City of Light (26 page)

“I’d assumed he’d taken you into his confidence.”

“About what?”

“Well … about what he’s doing. Out at the power station. You’re certainly a person worthy of confidence. I’ve always had the utmost confidence in you. I would trust you with anything.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

How should I play this? I decided on continued confusion. “But why would Mr. Sinclair take me into his confidence about his work? I rarely even see him.”

Mr. Albright glared at me as though convinced he’d caught me in a lie. “You see him often enough. After all, you
are
godmother to young Grace.” Suddenly his mood shifted. “Of course, you and I have that in common. Being Grace’s godparents, I mean. I’d almost forgotten. It’s as if we’re related to each other, being godparents to the same child. Well, well. I hadn’t thought of that before; hadn’t put two and two together. Good, good. At any rate, Sinclair will understand my message,” he concluded in a non sequitur.

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” I inquired firmly.

“Oh, I have, I have. We’re very close, as you know. At least we once were. Before these … matters came up, and I found it necessary to distance myself. I still feel responsible for him. You don’t help someone for years and whatnot and then just turn your back.”

“No, of course not.”

“I’m hoping that hearing my message from you, with your mutual … connections, will be more persuasive for Sinclair than hearing it once more from me. If you follow.”

I hesitated. “Not exactly.”

He sighed. “I’ll try to be more clear.” He thought for a moment. “You see, Miss Barrett, in America we have always had equality of opportunity. This is what I tell these unionists when they come to me.” He waved his hand in irritated dismissal. “I’m giving men an opportunity here at Stony Point—an opportunity to work. What they do with that opportunity is their business. But unions—they don’t give equality of opportunity, do they? They make everyone exactly alike, make everyone part of a faceless mass. A cog in the industrial machine.” The distaste in his voice was palpable. “But equality of opportunity—
that
is America. Sinclair knows this better than any of us, coming from where he’s come. He didn’t stay where he began and spend his life organizing a glassmakers’ union, now did he?”

Albright stared at me, expecting an answer to this rhetorical question. “No,” I admitted to appease him.

“And just as we must have equality of opportunity, so too nothing can be given away for free. Destroys the motivation. The incentive, if you will.” He stopped. “I don’t see how I can be more clear than that.”

“You’re referring to unionization at the powerhouses? Or here at Stony Point?” I asked in bewilderment.

“Neither! Whatever do you mean?” Now he looked bewildered too. “Why would you think that?”

I didn’t respond.

Exasperated, he demanded, “Why this subterfuge? Sinclair knows very well I won’t betray him—you can tell him once more that I won’t be party to what he’s planning, but neither will I betray him.”

“What is he planning?”

“Miss Barrett. Disingenuousness doesn’t become you.”

“No, honestly. I don’t know. But I feel I
should
know, don’t you? Especially since you clearly assume I
do
know.”

For a long moment he studied me. “Well, we’ve worked ourselves into quite a conundrum, haven’t we,” he observed. “Well, well.” He glanced around the room, his fingers drumming the desk. When he looked at me again, there was something sinister in his eyes. “Miss Barrett, have you ever seen a butterfly called the Blue Morpho?”

“No, I haven’t.” My voice caught from nervousness.

“It’s a South American butterfly. A tropical butterfly. I’ve coveted it all my life. It would be easy enough to acquire,” he assured me. “I’ve men collecting for me around the world—I just need to give the word. On the other hand, I’ve been hesitant to let the Blue Morpho join my collection, for fear that acquiring my heart’s desire will serve only to harken my demise.” He smiled in appreciation of his own jest. “A Blue Morpho is a large, brilliant azure butterfly. The few specimens I’ve seen are remarkable. But what’s truly remarkable is that the undersides of the wings are drab brown, with small orange-black eyespots. When the Blue Morpho alights, on a tree limb, for example, it seems to disappear.” Intently he stared at me. “Rather like you, don’t you think?”

Was he threatening me? I clutched at my independence and attempted to affirm that I too was a person to be reckoned with: “Mr. Albright, forgive me for changing the subject, but I was surprised, on the train ride out here, to see the squalid encampment where your employees live. Such a situation hardly complements the work you do here. Something should be done about it,” I added more confidently, my fear dissipating as I saw a wary expression appear on his face. “You should build a model village for your workers, like Echota, out at the power station.”

