“Yes, I’d like that,” his friend said, absorbed in examining a gadget that looked like a coffee pot with tubes and wires sticking out of it.
Henson went back down to the street; a chill wind having kicked up. As people turned up their collars, buttoning up and bending their heads low, Henson walked along erect, invigorated by the cold wind. For this was when he was at his sharpest, when he was most aware that any mistake would send him into the embrace of the Grim Destroyer. How he best not be complacent, least that bastard come for him through the white haze and claim him.
Upstairs, the woman called Petersen appeared from a side room in the doctor’s quarters. Ellsmere reacted.
Tesla touched the other man’s arm. “Don’t worry, Freja is on our side. She was my Mata Hari inside Davis’ operation. It was she who left certain doors unlocked for you to escape from your velvet prison in Poughkeepsie.”
“Well I’ll be,” Ellsmere muttered.
“Should I try and follow him see if he takes me to the Daughter?” Petersen said.
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary, my dear. We need to know how close Davis is getting. That remains your concentration.”
“Davis is playing for keeps, Naygoohock” she observed. She often referred to him using the Inukitut word for doctor. Tesla had correctly surmised a woman with Petersen’s exotic looks—half Danish and half Inuit—would attract his attention.
He smiled thinly. “So are we.”
Tesla escorted Ellsmere to a rear bedroom in his apartment suite, and he dozed off in a chair. The electrical wizard rejoined Petersen, who sat leafing through a magazine. They then stepped into the side room where she’d been eavesdropping on the conversation between Tesla and Henson. There, on two desks cater-corner to one another, were two consoles that looked at first glance like what a radio engineer might use. To a degree this was true, as the apparatuses were electrical in nature. The black metal constructs were festooned with several mesh screens, toggle switches, dials and gauges. Heavy cables led from each through holes bored in the plaster and lathe walls at the baseboard eventually connecting to the radio tower on the roof of the lab.
There were hand-printed labels over the toggles indicting a different office or an abode in which Tesla had planted listening devices. These were tea saucer-sized, created with help from his friend the electrical engineer and physicist Leon Theremin. Over time, he’d had them planted in the aforementioned locations to eavesdrop via his mastery of electricity. To not have his legs cut out from under him like in his decades-long battle with Thomas Edison, who he felt cheated him out of not only accolades but more importantly, his dealings as well. His listening disks, as he called them, were secreted in such places as the summer home of Henry Ford, an associate of Edison’s, three in Edison’s research lab in West Orange, New Jersey, and one most recently installed by Petersen in Davis’ office at the Challenger’s Club—Davis being a major stockholder in Edison’s enterprises.
This was how he’d found out about the council, and thereby deployed Petersen to find out more. He’d also heard the conversation between Davis and Schutz the night Henson had rescued Daddy Paradise’s daughter. Possibly he should have been more forthcoming in his first meeting with the explorer about this, but bitter past experience had taught him to play things close to the vest as they said here in America. Tesla had asked Petersen, the daughter of an old associate come to New York ‘to expand her horizons’ she’d said, to keep tabs on Lacy DeHavilin as her name, too, had come up once when Davis was on the phone talking about Henson. Subsequently, he’d employed his second story man, Jimmie Dale, to break in and plant a disk in the widow’s home given she had wealth. But he soon determined given her political bent, she was the opposite of the kind of person they wanted on this Medusa Council.
Now, he and Petersen sat and tuned in various frequencies to see what was transpiring. Maybe he was paranoid, Tesla considered yet again as he turned a dial. But hadn’t his obsession with perceived enemies yielded useful information of actual enemies? Wasn’t it just as telling to be more than just revenge on who’d cheated him in the past, or the potential to damage him in the present, that the price of freedom was unrepentant surveillance?
Well, he allowed, sipping his tea, such a rationalization sounded good.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After dropping Ellsmere off in Tesla’s care, Henson was still brooding about what happened to Stevenson. Not only did he feel bad about her having to deal with killing someone for the first time, he had to also wonder if she was right. Had he become so inured to taking a human life? He’d been using his knife rather freely as of late, and hadn’t paused to reflect on the import of removing someone from this world—persons who sought his demise, but still.
