Unfinished Sympathy

by Andy Conway

  In trying to protect Alma, Mitch had thrown her to the wolves. And now a man was dead because of that.

  All the time the danger had been right there in the Mahlers’ suite, sleeping in the room next door, with their child. She had written that poison pen letter, hatched that plot out of some misguided patriotism, or hysterical fanaticism for Toscanini, or just plain anti-Semitism.

  He sat back and tried to calm his racing mind. There was nothing to do now but sit out the wait as he inched closer to New York. He closed his eyes and then pinched himself awake. He didn’t dare sleep, in case he woke to find he’d flitted through time. To have solved the mystery and been wrenched from time just as he was about to rescue Alma would be too much.

  He ordered more water, a pot of coffee and chicken soup. Fuel to keep him going. He had to focus now. Stay awake and get to New York.

  Night had fallen and the temperature plummeted when he jumped off the train and ran through Grand Central.

  A cab clattered through the streets and pulled up outside the Majestic. He rushed through the lobby to the elevator and Clarence greeted him with a smile.

  “Everything all right tonight, Mr Mitchell?”

  “Yes, everything’s turned out nicely,” he said.

  The elevator crawled up to the eleventh floor, painfully slow, and he ran out and pounded on the Mahlers’ door.

  It opened and he pushed inside before Gustav could protest.

  “I have it!” he cried.

  He saw Gilhooly for a moment. His giant fist arced through the air.

  The ground seemed to open and Mitch fell through the floor.

  — 47 —

  HE AWOKE ON THE VELVET sofa, Gilhooly standing above him. Mahler watched over his shoulder. Dr Fraenkel hovered, grinning.

  He thought for a moment he’d flashed back to four days ago and this was all some endless time loop, but it was night outside, not day.

  Gilhooly drew his hand back to slap again.

  “Stop it,” Gustav said. “Can’t you see he’s returned to help?”

  “Why did he skidoo just as the girl was kidnapped?”

  “The what?” Mitch said. “Who’s been kidnapped?”

  “Gucki. My little angel.”

  “Miss Costello,” said Mitch. “It’s her. It was her all along.”

  The three men exchanged a look.

  “But Miss Costello has been kidnapped with Gucki,” said Gustav.

  Mitch shook his head, coughed and pointed to the decanter of water. Dr Fraenkel poured a glass and brought it to him. Mitch gulped it down. His throat was sandpaper, a throbbing pain under his ears. “Miss Costello is your blackmailer.”

  “And how would you know that?” Gilhooly spat.

  “It’s been obvious. So obvious I couldn’t see it. None of us could.”

  Dr Fraenkel clapped his hands with delight. “Amazing!”

  “Is it true?”

  They all turned at the voice. Alma stood at the door that led to the child’s room — Miss Costello’s room — and it seemed as if every man in the room took her in and took a breath.

  “He blames me,” she said.

  “Gustav doesn’t blame you,” Dr Fraenkel purred.

  “I was sleeping,” she said. “I had such a headache.”

  She put the back of her hand to her forehead to emphasize the point, to dramatize it.

  “She was in your charge,” said Gustav.

  “Doesn’t every mother sleep, every night?”

  “They walked right in and took her while you slept!”

  “She,” Mitch said. “Miss Costello.”

  “There’s nothing to be done by blaming each other,” said Gilhooly. “We need to think clearly about what to do.”

  Mitch rubbed his jaw. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Don’t get gay with me. I’m here to clean up your mess.”

  “Mr Gilhooly came back to us,” said Gustav, “to offer his help.”

  “But I thought he was in on it?”

  “It appears not,” said Gustav.

  “No wonder it’s all gone to pot with this amadán running things,” Gilhooly spat.

  “Mr Gilhooly has been shadowing us in our investigation,” said Mahler. “It appears he wouldn’t accept the termination of his employment.”

  “I wasn’t going to see Mrs Mahler punished by some ruffians.”

  “You were at the warehouse,” Mitch said. “You were laughing as we escaped.”

