The Spy (46 page)

Marion said, “I’ll see you in the morning, children,” and called to their mother, “Eight o’clock call, Mrs. Astaire.”

They stood alone at the back of the house.

Bell said, “When you get back to Fort Lee tomorrow morning, you will see someone you know dressed like an Indian. Give him a part that will keep him near you at all times.”

“Archie Abbott?”

“He’s the only man I would trust with your life, other than Joe Van Dorn. But no one would ever believe that Mr. Van Dorn dressed up like an Indian was looking for an acting job in your movie. Whereas Archie would have been an actor if his mother had not forbidden it. Until we can be sure that Katherine Dee means no harm, Archie will watch over you at work during the day. At night, I want you to stay at the Knickerbocker.”

“An unmarried lady alone in a respectable hotel? What will the house detective say?”

“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll say, ‘Good night, Mr. Bell. Sleep tight.’”

ISAAC BELL WENT BACK into the streets. He felt he was getting close, so close that he carried sandwiches in his coat pockets assuming that a man living as on the edge as Billy Collins would be glad of a meal. There had been two more sightings. Both were on Ninth Avenue near where it ended abruptly at 33rd Street by the huge hole in the ground they were excavating for the Pennsylvania Terminal rail yard.

He went to the construction site, shabbily dressed, and watched for the tall, thin silhouette he had seen in the coal pocket. An entire district of the city—six acres of houses, apartments, shops, and churches—had vanished. Ninth Avenue crossed the gigantic hole on stiltlike temporary shoring girders that held up two streetcar lines, the roadbed, and a trestle for pedestrians. Propped high above it, Ninth Avenue Elevated locals and expresses still ran, rumbling across the gaping hole like giant airplanes made of iron and steel.

A steam whistle blew day’s end. A thousand workmen climbed out of the pit and hurried home into the city. When they had gone, Bell climbed in, down ladders and temporary wooden stairs, past the severed ends of gas mains, cast-iron water mains, electrical conduits, and brick sewers. Twenty-four feet down, he encountered a steel viaduct partially constructed—underpinning, he had been told, for Ninth Avenue and the buildings around it. He descended through it into darkness lighted by pinpricks of electric work lamps.

Sixty feet below the surface, he found the floor of the pit. It was a field of stone rubble, dynamited granite, crisscrossed by narrow-gauge rails for the cars that hauled debris out and material in and forested with wide columns that carried the viaduct. Through its frame he could see blue electrical sparks arcing as the El trains thundered across the sky.

Bell explored for an hour, keeping an eye peeled for night watchmen. He tripped repeatedly on the uneven ground. The third time he fell, he smelled something sweet and discovered a gnawed apple core. Poking around, he found a man’s den—a crumpled blanket, more apple cores, and chicken bones. He settled down to wait, sitting on the ground, still as ice, moving only when he had to stretch his limbs to stay agile and then only when the Els clattering overhead masked his movements.

He was not alone. Rats scuttled, a dog barked, and from hundreds of feet away in the dark he heard an argument between two hobos, which ended with a heavy
thump
and a groan drowned out by a passing El. It got quieter as the night wore on and the El trains ran less frequently. Someone lit a bonfire on the edge of the hole at 33rd Street, which sent flickers and shadows dancing on pillars, girders, and rough-hewn stone walls.

A voice whispered in Bell’s ear.

“It’s like church in here.”

I
SAAC BELL MOVED ONLY HIS EYES.

By the flickering firelight, he saw a long, bony face with a vacant smile. The man was dressed in rags. His hands were empty, his eyes were puffy as if he had just woken, and Bell surmised that he had been nearby all along sleeping soundlessly. Now he was staring with wondering eyes up at the steel skeleton of the viaduct, and Bell saw what he meant by church. The interlocking girders, the dark sky speckled with stars, and the bonfire light conspired to form the image of a medieval cathedral lit by candles.

“Hello, Billy.”

“Huh?”

“You are Billy Collins?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“You used to run with Eyes O’Shay.”

“Yeah . . . Poor Eyes . . . How’d you know?”

“Tommy told me.”

“Fat bastard. You a friend of his?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

Though he was about Bell’s age, Billy Collins looked ancient. His hair was gray, his nose was dripping, and now his puffy eyes began leaking tears.

“You Tommy’s friend?” he asked again angrily.

“What did Tommy do to Eyes?” Bell asked.

“Tommy do to Eyes? Are you kidding? That fat bastard? Couldn’t do Eyes on his best day. You a friend of Tommy?”

“No. What happened to Eyes?”

“I don’t know.”

“They said you were with him.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So what happened?”

Billy closed his eyes, and murmured, “One of these days, I’m going to get back to doing trains.”

“What do you mean, Billy?” Bell asked.

“There’s good money doing trains, you get the right freight. Good money. I used to be rich doing trains. Then they got my little girl, and all of a sudden I couldn’t do ’em anymore.” He looked at Bell, the firelight making his eyes look as mad as the tone of his voice. “Got jobs once. You know that?”

“No, I didn’t know that, Billy. What sort of jobs?”

“Got jobs. Sceneshifter in a theater. Once I was a stableman. I even worked as a dummy boy.”

“What is a dummy boy?” Bell asked.

“Railroad signalman. Eleventh Avenue. I rode a horse ahead of the train. It’s the law in New York. You can’t run a train on Eleventh Avenue without a guy on a horse. Only time the law ever gave me a job. I didn’t stick it.”

