The World of Tomorrow

by Brendan Mathews

  EVERYTHING INSIDE FRANCIS strained to move, to have this done, to wipe the slate clean. No more king, no more debt, no more Angus, no more Francis. But this mob with their sunburned faces checked him at every step. Watch it, will you? What’s the rush? Nice skirt, buddy! He tried to move with purpose, knifing between couples, surging when he could. Cronin’s map had been drawn like a cartoon, without regard to scale. On the map, the buildings were enormous, the gaps between them small, but in reality the distances were broad and pockmarked with obstacles: pushcarts selling lemon ice, souvenir vendors, and angular statues ready to hurl lightning bolts at the unsuspecting. Again he saw soldiers, and everywhere, again, police. They formed a wall against the crowds, they milled about on the lookout for trouble. Francis had to remind himself that for all they knew, he was just another Scotsman bound for the reception in the English garden. The sweat that glazed his skin could be blamed on the heat and his formal attire and not on the clock that ticked in his head and told him that time was running short. At 3:40 there would be a twenty-one-gun salute marking the king’s departure, and if it sounded before Francis could fire his own gun, it would also mark the end of the Dempseys.

  As he neared the British Pavilion, a band was finishing “God Save the King,” and with the closing bars, the fountain in the Lagoon of Nations erupted in colored lights and flames. A cheer went up and fireworks crackled overhead. Tiny flags—British and American—rained from the sky and the people whooped and scrambled for the souvenirs. Francis paused to take it in. He wished for a moment that Michael could be here to see it; in some other world, it would have been nice to spend a day at the fair surrounding themselves in the wonders of the future.

  But now the king, on some sort of motorized cart, was approaching the British Pavilion. In the paved courtyard fronting the entrance, men in cutaway coats and top hats, and women in floral-print dresses with their own flowery toppers, waited for a royal handshake. Two massive lions perched at the doors of the pavilion, claws raised and teeth bared. Francis couldn’t get in the courtyard and he didn’t trust his aim from the fringes—his hours in the warehouse with Cronin had proven that he was useless outside of ten feet—but if he could get to the point where the king would disembark from his cart, then he might have a chance, and it was likely to be his last. The king would be indoors for an hour inspecting the handicrafts and artifacts from his far-flung empire and then, if the papers were to be believed, he would be bustled into a car whose running boards were lined with bodyguards. Twenty-one guns would fire and that would be the end of it.

  Onlookers leaned forward, five deep, six deep, then ten. The police shifted their line as the king’s motor train neared, and a gap opened in the crowd, just ahead of the advancing monarch. Francis checked the clasp on the sporran to make sure it was unhitched. In a moment, he would grasp the gun, raise his arm, and fire. He saw the face of the king now, the queen next to him. The king waved to the assembled throng, leaving his heart a target. Francis’s hands were shaking. Festina lente, he said to himself. He yanked the gun from its pouch and prepared to punch his hand through the line of police.

  MARTIN WAS SWEPT along in a surge of well-wishers eager for a closer look at the king. He stood on tiptoes as the train made its slow advance toward the British Pavilion, but there were so many heads and such a thicket of bodies that it was hopeless to think he could ever find his brother, if he was even here. The cart swept in a wide arc, and the cordon of policemen linked arms and pushed back against the mob, opening a lane to the pavilion’s entrance. As the crowd before Martin parted, he saw Francis not twenty feet away, and with a clear path to the king. Martin tried to push closer, but he faced a hedge, all shoulders and elbows, and it would not budge. The gun was in his brother’s hand, and Francis’s face was white, stricken, empty. This was his brother, reckless and selfish, but also generous and large-hearted. He was going to kill a man to save his brothers from death and misery.

  “Francis!” he shouted, and again: “Franny!”

