No Time Like the Present

by Ellison Blackburn

  Damn him. I haven’t forgotten the bite in his words. He hadn’t said, “It’s been a while” or even “it’s been a long time.” He’d said, “it’s been long enough.” And it hadn’t been “You’re dragging your feet,” but “You have to stop dragging your feet.” It’s pretty clear—he’s on the verge of taking my matters into his own hands. I fully expect him to walk Dr. Ennis straight into my morgue one of these days.

  He wouldn’t be so mean, I console myself. Even Allen had been thrown at the sight of Vale’s lookalike in our living room. My ex-boyfriend—such an inadequate word—was as though Dr. Henry Flynn Ennis reincarnated with a few exceptions, which I’ve already enumerated. How long was I going to be punished for whatever it was I’d done? I wonder.

  To top it off, today was not the day to be thinking about this or him, and still, on my walk, I practice my introduction. It invariably goes beyond “Hello, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” And more like: Look here, Dr. Henry Flynn Ennis, Sir. Three hundred minus a few years from now, I fall in love with your almost double, and he shreds my heart. That will have to suffice for an explanation, so now I ask you to please consider moving back to Boston. If that is beyond the realm of possibility, I request you make gentlemanly accommodations for my sake. For instance, please dye your hair, keep your eyes closed in my presence, make a few adjustments to your carriage, acquire a stutter or an accent, and curb all poetic utterances within my earshot. Thank you.

  Or maybe I could convince Archer it’s a really lousy idea to befriend the doppelgänger alienist? As if to punctuate the relevant points of my argument, there’s a sudden cacophony of bird caws and chirps overhead. I squint up at the blossoming branches of the trees. Oh, you think I should play up the sympathy card? I ask silently. Something along the lines of me blowing my cover were I to meet him, you say?

  I wouldn’t mind if Archer befriended anyone else. Really. Anyone else. I mean, why can’t he? Doesn’t he? He has all the advantages and none of the holdbacks, apart from being himself—in other words, a hulking anti-socialite.

  “Be fair now,” I mutter to myself. I’ll admit, Archer has several challenges of his own to overcome. His intimidating appearance is off-putting, for one thing. Being the chief of police for the district doesn’t exactly inspire friendships either. And though no one would voice it to his face, the fact that his lady friend is a former bawdy-house dancer and courtesan contradicts his own virtue. Simply that he chooses to be with a woman like her casts a pall on his character.

  It makes no difference that he’s not a gentleman, that nothing Kate did in her past was illegal, or that Kathryn Leigh Foster, the actress, is beloved by the whole city. She will forever be socially unacceptable, and by association, society shuns Archer without doing it blatantly. No one is afraid of me overhearing anything insulting, but nothing derogatory would ever reach Archer’s ears.

  I nod absently at a man and a woman walking in the opposite direction. Perhaps, like me, Archer is just plain lonely. “Impossible,” I mutter ponderously, looking down at my shoes. He needs no one and nothing. “Or is it?” I never put much thought into how social we were before we came here. The issue had never come up. Working for the Division was a life-consuming business. The hundred-plus employees practically lived at the facility, and so our society came with the job. The same faces populated every gathering, and every night, we had dinner with our inner circle of friends. There were eight of us—Marlowe, Archer, Quinn, Reid, me, Vale, Allen, and Selene.

  Although we work six days a week now, the stark difference between home- and work-life disconnects us from everyone and everything else outside. This lack of a broader society has taken its toll on most of us in degrees. Allen has managed a shaky foundation with the workmen reconstructing the north side of the house, our two female servants, and the governess next door. Selene has Mr. Chattoway’s and Elvira Granville’s company and circle to entertained her. Archer has Kate. And I have Martin (who knows me as Reid). Quinn is the only one content with solitude—or so he seems to be.

  There’s a presaging hum in the air. And as soon as I round the intersection onto Indiana, the area is suddenly teeming with activity. The atmosphere is cloudier, for one thing. A couple of vendors are smoking nuts while another is cooking meat over a barrel-grill. Carriages and carts of all kinds line the street, several more rattle down the road. And hordes of people, mostly men, make their way to and from wherever it is they’re going.

