The Truth of All Things (36 page)

He heard the tutor’s stick cutting through the air, then felt his right hand burst with pain. He clenched his teeth and sucked in his breath.

“Correctly, now! ‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.’ ”

“ ‘Our Father in the above land sitting, made glorious like a chief is thy name. May it be pleasing to you, give us today our everyday bread.’ ”

The stick came whipping down again.

Lean rapped at the door, then stepped into Grey’s parlor. The shades on the right side of the room were open. The long table near those windows, normally a mess of equipment and papers, had been organized with everything stacked in small piles close to the perimeter. Grey was seated, holding the edges of his desktop. He released his grip and began to rub at his right hand again, the way he had at the apartment the day before.

“ ‘Dead he lay among his books! / The Peace of God was in his looks,’ ” Lean said with a smile that faded as soon as Grey peered up from the table where he was working. He was still in yesterday’s clothes, eyes glazed, dark circles hanging beneath like anchors. “Have you slept at all?”

He was swamped with regret over his failure to assist Grey. The
day before, Lean had observed the start of the laborious process of retrieving each burned page from the stove, moistening the page by close exposure to a damp cloth, so that it would be less brittle and less likely to disintegrate when gently pressed into place on tracing paper covered with a thin layer of gum arabic. Sheets that had broken apart involved a much more delicate and lengthy reassembly process. Finding that he was of little use in the endeavor, Lean had excused himself and started to make inquiries on a long-neglected task. It was a side note at best, but still Grey had seemed interested and there might be something to it.

Grey waved off Lean’s remark and, with a satisfied smile, motioned toward the table. “Come, see what I’ve done.”

Lean moved closer. In the dim light, it was impossible to read the carbonized papers. They looked like nothing more than black rectangles. “Remarkable. But what do they say?”

“I have no idea. The ink on the page is practically invisible to the human eye.”

“Then why—” Lean stopped himself as it occurred to him that Grey had just completed some massive waste of time and the man’s smile was the result not of success but rather a mild delirium caused by lack of sleep.

“To the human eye. Fortunately, modern technology has given us something better: the camera. I’m hopeful that the ink on the pages will be discernible in the photographic images. I had pictures taken of each an hour ago. Now we must wait.”

“So you’re free this afternoon,” Lean said.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I have a lead on the fire at Old Stitch’s place over at Back Cove.”

“Yeah, I remember it. That was back … oh, early seventies maybe. We took the engine across Tukey’s Bridge, but the place was down in a little hollow in through the woods. Couldn’t reach it with the truck hoses.” Noah Cobb, captain of Casco Engine No. 5, had a far-off look in his eyes as he stood in the broad doorway to the engine bay. It was like
he was back there again on that day, every detail still perfectly captured in his mind.

Lean wondered if he would be the same in twenty years, every thief’s name entered on the docket of his mind, every confidence man’s face plain as a photograph. The memories of his own life blurred with time, but the details of all his cases burned clear into him.

“We were going to try pumping water out of Back Cove, but by then the fire burnt itself out. That little shack was a real tinderbox. No wind that day, else it might’ve spread into the brush all around there. Why are you asking?”

“Just trying to figure what happened,” Lean said.

Cobb snorted his laughter. Somewhere beneath the massive expanse of his gray handlebar mustache, a wide grin was enjoying life. “I know you boys can get busy sometimes, but coming round twenty-odd years later is a bit much.”

“Better late than never,” Lean responded.

Cobb laughed again, and the effort rippled through his lungs, setting him to coughing. He took a few steps out and hawked a gob of phlegm onto the grass. The fire captain turned back toward them, wiping his mouth with a shabby handkerchief that looked as if it should have started drawing a pension years ago. Lean saw that the man’s face was two shades redder than his normal ruddy tone and his eyes were watering from the coughing fit.

“Well, that fire was set, all right. From all the talk, it came out there was some old hag what lived there. She spooked the neighbors something awful. So a bunch went and smoked her right out.”

“But no one died in the fire?”

