The Styx

by Jonathon King

  “Yes, ma’am. Well, we knowed each other for a long time. Course we all knowin’ each other here,” Abby said. “Did ya’ll talk with her, ma’am? I mean in private?”

  “No. Not really Abby. Why? Do you think she has something to say to me in private?” McAdams, her eyes were now intent but unable to raise the maid’s own eyes from going to the floor.

  “Uh, no, ma’am. I’m just worried on her, that’s all.”

  “Well, several people are trying to help her, Abby. So hope for the best and be strong, dear.” The hair was up on the back of her neck, and McAdams knew from experience that the new information was pushing her even harder. She stepped out onto the hotel veranda, where only a few couples and women strolled arm in arm on their morning constitutional.

  If the Birches were actively looking to buy property on the island, which she already knew from the binders she’d obtained, if “Ma’am” was truly as deep into her husband’s land acquisitions as Abby seemed to indicate, that is why McAdams had seen Mrs. Birch walking, with that aggressive and manly gait of hers, from the direction of the Styx only half and hour before Ida May Fluery smelled fire in the air.

  When she got back to the Breakers, the first maid she talked to knew exactly where Ida May Fluery was: “Why, it’s a baseball game on today, Miss McAdams. I spect Mizz Ida down there sneakin’ a look at her boy.”

  Whether Henry Fĩagler was a baseball fan or not, he knew many of his upscale New York vacationers were. The idea that they could watch a quality game in the middle of winter was a luxury he knew they would brag about to their equally upscale friends, who were still reluctant to travel south. It was little trouble for his engineers to lay out a baseball diamond on the open land within walking distance of the hotel. Grass was cheap in Palm Beach. So were players.

  By the time Marjory reached the field, the stands that were erected only a few feet from the base paths were nearly full. Vacationing men were in the majority of those sitting in the sun, giving hearty ovations for each well-executed play. But several women were also in attendance, sitting with their husbands or in groups, their wide-brimmed hats or open parasols providing shade. The men were too polite to say a word, standing or stretching around any obstructed view. The women clapped softly with gloved hands when it seemed appropriate.

  Marjory had been to the games before. She admired the athletic skill, the quickness and exactness of the players, the act and react of muscle memory honed by years of repetition. The fact that the athletes spent most of their days pushing carts, carrying baggage, cooking or washing, or peddling carriages only made the game more fascinating. They did this out a pure love. A game that only gained them a few extra hours off their daily work still drove them to a glorious pursuit of perfection. The field was as meticulously manicured as any of Flagler’s gardens and was probably cut and trimmed and raked by the very men who played on it. In the hard sunlight the green glowed and the white chalk lines were as bright as the women’s clothing.

  Marjory paid scant attention to those in the stands, instead looking down the third baseline where a few black workers gathered to watch their own. She knew that if Ida May was here she would be watching Santos. She walked behind the stands, smiling and nodding to hotel patrons as she glided by. As she passed behind home plate she stopped for a moment to watch the giant black man out on the pitcher’s mound. He was tall and easily over two hundred pounds. She’d seen him before, amusing the crowd with his bear-like movements and wily, smiling presence. He knew that the game was as much entertainment for the upper class as it was a competition. Yet when it was time, his arm was ferocious. At that moment he delivered a fastball. The hard slap of the leather ball in the catcher’s glove was like a rifle report, and Marjory blinked hard at the sound.

  “Steeeeeriiiik,” called out the umpire, an equally large but soft white man who ran the games with an authority he would doubtfully own anywhere else on the island.

  Marjory moved on.

  At the end of the bleachers she spotted Miss Fluery in the shade of a black umbrella, accompanied by three other housemaids Marjory recognized. She tried to catch the woman’s attention but in vain. Fluery’s eyes were only for Santos, who was out on the field, not thirty feet away, just inside the third base line. Santos was coiled, awaiting the next pitch, his back curved like an iron awl, his hands out in front of him, the cabled muscle in his bared forearms flexing, and his eyes staring with an intensity she had not seen in the dark of last night. Marjory heard the crack of the bat, almost felt it, and hardly had time to blink when she saw Santos launch himself, glove hand stretched high into the sun where it snatched the ball out of the air, the sheer force of the drive bending his torso back. Still he landed on his toes. It was the third out, and he flipped the ball out of his glove, caught it with his bare hand and rolled it to the pitcher’s mound before jogging off the field.

