He was almost relieved when he heard human voices rise from the basement. Down there, talking among themselves, they hadn’t heard him. Creeping step by step, he reached a second, up-flung trap door. A ladder led straight down into the darkness. Barely breathing, he took a few tentative steps down and hung there, listening intently. A harsh whisper. A woman’s voice. Coming at even intervals, a chuffing noise he couldn’t quite identify.
“He pay you fo’ the las’ time?” It was Marianne Granger.
“Ahh, shut your pie hole,” a man’s voice snapped. MacNamara? “We got work.”
Intermingled with a grunting sound, the chuffing resumed.
As quietly as he could, he descended the raw slats. Halfway down, he stopped, suspended, and narrowed his eyes. Torchlight threw shadows onto the dry foundation. A lattice of chickenwire hung slack above the man and woman.
His sweat-stained back to Max, Joseph MacNamara was digging a trench. Humped mounds of dirt, previous plantings, ran parallel into the darkness. Under the low ceiling, the cloying odor of decay clotted the close space. Half-illuminated by the torchlight, the fresh ditch looked moist. At Marianne’s feet lay a small pile of bundles. Would she unwrap them first? His stomach seized up, and he gagged. Covering his mouth he fought the spasms, hard contractions that rippled up from his gut, his throat burning with acid.
Leon? No, no, he wouldn’t, couldn’t allow himself to believe it. Leon wasn’t yet two, and he could sing a scale, prattle like a kid twice his age. Leon could do anything.
Marianne screwed up her mouth. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ for her no more. I know how her game work. See how many she find without me.”
“Ahh, bullshit. She’ll find another nigger scout.”
“Who else gonna do it? I knows which little mamma jazzin’. We oughta get her to pay us double.”
Hadn’t he seen enough? Prickly cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. He could scuttle up the ladder and rush out into the street, swallow fishy air; but hooked on the ladder he couldn’t seem to move a muscle. Instead, he seemed to separate from himself, entering a curious state of mind, at once hyper-aware and distant.
There was no word for this thing they were doing;—it was as forbidden as the name of God. He thought of the way the Jews said “Adoshem,” a euphemism less terrible than the real symbol etched onto Torah parchment. To make the true sound of His name was an unspeakable sin. What then for this word that did not exist? He felt preternaturally calm. His skin had no pores. The horror could not penetrate.
“What she give you and me? He think I can’t count?” Marianne droned on.
“Like to see that witch dig a decent hole.”
Shrugging her shoulders, she dug into her dress pocket, produced a cigarette, lit it and blew a derisive blast of smoke. “Ask me, she skim the cream.”
“Gimme here,” Joseph said, putting two fingers to his lips. Knee-deep in the trench, he lit up and took a few puffs. “Ahh, this is deep enough.”
“Never hear no trumpet. You got the lime fo’ the smell?”
“In this stink market? Street’s paved with cod. You think Tammany gives a royal shit about sanitation? Give ‘em here, c’mon.”
When she lifted the first oilcloth-wrapped parcel, Max’s gorge rose. Then she tossed it into the dark gash in the earth. The bundle struck the carved ground with a barely audible splat. That was the end of it. A splash in the mud, and the world ended.
A crazy idea gripped him. He was being cheated. They weren’t going to let him see. … What could he tell Faye?
“What’s that?” Joseph asked, hearing a noise, climbing out of the pit.
His thoughts raced in disconnected circles. Leon was too big to fit … Mrs. Darling wouldn’t dare … then his body decided. First he was clinging to the slats, and then, without transition, he was climbing, hurling himself up the ladder.
Up on the ground floor, disoriented, he whirled around, searching for the door. He could hear MacNamara cursing as he quickly hauled himself up from below. Before Max could bolt, the bartender cut him off. With a feint, Max tried to get around the low-slung man, but MacNamara, brandishing his shovel, threw himself in the way.
Winding up, the bartender took a swipe at Max’s head, the spade spraying mud and stinging pebbles. His mouth open, Max tasted dirt on his tongue. His eyes burned with grit. The two men circled each other, MacNamara holding the shovel across his chest, Max dancing just out of reach, going cold with the rage to live. All the fear drained out of him. If he could just land one shot on the man’s soft chin, one solid uppercut, he could knock him back on his heels.
