“And drink, from the looks of it.”
“The waiter girls will indulge your every whim, be it alcoholic or more intimate.”
“Figured more than rum was for sale down ‘ere.” Figg looked at the waiter girls. Young ones, some of them. Babies. Maybe fourteen, fifteen years old and the oldest not much over twenty. Short black dresses, black net stockings and red knee boots with tassels and bells. Waiter girls. Whores for a few coins.
Johnnie Bill Baker of the crossed eyes was not a man to spend much on inside light. Figg could see that and damn little else in the darkness around him. Whale oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, some tallow candles on the wall and behind the long plank-on-barrels bar, but other than that, a man needed good eyes and good luck in order to see his hand in front of his face.
Cheap dresses on the women. No crinoline, no puffy skirts with ten petticoats underneath. Just faded cloth with unwashed flesh underneath. Dark clothes and shirts without collars and cuffs for the men. Worn boots on a dance floor sanded to give boots a better grip. The usual tobacco spitting going on, with more juice hitting the floor than the inside of a spittoon. And on air that reeked of people who didn’t bathe and didn’t care one way or another about it.
Poe stood up to stop a waiter girl, whispered in her ear then sat down. “She will bring Johnnie Bill Baker to us.”
“You knows the gent, you say?”
“I have encountered him during my travels in the lower depths of our republic.”
“What kind of man is he, besides what you been tellin’ me?”
“Shrewd. A killer. Concerned with himself and all that concerns him. If you are not already aware of it, this place does not welcome strangers and the people who populate it are quick to prey on the unwary.”
Figg unbuttoned one button on his black frock coat. “I will bear that in mind, Mr. Poe.”
The young waiter girl returned. She was bone thin, looked younger than her fourteen years and had eyes that were much older. She spoke with a slight lisp. “Mr. Baker annountheth that he ain’t in the habit of talkin’ to people what geth drunk and patheth out in the rat pit on his premitheth.”
Figg looked at Poe, who mumbled. “There is a rat pit in back and I did-” He stopped, then raised his voice. “Please announce to Mr. Baker that our business with him is urgent and-”
“Little girl,” said Figg behind an unfriendly grin as he grabbed her wrist. “Announce to Mr. Baker for me that it would be best for the peace of ‘is premises if ‘e were to come ‘ere and talk with us. Otherwise I shall get up from where I now sits and seek ‘im out. Announce that, if you will be so kind.”
The frightened girl backed away rubbing her sore wrist, then turned and disappeared into the crowd of shuffling dancers. Figg looked at Poe. “You passed out in a rat pit?”
A rat pit was a circle six feet in diameter and surrounded by a wooden fence four feet high. Several dozen rats were turned loose inside it, along with a starved dog. Bets were then placed on how many rats the dog would kill in a given period of time. Ratting, as it was called, was popular in both England and America.
Poe said, “I had succumbed to my intemperate habits while in this establishment and I passed out. When I came to, I was in the rat pit and Johnnie Bill Baker, along with some of his acquaintances, were keeping amused by tossing dead rats onto me.”
“My God!”
“And you have challenged this man in his own lair.”
“So long as he comes to us, squire.”
“He shall and with an attitude of belligerence. Nor will he arrive alone.”
Figg took a hand from his pocket to adjust his black top hat, then put the hand back into his pocket again. “So long as he arrives, mate. From ‘im to Sproul to Jonathan. Ain’t that your plan?”
“My plan includes survival.”
“You let me do the worryin’ about that, squire. You jes’ think up some more quotes. I finds them fascinatin.”
Johnnie Bill Baker stood in front of them.
And he wasn’t alone.
A path had cleared for him on the dance floor, then the path had closed behind him and two men plus a woman the likes of which Figg had never seen in life or in picture books. The woman was black, gigantic, with dyed yellow hair and fists as big as Pierce James Figg’s. She wore a shiny green silk dress, with a stiletto sticking from the top of a man’s boot (feet as big as Figg’s, too!) and a slung shot-a leather thong with an egg-sized lump of iron tied at one end-dangled from her wrist. The woman was frightening to look at and Figg, who knew the look of people who could kill, knew that this huge Negro woman was a killer.
Johnnie Bill Baker, legs apart, fists on his hips, looked down at Poe. “You can’t be the bucko who talks in such a hard manner. Nor are ye the ugly one the little girl spoke of so-”
He looked at Figg. “It must be you, friend. And I do so want to hear your story, which is why me friends and I have travelled so far. Make it a good one. The last story should always be a good one.”
Figg, hat low on his forehead, stared at him. Handsome, he was, with a face as clean as a baby’s bottom and clothes that cost a pretty penny. Gray suit, gray waistcoat and gray silk ascot, with a fancy white shirt and lace cuffs. Red hair parted in the middle. Diamond rings on both hands. Johnny the Gent. And damn me if he didn’t have crossed eyes. Not too tall, slim and the kind to set a maid’s heart to flutter, but he was as cross-eyed as somebody’s idiot child.
Two men just behind him. Irish thugs by the looks of ’em, with pistols in the belt and both itching for a punch-up. The kind who gouge out your eyes, bite off your ear and put the boot into your temple, then go to church on Sunday. And don’t forget the black woman. Dark as the inside of a mine shaft. Probably more of a hard case than either of the men backing Johnny the Gent.
One of the Irish thugs, a squat, unshaven man with eyebrows that met over the bridge of his nose, spat on Figg’s outstretched leg. The thug said, “It don’t talk much, Johnnie. Sits there like a bleedin’ Buddha. Think I’ll write home and tell me mother it’s ugly enough to curdle milk.”
Baker said, “You have a name, ugly man. Let’s hear it before we apply ourselves to dealin’ with your forward ways.”
“Figg. Pierce James Figg.”
Baker frowned, stroking the side of his nose with a slim finger. “Figg. Figg. Name strikes a response.”
“Figg is a delicate fruit,” said the squat thug. “By the sounds of it, it’s English, though it don’t look too delicate to me. Stand up when you come among the Irish, English swine. We don’t care to be summoned by the likes of you.”
He lifted his booted foot high, preparing to bring it down on Figg’s ankle.
Bloomin’ amateurs, thought Figg.
The squat thug’s foot was on the way down, when Figg slid off the bench and brought his ankle up into the thug’s crotch with all his strength. The thug folded in half, jaw slack, eyes entirely white. Then Figg was on his feet, moving into the thug whose hands were folded across his crotch in a vain attempt to stop the pain.
The punch was a short, vicious left hook; it didn’t travel far but it had most of Figg’s power behind it. The punch crashed into the thug’s right temple, lifting him from the floor and sending him flying backwards and into the crowd of dancers. Immediately a space cleared around him.
When Figg took the one step which brought him belly to belly with Johnnie Bill Baker, both of the boxer’s hands were again in his pockets and he spoke through clenched teeth. “Mr. Baker, we are needin’ to talk with you. Please accommodate us.”
Baker felt the pressure against his gut. When the other thug and the huge black woman started towards Figg, Baker lifted up both hands to halt them in place. The Irish thief’s smile was forced.
“Suddenly I feel the need to talk with Mr. Figg. And with you too, Mr. Poe, of course. Would you be tellin’ what make of persuasion you have hard against me, Mr. Figg?”