The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

Jonas

Given a certain article in the
Tribune
, it didn’t surprise me when Roundsman Leary called me into his office.

“Dammit Hood, yer gonna be the death of us all.”  He emptied his pipe on the edge of his desk and pinched more tobacco into it.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I mean this.” He tossed a copy of the
Tribune
in my face.  “We’re trying to keep this Vanderlay thing quiet, and yer givin’ damn interviews.  Did you hear what happened in the Seventh Ward?  Some fools went down there for Hebrew blood, ended up burning down two blocks.  I don’t care much what happens to the Christ killers, but I’ll be buggered if the city burns down again.”  He cleared his throat, but it sounded more like a growl.  “This comes from Mayor Wood.  Don’t talk to the damned papers!”

I looked at the front page.  Jim wrote an entire story about the police investigation, using me as a source.  We didn’t look bad in it, but you can twist anything with the right amount of force.

“It won’t happen again.”

He took out a note and passed it to me.  “But it worked, ya’ bastard.  This came for you earlier,” he said.  “Yer lucky it worked.” He stood up and shoveled more coal into the stove.  “It’s damned cold in here. Maybe a nice fire wouldn’t be bad.” He chuckled.  “Start it in Five Points, burn it out and work from scratch.”

I read the note and stood.  “I should go.”

He waved me away with his hand.  “Yes, go track this person down.”  He turned his attention back to his pipe.  “A good smoke’ll warm me up. Maybe a belt o’ the blue too…”

The lady that wrote the note, Lily Johns, lived in Seneca Village, one of the Negro shantytowns where the city wants to build that big park.  Her house was across from the reservoir, but no carriage would bring me there.  I retrieved Tumbler from the stable and rode him instead.

In the papers, Seneca Village is little more than a collection of shacks held together with wooden nails and prayers.  The well water was brown and smelled like death. The streets are little more than pig runs, with mud up to your knees. It’s a place you don’t go on pain of death.

To my surprise, the village wasn’t a shanty at all, but quite pleasant.  The houses are well built and uniform.  The streets are well kept, even with the snowflakes turning them to mud.  There’s a small apple grove next to an outcropping of granite.  Children played on the tree branches and brushed snow onto a smaller child below.  The sodden child cried and ran to a nearby house.  The other children saw me and leapt away, leaving footprints in the slush.

Despite the village’s charm, I couldn’t help but think about what a first-rate park they could build here.  It’d be a good field to play some base-ball.

An old man with one leg leaned under the awning of one house and smoked a corn cob pipe.  I asked the man for directions to Lily’s house.

He scowled at my hat and badge.  “You here ta t’row dem out in de snow?  You Leather’eads ‘ave no shame.”

“I’m not throwing anyone out.  Lily sent me a message.  She wants to see me.”

I could feel his eyes boring into me.  “It’s bad luck t’ be fibbin’ to an ol’ man.”

“It’s the truth.  I’ve more to worry about than throwing folk out of their homes.”

“Of course y’do.  That’s the problem.”  He puffed his pipe and exhaled three perfect smoke rings.  They floated to the east, somehow staying together.  “Follow de rings.  They’ll take y’there.” 

True to his word, the rings held together all the way down the street.  They struck the front door to one house and disappeared in the falling snow.  More magic, but I’d never seen a Dweller like that one.

I tied Tumbler’s reins to a nearby tree and knocked on the door.  A young Mulatto woman near my age answered.  She was curvy and pretty, with curled hair in a bun and fetching bonnet.  She wore a stained apron over her dress.

“You must be Officer Hood.  I’ve been waiting for you.”  Her fine diction surprised me.

I followed her into the house.  An older woman with ebony skin sat in a rocking chair and mended a stocking.  A pot of tea was on a stove.  We sat down at the kitchen table and Lily poured us each a cup.

“About the Vanderlay baby,” I began.  “Your note says that you were the housekeeper.  You were there.”

“I was.  I was cleaning the first floor when poor Stewart vanished.”  She shook her said.  “I never saw a thing.  No one entered, no one left.  I never would’ve known that something was amiss if I didn’t go to the nursery.”

“You found Molly.”

She nodded.  “The girl felt like she was on fire.  I sent for a doctor immediately.  He came right away. He probably thought that it was for the baby or he would’ve found some excuse to take his time.”  She looked out the window to the reservoir across the way.  “Did Molly survive?”

“No.”

“Ah…she’s in a better place now,” Lily said.  “Couldn’t have been in a worse one.”

“Pardon?”

“Vanderlay’s the reason all of this happened.  Stewart’s paying for his sins.”

“The gambling and letchering?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“He’s made a lot of enemies.  A couple of months ago, someone burned down the carriage house. He fired the stable boy, but the boy wasn’t even there.”  She sipped at her tea, making little sound.  “But that’s not the worst.”

“Go on.”

