For the Love of Mike

by Rhys Bowen

  By the time the water had begun to cool I was feeling relaxed, energized, and ready for anything again. I came downstairs to find fresh rolls from the French bakery around the corner on the kitchen table and the wonderful aroma of Sid’s Turkish coffee. I can’t say I had ever learned to love Turkish coffee as much as they did, but at this moment it was clearly a symbol of home and everything being all right after all.

  “So do tell all, Molly. We’re quite agog,” Sid said, pulling up a chair beside me and breaking open a roll. She had changed out of the silk pajamas into dark gray trousers and an emerald green gentlemen’s smoking jacket which offset her black, cropped hair wonderfully.

  “Not until she’s had something to eat, Sid. The poor lamb has been through an ordeal,” Gus said, taking the basket of rolls from Sid and handing it to me. “They’re still warm. Heavenly.” She was still in the red robe, her light brown curls still wild and untamed around an elfin face.

  I sipped the black syrupy liquid and then took a big bite of warm roll, with melting butter and apricot jam. It felt good to be alive again.

  “You’ll never guess why they apprehended me to begin with,” I said, looking up from my roll with a grin. “They thought I was a woman of the streets.”

  “You? Were they particularly nearsighted policemen?” Sid asked.

  “It was dark and apparently they had just made a raid on a nearby bawdy house.”

  “Then why didn’t they release you the moment it became obvious that you were not that type of woman?” Gus asked.

  “They decided I had to be up to no good, loitering alone in the middle of the night. They thought I might be a lookout for a gang.”

  “Molly as a gangster’s moll! This gets better and better,” Sid spluttered through a mouthful of crumbs.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t very amusing for poor Molly.” Gus patted my hand. “A night in a dreadful jail cell. How horrid for you, my sweet.”

  “It wasn’t too bad. The cell was full of prostitutes, but they couldn’t have been kinder to me. They knew as well as I did that I’d been wrongly arrested.”

  “So presumably someone with sense came on duty this morning, took one look at you, and realized a terrible mistake had been made.” Sid reached over to refill my coffee without being asked.

  I made a face. “The person who came on duty was none other than Daniel Sullivan—the last person in the world I wanted to see in such circumstances.”

  “Daniel the Deceiver, you mean?” Gus asked. They were well aware of my story and thought very poorly of him for his actions. “Why didn’t you use his name to get yourself released last night? It’s the least he could do for you, after trifling with your affections like that.”

  “I refuse to ask Daniel Sullivan for help. My pride won’t let me. And besides, I knew he’d only say I told you so—which is exactly what he did.”

  “I take it he still hasn’t broken his engagement then?”

  “Let’s not talk about it,” I said. I helped myself to another roll. “And do you want to hear the ultimate annoyance of the evening? I found out when the police were leading me away that I had tailed my erring husband to his mother’s house, not his floozie’s.”

  They both burst out laughing.

  “You spent the evening spying on him visiting his mother? Oh, but that is rich.”

  I had to laugh with them. “How was I to know? All I knew was that he was visiting a woman. It never occurred to me that the woman could be his mother.”

  “Poor, sweet Molly,” Gus said, still smiling. “I wish you’d stop this highly dangerous life and become something sensible like a writer or a painter.”

  “I made up my mind to stop last night,” I said. “Stop doing divorce cases anyway. I find they leave a bad taste in my mouth. I know they were Paddy’s bread and butter, but . . .”

  “But they’re not your cup of tea!” Sid finished for me, delighted with her own wit.

  “Precisely. I’m going to go back to my original intention of helping to reunite families. I’ve decided to place an advertisement in the Irish newspapers, and see if that brings any customers. If not, then I’ll start thinking about a change of profession.”

  Sid jumped up at the sound of the morning post landing on our doormat. She came back with a big smile on her face. “Look at this. Postcard from Ryan.”

  This was, of course, our friend, the delightful, flamboyant, annoying Irish playwright, Ryan O’Hare.

