A knock on his door roused Johnny from his bed in the tiny room. Detectives Donellan and Philips entered when he snapped open the lock, their visit in response to Johnny’s last message in the dead drop.
“What’s become urgent?” Donellan asked.
“Barr had visitors yesterday. They have orders from Richmond. I heard a little bit of the conversation. Confederate agents are going to set fires all around town. I think they said it would start with hotels. It’s part of the plot to cause unrest in the North.”
“When’s this supposed to take place?” Philips asked.
“I didn’t hear a date or time. Just that they told Barr to move his printing machinery before it happens.”
“Did they say where he should put it?” Donellan wanted to know.
“I only heard what sounded like an argument. Barr’s pretty mad about having to move or have his machinery destroyed.”
“We’ll have to alert the city police. We don’t have enough manpower up here to watch every hotel or whatever else they might set fire to,” Philips said. “Let us know if they start moving anything out of the warehouse.”
“They’ll probably do it at night. We should let the police know so they can keep watch when Johnny’s not there,” Donellan added, looking at Philips.
“Barr’s granddaughter seems to be curious about me. She may become suspicious if I do anything unusual.”
“What kind of interest does she show toward you?” Donellan said with a raised eyebrow.
“I think she’s trying to catch me off-guard,” Johnny answered. “I won’t let her distract me. She is very flirty.”
“Be careful,” Philips warned. “If you say too much to her …”
Johnny interrupted: “I know, and besides she’s older than I am. Any interest she shows is only teasing or she’s trying to see if I’m up to something. I’ll be careful. Before I forget, there is one other thing …”
“And that is …?” Philips asked.
“Something else is being planned. They’re expecting another important visitor. I didn’t get to hear the rest of the conversation. I’d like a chance to find out more about it.”
Both detectives nodded. “Keep an ear peeled, if it sounds important, let us know quick as you can.”
Johnny composed a quick note to Deirdre and addressed the envelope, careful not to place a return address on it. He mailed it and reported to work.
From inside the bay, he caught sight of Letitia watching him. A clammy sweat on his brow told him how she unnerved him despite his efforts not to allow her to get inside his head. Faint warning signs flashed in his brain, the strenuous admonitions of the detectives he worked with and who had trained him, cautioned him to be aware of anyone who seemed too interested in what he did. He tried to keep Deirdre uppermost in his mind. Hope lingered that she could make the rendezvous he proposed in his last note.
Deirdre could scarcely contain her excitement when she read Johnny’s hastily written words. Her mother noticed the nervous tremor in her hands and how flushed she seemed when she helped around the kitchen. “That Johnny fella writin’ to ye again?”
“Yes, Mama, just a little note to say he’s okay.”
“Where is he now, somewhere down south I suppose?”
“I’m not sure where he is. I don’t think he’s allowed to tell me.”
“You’re a mite too twitchy I’ve noticed. Sure he isn’t comin’ to see you again?”
Deirdre fought to conceal her emotions. “Oh, I don’t think so, Mama, not this soon again, anyway.”
Maggie kept her focus on her daughter with a side-long look but received no indication that she had told anything but the truth. “Let’s get busy peelin’ the spuds, now. Yer Da will be home soon lookin’ fer his supper.”
Johnny stood on the corner of Canal and the Bowery and watched for Deirdre to turn the corner from her tenement on Mulberry Street. He strained for a glimpse of her through the throngs of people bustling around the busy intersection. When the familiar copper-colored hair peeking from beneath the white bonnet she always wore, appeared among the crowd, his heart began to race. He stepped forward as she started to trot in his direction.
Deirdre flung her arms around his neck.
“Johnny, Johnny …” she murmured. His hug took her breath away.
“You’ll crack my ribs, you’re not careful,” she said with a gasp.
“Sorry, just so glad to see you.”
“Me too, this is such a nice surprise. What are you …?”
“Please don’t ask me, I can’t say anything. But everything’s all right.”
