Will Satterwaite suddenly leaned over him and with a mallet drove a nail into the tabletop. “Thumb against that,” he said.
Matthew saw the method in this; it was to stretch his hand so the area to be tattooed was smoothed out. He placed his thumb against the nail, Will took a measurement by eye and then drove in a second nail. Matthew stretched his hand and placed his index finger on the other side of this nail. It was a bit uncomfortable, the nails being spaced widely enough so that Matthew imagined the tendons between thumb and forefinger were in danger of tearing, but he could stand it; he just hoped he didn’t have to hold this position very long. He took the bottle of rum with his left hand and had a good deep drink.
“Ready?” Pie had already dipped the bone needles in the ink bowl, just a touch at the tips.
He nodded, noting that Jane Howard was standing nearby watching him with hungry, black-ringed eyes. He thought she needed a good stomach-filling meal of chicken and biscuits more than anything else.
“Here we go,” Pie said. She placed the needles in position and used the striker to make contact between sharp bone and stretched skin. The pain compared to what Matthew had endured lately and in other situations was miniscule, more of an irritating itch like the biting of a battalion of bedbugs. He considered that Pie might not be the best at this craft but she was indeed very smooth and fast, the noise of the striker against the rake being rapid bursts of ta-ta-too, ta-ta-too, ta-ta-too, from which the procedure had received its name.
“May I ask a question?” Matthew had directed this to Keen.
“You can ask, but you might not get an answer.”
“Fair enough. What crime did Ben Greer commit that sent him to St. Peter’s Place?”
“Easy question. A snatch and rough-up.”
“Translate, please?”
“Stealin’ somethin’ and knockin’ the fella ’round a bit. To leave him a lesson, so to speak.”
“What was stolen?”
“A calf’s-skin carry-all. You know, one of them things the lawyers are always totin’, to make ’emselves look important.”
“Really?” Matthew frowned. “Of what use was that to the Broodies?”
Keen shrugged. “It was what was inside the case was wanted. My orders were to send a strongarm or two over to High Holborn Street on a certain day and a certain time and nail a fella as he was leavin’ a buildin’. Take the carry-all, boot the gent a bit to leave him bloody, and get gone. Ben nabbed the goods, but the gent called out for help and there happened to be a pair a’ constables comin’ out of a bakery right up the way. They caught Ben and gave him a conkin’.”
Matthew took all this in as he watched Pie’s process of dipping the tips of the bone needles into the ink and then ta-ta-tooing again with a rapid beat of the striker. Tiny dots of blood appeared, which Pie blotted with a bit of sponge. “I’m not getting something,” he said. “What do you mean, your orders?”
“Just that. Word come down from above.”
“From above? From whom, above?”
Keen grinned, his silver teeth glinting in the light. The black circles around his eyes gave him a savagely sinister appearance. “You’re just full ’a questions, ain’t you?”
“Help me become empty of them.”
“Somehow I doubt that would ever happen.” Keen was silent for awhile, watching Pie work with the rake and striker, and Matthew let him deliberate. Then Keen said, “Way it’s been since Mick Abernathy struck the deal. He was head of the Broodies a’fore Neville Morse, who was just a’fore me. Mohocks killed Neville and Georgie Cole last April, jumped ’em comin’ out of the Brave Cavalier on Cannon Street. Cut ’em to pieces, and Georgie swelled up with Neville’s kid. Anyway, the deal was struck and it holds. We do things, we get paid. Simple business.”
“Things? Like what?”
“Such as I’ve told you. Little errands here and there. And we move the White Velvet for ’em.”
“Them? Who?”
“Lordy, Matthew! Some things you need to let be.”
Matthew decided the wind from this direction was in danger of dying, so it was time to tack. “The White Velvet,” he said, watching the tattoo on his hand take shape. “Where does it come from?”
“From a wagon,” Keen answered, and followed that with a harsh laugh.
“Driven by…?”
Keen’s smile went away. He leaned forward and sniffed the air. “Smell that, Pie? That stink? I told you before, Matthew reeks of the Old Bailey.”
