Mister Slaughter

by Robert McCammon

PaRT SIX: a Meeting of Night Owls Chapter Thirty-Three

 

  "The truth," said Greathouse, as he ruminated over his third cup of wine, "is that we failed. " He frowned, rethinking his statement. "No," he amended. "I failed. as the one with the most experience-I won't say the most sense-I should have known he was going to try something. I just didn't know it was going to be so effective. " He took another drink, and then he grinned across the table at Matthew. "Did I tell you they named me Gray Wolfi"

  "Several times. " at this point in the evening, Matthew could not bring himself to tell his supper companion that he'd already known it.

  "Well then, there you are," Greathouse said, though Matthew wasn't exactly sure where they were in this conversation. One minute they were talking about Slaughter, the next about the great one's experiences in the Seneca village. It seemed to Matthew as if Greathouse had actually enjoyed his time there, once it was sure he'd returned from the wilderness beyond.

  They were sitting in the Trot Then Gallop, on Crown Street. This being Matthew's first night back, his meal and drinks were on the house courtesy of the tavernmaster, Felix Sudbury. Many people had come forward to wish him welcome home, including Effrem Owles and his father Benjamin, Solomon Tully, Robert Deverick and Israel Brandier. Matthew had been polite, but firm in his refusal to say anything more than that the criminal he and Greathouse had been sent after was dead. Case closed. Savin' it for the Earwig , huhi Israel had asked, but Matthew said there would be no more of those outlandish tales in Marmaduke's broadsheet and he offered to vow on a Bible if they didn't believe him.

  as the night progressed, the interest in knowing Matthew's business waned, since he remained steadfastly not talking, and the other patrons drifted away from him to their own concerns. Matthew had noted, however, that he'd gotten some sidelong glances from people who thought they had known him very well up to this evening, and perhaps were wondering what had changed about him in his month's journey.

  One thing different, among many, was that he now believed in ghosts more than ever, since he'd seen both Walker In Two Worlds and Lark Lindsay on the street this afternoon. Several times, in fact.

  Even now, as he sat with Greathouse and drank his own third cup of wine, he was sure someone was sitting at the table behind him and to his right. If he turned his head just a fraction he could make out from the corner of his eye an Indian with black facepaint and an arrangement of feathers dyed dark green and indigo tied to his scalplock with leather cords. Of course when he looked fully in that direction Walker was not there, but now in the corner of his other eye a lovely, serene blonde girl was standing over by the table where Effrem Owles and Robert Deverick were playing chess.

  He had brought them back with him, he thought. How long they wished to stay-how long they would stay-he didn't know. But they were friends of his, just as much as any of the others, and they were welcome.

  "What do you keep looking ati" Greathouse asked.

  "Shadows," Matthew said, and let it go at that.

  When he had gone to the Grigsby house today, after Tom had boarded the Golden Eye, Matthew had knocked at the door and Berry had answered it. They had just stared at each other for a few seconds, he taking her in like sunlight after thinking he would likely die in the dark, and she seemingly frozen with his name on her lips. and then just as she'd cried out, "Matthew!" and reached for him her grandfather had let forth a bellow from behind her and shouldered her aside to throw his arms around Matthew in a crushing embrace.

  "My boy! My boy!" Marmaduke had shouted, his large blue eyes ashine in the frames of his spectacles and his heavy white eyebrows twitching on the moon-round face. "We feared you were dead! Good God, boy! Come in here and tell us the whole story!"

  The whole story was what Matthew was determined not to tell, even as Marmaduke pushed a platter of honey-drizzled biscuits and a mug of mimbo upon him at the kitchen table. Berry sat beside him, very close, and Matthew could not help but notice and be gratified by the fact that she kept placing her hand upon his arm or shoulder and rubbing there as if to make certain he was real and would not fade away like a dream upon awakening.

  "Tell! Tell!" Marmy insisted, as his right hand seemed to grip an invisible quill and prepared to scribe upon the table.

  "No," Matthew had said, after he'd eaten two of the biscuits and put down half the sugared rum. "I'm sorry, but I can't. "

  "But you must! Your readers are clamoring!"

  "My business depends on privacy. There'll be no more of those stories. "

  "Nonsense! I've made you into a celebrity!"

