Ride to Valor

by David Robbins

  “He’s good at that,” Mick said.

  “He’s a sly one—that’s for certain,” Maquire said.

  James put a foot on the bench and his arm on his leg. “The Florentines have taken rooms in the back of a tenement on Purgatory Street. They had an old woman rent the rooms for them, and they use an alley to slip in and out.”

  “What do they wear?” Flynn asked.

  Coil answered. “They fancy black. They like small caps and polished shoes. They’re fond of stilettos.” He nodded at Doyle. “Tell the rest of it.”

  “The Florentines are big on protection. They’ve gone to every business on Purgatory. Ten percent is theirs, and if the owner won’t pay, they do the usual. Three owners have been beaten and another cut up.” Doyle paused. “They also warn them not to get word to us.”

  “So they know it’s our territory,” Mick said.

  “Here’s how it will be,” Coil said. “We hit them hard at their rooms on Purgatory. And we make it final.”

  “Final how?” Devlin asked.

  “Doyle and me have been talking,” Coil said. “We don’t nip this now, we’re on a downward slope. The other gangs will come at us from all sides. We’ll be stretched so thin we’ll be wiped out. So my plan is to wipe them out.”

  “All the Florentines?” Sweeney said.

  “All those on Purgatory Street. It’s ours. We need to send a message. Move in on us and you pay.”

  “How many are we talking?” Maquire wanted to know.

  “Doyle says there are ten to twenty in those rooms at any one time.”

  “And we’re to kill them all?” Mick grinned, and slapped his leg. “Now, that will be a fight.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” Maquire said to Coil. He was the second oldest and respected for his judgment. “The rags will be all over it.”

  “We’ll be famous!” Mick exclaimed.

  “We’ll be in prison or dead,” Maquire said. “The police look the other way over a lot, but they won’t over this. Not when it will be so public.”

  “The police won’t give a damn so long as it’s only Florentines who die. Remember that. No bystanders are to be stuck or hit or snuffed. Spread the word. We want to get in and out and get on with our lives.”

  “May the saints preserve us,” Maquire said.

  “Someone has to,” Sweeney said, and laughed.

  James came to the door and hesitated. He hated to come home and did it rarely. He also hated having to change his clothes each time. But he had hid the truth for so long, he couldn’t see the need to bare all. Squaring his shoulders, he used his key and went in and past the parlor, hoping to reach his bedroom without either of them noticing.

  Bunton was on the settee, the inevitable beer in his hand, his obscene gut trying to rip his shirt’s buttons. “Hold on there, boy.”

  James stopped and regarded him as he might a pile of dog droppings. “What?”

  “Where have you been?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  Bunton scowled and poked a finger at him. “I’m your father, ain’t I?”

  “You sure as hell aren’t.” James barely held his loathing in check.

  “Stepfather, then,” Bunton said. “And that gives me the right to ask.”

  “Ask all you want,” James said. “But you’re nothing to me. A slug, is all.”

  Bunton made as if to rise off the settee, but apparently it was too much bother and he sank back. “I won’t be talked to like that in my own home.”

  “Your home?” James said, itching to draw his knife. He might change his shirt, but he never went unarmed. “This was ours before ever you latched on to my mother.”

  “Latched?” Bunton said. “You make me sound like a damned leech.”

  “I couldn’t have put it better.”

  His mother came out of the kitchen humming to herself. She wore an apron and was wiping her hands, and on seeing him she squealed and rushed to enfold him in her arms. “James! James! It’s been so long.” She gripped his shoulders and held him at arm’s length. “Let me look at you. You seem in good health.”

  “I’m fine,” James said. The reek of liquor was so potent she might as well be a distillery.

  “Why do you stay away so long? Don’t you love your dear mama anymore?” She hugged him. “I miss you so much sometimes, it hurts.”

  James disentangled himself and went down the hall to his room. It had the musty smell of disuse, and dust was everywhere. He opened the closet.

  “I’ve respected your wishes and stayed out like you asked,” she said from the doorway.

