Page 9 of By Any Means

CHEAPNESS UGLINESS

S RETHINK MAINE. OFF 2 NYS. C U IN MAY. L

ABC code translation:

Circumstances over which I have no control. Unable to comply with your wishes.

Sam, rethink Maine. Off to New York State. See you in May.

—Laurie

4

LAURIE

May 1905

New York offices of The Rational Appeal

Newspaper Row, Park Row, Manhattan

“Have a good vacation?”

Laurie crunched the last shards of ribbon sweet between his teeth and glanced up. Sam Sullivan “Steamship” Warren leaned from Laurie’s office doorframe with one hand, like he might hang off an ocean liner’s rail.

“How were the Hamptons?” Sam went on, chipper. “And have you changed your mind yet?”

“The Hamptons. Very funny. And no. I haven’t.”

While Laurie had been on sugaring-season “vacation” in upstate New York, Sam—having ignored Laurie’s expensive telegram in characteristic fashion—had had a secretary provide a drawerful of references: the Herald, the World, the Sun, and all the rest of ’em rags, all mentioning the Wrights and Wright Glass Manufacturing. Some, too, mentioning Brooklyn Glass, their competitor across the river. Everything an intern could remember, just in case. The stack had been waiting for Laurie upon his return, as though to convince him.

It hadn’t.

Sam straightened and entered, shutting the door behind him.

Sam Sullivan was a small man, but a tornado of one, with a fierce reputation. He had built The Rational Appeal from the ground up. A hundred percent Irish to Laurie’s much-less-maligned Scotch-Irish, he had an accent that hinted at Gaelic having been spoken in his boyhood and stubbornly never erased. A meticulously kept blond mustache was the only facial hair he’d ever been seen or photographed with.

He leaned his whole petite frame over Laurie’s desk, palms flat. “What! A mysterious death and inheritance, and still no? That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

Laurie had been writing for him for too long to be cowed. He leaned back in his swivel chair, popped another ribbon candy into his cheek, and said thickly, “I haven’t changed my mind, Sam. Your target doesn’t even have a name of his own.”

It was true. Chary—Charles Edward Wright, Jr—had been firstborn to Mr. Charles Edward Wright, Sr., and Philippa Wright née Drury. He’d been sole inheritor, an apparent only child for twelve years.

Then had come a brother: Charles Edward August Wright. As though the Wrights had been displeased with the first version and had said, Let us seize upon this second chance.

Laurie thought he knew what’d displeased them. Twelve years old; it must’ve been obvious even then. For the upper crust, it was usually getting caught fooling around with a near-of-age servant boy.

And that, Laurie chastised himself, was a truly vile thing to be speculating about a man’s boyhood. Probably—hopefully—there had been nothing like that to out him. Likely, Laurie’s own past was tinging his assumptions.

Sam lit a cigarette, held it delicately in its jade holder. “Charles Edward Wright. Firstborn, written out of his father’s will because he’s a queer, didn’t inherit. Inherits now, due to his brother’s tragic ‘accident.’” He made quotes in the air with his free hand. “And the last thing that fool brother did before his death was buy an enterprise that hasn’t turned a profit since the Civil War. You want to tell me that lead’s not intriguing? What happened to you?”

“A blueberry farm, Sam. It isn’t Union Stock Yards. You want me to document child labor, there’s other places.”

“Other places, like a glassworks.” Sam raised an eyebrow.

Too true. But modern glass production, being comprised of work that was highly specialized, skilled, and stratified, with apprenticeships controlled by restrictive unions and a hefty amount of nepotism, was nigh-impossible to infiltrate. Unless one was ten years old and plucked from the poorhouse.

Laurie sighed. “That’s a dead end. You know I can’t get into a glassworks.”