Automatic Woman Part 12

To His Right Honorable Barnes, I have been instructed to inform you that Jacques Nouveau is at the Franklin Brothers Circus in Stoke Poges. False map included. Mr. Nouveau is actually located somewhere in the confines of Central Bureaucracy. I have evidence of this, as does one or both of the gentlemen behind me. You have a rat in your house, get to cleaning.

Sincerely, Jacob Fellows Lord Barnes sat behind his desk and set both the letter and his c.o.c.ktail down. He reached under his seat and produced the single largest six-shot pistol I've ever seen. It was more a cannon than a shooter. The barrel was etched with gold leaf Celtic labyrinths. Barnes thumbed the hammer.

"Mr. Fellows, every man is in the search for greatness. There are four factors to greatness: Breeding, schooling, luck, and specialty." Lord Barnes pointed his ma.s.sive gun at my chest.

"You are not great. As far as I can tell you are a specialist in the art of making trouble and you possess a bit of luck. But these two items alone do not make a great man." He waved his pistol at Silver and Bell. "These men aren't great either. But they don't have to be. They are under my care and I am a great man."

Lord Barnes stood up. Sweat dripped from my wrists to my hands. I envisioned reaching for the pig sticker taped to my leg. What would it take to rip it free and plunge it in that man's neck before he blasted a hole through my chest?

"I have breeding, schooling, luck. But do you know my specialty?"

I shook my head. The coin! Come on, ignite you Christ -forsaken coin! Reap chaos, sound the alarm, destroy! Do whatever it is Darwin planned for you to do!

"Don't play dim, Jolly. What is my specialty?"

"You have information to blackmail every other important person in London?"

"That's true, but that's a side effect of my specialty. You see, Mr. Fellows, I find the truth about people, their secrets, because I know the difference between the truth and a lie."

Lord Barnes pressed the barrel of his giant shooter against my chest. The coin! The coin!

"Lies live in men's eyes and I can see them, every one, every time." Barnes looked up to Bell and Silver. "No man can hide a lie completely, the eyes, the actions of the hands, changes in speech. These betray all and I can see each and every one. No man keeps his secrets from me, and for this reason I am a great man. Allow me to demonstrate." Lord Barnes turned his head to Bell and Silver. "Jacques Nouveau is at Central Bureaucracy. Gather the maskers."

Bell turned to leave the office. Silver paused, just for a moment, like he had to process Barnes' order a second time. Like he'd expected Barnes to say something different. I saw it, Barnes saw it. Barnes swung the barrel of his cannon at Silver's chest and pulled the trigger. The explosion from the barrel sent me reeling out of the chair with hands over my ears. Both of my ears rang and buzzed and hummed. I turned my head in time to see Silver slump against my chair. Light showed through the hole in chest. Crimson syrup poured out of him onto the chair, onto the rug. Silver got his day of reckoning, not a moment too soon.

Bell stood awestruck, mouth open, flabbergasted by the events that had transpired. Barnes gave him a hard slap with his free hand.

"Gather the boys! We're on the job."

Barnes pulled me up by my jacket and pushed me ahead of him. My ears still rang. I know his Lordship was barking orders at me, but they were lost in the hums and buzzes. Bell, Barnes and I entered the plush lobby. I imagined we were on our way to the elevators. Maybe I would survive; maybe Barnes was convinced of my loyalty. These questions were rendered moot when the fountain exploded.

A shock wave rippled through the room, pushing all men off their feet. Perseus and Pegasus popped up, took flight, turned and came crashing into their former home. The caesium had blown a hole through the bottom of the fountain and floor beneath, raining the second floor offices with water and mythological statues. The stone edges of the fountain fell into the hole, completing the implosion and leaving a jagged wound in the center of the floor.

I tore free my knife, but Barnes was already on me. Blood ran out of both his ears and I must have been in the same shape because I heard none of the blood-spittle expletives that came out of his mouth. His free hand vice-gripped the wrist of my knife hand. My free hand vice-gripped the wrist of his gun hand. We grunted and rolled like yin trying to kill yang. In my peripheral vision I saw Bell gain his feet, sway, and take two steps toward us. I must have yelled and screamed. Barnes fired a shot over my head, flecks of powder burning my forehead and filling the air with the scent of singed hair. I rolled with Barnes, once, twice, the third time away from the approaching Bell, down the hole that had once been home to Bow Street's chic fountain.

We fell as a meteor of fat men to the rubble and bedlam of the second floor. The impact separated us and knocked the wind from my chest. I struggled to gain air, balance, sound, anything that could get me back into the fight.

