The Banished Children of Eve (70 page)

“Wouldn't be from anywhere else.”

“Where your people from?”

“Tipperary. Holy Cross, on my father's side.”

“I come over with a family from Holy Cross.”

“Hope they weren't relatives of mine. Got trouble enough taking care of myself!”

Her smile turned into a laugh. Straight teeth. Round, wide eyes: the deepest shade of green Dunne had ever seen.

Right then Dunne heard Dandy Dan's voice in his ear, as though Dan's shade was standing beside the stoop, fretting in the way he did when annoyed, moving his feet back and forth, his voice getting high and angry:
Get along, Jim! Want to see a woman laugh and smile? Take a week's tour of Greene Street once the job is done. The money will make the girls grin aplenty. Have all the sharebone a man can stand!

Just a minute more, Dan.

The uniform couldn't completely hide what a fine, full figure she had.

She stood with her hands on her hips, a doxy's kind of pose. But Dunne felt there was something sweet about her, even an innocence. She talked on about missing her family, about the nature of her work, about the difference between what you expect of New York and what you find. Dunne lingered and listened. She had a gift for talking. Put a man at ease.

She paused. Seemed the moment to go. Dunne tipped his cap. “Best be off,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, “it's getting warm. Soon the heat will be on us for sure,” and she reached up and took hold of the stiff white cap about her head, lifted it off, and the red-golden hair fell about her shoulders, waves of it, startling bright as it caught the sun. She tossed her hair and took out the pins.

“They're all away, Mr. Bedford at work,
his wife at the shore. What harm if a girl works without this pressed about her head like a crown of thorns?” She tossed her hair again, leaned her head from side to side, used her hand as if it was a comb, and the hair fell down her back, framed her face, rich ropes of it, thick folds of it, and the green eyes seemed even greener than before.

“Miss Kerrigan will have at me. But little joy there'll be in life to them who listen to the likes of Miss Kerrigan!” She glanced up at the sky. “At home, on days as hot and clear as this, little work be done or expected. But here there's no choice.” She gave a look: half sad, half happy, oh well. Those eyes. “Good-bye,” she said, and disappeared inside.

Dunne was alone on the sidewalk. He knew he should be gone, but he stayed. The ghost of Dandy Dan had completely disappeared, no echo of his voice, couldn't remember a thing he'd ever said. Dunne was unsure of what to do next, unsure in a manner difficult to explain. It was as if the weather had suddenly changed, although it hadn't, or as if the air itself was somehow different than before, although it wasn't; and he kept feeling like that, unsure, even when he went his way, and stayed feeling like that all day and the next, till Sunday, standing in the back of St. Stephen's, the church where the neighborhood servant girls hear Mass, he searched amid the crowd and saw the back of her fine head, her hair drawn up beneath a hat, her face leaned into a prayerbook. Just watching her gave him a stirred and happy sensation, although not the kind church was supposed to give.

He met her on the way out. She seemed to believe it was a stroke of luck, and didn't try to hide her surprise or delight. They talked on the steps till the other girls were gone. He walked her halfway home, and not knowing what else to do, gave a tip of his cap and said good-bye. He thought that seeing her once more would in some way help get his mind loose enough to think of other things. He was wrong. He spent the week with the same feeling as before, counting the days till he would be back in St. Stephen's, both content and excited
with her in view.

The next Sunday she didn't pretend to be otherwise than pleased to see him again, and when they left the church, she led the way, in the opposite direction of where she lived, east, then north, up as far as the Central Park. Neither of them paid much attention to where they were.

They sat so close together on a bench that Dunne could smell the scent of the soap she used, fresh and flowery-like. A moment for saying what you feel if you was sure what it was and had the words.

“How long you been with the gas company?” The first time she asked a question like that. Nearby, a military band played a sprightly air.

“Too long.”

“Steady work, is it not?”

“Been thinkin' of joinin' the Army. Have some adventure.”

“And give up regular employment? Plenty of men in this city give whatever they got for a job like yours.”

