THE JENNINGS ESTABLISHMENT—EST. 1884.
As the small brass nameplate informed Henry, the structure belonging to a certain Mr. Jennings had been open only a year. But judging from the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd inside, he was pretty confident it’d be open for a good many more.
The “Establishment” was a street-corner tavern; a fairly narrow one, if you were looking at the red brick two-story exterior that framed the smoke-stained front windows. It was more than made up for, though, by how deep the building stretched alongside the neighboring street.
From the size of the crowd, Henry guessed the establishment didn’t have any rules concerning the exact number of people allowed inside. For that matter, it didn’t appear to have any rules about smoking either, other than it seemed to be mandatory.
Despite the late hour, the place was packed with an odd assortment of customers. Men wearing bowler hats and suits, even though the business day was long over; exhausted, irritable Irish laborers; and a smattering of mostly quiet immigrant dockworkers. It looked to be an uneasy alliance that Henry could only assume was held together by a shared love for what was steadily pouring from the barrel taps.
Jack was busy peering inside through the window, trying to snag a view in between the nearest line of black suits—if he could even see anything through the hazy, thick smoke stains.
“All right,” Jack whispered to the gang, “we go in and see what we can find. And remember, we’re looking for Skavenger’s favorite adventure, something nine years old.”
“I don’t think there’s anything in there that’s only nine years old,” Ernie quietly chimed in. “Where’d this Mr. Jennings get all this junk?”
“I’m sorry, did I ask for smartass comments?” Jack shot back. Ernie wisely chose not to answer.
Henry was already scouting out the front door, trying to guess how long he’d be able to hold his breath once he got inside.
My first bar. Wouldn’t have guessed this would be happening when I went to bed last night.
Jack overheard him let out a nervous breath. The big kid shook his head at Henry’s edginess for about the hundredth time that day. He popped one of his suspenders as his eyes moved to Mattie.
“What?” she asked.
“Would you take that stupid thing off?” Jack nodded at her cape.
“How come?”
“I’ll tell you how come. We’re about to go into a place where we don’t want to stand out. That’s gonna be hard enough even if you’re not wearing that.”
Mattie frowned. “All right,” she said, sounding annoyed. “I’ll take it off. But I’m putting it back on when we come back out.”
The main door whipped open and three businessmen stumbled out, trailed by a thick yellow cloud that quickly rose to the second-floor windows. Only one of the men bothered to look at the four kids, and just long enough to toss the last inch of warm beer from his glass at their feet.
“Get outta here, you ragamuffins,” he growled before placing his empty glass on the bricks below the main window. The other two men laughed and put their empty glasses there as well.
This time it was Henry who grabbed Jack by the collar. “Don’t,” he warned him. “It’s not worth it.”
Henry held on tight, but not before Jack yelled as loudly as he could, “We’re not ragamuffins! We’re not garbage, okay?” The three men simply laughed and stumbled off to find their next round of drinks.
Mattie had finished removing her cape, her look telling Henry she was worried it might have been the reason for the ragamuffin comment. She shoved it in a chunk of the wall where four or five bricks were missing.
Jack whipped around and gathered up the three empty glasses.
“Forget it. Don’t let ’em bother you,” Ernie told him, not wanting to see the empties flying toward three heads.
“I’m not gonna do anything. Don’t worry,” Jack assured him, handing a dirty glass to each of them.
“Okay,” he said, “we’re not gonna have much time before they toss us out of this place. Anyone asks? We found empty glasses, and we wanted to see if they’d give us a penny or two for bringin’ ’em back. They want ragamuffins, we’ll give ’em ragamuffins.”
A pair of Irish dockworkers burst through the door, much more stable than their singing suggested they should be.
“AND IT’S NO! NAY! NEVER! NO NAY NEVER NO MORE! WILL I PLAY THE WILD ROVER!” The two men laughed and staggered left, then right, before deciding left felt right in the first place.
