Chapter 164: Aftermath

High above the intersection of Barrow and Washington Streets, thick grey smoke drifted lazily off the rooftop edge, smelling sharply of sulfur and burnt black powder.

​John lowered the heavy bolt-action rifle from his shoulder, his thumb resting over the bolt handle as he looked down into the narrow, dark alley below. Scattered across the stones were the motionless forms of Duster corpses, illuminated only by the faint amber glow of distant streetlamps. The concussive blasts had fallen silent, leaving behind an eerie, heavy quiet across the block.

​Reaching up with one gloved hand, John unclasped the leather strap behind his head and pulled off his stark white face mask. He took a long, quiet breath of the cold night air, his expression calm and unbothered.

​From the shadow of a brick chimney stack, Robert, one of the squad leaders, stepped forward. He lowered his weapon, wiping a smudge of soot from his forehead before looking down over the parapet wall.

​"It is finished, sir," Robert said, his voice quiet and respectful. "The back lanes are clear. Nothing moving down there except the smoke." He hesitated for a second, looking back at John. "If I may ask, ... what was the true purpose of those explosive charges? We had them pinned in the dark. We could have finished the lot with rifles without making half that noise."

​John turned his head, his dark eyes steady as he met Robert’s gaze. "The Dusters have been terrorizing these streets under the cover of night, Robert. Had we simply dispatched them in silence, Frank Knox and the police department would have swept the bodies into the river and claimed nothing happened. We needed the chaos to linger just long enough for the whole ward to wake up."

​He gestured with his chin toward the surrounding tenement buildings, where windows were already opening and yellow candlelight was beginning to flicker behind curtains.

​"Those explosive charges were an alarm clock," John continued smoothly. "The entire neighborhood heard them. The press will hear about them before dawn. Now that the public knows precisely what occurred here—and who brought forty armed thugs onto their doorsteps—even a bought precinct copper won’t be able to ignore it."

​Robert let out a soft, appreciative whistle, shaking his head. "The Boss sees five moves ahead on every board, doesn’t he?"

​"Always," John replied. "What is our tally?"

​"In this sector? Fifteen or sixteen confirmed dead," Robert reported, checking a small notebook. "A few fled toward the river, including Sullivan, but they left their weapons behind. Christopher Street reports similar numbers. Between the two avenues, Red had lost nineteen men tonight."

​John’s jaw tightened slightly as he looked toward the far corner of Washington Street, where Sullivan had vanished into the darkness. "I had Sullivan in my sights. It grates on me that I let the bastard walk away with only a torn shoulder."

​Robert looked at him in surprise. "Were you truly attempting to kill him, sir? I thought Boss Rick, instructed us to capture senior lieutenants alive if the opportunity presented itself."

​"I was tempted," John admitted, his voice dipping into a low, sharp register. "The brute was dragging a young woman through the glass by her hair, using her as a shield. I let my temper interfere with my judgment. Had I remained composed, a shot to his thigh would have anchored him to the pavement for capture."

​"With respect, sir, you couldn’t have taken his leg," Robert noted honestly. "The girl was twisted right against his left side. You took his shoulder clean off without grazing a single thread of her dress. If you had aimed lower, you might have caught the girl in the hip."

​John remained silent for a beat, evaluating the memory of the shot, before giving a brief, single nod. "Perhaps you are right. A minor error, but acceptable given the circumstances. Come. The precinct wagons will be rolling within five minutes."

​Robert raised two fingers to his mouth and let out a short, high-pitched bird call that echoed twice across the rooftops. Across three adjacent buildings, dark figures immediately stepped back from the stone cornices.

​"Masks on," Robert ordered, pulling his own white mask back over his features.

​He moved to the edge of the roof wall, where a heavy hemp rope was secured around an iron grapple hook clamped onto the stone ledge. Robert grabbed the line, swung his boots over the wall, and slid down into the dark alley below with practiced, silent speed.

​John waited until the last operative had cleared the ledge. He stepped up to the wall, grabbed the anchor line, and gave the rope a sharp, snap-like flick. The iron hook unclasped from the stone, tumbling into his waiting palm. Rolling the heavy line tight around his elbow in a matter of seconds, John slipped the coil into his coat, turned on his heel, and vanished down the rear fire escape into the shadows.

​Ten minutes later, the quiet of Greenwich Village was shattered by the frantic ringing of brass bells, the heavy clatter of iron-shod hooves, and the shrill, repeated blasts of police whistles.

​Four horse-drawn patrol wagons from the Ninth Ward Precinct thundered down Hudson Street, accompanied by two mounted squads from the neighboring Fifth Precinct. Coppers in heavy blue wool coats and brass-buttoned jackets tumbled out of the wagons before the wheels had even come to a complete halt, their service revolvers drawn and wooden nightsticks raised.

​Behind them, drawn by the thunderous explosions and the roar of gunfire, dozens of local residents poured out onto the sidewalks. Men in nightshirts tucked into trousers, women wrapped in heavy wool shawls, and shopkeepers holding oil lamps crowded the corners of Christopher and Barrow Streets.

​And right behind the police came the city press. Reporters from The Evening World, The New York Tribune, and The Sun rushed onto the scene, their leather-bound notebooks flipped open, accompanied by photographers hauling heavy tripod cameras and trays of flash-powder.

