Conjurer (16 page)

As quick as the thoughts enter her mind, Martha warns herself that they're nothing but invention. The denizens of the house are all abed. And Kelman and her father are …?

With a bitter and impatient sigh, she leaves her chair, wandering with a heavy heart back to the window, where she again pauses before extinguishing the light and continuing on to bed.

The man who was watching her father's house is gone. “Oh!” she murmurs in both relief and disappointment. “Oh …”

Then Martha, like Ruth, like little Ella and even intemperate Emily Durand, finally also enters dreamland, but the bitter scents of the burning city alter the workings of her sleeping brain, and so the unknown man Martha glimpsed from her window grows and grows until he becomes a giant of a person, capable of reaching his huge hands into her bed and snatching her up as if she were only a small and helpless child.

“Father?” she mutters in her sleep. “Father, have you come home at last?”

Mary, Alone

T
HE MAN IS NAKED FROM
the waist down; his buttocks, as he bends over the girl, are as white-gray and slippery as fish skin. Her skin is white also, a tangle of straight, young legs and arms whose color is brushed with a healthy-looking pink although it should not be. Because the girl is dead, and has been dead for some minutes.

The man knows this fact; he's already left off squeezing her throat but is continuing to pump his buttocks up and down, his flesh growing increasingly slick and prickled as if slapped with a sleety wind. “Mary,” he croons as he works, “my little Mary …”

The child doesn't answer, of course, and the man's ecstasy increases. He's aware of the rapid beating of his heart, aware of the blood coursing through his body, and of a sensation of remarkable rejuvenation and power. He feels transformed, healed, saved, and wholly and forever at peace. “Mary,” he sighs again, “my little one, my dear.” He closes his eyes and sees angels and clouds, God ensconced on an amber throne and the saints who parade before him night and day, chanting hymns throughout the heavens. He accompanies their pure, celestial voices as they sing:

“‘Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way, and walk in the law of the Lord … Blessed are all they that fear the Lord … Blessed be the Lord my strength who teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight … O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery … Blessed be he that taketh thy children and throweth them against the stones to execute judgment upon them … Deliver my soul, Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.'”

Then the sensation of glory and might begins to leach out of him as it always does, and he becomes increasingly aware of the dead body beneath him, its scent of fear, the excrement and blood and urine that seeped from it to stain his own spotless skin. He stands up in sudden disgust. This girl has soiled him all the way down to the depths of his soul. She is no beloved “Mary”; nor will she ever be.

He reaches into the pocket of his fine velvet jacket, extracting a pearl-handled pocketknife, which he puts beside the girl's jumbled body.

Then he removes his jacket and waistcoat and shirt, placing them in careful regard upon the far corner of the bed. He steps to the washstand and carefully bathes himself with a wet towel and a hearty dose of soapsuds. He enjoys the sensation of rubbing his body clean, the languid, thoughtful motions, the propriety of the act. His spirits begin to revive, although the reek of the fancy house and the cloying odor of grown women remain disappointingly in his nostrils.

He sighs that this should ever be the case, then dries himself, takes up his handsome knife, and twists the girl's head till it faces him. He opens her mouth, takes hold of her tongue, and in one quick movement severs it from her head. The metal blade bangs once against her fox-like little teeth. He winces at the unpleasant harshness of the sound, wrinkles his nose at the swift gush of blood.

Finally, he places the tongue upon a pillow and arranges the girl in a kneeling position, face down, chest down, with her feet trailing upon the dusty floor as though she were deep in prayer.

He surveys his work, then washes and dries himself again and pulls on his trousers, his fine leather boots, his soft linen shirt, the jacket that's the color of a mole's soft belly, his cravat, his fur-lined greatcoat, his scarf and beaver hat. At last, wiping the knife clean on the coverlet, he returns it to an interior pocket. With each activity, he's also returning himself to a person who has spent his adulthood as a respected citizen of the city and the state. When the knife is finally gone from view and his clothes carefully adjusted in the looking glass, he's almost surprised to also see a reflection of the girl upon the bed.

