The Dagger Men: A Novel of the Clay Shamus Read online

  The swords pierced its body. The giant threw back its head and emitted a cry—one more animal than human. It spun around, moving ponderously as it raised its club again. Zipporah leapt to the side, leading into the shelter of a booth offering a shooting game. The club crashed down on the roof, smashing it apart. Zipporah stayed slow, the booth crumbling around her. The giant bellowed and raised the club again. Clay needed to help, but he had the feeling that his fists alone wouldn’t be enough. It would be like trying to punch out a mountain.

  His eyes moved to the next game—a strength tester aimed at manly visitors trying to impress their best girls. The game consisted of a bell topping a long pole, which could be triggered by striking a weighted spring with a massive sledgehammer. That hammer, lying on its side and slick in the rain, seemed promising. Clay ran for it. He needed to get the giant’s attention first so he scooped up a baseball, palmed it, and tossed it back with all his strength. The ball bounced off the giant’s back and made it turn. It roared again and started toward Clay.

  By then, Clay had crossed the soggy planks. He reached down, grabbed the sledgehammer and spun around. Zipporah emerged from the ruined booth. They stood together, brandishing their weapons. The giant seemed surprised as it prepared to swing up its club. But before the club could land, Clay and Zipporah struck. The scimitars and the sledgehammer smashed the giant’s chest together. The sledgehammer hummed through something viscous and thick, like some kind of heavy broth. Clay pulled the hammer back and smashed it down again. Zipporah hacked and stabbed with her swords. The giant howled, unable to swing its club.

  Harvey reached them next. He held a small book, a cloth-bound volume small enough to be carried in a single hand. He snapped it open and began to read, his voice high and cracking over the downpour. He raised his hand, forming strange outlines with his fingers, as he hurried through a complex prayer. As soon as he began to read, the giant released another groan and sank to its knees. The club fell away. Harvey continued reading, and Clay and Zipporah stepped back.

  The giant released another moan, outstretched its great arms, and then glowed brightly and vanished. It simply faded away, drifting like sparks in a wind, and then it had gone completely. The rain continued, and the boardwalk stood empty.

  Clay hurried to Harvey. “Good job.” He patted the boy’s shoulder. “Now let’s get out of the rain.”

  They returned to the Elephantine Hotel, where Ava and Sophie Silver had watched everything. Sophie looked delighted. She ran to Harvey. “You defeated that entire ghostly creature all on your lonesome? That’s remarkable!” She peered at the book. “What did you do use to get rid of that ghost? Are you a sorcerer, perhaps? Or a wizard?”

  “I’m not a w-wizard, Miss Silver,” Harvey said, the redness returning to his cheeks. “I just used one of King Solomon’s spells.”

  Zipporah nodded to Silver. “First time being attacked by the supernatural?”

  “I’m afraid so—and it’s not an experience I’m keen to repeat.” Silver picked up her pet panda cub and tucked it under her arm. “Come along, Sophie. We’d better return to our apartment. You have work from your tutors and I have an article to complete.” Sophie hurried to her mother’s side and followed her down the pier. “Farewell, Mr. Clay. It was grand meeting you.” She wiggled her fingers and Sophie smiled.

  “Goodbye!” Harvey waved back as they left the dock. He turned to Clay and Zipporah. “They’re swell, aren’t they?” Clay shrugged. “Well, what do you think we should do now?”

  “We were attacked by a ghost, dispatched by the Dagger Men,” Zipporah said. “And we know just who to see to deal with ghosts and find out where those Dagger devils are hiding.”

  “Shlomo Ben Shlomo,” Clay muttered. He pointed to the Elephantine Hotel doors. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.” He didn’t want to contact Shlomo Ben Shlomo, but he had little choice. They needed more information on the Dagger Men, and they couldn’t leave anything overlooked. For the moment, Clay was just glad to get out of the rain.

