Exile on Bridge Street (15 page)

CHAPTER 9

The Dead Coming

O
CTOBER
, 1916

B
EFORE
YET
THE
BLINKING
OF
DAWN
does Thos Carmody come. He stands on the deck of a coasting lighter-barge as if floating. Disembarked and pulled by two harbor tugs off Manhattan's Chelsea docks, then traveling south of Battery Park he now coasts toward Brooklyn's Navy Yard. Up and rising in the quiet reaches of the black morn like a ghost come upon the living to reckon some mortal transgression done him, for as far as anyone knows in Brooklyn Thos Carmody is dead since April. But here he is. Alive and amongst the great churning traffic of the New York Harbor before even the sun can emerge from the east. The propellers of the port tugs up ahead of him bubbling under the water, yanking the slack. He drags from a hand-rolled cigarette and exhales into the East River fog.

Much colder up in Buffalo where he hid over the past months, he is not bit by New York City's October morning chill. Up there, Carmody met with his boss T. V. O'Connor, President of the International Longshoremen's Association. O'Connor was on his way west to patch up his losses from the summer's ill-fated general strike on Puget Sound and the Pacific Northwest. Against Carmody's wish, O'Connor sent him back to Brooklyn. Carmody feared Brooklyn. Feared what was coming to it. Wanted instead to go out west with his boss, far from New York. Does not want to come back to Brooklyn where there is sure to be another war for power and sway over the racket of labor. But back here again he is, where the cost of human life is always cheapest.

* * *

I
N
A
PRIL
, W
OLCOTT
OF
THE
N
EW
York Dock Company—the union's biggest enemy in Brooklyn—had caught wind of Carmody and Joseph Garrity recruiting his Red Hook employees into the ILA. Wolcott hired Dinny Meehan as a starker to kill Carmody for five hundred dollars. Meehan then hired his trusted childhood friend, Tanner Smith, to do the job. Smith, a lowly Greenwich Village ex-gangster-turned-dockboss had then paid Carmody to disappear. Carmody's life had been spared, so he took the “fifty dime” Smith gave him and planned on never returning to the city.

Tanner Smith had played his hand well. Or so he believed. Instead of killing Carmody, Smith used the opportunity to try and muscle himself into the union's upper folds. Smith pocketed most of the money his old friend Meehan gave him and told Carmody to tell King Joe and T. V. O'Connor of the ILA that he'd saved Carmody's life.

“I can turn all o' the longshoremen on the Brooklyn waterfront to ILA,” Smith told Carmody, handing him the bullet he should have killed him with. “If only I was a ILA man, of course.”

“Fuck Tanner Smith,” Carmody says under his breath as he drags and exhales again, floating on the deck of the Brooklyn-bound lighter and looking up to the shadows of the two bridges that connect Brooklyn to Manhattan. Striking a match and cupping it in his hand, Thos pulls out the bullet Tanner Smith gave him and turns it in his fingers. “I'm gonna put this in your back, Tanner.”

* * *

U
P
IN
B
UFFALO
, C
ARMODY
HAD
PUT
in a formal request to O'Connor to accompany him to the west coast.

“I can't go back to the city,” Carmody had explained. “I can't go. King Joe don' care if I live or die and Brooklyn's run by the Irish on the north docks, the I-talians in the south. With the New York Dock Company between 'em there's no way we can bring them together under the ILA flag. It's just a tangled mess.”

“What happened with the Irishman ye were werkin' with in Brooklyn?” O'Connor asked. “What was the man's name?”

“Joseph Garrity.”

“Joe Garrity, that's right. Where's he?”

“Uh . . .” Carmody scratched his chin. “I heard his nephew and a few other Whitehanders got 'em, burnt 'em alive in McAlpine's Saloon, Red Hook.”

“Jaysus,” O'Connor said, noticeably angered. “What else?”

