“Mr. Ratliff was never really coming at all.”
The rumors kept swirling down the row of servants assembled in the hallway of Theodore K. Ratliff’s famous mountain lodge. Margaret and I had done everything we could think of to prepare for the events to come, and all we could do now was stand there with everybody else and wait.
We’d reported for work two hours before, armed with a very simple plan: stop the murder. Even if we’d had time to think of something better, I don’t know what we’d have come up with, because we didn’t know anything about what was going to happen except that it had happened—in the cigar parlor on the top floor of Mr. Ratliff’s lodge. Yes. This was the kind of hunting lodge that came complete with a cigar parlor.
So for two hours, along with an army of maids, messengers, butlers, waiters, and gardeners, we helped prepare Mr. Ratliff’s digs for his arrival. His lodge was like something in a movie, gleaming, glimmering, gilded, burnished, bronzed, lacquered, layered, waxed, varnished, and spectacular, hidden up there amid the mountain ridges. Once, when I was little, my parents had led Preston and me into the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, to show us the mahogany tables, Tiffany glass, leather chairs, crystal decanters, and gold-plated boxes for keeping cigars in called “humidors.” I’m telling you what, that place had nothing on Mr. Ratliff’s lodge, except maybe the family of ducks swimming in the fountain.
Margaret’s job was to dust the antlers of all the animals Mr. Ratliff had shot over the years.
Me, they handed a bottle of furniture polish and sent into the parlor. There I stood, all alone in the room where it would happen, which might have been a stroke of luck, if I’d had any idea what was going to happen. On a giant oak desk sat a crystal paperweight big enough to crack a skull wide open, so I hid that behind a fern. I stashed a stray letter opener in the roots of a potted rubber tree. There was also a pen on the desk, heavier than lead. As I read the tiny gold letters along the cap (MATTERHORN: 24 K GOLD) something caught my eye in the corner of the room: a dumbwaiter. Judging from the aroma of roasting duck wafting out of it, I was pretty sure it led to the kitchen. Smoking cigars must’ve whetted Mr. Ratliff’s appetite. I wedged the dumbwaiter door open a hair, not enough to notice from inside the room, but enough to keep it from latching. At the bottom of the shaft, I could hear Margaret talking the cook into letting her keep Mr. Ratliff’s glass full during the meeting. The voices died out.
“Put it down, boy!” shrieked a voice from the doorway. I spun around to see Mrs. Orilla with her hands on her hips. “Don’t you get any ideas!” she snarled. I realized I still had that blasted Matterhorn pen in my hand, and I ditched it on the desktop pronto, shooting her an innocent smile. If that old lady had had any inkling what I actually did have in my mind, her hair would’ve fallen out on the spot. “Get out here in the hall and wait at attention with the rest of us!”
So I went to stand in line to listen to the rumors fly, and the wait dragged on. For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about that pen. I knew Mr. Ratliff was one of the good guys. But his pen—that one fountain pen, which lay all year on a desk in a hunting lodge collecting dust and got used maybe five days out of every three hundred and sixty-five, that one neglected solid gold toy cost enough to feed all of Canvasburg for a year. The lodge itself—the money sunk into that place would’ve fixed everything that was wrong in the lives of everybody I had ever known—forever—and I just had to wonder—
—and of course, as soon as my mind had drifted so far down this road that I almost had it in me to ask if Mr. Ratliff, white beard, pink cheeks, good intentions, and all, didn’t have a thing or two to answer for himself, all heck broke loose.
“Mr. Ratliff’s here!” shouted the butler from the front porch. “Mr. Biggs is here! Cue the quartet!”
And I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if there wasn’t an entire string quartet socked away in a corner that I had completely missed. The violins, viola, and cello launched into a song that called to mind a platoon of dukes in buckle shoes sashaying around a ballroom with their duchesses.
“Ah, Aristotle, welcome to my home away from home!” cried Mr. Theodore Ratliff as he swept through the front door, Aristotle Agrippa half a step behind, and Elijah Biggs bringing up the rear, coated in dust cut through with little arroyos of sweat. “You’ve convinced me, sir. Your ideas are fascinating. We’ll add them to the agreement right now. In addition to a living wage and safe working conditions, the Victory Corporation will also provide medical care at a fully equipped hospital. And fund a library. And endow a scholarship fund for the children! What’s good for the people is good for the company!” He twirled his walking cane. Biggs scowled.
