But none of that would move me to act against this country that took me in, although arguably, I too had gotten the “shitty end of the stick.” I’d lost my family, my job, and my life. Still, I remembered the bad times in Hungary, the reason we risked everything to come here. I had no desire, even now, to return. I appreciated that West understood that most immigrants were loyal to their adopted country. Many didn’t believe that, no matter the proof. Now I knew I had no real choice about helping settle the Reading problem.
“All right,” I said, finishing my shot and, to Ben’s great relief, finally turning my glass upside-down. I was still a long way from drunk, not even really numb. But oddly enough, now that I had a job to do, the darkness receded, at least for now. “Tell me the plan.”
2
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. The train left Cleveland without incident, and I had a comfortable seat that wasn’t in the fanciest section but wasn’t in the worst, either. It was going to be a long ride, with stops all along the way.
West had arranged for my ticket and for my lodging once I got to Reading. Since it was going to take most of the day, I settled into my seat by the window and got as comfortable as a man of my size could.
Being on a case and going on a trip lifted my mood, but it did nothing for the nagging sense that something was wrong. I tried to interest myself with a newspaper or with the book I had brought and finally settled for watching the landscape slide by, noting the similarities and differences to my native Hungary.
Once or twice, I got up, under the pretext of using the lavatory or getting a cup of coffee from the commissary car. I paid close attention to my fellow passengers, trying to pin down the source of my uneasiness.
As I headed back to my seat, I angled past a wiry little man in the connector area between cars. I’d noticed him sitting on the opposite side of the row, a few seats behind me, but hadn’t paid him much attention.
He bumped into me on purpose. “What are you?” he hissed, staring at me as if he wished he could see down to my bones.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I sniffed the air, wondering if he was drunk, but I feared a darker reason.
“Did you do this to me?” he demanded, voice rising, shrill with panic. I did not want to attract attention, but the stranger seemed beyond caring about social niceties.
“I’ve never seen you before.” I didn’t dare call Krukis’s magic to me, but I wished for the “knowing” that it often conveyed.
The man was pale and sweating, with a twitchiness I’d sometimes seen in those who took too much patent medicine. With his dilated pupils and the way he licked his lips, I thought perhaps he’d gotten a bad batch of bathtub gin.
“You put a spell on me!” the wild-eyed man screeched. There was no helping it; people turned to look.
“You’re mad,” I said, my voice low and deep, hoping I could intimidate him into being quiet and taking his seat.
He shook his head so hard his glasses nearly flew off. “No, no I’m not. You’re one of them! Hexerei!” he shouted, and now I could see the conductor striding toward us.
“Here now, what’s going on?”
“I have no idea,” I replied, doing my best to look sane and sober. “I was coming back from the lavatory, and he just started shouting at me.”
The conductor turned to the stranger. The man’s glasses sat tilted on his nose, and his hair looked as if he had been running his hands through it. “He hexed me!” the man accused, pointing at me, and I heard a buzz of conversation through the train car.
“That’s enough of that nonsense,” the conductor snapped. “Get back to your seat and stop bothering people, or I’ll have you put off at the next station.”
“I’m telling the truth! I’ve been hexed. And there’s something not right about him,” the stranger repeated, pointing to me once more. “So maybe he’s the one—”
Whatever the man might have said next got cut off. He gasped as if he’d swallowed his tongue, then stiffened, going even paler, and his entire body began to tremble. Sweat poured from him, and he wheezed to draw air.
The stranger fell to the floor, half in and half out of the vestibule, and the shaking grew worse. Foam flecked his mouth, and he soiled himself. The other passengers gasped and drew back from the corridor but could not help staring in horror.
With one final groan, the man arched, then dropped back, dead.
The conductor collected his wits admirably. “I need a blanket and a stretcher,” he told a porter who happened by. “Now!” The porter went running.
“I swear, I’ve never seen him before,” I repeated, staring at the dead man.