“Don’t think so. Maybe some talk of someone hurt or missing. Don’t remember a body being found, but then we weren’t the first ones there, and we didn’t stay too long neither.”

“Odd you don’t remember a detail like that. Whether someone died in a fire,” Grey said.

“You know, Lean, your friend here’s even funnier than you. And you’re about as funny as having a bad case of the shits in church. It weren’t even our fire, and what you’re talking about is a police matter
anyhow. Now that I’m thinking on it, maybe you guys aren’t so late after all. Some copper did came around asking about it. What was his name?” He thought on it a moment, then shook his head. He let fly another lung deposit and called out to a fireman busy inside the bay, polishing the engine. “Hey, Moran, remember back about twenty years ago that fire across the bridge? Little shack round by the creek down to Back Cove. What was the name of the cop who came around after investigating that?”

Moran stomped over. He was a stocky man, a few years younger than Cobb, judging by the scattered specks of black that remained in his own full face of hair. A well-chewed stub of a cigar worked its way to the corner of his mouth. “Cap Tolman. A real prick.”

“Don’t know him,” said Lean.

“Before your time, probably,” Moran said.

“Cap? He was a captain?”

“Nah.” Moran grabbed a hold of his cigar and gestured with it as he spoke. “He took a bullet in his kneecap. Ate him up pretty good. Got to where he couldn’t talk about nothing else. He was done not long after.”

“Still around?” Lean asked.

“Used to see him sometimes down around Gorham’s Corner in the whiskey shops.”

Cobb issued another productive clearing of his throat. “Last I heard, he was taking his time dying down at some Chinaman’s place by the wharves.”

“Yengee Lee’s opium den,” Grey said.

Lean knew the place, and the proprietor. Decades ago the Asian man’s youthful passion for the American ideal of liberty and his dread at sharing a name with the Confederate commander had prompted frequent and heavily accented proclamations of his support for the Union. Thirty years later he was still known as Yengee Lee.

“We’ll try there tonight,” Lean said.

“For what it’s worth, Lean, maybe you’d better go by yourself.” Cobb nodded in Grey’s direction. “Nothing against yourself, mind
you, but he doesn’t care much for other races. Only goes down to the Chinaman’s place because they take care of him on the cheap.”

Lean saw a flash of annoyance on Grey’s face, and he thanked Cobb for the information. At the corner of Congress Street, they waited for a rail car to pass.

“We’ll both go all the same,” Lean suggested.

“Information is the only thing that’s important, not any imagined slight to me. If he’ll speak more freely to you alone—so be it.”

“Fair enough, if it doesn’t bother you,” Lean said.

“Yes, how I cringe at the thought of missing what is sure to be a brilliant conversation with some opium-addled bigot.”

Lean tried to suppress a smile. “Like I said, so long as you’re not bitter about it.”

L
ater that night, Archie Lean spent several minutes repeating his promises that he was only looking to speak with Cap Tolman and had no business with, or plans to arrest, any other customers on the premises. Only then did the panel at the rear of the apothecary slide back to reveal a door that led down a short flight of stairs. His guide let him into Yengee Lee’s opium den and pointed toward a vague figure huddled near one corner of the room.

It was a poorly lit space with no visible windows. Some candles were set in sconces along the walls. There were a few mirrors and several other decorations, mostly hanging rolls of pale yellowish rice paper, with simple strokes depicting birds or the outlines of misty mountains or green-lined hillsides with Chinese characters running down the side. There were close to twenty habitués, some alone, others in small groups. These customers came from every corner of the city, every station in life. Lean passed a ruined man in a tattered suit sitting just feet away from a banker in a finely tailored morning coat.

Each layout had all the smoker’s needs: a foot-and-a-half-long pipe, a bowl, spoon, dross box, and tray. Small, elaborate oil lamps with glass chimneys burned at each layout. Most of the patrons were lying on their sides on woven bamboo mats set atop the low bunks, wide benchlike platforms that lined the walls. A few more bunks, littered with large square pillows, were set in the middle of the room.

