by BJ Hoff
“Did you wear that gown just for me, Sara a gra?” Michael’s voice was low, his words meant only for her, but when Sara glanced over at her father and Winnie, she saw that it really didn’t matter. The two of them were altogether engrossed in each other, too absorbed to take note of anyone’s conversation but their own.
Sara smiled. “Then you approve?”
“You know it’s my favorite.” He squeezed her hand, his dark eyes going over her face with a warmth that made her heart leap. “You are,” he said, his voice still low, “quite the loveliest woman in the room. I am one lucky Irishman, I’m thinking.”
After six months of marriage, he could still make her blush with one of his lingering looks or murmured endearments. “This setting would be flattering to any woman,” Sara pointed out to mask her quick flush of pleasure. “It’s like being in the middle of an entire sea of candlelight.”
Michael glanced around, his expression dryly amused. “Quite a bash just to throw some politicians together, wouldn’t you say?”
Sara’s father dragged his gaze away from Winifred long enough to make an observation of his own. “You’ll find that Simon never does anything halfway. Least of all a party. It’s planned to impress—and I expect it does.”
Still studying the dance floor and the crowded tables around the ballroom, Michael shook his head. “I’ll warrant half the police force is here.”
Sara’s father nodded. “Mostly the captains, I should think. Simon’s interest in law enforcement extends only to the boys with the clout.”
“Clout or corruption?” Michael returned, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Most of the brass have their hands so deep in the till they can’t find their elbows.”
“Still, they’re the pillars of the local party.”
Michael scowled. “More like puppets, I’m thinking, than pillars.” He paused. “I’m not sure I understand why we were invited. Except for your friendship with Dabney, of course.”
Sara’s father shook his head. “You’re here because Simon intends to add you to his political camp. Surely you know that by now. He’s hardly subtle.”
Michael’s scowl only deepened as he answered. “He means to buy me, you mean.”
Sara had heard most of this conversation before tonight. Apparently, there was no disputing the fact that a number of the local police, many of them captains, were snug in the pockets of the Tammany bosses, but she couldn’t believe they were all corrupt. Michael had managed to avoid being seduced by the politicians and the crime bosses, after all; certainly, there must be others like him.
“No, I don’t think Simon has too many illusions about you, Michael,” her father replied. “Jaded as he is, I believe he can distinguish between a man with integrity and those with none. No,” he repeated, toying with his watch fob, “it seems to me that Simon is genuinely trying to attract you to the political arena by making it seem…respectable—and far more attractive than it really is.”
Sara was taken by surprise at the surge of relief that washed over her when she heard Michael’s reply. “I’ve no real interest in politics. At least not at the present.”
Her father nodded, darting a look at Sara. “Nevertheless, New York politics has taken an interest in you, son. And you’ll find Simon Dabney a tenacious sort, once he sets his cap for something.”
Michael shrugged, his features unreadable. “He’ll find I can be just as—”
He stopped, his entire expression darkening as he stared at the entrance doors across the room. Turning to follow the direction of his gaze, Sara caught her breath at the sight of Patrick Walsh entering the ballroom. His wife, Alice, was at his side.
Michael half-rose from his chair. Laying a restraining hand on his arm, Sara felt her own temper flare. She didn’t know what she found more outrageous: the idea that Simon Dabney would invite a man like Patrick Walsh into his home—or the fact that Walsh actually had the gall to show up.
Michael shot her a look, and Sara saw the fire in his eyes. “Michael, you mustn’t,” she said, tightening her pressure on his arm.
By now he was on his feet. This time Sara’s father intervened. “Sara’s right, son. This is Simon Dabney’s home. He can invite whomever he chooses. Besides, the man’s wife is with him. You wouldn’t want to humiliate her.”
Sara held her breath. For a moment, Michael stood poised like a panther ready to spring. With relief, she finally felt the muscles in his arm relax slightly, saw his white-knuckled fists unclench as he slowly lowered himself into his chair.
“Why?” His question was directed to Sara’s father. “Why would Dabney have any truck at all with a snake like Walsh? He has to know what he is!”
Folding his hands on top of the table, her father studied Michael. “Simon Dabney,” he said after a long sigh, “is the consummate political powerbroker, Michael. He’s far bigger than the hoodlums at Tammany Hall, bigger even than the state party establishment. He has a string attached to every political boss in New York, every ward leader, every party henchman in the city—and quite a few in the state. Simon courts power like some men woo women—he never misses an opportunity to make a conquest.”
He paused, drumming his fingers lightly on the table. “What you must understand, Michael, is that, like it or not, Patrick Walsh happens to wield a great deal of power in Manhattan. No one has been able to prove he’s anything but a shrewd, highly successful, if somewhat questionable, businessman. He pours a considerable amount of money into the party coffers, and he has more ears at Tammany Hall than any other crime boss in the city, except perhaps for Isaiah Rynders.”
“It’s a wonder he’s not here tonight as well,” Michael muttered, his words laced with contempt.
