THE DEVILS DIME

by Bristol, Bailey

  Jess pulled a box of matches from the leather case and reached past Ford to light the two carriage lanterns that had blown out in their wild ride. The light in front of him would keep him hidden, impossible to see behind the glare.

  “Don’t move,” he cautioned Ford. “He thinks I’m Trumbull.”

  “Deac!” Hamilton hollered and waved, and a foot fell free to dangle out of the side of his vehicle. A dainty, female foot.

  Ford saw it at the same moment and lurched as if he would jump down from the seat.

  “No!” Jess hissed. “Don’t move! We’ll get her, Ford, we’ll get her! Just sit. Now. Please!”

  “Deac! Some help here!” Hamilton called.

  Screams and music and laughter from blocks away converged in a decadent echo that danced up the alley walls and distorted the sound of Jensen’s voice. He prayed it would do the same for his own.

  Jess struck another match and lit a cigar, pulling on it until the embers glowed red. He let the memory of Chief Trumbull’s voice echo in his ear, and then, with the cigar still clamped between his teeth, he took the chance.

  “What’s going on....Cash?” This had to be Cash, the man with the money, but if it wasn’t, Jess was prepared to leap from the buggy, fists at the ready. Adrenaline surged in every limb, pressing him past the verge of action, but he stayed in the shadows.

  Then the man answered to his name, and sealed his fate.

  “Damn Runabout won’t start...got to get rid of her, Deac, she saw me!” Hamilton paced toward the buggy as he spoke, wiping his hands nervously with a pristine handkerchief.

  “We can’t have that, Cash, can’t have her knowing who you are.”

  Hamilton shook his head, his eyes wild in the glow of the buggy’s lamps.

  “Deac, I think they’re on to us.”

  Hamilton looked back toward his automobile, and Jess drew hard on the cigar. As Hamilton turned back, Jess let the embers flare.

  “We better move the stash, then,” Jess growled, trying hard not to say too much, but suddenly realizing he was poised to lead Hamilton into a trap. If he could keep up the deceit long enough to get Addie out of here, and then bring the authorities...somebody clean...to wherever Hamilton was with the incriminating funds, or contraband, or whatever it was, he could bring them all down. A man like Jensen was sure to sing once they had him cornered.

  Jess felt his pulse even out from its erratic pumping. It was a plan. And it could very well work. If he managed to get Addie without being recognized, then he could lure Deacon to the same place where he’d expose Jensen. It could work. It had to.

  “Y-you mean the vault?”

  Attaboy, Jensen.

  “What else?” he snarled.

  Hamilton’s motions were jerky now, and he ran his hands through his hair every few seconds as he darted looks over his shoulder toward his vehicle.

  “I, um, I can get to the bank by midnight, Deac, but I have to...I have to...I think she might be dead, Deac.”

  His heart slid into oblivion, and after a moment of black darker than anything he’d ever felt, rage overtook him. His hands shook,

  “Give her to me, Cash,” Jess growled. “I’ll dump her. Meet me at the bank. Midnight.”

  Ford bolted off the bench and loped past Hamilton. Jess’s stomach heaved with the impotence of sitting there in the dark, hiding. But in seconds Ford was handing Addie’s limp form into the buggy, into Jess’s arms. Jess could barely see her for the tears that swam in his eyes.

  “Midnight,” he yelled, his voice breaking with fear and fury as Ford backed the buggy out of the alley and took off down the side street.

  Jess pulled Addie into his lap and cradled her, hugging her hard against the lurching roll of the speeding buggy. He ran his fingers over her bruised face and clutched her unresponsive hand, desperate to see her brown eyes again, to feel the joy she took in folding herself into his arms, to talk about nothing and everything with her, just one more time.

  “Addie. Sweetheart. Open your eyes.”

  Jess laid his forehead on Addie’s and traced her cheek with his finger, careful to avoid the deepening bruises that broke his heart. “It’s no fun here without you.”

  Over and over Jess whispered his plea as Addie lay still in his arms. She’d been beaten violently. Even in the dark he could see the horrible evidence.

