Sherlock Holmes In America (39 page)

“But how can something in London possibly concern me, Mr. McKenna? I'm an American.”

Instead of a reply, I handed her the letter. At that point, my work was done and I should have taken my leave and set out on the long journey home. But, as I had no way of knowing whether it required a reply, I sat, waiting. At last, she took the hint and opened the envelope.

I cannot describe the look on her face as she read. Her eyes widened, her face flushed, though with embarrassment or anger I could not tell: I could swear a tear or two came to her eyes. But whatever awful news the epistle conveyed she otherwise bore with equanimity and strength.

She read the letter twice and then tucked it safely into the folds of her sleeve. For a long moment, she seemed to be struggling with herself, occasionally casting a glance my way, as if making up her mind about something. Then, wordlessly, she rose and motioned for me to follow her.

My nostrils flared with excitement as Miss McParland guided me down dark streets, little more than pig alleys. The beastly heat had brought out all manner of street life, with toughs lounging in every third doorway, while up on the roofs, women stood a constant watch. As we came around one corner, and into the filthiest street yet, one of the crones set off an unearthly howl. Others soon followed her example, banging pots and screeching. Soon, every eye was upon us.

And then the pelting began. Paving stones, flower pots, rotten fruit, and offal rained down upon us, most of which, I thought, was unmistakably directed at me. “Why are they doing this?” I shouted.

“They think you are a plainclothes detective,” shouted Miss McParland over the din. “We must hurry.”

Then I understood: I was in the very heart of gangland Chicago. A thrill ran through me. After all, I had been in correspondence with Inspector Byrnes of the New York City Police Department from 1886, when the great detective's magnum opus,
Professional Criminals of America
appeared, to his death four years ago. And to think that now I might be encountering in the flesh some of those whose photographs I had pored over for so long: the burglar Joseph Whalen, who went by the alias of Joe Wilson; “Jew Al,” the confidence man; and the notorious pickpocket “Aleck the Mailman.” Perhaps I would even encounter America's own Moriarty, lurking among one of the city's many Irish secret societies.

“In here,” said Miss McParland, grabbing my arm. She darted down some narrow service steps and into the bowels of a nearby building as the mob outside howled like banshees and continued its aerial assault.

I had expected a dank, musty basement, crawling with lice and raggedy immigrants. Instead, I found myself in a kind of dance hall. Or perhaps a saloon. “What is this place?” I managed to whisper to my comely companion.

“A blind pig,” she replied.

The place reeked of spilt beer and bloodied sawdust, where sawedoff shotguns and six-shooters were as plentiful as the rats who no doubt scuttled along the insides of the walls. A mediocre player pounded a hideously out of tune piano in a corner, while whores and secondstorey men danced with shameless abandon. On balance, however, it was no worse than the East End dives and opium dens I had often visited in the course of my detective work. “Ain't this a swell ballumrancum?” asked a swaying tough with half an ear missing, and I replied that I was sure it was.

Miss McParland was speaking with a hard, scarred fellow behind the bar, who looked me over with what I fancied was approval. Indeed, a big smile was crossing his bluff Hibernian countenance, and he wiped his hands on his soiled apron and moved toward me.

“Abe Slaney, I presume,” I said, but my little joke was lost on him.

The force of the blow sent me reeling across the room. It was like being back in the ring with McMurdo, Bartholomew Sholto's manservant. Had I been struck with a Penang lawyer, I could not have felt the assault more forcefully. The last thing I recall seeing was the treacherous visage of Miss Maddie McParland, smiling sweetly at me, her expression a mixture of pity and revenge, as I descended into that unexpected night.

