Poe must die

TWENTY

“A rat,”said Poe.

Figg raised one scarred eyebrow. “You take me for a bloody fool? Damn thing was big as me leg.”

The rat, bright-eyed and a filthy gray, had sped across the muddy street, disappearing into a pile of garbage in front of a nearby church.

Poe glanced in the rat’s direction, then when their cab started up again, he leaned back against the seat, sinking deeper into his greatcoat. “Now it dines with the blessings of Mother Church and a most economical meal it shall be, too. A present from the citizens of Manhattan.”

“Bleedin’ rats,” muttered Figg, turning to look back at the pile of garbage. New York was crawling with rats, rats bigger than any he’d seen in English waterfront towns and them that sat by England’s waters were sometimes the size of a man’s boot. To Figg, American rats were big enough to pull carts behind them and they were everywhere, according to little Mr. Poe. Rats in mansions, tenements, churches, department stores and in City Hall.

New York stank like an aging French whore. Damn city had no sanitation, no sewers and all the waste and trash from a half million people was tossed out into the bleeding street where the pigs and rats gathered to fill their bellies. New York town smelled like the biggest pile of shit God had ever created and Figg’s hooter-his nose-was going to be in a sorry state when this visit to American was over.

Earlier he and Poe had gone to the Ann Street boarding house only to learn that the Renaissance Players had not returned from their charity performance in the country; it was felt that the delay was due to snow-covered roads. So now it was take a cab to Five Points to see a gent called Johnnie Bill Baker, who Mr. Poe said was a dance hall keeper and member of a gang of thieves called The Daybreak Boys.

“They strike at that hour when sleep is deepest,” said Poe. “Hence the name. At break of day, as the mind lies in blessed repose, Mr. Baker and cohorts enter the homes of those living in the countryside, prefering to loot those victims existing in isolation. In swift fashion, the thieves remove any and all articles of value then vanish. If a householder exhibits untimely pluck, he is slain but that is in the nature of such a business.”

Poe’s head was against the seat as he looked up at the back of the cabdriver sitting in front of him. So long as Figg was paying, Poe was willing to ride. “Occasionally a victim is held for ransom and thus does Mr. Baker add to the monies he makes from the Louvre.”

“Loo? Loo is a place where a man pisses.”

Poe sneered. Figg the thickheaded. “Louvre, not loo. Louvre is the name of his licentious and lively dance hall, to which we are being carted by this most slow pair of horses. A famed Paris museum has some prior claim to that title, but no matter. Mr. Baker is a lively, Irish-”

“Thief. All the bloody thieves in this ‘ere city is Irish.”

“A thesis not worth contesting. Take care you do not mock Mr. Baker.”

As the wooden cab wheels bounced over a poorly cobbled street, Figg jerked upright in his seat. “Now why would I want a giggle at Mr. Baker’s expense? Ain’t ‘e the one whats goin’ to place us in contact with Mr. Hamlet Sproul?”

“Mr. Baker is pleasant looking though unfortunately cursed with crossed eyes. He is said to have killed men who find this deformity a laughing matter.”

Figg turned up his coat collar at the cold night air. “I will remember that. Take care not to laugh at a man whats lookin’ at both sides of ‘is nose at the same time. My gawd, the smell!” Figg held his nose with fingers Poe thought were the size of bananas.

“Slaughterhouses, stables, buildings where liquors are made and the mountains of garbage. Like the poor, Mr. Figg, these odors are everywhere.”

Ahead of them, Figg watched the gaslights that brightened the streets and shop windows on either side of Broadway. Wagons, coaches, sleighs all carried burning lanterns on the back and Figg had never seen so many people clogging a street at night.

So many lights. Like polished jewels. And people. Weren’t any of them bothered by the smells?

More bonfires. Almost on every street corner. Figg asked why.

“Epidemics, Mr. Figg. Cholera and yellow fever strike this filthy city every year and it is the belief of some that a burning fire will clean the air of such plagues. Look at your boots.”

Figg did, squinting in the darkness. “Stuff on ’em. What-”

“Coal dust mixed with quicklime. Spread throughout the streets also in the belief that it will prevent disease.”

Figg frowned, a sight Poe would never regard as reassuring. “’Ere now, I don’t want to be catchin’ no plague, you understand.”

“I am not the one to speak to about that. Considering your eating habits, you may expire of kitchen excess long before the plague succeeds-”

Figg growled, “What’s so displeasin’ about me eatin’ habits, squire, if I might make so bold?”

Poe leaned right as the cab turned sharply, its back wheels sliding on snow-covered cobbles. Figg had eaten three omelettes, four dishes of chocolate ice cream and an entire loaf of bread, washed down with two pots of coffee and all of it swallowed in record time. The man ate like a Hun.

“Your eating habits,” said Poe, “are Paleolithic.”

“What’s that ‘spose to mean?”

“It means you approach food with an enthusiasm unseen since man first learned to walk upright.”

“I gets the impression you are being sarcastic.”

Poe turned to him. “Bravo. It gets impressions. Fan that tiny flame of sensitivity and eventually it will grow into a veritable blaze of mediocrity.” Poe sneered.

Figg’s smile was slow and he kept it in place for a short time before speaking. “Squire, if I didn’t need you, I would give some thought to punchin’ yer big ‘ead down deep twixt yer shoulders.”

“Am I to assume that this represents your mind functioning at its subtle best?”

“Squire, assume that you are still livin’ and that you are a most fortunate gent.”

“’Let there be light! said God, and there was light!’’ Let there be blood! says man, and there’s a sea.'” Poe snorted. “Before you ask, it is a quote from Lord Byron, a poet of some note.”

Figg removed his top hat, running a thick hand over his shaven skull. “Fancied hisself a boxer, Byron did. Never saw a gent what pulled more ladies. Everytime I meets him, he has three or four ladies-”

Poe’s voice was barely a whisper. “You met Byron?”

Figg looked out of his side of the cab at the strolling nighttime crowds. “Tried teachin’ him a wee bit of boxin’, but he had that club foot and he was always eatin’ boiled potatoes drowned in vinegar to give him that pale complexion he thought the ladies all loved, so he didn’t have the strength to-”

“You met Byron?” The English poet, dead for twenty-four years, had been the most dashing and romantic figure of his time, the most controversial poet to emerge from England in this century and he had been a major influence on Poe.

“I see you are impressed, squire. Yes, I met him and a right sorry lot he was, too. Him and me was both young men but he was throwin’ away his life chasin’ the ladies or lettin’ them chase him and he owed money and he gets hisself into some kind of scandal concernin’ his half-sister.” Figg shook his head sadly. “Wasted life, if you ask me. Dies in Greece fightin’ somebody else’s war. Damn stupid, I say.”

“A glorious way to die,” said Poe, eyes on Figg.

“Squire, we all are goin’ to end up as food for the worms but I think it’s better to die fightin’ for somethin’ that’s your own, get me meanin’?”

Poe nodded. This ape sitting beside him with the bulldog face had actually met Byron. And Dickens. Thackeray. Carlyle. Tennyson. And damn little of it had rubbed off, it appeared. He was still rude, crude and not one to take to the palace. Change that. He had been to the palace. Poe shook his head.

“Mr. Figg? Mr. Figg?”