City of Dreams

by Martin, William

  At least there were no cars coming.

  So she sprinted across the street and grabbed the handle of the cab door.

  Frivolous Sal let out a scream and began to wave her hands to attract attention, but two or three cars went past. Just another crazy bag lady making a scene.

  Evangeline jumped into the cab and said to the driver, “Seventy-ninth and Columbus. Fast.” Then she looked out at the shadows on the Bowling Green. The man with the briefcase had disappeared . . . into a cab or a car or onto a bicycle, she couldn’t tell. Another man was crossing Whitehall Street and vaulting the fence. And those two from under the canopy were still advancing.

  Evangeline reached into her pocket for her cell phone. Instead, she felt something harder and heavier and far older. In all the excitement, she had forgotten to grab the phone but had kept the crown finial.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Peter Fallon’s cell phone rang. Evangeline. He pressed the button. “What now?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.” It wasn’t Evangeline. It was some guy.

  “Who’s this?”

  “My name’s Joey. I picked up this cell phone from the sidewalk on the Bowling Green. Your number’s on it.” He spoke with a Brooklyn accent.

  “The sidewalk?” Peter’s stomach turned. His focus split and split again. Who is this? What’s happened to her? Who do I know in New York who can help? He decided the best thing was to play it cool. So he asked, “Did she drop it?”

  “That would be why it was on the sidewalk, don’t you think?”

  “And she didn’t notice?”

  “If she did, she might’ve picked it up.”

  This guy was annoying, thought Peter, but don’t mouth off . . . yet.

  “She jumped into a cab,” said Joey. “I’m sure she wants her cell phone back. What’s her address?”

  “You want her address? Listen, pal, I was born at night—”

  “Yeah. Yeah, but not last night. Ha-ha. Very funny. A smart-ass. I should write it down to call you whenever I need a laugh. Now I got your girlfriend’s cell phone, so—”

  “We’ll get it in the morning,” said Peter.

  “It’s your phone, too? This your wife? Is she there?”

  “No.”

  “No, she’s not your wife, or no, she’s not there.”

  “Both,” said Peter. “Just tell us where to meet and when. We’ll give you a hundred bucks for your time.”

  “A Benjamin? Nice. I’ll take a hedonistic sage over a dead president any day. You like that? Hedonistic sage. Bet you thought I didn’t have an education.”

  “I just want the cell phone back.”

  “Meet at the Bowling Green, tomorrow morning at nine thirty. I’ll be wearin’ a blue windbreaker and a Yankee hat.”

  “I’ll have on a blue blazer and a blue button-down with an open collar.”

  “That’ll make things easy. Only about a million guys in New York wearin’ Yankee hats. Only about a million more wearin’ blue blazers and button-downs.”

  “I’ll have my girlfriend with me, too,” said Peter. “You’ll recognize her, right?”

  “I never forget a face, especially a pretty one, even at night. I might forget their names in the mornin’ but—”

  “Are we done?”

  “See ya tomorrow, Boston.”

  Afterward, Peter called Evangeline’s landline. She answered on the fifth ring. She had just gotten in. She told him what had happened and admitted she had panicked.

  He said he’d be there in the morning. “We’ll go to the Bowling Green together.”

  She took the crown finial from her pocket and turned it over in her fingers. She wondered what it was she had really seen that night, and how it had all begun.

  TWO

  July 1776

  GIL WALKER CARED NOTHING for the rebellion until the night he broke a finial off the king’s fence.

  He believed that rebels and kings would do what they always did, and the less time he spent worrying about them, the better. The smart man looked out for himself and looked for help to no one but his friends.

  Gil had three. They called themselves the Waterfront Boys. They had met before their voices changed. They had schooled together and worshiped from the back pews together and gotten into trouble together, too. So it was only natural that they would join the rebellion together.

  They did it on a hot July night and did not regret it until the next morning.

