These Shallow Graves (14 page)

“We
can't
be locked in!” Jo said frantically. “Try the door again.”

Eddie pushed on the door, but nothing happened. The latch was on the outside of the door, and it had clicked into place.

“I want to tail Kinch,” Eddie said anxiously. “I'm going to lose him if we don't get out of here, and he might be tough to find again.”

“I'm going to lose my reputation if we don't get out of here, and that will be
impossible
to find again,” Jo said.

“I have a penknife in my pocket. Maybe I can jimmy the latch,” said Eddie. “I have to let go of you. Can you steady yourself against the wall?”

“I think so,” Jo said, reaching out for the wall. Eddie got the knife out of his pocket and carefully opened the blade. He inserted it into the crack between the door and the frame and jerked it upward. It snagged in the soft wood of the doorframe and promptly snapped off.

“Maybe I can break the door down. Stand back,” Eddie said.

“Stand back?” Jo asked. “How? I'm in a
bucket
!”

Eddie threw his shoulder into the door as hard as he could, which wasn't very hard at all, since he had little room to maneuver, but it was hard enough to knock him off balance and into Jo. His head smacked against hers. The bucket tipped. She fell backward into the wall.

“Ow!” she cried. “That really hurt!”

“Sorry! Are you all right?” he asked, reaching for her.

“I'm fine. But I won't be if we don't get out of here,” she said when she was upright again. “What are we going to do?”

“I don't know. Maybe I can push against the door with my feet.”

He braced his back against the wall behind him and tried to lift his feet, but the space was so tight, he couldn't raise them high enough to get any leverage. He swore under his breath and stood straight again.

“I have to get out of this bucket. My feet are cramping,” Jo said.

“Step out and twist yourself sideways,” Eddie said. “It'll be a tight squeeze, but you can wedge your feet between mine.”

Jo did so. Before, they'd been standing face to face. Their shoulders had nearly touched the door and back wall of the closet, but there had been a bit of room at their backs. Now Eddie turned to face the door, his back against the back wall, and Jo wedged herself in front of him, with her back against the door, and there was no room between them at all. Her eyes were blind in the darkness, but her sense of touch was heightened. She could feel every point of contact with his body. One of her legs was between his, and one of his was between hers. Her hips were pressed against his and her breasts were jammed into his chest. Her cheek touched his jaw.

Jo found that she was suddenly warm and light-headed. She tried to tell herself it was because she couldn't draw a proper breath in the small space, but it wasn't. It was because of Eddie.

Only days ago, she'd asked Trudy what it was like to want a man, and Trudy had told her but she hadn't understood. Now she did. Eddie flooded her senses. He made her giddy. He made her ache. He filled her with a hunger that was new and deep and dangerous.

“Well, this is cozy,” he said. “How are your feet?”

“My what?” she said, dazed.

“Your feet?”

“Oh, my
feet.
Much better, thank you,” Jo replied.

She suddenly felt something graze her lips.
His lips.
She was sure of it. Was it an accident or had he done it on purpose? There was only one way to find out. She stood stock-still, her face upturned in the dark. Waiting. Hoping. Fearing that he would, and that he wouldn't.

“Jo,” he said, his voice low.

Her heart was pounding so hard, she thought it would burst. She closed her eyes. Wanting him to kiss her. To touch her. Feeling as though she would die if he didn't.

“Jo, I think I …”

“Yes, Eddie?” she whispered.

“… hear something.”

And then the door was wrenched open and she was hurtling backward. She hit the floor with a painful thud. Eddie fell on top of her, breaking his fall with his hands to avoid crushing her.

“Hidin' out in a closet, eh?” an angry voice said. “I
knowed
you'd try to gyp me, you sneaky bastard. Gimme me my dollar right now. Or I'll set the Tailor on you.”

Jo and Eddie looked up.

It was Tumbler.

“Everything all right?” a willowy blond girl asked. She was the girl who'd been standing outside the bar with Tumbler. Now she was standing outside Van Houten's.

Nothing was all right. Jo's backside hurt from the fall she'd taken. Her feet ached from standing in the bucket. She was flustered by what had happened in the closet, and what hadn't.