  FRANCIS TURNED TOWARD the sound of his name, a reflex, a flinch. Every face was to the king except for one: Martin? His brother was raising both hands, imploring him to—what? And then came a crunching blow and he was on the ground with another man atop him. The thud of his head against the pavement, the rough fabric of a police uniform, the scrape of buttons against his face. As Francis went sprawling, the crowd surged away, and a second policeman joined the first. He scooped the gun off the ground and together he and his partner hauled Francis unsteadily to his feet, each of them grabbing an arm, and dragged him away from the pavilion.

  Martin had saved the king, but he had failed his brother. And now Francis and all who knew him were done for. Already the cops were double-timing Francis to some Jail of the Future where he would be cuffed, searched, interrogated, imprisoned. Martin could only fade into the pack of fairgoers and brace for the blow that was sure to come.

  Or, like Francis and Michael had done, he could run.

  He ran. In the direction of his brother and the two men hustling him away, he ran. He dodged, lurched, and came up in front of them. In full voice, his eyes sparkling with rage, Martin bellowed, “What in God’s name have you done to Sir Angus?”

  The policemen stopped, both looking as dazed as Francis himself. A gash branded the cheek of the one who had tackled Francis. The other, no older than Martin, was trembling from the chain of events: the gun, the tackle, the collar of a would-be assassin.

  “Outta the way!” the first cop said. “He had a gun!”

  Martin tried once again to ape the accent of a British lord. “Of course he had a gun! He’s one of the king’s own bodyguards! Just look at him!”

  One of the men had Francis by the back of the neck, forcing his head down. Now they pulled him upright and gave him the once-over: red hair, kilt, sporran, high socks.

  “If he had his gun out,” Martin continued, “it was for a good reason!” He couldn’t stop himself from shouting. He could hear his pulse thudding in his ears.

  “I saw him headin’ for the king—”

  “Do you have any idea of the threats His Majesty is facing?” Martin said, still shouting. “This city is crawling with IRA men!”

  The second cop threw back his shoulders. “We haven’t heard a word about—”

  “Ninety percent of the police in this city are Irish,” Martin said. “Half of you would probably help them put a bullet in the king, given a chance.”

  “And who the hell are you to tell us what’s what?”

  “Inspector Fitzwilliam MacFarquhar,” he said. “Scotland Yard.” Martin glowered at the policemen. An insolent bunch, these Americans. “And what are your names? I’ll see that the mayor himself strips you of your badges.”

  He looked from one to the other. If he so much as blinked, he knew, the whole enterprise would collapse.

  “Look, we don’t want any—we just thought—”

  “You were doing your jobs. You saw a gun and you reacted—but you reacted against the wrong man. Now leave him be and get back to work.” Martin took his brother by the arm and turned him toward the British Pavilion, then stopped and faced the policemen again. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he said.

  The two policemen looked at each other uncertainly.

  “Take the cuffs off him. And give me his bloody gun.” Martin stretched out his hand. While the first policeman fit the key into the cuffs, the second one put the revolver in Martin’s hand. It was heavier than he had imagined, but without giving it another look he slipped it into his jacket pocket and stormed off. “This way, Your Lordship,” he said.

  Francis matched him stride for stride, wondering how much of this was real and how much was the result of the blow to his head. “Martin!” he said through gritted teeth. “Martin!”

  “Shush!” Martin chugged on purposefully, aiming for the back of the pavilion. He felt as if his heart might give out or his bowels give way. Without raising his voice, he said, “As soon as we round t
his corner, I want you to run like hell.”

  They rounded the corner, out of sight of the police, and they ran like hell. Behind the pavilion, across a bridge, and through the Town of Tomorrow with its model homes and picket fences, they ran like they had as boys from the rough lads who patrolled the banks of the river Lee, and like they had in Ballyrath from the farmers’ sons who delighted in pounding the jackeens who had blown into town (Feckin’ eejits, young Francis had once said. Don’t they know jackeens come from Dublin?). Martin laughed as he ran, and Francis started laughing too, as the hem of his kilt whipped about his legs and the sweat poured off the both of them. The speed and the effort burned off whatever had fueled Martin’s flight of fancy with the two policemen, and by the time they neared the gate to the fairgrounds, both were out of breath.

