Gaslamp Gothic Box Set

by Kat Ross

  “Names, Myrtle. I need names.”

  She swallowed painfully. “Sow Madden. Slobbery Jim. Patsy the Barber. Cowlegged Sam McCarthy.” Her eyes drifted shut.

  “That’s enough, dear,” Mrs. Rivers said with a frown. “Let her sleep.”

  “Did you get that?” I asked John.

  He’d had the presence of mind to pull out his little notebook. “All of them, Harry,” he said solemnly, tucking the pencil behind his ear.

  A commotion in the hall signaled the arrival of the entire Weston clan, who had been summoned by Connor. The duty nurse refused to let all of them in at once and I could hear Rupert arguing with her, followed by the booming exhortations of Judge Weston.

  The long day had taken its toll and I covered a yawn. John laid a blanket over my legs. “Get some rest, Harry,” he said. “You too, Mrs. Rivers. We’ll be on hand if you need anything.”

  I nodded drowsily as he went into the corridor to sort things out. Eventually it was agreed that his brothers could enter one at a time, which kept a lid on their usual bickering. I drifted off listening to John’s muffled conversation with the policemen and Mrs. Rivers’ light snores, reassured that all would be well – and ignorant of the far stranger events that were yet to come.

  With the aid of the detectives who had written down their names and addresses, I found the two night soil men and gave them a large reward for saving my sister’s life. By the end of the week, four members of the Daybreak Boys had been arrested and charged with bank robbery and attempted murder. The gang was already on its way down — the heist had been a last desperate bid to reclaim its former glory — and the arrests proved to be its death knell.

  My sister became such a nuisance on the ward that the doctors agreed to allow her to recuperate at home.

  Her leg was healing cleanly though she wouldn’t be able to walk on it for several months. The morphine she took for the pain didn’t dull her fixation with James Moran. In fact, with nothing else to occupy her mind, Myrtle was worse than ever.

  “Harrison,” she said one evening when I brought a tray up to her room. “I need a favor.”

  I misliked the speculative gleam in her eye. “What is it?”

  “You must return to the Avalon for me.”

  I sighed. A sleepless night in that shabby hotel room held little appeal. As usual, Myrtle seemed to read my mind. “This is a special assignment. I want you to go inside the club. Moran knows me well, he’d see through a disguise, but not you.”

  An uneasy feeling ran through me. “Don’t be stupid,” I said crossly. “Of course he knows who I am—”

  “He’s aware of your existence in a general sort of way,” she interrupted dismissively. “But he wouldn’t be expecting you.”

  Moran was aware of me in more than a general sort of way, but I couldn’t tell her that.

  I poured a cup of tea and added four sugar cubes to disguise the strengthening tonic Mrs. Rivers had slipped into the brew. Burnham’s Beef Wine & Iron promised to cure all manner of ailments and had a picture of a smiling cow on the bottle, though it smelled viler than the East River.

  I handed Myrtle the cup. “What could I possibly discover?”

  She sipped the tea and made a gagging sound, then dumped it out on the carpet.

  “Must you?” I eyed the dark stain.

  “Moran does business in a private room on the top floor. I’m sure you’re capable of observing who goes up and down the stairs. My source says there’s a tunnel leading to the disorderly house next door. We’ll disguise you. He’ll never know.”

  I knelt down and began soaking up the spill with a napkin. “And if I end up dead in an alley?”

  “Don’t be melodramatic, Harrison. You’ll be surrounded by his merry clientele. I’m not asking you to approach him, merely to sit at the bar like any other customer.”

  I shook my head in irritation, knowing Myrtle wouldn’t let up until I agreed. “Fine. But don’t expect me to make a habit of it. I have cases of my own, you know.”

  She gazed at me as if she knew perfectly well this was a lie. “Your usual street urchin disguise won’t work at the Avalon. They’ll think you’re a pickpocket aiming to poach on their territory.”

  “How do you know about that?” I muttered. I’d used it when I needed information from the patrons of a saloon in the Five Points, but Myrtle had been away at the time.