  "The price for that is too high," Matthew had answered. "From now on, I'm just an ordinary fellow who works for a living. "

  Marmaduke had snatched away the platter of biscuits, but then he'd seemed to take note of Berry's hand upon Matthew's arm. He'd pushed the biscuits forward again, and sighed. "ah, well. I'm running low on ink, anyway. But"-and here he'd lifted a finger of triumph-"there's yet the tale of Gray Wolf to be told, isn't therei"

  Matthew had shrugged. If Greathouse wanted to go down that particularly twisty road, it was his own horse-and-wagon. More like ass-and-cart, to be truthful.

  Berry had put on a yellow cloak and walked with Matthew for a while, north along the waterfront. He didn't speak and she didn't speak for the longest time, as the breeze blew about them and the sunlight shimmered off the river. He stopped for a few minutes to watch a ship, its sails unfurled, gliding toward the blue expanse of the sea past Oyster Island, and then he turned away.

  "Can you talk about iti" she'd asked, her voice quiet and careful.

  "Not yet. Later. Maybe. "

  "I'll be there when you want to. If you want to. "

  "Thank you. " a few more steps in silence, and then he'd decided to speak what he'd been thinking ever since he'd walked into the Lindsays' kitchen: "I need help with something. "

  "Yesi"

  "I need help with a question," he'd said. "a mystery. Even more than the monster's tooth, in McCaggers' attic. It's about God. Why does God allow such evil in this worldi If God is supposed to watch over every little bird. Whyi"

  Berry didn't reply for awhile. Then she said, "I suppose you'd have to ask a reverend. "

  "No. That's not good enough. What would a reverend know that I don'ti The right words and versesi The names of the saints and the sinnersi Yes, all those, but not the answer. " He'd stopped abruptly, and looked deeply into her expressive dark blue eyes. "Why doesn't God strike down evili Why doesn't He destroy it, before it takes rooti"

  again, she was reluctant to answer. She lowered her head, looking at the ground, and then lifted her eyes to his again. "Maybe He expects us to take care of the garden. "

  Matthew considered something that had winnowed itself into his brain. It was He Runs Fast, saying through the interpreter He wish spirits make sense. Matthew hadn't understood that at first, but then it seemed to become a quiet cry at the passing of his son. a cry for understanding, and the peace of acceptance. Matthew too wished that God's ways made sense, or that he could understand what sense they did make. He knew he could batter his brain against that unknown and unknowable door between the trials of Earth and the truth of Heaven every day for the rest of his life, and it would not bring him any closer to an answer.

  It was the ultimate mystery, more ancient than a monster's tooth.

  He wish spirits make sense.

  "So do I," Matthew had said. and then he was aware that Berry's hand was in his, and he was holding onto it like a gift given him to protect.

  Now, in the Trot, Matthew drank his wine and contemplated the fact that Greathouse, for all his show of bravado, had entered the tavern about an hour before on the support of a cane. The hollows under his eyes were still dark, his face drawn and more deeply lined. Gray Wolf had wrestled with Death in the wilderness beyond and returned grinning, yes, but not without leaving something behind. Matthew thought that if anyone
could make a full recovery to health after being stabbed in the back four times, it would be the great one, but only time would tell.

  Which was one reason Matthew was not ready to share with Greathouse the letter he'd found in Mrs. Sutch's safebox, and was now in his coat pocket. To venture into that area at all would be detrimental to Greathouse's recovery, for who would wish to know he'd eaten sausages spiced with human fleshi and with such relish, as welli

  "I spoke to Berry this afternoon," Matthew said. "about Zed. She tells me they've devised a common language, based on drawings. "

  "Yes, I know. "

  "and that he really is a highly intelligent man, she says. He knows he's a long way from home, but not how far. She says he sits up on the roof of City Hall at night looking at the stars. "

  "The starsi Why is thati"

  "They're the same stars he's always seen," Matthew related. "I suppose there's a comfort in that. "

  "Yes," Greathouse agreed, and turned his cup between his hands. "Listen," he said after a moment of silence. "We failed this job. I failed it. I'm not proud of being stupid. The doctors and the Quakers and Lord Cornbury and that Constable Drake expected us to bring Slaughter in alive. Obviously, my plan to buy Zed and set him free got the better of my judgment. Things are as they are. But I'm a professional and in this situation I did not act as one, and for that I'm profoundly sorry. "

  "No need for that. "

  "There is," said Greathouse, with a little of the old fire. "I want you to know that if I'd been on my feet and in my right mind I would never have let you go after him. Never. I would have called it quits right then and there, and been done with it. You took a tremendous risk, Matthew. God knows you're lucky to be alive. "

  "True," Matthew said.

