Hell Gate

by Jeff Dawson

  Delgado got out his Lucky Strikes, offered one to Finch, who declined, then lit himself one.

  ‘We would have beaten it out of one of the kiddie communists themselves, with great pleasure when it came to that little shit, Max Sheldrake… but unfortunately, when we went a-calling, we found the poor darlings had all been carted off to jail.’

  ‘What’s it to you, Delgado, anyway?’

  ‘What’s it to me? Quite a bit actually. Signor Morello and I, we got ourselves a deal. I find the heroin stash for him, I get a little cut of the action… along with these gentlemen too for their trouble. Call it a finder’s fee. Right, boys?’

  The ‘boys’ sniggered.

  ‘If it weren’t for you, Finch, poking your nose around, I could have found it for Morello working from the inside; gotten a hook into Muller’s whole network. I should be sunning myself in Havana, drinking rum, having a roll with a couple of mamasitas, out of this godforsaken hellhole. Instead you survive my crackerjack, thanks to your little French friend, and now I’m exposed. I gotta split.’

  Finch knew that he must have reacted at the mention of her name.

  ‘Oh yeah, Mr Collins – or should I say, Captain Ingo Finch – Miss Madeleine Foche? I filled Muller in. Gave him all he needed. He’s known the truth for a while, by the way. Been playing her along. And now I’ll get what’s mine. And you – and her – you’ll get what’s yours. As you say, just like Kimmel, just like MacLeish. He’d been in the NYPD long enough. Should have known when to turn a blind eye, when to walk away. Your only chance of survival, Finch? Tell me what you know.’

  Finch began to struggle. The two heavies pinned his arms.

  ‘Not unless you ensure her safety.’

  ‘Too late for that. Not my business. Gave it the big kiss-off. And seriously, you’d trade yourself for that little putain? Oh yeah, Finch, don’t be kidding yourself she was exclusive to Muller… Me, Krank, even the dumb old Injun, we all got a taste.’

  Finch strained hard this time.

  ‘You bastard!’

  He was beaten back by Delgado’s hard, stinging slap across the face.

  They were under the arch of the Brooklyn Bridge approach now. When they emerged, the South Street port was before them, the forest of masts stretching down to the tip of Manhattan.

  Declared Delgado: ‘And here we are.’

  Three other automobiles waited on the cobbles. More of Morello’s men.

  ‘You notice anything, Finch?’ said Delgado.

  ‘You mean other than your carfuls of goons?’ replied Finch.

  ‘Cute… I mean no police. Let’s just say they’re smarter than MacLeish. Know when to make themselves scarce. Know when to take a hike.’

  As they pulled up, the Mafiosi saw them and began disgorging from the vehicles. They huddled in the rain, sawn-off shotguns and heavy revolvers barely concealed beneath the flapping raincoats.

  Delgado used Finch’s distraction to reach over, grab his collar and ram the leg of lamb into his cheek.

  ‘Okay, my friend. Time to spill the beans. Failure to cooperate and I’m afraid Carlo and Luigi will be taking you for a midnight swim, only with some cement round your ankles to make sure you get the full immersive experience.’

  The heavies laughed again.

  Delgado withdrew the gun and they pushed him forward in his seat, tugging his arms behind him. Finch felt the rough rope yanked hard around his wrists.

  ‘This is your moment, Finch. What’s it gonna be? Play ball or sleep with the fishes?’

  Finch said nothing.

  ‘Ready boys?’

  They pushed open the door and went to drag him out.

  ‘Okay… Okay, Delgado… you win.’

  He felt the cold barrel of the gun again, this time in his ear.

  ‘So… I’m listening.’

  ‘The warehouse – Pier 17 – next to the Munson Steamship Line. There’s some tea chests… fresh in from China – “Ty-Phin”.’

  ‘Ty-Phin? You sure?’

  ‘Yes, I swear… T-Y-P-H-I-N. Stencilled on the wood. I was there two nights ago. I’d say there are about 20 or 30 chests… Comes in from the Kiautschou Bay Concession. You know, the colony the Germans have on the Yellow Sea. The heroin’s buried deep within the tea leaves. Parcels just like that one I had.’