“I found 'em, Fay,” Tumbler said as he relocked Van Houten's door. “They was hiding in a closet.”

“We weren't
hiding,
” Jo clarified. “We got locked in.”

“Where's his money?” Fay asked. Her dress, made of sprigged cotton, was faded and worn. Her face was fine-featured and pretty.

Jo pulled a dollar note from her skirt pocket and handed it to her. Fay's eyes, hard and predatory, lingered on Jo's pocket.

“Don't do it,” Eddie cautioned.

Fay gave him a dirty look. She was about to say something when a piercing whistle sounded from up the street. Her expression changed. For a second, she looked like the hunted instead of the hunter.

“Come on, boy. He wants us,” she said to Tumbler.

Jo heard the lock's bolt shoot home. Tumbler pocketed his tools; then he and Fay hurried off into the night.

“Who's that girl?” Jo asked, staring after them.

“One of the best pickpockets in the city. She works for the Tailor. Tumbler does, too. You shouldn't keep your money in your pocket, by the way. Put it down your … your …” He pointed to his chest, reddening slightly. “To keep it safe.”

Jo was not about to unbutton her jacket in front of him. She tucked her money into her boot. “Who's the Tailor?” she asked, straightening again.

“New York's very own Fagin,” Eddie replied. “He takes in orphans and teaches them how to thieve. He's called the Tailor because he makes clothing for his army of little pickpockets so they blend in with their victims. Some of it's really sharp.”

“But Fay's dress wasn't sharp, it was shabby,” Jo said.

“She dresses for the neighborhood she's working. First rule of picking pockets: don't stick out.”

Two beggar women were walking toward them. One was agitated and the other was trying to calm her. Jo recognized the woman who was upset; it was Mad Mary, the ragpicker. She was whimpering about some fearsome ghost come back from the dead to haunt her.

“Here, Mary, take a slug of this,” the other woman said, handing her a bottle. “It kills ghosts dead.”

Jo's eyes lingered on them. It was a chilly night, and neither was dressed for it. They were both so thin. Impulsively, she went to them and gave them each a dollar. Mary, still upset, asked her if she'd seen the ghost.

“I haven't, Mary. I'm sorry,” she said.

The other woman offered Jo a slug from her bottle if she'd give her another dollar. Eddie stepped in then, took Jo's elbow and steered her up South Street. Mary said a forlorn goodbye as they left.

“That was a lucky break we caught,” he said, nodding back at Van Houten's. “Did you see Kinch's face?”

Jo nodded.

“Any idea who he is?”

“No,” Jo replied. “Mr. Scully knew him, though, but by another name. ‘A new face, a new name,' he said. And then Kinch said, ‘I could hardly go by my old one.' ” She paused, then said, “Do you think Kinch did it? According to my father's agenda, he saw Kinch the night before he died.” A shiver ran through her at the thought of being in the same room with her father's murderer.

“No, I don't. It doesn't make sense,” Eddie replied. “Your father had plans to see Kinch again. On September seventeenth and tonight. He had a thousand dollars in his agenda. It was for Kinch. Kinch said as much to Scully. Why would Kinch kill a man who was going to give him a thousand dollars? Maybe more?”

“You're right,” Jo said. She was half relieved and half disappointed. The mystery of her father's death only ever seemed to deepen.

“We need to find out who Kinch is, though, and what the partners of Van Houten did to him,” Eddie said as they skirted a drunk passed out on the sidewalk and continued uptown.

“I have difficulty believing anyone at Van Houten did anything to him,” Jo said. “They are all upstanding men.”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“What was that for?” Jo asked indignantly.

“You better get used to the idea that maybe
someone
at Van Houten isn't so upstanding.”

“Why?” Jo countered. “Because a strange, shadowy man shows up and says so?”

“Because Scully would never hand over a thousand dollars of the firm's money unless he absolutely had to. No one would. Kinch has dirt on Van Houten. Scully knows it. Sounds like your father did, too.”

Eddie's reasoning made sense to Jo, but it was hard to accept. She'd known the partners her entire life. They'd come to her home for dinners and parties; she'd gone to theirs. And now, according to Kinch, they'd done something very wrong.

