Chapter Six

As he stepped outside and closed Maggie’s front door behind him Liam stopped short, struck by the finality of the moment. For weeks he had been tying himself into knots trying to figure out how to get free of the mess he was tangled in thanks to Pilkington holding his Gran hostage—the whole “big-city-cracksman-on-the-run” charade he’d been performing to keep the Molly Magees sweet; the dynamitings; the constant, sickening danger of being forced to commit murder in spite of himself; the stewing misery of his companions, angry men stuffed down a mine like sardines in a can; the endlessly interlocking consequences of each lie he was forced to tell, with each bit of violence spreading its ripples into infinity until he felt himself drowning in it all, a maelstrom greedy enough to swallow Manhattan.

And now life had simply turned the page.

He stood for a moment soaking up the late afternoon sunshine, closing his eyes and spreading his arms as if to pull the warmth deep into his bones. Then, whistling absent-mindedly, he set out along the dusty road back to the main street of Henderson’s Patch, running through the information he had gathered on his own and with Barlow’s help. He smiled wryly at the thought of the grizzled copper with his big beak and his little-old-man specs—not so much Pickwick, after all, maybe the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. If that was how Barlow figured in Liam’s story, some kind of Herald, then Providence hadn’t lost its irritating sense of humor.

He turned the corner onto the main drag and picked up his step a little, eager now to get to Maloney’s and settle things with Boylan. It was good he’d had his moment of meditation back there, because once he sat down across the table from the Grand Chieftan of the Shamrocks’ local lodge and looked into his cruel little pig eyes, he would have to work hard to keep his wits about him.

“Ahoy, McCool!”

The shout broke into Liam’s reverie and he stopped short: it was Fergus Dineen, his companion from last night’s adventure, coming towards him at a brisk trot, his thin, sharp-featured face crinkled with anxiety.

“Ah, Liam, I’m that glad to see you!”

Liam grinned ironically. “Well now, will wonders never cease? I would have sworn you’d legged it to Outer Mongolia by now.” And then, relenting at Fergus’ crestfallen look: “What’s up then, is it trouble?”

Fergus grinned uneasily, shifting back and forth like a banty rooster on a hot rock. “Sure, I’m sorry Liam, but it’s them fookin’ Acmes as turns me blood to water. I’ve fought the Limey landlords’ bullyboys with naught but a spade and a shillelagh and held me own. But them metal things ain’t natural and I’m thinking it’s the Devil himself as put them here to spite us!” He shuddered at the memory and then forced himself back to the moment. “As for trouble, there’ll be plenty if we don’t get down to Maloney’s sharpish—himself’s raising hell wondering where you’ve got to.”

“That’s a laugh,” Liam said with an answering grin, “seeing as how I’d bet it was Himself sicced the C & I Inspector on me. Come on, then, I wouldn’t want Boylan to piss himself fretting.”

He started walking again, briskly, Fergus half trotting to keep up.

“I wouldn’t be tweaking his nose if I was you,” Fergus said, “the hangings are only five days away now, and he’s wound tight as a fiddle string. I know he’ll be wanting a report on how the work in Pottsville is going.”

“Then he shall have it,” Liam said with a bland smile.

“And another thing,” Fergus said, his voice plunging to a conspiratorial whisper despite the fact that the nearest listeners were a couple of kids rolling a hoop with a stick a block away, “he’s heard a rumor that McPherson’s in Pottsville!”

Liam threw him a sharp look. “What? The Pilkington detective?”

Fergus spat angrily into the road: “Pilkington stool pigeon, more like. I knew that shite-pot when he was the Boss’ fair-haired boy.”

Nobody in Henderson’s Patch had spoken openly about the Great Detective throughout the time he’d been here, and Liam was having to struggle to keep from showing his interest:

“You don’t say, now? You knew him right up to the end?”

“Right to the bitter end, trials and all.” He dropped his voice again, looking around to make sure nobody could hear: “And who was it then, was saying to the Boss from the very first that Mr. Music-Hall Irish was all blather and blarney and blindfolding the Devil?”

Liam gave that a small grin. “I don’t imagine Mr. Boylan welcomed your advice.”

