City of Promise (20 page)

Mollie turned. Her confidante was dressed in a variety of colors and draped in a series of shawls. She wore as well a large brimmed hat trimmed with full-blown pink and yellow roses. It had no doubt been fashionable some springtime in the past, but combined with the rest of her costume and the fact that it was almost winter, it was ludicrous. The woman didn’t seem to care. With one hand she hugged to her breast an ornate marble clock topped with a gold figure carrying a spear. She held out the other and smiled. “I’m Mary Teresa Santucci as was Mary Teresa Maguire, and for a time before that, Mary Teresa MacLachlan. Most folks just call me Tess o’ the Roses,” lifting her chin to indicate her improbable chapeau. “What’s your name, love?”

“Mollie Turner. And you’re right, I’ve never been here before.” She’d worn the oldest and simplest dress she owned for this excursion, but even so she felt terribly out of place. Not just her clothes—the fact that she was empty-handed made her stand out.

“Tillie Wallace’ll see you right,” Tess said. “Not such a thief as some of the others.”

“Tillie?” she asked. “You mean the proprietor’s a woman?”

“Course she is. Matilda Wallace and her boys, Tommy and Timmy.” Tess nodded toward the three booths at the end of the shop. “If I was you I’d go to Tommy. His is the first booth. Wait for him if you have to. Never misses a pretty face does Thomas Wallace. He might give you a bit more for . . . What’ve you got to hock, love?”

“I . . .” Mollie took a tighter grip on her drawstring bag. “It’s nothing
very much,” she said. She had stripped off her kid gloves and tucked them in the bag as soon as she entered the shop and saw how much better dressed she was than the other clients. So her marriage ring showed. “Here,” Tess said, “you’re trying to send that wedding band up the spout, ain’t you, love?” And when Mollie looked blank, “That’s what you’re wanting to pawn, ain’t it? Your ring. Up the spout,” she added impatiently, bobbing the rose-strewn hat toward the dumbwaiter. “My word, you’re a right innocent you are. And needing to pawn a wedding ring. Right shame that is. He walk off and leave you, love? For some flashy piece of rubbish, no doubt. And here’s you an obvious lady of quality. Right shame,” she repeated.

The roses swayed with each word. Mollie kept expecting the hat to fall off, but it did not. “Something like that,” she said. It was as noncommital as she could manage without outright rudeness.

The woman pursed her lips, then leaned in closer. “Ain’t none of my business, love. But this ain’t the right place for that sort of thing. You need old man Ganz. Now I know some as say the Jews only give a fair price to their own kind, but that’s mostly talk. And the way I see it, after marrying a Scot and an Irishman and an Italian—all dead now, bless their souls—there’s no sort has a corner on badness or goodness. Have to take folks as you find ’em, never mind what people say. Solomon Ganz, Mollie Turner. On Fifth Street and Avenue A. Tell him Tess o’ the Roses sent you.”

Sol Ganz took the jeweler’s loupe out of his eye and set it on the table beside the six rings, two bracelets, and the brooch Mollie had laid out for his appraisal. “Very nice,” he said. “Excellent stones.” He pushed four of the diamond rings and the peacock brooch to one side. “These pieces in particular . . . All from Tiffany’s, I believe.”

“That’s correct,” Mollie said.

“But now you have come to me. Why is that?”

He had a moon face and, Mollie thought, exceptionally white skin, the sort some women spent considerable money and time trying to achieve. Also heavy black brows that beetled across the bridge of a prominent nose, but only a little hair on his head. He stroked the few strands left to him into position across a mostly bald pate and repeated the question she hadn’t answered. “Why come to me? Mr. Tiffany is known to buy back his own pieces on occasion.”

The truth was the best reply. “Because I don’t wish to sell any of these things. Only to offer them as collateral on a loan.” He had taken her into a windowless back room as soon as he saw the nature of what she had brought to pawn. It was separated from the actual shop by a heavy velvet curtain. Nonetheless, she nodded in the direction of the three gold balls hanging outside the door. “That is your business, is it not?”

Mr. Ganz put his head first to one side and then to the other, as if he were studying her from different angles. “You do not,” he said after some seconds, “look like a thief.”

“A thief! Why would you think—”

“What else would I think?” He reached for her hand—she had put her gloves back on—and held it too tightly for her to pull away, and began slipping the rings on her fingers. “Even over your gloves, madam, not one of them fits you. These rings were bought for a considerably larger lady than yourself. And this brooch . . . Mr. Tiffany would not advise such a flamboyant bird for a young bosom.”

“I am not a thief.” She could think of nothing to do except restate the assertion.

Ganz shrugged. “So you say. And I am not a fence, madam.” Then, seeing her blank look, “Do you even know what that is?”

Mollie shook her head.

The pawnbroker sighed. “Someone who purchases stolen goods and sells them on and splits the profits with the
gonoven—
the thieves—who brought him whatever it was in the first place. That’s a fence, Mrs. Whoever. And Sol Ganz is not one of them.” Then again
cocking his head as if to see her better. “It is Mrs., isn’t it? I can feel your ring.” He had kept hold of her hand and he squeezed his fingers over her wedding band.

“Mrs. Joshua Turner,” Mollie said.

Ganz released her hand. “Why do you look familiar to me?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Yes, you do. Otherwise why would you be blushing? And I have an excellent memory for both faces and names. But right now . . . it is your face I recognize. Not your name.” Then after a few seconds when neither he nor Mollie spoke, “Aha! Mr. Leslie’s
Illustrated
Newspaper.
Some months ago . . . Last spring, I think . . .” Finally, with another exclamation of triumph. “I remember! You are a pickpocket.”

