There once many men, glad-minded and gold-bright,
adorned in gleaming, proud and wine-flushed, shone in war-tackle;
There one could look upon treasure, upon silver, upon ornate jewelry,
upon prosperity, upon possession, upon precious stones,
upon the illustrious city of the broad realm.
Days of misfortune arrived—blows fell broadly—
death seized all those sword-stout men—their idol-fanes were laid waste —
the city-steads perished. Their maintaining multitudes fell to the earth.
For that the houses of red vaulting have drearied and shed their tiles,
these roofs of ringed wood. This place has sunk into ruin, been broken
into heaps,
("The Ruin" – 9th Century Saxon Riddle)
"Stop right there, asshole!" Tony shouted at the youth when their stupor broke eventually.
"Not going anywhere, Pal …" The kid rolled his eyes, holding his fingerless gauntlet hands up to show he was unarmed. The four gangsters descended quickly, surrounding him.
"Who the hell are you?!" Tony asked reaching for the youth's lapels.
The sound of a lightning flash hand slapping away the aggressive gangster's smacked loudly. "Who the hell are you?" The kid countered with an agonizing frown from his wounded brow as the gangster pulled his hand back with shuttered pain, feeling as if the quick reflexed rebuff was performed by a hand that was made of solid granite.
"Uh, that's Tony, he's my cousin …"
"Shut the fuck up, Sid!"
There was a tense pause before the youth lightened.
"Well, in that case …" There was an easy-going nature to the young man who immediately stepped forward. "Hey, Tony, how's it going?" When the thug turned back, he found his hand being shaken. Soon enough, the youth, in turn, began shaking all of the other thug's hands with casual introduction. The Sicilian looked disgusted as they all began introducing themselves with cordial casualness, shaking hands with easy going disarmament.
"Hold up, hold on, KNOCK IT OFF!" Tony shouted at the rest of the guys who seemed unguarded. He took a long good look at the scarred youth with suspicion. "Who the hell do you think youse is?" He asked in offense at the kid's seeming natural ability to take over a situation.
"I deem someone, just like you … trying to do a job and not get hassled for it." He answered with an easy tailored confidence that Tony deemed the kid was born with. "I mean, am I in Rhode Island or Hell's Kitchen, right boys?" He asked around. Tony was disturbed by the sudden positive answers from the group.
"Fucking, Micks … always hassling whenever we wanna go get some of that whiskey."
"Goddamn potato peelers."
"Fuckin Irish cops … don't respect noth'in, right Tony?" Sid shook his head.
"The fuck youse talking about, Squint?! Ya never crossed no I, nor dotted a Q, in your life?" Tony snapped at his cousin again. The youth noticed it for the second time, but only lightened his look.
"Come on, Tony, we ain't no cops …"
"Yeah, cut the kid a break, eh?"
"Alright, alright, alright …" The designated leader repeated rubbing his temples. "ALRIGHT, alright, alright, shut up, ya clowns!" he hollered at his group that were starting to complain of his heavy handedness. Then, he frowned at all of them in disgust.
"Did any of youse fuckin geniuses eva think, even once, that this is the Limey son of a bitch we're lookin for, huh?" He slapped the mustached fourth member of the group who had a matchstick between his teeth in the back of the head. Suddenly, they all grew silent and turned suspicious looks toward the magnetic youth that seemed a force of nature. But the kid only looked confused.
"Well … who are you looking for?" He asked with a shrug.
"Feh, wouldn't you like to know?" Tony countered. But then there was a long pause as everyone began to look confused.
"Yeah … you know, that would help." the kid shrugged again.
"I think that'll help, Tony …" The smooth talker scratched his jaw.
"Ya think so, asshole?!" The man snipped under his breath. Then, after his party member responded with thrown out raised arms that said he actually wasn't sure himself, he rounded on the kid.
"Alright, what's your birthday?" he asked. There was a long pause as everyone seemed pleased by the question turning judgmental looks toward the scarred wanderer in anticipation.
"Uh …" He frowned in puzzlement. "March 12th …" He shook his head, not sure why he was just asked the question.
There were a few nods from the group – someone in the back voicing that it was also his grandmother's birthday. Then, everyone turned to Tony to see what came next. That was when the man found a shit eating grin as if that one tidbit of detail was some Holmesian clue to the solving a true mystery that none of the dunderheads had the brains for. He held up one finger to quiet everyone.
"What's his birthday?" He asked the kid.
Everyone voiced their support for their leader while turning back to the youth with aggressive cheerleading … at first. But, then, slowly, after a moment, they quieted in sudden contemplation of the question that had been asked of their new acquaintance/suspected. Slowly, they turned back in puzzled squints to an expecting Sicilian with a smug look.
"His birthday?"
"Yeah, his birthday …"
"I told you, March 12th."
"No, what's his birthday?"
"Tony, he just said March …"
"I ain't talking to youse!"
"Wait, you're talking to me?"
"Of course, asshole!"
"I just told you, March 12th …"
"Yeah, I don't get it, Tony …?"
"Shut up! No, what's the guy's birthday!"
"What guy?"
"The guy, the fucking … you know?"
"No, not really."
"The Limey fuck!"
"That's an entire Empire of people, Pal."
"No, goddamn it, the fucking guy, the guy we're looking for!"
"I don't get it, Tony … youse want the kid to tell you that guy's birthday?"
"Well, look who just caught up?!"
"Wait, you want me to tell you the birthday of the guy you're looking for?"
"YES!"
"…"
"…"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?!"
"Eeehhh, ya know, Tony, I think I'm with the kid on this one."
"Yeah, Yeah, how is the kid supposed to know that?"
The olive tanned face of the Sicilian with pencil mustache stared at the rugged youth for a very long time. His smug face slowly disappeared, his chewing of a wad of Bazooka bubble gum suddenly got faster, his face going blank in thought, as if the rapid chomping of his molars was the cranking wheel to a suddenly empty mind. Somewhere along the line he lost track of the narrative, or possibly the point. He only crossed his arms, blinking. Meanwhile, everyone slowly turned from suspicious confusion of the young man before them toward the broad-shouldered criminal with frowns. Sid took his hat off, scratching his balding scalp. Eventually, the youth, gave a stilted shake of his head slowly with an anticipating face for something to come of the whole thing.
"So …" The kid drew out, motioning for the Sicilian to make a point.
"Huh." Had been the big man's response, defensively chewing on his gum, widening his stance with arms crossed. The awkward silence lasted another stretch that one might have thought too long.
"You know …" The kid offered. "You should probably save those curve balls for when you're deeper in the count there, chief." He nodded, awkwardly patting his confused adversary on the shoulder.
There was a silence that was filled with nods of agreement or tilting heads that considered the advice with accepting expressions. The smooth talker tapped the bigger man's chest with the back of his hand in agreement while Sid patted his cousin on the shoulder.
"Fuck off me …!" He snapped at the other two thugs who quickly gave him space.
"Well …" the youth drew out stuffing the last of the priceless, one of a kind, wedding gown into the duffle. "I hope you find the guy you're looking for ... whoever he is." He seemed genuine, friendly even as he began stringing the quilted duffle closed with a teenage girl's faded satin hair ribbons that he had found in one of the many wardrobes.
"Yeah, well, if youse ain't him, then what the hell ya doin here?" The matchstick man motioned to the kid with wood piece in between his teeth.
"Me?" He asked.
"Yeah, youse!" Tony reentered the conversation, burnt by being humiliated.
They watched the Kid loop the strap of the cloth bag across his chest. "Excavating." He said distractedly slinging the duffle tightly behind him so that the soft quilted roll was pressed tightly against the small of his leather clad back.
"Why, youse some sort of holy man?"
"Excavating, shithead, not exorcisms!"
"Wha, youse a dictionary now, asshole?! The fucking kid knows what I mean!"
"Yeah, yeah … ya dumb guinea."
"So, you're a thief?" Sid asked over Tony and the smooth talker who were back to smacking one another's arms. That seemed to catch youth's attention. There was something angry in detest at what he saw as an accusation.
"I'm no goddamn thief!" There was something dark in the young man's voice that stilled the room of any internal strife.
