by David Fuller
With her direct and sober tone and the way she gripped his hands, he was aware of his heart beating.
She anticipated his next question. “And, no, Mr. Longbaugh, what we do here is no more dangerous than what people on the streets face every day.”
He took his hands back and said something safe. “This is a . . . a good place.”
“I saw a need.”
“How did you get started?”
“Rather by accident. I was a wide-eyed nurse, and a desperate boy saw me on the street in my new outfit with my new medical bag and begged for help. I often say it was my first day, as I’ve learned to start an audience off with a good story, but in truth,” she shrugged, “I no longer remember. He dragged me by the hand to his sick mother in her bed. I realized that the tenement was where I was needed. So I moved into the neighborhood.”
“As simple as that.”
“Well, I insisted on a decent toilet facility. But yes. As simple as that.”
“I was good with horses,” he said with humility, unable to compete.
“And Etta was good with the girls.” She had missed his stab at humor. “We encourage young women to stay in school, further their education before job hunting, and,” she gestured to the playground, “to experience play.”
“What is it you need to tell me.” It was not a question.
“Etta met the older sister.”
“And that’s why she disappeared.”
“I imagine it had something to do with her leaving. In my experience, there is a thin line between helping others and getting too involved. I’m not sure even I understand where it needs to be drawn. You cannot save everyone.” She shrugged. “This from the woman who every day tries to save the world.” She sighed. “We all have our blind spots, Mr. Longbaugh, and we get caught up in things we would be wise to let alone.”
He again heard the warning in her words.
“Did this older sister have a name?”
She hesitated and he saw a twinkle creep into her eyes. “Queenie Collette.”
Longbaugh smiled.
“Yes, that’s what I thought, too. I don’t know her real name, but she was the girlfriend of an Italian gentleman, the one I expected to see when I heard a man was here asking for Etta.”
He remembered an earlier conversation with Abigail. “Italian.”
“It is said he is Black Hand.”
He shook his head, not comprehending.
“Black Hand, il Mano Nera. Italian gangsters, although some newspapers say it’s not officially a gang. They draw a small black hand in the corner of blackmail letters, then bomb homes or businesses if they don’t get what they want. They prey on other Italians, doctors, bakers, the honest men.”
“Is he around?”
“Joe? Yes, I see him occasionally.”
“Joe what?”
“Isn’t it odd. In politics, I remember everyone’s name, and his I’ve forgotten. It starts with an M, I believe. Miss Collette is also still out on the streets, despite Etta’s efforts to salvage her. She no longer commands the interest she once did, either on the street or in the heart of her Joe. Our poor deposed Queenie. She is now something of an old worn glove, despite being shy of the age of thirty.”
• • •
QUEENIE COLLETTE’S younger sister, Mary Smithson, a mature-looking fifteen-year-old, came from her classroom into the hallway. Lillian Wald held the door and watched Mary walk with an erect posture that was a shade too perfect. He found it impressive, but thought it might have been learned in a classroom. He glanced at Lillian and believed Mary’s walk was meant to please the great lady. He knew then that with Lillian present he would never hear the truth from Mary. These girls loved their situation and they loved Lillian Wald and would not want to disappoint her.
He needed to speak with Mary alone, and that would never happen. A grown man was not to have a private conversation with a young woman learning to be proper, not without damage to her reputation.
He asked questions to which he knew the answers. He asked about Joe, but Mary knew little about him. He glanced at Lillian. She understood that her presence was deterring Mary, but she did not excuse herself. The safety of the children was paramount. He asked a few more questions, then thanked Mary when he heard the others coming out of the classrooms.
He and Lillian shared a few more pleasantries, and he said good-bye. She invited him back anytime, and while he appreciated her sincerity, he knew she had given all she could and would not return to the situation unless new information surfaced. Life had taught her not to put her energy into a lost cause.
He stopped on the sidewalk of Henry Street. He looked up and down as if he was looking for Queenie Collette and the mysterious Joe. But he knew they would not be so easily found, and the city remained as locked to him as the gates of the penitentiary. To blunder through neighborhoods while learning the rules was a fool’s game. He needed a guide.
The sun came out then and made the street bright, and he squinted. A girl who was perhaps eight years old walked directly toward him and looked him impolitely in the face.
“Come with me,” she said. She turned and, without looking back, led him across the street to the alley in the middle of the block. One of those odd life coincidences. Just as he had thought of needing a guide, this child had appeared. He missed his gun at that moment, but despite her authority, he reminded himself he was following a curly-headed eight-year-old girl.
Mary Smithson waited in the alley, deliberately out of sight of the main door of the Settlement. The eight-year-old bounded back across the street and took a position on the far side, to serve as Mary’s lookout. He had a fleeting memory of his days on the outlaw trail.
“Don’t got a lotta time,” said Mary, showing nerves.
“Thank you for talking to me.”
Her words came in a rush and were nothing like her proper indoor speech. “Could be my sister knows where Etta is, but Q takes off, sometimes for days, ya know? Got troubles, booze, and . . . whatever else she finds makes her feel good.”
“Your sister. Queenie.”
Mary nodded. “Q to me, though I gave her the name, my big sister the queen.”
