by Debra Dunbar
And maybe then, he could see Hattie again.
Lefty sipped his whisky, eyeing him over the rim. “Listen, I came to warn you. Vito’s been puttin’ out feelers about you.”
Vincent nodded, his heart sinking. “I know. Any interest? Where and when am I getting traded?”
“Turns out, with all his blustering and complaining about how shiftless and ill-trained you are, no one is rising to the bait. He did get an offer from New York to buy you outright, but that would leave him without a pincher and that’s not gonna fly with the Capo.”
No, it wouldn’t. Vito needed the prestige that came with owning a pincher, but it wasn’t just the man’s ego. He was perceived as weak, vulnerable, and Vincent was sure the Capo lost sleep at night wondering when the New York families would decide Baltimore should be headed by one of their own. Not having a pincher put him at a tactical disadvantage if one of the other families tried to remove him from power. And Vincent was sure that was the only reason Vito hadn’t snatched up that offer.
“Which family wanted to buy me?” he asked out of morbid curiosity. “Masseria?”
Lefty shook his head. “Some second-tier guy. Luciano.”
Figures. Although from the way Vito had been bad-mouthing him, he was lucky it wasn’t the butcher down the street offering to buy him.
“Point is, you need to get your head back in the game,” Lefty added. “Now, I don’t care how you do it, but it needs doing.”
“What about you? If he decides to take Luciano up on his offer, where’s that land you?”
Lefty’s sole job was as his handler. Without a pincher, would he even have a job with the Crew? And besides that, Vincent would miss Lefty. The man had become one of his few friends—more like an older brother than a friend, actually. Although Vincent had no idea what it would be like to have a brother. Or sister for that matter.
“Don’t sweat me. I’m talking about you. How long you gonna keep this up? Nose down, eyes hanging like last week’s laundry?” Lefty leaned close to whisper, “If you need a girl, I can make a call.”
Oh sweet Jesus. They were back to this again. “I don’t need a girl, Lefty. That’s the last thing I need right now.”
Lefty shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He withdrew his arm and reached for his coat and hat. “It’s Vito going on about you being ill-trained that worries me the most.”
“How so?”
“In a word,” Lefty replied, “Ithaca. He can’t trade you. He isn’t willing to sell you and be without a pincher. That’s the next option.”
Vincent’s stomach knotted. “You really think that’s on the table?”
“He’s mentioned it before. Believe me, it’s on his mind. So, you know…” Lefty headed for the door. “You coming to the Christmas party?”
Vincent shook his head.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“Christmas is for…”
Lefty squinted. “Kids?”
“Other people.”
“Shame. I bet that Irish girl would clean up nice.”
Vincent slapped his hand onto the table. “Ease off.”
Lefty slinked his way into his coat, snickering. “Sorry, buster. Didn’t know that was a nerve.”
“It’s just… I’m giving her a wide berth.”
“Why? As far as Vito’s concerned, she’s just a bootlegger.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure he’d still believe that if I started seeing her and doing things like bringing her to the Christmas party.”
Lefty hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. “You think Vito’s onto her?”
“Is it worth the risk if he is?” Vincent shrugged. “Besides, there’s no sense getting attached to someone if I’m about to become a New York resident, now is there?”
“You can’t put your life on hold because something or another might happen,” Lefty scolded. “And believe me, there’s far worse things in life than loving and losing. Trust me on that one.”
Now that sounded like a story—one that Vincent knew he’d never be able to pry out of his friend no matter how much he pestered the man. So instead he just smiled. “Thanks for keeping your eyes on me, Lefty.”
“You say that,” he said as he opened the door, “but you keep slipping my notice. One of these days, I’m gonna…” Lefty’s voice trailed off.
Vincent turned to find Lefty staring at a figure in the doorway, lingering just a step into the hallway. He jumped up, reaching for his piece holstered beneath his left arm. As his fingers slapped leather, he lost all feeling in his hand, fumbling a half-second in confusion before looking back to the hallway.
