“I like the post office comparison,” remarked its author. “Really, I don’t think I’ve seen that before.”
“Odd that you should say that, suh, having written it yourself.”
“Perhaps, but it might just as well have been written by someone else, for I have no memory of it whatsoever.”
“With so little thought given to it, no wonder you are so prolific.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
* * *
Economy Manor
Word reached O’Reilly of the impending raid as he was conducting business in Moyamensing. Shadduck was well known in the township and his activities closely monitored. When Shadduck somehow cobbled together a posse comitatus out of a gang from the Fourth Ward known as the True Blue Americans, the lieutenant was informed of this within minutes. Then further word arrived that the gang was preparing to head south to Germantown, and O’Reilly concluded, correctly, that his enterprise had been blown. One of his party had peached. Economy Manor was subject to attack.
Shadduck had been a worry from the moment he first appeared. To begin, he was not confined to any particular township, and could cross boundaries at will. And his police methods, with his paid informants and hired toughs, set members of the criminal class against one another, corrupted the gangs from within.
To the Irishman such tactics seemed to belong more to the realm of civil war than to the activities of a constable or watchman. Seen in hindsight, it would have been better had Shadduck been put off his feet straightaway. But there was no point in crying over spilled milk …
An hour after, having snatched the Na Coisantoiri from their various occupations, the prairie schooner thundered out of Moyamensing to Germantown Avenue—past the orchards and the linen works, past solemn bearded gentlemen in broad-brimmed hats and enormous women in white bonnets, past the Mennonite church and the Quaker church and the Baptist church and the Pietist church, until at last the spire of Economy Manor beckoned in the distance. Whipping the horses to further exertion, in his imagination O’Reilly speculated on the snake in their bosom—for certainly there was one.
Seen in hindsight, it was inevitable that Shadduck would seek out a member of the Irish Brotherhood. But who was the bad member? Who was the snitch?
In his mind, like the rising moon, O’Reilly saw before him the face of Finn Devlin. The partner had always been capricious, always righteous, always ready to perform some suicidal deed for a symbol. Money mattered nothing to him, nor even his life. Here was a man perfectly willing to assassinate Old Rough and Ready, the president of the United States—simply to avenge himself on an author …
Now it was clear. Devlin planned to kill Dickens, whether or not the ransom was paid. Then he would provoke a donnybrook with the police. A grand battle, an irresistible opportunity for martyrdom. The Irish Brotherhood would be consumed in a grand blaze, along with O’Reilly’s fifty thousand dollars, and he would never be mayor of Philadelphia.
PUTNAM AND I peered over the stone foundation while a curious scene took place before us by the light of the rising moon.
Moving at a run, O’Reilly disappeared inside the building to the right of the church, while the shavers milled about the wagon with grave expressions on their thin, pale faces. Now the sound of shouting from inside the building, while another group of young men poured out of the building to mingle with the others in a state of great agitation. Now out of the building came a good-looking young man, followed closely by the lieutenant, waving his cudgel and speaking furiously to the younger man in a foreign language. Then O’Reilly turned and struck him in the face with a sweeping gesture and the younger man went down with what appeared to be a cut above one eye. Moving quickly, O’Reilly crouched beside the man and lifted his hand, and from personal experience I knew exactly what he was about to do.
He was stopped by a series of sudden, urgent cries from the direction of the front gate; now a shaver with the face of an old man appeared at a full run, elbowed his way past the other boys, and spoke to Lieutenant O’Reilly—something about coppers, and a word that sounded like saddle. O’Reilly immediately rose to his feet and, without another glance at the young man lying on the ground, gathered his young men in what looked to be a football huddle. At a shout they dispersed in orderly groups of a half dozen, each apparently with a sense of purpose, while the young man on the ground slowly rose to his knees, then to his feet, then disappeared inside the building in the middle that must have been a church.
“The church,” my companion hissed into my ear. “They are keeping him in the church.”
From inside the church, if that is what it was, came more shouting, but with one voice distinctly female. With the look of a decision taken, Putnam drew out his four-barreled pistol and prepared to vault the stone foundation, just as the church door opened and the young man reappeared with blood streaming into one eye, in the company of a dark-haired woman with a pale, round face, pulling at his arm and pleading in French and English and a third language as well.
Non mon ami, it is pas necessaire, you do not have to do this!
Leave me, woman! Coimhead fearg fhear na foighde!
As the two engaged in their furious jabber, out of the church came a half-dozen elderly crones, each with a small sack made from a bed-sheet. At first they seemed to be about to follow the man and woman into the building to the left. Short of the entrance, however, they turned abruptly and made their way together through the tall grass toward the woods to the rear—then suddenly vanished, all at once, as though by witchcraft.
The man and woman disappeared into the building.
“Dickens is there, for certain,” said Putnam, and over the wall we went.
THE LITERARY DISCUSSION was silenced by sounds of anger and urgency, then the sound of feet on the stairway. As they entered, the ancient sentry beneath the clock abruptly rose to her feet and shuffled out the door and down the stairs without a word.
“A good night to you, Sister,” said Dickens, then recognized the figure in the doorway as the young Irishman who had accompanied him from the hotel.
