Absence of Mercy

by S. M. Goodwin

  “I’m sorry?” Jasper said.

  “Copal, sir—have you heard of it?”

  “Er, used for adhesion?”

  O’Malley’s forehead furrowed.

  “G-Glue.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s it. Well, it seems there are two sorts. Both are used in—”

  You should never have come to this country, Jasper.

  What the devil is the point of such a comment?

  Jasper immediately regretted asking that. He knew that hearing voices in one’s head wasn’t normal—arguing with them was likely even worse.

  Tell the driver to turn around. The divisions in the police are symptoms of a greater, more lethal sickness. This country is on the verge of violence. None of these problems are yours.

  That might be true too, but Haslem—and perhaps Elizabeth and Law—would suffer and maybe even die if he ran.

  “Why not go to Superintendent Tallmadge?” Paisley had pleaded. “Everything I’ve read says he is an honest man fighting the corruption of City Hall.”

  Jasper had read the same stories.

  But Finch had been a well-intentioned reformer too, and look what he’d been tangled up in.

  As for the mayor? Yesterday’s antics—resisting arrest, inciting Municipal policemen to riot against Captain Walling when the legal head of the Metropolitan Police was serving a warrant—demonstrated that he had no respect for the law. Wood could have lied about his connection to Dunbarton—after all, Jasper knew the mayor owned several ships of his own—and he was clearly a crony of Symington’s; maybe he was shipping guns and slaves and he’d been the one to call in Ryan to kill Finch?

  The men involved in this plan—no matter how ridiculous parts of it appeared—had been actively engaged in treason. The punishment for treason was death.

  If two prostitutes and a lone interfering Englishman happened to get killed while the conspirators protected themselves, who would complain or care? And if somebody demanded an investigation—highly unlikely—Jasper knew better than anyone how little investigating would get done in this environment of corruption and chaos.

  He’d learned a great deal about what was going on, but he still had no real evidence—other than Finch’s rambling and rather deranged confession—and didn’t know nearly enough.

  The only thing Jasper knew for sure was that this conspiracy was worth murdering for.

  CHAPTER 33

  Jasper glanced at the clock that hung on the captain’s wall, wondering if the things he was about to say next would have McElhenny throwing him into an interrogation room beside Haslem. Wondering if he’d taken a chance on a hunch and made a dreadful mistake in coming here.

  Wondering if McElhenny would ever get tired of the sound of his own voice.

  “If you’re here to thank me for doin’ your job, you shouldn’t have bothered,” McElhenny said, grinning like the cat who caught the canary.

  “I’m here to t-tell you that your witness—the young p-prostitute named V-Velma—could not p-possibly have seen what she claimed to see. Haslem is not the k-killer, Captain McElhenny, and you are making a d-dreadful mistake—yet again—if you’re t-trying to force a confession out of him.”

  The other man’s mouth tightened. Unlike Davies, who was a smart man, McElhenny was the sort who’d been promoted up the ranks as a reward for his unquestioning obedience to authority and a willingness to dirty his hands.

  “I tell you what, my lord, we’ve been runnin’ our city just fine until you got here.”

  “Other than Velma’s useless st-statement, what’s y-your evidence?”

  McElhenny frowned. “Evidence?”

  “Yes, Captain—evidence. You might have h-heard it referred to by a sh-shorter word—proof? What proof do you have to arrest P-Peter Haslem for the murder of Stephen Finch?”

  McElhenny’s face purpled, and he jumped to his feet.

  “In this police department, there is a chain of command, Detective; perhaps you’ve heard it called by another word—” He faltered, a look of confusion crossing his dull features and ruining what had begun as a very clever riposte. “Orders!” he shouted, when he failed to find the word he wanted. “What you are, sir, is in-sub-ordinate.” He smirked in triumph at having spit out such a mouthful.

  Jasper felt like applauding. Instead, he asked, “D-Do you know where Detective Law is?”

  McElhenny’s confusion looked too genuine to be feigned.

  “First, he ain’t no detective. Second, if you want to find him, ask your own damned captain, since he’s workin’ at the Eighth. Now, as for proof, we have the—”

  Somebody rapped on the door.

