joegoda | Justin Stone and the Iris of the Madonna

The automobile bounced down the tunnel. More of Tesla's tubes, attached to the tunnel's roof, zipped past over-head and cast a staccato beat of harsh blue white light glowing from the tubes and darker shadows in the spaces between the tubes. The low roof curved sharply and it was low enough for Verne to reach up and touch it, had he dared. The walls of the tunnel were fairly smooth as if they had been bored out by a giant earthworm. There were places where water had run, causing the tunnel walls to have a slick, muddy appearance. The water had pooled onto the tunnel floor and the vehicle would splash noisily, throwing plumes of wet onto the passengers. Here and there, roots had infiltrated the ceiling and hung

Verne was not a timid man, but the speed of the vehicle un-nerved him. The speed they were traveling coupled with the ghostly light from the tubes on the ceiling gave the trip a surreal feel to him.

"How fast are we going," Verne asked anxiously. His fingers were white knuckled and he was breathless.

"Don't know," Jonathan said, focusing on keeping the automobile on track in the narrow tunnel. "Won't be long."

Verne looked over at Justin, who sat stiff backed, wearing a look of absolute wide eyed terror on his face. He started to reach over to touch Justin's shoulder, to ask if he was all right.

Jonathan saw Verne’s hand out of the corner of his eye and said "Don't. If you bother him right now, he's likely to do something stupid, like take a swing at you. Best to let him come out of it himself."

Verne turned to Jonathan and nodded. He swallowed, and asked, "Is monsieur Stone all right?"

Jonathan glanced over at his brother and said, "Yeah. He's all right. He just doesn't trust technology. Of any Kind." Turning back to the task at hand, he focused on his driving. Up ahead, what had been a very small dot of light had grown steadily, to resolve itself into the exit from the tunnel. Jonathan nodded at it and said, "Just about out of the dark, Jules!"

To his right, Justin roused himself, blinked his eyes a few times and yawned. To Verne, the transformation as amazing. Justin had gone from the horrible visage of a man in fear for his life to the picture of serenity.

"We are going to the Pawn Shop, yes?" Justin stretched luxuriously. "Before we take a run up the 32nd street canal, might we stop for a moment?"

"Stop?" Jonathan asked. "What for?"

"Well," Justin explained, "I thought it might be nice to ascertain that our uninvited houseguests are still pre-occupied with bombing us to smithereens." He smiled grimly. "I want them to stay right where they are for a bit, rather than disappearing to who knows where. I do not want to duplicate the events of last night."

"Agreed." Jonathan said. "I don't think we'll have to stop, Justin. There's enough of a straight run that I think you can see them if they're still there."

"No...," Justin sounded sure of himself and nodded emphatically. "You are aware of how I get when confounded by your machines. I do believe we'll need to stop."

"Oh... Yeah, sure!" Jonathan understood his meaning. "Will do, Justin."

The exit loomed directly in front of them. "Hold on to something, gentlemen!" Jonathan took his foot of the accelerator just as the car launched itself from the tunnel. There was a slight incline from the tunnel to the canal, which wasn't a canal at all, but what amounted to an open storm drain. The drop from the mouth of the tunnel to the floor of the canal was less than six inches, but to the steamer's narrow tires, it was still a jarring drop.

The automobile bounced out of the tunnel, spraying water as it landed in the nearly empty canal. Jonathan threw the gearshift to neutral and pulled hard on the handbrake. The vehicle spun around on the wet gravel of the canal, until the men were facing back the other direction. The undercarriage and suspension springs groaned heavily and the passenger side wheels lifted from the loose gravel of the canal and rose three inches into the air. The balancing act held for the space of two seconds before gravity won the toss and the automobile crashed all four tires to the ground.

"Well," Jonathan said, after a moment "Anyone interested in another go 'round?" His eyes were round and his hair was more disheveled than ever.

"Not at the moment, Jonathan," Justin's voice was a bit weak, and he was shakily unfastening his safety belt so that he could stand up. "I'm more interested to see if I can make out our house."

"I don't think you can see it from down here." Jonathan shifted the vehicle into reverse and performed a three point turn, so that they were pointed in the right direction again. Indeed, the canal was a good eight feet below the bank, although, by looking in the direction from whence they had come, a column of smoke could be seen rising. "I might be able to drive a way up the bank, though."

"Good man," Justin said, sounding a bit stronger. "Let us try that." He turned to Verne and whispered, "That's why I keep him around. All this... mechanistry confounds me. Give me a board room or a news conference any day. You can keep all these gears and grease and oil and what have you."

Verne nodded, understanding. "Monsieur Ratzenmueller certainly seems very... adept, it is true." He patted the seat cushion next to him and said, "This is a most unusual machine, I've never seen anything like it."

Justin nodded. "Jonathan told me he was making a bit of a mess out of an old Stanley he had bought from somewhere. I didn't want to know the details, to be honest. It would only confuse me. I do admit that I rather like the addition of the longer nose and I do believe that the mahogany boattail adds a bit of mischievousness, don't you think?"

