Gods of Manhattan Read Online Free PDF Page A

place, and yet occasionally it threw up little wonders, pink stars cast in light on the concrete floor of an alleyway. A small thing, but representative of all the strangeness and charm of this unique place, this City Of Tomorrow...
    Johann took pleasure in small things.
    At that moment, he became aware of footsteps behind him. A cold chill seized his chest, and he swallowed hard, that terrible certainty of who those footsteps might belong to racing through his mind. No, surely not, he told himself. I'm an old man.
    There was a low, mean chuckle from behind. He steeled himself. He would look around, and he'd see a group of young men, and he'd recognise none of them. And they'd walk right by him, never thinking to bother an old Rabbi. It was a story he'd played out a dozen times in this alley. A good story.
    So Johann turned his head, and found himself looking at three stripes of hair coloured red, white and blue, and a t-shirt with a square torn out of the front and a couple of safety pins hanging from that ragged edge, and a pair of eyes with hate and humiliation in them.
    It was the boy from earlier. And not alone. Two others, the same age, walked either side of him, one black, one white, both of them in the same mish-mash of ragged clothes held together by safety pins and charged symbols. The other young black man's face was a mass of steel piercings and studs that made the handsome features alien and ugly.
    The white boy wore a swastika.
    It was beginning to rain.
    Johann sped up, walking faster, as the spattering raindrops hit his cheeks like tears, trickling down. Behind him, the footsteps sped up to match. The rain intensified, suddenly coming down in sheets, the filthy alley lit bright white for a split-second before a crash of thunder formally announced the storm. Why didn't I bring my umbrella? Johann thought, madly, and then he found himself running, feet splashing in the growing puddles.
    He ran, and they ran after him. It was a race now. At the end of the long, dark alley, he could see trotting horses, smell hotdogs, see bright lights, a finish line. If he could just get to the lights, he might be safe-
    And then he tripped.
    He landed face-down on the wet, dirty floor of the alley, knocking the wind from his lungs. He lay there a moment in the wet and the dirt, coughing weakly, and then a heavy boot pressed down on his back, pinning him.
    He heard the quiet click of a switchblade springing from its casing.
    Then another. Then a third.
    "Gimme my bolt back, old man." The voice was flat, emotionless, as it had been in the Deli. Another voice beside snickered softly, barely audible over the sound of the rain coming down.
    "Yeah," said the new voice. "Old man. Give him it before we cut you."
    Johann tried to croak out a response - something, anything - and then the boot on his back stamped down harder. Why were they doing this? He was an old man - but then, that was the reason, of course. He was an old man who had humiliated a younger one. With a sudden cold clarity, he understood that they would kill him. They would murder him in this filthy alley and then the three of them would go back to the deli, and see what they were looking for, what Alma had tacked to the wall, and they would want it back, and Alma would stand up for herself and they would kill her too. If they had to, they would kill her quickly, but if they could get away with it, they would kill her slowly. Because they could, and that was all the justification they needed.
    But they would kill him slowly first.
    The boot pressed down on his back. He tried to say a prayer, but he had no breath to say it. At the end of the alley, he could see the lights, and the horses, and the people passing by, rain dripping off their umbrellas.
    Not one of them looked at him.
    "Gimme my bolt." the futurehead growled, in his dead, emotionless monotone.
    Johann could not speak. His lips moved, but no sound came.
    There was only the sound of the rain.
    And then the sound