Tough Prospect

by Laura Strickland

  What did that mean for him, Mitch? Only that she prized the right to see Richard so highly she was willing to purchase it by staying with a man she detested.

  Him.

  It made him want to spit.

  She thought she’d got the better of him in their bargain. But no one ever got the better of the King of Prospect.

  “Boss? Did you hear what I said?”

  “Automatons,” Mitch repeated it. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Dinty waved a hand like a conjurer. “The secret consortium—it’s secret no more. It’s made up of automatons, those fancy, hybrid ones and others in with them. They’re buying up property all over the city, including downtown.”

  “They’re the ones competing with Dwyer and me?”

  “Yeah, Boss.”

  “Where are they getting their money?” In Mitch’s experience, it always came down to money.

  “They’re pooling their resources, Boss, all the steamies in the city are. You know they’re getting wages now, most of them, since the revolution.”

  “It wasn’t a revolution.” Just a crazy standoff in Niagara Square, between the city’s mechanicals and the humans who opposed them. Mitch had no part in that and didn’t want one.

  But now, if he found himself in competition with the buggers, it affected him.

  Dinty shrugged. “What do they have to do with their money, when you think about it? They don’t drink, gamble, or whore.”

  “I thought they were trying to construct other hybrids.” Mitch had heard as much. Creepy, but that didn’t impact him the way them buying up property would.

  “That too, Boss. They seem to have their fingers in a lot of pies.”

  “Do they have a leader, a head man?”

  Dinty grinned his gap-toothed smile. “A steamie king, you mean, the way we got you? If they do, it’d be the one called Pat Kelly, one of the hybrids. He’s a police officer.”

  A dim bell sounded in Mitch’s overwrought mind. Right, the strapping police officer at Verdun’s funeral. He’d spoken to Tessa, who said she’d met him at the Meadows Club.

  “Ah. Maybe I need to have a word with this Pat Kelly.”

  “With an automaton, Boss?”

  “If he’s in charge, yes.”

  Dinty now wrinkled his brow. “But what can you say to him? What pressure can you put on him? He’s a machine.”

  “You leave that to me.” The way Mitch was feeling, wondering where Tessa might be and what she could be doing, he just might rip the damn machine’s head right off.

  It would be a relief.

  ****

  A steam unit answered the door at the Trask residence and stared at Tessa through blank, sculpted eyes. Its voice came through a grate located in its throat.

  “Yes, madam?”

  Tessa drew a breath. She’d asked Marty to let her out of the car a short distance away, near the park, and walked here in an effort to protect Richard. She’d been here before—once—when, among a group of people, she’d stopped by during a scavenger hunt. It felt far more daring now.

  But, she reminded herself, she and her husband had a deal. She had his acknowledgement she could see whomever she wished.

  “Is Master Richard at home?”

  Please, please let him be here, she willed the automaton. Its expression, of course, did not change. But it inclined its head and swung wide the door, inviting her in.

  “Of course, madam. Will you please wait in the parlor? Whom may I tell young master is calling?”

  “Tessa Verdun.” A lie, but she didn’t feel like Mrs. Mitch Carter. Even though their marriage had most certainly been consummated.

  “One moment, madam.”

  The steamie abandoned her in the parlor and rolled out. Tessa, left on her own, stared around the room, noting, with some dismay, subtle signs of decline. This house, when newly built on Bird Avenue, had been as affluent as her father’s on Bidwell Parkway, but the Trasks, like Tessa’s own family, had recently suffered a change in fortune. It seemed only the criminals in Buffalo prospered these days.

  A soft sound from the doorway spun her around. Richard came into the room, staring incredulously, and shut the door after him.

  He appeared disheveled, the collar of his shirt open, sleeves rolled up, and fair hair mussed. He blinked at Tessa as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Tessa? By God, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “No?” She feasted her gaze on him, thinking of all she’d had to trade in order to manage it. “But tell me you’re glad that I am.”

  “I’m glad. Oh, yes—but what has brought about this miracle?”

