Robert McCammon - Mister Slaughter

"That would tend to annoy," Matthew observed.

"Exactly. Well, as I knew what van Kowenhoven desired and I have sufficient influence to make it happen, I concluded an agreement with him before the gavel's last fall. Thus I have possession of Zed for four years-and we are currently in the fifth month of the third year-after which he becomes the sole property of van Kowenhoven and I presume will do the work of a half-dozen men for the remainder of his life."

"And just what was it he wanted?" Matthew asked.

"It has taken awhile, but the next street laid down by our good Mayor French will be christened van Kowenhoven. It's already on the new map."

Greathouse said with a sneer, "Son of a-"

"Sir!" Berry told him sharply. "None of that!"

He glowered at her, but his storm ebbed and he scratched the back of his neck so hard Matthew thought he was going to draw blood.

"I presume that tears it," Matthew said, with a quick glance at Zed. The slave was now arranging the instruments into his master's toolbox, which had served many of the best deceased of New York's society as well as the lowest ex-lifes. It was a shame, really, that a man of Zed's abilities should spend his life hauling timbers and tar barrels, but this particular path had come to its end.

"Wait a moment!" said Greathouse, as if reading Matthew's mind. "How much money are we talking about? To buy him from van Kowenhoven?"

"Zed went from the block for thirty-two pounds and six shillings. More than half my salary for one year. Plus, knowing van Kowenhoven, he'd want a profit on his investment, if he could be induced to sell."

Greathouse's mouth was still hanging open. "Thirty-two pounds?" It was a tremendous sum to be paid in one offering.

"As I said, I certainly wasn't the only bidder and neither was van Kowenhoven. When men like Cornelius Rambouts and John Addison entered the fray, it became more of a personal competition than a business purchase."

Matthew was thinking what he could do with thirty-two pounds. Pay off all his debts, buy some new suits, and have a small fireplace built in his dairyhouse, since it appeared that Marmaduke wasn't going to spring for it before the first cold blow. Plus there'd be enough left for a few months of meals and ale at the Trot. How some people could throw so much money away astounded him.

"I could probably raise seven or eight pounds," Greathouse said, his brow furrowed. "Maybe ten, at the most."

"Your spirit and intention are commendable, sir," said McCaggers, with a slight bow. "There would be a further cost. Just last month Daniel Padgett applied for a writ of manumission from Lord Cornbury for his slave Vulcan, that the man might open a blacksmith's shop. It's my understanding that Cornbury demanded and received ten pounds for his signature."

"Son of a-" Greathouse paused. When Berry didn't speak up, he finished it: "Bitch!"

"I'm sorry," McCaggers told him. "But things are as they are."

Greathouse started to speak again, but Matthew saw all the wind and bluster go out of him, for there was simply no more to be said. Matthew assumed that Katherine Herrald had left him some money to run the office, of course, but that sum was certainly out of the question. He knew it, Greathouse knew it, and so did McCaggers.

At last Greathouse said, to no one in particular, "I suppose we'll be going." Then he tried one last time, as was his nature to beat against stone walls: "Do you think if van Kowenhoven knew what kind of talent Zed had, he'd listen to reason?"

"You can try," came the reply, "but it would probably just make him raise the price."

"All right. Thank you." Greathouse watched Zed at work for a moment longer and then abruptly turned toward the door.

Matthew was about to follow when Berry posed a question to the coroner: "Pardon me, but I'd like to know can Zed read or write?"

"Not English, but perhaps his own language. He's never had cause to either read or write in the work he does for me. All he does is follow instructions, given verbally and by handsigns."

"Then, if I may ask, how are you so sure of his intelligence?"

"Two reasons," said McCaggers. "One, he follows instructions precisely. And two, there are his drawings."

"Drawings?" Berry asked, as Greathouse stopped at the door and looked back.

"Yes. Here are some." McCaggers crossed the room and retrieved a few sheets of paper from atop the bookcase. "I don't think he'd mind if I showed them," he said, though Zed had turned around in his chair and was watching with what might be called intense scrutiny, so much that Matthew felt the flesh crawl at the back of his neck for fear the man might decide his drawings were not for the eyes of strangers.

McCaggers brought the papers to Berry, and she took them. Now it was Matthew's turn to look over her shoulder, and Greathouse walked back to them to also take a gander.

"He's done a score of them," McCaggers explained. "Using my black crayons. And broken them like tindersticks too, I might add."

It wasn't difficult to see why. Some of the strokes had actually torn through the paper. But now Matthew knew why Zed spent so much time on the roof of City Hall.

The first drawing was a view of New York and the Great Dock, as seen from Zed's vantage point. Only it wasn't exactly the town and the dock that Matthew saw everyday; those thick waxy black lines of buildings and canoe­like shapes of sailing vessels appeared to be from a more primitive world, with the circle of the sun a line gone round and round until obviously the crayon's point had snapped to leave an ugly smear across the scene. It looked forbidding and alien, with black lines spouting from the squares of chimneys and-down below-stick figures caught in midstride. There was a nightmarish quality to the drawing, all black and white and nothing in between.

The second drawing showed what must have been the Trinity Church cemetery, and in this the gravestones looked much like the buildings in the first scene, and the trees were spindly and leafless skeletons. Was there the figure of a man standing beside one of the graves, or was it only where the crayon had ground itself down to the nub?

The third drawing, however, was quite different. It showed, simply, a stylized fish bristling with what appeared to be thorns, surrounded by the wavy lines of water. The fourth drawing was also of a fish, complete with a sail upon its back and a long beak, and the fifth drawing-the last among them-a fish formed of circles and squares with a gasping mouth and a single gaping eye with a hole at the center where the crayon had ripped through.

"He draws a lot of fish," McCaggers said. "Why, I have no idea."

"Obviously, he was a fisherman." Greathouse leaned over Berry's other shoulder to look. "As I told Matthew, the Ga tribe-"

He didn't finish his sentence, for a large black hand suddenly thrust forward and took hold of the papers in Berry's grasp, causing her to give out a little startled cry and go pale. If truth be known, Matthew quivered down to his kneecaps and suppressed a start of alarm behind his teeth, for Zed was suddenly right there in front of them where seconds before he had not been. Greathouse did not move, though Matthew sensed him coiled and ready to strike if need be.

Zed's scarred face was impassive, his ebony eyes fixed not on Berry but upon the drawings. He gave them the slightest pull, and instantly Berry let them go. Then he turned around and walked back to his workplace with the drawings in hand, and it amazed Matthew that he made hardly any noise on the floorboards.

"Another of his talents," McCaggers said. "He can move around like a shadow when he chooses." He cleared his throat. "It seems I have betrayed a trust. I apologize for any discomfort."