Free The Spy by Clive;Justin Scott Cussler

quietly removed his gloves, revealing a heavy ring studded with jewels, and unbuttoned his coat. Under his coat, the Gopher Gang leader could see a solid-gold watch chain thick enough to hold a brewery horse and a dark blue broadcloth suit of clothes. Tommy could have entertained three chorus girls for a week in Atlantic City for what the swell had paid for his boots.
    The swell said not a word. He stood utterly still after removing his gloves and opening his coat, except for when he lifted a hand to smooth the tip of his narrow mustache with his thumb, which he then hooked in his vest pocket.
    A cool customer, Commodore Tommy decided. He also decided that if all the cops in New York chipped in they still could not afford to disguise a detective in such an outfit. Even if they could raise the dough, there wasn’t a cop in the city who could paint that born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth expression on his mug. So the gang boss asked, “What do you want?”
    “Can I assume,” the swell asked, “that you are indeed the leader of the Gopher Gang?”
    Commodore Tommy grew wary, again. The swell was not a complete stranger to Hell’s Kitchen. He had pronounced the gang’s name correctly—as “goofer.” Not like the newspapers spelled it for Fifth Avenue readers. Where had he learned to say goofer?
    “I asked you what do you want?”
    “I want to pay you five thousand dollars for the services of three murderers.”
    Tommy Thompson sat up straight. Five thousand dollars was a hell of a lot money. So much money that he forgot all about goofer and gopher and threw caution to the winds. “Who do you want murdered?”
    “A Scotsman named Alasdair MacDonald needs killing in Camden, New Jersey. The murderers must be adept with knives.”
    “Oh, must they, now?”
    “I have the money with me,” said the swell. “I will pay you first and trust you will deliver.”
    Tommy Thompson turned to his bouncers. The bruisers were grinning mirthlessly. The swell had just made a fatal mistake in admitting he had the dough on him.
    “Take his five thousand dollars,” Tommy ordered. “Take his watch. Take his ring. Take his gold-headed cane and his coat and his fur hat and his suit and his boots, and throw the son of a bitch in the river.”
    They moved as one, surprisingly fast for big men.
    The swell’s coat and tailored suit concealed a powerful frame. The stillness of his stance masked blinding speed. In the space of a heartbeat, one bouncer was sprawled on the floor, stunned and bloodied. The other was pleading for mercy in a high-pitched squeal. The swell had clamped his head under one arm, while he pressed his thumb to the bouncer’s eye.
    Commodore Tommy gaped in astonished recognition.
    Fitted over the swell’s thumbnail gleamed a razor-sharp gouge. The tip pressed the corner of the bouncer’s eye, and it was clear to the pleading gangster—and to Commodore Tommy—that with a flick of his thumb the swell could scoop the man’s eye out of his head like a grape.
    “Jaysus, Jaysus, Jaysus,” breathed Tommy. “You’re Brian O’Shay.”
    At the sound of that name the bouncer, whose eye was a fraction of an inch from being extracted from its socket, began to weep. The other, still struggling for breath on the floor, gasped, “Can’t be. Eyes O’Shay is dead.”
    “If he was,” said Commodore Tommy, “he’s back from it.”
    The Gopher Gang leader stared in wonder.
    Brian “Eyes” O’Shay had vanished fifteen years ago. No wonder he knew goofer. If Eyes hadn’t vanished, they’d still be battling each other to boss Hell’s Kitchen. Barely out of childhood, O’Shay had mastered the gang weapons—slingshot, lead pipe, brass knuckles, and axheads in his boots—and even gotten his mitts on a police revolver. But O’Shay had been most feared for gouging out rivals’ eyes with a specially fitted copper thumbnail.
    “You’ve moved up in the world,” said Tommy, getting over his shock. “That gouge looks