Evil of the Age Read online

  First Yucca Publishing edition 2014

  Copyright © 2012 by Allan Levine

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  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Print ISBN: 978–1-63158–011-6

  Ebook ISBN: 978–1-63158–027-7

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  For Angie, with love

  Thirty-two years and still smiling

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  One: A Trunk at Hudson Depot

  Two: At Fox’s Weekly

  Three: Initial Investigations

  Four: St. Clair Receives an Offer

  Five: An Altercation at The Hole-in-the-Wall

  Six: Paddy and Corkie

  Seven: Breakfast at the Fifth Avenue Hotel

  Eight: An Inquiry is Made

  Nine: An Arrangement with Mr. Flint

  Ten: Detective Murray Makes an Arrest

  Eleven: A Toast to Crédit Mobilier

  Twelve: A Treacherous Attack

  Thirteen: Who is Lucy Maloney?

  Fourteen: An Oversight or a Lie?

  Fifteen: Mr. Fowler Pays a Visit

  Sixteen: A Bowl of Oyster Stew

  Seventeen: An Unexpected Knock at the Door

  Eighteen: The Tombs

  Nineteen: “Hang Her!”

  Twenty: More Questions

  Twenty-One: Miss Mildred

  Twenty-Two: Secrets

  Twenty-Three: Arabian Nights

  Twenty-Four: A Verdict of Guilty

  Twenty-Five: The Roorback

  Twenty-Six: Two More Guests for the Summer Ball

  Twenty-Seven: Deception

  Twenty-Eight: Confessions

  Twenty-Nine: A Lapse of Judgment

  Thirty: A Journal Entry

  Thirty-One: Summer Ball Revelation

  Thirty-Two: Midnight

  Epilogue: Evil of the Age

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Allan Levine

  “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (St. Matthew 5:45). What is the evil that St. Matthew speaks of? Does he mean the serpent in the Garden of Eden and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does any mortal truly know? Only God can judge man and therefore the hazy line between light and darkness is for him, and him alone to determine.

  Charles St. Clair, “Evil of the Age,” Fox’s Weekly, Vol. LXX, New York, Monday, September 4, 1871

  New York City

  Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.

  PROLOGUE

  Fox’s Weekly

  Vol. LXX, New York, Monday, August 14, 1871

  “New York Street Scenes: Number 12”

  A monthly series by Charles St. Clair

  ANY VISITOR TO NEW YORK this hot summer will surely notice the contrasts that now characterize the city’s various neighborhoods. It may be only a few miles from Fifth Avenue to Five Points, but who could imagine, unless you witnessed it with your own eyes, that such a short distance offered so completely opposite scenes of streets and people? The last census revealed that New York and the surrounding area will soon boast a population of more than two million people. And yet, how many of our citizens live in abject poverty and misery?

  The grand mansions on Fifth Avenue, department stores on Broadway and Sixth Avenue, exquisite horse-drawn carriages seen on Sunday afternoons in Central Park, and the daily crowd of superbly attired gentlemen and ladies at Delmonico’s and other fine dining establishments are testimony that many New Yorkers enjoy everything modern life has to offer. For these select men and women there are festive balls, literary clubs, and enchanting theatre to attend.

  But should our visitor take a ride on a congested omnibus east or west of Fifth Avenue and south of Houston Street, provided of course that he can tolerate the foul odors of these public transportation wagons, he would discover an entirely different environment where crime, prostitution, and drunkenness are rampant. Whether it is in Five Points, Hell’s Kitchen, or Kleindeutschland (east of the Bowery and north of Division Street) there are Irish and German b’hoys to contend with. They are never to be trusted. Most are thieves, robbers, and pimps who will slit their own mothers’ throats if they thought they could get away with it.

  If not confronted by the criminal element, then our visitor is more than likely to be accosted by beggars. Most readers will agree that it is seemingly impossible to go anywhere in New York lately without being pestered by veterans of the last war. If truth be told, they are a pathetic bunch. Many of them have lost an arm or leg, others are blind or deformed. As a group they are seemingly without hope.

  They served their country protecting the Union and fighting the Confederacy. Once the battle had been won, the government instructed them to return to their former lives as clerks, blacksmiths, dockworkers, laborers, and bar keeps. Many were able to do so. But for thousands more who were wounded on the battlefields of Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg their options were limited. Most drink too much whiskey and are forced to beg on the streets in order to survive. They sell used shoelaces or stand begging with organ grinders. They are in railway stations, at ferry houses, and by the waterfront . . .

  Lucy Maloney was late. Her appointment had been arranged for two o’clock in the afternoon. Why had she not listened to George and permitted him to hail her a hansom cab? As one of a dozen or so doormen employed by the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where she resided, George made it a habit to keep his eye on the street traffic. For a Negro, she had decided, he was unusually astute. He sparkled in his blue uniform with its distinctive tails hanging down below his waist, gold string tassels on his shoulders, and a smart-looking hat with a black patent peak.