He observes this image with disdain, then averts his eyes. He's too fastidious a person to approve of nakedness or rumpled bedding. His nose quivers in dismay; and he stalks out into the hall, pulling the hat down as he passes doors that are either shut or partially open. He doesn't glance at the scenes that lie exposed; they're too shameful, too unpleasant, too base. Every single one of their scents and sounds offends him to the core of his soul.

He hurries down the stairs and out into the street. Not one person has remarked upon his haste or even turned to look in his direction. Then he begins a brisk walk toward the larger thoroughfare that leads eventually to Washington Square.

Saffron-Hued Silk

E
ACH DOOR IN THE CRAMPED
corridor is wide open, and in every one stands a resident of the house caught in a state of undress and horror. Wails erupt from amongst the women, followed by sniffles of consolation, confusion, and fear. The paying customers at Indian Nell's House for Ladies of Pleasure have long since fled from this insalubrious scene.

“She was no more than a child, she was,” the eldest woman among them cries. She's missing nearly all her teeth, and her body, beneath a soiled and ancient dressing gown, is soft and fat and sloppy. But she sobs with heartrending tears as if the murdered girl had been her daughter, the flesh of her aging flesh. “Why would anyone want to kill her? A little kid—”

“She looked older—”

“Well, don't we all? Besides, what's that got to do with—?”

“And acted it, too—” a third woman interjects while a fourth demands a panicky:

“What difference does it make how old she was? I'm seventeen. Does that mean I needn't worry myself that the same could happen to me? Or to any other of us?”

The questions silence them momentarily. All remember the room and the blood—and the awful sight of that butchered tongue.

At length, the eldest practitioner takes up her sorrowing chant again. “Who would do such a thing—?”

Nell herself appears among them at that moment, ordering each to tidy up, make herself presentable, clean her teeth, comb her hair, and then gather in the downstairs parlor in double-quick time. Unlike the fancy ladies who work for her, and whose skin ranges in color from white to coffee black to a yellow-brown, Nell is a pale-skinned mulatto, tall as a man and with a man's wide shoulders and a free, rangy gait. She receives a good deal of respect from the women she employs; and it's not exclusively due to her physical presence. “There's a policeman wants to talk with you,” she tells them. “Another gentleman, too. His name is Thomas Kelman, and he has some private truck with city hall.”

“A special friend of the mayor's wife?” someone quips, but the sally fails.

“You'd best keep remarks like that to yourself if you know what's what” is Indian Nell's terse reply. “This town doesn't belong to the likes of us.”

Kelman watches the women file into the room until their ripe bodies crowd every corner and even air grows scarce: too much scent on clothing that's bedraggled and sweat-stained; broken, lusterless hair; stubby-fingered hands that have worked so hard from their earliest years that the evidence can never be eradicated. As with the previous murder at Dutch Kat's house, the man who chose this place was aiming low indeed.

“Ladies …” Kelman begins while the officer accompanying him retrieves a notebook and prepares to write.

Several in his audience giggle into their sleeves, although the sound is skittish and fearful rather than amused.

“Ladies, we have a craven killer in our midst. The girl who lived among you was the second he murdered—”

“Done the same as this?” the eldest whore murmurs.

“Exactly the same.”

She begins to sob again, wrapping her arms around her anguished sides.

“Shut your trap!” another responds while a third attacks the second with her own angry:

“Cut your tongue out next while he's at it.” The woman who spits out these words is coal black and reed thin with a caved chest that suggests the early stages of consumption.

“Better yours, you ugly cow!”

“Stop!” Nell's firm voice orders while Kelman's speech overrides both the madam's and her bickering hirelings':

“Did any of you see the man? Notice anything unusual about him? A style or pattern of speech, a mannerism that might have been unique? Clothing? Posture? An odd way of walking?”

“Are you suggesting we only get the halt and lame in here, Mr. Kelman?” It's Nell who asks this question, and there's more than a hint of challenge in the tone. Her head is high, her strong back straight. She's wrapped herself in a mantilla of Chinese red satin; given other circumstances, she might well be deemed regal.