Ernie caught the door before it could close. Jack moved to go in, but not before offering one last bit of advice.
“Stay behind people and don’t let the bartenders see you,” he said with an encouraging nod. “And look at everything. Let’s find what we’re supposed to find and get outta here.”
The smell of beer—a good share of which was on the floor—was the first thing to greet them. That, and the smoke from the cigars and what passed for cigarettes.
Once inside, Henry couldn’t help but stare. There was no Yankees baseball game on TV, because, of course, neither the team nor the screen to broadcast a baseball game existed. Same applied for music. There wasn’t any—besides the occasional spontaneous Irish vocalist.
The customers were here for the serious business of doing two things: drinking and smoking.
How did anybody live past thirty? Henry caught himself thinking. Oh, right . . . a lot of ’em didn’t.
Without a sliver of hesitation, Jack was beginning to elbow his way through the drunken clientele, while the other kids—Henry included—quickly moved to study the walls, the old paintings, even the bar itself from a discreet and hopefully safe distance.
Henry was in the neighborhood of Mattie as she peered between two men whose ample bellies were squished tightly against the bar. She looked to be studying the chalk-written prices for beer and whiskey that surrounded the smoke-tainted prints of Abraham Lincoln.
“Ay! Little mot!” An elderly patron’s hand fell hard on her shoulder. “Whatta ya doin’ in here?” he demanded to know.
The deeply wrinkled man’s bleary eyes weren’t the most pleasant she’d seen, and for a second, Henry could tell Mattie may have forgotten what she was supposed to say if she ran into trouble. He tried to edge his way closer.
“Speak up now,” the man grumbled at her as he took a pull from a hand-rolled cigarette, followed by a sip from a chipped glass that looked to be half-filled with equal parts beer and ash.
“Oh, I forgot!” she suddenly blurted out. “I’m returning empty glasses, they told us to bring ’em in.”
“There ain’t more of ya, are there?” The man looked ready to call for someone, but Mattie was able to convince him otherwise.
“I can take yours if you want?” she offered with an innocent look, just as Henry showed up.
“Agggh,” the crusty old voice scratched out. “There are more of ya.”
The man kept his smoky stare locked on Mattie, until he downed his beer and handed her the smoke-darkened empty. “Tell ’em I want another.” He burped. “Then you two and however many else ya came with, get outta here.”
“Yessir,” Mattie assured him.
She turned to Henry. “I’m gonna go over and look at that side of the place.” She nodded to a far corner and immediately headed in that direction.
Henry decided to work his way toward the opposite side of the crowded bar, trying his best to avoid suspicion.
Nothing on that wall, nothing up there on the shelves, a couple of photographs of . . . could be anyone. Man, does this place reek. Worse than Hell’s Kitchen ever dreamed of reeking.
Henry spotted a map of the United States on a cluttered wall without windows. He wandered through the smoky haze for a look. Something about it looked odd.
Ernie shouldered his way past him. “Anything yet?” he asked, barely stopping.
“Nope,” Henry replied. “How ’bout you?”
Ernie tapped the bag on his shoulder and said, “Enough food for a couple more days!”
Henry grinned, then turned back to study the map again, quickly shaking his head.
Would ya look at that. Dakota Territory, Utah Territory, Arizona Territory. They’re not even states yet!
“You!” a voice called from across the room. A young man who looked to be of considerable means—by Henry’s guess, at least—lifted a finger and motioned for the young map-gawker to come over.
Oh, c’mon. C’mon! Are you kidding? Not already. I’ve been in here, like, maybe five minutes. I’m not even close to finding anything!
Ignoring the man was out of the question—the look in his eyes already made that much clear. A tingle of fear rolled down Henry’s back as the young man motioned to him a second time.
Okay, think smart here.
Henry let out a breath and wedged his way through the crowded room, easing his way between one swaying customer after another, until reaching the table and finding it home to not just one young man of considerable means, but two.
