“After a while you’re in 1880?”
“That’s right.”
Walter’s face had settled in odd lines. “I thought you were going to try not telling me what I’d figured out for myself,” he said in the cutting exaggeration of his normally exaggerated Southern drawl. This was the first time he had used it on Don, though Don had heard it used often enough on Mary and the kids. “The map, and all those clues you were stupid enough to leave in your pockets, and the stupidest of all—carving your own squiggle signature into all those dozens of old wooden Indians. Think I can’t add?”
“But that was Canal Street, 1880, and this is now,” said Don in a carefully dismal-sounding voice. “I thought it was safe.”
Walter looked at him. Walter—who had never earned an ethical dollar in his life, and had scarcely bothered to make a pretense of supporting his wife since Don’s work had started to sell—asked, “All right, why 1880—and why wooden Indians?”
Don explained to him how he felt at ease there, how the air was fresher, the food tastier, how the Russians were a menace only to other Russians, how—and the sachems! What real, sincere pleasure and pride he got out of carving them.
They were used! Not like the silly modern stuff he turned out now, stuff whose value rested only on the fact that self-seekers like Edgar Feld were able to con critics and public into believing it was valuable.
Walt scarcely heard him. “But how much money can you make carving wooden Indians?”
“Not very much in modern terms. But you see, Walt—I invest.”
And that was the bait in the trap he’d set and Walt rose to it and struck. “The market! Damn it to hell, of course!” The prospect of the (for once in his whole shoddy career) Absolutely Sure Thing, the Plunge which was certain to be a Killing, of moving where he could know without doubt what the next move would be, almost deprived Walter of breath.
“A tycoon,” he gasped. “You could have been a tycoon and all you could think of was—”
Don said that he didn’t want to be a tycoon. He just wanted to carve wooden—
“Why, I could make us better than tycoons! Kings! Emperors! One airplane—” He subsided after Don convinced him that Elwell’s Equation could transport only the individual and what he had on or was carrying. “Lugers,” he muttered. “Tommy-guns. If I’m a millionaire, I’ll need bodyguards. Gould, Fisk, Morgan—they better watch out, that’s all.”
He slowly refocused on Don. “And I’ll carry the map,” he said.
He held out his hand. Slowly, as if with infinite misgivings, Don handed over to him the paper with Elwell’s 1880 Equation.
Walter looked at it, lips moving, brows twisting, and Don recalled his own mystification when the old man had showed it to him.
“… where X is one pace and Y is five-sixth of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle of which both arms are X in length …”
“Well,” said Walter, “now let’s get down to business.” He rose, went off toward the living room, returned in a minute. Following him was a man with the tense, set face of a fanatic. He looked at Don with burning eyes.
“Anders!” cried Don.
“Where is the Equation?” Anders demanded.
“Oh, I got that,” Walter said.
He took it out, showed a glimpse, thrust it in his pocket. He stepped back, put a chair between him and the WIS man.
“Not so fast,” he said. “I got it and I’m keeping it. At least for now. So let’s talk business. Where’s the cash?”
As Anders, breathing heavily, brought out the roll of bills, “Oh, Walter, what have you done?” Don moaned. “Don’t throw me in the bramble-bush, Brer Wolf!”
“Here is the first part of it,” said Anders, ignoring his former WIS associate. “For this you agree to return to Canal Street, 1880, and destroy—by whatever means are available—the infamous firm of Demuth’s. In the unlikely case of their continuing in the business after the destruction—”
“They won’t. Best goon job money can buy; leave it to me.”
Anders hesitated.
Walter promptly said, “No, you can’t come along. Don’t ask again. Just him and me. I’ll need him for bird-dogging. I’ll get in touch when we come back. As agreed, I bring back copies of the New York papers showing that Demuth’s was blown up or burned down. On your way.”
With one single hate-filled glance, not unmixed with triumph, at Don, Anders withdrew. The door closed. Walter laughed.
“You aren’t—” Don began.
“Not a chance. Think I’m crazy? Let him and his crackpot buddies whistle for their money. No doubt you are wondering how I put two and two in a vertical column and added, hey, Donny boy? Well, once I figured out that the ‘Prospector’ was Elwell, and saw the WIS membership card in your pocket, I remembered that he and you used to go to those WIS meetings together, and I got in touch with them. They practically told me the whole story, but I wanted confirmation from you. All right, on your feet. We’ve got a pea patch to tear up.”
