Bitter Cry
Page 5
This time it was Millie’s hand on Mae’s arm that brought them to a halt. “The cracker factory is in the next block. All you have to do is get the owner to show you around.”
“I don’t know. I was getting six a week for laundry work. Dropping down to five dollars don’t make much sense.”
“Like I said, this work is easier and the conditions are much better,” he assured her. The man was short and stocky with a nose that tried to touch his upper lip.
Mae’s expression was skeptical. “You say that, but I like to see things for myself.”
Heaving a sigh, the man raised his bulk from the chair and gestured for her to follow. The room behind the closed door had a high, girdered ceiling but was still stifling hot from the ovens that stood against an inside wall. Men stirred huge kettles of cracker dough that women spread on conveyor belts and sent through rollers. From there, the thin sheets of dough moved into a side room and past women who stamped out rounds that other women put onto metal trays. This is where the children stepped up. They took the trays and slid them into a wheeled tray rack that they pushed to the ovens once the trays were stacked a good two feet above their heads.
There was no mistaking that these were children. The youngest looked about ten, the oldest no more than twelve or thirteen. They were skinny, pale, and ill-clothed.
“Why aren’t the windows open? It’s nearly hot as a laundry in here.” Mae asked, deliberately making her voice sound judgmental.
“We need an even temperature for baking. No drafts,” the manager said. He frowned at her before abruptly grabbing her elbow and pulling her toward the front office. He’d noticed her intently studying the children.
“Everyone is working a twelve-hour, six-day week?” Mae persisted.
“That’s what I already told you.” Now there was no mistaking his hostility. He steered her so she was in front of him and then stayed close on her heels as they headed back to the office. Once they’d entered it and, with the closed door muting the factory’s noise, he turned to her, a pursed scowl raising his lips even closer to his nose. “I’m afraid that you are not the kind of employee who’ll find success in our factory,” he said, and again seized her elbow to herd her toward the outer door. Once she’d crossed the threshold he gave her a little shove and banged the door shut behind her without saying another word.
“So, aren’t you going in?” asked Mae.
“Oh, you can bet I am,” said Millie. “But he’ll be suspicious right now. I’m going to sit right here in this café and watch his front door. The minute he leaves for lunch, I’ll head in. You saw about eight children working in there?”
“That’s what I counted. When one leaves the conveyor belt to push the rack to the ovens, another is just returning and steps into his or her place. Two kids work on each side of the belts at all times. He’s running two conveyor belts.”
“Like I told you, I’ve tried getting in there before. I suspect he has a buzzer in that front office that sounds in the factory. Once it goes off, I think the kids are supposed to run for the back door or somewhere else to hide.”
“Can’t you just run around the building and catch them that way?”
Millie’s headshake was adamant. “They have a solid eight-foot fence back there that I can’t see over or get through. The man’s not stupid. But you’ve been a tremendous help because I know for certain that they are in there today. If I do it right, I’ll be able to find the children.
Mae finished her coffee and set her mug down with a thump. “I’d sure like to see that but I’m afraid I can’t stay and wait with you. I’ve got to get back to Mozart’s. Are you sure you’ll be safe—going in all by yourself?” Mae asked worriedly, the space between her shoulder blades still feeling the anger behind that final shove out the door.
Six
“Hello there, young lady. I spoke to your brother, Glad, and—” That’s all Mae got out before the blue eyes in the sallow face widened and the door banged shut. Through the flimsy door she heard the girl holler, “Ma, the lady outside says she’s talked to Glad!” There was a joyful cry, the clatter of something falling over and footsteps. When the door swung open, a frail, pale woman stood in the threshold. The joy in her face hit Mae’s heart like a spear.
“Glad? You’ve talked to our Glad? Is he alright? Where is he?”
Mae took a deep breath. “Maybe I better come inside,” she said gently.
The light in the woman’s face died sure as water doused fire. She mutely gestured Mae inside.
Mae was a bit taller than most women. Sage’s six-foot height came from her Irish side of the family, not from his Welsh father’s shorter line. So, she towered over the tiny woman who hurried to set a fallen stool upright.
“Please sit down, ma’am,” said Mrs. Tobias, gesturing to the stool. “Carrie Lynne, take the kids out to play. Mind you, play upslope, away from the creek.”
For the first time, Mae noticed the three toddlers and one infant sitting on the edge of a mattress pile that filled one corner of the shack. The older child, Carrie Lynne, was maybe six or seven. Her too-small, faded, pink gingham dress was covered by a too-large, dingy, white apron. After nodding to her mother, she herded her charges out the door, carrying the infant on her tiny hip.
“All yours?” Mae asked her hostess.
The question brought a tired chuckle. “No, just Carrie Lynne and the baby are mine. The rest are neighbor kids we take care of.” The woman paused, gasped and began to cough, spasms shaking her whole body. Mae glanced around and saw a pail with a dipper sitting on a crude counter. Crossing to it, she selected a canning jar that looked clean and filled it with water. When she brought it back, the woman choked back a cough, accepted the jar and took a sip.
“You said you talked to Glad? When?”
