City of Promise (36 page)
“My men carry pistols, Mr. Turner. Latest-model Colts. Some of ’em got rifles. And they’re all sharpshooters. We’re a match for anything that’s out there. Fists or knives or billies or broken bottles, even sharpened teeth . . . none of it can compete with bullets.”
Jesus God Almighty. A corrupt police force against hoodlums with firearms and some new form of organized Sicilian criminals who published a price list. The town would soon be under permanent martial law. Not his lookout. If they posted Seventh Regiment pickets on every damned corner, people still needed somewhere to live. Unless, of course, he’d actually added the bad apple to his own bushel. “Does the name DuVal Jones mean anything to you?”
The answer was immediate. “Sure it does. Jones works for the Brooklyn mayor.”
“What?”
“Not the real mayor. That’s what they call the man runs the Brooklyn lottery offices. Jones organizes his collections. Oversees the boyos who go to each office and collect the money coming to the mayor.”
Only quasi criminal in that case. The lotteries were legal and hugely popular, particularly with those who could least afford to gamble. But dealing in that much cash—reportedly the business generated millions each year—invited every kind of leech to suck his share of blood. “I take it the man you call the mayor is being paid protection money?”
Miller nodded.
“And have you any idea, Mr. Miller, why a man working for this so-called mayor would want to live on Sixty-Third Street. Uptown Manhattan is a good ways from Brooklyn.”
The other man’s face lit up. “I get it. Jones is taking one of your flats, right?” And without waiting for a reply, “It makes perfect sense. Word is, Jones got married a while back. Pretty little young thing from some place out of town. That’s what he’s after, Mr. Turner. A place to stash his wife. Keep her tucked away, so to speak.”
Confirming pretty much what Jones himself said. “Mr. Miller, you are a genius.” Josh got up to show his visitor out, then, just before he closed the door, “My brother told me you’re the best there is at this sort of thing. It seems he was right.”
Frankie Miller smiled. “Appreciate the compliment, Mr. Turner. Happens your brother gave me my start when I was just a lad. Made me what I am today, Mr. Devrey did.”
E
VEN SIX MONTHS
with child and her belly sailing ahead of her like an inflated balloon—or so it seemed to her—Mollie could still wear most of her regular clothes. Her bosom was fuller and her middle thickened, but there was so much fabric in the skirts of her fashionable suits that once she let out their waists and moved the buttons of the short fitted jackets that had always flattered her, the sort
Harper’s Bazaar
referred to as a cuirass basque, she was still presentable. This despite the fact that Dr. Thomas had made a point about not lacing her corsets too tightly, even suggested she dispense with the garment entirely until after the child was delivered.
He discussed such things through a woman called Miss Palmer, a nurse who was always present when Mollie went to his office.
Miss Palmer, please tell Mrs. Turner about not wearing restrictive clothing whilst expecting.
Looking at the nurse all the while, though Mollie was right there in the room with the two of them. Miss Palmer duly repeated the instructions after the doctor left the room. As if, Mollie thought, she herself had been stricken with temporary deafness while he was present.
Mollie was quite willing to forgo her corset, but she had not expected to be getting herself up in party finery when that final three months was just beginning. Josh, however, had invited her to accompany him to a special event. “Ebenezer Tickle is marrying an extraordinary little woman named Maude Pattycake. She’s half his size if you can believe it. Maude herself invited me, and she specially asked that you come as well.”
“But it’s not, you say, a wedding in a church?”
“No. It’s being held in what’s known as Mama Jack’s Cave. Frankly, it’s a tavern of sorts. With a clientele who are . . . I guess distinctive’s the word. All happy in each other’s company and making merry as if they were any regular assortment of New Yorkers. Not a place I’d consider taking you in the ordinary way of things, but this isn’t ordinary. I’ll understand if you think it impossible in your condition. But if you’re feeling well enough, I’d like to show Ebenezer the respect he deserves. Nothing would make that more apparent than the pair of us attending his wedding.”
She knew he was right on both counts. The dwarf was responsible for much of the success that was lately coming their way, and the presence of his employer and his employer’s wife would do Mr. Tickle honor. Besides, she was curious. A wedding of dwarves in a disreputable cave that sounded like a bawdy house was the sort of occasion she’d expect to read about in Mr. Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper,
not see for herself. She was also gratified. It had been a great many weeks since Josh actually expressed any desire to be in her company. “I’ll be delighted to accompany you, Josh. Dr. Thomas says women can do many of the things they’re accustomed to doing until a few weeks before the child arrives.”
Including some things she’d not had the nerve to tell him were permitted. Like all the rest, that instruction came from the doctor through his nurse. He’d kept his eyes on Miss Palmer while he poked and probed at Mollie’s nether regions with the unspeakable instruments she glimpsed on entering the examining room. And it was during
those sessions that he issued his peculiar third-party advisories and admonitions.
“According to Dr. Thomas,” she told Auntie Eileen, “women need not be locked away for months on end. And their husbands need not be banished to a separate bedroom.”
Eileen snorted in derision. “Well, that won’t please many women. Is that truly what he says?”
“It is.” Mollie imitated the doctor’s sonorous tones, “Miss Palmer, please tell Mrs. Turner she may perform all the duties of her marriage until one month prior to the delivery. It is a privilege I extend to all my patients.”
