Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet (9 page)

“Yeah, but what can we do? You got friends in high places I don't know about?”

“
Nulla
. Don't know nobody nowhere.”

“Right, you and me both.”

“Boys,” Archie interjects, “I'm sure there's someone who owes me a favor at the—”

“Shut up,” Zeph and Enzo say as one.

“You don't know nobody neither,” Enzo adds.

Zeph agrees. “Don't kid a kidder.”

“All right, fine. Perhaps I don't. I do have a plan, though.”

“Do tell,” Zeph says, eyebrow raised.

“Well…” He looks down at his palm, idly tracing the line of his scar. “It seems to me that it all starts at that hotel—in suite 218, with the rose wallpaper. That's where this began. So that's where we search first.”

“Come on,” Zeph says. “How are we going to get into a room like that? I mean, look at us.”

Enzo nods. “He has a point, Archie.”

Archie smiles. “As it happens, I have a thought on that subject. Of course”—he glances at Zeph—“you won't like it.”

Miasma

Archie and Rosalind promenade into the lobby of the Manhattan Beach Hotel like visiting royalty. Archie wears a natty pin-striped suit and bowler, while Rosalind is decked out in full Gibson Girl—a flowing dress of canary-yellow chiffon with a breathtakingly tight corset and ample bustle at the back. His wide-brimmed hat is piled high with colorful fabric and feathers, and a long strand of pearls is wrapped multiple times around his neck.

“Tell me,” Archie says, “how did you acquire such a valuable necklace?”

Rosalind smiles and nods at the doorman as they pass, but his voice is cold. “You keep your mind off my jewels, old man.”

A bellhop struggles with Rosalind's oversize trunk while the glamorous couple takes their place in line at the front desk. Rosalind looks around, soaking up the luxurious atmosphere of the lobby. But his eyes settle upon the pile of newspapers stacked on a nearby table. “Archie, look at the headline.”

“Where? Oh, I see.” He picks up a paper. “‘Dreamland's Deceased Dromedary Disaster!' Dear, dear, dauntingly dramatic! Let's see… ‘A heartbreaking moment for Coney Island's newest park…' Blah blah blah… ‘Mr. Frank Bostock announced today his animal show would be closed after all thirty of Dreamland's camels succumbed to a mysterious illness.' Blah blah blah… ‘A grim Bostock announced a day of mourning…' Don't be fooled. I promise you Frank's delighted—he hated those camels. They smelled like the devil, and they were so foul tempered you couldn't even train them to—”

“You're missing the point,” Rosalind says, irritated. “First all the rats die, now camels? What is going on?”

“That's an error in logic, my dear.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
, as the scholars say. Dead camels following on dead rats has no connection other than a lot of unfortunate smells.”

“You see only coincidence here?”

“That corset must be cutting off the oxygen to your brain. Rats and camels can't get the same diseases. They're barely in the same class of—”

“Don't you
dare
address me in that—”

The man ahead of them finishes his transaction, and the clerk motions Archie forward. “Good afternoon,” he says.

Consummate performers, Archie and Rosalind instantly switch their masks from tragedy to comedy. “Hello, my good man,” Archie says jovially. “The wife and I are here to see about a room.”

The clerk is nonplussed. “Do you have a reservation?”

“I'm afraid not. But surely we can work something out, can't we?”

“I don't have much available. It's our busy season, you see.”

Rosalind leans over the desk and flutters his long eyelashes. “As it happens,” he says, “only one room truly interests us—number 218?”

The clerk drops his pen. “What do you want that room for?”

Rosalind squeezes Archie's hand. “It's the room where this gentleman proposed to me, one year ago tonight. So you see how terribly important that suite is to us.” Flutter, flutter, flutter go the eyelashes.

“That's…ah…sweet? But if it was so important, you should have made a reservation.”

Rosalind tosses his head and laughs. “Oh, what a funny man you are. Please, sir. Check and see.”

“Ma'am, I'm telling you—”

“Let me handle this, dearest.” Archie slides a quartet of dollar bills across the desk. “My good man, humor me. Check your reservation book, and see how full you truly are.”

“I can't promise anything,” the clerk says. He slides the dollars into his pocket and opens the reservation book in a single, well-practiced gesture.

“Of course we understand,” Rosalind says. “But something tells me we might get lucky.”

