Admission: 50 Cents
Proceeds to aid needy Irish-American citizens
I had cynical thoughts about what sort of “aid” would go to which “needy” citizens. It might be instructive, I told myself, to venture out that night to hear what O’Donovan had to say.
It turned out to be quite a lot. Delivered at white heat, in bombastic, inflammatory style. I sat near the door, a slouch cap pulled low over my eyes. The half-filled hall was fairly dim; I didn’t fear being recognized.
O’Donovan, martial in his green uniform, told hair-raising tales of patriotic Irish-American lads who’d tried to bring supplies to their homeland. Imprisoned unjustly, ignored by their American ambassador, tormented by bestial jail keepers, they still languished in British dungeons.
At the end he reached a booming crescendo: “Release our citizens or we will war to the knife! The Saxon foe will never relax except by the persuasion of cold lead and steel. Will you echo me with WORDS OF STEEL?”
The assemblage roared. When they subsided, O’Donovan called for hands to show how many favored immediate war with England. That did it. Time to get out.
In a hansom outside, I considered the issue. The United States was hardly likely to make war on England, particularly after the recent devastation here. But the degree of anti-English sentiment I’d picked up suggested there might be widespread support for letting the Fenians do their thing, even for helping overtly. Maybe I had underestimated them.
O’Donovan emerged with another man from a stage door. I closed the hansom’s curtain until they climbed into a vehicle. “Follow that carriage,” I said. I’d always wanted to utter those words.
The Fifth Street Armory, a forbidding stone structure, was less than a mile away. O’Donovan’s carriage bypassed the front entrance and vanished around the side. I paid my driver and moved in darkness beside the armory. Hearing singing, I pressed my ear to the wall.
“Many battles we have won,
Along with the boys in blue.
Now we’ll go and capture Canada,
For we’ve nothing else to do.”
They certainly weren’t shy about making their intentions known, I thought, peeking around the rear corner. The carriage pulled away. O’Donovan, alone now, moved toward a doorway. When he entered it, I sprinted after him.
“. . . is dark,” I heard a voice say inside the door.
“As black as heresy!” said O’Donovan. “That’s fine, man! Never let up on the password!”
“Aye, sir!”
“Are they ready?”
“Not yet, sir. And a man is waiting here to see you first.”
“Oh? Who’s that?”
I heard a door open. A familiar voice said, “Your old pal Red Jim, that’s who.”
I hugged the wall hard. McDermott!
“What do you want?” O’Donovan said coldly.
“You know what,” said McDermott. “We’re going through with it.”
There was silence.
“We’ll talk in the office down the hall,” O’Donovan said.
“May I be excused, sir?” said the guard. “There’s nothing back here. I’m missing everything.”
“Hold your post!” O’Donovan snapped.
Footsteps receded. After a minute I rapped the door smartly. It swung open and a pudgy boy holding a rifle frowned at me suspiciously.
“Lefty O’Doul,” I told him. “Civilian aide to Captain O’Donovan. I have urgent information before he enters the meeting.”
“The night is dark,” said the boy, the rifle braced across his chest.
“Black as heresy,” I said. “Where is he?”
To my astonishment he put his rifle down and brought his right index finger to the tip of his nose while touching his ear with his left index finger.
“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently, doing the same and hoping I hadn’t botched it. “Now direct me. It’s urgent.”
He pointed to a door and said, “End of the walkway.”
The door clicked behind me. A sliver of light shone down the corridor. I took out my gun and tiptoed forward.
“. . . I tell you, ’twill work!” said McDermott’s voice emphatically.
“But if it didn’t . . . or did but came to light afterward,” O’Donovan retorted, “we’d have the whole city around our ears. They’re the darlings just now.”
“How’d it come to light?” McDermott countered. “When he vanishes, it’ll naturally be taken as the work of Haymaker backers—no connection with the brotherhood.”
Vanishes? I thought. Who?
“And that’s only if the worst happens—that is, the operation takes longer and word leaks out,” said McDermott. “Most likely Fowler’ll cave in right away from the pressure on him, see? That way the brotherhood gets its money, I clean up on the match, and both of us settle our scores with the son of a bitch.”
That last part didn’t sound like fun. I kept the derringer trained on the door.
“So what’s the fault in it?” McDermott demanded.
“None that I see,” O’Donovan said reluctantly. “But if Caitlin learned I was party to it, or if he came to harm . . .” His voice trailed off.
That puzzled me. Since when was O’Donovan solicitous of my well-being? Wasn’t harm precisely their intent?
“She’s the colleen you’ve chased since before the war?” McDermott laughed his braying laugh. “Look, I tell you, he won’t be hurt. It’ll go off just like I laid it out: Soon’s we get the money, I send a message saying where and how much it is. Your boys recover it, rescue the grateful prisoner, and come away heroes. Bully for Captain O’Donovan!”
There was a long silence.
“There’s worse things for her to find out,” McDermott said finally.
“What does that mean?” O’Donovan snapped.
“Have you forgotten I’m the one who knows what happened to your precious Colm?”
Something in the way he said it chilled me.
O’Donovan muttered something too softly for me to make out. A chair scraped. I edged backward.
“So, we have our wee understanding,” McDermott said jovially. “It’s my thought we’ll prosper.”
I left the corridor rapidly. “I informed the captain you’re doing a hell of a job,” I told the guard, who beamed and squared his shoulders. We repeated the nose-and-ear salute, and I was through the door and into the sheltering darkness.
Walking north to Over the Rhine, I mentally replayed what I had heard. They obviously planned to kidnap me and extort the treasure. Once the Fenians had the money, they’d hand me over to
