Hell's Gate (16 page)

Ginny paid her dime and went inside the dimly lit hall. The fog and reek of cigarettes and the stink of unwashed bodies hit her like a wall, but a piano player in a straw boater by the screen tinkled out a quickstep that kept the crowd moving. The house filled and the lights went down. Suddenly, with the whir of unseen machinery, the screen came to life and the piano jangled dramatically.
WHAT HAPPENED ON TWENTY-THIRD STREET, NEW YORK CITY
flashed on the screen in black letters. They were gone in less than ten seconds, replaced by a view of the Flatiron Building, looking like the bow of a great ship plowing the concrete of Broadway. Carriages skittered by. Pedestrians walked with quick, jerky movements. A flag could be seen fluttering from atop one of the buildings on the Ladies' Mile. A horsecar came into view and one passenger jumped down at the corner of Twenty-third and Broadway. It took only a moment for Ginny to get used to the lack of color and only a moment more to feel as though she was actually there, standing by the park as the world put on a show just for her.

The whole thing lasted only half an hour. There were two more short films accompanied by the hardworking piano player. One was a boxing match, the other a rags-to-riches fable set in a Hester Street tenement. For thirty minutes, Ginny forgot about Johnny Suds, about Miss Gertie, her loneliness, and even about Mike. She remembered him when the lights came up and she saw couples sitting close. She wished he'd been there with her, holding her hand as they filed out into the electric night.

She was on the corner of Chrystie Street when a man stepped in front of her. “Hey, doll,” he started, the rest she didn't catch. She'd already grown used to the propositions of strange men and had ceased to listen to their cajolings. Almost every man on the Bowery seemed to be either a pimp or a sport. She'd attracted a string of them, one more insistent than the last. This one was different though. He wouldn't step aside and wouldn't quit. He wasn't rude. In fact, he was almost well mannered in a Bowery sort of way. She could not get a good look at his face though. She knew instinctively how dangerous it was to meet the eyes of a strange man here. He followed her for half a block, talking sweet, asking her where she lived and if she'd like to spiel, which she understood meant some kind of dancing. She shook her head at all of his efforts. He gave up at last but without the bitterness that some men showed at her rejection.

“Hope I'll see ya 'round, doll. Me heart's all but broke till I do,” he said to her back, which drew a little smile across her lips. “I see ya smilin', doll,” he called after her. “I'll be here t'morra. Come see me.”

“Fuckin' bitch!” Ginny heard the shouting from nearly a block away and turned to see the commotion. The man who'd just been propositioning her was there with another woman, arguing as she gestured wildly, hands cast open.. He hit her with his fist and she fell like a rag doll. Ginny didn't look back, but she could hear shouted curses and the wailing of the woman. Instead she ran until she could hear the cries no longer.

16

PHOTO DAVE STOOD outside Barney's Old Treehouse Saloon, waiting for Chuck Connors to finish his bullshit. The man had made a career of it, spending half his day conducting tours of the Five Points and Chinatown, the rest spent lubricating his prodigious vocal cords. He was finishing up with some slumming uptown types and a couple of foreigners, giving them one last grisly tale of the Old Brewery and its cellar full of graves. The place had been the most notorious hellhole in the city, disease and murder taking its residents in equal measure. When the place had been torn down, dozens of bodies were found buried under its earthen floor …

“A word,” Dave said when Connors had finally gotten rid of his tour and approached the door to Barney's.

“Huh?” Connors grunted without really looking at Dave.

“Big Tim,” Dave said, “I got a message from 'im.”

Connors looked then, looked closely. “Well, Dave, damned if it ain't yerself. C'mon in.” He led the way to his back table where Chinatown Nellie waited over a nearly empty bottle of gin. “Hey, sweetie, get us a new bottle like a good molly, eh?”

“Fuck you, Chuckie,” she said, but she got up to do it with a devilish grin nonetheless.

“Great ass on 'er,” Chuck said, watching her walk to the bar. “That woman gonna kill me wit that ass.”

“Worse ways to go,” Dave said, though he didn't look.

“Yeah,” Chuck said. “So how's it Tim didn' come 'imself?”

