrong, like the face of Frankenstein’s monster after he was all sewn up.

  “Good job catching them, Morris,” Mr. January said to the chief inspector.

  “It was your tip what cinched it, Tony. Who’d’ve thunk a fellow as respectable as Dashwood Bean would be behind an operation like this! And corrupting minors—”

  “You’ve got it all wrong!” Madge cried, clutching the bars. “Dr. Bean’s trying to save the city. This fellow isn’t who he says he is. That’s not even his real face. Pull it off and you’ll see!”

  Mr. January smiled at Madge, his lips stretched so far over his teeth, Madge thought she could see a bit of the bloody skull beneath. “What an imagination! Want to have a tug at my face, Morris?”

  The chief inspector laughed nervously. “Kid’s been watching too many horror films.”

  “Chill-drun ought to mind their own business.”

  Madge tore her eyes away from Mr. January to look at the woman standing next to him. “Hey, it’s Miss Fitzbane from the museum. Can’t you vouch for Dr. Bean? You know he wouldn’t do anything to hurt the city.”

  But Miss Fitzbane only glared at Madge, light flashing off her round glasses, and held up a printed map. “We found this map of the city’s water system in Dr. Bean’s workroom, evidence of his plot to sabotage the city’s water supply.”

  “And we have the poison canister you had at the High Bridge Water Tower.” Mr. January held up the Gladstone bag they’d left in the tower room. “I’ll be taking that with me to FBI headquarters.”

  “Since I came to work at the museum, I’ve suspected Dr. Bean and Miss Lake of un-American sympathies,” Miss Fitzbane said, glaring at Miss Lake.

  Miss Lake, who had come to stand beside Madge, stared back at her. “It’s you, isn’t it? I thought you were dead.”

  Miss Fitzbane parted her lips and smiled, revealing her crowded, awful teeth.

  Where have I seen those teeth before? Madge wondered.

  “As you see,” Miss Fitzbane snarled, “you were mistaken.”

  “I know a way to release you both from the curse,” Miss Lake said. “You could find peace at last.”

  “Peace!” Miss Fitzbane sneered. “Your peace would leave us powerless, sister.”

  Sister? Madge stared at the two women and saw for the first time a similarity in their features. Only in Miss Lake, kindness and serenity had smoothed her features into beauty, while envy and greed had turned Miss Fitzbane’s face into a stern mask—just as much a mask as Mordred’s. She controlled it now into a smirk. “You see, Chief Inspector, they’re subversive pacifists. They’ll be executed for treason.”

  Then she turned her gaze on Kiku. “As for the Akiyamas, clearly they are enemy aliens. Now . . .” She looked at her watch. “Hadn’t we better go, Mr. January? I believe you want to deliver that canister to its proper destination.”

  “Yes, Miss Fitzbane,” January said quickly. “Thank you again for all your help. We’ll leave them here”—he glanced down at a steam radiator across from the cell—“where they’ll be nice and cozy when the twelve o’clock whistle blows.”

  He smiled at Miss Fitzbane, and for a moment, the mask seemed to slip, and Madge saw something surprising. Why, he’s scared of her, she thought as he turned to leave.

  “Who is she?” Madge asked when they had gone.

  “Belisent,” Miss Lake answered. “My half sister, and Mordred’s mother. It was she who gave her son the enchanted helmet that gave him eternal life and tore his face away.”

  “What kind of mother does that to her own son?” Walt cried.

  “In her zeal to use him as a weapon against Arthur she was careless of how her magic might harm her son,” Dr. Bean answered. “And now she uses him as a weapon against any who wish to live in peace and happiness. She’s been spying on us at the museum.”

  “Miss Fitzbane found me there last night,” Kiku blurted out. “She told me that if I helped her find incriminating evidence against Dr. Bean and Miss Lake, she would make sure my father and I would go free.” She looked at her father, her eyes filled with tears. “She told me I’d be able to save you if I helped her. I’m sorry, Otousan, perhaps I should have! Now you’ll be executed for treason. But I couldn’t betray my friends.”

  Mr. Akiyama rose stiffly to his feet and stood facing his daughter, his face grave. “Of course you couldn’t, Kiku-chan. I am proud of you.” Then he bowed his head to her. Kiku let out a cry and threw herself into his arms. He held her tight, patting her back.

  When he let her go, Miss Lake offered Kiku her handkerchief. “You did the right thing, Kiku. Belisent is not trustworthy. And her magic never works exactly as she thinks it will. Most magic doesn’t, as I imagine you four are finding out.”

  “I accidentally hit Joe,” Walt admitted.

  “And I almost got lost in a tapestry,” Kiku said.

