Brooklyn on Fire (28 page)

L
IAM FUMED AS
he walked to the stable. He had rented a horse and carriage to go to the lawyer’s office and back even though it was a short distance from his apartment. Now he wished he hadn’t. He could no longer afford the luxury.

The question that he couldn’t avoid was: what now? He had planned out in detail what to do once he had the money. It involved moving far away from Brooklyn, going out west to San Francisco. He had already purchased the train ticket. There would be mansions and fine dining and beautiful women at his beck and call. But he didn’t have the money. He could go back to work for McLaughlin, hoping that he’d come through with his promise that Liam would eventually take his place, but he just found out how empty those promises can be. Besides, he was tired of kissing McLaughlin’s ass, and he was sure that if the police ever got any real evidence, McLaughlin would sacrifice him in an instant. These thoughts were rumbling around in his head when a hand shot out of a dark storefront and yanked him inside.

“Well, well,” said Shorty, “if it isn’t little Liam Riley.”

“I’m not so little anymore.”

“You’re not, but I bet I can still kick your arse like I used to.”

Liam and his mother had lived in a shanty on the poor side of Brooklyn in Young Dublin, not far from the shanty where Shorty lived, while their rich relatives resided in Clinton Hill. Countless childhood memories of being beaten and terrorized by Shorty immediately came back to him like the nightmare that they were. “What do you want, Shorty?”

“Did you really think you could fool Shorty?”

The obvious answer was yes, but it would anger Shorty, and Liam knew all too well what happened when Shorty got angry.

“Not really, but I had to try.”

“All I did was bark a little at that kid and he gave up his contact, who gave you up even faster.” Shorty let go of Liam, but there was no chance of running. Shorty had blocked him in.

“What do you want?”

“Sean Handley’s sister won’t stop. I need to get out of Brooklyn for a while, and three hundred is all I need to do that.”

Liam didn’t have the money. He had spent almost everything he had paying Shorty for the other three jobs. He also knew he was in for a lot of pain if he answered anything less than yes. “Sure. I have to get it from my boss. You know I work for Hugh McLaughlin, don’t you?”

“I shoulda known he was the guy. A little twit like you couldn’t pull this off by yourself.”

“Me? I’m just an errand boy. Give me a few hours to get it from him.”

Shorty thought for a moment, then said, “Okay, but don’t try anything. I’m watching.”

“I wouldn’t dare cross you, Shorty. Certainly you know that.”

Shorty stepped aside, and Liam took off back into the street, glad that he had already purchased his ticket to San Francisco and even happier that Shorty was just as stupid as he had remembered.

A
FTER
L
IAM HAD
left his office, Lester Hackel Jr. droned on to Miss Amundsen about the care of Vicky and Albert. They had been staying with someone else who could no longer care for them, and the instructions in Miss Evans’s will were very detailed. By now his nose was red, his eyes were tearing, and Miss Amundsen was yawning. Somehow sensing that he was allergic, Vicky sat on his lap, rubbing against him, making it worse. But Lester Hackel Jr. was not one to give up.

“And at five o’clock every day, not a minute before or after, you feed them their second meal. Now, about the second meal—”

A light, intermittent knock at the door interrupted them, but he kept going. The next knock was still intermittent but much louder.

“Aren’t you going to answer that, Mr. Hackel?” asked Miss Amundsen.

“Jr., Mr. Hackel
Jr.,
and no, I’m not going to answer it. Whoever it is doesn’t have an appointment, and I’m in the middle of important business.”

As he returned to his paper, there was another knock.

“Well, I’m going to answer it,” said Miss Amundsen. “It’s miserable outside and somebody might need shelter or help.” She got up and opened the door.

Propping himself up in the doorway was George, drenched and bleeding. “Do you know where the nearest hospital is?” he asked, then collapsed into her arms.

“Oh, you poor man,” Miss Amundsen exclaimed, then helped George inside and placed him on the couch. He was conscious but weak from everything that had happened.

Lester Hackel Jr. protested, “Not on my couch. He’ll ruin it.”

“Can I use your phone, please?” George asked.

“Absolutely not. Do you know how much each phone call costs me?”

“I’ll pay you back. In fact I’ll pay your whole phone bill.”

“That’s not the point. It’s the principle of the thing.”

“I’ll take you,” Miss Amundsen said. “Brooklyn Hospital is only a few blocks away.”

As she helped George up, Lester Hackel Jr. objected. “Where do you think you’re going, Miss Amundsen? We haven’t finished yet.”

