“What’s the problem?” Arthur asked, then corrected himself. “How much?”
Thomas raised his hands and patted the air as though he was tamping something. “Slow down,” he said. “Slow way down.”
Arthur kept his eyes on his brother.
“A family problem,” Thomas said. “It would be a lot of money. In the hundreds.” He added, “Maybe.”
Arthur shrugged. “Can’t say till I know what you’re talking about.”
Thomas leaned forward. “It’s my father-in-law. C.D. He has a big grocery store down on King Street.”
“And?” Arthur said.
“I need someone to take care of him,” said Thomas. He took out the flask again, eyes fixed on Arthur. He swallowed and screwed the top back on. “Easiest thing in the world. He lives at the Waverly Hotel, other end of King. He walks home along that street every night. Someone waits in the alley, steps out onto the sidewalk, pops him off, and steps back into the alley. No risk at all.”
“Then what happens?” Arthur said.
“He’s a rich man,” Thomas said. “His wife died last year. Katie’s an only child, she’ll get everything.”
“Who you think would take care of him?” Arthur asked, though he knew.
“You,” Thomas said.
Arthur shook his head. “I got no need to do this.” He didn’t want to get tangled up in his brother’s messes.
“The money.” Thomas tapped his forefinger in the air as though he were tapping it against Arthur’s chest. “You’ll get a share. A big one.”
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
“You’re lucky I’m giving you a chance,” Thomas told him. “I could ask anyone to do this. They’d jump at it.” He watched his brother. “It’ll be simple. Wait in the alley, step out of the dark, raise your pistol.” Thomas snapped his fingers. “Goodbye.” He closed his hand, rolled it over, and opened it wide. “You’re gone, vanished. No one even knows you were in town.”
Arthur shook his head. “I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do,” Thomas said. “Yes, you do. The money.”
Arthur looked at him, considering. He always carried a pistol, he had one right now in his jacket pocket.
“No one would think it was you,” Thomas said. “That’s why it’s such a good plan. You have no connection to him. He’s rich! He gives Katie jewelry. Gold bracelets. Diamond earrings. All the time.”
Arthur thought about it. “Then what happens?”
“Then I take care of Katie,” Thomas said. “That will be easy, too. I’ll just drop something in her tea.”
“They’ll suspect you.”
Thomas shook his head. “She’s always ailing,” he said. “Headaches, this and that. I know what to use. No one will know.”
The lamp lit Arthur’s pale forehead and bony nose, his red mouth in the black tangle of his beard. Thomas’s long face was in shadow, but his eyes gleamed. Thomas wanted something: this was familiar to Arthur. He felt he should say no, but he wasn’t sure why.
Outside a cat gave a high squalling sound, ready to fight.
“How would I know it was him?” Arthur asked.
“Go in to his shop,” Thomas said. “He’s always there. Tall and stout, going bald. Reddish hair. Ask someone.”
“What if someone’s with him?” he asked. “When I step out?”
“Do it the next night.”
“What if he goes home a different way?”
“There is no different way,” said Thomas. “His shop and the hotel are both on King Street. Only one way to go.”
Arthur said nothing.
After a moment Thomas’s face changed.
“You want the money or not?” He leaned back, his eyes on Arthur. “I’m giving you a chance. I don’t have to. I can do it myself. I’m giving you an opportunity.”
Arthur looked down at his hands. He turned them over, considering. He didn’t trust his brother. He looked up.
“What will you do with the money?”
“I have a girl,” said Thomas. “I’ll go away with her.”
“Who is she?”
“A friend of Katie’s,” Thomas said. “She lives with us.”
“In your house?” Arthur asked.
“Most of the time,” Thomas said. “She has her own room up on the top floor. Stays with us.” He was bragging. He wanted Arthur to understand the arrangement. How powerful he was.
But Arthur was thinking of something else. The bedsprings creaked as Arthur breathed, considering. Outside, the cat gave his low dangerous squall. He was joined by another, their voices in dire harmony.
“I’ll have a look,” Arthur said. “See how the land lies. I’ll let you know.”
