by BJ Hoff
But young Tom hadn’t been able to offer even a clue as to where his friend might be. So Denny was right back where he had started the night before, he and Mr. Whittaker: in the middle of the Five Points, without a thought as to where to try next.
Still, he would have himself another look. In fact, he decided abruptly, he might just pay a call to Billy’s family. With any luck at all, Sorley Dolan wouldn’t be at home. When he wasn’t too drunk, he usually worked at one of the gambling dens in the Bowery. Perhaps he could pry something out of the two wee boys, or Nell herself, if Sorley wasn’t there to scare them dumb.
Picking up his pace, he slid his hand to the butt of his pistol for reassurance. In the Five Points, a policeman might carry no real authority. But he always—always—carried a loaded gun.
It took Quinn less than five minutes in Five Points to know she had made a mistake. Not in fleeing the Shelter, she quickly assured herself, but in coming to this place, which must surely be the devil’s den—right here, in New York City.
She walked into the midst of a square in which most of the garbage barrels of the city appeared to have been dumped. In equal numbers, pigs and small raggedy children ran wild among the rubbish, animal waste, and broken bottles. The pigs were fat, the children were bones.
Quinn stifled a gag at the putrid odors assailing her. The farther she walked, the worse the stench!
Even in the gloom of gathering darkness, there was no mistaking the squalid ugliness of the place. A number of streets intersected with narrow lanes and alleys diverging every which way—and all of them seemed to be lined with nothing but taverns and bawdy houses!
The noise spilling out onto the streets was unimaginable. Rough, bloated faces—both men’s and women’s—hurled curses and laughter from broken upstairs windows. From the taverns, loud, tinny music pumped a kind of savage hilarity into the air, competing with the crashing of bottles and the wailing of infants.
There were people everywhere, faces mirroring a multitude of nations and races—but mostly black faces and Irish faces, lined with despair and gaunt with tragedy. Drunks with black eyes stumbled over one another. Hard-looking women stared at Quinn with open hatred. A cacophony of Irish brogue and black prattle warred with the strangely out-of-place merriment of fiddles and tambourines.
Quinn felt as if she had been picked up and plopped down in the midst of a lunatic’s nightmare.
Suddenly a hand gripped the back of her neck, jarring her out of her thoughts. Whirling about, she yanked herself free and lashed out with one hand to club her assailant.
The drunk, filthy beyond belief, with not a tooth in his head, stood leering at her. “Eh, lassie, I’ve got money for a good time, don’t I, now? Lookie here!”
As he attempted to turn his pockets inside out, Quinn backed away, then veered and bolted across the square.
At the sight of a dark, cavernous old building, so far gone in decay it appeared diseased, she reversed directions. To her right, outside the wooden paling surrounding the square, hovered a row of taverns—mean in appearance but at least lighted.
She had just reached the wooden fence when a deep, commanding shout stopped her in her tracks.
“Here! Just a minute, now—hold up!”
He was on her in a shake, one huge hand seizing her shoulder and whipping her about. “What—” He reared back, staring at her. “Why, it’s the lass from the Bowery!”
Quinn blinked, gaping first at the copper star on the stalwart chest, then at the familiar face illuminated by the lights from the taverns.
He stared at her. “’Tis! I thought so! Quinn O’Shea, isn’t it, now?”
The foolish man actually appeared happy to see her! He grinned—the wide, canny grin of the old Celtic sin-eater himself. And after what he had brought on her!
Quinn stared at his copper badge, her insides burning with fury. Blast! It was him, all right, the copper who had saved her hide in the Bowery that night back in July. An age ago, it seemed.
Sergeant Price. He had rescued her from the two drunken dandies bent on having their way with her, but then he had turned and undone his good deed by sending her off with the sanctimonious Ethelda Crane.
Didn’t he have the gall, though? Standing there with his hands on her shoulders, grinning like the village eejit! And himself the cause of her misery all these months!