Jonathan drove the machine parallel to the bank, and then turning the wheel slightly to the right, gingerly moved up the side of the canal. It was steep going as the sides of the canal were built on a 45 degree angle, but Jonathan handled it easily by moving slowly and horizontally to the embankment. "You know... it would have been much easier if we had just gotten out of the machine and climbed," he observed.

"Easier for whom, Jonathan?" Justin was standing up in his seat, facing in the direction of the smoke.
Once the vehicle had reached a few inches from the top of the canal, Justin indicated for Jonathan to stop. Jonathan pulled on the handbrake and the automobile stood fast. Justin stepped out of the automobile and onto the hard surface of the side of the canal.

He turned to Verne and said, "Monsieur Verne, would you please be so good to hand me the satchel next to you?" Verne passed the bag up to Justin. He opened the satchel and pulled out a slim leather case about the size of the palm of his hand. He passed the satchel back to Verne, who placed it on the seat next to him.

Justin crouched and duck-walked the short distance until his eyes were able to peek over the side of the canal. He could see, off in the direction of the house, a column of smoke billowing up into the air. High above it, he could make out the image of the dirigible, hiding in the smoke. Long and cigar shaped, with no insignia of any kind, it looked like a well organized dark cloud, hanging above the smoke.

He turned back to the waiting men and said casually, "We are in luck. The villains are still there, with their dirigible."

He opened the case that he had pulled from the satchel and retrieved a pair of gold opera glasses. He unfolded them and Held them up to his eyes. As he scanned the area around the burning house, he turned a small dial on the top of the opera glasses.

"Ah ha. So that's what you look like." He crouched there and observed for a number of minutes. When he was at last satisfied with what he had observed, he folded the glasses, and returned them to their case. He crept down the side of the canal and climbed back into the automobile. "Very well, Jonathan," he said, "we may continue." He raised his cane and said, "To the pawnshop, if you please."

Jonathan didn't release the handbrake and drive on. Instead, he looked at Justin and asked, with a bit of sarcasm in his voice, "Well? Are you going to keep us in the dark? What did the bad guy look like?"

Justin returned his brother's look, raised an eyebrow and quipped, "It was very smoky. I couldn't see very well."

"Oh, come now," Jonathan said, "I heard you say, very clearly, 'Ah ha. So that's what you look like.'" He turned to Verne and asked, "You heard that as well, right? 'Ah ha. So that's what you look like', that's what you said, Justin."

"I have to agree with monsieur Ratzenmueller, monsieur Stone," Verne said, nodding. "I heard it as well."

"Oh, very well," Justin said. "But you mustn't laugh." He looked at each of the men in turn, garnering their agreeing nods. "All right. He was bald, blue eyes and wears a monocle over his left eye, as well as having a scar under that eye. I imagine he was about 6 or so feet tall, and he wore a black leather glove on his left hand and none on his right hand."

"I suspect he may have lost that hand to some sort of war action. As he appears to be Germanic in aspect, it may have been lost in any of the more recent skirmishes that country has had. As he doesn't appear to favor that hand as he moves around, I would say it is a very old wound, and he is comfortable with the prosthetic. He has possibly half a dozen men with him, possibly more. There are trees around the property that prohibit me from seeing any if there are. They are standing there, waiting for the fire to die down enough to sift through."

Nobody laughed. The only comment that Jonathan made was something bout 'dime novel bad guys', and he turned his face away, looking out the window at the low, slow flow of water running in the canal.

"Is there no fire contingency?" Verne asked, concerned.

"Oh, there is," Justin nodded, smiling tightly at Verne and adding, "but it is very small and our house was quite a ways out from the city. It is unlikely that they had any notice of the fire, and quite likely they never even noticed the smoke." He waved his hand, as if clearing the air. "It is something I... we've been trying to get the city to create for quite a while. The official story is that there are just not enough volunteers."

He sighed. "It matters very little. The books were saved, as was Jonathan's workspace." His face took on a very serious look and his voice dropped an octave. "There will come a time, however, when this city will recognize that a department purely devoted to the putting out of fires will be of grave importance. Mark my word. All they have to do is use Chicago as an example to see how important such a department will be. Mark my word, indeed."

He was quite for a long moment, remembering the past, looking at the present. He abruptly turned to Jonathan and said sweetly, "Now, may we please proceed to the pawnshop? Our real business is there."

Jonathan nodded somberly and put the automobile into drive. "As you wish, brother. You and me against the world."

Justin nodded shortly, and added "Again."

"Again," Jonathan echoed.

From the back seat a voice said, "And me as well!"

Justin chuckled. "There is that, monsieur Verne. There is that."

In the bright pre-noon light, the Hallows, while not exactly the picture of cheer, was at the very least not as purely devoid of compassion as it had been when last the men were here. There were a few pedestrians and denizens about, moving in and out of the few shops that were open. A child was playing with a stick and a hoop, laughing and finding some joy in what might be an otherwise dismal life.

