A Song Across the Sea (18 page)

Hap threw up his arms in mock surrender. “Oh, boy. I’m outnumbered here.”

And so the evening ended with Tara finally out of the spotlight, turning, as it did, into a heated discussion of the place of women in society. Tara stayed out of it. She had to be granted American citizenship before she could march for the right to vote, although she certainly planned to march. It was thrilling to be here, and she intended to take advantage of every opportunity that came her way and even go after a few that didn’t.

She set her tea aside and leaned back in her chair, exhausted. Auditioning had sapped her strength, as nothing else ever had, but it was a good sort of weariness.

Later, when the party broke up and Tara bid her friends goodnight, Hap looked at her and said a funny thing. “You were great tonight, Tara. Sure wish Reece could have seen you.”

So did she.

She went to her room, got into her long white cotton nightgown and stood looking out the window for a long time before climbing into bed. New York City was no longer intimidating and indifferent to her. She’d found her place in it. A new layer of snow coated the pavement outside, untouched by footprints or tire tracks. It gleamed like diamonds under the glow of the gas streetlights, covering, at least until dawn, the sins of the city with a pearl-colored layer of innocence. It hushed sounds and kept at bay the loneliness that waited, always, just outside her window. It gave the city a fresh start, and granted Tara renewed faith in her future.

Her dreams were finally coming true. The little farm in Ireland seemed farther away than ever, but for once, no anxiety accompanied this thought. Maybe things had happened this way for a reason. If she hadn’t been starving, she never would have met Reece. He wouldn’t have brought her to this particular boarding house and she wouldn’t have met Kathleen, who took her to a vaudeville show. And without the encouragement of her friends tonight, she would have failed.

The string of tragedies that had shadowed her life up to this point had no power over her anymore, except for Paddy. He would always be with her, a soft orange glow on memory’s horizon, a sun that refused to set.

But her life was finally going on, in a groove of her own choosing. And Reece would someday hear her sing onstage. She’d find a way to get him there. She’d make him see that she was a woman he’d be proud to have on his arm. A vaudeville performer, not just a stray cat he’d rescued from the street. She refused to give up hope.

From now on, things could only get better.

•  •  •

In another part of town, two men edged into an alley to avoid being seen by a policeman who was walking his beat. One of them held a bottle in his hand, stopped up with a rag that smelled strongly of gasoline. The other had an iron railroad tie clenched in his fist.

“Is he gone yet?”

“He is.”

They left the alley and walked north, stopping in front of a tavern that was closed.

“I do believe I’d like a drink.”

“Sure and it’s a pity Lonnigan’s is closed for the night, isn’t it? A cryin’ shame.”

The smaller of the two men chuckled mirthlessly. He removed his jacket, wrapped it around the railroad tie to muffle the sound and swung the iron rod at the tavern’s front window, shattering it. Shards of broken glass gleamed on the snowy sidewalk like uncut jewels.

The other man climbed through the window, followed by his companion. A soft incandescent electric light falling over the liquor bottles lining the wall behind the bar was the only illumination in the large room, but the two intruders didn’t mind. The man carrying the railroad tie catapulted easily over the bar and helped himself to a bottle of whiskey. He opened it and drank straight from the bottle, then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his corduroy jacket.

“Ah, you can’t say Lonnigan doesn’t serve fine whiskey.”

“Can we get on with it?” the other man said nervously. “He sleeps in a room upstairs. It wouldn’t do to have him come down here and interrupt us.”

“Is it frightened of Lonnigan you are, McGrath?”

“He may keep a gun.”

The other man launched himself over the bar and stalked up to McGrath. He caught his throat in a viselike grip and shoved him up against a wall, sneering into his face.

“Maybe it’s me you should be frightened of. Have you thought of that?”

McGrath tried to claw away the fingers locked on his throat, but he couldn’t free himself.

“Who is it that you work for, McGrath?”

“You, Muldoon.” McGrath wheezed. “I work for you.”

Muldoon removed his hand and stood back as McGrath tried to pull air into his tortured lungs. “You’d do well to remember that,” he spat out contemptuously. He climbed back over the bar and swung the iron rod at the neat row of bottles, not bothering to dampen his noise this time. Glass flew everywhere. Whiskey and gin spattered the floor and countertop.

