An Orphan of Hell's Kitchen

by Liz Freeland

  CHAPTER 23

  In 1914, I celebrated Christmas twice. The first, early celebration took place two days after my survival of the destruction of the Silver Swan. December twentieth. Callie was catching the late train to Chicago, so we invited all our friends that evening for a combination holiday party and farewell send-off for Callie.

  Otto helped me gather goodies for the party that afternoon. Callie stayed at the apartment, finishing packing her trunk, popping corn and tying ribbons from her whatnot box for decorations. While we were out, a letter from Teddy was delivered, which Callie waved at us as we came through the door with our bundles.

  “Teddy and that maniac Hugh sold the apparatus to the English and now they’re headed to France. He says they’re going to have a spree in Paris”—her brow wrinkled at the page—“I don’t like the sound of that. Then they’re going to see if anyone there is interested in their flying expertise.” She put the letter down in exasperation.

  “They’ll be back in a few months,” I predicted. “Probably before your tour of the Midwest is done.”

  “That war can’t go on much longer,” Otto agreed. “The Germans are bound to surrender. Louise is licking the bastards right here in New York City.”

  Though I’d been instructed not to tell the press or my coworkers what had happened, I hadn’t kept it a secret from my friends. And who knows? One of them might slip the story to a journalist. Both Otto and Callie had friends among the newspapermen of the city.

  Callie tilted her head at Otto. “I thought you were pro-German.”

  “Not if they’re going to try to kill my friends,” he said.

  The events of my night on the Silver Swan kept rising unexpectedly in my mind. The memory of staring down the barrel of the revolver would occur without warning, frightening me almost more than when I’d actually been in the houseboat’s cabin. The sounds of the explosion still reverberated inside me. Yet a giddiness also lingered. It was hard to explain the complicated stew of joy at being alive mixed with horror at what I’d lived through. I certainly couldn’t talk about it to my friends as we stood around admiring our Christmas tree, which began to look less forlorn as we wound Callie’s popcorn garland through its branches. The dried needles that sprinkled to the floor struck me as rather rustic. It was like a natural woodland carpet, right there in our apartment.

  Callie and I rolled up the rug in anticipation of dancing, mulled some wine on the stove, and put out an impressive assortment of delicacies Otto and I had spent the afternoon picking up in the neighborhood. We’d offered the Bleecker Blowers free refreshments in exchange for some Christmas songs and dance music, and as they had no job that night, they were more than happy to come upstairs and play. They arrived and in no time the apartment was filled with music, friends, and good cheer.

  I’d invited our other neighbors, too, including the opera teacher next door, who promised to give us a performance. There was never a shortage of entertainment at our parties. Some of Callie’s theater friends showed up—the ones who weren’t in shows—and Otto had a Tin Pan Alley pal or two drop in. My aunt had a previous engagement, but I was gratified when Walter and Bernice arrived. Walter, winded from the climb, entered my dwelling with trepidation.

  “Worse than I imagined,” he declared, looking about him.

  Callie laughed. “That’s funny, the place has never looked nicer.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” he said. “Even I probably couldn’t have done better. The only way to make this building spotless would be to tear it down and start over.”

  Bernice handed me a covered plate containing one of her caramel apple cakes. Just holding it made my mouth water. She offered to go to the kitchen and slice it up, but I steered her to a group of some of Callie’s Red Cross knitting friends.

  Everyone was instructed to put a decoration on the tree. My aunt had sent an angel, and Walter climbed on a chair to put it up. The gang began to sing an upbeat “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” with both syncopation and coloratura. My people. I looked on from near the open front door, feeling a calm contentment for the first time that day.

  Unexpectedly, someone tapped me on the shoulder and I swung around, my heart pounding. A defensive instinct was still alive in me. My hands clenched, but I forced myself to smile.

