House of Thieves

by Charles Belfoure

  “You know, I saw an incredible house going up on Madison Avenue right behind Saint Pat’s. U-shaped thing done in brownstone,” Robert said, taking a forkful of apple pie.

  “That’s for Henry Villard, the president of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He’s related to Charlie McKim, a close friend of mine, who did the design. It’s actually not one house but six separate dwellings arranged around an entry courtyard.”

  “Six? It looks like one big mansion.”

  “That’s the genius of it. The design’s based on an Italian Renaissance precedent, the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, but the details have been simplified. Pilasters were eliminated, and the window surrounds were reversed…”

  Cross stopped. His brother was grinning from ear to ear, a sure sign that Cross was boring the socks off him. He burst out laughing, as did Robert.

  “I’m so sorry. Once I start talking about architecture, you know I can’t shut my mouth,” Cross said apologetically.

  “You’re passionate about your work. It’s a wonderful thing. I’m passionate about mine too. I want to solve every case and bring every criminal to justice,” Robert said, his gaze steady on Cross.

  “Any progress on the robberies—Cook and the bank and all that?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. Very cunning crimes usually take time to solve. But I’ll get them. I’ve got a damn big caseload too, along with routine duties like protecting businesses.” Robert finished his coffee and stared out at the flow of traffic on Fifth Avenue. “McKim, Mead & White did Villard’s place? Isn’t that Stanford White’s firm?” Robert asked finally.

  “Why yes, he did the interior design for the houses. Stanny’s a very good friend of mine. He was at Julia’s coming-out ball. Tall fellow with red hair. Hands down the best architect in the city. An incredible talent.”

  “I think I remember him,” Robert said. He paused, then added, “He must have a lot of rich clients, like the ones who have the big houses along the cliff in Newport.”

  “The richest of the rich. Although Aunt Caroline doesn’t use him much.”

  “Did you go up to Newport to see the old girl this summer?”

  “We went up for a week. But she was in the Berkshires.”

  “Did you go to the casino? I hear they have good concerts.”

  “Helen dragged me to one.”

  “I hear Tuxedo is the place to be nowadays. Lorillard’s built himself a whole town up there.”

  “Yes, a colleague of mine, Bruce Price, designed the cottages and the clubhouse. It’s quite the place.”

  “Didn’t he do the Oceanside Hotel in Long Branch?”

  Cross paused and took a sip of coffee. It gave him a few seconds to size up the situation. He shifted around in his seat and dabbed his mouth with the linen napkin while repeating in his mind the entire conversation he and his brother had had up to this moment. Each word his brother spoke threw up a red flag—tenement, White, Newport, cliff, concert, Price, Tuxedo, and Oceanside.

  “Yes, Price did the hotel at Oceanside, where that big robbery took place a few weeks ago.”

  “Yep, the place was wiped out during a charity ball. Unbelievable,” said Robert.

  “Came through the metal ceiling on the top floor, they said,” added Cross.

  “It was ingenious. Word on the street is that a mastermind named the Engineer planned all these jobs.”

  A spoonful of peas in vinaigrette sauce was about to enter Cross’s mouth when they slid off the utensil, bouncing against his shirt and waistcoat. “Damn,” uttered Cross, who, with a flustered expression, looked across the table at his brother.

  “I see your table manners haven’t much improved since you were ten,” said Robert with a laugh.

  Trying to wipe out the tiny stains on his bright-white shirtfront, Cross replied, “Really, they call him the Engineer?”

  “He’s greatly admired by the underworld. Almost like a mythical hero.”

  Cross smiled feebly.

  “Maybe Price is the Engineer. Lorillard’s house was robbed, you know, and he designed it,” said Robert, rapping his knuckles on the white tablecloth.

  “I thought that fake Russian count did that.” Cross knew Robert didn’t know he was there that night. To protect their privacy, Lorillard wouldn’t reveal the rest of his guest list that weekend. A society gentleman would never embarrass his guests in that manner. In their world, it just wasn’t done.

