City Of Promise Part 26

Joshua had sent Ollie Crump to Roach's Tavern with instructions to explain what had happened and bring Miller back to 1060, glad to have something for the lad to do. Since Mollie disappeared Ollie had spent every minute downstairs in the kitchen, cursing himself for not being with his adored mistress when she needed him. Which only sent Tess and Agnes Hannity and Jane into further floods of tears.

"Is that the ransom note?" Miller asked.

Simon handed it over. "The nearest thing," he said. "But there's no demand for ransom."

"Not yet," Miller agreed, reading the terse message. "And n.o.body saw nothing?"

"No one," Josh said. "My stableboy had gone downtown as he probably told you." Miller nodded. "The rest of the household were all inside. Mrs. Turner was in the garden and no one thought to look for her until well after four when Tess went out to see if she wanted tea. Tess is-"

"Tess o' the Roses," Frankie Miller finished for him. "I remember. From when me and my boys was looking after you, Mr. Turner."

Josh flushed; there was no mistaking the reproach. He had ended the bodyguard arrangements a year before, when the economy became more stable and New York City no longer felt like the Western frontier. He'd kept Miller's men on as security guards in a number of his buildings, but no longer had anyone posted to 1060. Just now, however, he had no time for arguing past decisions. "I'm sure you remember everyone, Mr. Miller. But it's your other contacts that make you valuable just now. We need to find out who's behind this and what he wants."

"My brother thinks Captain Clifford may be involved," Zac said. "There's bad blood between them from way back. I'm sure you remember that as well."

Miller nodded. "Clifford's the one who thought he could shut down the ironworks, I remember."

"There's something else," Simon said. Miller and his brothers looked at him expectantly. "I'm not a detective or anything of the sort, but . . ." He sounded embarra.s.sed.

"But you're the one who has read every mystery story ever written," Josh said. "What are you thinking?"

"The note," Simon said. "It's written in capital letters so presumably we shall gain no knowledge from the handwriting, but it doesn't look to me to be the work of a thug or a lowlife."

He looked apologetically at Miller, but the gunman-who as always looked more like an accountant than what he was-merely nodded. "Why's that, Dr. Turner?"

"The letters are neatly drawn," Simon said. "There are no smudges, no false starts. It looks rather as if an educated person was pretending not to be so."

Miller picked up the note, looked at it again, then replaced it on the desk. "I'll start asking some questions downtown. Let you know as soon as I find out anything."

"That has to be very soon," Joshua said. He was standing and leaning on his cane and his grip on it was white-knuckled. "I cannot imagine," he said softly, "what Mollie must be going through."

She could neither stand nor stretch out, only sit with her back against what felt like a wooden wall, her knees drawn up toward her chest. She was blindfolded and her hands were tied behind her back. Her ankles were also roped together, and her toes were pressed up against the other side of whatever this thing-Mollie thought of it as a cage-actually was.

After a while she realized she could hear street noise. A hubbub of people calling to each other, but in a language she could not identify, and the occasional clop of a horse's hooves and the rumble of wagon wheels over cobbles. Apart from that her only company was her terrible, soul-destroying fear.

She had no real sense of time, only of anguish and cramping pain, but she suspected it was a couple of hours later when the door to her cage was opened a second time. "You need toilet?" the gruff voice asked.

"Yes, oh yes, please." She had been praying she would not soil herself, praying that would not be added to her indignities.

The rope around her ankles was removed and a hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her free. "Stand up."

There was sharp pain as the blood rushed back to her legs, and dizziness from being so quickly yanked to her feet. Mollie fought off both. She had to make the most of any opportunity to improve her situation. To do so she knew she must remain alert.

Her jailer had hold of her arm and was pulling her along. Mollie let him guide her steps, willing herself to get as much information as possible from this time of relative freedom. There was a certain resilience to whatever was underfoot. A carpet perhaps, but her senses rejected that conclusion. She thought herself to be outside. There was a dampness in the air, and the noises of people and traffic did not seem filtered through a window. She was aware of another sound as well. Less familiar. Steady though, a kind of constant drone.

She was distracted by the screech of metal on metal. After a second she recognized it as curtain rings moving across a rod. "Here," the voice said pushing her forward. "There is bucket. Use it."

"My hands," Mollie said, "I can't lift my skirts."

