Sundance

by David Fuller

  Longbaugh showed no emotion. “Find your own way to Hell, Hightower.”

  “Hah! You sound just like her.”

  Longbaugh blinked in the sun.

  “You’re feeling it, aren’t you, tourist?”

  “What?”

  “You can’t help but get that feeling in the den, all that smoke.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Longbaugh looked across the street and was surprised to see Han Fei leaning against a banister. For a moment he wondered if Han Fei was an opium-induced illusion. He let his eyes move past, pretending he hadn’t seen him so that Hightower wouldn’t be alerted.

  “Okay, tourist, you’re doing fine.”

  “Enough of this. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir, good time to sleep it off. I, however, will corrupt myself with an imbibe-able.”

  “Don’t be sore, even your friends need a little time away from you.”

  “Are you my friend, tourist?” Hightower displayed a sarcastic grin.

  “Without a doubt.”

  Longbaugh walked away from Hightower, then glanced back to see that he was still going in the opposite direction. Longbaugh continued on, half a block, but Hightower seemed unconcerned with his actions, now disappearing around a corner. He took the chance and came back to Han Fei.

  “I think I found her,” said Han Fei.

  “Thanks, but we were just talking to her.”

  “Your wife. I think maybe I found her.”

  12

  They were better than halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge before Han Fei turned to scan the expanse behind them. He stepped up on an empty bench to get a better look. A white woman tsked at the Chinese boy taking liberties on her bridge, but Longbaugh met her eye with a cold stare and, startled, she scurried along, whispering to her companion.

  Longbaugh kept his eyes looking ahead, toward Brooklyn. “See him?”

  “No.”

  “Hard to miss on foot.”

  “It’s why we walk,” said Han Fei with the certainty of a mother or a schoolmistress.

  “Unless he saw us walking and took the train and he’s riding with his feet up.” Another train to Brooklyn ran by close, flapping the fabric of Longbaugh’s trousers. He tried to see faces in the passing windows, but that was impossible from this angle. Longbaugh thought, He’s waiting on the other side.

  Longbaugh was worried. Despite Hightower’s having said he was off to get a drink, Longbaugh knew he had to be somewhere nearby, he had to have come back to follow him, and Longbaugh didn’t like that he still couldn’t locate him. How could he know when to lose him if he couldn’t find him in the first place?

  He was in a hurry to get to her, but agreed when Han Fei advised caution. Any recklessness at this point could expose her. If she was there now, she’d be there in an hour, or a day, or a week. Now that he had a location, her safety was the priority.

  He tried to distract his mind, looking at the bridge around him, a structure of mature beauty. Fencing in the center footpath and creating a kind of steel intimacy was a row of vertical cables running up to connect with the thick main cable that curved its way to the full height of the bridge’s towers. The vertical cables kept pedestrians from walking into rushing trains as tracks ran close on both sides. On the outside of the tracks were cable cars, and beyond those, private vehicles.

  They were closer to Brooklyn than Manhattan, and crossing the East River freed them of the smoke that grimed both banks. The briny air scrubbed any residual opium smoke trapped in his nose.

  Han Fei broke in on his thoughts. “You talk to him like you trust him.”

  Longbaugh was sorry to hear his jealousy. “Han Fei, I wouldn’t trust him to resist a bad oyster. But he knows things I need to know.”

  “Like?”

  He decided it best not to answer.

  The pleasure in his surroundings retreated with Han Fei’s discomfort. His thoughts returned to her, the colors of the world receding, having been overly vivid with Han Fei’s news and opium-fueled hope. Better to tamp down expectations, as he had been willfully ignoring the warning voices inside his head. Han Fei may have believed he had located her, but he had not seen her, and would not have known her if he had. Longbaugh also thought about the circumstance of her living as a recluse. That suggested something else might be wrong. Perhaps she was in a desperate emotional state and wanted no one to find her, not even her husband.

  Han Fei had discovered her through a rumor about a woman who had shuttered herself in a rented room for months. Impoverished squatters dared not leave a condemned building even for water or food, as their spot would immediately be taken, but cloistered behavior was unheard of for immigrants. Immigrants struggled to improve their situations, and the moment they had saved enough to move to a better neighborhood, they were gone. Han Fei had investigated and found the rumor true, but went to find Longbaugh only after he learned she had communicated by a basket attached to a clothesline and signed her notes with the letter E.

  Longbaugh was wise to himself; he knew he had every reason to want to believe it was his wife, but even with that prejudice in mind, when he put the pieces together, it all made independent sense. Etta was afraid of Moretti, so she had chosen a place to hide that was outside of Moretti’s territory. In case the Black Hand somehow got lucky, she had stayed off the streets so as not to show her face. And then there was the use of the letter E. It was not only the first letter in her name. She knew Longbaugh would be tracking her, and she knew along the way that Longbaugh would have learned that Queenie’s sister used the letter Q when referring to her. He would have put the two together. Q and E. Here was the sort of clue worthy of her—subtle yet specific.

