The Empire of Shadows Page 2

  In the poisonous reek of mill and mine,

  And death stalks in on the struggling crowd,

  But he shuns the shadow of fir and pine.

  GEORGE WASHINGTON SEARS, “OCTOBER”

  “Little Benny” Corrigan was a hard case. He’d been in the basement interrogation room of the Third Precinct station house for almost eighteen hours and he still didn’t show much sign of cracking. He sat shackled to a chair in the center of the room. Both ankles were chained to the chair. The chair was bolted to the floor. Benny wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Who’s to say there’s no honor among thieves, eh, Benny? I admire you for that, I really do. That’s one reason why we haven’t been as hard on you as we might. But Benny, you gotta know my patience is running thin. You have to make up your mind that we’re going to get what we want and you’re the one’s gonna give it to us.”

  Captain Braddock had been working long hours for weeks and, though he was happy to have the chance to break Corrigan and bag his accomplices, he needed to do it fast. He was leaving town this evening, going on vacation. He’d arranged for a two-week leave and wanted to wrap Corrigan in a neat little bow before he left. It would be good to leave with a victory to his credit, something left on the plus side of the ledger.

  With the calls growing louder for yet another round of police investigations, it was just good policy to be seen the hero, especially when not around to defend yourself. Serious though those concerns were, Tom didn’t dwell on them. The truth was that Braddock’s head was already on vacation, already dreaming of fresh air, fishing, and long, lazy mornings abed with Mary. Tom heaved a sigh.

  Benny looked up at the captain of the Third. “You take me for an addle-cove? Never been a snitch. Ain’t about to start now,” he mumbled. Braddock exchanged a glance with the two detectives behind Benny’s chair. Benny claimed he’d been working alone when he’d been caught cracking a safe in the office of an import-export business on Pearl Street. Tom hadn’t believed that, though Benny didn’t let anything slip until now. It was the first crack in his story, and Braddock would stick a wedge in that crack and hammer away till Benny broke.

  Tom Braddock could have cracked prisoners quicker if he did things like some of the other captains. There were those who were notorious for the number of prisoners injured “resisting arrest,” beaten by other prisoners, or found hung in their cells. It wasn’t that Braddock was a soft touch. In fact, he had one of the best records for cracking prisoners of anyone except Inspector Byrnes, the chief of the Detective Bureau.

  Like Byrnes, Tom Braddock preferred the third degree. He and his team would sweat a man like Benny for days if necessary, depriving him of sleep or rest, or even food and water. Taking turns, they’d turn a prisoner’s story inside out, picking at the smallest inconsistencies, till even a man with nothing to tell wished he had. Tom had learned the intricacies of the technique from Byrnes himself, who was the acknowledged master. Braddock wasn’t far behind.

  “‘Fat Charlie’ Logan and Lonnie Burke, right? I know they were the ones, Benny. Lonnie on the lookout and Charlie with you to jackscrew the safe.”

  Benny squinted up with eyes so bloodshot they looked like red roadmaps. At around six-one and two twenty-five, Thomas Braddock could look quite menacing. But it wasn’t Braddock’s size, or even his formidable reputation as a fighter among the Rabbits, Divers, and Hackums in the precinct, it was his absolute refusal to give up. It was a trait even more widely respected than Braddock’s physical power.

  Still, “Little Benny” had a reputation to uphold. He knew that Braddock wouldn’t do him any permanent damage. He wasn’t too sure about the other two detectives, though, but for his own self-respect he figured he could push this a bit further. “Don’t know no Logans nor Burkes. I work alone, see. Told ya. Been tellin’ ya fer—”

  A loud crash, like furniture breaking, somewhere above their heads cut Benny’s words short. Heavy feet stamped and shouts could be heard echoing down the stairs, though they were on the other side of the building. For a moment the four of them were frozen, each looking at the ceiling as if it might fall on their heads.

  Braddock turned back to Benny, seeming to put the ruckus out of his mind. He knew the safecracker was weakening. He didn’t want to quit on him now, and he knew there were plenty of officers on duty and in reserve who could see to whatever was going on.

  “Don’t know ‘Fat Charlie’? I got three fellas say you were drinking with him in…” Another crash interrupted Braddock, followed by a shot and more pounding and yelling.

