Hell's Gate Read online

  Louie checked his pistol before turning the corner onto the Bottler’s street. He walked slowly, watching for anything unusual. He stopped a moment when he heard gunshots coming from a few blocks away. It was clear after a moment’s pause that they weren’t directed at him. A few gunshots on the Lower East Side at night were nothing to raise much of a hubbub. In fact, when he thought about it, he figured they’d be a nice distraction for the cops, all the better for a clean exit.

  He strode in to the Bottler’s place, nodding to the man at the door, who he knew in passing. Standing just inside the stuss parlor, he let his eyes get accustomed to the smoky light and swept the room for any danger. There was the usual crowd; rubes, losers, gangsters, and degenerates, maybe twenty in all surrounded the green felt, some sitting, some drinking at the bar. The Bottler held court in the middle on the opposite side. Louie walked to the table, pulled out his pistol and shot the Bottler in the chest. The bullet made a little red puff in his vest, bouncing him back against his chair. The Bottler tore at the satin as if it was on fire, before pitching forward over the table. The room, which had been loud with the voices and curses of the losers, went silent and emptied immediately with a single crash of an overturned chair. One enterprising gambler scooped as much cash as he could and ran out the back. Louie didn’t give a shit. He walked around the table, listening to the Bottler wheeze as a red stain spread out on the green felt. He turned a wide eye toward Louie, but couldn’t seem to raise his head. He croaked out something incoherent before Louie shot him in the face. The last two in the back of the head were mere formalities, the bullets crashing through his skull and into the table.

  32

  JACK MCMANUS CHECKED his men. One was dead, the other dying. He put a bullet through the man’s head just to be certain and took his wallet as he had the other’s. It took him no more than twenty seconds. He left their cannons, neither of which were any damn good. He did grab the Colt automatic though, as neat a piece of iron as he’d ever seen. He looked closely at Mike’s body, making sure.

  “Din’ think youse was so stupid ta come back alone,” Jack said. “Big mistake, palsey.” He put the automatic to Mike’s head. Mike didn’t appear to be breathing, but Jack liked to be certain. A police whistle stopped him. It might have been just a block away, hard to be sure in city streets but it was surely time to go. He ran into the night.

  Once he turned the next corner, he settled into a fast walk, not wanting to draw attention. He wished he’d had time to pop his mark again, but if the pool of blood under his head was any indicator, it would’ve been a waste of lead. He headed back toward the Bottler’s, where he’d have plenty of intimidated witnesses to swear he’d been there all night. He tried to move the fingers on his broken hand, itching in its new plaster. “Damned if it don’ feel betta awready,” he said with a grin.

  The grin left his face quickly. In fact, the jovial mood the killing had put him in vanished altogether when he neared the Bottler’s to see cops out front.

  Jack ducked behind a front stoop and stashed his pistols, brass knuckles, blackjack, and knives in a trash can. More whistles sounded and he realized that the one before had probably not been on account of him and his mugs, but had something to do with the scene unfolding before him. The Bottler paid protection to everyone, the precinct captain, Kelly, Devery, and that gang of thieves led by Big Tim, they all got their cut. Paul was going to be like a terrier in a rat pit when he heard about this. He’d want answers, he’d want someone to pay, and he’d want to know why the fuck he and his goons hadn’t been there when it happened, a detail that bothered Jack considerably. Of course, Jack had known all that when he made his deal with the Bottler, but it was still a chancey thing to risk Paul Kelly’s anger.

  He decided on the direct approach when he spotted a couple of cops he’d done business with in the past guarding the front door.

  “Well, well, Jack. What a coincidence you being here. Just passin’ by?” The cops laughed at him, a thing he’d normally have put a stop to in a hurry, but with an effort he managed to control his disposition. “Sure, Jimmy,” Jack said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What da fuck’s goin’ on? Da Bottler don’ pay youse piggies enough awready?”

  “Now, now, Jack. No sense getting testy,” Jimmy said, pointing his nightstick at Jack’s chest. “Won’t do you any good and it damn sure won’t do the Bottler any good, either.” The cops laughed as if this were high humor.

  “Da hell it won’t. Paul’l have Howe an’ Hummell break ’im out by fuckin’ mornin’.”

