Bowery Girl (6 page)

The crowd swelled, all the patrons waiting their turn to pass through the beaded glass doors. Mollie waited until the crowd was a swarm of satin and silk and wool, waited until everyone's focus was on only the broad doors that would lead to heat and a night's entertainment. She rubbed her hands, blew on them, flexing them, then stepped from the dark of her hiding place and moved between the carriages. The horses in their leathers hung their heads or munched from grain bags. The drivers lit cigarettes and wrapped their scarves tighter around their necks. They milled among one another, stamping their feet. Their breath hung in the air.

She moved in, her soft soles giving nothing away. The gentlemen would have their wallets in their chest pockets; the ladies would hide their rings in the muffs that warmed their hands. The easiest thing to take would be cuff links, or easing a watch from its pocket and slipping the chain from a vest button. The ladies might have a pocket in their skirts—might be a few coins there, too. She sidled into the crowd. She did not look at faces, but waists and wrists and pockets. She heard nothing but the rush of blood in her chest.

A little shove. A cuff link unclasped and in the pocket. Step away, run into a woman, apologize, slide a hand in her husband's jacket; yes, there's the leather. Slide the bills out under your coat, drop the wallet to the ground, let it be trampled by the crowd pushing impatiently forward now. A gold-and-black waistcoat, covering an ever-so-large stomach. Look at the watch chain beckon! Slide out the knife, only one slice to pop the button holding it. Down comes the watch into an open hand.

Her heart beat faster. She was close to the doors now—one more, one more something . . . but what? There—just the faint hint of an opening to a lady's pocket. Mollie let her go by, darting a hand in, coming up with a handkerchief and a miniature book. A Bible. She'd give them both to Annabelle as a present, for they were worthless to fence.

Her breath was shallow. Her ears filled suddenly with the murmurs of the latecomers rushing up. The cologne and perfume changed the air to streaks of gold.

She strode quickly away, back into the midst of the carriages. The drivers no longer lounged around, but had stepped inside their cabs for the wait. Only the horses bore witness to her passing.

Turning right at the hat shop, Mollie thought of the girls who would be clocking in before the sun. Who would wear their fingers to the bone and be old before they'd turned twenty.
Poor fools,
she thought. At least she had the freedom to see the sun, to wake when she wanted. She pulled out the cuff link she'd just stolen, flipped it in the air, caught it between two fingers, and kissed it.

 

 

The flagstones of the alley sloped inward to an open gutter, littered with ice, mud, and trash. The view of the sky above was knife-thin, for the buildings were solid brick, four stories each side.

Mollie lifted her skirts and was careful where she stepped. A black rat crawled from the gutter, stared at her with its shiny eyes, then scurried across her path and under a muslin sack of garbage.

She passed the first door with the shattered lantern, and came to a half door of weathered wood that showed in flecks and streaks that it had once been painted jade green. It had neither light above it nor knob upon it, and the brick wall that stopped the alley short kept the entrance in perpetual darkness. She knocked twice, then once. Waited three seconds. Gave four short raps. This was the abode of Black Jim, whose face was known by no one.

A small square was cut in the wood. It was pushed open by a hand with long fingers and threadbare cuffs. The odor of sour eggs and stale tobacco smoke followed. The hand turned, palm up; the nails were edged with crescents of black. She placed the cuff link in it. The fingers closed like a vise; the little opening was shut tight.

Mollie waited. She looked up at the sliver of night sky and the stars that pulsed and flickered. She stuck out a shoe and was annoyed at the splatters of mud on the leather.

The little door opened. Five cents.

“Not enough,” she said.

Black Jim's hand held the coin between index finger and thumb and did not move.

After pocketing the coin, she pulled the watch from her coat and gave it over. Waited again.

Two dollars. The bills fluttered.

“That's silver. The chain alone's worth—”

The hand and money disappeared.

