Page 114 of By Any Means

Brasher shook his head. “Let’s get this over with.”

32

CHARY

November, 1906

Eighteen months later

E 37th Street & Lexington Ave.

Chary was seated in the Chesterfield by the fireplace, halfway through Morris’s The Water of the Wondrous Isles, the second part, for the second time, and finding himself still as enamored of the protagonist, Birdalone, as every other man in the thing seemed to be, when Laurie burst in a little later than usual—three minutes past six o’clock.

Friday nights were printing nights, and this a particularly significant one.

“It was supposed to be my story,” Laurie hissed as greeting, unwrapping his scarf as he crossed the apartment and sat down at his desk. He threw his hat across the parquet and a newsprint onto the desk. “I knew something was going on with the laborers. I put him onto it, that horrid week. Didn’t I? Hiram only tripped and fell into it thanks to his two lovers. And how many lovers does a man need, anyway? As though he’d set—out—to write it—at all—!” He thumped his fist agitatedly on the desk.

Chary had rather seen this coming. He unfolded from the chair, stood behind Laurie, and put the tips of his fingers into the caramel-silk at the man’s temples.

“Haven’t you read it already? I mean, didn’t he give you a draft?”

Laurie harrumphed. “Yes.”

“Well, then.” Chary peered over his shoulder. On the desk was, of course, the page-proof for tomorrow’s Rational Appeal, winter-damp and underarm-crumpled.

Society Writer Records Labor Trafficking Ring! Year-long Undercover Effort to Expose Illegal Exploits of Corrupt Blueberry Foreman.

And the byline: -H. Sumner-

Laurie grunted in pleasure and slowly began to relax.

“From what you’ve told me of Mr. Sumner—and knowing my brother”—Chary coughed—“he may well have actually been clued in to the operation from the beginning.”

“Before I had eyes on you, you mean,” Laurie murmured. “Before Raberding’s press bounty.”

“Yes. Well before. Remember, you do have the two novels on him.”

“Mm-hm,” Laurie hummed. “That’s true. Only, you should see him roll his eyes at the advertisement Sam put. It’s riiiight below all his society stuff.”

Chary smiled. He dug his claws in harder, and Laurie groaned.

“Also, Mr. Tulley,” Chary said, after a moment, “you’ve had fingers in not one but two pieces of progressive legislation passed this year.”

“Yes, true,” Laurie said thoughtfully.

Chary sealed his mouth against a laugh. Humble, Laurie wasn’t. He didn’t need so much propping-up, but Chary enjoyed it nevertheless.

“Perhaps next time, you could share a byline?”

“Maybe.” Laurie sighed. “Honestly, maybe I’ll leave it all to him. I don’t know if I’ll keep writing serials. New York is falling out of love with its muckrakers, and the novels sell better.”

“Sam would murder you.”

“Nah. He’s got Hiram now and Sarah besides.”

Chary tried to stuff his cowardice back where it belonged. “Are you tiring of Gotham?”

After more than a year together, sharing lives in an eight-hundred-square-foot apartment in the old uptown, he didn’t know if Laurie would or could give up New York life, and hadn’t asked him to, because Chary still had no real home to offer. He’d sold the Fifth Avenue townhouse and used its capital to invest in the semiautomatic machines. The Berryfield house had sat empty since Raberding’s death. Laurie had offered this apartment as a refuge while it was being scoured clean and redecorated. August, in his last letter, said nothing of the northwest balcony room remained, and the sitting room was now what they called a “living” room, with a raised ceiling.