His stepmother was dead. It happened while he and Andrew were watching, while they held her hands in the hospital room. She woke from a sleep, called Father's name, and closed her eyes. Just like that, the pneumonia took here, and Colin felt his heart squeeze, exactly the way it had when his mother died. Suddenly the hospital walls couldn't hold enough air for him, so he ran.

He had to find Father.

Just past the blacksmith Colin turned left onto Bond Street. Number 37 was in the middle of the block, and he leaped up the stoop to open the front door.

"Father!"

The darkness swallowed his call. He raced past the parlor entry and yanked open the door to his father's study.

Colin raced to the desk to look for a clue, a note, anything that might hint where Father was.

The papers blurred. Colin blinked away tears and swept his arm across the desk. The contents flew onto the polar bearskin rug. He wanted to burn it all, the rug, the maps, the bills, the stuffed animals. All the reminders of polar travel past and future. Of Antarctica, the obsession that had consumed Father's energy and kept him from home, kept him from the deathbed of his own wife.

As Colin's eyes focused, he saw a note on top of all the others:

HORACE J. PUTNEY ENTERPRISES, LTD.
176 FRANKLIN STREET
NEW YORK, NEW YORK

BY MESSENGER

Franklin Street. That was the Red Light District.

Colin had never been there. You never went there after dark if you valued your life. What did the Fat Man do for a living anyway?

Colin ran out of the house and barreled down Broadway. It was a long run, at least a mile, and as he crossed Canal Street the sun set behind the tenements and the smell of decay rushed up from the pavement.

Corner to corner, Colin told himself. Eyes front.

As he turned onto Franklin, the storefronts advertised goods in languages he didn't recognize, and broken carts stood chained to hitching posts. The distant din of angry voices grew closer.

Colin strained to see the numbers above the doors Ü 119ƒ121ƒ

At the end of the wall of shadows, a crowd had gathered in front of a tavern. A man lay across the pavement, his face bloodied, while a group of burly men pulled off an angry attacker. Two mounted constables rode up, brandishing billy clubs, followed by an ambulance.

Jus beyond them, where Franklin Street met Varick and West Broadway, a small, pristine brick building stood on the corner. Its light shone through stained glass windows protected by steel bars. It was clean and jewellike, completely out of place in this wretched neighborhood. It had to be Putney's office.