Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty (2 page)

Felonious pulled the cigar out of his mouth and stared at them. “What in heaven’s name happened to you two?”

Minion number one, who had his entire ear, stared at the floor and shuffled his feet. “Well, boss. It’s like this…”

“Yes?”

“Well…the thing is…” The big man couldn’t seem to get the words out. He looked at his companion. “You tell him Lenny. Youse is better wit words than me.”

Lenny, who was missing part of his ear, seemed stunned to be put on the hot seat. “Well, boss. Um…” He stumbled over the words, dragging them on.

Felonious banged his fist on the desk making both gorillas jump. “Will you two stop dancing around and tell me what’s going on? I saw you blow up the ship. So why are you looking so guilty? Hmm? Tell me what’s going on right now.”

“Well, boss, the thing is, we did blow up a boat like you said. We put the floating bombs into the harbor like you ordered. Thing is… Well, the wrong boat hit the bomb.” Lenny cringed as he spoke the final words as if he expected to be struck.

Felonious glared from one minion to the other, his cigar dangling in his hand. “So, the wrong ship hit it. You managed to sink the cursed French vessel that carried the statue, didn’t you?”

“The
Isere
?” Minion number one mumbled.

“What?”

“The French ship carrying the statue is the
Isere
,” Lenny, aka Minion number two supplied helpfully.

“I don’t give a damn what the ship is called. Did you or did you not sink the blasted French ship?”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you, sir,” Lenny said.

Felonious rubbed his fingertips against his throbbing temples, momentarily closing his eyes. He leaned back in his chair and tried another tactic when he opened them. His voice was calm when he spoke again. “Yes, gentlemen. That is what I hope you will tell me. Did you blow up the French ship?”

“The
Isere
?” Lenny asked, staring everywhere but at Felonious.

He ground his teeth together. “If one of you don’t tell me in the next minute what I want to know, I shall have you both killed. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” both henchmen said in unison.

Felonious looked at them. They looked back.

“So?”

“Not as such, sir,” Minion one said, his voice barely audible.

“I’m sorry,” Felonious said. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

Lenny sighed. The breeze almost knocked Felonious over. “No, sir. We didn’t sink it because the other ship hit the explosives and blew up. There was nothing left to blow up the French ship with. I tried to move the bomb, but all I managed was to get caught up in the blast myself.”

Felonious turned his back to the men and stared out the window. “You mean to tell me I give you two one thing to do—blow up the dirty French dogs and their abomination of a statue—and you can’t even get that right?”

He paced. “I thought I had the right men for the job when I hired you two. Now I find out I was wrong.” Felonious spun about the room, speaking to himself—the only person he trusted. “I was so certain you two were the right men. But if I was wrong, what am I going to do? I can’t have you two going around telling the world I was wrong. What would people think?”

“Boss, youse wasn’t wrong,” Minion one said. “We are the right guys for the job. It wasn’t our fault the wrong ship hit the bomb. The current grabbed it and carried it into the other ship’s path.”

Felonious continued talking, ignoring that the goon had spoke at all. “What should I do with these two? Perhaps I should simply kill them. Isn’t that what happens to people who fail?”

“Boss, give us another chance,” Lenny pleaded. “We can do it, I promise. We need the chance to go and try again. No one will ever know about the screw up.”

Felonious stopped pacing and stared out the window. “Perhaps I should be lenient. These men aren’t bad people.” He laughed, happy at his own joke. “Well, they are bad people, but they are not bad at what they do. Perhaps if they were to leave right now and try again and get it right, mind you, maybe, just maybe, I can let them live. I believe there is another explosive device in my workroom. It is clearly marked as ‘Explosive’. All any clever minion who wanted to get on his employer’s good side would need to do is put the explosives in a nondescript case, take said case and plant it on or near the French ship so it can be blown up. If they are as smart as their employer wants them to be, they will have the case in place by 10:00 a.m. so the explosion will happen during the big celebration. Maybe I should give them another chance, after all.”

