The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1) (9 page)

Mrs. Hyde let out a long, black sob.

Leenie lowered her voice.  “Me ma is upset.  Can we talk about this outside?”

I nodded and we went outside, Hendricks in tow.  Once out in front of the butcher shop, she began to speak in a low voice.  “Me ma don’t know anyt’ing.  She stays in the room and does washin’.  I don’t want her to know what Molly did.”  She wiped her nose on her sleeve.  “I always thought Molly would end up dead, but not like this.  I even hoped that she would find a good life once that rich man bought her.”

“He bought her?  That’s white slavery!” said Hendricks.

“We’re all slaves here,” said Leenie. “Smokestack owned Molly likes he owns everyone else in this neighborhood. Like he owns me.”

“So you and Molly work the Hook,” I stated.

“She worked in one of his places, above The Bloody Knuckle.  I’m a barmaid there, but I don’t have to do…that…as long as I make enough wit dancin’.  Molly gave me money to keep me off the bed. The money she got from Mister Vanderlay when he came to her.”

“Vanderlay.”  The pieces began to fit. “Did Vanderlay get her with child?” I asked.

She shrugged.  “Maybe. Some’un did, an’ he thought ‘twas ‘im. He bought ‘er from Smokestack to nurse his wife’s babe, an’ made Molly put her baby Aiden in an orphanage.”

“That poor child,” Hendricks said, his head tilting to the dirty stones. 

“I was glad.  She only had t’ lie with one man now, even if she had to give up her own.” The girl sighed. “Mister Vanderlay said ‘twas temp’rary, an’ once Molly was dry, she could get ‘im back.”

I looked at her and shook my head.

“Molly din’t believe ‘im either. She was savin’ her pennies…no good now, I guess.”

“Why would anyone want to kill her?” I asked.

“I dunno what those fancy men do.  Maybe Smokestack wanted ‘er dead.  Maybe he wanted money from Mister Vanderlay, an’ it went wrong.  He used ta gamble at The Bloody Knuckle and some of Smokestack’s other places.  He always came fer the boxing.  He used ta try and dress like a b’hoy to fit in, but he stuck out funny.  He’s a queer man.”

I sponged up all of this new information.  I knew there was something cross about Vanderlay.  Man like that, he’s gotta be dirty somewhere.  Now I found a connection between Vanderlay and Smokestack.  I wouldn’t put it past Smokestack to kidnap the baby if he had to. 

Molly meant nothing to them, but she died on my watch.  She meant something to me.

I said my goodbyes to Leenie and elbowed Hendricks away.  We caught the lumbering, stinking omnibus at Chatham Square and muscled our way through the throng until we found seats.  We rode to Thirteenth Street and walked to my flat. 

“What do we do now?” said Hendricks.

A plan began to form. “Meet me here tomorrow afternoon.  Wear something,” I thought on the right word. “Poor.”

“I hope this is over soon.  I never want to go back there.”  He hailed a carriage and rumbled back to Turtle House.

I headed to the local rag picker.  There were a few things I was gonna need.

Nathaniel

Rabbi Manuel Levitt is a broad man with a broad beard and broad humor.  He lives with his granddaughters on Henry Street in the Seventh Ward, which the Germans and Jews claim as their own.

Levitt is a different kind of mageling than someone like Tom.  His magic comes from his faith as much as his books.  He performs a type of magic called
Kabbalah
, known to the Jewish people alone.  It’s a magic that I don’t entirely understand and as ancient as anything that Master Sol ever taught me.  The art of petitioning the Lord is lost on most of us, but the good rabbi seems to manage.

As luck would have it, I can apparate down to the Seventh Ward with no concerns of being seen. I own a fish market on Pike Street, with a back room that I can flash into.  I traced the proper rune in the air, and the world disappeared.  When it came back, I stood in darkness.

A mere thought filled the room with light.  In the center of the room sat a Troll, now cursing and shielding his eyes from the light.  “God’s balls, didja have ta make it so bright?”

“Sorry, Mak,” I said.  I noticed that he was sans apron and covered in fish guts.  He sat on a stool, claw deep in a fish’s belly. A pile of gutted fish lay in a wooden crate to his side.  “Do you always work in the dark?”

“Easier on the eyes.”  He pointed to one of his bulging, yellow globes.  “If ya don’t mind, I’ve got some work ta do.”

“Oh yes, carry on.”  I opened the door to the front room, dismissing my light spell as I went.  I walked out the front door, nodding to the Troll behind the fish counter.

