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Theo wasn’t learning much about the business, sitting in his father’s office day after day doing mundane clerical work and looking out of the window, and he felt ashamed of his ignorance when he reluctantly joined his father and Frank on their afternoon tours of the factory floor. He could see in the workers’ eyes that they identified him with his father, and sometimes he would look back over his shoulder and catch an emaciated seamstress or button maker singling him out for a particularly venomous glare.

Theo was sure that Alvah Katz was stoking their resentment by constantly reminding them that a fourteen-year-old boy with no experience had been put over them, and he longed to double back and tell them that he’d been forced to work here against his will and that he wanted nothing to do with a regime that was paying them starvation wages. But of course he didn’t, dutifully following his father up and down the aisles instead, like a dog on its master’s leash.

Oftentimes the cutter’s room door was half open and he would catch Alvah watching their progression, smiling his trademark sardonic smile, and at such moments Theo was sure that the cutter knew exactly what he was going through and was enjoying every minute of his misery. Alvah was always careful to treat him with exaggerated courtesy, addressing him as Master Sterling just as he had been instructed, and it added to Theo’s frustration to see how his father was pleased by this sham show of respect.

Downstairs, when not distracted by his mounting troubles, Michael enjoyed nothing more than sitting back in his chair and looking over at his son by the window. “Sterling and Son,” he would say happily, rolling the words around on his tongue. “This is what I always dreamed of, ever since the day you were born.” His apparent obliviousness to his son’s misery, willful or otherwise, infuriated Theo even more.

But, in spite of all this, he tried to remember all that Frank had told him about his father—how hard he had worked and dreamed and how everything he had built was now teetering on the edge of collapse because of the Depression. He willed himself to overcome his anger and speak to his father as Frank had suggested, but when he tried, his father refused to listen. Theo’s concerns, like Frank’s, broke like feeble waves against the tide wall of Michael Sterling’s eternal optimism. The bad times were almost over, he insisted, and prosperity was just around the corner. “Trust me!” he said. “I know.”

At least twice a week, Michael visited his bank—a branch of the proudly named Bank of United States, with impressive Corinthian columns supporting its limestone facade facing out onto Sixth Avenue. He was one of the bank’s best customers, and they treated him well. The manager, Mr. Friedmann, made a point of coming out from his back office to greet Michael and shake his hand, exchange pleasantries about the weather, and inquire after his family, as he ushered him to the principal cashier’s desk to conduct his business.

The bank made Michael feel prosperous, even if he wasn’t, and he enjoyed going there, which was why he would not delegate the task to anyone else in the firm, not even Frank. He had taken Theo there on his second day at the office, and had beamed with pleasure as Mr. Friedmann had expressed himself delighted to at last make the acquaintance of young Master Sterling, about whom he had heard so many good things.

“They’ve been with me through thick and thin, gave me my first loan when I was starting out,” Michael had told Theo as they were walking back to the office. “The one thing you can trust Jews with is your money. They know what they’re doing when it comes to business.”

Theo had been surprised by this unexpected exception to his father’s otherwise wholesale rejection of his Jewish heritage, but he’d kept quiet at the time, having no inclination to spoil his father’s good mood.

Now, on a cold Wednesday afternoon in December, Michael came back from the bank, looking breathless and flustered. He summoned Frank to the office and immediately launched into a rambling account of what he’d just experienced.

“There was a crowd there,” he said. “Spilling out into the road. They were pushing and shoving, shouting that the bank was in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” asked Frank.

“I don’t know. Like I said, they were yelling, and it was hard to make sense of anything. But then Mr. Friedmann must have seen me, because he came over and said it was all because some fool trader over in the Bronx had gone round telling everyone that the bank had refused to sell his stock, which was untrue. He told me there’d been a riot at the branch over there with people demanding their money.”

“A riot!” Frank repeated the word, sounding incredulous.

“Yes, that’s what he said. They had to bring in mounted police to control the idiots.”

“Did they give them their money?”

“Yes, if they wanted it. But Friedmann said a lot of them saw reason when the manager came out and talked to them. Everyone’s so jittery. That’s the trouble. One stupid rumor and they’re rushing around all over town, banging on the doors of the banks like chickens with their heads cut off. The mayor needs to do something before it gets really out of hand.”

“Do you think there’s any substance to it?” asked Frank.

“The rumor? No, of course not. The bank’s got two hundred million in deposits. It’s one of the biggest in the country, for God’s sake. They financed half the building work round here. There wouldn’t be a Garment District without them. You know that.”

