Ahab's Return

by Jeffrey Ford

  The old journeyman hadn’t aged well. His once-thick black hair had mostly flown away and what was left at the sides had gone steel gray. Also flown were several of his teeth. He appeared to have recently lost quite a bit of weight, and not in a healthful manner. Frail was how I’d now describe him. If it weren’t for the fact that he was still a flamboyant dresser, what with his embroidered jacket, snakeskin boots, and dark Waddell hat with a bright red cardinal feather stuck in the band, he’d have passed for old broken-down flotsam of the streets. He stared at me through cigar smoke and smoothed his drooping mustache.

  “The Jolly Host,” I said to him.

  “Ahhh,” he said.

  “We need to find them,” said Madi.

  “You’ve got to give me more than that, Harrow. I’m not coughing up information for you for nothing. Are you going to cut me in on your project?”

  “Rufus, that might not be a good idea.”

  “You’d deny your old mentor a tidbit of a story?”

  “You could very well wind up dead,” said Madi.

  “Mr. Madi, as Harrow’s colleague, I’m not sure how much experience you have at the pursuit of wonder tales, but George can tell you I’ve been around the block more than once. There’s little I haven’t been through.”

  I looked to Madi and said, “Should I tell him?”

  The harpooneer nodded.

  “We’re looking for a warehouse, either owned or once owned by John Jacob Astor, over on the West Side here. We’ve been told it contains an enormous quantity of opium. It’s now controlled by the Jolly Host. We mean to destroy it by fire.”

  Sharde stubbed out his cigar and sat forward. “I know of the Jolly Host and their toad king, Malbaster. We’ve run into them a number of times and, I might add, run in the opposite direction as swiftly as possible.”

  “Where?” asked Madi.

  “The Host, as I understand them,” said Sharde, “are a gang with a purpose. And that purpose is not merely to enhance their income through robbery. From what I can gather, they’re about driving the likes of yourself, Mr. Madi, out of Manhattan.”

  “The likes of myself? You mean fine, upstanding citizens?”

  Sharde laughed. “Precisely. So, you won’t find them down along West or Washington Streets in proximity to the Hudson. That’s a good deal of old Protestant money along there. Either good residences or well-respected businesses. In the blocks farther back from the water, those businesses along Washington keep their goods in warehouses somewhat less lovely than their homes. A warehouse, a warehouse,” he said and tapped his fingers on the desktop, thinking.

  “We thought if we could just identify the Jolly Host and then follow them,” I added.

  “Better yet,” said Sharde as if suddenly hit by a brainstorm, “Astor, himself, owned property due north of here, a twenty-minute walk, in the area around Varick and Vandam Streets. That might be where you need to look. There are warehouses he stored pelts in when he was in the fur-trading business.”

  “That could be very valuable, Rufus,” I said. “Now, what was the last you heard about the Host?”

  “Well, I don’t know if you heard of this all the way across town, but not long ago, there was an incident at a place called Carpen’s Cave. It was a theater where they’d put on productions of famous dramas, Shakespeare, Marlowe, et cetera. Supposedly the productions were very well done indeed.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” said Madi.

  “Ah, yes. Well, one evening before the show was supposed to go on, seemingly out of the blue, a crowd formed outside the theater. What the grievance was never made its way into the news. In minutes, a full-fledged riot was under way. The place was ransacked and burned. The proprietor, Mr. Carpen, was hanged from an oak outside the place and his wife and one of the other players were beaten to death. The crowd dispersed like a fart in a windstorm, and that, sir, was that.”

  “I take it these were not theater critics who led the assault,” I said.

  “Carpen was a black man,” said Madi. “The entire business, players and set designers and musicians, all colored.”

  “That’s right,” said Sharde. “Charges were never filed. No arrests were made.”

  “And what was their crime?” I asked.

  “From what I heard,” he said, “Billy Niblo, owner of Niblo’s Garden—you know the place, where Barnum first played—was broadcasting that Carpen’s operation was underselling him and poaching his rightful customers.”

  “That was all Malbaster had to hear,” I said.

  “Their crime was they were successful,” said Madi.

  “Let it be a lesson to you,” Rufus said, glancing at the harpooneer.

  I could see Madi’s muscles tense, and he leaned forward as if to spring from his seat.

  “Easy, my friend,” said Sharde. “I’ve nothing against you joining us in the pursuit of fallacious stories. My God, there’s enough bullshit in the world to keep us all busy till the ends of our days. I welcome those of your persuasion. I merely offer a convivial warning to move cautiously through the white world. No matter the law on the books, danger still lurks.”

  Madi shook his head. “Sharde, seriously, you’re a bigger fool than I first surmised. Do you really think I need you to tell me that? I’m here seeking a resolution to the murders of two innocent children. One of them black. I know full well the treachery of the white world.”

  I laughed to break the tension. “He’s got quite a point, Rufus.”

  In that moment, I saw Sharde’s age catch up to him. This idea he was just presented with, namely that a colored man does not need to be told what the dangers of being a colored man are left him verily stunned. Yes, the Jolly Host was perilous, but this attitude I now watched Rufus fumbling with might ultimately be more perilous for the plight of blacks in the city.

