Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets (2 page)

“The Empress,” Yvonde sang as she slid the card toward me. “Lovely thing that you can never touch. Wouldn’t want to get her pretty blonde hair dirty with those dark hands of yours, would we? Not that she’s noticed you. She’s too busy with her eyes on some other prize.”

The old gypsy slammed her knuckles on the next card, a sound like a gunshot. I didn’t jump, but my hand flew to a sidearm that was no longer there.

“The Devil! You seek him out, but beware, little soldier. Hellfire awaits you down this path.”

“Hellfire,” I whispered, “is behind me.”

Her lip hitched up in an ugly sneer, smoke curling up from the pipe. “Sure it is, soldier.”

The curtain behind Madame Yvonde twitched with a breeze, and I coughed at the smells stirred around. The pipe, the reefer. Shalimar perfume. Maybe the black powder was my imagination, but that tent filled with the odor of sulfur. Shots fired more than a decade before rang out in my ears. Shells and screams, and a woman singing along with Duke Ellington.

I stared at the Empress and let my fingers trace the inked lines of her face. I wasn’t thinking of the blonde slinking into the tent, but I growled just the same. “Damned old gypsy.”

“Still want to smile and tell me you don’t believe? Or are you going to pass me another of those crisp new bills so I can give you
real
wisdom?”

Agent Trenet had come in silent as night, but when she spoke her voice was loud like the crack of dawn. “Or you could drop the bullshit.”

My partner stood behind the Seer. A straight razor gleamed in the candlelight, poised against Yvonde’s throat.

The Seer’s eyes rolled back in her head and fluttered dreamily as she drew in a long breath through her nose. With an obscene purr, Yvonde clutched at my partner’s hand. When she spoke, her voice was a low, throaty rumble. “Oh, Adele, it is wonderful to see you again.”

“You haven’t seen me, Sanford, your eyes are closed.”

Agent Adele Trenet pocketed her razor and stepped away from Yvonde, leaving me more than a little befuddled.

“Sanford?” I asked.

Yvonde opened her eyes. Agent Trenet tugged at the scarf on the gypsy’s head, removing both scarf and wig in one gesture. Russet curls sprouted from beneath a shoddy bald cap. And now, without the cover of all the rags about her head, I noticed Yvonde’s very prominent Adam’s apple.

“Sanford?” I repeated.

“Crash,” the gypsy said. Now that I listened, the voice couldn’t be anything other than a man’s.

“His name,” Trenet said sharply, “is Sanford Haus.”

Yvonde/Sanford took the agent’s hand in both of his. “Now, now, Pinky,” he said, dropping his lips to the backs of Trenet’s fingers. “You know how I loathe that name.”

“And you know I hate it when you call me Pinky.”

Trenet tried to pull her hand away, but Sanford held fast.

“Let us have a look, shall we?” The gypsy turned Trenet’s hand over in his and peered into her palm. Though he only traced the lines there with a single finger, the act was potent with meaning and lust. It made me uncomfortable to watch.

“Oh, what’s this I see?” Sanford sang cheerfully. “You’re hunting again, Adele. Looking for something to make you whole and fill you up.”

My partner rolled her eyes.

“And I see just what you need,” Sanford said. He looked up at her like a wicked puppy. “A man, strapping and brilliant. One you’d travel to the ends of the earth to find. And it seems you have found him.”

As the fortune teller brought his lips to her hand again, Trenet wrenched loose. “Never, Sanford.”

“Crash,” he whined, bounding up from his chair. He tossed a cloak of scarves and rags to the floor, and stood at his proper height. His capped head brushed the ceiling of the tent. I boggled at how only moments ago, he’d folded most of that lanky frame into the image of a hunchbacked hag.

“Agent Trenet, who is this?” I asked.

Before she could answer, the gypsy spun to face me and thrust his hand across the table. “Vagabond. Performer. Owner and proprietor of Soggiorno Brothers Traveling Wonder Show. I am Crash.”

“He’s a thief and a liar,” Trenet spat. She tossed a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes and put some distance between her and Sanford Haus.

Rather than bristle at the accusations, Haus smiled. He lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug and regarded me with interest. “And you, soldier boy? Have you a name?”

I winced as I got to my feet. Shook his hand as I replied, “Jim Walker.”

“Jim? Well, isn’t that just dandy?”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“Know?”

