“I robbed the man earlier this evening, all right?”
A look of shock passed over everyone’s face.
“You robbed Leon Clark?” Quinn gasped in amazement.
“I had no idea who he was,” Pierce stated.
“Oh, that’s rich!” Frank laughed. “This Reuben held up the mob boss of the Nightingale Gang!”
The leader of a gang?
“I’m buggered,” Pierce muttered.
“Did you kill him?” Quinn grilled him in a serious tone.
Pierce shook his head. “No.”
Chester snorted. “Too bad, eh, boss?”
“Yeah,” Quinn agreed.
Oh, this Leon Clark feller isn’t a friend of Quinn’s? Perhaps he won’t murder me after all.
“Take him out back and shoot him,” Quinn ordered. “Dump his body in the East River.”
Damn!
Frank and Chester seized Pierce by the arms, prepared to drag him away. Brody grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll do the honors.”
“Wait!” Pierce cried out.
“Sorry, son,” Quinn said, moving aside to allow them by, “you’ve seen too much, and I can’t risk my enterprise by letting you go.”
Pierce dug in his heels as the men began hauling him off.
“Then don’t. Let me work for you,” he proposed. “I was a smuggler myself.”
“Hold up,” Quinn ordered, snatching Chester by the arm to stop them. “Explain.”
“I helped smuggle brandy . . . I mean weapons to troops behind enemy lines in Berlin.”
Pierce was truly grasping at straws, pulling whatever he could out of his arse in order to save it.
“You fought in the war?” Quinn asked with heightened interest.
“Aye,” he answered quickly. “I volunteered in the Kitcheners Army.”
He suddenly became very thankful for the bit of news he’d seen at the theater, especially when a sympathetic look crossed Quinn’s face.
“Don’t listen to this feckin’ Brit, Mr. Quinn,” Brody seethed. “He’s only saying that to save his skin.”
Quinn gave Pierce a hard stare. It appeared he was going to ask him questions about the war. A cold dread caused icy beads of sweat to trickle down his spine. He knew very little about this Great War other than what he’d gathered on his first day in the twentieth century. Any in-depth inquiries about being a soldier could easily blow his cover story, earning him that bullet after all.
“How did you smuggle weapons?” Quinn finally asked.
A wave of relief warmed him. He decided to answer with a lie and with the truth.
“We posed as German soldiers. We snuck the weapons and other supplies in a commandeered enemy supply truck.”
When he worked for Juan Fan, smuggling all sorts of illegal and overpriced items, sometimes Pierce would disguise himself as a French cleric, traveling with his acolyte in a cart carrying loads of product stored inside ale barrels.
“You speak German, then?” Brody prodded, rubbing his forehead. No doubt a bump would form.
“Ja,” Pierce answered. “Ich spreche es fließend.”
The Irishman looked more annoyed than impressed. Pierce cleared his throat nervously. “Er, it’s why I volunteered for the missions.”
“That was pretty dangerous,” Frank said.
“Aye, but I was a wet-behind-the-ears seventeen-year-old lad who believed he was invincible in those days.”
“Och, well, you’re not invincible, English,” Brody pointed out testily. He addressed Quinn. “Can we take him out and shoot ’im already?”
Pierce thought about saying more to dissuade this mob boss from killing him, but, honestly, he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen right then and there.
“Dunno, boss,” Frank unexpectedly chimed in. “We could use an extra hand in the outfit.”
Again, the Irishman looked none too amused. “You stay out of this, you dumb twat.”
“Don’t call me a twat, you mick!” Frank seethed. “I’ll bump youze off!”
“Enough!” Quinn exclaimed. “Mr. Garcia, take Mr. Chaplin to my house. Hold him there until I arrive.”
Brody’s appalled expression affected his employer little.
“C’mon, Mr. Kier. Mr. Lithgow. We have work to finish up here,” Quinn stated.
Pierce allowed Frank to drag him off toward the motorized carriage. Brody and Chester took the last boxes from the boot as he and Frank got in.
Quinn gave Frank a set of keys through the open door.
“Shoot him if he tries running.”
