Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

  Darby turns back over his shoulder at the sound of broken glass on the street and the rousing laughter inside the train car.

  “Next stop, get off an’ switch cars,” Darby advises.

  The man does not respond.

  He does not trust me. Any time people look into my eyes, they are stricken with distrust. Why though? Why does everyone say my eyes are, how did Abe describe them? Bewildered?

  At the Sixteenth Street Station the man scampers off the train with his hands tightly wrapped round the twins’ wrists.

  Deeper into Brooklyn the train goes. Into unknown territory where Italians and Scandinavians own the streets, and where darkness lowers visibility and heightens the mystery in the soldiers’ minds. Darby had heard of how Italians practiced an old-world version of Catholicism that was based on pagan idolatry, animal blood and the sacrificing of children.

  “They eat their own babies,” One-arm Flynn calls over his shoulder to Bill’s boys.

  “That’s who Meehan makes allies wit’? Nah, we’re doin’ the whole world a favor on this raid. Do ya job an’ they won’t butcher yaz, got it?”

  At the Thirty Sixth Street Station they transfer to the West End Elevated Train that continues south into distant neighborhoods. Again Darby sits at the back of the train in a dark corner seat, alone with his thoughts.

  When Abe sits across from him with a newspaper under his arm and speaks in whisper, Darby cannot see his lips in the darkness.

  “I didn’ hear ya,” Darby answers.

  Abe leans in closer, but his voice is even lower now. Instead, Darby reads the expression on Abe’s face and the words on his mouth, “Why haven’t you figured out the riddle?”

  “How do ya know I haven’t?”

  “Because your mind vould be opened if it had. I can see by looking at you that you are ztill a ztupid dumb person, yez. Repeat it back to me, Darby.”

  “The beauty o’ hidden love inside the heart o’ an evil little girl.”

  “Vhat kind of little girl?”

  “Red-haired girl who wants revenge. I only know a couple red-haired girls, but I got no idear why they would want revenge for.”

  Abe blinks his eyes four, five times while looking up as if to feel the air, “She is getting closer, yez. You should find her before she arrives, but your brain is fakakta,” Abe says with a wet-lipped smile. “Answer me this instead, does Zadie Meehan ztill pay you for the trial? Ve need that trial to occur before the fight with Dinny, yez. Do you understand?”

  Darby answers with a lie, “I already talked to Bill about it, so go away. It’ll happen.”

  “Then Dead Reilly does not vant for money?” Darby can smell the winter mint on Abe’s breath.

  “It’s all set for May.”

  More lies. Dead Reilly, the attorney, recommended another lawyer to take the case over from him, but Darby would not let him pass it off to a stranger. If he did, Reilly would essentially become Dinny’s personal lawyer on the matter and could take up the case against Pickles. That could not happen. Reilly had then demanded a new, more expensive retainer. Two hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars that Darby does not have, and cannot ask Bill for. The gang did not have that much money. The labor racket at the Red Hook terminal is not bringing in the amount of cash Abe had suspected. Too many ship captains are choosing the Baltic or Atlantic terminals when rumors circulated about the murders in Red Hook back in February on top of Mickey Kane’s disappearance.

  Abe stares at Darby distrustfully and drops the newspaper on the seat next to him, revealing a photograph on the cover of a narrow-faced man with his hand inside of his double-breasted waistcoat as if he were a diplomat. Abe then moves in closer again, mouthing the words, “Do you know the fellow, Cornelius Ferry?”

  “Needles?” Darby says, but is looking at the photo of the man in the newspaper. “Needles Ferry? The guy who shoots tar an’ sniffs dust? Sure. He’s Dinny’s. Always has been.”

  “Yez, well,” Abe tilts his head and looks away, but the words that form on his mouth, Darby could hardly believe. “A man fell off a barge yesterday an’ vas crushed between it and a steamship. Vhen ve fished this man out of the river, Bill found the dead man’s identification. The man’s name was also Cornelius, and Bill saw that as a sign.”

  “A sign?”

  “Bill believes in signs, as you know,” Abe stifles his own doubts with a look that Darby sees as questioning Bill’s mental state.

  I was right. I gambled and told Bill I could interpret signs, that’s why he believed me.

  “So tell me, vhere does Neeedles Ferry live?” Abe interrupts Darby’s thoughts.

  Why, are we going to kill him too?