  “I didn’t ask you,” James said as he picked up his carpetbag and placed it on the bed. “I told him to stay out.”

  “Why do you hate him so?”

  James didn’t answer. He took down a pair of pants.

  “He’s been good to me. And Lord, you know how lonely I was before I met him.”

  “You still do laundry,” James said. “You work yourself to the bone.” He shoved the pants into the bag. “What does he do?”

  “He works now and then.”

  “When the moon is blue,” James said, and grabbed another pair of pants.

  She leaned against the jamb and fiddled with the tiny buttons on her dress. “I have something to ask you.”

  “I stay with friends,” James said.

  “It’s not that,” she said, and wrung her hands. “Then again, maybe it is. Your friends, I mean.”

  James looked at her.

  She coughed and shifted her weight. “Mrs. Fogarty told me she saw you the other day. At least she thought it was you, but I told her it couldn’t be.” She drew in a breath. “She said you were with a bunch of young men. She said—” His mother stopped and then got it out in a rush. “She said they were Blue Shirts.”

  “Did she, now?”

  “Is it true? It can’t be. You wouldn’t join a gang. I warned you about them, didn’t I?”

  “Many times.”

  “Look me in the face and tell me you haven’t. Swear by all that’s holy so I can tell that nasty Mrs. Fogarty to stop spreading her lies.”

  James looked her in the eye. “I’m not a Blue Shirt.”

  She let out a breath and grinned and giggled. “I knew it. I knew it as surely as I’m standing here. I told her she was mistaken. I told her it had to be someone else.”

  James resumed packing.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking the last of my things.” James opened a drawer and found socks.

  “Whatever for? You don’t need to move out completely.” She looked around the small room. “I kind of like it that you keep things here. I know I’ll always see you again.”

  James was reaching for a rolled-up pair of socks but stopped. He stared at her, then closed the drawer. “You’re right. I don’t really need to take any of this. I’ll keep it here.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  James started to go past her, but she clasped his wrist.

  “You’re not leaving, are you? You just got here. Stay for supper. I have beef and potatoes.”

  “Can’t,” James said.

  “Please.” She pressed him to her bosom and kissed his neck. “I miss you so much. For your old ma, can’t you stay just this one night?”

  “Can’t,” James said again, more gruffly than he intended.

  He kissed her cheek and hurried down the hall and glared at Bunton as he went past the parlor. Then he was out of the apartment and sucking in drafts of air. Composing himself, he turned to the stairs. He climbed two flights and marked the doors until he came to the third on the right. He knocked and said, “Mrs. Fogarty?”

  “Be right with you.”

  He looked both ways to be sure the hallway was empty and drew his knife.

  The latch rasped, and a small gray-haired woman in a drab dress crooked her long neck. “Yes? What do you want, young man?” She blinked in the surprise of recognition. “Why, James Doyle
? Is that you?”

  “Yes, it is, ma’am. Is your husband to home?”

  “No, he’s off buying tobacco. Was it him you want to see?”

  “You,” James said, and clamped his free hand on her throat and was inside before she could collect her wits. Kicking the door shut, he slammed her to the floor and pressed his knife to her throat. “I’ll make this brief. If you ever again tell my mother you saw me anywhere, if you talk to her about me at all, I’ll come back and slit you from ear to ear. Do you understand me?”

  Terror rendered the old woman mute and paralyzed her limbs.

  “Blink once for yes,” James said.

  Mrs. Fogarty blinked.

  James nodded and straightened and slid the knife into its sheath. “Good day to you, then,” he said with a smile, and left her there on the floor.

  8

  Purgatory Street was like any other in Five Points: narrow, dark, reeking of odors, heavy with foot, horse, and wagon traffic during the day. After dark the legions of the night emerged. All over Five Points, the groggeries, gambling dens, and dance halls did booming business. Painted ladies sashayed in tight dresses. Revelers had high old times. Footpads hugged the shadows.

  The Blue Shirts converged from different directions. They came in small groups so as not to arouse the suspicions of the police and met in a small park a few blocks from the tenement.

