City of Promise (57 page)

“That is a sensible way to do business,” Ganz said. “On this occasion it will not be necessary.”

The schnapps was spreading warmth and a kind of calm. He had a glimmer of where the conversation was going, but his voice showed none of his excitement. “Why is that, Mr. Ganz?”

“Because,” Ganz said softly, “I will finance the cost of initial construction with a loan of a million dollars.” He waited for the space of perhaps two heartbeats, just long enough for the incredible number to sink in. Then, “At nine percent interest, compounded quarterly. Plus a modest share in the ownership of these remarkable new apartment houses on Park Avenue. Say fifteen percent. In addition, of course, to my share of Mrs. Brannigan’s profits. I intended to make this suggestion before Mrs. Mollie was taken away. When she was, I simply altered my plan in what I believed to be the best interest of all of us.”

Josh sat quite still for a few moments. Nine percent. He might be
able to get a better rate if he trolled among the moneymen. But as it stood he’d be dealing with the devil he knew, and that devil apparently shared his belief in the future of the upper East Side. “Interest-only payments,” he said, “until construction is complete. And I can assure you that will take three years, not two.”

Ganz nodded. “A fair proposal, Mr. Turner. I accept.”

Josh raised his glass of tea with cherry jam and schnapps. “Your good health, Mr. Ganz.”

“Thank you, Mr. Turner. And yours.”

The men finished their drinks. Josh rose to go, then paused. “One thing more if I may.” The old man waited. “That three hundred thousand in cash money you brought to Tony Lupo’s lair, am I to believe he just let you walk out the door with it?”

“You are, Mr. Turner. Because that is what happened. Mr. Lupo, as you may have guessed, is not your ordinary criminal. He too listens. We have learned to respect each other’s areas of expertise.”

“You work with him, that’s what you’re telling me.”

“Sometimes. Not on this occasion. I was very disturbed when I learned he was behind taking Mrs. Mollie. I told him so.”

“And after that, and after he’d lost his captive, he still allowed you to leave with your satchel full of money?”

“He did,” Ganz said. “There will be other occasions for mutual profit. Mr. Lupo knows that and so do I.”

“Will you tell me where Lupo is now?”

“Of course not. You didn’t really expect me to, did you?”

“No, I suppose not. What about Tess? Do you mean to go on paying her to spy on us?”

Ganz smiled.

They were in the second-floor living room. Mollie sat beside Josh, head bent over a pad on her lap, her pencil flying over the page. “Nine percent compounded quarterly on such an enormous debt is an astonishing amount of interest,” she said.

“I know. And if I did not, the fact that you felt you had to check your calculations on paper would have convinced me. And remember, it’s thanks to you and your bees I’m not in hock to Mr. Ganz for an additional three hundred thousand plus half my profits.” He clapped a dramatic hand to his brow in imitation of a music-hall performer. “Ruined! And all for love!”

Mollie’s head shot up. The last word hung in the air between them. He had gone to great lengths to rescue her, but she was his wife and he was a man with a keen sense of doing what was right. Might he still love her? She could not find the courage to probe the question. “Don’t tease,” she said gravely. “You are putting an enormous amount at risk if you agree to Mr. Ganz’s plan.”

“I know that as well. But the gains will be phenomenal.”

“If you succeed.”

“I intend to succeed. I’m not breaking new ground remember. There are already at least ten buildings offering luxury flats of twelve rooms or more.” He began ticking them off on his fingers. “The Gramercy across from Gramercy Park, the Rembrandt on West Fifty-Seventh, the Central Park Apartments on Seventh Avenue.”

“Yes. And I read there’s to be something called the Chelsea on Twenty-Third Street. But they’re all in the fashionable parts of the town,” Mollie said. “Not up here in the wilderness.” She got up and went to the window. There was no view of her garden from where she stood, only of the street. “Park Avenue in the Eighties and Nineties,” she said. “A grand thoroughfare lined with elaborate buildings of flats meant for the upper, upper classes. It’s hard to imagine.”

“Not the upper, upper. Not the Belmonts and Vanderbilts and Morgans. They will continue to build their Fifth Avenue mansions with solid gold banisters. Do you remember? We talked about them the day I took you coaching.”

“I remember. Will you have Mr. McKim design these new buildings?”

“Perhaps. He’s just taken a new partner. A Mr. Stanford White.
Charles tells me they are occupied with country houses at present, but I think I might intrigue him.”

Mollie didn’t say anything more. Josh reached for her pad and pencil. “May I?” And when she nodded. “Here’s what I have in mind. Say I begin with Eighty-Eighth Street and work north.” He made a rough sketch showing eight and ten story buildings as far as Ninety-Fourth Street. “I’m thinking four buildings per block. Perhaps on average thirty apartments in each—they have to be much larger than what I’ve built before remember. Some might be two floors. Even three. Nonetheless, this scheme should yield some seven hundred units.”

“Didn’t Mr. Ganz say eight hundred?”

He’d repeated much of what the pawnbroker had said word for word, a way to convince himself the extraordinary conversation had actually taken place. Not everything certainly. No mention of Tess, or what she said when Joshua confronted her.
I thought I was doing you good, Mr. Turner. Mr. Ganz said he was sort of watching over the pair of you.
Doing good and getting paid for it. Hell, much of the world operated on worse delusions.
Will you tell Mrs. Turner? I wouldn’t want her to think what she went through was my fault.
Accompanied by floods of tears. He’d promised to say nothing. And he had not dismissed her. Because in fact nothing Tess had done had brought any harm upon them, and Mollie had been through quite enough on his behalf. “Ganz,” he said now, “is to be an investor. He shan’t dictate what I build or how.”

