Gaslight Magick

by Teel James Glenn

  If I had worried about our appearance before entering the maelstrom I lost all such fears when I saw the clientele of the smoky, noisy Apple. They were as disparate and disreputable a gathering as I could hope to see anywhere in the world. The state of our clothing, blood-soaked or not, was not an issue at all.

  More the issue was the young lady we met at the staircase that led up to the private box of Juice. She was not dressed in Six Nation garb, but rather in a conventional-European evening gown that showed off her copper-coloured shoulders, but I could see she had a Tomahawk comfortably hidden in her shawl. No doubt her long black hair, done up in a chignon, concealed a knife as well.

  “No, go!” the Mohawk woman simply said. There was no threat in her manner but no ‘give’ either.

  “We have to see Juice Martin,” I said in her native tongue, which had the same effect of stunning her to silence as it had at the front door with her compatriot. When she seemed confused as to what to do next I added, “I am known to your people as Akweks.”

  Again my fame preceded me and she held up a hand. “You wait,” before she turned and headed up the stairs.

  “You certainly know some odd and interesting people,” Spike said with not a little admiration in her tone.

  “Present company included?” That got a stuck out tongue from Miss Ellenbogen. Before I could add a comment the Mohawk girl was back and waved us up the stairs.

  “So, you’re the English Toff that the Indians think so much of?” Juice Martin said as she stepped into the doorway of her private box to face us. The red haired woman was half a head taller than I, easily my weight or more and, shall I say, ‘substantial’ all around. She wore a green gown that showed off her décolletage in a way that was, to say the least, distracting.

  “Sir Athelstan Grey, Madam,” I said with a slight bow.

  “He’s a baronet,” Spike chimed in.

  “I’m no madam,” Juice said with no irony or sense of humour. She had a high, nasal voice that would have been more expected from a smaller woman. “But I ain’t met no baronet before, what can I do you for?”

  Besides the two women who flanked her there was a fourth figure in the box, a thin, bearded, brown skinned man who I guessed was Middle Eastern. He was dressed casually in a rather nondescript brown suit that hung loosely on his thin limbs. He seemed especially out of place, small and drab next to the women who were dressed in silk and lace, and like their employer, were Amazonian in proportions. Both women clearly had pistols at the ready in their clutches. Women in this country were all apparently armed to the teeth; I was beginning to think Aunt Mini was not all that unique.

  “It may be more about what we can do for you, Miss Martin,” I said. “Your life may be in danger.”

  “Nobody threatens Juice Martin, Mister Baronet,” she said. “Casually or directly.”

  “Oh stop it, Juice,” Spike spoke up. “We just came from Hanover Jones.”

  “Sorry to hear about him,” Juice said, “But what does it have to do with me?”

  “We think his killer might be after you next,” I said quickly. I could feel the walking stick’s tingle of warning of magick’s presence again but did not let on. “So we came to warn you that you should take precautions.”

  The woman laughed. “Girls,” She said. At her word the two females from the box almost magically produced their revolvers. The redhead waved them to re-holster and the guns were gone again like a conjuror’s trick. “So you see, I don’t need no protection from a half-pint like you, Spike or your Albion watchdog.”

  The young girl beside me made a strangled sound of fury and started to step forward but I blocked her. “That is good to hear, Miss Martin,” I said. “We are very sorry to have troubled you and wish you nothing but well.”

  ‘Oh you can stay around, Lordship, you’re easy on the eyes,” Martin said, “ but we have standards here, she has to go.”

  Spike exploded past me and I had to act fast to grab and restrain her with my arms around hers to pin them to her body. She yelled some very un-lady-like phrases at the saloon owner but I managed to wrestle her back toward the stairs.

  Juice laughed long and loud in her squeaky voice as we left.

  I looked back and was struck by the posture of the little brown man, he seemed about to come to tears, his large dark eyes watery and his shoulders slumped as he watched me half carry the girl to the stairs and down. It made him stand out even more from his three companions and the general atmosphere of the saloon.

