A Promise of Ruin

by Cuyler Overholt

  “I sent them a telegraph a week ago, asking if they had heard from her. They replied that they had not.”

  “Perhaps she met with an accident, then, after she disembarked.”

  “I went to all the hospitals. They have no record of her.”

  I sat back in my chair. It seemed we were all out of acceptable explanations. Which meant we were going to have to consider the less palatable ones. “Do you think it’s possible, Mr. Fabroni, that someone who knew of your impending marriage might have kidnapped Teresa in order to extort money from you? A member of the Black Hand, perhaps?”

  He blinked. “The Black Hand?”

  “I understand you run a successful business. That would make you a potential target.”

  “If La Mano Nera were involved, I would have received a demand letter, and I assure you that I have not.”

  I studied his face, wondering if he was telling the truth. Patrick had said that more times than not, the victims of extortion letters were unwilling to even admit they’d been targeted. But if Antonio already knew who took his fiancée, I didn’t think he’d be sitting here speaking with me. “What do you think happened to her, then?” I asked finally.

  “I don’t know. But I will find out.”

  His mother muttered something behind me.

  “Basta, Mama,” he said with a sigh. To me, he explained, “My mother believes I have brought this trouble on our home by choosing to marry an Italian girl. She wished me to marry someone born in this country so that we would be ‘real’ Americans. But we cannot choose who we love, can we, signorina?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at his mother in surprise; I’d have thought she’d prefer a daughter-in-law from the old country. Perhaps she’d believed an American wife would help ensure her son’s success here. “How did you and Teresa meet?” I asked Antonio.

  “We met when I returned to Napoli last autumn, for my uncle’s funeral. She and her mother delivered the flowers to the church.” He shook his head, his eyes shining at the memory. “She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I stayed for three months instead of two weeks. I couldn’t leave until she had promised to be mine.”

  “From what Rosa told me, she has a very kind heart, as well.”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry I haven’t met this Rosa. You say that she and Teresa were friends in Italy?”

  “Yes, they went to school together apparently, although Teresa must have been a few years ahead of her. Teresa befriended Rosa after her mother died, and when Rosa’s family left Naples to come here a few years ago, she and Teresa continued to correspond.”

  Mrs. Fabroni said something I couldn’t understand.

  “And Teresa told this girl that she was to be my wife?” Antonio asked me.

  “Oh yes, Rosa knew all about you. She wanted to speak with you herself, when Teresa didn’t come to visit, but her grandmother wouldn’t allow it. That’s why I’m here. I had hoped I’d be able to put her fears to rest.”

  He nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “Perhaps I should go speak to this girl, to see if she has any idea where Teresa could be.”

  “I’m afraid she has no more idea than you do. She fully expected Teresa to come visit her on her birthday.”

  “Still, if she was a friend of my fidanzata, I would very much like to make her acquaintance. Where does she live, do you know?”

  I tried to remember what Rosa had told me. “I only know that she lives near a church, on 115th Street.”

  “The Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,” he said with a nod, glancing at his mother.

  “She’ll be terribly distressed to hear that Teresa never reached you. I wonder if…well, I wonder if you might consider waiting to speak with her, just until the police have had time to conduct a proper search. I assume you’ve reported Teresa missing?”

  His face suddenly went blank. “There is no need for the police.”

  “But if Teresa’s in trouble…”

  “There is no need for the police,” he said again, more firmly. “I will fix this myself.”

  Was this the Italian code of honor I had heard about? Or was Antonio refusing to admit to himself how precarious Teresa’s situation might be? Either way, I didn’t think trying to handle things himself was going to improve his fiancée’s chances of being found. “There is another possible reason for her disappearance,” I said slowly.

  He cocked his head.

  “The drowned girl I told you about also traveled here alone from Italy to marry. The police believe she may have been abducted, shortly after she arrived.”

  “But I told you, there has been no ransom letter for Teresa, which makes kidnapping unlikely.”

  “I don’t mean abducted for ransom.” I drew in a breath. “I mean abducted into prostitution.”

  He stiffened. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Only that you ought to do everything you can to find Teresa as soon as possible. And that includes involving the police.”

  “If anyone has harmed Teresa in such a way,” he hissed, “they will pay for it dearly. And I will be the one to make them!”

  “Mr. Fabroni,” I said in alarm, “you may not be aware, but the laws here deal rather harshly with people who try to take things into their own hands. You could jeopardize your future with Teresa if you attempt it.”

  “La necessità non ha legge,” he shot back.

  I silently worked out the translation: Necessity knows no law.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he added, “I will do what must be done.”

  Mrs. Fabroni came to stand behind her son, glowering at me over his shoulder.

  It seemed we had said everything there was to say. “Well, I’ve kept you long enough.” I pushed back my chair and stood up. “I hope with all my heart that you find Teresa, Mr. Fabroni. Perhaps if you do, you’ll be so kind as to let me know.” I extracted a card from the case in my bag and laid it on the table.

  He rose and followed me to the door.

