Spirits of the Charles

by Paul C. K. Spears

  “And why,” said Frank, slowly but with more curiosity, “are we changing industries?”

  “Because the Draught business is over, kids. You’ve read the papers—you heard the mayor this week. There’s a storm coming… Boston’s gonna drown in it.” He felt the spines on his scalp recede, and took a hit of the bourbon. It made him believe what he was saying, made the bullshit spin into reality in his mind’s eye. Because he was right, even if he was no mob boss. He knew these streets, and he’d been able smell change coming, even as these idiots sat in their hideaway playing cards.

  “It was bound to happen,” he added. “Dead cops make people mad, and when they get mad, they get less willing to look the other way. Prohibition’s a bad joke, but the joke’s going sour. People are tired of the shoot-outs, the blood. They want law and order, and they’ll put every last one of us in jail to get it. Unless we change brands.”

  The brothers looked at each other. They weren’t morons; they could see where this was going. Despite the way he’d walked in here, despite all the bad blood between them, he could tell they smelled money in his words—and they were interested. “Okay, so business is bad right now,” said Jim. “We can wait it out.”

  “Not this time. Cops will hit gangs, gangs will get spooked and shoot cops. Rinse, repeat.” He nodded at the bourbon. “Have a drink, boys. You’re going to need it, for this next part.”

  “So if we aren’t moving Draughts,” said Frank shrewdly, “what are we moving?”

  “Bullets,” said Gus. “Lots of ’em. And guns, and life insurance, and whatever the hell else booms in the next couple months. And those items will boom. If need be, we’ll make sure of it.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Jim. “Completely nuts.”

  “No. He’s right.” Frank’s eyes had the fidgety look of a man playing cards with half a deck. “If we keep running Draughts, we’ll be up against competition and the law, and we can’t shoot both.” He looked at Gus with fear… and a newfound respect. “You really had to smash up my place, just to make this pitch?”

  “Would you have listened, if I didn’t?”

  He grunted. “Point taken.”

  “Sell your distilleries to rivals. I’ll handle the ledgers. You boys work the supply lines—get those guns moving. We can incorporate, split the profits. What do you say?”

  The two bosses looked at each other, doubt in their eyes.

  “Frank,” said Jim, “he killed Steve.”

  The older brother nodded. “Aye. And Steve was getting sloppy. Killing people in the backseat of his Chrysler? In broad daylight? He was a liability. God rest his soul, but things will be smoother without him.”

  Jim shook his head. “He was family, Frank. This is wrong.”

  His brother snorted. “Grow up. You want to make money, you stay with the times.” Frank offered Gus his hand; the Myth shook it. “I’m in.” He nodded at the moll. “Jessica, get Solomon on the phone. We’re gonna offload those rocks.”

  “God damn it,” said Jim, sitting stunned. “We’re really doing it. We’re throwing in with a Myth.” He was clearly disgusted… but he shook hands with Gus anyway.

  “Boss, look at this,” said Malloney, lifting a cigar-case to the light. “Jamaican tobacco.”

  “Bring ‘em over here.” Gus drew his lighter, and raised the glass of bourbon towards the ceiling bulb. “To profit, my friends.”

  “To profit,” they agreed, and to Gus, the words seemed to echo through his bones.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ATLANTIC House was a sprawling, multi-story mansion overlooking the waters of Hull, with lofty peaks and a white gazebo out back. It was a monument to wealth and luxury, pulling elite visitors from New York to Maine. But beneath the bank of clouds currently rumbling along the Cape, the place seemed to take on the fragility of a dollhouse.

  A wall of thunderheads spat rain on the mansion’s shingles, and rattled its white wrap-around balcony. Rose watched lightning flash from her position near the gated entrance. Headlights clustered in front of the massive double-door entrance, and she felt butterflies fluttering in her gut.

  No way I can pull this off. Money had a way of recognizing money… and she had a noticeable a lack of it. Even in her rented dress, they’d sniff her out as an imposter—and then she’d be just another freak, stuck in the gutter. She couldn’t even go crawling back to the gang, because there was no gang anymore. She’d gotten a phone call from Gus; he’d called her at home, as she raided her mattress for dress money.

