Automatic Woman (14 page)

“How’d a people so knowledgeable get it in their heads that God lived in the clouds?” I asked.

“That very question baffled biblical scholars for centuries. Of course, we live in an advanced society. A society of Boschon cards and difference computation machines. We’re devising a new universal language based in numbers. But I digress. Not all towers are meant to reach God by proximity. Have you ever heard of radio waves?”

“No.”

“A Serbian in America, Nicola Tesla, has built a tower of metal in the hills of Colorado. His tower fires invisible energy that can transmit words to other towers of similar make, like a telegraph with no wires. Words can cover kilometers in fractions of a second. Tesla claims that with enough power he can talk to men on the other side of the Earth. For hundreds of years, we thought of towers as just objects of physical stature, but now we know better. Maybe it is Tesla who is shortsighted. Maybe with enough energy he can speak to other worlds, other universes, to God himself. Maybe this was the nature of the Shinar’s tower.”

I sipped my tea. “So you suppose the Shinar figured out these radios waves?”

“I don’t know. We’ll never know. God smote them. He deemed them too advanced, to arrogant in their attempt to connect with him. He took away their words, their language, the very strength of their society. They became the Babblers, the men who could not talk.

“Unable to understand each other, their fine-tuned order turned to chaos, to fighting, to destruction and violence. They destroyed their beautiful tower, their cosmopolitan city, all their riches and advances and wondrous things. They became again like the animals that hoot and point and scream and gnash their teeth. Every man was foreign to every man. And following the tradition of foreign nations they fought and fought and fought. For years the Shinar waged war upon themselves. The survivors eventually left and became wanderers of the earth. Tribes of families. The Babbling tribes of man. Humanity entered their third Dark Age.

“The Babblers wondered for untold hundreds of years, living no better than the apes and jackals of the world. Some of the Babblers came west and embraced the trees and became my Gaelicforefathers. Some traveled north and became the fierce animal Norse, never truly tamed. Others traveled south and embraced the rich Nile flood lands, where they prayed to new gods. One group, the focus of my story, wandered in circles around the ashes of Shinar, never venturing far from the land of their fathers, though the earth consumed all traces of what had once been. The leader of one of these circling tribes, a man named Ka-Igi, found himself separated from his tribesmen in the confusion of a sandstorm, a storm that lasted forty days and forty nights. Ka-Igi, lost and alone, took shelter in a mountain cave. The walls of this cave were smooth and carved and not like the caves of animals. In his shelter Ka-Igi found thin sheets of material not rock nor metal nor wood. The sheets held symbols and even though Ka-Igi and his people had no written words, had no knowledge of reading, even though he was a Babbler, Ka-Igi could read the sheets. They were written in the universal language of the Shinar. The tablets had survived the great destruction and the ages of darkness. When the storm cleared, Ka-Igi found his people. He collected them up and showed them his tablets and they were amazed, for they could read them as well as he.

“Ka-Igi now knew the history of his people, for it was revealed in the tablets. He knew that their society had once been wondrous and powerful. The tablets revealed to him many secrets.

“Ka-Igi gathered his sons, strong robust Babblers. He gave them each a sheet, each a treasure of knowledge, and set them to gather again the men and women of the world, to share their knowledge and convince all of mankind to return their home country.

“And so his sons went off.

“To the west, Ka-Igi’s first son, Ka-Gal, met with the Gaelics and gave them the names of all the stars and the means to build astrological calendars of stone, so they might know their place in the universe.

“To the north, Ka-Igi’s second eldest son, Ka-Orun, traveled and met with the Norse. He taught them the tides and the use of iron and the construction of mighty ships so they might become masters of the sea.

“To the south, Ka-Igi’s third eldest son, Ka-Ra, traveled and met with the men of the Nile. He taught them the mysteries of the triangle and masonry so they could erect the Pyramids, shadow images of the great and mighty buildings of Shinar.

