Hell's Gate (7 page)

“Oh, that guy,” Mike said. They waited for the range master to give the all clear. “Yeah, I heard about him. They say he's just lucky.”

“Bullshit! No luck about it. You guys should have a cup of that espresso the Italians drink. See if you can work together. He might be interested.”

The all clear sounded. Mike brought the Colt up fast, but aimed with care, squeezing off three rounds, putting them all in the black.

“What makes you think he'll want to work with me, especially since he's been making progress like you say?”

Tom didn't answer immediately. He aimed his revolver and fired once, thumbed back the hammer and fired again and then a third time. Mike noticed how he fired as he exhaled, lest his breathing throw off his aim. The target showed just one irregular hole. “He's had death threats,” Tom said. “Not just against him, but his family, too. He's got two kids, a boy and a girl. Had to move them out of the city. He doesn't want to quit, but his captain thinks it's time to take a breather, work on something else.”

Mike nodded.

“I'll set it up,” Tom said. Then, changing the subject, he asked, “So it turns out that
bottle
was actually a man?”

“Not sure entirely, but that guy I shot said he knew about somebody called the Bottler. I'm guessing that's a man. Didn't have time to question him on it. He was dying right in front of me. I had to try to get help.”

“Thought I'd heard of every damn alias and nickname in the city but Bottler's a new one. Only thing I can figure is that if Mickey Todt was in with him, then he's got to kick back to Paul Kelly. Todt is one o' Kelly's men. Makes sense.”

“So what do you think I oughta do? Kelly's protected. Got at least two gunmen with him at all times.”

“Has the Wigwam on his side, too,” Tom said. He took three more shots, firing faster, but with the same kind of care. The shots weren't in the same hole, but they could have been covered by a silver dollar. “So, what I think is that you should be careful, oh, son of mine.”

*   *   *

There were giggles from the other girls as Ginny left Miss Gertie's front parlor. She tried to appear composed, but she felt almost giddy under the old madam's concerned, but benign frown. Mike stuck his hands in his pockets like a schoolboy, not even aware he'd done so. He could not recall a time when she'd ever looked so beautiful and despite their history, he suddenly felt shy. Ginny wore a stylish, but understated dress in a pale gray with pink stripes, a short jacket over a high-necked, white blouse, kid gloves, and a modest, but very handsome felt hat with a turned-up brim and a delicate veil of white lace. She looked like any of the countless numbers of shop girls in New York, only better. To Mike she had never looked so good. He couldn't stop staring as he accompanied her down the front stairs to their waiting cab. The other girls had stared too, some with delight, some with the narrowed eyes of jealousy.

“God, you look so beautiful,” Mike said. It was wrong of him to encourage her, he knew, but she did look wonderful.

Ginny frowned. “Well, you don't have to sound so surprised.” Mike fumbled for a response, much to Ginny's delight. She knew she couldn't embarrass a man who didn't care. “Thank you,” she said, putting a soft hand on his arm. “I know how you meant it.”

Ginny put her arm through his as they rode to Pastor's theater in the back of a cab. The clip-clop of the horse's hooves on cobbles and pavement was the only sound for some minutes as the newness of the situation tied both their tongues. They had been as intimate as a man and woman could be, yet this was beyond their experience; an everyday intimacy, simple yet profound.

Mike smiled at Ginny, but couldn't help wondering about her true feelings as she smiled back. Was he just another client, one she liked a bit more than the rest, but a client all the same? Was he a way out for her, a stirrup on the saddle of respectability? Did she actually love him? Mike hesitated to even think the question, let alone entertain the idea. More likely this was just a lark, a diversion from the drudgeries of the business, he told himself. That thought put him in mind of the others. How many might there have been? Hundreds? He'd never given that a moment's thought before. She had been there for him to use whenever he wanted, whenever he could afford to pay. That had been his only concern. Why was it that here in the cab, in the light of day, with both of them fully clothed, his mind was doing the sexual math; so many months at the house, so many clients per night, six nights a week.… He lost count quickly. But why was he counting at all? Mike couldn't answer that question.

