by Gregory Ashe
“He’s dead.”
“Who? Bobby?”
“Thanks for the help.”
“They’re looking for you, Cian. They’ll kill you. And they’ll do it mean and slow if they can, just to make an example.”
“Take care, Eileen.”
She huddled deeper in her in blankets and watched him leave. When Cian opened the door, the weak light of the courtyard revealed bruises scattered across Eileen’s chin and cheeks. Cian left, his fists in his pockets, and wished Bobby Floyd had survived the fall.
Then he went south, into Tiffany.
The sun balanced itself on the rim of the world, a rusted penny, and the sky was a flavorless peach. The respectable homes of Tiffany stood at attention along the street. A few cars ambled past Cian, and a middle-aged woman with a string of six children gave him a nod, but for the most part, he was alone. Alone gave him time to watch the two- and three-story brick homes on their slender lots, to look at the curtains lit with warm yellow light, to smell wood-smoke and frying onion and to hear the gravel voice of the evening news on the radio.
Tiffany was the good side of St. Louis. Respectable Americans—not the micks, not the Huns, but the good colonial stock—with good jobs and warm houses and even an automobile, if they’d saved their pennies. Kerry Patch with its frozen poor, with its hunger, with bruised-up Eileen, Kerry Patch might as well have been Siam, or the moon, for all the connection it had with this place.
Kerry Patch had monsters. Not the unbelievable, fantastic things that Cian had half-imagined the night before: men that could rip a scrawny thug in half, giant spiders, ghosts. Not things out of children’s stories. Kerry Patch had the only kind of monsters that counted: men and women, flesh and blood. Monsters like Seamus Daniels, and Byrne, and Bobby Flynn.
Tiffany—well, Tiffany might as well have been heaven, and micks like Cian Shea would never end up there. Micks started in the Patch and ended in the Patch. That was life.
Cian found the apartment building. It sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, two brick wings ready to take flight, with a cement staircase running up the center. If this were the disreputable side of Tiffany, there was no sign of it. The sidewalks were free of litter. The yards well-kept. On the air came the smell of baking bread and the sound of a girl singing scales. Cian took the steps two at a time. In the growing gloom of winter, the noise of his boots was crisp and clear.
The hallway was open to the outside, and at the far end of the building, a wrought-iron grille allowed a chill breeze to enter. Cian stopped outside the last door, right up against the grille. This was the Dane’s door, according to Eileen. For a moment, Cian thought he heard a sound from the stairs. He drew the Colt. Waited.
After a pair of minutes and nothing but the cold slipping up the back of his coat, Cian knocked. Steps came from the other side, and then silence.
Cian put his back to the grille, stepping away from the door.
Buckshot tore the wooden door to pieces and sprayed the far side of the hall. Through the gaping hole in the door, a shotgun barrel emerged and fired again, knocking holes in the door that stood opposite. Cian swore, kicked the barrel, and heard a shout from inside the apartment. He kicked again, wrenching the barrel up and to the side, and felt the shotgun come free.
Cian threw his weight into the damaged door, shattering the damaged wood. Splinters raked his hand and arm, but Cian found the bolt, drew it, and kicked the door. Someone tried to pull the shotgun back, but Cian slammed the door open. A wiry man with a stiff mustache fell to the floor, wringing one hand and gazing at the shotgun, which was still halfway through the ruined door. His hand went for a pistol. Cian fired once and took the man in the chest. He screamed and dropped.
Cian grabbed the man’s pistol before moving further into the apartment. A filthy kitchen stood to the right, the sink full of dirty dishes, the floor and counters soiled with grease and dirt. From the next room came shouts. Another man darted around the corner and fired. Bullets struck the wall, and shards of wood and plaster tore at Cian’s coat. Cian fired. He missed. He let off a second shot.
The round caught Cian’s attacker in the shoulder. The man spun, slammed into the wall, and tried to fire again.
Cian’s next shot took the man in the head.
Three rounds left.