  They had gone to the Common, the triangle of grass where the Post Road forked off Broadway. They had gone because General Washington had mustered his troops to hear the new Declaration of Independence, and the Boys wanted to hear it, too. If New York was to be occupied by the Continental Army, or attacked by the British, or blockaded, or burned, or left to rot by three-quarters of the people who once lived there, Gil Walker at least wanted to know what the fight was all about.

  And hundreds of New Yorkers thought the same way, because they ringed the Common and stood at the edges of the trampled grass and listened in the blood-red sunset, right along with all those ranks of ragged soldiers.

  And Gil would never forget the resounding words, “When in the course of human events . . . ,” followed by the resounding cheers, then the resounding riot.

  After the reading, soldiers and townsfolk mingled and chanted and poured down gallons of rum, then they poured down Broadway toward the Bowling Green, where a gilded lead statue of King George III sat atop a gilded lead horse galloping to nowhere.

  And like a river topping its banks, the mob swept everything before it, including the whores who worked the Holy Ground, the streets and the churchyard surrounding St. Paul’s chapel. They all joined with giggles and shrieks and gales of caterwauling laughter, as if a little noisy patriotism might be just the thing to boost business.

  When Gil Walker heard the high-pitched laugh of Loretta Rogers, his favorite at the Shiny Black Cat, he stopped in midstream.

  But Big Jake Meigs grabbed Gil’s arm. “None of that. No quiff sniffin’ when there’s real trouble to be makin’.”

  “You’re right.” Gil snatched a rum bottle from Big Jake and took a gulp. “I got no money, anyway.”

  “And as my mother used to say, you can’t do nothin’ in New York without money.”

  “So we should be tryin’ to make some from all this,” said Gil over the roar, “instead of just followin’ the crowd.”

  “Ain’t you heard?” Big Jake gave out with a big laugh. “After the rebellion we’ll all be rich. That’s what the Sons of Liberty keep sayin’. And this here crowd’s doin’ some fine rebellin’, which means we’re doin’ somethin’ to get rich this very minute.”

  “Is that what’s called logic?”

  “Well, it ain’t common sense,” said Big Jake. “Now come on.”

  Gil glanced back toward Loretta, but she had already disappeared into the crowd. So he took another gulp of rum and gave the bottle back to Big Jake.

  Gil would think about Loretta later, because he thought about her plenty. And whenever he went to the Shiny Black Cat, he asked for her, because he saw something more in her than other men did.

  He had glimpsed her in the early mornings, when she made her way to the fish market, when she wasn’t wearing her face paint or the high-topped wig that smelled like a perfumed mouse or the corset that pushed up her titties like two cupcakes in a baker’s window. The morning light made her seem sweet, almost virginal, the kind of girl that a young man would take home to his family, if he had a family.

  But Gil Walker had never known his father, and his mother had died of consumption when he was fourteen. So, he had taken the Waterfront Boys as family: a gang of young men who made their way doing the work of the city . . . most of it legal, some of it not, most of it menial, some of it smart . . . and some of it smart enough to give Gil Walker dreams of bigger things.

  But Big Jake Meigs, who strode beside him, dreamed mostly of rum, and he was slinging the bottle to his lips even then.
/>   Rooster Tom Ramsey, red-faced and pugnacious, dreamed of fighting any man who was bigger than he was, and most men were. So he strutted ahead, flinging slowpokes out of his way while he looked for trouble in every direction.

  And Augustus Bethel, expelled from King’s College for striking the headmaster, dreamed of writing broadsides to inspire rebellion or books to inspire the world, and he always carried a sheaf of papers and a novel in the pouch over his shoulder. So his friends called him “the Bookworm.”

  But the Boys followed Gil’s lead, because Gil was the tallest and the smartest, and his innocent smile made people trust him implicitly, even when the Boys were up to no good. Gil also dreamed the biggest dream of all: to make himself rich. So whenever the work of cargo slinging or grave digging slowed, he led his friends to some busy coffeehouse to wait outside until the brokers and merchants called for messengers.

  You could learn a lot, he always said, just by carrying order slips around the waterfront.

  But since the arrival of Washington’s army, there had been little shipping and even less brokering. So a bit of noisy rioting seemed like a fine outlet on a summer night.