  “Where is he?” Gus leaped up, peering over Sid’s shoulder to see the postcard. “The postmark is Pittsburgh.”

  “That’s what he says. Listen. ‘Greetings from the land of smoke and fume. We open in Pittsburgh tonight, although what these Vulcans will think of a wickedly urbane satire, I shudder to think. After Cleveland I have come to realize that I was right. Civilization does cease outside of New York. The air here is quite unbreathable. My coughing at night rivals that of La Dame aux Camelias, indeed I may well return consumptive . . . Yours in great suffering and tribulation, Ryan O’Hare, playwright extraordinaire.’ ”

  Sid and Gus looked at each other and laughed. “Typical Ryan. Everything has to be dramatic,” Gus said. “Now he’s dying of consumption.”

  “Of course I do feel for him,” Sid said. “It was most unfortunate that President McKinley died just before his play was due to open. It wasn’t his fault that the theaters were all closed for a month of national mourning. So it makes sense to take the play on the road before tackling New York, even if that road includes Pittsburgh.”

  “Let’s hope he returns to triumph at Daly’s Theater, just like he planned,” Gus said. “Is there a tad more coffee in that pot do you think, dearest?”

  I listened to them chatting merrily but my thoughts had moved elsewhere. Something about Ryan’s postcard had left me feeling uneasy. We had, of course, been together when the president was shot. That would leave anyone feeling uneasy, but it was over now. The poor president was dead and buried and life had gone back to normal again. Then I realized what it was—Ryan’s mention of consumption. My nagging conscience came back to me. Poor Kathleen O’Connor was dying of consumption, back home in Ireland while I had been neglecting her children more than I should. I resolved to pay them a visit this very morning. If their conditions were not satisfactory, then I’d do something about it, however much I hated to leave this wonderful life of bohemian ease.

  I got to my feet. “I should go out,” I said.

  They were instantly at my side, the postcard from Ryan forgotten. “You’ll do no such thing,” Gus said. She could be quite forceful in spite of her delicate appearance. “You’ve just spent a night in damp clothing in jail. You need a good long rest.”

  I tried to protest, but Sid took my arm. “No arguing. Now up you go and we’ll wake you for lunch.”

  I thought it best not to protest further. I went up the two flights to my room, opened the windows, and lay down on the bed. Delightful autumn sunshine streamed in through my window, along with the chirping of busy sparrows in the bushes outside. I could have been miles from the city. How could I possibly give this up? I tried to sleep but my mind was coiled tighter than a watch spring. In the end I gave up, put on my business suit—since my dark skirt was still sodden around the hem—then crept down the stairs like a naughty child. Out of Patchin Place, diagonally across Washington Square until I met the Bowery. Then I headed south to the Lower East Side where Seamus and his family were now again living.

  I stopped at a butcher to buy a chicken, and at the greengrocer to buy grapes, remembering how Seamus had enjoyed them before. Then I added two lollipops from a street stall. If you’re wondering where the money came from, seeing that I wasn’t making any yet, I was paying myself a modest salary from the money Paddy had left in the business—or more accurately, the money I had found hidden in the bottom of a filing cabinet drawer. I had not been naïve enough to hand it over to the police but had opened a bank account with it until a next of kin claimed it. So far no next of k
in had come forward.

  As I went on my way, the streets became noisier, dirtier, and smellier, the buildings taller, crammed together, shutting out the sunlight, giving me the feeling of being hemmed in. Memories of my own arrival in New York and my first unpleasant days on these streets came flooding back to me. How long ago it seemed. Was it really less than a year ago that I was walking these streets, penniless, afraid, with nowhere to go? I took stock of how far I had come and felt more cheerful right away.

