Opium and Absinthe: A Novel

by Lydia Kang

  Ada’s eyes went huge and glassy. She covered her face with her hands and burst into a sob. She dropped to her knees. Tillie patted her back.

  “It’s John’s, isn’t it?”

  Ada sobbed into Tillie’s lap.

  “Have you spoken to him? Does he know?”

  Her head shook vehemently. She lifted her eyes. Mucus ran from her nose, and her skin puffed with redness. “He left so quickly we didn’t have a chance to say guh-guh-goodbye!” She hiccupped. “He was so angry at being dismissed. So angry! He didn’t even look my way when he left. And now I don’t know where he is or how to speak to him!” She dropped her voice even lower. “I thought maybe he went back to working at the Metropolitan Museum, but I sent a letter there, and they didn’t hire him again.”

  “Wait. Did you say he worked at the museum? Where Lucy died?”

  “Yes. He used to be the night watchman there, but this job paid more, so he left.” She sniffled again.

  Could John have seen Lucy at the museum? She imagined him striking her, holding her down, an awl raised to pierce her neck. No, no. Why would he choose to work at the house where his victim had lived? It made no sense. Then it occurred to her that John worked at night only. Oh, but she had just convinced herself and all of New York that vampires didn’t exist! Ada was still talking, anxiety having drained her peach complexion to a pasty gray.

  “Oh, if the missus finds out I’m with child, she’ll fire me. She did with the other one. With Betty.”

  Tillie went still, and the hand stroking Ada’s red hair froze. “What did you say? Betty was in the family way too?”

  “Yes. Did you not know?” Ada wiped her nose on her apron. “I thought perhaps your sister had said something.”

  “No. I thought she was fired because of what happened to Lucy. Or for stealing things from the house.”

  Ada looked up and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Betty didn’t take a thing. It was your sister, Lucy, who was stealing.”

  CHAPTER 23

  It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.

  —Mina Harker

  Lucy. Lucy had been the one stealing, all this time? The food and the linens?

  “Why was she stealing?”

  “I don’t know, but Betty was certainly helping her hide the fact.”

  It was time to find Betty. John had said she’d been in the Tombs, but where was she now?

  “Do you know where I can find her? I have to speak to her.”

  “Of course I know.” Ada had stopped crying, and Tillie couldn’t manage to sit still, so she carried the dishes to the kitchen with her. After they put them in the washbasin for the kitchen maids to clean, Tillie looked longingly outside. It was sunny, and the sky was a cornflower blue.

  “Of course you knew. And I never bothered to ask you.” She was furious with herself for not asking the simplest questions weeks ago. “Can we go outside?” Tillie said. “I’m desperate for some fresh air.”

  “We can, but Missus says that you need a second chaperone. After Miss Hazel lost you, she doesn’t trust that one lady alone can keep you from running off and . . . and . . .”

  “And what, exactly?” Tillie raised an eyebrow.

  “And writing another article,” Ada said sheepishly. “By the way, what a stunner of a story! One of the best I’ve ever read in the papers.”

  “Thank you, Ada.” Tillie sighed. Had the article even accomplished anything? The unknown truth still tap-tap-tapped at her spine with its insistent, sharp nail.

  Where was the killer? And what, really, had happened to Lucy?

  “Will you write another article, Miss Tillie?”

  “I don’t know. I would like to.” She stood. “There’s still work to be done to bring Lucy’s killer to justice. And the worst of it is I’m back where I started. Here, in this cage.”

  Ada looked around her. “People dream of having such a beautiful home.”

  “Not if it’s the only place you can ever breathe.”

  “Oh, but once you marry Mr. Cutter, it will all change. Won’t it?”

  “If I get married. But then my life won’t be my own. It isn’t now. I don’t know what to do, Ada. If I leave this life, I will have no money. No home. No friends. I don’t know how to survive.”

  “Well, I suppose you’d do what I do. Get a job, and work, and find a place to live, and keep going.” She put a hand on her belly. “But I should rather you stayed here so I could keep my job. It pays well, and I’ll be able to take care of this little one.”

