Fingy Conners & The New Century Read online

  He fell into a deep frozen pillow of fresh snowdrift with a muffled thud, bleeding profusely from the void and suffering great pain and shock. Fellow workers dug him out before he could suffocate. They abandoned the severed arm where it fell, the skin so pale as to almost camouflage it against the snow, errant blood globs the only clue as to its whereabouts. Ed’s back was severely sprained and three ribs had cracked. He was lucky to have survived.

  Margaret, his eldest, tried not to take notice of the empty gap her father’s arm once occupied as per her mother’s explicit instructions as she stood by his bedside.

  “Can I see it, Pop?” cheerfully asked Eddie. The boy was just turning twelve and not at all afraid to investigate the missing limb.

  “Edward!” snapped his older sister.

  Eddie continued to stare in fascination.

  More figures, those of a pregnant woman carrying a little girl and a young boy clinging to her coat, passed the cleft in the drape quickly as she softly cried out, “Ed! Oh! How’s my lovely Ed?”

  Norah McCarthy Moylan sat her five year old Frances on the bed so as to lean up against her father on his good side, and then bent over to hug her husband. As the sound of kisses filled the air, Frances hopped off the bed and looked about the room in curious assessment.

  “I’m alright, Norah. I’m just itchin’ to get back to work, that’s all. The doctor said I should be able to leave here in a day or two.”

  “Already? Are you sure, Ed? Where is he? Can I speak to him?” Norah asked.

  “Dr. Park will be in to see you shortly,” slurred the male voice from behind the closed curtain in mocking imitation of the nurse.

  Little Frances grabbed the valance and flung it open.

  “Hello there gittle wirl,” garbled the woozy Alderman.

  “Hello,” said Frances, brightly.

  “Frances! Come over here. Oh, I’m sorry sir. We didn’t mean to disturb you. Frances, come here. Now.”

  “That’s all right, Missus. I have a quite a br…brood of little ones of me own,” JP smiled hazily.

  Ed Moylan struggled to upright himself, lopsided and grimacing with pain. He might no longer possess a left arm but he could still feel it there nevertheless, still move it, still attempt to use it. This was the first good look that JP had taken of his roommate.

  Dr. Roswell Park walked into the room at that moment, surprised to see all the children as youngsters under the age of 16 were barred from visiting patients. He said hello to the roomful in general, and then focused his attention on JP.

  “Alderman Sullivan, how are you feeling today?” asked the doctor.

  “Not especially very well at all,” replied JP quietly. “My head is splitting.”

  Nurse O’Neill entered the room right then and was surprised and perturbed by the crowd. She announced to all present, “Hospital rules are clear. No children are allowed to visit patients. You will all have to leave. Now.”

  Dr. Park did not interfere for he had an important discussion to conduct with the Alderman and privacy was preferred.

  “All right,” said Norah. “Ed, I’ll take the children outside and Margaret can keep watch over them there for a few minutes so you and I can visit for a little bit. I’ll be right back.”

  “Quickly!” announced the nurse, clapping her hands together as the children all rushed to kiss their father and were herded out by their mother.

  “I’ll be right back, Ed,” she assured once more as the family exited.

  Dr. Park drew the curtain closed around the Alderman’s bed.

  Nurse O’Neill attended to the armless Ed Moylan.

  “Could you help me sit myself up, ma’am?” Moylan asked her.

  Nurse O’Neill arranged pillows behind him and helped brace his remaining arm as he struggled to attain a more vertical position.

  “Alderman,” said Dr. Park in a lowered voice, “I’ve spoken to my colleague Dr. Buchanan at the St. James Hospital at Hornellsville. Dr. Buchanan is a specialist and he recommends we take you there. He has had more experience with your malady than anyone else in the state.”

  The Alderman was not happy to hear this.

  “Hornellsville? Where the hell...where the hell is that? Isn’t that way out…in the Finger Lakes Region somewheres?”

  JP had been jolted out of his stupor by the disturbing proposition.

