Hudson's Kill--A Justice Flanagan Thriller

by Paddy Hirsch

  She was equally sure that she would never ascend to the highest level of the prostitute’s universe, that of the gentry-mort. These men and women catered exclusively to New York’s upper classes. A handful even came from that class themselves, but had fallen on hard times and were forced to sell themselves from time to time, to maintain their lifestyles. These part-timers were called high-fliers or lady-birds. Most professional gentry-morts operated independently, with a handful of clients, but some preferred to work as case-vrows, in the most exclusive, highly discreet establishments on Cherry Street, or in the Holy Ground, the notorious district behind St. Paul’s chapel that was owned by the Episcopal Church, but was nonetheless home to several well-appointed mansions of ill repute.

  Tanny had never worked Cherry Street or the Holy Ground herself, but she knew many of the gentry-morts who did. She mixed with them in the infamous third tiers of the Park Street and John Street theaters, or at a balum rancum, the lewd parties thrown by wealthy and dissolute New Yorkers, where prostitutes were hired to dance and mingle naked with the invitees. But while associating with them was one thing, joining their ranks was quite another. Not that Tanny wasn’t pretty, or popular or skilled enough, she assured Kerry. Just that she was too dark and too petite and a little too rough around the edges.

  “Not like you,” she said. They were back in the Rose Room, which was a tiny space, with a wooden floor, lit by a single window. There was a wide bed with a thick mattress, a tired-looking armchair, and a small table. But it was clean and tidy and free of dust. The walls had been whitewashed, the floor scrubbed, and the window rinsed, so that the sunlight sparkled on it.

  Tanny made Kerry turn in a circle. “You ain’t got much of a breech on you. And you don’t sport much of a dairy, neither. But that don’t mean much. Some of these gentry-morts are so spider-shanked and hatchet-faced you’d think they were coves. But some like it that way, I suppose.”

  “What about my color? Could I pass for white?”

  “You ain’t turnip-pated like the English or the Cloggies. But you might pass for Spanish. Them coolers got that dark hair and olive skin, and there’s plenty of coves like that well enough. Plus you simper nice, and you got a good set of grinders, and that helps. Lift up your skirt.”

  Kerry did as she was told, bunching the folds of material at her waist.

  Tanny raised an approving eyebrow. “That’s a rum set of games there. You want to show ’em off as much as you can. You got any buntings with a long slit in them? Or any other rig what’ll show some skin?”

  “I’m a teacher, Tanny. I don’t have any togs like that.”

  Tanny’s white, even teeth were like a light in the dim little room. “Just as I hoped. Time for us to do a bit of shopping.”

  SIXTEEN

  Justy settled on the luxurious cushions of his new carriage and closed his eyes. It was not yet noon, and yet he was exhausted. It was all the administration. When he had arrived at his desk, he had found it piled with papers. Writs of protests from attorneys; the schedule for the security detail guarding the secret Planning Commission; summonses from the court; and the inevitable tract about the horrors of popery, complete with a picture of Satan dressed as a nun. The only document he was really interested in was the duty constable’s report from the night before.

  It had been an unusually slow night, for a Sunday. There were only two reported incidents. A group of women who had drunk too much at a birthday celebration had decided to relieve themselves in the middle of John Street, just as the Mayor’s wife was leaving the theater. And someone had alerted a watchman to a large gathering of men on some waste ground behind George Street. The watchman had gone to investigate, but the crowd of men had disappeared.

  The carriage lurched over a bump in the road and Justy sat up, rubbing his face. He could not shake the thought of the dead girl, lying in the muck of the alley. It made him feel uneasy, almost panicked. It was not what he usually felt. He did not think of himself as a hard-hearted man, but he had seen enough death and investigated enough murders to know he had to keep himself at arm’s length from the victims. But this was different. Perhaps because the girl was so young.