  Anna Muldoon launched herself at me, squeezing me in a hug. “Oh, Lou, I heard all about it!” she said in a breathless whisper. “The Captain told Frank everything. And to think, if it weren’t for me, you’d be dead. Drowned! I feel positively heroic.”

  She went on to regale me with her gallant quest two nights ago to find Captain Smith, which entailed finding a cab and directing the driver to take her to police headquarters. Nevertheless, for all her swiftness, she’d heard that the captain barely rescued me in time! And never would have, if it hadn’t been for her.

  And if you hadn’t recognized me at The Coach House, I might not have been in that fix to begin with. It was Christmas, though, and I was determined to be positive and generous. “Thank you.”

  She caught me glancing over her shoulder and smiled knowingly. “Don’t worry, Frank’s on his way. That awful man on the first floor waylaid him—wanted to complain about some person lurking, he said.”

  Wally was suspicious of everyone.

  Muldoon did arrive just a few minutes later, and stood behind us long enough to hear Anna launch into the subject of her heroics again. I caught his wince and smiled at him. Anna looked at us. “Oh, I see,” she said, misinterpreting as usual. “Say no more, you two. I’ll make myself scarce.”

  His gaze followed his sister till she was out of earshot, then he turned to me. “I hope you don’t mind my being here.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Anna told me about this party tonight, so I decided to tag along. I thought she might want to apologize. From what she described, it sounded as if she gave the game away during your operation.”

  Anna, apologize? How could a man live with a sister so long and understand her so little? Positive and generous. “It’s all right. If Anna hadn’t completed her mission, I’d be spending the holiday at the bottom of Long Island Sound.”

  My assurance didn’t seem to comfort him. “I wanted to come by the night before last, after I heard what had happened to you. But I’d been out on a case, so it was late . . . and they assured me you were safe.” He dug his hands into his pockets. “And I guessed if you’d wanted me to know, you would have told me about that Secret Service operation in the first place.”

  “It was supposed to be a secret.”

  He nodded. “Captain Smith said you found the man the Secret Service had been looking for, and you cracked the Ruthie Jones case.”

  I half laughed. “Captain Smith is better at telling people to keep things under their hats than he is at staying mum himself.”

  “He knew I was interested.”

  “I’m glad it’s over,” I said. “I just hope I’ll keep my job.”

  “If the police won’t have you, the Secret Service might. Captain Smith said those operatives were singing your praises, so naturally he values you now, too. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  “The NYPD likes successes. I’ll just have to remember not to fail.”

  He lowered his head. “Earlier I said I thought Anna had come to apologize, but it’s me who really owes you an apology, Louise. I failed you. You were right about Ruthie Jones’s death. If it weren’t for you, her killer would still be walking the streets.”

  “I only wish that the cause of her death could be public,” I said, still frustrated by this edict. It felt unfair to Ruthie. “Maybe now I’m the only one who really cares, but Eddie will, someday. It grieves me that he might hear the official, wrong story about what happened to his mother and brother.”

  “Hopefully you’ll be able to straighten out the record for him in person, when he’s old enough. You and your aunt.”

  I smiled.

  He fiddled nervously with the hat in
his hands. “There’s something else. The last time we talked, I said some terrible things.”

  “You did,” I agreed. “So did I.”

  “Everything you said was true, though. I cringe every time I think how small-minded and mean I sounded that day.”

  “You were worried about your sister.”

  “And you were telling me a truth I wasn’t ready to hear. I don’t think I’ve ever understood my little sister, or even tried to. After Ma died, I always just assumed Anna would be happy to have a house to run until she found a husband. All this time, she’s been busting to get out in the world.” He looked down the corridor in the salon, where his sister was turkey-trotting with one of the opera students from next door. “I’m not sure she’ll find happiness that way, but I can’t stop her.”

  “I don’t think anybody can stop her. There’s no stuffing the butterfly back into its cocoon.”

  When the dance stopped, the Bleecker Blowers began a rendition of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” which had always been one of my favorites.

