The Styx

by Jonathon King

  “One more question,” he said, and she looked up. “When you were watching this man, this Mr. Bingham, you said he was dressed like a business man. What made you believe that?”

  “He was in fancy clothes. Not like some party or somethin’. But not like he was comin’ to the Styx to do somethin’ shady like. An’ he was carryin’ a bidness case. Like a leather case that would hold papers and such.”

  Faustus dwelt on the answer for a moment and went out the door.

  CHAPTER 21

  WHEN Byrne awoke, he was freezing. The hard light of midday was in his eyes. His back was either on fire or frostbitten. He turned his head to the right and saw a wet wooden sideboard next to his face. He turned to the left and looked a dead fish in the eye. When he began to regain his sense of smell he closed his eyes again and hoped this was not hell.

  The last thing he recalled was finding the road, a trail of crushed rock barely wide enough for a wagon. He’d been limping, holding his knotted shirt to his side for two hours. When one entire side of the shirt and one loosed sleeve became soaked in blood, he’d quit looking at the wound. On the road he’d meant to turn north, but his brain was too blurred and spinning to be sure he’d made the right selection. The sun suffered an eclipse, its center gone black, and when the rim of light around it came down over his head, he’d passed out.

  “Michael! Michael Byrne. Can you hear me?”

  Called by the devil, Byrne thought, hearing the words and expecting Lucifer himself. A face started coming into focus. Danny? Had he joined his brother in hell?

  “Come on, son. Put some effort into it now,” a familiar voice said. The intent eyes of Amadeus Faustus looked down on him.

  “OK, boys. Let’s get him down out of there and into the back of the bar,” Faustus said. “Watch that wound on his side now.”

  With that, four men slid Byrne down out of a fish wagon loaded with red snapper and ice, carried him into the tavern, and laid him out on a table in back.

  Faustus went to work without a word: soothing, questioning, or otherwise. He used a razor sharp knife to cut away pieces of the shirt still tied around Byrne’s waist. He loosened the pants and stripped them off as well, probing with careful fingers around Byrne’s rib cage and then his hip. A boy came in carrying a large wooden case.

  “Put it just here, Adam, and get some water for this man if you please.” Byrne looked at the case, trying to determine what might be coming. The box was labeled with a distinctive cursive lettering spelling Johnson and a red cross.

  Faustus opened it and withdrew a bottle of liquid. He’d left the knot of Byrne’s shirt in place, fastened there with both dried and sticky blood, and thus staunched some of the flow. Now Faustus pulled at it, pouring antiseptic over the area.

  “Sssssss,” Byrne hissed between his teeth.

  “Easier to work with wounds on a corpse,” Faustus said. “But I still prefer working on the living. Don’t you, Mr. Byrne?”

  “In this case, yes,” Byrne said, his head coming more alert with the pain. His voice was raw and foreign to his ears.

  With the wound exposed, Faustus took a dressing from the case and began dabbing at its edges.

  “Fairly large caliber. Smaller than a musket ball but bigger than a handgun, although you’ve had a few hours to pucker a bit.”

  “Rifle of some kind,” Byrne managed.

  Adam returned with a beer mug full of water. Faustus directed the lad to pour some into Byrne’s mouth. “Not too much now,” he said without looking, concentrating instead on the entry wound.

  The feeling in Byrne’s throat was cool.

  “Loss of blood and dehydrated,” Faustus said. “You were lucky the fish wagon came along when it did. The driver said you were in an unconscious pile when he spotted you under a cabbage palm. Not quite like the gutters of your Lower East Side but still an ignominious spot to die. Can you roll onto your side, please?”

  Again Byrne hissed at the pain when Faustus poked the corner of the antiseptic soaked swab into the hole in his back.

  “I trust you know what you’re doing, Faustus.” Byrne said. “This isn’t Appomattox.”

  “Ha! You’re not in the hands of an amateur, my friend. And in fact I’ve twice read Johnson & Johnson’s Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment. I believe a copy came with the first aid kit.”

