An Orphan of Hell's Kitchen

by Liz Freeland

  Thinking of actresses reminded me of someone else. “Have you seen Anna lately? I told Muldoon she hasn’t been here for the past two days and he blew his stack. I think he believes she’s been kidnapped. Has she been by today?”

  Callie’s eyes flashed. “Of course not. Even she wouldn’t have the gall to show her face here now.”

  I shook my head in confusion. “What’s happened?”

  Callie frowned at how uninformed I was. “She stole my movie. They decided to turn the scenario into a vehicle for Anna—my scenario. Alfred told me I wasn’t needed for the rest of the week. That’s five dollars a day I’m not getting, thanks to your houseguest.”

  “My houseguest?” I repeated.

  “You invited her here.”

  “You were the one who took her under your wing,” I pointed out.

  “I thought she was your friend. Some friend!” She shook her head. “I really regret the day you brought her into our lives.”

  First I’d had to deal with Muldoon’s blaming me for Anna’s disappearance, and now I was getting blamed for Anna’s ever being here at all. I felt like a whale being harpooned on both sides. “I didn’t tell you to make her your protégée.”

  “Go ahead,” Callie said. “Blame me for my own misfortune.” A tear streaked down her face.

  “I’m not blaming you, but you certainly can’t point the finger at me when you’re the one who promoted her on the set.”

  Callie lifted a handkerchief to her eyes. “Honestly, Louise, if you’re going to turn on me like this, I might as well become a nurse.”

  “You go woozy at the sight of blood,” I reminded her. “How would you hold up on a battlefield?”

  “See?” She shot to her feet. “What kind of friend are you? You don’t even support me in my decisions.”

  She ran to her room and shut her door firmly. I collapsed back in my chair. Below, a single saxophone was moaning out a new song in their repertoire called “Saint Louis Blues.” I was coming down with a case of the blues myself. First Muldoon attacked Callie and I stood up for her. Now Callie blamed me for the Muldoons. The feeling that the world had gone topsy-turvy settled over me.

  Thank heavens tomorrow was my day off in the rotation. I needed to rest and clear my head.

  My brain wasn’t ready to relax, though. I thought about what Myrtle had said about women mistrusting themselves. I’d had my suspicions about Anna, and look how that had turned out. I should have trusted in myself more.

  Was I right about Jenks, too?

  Or what about that blue-eyed man in Ziggy’s line? He seemed worth another look, if I could find him. Luckily, Ziggy had handed me a big fat hint about where I could bump into him again.

  That quickly, my day off got kicked to the curb. The world might be spinning out of control, but I at least had one thing I knew I could do, even if I had to pursue it on my own: find out what really happened to Ruthie Jones.

  CHAPTER 17

  I tried not to feel self-conscious as I stood in the back of Ziggy’s line, hoping Blue Eyes would return. Maybe it was a long shot, but Ziggy had said the man was a regular. Pretending to wait for someone, I let a steady stream of people cut ahead of me. When I turned to extend the same offer to another newcomer, it turned out to be Blue Eyes himself, absorbed in a copy of the German paper Ziggy had shown me a few weeks ago. TRAVESTIE IN ARGENTINIEN! blazed across the top of the page. The article detailed the rout the Germans had received in the Falkland Islands at the hands of the British Navy. Bold print highlighted the disaster for the Germans: 1800 casualties, and only one ship had escaped unscathed.

  “Schrecklich,” I said. Terrible.

  Annoyed, the man looked up, then did a double take when he realized I’d just spoken in his native tongue. “Deutsche?”

  The thrill an angler must experience at that first tug on the line zipped through me. “Nicht ganz.” Not quite. “I was born in Pennsylvania, but my father was from Bavaria.”

  “He taught you well, that is obvious.”

  “I’m not fluent. My parents were, but they’re both dead now.”

  The hard planes of his face softened a fraction. “I’m sorry. That is unfortunate for you.”

  “I never considered myself unfortunate—at least not till I came here.” I shrugged. “I’ll just have to make my own way.” Remembering the man’s companion complaining of having to do everything himself, I looked down at the newspaper he held and asked, “Are there any employment ads in there, by any chance?”

