The Ragtime Kid (24 page)

“A woman with a beautiful voice, you say?” At Joplin’s question, the whole room went still.

“Oh, just lovely,” said Boone. “She could have sung for me any time.”

“She was here,” Joplin said. “Last Tuesday, that’s right—while I was having lunch at Cleary’s. She told me she was desperate to find Freitag, had heard him mention my name, and thought I might be able to help. I’ll admit, I was a little short with her. She said she was sorry to interrupt my meal, and could she come back later? I told her not to bother, that I had no idea where Freitag was.”

“Did she?” Question out before Brun even knew he was thinking it.

“Did she what?” Joplin looked confused.

“Come back later. Like she said she was going to do?”

Joplin couldn’t seem to figure the why of Brun’s question.

“Just asking,” Brun said.

“Some questions a man don’t ask,” Big Froggy rumbled.

Brun started to say he was sorry, but Joplin beat him to the punch. “No, she didn’t. I never saw her again. But I certainly do remember her voice.” Then he looked around at the group. “Let’s go on,” he said. “Now that I’ve got Boone here, I’d be a fool not to take full advantage.”

Everybody laughed, except, of course, Joplin.

***

Next morning, when Brun came downstairs for breakfast and piano practice, Belle and Luella ran out of the kitchen and up to him. “Mr. Higdon is over at the jail,” Belle said. “There was a break. He says you can go over there and meet him, if you want.”

The boy was halfway outside when Luella called, “Brun, Brun…You haven’t had breakfast. I can make you some eggs real quick.”

“Thanks, Miss Luella,” Brun shouted back. “I’ll just get something later.”

Outside the jail, men stood in groups, talking. Brun pushed his way through them and ran inside, where he saw Mr. Williams, the sheriff, talking to six men. Brun figured he was deputizing them and they were going to chase after the escaped prisoners. He started past the group, but the sheriff shouted, “Hey, you—boy. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Mr. Higdon sent for me,” Brun said, polite as he possibly could sound. “Can you please tell me where I’ll find him.”

A couple of the deputies started to laugh, but shut up in a hurry when Sheriff Williams looked at them. The sheriff jerked his thumb toward the cells. “He’s back there with Robert E. Lee. Last cell on the left.”

Which is where Brun found Higdon and Fitzgerald, sitting side-by-side on the cot. Fitzgerald looked like he’d crawled home on his eyebrows. “Who got out?” Brun called through the bars.

Higdon reached a key through the bars and opened the door. “A couple of bad ones, a thief and a murderer. Somebody got them a hammer and a chisel.” He pointed at the next cell over. “This red stone is soft as mud. They chipped away around the bars, then pulled them free, and bashed enough stone to get out through the window.” He glanced toward Fitzgerald. “When they had it all clear and were on the way out, they tossed the tools over here for Mr. Fitzgerald to use.”

“But you didn’t,” Brun said.

Fitzgerald pulled his back straight and raised his head so he was looking down at Brun. “No, sir. I certainly did not.” He looked insulted that the boy had gone so far as to even think he might’ve gone out a jail window. “When a man sacrifices his honor and good name to expediency, then he’s not worth his space on earth.”

“If he had run, he would have convinced everyone he
was
guilty,” Higdon added.

“I am innocent of the charges against me, and I intend to clear my good name.”

He sounds like a politician on a soapbox, Brun thought, then wondered what he would have done in Fitzgerald’s place. The man could have hopped the next train to Buffalo and been gone. Or hid out for a while somewhere down south. But it takes considerable gumption to break jail, even more to stay out, and Brun did not think Fitzgerald was long on gumption. If he’d gone out the window the night before, like as not he’d already be back behind bars, and as Higdon said, he’d then have everyone convinced he was guilty. And the longer Brun looked at Fitzgerald, slumped on the edge of the cot, tired lines and creases around his eyes deeper than ever, the guiltier he felt for his own behavior.

***

Toward four o’clock that afternoon, Brun heard a commotion at the back of the store. Isaac looked up from the register, where he had just finished ringing up some music sheets for a heavy, sweaty-faced man. A small crowd, everyone shouting at once, moved toward the front. Stark came at the run out of his office, dropped the papers in his hand onto the counter, but before he could take more than a few steps, four people burst into full view, three grownups and a little boy. Two of the adults were Mrs. Stark and Higdon; the lawyer held a large carpetbag suitcase in one hand. The third adult was a woman Brun had never seen before. With one hand, she clutched to her skirts a beautiful little boy, chunky and blond, with eyes like pools of melted emeralds. While the three grownups ran off at the mouth, the child stared from one to the other, like he was trying to make some sense out of their loud chatter.

