The Styx

by Jonathon King

  “Miss McAdams, please ma’am. All of us was asked to stay out of the Styx tonight. It might be best…”

  “Mr. Martin, can you now smell that smoke in the air?” Marjory said, meeting his eyes. Martin turned to look into the darkness, even though the odor of burning timber was now unmistakable.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered, without turning back to face them.

  “Then go, sir.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and snapped the reins.

  The horse balked at the darkness with only the light of a three-quarter moon to guide it, but it moved at the driver’s urging. Miss Fluery kept her eyes high and forward and could see the gobs of smoke that caught in the treetops and hung there like dirty gauze. In less than another quarter-mile, she stood up with a grip on the driver’s seat, and Marjory could see the new set of the woman’s jaw. She too could see flickers of orange light coming through the trees as if from behind the moving blades of a fan. Despite his reluctance, Mr. Martin urged the horse to speed.

  “It may only be a wildfire,” Marjory said carefully, but the old woman did not turn to her voice of hope as they pressed on.

  Minutes later the carriage slurred in the sandy roadway when they rounded a final curve and came to a full stop at the edge of the clearing. The horse reared up in its traces and wrenched its head to the side as the heat of some two dozen cones of fire met them like a wall, and the white, three-quarter globe of the animal’s terrified eye mocked the moon.

  Marjory had been to the Styx before, having talked Miss Fluery into letting her walk the distance to see some new baby the housekeeper had described. Marjory knew she was defying all social rules, but her inquisitiveness had long been a part of her character. The Styx was the community where all the Negro workers—housemaids, bellhops, gardeners and kitchen help—lived during the winter season, when the luxurious Royal Poinciana and the Breakers were filled with moneyed northerners escaping the cold.

  Marjory had not been shocked by the simple structures and lack of necessities in the Styx. She was not so naïve and sheltered in her family’s mid-Manhattan enclave not to have witnessed poverty in New York City. She had seen the tenements of the Bowery and had secretly had her father’s driver, Maurice, take her through the infamous intersection of Five Points to witness the sordid and filth-ridden world of the Lower East Side.

  The Styx was, by comparison, quaint, she had justified. The shacks of the workers were made of discarded wood from the Poinciana’s construction and slats from furniture crates and shipping cartons. Some were roofed in simple thatch made with indigenous palm fronds, others in sturdier tin. Miss Fluery had told her that two winters ago, one of Flagler’s railcars had jumped the small-gauge tracks to Palm Beach Island and collapsed into splinters as it rolled down the embankment to the lake. Given permission, the black workers had scavenged the debris, and the car’s tin roof ended up covering six new homes in the Styx.

  On this night the thatch roofs had become little more than cinders floating up on hot currents into the air. The tin ones were warped and crumpled by the heat like soggy playing cards. As the women and driver watched, the Boston House rooming home fell in on itself, sending up a shower of glowing embers and a billow of dark smoke.

  Ida May had not loosened her grip on the driver’s iron seat handle and had not turned her face away even as the heat scorched her old cheeks. Marjory put her hand on the woman’s arm.

  “Mr. Martin said everyone has gone across the lake to the fair, Miss Ida. Surely no one was at home. Surely they’re all safe.”

  Fluery looked into the flames of her home, which had stood at the prominent crown of the makeshift cul de sac and listened to the sound of clay bowls shattering in the heat and ceramic keepsakes exploding into hot dust. She did not acknowledge the girl’s words. Marjory was a young white lady from the North. She could not discern the smell of linen and Bible parchment burning any more than she could recognize the odor of charred flesh. But Ida May Fluery knew that smell. The news of death was already in the air.

  No, they surely are not all safe, Ida thought. And just as surely, she thought, whoever it is, someone has murdered them.

  The rest of Ida May’s neighbors would hear the news by word of mouth, and it was as rapid and frightening and as unpredictable as the flames themselves.

