The Winter Family (16 page)

“Can I interest you in a cigar?” Quentin said.

He produced two handfuls, stolen from the train.

Johnson looked nervous. Noah noticed Johnson’s discomfort and smiled.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I would not have put my brother on that train if there was anything on it I didn’t want him to steal.”

Quentin laughed heartily.

Fred Johnson took a book out of his jacket.

“I took this,” he said.

Noah took it from his hand.

“You’re reading this?”

“Indeed,” Quentin said, between puffs of his cigar. “He’s come a long way. Putting the boots to all the theories of Negro intellectual inferiority.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Noah said. “It’s a dreadful translation.”

“I told him so!” Quentin cried.

“If you want to read the
Iliad
I’ll send you something better. I’ll send you all the books you want. You’ll have plenty of time to read, and plenty of quiet too. You’ll have the hotel entirely to yourself.”

“You own this hotel?” Quentin said. “Remarkable place. How much did you pay for it?”

Noah sipped his tea and said, “A thousand dollars.”

“A thousand dollars?” Quentin cried.

“I bought it during the Fire,” Noah said. “It was quite something, the Fire. At first the wind was feeding it, but after a while it made its own wind. This great hot, dry whooshing up and down the streets. And it was coming south toward this hotel. I walked in on impulse and offered the owner a thousand dollars for it. He accepted and called me a fool. The transaction was witnessed. And the Fire was stopped one building to the north.”

“What a story!” Quentin said. “That’s my brother for you. A gambler at heart. Oh, I grant you, he is a most meticulous gambler, unafraid of research and hard work. But a gambler nonetheless.”

“I’m certainly gambling on you,” Noah said.

“My dear Noah,” Quentin said. “You can count on me, I assure you. What you’ve done for us, I simply can’t …”

Quentin seemed to tear up. Noah looked unimpressed.

“I can’t put it into words,” Quentin continued. “A second chance! We’d have to be mad to let it slip away. Don’t worry, my brother. I can’t control how the good people of Chicago will vote but I can promise you that we’ll do everything in our power to sway them.”

“For now, you must simply stay here until I tell you to leave,” Noah said.

“Now, Noah,” Quentin said. “It will be just as you say, of course, but is that really necessary?”

In answer, Noah opened his briefcase, removed a newspaper, and tossed it toward Quentin. The headline was in an enormous font. Quentin picked it up and read it.

“Goodness me,” Quentin said. “I certainly wouldn’t describe us as carpetbagger mercenaries.”

“It seems a rather apt designation to me,” Noah said.

Quentin put the paper down. “How could they already know we are here? This paper must have been printed before we arrived.”

“Obviously,” Noah said, “they have a spy. One of our first tasks will be to return the favor. I rather think the German sergeant in your unit would be a fine candidate.”

“Sergeant Müller? Unfortunately, we’ve fallen out of touch recently.”

“I’ve found him,” Noah said, “and he’s coming here.”

“Wonderful!” Quentin cried, his eyes dancing. “That’s wonderful news.”

“He has two men with him. I thought you had another five or six?”

“Well,” Quentin said. “We had dispersed, you understand. I left your telegram with the lovely Madame Shakespeare. I expect that both Empire brothers will arrive shortly.”

“But not Augustus Winter,” Noah said.

“No, no, of course not,” Quentin said. “Although, you should realize that what transpired in Mississippi was not entirely his fault.”

“Then was it yours?” Noah said. “Because I have been operating on the assumption that he, and not you, was responsible for that atrocity. If I was wrong, I’d thank you to tell me now.”

“I merely meant that it was a very difficult situation,” Quentin said. “Very, very complicated.”

“It is not nearly as complicated as the situation here,” Noah said. “The election will take place in a matter of days, and we know what we will face because we have already seen it in New York. There will be ballot-box stuffing. There will be repeat voting. There will be intimidation at the polls. There will be bribery. There will be trumped-up arrests of Republican election officials. There will be violence directed toward anyone with a clean collar, or who looks likely to vote Republican. Votes will be lost, miscounted. Hundreds of immigrants will be transformed into citizens by corrupt judges. If the Democrats win the mayoral election they will become entrenched in this city. They will build a political machine and grow powerful by stacking the police and the bench with their allies and rich by taking a percentage of city contracts. Fortunately for you, that possibility has made certain men in Washington very nervous. Grant has no worries
about his own reelection next month, but in four years? In 1876? The former Confederate states will likely have their electoral votes restored to them, and it is very unlikely they will vote Republican. A Democratic political machine in Chicago could tip the balance in that presidential election.”