“Will do, boss.”
Frank cranked the engine with his own key, which had a rabbit’s foot dangling from it, and shifted the gear. Quinn lifted the latch and opened the double doors. Snowflakes the size of mice wafted in. The motorized carriage slowly reversed.
“Storm’s getting’ worse, boss,” Frank remarked to Quinn through the window.
“All the more reason to transport our liquor to The Attic. It keeps our patrons warm and coming back.”
Pierce sure as hell could use a drink.
They backed out of the warehouse and the snow immediately engulfed them. The motorized carriage turned and drove out into the slushy thoroughfare. Pierce jumped when a blade began rocking from side to side over the windshield.
“What’s with you?” Frank asked. “Youze actin’ like youze ain’t been in no car before.”
Frank twisted a dial on the music box and the bulbs lit up as a song crackled on.
“I’m afraid for my life,” Pierce answered.
“Ah, s’pose I’d be rattled, too, if I’z was in your place.”
Frank reached into his coat pocket and brought out one of those cigarette packs that Pierce had seen throughout the day. He shook it until a filter popped up. He slid it out with his teeth and handed the pack to Pierce. He reckoned he would accept. After all, the bloke had the authority to gun him down. He took a cigarette and held it between his lips while Frank lit it with a copper lighter that had a small compass embedded in the middle.
Pierce had never smoked tobacco before. The only time he had ever smoked was in Juan Fan’s opium den years ago. In his time, tobacco was reserved mainly for the wealthy. Here, however, it was accessible to anyone of any class. It was harsh, and when he inhaled, his lungs were set ablaze. He did his best to keep from coughing.
“Youze shouldn’t worry ’bout being rubbed out,” Frank consoled him.
“Rubbed out?”
“Yeah, killed,” Frank clarified.
“How’s that?”
“Youze like jazz?” he asked instead of answering. He turned another dial on the box to raise the volume. “My favorite kind of music. Jazz and that ragtime stuff. Better than bluegrass or any dat folk shit.”
Pierce had no idea what the bloody hell he was talking about. “Erm, sure.”
He took another drag, careful not to take in too much this time. The smoke dried out his mouth and irritated his eyes. Finally, Frank cracked open his window and Pierce did the same.
“Wish we could hire a jazz band at The Attic.”
“What’s The Attic?”
“It’s the boss’s speakeasy.”
“Eh? Speak what now?”
“Youze never ’eard of speakeasies?” Frank blurted with surprise.
“We, er, don’t have them in England.”
“Ah, right, youze got hea recently. Speakeasies, juice joints, whatever youze wanna call ’em, are secret places where people go to drink. Mr. Quinn bought his building just before Prohibition was put into law.”
What he told him reminded Pierce of smuggling houses which were also called ‘speak softly shops’.
“Hey, how did youze sneak into the warehouse anyways?”
Pierce saw no reason to lie.
“I popped into the back seat of your carriage . . . I mean car . . . looking for a dry place to sleep for the night.”
“No shit?
” he said, flicking out ashes. “Youze jumped into my automobile?”
Pierce went ahead and flicked his whole cigarette out. He sorely wanted to roll up his window.
“Guess I best keep my car locked before I get iced.”
Pierce only assumed he meant murdered.
“I wasn’t aiming to hurt you.”
“I ain’t tawking ’bout little homeless dopes like youze, Chaplin.”
“Little homeless?” Pierce repeated, vexed.
“I’m tawking ’bout other gangs.”
A streetlight up ahead switched to red and Frank slowed to a halt.
“Rivals, eh?”
“Got that right. Everyone wants to cash in on the bootlegging racket and sometimes that means killings. Our territory is fairly quiet, mainly ’cause de boss agreed to a treaty between Leon Clark and the other mob boss, Violetta Romano. Boy, that broad is somethin’ else, I’z tells ya.”
Pierce found the nature in which Frank was speaking to be intriguing, as well as downright confusing.
“Youze gotta watch it. At any moment, youze can get whacked or the bull can arrest ya.”
“The bull?”