Ginny tried not to think of their outing as a charity date, but the feeling kept creeping into the back of her mind. Mike had felt sorry for her when he suggested they go out. There wasn't any doubt on that point. Still, if he hadn't cared he wouldn't have asked. There was some consolation and hope in that at least. It was hope that helped her pick out her smartest clothes, leaving the flashy outfits on the rack. Today she would be like any other girl in the city, out with her beau. No one would know the things she'd done for her fine kid gloves, the tears she'd shed for her high-laced boots. Ginny was determined to put it out of her mind for just these few hours. She would be Mike's girlfriend, innocent and fresh and the day would be perfect. She felt herself a gardener, tending her hope like an orchid, a rare and reluctant bloom.

*   *   *

Pastor's was wonderful. Ginny couldn't recall when she'd had so much fun. The show was a variety, a Bowery b'hoy one-act play, followed by an Italian tenor, singing opera, or what she thought opera sounded like, a pair of comic jugglers, who had the audience howling with laughter, some chorus girls who did a modest variation of the cancan, showing a lot less leg than they did on the Bowery, followed by a strongman named Sandow, who bent nails and steel bars and lifted ten members of the audience on his back. The finale was a series of poems recited by the great Bowery b'hoy, Chuck Connors, that left the audience cheering and stomping for more.

Ginny was chattering like a schoolgirl when they filed out with the crowd onto Fourteenth Street. Mike was buoyant, too, taking her arm in his and walking her over to Luchow's for coffee and pastries.

“I had a wonderful time, Mike, really,” Ginny said once they'd been seated. “Thank you so much for taking me. Did you like the show?” She wanted to ask if they could do it again, to tell him how she loved to be seen with him, his arm around hers on the street like any other couple.

“I did, Gin. I really enjoyed it.” He felt her wait for more and a small flash of guilt shot through him that he could not give it. He took her hand across the table and Ginny squeezed it with both of hers, making Mike wince.

“Oh, I'm sorry, Mike. Did I hurt you?”

“It's just that cut on my wrist from the other night, a present from that bastard, Smilin' Jack. It's a little sore is all.”

Ginny pulled his sleeve back and looked at the bandage. She considered what a dangerous job he had. She'd read the account of the shoot-out in the harbor, of course, but somehow it hadn't seemed real to her. It was more like a dime novel the way it read in the papers, the product of a reporter's overactive imagination. But the bandage on Mike's wrist and the small stain of blood from the unhealed wound were real. Ginny's breath caught in her throat, frozen by the image of a blade slicing Mike's flesh, the blood running down his hand. On an impulse she picked up his hand, bringing it to her lips. She kissed it.

Mike let her, a warm amazement creeping into his eyes and greater guilt into his heart. It wasn't fair to let her get too close, Mike reminded himself. He was a sporting man, and unlikely to become anything more. Still, he could not help but admit how pretty she looked in that dress and how her eyes seemed deep enough to drown in.

“There. Feel better?” Ginny said with the sunny voice of a mother talking to a child.

“Yeah,” Mike whispered. “It does.”

7

THE
General Slocum
gleamed at its moorings, all glossy white in the late-afternoon sun. Lionel Saturn walked down the gangplank to the dock without giving the steamer a second look. He knew what a fresh coat of paint could do, and what it couldn't.

As he approached his carriage and his waiting driver, he wondered how much extra that coat of paint had cost the Knickerbocker Steamship Company. He'd already been forced to pad the payroll with one no-show job. The paint had been another unnecessary expense. It had been “suggested” that maybe a coat of paint would be good for business. It had also been suggested that he do business with a particular dealer in paints. Lionel sighed. He knew he'd have to sign off on the bill and dreaded even seeing it. He was the senior vice-president and chief financial officer of the corporation. If he couldn't bury these expenses, no one could.

He checked his watch as he settled into the back of the carriage. It was a beautiful timepiece, with an engraved gold case, his initials in fanciful script, and an enameled lithograph on the back with two steamers breasting the waves. It was a gift from his wife on their twentieth anniversary, a couple of years before. He wondered, not for the first time, what it might be worth. He wished that he could sell it, sure that it might bring a hundred dollars or more. There was a diamond on the fob that had to be worth that alone. He knew he couldn't though. His wife would surely notice. Lately he'd been investing a great deal of time making sure his wife didn't notice things. Adding to that list was a depressing notion.

