2. The Ghosts of Corkscrew Alley

The Varick Street Annex was a monument to the federal government’s peculiar genius for making even new buildings look exhausted. It occupied the entire block between Vandam and Charlton, a gray limestone hulk whose windows were set too close together and whose entranceway was framed by a pair of allegorical figures that someone in the Works Progress Administration had probably thought inspiring but which, after two decades of exposure to New York soot, now looked like mourners at a funeral no one had bothered to attend. I pushed through the revolving door at nine-fifteen and found myself in a lobby that smelled of floor wax, stale coffee, and the particular brand of hopelessness that clings to people who have spent too many years waiting for government checks that never arrive.

The reception desk was manned by a woman whose face had the pinched expression of someone who had long ago decided that politeness was a luxury the public did not deserve. She looked at me the way a bulldog looks at a postman.

“Administrative Judge Finch,” I said. “I have an appointment.”

I did not, in fact, have an appointment, but I had learned long ago that the phrase “I have an appointment” delivered with sufficient confidence could bypass approximately eighty percent of the gatekeepers in the city of New York. The remaining twenty percent required either a badge or a bribe, and I had neither.

She consulted a ledger, found no record of any Goodwin, and looked up with suspicion. “Your name?”

“Archie Goodwin. I’m representing an interested party in a matter related to one of Judge Finch’s prior decisions. It’s a routine inquiry. If the judge is unavailable, I can speak with his clerk.”

The word “clerk” was a magic key in a building full of clerks. She waved me toward the elevator with a grunt that could have meant anything from “go ahead” to “I hope you fall down the shaft.” I took it as permission.

Judge Finch’s chambers were on the seventh floor, at the end of a corridor lined with doors that all looked exactly alike and were distinguished only by small brass nameplates that no one ever read. The door to Suite 704 was open, and I stepped into a small outer office where a young man with the eager expression of someone who still believed government service was a noble calling was sorting files at a desk.

“Judge Finch, please. My name is Goodwin. I’m conducting an inquiry on behalf of a client.”

The young man, whose nameplate identified him as Mr. Pendleton, disappeared through an inner door and returned a moment later with the news that Judge Finch would see me. I was ushered into a room that was larger than I had expected, lined with law books that looked as though they had never been opened, and dominated by a massive oak desk behind which sat a man who looked exactly like an administrative judge ought to look: gray-haired, dignified, with the weary eyes of someone who had spent thirty years listening to people explain why they deserved money from the government.

“Mr. Goodwin,” Finch said, gesturing me to a chair. “Mr. Pendleton tells me you have questions about one of my decisions. I am always happy to clarify my rulings, though I should warn you that the details of individual cases are confidential.”

“I’m not asking about the details of a ruling, Judge. I’m asking about a case that, according to the Board’s own records, you never heard.”

Finch’s expression did not change, but I noticed that his right hand, which had been resting on the desk, moved slightly to cover a paperweight that looked like it had been made by a grandchild. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“The case number is AB-4729-C. Claimant name John Doe. According to the decision ledger, you issued a denial on April 17th of this year. According to your personal docket, the case was never assigned to your calendar. According to the records room, the file no longer exists. According to the microfilm index, the documents that should be in the file were never filmed. And according to the New York City Police Department, the claimant is dead, having drowned in the East River under circumstances that no one seems interested in investigating.”

The silence that followed was the kind of silence that happens when a lot of thoughts are being rearranged very quickly. Finch’s face remained composed, but I saw something flicker in his eyes, something that might have been recognition or fear or both.

“Mr. Goodwin,” he said at last, “I have been a judge with this Board for twenty-two years. In that time, I have heard approximately thirty thousand cases. I do not remember every one. However, I keep meticulous records, and if a case number is not in my docket, then I did not hear it. Someone has made an error in the decision ledger, or someone has deliberately entered my name on a decision I never rendered. Either way, it is a matter for the Board’s internal affairs division, not for a private detective.”

