The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

Jonas

I’ve got one lead, a dead witness, fairy tales trying to kill me, and a wizard pup trailing my heels.  I wasn’t in a good mood.

Molly Hyde’s last words haunted me.  She was terrified, not about her own plight, but about getting her sister money.  A girl like that, she shouldn’t have to worry for others when she’s got so many worries for herself. 

I had to fill Molly’s last wish and find the girl. For the longest time I thought that “Cherry and Catharine” were people, but I’ve never heard someone name their kid Cherry.  Some time while Pop was goin’ easy on that Redcap fella, I remembered the streets, not far from the Bowery.

With my annoying little shadow in tow, I hopped a carriage down the Bowery.  It was late afternoon.  The sun cast long shadows across the avenue and blinded me from the side whenever we crossed a street.  The Manhattan Grid is a wonder of progress, but on days like these the setting Sun rolls down the east-west streets like an orange boulder.

A young man lit the street lights as we passed.  Another walked down the crowded street wearing placards on his front and back.  The day crowd returned home, and the night crowd crept out from their holes.

“I’ve never been here after dark,” Hendricks said, his eyes darting back and forth like a pair of scared rabbits.

“Never?  Why not?”

“My parents always said not to go to the Bowery, and so I didn’t.”

“Do you always do what your parents tell you?”

“Yes.  No.”  He squeezed one hand with the other. “I used to. You should listen to your father more.  He’s a very wise man.”

“He’ll always be a Seventy-Sixer.  The world doesn’t work the way he wants anymore.”  I looked to the other side of the street.  A Muni thumped a drunk with his nightstick and rolled him into the gutter.  A bartender stood in the doorway, shaking his fist at the drunk and cursing in German.  Our carriage rolled by without concern.

“When we get there, let me do the talking.  You look out for more Redcaps.”

“How long until we get there?”

The carriage turned left at Chatham Square and rolled down Catharine.  I tapped the driver on his shoulder.  “When you see a Muni, pull over.” He grunted in agreement.

I watched Hendricks squirm as the houses and people grew filthier.  Catharine runs right to the docks on South Street, and the streets were filled with sailors and those that preyed on them.

“There’s one,” said the driver, and he pulled the reins.  We paid him and got out.  There were two or three Munis.  It was hard to tell because they were breaking up a brawl between sailors and some stevedores. The Munis were getting their coats dusted, pushed back by the rolling tide of bodies.

I took out my nightstick and joined the fray before it blew into a riot.  Riots are as common as cockroaches in the Lower Wards and they can last for days.  I understand why. When life’s hell and there’s no hope, sometimes you gotta throw a brick.

In the shadows with the setting sun shining in my eyes, I didn’t notice that the cops wore Mets badges until I was too close to ignore them.  Still, we’re all on the same side, right?  I started beating on the brawlers.

“They started early today,” said one Met as he struck a bloody sailor across the back.  He didn’t stop to look at me.

I kicked the leg out from one whapper covered in tattoos.  He sprawled to the ground and the Met stomped on his eggs.  “Welcome to New York,” I chuckled.

The Met looked at my badge and raised his fists. 

“I’m here to help,” I said.

He was about to reply when a tow-headed sailor punched him in the sniffer. I grabbed the man and threw him to the ground with a flying mare.  Before I could react, another one was on me.  He hit me on the top of the head, knocking off my hat, and I felt the throbbing burn of an open cut.  I jabbed him in the belly with my nightstick.  He doubled over, and I drove my knee into his floating rib, flooring him.

The other two Mets were able to subdue the rest, leaving me with three armed men who don’t like my type.  “Easy, fellas.  I don’t want trouble.”  The crowd that formed around the brawl closed in, sealing any escape.  I took a chance and held out my hand to shake.

There was a long pause, and I saw Hendricks trying to cut his way through the crowd. His head bobbed up and down, visible over the mob.  Finally, the Met that I was fighting next to shook my hand.  “McGregor,” he said.

“Hood,” I replied.  “How’s your sniffer?”

He rubbed it.  “Not bad, I’ve had worse.  We’ve been having a helluva time this week.  That fancy English fella an’ his people came in for Thanksgiving with Mayor Wood.  His sailors think they’re too important to go to jail.  They’re not too important for a good annoitin’.” He glanced back to his friends.  “You better get outta here. We’ve got some more fellas coming with the wagon, and they might not be as friendly.”

“Good idea, but one thing.  Do you know a Leenie Hyde?”

“This isn’t my beat, but lemme ask.”  He turned to his friends and mumbled some things.  They mumbled back.

“I know ‘er,” said one of the other Mets, a blue eyed man missing half an ear, but making up for it in mustache.  “Lives with her ma’ on Cherry and Catharine.  Red brick building, with a butcher on the bottom.  She’s a beer maid at the Bloody Knuckle, ‘bout two blocks down.  Watch out fer that place, it’s one of Smokestack’s.”

I nodded and thanked them as the crowd wandered off.  Me and Hendricks continued down the street.

“Smokestack?” Hendricks asked.

“Smokestack Sullivan.  He owns a few saloons, gambling houses, brothels, councilmen, an engine company, whatever brings in the jack,” I said.  “He mostly rolls the sailors and Irish just off the boat.  He’s a real boss down here.  You don’t get in his way.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Talk to Leenie Hyde and hope that Smokestack isn’t involved.” 

Hendricks gasped as we passed a tattooed sailor and a streetwalker kissing in a doorway. Her cat-heads were popping out of her dress top, and the sailor’s hand cupped one of them and squeezed. I rapped on the wall with my nightstick to move them along. Some people have no manners.  Keep it in the brothels or on the Hook, where it belongs.

