A Dying Note

by Ann Parker

  “Don’t worry. Harry and his personal fly-cop are gone for the day. It’s been just me, coffee, and the morning paper. Today, I’m planning to visit a few of the more elevated madams that I know. I figure Robert might be an occasional or regular visitor.” She stopped. “What is it? What has you in a dither?”

  “Come.” Inez led her toward the office. “I don’t think John Hee is around, but he could be in the repair room. I haven’t checked, and we need privacy for this conversation.”

  “What is it?” Flo repeated once they were in the back room.

  Inez put her fingertips to her temples, gazing at Flo. “I know where Robert is.”

  “Well, where?”

  “At the undertaker’s.” Inez took a deep breath. “He’s dead.”

  Flo stared. “Hell and damnation.”

  “It gets worse. He is someone I know, or knew. He went by the name James Monroe. Why didn’t you tell me he was a pianist?”

  “You didn’t ask, and I didn’t think to say!” Flo sank onto a chair by the round table.

  Inez went to the cupboard, tipped a generous portion of brandy into an extra tumbler, and brought bottle and glass to the table. Flo took the glass, almost absent-mindedly. “Was it an accident? Oh please, let it be a runaway horse or streetcar.”

  Inez shook her head.

  “Suicide? Opium overdose? What?”

  “Murder.”

  Flo’s wide blue eyes got wider. “No.”

  “Yes. He was bludgeoned to death, then dumped into the Mission Creek canal.”

  “Merde. Was it a robbery? Or maybe Poole caught up with him first, and carried through on his threat to kill Robert for jilting his daughter.” For a moment she looked terrified.

  “Perhaps it was completely random,” said Inez. “He was down by the waterfront, in a part of town where he had no business being.” Jamie’s note, the words in a strong angular script, appeared in her mind’s eye. “Or maybe it was connected with his union activities. He was trying to form a professional musicians union. I gather there were threats.”

  Flo said tentatively, “Any chance you’re wrong, that this Jamie isn’t Robert?”

  Inez shook her head.

  “So, you did know him.” Flo looked troubled. “This is very bad. What will Harry think? Was it just a nodding acquaintance? Maybe Robert came through your store once or twice, with others. You could hardly be expected to recognize him from a photograph then.”

  “Jamie—that is, Robert—was secretly engaged to the sister of the owner of this store.”

  “Mr. Donato has a sister?”

  Inez nodded. “And he was none too happy about the two of them even conversing. Nico should have known better,” she said under her breath. “The more he tried to push them apart, the closer they became.”

  Flo finished off her brandy, poured another, and tipped the bottle toward Inez. Inez held her empty coffee cup up for a refill.

  “So,” said Inez. “How are we going to explain to Harry?”

  “We? Oh no, Inez. I can’t. It has to be you. You’re the one who figured it out. You’re the one who found him.”

  “Found him too late. Jesus.” Inez set her cup down hard, sloshing brandy. “Telling Harry is going to be difficult. And I can’t today. I’m alone in the store, I have pupils coming in, meetings lined up. I have to consider how to break the news so he won’t turn on me when I do.”

  “Why would he do that?” Flo asked. “You didn’t know you knew Robert. And you did find him. Too late, but still. Harry has to know that you did what he asked you to do. It’s the only way we’ll get out of this mess. It’s probably best not to bring up the fiancée. You should mention the union involvement, though.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Inez said bleakly. “I’ll have to tell Harry that his son, Robert Gallagher, was going by the name of James Monroe. He was following his dream to be a musician and was involved in the labor movement. The information should come from me. Not the detective he’s got sniffing around, nor anyone else. It has to be me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kneeling upstairs in the storage room at her “listening post,” Antonia nudged the wooden knot back into the hole in the floor. She sat back on her heels, and pinched her nostrils shut to stop an explosive sneeze.

  That was a close one.

  She hated to think what would’ve happened if Mrs. S and Madam Flo had heard a big ah-choo! blast through the ceiling above their heads.

  But that worry was overshadowed by what she’d heard.

