Saint looked up with a start, just becoming aware of their conversation.
“Wait, what?” he said, blinking.
Corinne laughed.
“If you’d been here earlier, you could have been my date,” she said. “You missed a night of champagne, caviar, and my relatives trying to outdo the Havershams in snobbery.”
Saint actually looked a little sick at the notion. “I honestly can’t think of a worse way to spend an evening,” he said.
“Me neither.”
“Aren’t you going to change?” Ada asked her. “And where’s Gabriel?”
“No time for that,” Corinne said. “Gabriel kept the car running. If we don’t make it to Down Street before ten, we won’t get in to see the Witchers. We need to know what they know about Johnny.”
Corinne motioned with both hands in an attempt to herd Ada up the stairs. Ada, who was just starting to realize that Corinne was a little drunk, paid her no heed.
“Are you okay here?” she asked Saint.
“Better than I would be out there,” he replied, returning to his sketchbook. “Call if you need me.”
Ada allowed herself to be tugged up the steps. They went through the bar and out the front door, where the Ford sat, puffing exhaust. Ada took the front seat and sneaked a few long looks at Gabriel. If there had been any truth in Corinne’s jab about passionate necking, Ada didn’t see any evidence in Gabriel’s demeanor. He was as poised and inscrutable as ever.
The saloon on Down Street didn’t have a true name, and Down Street wasn’t a true street, just a slanting alleyway in the heart of the West End. It wasn’t easy to find, but Gabriel seemed to know the way. He parked a block away, and they all climbed out of the car in silence. There weren’t many cars in the West End, or parties. The streets around them were dark and shivering with wind.
Ada kept an eye on Corinne as they walked. She seemed to be managing a straight line, which was a relief. No one had ever accused her of not being able to hold her liquor. Ada wished they’d had a chance to talk earlier. She knew there was no way to talk Corinne out of it, but she wasn’t keen on the idea of meeting the Witchers on their own turf, even in peace. Down Street was a different sort of place from the Red Cat, and Ada was glad that Gabriel had come. Even though the iron in his gun was like an itch she couldn’t scratch, it made her feel safer. Corinne didn’t like guns as much as she liked wit, but Ada had learned to appreciate how the presence of a weapon could make even the most hardened criminal think twice.
“What’s the plan here?” Ada asked Corinne.
They were across the street from the saloon now. There were lights in the windows, and a couple of men were stumbling out, popping their ratty coat collars against the cold.
“The usual, I suppose,” Corinne said. “You and I will be daring and clever. Gabriel will complain and be generally useless.”
Gabriel didn’t give any indication that he’d noticed the casual insult. His eyes were steady on the front door of the saloon. When they passed under a flickering streetlight, Ada could see the lines of a frown on his face.
“I meant how we’ll get in to talk to the Witchers,” Ada said. “They don’t have any reason to see us, or trust us.”
“I suppose we’ll start by asking,” Corinne said.
Ada grabbed a handful of Corinne’s coat and yanked her to a stop. Corinne stumbled backward but kept her feet. Her expression was peeved, but even in the dark Ada could see something harder that she didn’t like. It was less determined and more fatalistic. She leaned closer to Corinne.
“How much have you had to drink?” she whispered.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little liquid courage.”
“Maybe a little. But you’re drunk.”
“I suppose that makes me extra courageous then.”
“No, it makes you reckless and stupid.”
Corinne jerked away from her, but not before Ada saw the hurt cross her face.
“If you want to wait in the car, then go,” Corinne said. “I’m not leaving until I talk to the Witchers.”
It was Ada’s turn to be hurt. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “But if we just march in there, they’ll throw us out. The back rooms are private for a reason. You know what goes on in there.”
“The Witchers know who we are,” Corinne said. “Surely that can get us through the door.”
