Lars was in Colley’s carriage. He looked up as the door swung open and shrugged ruefully when he saw Justy in the street. Lars’ hands were secured with a thick leather strap that was tied around the doorframe. The strap was scored and ragged where he had tried to gnaw through it with his teeth.
Fraser cut him free, and Lars stepped out of the carriage. His beard bristled as he brushed past Colley, but he said nothing.
The Bull was standing with his men in front of Owens’ house, his hands behind his back. The light from the streetlamp shadowed his face. Colley faced him. “I consider this a betrayal, Ignatius.”
“Do you, Jack?”
“If you think this is over between us, you’re very much mistaken.”
The Bull made a sound, deep in his throat. “It’ll be over when I’ve given you an earth bath, you cunt.”
Colley’s eyes flickered. “How long do I have?”
“You walk free from here tonight. But tomorrow’s a new day. If I even get a sniff of you anywhere near New York after first light, you’re fair game.”
Colley looked at him for a moment, then stepped up and into the cab. He slammed the door behind him, then lowered the sash and looked out. His face was taut with anger. “I’ll burn you to the ground, Flanagan. You and your goddamned nephew.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you try, Colley.” The Bull bared his teeth. “Now fuck off.”
Colley knocked twice on the door of the carriage. The driver snapped his reins and the carriage jolted forward.
Justy watched it pull away. “Where will he go?”
The Bull shrugged. “Boston or Philadelphia, I’d say. He has plenty of friends there. Or he might go south, below the Line. We’ve not heard the last of him, that’s for sure.”
“I thought you might kill him, right there.”
“Did you want me to?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Justy gritted his teeth. “I just wanted him to answer for what he did.”
The Bull clapped a hand on his shoulder. “And so he did, Justice. He answered to us. To me.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s as good as any court. He pled guilty, and he had his sentence commuted.” The Bull squeezed. “But not for long, I promise.”
Justy shook his uncle’s hand away. “Damn Colley. You can do what you like with him. It’s Turner I want now.”
“Don’t fash about that wee bastard. He’ll pike, but I’ll run him down, eventually. And when I do, I’ll peel the fucker’s skin off. With the edge of a spoon.”
“No.”
“No?”
Justy shook his head. “No. I want him in a box, in front of a judge.”
A chuckle. “On what charge, exactly? Milling a man near ten years ago? With no proof, and no man to stand buff against him?”
“You could give evidence.”
The Bull pushed out his lower lip. “I could say I had an inkling of what was about. But any black box worth a red cent will show I had no direct ken of the matter. And then there’s the fact of who I am. And what I am.”
“What?” Justy sneered. “You think the word of Bull Flanagan, community leader, might not carry much weight?”
The Bull smiled slightly. “It might if it was a community other than ours. No. I’d be more hindrance than help. That’s if we could even get the slippery wee bastard in the dock in the first place. He’s made a life out of sneaking about and hiding. I’d say he’s long gone by now.”
Justy’s face was hot. “Well, I won’t rest until I have him.”
A chuckle. “Christ, but you’ve a fire in you, boy. I’m glad you’re on my side and not on his.”
“I’m not on your side.”
He turned to Lars. The big sailor was sitting on the sidewalk, rubbing his wrists, an unhappy look on his face.
“Are you right, big fella?”
Lars stood up slowly. “I’m sorry, a chara. I walked right into it at Colley’s house. I should have seen it coming.”
“How so?”
“Ah, your girl Kerry was as twitchy and nervous as a first-year filly on race day. Wouldn’t look me in the eye, wouldn’t talk. She just pointed the way and then hid back in the bushes. I unlocked the back jigger easy enough, but as soon as I walked in, them two tonys stepped up out of nowhere, strapped like a squad of cavalry.”
“Where’s Kerry now?”
Lars looked apologetic. “Stroked if I know. She likely brushed the moment I went into the house. But that northern madge Campbell told me she’s been part of this thing since the beginning. He even said she spotted those girls for your man Turner.”
“Aye. Colley told me as much.”
