The Alchemist in the Attic

by Urias, Antonio

  6

  The Carrion King

  A plume of smoke rose into the air above Chinatown. The police were burning opium in the street. It was part of the reformer’s periodic attempts to clean up the city. Last week had been Little Italy’s turn. Atwood shook his head. The entire operation was doomed from the start, no matter what the Examiner claimed. It was nothing more than an expensive, useless folly. Atwood had tried to write as much, but Maguire had stopped him. The Oracle was in enough trouble as it was without picking fights with City Hall.

  The fire bathed the street in orange hues and cast flickering shadows on the onlookers. They were Chinese for the most part, or at least Orientals of some description. Atwood had never bothered to learn the difference. There were a few others in the crowd, though, trying to avoid the eyes of the policemen. People of all stripes were drawn to the lights and sounds of Chinatown, and to its other less savory pleasures.

  There was a tall, stooped man clutching a handful of balloons. To his right was a balding gentleman with a sharp nose, seemingly entranced by the fire. Atwood wasn’t sure what to make of either of them, but they didn’t matter. Risley had frequented this particular opium den, and two of his boys had told them that he would be here. Finally Atwood found him, hovering at the edge of the crowd in a forlorn haze of shadows and burnt opium. Walter noticed him a moment later.

  Thomas Risley, the Carrion King, had narrow eyes, and long, quick fingers. Even in a broken daze, he could feel Atwood and Walter’s gaze. Risley turned and met Atwood’s gaze with a smile of recognition. It was not a nice smile, but a leer with more gums than teeth. He lumbered over with a bent, shambling gait.

  “Teddy,” he said with false joviality. “And if it isn’t your little shadow, Wally.”

  “Walter.”

  “Whatever.” Risley shrugged. “So tell me, Teddy boy, have you come to drag me through the mud again? I haven’t forgotten that last article.”

  “You knew the deal, Tommy,” Atwood said. “Everything I wrote was the truth.” He paused. “With a few embellishments, of course.”

  “I don’t care about your tall tales, or that name you gave me—the Carrion King…”

  “Better than looter,” Atwood said. “Or scavenger.”

  “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.” Risley spat. “My mother cut it out of the paper. She was ever so proud.”

  Atwood had trouble imagining that Risley even had a mother, let alone one who was proud of him. Especially after the article. Atwood had made Risley infamous, although not particularly popular.

  “But then,” Risley continued, “she saw you’d misspelled my name, and my dear mother was very upset.” Suddenly he was in close, well within knifing distance, staring up at Atwood angrily. “You made my mother cry, Teddy,” he said. “You made her cry.”

  Atwood frowned. He’d made the Carrion King’s mother cry. Over spelling, of all things. He wasn’t sure what to say to the accusation. From the corner of his eye he could see Walter’s lips twitching in an aborted smile.

  “I’m truly sorry,” Atwood said with all the sincerity he could muster. “It won’t happen again. We just need to ask you a few questions. You are a man who knows things.”

  Risley stood a little straighter, even as he sneered. “What about?”

  “McManus and Keeler.”

  Risley opened his mouth, looked first at Atwood, then Walter, and back again, then closed it. “I see,” he said. With a final glance back at the fire in the street, he turned away. “I know a place we can talk,” he said. “Follow me.”

  He led Atwood and Walter deeper into Chinatown. “Wu’s was the best,” he said over his shoulder. “But he was far from the only one.”

  “You’re taking us to another opium den?” Walter asked, glancing at Atwood. He returned his gaze with a reassuring half-smile.

  “Yes,” Risley said. “And you’re paying.”

  “Are we?” Atwood asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Flattery will only get you so far,” Risley said. “I expect to be compensated for my information.”

  “If you even have any,” Walter said.

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something useful.” Risley turned down an abrupt alley. Atwood and Walter exchanged wary glances but they had no choice but to follow. Risley was their only lead, and worse, the man knew it.

