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That’s what the money’s for. So you don’t. Not today. Not ever.”
    “Today is different,” Formichelli said in an uncompromising voice.
    “Why is that?”
    “Because eighty-one died in 1901 and you had another disaster recently with nothing to show for it.”
    “Coal. We have coal to show for it. That’s what we do here. Dig coal out of the damn ground. We get our hands dirty. You guys do it by gratefully taking our payoffs.”
    “I didn’t come for a payoff. We’re going downstairs together.”
    Dwyer decided to be coy. “Look, I get it. You don’t want to take it in public. So we do it down there.”
    “We do what I need to do in your mine.”
    “For Christ’s sake, there’s nothing but coal. Fuckin’ tons of coal. Save yourself the trip. I’ll give you thirty-five!”
    “I’ll forget about your bribe so long as we go now. If you don’t, then I’ll see to it that you’ll never have the opportunity again. I’m sure someone else would be happy to become General Manager. Like…” Formichelli nodded to the man with his head in his papers, his inside contact he’d met only a week before.
    “Okay, okay. The main shaft good enough?”
    “As a matter of fact, no. I want to see your new excavation. I believe you call it Lloyd George, the new spur off Central Link.”
    “How?”
    Formichelli didn’t let him finish the question.
    “It’s my job to know.”
    “Look,” Dwyer argued as he reached into a till box. “I’ll give you forty-five. How about fifty-five? You go away richer than when you arrived. And alive.”
    Formichelli pushed his overcoat aside and revealed a sidearm. His hand went to the weapon. “You’ll take me all the way to Lloyd George. If you don’t…” he glanced over to the other man again. That’s where he left the thought.
    Dwyer’s number two stopped his work. His eyes darted nervously, but his reaction was unseen by his boss.
    “We’ve hardly broken through. Not much to see. Come back in two weeks. We’ll start all over,” Dwyer said, trying unsuccessfully to get rid of the visitor.
    “Today,” Formichelli replied. “Now.”
    Dwyer gave the stranger a long hard look. He was serious. Serious enough to kill.
    • • •
    The rickety mine shaft elevator started with a jolt.
    “Uncomfortable?” Dwyer observed.
    “Not at all.”
    Formichelli had been in coal elevators and deep into caverns, wells and caves throughout Europe and even in America. But Dwyer was right. The rides always gave him the willies.
    Through the patchwork metal roof he saw six motor-driven wires attached to the top of the cage. To the sides, guide rails ran the length of the shaft. They kept the car and counterweights from swaying during descending and ascending. It was the coal miner’s lifeline. Formichelli would have to trust it.
    “Just get us down in one piece,” he added.
    The ride took six minutes before the elevator stopped at the foot of the main shaft, Central Link. Like all the tunnels it was named after roads in Cardiff. Dwyer lifted the bar to the elevator gate and said without an ounce of real concern, “Mind your head.” The overhead support beams were difficult to see in the spotty lamp light. “You can stand most of the way. But then again, you better be ready to duck some. How’s your back?”
    “The last thing you need to do is worry about me.”
    Dwyer was struck by the ominous tone.
    They followed the gradual slope downward. At the tunnel’s highest, they barely had a few inches of headroom. But it quickly got lower, much lower, making them crouch. That’s when they cut far left into the passageway called Lloyd George. The farther they walked, the narrower it got, sometimes barely wide enough for wheelbarrows.
    Formichelli had seen how tunnels branched off into networks of rooms where chronically coughing miners, as young as nine, dug, shoveled, and removed the coal by the light of dim electric bulbs, oil lamps, and brass Justrite carbide head lamps.
    This