City Of Promise Part 4

The way Josh saw it, either he answered the question or he got up and walked out. And if he intended the latter, he'd not have come in the first place. "Middling sorts of gentlemen," he said. "And they'll agree because pretty soon they're not going to have any choice. There's not enough room on this island for the numbers of people who want to live here. It's that simple."

"Keep 'em out then. Make the place more exclusive. What's wrong with that?"

"They're needed, these engineers and accountants and senior clerks. Business can't run without them. New York's all about business."

Clifford nodded, but raised another objection. "Brooklyn," he said. "Queens. The Bronx even. What about them?"

"Nothing about them. Some will move there. Many already have. But it's inconvenient. Brooklyn in particular's a devilish journey. The ferry's unreliable in any kind of harsh weather."

"There's the bridge," Clifford said. "Going to change everything. Don't you agree?"

"Might do if it ever gets built." The granite tower on the Brooklyn side was complete, rising an improbable two hundred seventy-two feet above the high water mark, but the one on the Manhattan side-at Dover Street and the river-was a much slower effort. John Roebling, the engineer who designed the bridge, was dead of teta.n.u.s after crus.h.i.+ng his toes against a piling. His son had taken over, then succ.u.mbed to some mysterious on-the-job illness he was chasing round the globe trying to cure. "Just now," Josh said, "that's looking less than likely. Queens is no easier to get to and it's a wasteland beside. As for the Bronx . . ." Josh shrugged, "all those places have one major drawback. They're not New York City."

"Very well. But that fellow Hunt, the architect as put up those flats over on Eighteenth Street, he's beat you to it, wouldn't you say?"

"I would not. Richard Hunt's used a hundred feet of frontage to make twenty apartments on four floors. Not much advantage there."

"I went over and had a look this afternoon," Clifford said. "It's five stories."

"Top floor's only accessible after four flight of stairs. Too many for most people. The fifth-floor units have skylights. They're let to artists for studios. The whole venture's interesting, but not economically sound. Not here in the city."

"The way I hear it, Hunt's going up eight stories over on Twenty-Seventh Street."

Josh nodded. "Better location. And this time his client's Paran Stevens, who owns a fair parcel of city land to start out with. Hunt's been a.s.signed the entire block between Fifth and Broadway, and he's going to install at least four of Otis's steam elevators. But it's a far cry from what I have in mind. Stevens's building is to have eighteen suites, each almost as big as a house, with ballrooms and butler's pantries and dressing rooms. Communal servants quarters as well. Upstairs in the attic. Under, of course, a properly fas.h.i.+onable mansard roof."

"You don't approve?"

"I don't think it answers the problem. If business is to thrive we need to shelter more people of the ordinary sort. As I said, we don't have much land on Manhattan Island. We have unlimited air. The solution's to go higher."

Clifford's blond head was wreathed in cigar smoke. Josh could barely make out his nod. "Problem becomes that the higher you go, the more of those d.a.m.ned cast-iron pillars you need to hold everything up, and the closer together they have to be. Thicker walls as well. Pretty soon your construction materials are eating up your living s.p.a.ce. That's so, isn't it, young Mr. Turner?"

Josh had given away as much of his thought on the subject as he intended. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe not."

Another nod. This time Clifford reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card and pushed it across the table. "Talk to this man. When you and he figure something out, let me know. I'll back you."

A cold day in h.e.l.l, Josh thought. But he pocketed the card.

"I hate it," Josh said, "that I can only see you on Sundays."

Mollie laughed. "I'm a new sort of woman who works for my living, and you have to take me as you find me. You haven't told me where we're going."

"You'll see." He kept a loose hold on the reins and the bay was pulling the phaeton along Third Avenue, but Josh was obviously in no sort of hurry. "Tell me then, do you believe in all this carry-on about ladies' rights, that they should become doctors and lawyers and such? Even vote. Who'll look after the children and the households if they do all those things? Presuming they still marry and have families. And what will happen to the human race if they do not?"

She was of a mind to quote her aunt about the correlation between decent jobs and indecent wh.o.r.es. Mollie thought better of it. "Well and good," she said, "if all women have a man to look after them. What about those who do not?"

"My mother," Josh said with a hoot of laughter, "would approve of you, Mollie as-calls-herself-Popandropolos. She's a follower of Miss Anthony, along with all her other unconventionalities. Will you come with me to Suns.h.i.+ne Hill someday soon? I'd like my parents to meet you."

She fussed a moment with one of the rows of pleated ruching that circled the skirt of her pale green dress, letting her fingers slide over the soft cotton dimity made practical by the warm weather of late May. It was hard to imagine herself as someone a gentleman would want his parents to meet. Even if years ago they had themselves been a source of scandal. Tell us about your family, my dear. Where were you raised? "Josh, I told you, I don't wish to-"

"-to pursue dreams that cannot be realized," he finished for her. "But you refuse to tell me why they are out of reach."