  “Hello? Who’s this?”

  “Rose. You’re alive—that’s good.” She was relieved to hear his voice, but also furious. Days of nothing, and now he called? Some friend.

  “No thanks to you.” She dug her fingers between the floorboards, searching for loose change.

  “I see why you’d be mad.” He was jovial and slurring. Drunk again. Why she’d ever trusted this lush, she didn’t know. “Well, consider this my olive branch. I took care of those Wallace boys for you.”

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Gus, what did you do?”

  “I run the operation, now. That’s all you need to know.” She heard heavy breathing on the other end; either he was winded, or the scales had started clogging his throat again. “You wanna look a gift horse in the mouth, or you wanna take the damn horse?”

  She scowled. “Gus…”

  “I did what I had to do. Don’t go preachy on me.” The faint buzz of feedback filled the line for a moment. “Oh, and don’t go into Charlestown for a while.”

  “Why—”

  “We’re moving out. Rose, I gotta go. You behave yourself while I’m busy. Okay?”

  She looked at the knife on her bed, and the white luminance in her palm that was just barely visible at the right angles. “Sure I will.”

  “Heh. I don’t believe you.” She heard shouting on the other end, and Gus sighed. “I’ll see you around. You’ve got a good head, Rose–don’t get it blown off out there.”

  The line went dead, and that was it. Their partnership was severed—and Gus had cut her out of the business.

  It hurt, but at least it was over. She didn’t even want to know what he’d done to get the Wallace boys off their tail. All she cared about right now, was fixing the ‘problem’ of having humors in her blood… and getting away from here.

  Something about the mansion didn’t feel right to her. Some undercurrent of foulness was bubbling up from the depths, leaving a stench despite the perfumes wafting on the wind. Maybe it was intuition, or maybe her new senses were picking up some ugly intent from inside. Either way, this place didn’t bode well.

  Striding past the limousines, she struggled to keep her shoes from sticking in the mud. Her new evening dress, hung with sequins and too tight for her taste, was speckled with rain. She tried to walk as if she belonged: that was how you got into joints like this. It was no different than going to a speakeasy you’d never been in before. Walk like a local, talk like a local… and make sure you had the right password at the door.

  But which door to use? The front was too obvious, and she didn’t have an invitation. If she tried to slip through, she’d be made in an instant. She moved around the back of the mansion, using freshly-trimmed hedges for cover. The kitchen doors stood open, smells of roasting chicken and herbs wafting into the night.

  Rose looked over her shoulder, past the huddled seaside homes and yacht-clubs, out towards the cold sea. The gray mass of it was strangely beautiful, vanishing into blackness where the horizon lay invisible. In flashes of lightning she saw a zeppelin, its round bulk moving slowly south. That was the Los Angeles, getting out ahead of the storm. Just like she should be doing, right now.

  It wasn’t too late to turn back. She still had a chance to go home, sell this stupid dress that squeezed her ass and go to sleep, praying for a better tomorrow. She could find work somehow, pretend the needles and the machine had never happened.


  No.

  She was done running. Her life hadn’t been her own for far too long, and it was long overdue that she stole it back. Her body belonged to her—not the Wallaces, not the gangs, and certainly not to that weird machine.

  She ascended the stairs, past a waiter smoking a joint, and there was a brief pause as he looked at her. His face was a leathery map of wrinkles and creases, drawn on brown skin that shone in the moonlight.

  “Need something, ma’am?” he said, looking her up and down. “This is the servants’ entrance, y’know.”

  She felt a vicious pang of guilt as she prepared to lay on one of her accents. Just because she was wearing a nice dress didn’t mean she had to act like a rich prick. But if she was going to get in, she had to act the part.

  “I’ve lost my hand mirror,” she said, affecting the best high-class accent she could muster.

  “Haven’t seen it,” said a cook from the doorway. She was an enormous woman, and looked like she would prefer to give Rose her fist instead of the curtsy she gave now. “You try the head?”

