The Devil's Dime

The Devil's Dime - Chapter Two partial

If there were mice, they knew enough to stay away when Deacon Trumbull took the back stairs to Heaven. The men who joined him might have profited from that wisdom. But it was greed and nothing more that had brought them to the table in the abandoned room above McGlory’s. And it was greed that kept bringing them back.

“He won’t last long.”

The hard voice and clipped words hushed the whining  tones that had escalated around the crude table. Deacon Trumbull’s malignant self-assurance hovered about them, silencing any objection the three men might have offered. His crisp, pristine shirtsleeves rested on the scarred surface, diamonds glittering in the opulent studs of his cuffs.  The cigar he nursed covered the room’s shabby mustiness with its rarefied aroma.

Below the table, supple gray leather shoes bespoke the man’s wealth, their white linen summer-weight spats ornamented with understated elegance. They weren’t such a vast step above those of the other three men, but there could be no doubt that their Italian felted leather linings made them the finest to be had in New York City.

The man they called Cash cleared his throat and flicked an ash from his own Havana Partido. “He completely shut down that Denver operation, Deac. He’s no slouch.”

Trumbull glared, his blue eyes hooded. The nickname annoyed him, had ever since boarding school days when Cash had begun to shorten his name. It had been a power play, purely designed to make the pampered brat seem an equal with Deacon. As if that could ever happen.

He waited a beat, and let his companions work equally to hide their nervous swallows. He would have laughed outright, if there had not been such a strong element of truth in Cash’s warning. He was absolutely correct. Jess Pepper was no slouch. But Deacon had already resolved that the man’s luck at uncovering a Denver syndicate that had been selling young, nubile boy-flesh to a hungry European market would be his own undoing.

Jess Pepper might have brought a million-dollar enterprise to its knees in that cow town, but he was in New York City now, lured by the fame a byline in the Times offered. And not only was he in New York, but he’d planted himself right in the center of the cross hairs. The offices of the Times were, after all, in Chief Deacon Trumbull’s precinct. 

“You leave Pepper to me, gentlemen.” He swept his gaze around the table, pausing just long enough to see the subtle submission he required before changing the subject. As was his habit, he brought them back to the point of tonight’s emergency meeting before adjourning. “Tell that shyster at the Blue Blade that he can continue to deal for us or prepare to meet his Maker.” Trumbull stood, drawing the meeting to a close.

“And if he says no?” The question came from the only one among them who had come up from the gaming hells to earn his place at the table. 

Deacon Trumbull speared him with his own question-ing look. The man  knew very well what to do if O’Hanlon balked again, but Deacon felt no compunction at spelling it out for him. “If he says no, my boys will tell his widow she has three days to get out of my tenement.”

The three men nodded, rose, donned their hats and the suit coats they’d carefully laid across a spare chair earlier. Each one engaged in his own ritual of tidying his look before stepping out into the darkness of a Tenderloin back alley.

Four men went four separate ways. But in each mind a brief yet fascinating game of running the odds was taking place. Just how long would Jess Pepper last?

. . .

New York City was noisy, noisier than Denver in a million ways. Denver had cattle being herded to the stockyards down side streets, their bellows bouncing off nearby buildings,  shuffling hooves muffled by hard-packed dirt. This city, on the other hand, had folks being herded into clanging trollies, their heels making clipped rhythms on the bricked causeways, their piercing voices sailing above the street ruckus as they hawked their wares or called for a hansom cab. All this escalated to carry above the sound of ferries trumpeting their departures from nearby piers. He reckoned he’d just have to get accustomed to it.