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for mercy.
    His spinning slowed and finally stopped.
    “Clyde Darby,” the man in the mask intoned, all levity now forgotten.
“Your many sins have caught up with you at last. The time has come to settle
your account.”
    Darby’s gurglings became higher in pitch. He began to sputter. Here was
something he feared more than the sixteen-story drop to the pavement below.
    “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Darby,” the Red Panda
said gravely.
    Behind him, the girl on the gargoyle grinned a vicious smile.
    “Please choose the hard way,” she said sweetly.
    Clyde Darby began to sob.

Five

 
    The High-Hat Gentleman’s Club might very well have been the most
ironically named venue operating in the city limits. Once, more than three
years ago now, it had operated under a fine old name and catered to the city’s
elite. But hard times were hard times, and when the club was beset by financial
trouble after the stock market collapse, its members were too preoccupied with
their own losses to ride to the rescue. The building had been briefly
shuttered, and then sold by the bankruptcy court to a company which was known
throughout the city as a blind for Big Joe Tennutti.
    But knowing such a thing and proving it were two very different
matters, and despite the howls of protest from the Mayor’s office and the
Citizen’s Committee for Public Decency, the old standard was torn down and the
flickering neon top hat that now graced the building’s edifice was erected.
Officially, the High-Hat was a private club, with a membership every bit as
exclusive as the Club Macaw. But to gain admission, one only needed to be a
well-placed racketeer or gangster. Since the change of ownership, the High-Hat
had been regarded as neutral ground – a place free from the
life-and-death rivalries of gangland. Business might be discussed, but only in
civil terms, which for the criminal scum who frequented the High-Hat had meant
only that no weapons were allowed.
    Those days of mock civility were over now. Those who remained atop the
food chain of Toronto’s underworld knew that they could never let their guard
down, and that they would never be truly safe. But as long as Big Joe held the
High-Hat, there was still one place they could retreat to and plan their vile
strategies, hunted though they might be. The nightclub was as wild as any could
be, for the police had long known that it was death to set foot on the grounds.
Tennutti’s reputation held the High-Hat as an oasis of sorts, for the moment.
An island against the rising tide of justice that threatened to sweep away all
that a generation of criminals had built.
    Tennutti had watched as the new self-proclaimed protectors of the city
had eliminated his competition one by one. Indeed, in the early going, he had
profited greatly from the elimination of his rivals, and for his own part he
was careful not to provoke the wrath of the masked marvels directly.
    Big Joe Tennutti was an old hand at this game, and the mere mention of
his name carried with it such dread that few would dare to cross him. As a
result, his operation was not as freshly steeped in blood as others which had
only recently clawed their way up. Tennutti controlled the rackets in the city
core, and many other gangsters who considered themselves independent paid him
tribute for the right to operate. Illegal scam or legitimate business, everyone
paid Tennutti eventually. But since he never took everything, he was able to
flatter himself that he was generous. And since he rarely had to enforce his
rule with violence, he spoke as if he were a man of peace.
    But in his heart, he knew the truth: to rule through fear was as great
an act of violence as any committed by those up-and-comers who paid him
tribute. Every piece of the profit of honest labor that he took from those who
needed it was equal parts theft and murder. He knew that a reckoning would
come. And he was ready.
    The High-Hat had long been secured by force. Now,