“That I am a—was”—I corrected myself quickly—“a soldier? All that stuff about South Carolina? Alabama? Did she tell you?”

Trenet plopped into the chair I’d just vacated and crossed her arms over her chest. “Here we go.”

“You walk with a stiff leg,” said Haus as he began to divest himself of Madame Yvonde’s ample hips. “The footprint of your right is significantly deeper than that of your left. You’ve had an injury of some sort that has led to amputation. While that might be more common for a farmer, you dress too well for someone working the fields. You’re of an age to have served in the Great War, so I can presume soldier.”

Haus shimmied out of the costume while he explained. Beneath all those rags and scarves was a stained undershirt, brown trousers and suspenders. Sanford’s arms were ropy sinew and milk-white marble. He threw off the bald cap and tousled his red curls.

“Now, there are very few regiments that are accepting of negroes. It’s clear by your accent that you are a northerner. There was one regiment from the North that saw enough fire that might account for your leg, and that was the 369
^th
out of New York. They mustered in South Carolina. I made a very educated guess that you had been part of Harlem’s Hellfighters. You confirmed this suspicion when I needled you about Hellfire.”

My jaw hung open. “You... that’s...”

But he went on, enjoying the sound of his own voice. “After you returned from the war, you spent some time at Tuskegee in Alabama. I can tell that by the ring on your right hand, with the school’s seal.”

“Incredible,” I gasped.

“Now we get to the fun part. When you fished out your money, you made the mistake of flashing your badge. I am more than familiar with Pinkerton Agents,” he said with a nod to Trenet. “Considering our previous associations, I could only assume that Adele was with you. I stacked the cards and played to that knowledge by giving you The Empress.”

“And the Devil?”

Sanford Haus bowed. “I am what I am.”

Agent Trenet let out a whoop of laughter. “You only wish, Haus.”

“My wish has already been granted,” he smirked, sliding his thumbs up and down his suspenders. “You’re here, Adele. To what do I owe the honor?”

“Well, for starters, your brother sends his regards.”

Haus flopped into his chair and rested a boot on the old table. Taking another drag from his pipe, he muttered something dark that should never be said in front of a lady. “How is dear Leland?”

“Leland Haus?” I blurted out. “The head of the Secret Service? If that’s your family, Mr. Haus, that would make you a very rich man.”

Sanford’s smug grin and flippant wave of his hand was all the confirmation I needed.

Agent Trenet nodded. “Sometimes Director Haus prefers to keep an eye on his wayward sibling, make sure he’s keeping his nose clean while playing dressup in the gutter.”

“I’m happy here,” Sanford snapped. “Leland needn’t worry his tender sensibilities about little old me.”

“He hopes you’ll come home and—”

“Yes, I’m sure he does. Now, Adele, why are you really here? I hardly think Leland’s mommy complex would be just cause to send a couple of Pinks all this way. What do you have?”

Trenet smiled despite herself. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she produced a photograph and held it to her forehead. Mimicking a spiritualist, she called out, “I see the Hermit.” She slapped the picture onto the table.

Sanford gave the picture the most meager of glances. “A dead hobo. What of it?”

“Ah-ha!” Agent Trenet fished out another photo and laid it beside the first. “He was murdered with this.”

When his gaze took in the knife in the picture, Sanford Haus went still and silent. He steepled his hands beneath his chin and pondered, his eyes gone hard. He stared and stared at the photographs, unflinching and barely breathing. For long minutes, the only sounds came from the midway outside, muffled by the tent. When the carousel started up a new waltz, my partner turned her own leer onto the gypsy.

“Problem, Sanford?”

This shook him from his reverie.

“Crash,” he chided.

Then he was up, gathering all the pieces of Madame Yvonde from the floor. “This is a conversation for the back yard. Dear Adele. Mr. Dandy”—he thrust the bundle of rags into my chest—“follow me, if you please.”

He proceeded to lurch through a tent flap hidden behind a map of the human skull. I followed, watching as he once again unfolded that beanpole frame. I drew in a breath of clean, fresh air. The night was cool and breezy: a welcome change from the musky tent.

Stretching out those long legs of his, Sanford took off at a brisk walk, leading us through a maze of tents, ropes and canvas stalls. Soon, the music and hustle of the carnival fell away to background noise and I found myself in a small shantytown. Trucks, wagons, tractors, even a couple of repurposed box cars. Few people lingered here, but those who did were obviously carnies. Here a woman in a sequined costume shared a cigarette with a dwarf. There, a man broad as an elephant scraped the last of his dinner from a tin plate.