  Rose blushed. “I’ll… check the powder-room, yes.” She brushed past them, eager to finish this farce. Eyes followed her all the way through the kitchens.

  Just five minutes with Fischer, that’s all I need. Then I’m out of here. God, but this dress was so tight. Why hadn’t she bought a bigger size? Because she’d needed extra cash for the cab down here, of course. Every way you turned in Boston, someone was scamming you. She could have dipped into her Ocoee money, but that would’ve taken time—and she had none.

  Past the smoky kitchen and the servants’ quarters, she found a lavish maze-like interior decked with finery. Gleaming sconces held brand-new electric lights, rich Persian rugs lineed the halls, and all the doors had numbers laid with gold filigree. At least, it looked like gold, and that was the point. Impressions were vital, just like her impression on the staff. There was a fakeness to the Atlantic that mirrored her own disguise. When you stripped away the finery, it was nothing but a big wooden catacomb, built up over the sea in defiance of the elements. She could hear the timbers creaking even at the center of the building, as wind roared over the roof.

  She passed the bathroom, then paused. She would look even more out-of-place if she kept tugging at her dress; it would be smarter to stop and fix it. She slipped through the door, greeted by a servant girl who offered her a hot towel, and realized as she took one that she had no money for the brass tip-jar. Well, plenty of these high-class types stiffed the working folk; it wouldn’t be out of place for her to do so. It just made her sick, that was all.

  No problem.

  She jabbed her hairline with the towel, trying to remove some of the sweat dewing there. Just a few minutes. Get in, talk to Fischer, get out.

  She reached down to straighten her dress, and she saw Carla Ponzi emerge from a bathroom stall behind her.

  Both of them froze. Then Ponzi scuttled for the door. Rose blocked her; she was bigger than Ponzi, though not by much. They hesitated, each one glaring at the other but unwilling to raise a hand in front of the attendant.

  “You,” said Ponzi. “But… you died.”

  “I’m fine. No thanks to you, bitch. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Ponzi’s gray, droopy eyes flickered to the attendant, then back at Rose. She could tell the smaller woman was weighing her options, and finally Carla nodded towards the sink. “Your makeup looks like shit,” she said. “I can fix that for you.”

  “I’m not…” But Ponzi’s hand was around her wrist, dragging her from the door with surprising strength. She plopped a pricy-looking handbag on the sink, twisting a knob to muffle the sound of their voices. Hot water gushed down the drain, a needless waste.

  “Those crazies got at me,” Ponzi said, her eyes wide. “I’m here with them. With the Red Queen.”

  Rose paused as Ponzi daubed her cheeks with blush. She had a hard time taking anything this woman said seriously, but the lines on Carla’s face seemed deeper, her eyes more sad than when they’d last met. “Assuming I believe you, why should I care?”

  “They think you’re dead. You gotta keep it that way, Rose.”

  “Why?”

  “They looked for your body after the distiller thing went off. They keep calling you ‘Host.’ I dunno what that means, but you’re important, and that means you should watch your ass.” Carla frowned at Rose’s hair. “Is this the best you could do, up there? Let me fix it.”

  “Don’t touch my hair, goddammit.” Rose rolled her eyes as Carla adjusted the flower tucked in her ear, and the string of fake pearls she wore. “Why are you helping me? You tried to murder me.”

  “You think I feel good about all this?” Carla was trembling, she saw, as she tugged on the shoulder straps of Rose’s dress, adjusting her neckline—well, just lowering it, which Rose wasn’t thrilled for. “You think this has been fun for me? Ever since I locked those handcuffs, my life’s turned to shit. I got a terrorist waiting for me outside that door. They’re gonna kidnap Mitchell Palmer, tonight. With my help.”

  “Palmer...” Rose had heard of him. He was a grim figure, a man who’d whipped the public into a frenzy once with vague threats about “foreign enemies.” Railroad hands and union boys spoke his name like a curse. “We have to warn someone.”

  “Fuck that. All you need to do is get out. Scoot your ass out the door. If they figure out their Host is here….”

