House of Thieves

by Charles Belfoure

  With the ample income she earned at Miss Jennie’s, Kitty had acquired a nice apartment on East Nineteenth Street. It was there that George had noticed her sketches on the walls. He urged her to keep drawing, telling her she had real talent, and he told her about the Art Students League at Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. Kitty took classes in her spare time, and her drawing did improve. Her newfound talent thrilled her, filled her with pride. George loved and cared for her as a real person, she’d think sometimes as she filled a blank sheet of paper with images, black lines moving across the expanse of white. It was this quality that had won her heart. One day, she hoped, they would travel to California, to a place where she had no past, and they’d start a new life together. Kitty loved George so much. Watching him destroy himself with his sickness was killing her.

  “Please don’t go out tonight, Georgie. Remember, you promised to wait up and pose for me.”

  George leaned over, kissed her cheek, and nodded. He saw Kitty to the door of her apartment. In the carriage, he called out to the driver, “Fifty-Ninth and Seventh.”

  But after a few minutes, he thumped the roof of the carriage and shouted, “Do you know the Windsor Palace on the Bowery?”

  16

  Julia liked to think of it as a raging river of well-dressed society women, flowing endlessly from Twenty-Third to Fourteenth Streets. Every day, enormous numbers of ladies in a rainbow array of velvets, silks, brocades, and satins, all wearing large hats topped with flowers and feathers, traveled along Ladies’ Mile, the city’s prime shopping district. Huge department stores lined block after block, their plate glass windows full of wonderful things to buy—from pet monkeys to French silk stockings to Peruvian hat feathers. Broadway, the spine of the district, was packed with carriages of all varieties, horse-drawn trolleys, and hordes of pedestrians crossing back and forth between them.

  With her mother by her side, Julia was swept along in the current of shoppers. At Broadway and Nineteenth Street, they extracted themselves and entered the arched entrance of Lord & Taylor. The building, with its diagonal tower at the corner and a mansard roof (since childhood, her father had taught her architectural terms), had been built with cast iron. Julia’s father loved cast iron and used it on his own buildings, but he said some critics thought it a phony material that only pretended to be stone. Still, whenever Julia walked past a cast-iron building, she rapped her knuckles on a column to hear the metallic sound.

  Inside, they went into the double-height shopping space on the main floor. Although Julia’s coming-out gowns had already been ordered from Worth’s, there was still a whole new adult wardrobe to be selected. Dresses for mornings, afternoons, and evenings needed to be bought, each with dozens of accessories. The choices were daunting, and Julia felt a wave of envy for men, whose clothes were not meant to attract attention. A man who would dare wear a purple waistcoat, say, would be branded an outcast. But for society women, uniformity was a grave sin. Their wardrobes had to stand out and dazzle. The more extravagant, the better.

  Julia was glad that her mother was there to guide her. She knew Helen was considered a great beauty, and her choice of clothes was admired by all. Julia was also happy that Granny had not accompanied them. Since beginning preparations for her coming-out, Julia had been bombarded by advice from Granny. Last night, she proclaimed, “Unless very, very well acquainted, a man who grins at a lady when he tips his hat is not a gentleman of good breeding.”

  Julia and Helen liked to tackle one store a day instead of racing up and down Broadway. Yesterday, they had shopped at Arnold Constable. Tomorrow, a day at B. Altman was planned. After making some selections on the main floor of Lord & Taylor, they took the steam elevator to the upper levels. Each floor was a riot of femininity, with salesgirls waiting on well-dressed women at counters and wrapping desks and running back and forth with parcels and change. Little Lord & Taylor boys in white shirts followed behind the female shoppers, carrying their purchases. There was hardly a man to be seen.

  Mother and daughter patiently examined the wares, moving steadily up to the fifth floor with their bag boy. Finally, they descended to the luxurious reception room on the main floor where they ran into many friends and had tea while a woman played Brahms on the piano.

