Clive Cussler - The Spy

Steel flashed. A knife materialized out of nowhere. The hobo screamed and fell back, holding his face. The knife flashed again. Another scream, and the hobo scrambled away on all fours, clambered to his feet, and ran for his life. Billy sank back. Hell of a dream. Everything was strange. Now he smelled perfume. It made him smile. He opened his eyes. A woman was kneeling over him, her hair brushing his face. Like an angel. It seemed he had died.

She leaned very close, so close he could feel her warm breath, and whispered, “What did you tell the detective, Billy?”

THE LADY OF THE HOUSE IS NOT A FORTUNE-TELLER,” Eyes O’Shay assured the anxious captain of his Holland submarine torpedo boat.

Hunt Hatch was not assured. “There’s signs all over the house advertising that Madame Nettie tells fortunes. She’ll have customers in and out all hours of the day and night. You’ve put us in a parlous situation keeping us here, O’Shay. I won’t stand for it.”

“The fortune-telling is a blind. She doesn’t tell fortunes.”

“What’s it a blind for?”

“A counterfeit ring.”

“Counterfeiters. Are you crazy, man?”

“They’re the last people in Bayonne who would complain to the cops. That’s why I put you here. And the woman who cooks your meals escaped from state prison. She won’t tell anyone either. Besides, they can’t see your boat from the houses. It’s screened by the barge.”

A mowed lawn spread from the counterfeiters’ frame house at the foot of Lord Street to the Kill Van Kull. The Kill was a narrow, deep-water channel between Staten Island and Bayonne. The barge was moored on the bank.

The Holland was under the barge. Its turret was accessible through an inside well. It was less than four miles from New York’s Upper Bay, and from there a clear five-mile run to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Hunt Hatch was not appeased. “Even if they can’t, the Kill is swarming with oyster catchers. I see them in their scows. They come right up to the barge.”

“They’re Staten Islanders,” O’Shay answered patiently. “They’re not looking for you. They’re looking to steal something.”

He gestured at the hills a thousand feet across the narrow strait. “Staten Island became part of New York City ten years ago. But the Staten Island scowmen haven’t heard the news. They’re the same coal pirates, smugglers, and thieves they’ve always been. I promise you, they don’t talk to the cops either.”

“I say we attack now and get it over with.”

“We attack,” O’Shay said quietly, “the moment I say we attack.”

“I am not risking life and freedom to get caught on your whims. I am captain of the ship, and I say we attack now before someone stumbles upon where we’ve hid the bloody thing.”

O’Shay stepped closer. He raised a hand as if to strike the captain. Hatch quickly lifted both hands, one to block the blow, one to counterpunch. He exposed his belly. By then O’Shay was flicking open a Butterflymesser with his other hand. He slid the long knife under Hatch’s sternum, plunged it to the hilt, jerked the razor-sharp blade down with all his might, and stepped back quickly before the intestines spilling out could stain his clothes.

The captain clutched at them, gasping with horror. His knees buckled. He fell on the rug. “But who will run the Holland?” he whispered.

“I’ve just promoted your first mate.”

“THIS IS THE NEWEST church building I have ever been in,” Isaac Bell told Father Jack Mulrooney.

The Church of St. Michael smelled of paint, shellac, and cement. The windows gleamed and the stones were fresh, unblemished by soot.

“We’ve just moved in,” said Father Jack. “The parishioners are pinching themselves wondering can it be true. In actual fact, the only way that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company could remove us from 31st Street to build the terminal yards without bringing the wrath of God-not to mention Tammany Hall and His Grace the Cardinal-down on their heads was to build us a brand-new church, rectory, convent, and school.”

Bell said, “I am a private detective, Father, with the Van Dorn Agency. I would like to ask you some questions about people who used to live in your parish.”

“If you want to talk, you must walk. I have my rounds, and you will see that our people live in less bright places than their new church. Come along.” He set off with a surprisingly springy step for a man his age, turned a corner, and plunged into a neighborhood that felt miles, not yards, from his brand-new church.

“You’ve served here long, Father?”

“Since the Draft Riots.”

“That’s forty-five years ago.”

“Some things have changed in the district, most have not. We are still poor.”

The priest entered a tenement with an elaborate carved stone portal and started up a steep flight of rickety stairs. He was breathing hard by the third floor. At the sixth, he paused to catch his breath, and when the wheezing stopped he knocked on a door, and called, “Good morning! It is Father Jack.”

A girl with a baby in her arms opened the door. “Thank you for coming, Father.”

“And how is your mother?”

“Not good, Father, not good at all.”

He left Bell in the front room. A single window that looked onto a yard crisscrossed with clotheslines in the shade admitted the stench of a privy six stories below. Bell folded a wad of dollar bills in his hand and slipped it to the girl as they left.

At the bottom of the stairs, Father Jack caught his breath again. “Who are you inquiring about?”

“Brian O’Shay and Billy Collins.”

“Brian’s long gone from here.”

“Fifteen years, I’ve been told.”

“If God ever blessed this district, it was the day O’Shay disappeared. I would never say such a thing lightly, but Brian O’Shay was Satan’s right-hand man.”

“I’ve heard he’s back.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” the priest said bleakly, and he led Bell back into the street.

“I saw Billy Collins last night.”

Father Jack stopped and looked at the tall detective with sudden respect. “Did you really? Down in the hole?”

“You know he’s there?”

“Billy has, shall we say, hit bottom. Where else would he go?”

“Who is his little girl?”

“His little girl?”

“He kept referring to his little girl. But he claimed he had no children.”

“That’s a dubious claim considering the youth he led. In those years, it was rare I baptized a carroty-topped infant and didn’t wonder if Billy was the father.”

“I wondered if his hair was red. It seemed mostly gray in the dim light.”

“Though I suppose,” Father Jack added with a thin smile, “Billy could claim with a certain degree of truth that he is not aware he had any children. It would have been an unusually brave girl who would have named him the father. Still, I see his point. Whoring and drunk since he was twelve years old, what would he remember?”

“He was adamant he had no children.”

“That would make the little girl his sister.”

“Of course. He weeps for her.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“What happened to her?” Bell asked.

“Wait for me here,” the priest said. “I’ll only be a moment.” He entered a building and came out shortly. As they continued along the block, Father Jack said, “There are wicked men living in this community who live by stealing from poor, ignorant people. They’ll steal their money, and if they have no money they will steal their drink. If they have no drink, they’ll steal their children. Whatever the wicked can sell or use themselves. The child was kidnapped.”