Husbands And Lap Dogs Breathe Their Last (3 page)

“Really? How did an English ballerina find herself in a cave?”

“Stalactites,” Anunciación continued. “Mama was also an amateur speleologist. She acquired this interest as a child whilst assisting grandfather in the collection of bat dung. Quite the best thing for the garden, don’t you know. And what is your provenance, Cummings?”

“Eastern European and Jewish,” Cummings responded. “I am named for E. E. Cummings and Errol Flynn. My father liked word play, and my mother liked sword play.”

“Isn’t that charming? Have you and Luther been introduced to the assembled?”

“Not yet,” Cummings replied.

Anunciación clapped her hands several times. The conversation stopped, and all eyes shifted in her direction.

“We are among virgins, don’t you know! These gentlemen are new to us at Mathers,” Anunciación announced. “This is Luther Bannockburn and his friend, Cummings Flynn Wanamaker. Perhaps we could introduce ourselves. Winky, why don’t you start?” She indicated a muscular man to Luther’s immediate left. His ginger hair and sallow complexion seemed at odds with his flowing black poet shirt, jodhpurs and knee-high black leather boots.

“I’m Winky Carmello. This is my husband, Crandall Hobb,” Winky said, referring to a middle-aged man sitting next to him, perhaps of Japanese descent, with long graying dreadlocks and a gray goatee. He was dressed in a black morning suit and top hat, giving him the appearance of an Edwardian undertaker. A pair of goggles hung around his neck, and he wore a pair of rubber “mad scientist” gloves.

“That’s Lolita Gobble next to Crandall,” Anunciación said, “and her husband, Rothwell Falconer, next to her.”

Lolita, who had the angularity and height of a Giacometti sculpture, wore a pageboy haircut dyed a rather tawdry shade of pink. She wore a draped gown, more Ancient Greece than Edwardian England, that fastened over her left shoulder, leaving her right arm and shoulder exposed. A flock of birds tattooed in a delicate shade of midnight blue flew across this shoulder.

Rothwell, who was also tall, was lightly muscled and intensely blonde; indeed, his hair was almost white. His skin was a pale alabaster, giving him the appearance of someone who rarely ventured outdoors. Ironically, he was dressed for exploring in the tropics in a khaki military suit with a jacket, jodhpurs, knee-high boots, and a white shirt and dark brown tie. His head was covered by a pith helmet and his eyes were framed with goggles.

On the other side of Rothwell, a woman sat in a Victorian wedding gown, complete with lace veil and train. “That’s our speaker today, Surendra Hickok,” Anunciación explained. “Dear, who is your companion?”

“I’m Rutley Paik. Hello, everybody,” he said. Like many of the gentlemen, he wore an Edwardian morning coat. However, his was scarlet red and worn over a pair of jeans and red athletic shoes. Cummings noticed he was tall, red-haired, clean-shaven, a bit pudgy and quite handsome. Something about his physiognomy suggested a man far too practical to be dallying with these eccentrics.

“Rutley is ...” Surendra began, then hesitated for a moment before starting the sentence over. “Rutley is an old friend.”

“We are also graced by the presence of Queen Victoria, otherwise known as Tom Daniels,” Anunciación continued, referring to an excessively thin man in drag at the end of the table. He had bloodshot eyes the color of cooling lava and was dressed in an ornate black gown. Atop his head, a brown wig was pulled into a tight bun and covered with a lace cap. Like Victoria herself, his features were irregular and uninviting. His nose was overly prominent, and his lips seemed to express indiscriminate contempt. He was presently coughing into a white lace handkerchief.

Cummings noticed that three chairs at the table were empty. Anunciación looked in their direction and exclaimed, “Otto and Sebastian are late again!”

“Do you mean Otto Verissimo and his husband?”

“Who else? They are incapable of arriving on time, don’t you know,” Anunciación said with distaste. “I think we should move on to the victuals.” She picked up a handbell from the podium and rang it three times. Waitresses appeared from the twenty-first century with computer-printed menus.

“Why does everyone have such exotic names?” Cummings whispered to Luther.

“I think it is part of the Steampunk aesthetic,” Luther whispered back. “Fantasy clothes, fantasy personas.”

“I see. And who is Otto Verissimo?” Cummings responded.

“The writer,” Luther answered.

“Do you know him?”

“Not personally, but I am a devoted fan.”

