City Of Promise Part 15

Mama Jack's was warmed by a few charcoal braziers and the body heat of all the drinkers, but Josh felt cold. Back on Belle Isle, watching Clifford and the guards using prisoners for target practice, he'd felt cold as well. "What did Clifford do in the Eddyville woods, Mr. Tickle?"

"He had chariot races. There was a track marked out on the flat place, a big stretched-out circle."

"An oval," Josh supplied.

"That's right. Clifford and his friends, they ran the chariots right round that oval in sets of two. Went h.e.l.l for leather. Never mind who got tipped up, or run over by the metal wheels. Cracked them long whips at the team pulling their chariot and the other team as well. In the end the winner would be whoever beat all the other drivers, one by one."

Josh heard the whispers all around him.

Long whips.

Metal wheels.

h.e.l.l for leather fast.

The entire room was listening and repeating the story, telling it as a sort of dirge. It was something most had heard before, but which had not lost its power to both terrorize and inflame.

"Did Clifford keep the horses in his cave?" Josh asked.

Tickle shook his head and the smoke of his pipe made wreaths in the air. "Weren't no horses. Not enough room for 'em," he said. "You'd have to take horses out into the woods and run 'em around the lake to keep 'em healthy. Someone would see. Them chariots was pulled by little people."

Then, as if he wasn't sure Josh understood, "By dwarves. They was paid seven dollars a night. A little man with no skill, maybe no daddy to put him in the way of earning a living in the big people's world, that's what he has to do to eat, Mr. Turner. One way or another, put himself on display."

"Mr. Barnum's freak show," Josh said. Barnum sometimes took his spectacle on the road. Not just in America, all over the world. Crowds paid good money to come and look.

"Barnum's museum and his traveling freak show, that's bad," Tickle agreed. "But n.o.body dies. Least not regularly."

"I take it," Josh said, "some of the dwarves pulling Clifford's chariots did die."

"Yes. At least one was killed most nights they was racing. Sometimes three or four. It was a thing you could bet on. Not just which team would win, how many would be dead when it was over. Clifford and the others, they whipped the dwarves something fierce. Made it so they had to veer over and drive the other chariot up against the wall, upend it maybe if it was going too fast. The edges of the wheels were kept sharp as knives. Drivers used their whips to make the team of little people pulling one chariot drag them sharp wheels over the team pulling the other. Best thing of all as they saw it was their team running those sharp wheels right over the neck of a dwarf on the other team. Cut his head off. When it was what they called a clean cut the driver, sometimes he'd reach down and lift up the cut-off head. Clifford, he always did that. He'd hold that dwarf's head up by the hair and yell and shout while his team pulled his chariot right round again. Blood everywhere. Plenty of it running all down Clifford's arm. He seemed to like that."

"And the other dwarves?" Josh asked, his voice flat, the smell in his nose that of the riverbank in the fetid heat of Belle Isle. "What did they think of committing murder for the sake of spectacle?"

Tickle sucked on his pipe before he answered. When he did the smoke came out with his words. Circled them. Like underlining and exclamation points in a newspaper. "Can't say what they thought, but I know what they felt, Mr. Turner. When there was a kill the little people on the team as made it got a dollar-a-man bonus. Two if it was a clean cut. Them dwarves, they felt richer."

There was silence in Mama Jack's when Tickle stopped speaking. It lasted a good while.

Finally, Josh said, "I take it you never pulled a chariot."

"Never. Not Israel nor George neither. But me and George, we got in sometimes. We knew about what went on and we knew how to open the door. So we went to see. Did it twice. Shamed by it, I am. But that's what happened. Thought maybe we could tell others what it was like. Get 'em to stop coming. But that was foolishness. Maybe just an excuse. They already knew. Seven dollars a night. Sometimes eight or nine. No dwarf thinks he'll get that for nothing."

Another silence, but this one didn't last as long. After a few seconds Tickle said, "That's where I heard Mr. Clifford talking about having been in England. At the chariot races. Heard him say he'd met a man as wanted to make steel and didn't know how. Me and George, we both heard."

"And you think Clifford somehow got the information? He found out exactly how the Kelly brothers made steel, and sold the knowledge to Bessemer?"