After the concussive noise of the gunshots, silence stuffed Cian’s ears. He tasted gun-smoke and blood and the metallic mixture of exhilaration and terror. He checked the first room. It was a small living room, with a radio and a table covered in clothes and old newspapers. A sofa sat underneath a window, and outside, the city was frozen in sheets of blue and charcoal. The next room held a pair of lumpy pallets on the floor and an empty closet.
The bathroom was empty. And in need of serious cleaning.
At the back of the apartment, one door remained. Cian kept his back pressed to the wall as he tried the doorknob.
“It’s open,” a voice said from inside. “You can come in. Just don’t shoot.
“No surprises,” Cian said, turning the doorknob and urging the door open with his foot. “Keep your head.”
“Don’t worry,” the voice said. “I’m not going to cause any trouble.”
On the other side of the door was another bedroom, this time with an actual bed. A dresser lay on its side, exposing a hole that had been cut into the plaster, offering a hiding spot. The far wall of the room had a window. Through that window, Cian saw the city again, silhouetted against the deepening amethyst of the sky. More importantly, though, he saw a man.
And then Cian tried not to laugh.
The man was sandwiched between the sill and the window, his legs hanging inside the room, his upper half propped on the fire escape. He had twisted around and was giving Cian a hopeful smile. Bright blue eyes stared out from under a mess of sandy hair, making the man’s face look young, almost boyish. He was missing a tooth, but it didn’t stop his smile one bit.
On the fire escape rested a small box without any apparent opening.
Cian walked over to the window, tapped the man’s leg with the Colt, and said, “Problem?”
“Shoddy construction,” the man said. “Don’t suppose you’d mind helping me? Damn thing almost broke my back, and now my trousers are caught on a nail.”
“Sure,” Cian said. He pulled a knife from the back of the man’s trousers and tossed it to the bed. Then, with a firm grip on the man’s ankle, Cian said, “No tricks.”
The man shook his head. “Promise.”
Cian unhooked the man’s trousers from the nail and raised the window. With a sigh of relief, the man rubbed his back. Cian hauled him through the window, and the man got to his feet, cradling the box with one arm and massaging his back with the other.
“Thanks, friend. Name’s Sam.”
“Nice to meet you, Sam. Now, I think I’m going to take that box, and then we’re going to have a long talk about the Dane.”
Sam winced. “Listen, pal, I really appreciate the help, but I don’t think you’re going to be taking the box.”
“And why’s that?” Cian asked.
The muzzle of a gun prodded his back, and a feminine voice—a suspiciously familiar feminine voice—said, “Because I am.”
Paris, as far as Irene was concerned, was no longer an option.
She woke early, in spite of the late night, and found herself cocooned again in the pink and white frills of childhood. There was something cloying about the room in the morning light. A confectionery sweetness, gritty to the teeth. This was the room of a girl who had been meant to grow up sweet and silent, marry young and marry well, and die from the inside out for the next forty years.
Maybe, at some point, Irene had been that little girl. But along the way, her path had taken twists and turns. Oberlin. Her father would say it had been Oberlin, that young women had no need of college, that it upset their delicate systems. He had told her as much when she had left to go to school. He had told her so, many times since, in letters and in pe
rson. He would tell her again, given half a chance.
But he had been so relieved that she was leaving St. Louis that he hadn’t stopped her.
Oberlin was a part of it, but not all of it. There had been Oberlin, and there had been the suffrage movement, and there had been the pamphlets and fliers Irene sneaked into the house and read in secret. Books had been a part of it all too—reading the classics, seeing the outlines of worlds that were so different from her own, and underneath it all, the heartbeat of a single question: why?
If Irene were honest, though, at the heart of it all was Francis Derby.
So this morning she lay in bed, thumbing the chamber of the revolver, one hand cupping her right breast, and decided Paris was no longer an option. Paris meant running, just as Oberlin had meant running. Running from Papa, running from the Andersons and the Townsends and the Derbys, running from tea and soirees and marriage and death. Irene was sick to the core of running.
