Satin Skylines

Chapter Two - Lady Liberty

Chapter II -

Lawrence Belanger was normally a restless sleeper, and it didn't help one bit that he was sleeping in a brand new apartment in a bed where the springs were like Sandman's bayonets. As Lawrence stirred, the various honks, hits and the constant hum of New York City poured through a slight crack in his window. He threw his legs sluggishly over the left hand side of the bed, and slowly rose up. He went over to the small kitchen, and reached up greedily to the small cupboard in the top left of the kitchen. He unlocked it with a beautiful, antique key he kept on the string around his neck - he kept this key under his golden crucifix. Looking back, he can see the irony in this. In the cupboard, he had two half-empty fifths of malt whiskey. He grabbed the nearest glass, and started to pour himself a quick drink. He knew that prohibition was good for America, but he also knew that prohibition was no life for a man to live. Besides, he didn't see how a glass to calm his nerves would be hurting anyone.
He finished his whiskey, and chased it with some water. He locked the cupboard back up. Hopefully, this would be enough to help him at least get some sleep. He walked sluggishly back over to the window on his bedside, and he stared out into the city skyline. The sky was like a dark, royal blue satin with the city's skyline stitching its way through the fabric. It was a majestic sight, nothing like the view back in Massachusetts. The streets here never went dark, parties bumped and bustled all night, saxophone players soothed the city's street corners, and even during the day people found the most extravagant ways of entertainment. Despite the beauty, Lawrence felt threatened - like the walls were closing in around him. He knew this city was not to be messed with, in it were beasts he couldn't even dream to contain. There was crime festering in every corner, the Petri dish of America. Lawrence pushed the window shut, closing the sounds of the busy streets with it. He then rolled into bed, the purple luminescence of the room and the whiskey mixed effects and already started to shutter his eyes shut. As Lawrence drifted to sleep, he half sang a small prayer for luck and maybe a little bit of adventure on the side. Though, he had an unsettling notion that God may not tune into the prayers coming out of New York City.

The next morning, Lawrence walked to the NYPD station. He was shocked that even at 7:35 in the morning, the streets were surrounded by the airy feeling of jazz. Didn't these people have hangovers? While walking by an aged, saxophone player, Lawrence dropped a nickel into his hat on the sidewalk. The man momentarily stopped his rendition of Sweet Georgia Brown to thank Lawrence for his graciousness. Lawrence then walked by a newspaper stand, on the front page was a story of a shooting two nights prior at an illegal saloon party. A man named Henry Sawyer was found with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, and a man named Jacob Gilmore found with two shots through the head. Lawrence continued walking down the sidewalk, making mental note to research into the murders more later.
He reached the doors to the station, taking in the thick smell of cigars and ink. The room was a glorious lobby, with a chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. There was a long line of desks with secretaries in pistachio colored dresses, the closest secretary had a golden headband pulling back her frizzy hair. Lawrence came up to the woman, and when she spoke her thick New Jersey accent mingled and complimented her gum chewing. Lawrence felt more comfortable knowing he wasn't the only person who wasn't native to the city.
The woman did not look up from her sudoku puzzle as she asked,
"Name?" She seemed so annoyed with him already, like he had walked in and pissed on the the couch cushions and broke the pottery that held the plants.
"Lawrence Belanger... I am here to talk to Mr. Lovelace, it's my first day of the job." He answered, hoping being polite with the secretary will give him the benefit of first impressions. She furrowed her eyebrows initially, looking through the files on her desk, furiously smacking at her strawberry flavored chewing gum.
"Oh, yeah! Belanger." She said, pronouncing his name horribly wrong even though he had just said it for her. She stood up and leaned over the white and black marble desk to point out a hallway for Lawrence.
"Alright, so you're going to wanna go down that hallway, take a left, take another left... no I meant right, and then keep going straight past the lamp, turn left again, and Mr. L is going to be the third door on the right." She sat back down, picked up her sudoku puzzle back up, and sent Lawrence on his way - or just simply away from her.
