The Rogue of Fifth Avenue

by Joanna Shupe

  “And on any of those other occasions did you see me to my front door?”

  The side of his mouth hitched. “No, I did not.”

  “Furthermore, did you not call me a ‘bored, spoiled child’ during our last meeting?”

  He didn’t bother to hide his amusement as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, Your Honor, I did. Is there a point to all this?”

  “You don’t care for me and the feeling is definitely mutual—”

  “That’s not true. Would I give up my evening plans and tramp down here for someone I didn’t care for?”

  “Yes, if you thought you might lose a client.”

  A muscle jumped in his cheek as he frowned at her. “If this is about your father, then why haven’t I informed him of these excursions of yours?”

  Actually, she’d wondered the same herself. “I assume it’s part of some elaborate scheme you’ve concocted. You never do anything without benefit to yourself, I’ve been told.”

  “Says the woman who pilfered a money clip from that man in the crowd.”

  Now it was her jaw that fell open. He saw her swipe the money clip?

  “Yes, Mamie, I saw it,” he said, answering her silent question. “And while I mean to learn precisely why you are out robbing swells in casinos, I’d prefer to do so from the comfort of my carriage. Come on.”

  Not robbing, she wanted to tell him. At least not the way he assumed. More like redistributing. These uptown men had more money than sense while those downtown were starving and living in squalor. Young women and men who sold their bodies for coin. Matchstick girls with their glowing, rotting flesh. Babies covered in dirt and filth. Men angry and violent over the lack of opportunities afforded them.

  Mamie never kept what she took. She gave the money either to a charity or directly to a tenement family herself. There were too many needy families in the city, and the charities were oftentimes more concerned with temperance and religious conversion than distributing aid. Mamie would rather not see any restrictions placed on relief, which was why she traveled downtown herself a few times a month.

  Not that she’d tell Tripp any of this. Only her sisters knew . . . and Mamie meant to see it stayed that way.

  She lifted her chin and stared Tripp down. “Unless you are prepared to kidnap me—and my sister—then I think not. Now, thank you for ruining my—”

  Before she could blink, Tripp bent and swooped her off the ground, his arms sturdy and unforgiving around her. Mamie let out a shriek and struggled in his hold. “Tripp, for God’s sake, put me down!”

  The blasted man ignored her and started for his carriage. Another man walked toward them, his curious gaze taking in the scene of a tall man carrying a well-dressed woman along Thirty-Third Street. “Help,” she said to the stranger. “He is kidnapping me.”

  The man shot a concerned glance at Tripp. However, the lawyer never broke stride as he answered, “Wife’s had a bit too much champagne, I’m afraid. I am seeing her and her sister home. Come along, sis.” He threw the last part over his shoulder and Mamie was horrified to see a grinning Florence hurrying to catch up.

  The stranger continued on his way, not intervening. “He’s lying,” Mamie called to the man’s back. “He is a consummate liar. Every word out of his mouth is a fabrication.”

  “How’s this for a truth? You are a pain in my backside,” Tripp muttered.

  “I could say the same of you—and put me down. I am able to walk. I promise to come with you.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

  She stiffened and pushed her palm against his shoulder. Heavens, he was sturdy. “I’ve never broken a promise in my life.”

  He made a rude noise in his throat. “Is that so? You promised not to gamble again the last time I caught you. You also promised not to visit casinos, saloons, dance halls, brothels, opium dens or any other disreputable destinations. And yet, here you are.”

  Well, yes. She had promised those things—but only because she hadn’t planned on getting caught. She sniffed. “I crossed my fingers when I made those promises.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “That makes two of us, then. I never believe a word you say.” He lied for a living, after all.

  He hates you. He thinks you are a spoiled society girl, flitting about with no purpose except to cause trouble. Fine. Better if everyone believed as much. Otherwise, she’d never be able to help those in need, those with the misfortune of being born on the wrong end of town.

  So perhaps she and Frank had more in common than she originally thought. They were both liars.

  That realization didn’t bother her nearly as much as it should have.

