31 Bond Street (24 page)

January 31, 1857

T
he horse snorted a breath of smoke. The carriage was winding downtown toward the tip of the city, past Wall Street and Exchange Place to the small streets that dotted the edge of the island, ending at the docks and wharves. During the day, Water Street was alive with money changers, sail makers, commission merchants, and cotton agents. Now, long after the dinner hour, the only lights came from the phosphorous lamps dangling from the masts of the ships, a string of beads along the waterline. The streets were empty, except when the door of a lone tavern opened, releasing a raucous blast of laughter as men fell out into the night, their voices fading away along the quays.

The carriage twisted along tiny streets that were only a block or two long, and they circled around, for in the oldest part of town, there was no grid. “Stop here,” said Dr. Burdell to Samuel. It was so dark that Dr. Burdell got out to examine the numbers on the doors. In his black cape and hat, he darted left and right, in front of a squat row of buildings hobbled with crooked dormers, looking for the correct entrance. A shadow slithered along the ground, like
rippling velvet, a rat scudding through the gutter. From the water, Samuel heard the faint sighing of masts and the clanging of rigging. By the sound of the wind and the lapping waves as they hit the buoys, he could tell which way the sea was running. A fast-rising storm, a squall far out, was headed this way. From out beyond Rockaway Point the ocean sent rolling swells up into the bay. The water lifted the hulls of the boats up high, and then dropped them down against their ropes, pulling against the moorings like ghosts rattling their chains.

“Pull the carriage into this alley,” Dr. Burdell ordered, in a hoarse whisper. Samuel led the horse by the reins and squeezed the vehicle into the rutted space between two buildings. “Leave the carriage and come with me.” Dr. Burdell pulled his gun from its holster and pointed the muzzle at Samuel as a warning, then returned it to its place under his jacket. Dr. Burdell opened a wooden door and followed behind Samuel up a twisting staircase to a captain’s den. The room was lined with cases of bound ship’s ledgers and leather chairs that were cracked with years of use. Overhead was a hanging whale oil lamp with polished brass fixtures in the shape of harpoons. It cast an amber glow across a round table. The light beams bounced everywhere like a mirage—for spread across the table were piles of gold, shimmering along the length of the tabletop. And standing on the other side of the table, bathed in the luminous aura, was Ambrose Wicken.

Burdell faced him across the table, mesmerized before the jumble of gold, arranged in different heights, like a miniature city. The effect of such abundance was hypnotic. “The syndicate has been most generous, don’t you agree?” said Wicken, lifting his hand and passing it through the air like a benediction across the columns of coins.

“I will count it later,” said Dr. Burdell, placing his satchel on a chair and unlatching the straps. He reached for some drawstring
bags that he had brought to carry the money, and he opened them with the thirsty look of a man who had been denied his liquor too long.

“Not so fast,” said Wicken.

“Let’s be done. I am here to take the money.” Dr. Burdell started to lift some of the coins to drop them in his bag. Wicken slapped away his hand. Burdell stopped short, shooting a glance at Samuel, standing by the door.

“I see you have brought your Negro watchdog.” Wicken’s grin turned nasty, with a slight curl of his lip. “In the South, we use Negroes to procure life’s illicit pleasures: women, guns, intoxicants. They are our go-betweens, and their silence is assured because the law never comes down on their side. As our shadows, they will always take the fall.” Wicken picked up a few of the gold coins and threw them at Samuel. “But if they are rewarded, they become most helpful.” The coins fell under the table and rolled to a stop at his feet. Samuel did not bend to pick them up. “Now, Dr. Burdell, before we continue, I must inform you that I feel entitled to share this bounty with you.”

Burdell shot an incredulous look at Wicken. “There is nothing that gives you a share. This is my money for the sale of the land. Your commission was paid by the syndicate, and you should be satisfied with that.”

Wicken picked up a stack of coins and let them fall through his fingers like poker chips. “You swindled an unsuspecting widow into buying a worthless piece of swampland. Afterward, you discovered it had value. I happen to know the deed is still in her title, and it seems that by selling it, you are committing another swindle.”

“She will do as I say, for her main interest is marriage. That gives me control of her property. She has every intention of following my course.”