“To the far East, Ka-Igi sent his youngest son, Ka-Wu. Though the smallest and weakest, Ka-Wu traveled the farthest. He walked through what we now know of as Arabia and India and China. He met with many wandering Babblers and taught them the value of chemistry, so that they could glean spices from the plants and salts from the Earth.

“For himself, Ka-Igi kept the most important tablets. On them were written the laws of man, the rules that separate humankind from animal kind. With these laws he brought order to his people, and to the Babbling tribes nearby. With rules and order he built the great city-state Larsa, which later became Babylon, the Babbler’s kingdom. Ka-Igi thrived and prospered, but his sons never returned to him, and the kingdom of the world was never reunited. Each of his sons became a king in his own right, and once in power man never bows to a greater authority. Ka-Igi’s tablets were passed on to his daughters, who married and prospered and aided in the rule of their land.

“It was the sixth grandson of Ka-Igi’s sixth granddaughter, a young king named Hammurabi, who gave the laws to his people, and had them copied and recorded, so that all may know and all may prosper. It’s these rules that make man great, that allowed man to master the earth and the animals and hold themselves strongest of the world.

“Maybe your engineer was telling us he’d found a wonder, something to match the Shinar’s. Something to draw the attention of God himself.”

“That’s some story, Irishman.”

“I know. I’m a story teller by trade, though I can’t take credit for the details. All I’ve told you I was told by friends at Oxford.”

Oxford. Of course. Stoker winked at me and took a long drink of his cooling tea. I played along.

“Good friends?”

“Good enough. They want to know if you’re still a bishop?”

“I’m not sure. The game has changed. Tell Darwin that Barnes has hostages.”

Stoker set his cup down and jutted a finger at me.

“First, you’ll do well not to mention either of those names in public! Second, the game hasn’t changed, you’re just not used to playing it. My benefactor and yours, our friend in Oxford, has an incredibly high regard for life. As we speak he is concocting a plan to save your prostitute and friends. You’re not part of that plan.”

“Then what’s my part?”

“You have two goals, call them a loyalty test, though it goes further than that. Goal number one, you are to return to your former employer tomorrow night at seven o’clock. You are to inform him that Mr. Nouveau is being held at this location.”

Stoker produced a folded piece of paper and laid it on the table.

“You are to give him no information other than what is on that paper. If you do, we will find out and your deal with us is no longer valid.”

“Where is Nouveau?”

“You don’t need to know that. Assume what the paper says is true.”

“The second condition?”

“As we speak two men are delivering a new bed to your flat. When you arrive you will find a pair of boots under the bed that are identical to ones you are wearing right now. The right heel of your new boots has a false bottom. Inside the false bottom, you’ll find a coin. Retrieve it and drop it into the third floor fountain on your way out of the Bow Street Firm. Do not touch or handle the coin prior to dropping it in the fountain. Are we clear?”

“You guarantee the safety of my friends?”

Stoker stood up and straightened his suit.

“Ours is a world without certainty, a world victimized by chaos. Believe me when I say my benefactor is working to right that chaos and usher us into a new age of enlightenment. The tasks he accomplishes today will be talked about, even worshipped, a thousand years from now. Try to see the bigger picture, mate?”

This was not the last time I’d meet with Abraham Stoker, though I wish it had been.

Jolly Fellows and the Case of the Missing Porter

I’ll admit a bit of confusion at this point. I’d sworn loyalty and service to both warring armies, to Darwin and Barnes, though my loyalty for each was conscripted. I was under orders from both and sincerely wanted neither to succeed in his endeavor. Jacob Fellows is no man’s stringed puppet. But time was ticking clear and ready. As much faith as Darwin had in me completing his task, I was just as certain that Lord Barnes would catch me in the ruse, either giving false information or spiking his fountain with Lord knows what. We’re talking about a bloke who told me how much cash I had to my name within ten pound. But if I didn’t finish Darwin’s task, I risked stoking the ire of a man who either knew me well enough to predict I would show up at the Hellfax or send someone deft enough to follow me and blend without my trained eye picking him up. It was bollocks either way. I remember dad, the minutiae, the small details.