  On the way out, Helen realized she had left her gloves in the reception room and left Julia to wait outside the main entrance. Amid the flow of humanity up and down Broadway, Julia noticed a boy on a safety bicycle, the new kind with identically sized wheels. He slowly rode south—then accelerated and intentionally ran into an elderly woman crossing the street, knocking her over. His bike tipped. The boy got up, yelling and cursing at the woman for her carelessness. In a second, a crowd of people gathered, blocking Julia’s view. Straining to see, she made out a young man in his twenties, wearing a gray three-piece suit. He walked to the edge of the crowd, where a man was craning his neck, trying to see the commotion. In a fraction of a second, he stole the man’s wallet from his pants pocket. The young man walked slowly along the perimeter of the crowd and stole a wallet from another distracted man; an instant later, he stuck his hand in a woman’s blue velvet handbag and removed a leather change purse. He worked with lightning speed. Then he walked south on Broadway, as casually if he were taking an afternoon stroll. Julia was mesmerized, unable to believe what she’d just seen.

  Helen came up behind her. Julia kept her eyes glued on the man.

  “Mother, I just ran into Lavinia Stewart, and she asked me to go to Macy’s with her and her mother to look at a dress. I’ll take a hansom back home. Will that be all right?”

  “I suppose. I wanted to pop into W & J Sloane to look at a rug for Charlie’s bedroom. Don’t be late for supper, dear.”

  Julia kissed her mother and disappeared into the crowd. Breathless, she walked quickly down Broadway; soon, she was just twenty feet behind the man. A sense of giddy excitement swept over her. A great admirer of Dickens, she had read Oliver Twist three times, fascinated by the story of Fagin and his gang. But while she’d read about pickpockets, she’d never seen one.

  Near Broadway and Fifteenth Street, the boy on the bicycle reappeared and ran into an elderly man. A crowd formed, and the young man went to work. Julia stood in the doorway of a store and watched, grinning from ear to ear. When he finished, she kept following. The sidewalks were packed with shoppers. She knew she blended in with the crowd and wouldn’t be noticed, even if he turned around.

  The young man made his way to the Fourteenth Street station of the Sixth Avenue Elevated. The station, built of iron and covered with steep roofs capped by iron cresting and finials, straddled Fourteenth Street like a huge crab. As Julia followed, she passed through dappled patterns of sunlight and shadow thrown onto the street by the lattice-like train tracks above.

  Although her family’s main means of transportation was carriages, her father had taken her and her brothers for rides on the Third Avenue Elevated. The whole experience was thus quite familiar. Staying a healthy distance behind the pickpocket, she paid the off-peak fare of ten cents and went into the waiting room, an elegantly appointed space done in black walnut and stained glass. Soon the rumble of an approaching train began to vibrate the station like an earthquake tremor, and dozens of waiting passengers went out onto the platform. The pickpocket was taking an uptown train. Julia hid behind one of the slender cast-iron columns that held up the platform roof, but she could still see the man.

  The train’s steam engine screeched and hissed as it pulled into the station. Julia took a seat at the opposite end of the pickpocket’s car. The train lurched forward and picked up speed. Keeping one eye on the man, Julia looked out the window. The thing she liked most about riding the elevated was that you passed within a few feet of the apartment windows on the buildings lining the avenue, so close that she felt she could reach out and tap the inhabitants on the shoulders. It was better at night, of course. Then the apartments were lit up and you coul
d secretly observe the intimacy of people living their lives: eating, reading, arguing. She’d see a mother feeding a baby, two lovers holding hands on a sofa. It was like going to the theater, but with dozens of miniature stages stacked together. Julia was so caught up that she almost missed the pickpocket’s stop at Thirty-Second Street.

  After disembarking, the pickpocket walked down Sixth Avenue and stopped just south of Thirtieth Street, in front of a three-story brick building painted bright yellow. He went in, greeting the two men who were coming out. Julia cautiously approached the building, worried that he’d suddenly reappear. From the curb, she saw that the building was called the Haymarket Dance Hall. A sign by the door stated that women were admitted free, while men paid a twenty-five-cent admission. She went to the entrance to look inside, half expecting to see Fagin and his boys gathered around a table. Music emerged from within, and she stepped aside to let by a fat, middle-aged man holding the arm of a garishly dressed woman with rouge on her cheeks.

