The Tiger in the Well (37 page)

And then the Tzaddik spoke from the room next-door.

"Michelet, come here,'* said the thick, deep voice.

With a heavy, slow shudder, Michelet pulled himself back to clear consciousness. He stood up, brushing his hand across his eyes, and shrugged himself into a dressing gown before opening the door between the two rooms.

Sally lay still as the Tzaddik said, "I cannot sleep, Michelet. Light me a cigarette and bring me the brandy."

Michelet moved through. She heard him strike a match and saw the glow of the gaslight around the edge of the door; and then there was the sound of another match for the cigarette; and then he went out to go downstairs for the brandy.

The time had come.

She felt for her cloak, with the heavy gun in its pocket. She swung it around her shoulders and stood up. With shaking hands, shaking feet, with fear drenching her from head to foot, she moved through the door and into the Tzaddik's bedroom.

It was large and luxuriously furnished. The bed was immense, reinforced by an iron frame that extended above it at the sides and the head. Handles and pulleys were suspended from the frame, and the monkey sat up on the corner of it, watching her with eyes like stones.

The Tzaddik lay on his back under a silk coverlet, and his great head was turned toward her. In his eyes, which glittered in the lamplight, she could see a reflection of that knowledge which was pounding insistently at her own heart.

He said nothing as she came toward him. The monkey chittered softly. She caught a drift of the smoke from the

cigarette in the ashtray, and picked it up and inhaled, feeUng the shaking subside as the smoke calmed her.

He lay there helpless and watched.

All the knowledge she had was crowding forward, pressing at the front of her mind; the train was moving faster. Almost lethargically, as helpless as he was, she reached down and pulled away the silk coverlet, the blankets, the sheet, exposing his huge inert chest in its nightshirt. Still he didn't speak. Still his eyes blazed at her.

She unbuttoned the front of the nightshirt to the waist. Now she was shaking again, so that she had to clasp her hands together and close her eyes as if she were asking for the blessing of heaven on what she was doing.

Then she pulled the nightshirt open. His flesh, so much of it, so still it was hardly human, lay in a pallid mass. She forced herself to look—^and there it was, the little mark that had brought all this about, all this suffering—

A bullet hole just under his breastbone. A little puckered scar. A wound that she had made.

"Ah Ling," Sally whispered.

Her knees buckled, a great weakness spreading through all her limbs, as if all the blood in her body had drained out at once. She clutched the iron frame, and the two of them looked for a moment like a patient and his tender, solicitous nurse.

And still the monkey watched, and still the cigarette smoke drifted upward. . . .

Why didn't I see it before? His eyes — those half-Chinese eyes — those hands, huge and freckled and gold-haired—that voice — the opium and Mr. Beech — I didn't want to, I couldn't bear it, didn't want to look —

"I thought you were dead," she said, her voice hardly audible, even to herself. "I thought I killed you. That night in the cab, by the East India Docks. . . . You were alive all this time.?"

"You call this alive, do you.^*" he said.

There was a roaring in her ears. "What happened?*' she whispered.

"The bullet went through my spine. My men from the ship nearby carried me away at once. And from that day to this I have never moved and never been free of pain. You should have killed me once and for all. Have you come to finish the job.^ I see you have a pistol in your pocket. There's nothing to stop you now, after all."

She fumbled for the heavy gun and dragged it out, tearing the edge of her pocket, and pulled back the hammer, but for the first time in her life her hands failed her. They shook and trembled with weakness, and she knew why, knew she wasn't going to shoot him, knew she couldn't; because his very helplessness protected him better than armor.

And beating through the hatred and the anger and the fear like a pulse in her head was a new knowledge—or rather an old hidden suspicion confirmed and clarified: as clear as a scarlet thread of blood, it was the sight of her own part in his suffocating imprisonment. She'd pitied him; well, she'd caused it.

She couldn't hold the gun. With a cry of anger and pain she hurled it away from her with all her might. It crashed into a mirror and fell among shattered glass to the floor.

The door opened.

