Behind the Iron Read online

  Fallon moved carefully.

  “Four here, one, ye say, beyond this dung heap, and one back with our sleeping beauty. This would be what we woulda called, in me days with the Irish Brigade many years ago back during the late war, a running fight.”

  “I would have preferred just running,” Fallon said, “but they had us boxed in.”

  “Us?”

  Fallon nodded. “After I stepped off the street and called out for these thugs to stop, they kind of circled around us.” He figured to tell the rest of the story close to the truth. “The man in the nice clothes took two of them. I went after four others.”

  The free hand pointed inside the canyon.

  “And wha’ did ye use on this one’s face? Or, perhaps I should say, what be left of his face.”

  “Whatever I had handy,” Fallon answered. “And that included a horseshoe. And the heel of my boot.”

  “Bloody hell,” the copper said. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

  “I didn’t ask their names,” Fallon said. “They didn’t give them.”

  The face turned blank. The copper’s mouth opened underneath the mustache. Finally, he understood the joke and grinned, but the smile did not last more than a second. “Dunna get smart with the sergeant back at our fine little station, me boy. He isn’t as nice as I am. And ye most definitely dunna want to get smart, or funny, with Judge Killian when ye go before him.”

  He pointed toward MacGregor.

  Fallon started walking.

  The copper kept talking.

  “Seven arrests. That’ll make Judge Killian happy. And seeing how bad these blokes are, it shall please Doctor Ishee, too. The city has to pay him, ye see, for treating unfortunate thieves.”

  “How are you getting all of these men to your jail?” Fallon asked. “Or the nearest hospital?”

  “I dunna have enough manacles for all these blokes, laddie, so when we reach the street, I shall send someone to the precinct for a wagon.” He chuckled. “And maybe an ambulance or three.”

  They walked.

  “Stop,” the Irishman said suddenly when Fallon reached the bodies. MacGregor’s head was turning left and right, right and left, and his eyeballs were fluttering beneath the eyelids.

  “It appears that ye friend might have his faculties returning,” the policeman said, and he took a few steps past Fallon. He looked at the detective, and something caught his eye.

  “Bend down,” the policeman said. “Pull back that coat a wee bit.”

  Fallon obeyed. The Irishman’s pale eyes widened. “Now, be so kind as to read the words engraved on that piece of brass.”

  Fallon stared at the shield pinned to the lapel of MacGregor’s vest. He looked again at the copper, and a thought struck him. Maybe the policeman could not read.

  “It says,” Fallon started, and he lied: “Pinkerton National Detective Agency.”

  The copper took a step back. “Ye dunna say?”

  Fallon shrugged. MacGregor’s eyes opened, closed, and the head shook.

  “Mac?” Fallon said softly. “Are you coming around, Mac? It’s all right. We have a Chicago police officer here. And those six curs that tried to mug you, and then beat the hell out of both of us, are out of the game. Mac? Mac?”

  “That’ll be enough of yer gabbing, laddie,” the copper said.

  Fallon looked up, and then past the policeman, and felt his stomach begin to sour.

  “Officer,” Fallon said in a hoarse whisper. “There’s a big man coming up behind you. And he’s really soft on his feet for a man that size.”

  The police officer chuckled. “Ye must think I was raised by a couple of dunces, laddie.” He waved the big .45. “If that lad comes to, good for him. But I think ye, the fine hero that ye claim to be, and I need to make our way to the street so we can get some assistance. On ye feet, me lad. On . . .”

  He must have felt the presence, or maybe he at last heard the sounds of Aaron Holderman’s big feet as the bearded giant crept down the alley.

  The copper whirled, but Aaron Holderman’s huge fist flashed. The mugger, Fallon realized, was not the only person donning some brass knuckles on this fine day. Fallon grimaced as the heavy weapon connected against the Irishman’s forehead, just above the corner of his right eye. The sound was sickening. The pistol discharged, and Fallon felt the bullet slice just inches over his head and whine as it ricocheted off a stone and again off the bricks of the nearest building.

  Down crashed the cop with a moan, and a groan, and a thud.

