Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

  “All this from a man who was promoted from patrolman to detective for naming Non Connors the leader of the White Hand instead of Dinny Meehan.”

  Brosnan sits back and adjusts his copper badge.

  Wolcott looks outside and runs his tongue along the top of his teeth, “I expect you came to my office across the bridge to appeal for some recourse? I try to avoid people who are in. . .” he flicks fingers in Brosnan’s direction, “reduced circumstances, but you seem famished for favor.”

  “I’ve tried to explain it to ye, but ye don’t listen to an ol’ gumshoe,” Brosnan says. “The gangs are like the Kilkenny Cats, they’ll fight themselves into their holes if ye let them. I—”

  “You are right, they just need a little help,” Wolcott interrupts. “A house divided cannot stand, it’s true, but maybe hanging the cats upside down by their tales next to each other would irritate their grievances?”

  The bear’s chin quivers, giving away his deepest fears, “An’ to do it, ye turn to my son, Daniel Culkin. To scare up that, that. . . wraith! Ye don’t know Garry Barry like I do. An’ I know ye have eyes on burnin’ down the Meehan home too.”

  Wolcott’s right eyebrow lifts with interest, “And you know all this how?”

  “Do ye think anythin’ happens in Brooklyn I don’t know about? Pertainin’ to my own family on top of it? My son has always been after impressin’ the well-to-do an’ quick to the blackjack, but ye don’t even understand what’s at stake here for my family. In this storm?” Brosnan points out the window. “Garry Barry should’ve been dead twice over, do ye understand me? Ye’re toyin’ with destiny here.”

  Wolcott grunts, “Some day a real storm will come and blow all the rats and roaches off the Brooklyn streets. So, nothing happens in Brooklyn that you are not aware of? That’s what you are saying to me, correct?”

  “T’is.”

  “Go ahead, then. Look out that window. Look to the south and tell me what you see.”

  Brosnan wrinkles his brow and stands from the chair. In the distance he sees the bridges and the long bluff along the waterfront from Brooklyn Heights down toward Atlantic Avenue. Further south he sees Governor’s Island on the Buttermilk Channel and then—

  Wolcott smiles, the fatty folds amidst the fleshy pouch under his chin quivers. “Black smoke.”

  “What is it about?” Brosnan moves closer to the glass. “That’s down by the Erie Basin. Italian territory ever since the White Hand an’ Black Hand made an agreement with the ILA union.”

  Wolcott pretends to hold a conductor’s baton between his thumb and index finger and waves it as if to lead an orchestra through an imagined symphony, “What is that black smoke you ask? It is war. The gang war is here. White Hand against Black Hand. Both hands against the ILA. But most importantly, it signals White Hand against itself,” Wolcott smiles. “Now Mr. Brosnan, come sit down. Say what it is you have come here for, or be gone.”

  The wooden chair creaks as Brosnan rests in it, “I am here for one reason, to make sure that ye release my son from yer employ.” The chair creaks again when he leans back.

  Wolcott allows a slight smile to cross his soft, fleshy pink face, “Na Bocklish, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what I smoke. What of it?”

  “It’s a brand from Ireland, correct?” Wolcott rolls back in his leather chair. “But you haven’t been to Ireland since you were, what? A teen?”

  “What does that matter?”

  “You smoke that brand because it reminds you of the old days. The scent of your childhood. The old country. I find that interesting. I’ve always found you interesting, Mr. Brosnan. The Dubliner that lived between the great progress of England, and the new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child.”

  “I don’t know what ye’re—”

  “It’s a poem. A famed poem. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”

  “Well—”

  “Does your cigar brand go well with coffee?”

  Brosnan turns his head, “Better with whiskey.”

  “I don’t believe we have whiskey here, scotch maybe?”

  “Why not. But I’m neither here to smoke cigars nor for the drink, I’m here—”

  “I enjoy cigars too, but not the black ones,” Wolcott stands, opens a desk drawer and pulls out a wooden box with the words ‘Ybor Gales’ drawn on it in large, orange lettering. “Try one?”

  “I will, but we need—”

  “And can you bring that bottle and two glasses over here?”