  Finch was dumped back in his seat while, on a nod, the heavy on his left, Luigi, got out and ran the message to one of his colleagues waiting on the dock. The man scuttled off into the shadows, revolver drawn, to sneak down the quayside and snoop around the edge of the warehouse, peering in through a window. A couple of minutes later he returned. Luigi nodded back up to Delgado.

  ‘Well, well, Finch,’ he said. ‘Seems there’s hope for you yet.’

  Delgado got out along with the driver, leaving Finch alone with Carlo, the one with the scar. The heavy produced his own revolver for good measure, keeping Finch pressed to his seat. On a signal, the men began fanning out along the waterfront and down the jetties either side of the warehouse, taking cover behind the crates and barrels and carts.

  Finch watched as Delgado and his cronies crept cross the wet cobbles. The rain thundered hard, spray splashing everywhere. He didn’t know what they had in mind, but the pair of security guards on duty were in for a rude awakening. Weapons poised, the Mafia men darted into the open, ready to bust their way in.

  And then… CLICK!

  From the warehouse roof, a huge searchlight was switched on.

  Then a second, then a third…

  Delgado and his men were lit up like performers on a vaudeville stage. They froze, utterly blinded by the white-hot glare.

  The sound that came next was one that Finch hoped he’d heard the last of on the killing fields of the South African veld – the clunk of a bolt, followed by the deafening, sickening clack-clack-clack of a maxim machine gun.

  The Mafiosi started firing back, loosing off their shotguns and handguns, but it was random, unfocused. Delgado, Rafaelo and Luigi, who were the most exposed, crumpled. The others ducked for cover but were felled in quick staccato bursts, some plunging into the water. The two or three that survived were left crawling for refuge while others on the roof, hidden behind the blinding lights, picked them off with single shots.

  Carlo-with-the-scar jumped out and, using the cover of the Cadillac, began firing wildly, drawing attention to himself. As the maxim swung in their direction, Finch, with his wrists bound behind him, threw himself behind the front seats, hugging himself to the floor. In a banshee-wail and a hailstorm of lead, the windshield exploded and rounds slammed hard into the car’s body, the vehicle sinking down as the tyres burst.

  There was a shriek. Carlo had been hit. Finch saw him clutch his shin then, somehow, manage to limp off, stray bullets pinging after him.

  A shout went up, the shooting had stopped. It had been over in mere seconds. Finch heard a groan followed by a shot – one of the wounded being put out of his misery.

  With the car door open, Finch could see Delgado, his body broken, crawling pathetically through the wet, barely able to plant one elbow in front of the other. A man strolled up, stood over him, legs astride, casually racking back the breech on his Luger. Then he emptied a round into Delgado’s head, the lone crack echoing round the docks.

  Finch pulled himself in tight but it was no use, they knew exactly where he would be. The same man was striding over, purposefully, expensive Oxfords kicking through the wet, young acolytes trailing in his wake. There were hands under Finch’s armpits. He was yanked out and dumped into the oil and grime, staring up while his victor casually wet, then lit, a cigarillo.

  ‘So, Captain Finch,’ said Muller. ‘We meet again.’

  Chapter 28

  The room was dark, Finch’s senses alert only to the waft of smoking greenery and the low resonant hum. There were dots of light that swirled… dancing. He willed himself to focus, to harness them, to bring them under his control.

  He was on his back, shirtless, he cou
ld feel that. He tried to speak but the words sat fat and unformed on his tongue. There was a difficulty in propelling them beyond his lips. They hung, disconnected from the thoughts in his head. Despite the strangeness, he felt warm, calm even, when he knew he shouldn’t be. He recognized the sensation, the comfort, the incongruous feeling of euphoria that coursed through his veins…

  Heroin.

  He willed himself to concentrate and to force the emotions, the reactions, to come; to experience the sensations that had been smothered in a warm anaesthetic syrup. The lights were candles, he knew, borne amid the wall of cloaks and hoods that surrounded him. He stared hard and made them coalesce.

