by Paul Boor
When he finished, Nicolas settled his elbows on the table and reached for his champagne. Renée was pale and subdued.
“It’s . . . it’s terrifying, what you’ve uncovered. Your daughter understands this?”
“I’ve kept the murdered boys, and my worst fears, from her. She and Adam know only that the boy Knox is in danger. Indeed, this is the first I’ve spoken of it, all of a piece like this.”
“You recall, Nick, my consternation over your body business. I confess something to you—I knew the boy you brought me had been murdered. The signs of strangulation were evident. Forgive me for not telling you.”
“I recall your cautions. I remember everything about Galveston, especially our evening together. Our dinner. Trudeau’s. The ride to the beach.”
The faintest blush colored Renée’s cheeks. “Yes. Cold, windy, and thoroughly delightful.”
“But what’s to be done about this mess? Knox has vanished—perhaps he’s not even alive—and I have no idea how to hunt down this Mr. Wilson, or the Mr. Wilsons of this gang.”
“I so wish I could help, because I’m as guilty as you. I should have reported the frozen boy to the authorities, but my experiments hinged on his fresh tissues. Such perfect specimens. Our best efforts at the medical college always seem to put us outside the law. Anatomy. Experimentation. It’s a murky business, Nick, full of risk from all sides.”
“But it’s too late to turn back. I must do something.”
“Well, you can’t go to the authorities about these boys any more than I was able to.” Renée’s gaze wandered over the balcony’s rail to the diners on the veranda beneath them. “My,” she said with a gentle shake of her head. “We’re in quite a pickle, aren’t we?”
“I was so hoping for a lovely visit for you—”
“A lovely visit it will be.”
“Yes, it will.” He took up his champagne. “I feel I’ve known you for years, Renée, like an old school pal.”
“And look where it’s led us.”
The waiter was at their side, pouring champagne. Nicolas felt the tension in his chest relent. A cool, dry breeze came from the street. Below, the evening promenade of passersby had begun, filling the walkways and streets, most in dark, formal evening clothes, the men’s top hats bobbing, the women’s full bustles aswirl as they took the cooling air with umbrellas clutched against the chance of a summer shower.
“Shall we dine on their veranda?” Renée asked, her wan profile betraying the fact that she’d not eaten much for days.
“The Grand American’s not known for its kitchen. I propose a short walk to a German rathskeller I know, not much to look at but superb dining. Spiced meats and sausages. Potato pancakes. A delicate Moselle. Sound good?”
“Excellent. We’ll talk more.”
At the rathskeller, they stayed late at their table in a dark, underground corner lit only by candles, and Nicolas explained at length his plan to build an icehouse in Galveston. “It’s an ideal market,” he said. “I’ve already funded my son’s efforts. Schuyler’s in Saint Louis studying our facility even as we speak.”
“I’m sure your son’s a clever fellow,” Renée said with a nod.
Nicolas settled back, warmed by the wine and the hope afforded by his son’s newfound dedication to the Galveston venture. Perhaps that boy would make a business partner after all.
“But one thing, Nick. Be sure your son doesn’t depart Saint Louis before October. Yellow fever took hold early in the South. The death toll in New Orleans is in the thousands, nearly that in Galveston. Every day at dawn carts full of the dead roll down our streets, rich and poor alike. We’ve run out of coffins, and the Magnolia Colored Cemetery has taken to burying in long, common graves. It’s no place for a Northerner.”
“How close are you and Uncle Francis to a cure?”
“We have a proper anti-toxoid that performs well in the test tube, but only small quantities. We must devise a method for large-scale manufacture. Only then can we understand the doses, the exact regimens necessary.”
“So there’s hope.”
“Not for this summer, I’m afraid. In Boston, the professors at Harvard create anti-toxoids more potent than ever, in great quantities, and they’re testing in patients at their General Hospital. I’m scheduled to begin my studies with them three days from now.”
Three days. Three heavenly days. Nicolas leaned back and lit one of the rich-tasting French cigarettes he’d purchased while waiting at the bar. He rarely smoked a cigarette, this newfangled habit young men like Schuyler had acquired from the Europeans.
