Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (12 page)

“I'm supposed to
find a yellow beard,” I explained.

“What?”

I showed them the
scrap. The Doll wrinkled her nose at it.

“Skeptical,” she
said.

I shrugged and
watched as she again took out a small, golden tube.

“What is that?” I
asked. “I saw you with it on the tour.”

She pulled off the
top and revealed a fresh roll of lipstick.

“A gift,” she
proudly said.

“Where'd you get
it?”

“Woman in the
sky.”

“I wouldn't use
it.”

“Of course. You’re
a boy.”

“I mean,
you
shouldn’t
use it, Dolly.”

“Why not? It's
pretty.”

“It came from
someone else. How clean do you think it is?”

“She said it was
brand new.”

“Just the same...”

The Watchmaker's
Doll went ahead and ignored me, pursing her lips and lifting the tube to them.

“Dolly—“ I began.

“Hush. Now, hold
still. I need your face.”

“Eh?”

She pushed one of her
small hands against my cheek, steadying my head, and leaned forward to me. I
realized she was peering into my green half-glass. Or rather, her reflection in
it. Then, studying the mirrored image, Dolly took her lipstick and began
painting. Softly, like a baker drawing lines of frosting across the top of a
great cake, she traced the girlish shape of her lips and puckered once, then
twice.

“How do I look?”
she asked me.

“Fine,” I said,
looking at my boots. “Um, pretty nice.”

She puckered again
and then let out a soft moan.

“I'm bored,” she
announced.

“Me too,” Kitt
agreed.

“This place is
muddy.”

“A little bit,” I
admitted. “You want to move on?”

“To where?” Dolly
asked.

I shrugged again.
She moaned again. Kitt rolled his head.

“Someone lost
their balloons,” he said, looking up at the sky. I glanced skyward. An entire
cluster of hydrogen-filled, toy balloons, blue with yellow stars, were floating
above our heads.

“Flock of 'loons,”
the Doll said to her own amusement.

“Where do you
think they came from?” I asked.

“There's some kind
of caravan on the other side of the park,” Kitt said. “Looks like they were
selling things.”

The Doll perked up
and gave Kitt a hopeful stare.

“Do you suppose
they sell 'loons?”

The fox grinned.

“Perhaps... Don't
know...but perhaps...”

“Say Pocket...”

“Yes?”

“Would you mind
taking an intermission for a minute? I've gotta run these old glasses to the
back.”

“I can talk pretty
loud. You'd probably be able to hear from back there.”

“Eh, don't wanna
risk it. It'll be just a minute, I swear.”

“Sigh...fine. Oh.
Hey, Alan. There's someone knocking on the front door.”

“Tell them we're
closed.”

“I don't work
here.”

“Pocket, I've got
my hands a little full at the moment.”

“All right. I’ll
handle it. Just—Hang on! I’m coming for the door! One moment! Let me get it—ah!
There we are. Hello?”

“…hello…”

“Hello, miss. I’m
sorry, but we've already closed for the night.”

“...closed…but I…”

“Yes. Afraid so.
Bad timing.”

“...oh...I see…”

“Probably best
that you head back from where you came. Shelter up. Get out of the weather.”

“...suppose I
should...”

“Uh, are you all
right, miss? Miss, I...what…excuse me, what are you—“

“Goodnight.”

“Um, goodnight to
you, madame…huh…odd…”

“Pocket?”

“Yes, Alan?”

“What was that
about?”

“I'm not sure.
Some woman looking for a drink. Told her we were closed and she started
whistling in my ear.”

“Whistling?”

“Isn't that the
damndest thing?”

“Probably a drunk
at this time of night.”

“Right...”

“Come on. Back to
the bar and sit down. Get on with that story.”

“Uh...sure...I mean,
right, of course. Where was I?”

“The Dolly wants
some balloons.”

“Mmm...”

“Pocket?”

“Right! Sorry,
Alan. I was...that whistling, something about that tune that—“

“Pocket.”

“What?”

“Balloons.”

“Right, right.”

The caravan Kitt
had noticed was parked on its red-and-mud-painted wagon wheels on the other
side of the clearing. Fold-out shelves revealed numerous knick-knacks and
contraptions while a large banner was hung above the whole operation. “THE
MARVELOUS MARINS' MODERN CURIOSITY SHOP AND CURE-ALL TRAVELING PHARMACY,” it
read.

