House of Thieves

by Charles Belfoure

  In the wake of John’s devastating news about George, Helen’s visits to the guests who would attend Julia’s upcoming ball had taken on new meaning. Among the fifty families that remained to be seen, there would be many nice things for “future acquisition.” To Helen, a good Knickerbocker Episcopalian, the seventh commandment no longer had meaning.

  It had been perhaps fifteen minutes since she had excused herself to go the bathroom. Not an excessive amount of time, given the difficulty of lifting one’s long dresses up around the waist and lowering the many layers of underwear. Many women resigned themselves to suffering and postponed going.

  Smiling, Helen rose from the bed and walked downstairs to rejoin the tea.

  • • •

  “Will you be going to the opera this season, Miss Cross? Faust will be the first production at the Metropolitan,” Alfred Wharton asked, balancing a cup and saucer expertly on his knee.

  “Yes, Mr. Wharton, I plan to attend,” Julia said.

  This was no idle chitchat. Julia did enjoy the opera, especially the Italian productions. But for her, operagoing would be different. When she sat in Aunt Caroline’s box in the Diamond Horseshoe tier at the Met, she saw with great disgust that society women attended not to appreciate the music but to show off their latest Parisian gowns and jewelry. Going to the opera on Thursdays was the most important event of the social season, which began in mid-November and ran until mid-February. The Met’s huge gold-and-white auditorium glittered with the flash of diamond tiaras, earrings, and chokers.

  Julia thought the worst thing was that no society person ever arrived on time. They always came in the middle of the first act. When Aunt Caroline arrived, not one person paid attention to the performance, craning their necks instead to see what she was wearing. The audience talked constantly and left for supper before the end of the second act. When Julia told Caroline that one day she hoped to attend an opera from beginning to end, her aunt laughed uncontrollably.

  “We have a box in the second parterre,” Wharton said. “Perhaps after your coming-out, my family can have the pleasure of your company in our box.”

  The Whartons were among the old society people who’d made the switch to the Met. When the parvenus couldn’t get boxes at the Academy of Music, society’s old opera house on Fourteenth Street, the Vanderbilts, Whitneys, and Morgans decided to build their own on the corner of Broadway and Thirty-Ninth Street. The Academy of Music couldn’t compete and had made the switch from opera to musicals. The Knickerbockers, with Aunt Caroline leading the way, decamped with the “new people” to the luxury boxes of the Met.

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Wharton. I’d like that very much.”

  This was Julia’s fifth visit to an at-home tea. Society ladies like Elizabeth Ogden sent out cards with “Thursdays in August, tea at four o’clock” handwritten in the corner. On that day of the week, they would accept visitors. Attending these teas was an informal way of introducing Julia and allowing her to practice her social skills. She had also had one at-home tea at her house. Because the men were working, the guests were predominately female. A few fellows, like Wharton, took time off specifically to see Julia. She was fast becoming the most admired debutante of the season. That day, at least two dozen visitors filled the Ogdens’ opulent parlor.

  “We’re going to the Thalia to see that new Gilbert and Sullivan production, The Mikado. They say it’s first-rate,” Wharton said.

  Granny, sitting next to Julia and waiting to intercept an improper advance, interrupted.

  “While Miss Cross cannot go out without a chaperone, perhaps you and she will happen to attend the same performance.” Julia smiled at her grandmother, knowing she had to protect Julia yet steer her toward acceptable Knickerbocker men. Wharton was handsome, wealthy, and without a stain of scandal—a very good catch.

  “Yes,” Wharton said enthusiastically, “I could let you know in advance when we’re going.”

  “What are you studying at Yale, Mr. Wharton?” Julia asked. She wanted to know if he was a serious scholar or the usual society college boy, who drank all the time and never opened a book.

  “Paleontology, Miss Cross. The study of dinosaurs at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.”

  This so impressed Julia that she put down her cup of tea.

  “I’m just back from a summer expedition in the Southwest,” Wharton continued. “We found eight new species of dinosaur bones and twelve tons of vertebrate fossils.”

