Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet (24 page)

From his position on the sidewalk, Spencer sees two heads appear in a swimmy, confusing sky. They squint down at him angrily.

“So what are you gonna do with your prince now?” No Nose growls. “Keep him as a pet?”

The Castle Man frowns. “Nah, let's just take his wallet.”

“Good thinking, dummy. Leave him here so he can describe us to the cops. You started this, Pete—you finish it.”

“
What
cops? Haven't you noticed—everybody's gone! Besides, his head's gonna hurt so bad tomorrow, he won't even remember where he was.”

“I said finish him off, Pete.”

“Just leave it alone, for Chrissake.”

“What are you, some little girl all of a sudden? Some pretty girl with pretty pictures painted all over her pretty face? I said
do it
.” No Nose picks up the pipe and shoves it at his partner.

The Castle Man takes the pipe but shakes his head. “You lost your mind. I ain't killing this kid.”

“Somebody fucking is.”

“Well, I'm fucking not.” The Castle Man holds the pipe out and opens his hand, letting it clatter to the street.

“You're useless.” No Nose shoves the doctor at Castle to hold, and he picks up the pipe.

“Please,” Spencer tries to say. “What are you doing?” But little red bubbles dribble from his lips instead of words. He tries to raise his arms to protect himself. “No…please…please don't.” He gazes up at the gathering dusk, flecks of fire drifting across the sky like runaway stars, and he thinks,
Pretty
. Then the pipe comes down, and the sky goes out forever.

Houseguests

Zeph sighs and closes the chemistry book. “Sorry, Mrs. H… We're gonna have to wait for Reynolds. Maybe he can figure this bunkum out, 'cause I sure can't.”

He looks over at Nazan, sitting beside Kitty's mother and holding her hand. “You sure you should be so close to her? Touching her and all? Is that safe?”

Nazan shrugs. “What do you suggest? Shall I watch her die from across the room? I'm sorry, but I won't allow a bunch of fourteen-year-old bellhops to be braver than me.”

“I'm sorry too, but I'd like you to be
alive-r
than those bellhops are right now. That's all I'm saying.”

“I'm not moving.”

Zeph sighs, rolling his eyes in surrender. “She looks peaceful at least.” Nazan nods in agreement. “Bit too peaceful. She looks like she's gone to a nice place and don't feel like coming back.” Nazan, sadly, agrees with this observation too.

Zeph glances around the room helplessly. While Nazan made up a bed for Mrs. Hayward, he'd been up in the lab with Timur, trying to wheedle a practical explanation of this electrified silver business. All he got for his trouble was a stream of insults and a beaten-up chemistry book hurled at his head. He'd taken the book and come to sit with Mrs. Hayward, hoping the sight of her—okay, of her
and
Nazan—would inspire him. And it did, no doubt. But good intentions don't explain milliamps.

Spencer's been gone fetching medicine for the better part of the day. What could be taking so damn long? From the look of her, Mrs. H. doesn't have much time to spare. He opens the book again. “So, a milliamp. A milliamp is…” He sighs again.

“Milliamp?” Nazan asks mildly.

“Yeah, it's…well, damned if I know. Something I gotta figure out to make this silver solution Doc was talking about.”

Nazan picks up a damp cloth and daubs at Mrs. Hayward's forehead. “A milliamp is a measurement of electrical current. One milliamp equals one thousandth of an
ampere
, which describes the amount of electrical current that can pass through a particular point in a circuit within a particular amount of time.”

Zeph's jaw drops open. “Why…but…Miss Nazan, you been sittin' there
watching
me struggle! When were you gonna tell me you knew this stuff?”

She smiles mischievously. “I was just curious to see how long it was going to take you to figure out that a girl might have read a science textbook.”

“You!” He laughs and shakes his index finger. “You are… You are a beauty is what you are, and I'm taking you up to the lab.”

“I don't know… Doctor Timur sounds a bit formidable.”

“Reckon you can handle him. Bold, remember?”

Nazan shudders. “We agreed I was through being bold.”

“The world may think differently.”

A knock at the front door.

