She kept screaming.
“I had to go into a brothel to get this girl…” I tried to explain. “Moira, you know I help people.”
* * *
The echoes of her screams were still banging around my office. They had followed me twenty blocks, like a tail I couldn’t shake. Bile stung my palate. I didn’t want a drink—I wanted to do something, anything, to get out of the office.
There had been a return address on Bridget’s letter. A bookmaker. It was right on the omnibus line two blocks over. I wouldn’t need more than a penny to get there. What was a penny for a mother’s pain? What was a penny if it got me out of the apartment, away from the tears and booze?
I was too preoccupied when I came out, a rookie mistake, and I caught a sucker punch right in the guts. I spat curses and doubled over, pretending to gasp like a prissy uptown boy.
As I sputtered, my hand went for my derringer.
“You honorless sack of shite,” my assailant growled.
I stopped reaching for my derringer and looked up.
His face was flushed red with anger as he glared down at me with bulging eyes.
“Seamus,” I grunted. The derringer was no longer an option. One should never shoot family, even in-laws.
He went to knee my face but I was too quick. I backpedaled, caught his leg and threw him down onto the grease-slick concrete. He could get up quick, I had no doubt. He was a younger man and quite fit, having worked the slaughter-yards on the western shore of Manhattan. It takes a lot of heaving to move dead pigs all day.
I didn’t let him get up, though. I pounced on him and delivered two jabbing-kicks to his ribcage. It wasn’t kosher fighting, I know, but when a boy’s sister was involved, he hardly followed the Marquess of Queensbury.
“Stay down, Seamus.”
“Oh, you bastard!” he groaned, clutching his ribs. I sincerely hoped I hadn’t broken any.
“It’s none of your concern,” I told him, backing up.
There was, in this alley, the usual detritus waiting for pickup. He reached for a decent-sized bit of board to use as a club.
He stood up, hefting the weapon. “You can’t treat Moira like that, you rat-fucker.”
“Treat her like what?” I asked. “She hit me.”
“Like you didn’t deserve it!” He lunged.
I ducked and swooped in for a few hits to his stomach but he dodged and brought the board down on my head. To our surprise, it shattered into soggy bits.
I stood up straight and frowned at him. He stared at the hunk of trash in his hand as if it had betrayed him.
“Look, the padre was already here, begging me to see your sister.”
“See her?”
“Ayep. Says she needed…you know…a man.”
“Oh, you bastard!” His rage came back like a blast furnace. “My sister ain’t no whore! She just misses you is all. I don’t know why, you son of a pig-nosed Hun.”
My color shot up to match his. “Watch what you say about my pa,” I hissed, adding spitefully, “Father Dempsey came here saying she needed me to mount her like a cat in heat. You have no idea how horny your sister gets, why sometimes…”
Seamus charged with an inarticulate yell. We collided with the brick wall and rolled in the filth, gouging for eyes, fish-hooking noses, tearing at ears. Neither of us was using any form or style…the family slurs had devolved us into mere grasping apes. Between the rabid groping, I managed to insult him further.
“If…you’re…so…concerned…why…don’t…you…fuck her…yourself?”
This elicited another wordless howl and a nasty head butt. In a somewhat ironic twist, the blow landed exactly where his sister had cut me a few weeks earlier.
The world spun wildly and I felt him extricate himself from our embrace. I staggered up to continue the fight, but he was clear. Before I could tell where he was, a mud-coated boot came out of nowhere and caught me in the chin.
My head lolled and I collapsed.
“No wonder you lost the war to them rebs,” he crowed. The words were kind of mushy-sounding. His mouth must have been full of blood. “That dirty German blood diluted all the Irish out of ye.”
Another boot clapped my shoulder, rolling me into the wall.
“You will treat Moira like the queen she is,” he growled, panting. “Or I will fuckin’ kill you.”
He hovered just out of reach, as though he was examining a not-quite-dead tiger. The kid was smarter than I thought.
“Go to hell, you fucking mick,” I told the face swimming over me.
His footsteps were fading. “We’re already there, Donovan.”
Chapter Four
I crawled up the wall and into my office. It didn’t take long to clean up, and the wounds wouldn’t bother me much. I was used to them, after all. It galled me that the little punk had gotten the better of me where so many others had failed. I hate to brag but I’ve got quite a body count behind me, most of them twice as mean as little brother Seamus.
I tried not to think about the fact that he might have been right. Being right didn’t win battles. If it did, slavery would have ended at Bull Run. That stuff only worked in Tennyson or such, not the real world. Moira sure as hell wasn’t no Guinevere and the thought of Seamus as Lancelot just made me laugh.
* * *
The bookkeeper’s was mostly full of wops. When I walked in, I was assailed by a bedlam of shouted Italian and the sharp clacking of Babbage-machines. Flip-box display boards were clicking between soccer scores. To one side was a sad little blackboard for those who wanted to lose their money in other sports. The cashiers were ensconced behind a screen of fine black wire, flanked by cast-iron strongboxes. The brass engines clinked a staccato melody that only they could understand. The analyticals weren’t much to look at, but then they didn’t have to be. These were just algebraic machines, hardly able to handle more than a few hundred figures at once. Of course, they were a lot more than what the customers had. Even primitive machines like these gave the bookies an incredible edge. They probably weren’t surprised often.