  She’d been so angry with him when he was two hours late for dinner. And in his callous way, he’d made light of her fear for his safety. He’d been so thickheaded that it wasn’t until Addie was in horrible danger that he understood the need to guard, to protect, to hold someone to yourself against the dark.

  Letting go of her hand was so unfathomable to him now, that he wondered if his heart would shatter if she were really gone.

  For the first time in his life, Jess understood courage. And it had nothing to do with running headlong into peril. It had everything to do with letting a precious love out of your sight. How would he ever have the courage to do that?

  How had she?

  His tears slowed as he murmured over and over in Addie’s ear. When he leaned back to look on her face, a tear rolled from beneath her lash and onto her cheek. Startled, he looked closer, and at that moment, his tear fell to join hers, and rolled across the fearsome bruise to the corner of her mouth.

  Jess bent slowly and touched his lips to hers. In the same instant, Addie’s lips parted. As lightly as he knew how, Jess kissed her awake.

  “J-hessss?”

  Her eyelids fluttered weakly, and Jess choked back the huge stone of gratitude that welled in his throat.

  “Yes. Addie. It’s me. It’s Jess. Open your eyes, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”

  The horses had found their stride, and as they left the worst of the Gut behind, the ride smoothed out. Still, Ford drove them as fast as he dared, and every few seconds his head whipped to the right, trying to catch a glimpse of his daughter.

  “She’s coming ’round, Ford!” Jess hollered, sending reassurance, and saw a flicker of relief before Ford’s head whipped back around.

  But he’d been a second too late, and didn’t see disaster approaching. Just as the horses charged into the intersection, a three-wheeled contraption careened out of the side street and raced crazily toward them. In the same instant the horses shied, the boy pedaling the contraption looked up and saw that he was about to clobber into the precinct chief’s buggy, and that realization sent his face into a paroxysm of fear. His hands came up as if to ward off the devil, and his rickety contraption rocked crazily to the side, spilling him into the street.

  He rolled, narrowly missing being crushed by the chief’s buggy wheel.

  “Tad?”

  Jess blinked as the near miss set his heart pumping hard. “Ford, stop, pull over!”

  “What the hell?—” But Ford obeyed.

  The moment the buggy lurched to a stop, Jess propped Addie gently in the corner of the seat. Her hand came to her forehead, and he kissed her cheek before leaping out of the carriage.

  “Tad!” He hollered as he ran back toward the small figure just getting to his knees in the street. “Tad!”

  The kid darted a glance as he began to scramble now. His feet scuffled hard, trying to get traction so he could run from what he knew to be danger.

  “Tad, it’s me! Jess!” Jess scooped him up just as he got his footing and battled his flailing arms. “It’s me! Jess!”

  Tad suddenly stopped flailing and slumped in Jess’s arms. “Jess? We got to...she’s back there...they hurt her...”

  “Tad, Tad! Stop now, it’s all right. I got her.”

  “Wh- what?”

  “I got Addie. She’s right here. He swung around and threw Tad up into the buggy. “She’s right here, Tad. It’s all right now.”

  Jess tossed the mangled three-wheeler to the curb and jumped in behind him, just as Tad sank to his knees and laid his head in Addie’s lap. “Jesus Mary ’n Joseph, I thought you were dead,” was all the boy could whispe
r.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “What we have, folks, is two hours and twelve minutes to lure Deacon Trumbull over to the bank, find ourselves a squeaky clean witness to come along, and manage to get ourselves into Chase National Bank to spring a trap on Trumbull and Jensen. Two hours and twelve minutes. What was I thinking.” Jess looked up at the stars and dug the fingers of both hands into his temples.

  They stood a bit apart from one another, Addie—who’d refused doctoring—pacing between her father and Jess, still working the last dregs of the ether out of her lungs. Her face was finally taking on some color above the faded dancehall ruffles she still wore. But it wasn’t the ruffles that distracted Jess. It was those delicate bubbles of flesh that lifted so provocatively from the neckline of Addie’s garish costume. The first thing he’d done when they arrived at Tad’s house was to borrow a shawl for her. But Addie just plain wasn’t used to being indecent, so she kept forgetting to cover up. Keeping his distance from that alluring sight was just plain hell.