“Thank the Lord. Prince Charming returns to the castle,” Zeph says. He climbs off the bed. “I'm getting Reynolds. Hopefully, he's got a dose of that medicine.
Then
I'm introducing you to the Doc.”

Nazan wipes Mrs. Hayward's forehead again. “You hold on, ma'am. Please hold on.”

• • •

But the visitor is not Spencer after all.

“
Bonjour
?” a feminine voice sings out. “Is anyone at home?”

Vivi Leveque waits fretfully in the blackness of the museum's entrance. She wears a primrose-yellow suit with a floor-length skirt and a wide hat with fluffy egret feathers.

Zeph maneuvers his cart past the heavy black curtains. “Hello there, Miss Vivi. What can I do for you? You need something?”

“Ah.
Oui
.” She hesitates. “There is a question. But I admit, it may be…
difficile
.”

“Well now. This sounds interesting.”

“It is the leopards. You know, they are to me like children. We sometimes do strange things for children.”

Zeph scratches his flea-bitten hand. “You got that right.”

“Monsieur Bostock tells me that with quarantine and parks closed, we cannot keep the animals. He says he will
sell
my babies to some stranger!” Viv starts to cry. “I think they intend to eat them! I have to get them away from these terrible men!” She removes a handkerchief from her clutch and daubs her eyes like a silent film star. “Monsieur Zeph, I do not know what to do!”

Zeph shakes his head, thinking,
Goddammit, Archie, what have you gotten me into?
He sighs. “Look, Miss Vivi, you can keep your babies here. We'll protect 'em from Bostock and…whoever else.”

“
C'est vrai
? It is this I want to ask, but…”

“Yeah, go ahead. Our yard's all fenced off in the back; they ain't goin' nowhere. Leopards aren't jumpers, are they?”

Vivi frowns. “But of course! However, they have the cages, so…”

“There you go. Magruder's is now in the big cat business.”

“Oh, Monsieur Zeph!” Vivi hugs him impulsively, nearly toppling him off the cart. She smells of jasmine. “Thank you!
Merci
!
Merci beaucoup
!”

“Sure, I just got some old stuff I gotta move out of—oh.” Zeph remembers what else is in the backyard: the two Committeemen, or whatever is left of them after a few days in the Coney Island sun. “Say, Vivi,” he says, as casually as can. “What do leopards eat, anyways?”

“Meat, of course. Normally I give them chickens, because they love to chase. Of course, with this quarantine, I don't know precisely—”

“Right, right. But do they ever eat, you know…dead things? Maybe, say, dead folks?”

“Folks?
Qu'est-ce que c'est
? You mean, people?”

Zeph nods.

“Leopards kill what they eat, Monsieur Zeph. They are not scavengers.”

“Right, of course. Just a question.”

“A terrible question.”

“Sorry.”

Vivi wipes her eyes again and pats Zeph on the shoulder. “Thank you. I will have the cages delivered. Of course”—she bats her eyelashes—“I should stay also. To look after them.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. What with the quarantine, we gotta stick together anyway, right? We've got Ros, we've got Miss Nazan, now you… Timur will love the company.”

Zeph says this, but he thinks,
Uh-oh.

Important Men

Archie stomps back down Surf Avenue, resenting every step. He should be riding home in style, perhaps escorted by the Reynolds' family chauffeur. Instead, he's hoofing it down the street in his old, worn-out shoes.

He'd talked his way into the Committee for Public Safety's headquarters in Dreamland. He intended to rat out Spencer to his father, tell him all about how the kid was claiming to own Magruder's now. Magruder's! Some disreputable shit hole that should have been burned down by the Committee anyway. Was that
truly
the type of property the Reynolds family should be managing? Imagine the scandal in town…

Archie wanted so much to humiliate that smug bastard, see him disinherited, crush him under his boot like a bug. But instead of the great senator, the only person at Dreamland headquarters was some pompous strut-noddy called Gibson Tilden Jr.

Regardless, there was a time when he'd have had a nitwit like Tilden eating out of his hand. Instead? The kid had barely even listened to Archie's litany of complaints about the Reynolds boy. He rolled his eyes and sent Archie on his way.
Dammit
, Archie thinks.
At the very least, I should have gotten enough reward money for a taxi!

