Chapter 11
LAURIE
New York offices of The Rational Appeal
Newspaper Row, Park Row, Manhattan
Not three hours since he’d seen Chary safely off at Grand Central, Laurie was in-office much later than his usual for a Friday, sitting before his typewriter, glaring grumpily at the left-justified, blank page.
No leads. No answers. No culprits. Only covered-up murders and blatant attempts aplenty.
Irving Sawyer, sure, had come through with the dead men’s names.
Four journeymen had gone missing from Wright Glass in the past two years: little traces, fewer leads.
One, Dmytro Tkachenko, had been Ukrainian; a second other, Wiktor Roczeń, Polish, neither of which languages Laurie spoke well enough to interview the families himself.
He could’ve gotten a translator without any trouble, but that was assuming the families themselves to be traceable in the tangle that was the Lower East Side. They weren’t.
Two of the four journeymen, the ones Chary had known, were confirmably dead.
James Delargy, an Irishman, also a suspected part-time gangster, had been incarcerated in Sing Sing before eventually hanging himself in his cell.
Another, Samuel Border, a white-passing but one-eighths-Black man—this identified postmortem—had been kept briefly in the care of the police for theft before he’d been run over by a streetcar shortly after release.
Suspicious, of course, but it was New York, and folks did die. Seeking out more from relatives had meant doors slammed in Laurie’s face. Abandoned apartments in Harlem. Dead ends.
It felt intentional. When Irving had said they wouldn’t be missed, he’d maybe hit upon a determining factor in their being chosen. One out of two determining factors.
If they had been chosen at all, that was. If their absences had been intentional. Laurie was still missing more than one factor: motive. Rationale. Why would somebody murder four glassworks gaffers?
Had they any ties to Chary or the unions? Had they known Chary, found out his secret, his spying, his disguise, somehow—and he’d gotten rid of them, one by one?
… And then almost been murdered himself?
Laurie groaned into his palms.
Or was there something bigger at work there?
“L?” Hiram, stepping in.
He pulled his face out of his hands. “Yeah. Still here. Don’t laugh. It’s been a long day.” He looked up. “What’s wrong?”
Hiram came over, almost timid for the first time in their acquaintance, all spring and intentional movement gone from his lithe form.
He had a paper folded in his hand, thin and dusty: fresh newsprint.
Not the Appeal’s, an afternoon proof of one of the screamers: big block letters and sensationalism.
The one, perhaps, that was printed in the basement one building away and sold on the corner in the evenings.
“Breaking news?”
Hiram lay the proof on the desk before Laurie, then kept his distance, somber and rouge-less. “Your rough.”
Laurie’s stomach dropped.
GRUESOME SLAYING OUTSIDE BOONE’S BAR brOOKLYN: POLICE AT A LOSS.
“Son of a bitch.”
Five. Five glassworks gaffers.
He wouldn’t be leaving Chary Wright be after all.