  Mr. Martin rattled back through the woods at an axle-breaking speed to the hotel as much to report the fire as to pull someone of more importance into the situation. He left Miss McAdams and the old house woman at the edge of the burning shantytown. They had refused to budge when he begged them to come back with him, for there was nothing they could do before daylight. The place was destroyed, the fire had already swallowed everything it wanted and had not made the jump from the clearing to the trees. The old woman had acted as if she hadn’t heard him and just stood there with those damned spooky eyes of hers glowing. Miss McAdams couldn’t convince the old lady either. Finally, in frustration, Martin snatched a kerosene lantern off the left side of the carriage and held it out to her.

  “At least take this, ma’am,” he said.

  Instinctively, Miss McAdams reached out for the lantern but stopped herself when her eyes lighted on the glow of the flame inside. It was a look, not of fear—Martin doubted that this young woman feared anything—but some deeper angst. The driver himself balked at the look and began to withdraw the offer. Finally it was the old woman who stepped forward and grabbed the lantern from Martin’s hand and then turned without a word.

  Christ, he thought. What was a man supposed to do, and he yanked at the reins, turned the carriage round, and then whipped the horse violently into a gallop.

  When Martin scrambled off the driver’s seat at the front steps of The Breakers, the head liveryman was already up with his arms crossed and a stern look fixed on his face.

  “Jesus glory, Tommy. Hold on, boy. You’re going to shake that rig to pieces.”

  Martin pulled his hat off in deference to the livery man, who was considered a superior to all the valets and housemen and some say had been given the job by Flagler himself after serving the railway baron as a sort of sergeant-at-arms on his early trains into Florida.

  “It’s a fire, Mr. Carroll,” Martin said, trying to control his voice. “In the Styx, sir.”

  Carroll turned his massive head to the south and then back on the young man before him.

  “Were you not told that no one was allowed in the Styx tonight, Thomas?” Carroll said and the young man could not meet his eye.

  “Yes, sir. But—”

  “Then why the hell were you out there, son? And why aren’t you over the bridge in town where you could be chasin’ some local young lady at the fair instead of snootin’ around in dark town?”

  “I was taking Joe Shepard’s late shift, sir. But—”

  “But what? You lost a bet to Shepard in a dice game and now you’re trying to add to your mark of stupidity?”

  Young Martin was getting used to being ignored and berated this night and could not take his eyes off the toes of his boots.

  “Don’t worry about some fire in the Styx,” the manager said, easing up on the boy. “It’s none of your concern.”

  “But Mr. Carroll, sir. Miss McAdams and the old house woman, the one in charge of the maids. They’re both out there, sir, and sent me for help.”

  The manager stared at the boy like he was trying to hear the statement with his eyes. Then he cursed once, spun on his heel and banged up the staircase. Before disappearing through the big front doors of the lobby he turned and ordered the young bellman to take the carriage to the livery “and cool that damned horse down before it catches a cold.”

  In the stables Martin shared the story with the livery watchman. Two Negro stable boys repairing harness in a back room overheard the words “Styx” and “fire” and one scrambled through the back stalls and headed on foot to the bridge to the mainland. And thus the news traveled in both directions, to the unofficial governors of Palm Beach an
d to the families who had paid a terrible price as they ate free ice cream and spun laughing and shrieking on carnival rides, oblivious of their fate.

  CHAPTER 3

  EIGHT o’clock on a November night and the alcoholic braying of Jack Brennan was spraying out into the cold air of Manhattan’s Lower East Side: “All hail Detective First Grade Michael Byrne on his bloody retirement from the New York City Pinkertons with all his teeth intact like the smile of a teenage whore whom we should all be so lucky as to meet tonight.”

  “Hooray!”