  Ford and Jess were at an impasse. Each had lobbed a couple of plans already that the other had easily shot down. No use to risk their lives if they couldn’t prove anything in court down the road.

  This was brutal. He was no gunslinger. He didn’t ride into the nest of the bad guys with guns blazing. He pulled the trigger with his words, exposed their actions with his eloquent and dire phrases. But this, this was more than brutal. He was going to take Addie’s father right back into the inferno, and he couldn’t guarantee any of them would come out unscathed. What they needed was a miracle.

  What they needed was a witness. Someone honorable, monumentally clean, who could attest to what Hamilton and Trumbull were about to do.

  Tad sat on the stoop of his house, trying to pretend he wasn’t hugging his Ma, and failing dismally. Tad’s father kept taking a step toward the little group that had brought his only son safely home, safely out of the clutches of two very dangerous men, but each time Jess thought he would say something, he would back away, uncertain whether he should offer help.

  Ford was quiet, repeatedly throwing his small pocket knife to slice into the dirt between the toes of his boots, then retrieving it and throwing it again. His feet were splayed less than six inches apart, yet each time the blade landed dead center.

  Thuck. Moonlight glinted off the hilt as it sank once again into the dirt.

  Thuck.

  Thuck.

  “Dammit, Ford, can you just—?” The rhythmic slapping of steel into dirt was driving Jess mad.

  “Just passin’ the time until you finally figure somethin’ out,” he drawled.

  “Hey, I’m the one—”

  “Jess! Papa! This isn’t—” Addie’s voice cut the darkness with shrill urgency.

  “Folks?” Tad’s father stepped between them, his hands spread in a placating gesture. “Folks, listen here. I don’t know what you have going on, but I thank you for bringing my boy home.” Jess began to dismiss his thanks, but Joel Morton forged ahead. “You need some way to get the precinct chief over to the bank. I happen to know that right now he is supposed to be at the Vanderbilts.”

  All three turned and stared at him.

  “And you know this how?” Jess asked, not ready to believe it was worth his time to even bother asking.

  “Well, sir, I drive for the Vanderbilts. Took their snippy secretary all over town last week hand delivering those invites. Some High Lord Somethin’ or other from Scotland Yard is here.” He scratched his head. “Silly woman got all worked up deciding whether to deliver the chief’s invitation to him at home or at the precinct. Decided on home and she was miffed, boy howdy, she was miffed when he wasn’t home. Guess she—”

  “Okay, Morton, that’s great. We’ll just get a message to him at the Vanderbilts, um, somehow, let me think—”

  “Well, that’s what I’m sayin’, Jess. I can take a note up there. Give it to the little secretary gal. She’ll bust her buttons to take it to him personally. It’ll make her night, for sure.”

  All three turned toward him, their incredulous stares causing him to back away a step. But he continued.

  “Then there’s the witness thing. He’s probably more than you want, but he’ll do it for you, I know he will. Why he—”

  “Who, Joel, who?”

  “Oh! Rosalind’s uncle. Wheeler Hazard Peckham. You mighta heard o’—”

  Adrenaline soared through Jess’s veins, even though he was afraid to let himself believe their good fortune. Still, excitement propelled him forward. “You mean to tell me that your wife’s uncle is the man who prosecuted Boss Tweed? Who busted up Tammany Hall?”

  Joel Morton blanched a bit as Jess’s finger poked his sternum to punctuate every word. “Yessir, Uncle Hazard is as clean as they come.”

  Jess looked at Ford, and incredulity spread across their faces. They had their witness, a man who had prosecuted the most powerful crime boss the young country had ever seen. He was a saint. Who better to bring down Heaven?

  It was done. They had a plan. All they had to do was get Uncle Hazard on board. And that was easier than they ever expected, since Uncle Hazard had a telephone at his home, and he was actually there, not out socializing somewhere, and he was more than happy to meet with them in this emergency. They should just come right on over.

  . . .

