Unfinished Sympathy

by Andy Conway

  Those lips had kissed him. Last night.

  He watched the governess for a sign that she remembered, but she didn’t even look at him, just gazed on benignly as Alma fussed over little Gucki.

  “Nickelodeon,” the girl said.

  It was the only English word in a stream of German.

  Alma stepped back, and looked to the governess. “What is this? Have you taken her to a moving picture show?”

  “No, Madame Mahler,” said the governess.

  English. She was English. He could hear it now.

  “I won’t have her attending such places of vulgar entertainment. Fleapits populated by ruffians and the lower orders.”

  “Madame Mahler, I assure you I have never and would never, take her to such a place. She must have seen the word on one of the hoardings. There are nickelodeons all over Manhattan.”

  Alma softened and searched the face of her daughter, gazing innocently back.

  “A fascination with new words, nothing more. Quite normal, and shows an intelligent engagement with the world around her.”

  “Very well,” said Alma, smiling again.

  She kissed her girl a dozen times and waved them off.

  Mitch wondered what of it? The governess was so obviously bored out of her mind dragging a child around all day, she took a break in a cinema. Parents would be doing it for the next hundred years. They would evolve from cinema, to TV, to DVDs, phones and tablets to be that third parent.

  Alma went to the window, gazing out at the snow, watching her child become a speck in the distance. When they were gone, she watched the life out there, but showed no urge to go out and experience it for herself.

  Gustav disappeared and emerged an hour later with a travelling case that presumably contained all he needed to change into his conductor’s outfit at the Met. Alma straightened his tie and kissed him for good luck and he left for the final rehearsal.

  They were alone together and Mitch thought that she would now make an excuse for last night, or even cover it by asking what happened because she remembered nothing, nothing at all.

  But she excused herself to get ready for the evening, and Mitch noticed there were four hours to go. She went through to Gustav’s room and he heard a bath running. Perhaps they did sleep in the same room — there had been two beds, he remembered.

  He slumped into the sofa, the sofa where Gilhooly had slapped him awake yesterday, and went through his notes, writing up what he’d learned from Izzy Berlin. Then he dozed off and jerked awake an hour later to the sound of water sloshing in the bath. Alma’s voice humming.

  “Mitchell!” she called.

  His heart froze.

  “Mitchell! I need your help.”

  He rose from the sofa and tiptoed to the door, pretending he hadn’t heard, pretending he had gone from their apartment an hour ago.

  “Mitchell! Do come!”

  He crept out and pulled the door shut without a sound.

  — 21 —

  HE WENT TO HIS ROOM and lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, trying not to think of Alma Mahler luxuriating in hot steamy foam. He thought of a hundred other things instead and went back to his notebook, running through the list of suspects over and over.

  A growing doubt gnawed at him. He shouldn’t have left his name and address at Jimmy Kelly’s. He’d threatened a gangster. But how was he to make something happen in this... this...

  Case, he said to himself.

  He was a detective, and this was his case.

  He laughed and a thrill of delicious anxiety shot through him, leaving him trembling with excitement. Was it the idea of being a detective in 1908 New York, or... Alma Mahler...

  He paced the tiny room and put his forehead to the wall, eyes tight shut, and built a barrier around his heart — so many walls around himself — and an hour later he felt as remote and cold as if he were standing at the prow of the Flatiron, snow flurrying all around him.

  He changed into the evening suit Alma had given him and called at the Mahler suite. Alma was in a luxurious ball gown, her hair piled up on her head, fiddling with pearl earrings and demanding that he put her diamond necklace on.

  It really did take her four hours to get ready.

  But she looked stunning.

  He closed his eyes as she backed into him and he fiddled with the necklace clasp, trying to ignore her intoxicating scent.

  “Well, she said, “it’s a Friday night, not a Monday, so at least we will be spared Lady Astor receiving visitors in her box all through the performance and leaving an hour before it ends.”

  “Is that what she does?”