  Tillie glanced at Ada sheepishly. It was another reminder that there was more to worry about than just herself. Oh, what she wouldn’t do for just a tiny sip of laudanum to relax and think things through.

  It turned out she was not so trapped as she thought, at least in the small ways. James called on her the next day and invited her out to see a matinee at the Irving Place Theatre. Tillie decided any opportunity to get out was worth the risk. Her suspicions about Tom had never been soothed. He had attacked her, bitten her, and there was nothing to prove he hadn’t attacked Lucy the day she’d died. She had to learn more.

  And she had to find John somehow. He’d been patrolling the Metropolitan Museum of Art, right around the time Lucy had died. He’d plied Tillie with absinthe, the very same substance found by the three dead bodies. The way he looked at her—it frightened her. And yet the thought of Ada, pregnant Ada, discovering he was a murderer was almost too much to bear.

  When James arrived, he kissed her cheek and smiled.

  “I was sorry to hear you were so ill. Has the medicine not been working for you?” He led her out to the carriage, and they proceeded downtown. Tillie’s dress hung a little loose on her. She wore one of Dorothy’s recent purchases, a rather viciously pink gown.

  “I stopped taking the medicine. The pastilles you gave me.”

  “You stopped them?” James said, surprised.

  “Yes. And I think it will take quite a while before I adjust to being off them—and the laudanum. And the morphine.”

  “Too bad. I guess I’ll keep these, then.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fresh tin of heroin tablets.

  Tillie inhaled a sharp breath. The tin was shiny and new, the Bayer lettering crisply printed. Her hands itched to reach out, pry the tin open, and toss one down her throat. But she shook her head.

  James raised his eyebrows. “Very well, then.” He offered the tin to her. “Why don’t you just hold on to these. In case you’re feeling unwell, in the future.”

  She couldn’t say no. The tin went into her reticule, but now Tillie felt as if there were three people in the carriage. At the matinee—a show about a girl becoming a bright and shining singer on the stages of Paris, while her lover pined for her in the orchestra pit—Tillie sat unsatisfied and irritable. The chair was too plush; her polonaise felt itchy where the lace touched her throat.

  All her discomforts and cares would go away if she only took one tiny pastille.

  Just one.

  She took the tin out, discreetly, and snapped it open. She could feel James’s eyes on her. But oddly, she could feel another set of eyes on her too. A prickling on her neck that said she was being watched. She glanced about the crowd in the small theater, but the audience was transfixed by the Parisian singer crooning with a ten-foot wooden Eiffel Tower behind her and an electric crescent moon swinging stage right.

  Tillie slowly turned. A man was silhouetted in the door to the theater, tall with broad shoulders. She blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the backlighting. On her fifth blink, she could make out a face.

  John O’Toole.

  Tillie turned around. She had to speak to him. She looked down, snapped the pastille tin shut, and grabbed her reticule.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?” James whispered.

  “The retiring room. It’s the heat from the lights. I’ll be all right,” she whispered back.

&n
bsp; Tillie staggered through the row and scurried up the aisle. John was no longer there. She opened the door to the lobby of the small theater. An attendant held a large tray of candy and cigarettes.

  “There was a man here, just a moment ago. Did you see where he went?”

  He pointed to the front door, and she bolted out into the dazzling sun. She shaded her eyes, and when she was able, she looked about.

  John was nowhere to be seen.

  Tillie ran west down the block. Union Square opened up before her. It was midday, and people walked here and there with their packages and perambulators. A few pushcart vendors were selling oranges and bags of hazelnuts. The verdant trees of the park were growing lustily in the midsummer’s humidity. Everywhere she looked, there were children playing and ladies shopping and men smoking cigars. No John O’Toole.

  She’d turned to go back to the theater when she stopped. Slowly, very slowly, she looked about her. She opened her eyes to that blue sky, let her eyes follow the avenue all the way north to where her home was, and southward toward the Battery.

  She was outside. She was free and unaccompanied.

  Quickly, she checked her reticule. She had only a little money, enough to get her to one location and back, if she took the elevated. She ran back to the Irving Place Theatre and put a nickel in the hand of the closest attendant.

