House of Thieves (9 page)

“This is a gold mine, Jimmy. A goddamn gold mine.”

Kent watched Bella Levine pick through the stack of gowns and dresses heaped on the plank floor of the warehouse.

“These are from Paris!
Paris
, Jimmy. The very best of the best. Look, see how they're stitched with real silver and gold threads?” She was beside herself with excitement.

Levine, a mountain of a woman who weighed more than three hundred pounds, let out a whoop of delight and flopped down face-first onto the huge pile of clothes.

“I'm swimming in dough, Jimmy. Where d'you get this stuff?” she asked, caressing a green silk brocade gown. “This is better'n finding Captain Kidd's treasure.”

Kent smiled and blew a ring of cigar smoke into the stagnant air of the warehouse. “Yes, Bella, I've discovered a gold mine.”

A professional thief with a great deal of stolen goods at hand is still poor. He can't sell them or take them to merchants on the open market without arousing suspicion. He needs a fence to dispose of stolen goods, and Bella Levine had owned New York City's best fencing operation for the last ten years. Bella handled millions of dollars in loot—for a hefty 50 percent fee, of course. But Kent knew it was worth it. Bella was honest and, above all, reliable. She and her husband lived in an opulently furnished three-story brownstone on East Twenty-Sixth Street from which she ran her fencing operation. Her business made her very rich and enabled her to bribe judges, police officers, and district attorneys into leaving her alone. She regularly entertained the city's power fraternity, including Tammany men, with eight-course dinners at her home. Bella was the city's foremost female criminal and greatly admired by other well-known female thieves like Kid Glove Rosey and Little Annie.

Kent appreciated her discretion. Unlike his former fence, Black Lena Kleinschmidt, who was arrested after wearing a stolen diamond ring to a party, Bella never kept stolen goods. She was wealthy enough to buy things as nice as the Vanderbilts'. Items to be fenced were never brought to her home but were examined at a warehouse tucked away on 448 Broome Street. The interior of the cast-iron building resembled the Arnold Constable department store: five floors crammed with every conceivable type of goods. Once, Kent had seen a dinosaur skeleton.

“And this silver!” Bella exclaimed, pointing to the goods on the floor. “That isn't American stuff. It's English, the absolute best.”

“I'm glad you like my goods. Maybe because of the quality, you'll take 45 percent this time?”

A menacing scowl replaced the smile on Bella's face. Normally, she had a jolly personality as large as her immense body. Now, she resembled an angry bull elephant. She rose with difficulty from the heap of clothes and waddled over to Kent.

“Forty-eight. Then if you bring me more quality stuff, maybe forty-five. Maybe.”

“Don't worry, my beautiful dove. There's a lot more where this came from.”

Culver stepped off the freight elevator and motioned to his boss.

“Excuse me, Bella,” Kent said. She was too engrossed in the piles of men's evening dress to hear. “Didn't I tell you not to disturb me?” Kent snapped at Culver.

“Bald Jack's been picked up. By Byrnes.” Culver spoke in a quiet, worried voice, hoping Bella wouldn't overhear.

“What for?” Kent asked indignantly.

“Killing that bank messenger four years ago.”

For years, banks had been in the foolish habit of sending messengers through the streets with substantial amounts of cash and securities. As the banks were too cheap to provide armed escorts, these men were easy prey for sneak thieves. Stealing from them yielded smaller amounts than could be had from vaults, but it was usually an easy job; the messengers always gave up the money without a fight. Save one Union Trust man who carried a pistol. He would have killed Bald Jack Sanders if Kent's man hadn't killed him first. Bald Jack had no choice in the matter. There had been no witnesses that day on Hudson Street, Kent recalled grimly. Someone must have informed on Bald Jack to win a lighter sentence.

“Is he in the Tombs?” Kent asked, referring to the city's main prison on Centre Street.

“No. Byrnes is taking no chances. He has him in Blackwell's Island. They're to ship him up to Sing Sing until the trial.”

Kent lit a Havana and began to pace the warehouse in wide circles. If it had been anyone else, the solution would have been easy: have Bald Jack killed in prison. But the man was his top earner. An expert sneak thief, he consistently brought in more money than anyone else in the organization (Kent hated the word
gang
). He was fearless and robbed anything from anybody. In his finest professional moment, he'd hijacked four flatbed cars loaded with carriages from the New York Central Railroad at Tarrytown.

“Is he in the old or new part of Blackwell's?”

“The new addition, the one they finished in the spring.”

Bella approached them. “What are you fellows whispering about? Bald Jack?”

Kent wasn't surprised. Bella knew everything that went on in the city a day before anyone else.

“Go see Hummel,” she said.

