POE MUST DIE

by Marc Olden

  Figg threw the empty pistol at Rosehearty, then ran towards Stubbs, following the sounds coming from the albino. Behind Figg, Rosehearty crouched, turning his body to protect the lantern, catching the tossed pistol on his right forearm.

  “You cannot limp faster than I can run! I shall have you, Figg! I shall!”

  Figg, still holding his drenched coat, reached Stubbs who lay on his back, pale, ugly face contorted with pain as he pressed down hard with blood covered hands on the hole in his left thigh. When he saw Figg, he raised himself to his elbows, eyes searching the darkness for his quarterstaff. “Kill you, you bloomin’—”

  Figg kicked him in the face, snapping Stubbs’s head violently to the right. Bleed and die, mate.

  The staff. Figg must have it. Where the bloody hell is it? Damn the rain.

  Figg saw it. Long, dark, lying half in moonlight and half in shadow. He limped towards it, widening his eyes to clear them of falling rain. Behind him, Figg heard Rosehearty splashing across the grass with long, loping strides, moving with remarkable swiftness for such a tall man. The staff was in Figg’s hand and his back was to Rosehearty who saw an easy kill and continued charging. The boxer”s back and kidneys would bleed as well as his throat, so place the blade where he cannot see it and do as Jonathan ordered.

  Figg, eyes on the ground, saw the yellow pool of light grow larger around him as Rosehearty drew closer, saw his own shadow lengthen, saw Rosehearty’s long shadow grow longer, longer. … The rain-soaked boxer waited, his back still to Rosehearty, still keeping the lantern’s deadly light directly from his eyes, still on one knee as though tired, fumbling, indecisive.

  His eyes never left the ground, never left Rosehearty’s growing shadow.

  Then he heard Rosehearty, heard the hissing noise as the assassin breathed through tightly clenched teeth, saw the killer’s shadow almost on him and that’s when Figg, back still to Rosehearty, savagely drove the end of the quarterst off into the pit of Rosehearty’s stomach.

  All of the breath left the tall man in one long, harsh sigh. His eyes bulged and the pressure against his stomach was massive, destructive, and Rosehearty doubled over, his tall beaver hat tumbling from his long, gray head. Figg scampered to his feet and was merciless; in his large hands, the quarterstaff was a blur, a seven foot length of oak wielded with swift and vicious skill. He thought of his own dead, of what would happen to Dickens’ children if Rosehearty were to live. For Will, for Althea.

  Figg used both ends of the quarterstaff to kill Rosehearty.

  A powerful blow broke the tall man’s left wrist, sending his lamp to the rain-soaked ground. A second blow crushed his right kneecap. Rosehearty’s scream echoed in the rainy night as the agony raced up the right side of his body. And as Rosehearty fell towards the ground, his arm and leg on fire with pain, Figg delivered the third blow with his full strength behind it, crushing Rosehearty’s left temple, instantly killing him and driving the tall man into the wet grass with sickening speed.

  Figg never again looked at Rosehearty. He knew the man was dead.

  Stubbs, face knotted with pain, looked up at the lantern and small sword in Figg’s hands. “Kill me, you bastard and be done with it.”

  Figg listened to the rain, eyes narrowed and on the albino. “Some words with you first.”

  “First? What the bleedin’ ’ell is first? You plan to do me, so do me. You will be gettin’ no words from me.” Stubbs closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, hands pressing hard on his thigh wound.

  Figg, down on one knee, held the lantern close to Stubbs’s face. “I shall kill you, this is a fact and I shall not deceive you on that score. But I can kill you quickly or I can make a right bloody mess of it. You do not have much time in which to consider.”

  Stubbs frowned. Beads of rain clung to his unshaven chin and darkened his clothing. “Dyin’ or dyin’. What kind of choice is that?”

  “Not much. I do not mean for you to have much choice Stubbs, and you try my patience. You came for my life and now I mean to have yours.”

  “I gots a woman, you know. And kids.”

  “You are scum, Stubbs. They will be right pleased to be quits of you. Jonathan sent you to do me. Why?”

  “Scairt of you. Never says so but we know he is. Says you are a primitive and terrible force.” The albino used blood covered fingers to squeeze rain from his eyes.

