Suspension

by Richard E. Crabbe

  There had been many, hundreds of bridge workers through Paddy’s over the years since the New York Bridge was started in ’69. Dock workers, carpenters, caisson workers, common laborers, stonemasons, bricklayers, cable men—“riggers,” as they were called—they all found their way to the dusty old saloon on Peck Slip. Most were immigrants. Most were from Ireland, although there were some from Germany and Italy and other countries. Beer was one of the few comforts for most of the men. Life was hard and the work, harder. Most lived in tenements. Ten to a room was not all that unusual. Packed into four and five floor walk-ups, one toilet per floor in the newer tenements, outhouses in the old. Tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, typhoid, and a long list of other maladies carried off the weak and the healthy alike, the young and the old alike, the good and the bad alike. With the Lower East Side housing nearly 300,000 people to the square mile by some estimates, it sometimes seemed that the dead were carried out faster than the living moved in.

  For those who needed to get across the East River, the only way had been on a Union Ferry Company line. Though the boats were large and ran every five minutes during peak hours, they were still not enough. Winter months were the worst, with ice floes sometimes blocking the river for hours. The story went that in ‘53, John Roebling, the great bridge-builder, and his son Washington, then about fifteen, had been stuck in the ice during a ferry ride on a brutally cold winter day. It was then, during the three-hour delay in getting the ferry free, that old man Roebling first envisioned his bridge across the river. It hadn’t been till ’67 that the state legislature authorized the construction of the bridge he’d proposed and ’69 before work actually began. In the fourteen years since, there had been more triumph, tragedy, and scandal than old John Roebling could ever have imagined.

  The bridge was almost done now. The towers had been up for six years, looming over the city in monumental anticipation. Only the top of the spire of Trinity Church was higher, and that was only a needle point on the skyline, while the towers of the bridge stood massive, cathedrallike. The bridge was a colossus yet at the same time it had an almost weightless quality to the eye. The soaring roadway, now nearly complete, seemed to literally defy gravity. The slender cables, in harp-string tension, sang in the wind high above the river. Even the massive granite and sandstone towers had an airy feel when seen from a distance. Their gothic arches flew gracefully over the twin roadways. On certain days, when the sun was just right and its rays lanced through clouds above Manhattan, the towers seemed to frame the cities beyond in an almost religious way, and it was hard not to see the hand of God in it. It was altogether appropriate that the bridge was called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

  Tom could see the top third of the New York tower from where he sat. It loomed over the tops of the nearby buildings. He was no engineer, of course, but he found it hard to believe that the slender cables were strong enough to support the weight of the steel-framed roadway, let alone the trains that would be running across it. Tom wondered about all the weight it was supposed to hold, the horses and carriages and freight wagons and pedestrians. A team of draft horses and a loaded wagon could top seven tons. At any one time dozens of them could be driving across the span. How could they be so sure the bridge could stand that? Sometimes in winter the East River froze nearly solid; and the surging currents and massive chunks of ice mangled docks and even iron-hulled steamers. The press had speculated that a strong northeaster could carry the span away. It wouldn’t be the first time a suspension bridge had collapsed from the weight of the elements. The river could be a vicious place to fight the winds that were funneled by Brooklyn Heights and the man-made canyons of Manhattan. Once a mass like that flying roadway began to twist in the wind, no cable would be strong enough to hold it.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Sam said. Tom turned and saw Sam looking past him out at the bridge tower. It was as if Sam had read his mind. “You know, each of the main cables has three thousand five hundred fifteen miles of wire in it, and they’re designed to have a strength of sixty thousand tons. I’ve read somewhere that old man Roebling designed them to be six times stronger than needed.” Obvious wonder filled his voice. “Those four cables are each attached to twenty-three-ton anchors, and they’re buried under a hundred twenty million pounds of stone at each end of the bridge.”

  Tom looked close at Sam. Enthusiasm lighted his face in a way Tom hadn’t seen in a while. “Sam, sometimes you scare me. How the hell do you know that?”

