Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet (6 page)

Cantilever

“Real Rat Orchestra! Really Real Rats!”

Kitty and Archie pick their way along Surf Avenue, past the many independent operators plying their trade in the nooks and crannies between the major parks. Shooting galleries and catchpenny games and crayon portraitists. Hot pretzels, cold beer, three chances at a prize for one thin dime. In the distance, a brass band plays.

Kitty pauses at the painted banner. Beneath the lettering is a picture of a chamber orchestra comprised of eerily chipper rats with big, black eyes. She turns to Archie. “Really real rats?”

“They're really real, all right. Really dead. Taxidermied rodents with violas and sousaphones, with Schubert playing on a Victrola in the background. Care to see?”

“The image you've painted is plenty.”

They continue. Kitty stops at a booth with an elaborate display of china settings—a perfectly Victorian sitting room crowded with dinner and salad plates, cups and saucers, sugar bowls and creamers, all painted in demure blue and white. She reads the sign. “Can't Smash Up Your House? Smash Up Ours! Four balls for five cents!”

A man in a white suit and straw hat pops his head around the booth. “Afternoon, miss! Care to have a go? Release your frustrations with the modern age!”

“But…it seems such a waste.”

“Don't be coy, child.” Archie hands the man a nickel. “Aim for the teapot with Queen Victoria on the front. It'll do you good.”

Kitty's first ball goes low, not even worrying the dishes.

Archie scoffs. “Surely you've more spirit than—”

She fires her second ball into a serving platter with a picture of Buckingham Palace, which shatters delightfully. The shards take out teacups as they fall, which in turn knock down some dessert plates—a waterfall of destruction.

Kitty laughs. “What a wonderful sound!”

• • •

Twenty cents later, Kitty's had her fill of smashing china, so they continue past the Bowery. A crowd has gathered on one corner. “Well, well,” Archie says. “Look who's here. Come—this you must see.” He elbows his way through the crowd, maneuvering himself and Kitty to the front. “Feast your eyes, Miss Hayward.”

She looks, then blinks a few times, then looks again. No. Yes. Can't be. Really?

In front of Kitty is a young woman of Asian descent in a voluminous black robe, embroidered in gold, with long, wide sleeves. She wears a cylindrical hat wrapped in multicolored ribbons and edged with ivory beads that dangle down her face. Her eyes are closed, her expression one of purest relaxation. Her right hand holds an intricately carved walking stick with a dragon's head at the top, while her left hand rests serenely in her lap. She sits cross-legged…hovering about three feet off the ground.

Kitty turns to Archie. “Is she…?”

“I certainly don't know. Do
you
think she is?”

New York audiences are a voluble bunch, but this crowd stands silent, a mixture of awe and disbelief playing across their faces. Finally one brave—or just obnoxious—soul steps forward to run his hand along the space between the girl's robes and the ground.

He reports his findings with a shrug. “Ain't nothin' under her.”

People shake their heads and whisper.

“Of course there isn't,” says a young man. Kitty was so taken with the girl, she hadn't even noticed she had an assistant nearby. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “in this city of hucksters and frauds, you are the fortunate witnesses of a true act of spiritual majesty. May I present Yeshi Rinpoche, holy priestess of Tibet.”

“Ha!” Archie snorts. “Rinpoche, my eye!”

“Rinpoche?” Kitty asks.

“A Rinpoche, my dear, is a highly respected teacher of Buddhism.” He takes a step forward. “If this scalawag is a Rinpoche, I'm a llama. The four-legged kind.”

The levitating girl tilts her head, causing the beads along her face to rattle slightly. Her assistant nods. “I'm sorry,” he says to the crowd, “but we must end our demonstration. Yeshi Rinpoche cannot possibly continue in such a
hostile
environment. We hope our demonstration has intrigued you and that we will see you soon at West Eighth Street, where Her Holiness is available for spiritual consultations.”

Archie chuckles. “Ahh, so that's her game. I was wondering.”