  They made an odd threesome. There were fewer street lamps and people were giving them strange, dark looks tinged with menace. They entered a small, slanting two-story house. It was dark inside and cramped. All the curtains were drawn. For Atwood, it almost felt like coming home. It had been almost two years since he had last frequented dens such as this one, and opium-smoked himself to the brink of oblivion.

  “He’s paying.” Risley pointed to Atwood.

  After a moment, Atwood nodded and passed over a handful of coins with trembling hands. The stern old woman took the money without comment. It made no difference to her who paid.

  As Risley settled in, Atwood and Walter took positions towering over him. Before he could bring the opium pipe to his lips, however, Atwood reached out and plucked it from his fingers.

  “Not yet,” he said, trying to ignore the familiar weight in his hands. “Information first.”

  “I think better with it.”

  “No,” Atwood said. “Now talk, or Walter and I will drag you out of here ourselves.” He grabbed Risley roughly by the lapels.

  “Unhand me,” Risley said. “I’m the Carrion King! My boys will…”

  “I gave you that name!” Atwood interrupted harshly. “Because it sold. But kings can be deposed, and that’d sell just as well. Better, even.”

  “Fine! Fine!” Risley pushed Atwood back. “I don’t know where McManus and Keeler are. For all I know they could be anywhere.”

  “Then why are we here?” Walter asked. “To feed your habit?”

  “The shadow, he speaks,” Risley said sarcastically.

  Walter tilted his head, studying him. “Tell me,” he asked after a moment. “Does your mother know where you are? I’m sure you’re a good son, and send her money now and then, but does she know where her darling Carrion King spends the rest of it? That you give it to whores and Chinamen?”

  Atwood stepped back, proudly.

  “And if poor Mrs. Risley cries over a misspelled name, imagine if she knew everything.”

  Risley stared at Walter dumbly. “You wouldn’t.”

  “You’ve wasted our time,” Walter said. “And even shadows have little time to waste. So you tell me.”

  Risley tried to match Walter’s gaze, but there was a peculiar intensity about him, the pervading sense that he was too quiet not to have something raging inside, and he often used that to his advantage. Risley blinked first.

  “Look,” he said. “I don’t know nothing about McManus and Keeler, but I’ve heard some strange things.”

  “Such as?” Atwood asked.

  “People going missing.”

  “People vanish all the time,” said Walter.

  “Not like this. There’s someone new out there, but no one’s seen him or even heard his name.”

  “Then how do you know he exists?”

  “I don’t,” said Risley. “But you’ve heard the rumors too. I can see that clear enough.”

  Atwood frowned. It was easy to forget how keen-eyed Risley was. “Perhaps,” he allowed.

  “And that’s not the strangest of all,” Risley said.

  “Oh?”

  Risley snatched back his pipe. “You should ask around the university. I’m surprised you haven’t already.” Atwood said nothing, and Risley smirked at his silence. “But then they’re probably not very fond of you, are they?”

  “Not especially,” said Atwood. “But they’ll come around.”

  Risley inhaled the opium deeply. “If you say so,” he said with a deep, satisfied sigh, and collapsed back onto the cushions. Atwood and Walter left the Carrion King to his dreams. He had told them all he could.
>
  Atwood looked back, forlornly. He could smell the opium all around them and saw a myriad of phantasms dart across the faces of those around him, some convulsing, while others lay in a blissful stupor. He missed it suddenly, with a fierce and dangerous longing, but he forced himself to follow Walter back out into the night.

  7

  The Wharfs

  The police had been busy. The wharf was swarming with uniformed men walking the perimeter and scribbling notes, while the cameramen unfolded their lumbering cameras. A number of patrolmen and volunteers were out on rafts and dinghies combing the wharves and peering under the boardwalks, a swarm of splattered locusts in blue. It was grim, painstaking work conducted in the shadow of the docks amidst hulls laden with cargo. Sailors lined their decks and peered down from the rigging in morbid fascination. The bodies were already covered in dirty canvas sheets and were being lifted onto stretchers when Atwood arrived. He caught a mangled, bloody glimpse before they were gone. It was like something from his nightmares.

