24
24
T HE SPRAWLING BULK OF the Drury Hippodrome—the largest entertainment and theater complex in New York City—occupied an entire block of Fourteenth Street. By eight PM on a Saturday night, it resembled an anthill of activity. Within, the various entertainments, from concert saloons to circus performers to geek shows, were in full swing, and the pavement outside was busy with patrons coming and going.
Due to the variety of spectacles and the need to collect separate tickets for each, the building had been subdivided into many venues. Short alleyways led into the enormous beflagged bulk of the complex from various streets, serving as admission for the public as well as backstage entrances for performers, stagehands, and vendors. The Hippodrome was a miniature city so labyrinthine that no one, it was said, fully knew its byways, corridors, tunnels, and catwalks.
In the midst of the chaos, between a dressing area and a repair shop for theater sets, was a room kept locked at all times. Its heavy door held no sign, and it was ignored by passing workers as just another storage or maintenance area. This room, with its thick walls and lack of windows, belonged to Leng: one of the more unusual of many bolt-holes he used for his hydra-headed enterprises. While it might seem incongruent to situate a retreat in one of the busiest places in all New York City, it was precisely such busyness that rendered it anonymous. This was where he gathered his "crew."
Decla stood beside the door, with a bandaged hand, restlessly tossing a bowie knife into the air, catching it by the tip, and flipping it into the air again. Looking at her, Leng almost smiled. Despite their differences in class, education, and age, she was his favorite, the one he relied on for pragmatic, streetwise advice. They first met when she'd tried to pick his pocket on the Bowery, eighteen months before. He'd turned at speed and seized her hand, preparing to sever her carotid artery with a scalpel, then push her away to bleed out while he blended into the crowd. But something had stopped him: something in her eyes that showed—instead of fear—calculation, even resignation.
And so an unusual partnership had begun. She was the leader of the Milk Drinkers—a gang whose very name was a contemptuous challenge to the Plug Uglies, the Slaughterhousers, the Roach Guards, and the other gangs who ruled New York's nastiest slums. The Milk Drinkers were a small, tightly knit gang, feared for both their secrecy and their lethality. Unlike others, the Milk Drinkers had no turf to hold and battle over; they came and went where they pleased. Leng had taken Decla not exactly under his wing—she would never stand for that—but into an alliance of sorts, one that he financed himself. In return, she'd agreed to let him thin the gang's ranks of deadwood until it was as lean, mobile, and dangerous as humanly possible. The Milk Drinkers were his bodyguards, his night agents, his messengers of death—and in return he allowed them not only sanctuary and unlimited funds, but the freedom to work independently, maintaining their position atop the gang hierarchy and performing tasks of their own hatched up by Decla's clever, feral mind.
Right now, she was unhappy—the confrontation with Constance Greene had put her out. Leng knew she would never be satisfied until she'd finished it. Decla viewed female gangs with particular hatred, and over time she had arranged for the murder or neutralization of every member of the Sow Maidens, who had dressed like stevedores and filed their teeth to points. Watching her, Leng felt it only proper to give her satisfaction with the fake duchess… when the time was right.
He looked around the room. Some two dozen figures were in attendance, slouching in chairs or lounging on packing crates, motionless, waiting. There were just a few more to come—blending with the throngs of visitors and attracting no attention as they made their way to the room through the myriad routes that, in an emergency, also served as multiple exits.
While they all looked tough, he could read their faces like a book. They feared him; they respected him; they called him "Doctor." Of course, they knew nothing of what he was really about. He kept his true, overarching work—the harvesting of cauda equina, the elixir he was seeking, his grand project—a secret known only by Munck. Instead, he had given them the vague impression he was a sophisticated gangland boss like no other, dealing in the most dangerous, remunerative black-market operations and illegal activities—and that he functioned behind the scenes sub rosa, as their guardian angel… or perhaps demon would be the more appropriate term.
A series of low raps sounded a brief tattoo on the door. Decla cracked it open, then allowed the last two outstanding members—Sloopy and Wolfteat—to enter. As they took seats, Decla locked the door and Leng rose to address the assembly.
"My dear friends," he said, gazing around. "Welcome."
Nods, murmurs.
"I regret to say I have a little problem. It involves Smee's Alley, off Longacre Square. Do any of you know it?"