  “Forgive me,” he stammered. “You are correct, Mr. Madi.”

  “I’d not have gotten by without your corroboration,” said the harpooneer.

  Sharde seemed somewhat put out for the remainder of the time we spent with him. He wasn’t upset at Madi. In fact, following the previous exchange, he seemed to warm to him. I think it was the fact that he realized the world in which he had been an integral part was quickly being left in the dust. Poor old scribbler. He no longer had his finger on the pulse of society. No longer was he a favorite paramour of the city. The daydreams he composed were slow and gray, and out of touch with the changing times.

  I took the codger’s condition to heart, seeing myself in his decline in not too many years. Before we left, I gave him a hearty hug and found him near weightless, like a bird—all feathers and air and hollow bones. He escorted us to the door and, as he had done for so many years, bestowed some advice upon me at our parting. “Stay true to your imagination, Harrow,” he said as I stepped back out into the frozen world, and these words lodged in my mind and struck me as something important to consider. “Be safe, my friend,” he said to Madi, and the harpooneer shook his hand and thanked him for the fire and the drink.

  We headed north as Sharde had suggested toward Varick and Vandam. As we crunched along through the snow on the sidewalk, I said, “Rufus isn’t such a bad soul.”

  “To you, Harrow,” he said. “But think how I felt when he told that story of the theater being destroyed and the owner hanged. I’m sure he never lifted a finger to achieve justice for those people, nor did any of the other ‘not such bad souls’ in Manhattan.”

  “Do you think when all this is over, granted we’re not killed, that someday we’ll be friends?”

  “Well, you’re not such a bad soul, Harrow,” he said and we laughed.

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  One thing we’d not considered was how we were supposed to determine which buildings were warehouses and what each warehouse contained once we’d reached our destination. We weren’t there at the corner of Varick and Vandam for more than five minutes before Madi noticed a tarnished plaque on the two-story brick building in
front of us. A penny-green patina covered the no-longer-bright copper sign, which read: J. J. Astor.

  Madi looked at me, and I shook my head. “What are the chances this is the very building we seek? I would never even put something like this in one of my articles.”

  “Too coincidental?” asked Madi.

  “Too expedient and too coincidental.”

  “But could it happen in real life?”

  I weighed the possibilities and came to the conclusion fairly quickly that perhaps it could. “Maybe,” I said.

  The block was empty, not a soul in sight. Next door on the right there was an empty lot of about two acres, and, on the left was another redbrick building, although in much worse repair. Madi and I peered in the glass sidelights on either side of the door we faced. There was nothing moving inside. I scanned the windows of the two buildings across the street, both two-story places like the one behind us. Their empty windows were like Malbaster’s dead black eyes. We tramped through the snow, waist-deep in places, skirting the vacant lot for nearly a hundred yards till we reached the back of the building.

  There, we found a large wooden door, rudely built of thick planks. Wider and taller than the front door. I supposed it was used as a means to get large items in and out of the building. It differed in another way from the front door, too: it was obviously unlocked and slightly ajar. Madi walked up to the door and pushed it fully open. I feared the complaint of rusted hinges might be heard all the way to Broadway.

  “This is too much,” I said. “If there ends up being tons of opium in this building, I don’t know what I’ll do. The entire scenario is unbelievable.”

  “It strikes me as unusual,” said Madi.

  I came to stand next to him at the open door, a rectangle of darkness.

  “Matches?” he asked.

  I reached into my satchel and removed the matches and the small candle I carried to affix the wax seal of the Gorgon. I lit it, enlisting Madi to help me block the wind. We stepped through the open doorway, and I was immediately struck by the scent of old wood and mildew.

  Stepping into the darkness, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the candlelight. Slowly, our surroundings were revealed. Old furniture, stacked in no particular order, one piece upon another, to the ceiling: a chair atop a table atop a couch. There was a narrow canyon that cut through the middle of the wooden chaos. Every few steps, we stopped and surveyed what lay on either side of us.

  We found a staircase leading to the second floor and ascended. Upstairs wasn’t quite as dark, thanks to the pale winter light coming in through the windows. There were boxes of old books as well as a wide selection of taxidermized creatures gone to rot, the fur shedding upon the floor, the yellowed stuffing showing through open wounds, glass eyes askew. The most impressive piece, which was in better shape than most, was a moose that towered over the peaceable kingdom of deteriorating beasts.

  We soon ascertained that this warehouse wasn’t the one we sought, and we left the way we’d entered. We crossed the street to inspect the two warehouses there. Upon finding the Astor plaque on those two buildings, we contrived a way to gain entrance that involved the breaking of glass and spent hours inspecting their contents. For our trouble, although we found not one ball of opium tar, we discovered barrels of spoiled grain and wine; boxes of nails and coils of rope; the pelts of at least two hundred foxes, martins, and otters; the teeth of wolves; and bear claws from woodland behemoths.

  The fabled warehouse of smoke may have been just that, a story told by an old sea captain to his daughter. But one thing was for certain: Astor had enough detritus in the three buildings we went through to sink a dozen clipper ships. And when all was said and done, the old Croesus couldn’t take it with him. It was impossible to fathom having that much wealth. It would leave me with no reason to write or daydream stories, and what kind of life would that be?