  “I have a message for James Cutter. He’s in the seat next to this one.” She thrust her ticket stub into his gloved hand. “Tell him I had to go. I’ll be back home by dinner. Tell him not to worry.”

  The attendant gave a stuttering nod.

  Tillie had a free afternoon and could do anything she wanted, and no one would know. No one. Her first impulse was to go into her reticule and take just a tiny bit of heroin. Maybe just a half tablet to celebrate her freedom. But the impulse was overtaken by the urge to visit Dr. Erikkson’s office. Now that she knew the undead were not responsible for Lucy’s death, she had to focus on the living.

  The Third Avenue el took her up to Fifty-Ninth Street. She walked quickly past Bloomingdale’s dry goods store to the next block, where Dr. Erikkson’s office was situated. Not too close, but close enough that she could watch. Why did Tom’s parents seem to not care that their ill son was capable of hurting women? Whom else had he hurt? She thought about how skittish the maid had seemed. Perhaps Tillie could speak to her, if she left the house.

  Across the street, on a small stoop under the arched doorway of an orthopedic hospital, a man perched on crutches. A large bowler hat sat on his head, and he was awkwardly bent over reading a newspaper clutched in one hand. Surely Tillie could stand there a bit and not be noticed. She crossed the street, trying not to make contact with the man. She didn’t want to chat with any strangers right now.

  He didn’t look at her. She took up a position on the other side of the arch and stared at the Erikksons’ building. Through the front window, near to the street, she noticed a tall shadow—it must be the doctor. And a shorter person next to him. Too short to be Tom, but soon enough Tillie could see it was Mrs. Erikkson.

  “Aren’t you at least going to say hello?” the man on the crutches said. He had a strong Eastern European accent. It reminded her of Tobias’s voice.

  Tillie turned, surprised. He took his bowler hat off, and one of his crutches clattered to the ground.

  “Drat. I can’t get used to using these,” Ian said, scrambling to pick it up. He’d tucked the newspaper under his arm.

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

  He grinned. “Same thing you’re doing. Spying on the Erikksons.”

  Tillie wanted to say so many things—to tell him about her recent illness and how she was no longer taking the medicines. But the memory of his harsh words at Keeley’s and her shame at missing the strike stopped her.

  “Look!”

  She turned back to watch the window across the street. It took a few seconds to readjust to seeing Dr. Erikkson’s tall figure gesticulating. Mrs. Erikkson tried to turn away, and he yanked her arm. Her round body jerked toward him.

  And then he struck her.

  Mrs. Erikkson staggered back and disappeared from view. Tillie put her hands to her mouth. Ian cursed under his breath.

  The door to the home opened, and Mrs. Erikkson emerged, face red, eyes swollen from crying, and holding a basket. She pressed a handkerchief to her face as she walked hastily down the street.

  Tillie started after her. She turned to Ian. “Let’s follow. Maybe we can speak to her away from Tom and Dr. Erikkson.”

  “Yes. Hold on.” Ian abandoned the crutches and paper, hiding them in an alleyway under a pile of loose garbage. “Let’s go.”

  They started walking quickly, but Mrs. Erikkson was a half block ahead. They crossed the street, increasing their speed.

  “How long have you been watching them?” Tillie asked.

  “At least two weeks. I’m trying to find patterns to see if Tom may be coming across other women. I do know some things. Dr. Erikkson leaves every night to gamble and see some ladies at a saloon near the Metropolis Theatre.”

  “Not scouting people to bleed to death?” said Tillie.

  “It’s possible he doesn’t go there every night. I asked some of the women there about his schedule. They were quiet as the grave. Refused to say a thing, even when I offered to pay them.”

  A shrill whistle sounded behind them. Pops was running toward them, a canvas bag filled tightly with newspapers bouncing against his narrow chest.

  “Oy, Tillie! Ian!” he yelled.

  “Shhh!” Ian said. “Pops, go back to your post. Keep selling, keep a lookout.”

  “You’re using the newsies to do your scouting work?”

  “Ten cents for good information! It’s woith it,” Pops said. “I gotta sell here anyways.” He pouted. “Tillie! You don’t do midnight picnics wid us anymore!”

