The Winter Family (26 page)

Burns’s head jerked up. He had been so focused he had not heard the priest approach.

“Sorry, Father,” Burns said.

“Come to ask for the Lord’s assistance today?” the priest said. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be necessary. The Lord helps those who help themselves, after all.”

“We’ve done everything we could.”

“First Democratic mayor in twenty years,” the priest said, sounding pleased. “It’ll be grand to think next year we’ll have parish schools for the children. When I think of the poor boys and girls led astray by the Protestants I can hardly sleep at night.”

“We’ll see, Father,” Burns said, standing.

“If you’ve done right we’ll win,” the priest said. “Have faith, my son.”

Burns looked up at the altar and the dark stained glass windows high above.

“Well,” he said. “We’ve come a long way, anyway. Do you remember Long John Wentworth?”

The priest smiled. “I do indeed.”

Burns shook his head. “Now, I was just a young man in those days. Living in a room in Bridgeport with eight other boys, working for whiskey and a dollar a day. I remember I was assigned the responsibility of escorting some good Democratic voters in 1857. We had some problems with a police officer, and tempers becoming heated, he drew his revolver and I drew mine. We shouted at each other for a while and eventually he backed down. But I wonder sometimes, Father. What if he’d refused? I wasn’t about to be pushed around. What if neither one of us had backed down? Why, someone would have been shot, wouldn’t he?”

“Men must be allowed to vote,” the priest said.

“Ah, but how many times, Father?” Burns said. “That’s the point of contention.”

“Well, don’t you worry,” the priest said. “The police are on our side this time.”

“And King Conor has paid for fifteen hundred deputies,” Burns said.

“Bless his heart,” the priest said.

“If he has one,” Burns replied. “But that Noah Ross. He wouldn’t have put his pistol away. Not if he thought he was in the right. And these men he’s brought to the city …”

“Never mind them,” the priest said. “You’re worrying too much, my boy. Come and have a drink with me.”

“I was wondering whether I hadn’t better give my confession.”

The priest laughed and the lines assumed a mischievous pattern. “My boy, in the interests of your immortal soul, don’t you think you should save it until after the election? This is Chicago, after all.”

It was still before dawn. Jan, Dusty, and Bill galloped through the narrow, dirty streets of Chicago’s Polish district, standing high in their stirrups and looking for the police.

A shrill woman’s voice was screaming:
“Spierdalaj ty glupia pizda!”

Bill, always a crafty horseman, cut abruptly to the right, across traffic. His horse leapt over a wall of trash cans into a narrow alley between two tenement buildings. The others followed, much more slowly. When they caught up, they found Bill speaking to a middle-aged woman on her front step. Down the street, a covered police carriage was lumbering away.

“Another Republican arrested for disturbing the peace,” Bill said, a faint smile on his face. “Before dawn. In bed.”

“I told him!” the woman screeched in her thick accent. “This is what comes of angering the Irish! They break my plates, they get mud on my floors! You tell Stanislaw if he wants to stay in politics, he don’t come back!”

“Let’s go!” Jan said.

All three of them spurred their horses and quickly caught up with the carriage. Four deputies sat on the roof, passing a bottle of whiskey around and singing. They made such a racket they didn’t hear the hoofbeats until Dusty was pointing a rifle at them.

“Gentlemen,” Dusty said. “I’ll thank you to keep your hands where I can see ’em.”

The driver, drunk, frightened, whipped his horse harder.

“Why you little fucker!” Dusty cried.

Bill pulled up next to the carriage and stood up in his stirrups and then put one foot on the saddle and jumped up next to the driver, who cried out, drew a knife from under his seat, and stabbed Bill in the arm. Dusty fired his rifle and the front part of the driver’s head came off.

“Jesus!” one of the deputies screamed.

“Dusty!” Jan cried from his horse.

“What?” Dusty replied.

Bill jerked hard on the reins and the horse, whinnying in protest, came to a sudden stop. The deputies went flying.

“Murderers!” one of the deputies cried as he staggered to his feet. “Murderers! You’ve kilt a deputy!”

Dusty dismounted and drew his pistol on the man who had spoken. The man put his hands in the air.

“Kingsley!” Jan shouted. “Stop! Stop! Everyone stop!”