This was greeted with a word she did not understand, though it was clearly a curse. She took that as confirmation of what she'd already supposed, that her jailer was a foreigner. And since the name on the side of the van had been DeAngelo, perhaps she'd been taken by Italians. That's why she couldn't understand what was being said on the street. Everyone was speaking Italian. Most likely she'd been brought downtown to the slum known as Mulberry Bend. Having divined that much despite the conditions of her captivity was a triumph of sorts. It gave her courage. "If you untie my hands," she said quietly, "I swear I won't do anything except what I must to use the bucket."

"If you lie," the voice said, "in your own filth you will sit. As long as it takes."

The words were meant as a warning but they were a promise of an ending; her captors had a purpose other than to make her suffer. That too was information. And given her circ.u.mstances the bucket was a luxury beyond price. Even when her hands and feet were once more tied and she was bent in that dreadful position in the cage, Mollie felt something other than despair. It might almost be called hope.

When her jailer came again she was unsure how much time had pa.s.sed or whether she had slept. Once more she was pulled out of the place they'd left her, and her hands were untied and released from behind her back. "Here. Eat," the gruff voice said. "Hurry."

Coffee and bread. Breakfast, she decided. She was as tightly blindfolded as ever, but she could sense light, and there was a certain early freshness to the air. The street sounds were different as well, busier. So she'd been in this place for what . . . sixteen hours perhaps. She must be careful to keep count. That she decided was critical.

She took as long as she could over the food, but eventually it was gone and her hands were retied. "I come back soon," her jailer said, "take you to the bucket."

The door to the cage was closed after that. The darkness was again complete. Then, very soon, she heard more footsteps. Not those of her jailer. Someone else. They did not come toward her but stopped some distance away.

Should she cry out? If she did, would she gain an ally or merely enrage her captors, perhaps make things worse?

She smelled something. Smoke. Dear G.o.d, was someone setting a fire? She would be burned alive. She opened her mouth to scream, but bit back the sound. The constant drone that had been in the background since she was brought here had changed. It was louder, more insistent. A distinct buzz. Bees! Someone kept honeybees nearby. Perhaps she was in a yard behind a house.

She'd read about beekeeping in her gardening books. These days the hives were not made of straw and didn't look like the pictures in the books she'd read as a child. Modern hives were wooden boxes with open slats on the top. When the keeper wanted to check on how much honey had been made he pacified the bees with smoke.

Her theory was instantly confirmed. The droning sound was lower, less angry. She could hear a murmuring voice. The keeper, she decided, was speaking to his creatures, almost crooning to them as if they were pets. So perhaps she could find an ally after all? She opened her mouth again, still unsure, but leaning toward making some kind of sound. Then she heard the footsteps she recognized as those of her jailer and a whispered conversation.

The beekeeper was in league with her captors. Mollie choked back tears of disappointment and, when she realized they were speaking English, strained to hear their words. She could get only fragments. Not now . . . I told you . . . No matter about the bees . . . What do you think he will do if . . .

She did not hear anything that told her who "he" was, or what might be the penalty for disobedience, but apparently Mollie Turner was more important than honey.

The next time she was taken to the bucket she identified the faint resilience of the surface she was walking on. It was tar. She was not in a backyard. She was imprisoned on a roof.

Ollie could remember when there'd been eight or ten rookeries and a few shacks in the Sixties and Seventies. Nothing else. Things changed once Mr. Turner put up his tall buildings. Besides, Central Park was finished now, and so was St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the new Seventh Regiment Armory occupied the entire block between Sixty-Sixth and Sixty-Seventh Streets on Fourth Avenue. He'd heard that pretty soon some kind of fancy museum was going to move to Fifth Avenue at Eightieth Street. No place for rookeries in among all that. Most were gone, but three remained in the Seventies.

Ollie knew his way around such places better than Mr. Turner or his brothers, or even Frankie Miller and his gunmen. On Thursday morning, the day after Mrs. Turner was s.n.a.t.c.hed, Ollie began his mission. His intent was to prowl every hall and climb every stair within the dark and cavernous interiors of these worlds that were within the city but entirely outside its laws and customs. "You seen anything? Yesterday afternoon after two and before four? Anything or anyone looked like maybe he didn't belong up here?"

"Don't belong how?"

"I don't know. If I knew I wouldn't be asking you, would I? You want this or not?" Flashing a shiny nickel.

They always told him something. One boyo said he'd seen a big bird flying by with a woman in its beak. Another that a witch on a broomstick had ridden back and forth at ground level, then sailed off into the sky. He knew they were lying just to get some money, but though he reduced the bribe to two cents, Ollie kept on paying. "More where that came from," he kept saying, "but you got to get me something works out to be the truth. How it really was."