  And she’d heard everything.

  So if High-and-Mighty Gallagher was in a position to “ruin” Mrs. S and Madam Flo, why weren’t they both hightailing over to the Palace Hotel right now to spill the beans to Gallagher about his son being Jamie Monroe and being dead as well?

  Jamie.

  Dead.

  And he and Carmella were engaged? And Mr. Donato didn’t know?

  Antonia tiptoed to the storeroom door and leaned against it. She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose, trying to be quiet about it and thinking about Carmella and how sad it all was.

  Did Carmella know about Jamie being dead and a Gallagher and all? Mrs. S didn’t say.

  Antonia stuffed the handkerchief back into her pocket. It sounded like others were on the prowl, and Mrs. S was worried what would happen if they found out what’s what and told Mr. Gallagher first.

  Mrs. S said she had to think about what to say and that she couldn’t get away from the store. And Madam Flo was too chicken.

  So she, Antonia, had to do something to help Mrs. S get out of trouble with Mr. Harry Gallagher. Make him leave them alone and go back to wherever he came from.

  There was only one thing to do.

  She’d have to go tell Mr. Gallagher herself and make sure he understood that Mrs. S hadn’t been keeping anything back from him.

  It was up to her.

  She had to help Mrs. S out of this jam.

  Antonia tiptoed into her room, wary of the creaky floorboards in the hall, and watched from the window until she saw Flo leave. The whorehouse madam got into a hack and headed toward the Barbary Coast. Antonia wondered if the madam was really as desperate as she made out to be. Maybe she just fed Mrs. S nonsense to get Mrs. S to do all the dirty work.

  Antonia waited a bit, watching to be sure that Mrs. S wasn’t coming out for any reason.

  After that, sneaking down the stairs, out the door, and around the corner was easy as pie. Once out of sight of the storefront, Antonia relaxed. She made a beeline for the Palace Hotel, and walked in like she lived there. Which she had, at least for a while.

  When she and Mrs. S had first come to the city, Mrs. S had set up shop in the Palace and Antonia had the run of the place before she was forced to start school. And the Palace Hotel was huge, the biggest building Antonia’d ever seen. A bellboy had told her there were more than eight hundred rooms and more than four hundred bathtubs! And it was built with more than thirty-one million bricks! Antonia thought maybe he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes on that last figure. For one thing, who’d count all those bricks?

  Entering now, she was again struck by the courtyard where the carriages drove up. The courtyard was surrounded by floor after floor of arcaded galleries, all looking down on who was coming and going. Antonia remembered the days when she’d spend hours peering over the railing outside their room, watching the activity far below.

  She’d liked the Palace Hotel. Lots of places to explore, hide, and spy. No one nattering at her to work on her penmanship or memorize lines of useless poetry.

  But no more remembering.

  She had a mission.

  Antonia marched through the main entrance, into the lobby, right over the fancy tiled floor, right up to the desk, gaining a few stares from the toffs who probably wondered why she was walk
ing in, bold as brass, rather than coming in through the ladies’ door. As she’d hoped, the nob with the over-starched stand-up collar standing behind the desk hurried over, saying, “Excuse me, miss, can I help you?”

  “You can, my good man.” She used a haughty, high-toned voice, like the one that Mrs. Stannert had used when talking to the Palace “staff.” For good measure, she tilted her nose in the air so she looked high and mighty herself. Good thing she was wearing her school clothes and they weren’t all mussed up. “I must speak with Mr. Gallagher. Please tell him I have an important, private message for him from Mrs. Stannert.”

  “Certainly. Why don’t you wait in here?” Starched-Collar Nob marched her out of the lobby and into the ladies’ reception room.

  “And tell him,” Antonia continued imperiously, “that it is a matter of some urgency, about his son.” That’ll get his attention. “But I must speak with him privately,” Antonia admonished.

  Nob did a small bow, so she must’ve done it right. “Of course, Miss. May I tell Mr. Gallagher who is calling?”