"You will find a pistol on the floor, Michelet," said Ah Ling. "Pick it up and shoot Miss Lockhart with it."

She looked through the baffled tears and saw the valet's face, blank with astonishment and then flooded with a hideous glee. She was too weak to move; she sank to her knees beside the bed as Michelet put down the tray with the decanter and glass and stooped to pick up the gun.

And turned his back on the monkey.

It moved almost too quickly to see. It sprang down to the bedside table, seized the burning cigarette, and then leaped just as Michelet stood up. It landed on his neck, seized his hair with one hand—and stabbed the cigarette into his eye.

An explosion as the gun went off. A scream from Michelet,

<

as he staggered back against the frame of the bed, crashing i into Sally and knocking her to the floor. She lay half-stunned; her head had struck something. She couldn't find the strength to get up—

Then Michelet tore the monkey loose and flung it with all his might against the wall. It fell like a rag doll, dead.

And the door opened, and there were the secretary Winterhalter and the doctor, in dressing gowns, and a manservant—^was it Alfred.''—^and Ah Ling's heavy, unmoved voice: **This woman came into my room to try and kill me. Winterhalter, take a servant, escort her to the cellar, and lock her in. Doctor, see to Michelet."

Michelet was crying with pain, crouching on the floor beside her, blood leaking between his fingers. Hands seized Sally's arms and dragged her up and out of the door, and into the lift, and down, and down, and down. Whether it was the footman Alfred who was holding her she couldn't tell, because she was conscious of only two things in the world: that little puckered circle of flesh where her bullet had entered his breast, and the single page from the ledger, tucked in the top of her stocking.

They reached the bottom, threw her out, ascended again. Like Harriet, she was locked in the dark, alone.

The Battle of Telegraph Road

Daniel Goldberg stood in the little passage be-tween two of the houses in Telegraph Road. The rain from the flooded gutter above fell like Niagara in front of him.

There was a light burning behind the curtains in the front room of Parrish's house. The upstairs was dark, front and. back. The houses backed onto the row behind, and Goldbergi had reconnoitered along there already, moving silently like a: cat along the wall between the backyards. They were mean, stunted little houses, hardly bigger than those in Whitechapel, and distinguished from them only by the bay window and a: bit of fancy molding above the front door.

It was half past one. Goldberg had just decided to givct Bill another twentv minutes when there came a whisper behind him: "All right, Mr. G..?"

He turned to see half a dozen shapes, maybe more, clustered behind Bill in the little passageway.

"Well done," he said. "How many.?"

^'There's ten of us," said a quiet, hard Irish voice from the darkness.

"This is Liam," said Bill. A hand came forward, and Goldberg shook it. "We got shivs and jimmies and knuckledusters."

Goldberg looked past Bill and made out the form of a girl of sixteen or so.

"Is that the famous Bridie Sullivan.''" he said.

She said nothing, but lifted her head dangerously.

"It's all right, Bridie," said Liam. "This feller's all right, don't you mind him."

"I've heard you're a good fighter," said Goldberg. "You'H need to be, too. It's that house over there with the light on. There's a small child inside, probably upstairs, and we've got to get her out unharmed."

He stood aside to let them peer past him out of the little entrance.

"Can you get into the backyard?" said Bill.

"There's a passage like this farther down on the right.

There's a privy or a coal shed against the house—like the

one behind us now—and a window above that with the cur-

' tains drawn. You could reach it from the roof of the privy.

What I don't know is how many men there are inside."

Bill and Liam went back to look over the wall into the I backyard of the house beside them.

"Got a weapon, Bridie.'"' said Goldberg. I "I use a shiv," she said. Her voice was low and soft and musical—the voice of an Irish angel, velvet, peat smoke. The weapon she mentioned consisted of the blade of a razor set I in a wooden handle.

Bill appeared beside him. "Half a minute, that's all it'll •take," he said.

I "Right," said Goldberg. "Liam, who's your best man with ! horses.?"

"Dermot," said Liam at once, shoving forward a skinny j boy of twelve or so.

