The Wicked City

  “I see. And what if you’re not the poor sucker heading for jail?”

  “Then I don’t give a damn either way.”

  “Are you sure about that? Isn’t there someone in this town you care about?” He leans forward an inch or two and says, low and slow, “Someone even now enjoying the hospitality of the New York City Police Department.”

  “You mean Billy.”

  He doesn’t answer that. Why should he? Just returns my stare. Exchanges my breath for his. I’ll say one thing: he’s got a handsome set of eyelashes, the only soft thing about him. So light at the tips, I want to dust them with my pinky finger, ever so gently. For some reason, this idea soothes the pulse at the base of my neck, the one that has a nervous tendency to gallop off like a runaway horse at the mention of my stepfather’s name. The ringing clears from my eardrums. Thoughts fall back into place. Bright, crisp, useful little thoughts.

  “Now, Mr. Anson. We both know you can’t make a thing stick to my Billy-boy. Don’t you know what family he belongs to? The Marshalls?”

  There is a slight pause. “I have an idea.”

  “Pillars of society. Patrons of every charity between here and Albany. Pals with every pol at every poker table in town. All Billy has to do is make a telephone call to dear old Pater and he’s a free man. Why, I’ll bet you a bottle of genuine Dewar’s he’s a free man already. Trundling on back to Princeton, New Jersey, this minute, in the backseat of Pater’s Packard limousine. What do you say to that?”

  Anson shoots straight to the ceiling. Plants his hands on his hips. Ignites the nerves behind his eyeballs. Parts his lips like he’s got a lot to say to that, sister, and none of it good.

  But the seconds tick on, one after another, and nothing comes out from between those two poised lips. Just the furious whir of second thoughts in the tumblers of his brain. Then the slow unstiffening of the muscles of his face, not what you’d call movement, not even a change of expression—he hasn’t got any of those, remember?—but a kind of deflation, a loosening of the skin. Maybe his shoulders sink a little, I don’t know. But the eyes stay bright.

  “I guess I’d say you’re probably right about that.”

  “So you got nothing.”

  “Maybe I don’t.”

  “In fact, I do believe this entire hullaballoo constitutes nothing more than a bluff on your part, doesn’t it, Mr. Anson? Be honest, now. Just a noisy show to try and scare a poor working girl who’s done nothing worse tonight than order herself a glass of honest sweet milk from the wrong establishment.”

  Long, lazy pause. Like the ocean holding its breath before the turn of the tide. And then. So quiet, it’s almost a whisper:

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  I rise slowly, untangling my legs as I go, allowing my skirt to fall back into place and my limbs to lengthen. I cross my hands behind my back and keep on rising, right up to my tiptoes, so my nose nearly brushes the brute end of Mr. Anson’s chin.

  “Why, if I wanted to raise a big stink, I could take this whole affair straight to the top, couldn’t I? I could show off all my bruises. Weep and wring my little old hands. If Billy were to hear of this, for example …” I shrug my shoulders, such that Mr. Anson’s silk-lined jacked slides across my skin.

  He stares down his nose and mutters, “Good old Billy.”

  “Yes. So what do you say we come to a little arrangement, Mr. Anson? A little proposal of my own.”

  “What kind of arrangement, Miss Kelly?”

  “So simple, even an honest fellow like you can understand it. It’s like this. You take me home this minute, and I promise not to give Billy Marshall your name.”

  10

  ANSON DRIVES me back to Christopher Street himself. He doesn’t say much, just busies himself with the matter of negotiating the narrow, cold streets, the patches of slush and garbage. The buildings are tense and shuttered, as if laid under siege. The brakes squeal faintly in front of the Italian grocery.

  “What have you done with Christopher?” I ask.

  “Christopher?”

  I jerk my head. “The owner.”

  Anson’s thumbs meet at the top of the steering wheel. “I expect he’ll have to go up in front of a judge. Pay a fine.”

  “And what about me? Do I have to see a judge?”

  “No. You’re free. For now, anyway.”

