Poe must die

FOUR

A disgusted Pierce James Figg wanted to kick Mr. E. A. Poe in the head and be done with it.

Deep in drunken sleep, Poe lay curled on top of old newspapers in a dark corner of a cold, damp cellar, his slight body just inches from Figg’s feet. The boxer was seeing him for the first time, and the man was nothing but a gin-soaked pile of rags; Figg would not piss on Mr. Poe if each and every rag was in flames. Figg, squinting in the meager candlelight, was angry and disappointed. Travelling across an ocean to talk to, God help us, a lushington with a billy in his hole, a drunkard with a handkerchief in his mouth, his skinny little body wrapped in black clothing that had seen better days.

Hungry and exhausted, on edge because of the man he was stalking, Figg had come directly from the steamer Britannia in New York harbor to the New York Evening Mirror, the newspaper which currently employed Mr. Poe. In Figg’s humble opinion, anyone dumb enough to employ Mr. Poe had a pudding for a brain.

It was dawn, still snowing and in a twenty-five cent cab ride from the docks, Figg had seen and smelled enough of New York to last him a lifetime. A filthy city of wooden houses and muddy streets, with garbage, dead animals and ashes from fireplaces in the streets and rats and pigs feasting on it all. Gaslight threw beautiful long shadows on the snow, but you forgot that when you passed a slaughterhouse and heard cows and sheep crying out for their lives and you smelled their blood and dried guts, a stench which even the winter cold could not hide. Damn New York. Find Jonathan quickly, kill him, then leave this city of dirt and ice.

“What the ‘ell was he mutterin’ about when I come down them stairs?” Figg spoke to Josiah Rusher, an Evening Mirror copyboy and the only other person in the cellar.

“Oh that, sir. ‘Bird and bug, bird and bug’.”

Figg’s soft voice took on a sudden harshness. “I ‘eard it. I just wants to know what the ‘ell he means by it.” He snapped the words at the boy like a whip, wiping the smile from his face.

“He is speaking of his creative works, sir. Bird is ‘The Raven,’ a poem of some magnificence and bug is ‘The Gold Bug,’ a highly unusual work of detection. Public response to both has been most favorable, but I have heard him say that he would rather roast eternally on the devil’s spit than be remembered merely for these two achievements.”

Like to see him stand up, I would. I likes to remember ‘im for that.” Poe was a glock, a half-wit, and that’s all there was to it. Mr. Dickens ought to be more particular about choosing his friends.

“Mr. Poe is a good man, sir.” Josiah Rusher, 17, lean and stoop-shouldered in ink-stained overalls, red flannel shirt and mud spattered boots, held a candle in one long, bony hand, shielding its flame with the other. Figg was frightening, an ominous looking bull of a man with a scarred face and limping right leg and he stood between Josiah and the only staircase leading from the newspaper’s storeroom. Upstairs, only a handful of people were in the paper at this early hour. But Eddy was his friend, the one person on the newspaper who treated him with kindness.

Josiah used the palm of his right hand to rub candle wax from the back of his left hand. “Mr. Poe is courteous, decisive, with much grace and enthusiasm.”

Figg snorted, then spat. In the candlelight, the spit was a silver sliver on Poe’s shoe. “Don’t be readin’ to me over his bloody coffin, mate. When’s his eyes goin’ to open, may I ask yer worship?”

Josiah cleared his throat. “Some-someone put him in a cab and told the driver to bring him here. That was a hour or so ago and I am given to understand that he had been down in Five Points.”

“What is Five Points, if I might make so bold?”

“A terrible slum, sir. Horrible place.” Josiah’s eyes widened. “Filled with Irish and coloreds and almost every soul there involved in the criminal pursuits. A wicked place and not one for a casual stroll.”

“This damn city reeks of Irish.” So does London, for that matter.

“Famine, sir, 1846. Over a million died of hunger in Ireland and others left to come-”

“To come to any bleedin’ place where they could steal for a livin’.” Figg didn’t like the Irish. One had tried to bite Figg’s thumb off in a boxing match and Figg had stopped him by gouging out the Irishman’s left eye.

