THE DEVILS DIME (37 page)

. . .

Addie watched the little girl in the pink frock rub the tears from her eyes. She sat alone in a darkened room, sobbing because she couldn’t keep time with the music.

She’d always been able to find the beat. Music was her gift. Auntie had said so. But little girls who were careless with their gifts got coal in their stockings for Christmas.

No, that wasn’t right.

Addie tried to move toward the little girl, but each step she took sent the little girl farther away. It isn’t your fault, little girl, it’s those people. They’re talking too loud. They’ll go away, little girl, and then you can hear the music.

But the little girl just cried harder.

At last, Addie realized that perhaps she could make the people go away, and then the little girl would be happy. But first, she had to find the people and tell them to shush.

Inch by inch she forced her mind away from the dark safe place and back to the place that smelled like someone had spilled the spirits of ammonia. And inch by inch, the droning voices she was intent upon sending away became more clear. And closer.

She quelled a shiver. They were just a few feet from where she lay!

“My God, you’ve gone and killed her!” The hoitytoity voice was back. Even with the sharp hiss of surprise and anger, Addie knew the voice belonged to Mr. Uptown. Or so she’d named him. There was something familiar about the timbre of his voice, something that made her skin crawl. The words came out crunched between gritted teeth, but the voice. There was something—

A cold hand burrowed beneath her chin and felt her pulse. “She’s alive. Whatever did you do to her?”

“She was screamin’ bloody murder. Went berserk on me. I had to shut ‘er up.”

“Well, you didn’t have to club her within an inch of her life! I was going to...I was going to...Good god, man! Now we’ll have to finish it.”

Finish it! Addie pressed her face to the pile of mildewed fabric she lay on. It took a monumental effort not to twitch, not to breathe heavier, not to give away the fact that she was no longer unconscious.

Her arms and shoulders ached from having been secured behind her back for so long, and she desperately needed to wiggle, to move any way she could to relieve the pain.

“I c’n take care o’ her just fine. Why’d you come back, anyway, Cash? Thought you was stayin’ away from here.”

“That was my intention, idiot. But I was afraid something just like this would happen. And now with this kid we have an even bigger problem.”

Cash. Cash. She had to remember that his name was Cash. Addie heard a rustling of fabric as Mr. Uptown handed something over to the man in black.

“Put this on her. I can’t carry her out of here the way she’s dressed. The place is packed downstairs. I’ve parked my Runabout at the side door. As soon as you have her dressed, we’ll get her out of here.”

“Why move her? Nobody’ll find her here.”

“Maybe not. But I’ll get rid of her, you get rid of the kid.”

“What shall I...”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? Christ Almighty! First the little bitch’s father escapes from jail and now this—.”

Addie wanted to scream. Her father was out of jail. How had he managed? Where would he hide? Oh God, what if he went home? They’d get him again! And where was Tad?

Her heart soared at her father’s victory and plummeted with fear for Tad. But in moments, something equally cruel began to develop. The lack of oxygen, the residue of ether in her bloodstream, and the carbon dioxide she’d been breathing with her face stuck in the pillow of old clothing suddenly conspired against Addie. The first hint of a charlie horse in her right calf suddenly caught her attention.

And before she could think what to do, it ratcheted up into a vicious, twisting, tearing spasm. She gasped, and her right leg set up a violent trembling.

The two men whirled at the sudden sound behind them, and at the same time Addie’s eyes flew open.

“She mustn’t see me!” Mr. Uptown whirled instantly away, and the man in black charged forward. But before his vicious back hand sent her back into the blackness, Addie realized something that shocked her more thoroughly than anything about this entire terrifying experience.

She knew who Mr. Uptown really was.

. . .

“Shut up and follow me. Not too close.”

Jess whirled the moment the man let him go, but his accoster had already moved away and was lumbering down the street. He stopped just beyond a large elm that graced the curb, his broad shoulders rounded, his head a bit tucked, like a turtle taking cover.

“Ford?”

Jess almost heard the man shushing him as he, too, moved away from the stoop. He ambled down the walkway, looked up at the moon, and leaned against the tree. In one more casual move he stepped around to the back side of the tree, and came face to face with Ford Magee.

“My God, Ford, they let you go?”

Ford turned sideways, up close to the tree, and peered back toward Sutton House. “In a matter of speaking,” he grunted.

Jess’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light beneath the tree, and with only the moon filtering through the dense branches, he could see the damage that had been done to this good man. The wicked rope burn around his neck sickened Jess, and the deep-seated bruises that still bloomed in deep purple and violet behind festering angry cuts on his cheek ignited a fury in Jess. His fingertips thrummed with the need to avenge what was done to this man. He was past sixty, for God’s sake. How had his heart stood up to all this?

Yet here he was. He’d somehow escaped. And now it was time he came clean with Jess, bared his soul, spilled all the gory details. He had to do it now, before some other unknown detail ballocksed up yet another plan.

“Ford, listen up. I know about Jeremiah, I know about Williamsbridge, I just spent six hours with Dr. Haberman, I know about Deacon surviving the big cleanup twenty years ago, I know you paid for Jeremiah’s hospital care, I know you are the Samaritan, I—” Jess faltered, quelled by the pained look in Ford’s eye as he turned to face him.