He wanted to learn more about Thomas.
* * *
THE NEXT AFTERNOON Arthur stood near the livery stable on Rutledge Avenue. An old groundnut woman was on the corner, her baskets spread out around her. He bought peanuts in a twist of paper, and carried them back to eat them as he watched his brother’s house. On the short side of the house was the office door, opening onto the street. At the end of the house was a fence that ran along the sidewalk. A gate led into the garden and on to the front door, which was on the long side of the house. On that side was a two-storied piazza, with an outside staircase. Arthur watched the house as he fished the boiled peanuts out of the paper twist with his index fingers. A colored woman went into the office door and came out. Three white men went in and came out. When Thomas came out, carrying his doctor’s bag, Arthur ducked his head and turned his back. When he heard his brother pass him on the other side of the street he turned and followed him at a distance, as he went on his rounds.
After dark, Arthur came back alone. Standing on the sidewalk, he put one hand on the iron fence and swung himself into the yard. He went quietly up the outside staircase to the second floor, where he raised a big window. He slipped inside, into the hall. He stood listening to the clinking of dishes, silverware, voices. Supper. If he was seen, he was here on a visit. He was family.
He went quietly up to the next floor. He peered through the doorway into a child’s room, then his brother’s and Katie’s, dark wallpaper, heavy curtains, a double bed with a massive headboard. Next to it was a small dressing room, with a single bed and an armoire. He went up to the next floor. Only one room seemed occupied: another big bed, a bureau. A folded shawl on the dresser. A pair of women’s shoes under a chair.
He went back down to Thomas and Katie’s room. The only light came from the moon. Against the wall stood a dressing table with a tall mirror, a woman’s brush and comb set. Arthur opened the drawers and felt the contents: odds and ends, ribbons, nothing. On top of the table was a small chest. He opened it and felt inside the compartment. He felt hard, heavy, worked shapes: jewelry. Pins and brooches, bangles. A thick coin. He scooped it all up and put it in his pockets.
He moved faster now. On the ground-floor piazza he stopped to listen. A small wind shifting branches, distant hoofbeats. A dog somewhere. He put his hand on the fence and swung himself back over it.
* * *
THREE DAYS LATER Arthur rang the bell at the office. Thomas opened the door a crack. When he saw his brother he frowned.
“You shouldn’t come here,” Thomas said.
“No one saw.” Arthur walked past his brother to the table in the middle of the room. “I have something for you.” He took out the mass of jewelry and dropped it. It was a mess, the diamond earrings tangled in the gold chain, the brooch caught in the bracelets. The five-dollar coin rolled, wavering, toward the edge of the desk. Thomas smacked it flat with his hand and looked up.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Something you might want.”
Thomas stared at him. “Where did you get this?” Katie had been wild when she saw she’d been robbed. He’d called the police that same morning, and they’d sent a Detective McManus over to investigate. Thomas hadn’t liked him a bit.
“Found it,” Arthur said.
“What are you up to?” asked Thomas.
Arthur shook his head.
“Stay out of my house,” Thomas said. “I already called the police.”
“You got it back,” Arthur said. “You can uncall them.”
There was a pause. Thomas stared at him.
“When are you going to do it?” Thomas asked.
“Working up to it,” Arthur said. “Seeing how the land lies.” He dusted his hands together over the little mound of jewelry. “There, you got it all. I’ll be on my way.”
“You need to get onto this,” Thomas said. “You can’t wait on it.”
Arthur smiled at his brother.
The groundnut woman was still there, her baskets close around her. Arthur set off toward his boarding house. If Thomas told the police he had the jewelry, he’d have to tell them how he’d gotten it back, and he’d be implicated.
Now Arthur had some power over Thomas. Thomas thought he was so smart, but Arthur was smarter. And he had another plan.
* * *
TWO NIGHTS LATER Arthur went over the fence again, up the outside staircase. He slipped inside and listened. There were voices in the dining room: Thomas and Katie at supper. And another woman’s voice: Thomas’s girl, Julia. The two women talked to each other. Occasionally Thomas spoke, his lower voice an interruption.
