Sons of an Ancient Glory (51 page)

“Sure, you must,” he insisted. “Two drunks were making things difficult for you, and wasn't I the policeman who got you out of that fix?”

“And marched me into an even hotter pot of trouble!” Quinn spat out before she could stop herself. “Aye, you were the one, right enough!”

The cheeky grin disappeared. “I don't know that I take your meaning.” His eyes went over her. “And what's this, now? Isn't that the dress the girls at the Shelter house wear? You wouldn't be staying there after all this time, sure?”

“No, and indeed I am not, no thanks to you!”

He frowned, causing his heavy eyebrows to come together over his nose. “Then why would you still be wearing that sack? Not that it isn't becoming, mind.” The frown gave way to another grin, this one a bit smug.

Seething, Quinn clenched her hands at her sides. “And would I be wearing the hateful thing at all if the pious Ethelda Crane had not stolen
my
dress—and it the only one I owned?”

Pocketing his nightstick, the sergeant crossed his arms over his chest and stood appraising her. Quinn had to steel herself not to squirm under his policeman's chicken hawk eye.

“I'm thinking perhaps we need to start over,” he finally said, his rugged face now altogether serious. “Supposing you tell me what it is that has you so bothered. And while you're about it,” he added, “you might explain your business in the Five Points—which happens to be, if you haven't already discovered as much, the lowest, meanest place in the city.”

His clipped brogue had thickened. Quinn placed it as northern, with a taste of the sea: Donegal, more than likely. This gave her slight pause as to the wisdom of sparring with him. Wasn't it common knowledge that Donegal men could be hard and a bit sly? Yet, for the sake of Ivy and the others still trapped in the Shelter, shouldn't she be telling what she knew about the goings-on in that place?

She decided to risk it. If he thought to take her back, she could lose him quick enough. He was set like an oak tree and no doubt would be just as wooden on his feet. Outrunning him shouldn't be much of a task.

Quinn's instincts told her he was not nearly so fierce as he would make out. Despite his sturdy size and deep frowns, he didn't quite fit her notions about policemen. His eyes seemed dusted with laughter, and she thought she might have even sensed a depth of kindness in the man.

So after a slight delay, Quinn allowed him to lead her off to a bench in front of one of the taverns, where she started in with her story. She took no small satisfaction in the surprise that gradually began to register on his face as she told him about her experiences at the Chatham Charity Women's Shelter.

The longer she talked, the more his eyes bugged. Twice he stopped her with an incredulous grunt of outrage, but to give the man his due, he listened to her story with the patience of a priest.

For Man's grim Justice goes its way,
And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!

O
SCAR
W
ILDE
(1854-1900)

D
iscouraged by his failure to find Sergeant Price after nearly an hour of searching, Evan gave up and went back to the buggy. After months of familiarizing himself with the Five Points, he wasn't nearly as fearful of the deadly slum as he had been in the beginning. Still, he was cautious enough not to go roaming about the place after dark, especially alone.

He set out for the police station, hoping that if he didn't find the sergeant there, he could convince one of the other policemen to accompany him. It was pointless to go back to Billy Hogan's flat by himself, he knew. He had no illusions about his effectiveness against a brute like Sorley Dolan. He wouldn't get past the door, and even if he did, what then? No, if he were to make any progress in his search for the boy, he needed someone like Sergeant Price, who looked as if he could easily take on three of the likes of Sorley Dolan.

Riding through the Five Points after dark was a truly harrowing experience. Nearly every house was a tavern that at night shook with the sounds of drunken cursing and laughter, music, and, often, blood-chilling screams. Everywhere the narrow alleyways cut right and left, disgorging an endless parade of rough-looking men with angry eyes and women whose faces bore the evidence of years lived out in pain and defeat. The streets were rutted and slick with mud. In some places children played knee-deep in the mire.

As he drove toward the Hall of Justice, Evan's anxiety gave way to a heaviness of heart at the sight of so many children—”lost children”—trapped in this leprous breeding ground of evil. Most of them had no chance whatsoever of escape, but instead would spend their precious young lives caught up in the squalor, sin, and violence of places like Paradise Square and the Old Brewery.

Five Points wasn't peculiar to America alone, he knew. It was the same throughout Europe. Whether it was London, with its deadly slums teeming with forgotten children, or Ireland, with its homeless, starving little beggars, thousands upon thousands of small souls remembered only by God were being crushed before they ever felt a single touch of love or human kindness.

Evan anguished for the Billy Hogans of the world, the children without hope, without a future. And yet, what could he do? He was only one man, with scarcely any money to speak of, little physical stamina, and frightfully little time. He had a family to provide for, a job to attend to, and a small ministry of sorts with his boys in Five Points. Some days it was all he could do to keep going. What else could he possibly do?

