House of Thieves

by Charles Belfoure

  After walking about forty yards, Cross saw light ahead. The men had broken through the brick wall of the Beach tunnel and begun excavating. He stopped by the opening and peered in. The tunnel was already twenty feet long. His first impression was that Kent had hired real coal miners to do the excavation, but then he recognized the regular gang, hard at work. Even Brady was there. The twelve-man team consisted of diggers with picks and shovels, haulers who took away the dirt in small wheelbarrows, and men who shored the tunnel. Instead of their customary suits, Kent’s men were dressed in work clothes and covered with dirt. Their efficiency reminded Cross of an ant colony he’d had as a boy.

  Kent emerged out of the shadows, dressed in his usual elegant attire, twirling his cane.

  “Just a few more feet and we’ll hit the basement wall, Mr. Cross.”

  “Then you have four feet of solid brick foundation to get through,” Cross said.

  “We have the tools we need. Your drawings were very helpful. May I offer you some food and drink?”

  In spite of himself, Cross was hungry. He followed Kent down the tunnel to a pile of wooden boxes containing sandwiches and bottles of sarsaparilla. “Clever not to provide alcohol on the job,” he said with a smile.

  “Some of my men are too fond of it, and it can impair their judgment,” Kent said, picking out a sandwich for himself. He sat on the box and ate.

  “Remember our discussion,” Cross said. “Tonight’s proceeds should forgive my debt.”

  “I certainly do. And as I said, it’s a possibility.”

  “I want to be present when you do the accounting.”

  Kent did not answer.

  They ate and drank in silence. More than an hour passed. Cross listened as the picks beat against the brick foundation wall. He looked to the right and saw a small wooden box with red Xs painted on the top and sides. His heart sank. Kent was going to try nitro again.

  Without thinking, Cross asked, “Why does a man like you do this sort of thing? You certainly don’t need the money.”

  Kent smiled. He didn’t seem at all offended by the question. “Mr. Cross, you can’t imagine the feeling of exhilaration I get when committing a robbery. Whether it’s cracking a bank vault or stealing valuables from a house, there’s a sense of intense ecstasy, a sensation like no other.” He paused, grinning from ear to ear. “The excitement comes from the fact that at any second, I might be caught. I love that feeling more than any other. You’re right; I don’t need the money. But I want that feeling.”

  Cross looked at him incredulously. He’d never met a man like this before. “Is it true that you studied to be a doctor?”

  “I am a doctor. Graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.”

  “But how—”

  “Whether we like it or not, our lives are dictated by pure circumstance, Mr. Cross. One night, there was a knock on my office door. A man told me his friend was badly hurt. When I grabbed my bag and went with him, I found a man shot through the gut and bleeding to death. I saved his life. His name was Ben McGarrigle. At the time, he was one of the most feared underworld bosses in the city. In gratitude, he paid me ten times my usual fee, took me under his wing, and treated me like a son. He was more of a father to me than my real one in Baltimore. With his help, I descended into the underworld. It’s a separate universe, Mr. Cross. It has its own rules and values, and it doesn’t have to answer to anyone. I admired that. But I didn’t give up my privileged life in society. I didn’t have to. I simply took on a secret life. And after a time, I gave up my practice and went into a more lucrative line of work—crime. I’ve never regretted it. You see, there was another thing I found out about myself. Instead of saving life, I like taking it away.”

  Culver approached, out of breath, but with a smile on his face.

  “We’ve broken through.”

  30

  The gang gathered around the jagged opening in the brick wall, and the first two men passed through, holding lanterns. All the men were in a boisterous mood, laughing and talking among themselves.

  While some banks housed their vaults in full view on the banking floor, most preferred to hide them in the lower bowels of the building, where they would be harder to rob. The safe itself was some forty feet into the basement in its own room, fronted by an ornate iron gate Cross had designed. Beside it was a room lined with safe-deposit boxes. There was no alarm system installed. Fidelity National hadn’t thought they’d need one. They were too cheap to even hire a watchman. The police came by to check the front door while on their night rounds.

  Two more men stepped inside the hole in the basement wall as Kent and Cross approached.

  “Make way for Mr. Kent,” came the command.

  As the men began to part, a voice from within the darkness of the basement yelled out, “Hands up. You’re under arrest. Stay where you are.”

  The voice hit them like a thunderbolt. Cross and Kent froze, as did the rest of the gang. In an instant, the basement was flooded by another source of light—the electric lights on the walls and ceiling, illuminating the space in stark tones.

  “Pinkertons!” someone cried out in panic.

  “That’s right, gentlemen, and you’re under arrest.”

  The voice hit Cross in the stomach like a prizefighter’s punch, almost knocking the wind out of him. Robert had a rich, deep baritone like that. Cross crouched and looked through the mass of men to see his brother, standing in the basement, holding a revolver. “Damn you. I said hands up!” Robert Cross roared.

  Kent’s men stood frozen in place. Cross felt like he was about to pass out. Staggering backward, he leaned against the tunnel wall to keep himself from falling. Then he began running like a madman. As he pumped his legs and struggled to breathe, he kept thinking about explaining the tawdry story to his brother from inside a jail cell.