The disappointed crowd disperses, and the assistant opens up a trifold screen, placing it in front of the girl so she can leave her trance in privacy.

A moment later, she bursts through the canvas and storms up to Archie. “What in
hell
is your problem?”

He bows low. “Your Holiness…”

“Oh, shut up. I've got a right to make a living, you know.”

“You were making a perfectly fine living with me, as I recall.”

“No, Archibald, I was making a perfectly fine living
for
you. Very different.” She notices Kitty. “Who is this, then? Found a new pigeon, have you?”

“This is Miss Kitty Hayward, recently of London. Miss Hayward, may I present the most celestial Yeshi Rinpoche, formerly known as Yeshi Lowenstein.”

Kitty coughs. “I'm sorry? Lowenstein?”

“Archie here loves to imply that I'm a fraud, but I am actually from Tibet. But we Tibetans don't have surnames. So when I arrived in America, I borrowed the surname of the people in line ahead of me.”

Archie smiles. “My practical girl.”

She frowns. “I'm not
your girl
, Archibald. Not anymore. My brother and I make our own way.” She points to her assistant, chatting up the crowd and passing out business cards. “That's him. Tenzin.”

Kitty raises an eyebrow. “Tenzin…Lowenstein.”

Archie laughs. “I love America! Miss Lowenstein, if you please, Miss Hayward and I had a rather profitable morning. Would you and Mr. Lowenstein care to join us for lunch?”

“We're too busy, no thanks to you.” Yeshi glances at Kitty disdainfully. “Mind yourself around the old man here. If he tells you how many fingers you have, count them anyway.” She stalks off toward her brother, but Kitty stops her.

“Please, wait. The levitation. How is it done? I must know.”

Yeshi smiles. She stretches her out her arms, and her long sleeves brush the sidewalk. “I am Her Holiness Yeshi Lowenstein, the first American Rinpoche. I can do anything.”

• • •

The trout stares vacantly up at Kitty.
You don't scare me
, she thinks.
I'm so hungry, if you sat up and begged for your life, I'd eat you anyway.

The unlikely companions attack their platters. Archie and Kitty are seated in one of Feltman's numerous outdoor dining areas. The courtyard is bordered by high trellises on three sides, with lanterns strung along the top. The trellises create the illusion that diners are gathered in an intimate environment where they were terribly lucky to get a table—rather than in the three-acre behemoth that is Feltman's, serving thousands of patrons every night from its many kitchens.

Feltman's menu is itself a marvel of mixed signals, with French cuisine competing for attention with sausages and hot dogs for fifteen cents each. “Bratwurst versus meunière,” Archie muses. “It's the Franco-Prussian War on a plate. Of course, we'd be eating even higher off the hog if Pearson had done right by us. You should have heard the greedy little muskrat. ‘Boohoo, this painting will sit in my warehouse for months, la la la,' all the while licking his chops over the image of your father's big, fat wallet. I had to take the painting halfway out the door before he raised the offer to a hundred bucks. Meanwhile, Pearson stands to collect
ten times
that amount.”

Kitty raises an eyebrow. “But he won't collect one thousand dollars. In fact, he just
lost
one hundred dollars.”

“Pearson, as far as he knew, was about to earn the easiest grand of his entire pointless life.”

“As far as he knew.”

“Yes, as far as he knew.”

“You're angry because you
only
stole one hundred dollars? That's a great deal of money!”

“Aren't we Miss Morality all of a sudden? You're welcome to send back the fish, you know, if you're troubled by this terrible stealing.”

Kitty grins and takes another bite. “Fair enough.”

Archie removes his napkin from his lap and tosses it on the table. Leaning back in his chair, he removes the pipe from his jacket and lights it. “So, now that we've dined, tell me about Seamus. Why is he so important?”

Kitty glances at Archie; he's got that look again—that weighing, measuring look. She puts down her fork. “I don't expect you'll believe it.”

“Try me.”

