Suspension

by Richard E. Crabbe

  Tom pushed Finney back, and he crumpled against his desk, down on one knee. He was white and sweating, holding the arm that now had an unnatural bend to it. But Tom was more concerned with Venkman, and he spun about, expecting the huge Dutchman to splatter him with his bat, surprised he hadn’t already. What Tom saw made him stop for a heartbeat. Ole Venkman stood braced against the wall in the hallway. The bat had fallen to the floor. The Dutchman looked at first as if he had donned a red apron. It was Finney’s bullet. The soft lead had caught Venkman just above the lower rib. Ole had torn his shirt open, and he gaped at himself in a stupor as the little hole fountained dark blood. His lower torso and those tree-trunk legs were already covered in it. The red pool at his feet widened as the life rained out of him in arterial rushes. Ole looked up, helpless and scared, his huge, red hands trying hard to hold his life in. The red tide went out, and Ole slipped down the wall, to swim in the pool on the floor.

  “You’re a dead man, Braddock. You hear me?” Finney gasped through clenched teeth.

  Tom was breathing hard, his hands on his knees. “You brought this on yourself, Finney. You stupid son of a bitch, this could have gone down easy. It didn’t have to happen this way.”

  “Easy, my arse. Only thing goin’ down is you.” Finney pulled a nasty looking six-inch stiletto from his boot. He rose to a crouch, his useless arm swinging like a dead thing.

  Tom straightened. “Jesus, Finney, haven’t you had enough?”

  “Not till I see your bleedin’ corpse, Braddock. I’m gonna carve you like a Christmas goose.” Finney made a quick charge, the stiletto licking out, sharp and venomous. His shattered arm swung loose and low, like an ape. Finney’s eyes shone red. Tom reacted slower than he thought he would, or maybe Finney was faster; but the Irishman came near to fleshing his bright steel fang. Tom brushed the blade aside, but it dug a searing furrow along his rib. Tom’s right chopped down hard on Finney’s neck as he pivoted to one side. The knife came around, flashing silver and red, but aimless. Tom struck again, this time with his left. Finney’s cheek and nose caved in from the force of Tom’s brass-knuckled fist. The Irishman toppled back like fresh-cut timber. His head bounced doll-like against the desk on its way to the floor. Tom bent over again, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath like a miler after a hard race; sucking in great restoring lungsful. Finney, however, didn’t seem to be breathing at all.

  Tom would never really remember how he got out of Finney’s. He stumbled down a back stair, he thought, but things were starting to haze over and he couldn’t be sure. He would recall bits of it later; how he staggered through garbage and bounced off things unseen in the blackness between the buildings. Mostly he remembered the cold in the pit of his stomach and the retching. He tripped and went down in an alley, his head filled with spinning sparks of light and his stomach tossing about inside him. On his hands and knees, he emptied himself out. He remembered thinking that maybe if he tried hard enough, he could spit up the taste of the deaths he had caused. It was as if his body were trying to reject what he had done. He knew that if he had not done it, it would have been him lying cold on Finney’s floor, but logic couldn’t undo the guilt. He had killed—not for honor, not for country, not for high purpose, but for money. There was no washing it away, not even from the inside.

  Chapter Nine

  If I get well, there is lots of big work in

  the world to do yet.

  —WASHINGTON ROEBLING

  The first thing Tom noticed was the cold. He groped for consciousness as if stumbling through a blizzard. His left hand felt like ice. It throbbed, in spite of being nearly numb, and the fingers felt thick as sausages. He moved the hand slowly, bringing it up close to his face. The hand went in and out of focus. It reminded him of a fun-house mirror at Barnum’s, the way it blurred and changed shape. His shifting hand solidified before him, its images coming together. It didn’t look like his hand, and he almost wondered whose it might be. If it was his, he reasoned, then it would move when he wanted, so he closed the fattened fingers down into a ham-size fist. Cracking fissures of pain ran down the fingers, setting his hand on fire. It coursed up his arm, and he could feel the pain coming like an express train on a foggy night. Someone groaned in the room. It was he.