Wicken laughed, half scornful, half incredulous. “Is that so? On the night you abandoned me at the opera with your lady friends, I discovered you feasted at Delmonico’s with Commodore Vanderkirk. You were going behind our back and double-crossing the syndicate as an attempt to raise the price. I am sure you saw your maneuver as beneficial to yourself. However, while doing so, I had the opportunity to become intimate with the ladies and gain their confidence and trust.”

Dr. Burdell growled, clearly unnerved by the silky delivery of Wicken’s message. “There are no more obstacles to this sale,” Burdell said. “The men from the party have signed the papers, their advocate’s mark is upon them, this deal is done. Give me my money.”

“I agree that the deal should not be undone. That is why I am proposing that we join forces, to avoid it unraveling. I suggest we become partners, and as partners we will split this pot, and everything else, half and half. I am aware that the title of the deed is not yours, nor is it Emma Cunningham’s to sell. The property is rightfully her daughter’s, as it was purchased with the girl’s dowry. As her fiancé, I have an active interest in it.”

“This is madness! You are a fortune hunter.”

“Do you take me for a rogue? The impression I made on Madame Cunningham was most favorable, and her daughter is as much as delivered to my lap,” said Wicken with a gracious smirk. “And I have taken the proper measures to secure my prize. I took her for a buggy ride, if you know what I mean,” he cackled.

“Even Emma has more sense than to marry her daughter to a blackguard like you,” Dr. Burdell hissed, and then paused to comprehend the meaning of Wicken’s insinuations. He shot Samuel a glance. Samuel tensed. “Don’t threaten me,” Burdell said. “Or this game is over.” Wicken saw Dr. Burdell’s glance toward Samuel, and now the three men silently stared at one another. Samuel
dodged his eyes downward, his muscles taught, while the two men eyed each other, as if at a duel. Whichever man reached for his revolver first, he would shoot the other, and Samuel would be shot next.

“It would be quite an arrangement! If I married the daughter, and you married the mother, you would be my father-in-law.” Wicken laughed again, his head rolling back, as if drunk on his own mirth. And in that split second he missed Dr. Burdell’s hand flashing to his waist, so quickly that it seemed merely a second before the gunmetal clicked and burst, pointing and sending a bullet downward toward the table, in such a loud rupture that the room was filled with the explosive sound. The table was solid oak and the bullet simply disappeared into it, sunken and caught inside the thick meat of the wooden surface, but before it got there, it passed directly through the white flesh of Ambrose Wicken’s right hand.

Wicken gaped at his hand on the table, swollen and bloodied, disabled and broken. The room was encased in the sickening smell of gunpowder, and smoke hung in the silent aftershock. Dr. Burdell hastened around the table and placed his Colt revolver at Wicken’s head. “I am leaving now. Don’t make me shatter your skull, too.” He patted down Wicken at his waist and retrieved his pearl-handled revolver, a delicate ladylike instrument, fashionably lethal.

With one hand pointing a revolver at Wicken, and the other revolver pointed at Samuel, he waved to Samuel to drop the stacks of coins into the money bags. Samuel complied, and soon they were filled. Then he indicated that Samuel was to place them in the satchel. With the revolver still pointed at Wicken’s temple, he said to Wicken, “I am leaving. Don’t follow us. And get rid of any attachment you have to that girl or this money.” He started to walk carefully toward the door, both guns still lifted, inching out of the
room. Burdell hurried Samuel out of the building. In the alley, Dr. Burdell climbed onto the coachman’s seat, instead of into the cab, and sat next to Samuel, with the gun clutched in his hand, and the barrel pressed into Samuel’s side, into the fleshy area at his waist. Samuel snapped the reins and the horses moved forward, and Dr. Burdell said, “Get me home, fast.”

May 14, 1857

C
linton put down his pen, extinguished the last light, and climbed the stairs. In his bedroom, he moved across the carpet in his slippers. He took off his clothes and put a nightshirt over his head. Elisabeth was asleep in the high feather bed with her arm bent behind her head. He thought of Emma Cunningham’s story about the night of the murder, her girls, together, all asleep in one bed, and he thought of the boy, John, and the bed Elisabeth had made for him in the room off the pantry, with its pile of bedding, and he thought of the boy’s mother, who could no longer sew, ensconced in a tiny garret. And he thought that it would be a long time before the law could protect those soft places.

