“Sir, it is a very great pleasure indeed to make your acquaintance,” he said, pumping Wash’s hand.
“And I yours, Mr. President,” Washington said, a wide grin splitting his bearded face from ear to ear. “You honor me, sir.”
“Colonel, you have done a magnificent thing in that bridge of yours. It is simply stupendous!” the president said, waving his arms for emphasis. “You’ve done your country an invaluable service, sir, and created a lasting monument to the ingenuity and inventiveness of the American people. We are all in your debt.”
“You are too kind, Mr. President,” Wash said modestly. “All I did was build a bridge.”
“Poppycock!” Arthur bellowed, thumping Wash on the back. “I’m not kind enough by half. I tell you, when I walked across this afternoon I was positively … giddy. I had seen pictures, of course, but being up there on the bridge itself … it was … how shall I say it? uplifting. That’s the very thing. I congratulate you, sir. You have done what no man has done before. I envy you, Colonel, and I salute you.”
Emily blushed with pride, and clutched Washington’s hand tight in hers. Wash bowed his thanks. He could think of nothing to say.
“And you, Mrs. Roebling,” the president said, turning to Emily. “If half the things I hear are true, then it is you who deserves half the credit.”
Though she knew it was true, she blushed anyway.
“More than half to my way of thinking, Mr. President. More than half,” Wash said, squeezing her hand tight.
The president gave Emily a piercing glance, seeming to appraise the truth of it in an instant. “I believe you, Colonel,” he said firmly. “There’s steel in those lovely eyes.”
Wash laughed. “You have no idea how much, Mr. President.”
They all laughed at that but the president took Emily’s hand, bringing the white glove to his lips for a formal kiss.
“Again I envy you, Colonel. I am doubly honored to meet you both.”
As more and more people kept pressing through the door, the president drifted back to the drawing room, surrounded by well-wishers, toadies, and politicians.
“The president envies you, Colonel,” Emily whispered in Wash’s ear.
“And I am the envy of every man here,” he said with an air of complete confidence. “Not for me, but for you do they envy me. I am the luckiest man in all the world.”
Mayor Low, Governor Cleveland, William Kingsley, the general contractor General Henry Slocum, all the trustees, many of whom would meet Washington for the first time this evening, pressed through his doors, filling the house to overflowing. The band played. Guests found food and refreshments in a great pavilion set up in the garden overlooking the river. Hamilton Fish, former Secretary of State, and family friend, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and his wife, Wash’s brothers and their wives, his sister and her husband, former Mayor Grace, and hundreds of others showered the colonel with congratulations and undying admiration. After an hour or so, the president left for the mayor’s reception. Wash was glad of it, for he felt he couldn’t abandon the reception while the president was still there, but he was exhausted after nearly two and a half hours of being mobbed.
“Em, I have to go upstairs. I’m all washed out, dear. Can’t take another minute.”
She could see it in his face. “Go ahead, Wash. Lie down for a while. I’ll come up when the guests have gone. Is there anything I can get you?”
“No, no. You’ve already done more than I deserve.” As he slowly climbed the stairs back to his room, someone in the crowd started to clap. It was just one person at first, but before he had taken another two steps, the entire house seemed to have broken into a rolling burst of enthusiastic applause. For a moment it confused him. He almost didn’t know how to react. He was embarrassed, in fact, blushing like a schoolgirl beneath his beard, but he continued his slow climb, humble, amazed, triumphant.
One more pickpocket, one unwary foot in the crowd crushed by a wagon, two drunks, and one assault later, Tom stood in front of the Tribune building. The crowds here were almost as thick as down by the river. The hotels and bars and restaurants were doing a record-breaking business too. Most of the bars were so full people overflowed onto the street. When one or two washed out, one or two more shouldered their way in. Tom watched the crowd with glazed eyes. The day had been hard enough, and his feet were so sore they seemed to be boiling out of his shoes, but the stress of what he was about to do weighed even heavier. Tom had arranged to meet Mary at the Trib at seven-thirty. She was late, but that didn’t surprise him. The crowds and confusion were bound to slow her down. Suddenly she materialized before him just as he checked his watch again.