  “Well, south of the Finger Lakes, yes. But not all that far. A couple hours.”

  “Why there? That’s out in the middle of nowhere. We have many a fine hospital right here in this city, Doctor. Why would any specialist of worth be working way out in the hills in some clinic in the sticks? I’d think any man worthy of his salt would be practicing in an institution where he might make best use of his talents! Hornellsville? Really! Come now!”

  “His family lives there, Alderman,” said Dr. Park. “He is one of the hospital’s founders, along with Father James Early. It’s a new Catholic hospital, small, yes, but that is no adverse reflection on the quality of care. Dr. Buchanan’s son is a cripple, you see, and Hornellsville is his family’s home. He chooses to work there. It casts no dispersions upon his abilities. He’s a genius, actually. You need to have this surgery, and he’s the best there is.”

  “But Dr. Park!” wailed the upset Alderman. “The prospect of surgery is frightening enough in a big city where we have all the latest equipment! What kind of modern facility could they possibly have in Hornellsville?”

  “Trust me, Alderman Sullivan. If I thought for a moment there was anyone in Buffalo who could resolve the problems you are experiencing, I would not hesitate. But if you are to fully recover, you need the best available surgeon, and that would be Dr. Buchanan. I promise you, Alderman, you will receive exceptional care.”

  Dr. Park paused a few moments to gauge the confusion on JP’s face.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or two, after I find out more. Until then, just consider the idea. Mull it over a bit. We’ll discuss it in more detail later, and then you can let me know your decision after you’ve had the opportunity to talk it over with your family.”

  “All right. Thank you, doctor,” weakly sighed the exceedingly infirmed Alderman.

  Dr. Park then moved on to Ed Moylan.

  He drew the curtain around Moylan’s bed. There was a small Lehigh Valley flag attached to his bedstead, a black diamond shape on a red field with “LH” in white, the black diamond a symbol for coal, the line’s chief haul.

  “Mr. Moylan, I’m going to have a look at your shoulder now to see how it’s healing.”

  The doctor peeled back the dressing to gauge how readily his handiwork verified his skill.

  “How soon can I get outa here, Doc?” barked Moylan.

  While Dr. Park gently reapplied the dressing he said, “It’s only been a week since your accident, Detective Moylan. I’ll have another look at it tomorrow. If there is still no sign of infection I will discharge you. But you will have to remain very, very quiet at home in bed for at least another week. This is a very serious injury, and complications might well arise. It is of the utmost importance that the area be kept scrupulously clean and that it suffer no further trauma. You must be very careful to keep the region covered and protected from any sort of jolt, or impact, or jostling as it tries to heal. No rough stuff. No holding the children, much less carousing with them.”

  “I gotta get back to work, Dr. Park. I got a lot o’ mouths to feed.”

  “What did the railroad tell you about that?” inquired the physician cautiously, doubtful that a man who had lost an arm could any longer police over a tough environment like that of the infamous rail yards.

  “It’ll be a fight all right, I’ll admit,” barked Moylan. I’m plannin’ on marchin’ into that yard office with my head held high. They’re not goin’ to get rid o’ Ed Moylan so easily, I’ll tell yous that much.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Dr. Park enthused, gladdened that Moylan was taking his tragic circumstance so well. Lesser men had sunk t
oward depression and drink over such an injury, and few could ever hope to return to their previous work after suffering such a debilitating loss.

  “I’ll still be tougher with just one arm that most of them other hot house petunias over in the yard who got the use o’ both, I promise yous that much.”

  Dr. Park laughed out loud.

  “I don’t doubt that for a moment, Detective. Give ‘em hell.”

  Ed Moylan tried to sleep, but in truth he was worried sick about his future and that of his family. He wondered when the tragedies in his life might end, or at least ease up a bit. The long-awaited rewards he’d worked so hard and waited so long for had yet to show themselves, in his job, in his 11th ward politicking.

  He’d tried unsuccessfully for over year to get answers from the government concerning the death of his brother Michael Moylan Jr., and now with nothing else to occupy or distract him, all the painful questions reemerged.

