The Pinkerton Files Five-Book Bundle (3 page)

The first trick I ever learned in this business was to wake from a dead sleep without moving. I left a bag of coins on a tin plate on the far side of camp. One of Hunt's boys picked it up. A piece of silver fell from the hole I cut in the bottom.

Coin on tin was plenty loud enough to wake me. I opened my bottom eye.

“Wait for Saul.”

This was the one who'd picked up the coins.

“There's more'n just that purse I bet.”

The second man was bigger. He wore pants barely long enough to cover his knees. He came toward me while the others held back.

Always put the bait far from where you're sleeping. It splits the group.

In the days I spent waiting for these thugs, I practiced a bit of misdirection. Reaching with my left hand, as though snatching at a weapon, I slipped into the gauntlet on the other side.

The big man landed on my left arm so hard he raised a cloud. With the gauntlet on my right, I grabbed him by the belt and threw him into a tree. That caused a stir.

Two of the others rushed. The first raised a club over his head. I let him get close then drove a spring loaded fist into his chest. He spun off gasping for air.

This left me open to a boot in the neck from the next man. He didn't kick me flush but was close enough that I tumbled back. He was on top, coming down hard with his knees. I rolled us both and scrambled to my feet.

In the commotion, I didn't even realize that I had picked him up. I looked around before noticing him in my hand. I slammed him into the embers of the fire.

The last one ran off. No doubt he would be back with Saul, whoever that was.

I made a snap decision. I took off the gauntlet and hid it in the woods.

When Saul showed up, I was tying down the three left behind. Saul held his buck knife low and kept a ready position with every step. He'd killed in the wild.

“Got no more money.” I said.

“Got my boys.”

Saul was close enough to be a danger in no time.

“You can have them.”

I stepped back. Saul sliced their bindings.

He must have expected his boys to spring to their feet. When they slumped over, he took a look at the damage I'd done.

“They get kicked by a mule?”

“Mostly they just fell over. It happened real fast.” I said.

Saul stepped toward me, knife still poised to strike. I took a chance.

“It's a shame.” I said. “Your boys stole my money before I could give it to them.”

“You feelin' generous?”

“I know what a man looks like when he's at odds with the law. You're runnin' from the Union. Or toward the Union, maybe.”

“What d'you know about it?”

“Just what people say. That the north's lookin' for trouble and the south'll give it to them.” I said. “You look like plenty of trouble to me.”

The fat man huffed to one knee. Saul turned a cold eye and straightened his posture. He didn't seem like he was going to kill me anymore. Not that second.

“We square then?” I said.

“Sure. ‘Cept for three boys you broke, we're all square.”

“Maybe I can make that up to you.”

Saul's disdain for his crew was stronger than his distrust. Maybe bringing an extra body back was better than just a bag of coins. For whatever reason, it worked.

Saul had me abandon most of my gear. We packed up the few useful items that were left and I followed him into the black forest.

*   *   *

Robert Pinkerton

February, 1861

This pressure from New York makes no sense, not for a charge of misdemeanor mischief. Stewards from the Attorney General's office arrived in Chicago today.

Warrant in hand, they could have advised us they were coming and, at their leisure, collected the punch card machine Father and I took from Kennedy. Instead, they barged in and treated the whole thing like a raid.

Ginny Higgs reacted like the Agency was being shut down. Poor thing.

The machine was still in pieces. No one had looked twice at it since we returned from Philadelphia. Everyone agreed; the crate hadn't even been opened.

Stewards leaned on me. Had I tampered with the crate since we got back to Chicago? It was perfectly true to say,

“I haven't touched it.”

Did I understand that my statement would be entered into the legal record?

“Of course.”

It was over in a blink. They kicked a fuss then left with a crate full of useless bits.

I went back to my desk. Father had moved me to an office near the storage garage. This hiding was good for us both.

I pulled the adding machine's switchbox out of a drawer. Undisturbed for hours, I folded enough gears away to unbolt the iron plate that cut through the middle.

Satisfying as this was, I damaged most of the switches around the bolts. There was no avoiding it. I am not an engineer. Despite these broken endings, the mechanism folded together. I attached a new vial of steam and waited.

It was a disappointment. Switches on the outer edge misfired. The minutes dragged. I considered tossing the contraption into a bin when this stuttering penetrated the inner folds and a remarkable thing happened.

Identical sets of switches on opposite sides fired at the same time. I leaned forward hoping it would happen again but saw nothing. I checked the vial to make sure it was still connected. As I set the machine back on its footing, a second burst took place.

Twice as many switches snapped into a complex geometric shape. Again, this came out of nowhere and was mirrored on both sides of the mechanism.

After another pause, gears flashed in three dimensions. Twin patterns came into contact with damage caused by the iron plate. Switches hit that area from both sides.

The narrow space left by the plate acted as a conduit. Geometric forms bent into fluid waves of clicking switches. They twisted into currents and passed through the gap.

I could no longer see discreet points of origin where bursts were formed. All the switches roiled in unison. After watching for a half hour, I attached the mechanism to a music box. I didn't think it would play a tune. I just wondered what it might sound like.

It was awful. The cacophony broke my spell. I made up my mind to pull the leads, disconnect the vial and open some case files.

Without warning, the noise stopped. The switchbox whirled in silence then each individual note was struck in sequence. Notes were paired together and then matched with others to create new combinations. It was not musical but it was structured.

