Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 09/01/12 (27 page)

“No one came with
you?” She’d been nursing a small hope that Nicky would be on the
train.

“Nessuno.”
No one.
“Troppo da temere. Sai com’
è.”

Other Anarchists were too afraid to come? The government had
stepped up deportations and arrests, she knew that. The entire leadership of the
I.W.W. was in prison, five to twenty-five years at hard labor. Eugene Debs got ten
years, Emma Goldman two.

“But you mayor, he calls in goons to bust open the
heads, and I do nothing? No no. Me and Sacco, we been go all over, back East.
Organize the strikes, or give a little bit more muscles, eh? You see the magazine
say three thousand strike last year? This year, more.” He stopped to look her up and
down again.
“Ma,
Antonella, maybe you marry somebody rich? You looking like
a girl on top a wedding cake. Look what a dress.”

“I made it,” she said.
“Cheaper than you think.” She knew better than to tell him about the jewels she’d
taken. He’d want money for the cause, and she wasn’t sure what he’d do with it.
People were so desperate lately, so furious. They needed Seattle to remind them to
hope. “Have you seen Nicky? Any of you? Talked to him?”

“Nicolino
mio,
no. I know somebody sees him, maybe October, maybe
November.
In Mexico. Nicky says he’s going right away, Washington, D.C. Looking for you,
Antoné.”

“Not October. He wouldn’t have come before Armistice.”

Mario
shrugged. “Why not? People, they know is close. Week, two weeks before? What’s a
difference?”

A week before Armistice, the marshals had stopped her in Chicago.
Ella felt a little sick. Worried again that they’d arrested Nicky at the Kingstons’.
That they’d come after her as, to their minds, a fellow Red. “You haven’t heard from
him since? Would you know it if he . . . if he got picked up?”

“You no worry.”
Mario patted her cheek. “Nicky, he’s a smart boy. Eleven years old, already he’s
work two years in the coal mine. Me and that crazy Wobblie—you remember him, no
front teeth and the red hair?—we grab him, dirty like a dog, no parents, gonna get
himself shot in the strike. We put him on the soapbox, this town, that town. He
tells everybody. Breaker boys, they don’t never see the day, they sitting twelve,
fourteen hours pick the rocks from the coal. The chutes, they overflowing, the boys
they bury alive. People they no believe me, I tell them. But Nicky, he makes them
cry. What a boy, eh? Already then, he’s a man. Don’t forget—Nicky, he good to take
care himself. You no worry ’bout Nicky, Antoné.”

“But no one knows where he
is?” Her world contracted to Mario’s face while up the block, the banjo player and
singer went into “For Me and My Gal.”

“You lonesome,
bella mia?
Always together, you and Nicolino.” He crossed his fingers to demonstrate. “But now
you got a new boyfriend? You no make such a pretty dress for nobody?”

She
laughed away the question. “So I’ve got an attic apartment,” she told him, “small
but all to myself. I’ll show you where it is. Then you can come and go.”

They
pushed through hundreds, maybe thousands of people listening to music, buying street
food, speaking in excited bursts about the strike.
The Star
claimed the
populace shivered in terror of being without streetlights and transport,
without food and necessities. But people here knew the unions wouldn’t let
them suffer. The mood was festive, full of anticipation and optimism.

The
streetcars, though, were jammed full. Not just with celebrants. The drivers walked
off tomorrow, and people were rushing their errands. A throng waited at the first
stop they approached, so they backtracked to an earlier one, and then to a third.
Even there, it was awhile before a trolley didn’t fill before she and Mario reached
the door.

They were finally just steps from boarding when Ella heard muttering
behind her. A man, a lumberjack judging from the slivers in his cap, spat out, “That
Teamster.”
Someone else said, “Union voted nay—no friend of
ours.”

Ella blinked tiny points of moisture from her lashes. She looked
through the drizzle till she spotted a young man under a streetlamp. He wore a
shabby Navy uniform. It was taking months to get the hundreds of thousands of
soldiers back from Europe. Skinny men in dirty blues or khaki flooded the streets of
Seattle in December, streamed in steadily in January, and were more than a trickle
even now.

