by Jeffrey Ford
Misha stayed up and made us coffee before we went out on our midnight ramble. Wide awake and warm inside, we ventured forth into the blustery night. We headed down to South Street and took a left. Peck Slip was only a few blocks south at the end of Ferry. We stuck to the shadows of the warehouses and shops. Across the way, we passed the docks, some empty, some occupied with majestic clippers and whalers and fishing boats. The wind blew amid the rigging, the spires creaked, empty holds groaned as the vessels rocked. A moon showed itself here and there, fast clouds passing before it. Overwhelming was the scent of low tide. The captain carried his boarding ax at the ready, and I assumed he had his gun. I had my writing satchel. I’d contemplated taking a large knife from the kitchen, but really, why?
We approached Peck Slip in silence and squinted to see in those instances when the moon broke through the clouds. Staring down the length of the dock, I thought I caught some sign of movement. I turned my head to better hear and picked up the sound of voices coming from that direction.
“Do you hear them?” whispered Ahab.
I nodded and grabbed the captain by the coat sleeve, leading him back through the shadows of the buildings, nearly all the way to my place. We crossed the road to James Slip. Halfway out on the dock there, I knew we’d find a square hole cut into the planks and a wooden ladder descending toward the waters of the East River. Lashed to a beam of the dock was a dinghy. I’d seen it bobbing there on my Sunday afternoon strolls through the neighborhood.
It was easy enough to find the boat, but getting into it was another story. First, Ahab had to survive the ladder. I closed my eyes every time the tip of that whalebone leg came to rest upon a rung. I promised myself that if he were to fall into the drink, I’d not dive in to rescue him. Miraculously, he made it and settled himself into the boat. I followed him down, slipping in my descent and nearly taking a plunge. I wondered if he’d have gone over the side for me. Once we were settled, I deferred to Ahab’s seamanship and let him take the oars.
He held them at a certain attitude so that they cut the water without a sound. Neither of us spoke, and it wasn’t long before his rowing had taken us to the end of the dock and around toward Peck Slip. We headed across some open water and he whispered for me to duck down. After every two hearty strokes, he’d lift the oars and the boat would glide through the shadows. We came up along the starboard side of the single boat docked on Peck Slip that night. Its port was against the dock and it was from there it was being unloaded. Now we could clearly hear the voices of the men, and I grew somewhat nervous. No one going to the trouble to unload a ship at midnight wants to be seen.
I put my hand up for Ahab to cease rowing, but he kept moving the boat as if intending to sail around the ship. We swept gently along down the starboard side, and, passing beneath the prow, those clouds traveling across the moon allowed me a split second to read the gilt letters of the craft’s name—Nemesis. The frontispiece we drifted beneath was a maiden with wings and empty eyes, holding forth a set of scales. We sailed from the front of the clipper, along its port side. I could see shadowy figures standing above us on the dock and the gangplank. Ahab let the dinghy slip in among the pilings, under the dock, and we finally took up a position beneath where the cargo of the vessel was unloaded. There, we cautiously let out the boat’s small anchor and sat as still as the river would allow.
At first the voices were muffled by the planks, the sound of the wind, and the lapping of the river against the side of the ship. Slowly, though, I was able to discern what was being said. After quite a tramping upon and bowing and squealing of the gangplank, a fellow with a deep, harsh voice yelled, “Gentle with the boss’s pet. If something happens to her, he’ll boil our arses.”
“Damnedest thing I ever seen. Keep ya up at night just think’n about it,” said another.
“Ya know. If you was to ungag her, she talks.”
“Saints preserve us.”
There were a few moments of silence, and then a storm of scuffling directly above us as if something was struggling to be free. That deep voice called, “Jesus, watch that tail. I told you, a kiss from that stinger, and it’s off to ifreann for ya.”
