Page 16 of By Any Means

“Of course. American Flint Glass Workers. We have regular negotiations. It’s the twentieth century, Mr. Tulley.”

5

LAURIE

Everyone dealt with grief in their own ways.

Chary Wright’s way, apparently, was to try and be in three places at once. Possibly three states at once. Wright Glass was listed to also have a New Jersey warehouse, convenient to its second-most important resource: Standard Oil.

Laurie wasn’t going to Jersey. Maine had been bad enough. New York was plenty. He began on Fifth Avenue, just outside the Wright residence. A man had to sleep sometime.

Chary had said he had a mansion, but this wasn’t it. Still Millionaire’s Row, of course, but this was a townhouse, red brick, three windows wide and three and a half stories tall, with a singlewide entrance door, no setback from the sidewalk. It was like a newer, better-upkept, more-bulging version of Laurie’s own 37th Street apartment. Probably more spacious inside. And, of course, with Central Park opposite.

Avoiding being seen was easier when there was half-a-century-old greenery across from your subject. What was harder was avoiding coppers on the lookout for park vagrancy across from the brand-new concrete and new construction, coppers who were in the pocket of god knew which politician, probably a Democrat. So, when Chary Wright at last appeared at his home at the beginning of the fashionable calling hours—on foot, slightly rumpled, unescorted—Laurie had already gone through two outfit changes.

Nobody called through all the fashionable hours. An unfruitful day for a millionaire. Then, almost on the dot of five o’clock, the front door opened, and out came Charles Edward Wright, Jr.

Laurie sat up fast, resetting his cap. Thus began his stalking.

Chary went east on foot for a handful of blocks before climbing to take the Second Avenue El southbound. And south he went: past East 57th. East 42nd, East 14th. He rode it all the way to the Bowery, getting off at the station at 1st and First. Laurie might’ve almost lost him except in the meantime, he’d watched the man transfigure: between getting on the El and leaving it, he’d switched his jacket and his shoes and his hat. He wasn’t slumming it. This was a man used to the Lower East Side, who maybe wanted to preserve his shoes. And his person.

On First Ave, Chary went north, only a little ways. He crossed westward onto East 2nd. Laurie eyed the Russian Orthodox church looming and wondered: perhaps he was secretly Russian?

No. There was another red brick residence across from greenery (this time a cemetery), and there, Chary dipped into number seventy-five. Laurie revised his theory from secretly Russian to something simpler: Chary had a lover whom he kept housed with Ukrainians. Or was Ukrainian. Who knew.

Something simpler, though, was ordinary and boring and totally un-newsworthy.

Laurie lounged, sullen and grumpy on the corner, and settled in for a probably short wait. Meanwhile, he acknowledged part of the reason for the grumpiness: surprise. Chary Wright had not seemed the type to have a kept man on the side. Between the two glass heirs, he’d have called out Tjofabier Raberding as being a regular Bowery visitor, little though he might’ve had to do so, with the Tenderloin more convenient.

Either man could do as he pleased. It was nothing to him. He’d only hoped for something juicier; that was all. Something he could actually write about.

Laurie pulled apart his tie, shoved away his collar, and undid his waistcoat, drawing several glances, which he avoided. Now he looked like he was slumming, looking for trade, or worse. It wasn’t the worst of tenements he’d seen—this neighborhood, if he remembered correctly, had been moneyed a handful of decades past—but not necessarily a place you wanted to be looked at twice.

Just as he had done that and had slumped, artfully casual upon a cemetery bench, a tall, spindly, familiar-looking man came out of number seventy-five.

Laurie blinked. He checked his pocket watch, a little lingeringly, and watched the man from beneath his lashes. It couldn’t be. Chary’d just gone in. It would’ve been the quickest fuck on earth. Besides that, this man had a beard. A cap. A patched-up jacket, dark denim overall trousers, boots. In one hand, a lunch pail.

But the walk was the same: long-striding, self-conscious. The plain dishwater blond, now fluffed to untidiness. The slightly squashed nose and structured, concave slimness.

It was Chary, and he was up to something and doing it playing a workingman. Laurie couldn’t have done a better transformation himself, and he’d learned from drag queens. The rich man was gone, an exhausted shift worker in his place.

A fast one. Chary’s legs were long. Laurie scrambled up to follow.

The disguised Chary went east again on foot. Past the El, past Avenues A through C, all through Little Germany. On Avenue D he went north, close to the piers. Twin furnace smokestacks, tall and tapered, appeared, the smell of their westerly smoke leading the way. Laurie, very belatedly, considering he’d known the address, understood before the factory came fully into view. Bright white all-caps lettering across the wood fence and the two-story brick exterior confirmed it: Wright Glass Mfg.

Laurie checked the pocket watch again. Nearly seven at night now. Not anything like a normal businessman’s hours, much less a boss’s. Chary wasn’t wearing a suit. And it wasn’t the office entrance he headed toward. That was around the other side of the block.

Laurie cursed his out-of-place suit again and found a place to safely surveil.

Chary walked up nearly to the gates, lining up with the mass of journeymen and boys awaiting shift change this side of the fence. It sure didn’t look like he owned the place, nor that anybody knew it. Nobody took note of his presence like they would’ve a boss, neither awkward nor deferential, though he was clearly recognized and welcomed. No; to all appearances, Chary was one of them. One worker ant of dozens gathering to await entry.

What the hell?

Glassworks shifts were anywhere from nine to twelve hours. This one, beginning at seven in the evening, was probably an overnighter. Did Chary Wright do this every week, or only as he felt like it? How long had he been getting away with it? How did he get away with it? Why?

Laurie needn’t have bothered settling in for surveillance. It was over almost before it began. The gates opened, the men and boys and Chary streamed in, disappearing behind the tall fence, and the gates creaked closed again. Laurie was cut off from observation and understanding. Shut out. Bewildered.

Shiftwork at his own factory. What the hell was this rich man up to?