by Andrew Mayne
“Like I said, I don’t think I can be much help, even if I was inclined.” Miggs looked at his fingernails.
“What if I told you that your bartender was stealing from you?” said Smith.
Roosevelt turned to him and let out a puff of smoke as if it were a question mark.
“Donovan? Never,” said Miggs, but his eyebrow was arched.
“Maybe he’s not stealing from you. Maybe it’s just from your customers.”
“Now wait a second,” said Miggs as he sat forward. “I run a clean joint. I own a half-dozen and nobody accuses me of swindling a man out of a drink, except maybe a drunk or two, but that’s only to their benefit.”
Roosevelt folded his arms and smiled. “Please explain, Schmitty,” he said as he turned to Miggs for a moment. “It’s always fun seeing his mind work.”
“I heard about the stunt he pulled at the university,” replied Miggs. “Quite the showman.”
“You’ve got two beer taps, right?” said Smith.
“Yes. And before you get started, I check them both. There’s no way Donovan is spiking the line on those.”
“Have you ever pulled both at the same time? It’d be a simple job to put in a fitting that fed water into the line only when both were pulled. Maybe just five or ten percent. When Donovan rolls the barrels out to the back, one of his friends comes out and taps the rest when you’re not here. Of course, I’m not saying he’s doing that.”
“Then why are you saying that at all?”
“Because your beer is watered down. And that’s what I would do if I were inclined.”
Miggs looked over at Roosevelt.
Roosevelt shrugged. “He’s a clever man. There’s an easy way to find out.” He jerked his thumb toward the saloon.
Miggs rapped his fingers on his desk. “All right.” He pulled a key from his pocket and locked his desk drawers. “Not that I don’t trust you. Wait here.” He got up and walked out of the back office to the front of the bar.
“What’s that all about?” asked Roosevelt.
“A hunch.” Smith stood up and leaned over Migg’s desk. He picked up his address book and flipped through it. “Got a pencil?”
Roosevelt pulled a pencil and pad from his pocket. “I thought you had perfect recall?”
Shouting came from the front of the saloon as Miggs confronted his bartender. Smith and Roosevelt looked toward the door.
“I do, when the amnesia doesn’t get in the way.” Smith called out several numbers to Roosevelt and then put the address book back on the desk when they heard footsteps coming closer.
Miggs entered and sat back down. He looked at the desk suspiciously for a moment. “Looks like I’m closed for the afternoon, unless one of you men is looking for a job as a barkeep.”
“I’ve done it and didn’t much care for the company,” said Roosevelt.
“Right under my nose,” said Miggs. He shook his head in disgust.
“The ignominy of it all. Right under Ali Baba’s nose,” quipped Roosevelt in mock disgust.
“Theodore has clever ways of calling people a thief,” replied Miggs.
“We’re trying to find out if a surgeon or a doctor may have treated any men recently for burns. Or maybe some odd breathing issues?” asked Smith.
“Check the hospitals,” said Miggs.
“These people would probably want to avoid the normal hospitals,” said Roosevelt. “Like for instance, if a friend of yours had several chinamen working in a laundry, illegally perhaps, and one of them got his ponytail caught up in the machine but the boss didn’t want the police snooping around on the account that some of the people working there were underage or maybe not quite there voluntarily.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Miggs.
“Nothing? Not even after our favor?” asked Roosevelt.
Miggs shook his head. “That’s not the way it works. And when did you start horse-trading favors?”
“I’m merely trying to help.”
“Well, fair is fair. If I find anything out, I’ll let you know. What would these burns have to do with the Martian business, anyhow? There wasn’t anyone near the statue when it ignited.”
“And how did you come by that piece of information?” asked Roosevelt.
“A little bird told me that the men working there got a warning to get clear a few minutes before.”
“A warning? Like the kind that tells union workers when to stay home to avoid a fire?”
Miggs smiled. “Let’s just say we’re even.”
Roosevelt turned to Smith and nodded. “Well, we’ll be off then. I’m relieved to know the Martians are appropriately connected to the underworld of New York City.”
“I didn’t say anything to that effect. All I said was that they got a warning and everyone has managed to keep it under wraps. We don’t know from who or why.” Miggs’ tone was serious. He sounded almost confused by it, as well.
Smith and Roosevelt tipped their hats and then left the empty bar.
“First, you have to tell me how you knew the bartender’s gambit,” said Roosevelt as they stepped onto the street.
“Yes, certainly. But I’d also like to check in on Miss Malone and see if she’s tracked down any missing dynamos.”
Chinese Remedy
Roosevelt and Smith hopped on a cable car heading south toward Chinatown. Of all the addresses they’d written down from Miggs’ address book, the name of a Chinese doctor who lived there seemed the most likely. Roosevelt had remarked that the Chinese Tongs were so secretive the police had barely made a crack at them and tended to give them wide berth as long as they kept their activities away from uptown whites.
“That’s a hell of a way to look at policing. What about the immigrants who are being victimized by them?” asked Smith.
