The Wicked City

  Instead, I leap from my chair, bang my knee against the corner of the desk, and hobble after her, because I’ve got another job here at Sterling Bates this morning, another job that’s got nothing to do with typing, and I had better find a way to stick around until lunchtime or there’ll be the devil to pay: the kind of devil that don’t take checks.

  2

  STRICTLY SPEAKING, I stand a good half foot taller than Miss Atkins, an advantage magnified by the two additional inches of height contained in my square-heeled leather shoes. No matter. She’s got a way of looking down at you when she’s really looking up, craning her lace-collared neck to sort of stare you severely into your place, until you find yourself shrinking, shrinking, like some sweet little English girl who’s just swallowed herself the wrong kind of mushroom. Even me, Ginger Kelly, who never ate the shrinking kind of mushroom in her life.

  And even though I’m following her just now—through the doorway of the typing room, traced by the electrified gazes of my fellow galley slaves, down the long corridor that runs the length of the fourteenth floor to the rarefied offices on the south side of the building, from which the underwriting partners peer out comfortably over New York Harbor and the gray-green lady who keeps watch over the shipping—I still have the strangest feeling that she’s staring me down again. Taking the measure of me. Cutting me down to size right through the straight silver-brown threads covering the back of her head, which are gathered in the customary knot at the nape of her neck. She marches swiftly, little alligator legs churning up the carpet. Makes a sharp left turn and then a right one. Opens up some door that guards not an office but a staircase, cold and dark, and I clutch my pocketbook to my ribs—not a chance I’ve left that valuable object at my desk—and climb those stairs right after her, two flights up, out another door, and to the left, and now, now, when she opens a door and holds it back for me to enter first, she does fasten me with a stare, all right, but not to shrivel me. Just a blank, careful gaze, entirely without judgment.

  I sidle right past that gaze and into the room.

  A lean, middle-aged man looks up from a desk and says, “Is this the girl?”

  Behind me, Miss Atkins says, “Yes, sir. Miss Kelly.”

  He lays down a pen next to a leather blotter and rises to his feet. “Thank you, Miss Atkins.”

  Door closes click.

  The man rescues a pair of small, round spectacles from the bridge of his nose and gestures to an armchair, the kind of cushiony leather-swathed goods you ordinarily reserve for your more prosperous banking clients. The office is large and set on a fortuitous southeast corner, allowing you to keep your beady eye on not only Lady Liberty but most of Brooklyn as well, and yet for all its generous dimensions and expansive view, the whole place strikes me as Spartan. The man himself strikes me as Spartan. Decoration spare and simple. Clothing hung from a gaunt frame. A palette that spans the rainbow from dove gray to charcoal.

  “Good morning, Miss Kelly. I appreciate your attending me so early.”

  I take my seat. Fix my pocketbook to my lap. “It’s my pleasure. Mr. …?”

  There is an instant of confused hesitation.

  “I—I beg your pardon,” he stammers. “You are Miss Kelly?”

  “I am. Typing pool, underwriting department.”

  The set of his cheekbones eases a fraction. “As I thought.”

  “And I do apologize for my recent absence. As I explained in my telegram to Miss Atkins, my mother was taken sick, and I’m afraid she—well, she expired altogether soon after—”

  “Yes, I heard. Very sorry for your loss. But—”

  “Are you really? Sorry for my loss?”

  His head jerks. Those narrow, grayish eyes blink out some kind of Morse code. Hand reaches for the pen, lifts it, sets it back down. Knots together with the other hand, atop the paper on the blotter, and then moves back to the damn pen like it’s a talisman. Fountain pen, made of gold, probably cost a fortune. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean—Naturally you’re heartbroken. Terrible thing. No doubt the two of you were close—”

  “Not particularly, I’m afraid, but it was still an awful shock. The funeral took place Friday. If my absence has caused any inconvenience—”

  “Your absence?”

  “From my desk last week.”

  “Oh! Oh. Think nothing of that, Miss Kelly. Naturally a daughter must attend her family at such a dreadful time. Her—her devoted family. The bank is quite understanding of such matters, I assure you.”