  I look over his shoulder, through the window. It’s begun to snow: the minute, tender flakes at the vanguard. “You know he’ll be back in business tomorrow night. A week at the most.”

  “I know that. It’s not him I’m concerned with.”

  “You can’t stop any of it. You’ll die trying.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “A fellow wants a drink, he’s going to have it.”

  Anson lifts his hands from the wheel and sets the brake. Reaches inside the pocket of his overcoat and produces a calling card.

  “You’ll telephone me if you change your mind?”

  “If I change my mind? Why, sure.”

  “Take the card, then.”

  “I don’t need to.” I tap my forehead.

  “Now, that’s funny. An hour ago you could scarcely remember your own name. Now you’ve got a photographic memory.”

  “When I need it.”

  He presses the card into my hand. “Take it anyway. In case someone knocks you on the head and gives you a spell of amnesia.”

  “Does that happen often in your line of work?”

  “All the time.”

  I pinch the wee board between my two fingers and study it again. The plain Roman letters. Oliver Anson. Exchange and number. By the time I’m finished, Anson’s opened the door of the automobile and strode around the hood to let me out.

  “Thanks. I can find my way from here.”

  “I’m escorting you inside, Miss Kelly.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Statistically speaking, it’s the most dangerous time of night.”

  “No kidding? Then I guess I must be statistically dead by now.”

  He shuts the car door behind me and straightens. His gaze falls on my chin, which sticks right out there into the Manhattan night, at an angle those nuns used to abhor.

  “All right. Good night, Miss Kelly. Thank you for your time.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  My shoes slip and clatter on the paving stones. The headlights flare against the glitter of my dress, against the tiny whir of snowflakes. I reach the sidewalk and the door. Pull out my latchkey, like any modern, independent girl in New York City. The snow coats the stoop like a layer of dust, and mine are the first footprints. The knob turns, and I remember something.

  “Anson! Your jacket.”

  “Keep it.”

  I shrug the garment from my shoulders and trip back down across the sidewalk to where Anson stands next to the driver’s-side door, in his overcoat and a plaid muffler, probably cashmere wool, like the girls at college used to wear, only sleeker. Hat pulled down low over that slanting forehead. The car’s parked right in the middle of two street lamps, nice and dark, so I can’t see his face all that well.

  I say, “No, you take it. Or else you’ll be coming back for it, won’t you? And that wouldn’t do at all.”

  He takes the jacket and folds it over his arm, while the snow stings my bare skin and lands in my hair. And you know something? For a single crazy instant, I imagine myself asking him upstairs. You know. For a cup of coffee or something. Chase away the winter.

  Anson nods, like he’s imagining the same thing. His hand reaches out to land on my shoulder, and the leather feels wet on my skin, cold: the fresh, sweet meltwater of New York snowflakes.

  “Now get inside before you freeze to death.”

  11

  I SUPPOSE YOU imagine, after a night like that, I’d be looking forward to a long winter’s nap in my own clean bed. And I am. I might sleep all February, if you let me.

  But I can’t, you see. Because in the first
place, I’m shortly due at a typing pool in the underwriting department of Sterling Bates & Company on the corner of Wall and Broad, come snow or come revenue agents; and second of all, the light’s shining forth from underneath my door.

  And it turns out, Special Agent Anson was wrong, after all.

  12

  DARLING!”

  “Billy! Wh—” (Word ends in oomph against the lapels of Billy’s dinner jacket.)

  “Darling. I’ve been worried sick.” (Into my hair.) “Where have you been? I telephoned the precinct, I telephoned everyone I could think of—”

  “You telephoned what?” (Extracting self from lapels.)

  “Dearest love.” He takes my face between his hands and kisses my mouth. His breath smells of cigarettes and Scotch whiskey and anxiety. “Did they hurt you? If anyone hurt you—”

  “Nobody hurt me.”

  “That agent. The agent who called in the raid.”

  “What about him?”

  “He didn’t try anything, did he?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Billy holds me out at arm’s length—which is to say, about the length of the entire room—and examines my eyes for truth. “But you were away all night.”

  “That sometimes happens in a police raid.”