Quinn shook off his grasp and backed away, scowling at him.
The leprechaun glint in his eyes dimmed. “Whatever would you be doin’ in the Five Points, lass? This is a terrible place altogether!”
Quinn merely glared at him, saying nothing. If he found out she had run off from the Shelter, wouldn’t he be taking her back?
“Don’t you remember me, now? Sergeant Price? Didn’t I help you out of a bad spot some months back, in the Bowery?”
“I don’t recall,” Quinn snapped. She’d not give him the satisfaction of admitting she remembered him at all!
He went on beaming happily, as if he were genuinely pleased to have run onto her. Policeman or not, Quinn speculated, the man might be a bit simple.
“Sure, you must,” he insisted. “Two drunks were making things difficult for you, and wasn’t I the policeman who got you out of that fix?”
“And marched me into an even hotter pot of trouble!” Quinn spat out before she could stop herself. “Aye, you were the one, right enough!”
The cheeky grin disappeared. “I don’t know that I take your meaning.” His eyes went over her. “And what’s this, now? Isn’t that the dress the girls at the Shelter house wear? You wouldn’t be staying there after all this time, sure?”
“No, and indeed I am not, no thanks to you!”
He frowned, causing his heavy eyebrows to come together over his nose. “Then why would you still be wearing that sack? Not that it isn’t becoming, mind.” The frown gave way to another grin, this one a bit smug.
Seething, Quinn clenched her hands at her sides. “And would I be wearing the hateful thing at all if the pious Ethelda Crane had not stolen my dress—and it the only one I owned?”
Pocketing his nightstick, the sergeant crossed his arms over his chest and stood appraising her. Quinn had to steel herself not to squirm under his policeman’s chicken hawk eye.
“I’m thinking perhaps we need to start over,” he finally said, his rugged face now altogether serious. “Supposing you tell me what it is that has you so bothered. And while you’re about it,” he added, “you might explain your business in the Five Points—which happens to be, if you haven’t already discovered as much, the lowest, meanest place in the city.”
His clipped brogue had thickened. Quinn placed it as northern, with a taste of the sea: Donegal, more than likely. This gave her slight pause as to the wisdom of sparring with him. Wasn’t it common knowledge that Donegal men could be hard and a bit sly? Yet, for the sake of Ivy and the others still trapped in the Shelter, shouldn’t she be telling what she knew about the goings-on in that place?
She decided to risk it. If he thought to take her back, she could lose him quick enough. He was set like an oak tree and no doubt would be just as wooden on his feet. Outrunning him shouldn’t be much of a task.
Quinn’s instincts told her he was not nearly so fierce as he would make out. Despite his sturdy size and deep frowns, he didn’t quite fit her notions about policemen. His eyes seemed dusted with laughter, and she thought she might have even sensed a depth of kindness in the man.
So after a slight delay, Quinn allowed him to lead her off to a bench in front of one of the taverns, where she started in with her story. She took no small satisfaction in the surprise that gradually began to register on his face as she told him about her experiences at the Chatham Charity Women’s Shelter.
The longer she talked, the more his eyes bugged. Twice he stopped her with an incredulous grunt of outrage, but to give the man his due, he listened to her story with the patience of a priest.
37
The Price of Justice
And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!
OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)
Discouraged by his failure to find Sergeant Price after nearly an hour of searching, Evan gave up and went back to the buggy. After months of familiarizing himself with the Five Points, he wasn’t nearly as fearful of the deadly slum as he had been in the beginning. Still, he was cautious enough not to go roaming about the place after dark, especially alone.
He set out for the police station, hoping that if he didn’t find the sergeant there, he could convince one of the other policemen to accompany him. It was pointless to go back to Billy Hogan’s flat by himself, he knew. He had no illusions about his effectiveness against a brute like Sorley Dolan. He wouldn’t get past the door, and even if he did, what then? No, if he were to make any progress in his search for the boy, he needed someone like Sergeant Price, who looked as if he could easily take on three of the likes of Sorley Dolan.
