Eve felt her legs weaken. Fear was pounding away in her and she couldn’t stop it.
“Who are you!?” the fat one shouted, spit exploding from his lips.
Suddenly, from somewhere out in the darkness, Eve heard a strong, booming voice.
“She’s my wife, you dirt-dumb bootlicks.”
CHAPTER 23
Startled, the two thugs whirled toward the sound.
Eve jolted to attention, hearing the rushing of her breath. She knew that voice. It was Patrick’s! Her body surged with new life, and before she could stop herself, she shouted, “Patrick!”
And then Patrick Gantly emerged from the darkness, standing tall and resolute in the single pool of lamplight. He was hatless, wearing a dark suit, his face grim and hard, his dark hair gleaming, his hands hidden behind his back.
The goons stiffened, and their menacing eyes narrowed on him. They shuffled in front of the ladies, knives raised in a threat.
“And a good wife she is, gentlemen,” Patrick continued. “But I warn you, she is not one to be trifled with, and from the looks of it, you two beard splitters did just that. Ah, yes, and now I’m afraid there will be hell to pay.”
Eve’s heart jumped. She stood stunned, thrilled and shaking with relief and joy, despite the knife that was pointed at her throat. She wanted to slap the thing away, run to Patrick and have him catch her up in his arms.
“Are you all right, Eve?” Patrick asked in a smooth, even voice.
“Yes… Yes… I’m fine, Patrick.”
“You don’t look so fine right now, Eve. You’ve attracted the wrong sort to you. Two clueless cowards, I think.”
“Who are you?” the fat one shouted, snarling out the words.
“I’m Patrick, and I am assuming you work for Big Jim Clancy.”
“I have a knife to her throat. You don’t assume anything, or she dies.”
“Ah, yes… the coward’s way,” Patrick said, coolly. “Don’t fight the man, threaten the lady with a big knife. You disappoint me, bootlicks. Yes, you do. Little boys and cowards, with knives. I thought I had come to fight men, not a string bean and a big bloated potato with the courage of a mouse.”
The fat man gave a broad, unctuous smile but revealed a savage expression. “I will kill her, friend. You walk away now or, so help me, I’ll do it.”
“Of course you will, you fat cowardly potato. Anybody ever tell you, you’ve a head like a bag of spuds?”
“Who the balls are you?” Donny barked out in a thick, raspy voice. He turned to Alfie. “Who is he, Alfie?”
“I told you, you thick blockhead. I’m Patrick, and I think you boys and me is gonna have a donnybrook. You need to let the girls go now, so the men can go to work.”
The fat one barked a laugh. “You’re a pig, Patrick, and I’m going to cut you up into little pieces and make a good and crispy pork pie out of you.”
Patrick grinned darkly, with a little shake of his head. “Why are all the fat and ugly lads always such braggarts? The last thing you need, piggy boy, is a pork pie. Hey, tell me true, boys: do the two of you bootlicks fancy each other? I’ve heard Big Jim’s bully boys are all sweeties. Is it true, bootlicks?”
The two men looked at each other, rage building in them.
Patrick continued taunting them. “I have been checking up on you two blockheads and I learned that Big Jim always sends you two cowards out on the easy jobs. You go after old men and ladies because, hey, they can’t fight you back, can they? Did you know that it’s all over town that you two are Big Jimmy’s favorite sweetie boys? Yeah, you can’t fight the men, but you’re so brave with the helpless ladies. Too scared to fight the lads who can give you a taste of the devil’s own. Is that true, bootlicks?”
Alfie turned to Donny, his teeth clenched in rage. “Go get him, Donny. Cut him up and send him to hell.”
Donny stared back at Alfie, his forehead pinched, eyes conflicted and shifting. He didn’t move.
“Go, Donny! Take him.”
Donny scratched his cheek, licked his lips and squared his shoulders, his right eye twitching.
“That’s a good boy,” Patrick said, beckoning Donny with a lift of his chin and wiggling fingers. “Come over here and send old Patrick to hell. Why don’t you fight a man instead of the helpless, who can’t fight back?”
Eve felt a furnace of fear. She’d just found Patrick again, and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him like this. Her breath stuck in her throat.