I do my best to find Dwellers jobs elsewhere, but I also hire many of them.  I own all sorts of groceries, factories and shops in the city, and I own quite a bit of land.  Despite the rumors, I don’t spin straw into gold.  The Star of Nine forbids such a thing, as it could ruin a city’s economy, but immortality breeds its own wealth.

The moment I stepped out into the street, I took in the unique scent of fish guts, urine, coal smoke, and manure.  As I headed north on Pike, I picked up overtones of spilled beer and sizzling sausage. It seems like every ward has a signature smell. You can find your way by nose alone.

The Seventh Ward is at the southern end of what they call
Kleindeutschland
, or Little Germany.  Once away from the docks, the ethnic peculiarities take over.  The streets hum with the dream of a new life far from the oppression of their homelands.  I passed a beer garden on one corner. The thump of drums and whine of accordion mixed with the sound of sellers and shoppers.  Peddlers lined both sides of the street, men and horses crowded the center.  A gaggle of goblins in their human disguises haggled with a fruit peddler over some apples. 

I found Levitt’s building.  It was another one of those brick tenements. This area had been destroyed by fire several times, but they keep rebuilding, bigger and better.  It makes me proud of my people.

Despite the air of everyday business, something struck me as wrong.  I felt tension in the air, like the tingling before a storm.  Maybe it was the furtive glances people leveled at each other—or maybe it was the editorial I read in the
Subterranean
. The locals looked ready to find bolt holes at any moment.
Then again, in this part of the city, it’s always good to know an escape route.

The lock on the building’s front door was broken, so I let myself in.  I walked up the black stairs and knocked on the first door.

“Rabbi Levitt?  It’s Nathaniel Hood.”

“Hood?  You want the
Rebbi
?” Came a thick voice from beyond the door.  “
Moishe!!
  Someone here for the
Rebbi
!  Some
goy
named Hood!  I don’t know, just bring the
Rebbi!
” There was some shuffling behind the door, and then Rabbi Levitt filled the open doorway.

“
Herr
Watchmage! So good to see you.  Please come in.”

He closed the door behind me.  It was a small room, but quaint. The furniture looked as if they crafted it from wooden crates, straw, and cloth.  The table was plain, but a bowl of fruit sat in the middle.  The walls were lined with shelves and stuffed with books.  A desk sat in the corner, stacked with open books and papers.  I smelled fried garlic and onion coming from a room beyond.

“I have some tea brewing.  Would you like some?” He brushed off a chair by the table and gestured for me to sit.  “Ruchel, is the tea ready?”

“Yes,
Zaydee
,” came a girl’s voice from the other room.

He bustled out of the room before I could answer, and soon returned with two cups of tea. “Forgive me,
Herr
Watchmage, but I have no milk or sugar.  There’s a lemon in the bowl, and you can have some, if you like. Or I can go to the grocer and buy sugar. Would you like that?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure? It’s no bother at all.”

“No, thank you.”

The door opened behind me and a man of middling years entered.  “Good evening,
Rebbe
,” he said.

“Evening, Hershel.” 

Hershel took an apple from the bowl, tipped his hat to me, and left for one of the further rooms.

“Yes, well.” Levitt raised one finger.  “I have a new joke. I know you love them.”

I stifled a groan and rested my cheek on my palm.  “Go on.”

He smiled and rubbed his meaty hands together.  “Wonderful!  May I?  Good.” His smile turned wicked.  “What did the parents give the rabbi after the
bris
?”

“What’s a bris?”

“The…um…how do you say…circumcision.”

“Oh…I don’t know.”

“A tip!”  Levitt burst into roaring laughter.  “You can laugh,
Herr
Watchmage. It’s good for the spirit.”

I forced a smile.

“Wait, I heard a good one from a pickle monger the other day.”

“Please don’t…”

“Mister Klein worked in a pickle factory for ten years.  One day he says to his wife, ‘Rebecca, for ten years I’ve wanted to stick my finger in the pickle slicer, and today I finally did it.’

“She said, ‘Well?  What happened?’

“‘I got sacked.’

“‘Oy vey!  What happened to the pickle slicer?”

“‘She got sacked too.’”

I stood dumbfounded as he grinned in his tea.  “Aren’t you a man of God?” I asked.  “You can’t say that.”

“My dear friend, I was born in Dvinsk, in Russia, many years ago.  My mother and two brothers die in a
pogrom
.  They burn half the
shtetel
down.  My father moves us to Hamburg.  I live, I laugh, I marry.  I have three sons, and they do me proud.  My wife dies.  The revolution comes. My children fight. I fight. We all fight. They kill my boys, my beautiful boys, and I’m left to bury them.  I take my grandchildren and move to America, streets paved with gold.  Now I live with ten other people and ten thousand cockroaches.  We have little food, and the people hate us.  If you don’t learn to laugh, you’ll kill yourself.”