She got up, bathed, and dressed herself. Her closet was full of clothes, but only a handful of them were truly Irene’s. Most of the clothing was composed of modest, elegant dresses in silk and good English wool—all of them tasteful, all of them tailored, and all of them dreadfully expensive. The handful of other garments were the only ones that Irene considered hers. A few dresses she had managed to get at college by saving her allowances, with hemlines at the knee and low waists and simple, straight lines. She dressed in one of these now, a shimmering green that left her shoulders bare. It was rubbish for the cold, but she had her coat, and she liked how she looked in it. Not like a matron, or even a respectable daughter. She looked like an independent woman. She looked like herself.
Irene pulled on her coat, noting a bare patch on the shoulder where the fur had been burned away, and then her cloche hat. She took her clutch, and the empty revolver, and stuffed every bit of jewelry and cash that she had into a bag. Then she made her way down to the study, where Papa was sitting in a dressing gown and an enormous pair of fluffy slippers. A pot of coffee sat next to him, and a cup, and the morning paper. He looked old, right then—sagging into the folds of the dressing gown, his features long and drawn, and every inch of him gray and washed of life. A bit of color returned to his face when he saw Irene.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “I arranged for your travel. You leave this afternoon. For Paris.”
“I remember, Papa.”
“You didn’t come home last night.”
“I was busy.”
“Well you’re not going out today. You’ll spend the morning with your mother—apologizing, I hope, and making the best of things—and then you’ll be on a train for New York. If you care to spend a few days in the city, I can have your travel changed.”
“No, Papa.”
“Very well. It was merely an idea.”
“No. I’m sorry, I mean, I am not going.”
Red started its march up Papa’s face. He folded the paper and slapped the desk with it. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not going.”
“This is not your decision, Irene. I’d hoped that a few years at school would settle your head, but you’ve come back and made a perfect ruin of everything. At this rate, you’ll be lucky to find anyone to take you for a wife. Perhaps a lonely expatriate in Paris will like your spirit.”
“I don’t plan to marry, Papa.”
Papa stared at her for a moment. The red darkened to maroon, until his face looked purple and ready to burst. And then, after an explosive breath, he started to laugh. He folded the paper again, tapped his chin with the crease, and kept laughing.
“Not marry,” he said, when he had finished. “Of course, dear.”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable choice, Papa. Many women are doing it. Independent women.”
He smiled. Not angry, not even frustrated. Amused.
“Of course. Well, darling, you are indeed an independent woman, and I see that your time at school has given you something of a backbone. Let us speak plainly with each other. Today, you will leave this house. Either you will board a train to New York, or you will be out on the street, with nothing but the clothes on your back.” His features softened, and he tapped his chin with the paper again. “Independence is a wonderful thing, Irene, but everything has its price.”
“I know, Papa.” Irene started from the doorway and then paused. “Papa?”
“Yes, my darling girl?”
“I’m going to find the box. I know you’re lying. I don’t know why you are, but I know that you know that someone brought a box to this house yesterday. I’ll find it. And I’ll find the man who killed Sally.”
Papa rose from his chair. Gravity dragged him down, and he leaned on the desk with one hand. “You must forget all that nonsense, Irene. Let it go. You’re only making things worse for yourself.”
“Goodbye, Papa,” Irene said. She blew him a kiss, gave him her jauntiest smile, and felt her heart like winter glass.
“Irene, stop right there—”
But Irene didn’t stop. The last piece of solid ground had given out from beneath her, tumbling away into the abyss, and she was falling. Or flying.
She made her way to the door and let herself out, ignoring her father’s shouts.
The sky was a blue that would only grow brighter, and Irene started down the drive.
Falling. Or flying. Maybe there wasn’t any difference.
Maybe.