Lawrence quickly rushed down the hallway, reciting her instructions twice over in his head. Take a left, right, past the lamp, left again, third door on the right. He got confused when he reached a three way intersection with no lamp, so he eventually retraced his steps and started over. He eventually reached the oasis that was the tall lamp. He went straight, and turned left to the final hallway. He then saw the olive door that had 'E. Lovelace' engraved on a golden plaque. Lawrence reluctantly lifted his hand to the knocker on the door, it was the shape of a lion roaring at Lawrence bravely. He feared that if he knocked too hard, the lion might bite off his pointer finger. He let out one feeble knock, but followed up with two bolder ones because his father would be rolling over in his grave if he saw him shyly tapping at his new boss' door.
"Playing with your new toy are you?" He'd probably say. Or he would say something like
"Are you going to beat at the damn thing finally?" After the final knock, Lawrence was pulled from his memory of his father by a holler from the other side of the door - "Come in!"
Lawrence peeked into the room to see the walls covered in stock full bookcases. His eyes then gravitated to the gigantic, brown globe in the corner of the office. It quite easily was as tall as Lawrence. Lawrence had to walk around the books and manila folders that covered the floor of the study, most of them were legal documents and law books - but Lawrence noticed some poetry and assorted biographies. He saw names flutter around him: Poe, Irving, Emerson, Whitman, and Doyle. He searched around the warmly lit room, sun was pouring by the bucket full into the room through the bay windows, but the old detective was nowhere to be seen. Lawrence knew that any meeting with Mr. Eugene Lovelace was an off the wall experience, but hadn't he just heard the old man's voice a moment ago? How could he be gone?
"Mr. Lovelace?" Lawrence spoke out into no general direction, before a loud cracking sound was produced from underneath the wooden desk, so loud that it made Lawrence jump nearly a foot. He heard a low, growl of a moan the old man crawled out from underneath the front end of the desk.
"Oh dear Christ, Mr. Lovelace are you okay? Why were you under there, sir?" Lawrence helped the man to his feet, he wore a green flannel and smelled like forest and bonfires.
"I'm quite alright young lad, and I've taken far worse to the forehead. And I'm afraid I cannot discuss why I was up under there..." Mr. Lovelace said as he stuffed a dried up piece of gum into his mouth, and placed a chisel onto his desk. The old man mumbled to himself as he walked over to a tall tower of papers, which he started to thumb through meticulously while singing "...Bulimic bears biting blueberries in Bora Bora..."
Lawrence knew that Mr. Lovelace was not quite all there from their previous interview, but as he was watching the man sing this peculiar song as his snow white beard twitched up and down - Lawrence wondered how in God's name was this looney tune his boss? Mr. Lovelace's brown eyes bounced rapidly between the papers at hand, the ceiling, and the three wide plastic globe in the far corner.
Suddenly, as if possessed by some spirit, Mr. Lovelace snatched a red dart from the ground, shouted a battle-like call, and threw the dart over Lawrence's shoulder across the room at a bookcase. The dart securely punctured into a red book that was leaning, lonely on the fourth shelf from the bottom. Lawrence sweated profusely.He did not expect to have sharp projectiles launched that close to his head on his first day as a detective. Either this man was a great shot and knew exactly where he wanted the dart to be, or his aim was horribly off and he had just made an attempt at Lawrence's life - and Lawrence speculated the latter. He was not sure how Mr. Lovelace composed himself so quickly after nearly putting a dart through Lawrence's eye - but somehow he was back to flickering through the papers as though nothing had occured.
"Would you mind grabbing that book for me, Mr. Belanger?" He said calmly. He then went back to singing his eery song "...before Big Boy Ben buys buoys because of Belize, Betty Crocker bakes beneath buzzing bees! Bubbling baskets between Brooklyn's buses..." Lawrence turned to go pick out the darted red book on the fourth shelf from the bottom. He pulled it out, to see that it was a thick poetry collection of poems from the19th century. Lawrence had no intelligence on literature, especially poetry. He wasn't even sure he knew any poets outside of William Shakespeare and Langston Hughes. He turned around on his heel, and Mr. Lovelace was right in front of him with a sunny smile - Lawrence jumped again from the unexpected apparition. Mr. Lovelace took the book out of his hands and in place, put a golden band on top of a beige folder labeled L. Belanger. Mr. Lovelace ripped out the red dart from the binding of the book, and started to thumb through the pages.