  “I’ll regret speaking to you that way for the rest of my life,” Muldoon said. “It was unforgivable.”

  “I’m sorry, Detective, but you don’t get to decide what’s unforgivable. If you’ve wronged me, it’s up to me to forgive.” I looked into his face, where his furrowed brow awaited my verdict. “As it happens, I already have. Not because you weren’t wrong, but because everyone gets things wrong. The world is progressing at lightning speed, and we’re all clashing in ways we never expected. It’s only people who don’t reflect and never change that get my goat. But it sounds to me as if you’ve been mulling over quite a few things.”

  “Friends again?”

  He offered me his hand, and I took it. I’d had a cup of eggnog, generously laced with brandy, but that didn’t account for the warmth that filled me, or the strong tug I felt. It wasn’t as if his hand was pulling me closer to him; some invisible force was doing that. The music in the apartment didn’t explain the restlessness singing inside of me, either.

  But it was definitely the explosion that propelled me the rest of the way into Muldoon’s arms. After the first crash made us freeze, a propulsive whoosh threw us to our knees on the floor.

  I groaned. Not again. This week seemed determined to kill me.

  We were in the doorway, and after a moment of shock, footsteps ran toward us. We looked down the short hallway and through the parlor. By the window, the tree was on fire, and a stampede to escape the room had begun.

  Muldoon and I scrambled up and out of the way. “Call for the fire department,” he told me, and ran in the opposite direction of the people running toward us.

  I raced down the stairs and out the door, to the next apartment building where I knew the superintendent had installed a phone. For good measure, I called out to a boy who was gaping up at the third floor from across the street. “Run to the fire station!” I dashed into the neighbor’s building and as soon as the operator spoke I told her to send a fire truck to our address. Then I dropped the receiver back in place and ran right back out.

  Our guests were gathered outside the building, joined by alarmed neighbors. I saw Anna and moved toward her. “I’m glad you’re safe,” I said.

  “Safe, but what a horror! All that noise—and smoke. This is the second dress this week I’ve completely ruined.”

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “I saw him bring one woman down. Quite the hero, isn’t he? Two other men took her down the street to the drugstore.”

  I looked up at the smoke coming from the third floor and shuddered. If only the fire trucks would get here . . .

  Bernice was huddled with some of the others under a streetlamp. They were all unharmed, but disheveled and stunned. As I approached, Bernice shook her head at me, as if she’d expected no better from a party of mine.

  “Was anyone hurt?” I asked. “Should I call for a doctor?”

  “I haven’t seen anybody hurt bad. Just what you’d expect—cuts and such.”

  I followed her gaze, and frowned. “Have you seen Callie? And where’s Walter?”

  “Callie shooed everyone out but then went back in again,” she said. “Walter never left.”

  My heart froze and my gaze scanned up to the third floor, where smoke billowed out of the broken parlor window.

  I raced for the door. Wally, the landlord’s son, blocked the entrance like an angry sentinel. “What the hell were you doing up there?” he yelled at me. “You said it was a Christmas party.”

  Pushing him aside, I ran up the stairs, past several singed saxophonists. “Are you all right?” I asked them.

  Charlie, the Blower I spoke to, looked dazed. “We’re okay. Just sorry about what happened to your place.”

  “What did happen?” asked one of the others, laden with saxophone cases.

  “I’m not sure . . .” But I had a suspicion.

  I found Otto on the third landing, agitated.

  “Where’s Callie?” I said.

  Just then, she ran out, dragging her trunk. Her face was dark red, and her hair seemed to have taken on a layer of ash.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked her. “You need to get out of the building, or at least away from this floor.”

  “I couldn’t leave my trunk. It’s got my costumes and makeup box in it.”

  I took my two friends by the arms and maneuvered them down a few steps. “We need to clear the stairwell. The firemen will be here soon.”

  “There won’t be a fire for them to fight,” Callie said. “Muldoon and Walter have taken care of most of it.”