He clapped his hands together and spoke as he turned to face the henchmen. “That is exactly what I’ll do…” He feigned surprise. “Well, what do you know? They’re gone. Perhaps they left to try again?” He grinned. “Felonious, you clever scoundrel you. You certainly know how to motivate your staff, don’t you?”

~ * ~

The early morning hours suited Jack fine. There were far fewer people out for one thing, but those who were awake at this hour were always doing something productive to get ready to start the day: packing or unpacking crates or loading or unloading lorries to be pushed back along the rails to the piers. These men would work until the sun rose and another shift would take over. Just like Jack, New York City never truly slept.

The aroma of a distant bakery caught his nose. “If we’re lucky, Franklin, we’ll get ourselves a treat before heading home. How’s that sound, boy?”

Franklin gave an approving whimper as Jack scratched him behind the ears.

“You get one for being such a good boy. For me, I think I’ll treat myself to a pastry for getting the double wall done on my project. So many failures, and all it took was to build a double thick wall to resolve the pressure containment issue. Not only does it solve my problem, but this will also make my work go far more efficiently at the yard once it’s up and running.”

The yard was in fact a junkyard that lay a few blocks back on the corner of Hudson and Jay Streets. Franklin had been found scavenging in a pile of trash on Franklin Street during Jack’s early morning walk the previous morning, and he took pity on the poor creature. He’d told himself, “Jack, you can’t leave this poor fellow here to root through the trash.”

Normally Jack would get to Beach Street and take a right at the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Freight Depot and make his way over to Broadway before heading back to the yard, but something made him hesitate. It wasn’t something he could easily explain, but the feeling caused him a moment’s pause. Perhaps it was a shift of the breeze or a change in pitch of the harbor bells, but Jack Kane stopped on the corner of Hudson and Beach and turned toward the piers.

There were no screams, not at first anyway, but only a bright flash of light that turned the early morning darkness into daytime for an instant. A concussive blast quickly followed the flash and knocked Jack end over teakettle. Poor Franklin rolled along with him.

Thankful for the early morning hour being free of heavier traffic, Jack shot to his feet. As he started to run along Beach to get to the pier, Franklin gave a whimper and refused to follow. Jack nearly fell thinking his partner would follow him anywhere.

“What is it, boy? Come on. We’ve got to get to the pier and see if anyone needs assistance. It’s all right. Come along now.”

Franklin refused to budge no matter how hard Jack tugged on the leash. He had to get to the piers to see what happened. Nothing ever exploded in this area on accident, and he knew of nothing that was planned to explode at such an early hour. It didn’t matter that few residents actually lived in this part of the city. Things didn’t go boom before the sun came up. They just didn’t.

“All right. You win. You’ll have to wait for that snack until I get back. You be a good boy. I won’t be long.”

Jack tied Franklin to the fireplug on the street corner then paused. If something had exploded on or near the pier that was a bad thing indeed, and deserved more caution than he was about to give it. He needed to move higher to get a good appraisal of the situation before hurrying in. Unfortunately, people weren’t happy about a person scampering across the rooftops unannounced. It was for occasions like this Jack Kane had created his very own alter ego.

From within his long coat he pulled the two halves of a metal mask he’d fashioned from bits of scrap metal and various parts. Most of the mask’s composition was of blackened steel with rivets keeping it all together. Two large, but different-sized, gears made the eyes. A brass skeleton key created a fine nose. The mouth was a simple rectangular slit covered with a mesh screen to hide the voice modulator.

It was more than a mask, but closer to a full helmet, once expanded. Tiny hooks on its top allowed him to replace his hat and ensure he wouldn’t lose it once he took to the rooftops. As an almost badge of honor he pinned a hand-sized gear on his chest. This he’d painted with gold paint.

With his alter ego in place, he was ready to go. As he ascended the ladder, he thought of what to call himself. Stories of his escapades had been in print in the
Wilkes’ Spirit
a few times talking about minor things he’d done to help people in the area. The paper usually put a good spin on his handiwork, but he hoped they’d be more helpful in giving him a name. Jack was never good with naming things.

