POE MUST DIE

by Marc Olden

  Figg frowned. He’d seen Jonathan, but in the dark of night and from a distance, and even then, he had not seen Jonathan’s face. Still, what he’d seen had been a slim, young man who moved quickly and gracefully. Nothing like this Paracelsus.

  Figg said, “Jonathan is a much younger man, Mr. Poe.”

  Poe kept his back to Figg and his arms around Rachel Coltman. “Mr. Figg, did you not yourself tell us that Jonathan was involved with travelling players?”

  “That I did.”

  “So, does it surprise you that his appearance can vary at will?”

  “No, it does not, Mr. Poe. Leastwise since you have pointed it out. And I thank you.” Mr. Dickens was correct. Our little friend in the black clothing has his uses.

  Rachel pushed Poe away from her. “I cannot help you, Eddy. I cannot. I will help neither you nor Mr. Figg to harm Dr. Paracelsus.”

  “Rachel, twice within hours someone has attempted to destroy my mind, to shatter my sanity with illusions.” He opened his hand to show her the cut. “Something designed to make me doubt my reason occurred at the home of Miles Standish. A similar and most cruel occasion was visited upon me last night and as yet I do not know why.” Virginia, my dearest, dearest, do not leave me.

  “Rachel, it is my belief that Paracelsus or Jonathan, wants to harm me in a manner that could be my utter ruin. Can you tell me why?”

  Her hand reached out to touch his cheek. “Oh Eddy, oh darling Eddy. Ask anything of me, but do not ask me to deprive myself of Dr. Paracelsus. I will do all that you say in this matter except betray him.”

  Figg said, “Tell us when Jonathan or Paracelsus contacts you again. Tell us when he asks you to arrange a meetin’ with some of your friends.”

  “A seance,” said Poe. “It is termed a seance, Mr. Figg.”

  Rachel shook her head. “I will not.”

  Poe gripped her hands. “You must!”

  “No!”

  “You are in danger. I swear it!”

  “Eddy, I must leave now. Miles sent a message earlier regarding the ransom and I must meet him to sign papers releasing the money. That is my sole concern at the moment. I am counting on your assistance in recovering the body of my husband.”

  Figg saw Poe nod. Figg himself bowed when Rachel Coltman said, “Mr. Figg, Mr. Bootham,” then left the room, shutting the door behind her.

  Mr. Bootham’s long, loud sigh was the only sound. He cleared his throat. “I, I, is there any assistance I can render, Mr. Figg?”

  Figg kept his eyes on the closed door. “You can forget what you just ‘eard ‘ere today, Mr. Bootham. Your life is forfeit if you don’t. Jonathan would do you as easily as peelin’ a banana.”

  “I understand, sir. You can rely on me. It is all quite upsetting, quite upsetting. I came to this New York as a war correspondent over thirty-five years ago and I cannot get used to its unending violence. This city, dear Jesus this city. It is alive and savage with its mind-boggling extremes of wealth and poverty. It is the largest city in a half-civilized land, a city of widespread crime and heartbreaking destitution and slums more heinous than any found in Europe.”

  The little journalist shook his head. “It is a city of cholera, yellow fever and smallpox, but none of these plagues pose the danger of this man Jonathan.”

  “Paracelsus,” said Poe, walking over to a decanter of brandy.

  When he reached for it, Figg’s hand gripped his wrist. “None a that, squire. I need you.”

  Poe sneered. “I have needs of my own, sir.”

  “Satisfy ’em when our business is concluded.” Figg tightened his grip on Poe’s wrist. Let the poet know early on whose hand was on the whip.

  Poe tried to pull away, but couldn’t. “I come from a fine family, sir and we lived like quality, in quality surroundings, in a quality home. Had you laid hands on me then, I would have had you horsewhipped.”

  Figg jerked, pulling Poe to him. “I was born on straw, Mr. Poe. I ain’t got no ancestral home. A cow ate it. You and me is goin’ to find a place to live, then we are goin’ forth to seek Jonathan. I daresay he will soon be aware that you have been doin’ some thinkin’ on your own, so he might just be seekin’ you out as well. Caution should be the watchword, I would think.”

  Poe pulled and pulled, trying to free himself from Figg’s grip on his wrist. “Sir, you cannot force me to accompany you.”