  “It is a paper of ideas.” His brow furrowed, then he offered the paper to me. “You should take it to practice your German.”

  “Thanks—danke, I mean.” I accepted the propaganda rag from him. “You’ve given me an idea. Maybe I could find someone who could use a not-quite-fluent-in-German secretary.”

  “You are a secretary?”

  “I graduated third in my class at secretarial college.”

  He seemed sincerely interested. Maybe he’s like Gerald, I warned myself. A lonely foreigner in New York City. This man didn’t seem lonely, though. He exuded a vitality and focus that made me suspect he didn’t spend much time hankering after things he couldn’t get. Especially women. But one thing I’d learned about men: Their vanity was almost as strong a force as the libido. I kept an admiring, grateful gaze on him.

  When we reached the front of the line, Ziggy took in the German and me arriving together. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t reveal that I’d been asking about this man on my previous visit.

  “This is good,” Ziggy said. “My two favorite customers. Es war Schicksal.”

  At this mention of fate, the German did not look amused. “The young lady was reading my newspaper.”

  “She is full of curiosity.” Ziggy winked at me. He didn’t even ask what we wanted, but went about putting our lunches together.

  “I hoped I might find a job,” I said. “Any ideas would be welcome.”

  Ziggy regarded me with compassion. “I did not know. If only I could help, but I regret I have only one sausage wagon, and one worker—me!” He roared at his own little—very little—joke.

  I expected the German to hurry away from me as soon as our food was handed over to us. Instead, he stuck with me and even paid for my lunch despite my protests. “Don’t speak of it,” he said when I thanked him profusely. “It is the least I can do for a nicht ganz German. My name is Holger Neumann. I am a businessman.”

  He led me toward an unoccupied bench near the post office. I would have rather gone into the relatively warm train station, but maybe it would be easier to talk here. We sat on the cold seat within view of Ziggy’s cart. He nodded toward it. “That man is too familiar,” he said.

  “Ziggy? He’s harmless.”

  “I do not like to see a countryman act like a buffoon. Especially not in these times.”

  Here we go. The war. I took a breath. “Much as it pains me to contradict the gentleman who bought my lunch, I must. When the papers are full of such terrible things about our people, don’t you think it’s important for Germans now to put forward a friendly demeanor? Otherwise, it would be easy for everyone to assume we’re all bloodthirsty, bayonet-wielding monsters.”

  His eyes narrowed on me. “That is a point I had not considered. Very shrewd. You are right. Ziggy is a clown, but in circuses clowns serve a useful function, to entertain and distract.”

  I sputtered out a laugh. “Distract? I don’t see why Germans would need a distraction here. It’s not as if they’re doing much in New York. Just watching our ships going to rust in port.”

  My use of “our ships” wasn’t lost on Neumann. Chewing, he contemplated my face so long I worried I’d blush. I tried to concentrate on my food, bolting down my sandwich as if I hadn’t eaten in a while.

  “Why did you come to New York, fräulein?”

  “Same as most people—for work. I have a friend who’s had some luck here, and she invited me to stay with her. But she’s an actress and I . . .” I
wrinkled my nose. “That sort of thing doesn’t interest me.”

  “Very sensible.”

  “Hard to take make-believe seriously when the world’s gone mad. I wish there was something I could do to be useful.” I remembered Callie’s lament last night. “If only I’d trained as a nurse, not as a secretary. Maybe I could go to Europe and help.”

  “Help the war effort, for the Germans?”

  I glanced around. The only person nearby was a man leaning against a light pole, eating his lunch as we were. He was one of the men I’d let move ahead of me in line. “I wouldn’t talk about my preferences too loudly around here, Herr Neumann. I haven’t been in New York City for long, but already people have accused me of being pro-German.”

  His face tensed in indignation. “As if that is a bad thing.”

  “I don’t think it’s bad. But you know public opinion. It’s the papers. They just take the one side.”