  Back in Beach’s tunnel, he turned right and sped to the nitro box. He removed his handkerchief and tied it around his face. Carefully lifting the lid, he saw that the box was packed with cotton. Fishing his hand around in the stuff, he found the glass vial of nitro. Cradling it in the wad of cotton like a newborn, he ran back into the tunnel, toward the basement of the bank.

  As he ran, he heard shots ring out. Kent and his gang were pressed against the wood shoring of the tunnel walls, guns drawn. One man was down, holding his leg and screaming in pain.

  “Put your guns down or I’ll give you this nitro!” Cross screamed in a raspy voice he prayed his brother wouldn’t recognize.

  His words were met by dead silence.

  Cross dropped the wad of cotton and walked to the opening, holding the vial above his head.

  “You men, get out of there,” he commanded the gang members already inside the basement.

  The men obeyed. Robert, along with the other Pinkertons, lowered his gun and backed slowly away.

  “Stay where you are or I’ll throw this!” Cross shouted. The Pinkertons didn’t move.

  Cross stayed where he was too. Behind him, the entire gang inched out of the tunnel. Two men picked up the wounded robber and dragged him out.

  Cross started backing down the tunnel. Under his voice, to no one in particular, he said, “Cave it in.”

  As men on either side yanked out the wall shoring, Cross turned and ran. The ceiling came down hard; in an instant, tons of yellowish-brown earth filled the opening. Safely beyond the cave-in’s range, Cross carefully set the nitro vial on the soft dirt, happy to leave it behind.

  Kent met him at the intersection with Beach’s tunnel. “They’ll be waiting for us at Warren Street. Come this way,” he yelled.

  Instead of going north, the gang ran to the south. Cross heard shouting from the railway tunnel; far in the distance, he saw men with lanterns running toward them. Brady and Coogan stopped running. As if reading each other’s minds, each man grabbed handfuls of
the dozens of canvas sacks meant to transport the money, piled them in the middle of the tunnel, and threw four lanterns onto the stack. There was the whoosh of spreading flames, and a wall of fire blocked the entire tunnel diameter.

  At the Murray Street end of the tunnel, Dago Frank pulled open a heavy iron hatch on the right wall. Men flew into the opening like rats jumping into a ship’s porthole. The passageway opened up into a tiny service alley. One by one, the men disappeared into the darkness.

  • • •

  “You tipped off the Pinkertons, you son of a bitch.”

  Cross couldn’t believe this was happening. As the gang had scattered into the night three hours earlier, Brady had collared him and dragged him into a carriage. Throughout the fifteen-minute trip to McGlory’s, as Cross lay helpless on the floor of the carriage, Brady pummeled him with his fists.

  Cross was standing on a chair, a wire noose around his neck. Instead of being hailed as a hero for his quick thinking, the gang seemed ready to kill him for being a traitor.

  “Don’t lie to us, you shit. You told them!” Brady screamed.

  Kent wasn’t watching. Calmly smoking a Havana, he was bandaging the leg of Bill Crabb. The white gauze was wrapped neatly and tied off with a sure hand. “Haven’t lost my touch,” Kent said to himself, smiling.

  “Who else have you told?” Brady had his foot on the rickety wooden chair. With each outburst, he shook the chair until it was about to topple over—and then stopped.

  “Goddamn you, I didn’t tell a soul!” Cross was red in the face with anger. “Why the hell would I do that? One of you betrayed us, can’t you see that?”

  “Bullshit. No one ever informs. Ever,” Brady hissed.

  “The police could’ve picked up one of your men. Maybe he turned on you.”

  “The men waiting for us were Pinkertons, not the police,” Kent said in a quiet voice.

  “I’m telling you: I didn’t say a word to anyone. Why would I do that?” Cross pleaded.

  Brady began to shake the chair again.

  Cross was breathing heavily, his heart pounding like a drum. At any second, Kent would announce that his brother, the Pinkerton, was one of the men waiting for them, and his fate would be sealed. Brady would yank out the chair with glee.

  “They’d catch the gang in one shot, and you’d be in the clear,” said Coogan, looking up at Cross, his hands on his hips.

  “And suppose just one of the gang wasn’t down there. He’d find out I was the turncoat and kill my whole family in front of me,” Cross said.

  Kent laughed. “Mr. Cross, you’re beginning to understand how we think in this line of work.”

  “Good God, man, you’d be sitting in the Tombs right now if it weren’t for me. I saved you. Where’s your goddamn gratitude?” A wall of silence met his question. “There’s a traitor. Goddamn it, don’t you see? All of us are at risk.”

  “None of my men is a traitor—they know what the consequences would be,” Kent said. He circled the chair, smoking his cigar, deep in thought. “All right. I’ll give you a second chance, Mr. Cross. We lost a good deal of money tonight, so you’ll have to make it up to us. Find another house. No more banks, not for a while.”

  “But there’s a traitor. No matter what move we make, the Pinkertons will be on to us.”

  “Then from now on, we will be more cautious. You’ll only deal with me,” Kent said and nodded to Brady, who, with a disappointed expression, stepped up on the chair, removed the noose, and shoved Cross to the floor.

