The Gilded Hour (18 page)

“I would learn the language.”

He glanced at her. “You would learn the language. But you would miss your own language, your people. In a crowd you hear nothing but this other language that has been so much work for you, it gives you a headache sometimes trying to follow. The people you talk to make fun of your accent, the way you turn sentences around. They insult you to your face. Then all of a sudden you hear somebody speaking your language. The language of your town and family, the language you heard around the dinner table as a little girl, or playing with other little girls like yourself. It’s like being handed a wonderful present with no warning. Suddenly you’re not alone in the world.”

She was listening closely, her head canted. “When you put it like that, yes. I can see it. To put it bluntly, you took advantage of his loneliness.”

“He killed his wife,” Jack said. “His feelings are not my concern.”

“So you only pursue Italian-speaking criminals.” Her tone was vaguely disbelieving and he wondered what she had up her sleeve.

“I never said that. I arrest all kinds of people, young and old, rich and poor. This week I arrested a banker, an associate of the Astors whose family has been here for two hundred years. For embezzlement, a rich man’s crime.”

“But your secret weapon works only with Italians.”

“Dr. Savard, do you begrudge me my professional tools?”

“No,” she said, and bit her lip. “Maybe a little. I am glad that the rest of the world is safe from your tricks.”

He lifted a brow, and saw her expression shift.

“Now you are boasting. How many languages do you speak?”

“I don’t know,” Jack lied, just to see her expression. “I’ve never counted.”

•   •   •

W
HAT
HAD
BEEN
a neighborhood of factory workers and store clerks and wagon drivers gave way suddenly, and they found themselves surrounded by the tenements that housed the workers from the turpentine distilleries and the Manhattan Gas Works. Even on a Sunday the air was heavy with the smell of coal oil, of pine sap and resin, all together a soup that made Anna think of young men with drawn faces and lungs the color of ash.

She heard herself say, “I did some of my training at St. Vincent’s. I’ve made calls in this neighborhood.”

“I wasn’t aware that surgeons make house calls.”

“I was a physician first,” she said. “My education was quite broad and thorough.” She took firmer hold of his arm and yanked, stepping sideways to draw him away from the corner where an old man was coughing so hard that a mist of droplets shimmered in the air.

“Contagion,” she said, a little embarrassed now at her temerity.

She wondered if he would take offense or find her way of expressing herself distasteful. The kind of thinking she thought she had conquered, finally, but here it was again. She reminded herself that people who shied away from her because she had a brain and a profession weren’t worth her time. A friend was someone you didn’t have to make excuses to. Someone who took you as you were. And another realization: she liked the man, and wanted him. As a friend.

She found it almost impossible to raise her head and look at him; she needed another minute to remind herself that he would have expectations that she would not be able to, would not want to, meet. But he made her
laugh, and try as she might, Anna couldn’t think of another person outside her family and Cap who could make her really laugh.

They passed Twentieth Street and the neighborhood changed again. There were trees here, small parks, and children shrieking as they played. Brownstone respectability, and then the open campus of the Theological Seminary, as staid and somber as the inside of a church.

Jack stopped in front of a small property just across from the seminary. He pulled a rope and the sound of the bell echoed from deep in the house.

After a full minute he said, “This is a home for elderly nuns. They are not quick.”

“Nuns?”

“It’s called St. Jerome’s, a residence for retired religious.”

Before she could ask him what help such people might be in helping them find two little boys, the heavy wooden door swung open. The nun wore rough homespun robes far too big for a tiny frame, cinched together by a rope at her waist. Beneath her wimple her eyes were a vivid, watery blue.

As she closed the door behind them Jack said, “Sister—”

She turned her back and left them there without bothering to hear or answer his question. Anna thought she must be deaf, but then a quavering voice rose over the departing shoulder.

“He’s waiting for you.”

“Where?”

That made her stop and turn to display a frown that consumed her lower face. “Where else? The kitchen.”

T
HE
MAN
J
ACK
was looking for sat at a long table reading a newspaper while he ate from a dish of olives and pickles and slices of raw onion. He held the paper so close to his eyes that when he looked up at them, the first thing Anna noticed was the newsprint on the end of a long, straight nose over an honest smile made up of teeth the color of old ivory.

“Jack,” he said, folding his paper to set it aside. “So here you are.” He looked at Anna. “Who is this young lady you’ve brought to see me?”

Anna felt Jack’s hand touch her lower back very lightly, as if to urge her closer. “Brother Anselm, may I introduce Dr. Anna Savard. Anna, Brother Anselm knows everyone who has anything to do with orphaned or abandoned children in the city.”

“I was once an orphaned boy myself,” Brother Anselm said to Anna, gesturing to a chair. He was of middle size, a little bowed with age but still strong. She wondered what it meant that the detective sergeant called him Brother, if he was something less than or more than a priest.

He was watching her as she watched him, with an open curiosity. “You lost your parents very young, I think.”

Anna paused, alarmed for no good reason.

