by R. J. Koreto
Mariah was in and still up.
“Where’s the kid?” she asked.
“Tucked safely in bed, I assume,” I said. “I’m just about done being her nursemaid. I’ve had it with all of them—going from townhouse to townhouse, seeing every damn kitchen in New York. And if I’m not doing that, I have to put up with every whim of a spoiled young woman who can’t imagine a world that doesn’t revolve around her. Anyway, I left her angry enough to kill me.”
Mariah nodded. “Have you had any dinner?”
“Bad roast beef.”
“I had a job earlier, and the cake wasn’t finished, so they let me take it home.” She cut me a slice.
“It’s your fault,” I said. “You told me to follow her and see where it led.”
“You always were a charming bastard,” said Mariah. “You know she thinks she’s in love with you, which you probably encouraged without even knowing it, and she’s confused and you’re annoyed.”
“I didn’t encourage anything, and she hasn’t fallen for me. It’s that guy named Preston, the one I teased her about when she was here for dinner.”
“If she was, she’d have made more of a fuss when you teased her about him over dinner. Anyway, she’s seventeen—she doesn’t know her own mind yet. But I expect you to be a little more mature about a young girl’s infatuation. I’m guessing you really hurt her feelings, and no one wants that from someone they love.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, knowing she was right.
“Joey, just be quiet for a while. Now, would you like some coffee?”
So we didn’t talk any more about Alice. I asked her how work was going, and she said fine and that she liked New York, had made some friends, and planned to stay a while.
After it got late, I settled on her couch, thought for a bit about Alice yelling at me again over waffles in the breakfast room, and fell asleep quickly. In fact, one talent I’ve developed over the years, from cowboy to lawman to soldier, is falling asleep quickly.
And waking up quickly.
It started as a tapping on the door, and first I thought it was part of a dream, but then it turned into a pounding. Mariah didn’t seem to hear it from in her room. I know she leads a more regular life than I do, and I doubted that she had friends suddenly showing up in the middle of the night. I pulled on my pants and padded over to the door.
“Who’s there?”
“Just let me in.” It came out as a harsh whisper through the thin door.
“Let who in?”
“It’s Alice, damn it. Let me in.”
It was a complete surprise, and yet, knowing Alice, it made perfect sense.
She was standing there in her mink coat, face red from the cold. But the face was all wrong: sadness—no, more than that—horror.
“Are you going to stand there like an idiot or invite me in?” she said, showing in her voice, anyway, that she was still the old Alice.
I heard a door open behind me. Mariah was tying her robe on and had a special smile when she saw who it was.
“Alice. Down South we say, ‘Drop by any time,’ and I guess you took me at my word.”
Alice wrestled with that comment, trying to see if she was being mocked. “I am very sorry for waking you, Mariah, and wouldn’t have if it wasn’t an emergency.”
“Don’t tell me you left the Caledonia alone—in the middle of the night. Miss Alice—”
“Oh, God, what a time for you to pick to start obsessing with details.” She practically stamped her foot.
“You look cold, hon. I think we have some coffee leftover, if you like.”
“That would be very kind of you,” said Alice. Mariah headed to the stove.
“So—are you going to tell me why you slipped out of your house and came down here alone? This is big, Alice.”
“I wouldn’t have had to if you had stayed in your room tonight.” She was still in the mood for continuing our fight, but I could see in her eyes she hadn’t come down here just to yell at me. She still wore the haunted look I had seen when I opened the door.
“Take a seat. I’ll get my shirt.”
“But there’s no time—”
“Time for me to get my shirt and you to get your coffee.”
I was back a moment later, and Mariah stayed with us while the coffee heated. “Can I stay, or do you two have government secrets to discuss?”
“Oh, do stay, Mariah. It’s only . . . Oh, God.” And she put her face in her hands. But when she emerged again, her eyes were dry.
“Did you listen to what Preston said this evening? He said that he didn’t want to end up hanged like Dunilsky.”