  Brosnan looks over his shoulder, stands up and fetches the crystal bottle and two rocks glasses, sliding them onto Wolcott’s desk.

  A plume of thick smoke roils round the fat man’s face with an ember glow in the middle of it. He hands Brosnan a lit cigar across the desk.

  “A toast,” Wolcott offers with a cigar in his mouth and a quarter-filled rocks glass in his right hand raised in the direction of the window, “As one war ends, another begins; may Grey’s Faith reward us with the division of Brooklyn: To the future!”

  Brosnan gives a quizzical glare, “What do all them words tell us?”

  “Only that Brooklyn is a diseased portion of the state of New York that must first be cured and reformed before it can be in a position to appreciate the good and sound laws of business. Oh come now, a simple cheers,” Wolcott smirks happily. “To the future!”

  “To the future,” Brosnan reluctantly drinks and curls his nose.

  “You don’t appreciate aged scotch?”

  “It’s got a bleedin’ ashy aftertaste,” Brosnan says as Wolcott sips from his glass and drags long on the cigar through floppy lips and a gin-blossomed nose.

  “To each his own,” Wolcott settles in his chair. “Now, we were on the topic of getting to the point, were we not?”

  “Yes, the reason I am here—”

  “About the future,” Wolcott finishes his sentence. “That’s the point isn’t it. No one knows this truth like two old-timers. Why else do the dying turn to god but for hope of an afterlife? The future is all! But it is controlled by those who have the power to make people powerless. Did you know that the law of competition was created by slave owners and monopolists?”

  “Eh—”

  “Irony,” Wolcott chuckles. “Of course the victims of the past are written about by their victors. My point is; to control the future you must have power, understand?”

  “I believe I do.”

  “Very good. In the process of controlling the future and writing the past, you must find associates who provide useful service. I myself, am in the business of changing power over industrial labor from violent gangs and red-Bolshevik unions to something much more American in character, and agreeable to the interests of Brooklyn business owners, my clients. Mr. Brosnan, you no longer provide useful service. From the Poplar Street Police Station in the jurisdiction of Irishtown and the waterfront territories we need more of a viceroy, or someone who furthers our interests. You have simply failed at that role, which is why we enlisted Daniel.”

  “But ye don’t understand—”

  “But I do,” Wolcott breaks in. “Of course the law is quite slow, as you are. Even still, you must always be perceived as respecting the law if the future is to be—”

  “The law? There is no law but self-preservation in Brooklyn, an’ the Irish are well-equipped for they have suffered great hunger, pain, fear an’ the darkness o’ ill will. We do our best, but I can tell ye that the law is not here to serve only the people in high towers an’ their notions,” Brosnan’s chest puffs out. “It’s here to serve all. Now just because ye’re fat as the butcher’s dog—”

  Wolcott chuckles and begins to say something, but can’t get a word in edgewise.

  “An’ yer nose is so high in the air that ye think yer arse smells o’ chypre perfume, still ye’re not above the law.”

  The fat man’s laughing sets his midsection to jiggling in fits and starts.

  “Ye scoff at that notion,” Brosnan lo
wers his voice and bows his head. “The oaths a policemen takes to protect an’ serve? For yerself, they are but the silly slogans o’ duty-bound soldiers. We can’t control who’s right and who’s wrong. But for yez and yer like, the only thing that matters is who’s left standin’ to serve yer needs.”

  “So prescient,” Wolcott rolls his eyes. “You truly do understand.”

  Brosnan lowers his eyes at Wolcott and growls. “Ye could butter parsnips with words like that.”

  “Could I? The funny thing is, you don’t even know to fear me,” Wolcott ashes. “But you will.”

  “A threat? From a man beaten twice by Dinny Meehan?”

  “The third time will be charming. I have learned a few valuable lessons. You are one of them.”

  “Garry Barry’s going to help ya this time?” Brosnan laughs. “Ye’ll never beat Meehan, an’ I’ll tell ye why. Down at the Dock Loaders’ Club there’s a single photograph on the wall behind cracked glass. It’s an old yellowed thing, torn and decrepit. But the man in the photo is the great Abraham Lincoln an’ his values are as old as the flood. Just north o’ here in Manhattan, up at Cooper Square, Lincoln said somethin’ in a speech many-a-year ago that I put to memory. Talkin’ on the fight to end slavery he said, ‘Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty.’”