There had to be a cafe nearby, ’cause the guineas were all sipping espresso while they watched the spreads. Most of ’em were young guys, probably working the factories and sending lira back home. They usually lived twelve or so to a basement, sometimes without a crapper or a decent tap. No wonder they haunted the bookie’s.
Two of the cashiers were young women. I’m sure Elizabeth Cady Stanton would be proud. Unfortunately, neither of them was Bridget.
“You seen this girl?” I asked the tellers. Each one told me no, though the last one closed his drawer and got the boss, one of Carelli’s crew for sure. He was a tough-looking guy with a knife-scar on his cheek and a swagger about him that told me he’d cracked more than one kneecap in his lifetime.
Despite his bellicose countenance, he had fashionable weeds, or at least more fashionable than mine. He wore a cream-colored waistcoat and a golden watch fob attached to a gorgeous timepiece that he checked every thirty seconds, as if to remind his menials that they were still on the clock and, perhaps more importantly, that he was rich.
“Nice ticker,” I grunted as he came out from behind the screen. I knew he’d come eventually. You ply a joint like this with enough questions and the management come out like a slimy eel from a cave.
“Thanks.” He tasted the air just like a moray. “Got it at Macy’s.” His dark eyes sized me up in a wink. He was too deft to linger on the wounds. He did comment on them, however. But he was subtle. I could tell immediately why he was no longer breaking kneecaps. “Can I get you anything, mister? Did a damn velocipede hit you? I tell those speed-demons to keep clear of my place.”
“No, I’m fine.” I paused. “Doesn’t concern your establishment at all. Family business.”
&nbs
p; He was Italian, so this settled the issue at once. It was as if the wounds had vanished from my face. “So you’re looking for someone?” He motioned us to an empty table on the sidewalk.
The men around us drank their espressos and talked excitedly in Italian about Garibaldi or football or whatever it was that was so important they need their hands to move more than their mouths.
“Bridget Cleary,” I said loudly through the din. “I think she used to work for you. I—I hate to get involved, but her mother’s worried about her. The old woman really misses her daughter.”
“Ah.” He shook his head and clicked his tongue reprovingly. “It’s so sad how young people today don’t respect their elders. In my time, if you went away, you visited your mother every Sunday and paid your respects. If you were too far for that, you wrote her every day.”
I produced the portrait and held it up between us, careful to read his expression as he perused it.
Nothing. His face was as impassive as the marble front of a Roman temple. “You sure she worked here?” he asked.
“I got a tip,” I told him.
“And you asked the help?” He motioned at the cashiers, who stiffened and pretended to go about their business as if he wasn’t looking. “Go ahead and ask them.”
“I already have.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
He sighed. “Too bad. Sorry, friend. Good luck. But hey—while you’re here, we have a four-to-one on Mike Flanagan’s next bout.”
Ah, yes. Boxing. It’s a funny thing about micks. They piss and moan about Yankees ribbing them, but what sports do they dominate? Fighting. I just shook my head.
He shrugged and went inside. I waited a moment and saw where all the espressos were coming from.
Two men were trundling up the street. At first I took them for Italians but quickly realized my mistake. Their accents were Cuban. You saw a lot more of those around since the CSA had annexed their island. Seems that their fat rich planters and America’s fat rich planters had a lot in common, like not wanting to pay taxes to Washington or, in Havana’s case, Madrid.
Cuba, like Dixie, had a lot of poor white people who couldn’t afford to own black people, so they were always scrambling for jobs. Some, like these two, came north and tried their luck in the Magnocracy.
They were stout fellows with brown skin, despite the lack of sun. Although it was overcoat weather for sure, these two were sweating like July. This was because they were both carrying double-tanks like metal camels. Each tank had a hose and a spigot. The men at the bookie’s would give them a nickel, and the Cubans would spray steamed milk and hot coffee into their mug.
I pretended to leave and waited two stores down, by some displays of the latest fashions. I smiled at the clerks but they glared at me. For some reason they didn’t trust men who crouched behind headless female dolls.
When the mobile cafe jostled through, I fell in among them.
“Salutations,” I said warmly.
“Hullo,” one said, smiling beneath his mustache. “Coffee?”
“I’d love some, but I don’t have a mug.”
“That’s all right,” the one on my left said. “My buddy Vega has some spares. A dime each.”
I paid them and took the mug. It was a cheap ceramic thing, not like the high-class stuff outta London.
“Milk?” one of them asked.
“Uh…sure.”
They grinned at me. “Can you believe it? No warmer.”
“I beg your pardon?” It looked warm to me.
“There’s no coal,” the other repeated. “Under pressure, stays hot for hours.”
“It’s all in the pressure.”
I stared down into my steaming cup, not really sure what they were saying.
“Genius!” one barked. I think it was Vega.
“Brilliant!” the other added.
“Very,” I said to be agreeable. “Listen, friends, can I ask you a question?”
