Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet (19 page)

Pretty Girl

An overripe tomato splats against the side of the taxicab, and Nazan nearly jumps out of her skin. As the tomato's guts ooze down the window, she curses herself for being so easily rattled. Maybe Mother was right—she's just a girl, and she should stay home, keep well away from all the madness and misery on the streets.
No
, she thinks.
No.
That morning, Nazan had packed a bag, refusing to tell her mother why, and counted out her meager pocket money. She'd splurged on one of the city's red-and-green-paneled taxis because she knew time was running out.

“Sorry, miss,” says the cabbie. “Town of Gravesend ain't usually so disrespectable. Dunno why the natives are so restless today.”

Enraged citizens crowd the sidewalk, a phalanx of policemen on horseback only barely keeping them from spilling into the street. Nazan's stomach flip-flops. “I know why. It's the quarantine.”

“Sorry, miss, the what? Did you say—”

An old woman skirts past the police line and dives in front of the cab.

“Whoa! Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!” The cabbie stomps the brakes, stopping so quickly that Nazan nearly slides off the seat.

She sits back, brushing herself off in time to see the old woman shake her fist at the cab, her apple-doll face twisted in rage.

“You maggots!” she screams. “Who do you maggots think you—”

A police baton smashes the woman's head, and she drops to the street like laundry falling off a line. From atop his horse, the policeman waves the carriage on.

“You all right back there, miss? Terrible sorry about the quick stop—I didn't muss your pretty dress, did I?”

“I'm fine,” Nazan asserts. Perhaps if she says this enough, it will become true.

Before long, the cabbie has to stop the horse at the end of a line of horse-drawn wagons, panel trucks, and black Ford Models A through R. Men in khaki uniforms approach each vehicle in turn, leaning in the windows to converse with the drivers. One by one, the vehicles are allowed to pass or, more often, directed to turn around and head back into Brooklyn.

“What's all this, then?” the cabbie wonders.

Nazan knows. “The quarantine is starting.”

“Why would—oh, the Cough?”

She nods. “They're cutting off traffic onto Coney Island.”

“But ain't the Cough all around the town nowadays? What use is it to man or beast to tie off one hand from the other?”

Nazan shrugs. “You didn't hear? Someone tried to give the Cough to Roosevelt. They say it was anarchists.”

The cabbie turns around to face the backseat. “Jaysus, not our Teddy! They didn't do Teddy like they done McKinley?”

His distress is so genuine that Nazan reaches out to pat the cabbie on the arm. “He's fine. But the paper said that some of his aides took ill last night. As has Philander Knox, the attorney general. And Assemblyman Butler, a few others I forget. Probably more by now.”

“God almighty, just last night this was?”

Nazan nods. “The papers are blaming Coney—Sodom by the Sea and so on.”

“Jaysus and all the saints…”

“Did you really not hear?”

The cabbie shakes his head. “I'm a workin' man, miss. No time for papers. But why is a pretty thing such as yourself going toward such a place?”

“You sound like my mother. I have friends there—new friends, but still. And after today, you'll be on one side or the other, and that will be it. Everyone has to choose.”

Her own choice had been easy. She wasn't going to sit around in her parents' tearoom, getting older every day—not while there was so much going on in the real world.
So very much to learn
, Rosalind had told her. Nazan knows it's high time she finds out what that might be.

• • •

While the city seethes and rages, Archie enjoys a leisurely lunch under the chandeliers at Gage & Tollner, an extravagant restaurant in downtown Brooklyn. He holds court with an assortment of much younger swindlers and thieves. Archie has seen so many come and go, he no longer bothers to learn their names. All he needs to know is that
someone
is picking up the check, and it isn't him. He amiably stuffs himself with Lobster Newburg while they explain their plan to make the most of the quarantine.

Theirs is a black-market scheme, running food and sundries to the soon-to-be-locked-down population of Coney Island.
It's an all-right plan
, Archie thinks.
It's just so damn tedious
.

“And you see, Mr. Archibald,” one of them says, “we understand that you're in a position to travel back and forth across the quarantine easily. Is that…accurate?”

“I may have some friends in inappropriate places.”

“So what do you think? We'll cut you in. Say, 20 percent.” Someone else at the table coughs pointedly. “Maybe 17.5?”

Archie wipes his mouth with another man's napkin and tosses it on the table. “Let me see if I follow you boys. Your big idea is to sneak tins of beans and tubes of toothpaste over the quarantine line? Glorified grocery shopping? Is that really a job for grown men?”