  “And when I tried to break the code without the Kelmsbury, I could hear Mr. January’s voice in my head,” Joe said.

  “No wonder you had a headache,” Madge said. “At
least you all have magic. I don’t have any.”

  “That’s not true,” Kiku said. “We were able to bring Boris alive only when you were there and we were all working together.”

  “But we couldn’t do it again,” Madge said.

  “If the three of you hadn’t been with me, I wouldn’t have been able to read the luggage tag without falling under Mordred’s power,” Joe said.

  “That’s true,” Madge said. “Hm, that does give me an idea. What if . . .” She pulled Joe and Kiku and Walt into a huddle and whispered in their ears. The three of them listened to her as if she were Coach Bob Zuppke giving them the moves of his famous flea-flicker play. When they all nodded their agreement, they broke apart, and Madge said in a carrying voice, “Well, at least one of us has gotten out. Agent Chrysanthemum will carry word to the rendezvous point.”

  One of the guards perked up his ears. “What are they yakking about, Harvey?”

  Harvey looked up from his racing form and glanced into the cell—then did a double take. “Hey! Where’s the Japanese girl?”

  “Who?” Madge asked, all wide-eyed innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She looked around the cell at Walt and Joe, Dr. Bean and Miss Lake, and stared especially hard at Mr. Akiyama, who looked upset to realize his daughter was gone.

  “Where’s your kid, Pops?” Harvey said, approaching the cell.

  “What kid?” Mr. Akiyama replied.

  “She was here a minute ago,” Harvey said, taking his keys off his belt. “Maybe she’s hiding under the bunk.”

  “Hey, that fella said not to open the door on any account,” the other guard said.

  “Whatsamatter, Pete? Are you afraid of some eggheads and a pack of kids? You stay outside.” As Harvey opened the cell door, he lost his balance and fell against the bars. “Hey, you don’t gotta push me. . . .”

  But Pete didn’t answer. He was staring at the handcuffs that had been attached to his belt a few minutes ago and were now hovering in the air. As Pete turned to catch them, Walt grabbed his arms and pulled them behind his back. “Sorry, Mister, I don’t want to hurt you. Just let me put these on you.”

  Pete struggled but couldn’t get free of Walt’s grip. Harvey started toward him but tripped again. Joe helped him up and led him over to the bunk. “Maybe you’d better sit down,” Joe suggested.

  “Yeah, maybe . . . Hey!” he yelled as the three kids and three adults left the cell and locked the door behind them.

  “Wait,” Madge said, “we’d better make sure Kiku’s with us. . . . Oh, here she is.” Kiku had materialized, holding the guard’s ring of keys.

  “Didja see that?” they could hear Pete saying as they ran up the stairs.

  “I ain’t sayin’ I saw nothin’,” they heard Harvey reply. “And you better not neither, if you want to see your pension.”

  They burst out onto the street laughing. But then the clock on top of the police headquarters struck eleven, and they all stopped laughing.

  “Mordred said the attack would take place at noon,” Dr. Bean said, hailing an approaching taxi. “We’ve only got an hour. We have to get to FBI headquarters right away!”

  “But what if Mordred has gotten to someone there,” Joe pointed out, “and you can’t get to your friend?”

  “We should split up and go straight to the steam plants,” Walt said.

  “He’s right, Dash,” Miss Lake said. “You go to FBI headquarters. Kenji and I will go to the Kips Bay station—it’s the largest one. The rest of you go to Burling Slip. It’s the second-largest and closest to here.”

  “Shouldn’t we split up, too?” Joe asked.

  “No, the four of you are more powerful together. Dash will have them send policemen to the other plants. You four try to stop Mordred and Belisent.” She pushed the four of them into the taxi and gave the driver the address and a ten-dollar bill. They’d pulled away before they had a chance to even say good-bye.

  30

  THE SLIP

  THE CAB TOOK a right on Kenmare Street and then a right on the Bowery and continued downtown to Water Street. Walt recognized the route from when they’d followed the Packard to Battery Park—and sure enough, he could soon smell seawater. Instead of going all the way down to Battery Park, though, they took a left on John Street. Ahead of them loomed a tall building with several smokestacks.

  “That’s it!” Walt cried, thumping the driver on the shoulder. “You can let us out here.”

  “Sure, kid, whatever you say. Do you want your change?”

  “You can keep it,” Walt said, getting out.

  “Big spender,” Madge said, following Walt out.

  “It’s not like we’re going to need it.”

  They stood in front of the building, looking up at the towering smokestacks. Walt felt as if they had all stood like this before, only instead of smokestacks, they had been looking up at the towers of a castle.