Archie's poor performance at the Dreamland office fills him with self-reproach. “This,” he says to the empty avenue, “this is the exquisite glory that age brings. Bah.”

He knows he would have done better with that child Kitty by his side—she's got the makings of a proper confidence man, that one. Reminds Archie of himself at that age. He feels a pang of worry about what's become of her, but self-pity pushes it aside. She thinks
she's
got problems!

Archie's knows he's lucky to have naive optimists like Zeph to fall back on. No matter how many times he burns that kid, no matter how many times Zeph says, “That's it, we're through,” Archie can always talk the lad into one more chat, one more drink, one more ride around the…

Jesus H. Christ.

Tilden hadn't been interested in Archie's complaints. He clearly didn't give a damn about whether Spencer was alive or dead. But he had, just for a moment, shown a flicker of interest in Magruder's. “Magruder's should have been torched days ago,” he'd said. “We'll need to rectify that.”

Archie abruptly stops walking. “Oh. What have I done?”

• • •

Gibson Tilden Jr. sits in the gilded lobby of the Dreamland ballroom. Under the quarantine, the building has been taken over by the Committee for Public Safety. Where once ladies and gents waltzed the night away, now there dwells an unromantic landscape of file cabinets, desks, and bureaucrats who study maps from morning till night.

The Committee on Public Safety loves its maps. Street maps. Topographical maps. Epidemiological maps most of all, draft upon draft, all projecting different “what if” scenarios. If the Cough strikes here, it will then travel there, but if it strikes there, it will then go here. These projections are invariably wrong. But—make no mistake—they are loved.

However, these maps all have a flaw, a blemish marring their beauty like a cold sore.

Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet.

It had been Gibson's idea to burn it. He'd made the case—and Senator Reynolds had agreed—that a seedy little sewer like Magruder's, with its profane exhibits and uppity caretaker, had no place in the glittering future envisioned by investors. Gibson's discovery of fleas in the museum provided a convenient excuse to eliminate what had long been a pockmark on the island. And now that old clown Archibald Deschamps claims that Spencer, of all people, has appointed himself Magruder's protector? Spencer, who abandoned his family in a time of crisis and left Gibson to take up the slack? And that damn bag of cash never did show up in the Reynolds' account, just as Gib had feared.

When the senator had packed up for Newport and realized that Spencer was nowhere to be found, he'd flown into a rage. He'd announced he was done with the obstreperous boy—that he'd lost one son to polio and been abandoned by the other. That he no longer had any heirs at all.

Hmm
, Gib had thought at the time,
is a position open?

If so, Gibson Tilden Jr. was just the man to fill it. Magruder's was clearly the key—it was, in Gibson's view, the very wellspring of Spencer's betrayal. But so far, he hasn't had any luck in convincing the Committeemen to go anywhere near the actual building, much less burn it down.

In fact, Gibson has spent most of his time skulking around Dreamland, trying to get someone to pay attention to him. He'd arrived grandly, blustering his way through the quarantine checkpoint and announcing himself as Senator William Reynolds's aide-de-camp…a phrase that departed Gibson's mouth tasting of honey and reached the Committeemen's ears stinking of shit. Gibson's position as aide-de-camp was of utmost importance to him, but it appeared to be of absolutely zero importance to anyone else. Which strikes Gibson as not merely offensive, but also odd—the senator founded the park, so how is it that the Reynolds name carries no weight in Dreamland?

But this afternoon, finally—a break in the weather.

“All right, Mr. De Camp,” the secretary mutters. “Chief McGrath will see you.”

The Telegram

Like a stream flowing over rocks, the routine of daily life has a way of smoothing out even the sharpest of edges. Even someone as determinedly strange as Timur can become predictable if you live with him long enough, and over time, Zeph had become acclimated to Timur's quirks. The doctor's inscrutable but urgent errands, his obsessive secrecy and intense dislike of fellow humans, his near-magical command of the principles of engineering… Over time, it all came to seem utterly normal. However odd Timur might be, Zeph believed there was nothing the doctor could do to surprise him.