“Uh, Mr. Figg, if I might say so, he is not well, you know. Eddy is in poor health.”

“Sleeps well enough.”

“The smallest dram of whiskey-”

“I can bloody well see that, mate.”

Josiah gripped the candle with both hands to keep it from shaking. Hot wax oozed down onto his fingers. Fear of Figg sent the boy’s voice higher. “Sir, I mean sir, it is early and perhaps you would be warmed by coffee and brandy. If you come upstairs-”

“I ain’t leavin’ ’im.”

“He is a sick man, sir. Let him sleep and when he wakes, he will be in better condition to be of service to you.”

Figg, standing just beyond the circle of light from Josiah’s candle, looked at the nervous copyboy. Not much older than my Will and still growing. Within spitting distance of manhood, this one, and hair as yellow as the king’s gold. Scared of me and tryin’ hard not to tremble, him and me bein’ alone down here in this flippin’ ice house. Has Will’s eyes, he does, eyes as green as England’s hills. And he did offer me food and drink.

Brandy. Warms a man and that is a fact. Bit of food might help matters along as well, somethin’ simple and not too challengin’ to a man’s stomach. Figg reached down and picked up the carpetbag containing the few things he had brought with him from London.

“Could use somethin’ to eat while I waits. Willin’ to pay, I am.” He forced a quick smile which Josiah couldn’t see in the darkness.

But the copyboy heard the warmth in the boxer’s voice and he considered himself reprieved from the most horrible of unknown fates. His grin was enormous. “Just up those stairs in back of you, sir. I will place this candle on the packing case here so that Eddy shall have light when he awakens. It will be my pleasure to return and look in on him and most assuredly, I shall keep you advised concerning his every move.”

Figg’s mumble could scarcely be heard. “Pin a rose on ‘im.”

“Sir?”

“Just sayin’ goodbye to Mr. Bird and Bug, is all.” Welcome to North America, Pierce James Figg, you frozen, unlucky bugger.

Halfway up the stairs, Figg turned and again looked down at Poe and his mind went back two weeks ago to England where another man lay at Figg’s feet, this one having had his throat cut from ear to ear.

By Figg.

Figg was stomach down in cold, wet grass. He squinted through darkness and falling rain at the three men who had followed him into Regent’s Park.

The long, black frock coat he’d worn to his son’s hanging earlier today now covered his head and much of his body, allowing him to blend into the night, to become another shadow on the ground, to be come an extension of shadows cast by trees near the park zoo. Moonlight gleamed on rain slicked leaves and Figg’s right fist tightened around the small belt dagger. Bless you, Mr. Dickens, sir. This here little sticker ain’t no arsenal, but it is surely some small comfort to me.

A chilled rain drummed on his coat, drenching it, making it heavier. Pierce James Figg, master of the noble science of defense, master of the sword and cudgel, planned to use the rain-soaked coat as a weapon. The cold rain didn’t bother him; he had been cold and wet before and would be again.

Three. Using the dagger point to lift the wet coat up an inch or two, he watched the killers spread out and look around for him. Figg’s smile was deadly. Come for my life, have you? Well, step closer me lovelies and we will start the dance, you and I.

“He’s bloomin’ ’ere. Stop fiddle arsin’ around, you two and find ‘im.” Figg recognized Rosehearty’s voice. Rosehearty was the leader, the one with a lantern and the high beaver hat. Six and a half feet tall, Rosehearty killed by shining the lantern in his victim’s face then quickly slashing him across the stomach with a small sword whose blade was keen enough to slice a hair in two.

“Ain’t with the animals, is he? I mean why the bleedin’ ’ell he come to a zoo, say I.” That was one-eyed Timothy Buck, who now carried his Boutet flintlock pistol inside his long coat to keep it dry.

Rosehearty held the lantern high. “Wherever ‘e is, we best find ‘im. We ain’t bein’ paid to stand out ‘ere in the bloody rain and hold ‘ands. We been told to do ‘im and do ‘im we will. Stubbs? Stubbs?”