“Ought to go teach the skunk a lesson,” someone else said. “Hear him
at the strike vote? Says Hanson’ll wait till the sympathy strikers go back, then
he’ll brag he whupped us. It’ll hurt unions all round the country.” The crowd at the
trolley stop rippled with threats and angry laughter.

“Never heard of the
Teamsters. Won’t be around long if it’s full of cowards. I’m I.W.W. Let’s go show
him what it takes to make a union last.”

“Leave him be.” Ella put out her arm
to stop him. “It’s a new day. Don’t start it with blood on the street.”

The
Wobblie looked at her hand touching his sleeve. For a second she thought he’d bat it
off. But Mario said to him, “Soldier boy, he gonna get it, you no worry. You see
he’s got a goon follows him?”

The Teamster was at the end of the block, where
it met an alley famous for its shanghai tunnels. A few steps behind him, entering a
circle of lamplight as the other stepped from it, was the goon.

He was
hatless, his hair glowing muted orange in the stippled beam. It was Marshal Killy.
Ella was sure of it. The wide shoulders, the square head, the tiger-fur shade of
ginger.

The marshal was here. Close enough that if he turned, he’d spot
her.

Ella had seen the photos in
The Star
every day, marshals
boarding trains west. She’d heard Ole Hanson brag he had hundreds of them coming.
She’d even worried one might be Killy. Worried, but then reminded herself she had a
new name now and false papers.

With the instinct people show when being
watched, the marshal turned toward her. She shifted to hide her face, then jostled
her way up the streetcar steps. Had he seen her? Recognized her? There was no seat
available, and the aisle was packed, but she elbowed her way to the back window. By
now, he’d be following the Teamster into the alley.

But it wasn’t so: He
hadn’t moved, except to face the trolley. He seemed to be looking right at Ella now.
Fog made it impossible to be sure of eye contact, but she felt it like a lightning
strike.

She told herself it didn’t matter—he couldn’t recognize her from this
distance (though she recognized him). Her hair was different now, and he wouldn’t be
looking for her here. He’d assume she was some other girl. It meant nothing, it was
just coincidence that he stood motionless, watching. And in any case, he’d have to
hurry away or he’d lose the Teamster.

She was relieved when the streetcar
started to move. As it arced out into the street, she shifted to look through a side
window. She hoped to see Killy’s back as he retreated. But no, he was closer now.
Close enough that she made out his scowl. She tried to persuade herself he couldn’t
see her as well as she could see him, not with the trolley picking up speed. But
then he bolted toward it.

When he reached it, he began pounding the side with
a flat hand.

Another time, the driver might have stopped. People were friendly
here. But the car was full, and a crowd waited for the next.

Within seconds,
Killy had to sprint to keep up. His knocking became insistent and closed-fisted.
Ella watched the driver list left in his seat for a better look in the long side
mirror. She craned for his view, causing a seated passenger to mutter and shift. She
saw Killy pull a big nickel star from his pocket and wave it.

So she’d been
right, not paranoid, that night in Chicago. And now the tiger had found her
again.

Someone said, “A marshal wants on.”

Ella hoped the driver
supported his union’s aye to strike. She called out, “Ole Hanson’s got a nerve,
bringing these lawmen here to bust our heads.”

“I don’t see any marshal out
there.” The driver doubled their speed.

Ella heard the chatter around her,
speculation about what had just happened. Mario had pushed his way to her side, and
she spoke to him in rusty Italian. “I know that marshal.” Saying it made it seem
more real. “The trolley takes too long at the stops—there’s no chance he won’t catch
up. I think I have to—If I get off, can you get off too? Stay back so it doesn’t
look like we’re together? If he leads me someplace, follow us. Will you? And then .
. . then lure him away, in some other direction? Give me time to . . . Or . . . or I
suppose knock him out if you absolutely have to?”

“Certo,”
Mario
murmured.
“Posso pur’ ammazzarlo.”

“No!” She’d have no man’s death on
her hands. And wouldn’t Ole Hanson love to see a marshal murdered here? The mayor
probably hoped the week would start with blood and riot. He certainly didn’t want
the strike viewed as a benevolence, rippling across America to change it for the
better. “I just need enough time to get far enough away. That’s all.”

Mario
grinned to show (she hoped) that he was joking.

