by Clay Moore
“Your wish is my command.”
“Let’s give something for the Fulbrights to remember.”
Rowena threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. She could not care less about what the society mavens had to say about her forwardness. Dammit, sometimes you had to be a little forward to get things off the mark.
William saw that Thomas was trying to twist his gun apart.
“I did not know that Thomas had that much of stick up his butt.”
“What a quaint way to put it? It’s part of a midwestern upbringing, a lay preacher for a father, and a lack of little girls near where we lived. He never had a chance to practice on any of those non-existent girls.
“I understand that he has gotten wittier with you to guide him. How did you do it?”
“I found sisters that wanted to go see a play. Then I gave him a list of topics to talk on. At the Act break, he is supposed to comment on the play. If he likes her, Thomas is to touch her on the shoulder, arm, or hand.”
“This might sound weird, but if my Brother acted like that with me, I might swoon over him.”
“Johnny! Let’s go, boy.”
“Where are we going?”
“Home for some lunch, and then to the Exposition Hall downtown for the Toy-expo.”
“Halloo!” Johnny came running.
William picked him up and had Johnny ride on his shoulder. That was something that the dead husband could not do. Johnny saw William as a big playmate. Rowena realized that she thought of William as a big playmate as well. The difference between them is Johnny wanted William to play games, Rowena wanted William to play adult games.
She could feel her face blush as she thought of those things.
Bringing up the Rear was Thomas. In their explosion last night, Rowena called him a sexless, Doctoral Monk. She intimated that Thomas needed to find relief in the arms of a willing woman, and soon.
Thomas made up his mind; he talked to William. He asked William to put down Johnny. They both went a little ways away.
“What is it, Thomas?”
“My Sister is a shrewd judge of people. She sure figured me out. She called me a sexless, Doctoral Monk.”
William paused to see if there was more.
“So, do you,Thomas. That peeking under the girl’s tent of the carnival show sure screwed you up. You should have waited until you were a little older. My father believed that a boy should have instruction in sex, so he subscribed to the police gazette. He would hide them from my mother, but I found them as was intended by my father. I was prepared when Suzy Johnson let me touch her breasts.
“What you need is a sure thing that doesn’t cost you money. Marguerite Johansen. I’ll make the arrangements. She won’t scare you because she likes sex with men. You are a handsome man.
“When her schedule and ours coincide, I’ll make a date. Do you like cabaret?”
Thomas shrugged his shoulders.
“Okay, I suggest that you go to Fish and Bull. They have a hilarious show. Humor is always a fun date.”
William walked away from Thomas. He found himself walking with Rowena.
“What did you and Thomas talk about.”
“About what you called him a few minutes ago.”
“What you mean, a sexless—“
“Yes, that, he wanted to feel more natural around women. I’m going to make him a date with Marguerite Johansen.”
“That singer that takes off—“
“Exactly. Johansen. I’ll make the arrangements. She won’t scare you because she likes sex with men. You are a handsome man. likes men and having sex with men.”
“That should wake up, my brother.”
“That story about the carnival woke him up but caused him to repress it. I’m hoping that Marguerite blasts all that repression out. Then he can settle down to finding a mate. Which I think might be my job, too.”
“Why is that?”
“We are brothers in arms. I would like to be brother-in-law as well.”
Rowena started when she heard his statement. “Is that how you feel?”
“I don’t say things that I don’t feel.”
This was unexpected. A virtual declaration of love unto marriage usually came after a long time courting.
“I know that I am precipitous, but I wanted to make sure you understood me. So, I speak plain language and no poetry. Rowena Candace, I would like your permission to court you with the goal of marriage.”
She knew that she was going to get passion and not poetry with William. He was good with Johnny.
“I do not court by mail.”
“Then we have to find you a job here. The Secret Service maintains a library of reference works, maps, and whatnot. Every librarian we’ve had is a Special Agent. They get sent on missions or help with other missions. The organization of the library has been neglected. If they can’t find what they need, they won’t use the library that was designed to give them information.”
“Will they let me organize things my way?”
“Right now, they would consider a thread better than what we have now.”
“I would have to walk the stacks and see how bad it is.”
“I’ve already sent a request to allow you and your son freedom of the house. A good librarian would make a good salary. The only thing is that you can’t write up what you did for the Secret Service. Maybe you could write up the Secret Service by pretending to write about a municipal library.”
“You would do this for me?”
“There is a measure of selfishness. You would be closer to me. It would make me go into the library more often.”
Rowena chuckled at that comment. “People calling you names?”
“I have a degree in engineering. It’s like West Point doesn’t matter.”
“I trust my brother does not participate in this kind of hazing.”
“When it comes to being physical, I am so much better.”
“Yes, he has always felt his lack there. You are taking care of that for him.”