“He did, like hell.” Fergus snorted disgustedly: “McPherson sucked up to him from the word go, and it must be said our Grand Chieftain likes to hear a flattering word. So there’s the Great Sleuth McPherson leading us out on raids and punishments with the Boss’ blessings, making the Mollie Magees the terror of the coalfields, and all the time narking to the owners.” He shook his head bitterly. “There’s no villain so low as an informer, and no informer so vile as one that narks on fellow Irishmen to Mr. Franklin B. Gowen—that whey-faced son of a bitch isn’t just a bloodsucking slave-driver, he’s a damned Ulsterman born and bred!”

Liam just shook his head and looked pained, for once at a loss for words. Words other than “informer,” anyhow, that one twisting in his guts like a poisoned dagger. Fergus, happy to have the stage, continued with furious sarcasm:

“You wasn’t here then, but that narking piece of shite actually climbed up on the stand and testified against us at the trials, stood there smirking like a good little boy while they sentenced one after the other of us to death. I tell you this: when they go to hang the first ten next Thursday, every single snapped neck and weeping mother will be down to Pilkington’s hoor, Mr. Seamus McStoolie.”

The story seemed to be getting to Liam. He cleared his throat hard and said: “That’s a heavy burden …”

But Fergus was off again: “And the hell of it is, McPherson wasn’t even worth two cents as a mate. I’ve read all them eejit tales in the papers as how he was always standing the rounds in Maloneys, singing songs and dancing a jig at the drop of a hat, but the truth is that son of a bitch was a skinflint and a tightwad that could squeeze a penny till it shit ha’penny stamps! And God forbid you might be wanting a kind word and a pat on the shoulder and come asking that swine to be a comrade. Most like he’d spit on your shoes—that young fella’s eye was always on the main chance, and his greatest and tenderest care was for one thing and one thing only: onwards and upwards for darling Seamus McPherson. And would you believe it?” He bent closer to Liam, whispering again: “Word’s come to the Boss from the Chapter in Pottsville: somebody’s actually seen the dirty squealer there, not ten miles from where we’re standing!”

That jolted Liam: “Jasus, Dineen! Someone actually saw him?”

“Hard to believe,” Fergus said solemnly, “but whoever told the Boss swears it’s true! Still,” he said with a gesture towards a big, open-fronted saloon in the next block, “I expect it’s himself will be telling you about it.”

Deep in thought, Liam just nodded as they approached the broad wooden steps leading up to Maloney’s. Fergus was silent too, looking anxious again as Liam pushed open the batwing doors and stepped inside.

Liam felt his spirits sink the moment he crossed the threshold. It was always the middle of the night in here: the shutters closed tight and the heavy curtains drawn, a permanent miasma of spilled beer and dense tobacco smoke killing the freshness of the outdoors and dimming even the artificial daylight of the only electrical system in Henderson’s Patch.

More than once Liam had wondered where the money came from—Boylan could only charge the miners so much for cheap Pennsylvania whiskey and local draft beer, and paying for a fine new Tesla steam generator and a constellation of those fancy Tesla “Helios” light globes would have called for an army division of off-shift miners drinking day and night for a century. Not to mention the steam pianola tinkling away in the background, that Boylan had brought home from the Exposition in Philly for a sum that would pay ten miners’ wages for a year.

Thudding footsteps approached Liam and Fergus from behind, making the plank floor tremble, and both men turned to deposit their weapons in a basket shoved towards them by one of Boylan’s bouncers. Six feet tall, dressed in a good broadcloth suit with crisp white linen and a polka-dot bow tie, the thing had the stolid look of most automatons, although its rubber skin looked much more natural and human than the painted-porcelain mugs of Royce’s Acmes. And no wonder, Liam thought. Produced in Samuel Colt’s Hartford factory, with a miniaturized Stanley steam turbine, Colt’s precision engineering giving it lifelike smoothness of motion and Ada Lovelace’s latest “Predictive Engine” giving it a distant semblance of human brain power, a brand-new Lovelace-Colt “Columbia” (which this one appeared to be) cost more than all the miners in town could make in a lifetime, maybe two lifetimes.

As the thing clomped away, bearing Liam’s pistol and Fergus’ Case knife to the checkroom, Fergus shivered and spat on the floor.

“Sure, McCool, if I live to be a hundred years old I’ll never get used to them tin soldiers. God help us if the buggers start talking, it’ll be time to go live in a cave.”

