An Orphan of Hell's Kitchen

by Liz Freeland

  Was it too much to hope that she would read my expression silently begging her to move on without acknowledging me?

  “As I live and breathe—Louise!”

  “I’m not—”

  Anna was already turning to her escort, a man in a dark suit, with rakishly long hair parted down the middle and a thin mustache. I was fairly certain this was the much-talked-of Alfred Sheldrake, formerly Callie’s favorite director. “Alfie, look—it’s Louise Faulk, Callie’s roommate. You know, the police lady.”

  Alfred said a polite how-do-you-do.

  So much for hoping I could bluff my way out of this with denials. I was caught left-footed, and Anna was too sure, too loud, for me to convincingly contradict her. How could I possibly salvage this situation? I could feel Holger’s gaze burning into me, suspicious, blue eyes darkening with suppressed anger.

  Anna must have noticed him, too. “Who’s your handsome friend, Louise? Don’t worry. I won’t tell Frank.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper as she explained to the men, “Louise and my brother are undeclared sweethearts.”

  I stood so abruptly that my chair scraped the wood plank floor with a shriek that turned heads. “Thank goodness you’re here, Anna. I desperately need your help with something.” I took hold of her arm. “A girl matter,” I explained to the men. “You’ll excuse us, won’t you?”

  Holger half rose, while Alfred and the bewildered maître d’ watched me whisk Anna away. When we’d first entered the restaurant, I’d noticed a sign pointing to the ladies facilities up a staircase off the foyer. I led Anna in that direction. The second floor was probably where the horse groom had once lived, and my guess was that it hadn’t improved much since then. The restroom turned out to be a rather primitive chamber with a smallish window, a dripping sink, and no attendant, yet the privacy suited me at the moment. I pulled Anna in after me.

  “Really, Louise, I can wait outside. Alfie will—”

  “Forget him.”

  She looked aghast at the idea. “He’s an important director.”

  “He’s a married director, with three children. Callie says he’s notorious, and if you have the sense God gave a pill bug, you won’t lay the foundation of your career on an illicit flirtation.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t going to thank me for the warning. “Are you worried I’ll say something to Frank about seeing you with—” She nodded as if Holger would be just outside the door. God, I hope not. But there was no reason he wouldn’t be. He had to know by now that he should have listened to more of exactly what Johann had to say about me.

  I took Anna’s hands in mine and gave them a hard squeeze. “I want you to tell Frank. Better yet, tell Frank’s superior at Centre Street. You know where that is?”

  She frowned. “I’ve been there once.”

  “Good.” Hurriedly, I reached into my satchel and pulled out a pad and pencil. With a shaky, hurried hand, I scrawled a note to Captain Percival Smith. I told him I’d discovered Ruthie’s murderer and the houseboat where the forgery operation was likely taking place. I gave the name of this restaurant, and where they could find Johann. I emphasized sending help with the utmost urgency, as I had been discovered.

  I folded the note and gave it to Anna. “Put this on your person, and deliver it to Captain Percival Smith at Centre Street Headquarters. If Smith is not there, hunt down your brother and explain that I was on a clandestine mission and have been found out. Most of all, the first policeman you see, send him here.”

  As I spoke, Anna’s face became more and more perplexed. “Found out by whom?”

  “Never mind. Just tell him. Captain Smith and the Secret Service need to know there’s a houseboat called the Silver Swan moored off the pier near East Seventy-Ninth that has something to do with what they wanted me to find out. Most of all, tell them that Holger knows who I am.”

  “Of course he does. He’s your date.”

  I shook my head. “Tell it back to me. What are you going to do?”

  She clucked her tongue. “Alfred promised me an evening on the town. Do you know how hard we’ve been working?”

  “Never mind that. This is life and death.”

  “Whose death?”

  “Maybe mine.”

  “Then shouldn’t you find this Captain Smith?”

  For someone who’d just been told she had my life in her hands, she didn’t inspire confidence.

