Hell's Gate

by Richard E. Crabbe

  “What’s your end?”

  “Five fer me, too,” Connors said. “Everybody wins.”

  “Except for this fellow Saturn.”

  “Well, o’ course, not him. But what da fuck, he got himself in dis mess.”

  Sullivan chuckled. He was a notorious gambler himself, the only difference being that he could afford to be one. “What’s his game?”

  “Stuss,” Connors said almost spitting the word with distaste. “Clever fella like him shoulda knew better.”

  “Funny what some men’ll do, the risks they’ll take for the thrill o’ winning. Doesn’t mean he’s stupid, just that he loves the thrill, convinced himself he can beat the odds.” Tim shook his head as Chuck let out a blue cloud of cigar smoke.

  “Where’d he play? Not the Bottler’s game, I hope?”

  Connors shrugged. “Don’ matter ta me. Could be, why?”

  “Nothin’,” Big Tim said. He looked at his watch, then got up from his chair. “Take a walk with me, Chuck.”

  Connors stood. “Where youse goin’?” He’d just been getting comfortable in Big Tim’s leather chair, feeling like a big shot, pulling strings.

  “Out an’ about, Chuck. Out an’ about. A politician’s no good to anybody if you can’t see him.”

  As they left Big Tim’s office, two men fell in behind them. One was Photo Dave Altman, his bodyguard, the other was called Sasparilla, though his real name was Thomas Reilly, Tim’s sometime valet, factotum, and doer of things he preferred not to do himself. When they left the building they turned west on Broome. Photo Dave went two paces ahead, Sasparilla a pace behind. Connors had no doubt they were armed, but somehow that knowledge didn’t make him feel safe.

  Men on the street tipped their hats to Big Tim. Connors got his share of recognition as well, but it was nothing against the steady surf of greetings that followed Sullivan. A woman stopped them just a block from the park, stepping into their path suddenly and startling Photo Dave, who reached into his jacket. Tim just shook his head and Dave relaxed. The woman poured out a tale of woe, which Chuck only half heard. He watched with interest, though, as Big Tim listened carefully, questioning her in detail on one point or another. After a minute, he produced a wad of bills and peeled off a few into the woman’s palm. Patting her on the shoulder and giving her a few soft words of encouragement, he sent her off. Sasparilla scribbled something in a notebook.

  “Husband’s sick an’ the fookin’ landlord’s puttin’ them out,” Big Tim explained. “He’s a good man, a good Democrat. Always good for two, three votes. We’ll fix it with the damn landlord.” He gave a slight nod to Sasparilla, who nodded back as he wrote.

  They didn’t talk about the Knickerbocker Steamship Company, stuss games, Kelly, or Saturn’s debt, but Big Tim thought of those things constantly as they walked, rolling them around in his head, looking for the perfect angle, that delicate point at which the least leverage might be applied to the greatest advantage.

  He had been in the habit of hiring a steamer for his day trips to the North Shore of Long Island in the summers; part reward for the party faithful, part extortion. They were splendid affairs, complete with massive barbeques, horseshoes, dancing, swimming, and fireworks. He always made sure that there was a solid sprinkling of families who needed a good meal and a day away from care. They were altogether satisfying endeavors and Big Tim took pride in them, always trying to make the next one a bit more fun than the last. And though they had always been moneymakers, he hadn’t held them strictly for that. But this thing with the fool Saturn and his steamship company had the power to add another level of interest. Big Tim made a calculation and came up with a number. It was a good number, a number that put him in mind of how he might look in a captain’s uniform. He imagined himself behind the wheel as the steamer churned the river, saw himself blowing the big steam whistle, and smiled at the notion of literally tooting his own horn.

  “Somethin’ funny?” Connors asked. Sullivan shook his head.

  “Nothin’, Chuck,” Big Tim said, making a mental note to check his numbers before he made any moves. There was nothing funny about it, nothing funny at all.