“All in good time, my dear,” he replied carefully.

“Why don’t you at least clean things up a bit? Otherwise by summer you’ll have typhoid. Or cholera. Who’ll build your steel mill then?”

“Women like you are always trying to improve the world,” he said bluntly. “How glad I am that I rescued Susan from such a fate.”

Susan Fuller Albright, the governess-companion from Smith College. Obviously his words were intended as an insult, which I ignored.

“Aren’t you worried that your men might revolt, living as you force them to?”

“Not very likely. I do believe they need the work.”

“At the least, you provide fertile territory for union recruiters.”

After a long moment, and carefully staring at one of his Corots on the wall, he said, “What would you know about that?”

So, I had scared him. He could visualize me as a spy, or a socialist. “I know absolutely nothing about it. But I will say that you’d best do something to help those men, Mr. Albright, or I’ll see to it that Miss Love is informed.”

“You blackmailer!” he suddenly cried, delighted. “Yes, yes—I certainly shall do something before Miss Love can be called in to help.” He began to laugh boisterously. “Miss Love: our own local battle-ax. What would we do without her? You’ve certainly given me the most effective threat I’ve heard in years. I’ll remember that one. Well, well.” He wiped his brow with his finely pressed handkerchief. “In the end I suppose we’ll recognize that it’s you women who’ve single-handedly made the world free for capitalism. What would have become of us without your petticoat brigades lending a hand to the downtrodden? It’s my favorite irony: wives, daughters, and sisters righting the wrongs of fathers, husbands, and brothers. Men victimize and women rescue. A neat little trick. Who needs socialism, or communism, when Miss Love can be called in at a moment’s notice to redress all wrongs!”

Done with his laughter, Albright pushed up his glasses to rub his eyes. Then he folded his thin hands over one another on the desk.

“My dear Louisa.” His use of my first name was a subtle recognition of my subordinate position. “One good turn deserves another, don’t you think?” He cocked his head and gave me a look I can only describe as lascivious. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d now made an ungracious request. A request that required the locking of the door.

“You’ve come all the way out here for me, so I’ll give you some advice: Go back to the city, deliver my message, and then ask Sinclair his plans. Once you know, never tell anyone and stay as far away from all of this as you can. I wouldn’t want you, of all people, to get caught up in any … complications.”

“Might these complications relate in any way to the death of Karl Speyer?” I asked, risking frankness.

He looked sincerely taken aback. “No, not at all. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“Ah, well … I’m afraid I really must return to my work now.”

I didn’t move. I remained silent until I had his full attention. “Mr. Albright, did you have anything to discuss relating to Macaulay?”

Gently he chortled. “Everything we’ve discussed is related to Macaulay, my dear. I should have thought that obvious.”

Angrily I walked down the asphalt-paved road, cursing its Albright-sponsored smoothness. What was I to do with this warning he’d given me for Tom? Obviously I would have to pass it along, but how foolish I would feel, repeating Albright’s nonsense about his finger in the dike—especially because I had no idea what it meant.

Workmen were streaming in and out of the gates: a change in shift, I assumed. As I crossed to the train station, I saw a man handing out flyers—calling to his friends, reaching to shake hands, trying out greetings in several languages and enjoying his inability to master any of them. I took a flyer from him and looked at it as I waited on the railway platform, the wind from the lake whipping my skirt against me. As I read, I felt surprised that the flyer was handed out so openly.

Debs’s appeal to you!

There was a blurry picture of the fiery socialist labor leader Eugene V. Debs, thin, bald, and bespectacled. I read on:

We stand for you! Can you and will you understand? We are of your class and we have resolved to free ourselves from wage-slavery.

Are you with us? You must be unless your eyes are blind, your heart dead, and your hand lifted against your own wife and child.

Socialism is the hope of humanity, the light of the world.

Here is our hand, brother, give us yours.