  “You look exhausted.”

  “Of course I’m exhausted. I’ve just spent the night in jail. And you’re supposed to be in New Jersey by now. Don’t you have some lecture or something tomorrow? Some professor requiring your presence?”

  He blinks. Exhibits a sort of disheveled aspect altogether, collar loose and tie undone, hair spiking madly into his forehead. Waistcoat all unbuttoned. A fine few lines have grown in around the corners of his eyes, pointing out the reckless black throb of the pupils. “My God. Lectures? Who gives a damn about college?”

  “Why, your parents, I’ll bet. For one thing.”

  “My parents?”

  “Yes. Those. The ones picking up the check for the whole racket, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Ginger. Darling. How can you possibly think I’d leave you to rot in some stinking jail while I—I—slink back to college like some damned little rat and listen to some damned little professor—as if that matters, next to you—”

  “Of course it matters! I’m just some dame you know in the city, you silly boy. I can take care of myself.”

  “You shouldn’t have to. You wouldn’t, if you would just allow me—”

  “Billy.” I stroke his cheeks a little, the way you might stroke a Labrador puppy to calm him down. How I worship those cheeks. He’s got the loveliest bones up there, high and sturdy and dusted with pink on most occasions, as now. Hasn’t got much beard to speak of—shaves but once a day—and the skin’s as tender as any velvet, curving deliciously downward to his jaw and his plump raspberry mouth, presently pursed with worry. The room is cold, and he’s so warm. Scintillating with distress. “How awfully touching. You sweet, dear thing. But you have a future, remember? A nice, bright, shining future. And futures like yours require a college education.”

  “I don’t want any kind of future that doesn’t have you in it, Gin. That’s the kind of shining future for me.”

  “Oh, Billy. Go home, sweetie. Go home and get some sleep.”

  “It’s too late to go home.” He kisses me again, more softly. Hands sliding down my shoulders to the small of my back. Voice running lower, like an engine changing gears. “Hudson ferries’ve been in port for hours. And I don’t want to sleep.”

  “I mean uptown. Your parents’ place.”

  “They’ll ask too many questions if I turn up now. Four o’clock in the morning. And I’ll wake up the baby.”

  “You know, for such a tender sprout, you’re awfully persuasive, Billy-boy.”

  “My uncle’s a lawyer, remember?”

  “Is he a good one?”

  Billy laughs into the hollow behind my ear. “Not really.”

  “What about you? Do you want to be a lawyer?”

  “I don’t care what I am, Gin darling. Not right now. I’m just so glad to see you. Glad you’re safe and free. Let’s not go down to that club anymore, all right? Let’s find a place somewhere, place of our own—”

  “Now, Billy.”

  “Aw, I mean it this time. You don’t know what it’s like, riding that stinking ferry back to New Jersey, knowing what kind of stew I’m leaving you in. I can’t stand it any longer.” (He’s unbuttoning my dress by now, nimble long aristocratic fingers, touching the base of my spine in the way that makes me shiver and forget things.) “Wherever you like, Gin. Upstate or down south or Timbucktoo. We can get married and raise a bunch of kids.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  “And what are we going to live on, Billy-boy? Moonshine?”

  “I’ll find something.”

  The dress is history. He picks me up and sort of crashes backward down on the bed. The mattress heaves and settles. Releases the musty lavender smell of old sheets. Dear Billy-boy. Bones like a sapling. Sweet lips kissing the sense right out of my skin. The night unwinds and spills around us. The snowflakes hurl against the window. I’ve got no more fight in me. I kick off my shoes and loop my arms around his safe, warm neck and say all right, whatever you like, sweetie pie. Take me away.

  And he does.

  13

  A WORD ABOUT the few square feet of bedroom I call home.

  I’m sure you’ve heard about those nice, respectable, wallpapered boardinghouses for professional young ladies. The ones uptown, where anxious matrons keep watch over fragile female reputations, and gentleman callers are to be kept strictly downstairs.