“I’m just curious,” Matthew said. “Really. If I’m to be a Black-Eyed Broodie, shouldn’t I—”
“No, you shouldn’t. Not your first fuckin’ hour.” Keen sat very still for a moment. His eyes were dead, and suddenly he reached up with both hands and smeared the black rings as if trying to wipe them away. “I got things to do,” he said, and he abruptly got up from his chair and left the area. A few of the Broodies remained, watching Pie work, but most had gone off to their various interests. Jane Howard was one who’d stayed, and Matthew noted that she was slowly coming closer and closer.
“How’s that feelin’?” Pie asked.
“Stinging a bit. Otherwise, fine.”
“Little details to be done right in this here area. Ben was lots better at this than me, and faster too.”
“I have time.”
She nodded, and then she said quietly, “You shouldn’t ask about the Velvet. It bothers him, us sellin’ it to the taverns and knowin’ what it did to Josh.”
“Josh?”
“Yeah, Joshua Oakley. He’s the one I told you went crazy, jumped out the third-floor window.”
“I see.” He was aware that Jane Howard was right at his shoulder. She needed a bath, in the worst way.
“Bothers him,” Pie went on, “’cause he wonders how many others gone out of their minds on it. He’s told me so, number of times. Wonders how many women drank the Velvet and threw their infants in the fire thinkin’ they was throwin’ in a log on a freezin’ cold night, or how many men drinkin’ it and gone crazy thinkin’ they was fightin’ back in a war, and wound up killin’ ever’ soul in the house. Those things have happened, mark it.”
“Sounds like more of a drug than a drink. I know it makes money, but why keep selling it if it weighs so heavily on him? I think if I were in his position, I’d—”
“You ain’t,” she interrupted, with perhaps a sharper blow of the striker than was necessary. “And you don’t know the kind of people got us in this deal to sell it for ’em. Harder cases could not be found by lookin’ under ever’ rock in London. Anyway, like I said…and Rory knows it, too…if we weren’t movin’ the Velvet somebody else would be, and it ain’t like we’re the only ones sellin’ it. So just let it be, Matthew.” She gave another little severe strike. “Let it be.”
It seemed to Matthew that the spindly Jane was now nearly about to sit upon his lap. To forestall this from happening, he looked at her with a smile and said, “Jane, would you do me a favor?”
“Anythin’,” she answered, gushily.
He had to figure out quickly what that favor might be. “Would you…oh…find that copy of the Pin and bring it to me?”
“Sure will!” she said, and she rushed off.
“You wantin’ to read about y’self again?” Pie asked.
“No. Just wantin’ to—I mean, wanting to—get myself some breathing room. Besides, if you don’t care to answer any further questions about the White Velvet, or who’s really in charge around here…” He paused, leaving the gate open.
“I do not,” she answered, slamming the gate shut and tossing away the key.
“Then,” he continued, “I might as well read about Lady Everlust’s two-headed child.” As he waited for Jane to return with the news sheet, he was vaguely bothered by something he had himself said just a moment before, concerning the Velvet: Sounds like more of a drug than a drink.
That stirred up dirty water from a swampy place inside him, but he didn’t quite know
what it was. Something he ought to remember, he thought, and he wondered if indeed his memory was in places still faulty.
Jane returned with the sheet, which was so wrinkled and crinkled and smeared and smudged that every hand in the house must have been on it sometime today. Except for twice reading through the story with his name in it and verifying his suspicions that only Albion would have known about the dagger, he’d wanted nothing to do with the paper. Now, though, it would be a nice barrier between himself and Jane while Pie finished up the tattoo.
“Want me to read it to you?” Jane asked, her eyes bright in the bony face.
“No, thank you. I imagine you have something else you should be doing?”
“Naw, not a thing.”
Matthew reached for the rum bottle and took a swig before he accepted the Pin. “Well,” he said, “if you’ll just sit quietly somewhere, I’d like to read.”
“I’ll stand right here, close by, in case you’re needin’ anythin’ else.”
Pie gave a soft little chuckle. Matthew mentally closed both of the women out and regarded the renowned rag. The article about himself, the fearsome Monster of Plymouth, and Albion had indeed pushed the continuing tribulations of Lady Everlust further down the page. Lady Everlust shared column height with an article about a certain Lord Haymake of Rochester who had hanged himself after making love to five wenches in one night, the hanging commencing because apparently the seventy-year-old letch could not raise his falstaff for the sixth—as the Pin put it—‘moist valley of Paradise’.
