He let go; his prisoner remained quiet. Muldoon gagged him, effectively but gently—he didn’t want the poor fellow suffocating to death—then pulled the boy off the chair and around to the railing over the stairway. He laced his prisoner’s arms through the bars, and reached over to cuff them behind him. A quick frisk showed the boy had a watch, some gold money (a McKinley man, thought Muldoon), and a little silver-plated two-shot derringer—more a toy than a weapon, but still deadly enough under the right circumstances. He left the rest, and put the derringer in his pocket. Patiently, he fitted keys in the lock until he found the one that fit. Then he opened the door.
XL
Cleo lay on the bed, just as when Muldoon first saw her. There were some differences this time, however. She lay face down, crying into her pillow. And, except for her bare feet, she was fully clothed.
It mattered not at all; she still took Muldoon’s breath away.
Cleo spoke without looking up. “You monster!”
Muldoon was startled. These were the first words he’d heard spoken aloud in some time, and he had somehow expected a warmer reception.
Cleo went on. “What do you want of me? Whatever I may be, you are worse, you degraded—”
Her voice, he was sure, was still too quiet to be heard downstairs, but she was just getting warmed up. “Miss Cleo,” he said softly.
It was Cleo’s turn to start. Her head and upper body twisted wildly, looking for the source of the voice. She saw her rescuer, and she felt hope well up within her. “Officer Muldoon!” she cried happily, her eyes shining behind her tears. “I thought you were Baxter!”
“Shhh!” Muldoon scolded her with a look. “Quiet.”
“Oh, you have come, I didn’t dare hope you would. You got my message?” Her voice was quieter, but still excited.
“I did.”
“But how did you get in here? Avery’s assassins are guarding the house.”
Muldoon had dozens of things to worry about at that moment, but the thought that insisted on his full attention was, So it’s “Avery” is it? Cursing himself for a fool, he dismissed the question from his mind.
“Questions for later,” Muldoon said. “Right now, we’re gettin’ shut of this house while we still can.”
“Oh, bless you, Officer Muldoon. I don’t know how I can ever repay—”
“Can it, you prevaricatin’ little bitch! I’m doin’ me duty, just like before. I may be stupid enough to fall for that line of yours, but I’m not stupid enough to fall for it more than once.”
He might have slapped her. No one had ever taken quite that tone with her before. It stunned her. “I—I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be content to take your word for it. We’ll get out of here now, and do our talkin’ later. And if we can get our talkin’ done without me takin’ you over me knee, I will be one surprised copper. Now get your blinkin’ shoes on.”
Cleo complied, and they tiptoed back into the hall.
Disaster struck just as they reached the head of the stairs. Muldoon had just exchanged signals with Roscoe, and had started to descend with Cleo, when the front door opened and Eagle Jack Sperling entered, accompanied by Tommy Alb and still more rum characters.
“Idiots didn’t even have my brand,” he muttered under his breath. “Best Havana see-gars made, and this poor excuse for a tobacconist don’t even have any. After I walked all that way. That’s no way to run a business, if you follow me.”
“We follow you, boss,” one of his henchmen replied.
“And another thing—what the hell’s the big idea?” He had stumbled onto the liquor-sampling party in Hand’s parlor. “Put them bottles down! I swear, I’ll skin every worthless man jack of you alive for this.”
The tirade went on, but this was the sentence that worked its way into the tiny brain of the boy handcuffed to the railing. He had tried to do his job. He didn’t want Eagle Jack to skin him alive. So he had to do something to stop the man and the lady from getting away. So he began to kick his feet on the floor.
Three times. He only made three thumps on the carpeted hardwood before Muldoon scampered up there and stopped him. But it was enough. Eagle Jack was still standing in the hallway, and the thumping caused him to look up the stairs, where he saw Roscoe.
“It’s that one-eyed bastard as was spyin’ on us!” he yelled. “Get him.”
Hand’s men began to pour from the parlor and run for the stairs.
“Sweet Jesus,” Muldoon said, as he returned to the top of the stairs. He turned to Cleo. “How can we get out of here?”
“The back stairs! Hurry!”
“Come on, Roscoe!” Muldoon called.