  Robert laughed so loud that the other patrons turned to look at him. “No, it wasn’t him.”

  “But it can’t be Price, old boy.”

  “And why not?”

  “He’s not an engineer; he’s an architect. World of difference,” said Cross, grinning. “One’s an artist and the other’s not.”

  Robert let out another explosive laugh.

  The conversation was making Cross uncomfortable, so he decided to change the subject to something he knew Robert enjoyed talking about.

  “How about dinner tomorrow night, then we’ll all go to the theater?”

  “Wonderful. Will George be there? I never see him anymore. How is the boy doing?”

  “We forced him to come to supper last Saturday,” Cross said, sighing. “He’s still teaching down in the Bowery. He’ll keep at it until fall term starts. He really loves those children. Urchins, every one of them.”

  “He seems to have turned his back on society. It must drive Helen mad. I’m sure she’s picked out at least a dozen suitable wives for him,” Robert said with a smile.

  Cross nodded. “I’ve told her time and again to leave him alone, but she won’t listen.”

  “What does he do to occupy his spare time?”

  “I’m afraid it’s a mystery.” And it was. Cross had no idea what George was doing with his days outside of teaching—secretly, he didn’t want to know.

  “Does he like the ladies, polo, horse racing…gambling?”

  Cross wondered whether his brother saw him react ever so slightly to the last word, like the twitch of a cat’s ear or a leaf on a branch moving in the breeze. He realized that his brother knew the truth—and was setting a trap into which he was walking blindly. It was like those tiger traps in India he had read about, in which a deep hole is covered with grass and brush that blends in with the ground cover. He had always tried to be on his guard when he was around Robert for fear of revealing something, but somehow he had grown careless. He was one step away from falling into that hole.

  “He inherited Helen’s looks, so I imagine he’s popular with the girls. He probably hangs about with the men from Harvard. There are a lot of them in the city.”

  “I’d like to ring him up and ask him out to supper if he’s not too busy,” said Robert.

  “George is very fond of you. I’m sure he’d like that.”

  “Ah, to be young again. I envy him,” Robert said, signaling the waiter for the bill. Before John could protest, he added, “Please, let me take care of it.”

  • • •

  As Robert walked up Fifth Avenue, his head was bent in sadness. The police and newspapers had held back the fact that the top floor of the Oceanside Hotel was robbed from above the ceiling. He knew his brother had been at the ball that night.

  63

  “Eight thousand? You owe eight thousand? But just this morning, it was fifteen hundred.” Kitty fell to her knees on the carpet of her parlor and put her hands over her face, trying to stifle her sobs.

  George stood above her in silence, his head bowed.

  “I can’t do this, George,” she moaned. “I just can’t. Every day, you risk being beaten to a pulp or killed. I can’t go through it anymore.”

  “Kitty, this is the last time. I swear. I’ll never—”

  “Do you know how many times you’ve told me that? A million!” Kitty cried, her eyes blazing with passion. “And each ti
me I believed you with all my heart. Because I love you with all my heart. But no more, George. No more. You’re killing me.”

  “Please…”

  “Every day, we scramble for money. It never ends, and it’s tearing me apart. One day, they’re going to find your body in the river. I don’t want to be there for that.”

  “You know I’ve tried, Kitty. You know that.”

  “And it’s damn useless. You’re powerless, George. You’re like a drunk who promises with every sip that this will be his last drink. This sickness has hold of you, and I can’t do anything about it.” Kitty’s voice had gone soft. George had never heard her sound so defeated. “I’m watching the only person I’ve loved in my entire life destroy himself.”

  “Kitty, I love you. I do. Together we can beat this. We can’t give up.”