Donny advanced slowly, knife tight and visible in his big hand. He crouched, readying himself for battle. Patrick didn’t stir. He waited and watched, his hands still hidden behind his back.
Donny paused about five feet away, glancing about to ensure Patrick was alone.
“Finish him!” Alfie shouted.
“You heard your fat yellow boss, Donny. Finish me.”
“You shut up!” Donny thundered. “Just shut your mouth.”
Donny lunged forward, the knife swinging at Patrick’s belly. Patrick arched back and leaped away and, for the first time, Patrick released his hands from behind his back, revealing a three-foot-long 2x4. He gripped it threateningly in his right hand.
Donny stumbled backward in surprise as Patrick advanced on him, face hard, eyes afire. Patrick knew from his days growing up on the Lower East Side streets, and from working as a detective sergeant for the police, that the best defense against a knife was a chair or a barstool. He had neither. Even though he and Donny were about the same height, Patrick had at least twenty pounds on him. That was good and bad. Donny looked spry and quick, his arms long, with a good reach.
Patrick would have to watch him, bob and weave and skip. In a street fight, Patrick knew you didn’t wait. You attacked, and you kept on attacking until one or the other was down.
“Get him, Donny,” Alfie roared. “Now!”
Donny rushed Patrick again, the knife flashing in the light. Patrick danced away, spun around, found his balance and charged Donny, club poised. Flat footed, Donny stood frozen, eyes wide in shock. At the last minute, Donny tried to duck, but Patrick had him dead center.
Patrick came around swinging, bringing all his muscled 220 pounds to bear on the left side of Donny’s head. Donny threw up a hand to protect himself, but it was too late. The 2x4 club caught him hard, the impact spinning him, his hat flying away. He went sprawling, a clumsy dancer all arms and fumbling legs. The knife flew off into darkness, and an angry, barking dog shattered the quiet.
Donny splashed to the ground, bouncing and rolling, crashing into a wooden barrel and toppling it. A rat broke from the shadows and fled up the alley, his bloated body waddling away into darkness.
On a furious impulse, Alfie broke away from Eve, springing into action, hurling himself forward toward Patrick, his knife poised to rip and cut.
Eve screamed, “Look out, Patrick!”
Patrick just managed to rotate and find his footing as Alfie lunged, swinging his long angry knife. It whispered past Patrick’s face. Patrick back-peddled as Alfie attacked again, charging, swinging, growling. With a straining effort, he lashed at Patrick’s body.
As Patrick arched back, the tip of the blade slashed an ugly gash into his coat, ripping off buttons. Patrick fought to anchor himself. He danced, spun and righted himself and returned the attack, swinging the club. Alfie ducked and faltered, breath puffing from his mouth. Patrick swung again, just missing, hearing the wind whoosh by Alfie’s big head.
Off balance now, the fat man huffed out air, struggling to stay on his feet. Patrick didn’t wait. He attacked, wheeling the club like a bat. It slammed into Alfie’s right temple.
Eve heard the dull thud of impact. She winced as Alfie’s plug hat flew from his head, hit the cobbles, skipped and rolled. Alfie screamed out in pain, angry and wounded. Patrick moved in fast, clubbing the knife from Alfie’s hand. It dropped to the cobblestones, the steel blade looking up, shining and sinister.
Wasting no time before Alfie recovered his stre
ngth, Patrick dropped the club and charged. With a raised, heavy fist, he punched the fat man hard in his right jaw. Alfie’s eyes popped open in shock. Blood gushed from the side of his head, pouring over his right eye. Still, he stayed on his feet, shouting obscenities, stumbling about like a drunken man, swinging his granite fists widely as if fighting off a gang of hostile ghosts.
“I’ll kill you,” he shouted. “I’ll cut you, you bastard!”
Patrick darted in and threw a solid right fist into Alfie’s Adam’s apple. Stunned, Alfie jerked back, clawing at his throat, coughing and gagging. Disoriented and blunted, he staggered left and right, finally falling to his knees, his tormented face toward the sky, gasping for air.