Lars shook his head, ruefully. “It’ll be quite the merry chase, those two sleekit wee weasels running about after each other.”
“Who?”
“Why, Turner and Kerry.” His face fell. “Colley didn’t tell you that part, then.”
“Christ above, Lars! What are you talking about?”
“Turner. Colley told him to make her easy. Or that’s what Campbell said.”
Justy’s heart was in his throat. “We have to find her.”
The big sailor’s hand was like a vice on his arm. “Slow down, now, Justy. Think for a minute. I know you have history with her, but she’s done nothing but feed you gammon from the start. She sold you out. She sold both of us out. She can’t be trusted.”
“Fuck you, Lars.” The anger was like a spike in his guts. He shook Lars’ hand off his arm.
The big sailor drew himself up to his full height. “Fuck me, is it now?”
“Yes, Lars. Fuck you. I’d have thought you of all people could see through this. Kerry had no choice. You know what Colley did to her. What she feared he still could do. You heard her.”
“I heard a story, right enough, a chara.” Lars’ voice was soft. “But how do you know that wasn’t a lie, just like all the other clankers she’s dropped on you?”
It was like stepping out of a hot room into a cold wind. Justy’s throat ached. The Bull was leaning on the door of his carriage, watching him.
He caught his breath. “Up on Cherry Street, Lars, when you went into the house. Did you see any sign of a child there?”
Lars shook his head. “I did not, Justy. I’m sorry.”
His ears buzzed. There was a whining sound, as though someone had rung a tuning fork and held it beside his right ear. He felt someone throw an arm around his shoulders. It was like being wrapped in a ship’s anchor line. Lars, he was sure. His best friend. He must apologize for the hard words he had used.
The arm pulled him towards a carriage. He saw men looking at him. Wide, expressionless faces under flat farmers’ caps. His uncle’s men. His uncle’s carriage. Now he knew what people said when they talked about a puppet whose strings had been cut. Lars—it must be Lars—eased him up the steps and into the cab. He must apologize to his friend. The whining sound in his ears was louder now. A hand on his back pushed him forward until his head was between his knees and the blood thumped like a bass drum in his temples.
He closed his eyes and thought about Kerry. Skin the color of raw sugar, eyes like the sea. The girl he knew before had never lied, or stolen or betrayed anyone. But that girl was gone. The girl was a woman now, and she was broken, shattered like a piece of crystal.
But what had broken her? He let his mind sweep over the last few days, from the moment he had seen her lift a rich man’s wallet to their last meeting in the church. All their conversations. Everything she had said.
He knew all about lies. He had spent enough time coaxing the truth from men, and he had learned that the most effective falsehoods were those that had a kernel of truth to them. The trick was finding out what was true and what was false.
He thought again about what she had said, and how she had said it. When she had looked him in the eyes, and when she had looked away. How her eyes had looked, and her face and her hands. She had learned how to double as a man. She was a good actress. But not a great one. He thought about the lies he knew about: about her knowing Colley—or not knowing him—about Campbell and Fraser; about her reasons for following him. He saw that she had rarely lied outright. Instead, she had been evasive and lied by omission. The more he thought about what she had told him, about meeting Colley, about the rape, about the child, the more he thought she was telling the truth. That she was trapped. That she had no choice. That, like it or not, she needed his help.
He rubbed his face and sat up straight. He was in the Bull’s carriage, sitting on a hard bench. He saw two faces staring at him, lit by the dim glow from a street lantern and a weak moon. Lars and the Bull. His uncle and his friend, shoulder to shoulder on the bench opposite.
“He’s alive, then,” the Bull said.
Lars grinned, his big red beard bristling like a windblown hedgerow. “Looks that way. Something he ate, you reckon?”
“Something he had to swallow, for sure.”
The Bull knocked twice on the wall behind him, and the carriage lurched forward. Lars wedged himself into the corner of the cab, folded his arms and closed his eyes.
“Where are we going?” Justy asked.