Rather than answer, she looks around the courtyard. A few tables over, two young parents struggle to get a few bites of hot dog into their rambunctious, ketchup-smeared children. Next to them, an older man sits alone, coughing violently into his handkerchief—nearby diners give the old man the stink eye, but he ignores them and keeps on coughing. Immediately to Kitty's right, a pair of young lovers make eyes at each other over their beers, while to her left, an elderly couple consumes bratwurst in stony silence. Not a soul on Feltman's three acres has the slightest interest in Kitty's problems. Except Archie.

All right
, she thinks.
Nothing to lose.
“I arrived in New York three days ago, on a steamer from Cape Town.”

“South Africa? That's exotic. Why ever were you there?”

“My mother and I sailed there to see my brother. He served in the conflict with the Boers and—”

“Oh, he's joining the Boer War show, of course!
That's
what brought you here. I might have guessed.”

Kitty frowns. “I don't understand.”

“Out at New Brighton Beach! There are a thousand veterans involved. They reenact the war every afternoon—ten cents a person, not a bad seat in the house. Thrill to the exploits of General Cronjé, Buffalo Bill of the Transvaal! Yes?” Kitty's appalled expression tells Archie he's turned down a blind conversational alley. “Boer War show…very popular…no?”

“I'm afraid not,” she says coolly. “I must confess, I find the notion of a Boer War
show
to be in poor taste.”

“Welcome to New York, kid. All right, carry on with your yarn.”

She takes a deep breath and another bite of trout to collect herself. “His service had ended, and we went to fetch him. Nate was determined we move to America, you see. Father died years ago, so it was just the three of us. I wanted to start university, but the fees were atrocious. Nate didn't get the placement he wanted at an architecture firm, and… Anyway, it's not important. The point is, things all started to fall apart. As they do.”

Archie sings, “
Ol-i-gar-chy ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be…
”

Kitty grimaces. “In any case, Nate resolved we should make a go of it in America. What a lovely new life we would start, the streets paved with gold and so forth. But you see…” She pauses to peel off the trout's cheek with her fork—the most flavorful part of the fish, Kitty had been saving the cheek for last, for when she really needed it. “There are these Boer men—bitter-enders, they're called—who wouldn't accept that they'd lost the war. They disappeared into the…I don't know, the
veldt
, I suppose. Periodically, they'd blow something up or shoot someone. And…a few days before my mother and I arrived, the bitter-enders staged an attack.”

“Uh-oh.”

“We arrived from England only to learn that Nate… They attacked in the middle of the night, and he…well…he was…”

The words stop.

“Child,” Archie says quietly. “I'm sorry. Teasing aside. Is this how you came to be on the bench? Because of what happened to your brother?”

Kitty blinks hard and looks at her plate. The trout bones swim again before her wet eyes. “I wish it were that simple. After they told us…my only thought was to get back to London. Have a funeral. It's what one does, isn't it?” She looks up at Archie. “Isn't that what one does?”

“People do all kinds of things, I suppose.”

“That's well said. Because what Mum wanted to do—what she insisted we do—is to follow through with Nate's plan.
It was his last wish to go to New York
, she kept saying. So we sailed here anyway. Here,” Kitty says distastefully. “Some American resort, of all ridiculous places.”

“So here you are in this admittedly ridiculous place, with… Oh! Not with your brother in tow, I don't suppose?”

“The army intended to bury Nate right there in Cape Town! Sink him in the same ground where his killers still walk. Does that make any sense at all?”

He shrugs. “It might, if I was paying for the shipping.”

“Mum wasn't having it. She said, ‘Nathan wanted to be buried in New York, and we shall see to it.' Of course, Nate wanted to
see
New York before he was buried here! Instead, his body is just sitting on the
Arundale
, out in the harbor!”

“Meanwhile, you've taken up residence on a public bench, and your mother is where?”

“My mother is…” Kitty's voice cracks. It's one thing to think a thought but quite another to speak it, to make it real. “I can't… I'm sorry… I just…” She holds her napkin in front of her face, struggling not to make a scene.