  He stepped aside and let Florence board first. “Traitor,” Mamie hissed at her sibling, only to hear Florence’s laugh as she disappeared inside. Tripp then placed Mamie on the ground. “After you,” he said with a sweep of his arm.

  I shall not talk to him. I owe him absolutely nothing.

  Resolved, Mamie ascended the steps and climbed into Tripp’s carriage.

  Chapter Two

  Her resolve lasted only a few seconds.

  As soon as the wheels began turning, Frank scowled at her. “Have you a death wish? Why are you so very eager to find trouble?”

  Florence snickered but Mamie kept her gaze trained on Tripp. “I do not answer to you.”

  “Wrong. Unless you’d like for your father to know precisely what you are about, tell me why you are pinching money clips at casinos.”

  “Threats? Really, Tripp. I had thought better of you.”

  He leaned in, the lines of his face stark in the semidarkness, his eyes glittering with intensity. “When it comes to getting what I want, Mamie, there is nothing I will not do.”

  Perhaps it was the words or the husky promise in his tone, but a shiver of excitement worked its way down her spine. Had he been flirting with her? No, that was ludicrous. The man loathed her. “Tell my father, then. Go on and tell him all of my exploits.” She angled toward him. “If you do, I will inform him of the other occasions you pulled me from that casino—occasions you failed to mention to him.”

  He drummed his fingers on his knees, his gaze fixed outside on the buildings as the silence stretched. Florence elbowed Mamie and gave her a wink of approval. Mamie tried not to smile. Tripp clearly thought he could best the Greene sisters, but they had faced tougher foes.

  Mamie, at twenty-three years old, was the eldest and most respectable Greene sibling. It was her duty to marry well and be seen in society, a role she’d never questioned as it had started before she could walk. Her path in life was preordained, her marriage decided upon in an understanding between the Greene and Livingston families when she and Chauncey were babes. While becoming Mrs. Chauncey Livingston was not her ideal future, Mamie had agreed on the condition that her sisters would be free to choose their own paths—a pact her sisters knew nothing about.

  Florence was two years younger than Mamie and a constant source of vexation to their parents. With no interest in conforming to society’s rules, Florence spoke her mind, escaped the house nearly every night and kept a stash of bawdy books under her bed. To date, she’d turned down four marriage proposals.

  Their youngest sister, Justine, was two years younger than Florence. She was to debut next spring, though she continued to fight her mother on such a “waste of everyone’s time and money.” A suffragette and do-gooder at heart, Justine would much rather take to the streets in protest or collect for charities than pay afternoon calls to “old women with narrow minds.”

  Even though they were all different, the three Greene girls stuck together. Mamie would do anything for her sisters and they in return for her.

  “Perhaps I’ll tell your fiancé instead,” Tripp said, regaining her attention.

  Would Chauncey even care? They led completely separate lives at the moment, a last gasp of freedom before the shackles of marriage descended. “Go ahead. I doubt he’d believe you.”


  “Mamie.” Tripp dragged a hand through his perfect hair. “You must realize stealing is wrong. If you are caught, you’ll be arrested. Your family will be humiliated.”

  “No, because if I am arrested I shall send for you. Then you will arrive and work some of your lawyer magic.” She waved her hands like the conjurer she’d seen perform last year. “I’ll be released in no time at all.”

  “How are you so certain I will ride to your rescue?”

  “Because my father would be very disappointed if his oldest daughter sent for his lawyer and said lawyer ignored the message.”

  Tripp shook his head, his lip curled in what was most likely disgust. “You are not my client, Mamie. My loyalties are to your father, not you.”

  “Then why are you trailing me all over town, insisting I depart these fine establishments?”

  He threw up his hands. “You are talking in circles.”

  “Ha. How does it feel to be on the other side?”

  “Perhaps I’ll refuse your father’s business, refer him elsewhere. Wash my hands of the Greenes once and for all.”

  Now that surprised her. Would he really? Her father likely paid Tripp handsomely, but so did every other swell, tycoon and crime lord in the city. He could hardly need the money.