  “How exciting, Mr. Wharton! I’d like to see those.”

  Wharton was pleased to have found something to spark Julia’s interest. It gave him an advantage over the other handsome young suitors in attendance. “One day in the fall, you must come up to New Haven, and I can show you.”

  “This will be my last year at Miss Spence’s,” Julia said proudly. “Then I’m off to Vassar.” Holding her breath, she awaited his reaction. Would Wharton frown at the prospect of a girl going to college, or would he be supportive?

  “That’s wonderful, Miss Cross. What will you study?”

  Wharton has possibilities, Julia thought, smiling. “English literature.”

  “And become a teacher?’

  “No, a writer. In fact, I’m working on a novel. A young girl, born in the lowest and cruelest depths of poverty in the Bowery, rises up and becomes a doctor.”

  “How fascinating.”

  “I’m doing research for the book now.”

  Granny smiled at Julia, the signal that she should get up and mingle with the rest of the guests. But before Julia could rise from her chair, Helen approached, a tall young man with chestnut hair at her side.

  “Mr. Van Cortlandt, this is my daughter, Julia.”

  “A great pleasure, Miss Cross,” said the young man.

  “Mr. Van Cortlandt. You know Mr. Wharton?” Julia asked, knowing full well that all the children of the Knickerbockers knew one another. They went to the same dancing and riding schools, to the same prep schools.

  “Hello, Wharton. How are your beloved dinosaur bones doing? The fellows at Yale call Wharton here ‘Bonehead,’ Miss Cross,” said Van Cortlandt, laughing heartily at his joke.

  Julia scowled at him. “Mr. Wharton will be a famous scientist one day,” she said indignantly.

  Granny shot Helen a withering look, and Helen smoothly redirected the conversation to another guest at Julia’s right, a handsome gentleman named John Beekman.

  “Julia, Mr. Beekman has just graduated from West Point. He’s going to join General Miles’s staff in Arizona and will help hunt down that Apache savage Geronimo,” Helen said.

  John beamed with pride. “Since he escaped from the reservation at San Carlos, Miss Cross, Geronimo’s killed a dozen Americans and hundreds of Mexicans. We’re going into the mountains to bring him back, dead or alive.”

  “It sounds so dangerous. The Tribune has been full of stories about that heathen Indian,” Helen said in a hushed voice.

  “He’s a killer, Mrs. Cross. No doubt about that.”

  “Geronimo fights because he refuses to accept America’s occupation of the West. Not to mention the terrible conditions on the reservation,” Julia said and took a sip of tea.

  A moment of awkward silence ensued. Only the sound of Julia’s spoon stirring sugar into her tea could be heard. Hours seemed to pass before anyone dared speak.

  “Julia…reads the newspapers daily,” said a very embarrassed Helen.

  John Beekman stared into his teacup.

  “Will you gentlemen excuse us for a moment?” Helen said, giving them a radiant smile. In the hall, she grabbed the back of her daughter’s white princess dress, pulling it so tight that Julia gasped for breath. The talking-to was finished within a minute, and then they were back in the parlor. Julia was steered back toward Van Cortlandt, then on to Charles Whitney and Frederick MacKay.

  W
hen the tea concluded two hours later, Julia threw herself on the recamier in the parlor at home and looked resentfully at her mother.

  “When do I have to pay a call after that shindig?”

  “Don’t use slang, Julia. And how many times have I told you? A guest does not pay a call after a tea.”

  Julia looked at her mother curiously. She sounded deeply annoyed. Julia had noticed that in the past weeks, Helen had taken far less pleasure in these calls than she had when they’d started. She’d become testy and irritated too, and sometimes Julia would see her staring off into space. But when she asked if anything was wrong, her mother put on a cheerful face and insisted everything was fine.

  Granny sat down next to Julia and whispered, “I’m surprised Mrs. Ogden didn’t invite that nice Mr. Nolan today.”

  Julia was at a loss for words. “I…I think he had a business engagement.”

