Into the Whirlwind (42 page)

On the corner of West and Harrison Street, a four-story office building was nearing completion. Far from the glamour of Columbus Street, this was in a working-class section of town, not far from the lumber mills and the stockyards. Zack’s boots echoed through the partially finished suite of rooms on the first floor.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Dr. Buchanan asked, looking at the stark rooms. None of the interior rooms had any windows. Two window holes had been cut into the front room, but no frames or glass had been installed yet.

“It doesn’t need to be pretty,” Zack said. “It just needs to be big.”

Big enough to hold the boundless storehouse of memories his parents had been collecting from the waves of Polish immigrants. He would order shelving to be built in the back rooms, where hundreds of bundled Polish-American newspapers could be housed. Those newspapers recorded the struggles and triumphs of people who had risked everything to make their way to Chicago, giving men like Zack a chance to become something more than conscripted foot soldiers in the czar’s army. The other rooms would store the diaries,
photographs, and books about Poland. The front room had two large windows that let in decent light from the street. Anyone who wished to come pore though his parents’ clearinghouse of Polish memorabilia could do so here in a clean, well-lit room.

“My parents believe their Polish treasures are something the world is dying to see. I don’t know if they are or not, but those ‘treasures’ have overtaken my house, filled my attic to capacity, and are now spilling into the hallways. They will be better off here, where others can appreciate them.”

It would be a place where his mother could complete her book about Polish immigrants in Chicago. He did not know if the book would ever see completion, but it mattered to his mother, and these rented rooms would give her the space she needed to make progress.

Dr. Buchanan fidgeted as he eyed the space. “Will your mother agree? She seems very passionate about those papers.”

Zack sent him a pointed look. “I’m not giving her a choice.”

“Good, good,” Dr. Buchanan muttered, wiping his hands on the front of his pants. Zack raised his brows. Dr. Buchanan was usually so fiercely protective of Joanna that the distracted answer surprised him.

Little beads of perspiration formed on the man’s brow. “Actually, I’m glad I have a chance to speak with you,” Dr. Buchanan said as he paced the empty room. “I wanted to talk with you last night, but there were too many people around.”

Zack tensed. Was Mollie finally ready to announce a pending marriage to Colonel Lowe? It would be like Dr. Buchanan to tell him personally rather than let him read about it in the newspaper.

He clenched his hands into fists and wished he hadn’t sold the Monet portrait. If Mollie really was lost to him, he wanted
it back. Which was insane. He’d gotten rid of it precisely so he wouldn’t need to keep thinking about her every blasted day of his life.

Dr. Buchanan took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I want to ask you about Anka,” he said. “Everyone seems to think the two of you are destined for each other, but it’s been seven months and, well, not much is happening. I talked with her last night. I mean, I
tried
to talk with her, and she—” Dr. Buchanan stopped talking and his face flushed cranberry red. “It is astounding, but she seems to care for me. I went over and over it to make sure she had her English straight. Finally she dragged her brother over to translate, and there was no mistake. She, uh . . .” He cleared his throat and tugged at his collar. “She said she would welcome my courtship.”

Zack leaned against a wall, a little stunned. “I see.”

“I don’t want to intrude if you have your eye on Anka,” Dr. Buchanan rushed to say.

Zack gave a short laugh. He liked being around Anka because she was dazzling to look at, but she had never touched his soul or made him ache for things that could never be. “So long as I can still partake of Anka’s almond cake, I would be very happy for you.”

Dr. Buchanan looked ready to faint. He doubled over and drew a breath as though he’d just finished running a mile. “Thank heaven,” he breathed. “Your parents have been very good to me, and I can’t risk losing another family. Not over a woman.” Dr. Buchanan straightened and smoothed the hair back from where it had fallen over his forehead. “You can’t imagine what it is like to be alone, year after year. This year was the first time I didn’t spend Christmas alone since my parents died, and I owe your family for that.”

Zack had always been surrounded by family, one that
sometimes encompassed the entire community of exiled Poles. That simple fellowship was something he had always taken for granted, but Dr. Buchanan had had no experience with it until he’d stumbled upon a group of people seeking shelter in a burned-out church.

He reached out to clasp Dr. Buchanan’s shoulder. “We are glad to have you,” he said with genuine warmth. “And I hope Anka will be as well.”

Zack rubbed his eyes, then fed a little more kerosene to the wick of the lamp. Why did they print law books with such minuscule type? If he kept poring through these manuals, he would be blind soon, but he didn’t mind. Nothing in his professional career had ever been as satisfying as working toward the total overhaul of the insurance industry. An unconventional coalition of insurance brokers, lawyers, and politicians was hammering it out. It made for a rough-and-tumble atmosphere, but he relished every moment of it, especially since it was important work.

If they did their job right, small-business owners like Mollie and Dr. Buchanan would never again be wiped out because their insurance defaulted in the wake of a city-wide catastrophe.

Before she went to bed, his mother had set a slice of Anka’s homemade makowiec beside him, but Zack had not stopped to eat. He had three more legal briefs to read before tomorrow’s meeting.

A pounding on the front door broke the silence of the night. Who would come banging on his door at ten o’clock on a Friday night? Zack put on his jacket and approached the front door with caution.

It was Louis Hartman, looking as annoyed as a wet dog with
fleas. Whatever sent Louis here in the dead of night couldn’t be good. Zack opened the door wide and gestured toward the dining room, where he pulled out a chair for Louis. “What can I help you with?”

Louis looked exhausted as he pinched the bridge of his nose, then held out a small notecard to Zack. The message was brief and to the point.

