Hell Gate

by Jeff Dawson

  And then silence…

  For a few seconds the smoke and smell of cordite wafted… and then, too, the unmistakeable aroma of whisky. There were shouts. He heard the word ‘clear’. Poking his head out he saw bodies lying on the ground, the miscreants all dead, save the driver and companion who were dragged off and bundled away. All around lay smashed crates and bottles of Scotch, the van’s cargo. The smell of liquor was stoking fires within him.

  An officer had been hit in the arm and was clutching his bicep, but he was the only apparent casualty on the police side. Finch’s old battlefield instincts were to the fore and he felt the urge to step to the man’s aid. But there was already an officer on hand with a red cross medical bag who seemed to know what he was doing.

  Delgado was now striding over towards Finch. He motioned that they should leave the scene.

  ‘I just wanted you to see that,’ he said, ‘so you know what’s going on in this city.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘The “Cosa Nostra”. Italians – Sicilians more to the point. Bootleggers and gunrunners. Some call them the “Mafia”, a name they hate. They’re starting to become a real problem.’

  The hardware store owner emerged, shouting like a madman and waving his arms, protesting that the police were reckless and could have got innocent bystanders killed – and who the hell was going to pay for all the damage?

  They walked two blocks east to Central Park, overlooked by the lone, massive Dakota Building with its high sharp gables. Once inside the park they found a bench to sit on. Cyclists whizzed past on the path at a furious pace – young, athletic-looking men in sporting sweaters and caps – as if the pedestrian walkways were all part of an enormous velodrome.

  ‘You take your life in your hands in this city, Mr Collins,’ he quipped. ‘Even in a public park. D’ya cycle at all?’

  Finch thought for a moment about his country bicycling back home with Maude, the lady friend he had treated most shabbily. He had not been a gentleman.

  ‘Not much,’ he said.

  ‘Lucky.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No – Lucky – Lucky Strike?’

  He was offering Finch a cigarette.

  ‘You want one?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Finch.

  Delgado lit them up.

  ‘That’s a strange name… for a cigarette.’

  Delgado laughed.

  ‘Some say it’s ’cause there’s marijuana hidden randomly in some of the packs. Which is a crock of horseshit. Officially they’re named after the Gold Rush. You know, prospectors hitting the motherlode.’

  ‘I see,’ said Finch.

  They sat and smoked for a minute. To Finch the cigarette tasted more burnt, more toasted than a Navy Cut, but was not unpleasant. He marvelled at this huge slab of green, right in the middle of the city, with its beech and elm and hornbeams, not to mention its lakes.

  ‘So, Mr Collins, whaddya know?’

  Finch exhaled.

  ‘What do I know?’

  ‘About your mission? Why you’re here?’

  ‘I know what I need to know,’ said Finch.

  Delgado smiled.

  ‘That’s a good answer, Mr Collins. You need to be on your guard. Trust no one. Not even me.’

  He paused.

  ‘Okay then, let me ask you… How much do you know about the National Bureau of Criminal Identification?’

  Finch shrugged.

  ‘Then allow me to tell you a thing or two – give you a bit of context – a “heads-up” as we call it here.’

  Delgado dragged on his cigarette.

  ‘The Bureau was set up by Teddy Roosevelt in the wake of President McKinley’s assassination back in ’01. Only Roosevelt is no run-of-the-mill Commander-in-Chief. Way before his elevation as a military hero – you know, the cavalryman of Cuba, the famous “rough rider” – Roosevelt was New York’s Commissioner of Police, lest we forget.’

  He tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘Knows a thing or two about the “Dark Arts”, if you get my drift. How the police need to be policed…’

  He laughed to himself.

  ‘Hell, how politics needs to be politicized.’

  He leaned back, crossed his right foot onto his left thigh, and exhaled a lungful of smoke skyward.

  ‘You’ve read the news, Mr Collins, you can see what a mess we’re in – the Democrats and Republicans have internal splits; there’s either pride or unease, depending on where you sit, on American territorial expansion, our empire-building. The Philippines… Cuba… the incorporation of Hawaii. Congress is already eyeing up Alaska… And who’s to stop us?’

