4
Early in the advent of the automobile, former prize-fighter Battling Jack West foresaw that sooner rather than later the carriage business would no longer be profitable. For this reason he had Little Jack Meyers paint a new legend on the red brick wall of his MacDougall Alley stable behind his townhouse on Washington Square North.
Right under the recessed sign for his carriage service, the newer sign, painted in block letters, black on a grey shingle, said simply:
CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS: JACK WEST
A year before, Jack West had bought a small advertisement with the same tasteful inscription to run weekly in the Herald and the Post. Now, when he advertised, he added the name of his young and eager protégé, Jack Meyers. And, directly under his sign, he included in smaller block letters:
ASSOCIATE: JACK MEYERS
“Boss, wait’ll you hear.” Jack Meyers, panting, stormed up the stairs, almost colliding with a corpulent woman swathed in furs, dabbing at false tears as she descended: Missus Eugenia Walsh, a client. Her missing husband Ferdinand had been found by Jack West Confidential Investigations in the morgue, with no identification on him, a victim of a fatal attack. “My deepest sympathies, Missus,” Little Jack Meyers said. “Can I escort you home?” He’d recognized the elegant horse-drawn carriage below, with the fashionably dressed young man inside.
“No, no, that’s very kind of you, young man. I have a carriage waiting.”
Meyers was smirking when he burst into Jack West’s office. “Well, the ample Widow Walsh is already amply well escorted.”
“Not our case anymore.” Jack West shrugged. “She settled up, and the coppers don’t have to look far for the murderer. But they won’t bother. Just another street mugging.” Jack West chose a cigar from the black leather case on his desk, licked it, bit the end off and lit the cigar. “Now what were you going on about when you came in?”
“The Pinkertons, boss. They’re in town. I heard all about it at the scribblers’ shack this morning. Someone in the telegraph office spilled to Beatty from the World, so now every scribbler in New York knows about the great big secret. Also, Murphy called Bo and Dutch in this morning and put them on it. You won’t believe this one …”
Jack West smiled around his cigar. “Try me.”
“Now, who would you think are the most wanted pair of desperados in New York City?”
“I’ve got no patience for your tomfoolery, boy. Spit it out.”
“The dumb-arse Pinkertons are in New York City looking for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
“The Western bank robbers? What would they be doing here?” The news amused Jack West as much as it did Little Jack. “Not their line of country.” Big Jack’s cigar had gone out. He lit up again. “And the Pinks don’t know this territory. At all.”
“Same for Butch and Sundance,” Little Jack said, “who are supposed to be heading for South America.” The boy’s eyes grew wide. “Guess what, there’s a ten thousand dollar reward.”
“Ah. That’s my sharp lad.”
“We’re smarter’n they are, don’t you think, Boss? You wouldn’t believe what the Pinks done.”
“Yes, I would.”
“Got my ear to the ground, Boss. I already know something stinks like goyisha …”
“What?”
“Sorry, boss, something stinks like rotten fish when a clown comes along and don’t know anyone and opens a beer hole down on Delancey near Essex.”
“So?” Big Jack asked, going along with the game.
Little Jack grinned. “And calls it PINKYS.”
5
Harry put his fingers to his derby. “Thank you, Wong.”
Robbie made better use of his hands by holding one of Esther’s between them. “So we’ll say farewell to you, Miss Esther, and trust to meet you and your good father again under better circumstances. Let’s hope the coppers catch up with those notorious robbers, Butch and Sundance.”
Esther Breslau smiled at how Oz Cook would react at being called her father. He’d been proper to their guests during their meal, but Esther knew he was suspicious of how easily they’d entered her life. It was, after all, his home. She had been a poor immigrant hired to work as his assistant because she spoke Yiddish, so that he could photograph life on the Lower East Side. As her mentor, he had taught her the art of photography and invited her to share his studio and darkroom. She lived in her own flat on the top floor of his house.
Adroitly, she removed her hand from Robbie’s. The sun dazzled, glancing off the crusty snow cover. She waited a moment, then, holding her Brownie camera at her waist, made photos of the smiling Robbie and Harry, tipping their derbies to her.
As he watched the delectable Esther enter the house, Robbie said, “The f*cking nerve of them low-life imposters. Right in our faces.”
Harry grinned. “What do we care?”
“What do we care? We have only one f*cking Jackson to our names, that’s all of it. And we have to pay the driver.”
“We done a little better than that.”
“What done? What the hell you talking about?”
Harry patted his paunch, and palmed a bank note from the grey canvas bag stuffed in between his belly and his trousers. He flashed the bill at Robbie. “Found money.”
Robbie got pop-eyed, so much so that Harry thought they would fall out. “I’ll be damned.”
“Me, too,” his partner said. “But now we can afford the trip to damnation.”
*
Jack West made the turn on to Gramercy Park, reined-in his matched pair of greys and stopped in front of No. 5. He jumped down from his perch and tipped his shiny black top hat. “Jack West, misters.”
Robbie came forward and shook Jack West’s meaty hand. “Robbie Allen. This is my friend Harry Kidder.” He was quick to size up the carriage-driver. Short but thick. Tough. Could take care of himself. “We’re meeting a friend in a place called Inwood, up north of the city. You know it?”
“I do. Maybe two, three hours, or more, depending on the road and me avoiding the subway construction around Longacre Square. There is a train, you know, New York Central. Stops along the northern line near the Hudson at Dyckman Street. But you’re better off with me if you don’t know your way around up there. Mostly farms and summer estates. Deserted this time of year.”
“We’d be obliged if you would make a stop at Missus Taylor’s boarding house on Twelfth Street, so we can collect our stuff and settle up.”