As he unlocked his apartment door and went inside, he stepped on something. He clicked on the light, and picked up a note that had been slipped under the door. At first, he figured it was from Destiny. He quickly read the message and swore under his breath. Henson closed the door and started for the closet to gather some of his equipment. But a knock on the door had him spinning on his heels and turning the knob.
A youngish white woman stood there.
“Yes, ma’am?” he said.
“You’re Matthew Henson, aren’t you?” There was a nervous quaver to her voice.
“I am. What can I do for you?”
“I need your help, please.”
“Look, I’m in the middle of something kind’a urgent. Give me your name and a way to get in touch, and I’ll get back to you, okay?” Henson slipped the note into his pants pocket.
Her body shook, and she put a hand to her lipsticked mouth. “Oh, if…if you could just give me a minute of your time, I’d be ever so grate…” But she didn’t finish. She got weak in the knees, and she pitched forward.
“Aw, sweet Lord.” Henson caught the fainting woman and reflexively looked up and down the hall. Great, a passed out white woman at his door at this time of night. Lightly, he tapped her face with his open palm. “Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?” No response. He sighed. He had no choice, he had to get her out of his arms. He set her on his couch. Then he figured he’d go across the hall and fetch Edna Mullins to help him, be a witness in case matters got out of hand.
He lifted her up and, as he got her inside his apartment, turned toward the couch. That’s when he heard the onrush of feet and cranked his head around in time to see the bulldog G-Man raise his blackjack and bring it down on his skull. He had been grinning broadly when he sapped him Henson would note later.
He came to gradually, and wasn’t surprised that he had a whopping headache. Henson groaned, shaking his head to clear the fog congealed in it. He was tied spread-eagle to the secured upright frame of a Murphy bed, sans mattress. The room was sparsely furnished, but then again, Henson knew this place wasn’t used to entertain guests. His shirt was on but unbuttoned, the sleeves loose as well. On a small wooden table there was a coffee cup, an alarm clock, and a pair of black gloves. There was a water pitcher and bowl for washing your face on a nearby sideboard. Bulldog, his snap-brim hat off, sat at the table leafing through a newspaper. He closed it as Henson tested his bonds.
“I win the bet,” he said.
“What bet?” Henson croaked.
“That you’d wake up before midnight. My partner said I whacked you too hard, and that maybe you needed medical attention. I said that burr head of yours was hard like a Mississippi mule’s ass.” He tossed the paper aside, letting it flutter to the floor. “Now I can get to work on your black hide.”
“Fuck you,” Henson growled.
Bulldog shook a finger at him. “Now you should know, hell’s comin’, boy, comin’ for you.” He slipped on the gloves. Stepping over to him, he hit Henson in the stomach causing him to vomit. “Ain’t so tough now, are you? Shoulda been doing this to you sooner as far as I’m concerned. You gonna spill all your guts tonight, darkie.”
Henson ta
sted the bile on his mouth and spat. “Like I said, fuck you.”
Bulldog hit him in the jaw, snapping his head back, and making the springs in the fame squeak. He reared back to strike him again when a door to Henson’s right opened. In stepped Fremont Davis, who coolly regarded the prisoner.
“That’ll be enough for the moment. I’m sure I can reason with Mr. Henson.” He paused, as if receiving a telepathic communication. “You are, after all, a responsible sort, aren’t you, Matt?”
Before Henson could respond, the other half of the Mutt & Jeff team entered the room. He was carrying a paper bag and removed his fedora. He put the bag on the table and plucked a chair from a corner of the room. He turned it around so the straight back was toward Henson and straddled the seat as he sat. He folded his arms atop the edge of the chair’s back, and regarded the explorer.
Henson was looking at Davis. “Taking off the kid gloves, Fremont?”
“You’ve forced my hand, old son.” he said.
