Curtis nodded. “I offered them a raise. They turned it down flat.”

Because it was sixteen years too late, Storrow thought.

“I initiated several committees to study their work conditions.”

Cherry-picked with toadies, Storrow thought.

“It’s an issue of respect now. Respect for the office. Respect for this country.”

“Only if you make it thus, Edwin.” Storrow uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “The men respect you, Commissioner. They do. And they respect this Commonwealth. I believe my report will bear that out.”

“Your report,” Curtis said. “What about my report? When do I share my voice?”

Good God, it was like fighting over toys in a nursery.

“Commissioner Curtis,” the governor said, “we all understand your position. You should no more be beholden to the brazen demands of workingmen than—”

“Beholden?” Curtis said. “I am no such thing, sir. I am extorted. That is what this is, pure and simple. Extortion.”

“Be that as it may,” Peters said, “we think that the best course—”

“—is to forgo personal feelings at this time,” Coolidge said.

“This is not personal.” Curtis craned his head forward and screwed his face into a mask of victimization. “This is public. This is principle. This is Seattle, gentlemen. And St. Petersburg. And Liverpool. If we let them win here, then we truly will be Russianized. The principles that Jefferson and Franklin and Washington stood for will—”

“Edwin, please.” Storrow couldn’t help himself. “I may have brokered a settlement that will allow us to regain our footing, both locally and nationally.”

Edwin Curtis clapped his hands together. “Well, I for one, would love to hear it.”

“The mayor and the city council have found the funds to raise the level of the men’s pay to a fair scale for 1919 and beyond. It’s fair, Edwin, not a gross capitulation, I assure you. We’ve further designated monies to address and improve the working conditions in the precinct houses. It’s a tight budget we’re working with and some other public workers will not receive departmental funding they’d been counting on, but we tried to minimize the overall damage. The greater good will be served.”

Curtis nodded, his lips white. “You think so.”

“I do, Edwin.” Storrow kept his voice soft, warm.

“These men affiliated with a national union against my express orders, in open contempt of the rules and regulations of this police department. That affiliation is an affront to this country.”

Storrow recalled the wonderful spring of his freshman year at Harvard when he’d joined the boxing team and experienced a purity of violence unlike any he could have ever imagined if he wasn’t pummeling and being pummeled every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. His parents found out eventually and that put an end to his pugilism, but, oh, how he would have loved to lace up the gloves right now and pound Curtis’s nose down to the rocks of itself.

“Is that your sticking point, Edwin? The AFL affiliation?”

Curtis threw up his hands. “Of course it is!”