  “What the hell happened?” Holderman sang out. “What did you do to Dan?”

  “Hell,” Fallon said. He pointed down the alley, and Holderman turned on his heels and began waving his big hand at the crowd that had gathered. “Get out of here, you mugs!” he shouted. “Mind your own damned business.”

  The man in the sack suit, the priest and the nun, and the woman with the parasol turned and disappeared. But Fallon could hear their screams.

  “Help! Help! Police! Police!”

  “They’re murdering some poor men down that alley!”

  Holderman spun back. His face showed panic as he realized what was happening. “Mr. MacGregor will have my head on a stick,” he said.

  “Help me get Dan to his feet.” Fallon struggled. Consciousness was slowly returning to the addled Dan MacGregor. Once Dan was standing, but only with the support of Fallon and Holderman, Fallon shoved him over Holderman’s shoulder.

  “Follow me,” Fallon shouted, and he took off down the alley. He could hear the whistles now from down the street, and more voices began crying out for help, for mercy, for the police.

  They made it to the canyon between the mounds of garbage. They did not try to avoid the unconscious vermin that blocked their way, but only tried not to trip over the bodies. They came through and moved toward the other street. Those whistles grew louder. Fallon turned abruptly to his left. He saw the rickety door that led inside one of the dirty brick buildings. He stopped just long enough to kick it open, breaking the lock and knocking the rotting wood off one of its hinges.

  He ran through the building, pushing cobwebs past him, breathing in the rank and musty smell of the abandoned, darkened building. The light from the opening was all he had, but it was enough. They rounded a corner, and Fallon spotted more light a few yards down a littered hallway. The light was at the floor, with a little more creeping down the side. Fallon kicked that door open, too, but this one was solid. It took two more kicks. Then they were out in the street.

  He could still hear the whistles and shouts. But he saw one chance. He stepped into the street and waved his hands over his head.

  The driver of the hack managed to stop before the dun horse ran over Hank Fallon.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The driver stood in the box of the wagon, still pulling tightly on the reins. “What is . . . ?” he started, but Fallon had already stepped back to the sidewalk.

  “We’ve got a hurt man here,” he said. He jerked the door to the cab open. A handsome woman in a fine evening dress gasped.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Fallon said, as he held out his hands. “But we have a man who has been seriously injured. We need to get him to a hospital immediately. He’s a detective. A Pinkerton man. He was hurt stopping a brutal beating.”

  Fallon helped the woman out. He could hear footsteps from inside the tenement.

  “Get him in the hack!” Fallon bellowed at Holderman. The big fool moved to the door as Fallon helped the lady, who smelled of lilacs and rouge, to the sidewalk. He pulled one of the double eagles from his pocket and placed it in the woman’s tiny left hand.

  “For your troubles, ma’am.”

  The woman’s eyes sparkled.

  Fallon fished out another coin. “And this one,” he said, as Holderman climbed into the cab and managed to pull Dan MacGregor’s feet into the wagon. “This one, too,” Fallon said. “If you’d be so kind as to tell the police that we went”—he indicated the opposite direction—
“that way.”

  He smiled his most charming smile, and turned, planted a boot on the hub of the front wheel, and pulled himself into the box beside the driver.

  “Hey, now,” the hack started, “just a danged minute. We don’t allow riders . . .”

  “Shut up.” Fallon sat. “Move, damn your hide!” he yelled. “We’re carrying a hurt man inside. Gravely injured. A Pinkerton detective. Hurry.”

  The wagon was already moving, picking up speed. The driver slashed out with a whip. The coach turned right at the corner, just as Fallon looked back to see the handsome woman turning toward a squad of Chicago’s finest spilling out of the abandoned building.

  “Turn left,” Fallon said, “at the next street.”

  The coachman obeyed. Fallon caught his breath.

  “What hospital?” the hack called out.

  Fallon turned around and leaned toward the door and windows.

  “Hey!” he shouted above the rattle of the wheels and hooves as the coach rolled along. “How is he doing?”

  “Comin’ around!” Holderman yelled back. “What the hell was . . .”

