Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet

by H. P. Wood

  “Busy day,” says the driver by way of apology. “It’s madness out there. Horses are exhausted.”

  Spencer grimaces. “What are automobiles for if not you boys?”

  “Tell it to the mayor.” The driver shrugs. He takes Maggie’s body anyway, checks a box marked suicide, and makes Zeph sign the form.

  Rosalind returns from the sideshow, still in his double-sex costume, to find that he has walked out of one nightmare and into another. “What happened?” he asks, not certain he wants to know.

  “That gal Maggie, the one with Bernard the other night? She was here.” Zeph sighs. “And now she’s gone.” He hooks the handle of the bucket over his shoulder and heads inside for more water.

  “She was ill,” Kitty explains. “And a bit mad, I think? And…at least she isn’t suffering anymore.”

  “Poor thing. What a terrible day. I saw a man arrested for coughing.”

  Kitty turns her bucket upside down and watches as the water carries a bit more of Maggie away. “My mother had a cough too.”

  “My dear…” Rosalind pats her shoulder. “You came to Magruder’s looking for a safe place. I’m sorry it isn’t working out that way.”

  They go inside, where Zeph has climbed up to a small sink behind the bar, and Archie helps him refill his bucket. “Zeph, Archie,” Rosalind says, “we need to talk about what happened at my—who’s this?”

  “Afternoon, Rosalind,” Archie says. “The chap at the table is Spencer Reynolds. You recognize him from the society pages of course.”

  “Charmed, Mr. Reynolds,” Rosalind says, offering his gloved hand.

  Spencer nods uncertainly. He had started to stand when Rosalind first walked in, but then started to sit when he saw the male half. Now he hovers uncomfortably somewhere in between. Finally, he shrugs and shakes Rosalind’s hand. “This is my friend, Miss Nazan Celik.”

  Rosalind joins them at their table. “Miss Celik, pleasure to meet you.”

  “Ahh…” Nazan’s eyes go wide at Rosalind’s costume, but she smiles. “Pleasure to meet you too.”

  “You’re just in time, Ros,” Archie says. “Archduke Reynolds here was just about to tell us what in the blazes is going on in this town. Not that we don’t have a fair idea at this point.”

  “I’ll say it again, sir,” Spencer protests. “I have no idea what—”

  “Please don’t,” says Rosalind. “Some hooded thugs just pulled a customer out of my audience and drove off with him.”

  Spencer looks down at his hands. “I see.”

  Archie pulls out a chair and joins them at the table. “So, martial law it is, then. But why?”

  “Spencer, do you know something about this?” Nazan asks.

  “I’m not… It’s not for public…” Spencer sighs. “Oh, to the devil with it. There’s this…informal sort of…I don’t know, consortium, I guess. Hotel owners, restauranteurs—”

  “And daddies,” Archie adds.

  Spencer rolls his eyes. “And yes, my father. They all look out for one another, you know. Common interests. Those men in the hoods were hired a couple of days ago. Apparently, they specialize in solving certain…ah, problems. So.” Spencer glances around the room, hoping everyone will let him leave it at that. But he gets only blank stares. “All right, fine. It’s plague.”

  “There’s clearly a plague,” Archie says, irritated. “We’ve spent an hour washing it off the sidewalk! What we’re—”

  “No, you old fool. It’s the plague.”

  “But, Spencer,” Nazan says. “Plague as in…what, the Black Death?”

  Kitty thinks of her mother and gasps. She leans on the bar as the floor seems to shift under her feet.

  But Rosalind shakes his head. “That’s absurd.”

  “No, sir—uh, ma’am. It’s true.”

  Archie frowns. “You’re telling us the bubonic plague is in Coney Island. You realize how ridiculous you—”

  “Not bubonic,” Spencer says. “That’s the bad news.”

  At the bar, Zeph glances at Kitty, who is pale and getting paler. “Well, not bubonic sounds like good news?”

  “No, it isn’t. My father is in communication with the public health department. Apparently, the illness begins like bubonic plague, with these black lumps on the skin. They’re called buboes. That’s why it’s called bubonic—”

  “Yes, yes,” Archie interrupts impatiently. “We just saw that too clearly.”