To the assembled staff, Mr. Ratliff said, “At ease! Take a break! Earl, for heaven’s sake, go outside and have yourself a cigarette. My new friend and I will be in the parlor. Mrs. Orilla, please send up my Honey Brook Nectar in short order.” And with that, he led Aristotle and Biggs upstairs.
Margaret ran for the kitchen to grab the nectar for Mr. Ratliff, and I followed her, slipping into the massive kitchen. I caught her eye as she hurried past. “Good luck,” I whispered.
“Don’t worry,” she assured me, and while Mrs. Orilla described the terrible fate destined to befall any worker who spilled moonshine on Mr. Ratliff’s trousers, I climbed into the dumbwaiter, latched the hatch, and hauled on the rope.
The dumbwaiter wouldn’t budge.
I tried again, but even with all my weight hanging on the rope, nothing happened.
History resists.
Through the shaft above me, I could hear their voices.
“. . . little memento,” I heard Aristotle saying. “Thank you.”
“And now I propose a toast,” boomed Mr. Ratliff. “To Aristotle Agrippa. To the little boy in the newspaper. To the miners and their families. To an old man whose eyes have been opened!”
I heard the door creak, and I heard footsteps cross the floor. Margaret. Crystal clinked. Honey Brook Nectar gurgled from the bottle.
“To the future!” declared Mr. Ratliff. “Drink up!”
“I,” said Elijah Biggs distinctly, “refuse.”
“Drink the toast, Elijah,” said Mr. Ratliff. “So we can sign Aristotle’s agreement and change a few hundred lives for the better.” After a pause, he said it again. “Drink. Drink!”
“It’s all well and good,” came Biggs’s voice, finally, “for you to sit here on your mountain and play Santa Claus, giving away presents to every little miner who asks for something. Money, safety equipment, hospitals, libraries, scholarships, holidays, vacations. Well, bully for you. You got rich a long time ago. Now I’m the one who has to run the mine, I’m the one who has to make money, and if we start treating these dirty scum like people, and they get the idea they have rights, then my profits go up in smoke.”
“I ordered you to toast Aristotle Agrippa,” replied Mr. Ratliff stiffly.
“Toast Agrippa?” scoffed Biggs. “People like him are different from you and me. You can’t reason with them. You can’t talk to them. And you certainly don’t drink toasts to them. One day I’m going to be in charge of this company, and when I am, the last thing I need is a bunch of miners who think they have rights—”
“Unless you toast Aristotle Agrippa this second,” said Mr. Ratliff, “and do exactly as I say when it comes to the workers of Victory Fuels, that day might not come at all.”
“What are you saying?” asked Biggs.
“I’m saying toast Aristotle Agrippa,” replied Mr. Ratliff in a voice that left no doubt how he’d become the president of one of the largest companies on earth. “Now.”
“Mr. Ratliff,” began Aristotle, “there’s no need.”
“I think there is, though,” said Mr. Ratliff. “Elijah. We’re waiting.”
I heard a chair scrape across the floor. I heard it fall against the door of the shaft above me.
“Stop him!” cried Margaret. “He’s going to kill Mr. Ratliff!”
“Ridiculous!” sai
d Mr. Ratliff. “He’ll do exactly as I say. Elijah? What are you—”
And there I sat, stuck in the dumbwaiter. Desperate, I balled up my fists and punched the top until it splintered. Hand over hand, I climbed the shaft, but when I got to the top, the door opened three-quarters of an inch and jammed. Biggs’s chair had wedged against it. I was trapped in the shaft, hanging by my fingernails.
Through the crack in the door, I spied Mr. Ratliff frozen at his desk, clutching Aristotle’s favorite old Greek pen in his hand. Biggs lumbered slowly toward him, his face dead blank, holding the gold Matterhorn pen like—like a dagger.
“Mr. Ratliff! Watch youself! I think he’s really gonna—” shouted Aristotle, leaping to his feet.
