Matthew Pearl: The Last Dickens

“Stuff!” said Turner. “Never lose sight of the true blessings of public service. Each one of us is here to turn out a better civilization in the end, and for that reason alone.”

“Turner, about what happened today…” The younger man's face was white.

“What's wrong?” Turner demanded. “Luck was with us. That cobra might have done us both in.”

“Narain… the suspected dacoit. Well, shouldn't we, I mean, to collect up the names and statements of the passengers for our diaries so that if there is any kind of inquiry…”

“Suspected? Guilty, you meant. Never mind, Mason. We'll send one of the native men.”

“But, won't we, if Dickens, I mean…”

“What mumbling! You oughtn't chew your words.”

“Sir,” the younger officer enunciated forcefully, “considering for a moment Dickens-”

“Mason, that's enough! Can't you see I'm tired?” Turner hissed.

“Sir,” Mason said, nodding.

Turner's neck had become stiff and veiny at the sound of that particular name: Dickens. As though the word had been rotting deep inside him and now crawled back up his throat.

Boston, the same day, 1870

THE LABORERS CURSED THE MAYOR OF BOSTON AND THE SUM-mer heat and the governor of Massachusetts and the freed Negroes. And of course they cursed the ships. The freed Negroes cursed the same but substituted the Irish in their epithets.

In other months, some dockworkers sang. But in the summer they'd curse.

“Damn moss to hell!” said one laborer. He did not specify whether it was his own poor wages he was damning or the money lining the pockets of the cushion-faced rich folks whose goods they hauled.

A second laborer added: “Damn all moss! Straight to the devil!” At that, three cheers and another were called out in unison.

They didn't yet notice, walking across the pier, a large stranger dangling an ivory toothpick from his lips. His dark eyes darted ahead into the lanes of stevedores and express wagons. “Say!” he called out to the clique of Irish laborers, though he failed to attract their attention. Then he raised his gilded walking stick.

That did it.

At the top of the stick was an exotic and ugly golden idol, the head of a beast, a horn rising from the top, terrible mouth agape, sparks of fire shooting from its outstretched tongue. It was mesmerizing to behold. Not just because of its shining ugliness, but also because it was such a contrast to the stranger's own mouth, mostly hidden under an ear-to-ear mustache. The man's lips barely managed to pry open his mouth when he spoke.

“I need,” said the stranger, addressing the dockworkers, “to find a lad. Have you seen him? He wears a heavy suit and carries a bundle of papers.”

In fact, the dockworkers had seen a passerby fitting the description just a few minutes before. The young man had stopped at an overturned barrel outside the Salt House. Just to look at the fellow's thick suit added to the heat. Steadying himself with a self-conscious air, he had removed a bundle of papers tied up with black string from underneath the barrel and staggered through the pack of laborers. Naturally, they had cursed him.

“Well,” said the stranger when recognition came into their eyes. “Which way did he walk?”

The four dockworkers exchanged evasive glances. Not so much at his question, but at his decidedly English accent-and at his brown-parchment complexion. Under his hat, a chocolate-colored cotton turban stuck out. He wore a tunic-style garment that hung over the knees of his silk trousers, and a woolen cord was wrapped around the waist.

“You some kind of Hindoo?” a wiry laborer finally asked.

The swarthy stranger paused and took a momentous breath. He turned with only his eyes to the laborer who had proposed the question. With a sudden ferociousness, he thrust his stick against the laborer's neck and slammed his body down to the ground. His companions rushed in, but a single look from the attacker kept the would-be rescuers at bay.

That grotesque head had crooked, razor-sharp fangs. These were now biting into the soft flesh of the prostrate worker's jugular. A thin drop of blood trembled down his Adam's apple.

“Look at me. Look at me in the eye now,” the stranger said. “You'll tell me where you saw that lad go, or right here I rip your Dublin tongue out through your throat, God save us all.”

Fearing the fangs would dig deeper into his neck, the felled stevedore answered with a just perceptible motion. He raised his arm and pointed a shaky finger in the direction the young man had taken, his eyes closing in dread.

“Good boy, my young Paddy,” said the stranger.

No wonder the Irish laborer had closed his eyes. The stranger's teeth and lips, seen from that low vantage point, looked to be stained an unnaturally bright red. As though painted by blood. As if this man had just chewed up a rabid animal for breakfast.

Armed with the new information, the dark-eyed stranger soon regained the trail on the street leading away from Long Wharf and into Boston proper. There, straight ahead, weaving around the market carts of produce by Faneuil Hall, he spotted the one he was after. It was as though a strong wind were pushing the young man. His loco-motion was wild, his disoriented eyes urgent; if anyone had paid attention, it would seem that he was possessed of a mission-vital to Boston, vital to the world. He tossed back looks of concern as he hugged the water-stained packet tightly with both arms.

The pursuer pushed aside fish dealers and beggars through the aisles of Quincy Market.

“Beer by the glass!” cried a hawker before being jostled to the ground.

At the end of the market, as predator and prey crossed through the exit, the large hand had latched on to the other's sleeve.

“You'll be sorry you ran from me!” he growled, pulling him by the arm.

“No!” The earnest eyes of the young man lit up with defiance. “Os-good needs it!”

The lad's free arm rose as if to strike his assailant-at which gesture the enormous man did not even flinch. But instead of striking, the lad used the free hand to take hold of his own captured sleeve and pull down on the fabric, ripping his suit open at the shoulder. Freed from the stranger's clutches, he was sent pirouetting from the force across the street and almost to the safety of the other side.

An inhuman shriek combined with an awful cracking sound.

The stranger with the golden idol, panting at the bottom of his throat, pulled his rounded hat to shield his eyes from the clouds of dust as he stepped to the curb. For a moment he could not find the young man, but then he saw what had happened. When a large assortment of people had gathered, too many people , the watcher shuffled away as though he'd never had any interest.

THE SWARTHY STRANGER hadn't been the only one out hunting in the lusty traffic of the docks that morning. There were, at the moment, two or three others among the hives of workmen, wharf rats, and holiday-revelers. These were familiar faces on the docks, many mornings out before the stevedores. They were familiar most of all to each other, though odd as it sounded they didn't know one another's names.

Not their christened names, that is. There was Molasses, so titled humorously for his always harried pace. Esquire was a colored gentleman, a former cabman, who taught fencing and dancing in the Negro neighborhoods. Kitten was one of the females of this elite and grimy clique and could have charmed the drink right out of the hands of Whiskey Bill, another of their rivals.