1929 Read Online Free PDF Page A

foreseen this? I just don’t want you all to think
badly of Arianna. She’s doing the best she can.”
    “We understand,” Jonathan said.
    Caleb stood up and stretched. “I need to get
some sleep. We’ve got busy days ahead of us.”
    “Night, Caleb,” they all mumbled in unison as
he left the room.
    Claire and Aryl stood up as well and Claire
hugged Ava tightly. “I’ll come by tomorrow.” Aryl helped Claire
with her coat, and Jonathan saw them out.
     

 
    October 30th 1929
     
    The next day started too early and on too
little sleep. Caleb slipped out just at the break of dawn. He
stopped by home to change clothes and grab his own coat. He donned
his favorite hat, catching a glimpse of himself in the foyer
mirror. He hardly looked like a man about to go out and search for
a cheap place to live. Lastly, he grabbed a thin wad of cash from a
hidden safe behind an oil painting of Arianna. He let out a
stress-laden sigh as he realized it was the only money he had left
to his name now.
     
    He headed downtown, buying a pastry and
coffee on his way. He ate slowly while running through his memory
of rental brokers before the businesses opened. He had learned
about a few slumlords from other brokers who did investing for
them, even though he frowned upon the way those men earned their
fortunes. They provided substandard housing to desperate people for
a tremendous profit. The buildings were homes only in the sense
that they had four walls and a roof. Most of the time. Large, brick
tenements contained several apartments, crammed onto each floor.
They had unreliable heat sources, shoddy electrical wiring, and
leaky plumbing built in long after the original construction. They
were drafty, depressing places, and he was not looking forward to
having to call one home. Slumlords had made a decent amount of
money before the market crashed, and no doubt they would be raking
it in now. There were several offices dotted along the downtown
area, not counting the one he really did not want to go to.
     
    ∞∞∞
     
    Caleb sighed and wrung his hands as he walked
a few miles, stopping to inquire at every rental agency. The
vacancies available were either too expensive or lacked heat and
electricity all together.
    Now out of options, he slumped on a bench,
elbows on knees, head in hands and reluctant to go back to Jonathan
empty-handed. He would have to go to Victor Drayton. He shuddered
at the thought of renting from one of the most notorious slumlords
in New York, and Jonathan’s old rival to boot. From where he sat,
however, he saw no way around it. He rallied his resolve and set
out for Victor’s office. Jonathan’s history with Victor was on his
mind as he walked.
    They had first arrived in New York around the
same time. Assigned to the same boarding house, they apprenticed at
one of the larger brokerages together. Jonathan had natural talent
whereas Victor struggled. He spent extra time in the evenings after
work coaching Victor, who should have been grateful, but loathed
Jonathan’s instinct even as he used him for knowledge. A year into
the apprenticeship, Jonathan came across some incriminating
information and exposed Victor to the firm for insider trading and
playing mole for a half-dozen rival brokerages. The apprenticeship
dismissed Victor and later Jonathan became a junior partner. Victor
bought his first abandoned building with money he had skimmed, made
it barely livable and began his business of taking advantage of
desperate immigrants fresh off the boat. He soon built a fortune,
and met Ava through some equally cunning friends with selfish
motives. Victor might have bullied her to the altar had Jonathan
not foiled those plans as well. Victor was controlling and
manipulative. When he set his sights on something, it rarely
escaped him. Jonathan’s downfall would bring outright joy to Victor
now. To see Jonathan come to nothing, unable to provide for himself
and Ava would be, for him, Christmas come