Page 31 of Buck Baxter and the Mysteries of Love

Reached for the door…

When suddenly—

KABOOM!

A fireball erupted somewhere behind me, lifting me off my feet and sending me smashing through the front window of Ginger’s Gin Mill.

I crashed onto the street outside, flames bursting into the night and shattered glass scattering all around me.

My ears were ringing.

Through my blurred vision I saw that the blast had knocked everyone else off their feet.

Slowly they were picking themselves up, except Harry who pulled himself up quickly, unsteadily, and hurriedtoward me.

“Buck?” He collapsed to his knees beside me. “Buck, talk to me! Say something! Anything!”

I groaned and grimaced as I pulled myself to my knees. “Nowdo you know why I didn’t wanna tell you?”

I turned my head to see Ginger’s Gin Mill crackling with flames. Smaller eruptions could be heard inside, along with more glass shattering as the bottles of liquor exploded behind the bar.

Harry helped me to my feet as Mamma and Bugsy limped toward us. I noticed they were holding hands. I guessed their date was something of a success.

“Buck, are you hurt?” Mamma asked urgently.

“I’m fine. We both are. But we have to go. There’s another bomb down by the docks. Do you have a car?”

“Take mine, kiddo.” Bugsy clicked his fingers at his goons and one of them slapped a set of keys into Bugsy’s palm. “Just try not to get it dirty. It just had a spit and polish.”

He tossed the keys to me and I caught them in my fist. “Thanks, Pops.”

I missed the muddy puddles by inches and swerved Bugsy’s fancy black Anderson convertible to a screeching halt at the pier where the Peking Empress docked. The barge was there, sitting peacefully in the water, its lanterns burning while the mist that always seemed to accompany the vessel drifted in swirls around the hull.

Harry and I piled out of Bugsy’s car and sprinted down the pier.

I bounded up the gangplank, the boards bouncing under my weight, with Harry right behind me.

“Madame Chang!” I shouted. “Wuzhou! Stella!”

Our shoes pounded against the deck as we bolted to the stern…

I pulled open the door leading below deck…

And for the second time in a matter of minutes the world was swallowed by a blinding light.

KABOOM!

This time, instead of being thrown through a plate glass window, I was hurled off the back deck of the boat along with Harry. Arms and legs flailing, we flew high into the night air—the pair of us aglow in the fireball that ascended from the exploding barge—then plunged into the river.

The water was cold and dark, but somewhere Harry’s and my hands found each other.

We pulled one another to the surface, spluttering and gasping for air, as chunks of the boat came splashing down around us:

Burning, broken planks;

Flaming curtains that spiraled into the river like parachutes on fire;

A piece of the stern with the namePeking Empresson it, now charred and splintered.

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