Once a couple of boyos tried to rough him up and get money without bothering to lie for it. At fifteen Ollie was still small for his age, but he'd not forgotten the survival skills required in the rookeries. He kicked the largest of his two a.s.sailants in the groin. Recently, Mrs. Turner had bought him new work boots. They were made of tough leather with a metal reinforced toe, so the tactic was particularly effective. The boyo he'd kicked howled in pain and doubled over. The other one started coming for him, but backed off when he saw the knife in Ollie's hand. "I don't care two t.u.r.ds about you," Ollie growled, clutching the pruning knife with the lethally curved blade. He'd honed it for an hour before he set off on this venture. "I just want information. Get me something I can use and there's a ten-dollar reward."

He hadn't cleared that with Mr. Turner, hadn't even told him what he planned to do. But if his employer wouldn't pay the reward, Ollie would. It was a week's pay, but it was thanks to Mrs. Turner that his ma and his sisters no longer lived in one of these h.e.l.lholes. Mrs. Turner sent his ma all the laundry from 1060, and paid her three dollars every week for the washing and ironing. With that and what Ollie gave his ma out of his wage, she and the girls had been able to move to a couple of rooms in a tenement on Third Avenue and Forty-Eighth. There was a bathtub in the kitchen and a stove so they could boil a kettle to get hot water, and they had their own toilet in a tiny little closet beside the front door. The el went right by their fourth-floor windows. His ma didn't like the noise, though his sisters thought it was exciting. Everyone agreed the new place was a palace compared to the rookeries.

He and his family had Mrs. Turner to thank for everything. Ollie wouldn't give up.

"I didn't wish to worry you, Aunt Eileen." Joshua's hand had been forced because it was Thursday afternoon. Every Thursday since they moved uptown Mollie had gone to visit her aunt. He'd been reluctant to leave the command post his study had become, but he could not allow Eileen to get such news from a messenger.

"They can't want anything but money," Josh told Eileen. "Once I pay they will bring her back." He tried to sound confident; Eileen was nonetheless white-faced with shock. He poured a tot of brandy from the ever-full decanter on the table in her sitting room. "Here, drink this. It will help."

She took the gla.s.s. "Mollie disappeared yesterday, you say?"

"Yes." The mantel clock showed twenty past two. "As near as we can make it, some twenty-four hours ago exactly."

Eileen tossed back the brandy. When she put the gla.s.s down her hand trembled, but her color had improved. "But why . . . Who . . ."

"I don't know, Aunt Eileen. I thought perhaps you might make some inquiries. Among your influential friends."

"Most of them are dead," she said with some bitterness. "Or forgotten they once knew me. Or they're so old they've lost what wits they had." Eileen was fifty-eight. Her hair had turned entirely white but her face was unlined and her mind undiminished. "There is, however, someone who may be useful. I shall speak to him immediately."

"Anyone," Josh said. "Any possible ray of hope. Please, Aunt Eileen."

Eileen was silent for a time. Then, "Go home, Joshua. Whoever has taken Mollie will try to contact you there or at your office. Not here certainly."

"Yes, you're right." He stood up. "You'll do-"

"Whatever I can," she said. "Immediately. You can rely on it."

Half an hour later a hansom cab discharged her at Avenue A and Fifth Street.

The bell above the door tinkled when she opened it, but the p.a.w.nshop was empty. "Mr. Ganz," Eileen called. "It's Mrs. Brannigan. I wish to speak with you on a matter of some urgency."

Sol Ganz appeared from the rear. "Ah yes, my dear Mrs. Brannigan. I have been expecting you."

There was no point, Ollie decided, in offering a nickel or a dime to a lady like this. Not even ten dollars. She lived in a splendid new house on Fourth Avenue and Sixty-Ninth Street, and she wore a lace shawl around her shoulders and a dress made of shiny silk, and her white hair was perfectly arranged. But according to the man in the house next door, this old lady sat at the window all the time and watched the street. So she was a good prospect to answer his questions. "Please," Ollie said. "It's real important."

"A lady being taken somewhere against her will. I should think it's important. And you're quite sure she didn't live in one of the rookeries? Those sorts of women might choose to be carried off somewhere by a stranger."

"No ma'am. This lady absolutely didn't choose to go away. She'd never leave her garden. Maybe you seen it. Up on Eighty-Seventh Street."

The woman clapped a hand to her cheek. "Oh, of course. I thought I'd seen you somewhere before as well. I don't get out much, but my nephew comes sometimes and takes me for a drive. We always go up to see the garden next to 1060 Fourth. I've seen you working there. And your mistress. That lady. My goodness. Who would do such a thing?"

