Poe immediately knew the boxer was right. And that only made him hate Figg more. “And you, I suppose, plan to protect us with all your might and main.”
“That I do, squire, that I do. That is, so long as you are of some use to me.”
Poe sat down on the edge of the bed. This wasn’t the way he wanted to visit the Astor House, Manhattan’s largest and most spectacular hotel. A pet dog had more freedom and dignity than Poe had at the moment, but Figg’s assumption about his immediate future had more than a ring of casual truth to it. It was night and the streets of Manhattan were normally dangerous and worth your life to stroll upon. Somewhere out there in the darkness, Jonathan, Hamlet Sproul and god knows who else, were indeed on the hunt for Poe. Jonathan, who removed hearts and livers and burned them as offerings to the demon god, Asmodeus.
To keep Rachel alive, Poe was now forced to help Figg. There was no choice but to associate with this most wretched man.
Figg sat on the bed, pulling on his boots. He was disgustingly cheerful, whistling tonelessly through cracked teeth, pushing air through them as though it were a Bach cantata. He also acted as though Poe had already agreed to stick by him. You and me is wed, little friend.
“Oh Mr. Poe, I have a query. When we was comin’ in this room, I sees all them holes in the door, sort of near the lock. Can you explain please?”
Poe dropped his shoulders and sighed. “Those guests unused to gas light would blow out the flame, not knowing they were leaving the gas on. Gas is without color and can also be without odor. Inhaled in large doses, it can be fatal and since the ignorant blew out the flame upon retiring, they lay in bed and eventually died of asphyxiation.”
“As what?”
“Call it a form of strangulation. Strangulation by chemicals.”
“Oh dear, oh dear. Go on, squire.”
“Those holes in the door, plugged up now as you can see, represent previous locks. The locks were pulled out to allow the police in to remove the bodies.
Figg smiled. “I’ll be keepin’ that in mind. Are you acquainted with Mr. Barnum?”
Poe, who still wanted to scream, nodded his head.
“’Ere now,” said Figg, “that’s nice to ‘ear. You seem to have made the acquaintance of quite a few people in your time, Mr. Poe. Must be nice to be a writer and have so many folks come up to you and say how much they likes what you write. Very convenient, the hotel bein’ across the street from Mr. Barnum’s American Museum. Some people over there we gots to talk with.”
Poe shook his head, chin on his chest. Figg was stupid, insensitive, with no more culture than you would find in a tree stump and he reeked of a horrible cologne that smelted like cornbread and kerosene. When would these nightmares end?
Figg finished wrapping his long tie around his neck. “Tell you what, squire. Why don’t we go downstairs and have ourselves somethin’ to eat, then go across the street and jaw with Master Barnum. You and him can talk about old times and I can have a look around for some of them play actors what my wife was involved with. I could eat me a whole goose, feathers and all.”
Poe snorted, mumbling almost to himself. “Try an entire ox and do keep the hooves on.”
“What was that, squire?”
“I would like to leave the room now,” Poe hesitated. “In your company, of course.”
“Squire, them’s me thoughts exactly. You do look a little peaked and the night air would do you good, I expects.” Figg tucked the two pistols in the pockets of his long black coat. When he saw Poe looking at him, Figg frowned, “you don’t expects me to go ‘round naked, does you?”
Poe turned his back to him and walked to the door. “Why not? This is our wedding night, I am told.”
Figg laughed and continued to laugh as the two men walked down the hall, the boxer with an arm around Poe’s shoulders. “Say squire, did I tell you that Mr. Dickens stayed at this hotel when he comes over in eighteen and forty-two? Says to me, he says “Mr. Figg. Do make sure you guard your ears against that awful gong the Americans use to summon guests to the dining room. It horribly disturbs us nervous foreigners,’ he says.”
And you nervous foreigners, thought Poe, irritated by the weight of Figg’s right arm across his shoulders, horribly disturb us native Americans, which seems to concern no one quite the way it concerns your obedient servant, E. A. Poe.
FIFTEEN
Ordinarily, Miles Standish found it easy to dismiss Hugh Larney as useless, no more worth listening to than a crow cawing over a bit of rotten fruit. Larney talked too much and was a nouveau riche social climber with pretensions to culture; Standish cringed when Larney effected a British accent in a falsetto voice. Like others, he laughed behind Larney’s back when Larney lavishly spent his newly acquired riches in a desperate attempt to make friends among those he called “Manhattan’s quality elite.”
But as Water finds its own level, so did Hugh Larney find his. He was a gambler, preferring the sporting world of horse racing, dog fights and pugilists. He was a sensualist, preferring the company of child prostitutes, little girls procured especially for him by a blind Dutch pimp named Wade Bruenhausen. None of the wealth gained from selling impure food to thousands could hide the fact that Hugh Larney was weak and self indulgent.
This noon, however, Miles Standish hung on every word coming from Larney’s dime-sized mouth. Larney was telling him about a bizarre duel to the death about to be fought several feet from where the two men stood in ankle deep snow under a huge oak tree. Larney, thirty-five, little and dapper in customed British tailoring, with a clean shaven face of angles-long nose, pointed chin, thin triangle of blond hair for eyebrows-talked while sipping chilled champagne from a blue-purple goblet.
“A most unusual confrontation, dear Miles. Each duelist naked to the waist, clothed merely in trousers and boots, and seated inside that coach yonder, the one with abominable brown paint peeling from its side. Once inside the coach, left arms to be bound at the wrist and forearm and each man to be armed with a stiletto, honed steel I might add. Steel sharp enough to slice the wind and make it bleed. The morning cries out for a keen blade. ’Tis such a bore to watch grown men merely scratch each other like playful kittens.”
“’Tis indeed,” mumbled Standish, eyes on the brown coach, surprised at being so fascinated by what was to take place. A duel to the death in a coach. Why?
As Larney became more excited, his voice became more British. New York was still strongly English in matters from fashions to table manners, and this some seventy odd years after the war for independence. Snobs like Larney could keep that influence alive for another hundred years, thought Standish.
Larney sipped champagne, his long nose digging into the goblet. “Ummm, scrumptious stuff, this. Now dear Miles, do listen most carefully. The coach will travel twice around this rather dreary little racetrack, giving the two men inside ample time to kill one another. There is some snow as you can see, but the way is not impassable. We are having some of it cleared, hence the wait. Twice around, matter of minutes wouldn’t you say? Survivor of the journey to win twenty dollars in gold, said purse proffered by me. Oh do allow me to tell you how I conceived the idea.”
He swallowed champagne, patted himself gently on the chest with a hand covered by a doeskin glove. “I tell a lie. The idea is not mine. Occurred in Paris, actually. Twelve years or so ago. Two French army officers selected this method of settling differences. Right in the heart of Paris, can you imagine? Twice around a great square and to be expected, one officer suffered mortal wounds. Perished, poor fellow. The other was also seriously damanged. Close quarters, you see. Nowhere to run, each man in constant contact with the other. The beautiful part of this, Miles, is that no one can actually see what occurs in the coach. You watch, you wonder, your mind soars, your imagination races and perhaps, perhaps you hear a scream, a cry of pain, a plea for mercy and then the coach speeds by you and your heart pounds and you wait for the journey to end. Some of us here have placed a wager or two. Would you care to indulge?”