Jo nodded in response to Ben's query. At least, it could be surmised that she was nodding. While Ben's tuxedo provided at least some warmth, Jo's silky dress, with its bare sleeves and daring neckline, offered as much protection from the cold as if she had been wearing nothing but her own flesh. The result was a great deal of shivering and shielded tooth chattering on Jo's part, which made the nodding of her head difficult to discern from the rest of her movement. "Right. Edison...You might want to prepare yourself, Goldie. He might kiss you."

Jo grinned, but promptly lost herself in an unusual blush. She'd glanced at Ben's face, and seen in the pale light of the winter moon more than a few smudges in the exact shade of her own lipstick. To add to the confusion and exhilaration of two of the grandest families in the criminal world of New York being casually ousted by their heirs over the dead body of a sleazy mayor, she now had to figure into the equation what she hadn't had time to worry about beforehand: the suddenness with which she had found herself crammed against the lips of one Benjamin Goldberg. For quite a long time, now that she thought about it. Before they had even come within yards of considering slowing down, much less doing something as dull and awkward as discussing what the hell had happened, all of the business with Coburn and the assassins had started up...

There was a rich couple huffing and puffing in the cold as they prepared to shuffle into the back of a cab they'd managed to hail through all the mess. Jo elbowed her way past them, dragging Ben along with her and half-shoving him into the cab before spitting something back at the couple to silence their stuffy protests. She told the cab driver where to go (in a chattering, but much sweet tone) and then they were off. Into the crowded streets where everyone else was desperate to leave the once glamorous scene.

Jo didn't know what to say. It was a rare occasion, but she'd been experiencing that a lot, lately. So she decided to effectively kill about seven birds with one stone. She slumped into Ben's side, her cold nose pressed into his comparatively warm shoulder. She felt somewhat like a cat claiming the best seat in a room. "Lord, I just...can't believe it all."

With that one conclusive statement, Jo shook her head and then turned it so she could stare out the window to the slowly passing, desperate pedestrians. She glanced up at Ben, and a sly grin slowly built itself, tooth by tooth, across her face. "So, Goldie, have you had enough fun for one day yet? Maybe once we've got our article set up, we can stop over and knock off a bank or two."

Jo screwed up her face in thought, her head sinking deeper into the pocket between Ben's shoulder and his neck as he stretched his arm around her. It was a comfortable feeling, like collapsing into your favorite pillow after a long week's work. "You know...I think I like your idea better. Lord, I guess there really is a first time for everything!"


The two journos made it to the Times building surprisingly soon, with most of the eggs from the ball headed to their own parts of town and traffic slower the farther they got from the unfortunate scene. Jo had deliberated several things throughout the drive; whether or not she wanted to start in on tracing Goldberg's angular features with kisses again; whether or not she wanted to bring any more attention to the unusual pact they seemed to have reached than she already had; whether she wanted to spend that night smugly clinking glasses with her less fortunate colleagues or to simply follow Goldberg home like a lost puppy after the work was done...or better yet drag him along with her back to her room at the posh hotel. In the end, she had contented herself with rambling off eager ideas for the article as she somehow worked her way further and further into Ben's side.

Now, at the Times, Jo marched off the elevator into the newsroom with a determination and speed surprising when the length of her heels was taken into consideration. They were intercepted briefly by none other than Robert Elliot, working sulkily late on his most recent piece rather than at the biggest scoop of the day, who looked up at whistled appreciatively at Jo's dress. She waved at him in an off-hand manner, continuing straight on towards Edison's office.

"Jeepers creepers, are you bleeding?" Robbie called after her, causing Jo to pause momentarily. She glanced down at her hand, where there was a trace of blood from helping Polina. Jo shivered, shook her head 'no,' and grabbed Ben's arm to continue on the way to Edison's.

Ben Goldberg's prediction proved to be remarkably true. Over the next several weeks, the city of New York did indeed receive a complete kick up the ass.

After the publication of Goldberg and Levard's article, the two foremost families in the criminal world began to crumble on their pedestals. The members who had already done jail time were brought back in, and as even the most elite gangsters found themselves being plucked out of their cushioned seats, suddenly former victims began to find their voices. Old crimes were brought to the surface and in the midst of the chaos left in Mayor Coburn's wake, the untouchable lords and ladies of found themselves wearing pinstripes of an entirely different nature.

One day, while enjoying a quaint meal with his new girlfriend, Francisco Seccarinni's door was broken in and his apartment flooded with bullets. Somehow, the man survived. By the next day his vanished; and whether he was resting in the bottom of a pond or in some safe penthouse in Europe, he took all of his material possessions, wealth, and knowledge of the crime rings with him.

With the loss of her unusual bedfellow and with her own crimes threatening her from the past, Fiona Muirenn found herself virtually friendless and with suspicious shadows following her around every corner. The full details of her betrayal to the Muirenn Clan and her plots against the Seccarinni family would never truly be known, but it was no longer a secret that her allegiances had been little more than thoroughly stacked-up bluffs. There was no safe haven for Lady Luck in New York, or indeed anywhere. So it came as little surprise (though deliciously scandalous) when the dame who had constructed herself from a blond-haired, blue-eyed nothing to the very spirit of the New York criminal cornered herself.

It was ironic that Charles Wallenstein, no longer a member of the NYPD, yet easily the one who had devoted the most time in investigating Lady Luck, was the one to discover the obvious slip from the troubled woman in her final criminal act. A simple attack against a bunch of thugs that supposedly worked for her own family; the loss of a few vicious gorillas that results in Fiona Muirenn's flight and stand-off on a ferry bridge. There were five policeman, Fiona herself, and Charles Wallenstein, all with guns drawn, and all drawing the hungry gaze of dozens of on-lookers.

Charlie, unable to withdraw a chance even to the dame who had personally put his life through the grinder, called a grim offer for her to put in her years down the river, and then move on with a clean slate. Lady Luck looked up at the Shamus, her lightning blue eyes flashing with a tired amusement. She chuckled a bit, taking a step away.

"T'anks, Wally. But there's no such thing as legal redemption."

And before the audience could even gasp, Fiona turned on her heel and leaped off the side of the ferry bridge, plunging into the frigid waters directly between two lumps of ice.




With the death or disappearance of the heirs of the two major families, the deterioration of their wholes was simply a matter of time. Eventually, new groups would rush in to fill the giant gap. But for a time, there was a careful peace. A general lack of confusion resonated within The Big Apple, with its leading forces both on the surface and in its underbelly having consumed themselves as all great serpents do. The calm in the eye of the storm had been reached, breached, and now there was nothing left but the echo of its devastation.

Businesses moved on. Broken homes were rebuilt. Lives that had been touched by the actions of those caught in the web that led to Mayor Coburn's demise would never be the same again...for better, or for worse. Only time would tell.


The end.