by Gary Jonas
I looked at the bodies stacked along the wall and shook my head. Every one of them belonged to someone who had lived a life filled with hopes, dreams, nightmares, loves, hates. Some were victims; some had good hearts; some mistreated their children. People mourned them. At some point I would be just another corpse, and at my age, that grew more likely every day.
“You all right?” Ralph asked, keeping his voice low.
“Just thinking that each of these people had a story to tell, and now those stories are over.”
“Except for one,” Ralph said, pointing at Henry's body.
“Maybe it would be best if his was over too,” I said.
“You should have waited in the car,” Ralph said.
“Someone needs to keep watch while you work the spell,” I said.
“And I could have had one of my boys do it instead. This is risky business, Jon. We should both be elsewhere.”
I shook my head. “I wanted to be here for this.”
“You're the boss.”
I moved over to the doorway and looked out at where the attendant, clad in a white lab coat, sat down to do paperwork. “The attendant is back,” I said. “Let's keep the noise level down.”
“Right. Here goes nothing.” Ralph waved his hands over Henry's corpse. He focused his magic and worked his binding ritual. He stretched out on the slab beside Henry. “Tightening the reins now,” he whispered. He made a pulling motion.
“Did it work?” I asked, looking back at him.
“Let's find out.”
Ralph sat up.
Henry's body sat up with him.
“Yes,” Ralph said with a smile.
Henry's body started to drop back, which pulled Ralph backward.
“Whoa,” Ralph said. “I need to be careful. The dead weight is awkward here.”
“We don't have a lot of time. Can you control the movement?”
“Working on it.”
“All right, let's walk him out of here. I want him to be in the basement at the temple before his spirit reanimates the body.”
“Any idea when that might happen?”
“Henry would probably choose three days, but it's not really up to him, so it could happen any time from right now until a few days from now.”
“All right, let's see how this goes,” Ralph said as he climbed off the slab. Henry's body also climbed down, but the knees buckled, nearly pulling Ralph over.
Ralph leaned the other way, and Henry's body flopped in that direction. Ralph staggered to the side and tried to right himself.
Ralph managed to get his balance, but Henry's body was noncompliant. “This is harder than it looks,” he said.
“Oh, and you make it look so easy.”
“Very funny.”
I grinned. “Try walking.”
Ralph took a tentative step forward, and when Henry's body followed suit, they both fell to the floor. Henry's head smacked into the drainage pipe, making an awful clang.
“Shit.”
I slipped through the door as the morgue attendant removed his glasses and twisted in his chair to see what was happening.
“Hey,” the attendant said. “You're not supposed to be back here.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I wanted to see my wife. She passed this morning.”
“That's what funeral homes are for. You need to get out of here.”
Another crash in the morgue.
“What the hell is going on in there?”
I shrugged. “Rats fighting over a tasty morsel?”
The attendant moved toward the door, and I stepped up to intercept him.
“Get out of the way, sir.”
I caught him by the shoulders. “You have rats.”
“Of course, but that didn't sound like rats.”
“Big rats.”
“Let go.”
He pulled free right as Henry's naked body smacked into the door and knocked it open. Henry's legs walked with an unnatural gait, and Ralph wove and bobbed beside him to keep the balance. They looked like drunk marionettes dancing on tangled strings. Ralph leaned forward, Henry flopped that way, Ralph leaned back, and so did Henry but in a more exaggerated fashion, arms flailing.
The attendant backed up, eyes wide.
Ralph grabbed Henry's arm and pulled it around his shoulders. Henry's body draped over him, head lolling to the side like a passed-out drunkard.
“I'll catch up to you,” I said and pulled the attendant back a few steps.
Ralph walked Henry down the hall. Henry fell against the wall and started to slip down, but Ralph spun back and caught him. They practically danced like a wrecking ball toward the door at the end of the hallway.
The attendant stared in slack-jawed astonishment.
I slapped him lightly on the cheek. “Hey.” I said. “What's your name?”
“Everett.”
“All right, Everett. You need to sit down.”
“Yes, I do. That was Henry Winslow, the famous stage magician.”
I guided Everett to his chair, but before I sat him down, I pulled his lab coat off. “I need to borrow this. Have a seat.”
Everett sat. He blinked a few times, and his right hand pulled open a drawer revealing a silver whiskey flask.
“Good idea. Have a drink,” I said and left him sitting there.
I walked down the hall carrying that lab coat. When I caught up to Ralph, I said, “Might be a good idea to put this coat on him.”
“I don't think anyone will stop us.”
“Just in case,” I said.
Ralph sighed. “Waste of precious time.”
“The waste of time was having you try that silly spell.”
“I need to work on that one.”
We struggled to get Henry's arms into the sleeves.
“Tie the coat closed,” I said.
