Marc Olden - Poe must die

He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he shoved Poe aside into the people watching the argument. Quickly, Figg limped towards Miles Standish’s office. Damn that little bastard Poe. Why did he have to go and do that? Could have got himself knuckled good. Got the boot put to him. Why did he have to go and do that? Miss Rachel was turning Poe into a lunatic.

Jonathan could be at Figg’s fingertips; he could be that close, Mr. Standish would sing a pretty song. Figg would see to that.

At the bottom of the narrow staircase, Figg waited while three young men hurried down, passing him then rushing out into the street, disappearing into the crowd. One of the men carried a suitcase.

Damn Poe and his rotten temper.

At the top of the stairs, Figg waited until his eyes were used to the dim gaslight in the hall. Then he found Miles Standish’s office and opened the door.

The clerk lay facedown under his high desk. Blood seeped from under his head and chest and his crushed spectacles, lying between his legs, glittered in the golden sunlight shining through the window.

Miles Standish also lay facedown. His head was in the fireplace, submerged in orange flames and the smell of burning hair and flesh was sickening to Figg. In the fireplace and near the dead lawyer’s head, a woman’s yellow bonnet crumpled and blackened in the fire. Standish’s arms were spread wide, as though he were being cruicified. Both of his little fingers had been removed and his hands dripped dark pools onto the wooden floor. Somewhere behind Figg, a grandfather’s clock chimed two o’clock in the afternoon. The boxer blinked, then covered his nose against the smell coming from the fireplace.

Outside on Broadway, a nervous Figg breathed in cold air deeply, eyes darting left and right as he looked for Poe.

The poet had disappeared.

Rachel Coltman, numbed with fear and naked under the blanket casually tossed to her by one of the Irishmen, cringed in a corner of a filthy room in the Old Brewery.

She kept her eyes closed and listened.

“No laddie, she is not sleepin’,” said a male voice. “She has her nose turned to the wall so she’ll not be smellin’ the likes of you, Sean.”

The three men laughed.

“Bleak moll she is wouldn’t you say?” Murmurs of agreement. Bleak moll, a handsome woman.

“Love to give that one a flimp.”

“Sproul would drive steel through the back of yer neck and out yer mouth.”

“That’s a truth, me friend. Dear Hamlet is not a fellow to cross.”

“’E’s not a fella what holds his liquor. Flat on his face, Sproul is, huggin’ the earth down the hall. Grievin’ does that to a man, it does.”

More murmurs of agreement.

And then a harsh voice. “Hands off me diddle or I’ll snitchell yer gig.” Hands off my liquor or I’ll break your nose.

“’Ere now, we all took her clothes off so we all owns the liquor. Jesus God, what miserable stuff I’m drinkin’, but you know somethin’ boys? I love it, God in heaven above I love it.”

They all laughed.

Rachel shivered. Her clothing, the little jewelry she’d been wearing, all of it torn from her by the three Irish thieves as soon as they’d brought her to this small, dark cellar room. She burned with shame at the memory of their hands on her body, their leers, the vile things they’d said to her. Her clothing and jewelry had been sold for “Blue Ruin,” bad gin, which the men now drank as they sat around a table and played cards.

Dear God, dear God, she would die here. Die in the midst of the most terrifying nightmare she’d ever known.

She was a prisoner somewhere in the Old Brewery where men and women were stabbed for a handkerchief, where a child’s throat was cut for a penny. Her bare flesh rested on damp, black earth and she now guessed she was in the basement of the building, somewhere close to the hidden underground passages connecting the Old Brewery to the tenements scattered throughout the slums. The people living in this hellhole had long ago burned as firewood the floor that had once covered the ground beneath her.

He had said that Rachel would die here. Sproul who wore that monstrous knife on a leather thong around his neck, who claimed that Eddy Poe and this mysterious Jonathan had slaughtered his woman and two sons.

A liquor-slurred brogue came from dangerously close to her. “Warms ourselves with this goddam ‘Blue Ruin,’ we does and you know why? ‘Cause we ain’t got no gold-plated fireplace or fur trimmed cloak or no nigger servant to put the warmin’ pan in our fuckin’ beds like her in the corner has.”

“That’s ‘cause we ain’t got no fuckin’ beds.” More laughter.

“Seamus, come away from her. Come on, leave her alone.”

He was standing over her. Rachel smelled him. Liquor, the tobacco juice that had dripped down his shirt front. She clenched her teeth, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Dear God, don’t let him-

A hand clumsily stroked her hair.

“Seamus, I’ll be tellin’ you no more to come away from her.”

“Lovely little morsel, she is. I’m thinkin’ I would like a bite of her.”

“Hamlet would kill you, Seamus. Interfere with his revenge and you’ll end up on the sharp end of his knife. Know this for a fact.”

The hand quickly left her head. She heard him move away and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. From outside in the hall, she heard a baby cry and she heard the crash of a whiskey bottle shattering against a nearby wall. So far, they had not raped her. So far …

“Hamlet Sproul is a drunken madman.” It was the voice who had stroked her hair. “Killin’ a handsome woman like this one.”

“Has his reasons, he does. Same reasons that made him take her from her home and bring her ’ere. Same reasons that now have him drunk and passed out in ‘is room down the hall. Meets Ida’s sister and the sight of her makes him weep.”

“Makes him drink until he cannot stand. Ida’s sister is on the game, isn’t she?”

“Aye, she is. Been a mab since she was ten and now she’s fourteen and livin’ in this grand palace with ‘er ponce, she is. Lordy, this buildin’ is a sin against the eyes and nose.”

“For sure. But you can’t beat the rent. No spittin’ into the bottle, if you will be so kind. Cards please. Like to ask you lads a question, after I take a look at me cards. Damn!”

Rachel heard the cards being slammed to the table in disgust.

“Me question is, what does Mr. Sproul have in that sack he covered with earth and insists in sleepin’ near?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

A whisper.

Then silence.

Rachel waited, her eyes still closed.

“Oh I see,” said the brogue who had inquired about the sack. “I sees indeed. But if he’s gonna kill her, how does he expect her to pay for her husband’s body-”

“Ah, Seamus, bite your tongue and look at your cards. Will do our guest no good to hear of such things. May I tell you, lad, that you are a poor poker player and for that reason, may you find the time to visit us in the grand hotel more often.”

“‘Blue Ruin’ has addled me brain.”

“And made you a Billy Noodle, thinkin’ all the women love you.”

More coarse laughter. More drinking from the bottle.

A man broke wind and all three laughed and whooped. One said to Rachel. “Beggin’ yer pardon, yer ladyship. Please don’t send me to bed without me supper.”

Rachel, sick to her stomach, felt tears roll down her face and into the corners of her mouth, leaving a salt taste there. Justin. His body was here in the Old Brewery with Hamlet Sproul and soon her body would lie beside his. Oh God, oh God, why are these terrible things happening to me? Why am I suffering so?