Later that evening, Johnny retrieved a note left at the pier instructing him to meet Detective Donellan at a quiet street corner on Front Street.
“We’re going to find out what’s so secret about that back room in the warehouse,” Donellan said. “Tomorrow night, meet us here about nine o’clock. You can show us the exact location of the part of the building you say you can’t go near. Stay out of trouble in the meantime, we don’t want you getting fired before we find out.”
During the lunch break the next day a younger member of the crew whom the men called Spike approached Johnny. “I see you caught a yellin’ from the boss yesterday.”
“Yeah, I did. Don’t know what’s so all-fired secret about the back of the warehouse.”
Spike inched closer. A diminutive youth, his crooked nose and pock-marked skin gave him a distinctive and unpleasant appearance.
“None o’ my business,” Spike whispered, “but folks get into hot water from goin’ near there. Maybe somethin’ goin’ on we ain’t supposed to see or know about.”
“Got any idea what it might be?” Johnny asked.
“Well, all I can gather, it’s somethin’ the cops shouldn’t know about neither. I’d just stay clear and not ask too many questions.”
“Yeah, I got the idea. Thanks for the tip-off.” Johnny said. He made a mental note to ask Spike for more insight into the activities at the warehouse.
The next wagon arrived for off-loading and the crew shuffled back to their task. Johnny caught glimpses of the same clandestine movements at the rear of the building during the afternoon but managed to keep his curiosity unobtrusive.
When darkness fell over the waterfront, Johnny met Detective Donellan and his partner Detective Arthur Philips. He stood slightly taller than Donellan, his pale blond hair and beard distinguished him from his darker complexioned partner. They walked back to the warehouse where Johnny worked and he showed them the side door from which the man with the packages had come. While Johnny remained apart to watch for anyone approaching, Donellan and Philips shoved empty crates against the wall and clambered up to look through the darkened window. The dim light from a nearby gas lamp threw enough illumination for them to observe what appeared to be stacks of paper and printing presses. They tried the window and managed to get it part way open when Johnny noticed a policeman in uniform making his rounds along the street heading toward the warehouse. He hastened back to where the two detectives attempted to gain access through the window to the warehouse to get a closer examination of the suspicious machinery. A low whistle from Johnny alerted the two men. In their haste to leave, one of them slipped and fell to the ground, the crates clattering behind him. The noise attracted the attention of the policeman on his post along the Bowery. He started toward the noise at a trot. Johnny remained where he stood while Donellan and Philips ran quickly around the corner and away, not wishing to explain to a local uniformed officer why they had tried to break into a warehouse at night.
When the cop approached near where Johnny waited beneath the partially open window, Johnny motioned to him. “Officer, over here,” he said gesturing to the overturned crates.
The cop said, arriving slightly out of breath: “What’s going on?”
“I work here,” Johnny said with an excited edge to his voice. “I just happened to be passing by and I saw two men trying to climb through that window. As I got closer, they saw me. They tried to jump down, and one of them lost his footing and fell off that crate there.”
“Where did they go?” the cop asked.
“I’m not sure, I think they ran toward the river,” he said, pointing in a direction different from that in which the two detectives had sped.
“Can you tell me what they looked like?” the cop asked.
“Just two ordinary folks, I didn’t get a good look at them, it all happened so fast,” Johnny answered.
“Good thing you saw them when you did, kid, might have prevented a burglary. There’ve been a lot of them around here lately. Don’t need another one on my post. I was given this beat to try to prevent burglaries. Not easy to do when it’s dark and so many buildings.”
“Glad I was here, just now, wouldn’t want my boss losing any property to thieves.”
“Thanks for the help, odd you just happened by when this was going on though.”
Johnny scuffed his feet, shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the ground. “Well, truth is, officer. I was meetin’ someone over by the river. You know, a friend I met.”
The cop let a sneer curl his lips. “You ain’t cozyin’ up with one of those ladies of the evening by any chance?”
“I guess, sort of …”
“I’d stay away from that sort of thing, I was you, sonny. Man can catch somethin’ awful foolin’ around with them.”
“Y’see, I was gonna, but she asked for more money than I was willin’ to part with.”
“Now that’s a good thing as it turns out. If you were previously occupied, you wouldn’t have been here to spook those two men.”
“I think I’ll just run along now, officer. Need my sleep, got a long day tomorrow.”