All around me men were brawling. Some were Bow Street regulars I knew; some were wearing sack cloth masks and making a go at the regulars with truncheons, probably Darwin's people or mercenaries. Who knows, the world is full of enemies and angry men.

I caught sight of Barnes raising his gun to me. I lunged and screamed and arced my pimp knife into his gun wrist, pinning arm, hand, and Barnes to a cheap plywood part.i.tion. The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d clocked my cheek with a left haymaker, giving me stars to count. All fight, that one. I kicked him in the b.o.l.l.o.c.ks and answered his left with two rights. I'm no gentleman. That's my specialty.

Lord Barnes drooped and hung unconscious by his impaled wrist. I lifted his key ring and ran for the exit stairs, flinging Runners and Darwinians out of my way with equal abandon. I made my descent through fighting men and grunts and shouts and wild fists. I saw it all, but heard none of it. Down I went, first floor, bas.e.m.e.nt storage, sub-bas.e.m.e.nt non-storage. The third key I attempted put me into the room. The attending guard rose at my entrance. Non-storage was soundproofed for good reason. Prisoners, captives, and hostages tend to bellow in interrogation.

The guard rose, saw the fight in my eyes and the blood running from my ears and reached quickly for his cobra baton. I smiled and charged. He swung his club as I swung my fist full into his chest.

I know how to punch, how to step into it, to turn my body, to aim for whatever is behind the man. The guard's feet lifted from bedrock and he landed as a mess of no air and broken ribs. I'm not sure if his club made contact. If so I never felt it. I retrieved the cobra from the floor for my own sake. You never know.

The four cells of non-storage were occupied. Orel. Emily. Mary. Some old codger I'd never met.

Call me Moses.

I freed the prisoners, even the old stranger. Orel gave me a hard look. Emily went to take a swing but her husband got a hold of her arms in the nick of time. She had to content herself with spitting on my foot before she and Orel left. The old codger followed with an approving nod in my direction. Mary gave me a much better reception. She caressed my cheek. I read her lips. They asked if I was okay, they asked where I had been, and then they were on my own. I closed my eyes for a moment, forgetting the danger we were in, forgetting the fight outside, the struggle of men, the fact that my hearing might never come back. I opened my eyes and pulled Mary out of the kiss.

"Get behind me," I said. I popped one of Dr. Doyle's syringes in my leg, opting for the recommended dose this time. I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths. My heart pumped solid in my chest, strong and brave. Blood flowed in my ears, my arms, and I felt like G.o.d's last warrior, an invincible man.

The sub-bas.e.m.e.nt stairwell had grown dangerously hot, oppressively hot. It was the kind of heat that sets off all the animal panic b.u.t.tons in the back of my skull. During my brief interim in the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt, the Bow Street Firm had turned into a flaming h.e.l.lscape. The air was condensed and rippled like caramelized syrup. As we ascended breathing became unbearable. I threw my coat over Mary's head and guided her into the first floor lobby.

The well-tuned machine of Bow Street was no more. Tables and desks were overturned. Boschon copiers, information looms, and pneumatic tubes were destroyed. The innards of the information beast were smashed and scattered. Flames licked the walls and coated all those beautiful panels of wood. The ceiling was invisible behind a cloud of black smoke that rolled and flowed like an upside-down ocean. Bodies of men were strewn about. Some I knew, some I didn't. I stepped over Blaine, brave guard, wielder of the cobra. I stepped over a man in a burlap mask, another in a cheetah mask. My eyes watered tears for smoke and loss. All these men felled at the ego of two geniuses who were too posh to just have at each other.

I lifted Mary into my arms, cradling her to avoid the corpses and flaming bits of furniture. Near the front door I caught sight of something that chilled my spine. One of the burlap maskers was laid out, not moving. His arm had been hacked off at the elbow, but rather than blood and bone and ligaments, the dead masker poured oil. Tiny gears spread out from his wound, reflecting gold in the fire light. No doubt Darwin had been busy.

Outside the front entrance, the fray had taken to the streets. Dozens of men fought and scrambled over the cobbles. By now the Metros had weighed in and were swinging their batons at all men not uniformed. I imagine there was screaming, battle cries of the bloodied, and despairing cries of the dying. All the spinning hurling cacophony of war was thankfully m.u.f.fled to my damaged ears. Lord Barnes was nowhere. It was possible that he was in the burning structure, a captain going down with his ship, but I didn't think that was the case. A burlap masker ran towards me with knife raised. I planted my boot firmly under his chin and sent him hurtling. I couldn't tell if he was man or machine, so keen was Nouveau's creation, or should I say Saxon's. I shifted Mary over my left shoulder and sprang the cobra with my free hand. The street was slippery with b.l.o.o.d.y mud. I swung at all comers, burlap, animal, Metro; no man or machine stood as my friend and I cracked all skulls brave enough or unfortunate enough to get between myself and the line of exit. The combat ebbed and flowed and I eventually found myself on the far side of it, away from the bloodl.u.s.t grinder. I took off down an alley, Mary still over my shoulder.