Liam grinned and nodded towards the back of the room: “We’d better hustle, the Boss is giving us the evil eye.”

Seated in state at a round, polished-mahogany table near the exit was the Cerberus of Maloney’s, Grand Chieftan of the local lodge of the Order of the Shamrock Daniel Xavier (“Boyo,” if you dared) Boylan. Glowering like a thundercloud, his big shiny red face with its shiny black cap of brilliantined hair and glossy black handlebar moustache shimmering with displeasure, Boylan abruptly hoisted his 6-foot-7-inch, 300-plus pounds of muscle and hard fat out of his chair and folded his arms on his chest as he snarled at the approaching pair:

“And just where the hell do you think you’ve been,

McCool?”

Liam smiled affably, sat down at the table and poured himself a drink from a half-empty bottle of Jameson’s.

“Slάinte!” he toasted, and then: “Come to that, Boss, I’ve been wasting my morning answering questions for a Coal & Iron copper that thought I just might have killed Maggie. It wasn’t you as steered him my way, was it?”

The big man dropped back into his chair with a thump, grabbed the bottle of Jameson’s and poured himself a drink twice the size of Liam’s, then downed it in a gulp and wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. He gave Liam a withering look:

“If mouth was money you could buy out Carnegie himself.”

Liam gave him a placating grin, picked up the bottle and poured Boylan another big slug without refreshing his own. Mind your eye, McCool, he said to himself. Today wasn’t the day to be ruffling the Grand Master’s feathers—if he wanted to get out of Henderson’s Patch without stirring any dangerous suspicions about his motives he’d have to play this meek and mild and make sure Boylan believed his excuses whether he liked them or not. The last thing he wanted was to give that weaseling old humbug Pilkington any excuse to say he hadn’t held up his end of their deal.

“Sure and no offense was meant, Boss.” Liam said in his most disarming manner. “The truth be told, I was just on my way here when I ran into Fergus looking for me. What can I do for you?”

“You can give me your report on the Pottsville tunnel, and none of your lip.” He glared at Liam, but he was mollified enough that his tone was more bark than bite.

Liam nodded reassuringly: “Everything’s looking lovely,” he said, “the boys figure they’ll be crossing under the prison wall by tonight, and that leaves plenty of time to get everything ready.”

“How far beyond the wall do you mean to dig?”

“Another six feet will put us right under the middle of the seats they’re putting out for the nobs. With all the fireworks the boys are hauling in there, you’ll be able to hear the bang in Pittsburgh.”

Boylan nodded grimly. “Maybe when the dust settles they’ll realize the Mollie Magees still have all their teeth. And how many invites have they given out?”

“Our pet screw reckons it’s near on three hundred—every one of them some big-cheese pal of Gowen’s or the Governor’s or the Warden’s or some other good Christian that’s slobbering for the sight of Mollies dancing on a rope and pissing their pants.”

Boylan gave Liam a grudging little smile: “For all you’re a whopping great pain in the arse, McCool, you’ve done a grand job organizing the Attack Section.”

“I’m glad you think so, Boss, for I’m about to ask you a favor.”

“Are you, now?” Boylan’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Well, don’t be shy, man, spit it out!”

“I need some time off,” Liam said. “Just a couple of weeks,” he added apologetically, “so if you’d be agreeable I’d like to ask Fergus to take over as foreman till I get back.”

Boylan’s face had turned a deep reddish-purple, bulging so furiously that for a moment Liam thought his head might explode: “Two weeks!?” Boylan roared. “Have ye gone bughouse, McCool? Right now we need every man we’ve got to be at his post, not off lollygagging.”

“Come on, Boss,” Liam pleaded earnestly, “I’ve done everything I can to set this job on the rails and it doesn’t really need me anymore. The tunnel’s so near the end a tame badger could finish the digging. And Fergus can shepherd it to the end without a hitch, he’s a good lad and he knows the job backwards. As for me, I won’t rest till I can start tracking down the rat that killed Maggie.”

Boylan’s fury seemed to evaporate all of a sudden and he sat for several moments sunk in thought as he stared appraisingly at Liam. Finally he said:

“I’m thinking it’ll take you a lot longer than two weeks to find him.”

He picked up the bottle of Jameson’s and poured two more shots. Liam knocked back his in one gulp and waited. Boylan watched him with a sour little quirk to his lips before he continued:

“What makes you think you know where to start?”