"Dermot, there's a jobmaster's stable at the south side of the common. Take a couple of boys and pinch a four-wheeler and a decent nag, and get back here double-quick."

Three boys peeled off at once and slipped away down the road, and Goldberg beckoned the rest of them closer as he began to explain his plan.

The battle of Telegraph Road was celebrated for years afterward by the Irish gangs in Lambeth. Those who'd taken part heard their names becoming legends; those who hadn't

wished they had, and began to bend the legends in their own favor. There was nothing like it till the rise of the great Pat Hooligan himself, who gave his name to the species.

Goldberg divided the forces into three. Bill and Liam, as the most experienced cracksmen, were to get into the backyard, climb onto the roof of the privy, and wait till the others created a diversion before getting in through the window.

But it was no good creating a diversion if they couldn't get the door open, because that was the way they'd have to take Harriet out; so Goldberg and Bridie would knock at the front door, and Bridie would pretend to faint on the step.

As soon as the door was open, Goldberg would shout— which would be the signal for two more boys at the back of the house to start hammering at the back door as loudly as they could. Under cover of that noise, Bill and Liam would get to work above them, while Goldberg and the four remaining boys would rush in from the front. Goldberg and Bridie would hold the hall clear, and the boys would rush the stairs and deal with anyone up there, distracting attention from the window where Bill and Liam were climbing in to look for Harriet.

Goldberg and Bridie and the boys who were going to take the front waited while the others ran across the road, swift, dark shadows in the rain, and vanished through the passageway on the other side. A couple of minutes went by, and then Goldberg said, "All right. Time to go."

The boys ran over and crouched down behind the little wall of the garden. Goldberg and Bridie stood outside the front door.

"Ready.?"

She nodded. He knocked on the door, and she leaned against him as if she was about to faint.

The curtains in the bay window stirred, and a face looked through. Goldberg made a gesture of helplessness, and Bridie slumped against him.

"Here he comes," Goldberg muttered, hearing a door open.

The curtain fell back into place as the front door opened.

The Battle of Telegraph Road yil

Instantly Bridie fell across the threshold, and the man there stepped back quickly. Goldberg knelt beside her, keeping his head down, and pretended to be trying to lift her.

"My wife—she's been taken ill—help me get her inside, for God's sake," he said.

The man stood there doubtfully, looking back—and then Arthur Parrish came out of the front room, and his eyes met Goldberg's with a shock of recognition.

"Scream, girl," said Goldberg, and Bridie screamed like a banshee, and he yelled, "Go!"

And several things happened at once. Goldberg leaped forward, slamming the first man into the wall, and Bridie sprang after him, her knife flashing. A violent hammering came from somewhere at the back of the house, and then the four other boys were in through the front door like eels.

Another man came out of the front room behind Parrish, and the first boy ran for him, burying his head in the man's stomach with a whoosh of air that could have been heard across the street. Goldberg's fist met his man's chin, and the man collapsed across the umbrella stand, unconscious.

"Upstairs!" Goldberg yelled to the other boys, and they sprang up the staircase three steps at a time, yelling with glee.

And Parrish had a gun in his hand.

He was standing very still, his back to the wall, watching Goldberg with a bright-eyed smugness that made Goldberg want to paste his face across the wallpaper. But the gun was cocked. Bridie was watching, narrow-eyed, waiting for a chance to get close enough. The man on the floor stirred; Goldberg took a step closer to the umbrella stand and casually kicked him.

"Oh, Mr. Goldberg," said Parrish. "What a way to carry on. This won't do you any good with the extradition, I suppose you realize—"

Then there was a scream from upstairs—a child's cry of terror—^and a light came into Goldberg's eyes, and he snatched a coat from the hook beside him and flung it over the gun

before springing for Parrish like a tiger. Bridie leaped for him too, but the man on the floor grabbed at her skirt, and she came down in a tangle of wet cloth and fists.

There were shouts from upstairs—doors banging—and then an explosion from the gun. And everything stopped.