She was looking at his drawing. Josh was no artist, much less an architect, and the lines were crooked and the rows of different size squares that indicated doors and windows uneven. It was nonetheless quite clear what he intended. “You haven’t shown anything on our block.”

“I won’t put up anything right next to your garden, Mollie. It would steal the sun and light. I’m thinking perhaps we could eventually put a small park between the garden and the corner.”

“No,” she said. “That’s foolish and impractical.”

“Mollie, I—”

“Let me finish. I had a good deal of time to think in that cage on the roof, Josh. I spent some of it considering what is important and what is not. I love my garden, but it is not the most important thing in my life. I was very foolish to allow it to become so. Since you will be assuming such an enormous indebtedness, you must plan to incorporate our block into your new Park Avenue. It makes good economic sense. Now, if you will excuse me, I am suddenly very tired.”

She was nonetheless awake when he tapped on the door.

“May I come in, Mollie?”

She understood the nature of the question. “I have,” she said quietly, “been hoping you would wish to do so.”

The bedside lamp was turned low and he could see her dark hair and her neck, and the slope of her pale, cream-colored shoulders above the coverlet. It was obvious she was not wearing a nightdress.

Josh had already taken off his clothes and unhitched his peg. He took off his dressing gown and slid in beside her. “Put out the lamp,” Mollie whispered.

“Must I? I have always loved to look at you.”

“I’m older now,” she said. “Not the way I was.”

He chuckled. “You don’t seem old to me.” Nonetheless, he did as she asked. The curtains, however, were not drawn and the room was flooded with the light of a full moon. That had been true that first night on Grand Street as well.

He touched her tentatively at first, exploring the angle of her hip and the sweep of her rib cage and the gentle roundness of her breast as if the shape of her were unfamiliar to him. She was thinner than he remembered. Harder somehow.

“I’m afraid the outdoor work has toughened me,” Mollie whispered. “Are you disappointed?” She had lavished herself head to toe with unguents since the night Auntie Eileen told her about Francie
Wildwood. At least with the lamp out he could not see how brown her hands and even her forearms had become during the spring planting season.

“Not a bit disappointed,” he said. And he was not.

Her flesh was supple to his touch, and when he bent to kiss her she opened her lips and when he caressed her she sighed with pleasure. And when finally he took her she rose to meet him, and her shudders of delight were proof she had allowed him total possession of not just her body but her spirit. “We are new made,” he whispered.

22

J
OSH WAS FINDING
the stiff white bow tie particularly awkward. The light perhaps. It was dimmer than usual, and provided only by lamps. Even with their wicks turned up, large portions of the expansive master suite were dark. The wall sconces nonetheless remained unlit.

Mollie stepped up and tied the tie, patting it into place with satisfaction. “There, you look splendid, quite regal in your tailcoat. As well you should. It’s your night of triumph.”

He took her hands and spread them in that way he had when he wished to get a good look at what she was wearing. Her gown of what he’d been told to call magnolia-colored satin—ivory with a hint of rose—had a deep décolletage and a slim skirt embroidered with seed pearls. A long train descended from two bouffant puffs that were the latest iteration of the bustle. The oil lamps caused creamy pink shadows to play across her bare shoulders, and he loved the way she had drawn her hair back and allowed the curls to fall free behind. The diamond earrings she wore had been his gift the previous
December, presented not at Christmas but on the eve of the new year.
This is to be our year, my love. You shall wear these to a great celebration, I promise.

May of 1883 now, and the occasion he promised had arrived and she was wearing the diamond earrings for the first time.

“Exquisite,” Josh said, completing his examination of her outfit and releasing her hands. “As for it being my night, no one will notice me. They shall all be looking at you.”

Mollie drew on long white kid gloves that reached almost to the ruched cap sleeves of her gown, then added the final touch, a wide gold-and-diamond bracelet Josh had given her to mark the day they moved into the twelve-room apartment on the sixth and seventh floors of 1160 Park Avenue. There was a three-story twenty-four room flat above their heads, the “penthouse,” as modern usage had it. Josh had intended it for them, but Mollie had been miserable at the thought, insisting they should rattle around with no purpose. Eventually he realized the amount of space simply reminded her of the family she did not have and gave in. The penthouse, offered for three hundred and seventy-five dollars a month, remained empty. Perhaps after tonight that would no longer be the case.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready.”

“You go ahead then. I’ll join you after I put out the lamps.”

“Jane and Tess will see to the lamps, Josh.”

“Not tonight,” he said. “Tonight I shall do it myself. Besides, I’ve already sent them outside.” Still she hesitated. “What?” he asked.

“I shall miss this gentle play of light and shadow,” she admitted. Then, seeing his face, “But I know it will be wonderful to uniformly glow in the dark as we shall.”

“And,” he said, “gas lighting is impure, dirty, and unhygienic, and gas jets take all the oxygen from a room and give ladies headaches.”

Mollie smiled. “How odd. I would have sworn I read that in
The
Times.
I believe the reporter said he’d been given the information by a
Mr. Joshua Turner of the St. Nicholas Corporation. Which gentleman was building a remarkable series of apartment buildings on the upper reach of Fourth . . . no, Park Avenue, all of which were to be electrified.”