On second thought, Irene decided that her bid for independence might have been better after breakfast. The edge of the sun had cleared the horizon, and already the streets were full of men and women, most of them dressed in clothes that were patched and stained from work. Some of them noticed Irene, watching her as though she were a summer bird that had forgotten to fly south for winter. The rest seemed oblivious to her.
Half a block later, her feet already frozen in her thin-soled shoes, Irene decided that while walking out of the house had been a very fine gesture of independence, there was nothing stopping her from taking a cab. It took longer than she thought, and by the time she’d arrived at the Louisiana Grand, it was almost eight in the morning. The hotel was as busy as ever, with the richest and brightest of St. Louis’s guests pouring through its high-ceilinged lobbies like a river. Crystal chandeliers hung over Carrara marble floors and thick Turkish rugs. Gold leaf gleamed on the pilasters and capitals. The restaurant on the second floor was busy, but not overly so, and Irene found herself ensconced in a leather booth, at a white linen table, within minutes.
Independence was not so bad.
She ate, paid, and lingered a bit longer in the quiet bustle of the Louisiana Grand. The noise was like rubbed velvet. Irene loved it. When her toes had thawed, and when the coffee had done its work, Irene knew what she had to do.
She didn’t like it one bit.
The only other person who could reliably confirm the delivery—and, subsequent events notwithstanding, might be able to lead Irene to the murderer—was an annoyingly obtuse Irishman named Cian.
She took a cab to the edge of Kerry Patch.
“Miss,” the cabbie said as he took her fare, “if you don’t mind my saying so, the Patch isn’t the right part of town for a lady like you. If you want to see some of St. Louis, I can drive you out along the riverfront or take you to the old World’s Fair grounds.”
“Thank you, but no.” Irene slipped out of the car before the man could insist. The cold wasn’t as bad today, and the sky had deepened to crystalline blue. Irene plunged into Kerry Patch, amazed at the rapid change as she left the rest of the city behind. Brick streets turned to freezing, ankle-deep mud. People huddled on the street corners—mostly women and children—obviously cold and even more obviously hungry. Irene kept her clutch hidden inside her coat, and she kept her fingers on the revolver, but mostly she tried to keep her eyes on the ground.
A whistle behind Irene made her glance back, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary. As she turned around, she crashed
into someone. Strong hands closed over her arms, pinning her elbows to her sides and steering her towards the mouth of an alley.
“Lady, keep your mouth shut and you’ll be just fine,” a voice said. The reek of alcohol coated the words. Irene glanced up, but all she saw was a bristly beard and bloodshot eyes. The alley loomed closer. Irene threw pleading looks at the men and women walking past her, but they turned their faces away.
Irene let her legs give out.
The man holding her stumbled, and one foot caught in a frozen trough of mud. As the man’s weight dragged him off balance, Irene twisted free. She brought the revolver up, swinging as hard as she could, and slammed the barrel of the gun into the man’s mouth.
Bone cracked. The man spat blood. It landed on Irene’s cheek. Hot and cooling quickly.
She pulled free as the man fell and then she ran. Behind her, the man howled.
Her shoes had little purchase on the frozen ground, but Irene ran as fast as she dared. Dilapidated buildings raced past her. She glimpsed signs, but caught nothing more than fragmented images. Fear made thought difficult.
Memories of the previous night surged up. The golems tearing a man apart. The spiders. The chase.
There. Ahead of her, a sign she recognized.
Patrick’s.
Irene threw herself at the door. It refused to open. She pounded on the wood.
“Patrick,” she shouted. “Open up. Patrick! Open up!”
Behind her, the surface of the crowd roiled like troubled waters.
And then the door opened, and Patrick stood there with mussed hair and sleepy eyes.
“What—”
Before he could finish, Irene darted inside, slammed the door shut, and put her back to the wood.
Patrick slid the bolt home. A moment later, the wood thumped, and Irene swallowed the noise in her throat. Her hands closed manically around the grip of the revolver.
“Go away,” Patrick shouted. “We’re not open.”
“Open the fucking door,” a voice said. “I saw her.”