“Cool your heels, Calendo,” a vaguely familiar voice leaked from the hallway.
Vincent squinted as the man inched toward the door frame.
Lefty stepped to bar his path. “You got business, fella?”
Vincent shook his hand, still numb from wrist to fingertips. “Who’re you?”
“You don’t recognize me?” the man asked, pulling off his hat. “I suppose that follows. We only met the once.”
Vincent squinted at the man, then nodded for Lefty to step aside. The man entered the apartment, then made a slight waving gesture. With that, all feeling rushed back into Vincent’s hand.
“Yeah,” Vincent muttered with a nod. “I do remember you. Arnoud, right?”
“Correct,” Arnoud chimed with a grin.
Vincent sighed, sloshing another finger of whisky into his glass. “What brings you from Philly?”
“As your stern-faced friend suggested— business.”
Vincent pounded his drink in a single shot. “What sorta business?”
Arnoud turned to Lefty. “You’re his handler?”
Lefty nodded once.
“Fine,” Arnoud replied, his shoulders relaxing. “Then it’s your business, too. A moot’s been called.”
Vincent shook his head. “A what, now?”
“Pincher moot,” Arnoud clarified. “Loren and I are hosting up at the cannery.”
Vincent glanced to Lefty, whose posture had stiffened a little.
“Pincher moot, Vincent,” Lefty explained. “It’s when the pinchers of the associated families come together to discuss matters of urgency.”
“How come I never heard of it?” Vincent asked.
Arnoud replied, “Because there hasn’t been one since the last century.”
Lefty nodded. “They’re rare. Especially when there’s a beef between the families.” He nodded to Arnoud. “Both the Calabrians and the Sicilians are playing ball enough to call one of these?”
“Barely, but yes.”
Lefty whistled.
With an impatient gesture of his glass, Vincent asked, “What’s so damned urgent that all these gangs are ready to quit crawling over each other to meet like this?”
Arnoud reached for a chair to take a seat. “It seems, Mister Calendo, the supply of people like you and like me has dried up while demand has increased.”
“That’s nothing new,” Vincent commented.
Arnoud nodded. “No, but it means the powers that be are changing the rules. And we’re the ones who now gotta figure out how to live with them.”
Chapter 3
A rare winter sunlight warmed the market on Light Street just enough to bring out midday Christmas shoppers. Hattie tucked a loaf of rye bread into her basket and stepped around a clutch of women who were peering through the window of a department store. A tiny display of holiday-garbed marionettes hung on strings, their mouths cranking open and shut to a Christmas carol barely audible through the glass. More shoppers appeared from inside the store with wrapped packages bound in twine. Hattie released a contented sigh as she took in the mood on the street. She loved the holidays. The lights, the colors, the smells…
Word at the market was that a grocer on Lexington had just secured some oranges from South America. Hattie had been so careful, so frugal, with her money. Her cut of the hundred from the search for Bimini had been ca
refully stashed away in a sock for emergencies, and each payday she’d added a few dollars to that slowly thickening stack of bills. They now had vegetables regularly as well as meat every week and money enough to ensure the heat stayed on even at night. Even so, it was important for her to have funds available should a crisis arise.
But it was Christmas, and Hattie couldn’t help but splurge on a few holiday extravagances.
Her father had always adored citrus fruits. Each year as a child she’d find an orange wedged in the toe of her stocking hung over the fireplace, and had always shared it with her parents, completely oblivious as to what they’d sacrificed to make sure she had the treat. Happily oranges and grapefruits had been in increasing supply ever since the end of the War, and this was just the sort of holiday gift she wanted by each of their plates come Christmas morn.
True to the rumor, several neat rows of oranges lined the grocer’s tray. As Hattie paused to regard the bright color of the fruit, one of the patrons peeled his purchase, washing the entire stall with the fragrance.
