Unfinished Sympathy

by Andy Conway

  Mahler hummed to himself and Mitch left him to his composition, examining the four corners of the room over and over, trying to figure a way out of there.

  He wondered if Sing Dock might come and rescue them, but the hope died as soon as he thought of it. It was obvious now that Mock Duck had happily sent them here to throw a grenade at a rival. There was no secret respect between the mayor of Chinatown and the conductor of the Met. Mock Duck was happy to frustrate a rival gang’s plans, perhaps in the hope of moving in on his business somehow.

  Maybe he would instruct the police that the Mahlers were kidnapped and held in the Lower East Side, but that was the best they could hope for. And, somehow, he didn’t relish the idea of the door opening and Lieutenant Becker standing there. Somehow he knew that really might mean they were doomed.

  He turned it over and over in his head, wondering just how many of the suspects listed in his notebook were part of this: Gilhooly, Becker, Silverstein, Zelig. Maybe even more. He didn’t trust any of them.

  A half hour passed before footsteps came to the door and a key turned in the lock. There was no sound of it scraping into the lock, Mitch noticed, it had simply turned.

  The door opened and Cyclone Louie filled the frame. He looked them up and down and stepped back, revealing Gyp the Blood standing nervously a few feet behind.

  A figure walked into the frame, his footsteps slow and deliberate. He wasn’t as big as Cyclone Louie but he walked as if he was. He wore a smart grey suit with a bow tie and a black derby hat, and Mitch wondered for a moment if he was wearing his Sunday best — a gangster who was off to church — but remembered he was Jewish and Sunday was just another day to him. Obsidian eyes in a pale face, his mouth small and tight, giving nothing, as if holding in his rage.

  This was Big Jack Zelig.

  “Do these look like guys who can’t read to you?” he said.

  “No, Jack,” said Cyclone Louie.

  “These look like educated guys to me. But, you know, maybe the fancy colleges uptown ain’t what they used to be. Maybe they don’t teach them to read up there no more.”

  Jack Zelig smirked at his own joke, but, Mitch noticed, Cyclone Louie and Gyp the Blood didn’t. A discordant top note played between them, naggingly off-key. It wasn’t just that they were afraid of their boss. There was something else.

  “You did get my letter, I take it?”

  “It said don’t go to the cops,” said Mitch. “We haven’t been to the cops.”

  “It said get me my hundred thousand.”

  “By noon tomorrow.”

  “You think you’re gonna get it here? Does this look like a bank to you?”

  Again that smug confidence, so sure of all the money he was going to make. But the other two looking at the floor.

  “Who’s going to pay you, if we’re all here?” Mitch said.

  “Maybe that hotshot Otto Kahn will cough up the shekels,” Zelig said. “How about that?”

  “He’s not going to do that. He barely knows the Mahlers.”

  “Maybe we’ll send this little fiddler back home so he can raid the piggy bank. And if he comes back with the cops he’ll get his wife back with no face. How about that?”

  Cyclone Louie coughed and muttered, “Maybe the kid ain’t gonna like this.”

  “He ain’t here,” Big Jack Zelig snapped. “I’m here.”

  “We ain’t supposed to interfere with no uptown big shots,” Cyclone Louie hissed.

  “Then maybe these shouldn’t have got so lost. Maybe they shouldn’t have interfered with us.”

  Cyclone Louie shifted uncomfortably and skulked back a pace.

  Jack Zelig’s smirk twisted, his dark eyes burning with sudden rage. He stepped out and slammed the door on them. The key turned in the lock with a clunk.

  — 37 —

  MITCH LISTENED TO THEIR footsteps clattering across the warehouse floor, Jack Zelig barking orders as they tramped up the wooden staircase. He tried to follow their path but lost them. The horrifying thought that they were going to Alma and he might take his anger out on her.

  He went to the door and crouched to peer through the keyhole. Nothing. Just a blunt snub of lead.

  The key.

  “They’ve left the key in the lock,” he said.

