Shit! There must be two of them, he thought. His best guess was a couple of Coffin's goons, come to pay him a little visit. But Tom didn't care who it was. If they were in his place, they were where they shouldn't be, and that was going to cost them. Two did present a problem, though.
Grant must have heard him come in despite his pretensions at catlike stealth. The big cat came out of the door to the kitchen, and when he saw who it was, sneaking in his front door, he trotted over. With uncharacteristic abandon, Grant purred and rubbed himself against Tom's legs, twining around his feet in delight. Beyond all caution and reason, Tom found himself reaching down to rub his head in a silent greeting. Another snatch of conversation from the front parlor brought him back to the job at hand, but he still couldn't make it out over the bad opera from downstairs. He crept down the short hall, almost to the kitchen door. From there he could see a corner of the front room. He waited, crouched low, straining to detect any sound or movement. Movement caught his eye, and he realized there was a huge shadow on one wall, outlined by the light from his front windows. As he watched, a shadow arm rose with something in its hand, lifting it up over its head. It looked like a club, or a hammer. Images of Terrence Bucklin's broken head danced through Tom's brain.
He slipped through the kitchen to his right, then around through his bedroom on the other side. Every step he took an agony of tension. At any instant he expected a desperate, brief struggle: life or death on the kitchen floor. At last he was in position, his back against the wall beside the door to the parlor. Grant had followed, indignant at the lack of a proper greeting. Tom's heart was still racing. Sweat ran down his back in icy tentacles. He tried to calm his nerves, taking big gulps of air. He figured he'd go for the shadow-man first. The one he was talking to was probably in the red chair. That would be the second target.
With a final draft of air, Tom whirled into the open doorway, the Colt held out like a talisman.
“Police! Drop it!” he shouted. The form before him was backlit by the glow from the windows behind. Tom couldn't see precisely who it was, but there was something familiar about him. “Drop it, I said!” A tremendous, explosive bang shook the room. Tom could feel it through the floor. Like a lightning bolt, a sheet of flame erupted from the barrel of the Colt. The explosion in the room had Tom's ears ringing instantly. Lee screeched, jumping straight up from the red chair. She streaked through the parlor, headed for the kitchen, her back and tail stiff as a bottle brush.
The shadow-man still stood, then he gave a strangled shout. “Jesus, don't shoot me! Sam just sent me to feed your cats.”
“Jaffey! Christ ⦠if I hadn't recognized you!” Tom gasped. “What the hell was that in your hand?”
“Dumbbells. I was trying them out,” Jaffey said with a nervous laugh.
“It's a good thing I pulled my shot,” Tom said.
“It's my fault. I should have ⦠But you were so fast. When you told me to drop it, IâI did,” Eli said quickly.
“Shit!” Tom said, taking a deep breath. “I thought you were laying for me. Saw the shadow of the dumbbell ⦠thought ⦔
“Oh, yeah,” Jaffey said, nodding.
Tom was looking around the room with a frown. “Who were you talking to. The cat?”
“We're pals,” Jaffey said sheepishly.
Tom gave a strangled chuckle. He felt light-headed, giddy. A door slammed down below, followed by feet pounding up the stairs.
“Whata-you do uppa-there? You knock-a my ceiling all over my flaw. Whata-you do? Wait-a till Mr. Tommy come-a home.”
“Don't go anywhere,” Tom said. “Have a seat. You look like you might fall down anyway.” Jaffey was feeling faint. It wasn't every day he got shot at. He didn't much care for the experience. He plopped himself into the big red chair
that Lee had so recently vacated as Tom went to talk to Mrs. Aurelio. He heard them out in the hallâher yelling about her ceiling, Tom shouting to her that everything was all right and that he'd see to having her ceiling fixed. Conversations with her were always loud, he had learned. She couldn't hear much otherwise. But this one was rattling the windows. Jaffey spent most of the time staring at the bullet hole in the wall near where he had been standing. His hands started to shake on the arms of the chair. After another minute of loud conversation the front door closed.