  He looked back again for Hightower, combing the bridge with his eyes. If Hightower were to learn of her location, he would go to Moretti, and Etta would find herself knee-deep in Black Hands. The bridge bristled with pedestrians, it would not take a Pinkerton to keep up with them. Nevertheless, the sizable Hightower would have stood out. Longbaugh later realized he had been so focused on the one man that he had neglected to look for anyone else.

  “You were after that Queenie.”

  “That’s so.”

  “Why not come to me?”

  “Not sure where to find you.”

  “No, you were testing me. See if I could find you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your friend’s looking, too.”

  “Siringo? For Queenie?”

  “No, cowboy, for you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Watching the boardinghouse. Asking about your wife.”

  They reached the Brooklyn terminal and split up to search for Hightower. They met back at the entrance and expanded to the street, scrutinizing carriages and motorcars, circling them, looking underneath, then peering in automobile windows. They split again, circled to probe shadows, side streets, doorways, alleys, then returned to reconnect. The more they looked and did not find him, the more Longbaugh’s concentration faded. He was ready to see her.

  “Take me there.”

  “Cowboy. A smart man could still be watching us. Maybe we missed him. Maybe we look again. And this E, maybe she’s your wife. Or maybe not. Maybe you shouldn’t be so sure.”

  “You’re right. I completely understand your hesitation. Now take me there.”

  Han Fei gave in.

  They hailed a cab and Han Fei directed the driver. Longbaugh was glad that the man drove as if he was insane, swerving, stop-starting, speeding up only to suddenly brake, playing chicken with pedestrians and trolleys. He decided that anyone who might be following them was likely to lose them.

  Han Fei had the cab stop a few blocks from their destination, and they walked the rest of the way. Her street was delirious with traffic, as trolleys came from everywhere. Longbaugh and Han Fei stepped forwar
d, sideways, adjusted, slowed, and rushed. Longbaugh looked at the crosshatched streetcar tracks embedded in the cobblestones and wondered how the trolleys avoided creating metal monuments at every intersection.

  Longbaugh noted yet another in a series of advertisements.

  “That’s the twelfth sign I’ve seen for base ball.”

  “Brooklyn Robins.” He shook his head. “Forget them. You want base ball? Come back to Manhattan. We’ll go see my Highlanders . . . only . . .”

  Longbaugh was amused. “Only?”

  “Only they changed their name.” He was very unhappy. “To the Yankees. What kind of name is that?”

  Han Fei stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “We’re here.” Longbaugh looked around. Han Fei pointed to a corner building that was very like every other building. “Up there. Second floor. See the corner? Count four windows in.”

  Dozens, no, scores, of clotheslines crisscrossed above the street, waving the neighborhood flags, drying laundry hanging in a random palette of colors, shapes, and sizes, creating a sky so full of flutter that it was difficult to pick out that particular window, and then to see that a clothesline ran from this side directly to the window and all the way inside. The curtains were drawn, so no one could see in.

  “We going up?”

  “Talk to the woman who helps her. Make friends.”

  Han Fei led him upstairs to the woman’s door on the second floor across from E’s place. Longbaugh knocked. No answer. They went back out to the sidewalk to wait.

  They wandered among the dozens of carts, and Longbaugh was again impressed by what could be sold on the street, from vegetables to rugs to medicinal tonics to sheet music. Within half an hour, Han Fei elbowed Longbaugh to point out a woman in a yellow dress heading their way. The woman was round and soft, and slow and deliberate, carrying heavy shopping bags. The yellow dress made her look like a stuffed canary.

  “Introduce me.”

  Han Fei shrugged. “I don’t know her.”

  Longbaugh was surprised. “You don’t know her? You put all this together from watching the street?”

  “It’s your wife, you talk to her.”

  Longbaugh was not prepared. He tried to think on his feet as she approached, but too much was at stake. His mind went blank. She waddled close to them and was about to pass by when Han Fei made a high-pitched noise of anxiety in the back of his throat. Longbaugh stepped forward.

  “Ahh, excuse me, ma’am.”

  The woman stopped, turned. “Ma’am? Ain’t heard ma’am in a coon’s age.”

  “Didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “Ma’am ain’t rude.” She set down her shopping bags and rubbed her forearms. “That ain’t your Chink, is it?” she said accusingly.

  “Not mine in the sense that he—”

  “Don’t know this yutz,” said Han Fei, moving off theatrically. But he slipped back to stand behind her where she couldn’t see him.

  “Do something for you?” said the woman.

  “The name’s . . .” and he hesitated. Should he be Longbaugh, Alonzo, Place, or someone else? He often made that decision on the spot, when cornered by the law. But here something more was at stake. He had to anticipate the name Etta was using. If he got it wrong and later tried to explain that he was her husband, it would sound like a scam. “Name’s Harry.”

  “Well, Mr. Harry, you can call me Phyllis. Or ma’am.” She laughed at her own joke.

  He decided to be direct. If she was protecting the second floor shut-in, he’d find another way.

  “You’re the neighborhood Samaritan.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Yes you are, helping a woman in need.” He pointed at the window across the street.

  Han Fei angled his head skeptically. Maybe too direct? Longbaugh stared over his head to ignore him.