“You sound different than inside.”
Her chin dropped to her chest. She looked up, a little ashamed. Some of the indoor polish returned to her words. “They taught me how to speak, but it sounds funny outside. I love it in there, I do. They’re all so kind. But the girls are reading Pollyanna, and, nothing against it, but some of them want to start a Glad Club.”
“And that’s not for you.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“It’s not real. You started on the streets.”
“How’d you know?”
“Not so hard to read.”
“The others girls come from bad lives, too, but, well, Glad Clubs?”
“I’m willing to bet it’s too cheerful for Lillian, too.”
“When I was growing up, girls with my look got started young and made good money. Men go for the sweet, pretty ones, and I thought I was the thing. But Q knew better. She protected me, ya know? She did. At the time I thought she was jealous, ’cause Joe, Giuseppe, talked so pretty to me, real romantic. I was sure he liked me better than her.”
“Giuseppe . . . ?”
“Giuseppe Moretti. But she knew his pitch was hooey, he didn’t want me, he wanted to sell me to other men. But the way he talked, so sincere, ya know? And he was handsome, and had nice clothes, and respect.” She looked tensely around the corner to the Settlement front door. “Not sure why I’m saying all this.”
Longbaugh knew why. In the Settlement, she was the clean and good Mary, and glad for it. But she never got the chance to tell her story.
“Q met Etta ’cause of me, so Q talked about her sometimes,” said Mary.
Longbaugh’s heart q
uickened to hear his wife’s name brought into Queenie’s streets. This time he glanced at the eight-year-old to know if someone was coming. The eight-year-old did not look his way.
“By the way, you should know, Etta’s why I’m here. Someone I look up to.” Mary took a step deeper into shadow and spoke both quietly and urgently. “Etta tried to help Q , got her to a place Joe couldn’t find, which made Joe crazy nuts. Etta was smart, saw Q was good with fabric and knew to keep her busy, so she got her in the needle trade.”
“Needle trade?”
“Garment factory job—this was early ’11, right after New Year’s. Etta took her over to one of those places, talked ’em into giving Q a job.” Mary’s expression changed then, as if a memory stepped in and she couldn’t drag her inner eye away from it. “Etta thought having real work would keep Q away from Joe. It was a good idea, mister, really. Then Joe came after Etta. Called her names, wanted to know where Q was hiding. Etta stood up to him, I mean, she was something. After Joe went away, Etta figured Q was free of him, like for good. I mean, Q’d made her a promise. Seriously, mister, how was she to know what Q would do? Then, when it happened, well, everybody was pretty shocked. Joe was sort of the only person in the city who seemed glad about it, like he thought the whole thing happened just to give him this moral, I don’t know, advantage or something.”
Longbaugh was confused. “Moral advantage?”
Mary looked to the street and her expression changed. He turned and the eight-year-old was signaling.
“I got to go!”
“But—what happened?”
“The Triangle fire, mister,” said Mary, and she ran.
• • •
LONGBAUGH walked away from Henry Street as if propelled by Mary’s anxiety. He did not want to disappoint Lillian Wald by being caught talking to one of her charges. After a number of blocks he slowed. Every new thing he had learned about Etta’s life unnerved him. He had missed it all, her growth of spirit and empathy, those early steps of change that gave her the courage to take risks on behalf of people Longbaugh would not have offered the time of day. A streetwalker. A gangster. Etta was intelligent and curious, but he hadn’t really meant for her to go on living while he was away. He had expected to come out and find her the same, frozen in time until he could reappear to reclaim her. Instead, she not only had lived but embarked on a dangerous journey. But the part that wounded him was that so much of it had gone unmentioned in her letters. She had done all these things and had kept the bulk of them from him. He walked the streets, crossing easily, already unconsciously in step with the rhythm of traffic and city life. He struggled to reconcile the woman he had married with this courageous, obstinate person who had risked herself for a wasted soul. He was now that much more anxious to find her, to protect her and learn who she had become. Mary’s words boiled in his mind. He had not gotten the whole story, but that did not slow him from trying to piece it together from the scraps provided.
He walked quickly, unaware of his surroundings, so deep in his thoughts that he turned a corner to find himself in the midst of a parade of women, accidentally in step with their tramping feet, beside him, ahead of him, close behind him, scores of protesters marching in militaristic unison. Silent, determined, some carrying placards, all of them walking with fevered purpose. Their collective silence was as much a surprise as the fact of being among them. The percussive tramping spurred him forward and he fell into formation. Learning about Etta had made him uneasy, restless, incautious, and he was glad to be propelled into this sudden adventure, although as with Etta’s journey, he had no sense of its purpose. He saw intensity in the eyes of the women around him, a severe set to their mouths, the dedicated way they leaned forward, as if mentally armored against anything that might dive in at them. The one to his left smiled, the one to his right nodded, and he was welcomed as a brother. He sensed their fear, but other than the sound of their feet, it was their ominous quiet that roused him.
