Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet
Page 16
• • •
Kitty pulls on the hood and steps inside. As the attendant promised, the first thing she notices is the smell. Vomit, certainly, although her own shoes are as much to blame as anything. Urine, sweat, feces. Something metallic—is that what blood smells like? And something else. Something musty and sweet, like a steak left out in the sun. No, she thinks, not steak.
Even on this fair-weather day, the light is dim in Reception Hospital. And no lights are turned on. Could the staff just not be bothered? Kitty wonders. Or is it better this way?
In the darkened foyer, she listens. Moaning, low and constant, like the tide, like a lonely wind. Heaving coughs. Sudden cries, begging for God or Mother or death itself. Someone snores loudly, and someone else shrieks for him to shut up already. A third voice offers to murder them both. Underneath it all, the unceasing complaints of ancient bedsprings.
There are two long rooms, one on either side of the main hall. Kitty peeks in and counts ten beds in each. She stumbles over someone’s feet. So, twenty in beds, and untold numbers on the floor. She whispers an apology to whomever she stepped on, but no one answers.
Picking her way among the beds, Kitty tries to picture the human beings underneath the writhing piles of hospital linens. Between the darkness and the goggled hood, it’s difficult to see much. Some of the patients look like Unusuals. She thinks, but can’t be sure, that she recognizes one of the Lilliputians she’d met that first night at Magruder’s. But most are of average size and shape. As she walks among them, Kitty wonders who they used to be. They could have been line cooks or showgirls, gamblers or chambermaids, ticket takers or pretzel vendors, or whoever it is who changes the myriad lightbulbs along Surf Avenue. They look young, most of them. They will not get much older.
Her pitcher of water is getting heavy. She thinks, What am I going to do with this? None of the beds have cups beside them. Certainly none of the poor wretches on the floor has a goblet handy. She might mop a brow or two, but her handkerchief is covered with vomit, and even if there were washcloths stashed away somewhere, there’s little hope of her finding them in the dark. What am I going to do?
A hand reaches out and grabs her skirt. Caught off balance, she spills the pitcher on the floor. Another hand grabs her waist and pulls her down. She tumbles down onto the bed, suddenly lying nose-to-hood with someone—male or female, she can’t even tell. Through her goggles, she can see a face, pock-marked and oozing, with blood seeping from its eyes.
“Take off your mask and let me see you,” the face croaks. The voice is begging and threatening at once. Kitty tries to wriggle away, but the hands grip her strongly. “Take off your mask and let me see you!”
With all her strength, she wrenches herself away, her borrowed shirt ripping as she goes.
“Take off your mask and let me see you!”
The cry is picked up by other patients. “Take off your mask and let me see you!” The ones with strength left start pushing themselves up, reaching out blindly in the dimness. “Take off your mask and let me see you!”
Kitty stumbles backward, falling on yet another patient lying on the floor. She bangs her forehead on an iron bed frame as she falls. She tastes blood in her mouth. She hopes it’s her own.
“Take off your mask and let me see you!”
She scrambles to the door, apologizing as she goes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… Please let me go, please…”
Heaving herself out the front door, she rips off the hood and the pinafore and tosses them on the porch. She runs down the steps and out the gate.
“Nurse Marisol—or, er, whoever you are! Where do you think you’re going?”
• • •
Kitty runs all the way back to Magruder’s without stopping. She comes reeling into the tavern, weeping and afraid, paying no mind to the rolling eyes of the Unusuals or Zeph’s greeting or Vivi Leveque’s icy stare. She heads straight for Rosalind, who is holding court with Archie at a table by the window, and she throws herself into his arms.
“Jesus!” Archie says. “What happened?”
Rosalind strokes Kitty’s hair as she sobs. “Our brave Miss Hayward went to Reception to help out.”
“Reception? I heard they’re stacking bodies like cordwood over there. There are easier ways to commit suicide, kiddo.”
“Shut up, Archie. Poor dove…”
“I couldn’t do it,” Kitty cries into Ros’s chest. “I can’t help. I’m not Mum. I can’t help anyone.”