  “No great trick. Just got to read the papers. Over the years I’ve picked up about everything there is to know about that bridge.” Sam motioned toward it with his beer.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve read the papers too, but I don’t remember that stuff.” Tom frowned.

  Sam took a sip of beer, then said, “Tom, it’s probably the most spectacular thing I’ll ever see built in my lifetime, that’s for sure, and I just feel kind of lucky, I’d guess you’d say, to be here to see it. I want to be able to tell my grandkids someday all about how it got built … all the technical stuff that most folks won’t remember. I tell you, Tom, what you’re looking at is like science and art all rolled into one thing.” Sam paused for another sip. “You know, the truly great thing is that it’ll bring people together and help get them from place to place with—” He stopped for a moment, looking out at the tower as if seeking just the right words. “I don’t know how to put it.” He thought for an instant more, then shrugged. “Maybe a sense of … of wonder almost. In three months you’ll be able to cross the river while the tallest ships pass under your feet. That’s a gift, Tom.” Braddock could tell that Sam meant that quite literally.

  “And you know, it will outlast us all. It will still be here when our children’s children’s children are old and gray … just as beautiful as it is now.”

  Tom just stared out the window, trying to see what Sam saw so easily.

  “I wish I could have made something like that,” Sam said almost reverently, “something people would look at and use, and say, you know, Sam Halpern built that. That would be something.” Sam took a bite of pickled egg, while Tom gave his old friend a closer look over the top of his mug. “That’s a kind of immortality, if you get my meaning, leaving something behind that the world knows you by,” Sam said wistfully. “I tell you, Tom, Washington Roebling is sort of a hero of mine and the closest thing to being immortal this world has to offer. By my reckoning, he’s one of the greatest men of the century, right up there with Grant and Lincoln.” It was clear Sam wasn’t exaggerating. “I swear, I would trade places with him in two shakes if I could say I had built the Brooklyn Bridge. Shame about the old man dyin’ of lock-jaw like he did. Would’ve been proud.”

  “Christ, Sam.” Tom was amazed. “I knew you liked the bridge, but I never realized you felt that strong about the thing. It does have a grace about it,” Tom admitted, “like a church … I suppose. So I guess I know how you see it. To tell the truth, though, I can’t say I’ve been all that anxious to get to Brooklyn any faster anyhow.”

  Sam smiled doubtfully. “I’m not quite sure you get my point, Tommy-boy,” he said with a shake of his head.

  Joe Hamm pulled another beer for them both.

  The clatter of the empty coroner’s wagon as it bumped over the cobbled street interrupted their unusually philosophical conversation.

  “Looks like Bucklin’s ride’s here,” Sam said as he turned toward the street.

  Jaffey walked in with the driver as Bob, from the corner, now joined by two others started in with the third verse of “Dixie.”

  His face was sharp as a butcher’s cleaver

  But that did not seem to grieve her

  Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie-land.

  Bob figured “Dixie” for a damn good song, a popular favorite with both sides, so he sang it with gusto.

  Sam and Tom went out back with Jaffey and the wagon driver. Tom and the driver rolled the body onto the canvas stretcher that th
e driver had carried with him.

  “Where’s your partner?” Tom asked him.

  “Sick. I’m on my own today. I’ll need a hand with this.” He shrugged a shoulder at the body, his hands in his pockets. Tom and Sam turned to look at Jaffey, who hadn’t really been paying attention. He looked back at them like an empty windowpane.

  “Well?” Sam asked, nodding toward the body.

  “Oh! Oh, sure, let me get an end.” Jaffey hurried to hoist the stretcher, and together he and the driver carried Bucklin out through the bar. When the little troupe marched through Paddy’s common room with the body looking like some sort of grotesque, Fourth of July parade float, conversation trailed off and died. Even Bob and his drinking partners fell silent, one of whom was a German, singing “Look avay, Look avay, Look avay, Dixzee.” Tom stopped for a moment to have a word with Joe Hamm, then followed the rest outside. A small crowd gathered to watch the body being loaded onto the wagon.