“Miss Hayward, tell me what happened. Even if it hurts, do it anyway. Where is your mother? Does that kid Seamus know where she is? He knows something, doesn't he? Be a brave girl, now. Take a deep breath and tell me.”

She breathes as best she can. And she tells him.

Flamingos Don't Lie

To the left of the big oak entrance to Magruder's, there is a second door, this one unmarked. Through that door and down some stairs lies a part of the Cabinet that few Normals ever see. There, in the basement of Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet, is Zeph's true home: Magruder's Unusual Tavern.

From behind the bar, Zeph looks up at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Ah! Afternoon, Maestro! How'd it go last night? Everything explode okay?”

“Meh,” the man says. “
Così così
.” Enzo Morrone has a body like a barrel and looks far older than his thirty-two years. The left side of his face is purpled and leathery, scarred over from some ancient, fiery accident. A bushy mustache stretches across his bicolored face like a train track running from a good neighborhood to a bad one.

“Enzo, switch the plugs on that old beast, would ya? There's an afternoon show at the Oriental I want to hear.”

Enzo nods, crossing to a squat wooden cabinet in the far corner of the room. Once an icebox, it now accommodates something very different. It's a box of sound.

Enzo flips the latch to open the box's front door. Inside, a disorganized tangle of cords, keys, and jacks is a mad-scientist version of the telephone switchboards being installed all over town.

“Which channel you want?”

“Oriental Hotel ballroom…I think it's channel six?”

The icebox speakers spit and burp as Enzo manipulates the cords and keys. After a few moments, a man's disembodied voice dances its way through the receiver.

“Come, listen all you gals and boys.

Ise just from Tuckyhoe;

I'm goin' to sing a little song.

My name's Jim Crow.”

“Wrong!” Zeph shouts. “That's the whorehouse on West Eighth. Try channel seven.”

Enzo nods again and yanks the cords out, silencing the minstrel show. “Should I ask,” he says as he works, “why you give to some whorehouse a channel?”

Zeph laughs. “They got a fella there plays ragtime who's pretty good, but only on the weeknights. Weekends, they got that other shit.”

When Enzo has finally adjusted the receiver to the new channel, the room fills with angels singing in close harmony.

“If I get there before you do

Coming for to carry me home

I'll cut a hole and pull you through

Coming for to carry me home.”

“
That's
what I meant.” Zeph is smiling now. “That's my Fisk Jubilee Singers—hometown boys and girls from back in Tennessee.
Grazie
, Enzo.”

“
Di niente
.” He saunters to the bar and hefts himself onto a stool. “
Ciao
, Signorina Rosalind.”

Perched two stools down, Rosalind smiles for Enzo but does not turn his way. “
Ciao
, Maestro.”

Enzo removes his bowler and hands it to Zeph, who hangs it on the corner of the large, gilt mirror behind the bar. Without needing to be asked, Zeph fills a small glass with green-tinted liquid from the faucet of an enormous samovar. He sends the glass skating down the bar to Enzo, who reaches out and snatches the glass just before it topples over the edge. Enzo downs the drink in one swallow and slides it back to Zeph, who grins and fills it again. This time, he rolls himself down the bar to deliver the drink in person. Zeph sits atop a platform that's attached to the bar and has casters at the bottom, enabling him to practically fly from one end of the bar to the other.

“Zeph, when do you make the proper music on that icebox? Caruso! Caruso, he would class this place.”

Zeph grins at his friend. “First of all, ain't nothing
not
proper about my Jubilee Singers, so you just watch yourself. Second, you wanna hear Caruso, you get on over to the Metropolitan Opera House and buy a ticket just like everybody else. Doc's receiver only picks up sound within a couple-mile radius.”

“Well, make bigger the signal!”

“I'll just magically make
bigger
the signal for you, shall I?”

“
Sì
! Give one of the…uh,
come si dice
, the little boxes…”

“Transmitters.”

“
Sì
, transmitter. Give transmitter to one of your friends who moves the scenery at the Met—”

Zeph shakes his head, laughing. “My
friends
at the opera? You overestimate me…”

“—and he hang transmitter right above Caruso's head.
Perfetto
!”