  “Such a shame. You know, dear, the next time we go shopping, I was hoping we could go back to Wah Kee’s to look at more cats.”

  35

  At around 7:00 p.m., twenty wagons, each transporting a single horse, pulled off West Forty-Ninth Street into an alley beside an L-shaped, five-story, cast-iron-fronted warehouse.

  One by one, the beautifully groomed horses, which had been saddled and tacked up, were led to a freight elevator at the end of the alley. The elevator took two horses and two stable boys at a time up to the fourth floor.

  The doors opened on a bizarre sight. The empty warehouse floor had been transformed into a rural scene, as if transposed from the Long Island countryside. The wood plank floor was completely carpeted with real green turf. Attached to the ten-foot ceiling was a twenty-foot-diameter dome constructed of plaster. Its underside was painted dark blue and festooned with strings of tiny twinkling electric lights, creating the impression of a night sky. The columns of the space had been altered to resemble pine trees. A forest had been created using huge potted trees and mature shrubbery. Dozens of real birds flew from tree to tree.

  Directly under the dome was a circular, white wood plank fence with twenty separate hitching posts, each with its own trough of hay and water. After the horses were led from the elevator, servants dressed as jockeys fitted them with special trays attached to the front of the saddle and a pair of saddlebags that contained champagne bottles in ice buckets. Off to the side stood a group of distinguished middle-aged men, all dressed in cutaway coats, white ties, and gloves. They smoked and talked among themselves.

  One by one, each gentleman mounted his horse and walked it to its assigned hitching post. Soon twenty horses circled the fence. Between every second horse, servants placed a small carpeted staircase. When everyone was in place, a six-piece band began to play “Camptown Races.” One of the men on horseback raised his hand and spoke.

  “My fellow horsemen. Welcome to the First Annual Horseback Banquet. Tonight we honor the greatest and finest racehorses in the entire world.”

  The men applauded, roaring with delight. The horses were too busy eating from their troughs to take notice.

  “Let the festivities commence,” the master of ceremonies yelled.

  Twenty servants carrying platters of food rushed to each of the horsemen, climbed the little staircases, and placed food on the special trays. Each guest pulled out a champagne bottle and popped it open, producing a twenty-gun salute of flying corks. In place of glasses, they sipped the champagne through long rubber tubes. As the band played on, the gentlemen ate and drank with gusto. Twenty more stable boys with small shovels carried out cleanup from behind when required. Smoking, laughing, joking, and bragging about their steeds, a spirit of goodwill and fellowship spun around the circle like a ring of fire. In the general gaiety, the stench of gallons of urine soaking into the turf wasn’t noticed.

  After a modest eight-course dinner, a dessert of chocolate-covered strawberries with whipped cream was delivered. Then the master of ceremonies raised his hand.

  “Gentlemen, may I present Amos and his Dancing Darkies!”

  Into the inner circle came three white men in blackface, dressed in white evening clothes and top hats, carrying banjos. The performers bowed and began to strut around the circle. The crowd cheered like mad. “Better than real coons,” someone yelled out.

  More champagne was placed in the saddlebags as the evening wore on. After three bottles, Clarence Post fell off Eclipse onto the turf and had to be reseated.

  Out of respect for their beloved horses, the banquet ended after three hours.

  • • •

  “You here for Mr. Robertson?”

  “Yeah, what about you?”

  The drivers of the wagons stood in the dark night, waiting for the festivities to end and the horses to be loaded. They were in a rotten mood. Upstairs, the horses ate to their hearts’ content. Down in the alley, no one had had the courtesy to offer the men refreshments.

  “I’m waitin’ on Mr. Shelby. Hey, how ’bout a drink while we wait?”

  “I never refuse a free drink.”

  Lefty Montgomery pulled out a flask and poured two shots.

  “How about those whores out there on Forty-Ninth?” he said, nodding toward the street. “Wish I didn’t have to work tonight.”

  The driver followed his gaze to the parade of streetwalkers. “That one in the purple dress looks mighty good.” He knocked back the shot in a single gulp. “Thanks,” he said, grimacing at the strong taste.