  I dodge the traffic and glance toward my destination, my eyes drawn to two horses with coats the color of dull silver, their muzzles like burnished steel and hindquarters dappled with white spots. The pair are harnessed in gold gear to an equally stunning curricle of glossy black and gold. Even at a quick glance, I can tell the man in the black top hat, dove-gray coat, and pewter leather driving gloves suits his equipage nobly. He stops just ahead of and across the street from Lucky’s, in front of the haberdashery, and sits there motionless as if he’s just pulled over under a tree in the park.

  Pulling my attention away from him, I catch a strong whiff of raw meat in the air, an all-to-common stench for Chicago, which is well-known for the expansive slaughterhouses on the Southside. The particular pungency of the odor means the source is nearby, however. My stomach roils when I recognize the remains of at least one whole butchered cow and a pig in the open cart ahead. Frantically, I pat my pockets in search of my mint- and lavender-scented handkerchief.

  “If it pleases you, sir,” a pretty young lady says without making eye contact. Now, why should their interruption please or displease me? Is she saying that I should only allow her passage if it brings me a modicum of satisfaction amounting to an actual degree of pleasure? These people make so little sense sometimes.

  She crouches a little, holding fast to a child’s tiny hand. The boy, in turn, clasps the hand of another and he another and he another until finally, another young lady takes up the rear of the chain. The precarious group sways and swells its way across the wide street.

  I bob my head into my napkin and grin unseen at each of the cherubs in their coarse-brown tweed and white-cotton uniforms, black caps, and polished black leather shoes. “Thank you, sir!” one mop-haired tike squeaks jubilantly, looking as though he wouldn’t mind in the least if his arm were to be pulled right out of its socket.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I REMOVE MY hat and cock my head to the side in order to peer through the gold-gilt letter U in “Lucky’s” painted on the glass panel of the tavern’s otherwise shamrock-green door. The glare of the sun on the window and the smoky darkness within the bar splotches my vision with gray circles for a minute. Blinking a few times, I can still only make out a shadowy blob or two near the back, a man at the bar, and the tiny blue flames of the gas sconces, which stand out like distant pinpricks of light engulfed in a dense fog.

  I wish for the hundredth time that Martin would post a “No Smoking” sign in one corner, at the least. But I can almost hear his response. “Now, St. Clair, t’aint like I don’t appreciate the advice, but I’d be out of business ’fore either of us could say, ‘wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute.’”

  Cupping a hand over my brow, I squint and skim the area determinedly from left to right in search of my friend’s distinctive bulk. I couldn’t stop in for a long chat—not today, anyway—but neither could I pass up the chance for a quick, “Hello, how-do?” That would be rude.

  Anyway, I assume the nondescript figures in the back are two of Lucky’s more frequent boozers. The small, round tables seem to be a favorite among the regulars. And though I don’t know them by their full names, I would recognize them if I could tunnel a view through the human chimney smoke. Who else would skulk in the corner imbibing at half-past two in the afternoon if not the ironic chimneysweeps, Eddie and Frank or Lee and Charlie? I’ve already observed that Eddie and Lee or Frankie and Charlie are less likely pairings.

  Apparently, it’s a slow day for Lucky’s. Apart from the pair in the back, there’s just t
he wiry man in the slouchy tan blazer and slacks sitting at the stool midway down the counter. He’s the only one I can see clearly, a representative of your classic mid-afternoon drinker, the kind who wonders why his family, friends, and employer have all forsaken him. His socks are bunched up around pasty ankles, and his well-worn shoes gleam as though recently polished. I assume the slightly mashed hat occupying a seat of its own on the barstool next to him is his. The way both his hands are buried in the mass of dark wavy hair that had been tamed earlier with pomade is telling. And though he’s hunched over a quarter-full pint glass, as he’s able to keep his seat, I surmise he isn’t drunk quite yet. At a second glance, I’d say he’s too young to be so disappointed already. But this is how it starts.

  Finally, a familiar tattooed arm reaches out and swipes a rag across the far end of the walnut bar. The man blocking my view turns toward the bartender and nods, downs the dregs of his drink, and shoves the mug down the counter. Just then, one of the men in the corner man rises from his seat and emerges through the fog.

  Fudge! My mouth dries up, and a shiver creeps up my spine as I throw an unseen Martin an accusatory glare through the ambitious drinker. I was there when he’d told Bert Harris and Reggie Marsh to custom Mad as Hops instead. I was the cause, as a matter of fact, but evidently, Martin had rescinded the ban. Again, I glance at the back table, expecting to decipher the skeletal shape of Bert’s bosom friend still there enjoying his liquid lunch. Though I can’t see Marsh’s expression, let alone the rest of him, a decidedly unpleasant leer plastered across his gray visage comes readily to mind.

