Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) Read Free

revolutionist movement is even bigger in Moscow and Saint Petersburg,” Morton went on. “And intelligence says that the reds over there have been shipping hardcore rabble-rousers to London to influence and stir things up even more. Something’s got to be done or we’ll lose control over our own bloody city!”
    “And am I to identify these Russians?” Lazarus asked.
    “If you have the chance. But you are to report on all developments in socialist circles, Russians, Jews or anybody else.”
    Russians, thought Lazarus, remembering Katarina’s pale breasts and the scent of her perfume, crumpled sheets smelling of their sweat in a Parisian hotel room. Of course it was ludicrous to think that by coming into contact with some of her countrymen he would somehow be drawn closer to her. As the niece of a high-ranking member of the Okhrana, Katarina was no revolutionary. But for some reason, the mention of Russians made the whole business seem not altogether unappealing.
    “Who is this fellow I’m to be working with?” he asked.
     

Chapter Two
     
    In which a fine performance is given at the Lyceum Theatre
     
    By the time Lazarus left Morton’s office it was too late to pursue his cobbler in Stepney. That appointment must wait for another day. And besides, he had tickets to the theatre that night and had to go home and get changed. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was showing at the Lyceum. The production had opened in Boston the year previously and was currently enjoying great success in London. But Lazarus’s interest in the play was more than a mere desire for an evening’s entertainment. He had heard of the novella by R. L. Stevenson but had not read it, his academic pursuits leaving little time for the reading of anything but scholarly works. His main reason for choosing this production in particular was that he knew the actor who played both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
    He had met Richard Mansfield in New York, shortly after his business in the American Southwest had come to its climax. It was in the wake of Katarina’s first departure from his life that he had found himself wandering Broadway, frequenting the saloons and gambling dens of that city of dreamers and philanthropists. He was mustering the courage to return home to London and take up service with the bureau again, postponing the inevitable in a haze of whiskey and opium smoke, when he ran into Mansfield outside of Barnum’s American Museum.
    A British actor and theater manager with the Union Square Theatre Company, Mansfield was an eccentric, outgoing and endlessly energetic fellow. They had taken to each other immediately and began seeking adventure in New York’s shadiest corners; two limeys in a cultural mixing pot that exuded every exotic odor known to man. Lazarus would often attend Mansfield’s plays on Broadway and marvel at how the man could perform after a night of girls and liquor. After the shows they would hit the town once more.
    Lazarus had rarely had the time to miss old friends in the years that had followed. It was only now in this seeming lull in his life that he began to dwell on past acquaintances and the fun times they had shared. And here was Richard Mansfield himself in London.
    The hansom dropped Lazarus off at the pillared entrance to the Lyceum Theatre where a mass of patrons had already gathered. He squeezed past the throng of gentlemen in top hats and overcoats and ladies in their finest evening wear, to the lobby where he was taken to his velvet-lined box seat that overlooked the left of the stage. He rose and smiled politely as the elderly couple with whom he was to be sharing the box with sidled in and made themselves comfortable. He looked down on the rows of seats as they gradually filled up. It was to be a full house, confirming the hype the play had elicited from the press and public despite its mixed reviews.
    While many journals applauded the play’s impressive effects and grotesques, others accused it