Michael continued to pace backward and forward across the office. It was as if he didn’t believe what he was saying, because his agitation was getting worse, not better.

“I don’t know,” he burst out. “Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps I should have cashed out. I was thinking about it, I can tell you that. But then what Friedmann said made sense. If you can’t trust the banks, who can you trust? I mean—there’d be nothing left.” He threw up his hands and then pushed them back through his hair.

“Do you want me to go back with you and talk to Mr. Friedmann?” asked Frank quietly. “I can’t advise you on what to do without hearing what he has to say.”

“No, it’s too late now. They’ll be closed,” said Michael, glancing at his watch. “I’ll go in the morning. But you know, the more I think about it, I’m sure he’s right, and this whole panic will turn out to be a tempest in a teapot. I’ve just got to stay calm and not let crazy people get inside my head. That’s what matters.”

Theo could see the effort his father was making to regain control of his emotions, giving himself instructions and taking deep breaths between sentences. And by the time he had finished speaking, he was almost back to his normal self, with the mask of confidence back in place again. But its momentary slippage had unnerved Theo and he found it difficult to sleep that night, waking up in the dark with a cold sweat on his brow, fearful of unseen demons.

Michael was unusually quiet on the way to work the next morning and went straight on to the bank after dropping Theo at the office.

Frank came in soon afterward, looking worried. He didn’t seem in the mood for conversation, either, and he and Theo sat together silently, waiting for Michael to return.

It didn’t take long. Michael burst through the door and immediately began cursing, using language that Theo had never heard his father use before. “Son of a whore!” he shouted. “All that big money talk and it turns out he’s just a fucking two-bit shyster.”

“Who?” Frank asked.

“Friedmann. He lied to me. They’re thieves—the whole damn lot of them. They’ve been using our money, my money, to speculate, buying up risky mortgages. The bank’s built on sand.”

“How do you know?”

“Everyone’s saying so, and their stock’s falling. I saw it on the ticker. It’ll be worth next to nothing by tomorrow.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No. How could I? There’s a padlock on the door, and a notice outside saying the bank’s been closed by order of the state superintendent, whoever he is. People were shouting and screaming like yesterday, but it won’t do them any good. I don’t think there’s anyone inside.”

Michael sat down heavily in the chair behind his desk and drummed his fingers on the surface.

“Why did I listen to him? Why am I so stupid?” Michael punctuated each question by punching his right fist into the open palm of his left. “It’s the Jews coming back to bite me. That’s what it is. My father’s revenge for me turning my back on them.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Frank. “You need to get a grip on yourself, Michael. You’re acting like you’ve been possessed by some crazy dybbuk. What do you think your son’s going to think, seeing you like this?”

Michael was silent, gripping the edge of his desk as he worked to get control of his breathing like he had on the previous day. But he was worse this time, and Theo worried that his father might be going to have a heart attack or a stroke of some kind.

“We can weather this,” said Frank. “The bank will have to pay out eventually and, in the meantime, we’ve got the stock and orders coming in.”

“Do you think so?” said Michael, eager for reassurance. He seemed like a child, Theo thought. Swinging wildly from one emotional extreme to another.

“Yes,” said Frank. “But we’ll need to tighten our belts, and the employees will have to take a pay cut.”

“They won’t agree to that. Alvah won’t let them.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t give Alvah the chance. Maybe it’s time to let him go. We can find another cutter.”

“I don’t know,” said Michael, running his hands through his hair again. “I can’t think about that now. But you’re wrong if you think a pay cut’s going to be enough. We’re going to need money for cash flow. We need another bank.”

“Not a Jewish one,” said Frank.

“No. Over my dead body,” said Michael, and unexpectedly laughed.

He seemed, with Frank’s help, to have come back from the brink. It had been horrible for Theo to witness these glimpses of his father without his faith in the future. It had felt like watching a dynamited building imploding and falling and crumbling to dust right in front of his eyes.

Michael got up from his chair and put on his hat and coat. “I’m off to find me a goy banker,” he said with a grin. “Wish me luck.”

But he was gone before they could.

