Page 10 of Kidnapped (The Browns of Butcher’s Hill #1)

P hillip’s shifts at the cannery were particularly challenging that week, as Everly, true to expectations, assigned three new employees and two others that were not well liked by the rest of the staff to his shift. He kept his head up, having known something like this would happen after his trip to the Waters’ ball with the Wiests. He’d said nothing to anyone, although his sister had plagued him until he told her everything he could remember about the gowns and the flowers and the food. He did not have any trouble remembering the food. He’d sampled everything on offer, including the desserts and at least two dozen tiny sandwiches which did not fill him up and could have been considerably better if made on Eliza’s bread.

He had gotten some information about the men who stormed his house from Timothy when they met after his shift that week. They all worked for a man named Alfred Carbone, who in turn worked for Bucciarelli and was, in fact, one of his oldest and most trusted confidants.

“We know it was Carbone who sent the men, but other than that, the three of them have clammed up. Don’t have a plan in place for Carbone yet, but we will. One less criminal working for Bucciarelli on the outside is the goal,” Timothy said and nodded to the barmaid to bring them both another beer.

“At least you know it was definitely Carbone. Let me know when you get him.”

Timothy shrugged. “It’s going to be a while, sadly. The chief at Station Two is dragging his feet. Not sure why.”

“Station Two?”

“That’s where Carbone’s bolt-hole is.”

“So who’s in charge of getting him?”

Timothy took a long slug of beer and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I’m hoping it’s me.”

Phillip knew he wouldn’t wait for some higher-up to decide to arrest Carbone. Or not arrest him. “Do they know where in Station Two the bolt-hole is?”

“Somewhere on Lancaster Street, close to the docks. Probably a warehouse.”

“Lot of ground to cover for your officers, fifteen blocks or more on Lancaster, or whoever’s officers will be doing the arrest.”

Timothy nodded. “Might be around the middle of the two-hundred block, but then that could just be rumor.” He looked Phillip square on and spoke loud enough for patrons at nearby tables to look up. “But just remember, civilians cannot take the law into their own hands.”

“You’re absolutely right. If I hear anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Timothy stood. “I’ve got to get back to the station house. Tell your sister I said hello.”

“Sarah? Tell her yourself the next time you wheedle a dinner invitation.”

“Thought the doctor was getting invited more often these days.”

“He’s around.”

Timothy pulled on his coat. “Maybe I should be too.”

Phillip sat alone, finished his beer, more than a little surprised that his best and oldest friend had some interest in Sarah. Those thoughts slipped from his mind with little additional consideration. At the forefront was formulating a plan to find out what was going on in the middle of the two-hundred block of Lancaster Street and run Carbone to ground. What he would do with him when he caught him, he wasn’t sure.

Phillip worked long hours for the next four days, with barely time to sleep and eat. There had been some labor unrest, a few troublemakers refusing the new shifts or slowing down their work, which forced other workers to pick up their speed in order to get the day’s catch cleaned and canned. Everyone was exhausted from the pace and the tension in the canning room, including Phillip. He was finally home from a shift that had begun in the middle of the previous night. Eliza had fed him after he’d washed and changed clothes, followed by an hour nap, which all had revived him significantly.

“Do you have a spare loaf or two?” he asked Eliza. “I have to stop at the Shoemans’.”

“They can always use an extra loaf, I imagine, with what, nine children? Good Lord. Better take them some of this soup I just made too.”

Phillip gathered the two loaves of bread she handed him, wrapped in a linen towel, and a glass jar filled with soup in a cloth bag. He arrived at the Shoemans’ just as Willis was getting home.

“Can we step outside for a moment?” he said quietly to Willis after handing the food to Mrs. Shoeman. The man nodded and led him out the kitchen door to a small muddy yard.

“What do you need, sir?”

“You don’t need to call me sir,” Phillip said and looked down at the short, wiry man.

“Yes, I do. You and your uncle saved me from prison or worse. What do you need, sir?”

