The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume 1

by Daniel Kraus

  Everything was aswirl. I braced my arms against the bars of the cage. Beyond the cloud of wasps that had taken up residence in my skull I heard the insufferable cretin begin to chuckle.

  “What, you been depending on that or something? Guess you wanted to return the favor, huh? And now I’ve gone and ruined your hopes and dreams. Kind of wish I had shot you, just, you know, so you didn’t look so pitiful. Look at you, kid. You’re white as paste. Looks like you’ve got a hole in your neck. You’re in a cage. And now you don’t even know who to blame for—ah, gee. That’s gotta be rough.”

  It was too much then; it’s nearly too much for me to write about now. Johnny had laid waste to his own life after helping me exact revenge upon a man who’d not even been the one to kill me. Mr. Finch’s lack of vision was far more astonishing, I thought, than anything ever accomplished by Mr. Stick.

  With languorous motions Testa reached into his coat, unsnapped the holster, and removed the revolver.

  “I do have some good news for you, Finch. I don’t know who shot you, but they sure did a lousy job. Unless you got a ventriloquist hiding back there, I can guarantee you that you survived. That’s the good news.”

  He took a backward step equal in length to the space required to lift the revolver to full extension. The hammer pulled back with a soft tick. Farther away I heard the rasp of clothing that indicated the cautionary readying of additional handguns. I gazed into the muzzle of Testa’s gun and let my body go limp like the puppet Testa had suggested I was.

  And then the sadistic bastard returned the hammer to peaceful position.

  The long pink scar served as the extension of his grin.

  “The bad news—and it’s real bad—is that I’m not going to do you any favors. Bottom line is you ran from me. No one does that to Luca Testa. You’re messed up in the head, I can see that, thinking how you’re already dead and whatnot. So what I’m going to do is leave you this way. Crazy as a loon and at the mercy of whatever your boss’s got planned, which from what I can tell ain’t gonna be good.”

  The coat was buttoned around the reholstered gun, sealing away its merciful promise. Testa walked toward his men and I noticed him shudder as if surprised by a wintry gust. This halted him and he gave me a last look from across the tent.

  “I was going to say it was good to see you, Finch. To make sense of that note, see what happened to you, all that. But that ain’t the truth. It wasn’t good to see you. Feels bad in here. Feels like a nightmare. Something’s not right with you and I got no idea what it is, except that I don’t want to spend another goddamned second finding out. I’m on the next train to Chicago. They’re reversing the goddamn river there, you heard that? Worth seeing, I suppose. Some unpleasant shit in that town, for sure, but nothing that feels any worse than this.”

  The soldiers exited first, taking a quick survey of nefarious lurkers.

  Testa spoke his final words without looking back.

  “Have a shit life, Finch. Addio.”

  He needn’t have worried about that.

  XV.

  I BEG YOUR INDULGENCE IN THIS brief detour from our usual lecture series, but I am obligated as a doctor of distinction to tell you of a recent event that has shaken our humble company to its core. It is with heaviest heart, ladies and gentlemen, that I tell you of the fall from grace of the Astonishing Mr. Stick—yes, the very same Mr. Stick whose name is lettered upon the banner under which you entered. Mr. Stick’s tenure at the Pageant of Health was a triumphant one and one in which I took particular satisfaction, as it was I who discovered the young man scrounging a life among the slag heaps of a Tennessean smeltery. I will not name the town, as they do not deserve to be held accountable for this scalawag.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Stick is not who he claimed to be. It devastated me to discover that he is no less than a cutthroat trained to carry out the brutal whims of one of the big-city criminal masterminds about whom we read far too much these days. And this villain most vile had infiltrated my pageant! I wasted not a second impounding Mr. Stick on the premises. Only then did I became aware of an accordant tragedy. This maggot has obscured his past deeds so that the law is powerless to convict.

  “Esteemed friends of mine, that will not do. For years I have protected you and your loved ones by offering rare nostrums at fair prices. I shall not betray that trust now and let this assassin run wild across your own backyards. That is why, on February fourteenth, at first light of dawn, near the village of Janus, Virginia, I shall meet Mr. Stick in a duel of pistols.