“How about Caruso comes out here to Coney, what do you say to that? He deigns to bless us with his presence, and I swear to God, I'll put a transmitter in his hat, just for you.”

“Or,” Rosalind interjects, “Enzo and I might venture into Manhattan one evening…”

Enzo grunts. “People like us, we no go to Metropolitan Opera House.”

“Oh, I don't know.” Rosalind takes Enzo's hand. “I think we clean up fairly well.”

The unburned half of Enzo's face blushes, and he pulls his hand away. Stung, Rosalind says, “
Really?
Tell me, signore, just how many times do I have to shake your sheets before you'll hold my hand in an
empty
tavern?”

“Ach, is not so simple, Rosalind. You know this—”

“I know
you
think it isn't!”

Zeph leaps in to change the subject. “Hey, ah…how'd the new fireworks come off, Maestro? You were planning, what was it…chrysanthemums? Did they work?”

“Bah. I plan, I plan, but when rockets take the air, they do as they like. All over Steeplechase Park, they say
ooh, ah, oh
. They happy. But to me? Rockets look less like chrysanthemum in bloom, more like chrysanthemum squashed under horse.”

“Sorry to hear it, brother. Guess it's rough all over these days.”

Enzo looks up from his drink. “What does this mean?”

“We lost the Race to Death today. By which I mean, we actually lost it. Some ol' hausfrau had a fit, destroyed the entire topside. Gonna take weeks to rebuild.”

“The people, they no deserve us, Zeph.”

“Poor man,” Rosalind says, more than a hint of sarcasm around the edges. “So cranky this afternoon.”

“And you, what is this you wear?” Enzo points grouchily at Rosalind's dress—a roiling sea of iridescent green fabric with ivory-colored roses sewn into the bodice. “You look like peacock at Bostock's animal show.”

“So I am, darling. Exotic bird, that's me.”

Enzo grunts, and Rosalind arches an eyebrow.

“Maestro, if this face displeases you, would you prefer my other?”

“No, no. You should not look so loud, I am saying. Is no safe.”

Rosalind's eyes narrow. “I don't recall giving you authority over how I—”

The tavern door opens, and Whitey Lovett stumbles down the stairs. He wears a fireman's uniform and holds a sopping handkerchief to his head. His face is covered with blood.

Rosalind gasps. “Whitey! You poor thing!”

The little man heads straight for the bar and climbs on a stool. Rosalind moves to the one beside him. “Here, let me have a look. Zeph, is there a first aid kit?”

“Sure, it's in the office at the back. Enzo, would you mind—”

He is already standing. “
Sì
, on my way…”

Zeph hands Whitey a glass of green liquid. “I told you to stay away from Princess Rajah. Her manager don't like men coming around and—”

Whitey shakes his wounded head and winces. “No, no… It was Crumbly Pete.”

Rosalind gasps anew. “For heaven's sake. What's he done now?”

Zeph looks at Rosalind. “You need to speak to that boy. He's out of control.”

“Me? Why me?”

“You and Pete work together. You got history—”

“That doesn't mean he listens to me, Zeph! Pete doesn't listen to anyone.”

Enzo returns with Magruder's excuse for a first aid kit—a crumpled shoe box with brass tweezers, a few lengths of dusty bandage, an empty aspirin bottle, and a tincture of iodine. “This, she is all I could find.”

“It'll do, thank you.” Rosalind takes the tweezers to Whitey's busted head. “This wound is full of glass! What did he hit you with?”

“
Che cazzo
!” Enzo says. “Who beat the midget?”

“Crumbly Pete,” Zeph answers, and Enzo harrumphs his lack of surprise.

“Well.” Whitey sighs. “It's like this. I'm on my way to work this morning. It's early—sun's just coming up.”

“Is that so?” Zeph asks. “Whose bed were you sneaking out of?”

