Hudson's Kill

by Paddy Hirsch

  “Family?” Beaulieu was suddenly upright. His face was drained. “What family? My family is dead.”

  Riker seemed to realize he had gone too far. He took a step backwards, up the stairs.

  Beaulieu held out his hand to his footman.

  “No!” Justy shouted.

  But it was too late. Caraway pulled one of the pistols out of his belt and laid the grip in his master’s hand. In a single, smooth movement, Beaulieu cocked the weapon with his thumb, made a half turn, leveled it with a straight arm, and fired. The crash was enormous, the pistol belched smoke, and Riker was thrown backwards, his head striking the marble staircase with a sharp crack.

  The Hall was silent. Beaulieu’s face was pale and set. He held the pistol out to the side again, and Caraway took it and thrust it back in his belt.

  Hays raced down the steps, his red coat flying behind him. Beaulieu’s hand was still outstretched. He clicked his fingers, and Caraway frowned and leaned forward and whispered something.

  “Just give it to me, man!” Beaulieu said, and Caraway laid the other pistol in his master’s hand.

  Beaulieu stood, the pistol down by his side, waiting as Hays examined Riker. A thin stream of blood was trickling down the marble.

  “Have I killed him?” Beaulieu called out.

  Hays looked up. His face was pale. “You have, sir. You have indeed.”

  “Good.” Beaulieu turned towards Caraway, who was already holding his hand out to take the pistol back. And then he turned back to Hays.

  “You must place me under arrest, I presume?”

  Hays stood up. There was blood on his hands. He used a finger and thumb to pull a handkerchief from his cuff. “You presume correctly, sir. And directly, if you please.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Beaulieu gave a faint smile. “I have no wish to waste the court’s time.”

  The sharp double-click of the pistol’s cocking action was like a whip cracking in the silence of the Hall.

  “Look after things, Caraway,” Beaulieu said, softly. “My will is in an envelope on my desk.”

  The big man lunged at him, but too late. Beaulieu had already fitted the end of the long muzzle under his chin. And then he squeezed the trigger.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  January 1805,

  Eighteen Months Later

  It had snowed in the night, and the long hole in the ground looked like an open wound in a dead man’s belly. Justy stood back from the lip as Sergeant Vanderool climbed up the ladder and out of the pit. The sergeant took a few steps to one side and vomited.

  Justy handed him a flask, and Vanderool swilled and spat, then drank again. He nodded his thanks.

  “How many now?” Justy said.

  “Fifteen.”

  The builders had begun to dig along the edge of the marshland north of Hudson’s Kill in the New Year. They had stopped a week later when they found the first skull. Justy wasn’t surprised when he got the word. He remembered what Sahar had said, that Umar had murdered at least a dozen women when they had proved troublesome, or unable to conceive. He knew it was only a matter of time before they were found.

  He had not seen Sahar since that day in Hughson’s. She had disappeared, and he had not asked Kerry where she had gone. He did not even know whether she had tried to inherit Umar’s estate. Better not to ask, he thought. Better to wait for Kerry to tell him, if she ever would.

  New York was growing fast. Canvas Town, meanwhile, was shrinking. The developers were becoming more aggressive, and the City Council had granted them the support of the constabulary, so it was harder for the gangs to hold them back. But Owens and the Bull had their eyes on new pastures. The plan for the development of New York still had not been released, but speculators were buying land regardless. The city had already given its blessing to plans to drain Hudson’s Kill and the marshes, and fill in the land. The idea to develop the Collect had been raised again, by an engineer who claimed that he could level Bayard’s Mount in less than a year, drain the pond with a canal, and use the spoil to fill it in.

  Developers were already building, buying farmland and displacing farmers who brought their families and their livestock into the town, so that the streets now teemed with pigs and hens and smelled like a barnyard. Meanwhile, immigrants continued to flood in through the docks, fresh meat for the mills and the breweries, and prey for the gangs.