“If the firm
did
do something to Kinch—and I still don't entirely believe they did—I'm certain my father was trying to put it right,” she said. “Scully said so. ‘Charles made promises he shouldn't have.' It's just the sort of thing he would have done—promise to help.”

Eddie gave her a doubtful look and pressed his point. “Kinch talked about manifests and something called the Bonaventure. A ship, maybe? He also said, ‘He promised to help me find her.' A ship is referred to as
she
and
her.
If the Bonaventure is a ship, could Van Houten have taken it from him somehow? Did your father or uncle ever mention it?” he asked.

“Not to me.”

“Maybe they had some sort of business deal and it went sour. Maybe the Bonaventure
was
a ship and Van Houten sold it to Kinch and it was no good. Or maybe the ship belonged to him and they did him out of it somehow. Maybe—”

Jo groaned with frustration. “Maybe we should try to come up with some facts. Because all of our theories are just that—
theories,
” she said impatiently. “If we want answers, we have to find Kinch.”

“No,
I
have to find him,” Eddie said. “
You
will not, under any circumstances, attempt to find him. It's too dangerous. I'll ask the Tailor about him. He knows every shady character in the city. After I ask Bill Hawkins and Jackie Shaw about the Bonaventure.”

“And what do I do? Twiddle my thumbs?” Jo asked.

Eddie thought for a bit, then said, “We still don't know who Eleanor Owens is. Her name was in your father's agenda, too. Maybe you could track her down.”

“Where do I start?” Jo asked, thrilled by the idea.

“At the Bureau of Vital Records. If she was born in the city, her birth records will be there. You might be able to find an address and—”

“Eddie!” Jo said excitedly, stopping dead on the sidewalk. “I just thought of something! Could Eleanor Owens be Kinch's
her
?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe when Kinch said, ‘He promised to help me find her,' he was talking about Eleanor Owens!”

“I hadn't thought of that. Nice work,” Eddie said admiringly.

Jo flushed with pleasure at his praise. They'd made progress tonight. She wanted to make even more. “Let's go to Walsh's to see if Jackie Shaw is there,” she said. “We still need to find out what the Bonaventure is. If it
is
a ship, maybe he knows about it.”

“Uh-uh. The only thing we're going to find tonight is a cab so I can get you home,” Eddie said, looking around for one. “You can't come down here again, Jo. I'm dead serious. This is no place—”

His words were cut off when a door opened two houses up from them. Light, laughter, and perfume spilled out of it. A few seconds later, two young men spilled out of it as well, and stumbled into the street. Women crowded into the doorway, at least a half dozen of them, giggling and waving. They were wearing nothing but thin silk chemises, stockings, and garters. Their hair was loose; their lips were rouged. One was drinking champagne out of the bottle. She looked no older than Jo.

“What
is
this place?” Jo asked, appalled.

“That's … um, well … that's Della's,” Eddie said, flustered. “It's her house. One of them.”

“Bye-bye, Georgie!” one of the women cooed.

“Come back soon, Teddy!” another called.

Jo looked at the men and gasped.

“What's wrong?” Eddie asked.

“That's George Adams and Teddy Farnham,” she said in a choked voice. “I know them!”

George and Teddy were walking backward down the street, blowing kisses to the girls. It was too late to make a dash for it. They were only a few feet away. Any second now, they'd turn around and see her.

Eddie grabbed Jo's hand. He pulled her into the shadows of the neighboring stoop and spun her around so that her back was toward the two young men. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was not the soft graze of lips she'd longed for inside the broom closet, but a hard, hungry smash of a kiss that took her breath away.

“Hey, fella, get a room!” George bellowed as he passed by.

Teddy hooted, and the two of them staggered off singing. As soon as they were gone, Eddie released her.

Jo stumbled backward. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to catch her breath. “How dare you!” she sputtered, blushing furiously. “How
could
you?”

“Hey, you're welcome,” Eddie said.

“What?”

“I just saved your backside. I think a thank-you's in order,” he said.

Jo advanced on him, intending to give him what for, but his slow, teasing smile and his eyes, so deeply blue, stopped her cold.

She grabbed his lapels, pulled him to her, and kissed him back.