The Cold Millions

by Jess Walter

  “He’ll be fine,” Rye said. “He just needs some rest.”

  But that night, when Rye got home from work, Gig was gone. Rye checked to see that the money was still there—it was—then ate dinner alone with Mrs. Ricci. Afterward, Rye sat by the fire reading the papers for stories about Gurley and the union. There was a story in the Chronicle about police raiding a printer in Hillyard, confiscating and burning three thousand copies of the Industrial Worker. The newspaper had tried to publish “a crude and libelous story alleging wholly fabricated charges against city officials, an account so vile as to shred the very cloth of decency that shrouds this city,” the Chronicle story said. Even the labor-friendly Press wouldn’t characterize what was in this scandalous story that had gotten the Industrial Worker confiscated, except to say that it had been written by Gurley Flynn, and the judge in her case was considering revoking her bail because of it.

  Rye went to bed and was asleep when Gig finally staggered in sometime after midnight, smelling like booze and vomit and woodsmoke. He moaned and farted his way under the blanket on his cot, and a few minutes later, he began vomiting again. Rye ran over and tilted Gig’s head over the side of the cot. He got a basin and went to the outhouse, came back, and cleaned the floor, Gig muttering the whole time: “Leave me alone.” Rye tried washing his face, but Gig pushed his hands away. “Goddamn it, Rye, leave it. I didn’t want this. Any of it.”

  He was sleeping it off, still snoring, when Rye left for work on Saturday.

  The shop was only open until noon on Saturday, and Rye was distracted all morning. When his shift ended, he hurriedly hung his shop apron and sprinted to the streetcar. And when he got home that afternoon, Gig was already gone again. Mrs. Ricci had no idea where he’d gone, just that “He wake up. He walk away.” Sitting on Rye’s cot were the ermine gloves and the beautiful blue edition of War and Peace, Volume I.

  29

  Rye walked downtown, along the hobo highway, looking for Gig. He stuck his head into a couple of east-end saloons, tried Dutch Jake’s and Jimmy Durkin’s place, but couldn’t find his brother anywhere.

  Finally, at dusk, he gave up and walked to the lower South Hill, where Gurley was staying in a fine Victorian house with a progressive lawyer and his wife. A police wagon was parked across the street, but as he got closer, Rye saw the cop bundled up inside, sound asleep. He walked to the house and rang the bell.

  A stout man with a gray beard and a pipe answered the door, and Rye removed his hat. “I was hoping Mrs. Jones would see me.”

  “You a newspaperman? You look awfully young.”

  “No, I’m a friend of hers. Ryan Dolan.”

  The man let Rye into the foyer and excused himself. A minute later, he came back. “She’ll see you in the drawing room.”

  Rye followed the man inside and sat nervously on a leather chair in the drawing room. He put the gloves in his bowler. He looked all around the room. Then he saw something strange: a high shelf, built above the windows, with knickknacks on it, fancy plates and clocks. He was staring at it, wondering why someone would build a shelf so high, when she came in.

  “Hello, Ryan,” Gurley said. Her hair was pulled back, and she was wearing nightclothes with a heavy robe over them. “I was having a bath.”

  Rye blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t just come by.”

  “I’m glad you did,” she said. “What were you looking at?”

  “That shelf.” He pointed. “I’ve never seen one so high.”

  She looked up. “The plate rail?”

  “I guess,” he said. “I was just wondering why someone would build a shelf so high you can’t reach it.”

  She smiled. “And I’ve been wondering when you might come see me.”

  “I’m sorry. It was the first chance I got.” Rye told her about the job he’d gotten and about Gig getting out of jail. “He’s not himself,” he said. “It’s like they beat the Gig right out of him.”

  “That’s too bad,” Gurley said. She looked at the window. “It’s odd the police just let you come in. They’ve been running off union members ever since that flap with the Worker.”

  “Yeah, I read about that in the Chronicle,” Rye said.

  She shook her head. “A newspaper celebrating the censure of a newspaper!”

  “I read about your trial, too. Does Mr. Moore think you have a chance?”

