Johnny listened at the door of his room, holding it ajar. He heard the heavy tread of footsteps in the direction of Letitia’s room. When she opened it in response to the light rap on the door, the man’s voice carried to where Johnny stood listening.
“Ma’am, I’m Captain Partland, Confederate States of America. I understand you have a parcel to deliver.”
Letitia’s muffled voice replied: “Yes, I do. Won’t you step inside for a moment?”
The rest of the conversation took place in the privacy of Letitia’s quarters. Johnny closed his door and waited. Soon the same man’s voice sounded in the hallway.
“If you have an important message from New York to deliver, speak to Captain Hines when he returns. I’m just here to collect the money.”
“Very well, I’ll do that,” Letitia said.
The same heavy tread retreated back along the hallway. Moments later another voice announced that a cab driver hired to take her to the train station had come to collect her and her luggage.
“By the way, Miss,” the man said, “our chief, Captain Hines is down in the lobby. He would like to speak with you before you leave.”
Johnny anticipated what would come next. A fist pounding on his door prompted him to answer it. Two men in top hats and long overcoats stood there, one taller and heavier than the other. In his mind, Johnny named the taller man Hawknose because of his prominent bird-shaped beak. The other Johnny dubbed Fatman in keeping with his round physique. Each one wore a neatly trimmed Van Dyke style moustache and goatee. They pushed their way inside.
“You Johnny Sullivan?” Fatman asked.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s me.”
“Get your coat and come with us,” Hawknose ordered.
“Where exactly are we going?” he asked. “I have a train to catch.”
“You ain’t catchin’ no train, sonny.”
“Oh, why is that?” he asked, stalling for time.
“Never mind, just do what you’re told.”
The taller man with the bird beak nose made a menacing gesture toward the pocket of his overcoat. Johnny went to the bed where his coat lay draped over the rest of his belongings. He started to pick up the cloth bag.
“Leave that, you won’t need it where you’re going.”
Johnny shrugged into his shabby coat and Fatman snarled, “Hold it right there. Get your hands away from your pockets.”
Johnny held his hands out from his body, a gesture to show he held nothing in them. The hawk-nosed man reached in the right hand pocket of his coat and retrieved Johnny’s revolver. He slipped it into his waistband and gestured toward the door. “Down the hallway to the stairs and out through the lobby. Walk nice and slow and don’t try anything. We’re both armed and won’t hesitate to shoot.”
Johnny made his way through the empty hotel lobby with the two gunmen flanking him. When they reached the street, Hawknose said: “Turn left, keep goin’ that way.”
Johnny appeared hesitant.
“G’wan keep movin’” Hawknose said.
The warehouses and wharves of the lakefront loomed in the distance. They turned down a deserted street, the screech of gulls and the distinctive odor of a waterfront signaled their approach to Lake Ontario.
After a few blocks Johnny slowed his pace even further. “I don’t think this is the way to the railroad. I’m not taking a boat home, am I?”
“Y’all don’t worry ’bout a boat, sonny. Y’all might be goin’ for a little swim instead,” the hawk-nosed man sneered, his Southern drawl now becoming more pronounced.
The fat gunman to his right seemed engrossed in finding their destination, not looking at Johnny or paying attention to the cynical conversation. Johnny stopped and doubled over. “No, no, you can’t do this. I don’t wanna die.”
“Shut up and keep walkin’ or we’ll do ya right here. No more’n you deserve, damn Yankee spy,” Hawknose snarled.
Fatman had gone a few steps ahead before he turned to look. Johnny emitted a pitiful wail and dropped to one knee. “No, please, you can’t do this.”
Hawknose, the gunman nearest him, reached for the collar of Johnny’s coat to yank him upright. “Not so brave now are ya when you’re not sneakin’ around behind people’s backs. Get up and take it like a man, yeller-bellied Yankee.”