  Brosnan takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, “In Irishtown, they have faith that right makes might. But Johnny G. Wolcott? Ye can’t help but think ye can control the future from above Wall Street,” Brosnan growls. “Ye should be scarlet with shame, but look at ye.”

  Wolcott leans back and draws from his cigar, never taking his eyes off Brosnan.

  “Ye can’t have my son,” Brosnan flatly states.

  “He is your son-in-law, if I remember correctly.”

  “Here’s what we’re goin’ to do,” Brosnan stands above the desk, “Dinny Meehan, leader o’ the White Hand, which is closely allied to the main union in Brooklyn, the International Longshoreman’s Association, is right now sittin’ in my jail at the Poplar Street Station,” Brosnan pulls out his police issue revolver, holds it, then slowly places it on Wolcott’s desk. “To better serve ye, I will take care o’ Mr. Meehan myself.”

  Wolcott touches his lower chin, then slowly shakes his head, “And yet you believe the gates of your heaven will be flung open for a corrupt cop who takes bribes from a man for years, then offers to kill him? A true Roman Catholic, aren’t you? Forever with your hand out asking to be forgiven.”

  “God up in his high heaven has naught to do with this bollix. All I want is for ye to leave my son out of it,” Brosnan growls. “I want ye to disassociate yerself from him an’ refuse his offers. That’s what I ask in return. Deal?”

  Wolcott wraps five little sausage fingers round the rocks glass and slowly brings it to his lips, then gently places it back on the desk, “What makes you come to such an extreme decision? Is it love? I seem to have a blind spot to such things as love when it comes to understanding what drives a man.”

  “Pimps too,” Brosnan grumbles. “Pimps can’t account for love, like yerself as ye say. But yes. It is love that motivates me. An’ Garry Barry.”

  Wolcott turns his head in interest and opens a palm, offering him the floor to explain.

  “Thirty-one years ago, it began. Thirty-one years ago, the love of me, to whom I gave my vows and heart, became pregnant. It was the best moment o’ my life, and the worst. It was the year of the great blizzard of 1888,” Brosnan points out the window. “I was on duty. A rookie in Brooklyn and was sent into the lashin’ wind and snow to a tenement that had collapsed. In the wreckage I found a baby with its eyes starin’ back at me and its head smashed open. Believe me, or don’t. It does not matter to me but I. . .” Brosnan moves in closer. “I had dreamed of that moment for twenty years before it came to pass. I swear on the Virgin mother o’ Jaysus, hand on the Bible! I had dreamt o’ the future. But it was more a nightmare.”

  Brosnan lowers his voice and refills his glass with scotch, tossing it back. “Less than two years ago, if ye remember, Barry was beaten to death by the White Hand Gang off Hoyt Street. I do not blame the gang for doing it to him, Garry bleedin’ Barry has bats careerin’ round his belfry. But there he was, I saw him! lyin’ on the pavement with his head once again burst open an’ face mangled, his eyes lookin’ up sightless at me. He had a couple ragged breaths, then silence. A few days later the papers reported that the doctors had pronounced him dead. That same day my daughter, Daniel Culkin’s wife, gave birth to a baby boy. Billie he is called, named after myself. Barry died and I became a grandfather. That’s when I knew. Finally I knew what my dreams were about. The circle had closed,” Brosnan slowly raises his eyes to Wolcott. “So I thought.”

  Brosnan tilts back the empty glass and takes in the last drops until Wolcott refills it. “Now. . . a storm comes our way again. . . An’ suddenly Garry Barry appears? Do ye read the Bible, Mr. Wolcott?”

  Wolcott does not answer.

  “The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers. . . the idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the fiery lake o’ burnin’ sulfur. This is the second death. Do ye see it now? This world is Garry Barry’s lake o’ fire. An’ on the way here I saw again the white moon o’ the mornin’, an’ knew. I knew the terrible curse on my family had returned. An’ this is it; another exchange must happen an’ I desperately, desperately! cannot allow my son to be taken away from my daughter an’ their children. He’s out there now with Garry Barry. Worse than all, my daughter is expectin’! Do ye understand me? Do ye understand me now? I will offer myself in their place, do ye see? Do ye see it now?”

