Sirens

by Janet Fox

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “Now I’ve got to read some more of Teddy’s journal. Find out what he was trying to hide. See if there’s something in there about Connor.”

  “Would you consider having dinner at my place first?”

  My face burned a hot pink. “At your place? At your apartment?”

  “I swear, Jo.” He raised his hands. “I’ll bring you right back here. Eating there is a lot cheaper than going out. And I like to cook. And it might be one of the last times, you know, before I take off for Chicago.”

  My heart slowed down, way down, as I thought about Charlie leaving.

  Charlie and I took the bus downtown. From a vendor on his block we bought roast chicken and vegetables and cheese and bread and apples—and a cheap bottle of bootleg wine the guy slipped out in a brown wrapper from behind the bottom door of his cart. Charlie’s apartment was a couple of rooms in a tenement on Christopher Street, with a kitchen tucked in one corner of the larger room.

  Charlie was tidier than I’d imagined, especially since I was an unexpected guest. There were a few dirty dishes in the sink, and he ran into the back room to yank some laundry from his makeshift line and throw the coverlet up over the bed. But the floor was swept and the icebox was clean.

  I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room as Charlie bustled around me, tucking things in place and talking a mile a minute about how the apartment was nice and quiet and the landlady pleasant and the rent so cheap he could squirrel money away for the day when he could move to a bigger place uptown. Assuming he stayed in New York. He started in on the vegetables, scrubbing and chopping and setting them to roast in the oven.

  “Shoot,” he said. “Forgot something. Can you watch the vegetables for a few minutes? I’ll be right back.”

  He left, and I was alone. I took off my gloves and hat and placed them on a small table close to the door. I moved to the window. Charlie’s apartment was on the third story, and it was in the front, so I had a decent view up and down the street. I shifted the sash up high enough so that I could lean out on my forearms into the warm June evening. It seemed as if all of New York congregated below. Organ grinders; movable vending stalls piled with fruits and meats and dry goods; kids running into the street after hoops and balls; couples strolling; mothers dragging children; cars, wagons, honking, shouting; the stench of humanity, of horse sweat, of dung, of rot, of fragrant cooking…

  New York was alive. Or maybe I should say, this part of New York was truly alive. Lights flicked on in the windows of an apartment down the street. Someone shouted from a fire escape to my left at a person hanging laundry from a fire escape across the street. The tenements here stretched five stories up, and for several blocks all I could see was life going on and on and on.

  Above the street hung a sky of evening blue, that thick, deepening blue that pressed like a soft weight, that spoke of the promise and threat of night. I sucked in the air, dirty and rich.

  I’d never known this side of New York. Teddy had never shown me anything like this. My aunt and uncle and cousins lived a rarified, sheltered, and sterile life. I’d been shielded by a comfortable home. Now here I was, in the grit and grime of lower Manhattan and I felt, I felt…I felt I’d come home. I closed my eyes and listened, just listened.

  Children and music, shouts and whistles, the clatter of pots, the sound of water running through the pipes, the flap, flap of the hanging laundry.

  Then a click behind me, and I turned as Charlie stepped in. I made to close the window, but he stopped me.

  “No,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I like the air.”

  I smiled and then saw that Charlie had bought fresh flowers. Yellow coreopsis, white daisies, blue larkspur.

  He held them up, a bit sheepish. “Some lady who’d driven a truck in from the Island grew them in her yard. They looked, I mean, it seemed to me that it’s kind of a special occasion. You know.” He turned such a deep red I thought he might faint.

  I took them from him. “Do you have something we can put them in? Like a glass?”

  He went to the cabinet and produced a drinking glass. “Will this do?”

  “Perfect.” I smiled, and we set to having dinner, and for the moment I forgot about Teddy and the growing mystery and my worries. Instead, I concentrated on how much Charlie was growing on me, first as a friend, and now, I hoped, something more.

  It was around nine when Charlie dropped me back at my hotel, on his way to his nighttime gig. The narrow-eyed matron reminded me about curfew, but I assured her I was in for the night. In, and ready to read more from Teddy’s journal. I pulled the easy chair close to the table with its soft-glowing lamp, next to the open window.

  November 3, 1921

  I about strangled Patrick today. I can’t believe he’d get Danny mixed up in that business. What with everything else we’ve got going, what does he think? Danny just blew it off—his kid brother, being stupid—but I can see what’ll happen if Paddy gets caught. We’ll all land in prison, and Danny and me with a noose around our necks.

  November 20

  Paddy’s hanging around, down at the speak. Boys have seen him. He’s real hot under the collar, ready to come for me, but I don’t care. I don’t like this whole business.

  Let him come.

  January 10, 1922

  Danny has a real sweet girl. Louise O’Keefe. The only thing is, she’s pretty young. She acts all mature, but I can tell. She’s not much older than Josie.

  Paddy hits on her. I’ve stepped in, but it’s only a matter of time. That idea makes me sick. More than once I’ve almost said something to Danny, but held my tongue.