  He thought about his dream. He still could not recall it. But he remembered the feelings. The same panic he was feeling now. The same unease. The same anger. He thought of Piers Riker and felt the anger flare. He wanted to drive down to Beaver Street and push himself into the man’s smug, sallow face and demand to know his whereabouts on Saturday night. But he had to investigate the watchman’s report first. Hays would never forgive him if he did not. Large gatherings of men usually meant trouble, especially in that quarter of the city. And the wrong kind of trouble might mean fire. And because New York City’s buildings, old and new, were still made mostly of wood, fire was Jake Hays’ principal concern.

  George Street wasn’t far, and Justy could have walked. But he took the carriage. And why not? It was convenient, it was luxurious. It was his. He ran his hands over the buttery leather of the seat for what seemed like the hundredth time, wondering at how soft it was, as the cab rocked gently along the street. And then he heard the muffled sound of the driver, clucking his tongue at the horses, and he felt a chill in his guts. Hardluck was his, too. His slave.

  Damn Piers Riker.

  Well, it would not be so for long. He would have freed the jarvie on the spot, except that giving a man his freedom was not as simple a matter as opening the door and letting him walk away. It was a legal process that required paperwork and signatures and witnesses and official stamps. And not merely to satisfy the law. Hardluck would need written proof of his status that he could carry with him, if he was not to be grabbed up by runaway slave catchers. And those papers took time to arrange. Time that Justy did not have enough of, not if he was to investigate mysterious gatherings of men, and not if he was to find the killer of a girl whose only misstep was to have become pregnant. He hated himself for it, but Hardluck would have to wait.

  The carriage pulled smoothly to a halt, and Justy looked out of the carriage window onto a strip of taverns, brothels, flop houses, and oyster cellars that tipped downhill for a ragged quarter mile. George Street, or Laycock Lane, as most New Yorkers called it. The lane was just one of several quarters of the city that laborers, longshoremen, soldiers, and sailors went to spend what little money they made on cheap drink, food, and sex, but it was by far the most lively.

  The Bull owned every building on the street. He owned the grand four-story brownstones and the old wooden steep-roofed Dutch barns; he owned the cottage-style taverns and the shaky brick tenements with their rickety balconies. He owned the stables and the pigsties and the outhouses. He owned the strips of wasteland that the street bunters did their business on, and the square yards of payment where the penny-rum sellers flogged their rot-gut liquor. They all paid the Bull. The hundreds of men and women who lived on Laycock Lane paid rent, and the hundreds of streetwalkers and stallholders who set up shop there each evening paid a tax. In return, they could do whatever they wished, free from the interference of Federal Hall and the prying eyes and preaching mouths of the upright men and women who considered themselves the moral heart of the city.

  Tickler’s Alley was the entry point to a quarter acre of wasteland tucked behind a stable. It was the former site of a pie shop, owned by one Maurice Tickler, that had burned down a few years before. The old painted sign TICKLER’S PIES still adorned the wall of the alley and gave it its name. The land was deserted, which was unusual, as it was popular with bunters, who did business on the stony, patchy grass and slept there afterwards. It was also the best staging point for twenty armed men intent on wreaking havoc on Laycock Lane.

  The sound of boots crunching on loose stone made him turn. A heavyset man stood in the entrance to the alleyway, dressed in a rough linen coat and a farmer cap. Prelim “Cooper” Corrigan, one of the Bull’s trusties, nicknamed so because he liked to nail his victims into barrels half-full of spoiled ale before rolling them dow
n hills until they learned their lessons or died. Not that he had ever been caught.

  Corrigan nodded. Justy ignored him.

  Corrigan stood aside to let another man pass. Ignatius Flanagan was a half-foot bigger and wider than his bodyguard. He seemed to fill the alleyway up.

  “Uncle,” Justy said.

