Jacobs was exultant! The little bastard was cornered. He saw it as soon as he rounded the corner. Trapped! Though the kid tried to shinny up a drainpipe, Jacobs saw right away it wasn't going to be enough. He had just jumped over some bricks when something hit him in the shoulder, and he went down hard. He wasn't sure what had happened at first. The impact and the fall were almost one. He rolled with the fall, bouncing up as best he could, looking behind him for what had caused it. As he did, a bottle flew by just inches from his head. He hadn't even seen it coming. He raised an arm to shield himself too late, and he saw five silhouettes at the end of the alley outlined by the streetlamps. Another bottle sailed out of the darkness, glancing off his forearm as a kid's voice said, “Leave our friend alone, mister!”
A barrage of bottles, rocks, and at least one brick followed. Jacobs was
pummeled. He ducked and weaved, but in the dark he couldn't see the missiles coming. One or two hurt like hell.
“Fuckin' little bastards!” he cursed, holding up his arm as he charged them. He expected them to run, imagined they'd scatter at the sight of an adult charging them with a naked blade. He was mistaken. A second barrage came whistling in, bottles smashing, rocks bouncing. Jacobs was already cut or bruised in five or six places. “Kill you bastards!” he screamed with dogged determination, leaning into the blizzard of projectiles. He'd gut these kids once he got close enough. But when he got close, he found that three of them had trashcan covers in their hands, like knights with shields, and he saw the glint of steel in their hands tooâpocket knives. Still he came at them, unafraid, slashing left and right, dodging catlike and striking out with deadly skill. His blade struck sparks off the steel of the trashcan covers, it cut thin air, it even found boy-flesh more than once. But the kids were circling, three to one, and the other two were standing off and hurling stuff when they could. They didn't run or give up. They fought.
Jacobs had forgotten about Mike Bucklin. He'd just caught one of the kids on the arm, cutting an instantly bloody furrow through his shirt sleeve. The kid yelped, not sounding like a knight at all now. Bottles were thrown but missed. The tide was turning, when suddenly he was hit from behind.
Mike had come down from the wall when he saw his friends attack Bow-tie. He advanced slowly to the pile of bricks, watching the battle as he grabbed one in each hand. The clerk didn't see him. He was too busy with Smokes and Mouse and the others. When Mouse got cut he saw his chance. Mike rushed at Bow-tie's back. He wasn't more than eight feet away when he let go with the first brick. Without looking to see if it hit, he threw the second. The two impacts took Jacobs off his feet in a heartbeat, his back feeling like he'd been hit with a cannon ball. Before he'd recovered or even fully realized what had happened, they were on him, kicking, stabbing, beating him with their trashcan shields and yelling like fiends. All he could do was cover up and flail with his knife. He hurt all over, he bled from a dozen small wounds, his back felt like the ribs had been caved in. A few more minutes of this and he'd be a dead man. Striking out, he saw his blade dig into a leg, heard the kid scream, saw them back off just for an instant, ready to swarm in again.
Jacobs rolled painfully to his feet, lunging at the boys to make a hole in their ranks. They parted as he slashed left and right. He made it to the street, where a few people watched from a distance. He ran staggering, bleeding, cursing. The boys didn't follow far. Bart Jacobs disappeared down Norfolk, bottles breaking on the cobbles behind him and the voices of the boyish victors taunting him in the night. He was almost too relieved to care.
A
n hour later, in a very different part of town, August Coffin sat staring with bloodshot eyes. He saw the trappings of success, the photographs with famous and influential people, the framed testaments to his virtue, his civic pride, his service to city and country. He had been an important man, a respected and powerful man. His word had meant something. His opinions had value. He was a leader. He looked about the room paneled in Honduran mahogany, noting the shelves of leather-bound volumes, some quite valuable, the silver writing set, with inkpot and blotter, the big oak desk he sat at, its quarter-sawn oak striped like a tiger. Oils by worthy artists hung from his walls. They were of the sea and ships, of billowing creamy-white sails against blue-green waters ⦠paintings of self-reliance, of strength in the face of the overwhelming elements. He had loved those paintings, had seen something of himself in those images.
