by Greg Herren
He’d have to demand Saul send him someplace warm and inviting for the next job.
A pair of custom-made knockers, brass fists gripping lightning bolts, decorated the gaunt doors. Their metal felt colder than a moll’s heart when Gus struck them against the wood.
A few minutes later the door cracked open. One rheumy eye glared at Gus, who cleared his throat. “Yeah, Mr. Moiren is expecting me.”
The door opened wider, revealing more of the dark-suited butler, a thin man in his late fifties with a blood-red eye patch hiding the worst of the damage suffered by the right side of his face. The man’s rigid stance suggested he’d once served in the military. A Great War veteran, Gus suspected as the man moved aside for him to enter.
The butler accepted Gus’s pea coat. “Master Moiren will receive you in the greenhouse.”
“That ain’t like the poorhouse, is it?” Gus made sure to bray like an ass. Nothing’s a worse tell than a man’s laugh, Saul always said, and if Moiren and the help thought Gus was a moron, it would make finding the girl easier.
“You may leave your bag here,” the butler said as he hung the coat on a nearby rack. Gus counted the other coats. None looked like they’d belong to a spoiled rich girl, but that didn’t mean Samantha Kingsford wasn’t here.
A grandfather clock in the many shadows of the foyer chimed three in the afternoon. Mournful sounds.
The house’s drafty interior wasn’t much warmer than the outside. Most rooms weren’t lit. Frost caked the windows. Gus rubbed his palms together. “All right, pally, lead the way.” His breath rose in the air.
“This way,” said the butler with the lift of a hand.
Rich men didn’t impress Gus. They hid behind money—or used it as license to be vicious and petty. But Saul liked dealing with the wealthy. Men like Donald Kingsford, father to a wayward daughter who needed returning.
“Big enough joint for just Moiren and you.” Gus paused to stick his head up the flue of a blackened stone fireplace roomy enough to roast a pig, like they did in Polynesia. But the hearth was cold. What good were such things if they weren’t used?
“The master entertains on occasion.”
“This be one of those occasions?”
But the butler said nothing. He didn’t need to. Gus had already caught a whiff of perfume, expensive perfume, in the house’s draft. And this house lacked any feminine touch, so he doubted there was a Mrs. Moiren.
No, Samantha Kingsford was here.
*
When he walked into the massive space confined by a lattice of fogged glass and damp copper, Gus shook off the house’s chill like a soaked dog. The humid air reeked, a bit like an outhouse in July, a bit like Brussels sprouts steaming on a plate. Gus had been born in the city; Central Park was the only spot on Earth with so much green. The closest he’d ever come to the jungle was admiring Johnny Weissmuller in that Tarzan talkie. But Moiren’s greenhouse had taken a chunk of South America—or maybe Africa—and held it prisoner in Providence. Gus didn’t spook much, but he knew he didn’t belong any place surrounded by wild foliage.
A voice from on high called out, “Welcome.” Gus looked up. Half-hidden behind shoots and wide leaves, a scaffolding covered part of the greenhouse wall. A man wearing a bruise-colored satin smoking jacket and a ridiculous red felt hat with a tassel stepped toward the railing. He held aloft a struggling rabbit for a moment, then dropped the animal down into the brush. “Our Jove Lunge, the Man of Daring, has arrived.” Nestor Moiren—Gus recognized him from the photos Saul had spread over his messy desk—clapped with limp wrists.
“The name’s Gus.”
“As if it matters.” Moiren’s slippers echoed through the greenhouse as he descended the scaffolding stairs. “How are you finding Providence?”
“Cold.”
“Yes. It is.” Moiren had a puffy face, but thin lips. Gus had seen other men wear that same smirk, usually right before they threw lead around or tried to shiv you in the guts. “Did your man tell you what I require?”
Gus rubbed his square jaw. Saul had a number of guys working for him. Gus normally was called when the job required brawn and intimidation, not retrieving runaways. But Saul thought a guy playing off Moiren’s fascination with muscle would have an easier time getting the girl back. “Said you needed some hired muscle.”