The clear air brought cold. Mollie hopped from one foot to the other to bring up heat. She was certain this watch would bring at least twenty dollars, perhaps thirty, for it was beautiful and the tick was close to silent, the innards well designed. There would be money for Tommy, for food, for rent, for a bet at the Rat Pit.

Five dollars were proffered.

She grabbed the bills and stuffed them into the large pocket of her coat. “Tight-ass.”

The door slammed shut.

His groan echoed in her chest. His heartbeat thumped against her. The cast-iron bed frame squealed, then slowed, then stopped. Seamus's leg remained heavily over hers, and the rough of his trousers scraped against her thigh.

She sat up and pushed down her skirts, organizing the folds until the fabric was smooth.

“Don't get up,” he said. “Jesus, it's heaven just like this.”

She gazed down at him. Such soft kisses he gave! And nights at the Rat Pit, or walks along the waterfront to see the ever-growing bridge. Simple kindnesses. He never forced her to do anything—not at all like other men. For hadn't she enough of that, of walking down the wrong alley, smiling at the wrong man, straying too long at a charity house Mass, compromising with a cop?

But with Seamus, for brief moments alone and touching, she could let the weight of the city fall from her.

Running a finger along his soft cheek, she thought,
I could love him.

“Mmmm.” He turned on his side. “Yer a beaut, Mollie Flynn.”

“Ain't so bad-looking yourself, Seamus Feeney. Now that your head's healed up. Can't believe you let a Rum Runner nail you. Had to have hurt like hell.”

Seamus reached to the nightstand, picked up a cigarette, and lit it.

“Didn't hurt as much as that shit hurt when I found him.”

“They'll try again.”

“Maybe.” Seamus smirked. “We paid a visit to Calhoun's little brother—Edgie Moore?”

“Yeah?”

“Just paid him a visit at his place of employment, that's all. He won't be working at the slaughterhouse for a while. Gotta take care of finding a new nose.”

Mollie closed her eyes. “Jesus.”

“No sirree. Handkerchief ain't gonna help him.” Seamus sat up and shook his head. “I hate Calhoun. I hate everyone he's ever known. And they ain't gonna squeeze us out of Lefty's. I'll slit the throat of every one of the bastards before I'll let that happen.”

Mollie heard the words, and knew they were not his, but Tommy's. He never questioned anything Tommy said or did. It was pathetic. Mollie wondered if he ever had a thought of his own. She remembered once that she'd asked him if he liked plum pudding. He'd looked around the room, instinctively settling on Tommy. Waiting for an answer. He didn't get one. He just shrugged his shoulders and turned the conversation to something else.

“I gotta go,” Mollie said.

“Why?”

“'Cause I got to.” How could she say that she loved one side of Seamus and hated the other? The other would win. It always did.

“Stay the night.”

“You know me and Annabelle got a pact. You know—”

“I know,” Seamus muttered. “Gotta come home at night.”

“So's we know the other's all right.”

Seamus sighed. He stretched out an arm and wrapped it around Mollie's waist.

“I gotta go.” She brushed his arm aside and turned so her feet dropped over the side of the bed. She pulled on her shoes, and in her hurry, knotted up one of the laces. She stood, took her coat from the hook in the door, and slung it on.

“See you later.” She did not kiss him before leaving.

 

 

The Ragpickers' Lot was a narrow strip of empty space that ran from Roosevelt straight back to Chambers. It had not changed in the years since Annabelle had found her there. Only the faces were different. A few metal barrels of burning firewood provided the only warmth.

The right side of the lot was a marvel of technical design: Layers of scrap wood had been nailed or balanced to create sleeping quarters four squat levels high. It was a feat of design because it rarely collapsed. When it did, the thing seemed to build itself up within a day, and all the stalls were occupied. Long and narrow feet clad in mismatched socks stuck out of one box, fourth level. One ground-floor unit boasted a guard dog, who kept one eye open and one cropped ear cocked.

The left side of the lot held the rags—three men high and six deep—rags collected from trash bins for too many years to count. Some were washed in the nearby tub and resold.

