The Doll Maker

by Richard Montanari

  ANNABELLE

  1

  At just after six a.m., as every other day, Mr Marseille and I opened our eyes, dark lashes counterweighted to the light.

  It was mid-November, and although the frost had not yet touched the windows – this usually comes to our eaves in late December – there was a mist on the glass that gave the early morning light a delicate quality, as if we were looking at the world through a Lalique figurine.

  Before we dressed for the day we drew our names in the condensation on the windowpane, the double l in Mr Marseille’s name and the double l in mine slanting toward one another, like tiny Doric columns, as has been our monogram for as long as we both could remember.

  Mr Marseille looked at the paint swatches, a frown tilling his brow. In the overhead lights of the big store his eyes appeared an ocean blue, but I knew them to be green, the way the trees appear after the first draft of spring, the way the grass of a well-tended cemetery looks on the Fourth of July.

  On this day, beneath our drab winter overcoats, we were dressed for tea. My dress was scarlet; his suit, a dove gray. These were the colors of our amusements, you see, the feathers by which we cleave our places at the table.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mr Marseille said. ‘I just don’t know.’

  I glanced at the selections, and saw his impasse. There had to be a half-dozen choices, all of which, from just a few feet away, could be described as yellow. Pale yellow, at that. Not the yellow of sunflowers or school buses or taxicabs, or even the yellow of summer corn. These were pastel shades, almost whitish, and they had the most scandalous of names:

  Butter Frosting. Lemon Whip. Sweet Marzipan.

  Mr Marseille hummed a song, our song, almost certainly turning over the words in his mind, perhaps hoping for a flicker of inspiration.

  I soon became distracted by a woman with a small child, passing by at the end of our aisle. The woman wore a short puffy jacket and shockingly tight denim jeans. Her makeup seemed to have been applied in haste – perhaps reflected in a less than well-silvered mirror – and gave her an almost clownish look in the unforgiving light of the store. The child, a toddler at oldest, bounced along behind the woman, deliriously consumed by an oversized cookie with brightly colored candies baked in. A few moments after they passed from view I heard the woman exhort the child to hurry up. I don’t imagine the little boy did.

  At the thought of the mother and child I felt a familiar yearning blossom within me. I scolded it away, and turned once more to Mr Marseille and his assessments. Before I could choke the words, I pointed at one of the paint swatches in his hands, and asked:

  ‘What’s wrong with this one? Candlelight is a delightful name. Quite apropos, n’est-ce pas?’

  Mr Marseille looked up – first at the long, empty aisle, then at the myriad cans of paint, then at me. He replied softly, but forcefully:

  ‘It is my decision, and I will not be hurried.’

  I simply hated it when Mr Marseille was cross with me. It did not happen often – we were kindred and compatible spirits in almost all ways, especially in the habits of color and texture and fabric and song – but when I saw the flare in his eyes I knew that this would be a day of numbering, our first since that terrible moment last week, a day during which a young girl’s blood would surely be the rouge that colored my cheeks.

  We rode in our car, a white sedan that, according to Mr Marseille, had once been advertised during a football game. I don’t know much about cars – or football, for that matter – and this was not our car, not by any watermark of legal ownership. Mr Marseille simply drove to the curb about an hour earlier, and I got in. In this manner it became our car, if only for the briefest of times. Mr Marseille, like all of our kind, was an expert borrower.

  The first thing I noticed was that the front seat smelled of licorice. The sweet kind. I don’t care for the other kind. It is bitter to my tongue. There are some who crave it, but if I’ve learned anything in this life it is that one can never reason, or truly understand, the tastes of another.

  We drove on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the magnificent divided thoroughfare that I’ve heard is patterned, after a fashion, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. I’ve never been to Paris but I’ve seen many photographs, and this seems to be true.

  I speak a cluttered French, as does Mr Marseille – sometimes, for sport, we go for days speaking nothing else – and we often talk of one day travelling from the City of Brotherly Love to the City of Light.

  The trees along the parkway were deep in their autumn slumber, but I’ve been on this street in summer, when the green seems to go on forever, bookended by the stately Museum of Art at one end, and the splendid Swann Fountain on the other. On this November morning the street was beautiful, but if you come here in July it will be breathtaking.

  We followed the group of girls at a discreet distance. They had attended a Saturday showing of a film at the Franklin Institute, and were now boarding a bus to take them back to their school.

  Mr Marseille had thought of making our invitation on Winter Street, but decided against it. Too many busybodies to ruin our surprise.

  At just after noon the bus pulled over near the corner of Sixteenth and Locust. The teenage girls – about a dozen in number, all dressed alike in their school uniforms – disembarked. They lingered on the corner, chatting about everything and nothing, as girls of an age will do.

  After a short time, a few cars showed up; a number of the girls drove off in backseats, carpooled by one mother or another.

  The girl who would be our guest walked a few blocks south with another of her classmates, a tall, lanky girl wearing a magenta cardigan, in the style of a fisherman’s knit.

  We drove a few blocks ahead of them, parked in an alley, then marched briskly around the block, coming up behind the girls. Girls at this age often dawdle, and this was good for us. We caught them in short order.

