New York - The Novel

Mr. O’Donnell. I shall do nothing.”
    “That’s not like you,” said Sean.
    “I am retiring,” announced Gabriel Love. “I am devoting myself wholly to good works.”
    “Lost your taste for the market?”
    “Too many regulations, Mr. O’Donnell. Too many bankers like Morgan. They’re too mighty for me. And besides,” he shook his head sadly, “they are taking the life, and sweetness, out of the business.”
    There was a pause, while the two men contemplated the former sweetness of life.
    “The sixties,” said Sean O’Donnell. “Those were the days.”
    “True,” said Gabriel Love.
    “You had things wrapped up,” said Sean. “You and Boss Tweed.”
    “Our system, back then,” said Love, “approached perfection.”
    Frank listened. Of course, everyone knew about the years after the Civil War. If the railroad men of today were like feudal barons, the Wall Street of the late sixties had been like the Dark Ages—when New York City corruption had come to the markets. To hear the story told by one of the operators was an opportunity not to be missed.
    “I always said that your friend Fernando Wood could have done even better for himself,” said Gabriel Love to Sean, “if he’d stayed closer to Tammany Hall.”
    “Probably right,” acknowledged O’Donnell.
    “Tammany Hall is the answer to everything in this city, and Boss Tweed understood that. You can make money in a small way without politics. But to make the big money, you need to buy the legislature. Can’t be done otherwise.”
    “City contracts,” said O’Donnell, with affection.
    “City contracts, certainly,” Love echoed. “By all means, there’s fortunes in city contracts. But that’s only a beginning for a man with vision. And Boss Tweed had vision. You want your railroad to go a certain way, and the city or the state has to grant you the permission? Then you need to pay the legislators. Put some of them on your board. Your company is being sued? Then you need to buy a judge. Tammany arranged all that. Boss Tweed was your man.” He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the memory. “The police were all good Tammany boys. The judges, the legislators, even the governor of New York State, he’d bribed them. On Wall Street, we made hay. You could water stock, short-sell your shareholders, anything was possible. And if a judge ruled against you, why, he’d get another one to give you a counter-judgment that would keep the game in play for years.
    “Those were the days for men of vision. Jay Gould—and he, in my opinion, was the greatest speculator of them all—he almost persuaded thePresident of the United States, Ulysses Grant himself, to hold back the bullion reserves so that Gould could corner the gold market. For Ulysses Grant, great man though he was, did not understand such high matters. Yes, sir, he made use of the president himself. And if some interfering villain hadn’t told Grant what Mr. Gould was up to, he would have pulled it off. That would have been sweet.” He sighed. “But the Stock Exchange, and the damn Bar Association, and Mr. Morgan and his like, they’re closing all that down.” He shook his head at the folly of the thing. “The joy is leaving the market, gentlemen. The odds cannot be properly stacked. And Gabriel Love is leaving too.”
    “But the game’s not over,” said Sean. “There’s plenty that can still be done on Wall Street—look at what you’re doing now.”
    For just an instant, so quick you hardly saw it, Mr. Love shot O’Donnell a warning glance.
    “Why, even Mr. Morgan could do what we’re doing,” he said reprovingly. Then he sighed again. “I’ve retired, O’Donnell,” he said. “For me, the game is over.”
    During all this conversation, Frank had been listening with a horrified fascination. Not that a bit of corruption had ever worried him—that was part of city life. But to hear these two men, with whom he was doing business, describe the whole vast machine of fraud and corruption so lovingly, and with such familiarity, was making him nervous. This deal seemed legitimate, but was there something about it he didn’t know? If Jay Gould would cheerfully use the President of the United States as his stooge, he thought, then is Gabriel Love making a fool of me? And the words of his son Tom came back to him with a terrible urgency: “Stay away from Gabriel Love.”
    The clammy feeling on his brow returned.
    “Are you absolutely sure this business is