“It was about six days ago on Friday. He was selling papers. We got to talking. He told me about your troubles. I thought maybe I could help a bit.”
“Six days ago.” The woman sighed, sat on the room’s other stool, and with her elbows on the rickety table, hid her face in her hands.
Mae surveyed the table. It was piled high with paper petals and stem wires. They’d been making artificial flowers. The wires were very thin and the light from the single, oilskin-covered window was dim. No wonder both mother and child look a tad squinty-eyed, Mae thought.
The one-room shack was as tidy as possible. Looking at the ill woman across from her, Mae wondered how much of the neatness was due to the efforts of little Carrie Lynne—a child with no childhood.
“Look,” she began, “I don’t mean to butt my nose in where it doesn’t belong. But I liked your little son. He told me you’re sick but doing everything you can to keep the family together. That’s why I came. But, something’s wrong, isn’t it? Has Glad gone missing?”
“No, no. He’s fine. Just visiting, um, visiting my sister. I was just surprised to hear that you’d seen him since she lives way off in Oregon City.”
Mae fought the urge to tell the woman her lie was about as believable as a trotting trout but she hesitated. It wouldn’t do to make her mad. Why was the woman hiding the fact her son was missing? If it’d been her, she’d be hollering from the rooftops. Something strange was going on and, for sure, this woman was not going to spit it out. So Mae said instead, “Well, like I said, I took a real liking to your boy and wanted to help you all.”
She reached down for the drawstring bag at her feet. “Anyways, I brought you some eggs and flour and such. It ain’t much but I was hopeful you’d accept it.”
Glad’s mother lifted her face from her hands and stared. “I don’t understand. You’re a stranger. Why would you help us, right out of the blue?” There was no hostility in the woman’s question, just dull puzzlement.
“I had a boy. He was a lot like your Glad. Many a day w
e had trouble finding enough to eat. And then it got worse.” The pain in Mae’s voice was genuine.
Mae reached across the table to touch the woman’s hand. “I’m sorry. Don’t know where my manners run off to. My name is Mae Clemens. Please call me, ‘Mae’.”
The woman gave a weak smile. “Mary Tobias. Mary,” she said in return.
“I just want you to know, I’m not here just because you think you’re somebody important, Miss High and Mighty.”
The other women shifted uncomfortably until one said, “We know, Vera. It’s Lucy’s offer of a free feedbag that got you here.” Derisive chuckles followed this remark.
Lucinda considered the six other women sitting around the table. There were at least four hundred houses of prostitution in the city. Unlike Lucinda’s sophisticated establishment, the ones these women ran were either boarding house brothels or collections of stall-like cribs sprinkled throughout the North End. She resolved to ignore Vera’s hostility. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Thank you all for coming. I appreciate your time.”
“Cut the crap. What is it you want?” snarled Vera. Evidently, the other woman’s defense of Lucinda had only fueled Vera’s ire. She was relatively new in town. One of the other women had brought her without asking Lucinda.
Before Lucinda could respond, Madge stepped in. “Vera, it seems to me you sing a different tune whenever Lucy helps one of us out. Whatcha gonna do if you need some quick cash to bail out your girls? Who will you go to if not Lucy?”
Louise Rumbold jumped in before Vera could reply. “How can we help, Lucy?” she asked Lucinda, her deft subject change sending Vera into a silent, cross-armed glare.
“A friend of mine saw a little newsboy snatched off the street the other night. We wondered whether they grabbed him for a house or for something else. After the Lair Hill house was raided and closed last year, I haven’t heard whether there’s another one up and running.”
The women shifted uncomfortably—except for the stony-faced Vera who continued to fume, arms folded. Louise cleared her throat, “I don’t hold with selling kids and I know none of you do either.” She looked at the other women, all of whom nodded—except for Vera.
Louise continued thoughtfully, “I recall hearing about a new place opening up somewhere on the eastside. What’s the boy’s name?”
Lucinda told them and then asked, “Can you think of any other reason why he might have been kidnapped? Have you heard anything about snatching kids?”
Vera scraped her chair back and stood. Contempt dripping from her words, she said, “You parade all over town in that fancy carriage of yours, showing off your gals like they were something other than common whores. Now you have to come to us because you’re too good to run a bawdy house like us or know about kid-selling houses. Well, I’ve had enough of this bullshit. You want something from me, you pay for it just like any other customer!” With that, Vera turned her back on the table and left the restaurant. The other women exchanged raised eyebrows and shrugs but otherwise ignored her exit.
As Lucinda rode home in her “fancy” carriage, she concluded that her foray had met with limited success. Louise thought she’d be able to get the address of the new pedophile house on the eastside. With that information, Sage and Mr. Fong could check to see if Glad was inside. But, other than that, the other women were as mystified as she was about the reason behind the little newsboy’s kidnapping.
Gazing out the window, she felt weighed down by a melancholy that seemed to fill the carriage. Part of it was Vera’s words. Was she fooling herself that, somehow, she’d made the best of a bad situation? Was it a comforting delusion that her ladies were reasonably content, safe, and working their way out of the life—unlike the other prostitutes in town?
