POE MUST DIE (26 page)

Her smile was quick, disappearing the instant it flashed across her lips.

Suddenly, the flute hit an extraordinarily high note directly overhead and Rachel Coltman quickly looked up at the ceiling. When she looked back at Jonathan, he was pointing to—”

She saw it and inhaled sharply.

“Justin’s snuff box.” She picked up the tiny silver box in both hands, handling it as though it were fragile porcelain.

“Open it, Mrs. Coltman.”

She did and her jaw dropped.

“Where—”

“A most lovely ring, Mrs. Coltman. Your husband had it made for you on your first trip to England together. It is modelled after the ring Queen Elizabeth gave to Lord Essex, is it not?”

Rachel could only nod her head. Her eyes shimmered behind tears. “I thought I had lost them both forever.”

Stolen and kept until needed, thought Jonathan. They are needed now. His hands were still in his sleeves. The hands of a master magician. From his sleeve and across the table in a infinitesimal fraction of a second. And she believed it was a miracle.

“A miracle,” she whispered. “A miracle. How did you—”

“Mrs. Coltman, do you believe in me?”

“Yes, oh yes.”

“I want you to tell me more about Jonathan.” This is a most enjoyable game, he thought.

Tears slid down her pale cheeks. Jonathan found her one of the few women who could weep and still remain beautiful. He watched her squeeze the snuff box in a hand covered by a blue velvet glove. She still
wanted
to believe.

“A miracle,” she whispered, looking around the room and seeing no one but the magician.

“There are indeed other worlds, Mrs. Coltman, other planes.” And servants who steal.

“My deepest gratitude, Dr. Paracelsus.”

“Do you believe me to be who I say I am?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

“Tell me more about this Jonathan.”

“Eddy and his friend, Mr. Figg, are searching for him. Mr. Figg intends to kill Jonathan, but first the two of them are going to a boarding house on Ann Street to seek a group of travelling actors.”

Jonathan’s hands slowly clenched and unclenched. Figg. A primitive force capable of destroying him. An ordinary man made extraordinary by the intensity of the revenge he craved. If there was one thing Jonathan understood it was the power of revenge. Figg was definitely dangerous and not one to toy with as was Poe; the boxer stalked Jonathan with the intention of spilling his blood, nothing less. Figg would have to be dealt with immediately.

But first—

“The Renaissance Players,” said Rachel Coltman. “Mr. Figg claims two of their members are somehow involved in the death of his wife.”

She looked across the table. “Joseph Barian and Bernard Leddy. They—”

Jonathan interrupted. “You are about to say they have acted as go-betweens for you and myself. This is true. But they are no longer associated with me. On the day you spoke to Mr. Barian and Mr. Leddy in front of Barnum’s American Museum, you may tell Mr. Poe and Mr. Figg, I released them from my employ. Barian and Leddy misused my kindness by keeping hidden from me the account of their criminal pastimes which I was just informed is on file at New York Police Headquarters. They sought my aid in contacting departed loved ones and even though both men lacked funds, I gave of myself and my services for my heart does ache at the sight of another’s pain. Instead of money, each man begged me to allow him to serve me as best he could and I agreed. But as you have learned tonight, you can now contact me through Miss Sarah Clannon.”

Rachel nodded, hanging on his every word. Jonathan controlled her once more and gloried in that knowledge.

He said, “I could not continue to have around me such men of deceit as Mr. Barian and Mr. Leddy. Their very lives poison the atmosphere, though I would rather suffer from excessive kindness than to deny one human being any peace of soul my efforts can make possible.”

She believed him.
Jonathan sensed it and forced himself not to smile.

He said, “When do Mr. Poe and Mr. Figg plan to visit this boarding house on Ann Street?”

“As soon as possible.”

“As soon as possible,” Jonathan said to Sarah Clannon within minutes after Rachel Coltman had left him. “Send Laertes and Charles to me. They shall do the task.”

Sarah Clannon drew on a thin cigar. “Adieu to Mr. Barian and Mr. Leddy.”

“Exactly. I want their throats cut to eliminate even the slightest possibility of conversation with passing strangers. Then I want the boarding house to be set afire, with particular attention to the room of Barian and Leddy. With even the smallest of good fortune, their bodies will be consumed by flames and the entire event will be viewed merely as an accidental fire. Laertes and Charles are to execute this matter with utmost speed, for I do not wish Poe and Figg to exchange words with either man.”

Sarah Clannon licked the tip of her forefinger, touched a small packet of rouge and then the nipple of her bare breast. “Lovely color, this. I take it our Mr. Figg is only aware of Barian and Leddy and not of your connection with others of the Renaissance Players?”

Jonathan kissed the back of her neck. “Possibly.”

“When the boarding house catches fire, innocent people may die.”

“God will know his own. Now dress yourself and find Laertes and Charles. And bring me fresh fruit. I am famished.”

TWENTY

“A
RAT
,”
SAID
Poe.

Figg raised one scarred eyebrow. “You take me for a bloody fool? Damn thing was big as me leg.”

The rat, bright-eyed and a filthy gray, had sped across the muddy street, disappearing into a pile of garbage in front of a nearby church.

Poe glanced in the rat’s direction, then when their cab started up again, he leaned back against the seat, sinking deeper into his greatcoat. “Now it dines with the blessings of Mother Church and a most economical meal it shall be, too. A present from the citizens of Manhattan.”

