Read an Excerpt
House of Thieves
A Novel
By Charles Belfoure Sourcebooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2015 Charles Belfoure
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4926-1790-7
CHAPTER 1
It was a perfect day to rob a bank.
The rain outside hammered the sidewalks like a monsoon. The river of delivery wagons, double-decker omnibuses, and carriages of all description that usually flowed in an unending torrent along West Thirty-Third Street had been reduced to a trickle. In place of the rush of pedestrians along the sidewalk, a few men with umbrellas hurried by the plate glass windows of the Manhattan Merchants & Trust Bank. Customers would hold off coming to the bank until the downpour stopped — and that wasn't going to happen for hours.
All of which meant fewer witnesses.
Stick Gleason looked down the barrel of his Colt Navy revolver at the people lying facedown on the shiny, white marble floor, then glanced over at Sam Potter, who was standing guard inside the massive oak-and-glass double doors of the front entrance. Potter nodded: things were going well. Though they both wore white muslin masks that hid their faces, Gleason knew Potter was smiling at him.
The woman on the floor in front of him started to whimper, reminding him of a hunting dog he'd once owned. When the dog wanted out of his crate, he'd give a high-pitched whine until Gleason couldn't stand the noise any longer and freed him. Gleason could only see the top of the woman's scarlet-colored hat, which had a slanted brim with a sort of high mound on top, like a beehive covered with yellow and green cloth flowers. Must have been a society lady.
"Keep quiet, ma'am. We'll be through in just a few minutes," Gleason said in a soothing tone, tapping the top of her hat with the barrel of his Colt. She shut up immediately.
He was getting anxious himself. "Come on, Red. How much longer?"
"Goddamn you, I told you never to rush me," Bannon said angrily, the words muffled by his muslin mask. He continued to pour the nitroglycerin drop by drop from the small glass vial into the joints of the bank vault's hinges. Beads of sweat slipped down his forehead, sliding over his eyebrows and into his eyes, making him blink uncontrollably. He kept wiping them away with his left hand.
It was dead quiet in the bank. Then Gleason heard a faint noise building quickly toward a screech, like a boiling teakettle about to blow.
"Listen, woman, I told you ..."
An ear-piercing scream exploded out of the society lady's mouth. Bannon flinched — and Stick watched in horror as the glass vial slipped from his fingers and fell to the marble.
The blast was like a white-hot fireball of a meteorite, streaking from the vault room to the front windows of the bank, incinerating everything in its path. Bannon was vaporized in a millisecond, along with Gleason, the society lady, four bank tellers, two customers, and the entire wood-and-marble interior of the banking hall. Potter was propelled like a rocket into West Thirty-Third Street and through a storefront window directly south across the road.
A delivery driver and his bay horse lay dead and bloody amid the wreckage of a dray wagon. A cast-iron electric light pole was bent parallel to the street. Windows and storefronts on the south side of West Thirty-Third were blown in too, leaving black holes that seemed to gape out at the newly silent street in astonishment.
* * *
James T. Kent, standing under an umbrella on the flat roof of the eight-story Duckworth Building directly across from Manhattan Merchants & Trust, watched as a great plume of black smoke billowed up from West Thirty-Third Street, drifting past him and blending into the gray sky. The street below was a mass of confusion, with people running toward the building from all directions. The clanging of fire wagons could be heard in the distance. There won't be any need for them, Kent thought. The blast had sucked the oxygen out of the space, which meant no fire.
From his vantage point, the men on the street looked like ants scurrying in and out of the blasted opening of the bank. They'll find no bodies, he thought. Only tiny pieces of human flesh and bone.
"Poor bastards," said Ben Culver, a short, stout, broad-shouldered man.
"It was the nitro," Kent said, not a shred of emotion in his voice. "Handling it is like trying to hold quicksilver — almost impossible. But still better than using dynamite. Remember Maritime National? The cash, negotiable bonds, and stock certificates, all burned to ashes by the blast. It took Red hours to sweat out that nitro from a dozen sticks of dynamite. He said blowing the vault would be the easy part."
"We'll never replace Bannon, Mr. Kent."
"No, we won't. Red was the best cracksman in New York." Kent took a cigar out of his gold case with his black-gloved hand and tapped it idly against his palm.
"These vaults are too damn hard to blow in the daytime, Mr. Kent. Bank jobs are just too risky anyhow. The Company has to ... "
"Diversify?"
"Yeah, that's it."
"I agree," said Kent with a smile. "What do you suggest?"
Kent was a tall, thin man in his early forties, with graying hair and a commanding presence. He always wore a black frock coat with matching waistcoat and pearl-gray trousers, all ordered from Henry Poole & Co., the best tailor in London. He had schooled Culver, whose previous wardrobe could charitably be described as loud, in dress. A gentleman, he'd said, must always be so well dressed that his clothes are never observed at all.
