The Bone Garden: A Novel

— Well, I can't very well pour it down his throat. —

They stared down at the sleeping man, watching drool spill from his lips in a long, slimy strand. Above the frayed coat collar, his neck was grimy with coal dust. A fat louse, swollen with blood, crawled through a tangled net of blond hair.

Jack gave the shoulder a nudge; the man snored on, unaware.

Fanny snorted. — You can't expect them all to keel over nice and easy. —

— He's a young one. Healthy looking. — Too healthy.

— I just poured him a fortune's worth of free liquor. I'll never get it back. —

Jack gave a harder shove. Slowly, the man tumbled out of the chair and thumped onto the floor. Jack stared at him for a moment, then bent down and rolled him onto his back. Damn it all. He was still breathing.

— I want my rum money out of this, — insisted Fanny.

— Then you do it. —

— I'm not strong enough. —

Jack looked at her arms, thick and muscular from hefting trays and barrels. Oh, she was strong enough to strangle a man, all right. She just didn't want the responsibility.

— Go ahead, then, — she insisted.

— I can't leave any marks on his neck. It'll raise questions. —

— All they want's a body. They don't care where it comes from. —

— But a man who's obviously been murdered? —

— Coward. —

— I'm just telling you, it has to look natural. —

— Then we'll make it look natural. — Fanny stared down at the man for a moment, her eyes narrowed. Oh, you never wanted a woman like Fanny to look at you that way. Jack wasn't afraid of many things, but he knew Fanny well enough to know that when she set her mind against you, you were doomed. — Wait here, — she said.

As if he was going anywhere.

He listened to her footsteps thumping up the stairs to their bedroom. A moment later she returned, carrying a threadbare cushion and a filthy rag. He understood at once what she had in mind, but even when she handed him the benign-looking instruments of death, he didn't move. He had dug up corpses with flesh falling off their bones. He had fished them out of the river, pried them out of coffins, shoved them into pickling barrels. But actually making a corpse was always a different matter. A hanging matter.

Still. Twenty dollars was twenty dollars, and who would miss this man?

He lowered himself onto creaking knees beside the drunken seaman and balled up the rag. The jaw had fallen slack, the tongue lolling to one side. He shoved the rag into the gaping mouth, and the man jerked his head and sucked in through his nostrils a whimpering breath. Jack lowered the cushion and pressed it over the mouth and nose. All at once the man came awake and clawed at the pillow, trying to tear it away, to breathe.

— Hold his arms! Hold his arms! — yelled Jack.

— I'm trying, damn it! —

The man bucked and twisted, boots pounding against the floor.

— I'm losing my grip! He won't lie still! —

— Then sit on him. —

— You sit on him! —

Fanny pulled up her skirts and planted her hefty bottom on the squirming man's hips. As he bucked and twisted, she rode him like a whore, her face red and sweating.

— He's still fighting, — said Jack.

— Don't let up the pillow. Press harder! —

Sheer terror had given the victim supernatural strength, and he clawed at Jack's arms, leaving bloody tracks with his nails. How long did it take a man to die, for pity's sake? Why couldn't he just surrender and save them all the trouble? A fingernail scraped across Jack's hand. With a roar of pain, Jack pressed down with all his weight, yet still the man fought him. Damn you, die!

Jack scrambled on top of the chest and sat on the ribs. Now they were both riding him, Fanny and Jack, she planted on his hips, Jack on his chest. Both of them were heavy, and their combined weight at last immobilized him. Only his feet were moving now, the heels of his boots battering the floor in a panicked tattoo. He was still clawing at Jack, but more feebly as the strength drained from his arms. Now the feet slowed their tempo, the boots flopping against the floor. Jack felt the chest give one last shudder beneath him, and then the arms went slack and slid away.

It was another moment before Jack dared to lift the pillow. He stared down at the mottled face, the skin imprinted by the pressure of coarse fabric. He pulled the rag, now soaked with saliva, from the man's mouth and tossed it aside. It landed with a wet thump.

— Well, that's done, — said Fanny. She rose, panting, her hair in disarray.

— We need to strip him. —

They worked together, peeling away the coat and shirt, the boots and trousers, all of it too worn and filthy to keep. No sense running the risk of being caught with a dead man's possessions. Still, Fanny searched the pockets and gave a grunt of outrage when she came up with a handful of coins.

— Look! He had money after all! Took all my free drinks and didn't say a word! — She turned and flung the man's clothes into the fireplace. — If he wasn't already dead, I'd? —

There was a knock on the door, and they both froze. Looked at each other.

— Don't answer it, — whispered Jack.

Another knock, louder and more insistent. — I want a drink! — a slurred voice called out. — Open up! —

Fanny yelled through the door: — We're closed for the night! —

— How can you be closed? —

— I'm tellin' you we are. Go someplace else! —

They heard the man give the door one last angry thump of his fist, and then his curses faded away as he headed up the street, no doubt toward the Mermaid.

— Let's get 'im in the wagon, — said Jack. He grabbed the naked man under the arms, startled by the unfamiliar heat of a newly dead corpse. The cold night would remedy that quick enough. Already, the lice were abandoning their host, swarming from the scalp and weaving their way through tangled hair. As he and Fanny hauled the body through the back room, Jack saw ravenous black dots leaping onto his arms, and he resisted the impulse to drop the corpse right then and there and slap away the insects.

Outside, in the stable yard, they swung the body into the dray and left it there, uncovered in the cold, as Jack harnessed the horse. Wouldn't do to deliver too warm a corpse. Though it probably wouldn't make a difference, as Dr. Sewall had never been one to ask questions.

Nor did he ask them this time. After Jack dropped the body onto Sewall's table, he stood by nervously as the anatomist peeled back the tarp. For a moment Sewall said nothing, though he must have registered the extraordinary freshness of this specimen. Holding a lamp close, he inspected the skin, tested the joints, peered into the mouth. No bruises, Jack thought. No wounds. Just some poor unfortunate sot he'd found collapsed dead on the street. That was the story. Then he noticed, with a flash of alarm, the louse crawling across the chest. Lice did not cling long to the dead, yet this body was still infested with them. Does he see it? Does he know?

Dr. Sewall set down the lamp and left the room. It seemed to Jack that he was gone a long time? far too long. Then Sewall returned, holding a bag of coins.

— Thirty dollars, — he said. — Can you bring me more like this? —

Thirty? This was better than Jack had expected. He took the bag with a smile.

— As many as you can find, — said Sewall. — I've got buyers. —

— Then I'll find more. —

— What happened to your hands? — Sewall was looking at the angry claw marks the dead man had left on Jack's flesh. At once Jack pulled his hands back, into the folds of his coat. — Drowned a cat. He didn't much appreciate it. —