“Indeed I do, but not the sort you’re used to providing.” Moiren turned to the butler. “I think the Howl of Black Shuck will do nicely.”
The butler bent with an audible creak and left the greenhouse.
“That name I called you…Jove Lunge—”
Gus shrugged as he slipped off his jacket. Sweat had begun seeping down his back.
“—have you never read the Jove Lunge adventure stories?”
“Never made it past the race cards.” Gus loosened his collar. “So who you want me to slug?” When people thought he was just some sap, they got lazy…and showed their hand sooner. Gus could tip a card, but he was no easy mark.
Moiren chuckled like a dying man’s last wheeze. “A rare Nepenthes, but that comes later. Here we are.” Moiren lifted a hand as the butler returned carrying a framed painting.
Gus paid little mind to art. He did appreciate the photos in Iron Man magazine. But those museums all over Manhattan were too quiet for his liking. Not that there was anything quiet about Howl of the Black Shuck. The hackles rose on the back of Gus’s thick neck as he glanced at it.
One glance at the figure of Jove Lunge, his uniform flayed to shreds by the panther in his path, told Gus that Moiren liked his men strapping, all bulging muscle and taut sinew. Lunge held in one clenched fist an exotic dagger. When Gus examined the panther, he realized the beast wasn’t a cat at all, but an immense black dog or wolf with blood-red eyes.
“I do love my work.” Moiren motioned for the butler to withdraw, as if shooing an errant fly. “There are others, if you wish to see the gallery.”
Gus shook his head. He wanted nothing more than to step out of the hot greenhouse and pour a cold beer down his throat.
“No? Pity.” He took a few steps closer to Gus. “What I need from you is to pose.”
“Pose?” Saul had shown Gus the covers. His first thought was, How many boys buy the adventures of Jove Lunge, Man of Daring to jerk off to pictures of their heroes?
Did their mothers find the books hidden beneath the bed and wish their husbands had even a tenth of Jove’s stature?
“Yes, yes. One would think, after thirty covers, I would have committed to memory every display of hard muscle and tendon the Man of Daring possessed.” Moiren stroked his lips a moment. “But I find it more satisfying to draw from life, capturing the moment.”
“It’s your spinach.”
“An apt bit of jargon,” Moiren said and rubbed a nearby leaf as large as Gus’s head.
Gus bet the Arrow Collar Man never had done this. “So I should—”
“Unbutton your shirt, Mr. Lunge.”
Gus did as asked.
“Stretch your arms wide. Curl them in. And…release. Yes, you may well be the best I have seen in some time. Lately I’ve received such poor offerings…” Moiren sighed. No, more like hissed.
“Now, rip your undershirt.”
“What?” Gus looked down at the tight cotton taut over his torso. The front was damp with sweat, darkened by his chest hair.
“Rip. That. Undergarment. Now.”
Gus shrugged and took hold of the shirt by the curve by his neck and tore. Worn fabric ripped apart in his fists.
A silken leash of saliva linked Moiren’s parted jaws. The man’s excitement was evident in his trousers.
“Don’t you need your paints or something?” Gus asked. He brushed the front of his chest to tease the man.
“Yes, yes.” Moiren’s voice had softened to an awed whisper.
“Moiren. Moiren!”
The man’s trance broke. “Oh, we can’t begin painting now. The light fails. Too weak to illuminate the necessary da
ring. That will happen come morning. Besides, you have yet to meet my other guests.”
*
Once out of the greenhouse, Gus wiped the sweat from his chest with the ripped undershirt and felt like buttoning his shirt was akin to returning to civilization. The butler took him upstairs via a groaning staircase and down a dim hallway of closed doors. The butler stopped at the third. “This will be your room for the night. Supper is served within the hour. Proper attire is hanging in the closet.” The butler turned a key in the lock. “Do not be late.”
Gus anticipated a room decorated like a madam’s boudoir, with plenty of pillows, dark furniture, and too much burgundy, like God spilt the wine all over the place—not a room with holes in the plaster walls, a sagging bed that belonged in a flophouse, and a pipsqueak in his undershirt, with his suspenders hanging down and a face full of lather by the water bowl and mirror. The kid held a straight razor. He could have stepped off the streets of New York, like any of the city gamins, swiping fruit, picking pockets, all the ways for a dirty squirt to learn the hard lessons life demanded.
