Into the Whirlwind (2 page)

“It belongs around your shoulders,” Alice asserted. She liberated Mollie’s inky black hair and fluffed the strands until they hung down her back in a wanton display of poor taste. With her pale skin and sky blue eyes, Mollie knew she was pretty enough, but her hair was a nightmare, always spilling out of whatever bun or braid she tried to force it into.

“Alice, I’ve met with Mr. Kazmarek dozens of times with my hair in braids. He hasn’t turned to stone yet.”

Frank pulled up a chair and took a seat. “What is he like, this Mr. Kazmarek?”

Mollie studied her thumbnail while Alice kept working at her hair. In truth, Mollie had always been overwhelmed whenever she met with Hartman’s attorney. “I don’t know much about him. I negotiate the quarterly payments, deliver the designs for the coming season’s watches, and leave.”

“But what is he
like
?” Frank pressed. “Does he have a sense of humor? Does he meet your eyes when you speak with him? Or is he always glancing about as you negotiate?”

“I don’t really know,” she confessed. “I try to finish business as quickly as possible and get out. He has a little blue finch in
his office named Lizzie. That bird never stops flitting about the cage, and sometimes she even breaks into song.”

Frank sighed in frustration. “Mollie, you have been meeting with this man for three years, and all you know about him is that he has a pet finch?”

Putting it that way, she did feel a little foolish. It was a lot easier to watch the bird than to meet the eyes of the man who held the future of her company in his hands. There were glaciers in the North Sea that shed more warmth than Mr. Kazmarek. He was a handsome man, towering well over six feet, with dark eyes and black hair. Or was it brown? She didn’t really know . . . it made her too nervous to look directly at him.

“Well, the rumors about how he conducts business are pretty shocking,” she confessed, leaning forward to relay a few of the choicest rumors about Mr. Kazmarek’s strong-arm tactics for dealing with the seamier side of Chicago’s mercantile world.

Alice finished arranging her hair. “There,” she said with satisfaction. “You look like a Botticelli masterpiece.”

Mollie stared at the results in amazement. She supposed her hair did look rather fetching the way Alice had it tumbling down like the women in one of the great romantic paintings so popular in Europe now. Two delicate gold combs anchored her hair at the crown of her head, leaving the rest free to spill down her back, but it was completely impractical. “This hairstyle will last for about five minutes,” Mollie said. Even now a few strands were falling forward and she reached to smooth them back into place.

“Leave them! The goal isn’t order,” Alice said. “I know that must seem strange to that accountant’s brain of yours, but trust me, you look fabulous.”

“Stunning,” Frank agreed.

Mollie shot an amused glance at her blind attorney. “How would you know?”

“I know Alice Adair, and her artistic judgment is flawless. Leave your hair alone. You need to impress Hartman’s man.”

There was a crash from the other side of the room. A metal bowl clanged to the floor and sprayed a fine layer of dust at the feet of Declan McNabb. The diamond powder! Declan, their metal polisher, used a paste of diamond powder and almond oil to buff their metal into a mirrorlike shine. He had just spilled a hundred dollars’ worth of diamond powder on the floor, and Mollie was not sure it could be salvaged.

But that wasn’t her concern. It was the panic in Declan’s eyes that was the problem.

“Wh . . . wh . . . why . . . why . . .”

Mollie knelt beside Declan and placed a hand on his knee. How awful to see a grown man become unglued this way. Declan was a strong, handsome man, but when the tremors hit, he was as fragile as an eggshell. “Calm down, Declan. Write the words if you can’t speak them.”

Declan reached for the pad of paper on his table, his trembling hands scribbling the words.
Why is a lawyer coming? Are we in trouble?

His questions were a stab in Mollie’s heart. They weren’t in trouble
today
, but they would be if they lost their contract with Hartman’s, and then people like Frank and Declan would be out of a job. Declan could never find another job. He suffered from the nameless affliction that tormented so many veterans of the Civil War—the trembling and panic that came from nowhere and descended like a suffocating cloud, making it impossible to see daylight.