  February 3

  At least Danny’s treating Louise right, near as I can tell. And she seems happy. She seems to really care about Danny. Maybe she’s good for him. Charlie, her kid brother, he’s enrolled in school. Danny supports them both.

  Sometimes I do think Danny’s okay.

  April 12

  I can’t believe it. Paddy’s telling everyone when he’s too drunk to keep his mouth shut. If it’s true, I’d like to kill the guy myself. Right from the get-go I knew he was bad news. I can’t believe Danny knows, or he’d have done something. God forbid he should ever find out.

  And Aunt Mary and Uncle Bert can’t find out, either. Never.

  What’s next? I’m worried that Danny will…

  And there, again, a gap. I made a fist, pounded my leg. Honestly! Pulled-out pages, just like before. I wanted to scream. If only I’d seen the gap sooner. Another wild-goose chase, another wait until I could find out what Teddy had hidden.

  I turned back and forth, looking for the hint. It had to be there, somewhere.

  I found it about two pages further on, buried on the bottom of a page that tallied expenses for the month of May. Small cramped handwriting in a different ink:

  That last visit to the Met. That statue.

  The message was for me, but like the first one it was a puzzle. What secrets could the statue hold? Teddy must have truly felt threatened to make this such a problem for me. And it was only for me—no one else would have been able to decipher the clues the same way I would. I took a deep breath and thought it through.

  That last visit to the Met—to see the Winslow Homer paintings once again. To talk about the ocean, the cool grays and blues of Homer’s scenes, sitting on the marble bench. Teddy seemed so distant and sad. As we left the museum his walk was a shuffle like that of an old and broken man. My heart was broken, too. I still felt it, such sadness, and when he paused in the last gallery before the statue, so different from the Homer.

  That statue. So different. I sat upright. I had to take another look at the statue in person, and discover what clue it held. More pages, like the Sherlock Holmes? I could only hope.

  CHAPTER 39

  Lou

  By the time I got home Danny was fit to be tied.

  “Where have you been?”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t ready to give him an inc
h. I was all suspicious about what he wanted from Jo, so I wasn’t going to play nice. “I took a little walk on the beach.”

  “Beach? We have a beach right here. I told Sam to bring you straight home.”

  “This isn’t the ocean, Danny. This is the Sound. I wanted to hear the waves.” I had my back to him as I removed my gloves and hat. “Did you miss me that much?” I turned around.

  He was chewing his lip. “Sometimes, Louise, you try my patience.”

  He was in a funny mood. Dark, like he’d seen a ghost or something. It reminded me of how he looked after Paddy took the fall. That insecurity he buried deep inside that he almost never let on about. His sadness made me feel bad. Maybe I’d misjudged him about Jo. I put my hand on his cheek and his stormy eyes met mine. I said, “I’m sorry, honey. There’s something about the waves, you know?”

  He hesitated just for a beat. “All right, Louise.” Then he kissed my fingers and turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER 40

  JUNE 7, 1925

  Taking everything into consideration, the most interesting things I have learned about people are their love of mystery…and, most strikingly of all, the wish to believe the supernatural, especially in some evidence of life after death.

  —Howard Thurston, My Life of Magic, 1929

  Jo

  The next morning I headed uptown to reach the Metropolitan Museum as soon as the doors opened. A long line formed at the museum entrance, and it was all I could do not to barrel through the crowd. Once inside, I had to restrain myself from running up the broad marble stairs to the first gallery on the right.

  The Egyptian prince was still there.

  It stood in an alcove, lit from above, looking exactly as it had looked over a year earlier. He was worn almost featureless by weather, yet the proud prince still stepped out with his right foot, held a staff in a firm grip in his right fist, and fixed his eyes on some distant point way above my head and way back in time.

  Teddy had stopped there on our way out, mesmerized. And said, “Look at that, Jo. Will you just look at that.”

  “What, Teddy?” I had been confused. “Look at what?”

  “Why, he’s the spitting image…” and he’d stopped. Looked down at me. Had a twinkle in his eye for the first time in months. “He’s the spitting image of Uncle Bert.”

  I’d looked back at the Egyptian prince, said, “Um…”

  And Teddy had laughed. So I had, too, because it was so good to laugh with him.

  “Nah, just pulling your leg. But Aunt Mary must think so.” I was even more confused by that comment. Clearly, the memory stuck. Mainly because Teddy had been happy, something I hadn’t seen in so long.

  Now I stood looking up at Mentuhotep II, who looked nothing like my round-bellied uncle. I glanced over my shoulder; the only guard was looking away, watching a group of noisy schoolkids. I drew closer. A rope guide draped around the base. If pages were hidden, they were out of sight. I’d have to slip under if I was to search behind the striding prince. Maybe he’d slid them between the wall and the prince.

  I took a chance and moved fast. A two-inch gap between the statue’s base and the wall revealed…nothing. And then, “Hey!”

  The guard was at my side in an instant.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, using my best high school French to feign an accent. “I dropped my guidebook.” I pointed down behind Mentuhotep.

