One of the boilermakers shook a bottle of beer and uncorked it, spraying foam over the crowd. Some laughed while others pushed and shoved to get out of the way.
“Settle down, now,” Patrick warned, but his voice didn’t carry over the boisterous gathering.
A gang of miners started chanting a labor song, riling up the crowd. A few of the women locked hands and began hopping in a circle dance. Spray from another bottle of beer arched over the crowd.
“Settle down,” Patrick yelled again, but the commotion only got worse. A fight broke out near the back when a drunken man fell onto a child, prompting the boy’s father to start swinging.
A piercing whistle split the air. Liam, the welder with the scar splitting one eyebrow, sprang on top of a chair, his face grim. “Quiet!” he bellowed, and within a few seconds, the crowd settled down. The brawny welder stood with his hands on his hips as he surveyed the assembly.
“For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Liam Malone, nephew to Mick Malone, the man of the hour.” He flashed a wink at Mick, who returned it, but Liam’s face quickly settled into an expression of deadly earnest. His voice had the rough cant of the other workers but without a trace of an accent, Irish or otherwise.
“It’s all fine and good if you want to carouse down here tonight, and even if you want to cause a little ruckus in the courtroom, but I won’t tolerate it outside the courthouse tomorrow,” he warned. “Go ahead and let the judge and the Blackstones have it in court, but as soon as a few of us get thrown out of the courtroom, I want more people to funnel in and stir things up again. The people waiting outside to take their places will be orderly and respectful. You will be well-dressed to blend in with the other spectators, or the courthouse guards won’t let you in.”
“And who’s going to keep them in line?” a blaster from Mingo County taunted.
“I will,” Liam said in the voice of command. “Everyone here will follow my orders, or I’ll see you thrown out. My goal isn’t to drum up publicity to sell Mick’s book, it’s to block Carnegie’s plan to create U.S. Steel, the largest corporation this country has ever seen. That’s why we came all this way, right?”
Patrick was vaguely aware of the impending merger the Blackstone Bank was financing. It would merge Carnegie Steel and ten other steel mills into one monstrous corporation that would control most of the steel production in the country. It would strangle competition and crush the rights of workers. Suddenly the crowd assembled in this cellar began to make sense. The steelworkers, iron miners, and men who built things with their hands had come to stop the creation of the U.S. Steel Corporation.
Patrick’s unease ratcheted higher as Liam Malone continued speaking.
“If the government won’t stop the creation of U.S. Steel, the working people will,” Liam said. “If we fail, Carnegie and the Blackstones will have a monopoly on the steel industry. Try getting a metalworking job anywhere in this country if you get on the bad side of U.S. Steel.”
The crowd was silent as the tough welder’s words sank in.
“We start by flinging mud on the Blackstones,” Liam continued. “By stirring up bad sentiments from years past, we’ll make people take a second look at handing the Blackstones the reins of the world’s biggest company. Then we’ll go after Carnegie and J.P. Morgan. We are joined together in a common cause, struggling side by side to give dignity to the working people who built this country. We start that journey tomorrow by whipping up a little controlled chaos in the courtroom.”
Patrick eyed this newcomer. Liam’s battered duster jacket and calloused hands made him look as humble as everyone else here, but he carried an air of command that made him dangerous. He outlined plans for the next day with calm, clear precision. Patrick’s fears about uncontrolled disorder began to ease, even as his misgivings about Liam Malone rose.
Mick came to stand alongside Patrick, a bottle of beer in his hand and alcohol on his breath. “That boy shouldn’t have come. I told him to stay home, but he came anyway. He’s a force, to be sure.”
Patrick could already tell that Liam Malone was dangerous by the way he controlled the crowd tonight. Patrick could either risk the anger of the crowd by throwing Liam out . . . or he could join forces with him.
It was ten o’clock before the gathering dispersed. Patrick loitered against the grainy brick wall of the cellar as he watched Liam shake hands and swap stories with people from other states. He needed to speak with the welder privately. Tomorrow’s hearing was going to be the most important case of his career. Having a little wind in his sails from a sympathetic audience would help, but he couldn’t let it get out of hand.
Finally, the last of the workers began funneling upstairs, and Patrick followed closely behind Liam. As others dispersed on the darkened street, Patrick pulled Liam aside.
“I’m not going to let you turn tomorrow’s hearing into a protest against U.S. Steel.”
Liam’s face tightened a little. “It already is,” he said. “Two hundred people didn’t leave their homes and families to help my uncle sell more books.”
Patrick stepped in front of Liam, forcing the other man to stop walking. “You need your uncle Mick to sell those books. If this case dies tomorrow, the books get destroyed in a bonfire. Right now, no one outside of New York City even knows about this book. Go ahead and whip up a little steam among your followers, but let me steer it in the courtroom. If we win, copies of that book will make people all over the country think twice about letting the Blackstones get a controlling interest over the steel industry.”
A gleam of respect lit Liam’s pale green eyes, and he offered a calloused hand. “We have a deal.”
Patrick shook Liam’s hand and breathed a sigh of relief, because Liam Malone was not a man he wanted as an enemy.
9
Patrick arrived early at the courthouse to review his notes ahead of the most important hearing of his career. Judge Rothwell hadn’t arrived yet, and the jury box was empty, for this wasn’t a trial. It was only a hearing to see if the court would halt distribution of a book before publication, and Judge Rothwell would decide the verdict on his own.
The Blackstones’ lawyer sat at the plaintiff’s table, but Patrick was too nervous to sit. He paced before the gallery, eyeing the spectators who filled the seats, most of whom were Mick’s crowd. They wore homespun clothes and carried lunch pails. They were better behaved than last night, but he could sense their excitement simmering just beneath the surface.
There were only a few Blackstones here. Gwen Kellerman sat beside an elderly man who was probably Frederick Blackstone. Patrick couldn’t meet her eyes because he was about to defend Mick’s slurs about her family, and the prospect gave him no joy. He was grateful for his spiffy new suit because there were a lot of eyes on him today, and he adjusted his freshly starched cuffs while pacing before a row of seats reserved for the journalists.
The law was on his side today, but he had plenty of strikes against him. His Irish accent tended to come on strong when he was nervous. The opposing counsel was Eugene Alden Fletcher, a Harvard-educated attorney who spoke with the clipped accent that upper-crust New Englanders had mastered generations ago.
The bailiff entered the courtroom. It was a good thing he had a hefty build that could stand up to a little rough-and-tumble, because it might get rowdy soon.