Out of nowhere came a hissing sound, and a blow that felt like a stone crashing into his temple. Reeling, he identified the sensation. That time outside the Haymarket. Rolled good and proper. A slung shot. Rubbery legs led him this way and that. Boxers called it Queer Street, didn’t they? Marianne Granger wound up again. He threw his forearm up to protect his face, but the heavy bag thudded into his stomach instead. Doubled over, he staggered, but powerful hands gripped his shoulder and flung him to the floor.
From a great distance he heard MacNamara gasping. “He’s that sonofabitch reporter. What if he goes blabbing?”
The answer came in one more stunning blow to the side of Max’s head.
By the time he regained consciousness, smoke was filling the room. He could smell the stench of kerosene. How long had he been out? A few minutes? An hour? A long time, long enough for a fire to get a good start. An oily stink saturated the atmosphere. Barely a flame was visible in the black haze, but he could hear the conflagration spitting in the darkness. The ceiling rained down cinders.
Rolling away from the blast of heat, he tried to get up on all fours, but his hands and feet had been bound tight. In a sidewinding crawl, on his elbows and knees, he inched toward the door. Crawling was better anyway. Always stay low, under the fire, firemen had told him a hundred times. The heat intensified, scalding his face, his hands, every scrap of exposed skin. What was left of the air seared his lungs. With a deep sucking sound, the fire was devouring the last scraps of oxygen. A swooning sensation flowered within him, a call to luxurious surrender.
There was a window. A plate glass window with chipped gilt lettering.
His clothes, his hair, his skin were turning tinderbox-dry. Inside his body, the temperature skyrocketed. He didn’t need the fire; he’d go off like a Roman candle all by himself. Then he butted the wall. Barely able to balance himself, he clawed his way up and felt for a smooth surface. When he found it, he hurled his body through the darkness.
Glass shattered, hot pinpricks in his face. Rolling on the cool paving stones, he could feel the whoosh of fresh air rushing over him, oxygen racing to feed the flames. Turning over and over, he tried to put out the fire inside his skin. Pieces of glass bit through his clothes. The stink of burning hair filled his nostrils. Dark smoke poured over him. Saturated with fumes, his lungs clotted. Every gasp for breath felt like a dry heave. Expanding his chest faster and faster seemed to do no good. His sticky lungs wouldn’t inflate. He was smothering in a world of salty air. Then suddenly he was drowning.
Under his skin the fire burned on, but the rest of him was going down under an icy lake. The shock of cold water rang down his whole skeleton.
His head ached, his teeth ached, the insides of his bones vibrated with pain. A foreign force stood him up as if he weighed nothing at all. Curiously, his hands fluttered in front of him. Then the street tilted on a crazy axis, and he started to go down again, stiff and straight as a pole. Humped stones rushed up at his face. Clenching his jaw, he steeled himself for the collision, but miraculously the invisible power spun him back to his feet.
A clay pipe vibrated before his eyes. “Easy, fella. I’ll untie ya.”
This time he stood there, rocking back and forth. He was taking in sips of oxygen now, but it didn’t seem to help. Instead, a spasm gripped his stomach and reduced it to the size of a fist. He had knuckles in his stomach,
knuckles he had to spit up. And they came, too, gristle in a burst of yellow bile. Even when there was nothing else left to cough up, the convulsions didn’t abate. Instead, the seizure carried on deep within him, as if, with nothing left to disgorge, it would dredge up the organs themselves.
In the midst of the fit, he realized something. He wasn’t dying. He was gagging, sucking, spitting, gasping. Wasn’t that life? Confused, he wondered why he was so sick. Because of the smoke, or what he had seen, what the fire was devouring before his eyes?
Hands patted him. He floated onto a cart where he fought to sit up.
“Leave him be,” the clay-pipe man advised.
A wild gong echoed down the street. Bodies flew out of the way. Iron-shod hooves rang out against the pavement. Engine Company No. 15 pounded toward the conflagration. Clinging to the shining fire patrol wagon, rubber-coated men shouted and waved their axes, driving onlookers off the street. From the opposite direction, a gleaming white-and-gold hosecar spun around the corner, a pair of dark stallions pulling the swerving wagon behind them. Which vehicle would get there first?