Chapter 21
In the City of Sighs and Tears
Tiny lights flicker along the street as Bernard Coyne’s funeral march approaches Magruder’s.
It’s a few days after the shooting. The funeral procession was planned for 1:00 a.m., when all the Dozens have finally trundled home to their beds and the Unusuals have Coney to themselves at last. Acrobats and opera singers, bellhops and belly dancers, clowns and chefs walk shoulder to shoulder, each holding a single lit candle in honor of their fallen friend. A black, bearded lady leads the parade with Archie by her side. She sings, and Archie harmonizes with uncharacteristic sweetness.
Oh, didn’t he ramble, didn’t he ramble.
Rambled all around, In and out of town,
Didn’t he ramble, didn’t he ramble.
Ramble till the butcher cut him down.
• • •
After the procession, Magruder’s Unusual Tavern is packed once again. Lazaro the Lion-Faced Boy circulates with a coffee can, collecting donations for Bernard’s grave marker. At another table, Rosalind consoles Bernard’s best friend, Digby the Strongman. Digby weeps openly. Zeph chats with Enzo, who is propping up the bar in his usual spot. He glances over in Rosalind’s direction occasionally but quickly looks away.
Zeph’s singing icebox is of no use at this hour, as all the singers are either in bed or here drinking. Instead, people gather around a gramophone set up on the bar, and they tilt their heads toward its enormous bell-shaped speaker. Magruder’s collection only numbers in the dozens of songs, but no one seems to mind. Unusuals call out requests, argue over the selections, and try to stop imagining pieces of Bernard being hosed off the Dreamland promenade.
Nearby, Kitty sits at a table with Archie, while P-Ray snoozes in her lap. Kitty hasn’t slept much since Reception Hospital—every dream features her mother’s face with blood dripping from her eyes. But if British reserve is good for anything, it’s for getting through a funeral with grace. Whitey stands beside Kitty, flirting with her, and she flirts right back. This is what we do, Mum whispers. We go on.
The song on the gramophone ends, leaving the entire tavern in an awkward silence until the crowd restarts the argument over the next selection. “Play ‘In the City of Sighs and Tears.’” “Ach, that’s too sad—do you have ‘Give My Regards to Broadway’?” “No, no, play the new one about Coney again.” “Bernard preferred ‘Give My Regards.’ He told me so himself.”
A lone voice rises above the others. “Shut up, all of you!”
Startled, the crowd looks toward the end of the bar, where a heavily tattooed man is hunched over a glass of green whiskey. The man glowers at the crowd. “Yeah, freaks. You heard me. Shut the hell up.”
Zeph nods to the group and says, “Put the Coney one on,” and then he rolls his cart down to the tattooed man. “Pete,” he says quietly. “I think that’s enough, don’t you?”
Crumbly Pete scowls at Zeph and defiantly drains his glass. The gramophone starts to play, and the crowd sways along to the tinkling waltz.
There’s one place on earth I call my land
not far away.
And that is a dear little island
just down the bay.
It’s there you’ll meet people so jolly
And just your style.
So jump on a steamer or trolley
For my little Coney Isle.
“You better turn that shit off, or somebody’s gonna get hurt,” Crumbly Pete growls.
Zeph shakes his head. “Don’t make me toss you out of here, Pete.”
“Aww, come off it. Don’t tell me you like this crap.”
“What I like ain’t the point. It’s disrespectful to Bernard, acting how you are.”
Pete laughs insanely. “You’re insects! You’re all insects, and none of it matters, and you know why? You’re dead, that’s why! You’re all dead already!”
“Enough.” Zeph waves to Digby. “Hey, Digs, would you do the honors?”
Digby walks over and slaps two meaty hands on Crumbly Pete’s shoulders. “Okay, Pete, let’s go.”
Digby hauls him out, with Pete hollering, “You’re all dead, you insects are all dead,” as they go.
