Dead looks at him with lowered eyes.
“I see a lot o’ things. Ya know what I see in the future? An attorney strung up by his toes naked an’ flogged if he don’ make right the lie told about my brother. Pickles is in jail for somethin’ he didn’t even do.”
“Don’t joke around like that. It’s getting more and more dangerous to carry out the public good with you gangs running around here killing cops.”
“Killing cops?”
“Brosnan? Have you read the papers today?”
“Nah.”
“They found Brosnan’s body in a barrel off of the Union Street docks.”
Really? That’s where I saw T.V. O’Connor get paid off by Wolcott’s lump.
“They’re blamin’ the gangs for that?”
“The White Hand, that’s your gang right? Dinny’s too? Since he was found on Union Street, the Black Hand is also suspected along with the ILA union.”
Darby scretches at his chin, “I guess he couldn’t have been placed in a better spot than right on that border between us all.”
“Are you trying to say Bill had nothing to do with it?”
“Bill would never kill a policeman. Say what ya will about him, but he’s a decorated vet’ran o’ the war an’ a American patriot.”
“So it was Dinny?”
“No, Dinny would never do that either.”
“You vouch for Dinny? You, of all people?”
Darby’s eyes wander off as he slowly nods, “I respect Dinny a great deal, even if Bill don’t.”
“Like a drowned sailor loves the sea, eh? Who was it then? Sixto and Yale down south? The ILA?”
“Why would any o’ them kill a detective? Who lives in Irishtown to boot?”
“Because he didn’t want to be on the tug any longer. That’s what is being bandied about, at least. Whether Bill and Dinny had anything to do with it has no bearing on the situation now.”
“Of course it does.”
“How do you know? Did you see that too? No, you didn’t. They’ll have to prove their innocence, you understand? The papers already say they’re guilty. And this thing with Pickles? You can forget about him. You say he’s innocent too? How? Were you there in 1912 when that happened?”
“I—” Darby stops himself, then continues. “Ya know better than anyone what happened. Ya was Dinny’s attorney back then. Tell me this, who will show up when you die, Dead?”
“I told you not to joke around. I’m a public servant and I—” The attorney looks into Darby’s eyes and takes a deep breath. “Listen Darby, I saw Judge Denzinger in his chambers about another case, and your brother’s trial came up in light of recent events.”
“And?”
“There’s a lot of push and pull on this case. You have no idea. Some influential people had taken this case and moved it up on the dock. Others, like Judge Denzinger, want to see Pickles’ retrial disappear.”
“Even if he’s not guilty? They don’ care about that?”
Dead turns his head and lowers one eye, “It’s just not that black and white from where we stand.”
“Who moved the case up on the dock?”
“Yes, well,” Dead runs a thumb and forefinger down his thin mustache and turns a confused eye to Darby. “Strangely enough, Patrolman Daniel Culkin has come to me in support of the trial. Brosnan’s son-in-law. And—” Dead looks away.
“And?”
“The Waterfront Assembly.”
“The fat man, Wolcott?”
“Him and the rest of the Waterfront Assembly, a powerful bunch not to be taken lightly, I assure you. And the newspapers are all in too, have you read the editorials lately?”
“Why don’t they pay ya what I owe, if they want the trial to go forth?”
“That’s the thing,” Dead’s eyes light up with interest. “They were all set to pay, then they decided not to. Culkin told me they have a new gimmick.”
“A new gimmick?”
“That’s how he described it. Like their plan recently changed. He called it Operation Grey’s Faith. When he—”
Darby interrupts, “But the trial is still next week, right?”
“Look Darby, you missed payments and—”
“I told ya I’m workin’ on that.”
“It’s too late.”
“Too late?”
“The trial has been postponed.”
Darby’s stomach drops. He no longer hears what Dead says. The words disappear and dread takes over.
Bill is going to kill me. Abe said this trial needed to be done before the fight.
He turns to Dead and interrupts, “Can it be rescheduled for this week?”
“That’s just not the way these things work, Darby. . .”
The words trail away again.
