Bloodless

80

The morning sun, filtered through a heavy veil of dust and coal smoke, fell feebly across the wide avenue in the west-central section of Manhattan. But it was a different sun, and a different city.

The broad thoroughfare where Broadway crossed Seventh Avenue was made of dirt, its potholed surface packed so hard from an infinitude of horse hooves, wagons, and trolleys that it seemed almost as impermeable as cement, except along the muddy areas surrounding the grooves of the cable car tracks and the hitching posts sunk deep in manure.

The intersection was called Longacre, and would not be known as Times Square for another twenty-five years. It was the center of the “carriage trade,” an outlying district of the rapidly growing city where horses were stabled and buggy makers toiled.

On this particular chilly morning, this broad intersection of avenues and streets was quiet save for the occasional pedestrian or horse cart passing by, and nobody paid much attention to the young woman with short dark hair — dressed in a purple gown of an unusual cut and fabric — who stepped out from an alleyway and looked around, squinting and wrinkling her nose.

Constance Greene paused, letting the initial flood of sensations sink in, careful not to betray any sign of the upswell of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. The sights, noises, and odors unexpectedly brought back a thousand memories of her childhood, memories so distant that she scarcely knew she still retained them. The smell of the city hit her first and most viscerally: a complex mixture of earth, sweat, horse dung, coal smoke, urine, leather, fried meat, and the ammoniac tang of lye. Next were things she’d once taken for granted but that now looked strange — the telegraph poles, invariably listing; the gaslights on various corners; the numerous carriages, parked on or next to sidewalks; the ubiquitous shabbiness. Everything told of a city growing so fast that it could scarcely keep up with itself. One only had to gaze around at the hurried signage, the brick and brownstone buildings that looked slapped together, the accumulated filth that nobody seemed to notice, to realize this was true. Most strangely, the white-noise susurrus of modern Manhattan was missing: the growl of car traffic; the honking of taxis; the hum of compressors, turbines, HVAC systems; the underground rumble of subway trains. In its place was a relative quiet: hoofbeats of horses, shouts, calls, and laughter; the occasional crack of a whip; and, from a nearby saloon, the tinny, off-key strains of an upright piano. She had grown so used to seeing the boulevards of Manhattan as vertical steel canyons that it was hard to process this scene, where the tallest buildings, as far as the eye could see, were sun-soaked, no more than three or four stories.

After a few minutes, Constance took a deep breath. She knew where she was. Now she had to figure out when she was.

She looked north up the avenue, noting the ground that had just been broken for what she knew would become the American Horse Exchange. Then she turned south. Her gaze took in the nearest shopfronts: the New Washington Market; a dealer in imported marble; Klein’s Fat Men’s Shop; a purveyor of Gambetta snuff. She walked in their direction, careful to keep her pace unhurried and casual. The gown she had taken from her closet, while the most old-fashioned she owned, was far outside the mode of the time and might attract unwanted attention. And it was cold: she couldn’t help shivering. But there was nothing she could do about that — for now. At least it looked costly.

She walked past an execrable restaurant, its entrance shabby and dusty, offering a choice of oxtail goulash, potted veal chop, or pigs’ feet with kraut for five cents. Outside stood a busy newsboy with an armful of papers, his clear piping voice announcing the headline of the day. She passed slowly, staring, as he held one out hopefully.

She shook her head and walked on, but not before noting the date: Saturday, November 27, 1880.

November 1880. Her sister, Mary, eighteen years old, was currently living in the Girls’ Lodging House on Delancey Street, being worked half to death in the Five Points Mission. And her brother, Joseph, would be completing his sentence on Blackwell’s Island.

And a certain doctor had only recently begun his ghastly, murderous experiments.

She felt her heart quicken at the thought of them still alive. She might still be in time.

There remained two immediate pieces of business. She continued down Seventh Avenue at a brisker pace, passing a pawnbroker on Forty-Fifth Street, advertising itself as the Broadway Curiosity Shop, sporting not only “100,000 tools for all trades” but also diamonds and jewelry for purchase, sale, or exchange. Several locked glass cabinets, with casters mounted into wooden bases, stood outside the shop, containing rifles, shotguns, primitive box cameras, watches, and other items representative of the goods inside. She hesitated, then continued; this was not the kind of establishment she was looking for.

She found that place twelve blocks south, in a better part of town near Herald Square: an expensive-looking jeweler that specialized in diamonds. The street traffic and the crowds were thicker here. She stepped inside and strode up to the nearest counter.