  Figg frowned. Jonathan afraid of him? “Well paid were you?” he asked.

  “A guinea each.”

  Figg snorted. “Not very dear, am I.” Money you will spend in hell, he thought.

  Stubbs licked rainwater from his lips and tried to sit up. “You are cursed. Jonathan has a spell on you.”

  For the first time that night, Figg felt the cold. “Curse?”

  “We saw him. A nail in your footprint. He had us follow you, then Timothy Buck he runs to get Jonathan and he brings him to one of your footprints and Jonathan he drives a nail in it, a nail what comes from a coffin. And he curses you that you be harmed until he pulls the nail from the footprint.” Stubbs stiffened with pain, falling backwards into a greasy puddle.

  “Why is Jonathan goin’ to New York?”

  Stubbs’s lips were pressed tightly together against pain and his eyes were closed and he did not see the quick movement as Figg flicked his wrist and slashed the albino’s cheek.

  Stubbs squealed, flopping to his right, both hands on the right side of his face. Blood trickled through his fingers to mingle with the falling rain on the backs of his hands.

  “I said to you Stubbs that you are lackin’ in time. Answer me.”

  “The bleedin’ bloody throne, he wants. Solomon’s Throne.” Stubbs clutched his cheek and moaned.

  Solomon’s Throne. Justin Coltman and Jonathan now gone to New York in pursuit of it. As Mr. Dickens figured. Find Justin Coltman and you find Jonathan.

  Stubbs pleaded for his life. “Ain’t never done nothin’ to you Figg, afore tonight. Let me live. I promise you I shall never go on the hunt for you again.”

  “I think this is correct, Stubbs. You will never hunt me again.”

  Figg drove the point of the small sword deep into Stubbs’s left side, piercing his heart and the albino sighed, his eyes turning up in his head.

  Figg remained in the park for a further fifteen minutes. He carried Rosehearty’s body to a nearby lake, placing it in a rowboat which he then pushed out into the dark, chopping waters. Returning to the scene of the killings, he picked up Stubbs’s body and carried it several yards to the zoo, where he threw it into a pile of straw near the elephants’ cages. One-eyed Timothy Buck, the smallest was last; his would be the longest trip.

  After retrieving his belt dagger, Figg put on his rain-soaked coat and top hat, slung Timothy Buck over his shoulder and walked deeper into the deserted park. Minutes later, Buck’s corpse was shoved under a band shell in Queen Mary’s Gardens. The discovery of three bodies in separate locations would draw less attention than three ‘bodies lying side by side in this park once used by King Henry VIII as a private hunting forest. Little fuss would be made over this trio, Figg knew; they were of the underworld, where a man easily made enemies. Furthermore, the Peelers, the police, would be delighted to have three such vermin removed from this life.

  At home, Figg cleaned himself in a hot tub then sipped mulled wine in front of his fireplace, his mind on what he must do. In the morning he sent a note to Mr. Charles Dickens, once more thanking him for his kind help and informing him that the three uninvited guests of last night would not be returning.

  Three days later Figg was in a closet-sized cabin on the Cunard steamer Britannia using his fingers to gently feed bits of food from his uneaten plate to a thin, gray and white cat smuggled aboard ship under Figg’s coat. He watched carefully as the cat leaned its head to the right and chewed.

  And when the cat did not die Figg himself ate of the plate, for as he now stalked Jonathan, Jonathan also stalked him and the life of a cat was a small price to pay
for caution.

  Josiah Rusher corked the bottle. Mr. Figg had swallowed three cups of coffee and brandy, which appeared to have had no more effect on him than a kiss from a gentle breeze. Josiah said, “Mr. Poe is a most accomplished scholar. He speaks French, Latin, Greek, Spanish and Italian and he is a master of—”

  “Sippin’ the juice, I suspects.”

  Figg bit off a piece of stale bread. At the moment, he would settle for a few words in English from little Mr. Poe, never mind all that other posh talk.

  “Does not Mr. Poe have a home of his own or is it always more convenient for him to lay his head in dark corners?”