  I observe the fiddling of his fingers around the pen. “How awfully comforting.”

  “You need harbor no concerns on that account, Miss Kelly. Your position at the bank is perfectly safe.” He leans forward and fixes me with an earnest gaze. “Perfectly safe.”

  You know, it’s terribly quiet inside this office. I suppose that’s what prestige buys you in this buzzing, rackety metropolis: a sweet absence of sound, of vibration even, such that you can hang suspended over the tip of Manhattan Island and lock eyes with a saucy Appalachian redhead and not a single note will interrupt your private communion with her. Not a word, not the clickety-clack patter of a typewriter, not the guttural roar of an automobile engine, not the clang of a streetcar bell or the rattle of an El train or a siren or a scream or any damn thing. Just you and her, conversing in a silent tongue, until illumination dawns between you.

  And the girl, she leans back in her chair and crosses her promising long legs and smoothes the pleats of her navy skirt that covers those legs, and she says—to your profound gratitude, because God knows you don’t want to have to spell the whole thing out for her, word by word, in the vulgar language of commerce—

  “I’m relieved to hear it, Mr. Smith. I am speaking to Mr. Smith, am I not?”

  He closes his eyes briefly. “Yes, Miss Kelly.”

  “I believe I have a parcel for you, Mr. Smith.”

  “Yes. Yes, I—I am given to understand you might. Have a parcel for me.”

  He coughs.

  I smile.

  “Of course, I must beg from you some proof of authenticity, before handing over a parcel like this. Do you have such a proof for me, Mr. Smith?”

  Mr. Smith nods and flips the pen vertical between his fingers, nib down, to write something on the topmost paper lying before him on the blotter, while an ocean liner emerges at that exact second from the corner of the window behind him, heading out toward the Narrows and to sea. Three stout funnels, steam flowing purposefully from the first one. Mr. Smith sets down the pen, waves the paper in the air to dry the ink, folds it in half, rises from the chair. He’s a tall man, as I said, and I am reminded of an insect as he rounds the corner of the desk and approaches my chair—not your typical New York City bug, cockroaches and that kind of thing, overfed and scuttling, but an insect from back home. A daddy longlegs or a praying mantis, made of sticks and sort of awkward about it. He holds out the note and I part the sides. Read the single word written there in elegant block letters.

  Mr. Smith falls back to his desk and braces himself against the edge. His fingers strum the underside in an anxious arpeggio. Those long, fidgety fingers. I keep my gaze on the paper before me, my brow knitted thoughtfully, and while I can’t see out the window, I imagine that ocean liner making her way across the broad plane of glass, crossing past the base of Lady Liberty, forcing her way through the skein of watercraft doing business in the icy February harbor.

  At last, I lift my face and smile at Mr. Smith.

  “I believe everything is in order.”

  His shoulders slump. I think he even smiles.

  I rip the note into a dozen dainty pieces, deposit the pieces on the oily brown corner of the desk, and open the clasp of my pocketbook.

  3

  I DON’T KNOW what kind of message Duke gave him about me, but I’ll swear he was scared out of his wits. Drink?”

  I waggle the bottle over Anson’s glass.

  “Just water,” he replies.

  “Wate
r? My goodness. I’m afraid you’ll have to fetch that little old thing yourself.” I set down the bottle and lift my glass. “Cheers, then. To my seamless initiation into a life of bribery and corruption.”

  He says nothing to that. I clink his empty glass, there on the chest of drawers, and swallow down my gin like medicine.

  “Tell me something, Anson. Are you teetotal by nature, or on principle?”

  “Because it’s illegal, do you mean?”

  “Have you ever had a drink, is what I mean.”

  “I have.”

  “When? The last time. Your last and final taste of intoxicating liquor.”

  He glances out the window. “In January of 1920.”

  “I see. You’re the kind of fellow who likes to follow rules.”

  “Laws, Miss Kelly. I follow laws.”