She ran a finger along the top row, picking three of the darkest fruits to slip into a burlap sack hanging at her elbow. Someone nudged into her hip, and she hopped aside with a lift of her brow.
It was a short dark-haired boy hoisting an orange from the bottom row. He eyed her warily, as if waiting for her to rebuke him for his clumsiness.
Instead, Hattie ran a hand over his tousled locks and grinned at him. “Excited for Christmas?”
He beamed up at her and nodded once.
“Me too,” she whispered, leaning down. “Where’s your Ma?”
The boy pointed to a crowd gathered across the street.
“Ah, well,” she said. “Best be on about it then. Eh? Don’t keep her waiting.”
The boy stared balefully at his orange, his lip pouting just a little.
Hattie cocked her head. “Do you have any money for that?”
The boy shook his head slowly.
With a wink, Hattie said, “Don’t worry. I’ll cover it for you. You go on, now.”
The boy grabbed her around her hips in a quick hug before trotting across the street. Hattie watched as he dodged oncoming cars, angling to the side of the crowd. Her grin faded as the boy diverted to an alley just past the group.
The grocer reached across her field of vision, shouting, “Hey!”
Hattie lifted a finger. “Oh, don’t. I’ll pay for it along with mine.”
“You shouldn’t,” he grumbled. “He’s a gypsy’s brat. Don’t spare your charity on that one.”
“I offered,” Hattie protested.
“Well, fine then. That’ll be a quarter for him and for you.”
Her brows shot high. “A quarter? For an orange? You’re daft!”
“That’s a quarter,” the old man replied with thinning patience, “for three.”
“Three?”
“Sure. He was stuffing his pockets before you got here.”
Hattie scowled, then fished two quarters from her pocket before trotting across the street and down the alley after the boy.
“I’m the fool here,” she panted as she jogged down the narrow lane, “no good deed goes unpunished, it seems.”
The alley took a dogleg. Hattie rounded the corner to find the boy fishing the oranges from his coat, gathering them into a tiny triangle on the ground in front of him.
She cleared her throat, and his head shot up, eyes wide.
“Look here,” she scowled, stepping slowly forward. “When a person goes and offers you help, you don’t go and pull the rug from underneath her like that. It’s rude.”
The boy’s gaze lowered, and he sighed. “Sorry. They’re not all for me.” His voice danced with the half-step of a Londoner’s accent, the rounded vowels and swallowed consonants marking him as a recent immigrant.
“So, are you truly a gypsy then?”
He shook his head. “Me mum’s from Croydon. We’re not gypsies.”
Hattie nodded. “Fine, then. Where’s your ma?”
He squinted at her. “Are you a Mick, or some-fing?”
She frowned. “That’s a very rude thing to call someone.”
“So is gypsy,” he replied with a smirk.
Hattie chuckled. “True that. You are a precocious one, aren’t you? Your mother?”
“Dead,” he replied cheerfully.
“Orphan, then?”
“What’s it to you, lady?”
She took another step forward, eyeing the oranges. “Well, I bought those oranges out of my own pocket. I’d like to know whose stomach you’re filling on my quarter.”
The boy stared at the oranges, then stood up briskly. “Keep ’em.”
He turned to leave, but before he could, Hattie called, “What’s your name?”
He said, “Sam” without turning around.
“I’ve already bought my own oranges, Sam. And if the person who sends orphans to steal produce is the sort I figure he is, you’ll want to hold onto those.”
Sam turned a half-circle, glancing at her over his shoulder.
Hattie nodded to the fruit.
Sam asked, “Are you rich, or some-fing?”
“No, but it’s almost Christmas after all. I can spare a quarter today. So, you best be on about it.”
Sam turned back, rushing to gather the fruit. Once he’d stuffed them back into his various pockets, he stood up and offered her a quick salute by doffing his cabbie. “Fanks, lady!”
“Happy Christmas, Sam.”
