one

 

 

“BEST OF ALL mornings to you, my dark-hearted friend,” Crash sang as he barreled into the vardo.

A gale cold as the hinges of Hell followed him into the wagon.

I grumbled one of the more colorful turns of phrase I’d picked up from Mrs. Hudson, but most of the words stuck in the cottony numbness of my mouth. Prying my gummy eyes open, a vision of my damnable roommate came into focus.

That particular day he’d bundled himself up in an old wool coat and a blue scarf that had seen better times. A leather satchel slung across his body bumped against the narrow doorframe and the wall as its wearer spun his back to me. As his nickname suggested, Sanford “Crash” Haus would never be mistaken for a feather-footed angel.

My hammock swayed when he slammed the door behind him. I groaned in protest, but kept my curses to myself. Mostly.

“Didn’t wake you, did I, Dandy?”

“I’m fairly certain you woke everyone from here to the Devil’s door and back again.”

“Then I must try harder next time, if I’m to rouse Mephistopheles himself,” he snickered, ruffling snow out of his ginger curls.

Crash’s movements about the tight space were a dance: fluid, yet punctuated by percussive accents of the destruction that came part-and-parcel with him. The satchel fell to the floor, spilling its contents with a gentle whispering, as Crash reached to the shelf above my hammock. The cigar box slid easily into his hands.

I closed my eyes, adjusting to the pain of being awake far too soon for my own liking, while my friend rustled through papers and skunky herb to make himself a morning repast. The rasp of the match was enough to relax something in me. Smoke filled the small wagon, and I massaged the stump of my left leg.

“The cold makes it worse, doesn’t it?” Crash asked quietly.

I nodded. “Winter ain’t my friend.”

“Perhaps you should’ve stayed in Alabama.”

“Humidity’s no good for me neither. Besides, I let the leg tell me where I go and what I do...? Might as well have died in the war. Now,” I said, lurching upright in the swaying hammock. “What’s got you marching out into the snow before the sun’s had time to put on her face?”

Haus grinned at me, his pale, smooth cheeks wrinkling. “Mail.”

“Mail?”

“Indeed.” He bent over and upended the satchel. Letters poured out, littering the floor of our wagon. “Mail. We’ll sort it out here and deliver it to the rest of the camp.”

“What’s this we?” I asked wryly.

Crash folded himself up on the floor, one hand sifting through the envelopes while the other held the joint oozing its blue smoke. “Of course. What else did you have planned for today?”

I rolled a shoulder in concession. With the Soggiorno Brothers’ Travelling Wonder Show pulled into its winter berth just east of Peru, Indiana, there weren’t crowds to fleece or balloons to fill. Just a bunch of drowsy carnies looking to fill the hours between dawn and dusk until the next tour began.

I took up my prosthetic and stood on two feet. With the mess Crash’d made of everything, hobbling from one end of the wagon to the door proved to be a feat worthy of a barker’s busking. See the one-legged man! Look how he hops and skips! I threw a swath of fabric—turned out to be one of Crash’s gypsy costumes—over my shoulders and headed out into the inhospitable December morning.

The camp wasn’t a Monet, but I’d be a bald-faced liar if I didn’t say it was a mighty pretty sight. We’d had a week of snow, and circus folk being an industrious sort, tracks had been carved throughout. Roads spanned from this tent to that wagon, to the large fire pit we shared some nights. Most of the footprints frozen into the mud and slush led to Mrs. Hudson’s place.

Other than the sinuous trenches, the snow was pristine. A crystalline crust had formed over the top of everything, making it glitter and shine in the wan daylight. The most colorful tents had been stored away, of course, so as to not damage them before the next season. But against the slate-grey sky and black, naked trees, the wagons and trailers of the carnies gleamed jewel-bright.

Even the rickety old vardo belonging to Haus looked like it wore its Sunday best—well, apart from the peeling paint and the brass numbers dangling askew on the borrowed door. Wherever 221b originally stood, the address now belonged to Crash forevermore.

