House of Thieves

by Charles Belfoure

  “So good to see you again, Mr. Cross. I understand that we have business to discuss,” said a voice from the shadows.

  Cross was so startled that he cried out. He felt like he might faint and pitch through the opening.

  Kent stepped into the light. Dressed in a black sable coat, he was twirling his cane and smiling. “I see that you’ve come today to dissolve our partnership. What a coincidence. I had the same idea.” He drew the long, thin saber from his cane and started walking toward Cross, who staggered away from the opening. “I’ll be sorry to see you go,” he added. “We’ve had a very lucrative run.”

  Before Cross could reach for his pistol, Kent lunged forward and stabbed him in his left shoulder. He moved with the finesse of a Prussian swordsman. Cross watched in amazement as blood trickled onto the front of his greatcoat. He stumbled backward and fell to the platform on top of the wet tricolor that had been yanked off the statue.

  “That’s a very handsome coat you have on. I didn’t realize it was so thick,” Kent said. He raised the blade with both hands above his head, ready for the final thrust. Cross looked at him, accepting the inevitable.

  As the blade commenced its downward arc, Cross bent his head, but then from the corner of his eye, he saw a pair of arms grab Kent’s ankles and yank them out from under him. He fell flat on his face on top of Cross, who twisted his body to see George’s head sticking out of the spiral stairway opening at the level of the platform. It almost looked like a decapitated head sitting on the floor. George clambered up the rest of the iron steps, but at the last instant, he stumbled, giving Kent time to stand up and raise the blade. As George advanced, Kent slashed him on the forehead, just above his left eyebrow. Stunned, George brought his hand to his forehead. His palm came away red.

  Seeing the blood on his hand had the effect of setting a match to kerosene. George exploded with rage. He charged Kent, ramming his shoulder into his midsection as if he were tackling a football runner. Kent didn’t have time to raise the blade again, and the sheer force of George’s rush slammed into him, sending Kent’s body out one of the tall openings that surrounded the crown. At the last second, George grabbed the side of the opening, preventing himself from falling out.

  In shock, he watched as Kent plummeted through the air. Screaming, the criminal mastermind flailed his arms and legs wildly in panic until his body slammed down onto the statue’s left shoulder, where the sculpted copper clasp fastened the woman’s outer cloak.

  Cross ran up to the adjacent opening and leaned out. Kent’s lifeless body rested faceup on the shoulder of the statue. He lay with his head pointing downward, precariously perched on the raised clasp. The fall had plainly broken his back and neck. Kent’s eyes stared sightlessly into the cloudy sky. The body slid a few inches downward, but the large metal fold of the cloak stopped it from falling any further.

  Cold rainy wind sprayed their faces. Cross leaned farther out and saw that Kent’s body was positioned directly above the ceremony. Someone, probably President Cleveland, was speaking at the podium. The steam whistles of the boats in the bay could still be heard in the distance.

  Cross pulled his son back through the opening. Blood was dripping into George’s eye and running down his cheek.

  “We have to get down from here, George. If Kent slides off and falls on top of the guests, people are going to come running up here. They’ll be asking questions we don’t want to answer.”

  George pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face. Looking down, he saw Kent’s body slide a few more inches on the wet, slippery copper.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

  They began a mad dash down the spiral stair, their heavy footsteps echoing off the inside face of the copper cladding. Cross was dizzy from going around and around so many times. When he got to the bottom, he had to pause and steady himself. George grabbed him by the sleeve and led him down the stair in the pedestal. At every step, they expected to meet policemen or soldiers coming up the stairs. But there was no one.

  When they finally reached ground level, Cross thought his lungs were going to explode like overfilled balloons. When George tried to drag him along, he shook him off.

  “We have to get back to the pier,” George yelled. He took hold of the collar of his father’s coat and yanked him along. In less than a minute, they were outside the pedestal’s north entry. Still, there was no one about. They made a wide circle to the south, avoiding the ongoing ceremony by walking out of sight below the base, keeping their eyes glued to the left shoulder of the statue. Cross could have sworn that the body had moved again.

  When they approached the pier, they were surprised to find Helen waiting. In all the excitement, they’d forgotten about her. She beckoned to them, and they ran down the pier to meet her.

  “There’s a private launch leaving right now. I told them my husband took ill, and they said they’d give us a ride back to Manhattan,” she said in a commanding voice.

  As one, George and Cross embraced her.

  “It’s over, Helen. Everything will be all right,” Cross whispered. He was sobbing.

  Helen looked into her husband’s eyes and caressed his cheek. He smiled at her.

  “You were so brave, my dear,” he said tenderly. He took her in his arms and hugged her. Then she turned and gave George a long, tight hug too.

  The launch slowly chugged across the water, threading its way through the maze of steamers, yachts, tugboats, and navy vessels in the foggy bay. Huddled together on a bench in the little foredeck, Cross wrapped his arms around Helen and held her close, nuzzling her sweet-smelling hair. After a few minutes, he rose and approached the pilot at the wheel of the launch.

  “May I use your spyglass?” he asked.