“Wise words, I suppose.”

He wiped some dribbles of tea from his bushy beard.  “You look like a man that needs to laugh more,
Herr
Watchmage.”  His merry eyes turned serious.  “So what brings you to my hovel? Is this about the rich lady’s
schmatte?
”

“The baby?”

“Baby?  What baby?  I mean that handkerchief that she keeps waving around.  The crazy
shikse
doesn’t even know what she has.  But you know,
Herr
Watchmage, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” I admitted.

Levitt’s eyes lit up.  “Wonderful!  One should always embrace a moment to learn.  I have a book about it here somewhere…” his voice trailed off as he moved to his desk.  “I took it out last week to make sure that she had what I thought.” He shuffled the mess around, mumbling to himself.  “Ah ha! Here it is.” He raised a worn book in triumph.

“The relic in question is here,” he said, flipping to a page.  The words were in Hebrew, which I hadn’t used in several decades. 

“You know your
Genesis
, I’m sure.  Do you remember the story of
Yosef
and his coat?”  Levitt turned the page.  On the next page was an illustration of a young man being thrown into a pit by older men.  A colored mantle was in one man’s hands.

“She has the Coat of Many Colors?”  I asked with a frown. After seeing a hundred finger bones of Christ over the years, I’ve grown a thick skin when it comes to holy relics.

“The very same.  You’ve felt its power.  That’s the power of The Lord passing his gifts on to his people. 
Yosef
was a great prophet and wizard, and this is his legacy.  The coat belongs with his people.

“You?”

“Us.  It belongs with us, not some
shtotty goyish
family.”

I looked at the unfamiliar letters in the book.  If there was something I should know, I wouldn’t find it there.  “You offered Missus Vanderlay money for the handkerchief.”

“I did, as much as I could gather from my people.  Money, we don’t have, but we have our traditions.  That rag is
bupkis
to her, but to us, more precious than gold.”

“It sounds like you want it desperately.”

“I do.”

“Is that why you took the baby?  To trade?”

A confused expression came across his face.  “I didn’t take a baby.  I would never do that.  I didn’t even know one was missing.”

“It’s been in all the papers.”

“Not the Jewish ones.”

“The Vanderlay baby’s gone.  The missus thinks that you did it.”  I leaned in and spoke in a softer voice.  “She’s been saying that you took him for a blood ritual.  There’ve been some very nasty articles in the papers about your people.  They’re calling for your heads.”

“
Oy.
” Levitt’s hand shook as he drank his tea. “Why couldn’t this be a nice visit for tea and jokes?”

I rose from my chair and scanned the room.  “Do you mind if I look in the other rooms?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Do as you must.  There’s not much to see.”

I stepped into the darkened hallway.  Rabbi Levitt picked up a candlestick and followed. 

“They’re calling for our heads? ‘There are no
pogroms
in America,’ my uncle said.  ‘The streets are paved with gold.’ Bah.”  The rabbi wrung his hands and mumbled a prayer.

The hallway was short, and opened into a rectangular room with a cooking stove on one side.  A pair of wooden cabinets stood near a table.  One of them was open, and a curly haired girl pulled a pair of onions from it.  Two older men sat on the floor, playing chess with shaped pieces of brick, while a boy in knickers too big for him watched with half-closed eyes. 

Levitt gave the girl a kiss on the head.  “My granddaughter,” he said to me.  “Ruchel, when will the soup be done?”

“It needs more
schmaltz
,” she said.  “Hershel went to the butcher to buy some. It has to cook all night,
Zaydee
.   And carrots, he went to buy carrots.  We still have chopped herring and pickled tomatoes for tonight.”

“Wonderful,” he said.  My stomach growled with yearning.  I was hungry before my time, and herring was my Achilles heel.

I saw no signs of the Vanderlay baby, so I continued to the next room.  I realized that these rooms were set like rail cars, one box joining with another, a small community living inside a wooden centipede. Every room had pallets of wood and straw.  A cockroach skittled across the uneven floor.  The lone window in the room was half open, and I discerned a growing rumble from outside.

Strange, I sensed the present of magic in the room beyond.  It was that odd Hebrew magic, and it was powerful.  I stepped into the dim hallway between.

Levitt clicked his tongue. “You don’t have to go into the last room.  That’s Uncle Shmuel.  He’s not feeling well.”