She gave me a panicked look. “Simon—I—”
“You can do it,” I reassured her. “Get help right away. Find a night watchman. Or a hotel—anyone who has telephone service to call the precinct house.”
As she ran ahead, I crossed the street, nearly tripping over a pile of muck in the middle of the road. She would be fine, I told myself.
The three men crossed, as well. Was one of them Savvas, the large Russian I’d encountered at the front door?
Bracing myself for a fight, I raced forward—but it was only moments until a violent thud felled me onto the sidewalk.
“We don’t like pigs stickin’ their nose in our business,” a throaty voice growled.
Savvas.
I rolled over and kicked up. I hit him hard in the groin with every ounce of my strength; then he was on the ground, too. Another swift kick to his head and he didn’t move.
But his companion, a stocky blond man I didn’t recognize from the beer hall, came at me with a bully stick that I barely avoided.
I was outnumbered. Still, I was not an easy target. With a youth spent on the dangerous streets of the Lower East Side, I was no stranger to brawls and gang violence. I quickly took stock of the two remaining men. In addition to the man with the bully stick, there was a swarthy man who did not appear to be holding a weapon. Good. I had left my gun at the precinct, worried that I would be searched entering the beer hall.
Without warning, I dove at the knees of the blond man, knocking him off balance. As he fell to one knee, I chopped him to the throat with my good left arm. The man and his bully stick fell to the ground. Grabbing the weapon, I turned to the swarthy man.
“Who sent you?” I demanded. “Jonathan Strupp?”
The sole response was a grunt and a stream of spit sent to the street.
Realizing that I was not going to talk my way out of this predicament, I advanced cautiously, brandishing the stick.
But my advantage was short-lived. Savvas must have recovered from my initial attack. It was no use, I thought, as he sucker-punched me to the side of the head. The swarthy man then jumped on top of me. His breath was sour and stank of chewing tobacco as he held me down.
I thrashed, trying to knock him to the side. But out of nowhere came a thud to my head—and as white flashes danced in front of my eyes, all faded to blackness.
* * *
“Simon. Simon!”
I was vaguely conscious of Isabella’s voice calling my name, each time more insistently. But when I opened my mouth to speak, no sound came. And though I tried to open my eyes, I could not.
“He’s going to be all right. It looks worse than it is.”
That was Mulvaney’s Irish brogue, comforting Isabella. She was all right, then.
I felt her hand softly touching my cheek and the sensation of other hands lifting me, before I once again descended into a darkness that was a release from all pain and worry.
Thursday
October 25, 1906
CHAPTER 14
Fifty-seventh Street and Ninth Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen. 9 A.M.
It was Bridget Mulvaney’s voice that called to me, permeating the fog of my heavy slumber the next morning.
“I’ve got ham and eggs waiting on the table. You’d best get up before they’re cold,” she said tartly. “You’ll find clean clothes on the chair. They belong to Declan’s brother. He’s much bigger than you, but I daresay they won’t fall off.”
I sat up slowly and tried to open my eyes, but heavy, swollen lids prevented me from managing more than the tiniest slit. I was disoriented and sore; the slightest movement sent fresh darts of pain throughout my body.
“Here.” She placed an offering on the bed: a small brown towel holding a block of ice that I applied with relief to my eyes.
I managed to mutter a few words of thanks, but she brushed them off in typical style. “’Tis nothing. Mrs. Hart got an ice delivery this morning that she was happy to share. Her youngest, Annie, got married last month—and now it’s just herself living downstairs.”
After she left, I managed to get dressed. There was no mirror in the makeshift guest room where the Mulvaneys had put me—a corner of their main living area where they’d placed a mattress and hung faded red and white checkered curtains for privacy. But I knew what sort of shape my face was in.
I made my way to the round pine table off the kitchen where the Mulvaneys regularly ate.
Mulvaney was sitting down already, waiting. “Good night’s sleep, Ziele? It should’ve been. The doctor gave you a heavy dose of chloral hydrate.” He grinned. “Knockout drops.”
