horse and wagon. We got the cash.”
“We’re going to need every bit of it. No telling where we’ll end up.” Butch peered out the grimy window. If you stood in the far right of the window, you could just about see the iced-up river that was locking all shipping in the harbour. “If we get lucky and there’s a thaw, we can take one of them steamers.” He laughed. “I hear South America is wide open for good businessmen with a little cash.”
It had been a week since Robbie Allen and his friend Harry Kidder put Henrietta de Grout on the New York Central train to Dyckman Street, and the farm in Inwood. The men remained at Missus Taylor’s boarding house, trying to come to a decision about their next move. The mild weather in the beginning of January had turned wicked, bone-chilling cold.
This morning they took a hackney down to South Street, got out and walked.
A sudden change in temperature, a slight warming, had shaken loose the solid field of ice on the rivers. Now huge blocks on both the Hudson and East Rivers were locking ships, freighters, tugs, and other boats, large and small, in the harbour. They kept walking, past the piers, past the shacks and warehouses along the waterfront.
Robbie stopped to roll a smoke. “So what do you say?”
A man on a bicycle, riding fast, pulled out of a side street and blocked their way. He jumped off, letting the bicycle fall, and confronted them. His two holsters were hung low like a gun fighter. “I know you!”
Never taking his eyes off the stranger, Harry smiled.
“Uh uh. Don’t make no quick moves, neither. The reward poster says dead or alive.” The stranger’s guns came out of their holsters quick and slick.
Harry’s Colts emerged, quicker and slicker. He fired both weapons. The stranger never got off a shot. He slumped against a warehouse wall, staring at his bleeding hands, stunned.
Robbie checked to see if anyone heard, but the waterfront was a noisy place, even with boats and ships out of service. He picked up the bicycle and righted it.
“If I was Sundance, stranger,” Harry said. “You’d be dead and on your way to hell.”
The would-be shooter sank to his knees.
Harry said, “You got anything to say to me?”
“No, sir. I’d be much obliged if you could leave me right here to die.”
Robbie collected the shooter’s weapons. Always good to have a couple extra. To the shooter, he said, “Hope you’ll be feeling better real soon.”
Untroubled, Robbie and Harry turned back the way they’d come, retracing their footsteps down South Street.
“So what do you say?” Robbie said.
“We couldn’t do nothing now, even if we wanted to.”
“Even?” Robbie looked at his friend.
“I’m thinking I might be ready to do some ranching.”
“Ranching is good in South America, I hear.”
“I mean local.”
“I knew she would get to you.”
Harry shrugged.
“I’m going to pick up a couple of tickets on one of those freighters. To Argentina maybe. She can come later with the kid.”
Esther stared at her calling card. “They’re scientists. They arrived the morning after the Union Square bank robbery — referred by Ernst Abbe, a German physicist and mathematician with whom I’ve been exchanging correspondence. Herr Abbe has been creating wonderful new camera lenses. These men engaged my services to photograph the diverse species of winter birds in Central Park.”
“They’re Pinkertons, Esther,” Dutch said. “They were looking for information.”
“How on earth could they possibly have known about my personal correspondence?”
“Pinkertons have sources all over the world.” Bo said. “You did nothing wrong.”
“They claimed to be ornithologists, called each other professor. They were well-dressed and spoke like scientists.” Dismayed, Esther looked from Dutch to Bo, back to Dutch. “And now what do I have for my labours? A dark-room full of beautiful photographs that they never even came to see.” She stopped, realizing the seriousness of the situation. “Oh, my goodness, they asked so many questions about the Union Square Bank robbery and what the robbers looked like, and what photographs I might have taken. I told them that I’d given all the photographs to the police. I thought they were, as scientists, inquisitive. I should have been more suspicious.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Bo said.
“It’s all right, Esther.” Dutch took her hand. “You won’t see them again. They ran off after the other operative was killed. Pinkertons make confusion out of the ordinary. It’s their nature.”
Bo agreed. “Their mission was a complete mess of their own making. On the good side, your description of Butch and Sundance provided us with fine likenesses.” He smiled at her. “So fine, in fact, that there hasn’t been a robbery in over three weeks.”
Esther returned Bo’s smile. She had it in her mind to tell them about the photograph she made for Harry Kidder and Henrietta de Grout’s engagement, and the lustrous silver dollar the happy Henrietta had given her when she collected the photograph two days after.
But in that instant, a tremendous explosion blocked out all thought. The house shuddered. Shuddered again. In seconds, Wong was at the front door just ahead of Bo and Dutch.
The street was bathed in eerie light. Yellow smoke filled the sky from the direction of Grand Central Terminal.
“Stay inside, Esther,” Dutch called. “Wong, close the door. And keep it closed.” Dutch and Bo raced uptown, towards the explosion.
The devastation was evident even before they got to Fortieth Street. Shattered glass everywhere. The Murray Hill Hotel, reduced to ruins. The front of the Terminal facing Forty-second Street was a ravaged scar. Whistles and bells clanged. Ambulances, fire-wagons, and police. Firemen were working on wetting down the blazing remains of a wooden powder-house, as Bo and Dutch joined the search for survivors. The powder-house had contained over two hundred pounds of dynamite to be used for blasting the rocky schist in preparation for the subway dig. It had caught fire and exploded. The final tally: five people dead, 125 injured.
The tragic event in the building of the subway system that would transform the city, replaced the doings of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on the front page of every newspaper.
It would be a long time before Esther remembered what she had been about to tell Dutch.
After the Tammany candidates lost the election, Boss Crocker knew that he, Richard Crocker, was the man to rebuild his political machine. Crocker was still very much a part of New York politics, what with the construction of the subway system, the Interborough Rapid Transit, cutting and covering its way up Manhattan. He did not hold out much hope for the reformers.
“The voters will have their fill soon enough,” he told his precinct leaders. “People get tired of reformers. Reformers don’t give nothing to the people but words.” He looked at their dejected faces. “New blood,” he bellowed. “That’s what I want. That’s what we need. I want new blood, new faces, young bucks with fire in their bellies.”
After Crocker sent them on their way, he set his top hat on his head and wrapped a heavy scarf around his neck.
In front of the Tammany headquarters waiting for him was his first automobile, a red Packard Model C runabout with leather seats and a wood body. It had arrived that morning all the way from Detroit, Michigan.
The vehicle had patent leather fenders and wire wheels, and, God bless us, running lights as well. What a wonderful time it was to be alive and living in this great and glorious city.
An awe-struck crowd, which included his precinct captains, was gathered around the gleaming red automobile. Mike Rafferty, his cousin’s son, sat high behind the big steering wheel, like a goddam king.
Crocker had sent Rafferty out to Detroit to the Packard Motor Car Company to acquaint himself with the