Somehow he climbed off his perch and wobbled back toward the warehouse. In a dream he saw the brown gash in the basement, nameless mounds curling in flame. Lost in this waking nightmare, he could not stop the two puffs of air from whispering in his ear. Le-on. He tasted clay in his mouth. He shuddered.
The firemen would have no chance. The building would be consumed down to the last brick. A wild despair seized him, his jaw went slack, and he stood like a stunned animal before the conflagration.
Yet, disconnected from his paralyzed limbs, his other mind kept observing, sifting ideas, testing theories. This thinking apparatus was part of him, yet outside his body. In its cool, impenetrable sheath, it tested its own observations and came to its own conclusions.
The firefighters didn’t know it, but they had to rescue the remains.
As the men peeled off the patrol wagon, an affectionate cheer rose from the crowd.
“Got here fast, huh?”
“They got brass balls, going in there.”
Coughing, doubling over, and rising again, Max wove through the eager crowd, pressing toward the front lines. Without him, how would they know where to dig, what to look for? Without him, how could they read the scraps of charred oilcloth or the story of blackened bone?
A hefty fireman pointed his halligan at the roof. Another one, looking grave, nodded in agreement. Aloof from the mob’s excitement, they moved deliberately, arranging their pumper’s connections and hoses, shuffling forward in their great boots for the attack.
A woman tried to drag her husband away. “C’mon, Sam, it’s gonna fall on our heads.”
He would point them to the trench. He’d get down on his hands and knees and dig like a dog.
Another gong rang and rang like a war cry. Vaulting the curb, Hook and Ladder No. 6 screeched to a halt. Before it rolled to a stop, men were leaping off and ripping scaling ladders from their hooks.
The steamer lofted streams of water onto the seething fire, billowing smoke blackening in response. Lit cinders rained down on the festive crowd. Flasks passed from hand to hand, and Max saw a longshoreman slip his hand up a plump woman’s skirt. Leaning back against him, her eyes fixed on the smoking building, she shifted an inch or two to make herself comfortable. French sailors fresh from a grog shop staggered to the scene. A knot of American seamen elbowed each other and gave the foreigners dirty looks.
“You need a hand, fellas?” one of the Americans called out to the men in rubber coats.
“Keep outta the way there,” the captain shouted. The eager mob surged forward. “Back, alia yez!”
“Max Greengrass, Herald” he mumbled, showing himself.
The captain tilted the shiny brim of his hat back, revealing untamed eyebrows. “Mother of God. What the hell happened to you?”
“In the basement … dig,” he managed. “It started….”
“You don’t say? Mallory, keep an eye on this citizen.”
A towering recruit, Mallory heaved Max over to the pumper. “Barney, cap’n says this one stays put.”
Flannel sleeves rolled to his elbows, a red-faced firefighter was wrestling with a recalcitrant hose. “Damn pressure’s down!”
Mallory hurled Max onto the pumper’s seat.
“It’s a roast,” Max informed the dubious fireman. “Down in the basement.”
“That so? We’ll send for the marshal. Don’t give the man no trouble, chief,” he added, cuffing Max under the chin.
Why should he cause problems? He’d accomplished his mission. They would listen to him now.
Bearing their axes, a pair of firemen leaned ladders against the building and began to climb. In the spray they glistened like black beetles. The one on the right pried open a shutter and smashed a second-story window, revealing the roiling furnace inside. Directing his nozzle through the broken glass, he held on to his pulsing hose until the fire went from crimson to orange to sooty smoke.
“Man on the roof!” a fireman called out.
Max craned his neck. Joseph MacNamara peered down over the lip of the cornice, then backed off at the sight of the sheer, four-story drop. MacNamara. Trapped in his own fire. Had he gone back for something? Waited too long?
Max stood up and shouted at the top of his lungs. “Back stairs! Around the back!”
The throng took up his suggestion. “To the back. Back stairs!”
Max could see the bartender shake his head and lift his palms. Finally, the dark figure receded. Stepping down from the engine, Max tested his balance. The wobbles were going away. Pushing off, he let the mob sweep him around the side of the building. Beating at the crazed spectators, two cops managed to impede the charge, allowing a few firemen to haul ladders around to the rear of the building.