  “Please, please! Men, grab hold of your women so they do not faint. I know the duel is a fading tradition, frowned upon by local agencies. But you and I know a deeper truth! There remains, in the small towns of this good nation, an honor that answers not to elected officials but to Gød Himself. And though Mr. Stick is a trained killer, I fear not, for the Holy Light of the Lord on High shall shine upon me and protect me, and we, all of us, will find in Mr. Stick’s just demise peace and glory. The fee to attend, of course, will be nominal—nominal! I remain, as always, your servant, Dr. Whistler.”

  How many times did I endure this magniloquent sermon? How many times did I have to suffer to the fanatic applause that followed? I had nothing else to do during those weeks in which the Barker marshaled his hoopla. That did not mean I was out of the public eye. For ten cents, you could come see this Highly Intelligent Monkey sitting comatose in his cage. And so they did. The public. My people. Acolytes and brimstoners alike, and practically overnight. Even back then, Americans relished nothing more than seeing the meteorically risen fall back down.

  The Barker, whose hatred of me was embedded into his soul as solidly as coal into bedrock, had done what he’d promised, devising a baroque and potentially profitable method of slaughter. But I cared not a whit. I did not intend to raise my pistol in defense. Rather, I intended to be filled with lead, up to and including the brain that the Barker had long avoided penetrating—and that, hoped I, would be the end of me. If not, why, I’d play dead until I was buried.

  Two regrets made misery of my final days in the Pageant of Health. One, that I would have no opportunity to apologize to Johnny for my mishandling of his brotherhood. It tore at my heart, piece of mud that it was, that I had given so little to he who had given so much. Two, that the Barker would likely emerge from our duel a hero. It took balls to enter into any gunfight and his reward would be the reputation of a swashbuckling daredevil. Oh, the villain knew better than anyone how best to engineer my torture!

  ’Twas a select group that rendezvoused at the so-called field of honor the morning before the duel to review the rules. I’d not been out of the cage since Christmas Eve and my legs were like a newborn calf’s; I was carried to the clearing in arms I did not bother to identify. Once in place, Mr. Hobby opened his omnipresent ledger and paged with a gloved hand until he found the relevant notes.

  My, they were dull. He said something about how he himself would inspect the revolvers beforehand. Jibber-jabber, yakety-yak. The Barker and I would stand back to back, walk fifteen paces each, turn about, and on Hobby’s command of “Fire!” draw our weapons. There would be no taking of turns, no limit to the number of shots fired, and neither of us would be allowed to show up with his dong hanging out—well, who knows, I’d stopped listening. Hobby, ever the efficient one, licked his pencil and asked for the Barker to name his second, and when that was done, he waited for me to do likewise.

  But I was off gazing above their hatted heads and past the rising plumes of breath. My companions began bouncing upon their heels, freezing and impatient. They snapped their gloved fingers and demanded again that I name my second. It was an unkind request. They knew that I had no friends. I shrugged, feeling rather low, when I heard a soft baritone over my right shoulder say, to my surprise, “I will be his second.”

  The voice came from the man supporting my weight, the same who’d carried
me from my cage. I twisted my neck and identified him as one of the Soothing Foursome. He, too, shivered, but remained tranquil of expression, as was hallmark for his brethren. Along the underside of his chin I saw a pinkness of wound and surmised that this was the same colored who’d been bloodied during Sheriff Nelson’s raid. I’d never thanked this fellow and now I owed him doubly, but when I parted my dry lips, I remembered the truthful taunt of the jailbird John Quincy. Still I did not know this man’s name.

  I nodded my assent. Hobby sighed in relief, snapped shut his ledger, and everyone made haste to return to their trays of sausage and tins of coffee. This Negro, my pledged second, carried me back to my cage. I climbed in and by the time I’d turned around he was gone and Hobby stood there instead, sifting through his keys. When he’d isolated the proper one, he secured my lock and took a step back. He did not leave right away. He breathed steam and pulled at his mustache.