It was true that they had been here a couple of times before, but always with Johnny, and Ada didn’t remember those visits ever ending with anything but tense words and veiled threats. The Red Cat and the Cast Iron had their old rivalry, but at the end of the day Johnny and Luke Carson were both businessmen. If they let the bad blood spill into the public eye, then the patrons might think twice about coming. The Witchers were outliers, though, and more invested in their cause than in anything else.
“Silas is probably the only one here,” Gabriel said. “George usually travels after Christmas.”
He was so matter-of-fact that it didn’t occur to Ada to doubt him, even though she had no idea why he would know the Witcher brothers’ itineraries. Maybe Johnny had mentioned it. Gabriel was still looking at the front door of the saloon, his brow furrowed. Ada expected Corinne to say something, but she was studying Gabriel with a dissecting gaze.
“He’ll meet with us,” Gabriel said at last, sounding strangely resigned. “Let’s go.” He crossed the street, hands in pockets, not waiting to see if they would follow.
The Down Street saloon was possibly Corinne’s least favorite place in Boston. It stank of sweat and fish. There was no music here, no poetry. The men who came here worked long hours for little pay, and they were worn thin and jagged from laboring around iron and steel. The liquor was dark and flowed fast. The saloon was iron-free, but that was mostly because both the Witchers were wordsmiths. Even though it sported no entertainment, Down Street was a haven for all the blue-collar workers of the West End, not just hemopaths.
Corinne could feel the stares as they passed through. Even with their coats on, she and Gabriel weren’t exactly subtle in their party attire. Most of the patrons were indifferent toward them, but one man spat toward her feet, and there were a couple of catcalls behind them that raised the hairs on her neck. She found Ada’s hand and squeezed it once, more to comfort herself than for Ada.
Wine still sang in her blood, and if she wasn’t careful to focus, the room would start to slip sideways. She kept her eyes on the tense line of Gabriel’s shoulders as they neared the back. She didn’t know why he was so confident that Silas Witcher would see them, but she was relieved that he wasn’t fighting her anymore. It was hard enough trying to bring Ada on board without him brooding over his logical, but ultimately irrelevant, concerns.
Gabriel knocked on the door that led into the back rooms of the saloon. The door cracked open.
“No admittance after ten,” a voice barked.
“It’s five till,” Gabriel replied evenly.
It was actually ten minutes past, but the man on the other side of the door didn’t say anything. After a few seconds, he pushed it open a few more inches and waved at them to come in. Corinne didn’t like how easy it was, because easy never boded well in their business. She glanced back to catch Ada’s eye and could see that she harbored the same disquiet. Corinne knew that if they were going to turn back, now was their last chance. She couldn’t do that, though, no matter what waited on the other side of the door. She followed Gabriel inside.
There was a meeting happening in a room to their left. Men, and some women, sat in rows of chairs, their backs to the door. At the front, pacing in a frenzy, a man was shouting about the greedy pig of capitalism. The energy was palpable, even from the hall.
There were a few other doors along the corridor, but the Witchers’ office was at the very end. Gabriel hesitated for the first time since they had entered the saloon. Corinne slipped past him to knock on the door. A reedy voice answered, and she went in.
Silas Witcher was ben
t over his desk, scribbling furiously in a journal. He was a slight man with a dark mustache who was rumored to subsist on a diet of bread, water, and books by foreign writers. His brother, George, a retired minister, wasn’t as averse to nourishment, but he spent most of his time out of town, preaching the evils of alcohol. Neither abided the frivolity and excess of the Red Cat or the Cast Iron. Corinne had asked Johnny once how a teetotaler justified ownership of a saloon, and he’d only smiled wryly and said that they had to pay for the sackcloth and ashes somehow. Corinne suspected that the Witchers’ asceticism was only a means to an end. What they really believed in was a new society, a revolutionary class, an equal brotherhood, and other things that Corinne couldn’t remember because she had used the pamphlet they gave her as a fly swatter.
“What are you doing here?” Silas demanded, barely glancing up.
“We just came to talk,” Corinne said. Her voice felt strange, like it was coming from somewhere distant and not her own throat. She was starting to regret those last two glasses of wine.