Rosehearty called to the albino, a muscular man who carried a quarterstaff across his shoulder as though it were a musket. Stubbs’s pure white hair was wet and clinging to a face almost the exact color. Figg knew him as a cruel man who robbed judys, those prostitutes who worked without the protection of a ponce. Stubbs enjoyed beating women and had killed three with his hands.

“I ‘ear you, Master Hearty Rose.” Stubbs looked into the darkness towards Figg, as if his pink eyes could see the boxer.

Rosehearty pointed towards trees standing to the left of Figg. “Stroll over there, if you do not mind and see what you can see. We sees ‘im leave Mr. Dickens’ ’ouse and come in ‘ere, but now where the bleedin’ ’ell has the bastard gone?”

Figg lowered the wet coat an inch, turning his head sideways to watch Stubbs, quarterstaff still on his shoulder, walk away from Rosehearty and Buck.

“Bloody cold, it is.” Timothy Buck touched his black eyepatch which was soaked, then blew warm air in to his cupped hands. He would like it just fine if that limping old bastard Figg would show himself so’s Buck could put a ball in his ugly head and then they could all go to a tavern and enjoy life.

“Cold, you say.” Rosehearty’s voice was even colder. “Should we fail to do as Jonathan has ordered, it will grow suddenly warmer and not to our likin’, so move your arse, you stupid sod!”

Rosehearty, shoulder length gray hair hanging down from under his tall beaver, knew Figg and hated him. Neither man had ever quarreled; they had never even spoken to one another. But their paths had crossed at sporting events-dogfights, boxing matches, at rat pits where bets were made as to how many rats a fighting dog could slaughter in a given time. Figg knew what Rosehearty was, an assassin for hire and the boxer despised him. Rosehearty hated Figg because Figg was not afraid of him.

“Buck, for the love of Jesus, will you please walk over there, yes there. Straight ahead. Look for some markin’s, somethin’ that says he ain’t just flapped his wings and gone to heaven. Zoo be the only other place ‘round ‘ere and them animals is locked up tight, so why should he be ’eaded there.”

Figg held his breath. Rosehearty was flummut; dangerous.

Rosehearty looked directly at the hidden Figg and said, “Best we not lose him.”

Buck shivered. “What if we do?”

“Then it’s a return to the home of the esteemed Master Charles Dickens, where we shall do our best to convince ‘im to tell us where we can find Mr. Figg. Master Dickens has ‘imself several children, so it should be a simple matter to get him to speak up.”

Figg’s eyes narrowed. Dickens’ children. Now there was no doubt about what to do. To protect Dickens’ family, Figg must kill all three men.

Timothy Buck walked towards the trees in front of him, towards Figg.

Buck talked to himself through chattering teeth, hugging himself to keep his flintlock pistol from falling from under his coat. “Mr. Figg, Mr. Figg. When I’ave you, I shall-”

You have me now!

Figg quickly rose to his knees, the rain-soaked coat in his left hand and he tossed it into Timothy Buck’s face.

Buck screamed with fear at the sudden movement, at the attack on his face from the darkness and went back on his heels, arms flailing in the air, trying to stop himself from falling backwards and Figg was up, crouched ready to spring.

“It’s ‘im! It’s ‘im! Oh God, oh God!” Buck shrieked like a woman and fell backwards onto the wet grass and Figg was on him, sitting on his chest and pulling the wet coat from Buck’s face, then placing the blade of the small dagger hard against the right side of Buck’s throat, pushing down and bringing the blade hard, deep and around in one savage stroke.

Then Figg, who had felt the pistol digging into his ass from under Buck’s coat, was clawing for it. He looked up fingers still tearing at cloth and buttons, seeing Rose hearty and Stubbs running towards him, with Stubbs the faster, Stubbs with his seven foot quarterstaff made of firm oak, a weapon that could crush your skull like a grape and smash your kneecaps into jelly. Figg could use one with superb skill. If he had one.

The Boutet flintlock was in his hand and rain was in his eyes, but he fired quickly because the water could easily damage the pistol, wetting the powder and causing it to misfire.

