“What’s going on? Mr. Stanislaus said he had a job for me.” She glanced feverishly at the surrounding crowd. No one seemed to see her. It was impossible to tell what horrified her more—that I had just abducted her or that no one cared.
“Mr. Stanislaus’s associate was detained. I’ll take care of you.”
She dug in her heels and pulled at the chain. I’m no giant, but try as she might, she couldn’t move me. She was maybe five feet tall and, though I’m average height, my body was accustomed to rough play. After swapping punches in Hell’s Kitchen, I didn’t find a little girl much of a challenge.
I stood patiently on the platform, as if I were dealing with an obstinate terrier. “Do you have any bags? If you don’t tell me, they’ll be left behind.”
“I don’t understand...where are we going? Mr. Stanislaus said...”
“Never mind Stanislaus,” I told her. “He’s out of the equation.”
Clearly, the girl had been around livestock too much. She gave me a cow-eyed expression, as if I was speaking another language.
When the last of the passengers were clear, I stepped up to the conductor. Phoebe numbly followed.
“Two for the Akronite.” I produced the tickets I’d bought that morning as soon as I knew Phoebe was on the three-nineteen. A hasty retreat was absolutely vital, since I was denying some bawdy-house a pair of legs. It was a bridge-burning act. Now that I knew it was Stanny’s bridge I was burning, it was more important to get the hell out of town before he knew who took his girl.
The conductor pushed back his little black cap and scratched his forehead. “What’s this?” He pointed at the restraints.
“I’m her temporary guardian.”
“He is not,” the angry pixie shouted. “It’s an abduction!”
I sighed and reached into my vest pocket. “Here’s a cable from her mother. She asked that I find and return her minor daughter forthwith.”
“I don’t care if you have a cable from the mayor himself. I answer to Pennsylvania Rail, not her ma. Do you have a detention permit?”
“I’m her temporary guardian. I don’t need one.”
“Help! Someone please help!”
“Enough of that,” the conductor said with a scowl. He looked back to me. “I can’t let you on without a detention permit.”
I put away the telegram and tried not to grind my teeth. Pinkertons never had this problem. The Eyes had detention permits with every railway from Halifax to Vera Cruz.
A lone detective like me could hardly afford that.
“Here’s my permit.” I produced a five note. It was high, I know, but I couldn’t risk insulting him. As a rule, it’s better to overwhelm a man’s greed than make him barter.
“Looks in order,” he said.
Phoebe’s jaw went slack.
I tried not to smirk. “This ain’t Darke County, girl.”
“There’s something else,” the conductor said. “It’s customary for those transporting captives to purchase a private cabin.”
I froze. Would Ma Mosey pay for the extra seats? Her wire gave me the impression hers was a family of backwater peasants, probably hunched like cavemen in log huts, eating squirrels and possum.
There was no arguing with the man, though. I couldn’t risk being ejected, not with one of Stanny’s girls. It’d be safer to dance naked through Hell’s Kitchen with a solid-gold bumbershoot.
After purchasing four empty seats, I led my captive back and sat down in a roaring bad mood. It was most of my advance, so anything else on this journey would be out-of-pocket. I’d have to talk Phoebe’s hick family into reimbursing me. I wouldn’t have much leverage once their daughter was returned to them. I might’ve held the chit hostage till they paid, except a slave-girl wouldn’t go over too well with the missus.
I put Phoebe by the window, unlocked the chain, and took up a position by the sliding door. A porter retrieved her effects and my carpetbag from the platform. The carpetbag was a luxury I’d allowed myself after my last payout. It was much nicer than my old battered haversack, plus it carried a generous load and could unfold into a blanket when needed. I preferred not to use it that way, however, since it meant completely unpacking it. At the bottom of the bag was an illegal Colt sixer. Normally I carried a two-shot derringer and a collapsible truncheon. My friend Verhalen had built the truncheon for me after my last one splintered in a fight. Truncheons and derringers were the sort of sublegal equipment I could garnish a bull to ignore. The revolver was outright illegal, though, which is why I usually left it at home. The Magnates aren’t too keen on regular joes having guns, probably because bullets tend to ignore how rich you are.
I brought the sixer whenever I left my home territory. Maybe it was because I was a city boy at heart or maybe because all my contacts were in New York. Whatever the cause, I always got a little nervous leaving the city.
Phoebe glared at me from across the cabin. “So my mother sent you.”
“She’s worried about you.” It was a bit of a stretch, of course, since it was hard to tell how worried someone was from a telegram. Still, she cared enough to pay me, didn’t she?
Phoebe rolled her brown eyes and looked out the window. She had a nice profile. My guts squirmed at the thought of what Stanislaus would’ve done to her.
“It’s not often I get to save a girl before she’s soiled,” I said amiably.