  As the crowd surged toward the Bowling Green, their shouts hammered against the walls of old Fort George, and they forced their way through the gates of the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the oval green, and when they couldn’t get through quickly enough, they started clambering up and over.

  It was a good fence, thought Gil, strong enough to hold the weight of dozens of grown, angry men. But as he grabbed one of the little brass crown finials that topped the posts supporting the fence, it came off in his hand and he fell backward.

  He hit the ground in the midst of all those stamping, scuffling, stumbling feet, and somebody stepped on him, and somebody else kicked him, and Big Jake Meigs shouted, “Stay there! You make a fine ladder.” Then Big Jake took another swig of rum, dropped the bottle into Gil’s lap, put a foot on Gil’s shoulder, and leaped over the fence.

  Then Gil heard someone laughing, and he saw the dirty hem of a red satin dress.

  “A kiss for a tot there, Gilbie boy!”

  It was Loretta. She was wearing her working dress and that wondrous corset, but she had joined the mob before she finished dolling herself, so she hadn’t painted her face or put on her satin mules or that wig, so she looked like the virgin at first light and a lady of the night, too.

  Gil had never seen a finer combination. From his knees, he smiled up at her. And she smiled down.

  Then a rope made a long arc through the dusk-silvered sky above her head and snagged the king by the neck. This brought a thunderous roar from the crowd.

  Gil shoved the little brass crown into his pocket and stood.

  People were pushing all around them, but Gil and Loretta were shouldered against the fence and anchored in place. So she reached for the bottle in his hand.

  Gil pulled it back. “Kiss first,” he said, over the roar of the crowd.

  “Come on now, Gilbie boy. I get me goods in hand ’fore I give out with the sweets, whether we’re talkin’ about coins or rum.” She took the bottle and drank a gulp big enough to make a sailor go stupid. Then she raised herself onto her tiptoes and brought her mouth to his.

  Inside the fence, Big Jake was shouting, “Tail on, boys! Tail on!” And people were stumbling over one another to get a piece of one of the ropes that now had the King of England and his horse lassoed half a dozen times.

  Then someone shouted, “One!”

  And someone else shouted, “Two!”

  And a gang of people shouted, “Three!”

  And everyone on the ropes began to sway like a wave rolling over the green. And then they all shouted, “Heave!” and came swaying back and shouted, “Ho!” And again, “Heave!” And again, “Ho!”

  But Gil Walker was focused on Loretta’s tongue. In all his visits to the Shiny Black Cat, she had never once given him an open-mouthed kiss.

  “Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho! HEAVE! HO!”

  The lead legs of the king’s horse began to bend.

  And Gil pivoted Loretta against the fence, so that he could keep his lips on hers while the stiffening in his breeches found purchase against her thigh.

  The king was falling, the roar was rising, and so was Gil.

  Loretta whispered, “Now, Gilbie, no pokin’ without payin’.”

  He pushed the rum bottle back to her lips. “Have another swallow.”

  And as the mob gave out with a roar that must have been heard all the way down at the Narrows, the king began to fall backward.

  “Ah, hell”—Loretta took the bottle—“we should be celebratin’ tonight.” She swallowed down another gulp, then gave Gil a devilish grin and dumped a big splash over her breasts. “Have a lick, Gilbie. The king is dead. Long live Washington!”

  “The hell with Washington.” Gil Walker buried his face in the soft, sweet, rum-soaked flesh and pushed his hips against her.

  “Feels good in a crowd, don’t it?” She pressed her thigh to him. “All these people raisin’ hell, and you’re the only one with a stiffy. But if you pop off in your breeches, you’ll be owin’ Madam Fanny, just like we was in the Cat. You might be a big boy, but she’s got Leaner McTeague, who’s as strong as a draft horse—”

  “He don’t scare me.”

  “Maybe not, but he always collects when customers pop off uninvited like.”

  The crowd was roaring, chanting, ranting. Men were dangling on top of the pedestal and someone had produced a hammer and chisel and with a great clanging that echoed through the statue and out into the crowd, he began to decapitate King George.