“We’ll take Lars here down to his ship, and then get you home. I’ll send ahead to have Corla make your bed up and warm something for you in the kitchen.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Thank you, but no. I’m going with Lars. We have to find Kerry.”
Lars’ eyes bounced open, as though he had been slapped awake. The Bull scoffed. “Jesus, boy. What do you want with that wee wasp now, after all she’s done?”
Justy stared at his uncle. “Did you know it all?”
“I did not. I knew some of it. I knew she was thieving. I knew she was in and out of Colley’s libben. But about a kinchin…” He shrugged.
“What about O’Toole? Does he ken what she’s been about?”
“He does not. The man has enough on his plate.”
“You don’t want him distracted from doing your dirty work, is what.”
The Bull looked amused. “You’re right about that.”
Justy shook his head. “I wish I knew what it was put her on that road.”
The Bull was grinning now, the sickly light turning his teeth green.
“What?”
“What?” he mocked. “It was you, Justice. You put her on that road.”
“Don’t talk shite. Me?”
“You don’t remember the way Kerry watched you when she was a tib? She worshiped you. Remember how you used to gurn on about changing your fate, finding a new life, escaping from the waterfront? About how just because you were Irish didn’t mean you couldn’t make it in the world? Well, I may not have listened to any of your bollocks, but she did. And when you upped and left, and she looked around, and saw where she was headed, she decided she wasn’t having any of it. Marriage to some county Mayo shabbaroon, or cleaning rich coves’ privies or making her money on her back? Not for her. She decided to do what the great Justy Flanagan done, and change her stars. And here we are.”
There was a weight in Justy’s stomach, a ball of leaded shot. He saw Kerry’s thirteen-year-old eyes, wide and green under her fringe of dark hair, staring up at him as he talked and talked and talked.
“If I wanted to find Kerry now, where would she be, would you say?”
The Bull shook his head. “I’d steer clear, if I were you, lad.”
“Aye, well, you’re not me, are you.”
The Bull made an exasperated sound and sat back heavily in his seat. The cab filled with the noise of the wheels rattling on the cobbles beneath them, and the creak and scrape and jangle of the carriage’s wood and leather and brass. Lars was watching him, a question in his eyes. Justy shook his head, and his friend looked away.
It was a few moments before the Bull spoke. “What you said to Owens back there, about putting us right with the law. Is it possible?”
Justy shrugged. “Any lawyer could do it.”
“Aye, but will you? You’ve made it plain what you think about the whole racket. I didn’t say anything, but I can’t see you kissing any arses to help raise money or find clients for a slave bawd.”
Justy looked him in the eye.
“So why did you back me?”
“Because I wanted Colley. And Turner. And it was the only way of keeping you from getting milled.” He smiled. “Plus, it gives me a way of poking that black bastard Owens in the eye.”
“How’s that?”
The Bull’s grin widened. “Owens isn’t a fool. He knows you’re going to be about as useful to him as a paper hat in a house fire. He won’t trust you to do anything you’ve said, except keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way. If you don’t keep that part of the deal, you’re dead, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Fair enough. But if he knows I’m not going to do anything to help him, why give me what I want?”
“Because he doesn’t need Colley as much as he needs me. He can hire people in the South if he has to, and he has Gracie to look after the Wall Street end. And he’s sharp enough to twig that he can pay a lawyer to do what you said to do. But there’s only one man can get his cargo off the New York wharves and up to Bedlow Street.”
“Ho!” the driver called, and Justy looked out of the window of the cab. They were passing Dover Street. The carriage jolted as several of the Bull’s men jumped off.
“So how big is your cut?” Justy asked.
“Twenty percent. Same as the rest.”
“You, Owens, Colley, Turner and Gracie.”
A smirk. “You haven’t lost your head for figures, then.”
Justy ignored the jibe. “What I can’t figure is why you’re taking the risk. I’ve never known you to take a percentage of anything. Whether it’s whores or contraband or services rendered, it’s always been payment up front with you. What makes this different?”
