The Devil's Share

Chapter 1: Departure

The SS Monarch slipped her moorings at half past four on a Tuesday afternoon in November, 1925, and the gray towers of Manhattan began their slow retreat behind a curtain of coal smoke and harbor mist. She was a handsome vessel—four hundred and twelve feet of white-painted steel, triple-screwed, with a promenade deck that ran the length of her superstructure and a first-class dining saloon paneled in African mahogany. She had been built for the Cuba run, and she knew her business.

From the boat deck, Phineas Dahlgren watched the Statue of Liberty slide past on the port side, her copper-green arm raised against the November sky. He was a tall man, sixty-three years old, with a full head of white hair combed straight back from a broad Scandinavian forehead. His face was narrow and deeply lined, the face of a man who had spent forty years listening to other people's troubles and rendering judgment upon them. He wore a heavy wool overcoat against the wind and held the rail with both hands, not from unsteadiness but from the simple pleasure of feeling the ship come alive beneath him.

Dahlgren was retired. He had served twenty-two years on the federal bench in Chicago before a stubborn ailment of the lungs had forced him to step down the previous spring. His doctor—a man he trusted more than most—had prescribed a winter in warm air, and Havana had been suggested. Dahlgren had agreed without enthusiasm. He was not a man given to leisure. But his chest rattled when he breathed, and he had learned long ago that the body's arguments, unlike those of attorneys, could not be overruled.

He turned from the rail and made his way inside, passing through the heavy brass doors into the warmth of the first-class corridor. The Monarch's interior was designed to make her passengers forget they were at sea. The corridors were carpeted in deep burgundy. Electric sconces cast a steady amber light. Somewhere below, the engines turned with a low, rhythmic pulse that Dahlgren found unexpectedly soothing.

His stateroom was on B Deck, port side—a comfortable cabin with a writing desk, a settee upholstered in green velvet, and a brass-framed porthole that looked out over the water. He hung his overcoat in the wardrobe, sat down at the desk, and opened the book he had brought for the voyage: a volume of Cicero's legal orations, in the original Latin. He read for twenty minutes before a knock at the door interrupted him.

It was the chief steward, a compact Englishman named Poole, who informed him that Captain Bergström had arranged the first-class seating for dinner and wished to know if Judge Dahlgren had any preferences.

"None whatsoever," Dahlgren said. "Put me wherever is most convenient."

Poole hesitated. "The captain has placed you at his own table, sir, if that's agreeable. Along with Senator Cabot and his party."

Dahlgren raised an eyebrow. "Cabot is aboard?"

"Yes, sir. Traveling with his wife and son, and two members of his staff. There's also Mr. Unger—the industrialist—and a Miss Falk."

"I see. Very well."

Poole withdrew, and Dahlgren returned to his Cicero, though his concentration had shifted. Randolph Cabot. The name was difficult to avoid in 1925. The senator from Connecticut was the most visible champion of Prohibition in the United States Congress—a man who thundered from the Senate floor about the moral rot of alcohol with the fervor of a camp-meeting preacher. His face appeared regularly in the newspapers, his jaw set, his silver hair swept back, his eyes burning with the certainty of the righteous. He was spoken of as a future presidential candidate.

And he was sailing to Havana.

Dahlgren permitted himself a thin smile. Havana, where the rum flowed openly and American liquor laws held no authority. It was, perhaps, a coincidence. Perhaps the senator was merely seeking sunshine, as Dahlgren himself was. But Dahlgren had spent too many years on the bench to place much faith in coincidence.

He dressed for dinner at seven. His evening clothes were fifteen years old but well-maintained—a black tailcoat, white waistcoat, and a shirt with a stiff collar that his housekeeper in Chicago had starched to a military standard. He checked his appearance in the small mirror above the washstand, adjusted his black bow tie, and went up to the dining saloon.

The room was magnificent. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, swaying almost imperceptibly with the ship's motion. The tables were laid with white linen, silver flatware, and arrangements of hothouse roses. A string quartet played Strauss in the corner. The first-class passengers—perhaps sixty in all—were taking their seats with the studied nonchalance of people accustomed to luxury.

Captain Nils Bergström met Dahlgren at the entrance. Bergström was a fellow Swede by ancestry, a broad-shouldered man of fifty with a neatly trimmed beard and the calm, watchful eyes of someone accustomed to command. He shook Dahlgren's hand warmly.

"Judge, I'm honored to have you at my table. I read about your retirement in the Tribune. A loss to the bench, if I may say so."

"You're very kind, Captain. I trust the sea will be gentler with me than the appellate courts were."

Bergström led him to the captain's table, a large round affair set for nine. Several guests had already arrived. Dahlgren was introduced in quick succession.

Georgina Cabot was a handsome woman in her late forties, dressed in a gown of midnight blue silk with a rope of pearls at her throat. She had the polished, slightly distant manner of a woman who had spent decades attending functions she did not enjoy. She greeted Dahlgren with a firm handshake and a smile that did not quite reach her eyes.

"A judge," she said. "How refreshing. We are surrounded by politicians and their courtiers. A man of actual law is a welcome change."

Beside her sat Wesley Cabot, the senator's son—a young man of twenty-two with his father's strong jaw but none of his father's commanding presence. Wesley was pale, with dark circles under his eyes and the restless, unfocused energy of someone who had been drinking before dinner. He wore evening clothes that were slightly too large for him, as though he had recently lost weight. He nodded at Dahlgren without interest.

