Liam rolled his eyes. This was going to be an interesting trip.
New York June 19—June 27, 1877
Chapter Twelve
Blast those people! Adolf Hochstein was the goose that laid our golden eggs!”
“That he was,” Boylan said gloomily. “Vysotsky’s boys took a carpetbag full of perfect five-dollar notes off him, and worst of all, they got his plates. Not to mention the press and the inks and tools and paper and every other bloody thing save the clothes on his back! I just barely caught hold of him at the Grand Central Depot—sweating buckets, he was, and looking like he had a flock of banshees on his tail. To hear him tell it, Vysotsky swore if he dared come back to New York he’d serve him his bollocks in a plate of borscht.”
Lukas nodded pensively, staring at his comically distorted reflection on the side of the silver coffee pot as he drifted away to some mental refuge where Boylan and the luxurious sitting room and the money problems and all the rest of it faded like smoke.
Boylan watched him patiently, having learned long ago that interrupting one of the Boss’ brown studies was a risky thing to do. Lukas was a rare bird, no two ways about it, and Boylan found himself wondering again just where he hailed from. The first time he’d seen him the Boss had been boxing bare knuckle in a Hell’s Kitchen basement, and it hadn’t been a pretty fight. The other fellow had been a big, muscled-up dago from Five Points, and Lukas had pounded him to a jelly in nothing flat without getting winded or raising a sweat, just smiling like he enjoyed the exercise. So when he was introduced to Lukas later on, Boylan—who fancied himself a fair-enough mauler but no fool—had made a great point of acting meek as a lamb.
Which reminded him, he’d just that morning heard the butler—a foreigner with some queer sort of accent—calling Lukas “Your Highness.” Your Highness? And here the man’s dearest dreams were of nothing more nor less than putting a carload of dynamite under every King and President on the face of the planet, or so he said. To hell with it, Boylan decided, he’d be better off concentrating on breakfast.
As if at a signal, Lukas returned to the present with a chuckle and a boarding-house grab for the giant chafing dish of sausages and bacon and smoked herring that sat between them on the dining table:
“I should be ashamed of myself, letting Vysotsky’s antics interfere with my breakfast—it’s a capital mistake to worry about trifles on an empty stomach.”
Boylan tugged unhappily at his moustache: “Begging your pardon, sir, but it won’t seem such a trifle when the lads from Pittsburgh and Baltimore come and ask for their dosh. How are they to get things done with no money?”
“My dear Boylan,” said Lukas through a mouthful of toast and sausage, “would you teach your grandmama how to suck eggs? I know that revolutions take money—how the Devil else can you fight money?”
He snorted indignantly and speared sausage and smoked herring onto his fork till the enormous wad of food made Boylan a bit queasy. Stuffing the lot into his mouth in one effortless bite, Lukas continued:
“Still, one mustn’t be put off a great goal by minor disappointments—the key to success is unwavering determinantion, so if one path is foreclosed by ill fortune we must simply open another.”
He picked up a crisp linen napkin and wiped off his beard and moustache before continuing with an expansive wave:
“Shoving the queer was fine as long as we had plenty of Hochstein’s splendid fakes to work with, but you must agree it was a little slow as a source of funds. I’ve been thinking for a while now that it was high time we went over to direct expropriations.”
Boylan raised a quizzical eyebrow: “Sir?”
Lukas grinned widely, his nimble imagination already seeing the job done and his problems solved:
“Banks, my friend, banks! They grow fat on the money of corporations that suck the blood of working men and women. It’s no crime to take their money for the Revolution—it’s simply expropriation, like the Government seizing a right of way for the public good.”
In spite of his misgivings Boylan couldn’t help chuckling at the thought: “Sure and it’s a crime to let them keep the money when you look at it that way. Would you be having any special bank in mind, then?”
Lukas got to his feet, dusted the crumbs off his hands, and strolled over to an enormous pier glass in a gilded frame replete with carved cherubim and bunches of grapes. Then, with all the finicky precision of a scientist adjusting some complex and priceless machinery, he set about grooming his beard and moustache with a tiny silver comb, tugging at his cravat and his collar points, and brushing invisible bits of lint off his embroidered waistcoat and his gray cashmere morning suit. A final glance to make sure his shoes had retained their mirror finish and then he smiled at Boylan in the mirror, pleased to see that his lieutenant had finally learned not to show the least hint of impatience during this important ritual.