  “Yes. Such a joy it was to see you get out of that blaze. I thought you were goners.”

  They hadn’t been seeing him in all the wrong places. He’d been following them.

  “I saw you poking the Eastman gang in the eye. What a damn fool thing that was. So I watched them. And then Mrs Mahler went missing, and I was sure they had her there in that cursed warehouse. Then youse come tootling by and dawdling off to Chinatown, getting it all wrong.”

  “We were following the only lead we had. They sent Selig Silverstein a note telling him to meet at Mann Fang. So we followed that up. It led us to that warehouse.”

  Gilhooly stroked his chin. “Yes. Make it look like Silverstein is in with Mock Duck and those chink hoodlums, then tie you to Silverstein.”

  “This is like the Dreyfuss case,” said Gustav.

  “Aye, so it is. Point the finger at the Jew man and let the ludders do the rest.”

  Alma came and sat on the sofa, wringing her hands in her lap, entreating Mitch. “Why would she do such a thing — here in our home, with my child in her arms — all the time plotting against us?”

  “She’s Italian,” Mitch said. “It’s all about Toscanini and who has control of the Met.”

  “You think Toscanini is behind this?” Gustav said, appalled.

  “No. But I think some patriotic Italians would go to great lengths to promote him over you. Little Anna acted it out for us last night, only none of us were paying attention. She was re-enacting the things she sees when her governess takes her out. A trip downtown to a nickelodeon, a kissing couple, the words ti amo, I love you, and the word macchinazione. Machination.”

  “She did say that,” Alma said. “I remember. My poor, little angel.”

  “They were talking about their plot, right in front of the girl.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Gilhooly. “Miss Costello and her Eyetie beau have been plotting this blackmail attempt, hoping to lure Mrs Mahler into some connection with a Jewish anarchist and that Chinaman gangster?”

  Mitch nodded. “But when she was sent away, she panicked that her plan had been discovered. She ran to her lover, and that was when they thought it was time to take it a step further and kidnap the child.”

  “But the letter says they are both kidnapped,” Gustav said. He held it out, as if it was proof.

  “She wrote it.”

  “Why not just nab the child in the first place?” Gilhooly asked.

  “Because it incriminates her,” said Mitch. “It was all right when she was making insinuations from afar. She could hide in plain sight. Kidnapping the girl is the last desperate act of two cornered animals. And even now she’s trying to frame herself as innocent.”

  Gilhooly paced, tapping his lips with a fat finger. “It makes sense. It wasn’t some lock-picking child snatcher. She walked right in as she always does, using her key. She took the child quietly. The girl wouldn’t make a sound with her. That’s why Mrs Mahler heard nothing.”

  Alma glared at her husband and lifted her chin. “I don’t care about them. I just want my Anna back.”

  Mitch took the note from Gustav. The same handwriting as the blackmail note.

  To the Esteemed Maestro. Herr Mahler.

  It has come to our attention that you have failed to comply with our previous demands. As a result, your daughter and her governess are now in our hands. We once again request the sum of $1,000 for the aforementioned Compromising Letter. Furthermore, Herr Mahler is to resign with immediate effect from the New York Met
ropolitan Opera if he wants his daughter returned safely to him.

  Yours, Rolando.

  Mitch noted the scary switch from direct address to third person half way through. A distancing, right at the moment of the real threat, as if it were someone who was going to carry it out, as if it were all someone else’s fault. That was the stage with a sociopath when it got dangerous.

  “I shall have to do as they say,” said Gustav flatly.

  “No,” said Alma. “We cannot give in to them.”

  “What is the point, Almschi? They don’t want me here. Even the man who hired me doesn’t want me here. And they don’t even care about opera here.”

  “No,” said Alma. “We won’t be driven out by these monsters. They drove us out of Vienna. Not here too.”

  “We wouldn’t have to run away. I could go to the Philharmonic to conduct symphonies. Mrs Seney Shelden has already suggested it.”

