The Girl Is Trouble (24 page)

“Tell me what your uncle said,” said Pearl. “How did he respond when you confronted him?”

I sat with her in the parlor and gave her the rundown on what Adam had told me.

“So now you know who killed her, and why. I’m so sorry, Iris. Will you tell your pop?”

Assuming he’s alive,
I almost said. “He needs to know that Adam’s not to blame. I don’t know if I should give him Stefan Haupt’s name, though. He might—” An icy finger ran down my spine. Without explaining myself, I left the sofa and rushed into Pop’s office.

Pearl followed fast on my heels and hovered behind me as I knelt before the safe. Why hadn’t I put it together before? The man I’d met on the street outside the house at the beginning of the week had told me to tell Pop that Stefan said hello, and right after that was when Pop started acting so strange. It couldn’t be a coincidence—it had to be the same Stefan, and that meant Pop knew a lot more than Uncle Adam thought.

Pearl crouched beside me. “What are you looking for?”

“I’m not sure yet.” I pulled out the folders and rifled through them. A photo of me slid out and landed on the floor in front of us.

“Why is that photo in there?” asked Pearl.

“That’s one of the pictures Haupt used to lure Mama to him,” I said. “Pop got hold of it somehow.”

Pearl frowned. “But isn’t that Suze’s skirt?”

I stared at the eight-by-ten. Pearl was right: this wasn’t a picture of me in my Chapin uniform on the Upper East Side. I was wearing a skirt Suze had loaned me to go dancing in Harlem, which hadn’t happened until months after we moved to Mrs. Mrozenski’s house. And there wasn’t just one photo: others had been added to the safe since my last visit, each one capturing a closer and closer view of me as I left school, walked with Benny, and met Pearl at the corner of her street.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Haupt took them, didn’t he?” asked Pearl.

I nodded, unable to speak. It was happening again. Stefan Haupt was using me to lure one of my parents to him. Pop hadn’t abandoned trying to track down Mama’s killer. He’d been working on it all along and was close, too close, to pinning the crime on Haupt. “Pop’s in trouble,” I told Pearl.

I found the Rheingold Accounting folder that had the pictures of the man I didn’t know in it. I flipped over the photos and found them stamped “Courtesy of McCain and Sons, Investigations.” So Jim McCain had been helping Pop with surveillance. That explained how Pop had been investigating Haupt without my knowing about it. I flipped past the photos and perused the notes in handwriting I didn’t recognize. It was the same kind of report Pop often made and had been teaching me to make after a tail: where the person had been, what time they’d been seen there, who had accompanied them. Pages of notes tracking Stefan Haupt’s movements over the past few weeks. But the handwriting was too florid and feminine to be Jim McCain’s.

Wait a minute—I knew that writing.

I rose to my feet and went to my overnight bag, where I’d stored schoolbooks I might need for over the weekend. I removed an envelope stashed at the back of my health-and-hygiene text, the one containing the note to Pop from Betty.

The handwriting matched.

CHAPTER

20

I TORE OPEN THE ENVELOPE
and removed not a love letter, but another page of notes written in Betty’s prim hand, detailing her most recent job tailing Stefan Haupt:

It looks like you’re right: the German-American Bund is still alive and well and being run covertly by Haupt. The meeting location he suggested looks like it’s his headquarters. I surveyed the place and I have to tell you, I don’t think it’s safe. Even if he’s on the up and up, there are too many entrances and exits to guarantee there won’t be someone else hidden there waiting to do you harm.

Pearl read Betty’s notes over my shoulder. “So that’s where he’s probably gone, right? To meet with Haupt.”

I nodded. What had I done by holding on to this? Would Pop have postponed the meeting or suggested another location if he’d seen Betty’s note?

“Any idea where?” Pearl asked.

I shook my head. “Haupt must’ve suggested a meeting spot when he sent the photos.”

“So they could be anywhere,” said Pearl.

It was funny how Manhattan could seem so small to me at times, and at others inconceivably big. This was one of the moments when the number of places someone could disappear to on our tiny island boggled my mind.