  “Jesus, Martin!” Francis gave his brother a shove. “The balls on you! And then asking for the gun!”

  Martin was doubled over, his lungs working like a bellows. He handed his pocket square to Francis and pointed at the blood on the side of his brother’s face.

  Francis looked from one direction to another, getting his bearings: the House of Jewels, Petticoat Lane, and, farther down, the Administration Building. The king would pass this way soon, but moving fast in an automobile instead of that toy train. “I don’t know what you’re doing here,” he said. “But I have to finish what I came for.”

  Martin shook his head and stood. He scanned the lanes and pavilion lawns for signs of pursuit. “Your man called. The old man’s dead. He said it’s off. He said you’re safe.”

  Francis slumped against the wall. His legs could no longer support him and he slid down to the gray-stone pavers.

  “I tried to get to you sooner,” Martin said, “but you’re a hard man to find.”

  Francis held his trembling hands before him. He gulped for air as he spoke. “I almost—”

  “I know,” Martin said, “but you didn’t.” He extended a hand, waited for Francis to see that it was there. Francis squinted up at him, took the hand, and his brother pulled him to his feet.

  “Now let’s get out of here,” Martin said. “And can we steer clear of those MacFarquhars from now on? It’s a fucking job of work to have them around.”

  FORDHAM HEIGHTS

  MICHAEL SAT ON THE front steps of Martin and Rosemary’s apartment, waiting for their return. His left arm, bandaged, hung in a sling, and his head still had that rattling, boxful-of-bees feeling that came after every encounter with the Noise. He had hoped that was all in the past, but the past, this week was showing him, had a way of reasserting itself. If that was how Yeats said good-bye, then the old ghost knew how to make an exit.

  Lilly had shared the cab with him for the ride up from the Plaza. After his fall in the hotel room, she could not think of leaving him alone. Even as the cab reached the Grand Concourse, her nerves were still frayed. She had heard the crash when he hit the window, and when she wrenched open the door she was certain he was about to topple backward through the glass. Instead, he staggered a few steps and flopped unconscious onto the bed. She’d seen him like this after the flashbulb knocked him from the stool, only now there was blood streaming from a gash that ran from his elbow to his wrist. She ran into the bathroom and retrieved a towel, which she wrapped tightly around his arm, and then called the front desk. Then she waited, taking his head into her lap and smoothing his sweat-slicked hair.

  The man who had last night delivered the champagne bustled into the room, a model of cool efficiency. That the countess and young Sir Malcolm were in bed together, and had apparently had some sort of altercation, did not shock him, nor did it slow his response. Collier peeled back the towel, viscous with blood, and with his own belt made a tourniquet for Michael’s arm. By the time he had wrapped the arm in a fresh towel, the hotel’s doctor on duty had arrived, and Lilly began to explain what she knew of his condition: deaf and mute, he was prone to fits, and this latest had almost pitched him out the hotel window. If Collier was skeptical of her narrative, he did not show it.

  Lilly asked if they shouldn’t take Michael to a hospital, but Collier assured her that the medical staff at the hotel was top-notch for such injuries—certainly better than what His Lordship would find in the emergency room of one of the city hospitals. As the doctor checked Michael’s breathing and began his first look at the cut, a nurse entered the room with a lamp and a room-service cart bright with stoppered glass bottles and surgical instruments. The light was switched on, the doctor probed Michael’s arm for shards of glass, and Lilly excused herself to the parlor, where she poured herself a Scotch and sipped it while gazing at the park.

  She would not leave today. How could she? And she did not think she could leave tomorrow. She had fallen too far behind in labeling her prints and her negatives, and in packing her clothes and cameras. The men from the shipping agent’s office would find her door locked. With no number to call, they would move on to the next job and forget all about her. Lilly would not forget—not about Josef or Prague or the year they had together—but neither would she go back. Earlier that morning, while drinking her coffee, she had read in Friday’s newspaper that a German police officer had been killed near Prague. The response had been swift: “measures amounting to martial law.” The speed of the new dictates was proof that they had been readied long before, just as Josef’s friend in the Castle had said. Prague’s new masters had merely been waiting for the right excuse to implement them. Some of Lilly’s coffee had spilled on the page, and she watched as the dark spots spread across the blocks of black type and white paper.