Then Timur met Nazan.

That evening, Zeph had prepared dinner for her, Rosalind, and Vivi.

“Hoecakes they call these?” Nazan asks, reaching for a second helping. “These are
wonderful
.”

“You aren't even slightly curious what the meat is?” Rosalind asks, eyebrow raised.

Nazan turns to Zeph, worried. “This isn't—”

“A lion? No, no, don't worry.” He shrugs. “It's, ah, you know…pork?”

Rosalind holds up his fork and displays a crunchy strip of something fried. “And which part of the pig would
this
be, Zeph?”

He frowns. “Ya know, Ros, I'm not sure that's really—”

“I think Miss Nazan would love to know… Feet? My guess is feet.”

Nazan puts her fork down. “Pardon me?”

“Feet?” Zeph asks, mock-scandalized. “I would never,
never
serve hoecakes with pigs' feet.” He smiles mischievously. “The feet you pickle. These are snouts.”

During the meal, Timur emerges from his attic lab, demanding an update on the whereabouts of his expected telegram. Pausing to shovel an entire hoecake into his mouth, he overhears Zeph and Nazan chatting. As Nazan explains to Zeph for the second time what exactly a “damn milliamp” is—what it measures; how it might transform a lump of silver into a cure—Timur draws closer. Suddenly, he interrupts their conversation to interrogate Nazan about something called Faraday's paradox. He fires off a series of gruff questions that Nazan, although startled, apparently answers correctly. There's a quick round of “Doc, meet Nazan Celik” and “Nazan Celik, meet Doc.” And that's that.

Timur helps himself to a glass of whiskey and elbows Zeph out of the seat beside Nazan. To the amazement of the rest, they discuss hydraulic canals beneath Niagara Falls and high-voltage power lines in Montreal and a dozen other topics that not one other soul in the tavern can comprehend. Nazan even musters her courage to ask him about Mrs. Hayward and the silver colloid that Timur seems so sure will be her salvation. When the hour grows late and Nazan's eyelids heavy, Timur stands. “You sleep. I must work. Tomorrow, you come to attic, see laboratory. We talk colloid. Also, Theobold will be interested about you.”

Zeph cocks his head at the Doc. “Theobold? Who's Theobold?”

“Bah.” Ignoring the question, Timur turns to waggle a finger at Nazan. “Celik, do not sleep late. I no like.”

Zeph gives Nazan a wink. “Welcome to the circus, my friend.”

• • •

The next morning, Zeph goes to wake Nazan, but he needn't have bothered. She's awake and waiting, sitting by Mrs. Hayward's bed and wiping her brow.

“She any better?” Zeph asks.

Nazan shakes her head. “Worse, if anything. I think her breathing is slowing.”

“Okay,” Zeph says, “let's you and me go visit the big man, see what he can do.”

As she and Zeph climb the stairs, Nazan can see a pale, peach-colored glow emanating from the attic.

Entering the lab, Nazan doesn't see the worktables with gas jets sprouting like metallic bouquets. She doesn't see the rows of metal shelving, packed with glass bottles of every size and style. She doesn't see the library of technology journals in a variety of languages, or the metalworking table with piles of brass watch works in various states of assembly. Nazan doesn't see any of it, because she can't take her eyes off the dozens of large, rubber balloons, floating and bumping against the attic ceiling. They glow a soft, orangey pink, like tinted moonlight.

Timur bats one of the balloons out of his way. “Much to show, Celik. In corner, that is induction coil, generating electrostatic field, and—”

Zeph waves at Timur to slow down. “Give her a minute, Doc.”

Nazan boggles at the pink balloons, riding air currents like glowing jellyfish on the tide. “I… It's just…” She looks at Timur. “You said last night that you had wireless power up here. I heard you say it. But I didn't imagine…” She stares some more, shaking her head. “I didn't imagine.”

