The blows were as savage as they were unneccessary The mere presence of Kid Curry would have been enough for Peg to tell all he knew. But Curry had not asked Elliott any questions. He had simply tapped him on the shoulder, given him a cheery hello, and then smashed Peg in the skull with his own whiskey bottle. Curry was silent as he brought the point of his boot to Peg Leg's ribs just as the blood from his scalp filled the cowboy's eyes. Cursing at the drunken spectators, he dragged Elliott across the bar's floor and pulled him outside and into McCreedy's fetid outhouse.
“Etta Place,” he hissed, “or I start feeding you the shit from these stalls.”
Without waiting for Peg to speak, Curry forced the boy's head into the reeking pit, nearly drowning him in an admixture of things rank and human.
“Boy, you ought to get a less public job,” Curry said, thumping Peg's head on the rough oaken seat. “‘Buffalo Bill's Wild West! Back in New York for the grand return of Annie Oakley, triumphant savior of our president! See Peg Leg Elliott! Master of the lariat and snappy repartee!’ You always was a hog for attention.”
Curry dunked Peg's head again. He would not allow the boy to betray his friend right away. Each time Peg attempted to confess, he found his mouth filled with offal while his brain went red behind his eyes. The false priest was in no rush. Plenty of time to hear confession.
Little by little, Curry got what he came for: Etta's approximate whereabouts, her state of mind, the weapons on her person, her life as Annie Oakley. From here it would be easy, like tracking deer up a mountain or a rabbit through the woods. He'd find Etta Place and follow her until the trail led to the treasure that was his by right.
Curry laid Peg Leg down on the floor of the outhouse and spat in disgust. “I suggest you get cleaned up,” he told the cowboy. “Even a hellhole like this won't let you drink on its premises, bloody and stinking like a dog.”
Peg Leg tried to rise, but all life had drained from his limbs. And as the shame of the informer swept over him, he began to weep.
“Sad drunk,” Curry mumbled. “Nothing worse.”
He stepped over the body and picked up the boy's fancy hat. Its brim was crushed, and the mirrors on its band were smeared with the remains of a hundred drunken nights. He dropped it over Peg's face and strode toward the alley door.
“For God's sake, boy” the little man said, “have some pride.”
From the
NEW YORK HERALD
February 10, 1902
IN SOCIETY
A JOLLY PARTY AT MRS. ROOSEVELT'S …
ESPECIALLY FOR COUSINS
Chasing away the winter doldrums was the purpose of a fine party at the home of Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevelt this Saturday past. With the holidays long over and the cold winter set in, the sensible Mrs. Roosevelt deemed it fitting that those of her circle meet in festive merriment while raising considerable sums for the Milk Fund.
Mrs. Roosevelt, well known for the beauty and exclusivity of her events, was surrounded by family and friends at her home, 47 East 65th Street.
Society tongues are still wagging over the attention paid by Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt's only son, to his fifth cousin, Miss Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, daughter of Mr. Elliott Roosevelt and Mrs. Anna Hall Roosevelt (both deceased). During the party, the two were described as “wholly inseparable” by one attendee.
A law student at Harvard, Mr. Roosevelt is considered one of our city's most eligible bachelors, with a lineage that can be traced directly to William the Conqueror. Miss Roosevelt, niece of the president of the United States, is known as a scholarly young woman noted for her good works among the lower classes. She is also rumored to be a suffragist.
“I should not be surprised if this meeting results in a marriage,” one partygoer informed us. “The Roosevelts have always been known for keeping their bloodline pure: They only marry each other.”
MISS MORROW'S DEATH CAUSES GREAT
SORROW ON THE MAIN LINE
There is still much consternation among the best families of Philadelphia over the sudden gruesome death of Miss Emily Katharine Morrow, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hobart R. Morrow II of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and Newport, Rhode Island.
As has been widely reported in the week since the event, Miss Morrow, seventeen years of age, was trampled to death by her mount during a dressage competition at the Radnor Hunt Club, only a few miles from her family's estate.