Culver valued this advice almost as much as his cut from their jobs. These days, he was as elegantly clothed as his employer, though the juxtaposition of his battered and meaty red face with his fine, tailored outfits frequently struck one as very odd.
"The army's stopped guarding President Grant's grave in Riverside Park," he said, brimming over with his excitement at offering a new business proposition. "They just have a night watchman. They haven't started building the real tomb over it either, so we could snatch the body and hold it for ransom. Like they did with A. T. Stewart back in '78. His widow forked over twenty thousand dollars for the body. For a department store king! Think how much we'd get for a United States president."
"I can find only two things wrong with your plan," Kent said amiably. "First, I served proudly under Grant in the war. And second ... it's incredibly stupid."
He smiled and patted Culver on the shoulder, as if to lessen the sting of his words. A disappointed expression twisted Culver's face, and he looked down at his expensive, black patent leather shoes — the ones Kent had advised him to purchase. Culver wasn't the brightest, but he was absolutely the most loyal employee of the Company, and Kent genuinely liked him.
"I know those men had families," he said, pulling out his tan pigskin wallet and removing ten one-hundred-dollar bills. "Please divide this among them."
"That's very kind of you, Mr. Kent."
Kent extracted his Gorham solid-gold pocket watch from his waistcoat and frowned. "The annual board of directors meeting for the Metropolitan Museum is at eleven. I'd best get going."
CHAPTER 2
"John, you should be damn proud of this boy of yours."
John Cross turned and stared at his son, who stood next to him in the entry foyer of Delmonico's. It was hard to believe that this was the same toddler he'd once played with on the beach at Long Branch or taken to Central Park to sail boats. George was strikingly handsome. He had inherited his mother's dark complexion and straight black hair and was at least three inches taller than his father. The twenty-two years of his son's life blurred together in Cross's mind. When had his boy grown into a man?
"Thanks, Stanny. He turned out all right, I suppose."
Stanford White, a six-footer with red hair and a thick brush of a mustache, roared with laughter. Beside him, Charles McKim, normally a very reserved fellow, also burst out laughing. White's enthusiasm was always infectious.
Cross had met White and McKim many years ago, when they all worked for Henry Hobson Richardson as apprentice architects. Stanny and Charlie remained his closest friends, and he was particularly happy that they were there for his son's graduation party.
"Graduating from Harvard, captain of the baseball team. Not too shabby," said McKim. "In fact, I'm jealous. I sat on the bench when I played there."
"Yes, congratulations, Georgie. So, are you following in the old man's footsteps and taking up architecture?" White asked, giving Cross a wink.
"No, sir. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit my father's artistic talent. I'm going to be a mathematics teacher at Saint David's this fall."
"George has been teaching part-time for the Children's Aid Society downtown since the winter. Then next year, after Saint David's, full-time at Columbia graduate school. On his way to becoming a brilliant professor," Cross said, voice full of pride.
"Not a bad place to begin your teaching career," said McKim. "Saint David's is the poshest school in town."
As White nodded with approval, his face broke into a sly smile. "Ah, behold. The beautiful Helen of Troy."
Cross's wife, Helen, walked up to join the men. She was mesmerizing in a crimson evening dress from Worth of Paris; a lovely pearl-and-diamond necklace set off its deep décolletage, and a pair of large diamond festoon earrings framed her high cheekbones. Few women in New York society could challenge her beauty and charm. At parties and balls, men swarmed around her like bees to honey, making Cross proud and nervous at the same time. Having a beautiful wife was a double-edged sword — Helen was the object of pride and possible scandal. But he knew he didn't have to worry about Stanny, whose preferences for female companionship tilted toward those below the age of fifteen.
Helen gave the group a steely look. "You gentlemen are blocking the way of Georgie's guests. Take your masculine good fellowship into the grand dining room, please. John and Georgie, you stay where you are."
White bowed, took her hand, and kissed it. "Whatever Helen of Troy commands."
Cross looked out, past the glass-front double doors of the restaurant. "Do you think she'll come?"
Helen rolled her eyes. "When she says she's going to do something," she snapped, "she always follows through. For heaven's sake, don't worry." She straightened George's white tie, brushed a bit of lint from his white silk waistcoat, and then ran her hands along the shoulders of the black cutaway tailcoat. Satisfied, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
"Later, I want you to be sure to talk to Granny — and Mary Morse."
"Oh, Mother."
For the next twenty minutes, the trio greeted more guests. Finally, Cross nodded toward the doorway and said in a low voice, "Here she is."
On Fifth Avenue, directly in front of Delmonico's, a shiny black brougham pulled by two sleek chestnut horses in gold-trimmed harness drew to a stop. The driver and attendant were dressed in gold and navy-blue livery and black top hats. The attendant hopped down from the box and opened the passenger door.