  At length he chose to speak.

  “Your numbers, sir.” He indicated his ledger. “They were exemplary.”

  This greatest of all compliments voiced, he exhaled mightily and took his leave. I was alone. This is not to say paying customers did not file in once an hour to get a last look at the man in the once-pretty suit who would take on the dapper doctor come morn, for they most certainly did. But I paid them no mind. I closed my dry eyes and held the Excelsior to my cheek and pretended the tick, tick, tick was the beating heart of Wilma Sue lying next to me in that cold little room on the second floor of Patterson’s Inn.

  XVI.

  WHEN THE LIGHT FROM OUTSIDE the tent brightened from gray to pearl, they came. Mr. Hobby was the only figure of note; the others were shiftless, nameless young men, cracking their knuckles as if expecting the thrashing of a man being lugged to the gallows. I wished to disavow them of this belief; I nodded good morning to all as Hobby unlocked my cage. Upon the dirt my legs felt more or less solid. Hobby offered me my walking stick but I declined. I shook the straw from my hat and was optimistic. This exit from Earth would be cleaner than my previous one.

  It was difficult to stifle awe upon seeing the size of the crowd at our field of honor. They looked to me like a herd of leering inbreds, spread across both sides of the field as if for a game of football, jostling for position despite the dampening drizzle. I kept my eyes on my boots as they squished through the black mud that one day ago had been windblown dirt.

  When we reached the center of the field there were four other sets of boots I did not care to identify, save for one that I knew by heart. These boots belonged to Mr. Hobby and they tapped at the mud with even more impatience than was typical. There was a delay of some sort and he muttered about it. Were not the nerves of the participants already stretched thin, asked he? Not to mention the rain, which might unload in buckets at any moment? Why, he had a mind to take the bull by the horns and call the whole thing off. It took me minutes to realize that the tardy character was the Barker himself.

  The rain went from faltering to resolute. I heard the popping of dozens of umbrellas but kept my eyes on the gray water that streamed from my chin. Then a shout cut through both the rain and the dissatisfied murmurs of the crowd.

  “Here! I am here!”

  Even I could not resist. I turned to look, as did every man, woman, and child in attendance. Of course it was the Barker making his grand entrance. It was dramatic if unorthodox. His appearance upon the field of honor did not take the shape of a stalwart stride but rather a lean, lurch, and limp. He doubled down on his handsomely tormented grimace.

  In place of his right boot were wrappings of gauze. Hurrying after him was none other than Professor Bach, toting a satchel that I knew from experience to contain medical supplies. Bach caught up to the Barker and offered an elbow, but the Barker flung it aside and charged onward. The crowd gasped in unison.

  The Barker reached our circle out of breath and shuddering with cold. His face was as pale as mine and he ground his teeth as if fighting off pain.

  “Forgive my lack of punctuality.”

  Professor Bach arrived soaked and panting.

  “He cannot duel. He has been shot in the foot.”

  We all looked down at the foot in question. Shot before entering into a duel? It was preposterous. The bandages, however, were wet enough that we could discern the outline of the naked foot beneath, trace the sizable gouge carved just down from the littlest toe, see the blood welling thick before the rain turned it pink.

  Mr. Hobby was aghast.

  “How?”

  The Barker lifted his chin. “A thief.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to understand.” Bach pointed at the injury. “You can see his foot plain as day.”

  Hobby wiped his wearied face with the crook of his arm.

  “Please, sir, tell me how this happened.”

  Bach waved away the request. “There’s no time for that.” He unbuckled his satchel. I expected him to withdraw additional gauze, a tourniquet, painkiller mixed on-site in his favorite tub. Instead he removed a bullhorn. A bullhorn—it was the only thing in the satchel. He indicated the huge crowd on both sides of them. “Them. That’s who you need to tell.”

  For an instant Professor Bach’s eyes met mine.

  He blinked and all at once I knew.

  It was a lie.