It was time to take control. As Josh would do. But using her cleverness, not a whip. “You are remembering only part of the story, Mr. Ganz. I am not a pickpocket. If I were I would no doubt have regular methods to deal with what I acquired. But Mr. Leslie did put my picture in his paper in connection with a story about picking pockets. I was married in August. Before that I was Mollie Brannigan.”

Ganz said nothing, merely kept looking at her and nodding his head, apparently mentally running over the story of which Mollie had reminded him. “Yes,” he said finally. “You are correct. And these jewels . . . I think it likely they belong to the true villainess of the story. The infamous Mrs. Brannigan.”

“My Auntie Eileen,” Mollie said with no trace of shame in her voice, “whom I love and cherish. And every item there,” she nodded to the array of jewelry, “was bought by her from Mr. Tiffany. None of it was picked from anyone’s pocket, Mr. Ganz. You can be entirely sure of that.”

“I think,” he said finally, “you are again correct. If Eileen Brannigan wanted to fence stolen jewelry, she would know whom to approach. It seems highly unlikely she would send a wide-eyed innocent like her niece to Sol Ganz. So, Mrs. Mollie, what exactly do you want me to do?”

“Take these jewels as security against a loan,” Mollie said, “of ten thousand dollars.” It took every bit of her will to keep looking directly at him.
I can do with three, but get me five and we’re off to the races, Mollie love.
Josh’s final words when they parted that morning.

“Hah! Now you are the
gonov,
Mrs. Mollie. Ten is out of the question. Three maybe. And that is very generous.”

“It is highway robbery, Mr. Ganz. And you would be earning interest on considerably less than that to which you are legitimately entitled.” Legitimate was arguable. According to the sign posted on the wall behind him, Solomon Ganz charged seven percent per month. It was an extortionate sum.

Ganz put his loupe back in his eye and bent over the stones a second time. “How long,” he asked finally, “do you expect to leave the jewelry with me?”

“We will reclaim it no later than a year from today. But three thousand is not acceptable, Mr. Ganz. I must have ten.”

“Six thousand dollars,” he said finally. “And I am to be repaid one year from today. Not a day sooner or a day later.”

“That’s a hard bargain, Mr. Ganz. It commits us to twelve months of interest whether or not we require it.”

Ganz shrugged.

At seven percent for six thousand, they would owe him at the end of twelve months nearly twice what Mr. Ganz was prepared to lend them, eleven thousand and forty dollars. Usury, plain and simple. But once the railroad tunnel was built . . . All Mollie’s instincts told her the lots Josh was trying to buy would be worth at least ten times their current value. If necessary he could sell one and pay off virtually the entire debt. “I agree to six thousand for a year,” she said, “but at six percent interest, not seven.”

There was a pencil on the desk and a small notebook. The jeweler spent a few moments making jottings. “Very well,” he said finally. “Six percent interest. One year from today you pay me ten thousand four hundred and twenty dollars. If you do not, the jewels are mine to sell.”

“I believe there’s an error in your calculation, Mr. Ganz. The amount owed will be ten thousand three hundred and twenty dollars.”

He looked at her again, then spent another few moments jotting figures in his notebook. “You are right again, Mrs. Mollie,” he said when he put the pencil down. He was smiling. “My wife, may her memory be for a blessing, she could do that too. Any numbers. In her head without even a pencil. Mr. Joshua Turner is a fortunate man.”

8

“S
OMEONE TO SEE
you,” Hatty Ellis said. “A gentleman. I put him in the parlor.”

“Send him away.” Eileen didn’t look up from her embroidery hoop. “Tell him we’re not in business any longer.”

“Tell him yourself. Though I’ll wager he’s not come looking for whores. Too old.”

Eileen knew she’d lost the argument; she frequently did with Hatty, though for the sake of form she continued to protest. “They are never too old. You have surely learned that after all this time.” She’d had one regular client, white-haired and bent, who showed up twice a month for years. He simply wanted to sleep beside the young woman he’d selected. Always one of the same two, both endowed with remarkable bosoms. The client slept with his head nestled between his chosen whore’s breasts and her hand in the vicinity of his crotch. Paid top rates. But then, they all had. “Send him away,” she repeated. “Whatever do I pay you for, Hatty, if not to save me a bit of trouble?”

“To cook, as you know well. Besides, you don’t want to send this
old gent away without seeing him. Take it from me, what you want is to march yourself downstairs and talk to him.”

“And why is that?” Eileen looked up at last. When Hatty adopted that tone attention must be paid.

“Gave me his card,” Hatty said.

Hatty didn’t read. Which only made the statement more intriguing. “For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you mention a card? Give it to me.”

As soon as the thing was in her hand Eileen understood. What Hatty had recognized were the three gold balls. They were embossed above the name Solomon Ganz, and below that were the words
PROMPT PAYMENT AND GOOD TERMS
. Eileen had not discussed giving Mollie her jewels to pawn, much less the reason for it. Which, as Eileen had learned over the past quarter century, didn’t mean Hatty Ellis was ignorant of the arrangement. Her cook always knew everything that went on under Eileen Brannigan’s roof. Pretty much without exception.

“He wrote something on t’ other side as well,” Hatty said.

Eileen flipped the card over. On the back were the handwritten initials, T. P. “Bring him up here.” The words flat and without emotion, belying her beating heart.

“Better if you go down,” Hatty insisted.

“Why is that, Hatty?” In that same toneless voice.

“Looks like he’s a Jew,” the cook said. “You don’t want one of them up here in your private sitting room.”

“Of course he’s a Jew. His name is Solomon Ganz. Bring him up, Hatty. And bring us tea and some of your corn bread and strawberry preserves.”