  "I won't ask you about it, and you don't have to tell me. But I want you to know that going after Slaughter was a braver thing than I have ever done in my life. and hell, just look at you! You're still a moonbeam!" He drank down the last of his wine. "Maybe a little tougher around the edges," he admitted, "but a moonbeam all the same. "

  "and still in need of a bodyguardi"

  "In need of a keeper. If Mrs. Herrald knew about this, she'd-" He stopped and shook his head.

  "She'd whati" Matthew prodded.

  "She'd say that I was a damned fool," Greathouse replied, "but she'd know she made a good choice in you. Just so you stay alive to secure her investment for a few more months. "

  Matthew distinctly remembered Mrs. Herrald telling him that the job of a problem solver meant thinking quickly in dangerous situations, sometimes taking your life in your hands or trusting your life to the hands of someone else. But he chose not to remind Greathouse of that.

  "Speaking of investments," Greathouse said, "there's a job you can do for me. Or rather, try to do. You know I told you about the situation involving Princess Lillehorne, the other women, and Dr. Malloryi When I was half out of my headi Well, due to my current complication I'm not going to be able to get around so much for a while, so I'd appreciate it if you would take the case over. It's just a question of why Princess sees him three times a week and comes home in a red-faced sweat, according to Lillehorne. Four other wives, the same, and do you know what they tell their husbandsi That it's a health treatment. Then they refuse to say another word, and in the case of Princess Lillehorne, she's threatened to withhold her wifely duties if Gardner doesn't pay Mallory's bill. "

  "all right, then. I'll just ask Dr. Mallory. "

  "Wrong. If he's ramming them in the back room, what's he going to sayi"

  "Maybe he's ramming them in the front room. "

  "You just take it slow. Talk to that wife of his and see if you can get a handle on him. If he's strumming the love harps of five women three times a week, she ought to have a clue. " He stood up with the help of his cane. "My notes are in my desk. Have a look at them tomorrow. "

  "I will. "

  "Want to meet me for breakfast at Sally almond'si I think they're supposed to be getting in some of those hot sausages. "

  "I wouldn't count on that," Matthew said. "anyway, they're not to my taste. But yes, I'd be glad to meet you. My treat. "

  "Wonders never cease. Seven-thirtyi" He frowned. "No, better make that eight-thirty. These days it takes me a little longer in the morning. "

  "Eight-thirty it is. "

  "Good. " Greathouse started out, but he turned back to the table and stood over Matthew. "I did hear what you told me about finding the money," he said quietly. "The eighty pounds worth of gold coins, in the lockbox at the Chapel estate. You found that on your own time. It belongs to you, no question. and I would have done exactly the same thing," he said. "But you're still paying back what you owe me, and buying me breakfast. Heari"

  "I hear," Matthew said.

  "Tomorrow, then. " Greathouse stopped at the door to get his woolen cap from a wallpeg and wrap his cloak around his shoulders, and then he walked out of the Trot for home.

  It was awhile before Matthew finished his wine and decided he ought to go. He bid goodnight to his friends, got his tricorn and his warm ash-gray cloak and bundled himself up, for it was a chilly night. He left the Trot, but instead of going north to his dwelling behind the Grigsby house he turned south. There was some business to attend to.

  He had memorized the letter in his coat pocket.

  Beginning with a place name and date-Boston, the fifteenth of august-it read in a flowing script: Dear Mrs. Sutch, Please carry out the usual preparations regarding one Matthew Corbett, of New York town in the New York colony. Be advised that Mr. Corbett resides on Queen Street, in-and I fear this is no jest-a dairy house behind the residence of one Mr. Grigsby, the local printmaster. also be advised that the professor has been here lately in the aftermath of the unfortunate Chapel project, and will be returning to the island toward mid-September.

  The professor requires resolution of this matter by the final week of November, as Mr. Corbett has been deemed a potentially-dangerous distraction. as always, we bow before your experience in these matters of honor.

  at the bottom it was signed, Sirki.