“Miss Barrett? Is it Miss Louisa Barrett?” a man’s voice inquired. Startled, I looked up. I recognized him immediately—the man who was the talk of the town. I crumpled the flyer and slipped it into my jacket pocket. “I thought so. Well met, well met.” As he reached for my hand, he took off his hat and bowed slightly from the waist. His thinning brown hair, combed over the crown of his head, was so thickly pomaded that the wind didn’t lift it. He wore a plaid-patterned beige suit of a thick tweed. His entire manner was warm and affectionate, as if we’d been friends for years, when in fact we’d never been introduced. But of course he knew me. That was his job: to know people. “What a happy coincidence.”

I had an uneasy suspicion that our meeting wasn’t a coincidence at all. For here was Frederick Krakauer, Mr. Morgan’s man. “You’ve picked a lovely day for a tour of the steel mill. Lovely.” He gazed at the gray sky suspiciously, as if wondering why it didn’t cooperate with his convictions.

Meanwhile, the train arrived on the other side, discharged its passengers, and circled around for the trip back to the city. When it pulled up, Krakauer took my elbow lightly to guide me down the platform. “Allow me the honor of escorting you back to the city.”

Instinctively I pulled my arm away from him. “I’m hardly in need of an escort, Mr. Krakauer.” Then I realized my mistake; I must not offend him: Who could tell what ears he whispered into? As graciously as I could, I added, “Should you wish to accompany me, however, your presence will make the trip much more … mutually entertaining.”

He paused. “Yes, I think so,” he finally agreed, as though my words had taken him a moment to unravel.

We boarded, I took a window seat facing the direction we were going, and he sat opposite, facing me. His bulky presence seemed to fill the double seat. He gave off a sweet tobacco scent, but not of cigars or cigarettes; a pipe, most likely. The train whistle blew, and then we were moving.

At first we sat in silence, but as we passed through the squatters’ camp Mr. Krakauer began to offer his views on humanity. “How curious it is, Miss Barrett, that this little community is not what it appears. No, no, it’s not one large shantytown for the workers of Stony Point: It is many small shantytowns—one for the Poles, one for the Italians, one for the Slovaks, for the Croats, for the Czechs, and on and on. Even the coloreds have their pitiful circle. Each group has its own territory and God help them if they step over the invisible boundaries because they won’t live to see the morrow!”

I didn’t honor his prejudice with a response.

“Barely pays to build them real housing, at the rate they’re killing each other. Not to mention losing arms and legs on the job. I don’t know how poor Mr. Albright keeps things going! Do you know, there are over four thousand injuries a year and on-site fatalities average one a day? Extraordinary. And yet men keep lining up for the work.” Krakauer patted his belly, looking pleased with himself for being able to pass on this inside information. With his smooth skin, his age could have been anywhere between forty and sixty.

“Mr. Albright worries about strikes, but
I
say, when you’ve got the men working twelve-hour shifts, who has time or energy to organize a strike!” This time he waited for my response.

“I see what you mean,” I said noncommittally

“Now, Mr. Sinclair over at the power station, he’s got different ideas. He’s all for taking care of his workers—giving them proper houses and even education. And not just them, but their families too! Can you beat that?” Krakauer shook his head at the naiveté of such notions. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see which is more profitable in the long run.” I had no doubt that Krakauer had already made up his mind on that score.

“Well, I’m certainly happy to have this chance to speak with you. Unfortunately I wasn’t present for your tour of the powerhouses—although I heard about your visit, yes indeed I did. Well, I can’t be everywhere at once,” he admitted sadly. “Even Mr. Morgan doesn’t expect me to be everywhere at once. I can only do my best, and try to be where I need to be, at any moment.”

I couldn’t resist the temptation to tease him. “It must be difficult, to judge where to go. Where you’ll be needed most.”

He sighed, thinking me sincere. “Yes, that’s the toughest part of my job.”

“Mr. Krakauer,” I said gently. “What exactly is it that you’re doing here?”

“Here? On this train?” He looked astonished. “Why, going back to Buffalo.”

“No, here in general. At the steel mill. At the power station. In the city and all around it. At one social event after another. Week after week, month after month—my girls are beginning to regard your presence as highly suspect.”