And to me too, I suppose. In the handful of months I’d lived with him, we shared the accommodation about as well has a couple of surly sardines in a can. Every day he promised we’d find something more suitable that I could call my own, but nothing had turned up. Or a problem sprouted on the lot. Or we had to duck out of a city too quickly. When we pulled into Peru, it was just assumed I’d stay with him.

I peered around the quiet lot, eyes landing on Mrs. Hudson’s place. Hers was the largest, most ornate homestead. Smoke curled up from the chimney pipe of the “crum car”—what the carnies called their commissary. It looked to me like someone had taken the old caboose off a train and thrown a Mississippi kitchen into it. From the railing at the back, the lovely dwarf would dole out heaping plates of her wares. Off to the side was a small shelter with a few benches for people to gather and eat around a fire. Soon those canvas flaps would open to all who had an appetite.

Squatting behind it all, wide and ample as its sole occupant, Mrs. Hudson’s canvas tent was all faded stripes and patchwork. Discarded pennants snapped in the biting wind, shaking off the frost.

Where Crash’s wagon was a cold, hard edifice, Mrs. Hudson’s tent looked like a warm, soft place to land. Much like the woman herself. But those thoughts weren’t for entertaining.

“Not a snowball’s chance in the pit of Hell, Jimmy,” I berated myself.

After dodging patches of ice, and doing my business in the nearby outhouse, I carefully took the stairs back into the vardo.

Crash had kindled a small fire in the stove, complete with a pot of terrible coffee brewing on top. Even in the short time I’d been out, Haus had managed to turn some of the chaos of the mail pile into discernible order. But I’ll be damned if I could understand his system.

Taking up a stool nearby, I surveyed the heaps of post. “So what’ve we got?”

Smoke trailed from the roller in his hand as he indicated each category. “Everyone’s got their own stack, you see. Mr. Mars; Miss Collette; the Canaga sisters. You get the idea. We’ll sort it out, divide the stacks and deliver them like a couple of postmen.” He paused and shot me a mischief-laden glance. “You can take Mrs. Hudson’s. I’m sure she’d enjoy the visit.”

I snorted my response.

“And, if I’m not mistaken,” he continued, “you’d enjoy it as well.”

I leaned over and took up a couple handfuls of unsorted envelopes. “What I’d enjoy and what’s proper ain’t always the same, Crash.”

Without looking at me, he raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Why, Dandy, you cad! And just what improper things do you wish to do to our dear Mrs. Hudson?”

“You know what I mean.”

His grin was a mite too lascivious. “Pretend that I don’t. And don’t,” he added loudly, “skimp on the details.”

“A gentleman doesn’t speak of a lady like that, Crash.”

“I’m no gentleman,” he murmured. “You’ll not offend my sensibilities.”

“Yeah, well I might offend my own.”

“How so?”

“Do I need to spell it out?”

“Apparently, you do.”

He knew damn well, but seemed to take pleasure in making me say it aloud. Never did understand that about him. I sighed, weary. “I’m a negro and she’s...”

“A well-endowed dwarf.”

I hung my head and brought my hands to my temples, the growing ache there. Impossible carnie bastard. “There are rules, Crash.”

“The rules are different here, Jim.”

I kept my mouth shut and mulled it over. Mrs. Hudson had made her feelings clear since the moment she set eyes on me. Unabashed flirtations at the chuck wagon, extra helpings of dessert... the dwarf would tell anyone with ears she fancied me. For the longest time I thought it was a joke, some sort of prank on the new guy at the circus. After a while, though, I realized she meant every word and illicit promise. Didn’t matter a lick that I found her charming, lovely and altogether fine as the smile on an angel. There were some things that a negro like me couldn’t ever enjoy, and a woman with snow white skin was one of them. So, like fantasies of regrowing my lost leg, I put away my ideas regarding Mrs. Hudson and went on living.