The man shrugs. “People need toothpaste.”

“What you boys need is ambition.”

“Oh really?” one of the younger men challenges. “What's
your
big idea then?”

“What is this, confidence-scheme kindergarten?” But he leans back in his chair, relishing the attention despite himself. “Okay, fine. Maybe lobster makes me expansive. Here's lesson one: never have one big idea—have multiple ideas. You never know what'll fall apart and what'll take off. Next, you're thinking too small.
People need toothpaste.
Sure, but nobody
cares
about toothpaste. They can get toothpaste from anybody. What do they really care about?”

None of the younger men has the answer.

“People are dying, boys. They're dropping like fleas out there. People are afraid. What they want, therefore, is to
not be dying
. Otherwise known as living.
Truly
living, in the moment, for right now. Living like you do when the world is ending.”

“But,” one of the men says, “you can't sell that.”

“You're kidding, right?” Archie sighs. “It's the only thing worth selling.”

He checks the time on his pocket watch and stands up. “I appreciate the offer—really, I do. But you can keep your 17.5 percent of the toothpaste market. Me, I have to see a man about a lion.”

• • •

There's a crisp knock on the side of the taxi. A man with a bushy black mustache and a crisp khaki uniform leans in. He wears a wide-brimmed hat and a badge marked Pinkerton National Detective Agency. “What's your reason to cross?”

“'Tis me employ and calling to do so,” the cabbie replies.

“Best rethink it,” the man says. “Unless you intend to live under the Ferris wheel for the foreseeable future.”

Nazan leans forward. “Sir, I've hired this gentleman to take me across—he needs only drop me off, and he'll return immediately.”

The man shakes his head. “Sorry, miss. We're letting about a minute's worth of vehicles through, and then it's over.”

“But, sir, I have to—”

The man has already stopped listening. “No hot dogs today, little girl. Off you go.” He smacks the cab door and points. “Turn around over there.”

The cabbie turns around. “Miss,” he says, not unkindly. “You've had yourself a nice adventure, but it's time to go home.”

“No, you don't—”

“Coney Island's too rough a place for you on a good day, never mind with all this going on. You're a just pretty young thing. You should be—”

Nazan's eyes flash. “Yes, call me pretty
one more time
.”

A white vehicle behind them gives out an impatient
ah-ooh-gah
, insisting the hansom cab get out of the way. Men in khaki wave grumpily at the cabbie that he should pull forward.

“I'm sorry, darlin'.” The cabbie turns back around. “But I have a family too. I can't be risking getting caught on the wrong side,
especially
not with some pretty little—”

Nazan snaps. “I don't care what you think, you cowardly old Mick! I am not going anywhere!”

In moments, Nazan has been deposited on the corner, and the cab takes off in a huff. “Sorry…” she calls. “Oh well.”

She looks around. At what is now literally the end of the street, a platform has been hastily erected. Half a dozen burly men stand on the platform, gazing blankly at the crowd like resentful Unusuals in a freak show. Unusuals don't wear Pinkerton uniforms, though, and they don't have rifles slung over their shoulders. A hostile audience of Gravesenders stands on the street below them, staring up at this most unwelcome of performances.

One Pinkerton man, smaller and more officious than the goons surrounding him, stands in the center of the platform. He lifts a bullhorn to address the crowd. “CONEY ISLAND IS UNDER QUARANTINE,” he announces. “PUBLIC GATHERINGS ARE UNSAFE. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES. CONEY ISLAND IS UNDER QUARANTINE…”

All around, people fume and mutter to one another, complaints swirling like an angry summer wind. Some fear being closed off from the fishing boats that work the waters of Long Island Sound.
How shall we eat?
Many have jobs on the Coney side, which they'll now not be able to reach.
How shall we live?

A sad-eyed old man standing near Nazan shakes his head. “This no America,” he says to no one in particular. “This no America mine.”

• • •

Archie takes a trolley from downtown to Gravesend but finds he can ride no farther. The quarantine is on, all the streets are blocked, and Coney is sealed off from Brooklyn. Unless, of course, you are in possession of some rather colorful information about one of the city contractors who maintains the Brooklyn sewer lines—a memorable tale involving the contractor, three belly dancers, and a bishop. In which case, Coney is perhaps not
entirely
sealed off.