“Busy,” Dave said. “He says to tell ya he'll … he's gonna … what the hell was that word he used? Tim's got some words you never did hear of. It was like inter … something.” Dave fished about and a moment later came up with it. “Intercede! That's it. Tim's gonna intercede on behalf of your client. Those were his exact words.”

“Okay,” Chuck said. “Glad to hear it. “He didn' say when it's gonna get fixed?”

“Didn't say.”

“What'll I tell my … ah … friend?” Chuck said. “I mean he's in a hell of a bind.” Chuck didn't want to say more to Photo Dave. He wasn't sure how much Big Tim might or might not have told him about Lionel Saturn or the Knickerbocker Steamship Company.

“Don't know. Tell him Big Tim's gonna intercede. That should fuckin' well be enough.”

“'Course it is. 'Course it is.” Chuck said, seeing that Photo Dave had developed a sour frown. “Damned if you ain't right, an fuck 'im if it ain't good enough.”

“Right,” Dave said with one raised eyebrow. He got up to go.

“Leavin' without a drink?” Chuck asked. A breach of etiquette in his book.

“Things to do,” Dave said. “Tim keeps a full schedule doin' the people's work. Another time.”

Chuck waved him off. “Me regards ta Big Tim,” he said so the rest of the bar could hear, before turning toward his girl. “Nellie, you sweet little bundle, sit that bottom on me lap like a good molly an' we'll see if we can find the bottom o' this bottle.”

17

“HOW IS THE hand?” Primo asked when he met Mike at the station house the next morning. “The pain, it is keeping you up?”

“Pain?” Mike said, seeming confused. He knew he wasn't looking so good. He hadn't shaved and there were deep circles under his eyes. “Oh, yeah, the hand. Hurts some.”

“Uh-huh,” Primo said. “You no look so good. Maybe you need a day off.”

“Ginny,” Mike mumbled as if he hadn't heard. “She had a … problem at the place an' they … well. She left.”

“The girl? The one you sent the flowers?”

“Yeah.”

“Mamma mia. You are in love! Look at you. You are like shit from the goat. We will find this girl, no?” Primo said, as if that were a matter of course.

“And there's another thing,” Mike added with a weary but satisfied tone. “I learned a little something about the Bottler.”

“How, the hell did…?”

“I went after a guy, a guy that Ginny was with … at the house. He needed some straightening out, so…”

“So you straightened him,” Primo said with a little grin. “But why do I think he is not so straight really.”

“Yeah, well,” Mike said. “Truth is I nearly killed the bastard. Came that close.”

“And? What does that have to do with this Bottler?”

“Everything,” Mike said, then took a deep breath and told Primo what he'd learned from Johnny Suds.

*   *   *

“Okay, so we find the girl—” Primo started to say once Mike had finished.

“Maybe,” Mike said as he dropped into his chair.

“What is this maybe? We will find her. That is all there is to that.”

“I talked with the captain,” Mike replied. He stopped to check on who was within earshot. “He wants us to see that cop; the one that got stomped by those two guys.”

“Shit! I was hoping maybe we could get out of that.” Primo threw up his hands “When it rains it comes in the cats and dogs.”

“You mean it pours,” Mike said. “Suppose you're right about that.”

“Right. It pours in cats and dogs.”

Mike gave a slight shake of his head. “So whadya mean by that anyway? What else is going on?”

Primo handed him a note. It was written in Italian. The letters were big and jagged like stabs at the page. Whatever it said, it was no love letter. “What's it say?” Mike asked, turning it over to check the other side. “How'd you get it?”

Primo pulled a knife from his pocket. It was a stiletto, with a long, thin blade and an ebony handle. Primo raised it and jabbed it down into Mike's desk, where it quivered dramatically, which seemed to please him somehow. “The note, it was stuck to my door with that. To make a long tale a short story, it says they will cut me up into little pieces and feed me to pigs.” Primo shrugged. “The usual thing.”

“Pigs?” Mike said, not entirely sure that Primo wasn't making one of his jokes.

“Pigs. Sure. They eat anything, bones, shoes, brains. They are not so picky eaters.”

Mike grimaced. “Nasty. The Black Hand?”

“Of course. They no forgive so easy. For them it is vendetta.”