  Byrne raised his pint, smiled his sheepish smile, which only exacerbated his old friend’s ribald comments, and joined a half-dozen men in downing their ales in a long single draining. The end task was met by the slamming of glasses on the bar of McSorely’s Pub, the shuffling of chair legs on raw wood floors and a call for another round. Byrne looked over the heads of the young men he’d helped train and then commanded. In the dull flickering light of McSorely’s electric lamps they looked an almost civilized bunch. None of them over five foot eight, except for big Jack. None over a hundred and a half pounds. In the dimness you couldn’t see the dirt at their neck collars or the worn seams of their waistcoats and trousers. But their hand-cropped haircuts were all the same, short and sharp. And without looking Byrne knew they all wore polished brogans on their feet, some of them for the first time in their lives wearing proper footwear. The shoes had been provided by the company, of course, and were the same style as those Byrne had on his own feet. The haircuts and boots were requirements of their employment with the Pinkerton security company they all worked for and set them apart from the street thugs and gang mobs. These were boys selected by the keen eyes of company scouts and their connections from the streets. They were a chosen few; perhaps selected because of a light of intelligence in their eyes, maybe because of a sharp, almost feral knack for survival through their wit, maybe because of a natural athleticism that set them apart in a fight. They were neighborhood kids like Byrne, rough-hewn from the tenements yet gilded with some touch of potential. Byrne had picked some of them himself, only a couple of years after he had been so singled out. An organization like the Pinkertons needed such young men—those with knowledge of the corners and garbage-strewn alleys of the city, those with an ear for the mixed languages of the streets where plans were set and crime was hatched.

  Byrne reached down into the pocket of his trousers to feel the folded paper note once again, as he had dozens of times in the last several days. He wasn’t sure why he carried it. He had already memorized the words in the telegram that Ian Cronin had passed him on the day of his mother’s death:

  mikey…it is time for you to join me…i will soon be taking a grand piece of property in Florida…i now have riches and land, what da always wanted…the rail tickets and money enclosed should get you and mother to west palm beach…i will meet you whenever you arrive…your big brother, Danny.

  The telegram was the first time he’d heard from his brother in three years. Danny the first-born child. Danny the chosen one. Danny, supposedly the smartest of the boys and crowned as bearer of the family name. But after their father had died, Danny had turned sullen and angry and violent. His way of charming and schmoozing even the most cynical of the city dwellers of their last nickel or shoelace or pint had been his greatest talent. But you needed a pleasant twinkle and a bright patter and a patience to work such a magic, and Danny had lost all of that after seeing their father work his fingers stiff and his knees to creaking and his dreams to dust only to die in the muck and horse droppings of the street. One night after the old man’s passing, Michael came awake in their bed and in the grey darkness he’d watched Danny move about the apartment, dressing and gathering his things. He watched his brother move like a shadow and bend and kiss their mother’s quiet cheek. He’d squeezed his own eyes tight when his brother came back to their shared mattress and touched Michael’s foot in a gesture of good-bye. He reopened his eyes in time to see Danny go to his parent’ dresser and take their father’s gold fob watch—the precious one with the blue steel hands and his initials scrolled on the back—from the top drawer. It was not a theft. The watch had been willed to Danny and was his right. The last Michael saw of his brother was a final peeking eye when he carefully closed the door behind him as he’d often done when escaping into the night, but this time he’d gone and never returned.

  The thoughts came again as Byrne touched the edges of the folded telegram in his pocket, rubbing the now soft edges with his fingertips. The tickets and money Danny referred to of course never made it to Michael. The telegram had been originally sent to his old New York Police Department substation. From there it had gone to a former sergeant who passed it on to Ian Cronin. Michael had not opened it until after his mother’s burial, when he was back and alone in the empty walkup. He’d read in on the edge of the bed and carefully folded it and put it back in his pocket and there it burned, stirring his anger at the brother who’d abandoned him, swelling his resentment for being left to care for their mother alone. He’d given up on Danny’s return and damned his brother’s memory when he came creeping into his dreams at night. So why was he still carrying it? Why had he been so eager to jump at the offer to work a train going south in the morning? To see if it were true, this promise of land and money? Or maybe to ring his brother’s neck if he could catch up to him? He’d gone to the telegraph office in midtown and asked the clerk to reply to the origin of the telegram:

  Danny…coming to meet you…ma is dead…mike

  Byrne questioned the terseness of the message now, the bluntness of it. But tough shit. Danny had tossed enough hurt at his family to deserve a bit of it back. He’d kick his brother’s ass when he found him, he swore he would.

