Poe said, “And reveal to the world the degenerate you are? Unlikely, Mr. Benjamin. Our modern times have not accepted homosexuality and that, sir, is an understatement. There is nothing lower than a homosexual and I, for one, would make sure that the press and public learned of your proclivities even if I have to write the article myself. No sir, you will not do anything to indicate that Mr. Figg and I are criminally involved with the death of Mr. Gunning. For your sake and that of Mr. Pietch, I suggest you evolve a tale explaining Mr. Gunning’s sudden demise. I hear footsteps on the stairs. Think fast, Mr. Benjamin. Your time is at hand, sir.”
Poe opened the door and Figg gladly followed him through it.
THIRTY-FIVE
Jonathan. The second day.
The sun was a hard brilliance; it shone down on the snow to create an eye-piercing glare. Dark shapes slunk in and out of the glare, heading towards the barn on Hugh Larney’s abandoned horse farm. The shapes were starving wolves and they had heard the whinny of the two horses used by Jonathan and Laertes. The wolves, experienced and intelligent, had killed horses before. Made desperate by hunger and a bitter February cold, the wolves closed in on the barn.
There were seven of them and they moved in killing formation, spread out and alert, lean gray bodies loping easily and gracefully across the snow, heads turning left and right to sense danger. Their eyes glittered, their jaws hung down to reveal deadly teeth.
Suddenly the wolves stopped, freezing in their tracks. Their ears flattened against their skulls and a couple of them began inching backwards, mouths closed, heads darting left and right, eagerly seeking the source of the overwhelming danger they now felt.
There was no sound except the howl of the wind. Then came the howl of the wolf leader and the others took it up. The leader’s sense of danger was stronger and he had warned the others. They felt it too and answered him.
The wolves turned and fled, leaving their tracks in the snow and soon they had gone. Behind them all was quiet. No sound came from the barn where Jonathan and Laertes slept.
But the wolves had felt the danger and evil now accumulating around the barn and even these most vicious of killers in nature’s scheme of destruction did not want to confront it.
* * * *
A worried Poe sat on the edge of Rachel’s bed, holding her hand. Behind him the doctor said, “She rests now but that is because of the medicine. According to the servants, her screams occurred too frequently during the night.”
“Jonathan,” whispered Poe.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It is of no matter, sir.”
“There is a great disturbance within her, Mr. Poe. She is deeply troubled and I would assume that her recent ordeal-”
“Yes doctor. She suffers from having confronted an evil most of us can barely imagine.”
Jonathan. The corpse of Justin. The savagery of Hamlet Sproul. Near death and degradation at the hands of Sproul’s cohorts. Yes doctor, there is indeed a great disturbance with her and I pray to God it does not last, for she will grow to dread the night as I do and she will quake at the thought of what terror sleep can hold for her.
“I leave you now, Mr. Poe. Her maid-servant has instructions as to the proper medication and she is to contact me immediately should the crisis reassert itself.”
Poe didn’t turn around. “Yes, doctor. You have my deepest gratitude.”
“Yes, well … ”
Poe still did not turn around. He kept his eyes on Rachel, now deep in a drugged sleep. Was she again having nightmares about Jonathan?
Her fingers clutched Poe’s hand and her lovely face suddenly contorted and Poe’s heart fluttered.
He turned to look at the door, on the verge of calling the doctor back. Then Rachel relaxed her grip and Poe looked down at her once more. My dearest, my dearest. Leaning over her, he gently kissed her perspiring brow. My dearest Rachel.
A tear fell from Poe’s eye, disappearing into the thick, soft redness that was Rachel Coltman’s lovely hair.
* * * *
Sarah Clannon screamed Jonathan’s name over and over. She was delirious, thrashing about on the bed and Hugh Larney could barely hold her down. The wound in her side was infected, turning yellow and an ugly green. If she died, if she died …
Larney screamed over his shoulder, “Get the bloody doctor, you fool! Get him!”
The servant turned and ran.
THIRTY-SIX
“Yer here to bite the ken.” Wade Bruenhausen started his rocking chair in motion again, slowly rubbing greasy hands on his shirt front. The Dutch procurer was fat, with a nose as long and as pointed as a carrot and he smelled of shit. Figg, who found it easy to dislike him, turned his face away from the man’s body odor.
“Ain’t what we’s ‘ere for,” said Figg looking around the dirty cellar where Bruenhausen lived with his child whores. There was nothing in this house they wanted to rob.
“I says you are.” Bruenhausen rocked faster, moving in and out of the orange glow from the fireplace diagonally behind him.
“You can bloody well say what you like. We told you what we want. We want Dearborn Lapham.”
Bruenhausen stopped rocking. “Do you now? The gentlemen want little Dearborn. Lots of gentlemen want little Dearborn. What makes you two so special, besides the fact that I do not much like either one of you by the sound of your voices?”
“We wants ’er. We will pay for ’er time.” Figg looked at Poe standing several feet behind him. It was Poe’s idea. Don’t waste time searching for Hugh Larney. The hours were too few and too precious for that. Make him come to us. Dearborn Lapham. When Larney learned that Poe and Figg had her …
It will be too much for his vanity, Poe had said. Pray that it is, replied Figg. Poe was worried about Rachel, about her nightmares and her need for a doctor. He feared that as long as Jonathan existed, Rachel would live in terror. The spiritualist’s continued existence would damage hers. So find Jonathan before the nine days were up and destroy him.
Figg no longer had a woman to worry about, nor did he have nine days to find Jonathan. The second day was ending and that left one more week. Figg himself had barely been in New York a week. Seven days more and Jonathan would be beyond his revenge. Beyond anyone’s revenge.
Make Hugh Larney come to them. Then force him to reveal Jonathan’s whereabouts. So it was down to the Bowery and Wade Bruenhausen, who “read” his bible to his child whores and thieves by quoting long passages he’d memorized. The gross and smelly Bruenhausen, with most of his black hair gone because of an earlier attack of yellow fever, was surly, suspicious. He wore a frilly shirt, knee britches, silk stockings and high heels, the dated clothing of another century. All of the clothing was filthy, as though Bruenhausen had rolled around in coal dust.
He reminded Figg of a huge, vile toad.
Bruenhausen coughed up phlegm from his throat, spitting it on the floor just inches from Figg’s boots. His voice was an ugly whisper, the result of a severed vocal cord presented to him some years ago by a broken bottle in the hands of a drunken acquaintance.
“Mr. Poe ain’t sayin’ much. Then again he has been known to say too much. I still remember you telling that church committee that I should be hanged for what I was doing with little children.”
“Hanged, drawn and quartered, I believe I said.”
“Oh you did, that you did. I remember. Some folks took your words to heart, Mr. Poe, and I was forced to absent myself from New York for a brief turn. Might I inquire as to why you want the services of Dearborn Lapham, considerin’ how you condemned my, er, business practices some time back?”
Poe stepped forward. “She is the key to a mystery we seek to unravel.”