Mary fixed a mock frown on him, stern and demanding. “I have one more intimate need for you to satisfy, Detective, so long as you're so concerned for my welfare.” Mary straddled him, throwing a golden thigh on either side of his chest. “Can you imagine what that might be, or do I have to draw you a picture?”
“Oh, I think I get the picture ⦠dearest. I live to satisfy.”
E
arl sat with his feet up on the big table. He picked at his fingernails with a small knife as he talked.
“Watched âem come out of the Old Dominion office. Checked with the ticket clerk. They're on the three o'clock steamer tomorrow.”
The captain paced his office, his brow furrowed and his hands knotted behind his back. “That means we've got no more than twoâthree days at most before they're back here with more questions. I'll telegraph our friends in Richmond.”
“You gonna arrange a special reception for 'em, Cap'n?” Earl pointed his pocket knife at his throat and grinned slyly.
“I'm open to suggestions. If it fails, though, they'll be back here with a
vengeance,” Thaddeus said. “Hell, even if we kill them, there's bound to be others who know where their investigation was heading. We'll have a fire under us either way. Still, it's better to eliminate them in Richmond. Might throw the cops off our trail for a few days till they sort it out.” Thaddeus hesitated for a moment, thinking the matter through. The cops were closer than any of them had imagined. Though none of the options looked good in the long run, what they needed was a little more time. If they could buy themselves a few more days by killing off Braddock in Richmond, it might just be enough. “We need more time” was all he said as he paced.
“Why wait till they git to Richmond, Cap'n?” Earl drawled.
Thaddeus turned to him, cocking his head quizically. “Kill 'em on the steamer,” Earl said as if it was a given.
Sullivan spoke up at that. “I don't see how that would really change anything. I mean, aside from giving you some sport, there's still others who'd follow up where they left off. Don't know how much time it might buy,” Patrick said doubtfully.
Earl grinned. “Not if they go missin'. If they wuz to not show up here in a couple of days, the cops would waste buckets o' time lookin' for 'em. Buy us maybe a week or so, easy.” It was a good point.
“You thinking you're going to be able to kill both of them, dump them over the side, and not be seen or heard?” Pat exclaimed, the disbelief so thick in his voice he could spread it on toast. “Might be possible if everything went perfect, but you know the odds of that. You've got no time to plan. Even if you did, I'd say it was too risky to try. No plan ever goes perfectly. There's always something unexpected. You know that. Look what happened when we set those Plug Uglies on them. Anybody at this table think that wasn't going to work?” Pat looked at each face around the room. There was no disagreement.
“Yeah, but this time”âEarl started.
“Forget it, Earl!” Thaddeus snapped. “I appreciate your zeal, soldier, but I think in this circumstance we need a different tactic. I'll make arrangements for them in Richmond,” he said with finality.
“Meanwhile, there's another little problem I'm thinking we should deal with,” Thaddeus said half to himself.
Everyone was still, listening intently. Even Earl had stopped his whittling to peer at the captain curiously.
“I've been thinking about how this goddamn detective got wind of the Richmond connection.” Sangree looked around the room. “I mean, how in hell could he have known about that if he wasn't told? I suppose he could have stumbled on the orders from the Roebling Works and the others, but that would have taken a huge amount of digging. And what would he have
been doing that kind of digging for in the first place? Made me wonder about why he was on to Watkins the way he was too. He sure as hell didn't get any clues from any of us.” There were nods of agreement to that. “I'm thinking maybe somebody knows more than we thought he does,” the captain said, turning to Earl.
Earl was shaking his head. “Don't know, Cap'n. If I'm followin' you, an' you're talkin' 'bout the Bucklin boy ⦠well, I jus don' know. I tell ya this, I believed 'im when he said he din' know nothin'. Had him near to pissin' his pants. Hell, I even cut him an' he didn' say nothin'.”
Thaddeus nodded, not convinced. The boy
had
to know something. Terrence had kept him close in his last days. Why? There had to be more there. Maybe the grandmother was the one, though he discounted that thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. If that had been the case, the cops would have been on them as soon as Terrence was gone. He would have told her everything he knew, in detail, but the boy ⦠perhaps the boy had just heard some things, just part of the story, just enough to give Braddock the scent. Perhaps Terrence realized the boy knew more than was healthy. He turned to Earl, having paced the length of the office.
“I think another visit to young Master Bucklin is in order nonetheless. He may not know much, but it seems likely he knows more than he should.” There was general agreement with that, he could see from the faces around the table. “When Braddock doesn't return from Richmond, and they start backtracking his investigation, it'll lead right back to the kid, you know that.”
Earl sighed. He didn't have much stomach for killing kids, though he hadn't minded throwing a scare into the boy. He supposed he would have killed him then if he'd spilled what he knew, but this was different. This wasn't the same. All they had were suspicions about the boy. Still, he wasn't one to leave a job undone. He knew his duty, and he'd do it the best he was able.
“So ya want me to do it?” Earl said, not really asking.
Thaddeus looked at him for a moment, thinking. “No Earl, I think not,” he said slowly. Earl tried not to let the feeling of relief leak onto his face. “No, I have someone else in mind for this.”
It was decided quickly. Braddock, in Richmond, and the Bucklin boy here in New York would be gone within a day of each other. Two more dead ends. Two less stumbling blocks in their path.
“Buy us a few days perhaps while they clean up the mess. Meanwhile, we retreat. Well, not retreat precisely; fade into the landscape would be more accurate,” the captain explained. “Once we drop out of sight, it would take an act of God for them to find us again, especially with Braddock and the boy out of the picture.”
“We're pitching tents somewhere else,” Matt said, finishing the captain's thought. He was resigned to do whatever it took. At this point, disappearing didn't seem all that bad an idea.