Should I jump off a building now? Should I run away? Where would I go? Or should I go to see Colleen Rose and Ligeia one more time before telling Bill?
“Darby, can you hear me?” Dead speaks from one side of his mouth as the other side has a cigar in it. “The truth of the matter is this is not a case that is high on the court’s wish list. And this case was connected to Brosnan too as he was the patrolman who arrested them all back then. The judges and cops, they don’t like this. And now that there’s a body, no one wants to smear Brosnan’s legacy.”
“Legacy?” Darby repeats, then mumbles his disagreement. “Ya think anybody will care about any o’ us a hundret years from now?”
“Besides, Pickles has gotten himself mixed up in some murders in Sing Sing and is a known leader of a group of hard scofflaws inside. No one wants him on the streets. I had no choice, Darby. The trial is indefinitely postponed.”
“But Pickles is innocent. A trial would prove it.”
“Darby, how do we know one of your people didn’t intimidate the witness into changing her story? She said she would tell the truth this time, sure. But how do we know she isn’t coerced?”
Darby turns wordlessly away from the attorney as butterflies mingle in his belly. His eyes begin to flit back and forth and when his teeth begin to clap against each other in his mouth, he looks up, “Only god can save me now.”
Scaffold in the Dark
Patrolman Culkin appears to have an erection. His breathing is heavy and his eyes are smiling. Even the black eye he received recently smiles. Then he opens his tunic and unzips his pants to show me.
“I ain’t no flamin’ heathen, Liam. I just want ya know how much I enjoy this. I can be honest wit’ ya, right? Since ya gonna die.”
I just wanted to leave the gang.
Yesterday morning, I think it was the morning at least, he removed three fingernails from my right hand. When he removed the bandage over the deep cut in my knuckle, he dug into it with scissors until I could feel the bone scraping against the sheers. The pain rang up my arm and into the back of my head. And when I gave him an answer he didn’t like, he cracked the lead ball at the end of his blackjack against my shins.
For hours now, I’m not sure exactly how long, I’ve been tied naked to a chair that is tied to a pole in the middle of a room in the basement of the Poplar Street Police Station. I can’t speak or scream. My mouth is filled with a dirty rag that is taped over my lower face. And it’s cold. So cold. Every hour Culkin dumps a pale of ice cold water on me. And laughs.
“Why ain’t ya excited like I am?” He extends the blackjack between my legs and gently touches the head of my penis with it, nudging, nudging. The hand-strap is wrapped round his wrist to ensure the twelve inch club-like weapon does not fall from his grasp. The woven black leather hides the coiled spring inside of the shaft that doubles the impact of the lead ball that weights the end. “C’mon now,” he says. “Ya can do it. I want to see it grow. I want to see it happy. Ya know I always get what I want.”
My body is confused. My raw fingers drip blood behind me. My shins throb with pain, yet the sensation below. No, don’t think about that. Look away. Pretend it isn’t happening.
“P
oe Garrity,” he smiles while jostling me with the leather weapon. “Also known as Liam or William. The Thief o’ Pencils,” He holds up the pencil along with the Saint Christopher my mother gave me. “These yours?”
They mean nothing, I think to myself. What is sentimental value? It’s nothing now.
Unhappy that he received no response, he looks down again, “Why aren’t ya gettin’ excited, god-fookin’-damnit. Get excited, now!”
Patrolman Culkin stands over me and rakes the blackjack across my chest with a deep thumping sound.
I try to gasp for breath but the dirty rag blocks my throat. Gasping, gasping again, I have to remind myself to breath in and out of my nose. The rag in the back of my throat makes me gag. Don’t throw up, there’s nowhere for it to go.
“Havin’ trouble? Oh? Lemme help ya,” Culkin grabs one side of the tape over my mouth. “A little reminder though, no screaming. Otherwise—” he shows me the flaccid leather blackjack with the ball at the end.
All of a sudden he rips the tape off my face along with layers of skin from both my upper and bottom lips. It takes every ounce of will power to stop myself from bellowing out. When I begin to catch my breath I run my tongue along my raw upper lip, but the sting stops me from touching the bottom.
