Fingy Conners & The New Century Page 13

  The Moliks were not happy in the least that their cousin had married outside her nationality, especially uniting with a man who acted as if he believed that all Poles, other than his own wife, were inferior.

  Buffalo’s struggling Polish population had immediately stepped forward upon first report of David Nugent’s heinous crime to offer aid to victim Molik and his family and support their countryman in his quest for justice. For the time being, people were willing to help as best they could. The terrible deed was yet vivid in their minds, and the recent headlines announcing the Court’s conviction of Fingy’s lieutenant for the act had brought some satisfaction, if not compensation. But what will happen when people begin to forget? What new atrocities wrought by Fingy Conners and lesser hoodlums might obscure this crime, replacing it in people’s hearts with some newer, fresher outrage? What then will become of the Moliks and their children?

  Stash would have preferred a less public arena within which to kill Conners, one affording a more certain escape.

  Conners rarely ventured into the First Ward anymore save for an occasional dash into his Nugent’s Hotel and its adjacent contractor’s office in disguise. He had been pelted with dog shit and a variety of sharp-edged missiles whenever recognized down there. He was certainly too good for the Mutual Rowing Club these days. The First Ward’s crowded and densely built environs offered plenty of places ideal for an assassin to lurk, as well as plenty of men who looked enough like Molik among whose scurrying about Stash might evade detection. But Delaware Avenue—now that was a challenge. Molik stood out like a sore thumb on the wealthy boulevard that saw little in the way of pedestrian traffic.

  As an alternative, hunting Conners downtown might well provide the cover of dense crowds that Molik desired, but Conners was customarily tightly surrounded by his lieutenants as he went about his business there, and those men all carried pistols. The only predictable activity that Stash Molik could familiarize himself with was Conners’ leaving his home in the morning and returning in the evening. But that venue left him vulnerable.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doin’ here, Molik?” asked Detective Sergeant Jim Sullivan.

  “Uh, nuttin’,” responded the startled Pole.

  Sullivan seemed to appear out of nowhere. The detective’s stealth shocked Molik, who had convinced himself that his own careful movements had gone undetected thus far. Sullivan possessed a flawless memory for faces as was often noted in the newspaper stories detailing his sleuthing prowess. Molik’s confidence in his anonymity had now been compromised. He would need a disguise of some sort. Or a different plan altogether.

  “Jus’ lookin’ for work, dat’s all, officer. Dere’s so many big houses here side by each. I’m knockin’ on doors to see if anybody got a job for a good worker like me.”

  “Get yer ass outa here, Molik. Nobody around here hires workers off the street, much less dirty polacks. You know that as well as I do! Get back to Kaisertown, and don’t let me see your stupid bug-eyed polack face over this way ever again.”

  Molik resentfully grunted and walked off in the direction of Main Street.

  The Detective had quickly spotted Molik’s laborer’s garb as he emerged from across the street where he had just called at the Milburn Mansion. There he delivered a red envelope containing an urgent letter from his brother the Alderman to John G. Milburn, the president of the Pan American Exposition Company, relating to a serious matter of crisis involving Fingy Conners.

  Milburn’s stately home occupied the opposite, northwest corner of Delaware Avenue and West Ferry St., while Fingy’s was just a stone’s throw away, directly across the street on the southwest corner. Jim studied Fingy’s mansion before walking up the walkway, trying to imagine what Molik had been looking at, or more relevantly, what he might be planning.

  He had an inkling.

  As he approached Conners’ door, he cleared his throat and steeled himself for what he had to do next.

  Mary Jordan Conners glanced out the window in time to see him and nearly tripped on the oriental carpet at the sight of the Detective approaching her door.

  Oh my God!, she thought to herself. First Hannah appears at my house to threaten me, and now just five minutes later, she sends her husband!

  Jim was wearing his uniform. She saw he was carrying his pistol on his person. A cold chill flashed through her, as she feared the encounter.

  “Jennie!” she called in a loud whisper.

  The maid appeared instantly.