  McElhenny scowled at whoever it was but waved them in. “What?”

  Jasper turned to find a nervous-looking patrolman.

  “Er, I’m s’posed to give this to you, sir.” He held an envelope toward the furious captain.

  McElhenny snatched it and ripped it open, taking out a single sheet. His eyes moved rapidly over the contents, his face overtaken by a mass of twitches as he made his way down the page.

  His hands were shaking by the time he finished. He fixed Jasper with such a look of hatred that—for a moment—Jasper thought he’d pull out a gun and shoot him.

  But a lifetime of bowing to his masters was too much to overcome.

  He wadded up the paper and flung it to the floor before turning away, as if he couldn’t stand to look at Jasper a moment longer. “Get him the hell out of here!”

  * * *

  The carriage that had been waiting for him outside the Sixth Precinct dropped Jasper off on a street that looked familiar. But Jasper was beginning to realize that a lot of Five Points looked familiar—at least when it came to the unremitting grimness and poverty.

  He walked up cracked and stained stone steps to a house that must have once been an imposing mansion. Two men stood on either side of the door; they had just as much humanity in their cold, pitiless eyes as the stone lions they were leaning on.

  Without speaking, they opened the door and led him into a foyer stripped of everything of value except a battered but magnificent marquetry floor depicting a sixteenth-century map of the known world. Here there be monsters.

  Accurate indeed.

  “Liftyeams,” one of the brutes said.

  “I beg your p-pardon?”

  The two men looked at each other and laughed.

  The one who hadn’t spoken jerked a thumb at his partner. “He said to lift your arms.” They both laughed at what Jasper supposed was their idea of an English toff’s accent. “We need to check you for guns,” the other one added.

  Jasper had always found the lilting cadence of an Irish accent charming. It struck him as considerably less charming as the big man patted him with what felt like excessive force. He paused to look at Jasper’s watch. “Noiyce watch.”

  “Thank you.”

  The man gave it a lingering look, then tucked it back in Jasper’s vest pocket.

  Once he’d been sufficiently searched, Jasper picked up his cane, which he’d leaned against the wall.

  “Ah, naow.” The second man held out his hand. “We heared about how you beat Ryan just loik a girl.”

  They both laughed, and Jasper handed the cane over.

  The staircase was missing planking, so they stepped carefully. On the second floor they turned down a corridor. At first Jasper believed the way was strewn with rubbish, but when one lump moved, he realized it was bodies—crouching, sitting, lying bodies. Young boys, by the look of it. Foot soldiers in training, he supposed.

  The men ushered him into a room that had once been the library. The only things that hadn’t been stolen were a great number of books. The room smelled of damp, rotting paper and mold.

  A desk sat dead center in the room, three carved spindle legs and a stack of books holding up the fourth corner. There was a man behind it, his feet propped up on the surface.

  “Ah, my lord, come in, come in.” His host gestured graciously to the ragged
wingback chair in front of the desk. Jasper’s two companions took up positions on either side of the library door.

  Their leader was smiling, but there was barely suppressed fury in his eyes.

  Ah, so somebody else has received unpopular orders.

  “Drink?” The man waved to a bottle.

  “N-No thank you.”

  He barked a laugh. “It’s true then—you’ve got a st-st-stammer.”

  Jasper smiled, and the men behind him chuckled.

  “I hear yer pa’s a duke, aye?”

  For some reason, Jasper felt like the man across from him was deliberately pouring on the blarney.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s that make you?”

  Jasper raised a brow. “A duke’s son.”

  The men again chuckled. But this time their employer cut them a filthy look that shut them up. Violence crackled in the air; Jasper wouldn’t have been surprised if the other man took a pistol from his desk drawer and shot all three of them.

  “My da was a fighter.” He grimaced and then added, “Well, he was before he killed a man durin’ a bout—then he was a murderer. Died in jail. So I’m a murderin’ boxer’s son.” He shrugged. “But in America, nobody cares about what my da did or who he was. I’m judged on me own merits.” He pulled his feet off the desk and let them fall with a deliberate thump that sent up puffs of dirt. “What I am around these parts is in charge—the boss, you could say.”