  Bert then lurches forward. There can be no mistake, his beady eyes are intent on me. And when he reaches for the door handle, I step backward, colliding into a hard body. The bystander grabs my upper arms to steady me, and I mumble an apology, twisting half-heartedly to release myself from his hold. But before I think to look at his hands, his strong fingers slide up my arms and give my shoulders, or rather my shoulder pads, a squeeze. A kind of triumphant sneer crosses Bert’s face, now only about two feet from my own, and I cringe, wary that my second assailant is Reginald Marsh after all. I sneak a peek past Bert into the glass for a reflection, too scared to budge or take my eyes off Mr. Harris for long.

  Lucky for me, the stranger decides not to say anything about the puny breadth of my shoulders, but to further my dismay, he loosens his hold only for the half-a-second it takes to wrap his fingers around my neck. His grip isn’t tight, but his fingertips press into the side of my throat, the edge of the metal strip of my cravat sharp against my jugular. With his thumb, he then moves the back of my necktie aside and the probes the column of my neck and the divot just where my hair comes to a point at the base of my skull.

  Good God, I’m dead. I silently vow to start carrying a gun if I happen to escape with my life one more time. Of course, I’d have to learn how to shoot one first. It couldn’t be too different from aiming a laser, could it? Guns aren’t smart-guided, though. Right. A sword? No one carries a sword, you idiot. A knife? A knife! I definitely have no problem slicing a person open. I’m fast, agile—qualities that served me well those few months I was alone. Well, almost, seeing as how I barely survived. Fudge. Damn.

  Obviously, I can’t think straight. Only fear can freeze your muscles and turn them to jelly as though simultaneously. Only fear can stutter your thoughts and at once make your mind go loopy over so many useless details. My heart thuds in my chest and willing it to ease up only makes it thump harder and faster. It may have been ten minutes that I’ve stood here like a stunned deer, though it’s likely been less than two altogether. I make a second sad attempt to shrug out of the man’s grasp while watching the shady character in front of me.

  Bert flushes red under his usual unhealthy pallor, making him look mauve. And still, he glares at me. His eyes, strangely empty and at the same time crazed, dart left and right and back again. “Doc,” he says. The curt, disdain-filled salutation hangs in the air as he takes a wheezy pull from a cigarette and flicks the stub into the street in a single practiced gesture before exhaling a faint puff of smoke.

  My eyeballs seem to be all that’s working. I watch him shift a wad of chew wedged along his gums on one side of his mouth to the opposite cheek. A reddish-brown stained tongue sops up the residual spit. He then hooks his thumbs behind the metal clasps of his overalls, sucking in another a wet breath through the blackened teeth at the side of his mouth.

  I actually begin to shake when the tight expression on Bert’s gaunt face slips into a cheerful jeer as he looks over my head. Just then, the second man abruptly releases my neck. I step over in front of the large plate-glass storefront, keeping my eyes on Bert Harris the whole time but almost knocking into the clapboard sign advertising tonight’s entertainment: Jeremiah Combs and The O’Brien Family, again. I try not to think about the fact that the shadow in my peripheral vision has decided to follow my movement.

  I’m simply too afraid to search out “Reg” Marsh’s reflection just yet and, albeit indirectly, make eye contact with him. He’s by far the scarier of the two, and my brain is still buzzing and my body numb. Instead, my eyes flit over Bert’s dirty, paint-splattered face, neck, dungarees, and hands. Then it occurs to me that if the other man is Reggie Marsh, he would have said something utterly offensive by now. That man’s vileness penetrates more than skin deep, and no amount of soap could wash that mouth clean. Also, Harris and Marsh are both regular imbibers if not full-fledged alcoholics. They both smoke heavily, and both are painters by trade. Yet, I can’t say the noxious mix of alcohol, tobacco, paint, and general filth emanating from Bert is double the strength. There are so many other smells about, though.