While Walt was shaving, Don and Mary had a few minutes together.
“Why don’t you just go, Don?” she begged. “I mean for good—away where he can’t find you—and stay there. Never mind about me or the children. We’ll make out.”
“But wouldn’t he take it out on you and them?”
“I said don’t worry about us and I mean it. He’s not all bad, you know. Oh, he might be, for a while, but that’s just because he never really adjusted to living up North. Maybe if we went back to his home town—he always talks about it—I mean he’d be different there—”
He listened unhappily to her losing her way between wanting him out of her misery and hoping that the unchangeable might change.
“Mary,” he broke in, “you don’t have to worry any more. I’m taking Walt along and setting him up—really setting him up. And listen—” he wrote a name and address on the back of her shopping list—“go see this man. I’ve been investing money with his firm and there’s plenty to take care of you and the kids—even if things go wrong with Walt and me. This man will handle all your expenses.”
She nodded, not speaking. They smiled, squeezed hands. There was no need for embrace or kiss-the-children.
Whistling “Dixie,” Walter returned. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Good-by, Don,” said Mary.
“Good-by, Mary,” said Don.
That afternoon, Don Benedict and Walter Swift, after visits to a theatrical costumer and a numismatist, entered the Canal Street subway station. Those who have had commerce with that crossroads of lower Manhattan know how vast, how labyrinthine, it is. Only a few glances, less than idly curious, were given them as they paced through the late Mr. Elwell’s mathematical map. No one was present when they passed beneath a red-lettered sign reading “Canarsie Line” and vanished away.
As soon as he felt the flagstones beneath his feet, Walter whirled around and looked back. Instead of the white-tiled corridor, he saw a wet stone wall. For a moment, he swore feebly. Then he laughed.
“A pocketful of long green and another of gold eagles!” he exclaimed. “What shall we try for first? Erie or New York Central Common? No—first I want to see this place where you work. Oh, yes, I do. Obstinacy will get you nowhere. Lead on.”
Wishing eventually to introduce Walt into Hennaberry’s, Don had first taken him out to Canal Street. Leopold Schwager’s second-hand establishment was opposite, the sidewalk lined with superannuated sachems. Other establishments of the show-figure trade were within stonethrow, their signs, flags and figures making a brave display. Horsecars, cabs, drays, private carriages went clattering by.
Walter watched the passing scene with relish, leering at the women in what he evidently thought was the best 1880 masher’s manner. Then he wrinkled his nose.
“Damn it all,” he said, “I hadn’t realized that the Hayes Administration smelled so powerfully of the horse. But I suppose you like it? Yes,” he sneered, “you would. Well, enjoy it whil
e you can. As soon as I manage to dig up some old plans, I propose to patent the internal combustion engine.”
Don felt his skin go cold.
“John D. Rockefeller ought to be very, ver-ry interested,” Walt said exultantly. “Why, five years from now, you won’t know it’s the same street… What’re you pointing at?”
Don gestured to a scout-figure in full plumage outside a store whose awning was painted with the words, “August Schwartz Segar Mfger Also Snuff, Plug, Cut Plug and Twist.”
“One of mine,” he said, pride mixed with growing resolve.
Walter grunted. “You won’t have any time for that sort of thing any more; I’ll need you myself. Besides—yes, why not? Introduce cigarette machinery. Start a great big advertising campaign, put a weed in the mouth of every American over the age of sixteen.”
A drunken sailor lurched down the street singing “Sweet Ida Jane from Portland, Maine.” Automatically, Don stepped aside to let him pass.
“But if you do that,” he said, no longer doubting that Walter would if he could, “then there won’t be any more—nobody will need—I mean my work—”
Walter said irritably, “I told you, you won’t have the time to be piddling around with a mallet and chisel. And now let’s see your wooden-Injun mine.”
Acting as if he felt that nothing mattered any more, Don turned and led the way toward the brick building where C. E. Hennaberry, Show Figures and Emblematic Signs, did business. Ben the boy paused in his never-ending work of dusting the stock models to give a word and a wave in greeting. He stared at Walt.