Kelman regards her, and she gazes steadily, almost belligerently, back. “We may not be as pricey a house as some others, but we have our standards.”

“No customer's going to come here now, Nell,” the senior resident moans through her still fast-falling tears.

The madam rounds on her. “Not for your tired white flesh, they won't.”

“I do my best, Nell—”

“Which isn't good enough. Not by a long shot—”

“I try, Nell! I swear to God above I do.”

“Listen to you, calling on God! Perhaps you should try beseeching the other one for a while. Might prove more advantageous.”

“Ladies!” Kelman interjects, then resumes his patient questioning, turning again to Indian Nell. “The girl's name was Maryanne? That's what you told the sergeant who first arrived on the scene?”

Nell nods, but the motion is brusque and quick. Kelman knows she's barely tolerating his presence.

“Maryanne what?”

“Plain Maryanne. No more.”

“It was her true name?”

“I know what I'm told, Mr. Kelman. that's all.” She draws out the “mister” until it sounds like a hiss.

“Relatives?”

“Whores don't have time for relatives.” The madam shrugs; in her fine red wrap, she sweeps the room with an imperious glance, but no one supplies an answer as to whether Maryanne had family somewhere.

Kelman looks at his sergeant, then again moves his careful gaze across those gathered in the room. “We need your help in apprehending this killer before he strikes a third time. Think back, please, ladies … He was in your midst. You saw him perhaps in this very parlor. He passed by your open doors—”

“The girl brought him here,” Nell insists with a toss of her head. “She picked him up on the street. They went up the stairs immediately—”

“I heard him say he wanted a girl named Mary,” one of the women offers, and Kelman turns toward her questioningly. “He was most particular about it; Maryanne gave me such a nudge as she passed by. You know how she was …” The whore, a white girl, looks to the others as she says this. “Rolling her eyes in fun, and all. ‘I'll be your Mary,' she told him, ‘your little baby lamb.'” This account ends in a bitter sigh. “She liked a good time, she did.”

“He had a fur-lined greatcoat,” another voice adds. “And his hat was pulled so low there was no sight of his face. I thought he might have been hiding something, a birthmark or something—”

“But you saw no distinguishing feature?” Kelman asks.

“No.”

“Can you describe the coat?”

The woman thinks. “The lining of the sleeves was the color of the Delaware in summer. Blue and beautiful. And some lovely yellow stuff he wore, too. A silk scarf. It was as bright as saffron rice—”

“Well, I can tell you something, Mr. Kelman,” Nell interrupts in a voice that sounds more outraged than impatient. “Your murderer is a white man.”

“You saw him …?” Kelman leaves the question unfinished.

“I smelled him” is the madam's curt response. “You white folk insist that Negroes have a peculiar odor. I say men do. And white men most of all. And not just the ones who enter my establishment.”

“You have many regulars who are white, then?”

Nell's tone retains its caustic bite. “How long have you lived in this city, Mr. Kelman?”

Thomas Kelman is silent for a long moment. “Was the man young? Old? Tall? Of medium height?”

“He wore a fur-lined cloak—as you just heard. And he paid for an entire night. If he was old, he didn't show it. He walked with a good, strong step. We have some that don't.”

“There's nothing more you can tell me?”

“Nothing.” She glares defiantly. Although nearly his equal in height, by her definition and the world's he's her enemy and master. “And if you think I'm lying to you, and protecting one of my own kind, I'm not.”

Kelman focuses on the ceiling. His sergeant patiently waits, writing in his notebook until he can write no more, while the women clustered in the room begin to show signs of unease, twitching and stamping their feet like anxious cattle. “I want you to bury her decently,” Kelman says at length. “Not in a pauper's grave.” He pulls a number of coins from his pocket.

Indian Nell accepts them, adding the total with a rapid, practiced eye. She doesn't extend a word of thanks; instead, she demands an acrid “Where were you when the girl was living? You and all your fine government friends?”