He took Elizabeth's elbow and guided her to a booth in the back. Along the way he waved to patrons who joked about the "red-headed hen" he'd brought with him. A buxom waitress in a flouncing skirt and apron greeted the customer she obviously knew well.
When he and Elizabeth were seated across from each other, a man with long bushy sideburns and full beard approached their booth. He wore a snapped front cap pulled so low on his forehead, Elizabeth couldn’t see his eyes. The bulk of him would have made two of the more slightly-built Max. Ignoring Elizabeth for the moment, the man leaned over the table and spoke in a low, gravelly voice to Max.
"You’re not forgettin' about the fight tomorrow night, are you, Cassie? I got that last bit of information you wanted. LaRosa's goin' down in the third."
"You can bet I won't forget about it," Max answered. "I'll be there with bells on my shirtsleeves. Still eight o'clock at the address off Morningside?"
The man nodded once and backed away into the crowd without another word. Elizabeth waited until he'd disappeared. "Who's that?" A part of her didn’t want to know since the man seemed unsavory, but mostly she was fascinated.
"I haven't the first notion what his name is," Max said. "He's a piper and a darn good one. Didn't you tell me you're a reporter?"
She nodded.
"Then you know what a piper is."
"Of course," she answered too quickly. "Well, yes, sort of. He's a man who, who...what is it he does again?"
Max's lips slanted in a teasing grin. "He's part of the pipeline. You know, the way reporters get their information. He's one of the nameless contacts who make a living out of stooling. And Brawn there is one of the best."
"Brawn?"
"That's what I call him, for obvious reasons."
"What'll it be, sweetie?" The waitress had come to the booth and waited with her order pad in her hand. "Stew's the special."
Max leaned back, tossed his hat onto the bench beside him and gave the waitress a flirtatious look that made Elizabeth feel like an intruder. "Sally, my girl, why don't you save your breath and tell me when stew's not the special at Flanagan's."
She giggled. "So you're havin' it, right? And the lady?"
"We are, following the two drafts you'll bring us first...if there is a God, and you are, as I suspect, one of his angels."
The girl's large teeth shone through a ring of vibrant lip color. "Comin' right up, Max," she cooed, and Elizabeth immediately deduced that the waitress was hopelessly smitten with Cassidy.
When she'd gone, Max settled a penetrating gaze on Elizabeth. "So, Betsy Sheridan, what do you want to talk to me about?"
She folded her hands on top of the table. "I have questions about your story from Saturday night." He raised one eyebrow and waited. She clasped her hands more tightly and plunged ahead. "I don't feel that you handled the subject with the seriousness it deserved."
"Is that so? How do you mean?"
"The man you wrote about is the husband of a woman in your office, correct?"
"Yes. His name's Paddy O'Toole, and his wife Molly has worked at the Gazette for as long as I've been there."
"And you consider her a friend?"
"Absolutely. She reminds me of my own sweet mother, rest her soul." His lip curled into something resembling a smirk. "Unfortunately, Paddy reminds me of my own sour dad and he probably has as heavy a fist."
"I'm sorry about that," Elizabeth said, "but even so, in your article you referred to Mr. O'Toole as 'lucky' for what happened to him, and though you didn't use his name, you called that despicable Mr. Galbotto an Italian businessman. Isn't that stretching the truth in spades?"
He nodded his head slowly. "Ah...I see what you're getting at. You think I should have gone on about the fate of poor Paddy and the injuries he received at the hands of the sinister mob leader, Frankie Galbotto. I should have called on the police to arrest Mr. Galbotto, urged Paddy's fellow micks to avenge his misfortune, and melted the hearts of every colleen in Manhattan."
"Exactly!" Elizabeth exclaimed, satisfied that she'd made her point so effectively to the self-assured Gazette reporter.
He leaned forward on his elbows and ginned smugly. "Sorry, Betsy. It's a nice thought, but it would never have worked."
"Why not?"
"You don't get out in the neighborhoods much, do you?" He regarded her appraisingly as if memorizing the details of her appearance and finding her starched clothes and trim boater not of his world. "No, obviously you don't," he said.
"You shouldn’t draw conclusions, Max," she said, truly offended that he’d analyzed her station so correctly.
"Sorry, luv. Let me explain. Frankie Galbotto probably knows half the cops in the city, and I'd lay you ten-to-one odds they all know him. If the police were going to arrest Galbotto, they'd have done it long before now. And the story of one poor soaker who lost his wages gambling wouldn't have inspired the cops to put the cuffs on Frankie. Trust me, Betsy, the boys in blue would have turned a deaf ear and an eye as blind as Paddy's is now to his troubles. And here's the saddest part...it may be Paddy O'Toole who's lying in the hospital, but I guarantee you the real victim is Molly who's lost his wages."
What Max said made sense, but then why write the article at all, Elizabeth wondered. "If that's so, and the police are going to leave Galbotto alone, then what did you accomplish with the story?"