As breath thundered in and out of his lungs, Patrick dropped down. He placed one of his palms over Alfie’s chin and the other around the backside of his head. He twisted violently. There was a crack.
Eve hid her eyes and turned away.
Alfie toppled over in a heap to the damp cobbles, and the lamplight caught his open, vacant eyes. Patrick had broken his neck.
Patrick raised to his knees, glancing about, expecting another attack. When none came, he pushed up, shaken, his broad chest heaving, gulping in air. Seconds later, he crept toward Donny. He stood over his silent, still body, waiting, watchful. He crouched to one knee and stuck a finger in the side of Donny’s neck. No pulse. He was dead. Both men were dead.
Patrick got to his feet, his breath stilted and ragged as he cast glances up and down the alley with a tense animal awareness. He tore a hand through his thick tousled hair, heaved out a sigh, and gathered up the two knives and the 2x4. He dropped the knives into his coat pocket and held on to the club. He’d toss them into the East River later.
When he started over to Eve, she rushed into his arms and buried her face in his broad shoulder. Feeling his thumping pulse and smelling the masculine scent of him, she wrapped him tightly in her arms. He wrapped his free arm around her.
“Are you okay, Eve?” he said softly, his breath still coming fast.
“…Yes. Now that you’re here. Yes. Where have you been?”
“It’s a long story, Eve. We’ve no time to talk now. Let’s get your friend up and get out of here before the police come. It won’t be pleasant if they find us.”
CHAPTER 24
Later that night, in a room at the Hotel Bartholdi at Broadway and 23rd Street, Eve sat on the lumpy green couch next to Patrick. It was an old hotel, built in 1876, but Patrick had known about it in 1885 and he was happy to see it was still standing.
“It’s cheap enough,” Patrick said, “And it was the first place I thought of when I arrived here. I was so disoriented and exhausted that despite my determination to find you and Maggie, I dropped into the bed and slept for hours.”
Eve appraised the room—the worn Victorian furniture, sagging bed, frayed carpet, heavy blue velvet drapes and faded rose wallpaper.
“Well, I like the wallpaper,” Eve said, as she sipped brandy from a water glass. She leaned her head back as Patrick gently blotted her red cheek with a cool cloth.
“You can stop that now. I’m okay. Really.”
“Humor me, okay, Mrs. Gantly? You’re still shaking like a leaf and your face is all swollen up where that fat man hit you.”
Eve shut her eyes for a moment. “I’ve seen people die, but never like that. It’s going to take time to erase those awful images from my mind. I guess there was no other way? I mean, you had to kill them?”
“Those two lads were going to kill you and your friend, Irene, and toss you both into the East River. In case you didn’t notice, they were also out to kill me. No, there was no other way. With men like that you kill or be killed. I learned that long ago, Eve. They are lost souls in this world and they taunt and kill for fun and money.”
Eve opened her eyes fully on him, exploring his handsome face with new pleasure. “God, I am so glad to see you, Patrick. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, those men would have raped and killed us.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “Sorry you had to see the violence of it. I know it wasn’t pretty.”
“When you were a detective sergeant back in 1885, did you have to do much of that kind of fighting? Did you have to kill like that?”
“Not so much. We had guns, you know. Thank the good Lord those lads didn’t carry guns. Theirs was meant to be a silent killing, and it was meant to be easy. They didn’t want noise or the cops coming down on them.”
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Eve asked.
“I grew up on the Lower East Side. My Da was out of work often, and times were hard, and times were rough. It was a bleak and fierce neighborhood, where fighting was the sport of the day. You had to learn to fight or you’d soon die. It’s not like the coppers cared who we fought or who died, or how they died. I’ve fought lads like those two flat-footed duffers since I was ten years old. I didn’t always have to kill, but it was often a fight to the death, with broken bottles, knives and clubs and plenty of broken noses and bones.”
Eve was silent as she thought about it. “I’m not sure you ever told me that before.”
“Well, there was no need, was there? And, like any new husband, I wanted you to think the best of me.”
Eve shuddered. “Thank God you showed up.”
He stroked her hair. “I will always show up. Anyway, now we’re even.”
“What do you mean, even?”
