by Lyndsay Faye
“And she is well, this friend of yours?”
When I didn’t answer, a steaming cup of tea appeared in my peripheral vision. I think I thanked her for it. I hope so.
After all Mercy went through last summer, Reverend Underhill’s death and previous to that his descent into madness, I couldn’t be surprised that she felt less than her usual self. She’d survived her own beloved father nearly killing her, after all. And I’d probably have been unhinged at abandoning everything and everyone I knew. She’s always been one of the bravest individuals of my acquaintance, however, and so she’d fulfilled a lifelong dream and simply left us. Abandoned America for the land of her mother’s birth. I don’t think she could stomach the sight of Manhattan anymore. I didn’t blame her for that, didn’t blame her for the sort of courage it took to leave us all behind. Leave me behind. But I felt a frenzied surge of ownership after reading that she was in any way unhappy.
It’s my job to see that doesn’t happen.
“So she is not happy.” Mrs. Boehm leaned with her bony hips pressing against the chair opposite me. “I am sorry. Can you do anything?”
I rose to slide Mercy’s letter into my allotted drawer of the sideboard. Thinking of our breadcrumb-teakettle-washboard trivialities, all the nonsense we’d used to share on a near-to-daily basis. If one person on earth has catalogued the things that lift her spirits, I am that man.
And I can write a letter as well as the next fellow.
“I certainly intend to try,” I answered, passing my fingers over Mrs. Boehm’s hand as I set out for the Tombs.
“How is it can a letter travel across the ocean without an address or stamp?” she called after me.
“Magic,” I answered, donning my coat. “Dark alchemy. Fey spirits. True love. I haven’t the faintest idea.”
• • •
The Tombs loomed above me like castle ramparts rising from the drifts. Feudal, vaguely warlike. Generally a crowd of babbling misfits occupies its front steps—attorneys and bail runners and reporters and street rats, all about their inexplicable business. But the snow had muffled us, gagged the hubbub with a wet white cloth. No one was there. Which made it all the more surprising when I’d reached the entrance and a voice plucked me from the reverie, Are envelopes ever stolen when letters are delivered, and if so, why in hell—
“Mr. Wilde.”
I skidded to a halt. “Mr. Mulqueen. Good morning.”
Sean Mulqueen had last addressed me when I was escorting Mrs. Adams from the Tombs; previous to that, we’d spoken twice. About the pernicious nature of too-tight boots when walking in circles for sixteen hours, when we were first appointed roundsmen. And then about the remarkable nature of the telegraph and when it would be finished and whether it might destroy civilization, et cetera. He’s a County Clare man—of medium height but broad shouldered, ruddy hair cut above his ears, ears tilted backward like a hissing cat’s. He looked plenty pleased about something. I’ve seen butchers mull over slaughtered steers in like fashion.
“I think ye’ll be finding that Chief Matsell wants a private word,” he reported.
“Thank you. Regarding?”
“A source o’ great pride it has been, to watch you rise so quick and easy to the rank of … well, what, in fact, are you?” His lips cracked into a smile. “But that’s all like enough to be over now, more’s the pity. Sometimes fast flames make for spent fuel. I’m sure ye’ll find work elsewhere quick enough, a handsome lad like yourself.”
I took a small moment to stare at him in astonishment. Apparently, the man loathed me. And here it had never occurred to me that other copper stars might envy my tiny office and my lack of rounds.
No response seemed possible. Nodding, I made for Matsell’s office. Strains of Mercy’s letter still floated through my head like the imprint of a midnight waltz the next morning, but now the wracked poetry was mingled with more present concerns. Hall after hall glided past, all unfeeling stone built far too wide and too tall for a man to feel comfortable within. At length, I knocked at a door wearing a huge brass plaque that boomed GEORGE WASHINGTON MATSELL: CHIEF OF NEW YORK CITY POLICE in my face.
“Come in.”
