POE MUST DIE (41 page)

Gunning’s deep voice trembled with fear. “I know of no such per-person. I know of no such—”

“You lie, sir.” There was steel in Poe’s gentle, southern voice.

“You offend me, sir!” Gunning pointed a long, bony forefinger at Poe.

Figg stepped forward, an arm extended, the flintlock aimed at Gunning’s head. “You offend
me,
you bloody poof! You sends nigger minstrels to carve me and I owe you fer that, mate.”

Poe’s small hand was on Figg’s pistol, gently pressing it down towards the floor. “As you can see, Mr. Gunning, my friend is upset at your twice having tried to murder him. I refer to the train yesterday noon, and also to the matter of gas leakage a few days ago at the Hotel Astor. My friend is vindictive and you could well be the worse for it.”

“I cannot speak of
him.
You, you must know that.” Volney Gunning, tall and extremely thin, cringed closer to his partner.

Poe looked around the room, gray eyes swiftly absorbing details. The room reeked of plush decay. Hanging from the walls were obscene tapestries explicit in their portrayal of the pleasures of Greek love between man and man, man and boy.
Explicit foulness.
There was the sweet smell of opium and amidst the esoteric eatables and beverages on the long, low wooden table, Poe saw the opium pipes. Faint wisps of smoke trailed from two of them.

There were red velvet drapes in front of the windows, gaslight on the walls, along with more obscene paintings. Spotted around the room were cheap copies of statues of slim, beautiful young men. On the floor were huge satin pillows of varying colors on which the naked men and their prostitutes reclined. All three of the prostitutes carried fans. Two wore thin, black lace gloves and one, Poe noticed, wore mittens. A few years ago, wearing mittens while dining had been something of a fad among upper-class New York women.

Poe said, “Mr. Figg, I cannot tell you the names of the so-called ladies among us—”

“Sarah,” said the one with his arms around Volney Gunning. Flicking his fan closed,
Sarah
pointed it at the other two prostitutes. “Amelia and Messalina.”

Sarah batting long lashes, smiled up at Poe. The male whore was stunningly beautiful and his lascivious gaze made the writer ill at ease. Poe continued speaking as though he had not been interrupted. The uneasiness he felt because of Sarah’s glance, Poe would push aside by increasing his scorn. The tongue of Tomahawk had a sharp sting.

“Well now, Mr. Figg, the ladies have introduced themselves, a fact which can either cause you to bow from the waist or retch until your stomach aches.”

The smile fled Sarah’s face. He snapped his fan open with a delicate hand, hiding all of his face behind it, except for his pale green eyes and long lashes. The eyes gleamed with hatred.

Poe sneered. “Let us now introduce the men, Mr. Figg. Volney Gunning. You have made his acquaintance and are none the better for it, I warrant. Then there is Prosper Benjamin, the portly, bearded gentleman who has been holding hands with Amelia of the ivory-handled fan. Mr. Benjamin, married and a pillar of respectability, owns ships of shoddy quality, ships used to bring cheap immigrant labor to the shores of this republic. How many of your ships are at the bottom of the ocean, Mr. Benjamin? Obviously you cannot build quality vessels if you are to spend money in such a temple of Venus as this.”

“And there is Abe Pietch. Mr. Pietch is a landlord, an approved bloodsucker. Notice, Mr. Figg, how he blushes and inches away from Messalina. Could it be shame that causes such a breech? Who can say? Mr. Pietch constructs slum housing and allows immigrants to live there in squalor unknown in the northern hemisphere. Surrounded by awesome filth and deadly living conditions, the immigrants are subject to such vagaries of fate as cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, tuberculosis and a monstrous death rate that kills them in consistently large numbers. This state of affairs allows Mr. Pietch to amass money which he lends or invests at usurious rates. Do not borrow money from Mr. Pietch, Mr. Figg. In return he would expect at least your first born and three vital organs.”

Figg spat on the table of food. “Lovely lot, they are. Maggots crawlin’ over garbage ‘ave a sweeter smell.”