“So?”
“So how the hell did he know Dunilsky died by hanging? I was just thinking about it, going over everything, and I kept coming back to that—how could he have known?”
“I didn’t really think about it. I never told him. I guess . . .” I stopped to think.
“No, I never mentioned it. Do you think the police advertised that? They cover up things like that. How did Preston know? Unless . . .”
I couldn’t think about what this meant. If he knew that, what else did he know? What was he lying about? Had he been working with the Archangel all along? Was he in league with his uncle and Shaw?
“Wake up!” said Alice. “We’ll work out the details later. I gave Preston Compton’s address. He’s probably there now getting the company reports—the ones we were supposed to buy as soon as Preston got the cash. We have to go to Brooklyn. We can’t wait.”
“Miss Alice, it could be a whole war party there. I should call the police—”
“And tell them what? Do you know how hard it would be to explain why they have to show up in the middle of the night in Brooklyn?” Alice looked up at Mariah. “Would you tell your brother he has to do this?”
I looked at Mariah, too. “You still have Dad’s old Remington?” I asked.
“Clean and ready to go,” she said.
“Keep it loaded, and stay here with Alice until I get back.”
“The hell she will,” said Alice. “I didn’t go through all this to sit here over coffee and cake until you get home. You won’t leave me here, Mr. St. Clair. You can’t do that to me. You can’t leave me alone.” And I never saw her as close to tears as she was right then.
“What are you really up against?” asked Mariah.
“A shipping clerk and some kid who went to Yale.”
Mariah shrugged. “The only way I could keep Alice from leaving is to shoot her myself. She’d probably be safer with you.”
“Oh, hell. Fine. Mrs. Cowles is going to kill me anyway.”
Alice threw her arms around me, and I was never hugged so tightly.
“How could you do this without me?” she asked. I didn’t bother answering, and she pulled back. “Can I borrow Mariah’s Remington?”
Mariah thought that was funny, but I just said, “Miss Alice, just don’t say anything for a while, all right?”
I finished getting dressed in between gulps of coffee. I tucked in my shirt, strapped on my Colt, and found my Stetson and riding coat. Mariah glanced at Alice, brooding into her mug, trying to figure it all out. Then Mariah grabbed me by my shirtfront to pull me down and whisper in my ear. “Be careful.”
“Oh, hell, like I said, it’s just two guys, neither of them professionals. This can’t be any harder than a Saturday night in Laramie.”
She glanced back at Alice. “That’s not what I meant.”
I just nodded and let her kiss me on the cheek before she gave me a light slap.
“Miss Alice, it’s time to go to Brooklyn.”
She smiled up at me, and I saw the usual mischief in her eyes.
It had gotten really cold that night, with a dampness that seeped right into your bones. I was used to it, but I didn’t think Alice was. I could only imagine how she had made her way down to Mariah’s. She wouldn’t have dared to ask the doorman to help her get a cab, and I could only imagine her alone and
frightened racing along the sidewalk and looking for someone to drive her as she got colder and colder. How odd it must be, I thought, to never be alone and then to suddenly be alone in the middle of the night.
I remembered I kept an old, heavy blanket in the back of the car, and I reached back and handed it to Alice.
“Thank you,” she said, and we were off.
“So—what do you think? Have you worked out the details?”
“Not all of them,” she said. “All I know for sure is that Preston lied to me. He was far more involved in what his family was doing than he let on. He tricked us. And I think he’s betraying us right now in order to take over the company.”
“He wants the company for himself?”
“Mostly he wants revenge,” she said.
She didn’t say anything more for a bit, and I didn’t press her. We drove downtown along almost-empty roads. After all that, I found myself hoping Alice was wrong—that he had heard about the hanging from passed around gossip, that we’d get to Brooklyn and find Compton safe in bed.