Whitey grins. “Nosy Parker. Anyway, the garbage men are cleaning up Surf Avenue. But it's strange, because there are dead rats everywhere. City must have done some kind of poison control, I guess? I'm tripping over the things, there's
that
many. I pass Steeplechase, and Pete jumps out. He's loitering by the entrance like he does. So yeah, crazy bastard startles me. But I don't want to look like a chump, so I says, ‘Hey, Pete. How's about these rats, huh?' Guy just
glares
at me. He says, ‘What about the rats?' Now, I don't know what's going on with this lunatic. I'm just trying to get to work! So I made a joke. Not even a very good one. ‘Well,' I says, ‘I guess we know what today's special at Feltman's is gonna be.'”

Enzo chuckles. “Is not bad.”

“Right? Thanks, Enzo. So I keep walking, and Pete calls after me. ‘I'm gonna remember you said that, Whitey. I'm gonna remember.' What does that even mean?”

“It
means
, Whitey”—Rosalind picks some more glass out of his head—“that our Pete likes rats better than people.”

“Well, the feeling is mutual.”

“Stay still. I need to put on some antiseptic and a bandage.”

“Sure,” Whitey says, and then, “Ow! Dammit, that stings!”

“Sorry.”

“Gah…anyway. So I go to work, put the rats out of my mind. Had a good day, lunch date with…um…a lovely lady…”

Zeph hoots. “I
knew
it! I knew you didn't know her name.”

Whitey shrugs. “Hardly matters. I won't get another chance with her after that scene at the Race to Death today. Christ, Zeph, what was that? Anyway, after lunch, I go back to work, but they closed the park early. Something about disinfection—no idea why. So I'm walking back down Surf Avenue, past Steeplechase? Pete leaps out at me again! ‘You think that's funny, do ya? All them poor rats poisoned, murdered in cold blood like that. It's just a big joke to you, huh? Well, this'll teach you to laugh at the dead!' And wham! Smacks a bottle of whiskey over my head. Then he's gone, and I'm standing there bleeding like an idiot.”

“So,” Rosalind says, “you came to the tavern? Not, oh, the first aid station at Steeplechase? Or Reception Hospital?”

Whitey sips his green elixir and grins. “Your point?”

Rosalind sighs and finishes the bandage.

“Say,” Whitey says. “You folks hear about Count Orloff?”

“No,” Zeph says. “What about him?”

“Dead.”

Everyone gasps. “What?” Zeph asks. “No, I just saw him the other day!”

Whitey lifts his glass. “The Transparent Man is dead. Long live the Transparent Man. That was a hell of a show he put on. Miss Rosalind, did you see the new bit he added?”

Rosalind stiffens. “I
perform
in the sideshow. I do not attend it.”

Whitey chuckles. “Well, you sure missed out this time. All right, so, you know his skin, right? All see-through? In his new show, they'd shine a
spotlight
on him. And you could watch the blood pumping through his veins—
bum bump, bum bump, bum bump
. From the heart, through the veins, all the way around. Incredible. You saw it, right, Zeph?”

Zeph smiles. “No, but I heard tell. Good and creepy, sounds like.”

“Add that to the wasting disease…Orloff's limbs all withered and bendy? Poor son of a bitch. Me and Zeph here might be small, but at least they don't carry us around in a handbag.”

“Stop being crude,” Rosalind says, “and tell us what happened to him.”

“I don't think they rightly know,” Whitey says. “Apparently he woke up with a cough this morning. This afternoon? Dies screaming with these black lumps on his neck.”

Rosalind grimaces. “He got sick and died in
one day
? Where did you hear this?”

“That cutie Susannah told me. You know her? The Flamingo Girl at Steeplechase, the one with her knees on backward?”

“I don't believe you.”

“Hey, flamingos don't lie.”

“I don't like it,” Zeph mutters. “We got dead rats in the street, hausfraus having fits, now Orloff's gone? What's going on in this town?”

The drinkers and their bartender fall silent, and Zeph's hometown singers drift across the room like ghosts.

“Wade in the water

Wade in the water, children,

Wade in the water

God's gonna trouble the water.”