  From the crowd behind and to her right Marjory heard a hotel guest exclaim: “Did you see that nigger jump! Wonderful!” Santos passed the bleachers and another said, “Nice job, boy,” as the rest applauded.

  Only then did Ida May Fluery turn and recognize Marjory standing nearby.

  “May we speak, Mizz Fluery?” Marjory said, stepping forward. The other servants discretely faded away, leaving the two women, who moved together down the white foul line.

  “Have you heard?” Marjory spoke first. “That Mizz Carver has been arrested and jailed?”

  “Every worker on the island knew by sunup, ma’am,” Fluery said, a statement, not as caustic as it could have been.

  “Yes, of course,” Marjory said, instandy losing her faux motive for coming to see her. “We, umm, Mr. Santos and I that is, went across to try to speak for her last evening. She did not seem to have been abused. I mean, beaten or physically punished.”

  “Then the Lord have mercy,” the housewoman said.

  “But I fear that it will be difficult to convince the sheriff or the court, if it should go so far, that Shantice is not the one who killed the man in the Styx unless we can find someone to speak out for her.”

  Ida May stood silent, looking out onto the greenness of the outfield, not at Marjory. She knew she was being led.

  “Do you mean someone to speak for her good name, ’cause there isn’t a person on this island who didn’t know Shantice was a whore,” Fluery said.

  “No. No, I didn’t mean that,” Marjory said, as if that fact actually embarrassed her. “I meant that you had said there were others with Shantice when she was across the lake at the carnival. Perhaps they would be willing to say they were with her and where exactly they were when the fire began.

  “Do you know who, exactly, was with her that night?”

  Again Fluery hesitated. Bringing in other’s names in white men’s situations was never wise. Guilt by association was something to be avoided in her world. Yet she could see no hidden agenda in McAdams’ question.

  “I believe Abby Campbell say she was with Shantice,” she finally said. “They been close awhile, though I cain’t say why.”

  “Abby Campbell? The girl who works for Mrs. Birch?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Do you believe her?” Marjory said, then caught herself. “I mean, is she believable, if she had to speak, say, in front of the sheriff or an attorney?”

  “She be believed as much as any negro woman might be to folks like that.”

  One of the opposing outfielders ran out to his position. Marjory did not see him doff his hat in their direction, so did not register if it had been to her or to the head house woman. She was rerunning her previous conversation with Abby in her mind. Why didn’t the girl say she was with Shantice the night of the fire? Why not offer her help once Marjory had told her that her friend was in dire need? Had they indeed been together that night? And where? And what had they witnessed? She would need to talk with Abby again, this time with a stronger sense of authority.

  “I believe we’ll need to employ an attorney for Mizz Carver
,” Marjory finally said, turning to Fluery and delivering the statement that had motivated her to come here in the first place.

  “No one has money to pay no lawyer for that girl. An’ it won’t make no difference if they did,” Fluery said with the same tone she used when McAdams first asked if she knew of Carver’s arrest. She had no tolerance for white people who disavowed the obvious. The game had resumed, and Fluery began walking back toward third base, Marjory alongside.

  “I shall provide the money,” Marjory said, as if working it out in her own mind. She needed a way to question Shantice Carver, to find out if she had been on the island that night, to find out what she had seen. She needed to know why and where Mrs. Birch had been when she’d seen her coming out of the woods that night. Since the Carver woman was obviously reluctant to talk, as she’d been in the laundry, maybe a lawyer in pursuit of her defense could glean some answers.

  As they moved closer to the stands Marjory spotted a man, wandering, looking out of place, a bit disheveled for the paying customer, so to speak.