At the next stop, she got off,
then threaded through the crowd waiting to board. She didn’t look over her shoulder
to check for Mario. She knew he’d be there someplace.

She began walking toward
the previous stop. At first only strangers came toward her. They were hunched into
thick work jackets as the drizzle intensified. Then she saw a man running.

She
stopped, leaving it to the marshal to close the distance. If he was winded, maybe
he’d be less careful. Less likely to notice Mario melting into a shadow or a group.
And anyway, she couldn’t persuade her legs to take her closer to the
tiger.

Killy was upon her before she finished the thought. Without a word, he
grabbed both her arms, pinning them to her sides.

“Have I committed a crime?”
She tried to pull free. “Did I read the wrong newspaper or criticize that politician
you work for?”

It was disconcerting to stare up at him, to compare his face to
the image her mind summoned sometimes, late at night, when fears came over her.
She’d forgotten details after three months. She remembered the pale brows and broad
forehead, the slight flattening of his nose, the hint of a dimple on one side. But
she’d recalled only the pale blue of his eyes, not the near-black outer rings, as
daunting as bull’s-eyes. She’d wrongly thought his lips were thin and unpleasant
when actually they were rather full. And though he was a head taller than she, and
broad-shouldered, he didn’t actually tower like a menacing beast.

“It
is
a crime, you know, to lie to a U.S. Marshal.” He was bumped against
her as people hurried past on both sides, rushing for the departing
trolley.

“And is it a crime to lie to someone who doesn’t
tell
you
he’s a marshal? Besides, I admitted I was no schoolgirl.”

“Yes, and then
pulled a grand stunt to escape.”

“I slipped away from a stranger who showed
too much interest.”

“Feared I was a masher, did you?” He showed his dimple,
but it was no warm smile. “Is it not more traditional to refuse dinner with a man
you find annoying? Or do you generally accept invitations and then create an uproar
and disappear?” He gave her a little shake.

“I didn’t create the uproar,” she
lied. “I just . . . took advantage of it.”

“But you’re done pretending you
don’t know I’m a marshal?”

“Are you done pretending you just like to chat
about politics?”

“Oh, that’s no pretense, more’s the pity. As to the rest, my
girl . . . I supposed it would be simpler to talk to you without the star on my
lapel.”

“What did you want?”

“I wanted you, Miss Gualtieri. But you
guessed as much.”

Only knowing Mario was close gave her the courage to ask,
“Why?”

“I thought we were done pretending.” But it seemed a
question.

She looked down. Whichever way she went in answering—keeping in mind
either the jewels or Nicky—she might guess wrong and offer him a new
suspicion.

“You’re asking do I know the reason? I don’t,” she said. “But
you’re not in Seattle to find me? You’re a strike-breaker for Mayor Hanson, I
suppose.”

“Lord, no. I told you in Chicago, my candidate, Mitchell Palmer, is
a good progressive. Worked hard for the ten-hour workday when he was in the House,
and I’m sorry we didn’t win the fight. Blame the Senate, but never mind that. I work
for no mayor.” A short laugh. “And whatever you may think, it would be no favor to
Hanson to turn strikers into martyrs. On the contrary. If we can prevent vigilantes
from—”

“Then why were you following that Teamster?”

“Beck, you mean?
Help keep the hotheads off him. He believes your strike will backfire. A view he’ll
be defending with his fists, I think.”

“If he voted nay, he deserves the
trouble.”

“That may be—what’s idealism without the occasional Pyrrhic victory?
But it doesn’t make him wrong. You’ll have a hundred and ten thousand striking,
two-thirds in solidarity and not for their own sakes. With no quarrel of their own,
they’ll soon go back to work. And to the world it will look—”

“We’ve heard it
all before. It’ll look weak, and that only hurts the movement, and so there’ll never
be another general strike. And so forth. And you may wish it, but it’s not so. This
is just the beginning. Do you think idealists are babes in the woods? I’ll wager
we’ve led harder lives than the likes of you.”

“The likes of me,
eh?”

“What do you want?” Ella tried to calm down, to remember that her object
was simple: to end up on a quieter street so Mario could distract Killy. (But he’d
offered to kill the marshal. Did she truly trust him not to?)