Jacobs had his shoulders through and had planted both hands on the dirt to pull himself the rest of the way when he saw the foot. It appeared from behind some junk leaning against the fence to his left. He had the bastard, he thought, anxious to butcher the kid. His suit was smeared with shit, his foot hurt like hell, and this little fuck was going to get it. Then he looked up.
Mike brought the old chair leg down with all the force a scared ten-year-old could muster. It was maple, from the back of one of those old, straight, uncomfortable chairs from years ago. Sometimes he and his friends had used it to play ball. It broke over the back of bow-tie’s head, cracking with such force it left his hands numb and knocking bow-tie’s glasses into the mud. He had a fleeting image of the head and the glasses and the bow-tie lying still in the dirt before he took off. He ran hard and he ran long, and he didn’t come back for a long, long time.
Coogan was washing down the last of his steak with a bottle of beer. Coffin sat across from him in the dining room at Nash & Fuller, on Park Row. The late-afternoon crowd was thinning, and there was nobody within two tables of them.
“How’d it go with Braddock and the Chinese?” Coogan asked with his mouth full.
“Well, I’ve got to give Tom credit; he knows how the bastards think. It went all right, I guess. Hard to tell. That Chinaman has the best poker face I’ve ever seen.”
“So you think they’ll go for it?”
“I think so, at least Braddock says they will. Tell you the truth, all we need is a toehold right now. Give us a couple of years and they’ll be the ones coming to us to get things done,” Coffin predicted. “We build it enough and we’ll control more of the retail trade than the Chinese ever could. Let ’em have Chinatown and the import end. The rest of the pie is so much bigger that hardly even counts.” Coffin almost sighed. He took a sip of his wine, savoring it, like a symbol of their wealth to be. “Once we’ve got supply and distribution secured, the money will flow, my friend.”
“And Braddock?” Coogan asked, wiping a spot of beer off his shirt absently with the corner of his napkin.
“Well … by that time Tom will have outlived his, shall we say, usefulness,” August said with a wicked grin. “I’ll have to cut his career short. Not that I hold him a grudge, mind you.” Coffin grinned at his bit of sarcasm. “It’s just business. But we’ll see. For now he’s being very useful indeed.”
“All in good time, eh, Augie?”
“Exactly. Let him enjoy life, spend big, fuck his whore, who cares? We’re after bigger fish. We can fry him later.”
Tom hadn’t slept well on the voyage back. He was worried that another attempt on their lives would be made during the night. He hadn’t shared his fear with Jaffey, who didn’t seem to give the menacing atmosphere of Richmond another thought. The younger man had snored through the night while Braddock sat wide awake in his bunk, his Colt on his lap. Every creak of the deck, every unidentified noise in the hall outside their door had him gripping the pistol with a sweaty palm. He’d drift off for just minutes before some noise had his eyes wide open and his heart racing. He got off the steamer rubbing his eyes and yawning, feeling foolish for being spooked. They headed to the Marble Palace first. Tom wanted to fill Byrnes in immediately. They found him just coming back from an afternoon court date. They met behind closed doors.
“So, Jaffey … Tom teaching you anything worth knowing?”
Eli hesitated a moment, startled by the question.
“Yes, sir. I’m learning a great deal.”
Byrnes smiled pleasantly behind his mustache, nodding his approval. “Good. Name one thing.”
Jaffey turned the color of one of the tomatoes in his mother’s garden as he tried to think of something.
“Anything?” Byrnes prodded.
“Observation, sir,” Jaffey said at last, letting it out as if he’d been holding his breath. “More than anything, I guess I’m starting to learn how to look beyond the surface, sometimes to trust my feelings more than the actual evidence.”
Brynes smiled through the cigar smoke. “If you’ve learned that, son, you’ve learned a lot. Looks like you’re learning to take care of yourself too. You boys did well to come out of that scrape.”
“That’s if you don’t count our feet, Chief,” Tom said, wincing.