  When Faustus was done with the wounds he and the boy helped Byrne off the table and into a back room of the tavern. A cot was pushed against one wall and they lay him down on the old stained mattress. When he tried to close his eyes, the walls began to spin. The room was dark and dry and the temperature high. Byrne could feel the tingle of blood coming back into his skin.

  “The wagon driver was smart enough to cover your side with the ice he had aboard. It probably kept you from bleeding out more than you did,” Faustus said, sitting nearby in a straight-backed chair.

  “The bastards tried to kill me,” Byrne said, looking at the old Mason but seeing the faces of Ashton, McAdams, Pearson and Birch.

  Faustus sat quiet for a moment, letting Byrne’s anger seep out of the way.

  “Who, exactly, are they?” he finally said. “And what do you think their motivation to kill a Pinkerton employed by the most powerful man in the state would be?”

  When Byrne listed out the men on the hunting trip, Faustus seemed unable to let the names of Flagler’s right-hand, the manager of the Poinciana and a banker of high esteem sit under the title of attempted murderers in his head.

  “The guide, Ashton, did the dirty work, and I smashed his kneecap to pieces for his trouble,” Byrne said.

  “I heard he was brought into Dr. Lansing’s early today,” Faustus agreed. “The three others you’ve named brought him in on one of the pump carts. Some of the boys said it was quite a sight, a banker and a hotel big shot working the pump and perspiring like pigs, I believe they said.”

  Byrne wryly smiled at the vision.

  “They described it as a hunting accident,” Faustus said. “You’ve reason to believe differently?”

  “He would have blown my head off if the damned alligator hadn’t scared hell out of me first. The lizard was eight feet in front of me. No way Ashton was aiming at it and not me.”

  “Did you question Mr. Ashton as to his actions?”

  “He was, what you might call, forthcoming, considering there was steel baton across his throat.” Byrne said. “According to him, it was real estate. Said I was getting too nosey about some deal. What the hell would that mean? I haven’t so much as considered buying a piece of land even if I had the money.”

  “But what are you getting your nose into?” Faustus said. “The shooting death of your own brother, a man, and excuse my bluntness here, who was known as a swindler and not just in the real estate field. Then there’s your defense of a poor Negro prostitute arrested for said killing. And let’s not forget your wooing of a prominent young woman. Don’t deny it sir, I long ago learned to read the eyes of incipient love and the sprinklings of lust.”

  “She knew my brother.”

  Faustus raised his eyebrows.

  “She admitted she knew him. And she’s admitted being there when they found his body.” The ache in his side was perhaps the lesser of two pains. “So what the hell else does she know about this whole affair, including who killed Danny?”

  For several moments, Faustus sat mute. Then he leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and speaking in measured, clear statements of fact.

  For the next hour he recounted verbatim his interview with Shantice Carver, her admission of the blackmail scheme, her co-conspirator Abby, and her observation of Mrs. Birch approaching Byrne’s brother in the dark near the place his body was found.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Byrne interrupted. “Birch, did you say? Birch was the name of one of the Poinciana men on the hunt this morning. He was introduced as some kind of banker. And I recall his face from the city, a man who paid his way out of a prostitution raid at the Haymark
et Dance Hall.”

  Faustus simply stared at Byrne out of the shadows.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence, my young friend. And I doubt that you, as a good investigator, do either.”

  “I’m not an investigator,” Byrne said. “I’m a Pinkerton guard, as you and everyone else reminds me.”

  “Ha!”

  “What ha?”

  “I do have contacts in the north, despite my southern disposition. And my inquiries have resulted in an interesting description of a man with your name and physical appearance who was involved in some investigation of the most dangerous sort.

  “You at one time took on the role of tracking the misdeeds of your own superiors and their political bosses. Highly placed and dangerous politicians at that.”

  Silence from the bed.

  “In fact, rumor has it that a compromise was made. Your life may have been spared if and only if you left the city and never came back.”

  “Never was not a word that was used,” Byrne said quietly.