In the back was the office, old Van Wart the clerk-cashier and old Considine the clerk-bookkeeper, on their high stools, bending over their books as usual. On the wall was a dirty photograph in a black-draped frame, with the legend “Hon. Wm. Marcy Tweed, Grand Sachem of the Columbian Order of St. Tammany” and underneath the portrait was the Major himself.
“So this is the place!” Walter declared, exaggerated Southern accent rolling richly. Major Hennaberry’s friend, Col. Cox, sitting on the edge of the desk cutting himself a slice of twist, jumped as if stung by a minié-ball. His rather greasy sealskin cap slid over one eye.
“Get all kinds of people in here, don’t you, Cephas?” he growled. “All’s I got to say is: I was at Fredericksburg, I was at Shiloh, and all’s I got to say is: the only good Rebel is a dead Rebel!”
The Major, as Don well knew, hated Rebels himself, with a fervor possible only to a Tammany Democrat whose profitable speculations in cotton futures had been interrupted for four long, lean years. Don also knew that the Major had a short way of dealing with partisans of the Lost Cause, or with anyone else who had cost or threatened to cost him money—if he could just be brought to the point.
The Major looked up now, his eye lighting coldly on Walter, who gazed around the not overly clean room with a curious stare. “Yes, sir, might I serve you, sir? Nice fly-figure, maybe? Can supply you with a Highlander holding simulated snuff-mill at a tear-down price; no extra charge for tam-o-shanter. Oh, Dusty. Glad to see you—”
“Dusty” mumbled an introduction. How quickly things had changed—though not in any way for the better—and how paradoxically: because he had refused the WIS demand to change the past by violence so that modernism would be held off indefinitely, he was now condemned to see modernism arrive almost at once. Unless, of course …
“Brother-in-law, eh?” said Major Hennaberry, beginning to wheeze. “Dusty’s done some speaking about you. Mmph.” He turned abruptly to Don/ Dusty. “What’s all this, my boy, that Charley Voles was telling me—Demuth’s coming up with some devilish scheme to introduce cast-iron show figures?” Dusty started, a movement noted by the keen though bloodshot eyes of his sometime employer. “Then it is true? Terrible thing, unconscionable. Gave me the liver complaint afresh, directly I heard of it. Been on medicated wine ever since.”
Walt turned angrily on his brother-in-law. “Who told you to open your damn cotton-pickin mouth?”
The Major’s purplish lips parted, moved in something doubtless intended for a smile.
“Now, gents,” he said, “let’s not quarrel. What must be must be, eh?”
“Now you’re talking,” said Walt, and evidently not realizing that he and Hennaberry had quite separate things in mind, he added: “Things will be different, but you’ll get used to them.”
Watching the Major start to wheeze in an unreasoning attack of rage, Dusty knew catalytic action was needed. “How about a drink, Major?” he suggested. “A Rat Nolan special?”
Unpurpling quickly, now merely nodding and hissing, the Major called for Ben. He took a coin out of his change purse and said: “Run over to Cooney’s barrelhouse and bring back some glasses and a pitcher of rum cocktail. And ask Cooney does he know where Nolan is. I got some business with him.”
The boy left on the lope, and there was a short, tight silence. Then Col. Cox spoke, an anticipatory trickle already turning the corners of his mouth a wet brown. “I was at Island Number Ten, and I was at Kennesaw Mountain, and what I say is: the only good Rebel is a dead Rebel.”
Walt grinned and said nothing until Ben came back with the drinks.
“Well, Scotch on the rocks it isn’t,” he said then, taking a brief sip, “but it’s not bad.”
He gave a brief indifferent glance at the shifty little man with Burnside whiskers who had come back with Ben, carrying the glasses.
“To science and invention!” cried Walt. “To progress!” He drained half his glass. His face turned green, then white. He started to slide sidewise and was caught by the little man in Burnsides.
“Easy does it, cully,” said Mr. Rat Nolan, for it was he. “Dear, dear! I hope it’s not a touch of this cholera morbus what’s been so prevalent. Expect we’d better get him to a doctor, don’t you, gents?”
