City of Dreams by William Martin

and an old Tory like John Blunt threw open his doors to lodge them.
    So Gil waited each morning along the route that Loretta took to the fish market. And finally, on Friday, four days after the British landed, he saw her.
    She was walking down Broad Street with a basket under her arm. She wore a loose dress and shawl, and she moved with a kind of bowlegged stiffness, as though she had been kicked, or badly used in another way.
    He stepped out of an alley behind her and said her name.
    She stopped, turned, held the basket against her chest as if for protection. “Gil? Gil Walker? I thought you was on the line.”
    “I’ve come back.”
    “You deserted?”
    He brought a finger to his lips. “If anyone asks, we been here the whole time, just good loyal lads servin’ in the absence of Master Fraunces.”
    She brought a hand to his chest. “I’m glad you’re back.”
    He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the alley. “I’ve missed you.”
    Usually when he said something like that, she laughed in his face. This time, she looked down, as if to hide a tear. “I can’t be offerin’ any free gifts. Fanny give me the mornin’ off. Workin’ double shifts for a week ain’t too good for the”—she glanced at her midsection—“ for the scuttle, if you know what I mean.”
    “How would you like to tell Fanny to go diddle herself?”
    “Diddle herself? But she bought my indenture from my uncle. Five years.”
    “We’ll buy you back. We’ll buy your corset, too, and throw it away.”
    “Buy me back? With what?”
    “John Blunt’s gold.”
    That made her laugh. “We missed our chance. There’s British soldiers all about now, watchin’ over the loyal Tories and watchin’ all the good loyal lads like you, too.”
    “Just tell us where the gold is. We’ll watch the Tory’s house tonight, make a plan, and move tomorrow.”
    The bits of mascara around her eyes tightened into a suspicious web. “And then?”
    “We’ll get out of here. There’s boats slippin’ away every night. We’ll get over to Jersey, buy horses, and be gone.”
    “How do I know I can trust you?”
    He kissed her, but she did not respond. She barely inclined her head.
    So he pulled back and said, “Because what you once told me is true.”
    “What was that?”
    “You and me are different. We were born low, but we have dreams. We’re two peas in a pod.” He kissed her again and this time, she opened her mouth against his and leaned into him, as if to tell him that he had said the right thing.
    Then she slipped her arm into his and said, “Walk with me.” And as the sun rose, she told him everything she knew about John Blunt’s house and his gold.
    ii.
    By nightfall, the wind was rising out of the southeast.
    It was a warm wind riding the edge of some distant autumn storm, and it sent ragged clouds running like spirits across the New York sky. A younger Gil Walker would have wandered away from the waterfront and gone beyond the town to some slope like Bayard’s Hill, all the better to feel the wind booming over the harbor and thundering up the Hudson and losing itself somewhere beyond the Jersey highlands. His mind would empty, and he would feel the force of nature, the breath of God himself, reminding him that he was part of something bigger.
    But not tonight.
    “Tonight,” Gil told Big Jake, “this wind will mask the sounds.”
    “Sounds? What sounds? I thought we was just watchin’ tonight.”
    Gil reached into his pocket and pulled out an iron cat’s paw and a hammer. “We do it tonight. Less chance for Loretta to act nervous in front of old Fanny Doolin.”
    “Good.” Big Jake took a bottle of rum out of his pocket and swigged. “Just as easy to cut her out as cut her in.”
    Gil stopped beneath a street lamp. The wind made the flame in the lamp flicker and almost blew Gil’s hat from his head. “I didn’t say nothin’ about cuttin’ her out.”
    “You ain’t thinkin’ about cuttin’ me out, are