Mollie pursed her lips and stared straight ahead.

"Very well," he said. "We won't talk about it now. Anyway, this is what I've brought you to see." Josh tugged on the reins and brought the phaeton to a halt on the corner of Eighteenth Street and Third Avenue, across the street from the French flats he'd discussed with Trenton Clifford. "What do you think of that?"

"The building?" They hadn't spoken much of his business interests in the three months they had known each other, but she remembered him saying he earned a living in property. "Do you perhaps own it, Josh?"

Another of his bursts of laughter. "Small chance, Mollie. Nothing so grand. At least not yet."

"I thought that might be why you've brought me here."

"I wasn't laughing at you, Mollie. Only thinking that the idea is both too large and too small." He gestured with his stick, drawing it in a straight crossways line to indicate the entire facade. "That frontage," he said, "represents four of New York City's approved twenty-five-foot-wide lots. In this city, that's a goodly amount of s.p.a.ce. And the building goes up five stories." The stick made a perpendicular line in the air. "The top floor is studio s.p.a.ce. The other floors are divided into living units-French flats as they're called-for four families."

"Rather as if," Mollie said as she worked out the geometry, "each family was confined to nothing more than the parlor floor of a brownstone."

"You sound disparaging, but that part is exactly as it should be, Mollie. I don't want to bother your head with figures, but the average man of New York-neither poor nor rich-the sort doing what the newspapers call white-collar work, he earns two thousand dollars a year. These days an ordinary brownstone, not a mansion, mind, sells for a minimum of ten thousand. And that's in the least desirable parts of the city. It can be as much as eighty thousand in a truly fas.h.i.+onable neighborhood."

"And you're saying," she said, "that on a weekly wage which averages thirty-eight dollars and forty-six cents, this white-collar worker is never going to afford even a ten-thousand dollar house."

Josh c.o.c.ked his head and studied her. "That was quick. Two thousand divided by fifty-two. Without a pencil at that."

Mollie blushed. "I find numbers easy. It's rather like a parlor trick. I didn't mean to show off."

"Well, parlor trick or not, you are exactly right. The men we're talking about can't afford to buy a whole New York house for their families, however modest the house may be. So they stuff their wives and children into rooming houses and hotels and leave them behind when they go off to their jobs. And since we have more and more of these types of workers, and the city needs still more if business is to continue to grow, we are soon to run out of places to put them."

Mollie didn't reply because a woman was coming toward them with an air of purpose. She wore a prim black dress and an old-fas.h.i.+oned black bonnet. Rather like a governess or a nanny, Mollie thought.

"I see," Josh said, "that we're about to encounter the controversial concierge. Having modeled his building of flats on those in Paris, Mr. Hunt saw fit to adopt as well their idea of a nosy old biddy to sit by the door and mind everyone's business."

The woman approached with a rolled-up newspaper clutched in her hand, as if it were a weapon for beating them off. "Were you folks wanting something from one of my families? If so, I expect you're out of luck. They's most of 'em out on a fine day like this."

"And you," Josh said, "no doubt know which ones and exactly where they've gone."

"It's my job. I'm a convenience. Says so right in here." She unrolled the paper with a flourish and waved it under their noses.

"Excuse me," Mollie said, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the paper, "may I see that?" Seconds later she gave the woman back her paper and turned to Josh. "Please take me home at once."

The phaeton was at Miss Hamilton's door in fifteen minutes. Mollie had not said a word on the journey and Josh had not probed, but when he reined in he did not immediately get down and come around to help her out of the carriage. "Please tell me what's happened and how I can help."

"Thank you, that is very kind. But it's a private matter."

"Not very private if it's splashed all over the front page of the Herald."

A fair point and she knew it. Besides, his help would be useful. It would mean his knowing all her secrets, but at the moment that didn't seem important. "I need to go to the Tombs," she said. "As quickly as possible."

"Well," taking up the slack in the reins as he spoke, "I wish you'd told me that first thing. We've just gone five blocks in the wrong direction."

"I needed to get money to hire a cab or-"

"Post bail for someone, I imagine," he interrupted. "Never mind, I'll sort it."

Properly it was the New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention, but everyone called it the Tombs. Put up in 1838, the ma.s.sive building was set atop what had been the old Collect Pond, these days surrounded by Centre Street and Leonard Street and Franklin. The hulking, windowless structure was meant to resemble an Egyptian mausoleum, and constructed of stone set on wooden caissons to keep it from sinking into the swampy ground. The tactic was only marginally effective. The Tombs were a dank misery below and an unsanitary h.e.l.lhole above.