  “Nonetheless, I don’t believe you when you say you’re not a born investigator. And I don’t believe that you can observe a moral and ethical misdeed without being pulled to make it right.”

  “What is this, the code of the Masons or something?” Byrne said, his voice sounding more cynical than he wanted.

  “It is not just a code of Masons. It is a code of true men in a civilized society.”

  “You call this civilized?” Byrne said, sweeping his hand across the dingy room.

  Faustus laughed. “Ah, the voice of a true New Yorker. Nothing exists outside of Kings County.”

  Byrne thought back to his friend Jack Brennan and his squad of young Pinkertons who’d never stepped outside the city, and he had to admit to Faustus’ portrayal. He decided to change the subject.

  “What else did Carver say she witnessed that night?”

  “She denied seeing anyone else at the scene of the crime and swears she did not hear a gunshot nor did she see the fire begin.”

  “Did Marjory say anything? I’d sure as hell be surprised if she didn’t know this Birch woman, if they’re as prominent as they appear.”

  “She said she knew of her,” Faustus said, but his voice betrayed him.

  “And you think she’s lying?”

  “It’s a very close society on the island. The separation between the daughter of Flagler’s right hand man and the wife of a prominent banker would be thin at best.

  “But I plan to speak with Mrs. Birch tomorrow to see if she has any of her own insights on the events described by Mizz Carver. And in addition, your information about your brother’s new affinity for carrying his binder case was also confirmed by our client. She saw him with it on the night in question. So I shall also be visiting the mortician for another round of questions about its disappearance.” Faustus stood. “For now I suggest you get some rest. A bullet wound can be quite debilitating if not given the time to heal and fight off infection.”

  With that the old Mason left the room, and Byrne soon fell into a fitful sleep with the images of gators and Tammany and a naked Marjory McAdams swimming through his head.

  CHAPTER 22

  THIS time Byrne woke with the sound of clinking glass in his ears, the smell of stale beer and cigar smoke and hot cooking oil. A sudden anxiety came into his head—was he in New York, in the trash alley behind McSorely’s? When he felt for the curb, he heard a moan. He was back in his mother’s apartment, she was dying in pain, her face ashen, a tear glistening down a grayed cheek. He forced his eyes open, determined to help her. The wound at his side bit him hard and the moan came again, from his own mouth.

  Reality. I was shot yesterday. I’m in Florida, in the back room of a tavern and there are slats of sunshine coming in low through the window, which means it’s morning. Faustus is supposed to be here. We need to find out what Mrs. Birch knows. And shit, I was shot yesterday.

  He swung his feet off the cot, sat upright and probed at the bandage Faustus had applied the night before. It was in place and not spotted on the outside, a good sign even though it still hurt like hell when he moved. Carefully, he pulled on a pair of clean pants and a cotton shirt that had been placed at the foot of the cot, his own ruined clothing gone from sight. When he felt he could stand, he did, while a bright light pulsed behind his eyes causing a bit of a swoon. He refused to go down. A minute, maybe two, and the dizziness passed. He moved to the door that opened to the barroom and went on through.

  “Well, top o’ the day, Mr. Byrne,” said the woman at the bar, who was busy stocking beer mugs and bottles and any other thing that could create noises meant to penetrate a man’s brain.

  “Many a man has stumbled through that door in the mornin’, sir, but you’d rank right up with the best of them for lookin’ like an overrun dog.”

  “Aye, and to you,” Byrne said, making his way to a stool at the rail and finding purchase with one haunch to steady himself.

  Without comment the barkeep poured him an ale from a tapped keg and placed the mug and a hard’boiled egg in front him.

  “Patti Graham’s the name,” she said, extending her hand. “This here works for hangovers, sir, so it can’t be any harm to a gunshot wound neither.”

  Byrne shook the woman’s fingers, and then sipped at the beer, a blessing in his throat. He took another.

  “Heaven,” he whispered.