They were twin brothers; maybe twenty-five years old, both wearing ink-black suits, along with identical looks of curiosity. Each looked at least six feet tall with dark brown hair the color of a bay thoroughbred horse—an appropriate comparison given how athletic the young men looked.
“Evening, young sir,” the one who’d been doing the motioning greeted Henry. “What brings you to such a fine and up-standing establishment tonight? Or should I say, this morning?”
“Oh . . . well . . . just . . .”
“Yes?” The other brother raised an eyebrow.
Henry looked between the two brothers, pretending to search for his friends, trying to hide his percolating panic.
“Excuse me, have either of you guys seen—”
“We have,” the second brother interrupted, as they both stood up. “We’ve seen all four of you.” The twin brother who’d just spoken switched his beer from one hand to the other so he could properly introduce himself.
“Clyde Colton. My brother Clifford.”
“Henry Baaaaaaaab . . .” he started to reply, then winced as Clyde took his hand in a crushing grip.
Eeeeeeesh, that is the strongest handshake I’ve ever felt in my life!
“Good to meet you, Henry Babb.” Clyde thankfully let go. “It is a little late, though, isn’t it? A young man of your age in a place like this? How old are you, Henry? Ten?”
“Twelve,” he answered. “Thirteen next month.”
“Ah, good for you,” Clifford said before taking a quick sip.
The brothers really didn’t appear to be all that interested in whether he was twelve, thirteen, or a hundred years old for that matter. Ever so calmly, Clifford set down his beer on the edge of the table.
“Let me ask you a question, Henry,” his even—yet now somewhat cold—expression suggesting he wouldn’t ask twice. “Why are you and your friends here? Looking at each and every thing inside the place?”
Clyde checked his pocket watch. “At half past twelve in the morning,” he added. The snapping click as he closed the watch told Henry all he needed to know.
They’re hunters! They’ve been everywhere we’ve been. Made the phone call. Saw Vanderbilt. Now they’re here—but that means they haven’t found it! They’d already be gone if they had!
Clifford broke into a thin smile under his slicked-back thoroughbred hair. “There’s a lot of money at stake here, Henry.” He was trying to sound casual, but failing. “Our father’s rich, but even his money’s a fraction of what Skavenger’s offering. A fortune both enormous and incalculable, witnessed by New York’s finest bankers. Remember?”
Both men moved an intimidating step closer to Henry. He was eye level at best with the second-lowest button on their suits.
“Now,” Clifford calmly continued. “If you and your friends are smart enough to share what you’re looking for here, I’m fairly sure we could reach some kind of agreement—an agreement that might help us both.”
Clyde was in the process of finishing off his beer as well. He issued a gentlemanly belch, before saying with genuine appreciation, “It’s remarkable you got this far, Henry. Skavenger always makes the first clues the most difficult. Gets the number of hunters down in a hurry.”
A glass crashed to the floor in a far corner, and Henry waited to hear someone dragging a flailing Jack, or Ernie, or even Mattie toward the closest door. But there was barely a ripple in the steady buzz of mumbling drunkenness.
“What do you say, Henry? We have a deal?” Clifford asked.
A deal? A deal with you? Sorry, my deal’s about getting back home. I’ve got enough to worry about with Hiram Doubt.
Even under the pressurized gaze of the Coltons, Henry had no trouble keeping Doubt’s threat at the front of his mind. A threat to eliminate his fellow hunters one by one by one, starting off with Jack—who, odds were now good, was his great-great-grandfather. And if Doubt eliminated Jack? Henry would never even be born.
“Well?” Clyde asked him.
A quartet of customers broke into a loose semblance of song a few tables away from them—something about a girl leaving someone somewhere. Not much chance it would help with the twin’s dwindling level of patience, nor would what Henry had decided to say next.
“I’m sorry,” Henry finally answered them. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Clifford shook his head and sighed.