In the silence, Goldberg found himself on the floor, and he knew at once he'd been hit. Just like the time before — don't know where it's got me — hope I can stand —

His senses reassembled themselves shakily, and then he knew it had all gone wrong, the raid hadn't worked, because there was Liam coming down the stairs, and there was Bill behind him, and behind them was a man holding Harriet, and at her throat there was the point of a knife.

Bridie slowly got to her feet beside him. Parrish was covering them with his pistol, and the man on the floor was struggling up too. The noise from the back door had stopped. Goldberg tried to get up, and as he put his weight on his arm, he found out where he'd been hit, for his left shoulder screamed at him.

Not fatal. All right. Think. Move to the right a little way — ^ve him room to come down — flick your eyes to the door — good, BilPs understood—so's Liam — now for the shiv.

He knew that there was only one chance: he had to disable the man's arm before it could jab upward. Bridie was standing behind him, concealed from Parrish in the narrow hall. Pretending to look fainter than he felt, which wasn't hard, Goldberg put his good hand behind him and found Bridie's, with the shiv in it. She let him take it. The man holding Harriet came to the bottom step.

She was perfectly still in his arm, her tear-filled eyes wide with the understanding that something horrible was happening. Goldberg readied himself, but he was weakened by the shock, and his shoulder was beginning to throb with agony.

Careful — let him turn — now!

His right hand slashed down into the crook of the man's arm. At the same instant Bill on the other side snatched

Harriet and threw her to Liam, who caught her and ran. Bridie swung her fist wildly at Parrish, but missed, because at that very second something hard and white and porcelain hurtled down from the landing and smashed into a thousand pieces on Parrish's head. He went down, to a whoop of glee from upstairs, and then the others came pelting down, kicking aside the man who'd been holding Harriet. He lay moaning in disbelief and trying to stanch the astonishing amount of blood coming out of his arm.

They dragged Bridie away and out the door, and Goldberg followed in rime to see a carriage careering along the quiet road with two whooping little boys on the box. It drew up in a squeal of brakes and a clatter of hooves, the horse whinnying with excitement as Bill raced for the door and tore it open.

Liam was first inside, with Harriet yelling in his arms, and then the others piled in after him—

But the pistol crashed again from behind them, and Bridie fell to the ground and lay still. Liam and another boy sprang out of the carriage at once and lifted her bodily inside. Goldberg felt his legs crumple under him as someone tackled him. He saw Bill hesitate, and yelled, "Go! Stay with the child! Move!"

The boy on the box cracked his whip, Bill leaped up beside him, and the carriage rolled away. Parrish's men ran out into the road, but they were too late to do more than watch the swaying four-wheeler disappearing around the comer.

Well, thafs something anyway, thought Goldberg as he fainted.

Inside the crowded, swaying carriage, some of the boys were joshing and laughing and crowing over the fight, and already embroidering it with more details than there'd have been time for. Liam and another boy bent over Bridie.

"Here it is," said Liam. He lifted the thick, wet hair to show a deep gash in Bridie's scalp. "If that's all it is, she'll be better in the morning. She's breathing like a trumpeter. There's nothing to worry about."

He lifted her up to make a little more room and brushed the hair tenderly back from her still face. Harriet watched it all. sucking her thumb. These people were laughing and singing. They were happy, and she liked happy people. They were ver\ noisy. But it was a nice noise, and then one of them pushed another and he fell on the floor. Harriet thought he would be hurt, but he laughed. They all laughed a lot, and then she saw how funny it was and laughed too. She had to take her thumb out of her mouth to laugh properly. Then they saw that and laughed even more.

There was a banging on the front.

"What's the matter.''" said someone. "That's Dermot."

One of the boys peered out. "There's a copper up ahead," he said. "Hush the noise, stow it away now, boys. . . ."

They all crouched down low, whispering and giggling and shoving, until the policeman had been passed and they could sit up again. But the laughter was over. They looked at Harriet.

"What are we going to do with her.'"'

"She's Bill's problem. This is his game."

"What about the gaffer back there.?"

"He might have got away. ..."

"I saw him fall."