“No need to worry, Jack hasn’t been telling stories. It was just an intuition. Children who experience that kind of loss at a very young age sometimes develop a brittleness, for want of a better word.”

“I strike you as fragile?”

“Christ save us, no.”

Before Anna could pursue this odd conversation, he turned to Jack and pointed him to the other end of the kitchen. “Tea would be welcome.” And then his attention was back with Anna. Jack went to carry out this command as if it were the most natural thing in the world, a detective
sergeant of the New York Police Department making himself busy in the kitchen.

Brother Anselm said, “I was ten when we left France. Typhoid struck six days out of Marseilles and took my mother and father and three brothers. I arrived with nothing, not even English.”

Anna could hear the French in his English now, the rhythm that gave him away.

“And when was that?”

“In the year 1805. When this”—he gestured widely, to take in the whole neighborhood—“was all farmland. I’m here on Sundays to say mass for the sisters. In return for a meal.”

“You are in very good health for a man of eighty-eight years. Were you taken in by the sisters as a boy?”

“Eventually,” he said. “But enough of my history. Tell me about these children you’ve taken on, and the ones you’re looking for.”

She began to tell the story, trying very hard to summarize facts without investing too much of her own opinion or emotions. As though she were telling another doctor a patient’s case history, making sure she had all the information that could possibly be relevant.

Jack put a tea tray on the table with its stout teapot and cups, a small jug of milk, and a chipped sugar bowl. Without instruction he poured for all of them, holding up the milk for Anna’s approval or rejection.

“Well trained, isn’t he?” Brother Anselm said with an indulgent smile. There was clearly a long-standing friendship between these two that could tolerate such teasing. All his comment got from Jack was a lopsided smile.

When Anna had taken a sip of her milky tea, she folded her hands in her lap to continue with the story. Brother Anselm watched her while she talked, his gaze never wavering even when Jack added a comment.

“So the girls are with you and your aunt,” he summarized.

“And my cousins,” Anna finished.

“Tell me again what Sister Mary Augustin said to you about the boys.”

Anna gathered her thoughts. “She said that the paperwork had gone missing. A Sister Perpetua was still searching for it that afternoon without success. She said that paperwork sometimes does go missing with so many children passing through.”

“That’s true,” Brother Anselm said. “It’s hard to imagine the number of
children on the street, and yet only a portion of them ever are taken into an orphanage. I worked with them for sixty years and nothing we did ever seemed to make a dent. Paperwork and children both disappear without a trace.”

“That sounds very ominous,” Anna said.

“Sometimes it
is
ominous,” Brother Anselm said. “There are people who look for every opportunity to take advantage of children. Slave labor, or worse. Surely you know of these cases, as a physician.”

“My cousin Sophie sees more cases of that kind than I do.”

He raised both eyebrows at once. “And who do you treat?”

“I’m a surgeon,” Anna said. “My patients are usually women of childbearing age or older. Do you think that the Russo boys were—” She sought a word that she could say out loud. “Taken? Abducted?”

He shook his head. “There’s no reason to assume the worst. If I had to guess—” But he paused.

“I won’t hold you to it, whatever it is,” Anna said. “Please just tell me what you’re thinking.”

“First I want you to tell me what you fear most. That they are dead? That you may never know what became of them?”

Anna met the detective sergeant’s eyes. She wondered if he would think less of her. “Neither of those things,” she said. “What I fear most is having to tell Rosa that I’ve failed.”

The sounds of an argument in the street spiraled to a fever pitch and fell away while she waited for some comment.

“You worry that she will blame you. But you aren’t at fault. She knows that in her heart, even if she forgets it in her sorrow. And that will temper, over time.”

“Are you saying that I should simply tell her that there’s no possibility of finding them?” Anna didn’t know how she felt about such an idea, whether she should be relieved or resigned or outraged.

“Oh, no,” said Father Anselm. “It’s not time to give up yet. But that time may come. You have to be prepared for that. And so must Rosa.”

When she was calmer Anna said, “Where do we start?” She cleared her throat to hide her embarrassment. “Where do I start?”

“With Jack,” said the older man. “Jack can ask questions where you can’t. As you can, where he cannot.” To Jack he said, “What does Mrs. Webb say?”

“We’re going to see her when we leave you.”

Anna had to physically stop herself from turning to look at him. He hadn’t told her—hadn’t asked her—about another call, and while she knew she should be irritated at his high-handed assumptions, she could only feel thankful that he had taken the lead.

Brother Anselm was saying, “The younger boy was about three months, you said. I would think that as long as he is healthy he will already have been adopted. What was his condition when you examined him?”

She lifted a shoulder. “An infant of normal size. A little underweight, certainly, but not extremely so. Very alert, with blue eyes like his sisters and brother. A handsome little boy, with a head full of dark hair.”

“A healthy, good-looking, alert three-month-old boy with blue eyes—I doubt he spent more than a few nights under a convent roof. So many children on the street, invisible to everyone, but there is always a demand for healthy infants as long as the adoptive parents can convince themselves that the mother was of good character.”