On the third floor Arthur headed for the back bedroom. Moonlight came in from the window at the end of the hall. He was like a hunting dog on the scent. He could sense the prey nearby, poised, plump, helpless.
He slipped inside Julia’s room. There was the bed against the wall, a chair heaped with clothes, a bureau, a lamp on the wall. A mirror over the bureau gave back a moving shadow: his own dark-fringed face and gleaming eyes. He opened his hand to touch the things on the bureau top, just feeling them lightly under his fingers. A brush, a comb, a little cut-glass jar. He crossed the room and lay down on the floor and rolled under the bed.
He slid all the way in and settled onto his back. He lay still, waiting. He scratched his jaw, then yawned. That dog was barking somewhere. On his lower gum was a canker sore, he explored it with his tongue. Around him the nighttime settled. He was going to get back at Thomas.
He thought of the time Thomas took him snake hunting. They had pistols and went out across the fields. It was early spring; Thomas said the snakes were slow at this time of year, easy to kill. Arthur hated snakes. A black band of terror folded tight around his chest at the sight of one. He didn’t want to go looking for them but he didn’t dare tell Thomas that. They walked around, kicking over rocks, prying up logs. His heart thundering.
When he saw one, a big black one lying along a crevice in the rock, his heart slammed against his chest. He fired at it twice, and a bullet ricocheted off the rock and his ear suddenly blazed with heat. He nearly screamed; blood dripped down the side of his head. Thomas laughed and laughed, holding his arms tight across his belly. There was no snake, it was a shadow.
After medical school Thomas taught in Tennessee, but he had to leave over a shooting. The sheriff came to their house, asking for him, but their father shook his head and said he didn’t know where Thomas was.
The floorboards were hard against Arthur’s pelvis, his shoulder blades, the back of his skull. He wanted to know if Thomas was telling the truth about Julia. He’d seen her. She was small and slight, energetic, with dark hair and square shoulders. Prettier than Katie.
He wondered how long they’d be, and if he might go to sleep by accident. He probed with his tongue at the canker. His pistol bit into his hip, and he moved. He hadn’t realized Ahrens’s market was so big. The old man was rich, Thomas was right. Thomas would be rich.
Voices, then footsteps coming upstairs. Arthur stilled. The door opened and she came in: the sudden glow of the lamp. Her feet, back and forth. The whisper of cloth. A dress was laid across a chair, and the weight of its folds pulled it sideways. It began to slide off, was caught, laid back. The shoes came off, the feet stripped of stockings. The feet were pale and bare. She came toward the bed; the feet vanished and the springs creaked. He felt her weight above him. She was waiting. She lay stretched out, restive. Arthur timed his breaths to match hers so she wouldn’t hear him. He was lying just inches beneath her. They lay expectantly, one above the other.
Finally another set of footsteps, slower and heavier. The door opened and Thomas came in.
“I’ve been waiting,” said Julia.
“Well, I’m here.” Thomas’s voice was thick with drink.
“You took a long time,” said Julia. “Katie keep you?”
“I couldn’t come until she was asleep,” said Thomas.
The bed creaked as he sat. He undid something. Arthur smelled the sharp vinegar smell of his bare feet. He took something off, then there was a great rustling of covers and creaking of springs.
“I don’t like this,” said Julia.
“Like what?” Thomas said.
“Sneaking around,” said Julia. “Waiting for Katie to go to sleep.”
“Won’t be for long,” said Thomas. “We’ll get married.”
“You say that,” said Julia.
“It’s true,” said Thomas.
“When?” asked Julia. “How are you going to marry me?”
“Going to get rid of Katie and her father, then I’ll marry you. We’ll be rich and we’ll go away.”
After a moment Julia said, “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to get rid of them both,” said Thomas. “It’s you I want. I never wanted to marry Katie.”
“So why did you?”
The bed creaked. “Financial considerations.”
Julia gave a low helpless laugh. “Stop that,” she said. “Stop. What do you mean, get rid of her?”