  This isn’t one of those boardinghouses, I’m afraid. Although the landlady does her best, she really does! Mealtimes regular and nourishing, visiting hours established if not enforced. Sheets changed once a week, and possibly even washed during that interval, though certainly not ironed. But the hard truth is you can’t attract the same kind of boarder on Christopher Street as you can on, say, East Sixty-Ninth Street, and a boardinghouse is only as respectable as the boarders it contains, wouldn’t you say? I suppose the speakeasy next door doesn’t exactly elevate the tone, either. Anyway, to preserve appearances, Billy always climbs up the fire escape and enters through a window I keep unlatched (nothing to steal, after all), and he tips Mrs. Washington a dollar a visit because he’s a gentleman. I believe he enjoys the adventure.

  He certainly doesn’t enjoy the furniture. Have you ever tried to entertain a lover on a single bed? Fosters intimacy, I’ll say that.

  14

  I MENTION ALL this because I don’t want you to misunderstand when I describe how, upon waking later that morning, I find myself enjoined in a lovers’ knot of baroque configuration: pinned to the sheets by Billy Marshall’s heavy right thigh across the two of mine, my mouth encompassed by his shoulder, our limbs snarled together. His damp lips dangle along my ear, and his hair shadows my eyes in a kind of brilliantine curtain. The tempo of his respiration suggests utmost satisfaction. (As well it should.) The tempo of mine suggests—well, otherwise.

  I heave Billy’s body aside and sit straight up, gasping for air, gasping for freedom. The air’s dark but not black, and the illumination behind the thin calico curtain warns of a snow-streaked dawn. Next to my hip, Billy continues in exquisite slumber, embracing my shingle of a pillow. The familiar dimensions settle around me: walls, window, chair, washstand, bureau. Not much space between them. I reach for my kimono from the hook on the wall and slither over Billy’s corpse to stand on the cold floor. It’s bare. I have a horror of dirt.

  We did not take long to express our physical longing, Billy and I, in the pit of a New York winter’s night. Short and brisk and effective. My nerves still course from the aftermath, and when I peer at my watch, laid out on the bureau in a perfect vertical line next to Billy’s silk top hat, I discover there’s a good reason for that: I have slept only two hours. Dear Miss A
tkins at Sterling Bates will expect me at my typewriter at nine o’clock, mind sharp and fingers swift. I cast another gaze at Billy. White skin glowing in the gray sunrise. Mouth parted and smiling at the corner.

  I wrap myself in the kimono and lift the extra blanket from the foot of the bed. If I’m lucky, I’ll wake again before Billy does, so he doesn’t catch me in the old paisley armchair, all by myself.

  15

  BUT WHEN my eyes open again, the bed contains no Billy. No strewn clothes, no shining silk top hat perched on the bureau, no handmade leather shoes tumbled on the floor. No sign of life whatsoever.

  16

  HE’S LEFT a note. He’s a gentleman, after all. I won’t quote it here; it’s too intimate. To summarize: he had hoped, after such a night between us, after such a declaration on his part, after such kisses and so on and so forth. You get the general idea. And I have disappointed him. I have kept my soul to myself, while taking all of his. He is going back to New Jersey, and wishes my future happiness with all his heart. Billy likes to feel things, you see. He likes to feel them deeply, to experience life at its absolute rippingest, to italicize every thought and emotion that rises inside him. After some consideration—that is to say, gnashing of teeth and rending of hair and scribbling of yet more midnight letters—he’ll be back for more. And I’ll snatch him in my arms and whisper my thanks to the Lord. In the meantime, I’m due at the corner of Wall and Broad in twenty minutes.

  I expect you’re disappointed. A typing pool. You figured I was employed in some more extravagant capacity, didn’t you? Something glamorous and immoral. And it’s true, I do have a small but picturesque sideline in the immoral. Immorality pays so much better. (About which, more later.) But my mama’s example rusts before me as a cautionary tale, and since Sterling Bates had the goodness to hire me two years ago, as a pink-coated college dropout with eight nimble fingers and a pair of opposable thumbs, I find I can’t quite let poor Miss Atkins down. So many girls let her down. Anyway, who can resist the allure of a regular paycheck?