Major Hennaberry said that there was not a doubt about it. He walked painfully over to the elevator shaft, whistled shrilly. “Charley?” he called. “Larry? Oscar? Otto? Hennery? Get down here directly!”
Dusty emerged from his surprise at how neatly it had happened. He reached into Walter’s coat pocket and took out the paper with Elwell’s Equation on it. Now he was safe, and so was Canal Street, 1880. As for what would happen when Walter recovered from his strange attack—well, they would see.
The staff came out of the elevator cage with interest written large and plain upon their faces. Ben had evidently found time from his errand to drop a few words. Major Hennaberry gestured toward Walter, reclining, gray-faced, against the solicitous Mr. Rat Nolan, who held him in a firm grip.
“Gent is took bad,” the Major explained. “Couple of you go out and see if you can find a cab—Snow Ferguson or Blinky Poole or one of those shunsoaps—and tell them to drive up by the alley. No sense in lugging this poor gent out the front.”
Franz, Larry and Charley nodded and went out.
Otto stared. “No more vooden Indians, if he gets his vay,” he said dismally at last. “Ho, Chesus,” he moaned.
Dusty began, “Major, this is all so—”
“Now don’t be worriting about your brother-in-law,” said Rat Nolan soothingly. “For Dr. Coyle is a sovereign hand at curing what ails all pasty-faced, consumptive types like this one.”
Dusty said that he was sure of it. “Where is Dr. Coyle’s office these days?” he asked.
Mr. Rat Nolan coughed lightly, gazed at a cobweb in a corner of the ceiling. “The southwest passage to Amoy by way of the Straits is what the Doc is recommending for his patients—and he insists on accompanying them to see they follows doctor’s orders, such being the degree of his merciful and tenderloving care …”
Dusty nodded approvingly.
“Ah, he’s a rare one,” said R. Nolan with enthusiasm, “is Bully Coyle, master of the Beriah Jaspers of the Black Star Line! A rare one and a rum one, and the Shanghaiing would be a half-dead trade without ’m, for it does use up men. And they leave on the morning tide.”
Ther
e was a noise of clomp-clomp and metal harness-pieces jingled in the alley. Charley, Larry and Hennery came in, followed by a furtive-looking cabman with a great red hooked nose—Snow Ferguson, presumably, or Blinky Poole, or one of those shunsoaps.
“Ah, commerce, commerce,” Rat Nolan sighed. “It waits upon no man’s pleasure.” He went through unconscious Walter’s pockets with dispatch and divided the money into equal piles. From his own, he took a half-eagle which had been slightly scalloped and handed it to Dusty. “Share and share alike, and here’s the regular fee. That’s the spirit what made America great. Leave all them foreign monarchs beware… Give us a lift with the gent here, cullies …”
Charley took the head, Hennery and Otto the arms, while Larry and Ben held the feet. Holding the door open, the cabman observed, “Damfino-looking shoes this coffee-cooler’s got on.”
“Them’s mine,” said Rat Nolan instantly. “He’ll climb the rigging better without ’em. Mind the door, cullies—don’t damage the merchandise!”
Down the dim aisles the procession went, past the fly-figures, scout-figures, rosebuds, pompeys, Highlandmen, and Turks. The gas-jets flared, the shadows danced, the sachems scowled.
“If he comes to and shows fight,” Major Hennaberry called, “give him a tap with the mallet, one of you!” He turned to Dusty, put a hand on his shoulder. “While I realize, my boy, that no man can be called to account for the actions of his brother-in-law in this Great Republic of ours, still I expect this will prove a lesson to you. From your silence, I preceive that you agree. Your sister now—hate to see a lady’s tears—”
Dusty took a deep breath. The air smelled deliciously of fresh wood and paint. “She’ll adjust,” he said. Mary would be quite well off with the money from his investments. So there was no need, none at all, for his return. And if the WIS tried to follow him, to make more trouble, why—there was always Rat Nolan.
“Major Hennaberry, sir,” he said vigorously, “we’ll beat Demuth’s yet. You remember what you said when the catalog came out, about the power of advertising? We’ll run their metal monsters into the ground and put a wooden fly-figure on every street block in America!”
The Avram Davidson Treasury Page 13