  “Yes, and it means the final act is accompanied by the swishing sound of hundreds of ladies shuffling out after her. Perhaps tonight they’ll stay till the end. Or even arrive before the Prelude.”

  She pulled on a fur cloak and took his arm, and he walked her down to the lobby, feeling like the richest man in all the world.

  The carriage slid serenely through the slush, thirty blocks down to the Met, and he felt his heartbeat thump a little louder in his throat the closer he got to the city’s dark core. The eleventh floor of the Majestic sitting high above Central Park on the relatively unpopulated Upper West Side was a sanctuary from the dark heart of a metropolis that could crush him.

  The driver deposited them with a hundred other broughams swirling around the corner of 40th and Broadway, and somehow he found them a patch of sidewalk where they could disembark and sweep into the building.

  The grand foyer was a teeming mass of top hats and taffeta. Alma led him through the throng and seemed to know where she was going. They quickly came upon Otto and Addie Kahn, and Dr Fraenkel, who stared with delight at Mitch, like he was some exotic specimen brought into the surgery.

  Mitch greeted them politely and then excused himself, edging through the crowd, just to listen in on the gossip of the elite.

  “Well, of course, Mahler’s Tristan was a sensation. I wonder if this will match it.”

  “I heard Wallbank and Watledge have fallen out over it. They disagree so violently on Mahler’s interpretation of Tristan, they refuse to speak to one another. Lifelong friends. It’s madness.”

  “Mahler’s conducting has no passion.”

  “I’ve heard he’s crazy.”

  “Mahler writes his own symphonies, apparently.”

  “Really? Imagine him thinking he’s a composer.”

  “He’s written eight of them. Eight.”

  “I’ve heard they’re dreadful. Not the work of a genuine artist. Commonplace and trivial. Whining violins and wailing woodwind.”

  “He’ll never be known as a composer. As a great conductor, perhaps.”

  Addie linked arms with Alma, and Otto led the way. Dr Fraenkel, with his insane grin, stepped alongside Mitch.

  “Alma is so luminous, but such a devouring woman, is she not?” Fraenkel said.

  Mitch felt a flush of offence, as if he should punch him for being so impertinent about a lady.

  “I can see you are struggling with your feelings, Mr Mitchell. Still holding back that dam.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Mitch said.

  He wondered if Dr Fraenkel was an empath too. He seemed to see right inside a person. Perhaps he only saw what they felt and didn’t feel it, like Mitch.

  As they strode into the auditorium, he stopped and gasped. It was all gold. Five tiers studded with light and a gigantic sunburst chandelier crowned the vaulted ceiling, casting its light on the elite of the world. They came here to remind themselves of their status in the heavens; they came here to remind themselves that they sat among the stars.

  Otto led them to seats along a balcony and Mitch noticed that everyone in the giant auditorium was looking at the people in the boxes, not the stage. They came to the opera to be seen, not to see.

  He remembered that billionaire Otto Kahn couldn’t get a box here, despite donating millions and being a director. They didn’t give boxes to Jews.

/>   The colossal chandelier dimmed and the music began. The auditorium was half empty. He craned to see Gustav, but other than a baton popping up above the lip of the stage, there was nothing to see.

  It started nice and dramatically. Rushing strings, breathless chase. Mitch thought he might actually enjoy himself, despite having never liked opera. The audience still chattered and stared up at the boxes through their opera glasses, the music too soft to disturb them.

  After the overture, the gigantic gold damask curtains parted and a man came onstage in a patchwork fur pelt and began singing. But his voice was a painful croak. Mitch leaned closer and squinted, recognizing Alois Burgstaller from last night’s meal. He collapsed with exhaustion, but it was only part of the act. And there was Olive Fremstad in a flowing white dress and the same animal pelts, her hair gathered in a giant swathe of auburn.

  They sang there on stage together, plotting adultery, while Mahler in shadow coaxed them on.

