Sirens
Page 19
Thurston did something astonishing: he made a girl float up into the air, and he invited people from the audience to check her out, to see that she was really floating. Charlie jumped out of his seat and ran to the stage, where he and all the other volunteers were paraded around and around; and he came back, his eyes all on fire, claiming she was really floating there, all by herself.
After which Thurston put her beneath a sheet, from which she vanished, just like that.
Like Teddy had vanished. Though I was the one holding the sheet and making believe he was gone.
Afterward, Louie, Charlie, and I walked down Broadway and stopped in to pick up a snack at the all-night diner. The bright lights above us winked and glimmered red, white, yellow; the crowds leaving shows filled the air with laughter, cabs and autos honked, rumbled, brakes squealed.
Charlie looked over his Coke at me. “You could be on Broadway, Jo,” he said out of the blue.
Louie slapped his arm. “Charlie!”
He turned to her. “She could! Look at her. They’d hire her on Broadway to star in a show, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “She’s a peach!”
I felt more like a tomato. My face must’ve looked that red, at least.
“Really, Charlie,” Lou said.
“Anyways, Jo looks to me like she could be a star,” Charlie mumbled.
“‘Anyway,’ Charlie. Not ‘anyways.’ Sheesh,” Louie said. “Even if you’re right about Jo. Which you are.”
I met Lou’s eyes. She was smiling, but something about her read sad. Why? It was just Charlie being silly. I shifted. “Listen, I need to get back. My aunt and uncle will be having a fit, not knowing where I am.”
We took a cab back to the apartment. Sam was waiting for Louie, the limo double-parked on the avenue. But there were also a couple of police cars pulled up to the curb, their red lights flashing. My stomach clenched.
When Ed saw us, he practically jumped out of his gray double-breasted coat.
“Oh, Miss Josephine. I didn’t see a thing. It was just the usual traffic. Nobody out of place. I’m so careful, you know? There was one delivery—flowers—for Mrs. Jacoby. That must’ve been it. How was I to know? The guy looked legit, and Mrs. J said it was all right. ‘Send him up,’ she said. So I did. Sent him up the servants’ stairs.” Ed was sweating; he mopped his brow with his hanky. “I’m gonna lose my job. That’s the long and short of it. As I should, for letting that happen. I’m so sorry, miss. I really like your family.”
That’s when I began to feel sick, but I tried not to show it. I put my hand on Ed’s arm. “For letting what happen, Ed? What about my family? Are they all right?”
“They’re okay, thank heavens. But the apartment—it was ransacked.”
CHAPTER 33
Lou
Okay, so I might have been misdirected.
First off, how could I know that Jo had a thing for Charlie until I saw them together? And then, how was I to know that Charlie felt the same?
I gotta tell you, that warmed my sisterly heart, thinking about Charlie so happy. And then realizing that Jo was not going to come between Danny and me because her attention was elsewhere.
When she heard that news about her aunt and uncle’s apartment, though, my sisterly heart turned to lead. I could tell she thought Charlie and me had a hand in it, that robbery. That we had taken her out to keep her away while someone went into the apartment for whatever.
And for all I knew, Danny, my sweet Danny, his long fingers had stretched clean across Manhattan and done the deed. Not him, no, never, but one of those goons of his. Sometimes they did things without him asking. Most times he had a plan.
And then I wondered why he might have a plan, and how that plan involved Jo, and my green-eyed monster self showed its ugly little head once more.
Now, you might be thinking, so it’s Danny, not Jo, who’s at fault. Danny I should blame. Danny I should be mad at. You would be wrong.
Bottom line: Who was I gonna stand with, I ask you? Sweet Jo, or my one and only? Who do you think?
CHAPTER 34
JUNE 1–6, 1925
I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.
—Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813
Jo
I was a statue on the sidewalk, at least until my legs began to feel numb and I thought they’d go out from under me. Charlie caught my arm as I began to sink.
I looked at him, and then at Louie. They looked upset—Charlie looked positively horrified—but I pulled back, easing my arm from his. I had only one thought: betrayal.
Louie had enticed me out on the town. She’d wandered into my bedroom while I was showering. I’d left her alone, and though I hadn’t thought she’d found the journal in the drawer, she may have, and then tipped off Connor. Or she hadn’t even needed to tip him off: maybe the plan was always to take me out, and give them a chance to search for something—anything—of Teddy’s.
If so, she was a darn good actor. And she would have broken my heart. And Charlie, well…I didn’t know what to believe anymore. He did work for Connor. All my ugly suspicions of Charlie came roaring back, all those doubts, and they hurt, oh, golly. My eyes and throat stung with the hurt.
I couldn’t trust Louie. And if I couldn’t trust Lou, I couldn’t trust Charlie, either. They both belonged to Connor: they owed him their lives; they owed him everything. That’s what Lou’d said. Why wouldn’t they do what he asked? How far would they go for him?
Because it was Connor—or his men—who’d ransacked the apartment.
“I’m going in. Thanks for the evening,” I said, turning away from them.