"n.o.body knows. Not Mr. Turner-he's her husband-nor n.o.body. There ain't been no ransom note nor nothing like that. But I thought if somebody seen something, I could maybe tell Mr. Turner and that would help."

The woman pursed her lips and thought for a moment. "I must say . . . This did occur to me as soon as you asked, but I didn't want to get anyone in difficulty without knowing . . . It's such a beautiful garden. Those pink roses that bloom over the fence on the south side-"

"Those are the damask roses," Ollie supplied eagerly, seeing that talk of the garden seemed to produce the effect he was after. "We grow Bourbons and Gallicas as well, but Mrs. Turner had two damasks sent over from England. Tiny little things they was when they came, but now they're doing fine. The damask rose comes from Persia originally. Mrs. Turner told me."

"Persia, my word . . ." The woman had gone back to clutching her shawl with both hands, as if she thought maybe he was going to try and pull it away, and she stared over his shoulder for what seemed a long time. "Yesterday afternoon," she said finally. "It happens there was one delivery van . . . Of course, there are often delivery vans on Fourth Avenue, but this one looked not exactly the sort one sees here. This neighborhood is becoming quite fashionable, you know." And, after Ollie nodded agreement, "At least I'm sure I've never seen this particular van before . . . DeAngelo Brothers. I remember quite clearly. That's what was written on the side."

"Thanks, lady. I'll bring you a bunch of the damask roses soon as ever I can." Ollie turned and began running up the avenue.

There were only three hitching posts outside the St. Nicholas. Josh had balked at more. He said he liked the clean sweep of the pavement, and that anyway Hopkins's stable was right next door and a horse that needed tethering for a short period could be left there. He had, however, no need of the stable when he rode up to the building a few minutes before seven in the evening. All of the hitching posts were available. Josh secured Midnight's reins to the first of them and went into the lobby.

An elderly couple were waiting for the elevator. He joined them, murmuring a greeting and touched the brim of his topper. Moments later the elevator arrived and Ebenezer Tickle opened the doors.

"Good evening, Mr. Tickle."

"Evening, Mr. Turner. We wasn't expecting you."

The couple turned to give him a second look. Josh was always surprised at how well known he had become. It had started a few years back when he built on Seventh Avenue and Pulitzer's World published an editorial t.i.tled "Housing for the Common Man." The paper mentioned his having lost a leg in the war and made him out to be a hero. He hated it, but there was nothing he could do. "I'd like a word, Mr. Tickle. Perhaps after you take this lady and gentleman to their destination. I'll come along for the ride, if I may."

The dwarf nodded. Somewhat warily Josh thought.

"Fourth floor, please," the man said. The couple went into the elevator. Josh followed. Both men immediately removed their hats. The lady sat down on the red velvet banquette that went around three of the dark mahogany walls of the cabin. The words Otis Safety Elevator were inscribed on a polished bra.s.s plaque. They gleamed in the light of four gas sconces. Tickle reached up and grabbed the leather strap that pulled shut the lobby door, then yanked the door across and secured the strap on the opposite side. The inner door, a folding metal grid, slid closed soundlessly on well-greased runners. The dwarf shot a sideways look at Josh and he nodded acknowledgment.

Tickle took hold of the bra.s.s handle that operated a large black wheel and spun it a quarter turn. There were a couple of clangs and a hissing sound, then the elevator began slowly to rise. The little man kept his gaze fixed on the indicator high above his head. When it was just past three he eased back on the wheel, bringing it to a full stop when the moving arrow pointed to four. "Here we are," he said, sliding open the metal door and unhooking the leather strap that freed the solid door leading to the hallway. He pulled that open as well and glanced down. The floor of the elevator was precisely level with that of the hallway. He smiled. Sometimes the operator had to play with the crank repeatedly to get that right.

The couple got out. Josh wished them a good evening. Tickle closed both doors. "Visitors," he said. "Their grandson lives in Four A."

"I see. I wasn't expecting you to be running the elevator, Mr. Tickle, but it's just as well. You're the man I came to see."

"Regular man's sick," Tickle said. "I took his shift since it was right here in my own building. Anyways, the elevator stops running at eight. What can I do for you, Mr. Turner?"

"I need a favor, Mr. Tickle."

Josh hadn't seen Mama Jack's Cave since the Tickles' wedding six years before, but nothing had changed. Certainly not Mama Jack, sitting on her throne on a platform suspended above their heads. She acknowledged the arrival of the Tickles and their guest with a nod of her huge head. Tickle nodded back-almost bowed Josh thought-then turned to Josh. "Stay here. Me and Maude, we'll move about, talk to folks. Anybody says they maybe know something, I'll send 'em over to talk to you."

