The champagne at the gala cost more than most men earned in a year. Rick Calloway knew this because he had spent the last five years of his life calculating exactly how much more.

He stood on the balcony of the Vanderbilt mansion, looking out over Long Island Sound. The party inside was in full swing — jazz pouring from the ballroom, laughter rising like smoke, the clink of crystal and the murmur of people discussing things that could not be discussed in public.

Rick had not always been an outsider looking in. Six months ago, he had been inside — not just inside this party, but inside the inner circle of New York's most powerful men. He had known their secrets, their debts, their dirty deals. He had been their architect, the man who built financial structures so elaborate and opaque that even the men who paid him could not tell where the money went.

Then the investigation started. Then the indictments. Then the death sentence.

And then, three days before his execution, he had disappeared.

You look like a man waiting for something.

Rick turned. Diana Voss stood in the doorway, wearing a dress the color of midnight and a smile that was half invitation, half warning. She was the most beautiful woman in New York, which was not a title she had earned but one that had been thrust upon her by a society that valued beauty above all else.

Just thinking, Rick said.

About what?

About the difference between a man who owns a building and a man who owns the land the building sits on.

Diana laughed, and the sound was like champagne bubbles — bright, effervescent, and slightly dangerous. That's the most Rick Calloway thing I've ever heard you say.

Rick felt something tighten in his chest. She knew who he was. Or at least, she knew enough.

How much do you know? he asked.

Diana stepped onto the balcony and leaned against the railing beside him. Enough to know that you're not supposed to be here. Enough to know that the man who was supposed to die three days ago is standing on my balcony talking about land ownership. Enough to know that you're either the bravest man in New York or the stupidest.

Which is it?

That depends, she said. On what you do next.

She reached into the small clutch she carried and pulled out a thin volume bound in black leather. She held it out to him.

The Black Ledger, Rick said, and the name felt strange on his tongue, like a word from a language he had forgotten.

You remember it, Diana said. Good. That means Uncle Louis was right about you.

Uncle Louis. The name triggered something — a memory of a jazz club, the smell of smoke and gin, an old man with kind eyes and a voice like gravel. Louis had taken Rick in after he disappeared, had given him a room and a bottle of whiskey and told him to think.

What's in the book? Rick asked, taking it from her.

Everything, Diana said. Every secret. Every bribe. Every name. The senators, the judges, the police commissioners, the gangsters. All of them, in here. Written in my handwriting, paid for with things I would rather forget.

Rick opened the book. The pages were filled with dense handwriting, names and dates and amounts. He flipped through it randomly and found entries that made his blood run cold — transactions he had been part of, deals he had facilitated, money he had helped move through channels so complex that even he had lost track of where it went.

Why are you giving this to me? he asked.

Diana looked out over the water. The city lights shimmered on the surface, thousands of them, each one a life, a story, a secret.

Because I'm tired, she said simply. I'm tired of carrying it. I'm tired of being the woman who knows everything and can do nothing about it. And I'm tired of this — she gestured at the party behind her — this endless parade of beautiful people saying nothing about nothing while the world burns.

Rick closed the book and held it against his chest. It was lighter than he expected.

What do you want me to do with it?

That's not my decision, Diana said. That's yours. You can publish it and destroy half of New York. You can sell it to the highest bidder and disappear to somewhere where the sun is hot and the laws are distant. You can burn it and walk away clean. Or you can do something I haven't thought of, which is probably the most likely option, given who you are.

The party swelled behind them — a crescendo of music and laughter that sounded almost desperate, as if the people inside knew, on some level, that this moment would not last. The Jazz Age was a flame burning at both ends, and flames always consumed what they illuminated.

Rick looked at the ledger, then at Diana, then out at the water. He was a man who had built his life on knowing where the bodies were buried. Now he held the map in his hands, and the weight of it was making his knees weak.

Tomorrow night, he said. The Charity Gala. Every person in this book will be in that room.

Yes, Diana said.

Rick closed his eyes. When he opened them, the uncertainty was still there, but beneath it was something else — a spark, faint but real, of the man he had been before the world had taught him that everything had a price.

I'll be inside, he said.

Diana smiled, and this time it reached her eyes. I'll be watching.

Rick turned and walked back into the party. The music hit him like a wave — jazz, loud and fast and full of improvisation, the sound of people trying to dance their way out of the dark. He moved through the crowd, nodding at faces he knew, accepting glasses of champagne he did not drink, feeling the Black Ledger against his chest like a second heart.

He found a seat at the edge of the ballroom and watched. He watched the senators laughing with the gangsters. He watched the police commissioners flirting with the courtesans. He watched the beautiful people dancing their beautiful dances while the music played and the champagne flowed and the night stretched on forever.

And Rick Calloway, the man who was supposed to be dead, sat in the corner and smiled a smile that was not quite friendly and not quite threatening, and waited for the music to change.

OTMES v2: JA-1925-NYORK-DEBAUCHE-4ACT-1300W-NO-SUP-PER-1PL-LIM