City of Promise (51 page)

“It is. But they’re using steel cables. A lot stronger than iron.” Tamping down his impatience, trying not to concentrate on how fast the hours were ticking away and how little control he seemed to have over everything that was happening. Trying not to concentrate on what Mollie must be feeling. “I don’t think we’re out here to talk about the Brooklyn Bridge, Mr. Jones. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“I’m making a point, Mr. Turner. About connections, and the fact that sometimes what we think we see,” pointing once more to the swaying structure above the river, “is not the reality.”

Josh waited. His companion turned to the bustle of the road behind them where workmen were digging into the city’s crust, swinging pickaxes in revolving twelve-hour shifts to create an approach ramp as far back as Chatham Street, because that’s what was required for this miracle in the sky. Jones put a hand on Josh’s arm. “Look just
over there.” The bowler indicated a horsecar stopped to discharge and board passengers. “Wait till the car has left,” Jones said.

Josh waited. When the horsecar moved on he was staring directly at a pawnbroker’s shop, identified by the requisite three gold balls.

“Something to think about, Mr. Turner,” Jones said.

“Is ready now,” the woman said. Mollie heard the scrape of the bucket being moved into position and the swish of the curtain closing. “You hurry. No take too much time.” The voice sounded obviously female to her now that she knew the truth. “I got business,” the woman said. “No time for waste up here.”

Mollie made a wordless sound of acquiescence. Her heart had been pounding in her chest all the while she sweltered in her cage. The change in the weather she’d at first welcomed had many times increased her misery and made her plan seem even more urgent. Now, moments away from actually putting it in practice, she was calm.

“You no take too long,” the woman repeated as she tugged the curtain closed. “Hurry.”

Mollie lifted her skirts with one hand and yanked the blindfold off with the other. She blinked furiously, willing her eyes to adjust to the return of normal sight. Then, in a voice as normal as she could make it, “I am done.”

The woman pulled the curtain open. Mollie had a swift impression of black hair and all-black clothes. She flung herself onto that dark vision, using both hands to shove as hard as she could, widening her own stance to secure her balance. The woman lost her footing and fell to the ground.

Mollie ran across the roof, ignoring the stabbing pain in her legs. She looked back over her shoulder. The creature in black was scrambling to her feet and uttering a string of Italian curses. Mollie expected her jailer to shout for assistance, from the beekeeper perhaps, instead she seemed to deliberately keep her voice low. No time to worry about
that now. Speed, Mollie had told herself when she made her plan. Run as fast as you can, however much it hurts. Speed and surprise are your only weapons. She knew that success depended on getting to the door before the woman caught up to her. And that—dear God in heaven let it be so—the door must be unlocked.

“You come back. Bitch! I get you and I kill you!”

In English. As if she thought Mollie would obey if she understood.

“After this you sit all day and all night. No food. No bucket.”

She was level with the beehives and the door was maybe a yard away. A hand grabbed her skirt from behind. “I got you, bitch!” An arm around her waist. Incredibly strong. Mollie jammed both elbows back behind her and made contact with soft flesh and hard bone. There was a whooshing sound, like letting the air out of a balloon, then a thud.

Still not a shout, instead a kind of breathless whisper of rage. Mollie lurched forward. A hand clutched at the hem of her skirt. She reached out and pushed the nearest beehive. She was off balance and couldn’t get much force into the gesture, but the thing tottered and half fell against the hive beside it. A swarm of angry, buzzing bees rose up and filled the air, forming a cloud around her head. Mollie bent one arm across her face to protect her eyes and pulled forward again. She heard the ripping sound as her dress tore free. She willed herself to disregard the stings and fumbled around the top of the hive. A frame heavy with honey came free in her hand and she held on to it despite the furious attack of the enraged bees. She half turned and saw her jailer getting to her knees and reaching out to grab her again. Mollie brought the frame crashing down over the woman’s head. Honey dripped down her hair and her face, and the bees swarmed in her direction. In seconds Mollie could no longer see the other woman’s head, only the yellow and black bodies of the bees. She hurled herself forward and grabbed the handle of the door.

It turned. The relief—this had always been the thing she couldn’t
know—was almost too much. The calm she’d mustered deserted her and heart pounding she raced down the narrow stairs.

The stairwell was dark and the place smelled of things she could not recognize, but which were not unpleasant. Mollie went down one flight and then another. Despite everything she’d heard and read about the crowded condition of the tenements, she neither saw nor heard another human being. The house seemed entirely empty. On the first floor the door at the end of the hall was open and she could see pots boiling on what looked like a modern stove, all polished black iron and gleaming cream-color enamel.
You hurry. I got business.
The woman probably wanted to tend to her cooking. The only other door in the hall was closed, but she heard the soft drone of voices speaking on the other side. English she realized. She didn’t care. Nothing mattered except getting away. She had to will herself not to run, only creep to the front door.