  “Won’t do the Bottler any good if he has an army of Howes and Hummells, not where he’s going.”

  Jack looked at the cops closely then, his brow knitting. “Wha da fuck, Jimmy? Wha’s dis all about? He jus’ runs a game’s all.”

  The cops looked at each other. “C’mon, Jack, see for yourself.” He ushered McManus into the Bottler’s stuss parlor. A couple of detectives were pocketing the last few dollars lying about as they came in. Chairs were overturned, drinks spilled, cigars were burning holes in carpet and felt, and the Bottler was leaking blood like a tin roof in a thunderstorm. He was slumped in the dealer’s chair, his blood puddling in chunks of his own brains, arms dangling nearly to the floor.

  The detectives saw Jack and ordered him out and he went without any trouble. “Wha da fuck happened?” he said to no one in particular, more concerned with how he was going to explain to Paul how he’d gotten two of his mugs dead and the Bottler left defenseless and full of holes.

  “Cyclone Louie,” Jimmy said. “At least that’s what one of the witnesses said. He’s down at the station house.”

  “Cyclone Louie? Da fuckin’ strongman? You caught ’im?”

  “No, the witness. He says Cyclone walked in, didn’t say a word, just shot the Bottler where he sat. Twenty guys in the joint. Nobody else got a scratch.”

  McManus picked up his weapons and walked off without a word. Paul was going to want to hear about this double-quick and he’d want to hear it in person. He had another stop to make after that, but Paul would have to come first. It was only fair.

  33

  PAUL WAS ANGRY. His neck was red above his high, starched collar and a vein stood out on it like a blue rope. “Didn’t I tell you to watch the Bottler? That’s what I said to do, right? Keep an eye on him, so fucking Twist don’t get his mitts on him.”

  “Sure, Paul but—”

  “Do I look stupid to you?”

  “No, but—”

  “No. That’s good because I was beginning to think you thought I was fucking stupid, that telling you to watch the fucking Bottler was stupid.”

  “Nah, Paul. Dat wasn’t stupid. But—”

  Paul Kelly held up what could have been the manicured hand of a railroad baron or a Wall Street tycoon, but that Jack had seen beat the life from a man’s body, cut another’s throat, and pull the trigger on many more. “But you saw this fucking guy and you had to go kill him.”

  “Dat’s right! Da fuck needed killin’, Paul.”

  “A natural instinct, Jack, I don’t doubt that. But what happens?” He spread the contents of Mike’s wallet on the table and tapped it with a shiny fingernail. “Who is it you fucking killed, but Mike Braddock.”

  “So, what’s dat ta me? He had it comin’.”

  “No doubt,” Kelly said. “But for chris sake, he’s a fucking detective, you half-wit!”

  Jack shrugged his shoulders as if being called a half-wit wasn’t boiling his blood up to his eyeballs. He put his good hand in his lap. He had a .32 Smith & Wesson in his waistband. Any other man on the planet would have been dead already, but he managed to control his instincts.

  Kelly sat back and watched McManus stew, smiling slowly. “You thinking about shooting me, Jack? You wouldn’t be the first, but you’re not that fucking stupid are you?”

  Jack managed to sneer in return. “Just scratchin’ my balls.”

  “Ah,” Kelly said with a solicitous nod.


  “Half-wit?”

  “If the fucking shoe fits,” Kelly said in a low growl.

  Jack twitched one shoulder and after a long pause put his hand back on the table.

  “Good.” Kelly gave a slight nod to his bodyguard, who was standing behind Jack, then frowned and leaned forward. “Getting back to our problem, the fucking detective you killed; you know who that was?”

  “Braddock? No. Why should I?”

  “Because it’s Tom Braddock’s son, you fuck!”

  “Da Captain Braddock, from da Toid Precinct? Holy shit!” Jack’s face cracked open in a delighted grin. “Da boys’re gonna love dis!”

  Kelly’s fist slammed down on the table, making his drink jump and heads turn in the bar. “We do business with Tom Braddock, you asshole,” he hissed. “He might be a pain in the ass, but you have no fucking idea what’s going to happen if he finds out you did this. You got me? All the protection is off, not just in his precinct, but all over the fucking city, and he is going to come after your ass like there’s no fuckin’ tomorrow.”