  “Never mind. The point is that it won’t be easy to pass you off as a man. You’re too short.” She tapped her chin with a finger, her eyes lowering to my bosom. “Perhaps—”

  “I’m not going as a prostitute,” I said firmly.

  Myrtle sighed. “Pity. I’ll see what I can do.”

  An hour later, I examined myself in a full-length mirror. A large wart adorned my cheek, just above ginger side whiskers. The glue itched like the devil, but Myrtle claimed that would pass. None of her own costumes fit so she’d stuffed me into Connor’s despised Little Lord Fauntleroy suit that Mrs. Rivers made him wear to church.

  “Perfect,” Myrtle chortled. “You look like a down-at-the-heel Bible salesman. No one will give you a second glance.”

  I picked up my walking stick and squared my shoulders, which wasn’t easy considering how tightly she had bound my breasts. “If I’m not back by four, you can assume I’ve had my throat slit.”

  Her grey eyes regarded me without pity. “I’m sure you can fend for yourself, Harrison.” Myrtle smiled. “But don’t worry, I’ll arrange for a princely funeral if you die in the line of duty.”

  I gave her a final bleak glare and stalked out the door.

  6

  The Avalon’s three stories of vice were hitting their stride when Myrtle’s driver dropped me off shortly after midnight. I drifted through the doors behind a group of tipsy, well-dressed men – precisely the sort of marks such establishments existed to fleece – into a wave of noise and music and animal heat.

  The Avalon was named after a legendary island in the tale of King Arthur and it repeated that theme inside the main room, with gaudy murals painted on the walls and moldering suits of armor. Couples careened around a large sawdust-strewn dance floor, which occupied half the space. The other half had a bar running its full length and booths upholstered in crimson velvet where the most favored patrons lounged with buckets of champagne.

  Signs on the wall explicitly forbade foul language, fighting, robbery and murder. These rules were enforced by heavies called “sheriffs” who watched the crowd with thick cudgels.

  The place was packed to the gills, but I used my elbows to clear a path to the bar and squeeze into an empty space. The women were mostly working girls still in their prime, a world away from the desperate, hollow-cheeked creatures who walked the streets outside, though I knew the descent from one rung to the next tended to be swift. A few eyed me speculatively but seemed to decide I was too broke to bother with.

  An orchestra trio of cornet, violin and piano played jaunty music on a platform. The booze flowed freely and a haze of tobacco smoke hovered below the ceiling. Everyone seemed to be having a grand time.

  I ordered a beer and positioned myself so I could view the rear of the hall. As Myrtle said, there were two sets of stairs leading to upper levels, where I assumed private rooms were set aside for various depravities.

  My gaze landed on a large man holding court at one of the booths. He had a face like a bag of rocks and a heavy-shouldered physique just starting to run to fat around the middle. John Morrissey, the Avalon’s nominal owner. A former bare-knuckles boxer, he watched over the proceedings like the captain of a pirate ship, benevolent but ready to step in and crack skulls if anyone broke the rules.

  Every bit player in the city’s great pageant seemed to be at the Avalon that night: rubberneckers and rowdies, uptown slummers and downtown drunks, furtive husbands and rebellious wives. I overheard a waiter girl claim to be a Russian countess fallen on hard times, and watched a hairy fellow who called himself Ludwig the Bloodsucker coax some tour
ists into buying him a round on the basis that he was a vampire.

  If the club was the capital of Moran’s criminal empire, there was little evidence of it. But I soon detected a subtle difference in the traffic on the two staircases. The gentlemen coming down the right side looked happy and languid, while those descending on the left had a more serious demeanor. One or two looked familiar and I realized I had seen them before at police headquarters on Mulberry Street.

  “Another?” the bartender asked, running a rag across the counter.

  I lowered my voice to a gruff baritone. “Not just yet—”

  “Three drink minimum,” he said in a bored tone. “There’s cheaper places around the corner if you ain’t got money.”

  I nodded. “I’ll have another then.”

  He slid it down the bar.