  “That’s what they all say,” the bartender said, pushing a lock of her blonde hair out of the way. “Hell, I bet Mr. Faustus last night that a bullet through the gizzard wouldn’t put a good man down any more than a feisty night on the town.

  “He said, Mr. Faustus that is, that he would be in this mornin’ so take yer time, sir. That egg’ll start you back to healin’, guaranteed.”

  With the help of a fingerbowl full of shaved salt, Byrne had finished the first egg and was onto another by the time Faustus arrived.

  “Now isn’t that a fine sight to see? Belly up to the bar the very day after cheating the dark angel of death,” he said.

  “Maybe there’s just magic in that Johnson & Johnson,” Byrne said, feeling better with his second mug of beer.

  “I see the clean clothes fit,” Faustus said. “You can wash up out back next to the privy where there’s a barrel of clean rain water. And since you’re in such good shape, taking refreshment and all, I believe I’ll be off to the undertakers and a possible visit with one Mrs. Birch on the island.”

  Byrne slipped off the stool, keeping the look of pain out of his face.

  “Give me ten minutes then and I’ll be right with you.”

  Faustus exchanged glances with the bartender, who only shrugged her shoulders.

  “Your call, son,” he said, slipping up onto Byrne’s empty stool, and ordering a morning beer for himself.

  Faustus and a limping Byrne were making their way down Clematis Street when they saw Maltby the mortician heading toward them.

  “Well fancy that, I was just now heading to see you, Mr. Maltby,” Faustus said. Maltby was less enthusiastic than when they’d first visited him and pointed out the discrepancies in Danny Byrne’s autopsy.

  “Yes, well gentlemen, I am on my way to the island on an urgent matter.”

  “Oh my,” Faustus said. “I do hope one of our guests has not met an untimely death.”

  “No, sir. There’s been an accident and I’m told a housemaid has fallen to her death down an elevator shaft.”

  “Really?” Faustus said. “And did they inform you of this woman’s name?”

  “Abigail Morrisette was the name they gave,” Maltby said, information that, considering the station of the victim, seemed irrelevant. “She was a Negro woman who was employed there.”

  At the sound of the name, Byrne turned to look out over the lake to the Poinciana. Abby, he thought. Another witness dead? Had she known his brother too?

  “Well then, in that case,” Faustus said, “I do believe we’re heading in the same direction. May we accompa
ny you, sir?”

  The undertaker was too flummoxed to object. All three men walked down to the nearby docks and boarded the ferry boat to the hotel. The group remained relatively silent on the short trip across the lake. Maltby was no doubt trying to figure out the angles; why would Faustus be interested in yet another death on the island? And would he again be asked to quash any questions over the matter. These things were best taken care of quietly.

  Faustus and Byrne were turning questions of their own. What had Abby seen the night of the fire, and what did she see transpire between Danny Byrne and Mrs. Birch? Was it something that would have been worth killing her for?

  When the ferry tied up at the dock on Palm Beach, Faustus and Maltby were the first ones off. Byrne lagged behind, leaning into his wound.

  “Please, you two go ahead. There is a ride here for me,” Byrne said nodding to the so-called Afromobile and its stoic driver parked at the side. “I’ll follow when I catch my breath.”

  Faustus gave him a silent look: I know where you’re going and be damned careful, it said.

  At the concierge desk of the Royal Poinciana, Maltby’s papers, written on Dade County Sheriff’s stationary and authorizing him to remove the body of the victim, got them an escort to the basement of the northern wing of the hotel. Along the way Faustus, with an air of officialdom, asked questions of the concierge.

  “Can you tell us, sir, when this unfortunate accident occurred?”

  “Very early this morning, I’m afraid. Perhaps five or six.”

  “You’re not sure of the exact time?”

  “There were few people up at that hour other than early staff members, and as far as we know there were no reports of any sort of, well, screaming.”

  “Then who discovered the body?”

  “I believe it came to our attention through one of the wait staff. He had encountered difficulty in getting the freight elevator to work for a delivery on the fifth floor, and when one of our maintenance men arrived to rectify the problem, well, there she was.”