Read Dark Tide for Free Online Page B

taking office when he proposed that the city sell the famous Public Garden for $10 million. Half the money would go into the general fund and the other half, Curley suggested, would be used to purchase new public gardens in various neighborhoods of the city where they would be more accessible to the public.
    George thought the idea made sense and hoped that Curley’s idea would become a reality—East Boston could use a public garden. But it quickly became clear that Curley’s proposal was a mischievous attempt to draw the battle lines between the old “downtown” bluebloods and the new Irish leadership that focused more on the ethnic neighborhoods. He sharpened those lines to a point shortly thereafter when he boasted publicly: “The day of the Puritan has passed, the Anglo-Saxon is a joke, a new and better America is here. (The Brahmins) must learn that the New England of the Puritans and the Boston of rum, codfish, and slaves are as dead as Julius Caesar.”
    George and the other firefighters felt as though someone at City Hall was fighting for them and looking out for their welfare. This was reinforced when Curley, with a flourish, ordered long-handled mops for all the scrubwomen at City Hall and announced that the only time a woman would go down on her knees in his administration would be when “she was praying to Almighty God.” The firefighters had cheered, and the Curley legend was born. An Irishman was mayor of Boston, George Layhe was a respected firefighter and a new father, and just about all was good with the world.
    As George walked along the pier to the firehouse, he took in the early morning scene around him and marveled at the increase in activity since he began work five years ago. Commercial Street now was one of the main arteries in Boston. It linked North and South stations and supplied the piers and wharves on the north side of the city. From these wharves departed practically all of the coastal shipping out of Boston, as well as the passenger ferries to Charlestown and East Boston, the latter of which Layhe took to and from work each day. From the big freight sheds on the dock everything from leather goods to livestock to beer would be loaded on ships and transported to destinations along the East Coast or to Europe. It was barely 7:30 A.M. , and already George saw teamsters, stevedores, railroad messengers, freight handlers, and delivery boys beginning their day in the crowded, noisy wharf area. Adjacent to the firehouse, at the North End Paving Yard, he exchanged quick greetings with John Barry, the stonecutter for the City of Boston Street Department. Barry worked in one of several contiguous wooden buildings that included an office, a blacksmith shop, a stable with more than twenty horses, a wagon house, and a carpenter shop.
    Dominating this scene, since the beginning of the year, was the giant molasses tank. The tank towered over everything in the area, including the wharf itself, the tenements across Commercial Street, even the elevated tracks that ran above the busy thoroughfare. It sat just three feet from Commercial Street and fifty feet from the firehouse, which gave George a clear view of the tank every workday. It was painted a depressing charcoal gray color, but depending on how the sun slanted over the harbor, there were hours and moments when the huge receptacle gleamed and seemed to be almost inspiring in its size and power.
    It would be hard for anything to ruin George Layhe’s day today, but he became a little queasy when he stared up at the tank and witnessed a sight that had become all too familiar in the two months that it had been standing.
    Thick lines of molasses oozed down its walls and painted rust brown stains across its charcoal gray steel face.
Boston, That Same Day, 8 p.m.
    Giuseppe Iantosca trudged into the kitchen of his home at 115 Charter Street in Boston’s North End, dirt caked around the knees of his heavy work pants and etched into the lines that ran from