Not Quite Dead

by John MacLachlan Gray

  “That is not the case, suh. I am a prisoner as much as you are, though for a completely different purpose.”

  “I assume that I am being held for ransom—but that cannot be the case with yourself, given that you are supposed to have passed away.”

  “I am not a hostage, suh. My situation is worse. I am a slave.”

  “You are writing under duress, sir?”

  “Very much so.”

  “What if you were to refuse?”

  “There is someone dear to me also held hostage for that express purpose, suh. Whether for politics or personal gain—and I am not certain which—these are desperate men, suh, hardened men. Violence is not a horror for them but an expedient.”

  Frightened by the specter of violence, yet relieved at having any sort of empirical explanation for his situation, Dickens rose from his bed, wandered to the other end of the room (conscious of a pair of ancient eyes boring into his back), and offered his hand.

  “Whatever the situation, sir, it is better to have company. I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Poe, even on this occasion.”

  “Would you care for a cigarette?” asked Poe. “It is the one thing we receive in quantity.”

  “I accept with pleasure,” replied Dickens, and Poe handed him a small packet of ten.

  Dickens savored the thick Virginia smoke. “Am I correct in assuming that you are acquainted with a Miss Genoux?”

  “You are indeed, suh. Though acquainted is hardly the correct word. I have never been to France.”

  “Yet you wrote the excellent ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue.’“

  “It was not the French who interested me. It was the orangutan.”

  “So am I correct in thinking that you know nothing of Paris?”

  “Not a bit of it, suh. It is my view that, if you bother to read sufficiently about a place, you will know more than did the inhabitants of the day.”

  “And what of the Irish, Mr. Poe? What do you know of them?”

  Halten sie! It was the voice of the thing by the door. Dickens had not expected it to speak German, but he did not expect it to speak English either.

  “I do beg your pardon, madam,” he replied. “No need to call out the troops.”

  Dickens turned back to his proper place, but was restrained by Poe, who had a grip on his coattail.

  “I dislike repeating myself, suh, but what did you think of it?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir. Think of what?”

  “My tale, suh. ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’“

  “Dear heaven, man, under the circumstances it seems odd that your submission of three years ago should remain uppermost in your mind.”

  “I am a writer, Mr. Dickens. My work is always uppermost in my mind—how it is being received. Is that not how it is with you?”

  “Of course, that is so,” Dickens replied, knowing that it was not always true. As a journalist, he had some time ago ceased to care about his style of writing and speaking. If his style pleased the reader that was all to the good, but it was not as though it would change if not.

  “A writer is grateful for any response, even if it is discourteously late.”

  “You seem adroit in collecting injuries, sir.”

  “Injuries do accumulate, that is true.”

  “Very well,” said Dickens. “In return I should ask for the favor of knowing where I am and what is presently happening to me. Will you agree?”

  “Certainly, suh, though you may be overestimating my grasp of it. Please be frank, and so shall I.”

  “‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ I shall have to think back. It was, after all, three years ago that I read it.”

  “Three years is not the longest time I have had to await a response from an editor. But it is a long time just the same.”

  “I do apologize for my rudeness. Between the fuss made over Dombey and Son, Pictures from Italy, and a bit of European travel, I had a good deal on my plate.”

  “How fortunate for you.”

  Dickens lit another cigarette. Tobacco smoke served as a wonderful stimulant for the memory.

  “‘The Cask of Amontillado.’What a fine piece—what a model of economy and distilled irony. Think of it—a Mason murders a Mason by shrouding him in masonry! Quite stunning, really—and told in less than twenty-five hundred words! Dear God in heaven, were I to undertake such a tale I should have required that number simply to describe the vaults!”

  “That is high praise, sir, and I thank you for it. And yet you saw fit not to publish.”

  “That is true. Unfortunately, it was not for us. I did not make the decision easily. But my colleagues at the Daily News came to the same conclusion.”

  “Might I ask why? Godey’s saw fit to publish, and it was well received here. But then, I suppose you are about to say that the British are more discerning in their taste.”

  “I am about to say nothing of the sort. You art-for-arts-sake people think taste is everything—don’t you see? Your tale was rejected because it contained factual irregularities that might confuse the European reader.”

  “Facts? The tale is a work of fiction, suh. What have facts to do with it?”

  “Mr. Poe, have you ever been to Venice?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Yet your tale takes place at the Portale di Venezia—the Carnival of Venice.”

  “Not so. I indicate nothing of the kind. The tale takes place during carnival season in an unnamed Italian city.”

  “Yes, Mr. Poe, but anyone who has spent a week in Venice will recognize Mr. Fortunato’s costume as originating at the Portale di Venezia. Not to mention the fact that Fortunato is a common Venetian name.”

  “Nonsense. Fortunato is a play on the word Fortune. Surely to God that is obvious, suh. Yet for the sake of argument, I shall give it to you that the tale takes place in Venice. What then?”

  “In the end he bricks Fortunato up in the cellar. I shall never forget the exchange: The amontillado! Yes, yes, the amontillado. What could be more horrifying than having one’s murderer agree with everything one says?”

