Ten Days in August (4 page)

Charlie wiped his hands on a rag. “Do you know anything about what happened?”

“Are you the police?” Nicky snapped.

Charlie held up his hands. “No. I don't mean to be nosy. But how am I to know if... how am I to know if the man I sit with tonight wants me to end up like Edward?”

It was like Charlie had reached into Nicky's chest and squeezed his heart. “I do not know. You can't. But this profession was always a risk.”

“Which is why you dance now.”

Nicky reached up and finished pinning his wig in place. He said nothing.

Charlie examined himself in the mirror and stood back up. “I need to pay my rent. No one wants an aging working boy, but Julie still lets me work here, and sometimes I do find a man just desperate enough to overlook my advanced years.”

“You're not old,” said Nicky, although that wasn't quite accurate, at least not in the circles they moved.

“It's all the same in the dark, I suppose.” Charlie took a deep breath and put his hand on the door frame. “If I don't see you tomorrow—”

“You will.”

“Good luck tonight, Nicky.” Then he was gone.

Day 2

Thursday, August 6
Temperature: 91 °F

N
icky's sister Brigid lived on Hester Street not far enough from where they'd grown up in a crowded tenement building with barely enough room for each person to move his elbows.

The rest of the Sharp children had gotten out of the tenth ward. Brigid had chosen to marry an Italian man who owned a little shop on Orchard Street, and so she'd stayed. Thus it had fallen upon her to take care of not only her five children but also the Sharp patriarch, who had fallen into a bottle upon the death of their mother.

The heat worried Nicky. As he walked through the clamor of pushcarts and other street vendors to get to Brigid's building, he could not help but notice how wretched it all felt, how hot and hopeless. The air smelled of fish slowly spoiling where they lay on display, of rotting fruit and rancid meat, of sweat and urine and decay. Nicky did not want to be so prissy as to cover his nose with his hand, but he did pull out a handkerchief to feign blowing his nose so he could get some respite.

A man had buckets of water that did not look clean, but he offered refreshment to anyone who needed a drink. Others huddled under the white awnings that had been stretched out from the storefronts on Hester Street, hoping to hide from the glaring sun. But there wasn't room enough to hide everyone, and it seemed as though every resident of the neighborhood gathered outside. People swarmed about on the street or hovered above it on the fire escapes and roofs of the narrow buildings.

Brigid lived on the third floor of her building in a three-room apartment. Nicky gazed up at it and saw her laundry hanging from the fire escape. The front door to the building stood open, and two of Brigid's kids were sitting on the stoop having what looked like an intense conversation. The girl, Lucy, grinned when she saw him.

“Uncle Nicky!”

The boy, William, looked up, too. He smiled but looked too exhausted to do much more than lift his hand.

“Is your mother upstairs?” Nicky asked.

“Yes,” said Lucy. She was the oldest, nearly twelve. “It's too hot, so Mother told us to go outside, but it is not much better out here.”

“No, I imagine it isn't.”

“Why is it so hot, Uncle Nicky?” asked William, rubbing his face, clearly miserable.

“I do not know.”

He left the children to their conversation on the stoop and walked up to the third floor. The apartment door was wide open, as were the windows at the back of the apartment, Brigid clearly trying in vain to get some sort of cross breeze to cool off the rooms. Nicky strongly suspected this was a futile endeavor.

He found Brigid in one of the bedrooms, sitting next to a bed. Her youngest, a girl named Edith, lay wheezing, her tiny body gasping for air.

Nicky went to their side. “Oh, Brigid.”

“Edith is ill.”

“Yes, I gathered.”

Brigid looked up at Nicky. “Were Lucy and William outside?”

“Yes.”

“David and Anthony are asleep in the other room. What can we do besides sleep? In all my years, I have never . . .” Brigid sniffed and shook her head. “Edith needs a doctor, but none will come here. I do not know what to do.” Brigid reached into a large bowl full of water and pulled out a cloth. She draped the cloth over Edith's forehead. Edith sucked in a breath.

“Perhaps it is just the heat. Edith will recover when it cools down again. Surely it will be cooler soon.”

“Perhaps,” Brigid said.