The band stopped playing. They sat a few moments, without a word. He walked her home and took a quick leave. He skipped Mass the following week, but the thought of her was never far away. Had thought to see her yesterday, but Saturday the message came from Capshaw. It was a sharp reminder of what had drawn Margaret to his attention in the first place. He went up to see Capshaw that evening. Place was locked and quiet as a tomb.
What game is the rat-nose playing now?
Dunne wondered. Instead of going to St. Stephen's on Sunday morning, he returned to Capshaw's. A maid answered. Said Capshaw had left the morning before without a word as to where. Hadn't come back that night. “Most unlike him,” she said.

Dunne had been sitting in the lobby of the New England all morning. What next? Wait another day for Capshaw and give him more time to spring a trap? He rolled and lit a cigarette, picked up the newspaper, skipped over columns of war news and opened to the inner page. His eyes fell on a column story on the lower right-hand side:

MURDER AT THE ELYSIAN FIELDS—
BLOODY EVIDENCE OF A FATAL ENCOUNTER

The inquest upon the body of an unknown
man found murdered on Saturday, on the beach at the Elysian Fields, was commenced before Coroner F. W. Bonenstedt, at Hoboken, on Sunday forenoon. After the jury had been impanelled, they proceeded to the Fields, and there examined the evidence of a fatal encounter. A short distance before Sybil's Cave, on the path beneath a leafy canopy, was found considerable blood spattered around, and indications of a deadly scuffle. There was a fresh mark upon a tree made with a blunt instrument, as though the person wielding it had missed his aim. Thence the body was dragged along, over rocks and ground, and, after the trousers had been removed, was hurled to the beach below. The back of the murdered man's skull had been crushed with repeated blows, and there are, also, severe wounds on the temple and forehead. Except for a tattoo on the right hand, of an eagle inscribed with the letters “OSSB,” there were no distinguishing marks. As no person could give witness to the circumstances surrounding his death, and none could identify him, it was deemed probable he belonged to New York. Having inspected the scene of the crime, the jury adjourned its inquest until Monday. In the meantime the body will remain at the Coroner's Office, for identification.

Must be thousands had that tattoo.
OSSB.
Old Stupid Sons of Bitches was what every Paddy knew it stood for. Order of the Star-Spangled Banner what the rat-noses claimed it did. Dunne had seen it on plenty of hands. Still, Capshaw being missing the same time this story appears—maybe nothing more than coincidence, but maybe something more. Could be Capshaw was done in over in the Elysian Fields. Be a long list of candidates with reasons for doing the job. Bedford would be one.

Or maybe that body on the beach wasn't Capshaw's at all. Maybe he merely dropped out of sight to spring his trap. Could be he'll be heard from today.

Dunne put down the paper. He had waited this long. Give it another day, then pay a visit to the Bedford house. Unannounced.

B
EDFORD FOUND THE STORY
on the inside dexter page of the
Tribune.
It had been given no prominence.
MURDER AT THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. He read it quickly until he reached the line “As no person could give witness to the circumstances surrounding his death, and none could identify him …” All he needed to know. He folded the paper and laid it on the floor.

Audley Ward sat at the other end of the table, absorbed in a book, the plate with the remains of his breakfast pushed aside. The maid appeared from the pantry. Bedford said, “No eggs today, Margaret, just coffee.” He cleared his throat. “By the way, Audley, I've decided to join Sarah in Long Branch.”

Ward looked up from his book. “Are you sure you're in a condition to travel?”

“A few days away from the frenzy of the financial markets, I'll be restored to new.”

“Must have been a terrible experience. Any mention in the papers?”

“No, and don't expect there'll be. Boating accidents aren't sensational enough for our metropolitan sheets.”

“But for an engine to explode and gentlemen to be thrown into the sea and almost drowned, my God, if that isn't worthy of reportage, what is?”

Bedford shrugged. “I'd think you'd be the last to be surprised by the poor judgment or bad taste of New York journalists.”

“Quite so.”

On Saturday night, home safe at last, Bedford had soaked for several hours in the tub. Exhausted, he had dozed off and awakened with a start to find Ward standing over him. “Charles,” Ward had said, “are you hurt? There's blood on the stairs and I'm told you were in an accident. Shall I summon a physician? Have the police been notified?”

Bedford had sputtered something
about accepting an invitation from an acquaintance to take a pleasure ride in his new steam-driven boat, a short jaunt around the harbor. They were returning to the pier when the engine suddenly exploded, hurling them into the water. Luckily, despite some superficial cuts and bruises, no one had been killed, and a passing ferry had plucked them from the harbor.