As they seemed to get whatever the boss’s pet was under control, I heard someone address orders to “Gabriel,” and a young voice answered. The captain obviously heard it, too, and on the second utterance of it, he sprang up, or intended to, but the river sent him a wave that dropped him back on his ass and nearly out of the boat. I grabbed him by the coat sleeve at the last second. The event made a racket and upon hitting his back against the edge of the middle bench, he groaned like a ghost.
From above, we heard, “Wait. Who heard that?” There was a sudden stillness upon the planks.
“It’s just the beast. Malbaster told me she’s learning to throw her voice. Cunning bitch.”
Ahab tried to prevent me from weighing anchor, but I insisted. He pulled his pistol, and I somehow knew he wouldn’t shoot. Finally, he acquiesced and rowed us along beneath the dock. We drifted over to the starboard side of the Nemesis, passing again beneath the prow. As we cut across the open water to James Slip, I took a moment in the ragged moonlight to wonder at the fact that I was sneaking around in a rowboat in the East River after midnight. I shook my head to clear the thought.
Once again back on the dock at James Slip, Ahab grabbed me by the coat sleeve and said, “That was my son. Did you hear him?”
I nodded.
“Gabriel.”
“I’m going to help you get your boy, but I’d rather do it without us getting our throats cut in the process. Have some patience.”
“Very well, enough for tonight. Tomorrow, we look for the Jolly Host.”
“The what?” I asked.
“You didn’t hear them saying that? The phrase was invoked three times.”
“You’re certain?”
“Aye,” he said and found his pipe in his left pocket.
6
It never struck me how cold it was out till the night’s action was finished and we were holed up in my writing parlor, drinking gin in the glow of the fireplace. The incident left both of us, for different reasons, too jittery for sleep. Me, I didn’t like taking chances. As for Ahab, it was the sound of his son’s voice, or so we believed. He sat on the couch, smoking his pipe, and studying the picture of his wife and boy.
As I lit one of my cheap cigars, I happened to look over at him and noticed that he displayed a most hideous expression. I recalled the face he wore when he told me he’d forgotten how to laugh. I guessed this ghastly mask was the result of his having forgotten something even more necessary. Trying to keep him from foundering in the slough of despond, I said, “And, Ahab, what of the creature they had trapped. What was it?”
“I’m more interested in who Alabaster is.”
“No, not Alabaster, Malbaster.’”
“Yes, that fellow.”
“But the creature doesn’t pique your interest?”
“I’ve heard of it before,” he said.
“A creature that can speak and has the stinger of a scorpion at the tip of its long tail? Sounds like something I’d confabulate for the Mirror.”
“Aye.”
“And how did you hear about such a thing?”
“On my journey to Australia from the Gilberts aboard the American clipper the Eastern State, we put into Vanuatu for a load of coconut. We had but a short stay. One of the three nights we were in port, I spoke to a native, Olima, who had sailed on British ships and knew English. He sat down and bought me a whiskey in hopes he could practice the language. This was a hardworking, honest man. I had no reason to doubt him.”
“I suppose to write the things I do, it requires being a doubter,” I said.
“When you’re swallowed by Leviathan and live to tell about it, you recognize the truth when you hear it.”
“So let’s hear it,” I said and poured him another drink to loosen his tongue. Getting anything out of Ahab when he knew you were
trying to get something was a project. I played it nonchalant. Smoked my cigar and waited. When nothing was forthcoming, I said, “It can’t be real.”
The captain nodded wistfully to indicate it was. “The fellow told me he was on a whale ship, the Suspicion, out of Peterhead, Britain. It was the only ship from the fleet there that sailed the vast distance to the Southern Seas. The rest of the whalers in that port all headed north into the Arctic Circle.
“On the journey back from Pacific to Atlantic, the Suspicion put in at one of the atolls in the Deception Islands on the tip of Cape Horn. There was a fellow there, a Spaniard by the name of Sarcosa, who had one of those beasts in captivity.”
“Ahab, consider who you’re trying to dupe with this cock and bull,” I said.
