Canine Christmas (10 page)

I owed the cur a whole carcass of mutton. He'd saved my life.

Rubbing my head, I took a peek around the corner. A door slammed in the distance. There was a hack, two squares away. Its horse was starting off down South Street. I shouted for the driver to stop, but he probably couldn't hear me with all the racket from the wheels and hooves. Just as it turned a corner I caught its number on the side:
56
.

As I replaced my cap on my throbbing head, I noticed a nearby pile of hay. It was slumped against a set of stable doors. There was something sticking halfway out of the mound.

The woman's bundle.

My hands closed around the cloth. There was something inside, something soft. I pulled it out, laid it on the dirty cobblestones, and unwrapped the contents.

An infant's face stared at me without seeing me. I tried to close the eyes but the lids were stiff. I touched its cheeks and patted its head. It was a girl. Had been. She was dead now.

As soon as I got to the station house I wrote a report about the murdered child. There was no question in my mind that the woman killed her. I hadn't seen any bruises around her throat. The child was probably smothered.

Sergeant Duffy told me he'd forward it on to the dicks. But I knew what that meant. It was destined for the circular file. This was not the only infant that had been dumped. I'd found more than my share thrown in lots or tossed down privies. Unwanted bastards, nuisances to be removed like so much trash. No one much cared if colored folks, like the ones on my beat, killed their children off.

This case was different. The woman wasn't colored. She'd been dressed a little too fancy for the Seventh Ward.

And the baby wasn't colored either.

When I got home that night I was still thinking on these things. I lay in bed without lighting the lamp. I watched the fires of the oil works from my window and sniffed the kerosene fumes that floated past my thin curtains. My eyes stayed open. If I closed them I saw the child staring at me. I tried to look into the girl's eyes to see the image of her killer. I read somewhere that was possible. The only face I saw there was my own.

Then I pictured the woman's face. White, plain, haggard. Forty-five, fifty years of age. A mole on her left cheek. Gray hair underneath a black bonnet, tied under her chin with a bow of crepe. There had been crepe trim on her dress, too. I smelled that stuff from where I'd been standing. Crepe has a strong odor to it. Not a pleasant one. It usually isn't worn unless someone has died. That and the black gloves and lusterless black skirts she'd worn spelled mourning to me. For what or for whom I didn't know.

The woman's face was leering at me now, taunting me just like the child was begging my help.

Sometimes the child seemed to speak to me. Not with words really. Ideas popped into my head from somewhere else.

Why me? How come you let her get away? Are you going to forget about me?

I felt my fingers on her eyelids, tried to close them again, but they wouldn't go down. The stare was merciless. There was so much fear in it, the fear of being forgotten.

Find that woman
, the child was saying.
Find her for me.

I kept my eyes open and watched the petroleum flames leap into the sky.

On the twenty-third of December I spotted hack number fifty-six at the Market Street terminus. The hackman had his back turned to me. He was adjusting the halter on his mare. I tapped him on the shoulder. The way he whirled around made me think he was going to slug me.

His face was swollen with too much lager beer. Burnside whiskers made his jowls look even bigger than they were. A frowzy, broad-brimmed hat was tilted back to reveal a forehead damp with sweat. Dust coated his vest and pantaloons.

“Now what?” he asked truculently.

“You the driver of this hack?”

“That's right.”

“Name?”

“What is this, anyway? I ain't done nothin'. I ain't been overchargin'! That old hag make a complaint? Listen, I took her a total of twenty-six squares and I took the straightest route. That's over two miles so I got every right to charge the extra fifty cents! She don't like it let her ride the streetcars.”

“Cool it. I wanna ask you about something else.”

He squinted, shifting his gaze from left to right. Then he said, “Hey, look. Can we take this somewheres else? It ain't good for business to have a copper breathin' down my neck.”

We nearly got run over by an omnibus as we crossed the street. The market sheds provided a little relief from the chill winds. I planted myself on the edge of a gro-cer's table and said again to the driver, “What's your name?”

My club was in my hand. He swished some tobacco juice in his mouth.

“Cowles. Bill.”