“Right, I’ll just step up there and see that window’s closed. Take care and stay away from those wild women.”
In the morning, Johnny saw an opportunity and looked for the foreman.
“Just happened to pass by last night, came up on two men tryin’ to sneak through the side window over there. When they saw me they bolted. Cop happened along just then, too. They were long gone by time he got here. I guess he heard the noise when one of them fell getting’ down from the box he was standin’ on.”
“Why were ya passin’ by just then?” Nate asked.
“Meetin’ a lady, one of them you pay. She met me over by the docks, but she wanted too much money so I said good night and left.”
“All right, glad ya were there.”
Johnny’s muscles ached from lifting the heavy barrels and crates but he kept at the job, certain that he had found something of interest. During a break between wagon loads he saw someone slip into the warehouse entrance. When the man paused at the door to look over his shoulder, Johnny recognized him as the policeman from the previous night. Even though not on duty and not in uniform, his distinctive mustache with the edges upturned, the cut of his profile marked him as the officer who had come to investigate the open window. The cop glanced around quickly and closed the door behind him. A few moments later the door opened and the same man emerged with the foreman deep in conversation. They exchanged handshakes before the cop walked hurriedly away. Johnny tried to catch a glimpse of where he went. Noticing the foreman looking his way, Johnny turned to lift the next crate with another worker. A sidelong glance told him that the foreman watched him from the warehouse entrance.
When it came time for the lunchtime break, the foreman beckoned to Johnny. “Mighty peculiar, you just happened by when the window was ajar.”
“I was on my way back to my roomin’ house. I heard the noise and stopped. A cop came up and saw me standin’ there. I pointed out the open window.”
“I hear a different story. I think it was the cop heard the noise and found the window open. You sure ya weren’t snoopin’ around like ya ain’t supposed to?”
“No, like I told you, I was just passin’ by. I was the one told the cop what happened,” Johnny replied.
“Ya comin’ to the meetin’ tonight?”
“Yeah, glad you reminded me. I’ll see you then.”
Anxiety over how to contact Deirdre began to mount within him. Johnny found himself having to fight off a jittery stomach and constant preoccupation with his memories of them together. A letter seemed the thing to do, but how to approach it without giving away his location became his quandary. He didn’t want Deirdre to make an attempt to find him or do anything to trigger her mother’s suspicion about his activities. Mail from a local post office might cause concern or misunderstanding. Needing more time to plan his next move, Johnny decided to put off acting in haste and causing a problem with Deirdre’s family. He turned to the immediate task of contacting the detectives and setting up a meeting to inform them of what had transpired with the cop, with his encounter with the foreman, and that the Copperheads had scheduled another meeting.
At their next rendezvous, Detective Philips devised a plan to gain Johnny greater access to the inner recesses of the warehouse. The idea he hatched involved starting a fire outside the warehouse, having Johnny discover it and running to the nearest fire brigade for help in extinguishing it. This had to occur in a manner that would not pose a danger of the fire spreading too fast, and Johnny would need to sound the alarm quickly. They decided to have Donellan cause a distraction for the policeman on the post nearest the warehouse. Philips would set the fire and Johnny nearby under the guise of having a tryst with another lady of the evening, would see the flames and sound the alarm at the fire house.
“Madigan, when the fire is out and you tell the foreman the following morning, make sure you take full credit for saving the building from total ruin,” Donellan said.
Philips interjected: “Maybe it will earn you enough credit having saved them twice within a short space of time, to where that might ingratiate you with the big boss. I’ll come by the warehouse and identify myself as a local detective investigating these occurrences and build up how alert you are and how you might be put to better use.”
“They’re mighty cautious,” Johnny said shaking his head. “I’m not sure they’ll be too quick to take me into their confidence.”
“Well,” Donellan said, “If their courier went missing, say for a minor offense, they might have room for someone to take his place.”
“We’ve got to get you closer to the operation,” Philips said. ”We’ll need solid evidence if we make arrests. This case is important enough that we can’t chance a dismissal in court and have them move their operation elsewhere. We’ve got one chance to get this right.”