  Rose bit down on her anger. “These people aren’t my problem. That machine changed me; I’ve got Humours in my guts. I came here to fix it.”

  “How?”

  “Edwin Fischer. He knows Humours.”

  Carla shook her head. “Fischer’s crazy. And you’ll never get close to him—not with the whole place watching. Besides, the Atlantic is gonna be bad news soon.” She saw terror in Carla’s eyes. “You don’t know what these people can do. You need to get out of here.”

  Rose was tempted to listen. She was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to flee this den of upper-class power.

  But she was a Sweetwater, and her family hadn’t bowed for anyone in decades, man or woman. Her town had produced folk with such an excess of courage they’d tried to vote in Orange County’s elections—and been lynched for their trouble. That courage lived in her.

  Come hell, or high water.

  “I’m staying. You might bend over backward for these people, but I’m not going anywhere. Not until I get what I want.”

  “Fischer won’t help you—”

  “Then I’ll make him!” An idea was growing in her. You locked me in that machine. Now you’re trying to scare me away? It’s your turn to be afraid.

  She found the fear in Carla, the twisting curl of it running through her body like electricity livewire, and focused. The fear grew, and she saw Carla shudder at the strength of it. “See? I can change people. I can feel emotions, see them moving. If I don’t get rid of this…” She swallowed. “I might go crazy, Carla.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Carla Ponzi had seen some weird shit, but this took the cake. Pure animal terror consumed her, out of nowhere, and she had to struggle not to break down then and there. “Okay. Stay if you want, but don’t blame me when it goes sideways!” She took her handbag, leaving the makeup on the sink ledge in her panic, and scurried out of the bathroom.

  Rose leaned on the sink for a while… and then pulled up her neckline. She had changed Carla’s thoughts in an instant, with almost no effort at all.

  It’s getting stronger. Or easier. One of those. For all her talk of being a freak, it had felt good to be able to just grab and twist someone like that. Exerting power over someone else, for a change, was a powerful rush.

  God, I hope it’s not getting easier.

  Outside, Carla walked briskly down the hall. Mario Buda joined her from an adjacent hallway, his red vest crisp.

  “Did she buy it?” he said, watching the hallway with the patience of a shark.

  “I think so. She used the v
oodoo on me.” Carla watched him from the corner of her eye. She didn’t know what he was up to in here, but she didn’t like it. No one could’ve known Rose would be here: her arrival had been too unpredictable. And yet Buda had predicted it. He’d been ready, with lines for Carla to feed her, draw her out into the open. Into the chaos.

  “How did it feel?”

  “It was… awful.” Carla’s fingers clutched at her bag, convulsive. “Like having ice dropped in my guts.”

  Buda sighed. “I wish I had been able to feel it… To be touched by a Host is divine. Godly.” He adjusted his cufflinks. “Did you plant the seed?”

  “Yeah. She wouldn’t take the hint—just like you said. She’ll be here when we make our move.”

  “Good.” Buda extended his arm, his round red shining. “It will be… nice, to have her in attendance. Shall we prepare the refreshments?”

  She took the anarchist’s arm, and they marched towards the cellar, Carla unsure who was conning who—but waiting for any chance to get away. To warn someone.

  Because as much as Rose scared her, Buda scared her more.

  CHAPTER 5

  MICK VANCE was dying.

  He’d known it since he’d left the hospital. His wound was deep, requiring rest and care—neither of which he’d given it. Infections spread, making him feverish. Luckily, he had a solution for this little problem. Whenever he felt like fainting, he just took a hit of morphine, just enough to plaster over the pain. Sure, he’d gotten hooked. But it was no big deal. It had happened to better guys.

  And his work was almost done. He’d made the right calls, talked to the right people. It had been tough in a wheelchair, but then, when wasn’t this job tough? The injury just reminded him his clock was ticking. And despite it all, despite being fired and stepped on and cast aside, he’d discovered the truth. He’d done it alone, this time, without help from the Company. He wasn’t like them—damned fair-weather patriots. He’d keep fighting for this country, until his last breath.