A Promise of Ruin Read online

  Fortunately for me and the Greens, by the time we arrived at 105th Street, Simon’s boat had drawn even with the competition, whose faster pace had apparently proved unsustainable. Finn joined the Wieran supporters pressed three deep against the marble yard fence, cheering and pounding his neighbors on the back as the boats glided past. I drew up panting behind him, squeezing the stitch in my side and ducking reflexively as a firecracker exploded nearby. Fenced-in stone and coal yards lined the next several hundred feet of waterfront, blocking further progress by the spectators. A few of the more faithful had accordingly climbed down from the manure pier and were wading unsteadily into the water, shouting out drunken advice to the receding oarsmen. I was wondering if Finn expected me to do the same, when he turned and said, “Come on, Doc! This way!”

  I followed him toward a black delivery van that was idling at the street corner. He opened the van’s passenger door and half lifted, half threw me onto the seat before hopping onto the running board beside me. “Go!” he shouted, banging his palm on the roof.

  Turning toward the driver, I was astonished to see that it was eleven-year-old Frankie the Pipes, one of the youngest Wieran Club members, whose moniker stemmed from an unusually high-pitched voice. At Finn’s command, Frankie slid forward on his seat to stand on the clutch pedal and moved the gear stick into position. As he raised his foot from the pedal, the van lurched forward, straight toward a woman and child stepping off the curb.

  “Frankie!” I cried.

  “Sorry,” he squeaked, swerving to avoid them before accelerating across 105th Street.

  I turned and peered through the opening behind me, at three older boys who were standing in the back of the van. “Why is Frankie driving?”

  “It’s his pop’s van,” Donny O’Meara answered glumly.

  “And I’m the only one who gets to drive it!” Frankie crowed, his narrow chest puffing with pride.

  Simon had told me that Frankie’s father, who eked out a meager living as a linen supplier, spent a large portion of his day in the local saloons and often enlisted Frankie to drive for him when he was “indisposed.” I doubted, however, that this little junket would meet with Mr. Dolan’s approval. “Did you ask your father if you could take it?”

  He shrugged. “Couldn’t,” he said without meeting my gaze. “He ain’t been home since last night.”

  I bit back a reprimand. Simon had introduced me to the current Wieran Club members shortly after we renewed our acquaintance, saying he’d welcome my advice on handling adolescent boys. I’d soon realized, however, that he had a far better grasp of the young male psyche than I ever would. Watching him manage budding rivalries, wounded pride, and the constant threat of fistfights, I’d come to understand that with these lads, a light hand was essential; you had to patiently draw out their better selves, not try to beat them out with a stick. Instead of scolding Frankie for taking the van, therefore, I merely grabbed hold of the door as he hurtled around the corner onto First Avenue and prayed that his father would remain oblivious for a few more hours.

  We were now entering the heart of Harlem’s Italian colony, where the Independence Day celebration was already well under way. Groups of dark-haired women in red and yellow shawls congregated on nearly every stoop, chatting among themselves or calling out to the barefooted children who gamboled around them, while vendors in jaunty caps strolled past them down the sidewalk, hawking colored ices and ropes of nuts and small tin pails carried on poles across their shoulders. On the roadway itself, a parade was in progress, with rows of red-shirted men moving in loose formation up the paving stones, weaving around clumps of matted refuse left over from the recent street cleaners’ strike. We inched past them up the avenue, unavoidably becoming part of the boisterous procession. Somewhere behind us, a brass band struggled through a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” while what sounded like a campaign chant drifted back to us from marchers up ahead. Everywhere I looked, red banners with a bearded man’s face and the words LA LIBERAZIONE E L’UNIFICAZIONE! flapped alongside the American flag, reminding me that today was not only America’s birthday, but the birthday of Giuseppe Garibaldi as well. A memorial was being dedicated to the beloved military hero on Staten Island this afternoon, and it seemed Italians all over the city were taking note.

  An impatient oath rang out from the back of the van. “Could you shake it, Frankie?” urged Donny O’Meara, who I’d heard had bet a full week’s wages on the race.

  “Not without running someone over,” I answered. Although the parading men were staying to one side of the road, much of the other side was taken up by women carrying giant wicker baskets and herding flocks of dark-haired children before them. Frankie tried to squeeze past a boy pulling two toddlers in a rickety cart but had to slam on the brakes as a hokey-pokey man darted across the street in front of us, ringing his big brass bell.

  “So run ’em over,” Donny growled. “We’re going to miss the finish at this rate.”

  “Aw, keep your pants on,” Frankie piped back.

  Donny reached over the seat and squeezed the back of his neck.

  “Get your meat hook off me!” said Frankie, twisting away from his hand and driving one wheel up over the curb in the process, nearly costing Finn his footing on the running board.

  “Look, boys!” I interjected. “There’s our chance!”