“Of course I have, Boylan.”
He crossed to the dining room windows and pulled the heavy red velvet curtains open all the way, letting in a flood of spring sunshine. Beyond the windows, Washington Square Park spread southwards towards West 4th Street, its decorous expanse of foot-paths and flower gardens sprinkled with nannies and prams from the surrounding townhouses, gentlemen sitting on benches enjoying the June weather and their morning papers, and kids from the neighborhoods beyond the townhouses chasing pigeons, yelling happily and playing games. Lukas smiled indulgently: after all, even a dynamiter could enjoy a June day in New York. Then he pointed east across the Park and looked back at Boylan:
“Just a half-dozen blocks from where I’m standing—The Gotham Savings Institution on the corner of Bleecker and Broadway.”
Boylan’s cheerful expression darkened in an instant and a groan escaped him.
“Aw, Jasus, Boss!”
He was caught in a cleft stick. On the one hand, Lukas liked naysaying about as well as the Pope liked Lutherans. On the other, Gotham Savings was smack in the middle of Butcher Boys territory, and in that neck of the woods it was as much as your life was worth to steal an apple off a pushcart without asking them pretty please first.
Most of the old-school New York gangs like the Hudson Dusters and the Dead Rabbits were something like neighborhood clubs for drinking and mayhem, but the Butcher Boys were serious professional criminals, high-class operators who made the city’s coppers look like hayseeds. Their head man Mike Vysotsky, known far and wide as the Mad Russian, was bad enough. But him and that shite-poke McCool had been tight as twins, and now that McCool was on his way home from Henderson’s Patch Boylan would rather sit bare-arsed on a nest of hornets than mess with the Butcher Boys.
“You seem distressed, cher collègue.”
Mother of God. When the Boss started speaking in tongues, thunder and lightning weren’t far away …
“Aw, nivver a bit, yer Honor!” Boylan said hastily, an extra touch of brogue jarred loose by his anxiety. “It’s just the surprise of it, a big bank job.”
“Excellent, excellent,” said Lukas with an urbane smile, “otherwise I’d have been forced to conclude that you were anxious about that mountebank Vysotsky and his ragtag and bobtail of pickpockets and sneak thieves.”
He strolled back and settled in an armchair across from Boylan, crossing his legs and tugging at his trousers to keep from spoiling the creases.
“Now, then. The delegates from the Pittsburgh and Baltimore Attack Sections will be here tonight to make their reports and collect their funds. We’ll just have to put them to work helping us with the bank—then when they go back to their comrades they can have a bit of extra money to spread around.”
Boylan tried to keep the skepticism out of his voice as he asked: “That’s just the four of us, then? The Gotham is one of the few banks that’s come through the Panic with money to spare, and I know for a fact they keep four armed Pilkingtons aboard day and night. Not to mention, the dicks have a direct wire to tbe Pilkington Agency headquarters on Union Square. That’s not a dozen
blocks from the Bank, sir, the guards will have it swarming with law before you can say ‘Bugger!’”
Lukas grinned cheerfully: “They may have a wire to headquarters, but I have these!”” He reached over to his desk, pulled open the top drawer and brought out a stout pair of wire-cutters. “Don’t worry, my friend, I have everything worked out to a nicety. Remember, the Trainmen’s Union is planning a General Strike for June 27th—that’s this coming Wednesday, Boylan, we haven’t time to fool about. And whether the strike takes place or is put down by the police it’ll be war—workers and bosses at daggers drawn. So we must be ready to seize the moment and help it to move in the right direction, chances like this don’t come along more than once in a lifetime.”
You had to give it to the Boss—when it came to the old fire and brimstone he could out-palaver Moody and Sankey, hymns and all. Boylan set his jaw resolutely:
“Just tell me what you need and when you need it!”
