House of Thieves (31 page)

It was almost 5:00 a.m. Except for those who had to leave early for work, the city was still asleep. Only two other people waited with Cross and George on the uptown platform of the Third Avenue Elevated's Grand Street station.

Cross, who hadn't slept in more than twenty-four hours, felt wired, as with electricity, alive with unending energy. His senses seemed hypersensitive, attuned to everything around him, like a wolf sniffing the air before a hunt. In the past hour, the weather had become rainy and misty, but Cross took no notice of the raw cold.

Shrouded by a cloud of steam, the train chugged into the station, its wheels squealing to a stop on the iron rails. Cross walked alongside the train until he found an empty carriage and signaled for George to get on. They found seats on the right-hand side of the car. The track hugged the east side of the Bowery, less than twenty feet from the face of the brick buildings that housed apartments and now-shuttered stores. Most of the windows on the second, third, and fourth floors were dark.

At the intersections of Broome, Delancey, Rivington, and Stanton Streets, they passed the electric streetlights, which threw off a brilliant glow that illumined the inside of the train. When the train reached Houston Street, Cross and George got off and went down to the lower level. They crossed to the downtown side and waited about five minutes for a train, which they rode back to Grand Street. Again, they crossed back to the uptown platform, catching a train that was about to leave the station.

People had started stirring, opening up the storefronts on the street below. Lights flickered on in the apartments. Cross and his son looked out the window, but still they said nothing. The train clattered noisily along the elevated tracks, moving at about ten miles an hour. When a workman in a faded gray shirt and baggy black pants entered the car, they moved to the next carriage, which was completely empty.

The train approached Delancey Street. Cross raised the wooden window sash and stuck his head out. Satisfied, he gave his son a nod. George looked about the car and returned the nod. When the train was at the intersection of the Bowery and Rivington, Cross twisted his entire body through the window opening until his rear end was perched on the sill. Grasping the frame with his left hand, he pulled his brother's Smith and Wesson from his jacket pocket with his right. As the train reached the middle of the block, Cross extended his body as far as he could and fired off six quick shots into a lit window directly opposite. There was the sound of breaking glass and a woman screaming. The train chugged past, and Cross pulled himself into the car. He sat back down on the cushioned seat and placed the revolver in his right jacket pocket.

George calmly shut the window and looked around the carriage. They still had it to themselves. At Houston Street, they got off the train. This time, they descended to the street. It was 5:45 a.m., and many of the Bowery residents were starting their day. Cross and George passed shopkeepers setting out tables and barrels of goods and men and women hurrying to get to work on time. At Lafayette and Great Jones Streets, they hailed a hansom cab.

Still, they did not speak.

• • •

As dawn broke in an apartment on the Bowery between Rivington and Stanton Streets, a woman screamed desperately, tugging with all her might at the bullet-riddled body of Ned Brady.

Kent's right-hand man slumped, lifeless, over the kitchen table. A pool of blood spread slowly toward his mug of coffee and the piece of cornmeal bread he always liked to have for breakfast.

“He's not coming.”

“He's only ten minutes late.”

“Ten minutes? Kent's never ten
seconds
late. Punctuality is an obsession for him,” George said, leaning back against the trunk of an oak. The leaves on the trees in Central Park were almost gone, and the dead few that remained offered Cross and his son no protection from the cold drizzle. Even in the great coats they'd picked up from Cross's house on the way, George couldn't stop shivering.

“We should wait,” Cross said impatiently.

“No!” George was almost shouting. “There's something wrong. He never misses his carriage ride in the morning, not even if it's snowing and sleeting.”

Cross fingered the pistol in his coat pocket. It felt as cold as ice. He pulled his black leather gloves from his other pocket and put them on.

George looked up at the Dakota, its four massive towers looming above the park. “Wait here,” he said and bolted off.

“George, for God's sake! What are you doing?” Cross shouted after him. But his son had disappeared into the underbrush.

Cautiously, Cross edged out from behind the oak and looked down the carriage path, peering through the rainy mist. In the distance, the track broke away from the Seventy-Second Street Transverse Road and curved east through the trees. He expected to see Kent's gleaming black-and-maroon phaeton gliding around the bend. But the path remained empty, shrouded in gray fog. Cross went back to the tree and positioned himself so his head was barely visible behind the trunk.