"Quite a lovely choice, young lad. Do you know what color dress America would wear if she were a person? " Lawrence was distracted by his badge, a shiny new toy, so when he looked up he was shocked to see the old man reciting a poem on top of his writing desk.
"America will not turn back; She did not idly start, But weighed full carefully and well - Her grave, important part." Lovelace jumped off of his desk, onto a black leather pillow that belonged to the loveseat but was actually lying on the ground. He then stepped onto the loveseat that owned the pillow.
"She chose the part of Freedom's friend, And will pursue it, to the end." he declared loudly while kicking another pillow off the couch.
"Great Liberty, who guards her gates will shine upon her course, and light the long, adventurous path with radiance from God's Source. And though blood dye that ocean track, America will not turn back!" He was now shouting with so much passion that Lawrence's mouth hung slightly ajar. The image of Lady Liberty came to Lawrence's mind, and stared him down. She knew of some unspoken guilt, that sent cold chills down his back. Lovelace grabbed a leaf from his potted aloe plant, and held onto it as he scaled up onto an armchair next to the couch.
"She will not turn until that hour when thunders through the world - The crash of tyrant monarchies by Freedom's hand down-hurled." He tossed the aloe leaf into some pile in the office, disregarding his surroundings as he recited the poem. He somehow gave each word a story of its own. Lovelace then leaped over from the armchair onto the wooden coffee table that was full of documents and cigar butts, gracefully breaking an antique ashtray. The clashing of breaking glass did not slow down Mr. Lovelace's fire, instead it seemed to steadily throw coal onto the heaping flames.
"While Labour's voice from sea to sea sings loud, My country, 'tis of thee!" Lawrence started laughing because Mr. Lovelace had actually began to sing in a falsetto voice that cracked at all the wrong places. Lovelace laughed along with the young man as he continued onto the next line.
"Then will our fair Columbia turn, while all wars' clamours cease, and with our banner lifted high proclaim - Let there be Peace," with this final line, Lovelace's vigor subsided. The room grew quiet as his pause permeated throughout the space. When he said the next line, he somehow quieted his voice so much that Lawrence had to strain to hear it - despite being alone with him in his office.
"But till that glorious day shall dawn: She will march on, she will march on." The words clung to Lawrence's ears and tugged at his knees. All his previous thoughts dropped one by one with the words from this poem.
Lovelace's eyes moved from the book in his left hand down to the broken ashtray, which was laid out like a homicide victim.
"Oh dear... Well good thing I don't smoke." He said as he picked up a shard from the floor. Lawrence pulled his attention to the ashtray as well. The shard was a dark glass, that reflected some green patches onto Mr. Lovelace's beard.
"If you don't smoke, why have such an expensive ashtray?" Lawrence asked, still bewildered from the curious series of events.
"Well, it was a gift from my late mother in law... She was quite the malicious woman. Ah, well." He shut the poem book promptly.
"By the way, the answer was white. It was a white dress." Mr. Lovelace said to Lawrence, which just added to Lawrence's brewing bafflement.
"That's quite enough lollygagging, if I do say so myself." The old man said as he dismounted his coffee table poetry stage. "We can not wait much longer, young Belanger. I must show you too the hive." He said like he was narrating some fairy tale novel. He hopped merrily towards the door, turning the bronze knob counter-clockwise. He then lead Lawrence down a narrow, poorly-lit hallway where the walls seemed to contract and expand with each step, which made Lawrence feel that the building was somehow breathing.
"I'm sorry if I come off rude sir, but aren't you supposed to be introducing me to my job?" Lawrence said, now that his curiosity had died down and he began to crash back to the reality that this was indeed his first day of working here. He was also hotly annoyed because he did not like the unexpected; He was not good on his toes.