Crack! The ball caught Stubbs in the thigh, making him spin around and throw the quarterstaff high in the air. Damn his eyes! Figg had put the ball in Stubbs because he’d wanted that quarterstaff. The wood had reach and that’s what Figg wanted against the deadly Rosehearty and his lantern and small sword.

“One ball, Mr. Figg. Only one ball!” Rosehearty’s voice was triumphant as he raced towards the boxer. One life I gots too, thought Figg, and I am not quite ready to part with it.

True, the flintlock fired only one ball but Figg still had use for the pistol. He narrowed his eyes, turning his head to the side, desperate to keep the light from Rosehearty’s lantern from blinding him.

He stood and listened, hearing Stubbs moan and curse him and roll around on the wet ground, and he heard Rosehearty rushing towards him, mouth open and breathing loudly, confident of his skill, sure he would kill the boxer whom he hated so intensely.

Figg threw the empty pistol at Rosehearty, then ran towards Stubbs, following the sounds coming from the albino. Behind Figg, Rosehearty crouched, turning his body to protect the lantern, catching the tossed pistol on his right forearm.

“You cannot limp faster than I can run! I shall have you, Figg! I shall!”

Figg, still holding his drenched coat, reached Stubbs who lay on his back, pale, ugly face contorted with pain as he pressed down hard with blood covered hands on the hole in his left thigh. When he saw Figg, he raised himself to his elbows, eyes searching the darkness for his quarterstaff. “Kill you, you bloomin’-”

Figg kicked him in the face, snapping Stubbs’s head violently to the right. Bleed and die, mate.

The staff. Figg must have it. Where the bloody hell is it? Damn the rain.

Figg saw it. Long, dark, lying half in moonlight and half in shadow. He limped towards it, widening his eyes to clear them of falling rain. Behind him, Figg heard Rosehearty splashing across the grass with long, loping strides, moving with remarkable swiftness for such a tall man. The staff was in Figg’s hand and his back was to Rosehearty who saw an easy kill and continued charging. The boxer”sback and kidneys would bleed as well as his throat, so place the blade where he cannot see it and do as Jonathan ordered.

Figg, eyes on the ground, saw the yellow pool of light grow larger around him as Rosehearty drew closer, saw his own shadow lengthen, saw Rosehearty’s long shadow grow longer, longer. … The rain-soaked boxer waited, his back still to Rosehearty, still keeping the lantern’s deadly light directly from his eyes, still on one knee as though tired, fumbling, indecisive.

His eyes never left the ground, never left Rosehearty’s growing shadow.

Then he heard Rosehearty, heard the hissing noise as the assassin breathed through tightly clenched teeth, saw the killer’s shadow almost on him and that’s when Figg, back still to Rosehearty, savagely drove the end of the quarterst off into the pit of Rosehearty’s stomach.

All of the breath left the tall man in one long, harsh sigh. His eyes bulged and the pressure against his stomach was massive, destructive, and Rosehearty doubled over, his tall beaver hat tumbling from his long, gray head. Figg scampered to his feet and was merciless; in his large hands, the quarterstaff was a blur, a seven foot length of oak wielded with swift and vicious skill. He thought of his own dead, of what would happen to Dickens’ children if Rosehearty were to live. For Will, for Althea.

Figg used both ends of the quarterstaff to kill Rosehearty.

A powerful blow broke the tall man’s left wrist, sending his lamp to the rain-soaked ground. A second blow crushed his right kneecap. Rosehearty’s scream echoed in the rainy night as the agony raced up the right side of his body. And as Rosehearty fell towards the ground, his arm and leg on fire with pain, Figg delivered the third blow with his full strength behind it, crushing Rosehearty’s left temple, instantly killing him and driving the tall man into the wet grass with sickening speed.

Figg never again looked at Rosehearty. He knew the man was dead.

Stubbs, face knotted with pain, looked up at the lantern and small sword in Figg’s hands. “Kill me, you bastard and be done with it.”

Figg listened to the rain, eyes narrowed and on the albino. “Some words with you first.”

