City of Promise (45 page)
“Iron and steel,” Tickle said, “they’re all we know.”
“It’s a special skill, Mr. Tickle. But it’s not the only thing you know. You, for instance, can run the elevator at the St. Nicholas, can you not?”
“I can. Nothing much to it. Keep the cables running smooth and the weight and counterweight in balance, and you go up and down like you mean to. No stops and starts.”
“Exactly. And keeping my buildings clean and in good repair, nothing much to that either. But it has to be done.”
“You’re proposing we do that?” Tickle nodded to the other men, making a pretense of work by cleaning the idle equipment of the foundry. “Me and my cousins and Isaac and Washington and Sampson?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m proposing. You’ll be the elevator men and maintenance crew for both buildings until things are better. Then we’ll see.”
The dwarf nodded. “Could be all right. I think the others will agree.”
The streets were full of newly made beggars and tramps and half-naked children become urchins overnight. Work or bread was the cry. The response was a demand for patience, and the customary diatribes about the evils of overmuch charity. “I would think so, Mr. Tickle.”
“Same pay as before?”
“That’s not reasonable. Fifty-three cents an hour for running two elevators and general upkeep . . . I could hang on to the maintenance men I have for considerably less. But they were hired well after you and your crew, so . . .”
Tickle hesitated.
“I’m thinking thirty-five cents an hour, Mr. Tickle. Each man to work a twenty-hour week. What do you say?”
“For the others or for me as well?”
“You’re a salary man, Mr. Tickle. Not a wage earner. Let’s say twenty-five dollars a week for running the elevator at the St. Nicholas and overseeing the work of the others.”
“It’s a big drop in pay, Mr. Turner. And I’ll be having to go back and forth ’tween the Nicholas and the Carolina at least once a day.”
“It’s work, Mr. Tickle. When thousands have none.”
After a few moments the dwarf nodded. “I’ll put it to them. See what they say.”
That conversation took place on a Monday morning. By Tuesday the thirteenth of January, outside events pretty much assured Josh getting his way.
A rally had been called in Tompkins Square to show “solidarity with the suffering poor.”
The goal was a labor relief bureau to be established by the city and granted a hundred-thousand-dollar fund to alleviate the misery of those who had no work. The idea had been in circulation throughout the long hard autumn and the already difficult start of winter. According to the press, creating such an entity would be capitulating to the thriftless and improvident who were influenced by European socialism.
It was well below freezing that Tuesday morning, but the crowd wasn’t daunted by the weather. Wave after wave of men and women without work arrived, bringing their hungry children, filling the park and spilling into the surrounding streets. One man foolishly unfurled the red flag of the Paris Commune. The coppers needed no further reason to weigh in, billies flailing. Chaos followed and the clubbing went on for hours as mounted police charged the crowds, and those on foot chased those fleeing their hooves. An orgy of brutality according to the organizers. The press, however, hostile to the out-of-work,
mostly agreed. From the point of view of the mayor and the leaders of the business community, the best thing that could have happened. There would be no more nonsense about labor bureaus and government handouts in New York City.
Whatever he thought of the violence, Josh knew his interests to have been served, same as every other man of property in the city. Unlike most of them, however, he did not believe in rubbing the noses of his employees in their take-it-or-leave-it choices. He let Tickle come to him, and allowed the dwarf to seem to agree rather than capitulate.
“Me and the rest’s in agreement,” Tickle told him on Thursday. “Thirty-five cents an hour and twenty hours a week. Until things get better. Your word that you’ll go back to the old contract once we’re making steel again.”
“You have it,” Josh said, putting out his hand. “The old contract when we’re again making steel.”
Tickle eyed him. Rather as if he thought it had been a mite too easy. “Here or any place else,” he said, nodding his head to include the old slave market turned foundry.
Josh agreed as how that was correct and they shook hands on the bargain.
Zac was once again impressed with Joshua’s business acumen. “So you get to hang on to your skilled crew, with considerably less outlay and temporarily doing a different job.”
“Maybe not temporary,” Josh said.
Zac was surprised. “You think things won’t improve?”
“Nothing of the sort. Of course they’ll improve. They always do. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be exactly as they were before.”
“What then? Come, my brother the oracle. What do you think it means?”
“The answer for ninety-nine percent of things is, I’ve no idea. But for me . . . I doubt I’ll be making any more steel.”
“Why the hell not? You’ve got us buying lots all over town, and you
keep talking about buildings of ten, twelve, and more stories. How can you do that without steel?”
“I didn’t say we wouldn’t need it, just that we wouldn’t make it.” He passed the notice about the steelworks in Pittsburgh across Zac’s desk. “Take a look at this.”
Zac read it quickly. “You’re saying you’ll be able to buy it cheaper than make it. You think these Bethlehem people are using the Bessemer process?”
“I’m going to go and talk to them, but yes, that’s what I think. And if I’m wrong it doesn’t matter. They’re obviously doing something that allows them to make steel in quantity at a competitive price.”
Zac nodded. “You’re probably right. And if you can get it by rail from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, we can bring it up the coast on Devrey ships.”
“Which reminds me,” Josh said, “have you spoken with Trent Clifford lately?”