They cringed at a droplet of some black foul liquid that ran down the length of his gash and onto his cheek that he wiped off. It seemed that whatever the name had in association to himself, he did not like it being used by his presence in this abandoned ruin … and surely in this room of all places. There was something stricken, insecure, and deeply tormented about the young man that had much to do with some personal honor in relation to whoever was once the fairy princess who this room, the manor itself, had been built for.
But he quickly squashed whatever melancholy plagued his heart when he saw the fang like grins that some of the others gave to one another. He didn't think them all that intelligent enough to play coy, instead he knew it to be what he was used too. The time-honored tradition of male bonding through exploiting insecurities.
"Youse look like you're thieving to me, unless youse found the man of your dreams and hard up for cash, little lady." Tony pointed out to a chorus of chuckles at the youth and the wedding dress's expense.
There was five ways to play the bitterness that welled deep in his soul - one kills, two cripples them for life, one hurts like hell … and the last moves chess pieces.
"What can I say boys, it goes with my eyes …" He took his hand off the bishop.
When the other men saw him turn into the ribbing, their guard lightened even further. "No, look … I'm simply liberating these 'artifacts' from a dusty tomb so they can do a service where they're better suited." He explained. Then there was something brooding that cut a prolific image as he looked out the window. "It's not like the people who lived here are gonna come back for anything …" There was a heavy knowledge of something more in his voice, in his expression - a deeper sorrow than he reluctantly let on.
"Eh, and how would you know that?" Tony looked suspicious, conflicted. He knew him not to be a thief, because, a thief would be lining his pockets with valuables not sentimental items like an old, tattered, and forgotten wedding dress. Yet, the ragged and scarred wanderer didn't fit any ideas or images they had for what their query looked like either.
The youth only glanced his near glowing blue eyes at the men. "I make it my business to know." He said mysteriously, barely holding back some sorrow. He looked up to a painting of the Lady Shallot on her funeral barge being mourned over by Sir Lancelot on the wall above an ancient vanity.
"Alright, we'll let it go …" The head thug loosened his shoulders in a flex of mischievous confidence, convinced he still had the biggest brain in the room. "If ya answer me this question, kid." He pointed at the youth who was frowning at the painting in study, thumb and curled forefinger tugging on his chin.
"Shoot …" He acknowledged distractedly without looking. The man drew himself to full height, clubbing a fist into his meaty hand.
"You ever heard of George Crawley?" He asked smugly, chewing slowly again on his gum. The youth froze a moment, though none of them knew if it was out of fear or if he was lost in thought of the piece of art he was transfixed on.
"Yeah …" The kid replied easily reaching into his inner coat pocket. "The Adventurer? Who hasn't?" He was completely nonchalant, distracted even. But when he heard a mummer of quiet voices the boy turned. "Is that who you're hunting? George "The Comet" Crawley?" He snorted in disbelief and a shake of his head.
Something defensive awoke in the big Sicilian at the mocking tone in the kid's voice. "Maybe …" He shifted. "What do ya know about the slippery bastard?" He glared suspiciously with an interrogating nod of acknowledgement at the mysterious figure.
The youth went back to digging in his pocket. "British, vigilante, martial artist, a master swordsman. Fought the Ku Klux Klan and a James Moriarty in New Orleans. The only person to ever escape from the 'Mission" at Saltillo Penitentiary down Mexico way. The 'Old Four-Hundred' in New York and the big ranch owners down in Mexico have a price on his head the size of the Vanderbilt Fortune. And that's nothing compared to what the House of Pamuk is willing to pay." He listed off giving acknowledgement to the men around him at the end. "Nothing nobody else doesn't know." He replied casually.
"That it?" Tony asked suspiciously.
The youth snorted, clutching some silver item in hand. "Yeah …" he teased. "Other than he was here." He shrugged.
"What?!"
"When?!
"You're shitin me …!"
"Fellas!"
"YOU WAITED TILL NOW TO TELL US!"
"Hold it, hold it …!"
"WHERE IS THAT AUNT FUCKA?!"
"Guys, hold … whoah, wait, aunt what?"
HHHHHRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMPPPPPPHHH!
Suddenly the mobbing crowd of gangster who were all surrounding the youth talking, snarling, and shouting all at once were silenced by the thunderous rumble of the mysterious roar that was more powerful in the tower room of the crumbling manor. They were all jostled, desperately clinging to bed posts, trunks and wardrobes. Dolls fell from the displays, their brittle and cracked faces smashing on the tile floor. Large academic tomes slipped from their shelves slamming on the dusty floor with loud booms that threw dust and filth in large clouds high into the opulent bedchamber. Even Sid gave a frightened yelp as he went careening into a once carefree American Princess's nightstand, knocking a folding three framed picture display that clattered on top of him. Eventually, like always, there was a sudden, sullen, and empty silence that creeped back into the abandoned manor.
"Is someone gonna tell me what the fuck is going on around here?!" Tony shouted at his guys, but then focused on the youth who was dusting chandelier filth from his jacket.
"Search me …" The kid replied running a hand through his perfect mane of waving black curls. "And I don't want to know. I just wanna get what I came for and get out." He helped the smooth talker back to his feet, with a dusty pat to the thankful man's shoulder.
"Yeah?" the big Sicilian nearly barked. "Well, youse ain't going nowhere till ya tell us where that Limey fuck went!" He demanded.
The youth sighed, scratching his head. "I don't know, he was here when I got here, then up and left about three, maybe, four days ago …" He shrugged looking the large mobster right in the eye without flinching. In one statement all the energy and fire went out of the big man.
Suddenly, violently, the criminal grabbed his hat and threw it across the room.
"FUCK!" He shouted in a rage. Meanwhile, the rest of the gangsters looked downcast at the news.
"You mean we came all this way for nothin?!" the matchstick man kicked a chest filled with stuffed animals causing a few weak squeaks from the force against the sound mechanisms within the old toys.
"Did he say where he was going?" Sid asked, cradling the faded silver frame that had fallen on him.
"Boston, from what I heard - said a uncle has some cousins that own a couple of car dealerships down that way, maybe." He spoke casually.
"Mama Mia …!" Tony cried in stressful playfulness rubbing his eyes with his palms. "The Boss's clients ain't gonna like this." He mourned.
"Yeah, well, fuck that old Pamuk witch and her Turkish pretty boy! Boston … the entire place is lousy with micks … it's like if Hell's Kitchen was an entire goddamn town! I'm tellin ya, right now, we ain't gotta shot if we go down there look'in to mix some shit up with 'The Comet'. Philly? Maybe, right? But ain't gonna be in no mick's backyard." The smooth talker lamented. "You know 'The Comet' is tight with them goddamn potato peelers – despite being a Republican - even speaks their old "Garlic" language and shit too." He slapped his feathered hat against his knee in disgust.
The match man took the wood piece from his mouth. "'The Highwayman' slipped the trap again, why am I not surprised?" He shook his head. "It's like I'm always say'in …" He shoved the match back in between his teeth in disappointment with a scoff. Though, he never did reveal what it was he actually always said.
The youth whistled sympathetically at the monumental misfortune of the thugs. "Tough bit of luck there, boys." He blew out a breath with a shake of his head.
He patted Tony on the shoulder in passing, holding tight to the silver item he pulled out of his inner pocket. It was hard to hide the clear anger just under the surface of men like them walking around, touching, so casually, the things in the room. They'd wave it off as a thief's claim, the selfish whims of a fellow criminal. But they had not guessed yet why their very presence in this room was all out blasphemy in the young man's heart.
"Stand back …" He called out to those who were near him.
There wasn't one of the defeated intruders that disobeyed the commanding voice. The youth turned, facing the painting of Lady Shallot and Sir Lancelot. They watched in interest as the youth held an item tightly in a fingerless gauntleted hand up. In his clutch was a silver fob watch with an intricate design of concentric circles and lines on the cover. The engraved symbol of "The Master's Wheel" embedded upon the black leather of his palm. Gripping the unopened watch tightly, he pressed the top winder of the clockwork instrument. After a short moment, he felt the gears and wheels click as they began to turn in his hand. From inside his fist the circles of "The Master's Wheel" began to slowly be filled with a liquid light that spilled through the engravings till the symbol of philosophical marshal discipline glowed a pure azure. Feeling a warm pulse gliding through the nerves of the youth's hand, he raised his fist.
"Jesus Christ!"
"Holy shit!"