  “Ah, my little rebellious dove. I see you never contemplated such an outcome,” he said, his voice smooth with superiority. It had Mamie digging her nails into her palms.

  “I am not your little anything—and I think you are bluffing.”

  He shrugged. “Sweetheart, you’re looking at the best bluffer in the city of New York, perhaps the entire state. In fact, there are those who say I’ve turned it into an art form. But I rarely bluff in relation to my own clients. I tend to be brutally honest when I am being paid to advise them.”

  “Yet I am not your client, as you have repeatedly stated.”

  She watched a muscle jump in his jaw. Excellent. If he thought to run verbal circles around a Greene, he was mistaken.

  “This is not getting us closer to discovering why you are working as a pickpocket.”

  “Give it up, Mr. Tripp,” Florence said, finally joining the conversation. “Mamie has always done as she pleased. No one is able to talk her out of anything.”

  Mamie thought about elbowing her sister but couldn’t fault Florence for telling the truth. Besides, better Tripp learned of Mamie’s stubbornness now.

  “And you are aware, I suppose,” Tripp said to Florence, “of what your sister is doing, of the danger she faces? That makes you an accomplice.”

  Mamie didn’t appreciate the vague threat behind those words. “No one is on trial here, Tripp—”

  “Not yet anyway,” the lawyer murmured.

  “And you are worrying for nothing. I’m very good at what I do.”

  He snorted—actually snorted!—and said, “Madden and I both spotted your clumsy move from the balcony. You couldn’t have been more obvious.”

  “Clumsy! That is—”

  “Wait, you met Mr. Madden?” Florence said, leaning in with wide eyes. “What’s he like?”

  Mamie paused, her anger shifting to confusion for one brief second. Why was her sister inquiring about the infamous casino owner?

  “I hardly know him,” Frank said, “but he’s not a man to be trifled with . . . which is why you two must never return to the House.”

  The order was unnecessary. Mamie wouldn’t gain admittance to the casino ever again, not after tonight’s fiasco. “You were spying on me from the balcony?”

  “Hardly spying. Merely observing for a few minutes while Madden and I chatted. Then I noticed the man spiking your drink with God knows what while you were robbing the customers blind.”

  Would he ever stop beating that particular drum?

  “How does one get up to the balcony?” Florence asked it innocently enough, yet Mamie knew her sister all too well.

  “Florence,” she said in warning. “We should discuss this later.”

  “Oh, you’re no fun.” Florence angled toward the window and fixed her stare on the passing buildings.

  “See.” Frank gestured toward Florence. “You are corrupting your poor sister.”

  Mamie smothered a laugh at that idea. Florence needed no corrupting. Indeed, she was the one who had corrupted the other two Greene sisters. “Why must you always assume the worst of me? You hardly know me.”

  “Call it intuition guided by history. Do I have your promise to cease these excursions and stealing from others?”

  For once, Mamie gave it to him straight. “Absolutely not.”

  “Damn it, Mamie—”

  “We’re almost there,” Florence said and pointed. The Greene mansion loomed just up the street. Mamie was vaguely disappointed. She hadn’t had this much fun in one evening in quite some time.

  Yet all that fun could come to a disastrous end if Tripp informed her father of what had happened.

  She folded her hands and kept her shoulder relaxed as she faced him. “What do you plan to do?”

  He stared at her, his thoughts cleverly cloaked behind his flat expression. She couldn’t begin to read his intentions. Her heart pounded beneath her corset, a staccato of panic that her efforts to help others may very well be stymied because of this maddening man. Perhaps she should’ve confessed all to him, appealed to his sense of justice, rather than antagonized him.

  When it came to Frank Tripp, however, Mamie couldn’t seem to help herself. He brought out the worst in her.

  It’s because you find him appealing. And intriguing. And intelligent. And—

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. She needed to cease that line of thinking immediately. Heat spread over her skin and she looked away, unable to hold his gaze.

  He was her father’s attorney and a thorn in her side. That was all.