It seemed to Brun that the woman was unhappy about something, and Higdon and Mrs. Stark were trying to calm her down. But she would have none of it. They all stood in front of the counter, words flying back and forth like bullets, arms going every which way, until Stark slammed a fist onto the counter, and shouted fit to rouse a man from a coma, “What in the name of Sam Hill is going on here?”

That shut everyone up. A girl who’d been looking through the music sheets stopped, then rushed up front, passed by on the other side of the piano, and got herself out of the store about as fast as a person could move. Higdon and Mrs. Stark both started to talk, then went quiet and glanced at the woman with the little boy like they were afraid given half a chance, she’d be off and spouting again. Finally, Mrs. Stark nodded at Higdon: go ahead. Butterfly motions at the corners of her mouth tempered her usual warm smile.

Higdon set down the carpetbag. “Mr. Stark, this is Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald—”

“
Mollie
Fitzgerald,” the woman barked. “Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald.”

Stark and Brun stood shoulder-to-shoulder, agog at Mrs. Fitzgerald. The boy had seen some odd women, but never one such as this. Mr. Fitzgerald was neat, trim, and well decked out; before he got locked up, you could’ve called him a dandy. But Mrs. Fitzgerald had skin like library paste, dark circles underneath her eyes. Thin, pale lips, both corners turned down in a sour frown. Her hat was a marvel of terrible taste, big, black, and floppy, with a spray of feathers that could’ve been plucked off a giant turkey. From beneath the edges of the hat, tight frizzy black curls, starting to go gray, ran down her back, and covered her ears and forehead. She wore a plain black dress, buttoned up in front, which appeared to have been made for a woman wider in the beam and smaller in the chest. Her high-button shoes were open at the top, laces dragging. Brun looked twice to be sure he was right, and yes he was: one shoe was black, the other, brown. And on this sunny, cloudless day, she carried an umbrella over her left wrist. Not a white parasol, a big black umbrella. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Isaac, who finally walked to the back of the store and found something to do there.

The little boy pulled his thumb out of his mouth, and said, “Mama—”

“Be quiet, Frankie,” the woman snapped. “Mind your manners. Don’t talk when grownups are talking.”

Thumb back in his mouth in a hurry. He made sucking noises, and went back to studying the company.

Higdon gave it another try. “Mrs. Fitzgerald just came in by train—”

“I did not
just
come in,” Mrs. Fitzgerald corrected. “I have been here for more than two hours. When my husband is on the road, he always calls me, every evening, regular as your finest clock. And when I’d not heard from him between Saturday and Monday, I knew something was the matter, so I called his hotel. Neither the desk clerk nor the manager would tell me a thing—a fine bunch of mealy-mouthed weasels you have in this city. So I packed my bag, put my pistol into my purse, got myself and my child onto a train, and came down, all the way from Buffalo, New York. And where do I find my husband? In jail, accused of murdering a woman. A fine kettle of fish!”

Higdon looked as if he’d like to grab the umbrella off Mrs. Fitzgerald’s arm and clout her a good one over the ear. He forced a smile. “I’ve taken Mrs. Fitzgerald to see her husband—”

“And a splendid sight
he
is. Sitting in your jailhouse, unbathed and wearing the same clothing for nigh-onto a week. Do you people have no idea of sanitation out here?”

Her speech was as rum as her clothes, slow, with big rolling inflections and vowels prolonged to ridiculous lengths. Brun thought she looked and sounded like someone you’d expect to see in the Sunday funny papers. She flipped her umbrella into her free hand, and pointed it at Higdon. “And
you
are his lawyer. What have you done for him? Why is he still locked up in jail? If I don’t see him freed very shortly, I am going to call the governor of this misbegotten, out-of-the-way state.”

Brun thought no one could have criticized Higdon for dragging the terrible woman into Stark’s office, sitting her down in front of the telephone, and telling her to go ahead, call the gov. But Higdon kept calm. “Mrs. Fitzgerald, I’ve told you, this is going to take a little time. I’m doing everything for your husband that can be done.”