  The Bull nodded. “Well met, Justice. How did you know I’d be here?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You mean you didn’t happen by for a visit?” He feigned disappointment. He was immaculately dressed, as always, in an indigo coat over a black waistcoat and matching breeches that strained to encompass his swollen belly and barrel chest. The Bull didn’t drink, but he liked to eat, sweets in particular, and Justy saw a light dusting of powdered sugar on the lapel of his coat that spoke of a mid-morning doughnut or pastry. Or two. He had become as big as a prime bullock in recent years, but he was still fast and strong, and word had it he would occasionally make an example of someone, to prove he was every bit as brutal now as he was aged twenty.

  “I heard there was a bit of a rumpus last night,” Justy said.

  “Not much to tell. A gang of hackums crewed up here, then stepped into the lane. They were all set to get cracking when some upstanding citizen stopped them.”

  “You saw this?”

  The Bull shook his head. “I was tucked up in my scratcher. Prelim Corrigan was the duty man, and Lizzie Toms told him.”

  “Lizzie Toms the madam?”

  “You’re familiar with the Buttered Bun, then, Nephew?”

  Justy said nothing. The Bull’s mouth twitched into what passed for a smile. “Well, Lizzie telt Prelim some matelot glimmed what was afoot, and stepped out to stop it. She said he dropped the front man and the rest piked on the bene.”

  “They just ran off? How many were there?”

  “Twenty or so, she reckoned. All strapped with torches and toasting forks.”

  “And the sailor?”

  The Bull shrugged. “You’d have to ask Lizzie.”

  “Lizzie Toms won’t talk to a Marshal.”

  “She will if I make the introduction.” The Bull smirked, a mean, yellow slit in the gray slab of his face. “I can tell her to sort you out, too, if you fancy. It’s quite a covey of gigglers she’s grown in there.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “You sure? Only I heard you might be looking for some comfort.”

  “You are misinformed, Uncle.” Justy felt his face burn.

  The Bull laughed, a hard bark. “Come on, then.”

  They made their way down the alley to the street. The Buttered Bun was an old wooden house, three stories high, built in the Dutch style with a steep-pitched roof. It was flanked by two poorly built warehouses made of crumbling red brick. With its brown shingles and fresh white paint, it looked like a little old lady sandwiched between a pair of drunken soldiers.

  Justy had never met Lizzie Toms, but he had heard plenty. The streetwalkers brought in by the Watch had a hundred names for her: ape leader, fustiluggs, Munster heifer, meer fussocks, pocky trot, platter-faced jade. All of which made him expect a large, middle-aged, overweight woman, with heavy legs, and a wide, round face marked with smallpox scars. So he was surprised by the petite, slim, blonde-haired madam who emerged from the back of the small, neat reception area in the front of the brothel. Lizzie Toms looked as though she was barely out of her teens. She was dressed modestly, in a high-necked blouse and a long, dark blue skirt. Her hair was styled simply, pulled back from her face and secured with a bow of black silk, like a man’s. Her skin was pale, and as clear as a glass of river water. She dipped a small curtsey when she saw the Bull. “How now, Mister Flanagan?”

  The Bull made an awkward little bow. “Good day to you, Lizzie. And how many times must I tell you to call me Ignatius? How goes the day?”

  “Tol-lol, I suppose.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Ignatius.”

  The Bull seemed to swell up a little. Justy was shocked to see a smile twist his lips, and wrinkles appear around his eyes. He slapped Justy on the shoulder. “This here’s my nephew. Justice Flanagan. You’ve not met him, I take it.”

  The eyelashes fluttered again. “No. But I’ve heard of the Marshal, of course.” Her voice was soft, almost meek. Could this be the same woman that the streetwalkers despised as a brutal, vindictive madam who whipped her girls for the slightest infraction?

  “Are you Lizzie Toms?” Justy asked.

  “I am, sir.”

  “And this is your establishment?”

  “It is. Thanks to your uncle, who has been so kind to me.” She gave a shy smile that somehow included them both. “You’re most welcome here.”