  “Miss Mary, Miss Mary! He’s awake again,” Chelsea called. Mary had stationed her in Tom’s room for the last day and a half, watching for signs of improvement. Hard heels on polished wood clicked and pounded in Tom’s head. “He moved his arm, miss,” Chelsea said with a hopeful note in her voice. Chelsea had worked for Mary for three years, not as one of the working girls but as her maid. In reality she was the eyes and ears of the house. Mary often thought she couldn’t run the place without her.

  “Thank you, Chelsea,” Mary said quickly as she entered the room. “Would you leave us alone for a minute? Oh, and would you ask Cookie to make some tea? Strong and sweet, if you please.” Mary frowned down at Tom.

  “Yes, miss.” Chelsea was already half out the door.

  A door closed out of his sight. The sound echoed through his head and rippled like a stone thrown into a pond.

  “Tom, Tom, Tom. Tom, Tom, Tom? Tom? Tommy?”

  “Yersch,” Tom said through dry lips. He coughed to clear his throat. It now seemed to be home to a bird’s nest. The cough sent planets of pain bouncing around inside his head, into his temples, and behind his eyes.

  “Here, Tommy, have some water. Can you sit up a bit?” Mary asked, lifting his head. Tom did, but his body protested in every part. Something in his side felt like it was tearing. The pain made him catch his breath. “Oh, your stitches, they must hurt. What a fool I am. Let me help you.” He drank half a glass of cool water and flopped his head back on the pillow for a rest. The water had an odd taste, he thought.

  “What’s in the water?”

  “Just some willow powder. It’ll help.”

  “How’d I … what am I doin’ here? My hand’s cold. Why’s my hand so cold?”

  “The doctor told me to put it in ice. We had to get the brass knuckles off, they were cutting off the blood.”

  “Oh …” he said slowly, rummaging about in his foggy head to make sense of that, remembering as if in slow motion how Venkman’s bat had bounced off them. “How’d I get here?”

  “Tommy, I really don’t know. Two nights ago, about eight o’clock, a cabby was pounding on our door. I sent Chelsea down to see to it, and the cabby tells her he’s got a man unconscious and bleeding all over the back of his cab. Chelsea came up and got me, and when I heard the story, I, well, I nearly sent the man away.”

  “I don’t remember a damn thing. Must have been out,” Tom mumbled.

  “You were out, all right. Like I said, I almost turned the cabby away, but then he gave me your description,” Mary explained feeling guilty. “I went down to check and I had you brought up. You’ve been here ever since.”

  “Ever since? Ever since when?” Tom asked, thinking it might have been earlier that night.

  “I told you, it was two nights ago, Tommy. We’ve been worried sick, and—”

  “Jesus!” Tom interrupted. “So this is what, the first of April?”

  “Uh-huh. It’s about five-thirty in the morning.” Tom’s mouth twisted into an ironic grin. “April Fool’s Day.”

  “Tommy, what happened? Who did this to you? Sam wouldn’t say a thing. I’m not sure he knows.” This was a subject Tom didn’t want to get into, not yet at least, and especially not when the room was still going in and out of focus. His silence told Mary more than he could have imagined. They sat together on the rumpled sheets as the first glow of morning crept into the room on stealthy feet. Their breathing was the only sound; sometimes together, sometimes apart. Mary held his hand in hers, felt its strength and pulse. She never wanted to let this hand go.

  They sat like that for some time, until there was a rap on the door, and Chelsea came in with a tray of tea and toast. Mary turned to get up but Tom held her hand tight
, and she turned back to fall into his eyes.

  “Uh … Mary … I …” he said, searching for the right words. “I …”

  Mary understood perfectly. “Tom, the only thing that matters to me is that you’re here with me now, having tea, eating toast, and feeling better. Anything else can wait.”

  “I—” He tried to continue.

  “Shush. Have some tea. It’ll do you good.” Mary didn’t notice the tear that dampened his cheek.