• • •

Abe Hummel may have looked like a deformed dwarf, but he and his partner, William Howe, were the most powerful criminal lawyers in New York. Since the early 1860s, Howe and Hummel had represented thousands of criminals. Once they got 250 out of 300 prisoners on Blackwell's released on a technicality. Their client list included entire gangs, like the Whyos and the Sheeny Mob, and celebrities like P. T. Barnum and Edwin Booth. Howe and Hummel were so effective that many gangs and criminals, including Bella Levine, kept them on a five-thousand-dollar annual retainer.

Kent went immediately to their office, located at Leonard and Centre Streets across from the Tombs, for a consultation.

“You've got a problem here, Jim,” Hummel said. He sat behind his desk, obscured by a haze of cigar smoke. “Byrnes won't budge on this. He wants your man hanged.”

“How much will it take to change his mind?”

“That's not gonna work this time. And bribing the guards is out.”

Kent stared out the window at the Tombs. True to its name, it looked like an Egyptian mausoleum, framed by four massive stone columns trimmed with carvings of acanthus leaves.
Such
an
impressive
and
palatial
building
, he thought,
to
house
the
scum
of
the
earth.
It had an execution yard between an inner and outer building, linked by a bridge of sighs across which the condemned took their last walk.

The Tombs usually housed New York's most serious criminals. It was unusual for Byrnes to move Bald Jack to Blackwell's, an island in the middle of the East River. But despite its formidable appearance, there had been many successful escapes from the Tombs.
Byrnes
is
being
very
careful
indeed
, Kent thought, drumming his fingers idly on the desk.

“His cell is in the new addition, you say?”

Hummel nodded.

“I'll need to know the number,” Kent said, rising from his chair.

“Welcome to my house.”

“This is incredible,” Charlie cried.

Charlie's rescuer, Eddie Mooney, had graciously invited him to visit his home. He stood before the open hatch to a huge, unused steam boiler in an abandoned factory near the corner of Cherry Street and the East River. Together, they crawled inside an iron-lined compartment furnished with an old mattress, a table, and a chair. It was big enough to stand. Eddie lit a candle, throwing a spooky light against the rusty walls.

“Pretty cozy, eh?”

“I'll say. And it's all yours?”

“Yep. Until they tear down the building, which'll probably be never,” Eddie said. “Have a seat.”

Charlie had been so grateful to his rescuer that he'd given Eddie three dollars of the money he'd saved for the Crandall steam engine. Eddie, touched by this gesture, offered to buy Charlie a drink. To his amazement, Charlie didn't drink beer or whiskey, so he treated him to a sarsaparilla.

Eddie plopped down on his bed and pulled out a sack of tobacco. He rolled a cigarette for himself and his guest. He didn't dare think that Charlie didn't smoke. Everybody he knew smoked. He didn't want to offend the boy. Smiling, he lit Charlie's cigarette.

Charlie inhaled, coughed, and gagged a bit. “It's marvelous that your parents let you live here,” he said when he was able to speak.

Eddie, who was skinny and bucktoothed, with a prominent cowlick of greasy hair, shot him a puzzled look. “My parents? I ain't seen 'em in five years. They kicked my ass out onto the streets when I was seven.”

“Why'd they do that?”

“Couldn't afford to keep me, what with the five other tykes. My ol' man was a worthless ass drunk, and my ma was a drunk and a two-bit whore to boot. Every kid I know down here got kicked out like that. What about you? Your parents kick you out yet?”

“Well, no, not yet,” said Charlie, surprised by the question.

“I used to sleep in doorways, cellars, on old barges. Slept in a carriage in a stable for a month before they found me. But I've had this place almost two years now. I got me a real padlock for the hatch so no one can take it away.”

Charlie was distracted, replaying their conversation in his mind. “What's a whore?”

“A woman who fucks a stranger for money,” Eddie said. It struck him as an odd question, like asking “What planet do we live on?” He smiled at his young guest. “Charlie, old boy, there's a lot of learning I gotta teach ya.”

“So who takes care of you?” Charlie asked, still puzzled.

“I take care of myself,” Eddie said indignantly. “I work as a newsboy…and some other things, to scrape up money.”

Charlie had seen newsboys all over the city. They weren't much older than him, ragged-looking waifs standing at the entrances to elevated stations, on busy street corners, and in front of the department stores on Ladies' Mile, yelling out, begging people to buy their papers. “How much can you make?” he asked. He'd never earned a nickel of his own; he had to beg his parents for change or wait for birthdays and Christmas.

“On a good day, fifty cents. That's after overhead like buying the papers and paying for selling space. Mine's the Hanover Square Elevated—lot of Wall Street swells there. I do a good business. I used to pay this older kid, name of Mikey Harrigan, protection money, but he took half my profit. So last year when I got to be big, I got a lead plumbing pipe and beat the shit out of him. No more protection money,” Eddie said.

Charlie was old enough to understand that he was related (in a distant way) to the Astor fortune. Somehow, though, Eddie's entrepreneurialism impressed him far more.