Byrnes chuckled. “So what did you learn in Richmond?” he asked as he settled behind his desk and proffered them cigars. Braddock took one, handing the other to Eli.
“Nothing and everything,” he said as he lit up.
Tom laid out their dead end in the former capital of the Confederacy with Eli’s assistance. In spite of the lack of hard facts, there was a lot to tell and even more to speculate on. Tom finished up by saying, “I’m leaning away from the contract fraud theory. Still believe it has to do with the trains, though. Bucklin left us a map in his own way. It’s got to lead to the trains somehow. Nothing else makes sense.”
“Sabotage?” said Byrnes, finishing his thought, but with a note of skepticism and a small shake of his head.
“Could be,” Tom said thoughtfully. He hated to even think it but there it was. “There was a great deal they were hiding from us and on a lot of levels too. Got the feeling the police weren’t telling all they knew either. That’s not the way of fraud. Fraud is like a magic trick; you watch one hand while the other does the real work. The magic trick down there was a disappearing act. We need to talk to this fellow Sangree. Turn over his business and house for anything we can find.”
“Do it. You know where to go to get it done. Take Pat and Charlie with you. Bring this gentleman in and squeeze him till he bleeds. I want to know what the hell is going on, and I don’t care if he gets bruised in the process,” Byrnes said with an emphatic stab of his cigar. “Can’t say I agree with you about sabotage, though. That’s just plain crazy. Pretty goddamn ambitious too. Have to see more evidence to convince me of that one.”
Tom shrugged. Byrnes wanted proof, he’d get the proof.
“I wired Pat and Charlie yesterday to pick Sangree up,” Tom said.
Byrnes looked pleased yet perplexed. “That’s good, but I haven’t heard they brought anybody in.”
Tom and Eli exchanged glances …
“We were afraid of that,” Tom said.
Twenty minutes later the four of them stood outside the door to Sangree & Co. When they hooked up Pat told Tom that they’d been there yesterday but found nothing. Sangree’s address proved the same, just an empty apartment. Braddock had insisted they go and check again. He needed to see it for himself. Charlie jimmied the door and swung it silently. The place was bare.
“Son of a bitch!” Tom’s voice boomed on the empty office. “Shit! We had him, Eli. We had the bastard right here!” Braddock grabbed the back of a chair, tossing it across the room as if it were paper, sending it crashing and splintering against the wall. “Shit!” The rest of them were silent. They set about a quick search of the office, which turned up nothing of value.
About ten minutes later, Charlie said, “Let’s go see if Lebeau and Emmons are still at work. Any odds on that?”
“Fool’s bet, Charlie. We know the answer already,” Tom said, frustration twisting his mouth into a sour grimace.
Nearly an hour after that, Tom and Eli stood before another door. This time they knew they’d find who they were looking for. The knurled brass knocker boomed on the imposing, varnished mahogany. They had only to wait a minute before Hughes pulled open one side of the portal with a deliberate dignity.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Do you have an appointment?” he inquired.
“No, I’m afraid we don’t, Hughes,” Tom said. “It is Hughes, isn’t it?”
“Quite so, Detective.”
“I would be very grateful if you would inquire if the colonel or Mrs. Roebling could spare a few minutes.”
Hughes raised a disapproving eyebrow. It was obvious that there was a lot going on in the house today. Flowers were everywhere, bunting hung from the
door frames and the windows at the front, and there was a constant bustle of people within the house.
“It’s important,” Braddock said apologetically.
Hughes eyed them both skeptically but said, “Certainly. Will you come in? If you’ll wait in the parlor, I’ll be back directly.”
Hughes was as good as his word, returning to lead them back to the garden a few minutes later. Emily stood on a wide brick patio, the midmorning light making her seem to glow as they approached from the relative darkness of the house. She was supervising the setup of a couple of large tables while caterers saw to the details.
“Tom … what a pleasant surprise. I hadn’t hoped to see you again.” She extended a dove-white hand.
Tom took it as if it might fly. Their eyes met and held. “The pleasure is mine, Emily. It’s good to see you again, but I’m afraid the reason for my visit isn’t so good.”