He lit a cigarette and blew clouds of smoke, watching them drift up into the sky. The cold, damp weather made them look thicker and puffier. What amazed him most in the last twelve hours was how good he felt about himself. He wasn't wracked by guilt or shame over what he'd done but rather felt a sense of pride. Ever since he'd hired a substitute in the Civil War, Cross had been dogged by the feeling that he was a coward, too scared to do his duty for his country. But he knew he wasn't a coward. He stood up and defended his family from harm without any reservation or fear. There was no hesitating. His wife and children meant everything to him, far more than designing great buildings. And he'd gotten revenge for the killing of his brother, though he couldn't shed the responsibility of getting Robert murdered. He'd have to bear that himself. There was just one more thing to do.

Five minutes later, George appeared, sprinting down the carriage path. “He's not coming,” he gasped, out of breath from his run.

“How can you be sure?”

“I talked to the doorman at the Dakota. He knows me. He said that Kent is a guest at the statue unveiling today.”

“So that's what all the fuss is about. I couldn't understand why there were so many carriages heading downtown so early in the day. They've come for the parade,” Cross said, mind whirling.

Lost in his sorrow over Robert's death and terror over the danger confronting his family, he'd entirely forgotten the unveiling of the new Liberty statute on Bedloe's Island. For weeks, New York had been buzzing about the recently erected copper statue of a woman, holding a torch aloft, a gift to America from the people of France. No one had ever seen anything so colossal. Liberty's nose alone was five feet long.

It had taken a long time to raise the money for the statue's base and pedestal, but when Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the
World
, sponsored a fund, thousands of nickels and dimes poured in. His friend, Richard Morris Hunt, had done the design. Thousands would march down Fifth Avenue in a parade. Then President Cleveland would go to the island and unveil the statue. An armada of ships in the harbor would sound their horns and shoot off guns when the sheet was at last pulled from the statue's face.

“We've no choice but to wait. He'll be here for his usual ride tomorrow,” George said, lighting a cigarette.

“Christ, George, we can't take that chance. He may already know about Brady and Coogan. If so, he'll have sent someone to come after us in their place. We can't dally!”

“There must be fifty thousand people downtown for the parade. Finding Kent will be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” George protested.

“I'm sure he had enough pull to win himself a seat on the reviewing stand. He's on the island,” Cross said, pacing back and forth across the carriage path.

“Then we'll come back to the Dakota this evening.”

“I won't take that chance. Come, let's cut through the park. I need time to think.”

They walked in silence through the cold drizzle. A fog had descended. A mere fifty yards ahead, nothing could be seen but a thick, gray curtain of mist. While Cross tried to determine his next move, horrifying images of what he might find at home flashed before his eyes. The dead bodies of Helen, Julia, and Charlie—perhaps Colleen and Mrs. Johnston too. Kent was more than capable of such a thing. He would enjoy it.

They crossed the Mall to Bethesda Terrace. Not a soul was about. Even the birds seemed to have disappeared. Finally, they reached the East Drive and headed south.

“Do you hear music?” George asked. His head was tilted up, as if he were looking for musical notes dancing in the air around him.

Cross stopped to listen. “Yes, it's ‘Hail, Columbia.' It seems to be coming from the end of the park. I suppose that's where the parade will start.”

“Listen,” George said with a smile. “Can you hear the cheering?”

They hastened their pace and arrived ten minutes later at the southeastern edge of the park, where an incredible sight met their eyes. Before them in the rain and fog, Fifth Avenue was filled from gutter to gutter with a rolling tide of soldiers in blue, marching in perfect unison down the street. White-gloved officers in cocked hats and gold trim led them. Bayonets on rifles swayed above the ranks like waves of wheat. Marching bands rang out stirring songs like “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Each troop had a contingent of drummers, which beat time to the music and established the march cadence.

“Here! The parade starts here,” Cross shouted over the din, pointing to the side streets above Fifty-Ninth Street. Waiting columns of troops seamlessly blended into the flow. Cross was so excited by the magnificent sight that he momentarily forgot the grave danger they were in. The sidewalks were filled with humanity; people hung out of windows and leaned from balconies, screaming with joy and waving like mad. Even behind the cornices of flat-roofed buildings, masses of people gathered. Above the packed sidewalks, boys had climbed streetlight poles to get an unobstructed look. Soaked American flags and French tricolors decorated the fronts of the buildings. The cheering was nonstop, a continuous rumble of thunder.