  He wiped it with his swollen hand and winced. “I’m a lucky man, Mary.”

  She pushed a piece of toast in his mouth, with a wry smile. “And don’t you forget it, Tom Braddock.”

  It was six-thirty and the city was just starting to come to life outside the office of Sangree & Co. Peck Slip and Water Street echoed with the sound of individual wagons, their horses clopping the cobbles on early-morning trips to the Fulton market. Later in the day the din from the streets would grow into a sort of clattering cauldron of sound, blending the noise of dozens of wagons, horses, stevedores, sailors, shopkeepers, and vendors. But now, an hour and a half before most businesses opened, there was a calm, almost villagelike feel to the place.

  They were meeting over an early breakfast this morning. Matt had gotten some fresh muffins from the bakery around the corner from his flat. The captain had made coffee on the small stove in the meeting room. They all sat around the big table, appraising the situation.

  “We’re going to have to keep an eye on him,” the captain said thoughtfully. “If he comes back again and gets too inquisitive, well, then, we’ll have to see what can be done. He gave you no reason to suspect he knew anything, you say?”

  “Naw, Cap’n,” Lebeau said through a mouthful of muffin. “Seemed to me like he was just goin’ through the motions. Leastwise he di’n show no interest in me or Matt. Can’t speak for Watkins.”

  Watkins cleared his throat. “Same here. Told ’im I was out with Miss Devine. She knows what to say if he comes around.”

  “Hmm.” The captain stole a glance at Weasel Jacobs. Something seemed to pass between them … an understanding.

  “We didn’t talk all that much really,” Watkins went on. “Got interrupted ‘cause he went sniffin’ after the Roebling woman. Can’t say I liked his manner much.”

  “What do you mean about Mrs. Roebling?” the captain asked sharply.

  “We was talkin’ about Bucklin, when he sees her a ways up by the tower, an’ he just ups and skeedadles over to her like a cock rooster. Seen them an’ Martin head off toward City Hall a bit later.”

  “Interesting.” The captain seemed to ponder this information. “You say they went off together?”

  Watkins assured him they had. Matt and Earl confirmed it.

  “Hm. Well, probably nothing to it. It does bother me somewhat that he has made the acquaintance of Mrs. Roebling. I suspect we’ll be seeing more of the detective.” The captain stared with unseeing eyes up at the ceiling as his fingers drummed the table. “As I said before,” the captain said almost to himself, “we may have to do something about this detective.”

  Sullivan’s head went up. This whole business with Watkins and Bucklin was getting out of hand—had gotten out of hand already, he corrected himself. Now they were talking about killing cops. The shit was getting deeper and they didn’t even seem to notice.

  “You mean get rid of him? A little risky to be killing off the cops, don’t you think?” This was the first comment Sergeant Sullivan had made on the subject, but it was on all their minds.

  “No question, Patrick, but at this point we must not let anything stand in our way,” the captain said, stabbing a finger at the table. “Of course, I’m open to other solutions. We do have time to plan, should Braddock come too close to the mark.”

  “Right, Captain,” Sullivan said. He’d feel a lot better knowing they had a plan to deal with Braddock. “If we could take a few minutes to lay our cards out, I think it would be time well spent. Don’t want to be in a spot where we’re the ones reacting to him.”

  They spent the next half hour on this, touching on every contingency they could think of and a few that were nearly unimaginable. Jacobs in his usual pedantic way, kept a detailed list. He preferred the direct approach.

  “A simple thing, really. I pass our Detective Baddock on the street one night and suddenly put a knife in his throat.” Jacobs flinty smile said almost as much as his words. He showed no more emotion than if he was reading from a ledger. “I’m gone in seconds. He dies. Nothing could be easier.”

  A glance or two was exchanged around the room. The men went on, and in the end they narrowed their choices down to three, none of which involved knives in the throat, at least not yet. It was also agreed that nothing should be done until they knew more about the directions Braddock’s investigation might be heading. They had expected his visit, after all, and his mere appearance was no reason to take action. That part of their meeting came to a close with all in agreement to bide their time. Weasel looked disappointed. They would never know how close Venkman and Finney had come to ending their problems with Braddock.