“God, there must be over a hundred thousand just around City Hall. It’s lucky we arranged a place. I’d never have found you otherwise.” Mary kissed him and looked up into his face. “You look tired, Tommy. Been hard, I guess.”
“It’s been lively,” he admitted. “You want to go up?” Tom, who knew some reporters, had wheedled a couple of invitations to their bridge party, which was already well under way. It would be good to be seen there. In the confusion of the crowd he could slip away and back unnoticed.
“Sure, let’s go. I could use something cold. You look like you could too.”
Tom didn’t stay long, just long enough to be seen by a few people he knew and to introduce Mary to some friends and acquaintances. He checked his watch for the last time and said, “I have to go.”
She looked at him, her deep brown eyes wide and unflinching. “You be careful, Tommy. I’ll see you later. I’ll be right here.” Tom started to say something but she stopped him. “You’d better get going. We’ll talk later.” Tom gave her a quick hug and she whispered, “I love you, Tommy. Come back to me.”
A wistful but determined smile played on Tom’s face.
“I will,” he murmured.
The walk to Chatham Square was longer than he’d anticipated, at least the first part. The people slowed him down, and more than once he was less than civil with those who got in his way. It got his blood up, so that as the crowds started to thin out, he steamed along leaving a wide wake behind. He got to the corner of Park Row and Worth at exactly seven o’clock. Chatham Square was nearly deserted. Everyone was down near the bridge, and those who weren’t were up on the rooftops. Tom crossed the intersection of Worth and Mott, continuing on to the corner of Doyers. He waited as the evening gloom settled over the square and the gas lamps were slowly lit by a trudging, top-hatted civil servant who appeared to be thoroughly in his cups. Tom would have enjoyed watching the man stumble through his job if he wasn’t so anxious. Absently he pulled Bucklin’s clipping from his pocket, scanning it again, looking for the things he couldn’t see. He glanced at his watch again. It was three minutes after seven and Coffin was nowhere in sight. He leaned against the lamppost watching every person walk through the square from the intersecting streets. There weren’t many. Doyers was the perfect place for this night’s activities. Curving and dead-ended, it was hidden from view from everything except the few buildings around the bend. According to Sung Chow, no one in those buildings would be watching.
Coffin came trotting up St. James Place five minutes later. He was sweaty and rumpled when he arrived under the halo of the gas lamp.
“Was beginning to worry about you, August,” Braddock said, the annoyance clear in his voice.
“Damn crowds made it harder to get here than I thought. It took me ten minutes to get from Dover to Pearl! Been a hell of a day too,” he said, dusting off his jacket and smoothing the rumpled collar. “No mood for any of Sung Chow’s Chinese horseshit. Let’s get the deal done and get on with business.”
“I’ll do what I can, but I can’t speak for them,” Tom said, trying to keep his tone under control. “I think they’re ready to do business, though, and if my guess is right, I think you’re going to get more than you expected.”
Coffin seemed to brighten a bit. “Think so?”
�
��Just a feeling,” Tom said. “We’ll see.”
Coffin smoothed his rumpled shirt and jacket one last time. “Well, let’s get moving. There’s money to be made tonight.”
As they walked up Doyers, their footsteps echoing on the deserted street, Coffin remarked, “Christ, this place is like a ghost town. Even the Chinamen are down by the bridge.”
“Well, the Chinese like fireworks as much as anyone else, maybe more. After all, they were the ones who invented gunpowder.” Tom knew that would bother Coffin.
“Hard to believe that coolies could invent something like that.”
Tom looked at Coffin with a direct, level gaze. “Don’t underestimate them, August,” he warned. It would be his last warning to August, one he’d do well to heed, Tom thought with an ironic twist at the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah, sure.” Coffin’s tone showed his contempt. “This is it, right?”
Tom just nodded at the dark stairway to an unmarked basement door. “I’ll go first.” He went down the steps, which seemed the top steps to hell. They were black as the soul of night and he had to feel for them as he descended.
