A deluge of embarrassment threatened to drown Patrick. “My pardon. I didn’t realize your connection to the case. Of course you have every reason to resent Mick Malone. I hope you can understand. . . .”
He hoped she could understand that lawyers sometimes had to hold their noses and take unpopular clients. The justice system could never be fair unless everyone had access to a lawyer. Everyone. Even unsavory people like Mick Malone.
“I understand that money can do strange things to people who lack it,” she said. “We can avoid the legal assault my family is prepared to throw against Mr. Malone and settle this quickly. All your client needs to do is sign an agreement never to publish a memoir.”
She set the proposed contract on his desk. He snatched it up and quickly skimmed four pages of text that would effectively hogtie Malone from ever profiting off the 1870 crime.
It was probably a trap. The Blackstones wouldn’t let Malone get away this easily.
He tossed the papers down on his desk. “I don’t trust it.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what you think of our offer. You have a legal obligation to present it to your client, and if he takes the deal, you will be well compensated for your services.”
She left the office in a swirl of silk and the scent of rose water. His mouth went dry, and his heart sped up. Gwen Kellerman was temptation personified, and it had nothing to do with the money she dangled before him. It was the alluring and unsettling effect she had on him as a man, and that alarmed him more than anything.
4
Patrick needed to convey Mrs. Kellerman’s surprising offer to Mick Malone. The sale of the book would earn more in the long run, but Mick might take the quick payoff to avoid the legal hassles. Either way, Patrick wouldn’t take her bribe. He liked his integrity too much to sacrifice it for a little quick cash.
Mick lived in a seedy rooming house just off Mulberry Street. The late-afternoon sun warmed the pavement and mingled with the stink from chimney stacks, salted cod, and rubbish collecting in the alleys. The air rumbled as an elevated train passed overhead. Peddlers hawked their wares, and children played in the alleys. It was a rough neighborhood without a blade of grass, just buckled concrete and hard-packed dirt.
The Five Points had horrified Patrick when he arrived as a fourteen-year-old immigrant. Ireland was poor, but it was a rural poverty that didn’t feel so desperately bleak. The raucous squalor of the Five Points was alien to him. All he could see from the roof of his boardinghouse were endless streets of concrete, laundry lines, and chimney stacks. Women shouted from windows to their children below, roving gangs intimidated shopkeepers, and he’d been forced to grow up fast.
The Irish gangs were tough, but Patrick rubbed along okay with them. By the time he was sixteen, he’d learned to fight and was soon earning a pretty penny in the bare-knuckle boxing pens. It was a brutal way to earn a living, but he was big, fast, and tough. Were it not for Father Doyle, Patrick would have eventually become one of those Irish gangsters, but God had other plans for him.
The stairway in Mick’s tenement was so cramped that Patrick had to duck as he climbed to the third-floor hallway. Water stains marred the plaster, and a single lightbulb provided dim illumination for the entire hall.
He knocked on Mick’s door and waited. It cracked open to reveal the suspicious eyes of Mick’s wife. Ruby Malone’s face immediately brightened when she recognized him.
“Patrick, love!” Ruby exclaimed, reaching a hand through the narrow opening to cuff him on the shoulder. She had been named for her fiery-red hair, although it was now faded with age. Rumor had it she was the best pickpocket in the neighborhood and had only been imprisoned for it twice.
“Mrs. Malone,” he said respectfully. “Can I come inside?”
The narrow gap closed an inch more. “I’m afraid I can’t invite you in. What do you need, love?”
“To talk with Mick. Is he here?”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s at the pub already. The one on Anthony Street.”
“Can I come in? I’d like to speak to you as well.”
The opening in the doorway narrowed even farther. “Oh, this isn’t a sight for your saintly eyes. Good day to you, Patrick.”
The door slammed in his face.
Was it possible Ruby had a man inside? Mick and Ruby were famous for their long, loud, and boisterous marriage of thirty years, but Mick had a roving eye, and maybe Ruby was balancing the scales. Or fencing stolen property. Whatever was going on in that room, he wasn’t welcome inside, so he headed to Anthony Street in search of Mick.
He wasn’t hard to find. A crowd had already gathered at the pub, and Mick was holding court in the middle of it. He was a gangly man with a swath of long, yellowy-white hair. He held a crowd spellbound, gesturing with his hands as he gazed into space, his Irish brogue thick as he spun his tales.
“Ireland is home of the proud, but it doesn’t have the freedom that I’ve found in America,” he said. “The Irishmen of the Five Points are grumbling, growling, strong, and loyal. We’ve grabbed our plot of this godforsaken city and made it our own. We may be poor, but we are free men!” he roared. “The days of crawling on our bellies are over. We bow to no one. We fear no one.”
Some good-natured foot stomping and growls of approval rose from the crowd, but a voice from the back challenged him. “Not even the Blackstones?”
“Especially not the Blackstones,” Mick said, warming to the topic. “Oh, they had me once,” he conceded. “They locked me in a dungeon and tried to send me to the gallows, but they couldn’t break me. No, sir! And my loyal Ruby visited me every day in that dank cell. She was a font of female compassion, a balm for any man’s abused soul.”
A few catcalls rang out, but Mick caught Patrick’s gaze through the smoky interior.
“Well then, not-quite-Father Patrick,” Mick called out. “What brings you into this den of iniquity?”
“We’ve got business to discuss.”
Mick straightened a little. “You hear that, lads? I’ve got important business with the neighborhood’s best lawyer. Let me have a beer first.”
Patrick shook his head. “Sorry, Mick. I promised my mother I’d bring home dinner, and she’s waiting. Let’s go outside now.”
Mick didn’t look happy about it, but he followed Patrick out the pub’s back door. Talking about Mrs. Kellerman’s surprising offer on a public street wasn’t ideal. There were people in this neighborhood who’d kill for a thousand dollars, but Ruby had made it plain Patrick wasn’t welcome at their place.
“Well?” Mick asked as they shuffled into the grubby alley behind the pub. “How many copies of my book are they going to print? And when can I get paid for them?” His hand trembled as he lit a cigarette.
Mick would get fifteen percent of the book’s profit, and Patrick would get two percent if he won the lawsuits the Blackstones were sure to launch. The money would be welcome, but the bigger prize would be publicity for Patrick’s legal services. Winning a case against the Blackstones’ intimidating phalanx of lawyers would catapult him to fame in the city, but first he was legally obligated to pass along Mrs. Kellerman’s offer.