The Ballad of James McKenna

Day Five: The Best Laid Plans

Day Five
         The Best Laid Plans
Word Count: 1295

"So, those plans are officially out the window."

Nate harrumphed, spooning cream of asparagus soup into his mouth with obvious glee. "Well, I did tell you we were going to have to hit up the Negro centers of town." Tapping his napkin against the curls of his mustache, Nate sat back and shrugged. "But you were right about Moody; he did turn out to be spectacularly useless to us. I find it hard to believe the newspaper men haven't turned up anything. It's far more likely he doesn't want to give us whatever they've found so we can't impede their story."

Jimmy frowned and shoveled a biscuit into his mouth, quite forgetting that a gentleman wasn't supposed to do that sort of thing. He swallowed hard, cheeks coloring as he stole a glance at the dining room. No gentleman had risen to smack his cheek by way of challenge, no woman had fainted into her pillowing skirts. Good. "Yes," he said finally. "That is exactly what's happening. They're putting the whole investigation at risk because of their stupid sense of...well, sensationalism. As if a story..." Jimmy realized he was squeezing his fork and let it clatter onto the table. This time people did look.

"Good God, Jimmy, you've got to let this obsession with reporters go. Look what it's doing to you." Nate would have reached forward to touch Jimmy's hand by way of comfort, but such things weren't done in New York as they were in Virginia, so instead he picked up a forkful of beef and placed it onto his tongue. "It's not helping anything to rage against what we can't control. Why don't we focus on what we can do and do something about that? You can't save the world, my friend."

Jimmy sighed. "I wish I could. There's been enough suffering in this nation without it being compounded by such lawlessness."

"I know that, Jimmy. It's what I've always admired about you." Nate smiled and Jimmy realized he was about to be mocked. He disliked being mocked as a general rule, but had come to accept and even appreciate Nate's humor as a part of his life. "That and your self-control, though perhaps I have been hasty in ascribing you that particular attribute."

To keep from biting back a sharp retort--such things were not the action of a gentleman, whatever the urge--Jimmy sipped at his ale and stared out at the sky. Clouds were rolling in; it would be raining soon. That would mean a day spent in the office, staring at the same clues in the same ways until nothing made sense anymore. "We'll have to get as much done as possible today."

Nate followed Jimmy's gaze and nodded. "We'll lose tomorrow, but that's all right. If we find anything new today, we'll have plenty of time to figure out what it means. Seriously, Jimmy, you're letting this case get to you awful hard. We've seen stuff like this before. Hell, you fought in the war, however briefly. This is nothing to that."

"It's not that I'm going soft over the murders, Nate." Jimmy gulped back the rest of his ale, but carefully, not wanting to draw any more undue attention to himself or Nate. "I've seen men get their head blown off by cannon shot. The murders themselves are gruesome, but it's nothing I've not seen before. It's the fact that we seem to have gotten nowhere. We're being outsmarted--our mechanicals are being outsmarted--by a vicious killer who has no trouble eviscerating people for an organ. It's one thing to rob the dead...and that's horrid enough. But from the living..." Jimmy shuddered.

Nate took care of the financial dealings with the immaculately dressed waiter. "Control, Jimmy. You are so worried about what you can't control." The coat girl brought their hats and jackets out of the closet, and the two men made themselves presentable for the out-of-doors before stepping out into the street. It was as if a chorus had suddenly started shouting, between the steam cabs stuttering their way down the streets and the sound of thousands of human whispers compounding to a cacophonous mass of sound. For his part, Jimmy loved it. There was a part of him, somewhere, the part that had never accepted what it meant to be a man, that gloried in the wild energy of New York. It never went away, no matter how hard he tried.

"So, we head over to Harlem. Do you want to hail another cab, or shall we brave the untamed streets of the great city?" Jimmy grinned. Nate hated steam cabs. Chicago didn't have many--still relying on El trains and horse-drawn hansoms--and the south had none at all, so he'd never gained an appreciation for their mechanical intricacy. He didn't see the beauty in their cogs and gears, the grace with which each small part contributed to the whole with seamless efficiency. Jimmy saw it. And Jimmy loved it.

"We can walk. I'm sure my shoes can handle it, if yours can. Now that I've eaten something other than that vile fish stew..." Nate shuddered. "I'm sure Harlem will work out. Not all of our plans can go awry, right? No one outsmarts Pinkerton forever. Not even the Tourist and his accidental newspaper allies."

Jimmy leveled his gaze at Nate. "They're getting in the way of an investigation sanctioned by the President himself! It's criminal." Pulling his coat around him--the temperature had dropped rather suddenly as the clouds rolled in--Jimmy stepped off the stoop and onto the sidewalk. "Let's get going. If anyone's going to give us some information, it'll be the Negro population. They're the ones who are actually going to care that ten people have been murdered recently. At least as long as this doesn't go wrong, too."

"Let it go, Jimmy. Just let it go." Nate pulled his hat lower on his head and walked with Jimmy down the street, easily matching his pace to his agitated (and taller) partner. "Obsessing over the white population's prejudice isn't going to change anything and you know it. Unless you have a problem with me, of course. You know where I came from, what I would have been."

"But you left. You chose to leave and repudiate that nonsense. These people...they don't even seem to think of Negroes as people! Between them and the newspaper men, I don't know how much more I can handle. Everything we've planned, everything we've done...all of it has been overturned because it's a sensational story about people who no one seems to think are people!" Jimmy spoke through clenched teeth, trying desperately to gain some sort of control over himself. He could never understand such blatant racism. His whole family were abolitionists. Before the war, before Father had been stolen from them, they'd even opened their home to runaway slaves on the way to Canada. They are our neighbors on this earth, too, and the good book says to love thy neighbor as thyself, Jimmy. Never forget that. Father's voice whispered its way through Jimmy's thoughts. "So many died...and for what?"

Nate was silent for several moments. "Sometimes I forget how much of an idealist you are. So a few things didn't go as planned, Jimmy. You can't just let it build up inside of you until you break. You can't let the actions of others affect how you feel about things. Control what you can control, mourn what you can't...but don't let it get you down."

Jimmy sighed. "I...I wish it were that simple, Nate. For me. But I've got to be...Never mind. Only a few more blocks to Harlem. Then we can get back to work doing something useful. And I can feel like I'm actually doing something again."