ONE
Saturday
Kerry O’Toole pushed the big iron key into the brass lock of the African Free School, and jiggled it back and forth. The lock was new and poorly set, and the key needed finessing before it turned properly. John Teasman, the headmaster, had ordered the lock fitted a week earlier, after a lumberyard owned by a black man named Bonsel was burned to the ground. Fires were not uncommon in New York in 1803—the city was still made mostly of wood, and accidents happened—but everyone was saying that the fire that put Bonsel out of business was different. The Irish, black, and American nativist gangs were all struggling for control of what they considered to be their quarters of the city. And they were becoming more brazen and violent by the day. The African Free School was on Cliff Street, in the old Dutch district, and while it was endowed by some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in New York, it was still a Negro business in a neighborhood claimed by the nativists. Teasman wasn’t taking any chances.
Kerry twisted the key, and the tongue of the lock slid home.
The sound of a bell made its way up the street. She turned to the little girl in the long brown dress standing beside her. “How many chimes was that, Rosie?”
Two big, hazel eyes looked back. Rosie Tully’s fine, dark hair was tied back in two pigtails. She held up five fingers on one hand and one on the other.
“Six bells. Very good. Now, shall we see if we can find a cab?”
Rosie’s pigtails bounced.
Cliff Street was empty, but the sound of laughing and singing filtered up from the waterfront, just three blocks away. Kerry took a last look at the façade of the school, to be sure all the windows were closed. She slipped the heavy iron key into the pocket of her dress and touched the hilt of the long-bladed boning knife she kept there. She took the child by the hand.
Rosie was the youngest daughter of Tamsin and Seamus Tully, who owned Hughson’s Tavern on the North River waterfront. They often asked Kerry to mind their youngest on busy days. And Saturdays were always busy. Kerry would go to the tavern for a late luncheon, then take Rosie to the African Free School. Rosie would look at the pictures in the books and pamphlets while Kerry prepared her lessons for the following week. They would read together for a while, and then go home to Kerry’s house.
The little girl skipped ahead, tugging Kerry’s hand, and Kerry felt her throat close up.
Rosie slowed, and looked up at her with solemn eyes. Kerry smiled and squeezed her hand. She shifted her thoughts. How many women in this city had lost an infant child, to disease, fever, or cold? She was more fortunate than most. She had lost, but she had gained, too. When her own child had died, three years before, her future had looked empty. It was bad enough that she was the daughter of an Irish gangster and a runaway slave. Times were changing, but mixed-race children were generally assumed to be the offspring of black prostitutes and their white clients. They had few prospects for marriage or choice of career. Servant. Thief. Whore. Kerry had made her way as a pickpocket for a while when she was younger, so, when Daniel died, she was on the point of throwing herself back into the cesspools of the city. But Justy Flanagan had pulled her back. He had helped her to read and write and try another path. And everything had changed.
* * *
There were no cabs, and when they reached Beekman Street every hansom that passed was occupied. So they kept walking, up the shallow hill to Chatham Row and around the Park. They crossed the Broad Way, traversing the spine of Manhattan Island, and walked down into the New Town. The heels of Kerry’s boots clicked on the uneven cobbles, and she had to tread carefully to avoid turning an ankle. Landowners were throwing up townhouses and tenements as immigrants flooded into the city and demand soared. But the buildings here were thin-walled and rickety, the streets poorly paved. Most of the street lanterns in the area had been stolen, and those that remained were rarely lit.
The evening light threw long shadows in the lanes, and Kerry could feel the eyes on her, watching from dark windows and doors. This part of the city was still neutral territory, too far uptown for the nativists, and too new for the blacks or the Irish. Families were still moving in. But it wouldn’t be long before the population settled. And then the gangs would stake their claims and the fighting would start.
Even then, she would still be safe enough. Her father was O’Toole, the bloody right hand of the Bull, who controlled the East River waterfront and the Irish gangs. And her cousin was Lew Owens, whose heavy-handed enforcers took a piece of every business run by someone with colored skin, from brothels to bakeries. Everyone who lived in this part of New York knew who Kerry O’Toole was, and if they did not, if they had just recently arrived in the city and mistook her for a soft mark, the long, thin blade in her pocket would set them straight.
They walked on, towards the north end of the town. Kerry lived with her cousin, in a tiny, two-room cottage in the rear of an enormous compound, bigger than any house in the old Dutch quarter on the tip of Manhattan. It was nearly impossible for a black man to buy property in the city, but Lew Owens had persuaded a lawyer to do the conveyancing for him, and he was now one of the few Negro landowners in New York. The compound was well-sited, at the cusp of the new developments and the ramshackle shanties of Canvas Town, where most of the city’s free Negroes lived, and Owens’ gang held sway.