  “Not much of one,” she said. “He keeps reminding me the city has sixteen straight conspiracy convictions against every IWW leader and editor, and of course, I am both. Six-month sentences for every leader or member of the strike committee.” She looked up. “Except your brother.”

  Rye wondered if that was suspicion he was hearing in her voice—why did the cops let Rye in, why wasn’t Gig charged with conspiracy? He looked at the ground. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t bet against you.”

  She said nothing.

  Rye was unsure how to ask his next question or if he even should. “Has your husband come?”

  “No,” she said. “Maybe for the trial.” Then she cleared her throat. “He knows who he married,” she said again, but it was flat this time. She looked up at the plate rail that had transfixed him earlier. “Sometimes I think I’ve gotten everything wrong, Ryan. With Jack. The union. Spokane. You see something as corrupt as the job sharks in this town, something as clearly wrong as police cracking heads over free speech—and you say, ‘Well, if we can’t win that one, what can we ever win?’

  “But nothing here is as it seems.” She held up one end of a blanket. “You think the union is over here.” She held up the other end of the blanket. “And the mining companies and cops over here.” She pulled the blanket taut. “But they’re all the same. Pull one string and the whole thing unravels. The sharks, mines, flops, brothels, taverns, cops—it’s all one fabric. How do you fight that? Go right at it? Or come at an angle? Fight hard or fight smart?” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Ryan.”

  It was similar to what Gig had said. That it ran too deep. Rye thought of what he knew, about Lem Brand, and he wondered if his brother was thinking similar things, sitting in some saloon, pointing to his empty glass. “Maybe after a while you don’t fight it,” he said.

  Gurley was staring at the gloves in his lap. She took a deep breath. “Fred Moore is afraid we’ve had someone on the inside, giving them information.”

  Rye swallowed.

  “Sixteen union leaders sent to state prison, more than three hundred other convictions for disturbing the peace. But you and your brother are out.”

  His mouth went dry. “Elizabeth—” he began.

  “Ryan, I have to ask, the night of the raid, where did you go?”

  He had come here to tell her everything, about Brand and Del and Early, about his own mistakes—but now, sitting across from her, he didn’t know where to begin. He held up the gloves. His voice broke. “I went to buy these.”

  She looked directly at him, her mouth tight, eyes implacable. Rye felt as if she were seeing right through him, that whatever he’d come to admit, she already knew. For a moment he couldn’t speak, but he also couldn’t look away. He felt gutted and, inexplicably, wished she would never stop staring at him.

  “Elizabeth,” he began, “I didn’t know—”

  She looked down at her lap. “It’s okay, Ryan.”

  “I thought I was just—”

  “Ryan, please don’t—”

  “I thought I was helping Gig—”

  She held her hands up. “Don’t say any more.” She looked back at the plate rail. And then she looked at him. “Would you do something for me?”

  “I would do anything for you,” he said.

  30

  The cop watching the house was leaning on a porch pillar when Rye came out. “What were you doing in there, kid?” He was tall and thin, with a scar running over his forehead and right eye.

  “I’m her friend,” Rye said. “I just came to see her.”

 
; The cop said, “Take off your coat,” and Rye did, handing it to the cop, who went through the pockets and sleeves.

  “She’s under house arrest,” the cop said. “She’s not allowed visitors except her lawyer. Turn out your pants pockets.”

  Rye did, and a confetti of lint and crumbs came out. “You were asleep when I came up earlier,” he said.

  The cop shot him a look. “I wasn’t asleep. I wanted you to think I was.”

  “Why would you want me to think you were asleep?” Rye asked.

  The cop couldn’t seem to think of a reason. “Lift your shirt.”

  Gurley had told him the cop would probably search him this way. They were desperately trying to keep her from publishing her story about what she had seen during her night in the Spokane jail. “It’s outrageous,” she said. “They arrest these girls for not paying off the police, and if they can’t pay the fines, they force them to work it off in jail. They’re essentially running a brothel in there, which is why the chief won’t hire jail matrons. It’s the worst-kept secret in the city and yet no one will touch it.” She had tried to give the story to local reporters, but none would print it or even characterize Gurley’s allegations. “There are some things you just can’t say in a newspaper,” a Press editor had told her. When she tried to publish a piece in the Industrial Worker detailing what she’d seen, police had confiscated and burned thousands of copies and charged the printer with conspiracy, lewd conduct, and libel. Even Fred Moore was leery of handling the story for fear of being held in contempt or involved in a libel suit.