“Olima swore to it,” said the captain. “Sarcosa had excavated a large battle pit and built a tree post arena around it covered with a thatched roof. He told Olima and the other sailors that he had in captivity the most powerful beast in the world. My friend told me his fellow seamen were skeptical as Sarcosa never allowed anyone to get a look at the creature.
“While the Suspicion was docked in the tiny port, another ship, a large fishing boat arrived with a strange cargo. The crew of that ship had captured a giant sloth, a supposedly extinct creature, in the jungles of Brazil. It was bigger than any bear, and the whole deck of their ship was taken up by an enormous crate that held the monster. They bet Sarcosa that their sloth would be victorious in a battle against whatever he was putting up. Olima said the Brits bet on the match but he didn’t. They gathered round the pit, the steamy air a bug stew. Wads of money were wagered, gallons of brandy called pisco were consumed. There was drunkenness and the firing of pistols into the thatched ceiling.
“When the giant sloth was released, it roared and my Ni-Vanuatu friend nearly ran. He forced himself to stay, so that he might catch a glimpse of Sarcosa’s creature. Eventually, it made an appearance. A sleek cat, like a puma, its coat rusty brown, its ringlets dark blond. The face of an angel. She was beautiful until she opened her mouth, and kept opening it to reveal the rows of tearing canines that turned in unison like an ingenious mechanical device.
“Every time her tail lashed out and buried its stinger inches deep in the sloth, the lumbering beast had a seizure. Eyes rolling back, drool, a near human moan. All the while she spoke calm poetry in the lightest, most lovely voice. One of his fellow sailors told Olima that her verses were from Giambatista’s epic Fathomless Angel. Olima didn’t understand Spanish, but he said the sound of it was beautiful.
“What was horrible was when she ate through the sloth’s neck with the speed and precision of a crosscut saw in the hands of two able lumbermen. He made a motion as if washing his hands when he spoke about the blood and gore that sprayed in all directions. ‘The head fell like a rock to the ground,’ he swore.”
“What did they call the creature?” I asked.
“Olima told me it was a manticore.”
“And you believed this?”
“Certainly.”
“Ahab, Ahab, Ahab,” I said. “There’s an art to making things up. This Olima may have been a good sailor and fine for a chat and pipe of an afternoon, but he was a terrible liar. One needs to manipulate the language, massage the falsehood, manufacture the idiosyncratic. I can guarantee you that this story you heard was bunk. I had to stifle a laugh at the giant sloth.”
The captain gave me one of those biblical stares from Ishmael’s novel. “There was a time,” he said, “when I believed in nothing.”
Hooey, I thought, but when Ahab finally turned in, I stayed up burning the oil, relating Olima’s story of the manticore. There were more than a few laughs in the task, and I did some passing fair work at drawing the creature forth into reality. When I finally laid the pen down, the birds had begun to sing. I knew I’d see Mavis somewhere the next day, and she’d be expecting a piece for Garrick.
I was still three sheets to the wind the following morning, the gin having had its way with me. I don’t think Ahab was top o’ the mast either. We’d decided to return to the park in hopes of finding Usual Peters, the captain’s old colleague. We believed he could tell us something more about Malbaster or the Jolly Host. The day was frigid. And I must admit I was beginning to question the sanity of the entire affair. Ahab turned out not to be the epic personality I suspected but more a confused, somewhat delusional has-been of a fellow. Actually, pathetic to the point where I considered giving him the slip. Still, there was something about the state in which his encounter with the whale had left him that made him seem as if he really had come back from the dead.
That boarding ax nestled in the long pocket of the peacoat, his pipe between his lips, we headed across the lawn to the Mulberry Bend, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. The wind howled across the park, and we took up positions behind oak trees to block its force. The captain told me his stump was “singing with pain.”
“How well do you know Mr. Peters?” I asked, trying to take his mind off his agony. “Can we trust him?”
Ahab cupped his ear to hear me over the wind. His head was wreathed in smoke and the steam of his breath. I repeated my question.
“Not likely,” was all he said before falling into a prolonged silence. He watched from behind the tree like a hunter in a blind with an expression I found disturbing. It was no doubt the look he wore on deck when scanning the horizon for a spout.