  It was engaging enough at first, and Mitch wondered if that was because he knew the protagonists, but as the act progressed, with much bellowing and shrieking, he felt his interest wane.

  It was simply a language he didn’t understand. Not German, but opera. It was foreign and it failed to speak to him.

  From a scan of the audience, it seemed a common problem. People were still arriving all over the place, ladies swishing into their seats and greeting friends as if the opera hadn’t begun. And they would leave early, Alma had said. It was as if even the opera, the ultimate badge of their status, was beneath them.

  It droned on for an age and then the curtain fell and everyone applauded. He realized it was only the end of the first act, and the programme said there were two more to go.

  Before they could rise, an usher tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a folded slip of paper.

  Mitch opened it and peered in the gloom.

  To Mr Mitchell.

  I hope this message reaches you in time. Selig Silverstein is at Marshall’s right now.

  Yours,

  James Reese Europe.

  Mitch rose and bowed. “I’m afraid I have to leave. Something urgent has come up.”

  Alma nodded simply, as if this case had nothing to do with her. He moved along the row, disturbing people, muttering apologies and, once in the aisle, looked back. Mitch caught Dr Fraenkel’s smug smile and wondered if it was safe to leave her with him.

  He marched out over acres of red carpet, following the usher.

  — 22 —

  THE USHER EXPLAINED that a Negro boy had delivered the message. James must have sent him to the Majestic first, where they would have told him that Mr Mitchell and Madame Mahler were at the Met. The boy would have travelled twenty blocks uptown, only to go back thirty blocks. Would Silverstein be at Marshall’s still?

  He ran out and hailed a waiting cab, shouting out, “Marshall’s Hotel. Fifty-third and sixth!” like a native New Yorker.

  As the cab sped the ten blocks up to Marshall’s, he wondered what he was going to do. Had Selig Silverstein received the grenade from Izzy Berlin? Had he come for blood? If so, surely he would have gone to the Majestic instead. Maybe he had. Maybe he’d forced James to write the note.

  If so, at least it would be a confrontation, out in the open, not a secret poison pen letter.

  The concierge greeted him, recognized him. “Mr Mitchell, sir. Mr Europe is at the bar.”

  He waved him through and Mitch found James skulking at the end of a long bar where glamorous Manhattanites, black-and-white, drank cocktails.

  “I sent word as fast as I could.”

  “Thank you. Is he still here?”

  James nodded towards a table in a dark corner. A bundle of seedy looking heels, not in evening dress.

  “This isn’t some old friend you’re looking up, is it?” James had the wry smile of a man who can’t be fooled.

  “No. This is trouble.”

  “I guessed as much. What you gonna do?” James asked.

  “I’ve no idea. I think I need a drink.”

  “Champagne?”

  “I think this is more a whiskey moment.”

  James nodded to the bartender. “Overholt Rye. A double.”

  “Coming right up.”

  The bartender poured a finger of amber gold into a fat crystal glass. Mitch nosed it, savoured it, thinking it might be the last thing he ever tasted. But he knocked back the rest of it, burning in his throat.

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  He marched over and took a seat at their table. He was sitting facing them before they could open their mouths with surprise.

  “Who the hell are you?” one of them said, a chubby faced short guy.

  “I’m someone you’re gonna wish you hadn’t met.” God, what did that mean? Why had he said that?

  “Are you some kinda funny man?”

  “I don’t find blackmail funny.”

  “What you want, Mr Rich Boy?” Selig said.

  He thought it was Selig. He was leaner than the rest, dark eyed, and carried a calm authority the others didn’t have.

  “You slumming it tonight?” said his sidekick.

  “Yeah, shouldn’t you be at the opera?”

  They cackled. Mitch knew he hadn’t rattled them. Not one bit.

  “I was just there. With Alma Mahler.”

  “Good for you, funny man.”

  “You’re Selig, right?”

  Selig Silverstein glowered like Mitch had just spat in his drink. “Who wants to know?”