Mollie wondered if they held children still, as they had once held her. She knew that men and women came often from the Children's Aid Society, that they brought broom handles to sift through the rags and find the children. Some of the ragpickers would watch, and if a child was found, they would claim to be the boy's or girl's guardian and ask for fees before releasing the child. Most of the kids came back within a week. Others were not heard from again. The Children's Aid Society claimed to send the children to families in the West. But there was no one to prove that, and a lot of the kids thought they were being sold into white slavery.

Which in a way would be true, for the Society would clean them up, teach them to read and curtsy and sew and hammer, and find them a job. The do-gooders loved to boast about finding jobs for the “destitute.” They boasted of the “honor of work,” and how they'd steered another poor soul from the “depravities of crime.” But work—in a factory, as a cash girl at a department store, as a maid in a Washington Square manse—meant only slavery in another form. Mollie'd seen the girls who stood in the window of the millinery factory on James Street, staring longingly through the plate glass while the machines rumbled and shook behind them. Mollie herself had once asked after a job sewing ladies' gloves—only to find the wages so low one could barely afford a berth in a flophouse.

She crossed the lot, stopping at the first ash bin. An old man warmed his fingers, keeping them so low to the flame, Mollie thought his skin would singe black. One side of his body lifted higher than the other, like a puppet on strings. The left side of his mouth was pulled in a grimace, revealing more blank space than teeth.

“Hail Mary,” he said to Mollie in that funny voice of his, half water and half wheeze. “Hail Mary full of grace.” He set a fire-hot hand on her forehead. “Good to see you, Mary Mary Quite Contrary.”

“Hey, Jip.”

He removed his hand; the night seemed even colder than before. The rag mound sighed, as if the children sleeping there had let go of all their dreams at once. Mollie felt its heaviness and fear wrap around her. She knew what it was like; she understood the terror that kept them curled like dogs as far back into the rags as possible.

“Hail Mary got a penny for a pint?”

She reached into her breast pocket and handed Jip a handful of coins. Then she pulled out a dollar bill, rolling it tight. She set it in Jip's palm. His skin felt like paper, like autumn leaves. “Get some food for the kids in there, all right?”

He shoved the money in a grubby pocket. Nodded once. “Hail Mary full of grace, how does your garden grow? With silver shells and cocks and belles and Jesus' little toes.” He held his hands over the fire again. His red-lined eyes slid toward the street and then snapped back to stare in the popping flames. “Got an admirer, Mary.”

Mollie turned around. Tommy McCormack leaned against the broken fence, smoking. The glow of the cigarette's tip lit the blue in his eyes. She wanted, more than anything, to keep walking, to pretend she hadn't seen him. Just keep walking until she came to Chambers Street. From there, she had her choice of alleys or cellars to sneak through. But the worst thing you could do with Tommy was to show fear. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked over to him. As if she knew he'd been following her all along.

“Got a penny for a pint?” He expelled smoke from his lungs, like he was on fire from within. Then he dropped the cigarette, and slowly ground it out with the bottom of his shiny shoes. “Or how about twenty dollars, which I believe you promised me last week.”

“If I had it, I'd give it to you, wouldn't I?”

“I assume you'd give it to me, before you gave it to people like
that.
” He smiled down at her, looking to all the world like a kind brother, concerned about her health.

“I don't got it right now. Give me another week. It'll be easy now that Annabelle's back, you know, now that she's working again. We're just a little tight right now.”

“Annabelle.” Tommy smiled. “Annabelle's let me down a bit lately. A lot lately.”

“It's slow.”

“She's lazy.”

Tommy stepped forward, then circled around Mollie until he had her pressed against the fence. He leaned into her, his cheek touching hers, and his breath blew against her ear. “Got a job for ya, Moll. You do it, we'll call the debt even, all right?”

“What is it?”

“Chandler shop on Spring. You're the only one small enough to fit through the one window that's never shut. All you got to do is lift some keys from the watchman's pocket and open the front door.”