At the end of the afternoon there was no sign of Michael, and Theo decided to walk home, hoping that the fresh air would clear his head. It was getting toward nightfall and a cold breeze was blowing across Sixth Avenue, circling as if trapped between the tall buildings on either side. Theo hunched his shoulders, shivering even in his winter coat, as he pushed forward.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost collided with a scarecrow-like man who had been standing over a grating in the sidewalk, absorbing hot air up through the legs of his pants from the subway down below. “Sorry,” Theo said, putting up his hand. “I didn’t see you.” But the man had gone before he had finished his sentence, vanishing into the gloom.

Above Theo’s head, the squat iron supports of the El curved away, throwing intricate black shadows down onto where the road and sidewalk were lit by the streetlights. As he passed underneath, the wind died away, replaced by a clinging, dripping mist that seemed to seek out his hands, chilling the bones of his fingers even as he forced them deep into his pockets. He wished he had brought gloves and hurried on, crossing into Broadway, where a sound of feel-good music came wafting out to him through an open door. Inside, he caught a glimpse of a long, narrow speakeasy, lit by gas lamps that hung like white balloons over air thick with dense tobacco smoke, blue as sea fog. Theo stopped, moving instinctively closer, listening as the voices of the Carter Family sang out in melodious unison—“Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side / Keep on the sunny side of life”—but then ceased as if they had never been when the door closed, shutting Theo out into the night.

What if there is no sunny side? he wondered, as he resumed walking. Where does a man go then?

For Theo it was Union Square, where he stopped at the subway entrance and bought some roasted chestnuts from an old man in a battered fedora, who had been about to pack up his gear but had time for one last customer. Theo looked down into the little charcoal fire, greedy for warmth, and watched as the vendor shook his tin pan so that the nuts would bake evenly, and then took them to a bench in the park to eat. They burned his chilled fingers, but he ate them anyway, careless of the pain.

There were few people around. A bootblack called over to him from the flagpole: “Shine ’em up, Mack? Shine ’em up, five cents,” but his appeal was halfhearted and he didn’t persist when Theo shook his head, and soon he shouldered the tools of his trade and walked past Theo with his pale knees bizarrely visible in the lamplight through the holes in his ragged pants, worn away by a life of kneeling and shining on the cobbled sidewalks.

The moon had come out from behind the clouds, shining down on the bronze statues bordering the park—George Washington on his charger and Abraham Lincoln looking out across the centuries toward the crazy bustle of Fourteenth Street and Theo’s way home. But he lingered where he was, alone except for a down-and-out sleeping on a nearby bench, huddled in his Hoover blanket of old newspapers.

From far away, Theo could dimly hear the sound of boats’ foghorns calling out to each other through the murk as their prows passed in the harbor or out on the Hudson, but drowned out now by the chimes of the clock in the bell tower of the public utilities building as it struck the hour. He looked up toward it and then across the skyline to where the electric advertising boards flashed their brilliant white messages into the night, with the darkened buildings below catching their glare and giving off dull reflections.

Earn While you Sleep Because the Pile Grows with us urged the sign above the bronze doors of the Union Savings Bank, and Theo shook his head in disbelief, thinking of his father, whose pile—such as it was—had disappeared while he slept. The Bank of United States had been built on sand, his father had said, and everything seemed that way to Theo now. Nothing held, nothing could be relied upon as the flood tide of destruction rushed in.

A figure emerged out of the trees, interrupting his reverie, and formed itself into a policeman, walking the beat. He stopped beside the sleeping man and tapped several times on the back of the bench with his nightstick.

“Move on now,” he ordered. “You know the rules.”

“All right, all right. I hear you,” said the man, getting slowly to his feet, like Lazarus emerging from a shroud of newspaper. He wiped his watery nose on the hard, glossy sleeve of his shabby overcoat, gathered his meager belongings into a sack bag that he swung over his shoulder, and stumbled down the path toward Theo, where he stopped for a moment, looking up at the signs that Theo had been reading a minute before.

“It’s a fucking joke,” he said eventually, pronouncing the words slowly and precisely as if they were a judgment. “But you know what, son—I’m done laughing.”

And then without further comment, he shuffled away past Washington’s horse and was lost to view.

“Tell them the truth! Tell them you’ve got no choice. And don’t try and pretend what you’re asking them to do isn’t hard ...”

“Yes, yes, stop sounding like an old woman,” interrupted Michael impatiently. “Be satisfied we’re doing it your way with the big speech, Frank. And I’m not firing Alvah. I told you that.”

Out of sight behind Michael, Frank rolled his eyes at Theo, and then almost fell forward onto him in the next instant as the goods elevator juddered to a halt.

“We need to fix this thing,” said Michael irritably, pulling back the grille and getting out.

