Chapter Forty
CHAPTER FORTY
T HE DAY BEFORE T HE E MPIRE’S GRAND OPENING, T HOMAS ENTERED his pleasure palace with a heavy pocket. He’d told Evelyn he would prove his love. And he intended to do just that. The ring he’d purchased would go a long way to help him in that endeavor. Tonight, he would meet Evelyn at the party, declare his love, and ask her to marry him in full sight of high society. As he bound himself to Evelyn, he would throw off the control he’d let the Manhattan elites have over him. In a matter of a few short hours, his entire life would be different.
Freer. Better.
So perhaps we can understand why, when he arrived for the investors’ preview of the vaudeville, he was too distracted to notice that the crowd of well-heeled men had not just one decidedly uninvited member, but an entire posse of them.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, withdrawing his key to open the front of house.
“Ah, there’s the man of the hour.”
Thomas turned to find Mr. Alban’s pale, tight face and his usual attaché of fine gentlemen—as well as, for reasons unknown, the unusually sour-faced Smith and a push-broom mustached police officer.
What any of them were doing here, Thomas hadn’t the first clue. But with the eyes of his entire investor corps upon him, he had no choice but to play along.
“Mr. Alban. It’s wonderful to see you again. Welcome to The Empire.”
“Pleasure’s all mine, boy. I’ve heard of nothing else around Manhattan but your delightful vaudeville program—to say nothing of the rest of this fine facility. I’m thrilled to see the object of so much gossip with my own two eyes.”
The meaning was clear to all. Alban would be judging this theater—and their work, their time, and the investors’ money hung in the balance. Thomas had held off the newspapers until now, but only because Alban had allowed it.
Very well, then. If he wanted to play, they would play. Evelyn had built something marvelous with this show. Even Alban, jaded as he was by Thomas’s as-yet-unspoken rejection of Constance, would see that.
“Very well, then. Gentlemen—allow me to introduce you to The Empire. In all of her glory.”
A tour was first on the agenda, and after the appropriate awe had been extracted, Thomas ushered his crowd into the theater, showed them to their seats, and took his own as the orchestra tuned up.
Alban took the liberty of seating himself directly to Thomas’s left, separate from the rest of the audience. Which meant that instead of focusing on the show, Thomas spent the entire bill clocking Alban’s microexpressions and twitches.
While Alban remained eminently stoic, the rest of their audience fell perfect prey to Evelyn’s show. The men laughed at all the appropriate bits, clapped after each performance, and even gave Evelyn and her Dancing Dozen a brief standing ovation.
It was a smash. Just as he’d known it would be. Pride swelled within him, and it took a considerable amount of energy not to smirk. Take that, you pompous moralist , he wanted to whisper to the man next to him. You overestimated your regressive hold on this city. But you can’t destroy the undeniable. Not with a million newspapers.
However, he held his tongue and when the final curtain fell, the assembled men slipped into uncomfortable silence. Waiting, Thomas knew, for the unelected leader of their pack to place upon the show his own seal of final approval.
“Mr. Gallier,” came the eventual summons. “I should like to speak with you. Alone. It won’t take a moment. I’m sure Mr. Samson—”
“Doctor.”
“Of course. Dr. Samson can take your guests to luncheon, and you can join them directly.”
Power moves on top of power moves. Thomas steeled himself for the inevitable fight to come.
Once their companions were gone, ushered by Andrew to the third floor, where they would be taken on a culinary odyssey through The Empire’s seven restaurants and bountiful food stalls, Thomas started for his office.
“Shall we—”
“Don’t talk,” Alban said, low and unmoving. “Just listen.”
“I beg your pardon—”
The man scoffed. “Can’t even follow simple instructions. Really . Makes me wonder if I should be going to all this trouble to make you my son-in-law.”
Son-in-law.
Thomas had thought he’d been clear that was not his fate.
But with The Empire and its success hanging in the balance, Thomas walked a tightrope.