  “And I shall also provide the attorney,” she said to Ida May before taking the old woman’s hands and bidding her good-bye. “Don’t you worry.”

  Byrne had come to the ball game with one intent: to find Marjory and arrange a time for her to meet with him and Faustus, to share with her the information from the morgue and the doctor’s hesitant report. In return he would get back from her anything—anything—she knew about the killing and the Styx. He would be circumspect. He would not show the anger burning in his gut. He would not go off half-cocked. He would ask questions, watch reactions, intuit meaning, just like he had always done. But he would find the person who shot his brother.

  “Well, Mr. Byrne. I see you actually took up my offer,” Marjory’s voice came from behind him, causing Byrne to spin round.

  “I, uh, well, I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said, raising his palms to indicate the scene around him. “It’s…unexpected.”

  “Oh, not for them.” Marjory pointed relaxed fingers to the bleachers and chairs. “They have come to expect it. After all, what is summer weather without baseball, especially now in the middle of winter when they can brag about attending a game when their friends in New York are all huddled by the fireplace?”

  Was that cynicism he heard in her voice, or braggadocio? Byrne was arrested by the sight of the man now coming to home plate with a bat in his hands. Santos actually looked bigger than he had in the dark, trudging with them in the fields, sitting at a small wooden table, even peddling a carriage on a raised seat. When the man reached the plate, took his wide stance and swung the bat in an exaggerated, slow motion practice swing, he looked like something carved and regal overlooking its domain.

  “Your friend?” he asked. Santos was cocked and took the first pitch, a ball off the plate. The umpire bawled, “Aaaawwwwl.”

  “In a sense,” said Marjory, who was also watching the batter. “More of an acquaintance.”

  The second pitch was delivered from the thin, rope-muscled negro on the mound. Again, the batter barely flinched: “Aaaawwwwl.”

  “A protector, then?” Byrne said.

  “I, Mr. Byrne? What would possibly make you think that I would need protection?” Marjory turned to study the side of Byrne’s face, wondering if by some impossible means the Pinkerton knew more than he should.

  “Someone of your charm and beauty might need someone to ward off the suitors,” Byrne said, only slightly embarrassed by what had come out of his mouth. He watched the next pitch come in low and hard. Santos turned on in a flashing instant. The sound of snapping oak exploded in the air and heads turned as one to watch the ball sail up, up, up and out over the tree line. Byrne, though, kept his eyes on Santos, who also, when the outcome was obvious, turned his attention to the bat as he jogged toward the first base, studying its splinters and now angled shaft and then tossing it aside. The big man jogged around the base paths to the applause of the crowd, and Byrne unconsciously reached into his pocket to feel the thin metal baton. It would stand no chance in a face off.

  “If you did need that protection, he would certainly be my choice,” Byrne said. Marjory had a curious look on her face, amused yet studious.

  “I shall consider it, Mr. Byrne, if the need should arise,” she said. “But you didn’t come out here to watch baseball nor to banter.”

  “Not really,” he said stepping back from the crowd in small, nonchalant steps so as not to draw attention. Marjory followed. When they were out of earshot, he tipped he head to her ear. “I have located Mr. Faustus. He is a Mason and a lawyer on the mainland and has made some curious findings at the undertaker’s and at the doctor’s where the autopsy was done.”

  Now it was Marjory’s turn to not to flinch, the news coming in low and hard, but she held her stance.

  “Really?”

  “Mr. Faustus was able to exam the body himself and obtained the paperwork submitted to the sheriff,” Byrne was trying to please her, uncharacteristic territory for him. “The doctor removed a bullet from Mr. Bingham’s throat.”

  Marjory plucked a hanky from somewhere in the folds of her skirts and pretended a speck of something in her eye, a tactic to gain a second from her surprise.

  “I’m sorry, did you say Bingham? Was that the poor man’s name?”

  “It’s the name Mr. Faustus knew him by. He apparently had a reputation as a con man. Underhanded, bit of a thief,” Byrne said. He had already decided to keep secret his brother’s true identity—and his connection.

