Until today, Finlayson’s routine had seldom varied: he woke at three in the afternoon, made up his pallet on the floor of Mitford’s stable, and ate a buttered roll purchased from Kelem’s delicatessen the night before. Then he grabbed his canvas duck bag and headed for the Franklin Refinery docks. This was, in his opinion, the place to find the city’s best rats, fed on the sugar that came in from Cuba until their small eyes fairly crusted over.
Last night had been good. His traps contained four large brown captives, all alive and fit to kill. The average Norway weighed about a pound, but you could always count on a Franklin rat to go four to eight ounces more than that. They were lively fellows too: full of sugar for energy and fresh vegetables for strength and stamina. He always said that a Franklin rat was the king of the Delaware, able to jump right from the river to a ship’s deck or swim across to Camden using only its tail as an engine. Putting one end of each trap into the bag, he tripped a spring to open its gate and dumped the screaming occupants inside. The sack vibrating like a saloon on election night, he walked down Delaware Avenue to Pemberton Street and turned left into Pier 34. Once inside, he made his way to the office of Jimmy O’Mara.
Jimmy ran what was probably the last rat-baiting operation in Pennsylvania, maybe the last in America. On Wednesday nights, he would welcome between fifty and sixty diehards to his pit in an unused storeroom. The first hour was devoted to beer and whiskey, so by the time the trainers arrived, they were greeted with whistles and applause. As the men cursed and cheered, each trainer would place his dog on a cargo scale to be weighed. Jimmy would then step to the edge of the pit and deposit a corresponding number of rats onto its dirt floor. If the dog weighed fifteen pounds, he would fight fifteen rats; twenty pounds, twenty rats, and so on. Based on each dog’s reputation and breeding, the spectators would place bets on the amount of time it would take for the dog to kill all the rats. The man who came closest won.
Finlayson’s rats were highly prized for their size and ferocity and Jimmy could always count on them to go down fighting, lunging at an eye or tearing at an ear.
Ordinarily there was not a word exchanged between O’Mara and Finlayson. The ratcatcher unloaded his prisoners into a large barrel and Jimmy counted them. He paid twentyfive cents for each one, thirty-five if a rat was particularly large and aggressive.
His earnings in his pocket, Finlayson nodded and left. He crossed Delaware Avenue and walked up Kenilworth Street to Front, arriving at the Schooner Tavern just as Henry Kulky was opening up. He sat down at the bar, downed two double whiskeys and a beer, and ate whatever sandwich Kulky felt like making. He paid, walked up Bainbridge to 3rd, and returned to the stable. Mitford usually just grunted at him and collected the twenty cents that was his night’s rent. But today, the old man actually spoke to him.
“You know where the Hippodrome the-a-ter is?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Don’t crack wise with me, Fin,” Mitford said. “I’ll shovel you out of here with the rest of the horseshit.”
“Yeah, I know where it is,” Finlayson said, “up 6th and South.”
“Well, that bum Bobby Monoldo was in here last night. I figured he was gonna try and put the bite on me so I was ready to chuck him into the street, but he said he had some info for you. That you was to show up at the Hippodrome ’round ten in the a.m. and that if you did, a guy there would make it worth your while.”
“He say who this guy was?”
“Didn’t I just get finished tellin’ ya what he tol’ me? That’s what he said. No names, no numbers, no angels singing alleluia. And if that’s not enough, mebbe you should hire a secretary.”
“Okay,” Fin said. “I guess I ain’t got time to clean up.”
Mitford laughed. “Ten o’clock’s in ten minutes. Cleaning you up would take until St. Patty’s. No, I’d say you ain’t got time to get dainty. I’d say you should get the fuck out of here.”
Now, Finlayson looked up at the huge marquee. It was the kind that had giant letters bolted to a framework attached to the building’s archway. He figured that the letters spelled out Hippodrome, but the only word he could read was printed boldly on all of the exterior posters: RATS.
He walked up to a tired-looking woman sitting inside the box office. She was reading a copy of Aunt Sally’s Policy Player’s Dream Book.
“My name’s Finlayson,” he said. “Somebody here wants to see me.”
The woman glanced up from the book and immediately remembered the days when someone like this would never have been allowed near the Hippodrome, not even to haul away the garbage. Her mouth turned down in disgust at the torn coat and blackened shirt collar, the matted red hair and filthy hands. She could smell him through the glass of the booth.
“Yeah,” she said. “You’s expected. Go t’ru the lobby and where it says Lounge, head downstairs. Make a right and you’ll see another sign says, Artistes. Walk t’ru that and it’s the first door. Don’t talk to none of the patrons.”
Fin did as instructed. He walked quickly past the few customers milling about, waiting for the eleven o’clock matinee. When he got to the bottom of the steps he spotted the sign and opened the heavy iron door.
The first thing he saw in the corridor was a rat. It was dressed in what looked like red and gold silk. Almost by instinct, Finlayson jumped toward it. In the old days before he could afford traps, he caught hundreds of rats with his bare hands. Terrified, the rodent scurried through the first door on the left. Fin followed it into what appeared to be a dingy dressing room, just in time to watch it vault into the lap of a man sitting in an old caned chair.
Had he been standing, the guy probably would have measured only five-three or -four, but he had the confident air of a man twice his size. He wore a splendid suit of brown gabardine intersected with thick chalk stripes. His pale blue waistcoat was of silk floral brocade and his dark blue necktie was stuck with a good-sized sapphire. Black patent leather shoes peeked out from gray buttoned spats and his left hand rested on a silver-headed cane. Sitting on his shoulder, his arm, both his thighs, and the crown of his cream-colored Stetson were rats; each one attired similarly to the first, in shining silks of multiple colors. On closer inspection Finlayson noticed that every tiny outfit bore a number on its back.
“Ah, thank you for coming. I see you’ve already met Commodore Dutch. My name is Professor Alois Swain. If you are indeed Mr. Finlayson, then I am the one who sent for you.”
Commodore Dutch peeked out from beneath Swain’s jacket and then turned and ducked inside.
“You, sir, come highly recommended,” Swain continued. “I have been told in every saloon along this fine thoroughfare that you are Philadelphia’s finest rat man.”
“Thanks, mister, ” Finlayson said, “but it looks like you’re doing pretty well along that line.”
Swain frowned. “As of now, yes. But these few little fellows may not always be sufficient for the daily practice of my art.”
“Art? What, do you draw them or something?”
Swain laughed. “No, Mr. Finlayson, I am not that kind of artist. But even though I do not sculpt or paint, the adage remains true-one picture is worth a thousand words. So if you will be kind enough to accompany me onto the spacious stage of the Hippodrome, I will be only too happy to illustrate for you that which has made me and my little charges a household name amongst those who demand the unusual in their entertainment.”
Fin nodded and Swain rose from his chair. As he did, the gaily dressed rats scampered up his suit and onto his shoulders and arms. They clung with their claws to his back and one even dangled by its teeth from his tie. Finlayson could no longer see Commodore Dutch and guessed that he had taken refuge in one of the professor’s interior pockets.