Phillip hated involving Willis Shoeman, especially as he had a large family to provide for, but Willis had helped him before on occasion and shown himself to be clever and brave when necessary. Uncle would jump at the chance to get a few licks in, but Phillip did not want to leave the women unguarded. Phillip wondered how long until Patrick forgave him for leaving him home. “I need a lookout.”

“I’m your man.”

“Could be dangerous, Willis. Maybe you should talk to Mavis.”

“Only an unmarried man would say that.”

Phillip smiled. “I’m going to find the man who sent the men who pushed their way into my house last week. Likely, I’ll be committing a crime of some nature. If the police arrive, hightail it away.”

“Where we going, and when?”

“I’d like to go tonight around nine. We can be on Lancaster an hour later or less.”

“The docks. That’s an easy walk going to, but it could be bad coming back depending on what might happen.”

“True.” A door slammed, and Phillip glanced over several fences to Mrs. Pappadol’s yard. The last thing he needed was the neighborhood gossip to start asking questions. “Best avoid her windows if you can.”

Willis nodded. “I’ll be there.”

Willis was waiting in the shadows of McDuffy’s shed at nine. He fell in step with Phillip as they made their silent way to the alley west of Broadway, which would take them to the rail yard and only another block or so to Lancaster. It wasn’t a terribly cold night, as the wind had blown away the clouds to let the moon shine. After crossing the tracks, Phillip handed Willis a pistol.

“It’s loaded. If we’re caught, drop it wherever you are.”

“Don’t want to drop a fine-looking weapon like this just any old place,” Willis said.

“You know the police will throw a Negro in jail for having a gun. I don’t want to tell Mavis you’re in a cell.”

“True. Then we won’t get caught.”

They walked single file, hugging the side of buildings until they were directly across Lancaster from the middle warehouse on the south side of that street, watching as several men went in and out of the four-story building past two guards. Phillip and Willis went several blocks to the west, toward the Patapsco, finally crossing Lancaster to shimmy between two buildings to get to the dilapidated dock on the other side. Carbone’s building was directly ahead.

“What’s the plan?” Willis whispered.

“Won’t know until I’m inside. Two whistles if there’s trouble.”

Phillip inched along in the shadow of the buildings until he was at Carbone’s lair. He tested a wooden door and found it locked and barred. He squeezed in the narrow space between the building and its neighbor and began inching up the brick wall, his feet on one building, his back against the other. It was slow work, and he did not want to think about whatever was tearing at the back of his coat as he moved steadily up the wall to a second-floor window. The frame was rotting, he could see in the dim moonlight. He pulled his knife from his boot and pushed it under the window sash, inching it open a bit at a time. He could see nothing through the filthy glass, but he heard no movement or voices as the window opened. As his eyes adjusted, he could see it was a storage room of some kind, dust thick on the floor, disturbed only by the scurry of rats.

Phillip pulled himself over the windowsill and found a piece of board that would hold up the window and keep it from crashing and alerting whoever might be in the building. The floor was rotting in places, and he had a sudden vision of falling through the boards and landing on top of Carbone. What a sight that would be, and what a fix he would be in. He cracked open the door opposite the window, where a set of rickety steps led down to the open warehouse area. One more inch allowed him to see stacks of barrels along one wall. None of the gaslights were lit, and he could not hear any voices, although he was not foolish enough to believe the building was empty or unguarded.

He squeezed through the door, its hinges giving a squeak. Phillip stood very still for several minutes, waiting to see if he’d alerted any of the criminals to his presence. He gently placed his foot on the first step, as far from the middle as he could. He was down four steps when he heard a movement from below. A man came out of a door directly below him and walked quickly to the front of the building. Phillip held his breath until the man was gone and he heard the slam of the door. He waited another five minutes, barely breathing, realizing as his mind reviewed what he had just seen that a lamp was burning in the room directly below the stairs he stood on. And then he heard a woman’s laughter.

Phillip continued down the stairs, hoping whatever a man’s voice rumbled in response would occupy them both. There was no window to the room where the sounds came from, just a line of light from under the door and more laughter from the woman. He moved slowly toward a line of barrels near him, opposite the barrels on the other side of the otherwise empty warehouse. Printed clearly on the barrel was “Olive Oil, product of Italy.”