  This close to the border of their territory, they moved on cat’s feet. They gathered under a maple, and when Coil called for attention, they knelt or squatted or sat in a half-moon. James was in the front row with Mick and Devlin.

  “You all know why we’re here,” Coil began. “The Florentines have overstepped and it must be made right.” He began to pace, his hands clasped behind his back. “They are always in their rooms by ten, which gives us an hour yet.”

  “We outnumber them four to one,” Mick said. “It will be a cakewalk.”

  “Don’t take them lightly,” Coil warned.

  “They’re Italians,” Flanagan said.

  Coil put his hands on his hips. “Damn you. I mean it. They’re good with those stilettos of theirs, and they have guns, besides.”

  Sweeney pulled his revolver and patted it. “So do we.”

  Coil said with some exasperation, “Just do as I say and we’ll get through this with little loss.” He went over his plan one more time, ending with “We’ll be long gone before the fire spreads. No one will ever connect us with it.”

  “About that,” Devlin said. “Are we sure we can get everyone else out? I’d hate to think of any wee ones burned alive because of us.”

  “We’re not animals,” Coil said. “I gave the job to you, so you tell me if we’re sure or not.”

  “As soon as the Florentines are dead and we’ve set the fire, me and five others will go through the building yelling at the top of our lungs. That’s all it should take.”

  James figured so, too. The buildings were old and fire was universally dreaded. A mere whiff of smoke was sometimes enough to empty a place.

  “You have it worked out fine, Coil,” Flynn said.

  “I hope so.” Their leader turned to James. “All right, then. Off you go. Be careful not to be seen.”

  James liked being their spy. He had a reputation for being the slyest and sneakiest of them all. Rising, he hurried from the park to an alley and down the alley to a street that flanked the rear of the tenement. He made sure to stay in the shadows where his blue shirt was almost black. The few people who noticed him didn’t give him a second look.

  The tenement sat on a corner. It reared five stories.

  The windows to the apartments the Florentines had taken were lit up and silhouettes flitted across the shades. None of the Florentines was outside.

  James retraced his steps. The others were anxiously waiting for his report. “They’re in there, all right.”

  “We have them, then,” Mick said.

  “Cocky will get you killed,” Coil warned.

  The Blue Shirts broke into small groups and approached the tenement from the front and the back.

  James was with Coil’s group. They were almost to the rear of the building when the unexpected occurred. A pair of dark-haired rakes in suits were on the steps, smoking and talking. They had not been there before. One gave a startled look, and the pair ran inside yelling in Italian.

  “Hell,” Coil said, and drew his pocket pistol. Raising an arm, he bawled, “On them, boys! And the devil take the hindmost!”

  The Blue Shirts rushed the tenement. In a blue tide, they swept up the steps into a narrow hall. The press of their numbers created a jam. James nearly stumbled when someone pushed him, but then he was in and ahead were the apartments the Florentines occupied. One of the doors opened and a head popped out and ducked back again. The door was slammed practically in their faces.

  “Get back!” Coil warned.

  James flung himself aside just as shots boomed and holes peppered the door. Maquire and another Blue Shirt fell. They were quickly hustled aside and a square timber from a construction site was brought up. Blue Shirts slammed it into the door again and again, but the door held.

  James read dismay on many a face. This wasn’t supposed to be. They had counted on gaining quick entry. A volley from inside dropped a Blue Shirt and another immediately took his place at the battering ram.

  “Put your backs into it!” Coil shouted.

  Once more the timber swung. The door shook and the bottom hinge snapped, but the door didn’t buckle. From outside came yells and shots. Blue Shirts were assaulting the windows as well as the doors.

  Yet another burst of lead from inside felled another of the ram crew.

  “Damn it to hell,” Mick raged.

