Westside Lights, page 23
With another silent stroke, the Mudfoot canoe pulled alongside me. The rowers looked little different from the Westsiders who’d been beaten on the Boardwalk for the crime of trying to reclaim the territory that was being stolen from them. I wanted to reach out and touch them, to remind myself that they were still real, but another breath, and they would be gone. And so I shouted my last, best offer—the one I knew Slaybeck could not refuse.
“I’ll let you hit me as hard as you want.”
“Hold!” she cried.
The rowing stopped. The boat drifted toward the bank. It slammed into the dirt and resisted the current’s attempts to tug it back into the creek. With an easy leap, Slaybeck came ashore. She had a scarf wrapped around her mouth and her hair was still slicked down with thick, black grease. There was dried blood on her neck. She inspected me like she was trying to decide if I was too rancid to eat.
“I don’t like hitting women in the face.”
“I don’t particularly care about my face.”
“That shows.”
“I don’t feel good about ambushing you the way I did.”
“Neither do I. I’m one of those people who hates getting hit in the head.”
“You have to understand—”
But I suppose she didn’t, because before I could finish my simpering apology, she smashed her fist into my much-abused ribs. She put her entire body behind the blow.
Bone crunched. It hurt like nothing I’d ever known.
Without warning, my legs stopped working. I may have passed out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, I found myself curled in a ball at Slaybeck’s feet. When the roaring in my ears died down, I heard myself screaming. I was far enough away from what was happening to me that, for a moment, all I could think was how stupid I sounded.
Slaybeck pulled the wad of Roebling money out of my trouser pockets and tossed it to one of the boys on the boat.
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s the most fun I’ve ever had getting paid.”
She stared for a while. My hands tensed, not sure where the next blow was coming from, but after a few breaths she shook her head.
“You’re not worth the shoe polish,” she said. “Keep the pants. I hope they bury you in them.”
“Please,” I groaned.
“Whatever it is, no.”
“It’s Cherub. There was a fight at Spring Square, and he ended up in the river. I don’t know if he came out.”
Slaybeck crouched in front of me. She pulled the scarf off her mouth. She ran her tongue over teeth that were ragged and black.
“What makes you think I care whether Cherub Stevens lives or dies?”
“You could have killed him for welshing. You broke your own rules to let him live. You care.”
“I’ve done him enough favors tonight. The boys and I are clearing out. Our Westside is dead.”
I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her close. Before she could wrench herself away, I let loose an earsplitting yowl—my best imitation of the war cry of the One-Eyed Cats. It cut through Slaybeck’s armor. Years on the river fell away, and she was once again a tough little girl who liked to climb trees.
“I haven’t heard that in years,” she said.
“It’s what Cherub screamed before he threw himself off the Boardwalk, a killer wrapped in each arm. The last charge of the last gang.”
“Your point?”
“If we can get him back, our Westside will live a little bit longer.”
She dragged me to my feet. I acted like it didn’t hurt. A couple of the Mudfoots stood on either side of her, waiting for her move. They were older than the kids who once followed Cherub into battle, but they were children still.
“What do you need?” said Slaybeck.
“Do what I paid you for. Take me to my boat.”
The rowers slapped their oars into the Hudson like they were trying to hurt it. With every thrust, the boat rose up like a bird about to take flight, then slammed down hard enough to rattle my many loose bones. From the middle of the river, the District looked as black and lifeless as the rest of the Lower West. Only the shifting figures on the Boardwalk gave it away. Past the Eastside, the sky was turning gray. This long, stupid night was nearly done.
The rower at my elbow—one of the bald girls—watched Slaybeck like she was a god.
“Where were you headed?” I asked her.
“Upriver. Anyplace. As long as there’s water and other people’s money, the Mudfoots will be just fine.”