Three days entirely free of worries about dead bodies. So many hours, so many minutes, with Renée.
“Saratoga will be the perfect diversion for you,” Nicolas said. “There’s the racing, the gambling. Perhaps we’ll take a paddle on the lake.”
“And best of all, there’s you, dear Nick.” The corners of her mouth trembled, as if she were struggling to put on a smile. “Still . . . it’s difficult to forget the suffering I left behind.”
Nicolas raised a glass. “I propose a toast to the Medical College of Galveston, the good Professors Keiller—both of you—and to the cure you’ll surely perfect upon your return.”
They walked the city streets until past midnight. In the hallway outside her room, Renée took Nicolas’s hand and pressed it warmly. “Thank you for a wonderful evening,” she said as she pulled her door open. She hesitated. A simple peck to the cheek . . . “Good night, dear Nick” . . . and a second that lingered.
The next morning before catching the train to Saratoga, Nicolas and Renée walked arm in arm through the fashion district. The goods on display in the shop windows seemed more vibrant, more enticing than Nicolas had ever noticed in this city. Could it be the brilliance of the August sun? To others on the busy street, he was sure they appeared just another couple, more handsome than most, shopping for the lady’s needs and laughing a great deal, and perhaps a bit flustered with each other.
Renée purchased a new straw hat at one of the finer shops.
At noon their bags were readied and they boarded a northbound car of the Mohawk & Malone Railroad for the short hop to Saratoga.
56
Saratoga
It was August in upstate New York: the sun shone bright, honeybees swarmed over meadows of clover, maple trees hummed with the sound of hives filling…and the horses were running at Saratoga.
Throngs of elegantly dressed men and women filed through the entrance gates of the world-famous Saratoga raceway. The flags of many nations fluttered atop the steeples of its grand pavilion. The track, the stables, the picnic grounds came alive with beaming spectators awaiting an afternoon of racing. From the furthest-flung points of the globe gamblers had come to stroll by the stables and size up the horseflesh. Laughter rang out. Wads of greenbacks were laid down at the betting booths.
Nicolas and Renée cut a striking figure as they strolled the grounds with race sheets under their arms and bets in their pockets, basking in the sweet, summery smell of freshly mown alfalfa and the neighing of well-bred horses. Nicolas had chosen his bow tie with the tiny brown diamonds, the Saratoga pattern, widely acknowledged to enhance one’s luck at the track. Renée thrust a single pink ostrich feather into the band of her newly purchased straw hat; the hat’s broad brim flapped in the summer breeze.
“Why, that’s one of the pink feathers I left you.”
“You see how perfectly I’ve kept it.”
The trackside crowd was rambunctious; their hoots and hollers fairly drowned the bugler’s call.
“Which is ours?” Renée asked as the hot-blooded steeds, strung tight as violin strings, filed toward the start line for the first race.
“Number nine, the chestnut.”
“They’re off!” resounded across the track and the horses flashed past the rail in a hail of flying turf. When number nine crossed the finish line, the handsome couple laughed aloud.
“Dead last.” Renée chuckled
. “We really must take a closer look for the next race.”
They peered into the stables, inspected the horseflesh, and strained to overhear the high rollers whose pockets bulged with winnings.
“Now that’s a horse I prefer,” Renée said. “That dark one, the filly. What a beauty.”
“She’s running in the fourth race,” Nicolas said, after he consulted his racing sheet.
“Let’s bet her, Nick. Bet her big and she’ll pay for our losses.”
“That theory rarely works,” he said with a smirk as he penciled a note alongside the filly’s name. “Nice horse, though. Says here she’s a two-year-old out of Morgan’s stable in Vermont, and Vermonters breed fine horses, or so my son says. Schuyler thinks he knows fast horses.”
Nicolas felt a burst of pride, mentioning his son’s name. Schuyler’s venturing to Saint Louis had buoyed his spirits ever since the boy left Forestport. Nicolas keenly awaited a report, though he well knew it might take weeks to get one’s bearings in a strange city.