  And then there were his limbs – a tightness at his wrists and ankles… a roughness… coarseness. Rope… Twine… And their angle… He had been spreadeagled, hands and feet bound, stretched across the rough wood of what he knew to be the altar. He turned his head to his left and, in the dim glow, there she was too, stretched on a second slab, motionless, just gazing upward.

  He couldn’t lift his head sufficiently, not enough to see forward, but the familiar voice was booming, deep, resonant. He had no doubt now, from what he had learned, that the man, the high priest, was Krank. And that, somewhere out there, too, was Muller.

  The heavy staff banged on the ground three times. The room hushed. The man took his time.

  ‘We are here to denounce the two parties brought forth before us today…’ he was instructing. ‘And for whose crimes we seek atonement.’

  He raised his arm towards Katia.

  ‘Behold the Ausländer – the French harlot who was secretly working against us.’

  Then he pointed to Finch.

  ‘Behold, too, the British agent, colluding with the Federal Government and in consort with that turncoat Delgado to bring the dregs of Italian organized crime against Mr Muller’s legitimate businesses… Enterprises that have filled the pockets of all in this room… that have sustained families, put food on our tables, that have fostered the health and vitality of our dear Kleindeutschland.’

  There was a muttering – a chorus of disapproval.

  ‘Both parties have been responsible for the squalid and immoral deaths of a number of friends from our community, and for which there is no excuse, no apology.’

  The chanting resumed, swelling. Finch yelled for all he was worth.

  ‘You’re insane, goddamn you. Muller, I know you’re here… All of you, you’ve been used, abused, forced to torture, to kill, just so that he has something on you… can demand your loyalty.’

  ‘Silence!’

  But his words, he knew, were streaming in a slobbering, incoherent babble.

  ‘Muller… Fire… General Slocum… He killed your loved ones!’

  It made no sense.

  ‘SILENCE!’ denounced Krank. ‘Enact the sentence.’

  The room hushed – just the crackle of candles, the shallow nervousness of breath and the ominous soft shuffle of footsteps as the executioner stepped forward. Not Teetonka this time but a proxy, another weaponized thug for whom permission to carve open a bound captive was akin to a civic honour.

  He came to a halt before Finch and, with a harsh metallic swish, and to a gleeful gasp from the onlookers, unsheathed the great knife. He raised it to the room, the candlelight glinting on the curve of the steel, on the ancient swirl of runes etched into the blade.

  It was the sign for the ritual to enter its final grisly act, for Finch to lie still, spreadeagled, while the razor-sharp edge did its work, piercing the skin beneath the ribs, then being drawn down, deliberately towards the navel, cutting progressively deeper, slicing through gut, severing organs. Abdominal wounds were the most painful, he knew – he’d seen plenty of that in his time on the battlefield and in the field hospitals – the wounds that cannot be salved, cannot be tended, just the excruciating pain and the slow bleeding out while brain, lungs and nervous system still functioned; while the heart still kept on pumping.

  There was a call and response from the throne to the gathering. Then the chanting began again, imperceptible at first, but soon rising in volume and tempo, amplifying to a viscerally disturbing pitch as the weapon was hoisted high and hovered over Finch’s chest.

  It was then, amid the cacophony, that he heard Katia yelling now too. To him, they were noises that made no sense, just like his had been. But there were two words he caught… ‘MacLeish’… ‘Kimmel’…

  Only this time Krank was raging back.

  ‘So-called lawmen who thought they knew better… We swatted them like annoying wasps.’

  Whatever she said next struck home, for he rose and was waving his arms out wide, a departure from the script.

  ‘STOP!’ Krank commanded.

  The room fell silent again. Confused looks were exchanged.

  ‘Do the girl first.’

  Then, as the executioner began to move towards her; as his soft shuffle crept away from Finch; the brain-addling guttural chant was issued again, more forcefully than ever.

  Finch turned his head. Two men had appeared at Katia’s side.

  ‘No!’ he screamed.

  There was ripping… a white bodice.

  ‘Not her, me! ME!’

  The chanting swelled to a crescendo. The knife rose to its apex, hanging there.

  ‘NOW!’ bellowed Krank.