  “I’ll try, believe me. But if we’re both looking, there will be a better chance of at least one of us having success. Promise me. Find a policeman, then deliver the note.”

  She took in a deep breath and let it out as if exhaling were a form of hard labor. “I promise.”

  “Thank you.” I hurried over to the small window and yanked at the sash. It stuck at first, then flew open. Cold, sour-smelling air blew in. I glanced around, then beckoned her. “Time to go.”

  She dug in her heels, aghast. “You expect me to crawl out a window?”

  “If you’re seen leaving, it will raise suspicions.”

  “But—”

  “We are dealing with men who have killed at least one woman, Anna. Believe me, you don’t want them following you.”

  Her mouth closed, and she hurried forward. “All right. But I hope if I do this, you’ll help me explain to Frank that having an actress for a sister isn’t the end of the world.”

  “I’ve already made a start.”

  She smiled. “Have you? He never said!”

  She looked ready to settle in for a long talk about her career prospects, so I reached into my bag and pulled out several dollar coins. “Take these and hire a taxicab. Speed is absolutely essential.”

  Grumbling, she took the coins, folded them in the note, and hid them in her bodice. She poked her head out the window.

  “How do I get down?”

  “Climb out and swing over to the fire escape. It’s just a couple of feet away.”

  “I was my school’s girl physical culture champion, but that was in seventh grade,” she said. Nevertheless, she gamely hiked up her skirt and scooted out onto the sill. Her nose wrinkled. “What is that ghastly smell?”

  It was full dark outside, but I recognized the odor. “The kitchen must have a back door below this, where they keep the garbage cans. Good incentive not to fall.”

  “So is the fact that I want to remain in one piece.”

  I smiled. “Good luck.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “What actresses do when they’ve forgotten their script. I’m going to extemporize.”

  She looked doubtful, but then turned her attention to the task at hand. She scooted over to the right, as close to the fire escape as she could get, reached her right hand over and grabbed the railing, then swung her right foot over.

  “I wish I hadn’t checked my coat,” she said, shivering. Then, in a display of acrobatics that gave proof to her boast about being a physical culture champion, she swung the left side of her body onto the fire escape and scrambled over the railing. She waved that all was well, and then hurried to lower the metal ladder and climb down it. Throughout this, she was a blur in the darkness, until I heard her heels hit the ground below. A clang and a high shriek went up.

  “What was that?” I called down in a loud whisper.

  “I think I scared a mouse,” she said in disgust.

  More likely a rat. I didn’t tell her that, though. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, but I’m not so sure about this dress. I hope Callie doesn’t want it back.”

  “You need to hurry,” I reminded her. “Godspeed!”

  I could just make out her arms flapping in a final wave, and then her footsteps retreated down the alley.

  I straightened. Now what? Should I attempt to sneak out, too? Or should I return to the table and announce to Holger that I knew all?

  An unnecessary announcement, if the look on his face when Anna had given me away was any indication.

  Slowly, I lowered the
sash. Someone needed to keep their eye on Holger’s whereabouts. Otherwise he might slip away. If I played my cards right, I could keep him occupied long enough for Anna to get a policeman to me. I could arrest Holger on suspicion of murder right away, of course. But aside from a badge, I had nothing to back up my words. If a man had gone to extremely devious means to kill Ruthie, I doubted he would acquiesce quietly to an arrest by a lone, unarmed policewoman.

  I washed my hands, and checked my face in the chipped mirror, willing a determined expression to replace my look of uncertainty. Then I unhooked the latch and swung open the door. I went down the short corridor and turned into the stairwell.

  Holger waited for me on the top step. “Abandoning your escort at the table is bad manners,” he said.

  “I’m coming back to you now.”

  “Where is your friend?”

  I forced a laugh. “Where do you think? The rest room is small—a one-at-a-time affair.” When he studied me skeptically, I said, “Shall we go? I’m looking forward to my dinner.”

  His lips thinned. “Sadly, it will have to be postponed. I will take you home.”

