“We did it!” Tears streamed down Mark’s face. “We fucking did it!”
Danny looked out through the floating ballots at the men toppling their chairs and hugging and howling and crying and he grabbed the top of Mark’s head and sank his fingers into his hair and shook it, howling along with the rest of them.
Once Mark let him down, they were rushed. The men poured onto the stage and some slipped on the ballots and one grabbed the charter from McCarthy’s hand and went running back and forth across the stage with it. Danny was tackled and then lifted and then passed across a sea of hands, bouncing and laughing and helpless, and a thought occurred to him before he could suppress it:
What if we’re wrong?
After the meeting, Steve Coyle found Danny on the street. Even in his euphoria—he’d been unanimously voted vice president of Boston Police Union 16807 less than an hour ago—he felt an all-too-familiar irritation at Steve’s presence. The guy was never sober anymore, and he had this way of looking into your eyes nonstop, as if searching your body for his old life.
“She’s back,” he said to Danny.
“Who?”
“Tessa. In the North End.” He pulled his flask from a tattered coat pocket. He had trouble getting the stopper out. He had to squint and take a deep breath to get a grip.
“You eaten today?” Danny asked.
“You hear me?” Steve said. “Tessa’s back in the North End.”
“I heard. Your source told you?”
“Yeah.”
Danny put his hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “Let me buy you a meal. Some soup.”
“I don’t need fucking soup. She’s come back to her old haunts because of the strike.”
“We’re not striking. We just joined the AF of L.”
Steve went on like he hadn’t heard. “They’re all coming back. Every subversive on the Eastern Seaboard is raising stakes and coming here. When we strike—”
We.
“—they think it’s going to be a free-for-all. St. Petersburg. They’re going to stir the pot and—” “So where is she?” Danny said, trying to keep his annoyance at bay. “Exactly?”
“My source won’t say.”
“Won’t say? Or won’t say for free?”
“For free, yeah.”
“How much does he want this time? Your source?”
Steve looked at the sidewalk. “Twenty.”
“Just a week’s pay this time, huh?”
Steve cocked his head. “You know, if you don’t want to find her, Coughlin, that’s fine.”
Danny shrugged. “I got other things on my mind right now, Steve. You understand.”
Steve nodded several times.
“Big man,” he said and walked up the street.
The next morning, upon hearing word of the BSC’s unanimous decision to join the American Federation of Labor, Edwin Upton Curtis issued an emergency order canceling all vacations for division commanders, captains, lieutenants, and sergeants.
He summoned Superintendent Crowley to his office and let him stand at attention before his desk for half a minute before he turned from his window to look at him.
“I’m told they elected officers to the new union last night.”
Crowley nodded. “As I understand it, yes, sir.”
“I’ll need their names.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get those immediately.”
“And the men who distributed the sign-up sheets in each of the precincts.”
“Sir?”
Curtis raised his eyebrows, always an effective tool when he’d been Mayor Curtis in the long-ago. “The men, as I understand it, were given sign-up sheets last week to see how many would be interested in accepting an AFL charter. Correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want the names of the men who brought those sign-up sheets into the station houses.”
“That may take a little longer, sir.”
“Then it takes longer. Dismissed.”
Crowley snap-turned on his heel and headed for the door.
“Superintendent Crowley.”
“Yes, sir.” Crowley turned back to him.
“You have no sympathies in this area, I trust.”
Crowley’s eyes fixed on a spot a few feet above Edwin Upton Curtis’s head. “None, sir.”
“Look me in the eyes if you please, sir.”
Crowley met his eyes.
“How many abstentions?”
“Sir?”
“In last night’s vote, man.”
“I believe none, sir.”
Curtis nodded. “How many ‘nay’ votes?”
“I believe none, sir.”
Edwin Upton Curtis felt a constricting in his chest, the old angina perhaps, and a great sadness filled him. It never had to come to this. Never. He’d been a friend to these men. He’d offered them a fair raise. He’d appointed committees to study their grievances. But they wanted more. They always wanted more. Children at a birthday party, unimpressed with their gifts.
None. Not a single nay vote.
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
Bolsheviks.
“That’ll be all, Superintendent.”
Nora rolled off Danny in a heap, let loose a loud groan, and pressed her forehead into the pillow, as if she were trying to burrow through it.
Danny ran his palm down her back. “Good, uh?”
She growled a laugh into the pillow and then turned her chin to face him. “Can I say fuck in your presence?”
“I think you just did.”
“You’re not offended?”
“Offended? Let me smoke a cigarette and I’m ready to go again. Look at you. God.”
“What?”
“You’re just…” He ran his hand from her heel, up the back of her calf, over her ass and across her back again. “Fucking gorgeous.”
“Now you said fuck.”
“I always say fuck.” He kissed her shoulder, then the back of her ear. “Why did you want to say fuck, by the way? Or, in your case, fook.”
She sank her teeth into his neck. “I wanted to say I’ve never fucked a vice president before.”
“You’ve limited yourself to treasurers?”
She slapped his chest. “Aren’t you proud of yourself, boy?”