If Darwin hadn’t rattled me with the strange Irishman, if the Hellfax had turned a dud, the next logical step in the investigation would be to move toward Nouveau. Darwin had claimed the man was in hiding, as was his family and close contacts. Smart move that; people are terrible at hiding and always reach out to family, even weird silky Frenchmen. The odd detail was the porter. A last minute kidnap for the poor brothel servant I’d sent at all those days prior. The minutiae, the detail, the porter.

I returned to the Piece Work, back to the fancy rental women with their dyed hair and dyed feathers and lipstick colored and smeared like old blood.

The desk clerk recognized me immediately. I must have made an impression on my last visit. His hands vanished under the counter and tripped what I assume was a hidden buzzer because the lobby was suddenly occupied by two thuggish gentlemen. They were decked out in matching black trousers and white collared shirts. The collars were purely decorative seeing that neither man had a neck.

“You’re not welcome here, Mr. Jarse,” the clerk said.

Ha ha. Hugh Jarse.

The thugs stepped closer. I cleared my Colt Army from its holster. I didn’t wave it or point it or make a scene, I let the pistol rest against my leg real casual like. The shiny nickel plating spoke more words than I had. It was a real show stopper. The thugs stopped walking, the whores stopped talking. The lobby became frozen in time, still, a room without air. I broke the silence.

“Everyone keep your feet glued to their respective location, and I’ll make this brief. I’ve been tasked with finding your missing porter. I need to speak with his family and friends.”

The clerk’s hands were still invisible under the counter, but his arms moved slightly and the end of my little speech was punctuated with a click. I’m no expert, but I imagined that sound was the closing of a scattergun breach, maybe a Stevens Tip-Up, maybe a D & J Fraser. Like I said, I’m no expert, and I couldn’t be sure. I levered the Colt and gave the busy clerk my toothiest smile.

“Your Cherokee name must be Fool Busy-Hands. I’m sympathetic to your plight, Fool, but if you draw on me there’ll be three dead bodies to contend with.”

“Three?”

“You, me, and the unfortunate soul you catch with the second barrel of that shotgun while you convulse and choke on your own blood.”

Busy-Hands turned white. Up went one hand, then a thump of dropped weight, then the other hand.

“There, now you’re smart and handsome. What’s your missing porter’s name?”

“Willie.”

I rolled the tip of my gun in the universal sign of “give me more, jackass.”

“Willie Forsmit. He’s my cousin,” one of the thugs offered in a thick gutter accent.

“Would you be so kind as to escort me to Mr. Forsmit’s residence?”

“He lives with his mum.”

“Step lively, big man. You’re my escort.”

No-neck number one and I left the Piece Work. I imagine I’m permanently banned from that establishment, though I’ve yet to test this hypothesis.

“Willie is not missing,” No-neck said.

I holstered my gun for our street walk. No need for nastiness.

“What do you mean? Is he home?”

“His mum got a letter yesterday. Says he’s been drafted for special government work.”

No-neck said this in an honest and straightforward manner. Like it was no big deal that the government was conscripting midnight whorehouse porters.

“Right, let me confirm the letter and I’ll be on my way.”

“Okay. Real quick, you wave that shooter at Willie’s mum and I’ll break your neck.”

“Fair enough.”

We walked from the Piece Work into a neighborhood of filthy tenement buildings, starving animals and urchin beggars. Then we turned a corner into a neighborhood that was like the first neighborhood’s poorer desperate brother. Everything was covered in soot and ash: walls, windows, the faces of children. A group of men huddled around a fire. All hands reached for ember warmth. Hovering above the fire was the thin and spitted carcass of a dog.