A horseless carriage screeched to halt at the opposite end. Two Metros jumped out. They raised their hands and shouted words that wouldn't have mattered had I understood. I set Mary onto her feet and charged the Mets. Blood was pounding in my face, in my hands, into the tips of my fingers. The first Met raised his baton. I faked a high attack and then dropped to my knees, shattering his ankle with a tremendous swing of the cobra. The Met howled in agony. This I actually heard through the m.u.f.fled thumping of my destroyed hearing. I popped up to meet his partner, only to find him loading a scattergun from the other side of the car. My heart stopped. The Met raised his gun to his shoulder, leaned forward and was suddenly enveloped by my jacket. I swung left. The Met shot out the pa.s.senger window of his horseless carriage.

The Met swept the jacket off of himself but Mary was now on his back, punching and wailing like a banshee. I ran around the car and tackled both Mary and the Met into a pile of alley trash. His scattergun dropped somewhere in the refuse. The three of us rolled like cats, Mary biting and scratching, my hands on the wrists of the Met. He'd loosed a knife from his belt and was trying to press the tip into my chest. The Met and I rolled. Mary fell clear of the fray. My palms were too sweaty. The Met loosed his knife hand and gave me a shallow poke in the stomach, just enough to keep me awake and active and stain the front of my shirt like a real horror show. I raised my fists into a boxer's stance and the Met took another slash, this one cutting a straight line down my forearm. This bloke was fast to be sure. I c.o.c.ked my head right and stepped left, giving no indication of my next move. Really I was waiting for him to get close, close enough for me to grab hold of him, put my hands on him, tear him asunder like I had that automatic woman oh so long ago. Behind his shoulder I spotted Mary, standing and holding the copper's scattergun from her hip. She said something and the copper turned white, then dropped his knife and turned slowly. I took advantage of the moment, stepped forward, and punched the Met's face with every ounce of twist and weight I could muster. My knuckle split on the man's temple and gave us a little of the old red paint. He bowed down, lifted his head, took a step back and lost his legs completely, collapsing back into the rubbish heap. I looked up at Mary and gave her a wink. She smiled back at me, and waved the scattergun, which was almost as big as her. I reclaimed my jacket and my cobra and my girl. We ran off into the night.

For half an hour we ducked in and out of dark alleys, dodging all hints of authority, humanity, shadows and rats. We lurked across side roads and in virtually uninhabited neighborhoods. She tossed the shooter into some bushes. There was no way to hide a giant f.u.c.k-all scattergun and we needed more stealth than fight. She turned to me with a look on her face that I'd never seen, not through the days of caresses or fleeting paid-for moments of ecstasy. Her grin was wolfish and lopsided. It made her eyes sparkle and even though her make-up had long ago worn away in the Bow Street non-storage, I'd never seen her more beautiful. My hearing was returning, but there would always be a ring, on quiet nights and quiet places the high pitch ring would be my companion from now into the hereafter.

"That was f.u.c.king brilliant!" she said and grabbed my right hand in both of hers.

She kissed the knife wound on my forearm, and my busted knuckles. She licked a spot of blood off her lips. Honestly, that was going a bit too far, but I didn't say anything for fear of ruining the mood.

I looked around. We were near the desolate neighborhood of the Piece Work, near the home of the porter's mum. I led Mary down the darker paths of the declining neighborhoods. I knocked on Mum's door and b.u.t.toned my jacket so as to look less like a b.l.o.o.d.y hooligan. The old woman answered despite the hour and location. A trusting soul, or an insane one.

"h.e.l.lo, Mum," I said. She was wearing a colorful new coat over her layers of rags. Purple crushed velvet. Good call, Mum. She smiled her angelic smile.

"Mr. Government Agent! What brings you back?"

"Good news, Mum. I always come bearing joyous tidings."

Mum ushered us into her home. As I mentioned, her living quarters consisted of a single room. The interior was lit by an oil lamp on a raw wood table. The light glowed soft and gold and did nothing to illuminate the dark corners of Mum's hovel. The walls were adorned with separate layers of peeling contact paper. The top layer was white followed by gray, then yellow, then patches of brick where the paper had completely come away.

A couch sat behind the raw wood table. A vertical gas pipe and radiator dominated the wall opposite the couch. A gas ring extended from the pipe. A battered kettle perched itself precariously on the ring. Mum's home was the very definition of shabby.