Carrying some of O'Connor's bags toward a car, Carmody continued, “Bunch o' I-talian ILA men were killt, beaten up, and a guy named Non Connors was the only one charged.”

“Non?”

“Yeah.”

“Who is he?”

“He was Lovett's right-hand man in Red Hook.”

“That right?”

“Yeah.”

“That's an interesting t'ing, t'is,” O'Connor said, looking up in thought. “And Tanner Smith says he can turn Brooklyn to ILA?”

“That's what he says.”

“Ye t'ink he can do it?”

Carmody saw his chances of going out west dwindling by his telling the truth. “No, Tanner Smith can't turn Brooklyn to ILA. More importantly, the ILA can't hire Tanner Smith. The newspapers already say the International Longshoremen's Association is made up of a bunch o' ex-cons and thugs. Smith was best friends with Owney Madden before they sent him up to the stir. And he's close to Dinny Meehan to this very day. Best chance we have in turning them is to make a deal wit' Lovett and make them two fight—Lovett an' Meehan. Which'll weaken the gang.”

“No better man to do that than yerself,” O'Connor said, looking at him, then giving his order. “Go back to Brooklyn and make a deal with Bill Lovett. We were able to bring the south Brooklyn I-talians into the ILA by makin' Paul Vaccarelli a vice president in New Yark. Offer the same to Lovett.”

“Meehan will expect us to be goin' to Lovett.”

“And?” O'Connor said, picking up his own bags. “When Meehan finds out ye're still alive, he'll go after Tanner Smith fer not killin' ye. In the meantime we'll be comin' up from the south with I-talians t'rough Lovett's Red Hook. Yer job is to make a deal with Lovett against Meehan. If what they say about Lovett's true, he'll want to take the gang over one day. He hates Meehan, is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect. Lovett'll be lookin' fer ways to strengthen his forces. We've got the whole o' the ILA behind us. Make a deal with Lovett,” O'Connor points at Carmody. “Get him and all his men to join the ILA and we'll help him take down Meehan. That's yer job. Eventually we'll get all o' them Brooklyn bhoys to turn.”

“And if that don' work?” Carmody sneered.

“T'will,” O'Connor said.

“Might not. Lovett hates I-talians.”

“Look, man,” O'Connor said, putting a hand on Carmody's shoulder. “Yer the man fer the job. There's no other. Ye get Brooklyn in better shape and I'll make ye King Joe's right-hand man, treasurer of New Yark. Ye'll be rich with the handouts, ye know it. I know ye want to come with me out west, but it's King Joe who'll take this over in a few years. Until that day comes, I need him watched. He'll kill me if he gets his way, King Joe will. I need someone I can trust to watch that man, and ye'll do. Yer a good man, Thos. Now what happens if Lovett don't come our way? What will ye do then?”

Carmody bowed his head in both humility and concern, “It won't turn easy, Brooklyn.”

“We got half already with the I-talians. If it was easy, I'd ask someone else. What'll ye do?”

“If it don' work, I got inroads wit' one o' Meehan's men. Vincent Maher is the fella's name. He secretly goes down to the Adonis Social Club south o' the Gowanus Canal for the prostitutes. It's owned by Jack Stabile and his son Sixto, and Jack and Sixto Stabile are in Frankie Yale's pocket. Frankie Yale is in Paul Vaccarelli's pocket. Paul Vaccarelli is in our pocket.”

O'Connor nodded in respect to Carmody's sharp mind, “What do ye plan on doin' with this Vincent Maher feller?”

“If I can't make a deal wit' Lovett, I'll have to make a deal wit' Meehan.”

“Meehan?” O'Connor asked, tilting his head and seeing clearly Carmody's astute and cunning way, as it was Meehan who sent Smith to kill him from the start. Carmody had moved up in the ILA for his ability to turn the Irish of West Manhattan and the Italians of Southern Brooklyn to ILA by using the same strategy of “division and rule.”

“And why would Dinny Meehan choose to join the ILA?”