“Not exactly for him, he’s doing all the work. He split a shirt and popped a few buttons. He put on a good inch across his chest. He needs a woman to see it and validate it.”
“Back home, I could have whistled up a baker’s dozen to validate him. My Social Contacts are fewer here. Most of the eligible women would be widows. How would he be with children?”
“Don’t rightly know. I’ll encourage Johnny to tag along with Thomas while we are at the Toy Expo. Speaking of which we should be getting ready. You know little boys. If we are the least bit late to something that he wants to see, we will hear about it for the rest of the month.”
“Mister Hazard, you know little boys well.”
“I should. I was one once.”
CHAPTER THREE
Toy Exposition
*****
ALL THROUGH THE trip to the Exposition hall Johnny was a chatterbox of questions. Finally, William directed him to his real Uncle Thomas. Johnny clambered over the front bench seat and sat with his Uncle. This allowed Rowena to sit very close to William. So close that he draped his left arm over her shoulder. She leaned against the tall man. It felt so natural.
“I’m surprised at how much he is letting us do.”
“I told him that you want to ‘court me unto marriage.’ He can’t have any quibbles about that. The no touching rule is off in this phase of a proper workup to marriage.”
“So, we are following custom?”
“Blessedly, no. I don’t know how long I can wait until I get relief.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you, dunderhead. So, get going. I gave you a list of things that need to be done.”
William laughed. Rowena felt his laugh in his chest; The rumble soothed her. She was almost over her husband. William was good with Johnny. She wondered what he would be like with a girl child. Rowena imagined a boy trying to get into the girl’s room with the use of a ladder. She could see him pulling the
ladder down. The boy turning to see who it was to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun.
Rowena’s father would have been doing the same thing. All Rowena was doing was giving in to an urge. It was firm and overrode her conscious self. Like it was doing now with William.
They reached the Exposition Building. Johnny got very excited. William turned around and admonished Johnny to keep hold of Uncle Thomas’s hand at all times. Johnny started to complain, but a gruff cough straightened him out. Johnny drug Thomas along as if Thomas were an unwilling lover. Then they entered the exposition building.
As far as the eye could see, toys; dolls for girls and dolls for boys. Windup train sets, Thomas stopped at that manufacturer’s table. Thomas took out a magnifying lens. Then he looked at the locomotive under the lens. Thomas took a business card from the vendor.
Then he was pulled to a table that had brightly colored figures of the dinosaurs. They used a distillate of oil to make something the toy company was calling plastic.
Johnny and Thomas came to a table. On the table were figures moving in ways that no toy company was doing. A Gorilla figure would take off its hat, and then put it back on. The motion of the arms was realistic. The speed of the action was slow but smooth.
“Do you have two of these Gorillas?”
“I certainly do. I should have made more of these. These and the Palace guardsman.”
“May I take a business card. I have some presents for my Sister’s children.”
“You may take one of my business cards with my compliments. However, I will be settling in the city, and I have a shop already set up. Let me write the address of that shop.”
The Toymaker wrote on the back of his card. He handed the card with the address on the back.
The Toymaker produced two boxes with the two Gorillas. Thomas gave the Toymaker a double eagle.
“Evangeline? Would you wrap up this customer, please?”
A pleasant-looking girl dressed in a dirndl came from behind the curtain. She wrapped the two boxes with brown paper. Using glue paper tape. Then she tied the package with twine. She gave him the package; He took it with his left hand. His hand touched hers briefly.
He found William sitting with Rowena. He wondered how it would feel to have his partner be an in-law. Thomas saw that William had found the sweets cart. He was allowing Johnny to eat from the bag with the admonition to choose quickly and only one.
“I see you bought a toy.”
“Actually it’s two toys; One for Johnny, and one for me.”
“I bet he found something interesting that might turn into something unusual.
“It might, but I think it already has been done.”
William knew the moods of his partner; Pensive was never a good mood. It might involve him in his laboratory for weeks on end. Then he would come out with something like their Steel Steeds.
“Could you watch Johnny for me. There’s something I got to see.”
William was left to play Daddy with Johnny and sit with Rowena. He did watch him climb the stairs to the second level. There were no exhibitors there, but it was open as a bypass if there were too many people. He saw Thomas stop. He put a small telescope to his eye.
The telescope was on a customer at the Toymaker’s booth. He thought that he recognized him, but he did not know from where.
Thomas took out a pencil and sketched the sour puss’s face. The hat that he liked to wear was something to know. Thomas hoped that his sketching skill was up to snuff. He was sure that he had seen this person in the Secret Service’s rogues gallery kept in the library in their mansion. He also wrote: “Girl?”
He closed his notebook on the pencil and replaced the notebook in his left coat pocket. The man he was looking for had a pinched face as well as glasses. He pointed to a toy soldier automata; Evangeline went behind the drapes. She came back with a box against his ordinary course of business. He did not show the contents of the box to the customer. The customer paid in greenbacks, and he spent a large amount of money.