  And for a few moments, the crowd fell silent, as if this truly were regicide. Clang. Clang. Clang. Then the head came off and the crowd gave out again.

  But Gil’s mind was on one thing.

  So Loretta gave him a knee to get his attention. “If you want more, Gilbie, you gotta give more.”

  “I got no money.” He pressed his face against her breasts.

  “But you got choices, Gilbie. You can have another lick of my nice rum titties, and we’ll call it square. Or you can hit a lick for Gen’ral Washington and have yourself a whole hour with me on the end of your dick.”

  Gil raised his face from the glorious valley where her breasts met. “Washington?”

  She took his chin and pointed it toward the edge of the crowd, where a burly man in an eye patch stood next to a drummer boy. The sticks were moving in the drummer boy’s hands, but the crowd was so noisy that Gil couldn’t hear the tattoo.

  Loretta said, “That’s Captain Bull Stuckey. A seafarin’ man who don’t have a ship no more.”

  “Like a lot of seafarin’ men these days,” said Gil.

  “He’s formin’ a company of militia, all New York City lads. Sign on with him, and I’ll give you a free one.”

  “Sign on?”

  “Us gals is nicer to soldiers than we is to local dock rats.” She slid her hand down his breeches. “So let me take you over there.” She gave him a tug. “You can sign your name or make your mark—”

  “I know how to write.” He pushed himself against her hand. “And read.”

  “Ooh, an educated dockhand, then. They might just make you an officer. Or considerin’ the size of this”—she gave it a stroke—“they might make you a batman.”

  And before the night was over, all four Waterfront Boys had joined Stuckey’s company of New York militia, while Loretta Rogers and her friends had made more money in commissions from Bull Stuckey than ever they had from servicing a dozen men.

  As for the king . . . they paraded his gilded head around town on a pike, then they dragged the rest of him off to Connecticut and melted him down and turned him into forty thousand musket balls.

  “Good riddance,” said Gil Walker.

  ii.

  But nothing good happened to New York or the Waterfront Boys after that.

  The British fleet, which had begun arriving in June, grew from
a small grove of masts into a dense forest in a few weeks. And from that forest emerged the largest army ever sent forth by a British king. First, they built a city of white tents on the hills of Staten Island. Then they began to drill. And every afternoon their bayonets glinted in the sun, and every evening the music of their regimental bands floated across the harbor.

  The Waterfront Boys listened from their post near the Grand Battery.

  “We didn’t sign up to fight them,” said Rooster Tom.

  “I fear that we did,” answered Gil.

  Worse, they had signed up with a man used to meting out shipboard discipline. His recruits could sleep in their own homes. They were local militia, after all. But the man who did not appear within five minutes of the drummer’s tattoo would be marked as a deserter and dosed with thirty-nine lashes.

  So Gil and Big Jake continued to live under the eaves at the Queen’s Head, where they did the heavy lifting for master Sam Fraunces. Rooster Tom lived with his old mother, who kept house for a Jew merchant named Haym Salomon. And Augustus the Bookworm lived by his wits and his charm, which had endeared him to every pretty housemaid in every manor house from Richmond Hill to Harlem Heights. But they all slept with an ear out for the sound of the drum.

  “We didn’t sign up to dance a jig whenever Stuckey gives us a beat,” said Big Jake.

  “I fear that we did,” answered Gil.

  And worst of all, the girls at the Shiny Black Cat were no better to militiamen than they were to anyone else.

  “Those doxies lied to us when we signed up,” said the Bookworm.

  “I fear that they did,” answered Gil.

  Most of the time, when Gil showed up with a few shillings, Loretta was busy. So he would go off to spend his money at some house where the ladies looked decidedly less virginal in the morning light.

  This, Big Jake explained as they walked down Broadway one August eve, was a good example of the old saying about living and learning. Business, he said, should always be business. “Answerin’ a muster ’cause we think it might get us a bit of free finky-diddlin’ ain’t the way to join a rebellion.”