I entered. Cautiously. The chief’s fire blazed recklessly, and I held my hands out toward it. I’m strangely fond of Matsell’s office—the surprising lack of stray paperwork on his desk, his namesake’s portrait, the scandalous reading material that lines his bookshelves. Pamphlets about female reproduction, about capital punishment, about the underworld, about every unfashionable thing. Our chief is an intellectual omnivore. He has a room at City Hall as well, but the Tombs nook is much more like him, the neat rows of scientific journals brightly illuminated by the enormous window. Chief Matsell himself sat at his desk, scribbling entries in his dictionary.
That’s a pet project, but a useful one. It’s a criminal lexicon explaining the vagaries of flash language. The fact that shady glim means dark lantern, and brother of the bung means a brewer of beer, and so forth. He means it for use by green copper stars. The sort likely to meet with a knife in the neck when they first encounter a dead rabbit. Part of me inwardly cringes from the thing. If you could spare yourself the sort of topics Valentine and the rest of the flash speakers palaver over … well, wouldn’t you?
“Mr. Wilde, you are about to explain several things to me. And with complete candor, or you will deeply regret it. Sit down.”
I sat, keeping well mouse. Trying to get ahead of Matsell in a conversation is tantamount to shoving the spike down your own throat to ready yourself for the roasting spit. When his eyes rose, I could see clear as the air between us he was deliberately reading me. Clothing, hands, shoes, face, the whole inventory. The fact that he didn’t bother to hide his scrutiny from someone who’d instantly notice it set my teeth on edge a bit.
“You found the missing painting,” he began. “The copper stars have received a glowing letter of thanks, and doubtless you—and Mr. Jakob Piest, I take it—were rewarded handsomely.”
“It was a very successful enterprise,” I said, already baffled.
“Hm. Possibly you don’t recall that I also asked you to apprehend the criminal responsible.”
That one took me a moment. I hadn’t any lay planned out, and faced the prospect of bluffing my way through a pair of threes. Where the chief is concerned, I’d sooner have stared down a wild boar.
“I do recall,” I owned apologetically, my mind scrambling for a story—any story that made sense, save for the one that had actually happened. “I’d just ask you to ruminate over the sort of folk who might find themselves inside the Millington mansion. People who live fast lives, accumulate secret debts. It might not be a good idea for us to arrest such a fellow. If he was a valuable sort to the Party, and the situation has been handled.”
His eyes raked over me. Ever so marginally fond below the scraping tines. But maybe I was imagining that.
“I’m not going to swallow a word of the shit you just fed me,” he said.
I wouldn’t have either, in fairness. But I’d never lied to Chief Matsell previously. So it had been worth a try.
“Do you see any reason why I should trust you far enough to let you shield a thief, Mr. Wilde?”
“Not any reasons for trusting me that you don’t already know about. Sir,” I added quietly.
The chief knew of which I spoke. He’d seen those nineteen tiny bodies in the woods, and he dragged that anchor about just as I did. He knew what Silkie Marsh was capable of. He knew the evil shape under her creamy skin as precious few of us did. He shared my buried secrets. Another man might have thrown me out on my ear, but Matsell looked as if that option was untenable, and he felt considerably irked by the fact. He glanced up at George Washington as if requesting strength from a deity and then leaned back in his enormous chair.
Well, it has to be enormous, after all. He is the living incarnation of a scholarly bull elephant.
“Fine. Bugger the Millingtons. The second question will b
e considerably worse going,” the chief advised, eyes blazing. “Did you enter a private business last night and physically assault its proprietors, stripping them of their weapons before absconding with their property?”
I’ve been struck by multiple facers in my scant days as a copper star, but that one landed on the jaw. “Not as such—”
“I ask because two entrepreneurs—one whose wrist is very badly broken, by the way—have been to see me early this morning. They imagine that you removed from their possession two runaway slaves, grossly injuring their persons, and they want you sacked.”
“I see,” I replied. It had sounded more eloquent in my head.
“So you’re following me thus far? The scenario sounds familiar?”
“Yes, and I’ll explain, sir, but did they name anyone else they wanted sacked?”
“They did,” he shot back coldly. “Two other copper stars. But I assumed those claims to be preposterous, because I am convinced you acted alone. Shall I look into them further?”