Thomas decided to run to William. He would have to make William understand. Thomas finally made it to William.
“I-uh-saw a transfer between a confederate spymaster and his spy.”
“Transfer of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Chase after him.”
“Did you see the contents of the package.”
“No.” His shoulders slumped.
“Are you sure about the man?”
“I don’t even know his name, but I’ve seen it before.”
“I believe you, but you have to be swear-on-a-stack-of-bibles sure.”
“Will, you at least come with me and scan for him?”
“Yes, Now would be a good time to be outside. I can scan the people outside and see if I know any of them.”
Their group got up and walked outside. William scanned the faces of people near the entrance. Then his eyes chanced upon an agitated man trying to hail down a taxi. The man’s pinched face and the glasses he wore seemed familiar. Then the man looked straight at William.
“Everybody wait here. Thomas walk to the right. If I am right, we are looking at the Confederate Spymaster, Dylan Smit.”
Thomas was glad to have his memory jogged. The last time that they dealt with him was the matter of the high society woman who was executed for spying. He had slipped through the Secret Service’s fingers. They had rolled up his spies but allowed the Spymaster to escape.
William knew that he was looking too long at Dylan. He decided he had to increase his pace. Then he saw a carriage heading for Smit. William broke into a sprint. When the transport arrived, he saw that it was a police wagon and Thomas was riding with the driver.
Smit tried to run away, but William had reached him and knocked him down. He handcuffed the Spymaster. William gave a cheer at Thomas. Absentmindedly William showed the police officer his badge. Then picked up Smit from the ground. William threw him into the wagon and locked the door.
They saw Rowena off to the house with Johnny. They had to see to their arrest to prison. On the drive to the jail, they went through his satchel of papers. What they found were the drawings and specifications of the breech-loading Naval gun. This weapon was going to change naval warfare forever.
They were met at the prison by the two agents who were tasked with his apprehension. William handed them the satchel. With the handoff, William and Thomas were officially off the case. Now it was time for the other two agents to advance the ball.
William and Thomas hailed a Taxi. They told him their address; He took them to the dilapidated old mansion. William paid the cabbie. They walked into the house. Rowena engulfed William in an embrace that would have been embarrassing out of the house.
“What was that all about,” Rowena asked William.
“Your brother told me he thought he saw that Spymaster we were after. When I looked for him, I found him. Your brother got a hold of a police wagon. He and I trapped the Spymaster. I cuffed him, and we put him in prison.”
“I saw you go for your gun.”
“He had no weapon on him. So far, the battle is being conducted according to the rules. When we trap the spy, he supposed to give up. If he tries to shoot it out with us, then he will get dead, quick.”
They walked into the house, oblivious to the Toymaker and his creations.
CHAPTER FOUR
Chamber of Wonder
*****
WILLIAM WAS THE first person who lived in the house to wake up in the morning. He grabbed a coffee and sat down with the Washington Post, the Tabloid had a good assortment of news, commentary, and sports.
He chuckled as he remembered the Police gazette to which his father subscribed. It was his, but William was able to find the magazine no matter where he put it. As he grew older, he suspected that his father was using the magazine to introduce his son to the female form.
“That was a rather feral smile,”
said Rowena.
“Just remembering my father and the police gazette.”
“You read that, smut?”
“No, I looked at the magazine.”
Rowena chuckled. At the age that he was introduced to the female form, it did not confuse him, as it did her brother. The Pictures probably titillated him. He also saw many different kinds of women, black women, Hispanic women, and even Polynesian women.
“My mother was the repressed member of our family. When I started shaving, she stopped being the center of my world, and my father took over that job.”
She looked at her brother; Her mother was too powerful a personality. She took over the house and oversaw the morals. Rowena rebelled, but Thomas was a dutiful son. His character was almost extinguished until the death of their mother. Thank god, her father married a woman who was more liberal and even bore a second daughter.
The Butler brought an enveloped message from the Director. William opened the envelope and read the news. He put the paper back into the envelope and left it at Thomas’ usual place at the table.
Johnny came to the table with his hair slicked back and combed.
“Well, look at you,” said William. “Who’s the girl?”
“What do you mean?”
“A fella does not get all dolled up just to get all dolled up. There is usually a girl behind the scenes.”
“Is that why you do your hair and smell so good, because of my Mom.”
“You are a perceptive gentleman. Yes, I slick my hair and wear cologne because of your mother.”
He squeezed Rowena’s hand.
“Why? What is it for?”
“William was flummoxed. He knew that if he pursued Rowena, this day would come, but it is too early.”
He looked at Rowena with panic on his face. She smiled. “Two years from now, ask Uncle William. By that time, he should be Papa, and he will know all the answers.”