  As I passed through the Jewish quarter, crossing Hester Street then Rivington and Delancey, the streets became clogged with humanity—pushcarts everywhere, laden with every kind of merchandise. Vendors shouted their wares in tongues I couldn’t understand. Chickens and geese hung by their necks in rows. Strange foods sizzled on makeshift stoves giving off exotic, spicy smells. I looked with interest at a pickle vendor, producing fat green pickled cucumbers from a barrel like a conjurer bringing rabbits from a hat. I wondered what they tasted like and was tempted to stop and buy one. There were so many things in the world that were still new to me. One day I should take the time to try them all. But the suspicious looks I was getting from bearded men in tall black hats, from women who passed me with baskets on their arms, dragging serious, dark-eyed children let me know clearly that I was an outsider with no business in their territory. My bright red hair and Irish complexion were definitely a disadvantage for a budding detective. Paddy could blend in anywhere. I’d find it hard to look anything but Irish.

  It was the same as I moved into the Italian section to the south. Streets echoed with men in animated conversation, laundry flapped above our heads, old women in black sat on stoops in the morning sunshine, babies cried, children played, more pushcarts with different wares—jars of olives, jars of olive oil, jars with what looked like thin sticks in them which I guessed might be uncooked spaghetti—and me with the definite feeling of being the outsider.

  A group of street urchins with dark, close cropped hair came running past me, the steel tips on their boots creating sparks on the cobbles. They leaped up at me and tugged at my long red hair. “Hey, where’s the fire, lady?” one of them shouted in accented English. He grabbed at my hair ribbon. I had grown up with brothers. I reacted instantly, caught him off guard and sent him sprawling backward. They didn’t bother me again.

  There was no mistaking when I came to Fulton Street. The fish market announced its presence long before I was anywhere near it. The smell of fish was heavy in the air, making me bring out my handkerchief and hold it to my nose. There were fish scales floating in the gutters and men hurried past pushing carts piled high with boxes of fish. I passed the market itself and was glad to turn onto South Street where a good, strong breeze from the East River made it possible to breathe again. Out of all of New York City, why on earth had they chosen to live right here?

  Of course, I had to grant them the view. Over our heads the Brooklyn Bridge soared majestically across to the far shore, suspended, it seemed, by the frailest of strands. The East River was dotted with sails, ranging from tall-masted ships from across the ocean to squat, square-sailed barges going upriver. It painted a charming, lively canvas and I would have lingered longer to admire, had not the whiff of the fish market caught up with me. I crossed South Street and passed open shop fronts where sail-makers and woodwrights plied their trades before I turned into a narrow side alley and found the building I was looking for.

  It was another dreary tenement building, even worse, if anything, than my first home on Cherry Street. The dark, narrow staircase smelled of urine, boiled cabbage, and fish. I made my way upstairs, past landings cluttered with prams and old boxes, hearing crying babies, voices raised in anger, a woman singing. I started when something scurried across the floor in front of me. Too big for a mouse. It had to be a rat.

  I was out of breath by the time I had reached the fifth floor and prayed that Seamus would be at home. How did he manage to climb so many stairs with his damaged lungs? I knocked on the door and prayed this time that Nuala might not be at home. I had no wish ever to see her again. My prayer was not answered. Nuala herself opened the door, her bloated shape blotting out any light that might have come from the room behind her.

  “Saints preserve us,” she said. “Would you look what the cat dropped on our doorstep.”

  “Lovely seeing you again too, Nuala.” I tried to get past her and into the apartment but she remained blocking the doorway.

  “I didn’t think you’d be turning up again, like a bad penny. So your fancy man finally threw you out, did he? I knew it would happen in the end—didn’t I tell you so, Seamus? Wasn’t I saying that she’d come a cropper, for all her airs and graces? Well, it’s no use thinking you’re going to bunk here—packed like sardines, we are.”

  “I have absolutely no wish to move in with you, Nuala,” I said. “I have a very comfortable apartment, which I share with two female friends and not a fancy man in sight. I came to see how Seamus was getting along.”

  Grudgingly she stood aside and let me enter. It was a hellhole of a room with no windows, lit by one anemic lamp. Seamus was sitting in the one armchair and the lamplight made him look like a pale shadow of himself.

  “Molly, my dear,” he said, rising awkwardly to his feet. “It’s so good to see you. How kind of you to come and visit us.”