From their table, Archie and Kitty watch Pete depart. Then she raps the table, hoping to change the mood. “So, Archibald, I helped Zeph fetch the groceries today, and I had a fascinating chat with that older lady at the vegetable stand. Did you know that there’s talk of shutting down the schools? She also said her neighbor was taken to some island? Hoffman, I think she said? That sick people in Manhattan get sent to a tuberculosis hospital in Queens, but they’re keeping all the sick people from Coney imprisoned. Do you think it could be true? I have to say, after what I saw at Reception Hospital, nothing would surprise me. What if Mother is there now, waiting for me?”
“The usual fishwife gossip, Miss Hayward.”
“You’re probably right.” She sighs. “She also said the whole epidemic was started intentionally by the German empire.”
He snorts. “Dozens will believe anything.”
A figure steps out of the crowd and taps Kitty on the shoulder. “Excuse me, are you Miss Hayward?”
“Shove off, lad,” Archie says. “The lady and I are—”
Kitty turns and sees the young man, his mop of unkempt red hair and his worried look. “Good Lord. You’re Seamus. Yes, I’m Kitty Hayward.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m Seamus Nolan? From the Manhattan Beach Hotel?” His accent and his awkwardness render declarative statements impossible. “Your friends said I could find you here?”
“Yes, of course! Archie, would you pull that chair over for him?”
Archie mutters to himself but yanks over a chair.
“Uh, actually, I just wanted to talk to Miss Hayward?”
“Lovely.” Archie leans back, folds his arms behind his head, and stretches out his legs. “Let’s talk, then.”
“Uh…” Seamus looks at Kitty.
“It’s all right,” Kitty says. “Actually, I’d like to have Archie’s opinion on whatever you have to say.”
Seamus looks uncomfortable but nods. In whispered fits and starts, he confirms what they suspected: when the hotel doctor discovered Mrs. Hayward’s illness, the management resolved to handle the situation by making Mrs. Hayward disappear. Seamus, along with the rest of the hotel employees, was instructed on threat of termination not to acknowledge Kitty’s existence.
“But people kept on getting sick? Dying? I went ’round to the kitchens on an errand and…I saw the freezer. There’s bodies in there, Miss Hayward. A lot of bodies. Where the steaks used to be. And I can’t sleep, and I can’t eat nothing? And your ma’s a proper sweet lady, and…I don’t know, I’m just so sorry…” It’s clear there’s something else he wants to say, but he can’t make it come out.
“What good are you?” Archie demands. “You come here to…what? Confess? Make yourself feel better? And then insult Miss Hayward by telling her what she already knows?”
“I’m sorry. I…”
“Tell her something useful! Tell her one useful thing to redeem your otherwise pointless existence!”
“I don’t—”
Archie stands up, threateningly. “By God, boy, if you—”
“There’s an island!” Seamus cowers.
Archie sits back down. “An island.”
“Yeah, where the sick people are. And maybe that’s where the cure is? I mean—”
Kitty looks at Archie, wide-eyed. “It’s just like the vegetable woman said! It’s true. Archie, they’re keeping her on the island!”
“No, no. Wait,” Seamus says. “That ain’t what I said. I didn’t mean her. I meant there’s medicine on the—”
At that moment, a group of men burst into Magruder’s, dressed in hoods and goggles. “Ladies and gentlemen,” shouts their leader. “This gathering has been deemed illegal by the Committee on Public Safety. You must all depart the premises immediately.”
“Hey!” Zeph shouts. “What do you think you’re doing?”
A scream comes from the back and everyone scatters, snatching up coats and overturning chairs, a river of carnies flowing toward the exit.
P-Ray wakes up and starts to cry, and Kitty hugs him. One of the exterminators points. “There!”
The men descend on Kitty and P-Ray, and Enzo leaps at them. “Bastardi, what you doing?”
Two hooded Committeemen shrug off Enzo, and they hold Kitty back while a third man wrenches P-Ray from her arms. The boy shrieks and thrashes like an animal in a trap as the man tosses him over a shoulder and makes for the door.
Rosalind screams. “P-Ray!”