The Bowie knife from the scabbard on Johnny’s ankle concealed by his trouser leg, flashed in the cold sunlight more quickly than the gunman’s eyes could follow. Still kneeling, Johnny slashed at the wrist that grasped his coat collar and stabbed upward at the face bending over him. Blood spurted from the deep cut on the gunman’s arm. With the speed of Johnny’s second thrust the point of the knife caught the injured man on the edge of his chin. He screamed in pain and outrage. Fatman, startled by the sudden attack, fumbled at his coat pocket to bring his pistol into play. Johnny dropped the knife, stepped behind the injured man and spun him to face the other assailant, who now gun in hand, tried to get a clear shot at Johnny. Hawknose thrashed to free himself from the hand gripping his coat. Reaching into the waistband of the bleeding man’s trousers Johnny retrieved his pistol and pushed the injured would-be kidnapper toward his fat partner.
Both Johnny and Fatman fired at the same time. Fatman ducked away from Johnny’s first shot which went wide of the mark. With his aim disrupted, the bullet the fat gunman fired struck Hawknose in the shoulder. The wounded man screamed in agony and slumped to the ground. Johnny stepped to his left, crouched and fired again. The bullet hit the fat assassin in the upper thigh. Johnny sensed from the way he collapsed to the ground that the shot had shattered his femur. Howling in pain laced with virulent hatred the Fatman tried to pull himself up to a sitting position to get another shot at Johnny who leapt toward him and kicked the gun free. The hawk-nosed gunman writhed on the ground groaning, his blood pooling underneath him. Johnny returned to him, yanked the man’s pistol free from his overcoat pocket and let him pitch face forward again on the pavement. The kidnapper with the thigh wound once more tried to drag himself to where his weapon lay several feet away.
Johnny placed the barrel of his gun at the man’s temple.
“Don’t make me kill you” he said.
The man looked up and tried to speak. Pain constricted his voice.
“You can thank me later,” Johnny whispered.
He slid his own weapon into his coat pocket, kicked the pistol that lay on the ground a few feet further away from Fatman. With the revolver he had wrested from Hawknose’s pocket Johnny fired one shot into the ground, then dropped the weapon several feet behind the bleeding Hawknose. The pain from the knife wounds and the bullet in his shoulder caused him to make feral noises from deep in his throat. Johnny picked up the blood-stained knife, wiped it on Hawknose’s overcoat, returned it to its scabbard and set out in haste to the railroad depot to catch up with Letitia.
Johnny took a circuitous route to the train depot to evade anyone who might have followed him. Satisfied he had no one behind him, police or Confederate agents, he arrived at the station as the south-bound train pulled in. From a distance, he looked for Letitia among the passengers waiting to board. Finally Letitia appeared from the platform building, a man with her carried her luggage. They two seemed to engage in a quarrel. The man took her by the arm and pulled her toward the steps to a passenger car. Letitia resisted but a quiet word whispered in her ear overcame her reluctance. Both stepped aboard the train.
Satisfied that all the passengers had boarded the conductor gave a wave of his hand to the engineer in the locomotive. Johnny edged from his cover when the hiss of the air from the brakes releasing told him the train had begun to move. He crossed the tracks, sprinted along the road bed on the opposite side of the train from the platform. Grasping the railing of the rearmost car he vaulted himself aboard, then yanked the door to the car open, burst inside and slammed it shut behind him. A crewman and a conductor sat at a small table, when Johnny entered.
“Hey, sonny,” the conductor shouted, “this car is for crew only.”
“Sorry, almost missed it. I’ll find a seat and pay for my ticket when the conductor comes by.”
He started for the next door when the conductor seated there called to him, “You ain’t supposed to board the train like that.”
Panting with exertion, Johnny said: “I just got here,” and hurried into the adjoining car.
Johnny pushed his way through the next few cars until he came to where he could see Letitia’s distinctive flowered hat next to the man who had apparently bullied her onto the train. Johnny stopped, slid the connecting door closed and found a seat halfway back in the car just behind where Letitia sat. The conductor came to collect tickets. With the money he had stashed in his sock Johnny paid for his fare plus the surcharge for buying the ticket on the train. He settled back, slipped his cap over his eyes and tried to sleep while the train sped southward to the New York State border.