  A fist thumped on the roof and Tripp called out to his driver, “Take us to the servant’s entrance.” She cast him a quick glance and found him still watching her. His lips twisted in a self-satisfied smile. “You live to steal another day, Miss Greene. However, I will get answers from you tomorrow night. Shall we say Sherry’s at ten o’clock?”

  She blinked. “You are blackmailing me into having dinner with you?”

  “Yes, it appears that I am.”

  “Even for you, Tripp, this is a new low. I won’t do it.”

  “You most definitely will.” His eyes darted toward her mouth before he captured her stare once more. “I get what I want, Mamie. Never forget it.”

  Undoubtedly he intended the words as menacing. Instead of fear, however, warmth settled in her belly as she snuck into the servant’s entrance a few moments later.

  The Bronze House appeared quite different in the daylight. With the afternoon sun pouring through the overhead skylights, one could hardly miss the expensive cherry furniture, gilded accents and exotic rugs. Frank had seen upper Fifth Avenue drawing rooms shabbier than this.

  He continued to follow Bald Jack across the casino floor, past the silent roulette tables. That only served to remind him of Mamie. God above, that woman. Erasing her from his mind today had proven near impossible. Thankfully, some urgent requests from clients had distracted him . . . until now. What caused a gorgeous woman from a prominent, wealthy family to pick pockets? Was it the thrill? And where had she learned such a skill? There were no thieving classes for society ladies that he was aware of.

  Frank had represented clients in all sorts of various predicaments over the years. These days, he focused on high society clients, which meant mostly delicate personal and financial cases. But he had defended murder, theft, kidnapping and everything in between. He’d even represented a woman being sued because her cat reportedly kept a neighbor awake at night. He’d truly seen it all in his eight years as a lawyer in New York City.

  At least he thought he had.

  A woman of Mamie’s background and social status, a thief? It made no sense. Duncan Greene was a generous man, something Frank had personally witnessed time a
nd again. If Mamie needed money, why not ask her father?

  Because the money needs to remain secret.

  So, was it a hop habit? A lover bilking her for cash? Blackmail? Frank vowed to receive an answer tonight at dinner—an appointment he was anxiously anticipating to an absurd degree.

  Truthfully, his anticipation had more to do with the woman herself than gaining insight into her criminalities. She challenged him in a way that both infuriated and intrigued him at the same time. In a world of glittering diamonds, Mamie was a fiery ruby, a flame that burned brighter than anything else around it.

  She was also unattainable. Nearly engaged to the Livingston scion, Mamie belonged to a rare social circle that included few and excluded many. Her future did not involve a lawyer born at the wrong end of town. He’d gone to great lengths to hide his Five Points past, create a history acceptable to his fancy clients. A woman like Mamie, one who certainly never did as she was told, could bring down everything he’d built.

  Still, even with that reminder, he would take her to dinner. Perhaps it was the small boy in him—the one who’d grown up in filth and violence, the one who’d yearned to escape uptown—who wanted to sit in the city’s best restaurant with the most desirable debutante and have the whole world take note.

  Or perhaps it was the man who’d fantasized about her for the better part of three months.

  Bald Jack stopped in front of an ornate wooden door. They had traveled deep into the building, far from the casino floor. Jack turned the latch and threw open the panel, then gestured for Frank to enter.

  Clayton Madden sat behind a huge walnut desk, his head bent as he scribbled with a pen. “Have a seat, Tripp.”

  Frank did as ordered, while Jack quietly retreated and closed the door. Madden put down his pen and looked up. “Thank you for coming. I hope to not take up too much of your time.”

  “It’s quite all right. I’m always happy to provide advice when requested.”

  “I’ll get right to the point. Your reputation paints you as a problem solver. I have a problem that needs solving.”

  “Which is?”

  Madden rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. “I wish to build another casino, a little farther north on the East Side. I found the perfect spot and bought all the necessary land, save one plot. That owner refuses to sell to me. Some do-gooder has convinced her to hold on to the property.” He said the words with a good deal of derision and Frank suppressed a smile.