“You never know what they’ve been drinking,” the conductor said with a shrug. “There’s bad stuff out there.” He looked at me and let out a long breath. “Go back to your seat. If the police at the station have any questions, we’ll find you.”
I walked back to my seat with my now-cool cup of coffee still clutched in my hand. The other passengers stared at me, then averted their eyes. A whisper passed through the car, and I heard the same word repeated.
Verhext. Cursed.
I took my seat, set my coffee down on the tray, and unfolded the newspaper to create a screen between myself and the prying eyes of my fellow travelers. My mind raced, trying to figure out what I’d seen. I’d heard of illness that could cause a person to have a fit, but I’d never seen it. Doctors thought such things were a problem in the brain. Only the ignorant blamed witches and demons for sickness.
Except that I knew for a fact that witches, gods, demons, and magic were real.
Perhaps once I reached Reading, West could find out more about the unlucky passenger. Maybe he had nothing to do with our mission. But the unsettled feeling hadn’t left me, and I found my jaw clenched and my shoulders tense.
After I’d read the paper twice and tired of pretending to study it further, I finally lowered my “shield” to find that the other passengers had gone back to their own diversions. Porters had removed the corpse, and I wrinkled my nose at the strong disinfectant they’d used to cover the smell.
We pulled into the Harrisburg station, and I watched out my window as the body was taken off on a litter, covered by a blanket. The conductor spoke with a policeman, but the cop either didn’t consider the stranger’s odd death to be his problem, or didn’t want to bother. I couldn’t shake the worry I felt, but at least it didn’t look like I’d be delayed being questioned by the police.
Several people got off at Harrisburg, a few moving with panicky haste as if they suddenly decided to change their plans en route. My fellow passengers weren’t staring at me; now, they made an effort to avert their eyes. Either they felt embarrassed by their earlier reaction, or they weren’t taking any chances that I might put the evil eye on them.
New travelers got on, filling the vacated seats. A blond man in a well-worn tweed jacket settled into the aisle seat a few rows in front and to the side. He moved with purpose, and although he wasn’t a large man, something about him commanded attention. The man had an intensity that drew the eye, even when he appeared to be at rest. I wondered if he were a politician, or perhaps a union organizer.
I’d dismissed the other new arrivals as uninteresting, until the last man ran for the train as it started to pull out of the station, catching hold and swinging up onto the step. I couldn’t hear what he said to the conductor, but he was permitted through and made his way down the aisle to the nearest empty seat as the train swayed, picking up speed.
My eyes narrowed, as my gut warned me to watch out for the newcomer. The man wore an expensive suit, carried a leather valise, and his shoes had a fresh shine. Black hair and large, equally dark eyes gave him a face not easily forgotten. He looked like a showman, perhaps an actor or a con artist. But the prickle I felt at the back of my mind wasn’t intuition. It was a warning from my patron god. Krukis had noticed the well-dressed stranger, and that couldn’t be a good thing.
I hadn’t planned on napping, not with everything that had happened, but the sun was warm through the window, and the clack of the wheels, coupled with the rocking of the car, put me under.
Or rather, Krukis wished to deliver a message.
In the dream, I stood in a cave, a dark, dank place that smelled of wet rock. The flickering light of a torch or lantern did little to drive away the shadows. I felt Krukis’s presence before I saw him. Only fools or madmen would want to stand in the presence of a god. Even at a distance, the sheer power of his presence overwhelmed me. I respected him, gave him his due, but stubborn bastard that I am, I refused to kneel. That Krukis did not demand it made me regard him more highly.
“What is bound cannot be allowed to be set free.” His deep voice made my bones tremble, like thunder close by.
Are there witches? Dream-me had a bit of moxie, to demand answers from a god.
“Veles seeks to interfere. The dark-haired man has some power, and the blond is a shill used without true understanding. Watch them closely, and be on guard.”