But before he could grasp what was happening, Margaret sprang in front of Biggs, brandishing the crystal decanter of Honey Brook Nectar. And I swear, as sure as my name is Josh Garrett, the bearskin rug on Mr. Ratliff’s floor turned its head one sixty-fourth of an inch and snagged the heel of her large shoe with its teeth. She fell, and the bottle of nectar shattered, filling the room with a sharp, sweet odor.
History resists.
As Biggs stepped over her, Aristotle managed to grab him from behind, clamping down with all his strength while Biggs thrashed like a wolverine in a trap.
“Elijah,” snapped Mr. Ratliff, standing. “Get hold of yourself!”
“I’m done taking orders from you, old man!” snarled Biggs.
Margaret lay on the floor, dazed, struggling to regain her feet. And slowly Aristotle, strong as he was, lost his grip on Elijah Biggs. Greed. Rage. Hatred. Through a crack in a small doorway, I witnessed the precise moment when Biggs broke free.
“I don’t understand!” cried Mr. Ratliff.
I wedged my feet in the corners of the dumbwaiter shaft and shoved against the door with everything I had. It gave. I tumbled through and ran straight at Biggs, colliding with him halfway across the room. Maybe I should’ve gone out for the football team after all.
Biggs dropped the pen and struggled to focus his dazed eyes on me, but God bless Aunt Bridey, she’d glued my makeup on so tight, it would’ve stuck to a Hollywood stuntman diving off a runaway stagecoach. He didn’t know who I was.
I wrapped my arms around his knees and held on for all I was worth. It was like clutching a cornered grizzly bear. A mindless, black rage. He shook me off like a German shepherd shaking off his bath and snatched the gold pen from the floor.
Aristotle came swooping through the air to take it.
Half a second late.
Biggs plunged his weapon straight into the neck of old Mr. Ratliff, who began dying that second, taking all our hopes and all our futures with him.
And now Biggs had more evil to accomplish. He grabbed Mr. Ratliff’s ebony cane. Leaping sideways, he caught Aristotle square in the belly, doubling him over. Margaret almost seemed to know what was coming next. As Biggs raised the cane over his head to bring it down on the back of Aristotle’s skull, she started to lunge between them, but history did it again—the slick pool of spilled nectar sent her tumbling head over heels.
The cane descended with a nauseating crunch on the back of Aristotle’s skull. He dropped like a sack of flour. “Aristotle!” I cried, afraid he was dead. “Aristotle! Please!”
Elijah Biggs lifted the cane to deliver the fatal blow, but I managed to leap up and grab it from behind. Margaret scrabbled across the floor to shield Aristotle with her body. I realized that Biggs wouldn’t stop until he’d killed us all. I didn’t know whether he’d been planning to kill Mr. Ratliff all along or if he’d done it on impulse, but now that he had, his way forward was clear: we were witnesses. Alive, we could put him in the electric chair. Dead, we’d leave the path to the presidency of Victory Fuels wide open.
I tried to yank the cane away from him, but he was a cyclone of pure anger, and as for me—he would have to kill me before I let him hurt Margaret.
Frantic footsteps sounded outside the cigar parlor.
“Mr. Ratliff! Mr. Ratliff! Mr. Ratliff!” cried Mrs. Orilla from the hallway, rattling the door that Biggs must’ve locked behind them. “What’s happening?”
Margaret
1938
FOR A SECOND, THINGS GOT BLURRY, and the horrible noise of that cane against Aristotle’s head seemed to echo in my ears. My flailing hand found the edge of a table, and I yanked myself to my feet in time to see Biggs whirl around and clamber, caveman-like, his face bloated with rage, dragging a chair behind him toward the quaking door to wedge it tight so he could finish us off. I caught sight of Mr. Ratliff, and that’s when things got clear and real, way too real: his once slicked-back hair unstuck and falling in strings on his forehead, his face slack, his blue eyes blank and glassy like raw oysters, and blood, syrupy, brutally red, and smelling—I swear I could smell it—like pennies, soaking his white shirt. And there was Aristotle. Oh, Aristotle. He was real, too, and so human it could crack your heart in two.
I didn’t mean to say it, to make the promise I made. But somehow, when I looked down at Aristotle, white as death, but so brave, decent, and dad-like, I wanted like crazy to give him something. My first idea was to put all that precious blood that was pouring out of his head and onto the shiny wood floor back where it belonged, but that was impossible, and there wasn’t even time to try to stanch his wound. So what I did instead was cross my heart hard and say, “We’ll save Luke, Mr. Agrippa. I swear to you we will.”
