Read Online The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1) by C.A. Sanders - Free Book Online

only think like a thief. “I didn—”
    “Dry up. The Vanderlay’s are in all the papers, yelping that the Munis are fumbling the search, and then praising the Mets for their effort.  You don’t find this baby, you make us all look bad.  It might be what the governor needs to shut us down.  If we lose our jobs over this, there’s no hole in the city you can hide in.”
    I pocketed the threats.  A man like Leary, you don’t bluff, you fold your cards. Finally, he burned down his fire.  I felt like little more than a child as I slunk out of his office.
    “Hood,” he said as I was leaving.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Why the hell are you carrying a poker?”
    “I broke my daystick beating a drunk.” He didn’t need to know about the Redcaps.  “I’ll get a new one from the supply room.”
    “You do that.  You look like an arse with that thing.”
    I left in a hurry.  I had no idea that Leary hated me so much.  Do they all feel that way?  Am I some rich kid playing policeman to them, looking for some excitement in my life?  I sighed.  They’re not wrong, but at least I won’t crack open some old man’s head. 

    I walked further down Irving, trudging through the gray snow that no longer crunched under my feet.  I stopped at the corner and bought a pair of sausages from an old peddler in a dirty yellow coat.  I buy my lunch from him a few times a week, when I have to eat perpendicular.  He gave me a third one free. “Cause ya look like hell,” he said. I agreed.
    I bit off a huge chunk of sausage as I walked.  Three sausages were too much for me after breakfast at Pop’s, but I wanted the comfort of a fat bellows.
    I turned west on Fourteenth and cut through Union Square.  My hands were greasy, so I rinsed them off in the icy water of the Union Square fountain.  A small boy was shining shoes there, so I flipped him a penny to do the same for me.
    “Why d’you have a stove poker?” the boy asked as he shined.
    “Why does anyone have anything?” 
    He frowned and looked at me funny, but didn’t talk again until he was finished.  He did good work, so I tossed him another penny afterwards.  His eyes popped open and he thanked me repeatedly.
    I heard a clamor on the other side of the square and walked there.  A snow-haired, well-dressed Negro stood on a wide tree stump surrounded by a mixed crowd.  To his side was some Quaker woman.  She looked from side to side as the crowd pushed in.
    “It is the right of all men,” the Negro began, “White and Negro, Indian and Oriental, to be free.  Gone are the days of serfs tied to their lords.  There are no kings in America, only free men.  Slavery must become our past, if we are to embrace our future.”
    The crowd cheered, but an angry wedge of Irish pushed their way through.  One rotten cabbage flew, and then another.  One man pushed the Negro off of the stump and began to shout. 
    “You preach your ab’lution while we work a fact’ry sixteen hours a day fer a coupl’a pennies?  A’least slaves get food.  A’least slaves get a house.  Where’s our freedom?  Where’s our streets a’gold?”
    The scene turned into chaos as both sides attacked each other.  I unhooked the poker.  I’d be a fool to wade into that tide by myself, so I rushed to the sidewalk and beat on the planks, the warning signal to all the police in the area.  Almost as soon as I began, the same loud clacking came from other parts of the square.  At least a dozen police rushed in from the Northwest and attacked the crowd.  They were Mets, so I slipped away from the square before they finished what the Redcaps started
    It was like this every time one of the abolitionists took to the stump.  I felt for them, I even agreed with them, but you can’t ask these people to support a faraway cause when they’re starving on their stoops.  Pop’s more involved in the abolitionist movement, but the wealthy can afford high-minded thoughts.  The poor care more for