"Dead, eh.' Be Jasus . . ."

"Bridie'll know what to do about the kid."

"Bridie.?"

"She's a girl, ain't she.? She's bound to know."

"But Bridie . . ."

"Wif can't look after her, and that's a fact."

"Who is she, anyway.' Who's she belong to.?"

"Damned if I know, Sean. She's a grand little girl though, isn't she.?"

"Look at her sitting there like a lady. . . ."

"She's wet herself."

"Devil, and don't all kids wet their bloody selves.? There's you not out of diapers yerself more than a year—"

"What if Bridie doesn't wake up.?"

Silence. They looked at her. She lay very still in the corner of the carriage.

"Is she done for.?"

"Her that walloped the giblets out of Johnny Rodriguez the half-caste.?" said Liam scornfully. "Done for.? Never."

"But he shot her. . . ."

"And didn't we crack him on the napper with a Jordan, the dirty little devil!"

"If there'd been time, we'd have filled it first. . . ."

"What are we going to do with the kid, though.?"

A longer silence. Harriet watched them all, fascinated.

"The orphanage.?" said one, uncertainly.

They turned on him.

"You bloody fool, Johnny Coughlan! We spring her out of one jail and pack her off to another.?"

"The nuns, then ..."

"Talk with yer head, not yer backside."

"But we can't look after her. ..."

"And why not.?"

"Well . . . they need food. ..."

"She's past the sucking stage; you won't have to oi^&iyour skinny chest, Sean Macarthy."

"Ah, shut yer foolishness!"

"So she can eat what we eat. Mashed potatoes, meat pie, jellied eels. A drop of stout won't do her any harm, neither."

"But her clothes and stuff ..."

"And stuff.? What stuff.? When did you last change yer clothes.? The year before last, by the hum coming off yer. She's got a fine set of duds; they'll do for now. Begob, ye're a fine bunch of pessimistical bastards, ain't ye, though.? Come here, princess."

And Liam lifted Harriet onto his lap and sat there glaring at his companions as the carriage rolled on toward Lambeth. Harriet just went on gazing at them all, thumb in mouth. Then she yawned, and with the air of a duchess conferring a favor on a footman, she laid her head on Liam's shoulder and went to sleep at once.

Goldberg lay on the kitchen floor, listening carefully. Although his shoulder hurt like the devil, the rest of him was unharmed, and his head was clear.

They were talking in the front room. He heard Parrish's voice: "... Solomons's Bakery in Holywell Street. At the comer there—Brick Lane end. That's it, yes. Bum the bloody place down. There's a painter and decorator's store just behind it—full of kerosene. Get the mob out there—stir 'em up. I want the whole bloody street on fire, get it.? Early, before they wake up. Now^o, go on, move. The rest of you get packing. Charlie, mn and fetch a cab from the jobmaster's. Wake him up. Yes, we're moving out, soon as the coppers take that Yid away. Is he safe in there.'^"

Another voice said something inaudible, and someone laughed. Parrish snapped; being laid low with a chamber pot had done nothing for his authority. Goldberg looked around. He could see chair legs and table legs and a coal scuttle, but nothing that could serve as a weapon. Could he get to his feet.? Find a knife, perhaps.? Or even a broomstick.?

He moved and nearly groaned aloud. But then there came a thunderous knocking at the front door, and a man ran to open it, and there were the police.

Goldberg pulled himself upright before they did it for him. A sergeant, two constables, and a police carriage—lanterns— billy clubs—explanations, accusations—handcuffs.

Here he shook his head.

"I'm bound to come quietly," he said to the sergeant. "But I'd be obliged if you'd leave off the handcuffs; I'm wounded."

He held up his bloodied left hand with his right in a way that suggested it was the wrist that was injured, and the sergeant nodded.

"All right," he said to the constable with the handcuffs. "He won't make any trouble. Put him in the van."

"Excuse me. Sergeant," said Parrish. "This man is extremely dangerous. I've already told you he's wanted for a political offense. He's escaped from prisons in Russia and Germany—"

"There aren't any political offenses in this country, as far as I know, sir," said the sergeant. "Did he cause that lump on your head?"