Medicine peddlers.
No thanks.

A hissing sound
was heard from the side of the caravan and the Doll hurried over without
thought. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and grudgingly followed behind.

A round-faced man
with a wild look in his eyes sat bent over a set of small steps that led up to
a breakaway wooden stage that had been erected and slammed against the wagon. A
cluster of yellow-on-blue balloons were bunched together and tied by their
strings around the man's left shoe.

A long, yellow
beard flowed from his chin.

Under his arms was
a large, and noticeably rusty, canister with a coiled nozzle springing from the
end. He was in the act of stretching a deflated balloon over the nozzle with
one hand while turning a valve with the other. It squeaked at his touch and the
balloon began to expand.

“That's pretty
neat,” Kitt said. The man turned his eyes on him and the balloon popped off of
the nozzle, the air inside firing it like a shot into the trees.

“Oh...” Kitt said.
“I'm sorry. Do you need some help with that?”

The man just gave
a wild grin and began to giggle. A second voice came from inside the wagon.

“The good doctor
is a modern man!” the voice from within shouted. “He needs no assistance with
the grapples of technology!”

Grapples of
technology?

“Let him be with
his craft! Let him be!”

We looked at the
man, the “doctor,” for confirmation of this claim. He widened his grin and
puffed up his cheeks.

“My brother is
excitable,” the yellow-beard chortled, reaching for a fresh balloon. “What do
you need from me?”

“Nothing,” I tried
to say over the Doll's persisting questions.

“You are the
keeper of the balloons?” she asked. “Are they for sale?”

He somehow managed
to widen his grin even further.

“Everything is for
sale.”

He launched into an
excited pitch into the simple wonder of balloons, such a subtle luxury for our
day and age. He recalled a hunting expedition he claimed he had once led
through the frozen Arctic at the ends of the world. He spoke of rolling over
ice-coated fields, spearing mammoths and polar bears from his perch upon a
large, gas-powered traveler's balloon.

“You can balloon
through the Arctic?” I asked dryly.

He giggled again
and tipped his toes toward us, moving the cluster of inflated balloons for the
Doll to view. She bent forward and softly poked her finger into the middle of a
yellow star. The group bounced against each other.

“I had another
bunch,” the doctor said, referring to the flock in the sky. “But they must've
jumped ship.”

I was tempted run
off into the distance as quickly as my legs could take me, but then the strange
balloonist began stroking his yellow beard and I remembered my fortune. Surely
it must be a coincidence, but as a man of stories and limericks, of legend and
myth and tales grand, I was compelled to...no, actually, I still wasn't buying
into it.

But regardless...

I planted myself
and listened to what he had to say, which was surprisingly little. He spoke in
brief statements and chuckles, letting his gazes and gestures instead do the
telling. I was waiting for the inevitable moment when he would start throwing
price tags at the Doll, whose deep eyes would turn on me or Kitt in inquiry of
how such a glorious thing as a balloon could be in her sweet possession.

Before that scene
was able to play out, however, the voice from the wagon decided to return.

“Brother!” it
shouted. “The frog's loose again!”

The doctor sighed
and twisted his neck towards the wagon.

“Well, put a bit
of cheese in his cage and he'll wander back!”

“I did!”

“Which cheese?”

“The yellow!”

“Not that cheese!
The
good
cheese! Are you trying to insult him? The whiter bits.”

“Fine!”

A man kicked open
a door and stomped out of the caravan, picking rags off of his body. The rags
were instantly recognizable to me and I began grinding my teeth. The would-be
beggar from the park plucked off his impoverished costume, revealing a rather
stately, albeit slightly beaten and torn, waistcoat monogrammed with a capital
“P” over the breast pocket.

“Though if you ask
me, the frog should start pulling his weight around here if he expects to dine
upon...oh...hello.”

He had caught
sight of me. I crossed my arms and frowned.

“Trust the golden
beard, right?”

The doctor giggled
at his brother and let another balloon off into the sky.

“So I see you met
the Marin boys.”

“You know them,
Alan?”