  “But it doesn’t stay that way. This form spreads very quickly in the body. The doctors call it pneumonic plague, ‘of the lungs.’ All it takes to spread is a cough.”

  “A cough…” repeats Kitty very quietly.

  “Correct. There were only a few cases the first day, but it multiplied by a factor of ten the very next day, and again the next.”

  “I don’t understand,” Rosalind says. “Plague is from the Middle Ages.”

  “I’m afraid not. They had it in San Francisco just a few years ago. It’s been in Honolulu, in Europe—Lisbon, I believe. Now—”

  “Forget Europe,” Archie interrupts. “Let’s address the real issue: Do I have it or not?”

  Rosalind rolls his eyes in disgust. “Archie, really!”

  “What? We all drank with that girl the other night. We had a front-row seat to her attempted murder-suicide. It’s a reasonable question!”

  “Archie, it’s a terrible, selfish—” Rosalind stops. “Okay. Yes.” He looks at Spencer. “So?”

  Spencer shrugs. “I’m not a physician. Did she cough on you?”

  “Ah…” Rosalind looks around. No one is certain. “Not sure. I don’t think so?”

  “Then you’re probably fine. Or”—he turns pointedly to Archie—“I’m wrong, and you’ll be dead by Wednesday.”

  Zeph sees Kitty start to wilt. He’d like to take her hand, but the gesture seems too forward.

  “How does it travel?” Nazan asks. “Just by coughing?”

  Spencer shakes his head. “The going theory is that plague is spread by rats.”

  “Rats,” Zeph says. “Well now. Remember what Whitey told us about the street cleaning the other day?”

  “But it may not be rats at all,” Spencer says. “There’s another theory. Not proven, mind you. But it could be the fleas on the rats.”

  “Fleas,” Zeph repeats. He and Rosalind exchange worried looks. Uh-oh.

  “So how did these little bastards get here?” Archie asks. “By ship? From Lisbon, I suppose?”

  Kitty looks up. “It wasn’t Lisbon, was it, Mr. Reynolds?”

  Spencer turns to her, surprised. “No, it wasn’t, as a matter of fact. The prime suspect is a ship from—”

  “South Africa.”

  “Oh, Kitty…” Rosalind goes to her. “Sweet girl…”

  As he doesn’t understand Rosalind’s words, Spencer opts to ignore them. “The ship had been in Calcutta first. They think that’s where the illness came from.”

  “But, Spencer,” Nazan says, “don’t they screen passengers for this sort of thing?”

  “Only steerage. But there could have been rats in the hold, or there—”

  Zeph interrupts him. “Wait, what was that, now?”

  “Yeah, back up there, Viceroy,” Archie agrees. “What was that about steerage?”

  Spencer gazes at them. Do they really not know? “Only steerage passengers receive intensive health screenings, obviously.” He glances around the room, and it’s clear this information is far from obvious. “But surely… I mean… It’s been that way since…I don’t even know, really. That’s how it’s done.”

  Nazan turns to Kitty. “Miss Hayward, when you arrived, were you given a medical screening?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “No one asked… I don’t know… ‘Have you been exposed to yellow fever?’ Or…
”

  Zeph jumps in. “‘Did you vacation in a leper colony?’”

  “‘What’s that seeping boil on your neck?’” Archie volunteers.

  Kitty has had enough. “I don’t see why you’re all picking on me. It’s not my fault no one asked!”

  “Shh, pet,” Rosalind says. “No one’s picking on you.”

  But Nazan, Zeph, and Archie glance at each other with matching raised eyebrows. “What about you, missy?” Archie asks Nazan.

  “I was born here,” she replies. “But when my father and uncles came over, the authorities practically took their organs out and washed them. Of course, that was steerage.” She turns to Spencer in amazement. “They don’t screen rich people.”

  “Why would they?” Zeph asks. “Rich folks don’t get plague.” A lifetime of acid is packed into those five words.

  Archie snorts. “The leisure class is in for quite a surprise.”

  Kitty rears up in self-defense, but her voice is shaky. “That is my mum you’re talking about! We didn’t make your policy, you know! I wish they had screened her. Maybe I wouldn’t be here listening to your rubbish now!”