We both lurched as the train pulled out of the station. My spirit bounced with the pistons. This was a damned easy case. If only they all were like this. Ma Mosey had done most of my work for me. She’d found which train her daughter was on and cabled me the data along with my fee. I just had to bribe a few dupes and poison a thug. All that was left was a languid ride through the country. Pennsylvania didn’t have the nicest scenery—not since Sherman came through eleven years ago—but it looked better than the soot-stained alleys I usually haunted. I might even catch up on my reading. I had a volume by one of my favorite German philosophers just waiting for me to crack like an egg.
It was hard not to smile. I hadn’t thumped any heads, hadn’t threatened anyone—hadn’t even set foot in a cathouse. There would be no perfume on me when I got home, which was good, since I couldn’t afford Moira going into one of her rages right now. She was pregnant, and my ma always told me that fetuses drink their mother’s mood like milk from a teat. We didn’t need the lad to be born angry. He was gonna be three-quarters Irish, which was problem enough.
Phoebe morosely watched the brick suburbs roll by. Their chimneys stabbed the air like the pikes of an enormous army, black ink pouring into a sky as gray as a bawdy’s bedsheets. Night was going to come early.
“You’re lucky your ma cares so much,” I told the back of her head.
“Oh, yeah, she cares.” Her reflection rolled her eyes.
“She cared enough to hire me, didn’t she?”
I’d dumped sixteen fat greenbacks on an advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post. I figured that a lot of my customers were country folk with missing daughters, so the best way to reach them was a national paper instead of the local rags. Phoebe’s ma had seen the ad, which made me hopeful others would as well.
“If she cares so much, why did she leave me with the wolves?” The girl turned. Her brow was furrowed in what I took for anger. After a moment, I realized it might’ve been pain. “She just gave me to them.”
It was a pretty common practice among farmers. If you had excess kids, you lent some to ano
ther family, usually for cash.
“So you ran away.”
She nodded. “They treated me like a slave.”
I sighed. She was a teenager, so hyperbole was normal. Years before, I’d seen actual slaves in the South. Once you’ve seen a man’s back all scarred by lash-marks, you don’t use that word lightly.
“I’m sure they weren’t that bad,” I said, thinking of those scars.
“Oh, they were.” Her chin jutted out defiantly. “And you’re dragging me back to them.”
“I’m taking you to your mother,” I reminded her. “These other people didn’t hire me. Your ma did.”
“I can take care of myself. I don’t need some trumped-up nanny.”
“Trumped-up nanny?”
“How would you prefer to describe your vocation, Mr...”
“Schist,” I growled. “Donovan Schist.”
“Well, Mr. Schist?”
My good mood vanished. I was ready to deliver the Lecture. Since I’d started finding Little Girls Lost, I’d honed this speech into a razor-sharp indictment of feminine foolishness and youthful naïveté. I won’t repeat it here, but suffice to say it covered all the pertinents: Legitimate employers do not request secretaries under twenty-five or blonde. Honest bosses do not ask for photographs instead of resumes. Respectable businesses do not buy train tickets for uneducated country girls.
One would think this was common sense, but in my experience, common sense is anything but.
She took the Lecture like most girls do, with her eyes on the scenery and her jaw firmly clenched. Defiance wafted from her like heat off summer pavement.
When I was done, I eased onto the seat and crossed my arms, careful to put my legs across the exit so she’d wake me if she tried to escape. Luckily, she seemed to be one of those women who preferred to rage silently. Maybe that worked on some men, but not me. After all the screaming I got at home, the silent treatment was heaven.
I’d be a fool to expect gratitude from a teenager. But it still frustrated me a little. Most girls I found were too strung out on laudanum or too badly beaten to offer any kind of thanks. It would’ve been nice if a healthy, clean girl would thank me for keeping her that way. I supposed if I wanted gratitude, I should’ve considered a different job. As I dozed under my bowler, I wondered if Stanislaus ever sent his thugs a thank-you note after an especially effective beating.
I came to as crinoline rustled my shin. Without even bothering to open my eyes, I caught her by the elbow as she tried to step over me. I threw her into the seat beside me, sat up and re-fettered her arm to mine.
“I need to use the lavatory,” she protested.
“You should’ve woke me.”
“But you were snoring so contently...”
“Uh-huh.”
She lifted the chain and let it drop. “This ain’t fair.”
“If you’re whining about this, you wouldn’t make it three days in the city.”
“I could’ve. I can take care of myself. I’ve got all kinds of skills. I can set a snare, for instance, or...”
“That’s a useful skill in Manhattan.” I laughed. “What exactly would you catch? Rat? Pigeon? Tramp? Do you prefer your hobo boiled or fried?”
“You’re not funny, Mr. Schist.”
“My wife reminds me all the time.” I yawned. “Why don’t you take a nap, girl?”
“I don’t belong in Ohio. I was made for better things.”
What? Like sucking back-alley cock? I didn’t say it, though. She looked so young and fresh that it seemed a sin to talk to her like that.
I decided a history lesson might be in order. “Do you know what they call Stanislaus on the street?”
