City of Promise (55 page)

Ollie did as he’d been told, approaching the stable from the vacant lot beside the garden, then jumping down to open the carriage door.

Josh climbed down first, Miller right behind. Ollie made a move toward the horse. “Just a moment,” Josh said. “I want to speak to you both. You must keep this entirely quiet. Particularly here at 1060. I believe I’ve been handed an advantage in this business, but I’ll lose it if either of you says anything to Tess or anyone else about seeing her on Avenue A. Is that clear?”

Miller hesitated for the space of perhaps two short breaths, then nodded. “It’s one way to play it. I can see that.”

“It’s the way I choose to play it.” Josh turned to Ollie. “You understand, don’t you? I want your promise, Ollie. Not a word to anyone.”

The boy looked stricken. “Seeing Tess where we did means she had something to do with Mrs. Turner being snatched,” he said. “It does, doesn’t it, Mr. Turner?”

“It might,” he admitted.

“I can’t believe it. Not Tess.” The boy’s voice was choked with tears.

“I think we should be careful about jumping to conclusions.” Josh had wrestled with that same incredulity all during the drive home. “But our first priority is protecting Mrs. Turner. You do see that, don’t you Ollie?”

“Sure I do. But Tess . . . I can’t believe . . .” The boy turned his face to the garden, visible in all its early summer glory beyond the open stable door.

Josh put a hand on his shoulder. “As natural as you can be with Tess, Ollie. Try really hard. Mrs. Turner’s continued safety depends on it.”

“Tell me again,” Mollie said, “what my ransom was to be.”

Josh was reclining in a thickly upholstered chair covered in flowered chintz, resting both his peg and his good leg on the large ottoman in front of it. As far as he could recall this was the first time since the day they moved to 1060 that he and Mollie had actually spent time together in what McKim had designated the family living room on the second floor. “Everything I own on upper Fourth Avenue,” he said. “If the town’s development goes as I expect, that’s a queen’s ransom. You might even consider it flattering.”

Mollie grimaced.

How would she look if he were ever forced to tell her of Tess’s involvement? Considerably worse, he reckoned. Simon had advised that she not be allowed to dwell on what happened. Such thoughts, he’d warned, would pull her spirits down.

Now, five days after the event, there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with Mollie’s spirits. She was sitting across from him on a smaller chair with a straight back and wooden arms. Josh remembered someone referring to it as a lady’s sewing chair. “You never sew anymore,” he said. “Not since—” He broke off, appalled that he’d brought up such a painful subject. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. That’s part of the difficulty, isn’t it? That we pretend it never happened.”

“I suppose it is.” He remembered trying to talk to her about their loss, but he didn’t remind her of that now.

“I was making a layette,” she said, her voice low but calm. “For our child. When that ended as it did, I could see no reason to again take up a needle. Then, when we moved here, the garden gave me something else to think about, to . . . I think the word is to nurture.”

He nodded. “I understand. I always have. That’s why I was trying so hard to get you back without giving him what he asked.”

“Him, I take it, is Mr. Ganz.”

“I think so. There’s every evidence.”

“But no proof.”

“None,” he admitted.

“Josh, does it matter? Now that I’m home and we have Mr. Miller’s men guarding us again, can we just forget the whole wretched incident?”

“I wish I thought that wise, Mollie, but I know it’s not. Men such as Ganz and his cohorts—there’s a gang leader called Tony Lupo involved, and I’m convinced Trenton Clifford’s part of it as well—such men are not likely to give up simply because they’ve been thwarted. And they have shown themselves capable of pretty much anything.”

“Yes, I’ve been thinking the same,” she admitted. “When I’m not indulging in wishful fantasies that the whole affair will simply disappear into the past.” Then, after a few seconds’ pause when the realities of the dilemma hung heavy between them, “Auntie Eileen tells me Rachel has produced a little girl this time.”

“Yes. Simon is quite enchanted to add a daughter to his brood, and—Mollie, you mustn’t worry about them. I can see what you’re thinking, but I’ve got Miller’s men watching the houses of everyone in the family.”

“That can’t go on indefinitely. I know it cannot, Josh. Don’t forget, I have continued all these years to oversee the bookkeeping of the St. Nicholas Corporation.” She ticked off the various households on her fingers. “Simon and Rachel, Zac, Auntie Eileen . . . it’s a huge drain on your resources. It cannot continue.”

“We’re working on getting some proof,” Josh said. He did not add that Miller kept reporting no progress.

“But you are not,” she said, “using your best resource.”

“What’s that?”

“Me.”

“You? I don’t understand.” Then, as the thought occurred, “Do you mean you as some sort of bait? Like in one of those stories Simon reads? I will never agree to—”

“Not bait, no. I’m afraid I am not that courageous.” She got out of her chair and came to kneel beside his, putting her hand on his leg—the good one—in a gesture that seemed without premeditation. “I saw things, Josh. On Bayard Street in those few minutes after I ran out the door and before the cab drove me away. I heard the street sounds as well, for three days and four nights. Take me downtown again. Let me walk around and look and listen. As long as you and Mr. Miller are at my side every instant I will feel perfectly safe. I may see something, Josh. Or perhaps remember something useful.”