  “You heading downtown, Miss Lucy?” he had asked her. “I think a cab would definitely be quicker. I hear there was an accident at the corner of Broadway and Ninth. Some foolish boy on a wagon ran right into a carriage. At least two horses went down. It may be hours until they clear it away.”

  “That’s fine, George, I think I’ll walk,” she had told him.

  “In this heat, you’ll likely faint again, Miss Lucy. Be sure to use your parasol.”

  “Of course, George. I can always count on you.”

  She began walking down Broadway, then turned and waved to him one last time. George was correct about something else too—She had not been feeling well of late.

  Each morning for
the past two weeks, she had awakened nauseated and her stomach uncomfortably queasy. She had instructed the hotel maid to leave a bucket beside her bed and had regularly made use of it. What was the point of dining out if her dinner was only to end up at the bottom of a bucket? Then, only two days ago, she had collapsed in the reception area of the hotel. Such a fuss. George and Mr. Buckland, the hotel’s manager, had helped her into to her suite. It was merely the heat, she had told them. The summer weather was unusually hot, the mercury and humidity high.

  But even as she spoke the words, she knew it was a lie. Mildred Potter, one of her closest and dearest friends, who knew nearly all of her secrets, had insisted that she see her physician.

  “It could be the consumption, heaven forbid,” Mildred had warned her.

  She reassured Mildred that she was not going to perish. That it was another ailment, not life threatening, but serious nonetheless. She was unwell, as Mildred and the other ladies she had tea and cakes with each afternoon would have so delicately put it. Her time of the month had come and gone and there had been no blood flowing. She was experienced enough to know what had to be done, and immediately before quickening occurred.

  Once there was quickening, once she could feel movement in her belly, finding a solution to this problem would be much more difficult—not impossible, but definitely more dangerous. She had told no one about her predicament, not even the father of her unborn child. It would have caused so much confusion and pain. She had stupidly allowed herself to become involved in a situation that she could not control. And after she had worked so diligently to make a decent life for herself. She blushed at the thought of her foolishness.

  There were no available cabs in sight. A Broadway omnibus was approaching and she decided to climb on board—as distasteful as she found public transportation. She walked straight ahead, delicately lifting up her canary yellow organdy dress so that it would not come into contact with the dust and dirt on the floor. She deliberately did not look at any of the other passengers and attempted not to inhale the foul air. Still, she felt nauseated and dizzy, as she had at the hotel. She found a seat near the middle of the bus, drew her shawl around her shoulders, and tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.

  As the bus lurched forward, Lucy began to perspire and her hands started to shake. She breathed deeply and tried to calm herself. But she was frightened—there was no denying it. Who knew what terrors awaited her? She had heard stories of girls who had visited midwives and abortionists and who had bled to death or died in tremendous pain from ingesting poisonous concoctions. According to newspaper and magazine accounts she had seen, these women had taken a variety of strange herbal medicines including, ergot, savin, and black hellebore.

  Only last month, Lucy had read about the case of Maria Alder, an unmarried woman found dead in a boarding house in Philadelphia. The police had discovered that the poor woman had visited a quack named Benson, who had operated on her. Yet there had been medical complications, bleeding and infection, and he had cruelly left her to die an agonizing death. Lucy had plans for the future and much to live for. She was not about to meet such an unsavory end.

  She tried to put these horrific thoughts out of her head. Over and over again she told herself that within a few hours her problems would be resolved. There was no other way. But it was to no avail—she could not stop shaking and felt sick to her stomach.

  As the two great horses slowly dragged the bus down Broadway, she clasped her hands tightly together. At that moment, she felt more alone than she ever had in her entire life.

  A few feet away, the dark eyes of another passenger locked on to her. He pulled his hat low, and contemplated his next move.

  Chapter One

  A TRUNK AT HUDSON DEPOT

  Paddy Tritt pulled tight on the leather reins. So hard that Queenie, his chestnut nag, lurched forward before she completely stopped. “God damn horse,” he muttered. “What’s wrong with you today? I’ll bet it’s that racket. Can’t say I blame you, girl.” There was no mistaking his thick Irish accent.

  Like most of his friends and acquaintances who also resided in the dilapidated slums of Five Points or Hell’s Kitchen—quarrymen, street laborers, sewer and ditch diggers, and dock workers—Paddy was dressed in a white shirt streaked in dirt, brown pants held up by thin suspenders, and old, dusty, black boots. On his head was—apart from Queenie and his wagon—his most prized possession, a black plug hat.

  Paddy found a secluded alleyway close to the corner of Eighth Avenue and Twenty-Second Street to leave his rig. He gave his hungry horse some feed, and could not help but take a moment to admire his wagon. It wasn’t much to look at, he knew—no more than a large open wooden box sitting on top of four spoke wheels, one of which was badly in need of repair. Nonetheless, there was his name, P. Tritt printed on the side in large black block letters. What a beautiful sight that was, he thought.