Henson considered this probably meant he wasn’t going to get out of this alive. Even if he did, who would believe him that government men and a millionaire had kidnapped him to give him the third degree to find a meteor of cosmic power?
“What exactly can I do for you, Mr. Davis?” He knew the answer, but any delay from getting wailed on gave him a better chance of recovery.
“Where can we find the space rock? The special one?”
“I don’t know. And why do you want it, now? I’m guessing you’ve known or suspected its existence for a while.”
“You know, all right.” Bulldog came forward again but Davis held up a hand. Jeff remained sitting, watching.
“Hear me out, Mr. Henson. Nobody’s looking to cut you out of the recognition like what Peary did to you. You want to name the find after you, okay, I can make that happen. You want your picture in the paper standing next to the stone from space, fine, I can make that happen too.” Davis knew negroes liked their baubles.
“You know me enough to know I could give a shit about that. If that’s what I wanted, I could have had that years ago.”
“Then what?” the goateed man said.
“You know damn well what. I want my cut, Davis.”
“Really?”
Henson huffed. “Yes, really, white man. You think I’m a fool? You think I don’t know what the Daughter is capable of? Sheet,” he sneered.
Bulldog jabbed a finger at him. “You best watch your tongue. You ain’t got the upper hand here.”
“I don’t?” Henson challenged. “You gonna beat me within an inch of my life to talk? I’ve suckled on polar bear tit and ate raw dog and smacked my lips for more…boy. I’ve marched through weather thirty below and took out my stiff dick to satisfy two Eskimo broads at the same time in a lean-to igloo while slurping down boiling penguin stew. Afterward, I had enough left over to chase down a walrus just so I could catch and skin ‘em to wear his big teeth around my neck. You figure to make me all aquiver like that dame you hired to have me drop my guard? Go ahead.”
“Bragging sonofabitch,” Bulldog groused. “We’ll see.” At a nod from Davis, Bulldog went to work on him. “You and that Daddy Paradise think your shit don’t stink,” he grunted, driving a fist into Henson’s ribs. “Well I got news for you, sambo, you’ve been falling down on the job.” Another blow to the body wracked the prisoner.
After more than a minute of steady pounding, he paused, panting from his exertions. Henson’s head hung low, and blood dripped from his mouth and cuts on his face. Davis, who’d been standing off to the side watching, came back over. He gripped Henson’s chin and lifted his head. He was surprised the beaten man wasn’t glassy-eyed.
“You can take it, I’ll give you that, Matt,” the rich man opined.
“Huh,” Henson said, a slight smile on his face. “If you kill me, you’ll never find it,” he managed to say.
“I’ll make you talk,” Bulldog vowed.
Davis wasn’t so sure. And time was not a luxury. “Is it here in town?”
“You have to have me along. You palefaces go alone, especially them flashing your badges, you’ll get gutted. See it’s deep, deep in the jungle,” he cackled.
“He’s losing his mind,” the shorter federal man said.
“No, I don’t think so,” Jeff said.
His partner glanced at him, his gloves smeared with blood.
“You can beat me all night and it won’t make no nevermind,” Henson said. “We can’t get there until the day time anyway.”
“You’re lying,” Davis said.
“Okay,” Henson shot back. “How you know different?”
“Goddamn smart-aleck porch monkey,” Bulldog hissed.
Henson looked at him balefully. “You already got a lot of explaining to do with me looking like this.” Inwardly, Henson gathered his chi as had been taught him by the deformed monk Hiroki Kodama.
“Is it at Small’s Paradise where you do your broadcasts?’ the taller G-man asked, getting to his feet.
“You tell me, stretch. I bet you’ve already searched there, my home, and I’m sure May-May’s too. Huh, you tell me?” Henson figured the photos Davis had of him had been taken by these government men. But did this working over mean Davis was working with this Medusa Council, as Tesla had called it, to turn over the Daughter? But that meant the government would want it—or at least a piece of it. It didn’t seem likely to Henson that Davis would angle to do that. He knew enough about him to know he’d want the power for himself. Maybe to sell to the highest bidder, but more than likely to make him even richer and more influential. Which meant he’d have to control the Daughter.