  “Signorina,” he said as I was stepping over the threshold.

  I turned.

  “If Teresa has fallen into evil hands, as you suggest, you could put both her and yourself in danger by asking too many questions. I urge you to speak no more of this to anyone.”

  I tipped my head to acknowledge his concern. I did not, however, make any promises.

  • • •

  To my surprise, Simon was sitting on the stoop when I arrived back home, eating a bag of peanuts. I felt the usual flare of excitement at the sight of him and immediately initiated the mental gymnastics required to snuff it out. “What are you doing here?”

  “Katie told me you weren’t home yet, so I thought I’d wait outside,” he said, offering me a peanut.

  I shook my head. “I mean, why are you here at all?” The surprise of seeing him must have flushed out some suppressed anger I’d been harboring since the night before, for the words came out more harshly than I’d intended.

  He raised an eyebrow, but said only, “I thought you’d be interested to hear that I stopped by Frankie’s place and had a chat with his father.”

  “Oh yes, I am interested.” I sank onto the seat beside him, my wounded feelings once more taking a backseat to my concern for Frankie. “How did it go?”

  “I have a feeling things are going to be easier for the boy from now on.”

  “How did you manage it?” As a rule, Simon preferred the carrot to the stick. But I couldn’t think of any incentive that could keep a man in check once he was in a drunken rage. “Did you threaten to report him to the police?”

  He shook his head. “Too indirect.”

  “How then?”

  “I told him that if he ever hit any of his children again, I’d break both of his arms.”

  “Ah.” I nodded appreciatively. “And would you, really?”

/>   “Of course not.”

  I had to admit, I was disappointed to hear it.

  “I’d only break one of his arms,” he continued, “so he could still drive his truck. I wouldn’t want to make paupers out of his wife and children.” He grinned at me, and I couldn’t help laughing, despite everything.

  “Where’ve you been, anyway?” he asked. “Katie was starting to worry. She expected you home hours ago.”

  “In Harlem, talking to Teresa Casoria’s fiancé.” I might as well have said I’d been visiting John Johnson, the notorious wife slayer on Murderer’s Row.

  “By yourself?”

  I shrugged. “I needed to find out if Teresa was with him or if she’d really disappeared.”

  “Crimus, Genna.” He shook his head. “Why are you so determined to get involved in something that’s none of your affair?”

  It stung to hear him say it. “Why did you talk to Frankie’s father?” I shot back.

  “That’s different.”

  “Is it?”

  Something between a sigh and a groan rumbled through his throat. “You couldn’t at least have waited for me to go with you?”

  “You didn’t seem terribly interested in what had become of her.”

  “Well, I’m interested in what happens to you.”

  Another shard of anger broke free, lodging in my craw. Why did he say things like that, when he must know how I would interpret them? “Are you really?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” I said, looking away. I picked up a pebble and scraped it along the edge of the step.

  “Of course I care what happens to you. Why would you doubt it?”

  I snorted. Where to begin? I thought, but I didn’t reply.

  “This is about last night, isn’t it?” he asked after a moment.

  I kept scraping away at the limestone.

  “Genna.”

  “What?”

  “Would you look at me?”

  I looked at him and, to my horror, felt my eyes flood with tears.

  He blew out his breath. “You can’t think I didn’t want to kiss you.”

  I swiped the tears from my eyes. “Then why didn’t you?”

  He looked out over the street, the muscles clenching along his jawline. When he turned back, his eyes were nearly black with intensity. “Because I’m not playing to win one hand. I want the whole shebang.”

  I stared back at him, trying but failing to make sense of this response. “I don’t understand.”

  “Why do you think you were interested in me, all those years ago?”

  “I don’t know. For all sorts of reasons.”

  “I was the poor, uneducated son of your parlor maid. Not the usual stuff that girlish dreams are made of.”

  “I didn’t care about any of that.”

  He tipped his head. “I believe you. But that’s not to say it didn’t figure in your attraction.”

  “If you mean I liked that you didn’t take guff from anyone and that you had the strength and intelligence to make your own way in the world, then yes, that was part of it.”

  He smiled ruefully. “But only part. You picked me, Genna, because your body was wakening, and you were achin’ with it, and you, being you, needed to figure out what it was all about. But you couldn’t very well roll in the hay with one of your fancy gentleman friends, now could you? That would have ruined your reputation. With me, you figured you were safe. And you would have been, if it wasn’t for that worm-hearted scullery maid who turned us in.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I protested. “I wasn’t thinking about my reputation.”

  “I’m not saying it was a calculated decision. But somewhere in the back of your mind, the way you’d been raised, you had to be aware of the risks and want to protect yourself from what people might say.”

  “I see. So you’re not only accusing me of slumming to satisfy my frustrated carnal desires, but of being too cowardly to defy the disapproval of my family and friends as well!”

  “I’m not ‘accusing’ you of anything. I don’t fault you, for any of it. You’re as red-blooded a woman as any, with a red-blooded woman’s natural desires. You can’t help that the rules are different for women than for men.”

