Mark took a sip of his beer, the worst in the city, but also the cheapest. He rubbed the foam off his upper lip with the back of his hand and glanced at the Traveler clipping again. “Might work, might work. What if they flat out rebuff us? They say there’s no money, none, zip?”

“Then we have to come at them on the company-store issue. Ask if they think it’s right that policemen have to pay for their own uniforms and greatcoats and guns and bullets. Ask them how they expect a first-year patrolman working for the 1905 wage and paying for his own equipment to feed his children.”

“I like the children.” Mark gave him a wry smile. “Be ready to play that up if we meet any reporters on the way out and it hasn’t gone our way.”

Danny nodded. “Another thing? We’ve got to bring the average workweek down by ten hours and get time-and-a-half for all special details. The president’s coming back through here in a month, right? Getting off the boat from France and parading right through these streets. You know they’re going to put every cop on that regardless of what he’s already worked that week. Let’s demand time-and-a-half starting there.”

“We’re going to put their backs up with that.”

“Exactly. And once their backs are up, we say we’ll forgo all these demands if they just give us the raise they promised plus the cost-of-living increase.”

Mark stewed on that, sipping his beer, looking out at the snow falling past the graying windows of late afternoon. “We’ve got to hit them with the health-code violations, too,” he said. “I saw rats at the Oh-Nine the other night looked like bullets wouldn’t stun them. We hit them with that, the company-store thing, and the special details?” He sat back. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He clinked his glass off Danny’s. “Now remember something—they will not say yes tomorrow. They’ll hem and haw. When we meet the press afterward, we act conciliatory. We say some progress has been made. But we also call attention to the issues. We mention that Peters and Curtis are fine men who are honestly trying to help us with the company-store problem. To which the reporters will say…?”

“What company-store problem?” Danny smiled, seeing it now.

“Precisely. Same thing on the cost of living. ‘Well, we know Mayor Peters surely hopes to address the disparity between what the men earn and the high price of coal.’”

“Coal’s good,” Danny said, “but it’s still a bit abstract. The children are our aces.”

Mark chuckled. “You’re getting a real feel for this.”

“Lest we forget”—Danny raised his glass—“I am my father’s son.”

In the morning he dressed in his only suit, one Nora had picked out during their secret days of courting in ’17. It was dark blue, a French-back, double-breasted pinstripe and, given the weight he’d lost trying to look like a hungry Bolshevik, too big for him. Still, once he added his hat and ran his fingers along the welt-edge brim to get the curl the way he wanted it, he looked smart, dapper even. As he fiddled with his high collar and made the knot in his tie a little wider to compensate for the gap between the collar and his throat, he practiced somber looks in the mirror, serious looks. He worried he looked too dapper, too much the young rake. Would Curtis and Peters take him seriously? He removed the hat and furrowed his brow. He opened and closed his suit jacket several times. He decided it looked best closed. He practiced the brow-furrow again. He added more Macassar oil to his hair and put the hat back on.