  “I was concerned about you, Seamus. I heard that you’d found a new place so I thought I’d come and pay you a call.”

  “Yes, well it’s not exactly what you’d call homely, is it, but it will have to do for now, until I can get back on me feet again.”

  “Why on earth did you choose to live here of all places?” I blurted out before I realized it wasn’t exactly a tactful remark.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?” Nuala answered for him. “And seeing as how I’m the only breadwinner in the family and I’m working at the fish market there, I’m not risking walking home alone in the dead of night past all those drunken men. This city’s not safe for a woman.”

  I thought privately that the men would have to be very drunk indeed to have intentions on Nuala, but I nodded agreement.

  “So Finbar isn’t working?” I asked.

  “That idle, no good bag o’ bones? Who would hire him? When he worked for the saloon he drank more than he earned. I tried to get him a job as porter at the market but he couldn’t lift the loads.” She sniffed in disgust. “He’s sleeping in the next room.”

  “I heard that,” came Finbar’s voice and the person himself appeared in the doorway, looking like Marley’s ghost in a white nightshirt and nightcap, his face pale and gray as the cloth he was wearing. “And if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, woman, I’ve got meself a fine job lined up for the election.” He smiled at me, revealing a mouth of missing teeth.

  “The election.” Nuala sniffed. “We’ll believe that when we see it.”

  “Ask the Tammany boys yourself,” Finbar insisted. “They told me they’d pay me for every man I lead, push, or drag to the polling place—who puts his cross for Shepherd, of course.”

  “Pay you in liquor,” Nuala said. “You’ll drink yourself stupid and then be out of work again.”

  I shifted uncomfortably at this brewing fight. “And where are the children—in school?” I turned to Seamus.

  “We haven’t got them into a school yet,” Seamus said. “Bridie’s out running errands, and the boys—well, I don’t quite know where they are.”

  “Speaking of errands, I stopped off along the way and brought you a chicken and some grapes.” I found space for them on the table between dirty dishes, yesterday’s New York Herald and some socks that Nuala had been darning. “I thought you maybe could use some nourishment.”

  “Most kind of you,” Seamus said. “You’re a good woman, Molly Murphy.”

  I watched Nuala sidling up to whisk away my offering.

  “Any news from Kathleen?” I asked, beating Nuala to the grapes and handing them to Seamus.
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  “Yes, but it’s not good. She’s fading, Molly. She keeps up a brave front, but I can tell she’s fading. If only I could be with her. It fair breaks my heart. I tell you, Molly, there are times when I’m ready to take the risk and borrow the money for a passage home.”

  “It must be very hard for you,” I said, “but you know you’d be thrown in jail or even hanged if you go home. Think of the children. What good would it do to have a father in jail and a mother who’s deathly sick?”

  “What good am I here to them?” he said. “Another useless bag of bones like Finbar. Not able to earn my keep at the moment.”

  As he spoke I heard the sound of light feet running up the stairs. The door burst open and Bridie stood there. When she saw me, her face lit up. “Molly. You’ve come back to us. I was praying in church on Sunday that you would.”

  I put my arms around her thin little body. “How have you been keeping? And how’s your brother?”

  She looked up, a big smile on her face. “He’s become a junior Eastman.”

  “A what?”

  “He and our cousins. They’ve joined a gang. They’re called junior Eastmans, and they go around busting stuff up. And sometimes they get to do stuff for real big gang members and the big guys give them a quarter each.”

  “Seamus, did you know about this?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “There’s no harm in it. Just talk. Boys always run in herds, like young ponies, don’t they?”

  But I couldn’t take this news so lightly. I had heard enough last night about violence and protection rackets to make me believe that there was indeed harm in young Shamey running with a gang. And I knew it was up to me to get him out of it. I’d just have to find a place of my own and bring them to live with me, at least until Seamus was on his feet again. I felt deep depression settling over me at the thought of leaving the little heaven on Patchin Place, but it had to be done. I was only alive now because the children’s mother had given me a chance to escape. Giving up a few months of my life was the least I could do in return.