  “I wanted to thank you for coming to Father’s funeral service. I couldn’t do so then. I…”

  Richard’s blue eyes kindled. “You were under guard by that cretin of a fellow playing watchdog to you,” he finished for her. “Yes, I could see that.”

  “I’m relieved you could.” She puffed out a breath. “I didn’t want you to suppose I no longer wished to be your…friend.” She added deliberately, “Because I do.”

  “I’m happy to hear it. But you’ve taken a terrible chance coming here, haven’t you? What if he finds out?” Richard swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down convulsively. “I understand he’s a very dangerous man.”

  “He is, yes. But I have his permission to be here.”

  “What!”

  “Otherwise I never would have endangered you by coming. Richard, we need to think of a way we can see each other. A—a legitimate reason for us to meet that won’t incur too much gossip.”

  Richard grasped her hands and towed her to the settee, where they seated themselves so close their knees touched.

  “I’d like that, Tessa. I’ve missed you so much. And I have to say, I was overset when I heard the news of your marriage. I thought—well, that is, I supposed you and I had a kind of understanding. I know I hadn’t spoken outright. Perhaps I should have, before all this happened.”

  If only he had. She never would have agreed to marry Mitch, no matter the pressure.

  Tears came to her eyes. “I married Mitch Carter for Father’s sake.”

  “The rumors say there was money involved.” Anger sparked in Richard’s eyes. “He bought you, didn’t he?”

  “Well—”

  “But if you only married him for your father’s sake, can’t you get free of him now your father’s dead?”

  “There’s a lot more involved than money.” If she shared her guilt with Richard, the loathing her family now had for her, and which she held for herself, would it change how he saw her?

  She dared not find out.

  “But you will be able to get free of him?” Richard raised her hand to his lips and brushed the backs of her knuckles with a kiss. Tessa experienced a sudden flashback to the house on Prospect, and her husband planting a burning kiss on her wrist.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Please, Tessa. It would make me ever so happy.”

  Tessa’s heart leaped. Would her marriage to Mitch prove the catalyst, the thing that pushed Richard to claim her for his own? Such a tangled mess of circumstance, but at least she had room for hope.

  She held Richard’s gaze with hers. “And if I do manage to get free of him?”

  Richard didn’t answer directly. Instead, still holding her hand, he said, “Remember all the fun times we’ve had together? The laughter and the silliness? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, since I believed I’d lost you. I want those times back, Tessa. No one can make me feel the way you do. If you can get free of that monster, I want us to be together.”

  Tessa went suddenly breathless. “Richard, are you asking me to marry you?”

  “Can I?” he returned the question, with yearning in his voice. “You’re another man’s wife. But I’ve kicked myself a hundred times, wishing I’d spoken up when I had the chance. It’s just that I supposed we did have that understanding.” His gaze beseeched her. “Forgive me?�
�

  All the doubt fled Tessa in a rush. “If you will forgive me in turn, for what I had to do.”

  “But how are we to see each other now?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Richard. Carter has given me leave to engage in good works.”

  “Eh?”

  “Charitable works. If you were involved also, it would give us a legitimate reason to be in contact. No one could object.” Not even Mitch Carter, presumably.

  Richard’s nose wrinkled. “What kind of charitable works?”

  Tessa thought of Mrs. Michaels. “The plight of orphans in this city is quite distressing.”

  “Orphans? You mean, someone else’s unwanted children?”

  Tessa assured herself she’d thrown poor Richard off stride, both with her visit and her suggestion—that explained his less-than-warm reaction. “Yes,” she said patiently. Some of those orphans had even been plucked from the gutter. But she thrust that thought to the back of her mind. “I think I’m going to throw my weight—and Mr. Carter’s money—behind that particular cause. Will you join me?”

  A new look invaded Richard’s eyes. “He’s very wealthy is he, this husband of yours?”

  “I believe so. That doesn’t matter. I’ll get in touch with Mrs. Michaels—the woman who’s spearheading the effort to reform the orphanages—and send you a message where we’re next to meet. Will you come?”