  “Indeed that is the point, suh, and you explicated it well.”

  “But there is one problem, Mr. Poe: there are no basements in Venice. Venice is below sea level. Do you see? Had your avenger lured Fortunato into his vault, they would both have drowned.”

  Poe lapsed into silence. It was plain to Dickens that he had touched a nerve.

  “It seems to me,” Poe said eventually, “that is the difference between us. A matter of approach. You write about the world, about other people. I write about myself—and I include my dreams. There are drawbacks on both sides, as I have discovered while reading your work.”

  “I don’t quite know what you mean by that,” replied Dickens, and a long silence ensued. Seeing that the conversation had dried for now, the Englishman returned to his rope bed and lit another cigarette.

  Writers are notoriously touchy when you bother them with facts, but they tend to recover quickly.

  “By the by, Mr. Poe, what is it that you are working on at the moment?”

  “David Copperfield,” came the reply.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  * * *

  Philadelphia

  The Texas Paterson he wore beneath his coat had stood by him throughout the war, so that Shadduck now regarded the gun the way another man might his dog or his horse.

  It was not official issue. As far as top brass was concerned, a cavalryman was a dragoon, his conveyance was a hoss, and his primary weapon was a saber, and that was the end of it. Shadduck had bought the percussion revolver from a Texas Ranger, who had seen it to good use in Indian fighting. Unlike every other revolver on the market, the Texas Paterson shot every time.

  A heavy pistol, and with the long barrel to boot, yet it was not at all awkward on the field, worn outside the coat. However, as a concealed weapon for an urban policeman it left much to be desired. Stuffed down the belt of his trousers in its Colt holster, the weapon shifted constantly
. More than once he had had to make furtive shifts in his clothing, in public. At the moment, the Texas Paterson sat across the inside of his thigh, so that its greasy metal surface assumed the heat of his body. He shifted so that it rolled over to the outside leg, and that was more comfortable.

  He was in unfriendly territory. How unfriendly remained to be seen.

  “What is that fecking thing in your trousers, Inspector?” Of course, McMullen had noticed the weapon the moment the inspector entered the room, and could easily have ordered him disarmed, which Shadduck would have taken as a signal to flee the building.

  “An old service weapon, sir. For sentiment more than protection. No offense meant.”

  “None taken. I carries a pocket iron, for the line of the suit. Yours does not show your uniform worth spit. Though I doubt anything would.”

  “I will cogitate on that advice, sir.”

  To Shadduck’s eye even a single-shot pistol seemed redundant in McMullen’s case, for the man seemed more than adequately protected by two muscular young toughs in pot hats and loose-fitting fireman’s jackets, beneath which any number of weapons might be stored, in case their enormous cudgels proved inadequate to the task.

  The meeting took place in Sportsman’s Hall, one of three saloons owned by McMullen, the other two being the Black and Tan and the Fourth Ward.

  Sportsman’s Hall was a three-story affair: The top floor housed a dance floor featuring an orchestra of piano, violin, and cornet and a repertoire of “Green Grow the Lilacs,” “Skip to My Lou,” and “Jimmy Crack Corn;” it was a popular spot for trimmers—thieving whores— to meet their marks. The second story featured an arena in which dog and raccoon fights would occur, as well as bare-knuckle boxing matches for a purse of five dollars. Should there occur a lull in the action, the duty of the waiters was to fight each other.

  The serious drinking occurred on the bottom floor, where customers were regularly drugged and robbed. To ensure a smooth operation McMullen had forged an agreement with the police whereby knocked-out patrons would be brought to a prearranged location, where constables could remove their inert bodies to the precinct house, there to be charged with public intoxication.

  McMullen’s estimable rapport with the city’s law enforcement apparatus was one reason Shadduck had settled on him as a potential associate. Another was that he also served the community as the leader of a gang known as the True Blue Americans—who, as a secondary enterprise, manned the Moyamensing Hose Company. This made McMullen de facto head of the biggest gang in Philadelphia County, and the busiest fire department as well. It was a natural fit, given the Hose Company’s disposition to setting their own fires.

  Shadduck needed troops—and of a higher caliber than he was going to get from the various Philadelphia County police forces. As well, if he was to have a future beyond the coming election, he had best round up a stouter ally than Councilman Grisse.

  In addition to his other services to the community, William McMullen was about to run for election himself for president of the fourth ward, under the banner of the Native American Party.

  Like many men in private business, McMullen had come to see public service as a necessary part of the business climate—thanks to President Jackson.

  In the more than ten years since his presidency the memory of Old Hickory may have faded, but the effects of his reforms had not. In axing state and federal laws, as well as regulations and standards among the professional classes, in thereby ceding power of judgment to the common man, the president had set in motion a process that would be felt for generations, and would prove once and for all how much easier it is to remove laws than to pass them.

  Thanks to Jackson’s reforms, nearly every public office in America was now an elected one. The pathways to power were myriad and open to an extent unprecedented since the Middle Ages; a determined man had but to secure the delivery of a few hundred votes to be on his way to the top.