  The phalanx of marchers closest to us had paused to buy some ices, creating a widening gap between our van and the nearest intersection. Donny released Frankie, who somehow managed to get the van off the curb, through the gap, and to the corner without maiming anyone. Turning hard right onto 107th Street, he adjusted the throttle, worked the clutch and gear stick, and resumed his race toward the river, weaving deftly through a bevy of sanitation carts that were pumping chloride of lime into the alleyways. I had to admit, I was impressed. Although my family had owned a motorcar for more than a year, I myself hadn’t learned the first thing about operating it. I decided to ask our chauffeur to teach me at the first opportunity.

  We arrived at the foot of Pleasant Avenue in time to see the boats half a block upstream, with Wieran now well in the lead. Donny whooped his approval as we turned up the avenue and followed them north. Although the fans were sparser here, they still formed a nearly unbroken line along the riverfront, allowing us only occasional glimpses of the race. Finn fed us updates from the running board until Frankie, fed up with secondhand reports, sped ahead two blocks, jerked to a stop in the middle of the street, and jumped out of the van. I followed with the rest of the boys, running out onto the 110th Street pier just in time to see the Wierans row past, a full length ahead of the Oakley boat. Simon’s skin glistened with sweat and river spray as he drove his oar cleanly, powerfully through the water, his timing steady as a metronome. The boys behind him were more ragged, their shoulders slumped and their mouths agape, but looked no less determined. The Wieran fans sent up an unholy roar, not stopping until the rowers were indistinguishable on the horizon.

  While the boys lingered to watch the receding rowers, I started back toward the idling van. The Consolidated Gas Company facilities occupied the entire next block, and Jefferson Park the three blocks after that, which meant we were going to have to make another detour and rejoin the race farther north. I was consulting my pendant watch, trying to calculate where we should attempt to rejoin them, when a collective moan rose from the spectators behind me.

  I turned and looked back toward the boys, who were staring upriver with matching expressions of dismay. Following their gaze, I saw the Wieran boat floating listlessly near the 112th Street recreation pier, its rowers at rest and their oar blades lying flat on the water.

  “What the Sam Hill?” muttered a mustachioed man on the bulkhead, spitting out a wad of tobacco as the Oakley crew overtook the lifeless boat and continued up the course.

  I ran back out over the pier to the boys. “What happened?”

>   No one answered me. I lifted my field glasses and found the boat in my sights. There was nothing obviously wrong with either the hull or the oarlocks. I focused on some swimmers splashing in the water near the end of the pier, wondering if they had interfered with the race somehow, but that wouldn’t account for the rowers remaining at a standstill. Swinging the glasses back to the boat, I saw Simon shout to someone on the lower pier deck before turning to speak to his crew. The starboard oarsmen took two strokes, nosing the bow toward the pier, followed by a few more strokes by the rowers in the stern, and then the boat glided out of sight along the northern side of the pier.

  “What’s going on?” Finn asked.

  I shook my head. “I can’t see anything wrong with the boat.”

  “Maybe Henry’s hand gave out on him.”

  “Maybe,” I said, although I’d examined the boy’s bruised hand myself and had been sure he was up to the race. “Or one of the other boys might have strained something.” I scanned the waterfront up ahead. The quickest way to get to the pier would be on foot. “I’m going to walk from here,” I told the boys. “Finn, see that Frankie gets the van back safely, will you?”

  I hurried back to the van ahead of them to grab my medical bag and then started up the avenue. I was halfway to the gas company fence before I realized they were all still behind me. I swung around to face them. “What are you doing?”

  “Going with you,” Frankie squeaked. “We don’t want to miss nothin’.”

  “You can’t leave your father’s van in the middle of the street!”

  His elfin features took on a familiar, stubborn expression.

  “Finn?” I entreated, looking to the older boy.

  “Come on,” said Finn, taking Frankie by the scruff of his neck and turning him back toward the van.

  I continued alone up the waterfront, skirting the fence and cutting across the empty loading docks toward the recreation pier. The sun was hot in the clear July sky, and I was damp and flushed by the time I arrived in Jefferson Park a few minutes later. Apparently, the park had been the Italian paraders’ destination, for red banners were everywhere in evidence, and a motley collection of brass bands near the pavilion was churning out a festive tune. I hurried on across the lawns, past children performing flag drills on the playgrounds and picnickers sprawled over blankets on the grass. Everywhere, the air rang with the shrieks of children and the happy chatter of adults.

  As I drew closer to the recreation pier, however, I was struck by the unnatural quiet that enveloped it. There should have been a holiday band playing on the upper deck and couples dancing and children launching early rockets across the river. Instead, I heard only the flapping of the flags on the pier roof, along with a low murmur from clumps of people huddled along the north railings of the pier and on the adjacent esplanade, all with their backs to me. I reached the jam on the esplanade and rose up on my toes to look beyond it. To my surprise, there was a policeman on the other side, holding the bystanders back. Clutching my medical bag to my chest, I led with my shoulder and pushed my way through the crowd.

  Chapter Two

  I broke through to the front and stopped short. A few yards up ahead, a wet body lay inert on the walkway, surrounded by Simon, a second police officer, and a fireman with a dripping rope coiled over one shoulder. For a few heart-stopping seconds, I thought it might be one of Simon’s boys—until a quick count of the oarsmen huddled a dozen yards up the esplanade reassured me. Taking another, longer look, I realized from its clothing that the body was female.