  Wolcott stares back into the panicked eyes of Detective William Brosnan and ponders the story. He tosses his head slightly back and forth as if to weigh the pros and cons and taps his desk with one finger. “I see,” Wolcott looks toward the police issue revolver on his desk, lying on its side. “So you plan to kill Meehan, then turn the gun on yourself.”

  Brosnan looks down at the revolver too, then up into Wolcott’s eyes, “I do.”

  “And you want an answer on Daniel?”

  “I’m not askin,” Brosnan flattens his hand out and washes it across the air. “Ye’ll need to release him this very day. I can’t take no for an answer. He is my son, and mine to look after. Ye’ve got no rights over him.”

  The obese man behind the desk runs his tongue along his teeth again and gives over his attention to the cigar that hangs between two short fingers.

  He best make it easy for us both, Brosnan sits back. I don’t want this to get ugly.

  “Mr. Brosnan? I always saw you as different than those gypsy thieves on the waterfront,” Wolcott rights himself in the leather chair. “Those shanty Irish are hairy at the heel. They believe in death. All of their heroes are dead and encourage them to choose death over assimilation. I never understood how so many people could lay their faith in martyrdom. That just makes them death worshipers, don’t you agree? I hate to admit this though. . . I was wrong about one thing.”

  “We all are sometimes,” Brosnan’s voice is deep and assuring.

  “Yes, I was wrong,” Wolcott says. “You truly are just like the shanty Irish, overcome with heathen folly and not worth your salt, I must say. Curses and leprechauns, pookas and hero myths.”

  Brosnan groans, but Wolcott continues, “You are no different. You offer to kill Meehan under incredulous pretenses. And of course that would mean there’d be no gang war. There could possibly be some killings, but there would be fewer casualties down there than if Lovett has a true enemy to fight.”

  “It’s only casualties ye’re after?

  “You miss the point. How can we divide them if we kill one, and prop up the other?”

  “It sounds like ye’re the one who believes in death.”

  “No, I believe in terror,” Wolcott smiles and yells toward the closed door, “Edith!”

  “Yes?”
Brosnan hears from the other side.

  “Are they here yet?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Send them in,” Wolcott announces.

  The giant Wisniewski ducks through the doorway, but behind him—

  Brosnan pushes up on the chair and labors to his feet, “Daniel!”

  Wisniewski passes Brosnan and immediately walks to Wolcott’s desk and places a hand over the police-issue revolver.

  “He is not here to hurt me,” Wolcott assures the giant.

  Daniel comes forward when he notices his father-in-law, “Dad, what are ya doin’ here?”

  “I uh—” Brosnan colors up with shame.

  “Why’s ya revolver out?”

  “Son, I only want to help,” Tingles crawl through him. “I. . . I love ye so much, son.”

  “No ya don’t. Ya love Doirean,” Daniel broods and looks off. “I got no illusions on that. The thing is, I don’ need ya help no more. I’m on my own on this. It’s time ya let go, ol’ man. Ya can spend more time wit’ ya daughter an’ grandchildren now. Ya time’s passed.”

  “I uh. . .” a pain rushes through his body as the room begins to twirl. The porridge Doirean made him this morning wiggles in his keg belly as he leans on the back of the chair and cautiously sits.

  Daniel turns his attention to Wolcott, “Meehan’s been released.”

  No, no, Meehan can’t be released. It’s all fallin’ apart on me. No. A wave of heat runs through the old man, yet his skin is prickly cold.

  “Are ye sure, Daniel? Ye’re sure Meehan’s released?”

  Across the desk, Wolcott smiles at him and steeples his fingers under the loose skin of a double chin. “Oh he’s out alright, Pakenham from the daily was here this morning and was off to add it into the afternoon edition,” the fat man says, then turns his attention to Wisniewski. “But you and Barry left the Hoyt Street Headquarters for the Meehan home at dawn. Is there nothing left of it but ashes and embers by now?”

  “No,” Wisniewski lips. “They hads guns, ands we did not.”

  “Who is they?” Wolcott demands.