She took a deep breath and set down the tea.  The cup shook ever so slightly, just enough to send concentric rings out from the middle.  “He made us…all of us…do things.  Horrible things.  Things that ruined us for any other man.  Some of us were already married, and he took them anyway.  He defied the will of God—broke a holy sacrament—for his own lusts.”

“Couldn’t you refuse?”

She laughed, a sharp sound like a slap.  “There was no refusing him.  He’d have his way, and it was no use to go to the police against him.  No one would believe us.  You know the way these uppertens are, ‘servant’ is fancy talk for ‘slave.’”

“Not all of them,” I began, but thought the better of it.  “You’re a pretty, obviously well-educated lady.  Why didn’t you get married when you could?”

She held up her hands, presenting her brown flesh.  “Isn’t it obvious?  When my father was rich, no one spoke about my mother being Negro.  I’m sure they whispered it in their parlors, but no one dared speak out loud.  When my parents died, the city took my inheritance.  They said that I wasn’t a true descendant because I didn’t look like him.  One day I had all the world ahead of me, the next, some letcher is pulling up my skirts in the gardens.”

“That’s tragic, sincerely.” Thinking about that bastard having his way on her made my muscles clench. I forced down my rage.  “But that doesn’t tell me much about who took the baby.”

“Oh no?  Vanderlay had affairs with dozens of women.”

“And?”

“Where are the babies?  Don’t answer, I’ll tell you.  Vanderlay couldn’t get any of us with child.  Not a single one.  And yet, here’s little Stewart Vanderlay.  Explain that, Officer.  Explain that.”

I knew after talking to Vanderlay the first time that there was more to his story than he was letting on.  Lily’s tale, however, was more than I was expecting.  A man like that makes enemies by the bale, but at least now I knew why they might hate him.  The man and I needed another meeting.

I climbed back onto Tumbler and we picked our way eastbound.  The ground was uneven and wooded here, and I had to walk Tumbler through the treacherous parts.  She was a good horse, but used to the paving stones and not the thick mud and slush we were in.

Pop loved to talk about the grand park that he and the other uppertens were planning for this area.  It was true that people needed a place to escape the stink and smoke of the Lower Wards.  I’ve seen couples courting in graveyards for lack of a proper park to picnic in.  I feel for the people of Seneca Village.  If they were Dwellers, Pop would find them someplace to live, but they have the misfortune of being born human, and worse, Negro.  I don’t know. These high-minded thoughts are beyond me. 

I crossed into Yorkville, going over the train tracks on Fourth Avenue and turning north toward Harlem on Third.  The street was alive with farmers driving hogs and wagons filled with turkeys, a last shipment into the city before Thanksgiving.  I guided Tumbler under an awning to let a large herd of cattle run down the avenue.  They clogged the entire road, and their handlers did little to push them along.  A couple of angry patrons from a dry goods store shook their fists and cursed, finding themselves pinned by three hundred head of beef. A reformer wagon followed the herd.  Two frowning men with shackles on their wrists shoveled the dung and tossed it into the wagon.

I rode further up Third until the storefronts turned to farmland and the farmland turned to Vanderlay land.  As I got closer, I saw that there was a carriage waiting by the gatehouse.  I slowed Tumbler, not wanting to intrude, willing to wait my turn.  Vanderlay and another man were arguing by the gatehouse.  I couldn’t see the man’s features from this distance, even with a squint, but he raised his walking stick several times as if to strike. 

Vanderlay cursed and handed the man a large bundle tied in cord.  When the man took it, I saw the patch over his eye and realized who it was. 
What was Wythe doing here?  Forget Vanderlay, I’m following Wythe
.

Wythe stepped into his carriage and the coachman snapped the reins.  I waited until he was almost out of sight, stuffed my hat and badge into a saddle bag, and we trotted down the road.

The carriage turned left on One Hundred and Sixth Street, and I spurred Tumbler to catch up.  The streets in Harlem are dirt rather than paving stones, and the carriage left deep ruts in the mud as it passed.  Tumbler kicked up the same mud, laboring to keep up.  We rumbled over the train tracks again, and then by Harlem Lake, where the carriage swerved to dodge a deep mud puddle.

We turned left again, urgency in the tread, and now I was sure we were cutting through one of the Gansevoort estates. New York is cut up into blocks and tenements, but Harlem is still sprawling manors and old forests.  On both sides of the road I saw great columned houses and thick oaks.  From here I could almost imagine what the entire island must’ve been like when Pop was my age.  Then again, no amount of trees could stifle the smell the tanneries and factories coming from the city.

The carriage sped up again and made a hard right onto Ninety-Sixth Street.  The street was more crowded than the others and I had to weave Tumbler through pushcarts and pedestrians.  A pair of young men raced their own horses down the street, and Tumbler snapped her own reins, taking the race as a challenge.  Meanwhile, I was losing ground on the carriage as it wove through traffic.