June Hartigan was introduced as the senator's political aide. She was perhaps thirty, with auburn hair pinned neatly beneath a simple headband, and gray-green eyes that moved with quick intelligence. She wore a modest black dress—appropriate for staff, not society—and shook Dahlgren's hand with a grip that was surprisingly firm. There was something watchful about her, Dahlgren thought. She had the quality of attention he associated with good trial lawyers: she was listening not just to what was said, but to what was left unsaid.

"Miss Hartigan manages my husband's correspondence and schedule," Georgina said, with a coolness that suggested the description was incomplete.

Morris Unger arrived next—a stout, florid man in his sixties with a walrus mustache and the booming voice of someone accustomed to filling boardrooms. He was the president of Unger Steel and, as Dahlgren knew from the newspapers, one of the largest political donors in the Republican Party. He pumped Dahlgren's hand vigorously.

"Judge Dahlgren! By God, I followed your ruling in the Consolidated Freight case. Sound reasoning, sir. Sound reasoning."

"That ruling was overturned on appeal, Mr. Unger."

"Doesn't mean it wasn't sound."

The final guest to arrive at the table was Constance Falk—"Connie" to the newspapers—a Ziegfeld Follies dancer whose face had graced the cover of Vanity Fair the previous spring. She was twenty-five, with bobbed dark hair, wide brown eyes, and the easy, confident bearing of a woman accustomed to being watched. She wore a dress of gold lamé that caught the chandelier light, and she took her seat with the practiced grace of someone who understood that every entrance was a performance.

"Miss Falk is performing in the ship's lounge during the voyage," Captain Bergström explained. "We are fortunate to have her."

"The captain flatters me," Connie said. "I'm just here for the sunshine and the dancing."

The chair beside Connie remained empty. Senator Cabot had not yet appeared.

They were midway through the soup course—a consommé of admirable clarity—when Cabot finally arrived. He was a commanding figure: tall, broad-shouldered, with a mane of silver hair and a voice that seemed designed to carry across large rooms. He wore his evening clothes like armor. He apologized to the table with the practiced ease of a man who had been late to a thousand dinners and had never once meant it.

"Forgive me. Business that couldn't wait." He took his seat and immediately began speaking to Unger in a low voice that excluded the rest of the table.

Dahlgren observed him quietly. The senator's face was ruddy, his movements precise, his manner expansive. But there was something brittle beneath the performance—a tightness around the eyes, a tendency to glance at June Hartigan and then look quickly away. Dahlgren noted these things without comment. Observation was a habit he had never been able to break, even in retirement.

Dinner proceeded through four courses. The conversation was pleasant and unremarkable—the weather, the itinerary, the entertainments planned for the voyage. Georgina Cabot spoke little. Wesley drank steadily and said less. June Hartigan answered questions politely but volunteered nothing. Connie Falk told amusing stories about the Follies that made Captain Bergström laugh. Morris Unger dominated the table whenever the senator was not speaking, which was seldom.

Dr. Louis Thibodaux, the ship's physician, stopped by the table briefly to pay his respects to the captain. He was a lean, weathered man in his fifties with a Cajun accent and steady hands. He wore his uniform with the slightly rumpled dignity of a man who had been at sea long enough to stop caring about appearances. He exchanged a few words with Bergström and moved on.

The evening ended without incident. Dahlgren retired to his stateroom at half past ten, read another chapter of Cicero, and fell asleep to the sound of the sea against the hull.

The next morning dawned clear and mild. The Monarch had passed Cape Hatteras during the night and was now in warmer waters, heading south-southwest toward the Straits of Florida. Dahlgren took a turn around the promenade deck before breakfast, breathing carefully in the salt air, and felt marginally better than he had in weeks.

At breakfast, the dynamics of the captain's table were subtly different. Georgina Cabot was icily polite to her husband. Wesley had not appeared. June Hartigan sat at the far end of the table, her eyes on her plate. Senator Cabot was in high spirits, talking loudly about tariff policy with Unger, but Dahlgren noticed that he ate very little.

The day passed quietly. Dahlgren read on deck. He attended a brief concert in the ship's lounge where Connie Falk sang two numbers with surprising skill. He played chess with Captain Bergström in the smoking room and won in thirty-one moves.

In the late afternoon, he encountered Wesley Cabot leaning against the rail on the boat deck, staring out at the water with the unfocused gaze of the profoundly unhappy.

"Fine evening," Dahlgren offered.

Wesley glanced at him. "Is it? I hadn't noticed."

"You're the senator's son."

"That's what they tell me." Wesley's voice was bitter. "Freshly expelled from Yale, in case you hadn't heard. My father made sure everyone heard. Took out a full-page statement in the Hartford Courant expressing his disappointment. Can you imagine? A full page."

"That must have been difficult."

"Difficult." Wesley laughed without humor. "He cut off my allowance. Every cent. I'm on this ship because my mother insisted, and even she can barely stand to look at me." He paused. "Do you know what I was expelled for, Judge?"

"I don't."

"Drinking. The great irony. The son of America's most famous Prohibitionist, expelled for drinking." Wesley pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket and lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. "My father doesn't drink, you know. Never has. He doesn't need to. He's drunk on himself."

Dahlgren said nothing. He had learned long ago that silence, properly deployed, was more effective than any question.

Wesley smoked and stared at the water. After a moment he said, quietly, "I wish he were dead."

Dahlgren looked at him.

"I don't mean that," Wesley said quickly. "I just—" He shook his head and walked away.

Dahlgren watched him go, then turned back to the sea. The sun was setting, painting the water in shades of copper and rose. Somewhere below, the engines hummed their steady song. The Monarch pushed south through the gathering dark.