The meeting went well. Tom set the stage, doing and saying the right things, observing the rituals, paying proper respect, acting the honest broker. Coffin laid out his offers with the flair of a born salesman. He painted his picture in shades of green and gold. They’d all be rich, he stressed, if they could see beyond their differences and work together to expand the trade. The potential was enormous and the cash that flowed from it could buy cops, judges, aldermen, and Tammany Hall, for that matter. There was no end to the power and influence they could enjoy, if only they could cooperate. He could guarantee safe expansion into new uptown markets, tapping into the pockets of the wealthy, the jaded uptown thrill-seekers, the swells looking for new and different entertainments. In time, prostitution could be coupled with the trade, bringing the two businesses together under one roof. There were endless variations on these themes and endless money to be made. All they needed do was to shake hands. Just the word of two businessmen, seeing eye to eye, and the world could change for all of them.
Tom hardly heard a word. His thoughts were elsewhere. Soon the handshake was done, the vows exchanged, the wheels set in motion. Throughout the show Tom’s face wore a painted smile.
At last Sung Chow and August Coffin bowed each other farewell, promising to meet again soon. Details needed to be ironed out, after all. Sung Chow bowed to Tom as well, but after they did so, old sack-face clasped Tom’s hand, murmuring. “You have done well, Tom Braddock. We will not forget.”
Tom went out into the night that was blacker than betrayal, his feelings surprisingly mixed. He didn’t turn when he heard the scuffle of feet behind him. He almost didn’t want to face a doomed man, even one such as Coffin.
“Hey! What’s this? Tom! Tell ’em we’re here to see Sung Chow,” Coffin demanded. “Get your hands off me! Tom!”
Tom turned and took two steps back to Coffin’s side.
“Tommy, tell ’em to get their goddamn hands off me.” Coffin seemed more annoyed than worried. There were three Chinese, one man on each arm and one at Coffin’s back. Where they had been hiding, even Tom couldn’t have guessed.
“Goddamn it! I’m a captain of police,” Coffin exclaimed, pulling at the men on his arms. “Let me loose, you fucking—”
Tom reached into Coffin’s jacket and removed his pistol without a word.
“Tom?” That one word encompassed surprise, indignation, and defeat.
“Did you really think this could end some other way, August?” Tom said, the firmness of his voice tinged with regret. “You know me. Did you imagine I’d let what you did to Mary just slide by?”
Coffin didn’t answer. The shock on his face said it all.
“You may as well have turned yourself in that night, Augie. You’ve been doomed ever since.”
Coffin stopped struggling and looked at Tom as if he was just seeing him now. He said calmly, “This is not how I planned it, sport.” His intentions for Tom clear in just those few words.
“Sorry, August,” Tom said, meaning it. Tom nodded to the Chinese a particularly evil-looking trio, he noticed. They started to herd Coffin back down the stairs. The door at the bottom of the black stairs opened again. This time Byrnes stood outlined in the soft golden glow of the lamps within. Coffin saw him immediately. He stiffened for a moment, then blurted, “Chief! Christ, am I glad to see you! These—these—” he stammered as he saw the look on Byrnes’s face.
“I heard everything, August. I was in the next fucking room!” Byrnes’s voice sounded like the birth of an avalanche. “We need to have a talk, you and I.” As he said this, Byrnes slowly pulled on a tight black glove over his huge fist, pulling at the fingers so it fit just so.
Coffin looked from Byrnes to Tom, desperation written large in his eyes. A small, defeated croak escaped his throat, and his mouth worked soundlessly. He took another step down, seemingly held up now by the three Chinese. He was only two steps down when footsteps were heard pounding hard from around the curve of the street. With the echo, it was hard to tell if it was one or two coming at a run. They all froze. Tom still had Coffin’s pistol in his hand. He checked to see the safety was off. In an instant, the echoing footsteps materialized from the gloom into a large black shape. There was something in its hand, thick, stubby and menacing. The black form slowed to a deliberate walk as the distance narrowed. There was something familiar about that walk. Tom brought the pistol up, pulling back the hammer as he did, his hand trembling slightly. He wasn’t about to take any chances.