  “I ain’t scared o’ no mug wit a badge, captain or not.”

  “Sweet Jesus! I don’t give a shit who you’re scared of, though if you had any sense you’d be fucking scared of Braddock! If the gloves come off, we’re done, all of us. Something like this they don’t forget and don’t forgive.”

  “So, we lays low for a while. Da Tammany crowd’ll smooth t’ings ova like always.”

  Kelly shook his head. “Not gonna happen. Big Tim and all the rest, they just want things to go their way. They do not give a shit who runs the gangs, the whores, the cons, the rackets, the swindles, any of it. They just want it run and run quiet. And I fucking guarantee you that killing cops is not their definition of quiet. Now tell me again what happened.”

  It was curious to Jack how Paul was more concerned with Braddock than the Bottler. He’d have bet it would be the other way around, so in a way he was not all that unhappy with how things were going and he was glad to reassure Paul on the details of the Braddock killing. “Nobody seen it. Nobody on da street but us. My two boys they could identify maybe, but I took their stuff.”

  “Mickey Thumbs and that mug Bones?”

  “Yeah, good mugs. Bones was mad as hell at what they done to ’im, droppin’ ’im into a shithole. But he was a good leg-breaker an’ knew how to keep his pie-hole shut. Braddock plugged ’im foist.”

  “Maybe if we’re lucky they’ll figure it was just them that shot Braddock.”

  Jack hadn’t thought of that, but he brightened at the idea. “I left their cannons, but da vultures prob’ly got dat stuff. Took Braddock’s iron, too. Nice new Colt automatic. You shoulda seen it shoot! He plugged da boys so fast youse wouldn’ believe it.”

  “Jesus Christ, Jack! Are you out of your fucking mind? Get rid of it! Today! Go throw it in a sewer somewhere.”

  “Yeah, but, Paul, it’s a sweet cannon. You shoulda seen—”

  Kelly reached into his pocket, and Jack stiffened in midsentence.

  Kelly pulled out a wad of bills, peeled a few off, and slapped them on the table. Leaning forward, he said in an almost pleasant tone, “Go buy a new one.”

  * * *

  Later, after he and Paul Kelly had gone over their stories for the police, Jack had to ask, “What about da Bottler?”

  “We’ll send flowers, especially you. Come to think of it, did he have a widow, kids, or anything?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Well, find out. If he’s got any, you take care of them, all right?”

  “But the Bottler’s game I meant; what’re we doin’ ’bout dat?” Jack said. “Twist’ll move in. Youse know it was him behind fuckin’ Cyclone Louie. Gotta be.”

  Kelly said nothing for a while. “Kid Twist,” he finally spat out. “I knew that punk coming up; holding up tourists and poisoning horses. You know his real name’s Max Zweiback? His parents were nice people; quiet, hardworking, went to temple every week. But he was always a punk.” He sighed. “I’m going to let it go for now.”

  “But, Paul, what’ll da boys t’ink? Dey gonna be lookin’ for a war.”

  Kelly shook his head and said in a low voice, “I have bigger fish to fry, Jack. The Bottler’s game will have a spotlight on it now. The take’ll go down because those kind of gamblers don’t like the spotlight. Besides I’ll talk to Big Tim, he’ll see they get raided a few times, and then he’ll squeeze Twist for twice the protection the Bottler ever paid him. Fuck Twist. He’ll be left holding an empty bag. So tell our minions to be quiet. Their time will come. But you I want on that boat, Jack.”

  Jack nodded. “Da Slocum?”

  “Right. Stay there. Do some real work for a change. I want to know what’s going on with Big Tim. That’s the thing that rankles me more than anything else. If there’s a war starting, it’s over that.”