  “Tell that policeman that I’m not home. Go! Go to the door!”

  The knocker banged and after a few beats, the maid opened the door.

  “Is Mr. Conners at home?” asked the Detective.

  Mary was in a wild panic now, realizing Hannah’s husband wasn’t here to confront her about her accusations, but rather was going to appeal directly to her husband instead. Mary hid around the corner, where she could have herself a good peek and hear all that was being said. She felt as if she might faint.

  “No, sir. Mr. Conners is not home as yet. Can I tell him who called?” she inquired, despite knowing exactly who the officer was.

  “Um. No, I’ll come back, or perhaps I’ll catch him at his office in the morning. Will he be in town tomorrow?”

  “I believe so,” the maid replied as she began to close the door.

  Just at that moment, David Nugent screeched up to the entrance. Fingy and Kennedy, just back from Montréal, emerged from the automobile. Fingy eyed his old nemesis warily, and Jim exchanged nods with his brother-in-law. Indoors, Fingy’s wife Mary was dissolving into a puddle of apprehension.

  If only that man had delayed coming home from his trip for just another two minutes! Mary fretted, cursing Fingy.

  She wondered for a moment if it would be best if she just ran and hid herself somewhere, but instead concluded it might be wiser for her to take the situation in hand so she might better control the direction of the conversation. She quickly came to the door.

  “Oh, hello Detective Sullivan,” she said sweetly. “And you too darling. You’re home early,” she effervesced to Fingy. “Welcome.” She completely ignored Kennedy and Dave Nugent.

  Conners instantly knew something was up as Mary never came to the door to greet anyone. She believed it beneath her dignity. “People come to me,” she loved to boast. “I don’t go to them.”

  “Whaddya want Sully?” asked Fingy, offering him a piece of Juicy Fruit gum.

  “Well, Jim,” he said, unwrapping it, “It’s not at all good,” the detective said, throwing a dirty look in the direction of Mrs. Conners. “I’m afraid I have been sent here on a very uncomfortable mission, one that you’re not gonna like. Nor me neither, for that matter,” he warned as he popped the gum into his mouth and shot Mary Conners another disdainful look.

  “I’m really sorry that I have to be the one to bring this unpleasantness to your door.”

  Mary’s eyes were nearly popping out of her head. She couldn’t believe Jim Sullivan was going to confront her husband right there in her presence, with the maid and Kennedy and Hannah’s own brother standing right there, as if she were invisible.

  “This is all a misunderstanding, Detective!” Mary Conners blurted, interrupting. “I never said any such thing, and I have no idea why Hannah doesn’t believe me. Why, she forced her way into my house like some intruder and broke my antique vase! And damaged my French wall covering! Didn’t she, Jennie?”

  Jennie nodded weakly.

  “I have no idea how such a terrible story started or why she thinks I had anything to do with it. But I did not! In fact, I am insulted that she or you would even believe such a terrible thing!”

  She was trembling, wringing a linen handkerchief between nervous fingers.

  Jim looked at Fingy and Dave Nugent, pretending to be searching for some clue as to what Mary was talking about, while Fingy was assessing Jim’s expression for the same reason.

  “What in hell are yous talkin’ about Mary?
” growled Fingy, recognizing rotting garbage when he smelled it.

  Fingy’s bride looked at Jim Sullivan to try and read his face, but the wily detective remained pokerish.

  Suddenly the befuddled Mary realized she’d been had. She tried to cover. “Well, uh, darling, Hannah Sullivan had heard a terrible rumor and, uh, got it into her head somehow that it originated from me and...and she came here a little while ago and screamed at me like I was an absolute nobody, and she threw a horrible tantrum and the girl and I had to ask her to leave the house at once!” she babbled, looking to Jennie McCree for support. The maid nodded obediently in forced agreement.

  And just what was that rumor, Mary?” grunted Fingy.

  “Oh, dear. I couldn’t repeat it. It was very unlady-like, and…”

  “Mary Jordan! Yous tell me right now what the rumor is so’s I don’t gotta hear it fer myself out there on the goddamned street!”