"Oh, my dear boy, you have so much to learn. But poetry is not a lecture - simply more of a suggestion." Lovelace opened a door to a room with a sea of desks, and lively people weaving in between with mugs of coffee, stacks of papers, and black three ring binders with pencils behind their ears and a sense of determination behind their faces.
"My job is to acquaint you with your own job here, and how to perform it properly. But I was never told not to be friendly. You get your badge for the obvious reason of authority, but don't let a piece of cheap metal get to your head - you must stay on top of all things at all times in a job like this. You also get this nice file that Miss Osbourne assembled for you to give you your first assignment! How exciting! Read this to find out who to look out for and where to go first. And, most importantly, you get this book..." Lovelace stopped at an empty desk in the middle aisle; this one had a golden name plate that stated 'L. Belanger' on it. Mr. Lovelace set down the file on the desk, with the badge on top of that, while he persistently shoved the book into Lawrence's chest.
"...As a gift from me. People underestimate the power of this city and the people in it now a days, with all this hoopla and parties going on. The words in this book, though, really speak the message that the city is trying to speak. If you ever find yourself looking for guidance on how the apple operates, you can find it in poetry. If I'm not around, of course..." Lovelace drifted off as his eyebrows furrowed together and peered over his spectacles at Lawrence for a moment, lost in thought. After a moment of silence, Lovelace shrugged non-chantaly and sighed
"Anyways, find me if you ever have any questions on your assignments - or go find my partner... Mr. Gideon White." Lovelace struggled to get out the name of Gideon White, whomever that was, as he gestured to a door in the hive that was labeled with a few men's names - including G. White.
Lawrence nodded, repeating Gideon White in his head three times to try and retain it.
"I appreciate the help Mr. Lovelace, and the... book" He said reluctantly, he did not want his boss to think of him as ungrateful.
"Oh! That reminds me, call me Mr. L from now on. Lovelace is seven letters too long for this short life, my dear boy. I only make Miss Osbourne use my full surname because she always says it with this enthusiastic tick that makes me sound of importance." Mr. L said with a hearty laugh. And to think, for a moment, Lawrence had considered Mr. L a sane citizen. Lawrence awkwardly laughed along,
"Well then Mr. L, I should probably get settled in and look over these assignments then." He sat into his swivel chair, and Mr. L nodded.
"Yes, yes - you are right. Well I must leave you be then. Look them over, get settled in, and then you will have to talk to Mr. Nicholas Thomas. It will tell you how to reach him all in there." Mr. L said while gesturing to the manilla folder sitting on the desk. Lawrence nodded quickly as Mr. L walked away, seamlessly and almost mysteriously disappearing into the throngs of detectives hustling around the hive.
Lawrence turned to the files in the folder that had 'L. Belanger' written in neat penmanship. He opened it, and found pictures of four men, three of which had mugshots. The first man had greasy, dark hair and a slight stubble of a beard. The name underneath this photo was Jacob Gilmore. This man had been arrested multiple times for violent offenses and mafia relations never has been convicted. His records seemed so minimal it was almost like this guy appeared in New York out of thin air.
The second man had thicker hair and olive skin, with a thin line of a mustache. He had a heavy look of anger on his face. His name was Henry Sawyer. Just like the first man, this man had many arrests but appeared to only be convicted once back in 1913 of a cocaine possession charge.
The third mugshot was of a younger boy who had slicked back blonde hair, he looked too innocent to be in a mugshot but he did have dark purple bags under his eyes. His name was listed as Willie Davenport. He had only turned 19 this year, but he already had many run ins with the police. The final picture was not a mugshot, but it was a clear picture nonetheless. He had jet black hair that complimented the dark suit he was wearing. Lawrence also took note of the wave of a scar on this man's face. This man had a hefty record, for he was the mafia king Jonas Davenport. He was the older brother of Willie, but they did not look very similar to Lawrence.
The final sheet was directions to get to Nicholas Thomas' cell in the hive, and his contact information. Lawrence prayed that this Thomas man was not as off the wall as Mr. Lovelace, and that he would not have to worry about anymore darts being thrown in his face as he put all the files back into the folder. He stood up from his cell, put his badge on his belt, collected his folder, and started out to Nicholas Thomas' cell.