  Chapter Four

  THE FULCRUM OF THE WORLD

  With the rain still pouring over Palisade Park, Clay and his friends returned to the Elephantine Hotel and headed to the attic. They took a spiral staircase, which wound to the elephant’s upper chest, and walked down a hall leading to the pachyderm’s head. A trapdoor in the ceiling came down at the pull of a cord, and then they went upstairs. The rain pattered on the round windows, and all of the gaudily painted amusements in the Park seemed like strange coral in some bizarre reef. Clay gave Harvey a boost up the steps leading to the attic, and followed him. The folding stairs creaked under his weight. Zipporah joined them, and she switched on the lamp in the corner and added some illumination to the round chamber that occupied the space where the elephant’s brain would have been. They walked into the attic.

  Professor West kept a variety of old show business detritus in the attic, loaded into crates or stacked against the walls in unruly piles. Cut-out posters for sideshow acts, revealing freaks and performers in lurid reds and greens, leaned against the round walls. Old midway games, discarded furniture, broken machinery from the rides, and a stuffed tiger occupied the rest of the attic. Clay didn’t care about any of that stuff. His eyes moved to the round fishbowl resting on a card table before a number of newspapers, at the very center of the room.

  They approached the fishbowl. A single salmon floated awkwardly in the green water, its body curled so that it fit against the glass. The fish faced them, and reared its body up. Water splashed on the newspapers. The fish’s eyes, glassy and dead, settled on Clay. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite golem?” He spoke with a raspy voice, an Eastern European accent thick as borscht. “Hello, Clay. May you marry the Angel of death! May you grow like an onion—with your head in the ground!” He bellied up to the edge of the fishbowl, swaying back and forth as he muttered the curses.

  Clay stared back, not giving Shlomo Ben Shlomo a reaction. “Hello, Shlomo.”

  “We got a job for you.” Zipporah walked over to the table and stared at the fish. “And we’d appreciate it if you closed your head.”

  “May you turn into a blintz and be eaten by a cat, you harridan!” Shlomo Ben Shlomo replied. “I’ll insult you as much as I want.” He bit his lower lip—a funny gesture for a fish. “It’s all I can do, in my current, scaly prison.”

  Shlomo Ben Shlomo was a dybbuk—a malevolent spirit, which possessed others to cause evil and mischief. Clay and his friends had encountered him during a previous case. Thanks to one of Harvey’s spells, they had trapped him inside a fish’s body. Now, they used Shlomo as an informer for the spirit world. Shlomo wasn’t entirely pleased about the arrangement. If he had his way, he’d possess bus drivers and cause traffic accidents, make husbands insult their wives, or use a child’s innocent hands to start fires. Clay didn’t have much sympathy for the dybbuk.

  Harvey gingerly approached Shlomo. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shlomo—but it’s very important. We really do need your help.”

  “And why should I help you, you little rat? Especially after you trapped me here, in this cursed fish?” Shlomo Ben Shlomo demanded.

  Clay had little patience left. He towered over the fishbowl and raised a heavy fist. “You oughtn’t to be talking to him like that.”

  “Oh yeah? What are you gonna do, clay man? Kill me?” Shlomo Ben Shlomo grinned, another expression that didn’t belong on a fish’s face. Somehow, even without lips, Shlomo managed it. “May you swallow an umbrella, so its opens in your belly. May there be salt in your eyes and pepper in your nose. May your head fall off, may you—”

  Zipporah withdrew one of her swords. She spun the blade around it, letting it catch the lamplight that filled the dim attic. “You don’t like being a fish, Shlomo? What if we cut you in half? How’d you like being half a fish?”

  Shlomo paused. “You make
a good point.”

  “We could give you something to make your stay easier here, as well,” Harvey suggested. The boy had a good heart. He walked over to the newspapers resting on the table. They gave them to Shlomo to read, so he’d have something to occupy himself while he sat in his fishbowl prison. “I’ve got a big pile of comics pages at home. You like the Funnies, Mr. Shlomo? I’ve got the Katzenjammer Kids, Little Nemo, plenty of good ones. I can bring them, if you’ll help us.”

  “I do like the Katzenjammers,” Shlomo mused. He turned to Clay, splashing water on the card table. “Okay. What do you want?”

  “There’s a ghost in Sickle City,” Clay explained.

  “There’s about a million of them, clay man.”

  “This ghost belongs to a giant.” Zipporah pointed to Shlomo. “He’s somewhere in town, summoned by a group of mystics called the Dagger Men. They’re holed up in the city, staying out of sight while they summoned their ghost. You need to fly out there, track down the giant—his essence might still be in the air—and tell us where they’re staying. That sound agreeable, Shlomo?” She raised her sword again. “Or should I take off your tail?”