  Ten seconds later, the driver fell to the ground in a heap. Montgomery looked around; the coast was clear. He quickly pushed the man’s body off the bench, onto the floor of the wagon. There was no better knockout drop man in New York than Lefty Montgomery, a master at sneaking chloral hydrate into a drink in a fraction of a second. He’d had twenty years’ experience knocking victims out, robbing and stripping them, and dumping them in alleys. He believed using chloral hydrate was an art. A fifty-grain dose was best for knocking out a burly man the size of the driver. Too much would paralyze the heart and lungs, and you’d have a corpse on your hands.

  As the horses were led off the freight elevator, Montgomery hopped onto the driver’s seat and reached down to put on his victim’s hat. Taking the reins, he waited five minutes, until he heard the horse being loaded in the back of the wagon by Mr. Robertson’s groom. From behind, there came the sound of a scuffle. Pig McGurk, who’d been hiding in the hay bin inside the stall, came out, chloroformed the boy, and dumped him in the wagon. Three sharp knocks sounded. Montgomery snapped the reins to get the two dray horses moving.

  At an abandoned building off West Nineteenth Street and Eleventh Avenue, the men dumped the two unconscious bodies in a basement and then proceeded to South Street on the East Side. The wagon was met at the pier by Cross and Kent. Montgomery backed in toward the gangplank, and McGurk flung open the rear doors and led the horse out by its bridle.

  Cross was delighted to see the wagon. He had been so angry at Kent’s refusal to reduce the debt, and then the idea for this robbery had fallen into his lap purely by accident. It was a quick and easy way to make a big killing. It didn’t have the usual risks of breaking into a building or needing elaborate planning. He thought of it all by himself. The job had a wonderful simplicity to it—just wait for the horse to be loaded in the wagon for you, then drive off.

  Cross took two steps toward the horse—and froze.

  “That isn’t Storm Cloud,” he shouted. Kent ran up beside him.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “This is a chestnut, not a bay, and it has a blaze on its head. Storm Cloud doesn’t have a blaze,” Cross said, panicked. He went to the side of the wagon and examined the coat of arms painted on its side: two crossed golden sabers on a circle of blue. “It’s the right wagon. Goddamn it, they must have loaded the wrong horse.”

  “It’s still a first-rate thoroughbred. What does it matter?” Montgomery snarle
d.

  “It matters to my buyer,” Kent said. “He’s paying an arm and a leg for Storm Cloud—and only him.”

  Cross and Kent looked at each other and seemed to read each other’s minds.

  “We have to search the other wagons. It’s only been fifteen minutes. They’re likely still on the street.” Kent turned and called for his men, who were milling about the pier.

  “Most of the stables are in Jersey, so they’ll be heading for the Hoboken ferry,” Cross said. On either side, pairs of gang members got into carriages or mounted horses and tore off into the night. “He’s got socks on his two front legs,” Cross yelled after them.

  “Five hundred to the men who find him,” Kent shouted.

  An elderly man, his face weathered to the texture of leather, walked up to Kent. “This ship leaves at the tide in two hours and waits for no one,” he growled.

  In a smooth movement, Kent whipped his blade from his cane and held the tip to the man’s throat. “Rest assured, Captain,” he said softly. “Our cargo will be aboard by then.”

  “Might as well load this one,” Cross said, gesturing to the chestnut.

  Kent ran his gloved hand across the horse’s muzzle. “He’s beautiful. My children will love him. It’s time they learned to ride.”

  From a carriage a block away, Helen watched in amazement as men ran in all directions from the dock.

  • • •

  As McGurk held a pistol to the driver’s forehead, Montgomery yanked open the door of the horse transport.

  “Shit, it ain’t him,” he barked, imagining his share of the five hundred flying away as if on wings. The two men hopped into their carriage and sped off.

  • • •

  At King and Greenwich Streets, a masked man pulled the driver and groom off their seats onto the street; another ran to the back of the wagon and unlatched the door.