The Girl Is Trouble (25 page)

“We should go,” said Pearl.

“Not yet.”

I stepped toward him. “Do you know who I am?” I asked.

He didn’t respond, of course. He didn’t have the capacity for speech anymore.

“I’m Iris Anderson. Ingrid Anderson was my mother. Arthur Anderson is my father.” There was so much more I wanted to say. How he’d taken away the one person who mattered the most to me. How he’d caused me to lose faith in her. How he’d almost destroyed my life irrevocably. But I knew he wouldn’t care. Whatever had twisted his heart and convinced him that it was okay to hate someone based on their race wouldn’t care about a sad little Jewish girl like me.

The sirens grew closer. Stefan gurgled again and a line of blood mixed with spittle dripped from what was left of his mouth. A rattle sounded in his throat, then his chest went still.

Pearl took me by the hand and pulled me from the room. We made it to the second floor and climbed out the window and onto the fire escape. The metal reverberated beneath our footfalls as the police pounded at the front door, trying to get in.

We hit the ground and kept running.

CHAPTER

21

I EXPECTED SOMEONE
to yell for us to stop, or to grab our collars, but all of the attention was on the White Swan, not the two of us. “Which way do you think Pop went?” I asked Pearl.

She shrugged as we both surveyed the street before us. The only path that made sense was back the way we came, assuming Pop was headed home. If he’d decided to hide out and lie low, he could be anywhere.

“We should go,” said Pearl.

“We need to find him,” I said.

“He’s got a good ten minutes on us. I say we head back to your house. If he’s not there yet, he will be soon.”

I reluctantly agreed and followed her down Eighty-sixth Street. “Do you think they can link this to Pop?” I asked as we rounded the corner, putting the White Swan, and all of Yorkville, behind us.

“I doubt the police would do anything if they did. Haupt was a Nazi, right? Your pop could claim he was just defending himself. After all, Haupt did threaten you.” She slowed her pace. “You don’t look relieved.”

“Should I be?” I asked.

“Your pop made it out of there safe and the man who could have killed him won’t be hurting anyone else anymore. That sounds like a reason for celebrating to me.”

It did when she said it. But I couldn’t get Haupt out of my mind. Despite knowing about the evil things he’d done and being painfully aware that there were probably many more misdeeds I’d never know about, all I could see was his ruined face as he lay dying. Pop had done that to another human being. Whether he deserved it or not, Pop had served as judge and jury and taken another man’s life.

I didn’t like knowing that, even as I understood the necessity of what he’d done.

We boarded our train and started the journey home. As we got farther from the Upper East Side, I began to relax. It was over; really, truly over. Pearl was right: Pop was safe, and Haupt had received his punishment.

We exited at the Lower East Side and started homeward. The sun set in the distance, throwing a pale pink light over the darkening street. “Thank you,” I told Pearl. “For everything. For coming with me to Uncle Adam’s. For going to Yorkville. For making me see that we had to help Pop. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“You would’ve done fine,” said Pearl.

“Do you want to come back to the house with me?” I asked as we approached Orchard Street. After all, Pearl was supposed to be with me until Sunday.

“No, I think I’ll go home and take a nice long nap. What are you going to do?”

“Wait for Pop. Then I might hug him for three or four years.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

We parted ways and I approached the house. From the sidewalk I could see lights on in the parlor. I rushed up the stairs and heard the chirp of Mrs. M. as she sang to herself in the kitchen. I turned left, toward the office, but it was empty.

“Iris?” said Mrs. Mrozenski. “You are home? You are hungry, maybe?”

“Famished,” I said. “I thought you’d still be at Betty’s.”

“A friend called wanting to go out tonight. She say she fine. She don’t need me no more. Is okay. I sleep in my own bed tonight.”

“Where’s Pop?”

She shrugged. In her hand was a coffee mug that she was drying with a dish towel, no doubt Pop’s from that morning. “Working, maybe? He no home when I arrive.”

The phone rang, startling both of us. Mrs. M. answered it and, after a quick conference, passed it my way. “Is your uncle.”

