City of Promise (10 page)

“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 whores. 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 Sunshine 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 space. And the building goes up five stories.” The stick made a perpendicular line in the air. “The top floor is studio space. 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 fashionable 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 cocked 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-fashioned 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, snatching 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 massive 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 hellhole 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 whorehouse 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 circumstances 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.”