From the hallway, Tom called, “Care for a beer, Jaffey? Don't know about you, but I could use one.”
Jaffey didn't give the regulations a second thought this time. “Sure.”
“Stout okay? It's all I've got. I'm not sure it's cold, though.”
“Stout's fine. There was fresh ice yesterday. It's cold,” Jaffey called back.
Tom came back a moment later, handing Jaffey a bottle. He looked at the hole in the wall and the litter of plaster dust on the floor. “Looks like I've got a little weekend project, don't it?” He levered the porcelain top off the bottle and held it out to Jaffey. “Here's to not blowing your head off.” A grim chuckle escaped them both.
“I
will
drink to that, Detective,” Jaffey said, noticing that Tom's hand had a bit of a tremor to it too. He began to feel better as the smooth, bitter stout slid down his throat.
They sat there in Tom's parlor for quite a while. In fact, it was a two-stout conversation. After a bit, Jaffey asked, “Remember when you knocked me out in the back of Paddy's place? I asked you how you did it, but you said that was another story? Care to tell me now?”
Tom grinned, remembering how he'd come to know about the ancient art of kung fu, and the beating he'd taken to learn the lesson.
“Why not? A few years ago I was a roundsman in the Irish neighborhood around Chatham Square. Back then the Chinese were settling on Mott, Doyers, and Pell, and there probably weren't more than oh, say, a thousand or so. Very tight-knit group too, mostly laborers from the Union Pacific and such. Called themselves the Tung people. Ninety-nine percent men. Very few women came over. Well, one day I broke up a fight on Doyers. This one fella was using some very fancy moves on this other Chinaman and generally giving him a good thrashing. When I stepped in ⦠he starts in on me,” Tom said, slapping a hand to his chest. “Let me tell you, this little bastard was tough! Almost had me more than once. Quick as a cat, and comin' at me from every angle. Hands, fists, feet, everything. Gave me a good beatin' and I'm not ashamed to say it.” Tom paused to take a sip of his Clausen's. “Drew a crowd too. I think some of the Chinese liked to see a white-devil get his ass kicked.
Finally got lucky, laid him out with a left to the gut and a right to the jaw.” He swung his fists at the air. “The thing of it was, I found out later this fella was the scariest man in Chinatown. He did collection work for the tong. Got a lot of respect after that but I was curious ⦠like you, about what kind of fighting he was doing. I figured if he could give me hell at his sizeâhe was maybe five-six, one-twentyâthen this was something worth knowing. To make a long story short, I joined up with a group of Chinese who were teaching and studying this stuff. They call it kung fu.” Tom remembered the first time he heard the words. “It's not just a style of self-defense, it's a whole philosophy. Not really Chinese originally. I think it was started in India. Anyway, the more advanced you get, the more mental it becomes. Master Kwan, the instructor, says it's about channeling energy along the path of least resistance. When you do it right, that's what it feels like, sort of a flowing feeling, smooth but powerful.” Tom seemed to gaze inward. “At first it's all hard work, lots of stretching and exercises, learning new punches, blocks, kicks, and forms. But after a while, when all the elements start to come together, you stop thinking about what to do next and start to feel the flow. That's when you'll begin to be a dangerous person,” Tom said, looking at Eli over his bottle of stout. “I was the only white man in the society, and the only cop that ever took an interest. Took a ton of grief about it once they found out at the precinct.” Tom shook his head. “When my captain found out, he told me to drop it. Said we shouldn't fraternize with the coolies. I went on the sly anyway. My captain wasn't a bad guy really, but he had the usual dislike for the race.”
“I can imagine. Not a lot of love for the Chinese around the department, though I'm not sure exactly why,” Jaffey said with a shrug.
“True, but I learned a lot from them. Still got some good friends down there. I stop in for a workout every so often, just to keep the skills up.”
“You think you could take me along next time you go?” Jaffey asked almost like an anxious boy.