“Coppers. What do youze Brits call ’em over there?” Frank then added in an awful British accent, “Bloody bobbies?”
The light shone green and the automobile rumbled on.
“You sounded like shite, chum.”
“Oh, yeah, let’s ’ear your American accent, then, huh?”
Pierce snorted. “Oh, yeah, let’s ’ear your American accent, then, huh?”
His imitation was spot on, but to his credit, he’d had years of experience in changing his brogue.
“Well, I’ll be,” Frank said, impressed. “Youze a smart little rube, aren’t ya?”
Frank was a brawny feller, standing around six foot or so with a hard, chiseled face, thin lips, and a large, slightly misshapen nose that looked as though it had been broken before. His dark hair barely peeked out from under his hat.
Pierce shrugged. “I get by.”
“Kelly Quinn is smart, too. He saw Prohibition comin’, so he bottled up as much of the alcohol as he could from the brewery he owned at the time before he was forced to close it down. He bought de warehouse and stored all de booze away in there.”
“And he’s been selling off what he brewed since?”
“Yep. We’re runnin’ low on product, though, so it’s good that youze came along.”
They made a left-hand turn and then a right. The heavy snowfall made it difficult to see much. What he gathered was that they were in some residential area where townhomes lined both sides of the street with stone stairs leading up to each entrance. Blots of cool light from the streetlamps traced out the powdered road. Icicles hung like transparent daggers from naked tree branches, which were looming low overhead. Colorful Christmas tree lights shown through a few windows. The car slowed to a halt in front of a townhome and parked at the curb.
“We’re here,” Frank announced.
Pierce gazed out the window until something nudged his arm. He jumped when he saw it was a gun.
“Fuckin’ hell!”
“Sorry, Chaplin. Gotta make sure youze won’t run off. Boss’s orders.”
They got out and headed for the stairs. Although Frank refrained from aiming the blasted thing at him, Pierce knew it didn’t mean he wouldn’t use it. Pierce was climbing up with Frank behind him when a patch of ice stole the man’s footing. Frank dropped the gun to catch himself on the rail and Pierce picked the weapon up.
“Well, shit,” Frank cursed calmly despite the situation.
Pierce had his chance to hightail it out of there. After all, there was still the likelihood that Kelly Quinn would change his mind, have him killed, and dump his body in the East River. Not to mention that Pierce had planned to keep his nose clean while he was here.
But where was the bloody fun in that?
His entire life had been a string of adventures filled with constant discoveries.
In his own time, Pierce Landcross was an outlaw and outcast. Thinking on it, he actually enjoyed it. The rush of making those narrow escapes and thumbing his nose at Death. It electrified him. Because of how he lived, as wicked as many deemed it, he had experienced so much, met loads of people from all walks of life, and learned a great deal along the way. Why pass on this opportunity? If he ran, he’d only end up in some cold, dark place, freezing to death.
“As I told you,” Pierce explained, twirling the pistol around on his finger and handing it, handle-first, to Frank, “I’m not aiming to do you any harm.”
Frank said nothing as he cautiously reclaimed his weapon.
Pierce gestured toward the building. “Erm, shall we? My pecker is turning to ice out here.”
“Yeah,” Frank agreed, holstering his firearm. “Mine, too.”
Frank used Kelly’s keys to unlock the door. He opened it and entered the dark townhouse. Pierce followed as Frank flicked the lights on.
Frank went into a spacious room. “Want a drink?”
Pierce closed the front entrance and shook the snowflakes out of his hair.
“Aye,” he answered, following him in.
Pierce gaped at the area and its unique décor. He spotted a couch against the wall on the right-hand side with a shiny metal coffee table in front of it. Two brown leather armchairs faced each other near a fireplace. The mantel had several daguerreotypes on it. Some were of Kelly as a younger feller with a woman—Pierce reckoned she was his wife. She was sitting in a chair, holding a sleeping infant. Other images were of a young lass at the beach, dressed in a sleeveless striped shirt and short bottoms that showed more leg than any woman in his day ever would. The same gal appeared in another photograph, dressed in a nurse’s outfit.