He crept to the barrel farthest away from him and the office door and found the wooden cap screwed into the barrel head. He unscrewed it slowly until oil began to spill out with rapid glugs and went to the next barrel. The floor was soon thick with it, the smell delicious. He stayed out of the oil as much as he could and made his way back to the door, inching closer with slow steps.

Phillip gasped when he heard something crash to the floor in the closed office, his heart pounding in his ears, but then he heard the woman’s cry and grunting from the man over the sound of furniture moving against a wooden floor. Now was his time, he thought as he slowly turned the knob.

“What a white ass you have, Mr. Carbone,” Phillip said as he stepped into the room, his gun pointed at the man’s head. The woman glanced up from where she lay on the desk in panic, trying to pull her dress together over her breasts. Carbone was silent, his trousers around his ankles.

“Move your hand one inch closer to that letter opener and we’ll be picking your brains off the wall,” Phillip said.

“Don’t shoot me, please, mister,” the woman said.

“No reason to shoot you. A threat to you would mean nothing to him.”

“You’re a dead man,” Carbone said. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Keep your boys away from Wolfe Street.” He heard two faint whistles and began to back away from the desk toward the door. Then shouting and a door slamming open. Carbone must have pressed a button or pulled an alarm somehow that alerted his men. Phillip turned his pistol in his hand and smacked Carbone’s head with the butt. The man fell flat on the woman and began to slide down her body. She was screaming and pushing Carbone off when Phillip threw open the office door.

Phillip heard shouts and gunfire coming his direction from the other side of the warehouse. He hurried the few feet to an outside door, threw the bar, and glanced back at the mob coming for him, just as they began to slip and slide on the olive oil-covered floor. He would have laughed if a bullet hadn’t hit the door frame inches from his head, the wood exploding, and spraying his cheek and chin with shards of wood. He tripped out onto the dock and into the arms of Willis, who grabbed him around the waist and propelled him to the next gap between buildings.

“Follow me,” Willis whispered and pulled Phillip’s hand to his shoulder to guide him in the dark.

Phillip stumbled along, holding tight to Willis’s coat, unable to see much of anything in the darkness and starting to feel pain in his face and neck. He touched his forehead with his free hand and felt blood, could smell blood, and hoped that he did not have a piece of wood wedged in his eye. He heard footsteps following and shouting from behind them. Willis stopped abruptly.

“There’s one at this end ahead of us too,” Willis whispered. “We’re going to have to fight our way out.”

“Let’s get it done, then,” Phillip said even as he felt himself weakening.

Willis charged forward, Phillip following, running on the narrow, slick bricks, both of them sliding and struggling to stay upright. Phillip could see the gun in Willis’s hand glinting in the sliver of moonlight darting through the darkness. He fumbled in his jacket pocket until he found his own weapon, only to drop to the cobblestones on his knees.

That’s when he heard his uncle’s voice. “Hurry now. They’re coming! Get across Lancaster!”

Willis burst through the opening at the end of the walkway, running full speed. Phillip could hear shots fired and saw Willis go down on one knee, stand up, and fire down the street as Patrick pulled Phillip to his feet.

“Come on now, Phillip. You’ve got to move faster,” Patrick shouted and shot at the men charging them. He pushed Phillip into the walkway between the buildings on the north side of Lancaster and told them to get themselves to a wagon in the alley.

Patrick turned and shot at the men racing after them and dropped two in the opening between the buildings. He followed Phillip and Willis, jumped onto the bench of the wagon, and hawed the nervous horse. Phillip grabbed the side of the wagon and the back of Willis’s coat as he started to slide out. Patrick had them flying north on Broadway and beyond the reach of Carbone’s bullets soon after.

“The women,” Phillip shouted to Patrick.

“McDuffy’s on the stoop with a shotgun in his hands.”

Phillip closed his eyes and gave in to the pain.