The clerk makes a show of looking through the list of rooms, but it's clear he already knows the answer. “Let's see…well, look at that. Suite 218 is unoccupied.”

Rosalind gasps and claps his hands. “Really? What luck.” He turns to Archie. “What do you think, my darling? I'm just your lucky rabbit's foot, aren't I?”

Archie rolls his eyes. “Yes,
darling
. Later, I'll take you to the dead camel races.”

• • •

A red-headed bellhop opens the door to 218, now wallpapered in a sickly pale green. “Oh,” Rosalind says, disappointed. “Have you redecorated? I seem to remember there used to be…what was it?”

The bellhop smiles. “Roses?”

“Roses.” Rosalind waggles an eyebrow at Archie. “Of course, roses.”

“What's that smell?” Archie demands.

“I don't smell anything?” the bellhop says too quickly.

“Better get your nose checked, because it reeks in here.”

Hoping to change the subject, the bellhop goes to the door. “Is over here all right for your trunk, ma'am?”

“Yes, of course. Darling,” Rosalind says to Archie, “do you have anything for the young man?”

“What, you mean…a
tip
?” Archie shrugs. “Okay. The house always wins.”

Rosalind sighs. He removes a quarter from his clutch. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” He turns to leave.

“Oh, Seamus,” Rosalind says casually.

The red-headed boy turns around, surprised.

“You are Seamus, aren't you.”

“Yes?”

“Seamus, I do believe you and I have a friend in common.”

Seamus shakes his head politely. “I'm sorry, ma'am? I can't imagine that's true.”

“Oh, but it is. A young lady, British. Lovely girl. Checked in a few days ago, then checked out under somewhat, ah, odd circumstances?”

Seamus blinks repeatedly, as though Rosalind is an apparition that might vanish if he could only wake himself up. “Sorry?”

“Miss Kitty Hayward. Surely you remember her.”

“I can't say I do?”

Archie laughs. “Oh, we know you can't
say
you do.”

“I don't remember.” Seamus stares at his shoes. “I don't.”

“Young man,” Rosalind says, “our poor young friend is in quite a state. Mother missing, no money, no way to get home. Terrible, don't you think, Seamus?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he tells his shoes. “Sounds terrible.”

“Young man, here is your real tip.” Rosalind reaches into his clutch again and retrieves a visitor's card from Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet. “This is where you can find us, should you decide to help Miss Hayward.”

Rosalind holds out the card, but Seamus makes no move to take it. “I'm sorry, I…I'm just a bellhop? I can't do anything?”

“My sweet boy.” Rosalind tucks the card into the vest of Seamus's uniform. “Not one of us knows what we can do, until one fine day, we stand up and do it.”

• • •

“Let me out of this goddamned trunk, or I swear to Christ, I'll kill you both in your sleep.”

Rosalind laughs. “Poor man, let me help.” He unlocks the trunk and lifts its heavy lid.

Zeph's head pops up, gasping for air. “I thought I was gonna suffocate for sure.”

“Someone your size has no business being claustrophobic,” Archie says. “Limits your opportunities.”

“I'm the same damn size as you, old man—just misplaced my lower half along the way.” Zeph grabs the edge of the trunk with both gloved hands and hoists himself out. He travels across the floor on his hands, his torso swaying back and forth behind him. “I can't believe I let you freaks talk me into this.”

“Given your special abilities vis-à-vis confined spaces, I thought you might spot some things that Mr. Butler here and I cannot.”

Rosalind's eyes narrow. “I'll thank you to
never
call me that again.”

“All right,
Lady
Butler. Better?” A decanter of whiskey is displayed on a side table; Archie is drawn to it as if magnetized. “Have a drink with me?”

Rosalind accepts the drink but sighs. “No,
lady
isn't better. I'm Rosalind, period.”

“Then let's toast, Rosalind Period,” Archie says. “We're not here five minutes, and we've already confirmed Kitty's story. Room 218 used to have rose wallpaper.”

“Oh,” Zeph says, heading for the second bedroom. “Somebody call the papers—they changed the wallpaper!”

“We did meet Seamus,” Rosalind offers. “That's interesting.”

“Yeah, for all the good he'll do us,” Zeph calls.

Archie nods. “But, Zeph, what do you make of the smell in here?”