Of the next few weeks, I have little memory. Most of the time I was kept drugged—opium, I am quite sure—and was chained to a metal cot in a back room while the gang debated about what to do with me. Occasionally, the big man who had knocked me out—they called him “the Boss”—and some other fellows would enter my room and “grill” me. Some of them argued for my speedy demise, but the Boss demurred, saying I might well be put to better use. I knew that in order to survive, I was going to have to play along, no matter what the humiliation. Besides, I was burning to know what role Miss McParland had played in all this, and what the contents of my brother's letter to her were, which had brought me to such a pretty pass. But of her, however, I saw nothing.

What they could not know, of course, was that my long experience with cocaine and opium had rendered me resistant, if not immune, to the drugs, and thus I was able to keep my “character” in front of me at all times. I told them, over and over, that I was Jim McKenna of Liverpool— my Liverpudlian accent more than rose to the occasion—and that I could still lick any man in the room if they would only set me free.

At last, my moment came. The door to my cell opened and there stood the Boss. He entered and sat down next to me. I could smell his foetid breath. “So, it seems that you are who you say you are. We've checked you out six ways from Sunday with our lads in Liverpool and mister you are jake in my book. You're a tough old bird, I'll give ya that; then you're more than welcome to join us and fight for our people and Mother Ireland, Mr. James McKenna.” I breathed a small sigh of relief. Mycroft had “set me up” well enough to pass the scrutiny of this lot.

“But,” the Boss continued, ominously, “if you turn out to be some dirty copper, well, buddy, you have come to the wrong place. Because we in the brotherhood know how to police our own. Sure, we've had many years of experience, if you catch my drift.”

Now the scales fell from my eyes—these were not just gangsters, but Fenians, one with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and dedicated not only to Davitt and Parnell and Home Rule, but outright independence. And I, a loyal subject of His Majesty, was being forced to join them. Was this what Mycroft had in mind all along? It seemed inconceivable, but however improbable, it was the nearest thing to the truth—or at least a working hypothesis—that I had. “OK,” I said, starting to pick up the lingo.

The Boss brought his smelly face close to mine. “Will you fight for us, old man?” he breathed. “Will you fight for Eire, and freedom?”

I swallowed hard. “I will,” said I.

“Stout lad.” And with that, he unlocked my chains and told me to stand up.

What happened next was a blur. I had the sense of being rushed, my shirt ripped from my back. Then a searing pain in my back, beneath my left shoulder blade. The unmistakable scent of burning flesh filled the air with its noisome acridity.

As they released me, I dropped to my knees and then collapsed across my bed. Only had Tonga's dart found me on the Thames could the pain have been more intense. How long I lay there in my misery, I have no idea, but it must have been several minutes. Then I gradually became conscious of soft hands, gently rubbing some healing lineament in my wound, and then a softer voice, whispering in my ear.

“How does it feel?” said Maddie McParland. She grasped my chin and turned my face toward hers. Even in my anguish, I could see the fire in her eyes, the beauty in her flushed cheeks, the passion in her touch. “Tell me, for I must know:
How does it feel
?”

Buffalo, February 1913

My room at the Altamont was simple, Spartan, sufficient. A single bed. A washbasin and a chamber pot that I had to empty myself. More flophouse than Michelin, but still, it was better than Chicago, and I no longer yearned so fervidly for the tender mercies of good Martha Hudson. It was a good place for the gang to “lie low,” as they say, and, besides, Miss McParland was there.

My wound had healed, although absent a mirror I still could not see what they had done to me. The best I could manage was a dim, gas-lit reflection in a window against the darkness of Lake Erie that stretched out like a vast, frozen inland sea beyond my window. But even then, I could only make out the seared flesh, and not what lay beneath.

Lost in my ruminations, in my half-naked state, I was startled by a knock at the door. Hastily, I donned my shirt but I was too late: the door opened and there she stood. How forward these Americans are, and how little they care for propriety! I turned quickly away, still struggling with my shirt.

“It's healing nicely,” she said, inviting herself in.

I could stand the suspense no longer. “For God's sake, please tell me how they have marked me!” But my pleas fell upon deaf ears. Perhaps it was my distressed state, but at this moment, she looked—dare I say it?—ever more beautiful than before. And yet she was the one responsible for my condition. The heart is a strange regulator.