“Unless,” I said, “the man whose case was decided by a ghost is also dead, and the only record of his existence has been systematically erased. That moves it out of the realm of clerical error and into something else.”

Finch leaned back in his chair and studied me for a long moment. He was a man who had spent decades evaluating the truthfulness of claimants, and I could see that assessment happening behind his eyes. Finally, he stood up and walked to the window, his back to me.

“I will tell you something, Mr. Goodwin, that I have not told anyone else, because until this moment I was not certain it meant anything. Six months ago, I began to notice irregularities in my docket. Cases I did not remember hearing would appear in the ledger under my name, with decisions I did not recall making. At first I assumed it was fatigue or forgetfulness. Then I began to keep a private log, separate from the official docket. In the past six months, there have been eleven cases that were recorded as mine but which I never heard. In every instance, the claimant was an indigent, a vagrant, or a person of unknown origin. In every instance, the claim was denied. And in every instance, the file subsequently disappeared.”

He turned to face me. “I brought my concerns to the regional director, a man named Clarence Huxley. He assured me the matter would be investigated. That was three months ago. I have heard nothing since. Two weeks ago, I attempted to follow up, and was informed that Mr. Huxley had taken an indefinite leave of absence for health reasons. His office has been cleared. His telephone has been disconnected.”

“And you didn’t think to take this to someone higher up? The commissioner? The inspector general?”

Finch smiled, but it was not a happy smile. “Mr. Goodwin, the Federal Welfare Board processes hundreds of thousands of claims each year. The disappearance of eleven files involving nameless indigents is not a scandal. It is a rounding error. No one in Washington cares about John Doe. That is precisely why someone has chosen him as a target.”

I left Judge Finch’s chambers with a list of the eleven case numbers and the dates on which they had been decided by a judge who had never heard them. I also left with the distinct impression that Harold Finch was a man who knew more than he was telling, and that whatever he was holding back was not a secret he intended to share with a stranger from a private detective’s office.

The records room was on the fourth floor, and getting in required more charm than the lobby had demanded. The chief custodian, a woman named Miss Holloway, was a small, birdlike creature with spectacles that magnified her eyes to unsettling proportions and a manner that suggested she regarded every request for access as a personal affront. But the combination of Finch’s name and my own persistence eventually persuaded her to let me through the door.

The records room was vast, a warehouse of filing cabinets that stretched into the distance like tombstones in a cemetery. The air was dry and cool, and the only sound was the hum of the climate-control system, a low, persistent drone that seemed to vibrate in my teeth.

“I’m interested in a series of files that may have gone missing,” I said. “Specifically, any cases involving indigent claimants that were decided in the past six months.”

Miss Holloway’s expression tightened. “Files do not go missing from this room. The procedures are absolute. Two keys, a sign-out log, and a daily inventory check. If a file is not on its shelf, it is because it has been legitimately removed.”

“Then how do you explain these?” I handed her the list of case numbers.

She took the list and disappeared among the cabinets, her footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. When she returned, her face was pale, and her hands were trembling slightly.

“These files are gone,” she said. “All eleven of them. The sign-out log shows no record of removal. The inventory sheets for the past six months show no discrepancies. But the files are not on the shelves.”

“And the microfilm?”

“I checked the index. The entries exist, but the film is blank for those cases. Someone has tampered with the master negative.”

I thanked her and left the Varick Street Annex with the feeling that I had waded into water that was considerably deeper than it had appeared from the shore. Eleven missing files. Eleven dead indigents. A judge who had been impersonated, a regional director who had vanished, and a microfilm master that had been doctored. It was no longer a question of whether a crime had been committed. It was a question of who had the resources and the access to commit it on such a scale.

My next stop was the Gazette building on Nassau Street, where Lon Cohen occupied a corner desk in the city room with the air of a man who had seen everything and been surprised by none of it. Lon and I had traded favors for years, and he knew that when I showed up with a photograph and a request, there was usually a story behind it that was worth the trouble.