“Not you,” Silas said, waving his pen in a silencing motion. “Stone. They told me you had blinked out on us.”
Corinne and Ada both stared at Gabriel, who was very deliberately avoiding their eyes.
“I didn’t,” he said. “Well, I did.”
“Which is it?” Silas asked.
“I found work over at the Cast Iron.”
“Ah. Well, that explains your new choice of company.” Silas regarded Ada and Corinne with a critical eye. There had been a special emphasis on the word company.
“What is he talking about, Gabriel?” Corinne asked quietly.
“Gabriel used to be a regular at our weekly meetings,” Silas said, going back to his work. “He’s got some very interesting theories on the integration of socialism that I’ve been begging him for years to publish.”
“I told you, I’m no writer,” Gabriel said.
“You’re a communist?” Ada asked.
“Socialist,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
“Are you sure you’re not a Bolshevik?” Corinne asked.
He looked at her sharply, and she could see a muted panic in his eyes. So she was the only one who knew about his Russian origins. She couldn’t remember why it was so important that she keep it a secret. Her brain was bubbly, and every coherent thought was oscillating out of her reach. Something about his mother.
“A Bolshevik?” Ada echoed.
Even Silas had looked up from his writing.
“Never mind,” Corinne said, unable to pull her eyes from Gabriel’s, even though his face came in and out of focus with the rhythm of her pulse. “I’m drunk, remember?”
Ada’s glare had switched to her, half frustrated, half concerned. Corinne shook her head, hoping to indicate that she was fine, but the movement made her dizzy. She had felt fine outside, in the frigid, open air. In here, where everything was cramped and dark and warm, she was suffocating.
“Johnny is dead,” she said. They hadn’t told Luke Carson that because it made more sense to draw him out and figure out what he already knew, without announcing that his business rival was dead and the Cast Iron had gone dark. The same logic probably applied here, but she wasn’t equipped for that kind of subtlety tonight.
Silas’s pen was scratching on paper again, his head bowed over the page.
“I know,” he said.
“Did you kill him?”
Ada and Gabriel both elbowed Corinne simultaneously, which she thought was a bit excessive. She hadn’t accused Witcher of anything, per se.
“Dervish and Carson built themselves kingdoms on the backs of the working class, and kingdoms always crumble,” Silas said.
“You’re a pretentious ass,” Corinne said. “And that’s not an answer.”
Silas didn’t lay down his pen, but his eyes drifted upward, gauging her. Corinne couldn’t tell what his verdict was.
“I don’t care enough about Dervish to kill him,” he said. “And before you ask, I don’t care enough about Carson to drive him out of town either.”
“What do you mean?” Ada asked. “Carson’s gone?”
“Apparently he was turning over his own people to the HPA in exchange for a tidy little sum,” Silas said. He set down his pen and closed the journal. “His crew found out today, and from what I hear, he barely made it out of Boston in one piece.”
Corinne struggled to make sense of what Silas was telling her. Had what she’d said to Charlie about the agents at the club been that inflammatory? And if Carson was really gone, what did that mean for the Red Cat?
She dug her nails into her palms, hoping the pinch would clear her vision. The Red Cat wasn’t their concern.
“Do you know anything about the shooting at the docks?” she asked. “Anything that might help us figure out who killed Johnny?”
Silas leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers behind his head.
“I find it amusing that you think I would help you,” he said. “You only got in here because Gabriel knew the watchword. I have no interest in your feuds.”
Corinne slammed her hands onto his desk, both for effect and to steady herself.
“It’s not just our feud,” she said. “The Cast Iron and the Red Cat are the only other iron-free places in Boston. Ironmongers and now the HPA are snatching hemos off the street. Meanwhile, you’re tucked in your little office, theorizing about taking over the government or whatever it is you want. But that’s not going to help the people out there when the HPA gets even bolder, when there’s nowhere else for hemopaths to hide.”