Poe looked down at the table. “Honey mixed with peppercorns. Considered an aphrodisiac in the Orient. And this meat here, what is—”

“Partridge.” Sarah snapped the word at Poe.

Poe smiled at Figg. “Throughout the ages, Mr. Figg, impotent men have believed that the flesh of the partridge will return their sexual powers. Among fowls, there is none more lecherous than the partridge. It is said to be so sexually adept that it has the ability to make pregnant its mate merely by using its voice.”

Figg snorted, pistol still pointing at Volney Gunning’s head. “Only the bloomin’ voice? Saves a patch of ‘ard work, don’t it?”

Sarah, sardonically playing the hostess, fixed a cold smile on his lovely face, flicking a closed fan at the table. “Goat’s milk with the leaf of the Satyricon plant. Sip it, Mr. Poe and you will be able to achieve sexual congress no less than seventy times in rapid succession. Assuming you have that objective. These are love apples, commonly called tomatoes and this, this dish is bull’s testicles. Resembles an ordinary meat pie—”

Poe aimed his cold gray eyes at Sarah, “Yesterday when you killed Miles Standish, did he beg for his life?”

Sarah snapped his fan closed, eyes still on the table. Amelia and Messalina quickly exchanged glances, looked at Poe then looked away.

Sarah stood up, forced a smile and slowly walked towards Poe. He moved with the grace of a woman flirting. Hips swayed, the fan fluttered, Poe smelled perfume, saw the flash of gaslight on jewelry. Sarah was close enough to touch him. Poe leaned back, uncertain as to how he should deal with this he-she, this lovely and evil
thing.

Sarah closed her fan, placing the hand that held it on Poe’s shoulder. Figg watched Poe stand rigid as a bird hypnotized by a slow crawling snake.

“Dear, dear, dear Mr. Poe.” Sarah’s voice was soft, low, seductive. “Can we not comfort you as well?”

Lord help us, thought Figg. This one really thinks she’s a woman and if I didn’t know the bloody difference, I’d think so too. And Poe, he can only stand there like his feet are nailed to the carpet. Nothing he ever learned about women has prepared the little man for this day, I’ll wager.

Poe’s jaw trembled. He gripped his stick with two hands. This was no woman, this was—

Figg heard the tiny click, saw the blade.

The knife was just behind Poe’s shoulder.

Sarah’s fan. Sarah had pressed a button, sending six inches of slim, bright steel out of the fan’s handle.

Figg was in motion.

He did it all at once. Shift the pistol to his left hand, shove Poe forward and out of the way and with his right hand, grab Sarah’s fan hand.

Figg swung the arm behind Sarah’s back, jerking it up hard, fast and high, jerking it up between Sarah’s shoulder blades and driving the prostitute up on his toes. And with a sickening pop, breaking the arm at the right shoulder blade.

Sarah collapsed on the floor, blonde wig falling off. His face was white, his mouth open in terrible shock. He inhaled loudly through his opened mouth.

Figg leveled the pistol at the other two male prostitutes who were on their feet, fists tightly around their fans. The blades in each fan glittered brightly.

Figg pulled his other flintlock from his pocket. “I don’t miss too often from this close up.”

Poe slowly got off the table. He’d fallen on it, smearing the front of his coat with erotic food and drink. His nostrils flared at the smell and he winced. “My gratitude, Mr. Figg.”

“Accepted, Mr. Poe.”

Poe looked at Volney Gunning. “Where is Jonathan, sir and be quick about it.”

Gunning, vunerable in his pathetic nudity, began to weep. “I cannot say.”

“You cannot or will not?”

“Cannot. I, I do not know.”

Returning a pistol to his pocket, Figg then bent over, picking up Sarah’s fan knife. “I could use this ’ere thing on yer tender parts, Mr. Gunning. Bet you would converse with us then.”

Gunning shook his head, continuing to weep. “I do not know, I swear
I
do not know.”

Figg sneered. Bloody poof. No spine, no spunk. Figg moved towards him.

Gunning was on his feet. He ran towards the drapes, disappearing behind them. Everyone in the room was caught by surprise. As the two other naked men were getting to their feet and the two male prostitutes were looking in the direction Gunning had gone, they all heard the sound of window glass breaking and they heard Volney Gunning’s fading scream.