  “Shut up!”

  Fallon pulled himself back around. Damn, he could use a strong shot of whiskey right about now.

  “Mac,” the coachman said, “what hospital you want me to take your detective to?”

  Fallon found another gold piece. He set it on the seat between the driver and himself. The driver saw it, his eyes widened, and he looked back toward backside of his horse and the road.

  “What hospital?” the man asked again.

  “Forget the hospital, friend,” Fallon said. “Just find us a saloon. A quiet one. But not too far away. And then, why don’t you take a nice ride to Lake Michigan.”

  “Anything you say, capt’n.” The coachman eased back on the reins, and let his right hand pick up the gold coin and slide it inside his pants pocket.

  * * *

  They sat at a corner table in a dark little saloon that smelled of pipe smoke, beer. and strong liquor.

  The driver had told Fallon that they would be fine inside the little hole in the wall. “Just tell them that Franciszek Nowakowski says to take good care of you.”

  Fallon wasn’t sure he pronounced the name right to the bartender or even if the bartender understood English, but they had a good view of the street, and no one bothered them.

  Dan MacGregor kept rubbing his head and sipping the clear, potent whiskey in front of him. Aaron Holderman was on his fourth stein of porter. Fallon was only halfway through the black, bitter coffee that would put hair on a bald man’s head and likely float an ironclad.

  “They were waiting for us,” MacGregor said at last.

  “Who was waiting for you?” Holderman asked. “That copper? I took care of him.”

  “Shut up,” Fallon told him.

  Holderman glared.

  MacGregor stopped rubbing his head. Now he turned toward the big mass of muscle.

  “I told you to wait for us at the depot,” MacGregor said.

  “I was. And when you didn’t come . . .”

  “We weren’t that late,” MacGregor said.

  Holderman set his stein down, but not until he had finished it.

  “I don’t think we were late at all,” Fallon said. “In fact, from what I remember of the train station, you barely had time to get there yourself.”

  “That ain’t true, Dan,” Holderman said. “He’s tryin’ to play you ag’in me, Dan. You was out cold. And don’t forget that I stopped that mick from cartin’ the both of you to the calaboose.”

  MacGregor stared hard at Holderman, then shot Fallon a cold stare. He sipped the liquor again and looked out the window. No policemen. Just the typical bustle of hardworking immigrants heading home or to saloons or to work.

  “What time is it?” MacGregor asked.

  Holderman told him.

  “When’s the next train to St. Louis?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you find out? Now.”

  “Dan,” Holderman said, “you ought to see a doctor. You taken a nasty lump, and that knot on your head ain’t gettin’ no smaller.”

  “Get out,” MacGregor said. “Get to the station, get tickets on the last train tonight, and then get back here in time to make sure we get to the station safely.”

  “I’m not sure I can find this place again.”

  “Some detective you are.”

  Holderman started to lean forward, whispering, “Now, Dan, you need to listen . . .”

  “And don’t stop to talk to my father on your way to the station. If I think you’ve said one word or sent one word to my old man, you’ll disappear. The lake’s pretty deep this time of year. And I know where my father likes to drop the bodies so they never rise to the surface.”

  Holderman rose. His hands were shaking. “All right.” He started for the door but stopped and turned back. “But what if there ain’t no more trains to St. Louis tonight?”

  “Then get us on the first train tomorrow.”

  He made it a few feet this time before MacGregor stopped him by calling out his name.

  Once Holderman turned, MacGregor said, “If you’re not back here in a half hour, with tickets, we’ll be heading to the docks to take a trip across the lake.”

  The nod was barely perceptible in the smoky haze before Aaron Holderman rushed out of the door.

  MacGregor picked up his glass, sipped the liquor, and rubbed his head again. “I suppose I need to thank you.”

  Fallon shrugged. “For what?”

  “You took four of them?” MacGregor let a mirthless smile cross his face. “I couldn’t even handle two.”