  Camelot, he heard a voice say in his head. It made him glad the voice was back, even though the word was spoken so wistfully that he was pretty sure that they hadn’t come out of that castle. Madge must have felt it too, because she said, “If only I knew that Frankie and the twins were going to be all right.”

  “Dr. Bean and Miss Lake will make sure they are,” Joe said. “They’ll take care of Walt’s folks and Kiku’s father and . . .”

  “Your sister Jeanette,” Kiku said, taking Joe’s hand. “I feel sure of it. That’s what they do . . . after.”

  The word seemed to echo in Walt’s head as if it was the last word of a story. And they all lived happily ever after. Only Walt didn’t think their story ended that way. Still, if his folks were okay . . .

  He heard a soft sigh and turned, wondering who had made that mournful sound. It came from Boris, who had landed on Madge’s shoulder. Madge turned her head and grinned at Walt. “It looks like we’re all here,” she said. “Let’s go stop Mordred from wrecking our city.”

  * * *

  As they walked toward the door, Kiku vanished. She was supposed to slip inside and try to find Mordred, but Walt couldn’t let her face him on her own.

  “Let me take care of the guard,” Walt said, curling his fists.

  “Wait,” Joe said. “Let’s try reasoning with him.”

  When they reached the guard, Joe stepped forward and addressed him. “We’re here to stop an attack on the factory,” he said in a deep, calm voice.

  “What?” the guard began, eyeing Madge and Walt warily. “With who? The Lollipop Guild?”

  “With my friends,” Joe answered.

  The guard shook his head but then looked again at Joe. “Hey, you’re on the level, ain’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Joe replied, looking steadily at the guard. “You should call your colleagues at the other plants and tell them to look out for saboteurs.”

  The guard held Joe’s gaze for another long minute and then nodded. “All right, son, I’ll do that.”

  He turned to a red phone on the wall, and Madge and Walt and Joe walked into the steam plant.

  “How did you do that?” Walt asked. “Is that part of your power?”

  “I don’t think so,” Joe said, looking Walt square in the eye. “I just told him the truth. I didn’t want you to have to hit him because . . . When I hit the principal it didn’t feel good even though he really deserved it. I was hoping you wouldn’t have to do that.”

  “You talked to him like an adult,” Madge said, “and so he listened to you like you were one. I don’t know if it’ll work with this guy, though. He looks kinda sore.”

  A burly man in overalls with a hat that said FOREMAN across it was approaching them, a wrench in one hand. Before Joe could say anything, Madge spoke up. “Hey, Mister, where would a fella go if he wanted to poison the steam?”

  The man stopped in his tracks, looking confused. “W
hy would anyone want to do that?” the man asked, wiping his face with a red bandana. “The steam comes from pure drinking water heated in the berler.”

  “The berler?” Joe asked.

  “I think he means the boiler,” Madge said.

  “That’s what I said, the berler,” the foreman said, pointing to a huge machine that rose ten stories from the plant floor. “You’d have to pour it into the valve on top—Hey, what’s that?”

  The foreman stared up at the towering boiler furnace, where a narrow catwalk ran between a complicated network of pipes. “That fellow shouldn’t be up there.”

  They all looked up and saw Mr. January on the catwalk. Walt saw a gust of steam leak out of one of the pipes and form into the shape of a slight girl with a wrench in her hand, sneaking up behind Mr. January. It was Kiku, her invisible shape revealed by the steam—and by the creak of the metal catwalk. Mordred whirled around and grinned when he saw the steam shape.

  “You should have taken the deal with Mother,” he said, and then he lunged at Kiku and pushed her off the catwalk.

  She landed on the platform just below the catwalk, where her body, fully visible now, lay twisted and limp.

  Joe cursed and Madge screamed.

  “Go help her,” Walt shouted at Joe and Madge. “I’ll take care of him.”

  Walt ran up the steps, Joe and Madge behind him, keeping his eye on Mordred. He was kneeling in front of the huge boiler, turning a bright red metal wheel. The Zyklon B canister sat on the metal grid beside him. It was already open. Walt could see the glint of gold dust mixed in with the cyanide pellets. When Mordred poured the mixture into the boiler the steam would become poisonous. Families sitting down for lunch, kids in schools, soldiers saying good-bye to their sweethearts in Penn Station and Grand Central—all those lives snuffed out in a breath of air, just as thousands would be killed in Europe.

  The thought of it made Walt angry. His heart pumped blood to his legs and arms, filling his body with so much power, he could feel his muscles swelling, straining the seams of his jacket. He ripped it off and, holding it like a cape, strode across the shaking catwalk toward Mordred. Mordred looked up with a new face, this one like some horrible giant insect. He was wearing a gas mask. He quickly grabbed the canister of Zyklon B and held it over the open valve on the boiler.