Sarah moaned, but in the race to the window, Sarah was forgotten.

Through the broken window, they looked down at the bleeding body of Volney Gunning barely visible in the snow and darkness behind the building. Gunning’s head was at an ugly angle, an angle possible only in death.

Poe said, “Jonathan terrified him, Mr. Figg. More than you or I ever could, Jonathan terrified him.”

A shivering Prosper Benjamin moved quickly away from the window, rubbing his arms, muttering to himself. “This is tragic. This is tragic. What shall we do?”

In the center of the room, he turned to point a finger at Poe and Figg. “You two! Your fault. You killed him and I shall see you hang for it. Yes hanged!”

Poe said, “And reveal to the world the degenerate you are? Unlikely, Mr. Benjamin. Our modern times have not accepted homosexuality and that, sir, is an understatement. There is nothing lower than a homosexual and I, for one, would make sure that the press and public learned of your proclivities even if I have to write the article myself. No sir, you will not do anything to indicate that Mr. Figg and I are criminally involved with the death of Mr. Gunning. For your sake and that of Mr. Pietch, I suggest you evolve a tale explaining Mr. Gunning’s sudden demise. I hear footsteps on the stairs. Think fast, Mr. Benjamin. Your time is at hand, sir.”

Poe opened the door and Figg gladly followed him through it.

THIRTY-FIVE

J
ONATHAN
. T
HE
S
ECOND
D
AY
.

The sun was a hard brilliance; it shone down on the snow to create an eye-piercing glare. Dark shapes slunk in and out of the glare, heading towards the barn on Hugh Larney’s abandoned horse farm. The shapes were starving wolves and they had heard the whinny of the two horses used by Jonathan and Laertes. The wolves, experienced and intelligent, had killed horses before. Made desperate by hunger and a bitter February cold, the wolves closed in on the barn.

There were seven of them and they moved in killing formation, spread out and alert, lean gray bodies loping easily and gracefully across the snow, heads turning left and right to sense danger. Their eyes glittered, their jaws hung down to reveal deadly teeth.

Suddenly the wolves stopped, freezing in their tracks. Their ears flattened against their skulls and a couple of them began inching backwards, mouths closed, heads darting left and right, eagerly seeking the source of the overwhelming danger they now felt.

There was no sound except the howl of the wind. Then came the howl of the wolf leader and the others took it up. The leader’s sense of danger was stronger and he had warned the others. They felt it too and answered him.

The wolves turned and fled, leaving their tracks in the snow and soon they had gone. Behind them all was quiet. No sound came from the barn where Jonathan and Laertes slept.

But the wolves had felt the danger and evil now accumulating around the barn and even these most vicious of killers in nature’s scheme of destruction did not want to confront it.

*     *     *     *

A worried Poe sat on the edge of Rachel’s bed, holding her hand. Behind him the doctor said, “She rests now but that is because of the medicine. According to the servants, her screams occurred too frequently during the night.”

“Jonathan,” whispered Poe.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It is of no matter, sir.”

“There is a great disturbance within her, Mr. Poe. She is deeply troubled and I would assume that her recent ordeal—”

“Yes doctor. She suffers from having confronted an evil most of us can barely imagine.”

Jonathan. The corpse of Justin. The savagery of Hamlet Sproul. Near death and degradation at the hands of Sproul’s cohorts. Yes doctor, there is indeed a great disturbance with her and I pray to God it does not last, for she will grow to dread the night as I do and she will quake at the thought of what terror sleep can hold for her.

“I leave you now, Mr. Poe. Her maid-servant has instructions as to the proper medication and she is to contact me immediately should the crisis reassert itself.”

Poe didn’t turn around. “Yes, doctor. You have my deepest gratitude.”

“Yes, well … ”

Poe still did not turn around. He kept his eyes on Rachel, now deep in a drugged sleep. Was she again having nightmares about Jonathan?

Her fingers clutched Poe’s hand and her lovely face suddenly contorted and Poe’s heart fluttered.