Half a block ahead, the marchers in front rounded a corner, entering a world of noise just out of sight. Those around him did not falter at the sound but drove up the pace, rushing to the clash, chins forward as the corner beckoned, each step nearer, tramp tramp tramp, placards angled into the wind, tramp tramp tramp tramp, those just ahead turning, and then he too was around the corner, caught in the noise and confusion as the silent protesters now opened their mouths and roared. Words collided, placards thrust skyward—“strike,” “unfair,” “working conditions,” “white-goods workers”—as if passion and emphasis could change minds and hearts. From somewhere came the word “triangle,” and his head turned, slowing, surprised when others pressed him from behind, elbows in his back, signboards banging his jaw, toes flattening the backs of his shoes. He was caught in the crush and he was exhilarated.
He cocked his head to try to see the objective between the thicket of fists and signs, and gradually he was shoved close enough to the targeted building where police in high helmets stood around the steps, although they didn’t appear eager to defend the entry. The woman beside him yelled, “Triangle!” and another yelled, “They didn’t die in vain!” Whatever “triangle” meant, these women were somehow a part of it. Their zeal was in contrast to the inactive police. The idea of police as bystanders perplexed him. But he gradually realized that others were doing their work for them. Prostitutes in garish outfits confronted gray marchers, yelling tooth to tooth, jaw to ear, with painted lips and heavy furs, their faces twisted in outrage, red mouths in wide screech as if to devour protesters’ heads. The prostitutes were backed by grinning gangsters in overcoats, soft hats, and thick shoes, and he understood: The white-goods company had hired the gangsters to bring their hookers to do the dirty work. A prostitute rained fists on a protester while the police did nothing. In the absence of repercussion, the gangsters and hookers were bold, shoving into the crowd, cutting them into small groups and attacking. The marchers backed up and regrouped, then pressed forward again. Hookers swung purses at signs and faces, irritated that the marchers didn’t stay beaten. He caught movement over his head, looked to an upper floor as a window was pushed closed, cold white faces looking down, framed behind glass.
And there she was in the crowd, thirty feet away, her profile visible for an instant, a glimpse that made his heart leap.
He moved toward her, blocked by shoving bodies, running bodies, fighting bodies, every few seconds seeing the back of her head, calling her name into the noise, leaning to his right and seeing her again, moving for her, pushing aside a hooker who had lifted her skirt to offend a striker. He followed and she turned and it was not her, someone else and not Etta, disappointed now, but the idea was planted. He couldn’t stop looking, scanning every face until the faces merged and he no longer was sure what she looked like.
A protester near him went to a knee. He reached for her hand and was shoved from behind. He kept his balance, broadened his shoulders to create space and got her to her feet. Two smirking prostitutes smelled vulnerability and charged, then saw him and switched to another target. Their smirks had changed too quickly to fury, confirming the sham performance. This was paid street theater. He wanted to gather the protesters, tell them to hire their own goons and hookers. He felt the fury of the cause viscerally without having enough knowledge to understand it.
One prostitute grabbed a protester from behind and pinned her arms to her side as a second prostitute slapped her across the face. The lady protester boiled, jerked loose, and went at the slapper. The slapper pushed her to the ground. A policeman rushed in. Marchers backed up, inadvertently clearing space for the cop, and Longbaugh was left alone in the open, as he did not know how to back down. The cop came like an avalanche, nightstick cresting behind his ear, hungry to crunch the bone and meat of the protester’s head. Longbaugh timed it, a step and he was in the policeman’s path, his right hand rising to catch the cop’s forearm in midswing and holding it there. They froze, his eyes dril
ling into the cop’s rage, and he said simply, “Now you have a choice.” The cop’s anger wilted to confusion and he twisted to break free. The protester crab-walked backward on her palms and heels, belly and thighs splayed to the sky. The nightstick dropped from the cop’s grip and Longbaugh caught it with his other hand. He set the cop free and watched him back up and run. He handed the nightstick to a protester who looked at it as if she’d been given a magic wand. Longbaugh sidled back into the crush to become no one again.
But the woman he had protected did not take her eyes off him. She found her feet and followed, grabbing for his sleeve. “Thank you, sir, a thousand times thank you.”
Longbaugh backed away. “Forget it.”
She came on. “Who are you? Tell me your name.”
“I . . . better go.”
“I thought he would kill me.”
Nodding his head toward the cop. “Better stay out of his way.”
She turned to where he had nodded, her cop gathering more cops, pointing toward Longbaugh. Police interaction was a bad idea, considering his history. If arrested, they might find out who he was. He seized the moment to slip away. Blocked by others, he saw her turn to find him gone. She grabbed at the closest protesters, asking if they’d seen him.
He moved out of the crowd and hid in a brownstone doorway. The pattern replayed itself, gangsters pointing prostitutes at protesters, prostitutes charging in, protesters fighting back, cops moving in to arrest only the protesters, dragging them bleeding into the backs of wagons on a side street.
He left the demonstration behind, the sound of the clash losing strength as the distance increased, echoing faintly through alleys and gradually growing so faint that the hum of battle meshed into the sounds of the city and was gone.
6
Talk to me about ‘Triangle.’”
He had caught her off guard, coming in from out back, where she had stowed broom and dustpan. The sun caught her hair from behind and he was blinded by the halo, her face in shadow, eyes unreadable.
