The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

His head was killing him, but nothing compared to the rest of him. He groaned, tried to open his eyes. One was swollen shut; from the other he saw a thin slit of light. Voices rumbled around him. He was on a soft bed under sheets and blankets. His mind began to clear.

“What do you say, Doc?” a man said. “Why don’t he open his eyes? Why’s he still swelled up and groaning?”

“He’s had a concussion, Mister Crocker. He’s a lucky man. Sprains and bruises, but no broken bones. But he’s not going to feel too good for a while.”

Naa, Crocker thought. I’m the lucky man. “Thanks, Doc. You hear that, son? We’re going to take care of you. What’s your name?”

“Robbie Allen.”

It came through thin from cracked and swollen lips, but Crocker heard what he wanted to hear. “Allen, eh? Irish Catholic?”

“Sure, and Ma and Pa came over from the famine.” He’d been brought up a strict Mormon, but what the hell. He never took to it and had run off early on. So what could it hurt? He’d heard the Irish in Crocker’s and Rafferty’s voices.

“Good boy.” Crocker continued, “You ain’t dead and you’re in my house and everything’s going to be fine. I’ll be back and we’ll have a nice long talk. Rafferty, you stay with our guest while I see the Doc out.”

A door closed, but not before Robbie heard the man say, “New blood. That’s what we need around here, new blood.”

Robbie tried again to open his eyes. Success at last with his good eye. The room was huge, lit by a chandelier up high. He moved his hand to his lips and pain stabbed through his shoulder. “Where the hell am I? Who shot me? What the hell happened?”

“You’re in Mister Richard Crocker’s house,” Rafferty told him. “You ran out of an alley on Water Street and right into Mister Crocker’s Packard.”

“Hit by an automobile?” Robbie’s rumbling laugh became another groan.

“We didn’t know who you were so we brought you here and got Doc Saperstein to look you over. Why did you run out on the street?”

“How long I been here?”

“Two days.”

Two days! It began to come back to Robbie now. Those bank robbers. “My clothes. I had money — ”

“Your clothes were torn and bloody. And you had no money, no wallet.”

“Jesus Christ, those bank robbers, Butch and Sundance. I recognized them. They jumped me and pulled me into an alley and beat the crap out of me. Took everything, including my steamship tickets.” They must have been right behind him in the steamship office. Harry would think he went off without him.

Rafferty said, “My name’s Rafferty, Mister Allen. You’re lucky to be alive, but you’re even luckier that Boss Crocker is on your side.”

“Crocker? The man who called me son?”

“Yes. We all work for Boss Crocker.”

“I’d shake your hand if I could, Rafferty. Only been in New York a couple of months; seeing the sights before I moved on.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a … prospector. Was heading for South America with a friend.”

“The Boss already likes that you’re Irish.”

“I guess he’s rolling in dough from what I see.” I’m in a goddam mansion, Robbie thought. “Must be he’s a railroad man.”

“Boss Crocker runs Tammany.”

“No railroad I ever heard of.”

“Tammany is Democratic politics in New York. Boss Crocker runs it.”

* * *

Harry’d been waiting at Missus Taylor’s for two days now, and Robbie didn’t come back and didn’t send word. The newspapers had nothing to say about anyone being arrested, so what happened to him? For all Harry knew, Robbie could have fallen into one of them subway pits and ended up in the morgue.

What he did know was Robbie’d been in Joe’s Bar two days ago. Joe said Robbie had a newspaper all spread out on the bar, then he paid up and left.

Harry had about made up his mind to pack his stuff and go to Inwood. Ask Missus Taylor to hold on to Robbie’s things in case. As he headed back to the boarding house, that’s what he intended to do.

A young man was stopped in front of the boarding house looking uncertain. “You coming or going?” Harry said.

“My name’s Rafferty. I have a message for someone in Missus Taylor’s boarding house.”

“And who might that someone be?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you.”

Harry grabbed Rafferty by his coat and shoved him against the side of the brownstone; the man’s derby hit the ground.

Rafferty was scared as a rabbit, shaking in his shoes. “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me.”

“I only kill what deserves killing.” Harry let Rafferty go, brushed off the stone dust from the man’s coat, and handed him back his hat.

Rafferty said, “If you’re Harry, Robbie Allen sent me.”

25

Inspector Bo Clancy pointed his baton at the five ragged street urchins he and Dutch had lined up outside the tenement next door to No. 7 Madison Street. “Your damned spindly arses are mine. I’ll have you in the Tombs before the day is out.”

The smallest began blubbering and the other four turned on him yelling, “Baby shit, baby shit.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Dutch said.

“You’ll cough up every penny you got from those two spalpeen killers.”

Mike, their leader, spit on the sidewalk. “Like hell we will, coppers.”