  “Tessa, I will.”

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise.” Again he raised her hand to his lips.

  “Then I’d best leave now. I don’t want to do anything that will risk me being able to see you again.”

  Richard leaped to his feet when she rose, still holding her hand. “Say it will be soon, Tessa. I can hardly wait.”

  “As soon as I can manage things.”

  He escorted her to the door and handed her out into the chilly sunshine, his gaze ardent.

  Tessa, facing a walk back to the park and the presumably waiting car, didn’t even mind. All had come right with her world.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Afternoon, Mr. Dwyer.”

  The man lounging at the scarred table with a glass of black ale set before him glanced up lazily when Mitch spoke and then leaped to his feet. “Mitch Carter, here?” he marveled. “What in God’s name’s brought you to an Irish bar in South Buffalo?”

  Mitch eyed the fellow carefully. Dwyer, tall and stringy, with rawboned shoulders, wore his shock of dirty-blond hair long and had enough freckles for a respectable appaloosa. Looked a bit like a horse, when it came to it, with big square teeth. But his eyes held evidence of a hard and canny intelligence.

  “You and I need words together,” Mitch told him.

  “Do we?” Dwyer crooked an eyebrow.

  “You leaned on one of my boys not long ago, roughed him up and broke his arm. I wanted to say if you have business with me you come to me, right? Because it’s tit for tat—you hurt one of my boys, I’ll hurt you back. But that’s all water under the bridge now. I came here today to suggest we quit battling each other long enough to discuss a common problem.”

  “Well, I have to say you’re a bold man, a brave man to come here onto my stamping ground. Takes balls, that does.”

  “You know me, Dwyer—ever one to take a risk.”

  Danny Dwyer grinned unexpectedly. “A calculated risk, maybe. So is it a truce you’re after seeking?”

  “Maybe a temporary one.”

  “Then sit down. Meg, bring the man a drink. What will you have, Carter?”

  “Beer’s fine.” Mitch, contrary to the talk about him, rarely drank. Oh, he might take a glass of whiskey—mostly Scotch—when he desperately needed to unwind. By and large, though, he couldn’t afford to drink to excess and cloud his wits.

  “Bring him a whiskey, Meg,” Dwyer called to the barmaid, and she nodded. Everyone else in the bar stared. Mitch wondered how many of them were Dwyer’s minions.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” Dwyer said when the barmaid had brought the drink, “on your recent marriage. Beautiful girl is your wife.”

  Mitch bored Dwyer with a glare. “How do you know anything about my wife’s appearance?”

  “It’s all over town, who you married. Or should I say who you bought?”

  “You’re an offensive ass, Dan Dwyer. No wonder I never do any business with you.”

  Dwyer didn’t like that; his pale eyes narrowed. “We’ve never done business together because I don’t want to associate with the likes of you.”

  “Well, I think you might change your mind.”

  “I doubt that.” Dwyer raised his glass and supped some ale. “All I’m saying is, a pretty wife like that needs looking after. You wouldn’t want anything nasty to happen to her.”

  Mitch stiffened in every limb. His first instinct bade him inform the cretin sitting across the table that if anything nasty even so much as winked at Tessa he, Mitch, would tear Dwyer to bloody pieces with his bare hands. But it wouldn’t do to reveal the depth of his feelings for her and hence his vulnerability. So he shrugged instead and said, “She’s a status symbol—a mark that I’m moving up in the world, just like my house and car.”

  Dwyer seemed to find that amusing. “Your house and car?”

  “All expensive toys.”

  “And you call me an ass.”

  “Meanwhile you’re living down here in this rabbit warren.”

  Dwyer’s eyes glinted with annoyance. “I prefer to spend my money on other things. I can tell you, I’m not much enjoying this conversation, Carter. So spit out whatever you came here to say.”

  “All right, I will.” But leave my wife out of it. “You and I find ourselves in competition—for real estate, mostly.”

  “That could be.”