Tom seemed to consider this, and sipped his beer before answering. “We'll see. I have to ask. They don't let just anybody in. You have to know somebody, get the blessing of the teacher, or one of the head men from the tong. We'll see.” Braddock was impressed with Jaffey for asking.
“Thanks. I'd appreciate it. I'd be a real attentive student.” Jaffey said, eager to learn and willing to do whatever it took to be as tough as Braddock. He had a growing admiration for the man. The more he came to know him and the more he heard about him from Sam and others in the precinct, the more he realized that this was a cop to model himself after, a man whose footsteps he'd gladly follow. Jaffey had been in need of a hero, someone to take him under his
wing and bring him along, teach him, toughen him, show him the ropes. He figured Braddock was about as good a model as he'd ever find.
Tom would have been amused and maybe a little embarrassed to know how Jaffey felt. He sure didn't think of himself in heroic terms, but he had an inkling of how Jaffey saw him and supposed that maybe there might be a few things he could help the lad with. He hadn't really taken an interest in bringing anyone along in the years he'd been on the force. He'd always been too busy looking out for his own hide and career. He supposed it wasn't a bad thing to do, taking someone like Jaffey under his wing though, and maybe something he should have been doing more of. In a larger sense it was good for the department, which with all its imperfections was an institution he deeply respected. In a way it would be like he was giving something back by bringing Jaffey along, building the next generation, so to speak. These thoughts flitted through Braddock's head all in an instant before he said, “I suppose you would at that.”
Later, as Jaffey was leaving, he said, “Oh, your hinge was squeaking, so I oiled it.”
“Thanks, I guess. I've been meaning to do that one of these days. Never thought I'd nearly kill somebody 'cause of it. Funny how a little thing like that can get so big,” Tom said as he swung the door back and forth on its hinges.
Later Tom set out to make the rounds of his pickups. A number were bars. They would pay to keep their back doors open on Sundays, or run a few girls in the upstairs rooms or a bit of gambling in the basement. A twenty for Tom every month helped ensure they were left to do business undisturbed. It was accepted too that if a crackdown was in the offing, an effort would be made to give advance notice. That was a risk for Tom, but he'd managed to get the word out once or twice when it was necessary. Most precinct captains were very understanding in that regard and gave at least a day's notice of upcoming raids except in the most politically sensitive cases. All things considered, the system worked well. The money flowed with a wink and a nod.
Tom had a middling list of businesses that he attended to personally. Most detectives did, but there was another, larger group who paid off at the precinct level. A percentage of that money found its way into Tom's pocket as well. In return he'd send notice whenever possible of any major crackdowns. It was a fairly efficient system so long as nothing went wrong. Of course something always did, but those were the risks. After about two hours of running about, Tom had over a hundred dollars in his pocket and a splitting headache. As usual, pickups from the bars included a ritual pulling of the beer. It was considered bad form to leave without a taste. All the activity was probably not
good for his head either. The doctor had left instructions to take it slow for at least a week. “Slow” wasn't how Tom would have described his day so far. It didn't take a doctor to tell that the mushy ache in his head and the blur at the edge of his vision was due to more than a few sips of beer.
It was when he was coming out from one of his stops that Tom realized that he was very close to Watley's dance hall. He figured he might as well follow up on Watkins's alibi as long as he was in the neighborhood. It made him feel a little better to get something done on the case. The collections hadn't helped to stop the guilty voice at the back of his head. A few minutes later he was standing on the Bowery in front of the place. It had the garish, shabby look of so many of the dance halls. Huge billboards flanked the door. More signage covered the building up above. Down the street a pair of eyes watched from under the brim of a rumpled hat. Tom went in and took a stool at the bar, asking the bartender for Miss Devine. The man checked the time when Tom disappeared. He settled against a doorway to wait.
“Ain't been 'ere for days now. Plenty other girls 'ere to tickle the fancy of a man such as yerself,” the bartender said with a knowing wink.