“I see,” she said faintly.
“The Oyster Knifers, now, they ran bars and brothels, could be hired out as muscle. As I said, they were harder, more vicious. I was invited to join their gang at first, as they are a more traditionally Irish gang, though there were Irish everywhere in Five Points, of course—did I tell you my parents immigrated from Lansdowne?” She shook her head. “They came in 1850. My mother was already pregnant with my older sister Maggie. It’s a wonder they didn’t starve on the boat. Or back in Ireland.
“But I didn’t want to join up with them—even as a child I knew their reputation. It was just the sort of thing you knew if you lived in Five Points. Besides, my father had been a Bowery Boy, and the Toughs were a subset of the Boys, if you will.”
“He had been?”
“Oh yes. Fought against the Dead Rabbits in that famous turf war in ’57. And gang membership often stays in the family. The Toughs have traditionally been from a slightly more elevated social class than the Knifers—slightly.” He smiled wryly in acknowledgment of the bare distinction. “Skilled tradesmen, butchers, mechanics, that sort of thing. My father had been a blacksmith. I meant to apprentice as one myself.”
“But then you moved into the Van Joost house?” she guessed.
Daniel nodded slowly. “Yes, then we moved in with Jacob.”
A thoughtful expression crossed her face. “Is that how you know Paddy and Billy from the alley the night I met you? From your youth?”
Daniel nodded ruefully and ran his hands through his hair. “Yes, that is how I know Paddy and Billy.”
“You seemed to be the group’s leader that night.”
Daniel barked a short laugh. “Nobody leads Paddy and Billy. But I’ve offered legal assistance to them and to some of their associates in the past, helped them out of a jam or two, so sometimes they respect me enough to do as I ask. Within reason.”
“So if you moved in with Jacob Van Joost in—what year?”
“Eighteen sixty-five.”
“Eighteen sixty-five! Were you at all involved in the Draft Riots?”
“Yes, I was. This is when I first learned something was deeply wrong with Tommy. I snuck out of my house, joined some friends.” They’d been wondering where to find some of the older gang members, he told her, looking for direction, boasting to each other about how brave they’d be if they ran across any rival gangs, when they rounded a corner and come across a group of similarly aged boys from the Oyster Knife gang, including Tommy.
“Normally there would have been a fight, but they ran past us and joined with a group of their older gang members.” Daniel paused, struggling with the memory. “We followed them for a few blocks, but it soon became clear they were involved in, well, what the Draft Riots became known for.” His stomach soured at the recollection.
Genevieve’s hand drifted to her mouth. “They … killed someone?”
“Yes … hung him from a lamppost. I’d never seen anything so horrific, and I’d seen a lot. Tommy was in the thick of it, laughing like a loon.”
“Oh my god,” Genevieve breathed.
Daniel nodded. Jacob had sent him abroad when he was fourteen, but he still came home during the summers, and at night he’d join up with his old friends, like Asher, and roam the streets with fellow gang members. It was during this period that Daniel learned to exist in two worlds: the polished, mannered, and civilized ballrooms of Fifth Avenue and the summer houses of Newport, and the streets of the Lower East Side. As he grew older and went to university, he met up with his old friends less and less, apprenticing in the law after Harvard and becoming familiar with the city’s courts. Even so, he retained the ability to slip back into gang life at will, at least on the surface. He still knew the streets and the alleys and kept up with the major players in his other, dirtier, world, and for a long time it was a world he often felt was more honest, and probably where he truly belonged.
“Of course, I don’t really belong there anymore, and I haven’t for many years,” Daniel relayed. He eyed the sideboard but decided to hold off for the moment. Surely it would be dawn soon, and they’d have to get Genevieve home safely. “The money creates a barrier. My first few summers coming home from Harvard, after I inherited, I was challenged repeatedly, taunted, got into more fights than I’d ever been in before in my life. But that was to be expected—what wasn’t expected was Tommy. At least once a year or so, he’d find me, or I’d find him, but not by chance, you understand? He’d figure out where I was going to be and be there too, and engage in some sort of … atrocity.” Daniel shook his head, deeply lost in thought. “I really don’t want to tell you the details, but suffice it to say I have pulled him off of countless others in the intervening years. It was always someone weaker than him, often women.”
He fixed Genevieve with a hard stare. “Women who did not want to be with him. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She nodded slowly.
It was as if Tommy had wanted Daniel to find him, he explained. Had wanted him to intervene, so they could have an excuse to fight. It became a pattern: Daniel, with the help of his friends, would pull Tommy off whomever he was attacking. Tommy would then challenge Daniel and Daniel alone.
“You always need to save the day, don’t you, Danny boy?” Tommy had panted, dancing around Daniel with his fists raised. The other boys, later young men, would draw back into