  Finch nodded along.

  ‘To top it all, we now have the damned American National Party to deal with. We got the same bunch of jerks as you do in London trying to rain on the parade – anarchists… revolutionaries… enemies within… It was an anarchist’s bullet that did for McKinley. But this lot want to bring the house down wearing suits.’

  He turned to look Finch in the eye.

  ‘I heard about what happened with the Russians in London, Mr Collins – the assassination attempt on their ambassador. I don’t know what part you played in preventing it specifically. Hell, I don’t even know what your real name is – and don’t want to know either – but I do know from my chiefs that you come highly recommended. Sweet as a Georgia peach.’

  Delgado looked around.

  ‘And which is why you and I should be careful about being seen together out in the open for too long.’

  He stood up and motioned for Finch to do the same, at which two muscular men stepped out behind them. Delgado saw Finch stiffen.

  ‘Our backup, Mr Collins. Been shadowing us the whole time.’

  He turned to them.

  ‘You can stand down, boys. Mr Collins and I are going to take a ride Downtown.’

  They walked back to the kerb on Central Park West. There was a Ford motor cab waiting at the stand and Delgado commandeered it.

  ‘C’mon. I’ll brief you further en route.’

  The pair got in behind a burly cabbie, who pulled the vehicle out into the southbound traffic. As they drove, Delgado continued, explaining how the NBI had embellished Collins’s cover story, setting up some bogus business venture, assuring certain details should he need to refer to them for legitimacy.

  ‘You’re operating outside the jurisdiction of the US Security apparatus,’ he reminded him. ‘We can advise but can’t intervene. I’m really just here to show you the ropes, get you started.’

  He repeated what Lady Brunswick had told Finch, that he should answer directly to MO3 via the British Embassy in Washington DC.

  ‘It keeps our hands clean. But it’s a reciprocal arrangement that works well – Britain and America sharing intelligence and covering for each other.’

  Finch nodded at the driver.

  ‘I thought you told me to be circumspect. You’re telling me all this in earshot of a cabbie.’

  The man turned. He had a round bearded face and was chewing on a toothpick. He broke out a smile.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ assured Delgado. ‘He’s one of ours.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Finch.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Chapter 7

  The cab pulled up on the cobbles of the Meatpacking District. The air was rank with the stench of flesh and death. Amid the shouts of the butchers and the meatpackers, you could hear the squeals of terrorized cattle coming from the slaughterhouses. Finch’s mind drifted back to South Africa and the horrors of the field hospitals.

  A uniformed police officer stood outside a roll-down warehouse shutter. Delgado flashed him a badge and he opened the door next to it. From the look on the policeman’s face, the advent of a suit from the Bureau was not a welcome prospect.

  Inside, the floor ran with sluiced blood. But this place was empty, as if everyone had been sent home. Delgado led Finch across the sawdust, past the vacant cattle pens and up a wood
en staircase. The upstairs meat hall was hung with serried rows of skinned, gutted cow carcasses – pale, greasy and pungent. At the far end was a man in a gabardine overcoat and a trilby. He was in conversation with a police sergeant, fussing over one carcass in particular.

  As they closed in, Finch saw that it wasn’t a cow but a man. He was hanging upside down in his grubby undergarments, a meat hook clean through his calf muscles. The man’s throat bore a deep, dark slit, and he had bled white, the blood having run down his extended arms to congeal in a pool on the floor. His face, hair and arms were caked in it. A drip still hung on a fingertip.

  ‘What we got here, Angus?’

  The man in the trilby looked up and nodded a hello. He wore a pair of horn-rim glasses.

  ‘Didn’t say his prayers.’

  Delgado looked the corpse over.

  ‘Short Tail?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Morello’s handiwork.’

  Delgado introduced: ‘Mr Bradley Collins… the gentleman I was telling you about.’

  He turned to Finch.

  ‘This is Deputy Inspector Angus MacLeish.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Collins.’

  ‘Likewise, Detective.’

  MacLeish asked the sergeant to give them a moment and the cop trudged off towards a delivery chute at the far side of the hall.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Collins. Didn’t check first whether you had the stomach for somethin’ like this.’

