City of Promise (16 page)

“Exactly.”

“Then,” the dwarf said after a moment’s more consideration, “you pays me nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“That’s right. Not in cash money as is doled out every week like the rest gets.”

“What then, Mr. Tickle?” Josh wouldn’t have been surprised if the dwarf asked for Trent Clifford’s head on a platter.

“One of them there flats as you calls ’em, Mr. Turner.” The dwarf pointed to the blueprint. “I get to choose one for myself. And no rent paid.”

“Well, you don’t lack cheek, Mr. Tickle. I’ll say that for you. Except these flats aren’t bigger versions of a rooming house. They’re truly private homes. Alternatives to owning a brownstone of one’s own.”

“Even better,” Tickle said.

“You will work for me for a year and—”

“Nope. First six months only. After that, if we’re to go on, we negotiates a wage.”

“Fair enough. But even so . . . I can’t yet be precise, but you can
take it as a given that these flats are going to be let for upwards of three hundred dollars a quarter, and a lease of five years required.”

“I’d need ten,” Tickle said at once. “And I pays nothing.”

“Ten years rent free,” Josh said. “Does that not strike you as an outlandish wage for six months work?”

A few seconds went by. The dwarf turned and looked at the deserted foundry and its rusted equipment. Finally, he turned back to the man who was proposing to employ him. “Tell me one thing, Mr. Turner,” pointing to the blueprint, “can you build these flats without me?”

They both knew the answer.

“Consider something else,” Josh said. “Even with your steel beams, it may not all come together. It’s a big undertaking, Mr. Tickle. I cannot guarantee this building will ever rise from these sheets of paper to become reality. You might wind up having worked for nothing at all.”

“I understand that,” the dwarf said. “But I’ll take my chances along with yours, Mr. Turner. I’m betting this here building’s going to be built. And betting on something else as well. I think, like you said, you’re going to put up other buildings, more of these flats maybe. So you’re going to need more steel, and I expect you and I can agree a proper wage for me on the next job. And the one after that.”

Another few seconds. Then, “Done, Mr. Tickle. My hand on it.”

“Done,” Tickle said, grasping Josh’s hand in his own.

Two days later when Josh returned to the old slave quarters, five men were working inside. Three, including Tickle, were dwarves. Two were black men. Each was stripped to the waist in the stifling heat, though as yet no furnace had been fired. The suffocating temperature was all down to the blazing sun of the August afternoon. The men were pouring sweat, but they weren’t slacking. They were using wire brushes and great quantities of sand to scrub the rust from as much of the equipment as they needed.

As Tickle said they needed, Josh thought, realizing yet again how utterly dependent he was on the other man’s specialized knowledge to literally get his project off the ground.

The dwarf approached him, wiping his face with a red bandanna.

“I see you’ve chosen your crew, Mr. Tickle.”

“I have. Known ’em all since Eddyville. You’ve ordered the coke?”

Josh nodded, still watching the others. The dwarves in particular. “It’ll be delivered tomorrow morning.”

“Good. At least three of us will sleep here from tomorrow night then. Ain’t been nothing worth stealing before.”

“Three of these men? Do I take it then they are the actual steelmakers, not merely a cleaning crew?”

“Every one’s an iron man, Mr. Turner. They’ll be here start to finish.”

“Fair enough. I’ll need time sheets for them, Mr. Tickle. So they can be paid.”

“All arranged, Mr. Turner.” Tickle turned away and put two fingers to his lips and emitted a shrill whistle. The other men all looked up. Tickle pointed to one of the dwarves and beckoned him over. “This here’s George Higgins, been a foundry monkey practically since he came off the teat. Mr. Turner’s the man we’re working for, George.”

Josh put out his hand. George wiped his on his trousers before taking it. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Turner.”

“And I you, Mr. Higgins.” The other man was around Tickle’s height, with an equally astonishing build. And his grip had much in common with the iron he’d spent his life making.

“George keeps the time sheets, Mr. Turner. Get the ledger, George.”

The dwarf moved off into the gloom. Tickle used the pause to introduce the others. The third dwarf was Israel McCoy, and the pair of black men—brothers apparently—were Washington and Sampson Smith. Josh wondered if the Negroes knew the history of the building they were working in, but decided against asking. By the time the introductions were complete George Higgins was back, carrying a board with a sheaf of papers attached by a nail. The top sheet contained the
name of each of the workers, along with seven columns headed with days of the week. The hours of labor were indicated by large crosses in particular boxes. The thing was a picture of who had worked what hours, printed in pencil in carefully drawn block letters. The document gave the impression of having been written with much attention and effort, by someone licking the lead pencil every few strokes to be sure of dark and clear results.

“Got a summary sheet next page,” George said. “Shows how many hours is regular time, how many overtime. Mr. Tickle here, he makes his mark each day to say I got it right.” Pointing to a large letter
T
written at the end of each day’s column.

“My responsibility to say everything’s as it should be,” Tickle said.

Josh hesitated, not knowing how to question Tickle’s ability to check George’s work, given that the foreman couldn’t read. Tickle picked up on the question without it being spoken. “I know how each man’s name looks,” he said. “It’s an honest accounting, Mr. Turner.”

“I’m sure.” Josh was still looking at the time sheets. “However, there are seven names here. I don’t recall meeting anyone named Obadiah or Henry. But they’re shown as working. Today and yesterday I note.”

“Obadiah Tickle and Henry Tickle. My cousins,” Ebenezer said.