Mike grinned at that, which drew a puzzled frown across Primo's brow. “What is so funny? They want to turn me into pig shit and you think that is funny?”

“Exactly! That's what's funny, partner. You're pig shit already.” Mike pulled the knife from his desk and examined the hole it left with a frown. He fingered the needle-sharp point of the blade. “I suppose you thought about fingerprints?”

“I put the talcum powder on it when it was still in the door. No prints. They are angry, but not so stupid.”

“Listen,” Mike said, turning serious. “You can stay with me if you want. I got room. Probably be a lot safer.”

“With you?” Primo shook his head and said with a smile, “You draw trouble like flies on the shit. I would be a safer man in the Tombs.”

“Could be, but don't say no. Say maybe at least. Think about it.”

“Maybe then.”

“Good. The door's always open, partner.”

Primo didn't say anything. He just stuck his hand out to shake. Mike took it, standing as he did.

“Now what,” Primo said after an overlong silence.

“Now we solve the case, find the girl, put a muzzle on that stupid cop, and try to keep you from getting fed to the pigs.”

Primo laughed. “Easy. What are we doing after lunch?”

*   *   *

They headed toward the hospital, but made a detour to the shop where they'd beaten the cop, whose name they had learned was Bascomb. The shop owner was happy to see them. “The cops was just here,” he said with a glance out the window. “No more'n two minutes ago. Listen, I told 'em all about the two gangsters beat that cop in here. Eastmans they were; one tall an' dark with a scar on 'is cheek, the other shorter an' heavier with bandy legs an' a tooth missin'.”

“Very convincing,” Mike said with a somewhat relieved grin. “Anything else?”

The storekeeper told them everything he'd told the cops, pretty much a straight description of what had actually happened while leaving out any references to him and Primo. There was no need to embellish that really. They thanked the man and Mike made an effort to give him ten dollars, a week's wage for a man like him, but he refused. “Worth ten bucks just to see that bastard get a good beatin',” he told them almost wistfully. “You boys go on an' don't worry 'bout me.”

*   *   *

They started toward the hospital, but stopped after a couple of blocks. Mike looked at Primo, who seemed to know what he was about to say. “What the hell are we going to see that bastard for?”

“You are saying what I'm thinking,” Primo said, nodding. “We tell the captain Bascomb was sleeping when we went.”

“Sleeping. Yeah, he was sleeping an' the doctor said not to disturb him.”

“Sleeping, yes. So what now?”

“I was thinking we should stop back at that store,” Mike said once they were outside the hospital. “We forgot to ask him about the Bottler.”

“The clerk? Why bother?” Primo said. “I thought you got everything from that Suds guy.”

“Ya don't ask you don't get any answers, right? Besides we did him a favor, maybe he'll help.”

The shopkeeper was surprised to see them again. He was still friendly, if a bit puzzled. “You boys forget somethin'?”

“We have returned to ask the thing we wanted yesterday,” Primo said, which brought a wary cloud to the shopkeeper's face. “We are looking for a man. He is called the Bottler, a strange name I know, but maybe you have heard it?”

The shopkeeper looked from Primo to Mike as if measuring them before he replied. They caught his look, but said nothing, watching as the man made his decision. Mike could almost see the gears turning in his head. He'd helped them out with the Bascomb situation. He might figure they were even. So they waited, hoping that the weight of silence might do what words could not. The shopkeeper took a swipe at the marble countertop with a damp rag he'd been holding, rubbing at a stain on the stone. He looked up from his countertop after a moment and took a deep breath as if he was about to plunge into icy waters. He smiled then in a resigned sort of way and said, “Ain't you boys had enough trouble?”

18

MIKE SALTER'S BAR on Pell Street was as good a place as any to meet without causing too much of a stir. Big Tim sat in the back, facing the door. Photo Dave was to one side, Sasparilla on the other. They were both well armed, a wise precaution given the situation. Big Tim's brother Dennis, known as Flat-nose Dinny, and his half brother, Larry Mulligan, stood at the bar as close to the door as possible. Between them all they had six pistols, three dirks, four pairs of brass knuckles, and three blackjacks. Big Tim wasn't armed. He considered it beneath a man of politics to carry weapons.