Grace's Pictures by Cindy Thomson

Author:Cindy Thomson [Thomson, Cindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781414368436
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

20

IN THE WEE HOURS OF CHRISTMAS MORNING, Owen and Jake headed toward a dive where the Dusters hung out. They had not mentioned their plan to Nicholson or to the kids in the park. The fewer who knew where they were staking out the gang, the better. The walls had ears.

Jake dropped a banana peel on a pile of garbage at the curb. It did not take long for a rat to scramble out of the shadows and claim it. The sanitation department was supposedly cleaning up the streets of New York. Not in this neighborhood.

“Got a new informant,” Jake said. “A new lad. Colin.”

“Think you can trust the kid?”

They walked on together, dodging factory workers preparing to report for duty at the fish processing plant nearby. These men, like them, did not have the holiday off.

“Comes from St. Patrick’s school over by the headquarters.”

“So?”

“So the day shift says we can use him.”

Owen halted. Jake took a few more strides before he realized Owen wasn’t moving. “I know what you’re thinking, Owen. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Don’t trouble myself? Jake, you know as well as I do half the cops in the station are crooked. What if Big Bill hears about this? This kid—If it’s not a noose, he probably wants a big payoff.”

“Right. Half. Half are not crooked. I checked. The fellas I talked to got no love for Big Bill.”

“Not that we know of.”

“Hey, I ain’t no rookie. The patrolmen I talked to come from my old precinct. I know them.”

“Fair enough. Half are not crooked. The other half love a good joke . . . or a bad one.”

Jake pointed his lunch tin at him. “I scared the socks off the kid. He won’t double-cross us.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Owen gave his pocket a tap and felt the heavy lump of the silver pocket watch, his constant reminder of why he did what he did. Owen pulled the watch from his pocket and told Jake what the hour was.

“Ten more minutes and they’ll rush out of there.” Jake pointed to a pair of brightly lit windows glowing from the gray buildings like a beacon. Piano music and laughter pierced what was probably a peaceful evening for most civilized folks, who by now would be sleeping or returning home from midnight Mass.

“If only the Dusters kept a solid headquarters. Our boys run them out of one place and they set up another. We got a tough job, Jakey.”

“Don’t I know it.”

As he crouched, hand on the .32 at his belt, Owen could not help but think about the contrasts within the city. Uptown folks dined on delicacies served atop a crisp linen tablecloth. Women donned feather-plumed hats. Men sported diamond pins on their coat lapels. He knew that life well. Just a short distance away, here he was kneeling in a grimy gutter and preparing to follow the lead dog of a vice-infested gang to the nest of its leader and arrest him.

“This would be a whole lot easier if we knew what Goo Goo looked like,” he told his partner.

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