  A Blue Shirt named McGee, a huge slab of muscle, let go of the ram, drew himself back, and threw himself at the door shoulder-first. Down it crashed. Yelling and shrieking, the Blue Shirts streamed into the apartment. James was jostled and nearly knocked down. He leaped over a body: McGee, a bullet hole between his eyes. At them came the Florentines, and James saw with alarm that there were more of their enemies than there were supposed to be, and heavily armed. Revolvers cracked and blades flashed. The influx of Blue Shirts drove the Florentines back but not for long. From an adjoining room poured reinforcements.

  Suddenly James was face-to-face with a curly-haired Florentine armed with a stiletto. The Florentine said something in Italian and lunged. James twisted, barely avoiding the thrust. He struck with his knife, slicing to the hilt in the Florentine’s ribs. The Florentine cried out and pitched forward. It happened so fast that James couldn’t get out of the way. He tried to catch the man and lower him, but his left leg sustained a bone-jarring blow and the next he knew, he was flat on his back with the Florentine on top.

  Around him bedlam raged. It was steel on steel and fist to fist, with lead thrown by those who had guns. Oaths blistered the air.

  James saw Flynn take a stiletto in the back. He saw Devlin shove the muzzle of a pocket pistol into the face of a Florentine and squeeze the trigger. And then he saw a lamp knocked over and the whale oil splash onto the floor and the wall. Flames immediately flared, growing swiftly, fingers of red and orange that became writhing sheets.

  James pushed the body off and made it to his knees just as someone shouted, “Fire! Fire!”

  Most of the combatants seemed not to hear. Mick was fighting two Florentines at once. Sweeney staggered out of the melee clutching his throat, which was cut inches deep.

  James heaved erect. He was anxious to help his friends. But suddenly roaring flames shot across the ceiling with astounding rapidity even as a second wall was consumed. In the bat of an eye, most of the room was on fire. The bellows of anger and stormy oaths changed to screams of pain and cries of fear. Both sides had to get out of there or they would be burned alive. As if everyone had come to the same conclusion at the same instant, Blue Shirts and Florentines alike abruptly bolted for the doors and windows.

  Ja
mes was near a window. Intense heat on his head and shoulders was incentive to reach it. The room was an inferno when he slid a leg over the sill and dropped. He ran a few yards and stopped to look back.

  Either the fire had spread to other rooms with incredible quickness or fires had started independently in the adjoining apartments, because smoke was curling from the windows of all three the Florentines rented, and from windows above theirs, as well.

  James gave a start. A Florentine was right next to him, staring aghast at the fire, the same as him. He looked around and saw Blue Shirts mingled with Florentines, the fight forgotten. From up and down the street people were converging. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” rose from multiple throats. Whistles shrilled, the police or maybe a fire brigade. James suddenly felt conspicuous. He turned to flee and was frozen in place by the most horrific cry he’d ever heard, a keening scream from the floor above the Florentines’ apartments, the wail of a woman in excruciating pain. A curtain was flung aside, and there, framed in the window, was a sight James would never forget for as long as he lived: an old woman, aflame. Her dress was on fire from hem to neck and her hair was burning, as well. She struck the glass but it wouldn’t break. She turned and must have grabbed a chair because it came flying through the window with a shattering crash. And then she did that which made James catch his breath in his throat. She dived out the window headfirst. As if in slow motion, he saw her blazing figure arc down. Onlookers screamed and scattered from under her. There was the most appalling crunch, and the woman was still.

  James ran. Fear coursed through him. Not a fear of the Florentines or the fire but a nameless fear that seared him to his marrow and made him want to put as many miles as he could between himself and the burning tenement. He slowed at the intersection to look back and was sorry he did.

  The building was going up like a tinderbox. Flames were leaping, vaulting, racing up the sides and from floor to floor.

  Rooms became fiery ovens in the bat of an eye and those in them became torches. A cacophony of shrieks and screeches and wails pierced the night.

  James couldn’t stand to see any more. He fled to the park. Under a maple he stopped and leaned against it to catch his breath. Although he was blocks away, he could still hear the bedlam and smell the smoke. He sucked in deep breaths and closed his eyes, and when he opened them, a figure appeared out of the murk.