The Brooklyn Bridge is just about my favorite thing in New York. I’ve driven over it quite a few times and walked across it often—not to go anywhere, but just to be there and look both upriver to the city and into the mouth of New York Harbor. I once told Mr. Roosevelt how impressive I found the bridge, and he said he understood. “You grew up out West, St. Clair, where so much of life is subject to nature. But a bridge like this is a challenge to nature. Even if the East River freezes, even if a fog descends on the city, we can get across. And that’s what impresses you,” he said, and I agreed.
I took Mariah across one day as well, and she laughed after admiring the view. “Who’d have thought civilization had so much to recommend it?”
As we came to the crest, Alice suddenly turned to me and said, “I’m sorry. Thank you for giving me a second chance.”
“Why, Miss Alice, I was about to say the exact same thing to you.” And I was pleased to see that got a laugh out of her.
We found the place easily enough—I had been to Brooklyn plenty of times, and it was off a main road, in a block of workingmen’s apartments. It was late, and there was only one light in the window, and we knew it had to be Compton’s.
“Just stay behind me, all right?”
“Oh, all right,” she said. We walked up to the apartment, and when we got to the landing, I motioned for her to be quiet. There was talk going on behind one of the doors. I couldn’t hear much; someone didn’t want to wake the rest of the building. I gently turned the doorknob, but as I expected, the door was locked. I waved for Alice to stand away from the door. I took out my Colt, raised my boot, and easily smashed the cheap lock.
I gave Preston a surprise for sure. He was standing by a table in shirt-sleeves, in front of a bruised Compton, who was tied to a chair. There was a revolver on the table, and I saw Preston’s eye go to it.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said. He gave a resigned smile and shrugged. “Turn around and lean against the wall.”
“Mr. St. Clair,” he said, his voice full of his usual effortless charm. “This is a ridiculous misunderstanding.”
“I won’t ask you again,” I said. He shrugged again and did as I asked. I searched him, found nothing, and then cuffed him behind his back.
“Is this really necessary?” he asked. I didn’t bother to answer as I pushed him into another chair.
And then Alice walked in. I won’t forget that look on her face: anger, disappointment, hurt, all together.
“Alice, what are you doing here?”
She didn’t say anything, she just stared, and I was pleased to see Preston wilt a little. She wasn’t going to even give him a chance to argue, and I watched him think about what he was going to say next.
Meanwhile, I turned my attention to Compton. He had been roughed up a little but didn’t seem too badly hurt. There was a half-filled bottle of whisky on the table, and after I untied him, he took a long swig.
“I didn’t tell him where they were,” he said, smiling grimly. “I have the papers, the records, but I didn’t tell him.”
“Tell us now,” said Alice.
“You have the $750?” he asked, and I had to admire him. After all that, he still had his eye on the prize.
“For God’s sake,” said Alice. She found Preston’s jacket draped over another chair and took out his wallet. She pulled out the bills. “Mr. Compton, I am deeply sorry for your sister, but it seems the deal is off. I will see her murderers hanged, but you’re not going to get $750 out of it. You’ll get the $50 I have here. Now, you will tell me where those papers are, or Mr. St. Clair will search this entire tiny apartment and find them anyway. And then you’ll get nothing.”
He considered his options for a moment, then nodded. “Under a loose floorboard in the bedroom,” he said. I stepped into the other room, and it only took me a moment to pry it up and remove the papers. Back in the main room, Alice was looking over a ledger on the table.
“This is perfect,” she said. “I’m assuming this is the ledger that matches the stolen reports.”
“So why steal the ledgers if you were going to betray us anyway?” I asked Preston, and he just smiled.
“That’s easy, Mr. St. Clair,” said Alice. “Preston didn’t have regular access to those reports. His uncle didn’t trust him with them. But with the ledger and the reports together in his possession, he was going to turn around and blackmail his uncle. It’s an ugly story, I’m sure. But let’s get Mr. Compton out of here.” She handed him Preston’s money. “It’s over for you. Go back to your room over the store, and don’t come back here until tomorrow. Be thankful you got out of here with your life.”