“Beat it,” the one-eyed man replied. “I’ll be all right.” He took a firmer grip on his sap. Roscoe hated guns, and wouldn’t carry one.
“Are you daft, man? There’s five of them!”
“I know, and someone’s got to hold ’em off. You got to take care of the female, and I gotta stay. The boss would want it that way. Now get!”
The mob was upon him. Muldoon hesitated, unwilling to leave his friend. Then he heard Cleo’s voice screaming “Dennis!” in real terror, the first unfeigned emotion he’d ever heard from that woman.
With tears in his eyes, he turned and ran. The last thing he saw before the stairway was around a bend and out of sight was Roscoe still laying about him with the sap, laying villains low, even as some of them clawed at his legs, bringing him down through weight of numbers.
XII.
“Here!” Muldoon said, handing his new revolver to Cleo. He knew he didn’t have to ask her if she knew how to handle it. She led the way to the back stairs, then recoiled as she looked down them. “They’ve cut us off!” she said.
Two of Sperling’s men, at least, had used their brains to anticipate the move Cleo and Muldoon would make. They clambered up the stairs now, with wide grins on their faces, thinking their quarry trapped on the landing.
They didn’t anticipate, however, that their quarry would be armed. Cleo raised the revolver, and Muldoon his borrowed derringer. Two shots sounded at once, and the men went down, the one in front shot by Cleo in the leg, the one behind by Muldoon in the shoulder.
Despite the situation the young officer smiled. “Like we been practicin’ for years,” he said. “Fancy shootin’, girlie.”
They proceeded down the stairs, climbing over the wounded. Cleo raised her skirt and slips to avoid letting blood stain their hems. Muldoon started to mutter apologies to the wounded, then thought of what Roscoe was probably going through, and choked them off.
The two sprinted through the kitchen and out through the back of the house. “This way,” Muldoon said, pointing toward the gate where he’d entered.
Cleo entertained a frightful thought. She froze in her tracks and clutched Muldoon’s sleeve. “The hound!” she said.
“Been taken care of,” Muldoon assured her. “Now move! I can’t be carryin’ you.”
Cleo ran behind him. It was only a few seconds before Eagle Jack Sperling’s voice sounded again. “There they go, blast them! Where’s the goddamn dog? Well, don’t just stand there, catch them! Kill them!”
But by the time they heard this, they had reached the bicycle.
“Get on!” Muldoon said, then watched stupefied as Cleo handed him the revolver, gathered up her skirt, and climbed aboard the front seat.
“What are you doin’, woman?” the young man demanded. “I’m drivin’.”
Cleo tightened her lips and shook her head. “It’s better this way. I have my own bicycle, so I’m used to steering. And we’ll get more power if you pedal in the rear.”
“This is a hell of a time for an argument!” Muldoon said. He stood in angry frustration for a split second, then hopped aboard the rear seat. It wasn’t any of Cleo’s arguments that convinced him; it was his own sudden realization that his body would make a good shield for hers against bullets fired as they fled.
“Let’s get goin’,” Muldoon said.
Cleo twisted her neck to face him. “Time your strokes to mine. I’ll count, all right?” Before he could answer, she leaned back and kissed him, with open mouth. Muldoon nearly forgot about escaping.
Before he knew it, though, her lips were gone, and Cleo was singing out in a strong, clear voice, “One! Two! One! Two!” The bicycle pulled away from the gate, and began to pick up speed.
“We’re goin’ to the southeast corner of the reservoir,” Muldoon told Cleo’s graceful back. Never breaking her cadence, she nodded her understanding.
The wind whipping past the now-speeding tandem blew a delicate whiff of Cleo’s perfume to Muldoon’s nostrils. It occurred to him that the whole excursion would have been very pleasant, if it hadn’t had such a desperate purpose.
That thought reminded him to wonder what had happened to the pursuit. They had made it the better part of a block now, and there was still no sign of Sperling or his men.
No sooner had he finished thinking this, when he heard an ominous roaring from somewhere on the grounds of Hand’s estate.
“Oh, no!” Cleo said. She no longer had to call cadence; their rhythm had become almost second nature by now.