“He'd only do so if he has no other choice. Everyone's against 'em. Even some o' his own guys. Every day he becomes weaker. How long can a gang run out in the open in New York? Openly controlling labor? He'll be forced to make alliances, and when that day comes, I'll be there. In the meantime, Lovett's the guy. Either way, it's gonna get ugly,” Carmody said, running his hands through his hair, as O'Connor got into the backseat of a car and rolled down the window to speak to him.

“Ye'll report to King Joe in New Yark, but I want to hear from ye every week. Understand it?”

“Right,” Carmody said, as he watched the car pull away without him in it.

* * *

N
OW
,
ON
THE
DECK
OF
A
lighter-barge in the waters cutting through New York City, Thos Carmody drags on the hand-rolled again as he enters Brooklyn through the cover of darkness. Death hanging over him, he decides on his own that before going to Red Hook and dealing with Bill Lovett on this day, he'll go to the Navy Yard to see a guy named Henry Browne—an ILA man who has the ear of Red Donnelly, one of Dinny's dockbosses.

Thos Carmody shakes his head in disbelief. He is supposed to be dead already. Yet here he is haunting into Brooklyn and knowing that when his presence is found, it will spook the old gang from Irishtown. Scare the life out of superstitious and furious men like The Swede, who is closest to Dinny Meehan. If there's anything those wild boys believe in, it's ghosts of the past. And of course the intentions of this ghost of a man is to split the gang in two. Lovett on one side. Meehan on the other.

But his being alive will truly affect one man more than any other: Tanner Smith, who will be exposed for betraying his childhood friend, Dinny Meehan. So it's best Carmody makes his presence felt so as to cause chaos within the gang. Spooking them from afar. Having them take care of Smith so that he does not have to do it himself. But if Tanner Smith is not done in by Meehan's men, Carmody will be forced to get Smith before Smith gets him.

As the lighter-barge that carries Thos Carmody enters Wallabout Bay by the Navy Yard, two gigantic warships are dry-docked on each side of him as if entering through the portcullis of a haunted industrial sea-city informed by the past and its dead, resistant of the future. He flicks his cigarette over the deck rails, one of many red, yellow, and orange flares that hiss when touching the water, as men with strange face-helmets and lead suits spray flames into the wounds of the warships at his left and right, healing them with fire like some devilish gargoyles at the gates of hell. Healing them so that they may go back to war in Europe and rip more lives from this earth.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath, knowing his return is that of a specter. But Thos Carmody might just rather be dead than back on the waterfront of Brooklyn, for he is unsure he'll survive what is coming. There is no way he can control all the angles, but when the time comes he might just disappear himself again, depending on how harried things get. The newspapers are reporting on the possibility of a draft if the United States enters the fracas over there. He might just have to volunteer as a soldier in the Great War to get out of the way of all the little wars in New York City.

CHAPTER 10

A Mute Fury

“L
IAM
,
GET
YER
ARSE
UP
,
BHOY
. Places to go fer us,” Tommy Touhey says to me in the doorway, Sadie behind him.

I barely understand a thing he says with his accent and his speed.

“Where's Dinny?” I say.

“Left oo'ready,” Sadie answers. I look over to L'il Dinny across from me, sleeping away with his miniature barrel chest and the pure white skin of his face.

I sit at the edge of the bed and feel the cold coming back. It's one year I'm here. I rub my eyes. Still no word from my mother. There are Irish papers in America that speak of British retribution in the countryside and everywhere in Ireland they are choosing sides, like the preparations for a terrible fight. Some rebels are raiding country constabularies for arms and in English prisons others languish, plot a future of freedom from behind bars, as symbolism goes. They are all poets, I see. Writing a sonnet in blood, and with hearts of stone they are troubling the living stream. Truly is a terrible beauty that now is upon Ireland. Warrior poets, rebelpoets, my father and brother among them. Myself so far away. The American president seems to have no wish on helping my small nation become free like the many others he says Germany and Austria-Hungary oppress. Too close to England, is America. Dinny was right.