Josh took a seat. The lady with the luxurious beard brought him a tankard of what turned out to be best-quality ale. Five minutes or so went by.

He was conscious of a number of people staring at him openly, particularly after Ebenezer Tickle talked to them. He felt the covert gaze of others against the nape of his neck, but no one approached him with information. Josh had protested the Tickles' plan, said he didn't think he should accompany them to the Cave. "Surely you'd do better on your own. I'm the outsider. Why should they help me?"

"Not such an outsider as all that," Maude had said, nodding at his peg. Her husband added that if he hinted at Trent Clifford being one of the villains, Turner would gain plenty of allies.

Josh could see Ebenezer moving through the room, but Maude seemed to have disappeared. Another dwarf started in Josh's direction, but either he changed his mind or Josh had misread his intent. The dwarf stopped in front of the giant with the trumpet. Big Black Tonio reached down and lifted the man into his arms so they were face-to-face. For a few minutes they spoke earnestly, then Tonio set the dwarf down and he turned and went back the way he'd come.

"Psst. Mr. Turner." Josh looked around.

"Up here, Mr. Turner. Mama Jack's roost."

He glanced up. What the voice had called the roost, Mama Jack's floating platform, had swung into position just above his head. Mama Jack was in the shadows, but he could see Maude standing at the platform's edge and leaning towards him. "Her," she said, pointing somewhere off to Josh's right. "Go with her."

He turned his head and saw the woman whose hands were attached to her elbows. She reached him after a few seconds. "Come with me," she said. "Mama Jack wants to talk with you."

He was bad with heights. Always had been unless he was sitting on a horse. And there didn't seem room on the roost for one more person. Nonetheless, he followed what Barnum had called the "Incredible Armless Lady." See her use her feet to drink a gla.s.s of milk and comb her hair! She went through a door beside the bar, then up a steep flight of stairs. After which she led him along a narrow stone ledge that circled the tavern some twelve feet in the air. The ledge was no more than two feet wide, and made of dark stone like the walls. Had to be why he'd not noticed it on either of his two previous visits. The Incredible Armless Lady turned back toward him. "You managing? Peg leg and all?"

"I'm managing." He didn't add that he was gritting his teeth and leaning so far into the wall he thought his shoulder might be carving a furrow in the stone.

"Almost there," she said. Then, stepping onto a spot where the ledge was slightly wider, "Come out onto this bit here and wait."

Josh did as she instructed, fighting off nausea, trying to press himself back against the wall. The woman turned, squeezed past as if they were on an ordinary sidewalk, and went back the way they had come. After a few seconds he heard a soft grating sound and looked up. A series of cables crisscrossed the ceiling-he could reach up and touch it from where he stood-and Mama Jack's roost was whirring toward him. For a moment he thought he'd be crushed between the woman's great bulk and the stone wall, but the platform halted a few inches from the ledge. "Good evening, Mr. Turner. My sympathies for your ill fortune."

"Good evening, Mama Jack. Thank you for talking to me."

A match flared and she lit a candle in a holder fastened beside her. The flickering light revealed the many chins that obscured her neck, and made her huge head seem to grow out of her shoulders. But in the candle's light her skin was flawless and alabaster pale, and her eyes large and black and long-lashed. She would have been a fine-looking woman without the fearsome burden of her mountains of flesh, and that was somehow the most shocking thing about her. He wondered if she knew she was pretty. "Please," he said, "whatever you know. I'll be extremely grateful. If there's anything-"

"Be on your guard, Mr. Turner. Do not make any rash promises. You have a dwarf couple living in one of your buildings and apparently their fellow residents accept that. I do not think you could rely on that degree of accommodation if you sprinkled a variety of freaks among the other of your flats."

Her quiet voice and her educated speech astonished him more than her appearance. There was no reason to think only the poor and the ignorant were prey to such misery as hers, but he'd nonetheless made the a.s.sumption. "I didn't mean to imply a promise beyond my ability to deliver."

"No, of course you didn't." She waved the apology away with a slight motion of a hand the size of a dinner plate. "Now, I must be direct and return to my post." Mama Jack leaned in, fixing him with her dark stare. "Two of the people involved in this affair are not strangers to you. One is a p.a.w.nbroker, a Jew named Solomon Ganz. The other is an attorney. A Mr. Jeremy Duggan. You must be very careful with both, though one profits from your downfall and the other from your ascendance."