“What’s the matter?” Muldoon demanded. “What the hell’s that noise.”
“It’s the Duryea,” Cleo said. “I was afraid of this.” There was a grim fatality in her voice.
“The what?”
“Avery’s auto mobile. We’re doomed. Leave me, I can’t run with these skirts. Save yourself. Run between buildings, or into a house, where the auto mobile can’t follow.”
The roaring was louder. Muldoon turned his head to the side as they sped by Forty-second Street, and saw the twin acetylene lamps of the self-propelled vehicle.
“Pedal faster!” he said. “One! Two! One! Two!”
“It’s no use!”
“Nonsense, girlie. If we can just get to the carriage, we’ve got a fightin’ chance.”
“You have a carriage?”
“What do you think, I was expectin’ you to swim? Now let’s get a move on!”
They pedaled mightily. Muldoon could see a sheen of perspiration on his pretty pilot’s neck, and he himself finally appreciated the nights he’d spent loading heavy barrels on brewery trucks and the muscles they’d given to his back and legs.
The tandem fairly flew; they might have been an entry in the Six Day Race.
But it was no good. The automobile couldn’t go as fast as they could, but it would never get tired. The roar of the machinery was like a banshee’s wail behind them.
Then there was a noise above the roar, like someone slapping a razor strop across a table. It was followed almost immediately by a buzz past Muldoon’s ear.
“They’re shooting at us,” Cleo said, matter-of-factly.
Muldoon’s admiration for the girl was growing by the second—he hadn’t figured that out yet.
“Right you are, me darlin’,” he said. “Keep a good hold, now. I’m gonna let go one hand, give these buggers something to be thinkin’ about.”
He took his right hand from his fixed handle bar, and took his new revolver from the pocket of his jacket. There were still four shots left in it. At the speed they were traveling, he daren’t turn to aim, for fear of throwing the bicycle out of control. Instead, he raised his arm straight up, then bent it at the elbow until the gun, upside down, was aimed directly behind him. He adjusted as well as he could from the sound of the engine, and began to squeeze off his shots.
XIII.
Eagle Jack Sperling ran a hand over his bald pate and cursed under his breath. He could kill that idiot Hand for leaving them with no transportation but this belching monster. What kind of fool would neglect a good, honest horse for something that sounded like it was going to explode into flaming pieces in the next second?
They weren’t going to get away, that was for sure. Not if he had to ride in this hunk of junk, crammed in with three of his men, including Tommy Alb, (who claimed he knew how to steer the thing). Not, in fact, if he had to ride with the chickens on a livestock dray. Muldoon was dead. No more orders, no more business, except personal business. Nobody messed up Eagle Jack Sperling that many times and lived.
The auto mobile continued to bound along over the cobbles. Eagle Jack leaned over the side (he was in the back seat) and was sick. While he was at it, the car swerved wildly. Eagle Jack nearly pitched out of the vehicle.
“You son of a bitch!” he gurgled. “Are you trying to kill me, or what?”
Tommy Alb swerved the vehicle again. “He’s shooting at us, boss! Can’t you hear the bullets?” The handsome blond man’s voice came strangely through the white bandage on his nose. It was a souvenir from that Roscoe mug. Tommy was happy they’d gotten him.
“I don’t care,” Eagle Jack began, building in volume with every syllable, “if he makes a goddamn Switzer cheese out of you! You keep this thing on a straight line!”
Tommy had his doubts about complying, until the man on his right, a human gorilla called Big Knuckles, who spoke about once a year, said, “He ain’t shooting no more.”
Tommy looked, and sure enough, Muldoon had put the gun back in his pocket. “It’s okay, boss,” he told his employer gaily. “They’re getting tired, slowing up. We’ve got them, now.”
It was true that the strain of running through Hand’s house and grounds, followed by the forced sprint on the tandem, had taken their toll on Cleo and Muldoon, but that wasn’t why they were slowing down. They had nearly reached the rented landau.
“Hurry up, hurry!” Brian O’Leary piped up. “You’ve only got half a block on ’em!”
They brought the bicycle to a halt, and ran to the horse-drawn vehicle. “Get in!” Muldoon ordered.