  Then it came… slicing down on its final, fatal arc.

  Finch dug deep within himself, mustered every ounce of strength, every fibre of his being.

  ‘NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!’

  He didn’t know what happened, but the arm froze mid-air. The executioner stopped, staggered, the hood falling back to reveal eyes locked wide open, his face set in a grimace.

  And then… he toppled over.

  The shot had been lost amid the noise but heads were turning now sharply in one direction.

  Up high… through a grille… a rifle…

  There was a second shot, this time from the floor, firing back at it.

  Then came shouting, running, ducking, chaos… a panic, a stampede for the exit. More gunfire – from where, Finch couldn’t tell. And there were whistles, the searing screech of police whistles.

  The smoke blew thick. A brazier had been knocked over deliberately. Finch was struggling to breathe. He called, not for help, but for Katia. But when he turned, he couldn’t see her – just uniforms, flailing truncheons and then Krank, on his knees, his hood back, face pink and pudgy, firing wildly with a Luger, clearly unused to handling a firearm, before being shot in the arm himself and falling.

  A cop was over him, his revolver ready to finish the job, smirking.

  ‘No,’ cried someone in charge. ‘We need this one!’

  Detective Copeland was in the middle of the room now, barking instructions.

  There were hands… a pocket knife… cutting Finch free.

  * * *

  Next thing Finch knew he was outside, sitting on a stoop, a police medic shining a light into his pupils. There were trucks in the street, men being herded away… more shouts… more truncheons.

  He saw her again, resting against the tailboard of a motor ambulance, blanket round her shoulders, Copeland standing by her. The detective called to Finch and led him over to her, gently guiding. There were enamel mugs… strong black coffee…

  He lit them both cigarettes and then struck up one for himself. Slowly the madness began to dissipate.

  ‘We acted on a hunch initially,’ Copeland was explaining. ‘I wasn’t sold on what you said, but I know enough to tell when a man is speaking the truth… or, in his own mind, believes he is speaking the truth.’

  The first truck revved and pulled away.

  ‘But as we started monitoring movements, some of the things you told me, Mr Collins—’

  Mr Collins, still.

  ‘—had started to ring true. And then at the end… we just had to wait for some kind of admission of guilt regarding Kimmel and MacLeish.’

  Finch sucked in the night air. It
was as if he were somewhere else, looking down on this scene of chaos. It made no sense… and every sense.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, slowly, careful to enunciate, his full consciousness still yet to return.

  ‘Actually, it’s thank you,’ replied Copeland. ‘But if you want to bestow your gratitude on anyone, it’s this lady…’

  Finch had no clue what he meant. He wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be looking, like his eyes belonged to someone else. He didn’t recognize her at first. She had been standing behind the detective. She was in the same dull factory clothes.

  ‘Mrs Kimmel?’

  ‘She sought me out. Trusted me with what she knew… What you told her,’ said Copeland. ‘It was a risk on her part. She’s been through enough already. But it was a worthwhile one.’

  Finch wanted to reach out… to hug her… she had saved his life… but it felt wrong.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said again.

  Frances Kimmel nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ echoed Katia.

  If he felt close to Katia amid all this, his comrade in arms, it was not reciprocated. There was no eye contact, even though he willed it, just a flat logical inquisitiveness.

  ‘What will happen now?’ she was asking Copeland.

  The detective took a drag on his cigarette.

  ‘Well,’ he enthused, ‘we can get Muller’s organization on racketeering, money laundering, narcotics, not to mention numerous counts of murder.’

  This time there was a flicker of a glance from Katia – a quick, almost imperceptible exchange.

  They don’t yet know about the General Slocum.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get the information we need…’

  He nodded over. Krank was being led out, clutching his arm, booming about his rights. With his big puppy-fat face he seemed like an overgrown baby.

  ‘…We have ways of making him talk.’

  Finch suddenly floundered: ‘Wait… no Muller? You didn’t get him in there?’

  Katia almost spat with frustration at his and their naivety.

  ‘All of you,’ she scoffed. ‘You think Muller is fool enough to get himself caught in a charade like that?’