No one did—it was too far uptown.
"This man I've spoken to you about, Pendergast, has blocked it off. I want access."
Nobody asked him why. They knew only too well that to show curiosity about his private matters was not a salubrious practice.
"Search for a secret way in—underground; through a skylight; as a member of the crew presently guarding it. I don't need to tell you how; just let me know when it's done."
He paced for a few seconds. The gang was well aware of his need for young women, his "jammiest bits of jam"—and the speed with which he went through them—even if the particular nature of that need remained his secret. He let them assume the usual.
And this led to the next topic on the agenda. "A new cleric has been installed at the Mission," he said. "He's forbidding me access to the inmates. No longer am I able to take select girls for necessary medical treatment at my clinic."
At this, several smirks were traded among the assembly.
"I can gather no useful information from that mooncalf at the Mission, Royds, on either the details of Miss Crean's death or background on the cleric himself. The man so precisely hinders me that, initially, I wondered if it might be some sort of plot—but his papers are in order and, in short, it's clear the man must be genuine and not a fraud."
"Let us take care of the cleric for you, Doctor," came a voice. "The river's always thirsty for more bodies." A low chuckle arose.
Leng nodded slowly. "Precisely my thinking. Decla, please give this job some thought and let me know your recommendations."
At this the pout left her face, to be replaced by a slow smile. Plotting murder was one of her favorite pastimes. "Scrape here will have him grinning in the muck of the East River in no time."
Leng nodded again. "Very well. Just let me know when it's done. And take nothing for granted with this one—be on the lookout for unexpected outcomes."
"Why not do this mutton-shunter Pendergast at the same time?" another voice asked, to murmurs of agreement. "Get him out of the way along with the cleric."
"I'm afraid he's too wily for that. Trying to get the drop on him would only reduce the size of your crew. Rather, I think a breadcrumb gambit might be of better success." He paused, thinking. "Yes… a double-breadcrumb gambit, perhaps."
Even as he spoke, the idea was formulating in his head. A man as clever as Pendergast might, in fact, be too clever by half—that would prove his downfall.
Leng glanced at his watch; twenty minutes had passed since he'd first arrived, and he preferred to keep these gatherings short. "Just one more item of business. Humblecut, you have something to report?"
There was a brief stirring in the rear of the room, gray against black. Then a taciturn-looking man, who'd been leaning back in his chair, eased himself forward. He was older than the rest, midforties perhaps, and instead of the gray shirts, suspenders, and bowler hats, he wore a long, double-breasted trench coat of fine black leather. His eyes were hidden beneath the brim of a homburg, but he had a waxed handlebar mustache that he smoothed faintly with the tips of his fingers before he spoke.
"Thank you, Doctor. The boy, Joe, was spirited out of the house using a hearse and coffin as a ruse," he said in a quiet, almost melodic voice. "It was meant to hold the body of his tutor. Instead, the boy was placed in the coffin and switched out when the hearse stopped briefly to mend a horseshoe—a contrivance, of course. From there, he and his policeman escort made their way to the train station. We didn't cotton on to it until the last minute, and we were hindered in following."
"Go on," said Leng.
"We ultimately learned they had purchased tickets to Boston."
"I see." Leng thought a moment. That portal from the future, through which these adversaries had come—if he could only determine when it would reappear, access it… the results would be almost incalculable. Constance Greene had used its mere existence to threaten him: If you knew what the future holds… The next time you saw me, it would be with powers so formidable all your traps and your alley rats would be swept away like chaff.
My God , he thought. The great project that he'd always assumed would take decades, even a century, to complete could perhaps be accomplished in a matter of months, even less. What he needed was more information about the portal itself ; information that only those who had used it would know. And he needed knowledge of the future century from which Ferenc and the rest had come. Once again, he bitterly regretted pushing Ferenc over the edge. That left only three.
"We can kill that meddlesome cleric, but Pendergast and the policeman—I want them alive for now." He paused. "That is all. Thank you, my friends. Mind how you go. And remember— keep it dry ."
He lifted an index finger to his lips. The group began shuffling to their feet, preparing to leave the Hippodrome by their various routes.
Leng waited until his detective, Humblecut, approached. Then he motioned the man aside and—while Decla stood guard at the exit—began giving him further instructions in a low, urgent whisper.