“That explains how hard it was to wake up this morning,” I said ruefully. It also explained my fuzzy head; my thoughts were slow to form and process.
I took the seat opposite Mulvaney. “How did I get here last night? I don’t remember much.”
In fact, I hardly remembered anything at all after my attackers caught up with me.
“Your professor’s daughter-in-law ran straight for the precinct house after she left you. I was still there, working.” He raised an eyebrow. “You gave her quite a scare; she thought you were going to be killed. So we sent a couple of young guys to scare off the thugs. Then I arrived with Tim Gallagher to take care of you.”
He pushed a cup of coffee toward me. “I made it strong.”
I took an immediate gulp; the heat and the familiar flavor provided both comfort and relief this morning.
“Of course,” he said with a grin, “I also gave the order to break up that worker’s movement meeting you attended. And since Isabella couldn’t identify which men attacked you, we’ve got at least thirty anarchists holed up in a jail cell until you’re well enough to make it downtown to formally identify your attackers and press charges.”
“Is Jonathan among them?” I asked.
More soberly, Mulvaney nodded. “A damned shame, isn’t it?”
“We can’t be sure—” I started to say, but he held up his hand.
“Don’t say it.” He looked at me hard. “I asked Isabella to identify the man you’d spoken with earlier. She described how angry he was—and we believe that he is same man who ordered this attack. You show a lot more consideration for him than he has for you.”
But I couldn’t believe that Jonathan was responsible. It could just as easily have been Hlad or Savvas. Besides, it wasn’t Jonathan that I worried about. It was his family.
“We’ll ask you to identify the others later today. No rush, of course.”
“No rush” meant that Mulvaney intended for all of them to spend the maximum amount of time possible in a holding cell before being released.
“Seriously, how are you feeling?” he asked with a sharp look. Either my appearance—or my black mood—had given him cause for new concern.
“I’ll be fine.” I shrugged. “Sometimes I think the commissioner is right: there’s nobody but scum of one sort or another in this city. Everyone’s out for themselves; those who get in their way be damned.”
Mulvaney’s face tightened. “It’s not just here; it’s everywhere, Ziele. And with a job like ours, we see the worst of human nature, don’t we? Between the greed and the complete disregard for life…” He was quiet for a moment, then continued talking. “Last night I was still at my desk because a Black Hand operative was arrested. He was caught in the act—just about to light the fuse of his bomb in a tenement hallway.”
“So he planned to destroy the tenement because the building owner wouldn’t pay protection money?” I asked, shaking my head. “Never mind the cost to innocent lives.”
“With them, it’s always about the money—and keeping up the reputation of the Black Hand,” Mulvaney said.
I pushed my plate aside; I had no appetite this morning. “The anarchists claim they’re motivated by moral ideals. But I wonder: if they got what they wanted, would they turn out to be as corrupt and greedy and addicted to power as the men they want to destroy?”
“There’s not much place for hono
r and decency in this city, Ziele.” Mulvaney looked at me with sad eyes. “We only do the best we can—especially for those that deserve it. It’s the only reason I can still work murder cases after all these years.”
“Speaking of which, did you attend Judge Porter’s autopsy last night?” I asked.
“Yes. Death by gunshot wound—pretty straightforward. But don’t worry,” he said, eyes gleaming, “we’ve still got one solid lead to investigate.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his white cotton handkerchief, and placed it before me on the table.
I unwrapped it slowly to reveal the shiny gold object inside. “It’s a bullet. The same one we found in the hotel yesterday?”
“It is. And Dr. Jennings has confirmed it’s the bullet responsible for killing Judge Porter.” He gave me a curious look as he passed me another handkerchief bundle. “Now, tell me if you think it’s a match with this one. Use the magnifying glass.” He gestured to a silver-rimmed glass on my left.