Between him and I, though, there is a silence. A silence initiated by myself. A lingering thing where I have set aside any real decision. A festering silence where ulcers can flourish. A limbo where I am afraid to commit to his gifts, or sever ties. No longer am I the gentle child accepting all that is sent me. But neither am I an independent man.

I look to the floor at the boots by the bed. They are open at the mouth like a dying old man, tongue dropped out in front. I never knew McGowan, though I've lived in his shoes all this time. Heard many stories of him before The White Hand walked with the prowess and sway they own after I came. Back when all the gangs fought against each other, dock for dock at the turn of the century like packs of faction-fighting families. Back when Dinny and McGowan were inseparable as children-warriors. When Dinny first began his work as an artificer and craftsman of dockside thugs with the Irish milk still fresh in them. Roaming the dock neighborhoods and piers in their purest years, homeless and hungry and desperate, as I myself know all too well. From the lowest low they came. The root of The White Hand, those two, Beat McGarry told me. But I am growing out of these shoes. My toes curl at the end of them and the laces have snapped, eye-holes ripped open. I am some twenty pounds heavier than when I arrived, and I've learned much of fighting from Tommy Tuohey.

“I think yu must grow in yu sleep, William,” Sadie says, looking up at me, and as I head down the stairwell of the Warren Street brownstone, she whispers, “Come back for lunch, William.”

“I will.”

“It's to Red Hook wid us t'day, Poe.”

“Is it?”

“'Tis.”

My stomach turns. For close on three months Tommy and I had parted paths when ships land at the Red Hook slips. The Italians that live in the tenements surrounding it, the ILA and wobblies staking their claims, the New York Dock Company and their owning the property, and Bill Lovett, whose silence makes The Swede insane. I'm not ready. I'm certain of that, at least. I don't even seem to know who I am and neither does anyone else, as they have many names for me, whether it be Liam or William or Poe or kid or child or bhoy.

“Wouldn't mind a squarin' off wid'm, Bill Lovett,” Tommy says in his speedy speak, holding out his big right fist in my face as we walk south. “A fair one me'n him. Man to man, ye know? I ain't afeared o' him.”

“He fights dirty, I hear.”

“I heared it too, but I swear on me mudder I'll kill 'em with the fists. A proper man fights and that's how he wins and when it comes to it we'll fight and we'll do it.”

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“I don't give a shite 'bout any man,” Tommy stops and yells, pointing in my face.

“Well I didn't mean . . .”

“I'll fight any man anywhere,” he yells over me on the sidewalk. “I'm the best in the feckin' werld an' don' give a feck 'bout him nor any man. My breed's pure t'rough and t'rough me, 'tis. Me da was a Tuohey like his da, but I got McDonough blood too. And Butler and I also got McDermott and uh . . .”

“I really . . .”

“Shut up a moment then, eh. . . . Kelly too. I'll take me coat off fer any man and I'll fight 'em,” he says with his eyes ablaze and his shoulders back like a ready rooster. “On a dock. In a ring. The roadside, no matther. Any man. Swear on me mudder's life I would. You see that?” he says, pointing to the harbor. “Dat's what the werld's made of. Water. And it's made o' dirt and I'll bury any yoke in either one that crosses me. Or I'll beat him so bad I'll leave'm a hospital case at the least of it. . . . I love ye, Liam, I do. I swear to God above. Hope it don't happen, o' course, but I swear to God dere, up dere: ye died tomorrow straight to heaven ye'd go, Poe. Ye're a damn good lad but fer feck's sake, bhoy, ye gotta open yer eyes up, ye feckin' sausage.”

Before I can react, he starts in again.

“Ye don't accept a man's gift, it's a war yer arskin' fer. I know Dinny got ye that place over there and I know ye won't live in it. Ignore it, that's what ye do. The man gets yer family a place fer to live and ye ignore 'em. Ignorin's worse than a challenge, bhoy. Do ye not know it? Ye're a feckin' child an' I'll bend yer arse over an' spank ye if ye don't open them damn yokes up.”

