The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

Dutch swallowed most of a chuckle.

Bo showed him his fist.

The Commissioner had his back to them. Dutch arched his eyebrows. “It was funny,” he mouthed. To the Commissioner he said, “Their faces are splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the city.”

The Commissioner lifted the cigar to his mouth and puffed pungent rings into the air. “Thanks to Miss Breslau and Sergeant Lowry. Damn it, men, where are Butch and Sundance? They can’t have disappeared without a clue. Capturing them here in New York will get the press off our backs, put a twist in their long underwear. New York newspapers will have the best story since Tammany was squelched.”

“Yes, sir,” Bo said.

The Commissioner harrumphed. “Talk to me about the Pinkerton woman.”

“She was going by the name of Etta Place,” Bo said. “Her real name was Jenny McCracken. The Pinkertons claimed the body.”

“And she had some of the bank money. Was she a thief? Or was she collecting evidence?”

“No way of knowing, sir,” Dutch said. “The Pinkertons won’t talk to us.”

The Commissioner glared at Dutch. “Then what the hell good are you? I’d be better off with two trained monkeys, wiggling their pink arses.” There was a noticeable silence. “Damn Pinkertons!”

So, Dutch thought, the Pinkertons weren’t talking to him either.

Bo cleared his throat. “At least we recovered some of the bank money.”

“I called the Pinkerton office in Chicago. Bill Pinkerton is never in. Damn it to hell and horse-shit! You do your job and show them up, you hear. They claim they never sleep. Well, we can do the same.” The Commissioner concentrated on Dutch. “You’re a descendant of Old Peter Tonneman who worked with Jacob Hays?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Commissioner shook his head. “You’d think he would have passed something down to you.”

Dutch’s face reddened. “Sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me. Get the hell out of here. Find the rest of the money. Find Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I want to be able to call Bill Pinkerton and tell him we caught Butch Cassidy and that we solved the murder of his operative and that, in the future, it would be more mannerly — and prudent — if he let us know when any of his operatives were working New York City.”

The Commissioner’s cigar filled the air with bitter smoke. He threw the stogy into the cold fireplace and lit a new one.

“Next time I see you two, I want results.”

17

“I’m freezing my arse off here,” Little Jack Meyers said, jigging from one foot to the other outside the shack, across the street from 300 Mulberry — where the reporters who covered police headquarters gathered, hoping for hot news. Little Jack had decided to stake out the Tonneman house on Grand before daylight to see what Bo and Dutch were up to this morning, and he’d followed them to the House.

Little Jack didn’t get much sympathy but he did get a welcome taste from reporter Lem Borden’s pint bottle.

All the scribblers watched the comings and goings of the coppers and police wagons. Some energetic souls crossed the street to ask their questions, then returned to the shack, no smarter than they’d been before.

Others followed after the goings, sniffing for a way to get behind the story. But the big story was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbing banks and shooting up people in the city.

“You think they have something on Butch and Sundance?” Lem squinted at Little Jack. Little Jack was a wily one. He wasn’t as sharp as his boss, Jack West, but he was smart enough.

Little Jack shook his head. “Don’t know. Don’t think so. Best guess is Bo and Dutch’re getting a whipping. I’d like to get my ear to that door.”

“No, you wouldn’t. It’d get stuck to that block of ice. Then, all you’d have is an ear full of door.”

Little Jack guffawed. “That’s funny.”

“As a corpse,” the reporter said. “Hell would freeze in there, thanks to Partridge.”

“Uh,” Little Jack said. “Here they come.”

“And I’d say you were right.” Lem crossed the street with Little Jack and a half dozen other reporters on his heels. “Got a whipping.”

“Jesus,” Bo said. “The vultures coming to pick over the carcasses.”

Dutch stepped out in the street and hailed a hack. As they drove off, Bo thumbed his nose at the reporters.

“PINKYS on Delancey,” Dutch told the hackney man.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Bo said, yawning.

“If Jenny McCracken went to PINKYS after the Bowery robbery and Pinky knew where to find her, that would make him another of Bill Pinkerton’s operatives.”

“Couldn’t have said it better.”

But when they climbed down from the hack, all they saw was an old sot sprawled out on the icy sidewalk, blocking the door. Wound round his neck like a scarf was Lorraine’s red turban, without its white feather.

The door to PINKYS was boarded up.

Bo grabbed the scarf, yanked the drunk to his feet and shook him. Putrid breath came forth with each snore. Dried blood covered the drunkard’s forehead. His crusty eyelids fluttered.

“Where’s Pinky?” Bo roared.

“Gone, gone, all gone.” The sot screwed up his face and sobbed.

“When?”