  A man in a black frock coat and gray trousers walked up to her and smiled. “What do ya say…two dollars…for an hour? That’s more than fair for a classy looker like you.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Julia said.

  “All right, three, then.”

  When Julia didn’t reply, the man shrugged his shoulders and walked on. Confused, Julia stepped up into the doorway to get a better look.

  “I wouldn’t go in if I were you,” said a voice directly behind her.

  Startled, Julia spun around to face the pickpocket. Up close, she saw that he was in his early twenties and surprisingly handsome, with penetrating blue eyes. Regaining her composure, Julia put on a look of indignation. “Why ever not? The sign says women can enter for free.”

  Her reply made the pickpocket laugh out loud. “You’re not that type of woman.”

  Baffled by his answer and angered by his laughter, Julia stiffened her spine and added ice to her voice. “Sir, I never talk to complete strangers on the street.”

  “But I’m not a stranger, am I? You’ve been following me since Fifteenth Street.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “You sat in the same car on the elevated.”

  “You’re terribly mistaken.”

  “You’d be a rotten undercover detective—you’re too beautiful. I spotted you a mile away.”

  Taken aback by the backhanded compliment, Julia paused, then went on the attack.

  “You’re a thief,” she said in a shrill, accusatory tone. “I saw you.”

  “So you caught me. Why not turn me over to the police? Look, here’s your chance.” The pickpocket pointed to a barrel-chested policeman strolling down Sixth Avenue, twirling his billy club. “Go ahead.”

  Tongue-tied, Julia looked down at the slate sidewalk as the cop passed by.

  “Dandy John Nolan’s my name,” said the pickpocket, tipping his bowler hat and grinning. Granny’s admonition from last night came immediately to mind, and Julia looked away.

  “Sir, we’ve not been formally introduced by our mothers.”

  “Who’s been feeding you that malarkey? Listen, you’ve come all the way up here. Let me buy you a beer. You seem real interested in what’s going on inside. I’ll show you. Come on.”

  Julia looked at the handsome young man and then at the double doors of the Haymarket Dance Hall, perplexed. If Fagin was in there, she was determined to see him. She wasn’t going to be afraid. Besides, didn’t writers need to experience all aspects of life?

  “I have never tasted beer,” she said softly.

  “Then you’re in for a treat. It’s the nectar of the gods.” Nolan flashed her a smile, which Julia shyly returned. He held out his arm, and she hesitated for a moment, then took it.

  Together, they went inside.

  17

  “This is a gold mine, Jimmy. A goddamn gold mine.”

  Kent watched Bella Levine pick through the stack of gowns and dresses heaped on the plank floor of the warehouse.

  “These are from Paris! Paris, Jimmy. The very best of the best. Look, see how they’re stitched with real silver and gold threads?” She was beside herself with excitement.

  Levine, a mountain of a woman who weighed more than three hundred pounds, let out a whoop of delight and flopped down face-first onto the huge pile of clothes.

  “I’m swimming in dough, Jimmy. Where d’you get this stuff?” she asked, caressing a green silk brocade gown. “This is better’n finding Captain Kidd’s treasure.”

  Kent smiled and blew a ring of cigar smoke into the stagnant air of the warehouse. “Yes, Bella, I’ve discovered a gold mine.”

  A professional thief with a great deal of stolen goods at hand is still poor. He can’t sell them or take them to merchants on the open market without arousing suspicion. He needs a fence to dispose of stolen goods, and Bella Levine had owned New York City’s best fencing operation for the last ten years. Bella handled millions of dollars in loot—for a hefty 50 percent fee, of course. But Kent knew it was worth it. Bella was honest and, above all, reliable. She and her husband lived in an opulently furnished three-story brownstone on East Twenty-Sixth Street from which she ran her fencing operation. Her business made her very rich and enabled her to bribe judges, police officers, and district attorneys into leaving her alone. She regularly entertained the city’s power fraternity, including Tammany men, with eight-course dinners at her home. Bella was the city’s foremost female criminal and greatly admired by other well-known female thieves like Kid Glove Rosey and Little Annie.