  I sniff in deeply and cough, my throat not having quite recovered from the almost-choking I’d just experienced. I catch a faint whiff of shaving cream, leather, and something else in the mix: Sandalwood, and … and some spice. Cardamom? Hm. Either Reginald Marsh had bathed in something other than turpentine, or the man behind me wasn’t him. “Mr. Harris,” I say, not ready to feel relieved, “if you’ll excuse me.”

  “D-doc,” Bert sputters again, slurping in another breath. His eyes flit to a spot on the ground to my right and then back on me.

  He’s anxious … and scared. He continues to ogle me, opening his mouth and closing it. Of me! But why?

  Finally, he says, “No, uh, tha-that ain’t happenin’. ‘Cuz, I’ve a bone tuh pick wit’ yuh.’” He utters the last sentence so fast I can’t make out his meaning right away. Then I recall our last encounter. Both Bert and Reggie had made their escape that day as though the Grim Reaper was following close on their heels. I hadn’t thought to take credit for that minor triumph. I’d only done what any self-respecting, physically weaker person would have done in my shoes. Safely within the boxing ring of Martin’s and Archer’s testosterone by my side at the time, cocksure, I’d called upon the dexterity of the brain between my ears. I grin a crooked grin and am rewarded with a wary glance from Bert.

  There’s a flash of movement behind the glass. Tap, tap, tap. Martin nods at me with a toothy smile while busily drying a tumbler with one corner of his linen smock. I return the smile though less exuberantly and look askance at Bert. Martin’s pleasant expression vanishes when he spots the character by the door. He drops the cup into his pocket and knocks more briskly on the glass this time, but Bert pays him no mind.

  An ounce of relief floods through my veins when my frequent savior hurries to the door. “Everything all right there, St. Clair?” he says, ducking out his mutton-chop-flanked head.

  “Hello, Martin,” I say, glad my voice doesn’t quiver. “Can’t say I’m certain since Mr. Harris seems to be somewhat undecided on that score. I was only coming by to say ‘hello,’ which I have so …” My smile falters, and Martin’s jaw clenches briefly.

  He kicks the door open wider, propping it with his foot. The tattoo of a swallow flying over a ship’s steering wheel on one forearm and an anchor and compass intertwined with
a rope on the other disappear when he crosses his meaty arms over his broad chest. “What’s goin’ on here, Bert?” he demands. “I thought I told you I’d only let you back if you didn’t make trouble. No harassin’ my custom I said, didn’t I? ’Twas somethin’ that escaped your hearin’, were it?”

  Bert doesn’t turn toward Lucky’s burly proprietor. Instead, he expectorates a loogie the color of dried blood near my feet and shifts his gaze to the other man, who I’d all but forgotten. “Eh, fella. I’ll be needin’ uh word wit’ the doc here if’n you wouldna mind.” He scoffs and then suddenly looks uncertain again. “Uh, sir.”

  I finally glance up at the “sir”-deserving man. He’s tall, almost as tall as Archer. He’s well-dressed but not overly so. The jacket appears purple in the distorted reflection, but I suspect it’s actually a much less garish color.

  “Well, …” the stranger draws out in a calm, deep baritone, “it may be a question of whether the good doctor minds, sport. Or Mr. Harris, is it?”

  “Thaz right, an’ who’s askin’?”

  “Me, sport. And I think you’ve had ample opportunity for that word—if indeed you required it, as you say. As it happens, my patience has expired.”

  “What I’ve …”

  “I’ll ask you not to interrupt a gentleman when he’s speaking, Mr. Harris. Now, as I was saying, I’ve been meaning to arrange an introduction with the doctor for some time, you see. It was rather fortuitous I ran into him.” The hard edge to the tone hints that he really doesn’t care if Bert Harris “sees” anything. Then quite suddenly, once again, the man takes the liberty of manhandling me. Cupping my shoulder and spinning me around to face him, he says without further preamble, “Owen Kingsley Carr, Sinclair. A pleasure.”

  My eyes are riveted to his, which are caramel-colored and profusely flecked with gold. As though from a distance, I also note the subtle peculiarly of his speech. The W is practically inaudible, and it’s almost as if there’s a soft J before the S in his annunciation of “Kingsley” and “pleasure.” The voice has me feeling as wobbly as the man himself does, and I’m at a loss to string together a coherent sentence. Just beyond my stupor, I realize he’s shaking my hand, which I don’t remotely remember proffering. His other hand cups my elbow, and I instinctively swing my arm out of his grasp.