  “It will take some time,” Shlomo said. “An hour perhaps.”

  “We’ll wait,” Clay said.

  “Then I’ll do it.” Shlomo fixed his shiny eyes on Harvey. “And you’d better bring me those Funnies, boy.”

  “I will,” Harvey said. “Don’t try and escape or anything, or I’ll know about it and you’ll be dragged right back into the fish.”

  “Which I’ll cut in half,” Zipporah added.

  “I sure am glad I ran into you folks, to set me on the proper path,” Shlomo mused. He floated to the center of the fishbowl, gave a little shake, and opened his mouth. A pale shape, misty and faint, burst out of the fish’s mouth like it had started to breathe smoke. The cloud briefly formed a figure, which swelled as it emerged into the still air of the basement. A hint of Shlomo Ben Shlomo’s human form—with a stiff, wiry beard, dangling side-locks, and permanently squinting eyes—appeared in the air. Harvey hurried to the window in the corner to let the dybbuk out.

  He swung it wide, and Shlomo Ben Shlomo zoomed into the rain. He left with another whispered Yiddish curse. “May you grow a wooden tongue!” echoed over the still attic, and then he zoomed away into the sky. He vanished in a few seconds, released on his mission. The fish lay in the water, floating on its side on the surface of the fishbowl. Now, there was nothing to do but wait.

  Clay pulled over a threadbare armchair for Harvey, who slumped on the cushions and yawned. This day had been full of chaos, but Harvey seemed determined to stay awake. He reached for one of the newspaper pages on Shlomo’s table and read the Funnies as his eyes drooped. Zipporah settled on a stool and rested her hands on her knees. Clay simply stood. He didn’t have muscles or bones to feel weary, but he knew that his friends did. They needed a break, and this was their best chance to get one.

  Zipporah returned her sword to the scabbard over her back. She glanced at Harvey and Clay. “What if they’re right?” she suddenly asked.

  “Who?” Clay asked.

  “The Dagger Men, Clay.” She stared past him, at an oversized decoration resembling a grinning devil’s head, complete with horns and goatee. “I’ve been thinking about them, while you were at the meeting with Rabbi Holtz and the other swells. They fought the Romans, because the Romans conquered Judea and tried to transform it into a miniature Rome. And look at what happened in Russia, during the Revolution—the pogroms only got worse, and they were bad to begin with. You saw how those upper crust De Vere heels treated Harvey. Maybe Rabbi Geist and Rabbi Eisendrath have themselves a point.”

  “You think they deserve to rule Sickle City?”

  “Well, look who’s running it now—the Wigwam Club and Grand Sagamore Edwin Eames.” She spat on the ground. “They don’t give a damn about anything besides getting out the vote, lining their own pockets, and putting their no-good relatives on the dole. No wonder the police force is ready to strike. They’re treated like garbage and they want a change.”

  Harvey stared at Zipporah. “You really think that, Miss Sarfati?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just making conversation.” She smoothed back her auburn hair. “What do you think, child? You must have a bird’s eye view of how things are, as Rabbi Holtz’s son. Do the Dagger Men make any sense to you?”

  “Not at all, ma’am,” Harvey said. “Not one bit.” Even though he was tired, he still spoke clearly. “They hurt people. They’re cruel. The historical Dagger Men, the Sicarii, were the same way. They didn’t just kill Romans—they killed anyone they thought wasn’t Jewish enough. Innocent people died at their hands, and these Dagger Men seem to want to do the same thing. If they capture Sickle City, things will definitely get a lot worse.” He stared at his Buster Browns. “The kind of violence they bring, the dark magic they use to fuel their Roman armies, is evil and cruel. It hurts people, and there’s no excuse for that. Even if things are hard for the Jews, we can’t become prejudiced or mean to those who aren’t Jewish. That’s always going to be wrong, no matter what.” He settled back on the armchair, nervous after his outburst. “I’m sorry, but that’s what I think.”

  “And you’d better bring me those funnies, boy.”