Zeph climbs up on the worktable beside her. The table is covered with sawdust, which surprises him. Doc's not the carpentry type normally. Then again, who knows what he gets up to up here? Zeph reaches out and taps one of the balloon lights, sending it careening into another, and that one into another. The balloons ripple and bounce, some drifting up toward the ceiling and some down toward the floor. “Neat, huh? Hate to say it, but I kinda got used to them. Forgot how pretty they are.”

Timur grunts. “Yes, you forget. I know this because so many are leaking helium since someone
forget
to refill.”

Zeph sighs. “I'll get to it, Doc. Been a little busy.”

“Bah.” Timur smacks another balloon in annoyance. “Argon, I tell you. Argon better than helium.”

Zeph disagrees. “Do you know what I'd have to go through to get this much argon? Helium we got in Coney in spades, but argon? Plus, you said argon glows blue, which ain't as good a light source as—”

“
Color
of light is not relevant to—”

“Argon won't float,” Nazan interjects. She gazes at the glowing balls as they dance. “The floating is important.”

“Ugh,” Timur says. “Another romantic. Just what I need.”

From downstairs, a voice calls out, “Hello? Anyone there? I'm from Western Union. I have a telegram for Mr.…Teemoore?”

“Ahh!” Timur does a little dance, like a young boy who needs to pee. “Am coming,” he calls. “Celik, you make the colloid. I busy.” He dashes downstairs. “Am coming!”

Nazan watches in amazement as Zeph flutters around the lab, climbing up and down shelves, gathering the equipment. Zeph navigates the room as though his lack of legs is no bother at all—indeed, as though having legs would only slow him down. “So,
Celik
,” he says, gently mocking Timur's rather impolite nickname. “How'd you learn all this science anyway?”

“I read too much.” She reaches up and brushes one of the balloon lights with the tips of her fingers; it pirouettes away flirtatiously. “As it happens, my father is the purveyor of an extremely unpopular tearoom.”

Zeph laughs, climbing another shelf to grab some more supplies. “Too bad for him, I guess?”

“Yes,” Nazan agrees. “Bad for him, but very good for me. After I finished secondary school, I wanted to go to college, but—no, that's not the truth. I
begged
to go. Pleaded. Threw tantrums. Everything. But my father said I'd already had more education than was healthy. College is not what good girls do, you see. Good girls work for no pay in their fathers' failing tearooms until such time as they throw their lives away in arranged marriages to odd-smelling strangers from the old country.”

Zeph whistles. “You really gave up a lot coming to Magruder's, huh?”

She laughs. “Definitely. At least the shop's extreme unpopularity left me with time to read. But I'm just an amateur—I love the
idea
of chemistry, but I've never actually… For pity's sake, this is the first actual lab I've ever been in. I wouldn't get my hopes up, if I were you.”

Zeph climbs down with the supplies and spreads them out on the worktable in front of Nazan. “Well now, my
amateur
lady scientist, don't you be so hard on yourself. Let's see here: we got ourselves some test tubes and batteries and silver wire. We got a buncha other mess I don't hardly know what it is. Let's you and me save Mrs. Hayward, yeah?”

She smiles.

• • •

Hours fly by as they work on the medicine. The first batch turns to an ugly black sludge, but Nazan deems the second attempt a success. “We should give this to her right now.”

Zeph nods, tucking the vial of silver colloid into his pocket. “Why don't you start another batch, and I'll give this to Mrs. Hayward?”

“Yes, of course. But, Zeph, I'm concerned about Spencer. I thought he'd be back last night, or surely by this morning. Do you think someone should go look for him? I don't know how much sense that even makes, but…I just…”

“Don't worry,” Zeph says. “I'll see to it. Rosalind won't admit it, but he's worried too.”

• • •

Zeph heads for the spare room where Mrs. Hayward lies unconscious. He looks around for a handkerchief to tie around his face before getting too close. Then he stops. “To hell with it.” He climbs up on the bed, tilts her head back, and pours the medicine down her throat. She coughs, sounding like she might choke, but the liquid goes down. “Come on, Mrs. H. You stay with us, you hear?”

He goes downstairs and finds Rosalind gazing out the open Cabinet door.

“Hey, Ros, you think you could take a walk, see if you can find Spencer anywhere? Nazan's getting nervous, and frankly, I'm—”

“I'll go,” Rosalind agrees. “But we have another problem.” He points outside.