“It's getting late,” Eddie said. “I gotta go down to Park Row and get my evening papers from the folding room at the
Sun
. That's my rag. Come along with me.”

As Eddie locked up his abode, he patted the old boiler affectionately.

“I'll tell ya, it's a lot better living here than at the Newsboys' Lodging House. You can get a bed and meal for six cents each, but you know what they do? If you stay there a month, they ship your ass off to Kansas or some fuckin' place out west. Make you work on a goddamn farm like you're a nigger slave or somethin'. Can you imagine? You'd never make it back to New York. And New York's the best place in the world to live. You know that too, huh, Charlie?”

They walked up to Madison Avenue and headed east, Eddie chattering like a magpie.

“I used to clean pigpens. Then I shoveled coal for a while. Tried factory work, making twine and paper collars, but I couldn't stand being cooped up all day, and the pay was shit. A fella with the Little Daybreak Boys on the waterfront found me a place in the gang as a lookout on robberies. I crawled through the portholes of the ships docked at the piers to steal shit for 'em. But then I got too big to fit through, so I left.”

The boys approached a grocery stand on the corner of Madison Avenue and Rutgers Street.

“Ya hungry, Charlie?” Before Charlie could answer, Eddie pulled him inside a doorway. “Well, I'm gonna show you a trick. See that old man in the apron? You go up to him and ask what's the best way to City Hall. Then pretend to be confused and ask him to repeat it.”

Charlie felt a flush of excitement surge up his back. He casually strolled up to the man, who could see by his clothes that he wasn't the usual filthy guttersnipe. The old man was straining to see if the kid's mother was behind him when Charlie asked for directions. With the man's back turned, Eddie helped himself to generous amounts of fruit from the stand, stuffing them inside his tattered shirt. He crossed the street and continued up Madison Avenue. A moment or two later, Charlie caught up with him.

“Good job. Have a peach.”

Charlie bit into the ripe fruit, wiping the juice from his mouth with his sleeve. It seemed to taste more delicious because it was stolen.

At the newspaper office, Eddie pushed his way through dozens of other newsboys to get his papers. They all seemed to know and like him. Charlie was proud to be with someone so popular. The two boys took the Second Avenue Elevated downtown to the Hanover Square station. During the ride, Eddie opened the
Sun
and scanned the pages.

“You know,” he boasted, “I can read and write real good. And I can read big words too—like parliament.” A moment later, he cried out, “Look, a man got bit by a rabid dog on Avenue A. That's what'll be our hook. Murders, animal attacks, fires, robberies. Those all sell papers. So you yell out, ‘Man killed by rabid dog.'”

Charlie looked down at the article. “It says he was just bit. We'd be lying.”

“Don't worry. He'll be dead before the week's out. The newspaper business, Charlie, is nothing but lies.”

Eddie and Charlie each took a position at the bottom of the uptown and downtown stairs to the Hanover Square station and hawked their papers. As the crowds rushed by, Charlie screamed out the headline. To his delight, pennies were thrust into his hand until every paper was sold. When Eddie was finished, they met by the entrance to the nearby Hanover Bank.

“Here you go,” Charlie said, proudly pouring his money into Eddie's hands.

“Hey, you're a born newsie.”

“I have to get home, but I'll meet you at your place tomorrow morning,” Charlie said and bounded up the station steps.

• • •

Eddie watched Charlie as he left and could see that he was beside himself with joy, which made Eddie feel happy and sad at the same time. That always happened when he thought about Harry, his little brother, and Charlie reminded him of Harry. Thinking about the fun times they'd had made Eddie feel so good, but then he would descend into a deep sadness.

Harry had been thrown out of the house at the same time as Eddie. Together, they fended for themselves on the streets. Harry would serve as lookout while Eddie lifted items from a store or warehouse. Sometimes, Harry would even squirm inside an open window and do the stealing himself. They were quite a team. But Harry wasn't as strong as Eddie, and the street life wore him down. He was sick all the time, coughing up blood and getting such bad night sweats that his body would shake convulsively, as though he were in a carriage moving over cobblestones.

Three years ago, they'd had one of the coldest winters on record. Shivering, Eddie woke one morning from a bed of rags at the bottom of a basement stair off an alley. His feet and fingers felt numb. He gave Harry a gentle shake, but his brother didn't stir. Pulling the filthy, torn blanket away, Eddie discovered that his brother had frozen to death. Harry was stiff as a board, his eyes staring up at the sky.

That morning, Eddie did something he hadn't done for years: cry. He sobbed for hours, hunched over by the side of his brother's body. He knew he couldn't call the police or a doctor. If he did, he'd wind up in an orphanage for sure. So he waited until dark, and then he wrapped his little brother up, carrying him to the front of a Methodist church a few blocks away. He knew the congregation would give Harry a real burial.

Walking away from Harry's body was one of the loneliest things Eddie had ever done. The feeling of that horrible day stayed with him.