  “Pardon me, Miss Hayward,” Spencer says. “What does your mother have to do with—”

  “The missing mummy,” Archie snarls. “The one we asked you for help with earlier. Which you refused, by the way!”

  Spencer sits forward. “I’ve had about enough of your tone, sir. I’m trying to help—I’m helping you right now, in fact! I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this!”

  “Spencer,” Nazan says soothingly. “We’re just trying to understand. Why the secrecy? Shouldn’t we tell everyone, so people can take precautions?”

  Spencer takes a deep breath and exhales. “We can’t. It’s…it’s complicated.”

  But Archie laughs. “Why the secrecy? Why the strange disappearances? Why keep millions of New Yorkers in ignorance, at the risk of their lives? Hmm, I wonder.” He eyes Spencer coolly. “Do you care to explain reality to your friend here? Or shall I?”

  Spencer just glares.

  “I’ll take that as a no. Miss, I can answer your questions with two words: tourist season.”

  “No, it can’t be that.” She turns to Spencer. “Surely, there must be more to it.”

  But he deflates, rubbing his forehead with his hands.

  “Oh, Spencer. No.”

  “Oh, Spencer, yes,” Archie says. “We must keep those hotels filled, miss! Keep those dance halls crowded, keep that Shoot the Chute flying down the track. And if you develop a slight cough, if your complexion goes a bit lumpy? The men in masks will scoop you up and take you—say, where are they taking them all, anyway?”

  Spencer shakes his head no. “I’m done helping you.”

  “My poor dauphin. Look at your lady friend’s face—she looks positively stricken. Something tells me you aren’t done by a far sight.” He stands and goes to the bar. “Anyone else thirsty? What do you say, Zeph?”

  “May as well. Oh, speaking of which…” Zeph dives into a cabinet beneath the bar and reemerges with an armful of lemons. He tosses one to everyone in the room except Spencer. “For you, Ros, and you, Miss Nazan…Miss Kitty…Archie…”

  Archie catches his lemon. “What, are we making our own cocktails now?”

  “No, sir,” Zeph laughs. “I’m your eternal bartender, I promise. Lemon juice makes a good flea repellent.”

  “Really?” Nazan asks. “How’d you learn that?”

  “You live with a flea circus, Miss Nazan, you figure that stuff out, quick as ya can. And even if it don’t work, think how pretty we’ll all smell. Use it carefully, though. I don’t have many more. So cocktails, eh? First round’s on the house. Reynolds?”

  Spencer ignores him, reaching across the table for Nazan’s hand. “Please understand, my father really does have the best of—”

  “Don’t speak to me.” She goes to the bar to sit beside Archie. “I’ll join you.”

  “Most excellent. Rosalind? Miss Kitty?”

  Kitty wipes her eyes. “I’m going to go lie down for a bit.”

  “All right, dove,” Rosalind says. “You go rest.”

  Kitty leaves without a word.

  “Poor lamb… And, Archie. How can you drink at a time like this?”

  “Jesus, Ros, how can you not drink at a time like this?”

  Rosalind sighs. “I see your point. One for me too, Zeph. Let’s have a toast to the leisure class.”

  Archie raises his whiskey. “Long may they cough.”

  • • •

  Upstairs, Kitty sits at Rosalind’s dressing table and tries to collect herself. But when she looks down, a carved ivory hair clip of Rosalind’s makes her cry anyway.

  The biggest fight her parents ever had took place on the occasion of their twelfth wedding anniversary: Father presented Mother with an elaborate hair clip carved from ivory; Mother refused the gift due to her objections to big-game hunting; Father did not take the news especially well. Kitty and Nate had hidden themselves in an upstairs wardrobe, the better to listen in on the battle.

  “I’ve accepted your views on abolition, Jemma!” their father ranted. “And on suffrage and child labor and immigrants and even, Lord help me, on teetotaling! But elephants, now? By God, that’s enough!”

  Things were rather chilly in the Hayward house for a time. But after a week of sleeping in the guest room, Father admitted defeat and returned the hair clip to the shop.

  “Don’t you two look so smug,” he muttered to his bemused children over dinner. “You watch. She’ll be declaring herself vegetarian next, and then we’ll all be made to suffer.”

