“Tut tut!” Barker said, waggling a finger. “Morelle isn’t the only one to take an interest in you, Virgil. I’ve looked into that eye of yours. Both of them, in fact.”
There was no hiding my anxiety any longer. “Who are you, Mr. Barker? A Pinkerton? A customs-agent? A missionary? A goblin? What in God’s name are you after?”
“Your cooperation, Virgil—; nothing more. Half an hour of your time.” He drained his glass with relish — a wax-cheeked, jubilant little gnome — and began to pace back and forth in front of me.
“I have no desire to dismantle the machine your Redeemer has set in motion—; never fear. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“He did more than set it in motion, as I recall,” I said.
Barker spun suddenly about and caught hold of my chair, rocking it from side to side as he spoke—: “Have you not listened to a word I’ve told you? Not a single blessed word? The Trade existed long before Thaddeus Morelle stumbled onto it, sirrah. Ages before. It existed before you or I or that misbegotten dwarf — or even the Mississippi itself—had wormed its way out of the ether. The Trade, Virgil Ball, is an element—; a humor—; a pre-condition.” He swallowed once, then took a breath — as if to give himself courage — and continued—: “The Trade is as basic to life as carbon. It’s as ancient as the yellow fever, and easily twice as popular. Even you, with your great gift, are less than a peanut in the Trade’s design.”
“A peanut?” I said. “Then what use, Mr. Barker, could I possibly be to you?”
At this he crouched beside my chair and took me by the hand. “You have more and better talents, Virgil, than you know. You or Thaddeus either, blast his eyes.”
“Do you know the Redeemer well?”
“Must you call him that?” Barker’s right eye-corner began to twitch. “I know him, all right. I know old Taddy well enough.”
Taddy?
“Tell me about him,” I said. “Something I haven’t heard before.”
Barker gave a pinched little smile.
“As a youngish man, sixteen or so, Taddy overheard some soap-boxer — a disciple of phrenology, I suppose — say that the measure of a man’s genius could be read from the height of his brow. That same day he shaved a good two inches from his hair-line, thinking nobody would catch on.” He made a face. “That’s your ‘Redeemer’ for you, Mr. Ball.”
“That’s hardly the revelation I’d hoped for,” I said. “You have secrets, Mr. Barker, or you pretend you do. Sweeten the pot a little.”
Barker’s look darkened. “I need your help, Virgil—; I admit it. But I’ll have it from you whether you find the ‘pot,’ as you call it, sweet or bitter. I’ve made something of a study of you, you see. And I know even without consulting that magic lantern of yours that you’ll set my plan in motion.” He turned to face the window. “You’ll put down Thaddeus Morelle, for starters.”
“I’ll put down your granny.”
He held up a hand without turning. “You’ll kill Thaddeus Morelle—; you’ll put your eye at my disposal—; you’ll do as I say in all particulars. Firstly, because you’re a follower, born and bred. It comes easier to you to obey than to resist. Secondly, because I have the power to destroy the Trade, and you along with it, if I must. I have the knowledge and the willingness to do so.” He shook his head gently as he spoke, like a world-weary judge. “You have no say in your future, Virgil. Best accept that straight-away.”
I stuck my tongue out at his back-side. “Thanks for the whiskey, Mr. Barker. Best of luck.”
Barker only nodded. “Come to the window now.”
I rose from the chair at once, as if directed by wires, and joined him at the window-bench. He had said that I would obey him, and I did. Together we looked down into the alley. The woman lay just as before—: her companion was nowhere to be seen. Her legs were spread in a wide, awkward-looking V, as though she were passing water. But it was clear from her face that she had quit this life.
Barker took me solicitously by the hand.
“Life is fleeting, Mr. Ball, as any fool or Methodist can tell you. The things a man has wrought in his lifetime can, however — in the rarest of instances — bear the stamp of the ever-lasting. You and I could set a great many stones a-rolling, if we chose.” He let my hand drop and pressed his face against the window. In that instant he might easily have passed for the Redeemer’s twin.
“You’ll show me many things,” he murmured. His breath made little fleur-de-lys patterns on the glass. “We’ll journey side by side, my friend, into the vast and luminous Unknown.”
“You first,” I said, bringing Ziba’s pistol against his temple.
Barker’s body went limp at once. “Virgil!” he gasped. “ Listen to me, Virgil—”
“You’ll not look into my eye, you dumpling-faced bastard.”
His face, reflected in the glass, was the picture of bewilderment. “Your eye?” he stammered. “But surely, Virgil, you understand that I was speaking figuratively—; your eye, as such, means nothing to me—; nothing whatsoever—”
“That’s right, Mr. Barker. And it never will.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Barker managed to squawk, but by then I’d already pulled the trigger. I had no desire to trade one Redeemer for another.
“God Taught It to Me.”
GOD AND SCIENCE WERE MARRIED one Sunday in Paris, Asa says. I myself was minister.
At the Académie—: as soon as Mssr. Horseface came up to the labs on his appointed rounds (Sunday morning, 6 May 1853) I flagged him to my table. Mssr. Trist, he said, his horse-mouth hanging open. Have you no other studies? Do you pass every waking hour on these premises?
He was standing at the north-west corner of the desk, width of a lady’s palm from my work, but still he did not see it. We might as well be out on the river, in a punt, I thought, and the idea brought a curse-word out of me. But it was a curse-word in English and as such out of Mssr. Horseface’s ken. What did you say, Mssr. Trist? he cheeped at me. He looked askance. Would you not care to retire to your dormitory, peradventure, and take a spell of rest?
I might just, I answered. I’m well satisfied with my work.
Very good, Horseface sighed, his eyes gone to the window. In that event, if you’ll permit me, Mssr.—
I’ve made a discovery, I said. A discovery of merit. I might go so far, in fact, as to announce that the merit of my discovery is such that this academy will never be forgotten.
His eyes spun back from that window you can bet. My dear fellow—, he began. I knew then that I had his ear—: more than that. I knew that I had him frightened and this knowledge did more for my pride than if he had stripped himself naked and got onto his thick, blotchy knees and petitioned me to explicate my researches. My pride was such that it spilled over, it over-spilled, I became wild at the merest thought of it. The school would be remembered now (by G*d!) and the unwashed son of an American river planter would have done it for them. They’d hate me openly but the pleasure of their hating would be lost to them. My dear fellow—, he said again. I held up a hand before he could run on and away.
Shall I tell you my discovery?
His eyes fell shut. His mouth fell open and formed a noiseless syllable. I could see it in the air above him—: O — U—I.
I shifted the ocular to one side and pulled the papers closer. I shuffled them a bit, arranging them so he might better follow faith and intellect on their little sack-race. I gave him a few moments but it was all too much and I spoke very sweetly, clipping my s’s in the manner of his home province (the Lorraine)—: