Gypsy (25 page)

‘She wouldn’t let you down,’ Sam said defensively. ‘Even if she was taken ill she’d get a message to you.’

‘Maybe that old crow Roebling has been taken bad,’ Heaney said. ‘I’ll send someone down there to ask.’

He walked away from the bar, and Sam saw him order Pebbles to go and check.

There were men clamouring to buy a drink, and as Sam poured their beer and took their money, he remembered Jack’s warning.

He had been convinced Jack had made up all that stuff about Fingers Malone and Heaney as a ruse to get in with him and Beth again. The only reason Sam had been taking Beth home at nights was to give the man no excuse to try to muscle in.

Yet now Jack’s warning didn’t seem so far-fetched, and Sam served drinks with one eye on the door. When Pebbles returned around ten minutes later and went over to Heaney, Sam could wait no longer.

Leaving the bar, he pushed his way through the drinkers towards Heaney. ‘Any news?’ he asked.

‘She left the shop at five,’ Heaney growled. ‘She was going to the market before going home. You’d better get round and see if she’s there.’

Sam ran the whole way, his legs going like pistons. He clattered up the stairs and into the apartment. Mrs Rossini was in the kitchen and looked round in surprise.

‘Has Beth been home?’ Sam asked.

She shook her head and added something in Italian. Sam felt she was trying to ask why he looked so worried. But he couldn’t spare the time to try to find words she would understand, and went into their room. Beth’s fiddle case was on the floor by the window, just where it had been when he left the room at midday to start work. He looked at the dresses she wore when she was playing and all three of them were still hanging on the wall.

He realized it was possible Theo had come back, met her at the shop and whisked her off somewhere. Under normal circumstances Beth wouldn’t go anywhere if she was expected at the saloon, but as Sam knew, the heart took over from the head when romance was in the air, and she had been moping over Theo for weeks.

Yet even if she had done that, Sam knew she would’ve come back here first and left a note for him, if only to ask him to tell Heaney she was ill.

Amy and Kate were out and the Irish family they shared with hadn’t seen Beth either.

Sam ran back to Heaney’s. He was really scared now. Beth’s safety was uppermost in his mind, but he didn’t relish having to tell Heaney that he’d heard a rumour about Fingers and not divulged it.

In the room at the back of the saloon, Sam told Heaney he was afraid Fingers might have kidnapped Beth, and why, and predictably the man blew his top.

‘You heard that Fingers was about to declare war on me and you didn’t tell me?’ he roared.

Sam apologized and explained that he hadn’t believed it. ‘I was told I should watch out for Beth, that’s why I’m scared they’ve done that.’

He fully expected Heaney to scoff at this. But he didn’t; instead he scratched his head and looked worried.

‘Would they have taken her?’ Sam asked.

‘How would I know?’ Heaney snarled. ‘But one thing’s certain, we’ll soon know if the mother-fucker’s got her because he’ll make some demand.’

He had no sympathy for Sam. It was clear from his agitation that his main concern was not Beth’s safety but his own loss of face.

‘Get back behind the bar and keep this to yourself,’ he ordered him.

Sam felt like punching the man for being so callous. He wanted him to get up on the stage, announce Beth was missing and ask if anyone knew anything. But reason prevailed, for although he knew the vast majority of men in the bar would be only too eager to help find her, New York was a big place. She could be held anywhere, and scores of men running around blindly with their blood up wouldn’t achieve anything but further trouble.

It was the longest night Sam had ever known. He had to listen to Heaney’s announcement that Beth couldn’t make it to play that night, see the disappointment on the men’s faces, and deal with many of them asking him if she was sick.

Heaney sent him home at midnight. ‘They won’t make a move until tomorrow,’ he said, with a clap on Sam’s shoulder which was as close as he could get to displaying a semblance of sympathy. ‘I’ve been through this kinda thing before, lad. They’ll make us sweat before they show their hand.’

It did make Sam sweat. Lying on his bed, looking at Beth’s empty one, he cursed himself for dismissing what Jack had said. It was pure arrogance on his part; he just didn’t want to acknowledge that a man he considered inferior might actually know more than he did. He’d never approved of Jack’s friendship with Beth, yet he’d pretended he did because it let him off taking care of her, so he could spend more time with his women.

Until tonight, Sam had prided himself on his many conquests. It made him feel powerful that he could sweet-talk any girl into bed. Yet now, as he thought about Polly, Maggie, Nora and, more recently, Annie, he felt ashamed of himself. They were all either actresses or dancers, girls who had already been ruined by someone else, soft targets as they were vulnerable and desperate for love. In truth he knew that each one of them would probably become a whore before long. He didn’t know now how he could have been so hypocritical about Jack, for even if he was a bit rough and ready, he had always treated Beth with the utmost respect and real affection.

Theo, on reflection, was a far more dangerous animal. He was not only handsome and well bred but also suave and calculating. Sam had watched him play poker several times and been in awe of his coolness and sophistication. At the last game he played at Heaney’s he’d won over five hundred dollars, yet he’d acted as if it were nothing. Any brother worth his salt would have moved heaven and earth to stop his sister getting involved with such a man, yet Sam had openly admired him and given the relationship his blessing.

He felt nauseous as he considered that Beth could have gone the same way as their mother. He was reminded that he’d had no sympathy for her, and it shamed him now that he’d wanted to abandon her newborn baby. It had been Beth who held everything together. But for her resourcefulness and her personality they would never have been invited to live in Falkner Square and it was doubtful they’d ever have got to America.

He wished now that they’d never come here as his mind began to turn to where she might be and the conditions she was being held under. He knew it wouldn’t be a comfortable or warm place; men like Fingers lived like animals. But even more terrifying was the possibility that he might never see Beth again. He couldn’t imagine Heaney agreeing to pay a ransom for her. He’d see that as weakness. And Fingers would never let her go without payment; he’d sooner kill her than lose face.

At four in the morning when it was still pitch dark, Sam left the house to find Jack. He didn’t know where he lived, but he did know he worked at the slaughterhouse by the East River and started there early in the morning.

It was freezing cold, with a thick layer of frost-covered snow from days earlier. He walked fast to warm himself up, but he felt sick with anxiety and lack of sleep.

Beth hadn’t been able to sleep either. She was so cold it had crossed her mind that she could very well die from it. For the first three or four hours after she was pushed unceremoniously into this dark cellar she had kept walking up and down and shouting, but eventually exhaustion had forced her to sit down on what felt like some old packing crates.

There was water on the floor, and it had seeped into her boots, and the air was foul. Whether this was a leakage of sewage, something dead or rotten in there with her, or just the sheer age of the building, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t inclined to grope around in the darkness to find out.

She did know that she was in one of the alleys off Mulberry Bend, the same area she and Sam had accidentally found themselves in on their first night in America. She’d taken note of where the man with the knife at her back was prodding her to because she hoped she’d be able to distract him at some point and run away from him. But she stood no chance of that, for his hand remained clamped down on her shoulder, and he moved the knife to her side and held it there.

Beth had never seen the man before. He was tall and powerfully built, with coarse, misshapen features that suggested he might be a prize fighter. His hands were huge, like hams, and what teeth he had left were blackened and broken. By the standards of Mulberry Bend he was well dressed, in a thick, dark wool coat with a velvet collar and a homburg hat, but he had the smell she’d come to recognize of a slum dweller — mildew, tobacco and wood smoke.

She knew he must have been ordered to capture her, for if robbery had been his aim he would have taken what she’d had and moved on. And he was definitely acting on Fingers’ behalf because she had tried pleading with him, telling him she’d willingly play at his saloon as she had no loyalty to Heaney. He confirmed this by looking a little startled at Fingers’ name, and then told her to shut up. She didn’t shut up, she continued to plead her cause, but then he struck her round the face.

Her fingers felt her swollen cheek tentatively. His blow had been like being hit with a sledgehammer. She was so dazed by it she could hardly see, and he grabbed her arm and almost dragged her the rest of the way here.

There had been dozens of people about. In the narrow, fetid alley they ended up in there had been a gang of men who had all looked at them curiously. Sadly Beth didn’t think that would mean rescue was close at hand, for Fingers wouldn’t have ordered her to be brought here openly if he hadn’t been sure he could count on the locals’ loyalty.

She had no idea what time it was now, but she felt it was still night, for there were no chinks of light coming in anywhere. The thought of rats made her flesh crawl and she hugged her arms tighter around her, trying hard not to think of that. Instead, she tried to work out how long it would be before Sam realized what had happened.

He would of course have known something was wrong when she didn’t turn up to play. But how could he find her? It would be like looking for a particular pebble on an entire beach.

Chapter Seventeen

At six, when Jack arrived at the slaughterhouse to see Sam waiting there, the colour drained from his face even before Sam told him what had happened.

‘Go on, say it,’ Sam said miserably. ‘I should’ve taken more notice of what you told me.’

Jack’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he made an effort to control himself. ‘I guess you couldn’t have watched over her all the time.’ He sighed. ‘No one could, and who would’ve expected them to snatch her as she was leaving Ira’s shop?’

‘What can we do, Jack?’ Sam asked miserably. ‘I can’t see Heaney sending his mob out to find her. He’ll just order them to smash up Fingers’ property and then the war will really start.’

Jack nodded in agreement. ‘I wish I could skip work and stay with you, but I daren’t. I finish at one today, though, so I’ll keep my ear to the ground and meet you at Heaney’s by two.’

Sam walked back home, but with every step his fear for Beth grew. He had been so complacent, believing he was better educated than most, attractive to the ladies and considered a gentleman by all. He lorded it behind the bar at Heaney’s, never lapsing into American slang because he wanted to stand out as an Englishman.

But the truth was that he was a milksop. He had never been in a fight in his life, and he was afraid of violence, and if he was considered honest, that was because he was too scared to be otherwise.

His famous charm wasn’t going to rescue Beth and he had no money to pay a ransom for her either. What was he going to do?

Beth sat shivering on her box watching as faint chinks of light came through the boards of the cellar ceiling. But although this told her that it must be after seven on Saturday morning, there were no other chinks of light anywhere else. Somewhere up there was the trapdoor she’d come down through. There had been some sort of ladder, too, for the man had pushed her on to it, but she’d lost her footing and slithered the rest of the way down to the floor. He’d pulled the ladder up before shutting and locking the door.

She wished she could remember what the room above was like, but she’d been struggling and crying as he pushed her along a narrow dark passage from the alley, so even when he struck a match, she hadn’t noticed anything more than the trapdoor he flung open.

But it struck her that even if she didn’t see anything, she would’ve sensed if the room was lived in. There was no sound coming from there now, nor had there been all night, and if there had been anyone living there, surely her captor would’ve gagged her?

So perhaps it was a storeroom. Maybe there wasn’t anyone else in the entire building?

That seemed very unlikely. Mulberry Bend and its surrounding rabbit warren of alleyways were by repute the most overcrowded part of the city. Anyone owning a building here would press it into service as a five-cents-a-night flop house.

She wanted to cry, from fear, cold and hunger, but she was determined not to. Fingers had snatched her because he considered her valuable. It didn’t make any sense for him to leave her down here to die.

The light through the ceiling cracks was growing a little brighter, which suggested there were windows in the room above. Most windows around here were broken, and if she made enough noise someone might hear. All she had to do was find something to make it with.

Sam was back at Heaney’s at nine, to find the door locked, and when he peered through the window he saw Pebbles sweeping up the dirty sawdust on the floor.

He attracted the man’s attention, and reluctantly he opened the door. ‘Mr Heaney told me to keep the door locked and not let anyone in,’ he said.

‘He wouldn’t have meant me,’ Sam said, slipping in and locking the door behind him. ‘Is there any news of Beth?’

‘Dunno,’ Pebbles replied, his expression saying that he cared less.

Pebbles was a bit simple, so Sam knew there was no point in questioning him further. He went through to the back and lay down on the old sofa in there, trying to think what he could do.