“You don’t look old enough to shave,” Gus said as he threw his travel bag on the bed. Bad springs groaned. Sleeping on that would be rough.
“And you look like the lost son of Kong.” Gus couldn’t place the kid’s accent but admired his moxie—though his eyes were wide, showing nerves. “The Empire State Building is thataway, big fella.” The kid gestured at the window with the razorblade.
Gus strode over to the kid, who retreated in turn until he bumped against the slender table beneath the water bowl. Warm water sloshed them both, but most of it dripped down the kid’s scrawny chest.
“W-What, you wanna see my diploma?” the kid asked.
“Who the hell are you?” Gus forced the kid against the faded wallpaper.
“Haven’t you ever read a Jove Lunge novel?”
“Lemme guess. You’re the shoeblack boy?” Gus grabbed the kid by the neck. The lather made the grip like catching an eel in water. He didn’t want to strangle the kid, just make sure he knew who was tops. The razor dropped from the kid’s hand to clatter on the floorboards. “Perhaps you should find another room.”
“I-I can’t,” the kid rasped. “Moiren…”
“He put you in here?”
The kid nodded. Spittle frothed his pretty lips.
“Why?”
“Please…”
Gus released the kid, who collapsed to the floor, where he sputtered a while. Gus kicked the blade out of his reach, not that he looked like he had any spirit in him. “So?”
“Moiren didn’t know if you’d rather have kitten or keister.”
“So she is here.” Gus wiped his hands dry on the towel.
The kid shrugged. “The girl? I just saw her once, when she came in.” The kid rubbed his neck. “Moiren’s sedan brought her.”
“What’s your name?”
“Carl. Carl Heim.”
Gus nodded. “Okay, Carl, you better clean up. I don’t share a bed with bums.” What kind of a job did I get into here? he thought. Nancies in a weird greenhouse wanting to paint me stripped down fighting boogeymen.
*
The dining room was long and narrow. Everything was dark wood and shining silverware, which reminded Gus of a coffin at a funeral. At least a fire roared in the fireplace chasing away some of the chill. Moiren, now dressed in a tuxedo and a Kraut’s spiked helmet, sat at the far end of the table. Gus took a seat at the man’s left. He fingered a knife and wondered if he could make the throw if he had to. He remembered that time in Red Hook…
“Ah, I see your oldest friend’s son has arrived,” Moiren said as Carl walked into the room. “Do join us, Timmy.”
The kid cleaned up well. Some would even call him pretty, with that chestnut hair slicked and parted down the center.
“Mr. Lunge, I won’t ask you to recount your time spent exploring Egypt with the professor who fell victim to the Blue Pharaoh’s sinister death traps. I applaud your kindness at making Timmy your ward and constant companion on your more recent adventures.”
“Hope you’re luckier than your old man, Timmy,” Gus said.
Carl took the seat directly across the table from him.
When she sauntered into the room, Moiren rose from his seat. The photographs of Samantha Kingsford Saul had shown Gus failed to capture her smoulder. Her hair might have been coiled flames. She wore a skimpy number that would have given the happiest of married fellas nervous ideas. Those red and plump lips savored, rather than breathed, the air. She was trouble, all tied up like a kid’s Christmas present.
“Miss Samantha, how pleasant you could join us tonight.”
“And who is she?” Gus asked. “Jove’s squeeze?”
Moiren giggled a moment. “Oh, no. She doesn’t have a part to play. At least not yet. That all depends on you, Mr. Lunge.”
“I hope we’re having steak. I just adore a good cut of meat.” Samantha took the only empty seat, beside Carl, who glowered at her with about as much fondness as a mouse would to an alley cat.
“I haven’t quite decided her role. She would make an excellent ingénue in distress. Or maybe a temptress playing a risky game. Yes, I think you would all agree—”
“I hope that the dress came free with the perfume.” Carl rubbed his nose. She gave him a scathing look in return.
