Django Durango

September 3rd, 1964

Harry Haworth found first exposure to Coconut Joy fascinating. It did feel cruel to watch new test subjects be given their first dose since no one ever had a good reaction to Coconut, but there was so little else to do in here and he was a scientist after all. Or had been. On good days, he had hopes – which he recognized as delusions on bad days – that he might one day be a practicing scientist again. He wasn’t watching his new cellmates’ reaction to Coconut to be entertained, he could reason with himself, but in the pursuit of knowledge.

He didn’t have access to the data to compare, but Haworth had a theory that the flavor of Joy one was taking before being admitted interacted with Coconut to create different responses. He liked to think, based on absolutely nothing, that his original Vanilla and Chocolate formulas produced mild reactions like giddiness, uncontrollable laughter, and dizziness while Verloc’s Strawberry caused nastier side effects like vomiting and paranoia.

Haworth was miffed at how close he had come to getting to watch this on a clear head. He was due for a dose of Crash after breakfast this morning and if Gemma had arrived today instead of yesterday, he’d have woken up tomorrow clear of all drugs and ready to make some observations. He hadn’t been dosed with Coconut yet today, but a residual sluggishness from yesterday’s dose persisted. On top of that, he was hungry. Out of experience and anxiety, he only ever picked at his food the night before and the morning of a Crash dose. As it was, he’d have to consciously ignore these distractions. Pulling his chair over a few inches from its usual spot, Haworth sat just far enough over so that he could see into Gemma’s window without looking like he was gawking.

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“Well, Constable,” Inspector Royston Luckinbill said, “what do you make of this?” They had the details from the latest murder attributed to Foggy Jack laid out on the table, ready to be integrated into their investigation boards.

“It don’t fit the M.O. at all,” Constable Burne-Jones told him, shaking his head at the photos and objects arrayed before him. “Foggy Jack’s murders are messy hack-and-slash affairs. This is much too clean to be him. There’s not even any blood. Not to mention the lack of toxic fog. Foggy Jack always leaves his victims in a patch of pea soup, don’t he?”

“Could perhaps the mustard gas be an improvised toxic cloud?” Luckinbill asked, purposely attempting to mislead him.

Burne-Jones shook his head again. “It’s a remote possibility, but not likely. Foggy Jack doesn’t actually use the fog to kill his victims. It’s more of a calling card than anything. The murders themselves are done with the cleaver. And that’s another thing. He never kills in the Garden District. There ain’t no attention in it.”

“Spot on,” Luckinbill praised. “We’ll make a detective of you yet. What else is wrong with this picture?”

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Today, Rodney was shadowing Valerie, the Reform Club’s hostess, at the front door.

“Working the door is about maintaining safety and security, greeting our members, making sure everyone is paid up on their dues, and – most importantly – making a quick assessment of each client’s needs each night so that you can give their handler a heads up on anything different they might need to account for.” Rodney’s face fell a bit, surprised by how much more work the door seemed to be. “You thought I just stood here making goggle-y eyes at Constable Rowlandson all night, didn’t you?” Valerie teased. She and the constable shared a chuckle at Rodney’s expense and her pun. “Don’t worry. It’s easier than it sounds.”

“In general, there’s two kinds of people who come to the club,” she explained. “First are the socialites. These are your Sally Boyles, your Dr. Verlocs – don’t ever call him Anton when he’s here – and your Nick Lightbearers.” She ticked each dropped name off on her rubber-gloved fingers. “Before he trashed the Rumpus Room anyway,” she added with annoyance, revoking the finger she’d marked Nick off on. “They’re not really here for most of our services. This is just a nightclub with a kinky theme to them.”

“So they’re poseurs?” Rodney asked, leaning against the counter to mimic Valerie’s stance.

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“He’s not even a scientist,” Anton Verloc said. He glanced dismissively around at the party to celebrate the opening of The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. “He makes kitchen gadgets for bored housewives.” He sneered at Richard Arkwright, who was chatting animatedly with Lionel Castershire. Verloc felt Castershire had even less business being here.

“Richard Arkwright,” Harry Haworth leaned in and said to Verloc in a lowered tone, “is the smartest person in this room.” That was saying something, considering the entirety of Wellington Wells’ scientific community was in attendance. Haworth had brought Verloc to this party to introduce him to those who would become his colleagues. Scientific endeavors in Wellington Wells were often a collaborative effort, so it would behoove the boy to do some networking.

“He doesn’t even have a doctorate,” Verloc said, rolling his eyes. Haworth watched in annoyance as they landed on the starry-eyed shop girl Stewart Adams had crassly brought instead of his wife, Fiona. He did note with reluctant approval that the girl had the presence of mind to forgo flirting with Dr. Faraday and engage his wife in conversation instead.

“No, he does not,” Haworth said patiently. “What he does have is the good sense to leave the future in the future instead of promising it tomorrow like the rest of us do.”

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Virgil Dainty played a dangerous game with his lyrics, but he understood the magic of music. You could say just about anything in a song. The words were immaterial; what mattered was how they made you feel.

—

The recommended dose of Joy did not last through the night. That was why Uncle Jack came on first thing in the morning with his show, Wakey Wakey. His cheerful bombast cut through all thought and made it impossible to focus on the vague feelings of memory lurking under the dissipating fog of one’s last dose. Uncle Jack also reminded everyone to take their morning dose, so Wakey Wakey was a tidy solution to the problem of morning Joy lag for most people.

Virgil didn’t watch Wakey Wakey. When Virgil woke up in the morning, he rode that thinning haze out to the very edge his memory and used what he found there. As long as one didn’t linger too long, one could look at it all with some detachment, as if the memories belonged to someone else.

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