“Have mercy!” Matthew muttered to himself, but a line at the end of the article read Next Issue: A Wench Comes Into Fortune and Matthew was horrified to realize he was rather interested in which wench it was.
Then there came a few paragraphs about the kidnapped Italian opera singer, Madam Alicia Candoleri, headlined Opera Star Still Missing and, below that, the question Murder Claims The Songbird?
“Done here in a few,” Pie said. “Devil’s in the details.”
Matthew nodded. The stylized eye in the ebony circle on his hand was taking shape. His other two eyes went to the next story down nearly at the bottom of the page.
Coalblack Amazes Audiences, read the boldtype headline. Below that, African Strongman In Almsworth Circus.
The first line caught Matthew’s attention, with a jolt.
The amazing, massive African strongman known as Coalblack, who cannot speak due to loss of tongue, is currently in his third week of nightly showings at Almsworth Circus in Dove’s Wing Alley, Bishopsgate.
The second line caused Matthew to nearly bolt upright from his chair.
As the reader recalls, the huge African with the strangely-scarred face who has become our famous Coalblack was found last June clinging to a bit of wreckage from a ship at sea, and brought to England by Captain James Troy of the Faithful Marianne.
“You jumped!” said Pie, who had stopped striking and raking. “What’s the matter?”
Matthew was speechless. Was this an article about the Ga tribesman Zed, he of the tattooed face and tongueless condition, who had been an aide to Ashton McCaggers in New York, later such a great help in the dangerous situation on Pendulum Island, and when last seen had been aboard Captain Jerrell Falco’s ship Nightflyer about to be sailed back to his homeland?
…clinging to a bit of wreckage from a ship at sea…
“No,” Matthew heard himself whisper.
Was it possible one of Professor Fell’s pirates had come across the Nightflyer, and recognizing it by its name as a vessel and captain cursed to destruction by Fell, given chase? Then, before the Nightflyer could fly into the night, cannonfire put an end to the ship? If this was indeed Zed, rescued from being adrift at sea, then what had happened to Falco? Death by drowning? Or captured by Fell’s pirates?
“No, what?” Pie prompted, the instruments no longer ta-ta-tooing.
“No,” he said, with an effort steadying the whirligig of his mind, “I’m just reading this…this utter trash. That’s all.”
“Alrighty. Hold firm now, just a bit more to be done.”
He read the article over again.
Zed. Could it really be?
“Um…where is Almsworth Circus from here?” He was trying very hard to sound somewhat disinterested. “That would be…on Dove’s Wing Alley, Bishopsgate.”
“A far piece. Why?”
“I thought I might go sometime. I’ve always enjoyed them.”
“Best go durin’ the day, dearie,” she said as she tapped out the last of the work, and though it wasn’t as clean as what Ben Greer might have done, it was still a decent piece.
“The show doesn’t start until after dark.” He looked further into the article. “Says here it starts at eight o’clock.”
“Good luck, then.”
“What do I need that for?”
“Welllllll,” she said, drawing the word out, “you’re marked as a Broodie now. Know how many gang territories you’d have to cross to get to Dove’s Wing Alley off Bishopsgate? You ain’t got that many fingers and toes to count on. Odds are you’d cross a few without gettin’ rousted, but if you was to get rousted by a gang we don’t have a peace treaty with…well, you wouldn’t be comin’ back home from your circus.”
“Oh,” Matthew said grimly, still staring at the Pin’s article. “I see.”
“Not worth it, my sayso.” Pie began to clean the ink and blood off the bone needles.
Home? he thought. This was certainly not his home. He didn’t know if he’d ever see New York again, but he had to find out if this was Zed, and if so what had happened to the Nightflyer and Captain Falco.
First, though, there was the task of talking Keen out of attacking the Mohocks tonight. He thought he could at least make a good case, it being that discovering Albion’s identity took precedence for the moment over an attack on make-believe Indians who had gained control of the brothel district. That would keep. He hoped Keen would agree, particularly when he made the suggestion that Keen accompany him tomorrow to hunt out the Fleet Street lair of Lord Puffery.
