But it was Johnnie Bill Baker who kept Poe transfixed in the open doorway. Johnnie Bill Baker who lit up the room with his dying and filled it with his screams. “Sweet Jesus, help me! Help meeee!” He bounced from wall to wall, running blindly, filling the tiny room with a horrible light and the sickening smell of his burning flesh. This is a nightmare, thought Poe. Not real. But it is real and I am watching it happen.
On the floor, Figg fought for his life. Struggling to his knees, he smashed his left elbow into the face of Captain Collect’s man, crushing his nose, driving him back to the dirt floor. But there was a sharp pain in Figg’s eye. The black bitch. She’d stuck her fingers in his eyes and was digging, digging …
Pulling his head back, Figg opened his mouth and sunk his teeth deep into her fingers. She clawed at his throat. Pushing her hand away he rose, bringing his knee up under her chin at the same time. She flew backwards, rolled over and began getting to her feet. She was hurt but still ready to fight. She was as tough as any man Figg had ever faced and she would not stop until she had his life.
Black Turtle charged, head down. Figg sidestepped and she hit the table behind him, going down to the floor with it. Shaking her head, she jammed a foot down on the table, gripped one of its legs with her hands and tore it loose.
And me without a pistol, thought Figg. Behind her he could see Johnnie Bill Baker’s body on the floor, wrapped in orange, yellow and blue flames, the body curling up and the man within the flames crying out no more. And the big black woman who served him was going to kill Figg if she could.
Poe watched.
She edged towards the boxer; he covered his belt buckle with his hand. She didn’t notice him removing the tiny knife and it would have made no difference, Figg knew. Nothing would have stopped her. Besides, she had the better weapon. A long, heavy piece of wood against a tiny blade. The reach was hers. And she had the stomach for killing.
Figg had the knowledge.
She charged, the wood lifted high over her head.
Figg waited, timing his move perfectly.
The technique was called the Boar’s Thrust, one of the most famous moves in combat fencing, the invention of Donald McBane, the great professional swordsman of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. McBane, who taught the finest sword play from his string of establishments combining fencing schools and brothels.
When Black Turtle was almost on him, Figg dropped his right knee and left hand to the ground as though genuflecting in church. But the position had a much more deadly intent. As soon as he touched the ground, he thrust his right hand up and forward, driving the tiny knife deep into Black Turtle’s stomach. On one knee with Mr. Dickens’ little knife, Figg became the deadly boar with a horn that killed.
She staggered backwards, stopped, eyes protruding, hand still gripping the table leg. Then she stumbled towards him, a dark stain growing across her shiny green dress. She said the first and only word Figg had ever heard come from her mouth. “Johnnie … ”
Figg took a step backwards. Black Turtle stopped, her large bosom rising and falling as her breathing became more labored and the pain increased. The table leg slipped from her hands, which went down to the stain and pressed against it. Turning her back to Figg, she staggered towards Baker’s burning body and that’s when Poe felt Figg grab his wrist.
As Figg dragged him towards a small door in the back of the earthen room, Poe looked back to see Black Turtle fall forward across Johnnie Bill Baker’s burning body.
Poe, on his knees, head on his chest, looked up and smiled at nothing and nobody, for the Hotel Astor hallway was empty, to be expected at almost three o’clock in the morning. He was drunk, indeed, and to hell with worrying about it. Two glasses of wine. No more, no less. Never did have much capacity for spirits, did you Eddy. Takes little of that dreaded water to make you sick, drunk, quarrelsome and a wild man. The mere smell of it is enough to set you off, is it not? Well stand up, Eddy, and stagger down the hall to the hotel room you share with Figg.
If he’s asleep, wake him. Perhaps he’ll give you a few coins to take a train back to Fordham. You have just spent your last money on the cheapest wine available and now you are stuck with Figg’s company. Figg’s the man burner. Johnnie Bill Baker has been fricasseed and there is one less paddy to break the law in Gotham.
But do not blame Figg, for Baker and his colored female behemoth would have killed us both. Indeed, indeed.
Poe was on his feet, both hands on the wall and he walked, slowly, most unsteadily and now he was at the door of the room he shared with Figg. An odd one, our Mr. Figg. Skilled in the ways of destruction but a man who has seen important personages. If he has not achieved the culture and breeding of a Socrates, he has at least learned to function in this not so best of all possible worlds.
In front of the door, Poe stopped, frowned, sniffed. He smelled something. Something. Gas. He smelled gas. Why was there gas coming from the room? Poe closed his eyes, opened them wide, blinked. Gas. He banged on the door.
“Figg, you ninny. Why is there gas in there? I demand to know why, sir.”
Poe leaned backwards, then forward, finally getting his key out of his pocket. Gas. And then Poe knew. The alcohol controlled most of him but not all of him. Something was wrong inside, something quite wrong. He dropped the key, bent over and after reaching for it several times, gripped it tightly, then fumbled at the keyhole, finally opening the door.
The gas smell was overpowering. The room was filled with it.
Poe staggered forward, grabbed the washbasin and hurled it through the window. Cold air hit him with force, a most welcomed force. He coughed, his eyes watered and he saw everything in the dark room as though viewing it all through a pinhole. His lungs burned and he yearned for air. Air.
Poe flopped across Figg’s bed. “Get up, damn you, get up! He tugged at the boxer, pulled his arm. Figg didn’t move. Violence. This you’ll understand. Poe slapped Figg’s face and fell to the floor himself. On his knees, he slapped Figg’s face again, again, and lifting his arm to do so was the hardest thing Poe had ever done in his life. His arm seemed to weigh a ton and the hand came down in slow motion, as if this were all a dream.
Figg groaned.
“Damn you, get up!”
Poe pulled at him. Figg moved.
Now they were both on the floor. Figg had fallen out of bed.
Poe sat on the floor, mouth open, his lungs burning, his brain whirling and threatening to disintegrate as he gripped Figg’s upper arm and pulled. The open door was behind him, light from the hallway beckoning them to safety.
He pulled. Figg inched himself forward towards the light, towards the sound of Poe’s voice. To the boxer, the voice seemed to be life itself, warning him away from death, pulling him back from something hideous, something horrible and unknown.
Poe shouted, not knowing what he shouted and he pulled at Figg and he scraped himself towards the door, towards light, towards air, towards life.
Both men collapsed in the hallway, Poe on his back and feeling himself sink into that blackness which always seemed to be reaching out for him. He heard footsteps running towards him and then he could hear no more.
TWENTY-FOUR
Jonathan,dressed in the white robe and beard of Paracelsus, handed Mrs. Viola Sontag a highly polished piece of steel exactly the size of a saucer.