  I walked Spike through the saloon’s main floor like she was a drunken sailor while she continued to spew invectives that would make a Bombay harbour rat wince.

  When we got out the door Angus jumped down from the carriage and looked ready to come to blows with me when he saw me manhandling the girl. She broke away just in time to stop him from the attack and went past him to jump up into the hansom.

  “What’s all this then; what ha’ ya been doin’ to her?” the highlander challenged me.

  “Take us around the park, Angus,” I said, “I’ll explain to both of you as we go.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” Spike snapped at me when I sat beside her.

  “Then just listen-“

  “I don’t have to listen to a damn thing you have to say, you high buttoned, over-bred invader!” She hissed at me, her arms crossed and looking straight ahead. “Some friend of Mike’s taking the part of that giant sized five cent floozy!”

  I had to work manfully to keep from laughing at the ‘fury’ of the young girl.

  Angus took us up Union Square West at a slow walk and I filled him in on what had happened in the saloon.

  “But why did ye not confront the woman with accusation, sir,” he said to me.

  “Yes, “ Spike said, “Why did you just give her a how-ya-do and then turn tail and leave.”

  “What did Juice say when you told her we had just come from Hanover Jones’?”

  “She said he was sorry to hear about him, so?” Spike had finally looked at me but there was still fire in her eyes.

  “How did she know to be sorry, for what? I didn’t tell her anything, and neither did you.”

  “But–”

  “She already knew that Hanover was dead. How? We all but raced back here.”

  “Teleglass?”

  “Possibly, but why would someone call her unless to report a job well done?”

  She nodded, having completely forgotten she was angry at me by now and looked me square in the face.

  We had made a circle of the Union Square Park and were back on Fourteen Street. “Then you think Juice hired the killer?” She asked. “Do you think Little Tony is somewhere in her place?”

  “Both seem possible, “ I said, “ but we had best go see the last set of suspects straight away-- they are either the guilty ones or set to be the next ones murdered if our prodding’s have any effect on Miss Martin at all.”

  “Head to the Marble Brother’s place, Angus,” she called up. Then she turned to look at me. “I guess Mike wasn’t all full of prune juice about you after all.”

  “Thank you, I think?”

  Angus steered us along the street till we came to Third Avenue where he turned south under the rumbling elevated tramway. The establishment of the Marble siblings was on Tenth Street and Third Avenue in the shadow of the elevated train and it was a whole lower level in the Dante’s Inferno saloon world of Manhattan.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Twiddle Dee and Sibling Dum

  Third Avenue was choked with traffic, pedestrian and horse, as the many saloons and restaurants along the street began their nocturnal cycle of business. It was a very different clientele than even the few blocks over where The Iron Apple was located.

  This was the sort of strata of society that only came out after dark, pimps and prostitutes, gadabouts looking for thrills, in search of the simply risqué or actually illicit. No family clientele need attend.

  “The Marbles are the lowest of the
low,” Spike said to me as if reading my thoughts. “But they own six joints along here and are beginning to angle to move uptown to the thirties and try to buy themselves a little class.” She snorted, “Like that could ever happen!”

  “I don’t care what you say, lassie,” Angus said from the driver’s seat, “This time I’m going into that place with you two.” He slipped his coach gun under his coat and smiled to end any attempt at debate.

  I could understand his concern, the ‘flagship’ gin joint of the Marbles miniature empire was subtly called “the Bucket of Blood,’ and would have been at home in the seediest Glasgow or Bombay waterfront pub. Two huge negroes, easily Angus size stood at the door but did not even give us a second look as we entered. I even felt the worldly Spike tense, but fortunately, there was no tingling of occult energy from my walking stick as we entered the debauchery of it all.

  I am always thankful for small favours in an uncertain world.