Nicky would have offered to take the lot of them to his rooms up on Third Street, but he didn't have much more space than Brigid. It was in a nicer neighborhood, granted, but he had no place to put children. Besides, Brigid did not approve of the sort of company Nicky kept. She thought his whole neighborhood a den of sin.

Perhaps it was.

Then again, politicians said the same thing about Hester Street.

Nicky said, “I wanted to check on you and the children. Where is Antonio?”

Brigid had one red curl stuck to her forehead. She pushed it away with her hand. “He went to the shop. He thought if everyone milled about outside, he might sell some of his meat before it all spoils in the heat.”

“And where is dear old Pa?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. He left yesterday afternoon to find an ale and never returned.”

This was hardly unprecedented. “It is probably cooler at whatever saloon he found than it is here.”

Edith sighed and seemed to fall asleep. Nicky and Brigid both watched her chest rise and fall for a few moments.

“Perhaps it is just the heat,” Brigid said.

“It is really unbearable. But if you can get away, I heard they are giving away ice near City Hall at no cost.”

“I may send Lucy.”

“I can accompany her if you like.”

Brigid looked up, relief on her face. “Oh, please do. Thank you, Nicholas.”

Heavy silence fell over the room, punctuated only by the sudden ragged intakes of Edith's breath. Nicky considered the central problem here; he'd escaped this neighborhood but gone uptown to a place not much better. For years, he'd tried to make enough money selling his body and soul to the men of the Bowery to get his family out, but Brigid had refused his money and he'd been utterly miserable. He made a little more now singing and dancing across the stage at Bulgaria, but it still wasn't enough. If only there were a way to earn more, to get Brigid a larger space to fit her children and get out of this heat.

Perhaps if he earned money in another way. Nicky twisted his hat in his hands and said, “I know perhaps I am not the brother you would have hoped for.”

“Nonsense. You are the only brother here.”

It was true. Of the seven Sharp children, Nicky was the youngest boy, and his three older brothers had all found respectable employment. Nicky had been about Lucy's age when his mother had died, after which his family had left him largely on his own to find his way through the world.

He'd chosen the only path that had seemed available at the time.

His only regret, however, was that he could not do more for his family. Perhaps Brigid did not think there was much honor in entertaining guests at a club, but at least he was not selling his body any longer.

He let out a breath and said, “I'll take Lucy and William to get ice. We'll find a way to help little Edith.”

Brigid nodded.

 

Hank had spent all morning doing paperwork. Nicholas Sharp was supposed to have come in and given a more formal statement, but he hadn't, which didn't surprise Hank much. Hank sensed that Sharp was hiding something—that he knew something about the case he wasn't telling—and Hank was determined to figure out what that was. It meant he'd have to track down Sharp.

His feelings on the matter were mixed. He wanted to see the man again, but perhaps not for the right reasons.

That all would have to wait, however, because Stephens breezed in with the coroner's report.

“Do you recall our Mr. Juel mentioned yesterday a man who was killed in front of Columbia Hall?” asked Stephens, brandishing the report.

Hank thought it curious Stephens called the Bowery resort by its official name, not by the more common Paresis Hall as it was known, at least in the circles in which Hank moved. Hank didn't know for certain where the name came from, but he suspected it had something to do with “paresis” meaning insanity.

“He was quite incensed we had done nothing to investigate the murder,” Hank said.

“He was not correct. The police department did look into it. The coroner inspected the body and the detective on the case decided there was not enough evidence to make further investigation worthwhile. No one even came forward to claim the body.”

Hank knew all this already, having pored over the report earlier. “The detective did not think investigating the murder of a prostitute was worth his time, in other words. What was the detective's name?”

Stephens held up the report. “Er, a Detective Carr? Do you know him?”

“Vaguely. Fourteenth Precinct, yes?”

“No longer. Last week, he was exiled to Goatville.”

Hank laughed despite himself. To be reassigned to one of the precincts in upper Manhattan, where goats still roamed free, was only a step removed from being fired. “What did he do to deserve such an assignment?”

Stephens shrugged. “I asked. His colleagues were not forthcoming, but if I had to guess, I would say neglect of duty. He barely investigated this murder, Brandt. Although, heaven knows, he probably looked at Commissioner Roosevelt's sister in the wrong way or forgot to wear a hat or something.”