  “Aw, I will. When I can.” She stooped down and hugged the little chum. She fished around in her reticule, pointedly ignoring the medicinal pastilles, and found a peppermint candy. “Here. It’s all I have, but I’ll get something more later.”

  “I’d ruther a ham,” he said, grinning.

  “Get on with you!” Ian said and gently pinched his ear.

  “Yeah, all right. Tillie don’t pinch me,” he opined, running off toward Bloomingdale’s, hollering about his paper.

  They turned around. Mrs. Erikkson was even farther away, but they could see her bobbing along the street. Ian pointed. “She’s turning. Look.”

  Mrs. Erikkson made an abrupt right into a narrow passage between a home and the alley beside it. It was well swept and clean, and there was a tidy brick building hidden behind a foreshortened house there. She went inside, and they heard the snick of a door lock.

  Ian held his hand up to knock but then turned to Tillie.

  “Wait. How are you even here? Aren’t you still supposed to be at Keeley’s?”

  “I graduated.”

  “And they let you meander the city now?”

  “I escaped.”

  “They’re going to be furious with you,” he said, hiding a grin.

  “Can we get back to Mrs. Erikkson?” she snapped.

  “No, really—how did you get out this time?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I abandoned James Cutter at the Irving Place Theatre.”

  Ian chuckled. “You really know how to treat your beaus well.” He sobered and then said, “By the way, it’s nice to have you back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean, you. Without the opium or the morphine or what have you.”

  Tillie stared, agape. “You can tell?”

  “Like night and day. Sobriety suits you, Tillie.” He smiled gently at her, and the effect was like a hook on a snag, right inside her rib bones. “Now. Should we knock?” He turned to the door of the little brick abode.

  Suddenly, the door opened. Mrs. Erikkson held an iron pan in her hand, ready to strike.

  “Whoa!” Ian pu
t up his hands. “Don’t hit us!”

  She lowered the pan. “Oh my! I thought you were someone else. I thought—” Her reddened eyes were still wet with tears. “Miss Pembroke! What are you doing here? Who is this man?”

  “May we come in? We were worried about you,” Tillie said.

  “Worried about me? I was worried about you,” she said. “Come in, come in. There are many apologies to be had, on my part. Come in.”

  They entered the single-room house. Two walls were covered in shelves, each stacked with jars and boxes painstakingly labeled. Strung across the ceiling were bundles of herbs in varying states of drying. Even though it was summer, a stove burned in the corner, keeping the room dry of the city’s humidity. Jars of alcohol and brown tinctures steeped on the floor near a worktable. Shelves were loaded with aspirin, bottles of laudanum, and other proprietary formulations for women’s pain, lassitude, dropsy. The bottles were wrapped in boxes labeled with an emblem of a leaf and the words

  DR. ERIKKSON’S ALL-NATURAL REMEDIES

  GUARANTEED PURITY

  FOR ALL SYMPTOMS

  “The druggists make their own, so my husband started this about seven years ago,” Mrs. Erikkson said. “It makes a tidy profit. He sends me to deliver the medicines every day to his patients.”

  “Why don’t you keep these bottles in his office?”

  “Oh, we keep some but not most. Goodness, someone broke into our home when we first began and stole everything. Everything! Also, the herbs don’t always smell very pleasant, and my husband insisted we keep the pharmacopeia away from the office.” Mrs. Erikkson frowned. “What brings you here? Why didn’t you call at our house?”

  Tillie and Ian looked at each other; then Ian said gently, “We saw him strike you. We wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  She laughed, but the laugh was a rising ember that extinguished just as quickly. “Everything is quite fine. Sometimes we argue. But never mind that. Miss Pembroke, I cannot begin to express my shame and horror over Tom’s behavior. To think that he would take advantage of your delicate health and . . .” She shook her head. “We had to beg the police not to take him away. He isn’t right, with being sick all these years. We’ve paid so much attention to his constitution that we haven’t taught him how to be a gentleman. That is entirely upon me and his father. He is being disciplined, I assure you.”