The horse, an eight-year-old black stallion named Bellerophon, reportedly bucked Miss Morrow from his back during her last event. Before the eyes of a horrified throng, the huge animal then trampled the unfortunate girl beneath his hooves, causing injuries from which Miss Morrow did not recover.
Her father, the senior investment supervisor of the firm of Banks and Gaily, is said to be in seclusion. Family friends tell us he blames himself for his daughter's demise, as others in the riding community had warned him of the stallion's intemperate nature. The Herald has since discovered that, while in the possession of a previous owner, the animal had kicked two stable mates to death. Mr. Morrow was apparently aware of the incident, but, as it occurred some four years ago, he believed that the horse had calmed with the passage of time.
Funeral services for Miss Morrow are called for Thursday. The stallion is in a police paddock. At the conclusion of the inquest, he presumably will be destroyed.
he Union Bank of Kings County had been built to inspire fiduciary confidence. Its founder, J. Henry Cavanaugh, Jr., had always said he saw no reason why a Brooklyn bank shouldn't have all the accoutrements of one based in Manhattan.
To this end, Cavanaugh had spared no expense on the banks materials. Its façade was of the finest Pennsylvania limestone, punctuated by bronze framed windows. As an inspiration to the borough, the building's great cornice was decorated with terra-cotta carvings that recalled great eras of history, from the Italian Renaissance to the taming of the West.
Inside, the grand transaction floor was built almost entirely of Venetian marble, polished to a mirror sheen and offset with Brazilian hardwoods. Even the ink pens the customers used to inscribe their deposits and withdrawals were of ebony, tipped with nibs of gold. The Union's vault was among the most modern of its day, a thickness of steel and chrome that most Fifth Avenue banks would envy. Indeed, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted that when John D. Rockefeller visited on opening day in 1893, he toured the great safe room and immediately instructed a lieutenant to order exactly the same vault for every branch of Chase Manhattan.
It was little wonder, then, that on the morning of Monday, February 10, Henry Cavanaugh III had seen fit to take his charming depositor on a small tour of his father's vision. Later, of course, he was sorry he had done it. That evening, after he awakened in the hospital, he told reporters, “I should have just kept to the business at hand and gotten the lady in and out of the bank. I probably gave that ruffian all the time he needed to rob and kidnap Mrs. Place. Oh, Father will have my head!”
Had he known the whole truth, Cavanaugh might not have felt such remorse. Kid Curry had planned his action down to the last moment, and no heroics by a bank official could have stopped what ultimately transpired. The only thing Curry hadn't figured on was the absence of Harry Longbaugh, as his intelligence had informed him that Sundance himself would be present.
The news produced mixed emotions in Curry. Surely the Kid's absence made his work easier, as only the bitch herself and an old bank guard now stood in the way of success. But Curry had hoped to take Longbaugh hostage as well, the better to enjoy his agony as he took his pleasure with Etta Place.
Besides, had things not gone quite according to plan, he could have at the least killed him on the spot. Her too, if it came to that.
As it turned out, there was more than enough carnage for one morning.
By the time Logan had secured Etta with lariats and loaded her and the big satchels into a waiting buckboard, the old guard and a customer were dead and Cavanaugh the Third, chivalrous fool, had been g
razed on the scalp.
Changing wagons in an alley some blocks away, Logan comforted himself with what his mother used to tell him. “Son,” she would say, “you can't have everything.” And as he drove toward the Brooklyn Bridge with the woman he hated and desired most and the money that was rightfully his, he couldn't help but reflect on what a wise woman Mother had been.
From the
BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE
February 11, 1902
DEADLY ROBBERY AND KIDNAPPING IN FLATBUSH!
CONTENTS OF DEPOSIT BOX STOLEN!
YOUNG WOMAN ABDUCTED!
BANK GUARD KILLED!
CUSTOMER BRUTALLY ASSAULTED!
VILLAIN DISGUISES HIMSELF AS PRIEST
IN ORDER TO CARRY OUT EVIL DESIGN!
POLICE HAVE NO CLUES!
WOMAN SAID TO BE WIFE OF CATTLEMAN!
EAGLE EXCLUSIVE! EAGLE EXCLUSIVE!