  The letter had been in Mrs. Sutch's safebox, among papers detailing mundane business things such as money paid for delivery agents to carry orders of sausages to Sally almond's in New York and both the Squire's Inn and the Old Bucket tavern in Philadelphia, as well as-interestingly enough-the Peartree Inn on the Philadelphia Pike at Hoornbeck. The deliverymen, contacted by the decent and hard-nosed constable from Nicholsburg, were simply locals who had been recruited by Mrs. Sutch to do the work, and they were amazed that anyone would have murdered Mrs. Sutch and Noggin and burned the place to the ground. But then again, these were evil times, and God save Nicholsburg.

  also in the box had been a half-dozen small white cards, identical to the one Matthew had received in the second week of September excepting the fact that his had borne the bloody fingerprint.

  Matters of honor, indeed.

  He had tried to reason this out. The best he could figure was that Mrs. Sutch was given the command by Professor Fell-or whoever this Sirki was-to carry out these preparations. It was likely she gave Noggin-or an unknown someone elsei-the card and put him on a packet boat from Philadelphia. Then, depending on the professor's pleasure, time passed while the intended victim was left to squirm. Only in Matthew's case, the professor had decided to resolve the matter of honor by the end of November, this very month, in order to remove a potentially-dangerous distraction.

  Matthew didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted by that. It also irritated his craw that they were laughing about his house.

  He walked south along Broad Street, passing City Hall. Lights showed in the attic windows. The sky was full of sparkling stars, and Matthew wondered if on this crisp and quiet night Zed was not sitting up there, maybe with a blanket draped around him, thinking of nights spent with loved ones under those same celestial banners.

  Lanter
ns gleamed from wooden posts on the street corners. The constables were out, carrying their green lamps. Matthew saw one coming north further along Broad, the lantern swinging back and forth to check nooks and crannies. Matthew turned to the right onto Stone Street, took from his pocket the key he'd gotten from home, and unlocked the door to Number Seven.

  He fired the tinderbox that sat on a table beside the door, and with its flame touched the wicks of three tapers in a triple-armed candleholder also on the table. He locked the door, picked up the candles and climbed the steep stairs.

  as he reached the top he heard a soft little thump. The ghosts were greeting him, in their own way.

  Passing through the oak-paneled outer room with its cubbyhole-chest and its windows that looked toward the Great Dock, Matthew entered another door that held his and Greathouse's desks. He left the door open and lit four candles in an eight-armed wrought-iron chandelier overhead. The unshuttered windows in this office gave a view of New York to the northwest. The room held three wooden file cabinets and a small fireplace of rough gray and tan stones sure to see much use when the really cold weather began. It was good to be home.

  Matthew sat the triple-candleholder on his desk. Relishing his return, he peered for a while through the windows at the comforting view of the little lamps scattered across the expanse of town. Then he removed his hat and cloak and hung them up, situated himself at his desk, took the letter from Sirki to Sutch out of his pocket, and smoothed it down before him. Opening the top drawer of his desk, he brought out the magnifying glass that was a gift from Katherine Herrald, and studied the handwriting with closer scrutiny.

  a man's hand, he decided. Flowing, yes, but with very little elaboration except for a flourish beneath the name. What kind of name was Sirkii and what was that about returning to the island toward mid-Septemberi Matthew could see where the quill had paused from time to time for another dip of ink. The paper had been twice folded to fit an envelope. It was light brown, not as thick as parchment. He held it up before the candleglow, and there he saw something that made him turn it over and look again.

  He brought from his drawer a pencil and scratched lead over what seemed to be a faint impression on the back of the paper.

  Before him appeared the stylized shape of an octopus, its eight tentacles stretched out wide as if to seize the world.

  It was the impression of the wax stamp that had been used to seal the envelope.

  He heard a quiet noise, almost a sigh.

  Something bit him on the side of his neck.

  a little sting, no more.

  He put his hand there and felt a small object in his flesh. When he pulled it out, he was looking at a wooden dart about three inches long with a smear of yellowish paste on its stinger tip and on the other end a piece of hollowed-out cork.

  a ghost stirred in the corner beside the file cabinets, where the shadows lay thickest.