Noah stopped his speech. Quentin was reading the newspaper. Suddenly he laughed.

“Did you read this? The Democratic candidate for mayor marched with a Negro militia yesterday? The gall of it! A Democrat courting the Negro vote!”

“The Democrats don’t care about the Negro vote,” Noah said, sipping his tea. “There’s barely a thousand Negroes in Chicago, and we can rely on them, at least, to vote Republican. He is merely trying to distance himself from the rebellion.”

“Ha ha ha! The gall! Listen to this, Brother: he told them he had nursed at the breast of a colored mammy. The cheek!”

“It’s one of his tricks, these constant appeals to race. Harrison is from Kentucky. He claims to be an opponent of slavery but it was the sale of his slaves that set up his fortune here, and he voted for Davis in 1860. You see what we’re up against. I need to stress to you, Quentin, that we are dealing with very cunning and manipulative men. They know how to twist words and win the hearts of the common people. This has to be handled very delicately.”

“Of course, of course,” Quentin said.

“You aren’t down south any longer,” Noah said. “This isn’t the war. Your pardon is conditional upon how you handle this matter. Do you understand?”

“Of course, Brother!” Quentin said. “I understand.”

Noah did not look satisfied. He leaned forward in the chair.

“That means you must stay in the hotel until I tell you to leave. And it means you must keep the men under your command on a tight leash. Do you understand? They don’t trust you in Washington. I was only able to get you this chance because the Republicans have no other choice. They can hardly send in the army, and the Pinkertons and other mercenaries don’t want to take sides.”

Quentin cried, “I understand! Brother, I understand. This is our last chance, and we must behave ourselves.”

Noah looked at his watch and said, “I have another appointment.”

“Well,” Quentin said, “don’t let us keep you.”

“I don’t mean to be hard on you, Quentin,” Noah said. “I’ve taken a great risk to get you this second chance.”

“And don’t think I’m not grateful.”

“Only, it’s not your second chance, is it? Or your third or your fourth. It is your last, Quentin. Your absolute last. I can assure you of that. Please, please. Just do as I say.”

“Of course!” Quentin said. “Of course!”

Noah stood up.

“Gentlemen, I take my leave.”

After the sound of his footfalls receded, Quentin smiled at Johnson and shrugged.

“He ain’t like you,” Johnson said.

“Oh now,” Quentin said, “we’re like two sides of the same coin. We really are. Gamblers, but men of the world. We’re both concerned with natural law and we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. And he’s successful. Just look around! This all belongs to him! My brother. I’ve never been so close to anyone. He’s saved my bacon more times than I can count and he can be a little short with me. And he’s right of course. He’s always right. Still, sometimes I wish …”

Here Quentin trailed off and the expression on his face became oddly blank. Like the unnatural placidity of a statue half effaced by erosion and time.

“I wish he would listen. I wish I could just make him see.”

As Quentin shook his head, a smile slipped back onto his face. He puffed on his cigar. The black waiter materialized at his side and winked at him again.

“I don’t suppose I could trouble you for another cup of coffee,” Quentin said.

“Oh, yes sir,” the waiter said. And then he added in a lower voice: “You gentlemen looking for a little action?”

“What kind?” Quentin asked.

“Oh,” the waiter said, smiling, “any old kind you like.”

“What’s your name, my friend?”

“Archibald, sir,” the waiter replied.

“Well,” Quentin said, “I do believe you may be of some assistance
to us. However, I warn you that we’ve yet to be paid by my brother for the services we are shortly to render to him, and we’ll need a brief extension of credit.”

The waiter’s smile disappeared and was replaced by a sober, reproachful look. He looked like a man who was about to say that he was not angry, but only terribly disappointed. The look was so comical that Quentin threw back his head and howled with laughter that echoed around the empty dining room.

