Betina Krahn (36 page)

While Delaney was busy directing the beer wagon drivers and the teamsters who were dismantling the speaker’s platform, Connor caught sight of a coach barreling down one of the side streets, headed straight for him. He watched with growing dread as it entered the square and stopped a few feet away. The door flew open
and Boss Croker appeared in the doorway, furiously chewing a cigar.

“Barrow!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Get in here!”

Connor strode over to the coach and spotted Charles Murphy and Mayoral candidate Thomas Gilroy inside. The instant the door closed behind him, the coach lurched into motion.

Croker was red-faced, Murphy was grim, and Gilroy was smacking a rolled-up newspaper against his palm in agitation.

“You damned fool!” Croker roared as soon as they were underway. “What the hell did you think you were doing? I told you to stay away from that woman—I told you to keep your nose clean—and damn me if you didn’t go and get involved anyway!” He was so angry veins stood out at his temples and in his neck. “Years of work teeterin’ on the brink … all because you can’t keep it in your pants!”

“Look, if you’re angry about Delaney—” Connor began.

“Show him!” Croker ordered Gilroy, who unrolled the paper in his hands and shoved it at Connor. Croker rocked forward and jabbed the middle of the front page. “Look at this mess! Look at it! What have you got to say for yourself?”

Connor felt his insides go cold. The title of the article said it all. Once again, his relationship with Bebe was splattered all over a piece of newsprint, and once again, he was being called to account.

“I went to offer evidence I believed would help them arrive at the truth,” Connor said in tightly measured tones.

“Truth?” Croker snatched the paper from him and
pointed it at him. “The only truth you need to know is that you’re about half an inch away from gettin’ kicked out of this congressional race on your arse!” He slammed back in his seat and stewed visibly for a moment as he looked out the window. He was still breathing hard when he pinned Connor with a javelin of a look. “What is it with this bit of muslin? She’s got you droolin’ and stumblin’ over your own ballocks like some lovesick boy and you can’t see what she’s doin’ to you.”

He leaned forward and bit out every word. “Let me give ye a sound bit of advice, Barrow. One piece of tail’s the same as another in the dark. Go find yourself a cute little whore and work it out of your system.”

Connor felt as if he’d been stripped of skin … left with every nerve ending he possessed exposed. And Croker was grating on all of them. Until that moment, he hadn’t imagined Croker—genial boss, canny politician—capable of some of the stories he’d heard noised about. Croker the gang tough. Croker the enforcer. Croker the vindictive power-monger. But now, his capacity for baseness and bullying were all too clear.

A woman was simply “tail” to him. Whether she was a chippy bought for two bits on the street or a woman of education, breeding, and integrity … she had only one value. And that included Beatrice Von Furstenberg. His wise, strong, generous, and courageous Bebe was merely an inconvenient “piece of tail.”

“Tell him,” Croker ordered, giving Murphy a jab with his elbow.

Connor’s fists clenched in his coat pockets as he looked to Murphy, whose distaste for the job he had been given was obvious. But if Murphy was anything, he was a good soldier, and good soldiers always follow orders.

“We’re going back to Tammany Hall,” Murphy said in
a flat, matter-of-fact tone. “We’ve assembled a number of news reporters in the reception hall … every major paper will be there. You’re going to deny any and all ties to suffrage organizations and denounce the women’s rights organizations as dangerous factions that are trying to mislead women and undermine society.” There he paused and glanced at Croker, who told him gruffly to get on with it.

“Then, you will deny any personal involvement with this Mrs. Von Furstenberg and say that you were misled as to the nature of the banking venture you were asked to represent. You will state that you have severed all ties with her and her company.” He paused again, seeming uncomfortable with this next part. “And you will do exactly what you say. You will not see her again.”

“Do what you have to do to end it. Tell her whatever you want … hell, tell her the truth, that we’re making you do it,” Croker commanded. “Just do it.” He glared at Connor. “You got that?”

“Loud and clear,” Connor said, struggling to maintain some semblance of calm as he scrambled for what to do. In a few minutes, he would face a dozen reporters with Croker and Tammany Hall breathing down his neck. If he wanted to save his career, his political future, he had to deny and denounce the very thing that had put joy and meaning back into his life.

What astounded him most was that they fully expected him to do it. They counted on him to submit to this raw exercise of power. That was how they saw him … ambitious, talented, and utterly, shamelessly malleable. He would take whatever shape they required of him. And they saw him that way because, for a number of years now he realized, that was exactly the way he had been.

The good soldier. Going along with the platform. Always cooperative and accommodating. Always making excuses for Tammany’s excesses and deficits. Always the sweet-talker.

And the one he had sweet-talked the most was himself.

He sat with his head in his hands, as the coach rolled to a stop. One by one, the others climbed down out of the coach, until he was the only one left.

“Come on, Barrow,” Croker said darkly. “Let’s get it over with.”

Moving through a haze of anger and despair, he descended the steps and crossed the pavement to the doors of Tammany Hall. With each step he took down the center hall and toward the reception room, he grew more agitated inside. Someone took his outer coat and someone else went over his suit coat with a brush. And the moment was upon him.

The door swung back and through the opening he saw more than a dozen news reporters. They were here to watch him unravel his soul in the service of Tammany Hall and his own ambition. And as he moved into that doorway, he felt a strange sort of calm descend. This was his greatest fear. The moral choice. The turning point. The one situation he couldn’t sweet-talk his way out of. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and stepped into the room.