The thirty-thousand-dollar chandeliers Josephine had bought were going to be repossessed on Monday if Louis could not pay for them. Zack’s breath left him in a rush. Traffic at the store had been brisk, and they were hauling in profits beyond their expectations, but it would be months before they’d earned enough to start paying their major creditors. The illusion of grandeur would come to a skidding halt if they suffered the humiliation of creditors repossessing chunks of the store.

“I told the agent we would meet with him tomorrow to hammer out some kind of deal,” Louis said. “We’ll meet him at the bank, and I’ll try to shake a few more loans through.”

The meeting to finalize the insurance proposal was tomorrow. It was bound to last all day and into the night, and Zack had spent months preparing for it. “I can’t be there,” Zack said. “I’ll be at an insurance meeting. It will be the linchpin meeting of the entire reform effort.”

“And on Monday I’m going to have a dark store with gas lines dangling from the ceiling if we can’t get this judgment reversed.”

Zack blew out a breath in frustration. “What possessed your wife to spend thirty thousand dollars on light fixtures?”

Louis’s smile was tight. “Josephine likes the finest, and so far, her taste has served this company very well.”

“Then get Josephine to explain it to the bill collectors. The insurance meeting tomorrow is too important for me to miss.”

Louis said nothing as he stared at Zack, but he twirled a
pencil between his fingers with the intensity of a madman. Louis Hartman had not crawled to the top of the mercantile world by playing nice, and Zack could see the steel emerging behind Hartman’s slate gray eyes. “I never thought I would need to remind you how your college education was paid for,” Louis said. “Or where you would be today if I had not gambled on a brash-talking longshoreman. I think a little loyalty would be in the offing.”

Zack leaned forward, his voice vibrating with months of suppressed anger. “I was
loyal
when I crammed that deal through with Mollie Knox when I knew her deed was legitimate.”

“That was perfectly legal,” Louis said. “You would have been in breach of confidentiality if you had told her.”

“It was legal, but it cost me the woman I love,” Zack lashed out. “A woman I’ve loved for three years. I can’t keep summoning up that kind of loyalty over a
store.
Not when there is important work that will protect every small business and homeowner in this city.” Zack tossed the note back to Louis. “You need to find another attorney to handle this.”

Louis shot to his feet. “You owe me a debt you can never repay. Never.”

Zack stood as well. “Keep the money from the Monet painting. That ought to make a dent in the Yale bill. Other than that, I’m done, Louis. I quit.”

Louis swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin neck. The man had lost weight over the past few months, and the fit of his collar was not quite correct. Zack let out a heavy sigh. “The agent wants his money, not some secondhand chandeliers. Tell the judge they will be more likely to get their money if the store is allowed to keep operating under normal conditions. They’ve been bending the law ever since the fire. I don’t expect this to be any different.”

He noticed a trembling in Louis’s hands as he tucked the note into his breast pocket. Divided loyalty ripped through Zack. This man was almost a father to him. A clever, imperfect father who had gambled on him and lost.

“I’m sorry it has to end this way,” Louis said stiffly.

There was no hesitation in Zack’s reply. “So am I.”

30

M
ollie had been banished to stand on the street to watch the installation of the clock for the State Street Bank. She winced with each crank of the pulley as her magnificent oversized clock was hoisted ten, twenty, then fifty and sixty feet off the ground. The monumental clock began looking smaller as it was raised higher into the sky. Four burly workmen stood on the top layer of scaffolding, waiting to grab the clock as it rose higher.

“Breathe, Mollie,” Ulysses instructed.

“I can’t,” she gasped. “My precious child is dangling eighty feet off the ground, held only by a rickety pulley that looks like it sailed over on the
Mayflower
.”

She craned her neck to see properly. Blocking the glare of the sun with her hand, she nearly fainted as she saw the clock sway like a pendulum as the construction workers leaned over the scaffolding to haul it into place. Beside her, all forty employees from the 57th were assembled to witness their first clock being raised into place. At least two hundred other bystanders and construction workers had also gathered on the street to watch.

Until this very moment she hadn’t been certain it would succeed, but as the workers slipped the clock into its moorings, a
smattering of applause rose up from the street. Gunner clapped her on the back. “It looks good, Mollie,” he said.

She stared at the clock. Pillars had been carved into the entablature surrounding the clock that made it appear even larger. Inside the building, Oliver Wilkes stood ready to hook the final gears in place and set the hands into motion.

“It was really hard, and I helped make it,” Sophie said from where she stood next to Alice. Mollie turned to smile down at the girl, who was telling no lie when she claimed partial credit. For six hours per week, Sophie helped fetch and carry with more enthusiasm than many of the other skeptical employees at the 57th. What the girl lacked in experience, she made up for with enthusiasm. Energy and enthusiasm were valuable commodities in any business, but never more so than in the grueling months after the fire.

From the corner of her eye, a dark-haired man turned and shuffled deeper into the crowd.

He was familiar. Mollie took a few steps, craning her neck to see around the hundreds of bystanders collecting on the street. Declan?

She was certain it was Declan. The same shoulders, the same build. Leaving Sophie and Ulysses behind, Mollie darted into the crowd. “Declan!” she shouted.

His steps accelerated. Why should he flee from her? She grabbed a handful of her skirts so she could hop over a stack of construction joists that were piled on the sidewalk. As the crowd thinned, it became easier to catch up to Declan as he strode away.

“You don’t have to run from me,” she shouted. “Declan, there are no hard feelings!”

He stopped, turning to look at her with caution in his eyes. “You sure about that?”

She was breathless when she caught up to him. She cuffed him on the arm. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m glad to see you.”

“You didn’t seem too happy about it when I left the company.”