  “Aye, Michael, here’s to your bloody retirement,” came another booming voice from yet another corner of the pub, and Jack Brennan again swaggered over and lifted his glass. “To the sharpest and the most civil among us lads,” he hollered and tilted his head to Byrne. “And the most dangerous and merciless with his whip of steel.”

  Byrne raised his beer with the rest and smiled his smile and nodded his thanks and never said a word to anyone of his brother’s telegram. To them Byrne was retiring, nothing more. Leaving New York would seem like falling off the edge of the world to the men. Just the thought of such a move would set them bragging about their wretched lives to whatever extent needed to cover their fear of leaving the Bowery, or Alphabet City or the Gas House District. None of them had ever stepped foot out of the neighborhoods. Yes, Byrne’s sought-out reassignment would seem a retirement to them, and in a way he used the same term to try to fool himself and justify his mission. He’d become the old man of Pinkerton squad number eighteen, he’d say. At his age he was over the hill. It was time to let the younger bulls begin their rule, except of course at the top of the company where the big-bellied commanders and sharp-faced businessmen ruled the overall. But those heights were no place for a neighborhood kid like Byrne to climb, nor did he personally care to try. Tomorrow he’d take his newly acquired rank of detective and report for duty on a new railway line built by Henry Flagler, the oil magnate whose Manhattan mansion had been guarded by the Pinkertons for years. Tomorrow he would be headed toward a great unknown called the state of Florida.

  But tonight Michael Byrne was here at McSorely’s working his way toward alcoholic oblivion when a sudden rush of cold air from the front door of the tavern blew through and an immediate wave of commotion was started by an ungainly local urchin named Screechy.

  Everyone knew the lad from the unhealthy look of his dull, copper-tinged hair and the high, raspy sound of his voice. The hair was discolored from a lack of nutrition and the voice had developed from an infancy of wailing for a mother who never responded. The combination should have killed the child before he was a toddler, but some impossible gift for self-preservation had saved him for the streets.

  “Come on, then, Michael,” big Jack yelped into Byrne’s ear while grabbin
g him by the coat sleeve. “Screechy says the Five Points boys are havin’ it out with the Alphabet City Gang over in Tompkins Square Park.”

  Screechy. Every time Byrne saw the kid he thought of Danny, the same feral nosiness, the same lust for everything in the streets and how it worked, especially the ways of the cons, the hooks, the pickpockets and hustlers. Screechy was Danny fifteen years ago, and like Danny, he had the ability to pull you into a place you shouldn’t be going.

  Most of Byrne’s troupe was already started out the door, reinforced by their drunken buzz, following after the smell of adrenaline and violence. When Byrne hesitated, his old friend gave him that practiced look of impish amusement. “Just for a look-see, eh? Not that we have to get into it, you know?”

  Out in the street the cold hit them all in the face. It had been near fifty degrees inside McSorely’s, the place being heated by a single fireplace and the body temperature of a couple dozen men, but out here the temperature was below freezing and the lot of them thrust their hands into pockets and moved more or less as a group down Seventh Street east toward the park. By the time they’d reached Second Avenue and passed under the El the frosty air had sobered Byrne enough to start him second-guessing his decision to come along. In the light of the dim electric lamps on the avenue he could see the plume of his own breath and feel the hairs inside his nose crinkle with cold.

  “What the hell, Brennan,” he said, “has happened to my going away party?”

  Half said in jest, the comment seemed to float in the darkness over his big friend’s head as they made their way down the next block. Brennan’s nose was up in the air as if sniffing at a trail to a feast. The big man stayed quiet, matching the quick steps of their group ahead until they crossed First Avenue and heard a human howling in the distance. From his higher vantage point, Brennan spotted torch flames in the distance.