Ford shifted, ran a tentative finger across his red, raw neck and winced, then sighed. “You go that way,” he nodded to the west, “I’ll go this way. Meet me in the alley behind the Exchange.”

Now Jess sighed. “Ford, I don’t know what you’re thinking but there’s no time. Come upstairs with me and we’ll figure out what to do.”

“What, to your place?”

Jess nodded.

“’Twon’t be quite as private as you’d like.”

Ford nodded toward Sutton House and Jess followed his gaze. His balcony windows were dark, and he could see the curtains flapping a bit in the breeze. They were closed. He never closed his curtains. And he definitely didn’t recognize the silhouette of the man he could just make out standing behind them.

“Why that—”

He jerked his eyes up, searching the next story for Ford’s window and saw another shadowed figure, and the unexpected glow of a cigarette.

“Addie,” he choked and started to move, but Ford stopped him.

“She’s not there. I already checked.”

Jess seethed.

“Now get going and meet me behind the Exchange.”

Ford didn’t wait any longer, but took off in the shadows, skirting the light until he crossed the street well out of sight. Jess clenched his fists. It was painful to leave the goons on his turf, but Ford was right. And he needed Ford to be right about a lot of other things tonight, if they were going to find Addie.

Jess eased himself to the outer edge of the sheltering tree then walked with a leisurely pace across the street. Every nerve in his body worked to keep him from casting another glance toward his darkened window, but he resisted. And soon he was trotting down the alley behind the Exchange, to meet Addie’s father, who was sitting pretty as you please on the driver’s bench of the most recognizable carriage in all of Battery Park.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

His head hurt worse than the time he tried to fly by jumping off the Lowen’s carriage house roof. But he moved. He had to.

Tad rolled onto his right side and watched the man in black disappear with Addie over his shoulder, following the dressy fellow into the stairwell. If he was going to move, he had to do it now.

But hell’s bells, it hurt!

He pushed himself up to a sitting position, and then in one brutal move, lurched to his feet. He wobbled, dazed, trying to remember why it had been so important to get up.

Addie. That was what was so important. He had to find Jess before...before...

Wait. They wouldn’t just leave him here. He’d tattle. He’d tell somebody what they’d done to Addie, he’d bring the police back. They’d be just plain dumb to let that happen. Tad shivered at the knowledge that struck him right in the pit of his stomach. They were coming back for him.

Tad whirled in a circle, his eyes still tracking slower than his head, and then he saw just what he needed. A stout brass rod lay on the floor near the pile of old draperies he’d landed on when the man in black clouted him. The rod ended in a large brass knob. Tad grabbed the pole and slipped it free of the rings that secured the draperies to it. It was heavier than it looked. He’d have to use both hands to swing it. It might work, but only if he caught the guy by surprise. He’d never clobbered a man on the head before, but instinct told him he was only going to get one chance at it.

Tad dragged the brass pole to the door, then levered it into his hands when it made too much noise bumping across the uneven floor. An empty crate near the door gave him the stepping stool he needed. Quietly, he propped the rod against the wall, then dragged two more crates over to the door. Anyone who wasn’t stone deaf would hear, but he had to do it. He needed height.

He put the lighter crate on top of the heavier one, then slid the other next to it to step up on. Just as he shoved the last crate into place, he heard heavy steps on the stairs. Someone was coming back!

He grabbed the brass pole and scrambled up onto the crate, clear to the top. He propped himself against the wall and lifted the heavy pole out over the door, holding the solid brass ball as high overhead as he could get it and still make contact with his target. The jagged end of the pole dug into his hip like a claw as he struggled to keep the heavy end slanted aloft.

The steps neared.

Tad gulped. He had one swing, and he had to get it right. If he did, God forgive him, he might just kill a man tonight.

. . .

Jess fell into the cushioned back bench of the plush brougham as Ford took off for the Gut. The story had spilled out in half sentences, Jess telling what had happened while Ford was in jail, Ford tromping on his words with rushed questions. Between them there wasn’t a single clue as to where they might have taken Addie.

“I’m going back and wring it out of that sonofabitch!” Jess had growled minutes earlier, about to jump from the buggy and tear back to Sutton House. But Ford had argued.

“Hold on, now! They’d be hiding her somewhere out of sight, right? Someplace nobody goes?”

Jess agreed.

“So she’s not at the bank, not someplace where there are servants, not someplace public. They’ll have taken her someplace deserted. Someplace nobody’d wander into. Someplace...abandoned.”

Jess turned to Ford. “There are a half million people in every square mile of this godforsaken city, Ford. Where there hell do you think there could possibly be an abandoned square foot?”

Ford’s brows lifted and his eyes grew hugely white. “One place, one place I made sure stayed abandoned,” he choked.

Jess grabbed Ford’s lapels. “Where!”

“Heaven. I made sure nobody ever stepped foot in Heaven, ever again.”

Now the brougham’s wheels groaned as they sped toward McGlory’s. Ford dangled the buggy whip across the withers of the light footed horse to keep him moving at an insane clip through the late evening traffic, careening around corners and slipping between vehicles where it seemed there was no space. But Ford found every inch. In minutes they had covered the length of the Bowery and were headed into the Gut, the ugliest, most crime-ridden neighborhood in the city.