  “Well, uh. It was something to the effect that, um, Detective Sullivan here was, uh, had been seeing, a...a younger woman over on Elmwood Avenue…”

  “Jesus Christ Almighty, Mary!” he shouted. “How is it that you seem to always get involved in this kind of malarkey?”

  “Darling, I had nothing to do with it, and had not heard any such rumor of the kind myself until Hannah showed up at my door just a short while ago!” she lied.

  Fingy looked to the maid whose face was beet red, her eyes cast down to the floor. That told him all he needed to know.

  “Mary, I will deal with you inside! And yous too, McCree!” The maid was thrown into a panic suddenly, now drawn into the drama and fearing her position was in certain peril.

  The women slinked into the house and shut the entry.

  With the heavy thud of the door Detective Sullivan began giggling uncontrollably, and Fingy joined in.

  “Women!” derided Fingy, shaking his head.

  “You don’t gotta convince me,” laughed Jim.

  “Wish I coulda bin here to witness it when things started flyin’ about, Sully!” said Nugent. “You know how my sister goes once she gets goin’!”

  “Don’t I though, Dave,” said Jim, still in stitches.

  “Well, then what’s it yous came to see me fer, Sully?” said Fingy.

  “Oh, I gotta deliver you this,” the Detective said, handing Fingy a subpoena.

  “Shit,” swore Fingy. “What the hell?”

  “It’s from Judge Murphy, for you to appear. In person. Skinny Pat McMahon from the scoopers union’s suin’ you for criminal libel.”

  The President of the Union was utilizing one of Fingy’s own classic methods to get him.

  Fingy grew hot under the collar. “That one-eyed fucker!”

  “Now, Fingy, we both know any patrolman on his beat could have presented this to you. But they sent me down here special to personally deliver it. Now what does that tell you?”

  Fingy looked at the subpoena, then looked back at Jim blankly.

  “How’s I’m supposed t’ know wot that means?” he spewed angrily, nearly losing his cigar stub, then threw open the door. The group disappeared inside, slamming it behind them.

  Jim turned and walked back down the granite block pathway and onto the Delaware Ave. sidewalk. He was eager to head directly home to hear Hannah’s version of the day’s events. He could hardly wait.

  When Fingy, Kennedy and Dave Nugent entered the house and the door was snugly shut, Mary became apoplectic, pouncing on her husband’s weary bones, demanding in exasperated gasps that Fingy do something about that horrible Hannah Sullivan and her “entire low-brow family!” in retaliation for her unforgivable invasion of the Conners Sanctum.

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

  “I happen to be her low-brow family, Mary,” scornfully reminded Dave Nugent. “And my little Molly is her family too.”

  Mary shrunk back momentarily from her gaffe.

  “Oh. I never meant…”

  Mary’s gossip, uttered tipsily to dinner guests at the dining table during an interval when Fingy had excused himself to visit the bathroom, had recirculated to at long last reach his ear weeks later. Even the old dock walloper himself did not relish the specter of the sort of beehive tempest that this feud between the two women could well ignite.

  Mary Conners was one of the few people, if not the only one, who Fingy ever gave in to, and she had become overconfident in her ability to harangue him into getting her way. But at this particular juncture, Fingy drew the line.

  “Mary Jordan Conners!” Fingy shouted, his face contorted in florid rage. “You fix dis, damn yous t’ hell! Wot is wrong wit’ yous anyway? You go and apologize to Hannah Sullivan! You hear me? You do it!”

  Hannah’s brother drove home the point with a steely stare, then walked toward the kitchen with the maid for something to eat. The two slyly touched hands as they went.

  ...

  At that very same moment, Mayor Conrad Diehl and John P. Sullivan, the Alderman still weak from his illness, were arriving at their clandestine destination in Ontario to meet with Willie Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

  Van Horne was visiting the Niagara Frontier to confer with Pan American Exposition President Milburn and officials charged with overseeing transportation planning, as well as to deal with a lingering problem affecting his company’s Niagara Falls, Ontario office.

