The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 75
The shop was only open until noon on Saturday, and Rye was distracted all morning. When his shift ended, he hurriedly hung his shop apron and sprinted to the streetcar. And when he got home that afternoon, Gig was already gone again. Mrs. Ricci had no idea where he’d gone, just that “He wake up. He walk away.” Sitting on Rye’s cot were the ermine gloves and the beautiful blue edition of War and Peace, Volume I.
29
Rye walked downtown, along the hobo highway, looking for Gig. He stuck his head into a couple of east-end saloons, tried Dutch Jake’s and Jimmy Durkin’s place, but couldn’t find his brother anywhere.
Finally, at dusk, he gave up and walked to the lower South Hill, where Gurley was staying in a fine Victorian house with a progressive lawyer and his wife. A police wagon was parked across the street, but as he got closer, Rye saw the cop bundled up inside, sound asleep. He walked to the house and rang the bell.
A stout man with a gray beard and a pipe answered the door, and Rye removed his hat. “I was hoping Mrs. Jones would see me.”
“You a newspaperman? You look awfully young.”
“No, I’m a friend of hers. Ryan Dolan.”
The man let Rye into the foyer and excused himself. A minute later, he came back. “She’ll see you in the drawing room.”
Rye followed the man inside and sat nervously on a leather chair in the drawing room. He put the gloves in his bowler. He looked all around the room. Then he saw something strange: a high shelf, built above the windows, with knickknacks on it, fancy plates and clocks. He was staring at it, wondering why someone would build a shelf so high, when she came in.
“Hello, Ryan,” Gurley said. Her hair was pulled back, and she was wearing nightclothes with a heavy robe over them. “I was having a bath.”
Rye blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t just come by.”
“I’m glad you did,” she said. “What were you looking at?”
“That shelf.” He pointed. “I’ve never seen one so high.”
She looked up. “The plate rail?”
“I guess,” he said. “I was just wondering why someone would build a shelf so high you can’t reach it.”
She smiled. “And I’ve been wondering when you might come see me.”
“I’m sorry. It was the first chance I got.” Rye told her about the job he’d gotten and about Gig getting out of jail. “He’s not himself,” he said. “It’s like they beat the Gig right out of him.”
“That’s too bad,” Gurley said. She looked at the window. “It’s odd the police just let you come in. They’ve been running off union members ever since that flap with the Worker.”
“Yeah, I read about that in the Chronicle,” Rye said.
She shook her head. “A newspaper celebrating the censure of a newspaper!”
“I read about your trial, too. Does Mr. Moore think you have a chance?”
“Not much of one,” she said. “He keeps reminding me the city has sixteen straight conspiracy convictions against every IWW leader and editor, and of course, I am both. Six-month sentences for every leader or member of the strike committee.” She looked up. “Except your brother.”
Rye wondered if that was suspicion he was hearing in her voice—why did the cops let Rye in, why wasn’t Gig charged with conspiracy? He looked at the ground. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t bet against you.”
She said nothing.
Rye was unsure how to ask his next question or if he even should. “Has your husband come?”
“No,” she said. “Maybe for the trial.” Then she cleared her throat. “He knows who he married,” she said again, but it was flat this time. She looked up at the plate rail that had transfixed him earlier. “Sometimes I think I’ve gotten everything wrong, Ryan. With Jack. The union. Spokane. You see something as corrupt as the job sharks in this town, something as clearly wrong as police cracking heads over free speech—and you say, ‘Well, if we can’t win that one, what can we ever win?’
“But nothing here is as it seems.” She held up one end of a blanket. “You think the union is over here.” She held up the other end of the blanket. “And the mining companies and cops over here.” She pulled the blanket taut. “But they’re all the same. Pull one string and the whole thing unravels. The sharks, mines, flops, brothels, taverns, cops—it’s all one fabric. How do you fight that? Go right at it? Or come at an angle? Fight hard or fight smart?” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Ryan.”
It was similar to what Gig had said. That it ran too deep. Rye thought of what he knew, about Lem Brand, and he wondered if his brother was thinking similar things, sitting in some saloon, pointing to his empty glass. “Maybe after a while you don’t fight it,” he said.
Gurley was staring at the gloves in his lap. She took a deep breath. “Fred Moore is afraid we’ve had someone on the inside, giving them information.”
Rye swallowed.
“Sixteen union leaders sent to state prison, more than three hundred other convictions for disturbing the peace. But you and your brother are out.”
His mouth went dry. “Elizabeth—” he began.
“Ryan, I have to ask, the night of the raid, where did you go?”
He had come here to tell her everything, about Brand and Del and Early, about his own mistakes—but now, sitting across from her, he didn’t know where to begin. He held up the gloves. His voice broke. “I went to buy these.”
She looked directly at him, her mouth tight, eyes implacable. Rye felt as if she were seeing right through him, that whatever he’d come to admit, she already knew. For a moment he couldn’t speak, but he also couldn’t look away. He felt gutted and, inexplicably, wished she would never stop staring at him.
“Elizabeth,” he began, “I didn’t know—”
She looked down at her