“I don't want to kill a man ever again, Tommy. And he won't say that he won't order me to do so.”

“Whole werld knows ye'd rather be back home, we know it. But ye're not goin', bhoy. So there's plans fer ye here den. People who care fer ye too and ye ignore'm. Now here's what ye're gonna do. Ye're gonna go to the man and tell 'em thanks and that ye'll move from his wife's house to yer new place in the marnin' tomorrow.”

“I want to know that he'll not order me to kill another man, is all.”

“He won't.”

“You speak for Dinny now?”

“I do. He loves me 'cause I'm a real man and I'll tell 'em tonight, too. Ye know that man's a man o' his word, ye know it?”

“I do.”

“He knows I am too and he knows that yer no killer but ye gotta open yer eyes, bhoy. Ye're not goin' back Ireland-way. Brooklyn's yer home.”

“And you? You're never going home?”

“Ain't got a home. It's not the life fer me. I was born in a mansion on wheels under the big blue sky wit' the wind and the weather but I'm gettin' on now. Twenty-seven-year auld now'r twenty-eight, I t'ink. Time fer me to start breedin' some sons so maybe when their war's over I'll go back, dat's what I'm t'inkin'. Dinny knows I can't be tied down. And maybe after their war yerself can come too, but fer now we gotta stay here.”

“I just wish I could answer the call.”

“Maybe there's other ways, bhoy, we'll see. 'Til den I'll keep trainin' ye like yer me own, now put 'em up, c'mon.”

I put my hands over my face and my left foot forward, sliding with it, then stepping back with my right foot.

“Dat's it, lean back when I swing at ye. Here goes,” and he swings as hard as he can at my face, which I lean back and out away from.

“Dere ye go, here comes a hard left jab, move to yer right,” and I duck to the right, away from the jab, and throw a straight right toward his face in return.

“No ye don't. T'rowin' yokes at me like he does. I trained ye proper, bhoy. Ye're like me own bhoy ye are, ye son of a bitch ye.”

“Why doesn't Dinny trust Lovett?” I ask him as he puts his arm around me, feeling close.

“Well Dinny's our king, we know dat, but Lovett don't seem to know it. He t'inks he knows better, don't he? Dem two just need a contest for king o' Brooklyn to the winner.”

“No gloves either.”

“Hell no, dey just kill yer clout, gloves do,” he says still with his arm wrapped tight around me, unlike what most Irishmen would ever do. But Tommy Tuohey's not like most Irish men—he's Pavee and he's got no problem telling me he loves me.

“I do love ye,” he says, then presses his fist against my nose. “But I swear to God up dere and me mudder I'll break yer sniffer to straighten it out if ye don't open them feckin' eyes o' yers and look round wid 'em.”

When we arrive there is a tug-towed barge at the wait where quickly Tommy and I climb it by the rope ladder. Entering the bridge and helm, we shake a firm shake with the captain, an Argentine who knows little English.

“Whadda ye got in here?” Tommy says.

I look down at Bill Lovett, who is surrounded by a throng of men waiting for work, though there is not a single Italian among them, even though they're everywhere else in Red Hook. He wears the cloth cap of the dockworker, though his ears flay out childishly and his cheeks are reddened in the October air. The papers like to say things about him as if he were born a pure Kerryman with the apple cheeks, the baby face, the rosy lips, and whose temperament is matched to the Irish county's rocky slieves—flagstone disposition and gloomy weather—yet a Brooklyner through and through, always at the ready for an affray and damned by the albatross round his neck that is his working-class constitution.