The trolley’s bell rang as they rolled through an intersection. “I believe America is for all Americans, Smith. It’s my hope to see to it that becomes the case. Until then, we have to choose our battles. Now, you’ve ignored my question, how did you know the beer tap was rigged?”
“It’s a silly thing. I’m not much of a drinker, really.”
“Neither am I. Depending upon the company.”
“It was two things. The front door to the saloon had a peculiar gap. Just wide enough to allow in a thin ray of light. When the bartender set down two mugs for the butchers, I noticed the way the light looked when it traveled through their glasses. A kind of beer ‘spectroscopy.’ Against the far wall, theirs looked different than ours. It was an interesting sight. I didn’t think much of it. But it was when he filled our glasses I saw that the pressure from the tap actually increased slightly.”
“How could you tell that?”
Smith looked at him oddly for a moment. “They filled faster.”
“You time these things?” Roosevelt tapped his cigar ashes over the railing of the streetcar.
“Not consciously. I tend to be a little manic about certain details, I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose,” muttered Roosevelt.
The two got off the streetcar and started walking west through the densely packed streets of The Bend. Sidewalks were filled with peddlers standing behind crates of produce. Shops poured out onto the sidewalks with towers of boots, shoes, dresses and working-class clothes. The commerce didn’t stop at the street. A cobbler in a tie and rolled-up sleeves stood on a second-story fire escape and hammered nails while shouting down to people placing orders into a wooden bucket a small boy hauled up and down by a rope. Every square inch was wall-to-wall humanity.
Smith looked at the faces of the men and women as they passed by – Irish, Italian and Eastern Europeans along with just about every other ethnicity he could identify. He saw a few children threading their way through the crowd who looked mulatto.
To their right, men sat on chairs outside a crowded German beer hall and watched them pass by.
“Factory workers,” said Roosevelt. “Either coming from or g
oing to a shift.”
“Let’s hope they’re coming from.”
“You should see the beer dives.” Roosevelt waved a cigar toward a dark alley. “That’s where the tramps go at night. For a few cents, they drink drugged-up beer and sleep on the tables in dark basements. Wretched, wretched places. The floor so thick in filth, it’s difficult enough to walk in there, let alone face up to the pitiful condition of the people in there. The police do raids on them from time to time. Two weeks ago they found a two-year-old babe sleeping in the corner on a pile of straw.”
Smith shook his head. The city was full of everything; it was an inspiring testament to man’s ambition and a stark reminder of his animal past.
They passed several more blocks and came to the streets known as Chinatown. Pigtailed men in cotton and silk pajamas moved through the streets into shops and businesses with Chinese lettering. The street peddlers sold produce, chickens and strange roots and vegetables that looked like they’d make for horrible eating or excellent medicines. None of the peddlers paid any attention to Smith or Roosevelt. They only seemed interested in selling to other chinamen.
Smith glanced around the next street. Something seemed peculiar to him.
“You noticed?” asked Roosevelt.
Smith nodded. He waited for a cart filled impossibly high with chairs to pass between them. “Where are the Chinese women?” He could only recall seeing one or two.
“There aren’t many to speak of. The few that have Chinese wives keep them squirreled way. The rest tend to have what they refer to as white wives.”
“Prostitutes?” asked Smith.
“A byproduct of the opium den. More than a few young women have found their way into them and found themselves in yellow bondage. Try as the reformers might, they can’t seem to liberate them from the foul habit. They keep clawing their way back into their clutches. It’s a powerful drug.”
“Some of my favorite philosophers are Chinese,” said Smith. He looked around to try to make sense of the sterile atmosphere. Compared with The Bend and Mulberry Street, it had all the joy of a prison yard.
“These are the castoffs. Even then, most of them are hardworking. The fools would amount to something if they didn’t like gambling away their money more than making it.” He stopped and looked up at an address. “Here we go. Just as I thought. It looks like our doctor doesn’t keep a normal place of business.”
The stairs led down to a basement door. An Asian man with a brimmed hat stood in front of the doorway, reading a Chinese newspaper. He glanced up at Smith and Roosevelt as they started down the stairs. He stepped toward the middle of the door to block them. He let out a small angry grunt. Roosevelt smiled and gently pushed the man aside.
He relented and moved out of the way and went back to his paper. They entered a long hallway that was filled with smoke. Two overhead gaslamps lit the passage.
“Remember, it’s always important to look like your business is more important than theirs,” said Roosevelt.
Smith followed him through the hallway into a room where men sat at tables, gambling over squares with piles of buttons in the middle. Coins and bills were scattered around. All of the men looked up at them as they stepped into the room. The ones acting as dealers protectively covered the bets.
“Fan-tan,” whispered Roosevelt. “A simple game. You bet on how many buttons or whatever will be left in the pile after the dealer pulls them away four at a time.”
“I’ve played a few rounds,” said Smith.
“Whereabouts?”
“Singapore, Taipei, a few other places.”
“Of course. Of course.” Roosevelt looked at all of the faces staring back at them. “Pardon us, gentlemen. We’ll leave you to your amusements in a moment. We’re looking for Doctor Qi. Could any of you help us find him?”