“You saved my life in 1885 when I was shot, and now I’ve saved yours. Do you know what that means, Mrs. Gantly? It means we will be together for all time.”
Eve reached for his hand and kissed it. “And that’s another reason I love you, Detective Sergeant Patrick Gantly. You’re a true nineteenth-century romantic.”
He rested his eyes on her warmly. “Drink the brandy, my love. It will help calm you.”
Eve tipped back the glass and swallowed the last of the brandy. She winced, feeling the sharpness and the heat. “It’s not the best brandy I’ve ever had, Patrick. I don’t even want to know where you got this.”
“Well, don’t you worry about that. It will do the job, Mrs. Gantly.”
He reached for the square brown bottle to pour her another. She held up a hand. “No, Patrick, I’m already light-headed.”
“It’s after midnight, Eve. You need to sleep, and I think that lump on your cheek is going to keep you up.”
“Not to worry about that. Besides the antibiotics, I brought some extra strength Tylenol. I took two while you were out making sure we weren’t followed. I’ll be asleep in twenty minutes. But before I do drop off, when are you going to tell me what happened to you when we got separated, and how long you’ve been here?”
“I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”
“Come on. Tell me. I was worried sick.”
Patrick stood up, set the brandy bottle on a side table and went into the small bathroom to drop the wet cloth in the sink.
When he returned, Eve was awake and waiting. “I will tell you, I promise, but right now we have got to make some plans and make them quick. Big Jim Clancy is going to be looking for you. He’s going to be mad as the dickens and he’s going to want to know who killed his two lads. He will be rabid, like a wild animal.”
Eve looked down at her soiled dress. She hadn’t taken the time to change when she’d arrived at the hotel. She’d just flopped down, shaken and exhausted.
After the fight, Patrick had swept the still unconscious Irene up in his arms and, with Eve at his side and still wobbly on her feet, they’d fled the alley, eventually finding a taxi a block away, near a spooky-looking all-night café and a shady-looking tavern.
Fortunately, Irene had returned to consciousness just as the taxi came into view, and Patrick lowered her to her feet, allowing her time to find balance as she staggered for a time on rubbery legs. Patrick did not want a suspicious hack driver asking a lot of questions, so he and Eve each took an arm and helped Irene into the taxi. For all P
atrick knew, the driver could be on Big Jim’s payroll.
Eve told the driver to drop them a block away from the Casterbury mansion. When they arrived, Patrick left the front seat for the back, and remained in the cab, while Eve escorted a still badly shaken Irene down the sidewalk to the mansion’s walkway and front door.
Once Charles, the butler, had Irene safely inside, Eve turned away without explanation and hurried back to the taxi.
The car motored away into the night, leaving Charles to speculate and grow suspicious. No doubt, he’d promptly contacted Addison.
In the taxi, Patrick was on high alert. “How is she?” Patrick whispered.
“Traumatized.”
“She kept staring at me,” Patrick said.
“I told her you lived in that neighborhood, and you came to our rescue.”
“Did she believe you?”
Eve shrugged. “She didn’t say anything. Do you think Big Jim will go looking for her?”
“I don’t think so… No one but those two lads saw her with you.”
Patrick told the grizzled, gray-haired driver to take them to 22nd Street, near the East River. When they arrived, with Patrick still clutching the 2x4 at his side, he paid the driver, took Eve’s arm and ushered her out. The taxi lingered for a time. Patrick didn’t like that, so he waited until the red tail lights were swallowed by the hazy night and then he and Eve moved off into shadows. They passed gray, seven-story tenements, taking quick steps down a curved, feebly lighted walkway that led to the East River.
Standing behind a wrought iron railing, Patrick scanned the area for anything that looked suspicious. All was still and quiet. Patrick cocked an arm and flung the 2x4 away, watching it twirl, sail and splash into the dark, moving river. Next, he pulled the knives and tossed those. Eve saw a silver splash as they hit the water.
Patrick turned to her. She was trembling, and her teeth were chattering. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.
“All right, Eve, let’s get you someplace warm.”
The Christmas Eve Daughter - A Time Travel Novel: The Sequel to The Christmas Eve Letter Page 16