He was hit instantly with a barrage of questions, all of which he ignored on his way to the small wooden podium at the end of the room. He held up his hands for quiet and declared that he intended to make a statement first and would take questions afterward. He paused to look around the room, took a deep breath, and pretended he was Bebe Von Furstenberg.

“Gentlemen, you have been called here to hear a position statement necessitated by recent events, and to hear my response to an article printed in this morning’s
World.
It has been charged by my opponents and suggested in the newspapers that I have not only flirted with, but have actually embraced the burgeoning women’s rights movement. It has been suggested that I have been persuaded to support, both personally and publicly, the vote for women. Further … my involvement in securing a state charter for a bank which intends to serve women customers on the same basis as men, has been cited as evidence of my growing involvement with both women’s rights and a certain lady … Mrs. Beatrice Von Furstenberg.

“I have come here today to state finally and unequivocally that every one of the allegations, suspicions, and suggestions I have just mentioned … is absolutely, undeniably, and irrevocably
TRUE
.”

It was a testament to his verbal sleight-of-hand that every person in the room believed for a moment that he had indeed just issued a denial. It took a full minute for what he had truly said to register, by which time he began speaking again, to a shocked and reeling audience.

“Over the last month I have indeed come to believe in equal rights for women. I have seen firsthand the injustices women in our world must endure and I believe something must and will be done about them. I believe one of the best ways to address these injustices is to grant women the right they should already possess as humans … the right to vote.”

The gurgling, choking sound that had been coming from behind him, suddenly erupted in a hoot of nervous laughter. Boss Croker appeared at his side wearing a forced grin, and clamped a hand savagely on his arm.

“A more wicked wit yell not find in the city of New York,” Croker said with a frantic edge to his mirth.

“Wicked indeed,” Connor retorted, ignoring the vicious pressure on his arm. “And finally I must say that I am pleased to be involved both with the Barrow State Bank and with the remarkable woman who not only conceived it, but who is working diligently to bring it into being. I have nothing but the greatest admiration for Beatrice Von Furstenberg.” He produced his infamous and beguiling smile. “And I expect that as time goes on, the rest of New York will come to feel the same about her.”

There was only a faint titter of nervous laughter from the back. Everyone else was holding their breath, watching Boss Croker, and preparing for an explosion. They didn’t have long to wait.

“That
isn’t
what you intended to say, though, lad. A fine joke it was. But now, tell the boys what ye called ’em here to say.” His eyes were blazing with a dual promise … clemency if he repented fast, and retribution if he didn’t. Connor was being given one last chance. The carrot or the stick.

He had been here before. Ten years ago he had faced a similar ultimatum. The easy way or the right way. Submit to another’s control and give up what he loved and believed in, or lose every hope he had of a comfortable or important future. It was all happening again. And being the man he was, now that he had found his center again, he couldn’t pretend his heart, his values, and his convictions didn’t exist.

Connor jerked his aching arm free and stepped back with determination in every particle of his being.

“That is exactly what I intended to say,” Connor declared with fierce calm. “Every word of it.”

“One last chance, damn you!” Croker shouted, above the chaos breaking out around them. “Tell ’em what we agreed!”

“No.”

Up came a fleshy finger in Connor’s face.

“You’re off the ballot!” Croker roared. “Hell, you’re out of the party!”

Murphy and Gilroy grabbed Croker to keep him from launching himself at Connor. And Connor felt a curious sense of power—to be so in control of his responses, while his opponent was so out of control.

“Fine by me,” he said fiercely, and turned and strode out.

IRVING HALL WAS
awash in red, white, and blue bunting that night, and the outside was brightly lit and covered with banners proclaiming the virtues of the two congressional candidates featured in the evening’s debate. But as Beatrice, Lacey, Frannie, Alice, and Esther Rose approached the hall, they noticed a profusion of newsboys hawking papers, and that everyone who approached the main entrance paused briefly, then walked away. It was only when they reached the steps that they realized people were reading a notice posted on the doors. It was the back of a playbill, hastily inscribed with ragged letters:
DEBATE CANCELLED—BARROW OFF BALLOT
.

Beatrice stared at the announcement, thinking that this had to be the cruelest joke Tammany or anyone had ever played. Then Frannie rushed up to the doors and pounded furiously on them until an aged usher answered and confirmed for them that the debate had indeed been canceled, and for the reason stated. When the group badgered him for details, he snapped “buy a paper” and slammed the door.

They grabbed the closest newsie, bought a paper, and stood under one of the building’s large gas lamps to read the thin special edition. The account in the paper unfolded with details they discovered later were devastatingly accurate. Lacey took over the reading as Beatrice’s hands began to tremble, and soon everyone was staring at her.

“He publicly declared his support for suffrage,” Lacey muttered in awe, looking at the others.

“All right!” Frannie punched the air with a fist. “We’ve got a candidate!”

“But he’s off the ballot,” Esther Rose said. “What good does that do us?”

“They kicked him off the ballot.” Lacy scowled. “Can they do that?”

Alice took the paper from Lacey and finished reading.

“How could they do this to him?” Beatrice’s throat tightened. “Kick him out of Tammany Hall and drop him from the ballot, after all he’s done for them and their precious Democrats?”

“Damned
men
.” Frannie shook her fist at the notice on the doors. “They never know a good thing when they’ve got one!”

Beatrice swayed and the others reached out to steady her. They asked Alice to reread parts of the article and expressed outrage at the ruthlessness of Tammany’s political machine. Beatrice heard only one word in three.

What had happened was all too clear. He was no longer Tammany’s man … no longer Tammany’s candidate … no longer a Democrat … no longer on the ballot …