“Bleedin’ rats,” muttered Figg, turning to look back at the pile of garbage. New York was crawling with rats, rats bigger than any he’d seen in English waterfront towns and them that sat by England’s waters were sometimes the size of a man’s boot. To Figg, American rats were big enough to pull carts behind them and they were everywhere, according to little Mr. Poe. Rats in mansions, tenements, churches, department stores and in City Hall.

New York stank like an aging French whore. Damn city had no sanitation, no sewers and all the waste and trash from a half million people was tossed out into the bleeding street where the pigs and rats gathered to fill their bellies. New York town smelled like the biggest pile of shit God had ever created and Figg’s
hooter
—his nose—was going to be in a sorry state when this visit to American was over.

Earlier he and Poe had gone to the Ann Street boarding house only to learn that the Renaissance Players had not returned from their charity performance in the country; it was felt that the delay was due to snow-covered roads. So now it was take a cab to Five Points to see a gent called Johnnie Bill Baker, who Mr. Poe said was a dance hall keeper and member of a gang of thieves called
The Daybreak Boys.

“They strike at that hour when sleep is deepest,” said Poe. “Hence the name. At break of day, as the mind lies in blessed repose, Mr. Baker and cohorts enter the homes of those living in the countryside, prefering to loot those victims existing in isolation. In swift fashion, the thieves remove any and all articles of value then vanish. If a householder exhibits untimely pluck, he is slain but that is in the nature of such a business.”

Poe’s head was against the seat as he looked up at the back of the cabdriver sitting in front of him. So long as Figg was paying, Poe was willing to ride. “Occasionally a victim is held for ransom and thus does Mr. Baker add to the monies he makes from the Louvre.”

“Loo? Loo is a place where a man pisses.”

Poe sneered. Figg the thickheaded.
“Louvre,
not loo.
Louvre
is the name of his licentious and lively dance hall, to which we are being carted by this most slow pair of horses. A famed Paris museum has some prior claim to that title, but no matter. Mr. Baker is a lively, Irish—”

“Thief. All the bloody thieves in this ‘ere city is Irish.”

“A thesis not worth contesting. Take care you do not mock Mr. Baker.”

As the wooden cab wheels bounced over a poorly cobbled street, Figg jerked upright in his seat. “Now why would I want a giggle at Mr. Baker’s expense? Ain’t ‘e the one whats goin’ to place us in contact with Mr. Hamlet Sproul?”

“Mr. Baker is pleasant looking though unfortunately cursed with crossed eyes. He is said to have killed men who find this deformity a laughing matter.”

Figg turned up his coat collar at the cold night air. “I will remember that. Take care not to laugh at a man whats lookin’ at both sides of ‘is nose at the same time. My gawd, the smell!” Figg held his nose with fingers Poe thought were the size of bananas.

“Slaughterhouses, stables, buildings where liquors are made and the mountains of garbage. Like the poor, Mr. Figg, these odors are everywhere.”

Ahead of them, Figg watched the gaslights that brightened the streets and shop windows on either side of Broadway. Wagons, coaches, sleighs all carried burning lanterns on the back and Figg had never seen so many people clogging a street at night.

So many lights. Like polished jewels. And people. Weren’t any of them bothered by the smells?

More bonfires. Almost on every street corner. Figg asked why.

“Epidemics, Mr. Figg. Cholera and yellow fever strike this filthy city every year and it is the belief of some that a burning fire will clean the air of such plagues. Look at your boots.”

Figg did, squinting in the darkness. “Stuff on ’em. What—”

“Coal dust mixed with quicklime. Spread throughout the streets also in the belief that it will prevent disease.”

Figg frowned, a sight Poe would never regard as reassuring. “’Ere now, I don’t want to be catchin’ no plague, you understand.”

“I am not the one to speak to about that. Considering your eating habits, you may expire of kitchen excess long before the plague succeeds—”

Figg growled, “What’s so displeasin’ about me eatin’ habits, squire, if I might make so bold?”

Poe leaned right as the cab turned sharply, its back wheels sliding on snow-covered cobbles. Figg had eaten three omelettes, four dishes of chocolate ice cream and an entire loaf of bread, washed down with two pots of coffee and all of it swallowed in record time. The man ate like a Hun.

“Your eating habits,” said Poe, “are Paleolithic.”

“What’s that ‘spose to mean?”

“It means you approach food with an enthusiasm unseen since man first learned to walk upright.”

“I gets the impression you are being sarcastic.”

Poe turned to him. “Bravo. It gets impressions. Fan that tiny flame of sensitivity and eventually it will grow into a veritable blaze of mediocrity.” Poe sneered.

Figg’s smile was slow and he kept it in place for a short time before speaking. “Squire, if I didn’t need you, I would give some thought to punchin’ yer big ‘ead down deep twixt yer shoulders.”

“Am I to assume that this represents your mind functioning at its subtle best?”

“Squire, assume that you are still livin’ and that you are a most fortunate gent.”

“’Let there be light! said God, and there was light!’’ Let there be blood! says man, and there’s a sea.'” Poe snorted. “Before you ask, it is a quote from Lord Byron, a poet of some note.”

Figg removed his top hat, running a thick hand over his shaven skull. “Fancied hisself a boxer, Byron did. Never saw a gent what pulled more ladies. Everytime I meets him, he has three or four ladies—”

Poe’s voice was barely a whisper. “You
met
Byron?”

Figg looked out of his side of the cab at the strolling nighttime crowds. “Tried teachin’ him a wee bit of boxin’, but he had that club foot and he was always eatin’ boiled potatoes drowned in vinegar to give him that pale complexion he thought the ladies all loved, so he didn’t have the strength to—”