  “An interesting distinction, I guess. Though I feel obliged to point out, as I’m sure you’re aware, that it’s not forbidden to drink this marvelous ambrosia.” I hold up the glass for his inspection. “Just to sell and transport it.”

  “I’m aware of that. I choose to abide by the spirit of the law, not its letter.”

  “How admirable of you. I expect they can see the glimmer of your halo all the way over in Brooklyn.”

  He just looks at me. He’s standing next to the narrow, grimy window that overlooks the rear garden—such as it is—of Mrs. Washington’s boardinghouse: the same window through which he recently gained entrance to my bedroom, in the manner of a lover, if not the spirit of one. His idea. I wanted to meet at some joint or another, nice and smoky, plenty of sauce to settle my nerves, but Agent Anson is cautious of spies and eavesdroppers and wishes to keep our meetings as private as possible. So here we are, wedged rather intimately inside the four irregular walls of my bedroom, while the lamplight adds gold to his hair and underlines the strength of those barbaric cheekbones. I tip a little more gin into my tumbler and change the subject. “So what do you make of our Mr. Smith? I must say, he isn’t what I expected.”

  “Oh? What did you expect?”

  “Someone seedier, I guess. Not a respectable praying mantis in a corner office.”

  “A praying mantis?”

  I make a few long movements with my arms. “Tall and skinny.”

  Anson props one sturdy hip on the windowsill and fingers the long vertical edge of the windowpane with great interest. “His real name is Benjamin Stone.”

  “Benjamin Stone. Sounds familiar.”

  “Should be. He’s head of the municipal bond department. Deals with all the city officials, not just in New York but up and down the New England coast. Boston, Providence, New Haven. Structures bonds, puts together syndicates. Connects municipalities with money. You might say he knows all the right people, if you’re looking to transport a few quiet loads of merchandise past the noses of the men who ought to be watching for them.”

  “And Ben’s on the take.”

  “Appears so.”

  I set down the empty glass. “So arrest him.”

  Anson lifts his head from his study of the window. “Now, what kind of good would that do, do you think?”

  “Stop him in his tracks.”

  “And your stepfather, Miss Kelly? What would happen to him? What might he do to you, if he realizes you’ve double-crossed him?”

  “He’d be arrested, too. For bribing a—bribing a bank official.”

  Anson regards me quietly for a beat or two and returns his attention to the window. “No proof. Only a fool would testify against him.”

  “A fool like me.”

  “Which is why I won’t let you do it. This is just the beginning, Miss Kelly. Benjamin Stone—he’s only a symptom, not the cause. Duke Kelly has the entire New York City prohibition office in his thrall, to say nothing of the police and city hall.”

  “But I thought Mr. Shevlin was supposed to be incorruptible. Why, Izzy and Moe are in the papers every day, making arrests.”

  “Sure, making arrests. Making arrests of people like you, Miss Kelly, people out having a drink and maybe the owners of such establishments, and even a few men supplying those establishments. But that doesn’t make a difference, not a bean’s worth of difference.” He sticks his thumb into the windowpane. “Eight million New Yorkers out there, Miss Kelly. Eight million New Yorkers, and at least half of them buying and drinking intoxicating liquors, in public establishments and private homes—and that’s a conservative estimate—and Messrs. Isidore Einstein and Moe Smith have arrested a thousand or two. And the New York papers call them heroes.”

  I consider the bottle of gin and my empty glass next to it, and I fall back a pace or two, away from immediate temptation, bringing me right up against the bed. I sit down and stretch my arms out behind me.

  “The thing is, you don’t need to have the head of the Bureau in your pocket,” Anson continues. “You don’t want the head of the Bureau. That’s too obvious. What you want are the men who really run things.”

  “Such as?”

  Anson rises from the windowsill and steps to the bureau, the one I’ve just left. He leans his elbow on the corner and lifts the bottle of gin. Inspects the label and the transparent curve of glass. “That’s the point of this exercise, isn’t it? We’re going to let Duke Kelly lead us to each one of those men, until we’ve got what we need. Until we’ve got enough evidence that we don’t need anybody’s testimony. Until not even Kelly can wriggle free.”