“Ha! A privilege given to the men who are paying the bills more like. Mind you, the women are the real fools. I’ve taught you better than that, surely. You haven’t sent Josh to sleep down the hall, have you?”
“Of course not.” It was true after a fashion. Josh had changed bedrooms of his own accord.
This business of the dwarves’ wedding, coinciding as it did with the start of her being unable to wear a corset, was an opportunity Mollie recognized entirely on her own. Helped along by a sketch she happened on when looking at one of Auntie Eileen’s books of fashion. The whole thing came together in her mind as a chance to see if she could remind Joshua Turner how it used to be between them. She had wounded his pride. Very well, she would give it back to him.
“Prepare yourself for a series of surprises,” Josh said when they approached Eighth Street. “And don’t be alarmed, I promise you’re entirely safe.”
She smiled up at him. “I’m with my handsome husband. I know I’m safe.”
Auntie Eileen would be proud of her. But it did take some doing to keep the smile in place when Josh ushered her through not just a
taproom, but the storage space behind it, then down a stone passage into what had to be a low-lying cellar of some sort. Mama Jack’s Cave, Mollie reminded herself. Where would it be but belowground?
Her eyes adjusted to the long dark passage, and by the time they entered Mama Jack’s she was able to see quite well. Her glance fastened first on a woman whose arms stopped at her elbows. Then she spotted a black giant with a brass trumpet who stood so tall he had to stoop, and at least a dozen dwarves. Another creature, a woman judging from her dress and her voluptuous bosom and handspan waist, had a full beard. She was speaking with a man whose face was . . . mixed up was the only way Mollie knew to think of it. His nose was off to one side, his mouth to the other, and he had only one eye that seemed to be placed close to the middle of his forehead. “Oh dear.”
She barely breathed the words, but Josh tightened his grip on her arm. “Steady.”
“I’m fine,” she managed, meanwhile opening the purple lace fan that hung from her wrist and waving it vigorously.
“It’s warm in here,” he said. “Shall you take off your coat?”
Now or never. She could say she preferred to keep it on. Josh wouldn’t find that particularly odd. No, she wouldn’t back down. “I shall,” she said, lifting the hem of the long garment known as a polonaise and beginning to unbutton it. Josh waited patiently behind her. Until the job was done and he slipped the coat from her shoulders and she was revealed.
Perhaps, she told herself, she was imagining the murmur of surprise.
Mollie had made the frock herself, copying a fashion that had not been stylish for sixty years. During the War of 1812, when a British blockade made it difficult to bring in the woven silks and satins and taffetas that in those days were mostly imported from Europe, American dressmakers had copied a provocative look popular at the time in Paris.
La mode Directoire
it was called, and the great advantage of dresses so fashioned was that they required a third as much fabric as other styles. For a brief time the
Directoire
look totally captivated the
women of New York City, though it was far too daring for the rest of the nation. Even New York ladies dropped it as soon as the war ended and they could get sufficient quantities of cloth to again make elaborately bustled suits and dresses. The thing that so attracted Mollie when she first saw the plate in Auntie Eileen’s book was the freedom. Only after that did she think of how the style would suit her purpose. A woman wearing a
Directoire
gown was celebrating her natural shape.
The dress Mollie wore to the wedding of Ebenezer Tickle and Maude Pattycake was a rich and shimmering purple that seemed to change hue when she moved. The neck was scooped low front and back, and the sleeves were short and puffed. There was a strip of olive green silk just below Mollie’s breasts—so much fuller now that she was expecting—and it was embroidered with silver leaves and purple flowers. Below that a scant few yards of chiffon simply fell loose, emphasizing every aspect of her form. The gown ended in a series of ruffles, but before any eye could be drawn to that flourish it had to stop at her rounded and very obvious belly.
The legless woman Josh saw the first time he visited Mama Jack’s rolled up to them on her board and looked Mollie up and down. “Hello, dearie. Looks like you’ve a bun in the oven.” She laughed raucously and turned toward Josh. “So you’re to have a prince or a princess for them beehives you’re building uptown, are you? And this looks to be your queen bee. Well, what’s it to be, bride or groom?”
Josh was still trying to accept that his wife was standing there in what looked to be a sort of nightdress, and a very daring one at that. “Groom,” he mumbled.
“Follow me.”
The woman swiveled her contraption around and wheeled herself off to the right side of the room. Mollie followed her, chin high. Josh went behind them, carrying Mollie’s coat. And somewhere to the side of him someone said, quite loud enough for everyone to hear, “Well, he may have only one leg, but looks like he can get it over.”
Mollie glanced back at him. Josh hesitated. He should challenge the fellow, defend his wife’s honor. But . . .
For the briefest possible moment of time, no more than a heartbeat, he would have sworn Mollie had winked at him.
Jesus God Almighty. She didn’t mind. She was cool as you please. She could have kept the damned coat on, he realized. Hell, she could have worn something more concealing to begin with. But . . . she wanted everyone to know. She might never speak the word, certainly not to him, but he’d made her pregnant and she wasn’t hiding it the way women were taught to do. She was proud of it. Proud of him.
Only one leg, but he could get it over . . .
Holy damn but you’re a wonder, Mollie Popandropolos Brannigan Turner.
They were seated close to a bar that ran the length of the room, though no drinkers stood at it just then. “Look,” Josh whispered, raising his chin toward the ceiling.