  The Bucket of Blood made me reassess the vulgarity level of Juice Martin’s establishment. The tobacco smoke was as thick, the noise level as high, but the atmosphere was not one of ribald licentiousness, but rather of a deliberate, desperate sort of revelry. It was as if everyone in the crowded room sought oblivion with a fierce determination.

  I have been in Chinese opium dens in the East End that had a more hopeful air about them.

  The three of us pushed through the boisterous crowd until we collided with an open space at the long bar.

  “This place is nae a place for you, lassie,” Angus said, quite unnecessarily. “Let his lordship and I talk to the Marbles.”

  I had given up correcting people on peerage, though the Scotsman should have known better. I did, however agree with his point.

  “No,” Spike said, “I will see this through.”

  She had spunk, there was no denying it or successfully opposing it.

  “We need to see the owners,” I said to the bartender, a scarred fellow with only one good eye which he regarded me with as if I was a week old fish.

  There was a piano playing and some woman, pretending to be singer, warbled a popular tune as she floated out above the heads of the crowd (and just out of grabbing height) on a flying carpet. She was dressed as some damsel from Arabian Nights to show off her ample figure and when she waved at the audience the general level of noise rose, commensurate with football pitch scoring or a bullfight goring.

  My cane began to vibrate again, but whatever form of magick- Aztec, Merlinian or other, used to fly the carpet made my walking stick useless for detecting any occult threats that might be lurking about. One can not have everything.

  I stared back at the barkeep and said with a slight raise in my voice’s volume, “Well?”

  “Nobody sees the brothers,” he said.

  “Ah,” I said. “But I am not ‘Nobody.” I reached across the bar and grabbed the large fellow by his left ear and yanked him face forward into the bar so that he was mercifully unconscious when the ‘singer’ began-

  ‘Oh, promise me that someday you and I

  Will take our love together to some sky

  Where we may be alone and faith renew,’

  A bouncer the size of a magistrate’s ego appeared out of the maelstrom of the room, stout cudgel in his hand just as the crowd joined the singer in the next chorus.

  ‘And find the hollows where those flowers grew,

  Those first sweet violets of early spring,

  Which come in whispers, thrill us both, and sing

  Of love unspeakable that is to be;

  Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!’

  The bouncer quickly found Angus’ coach gun shoved up against his girthsome stomach and froze in mid-step.

  “As I said,” I repeated for this new arrival’s benefit, “I am here to see the Marble brothers. And really don’t like to be disappointed, neither does my highland companion with the large caliber weapon in your vitals.”

  A second security thug appeared but the first frantically waved him off.

  “Oh knock it off,” Spike called out, “Shamus and Donal know me, tell them Spike Ellenbogen has information for them that will save them money.”

  The second bouncer disappeared into the crowd while the woman on the stage got the crowd to join her enthusiastically in the rest of the off-key drinking song.

  Oh, promise me that you will take my hand,

  The most unworthy in this lonely land,

  And let me sit beside you in your eyes,

  Seeing the vision of our paradise,

  Hearing God's message while the organ rolls

  Its mighty music to our very souls,

  No love less perfect than a life with thee;

  Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!

  I began to regret not going to the Wagner opera.

  “You are insane,” Spike yelled to me above the din but with a smile that bordered on a smirk. “Mike really was right about you, baronet.”

  A few tense minutes and a horrid repeat of the refrain later the guard returned and rescued us from having to listen to the third chorus. We were led (Angus still held his gun to the bouncer’s belly) directly beneath the hovering carpet to a short corridor at the back of the cavernous room.

  My walking stick was continuously tingling now but I ignored it.

  At the entrance to the short corridor a figure stepped from the shadows. It was the same small man in a rumpled brown suit I had seen at Juice Martin’s. Seeing him closer I was sure he had to be middle-eastern, possibly Arabic.

  “Sadeeqy Spike,” the man said to the girl and ignoring the rest of us. “You must leave this place.”