  “Understood,” Jasper said, although they both knew perfectly well that the man across from him might be a boss, but he was not the boss.

  “I reckon you bein’ new here, you didn’t know about me and how things work.”

  “I b-beg your pardon, but I’m afraid I d-don’t know your name.”

  One of the men snorted and then attempted to conceal it with a cough.

  “You shut your holes.” The “boss” glared at his henchmen before turning his anger on Jasper. “I’m Devlin McCarty—the man who says what is what around here.” McCarty drew out the silence. “The papers, where are they?”

  “They’re s-safe.”

  “I want them.”

  “You c-can have them as soon as my c-conditions are met.”

  “Papers first.”

  Jasper tried to suppress a twinge of irritation and failed. “P-Perhaps you should speak to the m-man who is brokering this deal, Mr. McCarty.”

  McCarty leapt to his feet. “I ain’t s’posed to kill you if you hand over the papers. So here’s your last chance, your highness: Where. Are. The. Papers?”

  “You’ve h-heard what I have to say.”

  McCarty looked pleased, rather than angered, by his words. “Jake—give the man his stick.” He grinned at Jasper. “I heard about the beatin’ you gave Ryan and those two fools Bill Finnegan sent to the Black Cat. Get up. I want to see it. Go on.”

  Jasper turned just in time to catch his cane.

  McCarty jerked his head at one of the men. “You can go first, Mac.”

  Mac didn’t hesitate before lunging at him. The man wasn’t sluggish—but he was too big to stop quickly.

  Jasper pivoted on one foot, spun the cane end over end, and twisted his wrist at the last minute to bring the heavy silver handle down hard on Mac’s skull as the big man’s feet slid on the grit-covered floor.

  Mac grunted and dropped to his knees like a huge sack of stones. Jake, who’d paused to watch his mate, didn’t commit the same error. Instead he moved with the light, dancing step of a boxer, holding his fists up in a confident, relaxed guard.

  Jasper stepped back and bumped into the chair he’d just vacated. Keeping his eyes on Jake, he shoved the chair toward him and then lunged, using it like a shield. While Jake reached out to stop the chair, Jasper brought his stick around in a horizontal arc.

  But Jake was too fast and grabbed the cane in the middle.

  Jasper’s right hand shot forward with no direction from his brain. The heel would have hit Jake’s throat hard enough to knock him breathless, but at the last moment Jake yanked on the cane and jerked Jasper toward him.

  It happened too quickly to pull back, and his hand delivered a lethal punch to the fragile architecture of Jake’s throat.

  Jake’s eyes flew open, and a strangled noise came from his gaping mouth. His hand tightened convulsively on the cane, and he dropped to his knees, gasping for air. The bigger man would have taken Jasper down with him if Jasper hadn’t pushed the button in the cane’s handle that released the sword from its wooden sheath. He spun around, short sword at the ready.

  “That’s bloody brilliant,” McCarty said, grinning broadly as he aimed a pistol at Jasper’s head. “You’re fast with that stick, milord, but you can’t outrun a bullet. Toss it onto the floor.”

  Jasper complied.

  McCarty gave Jake’s faintly shuddering body a quick, dismissive look. “A real shame, that. Jake was a good man. Now turn around and open the door.”

  Once he’d done so, McCarty shoved him into the hall.

  Dozens of eyes peered at him through the gloom.

  “Go on.” The tip of the gun jabbed into his shoulder. “Down the stairs. All the way down.”

  They trudged downstairs.

  “You got till we reach the bottom to do this the easy way.”

  Jasper could tell by his tone that McCarty was hoping he would choose some other way.

  They passed through a massive kitchen and a series of still rooms and finally arrived at another door, which was flanked by two more men.

  “Give ’im the lantern,” McCarty ordered.

  Jasper took the lantern, and McCarty gestured with his pistol to the pitch-black opening beyond the doorway.

  This set of stairs led down into cool, clammy darkness. The cellar was composed of several rooms: cold storage, a locker that had probably once held cured meat, and a heavy wooden door with a lock blackened by age.