  Figg smiled, releasing the wrist. “You are correct in that assumption, squire. I cannot force you to walk either behind or in front of me. That is somethin’ you are goin’ to do of your own free will.”

  Poe, rubbing his wrist, shook his head no. The bulldog did not have that power over him. Poe was going to drink until he could not remember anything and the last thing he wanted to do was follow Figg.

  Figg said,’ “I cannot force you to walk, as I said. All I can do is see that you do not walk at all. If you do not come with me, squire, I shall put a ball in your knee and you will not be walkin’ much at all, I’m thinkin’.”

  Poe stopped rubbing his pained wrist.

  Titus Bootham plucked at Figg’s sleeve. “Mr. Figg, you wouldn’t—”

  Figg turned to him and smiled coldly.

  Titus Bootham said, “You would.”

  Figg’s smile broadened.

  Seconds later, the three men left Rachel Coltman’s mansion.

  Five minutes later, a colored servant, bundled against the cold, left the mansion, crossed the street and peered into the stable. After staring at the dead bodies of Isaac Bard and Chopback for a few seconds, the colored servant closed the stable door and hurried through the snow to make his report to Jonathan.

  THIRTEEN

  JONATHAN SAID, “POE is dangerous, yes. I am more aware of this than you are.”

  “Then why do you refuse to have him killed?”

  “Because, my dear Miles Standish, the fact that he punctured your ego is no reason for me to alter my plans.”

  “He did not—”

  Jonathan held up a hand. “Please, please. You are not pleading your case before the usual corrupt and venal New York judge, so spare me your turgid denials. I know what happened today between you and Edgar Allan Poe, I mean in addition to that little tableau we arranged for him. Our “Tomahawk’s made mention of matters you prefer kept secret and he appeared to have poured a pitcher of warm spit over those fantasies in which you imagine yourself to be Rachel Coltman’s lover.”

  “He is an untalented, miserable little blackguard!”

  “Hardly. He happens to be a most capable writer though impoverished, which is more the shame of this nation than it is dear Poe’s. Bad taste is essential in both writer and reader if there is to be any literary success. Americans have always wallowed in bad taste and show no signs of reversing this trend. Unfortunately, Poe does have taste and therein lies his hard life in this hard land. He is a man out of time, out of step, far in advance of any of your colonials putting pen to paper today. I rather enjoy his morbid musings.”

  Miles Standish, determined to have Poe murdered, leaned forward onto the black marble table in Jonathan’s seance room. Standish’s pride was his weak point, thought Jonathan. That and his lust for beautiful women. Because of pride and lust, Miles Standish ended up playing the fool. The lawyer angrily said, “Are you spying on me in my own home? You seem so well informed about my personal affairs. Which of my servants have you bribed? You are so good at that, you know!”

  Jonathan ignored the outburst. Poe is needed. He will help me find the body of Justin Coltman. That is why Poe is alive; that is the sole reason. The reason is functional, it is one of utility, not whim, not weakness. Rachel Coltman has more than a small degree of faith in our Edgar, especially in his ability to survive among the dregs and I refer to Hamlet Sproul, our one and only link to the body of Justin Coltman.

  “Now dear Miles, whether it delights you or not, the lady trusts Poe. She seeks his advice, she believes him to be wise. Oh, I grant you they are not in harmony all of t
he time, but Poe, ever the romantic, ever the swain in waiting, will not desert Mrs. Coltman in her hour of need. He reminds me of what is said about the Germans: they are either at your throat or at your feet. Count on Edgar the lovelorn to stay involved, to resume his role as go-between in the matter of exchanging Justin Coltman, deceased, for hard cash, American. The reason we are tampering with Edgar’s sanity is to make him more of a believer in the spirit world and less of a believer in not paying ransoms. We want him to believe in us, so that he will not attempt to dissuade Mrs. Coltman from unloosening her purse.”

  Miles Standish stroked his thick red beard. “I want him dead.”

  “No. The things he said about you were true. Accept the truth and it will cease to bother you.”

  “You have spies everywhere, not merely in my home and Mrs. Coltman’s. Why can’t you locate Hamlet Sproul without the aid of that detestable rumpot?”

