Dick’s full name was Richard Stiff and he’d worked for the railroad since he was a boy, just as his father had before him. He was a thick, jowly lug with forearms as round as my calf. Unloading steel off boxcars all day will do that for a man. He was married and had eleven children—a devout Catholic, my comrade Dick. Mr. Arden used him on occasion when a bit of extra muscle was needed. Dick didn’t have the stomach for killing, but was more than happy to give some sorry bugger an oak rubdown if that’s what Mr. Arden wanted.
The honest money only went so far. The best story I can tell about him is that when the railroad boys gathered for their union hall meetings roll call was done surname first, thus the man reading off the muster would request “Stiff, Dick” to signal his attendance, this to the inevitable jeers and hoots from the rowdy crowd. As for Leroy Bly, he was a short, handsome middle-aged Irishman who kept an eye on a couple of local speakeasies for the Arden family and did a bit of enforcement for Arden’s bookmakers as well. Not a button man by trade, nonetheless I’d heard he’d blipped off at least two men and left their remains in the high timber west of town. Rumor had it one of the poor saps was the boyfriend of a dame Bly had taken a shine to—so he was a jealous bastard as well. Nice to know as I’d never been above snaking a fella’s chickadee if the mood was right.
A week passed in a confusion of delirium tremens and plain old delirium. Half dead from blood loss, sure, but it was the withdrawal from life-succoring whiskey and tobacco that threatened to do me in.
Eventually the fever broke I emerged into the light, growling for breakfast and hooch and a cigarette. Dick said someone from The Broadsword Hotel had called at least a dozen times—wouldn’t leave a message, had to speak with me personal like. Meanwhile, Bly informed me that Mr. Arden was quite worried about the untimely deaths of The Long and Short. Dick’s suspicions that the powers that be wanted my hide proved accurate. It had come down through the bush telegraph I’d do well to take to the air for a few weeks. Perhaps a holiday in a sunnier clime. Bly set a small butcher paper package on the table. The package contained three hundred dollars of “vacation” money. Bly watched as I stuck the cash into my pocket. He was ostensibly Dick’s chum and to a lesser degree mine, however I suspected he’d cheerfully plant an ice pick between my shoulder blades should I defy Mr. Arden’s wishes. In fact, I figured the old man had sent him to keep tabs on my activities.
I’d read the name of one Conrad Paxton scribbled on the back of a card in Curtis Bane’s wallet, so it seemed possible this mystery man dispatched the pair to blip me. A few subtle inquiries led me to believe my antagonist resided somewhere in Western Washington beyond the principal cities. Since getting shy of Olympia was the order of the day, I’d decided to track Paxton down and pay him a visit. To this effect, would the boys be willing to accompany me for expenses and a few laughs?
Both Dick and Bly agreed, Bly with the proviso he could bring along his nephew Vernon. Yeah, I was in Dutch with Mr. Arden, no question—no way Bly would drop his gig here in town unless it was to spy on me, maybe awaiting the word to blip me off. And young master Vernon, he was a sad sack gambler and snowbird known for taking any low deed that presented itself, thus I assumed Bly wanted him to tag along as backup when the moment came to slip me the shiv. Mr. Arden was likely assessing my continued value to his family versus the ire of his colleagues in Seattle. There was nothing for it but to lie low for a while and see what was what after the dust settled.
I uncapped a bottle and poured myself the first shot of many to come. I stared into the bottom of the glass. The crystal ball hinted this Conrad Paxton fellow was in for a world of pain.
* * *
Later that afternoon I received yet another call from management at the Broadsword Hotel passing along the message that an old friend of my father’s, one Helios Augustus, desired my presence after his evening show. I hung up without committing, poured a drink and turned over the possibilities. In the end, I struggled into my best suit and had Dick drive me to the hotel.
The boys smuggled me out the back of the house and through a hole in the fence on the off chance sore friends of The Long and Short might be watching. I wondered who that weird bird lurking down the street represented—a Seattle boss, or Paxton, or even somebody on Arden’s payroll, a gun he’d called from out of town? I hated to worry like this; it gave me acid, had me jumping at shadows. Rattle a man enough he’s going to make a mistake and get himself clipped.
I came into the performance late and took a seat on the edge of the smoky lounge where I could sag against the wall and ordered a steak sandwich and a glass of milk while the magician did his thing to mild applause.
Helios Augustus had grown a bit long in the tooth, a portly figure dressed in an elegant suit and a cape of darkest purple silk. However, his white hair and craggy features complemented the melodic and cultured timbre of his voice. He’d honed that voice in Shakespearean theatre and claimed descent from a distinguished lineage of Greek poets and prestidigitators. I’d met him at a nightclub in Seattle a couple of years before the Great War. He’d been slimmer and handsomer, and made doves appear and lovely female assistants disappear in puffs of smoke. Dad took me to watch the show because he’d known Helios Augustus before the magician became famous and was dealing cards on a barge in Port Angeles. Dad told me the fellow wasn’t Greek—his real name was Phillip Wary and he’d come from the Midwest, son of a meat packer.
I smoked and waited for the magician to wrap up his routine with a series of elaborate card tricks, all of which required the assistance of a mature lady in a low cut gown and jade necklace, a real duchess. The hand didn’t need to be quicker than the eye with that much artfully-lighted bosom to serve as a distraction. As the audience headed for the exits, he saw me and came over and shook my hand. “Johnny Cope in the flesh,” he said. “You look like you’ve been on the wrong end of a stick. I’m sorry about your father.” He did not add, he was a good man. I appreciated a little honesty, so far as it went. Goodness was not among Dad’s virtues. He hadn’t even liked to talk about it.
We adjourned to his dressing room where the old fellow produced a bottle of sherry and poured a couple of glasses. His quarters were plush, albeit cramped with his makeup desk and gold-framed mirror, steamer trunks plastered with stamps from exotic ports, a walnut armoire that scraped the ceiling, and shelves of arcane trinkets—bleached skulls and beakers, thick black books and cold braziers. A waxen, emaciated hand, gray as mud and severed at the wrist, jutted from an urn decorated with weird scrollwork like chains of teeny death’s heads. The severed hand clutched a black candle. A brass kaleidoscope of particularly ornate make caught my attention. I squinted through the aperture and turned the dial. The metal felt damnably cold. Jigsaw pieces of painted crystal rattled around inside, revealing tantalizing glimpses of naked thighs and breasts, black corsets and red, pouty smiles. The image fell into place and it was no longer a burlesque dancer primping for my pleasure. Instead I beheld a horrid portrait of some rugose beast—all trunk and tentacle and squirming maw. I dropped the kaleidoscope like it was hot.