City of Glory (53 page)

Manon felt the tug, pushed aside the curtain, and jumped up, raising the lantern she’d lit earlier. She had spent the past hour sitting on the floor beneath her bedroom window, after she’d cracked it just enough to allow the cord attached to the small basket to hang free.

Joyful saw her framed in the window, illuminated by the lantern’s flickering light. She shook her head to signal silence, but he knew better than to call her name. Manon jerked the cord up and down to direct his attention. He looked into the basket. There was enough light from the window to see a folded note. He took it and she hauled up the basket at once, then set down the lantern, and the alley was again dark. Moments later the glow of the lantern was restored, and Manon was leaning out above him. Tall as he was, their faces were only a few feet apart.

“Careful,” Joyful whispered. “You’ll fall.”

“I won’t. Besides, if I did, you would catch me.”

“Without doubt,” he said. “I will always catch you.”

“I know.”

“Manon, I’ve been so worried. Why didn’t you come to—”

“It’s all in my letter. Papa has confined me to the house because I wouldn’t tell him where I was on Sunday. And he and Mr. Frank—”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to tell you. They’ve no plans to cut the stone.”

“You’re sure?”

“Entirely. Listen,” he pressed himself to the brick wall, taking off his hat and tipping his head back so he could see her better. “I’ve aligned myself with Jacob Astor. It’s for the sake of the country, but it also means he won’t oppose me as a trader, and the other morning, at the Tontine—”

His words were interrupted by the sound of a watchman’s shrill whistle. Seventy-two men under the orders of a high constable named Jacob Hays silently prowled the town at night from 9
P.M
. until sunrise. They traveled in pairs, and the whistle was sounded only if they caught a criminal in the act and required help from other watchmen nearby.

There was another blast of the whistle, followed by the sound of running feet. “They’re close,” Joyful said. “Quick, put out the lantern.”

She did and they were plunged into darkness. They heard shouts, the sound of a scuffle, and soon silence. Whatever miscreant the watch had surprised had been taken into custody and would be marched off to the New Gaol to face justice in the morning. The incident would have the watchmen who remained in the area particularly alert. “You must go,” Manon whispered.

“Yes, I know. When—”

“In my letter,” she whispered. “Everything. Please, Joyful, go.”

“You are always my love,” he said, feeling her presence just above him in the black dark. “Always.”

“And you are mine. Always mine.”

Nonetheless, he called next at the Knave.

Thursday, August 25, 1814

Chapter Twenty-one

New York City,
the Dancing Knave, 1
A.M.

F
ROM THE FIRST
it had been their custom to settle their accounts midweek. Delight had everything ready for him. “Mostly coin,” she said as she handed over the moneybag with Joyful’s four percent share of the Knave’s earnings. “But I had to take some paper this past week. It was that or nothing at all.”

“Paper’s definitely better than nothing at all,” Joyful said. He’d not asked for a formal accounting since the first few months of their arrangement, and he was convinced she had never cheated him. He didn’t expect she ever would, despite how much else might change. “Listen,” he said, “I might not be able to come myself for the next few weeks. I’ll send someone to collect for me.”

They were in the little ground-floor office. Delight was seated behind the small writing table; he stood in front of it. She’d turned up the oil lamp and looked especially lovely in the glow. Diamonds sparkled in her ears tonight, and she wore a blue gown the color of the sea. “Delight…”

“Yes?” She would not let him see her longing.

“I…” There was no way he could find the words to say it was over between them, not without wounding her. Best just let it lie, and die a natural death. “Nothing,” he said. “I was thinking I’d send a lad next week. Has only one arm, so you’ll have no difficulty knowing he’s the one.”

“None at all.” She stood up. “Might I ask what’s to keep you so engaged?”

“Business. The things I’ve been sorting these past few months are coming to a head.”

Delight leaned over to shorten the lamp’s wick and dim the light. The exquisite curve of her breasts was accented by the movement. She remained one of the most beautiful women Joyful had ever seen, and with him, one of the most giving. But he didn’t love her, at least not the way he loved Manon. If he knew why, he’d go down in history as one of the great sages.
I am confined to my room, dearest, presumably until I am given to Gornt Blakeman or Monsieur DeFane’s nephew.
He’d read the letter before he came. Now it was lodged next to his heart, in the same pocket with the papers giving him forty-nine percent ownership of Devrey Shipping.

Delight moved toward the door, careful not to brush against him. “I hope your business goes well, Joyful. Now, I must see to mine.”

“Delight…”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

She shrugged. “It has always been a mutually satisfactory arrangement, hasn’t it, Joyful?”

“Indeed. But more than merely satisfactory.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I always try to give full value for money. Now, you must excuse me.”

“I didn’t mean…”

He watched her go, her back rigid, her head high. Guilt was a foul taste in his mouth, and he slammed the office door behind him and strode through the hall looking neither to the right nor to the left. Preservation Shay saw him coming and pulled open the front door. Joyful went through it without a pause or a nod, not even for Bearded Agnes, who was hovering nearby looking as if she wanted to speak with him. The mare Mary Jane was tethered at the foot of the steps. He loosed her, then leapt onto her back and headed south, bent forward, giving the old horse her head and wishing mightily that she were a younger, more powerful animal, one that would give him a ride to cool his fires in a rush of wind.

Papa is determined I must marry,
Manon had written.
And I expect one suitor is as good as another, as long as he appears in a timely fashion.

Time he talked to the goldsmith. Hell, it was past time.

The New Gaol, 7:30
A.M.