Her face was turned up to his, glowing with earnestness in the lamplight. He was conscious of her hand resting on his thigh and he reached down and put his own over it. “You are a brave and wonderful woman, but I will never permit you to be in danger again.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it Josh? Exactly as you said earlier. As long as the men who seek your downfall are free no one who cares for you—for whom you care—can possibly be entirely safe. Bodyguards are useful,
but one need only read the New York newspapers to know they are not infallible.”

She was, he knew, entirely correct.

“You and Mr. Turner,” Miller said. “You walk along arm in arm. And don’t worry about nothing, Mrs. Turner. I’m right behind you.” It was after four and the sun was dropping, but the July day remained oppressively hot and sticky. Miller, nonetheless, had both hands tucked in his pockets. As if, Mollie thought, he were fighting a chill.

Josh craned his head, scanning the roof lines to his right and left, then realized he could be drawing attention to the presence of Miller’s men. Besides, he couldn’t see anything. That was their great strength, how well hidden they always were. He focused on the block in front of them, Bayard Street between Mott and Mulberry. Number thirty-two was a few doors up on the left. “Here we go,” he murmured. “A genteel couple come to see the sights.”

Mollie managed a tight little smile. She was the one who had convinced everyone that was the only excuse they needed. “It’s common enough,” she’d insisted. “All the ladies’ magazines speak of it. Educating oneself by going to actually see the slums. It’s supposed to make one more aware of one’s blessings.” Stupid and ill-advised she thought, but no time for that now. Concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, on adjusting her gate to Josh’s. After all, she’d been adept at doing that since the very first time she saw him, when she ushered him through Mr. Macy’s display of ladies’ crinolines. The memory eased her.

Mollie twisted her head this way and that. Since she was pretending to be a gawker, she might as well gawk. Much was as she’d seen it ten days previously. Now, as then, pushcarts lined both sides of the road, leaving only a narrow lane for horse-drawn traffic. No incongruous hansom cabs today, only wagons pulled by swaybacked nags. Pedestrians—frequently small children—darted in and out among them.

Josh and Mollie, with Frankie Miller close behind, drew level with number thirty-two. Mollie took a long breath, held it, and deliberately turned her face to the house. It was exactly as she remembered. Curtains drawn shut, no laundry hanging from any window. It was a closed place, rejecting the surrounding bustle, hiding secrets she knew to be cruel and ugly. She concentrated on the space between the front door and the street, the spot where she’d seen Solomon Ganz staring after her. There was no sign of him today, but closer to the curb the display of tomatoes on top of two overturned ash cans was as it had been. Presumably the same vendor was standing beside them hawking his wares, but Mollie hadn’t paid enough attention to be sure.

Like most of the peddlers the tomato seller wore no jacket, only a shirt with the sleeves rolled above his elbows, and a cap rather than a hat. The shoppers were mostly women in long, full-skirted dresses of brightly printed fabrics, sometimes with a shawl, frequently covered by an apron, never a hat. Mollie was acutely aware of her dove-gray summer suit—tight-waisted, carefully bustled—her white kid gloves, and her small black hat trimmed with gray and white ribbons.

No one, it seemed, paid them any mind.

They continued up the road. She spotted the bakery Mr. Miller’s brother had mentioned. And next to it—

A bee was buzzing around Mollie’s head.

She looked up. There was nothing to see, certainly no swarm of bees.

“What is it?” Josh drew her arm closer to his side, holding her tighter to him.

“I don’t know. I . . . There’s a bee.”

“Where?”

“It’s gone. I wasn’t sure if—Oh.”

“What? Mollie, tell me.”

She nodded to a crush of people around a wagon where a man was hauling small whole fish out of barrels and throwing them into the crowd. As soon as one was caught another man approached to collect
payment. The excitement seemed to be as much about catching the slippery and squirming fish as anything else. Josh watched for a few seconds. Mollie was rigid beside him. “What?” he asked again, conscious that Miller had moved in closer.

She pointed to the ground. “That black skirt,” she whispered, “and the boots. It’s her.”

The woman’s upper half was hidden by the throng, but Josh could see the swathe of solid black among the vivid colors and patterns of the women’s frocks. “The one you called your jailer?” he asked. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, I—”

A fish flew through the air and half a dozen hands shot up to catch it. They all missed. The crowd fell back so as not to trample the prospective dinner, then a number of the women went to their knees, squabbling over whose fish it was to be. The woman in black did not take part in the scramble. Instead she withdrew and turned to the street.

Mollie stared at her from a distance of perhaps six feet. The woman stared back. Her face was red and puffy and one eye was still swollen shut. “You,” the woman said. “I kill you.” She lunged for Mollie and two of Frankie Miller’s men materialized as if from nowhere and flanked her. Mollie saw Miller’s hands emerge from his pockets. There was a pistol in each fist.

“There was no one anywhere in the house,” Miller said. “And no bees on the roof, but there was ten jars of honey in the kitchen.”