The Black Hand

26

Mac woke me the next morning with the welcome news that he had located Etienne’s baker and purchased pain au chocolat for my breakfast, which happened to be my favorite. I’ve got to hand it to him: Mac’s willing to go above and beyond the ordinary, though at the time I recall thinking that this was his subtle way of suggesting this would be my last meal on earth. I sat in the kitchen watching Barker pace about the back garden and reflected on the fact that my fate was in his hands.

After my bun and coffee, I crossed the bridge to the training area and practiced one of my forms, more to please Barker than myself. I didn’t want to intrude on his thoughts, which must have been a jumble of plans and concerns.

“Today’s the day, then,” I said when I was done, which was trite and obvious, but it helped to break the silence.

“Indeed,” he rumbled, still half consumed in thought.

“Do you believe we will flush Marco Faldo out from under whatever rock he is hiding?”

“That is in the Lord’s hands,” he responded, which caused me to infer that he had been up early praying. A miscalculation on his part could result in more people being killed. If he ever needed divine help, it was now.

Once we were in our offices I found that everything that occurred that day was geared toward the evening’s activities. Jenkins sent all new business to one of the detectives nearby, while Barker employed an elaborate system of telephone calls and messages.

“Sir, is there anything I should be doing?”

Barker looked up at me as if aware for the first time that I was in the room. “You want something to do? Go to Charing Cross Hospital and get those stitches looked at. But be careful. Remember the note you received.”

There was little chance I could forget. I lifted hat and stick from the stand and headed toward Trafalgar Square, tuning all my senses to what was going on about me. It was another sunny day, and I stopped and reflected on the fact that the weather we were having was almost Mediterranean, as if the Sicilian criminal hiding somewhere in London had brought this weather north with him.

Where was the fellow? I wondered. He was hiding very well; but, then, there were many bolt-holes in London-restaurants like Ho’s and abandoned tunnels like Mr. Soft’s, basement dwellings, vacant shops, and warehouses. One would assume he was in the Italian quarter, but he could just as easily be in a nice hotel under an assumed name. He might even … I stopped in my tracks. He might even be someone we already knew.

Suppose this Sicilian criminal was not Sicilian at all. Perhaps he was Irish: the local criminal leader Seamus O’Muircheartaigh, playing both sides against the middle, or Hooligan, bringing down Gigliotti in order to gain power. Perhaps he was the Chinese Mr. K’ing, in an elaborate charade to enlarge his sphere of influence. Or could it be another Italian? Perhaps someone within the late Victor Gigliotti’s organization wanted to be rid of him, someone that Inspector Pettigrilli might have recognized, so that he must be killed, too. I would count it a conjurer’s trick were it not for the litter of bodies left behind. So many deaths merely so that one man could stand up and claim himself the ruler of London’s underworld? K’ing and O’Muircheartaigh would not allow that, but this fellow seemed bold enough to try anything.

I came to Trafalgar Square and surveyed the area, looking for anything out of the ordinary. No caped assassins stood about, and no one appeared to be following me; but just the same, I detoured through Charing Cross and came to the hospital from another direction.

I sat patiently as the doctor examined my face, his cool fingers inspecting my stitches. He decided since the stitches were already in place, he wouldn’t remove them, but he swabbed the wound heavily in iodine and put a sticking plaster on it.

“They’re coming along as expected,” the doctor said. “I’ll need to take them out in another three or four days.”

I stepped into a book and cartography shop in Cecil Street to while away half an hour, having convinced myself I deserved a treat for seeing a physician, then arrived back in Craig’s Court in time for lunch.

“I like the plaster,” Barker judged. “It makes you look more formidable, and you need every advantage you can get.”

“I could be cut again at any moment, given the way this case has gone so far.”

“It is a corker, isn’t it? I don’t understand what fellows see in adding accounts or trading in corn.”

“You do realize if you are able to solve all the empire’s problems, you’ll only put yourself out of work.”

“Then I shall enjoy my garden. What’s that you’ve got there?”

I’d been trying to hide it, but he missed nothing behind those black spectacles of his.

“A bound Newgate Calendar. Picked it up in Cecil Street for one and six.”

Barker picked up the book and grunted his disapproval. Oh, not at the book, of course, but at me. The book, containing records of old crimes from the early part of the century, interested him enough that he started turning pages. “I was unaware there was a clinic in Cecil Street, lad,” he said casually, absorbed in the illustrations in the book. I had been caught out. I should have known better.

“The bookstore did beguile me.”

Barker sniffed. Mistake number two. “I wish you wouldn’t paraphrase verses from the Holy Book for your own ends. Let’s get some lunch, then go out to the docks. It’s time to choose a location for tonight’s events.”

Barker was up and out of the office before I even got a remark out of my mouth. I jumped up and just made it to the waiting cab before it started without me.

“You mean you haven’t even chosen which dock the fight is going to be at tonight?” I demanded, a trifle out of breath.

“No. That would have been a capital mistake. The Mafia has eyes and ears everywhere in the docks. If I decided too early, they could get in ahead of us and take the high ground, so to speak. They have a sense of honor, but it is idiosyncratic. If they pledge to fight without guns you may depend upon them, but they are not above stacking the deck. Let’s go, lad.”