Through bleary eyes, I did my best to compare the two small brass .32-caliber bullets, focusing on the number of lands and grooves. There were distinctive marks on each that appeared similar, at least to my untrained eye.
“They look alike. Where did you get the second bullet?” I asked.
“Yesterday I visited Funke, the gun seller.”
“And he just happened to have a spare bullet on hand that matches our murder weapon?”
“Even better,” Mulvaney said with a self-satisfied grin. “He happens to have the murder weapon itself.”
I was incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”
“Couldn’t be more so. The killer—or someone helping him—returned it yesterday, claiming it was defective.”
I could only stare at him.
“Finish your breakfast,” he said. “We’ll head down to Chambers Street so you can hear for yourself.”
* * *
A. H. Funke’s gun shop at 53 Chambers Street had proven indispensable to us time and again. There, Funke and his right-hand man, Sullivan, sold and repaired all manner of guns. Rumor had it that we paid dearly each month to keep them on retainer as police informants. But if their information wasn’t cheap, it was at least good: the result of the fine line they walked between the legitimate firearm trade—and that which was decidedly less so.
The shop was small, with all manner of guns from rifles and pistols to shotguns hanging from its walls and ceiling. The smell of gun polish and cleaner was overwhelming as we walked in the door and were greeted by Sully’s broad smile.
“Simon Ziele—glad you’re back. It’s been a dog’s age, hasn’t it? You ought to come around more often. I could’ve supplied you with something that might’ve chased off whoever took a piece out of you.” He gave a pointed look at my swollen eye and bruised face, even more painful now that the doctor’s sedative had worn off.
But I preferred not to carry a gun except in those rare instances where it was absolutely necessary. I didn’t want to be tempted to use it.
“I’m all right, Sully,” I said. “Besides, I hear you have a piece here in the shop that the captain and I are very interested in.”
Sully’s eyes, their color a match for the dark blue nickel guns on the counter in front of him, glinted with excitement. “I do.” He pulled out a wooden box, which he placed on top of the glass display case.
“Yesterday the captain brought me a bullet from a murder weapon.”
“That’s right.” Mulvaney nodded. “I have it here.” He once again brought out the small brass ball that had taken Judge Porter’s life.
Sully picked up the bullet and stared at it—a tiny thing compared to his broad fingers. “It’s a .32-caliber bullet, obviously. And when I looked at these lands and grooves,” he said, “I immediately suspected that it came from a Browning automatic pistol.” He looked up. “You’re aware that it’s possible these days to match an individual bullet to the gun that fired it?”
“We are,” I said. “Ever since Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes himself showed us how.”
Years ago, Holmes had famously called a gunsmith into the courtroom to test-fire an alleged murder weapon. He then used a magnifying glass to compare the markings on the test-fired bullet to the bullet from the victim. He was satisfied. And after he showed the jury, they were convinced as well: they promptly convicted the defendant.
“So you’re familiar with the method, too,” Sully said with approval. “I test-fired an ordinary 1900 Browning automatic pistol yesterday for the captain. We examined the bullets afterward and they were similar—enough so that I would have told you with certainty that your murder weapon was a Browning pistol. But the marks weren’t perfect enough to tell us that it was the same Browning model that had fired this bullet.” He held up the brass slug once again, then tapped his head with his finger. “That’s when something occurred to me. A similar Browning pistol was returned to the shop only yesterday. And I thought, why not test it out to see if the marks were closer? Sure enough, that Browning made marks identical to the bullet that killed your man. We’re talking dumb luck. To identify the exact Browning model would have been the best we could have hoped for, but this…” he said, his voice trailing off.
He looked at me strangely. “Perhaps you’d like to see for yourself?”
I nodded to encourage him.
He smiled with anticipation as he opened the wooden box. Nestled inside was a small six-inch-long pistol, silver-colored, with a double-barreled silhouette and humpback shape. He looked at it with obvious satisfaction. “She’s a real beauty: there aren’t many of these nickel ones in circulation. More commonly they are blued.” He picked it up. “And she weighs under a pound.”