  11

  MIKE HEARD THE Oldsmobile before he saw it. He was crossing at the corner of Spring and Crosby, not far from where the new police headquarters was being built, a grand beaux arts pile that was to replace the aging and unpretentious old building on Mulberry. The Olds’s horn honked twice, like a goose made of brass and rubber. Tom was dressed in a white duster that enveloped him like an Arab. Long gloves in yellow kid covered his hands and little round goggles were strapped around his head just under his black bowler. He grinned incandescently and waved like a boy on his first bike ride, letting go of the tiller for an instant. The car weaved in response to the sudden lack of piloting, the white tires bouncing crazily, the tiller whipping about before Tom grabbed it again with a look somewhere between panic and foolishness. He brought the car to a stop beside Mike with a flurry of pulled levers and twisted controls. It stalled with an indignant chug and sputter, a puff of smoke shooting out the back.

  “Damn spark,” Tom said as he pulled the goggles down around his neck. “Haven’t got the hang of it yet,” he said with a wave at a brass lever. “Keep forgetting to retard the damn thing.” In reality, Tom wasn’t exactly sure why the Olds sputtered when he stopped but he was damn sure Mike knew even less about it than he did. “Heard about Mickey Todt,” he added as he pulled off his gloves.

  “Yeah. He’s todt for sure now. We’re back to square one. That’s why I’m heading over to check the rogues’ gallery, see if I come up with any aliases. Sure as hell the Bottler ain’t his real name.”

  “Maybe Ma and Pa Bottler couldn’t decide on a name for junior,” Tom said with a glance back at the Olds. “So how’s Primo working out?”

  “Good. He’s a wise guy, but he seems to have his head on straight. He knows what he’s doing and he’s careful. Did all right with the Mickey Todt thing. He’ll be at headquarters in a minute,” Mike said with a glance at his pocket watch. “So what’re you doing here?”

  “Meeting with the Chief. Going over budgets,” Tom said with a grimace. “Spend more time looking at balance sheets and fuckin’ reports than anything like real police work. It’s all bullshit.” He gave an audible sigh. “But necessary, I guess. Keeps us on the straight and narrow.” Mayor McClellan, who’d only been on the job for a few months, was not toeing Tammany’s line and had made a point of appointing Independents to his administration, which had not been lost on the higher echelons of the department.

  “Heard you were out with Ginny the other day,” Tom said, changing the subject abruptly. “I’m surprised they let you take her out of the house. Your mom almost never let that happen.” He appeared to catch himself, then added, “But things were different then.”

  “Yeah, well, I paid for the favor,” Mike said. He was uncomfortable with the subject as always with his father. “How’d you know, I mean about us going out?”

  Tom just smiled and wiped his goggles on the hem of his duster. “Your mother got this outfit for me. Said it’ll make me look sporty. I’m not so sure. Think maybe I just look stupid.”

  Mike grinned. “Maybe, but you know what they say, Stupid is as stupid does.”

  “Talking about yourself, Mike?” Primo said behind them. “Oldsmobile, huh.” He said, looking longingly at the car. “It is good, the red. A very sexy color. The women they will chase you down Broadway like the bulls with the matador.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t say that in front of my wife. I’d be driving a black one the next day,” Tom said. “You boys open in an hour or two?”

  “Maybe. Why?” Mike asked.

  “Got an idea. Somebody you should maybe see.”

  “Who?”

  “Tell you later. Meet me in say an hour an’ fifteen.”

  * * *

  It was closer to an hour and forty-five minutes later that they finally met again on the stairs.
r />   “So who we seeing?” Primo asked.

  “Marm Mandelbaum,” Tom said.

  “Who is this person with so silly a name?”

  “The biggest fence in the city,” Mike said. “Or at least she used to be. Never met her myself, but my dad knows her from way back. I thought she’d gone to Canada?”

  “Trust me on this,” Tom said. “Marm’s in town though nobody knows it. She comes back every now and again.”

  Primo looked doubtfully at the seat as they approached the Olds. “They no make bigger ones? A second seat maybe?”

  “Not Olds. Strictly runabouts right now,” Tom said as he went through the starting procedure. He closed a small valve he told them was an air cock, depressed a button on the heel board, and moved the spark on the emergency brake lever all the way back. He then moved the electric switch lever forward, put his heel on something he called the relief lever, and told Mike to crank it over. “It should just need a couple turns, Mike. Fast as you can.” The Olds started on the second turn, chugging to life like a tiny locomotive and puffing almost as much.