Tony shot to his feet, while Sid crossed himself and back peddled. There, wreathed in blue light, were glowing markings on the back of the kid's hand. They were Adûnaic symbols of an ancient and mighty mariner civilization that had been long lost to time and knowledge. The four runes were placed in four small outer circles at the top, bottom, and both sides of a pair of concentric circles, one large and the other small. Inside the smallest circle held an ancient arrow with smaller runes inside which changed based on the direction. Wherever the boy moved his hand the arrow of blue light ticked back and forth searching for what only it was commanded to within the heart of one worthy to wield it.
"What the fuck is that?!" The smooth talker startled watching glowing blue runes in the shape of a compass glow on the back of the kid's hand.
The youth frowned. "A long story from long ago …" he replied softly in concentration. No one in the room was sure if he meant the origin of the item itself, or how it came to be in the possession of a small boy nine years past. Slowly the matchstick man walked up to the youth looking from the ticking compass arrow made of blue light to the gorgeous painting of Arthurian legend. Gently, he reached out to touch the blue glowing runes. Quickly, dismissively, his hand was slapped away by the youth that still was concentrating. The man made a pained noise than stepped back.
"I knew it …" The kid whispered under his breath when the arrow finally settled on a direction. When he looked up it was pointing directly at the painting.
They were unsure how when the youth so casually removed his thumb from the dial the blue glow that was so prominent faded till it winked out. Then, as if nothing ever happened, the silver device returned in look and feel to a simple ornate fob watch. Without a thought, the youth return the item to his inner coat pocket. To them it was something rather, and quite, impossible. Yet, from the look of the young man, one might have thought that he had just flicked on a flashlight and flicked it off again when he found what he was looking for. He did not flinch, nor even think that anything was amiss. It was as if, to him, the item, the relic of another place, another time in the prehistory to this age of the world … was such a natural item to have in his possession.
"How did you do that?" Tony asked, mouth still left slack jawed.
The youth pulled out a heavy Hope Chest from the foot of the silken and dusty king-sized bed. There was a grunted disinterest while – with some effort – he pushed the immensely heavy chest under a priceless painting. When he was done the youth hopped up on the dusty old lid.
"Nothing that would interest you …" The youth grunted in answer as he began to dislodge the frame.
"I just might surprise you." The gangster baited in suspicion.
"Probably wouldn't …" He grunted dismissively, feeling the full and heavy weight of the classical era painting.
There was a momentary look of offense in the gangster's eyes, before he conceded the outrage. The youth's answer spoke to a more robust knowledge and mistrust of black hearted rogues of which it would seem that he had known too many. Still the man only nodded grudgingly, chewing his gum, feeling somewhat slighted to be considered a 'run of the mill' type of villain to the kid - whoever he might be. Sensing the clear dissatisfaction in the answer of whatever 'parlor trick' the kid had just pulled; the youth spoke out to the crowd watching in interest of what he was doing.
"Look, boys …" He grunted, hugging the heavy old painting to his chest with effort. "I've been from one side of this world to the other, seen a lot of dark, strange, and wonderous things … sometimes all at the same time. Take my advice when I tell you, if you don't roll with the unexplained, it takes a swing at you …" He turned back to the mobsters. "And it doesn't miss." There was something darkly serious about his voice.
Suddenly, they were all drawn to his ugly facial slashes which glistened with a foul ectoplasm. It was then, as if by intuition, that they realized that whatever gave him that scar was something so ancient - so evil that even the wounds it gave, physically or otherwise, left its foul and everlasting signature upon its enemies. It was then, in that clarity of haunted hardened eyes and terrifying scar that all questions of the how and why of the unexplained surrounding the mysterious figure were permanently stowed away.
Then, they startled when the youth, sensing the matter had been concluded, gave the Arthurian painting a casual toss. It landed on the silk bed with a loud puff that caused old rusted springs of an ancient feather mattress to break under the weight. When the youth leapt down with a clap of boot soles on tile, they all looked up with surprise and sudden interest. There, uncovered, was an old iron combination safe. The brass locking mechanism was greened, the combination dial with letters and numbers were faded, and a corroding rust had turned a once black iron door maroon and orange.
"What is it?" Sid asked, still cradling the folding picture frame.
"It's a safe, fuckhead …"
"Yeah, I know."
"Don't get fresh with me, squint, or I'll turn that parrot nose sideways, huh?"
"Alright, alright … just sayin."
"So, uh …" the smooth talker slowly backed away from the safe toward the youth who was suddenly looking through toy chests. "What's in the safe?" The youth paused what he was doing at the clear, baiting, ambiguousness in the casually uncasual tone. It was friendly, inquisitive, playful even, but there was a serpent's hiss behind it. The youth knew that whatever happens now, after a long trip from New York to Rhode Island, no one wanted it to count as a loss. And there were a few of the thugs suddenly thinking that whatever was inside might just make the whole thing worth it.
"What I came here for …" He said opaquely, going back to what he was looking for in the toy chests.
"Which is what exactly?" The Italian Immigrant pressed with a winning grin and eyes like Judas at the garden.
The youth switched trunks. "The thing that Martha Levinson died for." His voice got strangely dark and brooding, stopping only a moment to push some heavy boulder of emotion off his heart, letting it tumble down his insides before settling deep and heavily in the pit of his soul. Then, he continued his search.
"Damn, Martha Levinson died?" Sid asked rhetorically, somewhat mournfully. Both he and the matchstick man crossed themselves like good Catholics - even the smooth talker did so out of instinct. But Tony only scoffed.
"What are ya, her grandson or somethin? Who gives a fuck about some rich old cunt?" He slapped his cousin on the back of his head.
The squint retrieved his hat. "Ah, come on, Tony. Remember Nana used to have that big scrap book of all them big to-do weddings back in the old days?" He put his hat on his head. "Remember she used to always tell us about Martha Levinson's wedding all the time, she waved at her or something …. right?" He asked.
"Nah, it wasn't no Martha Levinson ya dope, it was her daughter, uh … Cora? Yeah, Cora Levinson … married some Limey prince or whateva. Her wedding dress got caught or somethin, and Granny helped her out, saved the dress from getting ripped … she'a told her that she'a savyed the wedd'in." He recalled, mocking the faceless beauty of their grandmother's memory with a flowery stereotypical Italian accent snatching his cousin by the nose and wiggling it roughly. The smaller of the two broke free, rubbing his nose grudgingly.
"Yeah, well, you remember it." He countered.
The man responded by blowing a raspberry. "Yeah, only, because, she told us that story twice a day. 'Oh, my darling Cora, what a Beautaful girl, lik'a angel, no?!'" He mocked with a laugh.
"Yeah, yeah, but whateva happened to old lady Levinson anyway?" The matchstick thug asked.
"Didn't she disappear?" Sid asked.
"I thought she died when those Pinkerton assholes tried burning 'The Comet' outta San Sochi?"
"Nah, she disappeared long before the Dutchies went after Crawley. I think I heard she died in New Orleans."
"She did …"
They turned to the youth who had unearthed a dusty toy tea set. Cracked teacups rattled while the wanderer sifted through them, looking for one in particular. "It was about a month after the Stock Market crashed. She went to New Orleans to recover some priceless heirlooms to save her family. Ran into "The Necromancer" and his congregation of evil Cultist Priests that were waiting for her …" He picked out the only teacup in the set that wasn't badly broken, cracked, or chipped.
He looked gravely at his fellows from where he crouched at the toy chest. "I think you can fill in the rest of it." He left it ominously, though they noticed that he rubbed his scar that turned red at the mention of the 'Necromancer'. As he passed the thugs there was a chill that ran up their spine. Suddenly, they had rather preferred to be told about what actually happened …
Fore, the ambiguity of the old Levinson woman's fate was much more frightening.
The chest creaked under the renewed weight of the figure that leapt up upon it. The rusted combination dial clicked inconsistently when the youth gritted his teeth, cursing under his breath, glaring hard as he put all of his strength in finally being able to turn the dial a full revolution clockwise. Then, with gritted teeth he began turning it in counter.
"Come on, damn you …" He grunted.
"So, there's some sort of treasure in there …?" The Smooth Talker approached the mysterious figure.
The youth growled in effort between clenched teeth.
"Hopefully …" He grunted with strained effort. "Or the crazy old woman died for nothing." He sighed, finally grinding the rust out of the gears. "Along with dozens of Klansmen, Black Priests, and scores of others." He began turning the dial easier.