I handed him the intake photograph of John Doe. “I need to know if this man has ever appeared in your archives. Mug shots, society pages, labor disputes, anything. He went by John Doe, but that’s not his real name. He had a scar on his left forearm, a knife wound from a long time ago.”

Lon took the photograph and studied it with the practiced eye of a newspaperman who had looked at more dead faces than most coroners. “I’ve seen this man before,” he said slowly. “Not this photograph, but this face. Give me an hour.”

He disappeared into the morgue, the newspaper’s archive of clippings and photographs that stretched back to the days when Grover Cleveland was in the White House. I sat at his desk and drank bad coffee and watched the city room hum with the controlled chaos of a daily newspaper preparing its afternoon edition. Reporters shouted into telephones. Copy boys ran between desks. Editors barked commands. It was a symphony of organized pandemonium, and it made me grateful for the quiet of Wolfe’s office.

Lon returned an hour later carrying a folder that was thick with dust and age. He spread its contents on the desk: a series of newspaper clippings and photographs, yellowed with time.

“The photograph you gave me is of a man named Amos Kray,” he said. “Also known as ‘Anvil Amos,’ a pickpocket and small-time grifter who operated in the Five Points and later the Bowery from about 1905 to 1925. He was arrested fourteen times, convicted three times, and spent a total of seven years in Sing Sing. After his last release in 1928, he dropped out of sight. No further arrests, no further mentions. He would be in his seventies now.”

He pushed another photograph across the desk. It was a group picture, taken in what looked like a squalid alleyway. There were five men in the photograph, all young, all dressed in the rough clothing of the urban poor. One of them was unmistakably Amos Kray, younger and harder, with the scar on his forearm visible below a rolled-up sleeve.

“This photograph was taken in 1918,” Lon said. “The location is a place called Corkscrew Alley, a slum tenement that used to stand on the Lower East Side, near where the Manhattan Bridge approach is now. The caption identifies the five men as members of a street gang known as the Corkscrew Alley Boys. They were small-time criminals, mostly pickpockets and petty thieves. The police broke up the gang in 1920, and the members scattered.”

He pointed to the other faces in the photograph, one by one. “James ‘Jimmy the Spoon’ Riordan. Died in 1935. Heart attack, according to the death certificate. Peter ‘Pegleg’ Mullins. Died in 1941. Fell from a rooftop under unknown circumstances. Ruled an accident. Michael ‘Mickey Finn’ O’Shea. Died in 1947. Suicide by hanging, although the police report noted that his hands were bound behind his back, which makes it a very unusual suicide. And Thomas ‘Tommy the Gent’ Costello. Died just six months ago. Hit by a car on a dark street in Queens. The driver was never identified.”

I stared at the photograph. Five men. All dead. And according to the dates, all but Amos Kray had died in the past thirty years, their deaths scattered across the decades like beads from a broken necklace. But the pattern was there, unmistakable, once you knew to look for it.

“There’s something else,” Lon said. He pointed to the background of the photograph, where a sixth figure was partially visible, a boy of perhaps fourteen or fifteen, standing in the shadow of a doorway. His face was turned away from the camera, but his posture was distinctive: shoulders back, head high, the stance of someone who refused to be diminished by his surroundings.

“The caption mentions a sixth boy who was associated with the gang but not a formal member. A kid they called ‘Rags.’ He ran errands for them, picked pockets when they needed a small pair of hands. According to the newspaper accounts, he disappeared from the neighborhood sometime in 1919, around the time the gang was broken up. No one knew what happened to him.”

Lon pulled out a final clipping, this one from the society pages of the Gazette dated three months earlier. It showed a photograph of a distinguished-looking man in his early sixties, silver-haired, impeccably dressed, standing on the steps of a grand mansion and smiling at the camera. The headline read: SIR REGINALD THORNE ANNOUNCES MILLION-DOLLAR CHARITABLE FOUNDATION.