“What’s the payday you promised these two?” Henson said.
Davis regarded him.
“This little meeting of the minds is off the books, ain’t it? Like those mugs in the animal masks you imported from out of town to fetch Ellsmere back. Make it all hush-hush. Like you were playing ball, but all along working behind the back deals for yourself.”
Bulldog exchanged a glance with the taller one. When they’d tortured the hood, he’d spilled that Davis was paying him. They went to Davis and demanded in on however the millionaire was going to cash in on this whatever it was he was after or they’d tell Hoover at the Bureau.
Davis motioned to the two, and they went into the side room, closing the door. Momentarily they returned. He adjusted his tie as he stood before Henson. “Let me understand. You’ll take us to the meteor?’
“Yeah, ‘cause you bastards might get smart and just leave me here to rot.”
“We wouldn’t want you to miss out on any fried chicken bonanzas,” Bulldog cracked.
“Your mama likes my drumstick,” Henson said, his banter misdirecting them as he continued to go within—calling up images of a snow-covered Mt. Hiel in Kyoto, of practicing martial arts bare-chested and ankle-deep in the white powder. He had to drain off any hesitations, channel his pain into resolve. His actions had to be fluid, effort without effort.
That got a rise out of Bulldog, but his partner stopped him. He was chuckling.
Davis continued. “If you take us to the meteor, why would you trust us to make good on a promise to cut you in—as you said, once we have it, we have it.”
“Really?” Henson said. “Once you have it, so what? It don’t come with a set of instructions. And I’ve retrieved Henrik from Dutch Schultz.” As he suspected, that was news to the shipping magnate and the other two, given the looks on their faces. That confirmed for Henson that Davis, using Schultz, had been trying all along to get to the Daughter first.
“The prof has already doped out the rock’s secrets. But you can only have him if I’m breathing.”
Bulldog held his arms out wide. “Let me tenderize him some more.”
“I gotta relieve myself,” Henson announced.
“Go ahead,” Bulldog said.
Henson rolled his head toward Davis. “I’m not talking a
bout peeing. You want me messing in my pants? You want even more attention on me in the morning when we get there? Okay by me, it ain’t like I’m the one who’s gonna be embarrassed.”
Davis turned to the tall one. He in turn took out a .45 from his shoulder holster under his coat. “Fine, you can have a bathroom break,” Jeff said. “But you’ll do it with this pacifier pressed against that thick head of yours.”
To his partner he said, “Untie him.”
“Shit,” he complained, but did so. He wasn’t careful slitting the ropes on Henson’s wrist and ankles, nicking his flesh.
Freed, Henson stumbled forward, bending over slightly, hands gripping just above his knees. He sagged, and Bulldog stepped away quickly, refusing to hold him up. He’d counted on the agent not standing too close to see what he was up to.
“Come on,” the tall one demanded. “Time’s a’wasting.”
“Just need to…get my…breath.” As Henson straightened up, he flung the shuriken he’d tucked away in a watch pocket sewn onto his pants’ inner waistband. This was one of the electrified ones Stevenson had altered. He was faster than Jeff could pull the trigger. The throwing star sunk deep in of his neck. He twitched and shook as electrical current surged through him. He managed a shot, but the gun was already dropping from his hand.
As this happened, Henson grabbed the washbowl and threw it at Davis, who was clearing the revolver he had on him. The dishware broke on his face, and the man stumbled back, firing blindly at a moving target. Henson used a leg sweep to upend Davis, sending him to the floor. He then swung around and leapt, dropping Bulldog with a flying kick. Falling to the floor, he landed on his backside, but rolled onto this stomach. He scrambled like a man at an oasis after three days with no water. Bulldog had latched onto his lower legs, but Henson now had hold of the .45. The taller one had also lunged for him, but Henson had aimed the throwing star purposely. He was getting woozy from loss of blood.
Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem Page 19