  Before I could determine the exact breadth of the deception playing out before me, the Barker snatched the bullhorn from Bach, planted his wounded foot bravely into a puddle, and pressed his mouth to the apparatus.

  “Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen, all! Your attention, please! Thank you for your patience this morning. I know it has been a trying one. It has been trying for me as well. Not one hour ago, I, Dr. Whistler, A.M., M.D., of the University of the City of New York, was ambushed in my private quarters by a common hoodlum and shot.”

  Cries! Moans! Sputters of disbelief! Not because a man they admired had been injured—do not give them so much credit. It was that they had traveled so far to see the spilling of blood.

  “Please! I beg your attention! This thief, no doubt, sought to take advantage of this important event. He knew that our Pageant would be well stocked with fantastic and rare product, knew that our coffers would be filled for making change. It is my suspicion that had he succeeded in dispatching me, he would have come after you good people next, your wallets or your lives, for he was a savage, unclean and ruthless, without compunction when it came to killing.”

  The truth: there was no thief.

  “Though unarmed and outsized, I fought this man. How we raged about my quarters! He may have been fueled by the need of the desperate, but I was fueled by a mightier power! The men with whom I work are as close as family and I protect my family as you protect yours. So I beat this thief back, I did, though before he fled he was able to get off a single shot and with that shot took off much of my foot.”

  The truth: the shot was self-inflicted.

  “Ladies, gather yourselves! Gentlemen, listen to what I have to say! This morning we gather beneath stormy skies bound to one another by honor! You have honored us by coming from far and wide. We honor you by carrying through what we have promised. But this contest is not about me! I am merely a stand-in for any of you who would doubtlessly take my place! With our Extract of Viper, Rival to Startling Infection—available for purchase today—I shall be back to my regular exercise regimen in seven days’ time. In the meantime, as I so often say, the show must go on. I must hand over this morning’s duties to my sworn second.”

  The truth: his second had always been the man I was going to face.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, our gentle dentist, Pullman Larry.”

  I found the raucous applause that followed rather unseemly. Yet clap and stomp and whistle these people did, as the Barker dropped the bullhorn into the mud and collapsed (convenient timing, no?) into the ar
ms of Professor Bach. Pullman Larry stepped up and his mustache elongated in a lackadaisical grin as he tipped his shark-toothed hat to the crowd. The dentist—or, more to the point, the sharpshooter, though the Barker had omitted that bit of his biography—had been standing beside me the whole while, waiting to play his part.

  Professor Bach bent down to pick up the bullhorn and satchel. From his new position slung upon the chemist’s back, the Barker opened his eyes. His green eyes shone with more cunning than one should possess while losing precious lifeblood. Weak and wet though the plotter was, he took a moment to bask in the extravaganza he’d produced. To Pullman Larry he issued a final charge.

  “Fill his brain with bullets.”

  Pullman adjusted his gold-mounted .44 cufflinks and flicked the rain from the frills of his leather coat. His easy grin was his only reply.

  A thundercrack shot from the black sky. Children cried out.

  Mr. Hobby, sensing time was of the essence, took both myself and Pullman Larry by the arms and brought us back to back. So quickly it happened that I caught but a glimpse of Professor Bach hustling the Barker from the field. Something cold was in my hand. It was a revolver. I lifted it.

  Hobby pushed my hand back down.

  “No.” He had to shout it, for the rain had become a downpour and splattered to the mud with such force that it sounded as if the crowd itself had decided to open fire. “Fifteen paces. Fifteen paces. At my word. Then you turn, face each other. You lift your guns and fire at my word. At my word. You each have six bullets. Six. Understand?”

  Lightning split the sky over the Boardwalk of Chance. For a moment the rain was caught in the air, a million silver daggers. Against my neck I felt the scrape of a shark’s tooth as Pullman Larry nodded. It was all I could do not to lift the gun again to re-establish its reality. I wondered if Pullman Larry was using his personal pistol equipped with the golden forceps. After I was shot down, perhaps he would kneel in the mud and as a finale pluck me toothless.