Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter mc-3

by Robert R. McCammon

  "I know the part that says if men respect me, I'll respect them. Is there anything else?"

  McCaggers pointedly ignored him, focusing his attention to Matthew and Berry. "This may be a tooth from behemoth, or from leviathan. As I said before, it's a mystery without an answer."

  "Maybe they know the answer by now." Greathouse motioned upward, where the coroner's angels watched with hollow sockets. "Too bad you have to die before you find out."

  "Yes, that is unfortunate," McCaggers agreed, and closed the lid of his red velvet box. Then he spoke directly to Berry. "I thought you might enjoy seeing it, from the viewpoint of both a teacher and a person who obviously appreciates the art of function. Just as the bones of a human skeleton are all formed for specific tasks, so was this tooth. Whatever the creature was that possessed it, you can be sure the animal was formed for the function of both destruction and survival. My further question is what was in God's will to create such a monster?" As he knew no reply could be forthcoming, he turned away once more, took the box back to the chest-of-drawers and deposited it where it had been.

  "About Zed," Greathouse prompted. Beyond McCaggers, the slave had returned to his task of cleaning the instruments and seemed not to care a fig about anything else.

  "I appreciate your experiment with him," McCaggers said as he strolled back to them. "I understand and share your opinion about his talents, that he shouldn't be-as you've stated-wasted in the duty of moving corpses about. I had no idea of his obviously valuable heritage. I also find it quite interesting and very remarkable that you wish to buy him from me and go about the process of gaining a writ of manumission for him from Lord Cornbury."

  "First things first. I'd like Miss Grigsby to observe him for a few days and tell me if she thinks he can be trained." Greathouse caught himself, and his mouth twisted as if he'd tasted some bad liver. "I mean to say, taught."

  McCaggers gave a thin smile. "Of course he can be taught. He's very intelligent, as a matter of fact. He quickly understands instructions, as you yourself found out last night. I have to say, I don't know to what extent he can be taught, but simple tasks are no problem for him."

  "Does he know very much English?" Berry asked, watching Zed work.

  "He knows enough to carry out his job. I think he had some knowledge of English before he arrived at the auction block. It's somewhat difficult to know precisely, as of course he can't speak." McCaggers looked at Greathouse and narrowed his eyes behind his spectacles. "Before we go any further, sir, I should tell you that there is a problem. As I do appreciate and respect your offer, I'm afraid it's not possible."

  "Not possible? Why? I'd be willing to pay-"

  "Not enough," McCaggers interrupted. "Simply because I don't own Zed outright."

  Greathouse was taken aback, and glanced at Matthew for support.

  "You mean someone else owns him?" Matthew asked.

  "When Zed came up for auction, you can be sure I wasn't the only bidder, and that I quickly came to the bottom of my pocket. One of the predominant bidders was Gerritt van Kowenhoven."

  A wealthy shipbuilder, Matthew knew, who owned one of the mansions atop Golden Hill. The man was in his seventies, had been through three wives and had the reputation of being both a skinflint and a backbreaking taskmaster. But, for all that, his ships were majesties of grace and speed. "He wanted Zed for his shipyard," McCaggers went on. "I happened to know that van Kowenhoven has not been able to buy something he devoutly desires. Due to the fact that he's wrangled famously with every mayor we've had, and proclaimed his shipyard to still be part of the States of Holland."

  "That would tend to annoy," Matthew observed.

  "Exactly. Well, as I knew what van Kowenhoven desired and I have sufficient influence to make it happen, I concluded an agreement with him before the gavel's last fall. Thus I have possession of Zed for four years-and we are currently in the fifth month of the third year-after which he becomes the sole property of van Kowenhoven and I presume will do the work of a half-dozen men for the remainder of his life."

  "And just what was it he wanted?" Matthew asked.

  "It has taken awhile, but the next street laid down by our good Mayor French will be christened van Kowenhoven. It's already on the new map."

  Greathouse said with a sneer, "Son of a-"

  "Sir!" Berry told him sharply. "None of that!"