They paused to peddle their java at an omnibus stop. “Of course,” Vega told me.
I glanced back up the block to make sure no one was watching at the bookmaker’s. “You ever see this girl?” I flashed them the portrait.
The one who wasn’t Vega stopped what he was doing and turned to look. “Muy bonita.”
“Yeah, very mooey-bo-nita.” I nodded. “You seen her?”
Vega laughed. “Of course we have. Mauricio pines for her.”
“I do not!” Mauricio objected.
Vega only laughed harder. There was almost an altercation when he missed a cup and burned a fellow’s hand. Luckily, the customer was wearing gloves and the blunder was forgiven. Forgiveness in this case cost a free cup of coffee.
“We knew her,” Vega said soberly. “She worked for Carelli.”
Mauricio was smug. He seemed to consider the burning-incident a direct consequence of Vega’s unfair observation. “She’s a nice girl,” he said. “She always tipped us, even with what little she made.”
“What little she made,” Vega repeated sarcastically. “They got it pretty good in there. Besides, money isn’t a problem for her. Not now. Maybe she saw that coming, ja’know?”
“What do you mean?”
Vega managed to laugh again. “She left. Moved away and got a better job.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
“With a Magnate.”
I stopped dead behind them. They were in their paces so I had to jog to catch up. “A Magnate? Which one?”
“I don’t know…one of the gringos.”
“They’re all gringos.”
Vega considered. “The one with the really nice mustache.”
“At least half of them have mustaches,” I said wearily.
He shrugged.
“You don’t know what all the Magnates look like? Their names?” I was incredulous. “They’re only the most important men in the Federated States of America!”
“Not down here, they’re not,” Mauricio reminded me. “Down here, it’s the ward bosses. Which means Carelli. What does he think of you looking for her, anyway?”
“So you don’t remember anything else?” I dodged a fire hydrant in my path, like I was dodging the question.
“I think she went to the Carnegium. She was really excited.”
I didn’t want to say it, but now I suspected they were full of shit. Little Bridget Cleary…moving to the Carnegium? Moira had a better chance of getting an invitation to Buckingham Palace.
I said my goodbyes and left them peddling their brew to a crowd around a Western Union.
O’Shea was on the omnibus waiting for me when I slouched up the steps. It was anyone’s guess how long he’d been there, riding up and down the block till I got on. There were no seats available, so I pushed and excused myself over to the brass rail beside him and leaned into it, trying to ignore the pain from Seamus’s battering.
“You couldn’t leave it alone,” he whispered from under his derby cap without looking at me.
“You’re quick,” I said. “I was at the bookies a half hour ago.”
“Got a wire.” He didn’t explain where he was that he could have received it so fast. Instead, the battered old vet glanced around to see if anyone was listening. Some nearby passengers studiously ignored us. “Why can’t you drop it? She already told you she didn’t want to be found. Why rile Carelli like this?”
“Why would Carelli care? I thought she left his employ.”
He ground his teeth. “Who’s to say he ain’t friends with those she works for now?”
“A Magnate?” I asked casually.
If he was shocked at my suggestion, his scowl didn’t show it. “You leave this alone. This ain’t a threat. It’s a warning. You go any further, it’s out
ta my hands.”
“Hand,” I corrected.
“You’re a fookin’ bastard,” he spat. “You’ll get what’s coming to you. If not today, then tomorrow.” He turned away from me and shoved his way to the exit.
There were five indents on the rail where his brass digits had latched on like a vise. I hadn’t noticed it while we talked. I wondered if he had either.
In this job, most information is worthless. But you never know it until you test it. I doubted very much that an Irish girl like Bridget Cleary would land a job at the Carnegium. I guess it’s possible she was a serving girl or something, but the place was crème de la crème.
I decided to give Ma Cleary one day on the river. This seemed cautiously generous until I got there. A goddamn hour would have been charitable. It was freezing.
Before I could really scope the place out, though, I’d need equipment. So I had to go to Verhalen’s. Fortunately, his workshop, which he called Verhalla, was located on a pier within sight of the Carnegium. This meant I could stake out Bridget’s supposed place of employment and pay a social call. I hadn’t exchanged a friendly word with another human being in days, so even the company of an engineer looked good. Verhalen would lend me whatever I wanted plus he would never lecture me on Moira.
I always knocked when I went there, because you never knew what he’d put in his door by way of defenses. The waterfront was a rough place, and Verhalla was loaded with the cutting-edge stuff that didn’t come cheap. He also had money, but it was probably so well-hidden that not even an army of burglars would find it.
The Verhalens went way back, back to the days when it was New Amsterdam and they dried beaver pelts on Wall Street. They were a Dutch family, one of the oldest in the state, with almost enough money to be Magnates themselves. That was no surprise. I’ve never quite understood baiting Jews about money. Anyone who knows a Dutchman can tell you who the real misers are.
This Verhalen wasn’t like that though. Not entirely, anyway. He lived more frugally than me, but his inventions were the reason. His ancestors had scrimped and saved and wrung pennies out of their wallets like snot from a rag, but he thought only of the future. And the future was technology.
Cruel Numbers Page 4