She smiled as she said it, and that broke my heart. These pirates were worse than an anachronism. They were a dream—the type forgotten the moment day breaks. That they had managed to survive so long without being stamped out by the police or vigilantes or the cold reality of capitalism was a Westside miracle. They had no idea how out of step they were with the rest of the world. Away from the Lower West, they were doomed. I knew it and I think they did, too.
As for what that said about me, well, I had other concerns.
We found the Queen on the Jersey banks, where she’d gotten wedged in the poles of an abandoned shad-fishing barge. The rowers maneuvered the canoe alongside, and Slaybeck fixed a grappling hook to drag us the last few yards. Before we were secure, we smelled the massacre. One of the Mudfoots vomited over the side of the boat, and his fellows looked like they were on the verge of joining him.
“What in hell could smell like that?” asked Gowdy.
“It’s not your problem,” I said. “Aren’t you a lucky boy?”
The canoe slammed into the side of the Queen. I stumbled, and Slaybeck looked amused.
“Have you got a plan, or are you just going to thrash on my boat like a dying fish?” she said.
I got to my feet. Slaybeck held the line that joined us to the Queen, rising and falling with the canoe like she was part of the river.
“I’m going aboard. You’re going to find Cherub. He went in the river near Spring Square, so if he’s still alive he—”
“Don’t you dare explain this river to me. If he lives, we’ll find him. You want us to bring him here?”
“I won’t be here long. Drop him at Spring Square and tell him to find me at St. Abban’s. I have an audience with Glen-Richard Van Alen.”
She looked at me like I was a child describing an upcoming trip to the moon.
“And just how are you going to get there?” she said.
I patted the hull of the Misery Queen.
“I’ll sail.”
Laughter rippled across the canoe. I might have felt embarrassed, but there was no room for that now.
“The way she’s fouled in those poles,” said Slaybeck, “it’d take a team of master sailors to get her loose.”
“I’ve lived on the Queen for over a year. I know her.”
“Let me leave a couple of my boys to help you.”
“What I’m here for will be easier if I’m alone.”
The wind picked up, as though the river itself were endorsing my plan. There was a chill in it, a first hint of autumn, and though I may have imagined it, I thought I saw Slaybeck shiver. I held steady.
“Give me a boost and row away,” I said. “Tell Cherub to meet me at St. Abban’s at dawn.”
She shrugged like she’d never cared less about anything in her entire life. She slapped the shoulder of one of her boys and before I quite knew what was happening I was being launched into the cockpit of the Misery Queen. I landed with my customary lack of grace. Behind me, oars bit into the river. The canoe sprang away and I was alone with death.
A day in the sun had dried the blood and gristle that streaked every surface. That was the only improvement to the tableau. The bodies of Distler and Barron slumped across each other like exhausted lovers. The birds had been at their heads, and skull shone through. The last time I’d been here, my shock was total, and it was impossible to consider the true horror of this death. Now, I was calmer, but no matter how hard I tried to remind myself that these had been people, that I had drank with them, laughed with them, liked them and loathed them in equal measure—there was simply no way for it to ever make sense.
I stared down into the galley. The tooth I’d found rolled back and forth at the foot of the steps, glinting in the moonlight. It wasn’t the tooth or the blood or the bodies that had me terrified. It was the way the ship’s boards creaked along with the river’s caress. It was the way that sounded like home.
Cherub and I had built a kind of life here, something I’d never thought I could do with any man. I’d learned he liked his coffee to be mostly sugar; he’d finally grasped that I liked to be left alone in the mornings. We had risen together and gone to bed together and in between, we were a pair so tightly matched that the rest of the world fell away.
It was not something I’d ever thought I’d wanted, but once I had it, it felt so natural that I’d go hours without noticing how badly I wanted to scream.
I fought that urge again as I climbed belowdecks. The galley was dark. I dug through the debris, found a book of matches, and lit one. The little room was a mess. Plates were smashed, papers were scattered across every surface, and rotted fruit littered the floor. As I let my eyes drift across the wreckage, it occurred to me that this was not so much worse than how we usually kept the space.
It was us, the whole time.