Zeph returns from the second bedroom and ambles to the bathroom, sniffing as he goes. “Ah, let's see…perfume? A fairly nasty perfume?”

“No doubt,” Archie says. “Something else too. Fetid, a sort of… Blast it. It'll come to me.”

“You and your fussy nose,” Rosalind says. “Anyway, I found that boy Seamus charming. Lovely accent. He senses he's on the cusp of something important, but he doesn't know which way to turn. Perhaps we've shown him the way.”

“Don't you have a boyfriend already, Ros?”

“Do shut up, Archie.”

Zeph emerges from the bathroom. “Y'all, those hotel boys scrubbed this place
clean.
I don't think—wait, what is that?” He points under the bed.

Rosalind goes to him and bends down. “I don't see anything.”

“A little glimmer, over there, see? Right there!”

“Not from this angle, no.”

Zeph sighs. “Does the phrase
useless as a Dozen
mean anything to you?”

“Now, don't be that way. I got you in here, didn't I?”

Zeph flattens his body against the rug and pulls himself under the bed. Moments later, he emerges from the other side, clasping something in his teeth. He holds it up—a long, silver chain.

Rosalind gasps. “How did they miss that?”

Zeph shrugs. “You missed it, didn't you? It was all the way in the back, stuck behind the headboard.” He inspects the necklace. “Looks nice. 'Course, it could be anybody's.”

“Come now,” Rosalind says. “What are the odds? It must be Mummy's!”

“Zeph is right,” Archie says. “Proves nothing. Still, we could sell it—earn back the bribe I had to pay at the desk. Reminds me of this one time, when I was a boy, I found a pearl necklace lying on the street outside Lafayette Cemetery. Can you imagine? Some widower dropped it when—oh my gods. That's it, isn't it?” He stalks around the room, sniffing like a bloodhound—the walls, the curtains, the overstuffed chairs, the bed. He even sniffs the rug. “God help us. That's it.” He flops down on the floor, defeated.

“Archie, what on earth has gotten into you?”

He looks up at Rosalind. “When I was a boy. Every summer, Yellow Jack would arrive in New Orleans. That's what we called yellow fever. First, one person in the neighborhood would get sick, then another, then five more, then ten. Fevers, coughing. Blood everywhere—thick, like wet coffee grounds. Bleeding out their eyes, inside their bellies. People coughing up half-digested pieces of themselves. And seizures—people went insane from the fever. Hurting themselves, hurting each other. Doctors didn't know what to do. They'd strap patients to their beds and watch them die.

“At the cemeteries, carts and carriages lined up for miles. Gravediggers couldn't keep up—they buried piles of strangers together in shallow graves. Of course, being New Orleans, the bodies washed up with the first good rain. Floated down the street, some of them. Terrible sight. And the city swarmed with green bottle flies. Big fat ones, gorging themselves sick off the corpses.”

Rosalind sits on the edge of the bed as Zeph ambles over on his hands. “Archie,” Rosalind says, “why are you telling us these awful things?”

He stares at the rug, remembering. “No one knew what brought Yellow Jack. People blamed the Irish, the Italians. They blamed the Negroes, of course—especially the free ones. Anyone new, anyone weak. Anyone strange.

“They tried everything to keep Yellow Jack away. They'd put leeches on each other, drink acid, lock up anyone suspicious. Nothing helped. Lot of folks thought it was something in the air.
Miasma
they called it. They set off bombs—the idea was that the smoke from the bombs would drive out the miasma. Mostly they just used gunpowder. But one time…one time, I'll never forget, somebody got clever. Tried something different: sulfur. Yellow powder, not black. Fumigate the city, chase the miasma away. It coated the buildings a mustard color, filled the air with this…this stench of a thousand eggs all rotting at once. I'll never forget it—there's no question why sulfur is what they say hell smells like. And that's what I smell now. Underneath the rosewater, underneath the jasmine and lilac perfume and whatever else they sprayed to cover it up. They fumigated with sulfur.”

Rosalind takes a deep breath through his nose and exhales. “Yes, yes, I think I might smell it now. But assuming you're right, what's the point? Why would they use sulfur, of all things?”

Archie smiles sadly. “My blushing bride. Sulfur is the devil's aftershave—it's eleventh-hour stuff. Sulfur is the last thing you try before you burn the goddamn thing down.”