Donellan and Philips took turns strolling past Barr’s Warehouse at odd intervals during Johnny’s absence. The loading docks still had wagons ready for the delivery and off-loading of freight. The work gangs busied themselves with the routine activity the detectives had come to expect. Day three passed and they began to experience concern about Johnny’s safe return. Even though they reproached themselves for having permitted his departure, they assured each other that they stood more to gain by any information he might gather than if they had exposed him prematurely by denying permission for the trip to Canada. Each day either Donellan or Philips checked the arriving passengers at the Centre Street rail depot, neither of them saw Johnny return.
Simeon, meanwhile, tried to restore some normalcy to his usual business while his printing presses remained concealed in the loft on Courtland Street where the thugs from the Society had ordered them secreted. He fretted for Letitia, so far away and with a risky mission to complete. Terrible fantasies of a misstep on her part which could lead to disaster, flashed through his mind. On the morning of the fourth day after her departure, Letitia drove up to their house on Fifth Avenue in a hansom cab accompanied by the man called Captain Partland. He saw her to the door and returned to the cab to proceed to his own destination. Drawn and haggard from the stress she had undergone and the tiring train ride, she hurried to her bedroom and slid the doors closed behind her.
Simeon rapped lightly on the wooden door. “Letitia, are you all right?”
“I’ll be out presently, Grandfather. I must heat some water and bathe after the train ride.”
“It was nice for that gentleman to see you home like he did.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“Did you deliver the message I gave you?”
“Yes, I did, Grandfather,” she answered, trying to keep the emotion from her voice.
“Very well, dear,” he said. “I’ll be at the warehouse. Have Henry drive you there when you feel up to it.”
Deirdre made a stern effort to conceal her sense of betrayal by Johnny from her mother. She dreaded to hear the implication of, “I told you so” she knew would creep into Maggie’s tone of voice if she admitted that Johnny had destroyed all her faith in him. She visited her friend Maureen who chose not to question Deirdre about her obvious anguish since the day they crossed the train tracks to the greengrocer. Finally, Deirdre relented. She could no longer bear the sorrow that ate at her alone. “That day, when we were on our way to the market …” she began. The words caught in her throat.
Maureen reached for Deirdre’s hand in silent testimony to her own trustworthy friendship. “You’ll feel better if you unburden yourself. This will be just between us.”
“I saw Johnny – with a woman. They got out of a carriage with luggage. Then they both got on the train. He helped her up. I saw him with his own cloth bag. I know they were taking a trip together.”
“Do you know why he’s in New York when he should be in the army?” Maureen asked.
“I just don’t know,” Deirdre said. “Since he visited me here those months ago, he’s been so mysterious. He’s come back again, dressed in work clothes. He can’t tell me what he’s doing and swore me to secrecy. I’m so upset that there’s something about him that I never suspected. He’s different now than before he went away to the army. Now he’s with a woman …”
“I’ll bet he’ll have an explanation when you see him again,” Maureen tried to console her friend.
“I don’t think I’ll ever see him again. He’s left with that woman he was with. I can’t believe the army had anything to do with that.” She looked up suddenly, “You don’t suppose he’s deserted from the army?”
“I’m sure he would have told you,” Maureen said. “After all, he did write and arrange to see you. He said it was all a secret. I think you should have faith. This war has taken some strange turns from all I’ve heard.”
Deirdre clung to a shred of hope that her friend had a better insight into what might have happened than she did. The anguish of having Johnny so close, seeing him so fleetingly and then his leaving with a woman on a train, shredded her emotions.
“Come what may,” she said, “I must pull myself together. I can’t let this spill over into my life at home. My mother must never know how much this has upset me.”
“Deedee, you always have me to confide in. Talking about it will help you deal with the hurt. Just think, he’s not on the front lines getting killed or maimed. He’ll come back to you, you’ll see.”