  Hays had been prescient. The city was becoming more violent as more and more people crammed into it every day. New gangs were rising up, in particular nativist groups who were beginning to make a habit of making drunken sallies into the Irish or black areas of the city, to beat and rape and steal. Murder was becoming a fact of life in New York, although nothing on the scale of what was in the pit that Justy peered into.

  “At least they’ll get a decent burial,” he said.

  “What kind?” Vanderool said. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them. “We don’t know what religion they were.”

  He was right. They knew nothing about the women. No one had noticed when they disappeared into Jericho, and no one had missed them once they were gone. They had no names. They were unremarked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Justy said. “Just so long as we remember them.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  They say the second book is the hardest, so I suppose I’ve been lucky. Long before I had finished the first of Justy and Kerry’s adventures, the ideas for more came bubbling out of me. It was just a question of catching them, like a man running madly about a meadow with a butterfly net.

  And getting them into the jar, if that’s what butterfly catchers do. That part wasn’t so easy, and I had a lot of help. Eileen gave me love, support, and encouragement, day in and day out, throughout. My agent, Lisa Gallagher, answered every one of my dozy questions, sometimes several times over. Michael and Monica were always there, like pinnacles of rock for the exhausted sailor to tie up to when he needed a well-marbled steak, or a strong gin. They may have been on the other side of the Atlantic, but Esther and Damien, and Michael and Andrea, kept me strong and filled me with faith. And I have so many other supporters to thank, from San Francisco to Singapore, including Kirsten and Richard di Patri; Mark and Rebecca Sorensen; Mary, Kathleen, and Amy Kelly; Rodney and Kalika Yap; David Willis; Dan Drake; Candice Fox; Kim Howe; Barbara Bogaev; Jeremy Hobson; Kazandra Santana; Brian Heller; Mark Laughlin; and, for always reminding me to keep my eyes open, Delilah, Sonia, and Adam.

  I wrote this book in coffee shops and libraries. Margaux Ryan and her crew at Starbucks in Los Feliz were most hospitable, as were the staff of the libraries in Glendale, New York, Singapore, West Hollywood, and right across Los Angeles—and in Silver Lake in particular. Thanks for having me!

  This book would never have been written if I couldn’t earn a crust at the same time, and because I was freelancing, I owe a great number of people a great deal of thanks for keeping me employed: at Gimlet, Alex Blumberg, Nazanin Rafsanjani, Matt Shilts, Abbie Ruzicka, and Rikki Novetsky; at Panoply, Matt Berger, Whitney Donaldson, Michele Siegel, and Raghu Manuvalan; and at NPR, Sarah Gilbert, David McGuffin, Sarah Robbins, Jacob Conrad, Miranda Kennedy, Stacey Vanek Smith, Cardiff Garcia, Darius Rafieyan, Alex Goldmark, Angie Hamilton-Lowe, Denise Rios, Melissa Kuypers, Danny Hajek, Justin Richmond, Arezou Rezvani, Marcia Caldwell, Leo del Aguila, and Theo Mondele.

  As anyone with any experience of publishing knows, the coming up with the story and the getting down of the words is only half the battle, and I’m fortunate to be part of such a great team, both at Tor/Forge in New York and Corvus in London. I owe my editors, Diana Gill and Sara O’Keeffe, particular thanks for chiseling the manuscript into shape, but I also want to thank Alexis Saarela, Lucille Rettino, Linda Quinton, Ken Holland, Kristin Temple, Lili Feinberg, Beth Parker, Clive Kintoff, Karen Duffy, Simon Hess, and Declan Heeney for all the hard work they’ve done to get this book out of the door and in front of you.

  GLOSSARY

  The following glossary
is compiled from a variety of sources, including The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux, by James Hardy Vaux; the Modern Flash Dictionary, by George Kent; the New Dictionary of All the Cant and Flash Languages, by Humphry Tristram Potter; the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose; the Universal Etymological English Dictionary, by Nathan Bailey; and A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries, by Julie Coleman.