“Oh, what is it now?” Zeph joins Rosalind at the door and gasps. Walking down the middle of the street is Vivi. In one hand, she grasps two leashes, with two leopards tied to each leash. In her other hand is a long-handled whip, which she flicks at the cats whenever they start to wander.

“What the devil, Vivi?” Zeph calls. “You promised me cages!”

“
Bonjour
, Monsieur Zeph.
Oui
, I am so sorry. Monsieur Bostock say he own the cages, and I may not take them. I did not know what to do!” She reaches the stoop with her cats in tow. She mutters to them in some hybrid of French, English, and meowing, and they curl up around her feet. But the smallest of the four glares up at Zeph, a hungry glint in its yellow eyes.

“Vivi, I…” Zeph chuckles uncomfortably. “I don't know…”

“Please, Monsieur Zeph. Bostock will kill them.”

He sighs. “Okay… Just for now, though, just till we figure something out. Take them out back and… I dunno… There's an old crabapple tree. Tie 'em to that, I guess.”

Rosalind's eyes go wide. “Zeph! Are you out of your—”

“We can't leave 'em in the street, can we?”

“No, but—”

“Ros, it'll be fine. They're… Look at 'em. They look well behaved.” The leopards flick their tails against the hot sidewalk. “Ain't they well behaved, Vivi?”

“But of course!”

“Show Vivi through to the backyard.” Rosalind glares at Zeph. “
Rosalind
, we're keeping these leopards safe for a while.”

“These are dangerous creatures, Zeph. You don't just—”

“It'll cut Archie something fierce, Ros, us keeping 'em when he wants to”—he waggles his eyes in Vivi's direction, not wanting to say it in front of her—“
you
know. Wouldn't that be worth it, just to see his face?”

“All right, all right.” Rosalind storms back into the museum with Vivi and the leopards following. Zeph is pretty sure he sees the little one lick its chops on the way in.

“Ros, wait,” Zeph calls. “You seen the Doc?”

“Tavern,” Rosalind shouts back.

“Right.”

Zeph hustles downstairs to find Timur at the bar, curled over his telegram. He's reading and rereading it, making notes and sketches on the envelope it came in. He mutters to himself. “Yes…no, what? No, no, this no right. Why does the fool think—oh, but maybe like this…” He scribbles some more.

“Doc,” Zeph says, “sorry to interrupt, but we got a little situation up at the—”

Timur leaps up. “Zeph! Good. We go up to lab.” He stalks out, not waiting for Zeph to follow.

“Wait, we—” Zeph scuttles after him, crashing right into the knees of Archie, just arrived at Magruder's.

“Zeph, thank goodness,” Archie says. “I need to speak with you. The Committee on Public Safety is—”

But Zeph doesn't even stop moving. “Not now, Archie. I got half a dozen things in the fire more important than you.”

Archie follows. “But this is very—”

“Not now!”

Upstairs in the museum, Rosalind has sent Vivi to the yard with her cats and is giving Timur a piece of his mind. “Doctor Timur, I've had about enough of—”

Timur ignores him. “You, to attic. I have pieces built, must be carried to roof for assembly.”

“What are you talking about?” Rosalind sees Zeph enter with Archie following. “Zeph, what is he talking about? There are dangerous animals with—”

“They wait,” Timur says. “We take pieces to roof. Assemble.”

“Actually,” Archie interjects, “I believe my news trumps all of—”

Timur points at Archie. “You too. Attic.”

Rosalind combusts, tears of rage spilling down. “I have had as much of you as I can take. There's a plague! We've had thugs wanting to burn down the museum at the front door, and now we've got man-eating beasts at the back. Spencer's missing, and a little boy has been kidnapped,
our
little boy! All you can talk about are the gadgets in—”

“I do this for him!” Timur shouts. “Since that night, when the men come, I no sleep, no eat—I work. For the boy, to bring him back to us.”

“How is some ridiculous contraption going to bring P-Ray back?”

Timur shakes his telegram. “Orville promise this work.”