“And just leave the tandem?” Brian’s voice said he couldn’t believe it.
“GET IN!” roared Muldoon. Brian complied, just as gunshots began to whistle past them once again and the auto mobile picked up ground; the boy was helped along by a healthy shove from Muldoon. The officer then vaulted to the driver’s perch, only to find Cleo sitting there already.
“Saints give me strength,” he intoned. “You fixin’ to drive this thing, too?”
Cleo’s dark eyes were bright as she took his hand and put the reins in it. “No. I just want to be at your side in case we don’t make it.”
“I appreciate the gesture,” Muldoon said, “but you’d be safer inside.”
A bullet knocked splinters loose from the side of the carriage. There was no more time to argue. Muldoon cracked the reins, and the horse began to run down Fifth Avenue.
XIV.
Now the roar of the engine sounded in counterpoint to the hoofbeats of the big bay. Muldoon constantly whistled and shouted, coaxing it to greater speed. The bullets still flew by, but, it seemed to Muldoon, less frequently. The men in the auto mobile were probably getting low on ammunition.
There was a bit of traffic around Thirty-ninth Street—some function or other at the Union League Club. With skill he never suspected he had, Muldoon guided his vehicle around two pedestrians and a hansom that had stopped to discharge a couple of swells.
A brief glance backward showed him that his pursuers had been as adroit—he could hear cursing and shouts for the cabbie to get his obscene vehicle out of the way.
Crowds, Muldoon knew, were his best chance to lose the hoodlums, and the shortest distance to a crowd was right down Fifth Avenue. The horse continued to gallop.
Brian O’Leary was pounding on the inside of the carriage.
“What do you want?” Muldoon yelled.
The boy said something. Muldoon turned to Cleo. “What did he say?”
The girl leaned back and listened, then pulled some wind-whipped strands of hair from her face and said, “He wants to know where Roscoe is.”
Muldoon blew out a breath between tight lips. Then, in a hearty voice, he said, “Don’t you remember the plan, boy? Roscoe wasn’t supposed to be comin’ back with us. He was sup
posed to take off on foot, headin’ west. For a decoy.”
“That ain’t,” Brian O’Leary said, “what I asked you.”
Muldoon was unable to speak.
“Well?” Brian insisted.
“They got him, all right?” Muldoon spat. “Are you happy now that you know? The goddamn motherless bastards got him while I ran away.” Muldoon felt a soft hand on his shoulder. A look from the corner of his eye told him Cleo was crying. Suddenly, his own eyes started to burn, and Fifth Avenue started to blur. Blasted wind, he thought.
They galloped by clubs and mansions, but they never managed to leave the drone of Hand’s machine behind. Muldoon had an idea. “Cleo,” he said, “take the derringer from me pocket.”
She had to reach around him to do so, and a bump in the road almost caused her to drop it, but she held it, just as they passed the Presbyterian church on the corner of Thirty-seventh Street.
“Now grab something, and hold on tight! Brian! Secure yourself in there!”
Everything makes a difference, Muldoon thought, everything pays off. The days, the weeks, really, he’d spent exploring this island when the Muldoons first landed. It would come in handy, now.
Because the road dropped off rapidly from Thirty-sixth Street to Thirty-fifth, a steep grade, with wooden planking across it to make ascent and descent easier.
But of course, only a madman would take the hill at these speeds. The horse, seeing the road disappear before him, took it at a leap, and the landau flew behind him, landing with a clatter that must have startled all the guests at the huge Waldorf-Astoria in the next block. Muldoon decided that if he were ever to be flush enough to buy a carriage, the fellow who’d made this one would get the business. He was surprised it didn’t fly to flinders.
He was surprised he didn’t fly to flinders, but he didn’t waste time thinking about it. He had only seconds to tell Cleo what he had in mind.
“There’s one shot left in the derringer,” he told her. “We’re out of their sight, at the moment. So as soon as they appear at the top, before they go flyin’ through the air, I want you to shoot it at them. Maybe their landin’ won’t be as safe as ours.”
The Lunatic Fringe: A Novel Wherein Theodore Roosevelt Meets the Pink Angel Page 22