  “You’re a good boy, Harvey,” Zipporah replied. “A kind boy.” She sighed as she came to her feet. “Besides, the Dagger Men are a pack of rascals. They’d have me trapped in a kitchen, keeping my hair covered.”

  “We can’t have that,” Clay said.

  “They use violence to get what they want,” Harvey added. “And that's never acceptable.”

  Clay stared at Harvey, remembering what he had done just a few years ago, on the plains of Russia. He had slaughtered his enemies, just like the Dagger Men wanted to do to in Sickle City. What Clay had done was wrong, but that knowledge alone wouldn’t scour the blood from his hands. He turned away from Harvey, unable to look the boy in the face. Harvey knew some of what Clay had done, but not the whole story. If he did, he might follow his uncle in calling Clay an abomination. Perhaps Clay couldn’t blame him if he did.

  The window flapped open, stirred by a passing wind. The dead fish in the bowl shook and wiggled, scattering a few more droplets. Clay hurried to the table, while Harvey sprang from his chair. Zipporah watched as well. They stared at Shlomo Ben Shlomo, who swiveled about to face them. Somehow, his scaly face fused into a glowering frown.

  His head jabbed out of the surface, and he stared at Harvey. “I want three Sunday editions,” he said. “All the Funnies, stacked up and ready to read.”

  “O-okay,” Harvey agreed. “I can get them for you.” He leaned closer. “What did you discover?”

  “I found that giant’s ghost. One of the Nephilim, in God’s name.” He slid into the water, as if he wanted to escape and swim away. “It nearly clobbered me. I had to fall back, sneak away, and then follow his trail. I did, though. I’m a very good dybbuk. I possessed a pigeon, you see, and—”

  “We don’t want a story,” Zipporah said. “What’d you discover?”

  “I was getting to that.” Shlomo glared at her. “I tracked him into Sickle Bay, over the water. You know what that was like? I detest water. Reminds me of my current lodgings, in which I am unjustly imprisoned. But I did it, out of loyalty to you.” He spun his body around, facing Clay. “Anyway, the ghost led me to Bone Island. You know it?”

  “Yeah.” Bone Island lay at the center of Sickle Bay, like a nose in a face. Shaped somewhat like a comma, the island contained a center of dark woods with a tail of jagged rocks leading into the ocean. Some of Sickle City’s founders, the Puritan Barebone family, had settled there and created a small village called Barebone’s Town. Its ruins rested in the center of the woods, rotting away in the sunlight and ocean spray. Recently, Bone Island
served as the home for an entirely different group of visitors—bootleggers used the dense woods and rocky coasts to store their wares, before taking them into the city for sale. Law never went that far out into the bay.

  Shlomo Ben Shlomo rested his fish head on the edge of the bowl, and watched Clay and his friends. “Well, that’s where they are. They’re in the ruined village, right in the middle of the island, in this clearing in the woods.”

  “Barebone’s Town,” Harvey explained. “Founded by Bathsheba Barebone, the sister of Sinner Barebone, who created Sickle City.” He turned to Clay. “We should go there tomorrow, in the morning, and see what we can discover.”

  “Don’t you have school tomorrow, Harvey?” Clay asked. “Your father won’t—”

  “I’ll have to skip it,” Harvey said. “This is about the fate of the whole city. I’m pretty sure that’s more important than another day at the Young Gentleman’s Academy. Papa will understand. He’d want me to go with you. It might be safer than being alone during the day, actually, especially with the Dagger Men after us...”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Zipporah added.

  “Well, I’m delighted you’ve made a fine set of plans for tomorrow,” Shlomo said. “Do you need anything else from your noble dybbuk servant?” He swiveled to face Harvey, forming another hopeful grin with his lipless, toothless mouth. “And how about those newspapers?”

  “We’ll bring you the Funnies later.” Clay turned to his friends. “Come on.”

  They walked out of the attic, heading for the trapdoor leading back to the hall. Shlomo called after them, his rasping words echoing over the antique decorations and abandoned carnival games. “Hang yourself with a sugar rope, and you’ll die a sweet death! May all your teeth fall out, except one, so that you will suffer! May you—” Clay let Harvey and Zipporah take the folding stairs first, before he descended through the trap door. He slammed it shut, cutting off the last of Shlomo Ben Shlomo’s insults. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need to rely on the dybbuk again.