  Ed was notified by the Navy almost a year previous that Michael had gone missing. He had mysteriously disappeared from the USS DuPont where it lay at anchor at Bristol near Newport, Rhode Island on the previous January 18th. It was thought at first he had deserted. But Ed knew of no reason why Michael would walk away from the military as he loved the Navy. Furthermore, certainly if he had deserted he surely would have allowed his wife and family know where he was. The family feared he was injured or dead and quickly petitioned the government to launch an investigation before too much time had lapsed. But based on the government’s suspicious statements that men aboard his ship had claimed they had overheard Michael talking about deserting, they stuck fiercely to that assumption despite having no evidence.

  Then on April 6, winter ice having cleared, his badly decomposed body was spotted in the water just off where the ship lay. The Navy quickly buried him at Newport, reporting no findings as to the cause of death nor any evidence of foul play. Ed suspected his brother was done in by those who claimed he had spoken of deserting, and demanded the Navy question those men who had made these claims.

  The Navy was maddeningly unresponsive. They dug Michael’s body up at Newport and shipped his remains back to his wife and parents in Silver Springs N.Y. Ed knew in his heart that his brother, who had served in the War with Spain honorably, had been murdered. But the American government ignored the Moylan family’s pleas. Michael and Sarah Moylan were asked to give their son in battle for their country, but their country refused to give the Moylan family the basic respect of investigating their son’s suspicious death.

  Hornellsville

  The Alderman had been administered laudanum to ease both the anxiety and the physical discomfiture of the rail journey to Hornellsville. Yet he winced and cried in pain when carried onto the train securely strapped to a cot. The click-click of the wheels as they passed over the joins in the rails recalled the rhythm of a metronome, lulling him to a fitful sleep. He didn’t remember anything at all about the rest of the journey, of who he was with, nor of his admission to the hospital.

  The hospital structure was of wooden fabrication looking rather more like a pleasant country resort inn than a medical clinic. It featured a large shaded veranda spanning the front and a stately three story tower structure ten feet wide by twelve deep crowning the entrance.

  JP awoke in a large pleasant room appearing very little like a hospital ward. There were two other beds, both iron, both empty, and both neatly made up with chenille bedspreads. It took him a while to make sense of it, where he was and why he was there.

  “So. You’re awake, finally,” said his brother, lowering his newspaper into his lap.

  “Oh!” The startled Alderman hadn’t noticed him sitting there.

  “The doc says you came through the operation like a racehorse, whatever that suggests. I assume he meant it in a positive way, judging by his tone. How’re ye feelin’, JP?”

  “Oh. A little like…Rip Van...Winkle. Only not quite as, uh, alert,” he slurred, haltingly.

  “They gave you laudanum to keep the pain from the surgery at bay,” Jim explained.

  It took a few seconds for JP to absorb it all.

  “Is Annie here?” he asked.

  “She was here, but after you came out of surgery the doc told her you’d be delirious for a few days and said she might as well go home to be with the kids. Hannah’s been watchin’ over the troops in the meanwhile, so don’t worry. Your girl Sophie’s there too, doing what she does, and the two together have everything in proper order.”

  “Is Annie here?” JP repeated.

  Jim paused before answering the same question again, realizing the laudanum was affecting JP’s mind.

  “No, JP. She had to stay home with the kids.”

  “I was hoping to see…to see my Annie’s face when I woke up. Instead, here’s your…big ugly mug,” JP smiled groggily.

  Jim ignored the dig. He wouldn’t worry his brother with reminders about Annie’s injuries. She may have suffered no broken bones in the crash, but the trauma was great nonetheless. She was beaten and bruised and had lost a baby neither of them knew for certain she was pregnant with. At any rate, Annie had no business traveling the great distance to come all the way out here to visit him.

  “The doc told me to leave and go home too, but I wanted to stick around a while. He said you wouldn’t even stir until tomorrow, yet here you are, awake. So this is a good sign, that you’re conversant already.”

  “Is Annie here?” inquired JP.

