Lawless (49 page)

And Courtleigh hadn’t forgotten.

“He hasn’t, Gideon,” she breathed in the stillness. “You don’t dare think he has, because that’s just when he’ll strike.”

“I
HAVE NO
business attending a rally conducted by radicals,” Theo Payne said as he and Gideon left the
Union
one day almost five months later. “P. J. McGuire is socialist and so is his Committee on Public Safety.”

Gideon laughed as they started toward a hack stand on Park Row. It was a mild winter day, bright but cloudy; the thirteenth of January, 1874. “I think you have your verbs mixed up, Theo. McGuire may have organized the rally but it certainly won’t be conducted by radicals. The mayor is scheduled to speak. And Johnny Swinton of the
Sun.”
Swinton was chief editorial writer for the rival paper.

“That’s the sole reason I’m going. I want to watch Johnny reveal his new insanity to the world at large.”

There was no point arguing. He could never convince Payne that the hundreds of unemployed men and women at Tompkins Square would be voicing demands that were eminently reasonable. The rally had been arranged to protest the epidemic unemployment afflicting New York and other major cities. Local trade unions wanted the city council to temporarily forbid evictions by landlords, appropriate some money for emergency relief, and start a public works program to create jobs. Payne and many others considered those proposals fully as socialistic as some of the men making them.

Gideon glanced at his watch. They were already twenty minutes late for the start of the program. He’d been detained in a meeting with one of those so-called advertising agents who were popping up everywhere these days. The agents centralized the purchase of advertising space on behalf of a list of clients. Of course they earned a substantial markup in the process, but they offered newspapers a definite advantage. By paying promptly on behalf of their clients, the agent relieved a paper of the burden of collecting from slow-paying or defaulting customers. The agent who’d called on Gideon, a representative of the N. W. Ayer firm of Philadelphia, had placed a large order for space. He therefore wanted the publisher’s personal attention and he’d gotten it.

As the two men crossed the square, Gideon gave only slight notice to an unusually tall Street Arab lounging against the Franklin statue. In the autumn just passed, he might have scrutinized the shabbily clad youth more closely. At that time Julia’s letter of warning had been fresh in his mind. For a few weeks he was very watchful as he moved around town. Nothing happened. By the end of December he relaxed again.

The story of Torvald Ericsson’s death had never appeared in the
Union.
By the time Gideon was in a position to order it put into type, the charges were not only unprovable but stale. He’d had a hot argument with Payne about it. The editor maintained—and correctly, Gideon had to admit once his anger cooled—that Sidney Florian’s disappearance in the fire removed the sole source of evidence to support the charges. Without evidence, a statement that Courtleigh had sanctioned murder was only supposition.

“If you want to practice that kind of journalism, Gideon, let’s go all the way. Let’s pack the paper with accusations against anyone we dislike. We can call your banker a Shylock, my wife a Bowery chippy, President Grant a sot and a spoilsman and do it all with a perfectly clear conscience.”

He was only willing to bow to Payne because he felt sure another time would come when Courtleigh would err on the side of repression and get caught at it. Then Gideon would have his hide. In print.

Payne hailed the first hack in line. Gideon called to the driver, “Tompkins Square,” and jumped inside. A moment later the vehicle was speeding north along Chatham Street and then into the traffic of the Bowery.

The tall street boy had been loitering along behind them, within earshot. As soon as the carriage sped away, he dashed for a nearby office that transmitted telegraph messages to other points in the city.

Tompkins Square had originally been laid out as a military drill ground. Though still used by militia units, it had now become a park that was being slowly swallowed by the expanding ghetto. The square’s northern and southern boundaries were East Tenth and East Seventh Streets. The hack approached along the latter thoroughfare, from the west. Traffic was so heavy, Payne and Gideon were forced to pay the driver at First Avenue, then walk.

A huge crowd had been turned out by the trade unions and socialist clubs. Men, women and youngsters packed the square and spilled into Avenues A and B on either side. As Gideon and his companion pushed their way along the noisy, congested sidewalk in front of Seventh Street tenements, more socialists came parading toward the site of the rally. They marched four abreast to the music of a small band. The winter sky shed a dull light on bare heads and plumes of breath. Most of the marchers wore some sort of improvised red sash over the shoulder or around the waist.