“Get rid of her and her father. Him first, so she’ll inherit. Then her, so I’ll inherit.”
“Gladys would inherit,” said Julia. “Stop it!”
“I’m Gladys’s father,” said Thomas. “I’ll inherit, too.”
“Wait,” Julia said, turning serious. “Get rid of her?”
Thomas said nothing. There was a long pause.
“That’s risky,” said Julia. “Very risky.”
“It’s not,” said Thomas. “No one will suspect. I have a plan that will keep me completely clean. And what will happen to Katie, no one will ever know.”
After a pause there was more shifting and rustling. The bed began creaking, a quickening rhythm of breaths and sighs, thudding springs, rising in velocity. Then Thomas grunted twice, heavily, and everything stopped. The bed creaked again as they moved apart. They said a few words, Arthur couldn’t catch them. They lay silent. After a while the bed creaked again and Thomas’s feet thudded onto the floor. His breathing was heavy. Alcohol spread through the air. He went out and closed the door behind him.
Arthur breathed with Julia. The slanted patch of moonlight moved slowly across the floor. Finally a light grumbling sound: Julia was snoring. He counted to a hundred, then slid slowly sideways. He crept across the room, crouching. By the door he straightened. His knee cracked, and Julia’s breathing stopped. He stayed motionless. When the grumbling began again Arthur slipped through the door. He slid open the hall window, the night air flooded around him. He stepped outside and lowered the sash.
Now he’d got him. Thomas.
26.
February 15, 1889. Charleston
ARTHUR WOKE EARLY. The room smelled of mildew. From where he was in bed he could see a segment of sky: it was oyster-colored, overcast. He tested the canker sore with his tongue. It was exquisitely tender, a small star of pain, irresistible. Thomas had once held him underwater in the pond. He’d clawed at his brother’s slippery white arms, yellow mud rising around him in dense clouds.
He sat up and set his feet on the cold floorboards.
He had never trusted Thomas. He knew Thomas hadn’t bought that big house with what he got from his practice. His patients were poor, and his house
calls were on back streets in shabby neighborhoods. He wasn’t making money that way. And he was up to something: those white men who went in together to his office weren’t patients. Thomas had married money. He’d gotten the house from his father-in-law. And he was up to something.
Arthur picked up his pants from the chair. Thomas’s plan meant for Arthur to take the risk while Thomas got the money. No reason in the world why he should do this. He had no intention of shooting Ahrens. He was smarter than Thomas, though Thomas didn’t know it. He was already ahead of Thomas with the matter of the jewelry. Now, if Thomas admitted to having it, he’d have to explain that he’d gotten it from Arthur. And if Arthur were charged with the crime, he’d say he gave the jewelry back.
Now he’d use Thomas’s plan against him. He’d go himself to Ahrens and tell him he had information that he’d provide in exchange for compensation. That was the word he’d use. Ahrens should pay a lot for this: Arthur would be saving his life. He felt generous. He felt exultant and powerful.
Arthur pulled on his pants, balancing on one bare foot, then the other. Old man Ahrens should be grateful. Arthur pulled the suspender straps over his shoulders and stuffed his shirt below his waistband. He was ready to go into the world. He put on his jacket and patted the pocket heavy with the pistol. He could feel himself heating up, expanding into the landscape. He had power. He was saving the man’s life.
C. D. Ahrens Groceries Ltd. was large and bustling, with three wide aisles and a counter at the back. It was a merchandising company, not just a shop. Arthur left a note for Ahrens with the men at the counter, saying he’d call at the Waverly Hotel at five. He said he wanted to give Ahrens some useful information. He signed it “Arthur McDow. Bro. of Thos. Doctor.”
The note reached Ahrens in his office. He sat behind his wide desk, a big bluff good-natured man with pink skin and pale eyelashes, big dark freckles on his balding pate. He didn’t like anything about the note: the clumsy handwriting, poor grammar, misspellings, the vaguely threatening tone, the family connection. He didn’t want to meet this man alone. He called the police department and asked for the man who investigated Katie’s robbery.
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