Bill Bread took the corpse from the top of the carriage and wrapped it in a blanket. The bottle of whiskey the deputies had been drinking disappeared into his coat.

The men on both sides were quiet, like children who had played progressively more roughly until someone had been hurt.

“He stabbed Bill, Sarge,” Dusty said.

Jan didn’t reply.

“Murderers,” one of the deputies spat out.

Jan looked at him with a clear, cold hatred.

“One of you open the carriage,” he said.

The door opened, revealing four prisoners, all of whom were cowering against the far side.

“Come out,” Jan said. “You are free now. Come on.”

They hesitated, but all eventually came out. Last was Stanislaw, a Republican election official, who limped into the street and stood in front of Jan.

“I didn’t think it was true,” Stanislaw said, blinking in the early dawn.

“I said you can go,” Jan said, giving him a bit of a shove.

When Stanislaw took one backward glance over his shoulder he saw them forcing the deputies into the carriage and locking it shut.

“Are you Stanislaw?” Bill said, as he took a pull of whiskey. “Your wife thinks you should stay out of politics.”

Stanislaw had large, expressive eyes. Right now they were sad.

“Maybe you should,” Bill said. “Things’ll change. But not really how you want ’em to.”

Inside Reiman’s saloon the polling station was next to the bar, guarded by two German vote watchers. Rows of pewter steins sat on a table, and every man who voted Democrat was handed one as soon as he made his mark, and was given a hearty cheer by the assembled voters, who were well in the bag.

The floor planks were littered with splintered peanut shells. Blond, pigtailed waitresses wandered between the men with plates piled high with sausages. The voters had to shout to be heard over the tumult of voices.

And then the door smashed open and two men came inside. One of them was a tall, muscular Negro, the other young and blond. They made straight for the polling station and before the surprised inspectors could move they had thrown the first punches. Fred Johnson knocked one inspector’s head against the wall where it made a horrible sound and left a small red splatter. Reggie was less dramatic but equally effective: the first blow to the chin staggered his man and then he finished him with a knee.

The electorate, their reflexes slowed by drink, were only starting to shout and move to interfere when a small man with an unsettling smile stepped inside, brandishing a rifle.

“Please,” Quentin said. “Everyone remain calm.”

And then he walked over to the bar, laid his palms flat down on its surface, tilted his head, and grinned.

The door opened one final time and a nervous man entered, holding his hat and looking like he was trying to hide in plain sight.

“Madam,” Quentin said to the barmaid. “Would you be so kind as to give me your hand?”

She tucked both her hands up next to her breasts. Quentin snatched one of them. She let out a little scream. Some of the men started forward, but Johnson and Reggie drew their pistols.

Quentin pressed the woman’s hand onto the bar and looked her straight in the eyes.

“Now my dear
Fräulein
,” Quentin said. “Our friend Max, by the door there, told us that he came in here a half hour ago and his vote was discarded. Apparently, he was also not provided with any refreshments.”

The barmaid’s eyes widened.

“Why would he come here to vote?” she said. “There are other places to go.”

Quentin reached with his free hand behind his back and drew out an enormous knife. The barmaid looked away and made a choking noise. The rest of the room was silent.

“My dear
Fräulein
,” Quentin said.

He pressed the knife down onto her fingers like they were carrots he was going to chop.

“No, no,” she said.

“Shh, shh,” Quentin said. “Just listen. Max is going to stay here and supervise this polling station. To ensure that everyone can vote, and there will be no bribery.”

“Ahh!” she cried out as the knife pressed down into her fingers. Blood seeped into the wood. “No! Don’t!”

Quentin leaned next to her ear. His voice was no more than a ticklish whisper.

“And I’m going to entrust you with Max’s safety. If he should be injured in some accident, if he should fall down and hit his head, or if he should eat some bad food, then we’ll have to have a little chat.”

“Ahh!” she cried as more blood trickled down.

“Am I making myself perfectly clear?” Quentin asked.

“Ya! Ya!”

“Wunderbar,”
Quentin said, letting her go. She shrank back, clutching her wounded hand, while Quentin smiled and licked his knife. He sauntered out of the bar, followed by his men. Max stood alone and frightened in the room, now silent, the party over.