A light onshore breeze blew up the hill. It carried the stench of woodsmoke, roasting meat, and open latrines. Chapel Street narrowed further, hemmed in by a high brick wall and a row of rickety wooden tenements, divided by deep, narrow alleyways. The street had not yet been paved, and Kerry could feel the dampness of the ground through the leather soles of her shoes.
There was a mewing sound. Rosie stopped and looked up at Kerry, huge hazel eyes, her fingers in her mouth.
Kerry smiled. “Was that a kitty-cat?”
The soft whimper came again, floating out of one of the alleys. Kerry peered into the darkness. She felt the hair rising on the nape of her neck.
Rosie’s eyes were like saucers. Kerry bent to pick her up. “Don’t be scared.”
Her heart thumped. She took the knife out of her pocket. She balanced Rosie on her left hip and shuffled down the alley, the blade held out in front of her.
Nothing moved in the gloom. She stopped halfway down the narrow passageway, feeling the pulse in her temples, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Slowly, she began to make out a shape, crumpled on the ground, wedged into a niche in the wall. She edged closer, and saw it was a girl, wrapped in a kind of thin shroud, lying on her side. One of her shoes had come off, and the sole of her foot was pale in the dim light.
Kerry went down on one knee. She slipped the knife back into her pocket, and eased Rosie gently off her hip. Her heart was pounding. She tried to keep her voice steady.
“Look away, now.” She turned Rosie to face the mouth of the alley. And then she turned back.
The girl on the ground was shivering, her eyes closed, her face wet with sweat. She whimpered again, the voice catching with pain, like rust on a blade. Kerry touched the girl’s face. She was pale and freezing cold, and Kerry knew instantly that she had been cut somewhere, and that all the blood had poured out of her. She pulled the shroud back to see.
“Oh, Jesus.”
The girl had been cut from her breastbone to her pubis, a long, smooth gash that had opened her up and let her entrails spill out onto the ground. Her arms were dark with blood, crossed over her abdomen, loosely cradling what was left of her belly. Her guts glistened, white against her dark skin. Kerry rocked back on her heels, bile burning the back of her throat. “Jesus. Sweet Jesus Christ.”
The girl’s eyes flickered open. They seem to look right through her. She muttered something, and tensed, as though she was hugging herself tighter. Kerry dropped to her knees in the mud and wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. She pulled her close, but there was only a halting sound, as though the girl was trying to catch her breath. And then, nothing.
Kerry grabbed Rosie up and hurried back to the street. She ran back along the puddled lane and up to the Broad Way. Two watchmen were ambling up the shallow hill, talking quietly to each other, swinging their long clubs. Kerry ran to them, Rosie clutched tight to her chest.
“Whoa there, missy!” The bigger of the two watchmen held out a hand.
“There’s a girl, in an alley off Chapel Street…” Kerry stopped to catch her breath.
“There usually is, lass.” The big watchman grinned, showing a badly chipped tooth.
“She’s dead.”
He frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I watched her give her last breath. I need you to get down to the Hall and tell Marshal Flanagan.”
“Oh, Marshal Flanagan, is it?”
Kerry checked herself. “Yes. Tell him Kerry O’Toole told you.”
The tiniest hesitation. “O’Toole?”
“Are you going to stand there and repeat everything I say, or are you going to fetch the Marshal?”
The man’s face darkened. “I don’t fetch. I’m not a goddamned dog.”
“Right, then, leave her there,” Kerry snapped. “And when some stall owner finds her tomorrow with a hole in her belly and her guts half-eaten by rats, remember that you were told she was murdered and you did nothing. I wonder what the Marshal will have to say about that, when I tell him.”
She stood trembling, holding tight to Rosie.
“It’s all right, miss,” the second watchman said. He was wiry and narrow-shouldered, with long gray hair swept back from his face. He was staring at her hands. She looked down and saw her fingers were dark with blood, which had smeared on Rosie’s dress. “We’ll get word to the Marshal.” The man’s voice was soothing. He had a faint Cockney accent. “Whereabouts on Chapel Street?”
“By the Armstrong tenements. Third alley down on the left.”
He nodded and smiled. He had strange eyes, with large, dark pupils and enormous irises. Like one of the husky dogs she had seen on the waterfront, years ago. She felt nervous and reassured at the same time.
“Thank you for telling us,” he said. “Now are you all right to go on home with the child there? Do you need us to come with you?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Right you are, then. Good night.”
The watchman with the broken tooth was staring at her, an odd look on his face.
“What?” she snapped.
“If it is a murder, like you say, the Marshal will want to talk to you.”
Kerry held Rosie tight. “He knows where to find me.”
Copyright © 2019 by Patrick Hirsch