“With all due respect, sir—”
“You have built something wonderful here, Mr. Gallier,” Mr. Alban said, waving his walking stick at the grandeur all around them, the masterpiece that had been the work of Thomas’s adult life. “It would be such a shame if it all crumbled down around you.”
“Ah.” It was as Thomas had feared, and he found himself almost relieved by this inevitable turn in the conversation. “So we’ve arrived at the threats portion of our program.”
“We had an agreement, you and I. You’ve disappointed me and you’ve disappointed Constance. She was positively heartbroken when she heard about you and that fat little charity girl.”
Thomas highly doubted that. Perhaps she’d played the wounded lover for her father—but he knew that her interest in him would never hold a candle to her affection for Edward Langmore.
“I’m terribly sorry to have disappointed her, but—”
“Excellent. If you’re sorry, then I’m sure you’ll endeavor to correct the mistake.”
“What does she like? Flowers? Chocolates? A box seat to our premiere on Saturday?”
“Engagement rings.”
There was no way Alban could have known about such a ring currently occupying Thomas’s pocket. But Thomas’s hand went to brush it just in case—a privately defensive posture.
“My boy, we do not have to be at cross-purposes. I can forgive this folly of yours, this chorus girl diversion. I do not wish to make your life a misery. Please. Come to your senses.”
He was all friendliness now. Almost more dangerous for his amiability.
“I am perfectly in my right mind,” Thomas said.
“Then why can’t you see clearly to marry my daughter?”
“Because I do not love her. And what’s more, she does not love me.”
“Love,” Alban snarked. “As if that ever mattered. Marriage is just like any other business deal you’ve ever struck, Mr. Gallier. A map of concessions and trade-offs and sacrifices to get what you really want.”
“What I really want? What I really want is Miss Evelyn Cross. Now, if you have nothing further to say, sir, I will have my leave of you—”
“You will marry my Constance.”
“I stopped taking orders when I was eighteen years old. Forgive me if I don’t change my stripes for you now.”
Retiring to one of the theater’s front row seats, Alban adopted a relaxed, almost bored air. “It wasn’t an order. It was a fact. You will marry her, you stubborn boy.”
“Don’t call me boy .”
“Would you prefer son ?”
“You have some confidence for a man who has been refused at every turn.”
“The refusal won’t stick.”
“And why not?”
The tone Alban adopted now was both condescending and pitying. As if he were explaining all this to a child. “Isn’t it enough that I could destroy this show with a few strokes of my typewriter? Thomas, the vaudeville you’ve slapped together isn’t fit for Christian eyes. Fat women dancing about with barely any clothes on? A man fashioned as a lady? Mediums and magicians? Negroes and queers and flagrantly un-American displays of foreigners? Socialists ? You couldn’t possibly expect me to allow decent, god-fearing Christians to take in such lascivious entertainments.”
Thomas laughed in his face. “You severely underestimate the people who read your newspapers. You have tried to wipe out my performers time and time again, but you saw how the investors reacted back there. The people can be swayed by your writing, but in the end, they all just want to be entertained. I’m not afraid of you anymore. And those people back there? Those stars who just gave the best show of their lives? They never were.”
Mr. Alban’s lips pulled back over his teeth in what must have been a misguided attempt at a smile.
“Mr. Gallier, you’re breaking my heart.”
“You’d have to have one first,” Thomas muttered.
Damn him. Damn him to hell. Thomas tired of this endless rotten-go-round. He was getting off—no matter the consequences.
But then, Alban tutted and pulled something from his breast pocket, just as he had at their first formal meeting.
“I don’t want to publish this story. But it will be going out in the paper tomorrow if we can’t reach some sort of accord.”
Thomas had half a mind to ignore it. Another threat. What was the worst that could happen? What could possibly …
But that what if eventually won out, and Thomas snapped up the neatly typewritten story.
Only halfway through the first paragraph, and the words blurred.
An entire life built on hiding his past. And here it was, written out in plain newsprint for the world to see.
“How … how did you find all of this?”
“My man Smith is an exceptional bloodhound. But I don’t think that’s the right question, sir. The right question is what are you going to do if it gets out? You’ll be ruined.”