  “Watch him!” Braddock told his men. He turned and strode out of the room and down the hall, his shoes echoing. “Stay right there, Benny,” he called back. “We’re not done yet, you and I.”

  Braddock bounded up the stairs and along another short hallway. He burst into the main booking room as shouts of, “Let him go!,” “Drop the nightstick,” and “Shoot the bastard” tumbled over one another through the open door. To his left a long, heavy bench was overturned and splintered. To his right an officer lay face down in a widening pool of blood on the worn, white marble floor. Before him two more officers stood shouting, the fear in their voices so palpable it was like the nervous barking of dogs.

  They were dangerous dogs despite their fear. Two pistols were pointed at the other men in the room. The pistols were shaking and waving in an impotent attempt at making the danger go away. The danger had a human form out of all proportion to most things human. The form had a name that Tom knew well.

  Moishe “Tiny” Rothstein was an immense Polish Jew, maybe the biggest man in the city, if you didn’t count Chang the giant Mongol in Barnum’s show. At nearly seven feet tall and somewhere around four hundred pounds, “Tiny” was a frightening presence. More frightening still was what Tiny was doing. With two massive, handcuffed hands he had a fourth officer hanging in front of him, a kicking, gurgling blue shield.

  Like a marionette, he dangled and danced in front of the giant. The officer’s face was nearly as blue as his uniform. A long black nightstick was tucked hard under his chin. Though he pulled with whitened fingers and kicked like a mule, nothing seemed to make an impact on Rothstein. The giant just gritted his teeth and frowned in concentration. Braddock could see in an instant that the man was about to lose consciousness.

  “Tiny!” Braddock shouted in a voice that cut through the chaos and had the two officers gaping back over their shoulders at him. Tom walked past them with no more hesitation than if he were walking into a bar. “Put your guns away, gentlemen.” He said without looking at the two officers. He held out a signaling hand, palm down. It made the waving pistols vanish, if somewhat uneasily.

  “Braddock!” Tiny said in his odd, high-pitched voice. “Tom, the hawse they took, took hawse, my hawse, you know—black—hawse with whitish thing?” he said, so agitated he was swinging the officer around with each word.

  “Tiny, be good enough to put my man down, would you?” Tom said in as reasonable and restrained a voice as he could manage. The officer went slack. Braddock continued in a reassuring tone, “Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to shoot you. I won’t let them.” The officer was let slip to the floor where he lay as motionless as a pile of laundry.

  “Thank you, Tiny,” Tom said, stepping close with an outstretched hand. “The nightstick?”

  The stout, lacquered club looked like a toy in the two huge paws that handed it over.

  “There’s a good lad,” Braddock said with a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “Now, don’t be giving us any more trouble, eh?” he added, peering at the giant’s darting eyes. “You’ll have me to deal with if you do.”

  Tiny seemed to flinch at that, but rallied enough to protest. “But hawse? What they do wit her? My hawse. Tiny need it for wagon—you know wagon? And they was bad to Tiny, Tom. Bad. When they bad Tiny don’t like it. Get mad. Tiny not bad to them. Told them I hurt them if they was bad to me, told them an’ told them, Tom. Hurt them some more if they’re bad again.”


  In Tiny’s case this was no idle threat. People Tiny decided to hurt usually stayed hurt for a long time, sometimes forever. His career as an enforcer and bare-knuckle prize fighter was littered with those he had hurt. “Tiny” Rothstein, “The Giant Jew,” was far too clumsy to be a professional boxer, but he was as close to unstoppable as any human could be, once the rules of the professional ring were put aside—except for Braddock.

  Braddock and Tiny had had their own set-to many years before in a brawl in the Five Points. The thorough beating Tiny had taken had created an indelible respect for the man who’d bested him and shown him kindness afterwards.

  “Now listen, Tiny. You have to let my guys take you in, alright?”

  Tiny nodded, looking glum, but resigned to whatever Tom asked of him.

  “I’ll have a little talk with them. They won’t hurt you and they won’t be mean to you,” Tom said with a warning glance over his shoulder at the two officers, who’d now been joined by a half-dozen others, drawn by the ruckus. “And I’ll see what I can do about that horse of yours. You have my word on it,” Braddock added.