“No! No, I was alone. There was an altercation. I …”
Glad as I was that the deluge was landing on my shoulders, and not Piest’s or Val’s, feeling like a cornered possum isn’t my strong suit. So I decided to grasp the nettle.
“Damn it, are you an abolitionist or not?” I questioned.
His eyes narrowed yet further. “Slavery is a repugnant institution, one that will eat away at this country until it is left a cracked shell.”
My lungs thawed a bit. “Yes, that’s what Valentine says. And I agree.”
“Enough to steal a pair of runaways from their lawful captors?”
“That’s unadulterated hocus. They’re New York citizens, as sure as I am. I was consulted by a family member and by the Committee of Vigilance, who vouched for the captives’ identities.”
Digging a vexed thumb into my opposite palm, I awaited his answer. Chief Matsell merely smiled indulgently. Then his attention wandered. I’d placed my greatcoat and hat on the back of my chair when I entered, and he commenced eyeing my black frock coat appraisingly, as if judging its resale value. I returned his stare, entirely befuddled.
“Might I pour you a drink?”
“If you want one yourself, I can’t say as I’d mind,” I admitted.
Matsell hoisted his leathery bulk and poured two large tumblers of what smelled like New England rum. Then he held a hand out.
“Mr. Wilde, might I examine your jacket?”
“Why would— All right.” I peeled it off my arms. Determined with every ounce of dignity I possessed not to ask Matsell directly why he wanted to study a secondhand swallow-tailed coat.
As it happened, he didn’t want to study it.
Without ceremony—as a matter of fact, without hesitation, without the smallest pause—my chief threw my coat in his fireplace.
For a moment, I gaped at him. Thunderstruck.
“What in Christ’s name do you think you’re doing?” I cried when I found my tongue.
It was ablaze in seconds. Ruined an instant later. More than half ash by the time I’d rounded the desk corner with a vile expression on my face and was halted by an enormous hand against my chest.
“Don’t stop me, fight me,” I snarled, pure instinct having taken over.
“You don’t want me to.” Matsell gripped me by the shirtfront and threw me back three or four staggering feet. As I recovered, ready to fly at him in earnest, he asked placidly, “What was that coat made of? The fabric?”
“What in sodding hell is wrong with you? Cotton,” I growled, again clenching my fists, “and you—”
“I am giving you a taste of what your life will look like after the war against our Southern brothers breaks out.” He seated himself as if nothing had happened. “After we lose. And we may well lose, if a war is fought.”
“You want to make a political point and you’re vandalizing my clothing to do it? Not that I’m surprised,” I sneered. “That’s just the sort of thuggery your precious Party relies on to make arguments.”
“How do you find the rum, Mr. Wilde?”
Matsell reached unflappably for my tumbler.
He flung the glass within the fire in a flaming spurt of orange. That was when the real trouble started. The alcohol’s fumes mingled with the smoking cotton to create a noxious cloud that made me altogether sick in the gut.
Loathing unrestrained fire isn’t something I can help. But God, I wish it were. If I could treat fire as I treat large men like Chief Matsell who know how to kill small men like me, for instance, I’d be well served. If I could walk into infernos in a sort of unholy rapture as Val does in his twisted notion of a lifelong penance, I’d be insane, all too true, but at least I’d be a man about it. The fact I can’t will be a misery that commenced at age ten and will end when I am still and cold and fed to the wildflowers.
In seconds, I found myself gripping the edge of the nearest bookshelf. White-knuckled, bile frothing at the back of my throat, vicious as a rabid dog.
“Touch me and I’ll break one of your fingers,” I coughed as a giant figure cautiously entered my vision.
It didn’t touch me. Matsell strode to the door and flung it open. Smoke rushed out and air flooded in, and I turned to where the bookshelf met the wall and gagged once, quiet as I could.
Air, I thought while sucking it in, and More air, and then, I will mash my chief’s face into a loyal Democratic pudding. A minute passed while I pondered along those lines. But blessedly, as the smoke cleared, rational thought returned. I shifted to see that Matsell had resumed his seat behind the desk. Time appeared to have gotten itself muddled, though, for two rum glasses rested on its surface once more. With a rum bottle between them.
“Sit down,” the chief said.