Watching him handle the gun with his bare fingers, I shot a look of concern at Mulvaney.
“I dusted it for prints personally when I first saw it yesterday,” he said. “There were none. It had been wiped clean—though we don’t know whether the killer was trying to avoid detection or was just cleaning his gun.”
Sully looked at me. “Ready to test-fire?” He held an extremely thick wad of cotton in one hand, the Browning pistol in the other. He placed the cotton in a wooden crate, loaded the pistol with a new brass .32-caliber bullet, and fired. The loud crack reverberated in my ears for several seconds.
He lifted out the wad of cotton and passed it to me. Picking up the tiny brass bullet, I placed it next to our original, found at Judge Porter’s murder scene—and the magnifying glass that Sully provided showed the truth, even to my swollen eyes: we now had in our possession three bullets with identical markings. There seemed little doubt that the shiny nickel pistol in Sully’s hand was our murder weapon.
“Well, then,” I said, placing the bullet on the glass counter. “We’ve found our murder weapon. What can you tell me about its owner?”
Sully gave me a sly look. “Assuming, of course, that its buyer and eventual user are the same.”
“Assuming that, yes.”
Sully was one of the sharper informants I’d ever encountered. I supposed that in his line of work, he had to be.
Mulvaney and I followed him as he crossed the room to a small walnut secretary where he kept a ledger. He pulled it out and showed it to us; I was pleased to see that he kept notes organized by weapon, not by customer.
“See here.” He pointed to a notation for a 1900 nickel Browning. “The gun came into my shop on Monday, September tenth, from my usual distributor. I cleaned and tested it; then it sat until a customer came in to inspect it on Thursday, October fourth. He was pleased, and purchased it the following day: October fifth. Then yesterday—Wednesday, the twenty-fourth—he returned to my shop. He complained about the recoil, said it was faulty.” He sighed. “I knew he was lying to me; this little Browning is one of the finest that’s ever come into my shop. And I normally don’t take a return after seven days have passed. But in this case, I refunded his money and took the gun back—simply because I liked the pistol so much. I knew I�
�d have no difficulty finding a new owner—one who’d appreciate it.”
“Did he give a name or address?” I asked.
“No address, but he gave his name,” Sully replied. “Didn’t the captain tell you?”
I gave Mulvaney a questioning look.
“You’ll do better to ask for more information about what the buyer looked like,” he said, his voice almost a growl.
“Why?” I asked, now suspicious.
Sully shrugged. “I can only tell you what I told the captain yesterday. He was a tall man with broad features. White-blond hair. He looked Scandinavian to me; my best guess was Swedish, based on his accent. But I’m no expert.”
I immediately thought of our elevator attendant at the Breslin Hotel.
“A woman waited for him outside,” he continued. “I didn’t get a good look at her, but she was short. Petite, if we want to be polite. And exotic looking.”
“Chinese?” I asked, for Mei Lin immediately sprang to mind.
“I dunno. Didn’t get a good enough look.”
“And you got his name?” I repeated the question to Sully and held my breath with anticipation.
But some sixth sense gave me his answer before he said the words.
“It was Sanders. He said his name was Leroy Sanders. See?” Sully pointed with heavily blue-stained fingertips to a different place in his ledger. “I made him sign.”
I traced the signature lightly with my own finger. And I’d need no handwriting expert to tell me what I clearly saw with my own eyes: the signature perfectly mirrored the one made in the hotel register. The signer at the Breslin—and the purchaser of this Browning pistol—were one and the same.
CHAPTER 15
Holding Cell at the Tombs, Centre Street. 12:30 P.M.
The main holding cell on the first floor of the Tombs was typically filled with a motley assortment of drunkards and thieves, but today it was filled to capacity with the thirty-some men—all anarchists—that Mulvaney had rounded up at the beer hall last night following my assault.
Secret of the White Rose Page 15