I spat an oath I’d never utter near my grandmother, and swiped the joint from Crash’s fingers. Taking a drag, I closed my eyes and let the cannabis ease the pain in my leg and the lump in my throat. My thoughts swam on an eddy of blue smoke, and warmth seeped into my limbs. I felt loose and at ease.

“Oh, ho!” Crash sang. “Speaking of fine women...”

I opened my eyes to see Haus raising an envelope to his nostrils. He inhaled deeply, eyes rolling back in ecstasy, then purred, his voice a low rumble in his throat. “Oh, Adele.”

“Miss Trenet writes to you?” I asked, a bit of jealousy making my ears hot.

“Hang on,” he said, ignoring me. “What’s this? Why is it addressed to you?”

I plucked it from his fingers and checked the scrawl on the envelope. Sure as sin, there was my name in Adele Trenet’s fine hand. The letter inside, I found, was written on Pinkerton stationary. Business, then, I thought. And so it was. Every last word pertaining to the last case she and I had worked on together for the agency.

 

Sebastian, my new partner, fidgets like a ferret and isn’t quite as polite as you, Dr. Walker. I do hope that your current surroundings haven’t robbed you of that kindness.

 

I smiled, despite myself. While I hadn’t practiced my trade in quite some time, Agent Trenet was one of the few souls of the world who still called me “doctor.”

“It’s got to be here!”

I eyed my roommate to see him pawing through the mail feverishly, sputtering, “Where are you, you devil!”

I returned to reading Adele’s letter.

 

I thought you should know that there are no new leads in the strange case of our killer. No new deaths. No more coffee cans. And no earthly idea what this “Moriarty” means. I’m still looking, though. And I trust you to do the same. You might not be a Pinkerton agent anymore, Dr. Walker, but you’ve a fine, agile mind. If you see or hear anything about Moriarty, do call me post-haste.

 

“Damnable mail!” Haus blurted out. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“My letter from Adele, obviously. Why would she write to you and not to me?”

“Maybe she didn’t have anything to say to you,” I said quietly, sliding the letter back in its envelope.

“Nonsense!” Crash snatched the letter from me and his gaze darted across the page. “Nothing. Not a word? Not a single word or thought for me?”

Disgusted and disappointed, he tossed the letter back to me, and went back to his task of arranging mail for the rest of the residents of our strange camp. A pile near the fire caught my eye. The topmost was addressed to Crash—well, to his given name of Sanford Haus, anyway—and bore an intriguing postmark.

“Looks like you’ve got your own letters to peruse,” I remarked.

Crash followed my gaze, then snorted with derision. “Those? They’re nothing.”

“A stack from the head of the United States Secret Service is hardly nothing, Crash.”

“Whatever my brother has to say on any matter is of absolutely no matter. Not to me or mine.”

“Could be important.”

“Leland and I have very disparate notions of what’s important.”

I laughed. “For the rough-and-tumble carnie you try to be, you sure do sound like him sometimes.”

His head shot up. “What?”

“Your brother, Director Haus. You sound like him sometimes.”

“You’ve met him?”

I nodded. “Once. Didn’t take much notice of me. Though I’ve got one more working leg than the president, apparently a man needs two good stems to work for the Secret Service.”

Crash shook his head. “Imbecile. My brother is a complete and utter moron.”

He took up the stack of letters—presumably all from Leland—and made to toss them into the fire.

“Wait! Aren’t you even going to open them?” I asked.

With a patronizing roll of his eyes, he slipped out of his Crash Haus persona and into that of Madame Yvonde, seer and psychic, as he brought the topmost envelope to his forehead.

“Sanford,” he croaked in Yvonde’s voice, “you’re an embarrassment to the family.”

He flicked it into the fire and plucked up another. “Come home. Take your rightful place...”

Flick. Pluck. “End this ridiculous game.”

Flick. Pluck. “Sanford, you ungrateful basta—oh, hello, Moira.”