As he pulled up to the Hall of Justice, often referred to as “the Tombs,” Evan sat in the dark silence of the buggy for a moment, struggling to regain his composure. Even as he fought for calm, there came a stirring in his spirit—unexpected, unannounced—that took his breath and held him there, waiting.

Shaken, he squeezed his eyes closed, as if to shut out the turbulence of the day, his churning emotions, and the ordeal that awaited him yet this night.

But instead of the peace he sought, the weight upon his heart seemed to grow even heavier, more oppressive. He felt surrounded, submerged in tragedy and need. Nora…Johanna…Billy…the abandoned souls of Five Points…the lost, forgotten children—such need, such desperate, insurmountable need! Like a hand pressing down upon his soul, the burden increased, weighing down on him until he could scarcely breathe.

“Oh, Lord, enough—enough! I cannot bear any more!”

Not knowing whether he spoke aloud or if it had been his spirit crying out in rebellion, Evan shuddered and bowed his head, wanting to pray,
needing
to pray, but so enervated and depleted he could scarcely find the
strength
to pray. And so he merely sat there, letting the silence of the night wash over him until he could bring himself to leave the buggy and go inside.

How much are you willing to do, Evan?

His heart pounding, Evan lifted his head, opened his eyes and looked around, then raised his face to the dark, starless night. “How…how
much
, Lord? Why…whatever I can, of course…b-but…”

Are you willing to trust Me?

His throat tightened. “Why…I've always t-trusted You, Lord.”

Will you trust Me with everything? With Nora…your family…your job…your future…your life?

Again Evan closed his eyes, fighting back the tears now threatening to spill over. “I try, Lord…You kn-know, I try…”

Will you trust Me to help Billy Hogan…and the others like him…My lost children?

“Oh,
yes
, Lord…why, You're their only hope!”

You are their hope too, Evan…you, and My church…you are My hands…My feet…you are their hope.

For a long time darkness surrounded Evan. He saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing, until at last he sensed a distant glimmer of light slowly rising up in him, growing brighter and clearer, warming him as it filled him.

“What shall I do, Lord? What
can
I do?” he whispered.

Trust Me, Evan…trust Me, and be brave, for I will ask much of you.

Evan opened his eyes. He sat there in the darkness another moment. He tried to steady himself with a long breath of night air, but was seized instead with a fit of coughing. Finally, his legs trembling beneath him, he stepped down from the buggy and started for the entrance doors of the Hall of Justice.

Nearly half an hour later, inside a small office just off the entryway, Michael Burke listened as Evan Whittaker finally ended his explanation about Nora's illness.

Certainly, this wasn't the way Michael had planned for the evening to go. The truth was, Evan's unexpected arrival and distraught condition would mean the cancellation of an important meeting—a meeting Michael had been counting on for some time.

Parlie Cottle, an informant, had finally agreed to open up about Patrick Walsh's protection and prostitution rackets in the Bowery and the Eighth Ward. It had taken months of threats and “persuasion” just short of strong-arm tactics to convince Cottle to talk. And now that he'd finally softened, Michael was going to have to put him off.

Not that any of Cottle's information would be enough to bring Walsh in. There was still a ways to go before that could be accomplished. But every stone added to the pile built the wall around Patrick Walsh that much higher. And some day, Michael had vowed, the wall would be great enough and strong enough to hem him in entirely. Someday, no matter how long it took, he would have that snake's skin.

But tonight, something else took precedence over Patrick Walsh. One look at Evan Whittaker, and Michael had known that everything else would have to wait.

He sat now, stunned and sick at heart to think of Nora being so dangerously ill. He had all he could do to follow the rest of Evan's account. His mind had locked on a memory, and refused to release it: the memory of three children in a small Irish village, in another time that now seemed an age ago—Morgan and himself and the tiny, timid Nora. Had any of them ever imagined that life would turn out so vastly different than it had been then?

They had spent the days of their youth trekking over fields or the rocky seacoast, being foolish and carefree children—as carefree, that is, as a child in Ireland ever dared to be. They had spent their childhood together, worked at their chores about the village together, played their games and had their adventures together.

There was no way they could have known that the future would bring starvation and separation, loss of home and even family. Their worst nightmares had not forewarned them that one would live out his days in a wheelchair; one would lose a wife and be estranged from his only son; and the other…Nora…would endure horror after horror, losing most of her family before finding happiness with the good man who now sat across the desk, trying not to fall apart.

Always…always there had been the awareness that Nora could never be quite as foolish, quite as carefree, as Morgan and himself, Michael remembered. Her slattern of a mother, the unwanted children, the poverty, the appalling conditions of her life—no, Nora had never, ever, been carefree. There had been an unspoken agreement between him and Morgan that Nora was to be cherished and protected, at all costs. She was their lass, and they would have given their lives for her.