“Oh?” She took her hand back with an awkward hesitancy.
“Yes, but first, let me congratulate you and the colonel on the completion of the bridge … a magnificent accomplishment. You must be very proud,” he said. He had rehearsed the words coming over on the ferry and thought they came off rather well. Emily thanked him graciously, blushing slightly, he thought. “Oh … I’m sorry, you remember Patrolman Jaffey, don’t you?” Jaffey was looking at him strangely, Tom noticed. Jaffey shook Emily’s hand with an awkward stiffness.
“So, Tom, what’s this about?” she asked with a frown. “Something about bad news?”
“Is the colonel in? I’d like to tell him what I’ve found out … and … what I suspect. He may have some thoughts on this, which would be useful.”
For the next hour or so, Tom went over what he knew with Emily and Washington. By the time Braddock had finished, a deep frown furrowed the colonel’s brow. For the fifth time, Tom apologized for bringing this to them on the day before the opening, “But I thought you should know, Colonel. The events of the last few days … the attempt on our lives … the disappearance of Sangree and the others—”
Roebling interrupted Braddock. “Yes, I see, Tom. But what are we to do? You know my opinions about your sabotage theory. In spite of what you’ve told me, I still find the idea far-fetched.”
Tom wasn’t entirely sure what to do either, but there were two things that could be done. He stood in an instant of awkward silence before suggesting the obvious. “An inspection would be wise.”
Roebling nodded quickly, almost dismissively. “I’ll have a talk with Mr. Martin. We’ll keep it very quiet, though. No need to alarm anyone at this point.”
“An increase in the patrol schedule of the bridge police too, sir,” Tom said. The bridge police were not under the jurisdiction of the New York City Police. The only thing Tom could do was suggest a stepped-up vigilance. “Beyond that, I’m not sure there’s more we can do. The investigation is continuing, of course.”
“Emily and I were to go to Newport after the opening,” Wash said, looking at his wife. “I’m not so sure I can leave just yet in light of this. What do you think, Em?”
She sighed almost inaudibly. “We can’t stay here past the thirty-first, Wash. It’s rented as of June,” she reminded him. “You see, Tom, we won’t be returning, now that the bridge is finished. We’ll be going back to Trenton.”
Tom nodded. “It occurs to me,” he said, thinking out loud, “that it might be best if these men think you’ve left the city. I don’t want you to be targets. If you feel you have to stay, why not send Hughes and your maid in your place? I have a friend at the Tribune who could be persuaded to report that you’ve left. You’d have to confine yourselves to the house, though. It wouldn’t do to be seen.” He looked from one to the other. Washington was looking at Emily. They communicated without words, Tom saw.
The colonel turned back to him. “Just for the week, Tom. Then we’ll see.”
Emily walked them out. Eli had gone out the big front doors when Tom turned to say good-bye. As he did, he took something from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.
“What’s this?” she asked, feeling its compact weight.
“You may need this,” Tom said, quickly seeking to head off her refusal. “I pray you don’t, but I’d feel a lot better if you took it.”
“Tom, I don’t—” she started to say, but he cut her off.
“Emily, these men are dangerous. Take it … please, for my sake if not your own. I’d feel better,” he ended awkwardly, unable to say how worried he was for her.
Emily looked down at the double-barrel Remington derringer, its ivory grips shining in her delicate hand. She closed her fingers around it. “All right, Tom.”
Braddock breathed a sigh of relief. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Thank you.”
“You don’t think she’ll really need that, do you?” Eli asked as they went down the front steps.
Tom turned at the last step to look back up at the bunting-festooned house. “I hope not, Eli.”
Tom and August sat in the captain’s office late that same day.
“No luck finding those three yet?” Coffin seemed just a little smug. Maybe it was the feet on the desk.