Riding through the Five Points after dark was a truly harrowing experience. Nearly every house was a tavern that at night shook with the sounds of drunken cursing and laughter, music, and, often, blood-chilling screams. Everywhere the narrow alleyways cut right and left, disgorging an endless parade of rough-looking men with angry eyes and women whose faces bore the evidence of years lived out in pain and defeat. The streets were rutted and slick with mud. In some places children played knee-deep in the mire.
As he drove toward the Hall of Justice, Evan’s anxiety gave way to a heaviness of heart at the sight of so many children—”lost children”—trapped in this leprous breeding ground of evil. Most of them had no chance whatsoever of escape, but instead would spend their precious young lives caught up in the squalor, sin, and violence of places like Paradise Square and the Old Brewery.
Five Points wasn’t peculiar to America alone, he knew. It was the same throughout Europe. Whether it was London, with its deadly slums teeming with forgotten children, or Ireland, with its homeless, starving little beggars, thousands upon thousands of small souls remembered only by God were being crushed before they ever felt a single touch of love or human kindness.
Evan anguished for the Billy Hogans of the world, the children without hope, without a future. And yet, what could he do? He was only one man, with scarcely any money to speak of, little physical stamina, and frightfully little time. He had a family to provide for, a job to attend to, and a small ministry of sorts with his boys in Five Points. Some days it was all he could do to keep going. What else could he possibly do?
As he pulled up to the Hall of Justice, often referred to as “the Tombs,” Evan sat in the dark silence of the buggy for a moment, struggling to regain his composure. Even as he fought for calm, there came a stirring in his spirit—unexpected, unannounced—that took his breath and held him there, waiting.
Shaken, he squeezed his eyes closed, as if to shut out the turbulence of the day, his churning emotions, and the ordeal that awaited him yet this night.
But instead of the peace he sought, the weight upon his heart seemed to grow even heavier, more oppressive. He felt surrounded, submerged in tragedy and need. Nora…Johanna…Billy…the abandoned souls of Five Points…the lost, forgotten children—such need, such desperate, insurmountable need! Like a hand pressing down upon his soul, the burden increased, weighing down on him until he could scarcely breathe.
“Oh, Lord, enough—enough! I cannot bear any more!”
Not knowing whether he spoke aloud or if it had been his spirit crying out in rebellion, Evan shuddered and bowed his head, wanting to pray, needing to pray, but so enervated and depleted he could scarcely find the strength to pray. And so he merely sat there, letting the silence of the night wash over him until he could bring himself to leave the buggy and go inside.
How much are you willing to do, Evan?
His heart pounding, Evan lifted his head, opened his eyes and looked around, then raised his face to the dark, starless night. “How…how much, Lord? Why…whatever I can, of course…b-but…”
Are you willing to trust Me?
His throat tightened. “Why…I’ve always t-trusted You, Lord.”
Will you trust Me with everything? With Nora…your family…your job…your future…your life?
Again Evan closed his eyes, fighting back the tears now threatening to spill over. “I try, Lord…You kn-know, I try…”
Will you trust Me to help Billy Hogan…and the others like him…My lost children?
“Oh, yes, Lord…why, You’re their only hope!”
You are their hope too, Evan…you, and My church…you are My hands…My feet…you are their hope.
For a long time darkness surrounded Evan. He saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing, until at last he sensed a distant glimmer of light slowly rising up in him, growing brighter and clearer, warming him as it filled him.
“What shall I do, Lord? What can I do?” he whispered.
Trust Me, Evan…trust Me, and be brave, for I will ask much of you.
Evan opened his eyes. He sat there in the darkness another moment. He tried to steady himself with a long breath of night air, but was seized instead with a fit of coughing. Finally, his legs trembling beneath him, he stepped down from the buggy and started for the entrance doors of the Hall of Justice.