“What does he write?” Cummings asked.

“He is the author of our finest queer romance novels,” Luther said. “You must have heard of him. They call him the gay Barbara Cartland.”

“Who is Barbara Cartland?” Cummings asked.

“Do you mean to tell me you have never heard of Barbara Cartland?”

“No. Should I have?”

Luther glanced at Cummings in a manner that conveyed both pity and horror, and then he shifted his attention to selecting a sandwich.

Some minutes later, three men entered the room.

The first man was dressed as a Prussian military officer, in a smart blue coat heavy with metals, a spiked helmet, tight black trousers, and knee-high boots. One of his arms was covered in brass armor adorned with cogs, wheels, and grommets. This man was perhaps thirty-five and not a beauty: he had a broad forehead, bushy brows, eyes that were too small, a nose that was too large, and pitted, oleaginous skin. He moved in a languid but graceful manner.

The second man, who was perhaps forty-five, tall, hirsute, chubby, and had a beard, was dressed as an Edwardian minister. He wore a severe black suit and a clerical collar. A Christian cross, which descended from a gold chain around his neck, was adorned with spokes and gears. His round, slightly asymmetrical face wasn’t exactly handsome, but he exuded the dispassionate authority that suggests a forceful leader. This gave him a certain sexiness.

The third man, who was focused on photographing the other two, looked like a hobbit that had emigrated to Israel. He was rotund, short and in early middle age. His pate was bald and covered by a yarmulke. From just above his ears, carrot-colored hair, frizzled as if it had been electrified, descended a foot or more. A long beard, robust and streaked with gray, cascaded from his chin. He wore a white button shirt, a tartan kilt, and highland boots.

“Otto!” Anunciación said to the first man. “We’ve gone ahead and ordered.”

“I am so sorry to be tardy,” Otto said in a wispy, nasal voice. “There was a bit of a crisis. My cologne atomizer clogged.”

“That is Otto Verissimo,” Luther, awestruck, whispered to Cummings.

“Who are the other men?” Cummings whispered back.

“The second man must be his husband, Sebastian Grinnell. He owns a few bars in Boys Town. I don’t know who the red-haired one is,” Luther said.

Anunciación had everyone introduce themselves again, and then lunch was served. An hour later it was cleared away. Anunciación rang her bell again and called the meeting to order.

“As the President of the Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers Society, I am very pleased to welcome you to our 245
th
monthly meeting. As many of you know, Mathers was an English occultist of the Edwardian era. He was a radical vegetarian, an early translator of neglected occult texts, and using his mediumistic talents, a passionate player of chess with the Gods. Unfortunately, he did not leave a record of his wins and losses.

“The Mathers Society meets once a month to advance the knowledge of the arcane. We dance with the unusual and delight in the obscure, don’t you know. When it appeared about ten years ago, we embraced Steampunk as a modern aesthetic reinterpretation of the English occult consciousness we bring from the past. Thus, we have fused these elements in a historical yet modern whole.”

Cummings coughed. He wished someone would put out the incense.

“We are privileged today,” Anunciación continued, “for another presentation in our mini-series on famous women of the occult. As you all know, Surendra Hickok is a historian of the occult and the author of a biography of Wilhelm Reich. Today, she will speak on her latest project, a biography of Ida Craddock. Surendra?”

Surendra strode to the podium and planted herself confidently before the microphone. She lifted her bridal veil.

“Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for coming. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Surendra Hickok. My passion is writing biographies. I’ve published two. The first, co-authored with my sister, was on the early twentieth-century astrologer, Evangeline Adams. Last year I completed a study of Wilhelm Reich, the renegade disciple of Freud and inventor of the orgone. I am now working on a biography of Ida Craddock. How many of you recognize that name?”

A number of hands went up. This impressed Cummings, as he had no idea who Ida Craddock was. He’d never heard of Evangeline Adams either. Wilhelm Reich’s name sounded somewhat familiar, though he was sure he couldn’t have accurately identified him.

“Ida Craddock was a nineteenth-century mystic and sexual explorer, born in Philadelphia in 1857. She would have been the first female admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, had the Trustees not blocked her admission. At around the age of thirty, she became active in the Theosophical Society. As most of you know, the Theosophical Society was founded in New York City in 1875 to investigate the nature of the universe and humanity’s place in it. In their sheltering arms Ida studied the sexual wisdom paths of various traditions, such as tantra.”