During the war, Mollie’s father had been a member of the 57th Illinois Infantry, a regiment that met its end backed against a cliff and was decimated in a three-day shootout that killed, crippled, or maimed the majority of the soldiers. The survivors
of that battle were like brothers to her father, and he sent out word that any wounded veteran of the 57th could find employment at his watchmaking factory in Chicago. He renamed the company in honor of his old battalion, and fifteen of the forty employees were veterans with various afflictions. Alice’s husband had lost his right leg, but was still one of the world’s best gold engravers. Gunner Wilson, or Old Gunner, as they sometimes called him, had lost an arm, but kept the workshop as clean as a surgical operating room. Frank had been blinded by flying shrapnel, and when there wasn’t enough legal work to keep him occupied, he was able to polish metal. Declan was a healthy, able-bodied man, but his shattered mind left him with soul-destroying attacks of anxiety.

Mollie found the dustpan and nudged the top layer of the precious diamond powder into the pan, but most of it was ruined. “I don’t want you to worry about this,” she said to Declan. “I am always in talks with the buyers at Hartman’s, making sure we are delivering what their customers want. This is no different.”

Not quite true, but Declan was getting worse, a layer of perspiration soaking his skin and the muscles in his face twitching. What must it be like to be trapped inside a shattered mind? Declan was only thirty-two years old, a handsome man who had been in college when he volunteered for the Union Army. It was hard to look past his infirmity to see the courageous man her father once knew. As badly as she ached for Declan, Mollie feared the impression he would make on Mr. Kazmarek.

Mollie swept the last of the ruined diamond powder into the dustpan. It wasn’t the first time Declan’s trembling hands had spilled the diamond powder or broken a tool, and it wouldn’t be the last. Declan was a liability to the company, and the prudent thing would be to ask him to leave for the rest of the day.
What sort of impression would a twitchy, mentally unstable metal polisher make on Mr. Kazmarek? Every instinct urged her to get Declan out of sight. How else could she present a lean, competent organization to their only client?

But she couldn’t send Declan home. He was an intelligent man who would know exactly why he had been asked to leave, and she could not do that to him. She would not deny the human dignity of the men who made this company great.

Let Zack Kazmarek see the 57th in all its magnificent, imperfect glory. Mollie would ensure these people would have employment for as long as they kept turning out the world’s most beautiful timepieces.

Given Frank’s gentle scolding for her ignorance about Hartman’s attorney, Mollie took care to scrutinize Zack Kazmarek as he paid his first visit to the workshop. He was a tall man with a powerful build, dark hair, and fierce black eyes that scanned the workshop like a hawk searching for prey. He looked flawless and intimidating in his tailored jacket, vest, and stiff white collar. Even the wind blowing from the open door behind him did not ruffle his carefully groomed hair.

Mollie hurried forward to meet him, scurrying up the half flight of stairs to join him on the landing. “Mr. Kazmarek, welcome to the 57th Illinois Watch Company. We are honored to have you here.”

He took her hand but said nothing as he scrutinized her. That piercing gaze had been known to quell union leaders and businessmen all across the city, and she bobbed her head in an anxious greeting. Another gust of wind blew in behind him, and Alice’s artfully placed combs began to slip from their mooring. Why had she let Alice talk her into this ridiculous hairstyle?

“You look different,” Mr. Kazmarek said with an impassive face.

In the three years they had known each other, it was the first personal comment he had ever made to her. “Won’t you come inside? I’d be pleased to show you our workroom. We have a total of forty employees, divided into eighteen distinct specializations.” She took a few steps down the stairs as she gestured toward the tables. “Everything from the cutting of metal to the engraving of the gold covers is done right here in the workshop.”