Payne and Gideon took note of three stern New York policemen on horseback near the curb. Elsewhere in the crowd Gideon began to discern uniformed foot patrolmen. All of the police were armed with long, thick wooden clubs.

Payne pursed his lips. “Who turned out so many of our finest, I wonder?”

Gideon shook his head. In the street, another socialist club was marching along from First Avenue. A red beard streaked with white caught Gideon’s eye. He stretched on tiptoe.

“Sime?” He waved. “Over here!”

Stepping to the beat of a snare drum, Strelnik swiveled his head. He saw Gideon. He faced front again with no sign of recognition. Slowly Gideon lowered his hand. His face was somber.

“Is the program under way?” Payne asked. His height kept him from seeing much besides backsides on the crowded sidewalk. Again Gideon went up on his toes.

“Doesn’t appear to be. The square’s full, though. Speakers are on the platform. Oh, there’s Frank Jamison—”

Gideon squeezed by an elderly woman in a red sash. Payne followed him to the side of the
Herald
reporter they both knew. “I thought the rally was due to start thirty minutes ago,” Gideon said to Jamison.

The
Herald
man was leaning against the corner of a small grocery with a closed sign in its window. He puffed his cigar before answering, “There’s been a delay. Some objection from city hall. The mayor isn’t going to speak after all. And he’s withdrawn permission for the rally.”

“You mean all these people are gathered illegally?” Payne said.

With a slow nod, Jamison said, “Only no one’s bothered to tell most of them.” Suddenly he spied something back along Seventh. He dropped his cigar and pointed.

“Jehoshaphat. Look. Those men are forming up—”

Gideon turned. A whole troop of mounted police was maneuvering into ranks that stretched from one side of Seventh to the other. Near Tompkins Square there were cries of alarm. People in the street scattered. The noses of the police horses gave off streams of vapor. The hazy sun shimmered on polished wooden clubs.

Neither Gideon, Payne, nor any other witnesses saw the signal for the charge that started the riot.

The demonstrators had come in an angry, militant mood. The police were equally militant and equally angry, Gideon realized. He watched with a stunned look as the first mounted rank, then the second and third, swept into the people still unlucky enough to be in the street.

A boy slipped. As he rose, a policeman in the second rank rode by and bashed him with his billy. The boy reeled back, his temple gushing blood down the side of his face.

“My God,” Theo Payne exclaimed. “They’re going to kill those people.”

Gideon said, “Isn’t that what they deserve? After all, they’re radicals.”

The editor gave him a strange, intense look. Jamison of the
Herald
slipped away. There was commotion on the sidewalk, the crowd surging and swaying forward, driven by half a dozen foot policemen swinging clubs.

“Clear the walk. Clear the walk and go to your homes!”

When an elderly man retorted and reached for one of the clubs, two policemen attacked. Gideon heard a crunch of bone, then a cry. The man sank from sight.

What had been a relatively orderly scene quickly degenerated to howling confusion. From all sides, mounted and dismounted police poured into Tompkins Square with clubs flying. Red-sashed marchers broke ranks and either ran or squared off to fight. The speakers’ platform began to sway. It quickly collapsed, its supports demolished by the frantic mob.

Buffeted along toward Avenue A, Gideon shouted that he wanted to locate Strelnik. Payne clutched his arm like a frightened child. “Don’t abandon me in this sea of lunatics!” Through a break in the crowd, he glimpsed a foot patrolman at the curb. He wedged and shoved till he was facing the officer. “See here, I’m Theophilus Payne of the New York
Union.
Who revoked the order permitting this assembl—”

“Watch out, Theo!”

Gideon’s cry came too late. The policeman slashed Payne’s face with his club.

The editor pitched backward into Gideon’s arms, his cheek bleeding from a break in the skin. The policeman started for Gideon next. Then he took note of his size and ran the other way, swinging his club wildly. Payne could only gasp, “No one has ever—
assaulted
me in—my entire life.”

“I expect he mistook you for a socialist sympathizer,” Gideon said with a humorless smile. “Here, sop up that blood with my handkerchief.”