He sat up and took his pack of Murads from the nightstand and lit one. “Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I’m…honored,” he said. “When they called my name out on the ballot—I mean, honey, I had no idea it was going to be there.”
“Yeah?” She ran her tongue across his abdomen. She took the cigarette from his hand and took a puff before handing it back to him.
“No idea,” he said. “Until Denton tipped me just before the first ballot. But, shit, I won an office I didn’t even know I was running for. It was crazy.”
She slid back on top of him and he loved the weight of her there. “So you’re honored but not proud?”
“I’m scared,” he said.
She laughed and took his cigarette again. “Aiden, Aiden,” she whispered, “you’re not afraid of anything.”
“Sure, I am. I’m afraid all the time. Afraid of you.”
She placed the cigarette back in his mouth. “Afraid of me now, are you?”
“Terrified.” He ran a hand along the side of her face and through her hair. “Scared I’ll let you down.”
She kissed his hand. “You’ll never let me down.”
“That’s what the men think, too.”
“So what is it you’re afraid of again?”
“That you’re all wrong.”
On August 11, with warm rain sluicing against the window in his office, Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis composed an amendment to the rules and regulations of the Boston Police Department. That amendment to Rule 35, Section 19, read in part:
No member of the force shall belong to any organization, club or body composed of present and past members of the force which is affiliated with o
r part of any organization, club or body outside of the department.
Commissioner Curtis, upon finishing what would become commonly known as Rule 35, turned to Herbert Parker and showed him the draft.
Parker read it and wished that it could be harsher. But these were upside-down days in the country. Even unions, those Bolsheviki sworn enemies of free trade, had to be coddled. For a time. For a time.
“Sign it, Edwin.”
Curtis had been hoping for a bit more effusive reaction, but he signed it anyway and then sighed at the condensation on his windows.
“I hate rain.”
“Summer rain’s the worst, Edwin, yes.”
An hour later, Curtis released the newly signed amendment to the press.
Thomas and the seventeen other captains met in the anteroom outside Superintendent Crowley’s office in Pemberton Square. They stood in a loose circle and brushed the beads of water off their coats and hats. They coughed and complained about their drivers and the traffic and the miserable weather.
Thomas found himself standing beside Don Eastman, who ran Division 3 on Beacon Hill. Eastman concentrated on straightening his damp shirt cuffs and spoke in a low voice. “I hear they’ll be running an ad in the papers.”
“Don’t believe every rumor you hear.”
“For replacements, Thomas. A standing militia of armed volunteers.”
“As I said, rumors.”
“Rumors or no, Thomas, if the men strike, we’ll see fecal gravity at work like never before. Ain’t a man in this room who won’t be covered in shit.”
“If he ain’t been run out of town on rails,” Bernard King, the captain of Division 14, said, stubbing out his cigarette on the marble floor.
“Everyone keep calm,” Thomas said quietly.
The door to Crowley’s office opened and the big man himself walked out and gave only a desultory wave to let them know they should follow him down the hall.
They did so, some men still sniffling from the rain, and Crowley turned into a conference room at the end of the hall and the phalanx of captains followed suit and took seats at the long table in the center. There were no coffee urns or pots of tea on the sideboards, no slices of cake or trays of sweets, none of the amenities they’d become accustomed to as their due at meetings such as these. In fact, there were no waiters or junior staff of any kind in the room. Just Superintendent Michael Crowley and his eighteen captains. Not even a secretary to record the minutes.
Crowley stood with the great window behind him, steamed over from the rain and humidity. The shapes of tall buildings rose indistinct and tremulous behind him, as if they might vanish. Crowley had cut short his annual vacation to Hyannis, and his face was ruddy with the sun, which made his teeth seem all the whiter when he spoke.
“Rule Thirty-five, which was just added to the department code, outlaws affiliation with any national union. That means that all fourteen hundred men who joined the AF of L could be terminated.” He pinched the skin between his eyes and the bridge of his nose and held up a hand to staunch their questions. “Three years ago, we switched from nightsticks to the pocket billies. Most of those nightsticks, however, are still in the possession of the officers for dress occasions. All precinct captains will confiscate those nightsticks starting today. We expect all of them in our possession by week’s end.”
Jesus, Thomas thought. They’re preparing to arm the militia.
“In each of the eighteen precincts, an AFL sign-up sheet was distributed. You are to identify the officer who was in charge of collecting those signatures.” Crowley turned his back to them and looked at the window, now opaque with moisture. “The commissioner will be sending me a list at day’s end of patrolmen I’m to personally interview in regards to dereliction of duty. I’m told there could be as many as twenty names on that list.”
He turned back and placed his hands on his chair. A large man with a soft face that could not hide the exhaustion that bulged from under his eyes, it was said of Michael Crowley that he was a patrolman mistakenly readorned in upper brass finery. A cop’s cop who’d come up through the ranks and knew the names not only of every man in all eighteen precincts but also the names of the janitors who emptied the wastebaskets and mopped the floors. As a young sergeant, he’d broken the Trunk Murder Case, a front-pager if ever one existed, and the publicity that followed sent him shooting—quite helplessly, it was noted—to the top ranks of the department. Even Thomas, cynical as he could be about the motives of the human animal, fully acknowledged that Michael Crowley loved his men and none more so than the least of them.