Even Eileen Brannigan found it difficult to keep her look of quality after a night in such a place. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes redrimmed, and half her hair had escaped from the twist at the nape of her neck. Her dress was torn and soiled, and worst of all, her wrists were shackled in front of her.

The guard who brought her to Josh and Mollie kept a tight grip on her arm nonetheless, jerking her through the milling crowd in the busy hall at a pace just below a trot. "Here she is then. Mind your belongings, folks. Seems this here's the most notorious pickpocket in all New York."

"Auntie Eileen!" Mollie couldn't get her arms around Eileen for a proper hug, but she managed to press her cheek against her aunt's. "What's happened?" And to the guard, "Let her go. You're hurting her. She's not a criminal."

"Yes, she is. Caught red-handed," the guard said. "In Union Square."

"Let her go." Josh slipped a bill into the man's hand. "And take off those handcuffs." Another bill disappeared into the guard's outstretched paw.

"But I know you wouldn't do any such thing." Mollie was staring incredulously at her aunt.

"Of course I wouldn't." Josh's last bribe had freed her and Eileen was busy chafing the circulation back into her wrists and arms.

"Red-handed," the guard repeated. "Copper found the gent's purse in her fancy pocket, just like he said it would be. Though must say, it don't look so fancy now." Eileen frequently held what was called a chatelaine pocket, a purse that could either be held or clipped to her frock. That's where the black velvet pocket she'd had with her the previous day was now, hanging limp and torn and clearly empty from the nipped waist of her bedraggled dress. Ransacked no doubt by the police for whatever money she'd carried with her, and by the other prisoners for her Hungary Water and smelling salts and no doubt exquisitely embroidered handkerchief.

Josh put his hand on the other man's chest, shoving him firmly away. "I think it's time you gave us a bit of privacy. I'm sure I've bought at least ten minutes' worth."

Mollie waited until the guard had removed himself to another part of the room. Then, "Where is Mr. Duggan, Auntie Eileen? Why isn't he here?" Jeremy Duggan was Eileen's attorney.

"Apparently he doesn't know. I'm sure he'd have come immediately if he did."

Mollie bit back the obvious response, that since the arrest of the ". . . notorious owner of Brannigan's brothel" was on the front page of the Herald, and probably every other newspaper in the town, it was hard to believe the lawyer didn't know. "Never mind. We'll deal with Mr. Duggan later. Now we must get you out of here. This is Mr. Joshua Turner who has kindly agreed to help us."

Josh tipped his hat. "Delighted." He had to work to suppress a broad grin. That Mollie was the niece of the woman who ran the most exclusive wh.o.r.ehouse in the city explained a great deal. And all of it to his satisfaction. The mistress of a bordello was a lot easier to deal with than an irate Greek husband. "Has bail been set, Mrs. Brannigan?"

"I have not yet seen a judge, Mr. Turner. I'm told they were too busy for me yesterday, and that this being Sunday, they are all at their devotions."

"Surely Mr. Tweed won't allow this to continue, Auntie Eileen . . ." Mollie found intolerable the thought of her aunt remaining in this dreadful place. As for Josh, whatever he might think of Tammany, that would hardly be the most shocking revelation of the afternoon.

"I am informed," Eileen said, "that Mr. Tweed is away in Saratoga."

"Someone," Josh said, "appears to have taken trouble to let you know exactly how difficult your circ.u.mstances are. Sounds like what I think is called a put-up job, Mrs. Brannigan."

"It does, Mr. Turner. Very cleverly put up. But-"

Her words were interrupted by the return of the guard. Followed closely by another man. "Here now, you can go," the guard said. "Seems like this gentleman's a lawyer and it's all arranged."

The lawyer was not, however, Jeremy Duggan but a stranger. "Compliments of Boss Tweed," he said. "And I'm instructed to tell you he's sorry he only today heard of this terrible miscarriage of justice."

"If Auntie Eileen had picked the man's pocket," Mollie said, "he wouldn't have known a thing about it."

She and Josh and her aunt were in Eileen's sitting room. Hatty had fixed an early supper of creamed finnan haddie on toast, and fed them before the fire, and though Mollie had only one gla.s.s, her aunt and Joshua between them finished off a bottle of French wine, a Graves from 1863 which Eileen p.r.o.nounced of the highest quality. It was time for truth telling. "Auntie Eileen," Mollie said, "is an Armagh O'Halloran. They are famous for their skill at dipping."

"Entirely so," Eileen said. "You must have some brandy to settle your digestion, Mr. Turner." She poured a snifter from the decanter at her elbow, then another. "I shall join you. Just this once. Since it has been such a difficult day. My niece never takes brandy."

