St. Ives’s silver prosthesis flashed in the moonlight.
“I was questioned by the authorities, but I knew enough of his ways to make it look like an accident. And what an accident!”
“But what… became of Rutherford?” Lloyd asked.
“Ah! That is the question,” the gambler said, nodding. “Well, you see, he was not a well-liked man. Almost everything he did he did in secret. He was a hard employer and a recluse who rarely ventured off the estate, and he seemed to have no close friends or immediate kin-other than my poor darling. The neighbor folk all feared him. There were stories about children in the vicinity who had gone missing. Who can say? But the members of the local constabulary were willing to take the path of least resistance. They came to believe that perhaps he had perished in the explosion, too-blown to bits, as I had hoped he would be.”
“But you think differently?” Lloyd asked.
“I am certain in my soul that he is still alive!” St. Ives ejaculated. “His will left his estate to some distant relative in Louisiana-probably himself under another name. His business interests were absorbed by a consortium called the Behemoth Innovation Company, and the estate was systematically denuded of all its objets and apparatus.”
“Did you investigate?” Lloyd asked meekly.
“Can you imagine me not doing so?” the gambler exclaimed, and then he drew his voice back down low. “The so-called relative now lives abroad, and I have not been able to find a trace of any news about him in any of the foreign papers-I even hired a London detective. Not a skerrick of a clue. As to the consortium, they have offices registered in several cities but there is no information about any of their directors. They are but shadows, as near as I can tell. And that is why I ride the riverboats, or one of the reasons-to one day learn something of his whereabouts. He would have a new name, and perhaps a new-looking face. But he is not dead! The hidden may be seeking and the missing may return. Remember that, my young friend. Beware, if you should ever cross paths with a man a few years older than I-with a hand like this, or some such invention. He would have found a way to make a better one by now, devil take him. Who knows what he has learned how to do in the years that have passed since what he did to me?”
With a vehemence Lloyd had not seen before, the gambler heaved his cigar into the river and spun on his heel, heading to his stateroom. Nothing more was said about the mutilation or the vanished designer of the mechanical hand, but the creatures and contrivances of the lost Villa exerted a pronounced fascination for Lloyd that was outweighed only by his ripening interest in Viola Mercy.
She said that she came from Maryland but, like the gambler, she seemed a child of the river and the road. Bawdy and quicktempered, in the boy’s presence she became demure. When she drank, however, in between performances, her voice deepened and her eyes burned with a lecherous yearning. One afternoon he found himself sneaking into her cabin. He had meant to steal but a glimpse, then he was sniffing her pillow-when there came the sound of hushed, lewd voices at the door!
Mortified, he leaped under the bed. The door opened and Miss Viola entered with the gambler. They drank at first, absinthe, the green liquor with the bittersweet licorice scent that St. Ives favored, preparing it with the long ornamental perforated spoon that reminded Lloyd of a decorative trowel, ceremoniously straining water poured from a carafe through a crystal chunk of sugar and then waiting and watching, and finally stirring the mix of liquor, water, and sugar until it reached a cloudy green shade he deemed right. They took a few sips, and Miss Viola shed her long dress with the plunging neckline and her bodice and something else that Lloyd couldn’t see. They tumbled onto the bed and lay there together, sipping their drinks for what seemed a long time. Then they came together and started to thrash about-until St. Ives muttered something and began to fiddle with his prosthesis.
Miss Viola’s cabin had once been one of the more opulent staterooms, but times had not been kind to the owners of the Fidèle and the chamber’s former glamour had faded, so that it now possessed a peeling gaudiness along with a noisy excuse for a brass bed (which William Henry Harrison had once slept in before becoming president). It was the audible complaint of the bedsprings that allowed the boy to wriggle into a position on the floor where he could catch sight of the looking glass, in which the figures of the two adults were partially visible. There he lay, trying hard to hold his breath.
Viola Mercy’s bosom was exposed, her hips arched, providing a tantalizing hint of that taboo passage that led to the secret place within her heart. The gambler still had on his once dapper but now worn britches, and his bull’s blood Spanish leather boots. The sleeve of his frilled shirt drooped down from a chair. His silver hand, however, was hard at work. The dagger that had been projected from the index finger had been replaced by a device of equal length, significantly greater girth, and arguably far more ingenious utility, which St. Ives referred to as the tickler.
The “tickling” went on for a long time, with Miss Viola’s rough whisper rising into what sounded like an asthmatic crisis. The boy had heard a similar sound coming from his mother from time to time, but nothing as both feral and restrained as this. Another scent filled the room, distinct but confused-like wild onions and fish eggs. Then there was a shudder that shook the bed, and Lloyd was sure that he was going to be found out. Instead, St. Ives rolled off and began dismantling his mechanical finger piece.
“Don’t you fret, honey,” Miss Viola said. “Most men can’t do as well.”
The gambler started to say something but choked on his words and reached for his clothes after draining his glass. Not long after he’d left the room, Miss Viola rose, poured water from a jug into a bowl, and bathed, humming to herself. Powder and perfume were added, and then came the slow, measured ritual of dressing. It was a delicious agony for Lloyd, who could more hear and smell than see her, and he was forced to wait, with his heart pounding, until she was at last prepared for another performance. The door clicked behind her when she departed, and still he waited until he was sure she was not about to return to make his escape.
That night, when Lloyd closed his eyes and tried to imagine his dead sister, all he could see was Miss Viola.
The next day he sneaked into the entertainer’s cabin again. He couldn’t help himself. This time he chose as his vantage place her steamer trunk, a great battered box that reminded him of a coffin but had the consolation of facing directly toward the bed and of being filled with costumes and underthings, all permeated by her woman scent. There, snuggled tight, he waited and watched through a tiny crack that he made by balancing the lid on his head, counting the terrible wonderful minutes. Finally, she returned-without the gambler. Slowly-oh, so slowly-she disrobed, poured herself a drink from a flask, then water for bathing from the jug. It was excruciating. Then she reclined on the bed-without a stitch on. She began to sing to herself, stroking her breasts and thighs with her right hand. And that was when it happened. He let the lid slip with a thump! Everything went so silent he could hear the piston rods driving in the distant engine room. He waited, then cracked the lid.
“Don’t you know not to come into a lady’s room without an invitation,” Miss Viola scolded, and then let out a trill of confusing laughter.
“I-I’m s-sorry…” Lloyd stuttered.
“No, you’re not,” the dark lady replied. “Come. Here.”
He rose from the trunk as if from the dead, stiff, and yet intensely alert.
“Take off your clothes,” she commanded, and with fumbling sweaty fingers he obeyed.