She fixed me with that otherworldly Celtic-blue stare, at once so foreign to our earthy, sturdy Anglo-Saxon stock and yet so beguiling.

“I am sorry you were treated so roughly in Chicago, but we had to be sure. About you and your suitability for . . . ” She grew pensive for a moment, and then suddenly her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed with anger. “God, how I hate them!” she cried.

Her outburst startled me.

“Hate them for what they did to my father, hate them for what they made him do, hate them for what happened to him.” She threw herself at me like a tigress, pounding her fists against my chest. “I hate them, do you understand! Hate them! And I'll have my revenge on the whole rotten lot of them before I'm through!”

I could not, of course, account for this sudden, passionate outburst, but as her anger subsided, she collapsed upon my breast, sobbing. She—perhaps at Mycroft's urging—had pulled me into this underworld, and yet apparently was now denouncing the very people to whom she had betrayed me. How I wished I had Watson to advise me at this moment.

There was nothing for me to do but to put my arms around her; mystified though I was, I was nevertheless still a gentleman. In which embrace the Boss found us moments later.

“Now, Morey, will you look at them lovebirds,” he said to a man standing beside him. “It looks like our little daughter and the old man have gotten mighty fond of each other in a short time. I t'ink you've been aced out of the racket. Ha ha!”

The man called Morey turned red. “Damn it, Maddie,” he shouted. “You know how things stand between us.” He tried to push past the Boss, but was blocked by one hairy arm thrown across the doorway.

Miss McParland released herself from my embrace, turned toward them, and addressed Morey: “Listen to me, Charlie,” she said. “I'm not yours now, or ever. I thought I made that perfectly clear. I belong to no man, except the memory of my father, and until I have either his vengeance or his benediction, no man shall ever possess me.” She looked wildly around the room, and then at me. “Oh, God, I am so confused!” she cried, rushing out.

For a moment, there was silence. And the man called Morey (to whom I had taken an instant dislike) muttered, “Dames.”

Now he turned his baleful attention to me. He was a big man, almost as big as the Boss, and from the rippling sinews of his arms, I knew he would be a formidable opponent in combat. “And who might you be?” he barked.

“Jim McKenna,” I replied, and then he hit me. The blow wobbled me, but I stood my ground.

“You sound like an Englishman to me. What's your name?”

Once again, I said, “Jim McKenna, of Liverpool.” This time two blows followed in quick succession, but I had steeled my midsection and so, while painful, they were resistible.

“I'm only going to ask you one more time, old man,” he said, his voice gleaming with menace, “so you'd better get it right.
What's your name?
”

My promise to Mycroft and my obligation to my country steadied my resolve. As did one other: Miss McParland's honor. “My name is Jim McKenna of Liverpool and Chicago. If you disbelieve me, then strike me again, but make sure you kill me, for otherwise it will go very hard with you, Morey.”

Morey scoffed as I put up my dukes. As Watson has told you, I was a passably fair boxer in my prime, having battled the great McMurdo, and I had long since taken the measure of Irish bullies from the London underworld, where Moriarty had made ample use of them. He swung once more, but this time I ducked his punch and came up with my right fist just under his chin. Rocked back, he was an easy mark for a left to the solar plexus, and down went Morey in a heap. The great Mendoza himself could not have executed a finer one-two.

The Boss let out a roar of laughter. Morey let out a groan, and then glared at me from the floor. “It's just you and me now, Jim McKenna,” he said evilly, skulking off.

The Boss brushed his threat aside. “This is war. Ireland needs all her sons, even gorillas like Morey, no matter their land of birth or their personal indispositions toward one another. If a man like your own good self has had his conscience pricked by the indignities heaped upon our most distressful nation, and you wish to join us in our struggle, then . . . this is where it begins.”