“What old man?”
“On Clarkson.”
“Clarkson Street?” Bell asked. “Downtown?”
“The Umbria was sailing for Liverpool.”
The Cunard liner. One of the old ones. “When?”
“That night.”
“When Eyes disappeared?”
“When we was kids,” Billy answered dreamily. He lay back and gazed up at the frame for the viaduct.
“The Umbria?” Bell prompted. “The steamship? The Cunard liner?”
“We seen this old man. He was rushing to Pier 40 like he’s late. Not even looking where he was going. We couldn’t believe our luck. We was down on Clarkson Street looking for drunk sailors to roll. Instead, here comes a rich old man in a rich green coat and sparkling rings on his fingers who could pay one hundred fifty dollars for his steamship ticket. It was dark and pouring down rain, not a soul on Clarkson. Eyes clipped on his thumb gouge in case he gave us trouble. We pounced like cats on our rich rat. Brian went to tear his rings from his fingers. I figured to find a wallet bulging with money in his fancy coat…”
“What happened?”
“He pulled a sword out of his cane.”
Billy Collins turned his gaze on Bell, his eyes wide with wonder. “A sword. We were so drunk, we couldn’t hardly get out of our own way. The old man swings his sword. I dodged it. He floored me with the cane. Tough old man, knew his business. Set me up. I dodged right into his cane. Heard a noise like dynamite going off inside my head. Then I was gone.”
Billy Collins sniffed the sandwich again and stared at it.
“Then what happened?” asked Bell.
“I woke up in the gutter, soaking wet and freezing cold.”
“What about Eyes?”
“Brian O’Shay was gone, and I never seen him again.”
“Did the old man kill Eyes O’Shay?”
“I didn’t see no blood.”
“Could the rain have washed the blood away?”
Collins begins to weep. “Vanished into thin air. Just like my little girl. Except she wasn’t hurting nobody. But Eyes and me, we sure as hell was trying.”
“What if I told you Eyes came back?”
“I rather you told me my little girl came back.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know. Tiny little thing.”
“Your child?”
“Child? I got no child… Eyes came back, I heard.”
“Yes, he did. Tommy saw him.”
“Didn’t come to see me… But who the hell would?” He closed his eyes and began to snore. The sandwich fell from his fingers.
“Billy.” Isaac Bell shook him awake. “Who was the old man?”
“Rich old guy in a green coat.” He slipped toward sleep again.
“Billy!”
“Leave me be.”
“Who was your little girl?”
Billy Collins screwed his eyes shut. “No one knows. No one remembers. Except the priest.”
“Which priest?”
“Father Jack.”
“What church?”
“St. Michael’s.”
AFTER BELL LEFT HIM, Billy Collins dreamed that a dog clamped its jaws around his foot. He kicked it with his other foot. The dog grew a second head and bit down on that foot, too. He awoke in terror. A figure was hunched over his feet, working at his laces. A goddamned hobo who wouldn’t have dared touch him in the old days was trying to steal his shoes.
“Hey!”
The hobo tugged harder. Billy sat up and tried to punch him in the head. The hobo dropped his shoe, picked up a broken board, and hit him. Billy saw stars. Stunned, he was vaguely aware that the guy was winding up with the board to hit him again. He knew the guy would hit him hard, but he couldn’t move.
Steel flashed. A knife materialized out of nowhere. The hobo screamed and fell back, holding his face. The knife flashed again. Another scream, and the hobo scrambled away on all fours, clambered to his feet, and ran for his life. Billy sank back. Hell of a dream. Everything was strange. Now he smelled perfume. It made him smile. He opened his eyes. A woman was kneeling over him, her hair brushing his face. Like an angel. It seemed he had died.
She leaned very close, so close he could feel her warm breath, and whispered, “What did you tell the detective, Billy?”
48
THE LADY OF THE HOUSE IS NOT A FORTUNE-TELLER,” Eyes O’Shay assured the anxious captain of his Holland submarine torpedo boat.
Hunt Hatch was not assured. “There’s signs all over the house advertising that Madame Nettie tells fortunes. She’ll have customers in and out all hours of the day and night. You’ve put us in a parlous situation keeping us here, O’Shay. I won’t stand for it.”
“The fortune-telling is a blind. She doesn’t tell fortunes.”
“What’s it a blind for?”
“A counterfeit ring.”
“Counterfeiters. Are you crazy, man?”
“They’re the last people in Bayonne who would complain to the cops. That’s why I put you here. And the woman who cooks your meals escaped from state prison. She won’t tell anyone either. Besides, they can’t see your boat from the houses. It’s screened by the barge.”
A mowed lawn spread from the counterfeiters’ frame house at the foot of Lord Street to the Kill Van Kull. The Kill was a narrow, deep-water channel between Staten Island and Bayonne. The barge was moored on the bank.
The Holland was under the barge. Its turret was accessible through an inside well. It was less than four miles from New York’s Upper Bay, and from there a clear five-mile run to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Hunt Hatch was not appeased. “Even if they can’t, the Kill is swarming with oyster catchers. I see them in their scows. They come right up to the barge.”
“They’re Staten Islanders,” O’Shay answered patiently. “They’re not looking for you. They’re looking to steal something.”
He gestured at the hills a thousand feet across the narrow strait. “Staten Island became part of New York City ten years ago. But the Staten Island scowmen haven’t heard the news. They’re the same coal pirates, smugglers, and thieves they’ve always been. I promise you, they don’t talk to the cops either.”
“I say we attack now and get it over with.”
“We attack,” O’Shay said quietly, “the moment I say we attack.”
“I am not risking life and freedom to get caught on your whims. I am captain of the ship, and I say we attack now before someone stumbles upon where we’ve hid the bloody thing.”
O’Shay stepped closer. He raised a hand as if to strike the captain. Hatch quickly lifted both hands, one to block the blow, one to counterpunch. He exposed his belly. By then O’Shay was flicking open a Butterflymesser with his other hand. He slid the long knife under Hatch’s sternum, plunged it to the hilt, jerked the razor-sharp blade down with all his might, and stepped back quickly before the intestines spilling out could stain his clothes.
The captain clutched at them, gasping with horror. His knees buckled. He fell on the rug. “But who will run the Holland?” he whispered.
“I’ve just promoted your first mate.”
“THIS IS THE NEWEST church building I have ever been in,” Isaac Bell told Father Jack Mulrooney.
The Church of St. Michael smelled of paint, shellac, and cement. The windows gleamed and the stones were fresh, unblemished by soot.
“We’ve just moved in,” said Father Jack. “The parishioners are pinching themselves wondering can it be true. In actual fact, the only way that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company could remove us from 31st Street to build the terminal yards without bringing the wrath of God-not to mention Tammany Hall and His Grace the Cardinal-down on their heads was to build us a brand-new church, rectory, convent, and school.”
Bell said, “I am a private detective, Father, with the Van Dorn Agency. I would like to ask you some questions about people who used to live in your parish.”
“If you want to talk, you must walk. I have my rounds, and you will see that our people live in less bright places than their new church. Come along.” He set off with a surprisingly springy step for a man his age, turned a corner, and plunged into a neighborhood that felt miles, not yards, from his brand-new church.