  Kitty stood and looked into George’s face. He tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. “No. It’s over. I won’t do this to myself, not any longer. They say if you love someone enough, you can forgive anything, endure anything, but that’s not true,” said Kitty. It was as if her entire being had been drained out of her body, and all that was left was a shell.

  “You’ve said that before, darling.”

  “This time I mean it. It’s really over. I want you to leave.” Kitty spoke firmly, despite the tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t see you again, George. Not ever.”

  George stood before her, as still as if he’d been turned to stone.

  “Please go, George,” Kitty said in a soft, defeated voice.

  When he didn’t respond, Kitty couldn’t help herself. She started sobbing violently and pushed him toward the door. He tried to resist, but she kept pushing him. “Get out, damn you. Get out!”

  George turned and walked out the door. Kitty slammed it behind him. The sound seemed to echo in his ears for a long time. In spite of himself, he waited in the corridor, hoping she would fling open the door and come after him.

  Time passed. All he could hear was Kitty, sobbing softly on the other side of the door.

  Alone, George walked slowly down the black iron staircase to the street.

  64

  The workmen grunted and cursed under their breath as they transferred gold bars into the wagon. By itself, a single bar wasn’t heavy—perhaps five pounds. But the continuous loading was exhausting. Having performed this task countless times over the years, the thought of stealing a bar no longer entered the men’s minds. They might as well have been loading bricks.

  After the last bar was in the wagon, the men retired to a room in the corner of the cavernous warehouse for coffee and sandwiches. The driver and armed guards would be there in twenty minutes to take the gold to the pier. At 5:00 a.m., before traffic choked the Manhattan streets, they would leave the warehouse on Eleventh Street and First Avenue.

  The driver and guards arrived, locked the rear double doors, and started their journey to the pier at Front and Spruce Streets on the Lower East Side. There, the gold would be loaded on a ship bound for Belgium. Instead of an armored wagon, the investment house of Kidder, Peabody & Co. were taking the precaution of transporting gold bullion in an old converted beer wagon, pulled by four dappled gray horses. The setup was meant to avoid unwanted attention. A Pinkerton guard with a revolver sat on top behind the driver, and another guard driving a small milk delivery cart rode ahead. Rather than uniforms, the men wore work clothes.

  It was a cool late October morning, and as they clip-clopped slowly through the streets, people emerged onto the sidewalks to prepare for the business day. Men brought out stands of groceries, cranked open awnings over plate glass windows, and set out barrels of goods. As they rode, the men silently scanned the streets, looking for any possible sign of trouble. They had made the trip three times a year for many years, always varying their route. Every time, the early morning scene was the same. As usual, no one paid any attention to their passage.

  They crossed Houston Street and turned east on Stanton. Up ahead, before the corner of Columbia, a large masonry warehouse was under construction. Rickety-looking wooden scaffolding had been erected up to the fourth story, where brick was being laid. On the street in front of the building, construction workers in overalls were milling about, getting ready to start the day.

  Just as the wagons passed in front of the building, a low creaking sound could be heard, gradually intensifying in pitch. The drivers frantically looked about for the source of the sound and—to their amazement—saw a section of the scaffolding plunging down toward them. With a terrific crash, the brick-laden wooden structure smashed onto the sidewalk, spilling into the street in front of them. The horses screamed and reared, trying to bolt. The drivers barely kept them under control.

  Suddenly, and from both sides, men carrying lengths of lead pipe appeared. The construction workers joined them as they leaped onto the wagons, striking the guards viciously. The driver of the beer wagon’s skull was split open like a melon, and his guard was battered until he fell off the wagon. The milk cart’s driver was yanked from his seat and beaten savagely on the sidewalk. As if in a piece of well-rehearsed choreography, the assailants dragged the bodies into the warehouse. Two men jumped into the driver’s seat of the beer wagon and whipped the horses forward onto the south sidewalk, around the debris. The wagon turned south, traveling at top speed, bouncing along Columbia Street and turning west on Delancey. Slowing to match the pace of traffic, it continued on to Kenmare Street and then Broome Street. At Hudson and Laight Streets, it came to the huge Saint John’s Terminal, the freight station built by Commodore Vanderbilt for his New York Central Railroad. Fifty feet tall and constructed of brick and granite, a loading platform ran the entire length of the massive structure, allowing the transfer of goods from wagons to the trains that entered the building.