  This ghost, as it emerged, wore a long black cloak and tricorn and had silky hair the color of dust. He was of indeterminate age, small-boned, pale of skin and weirdly fragile. a long thin scar ran up through his right eyebrow into his hairline, and his eye on that side was a cold milky-white orb. He held a wooden tube, which he now set atop one of the filing cabinets. His black-gloved hand went into his cloak-his movements slow and horribly deliberate-and reappeared with a long, sharp knitting needle that glinted blue in the candlelight.

  Matthew stood up, dropping the dart to the floor. His throat was cold, his neck prickling where the tip had entered.

  "Stay where you are," he said. He was aware that his tongue was starting to freeze.

  Ripley, the young assassin-in-training, advanced as in a nightmare. Obviously he had graduated to using a blowpipe and a dart smeared with frog venom. Matthew recalled with terror what Mrs. Sutch had told Slaughter: " causes the muscles to stiffen and the throat to constrict. Within seconds, the victim cannot move "

  If he had only seconds, he was going to make them count.

  He picked up the candleholder with numbed fingers and hurled it. Not at Ripley, but through the glass of the windows. The crash echoed along Stone Street and made a dog start barking. His only chance, he'd realized, was to bring the nearest constable to his aid. If no one heard the noise, he was dead. and he might well be dead, anyway.

  He retreated. His legs were cold and trembling; everything seemed to be in slow-motion, and he was aware that his heart-when it should be pounding in his chest-was also slowing. When he drew in a breath, his lungs creaked. They felt as if they were filling up with icy water. Even the workings of his mind were running down: Ripley may have shadowed him from the Trot come ahead and picked the lock relocked the door waiting for him in the dark his method of a needle through his eye into the brain for resolution of this matter of

  Matthew picked up Greathouse's chair and held it before him, as he backed toward the wall.

  In the flickering light cast by the candles on Greathouse's desk, Ripley glided forward step after step.

  "Helloi" someone called from the street. "Hello, up there!"

  Matthew opened his mouth to shout for help, but his voice was gone. It came to him to throw the chair at Ripley and take his chances on getting down the steps. as soon as this thought registered in his brain, his hands spasmed. He lost hold of the chair. His legs gave way and he fell to his knees.

  a fist hit the door at the bottom of the stairs. Matthew fell onto his face. He was shivering, his muscles jumping as if the venom had birthed frogs beneath his skin. Still, he tried to push himself across the floor. Within another five seconds both his strength and power of will had abandoned him.

  Ripley stood over Matthew, who lay frozen on his stomach, his eyes open and his mouth gasping.

  "Corbetti" shouted another voice. There came the sound of the doorhandle being worked back and forth.

  Ripley reached down and began to turn Matthew over.

  Something slammed against the door.

  Ripley succeeded in his task. In his prison of ice, Matthew thought he should get his hands up before his eyes. He tried this also, but nothing happened. I'm drowning, he thought. My God I can't breathe

  again, something smashed into the door. There came the noise of wood ripping asunder. Matthew felt the floor shake underneath him.

  Ripley grasped a handful of Matthew's hair. Candlelight jumped off the needle's tip as it hovered over the center of Matthew's right eye. Ripley had become a blur, a white shape, truly ghostly. The needle's tip descended, and looked to be burning with blue fire.

  Matthew saw Ripley's head turn.

  a dark shape enveloped the assassin.

  Ripley's mouth opened, and suddenly a huge black fist hit him in the face and his jaw crumpled and teeth and blood flew out. For a second the blurred Ripley gave a hideous rictus of a grin with his ruined mouth, the single good eye wide and staring, the other fish-belly white, and then his face disappeared again beneath the fist. This time Ripley fell out of Matthew's line-of-sight, leaving what Matthew saw to be a streak of spirit image across the air.

  Matthew's lungs hitched. He was gulping breath down, swallowing it from where he lay at the center of an ice-pond.

  "Corbett!" Someone was above him. He couldn't make out the face. "Corbett!"

  "Is he dyin'i" another voice asked. a green lamp floated over Matthew.

  The face went away. There was a silence, during which Matthew continued to gulp small mouthfuls of breath, for it was all he could manage. His heartbeat was slowing slowing

  "Christ!" came a shout. "Zed, pick him up! Peterson, do you know where Dr. Mallory livesi On Nassau Streeti"

  "Yes sir, I know. "

  "Run there as fast as you can! Tell him we're bringing in a poison victim! Go!"