  “Ah,” said Gustav. “Such a pity it is on the other side of the door. Perhaps if we could open it with a key we could retrieve the key and open the door.”

  “Paper.”

  “You’re going to open it with paper?”

  “A newspaper. Do you have one?”

  Gustav patted his pockets and shrugged.

  Mitch looked wildly around the room, though he knew there was no newspaper. “Damn it. I just need a large sheet of paper.”

  Gustav delved into his overcoat. “What, like this?”

  He pulled out what looked like a rolled up brochure. A music score.

  “Don Giovanni,” he said. “If I’m to conduct it, I have it with me so I can consult it any spare minute I have.”

  Mitch grabbed it, unrolled it, opened it to the centre page and yanked out four broadsheets.

  “Glue,” he said.

  They prised open one of the tins with a coin. The pungent fume of toxic glue, acrid and sweet like molasses.

  He spread the four sheets out on the floor to form a large square the size of a coffee table, and knelt down, daubing gloops of glue out with his fingers and spreading it along the edges of the score, pressing them down till he had a single sheet.

  He took it to the door and pushed it under the crack.

  Gustav nodded, understanding. “Why, yes. Very clever.”

  “Pen,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Gustav handed over his fountain pen, beautiful onyx emerald, shot through with a marble effect, fat and heavy, with a gold nib and clip.

  Mitch tried to push it into the keyhole but it stuck.

  “Too fat.”

  He dug into his coat and pulled out his own pen, a biro from 2018, not invented yet. Nice and slim. Was it narrow enough?

  Pushing it into the lock, he felt the key give and slide back an inch.

  “Almost there.”

  It stuck and he wondered with despair if the prongs had caught. He shoved a little harder and it gave again.

  It dropped on the other side with a chime and he could see the warehouse clean through the keyhole.

  “Here goes. Let’s hope it hasn’t fallen too far.”

  He pinched the corners of the sheet and gently inched it towards him. Mozart’s music slid back into the room, note by note, stave by stave, bar by bar, and there, sitting right on the far edge...

  The key.

  Gustav clapped his hands. “Bravo!”

  “Shhhh,” he hissed. “We don’t know if they all went upstairs. Maybe one of them is still down here.”

  “We have to go and find Alma,” said Gustav. “I won’t leave her in the hands of that beast a moment longer.”

  “Upstairs and back to the rear of the warehouse, I think. That’s what it sounded like. Maybe on a third floor.”

  “Yes, most definitely.”

  “But we can’t be sure how the sound travels up there. We might be hearing an echo down a corridor, off a wall.”

  “No,” said Gustav firmly. “I know a little about how sound travels. I’ve composed for off-stage instruments to replicate a far-off effect, in...” — he counted on his fingers — “six of my symphonies.”

  The distant trumpet calls in the Second Symphony, Mitch remembered; like a host of angels in the sky on recordings, but a shock when sat in Birmingham Town Hall listening to Simon Rattle conduct it. The sudden feeling that a part of the orchestra was lost, down some corridor at the rear of the building, trying to find their way to the stage.

  “Up that wooden staircase, twenty steps,” said Gustav, eyes closed, drawing a map in the air with his finger. “Around a vestibule, doubling back down a long corridor to the rear of the building for exactly thirty-nin
e steps; a door on the right to a stairwell; only twelve steps up to a third floor, and along for twelve paces to a door on the right. She is in a room no bigger than this one but with a rug on the floor, perhaps soft furnishings, a sofa or a bed.”

  He opened his eyes and smiled simply.

  “We know there are three of them,” Mitch said. “And they’re armed.”

  He turned the key in the lock, gripping it so tight. It turned and clicked over and the door breathed out.

  Pulling it towards him, it groaned and squealed.

  He squeezed through the gap and stepped out into the warehouse space. Gustav crept out after him, pulled the door closed and slotted the key back in the lock.

  Mitch nodded to the stairs on the other side of the warehouse and they tiptoed across the floor, winding their way between stacks of picture-frames.