The faces stared back in silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Smith saw a young boy, no more than twelve, look to the opposite corner of the room where a man with a long white mustache was seated at a table.
“Doctor Qi!” shouted Smith in his most cheery voice. “I have a sick friend who could use your help.” He fumbled a wad of bills from his pocket and made his way toward the doctor.
A loud commotion came from the back of the room and a table was overturned. Porcelain bowls and metal coins clinked on the floor. Roosevelt and Smith turned to look at the disruption. When they turned back to the table where the doctor had been sitting, he was gone.
“What the devil?” said Roosevelt. He searched the back of the room for any sign of the man. There was no doorway or possible exit. “He vanished!”
Platinocyanide
April Malone was looking at the overhead fan when the tall woman in gray skirts called her into the office. Everything in the Edison building was electric. She’d never seen so many incandescent light bulbs in one room. The entire office was a testament to the uses of electricity. Men in aprons and coats bustled back and forth down the corridors, some of them stopping to give her a glance or tip their eyeshades as they hurried along like the electrons they shuttled around circuits.
If this was the New York office, she could only imagine what things were like at the Menlo Park facility in New Jersey. That was where the great man himself toiled away at his grand experiments that filled the newspapers.
The secretary extended a finger toward April and pointed at a seat for her to sit down in while being interviewed. The woman’s beady eyes scrutinized her application as April sat quietly and looked at the office around her. The entire back wall was lined with filing cabinets. She wondered for a moment if Edison might be planning an electrical alternative to them. Of course, back in Smith’s Boston office, somewhere underneath was a system that would probably put to shame anything Edison had ever dreamed.
While Smith and Roosevelt had gone out in search of acid-burned men who may or may not have existed at all, April had decided to see if there was anything to Smith’s idea of a dynamo being put to use secretly somewhere. She’d searched the papers and found no mention of such a device gone missing for several months back. She did, however, find a curious mention of a large amount of copper wire being stolen from the yard in back of the Edison facility three weeks prior.
When April found the want ad in the newspaper for a secretary at the new Edison/General Electric corporation, she decided it was as good an excuse as any to have a look around.
The newspaper account was scant on details and names. She’d made an inquiry at the local police station for a copy of the police report but was told it was pulled from the file. The sergeant at the desk had told her that “Edison’s men” were going to handle it as corporate espionage. She had the sneaking suspicion that meant retribution against the party they thought might have been responsible.
“Can you use a typewriter?” asked the woman.
“Well enough,” replied April. She tried to make eye contact with the woman while looking suitably demure.
“How’s your technical spelling?”
“I think adequate.”
The woman narrowed her gaze. “Electricity?”
“Pardon me?” asked April.
“Can you spell that for me?”
“E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C-I-T-Y.” April was confused by the rather pedestrian request.
The woman penciled something on her application. “Fluoroscopy?”
“F-L-U-O-R-O-S-C-O-P-Y.”
The woman gave her a cold look and scribbled something down. April had the feeling it wasn’t a positive reaction. She was certain she’d spelled it correctly.
The woman set her pencil down and looked up. “Platinocyanide?”
April bit her lip and thought for a moment. “P-L-A-T-I-N-O-C-Y-A-N-I-D-E.”
“Do you know what that is, Miss Rhymer?” asked the woman, using April’s fake name.
“I believe a salt of some kind,” said April.
“Care to tell me how you came by this knowledge, Miss Rhymer? Most of the girls that come in here can only adequat
ely spell their own names. And according to this, you’ve never even been to a finishing college or a secretarial school.”
“I read a lot?” April left out that she also had an uncanny ability of remembering things.
“I don’t recall those words being the staple of the Saturday Evening Post. You should know that we treat corporate espionage very seriously here.”
That’s it, thought April. They thought she was a spy for another company. Technically that was correct but not the kind of spy the woman thought. She needed to think of something to cover.
“I used to do transcription for Professor Milton at M.I.T. He’s a physicist.”
The woman looked back down at the application. “I don’t see that mentioned here. Why not?”
“It wasn’t an official position.” April looked away for a moment, feigning embarrassment. “My mother was his housekeeper. There was a disagreement.”
The woman nodded.
April let her arrive at whatever conclusion she wanted. The more sordid and embarrassing, the more convincing.
“That makes more sense.” The woman sat back and looked April over from head to toe. “You’re far too vibrant for our Serbian friend.”
April assumed she meant Tesla and took that as a kind of compliment.
“I’ll have Mr. Tiller come speak with you. It may be a few moments.”
Miss Wincher looked up as two men walked down the hall. April glanced over her shoulder and saw the men from the park who had chased down Smith and her. She observed her interviewer making a face.
“Undertakers?” asked April. She tried not to stare out the door.
Miss Wincher lowered her voice. “In a way. Government men. They also do some work with Mr. Edison.”
April nodded. She wanted to inquire without being obvious about it. “I imagine a man as important as Mr. Edison has a lot of government secrets.”
“Quite. But those men are more involved with procurements and the like. You know Mr. Edison experimented with over a quarter-million materials before he found the one for the electric light bulb.”