  Kent appreciated her discretion. Unlike his former fence, Black Lena Kleinschmidt, who was arrested after wearing a stolen diamond ring to a party, Bella never kept stolen goods. She was wealthy enough to buy things as nice as the Vanderbilts’. Items to be fenced were never brought to her home but were examined at a warehouse tucked away on 448 Broome Street. The interior of the cast-iron building resembled the Arnold Constable department store: five floors crammed with every conceivable type of goods. Once, Kent had seen a dinosaur skeleton.

  “And this silver!” Bella exclaimed, pointing to the goods on the floor. “That isn’t American stuff. It’s English, the absolute best.”

  “I’m glad you like my goods. Maybe because of the quality, you’ll take 45 percent this time?”

  A menacing scowl replaced the smile on Bella’s face. Normally, she had a jolly personality as large as her immense body. Now, she resembled an angry bull elephant. She rose with difficulty from the heap of clothes and waddled over to Kent.

  “Forty-eight. Then if you bring me more quality stuff, maybe forty-five. Maybe.”

  “Don’t worry, my beautiful dove. There’s a lot more where this came from.”

  Culver stepped off the freight elevator and motioned to his boss.

  “Excuse me, Bella,” Kent said. She was too engrossed in the piles of men’s evening dress to hear. “Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me?” Kent snapped at Culver.

  “Bald Jack’s been picked up. By Byrnes.” Culver spoke in a quiet, worried voice, hoping Bella wouldn’t overhear.

  “What for?” Kent asked indignantly.

  “Killing that bank messenger four years ago.”

  For years, banks had been in the foolish habit of sending messengers through the streets with substantial amounts of cash and securities. As the banks were too cheap to provide armed escorts, these men were easy prey for sneak thieves. Stealing from them yielded smaller amounts than could be had from vaults, but it was usually an easy job; the messengers always gave up the money without a fight. Save one Union Trust man who carried a pistol. He would have killed Bald Jack Sanders if Kent’s man hadn’t killed him first. Bald Jack had no choice in the matter. There had been no witnesses that day on Hudson Street, Kent recalled grimly. Someone must have informed on Bald Jack to win a lighter sentence.

 
“Is he in the Tombs?” Kent asked, referring to the city’s main prison on Centre Street.

  “No. Byrnes is taking no chances. He has him in Blackwell’s Island. They’re to ship him up to Sing Sing until the trial.”

  Kent lit a Havana and began to pace the warehouse in wide circles. If it had been anyone else, the solution would have been easy: have Bald Jack killed in prison. But the man was his top earner. An expert sneak thief, he consistently brought in more money than anyone else in the organization (Kent hated the word gang). He was fearless and robbed anything from anybody. In his finest professional moment, he’d hijacked four flatbed cars loaded with carriages from the New York Central Railroad at Tarrytown.

  “Is he in the old or new part of Blackwell’s?”

  “The new addition, the one they finished in the spring.”

  Bella approached them. “What are you fellows whispering about? Bald Jack?”

  Kent wasn’t surprised. Bella knew everything that went on in the city a day before anyone else.

  “Go see Hummel,” she said.

  • • •

  Abe Hummel may have looked like a deformed dwarf, but he and his partner, William Howe, were the most powerful criminal lawyers in New York. Since the early 1860s, Howe and Hummel had represented thousands of criminals. Once they got 250 out of 300 prisoners on Blackwell’s released on a technicality. Their client list included entire gangs, like the Whyos and the Sheeny Mob, and celebrities like P. T. Barnum and Edwin Booth. Howe and Hummel were so effective that many gangs and criminals, including Bella Levine, kept them on a five-thousand-dollar annual retainer.