She sighed heavily at the thought of the missing boy. She felt certain that they wouldn’t find Glad in that house. And, unfortunately, the other madams could offer no other explanation for his kidnapping.
She knew exactly how it felt to be small, alone, and at the mercy of cruel adults. She took a deep breath to force her emotions under control and unknot her stomach.
As they rolled up before her mansion a vague recollection slid into her thoughts. There’d been a brief moment when fear flickered in Vera’s pebble-brown eyes. Why? Lucinda tried but couldn’t remember which words had triggered that reaction.
Sage hung around outside the Newsboys Benevolent Association’s hole-in-the-wall office until the boys began to trickle in. It was time for the afternoon papers delivery. The dry and unseasonably warm mid-February day kept some of the boys outside, tossing dice against the building’s wall.
After watching the game for a while, Sage said, “I’m looking for William Gladney Tobias. He calls himself, ‘Glad’,” he said to the small group crouched at his feet.
They paused, glanced up, exchanged looks and then went back to their game except for one older boy who rose to face Sage. “What is it that you want with him?”
“He’s my nephew. My sister’s his ma. I just got to town but I don’t have their address. I know he’s a newsboy and thought you fellows might know where he lives or sells his papers,” Sage told him.
For a moment their eyes locked and then the boy’s shoulders dropped and his face relaxed. “They live in Sullivan’s Gulch across the river. To tell the truth, Mister, I’m worried about him. We ain’t seen him for almost a week on his regular corner.” The kids crouched at their feet were completely still, and obviously listening.
“Is he sick?”
A voice from below piped up, “Can’t be home sick if his brother Terry is out looking for him, can he?”
The standing boy retorted, “Ralph, his brother was only looking that one day—right after we last saw Glad. We ain’t seen Terry since, have we?”
“Maybe Glad’s dead,” said Ralph at their feet.
“Nah,” said another, “if you could read Ralph, you’d know that there weren’t nothing in the newspaper about Glad dying. They found a dead boy but the paper said he had old burn marks all over his body. That ain’t our Glad.”
As one, the other boys rose to their feet. Sage looked down into their young faces and at their scrawny little bodies. “So, when’s the last time anyone saw him?” he asked.
“We done talked about that,” said a kid who’d been quiet up to that point, “We figure it was when he was heading home last Friday night.”
Sage felt the last vestige of hope trickle out. That was the night he’d met the boy. “But not since that night, huh?”
“Ain’t a one of us seen him nowhere since,” the first boy said, sweeping his arm in an arc that took in the whole city. “Awhile back, I ran into Glad’s brother but when I asked him, where was Glad, he told me to ‘mind my own cotton-picking business’. For a minute, I thought he was going to punch me.”
Sage was in a foul mood when he reached Eich’s little lean-to. The ragpicker took one look at him before directing him toward a recently acquired, slightly faded, upholstered armchair. Seeing Sage’s questioning look, Eich explained, “A West Hills lady is redecorating. Thought I’d wallow in a little luxury before selling it on.”
“It certainly is more comfortable than the wood round you usually offer me,” Sage said with a smile as he relaxed into the soft cushions.
Eich laughed before turning away to fiddle with a pot and cups.
Minutes later, Sage was sipping the tea and feeling the tightness in his shoulders ease. “I can’t find anyone who’s seen Glad. From what the newsboys say, I was the last to see him—other than his kidnappers,” he said.
Eich sat on the edge of his cot, took a sip of tea, and said, “Have you spoken to Mae since she’s come back from visiting Mrs. Tobias? I watched out for her from the top of the ravine but when she left, she climbed up and out t
he other side so I’ve had no opportunity to confer with her.”
Sage shrugged. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to her either. She’s probably at Mozart’s for the noon dinner. Mr. Fong is staying home with his sick wife so we’re shorthanded.”
The two men sat in silence as rain pattered against the tin roof. A distant, steady roar came from the rushing stream at the ravine’s bottom.
“Interesting that Glad’s still not at home, yet, his brother stopped looking for him so quick,” Eich observed.
“Good observation. Though, if he’s staying with relatives, it could explain why the brother gave up looking. Maybe Glad ran away from home,” Sage suggested though he thought that unlikely given the boy’s obvious devotion to his family. “I never imagined I’d be relieved to find a child in a house of prostitution but that’d be a hell of a lot better than finding his body in the Crofton funeral home’s basement.”
Eich nodded thoughtfully, “You are right, as long as there is life, there’s a chance things will improve for the boy. I doubt he ran away to a relative. It doesn’t fit with his little sister’s reaction when I asked for him. If he’s safe with a relative, why did she cry? And what you saw on the street that night was a kidnapping. Maybe he escaped and then ran away and hid?”
Sage shook his head. “No, that doesn’t fit the facts. Even if he ran and hid, he’d find some way of getting word to his family.”
“Going back to what we know,” Eich said as he raised a hand, straightening out each finger as he counted out his points. “First he’s snatched off the street. Second, the following day his brother searches for him. Third, the day after that, the brother stops looking. And finally, four days after the kidnapping, the sister bursts into tears and tells me he’s not expected back.”
“Maybe Mrs. Tobias confided in Mother,” Sage said.