  He glowered at her, but his storm ebbed and he scratched the back of his neck so hard Matthew thought he was going to draw blood.

  "I presume that tears it," Matthew said, with a quick glance at Zed. The slave was now arranging the instruments into his master's toolbox, which had served many of the best deceased of New York's society as well as the lowest ex-lifes. It was a shame, really, that a man of Zed's abilities should spend his life hauling timbers and tar barrels, but this particular path had come to its end.

  "Wait a moment!" said Greathouse, as if reading Matthew's mind. "How much money are we talking about? To buy him from van Kowenhoven?"

  "Zed went from the block for thirty-two pounds and six shillings. More than half my salary for one year. Plus, knowing van Kowenhoven, he'd want a profit on his investment, if he could be induced to sell."

  Greathouse's mouth was still hanging open. "Thirty-two pounds?" It was a tremendous sum to be paid in one offering.

  "As I said, I certainly wasn't the only bidder and neither was van Kowenhoven. When men like Cornelius Rambouts and John Addison entered the fray, it became more of a personal competition than a business purchase."

  Matthew was thinking what he could do with thirty-two pounds. Pay off all his debts, buy some new suits, and have a small fireplace built in his dairyhouse, since it appeared that Marmaduke wasn't going to spring for it before the first cold blow. Plus there'd be enough left for a few months of meals and ale at the Trot. How some people could throw so much money away astounded him.

  "I could probably raise seven or eight pounds," Greathouse said, his brow furrowed. "Maybe ten, at the most."

  "Your spirit and intention are commendable, sir," said McCaggers, with a slight bow. "There would be a further cost. Just last month Daniel Padgett applied for a writ of manumission from Lord Cornbury for his slave Vulcan, that the man might open a blacksmith's shop. It's my understanding that Cornbury demanded and received ten pounds for his signature."

  "Son of a-" Greathouse paused. When Berry didn't speak up, he finished it: "Bitch!"

  "I'm sorry," McCaggers told him. "But things are as they are."

  Greathouse started to speak again, but Matthew saw all the wind and bluster go out of him, for there was simply no more to be said. Matthew assumed that Katherine Herrald had left him some money to run the office, of course, but that sum was certainly out of the question. He knew it, Greathouse knew it, and so did McCaggers.

  At last Greathouse said, to no one in particular, "I suppose we'll be going." Then he tried one last time, as was his nature to beat against stone walls: "Do you think if van Kowenhoven knew what kind of talent Zed had, he'd listen to reason?"

  "You can try," came the reply, "but it would probably just make him raise the price."

  "All right. Thank you." Greathouse watched Zed at work for a moment longer and then abruptly turned toward the door.

  Matthew was about to follow when Berry posed a question to the coroner: "Pardon me, but I'd like to know can Zed read or write?"

  "Not English, but perhaps his own language. He's never had cause to either read or write in the work he does for me. All he does is follow instructions, given verbally and by handsigns."

  "Then, if I may ask, how are you so sure of his intelligence?"

  "Two reasons," said McCaggers. "One, he follows instructions precisely. And two, there are his drawings."

  "Drawings?" Berry asked, as Greathouse stopped at the door and looked back.

  "Yes. Here are some." McCaggers crossed the room and retrieved a few sheets of paper from atop the bookcase. "I don't think he'd mind if I showed them," he said, th
ough Zed had turned around in his chair and was watching with what might be called intense scrutiny, so much that Matthew felt the flesh crawl at the back of his neck for fear the man might decide his drawings were not for the eyes of strangers.

  McCaggers brought the papers to Berry, and she took them. Now it was Matthew's turn to look over her shoulder, and Greathouse walked back to them to also take a gander.

  "He's done a score of them," McCaggers explained. "Using my black crayons. And broken them like tindersticks too, I might add."

  It wasn't difficult to see why. Some of the strokes had actually torn through the paper. But now Matthew knew why Zed spent so much time on the roof of City Hall.