“Sir Reginald Thorne,” Lon said. “Industrialist, philanthropist, advisor to presidents. Born in London, educated at Oxford, came to America after the Great War and built a fortune in steel and shipping. He is widely considered one of the most honorable men in the country. The British government is rumored to be considering him for a peerage.”

He tapped the photograph of the boy in the doorway. “If you look closely at the shape of the jaw, the angle of the shoulders, the way he holds himself... it’s the same man. I’d stake my reputation on it. Sir Reginald Thorne grew up in Corkscrew Alley, ran with a gang of petty criminals, and has spent the past forty years pretending it never happened.”

I looked at the photograph again, at the five dead men and the boy who had become a knight of the realm. And I thought about eleven missing files, eleven dead indigents, a judge who had been impersonated, and a regional director who had vanished. Someone was cleaning house, and they had been doing it for a very long time.

“Lon,” I said, “I need copies of everything. And I need you to sit on this story until I tell you otherwise. If this goes public before we’re ready, someone else might die.”

He nodded, his face serious. “This is big, Archie. Bigger than anything you’ve brought me before. If Thorne is behind this, he’s not just a murderer. He’s a man who has spent his entire adult life systematically erasing everyone who knew the truth about his past. And he’s almost finished.”

I left the Gazette building with the copies in my pocket and a chill that had nothing to do with the December weather. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still gray, the color of old newspaper, and the streets were slick with puddles that reflected the city back at itself in fragmented pieces.

As I walked toward the subway, I became aware of a presence behind me. I did not turn around immediately. Instead, I stopped at a newsstand and pretended to examine the headlines while I used the reflection in a window to scan the street behind me. And there he was, across the street, leaning against a lamppost with the studied casualness of a man who did not want to be noticed but did not care very much if he was: medium height, medium build, dark overcoat, hat pulled low. The man Theodore Ashby had described. The man who had been following our client.

He was following me now.

I considered my options. I could confront him, but that would show our hand too early. I could try to lose him in the subway crowds, but that would only confirm that I knew he was there. Instead, I decided to give him something to follow. I walked at a leisurely pace toward the Christopher Street station, took the train uptown, and got off at Times Square, where I spent twenty minutes wandering through the crowds before hailing a cab and giving the driver the address of the brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth Street.

When I arrived, I found Wolfe in the office, a fresh bottle of beer at his elbow and a pile of correspondence on his desk that he was ignoring with the serene determination of a man who had elevated procrastination to an art form. I gave him a full report on everything I had learned: Judge Finch’s confession, the eleven missing files, the regional director’s disappearance, the photograph from Corkscrew Alley, the five dead gang members, and the boy who had become Sir Reginald Thorne.

Wolfe listened in silence, his eyes half-closed, his fingers steepled on his abdomen. When I finished, he remained motionless for a full minute.

“Archie,” he said at last, “it would appear that we are investigating a man who has been murdering his former associates for at least thirty-five years, and who has now extended his campaign to include anyone who might inadvertently expose his origins through the bureaucratic machinery of the welfare state. The missing files, the impersonated judge, the vanished regional director, they are all part of a single, coherent operation designed to erase every trace of a past that Sir Reginald Thorne has spent his life escaping.”

He reached for his beer and took a contemplative sip. “The question is no longer whether these men were murdered. The question is whether we can prove it before the killer decides that we, too, have become inconvenient.”

The telephone rang. I picked it up.

It was a woman’s voice, thin and frightened. “Mr. Goodwin? This is Mrs. Albright, from the apartment next to Mr. Ashby’s. He asked me to call you if anything happened. I think something has happened. His door is open, and the apartment is a mess, and he isn’t here. And there’s... there’s something on the floor. I think it’s blood.”

The line went dead.

I looked at Wolfe. “Ashby’s apartment. Signs of a struggle. Possible blood. Our client is missing.”

Wolfe set down his beer. “Then we have run out of time for contemplation. Call Inspector Cramer. Tell him what you have told me. And then we will go to Mr. Ashby’s apartment and see what the man in the dark overcoat has left for us to find.”