I’d forgotten about Uncle Adam. He had to be frantic after getting my message. “Hello?” I said. Mrs. M. gestured that she’d be in the kitchen.

“Iris! Is everything all right? Lydia told me—”

“It’s fine,” I said. “It turns out I was wrong.” I’m not sure why I lied. To protect Pop, I guess. If word got out that he’d done what he had, I didn’t want anyone to know, not even Uncle Adam.

“Why did you—?”

“Overactive imagination,” I said. “After our conversation today, I got a little paranoid, that’s all.”

“So Art’s there?”

“Yep. He’s in with a client. Nasty divorce case.” Would he ask to talk to him? Probably not, though I couldn’t be too careful.

“That’s a relief. And you’re sure everything’s okay?”

“Absolutely, Uncle Adam. Everything’s aces. Thanks again for everything.”

I hung up and was surprised to find my heart racing. Why couldn’t I relax? Everyone was all right, even if I hadn’t seen Pop with my own eyes yet.

I ate a generous dinner with Mrs. M. and then forced myself to go to my room. Where was Pop? I could understand him wanting to lie low for a while, but this seemed excessive. If he didn’t come home, what would I do? Call Uncle Adam back? Track down Jim McCain? Hope the police might be able to lend me some help? I paced the floor of my room until the creaking of the boards beneath my feet started to drive me mad. I moved to my bed and sat upright, facing the window. Even though it was freezing out, I left the pane raised so I could hear the comings and goings on the street below me. I’m not sure how it happened—perhaps my exhaustion had reached its limit—but my body gave up on me and I fell into a deep sleep. I awoke with a start to the sound of a cat wailing in the alley. I got up, confirmed the source of the noise, and then tiptoed down the hall to see if Pop was in his room.

Please let him be there,
I prayed as I opened his door.
I’ll do whatever You ask of me from this moment forward, just let Pop be okay.

He was sprawled across his bed, sleeping so heavily, he was snoring.

I smiled at the sight, returned to my room, closed the window, and fell back asleep.

*   *   *

I SLEPT UNTIL ALMOST NOON,
when hunger pains finally forced me out of bed. When I came downstairs, Pop was sitting in the parlor reading the newspaper. The “Pearl Harbor Bared” story took up most of the front section, and he studied each picture carefully, as though he were looking for someone he expected to see hiding in the background of each photo.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning.”

I left him and went into the kitchen, where I made myself several pieces of toast smeared with the oily margarine that was quickly replacing butter because of rationing. I rejoined Pop with plate in tow and set it on the table between us. He acknowledged my offering with a nod and claimed a piece for himself.

“I was surprised to see you here,” he said. “I thought you were staying at Miriam and Adam’s.”

“I didn’t feel good yesterday, so I came home.” I sat in the rocker and picked up the comics page.

“You look like you’re feeling better.”

“Yeah, whatever it was passed. Mrs. M. said Betty was sick, too. Maybe I caught it from her.”

If he was aware of my little dig, he didn’t show it.

“Speaking of which, I forgot to give you a note from her. It’s on your desk.” I’d resealed her letter in another envelope, hoping Pop wouldn’t find it strange that she hadn’t written anything on the outside of it.

“Thanks. I found it.” He turned the page and stared at a cartoon of a sword-wielding Uncle Sam.

“Were you working on a case yesterday?”

“Hmmmm?” He continued staring at the paper.

“I was worried when you didn’t come home last night.”

He licked his fingers and turned another page. “I was supposed to meet with a client uptown.”

“Supposed to?”

“He was a no-show. So I decided to make the best of a bad situation and do a little surveillance for another case.”

How could he be so calm after everything that had happened the day before? Was it possible that it hadn’t hit him yet, or was this relief from knowing Stefan Haupt was gone for good?

I put aside the comics and retrieved the local section from the pile on the coffee table. Most of it contained listings about the ways in which Pearl Harbor would be commemorated the next day. Any number of blood drives, convocations, and moments of silence were planned across the city. And then, near the back of the section, I found a brief article mentioning that an unidentified body had been found in Yorkville.

Body. He was definitely dead, then. Deep breath.

I looked at Pop again. He was staring at an article called “The Truth About Pearl Harbor.”