  Jonathan’s mind flashed to Asmodeus, then pushed thoughts of the demon aside. “Because I do not have the time. I need Justin Coltman’s body as soon as possible.”

  “And you cannot achieve the throne without him? You cannot do it alone?”

  “No. Would that I could. Coltman had the necessary books and they are now missing and have been since his death. The combined knowledge in those books will give me what I have sought for years, but only Coltman knows the whereabouts of those books. He made no arrangement with other magicians or sorcerers before he died. Of this, I am certain, I must get Justin Coltman to speak, to tell me what he knows of the throne or where I can obtain those books. Then, I will have it. Then the throne will be mine.” Jonathan’s clenched fists rested on the marble table and he breathed deeply, loudly.

  Miles Standish had a goal, too. He wanted Poe dead. “He can expose all of us. I am talking about Poe. Yes, he exposed me, if you must know. But his very long nose can probe into corners affecting us all and I include you.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “I am saying you are not the only one who will worry. What about the others, those with the fat and ready purses. The monies you receive from these quarters might well evaporate when it is learned that a meddlesome busybody like Poe is applying his bizarre talents to pry into their lives. Men like Volney Gunning and Hugh Larney, to name two, are not disposed to having their connection with you become public knowledge. I tell you that this could well be the result should Poe continue to live.”

  Jonathan’s hands were palms down on the black marble table, his eyes closed. Standish and his asinine pride. Did he wish the world to stop revolving while he exacted his revenge on an impoverished writer whose offense had been to be more attractive to a beautiful widow than a prosperous and pompous attorney? As for Volney Gunning and Hugh Larney, Jonathan admitted they had their uses.

  Gunning and Larney were wealthy men who gave him money or saw that he obtained it in large amounts from their friends and acquaintances. Jonathan needed information on the Throne of Solomon, on the rich and their dead relatives. Meaning he needed spies and spies had to be paid.

  Spies. Servants, maids, friends of friends, thieves who stole purses, wallets, personal papers, artifacts and who broke into safes without leaving a trace of having been there. Lawyers, police, judges, relatives, business associates, doctors and others around the world whom Jonathan enlisted to do his bidding. All had to be paid, resulting in an unending need for money. Bribes, payoffs, expenses; they were all constant. The information thus purchased made Jonathan appear supernatural, powerful, all knowing.

  Being omniscient did not come cheap.

  Jonathan opened his eyes. His voice was hard, different in pitch, a sound minus all warmth. Miles Standish flinched. “This ends the matter, Miles. Poe will live until I feel his living is a detriment to me. As for those who give us money, they receive adequate compensation.”

  Standish knew what that compensation was. Some of the wealthy enjoyed attending seances, while others enjoyed black rites, all of which Jonathan staged for their pleasure. Men like Volney Gunning and Hugh Larney had other preferences; Volney was a homosexual and Hugh Larney prefered to lay with young girls who had not reached the age of consent. Jonathan saw to it that each man satisfied his particular lust in the fashion craved, in a manner giving pleasure beyond anything imaginable. Miles Standish also had cravings.

  The woman that Jonathan called Sarah, dearest God in heaven! Miles’s mouth watered at the thought of her. In bed, she denied him nothing and gave him everything. She submitted, giving her body as demanded, matching Miles’s lust with hers and always at the end, she would surpass him in knowledge of what the body could sexually achieve. But that was at the end. First, she would submit, allowing him to use her. Her triumph, her need for sexual supremacy was not allowed to intrude on his dominance. Miles wanted her now.

  Black magic, fear, lust, murder, money, blackmail. Jonathan binds us to him, thought Miles. And we let him do it. We let him climb to heights of evil over our souls and bodies which we stack ever so neatly for him. He throws us a bone of our choosing and we let him do with us as he wills.

  Miles Standish was a man of position and property in New York and he did not want a failure like Poe shouting his secrets to the four winds. Soon Poe would know all about the other men of position and property who supported Jonathan and that, friends, would be a hive of bees turned loose in a crowded room. To wait until one was up to one’s hips in alligators before draining the swamp was not prudent. Not prudent at all. Poe must die.

  As though reading his mind, Jonathan said, “He lives, Miles. A day, an hour, for as long as it suits me, he lives.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course, Jonathan. As you wish.”