  “I try to do what any decent God-fearing woman would do.” She looked him up and down. “Now, I know you ain’t the landlord. And you sure ain’t no real estate tycoon.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “What kinda trouble she in?”

  “No trouble. Don’t even know her name.”

  “Then I would be confused.”

  “Looking for a missing woman. I heard your friend doesn’t come out.”

  “Been a couple months now. No. More. And you still ain’t said who you are.”

  “Harry.”

  She shook her head condescendingly and waited. Han Fei looked away, to avoid watching him topple in failure.

  “I was asked to find a friend of the family,” said Longbaugh. “She’s lost, and when I heard about your shut-in, I thought it might be her.”

  “I don’t think this one’s lost. Could be a little haywire.”

  “Hiding?”

  “Life gets mean for some folks. Different folks handle it different. Not for me to judge.” Phyllis looked at the shopping bags at her feet, ready to move along. Han Fei made an urgent nod to get on with it.

  “She have a name?”

  “Signs her notes with the letter E.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  Phyllis shrugged a noncommittal yes. “She looks like people.”

  “How old?”

  “Thirties.”

  “You know what the E is for?”

  “Ethel, I think. Unless it’s Evelyn. Not Eleanor, she don’t look like no Eleanor. Could be Elizabeth.”

  “Not Etta?”

  “That’s a funny name.”

  The name Etta would have been too specific, particularly if she was actively hiding. Phyllis had initially said Ethel, which was Etta’s real name. He moved on. “How does it work?”

  “When she needs something she sends a note in the basket, with money in the envelope. I ain’t no charity, after all. Mostly she waits till the laundry’s dry, but not always. Then I got to take it all down and send her things over.” She was not happy about the extra work. “And if you ask me, she could use a new envelope, this one’s thin as an old pillowcase.” She shrugged. “I wish she didn’t want cans, my arms get sore. I ain’t so young as I used to be. Probably should charge for delivery.” She frowned as she thought her words didn’t sound quite right. “Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Harry, I’m an honest woman, I don’t take no advantage, although I could, Lord knows, she never offers for my trouble. But I say to myself, Phyllis, I say, it’s hard enough already being her. There but for the grace of God.”

  “How do you get the cans to her?”

  “In the basket, like I said.”

  “Not to her door?”

  “Did once, but she got mad and wouldn’t open it.”

  “So you’ve spoken to her.”

  “Sure, and she said use the basket.”

  “You have one of her notes?”

  Phyllis patted a dress pocket. She drew out a flimsy envelope. Inside was a folded scrap of paper.

  “From this morning.”

  The handwriting was raw, nervous, more scratch than penmanship. But a few cursive letters could have been made by Etta’s hand. It was two years since her last letter, and any number of things may have affected it—injury, alcohol, madness. Or she might have disguised it intentionally.

  He looked to see the things in the shopping bags on the sidewalk. “Any of this hers?”

  “Most of it. Sending it over soon’s I get upstairs.”

  “I’d like to add a note.” Han Fei nodded, and Longbaugh was glad for his sanction.

  “Can’t see why I shouldn’t let you, Mr. Harry. You seem a nice, polite fellow. Can’t promise she’ll respond.”

  “If she is who I think she is, she will.”

  “If it ain’t, here’s hoping you didn’t come too far.”

  Phyllis loaned him a pencil and he turned over E’s note to write on the blank side.

 
“Ask her if maybe she wants to start doing some of her own shopping,” said Phyllis with a sniff.

  Longbaugh considered the words he might use. His eyes ran to the second-floor window. Curtains shifted with the breeze and he thought he saw someone. He looked at the blank paper. It was important to get it right. Then he knew it wasn’t. If Etta was there, any words would do.

  He wrote:

  E.

  It’s Harry. I’m here.

  He folded it and offered it to Phyllis. She nodded for him to follow, looked directly at the shopping bags on the sidewalk, and left them there. Longbaugh stifled his amusement and carried the bags after her. He nodded at Han Fei to see if he would join them. Han Fei shook his head with an emphatic no. The bigoted Samaritan would never allow him to cross her threshold.

  Longbaugh followed Phyllis up the stairs, rebalancing the shopping bags as she searched for her key at the door. He blinked at the time it took her to find the key, then get the key into the lock, then get the door open. He followed her into her kitchen. Phyllis took her own sweet time sorting fruit and vegetables from cans. He looked out Phyllis’s window, hoping to see past the curtain into E’s rooms. Laundry hung from her clothesline, and he had to keep moving his head, as the wind moved the drying clothes and blocked his view. This time he saw that, among other garments hanging over the street, there were shirtwaists drying on the lines. He looked back to watch Phyllis arrange the cans in the basket to balance the weight. He watched her rearrange the cans. He bit his tongue. Finally she was done and he added his note, then covered everything with a napkin and tucked it around the cans. Then it was time to pull in her laundry and take it off the line. There were only a few things, but he saw that some were large, intimate items. He did not offer to help. She leaned out the window and pulled off the wooden clothespins, and he was grateful that she piled her things without folding them. She tied the basket to the clothesline and he stepped up and pulled on the rope loop to send the basket over the busy street to her window.