"A fair trade off, that's what." He sat straight, fixed Elizabeth with a serious stare, and seemed determined to make her understand. "The one thing Galbotto doesn't want is bad publicity from the Gazette. Granted the cops probably still wouldn't touch him, but he doesn't want to look bad in the eyes of society. Frankie's got a wife and kids, and he maintains an air of respectability for them. He belongs to the Italian-American club uptown. His daughters go to private school. He's built an image, understand?"
"Yes, so?"
"So...if I had done what you said and linked him with a story that hints he had something to do with beating up a poor defenseless Irishman, it makes Frankie look bad. His wife gets the cold shoulder at the market; his daughters hear talk at school and cry at the dinner table. In general, it gets messy for Frankie, and he doesn't like messy. And what would all this do for Paddy and Molly? Not a damn thing. Paddy's still blind and going to stay that way, and Molly's still working overtime at the Gazette trying to pay his bills."
"So what was your trade off?"
Max had a way of holding Elizabeth spellbound with just the glimmer of his eyes. "After I got out of your carriage, I went back to the Dorchester, listened at just the right cracks in the walls and got what I needed. I knew for sure that Galbotto and his boys did the job on Paddy. Then Sunday morning, I showed up at Saint Michael's for services. I sat down right next to the Galbotto family in the pew they've occupied for years.
"Now Frankie's a sharp guy. He knows I've been dogging him, and he recognized me right away and knew I wasn't about to leave just because he gave me the evil eye. In fact, I got down on my knees with only his pretty little daughter separating us and I said a prayer for Paddy O'Toole, nice and loud so everybody around us can hear what happened to him.
"I practically brought little Gina Galbotto to tears." Max chuckled. "I can really pray when I have to. I stayed for the whole mass, and when it was over I walked outside with the family just like I was invited to Sunday dinner. I spoke with Sophia Galbotto, and talked to the girls. 'It's a pity,' I told them. 'Poor fellow's destitute and can't pay his bills.' Then the ladies jabbered away at Frankie and I saw the back of his neck turn red as the temper boiling in his head.
"It was only a few minutes before Frankie took my arm and ushered me away from the family. He blustered with a few Italian-style threats and finally asked what I wanted. I told him I wanted all Paddy's hospital bills paid, and a large sum of money delivered to Molly O'Toole the next morning so she won't ever have to worry where her next meal's coming from."
"And what happened?" Elizabeth asked. She leaned forward and waited eagerly.
Max gave Elizabeth a knowing grin. "Tell you what, though, Betsy, I'll bet by now, Galbotto's identified himself to half of Manhattan. He's quick enough to take the credit, but you'll never catch him taking the blame."
Elizabeth suddenly realized that she'd been staring at Max like an adoring protégé since he'd started his story. If he'd noticed her rapt attention, he must be even more certain of himself. Elizabeth found it difficult to imagine how Max's ego could blossom even more. Still, she had to admit that she'd never met anyone quite like him. Yes, he was cocky, but he was also clever and caring and had a talent for sniffing out the news.
"That's a wonderful story," she admitted. "You managed to write an exciting account of what happened to you and still help Molly and Paddy O'Toole. I think you might have a heart, Max."
He shrugged with what Elizabeth figured was pretended modesty. "Everybody's got a heart, Betsy. The trick for a reporter is to make everybody else's beat faster than his. When he does that, they remember the byline." He pointed to the mug of ale sitting untouched in front of her. "Drink up," he said, clinking his own half empty glass against hers. "To the
newspaper business."
"To the newspaper business," she repeated and, following Max's lead, took a long draw of the only dark, bitter Irish ale she'd ever tasted in her life. Max wiped the foam from his upper lip with the tip of his tongue, and Elizabeth Sheridan, who'd never cleansed her mouth with anything but a fine linen napkin, stuck out her tongue and did the same.
Chapter Three
Glancing at his watch, Max hurried down West Fourth Street. "You dumb Mulligan,” he muttered to himself. “You just made yourself fifteen minutes late by talking to that girl as if you hadn't a care in the world. It'd serve you right if you lost this story." He'd now have to take a cab to Delancey Street instead of a streetcar, and it would cost him an extra two bits. There were two things Max didn't like to waste - time and money, and he'd squandered both on the green-eyed Betsy Sheridan.
Adding to his frustration, he'd given her the only cab within a block of Flanagan's, a chivalrous gesture he couldn't afford since he was pressed to find another one. Still a smile came to his lips when he thought of her. She'd definitely made the stew at Flanagan's more palatable than usual.
Putting Betsy Sheridan from his mind, Max concentrated on the important matter of getting his story. "Dixie Lee," he said under his breath, "I hope you remember that you promised me an exclusive."
Max was confident Dixie wouldn't let him down. He liked the saucy madam at Dixie Lee's House of Dee-Lights, and he knew she trusted him. He figured she'd keep her word about telling him the details of the raid at her establishment the day before. In Manhattan, more often than not, the word of a whore was better than that of a judge.
He spotted a hire coach by the curb, the horse lazily flicking flies with its tail. Max whistled between his fingers, waking up both horse and driver. When he jumped inside the cab, he was already shouting the address.