  Finch was about to say that he’d been a battlefield surgeon, but stayed himself.

  ‘Think nothing of it.’

  The dead man had a strange leer, like his executioner had just told him one hell of a joke.

  ‘Short Tail?’ asked Finch.

  ‘Short Tail Gang – Irish,’ Delgado explained. ‘Lower East Side. Plunder cargo from ships and piers on the East River…’

  ‘Wear these waist-length coats, hence the name,’ added MacLeish.

  ‘…’cept this one’s a little underdressed.’

  That the man was still wearing black socks and elastic suspenders seemed a curious comic signature.

  ‘Morello?’ asked Finch.

  ‘Those Sicilians I was talkin’ about.’

  ‘From up in East Harlem,’ said MacLeish. ‘Comin’ down here to do this on the Short Tails’ doorstep? That’s a bold move.’

  He sighed.

  ‘Goin’ to be trouble. A lot more trouble.’

  ‘And this Joe?’ queried Delgado.

  He squatted down for a close-up.

  ‘One of O’Malley’s deputies,’ said MacLeish.

  Delgado stood again and MacLeish pulled hard on a chain. The dead man, socks and all, squeaked along the metal rail to the sergeant across the way, a string of dead cows Pied-Pipering behind.

  ‘Get him to the morgue quick, Sergeant. Before Riis shows up!’

  ‘Who?’ asked Finch.

  ‘Jacob Riis. Photographer. Tight with Roosevelt,’ said Delgado. ‘On a one-man mission to show the world what a shitty, fucked-up city we live in.’

  Quipped MacLeish: ‘Like nobody had ever noticed.’

  The police detective led them back down outside to breathe fresh air. They moved away from the shrieking cattle and the shouting butchers and stood at the end of the street facing the Hudson – not far, Finch recognized, from where his ship had docked only this morning. He could see New Jersey across the water.

  ‘I’m warnin’ you, Freddie, this is all off the books,’ said MacLeish. ‘You understand? NYPD? NBI? Ours is a turf war to put the others in the shade.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be calling in a favour if I didn’t need it, Angus.’

  Finch passed around his cigarettes. Delgado got out his lighter. The men lit up. MacLeish began spluttering.

  ‘Jesus Christ. What the…?’

  ‘Navy Cut,’ said Finch. ‘English.’

  Delgado was struggling too.

  ‘No wonder we gave King George the bum’s rush.’

  ‘Bastard Sassenachs…’ added MacLeish.

  He smiled.

  ‘My own people hail from Scotland, in case you hadn’t guessed.’

  ‘You notice how he didn’t flash his own smokes?’ Delgado wisecracked.

  ‘The Highland Clearances… Isle of Skye… My grandparents.’

  Finch assumed the guilt for his forebears. He exhaled a lungful.

  ‘You ever been there?’ he asked. ‘Scotland?’

  ‘We can’t all afford White Star, Mr Collins.’

  The remark threw Finch. MacLeish clearly knew more about him than he thought. But if Delgado trusted him…

  ‘So, gentlemen. Why am I here?’

  MacLeish glanced at the pocket watch chained to his waistcoat. He mulled over where to begin.

  ‘You know enough by now about Senator Schultz and the American National Party, I take it?’

  Finch nodded.

  ‘Maintaining a well-oiled political machine, running a party, it’s an expensive business, a huge undertaking, especially when you have to mount a campaign. It requires a lot of funding.’

  So far it was all along the lines of Lady Brunswick’s briefing.

  Said Delgado: ‘Officially, Schultz’s money comes from legitimate donors – East Coast and Midwestern industrialists mainly, most with German roots. It’s all for Congressional show. Keep up the appearance that he’s clean. All legit.’

  ‘But the numbers don’t add up,’ said MacLeish. ‘The National Party have gone from a fringe special-interest group to serious political players in less than three years. No party can rise that quickly without their funds receiving – how shall we put it? – a bit of a top-up.’

  Delgado tapped the side of his nose again, conspiratorially.

  ‘A big top-up.’

  ‘You mean dirty money.’

  The two men nodded.

