Danny wasn’t sure how much of his own words he believed, but he felt a sudden glow of hope when he noticed Nora and Luther enter the back of the hall. Nora gave him a wave and a bright smile and he smiled back.

Then as they moved to their right, Ralph Raphelson stepped into the space they’d vacated. He removed his hat and his eyes met Danny’s.

He shook his head.

Danny felt as if he’d been hit in the spine with a pipe and stabbed in the stomach with an ice-cold knife.

Raphelson put his hat back on and turned to go, but Danny wasn’t letting him off the hook, not now, not tonight.

“Gentlemen, please give a warm hand to Ralph Raphelson of the Boston Central Labor Union!”

Raphelson turned with a grimace on his face as the men turned, saw him, and broke into applause.

“Ralph,” Danny called with a wave of his arm, “come on up here and tell the men what the BCLU has planned.”

Raphelson came down the aisle with a sick smile plastered to his face and a stiff gait. He climbed the steps to the stage and shook Danny’s hand and whispered, “I’ll get you for this, Coughlin.”

“Yeah?” Danny gripped his hand tight, squeezing the bones, and smiled big. “I fucking hope you choke to death.”

He dropped the hand and walked to the back of the stage as Raphelson took the podium and Mark sidled up to Danny.

“He selling us out?”

“He already sold us.”

“It gets worse,” Mark said.

Danny turned, saw that Mark’s eyes were damp, the pockets beneath them dark.

“Jesus, how could it get worse?”

“This is a telegram Samuel Gompers sent to Governor Coolidge this morning. Coolidge released it to the press. Just read the circled part.”

Danny’s eyes scanned the page until he found the sentence circled in pencil:

While it is our belief that the Boston Police were poorly served and their rights as workingmen denied by both yourself and Police Commissioner Curtis, it has always been the position of the American Federation of Labor to discourage all government employees from striking.

The men were booing Raphelson now, most on their feet. Several chairs toppled.

Danny dropped the copy of the telegram to the floor of the stage. “We’re done.”

“There’s still hope, Dan.”

“For what?” Danny looked at him. “The American Federation of Labor and the Central Labor Union both just sold us down the river on the same day. Fucking hope?”

“We could still get our jobs back.”

Several men rushed the stage and Ralph Raphelson took a half dozen steps backward.

“They’ll never give us our jobs back,” Danny said. “Never.”

The el ride back to the North End was bad. Luther had never seen Danny in so dark a mood. It covered him like a cloak. He sat beside Luther and offered hard eyes to the other passengers who gave him a funny look. Nora sat beside him and rubbed his hand nervously, as if to calm him, but it was really to calm herself, Luther knew.