Mum stroked Mary's arm with old, thin fingers. She looked into Mary's eyes and took a sudden deep breath.

"You are so lovely, deary!" Mum squeaked. She let her twig fingers brush Mary's face, her hair, her dress.

Mary gave Mum a shy smile. Her bare feet were black with mud and street grime. Her hair was a tangled nest; her hair dye had grown a half inch over the roots, now showing bits blonde and gray under auburn. Her dress was torn and filthy from days of confinement.

Mum was a saint.

"Can I get you a cup of tea, deary?" Mum asked "Tea would be fine," Mary replied.

I grabbed Mary's hand. Mine was still shaking from the last dregs of Dr. Doyle's seven percent solution. Mum lit her gas ring with a match the length of her forearm.

"Mum, I've been talking with important men, officials. You and your son should have a better place to live. We have acquired a place for you on B Street."

I took my apartment key out of my pocket and pressed it into her hand. It wasn't like I was ever going back. As far I as I was concerned, London and I were finished.

"It's paid up to the end of next month. There's no furniture except for a bed, which you can keep. Anyway, it's a flat bigger than this place. Are you interested?"

Mum laughed and hooted and grasped me in a hug stronger than I would have given her credit for.

"Gather your things, then," I said.

Mum bobbed around her room putting odds and ends into a canvas shopping sack. Picture frames, a broken statuette, a half-full ash tray, tins of potted meat. She filled her bag with a nonsensical collection dictated by whatever cracked portion of her mind judged important from unimportant. Her little feet swished and swept the rubbish on her floor; leaves, and bits of wrapping, and cigar ends.

I took her bag and her arm and walked her out of her s.h.i.te apartment and s.h.i.te neighborhood. It took four blocks of wandering to find a hansom cab that would stop to my raised hand.

I paid the driver a hefty tip, gave him directions, and instructed him to walk Mum to my front door. And off they went.

Over the buildings and homes, miles from where I stood, the London skyline burned fierce. The Bow Street Firm, its neighbor buildings, and probably the entire city block were consumed in a hungry conflagration. My history, my work, and the last seven years of my life in the belly of that beast were all gone to wind, to ashes, and to memories.

I returned to Mum's flat. Mary stood among the rubbish sipping a cup of Earl Grey.

"Was that cup clean?" I asked.

"Probably not." She regarded the cup for a moment, then dropped it to the floor and was on me like a jungle cat. She stripped off my coat and threw it against the wall. Then she ripped my shirt down the center, sending popped b.u.t.tons to join the decaying garbage of Mum's floor. I leaned in to kiss her but she slapped me hard across the face and pushed me onto the couch. I pulled her onto my lap; she straddled my body and locked her legs behind my back, like the Swan Princess of my nightmares.

I lifted her and myself from the couch, fighting as much as loving. Our lips finally locked and our tongues took on the fight our hands were too busy to engage in. My hands found their way under her dress, caressing her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her tiny a.r.s.e, every bit of her legs and back, all taut muscles like bow strings. Her hands tangled into my hair which she twisted like a bronco rider. We collapsed to the floor as hot blooded beasts, rutting and cursing well into the morning hours.

Eleven.

Jolly and Mary's Escape from London I woke in the late morning with Mary still in my arms. We roused ourselves and gathered discarded bits of clothing. She brushed the rubbish from Mum's floor off my back; I did the same for her. We were like grooming chimpanzees picking away bits of paper and tea leaves and cigar b.u.t.ts. The morning sun seemed a strange beast. I was positively hung-over from the violence of the night before.

We gathered our meager effects. Mary nicked a pair of sandals from under Mum's couch, and we were on our way. The evening's careful planning had given way to improvising. I knew that leaving London was the first priority. Things had gotten too hot, as the saying goes. I stopped in a general store for biscuits, a paper, and a coat for Mary to throw over her torn dress. We looked and smelled like gutter snipes. I retrieved my firearms from the tube station. We booked pa.s.sage on an eleven o'clock southbound train to Portsmouth with all stops in-between.

We took advantage of a layover in Basingstoke. I rented us two copper tubs at a tavern under the pretense of being a married couple on holiday. We took short but heavenly baths. The hot water peeled away days of grime and dead skin and dried blood. I could have spent a lifetime basking in that water, getting clean, getting renewed. I rose from that copper tub reborn. The water I left behind was thick and black and stank despite the soaps and perfumes mixed in. Mary's tub was not so dramatic, but she looked like a different person as well. We appeared less like street urchins and more like the newlywed widower and late marriage maid that I'd composed as our cover story.