McGrath picked up wooden chairs and smashed them against the wall.

Within minutes, the interior of the tavern was reduced to a shambles. Everything that couldn’t be smashed with the railroad tie was stomped into rubble. Out of breath from their exertions, the two men stood back and surveyed their handiwork.

“That’ll teach Lonnigan a lesson,” remarked McGrath.

“Sure and he’s a fool for thinkin’ he doesn’t have to pay anymore, just because he got all his friends to join his Businessman’s Cooperative. It’s a dangerous idea that needs to be stopped before it goes any further.”

While they were talking, they failed to notice a man slip in through a door at the rear of the tavern and creep stealthily toward them. Balding and barrel-chested, wearing only a long, pale nightshirt, he suddenly charged toward them.

Muldoon leaped to one side as Lonnigan got off a shot that struck a wall, close to his ear, then whipped the iron rod in a brutal arc toward the side of Lonnigan’s head. The ugly blow dropped Lonnigan heavily to his knees, the gun spinning out of his fingers. He held his hands to the sides of his head, trying to stem the blood that streamed from a deep gash at his temple, staining his nightshirt bright red.

“You thugs!” he ground out, trying to stand. “Parasites, feedin’ off an honest man tryin’ to make a livin’.”

“A lesson needed to be taught,” said Muldoon. “You shouldn’t have made trouble, Lonnigan. Others might get ideas, too.”

Lonnigan glared at him, unrepentant. “I’m goin’ to the police, I am! There’s still some in this precinct who aren’t on your payroll, Muldoon.”

Muldoon smirked. “You won’t be goin’ anywhere, Lonnigan.” He swung the iron rod again. It caught Lonnigan across the shoulders and back of the head and laid him out flat on the floor.

McGrath and Muldoon ran from the tavern. Muldoon grabbed the stoppered bottle from McGrath, lit the rag and reared back to throw it through the broken window, but McGrath caught his arm.

“But he’s out cold, Muldoon! It’ll be murder, if you throw it. Pure murder.”

Muldoon looked at him in icy contempt. “Sure and that’s why you work for me and not the other way around, McGrath. You’ve no stomach for the big decisions.”

Muldoon heaved the bottle through the window. It crashed among a pile of broken chair legs and exploded into flame.

The two men raced down the street and through a series of dark alleys. They were far from the scene long before a horse-drawn steam pumper fire engine clattered to a halt in front of Lonnigan’s tavern, which was, by that time, blazing out of control. Not until the following morning, when the embers had cooled enough for a search, would the charred body of Lonnigan be found.

Muldoon was satisfied. Word would spread that Muldoon was no man to be trifled with, and collections would be made on time, with no argument about it. Perhaps he’d even increase the price of his “insurance.” After less than a year in New York, he was already a man of considerable influence among certain circles in the city’s thriving underworld.

And when he wasn’t involved with his business interests there were plenty of idle amusements, and all the women he wanted. Prostitutes of all shapes and sizes frequented the tavern he used as his headquarters. They were skilled at pleasing a man, and easily enough forgotten afterwards, which suited him. Someday soon, though, he’d tidy up his image and procure a different kind of woman: a beauty, with whom he could step out into the kind of society he craved. A lady with class.

His plans were all falling into place. From now on, things could only get better.

•  •  •

In another part of the city, in a stuffy room on the top floor of a crumbling tenement house, a young boy stirred in his sleep. The small hand that lay balled up alongside his pillow bore a strange scar: a puckered, discolored patch of pinkish, once-burned skin.

H
er first few weeks in vaudeville were a thrilling whirl to Tara. She used the advance Mr. Glass gave her to buy two new gowns, shoes to match and some sheet music. Kathleen insisted that she keep the midnight-blue satin dress, and the satin slippers that went with it, on the grounds that “it looks ever so much better on you than on me.” Her new wardrobe would do for a start, although she soon learned, from her fellow performers, that she’d need to change costumes and songs even more frequently than she’d anticipated if she was to keep her act fresh. People who loved vaudeville went to shows often. While they might grow attached to certain performances or numbers, they still expected to see new twists. A demanding lot, they were, she was told. She purchased a used sewing machine, figuring it would be less expensive to make her own dresses, and easier to add the flourishes and sequins that transformed an ordinary garment into a stage costume.