I closed my eyes. Blocks of notes were repeated at intervals. These were interrupted by shorter tones like values entered under headings on a list. The longer I listened, the more it sounded like data sets such as the ones I fed into the punch card machine in New York.

This was madness, of course. A machine couldn't remember.

I pulled the leads. The only non-insane thing to do was discard the whole mess.

Instead, I removed the manual crank from a ledger counter and attached the switchbox. Ledger paper spun. The switchbox printed my Northern Central results.

I ignored the impossibility of what was happening and sifted through the numbers. Here was the pattern I suspected all along.

Northern Central was as prone to robbery as any other rail company. We knew that from the start. What set them apart was the fact that so much money stolen from their line could not be recovered by police or our Agency.

It took me getting arrested in New York, and discovering this switchbox on the train, but I had evidence now. Heists worth tens of thousands had taken place on Northern Central shipments. Itineraries for those trains failed to be logged in the manifest until a quarterly audit. The robberies always took place south of Union territory.

Someone at Northern Central was sending money to the South. I could prove it.

I could prove it to anyone who believed that this switchbox remembered my investigation in New York and printed the results on a ledger counter in my office. That is, I could prove it to no one.

The switchbox finished printing. It recalled the entire manifest. I had fed all the records into the machine in New York but Kennedy's men burst in before I could read the results. I now held the last entries in my hand.

Days before I was arrested, another irregularity appeared in the manifest. A train was headed south on a long haul voyage but no money was being transported. The cargo was industrial equipment.

*   *   *

Ernie Stark

February, 1861

Saul led us to base camp. It took two days of hard hiking from Asheville. There were fifty men, give or take, in the clearing.

I was wrong about the Golden Circle. They weren't short on cash. Field cooks, all slaves, worked at fire pits. Tents were new; no rust on the poles. I didn't hear any griping about rations. Men were well fed and in good health.

Not the slaves.

As we came in, other groups hiked out. I asked why.

“This close to the Union, slaves have a mind to run.” Saul said. “They know where we're at and they'd finger us in a second. There's no trusting the mongrels.”

It was savage logic. Freedom was a blot on a black man's character.

“Also, the boys spring any traps lawmen set in our path. Teams that don't come back, we steer clear.”

“Couldn't those men trade on your whereabouts if they get picked up?”

“A gentleman's honor isn't for sale.” Saul said.

I was among gentlemen. I should have guessed.

In the days that followed, I learned why young men join gangs. They don't do anything. Life in the Golden Circle was filled with idle time.

Slaves worked. The rest loafed.

Some passed the time playing baseball. One of Saul's boys, the fat one in short pants, was a regular in those games. The ball players called him Pudding.

He eyed me with suspicion because Saul never credited his stories about my strength. It was a worry but baseball helped smooth the waters.

Pudding thought of himself as a stalwart. During one afternoon game, a ball was hit sharply toward him. It took a wicked carom off the grass before Pudding caught it clean. It was a fine play.

The batter was called dead, rightly so. Pudding tagged a runner who had stepped off second base and claimed the runner was dead too. The argument turned into a row.

It is in the nature of men to fight over nothing. Good agents seize these moments because a person's reputation is built on irrelevant things.

“Both players are dead.” I said. “The runner returns only if the ball is caught on the fly.”

“Ha!” Pudding said. “You hear that? You're out, you bugger.”

That made my peace and gave me a niche. From then on I ate, got drunk and gossiped as one of the ball players.

None could say why the gang had stopped or where it was headed. Every day a new rumor started. In the absence of useful information, I played baseball and kept my eyes open for the other Pinkerton man, Webster. He was tough to spot.

Pinkertons take a position and stick to it. Where I posed as a tippler, a fool and a sport to gain entry, a Pinkerton would get his hooks into one angle and ride it.

For a time, I thought it might be Saul. Then I watched him throttle a slave. That seemed too heavy.

Webster was hard to pick out because his cover was ingenious. He posed as a map maker. This exposed him to the gang's top people. Webster was such an insider that the first time I saw him was also the first time I saw William Hunt. They emerged from a tent at each other's throats.

Prior descriptions matched Hunt well. He was wiry and bald except for a crown around his ears. What struck me most was his skin. It was so taut that it looked like a larger body was trying to force its way out. His eyes and teeth seemed far too big.

Hunt wailed fists and boots down on Webster. Saul fell on him as well. Maps unrolled on the ground. A strap over Webster's shoulder broke and his box of supplies burst open.

Bloodied, Webster snatched a small wooden case out of the spilled goods. When Saul charged, Webster held it at arm's length and twisted the lid. A spray of white mist escaped and a metal claw opened from the bottom.

Saul ran into its grip. Webster gave the lid another twist and the metalwork clenched shut.

That was when I recognized him as Pinkerton's man. Behind the spectacles and bow tie, it was obvious. He turned the table on Saul in a heartbeat.

Hunt lifted the supply case by its leather strap and swung the corner into the side of Webster's head. I jumped to my feet. Pudding tugged on the back of my shirt.

“Take ‘er easy. Saul and the boss have him now.”

That the idiot didn't realize I meant to help Webster made me realize how little would be gained by exposing myself. If Pinkerton's man was half the agent I suspected, he would know he was alone.