Silas hadn’t flinched from her gaze. When she finished, he straightened in his chair, hands resting on the desk to mirror hers.
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” he said. His tone was silk. “Our work here is the only thing that can help us. ‘The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.’”
He tilted his head slightly and smiled at her. Corinne’s vision went black. For a moment, she thought the lights had gone out, but the darkness was absolute, and no one was saying anything. She stumbled backward, blinking wildly, but it made no difference.
“Cor, what’s wrong?” Ada’s voice by her ear made her jump. There were hands on her back.
“Stop it, Silas.” Gabriel’s voice came from her right. There was an edge to it.
“Don’t tell me you’ve lost your zeal, Stone.”
“I said stop it.”
Corinne’s sight flooded back, and she pressed her palms into her forehead, trying to orient herself. Silas still sat calmly behind his desk, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the wood. He smiled at her again.
“Don’t take it too hard,” he said. “Marx isn’t for the faint of heart.”
Heat rushed down Corinne’s back, and she balled her hands into fists. Silas was a more skilled wordsmith than she’d thought. Before she could decide on a retort, the wail of police sirens trickled into the room. The sound was soft at first, but soon it was bouncing off the walls. Silas jumped to his feet and peered through the window, then wrenched the curtains closed.
“You did this,” Silas shouted at them.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Corinne shouted back.
“There’s a warrant out for me,” Ada said. “Why would we call the cops?”
“You made some kind of deal,” said Silas, rounding the desk toward Corinne.
“They didn’t do this.” Gabriel intercepted him and shoved him back.
“Please tell me you have an escape route,” Ada said to Silas.
“In the meeting room. There’s a cellar that connects to a sewer drain.”
They flew down the corridor, arriving in time to be the last people through the cellar door. It was pitch-black below, but someone had a flashlight. Overhead, footsteps and shouts echoed through the room. The cellar was lined with mostly empty shelves. There was barely enough floor space for everyone, and Corinne was pressed tightly between Ada and Gabriel. The tra
pdoor in the corner was painted to match the concrete, and the crowd thinned slowly as people dropped down one by one. No one said anything, and Silas was the last one through. He shut the trapdoor above them only seconds before they heard the cellar door burst open.
They all waited in breathless silence, listening to the muffled sound of trampling feet overhead.
“Go,” Silas said at last.
They followed the sewage drain in single file, hunched over and gagging. Corinne was woozy in the dank, putrid air and kept stumbling. She thought for sure she was going to pitch headfirst into whatever muck they were tramping through, but whoever was behind her kept her upright. She was certain it was Gabriel, but she didn’t want to turn and acknowledge his help. She knew the radical politics the Witchers harbored in their back rooms weren’t as violent and treasonous as headlines made them out to be, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling of betrayal. Gabriel had this whole secret life that he had never hinted at, even though she’d opened up to him about her family, about the debt she felt she owed Johnny.
She remembered his reaction when he’d found out about her wealthy upbringing. She’d seen the disgust all over his face, however much he’d denied it.
You know a lot less about me than you think you do.
The three of them and Silas were the last ones up the ladder at the end. Corinne could see the silver of moonlight overhead and feel the icy breeze on her face. She took the rungs two at a time. Someone at the top took her hands and pulled her free. She swallowed a gulp of fresh air, and then a hand clamped over her mouth.
She bit down, tasting salty skin and then blood. There was cursing in her ear, and the hand dropped. She cried a warning, but it was in vain. Gabriel and Ada were already being dragged out of the manhole and cuffed. Now that her eyes were adjusting, she could see that they were surrounded by black police cars and several wagons that were being loaded with the other detainees.
Other than calmly asking for his lawyer, Silas didn’t say anything as they apprehended him. He shot Ada and Corinne a glare as he passed, which clearly indicated he thought they were to blame. When the cuffs clasped onto Corinne’s wrists, she could feel the iron in the steel, a dull pain that slithered up her arms and into her head. She thought she might be sick.
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