  They were halfway across, stranded in the middle of the vast space, when the Eastman Gang’s boots came tramping back down the stairs.

  — 38 —

  GUSTAV WENT TO RETREAT. Mitch grabbed his overcoat sleeve and pulled him forward. Not back to that cell, not now they’d escaped. They pranced forward, heading for the stairway, their rapid tiptoeing drowned out by the clumsy footsteps booming down towards them.

  A door under the stairs. If it was unlocked they’d be able to sneak in. If not, just cower under the staircase and hope the men coming down didn’t turn and see them.

  As the gang shambled down the steps and came into sight of the warehouse space, Mitch gripped the door handle, turned it and pushed through.

  He pressed the door shut and leaned back against it. No window, dark room, but the dim outline of a workshop, benches laid out across a large room, vices, tools.

  The footsteps came clunking over their heads and stopped right at the foot of the stairs.

  “Wait up,” came Cyclone Louie’s voice.

  They shuffled to a stop, right outside the door. Mitch held his breath, calculating if he could dash across to that first workbench and grab the chisel that gleamed in the dim light before they opened the door.

  “We’re in too deep with this. Kid Twist is gonna hit the roof.”

  “Yeah,” said Gyp the Blood. “But like he said: they came downtown sticking their noses in our business. They gotta pay for that.”

  Just the two of them. So Zelig was upstairs with Alma still and these two had been sent away. If he’d sent them downstairs to check on the prisoners, they had only a moment to burst out of the room and run up the stairs, and hope the gangsters’ aim across the warehouse space was wide. Then they’d have to tackle Zelig and hope he didn’t have a gun. Then find another way out of there.

  “Jack’s off the reservation here,” said Cyclone. “Strictly downtown. We know that.”

  So that was it. This Kid Twist was evidently top dog and Jack Zelig was acting out of line. Perhaps this was a sliver of hope. A gap through which they could drive a wedge. Or maybe they just had to fight their way out of here with brute force.

  That gave the gang the edge. They were more adept at brute force.

  “Yeah, but what can you do?” said Gyp.

  “I’m gonna tell the Kid. He’s the boss.”

  “For now,” said Gyp.

  “What do you mean?”

  They carried on across the warehouse and their voices became an indistinct murmur.

  Gustav let out a sigh, breathing again.

  Mitch put up a finger, shushing him, straining to hear the direction of their footsteps echoing across the cavernous space.

  They weren’t walking back to the storeroom to check on the prisoners. They were going out the back way, through the loading bay.

  A door banged shut like a gunshot and everything was silent.

  “We need weapons,” Mitch whispered.

  He peeled himself from the door and scoured the work benches, looking for a hammer. But a hammer was too heavy and needed a long swing. A chisel would be better. He felt the weight of it in his hand and practised a few slicing motions. Clumsy, and only useful at close quarters if you jabbed it into someone’s neck.

  He turned to find Gustav holding an oil lamp.

  “A lamp?”

  “Yes. It’s perfect.” Gustav dug matches from his pocket and lit the wick, screwing the lamp shade back on. It gave off a dim glow. “If he comes at us, I’ll throw it at him.”

  A Molotov Cocktail. It was actually a good idea.

  “Come on,” said Mitch. “Let’s do it.”

  Silence beyond the door. He pulled it open, tight grip on the handle, and they crept back out.

  Footsteps tramping down the stairs, rapid. Had he been waiting, listening?

  They stood frozen. Caught.

  The boots came tramping down the wooden steps, over their heads. Whistling.

  He hadn’t heard them.

  Jack Zelig reached the bottom of the stairs and marched across the space, heading for the store room. He was going to check on them.

  They stood deathly still, watching him go for the door. In a moment he would turn the key and see that they were gone.

  As he got close, he pulled a gun from his waistband.

  He would see they were gone.

  He would turn.

  He would see them standing staring at him.

  He would shoot.

  Mitch gripped the chisel tighter and wondered if he could throw it with any accuracy.

  Zelig stopped whistling, turned the key, pushed the door open and pointed his gun inside.

