If Mulligan thought to bully or intimidate her, he was in for the shock of a lifetime.
“Whoa, wait up.” He came alongside, easily matching her stride with his long legs. “What’s the hurry, Miss Greene?”
“I have things to do, Mulligan.” She dodged a fruit cart and the line of children surrounding it. “Was there something you needed?”
“Where are you headed?”
“Why all the questions?”
“Because I am curious about you. How does one small woman accomplish so much in one day? Serving meals in the Bowery, delivering clothing in the Lower East Side. It seems you never stop.”
How . . . ? She halted in her tracks to blink up at him. “Are you having me followed?”
“That makes it sound nefarious. It’s pure curiosity, I promise.”
“Curiosity about what?” She couldn’t fathom how she had sparked such interest in their short meeting. “My charity work?”
“That, among other things. Come. Allow me to drive you wherever you need to go.”
The street was bare of conveyances, save a police wagon. “With what? The police wagon?”
Mulligan’s eyes twinkled in the sunlight, the edge of his mouth kicking up. Lord, he was a handsome man. She ignored the fluttering in her stomach as he put two fingers in his mouth. A whistle pierced the air and she instinctively covered her ears. Seconds later, the sleek black brougham she’d seen outside headquarters rolled to a stop at their side.
Mulligan bowed. “Your chariot, my lady.”
The silence stretched and Jack began to feel like an idiot, bent over like an uptown swell, all in a ridiculous attempt to impress a girl. Something he hadn’t bothered with in a long time—at least out of bed, anyway. He straightened and waited, the sun beating down on his back.
Justine looked anything but impressed. She stared at the brougham suspiciously, as if a snake waited inside, ready to strike. “I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“You have a reputation for being resourceful.”
Damn straight. Being two steps ahead of everyone else was the only way he had survived this long.
He tried for charm once more, offering his arm. “A lady as beautiful as yourself should never walk in this heat.”
With a roll of her eyes, she ignored him and went the other way, heading south. Jack watched her, frozen, his arm suspended in the air. Was she refusing him? Disappointment sank into his bones as she kept going.
A choking noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle caught his attention, and he glared at his second-in-command and frequent driver. “Fuck off, Rye.”
Rye quickly sobered. “Sorry, Mulligan.” The two had known each other a long time and Jack liked Rye better than most. Not enough, however, to tolerate any disrespect.
He watched Justine get farther away. There was no choice, really. He’d have to chase her.
She hadn’t traveled far, just across Houston Street, by the time he caught up with her. Jack matched her stride and nodded politely at people along the way. Private conversation during the walk would prove near impossible. He was well-known here. These streets were in his blood, the blocks where he’d spent nearly his entire life.
He’d brought order here. A measure of safety. Residents could breathe easier knowing Jack Mulligan watched out for them, that he kept other criminal elements and Tammany Hall at bay. No more riots, no more gang fights. He hired as many men as he could for his crew, the number now over fifteen hundred. They weren’t choirboys, but they brought money home to their families. Patronized local businesses. Elevated the entire area.
It was why he insisted his men look clean and sharp at all times. They were better than the old gangs, who had worn rags and knifed each other in the streets. No, this was a different way of life and his men had to show as much for the rest of the city to believe it.
“Does that ever grow annoying?”
He tipped his derby at a woman calling out to him from her downstairs window. “The adulation, you mean?”
“Ha. Hardly adulation. More like pandering.”
“I cannot help if my people revere me.”
“They don’t revere you. They fear you.”
He frowned at her. “I would never hurt the people of these streets.” This was his territory. From Broadway to Bowery, East Fourth Street to Five Points, his crew oversaw it all. He even had a foothold in New Jersey, Long Island and Staten Island. Soon, he’d have a lot more than that.
“As long as they do what you want,” she said under her breath.