“We have as far as I am concerned. I could never work for a man like you.” And she left with George.

Lester Hackel Jr. wanted to stop her. He wanted to apologize, though he didn’t know for what. His pride prevented him from doing so, and he was left alone, helplessly staring at Vicky and Albert. Outside, in spite of the pounding of the pouring rain, George and Miss Amundsen could still hear his loud sneeze.

I
T WAS CONVENIENT
investigating a crime with the superintendent of police. In a pinch, he could always gain immediate access to almost any place, and Liam Riley’s apartment was no exception. The landlady gladly opened the door for Superintendent Campbell and Mary, then left them alone.

Liam wasn’t there, and to say his apartment was a mess would be a gross understatement. It looked like a hurricane had just blown through. As Mary and Superintendent Campbell searched, hoping for some clue to his whereabouts, Mary called out to Superintendent Campbell, “You realize, of course, we don’t have a search warrant and are breaking the law?”

“Really?” Superintendent Campbell responded slyly. “I could’ve sworn I heard screams coming from inside the apartment, signaling someone was in danger.”

Mary had a better idea, having already come to a quick decision.

“Use pursuit of a felon as an excuse,” she said. “He’s left town or is leaving.”

“How do you know that?”

“Several things. Clothes have been tossed around, hanging out of drawers, left on the floor of the closet, as if he never intends to wear them again.”

“Maybe he’s just a messy person.”

“That is possible, but it’s what’s not here that convinces me. He may not own a suitcase, but there’s none here. There’s also no comb, no hairbrush, no razor, and no toothbrush. It’s highly unlikely all of those items would be missing unless—”

“Liam Riley is taking a trip.”

“Exactly. Let’s hope his train hasn’t left yet.”

And the two of them hurried out the door on their way to Grand Central Depot.

I
N THE SUMMER
of 1869, Liam Riley’s wealthier relatives had taken one of the first trips in history on the transcontinental railroad. He had always wanted to take a trip like that, and here he was, twenty-one years later, finally doing it. Before he found out that he was not about to inherit a fortune, he had bought a first-class ticket to San Francisco with most of the money he had left. It was a simple matter to change the date, and he was excited about putting Brooklyn behind him and finally setting out.

The train hadn’t departed yet, and Liam was sitting at a table in the dining car. No food would be served until they were on their way, but Liam wanted to be the first. Because of all the activity that day, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, his pangs of hunger confirming it. He had very little money, but with what he had, he was determined to treat himself to a good meal. Liam had already gotten a menu and was perusing it.

“You should order the steak, Liam. There’s nothin’ like the steak in first class.”

Liam turned to see Hugh McLaughlin standing by his table. McLaughlin had called Liam’s apartment, and when there was no answer, he had called Liam’s landlady, with whom he knew Liam was friendly. Liam had told her he was leaving for San Francisco, so she could rent out his apartment. He had also asked her not to tell anyone, but McLaughlin wasn’t just anyone.

Standing next to McLaughlin was Sean Callahan. Liam knew Callahan all too well. He was a six-foot-four-inch mountain of a man who was made of solid muscle. Callahan was McLaughlin’s enforcer and part-time bodyguard. He sat down next to Liam, and McLaughlin took the chair across from him.

Liam was scared. “Hugh, I know this looks strange, but I can explain.”

“I’m sure you can, Liam.” McLaughlin took out his pocket watch and looked at it. “The train takes off in thirteen minutes….I’m waitin’.” McLaughlin stared at Liam with a hard look. Callahan edged closer to Liam, blocking him in.

Liam knew McLaughlin had already made up his mind. What he had to say at this point was insignificant, but Liam had to try, if for no other reason than to stay alive those extra few minutes.

M
ARY AND
S
UPERINTENDENT
Campbell were at a meeting of ticket agents at Grand Central Depot. Campbell had convinced their supervisor to temporarily pull them all off duty. If any of the agents had remembered a Liam Riley purchasing a ticket, it would be a lot faster than painstakingly going through the list of passengers departing the depot that evening.

Luck was on their side. One of the agents remembered that a Liam Riley had changed the departure date on his ticket.

“He originally was supposed to leave this Friday but changed it to this evening. I explained to him that Friday’s train was more modern than tonight’s, but—”

“What train, where, and when?” Mary hastily interrupted.

The agent explained that his eventual destination was San Francisco and that the train was leaving from track eight in a little over ten minutes.

Mary and Superintendent Campbell charged out of there as fast as they could. The agents stared after them, wondering what it was all about, until their supervisor screamed at them and they begrudgingly returned to work to deal with the irate customers who had been kept waiting.