"I notice," Josh said, "that Miss Popandropolos is modest in all her habits."

"Don't tease, Josh," Mollie said. "It's Mollie Brannigan. As you now know."

"My fault she deceived you," Eileen said. She'd been racking her brain for a scheme that would let her influence Joshua Turner's courts.h.i.+p of Mollie and now the opportunity had been handed to her. Never a cloud but what there's a silver lining, as her mam would have said in the old country. "I'm the one who insisted Mollie use a false name when she went to work at Macy's. I didn't want her tarred with my brush. All for nothing as it turns out." Eileen raised her snifter in Josh's direction. "Your health, Mr. Turner. And I drink it happily, though Teddy Paisley's had the best of me this time."

"I thought he must be the one to have done this," Mollie said. "But how could he have known where you'd be?"

Eileen held up her hands. Every one of her rings-stripped from her hands by the police when she was first arrested-had been returned to her before they left the Tombs. Entirely unexpected, and a courtesy Eileen attributed to the intercession of Boss Tweed. "The grand opening of Tiffany's new store in Union Square . . . I was bound to show up."

"All right, I see that," Mollie said, "but how did Paisley manage to get his purse into your pocket?"

"Not himself. I'd have spotted him instantly. Clearly he had someone inside the store. And I obliged the villain by not clipping the pocket to my dress but carrying it in my hand. And when I put it down to try on a brooch . . ." Eileen shrugged. "Teddy's waited all these years. I'm sure he made provision for every eventuality."

Josh let the matter of some old grudge slide. None of his business and he really didn't care. "Why do you say this Paisley's had the best of you, Mrs. Brannigan? You obviously have, as they say, friends in high places."

"Indeed I do. And I am a.s.sured Boss Tweed will see to it that the charges are dropped. But . . ." She got up and walked to the window. "Come over here, Mr. Turner."

Josh did as he was bid. Eileen pushed aside a length of emerald green velvet, exposing the lace curtain beneath. "Look at that," she said.

There was a crowd of perhaps two dozen men on the street below. All circling Eileen Brannigan's front door. "Do not mistake these creatures for importunate clients begging us to open our doors, Mr. Turner. They are reporters," Eileen said.

"So many," Josh said, "that no client, however importunate, to use your word, can get near the place."

"Yes, though that doesn't matter tonight. The house is always closed on the Sabbath. But the clients won't come tomorrow night either. This is the second time Teddy Paisley has managed to have my heritage become an item of interest to the New York press. Other houses could sustain such an onslaught, Mr. Turner. Not Brannigan's. It's entirely contrary to the spirit of the place."

"A man's home from home," Josh said. "With a companion that might be his wife, if his wife was as beautiful and intelligent-"

"-and willing as well as skilled in the bedroom," Eileen finished for him. "Exactly. So we're done."

Mollie had come to stand beside them. "It's dreadful, Auntie Eileen. What shall you do?"

"Oh, I shall find other ways to keep myself occupied. No fear of that. But what, my darling Mollie, shall we do about you? That's the question."

"Me? I don't understand . . ."

"My niece," Eileen said, aiming her remarks at Joshua Turner, "is astonis.h.i.+ngly capable and talented and I think lovely, as long as one does not have a taste for the flamboyant. But, Mr. Turner, sometimes-to use an expression from the old country-she's as thick as two short planks. Mollie," turning to her, "the reporters for the gutter press hang about the Tombs like the water rats they are. You were no doubt seen when you arrived and carefully observed when you left with me. By tomorrow you will be a featured part of the story of my disgrace. You as well, Mr. Turner, though I doubt it will be as problematic for you as for my niece. It's only women who are seen as the villains in matters such as these. The men are their victims, led astray by their natural instincts."

"No problem at all for me," Josh said. "As you rightly point out. But will Mollie not be perceived simply as a loyal and loving niece coming to her aunt's aid in a time of trouble?"

"Yes, Auntie Eileen. That might-"

Eileen made a sound somewhere between laughter and a derisive snort. "Not a chance, Mollie. Mrs. Getch.e.l.l will be done with you. No scandal of any sort, that's what's allowed her to keep on hiring women at the store despite public disapproval. Rosie O'Toole will speak for you I'm sure, but it won't make a penny's worth of difference. Macy's will no longer have a job for you, my dear, and I daresay Miss Hamilton will want shot of you as well. You can, of course, come back and live with me. But then it's spinsterhood for sure and certain. Unless-"

"Auntie Eileen!"

Eileen paid no attention to her outburst. "Unless you would like to marry her, Mr. Turner."

"I would, Mrs. Brannigan. I most a.s.suredly would."