"Are you sure you want it, then?" The shrimp asked nervously.
The youth smirked knowingly. "Yeah, why's that?" He counter questioned, rotating the dial back and forth till it moved with relative ease.
The man with glasses looked at the kid as if it should be obvious. "I mean … if the "Necromancer", or Professor Moriarty, or whateva he's calling himself these days, wants it, how do you know he ain't gonna come lookin, ya'know?" He pondered.
"Nah …" The smooth talker interrupted with a scoffed dismissal. "I heard stories bout that old fop in New Orleans. Some fuck'in psycho Math Professor, wore some kinda crazy scary mask … he ain't real." He waved off.
"Bullshit, he ain't real … a buddy of mine who works down at the docks in Staten Island told me he shot dice with some negroes that work on them refrigeration barges that ships shrimp up here from New Orleans. They told him that "The Necromancer" was real, that he used to sacrificed virgin girls both white and colored to his evil tree god … but they told him that 'The Comet' killed him bout a month or two ago."
"Fuck those crazy niggers, they just pulling goddamn monkey shines on ya bunch'a ignorant guineas down in Staten Island. There ain't no "Necromancer" and there ain't no way that George "The Comet" Crawley killed Professor James Moriarty."
"Why not? He escaped Saltillo, didn't he?"
"Yeah, I heard he killed twenty Mexican guards on his way out … and he even got a nun to run off with him."
"Now ya just suckin his knob like your made-up nun. He killed maybe five guards, and he ain't deflowering no holy sisters."
"What I heard was that he didn't kill anyone …" The youth now had the teacup against the safe. The rim was pressed against the door, while he pressed an ear to the bottom of the cup. Gently, he turned the dial listening for the locking mechanism and pins. "He choked a guard out, dragged him into his cell, took his keys, then sewed himself into a burial sack. Then, when the midnight burial detail planted him in the prison cemetery, he cut his way out and sought sanctuary at an abbey at the edge of the desert." He offered.
They watched him give a dry spit. And, though they took the spitting as that of removing filth that seemed to cover everything in the house, they never guessed at the possibility that it might have come from the vivid memories of the taste and smell of smothering soil being dumped on a midnight grave in a desert.
There was a long pause as the rest of the gangsters mulled over his version.
"That's so fuckin stupid …"
"Yeah, yeah, youse tellin us that rather than escape once he got the keys, he waited to be buried alive? Who the fuck does that?"
"Someone who knew the guards would sound the alarm before he could find a way out of the "Mission", just maybe?"
"Whateva youse say, kid. I don't care how bad it might have been, it couldn't be worse than being buried alive.
The youth scoffed with a shake of his head. "Not much of a difference in that place." He commented after a pause in which blue eyes were taken by a momentary madness in flashes of the impenetrable blackness of the deepest and darkest cell of the oldest and most evil of haunted Asylums for the Criminally Insane. But when they all turned to him again, his face lightened immediately. "Or so I've heard …" he shrugged casually, going back to listening to the clicking of the lock pins through the cup base.
"Ya know what all youse problem is? Ya believe all that shit that his aunt writes about him in her fuck'in girly magazine. Fighting fuck'in Necromancer, gunfights with Pancho Villa's old Revolutionaries on the seashores of Mexico, a duel with Fu Manchu to avenge some old chinaman who taught him all that tricky fight'in bullshit they do …"
"Hey, hey, whataya doin, Tony, Whataya doin?! Ya nuts?! Don't go around fuck'in say'in that evil yella devil's name out loud!"
"Yeah, yeah, even the boss don't say 'The Devil Doctor's' real name!"
"Shuyat'up! See, this is what I'm fuck'in say'in! Ya bunch of pansies read some Limey broad with class's panty rag and think that shit's real cause she's got some flowery fuck'in title across the sea. Ain't no one can ever say if that 'Devil Doctor' or whateva is real, cause ain't no one's ever seen him before. And I sure as hell ain't piss'in my drawers at some made up shit about George "The Comet" Crawley because some middle-aged British glamor dame who writes books for young girls misses the taste of her nephew's cock!"
"What now?!" The youth immediately craned his head back in interest that masked a momentary slip of outrage.
To this, Tony just snorted at the kid, waving him off dismissively. "Can you believe this fuck'in guy?" He tossed a thumb behind him at the kid as if he was an idiot. The other thugs agreed, even Sid … who was just as surprised to hear it.
"Yeah, everyone knows that!" The shrimp quickly said to scrub his transgression of being out the loop.
"Fuck'in A, Squint … anyone who knows anything knows that Lady Edith Pelham writes all that shit about her nephew, because, he bends her over and fucks that ass, but good." The matchstick man rolled his eyes at the trivialness of having to go over established fact.
The kid looked shocked. "Like … actually, full on …" He stammered a second. "People are actually saying that?" He shook his head in disbelieve and offense.
"What ya live on a deserted island for four years?"
"Yeah, what are ya, deaf?"
"And … and people think that's real?"
"The fuck is wrong with this guy …?"
"Yeah, yeah, I heard that when they were in San Antonio, he had Lady Edith so many times that she had to get her belly pumped ..."
The youth frowned, staring at the squint in puzzlement. "Why would she get her stomach pumped?" He asked in confusion.
"Cause, he … ya know, he fucked her so much …"
"Yeah, but what does that have to do with her stomach?"
"What da'ya mean, what da'ya mean?"
"When you have sex … you know it doesn't go into her stomach, right?"
"Oh, yeah? well … were do babies come from then, huh?"
"The uterus …"
"…"
"…"
"Yo, What the fuck is a uterus?"
"…"
"I mean, it might just be possible that … instead of getting her stomach pumped … all the stuff about "The Comet" she writes about actually happened, and Lady Edith just simply can't keep a secret to save her or, in particular, m … his goddamn life."
"…"
"What? Youse his lawyer or someth'in? The herb butt-fucks his classy British aunt! Enough said, right!"
"Alright, alright, yeah, cause, the stomach pump … that makes more sense." There was grumbled grudging sarcasm as the youth went back to cracking the safe with a bitter shake of his head.
"And to think my little sister is addicted to those damn books she writes, too …"
"Yeah, my little cousin got a poster of her daughter or whateva on her wall, what's her name?"
"Your little cousin?"
"No, shithead, Lady Edith's girl … ahhh … you know, the fairy princess looking dame …"
"Oh, the ballerina … uh, shit …"
"Marigold …"
They all turned once more to the youth who had halted what he was doing. But this time he did not look at them. They watched in sudden interest as the young man's eye lightened and was overtaken by a deep and private sorrow of some terrible calamity of the heart. In his wistful look out at the waves of the sea in the distance there was the scars as deep and tragic as the physical ones across his eye.
"Her name is Marigold."
There was something distant and longing in his soft and whispered voice. For a moment it was as if he was attempting to look through a mirror at some golden days of yore, only to find that the hallow glass was cracked and broken, distorting everything good and pure in a world that didn't seem to make sense anymore. The youth cleared his throat, sniffing hard as he shook his head and went back to cracking the safe. They all looked at one another in confusion and a bit of empathy.
Even criminals have had broken hearts, some worse than others. Yet, they wouldn't believe, not in a million years, that a ragged young wanderer such as this, with threadbare clothing and hardened eyes, would ever get a million miles near someone like the golden goddess: Marigold Crawley, world famous Prima Ballerina. But it seemed that in his moment of desolation and deep melancholy, it made him seem even more a poor and lonely vagabond in contrast to the fine elegance of one of the most beautiful women in all of Europe - if not the world itself. They guessed, even a kid like this, had a breaking point. And it just so happened that thinking of that golden-haired beauty, so far away, and the impossibility of being near her had been his. They had all been there the thugs guessed, some broad or dame that they dreamt about and yet couldn't have.
But there was something different, something more tragic about the youth's appearance in that long look out across the sea, as if he could still see the sun in her long golden tresses all the way in England. There was a purity that couldn't be missed, a righteousness that was unspoken but felt in the tragic sorrow upon him and his ragged appearance. It was some manifestation of a dream within a dream on some distant shore were an angelic Annabel Lee waited for him. Yet, it was never meant to be, could never be, not in a million lifetimes. And so, he remained, resign to what they all thought he was, what he allowed himself to seem in appearance. Ever having known that any other station of pride and birthright would be just as empty without the one of whom he dreamt. She had been the rarest of jewels whose very existence in his heart had kept him alive through many hardships of the road and dangers of battle over these long and hard melted years of bitter exile. Now she was lost to him for all time, even as she lived a grander and more blessed life than anyone could have dreamt or hoped as a mother's secret hidden on Yew Tree Farm.