His wits regained, Hendricks returned to the conversation.  “Do you think he’s involved?”

“We’ll find out.  There’s the building.”

The building looked ready to collapse. The red bricks were blackened around the mortar from soot and grime.  A garish sign on the side of the building shouted “Fresh Meat” in bright blue letters, but it was overpowered by the dozen bills posted on the same wall.  The butcher shop smelled of bad meat.  Combined with the fish stand on the other corner, the entire street reeked like nothing I’ve ever had to bear. It’s hard to believe that people live here.

The building couldn’t be more than fifteen years old, since most older ones are wood.  I’d wager that a wooden one burned down here, and this calamity sprang up like a brick mushroom.  It was the new tenement style, a broken O-shape that managed to pack as many people into a space as possible.  They’ve been showing up all over the Lower Wards and crawling their way north.

The front door’s lock was broken, so I let myself in.  The hallway was narrow and I smelled coal smoke.  Hendricks tailed me as I climbed the rickety stairway.

I knocked on the first door, and it creaked open.  “Hello, Municipal Police.”

“They’re not here.”

“No, I’m the Police.”  I stepped inside the room.  An underfed pig grunted and crossed the room.  “Come back here.” An old man stumbled after the pig.  There were four more people in the room, which was no more than twelve feet square.  Two of them lay on wood and straw pallets in a corner.  One was eating a bowl of something brown next to a coal stove.  The woman that answered me first walked my way.

“Oh,” the old woman began, “what’d ye need?  We’re not one of those places.  We’re not that kind here.”

“I’m looking for Leenie Hyde.”

“Oh,” the woman coughed for a long minute.  “She’s one of that kind.  They live two rooms down.”  She looked at me with large eyes framed by deep wrinkles.  “Do you have anything to spare?  It’s getting cold and we dun’t have enough coal.  Jus’ enough for a lump o’ two?”

I reached into a pocket and handed her a couple of pennies.  “For coal, not whiskey.” She nodded happily. 

Hendricks gave her a half-dime.  “May the Lord protect you,” he said.

“Oh, yes, yes, and you too, you wonderful boy.”

We continued down the hall.  “You didn’t need to do that.  Give them too much and they spend it on wine and women.”

“I couldn’t ignore her.”

“You could.  Most people do worse.”  Two more steps and we were at the right door.  I knocked on the warped wood.  “Municipal Police.”  No answer.  “My name is Officer Hood.  I mean no harm.” Still no answer, but I heard scurrying behind the door, maybe a rat, maybe a girl.  “It’s about Molly.”

The door opened.  A young woman stood on the other side, a kitchen knife in her free hand and the door positioned like a shield.  Her red hair lifted from her head in a tangled mess, and her teeth were small.  She wore no shoes, and her rough-spun dress swept the dirty floor before her.

“Wha’s wrong with Molly?  Is she in trouble?  Is she well?”

“You must be here sister. May we come in?” I said softly.

“Oh no, she’s dead!  I know it.  IknowIknowIknow…”

She stepped aside, letting the knife fall to her side, and we walked into the room.  It was like the first one, except that clothes and underclothes hung on ropes that ran from wall to wall.  A Negro mother sat against the wall, holding a baby to her breast.  A cat played with a twitching rat.

“You’ve seen me Molly?” asked a middle-aged woman with the same red hair as Molly and Leenie, presumably Missus Hyde.  She kneeled over a washtub, rubbing underclothes with a hard bar of soap and a wooden washboard. She let the clothes sink into the tub.

I shared a glance with Hendricks, who had angled his body away from the nursing mother and tugged at his collar. “When was the last time you saw Molly?” I asked.

“T’ree weeks, I think,” said Missus Hyde.  She wrung a pair of knickers like she was wringing her hands.  “She brought us money, fer rent and…”

“Is she dead?”  Leenie interrupted.  She dropped her knife and grabbed Hendricks by the shirt.  “Tell me!” Hendricks stepped back like she splashed him with a chamber pot.

There was no sense in waiting.  “Yes, she died yesterday.”

Missus Hyde wailed a hundred agonies and beat the tub water until half of it was on the floor. The Negro mother came to her and put her free hand on the mourning woman’s shoulder and murmured in her ear. Missus Hyde buried her face in the mother’s dress and cried.

Leenie’s reaction was different.  She shed her tears, but soon stopped and set her jaw.  “Who did it?  Was it Smokestack?”

“We don’t know,” Hendricks said. “We were hop—”

“Why would you ask that?” I interrupted.

“Was it him?  Tell me.  Who killed me sister?” 

“It was a snake bite,” I said.  “A snake bit her, and someone took the baby she was nursing.  The Vanderlays’ baby.  You read about them in the paper?”

Leenie shook her head. “A damned snake killed me sister?  After all the things she done, all the men she’d…a damned snake?”  The crying began anew.  She sat down next to her mother and the two of them wept into each other’s arms.

I waited while the Hyde women cried themselves out.  Hendricks sat down on a crate not far from the stove and warmed his hands.  Finally, Leenie sniffled back into control.

“Why do you care?” Leenie said, as her eyes narrowed.  “People down here die every day and you Munis barely notice long enough to sweep away the bodies.”

She cut me, but she was right.  There were too many people, not enough buildings, not enough food.  With the Winter coming on, half the people in this tenement will be dead by Easter. 

“We’re investigating the Vanderlay kidnapping.  I questioned Molly when she was in the hospital.  She was getting better, but when I came back a few days later she was dead.  We think someone killed her, and we think you might know why.”  I faced Leenie.  She was the one that Molly called out in her fever dream.  Sisters are closer than parents when it comes to misdeeds.