It was not the usual way of things for the high constable himself to pass judgment on those caught in flagrante delicto during the previous night. For one thing, it was the job of a police justice, a new layer of officialdom in the system of controlling crime in the city, while the high constable was meant to sit at the pinnacle of that ever growing organization. For another, despite his reputation as a crime fighter, Jacob Hays disliked rising early. He was there that morning because there was no one else. Fear of a British invasion was intense. The mayor had ordered as many able-bodied men as were on the city’s payroll to fell trees and build barricades in the upper reaches of Manhattan.

Hays sat at the table on the dais behind the wooden bar that divided judge from accused in the room they called the Police Office. He tried not to let his heavy eyes close. The gaoler marched a man forward, the fourth prisoner and the last of the morning. “This here’s Patrick Aloysius Burney, High Constable. Or so he says.”

Irish. Hays wasn’t surprised. Two of the first three miscreants had been as well. Might be the city would be a Garden of Eden where the lamb would lie down with the lion if only the Irish had stayed in their own country. “What’s he done then?”

“Caught loitering near Maiden Lane. Close to midnight, it was.”

“And what’s he say he was doin’ there?”

“Won’t say.” The watchman who had made the arrest the night before jumped up from one of the benches in the rear of the room. Hays thought it odd that the fellow was hanging about the Police Office at this hour. Would have supposed he wanted his bed by now. “Would’t say last night, High Constable,” the man shouted, “and won’t say now.”

“I see. Thank ye for the information.”

“It’s not true.” Burney spoke in his own defense, since there was no one else to do it. “’Twas after taking a walk, I was. And—”

Hays struck the desk with the gavel. “Speak when you’re spoken to. Otherwise, I’ll have no doubt you’re guilty as charged.”

Burney shut his mouth, gritting his teeth to keep it shut. Holy Mother o’ God, wasn’t it just his luck to draw the man was said to be harder on crime than any other in the city. Looked like some sort o’ scrawny little bird sitting up there on his high perch. Hooked beak and all.

Some said Jacob Hays was a Protestant and others that he was a Hebrew, but didn’t matter whether he was a heretic or a Christ killer, he had the power o’ life and death over Patrick Aloysius Burney this day. Never mind that he’d done nothin’ except try to keep an eye on Joyful Turner the way he was paid to. And while it was true enough that New York had given up public whipping a few years before, and that nowadays they mostly only executed you for murder or theft from a church, treason was still a hanging crime. All Five Points was bubbling with talk. Were you with Mr. Madison and the Union or with Gornt Blakeman? Any mention o’ Blakeman might lead to a hangman’s noose, and Brigid Clare would be twice an orphan. Not that a prison sentence was much better. Who would look after his little girl if they sent him up the river to Newgate Prison in the village of Greenwich to do hard labor for a year or maybe two?

“The prisoner had this on his person as well, High Constable.” The watchman held up a small moneybag marked with a green cross.

“I never did! You’re a lyin’—” The denial burst out of Burney at the same time that there was a disturbance of some sort at the door in the rear of the room. Hays banged the gavel and shouted at the bailiff to maintain order, demanding to know what the trouble was.

“Some fellows want to come in, High Constable. I told ’em we was already in session, but—”

“This is a free country and it’s a public hearing,” Hays said. “Let ’em in.”

The watchman glanced back at the bailiff, then up front to the high constable’s raised perch. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, don’t you want to have done with this prisoner afore you—”

Jacob Hays had been doing police business twenty years. He knew there was no way to keep a force of nearly two hundred men entirely free of one sort of influence or another, but when the conniving was going on right under his nose, bloody cheek that was. Besides, he didn’t like seeing a man as was maybe innocent made the butt o’ the scheming to get a few pennies more than was in a copper’s regular pay packet. Even if the man was Irish. False witness was an offense against the Holy One, blessed be His Name. “Let ’em in,” he repeated.

“But—”

The gavel cracked again and the door was opened.

F. X. Gallagher didn’t make any effort to hide his profession. A vicious-looking cleaver hung from his belt, his trousers and his cutaway were both stained with blood, and the three men with him wore the leather aprons of their trade. But all four respectfully removed their hats and stood quietly in the back of the room.

Hays spent a few moments looking at them, trying to determine the connection between F.X. and Patrick Burney, but none came to mind in regard to this particular incident. The high constable turned his attention back to the prisoner. “As I recall, you was saying that the watchman here had made a mistake. That the moneybag with the green cross wasn’t yours?”

Patrick Burney saw danger in the front and possibly worse danger behind. Jesus Christ as his witness, he wasn’t afraid o’ any man alive, but he had the sense he’d become a cat’s-paw in something he didn’t understand, and that it involved men with a great deal more power than he had. And the real victim was likely to be his little girl, the saints have mercy on her. “I didn’t have that moneybag, Mr. Hays, sir.” His mouth was too dry to let words come easily. “Didn’t have any money at all. And that’s the truth.”

“No, it’s not,” the watchman insisted. “Three coppers I found inside.” He jiggled the bag so the coins clattered. “You can see for yourself, sir.”

“Mr. High Constable,” Gallagher called out, “I have vital information concerning the prisoner. May I speak?”

“Ah, Mr. F. X. Gallagher. I might have known you’d not have disturbed yourself so early in the morning if you didn’t have something to tell us. Speak, sir. We’re paying close attention.”

“The bag belongs to one of my associates, here. In a manner of speaking. He had found it not long before, and knowing that the green cross was sometimes associated with criminal activity, he intended to give it to the first watchman he saw. Then this poor fellow was apprehended and to tell the truth, my associate was frightened—at least four of your bravest and biggest watchmen were involved, Mr. High Constable—so this wretch dropped the bag and ran.” F.X. had his hand on the shoulder of one of the leather-aprons during this speech, and the man kept nodding his head in agreement with what was said.