  The pile of laundry at their feet began to groan and move. Braddock was glad to see it. Tiny looked down at the officer with a curious cock of his head, as if he’d just seen him. Bending down, he grabbed the man by the back of the neck with one shackled hand and hauled him to his feet.

  “OK, Tom,” he said in an absent sort of way as he brushed dirt from the wobbling man. “Tiny not mad now. Not mad. No I’m not. You good friend, Tom. Take care of Tiny’s hawse like you say. Trust you, Tiny does.”

  “Good. Now go with these men and I’ll be down a little later to sort things out, right?” Tom said, guiding Tiny toward the officers with a hand on one shoulder.

  “Now listen, boys. No rough stuff. Don’t hurt Tiny, and he’ll be good,” Braddock with a sideways glance at the giant. As they took him, Tom said in a low voice to one of the officers, “Put a second set of cuffs on him, Jimmy. He can break out of just one, if he has a mind to.” Turning to the other men who were bent over the downed officer, he ordered, “Get Farley to the hospital, boys. He isn’t shot is he?” The one named Jimmy answered, “Nah. Just hit his head, Captain.”

  Braddock looked hard at Jimmy. “You fire that shot?”

  The officer gulped once, then nodded and started to explain, but Braddock cut him short. “Hit anything?” he asked.

  “No sir.”

  “I’m docking you two days, Jimmy,” Braddock growled. The man started to protest, but Tom cut him short again. “Two things, Jimmy. First, never fire your fucking weapon in the station house! Second, if you fire your fucking weapon in the station house you fucking well better hit what you’re aiming at!”

  Braddock turned and started back toward the interrogation room. As he walked past the bright, red smear of blood on the white marble floor he mumbled, “That’ll leave a stain.”

  Braddock stumped back down into the basement, checking his watch as he did. “Goddamnit!” he said under his breath. He’d hoped to break Corrigan long before this. The idea of going off on vacation and leaving the little safecracker for someone else grated on him. One thing Braddock hated worse than anything was a job left unfinished.

  “So, Benny, where were we?” Tom said as he reentered the interrogation room.

  “What was that upstairs?” The other detectives asked almost in unison.

  “Nothing,” Tom said, shrugging. “Tiny Rothstein don’t like being arrested much, that’s all.”

  “Rothstein! Don’t I know it,” one said.

  Braddock turned to Corrigan, leaned over and put both hands on the arms of his chair, his face on a level with Benny’s. “Benny, I’m getting tired of this shit. Now, you know and I know that you’re gonna give us Fat Charlie and Lonnie. Why not do it and get it the fuck over with, make it easier on all of us?”

  “Don’t know no Fat Lonnie,” Corrigan mumbled.

  Braddock’s knuckles went white.

  “Don’t know them, huh?” Tom said.

  “Are ye deaf as well as stupid? No!” Little Benny knew right off he shouldn’t have said it like that, but he was just as tired as Braddock, maybe more, and he wasn’t thinking straight. He looked away, not wanting to meet Braddock’s glare.

  “Stupid is it?” With a groan and a loud crack, Benny’s chair was wrenched from the floor, the bolts ripping away. Braddock let out a grunting shout, lifting Benny, chair and all, and throwing him against the brick wall of the basement.

  Little Benny screamed like he’d been set on fire. The tough oak chair splintered under the impact. Benny went down in a heap, still handcuffed to the arms. The other detectives stood gaping, almost as surprised as Corrigan.

  “Stupid? Stupid, Benny?” Tom bent and grabbed the leg of the chair. With a heave he broke the leg off. “I’m gonna break your goddamn kneecaps. How’s that for stupid?” He raised the heavy oak leg high overhead.

  “No! No! I’ll tell you where Fat Charlie is, Lonnie, too!” Little Benny screamed. “They got the boodle, too, and from lots of other jobs. You’ll get it all, I swear!” Benny’s eyes were almost all white. His fingers scrabbled at the arms of the chair, straining at his cuffs.

  “Start talkin’, Benny,” Tom said, whacking Corrigan’s leg for emphasis, but not hard enough to do any permanent damage. “I got ten minutes.”