  The smell of opium still clung to Atwood’s skin and clothes cloyingly, and the dreams lingered as well. He had the sudden thought that they had crawled from his skull in the night and taken root, that the dead were somehow his doing. It was a mad thought and he crushed it ruthlessly. This was no time for madness, but he remembered walking beneath a canopy of gnarled and twisted branches, some taller than mountains, with roots as deep as oceans. He could still feel the forest calling him back, feel its sweet lure of freedom and timelessness, murmuring promises of kind dreams and deep sleep. But the forest that rose behind his eyes was not a paradise, but rather some ancient, fiendish orchard, and he had seen at last that the trees had been grown from bodies, and some had faces in place of fruit. For a moment he thought he was there still, hunted and alone. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and forced himself to concentrate.

  A small crowd had gathered on the shore, drawn by the call of misery and the promise of drama. The bodies themselves were of no consequence; they were of interest only for the manner of their deaths. It was grotesque, even in a city barely a generation removed from a frontier town. The crowd murmured to itself restlessly.

  Atwood recognized a number of Hearst’s men, Rehms and Wright among them. They noticed him too, but that was a problem for later. Young’s men were also out in force; but quiet, peculiar Walter had managed to find his way to the front of the pack and was deep in conversation with Sergeant Wry. Atwood joined them, straightening his tie. It was important to nurture his police as well as underworld contacts. Atwood gave Walter an acknowledging smile. He had done well.

  “Sergeant Wry,” Atwood greeted. “A pleasure, as always.”

  Wry narrowed his eyes at him, as if he suspected some trap in the innocuous pleasantries. He was a stolidly suspicious man. Atwood liked him, which only made the sergeant more suspicious. He waved his superior over.

  Inspector Quirke was already on his way, clambering up the boardwalk in his dark woolen suit. Quirke was a distinguished, particular man with a pointed mustache and a rosette in his lapel. “Atwood,” he said.

  “Inspector.”

  They shook hands with a respectful nod. The two of them had a mutually beneficial arrangement that had served them both well. Atwood had built many of his most sensational stories on Quirke’s information, and the inspector had made more than a few high-profile arrests based on Atwood’s tips. They hadn’t seen each other since Dr. Gentle’s execution.

  “The Deputy Chief of Police isn’t very fond of you,” Quirke said.

  Atwood shrugged. “Hazard of the business.”

  Quirke snorted. They both knew it was more than that. “He doesn’t want any of us talking to you. There was a meeting.”

  “A meeting about me? How flattering.”

  Quirke shook his head. “You didn’t make a friend there.”

  “I don’t make friends,” Atwood replied. “Only partners.” Beside him Walter twitched slightly. Quirke and Wry both noticed, but said nothing. Atwood continued, oblivious.

  “Are you still talking to me, then?” he asked.

  Quirke gave him a crooked, derisive smile. “Gage is a pompous windbag, all bark and no bite.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Atwood said. “Until recently.”

  Quirke shrugged, unconcerned, but Wry frowned. “I can handle Gage,” Quirke said. Atwood took him at his word. After all, he could always find another inspector willing to talk, assuming he still had a job himself.

  “So,” Atwood asked, “was it murder?”

  “We’re not sure.”

  Atwood glanced at Walter who looked as puzzled as he felt. “You’re not sure?” he repeated.

  “All five of them were mutilated,” Quirke replied. “It’s hard to say what precisely killed them, or whether they were alive at the time.”

  Atwood noticed for the first time how on edge Quirke was. The inspector had retained his distinguished shell, but he was worn underneath, and the sergeant’s habitual suspicion felt suddenly hollow. This case had unnerved them already, and Atwood knew from experience just how rare that was. He found it distinctly promising.

  “How mutilated?” he asked.

  Quirke and Wry exchanged glances, but after a moment Quirke gave a weary shrug. “It’ll leak soon enough,” he said, and then leaned in closer. “Their organs were removed,” he whispered.