Eventually, a shabbily dressed fellow came up Mulberry and headed across the park to the Orange Street side. It wasn’t Usual but still we followed. We gave him a sixty-yard lead so I don’t think he knew we were on his trail. He led us off the field and up the street toward the Tombs. A block on, he made a quick right and disappeared down the alley between two abandoned warehouses. Ahab did his best to keep pace, but a whalebone leg just can’t compete with the real thing when it comes to stalking.
Ahab held high the boarding ax, and I followed with my writing satchel in front of me for protection. We inched along through a narrow canyon of ancient brick that was laid back in the days when the Dutch ran Manhattan. Eventually, the captain brought the ax to his side. I took it as a sign to halt and did. He had me sidle up next to him, and the two of us stared into an enormous hole in the corroded brick of the left-hand wall.
“We need light,” he whispered.
“We’re going in there?” I asked.
“I’m guessing all the wastrels gather into this doggery on cold days.”
“I have a box of matches,” I said and set to digging them out of my bag. When I had one lit, Ahab swept his arm in front of him as an indication for me to lead the way. I wasn’t happy with my position in the parade, but he looked at me with his stern glare he’d no doubt used on a thousand sailors throughout his days aboard ship.
The puny light I held out with the tips of my fingers did little against the dark, but we at least could proceed around the chaos of fallen brick and the shard piles of smashed bottles. I could swear I heard rats scampering about. It wasn’t the first or the worst shit hole I’d been through in the course of my investigations, but it was bad enough. I led us to a hall, at the end of which was a burning torch set into the wall, lighting the way to a set of steps that descended into the underground.
I tossed my third match and pulled the writing satchel up in front of my chest and face. When it came to the stairs, Ahab went first. We crept as quietly as possible but the wood was as old as the bricks, and anyone listening would have known there were intruders. There were two flights of stairs. They emptied into a large underground vault, not a room with walls, not a basement, but a kind of cavern beneath the streets of the city.
Here and there, in the local vicinity of where we’d landed, there were torches burning, some more brightly than others and not enough all together to see clearly. Ahab went to the wall behind us and appropriated one. As my vision grew accustomed to the shadows and the torch, I could discern the silhouettes of human figures sitting, leaning against the ro
ck walls. I also noticed a narrow stream running through the center of the cave and leading away in both directions.
Ahab approached the first person we came to. He leaned over and held the torchlight directly in front of the individual’s face. What the glow revealed was an emaciated, pale fellow dressed in mere shreds of clothing. He was obviously starving and his Adam’s apple, appearing huge in his wasted neck, bobbed up and down and gave us the only indication he was alive. His eyes, though, were the most disturbing—covered with a glassy film, staring as if into heaven beyond.
“Do you know Usual Peters?” the captain asked.
“Darling,” said the man in the merest whisper, “is it you?”
“I said, do you know Usual Peters?” said Ahab, raising his voice an octave in frustration.
“Easy, old man,” I told my companion. “This fellow couldn’t find a hole in a ladder. Look at him, he’s worse wasted than Job’s turkey.”
“Aye,” said Ahab. “We’ve found the Purgatory of Sots.”
“Seems more Perdition,” I said.
We went from one slouching shadow to another, casting the light of the torch. Each was worse off than his predecessor, and none was the man we wanted. On our fifth inspection, the captain put the torch close to the nodding fellow in question and its light revealed a smoldering pipe held in the unfortunate’s hand.
“Opium,” said Ahab.
“You know it?”
“The aroma, its effects. I witnessed them in Java years ago.”
When he mentioned the aroma, I suddenly became aware of it—a sweet floral scent like a Five Points perfume hanging in the dark. “He looks as if he’s gone elsewhere,” I said.
“He’s across the Far Tortuga,” said Ahab and pulled the torch back away from the man’s face. “There’s no use in looking further. Even if we find Usual, if he’s in this befuddlement, we’ll get nothing worthwhile out of him.”