The wooden bench of the carriage creaked as the Bull shifted his weight. “How is it you think you know so much about my affairs?”
“Christ, Uncle. I lived in your house for five years, remember. You’re not exactly the most subtle of creatures. All I did was keep my eyes and ears open. And ask a question here and there.”
The Bull’s mouth twitched. “That’s what I get for keeping an Irish crew, I suppose. I never thought you had a mind to pay much attention when you were coming up.”
“What else did I have to do, except study?”
A grunt of acknowledgment. “Then it won’t have escaped your notice that there’s not much chink in this business. I may own a fair whack of the properties on the East River front, but I employ a good portion of them that live there, too. Those men have to be paid. Their folk have to be looked after. And the buildings they all live and work in have to be maintained. That all adds up to plenty of plate.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen much in the way of maintenance.”
A shrug. “It’s a fine line. If I pour too much money into those properties, I’ll never get it back. If I up the rents too much, folk will just up sticks and go to Canvas Town. Then nobody’ll get paid, and I don’t have a nice cushion of cash to tide me over until times get better, not like them puff guts up on Wall Street.”
The wheels of the carriage screeched as they turned a corner, heading downhill now. Justy steadied himself on the bench with his hands. “So that’s what this is about? Your retirement?”
The Bull scowled. “Don’t mock me, boy. I’ve been trying my whole life to find a way to pull money out of the waterfront, and I’m telling you, it can’t be done. Any investment I may make is too damned shallow to yield more than a pinch. Taverns, brothels, boardinghouses, they barely make any chink, so there’s precious little skim, and they go out of business quicker than a rat up a beggar’s blanket.”
“But why a slave brothel, for Christ’s sake? Why not shipping, or property or … anything else?” He could hear the pleading tone in his own voice. The Bull heard it, too, and he laughed.
“Why don’t I go down Wall Street, you mean? Why don’t I tiptoe into the Tontine fucking Coffee House and whiddle them dimber coves in their lace cuffs that the Bull’s in the market for the right investment?” He laughed again, a harsh, grating sound, like an ass braying.
“Well, why not?”
The Bull sat forward suddenly, thrusting his face at Justy. “Are you fucking blind, son? Do you not see? I’m a teaguelander, a six and tips, a jumped-up, Fenian boglander Paddy bastard. Like you. Like your poor, stupid, cod-headed clunch of a father.”
His face was dark. He sat back, breathing heavily. “No one’s going to go into business with me. Or any other Irishman. Why do you think Francie was such a goddamned failure?”
Justy’s chest was tight. “That’s not true. What about Jarlath Cantillon? He had the run of the Tontine.”
“Aye, but only as their serf. They only let the spineless, carrot-headed madge in the place because he told them his father was a Scotchman and he was raised an Ulster Protestant. The lying tosspot.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “I’ve been trying for years to get into something with a hint of a prospect, but these nativist bastards won’t let me. Just like they wouldn’t let your old man. The pigs are happy to pay the Irish to work, but they won’t touch our fucking money. It’s like it’s diseased.”
“But Colley was desperate.”
“Yes, he was. He wanted to do the usual deal, cash for services, but he couldn’t raise enough chink, and I saw I had a chance.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Would I rather have been in something respectable? Sure I would, but a whore doesn’t get to choose who parts her knees.”
“You won’t get respectable this way.”
The carriage jolted over a pothole, and the Bull brayed his donkey laugh. “I don’t want to be respectable, lad. I couldn’t give a doxy’s muff-wipe what the quality think of me. It’s not their good opinions I’m after; it’s their money.”
“You look comfortable enough.”
“Looks can be a lie.” The Bull slid a self-conscious hand over his wide belly. “I remember your father saying to me once, ‘It’s one thing to make a few coins quick on the street, but if you want to fill a chest with gelt, the only place to do it is on that crooked lane that runs from Trinity Church to the water.’ It’s taken me twenty years to see he was right. And to see where he went about it all wrong. The dumb bastard went down there looking for partners, and no one would give him the time of day. But if he’d come with cash in hand, well, that would have been different. Money’s got its own language, see? No one gives a cracked arse where it comes from; they just scoop it up and spend it. The problem is making it in the first place. And I will make it. I’ll make a fucking barrel of it, and when I kick down the door of their fucking coffee house and pour the ducats in a heap on the floor, those Wall Street porkers’ll shove their snouts right in. They’ll call me Mr. fucking Flanagan, and say ‘thank you, sir.’”