“But I’m not wearing a sash, for God’s sake. I’m doing nothing wrong!”

“Neither are the rest of them, Theo.”

Payne gave Gideon another long look. Something seemed to dawn in his eyes as the first of a volley of shots exploded in the square.

Anyone who remained on the footpaths or winter-browned grass of Tompkins Square was fair game for the charging policemen. Gideon helped Payne around the corner to the west side of Avenue A, then down some stairs into a small entrance area belonging to a basement flat. Another young man, dark-haired and rather sallow, had also taken refuge there. He watched the carnage with stricken eyes.

“The radicals brought this on by staging the rally,” the man said to Gideon. He was in his early twenties and spoke with a hint of an English accent.

“Sorry. I happen to be on the side of the unions,” Gideon answered as he helped Payne sit on a lower step. The editor had a dazed look. He mumbled about needing a bracer.

The poorly dressed young man hadn’t liked Gideon’s remark.

“So am I, mister. I’m a member of the cigarmakers. But I am not on the side of the socialist fringe that’s always pushing for a scrap with the law.”

Gideon started to argue. The young man grabbed his arm and pulled him down. A large rock sailed into the entrance area. The rock smashed a narrow window light beside the apartment door. Glass sprayed everywhere.

“You all right?” the young man asked. Gideon nodded. “Guess it isn’t the best of places for a debate. I jumped down here fearing for my life.”

With good reason, Gideon thought. Back by the corner, someone screamed. The noise and confusion worsened. Out in the square a horseman charged along a footpath. A figure with a familiar red beard ran at the mounted policeman, swinging both fists. The policeman clubbed the man three times and galloped on.

Gideon sprang toward the steps. “Would you watch my friend, Mr. … ?”

“Sam Gompers. Certainly will.”

He raced up the steps and sprinted into Avenue A. Strelnik lay on the footpath, not moving.

A woman came limping from Gideon’s left, hurrying two small, ragged boys away from a foot patrolman who was pursuing them. The older boy had a bruised left eye that was swollen shut. The woman wailed as the officer whipped his club toward the back of her head.

Before the blow landed, Gideon bowled into the man and knocked him down. The woman and children escaped into the melee on East Seventh. Gideon ran into the square before the policeman could rise, but a second unexpectedly grabbed him from behind.

“Clear the area!”

Gideon glanced at the club poised over his head. “Touch me with that and I’ll break your back.”

The policeman muttered something, lowered the club and went in search of other victims.

There were shouts, screams, moans of pain from all parts of the square. Pairs of mounted policemen started galloping down Avenues A and B in pursuit of escaping demonstrators. As Gideon approached, Strelnik stirred. Gideon helped him up.

Strelnik was groggy; he didn’t realize who was grasping his hand. Blood streamed down the right side of his face from a deep scalp wound hidden by his hair.

“Sime, it’s me. Come along. There’s a safe place over on the side of—”

Strelnik pulled away. “No, thank you, Gideon. I need no help from your kind.”

Gideon reached for him again. “Don’t be a fool. Take my arm and lean on me.”

“Careful,” Strelnik exclaimed, jerking back so hard he nearly fell. “You wouldn’t want a workingman’s blood on that fine capitalist suit.”

“For Christ’s sake, Sim?, it’s time to forget that kind of stupid—”

The paunchy little Russian turned and limped off toward the north side of the square, clutching his middle and weaving from side to side. Blood dripped from the tip of his beard and left bright drops on the footpath.

Gideon followed him for half a dozen steps, called his name. Strelnik never paused. Despondent, Gideon turned back toward the curb. A policeman on horseback rounded the corner from Tenth Street and controlled his prancing horse as he searched the square. When he caught sight of Gideon crossing the street, he broke into a smile.

That was a strange reaction, Gideon thought. All he could see of the policeman’s face was a bulbous nose and a large gap where upper front teeth should have been. The man carried no club. Abruptly, he booted his horse into a canter.

Gideon walked faster to get out of the path of the animal. The policeman thrust his hand beneath his dirty tunic and pulled a pistol. Now his intention was unmistakable.