  When the tall girl finally said goodbye, on the corner of Sixteenth and Spruce, Mr Marseille and I walked up behind our soon-to-be guest, waiting for the signal to cross the street.

  Eventually the girl looked over.

  ‘Hello,’ Mr Marseille said.

  The girl glanced at me, then at Mr Marseille. Sensing no threat, perhaps because she saw us as a couple – a couple of an age not significantly greater than her own – she returned the greeting.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  While we waited for the light to change, Mr Marseille unbuttoned his coat, struck a pose, offering the well-turned peak lapel of his suit jacket. The hem was a pick stitch, and finely finished. I know this because I am the seamstress who fitted him.

  ‘Wow,’ the girl added. ‘I like your suit. A lot.’

  Mr Marseille’s eyes lighted. In addition to being sartorially fastidious, he was terribly vain, and always available for a compliment.

  ‘What a lovely thing to say,’ he said. ‘How very kind of you.’

  The girl, perhaps not knowing the correct response, said nothing. She stole a glance at the Walk signal. It still showed a hand.

  ‘My name is Marseille,’ he said. ‘This is my dearest heart, Anabelle.’

  Mr Marseille extended his hand. The girl blushed, offered her own.

  ‘I’m Nicole.’

  Mr Marseille leaned forward, as was his manner, and gently kissed the back of the girl’s fingers. Many think the custom is to kiss the back of a lady’s hand – on the side just opposite the palm – but this is not proper.

  A gentleman knows.

  Nicole reddened even more deeply.

  When she glanced at me I made the slightest curtsy. Ladies do not shake hands with ladies.

  At this moment the light changed. Mr Marseille let go of the girl’s hand and, in a courtly fashion, offered her safe passage across the lane.

  I followed.

  We continued down the street in silence until we came to the mouth of the alley; the alley in which we parked our car.

  Mr Marseille held up a hand. He and I sto
pped walking.

  ‘I have a confession to make,’ he said.

  The girl, appearing to be fully at ease with these two polite and interesting characters, stopped as well. She looked intrigued by Mr Marseille’s statement.

  ‘A confession?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our meeting was not by accident today. We’re here to invite you to tea.’

  The girl looked at me for a moment, then back at Mr Marseille.

  ‘You want to invite me to tea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

  Mr Marseille smiled. He had a pretty smile, brilliantly white, almost feminine in its deceits. It was the kind of smile that turned strangers into cohorts in all manner of petty crime, the kind of smile that puts at ease both the very young and the very old. I’ve yet to meet a young woman who could resist its charm.

  ‘Every day, about four o’clock, we have tea,’ Mr Marseille said. ‘It is quite the haphazard affair on most days, but every so often we have a special tea – a thé dansant, if you’ll allow – one to which we invite all our friends, and always someone new. Someone we hope will become a new friend. Won’t you say you’ll join us?’

  The young woman looked confused. But still she was gracious. This is the sign of a good upbringing. Both Mr Marseille and I believe courtesy and good manners are paramount to getting along in the world these days. It is what lingers with people after you take your leave, like the quality of your soap, or the polish of your shoes.

  ‘Look,’ the young lady began. ‘I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. But thanks anyway.’ She glanced at her watch, then back at Mr Marseille. ‘I’m afraid I have a ton of homework.’

  With a lightning fast move Mr Marseille took the girl by both wrists, and spun her into the alleyway. Mr Marseille is quite the athlete, you see. I once saw him catch a common housefly in midair, then throw it into a hot skillet, where we witnessed its life vanish into an ampersand of silver smoke.

  As he seized the girl I watched her eyes. They flew open to their widest: counterweights on a precious Bru. I noticed then, for the first time, that her irises had scattered about them tiny flecks of gold.

  This would be a challenge for me, for it was my duty – and my passion – to re-create such things.

  We sat around the small table in our workshop. At the moment it was just Nicole, Mr Marseille, and me. Our friends had yet to arrive. There was much to do.

  ‘Would you like some more tea?’ I asked.

  The girl opened her mouth to speak, but no words came forth. Our special tea often had this effect. Mr Marseille and I never drank it, of course, but we had seen its magical results on others many times. Nicole had already had two cups, and I could only imagine the colors she saw; Alice at the mouth of the rabbit hole.

  I poured more tea into her cup.

  ‘There,’ I said. ‘I think you should let it cool for a time. It is very hot.’

  While I made the final measurements, Mr Marseille excused himself to make ready what we needed for the gala. We were never happier than at this moment, a moment when, needle in hand, I made the closing stiches, and Mr Marseille prepared the final table.

  We parked by the river, exited the car. Before showing our guest to her seat, Mr Marseille blindfolded me. I could barely conceal my anticipation and delight. I do so love a tea.

  Mr Marseille does, as well.

  With baby steps I breached the path. When Mr Marseille removed my scarf, I opened my eyes.

  It was beautiful. Better than beautiful.

  It was magic.

  Mr Marseille had selected the right color. He often labored over the decision for days, but each time, after the disposing of the rollers and trays and brushes, after the peeling away of the masking tape, it was as if the object of his labors had always been so.