  “Jaffey, I want you to go along to the coroner’s office and make sure he has a look at a couple of things. For one, that stain on Bucklin’s vest, see it? I need to be sure of what it is. Sam and I think it’s tobacco. I also want his best guess on what crushed the back of the skull. I want to know if he had been drinking and what was in his stomach too.” Tom turned to Sam. “You don’t mind me sending your boy, do you?”

  “Nah.” Sam shrugged. “Go on an’ have fun. Nothin like a good autopsy to brighten the day and improve the appetite. Makes me hungry just thinkin’ about it.” He grinned at Jaffey, who seemed to turn green at the mere mention of an autopsy.

  “And when you’re done there, get your ass back here and canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, or anybody seen anything odd. Got it?” Jaffey just nodded, as if he’d thought of that already. Then Eli jumped up on the tall hard seat of the wagon next to the driver, who, with a flick of the reins on his glue-factory team, started a slow bounce down the cobbled street.

  The captain stood on the other side of Peck Slip. It was a wide street, with lots of freight wagons and other traffic as well as laborers and men with business among the docks and warehouses of the area. He didn’t stand out. Leaning against a lamppost, he watched as the coroner’s wagon rolled down the cobbles toward South Street. The cop on the seat beside the driver didn’t interest him. He was obviously a new man … of no particular concern. Mainly he had wanted to get a better look at the detective. If there was anyone to worry him in this whole affair, it might be him.

  Still, as the wagon went by, Thaddeus Sangree couldn’t help but remember the wagons on the retreat from Gettysburg. All through the night of July 4 and on into July 5, the wagons had rolled south. Rain had come, rivers of it. That was the lowest march he ever knew. His mangled brother lay rotting in a muddy Pennsylvania grave. Lee’s army was defeated, bedraggled, bleeding. All hope of final victory, lost. Ahead lay an endless vista of sacrifice and suffering. Wagons loaded with wounded wound down muddy roads, men groaning and crying with each bump and shock. The futility of Lee’s gamble echoed in the night with the screams of the wounded. The captain recalled being almost grateful for the dark, which hid the worst of it. He thought when he buried Frank that he had about hit bottom, but the retreat was worse.

  The captain put the wagon out of his mind with a little shiver, turning his attention to the detective and the sergeant standing in front of Paddy’s. It was wise to know your enemies. It was a principle that had served him well over the years, and he wanted to see the men up close if he could. He had the feeling that the detective would be his adversary. There was no reason to believe these men would discover his mission, but logic had nothing to do with how he felt. What he felt was that he needed to look this detective in the eye, the sergeant too. He needed to take their measure.

  He walked across the street, feeling as if he stood out like a Christmas tree in July. He knew there was no fear of suspicion. He was a stranger to these two, a legitimate businessman with offices just down the street. There was every reason for him to be there and nothing to hide. He quickened his step and hurried to cross in front of a freight wagon pulled by a team of huge horses. He didn’t want to catch the men’s attention, so he matched his pace to that of the others on the sidewalk. Keeping his head down, as if deep in thought, he strode past, nearly bumping into the detective as he went by. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, his eyes were busy, and they took in all they could see and a good bit that wasn’t visible to the eye. The sergeant was harder than he looked from across the street. He saw it in his eye. The detective was no taller than himself, but wider by half, it seemed. He looked to be a powerful fellow, and had a piercing blue eye as light as a summer sky. They smelled of beer and smoke. He could have killed them then, he thought offhandedly. There was no need though. They were simply adversaries, and he had overcome so many over the years that he saw them as nothing more. To be respected, perhaps, but his instincts told him that these two would present little difficulty. They may well be capable, they might know the city, its streets and its ways, but they had no idea what they were dealing with in him. If it came to it, he and his band would snuff them like candles and not tarry to smell the smoke. Let them live for now, he figured. They could be dealt with at his leisure, should it prove necessary. The captain smiled thinly. He was supremely confident when it came to his mission. He and his men had planned it well, down to nearly the last detail. They were professionals, not the sort of bumbling street gangsters the cops were used to. They had all the advantages of training, skill, planning, and discipline. Thaddeus walked with a confident stride. They were and always would be one step ahead of the police, and that was all they’d need.