The matchstick man took off his hat, scratching his scalp in awkward sympathy, the room somehow suddenly getting heavier with emotions that muddied everything. The others seemed to look around uncomfortably at the short but incredibly weighty feelings that seemed contagious in the magnetism of a doomed love too strong to be contained. Yet, only Sid, seemed to twig, even just a twitch of something that was overlooked. Though, he wasn't sure what he thought he might be onto in the short conversations they had in the past few minutes with the youth.
"How did you, exactly, know that this safe was here?" He asked suspiciously.
There was a long quiet moment. "I didn't … I spent the last week pouring over the original blueprints for this place, going wing by wing, room by room." The youth quickly had reigned in his emotions, though his face was unreadable with his back to them. "It only occurred to me when I remembered something the old son of a bitch told me. 'Mother kept what was precious all in one spot, so she wouldn't forget one without the other if there was a fire …'" He quoted under his breath.
"What old man?" Tony suddenly asked, wondering if there might be more here at play than they thought.
"Harold Levinson." The youth replied.
The sudden clank of something heavy made it sound that the kid was getting closer.
"You work for Harold Levinson?" The head thug asked in profound surprise.
The youth frowned in annoyance. "No, but when we met up in Fort Worth, I shook on a partnership for an expedition to reclaim the Levinson family heirlooms." He explained. "Agreed to a fifty split down the middle … I had my eye on one thing in particular and he had his own designs for the rest of it." His voice got quieter as he began listening intently for the last pin.
The smooth talker nodded stroking his chin fondly. "Oh, yeah, I remember Harold Levinson … he used to frequent the same 'Speak Easies' the old boss used to pop into. They played cards together once or twice. I mean, he was shit at it, but I'll tell you one thing: that man knew how to have fun, eh?" He nudged the matchstick man in the ribs.
The mustached figure removed the wood from between his teeth. "Yeah, yeah, I remember he used to roll into some boardwalk casino down in Atlantic City, five broads deep, all of them in those flapper dresses the short skirts? Fuckin smooth as their legs, youse know? And then he'd spend three grand on drinks and cigars - center of attention in the joint - always had a big crowd around him. Then, randomly he'd tow outta there with six new broads, just like that! Some of them even Vogue models. Goddamn, that man knew how to live!" He was grinning ear to ear.
"Yeah, he was one of them smart Jews, you know …" the smooth talker tapped his friend on the chest with a wink. "Get other people to do his dirty work, huh, kid?!" He laughed at the young man who was only half listening. Yet, the comment suddenly put Tony on edge, thinking that they weren't the only ones in the house.
"Yeah, speaking of which, where is the old Kike?" He asked somewhat aggressively, smelling a double cross somehow.
"Dead …"
It might have been the reaction of most to think what the gangsters thought in that moment. Or, perhaps, it was just common in their line of business. But at the revelation that Harold Levinson was dead, and yet, his business partner was not, but instead was fleecing his family home, brought the four thugs to listen a little closer - more suspicious. If the youth would not suffer rivals, then he just might not suffer them.
"Realtering the fifty split, eh, kid?" the smooth talker didn't seem judgmental, maybe even a bit admiring the moxy of the kid to cut out dead weight on the bottom line. That was, if he wasn't so warry that the same fate wouldn't be waiting for him.
"You asking if I killed him?" The youth seemed intense with a sudden dark tone that made them nervous when he only half turned back, his face shadowed in the midday sun.
"Did you?" Sid asked.
The youth looked incredibly grim. "No …" He answered, going back to the safe. "Died about a month ago." He shook his head.
The youth seemed aged beyond a thousand years, his eyes growing incredibly hard in a flash of memories. "The monster I was hunting snatched his girl in an ambush when we were in New Orleans … it murdered her." The boy's jaw was screwed tightly with a whirlwind of sorrow, hatred, and rage in his fallen face as he looked deep into the rust of the safe. "A darkness of grief and despair got ahold of him - couldn't shake it." His breath caught in the only show of outward emotion over the entire recounting of the tragic ordeal. His implacable glowing eyes could've bore a hole through the safe faster than it took to crack the locks inside. When it was over, he only shook his head, bearing whatever dark memories of the incident and carrying on.
There was a quiet mourning amongst the crowd that watched the back of the youth. They didn't know Harold Levinson personally - but like this whole trip to this desolate ruin by the sea - it said a lot. Most of them remembered the philanthropist playboy. He had always been in the paper for either the right or the wrong reasons. But he was always there, two, three, six diamond dames deep, whisky in hand, and cash in his pockets. For so many poor Immigrant boys, hard scrabble, hearing their parent's boxing matches in the kitchen, that seemed like a life they wanted. In that way, Harold Levinson was a kinda hero to them, this gateway to the fantasy life of the American Dream. But now, six years into what they're calling a 'Great Depression', this idol of their generation had died in some rundown nowhere in New Orleans.
"I guess he really did love her, huh?" Sid said thoughtfully into the deep sullen silence.
For a moment, a second, the youth caught the sunlight that was so pronounced by the dust particles in the air. There, where the light shined on a brown-haired dolly in gilded gown, he could almost see Madeleine Allsopp's smile. The two of them, a broke playboy in mended suit, and a ruined and used debutante - two-time ex-wife to a New York Yankee - hadn't missed a beat after so many years since they last saw each other in London. He was still her ticket to happiness, and years of a broken man's regrets were quieted in a single glance of soft eyes that - after so long - still saw him as somebody when the rest of his 'good time gals' had dried up with the Levinson Fortune.
Together they danced to "Faded Love" by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys at last call after a long night in the Fort Worth Stockyards. What little hair Harold did have left was white, and hard times and heartbreaks since that glorious coming out season in London showed ever slightly on Madeleine's still lovely face. But as the lonesome fiddle played it seemed only for two. The smallest of sad smirks had touched a young man that leaned back against the empty bar, watching two people who never looked anywhere but each other's eyes. Together, they had glided over saw dust and peanut shells of the old dive like it had been Grantham House's ballroom in 1922.
"I guess he did … in the end." In that moment, he knew he shouldn't have …
But he thought of Marigold.
"And the monster who did her …?" Tony asked. They didn't see it, but they saw the youth suddenly tense and look away from the light, sinking into the shadows.
"The filth has killed its last innocent."
The darkened young man's hand went up and wiped a thick stream of ectoplasm that suddenly ran down his cheek from two visible reminders of one brutal final duel, one final collision course, that had been eight years in the making.
They flinched when an angry hand grabbed the handle to the safe and turned it with one powerful yank of aggression from dark memories. There was a loud echoing clank that thundered through the large bedroom and out into the echoing pillared chasm of a tiled sitting room below. There was a stench of a terribly stale smell that whiffed from the darkened compartment that had felt the first of oxygen in decades. The youth looked through the sudden array of valuables that sat in the safe. He shuffled through hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of bonds for a bank that no longer existed. There were stacks of cash with all the wrong presidents on them. He figured he'd keep them for cook fire fuel if it came down to it.
He frowned when he grasped a white box with no label. It seemed aged and forgotten, the white beiger and more yellowed in the daylight. But when he opened it, he got an eye full of a great sapphire jewel that was connected to aged silver netting. The priceless headpiece that had once been adorned by an American Princess at her coming out ball still matched the cerulean eyes that she bequiffed to the young man that looked down upon her ornament. Taking the beautiful headpiece into his palm, rubbing a thumb over the jewel, he was suddenly attacked by sentimentality of a picture of a great beauty that once sat on the nightstand of the Lord of Grantham's dressing room. Without a thought, out of instinct, the youth took the silver netted sapphire and placed it in his coat pocket.
But as he did so, he noticed that the action was not missed by the curious figures who grew restless, suspicious, and even ill-favored at the sight of the youth already pocketing mysterious valuables of what made the hard deck of the Levinson fortune. Turning back, the youth grabbed a couple of random things.
"Here … fifty split."