  34

  MIKE COULD NOT stop the ringing. The side of his head resonated with a single high-pitched tone. It was as if billions of tiny cries had merged into one deafening scream that he could not stop. He felt cold, too. He couldn’t understand how the weather had changed so quickly. He imagined that maybe he’d been lying there like Rip Van Winkle, sleeping away twenty years, facedown on the street. He tried to focus, to move his frozen feet and break the crust of ice that encased them. He tried his fingers, wiggling them in their gloves of permafrost. It was incredibly tiring and he had to take a deep, bubbling breath before he tried to do more. There was something in his mouth. He realized a moment later that it was his tongue, now swollen to double its size, as if a balloon had replaced it. He groaned and tried to spit. There were jagged things that dug into his cheeks, and bright circles of pain on either side of his face. He coughed and spit again and pushed the bits of teeth out to dribble down his chin. He breathed a little easier then and decided to try and open his eyes.

  It seemed like a day before Mike was able to get to his feet. He stood with his hands on his knees, wondering where his clothes had gone. Shoes, pants, jacket, vest, shirt, everything but his shorts was missing. He’d seen murder victims stripped like that, anything of value taken before the body had even gone cold. He couldn’t understand how it had happened to him though, thinking that perhaps he’d just managed to wander out like this. It made no sense, but he couldn’t deny that he was on a city street in this condition. Wiping blood from his eyes, he saw the bodies, lumps of flesh appearing oddly flattened, most of their clothes missing too. He had a vague recollection, a flash card image of shooting at them, of it happening so fast that it was more feeling than vision, bursts of sound and light that repeated somewhere in his ringing skull. He shook his head. He almost fell over, staggered sideways and caught himself, realizing someone was on the street coming toward him. The figure loomed in the darkness, his head appearing unnaturally huge until he stepped into the glow of a streetlight and Mike saw that it was a helmet the man was wearing. It was a cop. He realized at that instant that he was a cop too and that despite this man’s huge head he might be able to help. Mike began to stagger forward, hands outstretched, a liquid croaking coming from his mouth that he meant to sound like “Help,” but was really nothing like it. He tried to say, “Detective Braddock,” but should have known better. His balloon tongue couldn’t get around it. He sounded like a lunatic even to himself. The cop with the huge head must have thought so too, expressing his opinion with a sharp rap of his nightstick on Mike’s temple. The street came up to meet him again. A part of him was grateful for the rest.

  35

  THE TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST Factory Building didn’t appear quite as grim this morning, the press of workers just a bit more tolerable, the stack of material by Ginny’s machine slightly less intimidating. She’d walked all the way from her apartment, which she began to realize toward the end had been a mistake. But it seemed such an auspicious day, a flower bud of a day, ready to burst open with possibilities that she really had no choice. Mike was sure to come, and even if he didn’t, she was determ
ined to leave another note and another again until he did. She would see him. She couldn’t be more sure of it.

  She supposed that she had Carl to thank for the way she felt. Their walk home the night before had had an effect, though surely not the one he’d intended. It wasn’t that she hadn’t found him interesting. She supposed he was, on some less polished level than Mike. He was funny and attentive and comfortably fixed, if his expensive clothes were any indication. But it was just being with him, walking with an attractive man and enjoying his company that had stirred her yearning for Mike. She had to make that yearning stop. It was not a thing that could be lived with. It was a flame that had to either be fed or extinguished, not left to smolder. She would see Mike and tell him the things she needed to and then it would be his choice.

  She’d survived so much already, risen above obstacle, hurt, and hardship. Surely if it came to that, she could endure Mike’s loss, too. It wasn’t something that she liked to think about. Even thinking it caused an ache to grow in her middle and a weakness to run through her limbs. But she would live. This was a new notion for her, the idea that she could go on, take the blows, and move forward.

  She hadn’t realized that her fear of fending for herself had kept her at Miss Gertie’s. It seemed the simplest of things now and obvious. But it had not been obvious then. The change amazed her. Her confidence amazed her. The winds that had tossed her about, buffeted the breath from her body, and the strength from her bones had deposited her on another shore.

  The day, all twelve hours of it, passed in a blur. The elevator opened countless times, but she wasn’t disappointed when Mike didn’t emerge. She was determined not to be and after a while didn’t even look up when the gates clanged open. If he didn’t come that day, it was of no real consequence. She’d planned on going to headquarters tonight and had already written another note, a message she felt sure he’d respond to. It had been written last night by candlelight and was now tucked in her purse, a sprig of lavender pressed in its folds. Day passed into evening and for the first time, Ginny left the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Building feeling that the day had just begun.