  His jaw tightened. “Yes, the British cut Germany’s transatlantic cable. Now the news that reaches this country first is all from the English.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

  “You are a good girl, Fräulein . . .”

  “Frobisher,” I blurted out. “Leisl Frobisher. I’ve been thinking of changing it to Lisa, though. Just while I’m searching for a job, you understand.”

  His face creased in disgust. “I understand too well.”

  “A lot of people here change their names to sound more American.”

  “More English, you mean.” He sighed. “I don’t blame you for being a realist. But Leisl is a beautiful name. You should keep it.”

  I smiled at him. “You don’t know how it’s helped my morale to talk to someone like you. It’s given me a little hope that there’s good in this city.”

  “It is you who has given me hope,” he said. “I would like to help you more.”

  I leaned toward him eagerly. “You mean with a job? Do you know of a position?”

  “I might.”

  “That’s wonderful! I’d be so grateful for anything.”

  He recoiled instinctively from my enthusiasm, but I don’t think he was entirely displeased. “Where may I reach you?” he asked.

  The phone was always the sticking point. “The building where I’m staying doesn’t have a telephone,” I said, biting my lip. “But if you could tell me where to go—”

  “Never mind.” He muttered something to himself in German. “Nutze den Tag.”

  “Carpe diem?” I translated uncertainly.

  He nodded, stood, and took my hand so I would follow suit. “I will seize this day to do a good deed for—what is the expression?— a damsel in distress. And for myself, as well. I do have a job that needs doing, Fräulein Frobisher, and you are just the person to help.”

  He led me to a side street, where a car and a hulking driver in a black suit and cap awaited him. Ziggy’s attracted everyone, rich and poor, but I was surprised by this man’s having wealth enough for a car and chauffeur. When the driver opened the back door, all sorts of grisly ideas caromed through my mind. Where was I being taken? One thing about working for the police, it filled the imagination with all sorts of unsavory scenarios. All I had to do was think of poor Ruthie.

  But even as these worries cropped up, so did a little excitement. I didn’t have a very clear idea of my objective in accepting his offer, but it was a chance I couldn’t let pass. I had to seize the day, as well. In terms of working covertly, it was almost a Cinderella moment, and Holger Neumann’s Dodge touring car was the gilded coach taking me to meet my destiny.

  I was so pleased with myself, in fact, that I was oblivious to being watched. I was a slow learner.

  “Das Auge,” Holger told his driver.

  The car lurched into traffic, cutting off a bread wagon.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To 335 East Eighty-Sixth Street.”

  Eighty-Sixth Street? That was farther than I’d expected. Despite my jangling nerves, I made myself smile. “We’re very much alike, aren’t we? Willing to travel across town from where we live for Ziggy’s.”

  “Where I am taking you is not where I live,” he said. “I am not that kind of man.”

  “Oh, I never thought—”

  “We are going to the offices of the paper I showed you. Das Auge is a financial investment of mine.”

  “You mean I get to work on a real newspaper? Just like Nellie Bly.”

  “You will work for a man called Johann. But you will really work for me. Verstehst du?”

  Did I understand? It took me a moment to catch on. “You want me to spy for you?”

  “I want you to keep your eyes open, Fräulein Frobisher.”

  In other words, I would be spying for the man I was spying on. “If we’re going to be confederates, you should call me Leisl.”

  The corners of his lips tucked down. “The man you will be working under, Johann Schmidt, is a very sloppy man. I want to ensure he is sloppy, but honest. You will keep a log of everyone who goes in and out of the office, and what passes between them. The paper is a very expensive concern, and has grown more expensive of late. Do you see?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have no problem with this . . . how would you say it?”

  I said it in the language he understood best. “Duplizität.” Duplicity. If only he knew how little trouble I was going to have with it. “I don’t mind, as long as it’s for a worthy cause.”

  “We both want the best. To oppose the lies being spread in English newspapers so that the world will be peaceful again.”

  “Don’t worry,” I promised. “I’ll tell you everything I see and hear.”