Cross and George fought their way south through the crowd on the west side of Fifth Avenue, but it was like trying to move a mountain out of their way. When they glimpsed a momentary gap in the flow of troops, they dashed across the street to the other side.

“Let's go down Madison,” Cross shouted, tugging at the sleeve of his son's greatcoat. “It'll be easier.”

• • •

“You sure that was your father?”

“And my big brother. They passed right underneath us when they went to cross the street,” Charlie said.

“I hope he has more work for us.” Eddie was smiling from ear to ear. He patted the ten-dollar bill in his pants pocket, as if to make sure it was still there.

Eddie Mooney and Charlie had found a choice viewing position by shimmying up an electric streetlight pole at Fifty-Fifth Street and Fifth Avenue. When President Cleveland had passed by in his open carriage, he'd looked up at them and waved. Eddie was sure of it.

They heard a loud clanging sound below. A New York City policeman was banging his long wooden club on the metal pole.

“Get your asses down from there, ya goddamn brats,” yelled the florid-faced cop.

“Fuck off,” said Charlie, kicking his foot out and knocking the cop's helmet off his head. Frustrated and unable to climb the pole after the boys, the officer grabbed his helmet and stomped away.

• • •

Compared to the cacophony of Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue was as quiet and deserted as a tomb. Cross and George walked rapidly. But at Thirtieth Street, they were shocked to see the parade had come east from Fifth to pass directly in front of Cross's house. Thousands were perched on rooftops and hanging out of windows, screaming and cheering.

“What the hell's going on?” George yelled.

After a moment's puzzlement, Cross grasped the reason for the detour.

“Fifth is unpaved from Thirtieth to Twenty-Sixth, remember? They didn't want to march through that muddy slop.”

They walked down the west side of Madison Avenue to Thirtieth Street. In the distance, Cross saw the parade turning onto Twenty-Sixth Street at the top of Madison Square and heading back to Fifth Avenue.

Suddenly, he saw Julia at the rear of the crowd between Thirtieth and Twenty-Ninth Streets. George spotted her too.

“Goddamn it,” Cross swore, his face going dark with rage. “I told your mother not to let the children out of the house today on any account! Why is Julia in the street? She can see the parade very well from her own parlor.”

Beside his sister appeared a tall young man, a bandage covering his right cheek. He handed Julia a brown men's wallet, which the girl quickly slid into her purse.

“Isn't that the man from Julia's coming-out ball?”

“Yes, I think his name was Nolan,” George said.

Nolan walked away from Julia, melding into the crowd. After a minute, he returned with another wallet. No one on the sidewalk noticed. They were facing away, busy cheering the parade as it passed by.

George and Cross looked at each other in astonishment. Then a smile came over Cross's face. “It seems our Mr. Nolan has a very interesting occupation.”

As Julia and Nolan walked south on Madison Avenue, George and his father rushed across the street to their house. The front stoop was filled with cheering strangers. Helen was at the front parlor window, watching the parade. When they came into the parlor, she rushed to her husband.

“Did you…”

“He wasn't there,” Cross said. “He went to that damned dedication on the island where they're unveiling the statue. I just saw Julia out in the street. Didn't I tell you to keep them inside? And where the hell is Charlie?”

“Oh God, John. I tried to mind him, but Charlie slipped out of the house early this morning. He must have gone before anyone was awake. And then that lovely Mr. Nolan came, and he was so solicitous… I didn't see the harm in letting Julia watch with him down the street.”

Though he was furious, Cross kept his temper in check. “They could be dead by now, Helen.”

“It'll be all right. No one will find Charlie in this throng,” George said, putting his hand on his mother's shoulder. “And I'm sure Mother is right: Julia's safe with Nolan.”

Cross went to the window. It was surreal to see a flood of soldiers marching straight toward his house, then turning on a dime to the left. Madison Avenue above the Square was always so sedate and quiet. The scene in front of him was jarring. He stood for almost a minute, mind whirling.

“Helen,” he said. “Do you know anyone who's going to the dedication?”

“Yes, a few people. They got invitations. It's a special blue card that allows the bearer and a guest to board the steamer to the island.”

Cross turned back to look at the parade.

“So you can't go unless you have one of those cards?”

“They won't let anyone on the island without one,” Helen said.

Deep in thought, Cross paced back across the parlor, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply.

“George, go down to the street and get Julia,” he said.