“Not yet,” Tom said. “Cleared out. Disappeared! Quit their jobs, left the business, left their apartments bare. Everything that might point to who these men really are and what they were about is wiped clean.” Tom shook his head. “These are professionals, August. They knew I’d be back from Richmond with a head of steam and they just melted away. Byrnes is madder than hell. He wants these men found no matter what it takes,” Tom stated grimly, knowing how difficult that might be. “Needless to say, they didn’t leave a forwarding address. Well, that’s not exactly true. They told a clerk at the bridge office they were going back to Texas—Lebeau and Emmons, that is. Sangree we don’t know about.”
“And you believe that?” Coffin asked.
“It’s something we followed up on but to me it’s a waste of time. Tickets were bought in their names, but that doesn’t fit with the rest of what they’ve done; too careless. They won’t be found on any train to Texas.”
“You wired ahead?”
“Got a marshal waiting at the next stop. Wired ahead to search the train. They won’t be on it.” Tom was certain. “Nobody that thorough could make a mistake like that. Just want us to chase our tails. They’re still here … right here in New York. I can almost feel it.”
“Interesting case, Tom, but that’s not why you’re here,” Coffin said, twirling his pencil.
“Nope.” Tom took a deep breath like a diver taking a plunge. “Had a talk with Sung Chow. The old man wants to meet tomorrow night.”
“Shit. What time?” Coffin asked irritably. “I have to be down at the bridge. Most of the precinct is on duty for the opening, all day and through till ten o’clock, after the fireworks are over.”
Tom nodded “Yeah, I thought so. Fireworks start at eight, right?” Tom knew very well when the fireworks started; in fact, he was counting on it.
“Yeah, but I’m there all day, from around eleven. Going to be a long day.”
“Sung Chow wanted to meet at eight,” Tom said. “I’m supposed to be on duty too. Byrnes has everyone working the crowds for pickpockets.”
Coffin nodded. “He’s right to. Sounds like a pickpocket’s dream come true. Supposed to be the biggest event this city has seen since the opening of the Erie Canal. I was looking forward to seeing it.”
“Well, the Chinese like fireworks as much as anyone, but old sack-face doesn’t seem to give a damn. I was thinking that among all those people, it might be pretty easy to slip away for a while,” Tom said, knowing that timing was essential to what they were about. “I don’t know, what do you think?” His casual tone hid his nervousness.
“I think I want a piece of the opium trade. That’s what I think,” Coffin said firmly. “I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot either. Would it offend him if we didn’t come?”
“It might,” Tom warned. “Every m
ove, everything we say, body language, tone of speech, everything is important. Nothing is insignificant to the Chinese.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Coffin sighed as he made up his mind. “I’ll jump to his whistle for now. I can be patient. He’ll be dancing to our tune in time anyway.” Tom just grinned. “Let’s say we meet at Chatham Square at about seven-forty-five,” August said finally. “Who knows, Tommy, with a little luck we might still catch some of the fireworks.”
There was nothing left to do. Emily lay awake listening to the old clock downstairs. Washington snored in the bed beside hers. For the last fourteen years there had always been something left to do. For fourteen years she had gone to sleep with a list of things undone and more to do come morning. Now the future beckoned and threatened at once. She yearned for the rest—for the summer sun of Newport, the sea air, the beach, the pure lazy indulgence of having nothing in the world to do, except be with the man she loved and admired. This would be their summer, a time like no other. She and Wash would rock on their dappled porch and watch the sun chase the moon across the sky. They would listen to the crickets in the evenings, the doves in the morning, and they would plan the rest of their lives together. Emily tried to sleep but sleep wouldn’t come. Tomorrow would be the culmination of everything they had worked for. Tomorrow, though Wash couldn’t come to the opening ceremonies, Emily would bring them to him. He deserved it, and she had made certain he’d receive the recognition he had earned. But then what? The arrangements were made, they’d stay while Martha and Hughes left, masquerading as them. But what could they really do, cooped up, hiding in the house? She couldn’t imagine they’d be able to do much good, but Wash had looked so worried she’d had to give in. It was only a week, after all. Surely the rest of their lives could wait that long.
Suspension Page 47