This envelope interested him. He let all the others fall—along with his Yvonde schtick—then tore into the paper.

“Who’s Moira?”

“My niece,” he muttered. As he scanned the letter intently, his mouth formed the words. I’d rarely seen him so keenly invested in anything that didn’t have two legs and blonde hair. When he’d finished reading it, his mood had grown even more sour. “There. Have a look. Evidence that Leland and I value different things entirely.”

The handwriting wasn’t as adept as Adele’s, but Moira’s cursive was elegant. Practiced and precise rather than relaxed and routine.

 

Dearest Uncle Sandy,

Washington D.C. is lovely in the summer. And while it’s entirely true that the Capitol is an aesthetically pleasing site, I find no joy in it.

Dear Millicent has taken up piano. Her stubby fingers make an appalling racket for such a finely tuned instrument. I’ve offered to tutor her, but Mother insists that I learn to paint instead. Honestly one can only stare at trees for so long before one would rather take the brush to her own eyes rather than canvas. Baby Willard is walking now, a fact that vexes his nanny no end.

While my younger siblings indulge in playtime and walks in the park, I am mired with the minutiae of society. Scads of names I’m supposed to commit to memory and titles I should care about. Vapid young ladies meant to be my peers, but I find we’ve nothing in common.

It bores me!

If I dare voice this opinion, Father dismisses me. Or worse, curses you for putting such foul thoughts into my head. He has agreed, however, to take me with him on some of his jaunts with President Roosevelt this season. I should enjoy being able to see new places in our fine country.

Father speaks of you sometimes, and it’s never fondly. But I think that’s because you did something he doesn’t understand. You gave up this silly game of pawns and politicians. The rules and niceties that come with wealth and status. You gave it all up and went to a place where our family name means nothing.

I think I understand that, Uncle Sandy.

I think you would understand me. You always did.

I know that your schedule is rather full—delightfully so! But I do hope that you might find the time to write back. Or better still, visit us. I would so love to hear all about your adventures. Perhaps you could come for Christmas! The capitol is rather lovely when the snow falls.

Your faithful niece,

Moira Grace Haus

 

“Why didn’t you go?” I asked, carefully stuffing the letter back in its envelope.

Crash’s attention was on the ends of his hair as he unspooled a curl and pulled it down before his eyes. Absently, he replied, “Go? Go where?”

“Home. To visit your family. Christmas was last week, Crash.”

“This is my home.”

“This,” I said, holding up the letter, “is your kin.”

The look Crash gave me, you’d’a thought I held him at gunpoint. He eyed the envelope warily and narrowed his gaze on me. “And what of your family, Jim? If it’s so important, why were you here with the rabble for Christmas?”

“Only family I’ve got are ghosts or them that don’t want to be seen.”

“Well you can count me in the latter group where the Haus family is concerned.” His voice was tight, with an angry hiss. His eyes blazed. “I want nothing to do with my brother or our lineage.”

“But Moira?”

Sanford turned his back to me and pounded a fist against the wall. Cans and boxes rattled.

I softened my approach. “This niece of yours sounds lonely, man. She needs somebody.”

Silence stretched between us, filled only by the crackling of the fire and Crash’s tense, trembling breathing. I waited while he worked his fingers into fists. Squeezing. Releasing. Fidgeting a bit before squeezing again.

Finally, he tossed a few scraps of conversation over a quaking shoulder. “She’ll find better than me.”

I couldn’t help the smirk that came over me. “You’re saying there’s better than Crash Haus in the world? Mark the date and color me surprised.”

This lightened his mood a bit, and his familiar bravado returned as his mouth hitched up in a grin. “Not today, there isn’t.”

Crash snatched the letter from Moira out of my hand and placed it gently in a cigar box over the stove. This one, unlike the rest of my roommate’s stashes, was filthy with dust and soot. I’d never seen him bother with it before. I wondered just what else he kept in there that he didn’t want to look at.