L
IAM WAS BEGINNING
to sweat as he told McLaughlin and Callahan his woeful tale. He knew he was talking for his life.

“Just as you asked me, Hugh, I paid a woman to impersonate Emily Worsham in order to hire Mary Handley to investigate John Worsham’s death. And it worked like you thought it would. Andrew Green got rid of Collis Huntington, and it weakened their consolidation bid.”

“The problem is, Liam, even after takin’ ya under my wing and all the tutorin’ I gave ya, ya still don’t understand what I do. Ya ruined a plan that was twenty years in the makin’.”

“Twenty years? The water shortage hasn’t been that long.”

“Twenty years ago, Ryan Gleason, a lovely fella who’s long gone now, got soused with me over ales at O’Hara’s saloon and told me a doozy of a tale. He worked in the cemetery, and he was loadin’ a coffin inta a carriage when it slipped and opened up. There was nothin’ but rocks in there. But ol’ Ryan didn’t give a hoot. The rich people were payin’. As far as he was concerned, they could bury whatever the hell they wanted.”

“You’ve known for twenty years that John Worsham wasn’t in that grave?”

“The rest of the information was just the usual highfalutin society rumors about Arabella Huntington, but the coffin was different. I keep information like that, waitin’ for the time it’ll benefit me the most. Twenty years, Liam. This was the time.”

If it was possible, Liam was getting more scared than he had been earlier. “I didn’t know, Hugh. I—”

“Of course ya didn’t know. I was the only one who knew. But ya need to do what I tell ya, and I didn’t tell ya to have that woman killed. Ya screwed up, Liam.”

“Abigail Corday was a starving actress who lived in my neighborhood. I didn’t know she was crazy. She got a part in a play and all of a sudden she thought she was that person and…she was going to tell everything, Hugh. Ruin your plan, and everything we worked for.”

“We?”

“I mean you, but I do help. I do.”

“No, Liam, I’m pretty sure yer meanin’
we
with a decided emphasis on
you
. Yer the one who suggested the Long Island Water Supply Company after what ya called
exhaustive research
. Yer the one who had Gabrielle Evans killed, didn’t ya?”

“She was stopping the sale of the company. We wouldn’t have gotten the water Brooklyn needed, and you wouldn’t have made your money.”

“I would have just sold my shares and invested in another water company without it bein’ tied to a murder. But that wouldn’t do for you since Gabrielle Evans was yer aunt.”

“She was what? I have no idea what—”

“I finally read that stupid Lincoln letter ya hung on yer wall.” McLaughlin leaned over the table toward Liam and whispered intensely. “Her death led to Patricia Cassidy’s and got Mary Handley and Superintendent Campbell on my arse. Did ya hear that, Liam? My arse, not yers!”

By now, it was obvious that Liam had no chance of talking his way out of this. He had a pistol in the right pocket of his coat, which was draped over the back of his chair. He’d never intended to use the pistol but rather planned to sell it for cash when his money totally ran out. He was glad that time hadn’t arrived yet. He slowly slipped his hand into the right pocket. He was ready.

“It’s time for us to go, Liam,” said McLaughlin. “All of us.”

Liam knew what that meant. “What happens if I refuse?”

“Well then, I would get up and leave the train. Callahan here would give me a few minutes to strike up a conversation with somebody, then he’d lean over and snap yer neck.”

“I see. Okay, Hugh, you win.” Liam started to slowly rise, as if he were going with them, then he quickly pulled the gun out of his pocket. Callahan saw it coming and grabbed Liam’s hand. In the struggle the gun went off, and Callahan was shot in the stomach. He screamed in pain as the other passengers gasped in fear, and in his last act before crumpling to the floor, Callahan knocked Liam’s gun out of his hand, sending it sliding down the aisle of the dining car. Liam had never shot anyone before. He paused for a brief second as everyone stared at him, then he charged out of the car as fast as he could. McLaughlin didn’t make a move. Besides being too old for physical confrontation, he needed to be able to deny involvement in any violence.

“Is there a doctor here?” he called out. “This poor man is bleedin’ to death!”

M
ARY AND
S
UPERINTENDENT
Campbell were on track eight and had just begun going from car to car looking for Liam. They decided it would take less time if they split up, so Mary started at the back and Superintendent Campbell at the front. Just after the gun had gone off, Superintendent Campbell had made it to the dining car in time to see Liam flying out, taking off in Mary’s direction. He stepped out on the platform and screamed as loud as he could.