  He gave my thigh a quick, pleased pat with his gloved hand—from anyone else it might have seemed fresh, but from him it bore all the intimacy of a man giving praise to his spaniel. “Good girl,” he said. “You will meet me the morning after tomorrow. Eight thirty, where Ziggy’s cart is.”

  “Ziggy’s not there at eight thirty, is he?”

  “No. It is not a social engagement. You will simply tell me what you have observed.”

  The car turned sharply and then stopped in front of a hydrant on Eighty-Sixth between First and Second Avenues. We were in Yorkville, one of the most heavily German areas in Manhattan now, after the German population, the most prosperous of immigrants, started abandoning Kleindeutschland on the poorer Lower East Side. The many four- and five-story buildings along the busy street were well kept, the sidewalks clean. There was an air of middle-class prosperity, with a very distinct German flair. Nearby businesses bore names like Muller’s Shoes, Schneider’s Bakery, and Lange’s Hofbräuhaus. Number 335 was one of the brownstones that must have been the bread and butter of New York City architects. I looked up at five stories of the plain-fronted edifice. “Here?”

  Neumann took my arm. There was little about the building to draw attention, besides a simple black-and-white stenciling of Das Auge on the plate glass of the door. Inside, we walked down a narrow hallway to another door. Neumann held it open for me.

  A man I assumed was Johann—he was the only person there—hopped up from a squeaky chair and hurried forward, glancing at me repeatedly as he greeted Neumann. I recognized him right away as the stout man Neumann had been speaking to at Ziggy’s when I was there with Otto. My nerves spiked. If I had seen him, he might have seen me.

  “Allow me to introduce Leisl Frobisher,” Holger said. “Just like you, she is an American but also German by blood and eager to help.” He turned to me, and that smile of his made me realize I preferred his usual dour expression. There was something unnatural about that flash of white teeth across his face. Like seeing a lizard break into a grin.

  Johann, on the other hand, smiled and laughed as easily as he breathed. Glue a white beard on him and put him in a red velvet hat and suit and he could have stood in as a store-window Santa Claus. His big paws clapped over the hand I held out to him. “A friend of Holger’s is a friend of
mine.”

  “But not too good a friend, Johann,” Neumann warned. “She is here to work, not for romance.”

  “Ha! Never fear. I’ve never been lucky with the ladies, except of course the ones who own bakeries.” He rubbed his protruding belly, which itself was covered by a wrinkled shirt with what appeared to be mustard stains, and laughed.

  Neumann was impatient with his nonsense. “Perhaps you should show Fräulein Frobisher where she will do her work.”

  “Of course, Herr Neumann, of course.”

  Johann led me to a small desk piled high with papers—whole newspapers, clippings, stacks of receipts, carbons, open correspondence that had all been tossed into unruly mounds on the desk, even onto the old chair whose dried leather upholstery was crazed with cracks. The platen of a tall old fossil of a German typewriter poked above the mess. As far as I could tell, Johann and I were the only ones working here, but there were two other desks in similar states of disorder. If this had been my first day of a real job, I would have been tempted to turn tail and run.

  Only one corner of the long room remained uncluttered and that was the far back wall where a contraption that looked a little like a steam roller that had been torn apart and ineptly put back together stood. This, I gathered, was a press. And a table next to it was lined with narrow drawers. It, too, was conspicuously neat.

  The walls of the long, low-ceilinged room were covered with various prints of German scenes, two framed copies of Das Auge, one announcing the declaration of war, the other—I assumed the first issue—proclaiming itself to be Truthful news for Germans in our city. A tear-off calendar with a woman in braids holding a stein of Geyer’s beer hung not far from a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm and his odd Viking-boat mustache. A mismatch of wood and metal file cabinets lined one wall.

  It’s only for an afternoon. Two days at most. If I felt it was worth coming back tomorrow, I could send word to the station house that I was ill. Was it madness to risk getting caught malingering and losing my job—which, whatever its faults, I had taken pains to secure—in order to spy on the producers of a foreign language newspaper that reached a few hundred gullible readers? Perhaps the death of Ruthie Jones had sent my judgment off the rails.