I can see hate in him that he has to look up at us on the ship. A fury that he keeps close to himself. Hate that he is below his enemy. I count the seconds it takes to finish this conversation with the captain, who so maddeningly does not seem to be in the hurry that I hope for. He and Tommy go over silly details, barely understanding each other. I interrupt angrily to translate Tommy's rare English for him. Then the Argentinian looks at me as if he can barely understand myself either, the fool.

I look down again, but I only know a few faces that stand by Lovett, like Frankie Byrne and his old gang's followers, Jidge Seaman and Sean Healy. Well into his forties, Richie's father John Lonergan is there too, standing with his arms crossed and proud to be back in the game. And then there's Dinny's cousin Mickey Kane, who avoids my stare, though I believe it's because he's not wanting to be associated much with Dinny, for whom Tommy and I are known as being close cronies. But men talk just as much—if not more than—women and the rumor is that Lovett secretly talks among Frankie Byrne and them, referring to Kane as a tout. A dangerous thing, even in rumors.

Up here though, the little captain in his big hat is in no hurry, so I press into his little coat, “We're up against time here, let's get moving.”

He looks up at me, tilting his head.

“Hurry up, got it?”

“Poe, wait outside with yerself,” Tommy says, then turns back to the captain who stares me down and I stare him back.

Finally, we climb down and Tommy speaks with Lovett. I hide behind Tommy's shoulder with my hands dug deep in my pant pockets, as the wind rushes over my face. Everyone knows that Lovett carries a .45 in his coat and as I think of this, he looks around Tommy at me. Looks into my indignant eyes and as he does so, I think of the pipe in my coat and look around. A bad combination is in the air, I think, as Tommy and Lovett converse. Lovett's dumb will and coarse pride against Tommy's keen sense to sniff out dishonor, disrespect. The slightest insolence from Lovett could spark Tommy's seeing it as a challenge, which to the end of the oceans would never be ignored by him. Regardless of our standing among his own men in his own territory, Tommy's fearlessness and boastful, blaguarding nature could explode in an instant's summoning.

“Ye got 'nough men den, yeah?”

Lovett looks away without answer.

“Got 'nough men'r ye need me to get some from The Lark up Baltic way'r what?”

“Nah, we'll do it wit' less,” Lovett answers casually with Byrne and the rest behind him.

“We can get more men . . .”

“I said I don' need more men, we got enough here wit' us now, right?” Lovett says, his teeth gnashing and his fists clenched at his hips.

“Right man, ye're on then,” Tommy says, then adds, “I'll let Dinny know . . . Poe?”

“I'm here.”

“Job's done, we're off.”

I am only worried about going through Lovett and his men who are in the horseshoe shape of longshoremen gangs. I can't let myself feel the relief just yet and every step seems a slow one. Ahead of me I see Tommy, standing erect and proud, nod toward Mickey Kane, though I ignore him. Keep my head down through the shoulders and the staring eyes.

“Yeah,” I can hear Lovett say as our backs are turned and almost through the rabble of labormen. “Ya let 'em know too that I'll be fast up there under the Manhattan Bridge to pay tribute to the king o' the pikeys. Ya let 'em know that, eh?”

Now it's well known that Tommy Tuohey is a gypsyman from Ireland, but it's mostly just British that call them “pikeys.” Which you don't want to do. You don't. There are a flood of reasons why and I'll not begin categorizing them, but right here and now I feel the fear that I am going to die. Forget my mother and father and sisters and brother, lost somewhere in the motherland. Forget all of the things I have been worrying about for months on end—my demise is going to be a worthless one right here in the asshole of Brooklyn. I think of running, but if so, I might as well keep running all the way to California as I'd never again be held with any semblance of honor or regard in Brooklyn.

Tommy Tuohey stops ahead of me when he hears this, still amongst fifty laborers. He stops, with Lovett still behind us. I don't say a thing and nor does anyone else. He thinks, though I can't see his face. He thinks more. About what I can't say. Maybe about his wanting to start his own family, his own son one day as he mentioned. About getting out of Brooklyn like so many others long to do. Or maybe about killing Lovett.