He drove with his big hands low on the spoked steering wheel. When he had to slow in towns, it took both hands to lever the massive beast into turns. But when he poured on the speed on the farm roads, she grew beautifully responsive. One hand was enough, as he repeatedly reached out to pump up the fuel pressure and blow the horn. He rarely touched the brakes. There was little point. The men in Bridge-port, Connecticut, who built the Locomobile had supplied a stopping system that relied on squeezing the chain shafts-a halfhearted afterthought amounting to little more than no brakes at all. Isaac Bell didn’t care.
As he roared out of Woodbridge, a one-twenty-horsepower Mercedes GP roadster tried to give him a run for his money. Bell pressed the Locomobile’s accelerator pedal to the floor and kept the road to himself.
9
WHAT’S THIS?” ASKED COMMODORE TOMMY THOMPSON.
“He says he got a proposition fer yer.”
Tommy’s bouncers, two broken-nosed fighters who had murdered his numerous rivals over the years, were standing close on either side of a refined gentleman they had escorted into his backroom office.
In cold silence, Tommy Thompson sized up what appeared to be a genuine Fifth Avenue swell. He was a medium-built man about his own age, thirty. Medium height, expensive gold-headed cane, expensive long black coat with a velvet collar, costly fur hat, kid gloves. Heat was pouring from the coal stove, and the man quietly removed his gloves, revealing a heavy ring studded with jewels, and unbuttoned his coat. Under his coat, the Gopher Gang leader could see a solid-gold watch chain thick enough to hold a brewery horse and a dark blue broadcloth suit of clothes. Tommy could have entertained three chorus girls for a week in Atlantic City for what the swell had paid for his boots.
The swell said not a word. He stood utterly still after removing his gloves and opening his coat, except for when he lifted a hand to smooth the tip of his narrow mustache with his thumb, which he then hooked in his vest pocket.
A cool customer, Commodore Tommy decided. He also decided that if all the cops in New York chipped in they still could not afford to disguise a detective in such an outfit. Even if they could raise the dough, there wasn’t a cop in the city who could paint that born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth expression on his mug. So the gang boss asked, “What do you want?”
“Can I assume,” the swell asked, “that you are indeed the leader of the Gopher Gang?”
Commodore Tommy grew wary, again. The swell was not a complete stranger to Hell’s Kitchen. He had pronounced the gang’s name correctly-as “goofer.” Not like the newspapers spelled it for Fifth Avenue readers. Where had he learned to say goofer?
“I asked you what do you want?”
“I want to pay you five thousand dollars for the services of three murderers.”
Tommy Thompson sat up straight. Five thousand dollars was a hell of a lot money. So much money that he forgot all about goofer and gopher and threw caution to the winds. “Who do you want murdered?”
“A Scotsman named Alasdair MacDonald needs killing in Camden, New Jersey. The murderers must be adept with knives.”
“Oh, must they, now?”
“I have the money with me,” said the swell. “I will pay you first and trust you will deliver.”
Tommy Thompson turned to his bouncers. The bruisers were grinning mirthlessly. The swell had just made a fatal mistake in admitting he had the dough on him.
“Take his five thousand dollars,” Tommy ordered. “Take his watch. Take his ring. Take his gold-headed cane and his coat and his fur hat and his suit and his boots, and throw the son of a bitch in the river.”
They moved as one, surprisingly fast for big men.
The swell’s coat and tailored suit concealed a powerful frame. The stillness of his stance masked blinding speed. In the space of a heartbeat, one bouncer was sprawled on the floor, stunned and bloodied. The other was pleading for mercy in a high-pitched squeal. The swell had clamped his head under one arm, while he pressed his thumb to the bouncer’s eye.
Commodore Tommy gaped in astonished recognition.
Fitted over the swell’s thumbnail gleamed a razor-sharp gouge. The tip pressed the corner of the bouncer’s eye, and it was clear to the pleading gangster-and to Commodore Tommy-that with a flick of his thumb the swell could scoop the man’s eye out of his head like a grape.
“Jaysus, Jaysus, Jaysus,” breathed Tommy. “You’re Brian O’Shay.”
At the sound of that name the bouncer, whose eye was a fraction of an inch from being extracted from its socket, began to weep. The other, still struggling for breath on the floor, gasped, “Can’t be. Eyes O’Shay is dead.”
“If he was,” said Commodore Tommy, “he’s back from it.”
The Gopher Gang leader stared in wonder.
Brian “Eyes” O’Shay had vanished fifteen years ago. No wonder he knew goofer. If Eyes hadn’t vanished, they’d still be battling each other to boss Hell’s Kitchen. Barely out of childhood, O’Shay had mastered the gang weapons-slingshot, lead pipe, brass knuckles, and axheads in his boots-and even gotten his mitts on a police revolver. But O’Shay had been most feared for gouging out rivals’ eyes with a specially fitted copper thumbnail.
“You’ve moved up in the world,” said Tommy, getting over his shock. “That gouge looks like it’s pure silver.”
“Stainless steel,” said O’Shay. “Holds an edge and don’t corrode.”
“So you’re back. And rich enough to pay people to do your killing for you.”
“I won’t offer twice.”
“I’ll take the job.”
Eyes O’Shay moved quickly, raking the bouncer’s cheek even as he released him. The man screamed. His hands flew to his face. He blinked, removed his hands, and stared at the blood. Then he blinked again and smiled with gratitude. Blood was streaming from a slice that traversed cheekbone to jaw, but his eyes were intact.
“Get up!” Commodore Tommy ordered. “Both of ya. Go get the Iceman. Tell him to bring Kelly and Butler.”
They hurried out, leaving Tommy Thompson alone with O’Shay. Tommy said, “This ought to put an end to the rumors that I killed you.”
“You could not on your best day, Tommy.”
The Gopher Gang boss protested the insult and the contempt behind it. “Why you talking like that? We was partners.”
“Sometimes.”
They stood in silence, old rivals taking each other’s measure. “Back,” Tommy muttered. “Jaysus Christ, from where?”
O’Shay did not answer.
Five minutes passed. Ten.
Kelly and Butler sidled into the Commodore’s office, trailed by Iceman Weeks.
Brian O’Shay looked them over.
Typical new-breed Gopher, he thought, smaller, compact men. And wasn’t Progress a wonderful thing? Tommy was a throwback to the old days when bulk and muscle ruled. Now clubs and lead pipe were giving way to firearms. Kelly, Butler, and Weeks were built more like himself but dandified in the latest gangster fashion-tightfitting suits, bright vests, florid ties. Kelly and Butler wore polished yellow shoes with lavender socks. Weeks, the Iceman, stood out in hose of sky blue. He was the cool one who would hang back, let the hotheads take the chances, and then swoop in for the prize. In his dreams, the Commodore would die of something quick, and Iceman Weeks would own the Gophers.
O’Shay took three butterfly knives from his coat and handed one to each. They were German made, exquisitely balanced, quick to open, and sharp as razors. Kelly, Butler, and Weeks hefted them admiringly.
“Leave them in the man when you do the job,” O’Shay ordered with a glance at the Commodore, who seconded the order with a blunt threat. “If I ever sees youse with them again, I’ll break your necks.”