  The girl evidenced no immediate recognition of the little man. “I ain’t leaving here till I see the Marbles, fella,” she said.

  “You do not understand,” he said. “I must obey the words as they are spoken.”

  “What are you talking about?” Spike asked. She looked back at me with an arched eyebrow.

  He saw the gesture and looked directly at me and his eyes seemed to linger on my Eye of Horus medallion. “Azizi” he said which I knew meant friend in Arabic so my guess at his ancestry seemed accurate. “She must not linger in this place. I must follow the words; exactly as spoken.”

  Before I could ask him what he meant the door at the end of the short corridor opened and flooded the hall with illumination. The little man shied from it as if scalded by the light and jumped back into the shadows of the alcove he had come from.

  “Bring them in here!” A booming voice called out from inside. The bouncer waved us forward and our little parade proceeded. When I looked back I could not see the little man at all.

  “Well, Little Sister,” one of the Marble brothers said to Spike when we entered the back office. I surmised who he was from the fact that the two men seated behind a massive desk were as alike as two peas in a pod. They were as round as their namesakes, as well, with multiple chins and bushy side-whiskers in bright red. They wore matching green plaid suits and incongruously small bowler hats.

  “Spike, my girl,” the brother on the right said. “What brings you here?”

  “Slumming, girl?” the left brother asked.

  “Don’t you talk to me like that, Shamus Marble,” she shot back. “We came here to warn you about Juice-.”

  At that moment another figure stepped from an alcove beyond the desks, a fellow almost as stout as the two brothers, but on a slightly smaller scale. He had a shaven head and a boxer’s ear on the left side.

  “Little Tony!” Spike blurted out.

  “That is ‘little’ Tony?” I asked as I looked at the new rotund arrival.

  “I’m sorry Miss Spike,” the new arrival said, “I didn’t mean for Mister Mike-“

  “Shut up, Tony,” The right brother, whom I took to be Donal, said. “You don’t have to say anything to this little vixen.”

  “Watch it, sassenach,” Angus said. He removed his coach gun from the bouncer’s gut and swung it around to menace the b
rothers. “Yea’ll not talk to the lassie that way.”

  “Easy, all of you,” I said. “Come on, Spike—these, uh’, ‘gentlemen’ do not need help from us; we are done here.”

  She started to object but I flashed her a look that quieted her-- she was beginning to respect my ‘hunches.’

  We three, with the two ‘bouncers’ walked back out through the short corridor in reverse order to our entering. The door to the office closed with a decidedly hostile slam and I suspected we would not have been leaving under our own power if Angus did not have his coach gun.

  I saw no sign of the little Arab fellow but I was soon distracted from looking by the fresh aural assault on us by the floating carpet singer.

  Star of the East, Oh Bethlehem's star,

  Guiding us on to Heaven afar!

  Sorrow and grief and lull'd by thy light,

  Thou hope of each mortal, in death's lonely night!

  Mercifully the crowd was not singing along, but the lady warbler was more than proficient at musical murder on her own.

  “Will you tell me what –” Spike began but I cut her off.

  “When we are outside,” I said, “I will tell you my suspicions, but there are to many ears in here, even if they are mostly tone deaf.”

  Fearless and tranquil, we look up to Thee!

  Knowing thou beam'st thro' eternity!

  Help us to follow where Thou still dost guide,

  Pilgrims of earth so wide.

  Abruptly there was a shrill scream that was loud enough to eclipse the ‘sultry’ singer. It was a sound of such agony and unbridled horror that even the denizens of the Bucket froze where they stood. The jewel on my walking stick near burned my hand with the intensity of the power it projected.

  “God’s garters!” Angus exclaimed.

  The two security men ran for the door and I turned to the Scotsman.

  “Take her to the hansom, Angus,” I yelled at him. “And if she gives you problems subdue her if you must, but get her out!” I did not wait to see if he complied and raced back after the bouncers.

  Chapter Forty

  Juice and Justice