“Didn’t they tell us the truth before?” I asked.

“Depends on your interpretation,” he said. “Right after it happened, Secretary Knox made some statements that don’t seem in line with what we now know to be true.”

“Like what?”

“He didn’t make it clear how extensive the damage really was. He tried to minimize things.”

“Why did he do that?”

He folded the page in half. “To reassure people, I imagine, though I think the American public would’ve rather had the truth.”

Just like Pop would’ve rather had the truth about Mama. “But the truth is out now, right?”

“Some of it. I’m sure there will be many other things we’ll learn about what really happened in the years to come.”

I wasn’t that interested, to be honest, but I was so happy to be sitting in my living room, talking with Pop, that I would’ve asked him questions all day if I could guarantee that he’d sit there with me. “Like what?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say we knew the attack was coming.”

“Seriously? If that was the case, why wouldn’t we have stopped it?”

He traded that section for another. “We may not have been able to. Or maybe we wanted an excuse to enter the war and knew this would unite the American people in their desire for revenge. In fact, that might be why Secretary Knox downplayed things. Things weren’t supposed to get that out of hand.”

“But people died.”

Pop nodded. “Collateral damage. It’s an ugly side of war, Iris, a cost of doing business, if you will. Sometimes people have to die so that many more won’t.” I thought of Mama and Karl Hincter, whose deaths may have prevented thousands of others from dying at Haupt’s hands. “Something needed to happen to rally the American people and, unfortunately, the only thing that would do so was an attack on our own soil.”

“Do you think it was the right thing to do?” I asked the man who had shot someone the day before.

“I don’t think anyone cares what I think.”

“I do.” I chewed my lip, trying to steel myself for my next question. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

He didn’t look up from the paper. “No. I didn’t serve in combat.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised that he lied, but it still bothered me that there was nothing in him that showed any regret for what he’d done.

The house phone rang and I could hear Mrs. M. leaving the kitchen to answer it. She paused after greeting the caller, then said, “Iris. Is for you.”

I left Pop and took the receiver from Mrs. M. I didn’t even get out a hello before a voice barked at me, “WHAT IS PEARL HARBOR UP TO?”

I was so confused by the question that I didn’t even try to figure out whose voice was on the line. “What?”

“Give me that,” said a female voice that I finally could put a name to—it was Suze. “Iris, I’m sorry we’re calling like this—”

“Don’t apologize to her,” said the first voice. Rhona. It was Rhona. “I want to know what the story is and I want to know now.”

“Cool it,” said Suze. “I’m sorry, Iris. She’s upset about Benny.”

“What about Benny?”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what? I just woke up.” Suze repeated this information to Rhona, hoping it would calm her down. It had exactly the opposite effect.

“While you were lying on your lily whites,” said Rhona, nearly breathless with rage, “Benny was being kicked out of school.”

“I don’t understand—Benny was expelled? For what? And what does Pearl have to do with it?”

Suze wrestled the phone from her again. “Pearl pinned the banner on him, and all those letters the Jewish Federation has been getting.”

“You’ve got this wrong. Pearl wouldn’t do that.”

“I wish I was wrong, baby girl. My kid sister is pals with Judy Cohen’s sister. She gave her the whole scoop.”

“I told him to stay away from that icky,” said Rhona in the background. “Every time he’s messed with her something bad has happened.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, because I was, even if this wasn’t my fault.

“Sorry?” said Rhona. “How’s sorry going to help Benny? You know what happens to boys who are eighteen years old and no longer in high school? They get drafted, that’s what. Thanks to your friend Pearl Harbor, Benny could be staring down the Krauts in less than a month.”

“Close your head, Rhona,” said Suze. “Look, Iris, you know he wouldn’t do something like that—”

Rhona broke in again. “You know what? Let’s just go to that fat cow’s house and make her take it back.” The operator’s voice came on the line, telling Rhona she needed to drop in another dime if she wanted to keep talking. “She’s going to be sorry she ever messed—” Rhona’s voice disappeared and the dial tone came on the line.

What was going on? Benny had been kicked out of school for writing the letters? And Pearl was the one who turned him in?