Ralph gave me another sigh, but he pulled the coat around to cover Henry's nakedness and tied it shut. Then we each threw one of Henry's arms over our shoulders, keeping the corpse in the center. We walked Henry the rest of the way down the hall and pushed through the door to the main hallway leading to the exit.
A doctor carrying a clipboard glanced over at us as we pushed through.
“Bernie here had an all-nighter,” I said, nodding at Henry while at the same time making a fist with my other hand, thumb out and tipping toward my mouth in the universal signal of hitting the bottle.
The doctor raised an eyebrow, but he flipped the page on his clipboard and moved past us without a comment. Prohibition might be in full swing, but people had their sources for booze.
A well-dressed middle-aged man walked around the corner and headed right for us. We must have looked like an unlikely trio. Two men in suits holding up a barefoot, unconscious doctor in the wee hours of the morning.
The man tipped his hat. “Morning,” he said.
“Morning,” I said, giving him a nod.
The man walked past as if nothing were amiss.
I loved New York.
CHAPTER FIVE
The New York office of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed a man named Lincoln Parker as an agent. I'd watched him accompany Rayna to and from Bellevue, where they checked the morgue for Henry's body only to find it missing, thanks to the antics of Ralph and yours truly. I'd kept my distance until Parker bade her farewell back at the office and went inside to do paperwork.
As soon as Rayna was out of sight, I entered the office and approached him. He sat stroking his mustache, which made me think he must have just overcome a cold and half-expected his nose to leave unwelcome presents for him to clear out. He remained focused on his typing as he wrote out a report.
“Agent Parker?” I said.
He looked up from hunting-and-pecking and gave me a nod. “That's right. Can I help you?”
“We can help each other,” I said and sat down across from him without being asked.
He didn't seem to mind. “How so?”
“You're working
for Rayna Noble.”
“I'm not at liberty to disclose any clients we may or may not be working for.”
“Of course, and you don't accept bribes, and you always turn down reward money.”
“Those are the rules,” he said.
I slid an envelope across the desk to him. “This is not a bribe, nor is it reward money.”
He glanced at the envelope, and the stack of bills impressed him enough that he gave a whistle. “So what is it?”
“I want to hire you, but I want it to be unofficial. Completely off the books.”
He pushed the envelope back to me. “I'm a company man, Mr. . . . ?”
I tucked the envelope into my coat pocket. “In that case, I'd like to talk to you when you're not at work. I'll be at the Landmark Tavern over on Eleventh.”
“You didn't tell me your name.”
“You ought to be a detective,” I said. “Nothing gets past you.” I rose and walked out.
***
The Landmark Tavern opened for business in 1868, and I first went there in 1918 when Henry and I arrived in New York. I liked the atmosphere, and when Prohibition started, Henry cast a spell on the place to make sure the police would never raid it. We liked to drink in peace.
I sat in a booth across from the curved bar and sipped a glass of water. It was still early, and while there were plenty of people at the bar, it wasn't crowded yet. Lincoln Parker entered the tavern and spotted me immediately. He walked over to the booth and sat down.
“Can I buy you a drink?” I asked.
He nodded. “I'm off duty, so yes. Whiskey.”
I caught the attention of the bartender. “Hey, Gannon, two whiskeys when you have a moment.”
Gannon was an Irish teddy bear of a man with a full beard and an infectious smile. “Of course, Jon. Two whiskeys coming right up. That be all for ye?”
“For now.”
I'd been a regular at the Landmark for years, and Gannon always made sure Henry and I had the best service. I suspected he'd overheard Henry say something about making sure the place never got raided, so he probably thought we'd paid off the police to steer clear. Plus we tipped well. Amazing how service improves when people know you appreciate them.
Gannon brought our drinks over. “So sorry to hear about Henry. He was a good lad.”
“Thanks, Gannon. He loved coming here.”
“And we loved having him here. You too, of course.”
“Of course.”
Gannon moved back to the bar, and I pushed my water off to the side and raised my glass of whiskey to Lincoln.
Lincoln clinked glasses then took a sip. As he set his drink down, he said, “So, Jon, would you happen to be friends with Henry Winslow?”
“Indeed I would.”
“And you know Rayna Noble is looking for him?”
“Indeed I do.”
“And you want to hire me for . . . ?”
“Doing your job,” I said. Again, I pulled out the envelope and slid it to him.
He pulled it into his lap and thumbed through the bills. “Off the books.”
“That's right.”
To his credit, he did not pocket the money. He set the envelope on the seat beside him and took another drink. “What does doing my job entail as far as you're concerned, Jon?”
“I want you to help Miss Noble find what she's looking for, of course.”
“You two know each other?”
“I know her but she doesn't know me. I'd like to keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“It's better that way. I'm a Freemason and a member of Alpha et Omega.”
He shook his head. “I don't know what that is.”
“Offshoot of The Golden Dawn.”