  I shook my head, aghast at this unflattering explanation for my adolescent behavior. “Even if what you’re suggesting were true,” I sputtered, “what could it possibly have to do with things between us now?”

  “You think you want me, but what you’re feeling is lust, not love. You want to finish what we started in the stable. Well, fine. Believe me, I want the same thing. Jaysus, do I want it. But I’m not going to be just an experiment, like that poor sap you bedded in medical school. I want you to want all of me. The whole package.”

  My mind raced back to what I’d told him about Roger Milton, the fellow medical student I’d chosen to relieve me of my virginity when my ignorance of the sexual act had finally become too much to bear. It was true that I’d chosen him in part because he was graduating a few days later, making it unlikely I’d ever have to see him again. But that had been an entirely different situation. “I do want all of you!”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes!”

  He chucked a peanut shell into the gutter. “Then marry me.”

  I gaped at him.

  He turned back to me. “You heard me right. Give the word, and I’ll have a magistrate here in thirty minutes.”

  It was a good thing I was already sitting down, or I would have dropped in a heap onto the steps. Simon did want me, as much as I wanted him. I felt a smile as wide as New York harbor splay across my face. Marry Simon. Live with him as man and wife, joined in body and mind. It was what I had fantasized about, practically since the day I’d met him. I pressed a hand against my stomach to suppress the violent fluttering there.

  And yet…and yet. My smile faded as the implications sank in. Yes, I’d dreamed this might happen—had hoped we could figure out how to make it work, despite the odds against us. But we hadn’t figured it out yet, not by a long shot. I tried to imagine moving into a flat over the saloon, or perhaps into a house with Simon and his resentful mother, living among people who regarded me as a pampered and not quite trustworthy intruder, while my parents invited us for chilly, formal dinners twice a year and my childhood friends scratched me from their address books. I could see my referrals of paying clients drying up and my practice shriveling, my dream of economic self-sufficiency falling by the wayside.

  “You know I want to be with you,” I said finally. “But we can’t just rush into things. We need more time…” I petered to a halt.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, tossing another shell across the sidewalk. “I didn’t expect you to say yes. I just want you to call a spade a spade.” He turned and looked at me, his eyes steely. “The fact is, Genna, that you don’t know what you want yet. And I can’t be all in while you’re still standing on the sidelines.”

  I swallowed, feeling a mix of shame and resentment at being put in this position. “My reservations have nothing to do with my feelings for you. You must know that. It’s just that…” I hesitated, not quite sure where the heart of my resistance lay. “I need to establish my practice first, for one thing,” I said, grabbing onto the simplest explanation.

  “And you’re afraid rich folks won’t want a doctor who’s married to the likes of me. I twig the problem.” Tossing the empty peanut bag after the shell, he added, “Although I’m sure there are plenty of poor folks who could use your help.”

  “Yes, but they can’t pay enough for me to live on. I need at least some patients with resources.”

  He shrugged. “I make enough money for us both.”

  “I could never give up my work!”

  “Who asked you to? All I’m saying is that I could provide f
or us, while you take care of the people who need help.”

  Well, yes, I supposed that might work, although I wondered how many people from the tenements would have both the time and the inclination to seek out psychotherapy. I’d only been able to recruit the women for my Sunday class because of Reverend Palmers’s not very subtle threats to cut off their access to the clinic dispensary if they didn’t attend.

  “And then, of course, there are my friends,” he went on. “Although, just so you know, I do have a few who’ve read a book or two.”

  I bit my lip, unable to say that this hadn’t been a concern.

  He frowned at me. “But of course, that’s not the biggest reason, is it? We both know what that is: you’re worried how your father would take it.”

  Although I liked to believe that I was no longer controlled by my father’s opinions, the stab of anxiety I felt as he said this made me realize that it was true. “He’s coming around, Simon,” I said, pleading now. “He just needs more time to get to know you. I’m sure once he does, he’ll understand what I see in you.”

  He eyed me skeptically. “Your father has no interest in getting to know me.”

  I had to admit that my father had shown no propensity as yet to become better acquainted. “Well, what about your mother?” I returned. “You won’t even let me see her, so I can only imagine how much she resents me.”

  “The difference is, I’d marry you anyway.”

  “And come to hate me for driving you apart.”

  He shook his head. “It won’t work, Genna,” he said calmly. “You can’t put this on me. I know what I want, and if someone else doesn’t like it that’s their problem.”

  There was no defense I could make to that. I fell silent, aching with shame. Simon had given me a chance to be as brave as he was, and I had failed.

  He sighed. “Oh, for God’s sake, stop looking so guilty. I know you’ve got more to lose than I have. The last thing I want to do is push you into something you’ll regret.” He stood to go, brushing off his trousers. “Like I said, I just think we should be clear on where things stand.” His eyes bored into mine, clear and determined. “You’re not ready to marry me, Genna. And I’m not going to make love to you until you are.”