  The first drawing was a view of New York and the Great Dock, as seen from Zed's vantage point. Only it wasn't exactly the town and the dock that Matthew saw everyday; those thick waxy black lines of buildings and canoe-like shapes of sailing vessels appeared to be from a more primitive world, with the circle of the sun a line gone round and round until obviously the crayon's point had snapped to leave an ugly smear across the scene. It looked forbidding and alien, with black lines spouting from the squares of chimneys and-down below-stick figures caught in midstride. There was a nightmarish quality to the drawing, all black and white and nothing in between.

  The second drawing showed what must have been the Trinity Church cemetery, and in this the gravestones looked much like the buildings in the first scene, and the trees were spindly and leafless skeletons. Was there the figure of a man standing beside one of the graves, or was it only where the crayon had ground itself down to the nub?

  The third drawing, however, was quite different. It showed, simply, a stylized fish bristling with what appeared to be thorns, surrounded by the wavy lines of water. The fourth drawing was also of a fish, complete with a sail upon its back and a long beak, and the fifth drawing-the last among them-a fish formed of circles and squares with a gasping mouth and a single gaping eye with a hole at the center where the crayon had ripped through.

  "He draws a lot of fish," McCaggers said. "Why, I have no idea."

  "Obviously, he was a fisherman." Greathouse leaned over Berry's other shoulder to look. "As I told Matthew, the Ga tribe-"

  He didn't finish his sentence, for a large black hand suddenly thrust forward and took hold of the papers in Berry's grasp, causing her to give out a little startled cry and go pale. If truth be known, Matthew quivered down to his kneecaps and suppressed a start of alarm behind his teeth, for Zed was suddenly right there in front of them where seconds before he had not been. Greathouse did not move, though Matthew sensed him coiled and ready to strike if need be.

  Zed's scarred face was impassive, his ebony eyes fixed not on Berry but upon the drawings. He gave them the slightest pull, and instantly Berry let them go. Then he turned around and walked back to his workplace with the drawings in hand, and it amazed Matthew that he made hardly any noise on the floorboards.

  "Another of his talents," McCaggers said. "He can move around like a shadow when he chooses." He cleared his throat. "It seems I have betrayed a trust. I apologize for any discomfort."

  Matthew wasn't worried about his own discomfort, but about Zed's and what might come of it. The slave had finished his task of returning the instruments to the box, and with his artwork protectively clutched in one hand he closed the box and latched it.

  "He's done many drawings?" asked Berry as the color began to return to her cheeks.

  "One or two every week, without fail. He has a boxful of them under his cot."

  "I also draw. I wonder if he might care to see my work?"

  "If he wouldn't," McCaggers said, "I certainly would."

  "I mean to say it might be a way to communicate with him. To hear what he has to say." She looked at Greathouse. "Using an artist's language."

  "A worthwhile endeavor, I'm sure." Some of the enthusiasm had left him; his eyes had lost the keen spark they'd shown before the subject of thirty-two pounds had been raised. "Well, as you please. Thank you for your time, McCaggers." He cast another glance at Zed, whose back announced he was through entertaining visitors, and then he went under the skeletons to the door and out.

  "I look forward to seeing you again," McCaggers said to Berry, while Matthew felt like a third wheel on a higgler's cart. "Hopefully on your next visit I can get you that tea."

  "Thank you," she answered, and it was with relief that Matthew followed her out of the coroner's domain and down the stairs.

  On Wall Street, as they walked together toward the East River, Berry began to chatter about Zed's drawings. A natural quality, she said. An elemental force. Don't you think?

  Matthew shrugged. To him they'd looked like something that might have been scrawled by an inmate at the New Jersey colony's Public Hospital for the Mentally Infirm near Westerwicke. He was debating saying so when a black cat squirted out from between two buildings and ran across his path, and so he kept his mouth shut and his eyes wide open for rampaging bulls, muskrat holes, clods of horse manure and whatever else the Devil might throw in his direction.

  Five

  Early Saturday morning, as the sun rose through the forest and lit the world in hues of fire, Matthew found his mind on the monster's tooth.