  A block farther on he stopped for a moment and spoke in hushed tones to a tall man in suspenders. They parted quickly. Thaddeus didn’t want to go back to his office just yet. There was no pressing need. The small cotton factoring and warehouse business he used as both cover and source of funding was a sleepy affair. It didn’t require much of his time and lent an air of legitimacy to his other endeavors. A perfect site for late-night meetings, it would be abandoned when the time came.

  Chapter Three

  Singing my days

  Singing the great achievements of the present

  Singing the strong light work of engineers.

  —WALT WHITMAN

  Tom dodged the traffic and flagged down a hack at the corner of Peck Slip and Front Street. He gave the cabbie the address, getting a grunt in response. Tom bounced uptown, passing under the land span of the bridge. Workers were busy adding the overhead trusses—at least that’s what the World was reporting. Braddock didn’t know a truss from a train track. He could clearly hear the hammering as it echoed under the span and through the cables overhead. Looking out over the river, he realized that he was seeing the bridge in a different way. Sam sure had a passion for the thing. He hadn’t said that much on any subject since Custer got himself wiped out in ’76. The hack continued, past the endless lines of ships at wharves up and down the river. The masts, spars, booms, and rigging formed a graceful geometric forest along the river, reaching up toward the March sky. There were nearly as many smokestacks as spars and sails these days.

  The hack made a left on Market Street. As they rode farther into the heart of the Lower East Side, Tom was suddenly reminded of a stop he needed to make. Part of his arrangement with Captain Coffin was that he’d do a little collecting from time to time. August Coffin had quite a network of “clients” who required protection from the scrutiny of the law. Tom, as an officer who owed a debt to the captain, was expected to make collections and enforce a certain discipline on “clients” as a “favor” to Coffin. It was the part of their arrangement that irked Tom from the very beginning. The stop he needed to make now was the most irksome of all, but it was on the way, and he figured he may as well get it over with.

  “Make a right on Henry, driver.” He got a nod in response. They went a little more than a block before Braddock said, “Stop here.” Tom got out
of the hack, looking up at the dirty red brick building in front of him. It gave no outward sign of what went on within. “Wait for me, driver. I’ll be out in ten minutes.”

  “Gotta charge ya fer the time” were the cabbie’s first words to him.

  “Do what I tell you,” Tom said flatly. “You’ll get paid.”

  Tom went up a short flight of stairs to an unmarked door and pushed it open, revealing a long hallway that extended halfway to the back of the building. Near the back, a tall man of medium build lounged against the wall. His bowler was cocked at a jaunty angle and he chewed on a short cigar. He didn’t look happy to see Braddock.

  “The mistress in?” Tom asked.

  “Guess she is, Braddock,” the tall man said, spitting on the floor for punctuation.

  “Yeah, I love you too, Quinn. Just stay out of my way and we’ll get along fine.”

  Quinn grunted his derision, but he moved out of the way.

  A door on the right opened into a sort of parlor, set up as a bar. There were maybe ten or twelve men in the room. Braddock paid them little mind. Through a beaded curtain, he could see into the next room, toward the back of the building. The laughter of young girls could be heard above the conversation in the bar. There was a man laughing too. Braddock turned to the bartender, laid a dollar on the damp mahogany, and asked for a beer. As the barkeep was pulling it, he said, “Do me a favor and tell the lady of the house I’m here.”

  The barkeep nodded, set the beer down, took his dollar, and walked into the next room without saying a word.

  “Damn expensive beer,” Tom said to his retreating back.

  As he stood, facing the bar, one of the patrons got up and walked toward the door. A big slouch hat did a good job of covering the man’s features. He seemed to be in a hurry. Tom watched in the mirror behind the bar, eyeing the man over the rim of his glass. Slouch-hat was almost by when Tom whirled around and caught him by the shoulder.