A Promise of Ruin

by Cuyler Overholt

  “I could keep a veil over my face and wear simple clothes,” I suggested, reluctant to give up a chance to help with Teresa’s rescue.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Simon said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’ll go to the pier.”

  “But Antonio and his men have seen you too!” I protested.

  “That’s why I’ll watch from the hay exchange across the street,” he said smugly. “No one will see me, but I’ll have a full view of anyone who gets in or out of any vehicle at the foot of the pier.”

  It was a perfect solution. “And I’ll watch with you,” I said. “That way, we’ll both be safe.”

  “All right,” Cassidi said before Simon had a chance to object. “You two will watch from inside the hay exchange and use the telephone there to call headquarters if you see anything suspicious. But that must be the extent of your involvement. Are we all agreed?”

  “Agreed!” I said, jumping to my feet before Simon could argue otherwise.

  Chapter Sixteen

  According to the Italian line’s Whitehall Street office, the boat from Naples was expected to arrive at the pier at approximately three o’clock. I arrived at the hay exchange an hour beforehand, to be sure I was in place before any would-be abductors arrived. Simon had wanted to come fetch me, but as he had a mandatory noon meeting at Tammany headquarters on Fourteenth Street, and I was afraid we’d be late if he came all the way back uptown, we agreed to meet at the exchange instead.

  This, I discovered, was a three-story brick structure that took up the entire block between Thirty-Third and Thirty-Fourth Streets. Entering through the storage shed end at Twelfth Avenue, I found the place packed with buyers poking and sniffing huge stacks of sweet-scented hay. The men moved down the aisles with an air of practiced efficiency, scratching notes on their order pads as they checked for signs of mold or beetles, taking no notice of me as I crossed to the northwest corner and took up position by the plate-glass window.

  From here, I could easily see the Italian line pier, diagonally across the street. Although it was presently unoccupied, the piers on either side of it were bustling with activity, their slips filled with railroad cars that had been floated over from New Jersey. Husky longshoremen with ropes and hand trucks swarmed through the pier sheds and over the floats, transferring inbound cargo onto wagons and moving outbound freight into the empty cars. The street that ran along the waterfront was equally congested: to my left, a caravan of wagons carried hay from the New York Central pier to hoists outside the storage shed, while to my right, a locomotive rolled out of the West Shore yard, cutting a swath through the jumble of express trucks and butcher carts that were jockeying for space on the avenue. It was a scene of barely organized chaos, and I was glad I’d offered my services as an extra pair of eyes. Our work would be cut out for us once the boat arrived.

  I gazed out at the river, imagining the pretty young Italian girl who might be steaming even now into the harbor, unaware of the trap that had been laid for her. But had a trap in fact been laid? As the moments ticked by, I found myself alternating between optimism that the detectives would break the case, and anxiety that the day’s exercise would come to naught and we’d be no closer to finding Teresa than before.

  I longed for Simon’s reassuring presence. Not even the mesmerizing choreography of crane operators, hatch tenders, and sack turners at work on the pier could keep me from glancing at the exchange’s door every few minutes, hoping to see his familiar figure. When I finally heard footsteps moving up behind me some twenty minutes later, I pivoted around with a smile.

  It was not Simon coming toward me, however, but Patrick Branagan, dressed in police uniform.

  “Patrick! What are you doing here?”

  “Simon’s meeting went on longer than expected,” he said, unstrapping his helmet to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. “He can’t leave until they take the vote, so he called the station house and asked me to wait with you until he gets here.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment, wishing Simon hadn’t felt the need to send someone just to stand with me by the window. “It was good of you to come. But I’m sorry you were interrupted at work on my account.”

  “I’m on the reserve shift,” he said with a grin. “The only thing he interrupted was my beauty sleep.”

  I smiled back awkwardly, wondering if Simon had conveyed my suspicions about Patrick’s dealings with the elderly Italian man in Harlem. “You must be wondering what this is all about.”

  “Simon painted the big picture, but he didn’t have time to give me the details.”

  “Then let me fill you in,” I said, glad to have something to talk about while we waited.

  By the time I’d finished bringing him up to date, a small crowd had assembled at the foot of the pier and along the adjoining street, waiting for the boat to come in. Many of the men, I noted, wore the peaked cap and collarless shirt of the recent Italian immigrant. They stood in small groups, talking and gesticulating, or paced along the water’s edge, fanning themselves with their caps as they stared expectantly down the river. “I can’t tell which one is the man from the Italian Legion,” I said.

  “That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?” Patrick asked.

  It was, of course, but I couldn’t help worrying that if we did see something untoward, we’d have no way to know if the detective had seen it too.

  At least I needn’t worry about uncomfortable silences with Patrick, for he proved to have the policeman’s knack for whiling away time, regaling me with amusing tales about his early years on the force while we waited for the boat to arrive. He gave no indication that he resented me for suspecting him of unsavory conduct. Indeed, he was such pleasant company, and I was so absorbed in our conversation, that it was with some surprise I glanced out the window fifteen minutes later to see that the steamship was warping in. “There she is!” I cried.