Tickle shook his head. "It's not what I think, Mr. Turner. It's what I know. Just like I know how it was about a year and half after me and George heard Clifford talking about an Englishman who wanted to make steel but couldn't that Bessemer showed up. Right there in Eddyville, buying Kelly's patent for a few dollars because he was already making steel over in London. Finishing touch that was. Put the Kelly brothers right out of business."

The talk around them started up again. Faster and louder than before. As if having heard the tale anew was a catharsis for the misbegotten sorts drinking at Mama Jack's. Maude Pattycake whispered something to Tickle, then left. The two men were alone and no longer the focus of attention. Josh leaned down so he was looking into Ebenezer Tickle's eyes. "That's what you think Clifford is planning to do to me, isn't it? Put me out of business in some way."

"That's what I think, Mr. Turner. And that won't be to my advantage neither. That's why when we discovered Clifford hanging about down by the foundry, George and me, we thought it was important to tell you."

Josh took a much abbreviated version of the story to the police office on Broadway. "I can't say what motive Captain Clifford may presently have for murdering George Higgins, but I do know there was bad blood between them that went back to Kentucky some years past. And Clifford's an evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I can attest to that."

The copper listening to the tale-a Captain Willis in a belted, knee length frock coat with his star-shaped copper badge pinned to his chest and a top hat sitting near to hand-nodded. "Captain Clifford's a reb. I know that." He leaned forward over his desk. "Seems like you'd have no cause to like him, would you, sir?" No way to see the peg, given that both men were seated and facing each other. Still Josh had no doubt about the copper's meaning.

"I bear Trenton Clifford no grudge, Captain. Certainly nothing that would induce me to falsely accuse him of murder. I merely suggest that I know he was in the vicinity when George Higgins was killed."

"Begging your pardon, sir, you know he was down near Mr. Devrey's Wall Street docks earlier that day."

"My brother's docks and my foundry," Josh said. "Where Higgins worked."

"Making steel for you."

"That's right."

"But the midget was killed later. In your house."

Josh could see no point in continuing the discussion. He stood up. "Look into it, Captain Willis. I'm sure I can trust your diligence in the matter."

He didn't need to mention Zac's prominence directly. That was already well established.

A couple of days later another policeman, a Sergeant Hoyle, came to see him up on the building site. "We wanted you to know we done what you asked, Mr. Turner. Checked on Captain Clifford's whereabouts the day of the murder."

"What did you discover?"

Hoyle was craning his neck, taking in the remarkable skeleton of the future St. Nicholas flats, and he seemed more interested in the building than in a discussion of the murder. "This building, sir, it's-"

"What about Clifford?" Josh interrupted.

"Trenton Clifford was at Kate Meacham's establishment from close to four, soon as the snow started that would be, until the next morning."

"Rather a long time to stay at a place like Kate's, wasn't it?" Everyone called Mrs. Meacham's wh.o.r.ehouse by her first name. It was well-known for catering to any sort of notion, however bizarre. s.e.x with animals, with children, involving whips or chains or whatever. Anything at all. For a price you could do it at Kate's. Or just watch it being done, if that's what you fancied. Not the sort of homey place you might spend an afternoon and a night and eat breakfast the next morning.

"In the regular way, sir, yes, it would be. Figures to be only so long you can spend doing things with donkeys and freaks and such. But that's just it, Mr. Turner. Captain Clifford was stranded 'cause o' the storm. Everyone at Kate's was. Has to be a dozen different people as saw him there from when I said, before four, until after breakfast the next day. So don't seem like any way he could get away and stab the midget up at your house, then get back to Kate's without no one knowing he was gone. Not on a day and a night like that one."

Josh had heard the stories about police corruption. Tammany was said to have infiltrated the force and all but taken it over. But if that was operating here, he had no means to counter it. Clifford's alibi seemed una.s.sailable.

It was Mollie who prepared the pay packets Josh distributed on the third Sat.u.r.day after the storm. She'd taken over that portion of George Higgins's duties since his murder because Josh had no one else to do the work. "Only until I can find someone else," he'd promised.

"I don't mind doing it, Josh. I'm delighted to be of some use to you. And just now it can't hurt to pay one less wage each week."