"Not directly—"

"And who shot him?"

"I did. As I'm entitled to do in order to protect—"

"No doubt, sir. I'll stay behind and take full statements from you and the other gentlemen. Take this man to the station. Constable."

A fair man, anyway, thought Goldberg as he climbed stiffly into the police van. And at least I haven't got handcuffs to think about. . . .

The driver shook the reins.

And as the van began to move away, two bedraggled figures scuttled out from the shadows and clung to the back of it. There was a step there for policemen to stand on when they were being brought in to control crowds, and it made a fine platform for two twelve-year-old boys, especially the two who'd been hammering at the back door of the house, frantic with impatience, during the fight.

"Ye all right, Tony?" whispered one.

"I'm with ye, Con," the other whispered back. "We'll have a bit of a fight yet. Hold tight now. Don't fall off. ..."

MoiSHE LiPMAN rubbed his heavy jaw. He was sitting in a four-wheeled cab at the corner of Fournier Square with three of his men. There was a lot of activity going on in the house— lights being carried here and there, curtains being carefully drawn shut—but no sign of a child. One of the men had slipped across the road and listened outside the kitchen door, but had heard nothing, and another three had been around the back, where the tall old houses of the square looked out on a churchyard, but had come back without any sign of the child they'd been sent there to look for.

"What d'you reckon, boss?" said one of the men in the cab.

Lipman said nothing. He wasn't a thinker, and he couldn't

see through bricks, but he knew about fighting. Stay canny for a bit; hang back, let the other man commit himself. If you rush in like a headstrong kid, you'll get a bang that'll lay you out.

The problem was, he also knew the value of a surprise attack. Whoever was in the house didn't know they were being watched, and if Moishe flung all his men in at once they could take the place in less than a minute. But less than a minute would still be plenty of time to point a gun to a child's head. . . .

"I reckon we sit tight," he said.

He gazed stonily through the rain. Such rain. . . . You could hardly see the difference between the pavement and the road, there was such a torrent sloshing along the gutter. It was clogged by a bit of rubbish, a dead dog or something, and the water swirled around it like the rapids on the Pecos River in the Deadwood Dick story Moishe had one of his boys read to him in the evenings. Bits of scum and foam and papers and scraps of anonymous filth were borne along like Deadwood Dick's raft. . . .

The front door opened. Moishe blinked and tapped the man opposite on the knee.

"Wake up," he said. "Look."

The other man started and leaned forward. Out of the narrow cab window they saw two figures in the doorway—one in a raincoat and a hat, the other in what looked like a dressing gown.

Raincoat set off. Dressing Gown called him back and spoke briefly. Raincoat set off again, holding the collar high around his neck; Dressing Gown shut the door.

Moishe said, "Get him."

The three men in the cab jumped out at once. Raincoat didn't look back, but hurried on, head down against the lashing rain, and the sound of it on his oilskin hat prevented him from hearing footsteps behind him; so it wasn't long before they caught up with him.

Lipman had ordered the cab to follow at walking pace, and within a minute of leaving the house. Raincoat was bundled inside, struggling. When they pulled his sou'wester back, Sally would have recognized him: it was the secretary, Winterhalter.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he said.

"Never mind that," said Lipman. "What's going on in there?"

Winterhalter stared in astonishment. "How dare you? What do you want with me?"

"Answer the question," said Lipman. "What's going on in that house?"

"How can I answer a question like that? You must be an exceptionally stupid man. Let me go at once."

He struggled to get up. Lipman shoved him back.

"Is the child in there?" he said.

Winterhalter fell still, and a complicated understanding came into his eyes.

"I see. That makes it clear," he said. Lipman watched him narrowly. "I think the best thing would be for you to talk to my employer directly. You understand, I am only his private secretary. I am sure thats—"

"Cut it," said Lipman. "What are you doing, then? Where are you going?"

"For a doctor," said Winterhalter smoothly. "One of the servants has been injured in a domestic accident."