  “Don’t test me, David,” Jemma Hayward replied. But she’d winked at her children mischievously.

  Oh, Mum, Kitty thinks as the tears spill down. I miss you.

  • • •

  Back in the tavern, Archie raises his glass. “Another toast! To living in Dreamland.”

  “Dreamland…” Zeph says thoughtfully. “Oh. Oh no. We’ve got another problem.”

  “I’ll pass,” Archie says.

  “I agree.” Rosalind nods. “No more problems, thank you.”

  “This is serious. Bernard. He was real cozy with Miss Maggie the other night. You think she might have…shared anything with him?”

  “Shared?” Archie snorts. “If share is the going euphemism these days, that little quim would give Saint Nick a run for his money.”

  Nazan blushes, and Rosalind smacks Archie’s arm. “Rude! Zeph’s right, though. He could be ill. We should find him before—”

  “Before Reynolds and the Huns do.”

  Spencer stands. “Now, that’s not fair—”

  “You know what they say.” Zeph shrugs. “If the hood fits.”

  “Zeph’s right,” Rosalind says. “Of course, I’ve no idea what we’ll do with him when we find him, but still. I hate the thought of that sweet, old giant tossed in a Black Maria to who knows where.”

  “Hang on,” Spencer says. “You’re talking about Bernard Coyne? This Maggie person was Coyne’s girl? Look, Bernard is an employee of Dreamland. I can help him.”

  Archie grunts. “So him you’ll help. Well, guess what? He sees you, he’ll run the other way so fast he’ll trip over a midget.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Zeph says, “No, Archie’s got a point. How is Bernard to know—hell, how are any of us to know—that you won’t turn him over to those hooded fellas?”

  “I would never!” Spencer flushes. “How could you—”

  “Send her.” Archie points at Nazan. “Bernard has never once said no to a pretty face.”

  Zeph considers this. “What do you say, Miss Celik?”

  “Of course I want to help, but…how will I know when I see him?”

  “Easy,” Ar
chie says. “You see somebody looking down at a lamppost, you found him.”

  “Where do I look?”

  “The two of us,” Rosalind says. “I know Coney as well as anyone. We’ll look together.”

  Chapter 18

  A Piece of Paper

  Bernard the Giant peers in the mirror and sighs. But not for the usual reason.

  Given that he is—in the words of his own banner—eight feet of strange, mirrors have given Bernard plenty of reason to sigh over the years. But almost overnight, Bernard got even stranger. His neck sprouts giant lumps, and his face is crawling with black, slug-like sores. He looks like he’s been attacked by a demonic tattoo artist.

  He’d awoken in his too-small bed at Mrs. Golodryga’s boardinghouse, a few blocks off Surf Avenue. He had the proverbial song in his heart, due to an evening of drinking and flirting with beautiful Miss Maggie down at Magruder’s, and a thundering in his head, which also had something to do with the drinking and flirting. Or so he thought. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Hours later, he awoke throbbing with fever. It took him a minute to remember who he was, much less where. His throat felt like there was a nest of scorpions trapped inside, stabbing their way out. There were other strange miseries too: egg-like lumps in his armpits hurt so intensely he could barely lower his arms below his head; meanwhile, other lumps where his massive legs met his torso felt like they were on fire. In his distress, he cursed Miss Maggie for giving him some sort of intimate disease—a horrible thought he immediately wished he could take back.

  Miss Maggie is an angel. How could I think such a thing?

  Then fever overtook him, and he collapsed into sleep.

  Bernard awoke the next morning to Mrs. Golodryga banging on the door and hollering in her personal combination of Russian and English. The upshot was that if the Урод (freak) wants breakfast, he needs to get his жопа (ass) downstairs, or he won’t get xуй (shit).

  Bernard opened his mouth to reply, but only a croaking sound came out. He pulled a pillow over his face and wept.

  • • •

  It’s now early evening, and Bernard stands by the mirror in his custom-made tuxedo. It took almost an hour to get dressed—he had to keep stopping to catch his breath. The slightest brush of fabric against the angry sores sent pain like bolts of lightning across his body. But he’d done it. Done it for her.