We returned to the train and shared a quiet lunch of cold meats in the dining car. Afterward we found our seats and she rested her head against my arm. Mary slept while I watched the green earth roll past. Clouds blotted the sun and made everything gray and cool. The train stopped again in Winchester, but I made no movement for fear of waking Mary. She rubbed her face and grumbled and continued dreaming Lord knows what.

We detrained at Portsmouth. I booked pa.s.sage for us on an eight p.m. ferry to Le Havre. We rented another room, this time for the purpose of changing appearances. Mary shaved off all of my hair and mutton chops, or at least those hairs that hadn't been burned off in Bow Street. I matched my new hairstyle with a cheap shirt, wool trousers, suspenders, and cap. All in all I looked like a dock worker lost from port. Mary dyed her hair henna red and gave it a short bob, as was trendy among working cla.s.s wives.

We shared another quiet meal, this one of Shepherd's Pie and whiskey waters. I purchased three evening editions and scanned for my name or anything that could relate me to last evening's activities.

Riot in Whitechapel Fire Sweeps Central London Anarchists b.l.o.o.d.y Revolt On and on went tales of lurid violence and the heroic efforts of police officers and firefighters. Eleven dead, dozens injured. No mention of the Bow Street Firm or Lord Barnes or Charles Darwin or automatic statues that fight like men. Someone had whitewashed these stories and taken out the mystery, the true meaning. Two of the papers cited the cause as a drunken brawl that got out of hand, something started over choleric words at the St. George & Dragon. The Pall Mall Gazette, yellowest of the three papers, blamed the riot on an anarchist conspiracy to undermine our sovereign unity. They want to destroy our way of life because they hated freedom and happiness and blah, blah, blah. Someone had spent good currency or brandished incredible favors to alter the news. The effect was disorienting. Had I made up the conspiracies in my mind? Were the papers right? Was I mad?

I looked at Mary, dipping her fork into mash and sweeping it around. The things that happened last night, last week, the war of the geniuses, the statues that came to life, if all of that wasn't real, then what was she doing with me?

"Mary?"

"Hmm."

"Am I mad?"

"Hmm?"

"Am I crazy?"

Her brown eyes looked up as she solemnly chewed her food. She gave the impression of deep contemplation. She swallowed and gave me that lopsided grin.

"Maybe."

"Why are you with me?"

"You scared off my pimp."

"No, really. I'm in serious trouble. You can jump clear of this if you leave me. Why are you staying?"

She stroked the back of my hand with her finger.

"Jolly, I literally have nowhere else to go. Jack paid my rent. I'm not a woman of means; I'm an army widow. Less than that, actually. My husband, G.o.d rest his soul, was shot and killed in Egypt during Orabi's Uprising. I was sad, I was hurt, but deep inside I was relieved. I married when I was young and pretty and stupid and didn't know the ways of worldly men. My husband was older and dashing and strong and quick with his temper and fists. He also loved drink and cards. I imagine he loved drink and cards more than me given that he always had money for one and not the other. 'Fine,' I thought, 'he's dead and I'll get my pension and the live the quiet widow's life. Or perhaps I'll go to a vocational school, take up the caring of children or typesetting.' The government letter came and took what hope I had and burned it to ash. 'Your husband was discharged from service prior to his death,' they say. 'Conduct not befitting a soldier in the Queen's Army,' they say. 'Murdered in a common tavern brawl,' they say. No heroics, no honor, no pension. That's when Saucy Jack started coming around. Devon, my husband, owed money to several disreputable lenders. All gambling debts. Jack purchased the debts and presented me with two options: pay my husband's outstanding balance or receive my husband's punishment. No one sets out to be a wh.o.r.e, Jolly. But after five years, I know that's all I'll ever be. A wh.o.r.e."

"I like you," I said. I wanted to say something more substantial but found myself at a loss. I make no claim to being suave around the fairer s.e.x, even one that I've already had the carnal knowledge of. To be sure, Mary gave me an inscrutable look.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Even if I'm a wh.o.r.e."

"You're not a wh.o.r.e today. You won't be a wh.o.r.e tomorrow. You're not a wh.o.r.e to me."

"I've been a wh.o.r.e to you."

"Those days are over."

"All right, then. I like you, too. But I know that good days are to be lived in the moment and bad days are always on their way. I'm having fun now. I'm enjoying your company now. Where do you have us going from here?"

"We'll land in Le Havre and take a train East. As far East as we can manage on our resources."

She gave my hand another squeeze.

"The men chasing you, are they going to find us?"

"I don't know. I'm pretty lucky."

"You're lucky my former husband cured me of handsome and charming men."

I laughed at that.