And then I noticed his handkerchief and pen—the one not made of gold—lying next to him, and even though Biggs had turned and was striding toward me across the room, snarling like a mad dog, the black cane slicing the air, and even though Josh had jumped between us, his arms thrown out, and was shouting, “Run! Now!” I couldn’t stand the thought of Aristotle’s poor, ordinary personal belongings getting scooped up by Biggs or one of his minions and thrown away like nothing, so I stopped to scoop them up myself.
Then Josh was grabbing my hand, yanking me up, and we were bursting through the French doors to the balcony and then shimmying down a tree to the ground, and running, running, running, running till our lungs crackled and our hearts were about to jump straight out of our chests, running, running through the cool night air.
After what felt like forever, Josh pulled me down behind a big stand of shrubs and said, “Shhh.”
We crouched there, listening for shouting or footsteps. My held breath clawed at the inside of my chest like a caged animal. When we didn’t hear anything, we both fell backward onto the ground with a thunk and just lay there, panting, until our nerves, hearts, and lungs had settled down. More or less. In my case, less. I was pretty sure my entire body would never feel normal again.
We rested for a minute; then, slowly, we got up and started walking, but after a few yards, I saw stars in front of my eyes, grabbed my knees, and leaned over.
“You all right?” asked Josh.
“I don’t know,” I said hoarsely. “To tell you the truth, I feel kind of weird.”
“We-ll,” said Josh, slowly, “it’s been a weird kind of a day.”
Even upside down and in the dark, I could hear the dry note in his voice that meant he was grinning a half-sad, half-goofy grin, and somehow, that was just what I needed to hear. I stood up straight and grinned back.
“I hate to tell you this, but you seem to have lost your bald spot,” I said.
He patted the top of his head, tugging at his hair.
“Shoot, it’s a hair-growth miracle!”
Then he looked at me and laughed.
“You, on the other hand, seem to have hung on to your substantial, uh, caboose.”
I reached around, slapped myself on the false rump, and said, “Yee-haw!” and—wham—we just flat-out lost it. Hooted. Howled. We grabbed our rib cages. Tears ran down our cheeks. We laughed so hard, we had to sit down, me on my padded caboose. At some point, Josh yanked off his fake nose and threw it into the trees, and we laughed harder. It sounds like we were acting crazy
or disrespectful or something, but maybe this was how things were supposed to go: you saw the worst thing you’ve ever seen or imagined, a thing that made you feel a hundred years old and broken in a million places, and then you fell down on the ground laughing at the stupidest jokes like idiots or like the thirteen-year-old kids you were. Whether it was disrespectful or not, it sure felt good.
As our laughing turned sputtery, then hiccuppy, a thought struck me, knocking the last bit of laughter right out of me.
“Listen, listen!” I said, grabbing Josh’s sleeve. “Maybe he’ll blame us for the murder now. You know, the substitute kitchen help or whatever, since we were there this time!”
“What?”
“Think about it! Maybe we’ve saved Aristotle after all!”
Josh stared at me and then down at the ground, lowering his eyebrows in a way that was so exactly like what Charlie always did when he was pondering that it gave me a sharp twinge of homesickness.
“I hope so,” he said, “but I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Remember what you told me. History is going to show that the point wasn’t just to get rid of Ratliff and take over the company; the point was also to bring down Aristotle, so everyone would think he was a coward and would quit listening to him. If Aristotle were dead, maybe Biggs would’ve told people that two strangers attacked him and Mr. Ratliff, but since he’s not . . .”
I sighed. “He needs to make it look like Aristotle got double-crossed by Ratliff, wimped out about going back down to Canvasburg a failure, asked for money to get away, and then killed Ratliff when he wouldn’t give it to him.”
“I guess that’s about the size of it,” said Josh. I heard him repeat the phrase “wimped out” under his breath, like he was trying it out for the first time, which I guess he probably was.
By the time we got to Aunt Bridey’s, all the fresh, clean feeling the laughter had left was gone. When she opened the door, Aunt Bridey didn’t say a word, just took one look at us, pulled us inside the house, and hugged us, first Josh, then me.