“Where did ya get the barrel to put Brosnan in? Smith & Sons by the Atlantic Terminal, right?”
“No,” says I.
“I told ya!” He swings the blackjack again and it thumps to the bone of my upper right arm. “Don’ ever disagree wit’ me. Smith & Sons then, right? Say yes, say yes.”
Pain, I think. Pain is the price of truth. I must pay it. “No, I said.”
Culkin rears back again as I hunch my shoulders in anticipation, but all I receive is his cackling laugh. “Ya should see ya’self. We should bring the camera in here. That look on ya face, it should be the mug shot we give to the papers.”
He runs up close to me now and whispers, “I can do this for the next year, ya know. Ya seen how much fun I’m havin’. But I dare not ejaculate, see. Climax makes me sleepy. Good boys have to wait. Let’s go over this again.”
Again? The anchor of silence is sunk deep in me. I won’t talk. No matter what he says, I won’t talk.
“I know ya didn’t kill Brosnan. So who was it, Vincent? The Swede? Or was it Harry Reynolds? Now that Harry Reynolds is a terror. Or. . . Did Dinny himself do it?” He takes a deep breath and squats down to me on the chair, eye-to-eye. “I just gave ya four options, Poe. Four. One, two, three, four. I’m too kind. So here’s the thing; ya can admit ya killt Brosnan on ya own, in which case ya’d spend at least twenny years, maybe life up Sing Sing wit’ ya buddy, Pickles Leighton. Or— ”
Sell my friends.
“One o’ the four options I gave ya. Thing is, ya gotta make up ya mind now, understand kid? Ya wouldn’t know it, but there’s thousands o’ people outside that read all about how we fished Brosnan outta the river this afternoon, an’ they want blood. Ya see, killin’ a cop is. . . It don’ get any worse for ya than that. Ya life’s about to change.”
My eyes are forward, but behind me I can see there is no light coming out of the window above. It’s night time, probably close to midnight now.
Mam will have heard they are blaming this on me. My sisters too. Everyone.
“Thing is, kid,” Patrolman Culkin walks behind me with the scissors and begins working on a fourth fingernail. “Ultimately it’s gotta come down to Meehan.”
I won’t talk.
I wish there was a threshold where pain reaches a limit, but there is none. It just gets worse. He digs into the cuticles of my fingers with the scissor blade. Somehow the pinky hurts worst of all. Black thoughts take me over, I’ll never be the same. Finally I lose control.
Culkin’s eyes go bright, “I told ya no screamin’!”
The floppy end of the blackjack waggles in the air, but straightens when the force of the swing comes at me. Now my ear rings like a tugboat’s fire siren and I go deaf. Did it hit my ear? What happened?
“Say yes!” He screams into my other ear. “Say yes to me! Cry for me! Cry for me! Say yes. Yes it was Meehan. Say it now! Say it!”
“It was—”
He stands above to hear my confession. Again I can see that his manhood has straightened. With the blackjack he moves his penis from one side of his trousers to the other while his smiling eyes grope at my naked body. When the pain and the tears appear on my face, he takes a deep breath to stifle ejaculation, though his back curls and his mouth makes an O.
“It was you,” I say.
He grits his teeth, and swings again.
~~~
I am awoken to the sound of hammering outside in the street.
How can life go on while this is happening to me? What are they building?
Later, much later, I awake again. Still naked. Still on the chair. Four pulsing and dripping fingers are still tied behind me. Blue and black welts have appeared on my arm and chest. I can’t see my shins, but they ache with a wretched agony.
“They’ve erected a scaffold outside,” I can hear Culkin’s voice in the darkness. “It’s for you.”
“Where are you?”
“Not since 1871,” he says. “An officer named Donohoe was killt by the Battle Row Gang. A fella by the name o’ Henry Rogers was hung for it. That’s the last time anyone has been hung in Brooklyn, ya know. Until tomorrow.”
I hear his footsteps. Behind me the light is so dim that I can barely make out the shadows of bars on the window cast along the floor and the opposite wall.