  I gaped at her. “They’re in the apartment? Still?” I looked up the stairwell, and then, cursing, turned and ran back up.

  “Now who’s crazy?” Callie said to Otto.

  I found them in the parlor, where a confetti of ash floated through the air. Burnt ribbons, I realized. Or maybe curtains. The room stank of seared cedar and popcorn, and an acrid smell that brought to mind the Silver Swan’s burning. Fuel. A line of flame crawled along our old sofa, while Walter and Muldoon were beating one wall with the carpet Callie and I had rolled up not long ago, in anticipation of dancing. A section of the floorboards—the would-be dance floor—had been scorched and hollowed out, almost as if it had been hit by a bomb. The wallpaper was charred, and in places the wall had burned down to wood studs. Despite the fire and smoke, the room was cold. Smoke might be going out the window, but plenty of cold air was finding its way in.

  I ran to the kitchen and filled up a pan of water, then raced back out to throw it over the sofa. I coughed, and Muldoon looked over as if seeing me for the first time. “Louise, get out.”

  I hurried back to the kitchen. Why should he and Walter risk their lives for my apartment? I’d barely had time to throw the water on the last of the sofa’s flames when Muldoon’s arm clamped around mine. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “He’s right,” Walter said, holding a handkerchief over his face. “Your aunt would never forgive me if I let you burn to a crisp.”

  It was more likely that she’d criticize me for risking Walter’s life.

  “The firemen will be here soon.” I looked at the smoking ruin that was our parlor. A finger of flame chewed up a curled corner of wallpaper. “But I think you might have already saved the building.”

  I’d seen a building devastated by fire—the publishing house where I’d worked for ten months had been reduced to a charred skeleton. Muldoon’s quick thinking and diligence had saved the apartment buildings next door, as well. Our apartment was not going to be livable for a while, but at least everyone in the building and on the block wouldn’t be homeless.

  “I know I said the place needed to be torn down,” Walter said, crushing a red cinder on the floor with his shoe. “I didn’t mean burn it down.”

  A clanging sounded from a nearby street. Thank goodness. “They’re almost here.”

  “Good,” Muldoon said. “Go.”

  When he turned to
bang the carpet against the wall some more, I looked again where the floor had been burned. Broken glass was scattered across the floor, too, and not all of it was from glasses dropped by the guests. And then there was that hole in the window. And the smell.

  Wally had told Muldoon he’d seen someone lurking.

  A minute later, the first firemen appeared, striding through the door in their high boots and black uniforms. “You need to leave the building,” their leader announced.

  “We’re police,” Muldoon said. “Detective Frank Muldoon and Officer Louise Faulk.” He nodded at Walter. “And Mr. Walter Billings.”

  The fireman eyed me curiously, but I was used to being a novelty. “This is my apartment.”

  “Still better if you waited outside, miss. We’ll take care of this.” He looked at the charred remnant of the Christmas tree, a thin black stump. “People need to be careful with flames around these trees.”

  The sad, dry tree had gone up like a torch.

  “It wasn’t the tree’s fault,” I said. “This was a present from Leonard Cain.”

  Over his handkerchief, Walter’s eyes widened, and Muldoon sucked in a breath. He hadn’t put it together.

  “December twentieth,” I reminded him.

  A year to the day since the testimony I’d elicited from a witness had resulted in a judge sentencing him to ten years in Sing Sing. This Christmas present was Cain’s way of letting me know he hadn’t forgotten me.

  CHAPTER 24

  The second Christmas celebration, on Christmas Day itself, was spent at my aunt’s house, where I moved after being booted out of our apartment. Callie had caught her train west the night of the fire, and while she was gone I would scout a new place for us to live. Having an incendiary-lobbing crime lord following my movements from jail would not appeal to potential landlords, so I would probably have to do without a recommendation from Wally Grimes and his mother, who were understandably incensed about the damage to the building even though Aunt Irene was reimbursing them for repairs.