He slipped into the sheets next to Elisabeth. Even when she was sleeping, he could feel her love, for she loved in the largest way. He lay his head down on the pillow. As a way to quiet his mind after a clamorous day in court, he often repeated verse in his head to keep his own words from revolving in his mind. Elisabeth had introduced him to poetry early in their marriage, carrying slender volumes along on their country walks. They would stop somewhere
and sit, and she would read from the Romantics, introducing him to Shelley and Byron and Wordsworth. They both enjoyed memorizing verses, and he often recalled these poems in bed, to ease himself to sleep before a big day at trial.

The stanza came from
The Daemon of the World
, a long poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Elisabeth had read it aloud, years ago, tackling the hundreds of lines over many sittings. They sparred at a competition to see who could commit the most lines to memory. She labored over it and won, by walking around the house as she performed her chores, singing out large portions. But he knew that the poem held her fascination because of a later stanza. When she had first discovered it, it spoke to her, not of the universal, but the personal, as if it had been written for them alone.

January 31, 1857

The dropping of the horse’s hooves made a hollow ring. A sharp gust lifted the horse’s mane. The brick walls and iron fences along Bond Street were covered with tangled twigs from the leafless vines that twisted and scraped in the wind. Samuel pulled the reins to
halt the horse in front of 31 Bond Street. He winced when he heard the metal click again, but it was from the release of the gun cock as Dr. Burdell returned the gun to his waist.

Dr. Burdell descended without a word and paused under the lamplight for his key. He pulled a heavy key ring from his cloak and slid the largest iron key into the door, then turned and snarled: “Be off to the stable.” Samuel trembled at his release, and then plodded the horse along the block to the stable door, his rage returning, for the Bible says:
There shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.

Inside the house, the lamps were left low, with just enough light to illuminate the way up the stairs. The key to his office door fit into the lock with a smooth and noiseless turn. He moved across his office and threw some coals on top of the dying embers of the grate. After turning up a lamp, he took off his cloak and folded it on the sofa. He took off his overshoes and placed them next to the fire. He checked the contents of the satchel, opening a drawstring bag and sifting his hand pleasurably through the gold. He took the satchel into the wardrobe passage and closed the door. He pulled out the single drawer under the hanging clothes, near the floor, and lifted the shelf that covered the low drawer. It revealed a hatch. Inside the hole was a ladder that descended, and he lowered himself down, descending fourteen feet, deep into a hiding space inside the thick parlor wall that contained the massive sliding door that separated the two parlors. He brought the satchel down with him. He enjoyed the descent. It was dark; it was silent. He deposited the satchel and the two pistols at the bottom and climbed back up.

He stepped back into his office and looked at the clock on the mantel. It was ten minutes past midnight. He noticed that the ledger on his desk was open with pale lines and inked entries, with orderly dollar signs in correct columns. There was no need to share. Not with Wicken, and not with Emma. Control was of the essence,
and if necessary, control was the ability to silence, exerted at incremental moments. Such a moment had arrived. Emma would be in bed. Should he pull the cord for her to come downstairs, or should he go up with a rag and a cloth to place over her face? He stood up and walked over to the sliding panel under his washbasin and bent down to look at the powders in the hidden cabinet, lined up in glass bottles. Laudanum and ether and cocaine. And behind a crystal bottle of strychnine.

As he crouched down low, reaching into the cabinet, he did not hear the movement on the carpet until the shadow was at his back. From behind, a sharp sliver of ice descended into the side of his neck, deep and swift. Colors flashed across his eyes. He cowered, lowering his head into his arms and covering his face against the dark blows that now penetrated into his back, in and out. He was overcome by the sensation of his own tearing skin and muscle. He choked back dark air as an arm grabbed him from behind, yanking his hair, exposing his throat. The blade sliced the thin membrane of his neck, and fluid filled his mouth. He stood up, blinded by the flow of blood, staggering like a bull, and turned toward his attacker, who prevented his escape, as the dagger hit him, again and again, now from the front, thrusting into his torso and pushing him against the shaft of steel. A carrion of birds ripped into his flesh. He slipped to the ground as if into a spiral, floating and twirling, becoming smaller and smaller, diminishing into a bottomless abyss.

“Damn you,” said a voice at his ear. “Damn you.”