City of Promise (59 page)

“Meant for a different market, Mr. Jones. What about this house in Brooklyn where you say Clifford’s living. Is it luxurious? I’m told there are some fine homes on what they call the heights.”

Jones took the brandy and murmured his thanks. Josh sat down across from him. “Clifford’s place,” Jones said, “is at the foot of Water Street. Closer to the docks than to the respectable folk of the Heights. Tucked away you might say. Hard to find. And it’s in the bridge’s shadow these days. On the other hand, luxury’s a matter of debate, isn’t it? Take my flat, for instance. Stack it against a rooming house on Bowling Green and that’s one thing. Compare it to what you’ve done up here . . .” He shrugged and tossed back his drink. The clock on Josh’s desk chimed twice and cherubs spun around under a glass dome. “Like you say, Mr. Turner, it’s late. I’d best be going.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t speak with you earlier. But—”

“You had important guests to attend to. I understand.” Jones stood up.

Josh did the same, but paused before showing the other man out. “Look, do you want to tell me why you’ve come to report this? And why tonight of all times?”

“I thought you should know. Because of Lupo and your interest in him a few years ago. You mentioned Trenton Clifford’s name back then as well.”

“And you said you knew nothing about him.”

“Did I, Mr. Turner? Well, as I said, all that was three years past. I know enough now to know that Lupo and Clifford have some . . . mutual concerns you might call them. They tend to impinge on yours.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Jones appeared to hesitate, then he shrugged. Josh was hard put to decide if it was genuine reluctance or an instance of Thomas Edison’s brass lever.

“The dwarf who got killed in your house,” Jones said, “back when you were living on Grand Street . . . No reason not to tell you now. Lupo’s the one did the big job. The one-eyed bastard himself, not anyone he sent. The way I hear it, that was a personal favor for Clifford. Because Captain Clifford, he wasn’t too happy with the thought the little fellow might tell you things.”

“About what had happened in Kentucky years before,” Josh said, speaking his thoughts aloud as they occurred. “About Clifford being the one who told Bessemer how to make steel with a converter. Kelly’s process. Which mattered because that was back when Clifford thought I was violating Bessemer’s patent, and he could use that to shut me down.”

Jones shrugged. “You’d know more about the details than I, Mr. Turner. But as I said, things that impinge on your interest.”

Josh couldn’t let it go, even though the Park Avenue project was a reality and it was hard to see how Clifford and Lupo could hurt him. But given the attempts made in the past, and the way they’d both caused Mollie so much grief, he was more than wary. He summoned Frankie Miller on Saturday afternoon. “Put your ear to the ground, Mr. Miller. And listen very closely. There’s no reason I know of for DuVal Jones to give me false information. I want to know whatever you hear about Lupo and whether it’s true that Clifford is back in town.”

Miller was back in two days. Josh led the way to the library. “Clifford?” he asked as soon as he closed the door.

“A sniff here and there,” Miller said. “Someone mentioned he’d been at Kate Meacham’s whorehouse. Someone else said they saw him at Delmonico’s. But so far no talk of what business brought him back to the city.”

“After an absence of what . . . three years?”

“Something like that,” Miller agreed. “But that’s not your biggest worry at the moment, Mr. Turner. Leastwise I don’t think so.”

Josh was startled. Frankie Miller didn’t normally volunteer that sort of opinion. “What then, Mr. Miller, is my biggest worry?”

“Lupo,” the gunman said. “He’s taking over the business of collecting garbage from buildings like yours. Claims to be organizing the workers.”

“On behalf of the labor movement? Tony Lupo?” Josh couldn’t conceal his astonishment.

“That’s what he says. What it comes down to . . . he’s going from building to building, and each time he winds up with a contract to be the one as takes away their swill. Way I see it, the union organizing’s just an excuse. Gets his foot in the door. You ask me, he’s planning to put all the other garbagemen out of business, then he’ll put the squeeze on the owners of the buildings. Men like yourself. He gets paid extra or the swill won’t be collected. How many weeks you think it’ll be before the stink will attract every rat in the city? Drive all the tenants out.”

“Not many. So, how come I haven’t been approached by Mr. Lupo? I own a fair number of buildings in this city, Mr. Miller. How come he’s ignoring me.”

“That’s the thing, Mr. Turner. I don’t think he is, I think Lupo left you for last because he knew you’d be the toughest nut to crack.”

Josh took a day to think it over, then called Miller back. “There’s a piece of the puzzle still doesn’t fit. What’s the interest of DuVal Jones?”

Miller looked thoughtful. “I can’t say for sure, Mr. Turner.”

“Try this,” Josh said. “What if Lupo is trying to take business from Mr. Jones’s employer.”

“The mayor of Brooklyn?”

“The man who extorts protection money from the lottery offices, yes,” Josh said. “Maybe Lupo is trying to—what do you call it?—muscle in.”