  Darby explains, “Needles does not live anywhere. But he sleeps in a abandoned buildin’ off Flatbush where a bunch o’ homeless kids flop an’—” Suddenly Darby breaks off when he notices the narrow faced man in the newspaper photo is wearing Windsor glasses. He turns the newspaper round and shows Abe, “I saw this guy on the tugboat wit’ Wiz the Lump an’ Garry Barry. I saw’r them together. We should tell Bill,” he looks toward the front of the train and moves to stand up.

  “Hold on one moment,” Abe grabs at Darby’s arm with small, pink fingers. “You zaw this man? T.V. O’Connor, president of the International Longshoreman’s Association valk onto a tugboat together vith Volcott’s lump?”

  “Yeah,” Darby taps on the newspaper’s photo. “This guy walked onto the back of it alone an’ took a plump envelope from them, then walked off. I couldn’t remember who the guy was until I saw’r this photo. It was drivin’ me cra—”

  “How can you be zure?”

  “Listen, maybe I can’t hear, but my eyes are like a hawk’s. It was him, I’m sure. We need to tell Bill.”

  Abe grabs the newspaper from Darby’s hand that has the splint on the pinky.

  “Ah Jesus,” Darby yelps, holding it at the wrist. “That fookin’ hurt—”

  Abe looks at the newspaper, folds it, tucks it under an arm and asks Darby, “I need the address of Mr. Ferry, please.”

  Darby can feel the veins in his forehead pulse in pain, “We don’ have time for that small shit—”

  “Petey?” Abe calls out suddenly and waves Petey Behan over.

  Petey and Abe are of a similar height and age, but that is where the similarities end. Petey’s eyes are set wide apart on a box head and his legs seem too short, his torso too long. From his days as a thief while working the throngs of travelers at the three-story Sands Street Train Station on the Brooklyn Bridge, he earned the moniker Petey Cutpurse.

  Petey snaps his finger in Darby’s face, “Hello? Ya there? Hello? I just asked ya a question.”

  “What was it?” Darby asks.

  But Abe speaks to Petey instead, “Have ya ever known zomeone who dedicates their entire life an’ all their energy to being unhappy? Yeah? That’s Darby.”

  Darby begins to respond, but is interrupted by Petey.

  “Darby likes to put his trousers on first, then his underclothes.”

  “No I don’t,” Darby protests, which makes everyone laugh even more.

  Abe speaks to Petey again, “Darby zays Ferry can be found at a flophouse on Flatbush. Do you know this place?”

  “Sure I do,” Petey’s lip seems constantly turned up on one side of his mouth. “That’s where I saw’r Poe Garrity. Stole his coat too.”

  Petey fiddles with something in his pocket, then lazily removes the Colt .45 caliber and points it at Darby.

  “How’d ya get Bill’s gun?”

  “Don’ say any more words,” Petey watches Darby’s reaction. “Bill promised me a kill t’night.”

  Darby looks over his shoulder toward the front of the train car but does not see Bill.

  Petey’s eyes look crude when he smiles, “Ya try to move from that seat an’ I’ll put a hole in ya. See, we’re gonna kill ya an’ stuff ya under a seat an’ walk out the other side wit’ our hats low. People’ll just think ya’re a Brooklyn bum sle
epin’ off a jag.”

  Darby takes a moment to find the right thing to say, but is left to wonder if Petey is serious.

  “Thing is, I claimed I killt a guy already, which makes me eligible to be Bill’s Fifth Lieutenant, see. But Bill says it was Poe Garrity who struck the fatal blow on his uncle. He said I only thrust a knife into the side of a dyin’ man, is all. I don’ think that’s fair, what do ya think?”

  “I think ya’re a liar,” Darby is shocked by his own courage. “One thing I hate is a liar. Put that gun away, get it? If ya don’ I’ll call Bill’s name right now an’ he’ll have Richie break ya arm for pointin’ a gun at his special agent.”

  Abe’s mouth turns into a smile on one side of his mouth, then turns to Petey.

  Petey grips the gun until it shakes. Anger appears on his face and his curled up mouth until he places the .45 caliber in an inner pocket.

  “Tell me then,” Petey says. “What’s ya role t’night Darby?”

  “Abe an’ I are going to bar the door when—”

  “How ya gonna bar the door, Darby? Did ya bring ya dustbroom? Ya could use ya dustbroom. Just slip it through the two door pulls, right? Then they can’t get out the door. Did ya bring it?”