  For a moment it was just his back, trying to work it out. Then he turned and saw them.

  He stared for a moment, uncomprehending.

  Rage ignited in his eyes and he raised his gun.

  Gustav ran forward and launched the lamp across the room. It arced through the air and smashed at his feet.

  Zelig jumped back.

  A whoosh of blue light ignited and leapt for the ceiling.

  Zelig disappeared behind a wall of bright flame for a moment, and then he shot through the flames.

  A great bang echoed through the building and the wooden panels of the door behind them shattered, splinters flying.

  Gustav shoved Mitch to the stairs and they stumbled up them, vaulting two at a time.

  Another shot.

  Mitch felt it flash white hot across his knee, the plaster in the wall exploding.

  He caught a last glimpse of Zelig backing off from the flames, covering his mouth. A giant blaze of red blue black blooming across the stacks of picture-frames.

  They jumped up the stairs to the safety of the upper floor.

  “We have to find Alma, quickly!” Gustav yelled.

  As they ran on down the long corridor, Mitch was aware that Alma was at the top of the building and the floor below them was on fire.

  They had only moments to find her and get out somehow.

  — 39 —

  THEY CAME TO THE END of the corridor, their shoes skidding into a vestibule.

  “Thirty nine steps,” Gustav cried with triumph, doubling back down a long parallel corridor to the rear of the building. “This way!”

  A door on the right opened to a stairwell.

  They ran up twelve steps to a third floor. Another short corridor.

  “Twelve paces to a door on the right,” said Gustav, pointing.

  He ran and Mitch followed as he pushed through to a lounge.

  Alma turned with fright and cried with joy.

  Gustav ran to her and kissed her face a hundred times, moaning, “Almschi, Almschi, Almschi!”

  Mitch looked down at the chisel in his fist. Such a useless weapon. He scanned the room for a way out. Just a window, barred. They had to go back.

  “We have to go,” he said.

  Alma and Gustav turned, as if caught in a kiss. She leapt for her coat and hat.

  Back out, they crept down the stairs, to the long corridor, through the vestibule and turned.

  He wondered if Zelig would be there, chasing them, or w
aiting in ambush.

  At the end of the corridor, at the top of the stairs, was not Zelig but a cloud of thick, black smoke, as if the mobster had taken another shape and was pouring up the stairs for them.

  They had to run towards the smoke, to the stairs. Heat from below blasted their faces.

  The entire ground floor was an inferno.

  “There’s no way out through that,” Mitch yelled. “We have to go up.”

  They ran back along the corridor, the smoke chasing them, Alma coughing, her arm caught in the sleeve of her coat as she tried to pull it on.

  Through the vestibule, back along the corridor.

  He pushed at doors either side of the corridor, finding offices and storerooms.

  The awful feeling that they were simply heading back to Alma’s cell, where there was no way out.

  Gustav slammed a door open and shouted, “Here!”

  A stairwell leading up to a door.

  Gustav clambered up and pushed it open, revealing bright sky and a sudden rush of sweet air.

  Mitch pushed Alma on up ahead and she clambered up, holding her skirts.

  He followed and they burst out onto the roof.

  Four columns of black smoke streamed up the side of the building. Mitch ran towards them and peered down onto Canal Street.

  A crowd down there gasped and cried out at the sight of him. A woman screamed and pointed.

  Fire bells ringing a few streets away. A fire team already there, pulling their cart into place and unwinding a hose. A few of the fire fighters stormed into the building.

  He wondered if Zelig was still down there and might shoot anyone he saw.

  No, he would surely have fled.

  Gustav and Alma joined him and stopped short at the drop. Another cry went up from the crowd.

  They ran across the flat roof to the rear of the building and peered over.

  Another sheer drop of fifty feet.

  Firemen running round down there looked up, saw them and called out.

  Mitch waved a ‘no’ and hoped they understood. He pointed down the row to the next building.

  They ran again to the edge and he prayed under his breath that there was a ladder to the next roof. But there was nothing but a sheer edge.