  Fifty-three minutes after eleven, six men waited outside Chase National Bank, well hidden in the gloom and shadows. The famed attorney and one of the Pinkerton guards he’d brought along hunkered with Jess behind the thicket of lilac bushes near the side door. Ford and the other two Pinkertons stayed out of sight behind the shed that covered the coal chute.

  A pair of gargoyles loomed over the side door and cast eerie shadows in the quiet yard. The merest tail of a breeze that found its way between the buildings didn’t do much to cool the sweat that gathered on every tense brow.

  Addie waited two blocks beyond the bank in the attorney’s ancient two-bench wicker phaeton. They all agreed it was best not to flirt with trouble by bringing the precinct chief’s own custom buggy to the very trap they’d set for him. The phaeton’s foul weather canopy was raised, and she stayed well within its recesses, as Jess had made her promise to do.

  Peckham turned out to be a real maverick, although it appeared his boots had barely survived his last safari and his pistol had been hanging on the wall as a decorator piece until earlier that evening. He was practically giddy at the idea of helping Jess Pepper. In fact, he was such a fan of the column that he’d already written a sharp letter to the editor decrying the Times’ silencing of “the finest truth teller that rag has ever known”.

  A streetcar several blocks away sounded its final run for the night just as Hamilton Jensen brought his own horse and buggy to a stop near the side door. His fancy little Runabout was evidently not running about just yet. He made quick work of unlocking the heavy iron grill that covered the door and disappeared inside.

  “Now we wait,” Jess whispered. “We can’t risk going in until Trumbull’s already in—” He stopped himself as a horsedrawn paddy wagon clopped noisily into the side yard. The precinct chief jumped down, the elbow-tip cape of his evening attire fluttering its white satin lining like a caged dove trapped in the inky black. Jess and Ford had correctly assessed his arrogance, and his need for secrecy. He’d brought no guards with him. And as they’d suspected, he did not look happy. The note that had been delivered to him was cryptic.

  Identity imminent. Midnight CNB transfer necessary. C.

  If the message had not triggered Trumbull’s immediate departure from the Vanderbilts, their entire plan would have failed. They would have had to apprehend Jensen or the two would figure out they’d been duped. And then holy hell would have broken loose.

  The precinct chief disappeared into the same side door Jensen had entered moments earlier. With a finger to his lips, Jess rose from his secluded spot. He gestured for Ford and one of his men to wait three minutes while Peckham a
nd the two Pinkertons went in with him. Jess made it clear that it was the Pinkerton’s job to protect Peckham at all costs. Ford’s team would take up positions guarding the exits, in case Jensen or Trumbull eluded the trap.

  As he crept toward the door, Jess welcomed the steely concentration that fell upon him, the heightened state of awareness that gave him eyes in the back of his head on nights like these. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t need them.

  Tonight, it was Battery Park’s golden boy whose luck had run out.

  . . .

  Hamilton Jensen knew his way through the bank in the dark, and Deacon Trumbull stayed close on his heels. There wasn’t a soul around, but in the eerie dark, Jensen kept his voice to a whisper.

  “Did you get rid of her?”

  Deacon dropped his cigar into a corner humidor to free his hands. Get rid of who? That southern doxy who thought she was so respectable working at the Times? Or the two-penny doxy he’d roughed up a little too much the other night? Either way, the answer was the same.

  “Yeah, I got rid of her.”

  “Good.”

  Deacon pulled a small derringer from his pocket and checked the cylinder. “You got a gun, Cash?”

  Hamilton stopped and turned his white face to Deacon. His startled eyes registered his answer.

  “Here.” Deacon handed him the little pistol. It was exactly the kind of worthless firearm a man like Jensen might carry.

  “Is it—?”

  “Yeah. It’s loaded. Now get going.”

  The two moved toward the vault, and even with his shaking hands, Jensen had the gates opened in just seconds. They pressed forward in unison to the massive door. Jensen worked the large dials and heard the tumblers fall into place, and signaled Deacon to help him pull open the heavy door.

  They stepped in tandem into the vault, and Deacon picked up the first bag of money he saw.