  “Earl, you’ll be going to the Bucklins’ later, right?” the captain asked before they broke up.

  “Yessir.” Earl had reported privately to the captain. Earl believed that Mike didn’t know anything. Even if he did, he’d thrown such a scare into the boy that he’d be too frightened to even think about what he might know, let alone tell anyone. Nevertheless, they had decided on one more step, just to be sure. Earl knew the plan.

  “Next item on the agenda,” said Jacobs.

  “Hold on there, Bart,” Lincoln broke in. “We need to get to work. Can’t we take the next items up at the regular meeting?”

  “This isn’t a job like the Prospect wreck,” Jacobs retorted. “We need to have precise, detailed plans. Time’s running short.” Weasel loved nothing better than a good plan.

  “We know that, Bart, but we do have jobs to go to and so do you,” Lincoln reminded him. “No point throwing a light on us.”

  The captain checked his watch. “I think we can spare maybe twenty minutes but no more. We can pick up from there this evening.”

  Weasel took a deep breath. “Well, like I was saying, we have issues of transport, timing, and stealth to deal with.” He ticked off the items on his fingers. “We all knew this was not going to be simple.” They had established a basic plan months before, but like any plan, it kept evolving, getting more and more refined the closer it got to completion.

  “No lie!” Earl laughed. “Took near on to thirteen years ta build the goddamned thing. Should take some doin’ ta bring it down.”

  At first they had thought to blow the towers—that is, once they decided there was no way for them to be undermined. Earl and Matt’s stint in the caissons had proved that. Yet blowing the immense towers would take hours of drilling and tons of explosives. Eventually they had given that idea up. “You could fire a parrot gun at those towers all day long and not make a dent,” the captain had said. The roadway was another matter.

  “That’s six thousand six hundred and twenty tons, not including the weight of the cables,” Sullivan had reminded them. “We just need to cause a weakness. All that weight will do the rest. Remember Ashtabula.” There they’d cut critical points in the trestle, letting the weight of a passing train do the rest. But from their calculations, even just weakening the roadway would take over seven tons of dynamite and days to set and wire charges. There simply was no way to transport, set, and wire that amount of explosives without detection.

  They’d considered blowing the main cables too. Each of the four cables was fifteen and three quarter inches thick, containing over fifty-four hundred wires, bundled in a virtually solid steel mass. Many times stronger than needed to withstand the weight of the span, they would be nearly impervious to explosives, except where they crossed the towers. But transporting the explosives to the tops of the towers would take hours, and no one knew for sure whether enough
explosives could be packed around the cables in that tight spot. After weeks of consideration, that idea too had been rejected.

  The plan they had finally agreed upon was as elegant as it was efficient. It called for just a few hundred pounds of explosives and no more than an hour and a half to set the charges. It was not without risk, but risk was an old bedfellow.

  The captain nodded but seemed to be thinking of something as he examined the plans laid out on the table.

  “I think,” he started slowly, “that Jacobs has an important point in principle.” The captain had the look they had often seen during the war, when he was sitting with the colonel late at night, planning for the next day’s action. He had never lost the habit of putting things in military terms. Sullivan though saw it as a crutch. Like a security blanket, it cloaked him in a mantle of command. The cloak was frayed now, but he wore it with pride and a dogged desperation. “Jacobs, will you please start a list of issues and tactics still needing to be finalized, the advantages and disadvantages of each?” Sangree said with a glance at his watch. “Do it like this.” The captain drew two lines down a sheet of paper, making three columns. “Tactics down one column, and so forth. We’ll lay out our options, eliminate those that seem impractical, and concentrate on the ones that offer the best chance of success.” Once again they refined their plans, Jacob taking down the points in his elegant hand. It sometimes seemed that the final issues would take forever to iron out. They all knew the devil was in the details.