Now he nodded. “So secrecy is your thing.”
“You could say that.”
“You're going to have to spell this out for me, Jon. What do you want?”
“I want to arrange for a man named Thaddeus Milton to provide an invitation to Ms. Noble to attend a . . . meeting of sorts at the Thoth Hermes Temple No. 9 here in New York. I'd like you to accompany her to protect her in case certain members don't appreciate her being there.”
“They have something against dames?”
“They love women but they just lost a friend in Henry Winslow, and she's looking for him. They don't know why, so it makes them nervous. Secret societies. You know the drill.”
“But you're not nervous.”
“I'm too old to be nervous. I want you to make sure she gets to and from the temple safely. But as she knows this is a secret society related to The Golden Dawn, she's going to have expectations.”
“You don't say.”
“The truth is that normally, if I want someone to come to the temple, I simply invite them, and they show up.”
“But that won't work here?”
“We need more of a dog-and-pony show for her. She needs to think it costs money to get an invitation and that Thaddeus is breaking protocol. She'll need to think you're on the take too.”
“We don't accept bribes.”
“She doesn't know that.”
“Is this some rich-person game? It seems mighty elaborate.”
I smiled. “Yes, it's something of a game. If it were completely safe, I'd just have Thaddeus approach her at her hotel. But there's a loose cannon in my camp, and I don't want him to overreact.”
“You do realize that there's no such thing as an overreaction. There's simply a reaction.”
“Did you read that in a Pinkerton manual?” I asked.
“More a personal belief. Everyone reacts to things differently. For example, I could react to your offer by throwing your money back in your face.”
“Or you could react by putting it in your pocket,” I said.
“Miss Noble has spunk. She's smart but seems a bit out of place here. I don't want to put her in any danger. She wants me to find Henry Winslow, who happens to be dead.”
“Yes, he does.”
“She thinks he's alive.”
“He's not. We have his body at the temple.”
“The morgue attendant said Winslow got up and walked out on his own two feet. That sounds pretty alive to me.”
I shook my head. “We loaded the body into the back of a car, Agent Parker. The attendant helped.”
“Why would he say the corpse walked?”
I shrugged. “You'd have to ask him that, but I'd put money on him wanting to pull your chain. He’s also a bit of a tippler.”
“Right. So is there anything else?”
“After you take Ms. Noble away from the temple, I want you to wait three days, then get in touch with her and take her back.”
“To the temple?”
“Yes. I want you to take her inside through the south basement entrance and lead her down so she can see the body. Then I want you to take her back to her hotel, accept her payment if she still owes you anything, and I want you to assure her that you appreciate her business.”
“And then?”
“Go back to your life.”
“What's the point of this?”
I finished my whiskey then took a sip of my water.
“The truth?” I asked.
“Please.”
“Ms. Noble is my granddaughter. I haven't been part of her life in many years, but when she was a little girl, she always said she wanted to live a life of adventure. When her mother died, she wouldn't talk to me, so I gave her some space. Her father and I didn't get along, so I wasn't welcome.”
“What did you do?”
“None of your business, Agent Parker. In any case, her father passed away a few months back, and I just want to show her that her life can be filled with mystery and imagination.”
He shook his head. “Rich people.”
“Everyone craves a certain amount of excitement, Agent Parker. Isn't that why you work for Pinkerton?”
“My excitement is real, and I get to help people.”
“This will be real for Rayna, and I hope it will help her to get her mind off her father.”
“I have real cases to handle, Jon.”
“If those cases interfere with the timeline, just let me know. We can reschedule to accommodate you.”
His eyes drifted back to the envelope. It was a lot of money. He slipped it into his jacket. “As long as it doesn't interfere with my real work, I guess it's all right.”
“I'll put you in touch with Thaddeus,” I said. “And thank you.”
“You give me a year's salary, and you're thanking me?” He shook his head. “I think I'll just say, 'you're welcome.'“
“Works for me.” I extended my hand.
He hesitated then slammed the rest of his whiskey, rose, and shook my hand.
“A pleasure,” I said.
“You'd better be on the level,” he said and walked out.
***
Cleopatra's Needle stood strong and stretched toward the sky, as it had done for thousands of years, though it had been on a different continent for a good portion of that time. I sat on a nearby bench and waited for Thaddeus to arrive.
He walked up wearing his usual black trench coat and white gloves. He adjusted his glasses as he stopped and touched his hat as though he needed to assure himself it was still there.
“I do wish you'd have chosen someone else for this, Mr. Easton.” He looked around like a husband worried his jealous wife would see him entering a hotel with another woman.
“You're the right man for the job,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because you're ready to take on more responsibility with Alpha et Omega,” I said.
“Really?”
“Really. Now go over to that bench and wait for Miss Noble to arrive. The Pinkerton detective will bring her to you, and all you need to do is get her to pay a good price for an introduction.”