His eyes found theirs. “I’m the first to acknowledge that the men have legitimate grievances. But a moving object cannot pass through a wall of greater mass and density. It cannot. And, as of this point, Commissioner Curtis is that wall. If they continue to lay down gauntlets, we will pass a point of no return.”
“With all due respect, Michael,” Don Eastman said, “what would you expect us to do about it?”
“Talk to them,” Crowley said. “To your men. Eye to eye. Convince them that not even pyrrhic victory awaits if they put the commissioner in a position he finds untenable. This is not about Boston any longer.”
Billy Coogan, a clueless flunky if ever there was one, waved a hand at that. “Ah, Michael, it ’tis, sure. This will all blow over.”
Crowley gave him a bitter smile. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Billy. The police in London and Liverpool were said to take cues from our unrest. Liverpool burned, or did you not hear? It took warships of the English fleet—warships, Billy—to quell the mob. We’ve reports that in Jersey City and D.C., negotiations are afoot with the AFL. And right here—in Brockton, in Springfield and New Bedford, Lawrence and Worcester—the police departments wait to see what we will do. So, with all due respect as well, Billy, it’s far more than a Boston problem. The whole sodding world is watching.” He slumped in his chair. “There have been over two thousand labor strikes in this country so far this year, gentlemen. Put your heads into that number—that’s ten a day. Would you like to know how many of those turned out well for the men who struck?”
No one answered.
Crowley nodded at their silence and kneaded his forehead with his fingers. “Talk to your men, gentlemen. Stop this train before the brakes have burned off. Stop it before nobody can stop it and we’re all trapped inside.”
In Washington, Rayme Finch and John Hoover met for breakfast at The White Palace Café on the corner of Ninth and D, not far from Pennsylvania Avenue. They met there once a week unless Finch was out of town on Bureau business, and as long as they’d been doing so, Hoover always found something wrong with the food or the drink and sent it back. This time it was his tea. Not steeped enough for his liking. When the waitress returned with a fresh pot, he made her wait while he poured it into his cup, stirred in just enough milk to muddy the waters, and then took a small sip.
“Acceptable.” Hoover flicked the back of his hand at her and she gave him a look of hate and walked away.
Finch was pretty sure Hoover was a fag. Drank with one pinky extended, finicky and fussy in general, lived with his mother—all the signs. Of course with Hoover, you could never be sure. If Finch had discovered he fucked ponies in the mouth while painting himself in blackface and singing spirituals, he wouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing surprised Finch anymore. In his time with the Bureau, he’d learned one thing about men above all others: we were all sick. Sick in our heads. Sick in our hearts. Sick to our souls.
“Boston,” Hoover said and stirred his tea.
“What about it, John?”
“The police have learned nothing from Montreal, from Liverpool.”
“Apparently not. You really think they’ll strike?”
“They’re predominantly Hibernian,” Hoover said with a delicate shrug, “a race that never let prudence or reason cloud its judgment. Time and again, throughout history, the Irish have boasted their way into apocalypse. I find no cause to think they?
??ll do any different in Boston.”
Finch sipped his coffee. “Nice opportunity for Galleani to stir the pot, if they do.”
Hoover nodded. “Galleani and every other dime-store subversive in the area. Not to mention the garden variety criminal element will have a field day.”
“Should we involve ourselves?”
Hoover stared at him with those keen, depthless eyes. “To what end? This could be worse than Seattle. Worse than anything this country’s seen thus far. And if the public is forced to question whether this nation can police itself at local and state levels, who will they turn to?”
Finch allowed himself a smile. Say what you would about John, that sleek ugly mind of his was gorgeous. If he didn’t step on the wrong toes during his rise, there’d be no stopping him.
“The federal government,” Finch said.
Hoover nodded. “They’re tarring the road for us, Mr. Finch. All we have to do is wait for it to dry and then drive straight up it.”
CHAPTER thirty-four
Danny was on the phone in the squad room, talking to Dipsy Figgis of the One-Two about getting extra chairs for tonight’s meeting, when Kevin McRae wandered in, a piece of paper in his hand, a dazed look on his face, the kind a man got when he saw something he’d never expected, a long-dead relative, perhaps, or a kangaroo in his basement.
“Kev’?”
Kevin looked over at Danny as if he were trying to place him.
“What’s wrong?” Danny said.
McRae crossed to him, extending his hand, the paper between his fingers. “I’ve been suspended, Dan.” His eyes widened and he ran the piece of paper over his head, as if it were a towel. “Fucking suspended. You believe that? Curtis says we all have to attend a trial on charges of dereliction.”
“All?” Danny said. “How many men were suspended?”
“Nineteen, I heard. Nineteen.” He looked at Danny with the face of a child lost at Saturday market. “What the fuck am I going to do?” He waved the piece of paper at the squad room and his voice grew soft, almost a whisper. “This was my life.”