6
The scene was still pandemonium when Bo and Dutch arrived at the Union Square Bank. While Bo and Dutch were in his office, the commissioner had gotten word by telephone that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had robbed their first New York bank.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Bo said. Traffic was at a near stand-still, and the sidewalks were clotted with people who had nothing to do with the robbery and were probably not even in the bank at the time of the heist.
Four patrolmen stood in a line behind saw-horses to hold back the curious.
More uniformed men were posted at the bank doors.
On the bloodstained entrance steps of the bank was Sergeant Aloysius Mulligan from the Fifteenth. He was happy to see them. “We got two shot dead here and one expired inside. All three on their way to the morgue.” He wiped sweat from his face. “It’s ugly. We’re keeping everyone in the bank so you can talk to them, but it ain’t easy and a few ran off like scared chickens before we got here.”
“Good job, Mulligan,” Bo said. He followed Dutch into the bank.
The marble walls hushed sound, but there was no hushing the agitation. Dutch counted nine men, bankers and tellers. Four men in overcoats, patrons. A woman weeping.
Dutch announced: “Inspectors Bo Clancy and Dutch Tonneman. We’re sorry to have kept you here, but we’d like you to tell us what happened, as much as you can remember, so that we can catch these villains.”
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” one of the bankers said. “Butch Cassidy shot Mr Phelps, our bank manager.”
“Killed him in cold blood,” from a man in an overcoat. “Said he wasn’t moving fast enough.”
“How do you know it was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?” Bo said.
“That’s what they called each other,” a banker said.
Dutch pulled out a small notepad. “We’ll take a description now.”
Each of the witnesses rushed to talk. Which is when everything fell apart.
“Butch had a long red beard.”
“No, it was brown.”
“No, it was Sundance who had brown hair. It was long. And he had a red patch over his left eye.”
“No. The right eye.”
“Both men were big as oxes and wore black cowboy hats.”
“No, one wore a black derby and the other a grey cowboy hat.”
“It wasn’t grey. It was white. And dirty.”
Between sobs, the weeping woman said: “A woman in a blue coat. She could give you a better description. She was standing right next to them.”
A woman in a blue coat? Here was agreement. No such person.
“Hopeless.” Bo shook his head. “Always the same. Mulligan, get everyone’s name and where they live. We’ll most likely need to talk to them again. Then send them home.” To Dutch he said, “Flora’s gonna hate missing this.” Flora was reporter Flora Cooper, the girl Bo called a humdinger. She was in South Africa, covering the second Boer War for the Herald.
*
Outside, on the bank steps waiting for Bo, Dutch heard someone behind the wooden horses say, “You should tell them about her, Rose.”
Dutch peered into the crowd as he moved down the steps. “Rose? Do you have some information for us?”
An old woman in a heavy blue shawl, her black hat resting atop wiry, grey hair, was pushed forward. “That’s me. Rose Fleck.”
“Don’t be shy, ma’am,” Dutch said. “What do you have to tell us?”
She paused, took a deep breath before she spoke. “Nothing. At all.”
“Well, thank you anyway,” Dutch said, watching Bo come out of the bank.
“Just a girl with one of them picture makers,” Rose said.
Now Rose had Dutch’s full attention. “A girl with a camera?”
“I think that’s what they call them. She was holding the thing, then she got knocked down by one of them robbers. Two nice boys helped her up and found her picture maker and they left.”
7
Delancey Street, not far from the Essex Street Market and the notorious Tombs, was the site of the proposed Williamsburg Bridge, construction due to start in 1902, connecting New York and Brooklyn.
All along Delancey Street were derelict taverns and basement oyster houses and tenement buildings. Some of these establishments were transient, the shopkeepers setting up, closing down, all within weeks, taking away what they could in push carts, even shopping baskets.
One of these newcomers was a narrow slice of tavern with a homemade sign nailed over the door. It said: PINKYS.
The proprietor was a reptilian little creature, whose height didn’t quite reach forty-eight inches. Most of the time he could be found outside under the sign, luring patrons with the promise of a free beer.
He was born Francis Augustus Pincus. Or so he said. His first greeting to all and sundry was: “Call me Pinky.” Pinky had a small pug nose that had been broken more than once. There were even stories, most likely self-invented, that he’d fought in the ring. At that size? Doubtful.
No matter. Pinky had several equalizers: a wooden box on which he stood when behind the bar; a shillelagh – his weapon of choice at any time during the course of an evening in the tavern and elsewhere – when and where needed.
And at times, Pinky had to resort to his third equalizer: a shiny silver and black .38 calibre Colt revolver, which he kept cleaned and polished in the embossed buffalo-leather holster hanging from the wide, thick belt around his narrow hips for all to see.
Not to be forgotten was Pinky’s fourth equalizer: the woman swathed in red velvet, including her bright red turban with its large, white ostrich feather. Lorraine sat at an unsteady, round table reading tarot cards when asked. But her preference was a simple game of poker.
No doubt about it, Lorraine was Pinky’s woman.
No family name. Simply Lorraine. Her talk was hard to follow or understand. As if, a time back, she’d bitten her tongue and it never healed right.
Even so, when she was the one standing outside under Pinky’s sign saying hello, men ogled her, for she was a sight to see, and they followed her into the tavern without a second thought. One of the reasons was her size. The woman stood well over six feet. Fully unfurled, she had to duck her head to keep from smacking into wood beams.
When she stood next to Pinky they were a comical sight. But nobody ever dared laugh. They say opposites attract. That might be why the giant Lorraine and the midget Pinky were lovers.
*
It was just before noon on this cold December day when the news came shrilling down the street, passed from one pushcart to the next. Most of Pinky’s tavern emptied out. Pinky didn’t leave the bar, so the news was delivered to him by one of his drunken patrons, who stumbled back into the tavern, yelling, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid just robbed the Union Square Bank and killed twenty-two people.”