I flipped idly through the textbook, as though the answer were hidden among its articles on hand-washing and sanitary food preparation. In a sense it was, because as I journeyed through the chapters, I landed on the pamphlet that had been included with Sarah’s note. I hadn’t looked at it very carefully when Michael gave it to me, but now I examined it. Part of it was in English and part of it was in German. “Amerikadeutscher Volksbund,” it said at the top of the pamphlet, identifying who was authoring and distributing this material.

Amerikadeutscher Volksbund. I’d read that somewhere else.

“The White Swan,” I said.

“Where?”

“The hotel where Mama was found. There were notes there from German-American Bund meetings in the lobby. And it was evident someone was still living or working there. That must be Haupt’s headquarters now.” I’d been in Haupt’s lair and hadn’t even realized it. Had he seen me there? Were there more photos showing Pop how close I’d been to danger?

I ached at the thought of Pop trying to climb into one of the windows and navigate that enormous space. Betty had been right: it was a meeting place that favored Haupt. If he intended to hurt Pop, Pop didn’t stand a chance of getting out of there alive.

“Should we call the police?” asked Pearl.

“It won’t do any good. What if we got the same cops who’d helped cover up Mama’s murder?” We could try to contact the OWI. They were looking for Haupt, but would they believe a fifteen-year-old girl who claimed to know where he was? And even if they did, would they act before it was too late for Pop? They certainly hadn’t sprung into action when Mama was the one in danger.

“We should call your uncle,” said Pearl. “He’ll know what to do.”

She was right; Adam was the only one who could save Pop now. I picked up the telephone and asked for his exchange. Lydia answered and quickly relayed the bad news: neither Adam nor Miriam was home.

“Would you like to leave a message?” she asked.

“Yes. Tell him my pop’s in trouble. I think he’s gone to the White Swan to meet with Stefan Haupt.” I hung up the phone. I wanted to cry, but I wouldn’t let myself. There was no time for it.

“Come on,” said Pearl. She pulled me into the parlor and grabbed our coats.

“Where are we going?”

“To Yorkville, of course.”

I pulled back from her. “Think about what you’re saying, Pearl. I couldn’t drag you kicking and screaming there last week.”

“That was last week. Someone’s got to help him, right? If we don’t go, if we don’t do something, you’re always going to wonder.”

She was right. I might not be able to save Pop, but at the very least, I owed it to him to try.

*   *   *

WE POOLED OUR MONEY
and came up with enough for the subway but little else. It was the first time since moving to the Lower East Side that I genuinely regretted being poor. We ran to the station and waited a good half hour before a train arrived to ferry us uptown. As the subway lights flickered on and off, I imagined Pop getting closer and closer to his end. Why hadn’t I given him that stupid letter from Betty? If I’d done so, maybe he would’ve thought twice about doing this. He wouldn’t have walked into an ambush trying to protect me.

“It’s going to be okay,” Pearl told me every few minutes, but the words had lost their power. How could things possibly turn out okay? What was my life going to look like in the days to come? Would I move in with Adam and Miriam, a strange, sad shadow that they tried dutifully to cheer up? I didn’t want to be part of their world anymore. I just wanted Pop.

After an eternity, we arrived at our stop. We rushed up Eighty-sixth Street while I tried to get my bearings. People stared at us as we jogged side by side, two Jewish girls who belonged in this neighborhood about as much as a klezmer band. Then I saw it on our right, the abandoned building with only the outline of letters still on its sign. The front door was barred, and the window Benny and I had entered had new boards nailed over it. Pearl and I went to the rear of the building, where a network of fire escapes snaked up the side. Someone had already entered this way—the second floor’s ladder had been extended.

Pearl didn’t hesitate before starting up the ladder. I followed suit and we made it to the second-floor platform and paused. The window facing the fire escape was open, or rather the glass was broken out of it. Sheer curtains danced in the winter breeze.

Pearl climbed through the window and I did the same. Broken glass crunched beneath our feet. We were in a corridor. The only light came in through the window we’d just entered, but it was enough to see that we were alone.

“Now where?” whispered Pearl.