In the dusk of the warm July evening, a short, rather stout woman in a beautiful black silk brocade evening gown stepped out, holding on to the white-gloved hand of the attendant. She stepped onto the sidewalk into the circle of bright light cast by the new electric streetlights, which had recently replaced their much dimmer gaslight predecessors. The glow of the light reflected in tiny sunbursts off her tiara of diamond garlands and her dog-collar necklace of hundreds of tiny diamonds on a band of deep purple satin. As she rearranged her black lace shawl over her shoulders, a crowd gathered on the sidewalk to gawk at her.
Cross watched as she marched with regal ease and confidence through the glass doors of the restaurant. She moved as if she owned Delmonico's. And in a way, she did.
Caroline Astor was the undisputed queen — or despot, some felt — of New York society. She alone determined who belonged and who did not. If a person failed to meet her approval, he or she was condemned to social death.
In 1886, New York society had only two parts: old and new. The old, known as the Knickerbockers, were the descendants of the original Dutch founders of New Amsterdam, nicknamed for the knee-length breeches they once wore and headed by families with names like Schuyler, Schermerhorn, Van Cortlandt, and Van Rensselaer. There was also an old English flank of founders led by the Livingstons and the Phillipses. The rigid Knickerbocker social code demanded absolute propriety and strict conformity. They religiously obeyed this code, even dwelling in identical brownstones the color of chocolate sauce, driven by the paralyzing fear that they would be thought different and would thus become the subject of gossip.
Then there were the new, a nouveau riche class made up of millionaires who had made their fortune from businesses such as railroads, steel, or horse cars. Dirty, undignified pursuits, the Knickerbockers sniffed. The new displayed their wealth with outrageous extravagance, building luxurious mansions and amassing yachts, jewels, and clothing — luxuries universally condemned as vulgar by the old moneyed class. But undaunted, these parvenus came from all over America to New York City, where they stormed the walls of the Knickerbocker aristocracy.
Caroline Astor was a proud Schermerhorn, but she straddled the world of old and new by marrying the grandson of John Jacob Astor, a German-born fur trader who had become America's richest man. Helen Cross was a distant, relatively poor member of the Schermerhorn clan. John Cross, a distant and equally poor Livingston relative, helped cement the Knickerbocker connection. "Aunt" Caroline liked them both and watched over them like a mother hen, and they had been taken under her wing and safely ensconced in "new" New York society. She even insisted on paying for Helen's wardrobe and jewelry. They lived modestly, however, in a wide three-story brownstone at the corner of Madison Avenue and East Thirtieth Street and had only four servants. Cross likened his lifestyle to the architectural scale he used in his drawings; he lived at one hundredth the full-scale life of the Astors.
But to her credit, Caroline had opened doors to the advantages and privileges of society, to him and especially to George and John's other two children, Julia and Charlie. Thanks to her connections, Cross's architectural practice prospered. But Cross knew that if there were the tiniest hint of scandal about anyone in his family, she'd cut them off in a second and would have nothing to do with them again. These were the ironclad rules of their world. One malicious whisper could annihilate a family's reputation and banish them from society forever. Completely shunned — people who were once your closest friends would never talk to you again, even to your children.
"Aunt Caroline, thank you so much for coming," said Helen, meeting her at the door, arms outstretched. Helen was one of the very few people Aunt Caroline ever publicly hugged. She gloried in the fact that such an incredibly beautiful woman was a Schermerhorn.
"Tonight I must attend a tiresome charity performance at the Academy of Music," said Aunt Caroline, "but I knew I had to stop by to see Georgie. Where is that handsome boy of yours?"
"Aunt Caroline," said George, stepping forward, taking her hand with both of his and kissing her cheek.
"Here's a little something for my class of '86 man," she said, handing him a small box wrapped in silver paper. George unwrapped the present in front of her, knowing she would want to see his reaction.
Others had made their way to the foyer, eager to curry favor with Mrs. Astor. White, one of her architects, hovered about with Charles Crist Delmonico, the grandnephew of the founder who controlled the restaurant dynasty and had made it the best restaurant in the city.
Nestled in a wad of cotton was a magnificent gold pocket watch and chain. George pulled it out, eyes wide in wonder. Instead of the usual incised decoration, the tiniest of diamonds and rubies formed a sinuous, vine-like design on the watch's cover and sides. The inside cover featured a similar raised motif in a vortex swirl, with a large diamond at the center. The back of the watch was engraved: "To George, Harvard Class of 1886, From Aunt Caroline." Helen's and John's eyes met; their first reaction was not pride but fear. What if George lost such a beautiful gift?
Beside them, White let out a whistle. "That's incredible."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from House of Thieves by Charles Belfoure. Copyright © 2015 Charles Belfoure. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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