  “Well no wonder he was a stranger to us then. I know most of the people on the island, but in the streets on the mainland, I would be quite lost—as you could tell last night, Mr. Byrne. But such news is certainly helpful to Mizz Carver, and if your Mr. Faustus is willing, I would be delighted to employ him to speak out in her defense before the judge at her hearing on Friday.”

  Byrne was pleased with himself, seeing her intensity, obviously energized by his news.

  “Then if I may, Miss McAdams, you could have the opportunity to ask him yourself if you would accept an invitation to dinner tonight,” he said. She in turn seemed to be picking out a response but quickly a smile came to her face.

  “It would be a pleasure, Mr. Byrne.”

  CHAPTER 17

  THE sun was hot on his shoulders, sweat running down the middle of his back, and lye soap suds flowing down his arms. A long-handled scrub brush, a pail of water and an entire rail car had met Byrne when he got back to the mainland.

  Harris was waiting for him on the front porch of his hotel with a cigar stuck in the side of his face and a look of worry pushing his thick eyebrows together.

  “Michael, me boy. Michael, me boy,” he said in a disappointed tone that reminded Byrne of his childhood years when he was about to get the strap. A vision of his father snapped on in full color inside of his head. The old man’s sunken cheek bones, eyes trying to look angry but only showing how it was going to hurt him to mete out the punishment his old world upbringing demanded. Byrne would take that strap in a second to see his father’s face again.

  “Too much time on yer hands, eh, Michael?” Harris continued. “Didn’t yer mum tell you it was the Devil’s work, those idle hands, boy?”

  The sergeant failed to elaborate and simply gave him his orders: “Get yer arse down to the rail station and take the soap and brush to number ninety. Mr. Flagler will be taking a trip to Miami and the car is expected to be spotless and shining like a new coin by tomorrow.”

  Byrne could tell by the delivery that there was no argument and that the reasons why such duty was being foisted on a security man were not going to be given. He’d had several hours on the rail side to dwell on it. After scrubbing another section of the side boards, he gathered a different pail of fresh water and tossed it up against the car, washing down the suds. He repeated the act and then went to the nearby water pump to fill the buckets again.

  Had Harris finally gotten sick of his “intelligence
gathering” excuse and decided to come down on him? Had he heard about the confrontation in front of the jail and been told by the sheriff to keep his new boy in check? Had he been seen in the company of Faustus, a man Harris had once warned him to stay away from, and had that information been passed along? Or was Byrne simply been caught sticking his nose into something that the powers would just as soon see left alone?

  “The hell with you all,” he said to himself. He’d long decided that he didn’t have enough trust in Harris to tell him that the only reason he’d signed on for this job was to find his brother. He wasn’t changing tactics now just to keep from washing a train car.

  He picked up the brush, sloshed it in the soap bucket and returned to scrubbing the last panel of Flagler’s car. Then he’d have to tackle the bright work on the steps and doorframes and then polish the brass railings and handles.

  “Now there’s an enterprising Pinkerton, lads,” came a voice from over Byrne’s shoulder. He turned to see the binder boys lined up behind him in their scruffy suits, all with shit-eating grins on their faces. Byrne turned back to the work, hiding a grin of his own.

  “So the old man is headin’ out again, eh?” said the voice again. Haney, the talker as usual. “Where’s he goin,’ Michael? Miami?”

  “Can’t say for sure,” Byrne lied.

  “Might give us a leg up, my friend. Money goes where Flagler goes, ya know. Might be some property he’s been scoutin’ down the tip of the peninsula. Some say the old coot’s thinking about takin’ the train down the islands to Key West.”

  The outlandish statement brought a guffaw of incredulity from Haney’s mates. Byrne picked up a bucket of fresh water and splashed the side of the train.

  “Isn’t that a bit daft, even for Flagler?” Byrne said, picking up the second bucket. “No one takes a train across the ocean, Haney. Even him.”