  Mitch snorted a laugh. The thought that he’d suspected her of some part in this, because she was a competitor. Sweet Mary Seney Shelden. He had her name in his notebook with twenty others, and Miss Costello wasn’t a single one of them.

  “We have till tomorrow morning to find them,” said Gilhooly. “But we don’t know where they are. We know they might be at a nickelodeon somewhere downtown, but there’s a thousand of them.”

  “You can find her,” said Dr Fraenkel.

  Everyone followed his intense gaze to Mitch.

  “You know a way, don’t you Mr Mitchell? You have a talent.”

  “What does he mean?” said Gilhooly. “Are you holding back information? Do you know where they are?”

  “He doesn’t know. But my friend here has a particular skill. A very special talent. I can see it in him. If he needs to find one particular soul in this city, he can do it.”

  “Is it true, Mitchell?” Alma begged. “Can you find her?”

  Mitch slumped and twisted away from her imploring eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I can find her. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “I know,” said Fraenkel. “You have been holding it back, but I see it as clearly as if a python were writhing all over you right now.”

  Gilhooly snorted. “Pah. We need facts, not mystic mumbo-jumbo.”

  “And intuition?” Dr Fraenkel smiled. “Do you ever use that in your work?”

  They all jumped at a knock at the door. Four impatient raps.

  They looked at each other. The knocks came again, a little more insistent. Gilhooly went to the door and opened it.

  Clarence stood there. “Begging your pardon, but Mr Mitchell. I have an urgent message for you.”

  “What is it, Clarence?” Mitch beckoned him in and rose from the sofa.

  Clarence took a step inside. “The police are in the lobby asking permission from the manager to disturb the Mahlers.” He nodded to Gustav and to Alma. “They want to make an arrest.”

  “They have come for me,” said Gustav. “I was recognized at the fire. Their work is done. I am disgraced.”

  “No, sir,” said Clarence. “I heard the police chief, Lieutenant Becker, particularly ask after Mr Mitchell.”

  “You best get running,” said Gilhooly.

  “Go find her,” said Dr Fraenkel.

  Alma rushed to Mitch and gripped his lapels. “Get my daughter back, Mitchell. I beg you.”

  “I can get you past them,” said Clarence.

  “Go,” said Gilhooly. “We’ll stall them and say you’ve not come back.”

  “Meet me at Marshall’s,” said Mitch. “In one hour.”

  He said it to them all but wondered if he’d made it clear enough as he rushed out with Clarence. In a moment, he was running down the long corridor, on down past his own hotel room. He heard the chime of the elevator some way behind as Clarence bustled him into a service lift and they were plummeting down before the police knocked the Mahlers’ door.

  — 48 —

  THE SERVICE LIFT RUMBLED down eleven floors and Mitch feared that at any moment it would shudder to a halt, Lieutenant Becker and his men stopping it, so he would be trapped there, suspended between floors.

  “I hope you don’t get into trouble for this, Clarence.”

  “That’s all right, Mr Mitchell, sir. No one will suspect me of anything.” Clarence smiled. “You see... they don’t think a Negro man has the brains to do something like this. Not these people. Not here.”

  Mitch nodded and wondered if he meant here at the Majestic, or here in New York, or here in this time, in 1908. Whatever he meant, the inference was that Mitch wasn’t a part of it, he was foreign to it, and Clarence recognized that about him.

  “No. No, they don’t.”

  “They see a boy, not a man. You, sir. You’re different.”

  Again that inference that he didn’t belong here, he was alien. Some people just saw it so plainly.

  The lift jolted to a sudden stop. Clarence smiled. “Ground floor, sir.”

  He pulled open the door to a vast laundry room where black faces loomed through clouds of steam. Clarence led him to the right and they made their way to a loading bay. The hotel belched them out to a wide back alley, so wide you could drive three carriages down it side by side. The Majestic and the surrounding buildings towered high above. Clarence pointed down the secret boulevard.

  “Keep going that way, you come out on Columbus Avenue. You can get a cab to the Marshall Hotel there.”