  Josiah Rusher said, “He has a small cottage in the country, away from the city. It is in Fordham. He is hard put to meet the yearly rent, I am sorry to say.”

  “Which is what amount?”

  “One hundred dollars.”

  “What is that in English money?”

  “Twenty pounds, five dollars to the pound. You will find it to your advantage, Mr. Figg, you being newly arrived to our shores, that we here in America still use English currency to some degree. Pounds, shillings, pence. We continue to traffic in them, though I must warn you there is still some ill-feeling against the English people because of the war of eighteen and twelve.”

  Figg’s soft voice was slightly amused. “Dear me. Now I will be unable to get me beauty sleep what with this mighty problem weighin’ me down.”

  “I did not mean sir, that you, that… I mean the war was almost forty years ago but people have not forgotten.”

  Figg nodded. “A war can stay on the brain, it can.” He thought of Althea and Will.

  From a desk near the front door, Figg looked through a huge plate glass window out onto the snow covered street and watched an old, bearded man wrapped in faded blankets stand on tiptoe to put out the flames in nearby gaslights. A cold dawn had streaked the sky a soft blue, gold and gray. A handful of men began arriving at the paper, bearded men bundled in layers of clothing, almost all chewing tobacco and spitting the juice in the general direction of spittoons and not caring if it landed inside or out. The huge ground floor was filled with desks and cubicles, most of which were empty and few of which were located anywhere near the now cold potbellied stoves. You could freeze meat in here, thought Figg and the brain of a man as well.

  Later today he would pay a visit to Phineas Taylor Barnum’s American Museum to seek out members of Jonathan’s acting troup. Meanwhile, he would sit and stare at the snow until Mr. Poe rose to greet the dawn. From then on, like it or not, the little man with the large forehead and brown hair, who lay wrapped in his own shabby black cloak downstairs, would belong to Pierce James Figg, who by God, would use him for as long as it suited Figg.

  “Josiah, you odious wastrel! Tend the flames before we pull the ice from our beards and stab you in the eyes with it!”

  The copyboy flinched, yelling back at the voice. “Yes sir. Right quickly, sir.” He smiled weakly at Figg. “Part of my job, sir. Tend the stoves, clean them, see that there is enough wood.”

  “I have your assurance you will keep watch on our friend below?”

  “Indeed sir. As a matter of fact, the wood is stored there so I shall have to watch him, won’t I?”

  “Seems as much.”

  Figg opened his pocket watch. Almost seven in the morning. Could use a lay down himself, Figg could, but leave us first have a nice little heart to heart with that dainty rum pot downstairs. Speaks all of them languages, does he?

  Two minutes after leaving Figg, Josiah Rusher returned with a pained look on his face.

  “Mr. Figg, sir, I—”

  The boxer was on his feet. He knew.

  “Gone.”

  “Yes. There is another door, one used for deliveries and—”

  Figg, carpetbag in hand, pushed the boy out of his way and ran towards the stairs, his stocky body waddling side to side. He had not the time for whys and wherefores. That little bastard Poe had moved his arse elsewhere, just when Figg had business with him. Damn his eyes!

  Figg disappeared through the door leading to the storeroom and Josiah Rusher shook his head in relief at still being alive.

  FIVE

  POE SAID, “THEN I take it you do not regard the ransom as excessive?”

  “No, Eddy, I do not. I want my husband with me and I shall bear any cost of bringing that about. Any cost. I am a wealthy woman and would gladly give much more than one hundred thousand dollars to have him—”

  Fighting tears, Rachel covered her eyes with a slim hand containing her wedding ring, a thick gold band studded with tiny blue-gray pearls. Poe, who stood looking down at her, waited. In control of herself once more, Rachel looked up at him with violet eyes shimmering behind tears and Poe, who found her one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, knew he was falling in love with her again. He also sensed that Rachel was hiding something important from him, something involving her dead husband.

  “Eddy, please regard this matter with much urgency. I must have him back. I beg you tell them that I accede to all demands.”

  “As you wish. I am to place a coded message in the Evening Mirror if you agree to their terms. We shall then have to wait until they contact us in the same manner.”

  “Wait?” Rachel frowned.