Not at all gently. Thank heaven for that. If it had been gently, I might yet have laced him down to sinew—or tried, rather. Wearing shirtsleeves and a waistcoat and feeling ridiculous over it, I complied. It wasn’t a sure bet I could stand up much longer.
“You are one of my most valuable copper stars.” The chief pushed the drink toward me with two fingers. It was gone in an eyeblink, and he poured me another. “You are not invaluable, however. Neither am I, come to think of it. But here is my point: ask yourself where cotton comes from. Where rum comes from. Tobacco? What about sugar?”
“From people treated worse than their masters’ dogs,” I rasped out, eliminating my second glass of rum.
“Precisely so. And what about the industries employed to refine and distribute all of these examples? Or the Northern companies that sell mills and engines and ships and weapons and hansoms and liquor back to the South? Who sews with the cotton thread? And who wears the clothing? Have you given any thought to Wall Street, a mile or two away from us, and how they make their living?”
“I was more concerned with saving New Yorkers from a fate worse than death.”
A silence settled over us. At last, I raised my head and breathed a steady, clockwork breath. Strangely, Matsell no longer looked angry with me. And by a second singular blessing, he didn’t seem to be pitying my weakness either. His eyes shone and his broad hands were clasped together. Whatever he was about to tell me, he believed it.
“One day, there will be a war over slavery. I see no route around such an eventuality, though many do, and often propose asinine stratagems to keep peace in place. This heinous struggle over Texas is an excellent example. But when war comes, do you covet my position? Would you like to preside over Manhattan’s lawkeeping when its shipping industry is gutted and its steamers rotting in the harbor, its poor unburied in the streets as they are back in Ireland?”
My kerchief had been in my frock coat, unfortunately. So I pressed my shirt cuff to the edges of my ruined face instead. Pondering.
“If you do,” Matsell concluded, “then you are not the man I thought you were.”
“Are you asking me not to interfere with slave catchers who kidnap New York citizens?”
“I am ask
ing you to cease assaulting Southerners who are doing their jobs. If the press got wind of such, the Party could lose everything, including the police force. Don’t think Mayor Havemeyer is at all fond of us. He isn’t. You need to follow the law.”
“Prigg versus Pennsylvania.” The words were bitter as the smoke I still tasted in the air.
“You insult me, Mr. Wilde. I much prefer our local Albany laws to the horse manure they so constantly churn up in the Capitol.” Matsell’s eyes twinkled. “Of course every alleged runaway has the right to a jury trial in my city. Now. Are we clear?”
“We’re clear,” I said. Looking pretty haggard over it, I’d wager. “But I’m not returning people to the likes of Varker and Coles.”
“I’d imagine those particular people are quite untraceable by this time, already in Canada where they cannot be retrieved.” Matsell shot me a meaningful glare.
“They’re long gone,” I assured him.
“Grand. Go to Eighty-five Bayard Street, if you would, it’s an establishment I know for a fact has been selling liquor without a license for six months, and none of my roundsmen can ever manage to locate their cache.”
Donning my overcoat, I noted in a side-eyed fashion that Matsell was regarding me with a highly satisfied air. That of a man who’d worked through a thorny conundrum.
“Yes?” I said snappishly.
“Nothing. Only I’d wondered just what it took to slow you down, Mr. Wilde. Now I know.” I must have scowled, for an answering smile creased the deep folds of his face. “Please, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for your chief to be apprised about. On your way to Bayard Street, feel free to stop by Chatham with a bit of that reward money and find yourself a new jacket. I haven’t the smallest doubt,” he added with wry but final emphasis, “that it will be made of cotton.”
It took me an hour to find a black secondhand coat with tails of a length that didn’t make me look like a kinchin of twelve or an undertaker, sold to me by a bleary-eyed old Yidisher tailor who likewise lacked stature. The coat, as predicted, was made of cotton. It took me all of half an hour to discover the secret store of liquor in Bayard Street and to write out a ticket. I honestly can’t recall how I went about doing that. The deciding factor had something to do with a neat assembly line of spotless new canning jars, and the sorts of vegetables that actually grow in February.