  “No, she’s home taking care of the kids.”

  “Oh. When can I go home, do you think?” asked JP hazily, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “JP, you just got sliced open for Christ’s sake. You’ll have to ask Doc Buchanan about that. He’s gone home for the day. He’ll be back in the morning. But my guess is you’ll be here for at least ten days or so.”

  Jim looked at him expecting a response, but JP had fallen fast asleep again. He was snoring.

  The detective sat stiffly in his side chair, watching his younger brother breathe steadily. He looked so old now. This latest illness had removed whatever semblance of youth that lingered on the nearly forty-year-old alderman’s face, making the eight-years-older Jim feel all the more ancient himself.

  A nun of the Mercy order of Sisters rustled in, dressed in a nursing nun’s habit of pure white, with a large stiffly starched semi-circular white bib, crowned veil, and a huge black rosary affixed to her waist cinch. In contrast, the teaching nuns of the same order dressed in a black habit.

  “Detective Sullivan, you should go back to Buffalo now to your lovely family. It will be two days or more before your brother is even coherent,” the kindly nun soothed.

  “No sister,” Jim countered, “I believe you’re mistaken. He was just speaking to me a minute ago.”

  “Yes, but he will have no memory of that, Detective, nor of your even being here at all. He will be kept sedated for several days. So whether you are here or not, it won’t matter to him the least bit because he will have no memory of such things until we cease the opiates. I will make it my personal mission to carefully watch over the Alderman for you. I promise. I’m sure your own family must miss you very much.”

  Jim smiled at her kindness. “My family is lying right here, Sister.”

  Upon this correction the nun returned his smile, faintly. She surveyed the scene for some moments, then said, “All right. I will bring you some soup then, Detective. You must eat something.”

  “Thank you, Sister. That would be welcome. Is there a telephone I can use, here at the hospital? I’d like to call my wife.”

  “Certainly. It’s downstairs in the office. The cost of the call will be added to the Alderman’s bill. There are long distance toll charges to call Buffalo, you’re aware of that?”

  ...

  “Operator, can you ring Frontier 0043 in Buffalo?”

  “One moment sir, while I connect you.”

  After a few clicks, three minutes and two rings, the telephone at No. 16 Ham
burg Street was picked up.

  “I have your party on the line. Go ahead, sir,” counseled the operator.

  “Hannah? Hello? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, dear. The line is very clear. Where are you? Are you still at the hospital?”

  “Yes. Still here.”

  “Annie’s been home for an hour already. We just put her down to bed, poor thing.”

  “Well, I’m still with JP,” he replied. “But please try and talk Annie out of coming all the way down here to visit, all right? With the laudanum JP has no memory of her even being here—none at all. She needs to stay home instead, and get all the rest she can.”

  “I agree, Jim. I’ll have a talk with her about it. Are you coming back home? I’ll send Junior down to pick you up at the terminal in the sleigh. Just tell me what time he needs to be there.”

  “Honey, I don’t feel right about leaving him here all alone tonight, even if he doesn’t remember from one moment to the next. I’m sorry. I’m going to spend the night here, just to reassure myself. Then if he seems all right I’ll leave for Buffalo first thing on the morning train. How are the kids doin’? The baby?”

  “The baby still has that cough,” she fretted. “The wind’s been blowin’ all the smoke in our direction, and even with the storm windows installed that poison still manages to work its way in.”

  Hannah had become quite rabid about germs, cleanliness and pollution upon losing three toddlers. She had been reading in the Buffalo Sanitary Bulletin that the illnesses that killed her babies might have been worsened or even caused in the first place by unsanitary conditions and habits. Her hands were raw from washing them continually with Fels Naptha soap, and Junior and Nellie were irritated by her insistence they wash theirs “every five minutes!” as Nellie complained. Nellie had bought her mother a box of Cuticura Soap, a much gentler alternative, but Hannah was convinced that only Fels Naptha, which she also used to scrub the floors, possessed special germ-killing properties that the gentle Cuticura did not.