Nicolas and Renée bet losing horses in the next two races. In the fourth race Morgan’s dark filly thundered off the start line, took an early lead, and easily held it to the finish. When he returned from collecting their winnings, a beaming Nicolas sensed that Renée’s mind had wandered from the task of picking fast horseflesh. From under the shade of her straw hat, her gaze wandered to the distant pastures rather than the track. The summer sun beat down. Nicolas stopped under the maples along the stable path to remove his derby and mop his brow.
“What is it, Renée?”
“I was thinking about our discussion last night,” she said. “And your problem.”
Nicolas looked up, derby in hand, damp handkerchief in the other. “Yes?”
“I’ve read that in England, poor, desperate girls—mere children—are sold to older men as concubines. Apparently, it’s a brisk underground business.”
“Knox told me about girls sent off to Chicago. Forced into prostitution is my bet.”
“In England it’s called the ‘white slave trade.’ How horrid. Young girls, sold as toys to the rich.”
“You’re suggesting these lost boys I’ve discovered are like these white slaves?”
“Precisely. Slaves to work crews.”
“Then they have slavemasters.”
“Your Mr. Wilson and others like him.”
Nicolas donned his derby and they wandered toward the track, discussing as they went. As the fifth race thundered past, he admired Renée from the corner of his eye. He longed for something, something he couldn’t pinpoint. Surely he wanted badly to solve this problem of dead boys turning up in his ice, a problem that Renée saw to the heart of . . . yet there was this undefined longing. Perhaps he wanted nothing more than a touch of that pink feather rustling in the breeze. Better yet, a kiss in the warm sunshine. That thought sent a tingle rippling down his spine.
Renée stepped away from the rail and turned toward him. Her eyes met his. “What are you thinking?” she asked. “No . . . don’t tell me. I see it in your eyes.”
“Would you be shocked to know I’m tempted to steal a kiss?”
“That, good sir, would not surprise me in the least,” she said with a smirk and a conciliatory laugh that hinted a small kiss, out of sight, might not be terribly untoward. “We’re two people on a similar wavelength, I’m afraid. Like sympathetic strings ringing. But, as you know, given your situation—”
They wandered the grounds until they found themselves ambling through a stand of hemlock. Picnickers had spread colorful cloths on the pine-needle floor in the deep shade. Nicolas’s mind flew to that impulsive moment when they’d shared a kiss on Galveston’s beach. This would be the time and place. Here, with the fresh piney scent of the forest floor under us.
“The last races will be running,” Renée said, a tinge of sadness in her voice.
“Let’s catch them from the clubhouse, shall we?”
The clubhouse, where the elite of Saratoga dined at trackside, was a private area sheltered by the pavilion rooftop. Tables were set with fine linen and china. Men were required to check their top hats and derbies at the entrance to allow an unobstructed view of the track. To those fortunate enough to have gained a seat, summery iced drinks were served with flare from a long copper bar.
“Wretched packed, isn’t it?” Nicolas said, surveying the tables, where couples gaily sipped cocktails and studied race sheets. A group of men of commerce stood along the outer rail, race sheets in their jacket pockets, enjoying an afternoon cigar. The waiter, who quickly gauged the elegance and position of each guest, seated Nicolas and Renée at an intimate trackside table with a prime view. Nicolas’s heart swelled at the sight of Renée being helped to the seat beside him. He ordered a whiskey, fixed tall, with Saratoga springwater. Renée had lemonade.
They studied the steeds parading to the start line. Renée pointed out a particularly fine Arabian. “Some fine horseflesh,” she said. “Your son would approve.”
Oddly, Nicolas hadn’t heard her comment. Instead, his attention was riveted on a man a few feet from their table, one of the businessmen. The gent, his hand on the rail, was leaning out to admire the dark Arabian stallion.
“What is it, Nick?”