Us.
Lazy and overworked. Giddy and gloomy. Drunk and hungover and drunk again. What we’d built here had been nothing at all, or at least nothing good. It had been misery, yes, but I grew up on the Westside, so this had been the most tolerable misery I’d ever known.
I stepped over the trash and shoved open the cabin door. The bed where I’d passed my last night of decent sleep was still there, the sheets rumpled like I’d just gotten up. If it weren’t for the blood dripping down from above, it would have looked inviting.
I ran my hand along the mattress and, for the first time, let myself wonder what might happen if Cherub and I were still alive when next week began. There was no coming back here. And whatever we had, I wasn’t sure it would work on dry land. I wasn’t sure I wanted to try. If it had been us, if every problem had simply been us, there was nothing to do but say goodbye.
I flipped the mattress. It was not hard finding what Marka had left behind: a small notebook with a marbled cover where white and green swirled in a nauseating way. I opened the cover and found a surprisingly elegant sketch of a dead seagull. I was surprised she’d known how to draw. On the next page, she’d written, “It’s the most ridiculous thing, of course, to be so worried about these birds. Stuy calls them flying roaches, and I’d have agreed with him except I’ve always found a certain beauty in the cockroach, and seagulls are simply trash. But the thought of them dying like that is keeping me up nights, and since I bought the notebook I may as well use it, and anyway there might be a play in it or a story or something, god, I don’t care—I just need something new.”
I flipped through the notebook and found that within a page or two, Marka dropped her ironic pose. She stopped writing in sentences, simply bulleting information and making notes in shorthand when she was doing interviews. Whatever she was looking for had her terrified, because nothing but fear could make Marka Watson act like a real reporter.
The spine of the book was cracked, falling open to a page where she’d written, “Headaches constant. Nausea worse. Dizzy all the time. How long till I’m like them? Meeting w/ source. She promises a cure.”
After that, there was nothing else.
I understood how sick she’d felt. I’d felt it too. How stupid we were, how proud. If we’d been able to talk about it, we might have solved this mess before blood was spilled. But for all our chatter, we’d never really talked at all.
A plain white envelope lay beside the notebook. Inside were four brown paper packets, all empty, that I recognized as the sort used to wrap Vivienne Bourget’s marvelous crystals. With them was a note in ragged handwriting that read: “All four at once—jam them in!—and you will be made whole.” The letters were smeared.
Whole. A lovely thought. I could see why Marka fell for it.
I kicked the cabinet beneath the bunk. It splintered, and I kicked it again. I wasn’t angry, exactly. I was impatient, my hands shaking too hard for me to bother with the latch. Inside, I found my bag, right where Cherub had stashed it, and down at the bottom was my little pouch of burglar’s tools. I gripped it, feeling the metal cold and hard through the leather, and for the first time in a day or a week or a year, I knew precisely who I wanted to be.
I passed back through the cabin and cockpit and grabbed hold of the rail that ran the length of the ship. I squeezed it as tightly as I could, but my hand shook. After a long, slow walk, I stepped onto the party deck. The bow had smashed into the shad-fishing barge, tangling the lines and breaking the rail. Every pulse of the river shoved us harder against it. Above my head, rope and canvas dangled as limp as drying pasta. The Mudfoots’ message—“Cherub Got His”—was a smear of red on the crumpled sail.
The bodies, well. Their condition had not improved. Broken glass was scattered throughout, and the blood sparkled under the thin moon. Beneath the funk of death, the tragic odor of spilled liquor clung to the wood.
I stepped over a heap of shattered bone—ribs? The ribs of someone I had smiled at, drank with, loathed?—and inspected the Bourget Device. Its cabinet hung open. Its crank spun uselessly. The panels were closed tight and the door to the crystal compartment was fused shut. The moonlight glinted off something wedged in the cabinet’s corner. I tugged it out and was rewarded with a bottle of Diana’s Fire secreted by Marka or Bess or one of my other doomed so-called friends.