"That's certainly true, but . . ." He'd spoken the words with a nod in the general direction of her midsection, thickened enough now so he couldn't pretend not to notice, though given her delicate health after the storm, and his preoccupation with getting his building crews working again, the subject had not yet been discussed, simply a.s.sumed between them.

Mollie knew she was cornered. "I am quite well, Josh. Truly. The physician Simon recommended, Dr. Thomas, says I am none the worse for . . . for the storm," she'd finished. And waited to be asked why she'd been caught in the snow in the first instance, and what had she been doing on Fulton Street. Josh asked nothing of the sort.

"May I ask when you are expecting the child?" He didn't look at her, only continued tying his cravat while gazing into the old mirror above the dresser.

"Towards the end of the summer, Dr. Thomas thinks," she said. "Late August, or perhaps early September."

"Time enough then."

"For what, Josh?" With a look at once startled and perplexed.

"To be in our own home. I would hope, Mollie, to have our first son . . . if indeed it's to be a boy," he'd added hastily, "to be born under my roof, not Zac's."

"Are you proposing we move to one of the St. Nicholas flats?"

"Nothing of the sort." Josh sounded astounded at the notion. "I shall do a bit better than that for us. I promise, you shan't live as if you've married an office clerk. But," he added as she stepped closer to remove a speck of lint from one broad shoulder, "the flats must be built and sold before I can make other arrangements. So, about the books . . . ," with a hand to her cheek, "I know it's beyond wifely duties, but if you truly don't mind . . ."

"Of course I do not. It makes no difficulty, Josh. I'm happy to take it on."

"That's my girl." And he'd dropped a quick kiss on her forehead and headed down the stairs and into the front hall where his freshly brushed hat and the old cloak that was better for winter riding than his fashionable overcoat, and his gloves and his cane all waited by the door. Mollie held the hat while he flung on the cloak, then took charge of his gloves and cane while he adjusted the topper. Finally, ready to meet the world, Josh reached for the door, but paused before opening it. "The bookkeeping's only temporary, Mollie. But since you'll doubtless need extra help what with it and your . . . the circ.u.mstances . . . Do you find Tess agreeable?"

"I do, Josh. Very. She's always cheerful, and she does whatever I ask."

"Why not keep her on then? Tell her I'll pay a wage of forty-six dollars a month. Plus room and board. My only condition is that she stop wearing that ridiculous bonnet indoors. Let me know if she agrees."

"I will do that, Josh. I'm sure she'll agree, it's quite generous. And thank you." Then, after a moment's hesitation. "Josh, there's something I should tell you."

"Is it urgent? I'm already delayed."

"No, of course not." A great whoosh of relief flooded up from her toes at the let-off.

"Fine, then we'll leave whatever it is for later. Not tonight, though. I'll be late home. I'm planning to go down to Bowling Green after I've seen everything's as it should be on the site. I haven't been since before the storm. That's much too long."

Bowling Green, Mollie thought looking at the door he'd closed behind him, where Francie Wildwood would tell the story Mollie had not had the courage to confess.

She spent what seemed a very long day rehearsing in her mind what she'd say when Josh finally returned. How she'd explain herself and what he would doubtless deem her interference in his affairs. With such nearly disastrous consequences. Six o'clock came, then seven with no sign of him. Tess-empowered by her new, more regular place in the household-persuaded Mollie to eat something, but she only picked at the food. Finally, close to ten, Mollie went upstairs and undressed and climbed, quite miserable, into bed.

The hall clock had just chimed half-ten when she heard the front door open, and a few minutes later the uneven rhythm of her husband ascending the stairs.

At first she pretended to be asleep. Until, when he had finished undressing and was sitting on the side of the bed releasing his peg, she whispered, "I'm awake, Josh."

"Sorry to be so late. And for waking you."

"You didn't. I've been lying here waiting for you."

"Have you then? Well, that bodes well, I must say. You are a loose woman, Mrs. Turner. And I delight in it."

He was chuckling. And turning to her. And kissing her cheeks and her neck and soon pushing up her nightdress so he could suckle her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He smelled of brandy and cigar smoke and it seemed he'd pa.s.sed a congenial evening, but one that left him hungry for still more pleasure. He took her swiftly, with surpa.s.sing vigor and at the end a gleeful shout that made her cheeks redden, for she was sure Tess and Mrs. Hannity, sleeping above their heads, must have heard. After which he fell immediately asleep.