  The cop poked Rye with his nightstick and had him lower his pants. He patted him down and, when he was satisfied Rye wasn’t smuggling any papers out, told him to fix his clothes and move on. “Okay. Go on, get out of here.”

  Rye took the streetcar back to Mrs. Ricci’s house. Gig still wasn’t there. Out on the sleeping porch, Rye reached under his cot and pulled out the envelope Lem Brand had given him for Early. It was a plain off-white envelope, no writing on it. He’d never even looked inside. But the envelope was unsealed. Rye took a deep breath and opened it. There was a typed note addressed to “Ennis Cooper,” apologizing for “events that got out of hand” and offering to “abide by our original agreement.” The note suggested Cooper “communicate through the boy what we might do to further keep our arrangement confidential and beneficial to us both.”

  Clipped to the note were ten fifty-dollar bills. Rye thumbed them. A fifty was even fancier than the twenty-dollar note he’d carried in his sock for two weeks. Rye wondered if Marco would reconsider selling his mother’s orchard for this much money. He took the top bill and put the others back. He turned it over in his hands. It was issued by the Seaboard National Bank of San Francisco, stamped in blue, with a photo of Secretary of State John Sherman in the upper-left corner.

  Rye found a pen and paper among his brother’s things. He tore the paper in two and on one half wrote, “Gig, I’ll be back Sunday. Rye.” On the other half, he wrote, “IOU. $50. Ryan J. Dolan.” He put that note in the envelope with the other bills. Then he tucked it back between his cot and blankets. He shoved the fifty-dollar bill in his pocket, grabbed his hat and coat and his gloves off the bed, and started out.

  He walked through the orchard, even though it wasn’t on his way, the icy ground crunching beneath his boots. He stood in the cold trees a moment, imagining a house among them. Finally, he started walking, catching the old hobo highway to downtown. He thought about looking for Gig in his usual saloons, but even if he found him, he’d be long past drunk now and probably just tell Rye to leave him alone. So he went straight to the train station, arriving in plenty of time to catch the overnight. The Great Northern station was nearly deserted, just three other passengers waiting.

  At the window, Rye bought a nine-dollar ticket for the Cascadian. It was cheaper than the Empire Builder because it made more stops.

  He was too nervous to sleep on the train, so he sat up in his seat as the train lurched off. They built up speed, and out the window he sensed more than saw the dark wooded terrain fall away amid the faint shadows of crags and ledges of central Washington. Each station they pulled into seemed ghostlier than the last, gaslight shadows of water and coal stops, rail signal switches and lonely figures on platforms, the electric lamps of rail agents in the windows. Rye had the sense of moving not just across the land but in and out of time, and at one point he fell asleep and dreamed he was old and looking back on his life.

  It was morning when he jolted awake just outside of Seattle.

  He stepped off the train into a wet, drizzly Puget Sound day. His second time in Seattle this month. He had bacon, eggs, and coffee in the King Street Station diner and, when he was done, asked the waiter if he knew how to find the offices of the Agitator newspaper.

  A man at the next table knew it. “What do you want with that batty crew?” He gave Rye the names of two reputable newspapers. “I’d try the Post-Intelligencer,” he said. “They got a cartoonist draws a dog that wears a suit and drives a motorcar.”

  “I have business with the Agitator,” Rye said.

  The man told Rye he believed the Agitator was run out of a saloon on Cherry Street, so Rye walked there. The bartender, who was just opening for the day, pointed him to a back staircase off the alley. Rye went up the rickety outdoor staircase and came to a wood door with a smoked glass window. Painted on it in red block letters was the word AGITATOR. It was a Sunday, and it dawned on Rye that no one might be at the office, but when he knocked, a woman’s voice called out, “Yeah?”