  I have given a short interpretation of each term or phrase, and, where the source material provides a more colorful definition, I have added it in italics, for the reader’s entertainment.

  A

  abram—naked. Also, one who feigns madness.

  a chara—my friend

  a mhac—my brother; my friend

  at rug—sleeping. Also, safe. It is all rug. It is all right and safe, the game is secure. (Grose)

  B

  bach—Welsh term of endearment. Literally, “little one.”

  bairn—child

  baked—foolish; mad

  Ballum Rancum—orgy. A hop or dance where the women are all prostitutes. NB The company dance in their birthday suits. (Grose)

  barker—a pistol

  bawbels—trinkets; a man’s testicles. (Grose)

  bawdy-house—a brothel

  beak—a judge or magistrate

  black joke—a woman’s privates. Her black joke and belly so white. Figuratively, the black joke signifies the monosyllable. (Grose)

  bloodnut—redhead

  blowen—woman. A mistress or whore of the gentlemen of the camp. (Grose)

  bob—dollar; unit of currency

  boozing ken—an alehouse or tavern

  bowsing ken—an alehouse or tavern

  brace—a pair

  breech—backside

  breech’d—flush with money

  Bristol milk—sherry

  bunter—prostitute. A low dirty prostitute, half whore and half beggar. (Grose)

  buntlings—petticoats. Hale up the main buntlings: throw up the woman’s petticoats. (Bailey)

  burick—prostitute

  buzz—steal. To buz a person is to pick his pocket. The buz is the game of picking pockets in general. (Vaux)

  C

  cakey—good

  candle-fencer—a merchant who sells candles

  case-vrow—a prostitute attached to a particular bawdy-house. (Grose)

  cat—a cat o’ nine tails or a whip

  chatter broth—tea. Also ‘cat lap’ and ‘scandal broth.’ (Grose)

  chink—money

  chip—child

  chit—child

  chive—knife

  chonkey—pastry, usually stuffed with meat

  chouse—to cheat or trick

  clobber—clothing. Also, to strike.

  clunch—fool or idiot

  clutch—fight

  conk—informant. Also, nose.

  cooler—woman. Also, prison. Also, the buttocks. Kiss my cooler. Kiss my a-se. It is principally used to signify a woman’s posteriors. (Grose)

  costard—head

  costard monger—a dealer in fruit, particularly apples

  couch—to sleep

  couch a hogshead—to take a nap

  coup de main—a swift attack that relies on speed and surprise to accomplish its objectives in a single blow

  cove—man

  covey—collective for prostitutes. A covey of whores. What a fine covey here is, if the Devil would but throw his net. (Grose)

  crack—to break open

  cracked—mad or foolish

  crackers—trousers

  crib—to steal. Also, house.

  crocked—broken

  cross—illegal or dishonest practices in general are called the cross, in opposition to the square. (Vaux)

  cull, cully—man

  curtezan—prostitute

  D

  dab it up—To dab it up with a woman, is to agree to cohabit with her. (Vaux)

  dairy—breasts

  degen—a sword

  dimber—pretty

  dit—a story

  doxy—prostitute

  drab—prostitute

  dragoon—heavy cavalry

  drumbelo—a dull, heavy fellow. (Grose)

  ducat—dollar (slang), unit of currency

  duds—clothing

  dumb glutton—a woman’s privates

  E

  eagle—a five-dollar coin

  F

  fadge—a farthing. Also, sufficient. It won’t fadge; it won’t do. (Grose)

  fin—an arm

  flash—to be flash to any matter or meaning, is to understand or comprehend it, and is synonymous with being fly, down, or awake; to put a person flash to any thing, is to put him on his guard, to explain or inform him of what he was before unacquainted with. (Vaux) Also, underworld slang

  flog—to sell

  florence—generic term for a wealthy woman

  foxed—intoxicated

  G

  gaffer—a boss

  galleon—a large ship

  games—legs

  gelt—money

  geneth—girl (Welsh)

  gentry-mort—a gentlewoman

  giggler—a girl. Also, a prostitute.