  “Thank you, Clarence. Could you do me one last favour?”

  “Anything, sir.”

  “Send a message to Mr Berlin.”

  “At Jimmy Kelly’s bar, Union Square. Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him to come to Marshall’s, as soon as he can. I need his help.”

  “I will. Go now.”

  Mitch took his hand and shook it, pulling him into a bear hug. “Thank you, Clarence.”

  And he was marching double quick, down the length of the secret back street, following the entire block down to the dead end. He passed a team of labourers unloading barrels from a dray. Their carthorse looked at him but the men didn’t. Any moment he expected a shout behind him. Police. Stop that man! Would they shoot at him? Lieutenant Becker would be questioning the Mahlers now. Gilhooly trying to smooth things over. All of them acting like they were surprised and outraged at the news of Mr Mitchell being an illegal immigrant, or involved in the Canal Street fire — whatever it was they’d come for. None of them mentioning the missing girl and the ransom note.

  He reached the low five-storey building at the end. An alley to the side. He slipped into it and under cover with a sigh of relief, coming out on the corner of 71st and Columbus. Looking back to the Majestic, he could see the distant blur of Central Park. No one would see him. He could disappear into the anonymous mass of New York and its million people. Unless they got it out of them that he was heading to Marshall’s, then they would be waiting. That was where they’d arrested him the first time. Probably a stupid place to go. He cursed and looked all around. No, they wouldn’t suspect that would be the place he would head.

  He turned into Columbus and found a line of cabs, drivers clustered round a brazier, horses standing sullen, snorting white clouds.

  A policeman coming for him, strolling down Columbus.

  Mitch pulled the card from his pocket, the flyer for Marshall’s, Selig Silverstein’s names scribbled on it. He read the address again.

  One of the drivers saw him approach. “Cab, sir?”

  “Yes. West 53rd Street, please.”

  “Right away.”

  The policeman came right up to the drivers.

  Mitch skulked away and stumbled into the carriage, gratefully slamming the door to hide himself. The cab juddered off and he caught a glimpse of the policeman warming his hands on the brazier as the driver turned them southwards.

  — 49 —

  HANDSOME JIM MARSHALL greeted Mitch at the hotel, dressed in a smart grey suit, not his usual tuxedo. He smiled, easy and warm, but there was a hint of alarm in his eyes. H
e knew this man spelt trouble. This man brought trouble to his nightclub.

  “Mr Marshall,” Mitch said, shaking his hand. “I can’t apologize enough for the disturbance the other night. I had no idea the police would come for me here.”

  “It was nothing,” Marshall said. “They come quite a lot. A place where white and colored folk mix so freely...” He left the sentence hanging.

  “Well, I hate to bring trouble to your door. But I need help.”

  “Come with me,” he said.

  He strolled through to the ballroom where tables stood naked, the stage bare; that forlorn air of a nightclub in daytime. Someone clattered behind the bar, stocking bottles. Marshall closed the door to the reception.

  “How can I help?”

  “I won’t lie to you,” Mitch said. “The police are involved. This was the only place I could think of.”

  “You need to hide out?”

  “No. I need to see James Europe. Some friends are coming here. We need to meet and plan. Only for an hour. Then we’ll be on our way.”

  “What’s happening, Mr Mitchell?”

  “The Mahlers’ child has been kidnapped. I have to find her before the police take me in. It’s as simple as that.”

  Marshall called over to the bar. “Hey, Bunny! Go get Europe down here. Now.”

  The barman nodded and sloped off.

  Marshall paced to and fro. “Are those anarchists involved in this?”

  “No. I thought they were, but they’re not.”

  “The police think you did it?”

  “No. The police are just getting in the way of things.”

  Marshall smirked and shook his head, looking up at the ceiling, as if he might find an answer there. “Their child, you say?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Jim Marshall looked Mitch up and down like he was considering painting his portrait and getting the shape of the man. “Europe tells me you have some very, er, progressive, views on Negro music.”