Lukas nodded and smiled. “We’ll do it Sunday night. This part of town is dead as a doornail on Sundays, so the ‘when’ for preparing is right away. What we need is dynamite, but with all the digging and tunneling on Manhattan Island, that should be easy enough to scoop up. Now, then. Is there anything else on your slate before you get busy with the fireworks?”
Boylan hesitated for a moment. “I know you don’t reckon it for a problem, but I’m still that bit bothered about McCool setting himself at your heels. When I saw him last in Henderson’s Patch he was bound and determined he’d have you for killing Maggie O’Shea.”
Lukas got that distant look again, the tight set of his mouth hinting that he might be finding the threat more serious than Boylan suggested.
“The shame of it is,” he muttered, “that the man was a first-rate organizer—we could have used him here if he hadn’t given himself up to a vendetta.” Finally he shrugged and turned back to Boylan: “I expect if he’d stayed with the job in Pottsville the Governor and Gowan and the rest of those swine would be shoveling coals in Hell today. However, it’s an ill wind that blows no good. The fact is that yesterday’s hangings have lit a fire under other workingmen that won’t be easily put out.” His expression hardened as he looked into some private distance: “Ten corpses swinging in the wind, Boylan. It’s a picture that will keep on reminding their brothers and sisters of what awaits them if they let the owners win!”
He got to his feet abruptly and strode across to the windows. This time he just stood staring out across Washington Square Park, a belligerent grin on his face and his hands jammed into his pockets as if he were spoiling for a fight …
“Don’t worry, Boylan—just keep up the good work and you’ll soon find yourself on the ride of a lifetime!”
“Ride, sir?”
Lukas turned back from the window and chuckled as he pounded a massive fist into his palm.
“What would you say, Boylan, if I were to tell you that in just a few weeks from now you’ll no longer be the right-hand man of Lukas the Mysterious Foreigner, but aide-de-camp to Prince Nikolai Aleksandrovich Yurevskii, the new Viceroy of Little Russia!?”
Outside, strolling casually along a path in the Park that gave him a good view of Lukas’ house, swinging a heavy walking stick and whistling “Oh! Susanna,” was Liam McCool.
His pal Mike—who had kept in touch with innocuous, DPS-proof letters while Liam was in exile—had boasted of buying one of the pricey new Tesla voicewire machines and Liam had promised Becky to use it to call her at Harper’s and let her know when he was setting out to see his grandma. Once Liam got used to the tinny sound of the thing he could tell she was excited when he told her his boys had a solid line on Lukas; he had agreed to meet Becky here, outside Lukas’ house, and then to go on from Washington Square Park to Five Points by steam jitney.
Liam pulled out his watch and looked at it again, the fifth time in as many minutes. Where was she? He wouldn’t have expected her to run this late unless there was a problem, and the thought made him uneasy.
Besides (and he grinned sheepishly as he realized it) he was eager to show himself off to her in full Big-City feather. Now that he’d had time to visit his flat on Bleecker Street Liam was dressed like a young swell—a four-button cutaway suit of lightweight brown-and-gray checked cashmere, a stiff white collar, red paisley cravat and handkerchief, and brilliantly polished brown boots. The one fashionable item that Liam had rejected was a derby hat—he hated hats and told anybody who wanted to know that he had given his to a Five Points rag-and-bone man for his mule.
The stick, on the other hand, was something special. The body was highly polished ebony, and it had been invisibly fitted together by Harry the Jap (who was the Butcher Boys’ artificer as well as Liam’s pal and jiu-jitsu partner), after he hollowed it out to form a perfect sheath for a 15th-century katana, a super-sharp and flexible samurai sword that had been forged of five layers of steel, folded and hammered sixteen times by some forgotten Muromachi craftsman and finally stolen and broken off at the hilt by some dumb Swede sailor who sold the pieces to a junk shop in Brooklyn.
It was the kind of challenge Harry loved: turning a gaijin’s trash into a unique and beautiful object. A gifted craftsman to begin with, Harry had put extra care into this job—a labor of love intended for Liam, who had saved Harry’s life in a pitched battle with the Whyos. Once he had finished the work and presented it to Liam, Harry instructed him painstakingly in its use: like a true katana, it had an extra-long grip to permit a two-handed hold, and once the catch was released, its stick-sheath—regularly lubricated with goji oil—would simply fall away, permitting the samurai trick of drawing the sword and striking your opponent in one lightning-fast move.