It’s so cold, I’m so hungry.
But there is someone else in the room. I can feel it. But my thoughts run ahead of me in the black room.
The scaffold would probably be made of pine. Yellow pine that they would have gotten from the Navy Yard. They have a lumber yard inside the walls. And there’s plenty of rope round.
I don’t see anything move in the room, but I know someone else is here. There is something I recognize. A scent.
Aftershave. I smell aftershave and cheap tobacco. Where have I smelled that before?
“Pakenham,” I say.
Silence responds. Nothingness. Then a single chuckle and the reporter moves into the soft light in front of me.
“Sorry about your luck, kid,” says he, all smiles and concern. “You probably should have thought twice about going to a reporter with information like that.”
Patrolman Culkin’s black-eyed face turns and mumbles angrily at him.
“It’s alright, he won’t live long enough to tell anybody I was here. Even if he does, who’s going to believe a cop killer?”
Culkin skulks off in the darkness, but Pakenham comes to my ear, “I came to see if you had any last words, Liam. Now’s the time. Tell your family that you loved them.
Tell your side of the story. Why you did it. You can tell the world. I can tell your story for you. This is your last chance. But you didn’t do it, did you?”
“I didn’t—”
“Dinny ordered Brosnan’s death then,” Pakenham interrupts. “Say it’s true and it will be.”
I need. . . I need hope to withstand the lies and the pain. Hope. How do I create hope?
“Pakenham, I know that name,” I mumble.
“Well I do write for the papers—”
“No,” I shake my head. “That name is famous.”
“Where?”
“In Ireland we never forget a good story, but we favor the oldest ones. We used to joke that we should erect a sign for visitors that reads, ‘Welcome to Ireland, please set your watch back seven hundred years.’”
Pakenham titters at the jape, but I move in quickly, “General Edward Pakenham and his famous Pakenham Punch, now there’s a story.”
“Punch? There was a General Pakenham? Like he punched through armies on the battlefield?”
“Yes, but he lived in Ireland. He was a politician too, wealthy, to be sure. He came from a great family. The famed Pakenham-Mahon fam
ily.”
Culkin interrupts, “Uhright kid, that’s—”
“Hold on,” Pakenham says.
Buy in. I need you to buy in so I can create hope. Hope is all I need.
Pakenham’s head tilts in the darkness and he rubs two fingers along the V shape of his pointy chin.
“My family came here as far back as the Mayflower, I never heard of this Pakenham in Ireland.”
Yes, now I have you. Hope in the form of story.
“Yes, Ireland. Yes, yes, great man. Famous. But he was not Irish, of course. He was English. A venerable colonist living on a gigantic plantation in County Roscommon. Gigantic, many Irish tenant farmers on his land paid rent. His sister even married the Duke of Wellington, very powerful. Very powerful. He fought in the Napoleonic Wars, but there is one thing he became even more famous for. Very famous. His punch.”
The reporter looks at Patrolman Culkin, then turns to me and nods.
“It was the year 1815, just five months or so after the British burnt down the White House. He led the fight during the Battle of New Orleans, in the southern state of Louisiana. The Americans had constructed three lines of defense, but young General Edward Pakenham was on the verge of a great career. Only thirty-six years of age. So young still.”
“That’s how old I am.”
I have you now.
“Are you? Maybe you will follow in his footsteps. Anyhow, the main attack would take place under darkness and fog, but almost as soon as they set out, the fog lifted and the sun came out. When they reached the canal under heavy fire, Pakenham’s forces realized they forgot the ladder and fascines needed to cross.”
“They forgot?” Pakenham lowers an eye.
“Forgot, yes. It’s all a part of the heroic ending, I promise,” I say. “It can’t be heroic if it’s easy. The next assault was repulsed by the Americans and much of the British infantry cowered in a ditch until every last one of them were massacred by grapeshot and musket fire. That was when General Pakenham rose to his occasion and lead the third and most powerful assault. But almost immediately he was wounded in the knee. Then, as he was being rushed off the field of action. . . he was shot in the heart while ahorse.”
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