Ghosts of Manhattan Read Online Free Page B

science was "dehumanizing" the American people. He sold himself as a family man, and was often seen around town with his wife and two young children. He never attended parties or large social gatherings, and the newspapers had a dog of a time digging up anything about the man that could even be considered controversial.
    But nevertheless, here he was, his pants round his ankles, chained to a bedpost, wearing rouge, a half-drunk bottle of illegal whisky on the bedside table. His chest was covered with cigarette burns and there was lipstick all over his prick. His mouth was hanging slack-jawed and two small Roman coins had been placed over his eyelids. They glinted in the lamplight as if they had been freshly minted.
    Across the room, a dead whore lay on the floor, her skirt pulled up around her hips, stockings torn, her face bruised and split where she had been viciously beaten. Donovan couldn't even tell what she had looked like before the beating, except for the fact that the lipstick smeared across her lower face matched the color of that now found on Landsworth's corpse. Mullins had told him she'd been asphyxiated, but Donovan hadn't yet brought himself to take a proper look. He'd needed a coffee and a cigarette before even contemplating that.
    Donovan looked from one body to the other, and shuddered. The reporters were right to be asking. This was clearly the Roman's handiwork. It was the third murder in as many weeks, and each victim had been a man of standing: a councilor, a surgeon, and now a senator. Each of them had also been found with identical Roman coins resting on their eyelids, a calling card, of sorts, from the mob boss responsible for their deaths. Donovan had had the coins analyzed, assuming them to be recent copies that he could somehow trace through the city's dealers, but had been startled to discover they were actual Roman coins, dating from the reign of Vespasian. They looked as fresh and new as if they had been pressed the day before, not nearly two thousand years in the past. He didn't know what to make of that, either.

    The Roman had seemingly come from nowhere, but had quickly risen to become one of the most powerful mob bosses in the city. His network of heavies, informants, and petty criminals was unparalleled, and he managed to inspire an unflinching dedication in his men. Donovan suspected it was a reign of terror, but so far he hadn't managed to get close enough to find out.
    No one had ever seen the Roman. That was the most bizarre factor in the whole matter. It was supposed he was Italian-thus the moniker-but the truth of the matter was that the police had been unable to establish any information regarding who he really was, or even where he could be found. Whoever he was, the only certainty was that he had somehow managed to bring the city to its knees. And it was Donovan's job to find a means to stop him.
    He took another draw on his cigarette and then stubbed it out on the doorframe, ignoring the appalled look this inspired from his sergeant. As if in response, he nonchalantly handed the butt to Mullins, who accepted it with a surprised expression, and then, seeing no obvious place to discard it, slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat without a word.
    Donovan crossed to the bed, screwing his face up in disgust. Landsworth was a mess. He couldn't let the papers get hold of the details, of that much he was certain. He might not be able to put right what the Roman had done, but he could prevent him gaining any satisfaction from it. He turned to Mullins. "Do you think he was already here, with the good-time girl, before the Roman's men ... interrupted things?"
    Mullins shook his head. "No. I think he was killed elsewhere and brought here later. The girl was killed here, though. There're signs of a struggle." He indicated for Donovan to follow him across the hotel suite. "Watch you don't step on the bloodstains, sir."

    Donovan swallowed. The girl had been viciously brutalized. He couldn't