  “To be told place and date of the next meeting and I would assume there will be even further delay, for it will be no simple matter to arrange the actual exchange of money for the body of your husband. Those who have him are hardened and suspicious men to whom life is cheap. They are on guard against treachery.” Poe did not tell her about seeing her husband’s disembodied head which had caused him to drink and pass out. Nor did he tell her of the resurrectionists’ deadly promise: Betray us in this matter, dainty poet and we will kill you and sell your remains to a medical school. Be told, poet.

  Poe warmed his cold fingers by bringing them up to his mouth and blowing on them. On the way here from the Evening Mirror, Poe had cleaned his face and hands with snow, combing his brown hair with his fingers. Yes, the cold snow had been brutal on his body, which had endured more than enough pain and discomfort in its thirty-nine years on earth, but he was a man who prided himself on a neat appearance. And at the front door of the white marble mansion where Rachel lived on Fifth Avenue, Poe had presented his card to the servant, a card made by himself for he couldn’t afford to have them printed. The card was black bordered and read simply Edgar A. Poe, and because Poe had only a few of them, he would have to ask Rachel to return it before he left.

  Yes he was poor. He had gone hungry to feed his wife, to give her medicines and still she had died and there would be no forgiving God for having taken away dearest Virginia, dearest Sissy. To be appreciated you must be read and in his lifetime, Poe had not been read, let us be most precise about that. His poems, his criticism, his short stories, his journalistic endeavors all drew a response best described as negligible. Oh, there was praise but a stomach cannot fill itself on that; hosannas from Irving, Longfellow, Hawthorne and Dickens put neither logs on the fire nor tea in the cup.

  Yes he was poor and he lived in fear of debtors’ prison. He’d received as little as $4.94 for a piece of written work and been excessively grateful, for at the time it had been the difference between hunger and survival. Never had he earned more than $800 in a year and even that glorious occasion had occured only twice in his life. Twice in thirty-nine years. He was poor, and therefore limited in everything he wanted to do.

  Poverty, rejection. Defeat breeding defeat and always there was his pride, a most fierce pride. Many called him egomaniac, for had he not said that he could not conceive of any being superior to himself and did he not believe this to be so even now? Poe didn’t regard this observation as mere authorial vanity, for his power to create had been proven by the criticism, poems and short works flowing from his pen in fifteen hour working days, works which had not been equalled or excelled in this most ignorant land.

  America the abomina
ble, rich in stupidity and ruled by the tyrant called Mob. American democracy, “The most odious and unsupportable despotism … upon the face of the earth.” What can one say of a nation whose national anthem is the same tune as the English drinking song “Anacreon in Heaven.” Poe firmly believed that there was neither education nor culture in America. Here all think for themselves and they cannot think.

  And Poe had told them so. Told them of their ignorance and in turn, they called him “Tomahawk,” the man who cuts his rivals to shreds with his bitter pen. A destructive man you are, Eddy. Yes, but only to the aspirations of those untalented and pretentious dolts, who with the intelligence of a squash, reach for heights forever beyond them.

  Then you are an honest man, Eddy. Yes, and I have paid dearly for being so. Aristotle, I beg you to say of me as you said of yourself—I think I have sufficient witness that I speak the truth, namely, my poverty.

  Rachel stood up, turning her back to him and drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders. The shawl was lavender, as was her gown and satin high-heeled shoes, shoes which a servant cleaned daily with white wine and a piece of muslin. She was an inch taller than Poe, with long hair that held all of the brown and gold of autumn, hair combining fire and sun and reaching to her waist. Poe, with his tremendous capacity for happiness and unhappiness, had met and loved Rachel a year ago and she had given him both. At that time she was alone, waiting for her husband to return from somewhere in the world and Poe’s wife was just recently beneath the earth and he needed to love again.

  Their love had not been of the flesh, for Rachel’s attachment to her husband had been firm, deep, unyielding. So Poe, who worshipped beauty, had worshipped Rachel for it eased the hurt of losing Virginia.

  He had fame and was imaginative and because women had warned Rachel against him (“morbid, dangerous, a drunkard, bitter”), Rachel had found him attractive, as did other women. They delighted in each other and Poe had drunk deep of her beauty and lived on hope, that agony of desire.