Page 32 of Angel of Vengeance
“I was in the iron mines, sir. In the Adirondacks.”
“Can you read and write?”
“No, sir.”
“Step over there, if you please.”
Pendergast questioned one other—a man of rather mysterious pedigree but obvious lethality named Perigord—then nodded with satisfaction. “Please join the others. The rest of you, thank you for your good work. You may go.”
After the others had left, just Bloom and five of his band remained. Pendergast waited until they were alone, then turned to address the group.
“You men now work for me. The pay is six dollars a day. The hours will be irregular, and you will be on call at a moment’s notice, any time of the day or night. You may well have to take up temporary residence within these buildings, but I will see to it you’re made comfortable. Any objections?”
No, there were no objections—just vigorous nodding and muffled expressions of satisfaction.
“Mr. Smith, you will stay here and occupy the guardhouse for the initial watch. Mr. Perigord, please patrol the surrounding tenements—and keep an eye on that brewery and its owner. It is of the utmost importance that no one enters the alley or surrounding buildings, now empty. Consider this our territory, not to be intruded upon. If either of you sees anything odd occur in the alley, such as strange lights or colors, you will stay where you are, remain calm, and get a message to me. The rest of you I’ll expect at this address at five PM this evening.” He handed out cards to each of them. “And now, Mr. Bloom, let us take a few minutes to finalize, to our satisfaction, the duties and responsibilities of your most excellent brigade.”
24
THE SPRAWLING BULK OF the Drury Hippodrome—the largest entertainment and theater complex in New York City—occupied an entire block of Fourteenth Street. By eight PM on a Saturday night, it resembled an anthill of activity. Within, the various entertainments, from concert saloons to circus performers to geek shows, were in full swing, and the pavement outside was busy with patrons coming and going.
Due to the variety of spectacles and the need to collect separate tickets for each, the building had been subdivided into many venues. Short alleyways led into the enormous beflagged bulk of the complex from various streets, serving as admission for the public as well as backstage entrances for performers, stagehands, and vendors. The Hippodrome was a miniature city so labyrinthine that no one, it was said, fully knew its byways, corridors, tunnels, and catwalks.
In the midst of the chaos, between a dressing area and a repair shop for theater sets, was a room kept locked at all times. Its heavy door held no sign, and it was ignored by passing workers as just another storage or maintenance area. This room, with its thick walls and lack of windows, belonged to Leng: one of the more unusual of many bolt-holes he used for his hydra-headed enterprises. While it might seem incongruent to situate a retreat in one of the busiest places in all New York City, it was precisely such busyness that rendered it anonymous. This was where he gathered his “crew.”
Decla stood beside the door, with a bandaged hand, restlessly tossing a bowie knife into the air, catching it by the tip, and flipping it into the air again. Looking at her, Leng almost smiled. Despite their differences in class, education, and age, she was his favorite, the one he relied on for pragmatic, streetwise advice. They first met when she’d tried to pick his pocket on the Bowery, eighteen months before. He’d turned at speed and seized her hand, preparing to sever her carotid artery with a scalpel, then push her away to bleed out while he blended into the crowd. But something had stopped him: something in her eyes that showed—instead of fear—calculation, even resignation.
And so an unusual partnership had begun. She was the leader of the Milk Drinkers—a gang whose very name was a contemptuous challenge to the Plug Uglies, the Slaughterhousers, the Roach Guards, and the other gangs who ruled New York’s nastiest slums. The Milk Drinkers were a small, tightly knit gang, feared for both their secrecy and their lethality. Unlike others, the Milk Drinkers had no turf to hold and battle over; they came and went where they pleased. Leng had taken Decla not exactly under his wing—she would never stand for that—but into an alliance of sorts, one that he financed himself. In return, she’d agreed to let him thin the gang’s ranks of deadwood until it was as lean, mobile, and dangerous as humanly possible. The Milk Drinkers were his bodyguards, his night agents, his messengers of death—and in return he allowed them not only sanctuary and unlimited funds, but the freedom to work independently, maintaining their position atop the gang hierarchy and performing tasks of their own hatched up by Decla’s clever, feral mind.
Right now, she was unhappy—the confrontation with Constance Greene had put her out. Leng knew she would never be satisfied until she’d finished it. Decla viewed female gangs with particular hatred, and over time she had arranged for the murder or neutralization of every member of the Sow Maidens, who had dressed like stevedores and filed their teeth to points. Watching her, Leng felt it only proper to give her satisfaction with the fake duchess… when the time was right.
He looked around the room. Some two dozen figures were in attendance, slouching in chairs or lounging on packing crates, motionless, waiting. There were just a few more to come—blending with the throngs of visitors and attracting no attention as they made their way to the room through the myriad routes that, in an emergency, also served as multiple exits.
While they all looked tough, he could read their faces like a book. They feared him; they respected him; they called him “Doctor.” Of course, they knew nothing of what he was really about. He kept his true, overarching work—the harvesting of cauda equina, the elixir he was seeking, his grand project—a secret known only by Munck. Instead, he had given them the vague impression he was a sophisticated gangland boss like no other, dealing in the most dangerous, remunerative black-market operations and illegal activities—and that he functioned behind the scenes sub rosa, as their guardian angel… or perhaps demon would be the more appropriate term.
A series of low raps sounded a brief tattoo on the door. Decla cracked it open, then allowed the last two outstanding members—Sloopy and Wolfteat—to enter. As they took seats, Decla locked the door and Leng rose to address the assembly.
“My dear friends,” he said, gazing around. “Welcome.”
Nods, murmurs.
“I regret to say I have a little problem. It involves Smee’s Alley, off Longacre Square. Do any of you know it?”
No one did—it was too far uptown.
“This man I’ve spoken to you about, Pendergast, has blocked it off. I want access.”
Nobody asked him why. They knew only too well that to show curiosity about his private matters was not a salubrious practice.
“Search for a secret way in—underground; through a skylight; as a member of the crew presently guarding it. I don’t need to tell you how; just let me know when it’s done.”
He paced for a few seconds. The gang was well aware of his need for young women, his “jammiest bits of jam”—and the speed with which he went through them—even if the particular nature of that need remained his secret. He let them assume the usual.
And this led to the next topic on the agenda. “A new cleric has been installed at the Mission,” he said. “He’s forbidding me access to the inmates. No longer am I able to take select girls for necessary medical treatment at my clinic.”
At this, several smirks were traded among the assembly.
“I can gather no useful information from that mooncalf at the Mission, Royds, on either the details of Miss Crean’s death or background on the cleric himself. The man so precisely hinders me that, initially, I wondered if it might be some sort of plot—but his papers are in order and, in short, it’s clear the man must be genuine and not a fraud.”