​The scene across the two street corridors was catastrophic.

​Thirty-five Dusters lay scattered across the cobblestones and dark alley mouths. Broken glass from shop windows covered the sidewalks like spilled ice. Wooden doors were splintered off their hinges, display cases were overturned, and spent brass rifle cartridges littered the gutters.

Near the alleyways off Barrow Street, the brickwork was scorched black from the concussive force of the makeshift pipe charges, with bits of torn cloth and mangled flesh embedded in the mortar.

​A senior detective from the Ninth Precinct, Sergeant O’Malley, stood near the center of Barrow Street with a pencil tucked behind his ear, his boots stepping carefully around a pool of drying blood.

​He cornered an elderly tailor, Mr. Henderson, who was standing outside his ruined shop front with a broom in his hand.

​"Alright, old man, settle down," Sergeant O’Malley barked, tapping his notebook with his pencil. "State your name for the record. Did you see who brought these explosives onto a public street?"

​Mr. Henderson looked at the sergeant with wide, furious eyes, his hands shaking against the wooden broom handle. "My name is Arthur Henderson! And no, I didn’t see who threw them, because my wife and I were flat on our bellies behind the cutting table! It sounded like artillery fire from the Spanish War right outside my front window!"

​"Did you catch a look at the men involved before the shooting started?" O’Malley pressed, writing quickly. "Was it a rival gang from the Five Points?"

​"It was the Dusters, I tell you!" Henderson spat, gesturing wildly toward the dead bodies lined up on the curb. "It was the Hudson Dusters, and you know it, Sergeant! They’ve been extorting every store on this block since the winter set in! But tonight they didn’t even ask for cash—they came down the street swinging iron crowbars and smashing every window in sight!"

​A reporter from The Evening World pushed past a junior patrolman, scribbling furiously in his notepad. "Mr. Henderson! Who do you think fought off the Dusters?"

​"Get back behind the barricade, pencil-pusher!" O’Malley snapped, shoving the reporter away.

​"The public has a right to know, Sergeant!" the reporter yelled back. "There are thirty-five dead gang members on the street! Is Captain Teague going to claim this was just a minor row?!"

​Further down Barrow Street, a small crowd of neighbors had gathered around the local bakery. Sitting on the wooden stoop was twenty-two-year-old Sarah Vogel, wrapped in her mother’s thick woolen coat, her face pale and tear-streaked as her father stood beside her with his arm tightly around her shoulders.

​A younger police constable and two newspaper journalists approached the stoop.

​"Miss Vogel," the constable said, his tone somewhat gentler. "Can you tell us what happened when the gang broke into your father’s shop?"

​Sarah swallowed hard, her hands clutching the coat lapels tight against her chest. "They... they kicked the glass out of the door. That big man... he grabbed me by the collar and dragged me out onto the stones." She shivered, her voice cracking slightly. "My father offered him all the money in the register, but he didn’t care about the money. He put a revolver right against my temple. He held me against his chest and... he put his hands all over me. He said he was going to break me right here in the gutter to prove nobody could stop him."

​The reporters gasped, their pencils flying across the newsprint. "And then, Miss Vogel?"

​"Then I saw flashes on the roofs," Sarah said softly, looking up toward the three-story cornice across the street. "A terrible gunshot went off from a roof of a building, in the distance. It hit him right in the shoulder—it tore him right off me! He let go and screamed, and I ran into the doorway before the rest of the shooting started."

​"It was the Faceless Men!" a butcher from across the avenue shouted from the crowd, pointing a thick finger at the police. "You coppers haven’t done a damn thing about the thugs that have been terrorizing since before Winter! You took your cut and turned your backs while they bled us dry! If those masked gents hadn’t been up on those roofs tonight, We would be dead and every shop on Barrow Street would be burnt to ash!"

​"Aye! He speaks the truth!" an older woman yelled from a tenement window above. "They saved the block!"

​The crowd began to swell, murmurs of anger and approval echoing down the street as more shopkeepers joined the chorus, shouting down the precinct officers.

​Sergeant O’Malley’s face turned bright red with embarrassment and frustration as he saw three different news photographers snap flash-powder charges, illuminating the scene in blinding white light.

​"That’s enough!" O’Malley roared, turning to a squad of ten patrolmen standing nearby. "Clear these streets right now! Push the press back to Hudson Street! This is an active crime scene! I want every reporter off this block immediately!"

​"You can’t hide thirty-five bodies, Sergeant!" a reporter from The Sun shouted as two patrolmen grabbed his arms and shoved him back toward the corner. "Captain Teague is going to have to answer to the Police Commissioner for this by morning!"

​The patrolmen formed a heavy skirmish line, using their wooden nightsticks horizontally to push the surging crowd of locals and journalists back toward the main avenue.

​Behind the police line, four heavy wooden flatbed wagons backed slowly into the street. Constables began the grim task of lifting the dead Dusters men off the cobblestones, throwing them onto the back of the wagons like sacks of coal.

​As the press was forcibly herded around the corner, notebooks were already filled with every detail of the night’s slaughter. The reign of terror that the Dusters had held over Greenwich Village was slowly coming to an end.