A salesman faced her from the other side of the glass top. He was young, the sleeves of his white shirt held in place above his elbows by black armbands, and he sported a leather visor over his sun-freckled face. He looked Constance up and down as she entered, his expression somewhat confused as he tried to place her and her unusual dress in the social and class milieu of the time.

“May I help you, miss?” he asked, slightly accenting the last word.

“I’d like to see your manager,” Constance replied.

The man was taken aback by her directness but tried quickly to cover it up. “And what business might you have with him?”

“A transaction that will be much to his benefit, and that requires someone of greater authority than yourself.”

This answer, even more direct and delivered with imperious crispness, was still more surprising. The man hesitated and then vanished into a room in the back. A moment later an older man, around fifty, with snow-white hair, appeared. He had a friendly, though guarded, expression — Constance imagined he’d seen his share of grifters and robbers. A jeweler’s loupe hung from around his neck.

“How may I be of assistance?” he said in a neutral tone but one nevertheless more approachable than that of his employee.

Constance reached into the pocket of her smock — feeling the reassuring heft of the stiletto as she did so — and brought out a felt pouch. “I’m interested in selling a diamond,” she said.

“Very well,” the man said, removing a velvet tray and placing it on the counter. “Let’s have a—” He suddenly fell silent as Constance turned up the pouch and allowed the diamond inside to roll out onto the velvet. It was a most unusual vermilion color.

Using rubber tweezers, the man picked it up and examined it with the loupe. A long silence ensued. He placed it back down on the velvet. A look of suspicion had gathered on his face. “Where did you get this, young lady?”

“It’s a family heirloom.” Constance replied, her haughty tone daring him to accuse her of theft.

The man fell silent. Once again, his eyes moved between her and the diamond.

With a show of irritation, Constance picked up the vermilion gem. “Have you ever seen a stone of this coloration?”

“No,” came the reply.

“In your profession, have you ever heard of one?”

“Red diamonds are the rarest,” the man said.

“If such a stone had been stolen, it would be news, would it not? The stone has been in my family for generations. I wish to sell it quietly and anonymously. Now: do you think you can manage that, sir?”

Conflicting emotions crossed the man’s face. “Ma’am, I—”

“In addition to its unique color, you will see that it is not only genuine, but of exceptional clarity, with a carat weight just over three-point-five. Please note also the impeccable radiant cut.”

Fixing the loupe to his eye, the man looked carefully at the stone again. Constance counted the minutes as he examined it from every angle, weighed it, and even immersed it in oil. Finally he lowered the loupe.

“Five hundred dollars,” he said.

Constance fixed her gaze on his. “Don’t think you can take advantage of me because I’m a woman. That stone is unique — and worth far more.”

The man hesitated. “Seven hundred.”

Constance held out her hand for the stone.

“Eight hundred and fifty,” he said. “I can’t go any higher because... frankly, that’s all the funds I have on hand.” He paused. “Since you wish to remain anonymous, I might point out that I am taking a risk.”

Constance worked out just how large that sum was in 1880. Workingmen earned less than two dollars a day, and a good house cost fifteen hundred dollars. While it still was far less than the diamond was worth, it would do — for now. “Very well,” she said.

She waited as the man went into the back room. She heard a whispered conversation, and — slipping her hand into her pocket and grasping the stiletto — she made sure she had a clear path to the door. But a minute later, the manager appeared again. Wordlessly, he laid a stack of bills on the velvet tray and overturned a small bag of twenty-dollar gold pieces on the velvet for her to count. Constance flipped through the bills and counted out the coins. She nodded. He put the notes in an envelope and the coins back in the bag and gave them to her. She tucked both bag and envelope into the pocket of her dress, thanked him, and exited to the avenue.

A block away, she found a couturier that, in addition to tailored dresses, also sold prêt-à-porter outfits. An hour later she emerged again, with a shop’s assistant holding a hatbox and two large bags in tow. Instead of the purple gown, Constance was now wearing an elegant bustle dress of peacock-blue silk and white ruffles, with a matching bonnet and heavy Eton jacket. As she walked briskly to the curb, the gazes she attracted were admiring rather than curious. Constance paused while the assistant flagged down a hansom cab.

The driver began to get down from his seat, but Constance opened the door herself and — putting a high-buttoned shoe on the running board — sprang up easily into the compartment.

The driver raised his eyebrows, then mounted his seat as the shop assistant put the bags and the hatbox inside the cab. “Where to, ma’am?” he asked as he drew in the reins.

“The Fifth Avenue Hotel,” Constance said, proffering a dollar bill.

“Yes, ma’am,” the driver said as he pocketed it. Without another word, he urged his horse forward, and within moments, the cab was lost in the ebb and flow of the noonday traffic.