She stepped back and looked at him, searching his face with her eyes. “Are you still in the army?”
“Well sort of … Look, it’s better if you just trust that I’m all right and doing a job for the army. I’ll be fine.”
“I’d be upset with you if you did something you’re not supposed to just to see me.”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m only doing a job, that’s all. Please have faith that I’m fine and doing what I’m assigned to do. I just can’t talk about it now.”
Deirdre paused, seeming to process what Johnny had said. “Let’s go for a walk to the river like we used to.”
“Just a few minutes, though,” Johnny answered. “I’ll have to get back soon.”
She couldn’t hide her disappointment, “Maybe we should do without the walk, then.”
“Please don’t be upset with me, I’m taking a risk just meeting you, but I had to see you.”
“I try to understand, but it’s all very mysterious. I never heard of a soldier running around in work clothes and not being able to say what he’s doing, but I do trust you’re telling the truth.”
Johnny glanced around. No one seemed to pay any attention to two young people speaking on a street corner. He made a hasty decision, pulled Deirdre toward him and gave her a lingering kiss. She responded by prolonging it. He stepped back, still holding her arms. “I’ll let you know when we can meet again, I have to go now.”
Deirdre reached up to kiss him again quickly. “Soon, Johnny.”
He gulped. “I promise, soon.” They both turned and walked in opposite directions.
Letitia waited for him at the loading dock.
“Where have you been? You should be here when Mr. Barr needs you. Go in the back, he has a delivery for you to make.”
Johnny took the package with the instructions from Simeon Barr, together with a stern admonition: “You’ll be available when we need you or we’ll get someone else to do this.”
Johnny discounted the threat; he knew none of the other laborers had the mental quickness he had displayed to earn Barr’s confidence. Still, he didn’t want to push that trust too far. Leaving the warehouse, Letitia fell in beside him and began to chatter aimlessly. Johnny accepted her company as they walked, aware that she escorted him to assure the package got to its intended destination. He scanned the street, Detective Philips across the way blended into the crowds milling through the carts and draft animals.
On the way back from the package drop-off, Letitia took Johnny’s hand. She moved close.
“Are you glad I came along, Johnny?”
“Sure, always nice to have someone along.” An involuntary shiver vibrated through him when Letitia pressed against him. In danger of losing his presence of mind with the proximity of the woman a little older than he and intentionally seductive, Johnny shifted to minimize the contact between them. He sensed both a danger and a magnetic allure emanating from her and didn’t know how to resolve the conflict that writhed within him.
Without warning the attack on the hotels began. Bands of arsonists armed with ‘Greek Fire’, incendiary packages containing sulphur and kerosene, broke into hotel entrances, ignited their fiery weapons and tossed them into the lobbies and spaces below the stairs. Most establishments, alerted by the police, managed to evacuate their guests without harm. In many instances the crudely assembled bombs failed to ignite. On alert since the attack on him by the knife-wielding stranger, Johnny began to carry his pistol in his waistband before leaving his rooming house.
When he arrived at work, Barr sent him on another delivery. He walked the several blocks north to his destination along Broadway where many of the finer guest houses in Lower Manhattan were located. Near Broadway and Houston a pair of shabbily dressed men huddled in a corner near one of the hotels. Johnny noticed them but kept walking toward the address of his intended delivery. When he had made his package drop he stuffed the small canvas sack with the purchase money received from the customer into his jacket pocket. Walking briskly back along Broadway he saw the two men still loitering by the hotel entrance.
Casting furtive glances over their shoulders, they began to sidle toward the door. One of the men produced a sulphur match from the pocket of his voluminous coat and struck it against the granite wall of the building. They moved quickly toward the doorway, nearly backing into Johnny as he drew abreast of them. With the match lighted they touched the flame to a fuse attached to the crude incendiary device.
Recognizing immediately what would ensue, on impulse and without a thought to potential consequences to himself, Johnny stepped back and called out: “Hold it right there.”
