Figg didn’t see matters quite that way. Twice Standish had tried to kill him and now Pierce James Figg was going to put a stop to any future attempts. Standish was not in his office. Attending a medical demonstration, according to the clerk in his office. Watching a cut up, Mr. Poe would say and when that was over, Standish would return. The law clerk was alone, his desk and stool drawn up close as possible to the fire.
Time for hard questions to be put to Mr. Standish. Time for him to tell Figg exactly where Jonathan was. If a man wanted Figg’s life, the boxer was not going to turn tail and run, especially when he knew where to lay hands on the man. Meanwhile Poe was acting like a man crazed. Carrying on about Miss Rachel. Well, it was hard cheese to the lady until Figg concluded his business.
The two men moved aside to allow an old man to pump a pail full of brown water, water to be used in drinking and cooking. Even though the Croton Reservoir at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue had brought water to Manhattan, pumps were still being used in some neighborhoods, with a risk to pump users of diseases that were often fatal.
Poe clutched Figg’s sleeve. “I insist you come. Now!”
“Insist, ‘e does.” Figg jerked his sleeve free. “Me feet’s in place right ‘ere, mate and ‘ere they stay.” A carriage splashed mud on his leg. Mud and cold. Figg was up to here in both and he didn’t like it one bit.
“She will die!” hissed an angry Poe.
“She will keep. Leastwise for a little time longer.”
Over Poe’s shoulder and through the crowd he saw a cab stop in front of Miles Standish’s office. Three well-dressed, attractive young women stepped from it, stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the lawyer’s office which overlooked the street on the second floor. One of the women carried a suitcase.
Figg shifted his eyes to Poe. “You ‘ave been a right nasty sort over this Miss Rachel business. I ‘ave given me word to aid you, so why in ‘ell can’t you wait a minute or two?”
Poe raised his voice. “If she dies, I shall kill you. My word on that, sir.”
“Kill me? You’re daft. Fail to get your way and what ‘appens? Turns into a snake, you does. Best watch yer temper, little man. Ain’t had no food in me belly for a time and I got no love for this flippin’ cold, so you just best watch your step.”
Poe was a nutter. The man had gone mental, that’s all there was to it. Next he’d be foaming at the mouth. Look at him now, stabbing Figg with his eyes and breathing like a man who’s just had a nightmare, which he does too often.
“I saved your life,” said Poe, drawing himself up as tall as he could. “And this is how you repay me.”
Figg’s patience was at an end. “You were bleedin’ drunk, mate. You didn’t know who the bloody ‘ell you was savin’.”
Poe stiffened. And Figg immediately regretted what he’d just said.
The boxer softened, laying a hand on Poe’s shoulder. “Lookee, I give you me word and I will stand by it. Just a wee big longer, that’s all I’m askin’. Let me talk to Standish-”
“Once more, sir. Will you accompany me?” Now people passing by were slowing down to listen and watch.
Over Poe’s shoulder, Figg saw him. Standish. Stepping from his carriage, tying the reins, then walking into the building. Standish who could lead Figg to Jonathan.
The boxer tried to step around Poe, who blocked his way.
“Outta me way, Mr. Poe. Standish just went-”
Poe swung at him.
Figg caught the small fist with his hand, squeezed it and said nothing. His eyes were slits. He spoke from between clenched teeth. “With any other man, I’d ‘ave-”
He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he shoved Poe aside into the people watching the argument. Quickly, Figg limped towards Miles Standish’s office. Damn that little bastard Poe. Why did he have to go and do that? Could have got himself knuckled good. Got the boot put to him. Why did he have to go and do that? Miss Rachel was turning Poe into a lunatic.
Jonathan could be at Figg’s fingertips; he could be that close, Mr. Standish would sing a pretty song. Figg would see to that.
At the bottom of the narrow staircase, Figg waited while three young men hurried down, passing him then rushing out into the street, disappearing into the crowd. One of the men carried a suitcase.
Damn Poe and his rotten temper.
At the top of the stairs, Figg waited until his eyes were used to the dim gaslight in the hall. Then he found Miles Standish’s office and opened the door.
The clerk lay facedown under his high desk. Blood seeped from under his head and chest and his crushed spectacles, lying between his legs, glittered in the golden sunlight shining through the window.
Miles Standish also lay facedown. His head was in the fireplace, submerged in orange flames and the smell of burning hair and flesh was sickening to Figg. In the fireplace and near the dead lawyer’s head, a woman’s yellow bonnet crumpled and blackened in the fire. Standish’s arms were spread wide, as though he were being cruicified. Both of his little fingers had been removed and his hands dripped dark pools onto the wooden floor. Somewhere behind Figg, a grandfather’s clock chimed two o’clock in the afternoon. The boxer blinked, then covered his nose against the smell coming from the fireplace.
Outside on Broadway, a nervous Figg breathed in cold air deeply, eyes darting left and right as he looked for Poe.
The poet had disappeared.
THIRTY-ONE
Rachel Coltman, numbed with fear and naked under the blanket casually tossed to her by one of the Irishmen, cringed in a corner of a filthy room in the Old Brewery.
She kept her eyes closed and listened.
“No laddie, she is not sleepin’,” said a male voice. “She has her nose turned to the wall so she’ll not be smellin’ the likes of you, Sean.”
The three men laughed.
“Bleak moll she is wouldn’t you say?” Murmurs of agreement. Bleak moll, a handsome woman.
“Love to give that one a flimp.”
“Sproul would drive steel through the back of yer neck and out yer mouth.”
“That’s a truth, me friend. Dear Hamlet is not a fellow to cross.”
“’E’s not a fella what holds his liquor. Flat on his face, Sproul is, huggin’ the earth down the hall. Grievin’ does that to a man, it does.”
More murmurs of agreement.
And then a harsh voice. “Hands off me diddle or I’ll snitchell yer gig.” Hands off my liquor or I’ll break your nose.
“’Ere now, we all took her clothes off so we all owns the liquor. Jesus God, what miserable stuff I’m drinkin’, but you know somethin’ boys? I love it, God in heaven above I love it.”
They all laughed.
Rachel shivered. Her clothing, the little jewelry she’d been wearing, all of it torn from her by the three Irish thieves as soon as they’d brought her to this small, dark cellar room. She burned with shame at the memory of their hands on her body, their leers, the vile things they’d said to her. Her clothing and jewelry had been sold for “Blue Ruin,” bad gin, which the men now drank as they sat around a table and played cards.
Dear God, dear God, she would die here. Die in the midst of the most terrifying nightmare she’d ever known.
She was a prisoner somewhere in the Old Brewery where men and women were stabbed for a handkerchief, where a child’s throat was cut for a penny. Her bare flesh rested on damp, black earth and she now guessed she was in the basement of the building, somewhere close to the hidden underground passages connecting the Old Brewery to the tenements scattered throughout the slums. The people living in this hellhole had long ago burned as firewood the floor that had once covered the ground beneath her.