Can I just kill them when we get off the train, and be done with it? I preferred a direct approach, clean and efficient. I would prefer not to kill, but monsters, like rabid dogs, gave me no choice.
“Patience. Events must play out if the worst is to be prevented, or Veles will just try again.”
How can I stop a god?
“I will handle Veles. I rely on your stubbornness and talent for doing the unexpected to prevail against the mortals he controls. Do not forget: you are my champion.”
I startled awake, just as the train’s whistle sounded. Krukis’s deep voice rang in my mind. I wasn’t sure, but I thought he’d told me that my ability to be a pain in the ass was what would win the day. At least I could promise to live up to that expectation.
When I looked around, the blond man appeared to be sleeping. But the dark-eyed man had turned in his seat so that he could see me out of the corner of his eye. If he did, indeed, have some true magic, then perhaps he sensed a ripple because gods never walk softly. I tensed, expecting a confrontation, but after a while, he turned and picked up his book.
Several hours later, we reached the station in Reading. The blond man had left his seat before we came to the platform and did not return. I had hoped to at least get an idea of his destination. The dark-eyed man already had his valise down from the luggage rack, held between his feet. As soon as the doors opened, he sprang from his seat, pushing past those around him, to be one of the first out of the car. I had only a suitcase, so it didn’t take me long to get off the train, but the man was gone by the time I reached the street.
I swore under my breath in frustration, and then stopped to get my bearings.
“Why is there a Chinese pagoda on top of that mountain?” I asked a man standing on the station steps.
I came to this heavily German city expecting knitting mills and hosiery factories, but the Japanese building had me stumped.
The guy looked at me like that was a weird question. He shrugged. “I heard some rich guy wants to build a ritzy hotel. Guess he wanted it to look different.”
If that was the case, he’d succeeded. Mount Penn and its companion, Neversink Mountain, weren’t anything like the Appalachians closer to Pittsburgh or the Mátra range back in Hungary. By comparison, these “mountains” were just really big hills. With a pagoda. Odd.
I knew I was still a number of blocks from my destination, but a trolley would get me where I needed to go. I hopped a streetcar, which took me up to Spring and Ninth. Still getting my bearings, I looked around, trying to get a feel for this new place. An odd, medicinal scent hung in the air, and I wondered if the Luden’s factory a few blocks to the east had something to do with it. Up ahead in the foothills of Mouth Penn was the new Reading Senior High School, the huge, brick and stone building I’d heard someone refer to as the “castle on the hill.” It had just opened a few years ago and looked solid enough to last for centuries. The area around me was an odd mix of row houses, factories, corner stores, and pubs. I’d passed a Catholic orphanage several blocks to the south, and an elementary school sat at the corner of Spring and Moss. Other churches, Catholic and Protestant, poked spires above the skyline.
The air smelled of coal smoke and horses. The milkmen and the ice trucks lumbered along with their horse-drawn wagons, seemingly unconcerned by the modern trolley that zipped past them. From what I gathered, the department stores were down on Penn, along with the other fancy stores. West’s sources had all agreed that North Ninth Street was the place to go looking for information, a working man’s neighborhood of mostly German immigrants.
I paused, listening. I heard the ding of the streetcar, the clip-clop of hooves, and voices coming from the open windows of the narrow houses, speaking the version of Low German people in these parts called “Pennsylvania Dutch.” These folks were “Deutsch,” not “Dutch,” but they had long ago stopped correcting outsiders.
A boy who might have been about seven years old—still in short pants—followed the milkman’s cart, carrying a bucket and pail. I figured he must live around here.
“Hey, you!” I called out. He stopped and looked at me.
“Mister?”
“I’m new in town. You know where Kemmner’s Rooming House is?”
He scratched his head, then pointed. “Down that way, just before you get to the cough drop factory.”
I couldn’t help my curiosity. “What’s the bucket for?”