“Good evening to you as well, sir,” he said to the young man, then turned to his female companion with an expression of deep sadness. “And to you as well, Miss Genoux. I see now that any affection you expressed for me was simply to gain my trust. How stoic of you to indulge me in such a fashion. I hope that my presence did not disgust you overmuch.”
“I beg you do not make a laugh of it, sir,” she said. “Monsieur Dickens, jesuis desole. I am so sorry. So unhappy for what he is going to do.”
“I do not understand you,” said Dickens, and turned his attention to the young man with blood coming from a wound over his eye. The eyes were remarkably blue, and never in his life had Dickens seen eyes staring at him with such clear, pure hatred. “You should know, sir,” he said feebly, “that I have written extensively in favor of Irish rights.”
When the young man laughed, it contained so little merriment that Dickens hardly recognized the sound.
“Your countrymen, sir, your people, slit the throats of Irish children in my village as if they were pigs, sor. I watched it all, sir, from the crawl space under the house, saw it with my own eyes, sor, ten years old I was. It is too late for the sympathy of an Englishman, sir, I don’t want it.”
“You are such a fool with your symbols,” said Miss Genoux, bitterly. “While you fight your symbols the murderers are gone, gone away, mon ami, the beast, he always get away!”
From the expression on the young man’s face, she might as well have been shouting at the moon.
“I thought you were different but you are la meme chose, tu com-prends, you and Marat, you are just the same!”
“Revenge is never perfect,” replied Devlin softly, taking out of his coat pocket what appeared to be a knife but which on closer inspection turned out to be a spike, of the kind used by sailors to splice heavy rope.
“Are ye Catholic, Mr. Dickens, sir?” he asked.
“Chur
ch of England, actually, but my attendance is poor, said the pale man with the tired eyes, lighting a cigarette. “Why do you ask, sir?”
“Because ye might want to say a prayer.”
THE PINCH OF it was that Shadduck had had neither time nor resources to survey the field beforehand, or even send an advance party. Through informants, Smit was able to provide a general picture of Germantown, which suggested that the enemy zone would be more or less typical of the area—cultivated fields, orchards, and settlements, with intermittent small forests serving as windbreaks and woodlots.
The company having assembled two hours after schedule, the ride to Germantown had been hindered by dissenstion among the men— they were, after all, thugs and goons in private life, with general devilment their principal incentive.
By the time the company reached Germantown the sun had dipped below the surrounding fringe of trees, and the sheer impassa-bility of the wood surrounding Economy Manor became evident. Seeing this, Shadduck ordered a halt and called Smit to account.
“Sure and the thickness of it is shocking to me also,” said Smit.
“We’re policemen,” added Coutts, standing beside Smit as support, “we are naw red Indians.”
“Leave me alone while I cogitate on it,” said Shadduck, lighting a cheroot.
“What am I saying to the men?” asked Smit.
“Tell them to play some cards.”
The original plan had been for his men to take two positions, from which they would advance in a pincer movement, rolling up the left and right flanks of the enemy, forcing a retreat to the open rear. Being young men, there was every possibility the enemy would desert, leaving Shadduck with a simpler mission and lower attrition on both sides.
A reasonable plan in theory, and standard procedure for a limited action. And completely out of the question.
Two tactics suggested themselves: either fall back or continue. Given the uncertain loyalty of his troops, there was every chance the former would degenerate into mass desertion, abandoning Mr. Dickens to his fate. Dont throw out the dirty water till you get in fresh went the saying. And so they would advance. However it must be done at once, for the property’s one road would be impassable after dark, even with torches.
When Smit had assembled the men at the edge of the wood, Shadduck ordered horses to be tethered, torches cut and wound with kerosene-soaked cotton, and issued a command of silence as they advanced on foot down the overgrown driveway to within sight of the enemy camp.
As anyone might have predicted, silence—or indeed any sort of discipline among this company of goons—proved impossible. Most had brought alcohol to guard against the chill, and even the sober fellers were unprepared to obey any command other than to go out and beat somebody up.
By now the task for Shadduck was to maintain order in his own mind, for he was in danger of making a balls of the entire operation. Using a combination of experience, logical elimination, and inherited wisdom, he had blundered into a hole. Every man has a fool up his sleeve…
Notwithstanding the pacifist convictions of its Communist founders, the enemy position turned out to be admirably defensible, and all but immune to surprise. Whatever the hour or season, an invader must funnel out of a hole in the woods, at most two or three abreast, to face a clearing and, beyond a stone wall, a fully assembled defense at a shooting distance of no more than twenty paces.
This is precisely what had happened to Shadduck and his posse comitatus. Indeed, it was only because the shavers lacked artillery (or any medium-range weapon) that Shadduck’s company avoided immediate annihilation. Looking across the low bushes at the assembled enemy beyond the wall, the inspector felt a kinship with Indian fighters who underestimate Apache warriors and are reduced to hairless corpses, one by one.
For sure he was in a scrape.
