MAY 1911
THE OFFICERS had tramped through the garden, paying no attention to the runner beans, or the rows of lettuce, or to the huge bottle-green leaves of the squash plants, soon torn from their tendrils. The police in Coney Island could be hired as a personal squad for those willing to pay the price, and the Professor was among those who regularly made a donation on his own behalf so that he might run the museum as he pleased, unmolested by the authorities. It was a common enough practice, not just for reputable businessmen but for those with a more criminal intent, a world of con men and thieves. There were theater owners whose clientele had come to watch private shows of dancing naked women, only to be given knockout drops and robbed. Gambling houses where games of chance were rigged to ensure any and all players would lose. All of these establishments paid for the protection of the sheriff’s men.
Upon seeing the photographer, the Professor sent one of the Durante brothers to fetch several officers. The lawmen arrived quickly, there to do the museum owner’s bidding, for that was part of the bargain; they had their bully sticks at the ready, while the Professor and Eddie were still in the midst of a heated argument.
“If you’ve nothing to hide, why keep me out?” Eddie demanded.
“I won’t be the one keeping you out,” the Professor told him coldly. Though he was a liar, there was truth in his statement, for as soon as Eddie glanced over his shoulder, members of the sheriff’s department were upon him. They wasted no time dragging him from the property. He shouted that he had his rights, but in this garden clearly he did not, nor did he in all of Kings County. He cried out that he was being kept from his own property, for his camera and stand had fallen to the ground, but no one listened to his protestations. If he’d had ready cash for a payoff, he might have turned the situation around once they were out on Surf Avenue. But he had nothing to offer, and the officers did the job they had been paid to do, in which the goal was to dispose of him in such a way that he would never dare to return.
Coralie watched from her window, stunned. She had a wild urge to leap out and chase after them, and imagined grabbing the sword from the wall in her father’s bedroom so she might fight off the officers. But when the Professor turned to gaze up into her window, a hand over his eyes to block out the sun, she ducked behind the muslin curtains, breathing hard, terrified he might spy her shadow. She was ashamed by her own lack of courage, yet she shivered there, immobilized, tears streaking her face. Where was the bravery the trainer Bonavita had insisted she possessed when she stood inside the lion’s cage? Furious with herself, she tore off her gloves, then withdrew a needle from the sewing kit on her bedside table and stabbed it into the flesh between her fingers until there were drops of blood, each one a penance for her cowardice.
Later in the day, Coralie retrieved Eddie’s camera, which had been pitched into the hydrangea bushes, along with the glass plates that had captured the images of the living wonders. One plate had cracked, but the others were safe enough, though wet with dew. Coralie stashed Eddie’s belongings beneath the porch, then she went to her room and pulled down one of the curtains. She hurriedly returned to toss the curtain over the photography equipment to keep it from harm, weeping as she did so, as if it were a secret burial she was attending to.
That evening, Maureen called to her, suggesting they slip out to the porch, where they might be afforded some privacy. The Professor was in his study, still fuming, drinking too much rum. He had questioned Coralie after the incident. Had she ever met this young man who had dared to photograph the wonders? She vowed she had never before made his acquaintance, which was true enough. They had never formally been introduced.
“They took him over the bridge,” Maureen confided, for she’d asked the Durante brothers to follow the police wagon and report back to her. “They treated him as you might expect. He did not come out as the winner of this encounter. The authorities made it clear that, should he dare to enter Brooklyn again, he’ll find himself in the Raymond Street Jail, and that’s a place no man deserves to see. Let this be the end of it, Cora, for it can only finish badly for one and all.”
But it was not the end of it, not by far. The museum opened the following day. There were even fewer in attendance than anyone had expected, and several potential customers walked away rather than pay the price for a ticket, declaring forty cents to be an exorbitant fee. Still, it was the beginning of the season, with much to do to prepare for what they all hoped would be a more profitable summer, helped along by overflow crowds from Dreamland, which would reopen in all its glory on the last weekend of May.
The Professor made a special point to warn Coralie against strangers. He told her to report anyone who might be lurking about. They were in the parlor, beside the horrid cereus plant, its twisted brown form bare as sticks, its bitter scent dizzying. Coralie assured her father that she would do as he ordered, though she wished she dared ask what she was to make of the strangers who attended her private shows. She, indeed, looked out of sorts, her cheeks flushed and red, and the Professor insisted on testing her forehead for fever. The burning that consumed her, however, was not an illness, only the hatred she felt for him. All the same, his belief that she was afflicted suggested the beginnings of a plan. The following afternoon, she forced her fingers down her throat so that she might be sick and beg off her performance due to illness. She powdered her face so that she appeared infirm, and circled her eyes with coal so they seemed sunken and hot.
“Don’t think this will be a regular occurrence,” the Professor warned when he agreed to cancel the evening. “We need the income more than ever.”
Coralie took the Professor’s hand and kissed it, as if she were a dog willing to do his bidding. But dogs can bite no matter how well trained, and as soon as she went up to her room, Coralie brought out the keepsakes she had nabbed from the workshop desk. She did so every night, gazing at them, imagining how she might arrange a way to get them to those who were dearest to the drowned girl. Now she knew, her feigned illness would be the first step out the door.