  We turned and watched the behemoth ease into the slip. It was several more minutes before the gangplank was dropped into place and the passengers began to disembark, trailed by porters hauling hatboxes and trunks and baskets. I waited on tenterhooks for the first travelers to come out of the shed, training my eyes on the open doors.

  A young man was first to emerge ten minutes later, carrying a valise and consulting his pocket watch.

  “Here we go,” said Patrick.

  A solitary woman in an elegant French suit came next, blinking into the sunlight, surrounded by porters carrying cartfuls of luggage. She hardly had time to open her parasol before she was whisked into a carriage by two liveried servants and trotted off across town.

  Several families straggled out after her, followed by a group of men with blackened faces whom I guessed were coal stokers on shore leave. Soon, the trickle of passengers became a steady stream, one group blending into another so that it was difficult to tell at first glance which women were traveling alone. My gaze jumped from one colorful hat or shawl to another as I struggled to keep track of a growing number of moving targets.

  A middle-aged, thickset woman broke out of the pack and walked alone toward the curb. A balding man of similar age and girth hurried over to meet her and walked arm in arm with her toward a waiting carriage. My gaze moved to the dark-haired young man striding past the couple in the opposite direction. His hair was oiled back over his head, and he wore what for someone of modest means would constitute Sunday best. He hurried to the shed and disappeared inside.

  A few moments later, I was watching a young boy chase his wind-blown boater across the pier when I heard Patrick murmur, “Looky there.” Returning my attention to the shed, I saw that the man with the oiled hair had reemerged with a woman in tow. The woman wore a striped shawl over her head and was pulling an overstuffed sack behind her.

  “Is that Fabroni?” Patrick asked me.

  “No,” I said, pe
ering through the window, straining to keep them in view amid the surrounding swirl of commotion. “But I suppose it could be someone working for him.” The young man reached for the woman’s sack and hoisted it over his shoulder. “She’s older than the others we know about,” I noted.

  “Still a good looker though,” said Patrick.

  She was indeed a handsome woman. I scanned the crowd around her, searching for the Legion’s man. No one appeared to be paying the slightest attention to the couple.

  The two had started toward the street. “Where’s the detective?” I fretted.

  “Give him a minute,” Patrick said. “He won’t want to crowd them.”

  The couple reached the end of the pier and turned south, continuing on foot along Twelfth Avenue. Just as I thought they were going to get away without a tail, I saw a slouch-shouldered man peel away from a crane at the foot of the pier and start briskly after them. I sagged in relief, recognizing one of the men I’d seen in Petrosino’s office, the first time I visited. “That’s the Legion’s man,” I told Patrick.

  I flattened my cheek against the window to keep the trio in sight until a cab pulled out from the pier curb and blocked my view.

  I straightened. “Now what?” I asked, every nerve aflutter.

  “Now you go home, and I get back to work,” Patrick said.

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was bursting to know where the couple was headed, and if the detective would find Teresa when they arrived. But I supposed I would just have to wait to speak with Detective Cassidi to find out what transpired.

  Patrick had already started for the door. Taking a last look out the window, I noticed that a closed carriage had rolled into the spot just vacated by the cab on the opposite curb. I paused, watching a dark-haired young man with a trim, wiry build hop out of it, clothed in a purple shirt and ill-fitting sack suit, and start up the pier. Glancing toward the shed, I saw that a solitary woman, considerably younger than the one who’d just walked away, was now standing by the entrance next to a plain valise. Although her head was partially covered by a scarf, I could see the glossy black hair beneath it and the pretty face it framed. She waved to the man, smiling shyly at his approach.

  “Patrick!” I called.

  “What?” he said, returning to my side.

  I nodded toward the shed.

  The man was lifting the young woman’s hands to his lips, eliciting another bashful smile. Picking up her valise in one hand, he grasped her arm in the other and started leading her back to the carriage.

  Patrick frowned. “How many detectives are here?”

  “I think that might have been the only one.”

  As the couple approached the carriage, the driver turned and climbed down from his perch to attend to the woman’s valise. I gasped, catching sight of his full mustache and disfigured ear. “I know that man! I saw him at the Fabronis’ flat!”

  “Which one?” Patrick asked.

  “There.” I pointed. “The carriage driver.”

  “You sure?” he asked, peering through the glass.

  “I’m positive!”

  The driver tossed the valise up onto his seat while the young man lifted the woman into the carriage and, with a decidedly furtive look over his shoulder, climbed in after her.

  I groaned. “The detective went after the wrong man!”

  “Maybe both women were targets,” Patrick said.

  Perhaps. There was no way to know. But the appearance of Antonio’s acquaintance was all I needed to convince me that the girl in the carriage across from us was in grave danger. “What do we do?” I asked, bouncing up and down on my toes in agitation.

  “We just sit tight for a minute,” Patrick said, “and see if they’ve got a tail.”

  It was one of the longest minutes of my life. The driver snapped the reins and turned the carriage out of the loading area, waiting for a truck to rumble past before he started across the avenue. I frantically scanned the pier behind him. A dark-haired man in a collarless shirt and suspenders appeared at first to be following, but as the carriage continued across the avenue onto the side street, he turned back toward the shed.