  Not if I could help it. I wasn’t getting into a car with him again. I needed to be back in the restaurant, among the diners, so when I told him he was under arrest, he would be trapped in plain view of scores of witnesses.

  “Must you?” I asked. “I really am hungry.”

  He sighed. “The only thing, you really are, fräulein, is a liar.” He nodded over my shoulder, and a shadow bore down on me.

  I’d forgotten about the driver. I barely had a chance to wonder at how a large man had hidden himself behind me when he whirled me around like a rag doll and slapped a hand over my mouth. Bite him, I thought. But with the first breath I took, a sickly smell hit my nostrils, and a strange sense of disembodiment settled over me. That sweet, noxious, vaguely familiar smell was the last thing I remembered for some time.

  CHAPTER 22

  Salt. A hint of oil. Sharp fish odor. Nausea rose in my throat as I lay on a hard surface, my eyes squeezed shut. Part of me didn’t want to know what had happened. I felt so queasy, the whole world seemed to be undulating. I had no memory of anything after being on a staircase.

  Sounds. The clump of footsteps in heavy boots.

  “Was ist falsch?” a voice I recognized demanded. What is the matter? It was Holger. He continued, in German, “Why aren’t we moving?”

  “A problem with the motor,” replied another voice in the same tongue, gruffer than Holger’s. “She’s been resting for a while.”

  “Well, she cannot rest now. Do something.”

  Who was the she they were referring to? Was it me?

  “I warned you about that one,” said the other man, his voice brimming with resentment. It was the Skipper, my foggy brain realized.

  “Just do as I say,” Holger told him.

  More footsteps, even heavier now. They led away . . . and up some stairs? When they grew distant enough, I opened my eyes.

  I lay on a scratchy blanket over hard wood, in a low-ceilinged cabin. The room was dank, cold, and dim, lit only by two oil lamps. I was against the wall, opposite a door that was more like a hatch accessed by three rough pine steps. I knew exactly where I was: in the belly of the Silver Swan. That undulating wasn’t nausea, it was waves. The fishy odor emanated from the dried salt cod lying on a nearby metal table bolted to the floor. The smell turned my stomach. I sat up, holding my breath.

  Gripping a shelf above me, I pulled myself to standing. I wobbled, amazed I could stay upright. I felt numb, as limbs might after you’d sat in one position for too long. But this was my whole body. My brain worked slowly, too—there was a hesitation between my seeing something and my understanding what I was looking at. A typewriter sat on a wood table. Next to it lay a shallow box full of documents. I stumbled toward it, holding on to furniture and the wall as I went.

  The documents were passports. Dozens of them.

  Steps came toward me again, and I fumbled backward, hitting the wall. The Skipper came through the hatch faster than I’d anticipated.

  “She’s awake,” he called out, eyeing me as if I were some type of wild animal.

  Holger appeared, and I had to fight the urge to cringe. He was wearing his overcoat and hat. How long had it been since he’d caught me in the stairwell of The Coach House? Both men were bundled in coats, hats, and gloves. I particularly envied the Skipper’s oilskin slicker. The cold and damp penetrated my pores. I’d left my coat behind.

  “Told you we should have tied her up,” the Skipper said.

  “Where is she going to go?” Holger eyed me closely, and I felt myself trying not to weave. “She is still drugged.”

  Drugged. Yes. That explained the numbness. But my mind was churning back to life, and it didn’t like the way all the pieces of the puzzle were finally fitting together. The passports. The sweet-smelling drug. I’d noticed the same smell at Ruthie’s when I’d picked up the basin to bathe Eddie in. It must have been a remnant of whatever had been used to knock her out. Perhaps a cloth holding ether had sat in that basin—or a handkerchief bearing the initials HN.

  I tried not to picture what had happened to Ruthie, or to imagine what might happen to me now. Panic wouldn’t help me.

  “I am Officer Louise Faulk of the New York Police Department,” I said. “If you’re smart, you’ll put me ashore this moment.”