Making his way through the festering near-riot that surrounds the blockade, Archie spots a young woman who looks familiar. He can't quite place her—really, twenty-year-olds all look alike these days—but he knows that he knows her. With her small piece of luggage, she looks like she's going on a weekend holiday, but her expression suggests she's forgotten where exactly. She looks lost, like she needs a savior. Or a partner.

Archie sizes her up. She's pretty if you're not too picky. She'd most likely get prettier if somebody convincingly told her she could be. The Mediterranean features are a bit of a problem; the Brit was better—every door opens to a face like hers. But still. He supposes he can spin her complexion as “exotic.” Worked all right with Yeshi, all those years ago.

“Pardon me, miss,” he says to her. Archie turns on his Southern affectation full blast. “Do you and I know each other?”

The young lady turns, first startled then relieved. “You're Archie! We met at Magruder's a few days ago. I was with Rosalind when Bernard…you know.”

Archie smiles too widely. “Oh, of course! You're Spencer Reynolds's little friend.”

She offers her hand, but she frowns. Not her favorite description ever. “Nazan Celik.”

“Of course, forgive me for not recalling. So what brings you here to the end of the world, Miss Celik?”

“Trying to get to Magruder's to…see everyone, I guess. To see if I can help? But I can't seem to get past the quarantine.”

Archie scoffs. “The quarantine is not a problem. Did you ever hear the one about the contractor, the belly dancers, and the bishop? Trust me, I can get you past the quarantine.” He takes the carnation out of his lapel and hands it to her. “Question is, what can you do for me?”

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

Rosalind groans and rolls out of bed. Between the disturbing visions of Enzo's captivity haunting his dreams and the violent sawing and hammering sounds drifting down from Timur's lab, more sleep is not an option. He goes to the water closet to draw a bath. As he passes the stairs to the lab, he shouts up, “Keep it down! It's barely dawn!”

“Bah!” is the only reply. And more hammering.

Rosalind grunts. At least Timur's experiments in chemistry and electricity, while smelly and life-threatening, had been largely silent.

After a bath that should have been relaxing but was somehow not at all so, Rosalind pulls on his silk robe and heads down to the Cabinet, his hair still wet. There's something that needs to be done, and unpleasant as it is, Rosalind knows it simply can't be put off any longer.

He fishes around in a drawer underneath the flea circus display. “Where are you?” he mutters.

When Zeph rounds the corner in his cart, Rosalind turns around guiltily, hands behind his back.

“Good morning, Zeph.”

“Morning, Ros. It's okay. I fed 'em earlier.”

Rosalind holds up the jar he'd been hiding. P-Ray's fleas. “You
fed
them?”

“'Course I did.” Zeph scratches his left hand, polka-dotted with bites. “Ain't an altogether enjoyable experience.”

“I was going to drown them in the sink!”

“What would ya do that for?”

“They're fleas! The Committee wouldn't have come here if it weren't for them. The Cough
itself
wouldn't even… Zeph, how can you
feed
them?”

“Now, Ros…” Zeph moves his cart forward so that he can pat Rosalind's arm. “I think you're getting yourself a little worked up here. Little man's been keeping those fleas long before this all started. You're right—there's bugs in this town that owe us one hell of an apology. But it ain't these little guys' fault.”

“It's
all
their fault.”

“No, no. Now, put 'em back in the drawer.”

“Zeph—”

“I won't have our boy come home to find his pets all got murdered. Come on, now.”

“But,
Zeph…
” Rosalind meets his eyes. Zeph isn't kidding. Rosalind sighs. He tosses the jar back in the drawer and slams it shut. “It's madness is what it is.”

“Yeah, little man can always get himself more fleas. Still—”

“No,” Rosalind says sharply. “It's madness to pretend they're ever coming home.”

“Aw, hey. We'll figure something out. As we speak, Timur's upstairs working on something.”

“I know. I can barely hear myself think because of it. But what could he possibly build? They're in a hospital. An
island hospital
you can't leave…a prison?” Rosalind laughs a little crazily and then starts to cry. “A pris-pital.”

“They aren't sick, Ros,” Zeph says gently. “They're fine.”

“Correction: they weren't sick the last time we saw them. By now? Who knows?”

“Aw, please don't cry.”

“You don't understand!”