Nicolas whispered, “One moment,” and scrambled to his feet. In the next second he was gone from the table, facing the man, a robust, middle-aged fellow in a suit of quality wool with lapels encrusted with pins and ribbons. The gentleman seemed taken aback. He raised a finger in Nicolas’s face. A rapid-fire exchange of words. Nicolas kept his arms stiff at his sides, his face reddening.
Nicolas took a step closer; the stout fellow turned abruptly and scuttled toward the entrance. Van Horne followed a few steps, his arm raised, then the man grabbed his hat from a hook at the clubhouse entrance and was lost in the crowd beyond.
Nicolas, shaking his head, returned to the table.
“What . . . ?”
“That man was one of them,” he said.
“You recognized Wilson?”
“No. The man’s ring.”
Nicolas, breathless, waved their waiter over and made a brusque enquiry. The waiter looked off to the rail where the man had stood. “Why, yes, of course, sir,” he said, smiling as he took the bill Nicolas slipped him. “I’ll enquire immediately.”
“His ring, Renée, his ring,” Nicolas said. “It had the mark I’ve seen on them. A figure in gold on a stone, a sapphire.”
Renée looked puzzled. “What figure, Nick?”
“Let me show you.”
Nicolas reached in his pocket for his pencil and race sheet. He flattened the race sheet on the snow-white tablecloth and began to sketch in the margin. His hand shook. Scowling, he scratched out his first attempt and searched his memory, sketching slowly, carefully, as if he were drawing a design for the patent men in Albany.
Ж
Moments later the waiter returned and bent to Nicolas’s ear. “The gentleman’s name is Wilson,” he said. “A regular at the clubhouse. His line of business isn’t known, I’m afraid. Mining, perhaps?”
“And his city?”
“Buffalo, sir. Of that, I’m certain.”
As a blood-red summer sun settled onto the mountains in the distance, and the last of the steeds filed by, Nicolas and Renée—such a handsome couple at a trackside table—were deep in conversation. They hardly noticed the sunset, or the horses.
57
The Fort Stanwix
When the ninth race ended Nicolas and Renée took to the busy streets of Saratoga.
“No, I’ve no idea of the mark’s significance,” Renée said, studying again the mark on the race sheet in her hand as they strolled side by side.
“But you’ve seen it before.”
“Of that I’m certain. I’ve seen it on young women while on my rounds in the hospital.”
“Have you ever seen it on boys?”
“No.”
“That boy you used for your experiments—he had
one.”
“Really? I . . . I didn’t notice.”
“Clearly, you were preoccupied.”
“Yes. Like I say, I’ve only seen it on young women, and only the type of woman destitute enough to come to our city clinic. I assumed it was some sort of ritualistic sign given them by their brothel-keeper or madam.”
“In Galveston.”
“Yes.”
“That far from New York then.”
Nicolas had chosen the grandest of the lakefront hotels for their Saratoga rendezvous, the Fort Stanwix, only a short carriage ride from the town center. Upon arrival, they retired to their separate rooms to prepare for the evening.
At the appointed hour Renée stepped down the Stanwix’s staircase dressed in a light blue evening gown of feathery silk. The gown was high necked, with a tightly fitted, modern waistline, flowing skirts with no train, and puffed sleeves accented by lace at the wrist. Heads turned. Other lady guests, having played away the afternoon at croquet and lawn tennis, were strolling the lobby in jewels and black evening attire, heavily trussed and wasp-waisted, with cumbersome bustles that—even on the richest—seemed somber stuff to Nicolas. He caught a murmur among them: “That sea-blue dress, much too simple, isn’t it?” . . . “a lady doctor” . . . “from the South, I believe.”
Renée took his arm with grace in her step. Her wry smile lit the hotel lobby.
“You’re the loveliest item here,” Nicolas said.
“Oh, hardly. These others are simply dripping with diamonds, aren’t they?”
Nicolas noticed Renée’s effect on other men, who eyed the naturally slim waist and the blue swirl of her youthful step. Still others strained to hear the Southern ring in Renée’s voice as she greeted her gentleman friend.