  “Of course, sir. That Liberty statue is a grand sight, isn’t she?” asked the pilot, a rotund and swarthy Italian.

  “She is indeed,” Cross said.

  Through the glass, he saw that Kent’s lifeless body still lay on the shoulder of the statue.

  73

  “Look at this wonderful sunburst pattern—all done in gold thread. Doesn’t it look marvelous against the dark green satin?” Helen, walking slowly past the rows of gowns, had stopped to pull one out for closer inspection. “There are tiny pearls entwined in the embroidery. The House of Pingat always does such beautiful work.”

  Satisfied with her selection, Helen handed the gown to her husband, who rolled it up and placed it in a long canvas bag. She continued walking and made six more selections.

  Without saying a word to each other, she and Cross walked into Henry Linden-Travers’s bedroom and entered his large, paneled dressing room. Cross made the selections, taking evening wear, cutaway coats, frock coats, waistcoats, and every pair of shoes and boots on the shoe rack. He then gathered every silk shirt and cravat. Everything went into another canvas bag.

  Back in Mrs. Linden-Travers’s bedroom, they retrieved a bag of jewelry that must have weighed twenty pounds. Walking down the monumental main stair, Helen smiled at her husband.

  “Not a bad night,” she said happily.

  “Yes. I might even call it a good night,” Cross said. Though weighed down by the bags, he managed to give his wife a kiss on the cheek.

  Once their travails were over, Cross and Helen had realized that something was missing in their lives. Planning the robberies had brought them together in a way nothing else in their twenty-three years of marriage had ever done. And they made an excellent team. But best of all, they had both experienced the same sense of exhilaration Kent had described when Cross asked him why he was a criminal. It was a sense of ecstasy like no other.

  Since Kent’s death, whenever Cross designed a private residence or apartment building or bank, he couldn’t help thinking about how he would rob it. At first, it was a parlor game, but after a time, it became a real plan that he and Helen put into action. Ever
y other month, husband and wife planned and carried out a robbery. The anticipation was delightful. Though neither would admit it aloud, the robberies brought a renewed sense of love and commitment to their marriage. They were happy, deeply and purely happy.

  On the first floor, the Crosses took a last turn around the parlor, just in case they had overlooked some item of value. When the social season ended in mid-February, the parvenus left New York for a warmer climate: Florida, California, even Italy. The Linden-Traverses were wintering in Saint Augustine. Their city mansion would be shut up for months. It was after 2:00 a.m., and the house was pitch-black. Cross and Helen used a small lantern for illumination.

  In the main parlor, Helen picked up a gold cigarette case with a large ruby centered on its front and placed it in a bag. “I think we have enough for tonight, don’t you?” she said.

  “Mmm, maybe a bit more,” Cross said, raising the lantern to look around.

  After they had brought down Kent’s Gents, Cross and Helen had worried that George would go back to his old ways, putting his life at risk with his debts. They sat George down for a lecture about the evils of gambling. At first, they believed his uncontrollable habit was a moral defect, as the reformers of the day claimed. Soon, though, they came to understand the nature of their son’s problem. George suffered from a disease for which there was no vaccine or cure. He was unable to stop, no matter how hard he tried; the craving for gambling in any form—faro, horse racing, dice—was too powerful to fight.

  But somehow, Robert’s murder had changed things. Stunned by the murder of his uncle, George hadn’t gambled in a year. His mother and father were relieved but continued to hold their breath. George was walking on a tightrope. The tiniest slip would cause him to fall back into his old habits. Merely handling a deck of cards could be fatal. No matter how guilty he felt about the heartbreak he’d caused, he might not be able to fight the urge.

  Still, since he had taken up his teaching position at Saint David’s, George had seemed content. He had even acquiesced to his Aunt Caroline’s and his mother’s matchmaking efforts and had begun to socialize with some girls of his own set. All the same, Helen and Cross squirreled away some of their illicit earnings in a rainy day fund, fearful that a time when George was in danger would come again.

  “Now I think we’re finished,” said Cross. He extinguished the lantern, and together they walked down to the basement kitchen and out to the rear courtyard.

  It was a crisp, cold March night. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, only a blanket of stars shimmering above them. Cross took a deep breath, savoring the quiet. A slight breeze rustled the naked branches of the trees in the Linden-Traverses’ backyard. The fresh air was invigorating; beside him, Cross saw Helen with her head tipped back, smiling.

  Slowly, he opened the wrought iron gate and poked his head out, surveying East Eighty-Seventh Street. At the corner of Park Avenue, Eddie Mooney waved, the signal that it was safe to proceed. On Fifth Avenue, Charlie did the same.

  From around the corner, a brougham slowly clip-clopped toward Cross. The driver, John Nolan, carefully and quietly backed it up to the gate. Behind the bench seat, a removable wall panel hid a compartment in which the goods could be stowed. Nolan smiled at Cross, who began handing him the canvas bags.

  In the year that he’d spent getting to know him, Cross had grown fond of Nolan. To their mutual surprise, he didn’t hold the boy’s background or profession against him. In fact, with his good looks and poise, Nolan blended right into society. He’d even charmed Aunt Caroline, though she remained in utter ignorance as to his true identity. He and Julia continued to share each other’s company while she was up in Poughkeepsie attending Vassar. For now, they were happy.