  Moments later we helped the girl – Nicole Solomon was her full name – from the car. Her very presence at our table made her absent from another. Such is the way of all life.

  As Mr Marseille removed the stockings from the bag, I made my goodbye, tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, thinking that Mr Shakespeare was surely wrong.

  There is no sweetness in parting.

  Only sorrow.

  I returned to where Mr Marseille stood, and pressed something into his gloved hand.

  ‘I want her to have this,’ I said.

  Mr Marseille looked at what I had given him. He seemed surprised. ‘Are you sure?’

  I was not. But I’d had it so long, and loved it so deeply, I felt it was time for the bird to fly on its own.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure.’

  Mr Marseille touched my cheek and said, ‘My dearest heart.’

  Under the bright moon, as Philadelphia slept, we watched the shadow of the girl’s legs cast parallel lines on the station house wall, just like the double l in Anabelle and Mr Marseille.

  2

  They always come back.

  If there was one truth known to Detective Kevin Francis Byrne – as well as any veteran law enforcement officer, anywhere in the world – it was that criminals always come back for their weapons.

  Especially the expensive ones.

  There were, of course, mitigating circumstances that might prevent this. The criminal being dead, to mention one happy outcome. Or being incarcerated. Not as joyous, but serviceable.

  Even though there was always the distinct possibility that the police knew where you had stashed the weapon, and might be watching that spot in case you came back, in Kevin Byrne’s experience, that had never stopped them.

  Not once.

  There were some who believed that the police, as a rule, were stumbling oafs who only managed to catch the dumb criminals. While the argument for this was persuasive, to some, it was not true. For Kevin Byrne, as well as most of the lifers he knew, the saying was a little different.

  You catch the dumb ones first.

  It was the second full day of surveillance and Byrne, who had enough years under his badge to have passed it off to a younger detective, volunteered to take last out, the shift that went from midnight to eight a.m. There were two reasons for this. One, he had long ago given in to his insomnia, working on the theory that he was one of those people who only needed four or five hours of sleep per night to function. Two, there was a much better chance that the man for whom they were looking – one Allan David Trumbo – would come for the weapon in the middle of the night.

  If there was a third reason, it was that Byrne had a dog in this fight.

  Six days earlier, Allan Wayne Trumbo – a two-time loser with two armed robbery convictions and a manslaughter conviction under his belt – walked into a convenience store near the corner of Frankford and Girard, put a gun to the head of the night clerk, and demanded all the money in the register. The man behind the counter complied. Then, as surveillance footage showed, Trumbo took a step back, leveled the weapon and fired.

  The man behind the counter, Ahmed Al Rashid, the owner of Ahmed’s Grocery, died on his feet. Trumbo, being the criminal mastermind that he is, then took off his ski mask in full view of the surveillance camera, reached into a rack, and took a package of TastyKake mini donuts. Coconut Crunch, to be exact.

  By the time Trumbo stepped out onto the street, sector cars from the 26th District were already en route, just a few blocks away. The police pole camera on the corner of Marlborough and Girard showed the man dumping his weapon into a city trashcan just inside an alley, half a block west of Second Street.

  Although it was not Byrne’s case, he knew Ahmed, having visited the bodega many times when he was a young patrol officer. Byrne didn’t know a single cop who had ever had to pay for a cup of coffee at Ahmed’s. His brimming tip jar was testament to his generosity.

  Trumbo took that money, too.

  Rule number one for any homicide detective was to never take any case personally. In the case of the cold-blooded murder of Ahmed Al Rashid, Byrne decided to disregar
d this rule, as he had many times before.

  Byrne knew that Trumbo would come back for the weapon. He just didn’t think it would take this long.

  At the request of the PPD, the Sanitation Division of the Philadelphia Streets Department had not touched that particular trashcan since the incident. It had been under surveillance, in one manner or another, from the moment Trumbo walked away.

  Investigators also had the AV Unit make a big show of taking down the two cameras that covered this end of the block – three police vans at noon, taking three times as long taking down the cameras than it took to put them up. If you were watching, and if you paid attention to such things, you would think that, for the time being, Big Brother was not watching this small corner of Philadelphia.

  If you were stupid, that is.

  Detectives from the Firearms Unit had taken the .38 Colt from the trashcan within an hour or so of Trumbo having dumped it and, with their mobile unit parked a block away, removed the firing pin, rendering the gun inoperable. They did this on the outside chance that, if this operation went south, they would not be putting a functioning handgun back on the street, in the hands of someone who had already committed murder with it.

  While they’d had the weapon, the ID Unit took the chance to dust the gun for latents, and were happy to report that Allan Wayne Trumbo’s prints were all over it.

  Byrne glanced at his watch. Three-ten a.m. Even this part of the city was asleep. He was parked in a nondescript black Toyota, borrowed from the Narcotics Unit. Nobody had uglier, more invisible cars than the narcos.

  Ahmed’s Grocery had reopened, still braving the twenty-four-hour schedule. Even in light of the terrible tragedy, bills had to be paid. The rear door was now locked, but Byrne had a key, just in case he needed to use the restroom, which was just inside the back door.

  At three-fifteen he needed to use the restroom.