The youth tossed Jewelry store labeled boxes that once belonged to Martha Levinson out toward the crowd of thugs slowly inching closer - smelling the potential riches. They each caught a box, except for Tony who found himself with a ludicrously large tiara that was once worn at a daughter's first dinner at Downton Abbey as Viscountess. It was gilded with intricate vine work of a master goldsmith, the roses within the headpiece were made of pure ruby.
"It goes with your eyes, right?" He ribbed back at the big Sicilian, remembering the shots taken at him for the wedding dress that was pressed tightly against his lower back. There was a chortle from his comrades, causing the man to hit each of them on the arm … but he didn't let go of Martha's tiara.
"When I get what I came for … you can take what you want." He offered when he saw what he knew would happen.
The gilded and ruby jewelry pieces bought at cost from Vicksburg Mississippi in 1859 did not sate them. In fact, their offering only furthered their greedy hunger for more wealth. While they had explored the deathly quiet and abandoned manor, they had refused to take anything of worth, sensing some doom or curse unexplainable on every item. But when it came to the foundation of the Levinson Fortune, the dream of amassing such wealth that they could more than just withstand the Depression but indeed call the shots during it … that was hard to pass up.
At this moment, most would've panicked at the thought of a long and bloody fight that would come with black hearted mad dogs turned rabid in a lustful avarice. But the youth knew that things in Levinson Manor were not what they seemed. Fore, as a survivor of the American Union's occupation of New Orleans during the American War of Secession, Martha Levinson knew much of what a marauder did and did not see when looting a fine mansion. And thus, when the young man many decades later reached into the darkness of her safe and felt the silken tendrils thread around his fingers, he knew he had it. The jackals, inching closer, suddenly were stopped in the tracks when the youth pulled out the one thing they weren't expecting. At the sight of it, there was an audible sound of confused dismay that took the thugs completely out of their minds.
The item had been crafted, made, by a Traiteur fortune teller of the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1873. By 'chance', a young girl had wandered away from her momma and mammy maid. There, wadding through the fog coming off the riverfront, a frightened black-haired beauty came across an old woman standing in front of her shop in the deep back alleys of the city. She stopped the little girl in her tracks, puffing on a long Vodun pipe, her sage and rosemary like breath smelling much like the fog swirling about the waist of the cerulean eyed child in white lacy dress and matching hair ribbon. The girl seemed frightened, yet, answered honestly when the mysterious woman asked if she, like her, was drawn to this very spot through the fog. Then, lifting the young girl up into her arms, the fortune teller only smirked as she stroked the little girl's pale cheek.
Puffing on her pipe, the woman told little Cora Levinson that she had 'a bit'o destiny' about her.
By the time a young and fiery Martha Levinson had caught up with her little girl, she was standing by the side of a busy street near the St. Louis Graveyards and across the river. In her arms she clutched the finest little doll that anyone had ever seen. She claimed that she could not recall of how she got it, nor who gave it to her. In fact, a teary and frightened Cora Levinson could not say what had happened nor if she had even gone anywhere since she last saw her momma. All she knew was that when she awoke from her foggy dream, she had the dolly in her arms.
Looking down the narrow alley the young woman saw a shadowed figure puffing on a pipe and wreathed in fog of her own making. For a long beat she watched her till the mysterious old woman was overtaken by her own haze, disappearing from all sight and knowledge. Then, studying the doll, the Southern Belle returned it to the girl, neither punishing nor harshly reprimanding her little girl. Having been born and raised in New Orleans, she knew better than to question the unexplainable or thwart the fated doom prescribed to those who wander to purpose on the ancient streets of the City of the Dead.
From then on, the girl never went anywhere without the doll. Even in the years when her reputation and prospects for fine courtly marriages of aristocracy depended on it. She could not, and would not, be parted with her 'best friend'. It seemed that one mysterious doll, above all, was everything to a young girl, a teenage girl, and became a true wrench to be parted with as a woman grown with two young daughters and one more to make up for the loss of it.
Now, many years later, it was held in the worn and stitched leather of fingerless padded gauntlets of a teenage boy that an old woman had long foreseen on a foggy French Quarter back alley. Carefully, gently, the youth took her out of the safe to the dismay of the thugs. His eyes softened and his breath became visible through an emotionally heaving chest. Throat clearing, there was an angry sniff as he turned the doll over and looked into the face.
It was lifelike, human almost in its crafting. The porcelain was an unblemished milky pale, with painstakingly detailed painted freckles on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were amber, red tinted in the light. It was maybe the most beautiful doll ever made, with long ringlets of perfect chocolate tresses. Her frame was slim and elegant, her expression cold with just a bit of sorrow hidden in her depths. She was the image of high-class aristocracy in the high watermark days of the British upper classes. For the first time the youth clutched the great prize that he had spent many years searching for. And his breath sputtered to find a face he had not gazed upon since before then. Yet, it was a face he could not forget, no matter how he tried. He didn't know if it was possible that this was it, that this single toy was all that there was. All the bad things that had happened in eight years, it all was because of this one thing, this one dolly, with 'her' face.
"So much death, pain, suffering …" His voice audibly cracked a moment. "And all of it for this?" He gritted his teeth as something ran down his eye …
Though no one was sure if it was a tear or droplet of venomous ectoplasm.
After a long bitter moment there was only a scoffed laugh that escaped his throat that sounded slightly unhinged. He looked deeply into the doll's face. "It would be her …" he said nonsensically to anyone who wasn't in his head. "If it was going to be anyone, it would've been her." He sounded emotional, taking the beautiful doll in hand harshly.
A sudden memory of an ancestral home far away came over him. It was but a snapshot that was a mark, a tattoo upon him, a moment on a snowy Christmas Eve morning in which a woman with a face identical to the doll looked up to him and his offered medicine she sent him to get … and hated him. In that sliver of time which seemed forever and eternal, that great lady hated a mere young child, her own boy, more than she would ever hate anything in his or her entire life. Then, in violent emotions that came intrinsically with everything about that fateful day, the youth made a frighteningly angry noise. He lifted the doll up into the air and made a motion as if he was going to smash it. The thugs leapt back at the look of pure rage and hate in the elemental thunder and lightning of the youth's haunted eyes.
It could be said that no one in existence had ever hated a more coveted item that had been long sought for at a greater personal risk to body, mind, and their everlasting soul.
They had died, they had all died. Friends, enemies, innocent people, and so many others. Martha Levinson's staff wore tormented, mutilated, and left to die in agony hung upside down on a willow tree. Madeleine Allsopp had only wanted to go home with the man she loved. Harold Levinson just wanted a house somewhere quiet with the only good thing that life had ever dropped in his lap. Lillian Bordeaux had just wanted to love a foolish young boy that had been bent on revenge that he had no right to take. The days spent digging graves of those young comrades that had followed their captain, believed in him …
They were all dead, and because of this one item hidden in obscurity by a selfish old crone. A bitter, mouthy, battle axe, who died a cruel death with faith that the only descendent of hers that showed real spirit could finish what she started. It didn't matter who died, or how many lives would be ruined by her paranoid games. As long as he proved that she hadn't made a mistake taking in a young renegade that half the world had wanted dead. In the twisted and terrible moments of his life, it seemed strange that one item that had brought so much horror and suffering was also a symbol of the one person in his life who had truly believed in him, bet on him, even to the bitter end. In that realization, through the violent swing of an arm that caused the onlookers to back away …
The doll never left the youth's hand.
Instead, the figure, with a pained face that was deeply begrudging, brought the doll back to gaze upon it. With angry chattering teeth, he gently stoked the silky soft tresses of the doll's hair with shaky hand. Then, he pressed his forehead against hers as he squeezed his eyes shut. They knew not of the face that would've been recognizable to anyone who read the gossip and societal pages of any paper in two countries. But to a young man, the woman who he saw was one that haunted his mind and heart for so long. Her simple look of pure venom, more painful than the wound he bore upon his eye, still lived in him and everything he had ever done. And it was with a terrible burden of pain that he saw her in the face of the doll that so much bad had happened in the pursuit of.
With panted and emotionally pained breaths, he hugged the doll to his chest with gritted teeth of a hurt too powerful to place into words that could comprehend the elemental nature of one's own soul. He let out wheezed breaths into the top of the doll's head, eyes squeezed shut. Before he finally let out a deep breath that released eight long years of conflict so deep it nearly fractured a soul into tiny pieces. He placed a leather clad hand on his forehead under goggles and rubbed it in an attempt to refocus all of who and what he was.