Lean settled onto a low stool across from Cap Tolman, who was half reclining on a padded bench against the wall. His unfitted sack suit was missing a button and showed signs of excessive wear. Lean garnered something resembling a smile of recognition when he mentioned he was a police deputy. He spoke quietly, trying not to be overheard. The closest habitué was a thin man with graying hair who had passed out facedown on his own bunk. A gold watch had slipped from the man’s pocket and dangled from its chain. Lean knew that the man’s property was safe among this morally vague collection of souls. Despite the sundry vices the others might practice in the outside world, there was an unspoken code of honor, a mutual amnesty, that governed their conduct within these hazy confines.

“I’ll cut right to it, Tolman. I need to know about a woman called Old Stitch.”

After a minute Tolman’s jaundiced eyes focused, and he gave a shake of his head. “I’ve cooked up the card. How ’bout you get him to roll up some pills for me, and we’ll have ourselves a talk.”

“Fair enough. I’ll spot you the next bit of dope.”

“Hey, Yengee,” called Tolman, “another quarter for me.”

Through the haze of blue-gray smoke, Lean watched the house cook at work. The deputy had a basic understanding of the process. The raw opium was already prepared, the cook having shredded it, then boiled it down to separate out the pure opium. The essence obtained, the cook then kneaded that residue in a shallow pan, and the resulting concoction, thick and black, was a fermented pastelike substance known to the users as dope.

“The witch woman who lived on the East Deering side of the cove, not far from Tukey’s. They burnt her out back in ’71.” Lean
saw a glimmer of recognition in Tolman’s eyes. “What was her real name?”

“Dunno. Black Lucy, she was called then. But even in those days, her hair was going white. She weren’t even that old to look at her. And not a bad bit of mutton—worth the dollar, anyway. I had a taste of that once or twice myself. A good ride too, if you didn’t mind her two little shit-heel runts peeking through the cracks in the walls the whole time.”

Tolman smacked his parched lips, then reached for a small porcelain cup of tea on the layout in front of him. He grimaced after taking a sip. “Don’t know how these pigtails drink that piss water.”

“What happened? The fire,” Lean said.

Tolman’s eyes moved to the steady light of the oil lamp. He picked up his spoon, using it to scrape at the resin inside the bowl. He dumped the resulting dross out into a little box that sat on top of the polished teak tray.

“Smoke. I could see it coming cross Tukey’s. Nothing like the Great One in ’66, mind you. You could see that forever and a mile.”

“What did you see there at Black Lucy’s?”

“Dying down to the wisps by the time I got there.”

“But what about her? You see her after the fire?”

“Not for a long time. She showed up later a couple other places, but she’d never last long afore they’d run her off again. I even heard she joined up with one of those red-Indian shows. Ended up back there, rebuilding that old shack by the cove.”

The proprietor appeared with two small black pellets presented in a lichee nutshell, which he set down after collecting Lean’s money.

“What for? Why’d they run her off?”

“Why? She was a damned witch. Why the hell wouldn’t they? Hell, that old whore’s lucky they never did worse after what she did.”

“What did she do?”

“Killed a woman with her medicines. She peddled all sorts of poisons. For getting men, getting babies, getting rid of ’em. Woman died. Baby she was carrying too. That’s why they went down there with fire. Eye for an eye.”

“Who burned her out?”

Tolman shrugged. He set one of the pellets atop the knoblike bowl, where it settled into place in an indentation at the center of which was a small hole.

“No one was ever arrested?”

“Hah! There were whispers, but no one would ever talk. And we didn’t ask too hard either. She was no use to no one. And her boys, neither.” Tolman leaned forward, holding his bamboo pipe at an angle and just far enough over the oil lamp so that the heat wouldn’t be too great, igniting the opium, burning it away. Instead the low, steady flame vaporized the drug into a dense blue-white cloud. There was a sizzling gurgle as Tolman drew the smoke into his lungs. After a moment he sat back, and his eyelids began to droop.