William Kennedy - Quinn's Book

Questions flew: Could this good man Dirck really be a petty thief? Why was such a paltry event now the occasion for his arrest? Why was this happening now and not two years ago? Could Babcock be serious? Could the sheriff? Dirck offered to pay the four dollars, but the sheriff said that was no longer possible, that he must go to Utica to stand trial for petit larceny. Will offered double payment for the shirt and cravat, but the sheriff was negatively adamant and ordered Dirck taken down the stairs. We all followed to the street, where a carriage waited with two more men. One of the men wore a memorably drooping mustache and was sharpening a long knife on a small whetstone in the palm of his hand. Will pointed to the man and called out, “Aaron Plum,” and he turned swiftly to the sheriff and told him Plum was one of the toughs who had stoned the newspaper’s windows two days earlier and then fled when Will fired a pistol over the heads of the toughs. The sheriff said this was nonsense, that the man had showed him credentials and was a deputy sheriff from Utica. But I knew Will was right, for I had met Aaron Plum on John the Brawn’s skiff when we carried four crates of harnesses for him from Troy to Albany. John told me the harnesses were stolen, and so we made the run at night to avoid spectators. I learned Aaron Plum’s name because he had his brother with him as a helper, Eli Plum, a schoolmate of mine. We called Eli Peaches after they caught him filling a sack with peaches from the Corcorans’ tree.

All this was coming back to me when Aaron Plum and the second man jumped from the carriage, grabbed roughly at both of Dirck’s arms, and pushed him toward the carriage, whose door the sheriff opened.

“Murder!” screamed Dirck. “They will murder me!” Upon which remark he was thrown headlong into the carriage, the men climbing in behind him. Dirck screamed out to us before the carriage flew away behind the same matched pair I had seen in La Última’s dead eyeball. “They want my book!” he yelled. “Save my book!”

And then poor Dirck was gone.

Will turned and ran back up the stairs to his office, I at his heels. After we entered the office a man rose from where he had been crouching behind Dirck’s desk and ran down the stairs. Will yelled and ran after him and I did likewise. The man was clutching Dirck’s ledgers, and as he ran headlong across the street to another waiting carriage, he fell. One ledger flew out of his grip and landed at my feet, and I immediately snatched it up. As the man arose and turned to me I had a full look at him. He had red hair, a poor crop of muttonchops, and the top of his left ear had been sliced or bitten off. He stared at me and I took that stare as a threat. But Will was closing fast on him, and so the one-eared burglar leaped onto the step of the waiting carriage, clutching Dirck’s second ledger, and held on to the window as the carriage raced away. I looked at the ledger in my hands and saw it was the one in which I had studied Dirck’s hieroglyphics.

“You did well, Daniel Quinn,” Will said to me, and I handed him the ledger. “This is a terrible event and I must set it right. You’ll go home now to the mansion, and I’ll see you when I can.” He signaled one of his printers in white smock and black derby who was standing (and bouncing) in the small crowd that had gathered. Will told the man to see that I got to Hillegond’s house, and then he shook my hand.

“You are a friend of more things than you know, young man,” Will said to me, and then he went to his office.

The printer found a cab for hire and took me to the Staats house. He said little as we rode, but I noticed he was bouncing even as he sat, and that I was not. I told him I had seen him bouncing at the newspaper and again in the crowd and that he was bouncing still. I asked him why.

“It is because of my hat,” said the printer.

“I see,” I said, and I said no more.

At the mansion I told my story to John the Brawn, but it made so little impression on him that he told me not to bother Hillegond with it, for she had no use for her son. I said I could hardly do such a thing after seeing Dirck kidnapped at knife point. John agreed I should tell her since there was a knife involved, which is a measure of the man’s logic. We went to the music room, where Hillegond was sitting with Maud, listening to Magdalena playing the pianoforte and singing a love ballad:

“ Hangman, hangman, hold the rope!

Hold it for a while.

I think I see my father coming ,

Coming on the mile.

Father, did you bring me gold ,

Or come to set me free?

Or did you come to see me hang

Upon that willow tree? ”

“ Daughter, I did not bring you gold ,

Nor come to set you free ,

But I have come to see you hang

Upon that willow tree. ”

I grew to love the song because of its message. All the daughter’s relatives come to see her hang but it is her sweetheart alone who sets her free. Maud and I exchanged glances and then John the Brawn announced I had a story to tell. And I told it.

“Then Dirck is truly in trouble, the poor boy,” said Hillegond when I had finished my tale. She arose and went to the east parlor and turned outward the two portraits of Dirck at ages twelve and nineteen. At twelve Dirck was fat as a dumpling; at nineteen he was emaciation incarnate — the pair of portraits telling the story of his improbable progress as an ascetic. “He will feel better knowing they’re set right,” said Hillegond.

“How will he know such a thing?” Maud asked. “Hasn’t Daniel told us he was abducted?”

“He will get my message no matter where he is,” said Hillegond.

“With trouble in the family,” said Magdalena, “we must be on our way.”

“You needn’t leave,” said Hillegond. “I do enjoy your company.”

“We’ve overstayed already,” said Magdalena. “This is such a madcap time for you. And I must get back to my work in the theater.”

“What will happen to Daniel?” asked Maud.

“Why, he’ll come with us,” said John the Brawn. “A group like this needs a slavey.”

“I’ll be lost for conversation,” said Hillegond, who saw her new world of thumping, music, mysticism, and children about to vanish. “I will wither,” she added.

“Nonsense,” said Magdalena. “You’ll blossom. And you’ll find a purpose in life, working to help your son. Life must continue. We’ve loved being here, in spite of all the death.”

I was bewildered. Nothing seemed to conclude. I was in the midst of a whirlwind panorama of violence and mystery, of tragedy and divine frenzy that mocked every effort at coherence. I now felt a physical sadness overtaking me, my body and brain losing their security and being thrust into hostile weather. I knew that apart from my family’s being swept away by the cholera, what had happened to me in recent weeks was the most significant phase of my life thus far, the core of that significance being, and preeminently so, Maud. I longed only to watch her, talk with her, touch her hand, kiss her mouth. I had unholy longings to explore certain regions beneath her clothing, but I withheld such unschooled enterprise, for it seemed certain to generate trouble beyond my control. I had only one chance to talk alone with Maud in the next few days, an encounter in an upstairs hallway, outside the room filled with mirrors.

“You must not forget your promise to steal me,” she said in an urgent whisper. “The chance will come very soon. I must take my life out of the hands of these people.”

“But how will I ever do it?” I said to her. “I can’t even find a way to get near you. Where would we go? And with what money? It’s true what your aunt said. I’m penniless.”