Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

The school on Essex Street was letting out. Boys running, brawling, shouting. Pinky took off his cap, turned it inside out, and became one of them. He managed to blend with a group until Second Avenue, where he broke free. And at Second Street, he mounted the steps to the small three-storied brownstone. He lifted the heavy knocker and pulled it down hard against the oak door. A shadow appeared behind the diamond-shaped glass. The door opened; Pinky charged in.

The bearded man who’d opened the door removed the meerschaum from his mouth, and raised his right eyebrow. “Another crisis?” His accent was German. He raised his voice. “Our friend has arrived again with another crucial moment, Hughs.”

“Come in, sit down, my dear Pinky.” Hughs was clean-shaven and spoke like a toff. “Lowenstein, give him a minute. He’s a good fellow. Can’t you see he’s out of breath.”

Pinky couldn’t abide either of these fat-arsed snobs. They lived in this fancy house like their shit don’t stink, while he and Lorraine was grubbers.

“I got important information. I got to talk to Chicago.”

Lowenstein looked dubious. “What information?”

“The woman’s been killed.”

Hughs went at once to the candlestick telephone, cranked the ringer box, lifted the earpiece.

“Good afternoon,” an operator said. “Number, please?”

“Please let me speak to Chicago operator PA 12.” Hughs handed Pinky the telephone.

“One moment, please,” the operator said.

Within seconds a man’s voice came on the line. “Name and number.”

“Pinky. Number 79.”

“One minute, please.”

Never in a million years had Pinky thought he would become a detective. He and Lorraine was happy playing three-a-day at Mick Sullivan’s vaudeville house in Cincinnati, where they was billed as Pinky Pincus and the Pink Lady.

The two of them had started with Sam Smith, who had a magic act: The Great Smithsini. Sam taught both of them how to shoot, for a sketch he called “The Girl with the Vanishing Volumities,” which was Sam’s name for tits.

Pinky and Lorraine were both expert shootists. The big woman and the small man figured out almost at once that they were made for each other on and off stage. In their act, Pinky shot the Lady’s clothes off until she was naked, or appeared to be naked — depending on the town they were in or the house they were playing.

Their encore presented the lady chasing Pinky off, stage right. The velvet curtain billowed. Then the two of them would appear stage left, as the Pink Lady proceeded to shoot off Pinky’s clothes, only to reappear — BIG-FINISH-ACCOMPANIED-BY-DRUM-ROLLS — naked, except for the large pink flower covering his private parts.

Everything changed on the night Mister William Pinkerton caught their act and invited them to work for the Agency.

“You on the line, Pinky?”

Pinky began to sweat. “Good to hear your voice, Mister Pinkerton.”

Little Jack almost fell over backwards. He’d managed to hoist himself on to a window box, saw a broken pane and put his ear to the crack. Once more he said, but under his breath, “Goddam!” Pinky was actually talking to the William Pinkerton. Wait till Big Jack heard this.

Little Jack wasn’t the only one to react. Another exclamation of surprise came from a man positioned more than a hundred feet away.

Davey Collins couldn’t be seen by most people passing by. As a matter of fact, Davey, known as Davey Bear, was standing on spikes halfway up a pole that the telephone company had put up, off to the side of the street. The pole was masked by a tall tree with snow-laden branches.

The Boss had a lot of people around the city letting him know what was going on. When he used the information fast enough and in the best possible way, the bucks came rolling in and people like Davey Bear got walking-around money. He’d heard enough to make the Boss happy. Now, he had to disconnect from the brownstone’s telephone so he could tap into another wire. “Boss, it’s Davey.”

Little Jack didn’t know if what he had learned about Pinky was worth anything. But Big Jack would. And Little Jack was betting it was plenty. He turned west on Fifth Street and heard someone above him, talking. Goddam. Up the pole. Little Jack came to a dead stop.

“That little Jew, Pincus?” Davey told the Boss.

“What about him?”

“You sitting down?”

“Tell me right fucking now or I’ll break your head.”

“Pinky Pinkus is a Pinkerton Man. For sure; also, those two foreign bird gawkers. And the woman in the blue coat from the bank robberies? She’s one of them, too.”

All the doors of the houses on Gramercy Park house wore evergreen wreaths, studded with red holly berries and pine cones. Some of the wreaths had big red silk bows. In the park itself a plump spruce sparkled with tiny electric bulbs. A definite feeling of festivity hung in the air.

The winter sun cast frugal light, which Esther knew was ideal for the proper exposure she would need. The weather had turned mild. Esther unlocked the gate to the private park and held it open for Wong to pull in the wagon carrying her wooden tripod and her box of glass plates and her Scovill camera.

She motioned for the man and woman — who had come calling and commissioned a photograph — to enter, closing and locking the gate behind them.

“Wait here, please,” Esther told them. She moved down the path, evaluating the light and the shadows, until she found a suitable space, then beckoned to them.

If Wong was surprised that morning to see on the doorstep of No. 5 Gramercy Park the men called Robbie Allen and Harry Kidder, who’d brought Miss Esther home after the bank robbery, and with them the tall and attractive young woman named Henrietta de Grout, he gave no indication. He was pleased, however, to see that Robbie Allen only stayed long enough to make flirting eyes at Miss Esther before he went on about his business.

Henrietta de Grout wore a long, green velvet coat with a high collar, white lace ruffle, fur cuffs, and flowing skirt. Pinned to her lapel was an elegant gold watch. Her thick dark hair was rolled, framing her oval face, ending in a topknot surmounting her head. She had removed her hat for the photograph. Standing close beside her, Harry Kidder looked handsome and serious in his broad-shouldered, black, single-breasted suit, high collar and narrow grey silk cravat, held in place by a diamond stickpin.

Because the photograph was to be in honour of the couple’s engagement, Esther had put aside her Kodak and rolled film for her more reliable Scovill and the glass plates and fine lenses.

“Please stand perfectly still.” After Esther focused the lens, she inserted a glass plate into a holder and placed it in the back of the camera. “Ready?” she said. “Do not move, please.” The light was perfect, the weather benign.

“Ready.” Miss de Grout’s husky voice was steady, sure. She had a casual grace, standing there close beside her man.

Esther made the picture.

It felt right. But she removed the plate, inserted another and made one more picture.

Robbie Allen strolled down towards Union Square. On Fifteenth Street, he looked in the window of Tiffany’s, where Harry had bought Henrietta a gold lapel watch and, for himself, a diamond stickpin. Bought , no less. Damn it all, they’d lost their voodoo.

Harry had anyway. He was all wrapped up in Henrietta and being a father, and now he was talking about ranching. In New York.

Goddam, in the old days they would have just held up Tiffany’s and cleaned it out.