  With the brougham loaded, Cross helped Helen up onto the seat next to Nolan, and they rattled off down Park. The few large houses amid the vacant lots in the neighborhood were dark, hazy silhouettes against a bluish-black sky. At that hour, not a soul was on the streets.

  That was what all their jobs were like. Not once had anyone stopped them. If they had, they would see only a well-to-do family returning home for the night. Charlie and Eddie had melted into the darkness; soon, Charlie would find his way home. Cross had offered Eddie money to find a real room, but the boy stubbornly refused to give up his boiler.

  As they rode, Cross thought about how much their lives had changed in the past eighteen months. They weren’t the same people. Julia was right: their lives had been a facade, hiding a secret. He smiled at the apt architectural metaphor. There were no secrets in his family anymore.

  Their double lives were known to each other, but not to the society world they still inhabited, a universe governed by unforgiving rules. But they would gladly take that risk; their clandestine life was liberating and exhilarating, and they refused to give it up. At the same time, they enjoyed the privileges of society. If it seemed hypocritical, so be it. He was proud that his family had challenged the Knickerbocker code. And Cross had no regrets about what he had done.

  And he was a full-time architect again, designing some of the best buildings of his career, producing work that was truly creative and original, done in his own vision, no one else’s. But every time his ego puffed up about his architecture, he’d stop himself and realize how it paled in comparison to what he’d done for his family.

  At Madison Avenue and Thirtieth Street, Helen and Nolan disembarked. Cross waved to his wife as she went up the front stoop and then nodded to Nolan, who disappeared down the street. He gave the reins a snap and headed downtown.

  Tonight, he would convince Bella Levine to take forty-five cents on their goods.

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  Reading Group Guide

  1. In order to save his family, John Cross must do something he finds morally reprehensible. Would you resort to criminality to save your family from death?

  2. This is a story about the double lives a family chooses to live. Which was your favorite?

  3. Until 1914, Americans could ingest any drug they wanted, including dangerous drugs that are outlawed today. What did you think of Granny’s preference for opium?

  4. James T. Kent, a well-bred gentleman from a wealthy family, is a cold-blooded killer and gets an almost sexual satisfaction from committing crime. Was he a compelling villain?

  5. New York high society had a very strict code of behavior that one had to obey or be banished. What did you think of that code? Why did that code devolve into the less-stringent rules of behavior we have today?

  6. How does poverty in America today compare with that portrayed in the Gilded Age in New York City?

  7. Homelessness is a great concern in our cities today. What did you think of the fact that about twenty thousand children roamed the streets of New York in the 1880s?

  8. Cross’s children form friendships with people they normally would never come into contact with. What did you like about Julia and Nolan’s friendship? Charlie and Eddie’s? George and Kitty’s?

  9. George’s gambling addiction was the source of all the troubles. How did you feel about George and his illness? Were you angry with him?

  10. Cross was devastated when he learned of his son’s secret. What would you as a parent have been thinking and feeling?

  Read on for an excerpt from Charles Belfoure’s

  A NOVEL

  Available now from Sourcebooks Landmark

  1

  Just as Lucien Bernard rounded the corner at the rue la Boétie, a man running from the opposite direction almost collided with him. He came so close that Lucien could smell his cologne as he raced by.

  In the very second that Lucien realized he and the man wore the same scent, L’Eau d’Aunay, he heard a loud crack. He turned around. Just two meters away, the man lay facedown on the sidewalk, blood streaming from the back of his bald he
ad as though someone had turned on a faucet inside his skull. The dark crimson fluid flowed quickly in a narrow rivulet down his neck, over his crisp white collar, and then onto his well-tailored navy-blue suit, changing its color to a rich deep purple.

  There had been plenty of killings in Paris in the two years since the beginning of the German occupation in 1940, but Lucien had never actually seen a dead body until this moment. He was oddly mesmerized, not by the dead body, but by the new color the blood had produced on his suit. In an art class at school, he had to paint boring color wheel exercises. Here before him was bizarre proof that blue and red indeed made purple.

  “Stay where you are!”

  A German officer holding a steel blue Luger ran up alongside him, followed by two tall soldiers with submachine guns, which they immediately trained on Lucien.

  “Don’t move, you bastard, or you’ll be sleeping next to your friend,” said the officer.

  Lucien couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to; he was frozen with fear.

  The officer walked over to the body, then turned and strolled up to Lucien as if he were going to ask him for a light. About thirty years old, the man had a fine aquiline nose and very dark, un-Aryan brown eyes, which now stared deeply into Lucien’s gray-blue ones. Lucien was unnerved. Shortly after the Germans took over, several pamphlets had been written by Frenchmen on how to deal with the occupiers. Maintain dignity and distance, do not talk to them, and above all, avoid eye contact. In the animal world, direct eye contact was a challenge and a form of aggression. But Lucien couldn’t avoid breaking this rule with the German’s eyes just ten centimeters from his.