  “All of them?”

  “Every last one.”

  “Medical students?” Atwood asked.

  “You tell me.”

  Atwood grunted, but kept his thoughts to himself. “Any idea who they were?” he asked. Quirke shook his head. “But when you do…”

  “The usual deal applies,” Quirke said, “and if you have anything for me…”

  “I’ll be only too happy to share,” Atwood said. It was only partially a lie.

  “See that you do.”

  Atwood and the inspector shook hands again. Then Atwood headed back into the crowd. He had a story to write. Walter lingered for a moment.

  “Sergeant.” He sent Wry a farewell nod, which the sergeant returned. Then Walter turned to follow Atwood.

  Atwood had a noticeable bounce in his step that had been missing for days.

  “Did you get anything from Wry?” he asked.

  “Not in so many words,” Walter said. “But I got the impression that these weren’t the first.”

  “There are more bodies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, well, well,” Atwood said. “Now we’re making progress.”

  “Are we?”

  “First bodysnatchers and now bodies.” Atwood smiled. “If that’s not connected, I’ll eat my hat.”

  “You forgot your hat,” Walter pointed out.

  “Then I’ll eat yours.”

  Walter laughed. “So what now?”

  “Now we give the Maguire the story he’s been waiting for,” Atwood said. “Organs removed—it’s just gruesome enough to sell. And then we visit the Academy.”

  “You don’t have many friends there.”

  “Like I told Quirke, I don’t have any friends,” Atwood said. His lips curled. “I don’t need them.”

  Walter fell silent at that, but Atwood didn’t notice. He was used to Walter’s silences, and he was already busy composing the article in his head. Atwood could glimpse possible salvation at last, and perhaps even a glimmer of respectability. He had come close with Dr. Gentle’s story, but his dreams of legitimacy had proved to be a mirage. There had been questions about his ties to the underworld, and his relationship with the body snatchers. But a murder was something else entirely. If he played his cards right, he might not even need the Oracle or Maguire.

  8

  The Museum of Natural Curiosities

  Atwood sat in his office, marinating in a haze of cigar smoke and whiskey. The afternoon sun glinted through the small window in narrow shafts of light, illuminating the room in a diffuse, sickly glow. There was no sound except the clatter of the type
writer and an occasional, low murmur as Atwood muttered to himself while he wrote.

  His head was pounding. Every keystroke resounded in his skull. The headache had only gotten worse. The words were flowing, but there was something dreamlike in the haze and the light, a smoky film between him and the world. Atwood felt feverish, and so very tired.

  The article was a masterpiece of half-truths and bold-faced lies, a pungent mixture of lurid sensationalism and sharp realism. He had a talent for detail and local color, and he deployed it liberally, making sure to praise the police profusely. Here amidst the words, smoke, and lies, he was in his element. This was his gift, but he had the strangest feeling that this time, the words were not entirely his own. They seemed deformed and grotesque on the page, and the lies more torturous. He glanced at his pocket watch—nearly 5 o’clock. He should have finished hours ago and they still needed to look into the robberies at the museum.

  There was an empty bottle on the desk beside him. He had tried to drink the headache and the fever away again, but it didn’t seem to be working. Atwood drained his glass and glared balefully at the door. He’d sent Walter for replenishments, but he was taking his time.

  Walter came running in a few minutes later with the bottle in his hand, apologizing profusely. Atwood poured himself a glass and said nothing. It was acidic and burned on the way down, but he poured himself another and drained it as well. He erupted into a fit of coughing, then took another puff of his cigar. That, at least, felt real.

  “Are you all right?” Walter asked.

  “Of course I am!” Atwood snapped. Walter looked down and scurried back to his desk. Atwood sighed. “Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  Walter frowned at him in concern. “After I left in Chinatown,” he said. “Did you…?”

  “Perhaps.” Atwood grimaced. “But don’t worry about it. I have it under control.”

  “This is under control?”

  Atwood rubbed his eyes tiredly. “This will pass. They’re only dreams.”