  Fallon gave the detective another shrug. “Four men against one? They have a tendency to be extremely overconfident. Two against one? Well, those know that in a brawl, in a saloon or an alley or anywhere, anything is possible. Besides, you were in the open. I had those four where I wanted them. No, not where I wanted them. Just where I needed them to be. Worked in my favor. But I was lucky. Damned lucky.”

  “I still don’t know how you managed it. And then you took the one who knocked me out, too.”

  The coffee was cold and seemed even stronger now. “I’ve had experience at these sorts of things.”

  “Yeah.”

  Fallon grinned. “I don’t always win.”

  MacGregor’s laugh sounded genuine. “I am a detective. I detect things. I investigate things. Fighting”—he gestured with his glass of whiskey toward the front door to the groggery—“that I leave to men like Aaron Holderman.”

  “Holderman’s no man,” Fallon said.

  This time, MacGregor polished off the whiskey in a savage gulp. “He set us up.”

  Fallon shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “You called it.” MacGregor’s eyes had started to water, most likely from the shot of what might have been two hundred-proof, Polish rotgut whiskey. Or maybe from that big bump on his head. “You called him on the distance to the train depot.”

  “Dan,” Fallon said softly, “I don’t even know where the station is. From here. Or from that alley. I haven’t been in Chicago long enough to know where anything is. Hell, I don’t even know where I’m supposed to live.”

  MacGregor laughed again. “Trust me. You probably don’t want to find out.” He raised his hand as though to signal the bartender for another drink, but immediately thought better of that. The hand fell onto the table. He stared at Fallon.

  “Well, you were right.”

  “A lucky guess.”

  “Are you always this lucky?”

  “I’m alive.”

  The young man leaned forward, sighed, and propped his elbows on the table and folded his hands around his face. His head shook. “It was my father, you know.”

  Fallon remained quiet.

  “He arranged our little greeting party.”

  “Not Holderman?” Fallon was testing the detective.

  “You’re not stupid, Hank
.”

  “I’ve already told you. My friends call me Hank.”

  “I’m trying to be your friend. And you know as well as anyone that Aaron Holderman couldn’t arrange that kind of ambush. That was Father’s doing.”

  Fallon knew not to interrupt. He would let the still-reeling Dan MacGregor keep talking until he wised up and realized whom he was talking to. Only MacGregor stopped talking. He merely stared across the table at Fallon.

  “Your father,” Fallon said, “wanted you, or me, to get beaten to hell.”

  “Me beaten to hell. You killed.”

  Fallon leaned back. “He’s sending me to Jefferson City. Why would he want me dead here, when I can easily get buried in that dungeon?”

  “He’s not sending you to the Missouri pen. I am.”

  Fallon shot a glance at the bar, but now was not the time to start drinking. MacGregor whispered. “I told you that I’m your friend.”

  Now, it was Fallon’s time to chuckle. “My friends have sent me to nicer places than those bloody acres along the Missouri River.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Dan MacGregor studied the lawman. He wasn’t smiling at Fallon’s joke. Instead, he said, “My father promised you something. But you know he doesn’t aim for you to get what you want.”

  “And what is it that I want?”

  “Revenge. Maybe justice. That’s what I thought at first, when Father first came up with this idea. Justice. You were a lawman. But I think Joliet changed you.”

  “I wouldn’t be the first.”

  MacGregor sighed. “I guess you wouldn’t.” Two minutes passed before MacGregor spoke again. “I asked you before: Why did you get sent to Joliet, a state prison in Illinois, and not Detroit, where federal prisoners typically go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You might think about that. If you get out of this job alive.” He leaned forward, came close to the table, and leaned across it. “Father can help you get that revenge, or justice, or whatever you decide you want.”

  What about you? Fallon considered asking but thought that might shut up the kid whose head had to be pounding. Or maybe it was guilt, or something else, that had the youngster talking.

  “Look. Father needed your help for that job you did in Yuma. But he knows you double-crossed him by letting the Pinkertons take all that glory.” Now, MacGregor straightened and laughed. Again he leaned back in his chair. “That was beautiful, Hank. Beautiful. Not many men I know can pull something like that against the great Sean MacGregor.”