“But how—” she began.

“They can’t know,” Brother Anselm said. “But if the child is healthy and pretty enough, they convince themselves that it is so.”

He got up from the table and went to a cabinet, where he rumbled in a small box. Then he returned to the table and put paper and pencil in front of Anna, and lowered himself back into his chair.

“May I assume the older boy is healthy, and looks much like his brother?”

“Yes,” Anna said. “He’s average size but very strong, with a mop of dark curly hair and blue eyes. Very shy, but so would any child be in such a situation.”

“Seven years old,” Brother Anselm said. “Strong. He might have wandered away and got lost. Jack, you’re looking into the possibility he was picked up by one of the padroni?”

Anna felt herself startle. She had been very young when the padroni scandal had erupted, but she did remember the details quite well. An Italian would go to the small mountain villages in Italy and recruit young boys who showed even the slightest musical talent. He promised their families that they would be back in a couple of years with a substantial nest egg. The travel, clothes, food, lodging, training would be provided. All the boy had to give in return was good behavior and a willingness to make music.

And then the boy would be gone into the maw of the Crosby Street tenements, sleeping on filthy floors, insufficiently clothed and fed, and sent out to play the violin on street corners. Any boy who did not come back with the amount demanded would be beaten. More than one had died that way.

“I thought a law was passed—” Anna began, and stopped herself. Passing a law and enforcing it were entirely different matters, as anyone who lived in Manhattan knew.

“It’s not as bad as it was ten years ago,” Jack said. “But there are still a few of the padroni going about their business. I’ll make some inquiries.”

Father Anselm seemed satisfied with that. “He could also have been taken in by any one of two dozen charitable organizations.”

“And if he wasn’t taken in?” Anna asked.

“We would hope that he ended up as a guttersnipe with one of the Italian street arab gangs. There are enough of them who steer clear of the homes and orphanages, after all. They’d train him in the fine art of picking pockets and minor larceny until he gets big enough to be considered an arab himself.” He had been watching Anna closely, and so she said what she couldn’t hold back.

“If you think that being raised to be a street arab is nothing to hope for, there are worse possibilities to consider.”

“But not to start with,” Father Anselm said. “So I’ll give you the names of people to contact and places to visit, if you’ll write. My hands won’t hold a pen anymore.”

•   •   •

T
HE
CHURCH
BELLS
were ringing five o’clock when they left Brother Anselm, the light slanted now in that way particular to spring evenings. They stood for a moment on the doorstep, not talking.

“One more stop,” Jack said. “Would you rather I take you home? I can call on the matron at headquarters alone; I’ve been doing it every day since I heard they were missing.”

She looked up at him with a confused expression.

“There’s a woman who works at headquarters on Mulberry, the matron of the foundlings. Patrol officers bring abandoned or lost infants to her first, and she makes sure they’re fed and clean. And even if she hasn’t seen either of the boys, she might have heard some gossip that will be useful.”

He saw her straighten her shoulders and draw in a deep breath. “Well, then,” she said. “I suppose we better go talk to her.”

•   •   •

O
NCE
HE
HAD
flagged down a cab Jack leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts. He could almost feel her gaze on his face, but when he opened his eyes she was looking out the window to a corner where boys played stickball.

He said, “I think that was a useful interview.”

“It was,” she agreed. “Not exactly positive, but not absolutely discouraging, either. Just a great deal of work to be done.”

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

She might take it as an offer or a challenge, or she might sidestep the issue. In polite society she would thank him and insist that he had already done enough, and the conversation would circle back on itself until he gave up or she gave in. But he had the idea that Anna Savard did not put a great deal of value in such rituals, and this time he was right.

“Thank you. I would appreciate your help.”

He had accomplished the two things he set out for himself: Anna had the information she needed to proceed, and he had reason and permission to spend as much time as he could spare with her while she did it.

They set off east along Nineteenth Street. Warehouses, mills, and factories gave way to smaller and then larger businesses and shops until they turned onto Broadway. The cabby circled around Union Square and Jack turned automatically to catch a glimpse of the family shop on the corner of Thirteenth Street before he steered the cab onto the Bowery, a move that always made Jack think of crossing a border from one kind of city to another.

Then the finer shops began to give way to cobblers and hardware merchants to secondhand clothiers, restaurants to beer gardens, banks to pawnshops, theaters to saloons. Soon they were surrounded on all sides by music halls, flophouses, stale beer joints, and bordellos. The businesses were closed up tight on a Sunday, but the dives and disorderly houses never closed despite the law. None of it seemed to take Anna Savard by surprise.

•   •   •

P
OLICE
HEADQUARTERS
WAS
as busy as Anna would have guessed it to be, had she ever given it any thought. As they passed through the reception
area to a steep flight of stairs, she took note of an older couple leaning against each other, half-asleep; a mother with a young boy on her lap; and a group of heavily made-up women who seemed distinctly unconcerned about their fate. One of them looked at her with dull eyes empty of all emotion, then let her gaze drop.