The room breathed power. An air of elegant taste and refinement, of understated assurance permeated the place, as it did the rest of his castle on Murray Hill. It was illusion. He had loved this room at the heart of the house, the heart of his power. He loved it still. He had reveled in the knowledge that his grasp on power and influence reached far beyond these paneled walls. He recalled his best days in this room, the fires in the marble-manteled fireplace and how they warmed the space on winter nights. He recalled the deals made here, the triumphs celebrated, the victories, the defeated enemies come to grovel. This one room embodied all these things. He recalled them all, and he remembered Braddock as he sat across from this very desk in the red-leather wing chair moaning about Mary, his whore of a girlfriend. How full of himself he had been, how sure of his victory over Tom. He'd been so certain. The great manipulator had triumphed, bringing his whipped dog to heal. Coffin grunted in the darkness, his blindness surprising even now. He took another long pull from a crystal tumbler, swirling with amber scotch. It burned as it went down.
None of it had meaning for him. There was numbness where his feelings should have been. Even his anger had gone numb and cold. There was emptiness now, a great yawning void of it. The utter defeat of soul gripped him, a depression so deep it paralyzed him in a cold, penetrating embrace. He barely had energy to breathe, to move, to eat. He didn't even remember how many days it had been since Byrnes beat him into confessing everything, giving up everyone, even his corps. He couldn't feel his bruises. The numbness drowned even that ache. He looked down at the .32 Smith & Wesson, an elegant weapon. It glowed invitingly from the leather-bound blotter on his desktop.
August gripped the pistol deliberately, feeling how the curve of the grips fit his hand, the small chill of the steel frame, the warm checkered walnut under his fingers. His finger felt the sensuous curve of the trigger, the little ridges in its surface. The muzzle fit easily in his mouth, as if it were made to go there.
A
promise made is a promise kept. Tom had always believed that. Though he was in no mood for the circus, he'd made his deal with Mike and he was bound to keep it. But as he walked up Suffolk Street on the evening of the twenty-ninth, he couldn't suppress the feeling that while he was going to see Jumbo, there were at least three men somewhere in the city who worked even now to sabotage the bridge. He carried the thought like a millstone. Since Richmond, he hadn't been eating right, nor sleeping well either. It was due partly to Coffin, but mostly it was the unshakable feeling that whatever Sangree was planning would happen soon. A sense of impending doom had hovered over him like a storm cloud for days, and no amount of investigation, distraction, or rationalization could dispel it. He'd been driving himself and Eli hard, working leads, staying in constant touch with the precincts and the detectives who were watching Sangree & Co. and the apartments of Sangree and the rest. There was nothing, no sign of them, no indication of anything wrong at the bridge either. The bridge police reported nothing but ordinary patrols. It was to Tom an ominous silence.
“Maybe I really do need to see Jumbo,” he muttered. “Get my mind off this goddamn case for a couple hours.”
He collected Mike, who was so excited he was almost jumping out of his skin. There was something odd about the boy, though. His grandmother was oddly silent too, as if there was something she was holding back. More than once he thought he saw looks exchanged between Mike and her but he couldn't place why. He put it down to some family argument or other. Mike chattered all the way to the El, seemingly so excited that all else had been purged from his brain. He went on about all the oddities that were on display at Barnum's. Everything from fat ladies to dog-faced boys and a hundred amazing creatures and people in between were there for the amusement of the crowds. Pygmies from Africa, giants from China, and midgets from who-knows-where were all part of the show. Mike's enthusiasm was contagious. By the time they reached their stop on the El, Tom was smiling along with the boy, forgetting for the moment the oppressive feelings that ruled him.
They were walking to Madison Square Garden and had just crossed Lexington Avenue. Mike was going on about how he wanted to buy some souvenirs
and stuff to show his friends, when he said, “Is it all right if I keep my ticket, the stub, I mean? I want to save it so I'll remember today.”