Engulfed in flame, the wooden staircase was disintegrating, fiery steps, fiery railings sailing down, light, half-consumed. Fully extended, the first ladder reached the third floor. Punch-drunk, Max staggered to the rear of the building just in time to see MacNamara gazing down at the burning platform below him. Strips of flame licked back at the window.
“Take a flyer!” a reeling sailor cried out.
“Shut your trap, Wheatly!” a fellow seaman shouted.
A second, taller ladder rose skyward, this one reaching to just below the cornice. Still, MacNamara would have to climb over the stonework, dangle his leg down, and find his footing. His helmet low over his face, the second fireman grappled hand over hand up his ladder. Stephenson’s rag dipped a foot into the empty air, and the crowd fell quiet. His rescuer grabbed his ankle and guided it to the ladder’s top rung. The two of them were safe now.
What luck: he would get to see MacNamara hang. Max had never had much taste for the carnival of public executions, but a spiky flower opened inside him now. Some jackals didn’t deserve to exist. After Byrnes applied the third degree, MacNamara would cough up Weems, Mrs. Edwards, Marianne Granger, and the rest of them.
Lost in a reverie, he wondered how Hummel could hold him responsible for reporting the insurance ring’s private business if Police Superintendent Byrnes made it public.
And didn’t Max have some intelligence to trade with Byrnes? Couldn’t he go into business for himself?
All the bartender had to do was set his weight, turn around, and lower himself down.
It was hard to understand what happened next. Max thought he saw another small burst of black smoke roll off the roof. The two dangling men grew hazy for a split second, and then the ladder rocked back from the bricks.
For a moment it hung there at an impossible, vertical angle. A pair of firemen rushed over and positioned themselves under the teetering ladder just before it began its sickening backward plunge. The barrel-chested MacNamara flew off first, the fireman a heartbeat later, a pair of dead weights dropping toward the unyielding pavement below.
Without a word to each other, two firefighters on the ground separated, spr
ead their arms and legs wide, and fixed their eyes on the plummeting bodies.
All they had to do was cushion the hurding men. They might end up with a few broken bones, but the nose-diving victims would likely survive. Then at the last second two sailors staggered under the plunging bodies, too, flinging their arms out and jostling one of the rescuers, knocking him off balance.
The plummeting fireman hit with a moist sound, a bag of laundry splatting on the Belgian paving stones. A single animal, the mob groaned. A black rubber hat bounced into the gutter. At the same instant, MacNamara hurtled into his savior’s arms, knocking the fireman flat on his back. His crushing weight pressed the firefighter flat against the stones. The captain, blind with rage, grabbed one of the American seamen by the throat. It took a pair of his comrades to drag him off.
Joseph MacNamara stood up unsteadily and brushed himself off. With the back of his hand, he smeared soot off his jaw. Before he could wander off, a higher-up in a blue cap grabbed his elbow. “Don’t go nowhere’s, you! I’ll split your head wide open, hear me!”
“Mary, Mother of God!”
“The hell with God! Get a doctor!”
Faces blackened by the fire, a cadre of firemen swiftly lifted their comrade’s limp body and bore it to their water-streaming truck. The mob fell quiet as the rag-doll corpse flopped onto the hook and ladder. A heavy brow, a pug nose, a shock of black hair. The last mask of disbelief. The streak of dirt across cheeks and nose, such an even line, couldn’t obscure the man’s beardless face. An odd scuffle took place, one rescuer yanking on the victim’s rubber boots, the other bulling him against the truck panel and shouting: “Conroy! Leave him be! You daft, or what?”
The team of horses, glassy with sweat, stamped impatiently. Then the mad gong started up again, the stunned crowd parted, and the horses, as if sensing the grave moment, bolted forward.
A hand shook his shoulder hard. It wasn’t one of the friendly hands that had transported him from the pavement and lofted him to safety. Spinning, he came face to face with a man in a blue hat. Its shiny brim had a military caste. Under a thatch of wild eyebrows, black eyes blazed.
The Midnight Band of Mercy Page 38