“It’s America. Everyone reinvents themselves,” Thomas defended, voice hollow.
“Yes, but not so many people do it while engaging in what might be considered criminal fraud. You’ve lied, Thomas. You’ve lied to investors who have put up unfathomable sums of money for this building. They believed in Thomas Gallier. They signed their money over to Thomas Gallier. And that means you took them in under false pretense. If my friends in City Hall get ahold of this … I’m afraid the consequences would be dire.”
The bars on the cage around Thomas’s heart tightened. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He didn’t need Alban to spell out the way this would utterly wreck his life, everything he’d ever fought for. But the old man did it anyway.
“As I’m sure you can imagine, you would be put under immediate arrest. That’s all very well and good, you’d say. You could handle it. Perhaps hire a lawyer to make sure you’re looked after in prison. But as the investigation begins, your personal effects will be collected for evidence. What might an officer find in such a collection? I’m sure there’s evidence to be found of all manner of crimes. Dr. Samson performing medical interventions on degenerates in your home. Chaperoning infractions at Miss Matterly’s boarding house that could see her license revoked. Homosexual acts involving that female impersonator and his attaché. Prostitution by Miss Evelyn Cross.”
“She isn’t—”
“I don’t think the courts will see it that way. And even if they don’t get her on that charge, she could at least be charged with conspiracy in your fraud. I’m sure all the little citizens of your Empire had some hand in it.”
“They didn’t know,” Thomas protested. “None of them knew.”
“What proof will they have? How will the fat, crippled, socialist Negro queers that populate your social circle convince a judge in this city, my city, that they’re innocent?”
The walls were closing in. Thomas felt as if he’d been transported back to Coney Island, at the top of the roller coaster.
“I could protect them.”
“Well,” Alban said, so civilized, so controlled. “Let’s assume that’s true. Unfortunately, we come now to the worst of it. When you are arrested for this fraud you’ve perpetrated, your assets will be seized. And when you are inevitably found guilty, the city will auction them off to the highest bidder. I will be that highest bidder, Mr. Gallier. While you are rotting alone in a jail cell for the rest of your days, I will spend every last second ensuring that, as president of The Empire, everyone you care about is destroyed. Not only will I own this building, I will own the future of each soul within it.”
He rose and offered Thomas his hand to shake—as if this were a business deal instead of the end of his life.
“Now. I’ll ask again. Will you marry my Constance?”
God, no. Please. Please don’t make me make this terrible choice. I only wanted Evelyn. I only wanted her. I can’t … I can’t live without her. Please—
“It is a simple question, Mr. Gallier. I expect an answer.”
Evelyn always told Thomas how good it was to love people. For so long, he had questioned that judgment. Now, he was reminded why.
Evelyn had taught him how to love without fear. And this was the consequence. He loved too deeply and too unselfishly to do anything else but save her.
This choice would break him. To marry Constance Alban and forsake Evelyn would mean the end of all things good and true. But it wasn’t so much a choice as a moral imperative. Loving Evelyn meant protecting her. It meant giving her up, breaking both their hearts, so that she and her friends could continue to live in peace and freedom and security.
His life for all of theirs.
Thomas brushed his fingertips over the ring box in his pocket. One last goodbye.
So. There it was.
Yes, Miss Cross would be allowed to return to her life without him. Their friends would relish their newfound stardom that The Empire brought them. The Empire would be allowed to continue, flourishing through the years and leaving his mark on this world, proving that his small life had meant something. Dr. Samson would continue his lifesaving work, protected from the prying eyes of small-minded, conservative, hateful society gossips. All would be well for those he loved more dearly than himself.
And Thomas …
Thomas would be married.
Thomas would have a beautiful wife.
Thomas would have a fortune.
Thomas would have power.
Thomas would have prestige.
Thomas would have influence.
Thomas would have it all.
Thomas would have everything he ever dreamed of.
Except the one thing that really mattered.
Which meant that Thomas would also be very, very miserable.
“Yes. I accept.”