They turned to look at him. One of the potential arsonists reached under his coat and began to draw a weapon. Johnny crouched, drew his own pistol and fired once. The man holding the package with the smoldering fuse dropped it. He turned and ran south on Broadway. The shot struck the second conspirator in the upper arm. He stumbled several steps backward and slumped to the ground. Johnny ran forward to wrest the gun from the man’s hand.
Thrashing in pain and holding his injured arm, the wounded man croaked: “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Looking up at Johnny’s lapel pin he said: “Ain’t you a Copperhead?”
Johnny shoved the pistol recovered from the arsonist into his trouser pocket, secured his own weapon and began to look around for someone to summon a policeman. A crowd of passersby paused to stare at the scene of a young boy standing over an injured man lying next to a seemingly harmless package lying on the sidewalk.
“Get me some help,” Johnny shouted to a man who had stopped.
“Not me, sonny, not after what you just did. What you go and shoot that feller for? Seems like he ain’t done nothin’”
Johnny edged back from the fire bomb and called out again: “Will someone get a policeman?”
People began to back away, not willing to interject themselves into a quarrel in which someone had been shot for no apparent reason. The wounded man lay supine on the ground moaning loudly. “Help me, somebody please help me, this kid just shot me.”
After several minutes as the crowd alternately grew in size with curiosity seekers and thinned out when they heard the conflicting shouts of the two antagonists, a uniformed cop on his beat on Broadway, attracted by the commotion, pushed through the crowd to where Johnny stood.
“What happened here?” he asked.
“That package there,” Johnny said, pointing to the device on the ground, “He meant to set fire to this hotel with it.”
“What happened to him? Has he been shot?”
“He tried to pull a gun when I came up. It’s here in my pocket. I shot him in self-defense.”
“Stay where you are,” the cop said and raised his whistle to give three long blasts, meant to signal other officers nearby.
After several minutes a foot patrolman on a nearby post arrived where the milling crowd had assembled around Johnny, with the wounded man, Johnny and the first officer at the vortex. The officer who had summoned assistance said: “We’ll need an ambulance for this one. He’s been shot.”
The man on the ground flailed about and moaned loudly. “Get me some help, damn it.”
The first cop said, “We’ll have to hold onto both of these two until we get to the bottom of this. He pointed to the now ineffective incendiary device, the fuse having petered out. “The kid here tells me that’s supposed to be Greek fire. According to him, it was meant to burn this hotel down.”
At that moment, a driver passing by in a horse-drawn buggy drew abreast of the crowd. “Load him up in here, officer. We can get him to a hospital. Bellevue isn’t far from here.”
Reaching down to the injured man, his gunshot wound now dripping blood from his fingertips, both officers helped him into the seat of the carriage. Standing on the running board and clinging to the bar across the back of the seat, the second officer rode with his body as a brace to keep the wounded man from falling off.
The officer first on the scene brought Johnny into the hotel lobby where he asked the desk clerk for a box. They returned to the street and gingerly lifted the unexploded device into the receptacle. He turned to Johnny.
“Let’s go, sonny. You can explain all this to the detectives.”
The crowd began to disperse when in the distance the sound of clanging bells announced the fire brigade responding to a fire further north. A murmur of unease swept through the bystanders.
Johnny said in a quiet voice: “This is going on all over the neighborhood, Confederates trying to disrupt New York City.”
The cop glanced at Johnny’s lapel pin: “Ain’t you in sympathy with them?”
Whispering in an urgent tone, Johnny said: “I can explain at the stationhouse.”
“I need you to surrender both weapons,” the cop said.
Johnny complied, handing both to him butt first.
“A little young to be armed, ain’t you?” the cop asked.
Walking a step ahead of the cop, Johnny shot a look over his shoulder.
“It’ll all be part of my explanation.”
He hoped devoutly that his two back-up detectives arrived soon.