Phoebe shook her head. Several curls had gotten free. They bounced against her temples.
“People call him Stanny Slash. Used to be, he jack-rolled sailors on shore leave. The bulls would find ’em in the river when he was done, their throats slashed and all their money gone, faces white and bloated.”
I could feel her quiver through the chain, but she refused to blink.
“After a while, he decided that icing sailors didn’t pay enough. So he asked himself, ‘Where do sailors spend their money?’ The answer, of course, was bawdy houses. So he stalked procurers. When all the waterfront pimps were belly-up, the trollops started paying him instead. Before long, he was collecting dimes off of every tart in the Upper Bay.”
“If that’s true—”
“Oh, believe me, it’s true.”
She sat up straight and gave a dignified sniff. “Well, then I...I would’ve run away first chance I got.”
“Uh-huh. You think you’re the first girl to think that? You think Stanislaus is the kind of man who lets his birds fly the coop? It’d be more accurate to call ’em bawdy-prisons. His scrags are like bloodhounds. He’s got every base covered. You would’ve been—” I looked into her eyes. “You would have had to—” I stopped and shook my head. “It’s better I found you.”
She yanked the chain petulantly but said nothing.
“Now...do you need to use the water closet?”
“It can wait.”
I considered forcing her. It would be easier to use the lavatory on the train than the station. I could even let her off the leash without worrying too much about escape, unless she fancied a ninety-mile-an-hour dive to the ground.
It was better to let her digest what I said, though. I tipped my bowler and settled in for another nap. It was harder now that we were chained together. The little chit was like a goddamn hummingbird after a strong pot of coffee. She’d put her hands on the arm rest, then her lap, then the rest again, each time making the steel links jingle together.
I was too much a city boy to let that bother me, though. I was used to hearing the rattle of drays and the screaming of neighbors all night. Before long, my eyes got heavy.
“Mr. Schist!”
I blinked. “Moira? I was up late last night, leave me be...”
Hands shook me. They were smaller than Moira’s. Little-girl hands.
“Phoebe.” I pushed my bowler back. “What is it now?”
She pointed at the sky through the window.
A deep, brooding crimson stained the low curve of the horizon. Someone else might’ve confused that red for dusk, but I knew better. The scarlet glow was reflecting off the clouds from below, as if the sun had fallen from the sky like a wounded bird.
I rose and went to the window, dragging my captive with me. “Christ alive!”
“Looks like fire,” she said.
The infernal glow limned the mountains and made harsh, clawing shadows of the conifers. We were deep in backcountry Pennsylvania now, far from the bustling city.
“It looks like we’re headed right for it,” I said.
“Are you afraid, Mr. Schist?” Her eyes twinkled in the witch-light.
“Only children think courage is being fearless,” I snarled.
Phoebe smiled. I was shocked at how strong the temptation was to strike her. That’s when I realized I wasn’t afraid.
I was terrified.
Chapter Two
The blood-red sky reminded me of a battlefield. Were the Confederates attacking us? Had the dispute over West Virginia expanded into a crisis? Western Pennsylvania wasn’t much to look at, but those southern bastards would love to get their hands on our coal. Filch the anthracite and you’d silence the great burning engine of the Magnocracy. Our proud ec
onomy would be dead in the water, a gargantuan ironclad with a cold boiler.
The last thing this country—or any country for that matter—needed was a war. I still remembered the last one. I remembered it like it was yesterday, the screams and the smell of roasted flesh, the Gatlings spitting hot rounds through a confusing pall of smoke and steam. The battlefields had been red like this, as if the whole world had been shoveled into the belly of a Franklin. Weird backlit shapes had shambled through the red glow of no man’s land—spindly bobbing arcipedes, rolling, mountainous ironclads...
“Are you well, Mr. Schist?”
For some reason, her concern angered me worse than petulance. I rounded on her. She shrank away as if chained to a bear.
The blow never landed. Guilt washed over me like a cold ocean wave. Her fear made me think of my wife. Moira had learned not to touch me when I got like this, not to come near me when my eyes got all unfocused and my body went taut as a harp string.
I wanted to bury myself in a dark hole and forget I was human. I wanted to become a cool mind without body or connections, a crisp clear thought without pain or fear or remorse.
That was hardly an option now, though.
I dragged my bag down and put it on the seat. We were still chained together, so I picked through its contents one-handed. Phoebe was polite enough to look away when I reached my unmentionables. Beneath that lay the revolver and a box of cartridges.
At the sight of the weapon, Phoebe’s attention snapped back, despite the presence of my underclothes.
“What brand is that?”
“Colt,” I answered mechanically.
“Are those center fire?”
“Yeah.” I paused.
“Why don’t you use rim fire? Ain’t they cheaper?”
“Well, yes. But pistols aren’t very keen to begin with and .22s don’t have much stopping power. I prefer the center fire to give it a cleaner burn and a sharper aim. I’ve found them to be more...responsive.”
She lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
Vacant Graves Page 2