“Chowder, he’s got my gun!” Coffin cried out. At that very instant, at the dot of eight o’clock, fifty rockets and another twenty huge aerial bombs went off on cue over the Brooklyn Bridge. Even from over a half-mile away, they could all feel the concussions and see the sky light up. Tom flinched and thought for an instant that Chowder had fired. He almost fired himself. Only the knowledge that it was Chowder Kelly out there in the dark kept him from doing so. Down in the stairwell, Byrnes had his pistol out too. It seemed almost an insignificant thing in that huge black-gloved hand. Chowder, a sawed-off shotgun gripped in his big paw, was lit in a flickering, eerie glow, a ghoulish, menacing thunderhead of a man with a gun that looked like a small cannon. He called to Tom over the noise of the explosions.
“Damn! Looks like we’ll miss some o’ the fireworks, eh, Tommy?”
“Chowder, look out!” Coffin cried, struggling now with his captors.
“There’s three of them here.”
Chowder flinched a little at that, not sure what to expect. But in an instant he relaxed and said, “You can tuck that pistol away, Tommy. You won’t need it.”
“Chowder!” A despairing note in Coffin’s voice now.
Tom didn’t say a word, just stuffed the pistol back in his pocket.
“Chowder, help!” Coffin called again as Chowder stopped in front of him.
“Shut the fuck up, Augie.” Tom grinned, amazed and relieved at the same time. He hadn’t wanted to shoot Chowder Kelly.
“Looks like you’ve got yourself some fireworks right here, though, Tommy,” Chowder said as the rockets continued to rumble and crash in the distance. “Yes, indeedy, you do!”
Coffin, with a violent effort, somehow wrenched free of his captors, one of whom tumbled down the stairs and into the door. He tried to make it to the street and had his foot on the top step when Chowder lashed out, kicking Coffin in the stomach. He would have fallen back down the stairs if the two Chinese hadn’t caught him. Chowder grinned and said, “Damn, that felt good.”
Coffin was doubled over, retching on the stairs. The three Chinese had him pinned again.
“Chowder … you … Fuck!” He retched and spit. “Rot in hell … you … fucking … bastard.”
Chowder, lit by the flickering colored fireworks, in a fun house—devil sort of glow, grinned and said softly, “After you, August.”
Neith
er Braddock nor Byrnes said anything. Byrnes simply nodded to the Chinese, who pulled the captain off his feet and down the stairs. They dragged him down into the basement on Doyers, his heels bouncing as he went. To his credit he went silently, his accusing eyes the last Braddock would see of him … in this world.
Captain Sangree sat on the edge of a wharf a quarter mile upriver from the bridge. Jacobs, Lebeau, Lincoln, Emmons and Sullivan were all with him, though he hardly noticed them. It was as if the fireworks had transported him. Perhaps it was the explosions when the first salvo went up. They sounded like artillery. They felt like artillery, the way the sound and shock waves compressed the air about their heads. It brought him back to Gettysburg and the barrage on the third day. Lee’s guns had opened the attack, focusing the whole of the cannonade on a single point in the Yankee line. The cannon roared and thundered. A tornado of howling shells, bright-orange explosions, whistling fragments, and fountains of earth seemed to settle on the Yankee line like an avenging hand. Too soon the smoke of the guns obscured everything, but they fired on blindly into the Union center. Thaddeus remembered thinking about what a shell had done to Franklin. He remembered wishing the same for the Yankees. A sudden salvo of bursting rockets snapped him out of his reverie. They rained red, white, and blue stars, floating and flickering over the river. The ships below were illuminated in a ghostly sort of way, all light on one side and blackness on the other. The black waters reflected the explosions and sparkling waterfalls so at times the ghost ships seemed to ride on waves of fire. Rolling billows of smoke started to settle over the river. Soon, he imagined, the artillery wouldn’t be able to see their targets.
Sangree fingered the folded telegram in his pocket. It had come days ago from his backers in Richmond. The news had been worse than he’d expected:
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