He sighed and gave his driver an address, then settled back into the tufted, leather seat. He watched the
Slocum
slide out of view. She'd have to wait a bit longer for the maintenance she really needed. She was a sound ship after all and had steamed for years without incident under a captain who'd just been honored for his safety record. For now the paint would have to do.

The carriage bumped along through the usual congestion of the docks. Wagons and their teams jostled for space, maneuvering around shipments loading and unloading, half of which seemed to take place in the street. Lionel thought about the meeting he was going to. Connors could help, he was certain. Whether he would or not was the question. There wasn't a man in the city that didn't know Connors. He was an icon of the Bowery b'hoy made good, and claimed to know most everyone worth knowing in the metropolis.

Connors was well connected, his annual balls at Tammany Hall attended by swells, politicians, businessmen, and bone-breakers. He'd worked his way into an odd sort of celebrity, making a career of being the quintessential “Noo Yawk” character. For many years he'd conducted tours of the Lower East Side and Chinatown, where he was once one of the few whites who knew the Chinese well. He'd been a “lobbygow” for the best of society, and even led visiting royalty on those tours, but he'd also spent his life on the streets and in the saloons of the city. If Chuck Connors couldn't act on his behalf, Lionel wasn't sure who could.

It took some time for Lionel's carriage to make its way to Connors's “office”—Barney Flynn's Old Tree House on Bowery and Pell—just around the corner from Professor O'Reilley's joint with its garish sign:
WORLD CHAMPION TATTOOER
. Connors held court in Flynn's most days from around three till whenever, drinking, telling tall tales in his exaggerated Bowery accent, and occasionally taking meetings with those like Lionel, who needed guidance in matters of a confidential nature.

Lionel bumped through the front doors and was enveloped in a haze of cigar smoke and the welcoming smell of spilled beer. The lunch crowd was gone, but the regulars clung to the bar like it was a life raft, elbows planted for stability. Lionel squinted into the semidarkness, his eyes watering from the smoke and stink of stale beer. “Chuck Connors,” he said finally to the bartender, once he'd given up trying to spot the man. He got a nod toward the rear and a grunted, “Up to his eyeballs in bullshit as usual.” Lionel wandered past the bar where a man turned with a fistful of beers, bumping him and spilling some on his pants and shoes. The man just shouldered past after a withering once-over of Lionel's tailored suit. A burst of laughter brought Lionel around, cutting off his protest. A group of men and a woman sat at a table in the rear. They stomped and howled as one man stood. It was Connors. “'Scuse me whilst I attend to nature,” he said, heading toward the men's room. Lionel stopped. He didn't favor the idea of conducting a meeting in a toilet, but on consideration, it seemed a good place to start, better than breaking into the convivial atmosphere of the table. Lionel followed. Connors had his back to the door, his front to a big, porcelain urinal when Lionel entered. He sighed as Lionel took the one next to him. Connors glanced over, then concentrated on the business at hand.

“You're Connors?” Not waiting for an answer, he went on, “I'm Lionel Saturn. Tommy Byrnes told me you'd meet me here.”

“Winky? Winky Byrnes?” Connors said. Lionel nodded. He'd forgotten Byrnes's street name. Byrnes ran a coal yard where the steamship company had their contract.

“Sure, sure,” Connors said, cobwebs visibly clearing, “You're da steamboat mug dat needs help.”

“I'm the ah … mug, yes,” Lionel said as he unbuttoned his pants.

“Pleased ta meetcha,” Connors grunted, sticking out a hand. Lionel hesitated. He was afraid of getting off on the wrong foot, but was equally queasy about shaking a hand that had just been “attending to nature.” Connors shrugged and wiped his hand on his vest, sticking it out again, a bit more forcefully. Lionel put on a smile and shook with the famous Chuck Connors, whose bladder seemed bottomless and whose fingers were damp.

“Youse got a problem, huh?” Connors said, raising an eyebrow at Lionel. “What I hear's you gotta push back from the gamin' table. Fine gen'leman like yerself oughta know better. Wut is it? Wut's yer game, then?”