It was no comfort that the enemy troops were between ten and twelve years of age. Shadduck had seen plenty of units that age on the Mexican side, well drilled and effective. And Shadduck had made inquiries about the Na Coisantoiri, enough to know that there were a good many of them, and all of them had taken weapons training of some sort. A few carried pistols for certain, but most relied on identical heavy-knobbed fighting sticks, each one three feet in length. Shadduck had seen these sticks in action and it was a sobering display.
His own company of men was, as his mother would say, another piece of calico.
It is not unreasonable for the respectable citizen to envisage a gang as a sort of militia, with a command structure and a sense of camaraderie. In the case of the True Blue Americans, however, that analogy went off-course.
The True Blue Americans were an amalgam of two trade gangs, one a band of butcher’s assistants called the Butcher Boys, and the other a party of printers’ devils and apprentice bookbinders known as the Roach Parade. The former group, predictably, liked to employ butcher’s cleavers and other implements of the trade, while the latter preferred to work with their hobnailed boots, brine-hardened fists, and their teeth, often filed to points.
Though as likely to fly at one another as at the enemy, the True Blue Americans did possess a sort of uniform—a blue stripe sewed onto the outside seam of their trousers, and an oversized plug hat, dyed blue and stuffed with leather and cotton. This alteration made it possible to withstand a blow to the head from a rock or a brickbat. However, it made their heads appear huge.
It was a matter of debate which gang possessed the superior arsenal, but Shadduck would have bet on the cudgels of the Na Coisan-toiri for their effectiveness at both close and medium quarters. Held at arm’s length, the knob would break a man’s skull from a distance of five feet. Move inside and the shaft with its sharpened branch ends could tear off his face with a quick swipe.
Observing the overall situation, Shadduck saw that he would be a fortunate officer to get out with his own skin.
As the two companies traded insults from a distance, working up their temper and nerve, it became clear that close contact fighting must be avoided at any cost.
In the war, any commander on the field who did not wish to be shot in the back obeyed certain cardinal rules—one of which was never to lead his unit into close quarters fighting without a clear and obvious advantage. In this case, he saw none.
Of greatest worry was that the enemy had been trained under a single command, the gentleman on horseback thirty paces away. Shadduck noted the way he would speak in a low voice to an assistant, who would relay the order forward according to protocol. Shadduck recognized the leader as O’Reilly, a familiar figure in Moy-amensing. His eloquent partner, however, was nowhere to be seen. Shadduck wondered why.
One thing was certain: to avoid bloodshed on both sides, that officer must be shot. A stitch in time saves nine.
“Request parley!” Shadduck shouted out, and took several paces forward so that he now stood halfway between his men and the wall. In a moment O’Reilly’s head and shoulders appeared above the wall, his single eye focused as though to bore a hole straight through him. Shadduck stood there in silence. If you have nothing to say, say nothing …
Shadduck watched the feller with one eye as he stepped forward to within ten paces, carrying his cudgel casually like it was a furled umbrella. Shadduck saw the notches in the stick and wondered what they meant.
“Inspector Shadduck is your name I believe, sor.”
“And I suspect you are Mr. O’Reilly, sir.”
“Lieutenant O’Reilly if you please, sor.”
“Maybe so. I am told your are a veteran of the war, sir. And I have heard other things besides.”
“A veteran of the war like your own self.” O’Reilly opened his duster coat to reveal an infantry tunic.
To Shadduck’s eye, neither the man nor his tunic looked like officer material. However, he said nothing about this. Never call out a man until you know what is behind him.
“And what else did Mr. Devlin have to say?” asked the Irishman. “He is an acquaintance of yours, I think.”
“Yet he has spoken to you is what I’m thinking.”
Even while speaking, Shadduck’s mind was elsewhere, forming a new plan.
Unknown to the inspector, Lieutenant O’Reilly was no more interested in a donnybrook than his enemy. Unlike men who fight for causes, he knew what he wanted. He wanted fifty thousand dollars. If a donnybrook took place and officers of the law were killed, he would be a hunted man, and would have to uproot himself again, begin again. This O’Reilly was willing to do, but not without his fifty thousand dollars.
“What is it to be, Inspector Shadduck?” Riley called. “Is it a pitched battle you have in yer mind?”
“You know me then, do you, sir?”
“True for you, Inspector, you are the talk of Moyamensing. And you with your squealers, sure, you must know me as well.”
“I reckon that is a fact, sor. As an officer charged with violent disturbances, I am obliged to make certain inquiries.”
“There is no violent disturbance here, sor. You have come in error.”
“Maybe so. Still, it is my duty to act on my suspicions, sir, and to satisfy them for myself.”
“I am an honest man for certain. You may feel free to ask what you like and I will answer all of it.”
“Have you ever taken out a man’s eye?”
“I have, sir,” replied O’Reilly, and held up his little finger with the long nail. “If thy eye offend thee, tear it out.”
“Did Mr. Dickens’s eye offend you, sir?”
“I do not understand what you mean,” said O’Reilly, now certain that he had been betrayed by Devlin.
“According to his wife, Mr. Dickens’s eye was hazel in color. The eye you sent the councilman was blue. Therefore, I have hope that he still has his two eyes.”
Not Quite Dead Page 29