  It was dark when we exited the last of the warehouses. Our first foray to the West Side had been less than fruitful, and I was slightly put out that I’d diminished my cinnabar candle by more than half in our search. Out on the sidewalk the winter remained relentless. Although the snow had by then stopped falling, what was on the ground was harder and slicker. It struck me that I’d never seen an area of the city proper more desolate and lonely than the area around us.

  “Do we head back to Arabella’s or stay around here and see if we can locate the Host?” asked Madi.

  “I have to meet Mavis,” I told him. “We’ll get an earlier start tomorrow.”

  He seemed reluctant to give up the search just then, but I convinced him to accompany me by reminding him of the distance we had to cover. We traveled a block south to Spring Street and took that east. We passed into a slightly busier section of town—a few people on the street, passing hansom cabs and coaches now and then, lighted windows, and the smells of dinnertime mixed with the scent of chimney smoke. Both Madi and I were tired and silent as we trudged along.

  We’d made it to Spring and Mercer, about a block from Broadway, when there came the sound of charging horses and squealing wheels. I looked over my shoulder and saw a coach-and-four turn onto Spring Street behind us and come flying in our direction. It moved fast in the evening gloom, weakly illuminated by the two gas lamps, one on either corner of the street. I leaped backward and pulled Madi with me up against the wall.

  The conveyance, with its monstrous black horses, bore down on us and the left two wheels skipped up onto the sidewalk. We flattened ourselves against the brick building, and the coach sped past us, missing us only by inches. As the coach passed, I caught sight of a white blur. Something was tossed out at us from the open window of the cab. It hit the wall between our heads and fell to the sidewalk.

  In the next instant, the coach turned north on Broadway. At our feet was a duffel bag. Madi grabbed it by the drawstring.

  “Is there something in it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Let’s get up to the next streetlamp and we’ll see what it is.”

  A few yards from Broadway, beneath a flickering gas lamp, Madi turned the bag over and shook its contents onto the ground. Something rolled out and plopped into the snow. At first I took it for a melon or a cabbage.

  “What in God’s name?” I said, moving out of the way of the lamplight.

  Madi toed the thing with his boot, turning it over. A human head, severed at the neck, stared back at us, a gnarled piece of spine and tissue and blood trailing from the point of brutal decapitation.

  “Harrow,” said the harpooneer. “I believe it’s Sharde.”

  I looked down and nearly vomited. Instead I groaned and doubled over with fear. Then, in the distance, we heard the shouts of the Jolly Host. Madi grabbed me by the arm and we dashed across the street and disappeared down an alley.

  24

  I couldn’t shake the sight of Rufus’s head. His eyes seemed to stare into mine, and he wore an expression as if he were about to say, Harrow, and give me one of his unwanted nuggets of wisdom. How had Malbaster known where we’d been earlier that afternoon—and had they followed us after our visit to Rufus’s office? I was numb. Only my legs worked. Madi dragged me away.

  We ran from one alley to another, heading south, back toward Chambers Street, managing to keep a hundred yards ahead of the Host. We heard their echoing cries behind us, their clambering through the canyons of brick walls and the overturning of trash bins, the scattering of hogs. They moved like a wave. As we broke out onto Franklin Street, I slipped on the snow and went sprawling into the road just as a coach-and-two was passing, heading for Broadway. The driver pulled hard on the reins, and the horses reared to avoid trampling me. Madi grabbed me by the back of the coat, and in one fell swoop, brought me around to the side of the cab, opened the door, and tossed me into the back of the conveyance.

  “South on Broadway,” he yelled to the driver, who didn’t see, as the harpooneer got into the cab, that the swiftest of the Jolly Host was upon us. Before slamming the door, Madi kic
ked the assailant in the throat. The coach started up and we were away not a moment too soon. It took me nearly all the way to Chatham Street before I could catch my breath. My first words were a thank you to my companion. His response was, “Harrow, I hope you have money to pay for this ride.” I assured him I did. When we reached Chatham, I ordered the driver to head north on that street for Bayard and Arabella’s house.

  “Well,” said Madi, “we were looking for the Jolly Host. There’s no argument that we definitely found them.”

  “Or they found us. How did they know we’d been to see Sharde? Was that Malbaster in the coach that passed us? The one who tossed the head?”

  “We’ll know for sure where we stand when we reach Miss Dromen’s place. If it’s still in one piece and the others are alive, it’ll be clear that Malbaster and his gang don’t know everything yet.”

  “Somehow they tracked us to the Cockaigne Times, though.”

  “Or it could be that an employee of the paper saw us there and reported our whereabouts to the Host,” said Madi.

  “Possible,” I said, and I dreaded what we would discover at our destination.

  Even with the snowdrifts in the street hampering our progress, we made it to Arabella’s quickly. I diminished my last twenty dollars by forty cents, and we thanked the driver for a job well done. Alighting from the coach, we didn’t bother with hiding behind the juniper trees before scurrying to the front door. The situation was too critical. We bolted for the porch, and I was happy to discover that at least this time the door was locked.