  Tom whistled as he left the stationhouse. Corrigan had given up his partners. Tom’s men would round up Fat Charlie and Lonnie Burke in short order. Rothstein was safe in a cell, his horse eating police department oats. Tom’s officers would live to fight another day, and the blood on the marble floor had been swabbed up before it soaked in. Tom strode away with a grin on his face. He didn’t look back.

  Jim Tupper was swimming. He was deep under water, and the light from the world above filtered down through the shifting currents in kaleidoscopic beams of light. He stroked for the surface, holding his breath till his lungs burned. His head broke through the liquid ceiling as if it was going through a wall of glass. Consciousness shattered.

  The reek of horse shit was so strong it was like a slap in the face. That there should be shit in the lake was such a shock he couldn’t convince himself of the truth of it. He shook his head and cleared his eyes. There seemed to be a huge pile of it, mountainous and steaming, just inches from his face. He moved and bits of gravel dug into his cheek, but when he tried to brush them away his arms wouldn’t respond. They were locked behind his back and, despite his best effort, they wouldn’t budge.

  From somewhere behind him he heard a footstep. A large black shoe descended into the pile of manure before him.

  “Looks like he’s coming to, Blackjack,” a voice said above him. Tupper’s eyes followed the blue-clad leg up as far as his neck would bend. A nightstick twirled in a big, dark hand, and a bushy mustache under a massive nose came into view. The rest of the cop’s face was a black mask under the shade of his cap. A street lamp behind outlined his immense form in stark contrasts of shadow and light.

  “On your feet,” said a voice from the blackened face. Jim Tupper remembered where he was.

  Jim pulled his knees up and rolled over using his head as a pivot. It took three tries, but he finally managed it while the cops watched and laughed. “Tough with no hands, eh? Get used to it. You’ll be spendin’ plenty o’ time in cuffs, Injun, for what you done,” one of them said.

  Tupper rose slowly to his knees. Blood trickled down his forehead and into his eyes in a stinging, blinding cascade. He shook his head, blinking out the blood, sending a spray left and right. It fell in red-black drops on the smooth cobbles.

  “Shit!” the cop to his right shouted, stomping his feet in the manure-clogged gutter. “Blood on me spankin’ new pants!” A tremendous blow caught Tupper in the right shoulder, sending him crashing to the street. With no hands free to break his fall, his head hit hard. He didn’t get up.

  Tupper woke some time later to the insistent pounding in his sk
ull. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. It felt like a nightstick coming down over and over, and for an instant he imagined it was. But when he opened one eye, sticky with drying blood, what he saw was the rough wool of a blanket, and beyond that, bars. He let the image seep into his pounding head like a sponge under a dripping faucet.

  Slowly it came back, the blood and the whistles and the cops and clubs. He was in a jail somewhere. How long he’d been there was harder to say. His head put that question off. There was nothing to be done about that. What needed his attention was what he was going to do. But even that had to take a back seat to the pounding, which seemed to drown out both sight and thought itself.

  Tupper slipped away again to the sound of the drumming. He was in the council house, the central fire casting gigantic, distorted shadows of the dancers on the walls. They shuffled and stomped to the sound of the drums. The old songs were being sung and the prayers repeated. The code of the prophet, Handsome Lake, was being celebrated. It held the people to the old ways, when the Six Nations ruled for a month’s travel in any direction. Smoke from the council fire wrapped the congregation in bonds of sacred smoke. The drumming was good.

  It was morning when Tupper woke again, though in the damp basement cell there was no daylight. The smell of overcooked coffee gave him his only clue to time. There was no pounding this time, just a distant drum, as of a signal calling him to the council fire. It didn’t hurt, not even when he sat up. A grim smile slithered across his lips. There was magic in his dreams. It had lifted the hammer from his temples and restored balance to the world. “You better be off that cot in ten seconds, Injun, or it’s another whack you’ll be getting,” an approaching voice boomed. “Get up! We’re goin’ for a ride, ye bloody bastard.”

  Ten minutes later Tupper was in the back of a Black Maria. His only view of the world was through a small, barred window in the rear door. He saw enough, though, to know he was somewhere on the West Side, heading south. Over the next half hour or so the wagon stopped at two precinct houses. Each time more prisoners got on, some cuffed, some not. The back was nearly full after the second stop, and Tupper heard one of the cops say, “It’s one more stop, then straight on to the Tombs, Harry.”