  The beer was half water, but I wanted to keep my wits, so I discreetly tipped the first one onto the floor. It wouldn’t do to seem like a teetotaler.

  “Ach!” Someone shoved me hard. “You spilled yer ale on my shoe, ye lackwit!”

  I looked up into the reddened face of a giant with a thick Scottish burr.

  “Beg your pardon,” I said hastily.

  “Ye little pimple,” he roared, knocking my full glass aside. A tide of beer ran down the length of the bar, provoking cries of outrage from the other patrons. The bouncers instantly grew alert and I cursed my stupidity, when at that exact moment a gaunt figure descended the lefthand stairs, his dark eyes dissecting the crowd. I turned my face away but not before his gaze landed on me.

  “For your trouble,” I said quickly, tossing a wad of notes on the bar. The sight of the cash distracted the giant long enough for me to jam my hat on and slide off the stool. Two gentlemen immediately pushed into the open space, momentarily blocking the view from the stairs.

  The door seemed very far away. I instinctively knew that running would be a mistake akin to tossing raw meat into a tiger’s cage, so I forced myself to keep to a walk, deftly skirting the knots of whirling dancers. I didn’t look back but the itch between my shoulder blades told me Moran was still watching.

  I waited for him to signal at his gorillas to grab me, to do something, but no one moved and then I was out the front door.

  The cool night air was a balm on my flushed skin. I gave the bully boys outside a polite nod and started walking briskly for Seventh Avenue. I’d hoped Myrtle’s driver might be waiting, but he wasn’t due to return until two-thirty and the only empty cab in sight was snatched up by a giggling couple.

  Thieves and footpads often lurked in the shadowy alleys around such clubs, waiting for hapless drunks to pass by. I walked with a steady gait, keeping my chin up despite the fact that I could feel the whiskers starting to slide down my cheeks. The heat inside the Avalon must have melted the glue.

  Perhaps Moran hadn’t recognized me after all. I breathed a sigh of relief as the bright lights of the avenue drew closer, though this was followed by the dispiriting realization I’d have to walk the two miles home since I’d thrown all my money on the bar. Then I heard the rumble of carriage wheels and spun around. A glossy black brougham drew to a stop at the curb. The door opened and Moran leaned out.

  “Miss Pell,” he said, doffing his hat.

  I cleared my throat. There was no point in denying it. “What do you want?” I hefted my walking stick and tried to seem unconcerned, though my heart was racing.

  “It’s not safe on the streets at night. Let me escort you home.”

  I laughed. “As if I’d get into a carriage with you.”

  His smile died. He was dressed as elegantly as ever, but up close I could see dark circles ringing his eyes. He stepped down to the curb and I took a step back.

  “I need to speak to you privately,” he said in a low voice. “It’s a matter of some urgency.”

  “Call at Tenth Street.”

  His jaw clenched. “I obviously can’t go to your home.”

  I looked up and down the street, wishing for a cop, but of course they were never around when you needed one.

  “I imagine your sister sent you.” He studied my too-tight velvet suit with a hint of amusement. “Well, I have nothing to hide. And I don’t care if you’ve been spying. That’s not what I want to talk about.”

  I turned away. “Goodnight, Mr. Moran.”

  A hard edge of desperation entered his voice. “Wait—”

  I bolted flat-out toward Seventh Avenue, expecting to hear the sounds of pursuit, but again Moran let me go. Still, I didn’t stop running until I reached the nearest police precinct. It was brightly lit and a few patrolmen loitered outside, swapping war stories from their nightly rounds. I hung on the fringes for a while, but the glossy black brougham never reappeared and I finally headed back to Tenth Street just as dawn was breaking.

  I only wanted to sleep, but there was no way to get past Myrtle’s door without stepping on the creaky board in the hall.

  “Harrison!” her muffled voice called through the door. I rubbed my head and went inside, my eyes burning at the blue haze of tobacco smoke. It was worse than the Avalon.

  Myrtle’s cast was propped on a pillow and she was using it as a shelf for an overflowing ashtray. I walked to the window and threw open the sash, stepping over empty vials of morphine scattered across the floor.

