New York - The Novel

huge remaining amount split between the ring.
    His noblest enterprise had been the courthouse, behind City Hall. It had been under construction for ten years now, with no end in sight. When eventually it was completed, there was no doubt that it would be one of the noblest buildings in the city—a regular palace, in the best neoclassical style. But the ring was in no hurry to finish it, since this splendid architectural receptacle was also a trough of liquid gold. Everyone benefited—at least, all the ring’s many friends. Modest craftsmen with contracts for work there had already emerged from it as rich men. No one knew how many millions had flowed into this one building, but this was certain: the courthouse had already cost more than the recent purchase of Alaska.
    Yet it hadn’t been until two years ago that the press had attacked the ring in any serious way. But when it did come, the attack was two-pronged: from the
New York Times
, in words; and from the brilliant cartoons of Thomas Nast, in
Harper’s Weekly
.
    It was Thomas Nast’s cartoons that Boss Tweed feared the more. His constituents mightn’t be able to read, he said, but they could understand the cartoons. He even tried to buy Nast off with half a million dollars. But it hadn’t worked. And now, finally, Boss Tweed had been arrested.

    Theodore hadn’t been particularly pleased with the portrait he’d done of Tweed a couple of years back. With his high domed forehead and beard, he might have passed for any corpulent politician, although the light falling aslant the studio had brought out some lines of aggression and greed in his face. He’d enjoyed the session with Nast far more. They were about the same age, and both from German families. The clever cartoonist had a surprisingly smooth, round face, upon which he sported a bushy mustache and a jaunty goatee beard. But Theodore thought he’d captured the young man’s lively, quizzical character quite well.
    As for the photograph of the courthouse, it showed the growing building well enough, but it wasn’t interesting.
    “This is just to attract publicity,” he complained to Master.
    “Publicity is good for your business,” Frank replied.
    “I know that. But can’t you see what will happen? People will notice the Tweed pictures just because he’s in the news today, and they’ll fail to pay attention to the important work.”
    “Get a name first,” said his patron. “The rest will follow.”
    “I won’t do it.”
    “Theodore, I am asking you to do this. All the other work you want is there. People will see it, I promise you.” He paused. “It will mean a lot to me.”
    It was said kindly, but Theodore could not miss the threat within it. If he wanted Master’s future support, the money he provided for the exhibition, the customers he could supply, then the three photographs had to go up. He sighed. This was the price. The question was, would he pay it?
    “It’s four o’clock now,” said Master. “I’ll be back at six, before the opening.”
    “I’ll think about it,” said Theodore.
    “Please do.”
    For the next half-hour he considered what to do. He would have liked to go for a walk to mull it over, but he couldn’t leave because he’d promised to be here to meet someone else. He hoped she’d come soon.

    It didn’t take Mary O’Donnell long to walk from Gramercy Park to the gallery. She could have gone that evening with the Masters—indeed, Mrs. Master had suggested it. But even though she knew Gretchen would be there, Mary didn’t really feel comfortable in the middle of a fashionable crowd. She’d much prefer to let Theodore show her round the exhibits in private. She always felt comfortable with Theodore.
    After all, they had been lovers.
    Not for long. Following the Draft Riots that summer of ’63, she’d quite decided that she wouldn’t go to see him. She knew that when he’d seduced her on the beach on Coney Island, he hadn’t meant anything serious by it. She didn’t mind. And once back in the city, her old life in the Master household took over at once, and after a week she even supposed that he was fading from her mind.
    So it was really only on a whim, she told herself, that one Saturday early in August, having a free day and no other engagements, she happened to look in on his studio in the Bowery.
    He was just finishing a portrait of a young man when she came in.Greeting her politely, as though she were his next customer, he asked her if