  He narrowed his eyes, but when he bent to look behind the statue, I ran.

  “Hey, now!” he yelled after me, but I pushed through the school crowd, ducking, and plowed down the marble staircase and out into the summer sunlight.

  And then, bending double to catch my breath in front of the Met, it came to me, why Teddy had stopped before the prince.

  I walked as fast as my legs could carry me back down Park Avenue and stood sweating in the shade of a building across the avenue from my aunt and uncle’s apartment.

  Ed was there, rocking on his heels, moving to the door when someone went in or out. I watched him for about half an hour before I screwed up my courage, then crossed the street just as a cab pulled to the curb and Ed went to grab the door handle. I slipped behind him into the lobby and found Joey sucking on his cheek and staring at the ceiling.

  “Joey?”

  He looked like he’d been caught red-handed in a theft.

  I folded a whole dollar into his palm, which burned his cheeks crimson. “Is anyone in the apartment?”

  “Just the help, miss.”

  “Take me up?”

  “Yes, miss. Right away, miss.”

  When we reached the foyer, I turned to Joey, bending almost to one knee. “I’ll only be a minute. You wait for me, okay?”

  He looked at me, then at the crumpled bill still in his palm, likely the biggest tip he’d ever had. “I’ll be here, miss. Right here.”

  I could hear noises from the kitchen, but since Ed hadn’t called up on the intercom, neither Malcolm nor Adela made an appearance.

  I slipped down the hall and into the library, shutting the door softly behind me. There it was, the miniature prince. The statue was an exact replica of the one in the Met, standing on a high shelf, from where it had survived the break-in. I must have glanced at it a hundred times, and I’d never made the connection, despite its being the only old-looking thing in the apartment. I had to pull a chair over to take it down from its lofty spot.

  It was hollow, made of some kind of clay. I peered into the hole in the bottom.

  The pages were wadded deep inside, so there was no help for it. I smacked the prince against the brick back of the fireplace, scattering the broken fragments all over the hearth. I hoped it was not too valuable a replica, but I had no time to worry over it. I opened the door; Joey was hissing.

  “Miss! Miss!”

  I ran down the hall clutching Teddy’s missing pages.

  “Someone’s buzzing me from the lobby!”

  “I’ll take the servant’s stairs, then.”

  He nodded, wide-eyed, and I made for the service door, thinking that by breaking the statue I wasn’t much better than whoever had ransacked the apartment and given poor Chester his shiner.

  The servants’ entrance opened into the back of the lobby, hidden by artfully placed palms. I opened the door a crack. Ed stood outside on the sidewalk with his hands clasped behind his back. Joey was letting Melody into the elevator.

  I felt terrible. Melody was my friend, but I couldn’t risk being trapped. And I was afraid she’d realize that something was different with me, now that I knew her secret. I waited until the door clanged shut behind her and the elevator groaned up.

  And Ed. I couldn’t get him into trouble. I waited until he went to whistle down a taxi before I slipped out through the big doors and made my way along the sidewalk, my face hidden beneath my tightly pulled cloche.

  It was about noon when I finally got back to my hotel room. I barely had my hat and gloves off before I collapsed with Teddy’s bunched-up pages and began to read.

  June 22, 1923

  I’m so angry I can’t stand it. I actually quit today, but Danny wouldn’t hear of it. Said he’d never forgive me, and then gave me that look that says, You’d better listen. But he still excuses Patrick, that moron. I don’t care if they’re brothers; Paddy’s a lying bum.

  June 25

  The investigation is thick around us. Even Connor sees it’s better to slow down on all activity for a time. Just lay low. Draw no attention.

  June 27

  The reward is $20,000. That’s a lot of dough. Pops would sure be delighted. He could quit the business, buy a big house, heck, he and Ma could move into the city, into a swanky place near Uncle Bert and Aunt Mary.

  All I have to do is be a snitch.

  I’ve already cheated once. Why not? Patrick deserves it.

  July 10

  I destroyed all the evidence. It still ticks me off that it was here, all this time. It’s been years. What if they’d found it?

 
; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found it earlier. He’d buried it but good, and I was too busy to notice something underfoot in the greenhouse. Only because I had to rebuild the tables did I make the discovery, the wooden crates. They were stamped, dated: summer 1920. I knew.

  It made me feel ill, the whole business, the people who died, and for what? He didn’t get to any of the powerful men, just the everyday workingman and workingwoman, and John Rushton’s brother. And I heard there were a couple of other young runners in the crowd, just kids. What’s the point? Didn’t we go to war for this?

  Just death, for no good reason. I couldn’t believe Patrick could be such a fool. I was too upset even to tell Danny, and then I figured maybe that was wise. Why mix him up in the problem at this point?

  I carted the stuff—the boxes of fuses and explosives—in the wheelbarrow down to the Sound and disposed of it. Probably took me eight trips. I thought I’d sink the boat with the weight before I could get out deep enough. And had to do it on a moonless night so no one saw. Took most of the night. I’m exhausted but can’t sleep.