By the time Liam was through training, he could lose the sheath and cut a sheep’s carcass in half with a move so fast that it made even the taciturn Harry smile. Not that Liam wanted to use it on anyone—he didn’t really like hurting people. At the same time, he had to admit that he didn’t want anybody trying to hurt him either and the katana stick was a useful weapon if the need for one arose unexpectedly.
He shook his head grimly: like it or not, the need for weapons had been suggested to him more and more forcefully during the last few days, most recently by the colossal Norway rat he’d run into coming out of an alley on Houston Street just a half hour ago. The thing had been nearly the size of a bulldog and it had faced off with Liam, hissing and squeaking furiously until he’d taken a swipe at it with the katana and forced it to pelt away down the street. Whatever else was going on, Nature was seriously out of joint and not just back in the sticks; despite his normally happy temperament, the mystery of where it was all heading filled Liam with foreboding.
Liam watched Lukas watching him through the sitting-room window and wondered just who it was that had been dogging his steps since he and Miss Fox pulled into the Exchange Place Terminal in Jersey City. Was it Lukas, or somebody who worked for him? Whoever it was, they were really good—as alert as Liam was, he hadn’t caught so much as a glimmer of a face or figure, just the constant awareness of someone there behind him wherever he went, watching and waiting for …
“Mr. McCool!”
Liam started, then shook his head and smiled as he realized the voice was Becky Fox’s. He turned to find her standing behind him, looking wonderfully slim and springlike in a simple green silk day dress without a bustle and a token hat of the same material. He grinned and gave her a little half-bow:
“Well, Miss Fox, I reckon you could give lessons in silent stalking to old Sitting Bull himself.”
She smiled back—a little anxiously, it seemed to Liam.
“Is everything all right?”
“Not really,” she said, “but I’m dreadfully sorry I asked you to wait just so that I might go with you. I shouldn’t have kept you—I know you must be fretting terribly about your grandmother.”
“She’s waited six months now to see me again, I expect an extra couple of hours won’t make any difference. Please—
” he gestured towards the bench “—let’s sit down for a minute while you tell me what’s troubling you. We can catch a cab when you’ve caught your breath.”
She hesitated for a moment and then gave in gratefully and sat down. “As I said on the voicewire I meant to stop at home on the way here, just to let my family know I was back. But when I got to Gramercy Park …” She turned those bottomless blue eyes full on Liam and he had to fight a sudden urge to pull her close and comfort her: “… my Mother told me that Secretary Stanton had issued a personal rescript confining Papa to our home until further notice.”
Liam frowned with bafflement. “Why? I thought your father was a big judge. And what the Devil does ‘further notice’ mean?”
“Stanton doesn’t care if you’re a judge or a washerwoman,’ she said bitterly, “he won’t brook the least hint of criticism. My father and some of his friends—other judges and some lawyers and journalists—have formed a study circle to plan an official inquiry into DPS high-handedness in New York. All quite legal and by-the-book, nothing remotely secretive. But Stanton’s screed called it a criminal conspiracy, and he means to punish them and make an example of them.”
She closed her eyes and grimaced painfully. Maggie, girl, Liam thought prayerfully, help me out here … And then, with a quirky little half-smile: Right, then, damn the torpedoes! … He took hold of Becky’s hands and held them tight until she opened her eyes and smiled a little.
“Whatever you need,” Liam said, “just ask me. If there’s anything at all that I can do to help you, you can count on me.”
“Papa will have the best lawyers and the whole judicial establishment of New York on his side, but Stanton has the powers of a Torquemada. If he decides to mount an Inquisition I fear for all of us.”
“I don’t get it,” Liam said in frustration. “What about the Constitution? What about the ‘rights of free men’ and all that Fourth of July stuff a half a million Yanks died for? Even Stanton can’t just wave his hand and make that go away.”
King of the Cracksmen Page 11