There was a touch of sarcasm in Boylan’s voice that Liam didn’t like.

“Are you trying to tell me something, Boss?”

“Sure, if I were it’d be the labors of Hercules to make you hear me, wouldn’t it, McCool? And you as ready to listen to good counsel as a cigar-store Indian!”

Boylan’s anger was coming to the surface again and he leaned forward to grab Liam by the upper arm. He continued in a low growl, his eyes blazing:

“Maggie O’Shea was here in Henderson’s Patch a good two years before you showed up. If you’re as fly as you’re made out to be I won’t have to tell you she was no shrinking violet. She had sweethearts whenever the mood took her and she made no bones about it. Hell, that’s how she came here—Henderson doesn’t let anybody set up for business in this patch without paying for the privilege, and Maggie had something he liked better than money. Come to that, she was my sweetheart too, for a while, and it like to broke my heart when she gave me my walking papers. So what makes you think you know which one of Maggie’s lovers would be the one that did it?”

Liam wasn’t happy with Boylan’s hand on his arm, but he kept his voice carefully neutral:

“Just this: there was only one of you cleared out of town in the last twenty-four hours without leaving so much as a collar button behind.”

Boylan flinched so hard that he almost dug his fingers through Liam’s bicep.

“What the hell …?”

Finally running out of patience, Liam took hold of Boylan’s wrist by one of the pressure points he’d learned from Harry the Jap and pressed it slightly; Boylan howled with pain and jerked his arm back, baring his teeth like a dog about to attack.

“It’ll feel better in a few minutes,” Liam said tersely. “Meanwhile, you can tell me what you know about where Lukas went. Was it you that cleared out his rooms?”

Boylan just stared, black fury in his eyes.

“Because if it was, you missed a couple of things—like a picture of him with Maggie at the Expo in Philly.”

“Pah!” Boylan scoffed. “Maggie loved that place, she’d go there with anybody that’d buy a couple tickets for the boat from Pottsville. You took her there yourself, more than once.”

“Uh huh,” Liam said. “But that wasn’t all I found. There was a bunch of love letters, too, billy-doos from Maggie to Lukas.”

This time Boylan looked surprised: “Where …?”

“Never mind where I found them,” Liam said. “Just give me an idea where Lukas was headed when he left.”

Boylan’s jaw set hard and Liam could see he wasn’t going to say another word.

“I know it was somewhere in New York,” Liam said, “because he told Maggie a few days ago he was going there to do some of those interviews for that book of his. What happened, did he come back for something and get into an argument with her? Sure, he probably tried to get her to give him one last roll in the hay and then he lost his temper when she told him no.”

He stared at Boylan abstractedly for a moment, visualizing the scene as Boylan stared back at him stonily.

“That had to be how it went,” Liam said, nodding to himself more than Boylan. “Then he left here in a panic thinking somebody heard the shot and came by Maloney’s by the back way to tell you to clear his stuff out before the C & I’s came around investigating.”

Boylan spoke again now, his voice flat and hard. “You’ve got some imagination, McCool. So why don’t you imagine this: if Lukas can order Daniel Xavier Boylan around like a plantation nigger, then just maybe he’s somebody that a smart lad like you should steer well clear of.”

Liam nodded slowly. “Thanks for the whiskey, Boss. And when you’re next in touch with Lukas, warn him he’d better keep a weather eye out. New York is my city, and when I get back I’ll be looking up my old pals and asking them to help me search for Lukas. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Butcher Boys, but every man Jack of us grew up on those streets, and if I ask them to find me one particular flea out of New York’s ten trillion vermin, they’ll have it in a pill box before you can say boo.”

Touching his forehead in a mock salute, Liam turned and headed back towards the saloon’s entrance. Boyle stared after him, his eyes narrowed with thought, then beckoned to Fergus:

“Dineen, you’re the new tunnel foreman. And meanwhile go tell Collum I want to send a telegram and make sure my Flyer’s steamed up and ready to go.”

As Fergus took off, Boylan got to his feet and looked towards the front, just in time to see Liam retrieve his pistol, push through the batwing doors and disappear into the street.

“All right, then, Mister McCool,” Boylan muttered, “let’s see just how sharp you are.”