  “No.”

  “Fellas,” Petey calls back. “Fellas c’mere.”

  The Trench Rabbits and the Lonergan Crew use the straps to keep balance as they walk to the back of the swaying train car that rattles down the Brooklyn night.

  “Listen, Darby ain’t takin’ his job so seriously,” Petey explains to the men standing over them. “Everybody’s got a job, Darby. We’re tryna do somethin’ big. Somethin’ important, but everybody’s gotta do their job. If one person don’ do their job, the whole thing’ll fall apart, an’ here ya are. Sittin’ over here in a corner alone an’ ya don’ even bring ya dustbroom?”

  All eyes move to Darby, “Petey, ya will never be Bill’s Fifth Lieutenant. Ya wanna know why? Because ya ain’t grown up yet. Ya beat one kid up, a teen. An’ that convinces ya that ya will be the Fifth Lieutenant?”

  “Oh we’ll see who gets it,” Petey reaches across Darby where Matty hands him a dustbroom. “Here ya go, we brought it for ya. Quit daydreamin’ Darby an’ concentrate on ya role.”

  “Daydreamin’ Darby,” Matty Martin repeats with a chuckle. “I like that better than Dustbroom Darby.”

  At Stillwell Avenue the gang disembarks and shoves unwitting travelers against the wood platform wall and down the stairwell. Caw-caw-caw, One-arm Flynn quarks as Petey and others make way for Wild Bill and his lieutenants. The streets are filled with all sorts of strange foreigners and gullible tourists followed by evil-eyed pickpockets. Lustful night dwellers appear for some grab-assing and drunkards lean with one arm against corner walls like ancient statues to retch in the narrow alleys. The most well-behaved of all are the Shit Hounds, who dare not trot too far from Bill’s thighs even though the scent of cheap cotton candy and rotting garbage wafts through their noses. Bill had trained them well and amidst the Trench Rabbits a rumor had made its way to Darby that Bill keeps human meat in his pocket to keep the hounds’ attention on him at all times.

  Darby suddenly hears Bill raise his voice at Abe, “Stop talkin’ to me for a second. Ya’re givin’ me a fookin’ tumor in my ear.”

  “I wanna go on the Human Roulette Wheel,” Timmy calls out. “Can we? It’s the best ride they got on Coney Island.”

  Petey punches Timmy in the arm, “No, we gotta see the Snake-Skinned Boy an’ I wanna watch Chief Pentagal bite the head off a chicken.”

  Almost every man visiting Coney Island wears a boater’s hat, like the man on the train Darby saw. The flat cap Darby wears and the floppy cap Abe dons separates the leisurely class from us, the low. No matter, the gang pushes any and all from their path. Without a patrolmen in sight, no one is safe when Bill’s wild boys walk by.

  When a woman screams, Bill stops. Then everyone stops. Non Connors had pushed a man out of the gang’s way. When the man moved to fight back, Non clouted him with three punches and when the fellow fell to the ground he received boots to the torso and face, whipping his head back. The man was asleep under the dress of his date with a bloodied mouth and nose before she ever realized what was happening.

  They move on. Through the crowd of revelers and beachgoers they shove, while Darby walks hindmost, as usual.

  I shouldn’t even be here, he bites his lip. I hate carnivals. Too many people in one place. I should be spending my time trying to find Sadie. I shouldn’t be here. I just want to go home to Ligeia and Colleen Rose. They’re waiting for me.

  Bill had sent Darby down to Coney Island a week ago on another reconnaissance mission to find out exactly where the Harvard Inn was, though that was during a weekday.

  Here, on a Saturday night the place has come unhinged. Seagulls circle and swoop above with hungry eyes while a naked man with long arms ambles by. The smell of body odor takes the air and people in mid-sentence bump into Darby. A teen walks by soaking wet and drips water on him. And everywhere, everyone dumps whatever garbage they have wherever they walk. A man with part of his head crushed in at the temple in some old injury leans on his mother with blank eyes. The amount of body types vary greatly but many are drunken, exhausted and flush of face. The air bulges with the chaos of competing conversations and pregnant woman with open mouths wobble past him. Another woman with a forked tongue smiles at him like a snake as again the smell of garbage in the breeze reaches him. Rows and rows of people step over the crushed rubbish that accumulates along the curbs.