Haus brushed off the occasional call of, “Hey, Crash!” without acknowledgement. As we passed a chuck wagon, Sanford piped up, “Mrs. Hudson!”

A dwarf with wild copper hair and an ample bottom raised her head. “What’ll it be, boss?”

“Three coffees as black as my soul, if you please.”

“Don’t know that I’ve got anything that dark, Crash, but I’ll see what I can rustle up. And will there be anything for your guests?” she joked.

Sanford gave Mrs. Hudson a wry grin. “Where’s Arty?”

“Last I saw he was tagging along with a couple of bally broads and a butcher. He should be at the kiddie show by now, though.”

“If you’d be so kind as to send Mars on over to the kiddie show, then. I need to have a word with Arty
tout suite
.”

“Aye, Crash,” Mrs. Hudson said as she waddled away from her cart.

Sanford hadn’t broken stride. I struggled to keep up, my prosthetic leg wobbling and chafing.

With a leap, he took three stairs up to the door at the back of a gypsy wagon. The thing had been cobbled together with various pieces of other things. I recognized the eaves of a farmhouse, a wall built of aluminum, a couple of railroad ties. The door had come from some apartment or other. The numbers 221 clung to the peeling paint, as defiant as Sanford ‘Crash’ Haus himself.

He pulled a key from a chain around his neck and unlocked the door. “Good sir, gentle lady, I welcome you to my home.” With a wide, sweeping gesture, he indicated we should enter.

As the door shut behind us, I dropped Madame Yvonde to the floor and hobbled to the nearest chair. The ache in my leg had become a tight vice, a hot brand of pain settling around the joint where my knee had once been. If the bone-deep throbbing was any indication, we might get rain soon.

Sanford rooted around and produced a cigar box. Opening it, he offered it to me. “Would you like some?”

I blinked at the papers and mossy green herb therein. “I’m sorry?”

“For the pain, obviously. If you’ve need of something stronger I can provide that as well.”

I waved him off. “No, thank you. Not while I’m working.”

He snapped the box closed. “Talk to me, Adele. What do you know?”

“The vagrant was Enoch Drebber. Before the Crash, he was an accountant in Salt Lake City. He and his family lost quite a lot, though. They became Lizzie tramps, traveling, looking for work. Then the family car busted and they took up with a Hooverville outside of Omaha, just in time for that mammoth dust storm to plow through this month.”

Two quick knocks on the door interrupted Agent Trenet’s story. Haus opened the door where Mrs. Hudson stood with three tin cups on a wooden platter. She gave a bow and exaggerated flourish. “Your service, dear sir!”

Haus moved lithely through the cramped space of his wagon, fetching the cups and doling them out to Trenet and myself. “Excellent, Mrs. Hudson. Thank you.”

“Johnny is on his way to take Arty’s place. When I see the kid I’ll send him your way.”

“Fantastic.”

The dwarf’s eyes landed on me and sparkled with lascivious delight. “Crash, do call if there’s anything your guests need. And I do mean
anything
.”

Mrs. Hudson gave an impolite wiggle of her rounder virtues and rolled back into the night.

Trenet smiled into her cup of coffee. “Well, well.”

Haus shut the door. “You were saying. Mr. Drebber found himself outside of Omaha, destitute and most dead.”

“Yes,” Agent Trenet continued. “Well, it so happens that his death coincides with the date your particular mud show slunk out of town.”

“Coincidence.”

“Perhaps, Sanford—”

“Crash.”

“—but it’s not the first crime to turn up on your route. Three weeks before that, Mary Watson was kidnapped less than a quarter mile from your tent. Pinkerton agents are still looking for her.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Two weeks before that, Calvin Bailey was found dead.”

“Calvin Bailey? We oil-spotted him in Duluth!”

“Oil-spotted?” I asked.

Haus rolled his eyes. “Oil-spotted. Red-lighted. Means we left him behind and all he saw was the oil spot where the truck had been.”

“He worked for you?” Trenet asked.

“Until I found out he was using his job as a balloon vendor to find little girls, yes. As I say, we left him behind.”

“Well, he was found dead on the Kansas-Missouri state line.”

“Serves him right,” Crash said, rolling a cigarette. “Wasn’t me or mine, I’ll tell you that. We’re no Sunday School, but we generally keep clean.”