The automobile was too large to drive safely down NW Murphy, as it was barely bigger than an alleyway. Jonathan parked the vehicle near the same street he and his brother had walked down the night before, locked the wheels to prevent theft and joined the other two men on the sidewalk.

The few people about stared at the automobile, and mutters from some about what it might be reached Jonathan's ears. "It's the future!" he sneered at them. "Get used to it. And don't touch it, or else!" He shook his fingers at the couple of teen boys who seemed the most curious. They looked at him blankly, and made no indication that they had heard him.

Jonathan asked Justin and Verne to wait a moment and he walked over to the boys. They returned his look truculently. "Yeah?" One of them, a skinny near-man who had the appearance of someone who grew up too fast. His eyes, a cold brown, looked at the short man approaching them. "Waddaya want?"

Jonathan reached into his back pocket. "How would you guys like to make a couple of fins?" He pulled two five dollar bills out of his wallet.

The tall one squinted down at Jonathan. "Protection?" he asked.

"You been around a bit, ain't ya?" Jonathan dropped back into the dialect of his childhood.

The other boy, a towhead with milky blue eyes, stepped forward. "Hey."

Jonathan looked at the towhead. "Yeah?" He and the boy were about the same height.

"You're that guy they talk about, aren't you?" The boy's milky eyes blinked. "You're the Ratman."

Jonathan started in surprise. His eyes narrow and he started to put the money back in his wallet. "Maybe I am, and maybe I ain't. You want the money or not?"

The tall one said, "Hey, hey... don't be so hasty. Sure, we'll watch your... whatever it is. For the fins and for you coming back here. There's lots of us that want out of here, Ratman. We don't like to die in the same place we're borned, ya know?" He took the ten dollars and pocketed it. "We'll watch that thing for you, just cuz we know you made it out. Maybes we can too." He turned his too young to be old eyes at Jonathan. "Ya think?"

Jonathan felt a lump growing in his chest. It was one thing to be an orphan, rescued from the pit. It was quite another thing to be a successful orphan, given the chance to help others just like him to climb out of the same pit. Perhaps they weren't orphans, per se, but they might as well be. Orphans of society.

He turned before the tear could be seen forming in his eye. Gruffly, he said, "Yeah, kid. I think." Sniff heavily and spitting the results onto the ground, he turned back to the boys. "Tell ya what. You do a good job, there's another ten in there for you. You mess up, I take the ten back and a bit more." He poked a finger at them. "Got it?"

The tall one said "Yeah, we got it." He poked a finger right back at Jonathan. "And don't you think about stiffin' us, mister. We got eyes and ears everywhere."

Milky eyes tugged on the taller one's sleeve. "Lay off, Marion," he said, cautioning. "He's one of us."

"Like he said, Georgie. Maybe he is, and maybe he ain't." Hard eyes stared back at Jonathan. "Maybe he's just gotten too big for his britches. We'll just see, won't we?"

Jonathan nodded. "Yep. Reckon we will at that, Marion." He stressed the word Marion, so that it stretched out. "Marrrion." The tall boy's eyes grew tight. "What sort of a name is Marion, anyways?"

"Damn fine Irish name, is what kinda name it is." said the tall boy, defiantly, hand balled into fists and buried into his skinny hips. "What sort of a name is Ratman?"

At that, Jonathan had to rear back and laugh. "Fair enough. You earned your ten bucks." He dug back into his wallet and gave each a ten.

"That's too much," Marion said, holding the ten spot out to Jonathan. "We agreed on ten, five between the two of us."

Jonathan nodded, grinning. "Yeah, we did." His grin faded, but only a little. "What's say you keep the rest on retainer?"

"What's a retainer?" Milky asked.

"It means that you guys do a little work for me, and I already paid you for it," Jonathan explained. "If you see something funny, you tell me when I get back, okay? Is it a deal?"

Milky looked up at Marion, who had unballed his fists and was scratching the side of his pockmarked face with one of them. "Yeah, okay." He took the hand he was scratching his face with and spit in the palm. He held it out to Jonathan, watching. "It's a deal. For now, anyway."

Jonathan spit in his own palm, and shook Marion's hand. "Good." He turned to walk away, "I'll be back pretty soon. Keep an eye out."

"Hey, mister!" Milky called out.

Jonathan stopped and looked back. "Yeah?"

"You really work for that guy?" came the question.

"Nope," Jonathan said, continuing his walk back to Justin and Verne. "I work with him. Just like you work with me, little brothers."

Back on the other side, Verne expressed concern. "Monsieur Ratzenmueller, are you sure we can trust them. They look rather... rough."

"I'd trust them with my life, Jules." He smiled and clapped the other man on the shoulder. "Heck, I used to be them." To Justin, he said, "But let's not take too long, okay? I remember what I was like."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thanks, Dearest Editor Sister o' mine. Yeah, there's some dangly bits I need to clean up. Later, tho, later. My brain is tired and I guess I should think about how to end this thing (I really do know how it ends, but it ends all sorts of different than what I had planned - silly story).

Justin Stone and the Iris of the Madonna

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