Leaning against the Device, I forced myself to look at the horror behind me. I uncorked the bottle and raised it high.
“You were all bastards,” I said. “Witty, talented, overeducated, and cruel. Thank you for the distraction and the booze. I’m sorry you’re dead now.”
I drained half of it, savored the almond heat in my throat, and smashed the bottle on the deck. The spilled liquor slid toward starboard. The blood it touched gleamed like wet rust.
I flipped through my burglar’s pouch and withdrew the miniature chisel and hammer. Three hard blows and the Device’s crystal compartment fell open. There, as expected, were four blackened crystals, jammed in a space meant to hold only one, overloaded by the surge of poisonous light that butchered Marka and her friends—the surge provoked by the source’s lie.
The boat had told me everything it had to say, but I was not finished with it, although god knows I wanted to be. It was time for the last voyage of the Misery Queen.
I stepped across the party deck’s vile mess and leaned over the bow of the ship. Setting Marka’s notebook by my feet, I placed my hands against the barge and gave a hard shove.
We did not budge.
I planted my feet and pressed harder, sending spasms of pain racing up and down my sides. I accomplished nothing.
“We won’t be having that,” I told her. “You have tortured me enough.”
I kept pushing. I gave a shove for every time I’d smashed my forehead on her bulkheads and my little toe on her doorframes. I shoved for every spell of seasickness, every hangover that had been amplified tenfold by the hell of sleep belowdecks in an airless room. I shoved for every useless piece of nautical lingo she’d forced me to pick up, for the stupidity of saying “line” when you meant “rope” and “deck” when you meant the goddamned “floor.” I shoved until my hands shook from the pain in my sides, and still we did not move.
Breathing heavily, I inspected the mess above my head. Every line was caught. I pulled uselessly at the nearest length of rope and felt the Queen nestle tighter against the barge.
“Damn. Sweet god damn.”
Even if I had the skill and the time, there was no chance of getting the Queen sailing. She had won again. I could only laugh. I leaned on the rail and cackled at the wadded rope that had me chained to that damned barge. Laughing hurt, and that made me laugh even more.
My laughter echoed across the wide, quick river, and was answered by the splash of oars. I felt the gentle nudge of a boat bumping into the Queen’s stern.
“Slaybeck?” I shouted into the wind. “You were right. This boat will never sail again. Thank you for coming back.”
But the voice that answered had none of the easy ferocity that comes with a life on the river. It was cold, sharp—as shocking as a length of exposed spine.
“You’ve made a mistake, girl. You’re speaking to the NYPD.”
All laughter died. I snatched up the notebook and grabbed the neck of the bottle of Diana’s Fire. I looked up and he was there, leaning cheerfully against the cabinet of the Bourget Device. In the moonlight, his skin looked like dry ice. His lips were apple red.
“A liquor bottle, again?” he said.
“It worked before.”
“I’m disappointed. You’re running short of ideas.”
Koszler planted his cane on the deck and strolled across the mess of bodies and blood.
“What brings you to the Misery Queen?” I said. “If you’re looking for a pleasure cruise, I’m afraid we’re out of service.”
He said nothing. This man was too brutal for banter. He simply advanced. The broken glass in my hand looked fearsome, but it would be useless in an honest fight. I was no match for his strength.
But he wasn’t counting on strength.
He pulled a stubby little pistol. He cocked the hammer and pointed it at me. My stomach lurched. The world dropped away. The sensation was strange, but not surprising. I’d had guns pointed my way before.
“Drop the bottle,” he said.
I let it fall to the deck.
“I’ve always wondered where the Westside ends,” he said. “On land, it’s easy to tell. Cross the fence and your sidearm is useless. Safer to leave it behind. But on the river, who can say? We’re practically touching Jersey. Do you think my gun will fire?”
I shrugged. He sneered, and I remembered what my father told me when the Westside began to reject firearms, when every gun in the Lower West rusted to pieces and failed to fire.