“Not all of us, no ⦠least not right away. But Earl, Matt, and I have to. Better not be here if they get back. Better not be here either way, for that: matter.”
“Okay by me, Cap'n,” Earl said, resuming his whittling of fingernails.
“Sure,” Matt said. “Our jobs are pretty much done on the wiring.” He and Earl needed just one more night to finish snaking wire. Officially the wiring was done, but they were as planned, a step behind. “After the test last night, there isn't much more we need to do, at least not as far as the mission is concerned.”
L
ast night, May 19, long after the red ball of the sun disappeared below the craggy skyline and its orange halo retreated after, the cities of New York and Brooklyn had been treated to a spectacle never before seen. The power plant in Brooklyn hissed and pounded with a full head of steam. Huge cast-iron wheels, with yard-wide belts attached, drove the dynamos, which spun with dangerous speed and irresistible power. The smell of ozone swirled on the restless currents of air as the dynamos hummed in deep-throated electric harmony. Switches were thrown, and at once there was light across the East River. Seventy lamps blinked on, bathing the bridge and the river below in the glow of a new age. One by one, ships on the waters below started to blow their whistles and ring their bells. People on shore cheered. Matt and Earl had been there too, watching from the approach above the power plant. Though neither one could have told the other why, they cheered as well. From a distance the lights looked like luminous pearls strung from city to city. They burned softly in the moonlight, miniature suns captured in glass. The triumph of the industrial age basked in the electric glow. Never before had the two come together so beautifully. It was hard not to cheer.
“You should've seen it, Cap'n. It was something!”
“Never saw the like in all my days,” Earl said, shaking his head. “Sure was pretty.”
The captain didn't share their enthusiasm. “I'm sure it was, boys, but let's get back to it, shall we? So ⦠the three of us need to go to ground. You two”âhe pointed to Earl and Mattâ“put in your resignations tomorrow. You'll be done with the wire tonight, right?” He got nods in reply. “Good. Tell the clerk you're going back to Texas when you resign. That'll keep the cops guessing. I'll close up shop here. We all need to find new rooms too.”
“Now, Pat and Jus and Bart, they don't got to move, right?” Matt asked, making sure he had it right.
“There's no suspicion on them that we know of but, Bart, you should quit anyway. No point taking chances.”
Jacobs just shrugged. He didn't much care one way or another. Pat and Justice had been laid off the week before. With the cables finished, their jobs were at an end.
“There's no reason I can think of for you to stay on, is there?”
“I've done about everything I can in the office, Captain,” Weasel admitted.
“All right then, we move tomorrow. It shouldn't be hard to find new rooms somewhere. Won't be for long. No hotels, though, Matt, and no correct names either. Got to be careful. From now on we'll meet at Bart's place, let's say tomorrow at seven?” The captain looked around the room for agreement. “Meanwhile I believe I'll set up a reception in Richmond. With any luck it'll be the last we see of them. And Bucklin, well ⦠you know what has to be done there.”
Thaddeus didn't expect an answer and got none.
T
om watched New York slip behind them from the fantail of the steamer
Norfolk
. It filled the island from shore to shore, spilling into its liquid boundaries in a confusion of funnels, masts, and rigging. The hard outlines of the buildings seemed to fade into the water at the edges.
“I wonder what it looked like before all this was here,” Jaffey mused. “Ever wonder about that? Can you imagine sailing into this harbor for the first time? It must have been wonderful, like a paradise.”
“Forests, I guess,” Tom said. “Marshes and such around the edges in Brooklyn and Jersey. The air clear and clean, no garbage, no smell of sewage on the water. Must have been pretty.”
“I think about it sometimes when I take the ferry. I think what it must have been like. Won't be that way ever again, I guess.”
“Called progress, Eli. Hard to put a brake on it,” Tom said. “For everything we build, something from nature is lost. That's the way of things, I guess. Like the bridge.” He waved a hand at the fading structure. “Somewhere there's a mountain with a big hole in it from all the stone they quarried. That mountain won't ever be the same.”
“Yeah ⦠but look at it,” Jaffey replied. “It's magnificent.”
Tom gazed at the span, soaring across the river in the distance, dwarfing everything else on the skyline.
“You know, you might regret the loss of the natural things that were here before, but that's a piece of progress to rival anything in nature,” Jaffey said.
The two men leaned on the aft rail. Tom's thoughts trailed away to the
meeting he had had with Coffin and Sung Chow the night before. It had all gone according to plan. Old sack-face had sat silent and intimidating while Coffin talked. Tom had to give the devil his due. Coffin did a masterful job of putting his case to the old Chinaman. He was very convincing and spoke in broad, glowing terms of how they could expand the trade and blossom together, like an ever-expanding field of poppies. It was hard to refute his logic. With his kind of help, the opium trade would flourish as never before. Money would flow. They all would be rich beyond counting or spending. Things would be good for everybody. Old Sung Chow had nodded at the appropriate points but wore his best poker face when Coffin made his offer. The old man just said he'd have to think about it but doubted it was good enough offer to even consider. He played it well.
To Tom's amusement, Coffin was steaming by the time they hit the street. They came out fast and Tom's eye was caught by movement in the shadows near the end of the block. Coffin had a tail, though Tom hadn't noticed it before they had gone in. Somehow the shadow reminded him of Chowder, but he put it down to the light and the fleeting glimpse he had had.
“Damn Chinamen think they can squeeze me! Who the fuck do they take me for?” Coffin had fumed.
“I told you it would go that way, August. Don't let it get to you,” Tom counseled. Despite Coffin's great skill at putting his deal before the old man, he simply couldn't hide his contempt for the old man. That attitude helped to seal his fate. Sung Chow had given Tom a cryptic smile as they had left last night. Coffin hadn't seen it.