  The Railway was keen on the business prospects of accommodating hordes of Canadians, their numbers stretching from the Prairies to the Maritimes, about to stampede their way to Buffalo to attend the Pan.

  Willie had the previous year considered a proposal received from the Alderman that the Canadian Pacific Railway build an exhibit at the Exposition. But Van Horne had the greater picture in mind. He thought his energies would be better spent trying to convince the government of the largest of all the Pan American nations to construct an imposing national building at the Pan to promote the expansive country and its industries as a whole. Something spectacular that would grandstand Canadian pride and the nation’s tremendous accomplishments, a structure as large as the planned US Government Building, or perhaps even bigger.

  The most land-rich of all the Pan American nations was the only one that had yet not contracted to participate in the Exposition. Even Japan had signed up to erect a beautiful pavilion in spite of the fact of that country being located well outside the hemisphere. The Philippines and Hawaii would have buildings as well, and there would be an African Village filled with black natives and another peopled by the Esqimaux of the Arctic. Inscrutably there seemed to be no enthusiasm from Canada to represent herself despite the zeal demonstrated by every other nation in the Western Hemisphere. Willie believed there was still time to sway the powers-that-be in Ottawa, but confided that as a native-born American himself he was still puzzled at times by Canadians’ reticence when it came to its dealings with the United States.

  Willie’s visit could not have been better-timed, proving both serendipitous and providential. He had retained a suite at the Iroquois Hotel, and had come over to the Alderman’s house for dinner the night before, reuniting with Annie, who was his second or third cousin, depending on who was doing the calculating.

  The dinner had been strictly arranged by her to be a purely social family evening. Annie demanded there be no shop talk whatsoever. Since Willie had scheduled business in Niagara Falls the following day, the Alderman thought he and the Mayor should take advantage of that opportunity to meet Willie across the border and discuss the gravity of “the situation” far enough away from Buffalo on the Canadian side where no one was likely to scrutinize their presence. For their meeting they settled on the distracting holiday atmosphere provided by the massive Clifton Hotel where droves of happy tourists would be bustling about helping to divert attention away from the seriousness of the plotters’ intent.

  Fingy Conners’ secret plan to exact his revenge on the city that had tried to rein him in him was a secret no longer. During the previous twenty-fo
ur hours, businessmen and politicians all up and down the eastern seaboard had been brought to a panicked state by the emerging news of Fingy’s intended scheme.

  Until his unprecedented loss to the scoopers union the previous May, Conners had amassed an impressive record for the triumphant accomplishment of evil. Now however, his ego freshly wounded and his voracious accumulation of wealth slowed just a tad by the scoopers fiasco, he was determined to reestablish his dominance over, and ruin upon, all those who were involved in opposing him, especially Mayor Diehl and Alderman John P. Sullivan.

  This latest explosion of Conners’ fury exceeded every previous blast to now include the City of Buffalo in particular and the United States of America in general.

  The spreading news was galvanizing the East. The loss of Buffalo’s Great Lakes shipping industry and the grain processing and transfer business would be devastating. Coincidentally too, if Conners was successful, it would also usurp the Canadian Pacific Railway’s lucrative grain and freight business within Canada itself, as the waterways would be favored over the rails in Conners’ project as the chief mode of transport.

  Willie Van Horne took a few deep gulps of his Molson. “So, how much do you both already know about what Conners is up to, exactly?”

  The Mayor replied, “He’s out to ruin the economic foundation of our fine city. And believe you me, the ripples from such a brick tossed into the pond will spread fast, far and wide. After his defeat in the scoopers strike last May he traveled immediately to Montréal, I’m now told, to propose a deal with Canadian interests to build half a dozen mammoth grain elevators there.”

  “I am aware of that meeting,” offered Willie, calmly.

  “You are? Wait. Last May you were aware of it?” asked the Mayor.