  “That would be rather inconvenient,” Holger replied dismissively. He turned to the Skipper, nodding at the box of documents. “Take those and put them somewhere secure.”

  “I saw the passports,” I piped up. “What will you do with them?”

  “Do not worry yourself about those. You should really lie down, fräulein. You appear unwell.”

  I looked around at the place where I’d slept. A blanket had been strewn across several crates. Canned goods, mostly, although block letters across one read DYNAMITE. That word caused a pressure on my chest. “I suppose you’ll tell me not to worry about a box of dynamite, too.”

  “It’s all for the cause,” he said.

  “What are you planning on blowing up?”

  “That has yet to be determined.”

  Good God. “And the government thinks your worst sin is forging documents,” I told him. “It was the passports that led me to you. I found three in Ruthie Jones’s flat.”

  Holger’s mouth thinned to a flat line. “I do not know that name.”

  Liar. “Johann certainly seemed to know her. He saw me wearing Ruthie’s stole and it was as if he’d seen her ghost. And then he sent a message to you, telling you I was a spy—a warning you assumed meant my spying on him for you had been discovered. I followed Johann to this houseboat, where he passed an envelope of documents to the Skipper. Maybe the passports in that box. What do you do with those?”

  Holger didn’t answer.

  “Doctor them in some way?” I guessed. “Sell them? Is that your racket?”

  That last word offended him. “This is no racket. We do not sell.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Patriotism. There are German sailors and ship workers all over the New York waterfront, idle. Young, healthy men who could be fighting for their country. The Germans on military vessels are forbidden to leave the country, but as mere tourists—Swedes, Englishmen, or Frenchmen—their returning to Europe is not questioned.”

  “Ruthie stole passports for you,” I said. “You bought them from her?”

  “She was one of many who bring us the documents,” he said, dropping the pretense of not knowing her. “We buy them—at my expense, along with funds donated to us by other patriotic groups. Ruthie was a very useful girl. Johann knew her. He is a sloppy man of unclean habits. But Ruthie, like too many of your gullible countrymen, began to read the newspapers, the ones naming Germans as butchers. She believed all these lies and told Johann she would not work for us anymore. When he tried to persuade her to continue, she threatened to tell a certain po
liceman she knew of our operation. I took care of the problem myself.”

  I wouldn’t let him dehumanize her as a problem. “You drugged a woman and made her death look like a suicide, slashing her wrists while there was still blood pumping in her veins. You murdered her child. You detest people calling Germans butchers so much that you were willing to become one.”

  “Johann told you all this?” He frowned.

  “He said nothing. I saw Ruthie’s flat the night she was found.” I thought of Ruthie’s locked room. “You went out the window and down the fire escape, didn’t you? The police thought the locked front door confirmed she must have killed herself. But I noticed an empty milk bottle on the fire escape. I couldn’t figure out why Ruthie would bother leaving an empty bottle outside instead of putting it by her door for the milkman. But it was you—you must have knocked it over, then righted it.” Holger was a man who liked neatness.

  He shrugged. “Perhaps. I don’t remember.”

  Righting a milk bottle when he’d just killed a woman. And a baby. I shook my head. “Why’d you have to hurt Johnny?”

  “Who?”

  “The little baby. He was helpless. What harm could he have done you?”

  “The baby wouldn’t stop screaming. I was searching for the passports, but the brat was going to bring all the neighbors up. So I drowned him and left him with his mother.”

  “You killed a baby for crying?”

  Holger was having none of my shaming. “The son of a whore. What life would he have? He is better off.”

  I thought of Eddie, warm and safe at Aunt Irene’s. Thank heavens for that. But he’d been deprived of his mother, his twin brother. A life cut off before it had begun. “You are despicable.”

  “I am a patriot.”

  I’d heard that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel, but this went beyond being a scoundrel. This was the vilest crime I’d yet witnessed. And he’d told me all about it. Bragged, even.