  “Well?” Her eyes were feverishly bright.

  I told her what I’d seen, the twin staircases and dirty cops coming out, but omitted the fact that Moran had accosted me in the street. Instead, I made it sound as if he had seen through the disguise and I’d gotten out as fast as possible. Mainly, I didn’t want Myrtle sending me back there.

  “You’ll never get near his inner sanctum,” I warned. “He has boys at the bottom of the stairs and probably a lot more at the top.”

  Her chilly gaze, so reminiscent of Moran’s, bored into me. “Are you sure he didn’t speak to you?”

  For a moment, I wondered if her driver had seen us together. He could have beaten me back here hours ago and given Myrtle a report. But I felt certain there hadn’t been any other carriages on the street.

  “No.” I covered a yawn. “That’s all, really. You ought to get some rest, too. It’s growing light out.”

  She snarled something and I slunk off to my room, too tired even to remove the wart and whiskers before snatching a few hours of sleep.

  When I woke around nine, I resolved to go straight out before Myrtle could sink her claws into me again. The library was John’s favorite sanctuary when he wanted to escape his rowdy brothers, so I headed off for a quiet afternoon at the Astor Library on Lafayette Place. It still troubled me that I’d never learned who made the golem and I wondered if there wasn’t something we’d missed. A religious man implied a rabbi, but it was hard to imagine a devout man of God unleashing something so dangerous for no clear purpose.

  The library had just been expanded and the maze of stacks now contained more than a quarter million volumes. The main problem was finding the ones you wanted. There were three different card catalogues and many of the books were too newly acquired even to be listed. I spent a few painstaking hours locating some compendiums on European folklore but found nothing useful.

  On impulse, I approached one of the librarians, a buxom middle-aged woman who eyed me with suspicion when I said I was writing a research paper on New York’s most prominent Irish families. They’d gotten stricter about access since some of the library’s patrons took to cutting out the pages they wanted instead of writing the information down, but after some persuading she led me to a special roped-off section on New York history and pointed out a few titles. I gathered them up and took them to a table.

  Only one mentioned the Morans and it said little I didn’t already know. The grandfather had emigrated to New York from County Cork in 1814 and risen through the ranks of Tammany Hall to become a force in New York politics. His eldest child was the ill-fated Declan Moran, who would be shot by his own son, but there was little information about Decl
an except that he’d followed his father’s path into politics and married Tamsin Bayard.

  The Bayards were a very old, very wealthy Dutch family and I guessed they must have been less than thrilled with the match. It wouldn’t have mattered that the Morans were also rich. They were new money and they were Irish, two unforgivable sins in New York Society.

  I rose and began returning the books to their shelves when I heard a soft footfall and the devil himself appeared at the end of the narrow aisle. He looked even worse today, still wearing the same clothes from the night before, all crumpled and creased. His face had always been lean, but now it looked utterly hollow and I wondered when he’d last eaten anything. We locked eyes and I drew a deep breath. Moran flung out a hand.

  “Don’t scream,” he said quickly.

  “Why not?” I demanded. “You obviously followed me.”

  “I’m not here to harm you.” Moran’s voice grew harsh. “And you owe me one, Miss Pell. The least you can do is hear me out.”

  There, he’d said it. The thing I’d been dreading for a year. You owe me.

  I couldn’t dispute it.

  I gave a curt nod. His keen eyes swept over the books in my arms, but he made no comment.

  “I heard about the attack on your sister,” he said. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “I know that now,” I replied stiffly. “She told me.”

  “Did she?” Moran muttered.

  I thought that must be the reason he’d cornered me but he sounded uninterested.

  “So what is it you want?” I took a step forward, hoping he’d make way, but Moran blocked the aisle. We were in the restricted section and there were no other people around. He stared at me with an unreadable expression.

  “I want to hire you.”

  The ludicrous statement stopped me in my tracks. “What?”

  “You heard me. I wish to retain your services.”

  I frowned. “That’s impossible. As you well know.”