“First? What the bleedin’ ’ell is first? You plan to do me, so do me. You will be gettin’ no words from me.” Stubbs closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, hands pressing hard on his thigh wound.

Figg, down on one knee, held the lantern close to Stubbs’s face. “I shall kill you, this is a fact and I shall not deceive you on that score. But I can kill you quickly or I can make a right bloody mess of it. You do not have much time in which to consider.”

Stubbs frowned. Beads of rain clung to his unshaven chin and darkened his clothing. “Dyin’ or dyin’. What kind of choice is that?”

“Not much. I do not mean for you to have much choice Stubbs, and you try my patience. You came for my life and now I mean to have yours.”

“I gots a woman, you know. And kids.”

“You are scum, Stubbs. They will be right pleased to be quits of you. Jonathan sent you to do me. Why?”

“Scairt of you. Never says so but we know he is. Says you are a primitive and terrible force.” The albino used blood covered fingers to squeeze rain from his eyes.

Figg frowned. Jonathan afraid of him? “Well paid were you?” he asked.

“A guinea each.”

Figg snorted. “Not very dear, am I.” Money you will spend in hell, he thought.

Stubbs licked rainwater from his lips and tried to sit up. “You are cursed. Jonathan has a spell on you.”

For the first time that night, Figg felt the cold. “Curse?”

“We saw him. A nail in your footprint. He had us follow you, then Timothy Buck he runs to get Jonathan and he brings him to one of your footprints and Jonathan he drives a nail in it, a nail what comes from a coffin. And he curses you that you be harmed until he pulls the nail from the footprint.” Stubbs stiffened with pain, falling backwards into a greasy puddle.

“Why is Jonathan goin’ to New York?”

Stubbs’s lips were pressed tightly together against pain and his eyes were closed and he did not see the quick movement as Figg flicked his wrist and slashed the albino’s cheek.

Stubbs squealed, flopping to his right, both hands on the right side of his face. Blood trickled through his fingers to mingle with the falling rain on the backs of his hands.

“I said to you Stubbs that you are lackin’ in time. Answer me.”

“The bleedin’ bloody throne, he wants. Solomon’s Throne.” Stubbs clutched his cheek and moaned.

Solomon’s Throne. Justin Coltman and Jonathan now gone to New York in pursuit of it. As Mr. Dickens figured. Find Justin Coltman and you find Jonathan.

Stubbs pleaded for his life. “Ain’t never done nothin’ to you Figg, afore tonight. Let me live. I promise you I shall never go on the hunt for you again.”

“I think this is correct, Stubbs. You will never hunt me again.”

Figg drove the point of the small sword deep into Stubbs’s left side, piercing his heart and the albino sighed, his eyes turning up in his head.

Figg remained in the park for a further fifteen minutes. He carried Rosehearty’s body to a nearby lake, placing it in a rowboat which he then pushed out into the dark, chopping waters. Returning to the scene of the killings, he picked up Stubbs’s body and carried it several yards to the zoo, where he threw it into a pile of straw near the elephants’ cages. One-eyed Timothy Buck, the smallest was last; his would be the longest trip.

After retrieving his belt dagger, Figg put on his rain-soaked coat and top hat, slung Timothy Buck over his shoulder and walked deeper into the deserted park. Minutes later, Buck’s corpse was shoved under a band shell in Queen Mary’s Gardens. The discovery of three bodies in separate locations would draw less attention than three ‘bodies lying side by side in this park once used by King Henry VIII as a private hunting forest. Little fuss would be made over this trio, Figg knew; they were of the underworld, where a man easily made enemies. Furthermore, the Peelers, the police, would be delighted to have three such vermin removed from this life.

At home, Figg cleaned himself in a hot tub then sipped mulled wine in front of his fireplace, his mind on what he must do. In the morning he sent a note to Mr. Charles Dickens, once more thanking him for his kind help and informing him that the three uninvited guests of last night would not be returning.