  “Me and Mahler want to know. We’re taking your poison pen letter to the police. We’ve got your name alongside it.”

  “He’s the guy wrote the letter, Selig.”

  It happened before Mitch could raise a hand.

  They exploded into action and bundled him through a door.

  A back corridor. His feet barely touched the ground.

  Through steam he caught an impression of a kitchen, black chefs a blur, then bang, out into the cold night air.

  Slammed against a wall, the breath shot from his lungs and he gagged for air.

  Their knives glinted in the moonlight.

  A back alley.

  No one but him and the men who were going to gut him.

  This was how it had started — waking in a back alley — and this was how he was going to die.

  “You something to do with that Chink dreamden?” Selig spat.

  “Mann Fang, it said.”

  “That some kind of joke, mister? That a clue that I’ll get bitten there?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mitch coughed, gasping for air.

  “What you want for me to go down Chinatown? You think I’m some kind of lobbygow? You want me to get a present from Mock Duck? He got a present for me?”

  “I don’t know... what that is.”

  “I ain’t up for no slumming party,” Selig grinned. “Specially if it turns out the real deal, not some chink actors paid to do a dance with hatchets.”

  “Just settle him, Selig.”

  “This is what I do to guys who try to set me up.”

  He raised his knife to Mitch’s face, eyes burning fury, panting, gearing himself up for it.

  “Hey you!”

  Two men running up the alley, bright brass buttons and nightsticks drawn. Policemen.

  Selig slashed at him.

  Mitch’s hand burned and he fell in a heap.

  Selig and his gang scooted like rats. They were gone in a flash.

  The cops yanked Mitch to his feet and shoved him through the door.

  More cops. Cops everywhere.

  Before he reached the club, he realized this wasn’t a rescue, it was a raid.

  — 23 —

  SHARING THE TANK WITH a dozen stinking drunks had not been how he’d expected his night at the opera to pan out. His body ached all over, trying to sleep on a cold couple of yards of hardwood bench. His eyes burned with fever.

  They hadn’t arrested everyone
in Marshall’s. Not unless they’d taken Mitch out first and then carted everyone else to a different police station. But it had undoubtedly been a raid. A swarm of cops had turned the place over, but once they’d dragged him back inside, the police chief had greeted him. “You’d be Mr Mitchell, I presume?”

  “Er, yes. What of it?”

  “You’re coming with me.”

  He examined his hand, wadded in a thick pad of bandage a cop had carelessly rolled around his fist before shoving him in the drunk tank.

  A slash across his palm. It could have been his throat. Narrow escape.

  None of it had made sense. He’d confronted Selig and his mob about their poison pen letter, but they’d acted like he’d sent them a threat.

  To his surprise, the police had left him his notebook and pencil. He wrote down the words Mann Fang and Mock Duck and wondered what they meant. Somewhere and someone in Chinatown? And the rest of it: talk of slums and hatchets and actors. None of it made sense.

  Sometime round the crack of dawn, they dragged him out of the tank — which was more like a pen, an animal cage — and threw him into the police chief’s office.

  He looked all soaped and fresh, like he’d had a good night’s sleep in a soft bed with goose down pillows, followed by a hot shower, a shave, and a kiss goodbye from a beautiful wife. The only thing about him that did not speak of pampered luxury was the gun holster hanging over his waistcoat, and the giant hands of a navvy.

  He seemed to know it too and grinned across his big desk at the shabby specimen before him.

  A brass plate said Lieutenant Charles Becker.

  “Good morning, Mr Mitchell,” he said. “I take it you’ve enjoyed your stay at our humble abode. It’s not quite the Majestic, but we do our best.”

  “Am I being charged with something, lieutenant?” Mitch put on an American accent, pronouncing it loo-tenant, like the yanks did, not left-tenant. He had no passport and if they knew he was English they’d ask lots of questions about passports and visas and papers he didn’t have.

  “You’re English, aintcha?”