Land of a Thousand Dreams (12 page)

Michael Burke woke up just after dawn. The morning light was dim, the bedroom cold, but he didn't mind. Nor did he care that it was his day off, and he'd awakened long before he needed to get up.

The truth was, he savored such a rare moment of leisure. He lay there, with the soft silence of daybreak wrapped around him and a heart brimming with pleasant thoughts to consider. Yawning, he gave one huge stretch before the cold drove him back under the bed covers. He would give himself another few minutes, he decided, a few stolen moments in which to be an idle man.

Burying his face in his pillow, he smiled, remembering the night before—and Sara. She had amazed him entirely by declaring that she thought they should set the date for their wedding. Curiously, she seemed uncertain, almost shy, as if she'd half expected him to announce that he had changed his mind and didn't wish to marry her after all.

That unexpected lack of confidence was Sara's way, he knew, and just one of the things that endeared her to him. In the beginning, the slight unhinging of her composure in his presence had confused him, even tested his own assurance. He'd thought perhaps he made her uncomfortable by who he was, that he somehow offended her sensibilities. A lady of her quality wasn't likely to be keen on having an Irish cop hanging around, after all.

But later, as he came to know her…and to love her…it secretly delighted him that he could fluster the unflappable Sara Farmington. Sure, the woman had no lack of backbone. She could be a terror about her causes and her principles. There was no arguing with Sara when her mind was set, and that was the truth.

Yet, with him, her self-assurance seemed to tilt in the most delightful manner. She would turn crimson, even stammer, without the slightest provocation, and in his arms…ah, in his arms, she was all shy, glistening eyes and sweet, sweet loveliness.

At those times, he felt himself to be a man blessed. He thought he could survive for the rest of his life on the look in Sara's eyes when he held her close.

He would marry her tomorrow if she'd but say the word!

His smile broke even wider as he recalled how she'd scolded him just last night about his impatience. His immediate suggestion, when she agreed to set the date, had been a Christmas wedding.

“It wouldn't be
decent,
Michael! Why, we've only been engaged two months!”

“And who decides what is decent?” he countered.

“Well…custom. Tradition.”

“So, then, we'll establish a new tradition—a more sensible one!” he'd replied, attempting to kiss her into submission.

“Not before April,” she'd insisted between kisses.

“April? I'll be mad by April, Sara!”

“Michael, really!”

“I'm in love with you, woman! I want to be with you. I
need
to be with you! You'd make me wait until
April?”

“March, then,” she'd said with a bit less starch.

“March is cold and ugly, Sara. You'd not want such a dismal wedding, sure.”

“February?”

“
Christmas Eve.
”

Hadn't she smiled at him then, a baffling smile that set him to wondering if she hadn't wanted Christmas all along, but simply meant to be quite sure he was sincere.

Turning onto his back, Michael mulled over the rest of their conversation. He was still troubled about her insistence on a small, private ceremony. He'd been so sure she'd want a large wedding at the Fifth Avenue Church, as befitting her family's position in New York. For his part, he found the idea of an elaborate ceremony repugnant, but he had convinced himself to endure it, for Sara's sake.

But Sara had other ideas. “Actually, that's not what I want at all. I'd much rather be married at home, in the chapel, if that suits you.”

He had made an effort to reassure her that he'd suffer the whole show if she would prefer a big wedding. But she was adamant in her refusal to even consider it.

“I don't want a large wedding, Michael! Truly, I don't. Besides,” she added quietly, “I think with Tierney feeling…as he does about our marriage, it's best that we keep things simple.”

Again, Michael shifted restlessly on the bed, jamming his fist into the pillow to plump it. He should be relieved. Hadn't he dreaded the thought of an extravagant society affair all along?

If only he could feel more confident about her reasons.

So far as Tierney was concerned, there was no pleasing him anyway. Keeping things simple wouldn't change the boy's attitude about the marriage. The fact was, he disliked Sara, resented her for her wealth, her family, her social position—thought her a “society spinster” who had taken advantage of his father simply to “get a man.”

It made Michael furious every time he thought of the terrible accusations his son had leveled. No, catering to Tierney would do nothing to soften the boy's opposition to the marriage.

Besides, the discomforting truth was that he couldn't help but wonder if Sara was being altogether honest about her reasons for wanting a small ceremony. Mightn't it be that, as time went on, she was beginning to question her decision? Surely by now she realized how altogether peculiar her choice of a husband was going to seem to her society friends and acquaintances.

And could he blame her? Admittedly, it would be no easy thing for Sara Farmington to present to her peers an Irish immigrant cop as her bridegroom.

Even if that weren't the case, even if—
please, God
—he were wrong about Sara having second thoughts, how was her father going to take to the idea? Lewis Farmington might be an extraordinary man, even a bit of a maverick in the eyes of his contemporaries—but he was still one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the state of New York—and Sara was his only daughter. Surely he would want to give her away in style.