  “Maybe running is no so bad idea,” Primo joked as he climbed up onto the Olds’s seat, shrugging his shoulders to squeeze between Tom and Mike. Tom threw the clutch lever into slow speed and stepped on the speeder. It was a strange sensation to be suddenly moving without any visible means of locomotion and both Mike and Primo found themselves smiling like fools. The Olds simply pulled away, gaining speed slowly, but steadily, until Tom moved the clutch lever to high speed. They were doing fifteen or twenty miles per hour in less than a minute and hanging on to the little rails at the sides of the seat. The engine chugged with the slow and steady stroke of a long-distance swimmer, not seeming to alter much even as they moved faster. Tom passed carriages and wagons, dodged a horsecar and generally terrorized pedestrians and horses alike, using the horn liberally. He wore a wicked grin all the while, his eyes big and excited behind his goggles. There was a constant sense of commotion, of people jumping out of the way and cursing in their wake.

  In a remarkably short time they arrived at an ordinary four-story building on Orchard Street. Its only outward signs of prosperity were a bit of fresh paint on the windowsills and a handsome oak door of the very latest design, glossy with several coats of varnish. The first floor was occupied by a dry goods store and heavy drapes blocked the windows on the second and third floors, The fourth-floor windows were thrown open, however, and the drapes pulled back. Mike could see an intricately plastered ceiling, decorated with flowered moldings in a geometric pattern, clouds and cherubs chasing one another across the frames.

  Tom twisted the bell in the center of the door, which was up a few steps from the level of the dry goods store. He was about to ring again when a young man opened it. He regarded them with unwavering eyes. They flicked from Tom to Primo and Mike, measuring and challenging. No words were spoken, except by Tom.

  “I’m Captain Braddock,” Tom said. “Your mom is expecting us. I called ahead.”

  The man gave a slight nod and stepped aside. Mike looked back at the Olds as the door closed behind them. A loose ring of people surrounded it.

  “The Olds’ll be okay there?”

  A brief smirk crossed the young man’s lips. “No one will touch your car,” he said with certainty.

  They climbed through the house on a broad staircase with a wide walnut rail and balusters. The lower floors were hidden behind tall pocket doors, but the stair was brightly lit by electric lights in sconces on the walls. As they turned onto the third-floor landing a woman’s voice called from above, “Slowing down, Tommy? Used to climb them stairs a lot quicker in the old days.”

  Tom laughed and bounded up the last flight of stairs two at a time. Mike hurried behind, but stopped when he saw Tom at the top of the stairs lifting an immense old woman in a bear hug.

  “Christ, you’re a heavy old broad!” he cried and put her down with a thump that shook the floor.

  “But you still picked me up, you old devil,” the lady laughed. “I don’t get hugs like that in Canada! I take it back, Tommy. You haven’t slowed a bit. Maybe a little grayer though,” she said, running a hand through his hair. “Definitely grayer.”

  “And you’re definitely fatter,” Tom said, rubbing his back. “How’s Canada?

  “Dull as the grave. Not like here. Goddamn Mounties don’t know how to do business. Offer ’em a dollar an’ they get all indignant. Imagine!”

  Tom grunted. “I can’t.”

  “The boys do most of the work now. I’m too old. Mostly I sit on my ass and get fatter every day goes by.”

  “Sure, Marm,” Tom said with a twinkle in his eye. He knew she was a long sight from being retired, though she was careful to keep a much lower profile in New York than she did in the old days, when police, politicians, gangsters, and businessmen often mingled in her parlors and dining room. Marm had been famous for her dinners; as it turned out, a bit too famous. The papers had taken an interest in her social doings, and it had finally become politically expedient to bring her up on charges. Howe and Hummel had kept her out of jail long enough for her to flee north, much to everyone’s relief.

  “Marm, I’d like you to meet my boy, Mike,” Tom said. “He’s a detective now. And this is Primo Alfieri, his partner.”