“You joking? You
can't get away from them in this city. They drive that heap around, shouting
about the progress of society and the mechanical future, and sell you soap.”

“That seems about
right.”

“They told me they
were financial opportunists, riding the—”

“The wave of
tomorrow on the back of innovation.”

“Right. You didn't
buy anything off of them, did you Pocket?”

“No. To keep me
quiet about the fortune teller scam, they gave the Doll a clump of balloons
free of charge. Why, have you?”

“Miracle soap.”

“How'd it work
out?”

“Turned my toes
three colors I didn't know existed.”

“Miraculous.”

“Exactly.”

The Doll sat and
admired her acquisition as the Marvelous Marins formally introduced themselves.
The man with the balloons and the maniac's grin stood, bowed, and peeled the
false horsehair beard off of his actual naked chin. He was wearing a jacket,
similar to his brother's, monogrammed with a “D” but in slightly better wear.
D. Oswald Marin, or Doctor D, as he dubbed himself, was the self-described
“eyes” of the peddling outfit. Speaking of outfits, his was a sight. Every
piece of clothing he was dressed in was tagged and priced, as the man was
literally quite eager to sell the shirt from his back. And it wasn't just clothing
that he wore. Draped across his entire person were pieces of available
merchandise. Slightly-used pots and pans hung from his waist on ropes, as did
shoes, cutlery, teacups on a string, and even children's toys. He was a
storefront on two legs, an ornament of seller's tags.

His twin brother,
the quite vocal P. Cosgrove Marin, alias Doctor P, was the self-proclaimed and
obviously-evident “voice” of the operation. Doctor P was the proverbial
silver-tongued merchant, singing in the streets to man and woman, elder and
child, dog and cat, whoever would listen and stood a chance at buying what his
brother had gathered to sell. Doctor P was also never above putting his own
safety on the line to clinch a sale, as when he once donned wheeled skates
and...heh, well, I'll get to that later.

The Marin boys
specialized in peddling rare potions, creams, balms...

“Soaps...”

“Soaps, right.
Thank you, Alan.”

...random
amenities of house and home, and what they considered “modern gadgetry.” They
painted a verbal picture of me and Kitt ascending to a position of men of
industry, leading Britain in its march toward a technological era of
prosperity.

“These guys are
sounding like the King with a worse shave job,” Kitt whispered to me.

“Not interested in
progress, Kitt?”

“Oh sure, I am. I
guess. How does one, uh, progress to an era of prosperity?”

“Best I can
figure, by buying their junk.”

“Are you being
sarcastic, Pocket?”

“Yes I am, Kitt.”

The Marins also
tried to build up the Doll with the idea of becoming a modern woman, but she
ignored them, much more taken with playing with her balloons. I apologize,
reader, listener, Alan, or whoever, if my narrative representation of her is
striking you as overtly childlike. I am aware that she has these tendencies,
but I can assure you...well...she is also so much more.

Anyhow, the Marins
insisted that we look about their mobile shop before leaving the park. They
simply wouldn't take “no” for an answer, which is unfortunate, as I wasn't
prepared to offer anything else. But they seemed altogether harmless so I
smiled and let them show me their shop. Weird gadgets lined their shelved. They
appeared to be small machines, but different from the machines that I had found
strewn throughout the watchmaker's basement in that the watchmaker's devices
appeared to be functional. Kitt picked up an apple-shaped contraption and
rubbed some grease off of it.

“That's eight
pounds,” Doctor P said.

“Weight or price?”
Kitt asked.

“Hrmmm...” He shot
a look to his brother who made a string of silent hand signals back. “Both.”

“What does it do?”

“It cures
madness.”

“Madness?”

“Yes.
Revolutionary thing. Cobbled by a Swiss mathematician who dabbled in these
things.”

“Dabbled in what
now?”

“The device, quite
ingeniously, reads your fingershapes.”

“Prints.”

“Reads your
fingerprints and calculates from the shape the very nature of your mental
instability, you know, finger pattern, brain pattern, and radiates a certain
pheromone, it's invisible and odorless, don't try to detect it, radiates a
pheromone that when taken in through the nostrils adjusts your mental chemistry
to that of a completely normal state.”