“Why in hell would I do that after what he tried to do to you, not to mention that you think he might have been behind what happened to Mollie? Josh surely you don’t think—”
“—that you’re in league with Clifford? Of course I don’t. I just know what a persistent bastard he is. I wondered if he was still trying to get you to take part in his scheme.”
“I haven’t spoken to him since he tried to close down your foundry. Mind you, I’ve no doubt, given how bad things are, that his plans are on hold along with those of everyone else.”
“Hmm,” Josh said.
“Mind telling me what ‘hmm’ means?”
“Only that my plans are not on hold. Full steam ahead. Devil take the hindmost.”
Zac was quiet for a moment, then, “Sounds impressive, Josh, but you’re venturing into unexplored territory. Keep in mind what the old sailing charts used to say. Unknown waters, here there be demons.”
“Over there, Ollie.” Mollie gestured to the Chinese wisteria she had recently planted to climb the north side of the house. It might not get quite enough sun to flower, but if it did it would be so lovely . . . Worth a try.
The boy wheeled his barrow in the direction she indicated, then deposited a quantity of hay at the foot of the wall. “You want me to put it all in this one place?”
Mollie glanced at the leafless stems of the wisteria. They were some two feet long and she had tied them to a wooden trellis when she put the vine in the ground. They were not in the least impressive at the moment, but the drawing of the pale purple blossoms hanging in graceful eddies—racemes she’d learned was the botanist’s word for them—had enchanted her. “I believe the wisteria needs all you have there, Ollie. You must bring more hay for the rest.” There were still a few sapling trees and young shrubs standing with their feet naked to the cold; though the crescent-shaped perennial border was covered in the thick straw blanket she and Ollie Crump had spread with pitchforks and determination.
“Ain’t no more hay,” the boy said. “Not if I’m going to have feed for the horses tonight.”
“No more? But Mr. Turner said . . . You must go downtown, Ollie. Order a load of hay to be delivered at once. Tell them we must have it today or—” She stopped speaking and looked up. The sky was dark gray and covered in dense cloud. A few flakes were beginning to drift through the air. A few more appeared and then more, swirling around her until she and Ollie were standing in a shower of snowflakes.
Since that terrifying day three years before, she had shuddered with horror every time it began to snow. This time she wanted to laugh with delight. “Shall it last do you think, Ollie? Are the gods of winter playing with us, or are they serious?”
“Not sure about God, Mrs. Turner. Never heard nothin’ about him
being different in the winter than in the summer. But this looks to be a fair enough snow.”
Mollie opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue and tasted an icy prickle. “Go right now, Ollie,” she said, but with less urgency than before. “Get as much hay as we need for a month and ride home with the carter.”
“Much as we need for the garden, or just for the horses?”
The needles of a small blue-green fir—Abies balsamea—a narrow but clotted evergreen about as tall as she that would someday have sufficient size and substance to mark the turn of a brick path, were already frosted, and there was a coating of white on the hay spread on the perennial border. “Enough feed for the horses only. I do not believe the plantings will require more.”
The boy hurried off on his errand. Mollie stayed where she was, watching the garden fill up with snow. Dreaming different dreams from those that had once filled her mind and soothed her heart. But dreams at least. Something. She stretched out both arms and held them open, as if she were welcoming someone. A child.
No, never.
But her embrace was not quite as empty as it had been before.
T
HE TELEPHONE WAS
attached to the wall beside Josh’s desk, a wooden box about a foot square. When he wanted to use it he lifted the earpiece and turned the crank and somehow, in what seemed miraculous even after a year, a man’s voice said, “Exchange.”
“Please connect me with Mr. Devrey.”
There was a long and mostly silent pause, followed by a loud buzzing. Josh took out his watch and observed the movement of the minute hand. When after sixty seconds nothing had happened he jiggled the metal cradle of the earpiece. On the third try a different voice said, “Exchange.”
“I was connected previously. I asked for Mr. Devrey but did not reach him.”
“You weren’t connected to me, mister.” The rudeness of the phone men was already legend. “What’s the number?”
“I can’t remember the number. But I believe you have the list.” There were, he knew, some two hundred fifty subscribers. At sixty dollars a month he suspected there might not be many more. “Mr. Zachary Devrey in the Devrey Building on Canal Street.”
The phone man grunted. Another pause. Then Zac shouted hello in his ear.
“It’s Josh, Zac. Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.” With that hint of glee that still accompanied every one of these extraordinary communications.
“Are we set for this afternoon?”
“Can’t hear you now. Speak up.”
“This afternoon,” Josh shouted into the funnel-shaped mouthpiece fixed above the crank. “At Sunshine Hill.”
“Yes, what about it?”
“Is the auctioneer coming? Are we still on?”
Zac shouted still louder, as if to emphasize the affirmative. “I’m assured he’ll be there at three.”
“Good. I’ll see you then.”
Followed by the satisfying click when the connection was broken.
Thirty-two miles in all directions from City Hall; connected by cables buried underground which somehow carried spoken words, not merely Morse code. A marvelous leap of progress that came after Western Union funded Mr. Edison’s improvements to Mr. Bell’s invention.
Josh hung up the telephone and turned to the window. His office of the moment was on Seventh Avenue and Fifty-Third Street, on the fourth floor of a building that climbed five additional stories above his head and housed fifty-four flats. He’d occupy this one until he rented it, then he’d move on.