Read Online The Gods Of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye - Free Book Online Page B

every damn rogue and rabbit present now staring at me, I couldn’t see how Matsell had worked out who I was when only my lower face was visible.
    “I’m not a bit modest, sir,” I answered truthfully.
    “You mean to tell me you can’t understand your own brother speaking, or Captain Valentine Wilde of Ward Eight lied when he said you’d be our most apt new recruit?”
    Captain Wilde. Of course. Same youthful features, same deep hairline, same muddy blond coloring, except for only half the size and three quarters of the face. I set my jaw so hard my raw skin began throbbing under its light layer of bandaging. Typical Val. Not enough to get me a position I wasn’t suited for and didn’t want. Everyone had to be watching when I, as it’s said, kicked the bucket.
    “Neither,” I replied with an effort. “I’m no dab hand, but I can work on it.”
    That was flash for “I’m not proficient.” But I’d every intention of doing my best.
    Mr. Piest’s arm shot up like a Fourth of July rocket. “Will therebe training for us and for the new recruits before we go on duty, Chief?”
    I’ve never seen George Washington Matsell snort, but that was as close as he’s yet come to it in my viewing.
    “Mr. Piest, it’s as much as I can do to get us launched without our noble populace screaming out ‘standing army’ and aborting us out of pure patriotism. I need hardly add that the loudest patriots are currently wholesale villains. There isn’t a moment to lose—the captains will take you through your paces and hand out scheduling assignments according to my guidelines, flash speakers where they’re most needed, and you start tomorrow. Good morning, and good luck.”
    Chief Matsell moves with remarkable speed for his size, like a bull charging, and was gone in another eyeblink. A wave of murmurs rustled the crowd, the energy muttering in my breast. The pair of captains, who seemed to be the tall black-Irish man in the plug hat and the native Bowery type with the greased sidelocks and calcified eyes next to him, exchanged puzzled looks.
What did he mean by “paces”?
I saw pass the American’s lips. It’s an easy skill, one I learned within two months of tending an oyster bar that sounded like a mob riot. Tough to pass a fellow a drink if you can’t tell what he wants.
    They ought to be knowin’ how to march in case of riots, which would be a danger to the entire city,
the Irishman replied, nodding sagely.
A well-formed marchin’ police force, that would go a fair way to breakin’
a mob.
    By Jove, if that isn’t the very thing.
    So we spent the next three sweat-drenched hours learning to march in formation in the Tombs courtyard. It didn’t do much to help us learn policing. But it sure seemed to give the inmates being led from the court to the cell block a pleasurable time.
    I was nearest the door leading back to the courthouse when we were through the ridiculous parade training and thus the first to be assigned. When I was seated on a pine stool before a wizened clerkand asked about my qualifications, I flinched inwardly but played the hand I’d been dealt. “I speak flash a little,” I said.
    God help me.
    “In that case, we’ll route you past where Centre crosses Anthony. Four in the morning to eight in the evening is your shift,” the clerk announced. He pulled a sketched map from one of several piles. “Here is your course when you make rounds. No drinking, carousing, or other entertainment while working. Your number will be one-zero-seven. Report for duty here at the Tombs tomorrow at four.”
    I stood up.
    “Wait a moment.”
    The clerk reached into a large leather satchel and pulled out a pin shaped like a copper star. He placed it in my hand with a muttered, “When you’re on duty, you’re not meant to take it off, mind.”
    I passed my fingers over the metal. It was a plain thing, a bit misshaped. Just a hammered star, with a dull polish the color of the dead leaves blanketing City Hall