“Ros—”

“We split! Enzo and I. We argued—about my outfit! How foolish is that? And I told him…I told him I didn't want to see him. That was the last thing I said to him, Zeph.” He sobs. “The very last thing…”

“I'm sure he knows you didn't mean it. Please,
please
don't cry. Listen, have you eaten anything since…you know, have you eaten?”

Rosalind wipes his eyes. “I had some champagne at the assassination last night.”

“Go upstairs and dress. I'll fix you something, okay? Meet me down in the tavern.”

Rosalind looks away. “Enzo made lovely dinners for me.”

“Yeah, I don't really—”

The tears start again. “
Zuppa di pesce, melanzane alla parmigiana
…”

“How about grits?”

Rosalind glares at Zeph. “Enzo is a brilliant cook. You're a terrible cook.”

“I'm the cook you got, darlin'.” A knock at the door. “Who is it now? Look, Ros, will you just get dressed, please? And stop snufflin'. I can't take it.”

He wheels himself through the black curtain and opens the door. Archie stands there with Nazan at his elbow. “Zeph! Look who I found on the Gravesend side.”

“Miss Nazan,” Zeph says, grinning. “What are you doing here?”

She grins back. “I just thought I should check on you? Is this a bad time?”

“No, no, of course not. It's just…well, I'm sure happy to see you.”

“And I you, Mr. Zeph.”

“You look lovely. I mean—” He flushes.

The two smile at each other awkwardly. Archie rolls his eyes. “Bless your hearts, isn't this precious?”

“Yeah. Uh, hello, Archie,” Zeph says. “You want something?”

He nods. “We need to talk.”

• • •

Down in the tavern, Zeph hauls a cast-iron pot over to the table and hoists it up. “There we go, just like mama used to make.” He climbs on a chair, handing out plates to Rosalind, Nazan, and Archie. Zeph pulls off his gloves and places them neatly by his own plate. Over grits and the few lobster tails left in the icebox, he fills Nazan in on the past few days of lunacy at the Cabinet.

“Oh no, poor little P-Ray! And Miss Kitty—imagine going through all that when her mother isn't even on the island.” Nazan looks over at Rosalind, who is forlornly pushing food around on his plate. “And Mr. Enzo too. Zeph and Doctor Timur will get him back somehow, I know it.”

Rosalind just looks away.

Archie grows bored of all the tea and sympathy. “
Any
how…Zeph, the quarantine presents us with a number of interesting opportunities…”

“How fortunate for you.” Rosalind's voice is ice. “To have so many interesting opportunities.”

“Yeah, yeah, you call me
vile
, I call you a
fruit
, you storm out, et cetera and so on. Can we skip that part today? Look, Frank Bostock has a menagerie full of exotic animals that nobody wants to see. And if nobody wants to see them, there's no income coming in. They're too expensive to care for and too expensive to move. So Bostock is looking to…divest himself…some other way.”

Zeph laughs as he wipes his plate clean with a piece of bread. “You're going into the wild animal business, Archie? Good luck to ya.”

“Good luck to the animals.” Rosalind slowly, deliberately, stabs a bit of lobster with his fork. “Perhaps one of them will eat you.”

“You almost got it,” Archie says with his mouth full. “Except it's not the
animals
who are going to eat
me
…” He looks at them expectantly.

Nazan gasps. “What? That's horrible! We don't eat lions and tigers!”

“Come on now, Archie,” Zeph says. “She's right. Folks don't do that.”

“It's the plague, Zeph. People are scared.
You could be dead tomorrow. Why not have a one-of-a-kind meal today?
That's the pitch. The way I see it, the richer people are, the higher off the hog they'll want to live. Can't live any higher off the hog than eating the king of beasts. Bostock will put the animals down; we'll butcher 'em up and sell to the highest bidder.”

“Archie,” Rosalind says, “if you're so bored of me describing you as
vile
, you should consider—”

“Let's be clear,” he interrupts. “Bostock is putting those animals down either way. He can dump them in Coney Island Creek, or we can make a profit.”

“We?” Zeph groans. “How did
we
get mixed up in this?”

“You have the space, and Timur has the equipment. I have the contacts, but I can't do it alone.”

“You sure are doing it alone,” Zeph replies, “and you sure as
hell
aren't doing it here.”

“If we sell the steaks on Central Park West and the organs in Chinatown, we should do nicely. I figure you two”—he gestures at Nazan and Zeph—“can pitch in by making little speeches about how people eat lions and tigers all the time where you come from.”