  “I’m looking for Olen Parr,” Rye yelled through the closed door.

  “He’s in jail!” the woman yelled back. “In Everett!”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know, a week probably!” she called back. “That’s up to the judge!”

  “What I mean is, what did he do?”

  “That’s up to the judge, too!”

  “Please let me in!” Rye called through the door. “I have something for him!”

  “I told you, he isn’t here!”

  Rye looked around in frustration. “I was here a few weeks ago!” he yelled through the door. “With Elizabeth Gurley Flynn! I’m with the Wobblies in Spokane! I’m the orphan Mr. Parr interviewed!”

  Finally, the woman opened the door. She was short, with wiry gray hair and glasses at the end of her nose. She squinted over the frames. “You’re the orphan? From the story, I was picturing someone nine or ten years old.” She was holding sheets of loose paper as if she’d been reading something.

  “No, it’s me,” Rye said. “I just turned seventeen.”

  Then he removed his bowler, flipped the brim liner, and dug around in the satiny lining of the crown. “I apologize,” he said, “it might be a little sweaty.” Rye pulled out three typed pages, folded and mashed, from the crown of his hat.

  “You an orphan magician, then?” the woman asked.

  Rye did his best to flatten and smooth the pages. “This is from Gurley Flynn. She’s under house arrest in Spokane, so I had to smuggle it out. They confiscated and burned the Industrial Worker to keep her from printing this. She wants me to ask Mr. Parr if he will consider running this story in the Agitator.”

  The woman opened her mouth—

  “I know. He’s in jail. In Everett. Please. Just read it.”

  She began reading. Slowly, her face changed. “Jesus,” she said. “Can you prove this?” She looked up at him. “No, of course you can’t.” She read a little more and then flipped to the second page. “Jesus,” she said, then “Jesus” again. And finally, “Shit.”

  She invited Rye in. The apartment was dark and cramped, two typewriters on small tables, and news pages clipped on a hanging clothesline. This front room was apparently the offices of the Agitator. Behind were a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small galley kitchen. Rye could smell onions frying.

  He looked up at the clothespinned news page. Beneath the Agitator flag was a banner headline c
alling for GENERAL STRIKE! The woman excused herself and left, returning ten minutes later with two older men. Neither one said anything as they leaned over a table to read Gurley’s story. When they were done, they looked up at the woman and nodded.

  “Give us a minute,” she said to Rye, and they retreated to the bedroom to talk. When they emerged, the woman said they would remake the front page of the Agitator with Gurley’s allegations, and would print a special edition of the Industrial Worker the following week and distribute it all over the West Coast.

  “You’re not going to wait for Mr. Parr?” Rye asked.

  The woman looked at Rye over the rims of her glasses. “I love Olen, but the man can barely knot his shoes.”

  Soon another woman and two men came up to the apartment, and by early afternoon, the office was a flurry of activity.

  Rye stood and put on his coat. He could still catch the three p.m. back over the mountains.

  “Where are you going?” the woman asked.

  “Catch a train back to Spokane,” Rye said. “I have to work tomorrow.” Then, almost an afterthought: “And I need to go find my brother.”

  Gig

  IT’S ALWAYS the same, first drink of the day: uisce beatha. Our da called it that. Water of life. Deep pull of air, eyes pop, and it’s a goddamn clear world on the other side of the glass.

  Hello there.

  But here’s the rub, Rye-boy. Second drink’s better.

  Of course, it’s going to turn at some point, but when? The first is good, the second better, and sometimes the third makes me a goddamn genius or lands me in a woman’s bed. To wit, it’s a blind roll past two. Four, six, nine—eventually, I might wake soiled on a railroad siding or, in this case, with my wasp of a little brother on the sleeping porch floor, wiping up the water of life I’ve just gagged—me saying, “Don’t goddamn do that. For once, leave me alone.”

  But the words don’t actually come out, and when you leave that morning for your job—my baby boy brother has a job and is caring for me like I’m the child—that’s when I knew I just couldn’t do it anymore.