Then he reached into his pocket and fished out a thick roll of golden coins and tossed it on the table. It landed with a heavy thud.

“How much action can that get me?” Quentin asked.

The waiter’s impish smile had returned.

“As much as you like, sir,” he said. “In Chicago? You can get into as much trouble as you like.”

After the completion of the Hannibal Bridge in 1869, the railway pumped the City of Kansas full of humanity that spread and spilled outward across the unresisting plains. The stockyards sprang up on the Kansas side of the Kansas River, where the two railways met, and the slums came with them: row upon row of little houses, identical in their squalor.

In one of those little houses, Austin Shakespeare let out a youthful shriek, awakening his older brother Lukas. Lukas moaned, slid underneath the pillow, and clutched his head in his hands. He had been drinking cheap gin the night before, and his head was thrumming with pain, while his stomach was turning over and over, like an eel trying to squirm loose from a sack.

After the shriek the boys were quiet. Presumably, Matt had reminded Austin, in a whisper, not to wake their dangerous older brother. But a few minutes later, their feet were thumping on the floor again, then Matt giggled, then Austin shrieked again, and a dish broke.

Luke sat up in their mother’s small bedroom, glared angrily around at the frilly curtains and the jars and bottles of makeup and perfume on the side table, and then got up and smacked the door
with his palms, knocking it wide open. The sunlight in his eyes did not improve his mood. Matt and Austin froze, their faces fixed in expressions of terror and dismay. They had been wrestling near the kitchen table. Now they released each other and stood back.

“What in the goddamn nine hells are you two nancies doing?” Luke hissed.

The boys looked down. Matt was eleven years old. Austin was eight. Both were tall for their age, bony, with light orange hair. Of the two, Austin was noticeably more delicate, with a shy manner and an overbite. Matt was more spirited, and all of his movements had a kind of clumsy elegance, like a spider hurriedly making its way across its web. Awkward, but precise.

Lukas himself was only fifteen years old. Although he was not much taller than Matt (they had different fathers) he nevertheless seemed, through his violent temperament and force of will, to tower over him. Even their mother had become afraid of Lukas; it was probably no accident that she had left the house early that morning.

“Buggering each other? Is that it? Is that why you’ve been giggling like girls?”

“I’m sorry, Lukie,” Austin said, and Lukas lunged at him.

“No!” Matt said, stepping in front of Lukas.

Lukas hurled Matt to the floor. Austin screamed and ran.

“You prancing little sodomite!” Lukas screeched. “You slack-titted poxy whore!”

Matt raised his hands to protect his face, but Lukas knocked them away and started slapping. Matt cried out. It went on for a while, and then there came a knock on the door. A jaunty, musical knock. Seven notes in total.

Shave and a haircut, two bits.

The rage fled Lukas’s youthful face, replaced with shock.

Again: Shave and a haircut, two bits.

“What is it?” Matt said. Tears were still gleaming in his eyes, but he had stopped crying the instant he had seen the terror in his brother’s face.

“Shut your fool mouth,” Lukas said. “Get in the bedroom! Both of you!”

“Who is it?” Matt said, confused. “Who is it, Lukie?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Lukas shrilled. “Get in Mom’s room! Close the door.”

A sigh came through the thin wood. Quiet, and impatient. Only barely audible, but Lukas heard it and jerked as if he’d been stung.

“Hurry, hurry!” he hissed, and it was the fear in his voice, so strange to their ears, that got them moving. Lukas saw them under the bed and then he shut the bedroom door and walked to the front of the house.

The young man outside wore a long duster and had his hat pulled down low over his forehead to hide his famous face.

“Well, howdy there, Master Shakespeare,” the young man said. “Well met.”

Luke’s tongue clicked in his throat. He said nothing.

“Charlie around?”

Lukas shook his head.

“I thought Charlie and Johnny were coming up to hide out with you for a while.”

Lukas shook his head again.

“No?” The young man lifted his head a little. Beneath his hat his yellow eyes flashed a warning.

“No,” Lukas said. “I mean yes. They did come here, but now they’re gone.”

“Is that right?” Winter said, lowering his head again. “Whyn’t you come with me down the road to the gin joint? I’d like to talk a bit.”