The room was nicely wallpapered and had half globes hanging on the walls like framed photographs. Also hanging on one wall was a bookshelf built to reassemble a fire escape. On the shelves were things peculiar and wondrous.
Each shelf contained insects put together with different types of metals, all of them encased in clear glass display cubes. There was a caterpillar with a body made of marbles held together by thin metal wires artfully twisted around every glass ball. The metal also served as the antennas. Running along both sides of the caterpillar was a pair of connecting rods very similar to a steam locomotive with three small gears acting as the wheels on either side. Underneath were tiny movable mechanical parts that caused everything to go. Displayed in another glass case were a few crickets built from parts of silverware with springs for the rear legs. Dragonflies were constructed of tin with wings composed of twigs that had been stripped of their bark to form the frames and cut out pieces of painting canvas for the inside of the wings. A pulley and gear system would help move the wings. Some insects were a tad more organic, such as the beetle with a walnut for a body, yet it still had tiny inner gears, and the legs were made from sheared-off sewing needles. A carved wooden ladybug had the same mechanical setup as the beetles.
“What are these?” Pierce wondered.
Frank looked over from the standing coat rack as he took off his coat. “Those are de boss’s bugs. They’re his precious antiques.”
“Antiques?” Pierce whispered to himself, then said louder, “Nice sculptures.”
“They are. They use to be everywhere up until the late 1800s. It’s rare to see ’em runnin’ nowadays.”
“Wait. Are you telling me these things actually worked?”
“Not just worked but existed the same as any other bug out der. Some tinkerer in England spent her whole life making ’em and settin’ ’em loose.”
“Setting them loose—as if they were alive?”
“People think they were alive, and not just average Joes like you and me, Chaplin. I mean smart guys like scientists who studied de bugs for years. They never could figure out how they worked on their own.”
Pierce couldn’t decide if he should believe him or not.
“C’mon,
” Frank beckoned. “Let’s have dat drink.”
Frank opened a menacing-looking metal shell-like cabinet. It resembled some sort of weapon, perhaps a rocket that the Chinese had used. The thing stood four-foot-tall and sat on a short, but heavy looking table. Inside were built-in shelves stocked with liquor bottles. “Whatcha want?”
Pierce was nearly drooling.
“Have any mull wine?”
It didn’t seem Frank knew what to make of that, for he snorted. “Bourbon it is.”
“Fair enough,” Pierce said, approaching him.
They sat and chatted for a while. He learned that Frank was a New York City native who had never traveled outside the state. He grew up in a Bronx neighborhood and he had worked as a brewer at Quinn & O’Sullivan Company. After Prohibition, he was hired on as Kelly Quinn’s muscle.
When Kelly arrived, Pierce thought he might be perturbed to see them lounging around in his flat, drinking his booze. Instead, he said to Frank, “The storm has gotten worse. I want you to stay here in the spare room tonight.”
“Okay, boss.”
Frank stood and went over to the fireplace. Pierce also rose from his seat. He didn’t know why, but he reckoned it was the respectable thing to do, seeing how his life was in Kelly’s hands and all.
“Sit down, Mr. Chaplin,” Kelly ordered as he approached the metal bar. “You and I have some things to discuss.”
Pierce sat down in the armchair and took a nervous drink. Kelly poured a glass of whiskey and shut the bar.
Kelly patted the contraption. “I bet you haven’t seen something like this since the war, have you?”
Considering the sort of person Pierce was portraying, he reckoned it was best to play along.
“Not this close,” Pierce quipped, hoping the slightly humorous remark would be enough to fool him.
Kelly snorted and went over to the chair Frank had been sitting in. “It’s a drop bomb from a war airship. It never saw action. It was built here in the city in 1888 and left incomplete after the Second Machine War ended.”
Second Machine War?
“Did you serve in the Great War?” Pierce asked as Quinn sat down.
There was a reason he’d asked the question. It wasn’t that he really gave a toss, but since Kelly had postponed letting his thugs murder him after lying about being a soldier himself, Pierce figured the man had a personal link to the war.
Boom Time Page 5