  He was astride the muscular black horse Dante, which was his mount of choice from Tobias Winekoop's stable. He was riding north along the Post Road, and had been making good progress since seven o'clock. Long past him were the familiar streets and structures of the city; here, on this road that climbed hills and fell into valleys and wound between huge oaks and underbrush that made claim to choke off the path altogether, he was in a truly dangerous country.

  In midsummer he'd been stopped by a devious, great ass of a highwayman near his present position. There were wild animals to beware of, and Indians who would never be seen except for the arrow that flew at your throat. It was true that tucked back along the river's cliffs were occasional farms and estates protected by stone walls and settlers' muskets, for what they were worth. Never let it be said that the New Yorker did not possess courage. Either that, or a passion for life on the edge of disaster.

  Matthew wished not to provoke disaster today, but he was ready if it bit at him. Under his gray cloak he wore a black sash around his waist, and in that sash was a loaded flintlock with which he'd become quite proficient under Greathouse's demanding tutelage. Matthew knew he'd never be much of a swordsman nor was he particularly swift with his fists, but he could surely cock and fire a pistol fast enough to part a highwayman's hair, if need be.

  He had been planning this trip for several weeks. Had gone to bed many times intending to take it, only to find at daylight that he wasn't yet as strong-minded as he'd thought. Today, though, he had awakened ready, and perhaps it was his introduction to the monster's tooth-and McCaggers' mystery with no answer-that had caused him to realize he had his own unanswerable mystery. It was something that must be discovered; something hidden from the light, as surely as a fang sixty feet down in a coal mine. How could he call himself a problem-solver, if he had a problem that could not be solved?

  Or, to be more truthful, that he feared to face. This was the real reason he'd brought the pistol, not because of imaginary highwaymen or the improbable attack of a forest beast or an Indian who would surely be more curious than bloodthirsty, since at present there were no quarrels between the Iroquois and the colonists.

  On this bright Saturday morning he was riding the fifteen miles north from New York to the Chapel estate, where he and Berry had almost lost their lives, and where a mystery had to be answered before he could let that vile incident go.

  He was thinking about the tooth. How such a thing was utterly incredible. If he hadn't seen it for himself, he would have thought McCaggers a tipsy liar. Evidence of either behemoth or leviathan, most probably true, but what purpose would such a monster serve? Why would God in His wisdom ever create such a beast? Simply for the purpose of destruction? He could see in his mind's eye an ancient fie
ld under a gray sky shot through with lightning, and a huge dark shape moving across it with a mouthful of those blade-like teeth glinting blue and wet in the storm. The massive head turning left and right, seeking something weaker to tear to pieces.

  It was enough to bring on a nightmare in broad daylight, Matthew thought. Even more so when something rustled in the brush before him, he almost jumped out of the saddle, and two small brown rabbits went on their merry way.

  Where the road split around a dark little swamp, he took the path that veered left toward the river. The Chapel estate was getting closer now; he would be there in another hour. He had a sick feeling in his stomach that did not come from the strips of dried beef he'd been chewing for his breakfast. It was hard to return to a place where he'd thought death was going to take him, and indeed he found himself scanning the sky through the trees in search of circling hawks.

  Dante plodded on, unmindful of his rider's memories. And then, quite before Matthew was fully ready, they came upon a wall of rough stones about eight feet high with vines and creepers dangling over it, and Matthew must have abruptly pressed in with his knees or jerked the reins like a greenhorn, for Dante's head came up with a reproachful snort and let him know that he was not above being tossed.

  The road continued on, close-set against the ugly wall. As upon his first visit here, Matthew had the impression of approaching a fortress instead of an estate. In another moment he saw the great slab of the wooden gate ahead, wide open as when it was left by High Constable Lillehorne and the other men who'd come to his rescue. Matthew suddenly felt the sun was not bright enough, and that the cool air carried a wicked edge. He had to go through that gate and onto the grounds, because he had to find out how four people could have escaped Lillehorne's men and so completely disappeared that terrible day last summer.

  He turned Dante through the gate, passed the white-washed gatehouse with its broken windowglass, and followed a driveway that curved to the right between thick woods.