Mrs. Stark laid a hand lightly on her husband’s arm. “Johnny, dear, these last few days have been a terrible trial for poor Mrs. Fitzgerald. First, she hears nothing from her husband, then she rides here on a train, how many miles is it from Buffalo? And all the while fearing the worst. Then when she gets here—”

“I went straight to the
po
lice, that’s what I did. And what do I find, but my husband sitting in a jail cell, charged with choking a young woman to death. Ridiculous!” Mrs. Fitzgerald stamped her umbrella onto the wooden floor. “Edward, strangling a woman? What a bunch of nonsense. Edward doesn’t have the nerve to kill a housefly.”

Stark put a hand over his mouth, whether to hide a smile or hold in a word, Brun couldn’t tell. The boy figured that right then, poor Mr. Fitzgerald was likely better off in jail than out.

“The police captain took me over to Mr. Higdon’s law office.” Mrs. Fitzgerald paused long enough to give Higdon the kind of glance she might turn on a worm that had crawled up onto one of her untied, mismatched shoes. “He doesn’t look to me as if he’s been out of diapers long enough to be a lawyer.”

“Now, Mrs. Fitzgerald.” Brun heard sinew in Mrs. Stark’s voice. “You’re upset, my dear. Young, Mr. Higdon may be, but people in Sedalia hold him very high indeed in their regard. Now, let’s not dither any longer.” She looked back to Stark. “I’ve offered the hospitality of our home to Mrs. Fitzgerald and little Frankie. It would not do to have them stay in a hotel room during such a trying time. They can have the room where we put up Etilmon when he’s in town.”

Brun pictured this crazy woman in a hotel room downtown, stomping back and forth, banging on walls, rushing up and down hallways, walking up to strangers in the lobby, poking her umbrella into their chests, and he commenced to wonder whether after all, Fitzgerald really
might
be guilty. With such a wife at home, maybe he did have ladies on the road, and maybe something went wrong with one of them the other night, and poor Fitzgerald just went bughouse, grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. But then, he thought, how to explain Joplin’s money-clip next to the body?

John Stark bowed slightly, and said, “Mrs. Fitzgerald, you and your son are welcome to stay with us for as long as needed. We’ll do what we can to make you comfortable.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald tilted her head back a bit to take Stark in from beneath the brow of that ridiculous hat. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m grateful for your offer. But I must ask, before we stay in your house. You and your family are not Jews, are you?”

Nobody breathed except little Frankie, who took advantage of the silence to sing past his thumb, “Jews, Jews, Jews…”

His mother pulled the child closer; he leaned against her leg. “You see, I must consider the safety of my son. There is a Jewish man named Stark in Buffalo who owns a men’s clothing store, and he has a beard like yours. And I know for a fact that he tries to get little Christian boys into his shop, especially in the spring.” She leaned forward, then continued in a hoarse whisper, “I’ve heard it from the priest himself. He tells all the mothers in the parish to keep their children safe around Easter.”

Mrs. Stark didn’t blink an eye. “Oh, now, Mrs. Fitzgerald,” she said, and Brun almost laughed out loud at the thick layer of Irish that suddenly coated each of her words. “Should Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald have any reason to fear for her son’s safety or her own in the home of Sarah Ann Casey Stark? Let’s have no more nonsense. I’ll take you and Frankie upstairs, and by the time my husband is done with work…” She stopped just long enough to give Stark a hard look. “And finished having his beer, why you’ll be feeling as safe and comfortable as in your very own house.” She reached for Frankie’s hand. “Come along, little Irishman. I have sugar cookies, nice big ones. I baked them just this morning.”

Higdon reached for the carpetbag, but Mrs. Fitzgerald was quicker, and snapped it up. “I can carry it, thank you,” she snapped. “You can put your time and effort to better use by attending to my husband’s predicament. I trust the next time I see you, you will have some good news.”

“I’ll do my best,” Higdon said, very politely. If she heard him, she gave no sign.

Isaac quietly moved forward along the opposite side of the store from the retreating Mrs. Fitzgerald. For a minute or two, he, Higdon, Stark and Brun stood there like men surveying the scene right after a tornado had unexpectedly blown through. Finally, Isaac said, “Somehow, I don’t think that woman’s gonna cotton to havin’ a colored man sleepin’ in the same house as her.”

“Well, she’ll just have to, won’t she?” Stark was furious.