“That’s very unusual, Mr. Turner. Men like Lupo and the mayor, they usually respect each other’s territory. Besides, if DuVal Jones was looking out for his boss’s business, he wouldn’t come to you for help. I mean no disrespect, sir, but what can you do for him that the mayor’s own men can’t do better?”

It was a question for which Josh had no answer. “I still think Clifford’s the key,” he said. “What about the house in Brooklyn supposed to be his?”

“It’s nothing much. Right under the bridge these days. And it’s empty. I put a man out there right away, but so far he ain’t seen Clifford or nobody else.”

“Keep watching,” Josh said. “My guess is he’ll show up.” It struck him that the house Frankie Miller described was unlikely to be where Clifford lived. Rather, he suspected, a trysting place.

Monday morning he sent Hamish to the Brooklyn City Hall. “I expect it may take a bit of time, Hamish, given that it’s over in Brooklyn, but I need to know whose name is on the deed.”

“Och, not so much time as all that, Mr. Turner. Not the way it might have done in the past.”

“Before the bridge, you mean? I suppose it will get you across the water faster than the ferry once the novelty wears off, but just now it’s so crowded you can’t—”

Hamish smiled. “I dinna’ mean exactly that, sir.”

Josh took a moment, then caught on. “You’ve got the Brooklyn clerk on our payroll as well?”

“It was Mrs. Turner’s idea, sir. A wee notion she had when it began to appear the bridge might after all be finished.”

“Thank you, Tess. That’s beautifully pressed. Now hang it away. I don’t know when I shall wear it next.”

“What about that Metropolitan Opera I read about?” Tess carried the magnolia-colored evening dress to the clothes closet Mr. Turner had built right in to each of the bedrooms so no wardrobe was necessary. It was to her one of the most marvelous of the wonders of Park Avenue. “They sing songs where no one understands the words and no one can sing along. But folks get all dressed up to go and listen.”

“Yes, they’ve a new building on Thirty-Ninth and Broadway. It’s meant to be quite grand. But I don’t think I could convince Mr. Turner to take me to the opera. Perhaps I shall ask Mr. Ganz to be my escort. He’s from Germany, isn’t he? I believe they enjoy opera in Germany.”

“Not Germany, Austria. It’s different. Like my third husband, the MacLachlan. He got devilish upset when anyone said England and meant Scotland. That’s how Sol Ganz is about mixing up Austria and Germany.”

“My word, Tess, I’d no idea you knew so much about Mr. Ganz. And you’re as red as Mrs. Hannity’s raspberry jam. Here, sit down.”

“No need for that.” Tess used her apron to fan her flushed face. “It’s warm in here, that’s all.”

“Well, sit down anyway. Tell me how you know Mr. Ganz is from Austria.”

“It was his wife, Mrs. Turner. Esther Cohen when I knew her first. She was a milliner ahead of she married Sol Ganz. Made me my hat.”

“Did she! Mr. Ganz’s wife. He speaks of her with great fondness. How did she die?”

“Consumption. Took her when she was still just a girl. Such a pity. And them never having no children or nothing. I always thought he’d marry again but—What is it, Mrs. Turner? You’ve gone all over pale. Oh dear, I shouldn’t have said . . . I didn’t mean to . . .”

“I’m fine, Tess. And thank you for pressing the gown and telling
me about Mrs. Ganz. Now you’d best go back to the kitchen. I’m sure Mrs. Hannity wants you for something.”

Josh’s office continued to be a movable feast. For the past month it had been located in the first of his buildings, in flat Two B in the St. Nicholas on East Sixty-Third Street. At just before lunchtime Mollie knew there was no guarantee she’d find him there, but it was the best chance and she took it.

She didn’t bother with the elevator, instead climbed the stairs, knocked on the door, and opened it without waiting for a reply. “Hamish, is Mr. Turner here. I need—”

“Right here, my dear.” Josh appeared in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. “What is it?” Then, seeing the look of her, “Hamish, perhaps you’d like to go off to lunch.”

“Och, I’m away just now, Mr. Turner,” tipping his hat to Mollie as he left.

“Now,” Josh said, “sit down and tell me what it is that couldn’t wait until I came home.”

“It’s about Sol Ganz,” she said. “I’ve discovered the most remarkable thing.”

“If it’s about Tess, I’m afraid I know.”

“You know that Mr. Ganz’s wife was the milliner who made Tess’s hat?”

Josh shook his head and cursed himself for jumping to conclusions. “I’m sorry. I’m apparently on the wrong trail. But surely you’ve not come here to talk about Tess’s hat?”

“Not exactly. But it does have a bearing on the matter. Tess just told me that Esther Cohen the milliner was her friend, and Esther married Sol Ganz. But when Mrs. Ganz was still very young the poor thing got consumption and died. The remarkable part of Tess’s story, however, is that the Ganzes never had any children. And Mr. Ganz never remarried. Do you see?”