  Said Delgado: ‘That way to discredit Schultz? To bring him down? Sure, we go after the money. But that’s too broad, too vague. We think we’ve hit upon something specific. Although we’ve got to act fast – especially, if rumours are true, that Schultz is on the verge of a tilt at the White House.’

  MacLeish spoke slowly, choosing his words.

  ‘Look, Mr Collins. I don’t know what your part is in all this. And frankly I don’t want to know. Neither do I care too much about the political angle. That’s one for Freddie. I’m a cop. My interest lies with organized crime. And I’m fed up to the back teeth. That little pop-gun ambush you just witnessed with Freddie on the Upper West Side? That was nothing. This little throat slicing…?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘All I can tell you is that it’s getting worse – far worse. The Irish, the Italians, the Jews… We got Russian gangs, Chinese gangs, too… We got Black gangs, Hispanic gangs. And now…’

  ‘The Germans,’ said Delgado.

  MacLeish dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his shoe.

  ‘And they’re smart, far more organized, more discreet. And the real worry is that it’s not just crime for crime’s sake or economic gain, for local power or plain old cultural dick-swinging – all the traditional motives – but that it’s being channelled into this political movement, just like Freddie says.’

  ‘Chief culprit is a character named Manfred Muller – Manny Muller,’ Delgado continued. ‘Runs an organized crime syndicate out of Little Germany. Muller is a smooth operator, a typical gangster, who presents as a legit businessman, but he’s a mean SOB with a real hold over the German–American community.’

  MacLeish rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘And they’re particularly vulnerable at the moment.’

  ‘Vulnerable?’

  MacLeish chewed over his words.

  ‘You hear of the Slocum Disaster?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Finch. ‘Boating accident…? Lot of people killed. I remember reading something in the papers in England.’

  ‘Too right a lot of people killed,’ said Delgado. ‘1,021 to be precise.’

>   Finch exhaled a whistle. MacLeish carried on.

  ‘Last June, a pleasure cruise. Mainly women and kids. Off for a day on the water. School’s out. Here comes the summer… You know the sort of thing.’

  ‘Only the ship was a death trap,’ added Delgado. ‘Catches fire. No emergency facilities. Captain’s a shit-for-brains. You get the picture…’

  ‘We were pulling bodies out of the East River for a week.’

  ‘Pretty much ripped the heart out of the German community – Little Germany… Kleindeutschland. Tight ethnic quarter they’d created round Tompkins Square Park.’

  ‘400 city blocks at its peak,’ said MacLeish. ‘though much reduced today.’

  ‘Only the ensuing inquiry does them no favours either,’ Delgado went on. ‘They get no recompense. No real sympathy from City Hall – just a bunch of rivals muscling in to take over businesses and vacant properties. Quite ruthless.’

  ‘So what you got is a community under siege,’ said MacLeish. ‘Bereaved people, backs to the wall – and with a grievance.’

  ‘I see,’ said Finch.

  Said Delgado: ‘That’s where the likes of Muller and Schultz come in. You know, classic power vacuum… Moving in to fill it.’

  ‘Muller, we suspect, is laundering money into Schultz’s coffers through a sophisticated illegal operation. So anything someone can do to take him down in the process will be much appreciated by me and my department.’

  MacLeish reached in his pocket.

  ‘Here…’

  He placed a small waxed-paper packet in Finch’s hand. He unfolded it. It contained about half a teaspoon’s-worth of an off-white powder.

  ‘Last year Congress banned the sale or use of opium. Publisher William Randolph Hearst whipped up the public with his “Yellow Peril” scare and got it taken off the market. Instead we’ve got this to contend with, a new illegal drug – heroin. Mix this opiate with liquid acetyl and you can inject it, amongst other methods of consumption. And it’s highly addictive. Chloral hydrate? Cannabis indica? Laudanum? Knocks them all into a cocked hat.’

  Finch licked his little finger, dabbed it, took a small taste. It was not unlike battlefield morphine.

  ‘Simple law of economics – drive any commodity underground, increase its scarcity and you inflate its value,’ said MacLeish. ‘And heroin is no different. It’s an easily portable, easily disguised product. And, once it’s used, it’s gone.’