A man disguised as a Catholic priest kidnapped a young woman in mourning at gunpoint and made off with three large bags believed to contain $80,000 in cash during a daring daylight bank robbery in Flatbush yesterday.
Before the robber's horrid work was done, a bank guard lay dead upon the marble floor and a customer had been seriously injured.
Taken in the incident was Mrs. Harry Place, whom the banks vice president said was the wife of a western cattleman. Mrs. Place was stopping temporarily in Manhattan.
The terrible events occurred at the Union Bank of Kings County, 6050 Flatbush Avenue. According to innocents witnessing the carnage, the scoundrel entered the bank about ten o'clock in the morning, approximately the same time that Mrs. Place, dressed in black with a matching lace veil, arrived to carry out her business. As the man was garbed as a priest, little notice was taken of him at first and there was no suspicion of anything sinister.
Mr. Henry J. Cavanaugh III, vice president and general manager of the bank, was also slightly wounded by the suspect. At the hospital, he told the police and the Eagle that Mrs. Place had been sent by her husband to collect three large duck bags from the special safe-deposit rooms inside the bank's vault. She was emerging onto the bank's floor when the “priest” drew two large pistols from beneath his black frock coat and held one to her head. He announced to one and all that this was indeed a robbery, that he had confederates outside the building, and that anyone who interfered with his plans would be dealt with “most harshly.” With this, he forced a young bystander to grab the heavy bags as he continued to train his gun on Mrs. Place.
As the thief and his pretty victim gained the door, he seized the three large bags from the accosted man and hit him alongside the skull with a pistol.
What happened next is so far a matter of some dispute. In the confusion there came a loud retort from the thief's gun, and the guard, Mr. Seamus D. McRae of 138 Harrison Street, fell to the cold floor, mortally wounded. With the bank's lady patrons screaming and the men crying for help, the rogue managed to make good his escape. Some of the witnesses noted that Mr. McRae had made no threatened move toward the killer and had stayed steadfast by Mrs. Place's side throughout the melee.
Flatbush police have at this time no leads as to the whereabouts of the villain and his captive. They are asking the reading public for any information as to their location. The man has been described as between thirty and forty years old, quite small of stature and slight of build with a large dark mustache, eyes, and hair. Mrs. Place is described as in her early twenties, with a pale complexion and green eyes. She was also described as very tall for a woman, towering over her captor.
Mrs. D. E. Gerstenfeld, who was unfortunate enough to be conducting some business in the bank at the time, said Mrs. Place would be a difficult woman for a citizen or policeman to miss, quite apart from her height. “It would be a terrible sin if that horrid little man hurt her,” she told us. “When he grabbed her, her hat and veil flew off and I saw her face real plain. I think she was the most beautiful girl I ever saw.”
ntil he had gone to New York City and reunited with Etta Place, Peg Leg Elliott had lived a life of good luck and high adventure.
His mother had loved him and his father had beat him only when he deserved it. His outlawry had generally been profitable and had never resulted in any dead bodies or the business end of a rope.
His tenure with Buffalo Bill's Wild West had taken him around the world, paid him thrice the wages of a ranch hand, and allowed him to eat catered victuals on show days. Everywhere he went there had been money and cards and folks seeking a fine time. The experience had left him far more liberal in his attitudes than he had been hitherto, so that he saw himself as sufficiently educated to converse with those born to higher degrees of sophistication. Yes, he would say to himself, people are people everywhere. Once you've drunk their liquor and had their women, it was hard to hate any fellow human on earth.
But now, because of Etta, it seemed he was forever someone's victim.
First, it had been Kid Curry. With his threats and artillery, he had made Peg Leg ashamed in a way he had never been before. Curry had turned him into what no outlaw wanted to be—an informer—and he had done so in a way that made Peg feel helpless as a jailhouse strumpet.