She didn’t miss the factory in the least, although she missed some of her fellow workers, particularly Lotte. Sure and it had been wonderful to tell Mr. Van Zandt that she was leaving his employ, and watch an expression of surprise and perturbation come over his face.

“Vaudeville? Well I’ll be damned!” He couldn’t bring himself to offer congratulations, or even to wish her luck, but before she left, he said, “If you ever need a job again, you come back here. I’ll find a place for you. You’re a good worker, Missy, in spite of the fact that you talk too much.”

She’d thanked him, but she wouldn’t be back. Not if she could help it.

Very soon, she was swept up in her new life. She loved being onstage! She sang after a comedic skit called, “The Vegetable Vendor,” and ahead of a wiry blond man named Jaimie Parrier who styled himself an
equilibriust
. She took to standing in the wings and watching every act on the bill. She loved the trained seals who opened the show by ringing bells and balancing red rubber balls on their noses.

The mystery of what an equilibriust did was also resolved by her backstage viewing. Jaimie Parrier rode a bicycle around the stage while doing handstands on it. In the months ahead, she was to see Jaimie vary his act immensely, adding newer and more unusual props and increasingly imaginative stunts. Like her other fellow vaudevillians, he was a true showman.

The grueling schedule of twenty four performances a week was only the visible portion of the artistry involved in vaudeville—the part the audience saw. Backstage, or in the tiny dressing rooms, or in the alley behind the theater, the troupers were constantly working to improve their acts. A joke that had failed to rouse the audience the previous evening would be dropped and a new one added, with every nuance of timing and facial expression calculated to get the biggest laugh, the loudest applause. A stunt that went over well would be enlarged, a costume that hampered dance steps would be altered.

Compared to the others, Tara felt that her own talents were rather simple. She didn’t do magic tricks or play an instrument, tumble acrobatically around the stage or twirl a flaming rope into fiery configurations. She just sang. Yet each time she did, the audience reacted in the same way that those listening on audition night had. There was always a long moment of silence, followed by an outburst of wild applause and cheers.

Between learning new songs and adapting a few of the dance steps of the reels and jigs she’d known since childhood to her act, in simple form, Tara had little time to think about Reece.

She was in her dressing room one day writing a letter to Aunt Bridey and Uncle Kevin when Roxanne and Sally, two young vaudeville veterans who did a sister song-and-dance act, came in. Roxanne, as usual, was doing most of the talking.

“… I don’t care what Mama says. I should be singing the lead on ‘The Streetcar Serenade.’ If she doesn’t realize by now that I’m the headliner of this act, then maybe we need a new manager.” She sat down poutily next to Tara and looked at herself in the lighted mirror, pushing a stray lock of hair back into place. “I’m sure tired of this dump. When do you suppose was the last time they cleaned this dressing room? I don’t see why Mama can’t get us booked into a decent house.”

Sally sat down and flipped up her skirt to examine a seam that was loose. “You always gotta find something to complain about, Roxanne.”

“And I’m sick and tired of working with…amateurs.” The emphasis on the last word was unmistakable. Tara put down her writing pad and stared at the girl. “Like the little songbird here. What she doesn’t know about stage makeup would fill a book. Look at her! It’s an embarrassment, I tell ya, to be on the same bill with her.”

Tara, her cheeks burning with anger and humiliation, considered her possible responses. The attack from Roxanne should not have come as a surprise to her. Since Tara had gotten hired, Roxanne had alternated between haughty sneers and subtle jibes about Tara’s accent. Tara stifled an unladylike impulse to sock the statuesque, arrogantly confident Roxanne in the jaw. She’d never done such a thing and she wouldn’t start now. Besides, she had to work with these girls, at least share the same bill and dressing room with them. Giving way to her temper might well lead to her dismissal from the theater, and Tara would do nothing to endanger her beloved vaudeville career. She’d dealt with difficult people before.