Nearly half an hour later, inside a small office just off the entryway, Michael Burke listened as Evan Whittaker finally ended his explanation about Nora’s illness.
Certainly, this wasn’t the way Michael had planned for the evening to go. The truth was, Evan’s unexpected arrival and distraught condition would mean the cancellation of an important meeting—a meeting Michael had been counting on for some time.
Parlie Cottle, an informant, had finally agreed to open up about Patrick Walsh’s protection and prostitution rackets in the Bowery and the Eighth Ward. It had taken months of threats and “persuasion” just short of strong-arm tactics to convince Cottle to talk. And now that he’d finally softened, Michael was going to have to put him off.
Not that any of Cottle’s information would be enough to bring Walsh in. There was still a ways to go before that could be accomplished. But every stone added to the pile built the wall around Patrick Walsh that much higher. And some day, Michael had vowed, the wall would be great enough and strong enough to hem him in entirely. Someday, no matter how long it took, he would have that snake’s skin.
But tonight, something else took precedence over Patrick Walsh. One look at Evan Whittaker, and Michael had known that everything else would have to wait.
He sat now, stunned and sick at heart to think of Nora being so dangerously ill. He had all he could do to follow the rest of Evan’s account. His mind had locked on a memory, and refused to release it: the memory of three children in a small Irish village, in another time that now seemed an age ago—Morgan and himself and the tiny, timid Nora. Had any of them ever imagined that life would turn out so vastly different than it had been then?
They had spent the days of their youth trekking over fields or the rocky seacoast, being foolish and carefree children—as carefree, that is, as a child in Ireland ever dared to be. They had spent their childhood together, worked at their chores about the village together, played their games and had their adventures together.
There was no way they could have known that the future would bring starvation and separation, loss of home and even family. Their worst nightmares had not forewarned them that one would live out his days in a wheelchair; one would lose a wife and be estranged from his only son; and the other…Nora…would endure horror after horror, losing most of her family before finding happiness with the good man who now sat across the desk, trying not to fall apart.
Always…always there had been the awareness that Nora could never be quite as foolish, quite as car
efree, as Morgan and himself, Michael remembered. Her slattern of a mother, the unwanted children, the poverty, the appalling conditions of her life—no, Nora had never, ever, been carefree. There had been an unspoken agreement between him and Morgan that Nora was to be cherished and protected, at all costs. She was their lass, and they would have given their lives for her.
Twice he had asked her to marry him. Twice she had refused. He had loved her then…and he loved her now, but as a sister and a friend. She was a part of his past…his youth…his heart.
Oh, Nora…Nora Ellen…you can’t be dying…we won’t have it…we won’t let you die, do you hear? We won’t let you!
Michael’s throat tightened, and his eyes burned with a rush of tears. He got up, turning his back on Evan for a moment until he could regain his composure.
Finally he faced him again. “What can we do to help, Evan? Sara and I—what can we do?”
Evan wiped a hand over his eyes briefly, making an obvious effort to steady himself. “Well…you can p-pray for us, of course. Moreover, if you would speak to Sara about helping m-me to find a girl for the house, I’d greatly appreciate it. We m-must find someone as soon as possible, you understand.”
Michael nodded, forcing himself to smile. “It’s as good as done, man. You know Sara—she won’t rest until she finds the very girl you need. Now, what’s this you were saying when you came in, about needing help for the little Hogan lad? What’s happened to Billy?”
By the time Evan finished relaying his concern and suspicions about Billy Hogan, rage had emptied into the flood of Michael’s other emotions. He was already halfway around the desk before Evan asked for help in finding the missing boy.
“We’ll go at once,” said Michael. Suddenly alert to Evan’s exhausted appearance and ashen skin, he stopped. “Why don’t you stay here? I’ll take one of the men with me. We’ll make Sorley Dolan talk, I’ll guarantee it.”
Evan shook his head, pushing himself up from the chair. “N-no. I want to go with you. I can’t rest until the b-boy is found.”