  She could tell herself that this latest news had made her decision for her, but she no longer needed signs from the world of spirits or dispatches from the world of the living. She knew where she would not go. The only open question was where she would: New York? California? Or Paris, her halfway home?

  AFTER THE DOCTOR had stitched his arm—a fat, ropy line that would heal into a thick scar—Michael lay sleeping, as he had after his collapse in Lilly’s studio. Francis’s warning was still fresh in Lilly’s ears—an hour, no more!—but what was she to do? It had already been twice that long and the sky had not fallen. She maintained a vigil in the room, a breeze coming through the broken window. The day’s paper had been delivered to the suite and she avoided the international news of the first section. Instead she read of the World’s Fair and the royal visit, and wondered why the paper’s photographers opted for such stiff, formally posed shots.

  When Michael woke, early in the afternoon, he was famished. His arm throbbed and itched. He was momentarily puzzled by the bandage, but then the chain of events came back to him: Yeats, the Noise, the window, and now here. Lilly smiled to see him awake and Michael put a hand to his stomach: So hungry! As there were no carts in the hotel selling knishes, she handed him the room-service menu and he almost cried for the joy of being able to read: Rib Veal Chop Casserole with Hearts of Artichoke, Breast of Guinea Hen, Jellied Consommé. He was connected again to the world of words. With the pen Lilly had handed him he circled Steak Frites, then wrote, Your name is______? She filled in the blank: Lilly.

  His face bloomed into a grin: How gorgeous.

  A short while later, they ate, and then she helped him dress, rolling the sleeves of his shirt. It was another hot day, and freed from being a Scottish lord, Michael could dress like an American teenager—or a Czech-Irish approximation of one. Lilly collected the envelope that Francis had given to her, took Michael by the arm, and together they left the suite.

  “Let’s get you home,” she said.

  MRS. FICHETTI HAD come outside to shoo these strangers off her steps, but Lilly would not be moved. In calm tones, she explained their situation—Michael was another Dempsey brother and she was a close friend of Rosemary’s. Though Mrs. Fichetti eyed them skeptically, she relented. She would have a word with Martin and Rosemary about the number of strangers who came to the apartment. It made her nervous, didn’t they know, to have so many strang
ers in her home. Before she went back inside, Mrs. Fichetti insisted, though they hadn’t even asked, that she wasn’t going to let them into the apartment, if that’s what they wanted. You couldn’t be too careful, not these days, she said. But with the sunshine filtering through the scraggy trees, Lilly and Michael were happy to sit on the steps.

  A car came to a stop in front of Mrs. Fichetti’s house. The stilled engine ticked in the heat and the man at the wheel eyed Michael and Lilly before opening his door. He was a big man in a crisp white shirt and, like Michael, he had one arm in a sling. In his good hand he held a small brown leather bag, too small for a valise, but too nice for tools. It took a moment for Lilly to recognize him as the man from the hotel suite, the one who’d left in such haste just as the champagne was being poured. Michael, too, remembered the man and waited as he made his slow progress around the car and onto the sidewalk. The Rolleiflex sat next to Lilly and as the man considered how to lift the latch on the front gate, she casually angled the twin lenses in his direction and shot.

  “Hello again,” she said once he was through the gate. She was reclining against the steps, taking in the sun, and had to shade her eyes as she spoke.

  “Any of his brothers about?” Cronin said.

  “No, I’m afraid it’s just the two of us.” She extended her hand. “I’m Lilly.”

  Cronin looked at her hand, then down at the bag. This wasn’t meant to be a social call. “Are you the one who found him when he was missing?” he said.