He turned, then paused once again. Reaching into his pocket, he muttered something under his breath as he pulled one single fruit free.
“Hey, lady? If you’re not rich tomorrow, maybe this’ll help.”
He set the orange onto the ground and rolled it with a grunt toward her.
She grinned as it made its way along the cobbled lane to her feet, stopping an inch or so away from her boot.
When she looked up to thank Sam, she found he was already gone.
“Light feet on that one,” she muttered to herself as she reached for the orange. No sense in letting it go to waste.
As her fingers wrapped around the fruit, her arm snapped taut with unexpected weight. Hattie blinked in surprise, pulling hard on the orange until it finally lifted from the stone. She held it up to the diffuse winter sunlight overhead.
The surface of the fruit was the same texture as an orange, pocked and irregular in shape. But the material was shiny, and its weight easily twenty times what it should have been.
As she angled this tiny orb of metal in her fingers, she recognized the quality of its sheen. And its color.
“Gold?”
The heft of the orange was enough to indicate it was solid—solid gold.
Hattie stared back up the alley, jaw slack. The boy had just transmuted a piece of fruit into a hunk of solid gold! Which could only mean one thing.
He was a pincher.
Hattie dropped the gold orange into her coat pocket. It landed with a thud, jerking her collar askance. She gripped her shopping bag tight in one hand and sprinted up the alley after the boy.
“Sam!”
Another corner, and she was on Eutaw Street. She scanned up and down the avenue, searching for the boy, but found no one but a stray housewife in the midst of Christmas shopping. Her eyes did land, however, upon an alley, just across the street. She waited for a space between cars, then ran for the alley. It was longer than the one she’d just navigated, and its reduced width made the space darker. She could be running directly into the hands of a street gang, for all she knew.
Even as the thought found purchase in her mind, causing her to break her stride just a little, a row of faces emerged before her. Hattie waved a hand in front of her face, pinching light directly around her in order to disappear.
It seemed to work. The group of about a half-dozen people skipped back a half step as she slipped around them, trying to catch her breath.
A single voice called from a fire
escape over their heads, “She’s a light pincher. Don’t be alarmed.”
Hattie peered up to the side of the building to find Sam standing alongside a thin, short woman with long, chestnut brown hair. Her coat spilled over her shoulders like a suit of armor as her hair streamed in the winter winds.
The woman peered up and down the alleyway, then cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hattie Malloy? Don’t be afraid. We’re friends.”
Hattie breathed slow and steady through her nostrils, trying not to create enough noise to be spotted.
The woman added, “I told you it was time to meet. Today seems to be that day.”
Hattie blinked. Time to meet?
Was this…?
The woman called out, “My name is Sadie O’Donnell. I’ve been watching you for some time, now. If you’re still in this alley, I’d very much like to speak with you. We need your help, Hattie.”
Her words faltered just a little, warbling into a note of desperation that was difficult to refuse.
Sam stood resolute beside Sadie, arms crossed, eyes focused on a patch of space not far from where Hattie actually stood.
Who were these people? And why had they been watching her?
Regardless of the rationale, this was the person who’d sent Hattie all those notes—notes which had allowed her to side-step Vincent and the Crew. Sam was a pincher. And this person knew full well what Hattie was.
Perhaps it was proper to give her the benefit of the doubt?
With a sigh, Hattie released the light pinch and took a step forward.
The row of people standing near her jumped away. They weren’t armed. They were simply there.
Sam tapped Sadie’s arm, then pointed to Hattie and the other woman turned her head, then smiled.
“I’m here,” Hattie called out. “You have my attention. And I agree—it’s time we spoke."
* * *
Hattie followed the woman inside, nearly tripping as her toes rammed into an overturned chair.
“Don’t you have lanterns or candles or something?” she complained hopping aside and hissing against the pain.
Sadie replied over her shoulder, “Sure. We don’t keep them lit when we’re not here, if that’s what you’re asking.”