Sara’s father spread his hands. “Rynders is a different breed than Walsh in one respect.” At Michael’s skeptical look, he went on to explain. “Oh, he’s just as corrupt, mind you, but the difference is that Rynders doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what he is—a gambler, a saloon owner, and a gang leader. His political weight was more or less donated to him. He didn’t scramble for it, but, of course, he took what was offered. He’s a crook, and doesn’t seem to care who knows it. Walsh, on the other hand, would have us believe that he’s entirely respectable. Just another hardworking, influential businessman.”
“He’s nothing but a pirate!” Michael grated, leaning forward. “The sharks at Tammany know it, and so does the entire police force!”
As Michael’s voice rose, Sara again squeezed his arm to subdue him. He looked at her, then leaned back, raking a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “We would have had him in jail months ago if those ledgers hadn’t been burned up in the warehouse fire—and if his thugs hadn’t had their throats slit before they could talk.”
Sara’s heart wrenched with sympathy for her husband. He seemed to meet with nothing but frustration in his attempts to bring Patrick Walsh to justice. In spite of a number of eyewitness accounts of Walsh’s involvement in a child-slavery ring, the man was still free, going on about his obscene business as if nothing had happened. Two of his henchmen had been arrested after the fire, but they had been murdered in their cells before they talked.
Even the firsthand evidence from Michael’s son had accomplished nothing but to place Tierney’s life in danger. As a result, the boy had fled the country for Ireland, while Patrick Walsh went right on expanding his corrupt empire. Small wonder that Michael could scarcely stand the sight of the man!
“I’ll have him yet,” he said, his face taut, his tone chillingly hard. “No matter what it takes, I will see that devil behind bars where he belongs.”
Sara glanced at her husband’s long-time adversary across the room. Walsh stood, casually elegant in his well-tailored evening apparel, chatting and laughing with his host, Simon Dabney.
She could scarcely look at the man without shuddering. Her first meeting with Walsh had given her a sense of a deceitful, possibly deadly, evil presence. Tonight, that same presence s
eemed to pervade and darken the entire ballroom, as if a sudden summer storm had blown up unawares and now hovered in their midst, waiting to strike.
Turning back to Michael, Sara was momentarily seized by a cold feeling of dread. Lately, she had begun to wonder if his determination to expose Patrick Walsh might not be turning into something more than a natural desire to see justice done—something much darker, perhaps even dangerous.
She almost thought it bordered on obsession, this hostility he harbored toward the notorious crime boss. Yet, in his defense, Michael had reason enough to despise the man. Patrick Walsh represented every evil that Michael had spent his life fighting against.
What troubled her most was the fear that he might have begun to blame Walsh for the chasm between himself and Tierney. And there, Sara admitted uneasily, she could not agree with her husband, at least not entirely. Oh, it was a terrible thing Tierney had done—a foolish and dangerous thing—getting involved with Walsh in the first place. Even if the boy had been innocently duped in the beginning, by his own admission he had known the extent of Walsh’s corruption at the end.
While it was true that there had seemed no choice for Tierney but to leave New York, Michael had confided long ago that the gulf between him and his son had been widening for years. Yet, more and more, Sara was afraid her husband had somehow managed to convince himself that Patrick Walsh was at least in part responsible for the loss of his son.
Up to now, she would not have believed Michael capable of an irrational thought. He was by nature a fair, reasonable, and thoroughly practical man. But in this one instance, she could not help but wonder if his fixation about Patrick Walsh hadn’t blinded him to the truth.
Studying her husband’s profile as he sat glaring at his adversary across the room, Sara felt chilled, almost as if she were seeing the hard, unyielding set of his features for the first time. The sultry July night seemed to have turned suddenly cold, and even the solid weight of Michael’s arm against hers failed to warm her.
Alice Walsh had come to dread events like tonight’s gala. Not that they were invited to all that many social affairs. With Patrick being Irish and in business, they received precious few bids to society functions. Despite his enormous success and influence in certain areas of the city, the Walshes were still not “acceptable” in a number of society circles.
Alice wasn’t sure she really minded, at least not terribly. She had always been shy, had never been comfortable in large crowds; certainly, she would never feel at ease among New York society.
What bothered her, when she thought about it at all, was the insinuation in some quarters that they were less than desirable—not so much because of Patrick’s Irishness, but because of his varied business activities.
She could have understood, had they been living in England or one of the other European countries where merchants were still regarded with a certain snobbery. But this was America. In America, making one’s fortune was supposed to be not only acceptable, but admirable. Wasn’t it?
The country, after all, had been built by self-made men who attained success through their own hard work and ingenuity. Why, then, were she and Patrick continually kept at arms’ length by everyone except the nouveau riche and the politicians?
Up until now, she hadn’t thought much about the reasons for their exclusion. It had been enough to have a few acquaintances from among their local congregation and Patrick’s political and business associates.
Lately, however, Alice found herself questioning a number of things she had once ignored. Patrick seemed to have changed over the past few months. Before, things had been blessedly serene at home. Their marriage, if somewhat uneventful and…predictable…had at least been peaceful.