In the East End, my employer and I looked at docks, lots and lots of docks. I had no idea there were so many in the area. East India; West India; London; St. Katherine’s; Millwall; and both Royal docks. Some were divided by canals and were two docks together; so actually, there were over a dozen to inspect one by one, which the two of us did. Now, as far as I’m concerned, a dock is a dock. It has boats in it, with warehouses and packing crates of all sorts nearby. They all looked alike, save for the cargo-tea for the East Indian, for example, and coffee for the West Indian-but to Barker they were as different as women. His shaded eyes apparently took in every detail, weighed it as if on a scale, balanced each attribute with a demerit. One might almost think he was buying a property, rather than planning a battle.

That is not to say that the Guv was working while I stood idly by. I counted the Italian faces on the docks and tried to ascertain whether we were being watched or followed. We were not followed perhaps, but we were certainly watched. I saw workers nudging each other and pointing at us with nods of their chins. There were many Italians and Sicilians on the docks-dozens of them, perhaps hundreds. They must have all known one another on an intimate scale, by face and family and personal history, in order to distinguish friend from foe, an ability which we lacked completely. If a stevedore walked up to me, how would I know if he meant to shake my hand or stick a knife into my stomach?

Eventually, Barker narrowed his search and settled upon the South East India Dock, a branch of the East India surrounded on two sides by five-story warehouses that looked dark and menacing. It was a tea dock, and Ben Tillett was working there. Barker stopped dead in the center of it, among the men moving back and forth unloading a newly arrived clipper from Assam. Raising his arm, he tapped the side of his nose and then led me over to some large crates stacked on one side which screened us from view. Once there, he pulled out his pipe, filled and lit it. It was windy on the dock, and lighting it required hunching over between the crates and applying the vesta quickly. Then he sat patiently and waited. Finally, almost ten minutes later, Ben Tillett slipped in beside us.

“All set?” he asked tensely.

“I was about to ask the same of you,” Barker said from around his pipe stem.

“My boys are ready. Will it be here, then?”

“Aye. As good a place as any I’ve seen. You’ve spoken to Green?”

“Yes, I have, but I’ll have used up all his goodwill if tonight’s set-to gets out of hand.”

“But that isn’t fair,” I couldn’t help saying. “I mean, the Sicilians have been spoiling for a fight for weeks. You’re not responsible for them, or even the workers on the dock. You can’t control every fight as if it were a boxing match and you the referee.”

“Tell that to Green. He doesn’t care for Socialist unionizers like me. We cost him money.”

“How many men have committed for tonight, Mr. Tillett?” my employer asked.

“I’ve got close to a hundred promised, but, to be honest, more like seventy-five will show. Some of them will be talked out of it by their wives. You’re certain the Sicilians won’t bring shotguns or pistols?”

“I shall challenge them with a debt of honor,” Barker responded. “Like a duel, I’ll choose the weapon. Make sure your lads have clasp knives, just in case.”

“They’ve got them. When and where shall we meet?”

“Five thirty, in the corner of the warehouse there.”

“Right. See you then,” Tillett said with a nod, and slipped off.

“Fine man,” the Guv said when he was gone. “It’s good he’s on our side.”

“He’s a Fabian, you know,” I said, needling my employer.

“Aye, well, we can’t afford to be choosy just now.”

“Do we know how many men we’ll have altogether?”

“A little over a hundred, I’d say.”

“Will it be enough, do you think?”

“I believe so. The number of Sicilian men willing to fight against us is finite.”

“You’re sure, then.”

“Well, lad, we’ll find out, won’t we?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

We went back to the office, where Barker sent off another battery of messages. Then he took out his Chinese brushes and ink. He ground the ink and added water, and then made a note in large block letters:

SOUTH EAST DOCK

6:30 TONIGHT

NO GUNS, ON YOUR HONOR

C.B.

This note he put into the hands of Soho Vic, who arrived around four. I knew matters were at a head, for the boy did not try to set my shoe afire or call me inappropriate names. He was more serious than I’d ever seen him.

Barker looked at the boy. “You’re certain about this, Vic? It’s dangerous going into Clerkenwell just now. I could send the lad to deliver it.”

Soho Vic gave me a glare but did not insult me for once. “I’ll do it, sir. You can count on me.”

“Very well. Take it to the kiosk in front of Saint Peter’s Church. No histrionics or displays of bravery, now.”

“No, sir.”

I doubted Vic knew what “histrionics” were, but he had not been allowed to participate in the previous meeting and this was his only chance to get involved. Unfortunately, one look at the note would tell him when and where the battle was going to take place. He would be in attendance and try to get in a blow or two of his own, if only to be able to brag about it afterward.

“Off with you, then. Use the front door and keep a sharp eye out.”

Vic was off like a rabbit. Barker stood and stretched, and then shot his cuffs. I opened a certain drawer in the right-hand corner of my roll-topped desk.

“Should I bring my pistol just in case?” I asked.

“No, lad. We have given our word.”

“Did we promise to not bring them or merely not to use them?”

“If you found you needed it, you would use it,” he reasoned.

I shrugged and closed the desk drawer with misgivings. “I suppose you’re right, though I’ll feel rather naked without it. How do you know they are men of honor? They’re Sicilian criminals, after all.”

“We don’t, but if anyone is found to have violated the terms it will not be us. Besides, I thought you detested firearms,” Barker said.

“I do, but not as much as I detest dying.”

“You’re overfond of your own skin. None of us is indispensable, lad.”

“Cheery thought, that,” I replied.

Barker reached for his hat and stick.

“Are you coming?”

I heaved a sigh. “Yes, sir,” I said. There was no getting out of it.