The following morning, she said she was too ill to run errands, and was left in bed. It was Sunday, and the Professor had plans to visit one of the racetracks out on Long Island, where he often tried to double his money, or, at least, not lose it all. It was Maureen’s one day off, and most likely she would spend the afternoon with Mr. Morris. Coralie quickly dressed. She peered down from her window to see that the liveryman had returned. This was luck indeed, for he was not merely a workman but also the means of her escape. The weather was warm, and the liveryman’s shirt was off as he jumped down from the driver’s bench to fasten his horse’s lead to the fence post. Coralie could see what Maureen had whispered was indeed true—he had a great many wounds and scars, as well as a series of tattoos inked in deep reds and blues. On his back there was the image of a bird in flight, black wings stretched from one broad shoulder to the other.
He thought there was no one to spy him, and when men are alone they often present their truest selves. He whistled cheerfully as he set to his work, which consisted of bringing forth the carcass of a gigantic striped bass, one so large he could barely wrestle it out of his carriage. Surely it had been some fisherman’s great prize and had cost a good price at market. A flock of birds had settled in the low-growing shrubbery. When they began their chirping, the liveryman took a moment from the work at hand to toss out a bit of his horse’s feed.
“There you go, my dears,” he said as the birds gathered round.
He had once informed Coralie that such birds were common starlings, black when resting in the shadows, but streaked a brilliant purple and blue and green when they wheeled across the sky. Two decades earlier, one hundred of their species had been brought from Europe, then released in Central Park. At first they were a novelty, with their lovely glittering feathers, but as their population grew, with thousands moving across the state and then the country, people came to despise them and consider them pests; there was even a call for starling potpie to be on the menu of every restaurant. The liveryman, however, believed they were equal to the sparrow and the robin, albeit misjudged and unappreciated.
When Coralie opened her window and called, the sound of her voice caught the liveryman by surprise. He turned and let out a soft shout.
Embarrassed when he spied her, he quickly reached for his jacket and pulled it on. “Miss, you shouldn’t sneak up on a person. What if I’d been carrying a weapon and been taken off guard? I don’t like to think what might have happened.”
Coralie took hold of the cowhide bag she’d readied for this occasion. She opened her window wider and, before another word was said, climbed onto the roof, as she’d done so many times before to watch the crowds at Dreamland or to view the sunset. She was steady on her feet as she made her way to the porch overhang.
“Get back,” the liveryman called, unnerved. He’d returned to work only grudgingly, for he despised his employer now.
Rather than listen, Coralie continued on toward the roof’s edge, and there she grasped a branch of the pear tree. She shimmied down, and as she did the branches shook, driving the starlings into the sky.
“You should have listened to me when I said the river wasn’t for swimming that night,” the liveryman chided. “Will you at least listen to me now and stay where you belong?”
Coralie did no such thing but instead came to view the awesome form of the fish on the grass. “What’s the use of this?”
A bass so large was frightening to see once it had been taken from its element. Yet this fish possessed an unearthly beauty. In the spray of sunlight that filtered through the leaves, the fish’s scales shone a dazzling silver.
“This is nothing. Only a dead fish that stinks like any other.” The liveryman took out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead.
“It appears to be something.” Coralie had seen the Professor’s tools, and the monsters he’d invented out of pieces. A chill went through her. “It seems my father wishes to create a sea creature that is half woman and half fish.”
She waited in the garden while the liveryman dragged the fish down to the cellar, to be left outside the locked door. He’d brought along several bushels of ice, so the fish would stay cool in the dank corridor. He was merely following instructions, for the Professor had already sent out telegrams to the newspapers in which he promised to solve the Hudson Mystery. If he did not present a real mermaid on the last weekend in May, he would allow customers free access to his museum for the entire month of June, a bargain he never intended to honor, for such an arrangement would surely bankrupt him.
“You need to mind your business,” the liveryman advised Coralie when he found she was still waiting for him. She had a defiant expression he recognized. Clearly she intended to do as she pleased.
“You need to take me where I want to go. To the man we have in common.”
“Are you speaking of the Professor?” The liveryman tried a joke. “He’s common enough.”
“You know who I speak of. He told me you were the one who brought him here. That’s a fact my father wouldn’t care for, should he ever know your part in the photographer’s finding his way to us.”
Leaving the liveryman to think this over, Coralie retrieved Eddie’s camera and plates, which she brought to the carriage.
“Fine, I’ll take those to him,” the liveryman allowed.
“No.” Coralie stepped onto the carriage stair and drew herself up to the driver’s seat. She sat calmly, with her hands folded. “I will.”
The liveryman now entered into a frantic state. “Let’s be reasonable. I’ve got the fish to deal with. As for you, this business will lead to ruin,” he warned. “If I had a daughter, the last thing I’d want would be for her to know about the meanness in the world.”
“If you had a daughter, you would likely want her to know what the world was like so that she might be able to live in it with open eyes.”
The liveryman considered the girl’s words. He had done terrible things in his life, most of which he strongly regretted. In Coralie’s face, however, he saw an absolute faith in him. It was nothing he deserved, but it was most likely the reason he untied his horse, then climbed up beside his passenger.
“If I valued my life, I wouldn’t consider this. You’re lucky I don’t believe myself worth saving.”
Coralie could feel her heart pounding as the horse began to trot. Her plan had become a living thing, not air and thought, but flesh and blood. All at once she was in the center of her life, not hiding behind a curtain or eavesdropping with her ear pressed against a floorboard or a door. She ducked her head as they passed beneath the branches of the pear tree. The whole world smelled so fresh and new she gasped when inhaling the green-tinged scent. Sunlight filtered directly into her face, so that she had to blink in the light. Still she saw everything quite clearly as they headed along the road: the crush of afternoon shoppers, the streetcar barreling toward Coney Island Avenue, the shadow of the liveryman as he whistled at his horse, urging the old steed to quicken its pace, driving them out of Kings County with no idea that he’d already been saved.