“Father will want what I want,” Sara had replied without the slightest hesitation when Michael had posed the question to her.

Perhaps. Michael wasn't so sure. Yawning, he rubbed a hand over the heavy stubble of his beard, still reluctant to get out of bed. This morning he would face Tierney with the fact that he and Sara planned to wed on Christmas Eve. He dreaded the encounter, certain to be an unpleasant one.

Tierney never missed an opportunity to throw out one of his snide remarks. There was no explaining his antagonism for Sara; Michael had given up trying. The announcement of their engagement had sent the boy into a sulk for days. Finding out the wedding date had finally been set was sure to set him off once again.

With a sigh, he pushed himself up. He might just as well get it over with, he decided, refusing to let the thought of yet another confrontation spoil his mood.

In the bedroom he shared with Tierney, Daniel stood staring out the window. It was well past daylight, and Tierney still hadn't come home.

It wasn't the first time, of course. Tierney seemed to get away with his escapades with incredible ease. Uncle Mike slept like the dead, and more than once Tierney had sneaked up onto the roof and through the window just past dawn, with his da never knowing the difference.

But not
this
late, and never on Uncle Mike's day off, when he was sure to be hanging about the flat all morning. This time he was going to get into trouble for sure.

A sudden pounding made Daniel jump.

Who would be knocking at the kitchen door so early? Certainly not Tierney! He'd not come to the front door for anything, sneaking in past dawn!

He heard Uncle Mike's voice, then another, this one unfamiliar.

Still in his nightshirt, he opened the bedroom door just enough to peep out.

Uncle Mike was dressed, in his shirtsleeves, talking to a black man at the door. Daniel heard Tierney's name, and cracked the door a bit farther.

“Yessir, that's what Mr. Walsh said. That you shouldn't worry 'bout your boy, that he'll see to it he gets the best of care. Thing is, he can't be moved to bring him home just now.”

Puzzled, Daniel stood listening as Uncle Mike fired off an entire round of sharp questions. The black man just kept repeating himself,
saying he “shouldn't worry,” and was welcome to come and see his son “as soon as he liked.”

Finally, Daniel moved, entering the kitchen just as Uncle Mike shut the door. “What is it?” he asked, shivering at the cold of the room against his bare legs. “What's happened to Tierney?”

Uncle Mike turned around. His face was pale, his dark eyes frightened and confused.

“He's been—hurt. Beaten up,” he added in a terrible voice. “He's at Walsh's house, on Staten Island.”

Bewildered, Daniel stared at him. “Beaten up?” he repeated blankly. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Uncle Mike's Adam's apple worked hard, up and down. “I don't know,” he said, his face grim as he hiked his suspenders over his shoulders. “I don't know. But I'll be finding out. Of that you can be sure.”

7

In the House of the Enemy

There is something here I do not get,

Some menace I do not comprehend.

VALENTIN IREMONGER

T
he Walsh estate on Staten Island was much as Michael would have expected: grand in size and ostentatious in appearance. Sara might have referred to it as
vulgar.

White stone, trimmed with rose-colored shutters, it sprawled beyond a winding gravel driveway, complete with a glass conservatory and a stable. No gardens gentled the grounds. No random shrubbery broke the precise landscape design. The few trees on the property stood thin and new.

To Michael, the place looked as artificial as he suspected its owner to be. As his gaze took in Walsh's estate, it occurred to him that one reason
he found the man so loathsome was his deceit. Walsh presented the face of a successful businessman, but Michael could see the skull and crossbones lurking in the shadows behind him. Patrick Walsh was a pirate, but a pirate without the courage to raise his own treacherous flag. Instead, he cloaked his true intentions under a banner of respectability.

Chilled from the ferry ride, Michael accelerated his pace, hurrying up the flagstone walkway. As he approached the ornamental front door, he knew a moment's surge of dread. Until now, he had thought of little else except the condition in which he might find Tierney. Yet, the question as to how and why his injured son had ended up at Walsh's estate had been there, cowering in the shadows of his mind like a hidden attacker, waiting only for the chance to strike.

Michael knew he would eventually have to confront the question, and the answer would more than likely bring him grief. His already fractured relationship with his son could all too easily be further shattered.

But for now he could not think beyond the massive oak door in front of him. Beyond that door dwelt the man who headed his personal list of corrupt, self-serving vipers—a man targeted by the new subcommission as one of the key crime bosses, albeit the least visible, in the city.

This was a hard thing, a bitter thing indeed, to learn that a man he so thoroughly detested had given his injured son shelter and succor. He had long held Patrick Walsh as an enemy—an enemy of the law and an enemy of his own people, the Irish. Indeed, his primary reason for agreeing to serve on the subcommission was the opportunity he sensed to bring down Walsh.