“I’m not sure.” I listened hard for the sound of anyone else in the building. Footsteps crossed the floor above us. The third floor, where Mama died. “Up one more,” I whispered. If they were up there, what would we do? In all our urgency to get here, we hadn’t come up with a plan. It wasn’t like either of us could wrestle the gun from Haupt’s hand. Our only hope would be to create a distraction that would give Pop, if he was still armed, a chance to fire first.

Assuming we weren’t already too late.

“Where are the stairs?” asked Pearl. I pointed toward where I remembered the stairwell being. Once inside it, we plunged into total darkness. Had it been like this when I was here with Benny? I didn’t think so, but maybe I hadn’t noticed because I’d felt safe in Benny’s company and had no reason to fear anything but the lingering evidence of what had happened to Mama.

We held each other’s hand as we crept up the stairs, taking our time so that we didn’t make too much noise or stumble in the dark. It seemed to take forever to go up a single flight. A tiny bit of light illuminated the third-floor landing door, and we went toward it with muscles so tense they ached with every step.

The door creaked as we opened it. To my ears it sounded like a gunshot. We paused with it halfway open and waited to see if anyone had heard us. Once a minute had passed and no one came running, we went into the hallway.

“There,” I whispered, pointing a finger toward the end of the hall at room 3C, the room Mama had died in. The door was closed, just as it had been the day Benny and I had been there. We started toward it when something stopped Pearl. I was about to ask her what was the matter when she put a finger to her lips and turned toward me.

I froze and heard what had stopped her: a male voice was coming from the room.

The voice was low and indistinct. I strained for some clue as to who was talking but we were too far away to tell.

“Is it them?” whispered Pearl.

“Who else would be here?”

Pearl closed her eyes as though by doing so she might be able to hear more clearly. After pausing for a few seconds she opened them. “What do you want to do?”

I’d hoped
she
would have a plan. “Let’s get closer and make sure Pop’s in there.” The room next to 3C was open. We could go in there, put our ears to the adjoining wall, and listen for Pop’s voice. “If he is in there, we’ll have to create a distraction.”

We slowly made our way toward the adjacent room. With every step floorboards groaned as though they were determined to give us away. After a few feet we paused to confirm we hadn’t alerted them to our presence. Then, just as we were about to cross the threshold, a gun fired and ruined everything.

Pearl and I looked at each other before dashing into room 3D. We pressed ourselves against the wall that faced the hallway to make sure no one could see us. As we got into position, the door to 3C banged open and footsteps pounded past us. A second door opened with a boom and heavy footsteps made their way into the stairwell and down the stairs.

“Oh, God,” I whispered. We were too late. If we’d moved a little faster, if I hadn’t been so hesitant, we might have been able to stop him.

Pearl grabbed my hand and pulled me out of our hiding place and into the hallway. The door to 3C was starting to close on the rebound from being thrown open. Pearl pushed her body against it and we rushed into the room to see what, if anything, could be done to save Pop. He lay on the bed, his blood commingling with the stain made by Mama or some other crime that had happened in the months since her death. I could feel myself starting to crumble and I knew it was a matter of seconds before I would lie limp on the carpet beside him. As I began my descent, I grabbed on to his legs to let him know that I was here and would remain here in his final moments. Through the fabric of his pants, two good legs stiffened beneath my touch.

It wasn’t Pop; it was Stefan Haupt.

I stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. Pop had shot him in the face, leaving the body completely unidentifiable. Pop hadn’t just won; he hadn’t intended for Haupt to live beyond this day.

Haupt struggled to breathe. A gurgling sound came from his throat and his chest convulsed three times.

“Iris, he needs help. He’s going to die.”

“He’s going to die regardless of what we do.” His face looked like freshly ground meat. Had there ever been a creature more pathetic than Stefan Haupt in those moments? I don’t think so, but as vulnerable as he appeared, he also terrified me. This was the man who’d killed my mother and who knew how many other people. The man who threatened to kill me not once but twice, and who would be gladly celebrating right now if it was Pop lying across that bed. I couldn’t forget that. He didn’t deserve my mercy. Not after what he’d done.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Had Pop called the police, or had someone on the street heard the gunshots?