The thugs were momentarily shocked silent at the very strange and emotionally heavy display that revolved around a high-class looking dolly. They didn't seem to know what to do or say when they watched the youth leap down off the Hope Chest, unlooping Ms. Mina Murray's navy-blue scarf from his neck. There was a wordless stutter from all who saw the young man begin wrapping the beautiful girl's toy in it. They all looked rather confused when it seemed that the youth was just walking away from whatever else was in the safe. And all of it for one wedding gown and a little girl's toy despite a room filled with nothing but evening gowns and dolls.
"Ya gonna leave all that loot there, Just like that?" Tony looked as if he was gazing at his plumber father wearing one of the Queen of England's gowns.
Then, for a very long moment, the ragged wanderer looked out at the glare of the sun off the aqua tinted ocean in the distance. No one was sure what he was looking at, but the answer did not lie in the physical. The youth's mind, instead, was flooded with many memories of places and faces of the last eight years that seemed to be projected on the ocean surface like it was a cinema screen. The many smiles and tears, love and heartbreak, and the unforgettable and indescribable things seen by young eyes. All of them were wrapped up in snapshots of moments lived by many different people of class, color, and character that he could still name by heart. But in the end, it would mean nothing to anyone but himself. He looked down at the doll in hand and nodded to seemingly no one. Yet, in his mind, the room seemed quite filled by the many ghosts that haunted and lived through the many adventures and hard times of a young man so far for so long from a home that hadn't existed since a fateful Christmas morning long ago.
"Just like that …"
He confirmed softly to the ocean winds as he slid the doll into his inner jacket pocket and went to leave.
HHHHHRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMPPPPPPHHH!
"OH SHIT!"
There was an incredibly violent shutter that shook the bedchamber with more ferocity than there had been before. Not a figure was standing, as they lost grips on bed stands. Shelves filled with dolls toppled with mighty and thunderous crashes, making cracked porcelain shatter with high pitched and sharp noises that prickled the skin on the back of the neck. A teenage beauty's vanity collapsed forward sending glass shards across the white, gilded, and black painted tile of the opulent princess's bedroom. Men and youth were sent every which way as the primal roar grew tenfold. Everything about the episode spoke to the situation getting so much worse. It was the first thought of the figure who quickly got back to his feet.
"Damn, it's starting to get ripe down there …" He breathed thoughtlessly, patting the decades of filth off his leather coat.
"What is?" The smooth talker asked angrily, beating glass and dust off his feathered wide brim fedora.
The youth quickly realized what he said was heard. "Whatever is down there …" He covered quickly with a clear of his throat and an ignorant shrug.
"Hey, asshole, ya said you've been here a week, so what the fuck is up?!" The matchstick figure accused in frustration. He, in particular, found his good pinstripe suit completely ruined, as if he had rolled around in a chalk factory.
The youth rolled his eyes. "I don't know, it didn't start doing that till you guys got here." He argued back. "What did you do down there?!" He asked suspiciously.
"Us?! Hey, we didn't do shit, kid!" The smooth talker yelled.
"Well somebody did!" The matchstick man shouted angrily. "Look at my goddamn suit, I look like something stuck up the boss's fuck'in girl's nose!" He motioned to the white covered black and blue silk suit.
"Yeah, as opposed to look'in like something that was stuck up cha old lady's ass on the day youse was born?"
"Hahahaha!"
"Yo, go fuck ya motha, Tony!" The filth covered thug made an aggressively offensive gesture flicking his thumb at the larger Sicilian from his forehead.
Over the laughter and suddenly booming argument that was mostly in Italian, the mysterious figure turned from his spot to slip away only to find the shrimp staring at him with a puzzled frown. The youth was quiet, also racked with confusion, not knowing what the smallest, most out of place, of the group of thugs was looking at him for. But then he saw the small pencil pusher look down at something in his hand. When cerulean eyes saw the triple fold frame of silver in the suddenly suspicious man's hands, he cursed under his breath.
The picture frame was not a gift given to a little girl, teenage girl, or even a newlywed Viscountess. Instead it belonged to the Countess of Grantham, given to her as a Christmas gift by her three daughters. In each frame was a glamorous portrait picture of all three of Lady Cora Crawley's daughters taken at the most prestigious photo studio in New York during a family holiday to their Grandmamma's Houses during the Christmas Season of 1911.
Lady Mary Crawley - at the beguiling age of twenty - was the most glamorous of the girls with a smoldering look in her white Edwardian evening gown, matching silk elbow gloves, and ornamental fan of lace. Lady Edith Crawley wore a green gown of velvet, her mouth slightly open, as she struck a pose that maybe was trying too hard to outdo the effortlessness of her older sister's elegance. And last was the prized beauty - the gem of the county crown of Grantham. Lady Sybil Crawley wore a blue evening gown that matched that of her older sister. As a teenager, she didn't know what she was to buy for her first ever portrait, but she knew she liked Mary's dress. There was and could only be one person in the world at the time that Lady Mary Crawley would ever allow to steal her style, and that was her beloved baby sister. Yet, unlike Mary, who believed her portrait might hang in the picture shop as a shining example. And unlike Edith who seemed - even in a simple picture - to not fully accomplish what she wished from the experience. Lady Sybil was both effortless and genuine in the simplicity of a smile, thinking of how much she hoped their mama would like the present … and think of her girls whenever she saw it.
The problem with Sid 'The Squint' finding the pictures was the he also began thinking of the Crawley girls. They were now beautiful and glamorous women that after years of the press and media fawning over every little thing they did, the Shrimp recognized Lady Mary Crawley and Lady Edith Pelham. One sister was the talk of two countries, a powerful courtier in the Royal House of Windsor, a cultural icon whose beautiful visage was internationally synonymous with the very heart of Brittan and her culture. This was also coupled with the inescapable anticipation of her coming marriage to Roger Sinclair – third highest grossing actors in Hollywood - was the talk of most publications. Meanwhile, her only surviving sister, Lady Edith Pelham, was barely seen in books stores anymore fore her section was almost always sold out. One could not go into any little girl's bedroom without finding at least one of the Marchioness of Hexham's best-selling young adult novels. Her publishing office of the ultra-popular "The Sketch" was adorned with awards for her journalistic endeavors and groundbreaking articles – many featuring the exploits of her nephew. There was no one more trusted with the news, the very truth, than Lady Edith.
But the largest problem that faced the youth was that Sid noticed something strange. The youngest girl - the teenage dish – she also looked familiar to him. And it wasn't that Lady Sybil Crawley, in particular, was famed or well-known to anyone. To the public, she had been the dead baby sister of two famed women and mother to one of whom was often considered one of the most beautiful girls in all of the Imperium, Ms. Sybil Afton Branson. No, It was that, glancing from Lady Sybil to the young figure in front of him, the gangster couldn't help but notice that they both had the same hair, the same eyes, and the same face – one beautifully feminine, the other handsomely masculine. Furthermore, in fact, seeing the ragged figure and the girl in the photo at the same age - with exception of the kid having a darker tan - both the young man and Lady Sybil were practically identical twins. But most weird of all was that Lady Mary Crawley had the same jaw, same eyebrows, and resting expression as the young man standing there. The more he glanced at the photos the more there was a growing similarity - quite a strong one - between the kid and Lady Mary Crawley.
In fact, Sid might just say that the two beautiful sisters in the frame and the ridiculously good-looking kid were so similar in appearance that three most definitely had to be …
THUCK!
"OH!"
"What the fuck, Kid?!"
The three arguing gangsters whirled around to see the raven-haired teenager was standing over a crumpled Sid. The shrimp was curled up around his stomach, wincing and gasping having been rocked in the gut by a granite fist that hit like a sledgehammer. The small man was writhing on the dusty floor when the youth quickly snatched up the folding frame that had fallen. There was something almost school yard bullyish about the fact that his next move was to completely obliterate the plebe gangster's glasses with the sole of a fascistic motorcycle boot taken off a choked out Mexican policeman in Saltillo.
"Oh, come on, our aunt paid for those with her homemade sauce money!" Tony scoffed half-heartedly.
