THE DANTE CLUB Lost Chapters

This page contains a "lost chapter" of The Dante Club—a chapter or section that didn't make it into the final version of the novel. Some include plot elements and characters not present in the printed edition.

"Soothsayer"

LIEUTENANT REY led Howells into the back room of the Beehive saloon. A graying Negro doorkeeper stopped them well before the green cloth covered tables, which were besieged by a veritable army of merchant types hollering for their particular card to be drawn from wooden dealer's boxes. A pair of waiters pushed past the doorkeeper, shouldering trays of oysters and smoked haddock to restock an already overflowing buffet of food, which stood beside a row of free wines and liquors, helping to persuade patrons to stay put, at least until they ran out of money. Two assistants stood on either side of the dealer, recording the games' outcomes in notepads and watching for any cheating (that is, cheating not being sanctioned by the house).

"We're here for Mr. Barwell," said Rey.

"Sorry, folks. He ain't in," the doorkeeper replied.

"We need you to be very sure," Rey flashed his identification.

The liveried doorkeeper glared at Rey and his card, his mouth falling open. "Why, you was in the 55th Massachusetts, wasn't you?"

Rey nodded.

"Why, my nephew served under you! Private Sykes?"

"Yes, I remember him," said Rey.

"This boy was the first colored sergeant in the whole Union army," the man boasted to Howells, smiling widely and patting Rey's back with his yellow-gloved hands.

"Please, sir. It is urgent we speak with Barwell at once."

"I tell you true he ain't here, Officer."

"Perhaps we can take a look for ourselves," said Rey.

"They'll have my job if I let you bust in and the ruin the game. Please. I vow to you on the sweet Lord, he ain't here." One of the dealer's assistants glared in the visitors' direction. The doorkeeper pulled them aside and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Simon Trent's been running the place for a week now, and all the racing and policy parlors to boot. Barwell's vanished, and I ain't seen his two burners neither. Have you been to empty warehouse by the railroad tracks?"

Rey shook his head.

"If anybody knows I told you…" the man asked.

"Nobody will," Rey said.

"The word's been around that nobody's to be caught near the place. I think something bad went down there and Barwell loped with his men to Canada or somewhere. A few of the porters went to check it out, and ran off, not saying another word about it. If I weren't smart a man as I am, Officer, I'd say it was haunted."

"I must admit, Lieutenant, I was not aware that you were our army's first colored officer," Howells said as he and Rey made their way downstream through the crowded tenements and rooming houses of Ann Street.

"The Negro regiments had been promised equal pay as the other regiments, but once enlisted were given three dollars less. Many of the men's wives lived in destitution while we waited for pay, many wives and children who were sick died without treatment. Colonel Hartwell decided to commission a Negro officer," Rey explained, "to calm down the ranks."

"Still," Howells smiled, "what an honor that it would be you!" He tried to register Rey's expression, but found it impossible to read.

"I wonder if you could clear something up for me, Mr. Howells," Rey said. "Dante claims he travels through Hell in 1300. He is exiled from Florence two years later. Dr. Holmes said that all the condemned spirits Dante comes upon in Hell can foresee his exile. If I understand this, doesn't that mean that all the condemned souls in Hell have the gift of prediction, but these Soothsayers are punished for that same ability?"

"An excellent point, Lieutenant Rey," Howells replied. "But it is very possible that the capacity for augury bestowed upon the sinners of Hell is in fact a penalty in itself. You see, the shades in Hell remember the past, and, yes, they can see the future, but they have no sense of the present. One of the shades describes the sensation to Dante as having the ability only to see things that are distant from them. 'When they draw near, or are, our intellect is wholly vain.' Hell is 'sanza tempo,' outside of time - both in the sense that it is eternal, and because it is severed from time as it occurs."

Rey found the door to the startlingly quiet warehouse by the railroad tracks unlocked, and waved Howells in behind him. As they stepped inside, both men jerked their coat sleeves, almost involuntarily, over their faces. At the end of the room, three men's bodies sat leaning against the backs of a bench. Their chests, arms, and legs looked altogether normal. But above their necks, instead of faces Rey and Howells saw only hair, shaggy layers of overgrown hair. Rey walked around the bench to the other side, facing the men's backs. Only there he found their beards and eyes, noses and faces. Drool and blood had dried all over their chins and in their beards.

"Barwell," Rey whispered, kneeling down to examine the bodies. "And that's Luthey and Michaels, his top men. Lucifer cracked their necks," Rey leaned in, "and twisted their heads all the way around..."

"Because he wished to see too far before him," Howells recited, "Behind he looks, and backward goes his way."

"I'd say they've been left like this for at least a week," Rey said.

Howells could not help himself from walking around the bench to peer at the twisted heads. As he did, he stepped in a pool of vomit a few feet away from the scene. "Someone must have found them," Howells cried, backing away. "Why didn't they report it?"

"Everyone around owns a warrant or two out for them," Rey explained. "It would be safer if they just waited."

"If this is Lucifer's murder from last week," Howells said, "that means there's still one waiting to happen. We must return to Craigie House," Howells said.

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