But he’d forgotten about the elevator by the time they’d gotten out into the corridor. “All right then, let’s get this over with,” he said, taking a deep breath before he pushed open the door to the factory.

Frank went around, calling for quiet and gathering everyone in a semicircle in the empty area at the center of the floor. Theo noticed that Alvah had come out of the cutter’s room and was standing at the back, but there was no sign of Easey Goldstein.

“Please pay attention,” said Frank. “Mr. Sterling’s got something important to tell you.”

And at first it was okay, or at least it seemed that way to Theo. He wished his father hadn’t waxed quite so lyrical about his achievement in finding another bank to take their business, but at least he was trying to treat his employees with respect, and they seemed to be listening to what he had to say.

But he hadn’t yet got to the hard bit about the pay cut, and when he did, some of them started murmuring and several looked over toward Alvah.

“So it’s just until we get over this hump,” Michael told them, trying to sound hopeful. “The bank has got to pay out, and then we can go back to where we were. And we’re all in this together, you know. I promise you that.”

“No, we’re not,” said Alvah, speaking for the first time and pushing his way to the front, so that he was standing directly opposite Michael. “You’re sitting down in your fancy office with your boy there,” he said, pointing an accusing finger at Theo. “Going out to expensive lunches whenever you feel like it, but we’re half starving up here on what you’re paying us.”

“That’s nonsense, Alvah,” Michael snapped back. “You’re paid ten times what they are and you know it.”

“That doesn’t change what you’re paying them,” said Alvah, not missing a beat. “They can’t feed their families, and now you’re going to cut their wages by a third. They won’t stand for it, I tell you.”

“And I say they will,” said Michael, getting angry. “I’ve already told you I’ve got no choice.”

“Yes, you do. You could sell something or get a loan from this great new bank you’ve found. It’s not for me to tell you how. It’s you who’s supposed to be running this company, and you’ve been making a god-awful job of it up to now. That’s plain as the nose on your face.”

“Shut up, Alvah,” said Michael, beginning to lose his temper. “You’ve got no right to talk to me like that. Not here. I built this company from nothing.”

“And nothing is what it’s going to be again until you start listening to us. Yes, we’ve got demands too,” said Alvah, taking a piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to Michael, who started reading them aloud:

“Fifty percent increase in wages, no work on the Sabbath ...” He stopped, looking up. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?” he asked, staring at the workers. “The bank has failed. If you don’t take a pay cut, this business will fail, too, and you’ll have nothing. Is that what you really want? Nothing?”

“We want justice,” said Alvah. “And until we get it, we’re not working.”

“You’re going on strike?” There was disbelief as well as anger in Michael’s voice.

“That’s right. Now who’s with me?” Alvah asked, looking around.

About twenty hands went up—maybe half the workforce—and Theo thought he caught a flash of disappointment on Alvah’s face, although it was too quick for him to be certain.

“Anyone who walks out of here now isn’t coming back,” said Michael. He spoke slowly, forcing himself to stay calm because he wanted his threat to be taken seriously.

But Alvah wasn’t going to back down. Not now. Not when he’d come this far. “Keep your hands up,” he told his followers, turning around to look at them as he raised his, clenched now in a fist. “And repeat this after me: ‘If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise.’”

Some of the voices were loud, some barely more than murmurs, but Alvah didn’t seem to have lost any support as a result of Michael’s threat, and straightaway, everyone who’d raised their hands began gathering their belongings and filing out the door. Theo could hear them going down the stairs.

Alvah was the last to go. “See you on the picket line,” he said.

“I’ll see you in hell, you ungrateful son of a bitch! I’ll make sure you never work again,” Michael shouted furiously, screwing up the list of demands and throwing it at Alvah’s back.

But he was already gone, and the paper ball bounced harmlessly off the swinging door.

They took the stairs themselves to go back down—Michael and Frank in front, and Theo bringing up the rear—as Michael said he no longer trusted the elevator. Theo felt shocked and fearful and strangely excited, all at the same time. Fearful for his father and the future, but excited by the courage of the strikers, refusing to accept a cut to their already meager wages.

He’d been moved by the way they recited their unfamiliar oath, even as he hated Alvah for leading them down the path of destruction. Because Theo was sure his father was right. They’d end up with nothing, sleeping rough under Hoover blankets and standing in line for soup in those long queues that snaked around the cold street corners of the Bowery. Dying on their feet.