“Sure. That's a great idea. Why don't you take mine too once we get in,” Tom offered.
“Thanks. That's great.” Mike was quiet for a minute and Tom got the feeling he wanted to say something. He held his tongue and waited. Then Mike picked his head up, looking at Tom in a level, grown-up sort of way, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Braddock. I don't want to ever forget this day.”
Something about the way Mike said it made Tom stop and look down at the boy. They stood like that for an awkward moment, staring at each other, until Tom held out one arm. He put it around Mike's shoulder and the boy leaned in against his side.
“Me neither, partner,” Tom said, giving him a tentative hug. “So, what're you going to do with those tickets?” he asked, afraid of letting the scene get too mushy.
“Oh, I'm gonna put them in my box.” Mike held up his small brass key and beamed up at Tom.
“Good place for 'em.” Tom nodded his approval. He realized once he'd said it how important the circus was to Mike. That box was reserved for only his most precious things. “I'd feel real good about that,” he added. Mike looked up at him with an open, appraising sort of look, as if he were weighing Tom's words. Tom just looked back evenly. Mike turned away with a little smile.
Tom cleared his throat, then asked, “You prefer peanuts or ice cream? Me, I kinda like 'em both.”
The circus was everything Mike hoped it would be. Jumbo was even bigger than he or Tom imagined. The beast shuffled around the big arena with an almost jaunty air, as if he enjoyed strutting for the cheering crowds. A lumbering herd of lesser beasts, with colorful, tasseled rugs on their backs, followed the great pachyderm. Jumbo, it turned out, did not shit houses. But Mike seemed fascinated nonetheless by the clown whose job it was to follow the elephants with a shovel and wheelbarrow.
“You figure that's where they put the bad clowns?” Mike speculated.
Tom grinned. “Yup. That's what we do with them in the department. Plenty of clowns shoveling shit around the city. Department's full of 'em.”
Mike seemed to take that at face value.
An amazing menagerie of bizarre animals and even more exotic humans followed the elephants. Ornately carved and garishly painted calliopes, pulled by snowy-white teams tooted, whistled and steamed. The band, all decked out in red uniforms with lots of gold braid and white gloves, banged out tunes at earsplitting
volume. Mike shoveled peanuts into his mouth as fast as he could chew. He was in heaven. Tom wasn't far behind. For a time he forgot his work and set his imagination free to run with the boy. They had needed the release, both of them.
It wasn't till much later, on the way home, that Mike told Tom about the bow-tie man. Tom didn't believe it at first. He thought maybe Mike's imagination was overheated, or maybe he'd had too much ice cream, which he had. But one look into Mike's face convinced him otherwise.
“Would have told you sooner but I was scared ⦠you know, scared we ⦔
“We wouldn't go to the circus,” Tom said, finishing the thought.
“Sort of.”
“Suppose I can't blame you. So tell me about this bow-tie fella. I gotta know everything, Mike. It's real important.”
Mike took a long time describing everything, from the first time Mr. Bow-tie had come after him, to the battle just hours before. Tom tried not to interrupt too much, letting Mike tell it his own way. He remembered a lot and had a good eye for details, Tom noticed. When Mike was finished, Tom gave a low whistle.
“I'll be damned if that doesn't sound like that fucking clerk! Mike, we're going back to your place just to pick up some clothes and stuff. You and your grandma will be spending some time someplace else till I get this sorted out. And thanks for telling me, partner. This might be worth more than you imagine.”
An hour later, Mike and Patricia Bucklin were safe in one of Mary's spare bedrooms. Tom headed back to headquarters. He needed to work things out. Even though it was late and there was no hope of finding Jacobs till morning, he needed to do something. He had no address for the man, no idea how to find him. The bridge offices would be closed this time of night. He briefly considered going to the Roeblings but rejected the notion. That was too much of a stretch. It wasn't worth waking the colonel on a hunch. He decided to wait. Still, sleep was not an option. A while later, alone at the back of the squad room, Tom slowly drew new lines on his chart. When he was done, he stood back from the wall, his arms folded across his chest.