  The driver steered the wagon into one of the forty-foot-wide arched openings and drove up a wide wooden ramp right into an open freight car that was coupled to the many other cars of the New York Central. By yanking the reins hard to the left, the horses were forced to turn the wagon in a tight radius into the car, where the conveyance came to a halt.

  As soon as the wagon was in place, Kent, Cross, Brady, and Culver ran up to the freight car and looked in. The horses were nervous and disoriented, stomping about and causing the wagon to rock back and forth.

  “Get these goddamn horses off here,” yelled Brady to the drivers. “Fast!”

  The men jumped down and began to unharness the team, working at top speed.

  “This train leaves in ten minutes,” Kent said, looking at his pocket watch. “Let’s check the goods. Bring a lantern; it’s pitch-black in there.”

  The four men walked up the ramp into the car and went to the back of the wagon. With a crow bar, Brady pried open the double doors. Culver went in first with the lantern.

  “Holy shit,” Culver yelled.

  “A big haul, eh, Mr. Culver?” Kent said.

  “Look!” Culver sounded incredulous.

  Standing next to a pallet stacked high with gold bars was George Cross.

  65

  The men stood, looking in amazement at George, who stared wide-eyed at his father.

  “George, for God’s sake, what are you doing here?” Cross said, absolutely astonished.

  Kent burst out laughing. “The same thing we’re doing here, Mr. Cross. Stealing the gold. Our gold, I should say.”

  George jumped out of the wagon and walked up to his father. He swallowed hard before he spoke. “Is this true?”

  No words emerged from Cross’s mouth. He was in shock.

  “What are you doing here, Father?” George asked.

  “Your father happens to be my partner, George,” Kent said, smiling. The irony of the situation seemed to please him to no end.

  George looked at his father, who had turned away from him. Slowly, he walked around and
looked his father straight in the face. It was dark at the end of the freight car, and Culver held the lantern high, throwing spooky shadows that danced on the walls.

  “But why?” George whispered.

  “He was going to kill you if you didn’t pay your gambling debts, son. I couldn’t let that happen. So I paid off what you owed by planning robberies for him.”

  “And he does it extremely well,” Kent said, lighting up a cigar.

  George rubbed his hands over his face and walked slowly away.

  “It’s too bad, Georgie. Some of this gold might’ve paid off your current debts…which I understand are considerable,” Kent said, turning to smile at Brady and Culver.

  Cross looked up at his son, his expression anguished.

  George nodded, resigned. “An old classmate who works at Kidder, Peabody & Co. told me about their gold bullion shipments. After the gold was loaded and the workers left, I snuck into the back and hid. The plan was to fill a satchel with bars and break out the back while the wagon was moving.”

  “Oh Christ, George,” Cross said.

  “I couldn’t come to you for help. I was too damn ashamed…and anyway, you didn’t have that kind of money.”

  “You kept on gambling after I begged you not to,” Cross whispered. “Why?”

  His father looked like he was shrinking, being crushed to the floor by the weight of this revelation. George wanted to shrink himself, to collapse to the size of an insect and crawl away. Kent, who was enjoying every second of the confrontation, started laughing.

  “You don’t understand, Father. You can’t just walk away from it. I couldn’t help myself, and I—”

  “Don’t feed me that hogwash. You knew you had to stop, and you didn’t. Goddamn it, do you know the calamity you’ve caused? Three people are dead because of you!” Cross grabbed his son by the lapels. But he didn’t shake or hit him. Tears filled his eyes, and he placed his head against George’s chest and sobbed.