"Elizabeth, is that you?"
Winston Sheridan's voice carried down the hallway to the main staircase of the family's Georgian residence. His harsh tone made Elizabeth tremble in the evening slippers she'd hoped would muffle her descent from her second floor room. She had successfully managed to hide upstairs all afternoon, pondering her extraordinary meeting with Max. Plus deep down she feared that Ross might actually be in some sort of trouble, and she didn't want to face her father's wrath if that were so.
"Yes, Papa, it's me," she called back, smoothing the silk bodice of her dinner gown. She fluffed the ruffles at her shoulders and unnecessarily tucked strands of hair into her perfectly groomed chignon, not so much because her appearance needed reparations as because she needed the time to fortify herself.
"Well, get yourself in here right now!" Winston thundered. "All hell broke loose this afternoon while you confined yourself to your boudoir!"
She entered the drawing room and saw her father seated in his favorite parlor chair, a large overstuffed winged affair that would have dwarfed most men, but not Winston Sheridan. He barely squeezed his bulk between the wood-carved gargoyle arms. He was still in his business suit, a fact which didn't surprise Elizabeth. Winston never donned a less constraining smoking jacket until late in the evening. His right hand was firmly wrapped around a tumbler of brandy.
"What's wrong, Papa? What's happened?" she asked, coming toward him.
"Your brother's at it again," he said. "I went to the club for lunch today and who should I see but Harold Alden from the bank. I could tell he was avoiding me since he put his newspaper in front of his face when he caught my eye."
Elizabeth sank into the nearest chair. "Oh no," she said. "Ross has gotten in trouble at work."
"He was fired! When I finally forced a confrontation with Alden he told me that Ross didn't even show up this morning. 'Have to let the boy go, Winnie,' he tells me.”
Winston paused long enough to take a long swallow of his drink. "I swear, Elizabeth, that boy has set out to ruin me in this town. Every time I go out on a limb and secure a position for him, he treads upon my good name and I end up making excuses for his shiftless nature. Well, no more. Ross has embarrassed this family for the last time!"
"Have you seen Ross, Papa?" Elizabeth suggested hopefully. "Did he tell you what happened? Perhaps there's a good explanation this time."
"Not damn likely! But, no, I haven't seen him, and when I pumped Bridey for the truth, she admitted that she hadn't actually seen him sleeping in bed this morning like she told me. I swear, Elizabeth I should fire that woman and get a maid who wouldn’t let you two so easily wrap her around your little fingers.”
“Oh, don’t do that, Papa. Why, Bridey is...”
Not letting her finish, Winston leaned forward. "Now I suspect that you weren't being honest with me either. Tell me, missy...you really have no idea at all where Ross has been all night and all day, do you?"
"No," Elizabeth admitted, but quickly added, "I didn't actually lie to you, Papa. I didn't know for certain that Ross wasn't here last night. And I don't know where he's been today." Though Elizabeth understood her father's anger, she couldn't share it. She was more worried than anything else. She knew that Ross often bent the rules where their father was concerned, but he almost always confided in her, even about the most outrageous of his antics. The fact that she didn't have any idea where he was caused her more than a little consternation.
"Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes, sir," Bridey said from the doorway to the drawing room. "Cook asked me to tell you." She cast a guilt-ridden glance at Elizabeth and then quickly disappeared into the hallway.
Elizabeth stood slowly. Under the circumstances there didn't seem to be anything else to say. "Papa, if it's all right with you, I think I'll check on final dinner preparations."
He turned his gaze to the flames flickering in the fireplace and seemed to mellow somewhat. "Yes, go ahead." She crossed the threshold and was closing the pocket doors when she heard him mutter, "Thank you, Elizabeth, for being a good girl."
It took several seconds for the impact of his words to register, but when they did, Elizabeth felt an overwhelming pity for her father and his dilemma with Ross. "You're welcome, Papa," she said softly. She closed the doors the rest of the way just as a low clicking sound drew her attention to the front entrance. One of the double doors opened a crack, just enough for fingers to grasp the inside knob. Elizabeth recogni
zed a familiar tiger-eye ring glinting up at her.
"Ross!" she cried in a harsh whisper. "Where have you been? Papa's as put out as I've ever seen him."
With the criminal stealth of an intruder, Ross slowly stuck his sandy-colored head through the doorway and put a finger to his lips. "Shhh, Lizzie, don't give me away."
"Well, I should. You've really hurt him this time."
He squeezed through the narrow opening he allowed himself and closed the door without a sound. "I know, but it couldn't be helped. Honest it couldn't. I've got in a dreadful fix this time, Lizzie."
She only needed one look at him to know that he was telling the truth. She'd never seen her brother look worse. His clothing was rumpled and soiled, as if he'd been sleeping in an alley. His hair, usually neatly parted in the middle and ending in groomed waves behind his ears, was a dull, matted mass of tangles. His hazel eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and he had an overall look of desperation about him. "What in heaven's name happened to you, Ross?"
Silver Dreams Page 3