  She hadn’t expected that. “I am Miss Gizzi, a ward of Mrs. Stannert’s. However, my name will not mean anything to him. Just tell him, please, that it concerns Master Robert Gallagher.”

  Now the nob seemed a little suspicious, but he inclined his head and said, “Please wait here, Miss Gizzi.”

  The waiting took longer than she thought it would. At first, she thought maybe Gallagher wasn’t in and she’d end up cooling her heels until he returned from wherever he was. And then, she started to wonder if maybe Gallagher hadn’t gone off to see Mrs. S. Maybe even now he was demanding what did she think she was doing, sending a messenger girl when it should have been the missus herself coming to tell him whatever it was that was so urgent?

  She started to seriously sweat in her flannel petticoat and woolen stockings. It was because it was so warm inside, she told herself, not because she was nervy or anything like that. She’d just taken off her glasses to clean them—they were all fogged up—when a bellboy came into the reception room and looked around. His gaze stopped on her. She hastily stuffed her glasses in a pocket as he walked over. “Miss Gizzi.”

  “That is I,” she said primly.

  “Mr. Gallagher will see you now. Please follow me.”

  They headed for the elevators, and Antonia silently rejoiced. When she and Mrs. S were staying at the hotel, Antonia’d loved going up and down in the elevators. She could’ve done it all day. The grille closed, and the operator pulled levers, pushed buttons, and the elevator rose silently, giving her that special thrill in her stomach.

  They rose higher and higher. “Seventh floor,” announced the operator.

  That was when Antonia began to wonder if she’d made a mistake.

  The seventh floor held some of the grandest of the grand rooms. The ones with really tall ceilings and windows that looked out over the city, making you feel like you were living in the clouds. Antonia knew this because the bellboy who’d fed her the bosh about millions of bricks had once brought her up here and opened a door to let her peek inside.

  And now, she was being led right to one of those doors! For a corner room!

  Antonia began to sweat more.

  The bellboy knocked. A voice inside called “Enter.”

  He opened the door, said, “Miss Gizzi, sir,” and turned to Antonia giving her that head-wag that said, “Go on, get in there!”

  Knees quaking, Antonia entered. The bellboy closed the door, nearly clipping her heels. Her feet sank into the deep carpet as she looked warily around. The far windows, curtains drawn back, gave her the view she expected—a view of the city, fit for gods, letting in light that almost blinded her.

  The man standing in the middle of the parlor was dressed like he was going to some swank party on Nob Hill, even though it was only afternoon. He was older and taller than Antonia thought he would be, with silver hair, and a dark mustache and eyebrows. But then, she’d only seen him from above through the knothole. His eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, although all he said was “Miss Gizzi, is it? You told the front desk officer that Mrs. Stannert sent you. Is that true?”

  He didn’t invite her to come in, have a seat. And Antonia was glad, because she wanted to stay right where she was, with the doorknob close at hand for a quick escape.

  She’d originally intended to quiz whoever claimed to be Mr. Gallagher to be sure she had the right gent, but she’d abandoned that idea the minute she’d stepped into the room and saw him.

  This was Mr. Harry Gallagher, for sure.

  And now, all she wanted to do was say what she’d come to say and get out as fast as possible. “I have a message for you. From Mrs. St-Stannert,” she stuttered. “About your son, Robert Gallagher.”

  The frown deepened. His words were “And that message is?” but his tone said things like I am a busy man and don’t keep me waiting and definitely I doubt you are who you say you are.

  The speech Antonia had worked up on the way to the hotel now came out in a nervous jumbly rush. “Mrs. Stannert wants you to know, he, uh, your son, he’s in the city. He changed his name to Jamie, uh, James Monroe. He’s a pianist. And, I’m sorry sir, I really am, but he’s dead.”

  Mr. Gallagher didn’t move, but Antonia got the distinct impression that her confused recitation had hit him like a hammer, a hammer that froze something inside him, turning him into a statue of ice.

  “What?” he said. He said it quiet, but all it did was make Antonia wish she’d never ever set foot outside the storage room on the second floor above the music store.