In front of another saloon, Lukas Shakespeare sat on a wooden porch and picked his teeth with a splinter, staring at the little soft beige bits that he managed to dig out from his gums and then wiping them on the bottom of his shoes. From behind he heard the sounds of glass shattering, furniture being overturned, and screaming.

A workingman in dirty overalls came up to the front door carrying a heavy lunch bucket that bounced against his knees. Presumably he wanted to vote.

Lukas drew a pistol in the blink of an eye.

“You just keep on walking, you dirty old fish-fucker,” he said. “Go on now. Get.”

The man backed away with his free hand in the air.

Lukas narrowed his eyes until they were like windows in a castle through which a defender might safely fire an arrow. Only when the man turned his back to run did Lukas holster his pistol.

A few minutes later a flatbed wagon rounded the corner at a good clip. Eight or nine Irish thugs were on board, dressed in heavy leather aprons and wielding axes and clubs.

“Auggie!” Lukas screamed. “Charlie!”

He sprang to his feet and drew both his pistols and put his thumbs down on the hammers. Just as the wagon began to slow to a stop he fired two shots, one from each gun, into the mass of men standing on the flatbed. There were some screams and one man fell off. The driver snapped the reins sharply and the flatbed took off down the street. The man who had fallen leapt to his feet and ran after them.

“Run, you papist coward!” Lukas hollered, and fired his pistols at the man’s feet.

The door behind him opened.

“I scared ’em off!” Lukas turned around, then stopped smiling abruptly.

Winter stood in the doorway. He had taken off his jacket and his tie, and his shirt was undone at the collar. He was splattered with blood and his hair was mussed and his eyes were shimmering with the energy of a wild animal chewing off its own leg to get out of a trap.

Lukas gazed past Winter and saw a man crawling on his hands and knees. Somewhere, out of sight, Johnny was braying laughter.

“Don’t you call me out here again,” Winter said, “unless you mean it.”

Lukas tried to speak but he couldn’t. His throat worked uselessly as if he were trying to suck something through a very long straw.

The door shut.

“There’s always a few who don’t make it through Election Day in Chicago,” Burns said. “Always a few who get shot or stabbed or just hit a little too hard. Always been that way. Always will. But this is different.”

Mickey Burns and Honest Jim Plunkett were in Burns’s humble office with the door closed. Burns had sent everyone out. Papers were scattered everywhere. Half-empty cups of coffee sat forgotten around the room. More than one whiskey bottle jutted out of the wastepaper basket. The window was open to the street and the sun was streaming in, along with the voices of the crowd waiting outside, all of them having come from every part of the city to say the same thing.

That there were men fighting for the Republicans, men who were unafraid to kill police officers or sheriff’s deputies, men who were remorseless and fearless and dispassionately competent, and that the worst of them all was a tall man, dressed like a dandy, with golden eyes and hair so blond it was almost white.

“It’s dangerous out there,” Burns said.

“Politics ain’t beanbag,” Honest Jim said.

“Perhaps we ought not to send the repeaters out,” Burns said.

“Not send the repeaters out?” Honest Jim shouted.

“Keep your voice down,” Burns said.

“Have you lost your mind, Mickey?”

“I don’t want any more of our boys hurt,” Burns said. “Christ knows there’s been enough already.”

“You’re going to let Noah Ross push us around?”

“Jim, we’ve got them licked anyhow. We must have them beat two to one in this thing, fair and square.”

“Who’s to say?” Honest Jim said. “Who’s to say the count’ll go our way if we get muscled out?”

“I didn’t say we should leave the count to them, did I?” Burns said. “I’m talking about the repeaters.”

“I thought you were a fighter,” Honest Jim cried. “And yet you’re standing here telling me you’re going to let them take away our rights.”

“Jim, for the love of all that’s holy. We don’t have the right to repeaters. They’re repeaters. Remember?”

“Don’t give me lawyer talk,” Honest Jim said. “It’s war out there, and I ain’t going to leave it to chance. Now you stick with me here, Burns. I need you out there talking to your ward. I ain’t a man to threaten a friend and you’re an important man to the party. But I’m the chief and I’m telling you now how things are going to be. You’ve got to get out there and do your job when your party needs you. And the party needs those repeaters out there.”