And that was well worth it, he thought.
His sayso.
Twenty
IT was early afternoon of the following day. Hudson Greathouse leaned closer to Berry and said quietly, “Just continue to eat. Look to neither right nor left, but I want you to know we’ve picked up a tail.”
She restrained herself from swivelling around in her chair to scan the tavern’s occupants. “Where is he?”
“Far left corner, sitting with his back to a wall. Late forties, dark hair with gray on the sides, grizzled-beard, tough-looking but well-dressed for this area.”
“Aren’t you describing yourself?”
“He’s a striking-looking devil, at that. I make two of him in size, though.” The movement of a smile across Hudson’s face was very rapid. He solemnly went on. “Man came in a few minutes ago and situated himself where he could watch us. Every once in awhile his eyes come over this way.”
“You’re sure he’s following us?”
“He was standing at the bar with a second man in the Scarlet Hag. Then I caught a glimpse of him on the street, behind us. He was dawdling in a doorway across from the Leper’s Kiss. Now here. He’s not as good a tail as he believes himself to be.”
“What about the second man?”
“He left the Hag before we did. I haven’t seen him since.”
Berry continued eating her meal of beef-and-kidney pie; there was not much beef, if it really was beef, but there was a plenitude of kidney. They were sitting at a table in the Four Wild Dogs, and Berry did not wish to think that these ingredients were of a canine nature. Hudson had before him a platter of calf brains and cornbread soaked in brown gravy, which he ate with his usual gusto, no matter the less-than-sociable and definitely dingy surroundings.
It seemed that the Whitechapel area was as full of taverns as a porcupine was full of quills, and the majority of them just as painfully nasty. It had be
en soon after their meeting with Gardner Lillehorne that Hudson had knocked on Berry’s door at the Soames Inn and told her he was done waiting for inept London constables to search Whitechapel for Matthew; he was going to the office of the Herrald Agency on Threadneedle Street the next morning to ask help in finding the boy.
At the office Hudson had met an old friend, Sheller Scott, with whom he’d shared many battles against the infamous Molly Redhand. Hudson had explained the situation and learned that at present the agency’s other four problem-solvers were at work outside London and Sheller himself was due in Maidstone on the case of a missing child. Sheller had said he hoped to be back within the week, but he couldn’t say exactly when.
Thus Hudson had presented Berry with the reality that if Matthew was to be found, he was going to have to comb through Whitechapel. Berry had followed this with a suggestion: that he find for her paper, ink and quill and allow her time to sketch a rendition of Matthew’s face so that the tavern keeps, serving-girls and patrons might have a more exact description. And, also, she’d stated that she would not be remaining at the inn while he was out in Whitechapel, and she would be going with him. He had agreed with the drawing part but argued strenuously against her presence in Whitechapel, as he knew that to be a particularly rough area of London and he didn’t want to be responsible for her safety. Strenuous argument or not, her determination had won the day and so it was settled over Hudson’s objections.
Hudson had procured the necessary items, and then came the question of how to depict Matthew. Bearded or clean shaven? They hadn’t asked Lillehorne, but Hudson figured Matthew had had no need of shaving aboard the Wanderer and would not have been afforded a razor or shaved by anyone else at either St. Peter’s Place or in Newgate. So bearded it would be. To err on the side of caution Berry had made a second drawing of a clean shaven Matthew, and so the job was done.
For the past two days they had departed the inn in the cold and drizzly mornings and taken a coach to Whitechapel. The coachman had been given strict instructions and the promise of extra money to meet them at a certain time where they’d been put out, which somewhat limited their range of movements for the day. Hudson had no intention of their being cast adrift in Whitechapel as night came on, and in this foul November weather night came on early. The nearest they’d gotten so far to discovering Matthew’s whereabouts was when a serving-girl yesterday afternoon at the Giddy Pig recognized the name from a story about the Monster of Plymouth in Lord Puffery’s Pin, and she would have shown them the news sheet if it hadn’t been stolen ten minutes after she’d paid a good solid coin for it.