  “He, he died over by Long Bridge. That’s where they found him. The police, that is. He was beaten pretty badly. It was hard to tell it was him.”

  “Who are you?” He boomed.

  Did he think she was lying to him, making it all up?

  “It’s true!” she burst out. She reached for the doorknob behind her back, grasped it.

  He started walking toward her. “And why would Mrs. Stannert send someone like you, a mere child, to tell me this?”

  Now she was really in for it.

  He reached for her, as if to grab her shoulder.

  She twisted the door open, tumbled out into the hallway, and ran faster than she thought she could, heading for the nearest iron staircase. Use that staircase only in case of emergency, if there is a fire—that was Mrs. S’s voice reminding her. And well, this wasn’t a fire, but it sure was an emergency.

  Antonia yanked the iron door open and pounded down the flight of stairs, the iron ringing as loud as any of the church bells in her ears. On reaching the sixth floor she burst out into the hallway, hurtled past startled guests, and, flying on memory and instinct, zigzagged through a maze of hallways and corridors to one of the servants’ staircases. In this manner, she made her way down floor after floor, moving between wings and various staircases. Between the third and second floor, she finally slowed down, gasping, and used her sleeve to wipe her nose, which was full of snot from the stupid cold, leaving a wet streak on the blue plaid fabric.

  Hand on the door to the second floor, she pushed it open slowly. Nothing unusual. No horde of bellmen or cops waiting to nab her and haul her back up to the seventh floor to face Gallagher for questioning.

  She slid out into the hallway. Keeping her pace sedate, she headed for an obscure staircase, far away from the lobby and the grand courtyard, which led out to a side street.

  It was only then Antonia realized that Gallagher hadn’t chased her or shouted at her to come back or stop. He hadn’t even, it seemed, alerted the desk to have her hunted down and hauled back to him for further questioning.

  So what was he doing?

  The probable answer only made her knees—already shaking from all the stairs and the running—feel like they were going to give way entirely.

  He’s gone to see Mrs. S.
>
  She’s gonna murder me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Inez listened with half a mind as Patrick May, son of laundress Molly May, hunched over the upright piano in the lesson room, doing a very credible job on Clementi’s Sonatina in C, Opus 36, Number 3. Patrick’s kinky red hair, pomaded into submission when he first sat down to the lesson, was now in disarray. He focused on his hands, his face with its café-au-lait skin sprinkled with freckles and acne, twisted in concentration.

  When he was done, Inez said, “Very nice, Patrick. Your fingering for the scale passages is good, and in general you are handling the different tempos well. Watch the small ornamental note in the fourteenth measure. Begin slowly and gradually increase the tempo.”

  He nodded, green eyes as focused on her now as they had been on his hands earlier.

  “And watch your posture. Sit straight, near the edge of the stool. Keep your forearms parallel to the floor. Pay attention to your shoulders. When they are raised up around your ears, it causes unnecessary stress. Playing well requires a balance between focus, a certain amount of tension, and free, flexible movement. Again, please.”

  He straightened his back, shook out his hands and rolled his shoulders, then placed his fingertips on the keys and closed his eyes. Inez recognized the pose. She often did the same thing herself, gathering her wits and awareness before launching into a piece. In the quiet pause, she reflected briefly on the Mays. Patrick’s mother, Molly, and his aunt, Bessie, were two of her business clients. The Mays were the hardest working, most determined women she knew, which is why she had advanced them a sizeable loan to rebuild their small laundry recently ravaged by fire.

  Always on time with their payments, they were building a loyal clientele, slowly, over time. Bessie took care of the heavy laundry work, channeling her ire at the unfairness of the world and their lot into the vigorous washing, bleaching, wringing, and drying. Molly was in charge of the more precise tasks of ironing and sewing. A skilled seamstress, she could repair a silk stocking such that you never saw the run, a man’s fine shirt such that you never detected the tear. Impressed, Inez sent her and Antonia’s things to the Mays for cleaning, knowing that they would come back looking as if they were new bought.