“Metal Head? No, no. Gearheart? No no. I need a better name than that. What can I call myself?”

After ascending the fire escape to the top of the building, Jack realized a minor error in calculation. He’d climbed up a building on the wrong side of Hudson. He needed to be on the opposite side of the street in order to get himself to the piers via the rooftops. He’d already wasted enough time scaling one building. He didn’t want to waste more climbing down and then up another.

A bundle of telegraph wires drooped between two poles heading in the direction of the harbor. It was what Jack needed. Within one of the many pockets in his coat he removed what could best be described as a giant’s fishing hook with a non-barbed hook on one end and a loop on the other.

He put his hand through the loop and leapt off the building, holding the hook out to catch the wire. His falling speed allowed him to gain momentum. The hook caught the wire as Jack planned, and he slid along it and continued to gain speed as he crossed the street toward the smaller building on the other side. The zinging of the hook running across the wire caught the attention of the people below him.

The one thing he hadn’t planned on when he started his race was his dismount. Oh sure, he could let go of the hook at the right moment, but now he heard people yelling as they saw him. He had to do this right. It had to be impressive. People knew his alter ego in this part of town. They expected more than a zip across the street.

As Jack approached the other side and was on his upward turn, he kicked his legs into the air. Unfortunately this caused the hook to tilt and lose contact with the telegraph wire. The next thing Jack realized was he was no longer traveling up at the proper speed to get to the top of the building; he was going higher. And faster!

Once he left the telegraph wire he sailed up and over the roof’s edge, the hook trailing out behind him. His momentum propelled him high, and the hook caught onto a circular chimney and circled him around not once, but three times before it wound off the top of the chimney and sent him flying across Beach. His arc carried him up where he managed to land on his feet atop the building.

Cheers rose up from the street. Jack Kane turned and waved to the workers below. He could just see them in the gas lamplight clapping and pointing. Even Franklin gave an approving bark from the street. This wasn’t the time to stand around though. Jack sprinted along the edge of the roof. The space between the buildings on the ends of one block and the next heading toward the piers was significantly less, and he made short work of the distance. A few hops, a couple ladders, and he had the perfect vantage point atop the main receiving building.

The rooftop gave him a great view of not only the piers, but of the entire Upper Bay. Small ferries and tug boats made their way out to a sinking ship. Jack could make out the American flag on its fantail. Alongside the vessel was a second ship that appeared mostly undamaged save for some black scorch marks on its side. This one flew a different red, white, and blue flag—that of the French.

Usually up on the comings and goings of the harbor, he hadn’t known a French vessel was due to arrive this morning, or even what it might contain. He’d have to look into that, but first, he had to see if there was anything he could do to help out before the ship slipped under water.

The gears that made the eyes of his mask were more than decorative. They also served to hold items such as the spyglass Jack tugged from his pocket. The spyglass fit snugly over the right eyehole. With movements of his brow he was able to tighten the focus and take in the scene. It took a few seconds, but he focused on the action below.

The French ship had made its way further along and away from the sinking American ship. The scorching on the French ship’s side appeared to be the only visible damage, and three of the ship’s crew were at the rail accessing the damage.

The American vessel, on the other hand, had all but disappeared. Many of its crew were being dragged up onto a small ferry, but that wasn’t what grabbed Jack’s attention. What appeared to be a second ship, far smaller than the American, was also sinking. Much of it had been blown apart, but it was most certainly another ship.

That’s when something paddling away from the scene caught his eye: a man swimming from the sinking vessels. He didn’t appear to be heading for safety; his frantic movements suggest he was trying to flee the scene.

Jack knew, he knew deep down, this person must’ve been piloting the smaller ship and detonated an explosive device to sink the American ship. Thankfully the French ship hadn’t sunk. The French and American’s were on great terms and having one of their ships destroyed could ruin that relationship. Jack had to catch this man and quickly.