  “Darby!” One of the Trench Rabbits yells. “Where is it?”

  “What?” Darby answers, then points. “Oh, we should go to the entrance to Steeplechase park. The club is down the road from there.”

  When they reach the entrance, the gang forms a circle under the gigantic ferris wheel and down a piece from the famed Steeplechase Ride where for ten cents you can ride in a mechanical horse race.

  Bill’s voice rattles, “Take ya caps off.”

  And so they do.

  “Put them in ya back pocket. This part o’ Brooklyn people don’ wear our type o’ caps, apparently,” Bill shoots an ugly eye at Darby as if he is angry that he hadn’t noticed that detail. “Abe, take Darby wit’ ya an’ scope out that bawdyhouse, but first take off them Hanan boots. Change them wit’ somebody. Everyone knows the White Hand wears Hanan.”

  That is true, Darby thinks.

  The boots were stolen by Dinny Meehan when the Lonergan Crew was still under his wing. Though most everyone in the Irish territory got a pair, Darby never did.

  A few minutes later, Darby and Abe walk slowly down Coney Island Bowery, a street where at night good parents would never bring their children. Only a half-block from the boardwalk, it is where men go to gamble, drink and whore their hearts out. Darby hears a plunky player-piano playing an old song from the Spanish-American War while in the saloon next door another piano plays The Sidewalks of New York.

  “Ya see that sign that says ‘Stauch’s?’” Darby points with his dustbroom to show Abe. “It’s right across the street from the ball room. Look for the guy wit’ three scars on his face. If he’s bouncin’ t’night he’ll be at the front door an’ we won’t have to go inside.”

  Fear washes across Abe’s face. The first time Darby had ever seen it on the little whispering mole. But they are both happy to see Scarfaced Al at the front door, bouncing on this evening. As they walk by, he catches the twenty year-old Italian’s eye.

  The kid is balding already, Darby notices.

  The three scars that run concurrent from his cheek to his neck identify him as their target.

  “Keep valkin’ an’ stop starin’,” Abe tells Darby. “He noticed your eyes.”

  “Let’s get back to Bill.”

  Under the ferris wheel Bill is surrounded by his men while his dogs lay with lolling tongues at his feet.

  “He’s bouncin’ t’night,” Darby says.

  “That
’s what we wanted,” Non pumps a fist.

  Abe tugs on Richie’s coat and speaks with concern in his eyes as Darby reads his lips, “He’s a big boy. Be careful vith him, yez?”

  But Richie gives no response.

  “Uhright, everyone knows the plan,” Bill’s voice is like sandpaper on wood as he fights back a cough. “Richie, Petey, Matty an’ Tim. Ya know ya role. Darby an’ Abe, follow them from the other side o’ the street an’ cross over when they get him outside. Then keep the door closed. Ya do ya job an’ ya don’ die, get it Darby? Keep the fookin’ door closed.”

  “I got it, I got it.”

  “I wanna kill them, Bill. Ya promised me. Lemme have the gun now,” Petey says.

  “That ain’t ya job right now. We gotta get in close first. Surround them wit’ bodies, then we do it. The plan is more important than any one o’ us, remember that.”

  The youngsters move off together. From across the street, through the crowds Darby watches Richie limp down the opposite sidewalk. Suddenly Darby can hear his teeth chatter again.

  People will die today, Bill had told them all. Darby clenches his jaw and swallows. But the chattering sound comes back yet again.

  Abe’s eyes are on him, “Ve have an easy job, Darby, my little friend, yez. Take a deep breath. You can do this.”

  “I’m fine, shaddup,” Darby watches Richie and his three followers from across the street. A slew of college-aged men begin a sing-along beneath the Stauch’s sign over the street. A white-walled car winds up its horn and blows to get them out of the way. “Sounds like a mangled duck, for fuck’s sake,” Darby growls.

  “Your teeth are chattering,” Abe says. “I can hear them.”

  “Do ya think this Scarfaced fella carries a gat? I hadn’t thought o’ that. I bet he does.”

  “Ve vill find out zoon enough,” says Abe.

  “I don’ wanna die, Abe. Not tonight. No time soon.”

  “Give me the dustbroom, Darby.”

  “No.”

  “Come then, ve must cross now,” Abe moves off the sidewalk when he sees Richie is in the doorway of the Harvard Inn.