Leaving Mollie to lie awake wondering what Francie Wildwood was playing at if, as appeared to be the case, she had said nothing to Joshua about his wife's visit on the day of the storm.

12.

THE CLANGING BELL announced the approach of a horsecar, the very first run to be made by Hopkins and Sons Omnibus Company between New York and the St. Nicholas flats.

Josh was standing by the door of the building, holding his pocket watch. "Ten past two, Washington. Excellent, don't you think?"

"If you say so, Mr. Turner."

Josh grinned at the other man. "Indeed I do, Washington. Providing the car left Forty-Second Street at half past one as Hopkins promised, we'll have proved the claim that the journey can be done in less than an hour and-My word, what's this?"

Three men and one woman descended to the pavement and stood with their heads thrown back, staring at the tall building-its steel frame now fully wrapped in slabs of pale gray granite-rising improbably on Sixty-Third Street. Meanwhile the driver, aware that his skills were on display, deftly pivoted the team of four, turning them with a few tugs on the reins and some low-spoken commands, and omnibus and horses disappeared into the stable. "Crikey," Josh heard someone say. "It's a stunner."

"It will be." Josh hurried through the wide-open double doors onto the sidewalk.

"It will be a fine building, and the first in New York City designed for genteel folk exactly like yourselves. May I ask how you knew about the car's coming today? It was meant to be a trial run. I didn't think it had been announced."

"Wasn't." Josh recognized the speaker as Mr. Jackson from his Bowling Green residence. And he was fairly certain the woman with him was his wife. "We went to inquire about coming here and were told there was a car leaving imminently, so we took it."

The same explanation was offered by Mr. DuVal Jones, also from Bowling Green, and by a third man, a Mr. Anthony Wolfe. Josh had mentioned the flats to Jones and Jackson. But Wolfe was a stranger. Tall, well dressed, and good-looking despite a black eyepatch.

"Good luck for all of us, then," Josh said. "Me certainly. I a.s.sume, Mr. Wolfe, you've seen my notices and you're here to inquire about the leasing of flats? All of you? You're all interested in living here?"

There were murmurs of a.s.sent.

"Excellent," Josh said. "Let me show you around together, then I can speak with each of you privately and answer individual questions."

The underboarding on all eight floors was in position-though none were yet overlaid with the oak floorboards McKim specified-and the plasterers and the gas fitters were working in tandem on the interior walls. They were finished as far as the fourth floor, but Josh led his potential buyers up the stairs only to the second. "We needn't go higher since every floor's the same, and as you can see, the elevator's not yet installed." The last with a nod to the yawning chasm where the elevator was to go.

"I've never lived where I had to ride in an elevator to get to my bed," Margaret Jackson said. "I canna' say I fancy it."

"Then you've no need to do so," Josh said. "You can choose a flat on the second or third floor. Or even the first."

"First three floors are dearer, are they not?" Her Scot's burr sounded offended by each syllable.

"Yes, Mrs. Jackson, they are. So perhaps you'd prefer using the elevator after all. I'm sure you've had the experience at Macy's or Stewart's or one of the other stores."

"Not to get to my bed," she said stubbornly.

"No," Josh agreed. "Of course not. But-"

"Bit out of the way, isn't it? And I hear you've not yet rented any of these places." This from Wolfe. He'd wandered off on his own to look at the arrangement of the rooms, then rejoined the group.

"Not yet," Josh admitted cheerfully. "But as you can see, we've only just begun the interior construction. The framework is made entirely of steel-first of its kind in the city, I believe-and that had to be erected before we could do anything else. Then there was the storm. Naturally, we were held up a bit by that. As for being out of the way, since you came here by horsecar you can see what an easy and speedy journey it is. Particularly once you're past Forty-Eighth Street. And at the end you're here at home away from the congestion of the city."

"First time we heard about these wee flats," Mrs. Jackson said, "was the day of that fearful blizzard. I've been thinking it was a bad omen."

"Not a bit of it," Josh said. "We were back at work within three days. And no serious damage done. Now, let me show you how each flat is to be laid out. I think you'll find they're not so wee as all that. Over here is your own front door, and to the right, the parlor."