The pulleys squealed.
Someone was shouting.
Lowe didn’t look up. Just leaned down and scooped her up as the fan dropped—
Inches above the sidewalk. That’s where they stopped it. She was one extended second away from being crushed.
Lungs burning, he squeezed her against his chest, a ball of yellow flounce, dark curls, and fragile limbs. Her arms clung to his neck, her heartbeat like a hummingbird’s.
“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he assured her, speaking against her head so she could feel it.
As if a switch flipped somewhere inside her, she stopped sobbing.
A gaggle of women poured out from a nearby shop, shouting in distress. Stella peeled her tear-damp face from his shoulder and panicked when she saw the chaos surrounding them.
He held a hand up to the bystanders. “She’s fine. Don’t scare her.” He ducked his head to catch her gaze and smiled. “Close one, old girl. You nearly had that last hurdle.”
She gave him a toothy smile.
“There you go, right as rain.” The workers lowered the fan to the sidewalk with a boom that shook the soles of his shoes. He adjusted Stella’s weight onto his right hip and sidled around the downed fan. “You recognized your Farbror Lowe—and after six months away. Such a smart girl. Now then, let’s find your papa before these men drop the damned thing again.”
“That kid could’ve injured my man,” the foreman shouted as his workers looked on in silence. “You’re lucky we didn’t drop this thing or you would’ve paid to repair it.”
Lowe kept his face calm for Stella’s sake and spoke through a tight smile. “You’re lucky I don’t beat your face into a pulp and break both your legs before I get my family’s lawyer to sue your company for negligence.”
“Now, you see here—”
Stella made an indistinct noise and looked toward Diller’s Delicatessen, where her father burst from the door in a panic.
“Stella!”
“There’s Papa,” Lowe said as he gave one last malicious look to the foreman before striding off.
“Lowe, thank goodness.” Adam Goldberg met them halfway. “I turned my back for a second. What happened?” He surveyed the scene on the sidewalk and frowned.
“Nothing a little hot water and salve won’t cure.” Lowe uncurled one of her skinned palms. “Stings, ja?” he said, tapping her fingers to show what he meant.
She flexed her hand and nodded.
Adam took her out of Lowe’s arms, murmuring a quiet prayer beneath his breath. Once he’d inspected her knees, his shoulders fell. He chuckled the sort of terrified laugh that betrayed relief and fear—a laugh Lowe had heard a hundred times from his old friend.
“You look as if the desert sun tanned your hide,” Adam said. “And I see you’ve lost a finger. Should I ask?”
“Probably not.”
“Fair enough. Hungry?”
“Famished.”
“So much for a discreet meeting. Come on.”
The aroma of corned beef, chicken soup, and dill wafted toward them as they stepped into the delicatessen. Canned goods and bread were sold on one side of the shop, cold food behind a refrigerated counter on the other, and hot meals were cooked in a small kitchen in the back. A short menu of choices was scrawled in chalk on a standing board by the counter.
Adam set Stella down atop one of four tables near the windows and brushed dirt from her dress while Lowe dug around in his satchel, retrieving a windup toy for which he’d haggled in an open-air market in Cairo. He presented the black cat to Stella with a dramatic flourish. “What do you think? Hold on, you wind her like this.” Lowe demonstrated and set the cat on the table. It rolled and wagged its tail up and down.
Stella grunted in joy, twisting around to touch it as it moved. A winner. Lowe never knew. She’d rejected half his presents. “She’s grown a foot while I was gone,” he remarked.
Adam smoothed back her bangs. “Twice as sassy lately, too.”
An elderly woman came around the counter, smiling in their direction.
Adam nodded to her before speaking to Stella. “Take it to Mrs. Berkovich. You can play after washing up.” He moved his hands to sign the word “wash” and pointed at the woman. Stella grabbed the toy and Mrs. Berkovich escorted her to the back.
“It’s times like this when I think Miriam would’ve done a better job,” Adam said wistfully as he watched his daughter disappear.
Adam’s wife died of influenza a year after Stella was born—almost three years ago, now. The three of them had been friends since they were kids. Her death had devastated Adam. It had happened within a few months of Lowe’s parents dying in the car crash, so Lowe and Adam grieved together. But though Lowe could say he’d come to terms with losing his parents—mostly—Adam never truly got over Miriam. And Lowe was worried he never would.
“I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s not a defeat to hire a nanny.”
“And I’ve told you a thousand more that I’m not taking a handout from the Magnusson family. I’m a watchmaker, not a bootlegger. I do the best I can.”
“You’re a goddamn genius with metal, is what you are. And if we can pull this off, we’re going to make so much cash, you might be the one giving handouts.”
“I’ve heard that a thousand times from you as well,” his friend said, his mouth curling at the corners.
“We made a pretty penny off the crocodile statue forgery.” Never mind that Lowe’s uncle screwed up the paperwork, or that Monk wanted his head for it. None of that was Adam’s problem.
“And I spent it paying off Stella’s family debts.”
“You’re a better man than I, Goldberg.”
Adam playfully slapped him on the arm. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
After Mrs. Berkovich brought steaming bowls of soup, fresh bread, and half-sour pickles pulled from fat wooden barrels near the counter, Lowe retrieved the amulet base. The strange, disconcerting vibration it emitted grew louder as he unwrapped it. “Take a look.”
Adam whistled in appreciation. “This is it, eh?”
“What do you think? Can you do it?” Lowe glanced at Stella playing with the windup cat. She didn’t seem to “hear” the amulet, which was probably a good thing. Adam didn’t comment about it, either.
“May I?” Adam asked, pulling out a pair of jewelers’ eyeglasses with extended magnifying lenses.
“Be my guest. I can’t stand to touch the thing. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
Adam turned it in his hand, leaning closer for inspection. “Same strange red tarnish to the gold as the crocodile statue, but completely different method of casting.”
“A thousand years older, different place. Pay close attention to the hole at the top.” Lowe pulled out a black pocket notebook from his suit and roughly sketched the finished shape of the amulet with the four crossbars stacked on the top—or how he theorized it would look, based on known descriptions and other djed pillars depicted in stoneware and jewelry from that time period.
“A curator at the de Young Museum looked at it—daughter of the antiquities department head.”
“The one who offered to buy it?”
“The very one. I just came from seeing her.” Lowe tapped his fingertips on the table and felt Adam’s eyes boring into him. “Came from seeing her father, I mean. Her and her father.”
Adam made a guttural noise that was both judgmental and amused. “Pretty?”
“The father?”
“Screw you.”
“Hadley, then.”