There was no stoop. As soon as she pushed open the door she was standing on a street bathed in sunshine and filled with bustling activity. A man was selling tomatoes off the top of a pair of overturned ash cans directly in front of her. The road behind him was lined with pushcarts. The sidewalk was thick with people. Most jostled past her, seeing nothing and caring less. One, a woman carrying a bag made of mattress ticking, stopped to confront her.
“Pane,”
the woman said, pulling a round loaf of bread from her bag and waving it under Mollie’s nose. “Bread. Good.
Del giorno. Fresca.
Five cents only.” Mollie was hungry, but she had no money. She pushed past the woman, terrified lest someone appear from the house behind her and she be dragged back into captivity. She knew if that happened she would find no allies in this crowd. They would turn away because their survival depended on seeing as little as possible.

There was a break in the crowd and she could see a sign across the road that said
BAYARD STREET SALOON
. She was where she’d thought
herself to be, in Mulberry Bend. She turned left because her instincts told her that was the way north. She’d have run except the throng of people made it impossible.

“Excuse me,” she kept murmuring as she struggled through the crowd. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.” No one paid any attention. There was a horse just ahead of her and it was harnessed to a hansom cab pulled up to the curb. That seemed miraculous in this neighborhood. Mollie pushed and shoved her way toward it. Finally, near enough to where she thought she could be heard, she called out, “You, cabby. Over here.” And when the driver looked in her direction, “Can you take me please?”

She was level with the cab by then and the man peered down from his perch, grinning a mostly toothless grin. “Well now, can’t say as I’d refuse if my time was my own, miss. Though looks like you been busy enough for so early in the day. Sorry, sweetness, I’m waitin’ for the fellow already hired me.”

Mollie put a hand to her head. Her hair was hanging loose. And she knew her dress to be torn and filthy. She made no apology for her appearance. “I am Mrs. Joshua Turner,” making her voice calm and her tone as authoritative as if she were speaking from the security of her own home. “I will pay you fifty dollars if you take me to 1060 Fourth Avenue immediately.”

The driver stared at her, obviously beginning to doubt his original assumption. “Show me the money,” he said finally. “You don’t sound like a doxy, but you don’t look like you got no fifty dollars neither.”

She started to respond, then saw him looking over her head in the direction from which she’d come. She had run out of time. Mollie reached for the door of the cab and hauled herself up and inside.

“Hey! I didn’t agree to—”

“A hundred dollars,” she said, slamming the cab door closed and shoving down the front window so she could talk to the driver. “But only if you get me out of here right now.”

The driver made up his mind and cracked his whip over the horse’s
rump. They set off at a pace that scattered everything in their path. Mollie ignored flying fruit and vegetables and the clatter of overturned tin cans and peddlers’ carts, and peered out the window as they passed the house from which she’d just escaped. It was red brick, three stories tall and two windows wide, and there was a white granite lintel above each closely curtained window. She saw laundry hanging from the windows of buildings either side, but there was none in the house where she’d been held. And no number on the door. No matter, she knew she’d recognize it again if she saw it. More important, she realized with a profound sense of shock that she knew the man standing in the doorway staring after her.

“Mrs. Turner! It’s you, ain’t it?” Ollie flung open the garden gate and ran toward the hansom. “Mr. Turner! Come quick, it’s Mrs. Turner. She’s home!”

Two of Frankie Miller’s men appeared out of nowhere and flanked the cabby, grabbing him by either arm. “No!” Mollie was almost too tired to speak but knew she must. “He helped me. He wasn’t one of them.”

Then Josh was there, lifting her out of the cab, refusing the assistance of any of the others milling about in the street.

“I promised the driver a hundred dollars,” she murmured. “I’m sorry to have been so extravagant. It did seem required.”

“He shall have two hundred,” Josh said, “if he’ll stay until I have time to talk to him.” The cabby nodded eagerly. Josh turned to the stable boy. “Ollie, saddle Midnight and go at once to Dr. Turner. Tell him we need him.” Then, remembering that Simon was waiting for his child to be born. “If he can’t leave, ask him to send another doctor as quickly as possible. After that go to the Devrey Building and get word of what’s happened to Mr. Devrey.” All the while he was issuing these instructions the implications of the event—that Mollie had somehow escaped from her captors—were becoming clear in his mind. Josh turned to the gunmen, speaking over Mollie’s head, lolling now against his chest. “Send someone to Mrs. Brannigan at fifty-three
University Place. Please say her presence is urgently required at 1060, and I’d be grateful if she would return with you at once and be prepared to remain a few days.”

Everyone moved in response to his orders and Josh started for the house, still carrying Mollie, his gait jerky and asymmetrical, but the great strength of his upper body and his urgency prevailing even over gravity.

She was so still he thought she might have fainted, except that as they approached the door she moved one hand to his shoulder.