Enzo roars and lunges at them again. He waves his muscled arms and knocks a pair of Committeemen aside like bowling pins. Rosalind leaps in, throwing punches and scratching eyes, and the officers toss Kitty aside to defend themselves. One Committeeman gets his truncheon around Rosalind’s throat and yanks him back. Enzo lands a couple of solid blows before the Committeemen subdue him by their sheer number. The leader says, “Put him in the truck too.” The men wrestle Enzo down as he struggles and curses in Italian. Rosalind screams and reaches for Enzo, but a Committee officer kicks Rosalind in the groin and then laughs as Rosalind collapses in agony. “Guess he’ll be even less than half a man tomorrow, eh, boys?”
Kitty goes to comfort Rosalind on the floor, and they watch helplessly as the men drag Enzo and P-Ray to an uncertain fate.
But no, Kitty realizes—no, their fate isn’t uncertain. She knows precisely where the men are taking them.
“Listen,” Zeph says to the leader, “I don’t know what y’all are after, but that’s just a little boy. He’s not sick, and you’ve no cause to—”
“He keeps fleas,” the leader says, “as you know damn well. Why, you wanna join him?”
The leader addresses his men. “Our tipster says the fleas are kept in a drawer upstairs.”
“What are you talking about, ‘tipster’? What ‘tipster’?” Zeph demands.
“Should I go find them?” a Committeeman asks the leader.
“No, the whole place is contaminated. Boss says take the building down.”
“Take it down?” Zeph cries. “It’s just a handful of fleas, for God’s sake. Look, I’ll show you where they are! You can have the damn things! There’s no cause to—”
“Stop!” Kitty bounds over. “I’m sick. I’m sick too. And…I’m a flea keeper. I keep the fleas, not the boy. Me. You’re looking for me.”
“English,” Zeph protests, “don’t you get in the middle of this, now.”
“I’m a flea keeper,” she repeats.
He stares at her. “What in hell are you doing?”
Kitty gazes calmly at the Committee leader. “I’m a carrier. And a flea keeper. And…a cougher. Forget the boy, and take me to the island or…or I’ll cough all over the lot of you.”
Rosalind gasps. “No, Kitty, don’t…”
“Kitty,” Zeph says, “stop and think here.”
The leader shrugs at her. “Whatever you say, lady. But if it’s all the same to you, we’ll take all three of ya.” He nods, and another hooded man takes Kitty roughly by the arm and escorts her out.
The bar, packed to the rafters not five minutes earlier, is empty except for Archie, Rosalind, and a terrified Seamus, who bursts into tears. “This is all wrong,” he blubbers. “You have to stop her. She didn’t understand—she didn’t understand what I meant!”
Archie rounds on him. “What in the Sam Hill are you—”
“It’s what I was trying to say! Miss Hayward’s mother is at the hotel. Me and my mates, we have her hidden at the hotel! She ain’t well, poor Mrs. H., and I just thought maybe they had medicine on the island, so—”
Archie rears up to his full height and roars down at the boy. “What in hell is Mrs. Hayward doing at your goddamn hotel?”
“I was trying to tell it before,” Seamus cries. “Mrs. H. had the sickness, but she seemed so nice like, and our manager, he’s so mean, and he was going to—I don’t know, who knows—so me and the other bellhops, we took her! We told the manager she died? But she didn’t never die; she’s in the basement! I got no family, and my mate Fergal got nobody neither, and Mickey, his da’ just beats him all the day long…but Mrs. H., she’s sweet to us. I stole a book from one of the rooms, and she reads it to us, over and over and over; she don’t never mind it. She’s got the sickness something terrible, though—and that’s why I come here! I thought at the island, maybe they could help—”
The leader of the Committee leans in the door. “Better clear out if you know what’s good for you. There won’t be much left of this place when we’re through.”
• • •
Kitty is shoved into the Committee’s armored vehicle with Enzo and P-Ray. “Don’t be afraid, sweetie,” Kitty says to the boy. “We’re with you. Don’t be scared.”
The Committeemen climb into other cars. “Pierce, McKenzie,” the leader says. “You two stay and do the cleanup. We’ll meet you back at the pier.”
Zeph and the rest exit the bar in time to see the armored truck peel away down the street. Rosalind cries, and Zeph squeezes his leg. “It’s all right, Ros. We’ll fix it. We’ll get them back somehow, I pro—”