Nazan frowns. “I come from Tenth Avenue.”

“All right, Miss Wisenheimer, you know what I—”

“And I will never help you.”

Archie stands up. “I think you will.”

“Pardon me?”

“I said I'd bring you to Magruder's, and I did. Which means you owe me.”

Nazan's eyes widen. “But I—Zeph, I never told him I'd—”

Zeph shakes his head. “Don't worry. You ain't going anywhere.”

Archie takes Nazan's arm and pulls her out of her chair. “Actually, you—”

Rosalind leaps up, sending the plates clanking against each other. “You take your hands off her!”

“Surely you understand quid pro—”

“And surely
you
understand that if you aren't out of my sight in ten seconds, I'm going to pluck your eyes out and toss them in these grits.”

“Don't be ridic—”

“Try me. The taste can only be an improvement.”

“Hey now…” Zeph protests.

“I'll do it,” Rosalind warns. “You leave Nazan alone, or I will hurt you.”

Archie scoffs. “You're a little boy wearing his mother's clothes!”

“Look at me.” Rosalind speaks very quietly. “Look at the way I choose to live. Ask yourself just how tough a person has to be to live like this.”

Archie meets Rosalind's eyes but quickly looks away. “Fine, forget it. I've got plenty of other irons in the fire. Lots of other plans, don't you worry about me.”

“I'll do my best,” Rosalind replies coldly.

Archie gazes down at Nazan with distaste. “There are a million girls just like you, you know. Greater New York is crawling with them.” He glares defiantly at Rosalind. “She's your problem now.”

• • •

Nazan washes the dishes while Rosalind dries. They don't talk about the confrontation with Archie, but every time Nazan hands Rosalind a dish, she mentally inscribes it with
thank you
. Meanwhile, Zeph putters around the tavern's tiny pantry, fretting over the dwindling supplies.

“What are we gonna eat with a quarantine on? Not lions, that's for sure.”

“We'll figure something out,” Nazan reassures him.

Zeph laughs at her confidence. “When'd you get so bold, Miss Nazan? Running off on your mama like that?”

“My mother would complain that I've always been bold,” she says with a smile. “Maybe you're just getting to know me. Besides, it seems to me Rosalind was the truly bold one.”

Rosalind puts some dry plates away. “I hate bullies,” he says. “And I didn't care to lose anyone else.”

Zeph sighs at the sight of yet another empty shelf. “Of course, this quarantine lasts too long, we may need his eyeballs.” He climbs up on the counter beside the sink. “But say what you want about that ol' vulture: Archie did bring you across, didn't he? A
good
person woulda behaved himself and obeyed the quarantine.”

“True,” Nazan agrees. “Huzzah for misbehavior.”

Zeph smiles at Nazan shyly. “Exactly.”

Rosalind watches the two of them: glancing at one another, looking away, blushing. He's suddenly overwhelmed with jealousy—of their youth, of their obvious rapport, of the way the world looks when you're at the beginning of something. He tosses the dish towel to Zeph. “I'm going to lie down. Fetch me if you hear from Reynolds. He promised he'd find his father and speak to him about Enzo and P-Ray.”

“Sure, you go rest. We'll handle things.”

Nazan gives Zeph a plate to dry. “Poor Rosalind. He's bereft.”

“Yep, Ros and Enzo, they're…ah…they're a little different.”

“Different is okay. I like different.”

Zeph and Nazan clean in silence, both painfully aware, all of a sudden, that they've been left alone.

“I have a question,” Nazan says after a moment. “If Mrs. Hayward isn't on Hoffman Island, then where is she?”

“How about this: bellboy says they've got her at the Manhattan Beach Hotel, down the other end of Coney.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “That's what he says. Bunch of kids took her. Kidnapped her? Or rescued her? Both, I guess. Before the authorities could take her away.”

“And she's still there? Is she alive?”

“Don't know about that. But that's what he told us.”

Nazan drops her dishrag in the soapy water. “What are we waiting for?”

Zeph shakes his head, uncomprehending. “I'm not—”

“We should go find her! Shouldn't we?”

“What, you and me?”

“Why not, Zeph? We can't reach Kitty, but we can surely reach a hotel up the street.”

He looks at her. “Even if we find her, what'll we do?”

“I don't know—depends on what we find, I guess. But we can try, can't we?” Nazan grins. “Bold, right? Time to be bold.”