  “No ‘could be’ about it. We’ve outbid one another no less than six times. Oh, you tend to use agents to do your buying, but I always know it’s you.”

  “How?”

  Now Mitch smiled. “You buy in patterns, a property here or there and then fill in the neighborhoods with other purchases. You don’t like to bid above a certain price, but you will, if you don’t want me to have it. You’re steadily encroaching on my turf.”

  “Your turf, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So,” Dwyer sneered, “you’ve come here to warn me off.”

  “No. As I said when I sat down, I’ve come to suggest we work together, repugnant as that prospect may be.”

  Dwyer stirred in his chair and sat up straighter. “The hell, you say.”

  “What do you know about a man called Pat Kelly?”

  Dwyer’s expression changed. “I know he’s not a man. I know he almost got destroyed a couple months back. And I know he’s a”—Dwyer sneered—“cop.”

  “And Irish. Just like you.”

  “Well, now, there’s a question. Can an automaton actually be considered Irish? Kelly’s a machine that might fancy itself as being Irish, so to speak.”

  “Involved with a lot of things in this city, would you say?”

  “Aye, so.”

  “A mover and a shaker—just like us?” Mitch pressed.

  Dwyer scowled. “Not like us. I sweat and I piss—I bleed and I know you do too. I’d say there’s a difference.”

  Mitch played with the glass on the table, though he didn’t take a drink. “What’s your stand on these automaton rights?”

  “You come here, on my turf, to ask me about my politics? Christ! The things are fecking machines, and dangerous ones at that. I say shut ’em all down. Give the employment to my fellow countrymen and women.”

  “That’s not the way it’s heading. They’re gaining rights. Using our laws. Buying property.”

  Dwyer, not stupid after all, didn’t take long to grasp the point. “The hell, you say!” he exclaimed again.

  “So I’ve been informed.”

  “Well, I’m not the man to doubt your sources. Some of the best in the city, so I understand. You
say Pat Kelly’s in it?”

  “He’s their leader, isn’t he?”

  Dwyer shrugged.

  “And,” Mitch added deliberately, “moving in on your turf, and mine.”

  Dwyer grimaced hideously. “So what do you suggest, great King?”

  “I thought we should pay a call on Mr. Kelly, advise him it might be prudent for him to focus his interests—and center his purchasing—somewhere other than downtown.”

  “Work together, you say. Us?”

  “Look, Dwyer, I don’t like it any more than you do. But if we don’t act, we might both be cut out.”

  Dwyer pondered it while supping another measure of ale. “If I should agree to such a thing, Carter—and it would gall me no end to do so—I doubt our usual methods will serve. How do you lean on a bunch of machines?”

  “Kelly has a wife. I understand she’s human.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Do your research. Get back to me. But, Mr. Dwyer”—Mitch leaned across the table—“you beat up another of my boys, you’ll learn about hurt, understand?”

  Dwyer scowled. “I thought that’s what we do—hurt each other. Can’t your boys take it, Carter? I thought they was tough.”

  “Tough as nails.” His boys, most of them, had been through hell and back.

  “Well, then. And if we should dispose—together—of Mr. Patrick Fecking Kelly, what then? How do we come to terms between us?”

  “I’m thinking we share downtown. A reasonable division.”

  Dwyer’s eyebrows leaped upward. “Share, is it? Blow me! Well, I suppose stranger things have happened. Meanwhile, you look after that pretty little wife of yours, eh?”

  Mitch got to his feet. “I intend to.” And he did.

  He went out into the autumn sunlight, where the car waited and a number of his boys with it. They’d been exchanging looks like daggers with an equal number of Dwyer’s lads, though so far no trouble had erupted.

  Mitch got into the steamcar; his men followed.

  “Where to, Boss?”

  “Home.”

  And would Tessa be there when he arrived? If not, where would she be? Off visiting her fancy man—again?

  Mitch had no doubt that’s where she’d gone last time. Marty had told him how she’d asked him to wait at the park and gone walking off south down Delaware. Being no fool, Marty had followed at a discreet distance.