Meantime, I hold fast, pick a direction, and kick.
Headway.
Because didn’t you know, the worm can swim?
– What do ya hear, Hurl?
He rolls his pant leg a little higher.
– I hear tis a brutal an a unfair world out dere, Joe. One not fit fer da likes a me an you. Gentlemen as we are.
I’m not bothering with my own pants, not being a delicate soul like Hurley.
– Mean, how’s it stacking up out there? I’m back just a few hours. Lost at sea.
He rises, pants rolled to above his knees, brown socks peeking out of the tops of his thick-sole leather boots.
– Well, an is it any surprise at all you’d be lost in it? Ya hardly spend any time around us a’tall anymore.
Terry comes up from the rear of the line, edging in and around the partisans and Bulls, patting shoulders, lending words of encouragement. Bucking up the troops before a slaughter.
– Joe.
– Terry.
He looks at his watch.
– You said Predo would hit sometime after midnight.
– What he said.
– It’s midnight.
– Guess we better get up there.
The basements of the Lower East Side are a warren of code violations that date back to the days of the Whyos and Tammany Hall. Excavated, hollowed-out, chopped, extended, dug deeper than safe, pushed far beyond property lines. A little time spent poking at a flaking brick wall with a crowbar will usually reward you with passage into someone else’s labyrinth. Poke at a sweaty wall and you’ll either find yourself peeking in at an old drainage or cut in half by a knife of water set loose from a pipe pressurized to lift thousands of gallons six stories up. Best way to avoid that second fate is to put your ear to the wall. Listen for the thrum of water in a pipe. Don’t hear it, you can start swinging.
This wall here, seems like I don’t hear anything but maybe a soft gurgle on the other side. Then again, I don’t feel my best. That uncertainty being what it is, I step aside and gesture to Hurley.
– After you, Hurl.
He pats the head of his sledgehammer.
– Not dat I’m shy, Joe, but the first blow is all yer own.
Terry moves back.
– Your show, Joe.
I look at the wall I picked out for this after breaking us into a basement adjoining the Society safe house and following an eastward read on the compass Terry loaned me.
– My show. And me without a curtain to raise on it.
I use my lame hand as a guide, right arm swinging the crowbar at the wall, stepping into it, like breaking the rack for a game of eight ball.
And come up dry.
I point at the spot.
– Give it a bash.
Hurl spins the sledgehammer, a delicate thing in his hands, winds up, and lets loose. Bricks fly, we all get peppered with chips and dry mortar, and there’s a jagged hole the size of a trash can lid.
Hurley points at the water pipe on the right-hand edge of the hole.
– An dat was a close one weren’t it?
I look at a dent in the side of the pipe.
– Almost a quick trip.
– Are you masters of engineering ready yet?
We look at Lydia, come to join the fun.
I hook a thumb at the hole.
– Just measuring how close we came to dying.
She shakes her head, kicks a few bricks from the bottom of the hole, and steps through into the ankle-deep sludge in the spillway beyond.
– Make a habit of that and you won’t get out of bed.
I look at Hurley, he looks at me, we both look at Terry.
He nods.
– Destined to rule the world.
He follows her.
Hurley shakes his head.
– An more’s the pity fer us all if it should come ta be.
He follows.
I think about turning the other way and getting myself lost. But the girl and her baby are north, so I hit the spillway.
– Did ya ever hear of Montaigne?
– Don’t think I knew him.
– Well ya wouldn’t have, would ya, him bein’ dead so long before yer own time wit us. But did ya ever hear of him?
– Nope.
I stop at a sluice. The sludge washed out a ways back and we’ve been in water to our calves the last half mile or so. Terry and Lydia drifted back to their troops. Neither one much comfortable around the other without a passel of guns at their beck just now. Hurley’s stayed on point with me. Not so much for the company, more to be on hand to kill me fast if I make a crooked play. A powerful deterrent Hurley is.
I take a look at the compass, light from a couple dozen flashlights scattered between the crew behind me. The north read lies with the sluice. A six-foot drop to water that could be over a tall man’s head.
I’m a tall man.
I look at Hurley.
– Hold that story.
I jump.
I’m under, water up my nose, in my empty eye socket, feet kicking, they find something solid and I put it under me, stand, water to my waist.
I look up.
– Gonna have to roll your pants a bit higher, Hurl.
– Montaigne, he was a torpedo wit one a da cannonball gangs back when.
I check the Ziploc I put my tobacco in before this jaunt. Still dry. There is a god.
– Like you’re speaking French, Hurl.
He frowns.
– Don’t know a word of da lingo.
I tuck the tobacco away, push on through the water. Cold. It actually makes the Vyrus-burn in my belly feel a little better.
– Torpedo I follow, but never heard that cannonball gang before.
He nods, hikes a leg and sloshes after me.
– Righto, righto. Cannonball gangs were a bit o ruff back when me an Terry were first settin’ shop. Back den, before all dis mass media an da like, tings were a bit looser. What we could get away wit, it was murder it was. Cannonballs. Did ya ever do one?
I search my memory.
– I haven’t got a clue, Hurl.
He wraps his arms around himself, awkward as he still has the sledgehammer, and jumps up, coming down with a splash.
– You know, cannonball.
– Like the dive?
He waves the hammer.
– Like da dive. Just a clumsy ting ya do ta make a splash. Just fer da fun. Ta make a, well, a spectacle of yerself. An dat’s what da cannonball gangs were up ta. Making spectacles of demselves. Go inta a place, say a speakeasy, someplace off da cops’ usual beat. Places were mostly soundproofed purty good. Underground an such. So no one would be bothered by all da drinkin’ an da music an da like. Ya missed out on New York ya did, Joe, not bein’ around in da old days.
I’m draggin’ my bad leg along through the water. Now the cold’s in my stomach deep and it doesn’t feel better at all. Feels like ice water and acid in my bowels.
– You’re making it come alive for me, Hurl.
– Well, an it was a time. So an all. Montaigne. He ran one o dese gangs. Run ‘em inta a place, come in wit maybe just a little rabble rouse ta start it off. Just loud. Boisterous like. Ya know what da word means?
– Heard it before, yeah.
– Lovely word. Remember da nun who taught it to me. Cracked my knuckles a hundred times wit a ruler before I had it right. An I never did get it spelled proper.
He sighs.
– A true bitch of a woman she was. I killed her, I did. Fer her sins of cruelty on children.
He shoots an elbow at my ribs. Doesn’t break any new ones, but leaves me gasping.
– Yeah, an ain’t dat a laugh, Joe.
He laughs.
– Killed her fer her sins. Oh, if dere’s a god, he’s gonna be upset wit me over dat bit o humor.
His laugh winds down.
– So, boisterous and all, Montaigne and his fellas would come in, draw a little ire perhaps, an tings would get a little messy from dere. What stared as a tussle would soon become a brawl, and den a riot.
He shakes his head.
– An den a slaughter.
With the butt of the hammer he pushes up the brim of his fedora.
– Ah da yella press in dem days, dey went fer it so. Gangland Slayings in Den of Sin. Oh an dey loved it. Had dey just but known the headlines dey mighta had wit just a wee little diggin’. But no, dey were happy wit da obvious, da low-hangin’ fruit o dat vile profession. Montaigne had naught ta fear from dem or da police. Worse dey could come cross would be a couple o real gangsters in one o dem places. Couple fellas wit dere.45s in dere pants an maybe a violin case under da table. If ya follow me.