“Bill, a few nights ago you picked up a fare at the corner of Eighth and South. Early in the morning. Sunup. A woman in mourning. You remember her don't you?”

“What would I be doin' in darkyville at that hour?”

“I'm asking you.”

“I don't know what you're talkin' about.” His finger crept into his mouth and picked at his teeth. “Listen, I gotta get back to my hack.”

He started to walk away. Before he could make another move I poked my club in his face. I left it there propping up a couple of his chins.

“I think you know damn well what I'm talking about. I was there.”

“Please, officer. Please. I ain't done nothin' wrong.”

“I don't wanna have to hurt you, Bill.” I was telling the truth.

“I done what they told me to do! I don't unnerstand …”

“What? What did they tell you to do?”

He took a gulp. Down went his tobacco juice.

“They, they …” His eyes darted back and forth, like someone was watching him.

I took my fingers, stuck them in his nostrils, and yanked up. He gave a yip and jumped backward. My fingers dug into his flaccid chest.

“They told me not to say nothin'. About her, about where I took her.”

“You know her then?”

“No, no. I just took her where she told me.”

“Where?”

“Up Eighth. I let her off on Chestnut. I didn't see where she went.”

“Don't give me that.”

“Don't hit me! I ain't done nothin'. They didn't want me seein' where she lived. They told me to keep my trap shut if anybody came askin' around. They told me if I didn't, I'd take a dip in the river.”

Without wasting a breath I asked him, “Who's they?”

His eyes popped out. Sweat trickled through his whiskers.

“C'mon, Bill. I don't wanna have to take you to the sweatbox.”

“All right, all right. I'll tell ya. Just don't hurt me anymore.”

I waited for him to pull himself together.

“A copper told me. I don't know what his name was. But I think he was a dick.”

Now it was my turn to sweat.

“What did he look like, Bill?”

“Kinda big fella. Mustache like yours, but oiled. Salt-and-pepper it was. And, uh, I noticed one of his eyes looked at me while the other one didn't, like maybe it was fake or something.”

“Dandruff on his jacket?”

“What's that?”

“Flakes of skin, from his hair?”

“Yeah! He didn't have much hair though.”

“You're doing fine, Bill. Now, how much did he pay you to keep quiet?”

Cowles looked at the ground and said, “You ain't gonna make me give it back are ya?”

“Not if you tell me the truth. How much was it?”

“Ten cans.”

“That sounds about right.” I took my nightstick out of his face.

“Now get back to your hack. And you never spoke to me, understand?”

He nodded and got out of there.

I still didn't know where the woman lived. Chestnut was the busiest street, day and night. She could have gone anywhere from there. But there was someone who could point me in the right direction.

From the hackman's description I twigged that the copper who'd paid him his graft was Michael “Evil Eye” Seibert. He wasn't a dick like Cowles thought. Just a special officer, which was close enough. I knew him from my ward. He and I worked together busting up the Schuylkill River gangs the year before. Seibert had been a coward and a drunkard back then and he still was. After nearly two years as a roundsman he decided to buy himself a promotion. He was related by marriage to the cousin of a fellow in the Gas Ring. The special officer badge had been a bargain at five hundred. As a special officer he was about standard. It didn't take much gumption to round out buzzers from a depot or recover stolen property from warehouses that you partially owned.

I found Special Officer Michael Seibert with his back teeth afloat in a lager beer saloon near the central station house. It was the afternoon of the Sabbath, when all saloons were supposed to be closed for business. But you wouldn't see the police enforcing that law here.

This particular establishment was a “good” saloon, according to the blue bellies. If they called it “good,” that meant they could get free drinks from the owner. That made them overlook things like faro tables in the back, or opening on a Sunday in violation of the excise laws.

The German beer slinger didn't take me for a copper. I was in civilian clothes.

“Nickel,” the German said without looking at me.

“I'm not drinking.”

I had a bottle of rye stuffed in my coat. When I got to Seibert's table I put it on the top and said, “Crack a bottle with me, Mike?”

