Clarence remained stoic.
“Of course, you’re right. By ‘we’ I mean only myself. I don’t need a horde of minions for this task. A simple spell of distraction, and whoever’s investigating the site won’t see anyone but their own agents.”
Suydam rose, patting the jar lid. “You are a most excellent listener, Clarence. No one living can so effectively help me focus my thoughts.”
Edward Alexander Crowley reclined on a couch in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment, silk robes draped above his knees, pondering the scribbled letter in his left hand. Lady Jenna, as he’d dubbed his latest Scarlet Woman, casually massaged his broad shoulders. Occasionally she paused to alternately plant a kiss on or lick his shaven skull. Her own silk robe, more diaphanous than his, hung open.
“This is a very odd missive, Jenna.”
“Hmmm?”
“It’s from a man named Monk Eastman. We met briefly when I first arrived in New York. He would be a good candidate for a model, should I start taking painting seriously. Very Neanderthal.” What he did not tell Lady Jenna, for there was no reason for her to know, was that Eastman had been among several underworld figures he originally hoped to use as his eyes and ears while in this city. Unfortunately, like most of Crowley’s early recruits, the man had ultimately proven useless.
He glanced at the envelope and chuckled. “He’s writing from Dannemora prison. Apparently, I made quite an impression.”
“Of course you did, my Beast. Aleister Crowley — occultist, magician, mountaineer, author, and so much more — makes quite the impression on everyone he meets.”
Crowley offered a half-smile. “I cannot deny that truth. We met at a Tea House on Mott Street — of course he won’t say opium den in a letter likely to be vetted by the warden. Years ago, Eastman was a prominent gang leader in the Five Points district. He wants me to help him make a comeback.”
“Put together a new criminal gang?” Jenna asked. “You?”
“He wants me to teach him magick. Give him special powers.” He allowed the letter to drift to the floor, unfinished. “I think not, Mr. Eastman. Much as I enjoy being called the Beast, a name for which I will always be grateful to my mother, and have sympathy for fellow drug users…helping establish criminal kingpins? Not my cup of tea at all.”
Jenna worked her way down Crowley’s pate to nibble on his right ear. “But I am. Aren’t I?”
He reached up to stroke her breast. “Better than tea. You are sheer nectar, you fiend.” He shifted in his chair. “Alas, I need to get dressed. I have urgent business downtown.”
“Hmmm?”
“Preparations.” Crowley paused. “For the Equinox Ceremony. And of course the ensuing Bacchanal.”
Crowley’s open, eccentric nature led most people, in particular his followers, to believe him incapable of keeping secrets, save those involving certain esoteric magical rites. He took pains not to discourage this impression. Several married women knew of, and were grateful for, his discretion.
A more important reason for rectitude was a major reason he had come to New York two years earlier: he was on a secret mission for the British Government. This occasionally required him to work with America’s fledgling Bureau of Investigation, rooting out German saboteurs and propagandists. The United States continued to resist being drawn into the Great War in Europe, but anyone with half a brain saw that this isolationism could not last. The Kaiser certainly did.
Posing as a feckless Englishman sympathetic to the German cause, Crowley had already surmised from his associates on that front, as well as interactions with the prostitute Gerda Maria von Kothek, that at least one German group was assembling bombs, or plotting to, somewhere in the New York City area. The exact location remained elusive, but the Bureau had recently received an anonymous tip that the saboteurs might be operating out of a long-abandoned rail tunnel in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, near Cobble Hill. Crowley was to meet that afternoon with his Bureau of Investigation liaison, Robert Blake, to help the agency determine their best course of action.
“But that festival is weeks from now,” Lady Jenna protested. “Days, anyway.”
“One cannot start planning these events too early.”
Alas! Lady Jenna had no idea that she would soon be a past memory for the Beast, being little more than a time-filler as he recovered from Jeanne Foster rudely tearing herself from his side. Crowley already had designs not only on Gerda, but on a certain Alice Coomararswamy, wife of a man he’d befriended in Europe and whom he suspected was part of an East Indian group sympathetic to the German cause. Few things were as satisfying as mixing business with pleasure.
“Are those preparations really so urgent?” Lady Jenna asked, reaching under his robe.
“Ah. Not quite that urgent.”
Crowley had done some research of his own regarding that abandoned tunnel. He couldn’t ignore an uneasy feeling that was unrelated to espionage, even as Lady Jenna began to work her own special magic.
Johnny Torrio smoothed his gingham shirt with his free hand and toyed with some papers on his desk. His office was on the upper floor of the Chicago brothel he had made his headquarters. He spoke softly into his phone’s receiver, though there was no one else around to eavesdrop. Torrio was checking in with Frankie Yale, the man he’d left in charge of the Five Points Gang when he moved from New York.
“So everything is pretty jake here, Papa Johnny,” Yale concluded, having given him a broad outline of the past week’s gang activities. “Oh, one more thing. You might find this funny. Remember Monk?”
“Eastman? Barely.”
“It looks like he’s friends with that magic guy.”
“Houdini? He’s here in Chicago this week. Or was.”
“Not him. That Irish fella, what’s his name, Crawley?”
“Aleister Crowley. A prime nutjob. He still in New York?”
“Yeah, that guy. Anyways, my contact at Dannemora tells me Monk wrote to this Crowley asking for help.”
Torrio chuckled. “If Monk is trying to get out of prison again, Houdini would be a more useful contact.”
“This is the funny bit. He thinks Crowley can use his magic powers to help rebuild his gang.”
Torrio snorted. “And you take this seriously?”
“Of course not. I thought you’d get a chuckle, is all. So. How’re things with Big Jim?” Yates knew how much Papa Johnny hated shop talk, and usually made an effort to end their conversations with social chatter.
“Uncle’s doing good, Frankie.” The gangsters exchanged a few more pleasantries before Yates rang off.
Torrio rose and walked to the gramophone on the table in the corner. A little opera always helped clear his mind. He flipped through his collection of disks, but could not focus.
Monk Eastman. That has-been hophead would do better to join the army rather than running a gang again. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone check up on this Crowley character, on the slim chance something actually was going on.
Torrio picked up the phone again and asked the operator to reconnect the number. When Yale answered, he said, “Do me a favor, Frankie. See if you can get Alphonse, the Capone kid, to find out some more about this magician, on the off-chance there’s more going on than Eastman’s delusions.”
Capone might be a little hot-headed — what teenager wasn’t? — but Torrio had always found the kid pretty reliable.
A few days later, Aleister Crowley stood on the corner of Clinton and State Streets. He’d exchanged his flashy ritual robe for a plain dark brown suit and tie, under a loose-fitting frock coat. This allowed him to blend in almost supernaturally with the residents of this lower-class Brooklyn neighborhood. In fact, he seemed to elude notice completely, as passersby seemed preoccupied with spending as little time in the freezing weather as possible. The only person who offered more than a passing glance was a burly teenager sitting on the stoop at 169 Clinton Street, and even he seemed interested in poring through the day’s edition of The Brooklyn Eagle.