  I grabbed Patrick’s sleeve. “They’re getting away!”

  “All right,” he said grimly. “I’m going after them.”

  I followed him to the door.

  “You stay here,” he tossed back over his shoulder, pushing through it to the street.

  “But you’re in uniform,” I protested, stepping out behind him. “If they see you coming after them, they may not carry through with their plan, and if the other woman wasn’t a target we’ll have nothing!”

  “I’ll be careful. Now go on back inside.” Continuing to the end of the street, he removed his helmet and peered around the corner to gauge the carriage’s progress.

  Even if he was careful, I thought, he’d stick out like a sore thumb. Gliding up behind him, I said into his ear, “What if I follow the carriage at a slight distance, and then you follow me? That way, you’ll be too far back for them to spot you.”

  He pulled back from the corner and swiveled toward me. “And what do you suppose Simon would say if I agreed to that?”

  I stared back at him, fairly vibrating with frustration. “You’re right,” I said finally. “He wouldn’t like it.” I tried to stop myself. Truly, I did. But we were too close to finding Teresa to let things fall apart now. “So I won’t ask you to agree.” Pulling my hat brim low over my face, I stepped around him onto Thirty-Fourth Street.

  I heard furious muttering behind me but walked on anyway. The carriage was nearly at the other end of the street, slowing to a stop behind a loaded wagon. I moved toward it at an unhurried pace, swinging my arms in what I hoped was a natural manner, fixing my gaze on the sidewalk a few yards ahead of me. Another wagon lumbered up the street from the pier and pulled up behind the carriage, temporarily blocking it from view. By the time I came alongside it, the carriage was turning north onto Eleventh Avenue. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Patrick striding up the sidewalk behind me with his helmet squashed against his chest.

  I crossed the intersection and hurried up the sidewalk after the carriage. Eleventh Avenue was an unusually wide thoroughfare, built to accommodate freight trains up and down its length, and the traffic was moving at a good clip. I lengthened my stride to cover more ground without appearing to be rushing. A number of women were straggling up the sidewalk on both sides of the street, carrying heaps of wilted produce in their aprons or in overflowing gunnysacks. I guessed that they’d been down to the Thirtieth Street yard, gathering discards left by the vendors who filled their carts from the trains. By positioning myself strategically behind them, I found I was able to keep myself out of the carriage’s line of sight. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Patrick doing the same thing farther back.

  When the carriage stopped at the next intersection, I stopped as well, turning to admire the donkey engine in the nearest storefront until it had started up again. In this halting fashion, I continued up the avenue, first speeding up and then slowing down, all the time attempting to keep some physical barrier between myself and the back window of the carriage.

  I wondered, while I walked, where we were heading. The avenue here was lined with machine shops, breweries, and small factories, with very little residential housing in evidence, making it an ideal locale for concealing unsavory activities. As I approached the next corner, I caught a whiff of decaying flesh from the slaughterhouse district three blocks north. I resisted the impulse to cover my nose, for none of the others on the sidewalk seemed offended by it, and I didn’t wish to stand out. As I continued up the block, the caramel notes from a condensed milk factory joined the smells of putrid flesh and rendered fat, sweetening but by no means improving the olfactory experience. No wonder no one lived here, I thought, trying not to breathe.

  After Thirty-Seventh Street
, the traffic thinned for a block, allowing the carriage to make even more rapid progress and forcing me to adopt a pace that had me panting and sweating by the time I reached the corner. I hurried after it through the Thirty-Eighth Street intersection, then came to an abrupt halt when it stopped midway up the next block. A long line of vehicles was waiting in front of it, all the way up to Thirty-Ninth Street. I didn’t want to get any closer, but I couldn’t just stand in place on the sidewalk either, so I ducked into a steam laundry and watched from inside, waiting for the traffic to start up again.

  A minute later, the door opened, and Patrick slipped inside. I braced myself for a lecture, but to his credit, he didn’t waste his breath scolding me. “You all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. What’s the holdup?”

  “It’s the sheep. They float them across to the Thirty-Ninth Street pier and herd them over to the abattoir. They’ve closed off the avenue up ahead to keep them from turning the wrong way.”

  I pushed the door open slightly for a wider view. “I don’t see any sheep.”

  “You will.”

  I heard it first: the distant clinking of what sounded like a cowbell, mixed with a steady bleating and the rumble of hooves. A moment later, a white ram with gorgeous, spiraling horns and a bell around its neck trotted around the corner and turned up the avenue.

  “That’s the Judas,” Patrick said behind my shoulder.

  Before I could ask him what he meant, a bobbing, bleating mass of sheep came dashing around the corner after the ram, bumping into each other in their haste to stay close as they made the turn and reconfigured behind their leader. The ram started up the incline into the slaughterhouse, his cheerful bell urging the flock on. The sheep followed trustingly, baaing in excitement, ears flapping and tails wagging as they scampered up the ramps to the pens. The last one crossed the threshold and the door slammed shut, leaving the street eerily quiet.

  “Do they kill the ram too?” I asked, a bit crossly, in the silence.

  “Nah,” Patrick answered, “he’ll go back across the river, to lead the next group in.”