It was such a rare moment of levity from Stephens it surprised Hank into laughing, which he covered with a cough. “So what happened at Paresis?”

“Yes, right.” Stephens pulled some crinkly papers from his pocket and consulted them. “Three weeks ago Tuesday, in the early morning hours, an officer found the body while doing a routine patrol. The body's proximity to Columbia Hall made Detective Carr assume he was a working boy who'd had a transaction gone wrong.”

Not the first time it had happened. “Not a bad assumption.”

“No, and normally it would have sadly been unremarkable. But the coroner remembered inspecting the body and the similarities to our dead man were so striking he found it notable before I even mentioned we suspected the crimes were connected.”

Hank hadn't remembered explicitly making that connection with Stephens, but he nodded. “In what way were they similar?”

Stephens was practically giddy now. He rose up on his toes before he said, “In both instances, the cause of death was a knife wound to the chest from which the victim bled profusely. The coroner determined the weapon in both cases was a knife approximately eight inches in length, possibly a folding knife. Both victims were, ah, rumored to be male prostitutes. I am not certain if two is enough to constitute a pattern, but if both victims fell to the same killer, he's escalating. Poor Edward had several other shallow knife wounds that escaped our attention at the scene.”

It wasn't that they'd escaped Hank's attention so much as Edward's clothes had been so tattered and stained, the wounds were concealed. Edward was an interesting contrast to the men who worked at Paresis Hall, who, granted, were often not much more than boys, but who were always impeccably dressed. Club Bulgaria catered to a lower class of clientele.

So what was a man like Nicholas Sharp doing singing there?

Hank was reluctant to admit to even himself that he found Nicholas—Nicky—beautiful. Nicky had stood there on the street with a soulful pout as Hank and Stephens had approached the scene, and there was something about Nicky's sass and indifference—insouciance, perhaps—Hank found compelling. His blond hair had shone on his hatless head, his clothes were well tailored and fashionable, and Hank got the feeling this was a man who had seen a lot in his short life, though he still had something delicate about him.

Hank was intrigued, certainly. Attracted, perhaps.

Still, if the violence was escalating, and if Roosevelt really did start shutting down the resorts along the Bowery as he was forever threatening to do, getting caught frequenting a fairy club was the last thing Hank could be caught doing. Even just two years ago, it would not have mattered. Now Roosevelt dismissed officers for far more minor offenses than frequenting a fairy resort. Hank's would-be promotion to Inspector was now victim to the bureaucratic infighting on the police commission, but one compromising situation could end the proceedings before his confirmation came up for a vote again.

“I need to talk to Nicholas Sharp,” he said, certain now the man had to know something about what was really going on. Perhaps he knew more about the slumming aristocrat than he had disclosed.

Stephens sat on a stray chair and pulled off his cap. Sweat peppered his brow. “Sharp didn't come in this morning?” Stephens's tone indicated he was not surprised.

“No, but if anything, this confirms he knows something he does not wish to share.”

“So you intend to find him?”

“It can't hurt to drop by Club Bulgaria again. I suppose I can go to Paresis, too. Ask a few discreet questions.”

Stephens's eyes went wide. “I'm not sure that's a good idea.”

“Probably not, but how else do you propose we find information?”

Stephens frowned. “You want to go today? You do not wish me to accompany you, do you?”

“No. Go home to your family tonight. I'll be all right on my own.”

“Yes. Thank you. As long as you're certain.”

Hank was certain. It would be easier to get the information he needed without Stephens tittering about how scandalized he was by the very existence of a house catering to men who sought the company of men. Hank took the now-crumpled coroner's reports from Stephens and started to read them more closely. Stephens leaned back in the chair he'd claimed and let his head loll about on his shoulders. He unbuttoned his coat and the top of his shirt, sure signs the heat had surpassed propriety.

The report didn't have much new information, but there was a note penciled in to indicate both dead boys had endured a number of injuries before succumbing to the knife wound. And not recent injuries; Edward had some old bruises on his chest and legs. Hank knew full well the men who worked the clubs like Paresis and Bulgaria probably saw a fair amount of violence. It wasn't unusual for a john to assert his power and masculinity with his fists, even if the prostitute in question was a woman, but Hank wondered now if Edward's wealthy client was a regular or if the bruises were a coincidence.