Josh peered into the gloom of the foundry’s distant corners. “And where might they be, Mr. Tickle?”

“They’ve gone to Kentucky. To Eddyville. On your business.”

“Eddyville, Kentucky. Where you worked for the Kelly brothers?”

“Correct, Mr. Turner.”

“And I am apparently paying them fifty cents an hour to make the journey.”

“Plus overtime. And feed for them and the pair of horses. The wagon belongs to Obadiah. He said there weren’t no need to charge you for its use. Since you’re our employer.”

“So, a trip to western Kentucky with a wagon pulled by two horses. Sounds as if you’re planning to bring something back, Mr. Tickle. Something heavy.”

Tickle nodded. “That’s right. It’ll be here soon enough. That’s another
reason some of us’ll be sleeping on the premises from tomorrow night. It’s a thing of value, Mr. Turner.”

“How so, Mr. Tickle?”

“Because we can’t make steel without it.”

“But these furnaces, all this equipment you’re so busy cleaning . . .”

“This is my part of the job, Mr. Turner. My part of getting the building off the paper and standing on the ground. You don’t think I know what I’m doing, you best get yourself another foreman.”

It was all the explanation Josh was going to get and he took it.

The dining-room table was littered with papers of various shapes and sizes. Josh was sitting in his shirtsleeves, making quick notations on first one, then the other. Every once in a while he shuffled them into different piles.

Mollie watched the process for a time, apparently keeping her attention on her embroidery. After a bit she got up and lowered the window. “No breeze whatever today. We may as well keep out the noise.”

Josh made a sound that passed for agreement.

She went to stand behind him. “Joshua, can I—”

He interrupted her words by reaching for her hand and bringing it to his lips. He did not, however, lift his head and look at her. “Sorry to be so preoccupied, Mollie. I’m not a very attentive new husband, I’m afraid. Once I’ve got these flats built we shall have a honeymoon. I promise. Maybe even go to Europe.”

“I don’t crave a honeymoon, Josh. Truly I don’t.” She did not say that she expected to be blossoming with his first son or daughter by the time he finished building his flats. Since they had been married only three weeks she could not yet guarantee that to be the case. Though considering the numbers of times they performed the requisite first step, it seemed to her likely. “I was thinking of something else.”

“What?” he asked, still looking not at her but at his papers.

Before they were married, Mollie knew, his office and his living quarters had been in the nicest of his rooming houses, the one in Bowling Green. It was in fact two brownstones he’d knocked together into a spacious establishment that maintained the look and feel of the once-fashionable residential neighborhood. Now that he and Mollie were established in Zac’s house on Grand Street, Josh had rented both the Bowling Green rooms once kept for his own use.

She was, however, aware of those facts only because he’d told her. She’d offered to keep his books, pointing out she’d been doing so for her aunt since the age of eleven, but Josh refused.
You keep my house, my love. Business is my affair.
“I was going to suggest,” Mollie said, “that I arrange a proper office for you. So you need not gather up everything and put it away each time we sit down to a meal.”

“A proper office where? One of the bedrooms upstairs, I suppose.”

She knew from his tone the idea did not appeal. “No, that’s not what I had in mind.” All manner of people called on him for reasons of business. Dwarves even. The idea of strangers traipsing about upstairs where she and Josh slept, where someday soon she hoped their children would sleep, was not pleasant. “It does not seem to me we have any need of a drawing room, Josh. And there’s room downstairs next to the kitchen to store the parlor furniture. I can see about a proper desk for you. And a cabinet for your papers and some chairs. It wouldn’t cost a great deal.”

He put down his pencil and raised his head and looked at her. “You are honestly proposing to turn your drawing room over to my affairs? You wouldn’t mind?”

Mollie shook her head. “Not in any serious way. Oh, it’s nice having a place to receive visitors, of course. But just now no one’s coming to have tea and gossip. It’s all business. And while the children are small—” She saw his expression and broke off, feeling the heat of a fiery blush. “The children I hope we have, I mean.”

“Ah—Then you’re not telling me you’re . . .”

“I’m not. At least not yet. I mean I may be. I don’t know as it’s only
three weeks.” Her cheeks were hotter than before, though that did not seem possible.

Josh stood up and put his arms around her. “I love that you can still blush like a girl, though I can personally attest to the fact that such you are no longer.”

“I wasn’t a girl when I married you, Joshua Turner. I was a spinster and you took me off the shelf.”

“My spinster,” he said, kissing her between the words. “And I chose you off a Macy’s shelf, where everything is known to be of excellent quality.” Then, drawing back his head to look directly at her, “It’s probably sensible to wait a bit before adding more expense and commotion to our lives, but I suppose I must prepare myself for the consequences of the exercise of my marital rights. Very well, so be it.” He was, meanwhile, fumbling with the buttons that marched up her back. “I have no intention of forgoing them.”

“Josh, what are you doing?”

“I’m undressing you. Prior to ravishing you.”

“It’s barely four in the afternoon.”

“Ten past in fact,” he murmured, bending his head to nuzzle her neck. “I don’t care. I want you right now.”

“Josh!”

“That cook you hired starts tomorrow, right?”

“Mrs. Hannity. Yes, but—”

“And the maid is nowhere about that I can see.”

“Jane. It’s not one of her days. She comes three times a week.”

“Excellent. So we’re entirely alone, are we not?” He was still struggling to loose the bodice of her dress. And kissing whatever part of her he could reach.