He started coughing. Consumption, Bell thought. The man is dying.

“Are you hungry, Billy?”

“Naw. I don’t get hungry.”

“Try this.” Bell handed him a sandwich. Billy Collins sniffed, held it near his mouth, and said, “You a friend of Tommy?”

“What did Tommy do to Eyes?”

“Nothing. Told you. Tommy couldn’t do Eyes. Nobody could do Eyes. Except that old man.”

“Old man?”

“Hard old man.”

“You mean his father?”

“
Father?
Eyes didn’t have no father. The old man. He’s what got us. Got us good.”

“What old man?”

“On Clarkson.”

“Clarkson Street?” Bell asked. “Downtown?”

“The
Umbria
was sailing for Liverpool.”

The Cunard liner. One of the old ones. “When?”

“That night.”

“When Eyes disappeared?”

“When we was kids,” Billy answered dreamily. He lay back and gazed up at the frame for the viaduct.

“The
Umbria
?” Bell prompted. “The steamship? The Cunard liner?”

“We seen this old man. He was rushing to Pier 40 like he’s late. Not even looking where he was going. We couldn’t believe our luck. We was down on Clarkson Street looking for drunk sailors to roll. Instead, here comes a rich old man in a rich green coat and sparkling rings on his fingers who could pay one hundred fifty dollars for his steamship ticket. It was dark and pouring down rain, not a soul on Clarkson. Eyes clipped on his thumb gouge in case he gave us trouble. We pounced like cats on our rich rat. Brian went to tear his rings from his fingers. I figured to find a wallet bulging with money in his fancy coat . . .”

“What happened?”

“He pulled a sword out of his cane.”

Billy Collins turned his gaze on Bell, his eyes wide with wonder. “A
sword.
We were so drunk, we couldn’t hardly get out of our own way. The old man swings his sword. I dodged it. He floored me with the cane. Tough old man, knew his business. Set me up. I dodged right into his cane. Heard a noise like dynamite going off inside my head. Then I was gone.”

Billy Collins sniffed the sandwich again and stared at it.

“Then what happened?” asked Bell.

“I woke up in the gutter, soaking wet and freezing cold.”

“What about Eyes?”

“Brian O’Shay was gone, and I never seen him again.”

“Did the old man kill Eyes O’Shay?”

“I didn’t see no blood.”

“Could the rain have washed the blood away?”

Collins begins to weep. “Vanished into thin air. Just like my little girl. Except she wasn’t hurting nobody. But Eyes and me, we sure as hell was trying.”

“What if I told you Eyes came back?”

“I rather you told me my little girl came back.”

“From where?”

“I don’t know. Tiny little thing.”

“Your child?”

“Child? I got no child . . . Eyes came back, I heard.”

“Yes, he did. Tommy saw him.”

“Didn’t come to see me . . . But who the hell would?” He closed his eyes and began to snore. The sandwich fell from his fingers.

“Billy.” Isaac Bell shook him awake. “Who was the old man?”

“Rich old guy in a green coat.” He slipped toward sleep again.

“Billy!”

“Leave me be.”

“Who was your little girl?”

Billy Collins screwed his eyes shut. “No one knows. No one remembers. Except the priest.”

“Which priest?”

“Father Jack.”

“What church?”

“St. Michael’s.”

AFTER BELL LEFT HIM, Billy Collins dreamed that a dog clamped its jaws around his foot. He kicked it with his other foot. The dog grew a second head and bit down on that foot, too. He awoke in terror. A figure was hunched over his feet, working at his laces. A goddamned hobo who wouldn’t have dared touch him in the old days was trying to steal his shoes.

“Hey!”

The hobo tugged harder. Billy sat up and tried to punch him in the head. The hobo dropped his shoe, picked up a broken board, and hit him. Billy saw stars. Stunned, he was vaguely aware that the guy was winding up with the board to hit him again. He knew the guy would hit him hard, but he couldn’t move.

Steel flashed. A knife materialized out of nowhere. The hobo screamed and fell back, holding his face. The knife flashed again. Another scream, and the hobo scrambled away on all fours, clambered to his feet, and ran for his life. Billy sank back. Hell of a dream. Everything was strange. Now he smelled perfume. It made him smile. He opened his eyes. A woman was kneeling over him, her hair brushing his face. Like an angel. It seemed he had died.

She leaned very close, so close he could feel her warm breath, and whispered, “What did you tell the detective, Billy?”

T
HE LADY OF THE HOUSE IS NOT A FORTUNE-TELLER,” Eyes O’Shay assured the anxious captain of his Holland submarine torpedo boat.

Hunt Hatch was not assured. “There’s signs all over the house advertising that Madame Nettie tells fortunes. She’ll have customers in and out all hours of the day and night. You’ve put us in a parlous situation keeping us here, O’Shay. I won’t stand for it.”

“The fortune-telling is a blind. She doesn’t tell fortunes.”

“What’s it a blind for?”

“A counterfeit ring.”

“Counterfeiters. Are you crazy, man?”

“They’re the last people in Bayonne who would complain to the cops. That’s why I put you here. And the woman who cooks your meals escaped from state prison. She won’t tell anyone either. Besides, they can’t see your boat from the houses. It’s screened by the barge.”

A mowed lawn spread from the counterfeiters’ frame house at the foot of Lord Street to the Kill Van Kull. The Kill was a narrow, deep-water channel between Staten Island and Bayonne. The barge was moored on the bank.