“Well, now that we are all here.” Moiren gestured to the butler, who poured red wine for all. “A toast. To Jove Lunge in the Jungle of Doom. And to proving Oscar Wilde right. ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.’”
Gus brought the wine to his mouth, hesitated a moment, and trusted that the same iron gut owned by his father would keep him safe from mickeys. The wine tasted sour, but Moiren smacked his lips in appreciation. It must have been expensive, probably from France or Italy but kept dusty in the cellar for years.
“And what will be the feature course tonight, sir?” asked the butler.
“Mr. Lunge, as the guest of honor the choice is yours. Would you prefer the game hen—”
Samantha ran a finger around the edge of her wineglass. Gus felt something touch his thigh beneath the table.
Her stockinged foot, probably.
“—or the capon?”
Carl blushed and he looked into the fire.
Gus realized Moiren wasn’t talking food. Was the man testing him? Could he suspect why Gus was really there, or was this simply a game for his amusement?
Neither sat well with Gus.
“Perhaps he would like a nice prawn, sir.” Gus stiffened when the butler’s long fingers stroked their way down his back.
“I’ll take the capon.” Better a familiar dish than one he didn’t like prepared…
“No one ever picks the prawn,” the butler said with a heavy sigh and returned to the kitchen.
Samantha wore a bored pout—what reckless rich girls like to try on when they’ve been turned down. Carl squirmed, almost like Gus had grabbed him by the throat again.
*
After dinner, they followed their host into a drafty drawing room decorated—no, Gus decided that wasn’t the right word—marred, or maybe cursed, by his paintings. A Jove Lunge broke the jaw of a masked man with a fierce right hook; another Jove strangled a man in an underground grotto’s pool; a dangling Jove clutched the torn canvas of a dirigible covered in Oriental characters; Jove crouched, ready to pounce, behind an idol that resembled a leering squid while scarlet-robed men prepared to sacrifice a chesty dame in front. Each painting, each cover, was more reckless, more absurd than the one before.
Brandy was poured. Moiren struck a match to a pipe, one of those long affairs, with tobacco reeking like a bad fruit pie left too long in the oven.
The butler offered them cigarettes from a silvered case. Samantha reached over Gus’s arm to take one.
“So, was it Daddy?” she whispered to him as the butler offered a flame.
“What?”
She leaned closer. �
��I assume it was either Daddy or James who hired you.”
Gus began to suspect this wasn’t the first time Samantha had strayed. “Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Moiren hired me to be his hamfatter or model or something for the weekend.” He glanced in the direction of his host, who had taken Carl aside to show him some etchings.
“I read those tiresome Jove Lunge books. He rescues the girl at the end. Every time, even when she’s no good for him.”
“Doesn’t sound like Jove’s a sharp fella.”
“No. Doesn’t. Some girls don’t want to be rescued.” She blew a stream of bluish gray smoke into his face.
“Isn’t always up to the girl. Not when she’s featured on the society page. All it does is make men wager on how fast and far they’ll run. Like they do with horses on the racing pages.”
She frowned. “Unless you have a sedan in your pocket, I’m not going back with you to New York, Mr. Lunge.”
The reward for her return wasn’t scratch, but Gus found himself curious why she was there. Couldn’t be for the company—Moiren was one brushstroke away from being tossed into the loony bin. No, something was wrong, so he scrapped his original plan of grabbing her, kicking and screaming over his shoulder if necessary, and stealing one of Moiren’s cars.
“So am I the only one here who doesn’t appreciate art?” he asked.
A bored expression passed over her features. Even though Samantha knew the truth, she dismissed him as uninteresting. She seemed not to care if their host knew as well. Was that part of this entire game, or was she daring him to take her back home? And why, Gus had to wonder, had she run away to Moiren’s in the first place?
*
Gus sat up in bed in just his boxers, smoking one of his own cigarettes, not the awful tobacco Moiren offered. He was waiting to see who’d come through the door. Despite his being a gambling man, he wouldn’t have wagered. Could be any of the lot.