“Yes, miss,” he said. It looked like he was going to say something else, then decided it was best for him to cut his losses and leave.
“I suppose, Alice, that this doesn’t look good, but hear me out,” said Preston.
“I don’t need to hear you say anything,” said Alice, her voice low, and I wondered if she would physically attack him. I’d seen Alice angry, spitting mad even, but never like she was then. I don’t know if I have ever seen anyone as angry as she was. “I know almost all of it. From the beginning, you were the one who hid behind the fictitious Great Erie & Albany Boat Company, and you were responsible for setting that private detective on us because you were afraid of what we might learn once we spoke with Emma Goldman and the anarchists—and eventually the unrest happing up at the Great Lakes. I knew there was an anarchist connection to your family . . . I knew it.” She practically shouted that, her triumph at being proven right overcoming her rage, at least for the moment.
“Alice, why would I care—why would anyone care—if you spoke with some anarchists?”
“Because I found out the Archangel made use of anarchists. You were there through all of it, pretending you were estranged from the family so you’d look clean. But you were there working with them to hire every available worker to build your Great Lakes empire, bullying and threatening your rivals. That lawyer Urquhart was your front. He told the right lies, but I bet he never knew about the Archangel.”
He smiled and nodded. “Alice, it’s my family business. Be reasonable. We had things to accomplish and roped in people to help us.” He added all the charm he could to his voice and tried to look relaxed even though he was handcuffed. “You’ve been among powerful men your whole life. Did you really think I was going to let one disaffected employee bring down the entire family? We were building something great. Your father would understand.”
And that was a mistake. Alice stepped over to him so quickly I couldn’t stop her, and Preston leaned so far from her, he almost fell out of his chair.
“Never, ever again, mention my father. I forbid it. I might’ve forgiven everything you did in the name of your family. I might’ve. But using me is something I will never forgive you for—betraying me is something I will never forgive you for—from now until the day they hang you.” He
paled at that, realizing he wasn’t going to talk his way out of this. But I was clearly missing something, because I didn’t know what Preston had done to merit a hanging. The only murders we had seen had been engineered by the Archangel.
I didn’t get it until Alice explained it. “You talk too much, Preston. You mentioned Dunilsky’s death in the Tombs, and you couldn’t have known those details unless you engineered it. You wore fine clothes—the man who killed Cesare did as well. Dora was mistress to a wealthy man. You wanted your uncle dead. You tricked me into helping you get the reports and sending you to steal the right ledgers.”
I was seeing the light now but still couldn’t really believe the conclusion.
“It’s the last piece, Preston,” she was saying. “This wasn’t just about the Van Schuylers against everyone else. It was about you against your Uncle Henry and his son-in-law Shaw.”
At that, Preston finally broke down and showed some anger. “Do you know what my uncle did to my father?” he yelled. “Goaded him into taking that trip into the teeth of a storm. No one thought I knew, but they couldn’t keep it hidden. Can you blame me, Alice? I was going to get my own back. I was going to take the company from him. He killed my father.”
And that made sense now. All along, I couldn’t place the tension when Preston was with his uncle and Shaw. Even his poor crazy cousin Julia didn’t want him around—had made it clear to Alice she was afraid of him, if we had only listened. Now I knew why. They were afraid of him—they all were. He was the worst of the lot, and Henry van Schuyler was trying to control Preston, who was seeking revenge for his father and a chance to take over the entire company. It was Preston: The Archangel had been under our noses all along.
Alice had no pity. “My mother died two days after I was born. Don’t you use a dead parent as justification for every horrible thing you’ve ever done. Don’t you dare. I don’t want to hear it. There is only one thing we’re going to discuss tonight: The day you killed Dora and the day her friend Leon Czolgosz killed McKinley. I have an idea about what really happened, but I can’t be sure. If you have any hope for mercy, you will tell me.” She leaned in close to him.