  Marm looked them over. Though there was a smile on her face, her eyes were possibly even harder than her son’s. She was an old woman with a huge beak of a nose, bulging cheeks, and a high, sloping forehead. She had a shrewd eye and a cast-iron will under her sagging flesh, a toughness that her over-rouged cheeks did nothing to disguise. Still, her voice was jolly when she said, “They’re good boys, I can see,” and extended a huge bejeweled hand to Mike, the hardness melting from her eyes. “But not too good, I hope, or you wouldn’t have brought them.”

  Tom laughed. “Not too good, no. They’ve been around the block.”

  Marm ushered them into her apartment, offering them coffee and tea and seating them in an ornate parlor. Mike could hardly believe the opulence of the place. The carpets were Persian, of the finest silk woven in an intricate design. The furniture was an eclectic collection, crafted of rare woods and veneers, with deep tufted cushions in silks, damasks, and brocades, representing every style from Federal to Empire and Eastlake Victorian. Every piece was exquisite. Paintings hung on the walls in such profusion that it looked more like a gallery than a home. Mike tried not to gape.

  “Marm,” Tom said when they had settled, “ever hear of somebody goes by the name of the Bottler?”

  “That’s an odd one, Tommy,” she said as she poured herself some tea. “What you want with him?”

  Tom pressed Mike’s foot under the table when he saw Mike was about to jump in.

  “Not sure exactly, Marm. He might just be a link in a chain, so to speak. Maybe more, maybe less.”

  Marm chuckled. “Ain’t we all just links in a chain, Tommy?”

  “Of one kind or another,” Tom agreed.

  “And you come to me, which means you don’t have more’n stink on shit,” Marm said flatly. “Why ask me? Why not go to Big Bill?”

  “You have to ask?” Tom said. He’d considered talking to Devery, who he knew well enough, but treated the idea as a last resort. Mike just frowned at the mention of Devery’s name. He’d known better than to even broach the subject with his father until all else failed.

  “There is always another way,” Primo broke in. “A man can no hide forever.”

  Marm paid him no attention, putting a third lump of sugar in her tea with a silver spoon. “This is about that thing in the harbor the other night, right? You found some connection to this Bottler mug but not much more.” Marm looked from one to the other. “And as you say, Detective Alfieri, you might find him eventually. But eventually ain’t soon enough, is it?”

  “Sooner would be more convenient,” Tom said.

  “Always is, ain’t it?” Marm chuckled, passing around a cut crystal tray of pastries. “So what’s
this information worth, I’m wondering … information about a mug that might be a link in a chain? You’re not a lad to come to me with nothin’ to trade, Tommy. Always knew how to make a deal.”

  Tom just shrugged, but Primo said, “You are in no so good position to bargain, with all respect. The indictments, they are still open, no?”

  “Technically,” Marm grunted, her thin lips turning down in a snarl. A small blob of powdered sugar from one of the pastries hung at the edge of her mouth like a spot of foam.

  “You have many things of beauty here,” Primo said, looking around. “Why should we dangle the carrot when the stick is maybe better, eh?”

  “You ain’t got a stick big enough for me, Detective,” Marm growled, all pretense of hospitality draining from her face. Her son appeared in the doorway to the next room like a dog sensing the tension in his master’s voice.

  “That’s enough o’ that shit,” Tom said, his voice as final as a judge’s gavel. “Marm, lets you an’ me take a walk. Show me the rest of your place. I’m sure we can come to some kind of agreement. Always found a way before an’ no unpleasantness needed.” He stood, giving Primo a look only slightly less flinty than Marm’s.

  Marm hauled her bulk out of her chair with a grunt of effort. “Jus’ like old times, eh, Tommy?”

  * * *

  It was some time before Tom and Marm returned, time enough for Mike to take a slow tour of the parlor to admire the paintings. He wondered whose walls they had hung on before finding their way here. There was a Bierstadt, a Tait, three Remingtons, a couple done by Dutchmen that had the look of real age to them, but the one that caught his eye and held it longer than the others was a colorful, exotic scene done by somebody signed Gauguin, a South Seas scene with palm trees and near-naked women with long black hair and nut-brown skin. Mike had never seen anything like them. He knew a little about art, enough to know that Marm’s walls were covered with money. Primo, by contrast, spent more time examining the furniture.