One eye glanced at a space a few inches from my head while the other stared right at me. Both of them were glazed with drink. His large head rolled from side to side like it had an ocean inside it. Tiny flakes settled on his shoulders. Some of the free soup that came with the drinks had gotten stuck in his mustache.

“Who the hell are you, friend?”

“You don't recognize me, Mike? I'm miffed. I really am. Tell me you don't remember our night together underneath the Chestnut Street bridge last year. With the Rangers. The night you jumped into the Schuylkill and left me alone to hold off those plug-ugly pieces of shit. I can still feel that broken arm I got when it rains.”

He leaned over the table like he was going to be sick.

“Hiya, McCleary.”

It came out like a groan.

“I see you do remember, Mikey. Took me almost half an hour to polish those Rangers off. And you remember what happened after that? How I didn't tell the captain you turned coward and left me to take your whacks for you? How I even told him what a great job you'd done, clubbing‘em left and right? I think you got a commendation for that one.”

“Yeah, I remember, you paddy son of a bitch.”

“Now, now, Mikey. Don't get personal.”

“Why'd ya do it, huh? Why din't ya blow the whistle on me?”

The words were slurred, mumbled. “

Here, Mikey. Have one on me. Have a barrel full.” I poured the rye into his beer stein, filling a good part of it. I pretended to take a swig from it myself saying, “Here's at you!”

After he slurped it up, he bit down on his lip and in haled. “That's mighty fine stuff, Mack. Mighty fine.”

“Have another.”

He was good and soused after ten minutes. The rye must have mixed well with the laudanum I put in it. Seibert started chuckling at things: me, the cig between his fingers, the room.

“How's the detective business, Mikey? I hear you've been a bad boy. Threatening cabmen and the like. Is that any way for an officer of the law to behave?”

“What you talkin'‘bout?”

“I'm talkin' about the fella who picked up some old mab on Eighth and South after she left a dead baby sticking out of a hay pile.”

“I don't know nothin'‘bout it.”

“Sure you don't. You're a good detective.”

“S'right. I do what they tell me to do.”

“Sure you do. They tell you to lean on the cabman, make sure he doesn't say anything about her … what's her name again?”

“Lena.”

“Lena, that's right. They tell you to make sure he doesn't say anything about Lena and you do like they say, right?”

“S'right. Sergeant Duffy don't want no trouble. She pays her dues.”

Seibert's head slumped onto the table. Drool trickled from his mouth.

I yanked both ends of his mustache. He turned to look at me, one cheek still pressed against the table.

“She paid me good. So did the sergeant.”

“That so? Lena and Duffy are pals?”

“Nah, nah. She just pays him rent, that's all. I used to do the collections before November.”

“I know, I know. That's why I came to talk to you. Sergeant Duffy wanted me to bring her something.”

“He got you doin' the collections this month?” “Yeah, and you know what? I forgot where her crib was! You wouldn't happen to remember where she … ?”

“I just been there last night! Duffy wanted me … keep a man there. Told me some copper was nosin' around with that cabman. One o' them square ones.”

“Guess there are one or two of them still around.

” Seibert snorted and said, “I'll hafta take … care of him. When I find out who he is.”

“Have another one, Mikey. You got a man over there now?”

“Yeah … but he'll let you in to get the … rent.”

“Well, can you tell me where to find her?”

“Sure, Mack. She's right on … corner of Seventh and Sansom. You give her my regards.

” “I will do just that, Mikey.”

His face was resting on the tabletop as I took my leave.

Walking my beat that night gave me time to think.

I had never heard of this Lena but she had to be pulling in the pieces, whatever her game was. Sergeant Walter Duffy didn't take graft from ragpickers. Big money was involved. They would kill me if I got in the way. I was a copper, but business was business. I would have to fly low.

The cabman must have peached on me. The scare I put in him had been just enough to keep his description of me vague. Otherwise Seibert would have been wise to me. I wondered if Cowles had seen the girl looking out of my head. Maybe he heard her saying,
He's going to get her. No matter what.

I didn't like the idea of a bull guarding her house. It wasn't that I was afraid of a brawl. I just didn't want him to get a good look at my mug. There would be trouble then, from people bigger than he was.