  “You sound like it’s personal.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “Those missing agents?”

  He sets the bottle back on the bureau. “I should be going. Let me know when he makes contact with you again.”

  “Now, wait a moment. Not so fast.”

  “It’s late, Miss Kelly. I imagine you have more agreeable appointments awaiting my departure.”

  “Oh? You think so? You mean gentleman callers?”

  “That’s your business, not mine.”

  “Say. You’re not jealous, are you?”

  He fixes me with that gaze of his, all dark ice and packed with silent contempt. That’s how he answers me.

  I push myself up from the bed and step close, real close, so I am staring at the blunt point of his oversized nose and absorbing all that contempt like so much challenge. “As a matter of fact, I’m not expecting anyone tonight. Just you. I cleared my dance card.”

  “Then I guess you ought to get some rest.”

  “You’re right. I ought. But I do have a little business remaining with you, Agent Anson, if you’ll be so good as to oblige me.”

  “I think we’ve covered everything thoroughly already.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing to do with the enforcement of laws. Heavens, no. I’ve had it up to here with those for one night. Just a little curiosity I believe you might have the power of satisfying for me. Sort of—well, returning the favor. I help you with your needs, you help me with mine. A custom we have, out there in the country, where I was bred up.”

  Without his expression shifting so much as a hair, the contempt flattens into a thoroughly enjoyable wariness. I don’t know how he does it, communicating such ideas without benefit of human expression. Or maybe it’s all in my own head. Maybe I’m just imagining what he’s thinking, and the genuine matter of his brain contains something else. Truth be told, those blue eyes are blank and relaxed, and his mouth’s set in the same straight line as ever. Might mean anything. I reach into the pocket of my skirt and draw out a button, which I hold near the corner of my right eye, not far from his own.

  “Ever seen such a thing before?”

  “A button? From time to time.”

  “You big lug. I mean a button like this.”

  A small crease appears in his forehead. He takes the button from me and tilts it toward the lamp. “There’s a design on the face.”

  “No fooling, Sherlock. I thought you might be able to tell me what it was.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because, to my untrained eye, i
t looks like a crest of some kind, and I figure you’d have seen all the crests there are to see in this city.”

  He turns his face to mine, and this time he really is frowning, no doubt about it. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you’re a swell, Oliver Anson. All dressed up in your dour old Prohi agent costume, of course, but you can’t fool me. I know a gentleman when I see one.”

  He turns the button between his fingers and examines each side. “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How do you know a gentleman when you see one?”

  “Oh, a million things. The way he talks. The words he uses—”

  “You’ve got a vocabulary, too.”

  “I learned mine at school. With you, it comes natural. And your clothes. Dull and all, but the material’s fine, and the cut”—I whistle—“why, the cut’s sublime.”

  “Where did you learn about men’s clothing?”

  “I work in the underwriting department of one of the most prestigious banks in the world, Mr. Anson. And I notice things.”

  He holds out the button. “Yes, you do.”

  “But you haven’t said I’m right.”

  “Nor will I.”

  I grasp the button in his fingers, but I don’t pull away. I like the touch of his skin. I like the shape of his fingertips and the trim of his nails. I like the way his breath just touches the tip of my nose. “And the button?”

  “It’s the Harvard crest.”

  “Harvard? You mean the college?”

  “Yes.”

  I take my hand away at last and rub the ridged brass design with my thumb. There’s not a hint of tarnish. I reckon Mama kept them polished. “A Harvard man, then,” I say softly.

  “It appears so.”

  “Don’t you approve? Something against Harvard men?”

  “I’m only feeling sympathy for poor Mr. Marshall.”

  “Oh? And how do you know it’s not Billy’s button?”

  “Because he attends Princeton University. If I’m not mistaken.”

  I slide the button back into my pocket. “No, you’re not mistaken. But the button doesn’t belong to any lover of mine. My goodness. What do you take me for?”