  31

  “You’re back so early.”

  Cross’s and Helen’s separate but adjoining bedrooms allowed Cross to come in at all hours of the night without waking his wife. It also ensured that she kept out of his private life. But they shared a spacious bathroom, specially designed by Cross, with all the latest plumbing features, including the Deeco flushing toilet.

  It was just past midnight. The going-over Brady had given Cross in the carriage had produced a noticeable swelling on his right cheekbone. He was patting it with a wet washcloth when Helen slammed open the door.

  “What on earth happened to you, John?” she cried in an almost hysterical voice that made Cross cringe.

  “I fell from the carriage on the way home, Helen. That’s all.”

  She came forward and studied his face. Some of Brady’s other handiwork had resulted in small, angry red blotches.

  “No, you’ve been in a fight.” Helen’s eyes widened in horror. Men in society attacked with insults and cutting sarcasm, never their fists. Physical brutality was something ruffians on the Lower East Side did to one another, or to their wives and children. She put her hand over mouth, looking at her husband as though he had contracted leprosy.

  Cross grew angrier by the second—at Helen and at the fact that he hadn’t thought to design them separate bathrooms.

  “Damn it, Helen, I’m fine. Leave me the hell alone,” he said.

  But Helen stood her ground. She placed her hand under his chin, rotating his head side to side. “No, John. Someone beat the hell out of you.”

  Instead of shouting at her, Cross stomped away to the other side of the bathroom, fighting the rage welling in his gut. Helen followed.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing. I was set upon by robbers. That’s all.”

  Unexpectedly, Helen reached around Cross’s side and felt for her husband’s wallet. “They did all this to you, but they didn’t take your wallet?”

  “I…I got away from them.”

  “All those men attacked you, and you escaped?”

  “I just told you what happened,” snapped Cross, his back still toward her. “You will listen to me.”

  “Tell me what really happened, John,” Helen said.

  Despite his anger, Cross was touched by her concern. He bent his head, eyes on the black-and-white-tiled floor.

  In his fraternity of society gentlemen, a man who faced a crisis or financial disaster would never tell his wife. Even if he went dead broke, his wife and family would know nothing—until the day the bank came to repossess the house and throw the children out into the street. The reasons for such silence would be the gentleman’s sense of shame and the general perception of society ladies as overly emotional, useless dolts. A gentleman would confide in his friends at the club, his valet, or his favorite bartender, never his wife. The only woman to whom a man might tell his tale of woe was his mistress.

  But in this matter, there was no one in whom Cross might confide, no one to turn to. He was hopelessly alone. Every day, he woke with a sense of dread—this would be his family’s last day on earth; something would go wrong and force Kent to kill them. The pressure sometimes seemed unbearable. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. And there was no way out. If he went to the police, his family would be dead within the hour. Griffith’s frozen head had taught him that.

  Robert’s new involvement put the Crosses in even greater danger. Once Kent discovered who his brother was, he’d be out for blood. Cross had thought of confiding in Robert, but that would almost certainly mean his death. The fact that he was a Pinkerton wouldn’t deter Kent.

  He was lost, and he was alone. He looked into Helen’s eyes, and the urge to tell her was overpowering.

  Helen knew something was terribly wrong. She instinctively knew her husband’s moods and feelings. “Please tell me,” she whispered.

  Cross closed his eyes. At first, the words wouldn’t come out. Was he doing the right thing, or was he condemning Helen to death? “We’re in great trouble, my dear.”

  “When you have bad news, it’s best to get it out quickly,” Helen said.

  “George has a gambling problem,” Cross said. “He owes thousands to a man who threatened to kill him if he didn’t pay.”

  Helen stepped backward, pressing her body against the
sink. She gripped the edge of the marble counter until her knuckles turned white. “How much?”

  “More than forty thousand dollars.”

  Helen gasped and covered her face with her hands.

  “When George couldn’t pay, these men came to me to make good on his debt.”

  “But we don’t have that kind of money!”

  “They knew that. They wanted me to help them rob the houses and businesses of my clients.”

  Helen looked at him in astonishment. “We have no choice but to go to the police, John. They can arrest these criminals, and then we’ll be safe.”

  “I tried, but it didn’t work. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt: if I go to the police, all of us—you, me, George, Julia, Charlie, even your mother—all of us will be dead. These people aren’t bluffing, Helen. They’re cold-blooded murderers.”

  Helen shook her head violently from side to side, her eyes filling with tears. “No, I won’t let anyone hurt my family. Aunt Caroline can help. She knows powerful people, people who can help us. I’m going to call her right now.”

  Helen ran from the bathroom into her bedroom, but Cross was on her in a flash. He grabbed her from behind, threw her on the bed, and pinned her down by her shoulders. “If you call Caroline—or Robert or anyone—we’re dead!” he shouted, his face pressed close to hers. “Do you hear me? Dead!”

  She looked into his eyes with a pleading, helpless look and asked in a low voice, “Then what can we do, John? What can we possibly do?”

  Cross released Helen and sat next to her on the bed. “Until I can think of some other way out, I have no choice but to do what they say.”