“My mum pays me a nickel for horse shit to put on her garden,” he replied proudly. I watched him run off after the receding wagon and had to chuckle at his enthusiasm.
Kemmner’s Rooming House was a row home at the end of the block. Like the rest of the houses, it was one room wide and stretched from one street to the alley behind it, and rose four floors into the air. The homes looked fairly new, although the soot from the coal smoke made everything dingy. I walked in the front door, carrying my suitcase, and removed my hat.
“May I help you?” A matronly woman past her middle years looked up from a rocking chair in the front room and paused her knitting.
“I’m looking for a room.”
The woman I assumed was Mrs. Kemmner looked me over from top to bottom. “How long?”
“That depends on whether I can find a job,” I replied, nervously fingering my cap to give the right impression. West and I agreed to my cover story as a mill hand who was looking for work anywhere I could find it, preferably in one of the underground breweries. Reading never held much with Prohibition and apparently made only the barest effort at hiding its alcohol.
“If you can pay a week in advance, I’ve got a room,” the woman said. “It’s small, but you’d be by yourself. Everyone shares the bathroom unless you want to use the old outhouse by the back door. Rent includes a simple breakfast, a bag lunch, and a hot supper, family-style. No drunks, and no visitors. Do you smoke?” She peered over her glasses at me.
“No, ma’am.”
“Good,” she replied with a curt nod. “Because you’d have to do it outside in the alley. I don’t hold with that.” She named a price, and I paid it.
“Top of the stairs, second door on your right. If you want your washing done, that’s on Tuesdays, and it costs extra.”
I lugged my suitcase up the stairs and found my room. The narrow space held a single bed, a dresser, chair, and footstool. A window and a gas lamp in a wall sconce provided good light. Nothing in my bag was likely to give me away as being more than I claimed, although I figured Mrs. Kemmner might look askance at the Colt 1911 tucked into my waistband, the silver dagger in a wrist sheath, or the packets of salt and bottle of holy water in my jacket pocket.
I explored the hallway, enough to find the bathroom and a back stairway that curved down in a tight spiral to the dining room. The kitchen and small yard were to my left, and a dining room, sitting room, and front room were lined up end to end, bringing me back to where Mrs. Kemmner remained rocking and knitting.
“I see you found your way,” she said. “You said something about looking for a job. Are you one of those Temperance people?”
“No ma’am,” I replied. “I like a beer as much as the next man, although I don’t overdo.” Even when I was mortal, I’d never been a drunkard. Now, I could drink a barrel-full and feel none the worse for it.
“Can you keep your mouth shut?”
I nodded.
“Then if you don’t mind hard work, Abe Minker’s looking for men to move barrels. Deliveries come at night, and you’ll have to avoid the cops. Don’t know about the pay. You’ll have to ask. Thought I’d mention it.” She gave me instructions on where to go and what to do. Obviously, the work was as illegal as the speakeasy it provisioned.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“You got a shiv?” Mrs. Kemmner asked.
I froze, wondering if she’d somehow noted the weapons beneath my jacket.
“If not, get one. The Seventh Street Gang causes trouble, and you might want protection, what with working nights.” Then she gave me another once-over. “Although you’re big enough, they might leave you alone. You look like you can handle yourself.”
More than she could imagine. Still, I ducked my head and thanked her for the advice, filing it away. I didn’t doubt that I could probably take on the whole gang and survive, but it would raise awkward questions best avoided.
A block from the Luden’s factory, a small grocer’s shop sat tucked between row houses on Eighth Street. The name over the door said “Izzy’s Market,” and the display in the window showed canned foods, sacks of flour, sugar, and sewing notions, as well as a jar of hard candy.
I watched through the window as a stream of men went to the counter and turned in a receipt. Some were handed cash; others walked out empty-handed. I didn’t have an inclination toward gambling myself, but I knew a numbers game when I saw it. Obviously the Minkers were running more than just bathtub gin.
Black Sun Page 2