  Justy imagined he could hear the grin splitting the Bull’s face. “My uncle tells me you witnessed the fracas last night.”

  “That’s right, sir.” She went to a counter in the corner of the small foyer, and perched on a tall stool, her hands posed daintily in her lap. “A group of men, perhaps twenty or twenty-five, coming out of the alley opposite. Some were carrying torches, others had swords and staves.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Nothing at first. They lined up across the street, blocking it off at the top end, all shouting and waving their weapons. They looked to be readying themselves for a fight.”

  Justy nodded. “What then?”

  “A man stepped out in front of them. He was a big Negro, with a long beard. He made some speech about putting the torch to the sinners. The usual tilly-tally that one hears from the reformists. It sent his men into a frenzy. Which is when the sailor came out.”

  “From here?”

  The madam nodded. “He was sitting just where I am now, drinking stout and port wine.”

  “How do you know he was a sailor?”

  “He came with his shipmates. They were telling sea stories. You know the way they do.”

  Justy nodded. “So what did he do?”

  “Well, he was as cool as you like. As soon as he heard the big Negro shout, he got up and strolled past me, into the street. The man had his back to him, of course, and the sailor walked right up to him and said something. I couldn’t hear, but the Negro stopped sudden and whirled around, a blade in his hand.”

  “You saw the knife?”

  “Oh yes. A long one. A carving knife, perhaps. It flashed in the torchlight, clear as the day. The man was fast, but the sailor twisted away. He caught the man by the wrist, then hit him, very hard. And down he went.” She slapped her hand hard on the counter.

  “And then?”

  “Then he stepped over the man. ‘Who’s next?’ he asked, and they all just looked at each other and started backing up the street.”

  “They left their man behind?”

  “I thought they might, but the sailor called out to them, ‘Hey! Take your litter with you!’ and waited until four men hurried back to pick the man up and carry him away.”

  “And that was that?”

  “That was that.”

  Justy thought. “You said the lead man was black. What about the rest of them?”

  She shrugged. “It was hard to see. Some of them, sure.”

  He looked around the small space. The counter was a good vantage point to watch the door of the brothel and the street beyond.

  “You said the sailor was here with some shipmates.”

  “That’s right. They were eight men altogether. But he was the only one left down here. The rest were upstairs.”

  “And he stayed down here the whole time?”

  The madam’s blonde ponytail bobbed. “The whole time.”

  A careful man, then. Keeping watch for his mates. Drinking some, but not too much, and not allowing himself to be tempted by Lizzie Toms’ girls. A wise precaution on Laycock Lane, where there were as many thieves working the crowds as there were cobbles on the street.

  “Do you know anything about these sailors? What ship they were from?”

  “No. But it can’t be a galleon, beca
use they said they didn’t have a doctor on board, and those big ships always do.”

  “Why did they need a doctor?”

  “Why, for their man. The blood was running out of him like a river.”

  “So the knife did catch him?”

  “Just here.” Lizzie touched her side, under her left arm. “Opened him right up. One of his men pulled his shirt open and I saw the whites of his ribs. But he stayed on his feet.”

  “A hard man,” the Bull said.

  “And big with it. He had to duck his head to get out of the door there.”

  Which meant he was several inches taller than Justy. “Where did they take him?”

  The madam shrugged. “I’ve no idea. The Almshouse, perhaps. It’s closer than the hospital. But wherever he is, he won’t be hard to find. A man as big as that, with his hair that red, and a beard like a bonfire? There can’t be two of the like of him in this city.”

  * * *

  Lars Hokkanssen lay, eyes closed, on a straw-stuffed mattress on a raised pallet in the corner of a long, pale room. He was naked, the lower part of his body covered by a threadbare sheet of coarse linen, and his torso wrapped in a thick cotton bandage. Blood had leaked through the cotton in a long, fat curve from his sternum to the pit of his left arm. His skin matched the whitewashed walls. His red hair and beard looked like red paint, spilled on the pillow.