  I called to Simon, who came over and spoke a few words to the policeman standing guard. The policeman stepped aside to let me pass.

  “What happened?” I asked Simon as he led me a few steps from the crowd.

  “A couple of boys swimming under the pier found her caught up in some rotten pilings,” he said, his face showing the strain of his discovery. “She’d been under for a while. We had to pull her out with a rope.”

  “Do you want me to take a look?”

  “Better let the coroner’s physician handle it. The ambulance is on its way.” He glanced toward the rowers on the bank. “You could come check on the lads with me, though. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them since we pulled her out.”

  We started toward the rowers, which required passing the lifeless body on the esplanade. We were nearly to it when a dusty police wagon drove up on the grass on the other side of the esplanade railing and sputtered to a stop, followed by a horse-drawn ambulance. We stopped to watch a non-uniformed man jump out of the wagon and climb over the rail to join the others by the body.

  “That’s Detective Norton, from the 104th Street Station,” Simon said. “He’s going to want to talk to me.”

  “Should I leave?” I asked.

  “No, it’s all right; he’s a friend. I play poker with him and the boys from the station. I’ll explain things to him.”

  The detective conferred briefly with the patrolman, then circled around the body toward Simon.

  Simon nodded in greeting. “Jimmy.”

  The detective nodded back. “I understand you found her?”

  “I just pulled her out. We were in the middle of a race when some swimmers spotted her and called us over.”

  The detective turned to me, cocking an eyebrow. “And this is?”

  “Our team physician, Dr. Genevieve Summerford,” Simon said. “She was just about to check on the boys with me. They’ve had a pretty nasty shock.”

  I noted the telltale flicker of surprise in the detective’s eyes upon hearing that I was a doctor and waited for the usual snort of disbelief, but he only nodded again before turning back to Simon. “You want to show me exactly where the body was, first?”

  They started toward the river’s edge, followed by the uniformed patrolman and the fireman, leaving me temporarily alone on the esplanade.

  I took a tentative step closer to the drowned woman. Although I’d been trained to face all kinds of death with detachment, my personal memories sometimes made this difficult. The accidental death of my younger brother when I was twelve—a death I had long blamed myself for—continued to exert a hold on me, occasionally triggering emotions that caught me by surprise. Now, as I gazed at the crumpled form on the pathway with the stillness of death upon it, my breath began to thicken in my chest as an old pain echoed inside me. Giving myself a mental push, I crossed the remaining distance between us.

  She was really more of a girl than a woman, I realized now, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years of age, lying on her side in a semifetal position with strands of damp, dark hair across her face. Her light-brown eyes were open and glistening, her olive complexion mottled by livor mortis. A finger-long gash, only partially healed, ran across her cheek, while a chain of purplish-red bruises marred the skin on her neck. Oddly enough, considering the season, she was wearing a long winter coat, trimmed with red and yellow braid on the cuffs and lapels. A small gold cross had fallen out from behind the unfastened top button and was hanging by a chain over one lapel. Glancing lower, I noted that the shoes were missing from her stockinged feet. “What happened to you?” I whispered.

  Simon and the others were starting back from the water. I took a step back, wanting to hear their thoughts and hoping not to be expelled from the scene.

  “The park keeper told Officer Dennis that he didn’t see or hear anything unusual during the night or early this morning,” the detective was saying as they drew up beside the body.

  “Well, she couldn’t have gone in within the last couple of hours,” Simon replied. “She was stiff as a board when we found her. Not to mention that with so many people around the pier, someone would have been sure to notice.”

  It was true that if rigor mortis was already established when they found her, the girl must have died long before the morning’s festivities got underway. I wondered if she might have fallen in som
ewhere upriver during the evening and been carried down by the tide.

  “She could have been dead before she hit the water,” the detective mused, crouching beside the body. “That would explain the bruises on her neck.”

  “You’re thinking she was strangled?” Simon asked, squatting beside him.

  The detective shrugged. “These dagoes have hot tempers. Could’ve been a jealous boyfriend, or a Black Hand kidnapping gone wrong.”

  I looked back at the lifeless body in alarm. Over the past two years, the Italian criminal element known as the Black Hand had established a disturbing presence in a number of American cities, nowhere more boldly than in New York. Engaging primarily in extortion, the group preyed mercilessly on its fellow countrymen, killing them or bombing their businesses if they didn’t capitulate to its demands. Usually, these demands were made in a letter signed with a crudely drawn black hand, skull, or other sinister symbol.

  In recent months, the group’s activity had spread from the downtown Italian district of Manhattan into the newer colonies in Harlem and Brooklyn. As if tormenting their hardworking countrymen with knives and bombs wasn’t enough, the extortionists had also taken to kidnapping their children, ensuring that even the most courageous succumbed to their demands. But until now, the kidnappings had always been of little boys. If the young woman lying before me had died at their hands, it could signal a whole new kind of terror for the city.

  “That cut on her face looks too old to be from a recent attack,” Simon observed. “It’s already partially scabbed over.”

  “The bruises are fresh enough,” Norton replied.