“Foolish boy. Foolish, foolish boy, Henry,” he quietly said to him, tapping his fingers and waiting another second before raising his voice above the din.
“BARTENDER!!” he bellowed. “You got a bunch of low-life kids running around this place!”
Henry had already counted four bartenders on duty—and one of them had hopped over the bar and was storming toward him. In a flash, the entire room was roaring with shouts and laughter, each drunken patron stepping back to create a corridor toward Henry and the others.
Knowing the bartender’s not-so-tender hands were about to grab him, Henry looked up at Clyde and Clifford.
“Should have talked to us,” Clifford said with a privileged shrug. “Good luck making it out of New York.”
“Get the hell outta here, ya punk!” the bartender snarled as he dragged Henry across the sticky floor, the remnants of more than a few lukewarm beers finding their way onto the twelve-year-old’s face. He would have probably been doused with more had he—and his three fellow minors—not been tossed straight through the door onto the sidewalk.
The door slammed behind them. Some, but not all, of the boisterous yelling from inside was muffled. Another dark billow of smoke curled out of the windows above them.
Jack was the first to sit up, resting his hands on his knees as he gave his soaked hair a good shake. “Well, fellow ragamuffins? Anything?” he asked the three of them, surprisingly calm.
“Nothing,” Henry answered, upset with himself.
“Nothing? Nothing?” Ernie had to laugh. “You got us thrown out of our very first bar!”
“Speak for yourself there, pal,” Jack said, shaking beer off his hands as well, unable to hold back a half laugh himself.
Henry noticed that Mattie, though, wasn’t laughing. She was far too engaged in studying an empty beer glass she’d managed to hang on to during her short flight from interior to exterior—a beer glass that was quite a bit cleaner and clearer than the others he’d seen inside.
She gave it a scrub, held it up to the light, then closely looked at it again. Her eyes almost crossed for a second as she slowly spun it in her hand . . .
. . . before her mouth broke into a small, triumphant smile. She handed the glass over to Henry.
“Hold it up in the light, then relax your eyes,” she said to him as she sat back. “Read what’s down at the bottom. It’s really hard to see.”
Henry looked at it longer than she had, enough that she seemed to grow concerned. “You see it yet?” she asked.
See what? What am I supposed to—wait.
There it was. And yes, it was really, really, really hard to see. A message that wrapped all the way around the base of the glass. Two lines’ worth.
“I do see it!” he finally said, and Mattie rolled onto her back, shooting her arms up into the air in pure exultation.
“YEEEEESSSSS!!!” she shouted to the sky.
“Hey, hey, hey, stop.” Jack scooted over to block the window. “We don’t want anyone else seeing . . . whatever it is you two see. Down there at the bottom.”
“I wanna see what’s down at the bottom,” Ernie said, reaching for the glass. He gave a long look at the same spot Mattie and Henry had studied. And for the longest of moments, it was obvious he didn’t see it.
Until he did.
“Well, whatta ya know,” he said with a growing grin as he slowly spun the glass. “Wouldja look at that.” Ernie tossed the glass over to Jack.
“Hey, hey, HEY! Be careful!” Mattie gasped, but Jack reeled it in with ease, looking a touch perturbed that he was the last to get to look.
But just like the rest of them, a short moment peering at the now-clear glass was all it took to produce one last smile. Jack read the words out loud.
“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written nine years ago. Now to a new adventure. Journey to the gateway banks of Tom’s travels. Search there from noon till midnight on July fourteenth for your next key. Through the Natchez door and then two fathoms deep is where you’ll find it.”
“Tom Sawyer! Skavenger’s favorite adventure!” Mattie laughed with delight as she stood up to retrieve her cape, still tucked in the wall. “Whatcha think about that, Jack?”
He twirled the glass around to make sure there wasn’t anything they’d overlooked.
“I think it is now very clear,” he told them all, “that our journey is about to leave Gotham.”