Ghosts of Manhattan Read Online Free PDF Page A

be sure, but she must only have been nineteen, twenty years old.
    Mullins lowered his voice, as if trying to mask his horror. "What a waste of life."
    Donovan didn't know whether he meant the fact that she'd been murdered, or the fact that such a young girl had been forced into whoring herself to unscrupulous politicians and gangsters. Either way, the sergeant was right.
    Donovan glanced around. An overturned table, a smashed lamp, a rug all ruffled up at one end. Yes, there'd been a struggle here. She'd been a spirited girl. "She probably thought she had a good paying gig here, at this hotel, before all this." He shook his head and glanced at the uniformed officer who was still lurking in the doorway. "Cover her up," he said, with a resigned gesture. He wondered what they'd made her do before they killed her. It didn't bear thinking about.
    "Is there anything here, Mullins, that might give us any clues? Anything different about this one? Different from the others?"
    Mullins shook his head but remained silent. Just like Landsworth's corpse, splayed out on the bed, unable to tell Donovan what the hell he should say to the Commissioner when he got back to the station. Unable, too, to bring him any closer to understanding who the Roman was, or how on earth he was going to set about bringing him to justice for his crimes.

     

he man looked out, surveying the scene across the city. Electric lights glowed like pinpricks in the darkness, causing apartment blocks to take on the appearance of jewel-encrusted towers. Police dirigibles drifted lazily overhead, their searchlights punctuating the gloaming with long, brilliant columns of white. Above them, a full moon hung low over the city like the smoldering tip of a cigarette, shrouded in wispy clouds.
    He'd heard it said that New York was a city that never slept, but his own experience told him that wasn't entirely true; Manhattan spent its days in a state of bleary-eyed lethargy, only truly coming alive after nightfall. That was the city that most people didn't see, the city full of urgency and emotion and life, the city he had grown to know and to need, and that-more than ever-needed someone like him in return. The police operated with one hand tied constantly behind their backs. They could never do what was necessary, bound as they were by law and convention. Yet the city was falling to crime and corruption, the government and politicians giving way to an endless series of crime lords. It was a war, and it called for brutal measures. The wound needed to be cauterized before the festering grew worse.
    The man the newspapers were calling "the Ghost" shifted slightly, reaching inside his long coat to produce a packet of cigarettes. He popped the lid and extracted one of the thin white sticks. With his gloved fingers he pulled the tab on the end of it and watched it flare, briefly under-lighting his face, before bringing the cigarette to his lips and taking a long, deep draw. The nicotine flooded his lungs, giving him a light-headed rush. He left the cigarette drooping from his bottom lip as he once again surveyed the city streets below.
    From his vantage point atop the roof terrace on Fifth Avenueabove his city apartment-the Ghost watched the comings and goings of the people down below. Coal-powered cars hissed along the road, whilst lonely pedestrians drifted along the sidewalks, solitary specters in the wan light thrown down from the surrounding buildings. If it hadn't been for-

    He stopped, suddenly, snapping his head to the right. He'd caught a sound, carried to him on the stiff breeze that rumpled the tails of his long coat. The sound of a man calling out in pain, from somewhere far below. Leaving his position at the front of the building, he rushed over to the other side of the terrace. He scanned the streets below. Nothing.
    Reaching up, the Ghost felt under the brim of his hat until his fingers located the rim of his goggles. He tugged them down over his eyes, turning the