He made no move to follow her or to close the door, and the gusting wind was a problem. She darted back up the stairs and pulled the heavy door shut. “We can’t allow unsavory debris in the workroom,” she said apologetically. “The mechanisms inside the watches are very delicate.”

A hint of a smile hovered on his face. “Did you really just say
unsavory debris
?” It was the first time he had ever smiled at her, and she noticed the corner of his front tooth was chipped. Just a tiny flaw in his otherwise impeccable appearance. How was it she had never noticed it before?

If she wasn’t so nervous, she might have shared in his amusement. “Each watch consists of 115 separate pieces, most smaller than a grain of rice,” she said. “Once they are assembled, any dust or, yes,
unsavory debris
, can add friction and throw off the pivoting and rotating parts. We must keep the workshop in pristine condition.”

As she stepped down the half flight of stairs, the weight of her hair slid further down the side of her head, the combs barely holding as she began showing Mr. Kazmarek the shop. “We make all the screws, gaskets, and springs right here in the shop. You will notice that we have a set of brand-new lathes for polishing the metalwork.”

Mr. Kazmarek seemed disinterested. “Is there someplace we
can go to speak in private? As my note indicated, I have a business proposition I’d like to discuss.”

A business proposition didn’t sound like he was getting ready to cancel their contract, but she couldn’t be sure, and her heart thudded like it was about to leap from her chest. She forced her voice to be calm. “I have an office at the back of the shop. I’d like to ask our attorney to join us. I never make any decisions without Frank Spencer’s advice.”

“Naturally,” Mr. Kazmarek said. As they walked toward the office, Mollie noticed he was not entirely disinterested in the 57th. His dark eyes scanned everything, taking in the arrangement of the worktables, the tidy bins of supplies, even noting Ulysses Adair’s crutch propped against his worktable. As they passed Ulysses, she asked him to send Frank to her office.

It was going to be a tight fit inside. She had no desk, just a large table filling most of the space where Mollie conducted the business operations of the company. Stacks of accounting books and technical manuals usually cluttered the table, but in preparation for the meeting, she had stashed them in the storage room.

“Please have a seat,” she said as she led him into the office. “Can I get you something to drink? We always have a kettle of tea warming.”

Was he even listening to her? He wasn’t looking her in the eyes, but there was a half smile on his face. “I can’t tell you how tempted I am to pull that comb out.”

Her eyes widened. His voice was smooth and low, like warm chocolate with a dash of cream. It was entirely inappropriate for a business meeting. Even as he spoke, the comb slid lower and more tendrils of hair broke free. This was ridiculous. It was going to be impossible to concentrate when her hair was about to come tumbling down.

“Would you excuse me for a moment? I’ll go find what is keeping Mr. Spencer.”

The moment the office door closed she ripped both combs from her hair. It streamed behind her as she scurried to Alice’s worktable. “Quick! I am about to go into the most important business meeting of my life and I look like the harlot of Babylon.”

Alice smothered her laughter as she twisted Mollie’s hair back atop her head. “I’ll use a few pins this time,” she said.

How could her sensible attorney take a disliking to a man so quickly? By the time Mollie returned to her office, Frank and Mr. Kazmarek were trading swipes at each other.

“So you never actually attended law school,” Mr. Kazmarek stated bluntly.

Frank sat a little straighter in his chair. “I obtained my license by clerking for two judges from the Illinois Supreme Court,” he said stiffly. “It is an entirely acceptable way to attain a legal education. It was how Abraham Lincoln became qualified to practice law.”

One of Mr. Kazmarek’s dark brows flew upward. “So you are comparing yourself to
Abraham Lincoln
?”

“It is a much better way to learn the law than sitting in a classroom at Yale.” The way Frank said
Yale
made the school sound like a pair of unwashed socks.

Mollie’s eyes widened. Hadn’t she just told Frank of Mr. Kazmarek’s infamous reputation? Or the rumors about the fish? “My goodness,” she said pleasantly. “I leave for two minutes, and I find the Goths assaulting the Visigoths.”