  According to Jackson, a white man could do anything he set his heart to, if sufficiently inspired. In this he had himself as an example. If Andrew Jackson could become president of the United States, it followed that, if the people elected a man to build a bridge, or play Hamlet, or set a broken bone, and if he set himself seriously about the task, success would be the inevitable result.

  The radical implications were alarming to men who had gone to the trouble of acquiring an education. Yet the sayings of Old Hickory made perfect sense to the common man—and in America, what the people believe is always true.

  William McMullen was one of the first businessmen in Philadelphia to listen beyond the apocalyptic shrieks of the Whigs and to recognize the value of radical democracy to his own interests. With a platform in public office, an enterprising man could whip up for himself one enormous sphere of influence.

  Like so many men with their eye on politics, McMullen had groomed himself to approximate the look of a general in the Mexican War—the drooping mustache, the shoulder-length hair, the goatee trimmed to an inch beneath the lip. A ginger-nut redhead and a former lightweight boxer, he sported an expensive suit and a broken nose. His skin seemed to have been rubbed raw with sand, and his features depicted a jagged, anxious, careworn character. Yet the moment he became interested or incensed, his features took on a youthful, concentrated intensity, and it was said that he could deck a man twice his size with lightning speed.

  McMullen faced Shadduck across the table as though for a game of invisible poker, nursing a glass of what appeared to be whiskey and milk.

  “Cock yez up with it, Inspector,” he said. “And why I should give over good men to some fecky in the ninth in a fecked-up uniform over a fecking blackmail game? Pay the feckers and feck off is what I say.”

  Shadduck paused before responding, though he had anticipated the question and his answer. “I reckon there be mutual interests here, Mr. McMullen, sir. Stability is vital. Public unrest is bad for businesses of all kinds.”

  “You’re the fecking razzer, why come to me about it?”

  “The rascals are Irish, sir. And they’re politicals. I thought this might interest you—in light of your future plans.”

  “Mind yerself, Inspector. I rankle at Irish insults.”

  “As do I, sir. I deplore intolerance of all kinds. But I reckon for a native-born American there is a distinction to be made. There is a difference between native Americans like yourself and the present inflow of Irish republicans. A powerful difference, sir. One you might wish the public to understand—should you proceed with your candidacy.”

  The eyes flashed and Shadduck knew he had scored a point. “My candidacy? Did you get this fack from yer peaches?”

  “A feller needs facts if he is to act in a proper manner. Being a Nativist and not a Whig, you need a firm position on the issue, sir.”

  McMullen had not considered this. He was new to politics. “I’ll go to bail that they are not like us, and they fecking don’t want to be.”

  “Worse, sir—they seek to bring their battles to the New World. They seek unrest and upheaval. They give the Irish a bad name. Or if I may say it man to man, it gives yourself a bad name, Mr. McMullin, sir.

  “It is true if you go to that of it.” McMullen took a thoughtful sip of his milk. “Give it to me again why you are not using your fancy razzers.”

  “Because they have no jurisdiction in Germantown, sir. And as it is a gang we face, I am hoping the presence of a superior force will encourage desertion among the enemy. I am a peace officer, sir, and seek a peaceful resolution wherever possible.”

  Another sip of milk, while McMullen waited for more.

  “And there is the kidnapping victim,” continued the inspector. “It is a prominent gentleman is all I can tell you. If it were known he was taken prisoner by Irish, let alone put off his feet, it would cause … unrest. All in all, best keep it out of the public sector, sir.”

  “Twelve firemen you want?”

  “That would be just adequate, sir. I could do better wit
h sixteen. The site might be well defended.”

  “And what is the advantage to meself ? I know you mentioned it but I have forgotten.”

  “The gratitude of the city, sir. A high position in the sight of respectable men. And a bright future for your own men as well. Should firefighting lose its appeal there is a fine career to be had in the police department.”

  McMullen regarded Shadduck with speculation in his eye. “Inspector, where in the bowels of Christ did you get the nose on you?”

  “Pardon, sir, I don’t get your drift.”

  “Where are you after learning your fecking tacticals?”

  “It was the war, sir. Alliances is everything in a war. With outside powers, and within the army itself.”

  “Particular that last, I imagine.”

  “You are correct, sir. A bad assignment in the field can be a death sentence. A man’s worst enemy can be the first lieutenant of his own regiment. Private excitements blaze even in the heat of battle. Men are shot in the back while not necessarily in retreat.”

  “A frequent occurrence in Philadelphy these days,” said McMullen. “I’ll go to bail that soon there will not be an honorable man in the county who does not have a fecking knife in his back.”

  “We in the police force are in a similar scrape, sir. It is a feller’s duty to make the most of himself. Yet he who seeks his fortune takes on the cares of the world.”

  “Who said that last?”

  “It was my mother, sir.”

  McMullen’s expression softened—as would the face of any American man at the mention of mother—and he extended his hand.

  “Shadduck, you are some can of piss. Should I make the decision to enter public service, I hope I can count on your support.”

  “You will have it, sir. That is for certain.”

  Shadduck felt the barrel of the Texas Paterson against his thigh and it felt a mite silly now. In civilian life, not all power comes from the barrel of a gun.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE