Carved in Stone, page 13
“There’s never anything left!” the old man groused.
“Fancy that! Be grateful for what you got, then.” Patrick lifted the empty pot but wouldn’t take it to the kitchen until he was certain the cigar-chomper wouldn’t cause more grief for Mrs. Magill. He followed the old man through the tables to one of the few vacant spots left. It was always crowded in here, and Patrick cleared some abandoned bowls from the table, putting them in the empty kettle to carry back to the kitchen.
That was when he noticed Liam Malone leaning against the back wall of the room, watching him.
Patrick instinctively knew the hard-eyed welder wasn’t here for a bowl of stew, but he asked anyway. “Hungry?”
Liam shook his head. “My uncle said you work here on Saturdays. I need to talk.”
Everything about Liam’s stance, from his worried gaze to his bobbing Adam’s apple, indicated he was nervous. After Mick’s victory in court, the troublemakers who came to the city to whip up resentment against the U.S. Steel deal had gone home, including Liam and the other welders from Philly.
Now Liam was in New York again, and Patrick wanted to know why.
“Come on back to the kitchen. You can help me scrub pots.” Patrick led the way, and Liam followed.
It was sweltering in the kitchen, with the stoves and ovens working at full blast, but Liam rolled up his sleeves without complaint and lowered the empty pot into the sink filled with wash water.
Patrick grabbed a rag to begin drying bowls. “Out with it, then.”
“I need a lawyer,” Liam said.
“You came a long way, and I don’t practice law in Pennsylvania. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time.”
Liam glanced at one of the ladies preparing a vat of coffee, then back at him. “It’s a New York problem and not something I want overheard.”
Patrick nodded. “Help me finish the lunch duty, and we can talk when we’re done.”
The cleanup didn’t take long because Liam worked hard. He scrubbed, dunked, rinsed, and dried. He was clearly no stranger to work, as he cleared dishes, swept the floors, and wiped down the tables. Patrick finished the chores an hour earlier than he could manage when working on his own.
“We can talk in the alley behind the kitchen,” he suggested.
Liam nodded and followed. Empty crates and dented trash cans cluttered the narrow brick alley. There was nobody else back here, but Liam glanced nervously up and down the street before speaking in a low voice.
“I don’t know who to trust,” he finally said. “Uncle Mick said you were a decent lawyer and you promised not to tell any of his secrets. Something about the rules of being a lawyer.”
“That’s right.”
Liam fidgeted, continually shifting his weight. “Yeah, well, the only lawyers I’ve met are shysters who work for the owners of the steel mills. You’re nothing like them. You seem like one of us, like I might be able to trust you.”
“Trust me to do what?”
Liam looked him straight in the eye, his face intent. “You know the rumors about me, that me and that Blackstone kid might be one and the same. I don’t know if they’re true, but I have eyes in my head. I saw a picture of Theodore Blackstone, and we look alike. I wouldn’t put it past Mick to play mean and dirty. My dad had a long and healthy hatred for the Blackstones. He’s been dead for ten years, so there’s no asking him, but he played dirty too. Crocket Malone was a brute, and I left home as soon as I could get away from him. I’ve been working in the Philly shipyards ever since.”
“And your mother? The one who bemoans delivering a ten-pound child? Is she lying too?”
“Maybe,” Liam said. “She still lives in Pittsburgh and has a big box of legal papers under her bed. I’ve tried looking through it to find a birth certificate or something else to prove who I am, but I can’t make much sense of all those papers.”
“Why not?” Patrick asked. “It shouldn’t be hard to spot a birth certificate.”
Liam stared moodily down the alley. “I’m not much for reading,” he admitted. “I need help going through that box.”
“Can you read at all?” Patrick didn’t want to embarrass Liam, but he needed to know.
“Not really,” Liam said. “I can sign my name but not a whole lot more, and there’s no one I can trust to help me with those papers.”
The prospect of traveling all the way to Pittsburgh to help a virtual stranger look for a birth certificate was absurd. Patrick had a stack of new clients, and his mother still needed him.
“Take the box to the nearest Catholic school and ask the nuns to help,” he said. “They’ll keep your confidence.”
Liam’s shoulders slumped, but only for a moment before straightening back up. “Yeah, I figured you’d say something like that. Hey, thanks anyway. You did a good job for my uncle, and I’m grateful.”
Liam headed down the alley, hands stuffed in his pockets.
Unbidden, the drawing of Hansel and Gretel in Gwen’s dining room rose in Patrick’s mind. It had been thirty years since her brother’s kidnapping, and it still nagged at her. If Patrick could prove who Liam Malone was, one way or the other, Gwen would want to know. He could never repay her for the serum that saved his mother’s life, but maybe he could grant her deepest wish by finding out what happened to Willy Blackstone.
“Wait!” he shouted down the alley, but Liam had already disappeared into a sea of pedestrians and lumbering wagons on Mulberry Street. Patrick ran a few blocks, constantly scanning the crowds until he spotted Liam heading toward the streetcar stop.
“Liam, wait!” he shouted again, for Liam was about to board the streetcar, and Patrick doubled his speed. He was breathless by the time he got to Liam’s side. “I changed my mind. Let’s leave for Pittsburgh as soon as we can.”
This might be the only thing he could ever do for Gwen, and he wouldn’t hesitate again.
Gwen was writing invitations for Friday’s soiree when the perfect thought struck. She would invite Patrick! She hadn’t realized he was so sensitive about how they’d been meeting on his fire escape, and having him attend one of her weekly gatherings would let him know that she was proud to be seen with him.
She’d always assumed she would someday marry another Blackstone College professor. It wasn’t that she objected to men in other lines of work. She simply thought it would be easiest to marry someone who already belonged here.
That was before she met Patrick. An involuntary thrill triggered inside her when she thought of his face, rough with affection as he gazed at her. Patrick was everything a woman could want in a man. Kind and giving and intelligent, but also a man of raw strength and a rock-solid foundation. She remembered the first night they’d kissed, when he spoke of the vows he would someday make to his wife. “They will be carved in stone to last for all time,” he had said.
The doorbell interrupted the quiet of the evening. When she opened the front door to see Patrick standing on her front porch, it felt like her dreams had magically brought him to her.
“Hello, Mrs. K.”
She beamed in reply. “Good evening, Patrick.”
“Can I come inside? I had an interesting conversation with Liam Malone today.”
The haze of infatuation vanished, and her hand tightened around the doorknob. In the past few weeks, she’d managed to consign the disquieting man to the back of her mind. Uncle Oscar’s detectives hadn’t finished their report on Liam Malone, but she had already decided his physical resemblance to her father was a mere coincidence.
She sat on the padded chair beside the fireplace while Patrick sat on the hearth, only inches away, cradling her hand as he spoke. She felt sick as he relayed the conversation he had with Liam Malone, who claimed there were rumors and unanswered questions about his early years that might point to the chance that he could be Willy Blackstone.
Her gaze strayed to the Hansel and Gretel painting in the dining nook. Liam Malone was so crass and aggressive. Boorish. Not at all like she expected her older brother to be.
But she had to know.
“I’m going to Pittsburgh with him to search for proof,” Patrick said. “It may take a few days, but if he’s your brother, I’ll find out.”
Her heart swelled in her chest. “You would really do that for me?”
“I would do anything in the world for you.”
The breath left her lungs in a rush. How long had it been since she could lean on a man she could implicitly trust?
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” Patrick continued, without shame or embarrassment. “That means there’s no mountain I won’t climb. No wall I’m not willing to blast through on your behalf.”
A spark of pure joy burst to life. “Oh, Patrick . . . I feel the same. I know there may be a few stumbling blocks ahead for us—”
He stopped her with a kiss, then grinned at her. “You’re tiny enough for me to pick up and carry over them.”
She laughed in delight as he stood and lifted her from the chair, twirling her as effortlessly as though she were a loaf of bread. This was what she’d always wanted in a man. A protector. A man she could trust with her deepest secrets, her heart, her soul.
He set her on the ground, and she clung to him tightly. “God bless you, Patrick. You’re taking a piece of my heart with you to Pittsburgh, but I’ve never felt so safe trusting it to anyone before.”
He clasped her so tightly that she felt the pounding of his heart. He would come through for her. Finally, finally she had a man she could lean on.
18
When Gwen received a summons to join her family on Uncle Oscar’s yacht for a Sunday afternoon sail, she decided to decline. She wanted to spend that time with Patrick before he headed off for Pittsburgh. But when she called Oscar’s house to decline the invitation, she got her marching orders.
“I insist the entire family attend,” Oscar said. “We will be discussing bank business, and your presence is mandatory.”
Nothing in the world was more tedious than bank business, but Oscar was adamant, and since the college’s funding still teetered on the edge of destruction, Gwen dared not disobey.
The sun was shining as she arrived at the marina. Everything felt brighter this morning. She was young and in love. The sky was a cloudless blue. Patrick was going to Pittsburgh to find her an answer about Liam Malone, one way or the other.
Gwen climbed the steeply angled gangway to board the Black Rose, her uncle’s grand yacht that had a staff of eight deckhands, four stewards, two cooks, and a captain. The crew kept the teakwood deck polished to a high shine, and the brass fittings gleamed in the sunlight. Belowdecks were staterooms for eighteen people, a cardroom, a dining room, and a bowling alley.
Once aboard, Gwen surveyed the family already assembled on deck. A few of her cousins played shuffleboard on the rear deck, and Oscar’s wife sat in a deck chair like it was a throne. Poppy Blackstone was Oscar’s second wife and younger than Gwen. Having a male child was desperately important to her uncle. When his first wife died after thirty years of marriage, having given birth to only a single daughter, Oscar wasted no time seeking out a young and healthy bride. Rumor had it that before he married her, he ordered Poppy to visit a specialist to ensure she was capable of bearing children. Poppy had conceived seven months ago, and now she swanned around like she was carrying the child of Zeus, constantly cradling her expanding waistline.
Gwen took the seat beside her. “Do you know why we’ve all been summoned?” Aside from funding the college, she had no interest in bank business, and ordering the entire family to a meeting was odd.
“I have no idea,” Poppy said, slowly waving a fan before her face. Her blond curls were artfully arranged beneath a jaunty hat perched on her head. “It can’t be too important, since Natalia isn’t here.”
That was a surprise. Natalia was Oscar’s daughter from his first marriage, and he always wanted her nearby when discussing bank business.
“Where is she?” Gwen asked.
“At the bank.” Poppy rolled her eyes. “Some excuse about building a railroad through Siberia. Apparently, the funding for supplies simply can’t wait until Monday.” Poppy leaned in a little closer. “Russians,” she muttered, not bothering to hide her disdain. Oscar’s first wife had been Russian, and Poppy instinctively competed with the dead woman’s memory.
Oscar strolled over, his cane tapping on the decking. “Natalia is transmitting payments for supplies to the Trans-Siberian Railway because construction will grind to a halt without food and fuel. We are both very proud of Natalia, aren’t we, Poppy.”
It was a statement, not a question, and Poppy wisely sat up a little straighter and brightened her tone. “Heavens, yes. You should see her at the bank, Gwen. Natalia sits right beside the telegraph operator to arrange the negotiations because he doesn’t understand Russian, but she speaks it like a native. It’s very impressive.”
Oscar would probably have made Natalia his successor at the bank if the operating trust permitted it, but the rules were clear. Only men could inherit power at the bank. Gwen had never minded that, but Natalia did.
Oscar tapped the leg of Gwen’s chair with his cane. “Natalia told me that one of your college professors cured a woman with tetanus. Is it true?”
“It appears so.”
Uncle Oscar nodded in approval. “Good. When can the serum be monetized?”
“That’s a question for Dr. Haas, not me.”
Oscar raised his hand and snapped his fingers, summoning his personal secretary. “Contact Dr. Haas at the college. Get him to lock down a patent on that serum, and be sure it’s owned by the college, not the man.”
