The head of the BSC, a patrolman named Mark Denton, strode toward the stage. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Danny, and rail thin. He had pale skin, as hard and shiny as piano keys, and his black hair was slicked back tight against his skull.

Danny and the other men took their chairs as Mark Denton crossed the stage and placed his hands on the edges of the dais. He gave the room a tired smile.

“Mayor Peters canceled the meeting we had scheduled at the end of the week.”

Groans broke out in the room, a few catcalls.

Denton held up a hand to quiet them. “There’re rumors of a streetcar workers strike, and the mayor believes that’s of more pressing importance right now. We have to go to the back of the line.”

“Maybe we should strike,” someone said.

Denton’s dark eyes flashed. “We don’t talk of strike, men. That’s just what they want. You know how that would play in the papers? Do you really want to give them that kind of ammunition, Timmy?”

“No, I don’t, Mark, but what are our options? We’re fucking starving out here.”

Denton acknowledged that with a firm nod. “I know we are. But even whispering the word strike is heresy, men. You know it and I know it. Our best chance right now is to appear patient and open up talks with Samuel Gompers and the AFL.”

“That really happening?” someone behind Danny asked.

Denton nodded. “In fact, I was planning to put a motion to the floor. Later tonight, I’ll grant you, but why wait?” He shrugged. “All those in favor of the BSC opening up charter talks with the American Federation of Labor, say aye.”

Danny felt it then, an almost tactile stirring of the blood throughout the room, a sense of collective purpose. He couldn’t deny his blood jumped along with everyone else’s. A charter in the most powerful union in the country. Jesus.

“Aye,” the crowd shouted.

“All against?”

No one spoke.

“Motion accepted,” Denton said.

Was it actually possible? No police department in the nation had ever pulled this off. Few had dared try. And yet, they could be the first. They could—quite literally—change history.

Danny reminded himself he wasn’t part of this.

Because this was a joke. This was a pack of naïve, overly dramatic men who thought with enough talk they could bend the world to their needs. It didn’t work that way, Danny could have told them. It worked the other way.

After Denton, the cops felled by the flu paraded onstage. They talked of themselves as the lucky ones; unlike nine other officers from the city’s eighteen station houses, they’d survived. Of twenty onstage, twelve had returned to duty. Eight never would. Danny lowered his eyes when Steve took the dais. Steve, just two months ago singing in the barbershop quartet, had trouble keeping his words straight. He kept stuttering. He asked them not to forget him, not to forget the flu. He asked that they remember their brotherhood and fellowship to all who’d sworn to protect and to serve.