  give the hoof—kick

  glimm—an eye. Also, to look.

  go snacks—to be partners. To … have a share in the benefit arising from any transaction to which you are privy. (Vaux)

  grot—a dwelling or house

  grubshite—a fool, a worthless person

  guinea—black

  gun—a look

  gundiguts—a fat, pursy fellow (Grose)

  H

  hackum—a thug

  hatchet-faced—a long, thin face

  heavers—breasts

  hot—angry

  How dost do?—hello; a greeting

  hugger-mugger—by stealth, privately, without making an appearance. (Grose)

  J

  jakes—toilet

  jarvie—driver, coachman

  judy—woman

  K

  kemesa—shirt

  ken—dwelling. Also, to understand. (Scots)

  kimbaw—to trick or cheat. Also, to beat. Let’s kimbaw the cull and get his money. (Bailey)

  kinchin; kinchen—a child; children

  kip—home. Also, slum.

  L

  libben—a home or house

  M

  mab—a Wench or Harlot (Bailey)

  madge—the private parts of a woman (Grose)

  make easy—kill

  malarkey—foolishness

  matelot—sailor

  mill—kill

  mollisher—woman

  mott—woman. Also, a woman’s privates.

  mutton-monger—a man addicted to wenching (Grose)

  my buff—my friend

  N

  nab—cloth

  nick—to steal. Also, jail.

  nimgimmer—a doctor or surgeon. Particularly those who cure the venereal disease. (Grose)

  nob—a wealthy gentleman

  nose gent—a nun

  nug—love, a word of love

  nug it up—make love

  P

  pannam—bread

  pannier—a basket. Also, womb. To fill a woman’s pannier: to impregnate a woman. (Green)

  paum—to hide

  peep—to spy

  peg—penis. Also, leg.

  pig, in—be with child

  pike—to run away

  pike on the bene—run away as fast as you can. (Bailey)

  pit—a pocket

  pizzle—a penis

  plate—silver plate. Also, money.

  Pompey—Portsmouth, England

  prancer—a horse. A snaffler of prancers, a horse stealer. (Bailey)

  primero—a card game

  privateer—a pirate

  puff—life

  put a hole in the bucket—cheat

  R

  rag—money

  rammer—an arm

  rant
allions—testicles. Also, a rantallion is one whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, i. e. whose shot pouch is longer than the barrel of his piece. (Grose)

  rattler—a carriage

  rig—a carriage. Also, clothing.

  rook—a cheat, a thief. To rook: to wipe one of his money. (Bailey)

  rookery—slum

  rotan—a carriage

  rum—good

  rumpus—a disturbance

  S

  scaly—miserly. Also, sordid.

  scowre off—run away

  scrap—a plan, a scheme

  scratcher—a bed

  scut—a woman’s privates. Also, slattern.

  shab off—to go away sneakingly (Bailey)

  Shanks’ pony—on foot

  simkin—a simpleton

  smicket—a woman’s inner garment of linnen; the o changed to an i, and the term et the better to fit the mouth of a prude. (Bailey)

  Smithfield—London district, close to the notorious Liberty of St Katherine’s-by-the-Tower

  sneak—The sneak is the practice of robbing houses or shops, by slipping in unperceived, and taking whatever may lay most convenient; this is commonly the first branch of thieving, in which young boys are initiated, who, from their size and activity, appear well adapted for it. (Vaux)

  snitch—to spy. Also, a punch on the nose.

  soused—drunk

  spider-shanked—thin-legged

  spin a dit—tell a story

  spooney—mad

  squeak beef—raise the alarm

  squirrel—a prostitute

  stingo—strong drink

  stoup—a drinking vessel

  stoup of tickle—a glass of strong liquor

  strap—to masturbate

  stroke—to copulate

  stump—a leg

  swede—a head