“What’s a sexual wisdom path?” Cummings whispered to Luther.

“I do not have any idea, but it does not sound Baptist,” Luther whispered back.

“Ultimately she said she had married and had an active sexual life with an angel named Soph,” Hickok continued. “Of course it is difficult for most of us to imagine this, but she seemed to be insistent about it. I’m wearing this wedding dress today to acknowledge Ida’s truth, even though I can’t claim to truly understand it myself. I’m also wearing the Craddock brooch.” She indicated a pendant on a chain about her neck. “It is said to have healing properties.

“Eventually Ida opened an office in Chicago to offer sexual counseling to married couples, a truly radical undertaking in Ida’s time. She wrote widely on the subject of marital sexuality, achieving sufficient notoriety by 1899 to run into legal persecution, notably from Anthony Comstock. He, of course, was the founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, a ruthless public moralist.

“She was convicted and sentenced to federal prison in 1902 and committed suicide the night before she was to begin her sentence.

“This overview cannot capture the full range of Ms. Craddock’s contributions to ...”

Surendra Hickok stopped and coughed. Cummings noticed that the smoke in the room seemed suddenly to have increased in density.

“They really might cut back on the incense,” Cummings thought.

“Craddock’s contributions to the ...” Surendra stammered, trying to continue. She couldn’t. She abruptly screamed. Her wedding dress had erupted in fire.

Cummings scanned the room. The cause of the smoke wasn’t the incense. The velvet drapes were smoking heavily and starting to flame.

Rutley Paik pulled off his morning coat and leapt at Surendra, attempting to smother the flames.

Tom tossed drinks and water at Surendra and then at the drapes.

Crandall and Sebastian called for help on their cell phones.

Winky shrieked and stood frozen, while Tom and Otto moved at great speed for no particular reason in no particular direction, bumping into the furniture and other Mathers members.

Anunciación ran toward the French doors in a panic and then hesitated, blocking the exit until Lolita pushed her out of the way.

The Scottish-Jewish hobbit
davenned
.

Meanwhile, the flames had begun to spread throughout the room.

Half an hour later, from the safety of the sidewalk across the street, the group of stunned Neo-Edwardians watched the Chicago Fire Department try to save what was left of the Red and White. Many Mathers members had minor injuries, mostly smoke inhalation, and were being treated by paramedics. No one was deemed sufficiently afflicted to require a trip to the hospital. The burnt remains of the one casualty, Surendra Hickok, were loaded into an ambulance.

Police circulated; they asked individuals what they had observed and took names and contact information. Finally they suggested that everyone go home.

“I think we may as well leave now,” Luther stammered to Cummings, his voice tremulous. “Yes, I think we may as well,” he repeated. Cummings nodded, and they turned in the direction of Cummings’s car.

Cummings felt a tug on his sleeve.

“I don’t think we’ve met—not exactly.” It was Otto Verissimo.

“I know who you are,” Cummings replied.

“Do you? And I know who you are. I recognize your name from the article in the
Tribune
. You’re that accomplished amateur detective.”

“Yes,” Cummings said.

“I need to consult you,” Otto said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “as soon as possible. Please!” Otto thrust an elegantly printed business card into Cummings’s hand and disappeared into the crowd.

The next morning Cummings was in the kitchen, perusing tea canisters as the summer sun rose to smother Chicago with another day of heat and humidity. Cummings and Odin were quite the tea aficionados and always kept twelve small numbered canisters of different varieties in their kitchen.

Cummings studied the canisters, trying to decide which tea he wanted. Unsure, he retrieved a pair of dice he kept in a drawer and threw them. The winner was canister four, Irish Breakfast Tea.

He had emailed Otto and set up an appointment for that afternoon. As his tea steeped he searched the Internet to see what he could find about Otto Verissimo.

It seemed that Otto was a very successful author, although an article in
Publishers Weekly
suggested that his books, like those of any number of other genre writers, were experiencing flat sales in the economic downturn. Otto’s husband, Sebastian Grinnell, whom he had married in Provincetown the year before, owned three thriving bars on Halsted Street in Lakeview, Chicago’s historic gay neighborhood, known colloquially as Boys Town. Even in the Great Recession of the early twenty-first century, this was not a couple struggling to pay the bills.