Ward shook his head. “The power of the steam engine is truly Mephistophelian. We regard it as our salvation, but it may well prove an instrument of damnation.”

After his bath, Bedford went directly to bed, lay down wet and naked on the sheets, and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep that lasted into the late morning. When he awoke, he knew exactly what he would do. It would require no great preparation. Pack some clothes. Put the contents of the safe into a carpetbag. Travel light. No one must suspect.

“When are you leaving?” Ward asked.

“The noon boat. Have some business to attend to in the office, then I'll be off. Expect you'll make sure nobody runs off with the place while I'm gone.”

“Have no fear,” Ward said. “‘Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye; and where care lodges, sleep will never lie.' Remember me to Sarah.” He went back to his reading.

Bedford gulped his coffee. He left the table, went into the library, opened the safe, removed the small wrapped stacks of greenbacks, and put them into a carpetbag. He walked quickly past the dining room. Ward's lowery face was buried in his book. Bedford stood by the front door, glanced at himself in the mirror in its gilded cartouche, took a peach-colored tea rose from the vase beside it, and made a boutonniere. Andrew, the coachman, came in, his coat already stained with perspiration. A faint whiff of horse manure clung to-him. Bedford lifted his lapel to his'nose, smelled the rose.

“Your bags, sir?” Andrew said.

Bedford pointed to the leather traveling bag that the maid had set beside the door. “That you may take.” He put his hand on the carpetbag, which rested next
to the vase of roses on the small Oriental-style table. “This I will carry myself.”

Bedford stepped back into the hallway. He remembered the day he had arrived with Sarah and Ward. Her amazement and delight. A house to wonder at. How happy they would be in this place. How content. How quickly they had come to feel it was inadequate, too narrow and contained, unworthy of their aspirations. He put on his hat, looked once again in the mirror, made a last adjustment to his cravat, and went out. The coach was at the curb. Andrew held the door open. Bedford climbed in, set the carpetbag in his lap, wrapped his arms around it.

As the coach pulled away, Bedford looked back and glimpsed the facade a last time. How easy, he thought, to be deceived. Like so much of New York, his house seemed to have been there forever, but it was merely a piece of the ceaseless cycle of build up and tear down, today a towering rectangle of brown granite, tomorrow a decaying ruin in which fifteen families of louse-ridden foreigners slept in warrens jigsawed out of the old space. The day after that, who could know? A pile of rubble carted away as landfill for the city's ocean-eating shoreline, its place taken perhaps by some taller, grander building, the inhabitants deluding themselves into believing that the process of change had stopped until another wave of foreigners descended and the new structure, like its predecessor, ended its days as landfill.

In a moment, they turned onto the avenue. Bedford ran the morning's schedule through his mind, everything to proceed as usual: Read the mail, see to the appointments, visit the Exchange, pay a call at Old Tom's, same table as usual, same order, mutton chop, freshly baked bread, coffee with a shot of brandy in it. He had no taste for the new fashion in food, French sauces, sherbets, souffles, the rage for champagne. That drink most of all. Bubbles. Who needed such reminders of the money business?

Just above Union Square, the heavy flow of traffic was brought nearly to a halt by a crew of Paddy workmen demolishing the walls of a squat, sagging structure that might once have been a tavern on what was then the Bloomingdale Road. It was dwarfed by the surrounding structures,
the old country road having been transformed into a bustling artery of city life. The workers swung their iron bars into the walls and sent bricks tumbling down into the street. A cloud of fine dust covered the workmen in white, making them seem like ghostly inhabitants the demolition had exposed to view.

Bedford sighed at the thought of all the possibilities he was leaving behind. The new building would undoubtedly be several stories taller than the old. Perhaps it would have one of the new vertical railroads to carry people to the higher elevations. Who knew where it would stop? More possibilities by the day. In London, the Metropolitan Railway was operating underground trains that avoided the tangled chaos of the streets. People traveled in style, heavy carpets on the floor, richly upholstered seats, paneled walls, lighting supplied by incandescent gas drawn from India-rubber bags mounted on the roof. Cost two and a half million pounds to build. The profits would eventually be at least a hundred times that. How long before New York had a Metropolitan Railway of its own?