“Jo!” Lou touched my arm. “Honey—”
I yanked away. “Leave me alone.”
She took a step back. “Oh, Jo.”
I lifted my eyes to hers. “You knew. You’re so jealous, you don’t care a thing about what happens to my family or me. You knew what would happen, and you lied to me.”
She shook her head, her eyes round; Charlie reached for my hand.
I backed away from him, snapping at him, my insides coiling like snakes. “Don’t touch me. Don’t. I know what this is about, for you, too. You want Danny to give you a great job at one of those joints of his. Make you famous. You can play your music all you want. Well, good luck, that’s all I have to say. Thanks for a swell evening. Thanks for nothing. Don’t bother me again.”
I left them on the sidewalk, Charlie looking stricken, Lou looking galled. My head whirled, and the snakes in my stomach twisted into giant knots.
As soon as I stepped into the apartment, I knew for sure it was Connor. The only rooms in disarray were my room and the library, too. Which made me feel sick.
Chester sat on a chair in the foyer with an ice pack on his head. My aunt and uncle and Melody stood in a tight cluster. Police in uniform were traipsing in and out of my room and the library, carrying things in gloved hands.
“Hey!” My books, in a disheveled stack, were cradled in the arms of an officer. I grew angry now. “Those are mine!” I spied the Sherlock Holmes; what if there were other clues from Teddy hidden in my favorite books?
“Sorry, miss, but we’ve gotta check everything. Somebody went through these books, the way they were tossed around the place. We need to find out why. Maybe find fingerprints.”
“Uncle Bert, those are my books. Please don’t let them.”
Uncle Bert came over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Officer, really. Must you? Works of fiction?”
The man looked over at a plainclothes officer who must have been in charge, and who made a face but shrugged. The policeman handed me the books.
“Thank you,” I said, as stiff as all get-out. Several officers were standing in the door to the library; I couldn’t wait to get in there but didn’t want my actions to seem odd. I marched instead to my room, which was in a true shambles.
“Oh!” The sound escaped me as I sank onto the only chair still upright.
“Miss, you need to leave,” said an officer. “We’re working, and you’re in the way.” Still hugging my books, I made my way to the library, my heart in my throat.
It was a mess, with all those leather-bound, mostly unread, books scattered and torn. Leather bindings were snapped; precious volumes lay heaped, pages fluttering. It broke my heart.
But I was at once relieved of another, more pressing, worry. No one, it seemed, not the robber and not the police, had discovered the hidden liquor closet.
I went back out to the hallway and stashed my books on an occasional table. “What happened?” I asked Chester, who tracked the mess of activity with one eye while covering the other with the ice pack.
“I surprised him,” Chester said, and lowered his hand so I could see the ugly black-and-yellow bruise forming around his eye. I winced and sucked in air in sympathy. He replaced the ice and went on. “I came in while he was making a mess of the library. But I didn’t get a good look at him. He connected his massive fist with my face and took off down the service stairs before I recovered.”
I knew that the apartment was empty late at night, if none of the family were at home. In the evenings the servants went back to their own rooms.
“Do you know what he wanted?” I thought I knew, but I wanted to hear from Chester.
He shook his head. “Ow. Got to remember not to move like that. No, I haven’t a clue, because as far as I could tell, he was empty-handed. Which is why he could give me such a perfect shiner.”
I let go another breath.
The plainclothes officer rounded up his crew, who came out of my room carrying, I assumed, at least some of my clothing, stuffed inside my pillowcases. “Sorry about your things, miss. We’ll return them as soon as we can.” He turned to my uncle. “I’ll put a couple of men on the street for a few days, Mr. Cates. I hate to think what would’ve happened if one of the ladies had surprised the thief.”
Aunt Mary gave a small cry, and Melody put her arm around her mother’s shoulder.
The plainclothes man coughed and lowered his voice. “You know, of course, that no other activity can go on while we investigate.” Which I took to mean that my uncle would be unable to bring in any liquor for his private stores.
Uncle Bert nodded, staring at the floor.
When the police were gone, the rest of us stood in the foyer in silence, until Melody spoke up.
“Jo will sleep in my room with me. My bed is plenty big. Jo, I have lots of other clothes, and we’ll go shopping straightaway tomorrow.” She looked at her parents, from one to the other. “Mother, Daddy, it’s only things. Just things. No one was hurt. Well, Chester. But he’ll be fine in a day or two. And the papers will call him a hero, so he should have plenty of sweet little flappers vying for his phone number.”
Melody impressed me, her strength and determination. But as I looked at her parents, I could see what thought had crossed their minds. Neither my aunt nor my uncle would look at me. I’d brought trouble to my own parents. And now I was bringing my trouble into their house, into their lives, into their family.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
“Oh, no, dear, you aren’t,” said my aunt in an unconvincing fashion.
“It’s time we got some sleep,” Melody went on, her tone even more firm. “We can talk about this in the morning.”
We parted ways for the night—Aunt Mary gave Chester salve and a fresh bag of ice—in a barrage of awkward hugs.