But the youth only turned in alarm pointing out the pathetically gasping figure worming around on the bedchamber floor. "Watch'em boys!" He announced. "You don't know what you're dealing with!" he warned them seriously.
"A guy who got pantsed in front of all the girls in school when he climbed the rope in gym?"
"…"
"Yo, ya went to school?"
"Do it look I went to school?!"
"Sure, sure … It don't sound like it."
"And what, ya some kinda a fuck'in genius, huh?"
"No!" The kid got their attention back. "But he is!" He pointed to the figure who suddenly looked green, as if, at any moment, he might vomit all over the floor.
"Sid 'The Squint'?" The matchstick man frowned in revulsion at either the sight of his drooling compatriot or the odd color he was turning.
"Don't believe it, boys!" The kid announced passionately. "He might look like oiled up calamari! But I'm telling you, guys, it's all an act!" There was a fervent charisma of alarmism in the youth's voice that attracted them.
"Please … not say … calamari … or oily … ghuff!"
"He's a snake in the grass, boys!" The youth accused after giving the nauseous shrimp a kick to shut him up. "I'm tell'ya he's working for the Feds!" He pointed out.
"The Feds?!" Tony said in outrage. Yet, he turned all of it on the crumpled figure. "The fuck is going on?!" He nearly flew off the handle.
"Hold on, hold on, one fuck'in minute here, kid …" The Smooth Talker waltzed up coolly, emphasizing his point with his hands. "This is Sid we're talking about here! I mean, look at him, he looks like the goddamn jawbreakers in the candy store kicked his little gumba ass when he was kid … and now youse say'in he's on Hoover's payroll?" He scoffed waving the youth off.
"Sure, but that's what I'm saying here, boys … I mean look at him!"
"…"
"…"
"New guy, pencil pusher, square as a piece of toast. He doesn't fit in, doesn't know first thing about the business, but he desperately wants to be one of you. I'm tell you, boys, you're being infiltrated, and you don't even know it!"
"Yo, yo, wait, wait … Didn't Sid pay for that salami on rye down at Cacciatori's?"
"Yeah, yeah, any Paisano would know that the old man is paid up, we get the eats for free, you know?"
"So why is he pay'in for a goddamn sandwich?"
"I've seen it a hundred times out here, guys. You count out the little guy, kick him around, then, you ignore him, forget he's there, and hears all your secrets. Next thing you know, he starts telling'em downtown to all those Irishmen paid up to the Knickerbockers and WASPS on the Upper Westside."
"… Come on … I'll stop pay'in for food … AGH!"
"No one is asking youse, Snitch!"
Suddenly, Tony grabbed his cousin off the floor and dragged him over to a far wall where he pinned the fish like former bureaucrat who looked sick to his stomach. The smooth talker and the matchstick man closed in tight as they lifted him off his feet. He squinted hard without his glasses at the blur of olive tanned faces that were an unfocused ball of frowns, glares, and angry suspicion.
"Ya get'in sloppy out there, Squint!"
"Yeah, Yeah, youse get'in a cut of that cashy tax money and can't help flash'in it around like some ignorant guinea fresh off the boat, ain't ya?"
"Fellas, it ain't like that!" he stammered blindly. "I'm loyal, I'm tell'in'ya!" He begged.
"Sid, youse blood, I brought you in, told the boss youse was a paisano, now ya go'in behind our back?! Is that how it is, eh?!"
"Nah, Tony, it ain't noth'in like that!"
"Then, what's it like, Squint?!"
"I paid old man Cacciatori cause I'm sweet on a girl that works there!"
"Yo, what girl?"
"Magdalena …"
"Who?"
"Ain't that his granddaughter?"
"It is ain't it?"
"No …!"
"Ain't she eleven?"
"I know you ain't scoping out none of that tweeny stuff, Sid?!
"No, Tony, honest …"
"If youse that desperate go get a fuck'in hooker, I swear, youse gonna kill Aunt Maria if she finds out!"
"Nah, I swear, it's Magdalena, you know the second shift waitress!"
"The fat one or the lazy eyed one?"
"…"
"Aren't we talkin the same girl?"
"…"
"What's up, Sid? I mean, what'ya doin? Huh? Ya wanna embarrass me out here? Ya know, they ain't givin out no trophies for fuck'in the bearded lady at the carnival, fuckhead?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'd rather be caught with the eleven-year-old than that side-show."
"No, the new girl, she's Austrian!"
"Like Kangaroos and shit?"
"No, Austrian, like Vienna …"
"The sausage?"
"If that's a nickname for your dick, I'd say you at least got the size right."
"Nah, she's a good girl, you know …"
"What, now youse ashamed of our job?"
"Nah, come on, Tony …"
"I pull you in, and now youse ashamed? Look at him, does that look like a shamed man?"
"What, youse too good?"
"Come on, she's Dutch, ya know, I don't know what she likes."
"I thought you said she was Australian?"
"Austrian …"
"Yeah, that's what I fuck'in said …"
"Fine, fuck'in, fine … Whateva … but I'll tell ya, is she Catholic?"
"Of course, Tony, come on …"
"Cause, if youse chasing one of them WASPS, Grand's gonna beat you to death from her grave, you know?"
"I know, I know …"
"Our Grandparents didn't come over just so youse can spit on His Holiness, just cause youse in the New World, capisce?"
"Yeah, I get it, I get it!"
Eventually, they finally decided to let Sid go. He made a surprised and startled noise when he landed with a heavy flop at their feet. They all traded suspicious looks, not quite sure if they could trust the outsider to their way of life. But either way there was more pressing matters to attend to than who the squint was chasing the skirt of. They could almost smell the gold and jewels that were about to be left abandoned by their new best friend. They each gave Sid a kick for good measure as he still recovered from the devastating punch to his gut. Then, annoyed with their comrade they turned languidly.
"Hey, kid, I wouldn't worry about it. The squint's just chasin … tail …"
But there was no one there.
The matchstick man took the wooden slither from his teeth. "Hey, where'd he go?" He turned to the smooth talker.
"Beats me … Yo, Tony … ehhh?" He paused.
In the center of Lady Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham's old teenage bedroom, the large and ill-tempered Sicilian stood still as a statue. The two other thugs watched in puzzlement at the large meaty hand that was plastered heavily over his face. Slowly, the other hand joined it till they both completely masked his expression. They watched in confusion as the thin mustached figure slowly, thoroughly, began scrubbing, making angry muffled noise from his nose against his palms. Every limb and inch of his torso was tensed with insurmountable frustration, anger, and a deep painful embarrassment that had turned his face beet red.
The most famous of the many great paradoxes that faced those who had the misfortune of thinking that collecting the many and varied prices on George Crawley's head would be easy was simply this:
No one, in all the eight years since the destruction of the village of Downton and the fall of Downton Abbey, knew what exactly George Crawley looked or sounded like. There were plenty of people that knew of a George Levinson, a Matthew Barrow, or Robert Bates. Yet, it wasn't till much later that they read their own story from the secondhand account of Lady Edith Pelham in the quarterly annuals of "The Sketch". Thus, it was a great irony that Tony admonished his fellows for believing everything that Lady Edith wrote.
Fore, it was due to his orthodox racist and prejudice beliefs of the stereotypes of other races and ethnic groups, that his perception of the 38th Lord of Downton, Heir to the Earl of Grantham and the Royal House of York, was skewed. He had envisioned that of a continental type, a silver spooned gentlemen adventurer, something that resembled Allan Quartermain or a brainy eccentric like Sherlock Holmes. Instead he never figured that a youth who fled from England at a young age would not have ever had the teachings of the manners and etiquette of an aristocrat, nor would he bear a British accent - posh or otherwise - fore his formative years were spent in America.
"Tony, what's the matta with ya?"
When the big gangster slapped his hands down, his face was a deep shade of humiliated rage. His eyes were wild and feral, narrowed and small. He immediately grabbed both thugs by their jackets and shook them.
"GO GET THAT FUCK'IN LIMEY BASTARD!"
In the 6th and 7th Century when the Saxons first invaded England, they came across the great works and buildings of the Roman towns and cities they left behind. Shocked and awed by the ruins of these unseen architecture and technologies they believed no man was capable of such wonders. They had a name of reverence and fear of the ruins of a bygone civilization of which little was known anymore -
Enta Geweorc
"The Work of Giants"