Even on a yacht party, Uncle Oscar was all about business, but Gwen was busy strategizing ways to introduce Patrick to her family. Some of them would hold his connection to Mick Malone against him, but she would set them straight about what a wonderful man he was. Despite Patrick’s worries, her family weren’t snobs.
Well, Poppy was a snob, but the rest of them were mostly decent people. After long years of anguish over her disastrous marriage to Jasper, it felt like her world was unfolding as it should.
By one o’clock, all twenty-four family members who lived in Manhattan had arrived, and the Black Rose was ready to sail. The chief officer stationed at the bow of the ship gave the signal, and the winches rumbled as the chains rolled in. The long blast of a whistle signaled their departure from the pier. A string quartet played Mozart, and stewards circulated with trays of elegant tea sandwiches.
As usual, most of her family socialized by generation. Her grandfather had five sisters, all of whom had married men of leisure and produced numerous children. The explosion of women in Frederick’s generation accounted for the lopsided distribution of power in her family. The operating agreement that governed Blackstone Bank prohibited women from inheriting shares. Only the male descendants of Frederick and those five elderly aunts inherited voting shares, and few showed much interest in the bank. They usually trusted Uncle Oscar to vote their shares according to his judgment.
Frederick and his sisters sat clustered beneath a canopy that shaded them from the sun, while their children, all of whom were well into middle age, inspected the delicacies laid out on a banquet table.
Gwen migrated toward members of the third generation, who were nearer her own age and terrifically fun. Her cousin Chester, who owned some of the finest racehorses in New York, was talking to her cousin Edwin, and she decided to join them. Edwin always provided excellent conversation.
“What happened to you?” she asked Edwin. The last time she’d seen him was three weeks ago in the courtroom, when he was hale and hearty. Today he lounged on a chair with his leg in a plaster cast.
“I broke my leg last week hiking in the Adirondacks. Miserable business. But, Gwen, I saw a farm with two hundred peacocks strutting about the property like they were the emperors of India. You can’t imagine the cacophony. I’m not sure which hurt more, my leg or my ears. Say, do you know why we’ve been summoned here? I’ve heard Oscar is still trying to buy Carnegie Steel.”
The last thing Gwen wanted to think about was the impending steel merger, which was why protestors had flooded the courtroom that awful morning.
“Oscar’s plan is bigger than just Carnegie Steel,” Chester said. “He wants to swallow up a bunch of other steel companies so he can corner the market. The new corporation will be called U.S. Steel, and it’s destined to make us all richer than Midas.”
He continued talking, but Gwen’s attention always wandered during tedious bank discussions. She was about to stroll over to join her grandfather’s elderly sisters beneath the canopy when Oscar interrupted.
“Gwendolyn, a moment, please,” her uncle said, gesturing her toward the port side of the yacht.
She drew alongside him, and Oscar glanced around to be certain they were alone before speaking.
“I heard back from the detectives I sent after that man you saw in the courtroom.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Yes?”
“He’s nothing more than a malcontent steelworker. He’s originally from Pittsburgh, but now he’s in Philadelphia, where he leads the welders’ union in the shipyards. He loves stirring up trouble in the press. Here’s an example.”
He handed her a newspaper folded open to an article about the merger that would create U.S. Steel. An underlined passage quoted Mr. Liam Malone of the local union.
It’s bad enough having a bloodsucker like Andrew Carnegie controlling the nation’s biggest steel company, but if the Blackstones buy him out to create U.S. Steel, we won’t just have Andrew Carnegie bleeding people dry in Pittsburgh. There will be a hydra-headed monster strangling the workingman all over the country. I intend to fight this unholy alliance with every breath in my body.
Gwen turned her attention back to Oscar. “We already knew he was a union man. What else have you got?”
“His father was Crocket Malone,” Oscar said. “Crocket was a felon who brought his son up to follow in his disreputable footsteps. When Liam was twelve, the police caught him and his father setting fire to a steel mill in Pittsburgh. Two months later, they were arrested for throwing rocks through the mill foreman’s window, and a baby was hurt. Like father, like son. He’s not one of us.”
