Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

He had the itch, same as he’d felt as a boy in Utah. Still, there was time. He couldn’t push Harry too hard just now. Another couple of weeks wouldn’t hurt, while they saw a few vaudeville shows and enjoyed some of the night life. They’d taken rooms again at Missus Taylor’s boarding house on West Twelfth Street, so they could celebrate the New Year and shoot the moon. Next week he’d get himself to the steamship lines on the East River and buy those tickets to South America.

He passed the Union Square Bank, which was open again; no sign that a robbery had ever happened. Those two had done another bank and gone to ground. Where were the bastards? He’d like to get his hands on them, all right.

All this thinking made his throat dry. He headed to Joe’s Bar, a tavern on Union Square they’d been frequenting since they arrived in the city.

The streets were crowded with shoppers, workmen, servants carrying packages. Robbie was deep in thought. He failed to notice the two men on the opposite side of the street, who had stopped to talk.

These two men were studying the scene of the first crime at the Union Square Bank, when one said, “Look there, Dutch. If we didn’t know they travelled together, I’d say that fellow there fits the description of Butch Cassidy.”

“Yeah, Coz. Him and everyone else in city clothes and a derby. Cassidy has a moustache.”

“Easy enough to shave off,” Bo said.

“Forget it. You’re clutching at straws. The shooters got away. The Pinkerton girl had a bagful of bank bills. She was with them, or not with them. They got cover from the kids in the tenement. And we have egg on our face.”

January, 1902: Bo Clancy and Dutch Tonneman had once again been summoned to the Police Commissioner’s office. There was a new commissioner, all the more reason for the two inspectors to be summoned.

Neither Dutch nor Bo wore top coats. Though milder than usual, it was still winter, but the new commissioner, Colonel John Partridge, preferred unlit hearths. “Good for the brain,” he was known to say — and often. Too much heat wore him down, made him irritable. Therefore, to suit his taste, the interior of 300 Mulberry Street was like a block of ice.

On the staircase Bo took several pulls from the small flask he kept in his inside pocket. He knew Dutch well enough not to offer him a nip while they were on the job.

The welcome they received was sour, and weighed down by glares and reproaches, and no invitation to sit. Dutch wondered: did the Commissioner think they were tainted by the corruption surrounding the old Tammany regime? If so, he should know better. He and Bo were Roosevelt men. Rough Riders to the core.

“Report.” The Commissioner had set down his cigar when they came into his office. It smouldered in the large ashtray on the Partridge’s neat desk.

Bo had the rank; it was his place to answer. “No bank robberies in the past three weeks.”

“And,” the Commissioner replied, “no cases of sunstroke in Manhattan.”

Dutch swallowed most of a chuckle.

Bo showed him his fist.

The Commissioner had his back to them. Dutch arched his eyebrows. “ It was funny ,” he mouthed. To the Commissioner he said, “Their faces are splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the city.”

The Commissioner lifted the cigar to his mouth and puffed pungent rings into the air. “Thanks to Miss Breslau and Sergeant Lowry. Damn it, men, where are Butch and Sundance? They can’t have disappeared without a clue. Capturing them here in New York will get the press off our backs, put a twist in their long underwear. New York newspapers will have the best story since Tammany was squelched.”

“Yes, sir,” Bo said.

The Commissioner harrumphed. “Talk to me about the Pinkerton woman.”

“She was going by the name of Etta Place,” Bo said. “Her real name was Jenny McCracken. The Pinkertons claimed the body.”

“And she had some of the bank money. Was she a thief? Or was she collecting evidence?”

“No way of knowing, sir,” Dutch said. “The Pinkertons won’t talk to us.”

The Commissioner glared at Dutch. “Then what the hell good are you? I’d be better off with two trained monkeys, wiggling their pink arses.” There was a noticeable silence. “Damn Pinkertons!”

So, Dutch thought, the Pinkertons weren’t talking to him either.

Bo cleared his throat. “At least we recovered some of the bank money.”

“I called the Pinkerton office in Chicago. Bill Pinkerton is never in. Damn it to hell and horse-shit! You do your job and show them up, you hear. They claim they never sleep. Well, we can do the same.” The Commissioner concentrated on Dutch. “You’re a descendant of Old Peter Tonneman who worked with Jacob Hays?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Commissioner shook his head. “You’d think he would have passed something down to you.”

Dutch’s face reddened. “Sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me. Get the hell out of here. Find the rest of the money. Find Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I want to be able to call Bill Pinkerton and tell him we caught Butch Cassidy and that we solved the murder of his operative and that, in the future, it would be more mannerly — and prudent — if he let us know when any of his operatives were working New York City.”

The Commissioner’s cigar filled the air with bitter smoke. He threw the stogy into the cold fireplace and lit a new one.

“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.”