Once I was alone with Melody even her facade slipped. “I’m exhausted. There’s a clean set of pajamas in the top drawer. Night.” And she lay down with her back to me, an eye mask covering her face, and slept.
I lay in the dark forever. This was an entirely new level of threat. It was one thing for me to leave my home—Pops had chased me out ahead of the storm—and for it then to be destroyed. That was a narrow miss, but still a miss, since no one was hurt. But this was something else. Connor was not just threatening me, he was hurting my family, even my extended family.
I made a decision, lying there, listening to the night sounds of New York—the cars honking, the brakes, the low rumble of movement, always movement, for that was New York, the city that moves endlessly.
I had to leave my aunt and uncle’s place. It was too dangerous for them for me to stay. I had no idea where I’d end up. I’d have to figure out a plan first. But there was no doubt in my mind. I had to leave, before someone I loved did get really hurt. Or worse.
It took three days before I was alone again in the apartment and could get to the journal. I still hadn’t figured out where I’d go once I’d retrieved it, but I’d leave as soon as I could. The tension in the apartment had been growing steadily.
And in those three days, I had more time to think through the whole mess. I realized that if Louie had found the journal in my room while I was showering, she would have made off with it there and then. Why wait? And how would she have alerted Connor about the journal while I had been with her all evening? The look on hers and Charlie’s faces when we found out about the robbery told the tale. They hadn’t known what was going to happen.
I’d misjudged Lou. And Charlie. Especially Charlie. I’d been so sure I was right in the moment. But now I hoped I’d been wrong.
“Melody,” I ventured the second evening after the break-in, when she seemed to be in a better-than-usual mood, “how can I get in touch with Louie?”
Melody was thumbing through a magazine as we sat together in the living room; according to the police, the library was still off limits, although it had been cleaned. She didn’t look up at me. “Just call Danny Connor.”
“What if I don’t want Mr. Connor to know?”
Melody shut the magazine and stared at me. “I’m sorry?”
“I don’t want him to know I’m looking for her.”
Melody watched me, her eyes narrowing but unfocused; I had the feeling she was trying to assess me, or my purpose. “Doll, what’s going on?”
I opened my eyes wide in an attempt to play innocent. “I just want to reach her, that’s all.”
“Right. And I’m the Queen of Sheba. Look. It was your room they searched, not mine. Not Chester’s. And your house they torched. So maybe you could enlighten me a little here as to why you want to avoid Daniel Connor. Or, at least, indulge me with a great lie.”
I’d grown fond of Melody. She might be a flapper, she might have her touchy moments, but she was all right—honest, kind, and generous. She’d given me a whole new wardrobe in the blink of an eye, some from her own closet and some from a short shopping spree, and never complained while we were having to share quarters. She was smart—and even better, she was wise.
“I can’t tell you everything. Mainly”—and I decided to be honest here—“because I’m not sure about it all yet. I want to apologize to Louie, that’s all.”
“Apologize! Why?”
“I thought she was a weasel.”
At that, Melody burst out laughing. “Louise O’Keefe, a weasel?”
I shrugged. My center had slipped. How could I have misjudged Lou?
She stopped laughing and said, “Honey, honestly, I don’t know. Connor is possessive. He knows where she is and who she talks to every darn minute. You might have to wait until we can catch her alone, shopping or checking up on her brother or something. Let me think about how we can manage it.”
I knew I could go back to the Algonquin…but the t
hought of going through Charlie, for some reason, made my heart beat hard. Probably because I’d thought he was a weasel, too, and I knew I couldn’t have been more wrong. And possibly because, as Lou had assessed quite rightly, I was, as far as Charlie was concerned, smitten.
A day later, in the afternoon, everyone had left for their appointments, figuring at last that I could be trusted to be alone in the apartment.
The library had been cleaned; what books and small things remained were back on their shelves. The broken knickknacks had not yet been replaced, so the room had the air of a public space. The library had been the only warm and cozy place in the apartment, and now it, too, was impersonal.
But the secret liquor closet remained unsearched and undiscovered by the police, although it was still well used by my rattled uncle every evening. I pushed on the sidewall and then slid the panel aside; the smoothly built contraption opened like magic.
I reached deep behind a couple of cases of champagne that sat on the floor of the closet. I felt around with my fingers until I finally touched wool. Then I breathed a sigh of relief—it was still as I’d left it. I pulled out my old dark brown sweater, the one I’d wrapped tightly around my scarf with Teddy’s treasures inside.
I slipped into my old room—bare and clean now, but still private—to read Teddy’s journal, picking up where I’d left off.
August 16, 1921
He’s involved, I know he is. Paddy’s a rotten egg.
I made friends with a guy over there, Aldo Giaconni. He had the best sense of humor. Between his accent and his jokes, he kept me going more than a few times. He wanted to be a chef, and talked about his grandmother’s cooking in a way that made my mouth water. We spent a lot of time together.
Until he caught the dysentery. Lots of guys died retching and crapping all over the place. I hated that it happened to Aldo, that even his dream and sense of humor couldn’t beat back the grim reaper.