Now it was the Pinkertons. Once the papers had printed the story about the Union Bank of Kings County and the kidnapping of “Mrs. Harry Place,” it hadn't taken the Pinks long to deduce that Etta was in town. Henry Cavanaugh III gave them the address she listed on the safe-deposit paperwork, and when they arrived at Mrs. Taylor's and inspected Etta's room they found a theatrical photo of Peg, grin on face, lasso in hand. He had inscribed it, To Miss Etta, my partner in crime. Best wishes, Frank “Peg Leg” Elliott. An operative by the name of Sanderson had attended Wild West with his children the previous Saturday and immediately recognized Peg from the performance. All that remained was for the Pinks to abduct him from the Madison Square Garden stage door.
At first, he had thought to charm them. Tell them the kind of casual lies that usually sufficed for law enforcement. But when the wiry detective with the drooping auburn mustache ordered his left arm twisted behind him, it occurred to Peg Leg that he was now faced with a choice: Whom did he fear more, Kid Curry, who had promised to one day cut his throat, or the grim-faced op whose lieutenants were now bringing his bones to their breaking point? As he called out to the Deity, Peg soon realized that the decision had been made for him. The pain of now had trumped the fear of later. All that remained was for the detective to call in a stenographer with his pad and pencil.
At the end of half an hour's time, four pages of that tablet were full and Charles A. Siringo had all the information required to locate his client's quarry. As a bonus, he had also ascertained the approximate whereabouts of the little bastard who had caused so much grief to so many.
It had not been difficult to deduce the identity of the Brooklyn thief. The description of the dark-eyed runt, coupled with the disguise of a priest, was all the information Siringo needed to know that Curry was the man Kings County police were seeking. Still, time was short and the quarry in flight. If this circus clown's information was correct—and heaven help him if it was not—he now had a good idea where Curry might be holding Etta Place.
“Sorry about the rough-up, young man,” Siringo said, “but I'm glad you folded as quick as you did. In this business, brave men can be the cause of an awful lot of exertion. We pay for information. Leave me your address, and we'll send you a bank draft with the thanks of the company. I've taken the liberty of bringing some of your clothing and personal items here for you. If you'll pack them into that valise in the corner, we'll put you on the next train to anywhere but here.”
“Train?”
“Sure, Mr. Elliott. We don't like to admit of the possibility, but if Curry—or, for that matter, Miss Place—proves to be cleverer than us— well, we're likely dead. And you most assuredly are.”
As Siringo and his two assistants watched, the shaken Peg Leg packed his few belongings into the bag. A short agent with a blond mus
tache handed him his now-empty .44 Remington. Fingers quivering, Peg shoved it into his waistband and turned to gather his clothes.
Siringo placed his own gun in his shoulder holster and turned to the boy. “Mr. Elliott, you know Curry. If he's gone to ground, about how long would you say she's got?”
Peg Leg gave the detective a worried look as he opened the leather grip the Pinks had supplied.
“Well, mister,” he said, “he hates Miss Etta and you wouldn't want to see what he does to women he likes. Even if like you say, she's only been gone since this morning, I'd hurry, I was you. If I know the little man he'll take his time with her, but I wouldn't want to find her much past the third day. By then, I reckon if she ain't dead she'll wish to the Lord she was.”
eep him talking, Etta told herself. Talking, he cannot bully you. He cannot strike you or belittle you or violate you. Make him defend himself. Keep him off balance.
And when he is not talking, make him listen. Keep his ears full of your words or his own. Degrade him. Revile him. Say anything to prevent him from sensing the rush of blood to your ears and the quickening of your pulse. Make the little man feel small.
“You can scream if you like,” Kid Curry said. “No one will hear you.”
Etta looked across the cramped room at him and tested the rope at her wrists. She was seated on an apple box in what appeared to be an attic. Below her, the floorboards groaned at the slightest movement. Above, a skylight loomed. It was nearly black with dust and grime, making it difficult to tell if it was day or night.
“Scream if you like?” she said. She began to laugh. “Scream if you like? No one will hear you? Oh, Mr. Logan, très cliché! Dime-novel threats from a penny-dreadful villain! So the great Kid Curry reveals himself for what he is: a mouse who needs a loaded revolver for protection from a woman with her hands bound behind her.”
Etta: A Novel Page 20