Uncomfortably, Alice realized that the reason for that tranquility might lie in the fact that she spent so much time seeing to Patrick’s comfort. She disciplined the children herself, because “Papa mustn’t be bothered when he comes home late and feels so weary.” She made most of the decisions regarding the servants so Patrick needn’t be distracted from his work. Even in questions of household decor and furniture selections, Alice usually made the choices—paid for, of course, out of the more than generous household allowance Patrick provided.
Lately she had begun to realize that her entire life seemed to revolve around Patrick: keeping him happy, at ease, and undisturbed had seemingly become her reason for existence. To a point, even the children took second place to their father’s comfort.
For most of their married life, Alice had not examined their relationship too closely. The truth was, she had avoided analyzing whether Patrick was entirely happy with her and the children. She adored him and devoted her days to being an ideal wife and mother. Why wouldn’t he be happy with her?
He had never given her reason to doubt his affection. If he had complaints, he voiced them, and Alice took care of the matter at once. She more or less took it for granted that if Patrick became dissatisfied about anything in particular, she would know it without delay. Her husband wasn’t a man to keep his opinions to himself.
These days, however, he didn’t seem the same at all. Alice found it more and more difficult to anticipate him. Was something amiss in their relationship, or was he merely distracted by his business affairs—or perhaps some worry he was keeping to himself?
Whatever the reason, she couldn’t avoid the fact that Patrick’s behavior was peculiar. He was edgy, easily irritated—short with her and the children.
Of course, he had always tended to be somewhat impatient with them. But recently he became downright testy over the smallest things, things that really didn’t matter one way or the other.
Unaccountably, he even seemed to resent the time she spent helping out in the Five Points mission work. At first, he had said little. Lately, though, he seemed to take as a personal affront her involvement with the boys’ choir, or the few hours a week she spent helping Sara Burke with inspections of the children’s homes. He snapped at her when she tried to discuss either subject, grew almost petulant when she mentioned some small achievement with one of the children.
He was, she had noticed, particularly irascible where Sara Farmington Burke was concerned. Even the mention of the woman’s name would most often bring a sneer or a sharp retort.
Alice found this the most confusing issue of all. Sara Burke was respected, even loved, by just about everyone who knew her; she was especially revered by those who worked with her in the mission projects. It was common knowledge that there was no task beneath the Farmington heiress. No need brought to her attention was left unexplored. She seemed to have the endurance of a strong man when it came to work, the patience of a mystic when it came to spiritual matters.
Alice could not fathom anyone—least of all Patrick, who scarcely knew Sara—disliking her. She felt nothing but respect and a growing fondness for the young woman—fondness and gratitude. For Sara Burke had given her, for the first time in her life, something worthwhile to do for others besides her own family.
Seeing her now, across the ballroom, Alice started to lift a hand to wave, then stopped at the sight of Sara’s husband. Captain Burke was staring at Patrick with a look of such open animosity that Alice involuntarily shuddered.
She had seen this hostility between her husband and the police captain before, yet she had no inkling as to what was responsible for their antagonism toward each other. She would have thought that Patrick’s treatment of the Burke boy when he was so badly injured the past year—taking him into their home and seeing that he had the best of care—would have formed a bond between them. Yet, the bad feeling between the two men was so obvious as to be almost a tangible presence.
It hurt, this mysterious enmity between her husband and the husband of a woman for whom she held only the highest of respect and admiration. With all her heart, Alice wished it could have been different. She had even daydreamed about becoming good friends, close friends, with Sara Burke—not just social acquaintances.
Aga
in her gaze went to the granite-faced Captain Burke. With a sharp pang of regret, she now realized how terribly hopeless her daydreams had been.
14
Dancing Dreams
I bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams.
W.B. YEATS (1865-1939)
Michael had excused himself just long enough to say hello to Chief Matsell and his wife. On his way back to the table, Simon Dabney stopped him.
“So glad you and your lovely wife could make it tonight, Captain. I hope you’re enjoying yourselves.”
“It’s a grand evening, Mr. Dabney. You were kind to invite us.”
Simon Dabney was a big, pleasant-faced man with an impressive mane of silver hair. Sara had commented that “Simon looks like everybody’s favorite uncle—not the sly fox he really is.”
Michael thought “sly” a good word for the smooth-voiced lawyer. Dabney struck him as a bit too much the good fellow—too quick with the slap on the back and the ready smile that did not quite meet his eyes, too eager to strike a note of camaraderie, even with those he scarcely knew. In fact, he would be surprised if Simon Dabney were not, at heart, somewhat callous and calculating. A true “sly fox.”
“I confess that I’ve been hoping for an opportunity to talk with you at more length, Captain, about what we discussed a few weeks ago.”
“The position of alderman, you mean,” Michael said directly.
Dabney smiled. “Exactly. I hope you’ve had time to think about it.”
“Enough to know I’m not your man.”
Dabney’s smile never flickered. “You underestimate yourself, Captain. If the party thinks you’re qualified—
Michael shook his head, interrupting Dabney before he could finish. “I wasn’t referring to my qualifications. The fact is, I’m simply not interested in leaving the force. Not at this time.”
The lawyer studied him with what was probably meant to be good-natured understanding. But Michael thought he caught a glimpse of something else behind that avuncular expression. “May I be frank, Captain Burke?”