  Later, Jonathan and Sarah stood at the third floor window looking down at the street. They watched Miles Standish’s carriage pull away.

  Sarah took Jonathan’s arm and leaned against his shoulder. “Shall I sleep with him?”

  Jonathan shook his head, letting the curtain fall into place. “That will not cure him of his exalted opinion of himself. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud.’ As true now as it was when first uttered in ancient Greece.”

  She kissed his bare shoulder. “Are you going to destroy Miles Standish?” Her tone was seductive and aimed at Jonathan; the words conveyed no sympathy for the plump, well-groomed lawyer.

  “After.”

  “After what?”

  “After he commits his mistake of hubris. I feel strongly that Miles Standish, unlike his historical predecessor, will soon be speaking for himself and not for the rest of us. After he commits this nonsense—”

  “What nonsense?”

  “Attempting to kill Poe.”

  “You told him Poe was to live.”

  “Miles is alone in his enthusiasm for what passes for his mental processes. I fear he has to learn by direct experience. The newly arrived Mr. Figg is possibly more of a problem than the poet. Come bathe me.”

  FOURTEEN

  POE EYED FlGG with all the hatred he could muster. “I shall see you dead, sir. On my honor, I shall see you dead.”

  Figg held his nose and gently shaved under it with an ivory-handled straight razor, making his voice when he spoke, oddly nasal. “Dear me, I think it’s complainin’.”

  Poe, oversensitive and unstable at the best of times, was ready to scream, to claw a hole in the hotel wall and crawl through. Never had he been so humiliated in his life. “I am walking through that door. You may shoot me if you choose, but I cannot stay in your company any longer, not after what you have done to me.”

  Figg, face half covered with shaving soap, turned to look at him. “Oh you means my tying your wrists together, then stickin’ a towel in yer yap and forcin’ you at the point of a gun to get on the floor and me tyin’ you to the bed and tellin’ you if you woke me up, I was gonna punch a hole in yer skull. Is that what you are referrin’ to, squire?”

  Poe burned with rage.

  Figg said, “Go. Turn the knob and walk. Done h
ad me three-hour rest and I feels shiny as a new penny. Go on, I ain’t gonna put a ball in yer knee. Not now. Ain’t gonna knuckle you either.” Figg grinned, a hideous sight that reminded Poe of gargoyles perched on top of medieval French cathedrals.

  Poe gripped the end of the brass bed. The shame of being tied like a calf on the way to a slaughterhouse. Damn it all to hell! “I shall leave, sir and when I return, I shall not be alone. The police—”

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Figg turned back to the mirror and resumed shaving.

  “Now squire, first let us jaw about the police of this fair city. Mr. Bootham tells me they do not do a good job, that they ain’t the best when it comes to solvin’ crimes or protecting honest citizens like yours truly. Mr. Bootham says the police of New York are corrupt, incompetent and leave much to be desired. Says they get knuckled muchly by your local footpads and thugs, sorry to say. Fact is, your police have such a tough time of it that they no longer wear them nice new shiny uniforms with nice new shiny brass buttons. Tried that a while back and your very own criminal classes thought it was quite comical and they attacked your police. So now, your New York police dress up like you and me so as not to get too heavily damaged and I hear they wears a copper shield so’s somebody will know they are police.”

  Poe, curious as to the direction of Figg’s ramblings, looked into the mirror to see Figg grinning back at him. If only he’d slice his throat, then Poe would grin as well.

  “Oh, I should say that with your reputation as a man known to down a dram or two, it is bloody unlikely that anythin’ you tell a copper, see I know the word, anythin’ you tell a copper will be taken too seriously. It will be your word against mine about what I done and I’m thinkin’ your word ain’t comin’ directly from the New Testament.”

  Poe watched Figg put down the razor, bend over the washbasin and bring large hands cupped with water to his face. “Hot water. The miracle of progress. This here is some palace. Beg pardon. Hotel, you Americans call it. John Jacob Astor’s House, who Mr. Bootham says got too old and sick to walk about, so his servants would toss him up and down in a blanket to get his circulation goin’ Mr. Bootham says John Jacob is dyin’ and when he goes, he will leave behind him some twenty millions of dollars seein’ as how he owns half of Manhattan.”