“Absolutely, sir. It is complicated but consistent.”
Congdon read it again.
“Shall I take down your reply, sir?”
“No reply.”
“Yes, Judge Congdon. Is there anything else?”
“Yes.” Congdon named three stockbrokers who regularly bid for him in secret. “Tell them to buy up every share of Gleason Consolidated as they become available.”
The secretary, a sly co-conspirator with an encyclopedic knowledge of Wall Street, had been privy to Judge Congdon’s schemes long before the financier hammered together U.S. Steel. “I was not aware that Black Jack is selling.”
“His heirs are building mansions and buying yachts and private cars. They’re deep in debt, greedy, and impatient.”
“But are they in a position to sell? Gleason keeps a tight rein on his stock.”
Congdon read Henry Clay’s wire, again to be absolutely sure what the private detective was promising in veiled language. He said, “His heirs will be in a position to sell. What do we know about Gleason’s lawyers?”
As they were discussing heirs and inheritance, Congdon’s secretary said, “There was the incident concerning the probate engrossment of the Widow O’Leary’s supposed will — yet to be resolved — which weighs heavily on their firm
.”
“To be resolved by whom?”
“It is still in probate court.”
“Perfect. Resolve it for them.”
“That should make the lawyers grateful,” said Congdon’s secretary — understanding in a flash that they were discussing the expeditious execution of Black Jack Gleason’s will when he finally shuffled off to that heavenly coalfield in the sky. Understanding, too, that that voyage to the other side might commence sooner than Gleason expected, the secretary calculated to the penny the bribe that the probate judge would accept.
“Is there anything else, Judge Congdon?”
“Transfer all Gleason stock to a holding company with no traceable connection to my interests.”
“What do you want done with Gleason’s managers?”
“They can keep their jobs so long as every last bushel of Gleason coal is barged to my Amalgamated Coal Terminal.”
15
“Hold on, Isaac,” said Wish. “Are you sure you want to be taking sides in this dustup?”
The cave where Luke’s father was hiding in the woods up the mountain had been chosen for its view of the approach up the logged slopes, and when Bell asked whether his father was armed, Luke said he had a squirrel rifle, so he had sent the boy ahead to alert him that they were coming.
“We’re not taking sides,” he told Wish. “Mr. Van Dorn stressed that point when we spoke. But he also warned me not to get caught in the middle, and the best way to do that is stay ahead of both sides. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”
“Here comes the boy.”
Luke led them the final hundred yards up the logged slope and into the cave, which Bell surmised, by its timber propping, was actually an old mining hole cut into the side of the hill by backwoodsmen digging for fuel to heat their cabins long before the Gleason Consolidated Coal & Coke Company commenced its commercial venture. Zeke, Luke’s father, could not risk lighting a fire. He had a thin blanket for the cold, and he tore hungrily into the biscuits, after first asking whether Bell and Wish had eaten and they answered that they had. Between bites he explained that union men were coming from Pennsylvania and that he and scores of others were going to join them and call a strike.
Sounds drifted faintly up the mountain — the chug of a locomotive across the river, a steamboat whistle, bursts of raucous laughter from the saloons, and, once, the clang of the trolley. The ill-lit Gleasonburg itself appeared as a distant glow, softer than the thin moonlight filtered by river mists.
Bell said, “Luke, maybe you ought to tell your father what you told me you overheard.”
“What’s that, boy?”