“Next time I see you two, I want results.”
“I’m freezing my arse off here,” Little Jack Meyers said, jigging from one foot to the other outside the shack, across the street from 300 Mulberry — where the reporters who covered police headquarters gathered, hoping for hot news. Little Jack had decided to stake out the Tonneman house on Grand before daylight to see what Bo and Dutch were up to this morning, and he’d followed them to the House.
Little Jack didn’t get much sympathy but he did get a welcome taste from reporter Lem Borden’s pint bottle.
All the scribblers watched the comings and goings of the coppers and police wagons. Some energetic souls crossed the street to ask their questions, then returned to the shack, no smarter than they’d been before.
Others followed after the goings, sniffing for a way to get behind the story. But the big story was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbing banks and shooting up people in the city.
“You think they have something on Butch and Sundance?” Lem squinted at Little Jack. Little Jack was a wily one. He wasn’t as sharp as his boss, Jack West, but he was smart enough.
Little Jack shook his head. “Don’t know. Don’t think so. Best guess is Bo and Dutch’re getting a whipping. I’d like to get my ear to that door.”
“No, you wouldn’t. It’d get stuck to that block of ice. Then, all you’d have is an ear full of door.”
Little Jack guffawed. “That’s funny.”
“As a corpse,” the reporter said. “Hell would freeze in there, thanks to Partridge.”
“Uh,” Little Jack said. “Here they come.”
“And I’d say you were right.” Lem crossed the street with Little Jack and a half dozen other reporters on his heels. “Got a whipping.”
“Jesus,” Bo said. “The vultures coming to pick over the carcasses.”
Dutch stepped out in the street and hailed a hack. As they drove off, Bo thumbed his nose at the reporters.
“PINKYS on Delancey,” Dutch told the hackney man.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Bo said, yawning.
“If Jenny McCracken went to PINKYS after the Bowery robbery and Pinky knew where to find her, that would make him another of Bill Pinkerton’s operatives.”
“Couldn’t have said it better.”
But when they climbed down from the hack, all they saw was an old sot sprawled out on the icy sidewalk, blocking the door. Wound round his neck like a scarf was Lorraine’s red turban, without its white feather.
The door to PINKYS was boarded up.
Bo grabbed the scarf, yanked the drunk to his feet and shook him. Putrid breath came forth with each snore. Dried blood covered the drunkard’s forehead. His crusty eyelids fluttered.
“Where’s Pinky?” Bo roared.
“Gone, gone, all gone.” The sot screwed up his face and sobbed.
“When?”
“How’s about a nickle for old Harvey? A piddlin’ five cents, four-three-two? One?”
Bo dropped old Harvey to the sidewalk, dug a nickel from his pocket, and flashed it at old Harvey, who made a grab for it.
Groping the side of the building, Harvey lifted himself. On his feet, he belched, farted; spittle dribbled into his beard. “Middle of night, Pinky came with a wad of dough. Thought I was sleeping but I saw him show it to Lorraine. Gobswiped me with his club and threw me out on the street like garbage.” Harvey tried to spit but only slobbered himself.
Bo let the nickel drop to the ground. Harvey scrambled for it.
Dutch pulled his whistle, which he kept on a chain next to his St Christopher’s medal, and blew.
A patrolman rounded the corner of Essex. Old Harvey would sleep it off at the precinct — where at least he wouldn’t freeze to death on the cold, cold ground.
Little Jack arrived at PINKYS in time to see that the two inspectors had failed again. Pinky was gone. What about the two Pinkertons that Pinky had reported to, the ones in the brownstone on Second Avenue? He saw the patrolman come to collect the drunk and used the distraction to skitter down Essex over to Second.
“You catch that?” Dutch said.
“What?”
“Sure looked like Jack West’s boy. He’s been tailing us since we left the House. He seems to know where he’s going.”
On Second Avenue and Second Street, they saw Little Jack stop in front of a shabby brownstone. A hackney with two passengers was pulling away; the driver coaxed his horse across Second Avenue and veered uptown. Bo and Dutch came to stand on either side of Little Jack as they all watched the hackney fade from sight.
Bo, amiable as a saint, crowded Little Jack. “You have something you want to tell us?”
“Shit.”
“Besides that,” Dutch said, crowding Little Jack on the other side.
Little Jack scowled. “I don’t know nothing.”
“You’d best tell us,” Bo said, pressing in.
Little Jack rubbed his nose. He might as well share his information. “They was professors. Anyways, that’s what they called each other; but sure as hell they’re Pinkertons. I followed Pinky here after the woman got killed. They telephoned Chicago to report.”
“They must have found Butch and Sundance,” Dutch said.
“Doubt it,” Bo said. “They would be shouting it from the rooftops by now, and Billy Pinkerton, he’d be bragging it all over the newspapers. Looks like those two professors made a mess of it and were told to get their arses back to Chicago.”
Dutch climbed the steps to the brownstone and rang the bell. No response. Tried the door. It was open. He motioned to Bo.
“Beat it, kid,” Bo told Little Jack.
“Yes, sir.” Little Jack found a spot around the corner, and when the coast was clear, he hoisted himself up on the window box near the cracked window pane.
Dutch moved through the foyer. The house had a musty smell. The furnishings were shabby. Bo checked the other two floors, came back down.
“Nothing here,” Dutch said. “You find anything?”
Grim, Bo held out a small card to Dutch. It was Esther’s calling card.
The men who called themselves Butch and Sundance were holed up in a dingy lodging-house that let to sailors and dockworkers. It was convenient to the East River piers and taverns, and the rooms were cheap.
Butch climbed the rickety stairs to the third floor, stepping over the drunk collapsed on the staircase. He was carrying a newspaper, a bar of soap, and a honed and stropped straight razor. In the room, Sundance was lying on the bed snoring. Butch tilted the bed, sending Sundance crashing to the floor. “That goddam whore you knocked over at the first bank, the one stole your gun; done us in good.” He dropped the folded newspaper on Sundance.
Blinking, Sundance sat up and unfolded the newspaper. There they were, right on the front page. “Pretty good likeness, I’d say.” He scrambled away from Butch’s kick, adding, “I always said I was a good looking hombre.”
“It’s in every newspaper, on the front page. We got to get out of here.”
“One more bank,” Sundance said.
“You looking to get hanged? Not me, pardner.” He handed Sundance the soap and the razor. “Get rid of that ratty face-hair.”
“How the hell will we get out? They’ll nail us for sure if we get on a train.” He brightened. “We could buy us a