On the designated evening, Donellan waited nearby for the foot patrolman to begin his routine midnight circuit of his post. The detective shadowed him while the officer made a few stops at taverns along the street he patrolled. In a dimly lit alleyway a nightly dice game, hosted by a garrulous fat man, began. The officer disappeared from view, then remerged from the alleyway, gave his night stick a couple of twirls, looked up and down along his post and ducked into the doorway of a house of ill-repute. After each visit he placed something in his trouser pocket and started down the street toward the warehouse. Donellan positioned himself where the cop would pass on his patrol. When he neared the place where the detective waited, Donellan jumped out shouting: “Officer, officer, I’ve just been robbed.”
“Easy there, mister. Take your time. What is it exactly happened?”
“Two young toughs dragged me back into that doorway there and demanded my money. I was afraid I would be killed, so I complied right away. You can’t let them get away.”
“Right then,” the cop said in a laconic tone of voice. “What did they look like and which way did they go?”
“You must hurry, officer. They’ll get away.”
“Sure, sure, we’ll find them. First we need to know what they looked like.”
“One of them was tallish, about your height, the other …”
“Slow down,” the officer said. “I’ve got to get all this written down.” He took a leather-bound note pad from his rear pocket, opened it and began to take notes.
“Now what was it you were saying?” He wrote slowly in the pad.
Donellan glanced the few blocks in the direction of the warehouse. He saw Philips in place and gave a barely discernible sign that the officer remained occupied with his description of the non-existent thieves. Within minutes flames began to lick at the debris near the corner of the warehouse. Without hesitation Johnny dashed around the corner of the building running full speed in the direction of the nearest fire brigade shouting: “Fire, fire, the warehouse is on fire.”
He hammered on the door of the fire house to rouse the sleeping occupants. Still groggy from their interrupted slumber, they acknowledged the alarm Johnny had sounded. Fully acting out the ruse, he ran back toward the fire and made efforts to beat it out. Bells clanging, the horse-drawn engine pulled up to the burning building. The firemen unlimbered the hoses and soon had the fire extinguished. Johnny melted into the night as did the two detectives. The officer to whom Donellan had reported the spurious robbery became distracted by the commotion surrounding the fire and lost track of the report he had taken from Donellan.
In the morning Philips appeared at the front door of the warehouse and asked to speak with the foreman. A crew busied themselves repairing the damage to the building and the window closest to the office housing the presses, engraving plates and precious paper needed to print the fake currency the gang created. When Johnny saw Philips he walked over to where the two men spoke.
“Boss, it was me gave the alarm last night. I saw the fire and called for help.”
“I’m here to investigate the two incidents you’ve had in the past few nights,” Philips said. “Seems like this lad here has saved your company a deal of trouble.”
“Yeah, seems like …” the foreman began. “Ya out chasin’ them prostitutes again?” he asked Johnny.
“There’s this great place over by the river …” Johnny started with a disingenuous expression.
“Never mind that,” the foreman snapped.
“I wouldn’t be too quick to judge, I were you,” Philips said directing his attention to the grizzled boss of the loading crew. “This youngster’s been on the alert here when everyone else has gone home. Far as I’m concerned he deserves a pat on the back.”
“There ain’t much I can add to what ya already know about these incidents apart from what the kid here told me,” the foreman addressed the detective.
“Maybe this youngster can add to the story. Let me take him aside and question him. You can get on with your work.”
Philips and Johnny walked a short distance away. They spoke in hushed tones when Johnny spotted the cop from the midnight tour dressed in street clothes approaching the warehouse entrance. Philips turned his back, pulled his hat down over his eyebrows and strode off. With Johnny a short distance away, the cop sidled up to the foreman. After a brief conversation, the foreman shouted at the cop: “Don’t hand me that stuff again. Was that kid over there found the fire and sounded the alarm.”
“I’m tellin’ ya,” the cop shouted back. “I was on my post and saw the flames. They was too much to put out by myself so I got to the firehouse and gave the alarm. That kid was nowhere around.”
“There was detective here a short while ago, tells it different.”
“No detective from my precinct been anywhere near here today,” the cop snapped back. “I’da known if there was. I’m not sure what’s going on here.”
“This is mighty fishy, you ask me,” the foreman said. “I ain’t givin’ you another red cent until I get to the bottom of these goin’s on.”
The cop started to turn away, spun around and snarled: “You want me to keep a special eye on your place and you don’t want to show gratitude. Next time the place can burn down, all I care.” He stormed away leaving the faint ozone of hostility and mistrust in his wake.
Nate regarded the cop’s departure with narrowed eyes. Then he looked back at Johnny, a hint of suspicion in his glance.