Three days later Figg was in a closet-sized cabin on the Cunard steamer Britannia using his fingers to gently feed bits of food from his uneaten plate to a thin, gray and white cat smuggled aboard ship under Figg’s coat. He watched carefully as the cat leaned its head to the right and chewed.

And when the cat did not die Figg himself ate of the plate, for as he now stalked Jonathan, Jonathan also stalked him and the life of a cat was a small price to pay for caution.

Josiah Rusher corked the bottle. Mr. Figg had swallowed three cups of coffee and brandy, which appeared to have had no more effect on him than a kiss from a gentle breeze. Josiah said, “Mr. Poe is a most accomplished scholar. He speaks French, Latin, Greek, Spanish and Italian and he is a master of-”

“Sippin’ the juice, I suspects.”

Figg bit off a piece of stale bread. At the moment, he would settle for a few words in English from little Mr. Poe, never mind all that other posh talk.

“Does not Mr. Poe have a home of his own or is it always more convenient for him to lay his head in dark corners?”

Josiah Rusher said, “He has a small cottage in the country, away from the city. It is in Fordham. He is hard put to meet the yearly rent, I am sorry to say.”

“Which is what amount?”

“One hundred dollars.”

“What is that in English money?”

“Twenty pounds, five dollars to the pound. You will find it to your advantage, Mr. Figg, you being newly arrived to our shores, that we here in America still use English currency to some degree. Pounds, shillings, pence. We continue to traffic in them, though I must warn you there is still some ill-feeling against the English people because of the war of eighteen and twelve.”

Figg’s soft voice was slightly amused. “Dear me. Now I will be unable to get me beauty sleep what with this mighty problem weighin’ me down.”

“I did not mean sir, that you, that… I mean the war was almost forty years ago but people have not forgotten.”

Figg nodded. “A war can stay on the brain, it can.” He thought of Althea and Will.

From a desk near the front door, Figg looked through a huge plate glass window out onto the snow covered street and watched an old, bearded man wrapped in faded blankets stand on tiptoe to put out the flames in nearby gaslights. A cold dawn had streaked the sky a soft blue, gold and gray. A handful of men began arriving at the paper, bearded men bundled in layers of clothing, almost all chewing tobacco and spitting the juice in the general direction of spittoons and not caring if it landed inside or out. The huge ground floor was filled with desks and cubicles, most of which were empty and few of which were located anywhere near the now cold potbellied stoves. You could freeze meat in here, thought Figg and the brain of a man as well.

Later today he would pay a visit to Phineas Taylor Barnum’s American Museum to seek out members of Jonathan’s acting troup. Meanwhile, he would sit and stare at the snow until Mr. Poe rose to greet the dawn. From then on, like it or not, the little man with the large forehead and brown hair, who lay wrapped in his own shabby black cloak downstairs, would belong to Pierce James Figg, who by God, would use him for as long as it suited Figg.

“Josiah, you odious wastrel! Tend the flames before we pull the ice from our beards and stab you in the eyes with it!”

The copyboy flinched, yelling back at the voice. “Yes sir. Right quickly, sir.” He smiled weakly at Figg. “Part of my job, sir. Tend the stoves, clean them, see that there is enough wood.”

“I have your assurance you will keep watch on our friend below?”

“Indeed sir. As a matter of fact, the wood is stored there so I shall have to watch him, won’t I?”

“Seems as much.”

Figg opened his pocket watch. Almost seven in the morning. Could use a lay down himself, Figg could, but leave us first have a nice little heart to heart with that dainty rum pot downstairs. Speaks all of them languages, does he?

Two minutes after leaving Figg, Josiah Rusher returned with a pained look on his face.

“Mr. Figg, sir, I-”

The boxer was on his feet. He knew.

“Gone.”

“Yes. There is another door, one used for deliveries and-”

Figg, carpetbag in hand, pushed the boy out of his way and ran towards the stairs, his stocky body waddling side to side. He had not the time for whys and wherefores. That little bastard Poe had moved his arse elsewhere, just when Figg had business with him. Damn his eyes!

Figg disappeared through the door leading to the storeroom and Josiah Rusher shook his head in relief at still being alive.