He sat back on the hard bench. “I suppose I’ll have to wait for a while now, mind.”
His face was deep in shadow. Justy could hear the slight wheeze in his breath over the sound of the carriage wheels on the road. The Bull was a huge man, mean, violent and dangerous, but he seemed pathetic now, like a rat trying to claw its way out of a hole it had wriggled into and grown too fat to climb out of again. But he was right about the way the New York elites saw the Irish. Like lice, streaming over the ocean, good for hard labor and whoring, and not much else. And what the Bull said about Justy’s father made sense. He had barely grubbed out a living on the margins of Wall Street, denied a seat at the table by men who smiled at him with one side of their mouth and spat out insults with the other. “Brisket beater.” “Red-letter man.” “Craw thumper.” “Catholic.”
“What do you mean, you’ll have to wait?” Justy asked.
His uncle shrugged. “I don’t know if it’ll even happen now. Things were already looking shaky before tonight. It took Jack a long time to get things going below the Line, and this Wall Street money-raising malarkey looks like a dog’s breakfast to me. Never mind Cantillon. It’s a miracle none of the investors have twigged us yet.”
“People are too greedy to see what’s plain in front of them.”
“Most of the time, aye. But this anti-slavery carry-on is something else. Everywhere I look coves are reading pamphlets and handbills and newspaper editorials about it. I caught Duffy with a tract last week. Duffy, for Christ’s sake! He said he got it from some cove making a speech on a fucking street corner. So I’d say you’re dead on about Manumission getting stronger. The tide’s been turning for a while. Jack reckoned the abolition bill passing was an opportunity, but now I think we’re in danger of attracting the wrong kind of attention.”
“I thought you didn’t give a damn for how people see you.”
“Nor do I. But I am bothered by how they see my businesses. And the whoring business in particular. The Quaker ladies of this city would love to shut down every nugging shop in the city, but their menfolk won’t have it. You’ve never seen anyone boycotting a brothel, have you? Too many gents like their evening pastimes. But slavery’s another matter. If word got out that we were involved in both the bawdy business and slaving, of any kind, those ladies would have a spree. We’d have a crowd of crows on the sidewalk up there, all singing lustily from the hymnbook. And that would be the end of that.”
A queasy light from the streetlamps strobed through the windows of the cab, lighting the Bull’s face one moment and casting it into shadow the next. They were going downhill again, slowly enough that the horse’s hooves were louder on the stones than the carriage’s wheels. Justy wondered what time it was.
The carriage pulled to a halt. The Bull opened the door, and the fresh smell of seawater and kelp filled the cab. Justy went to stand up, but the Bull stopped him, a hand on his thigh.
“I warn you, Justice. Lew Owens is in this thing up to his neck, now that he’s bought Jack out. If you blow it all up, Lew has every right to come after you.” He paused and looked Justy hard in the eye. “So I’m asking, will you stick to your end of the deal? To keep your mouth shut and not do anything to queer the lay?”
Justy waited for a moment before answering. “People are going to find out what you’re up to, soon enough. You won’t be able to stop word spreading, and were I you, I’d get as far from it as possible. Starting now. It won’t matter whether you’re legal or not. The city will do everything it can to shut you down.” He held up his hands. “But I won’t light the fuse, I promise. Like I told Owens, I’ll not say a word more about this to anyone. Not to the law, not to your investors and not to your clients, not that I know who they are anyway. From now on, I’ll keep my nose out of Bedlow Street. You have my word.”
The Bull gave him a long, calculating look. Then he patted his thigh. “Right you are, then. I’ll see you around.”