  He chuckled to himself as he recalled, yet again, how two years ago, he had had a rare streak of luck at the faro table. The money he won was enough to buy himself a cart and horse. Since then, he had sufficient work to keep a roof over his head and some food on his table each day. He was a truckman with a fairly good reputation. Patting the side of his hat, he had to laugh out loud. What would Jimmy think of him now?

  Jimmy Doyle.

  Hardly a day went by when Paddy did not think about him. Jimmy, as every rogue south of Canal Street still acknowledged, was one of the meanest cusses to ever lead a gang in Five Points. Back in the forties, Doyle’s Plug Uglies ruled the Points like a band of medieval outlaws—and Jimmy was their undisputed prince. They protected their home territory with the cunning and ruthlessness of a pack of wild dogs, yet regularly exploited, stole from, and even murdered their own people if law and order—as Jimmy defined it—in the Points required it.

  The stylish high hat Paddy wore so proudly was a gift from Doyle. When Paddy was about six years old, Jimmy had found him wandering the streets and had taken him in. In those days, every Irishman was called a damned Paddy so that’s what Jimmy named him. He even taught Paddy how to read and write. When Jimmy was murdered in a gang brawl in 1851, Paddy was on his own again at fifteen.

  Paddy Tritt—he took the last name Tritt because he liked the sound of it—always took pride that he was a survivor. And he had seen it all—cholera, Nativists, who lived by the code ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Irishmen,’ Know-Nothings, gang wars between the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits . . . Paddy had fought on the side of the Bowery Boys . . . the Draft Riots of ’63 when he had watched a Negro beaten, lynched, and finally burned on Clarke Street, and more saloon fights than he cared to remember. He had cheated death a thousand times.

  Paddy was running his long grimy fingers through Queenie’s mane, when the horse was startled by the sound of gunfire. He steadied the nag and slowly made his way through the mud and manure to investigate the disturbance for himself. He had only taken a few steps when more gun shots echoed through the air. Ahead, he heard angry shouting and terrified screams. His good sense told him he should turn around and flee.

  Only last evening, however, he had assured his friends over a bottle of whiskey at Pete Ruley’s saloon that he would gladly join them to jeer the Orangemen who dared to flaunt their Protestant flags in a parade through Irish Catholic neighborhoods. And Paddy Tritt never broke a promise.

  He turned the corner onto Eighth Avenue and was nearly run over by a burley omnibus driver, who had left his rig and hackney a few feet away with the dumbfounded passengers still inside.

  Behind the terrified driver was a group of shrieking women.

  “Run for your life,” one of them yelled.

  There was blood streaming down her face. She desperately tried to grab hold of his arm. At that moment, a heavy-set soldier, wide-eyed, with a thin moustache, marched up behind her. Two more soldiers accompanied him. Before Paddy could react, the first solider thrust his bayoneted rifle into the woman’s back and swiftly retract
ed it.

  “Irish scum,” he muttered under his breath. “You don’t belong in this country.”

  The woman stared into Paddy’s eyes, a look of horror mixed with enormous sadness on her face. Blood spewed from her mouth as she slumped forward. Paddy dropped her and turned. One of the other soldiers aimed his rifle directly at Paddy’s head. He cocked his trigger, yet as he did so the woman’s friends rushed him. They grabbed at his hair and tore at his eyes with their fingers.

  Paddy frantically searched for something he could defend himself with, a piece of wood or a metal bar from a wagon. But there was nothing on the street he could use. His instincts of self-preservation were strong. Although no one could ever accuse of him being a coward, he realized that if he helped these women he would surely die.

  So he ran. In seconds all around him were more people fleeing from the soldiers and police firing indiscriminately into the Catholic masses, which had gathered along Eighth Avenue to protest the Orange parade.

  “Paddy, over here.” The familiar deep voice came from behind another abandoned omnibus.

  “Is that you, Big Frank?” he asked peering around the large passenger wagon.

  “Get down you fool or you’ll get us both killed.”

  Frank Connolly was at least ten years older than Paddy. He was not a particularly large man, other than around his midriff, and Paddy wasn’t certain why he was nicknamed Big Frank. Perhaps it was because his most distinguishing feature was two thick mutton-chop red side-whiskers that drooped onto his collar. Paddy immediately noticed that Connolly’s right arm was limp and that he was in pain.

  “Frank, what happened? You look as white as a ghost,” said Paddy in a whisper.

  “You got any chaw?”

  Paddy reached into his jacket pocket and broke off a small piece from a stringy plug of chewing tobacco he had been saving.

  Connolly took it with his left hand and pushed into his mouth between his teeth and gums. “Much obliged. My arm feels better already.”