  The pistol gestured to a large iron key that hung off a nail. “Unlock it and open it.”

  Jasper did as he was ordered. When he opened the door, he lifted the lantern high. There, sitting against the far wall, was Hieronymus Law, shielding his eyes with a big hand, squinting up at him.

  Jasper couldn’t help smiling. “Ah, Detective Law. We really m-must stop m-meeting this way.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Hy woke with a start; it took him a few seconds to recall that he was somewhere in McCarty’s shitty house behind Bowery. He had no idea of how long he’d slept. His jaw ached, the back of his skull was sore to the touch, and it hurt like hell when he breathed.

  Big Jake Jessop and Gordon “Mac” Mackenzie had held him between them while McCarty gave him a proper dusting. And then they’d thrown him in here. Wherever they were keeping him was every bit as dark as the Tombs.

  He wondered whether Lightner had noticed his absence yet. If he had, he’d likely think that Hy had done a runner. Hy should have done a bloody runner; he’d been a fool to stay here after Lightner sprang him.

  He heard the murmur of voices outside the door and scrambled upright as the key grated in the lock; light stabbed his eyes, and he raised his arm to shield them.

  “Ah, Detective Law,” a dry, amused voice said. “We m-must stop m-meeting this way.”

  McCarty snorted. “You two can have a cuddle and then pull your heads out of your arses. You’ve got until midnight to give me what I want—if you’ve not made up your minds by then, I’ll just take what I want.” He shoved Lightner inside and slammed the door, throwing the room back into utter darkness.

  There was a moment of silence before the Englishman spoke. “I m-must say, I’m glad you’re here—although I d-daresay you’d rather be elsewhere.” His voice was as calm and courteous as ever; did nothing rile the man?

  Hy heard the scuffing of shoes, and then air moved around him, bringing the same cologne smell he recalled from the Tombs. He felt Lightner lower himself beside him.

  “Sorry I couldn’t warn you, sir. Where’d they catch you?”
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  “Oh, I went to them, Detective.”

  Hy shouldn’t have been surprised; he’d seen that glint in the Englishman’s eyes—the glint that said Lightner enjoyed danger.

  “They want the papers, sir.”

  “S-So I surmise.”

  “They think you have them.”

  “I do.”

  Hy heard the smile in the other man’s voice. “Jaysus. How?”

  “That’s n-not important. What is important is that we c-caught a fish, Detective. You should feel p-proud of yourself.”

  “Hard to feel proud if you’re dead, sir.”

  “Yes, there is that,” Lightner admitted with a chuckle. “T-Tell me how you g-got here.”

  “Ryan and his goons came for me when I was at Greene Street.”

  “P-Patrolman O’Malley said you’d disappeared.”

  “I’m glad he wasn’t there. Oh,” he added, “you’ll never believe who owns that building.”

  “Randolph Symington.”

  “How the hell did—?”

  “It’s a l-lucky guess.” Lightner hesitated, then said, “Let me t-tell you what I learned last night.”

  Ten minutes later, Hy was sitting in stunned silence.

  “Do you believe it all?” he finally asked.

  “That Finch was so s-stupid? Yes.”

  “You think it would work—I mean, to divide the country?” Even as he asked the question, Hy knew it would. “Never mind,” he said. “I reckon people’s emotions would run too hot to think straight. Jesus,” he said, shaking his head, “what if nobody stops this thing? Do you think it could start a war between the states? North and South?” The idea was unthinkable.

  “I don’t know,” Lightner admitted.

  “What about the killings? Do you think Symington ordered all of them murdered—like Finch thought?”

  “Well, we have a connection between Hoyle, D-Dunbarton, Symington, and Baker, and then we’ve got M-M-Mrs. Janssen’s story tying her husband to Baker—but we don’t know if the deal Baker was threatening Janssen about was the same one. I don’t understand the m-motivation to kill Dunbarton and Janssen, unless they threatened to expose the p-plot—as Finch seemed prepared to do. And then there’s S-Sealy. How does he f-fit into any of it?”