Betina Krahn Read Free Page A

said. After a moment, the others mercifully allowed him to sink back into oblivion.
    “Give the women the vote,” Croker muttered in disbelief. That had to be the whiskey talking. No man in his right mind believed in females voting. Not even the reform-minded
one-man-one-vote
mongers.
    Then he turned to under-boss Charles Murphy, on his left. “See to it. Set it up. I’m puttin’ you in charge, Murphy. I’ve got my hands full runnin’ Gilroy’s campaign for mayor.”
    “Excuse th’ interruption, Mr. Croker,” a voice inserted, causing all present at the table to turn. “But, the lad here’s been waiting for a spell.” It was one of the Fourth Ward’s burly heelers holding a tense-looking young man by the arm.
    “We got business.” Croker turned back to the others. “He’ll have to come by city hall tomorrow mornin’.”
    The petitioner wrung his frayed tweed cap and looked a bit frantic as the heeler dismissed him with a jerk of the head.
    “Wait.” Connor examined the young man’s weedy frame, thinking that he was much too young to have shoulders so rounded. There were only two things that weighed that heavily on a man: sorrow and responsibility. “What’s your name, my friend?”
    “Grady sir. Thomas Grady”
    Connor cocked his head to eye the young man at a slant. “Any relation to a fellow named Mick Grady over in Firth Alley?”
    “My pa,” the young man said, straightening his spine.“He died Tuesd’y last. That’s how come I need a better job. Ma’s got six little ones still at home an’ my wife …” He looked down and twisted his cap. “She be carryin’ our first.”
    He scarcely looked old enough to be married, much less to have been thrust into the role of breadwinner for two households. Sorrow
and
responsibility. A deadly combination.
    “I knew your pa,” Connor said, his voice taking on a bit of a lilt. “A fine, solid block of Cork stone he was. Could lay brick from dawn to dusk and then tell ye stories all the way to sunup.” The pride that mingled with wary hope in the young man’s eyes was wrenching. “A loyal supporter of Tammany, too. I heard he voted for Mayor Grant in the last election …
twenty-eight times!”
    The others hooted with laughter while the young man reddened and grinned shyly.
    “Then by all means, lad, we must see to your problem,” Croker said, wiping his eyes.
    Connor sat back and watched with a smile as the young man was given the name of a builder who had just received a sweetheart of a contract for some waterworks.
    This was the true business of government. This was the way things truly got done. The people elected the men of Tammany Hall to provide for them and provide they did: public works, public safety, public services, jobs, and sometimes even the bare necessities of life. It was the system within the system, the informal agreements and tacit cooperation that kept the city—the entire state—running like a well-oiled machine. And that was precisely what the muckraking journalists and fiery-eyed reformers called it:
machine politics.
    Soon they were interrupted by another petitioner, another young man. But, unlike Thomas Grady this onewas dressed in the height of fashion: black-tie evening clothes with an ivory silk scarf hanging around his neck.
    “Which of you gentlemen is Connor Barrow?” The young fellow’s voice was barely a few years removed from a soprano.
    “I am.” Connor turned in his chair to face him. “Who is asking?”
    “Your cousin, sir. I am the son of Alicia Barrow Granton … Jeffrey Granton.”
    Connor straightened. The boy clearly expected the name to work some sort of magic and it did. The sound of it, pronounced in those aristocratic tones—
Baaarrrow
—was enough to capture Connor’s undivided attention. No Barrow had claimed him as kin or contacted him in ten years; not since his wealthy grandfather disowned and disinherited him. Since then, he’d been a Sullivan in all but legal surname, and even