City of Hope (34 page)

“Are we,” I said to him one night, “like them?”

“Like who?” he asked.

We were still living on the top floor of the shared house. Perhaps we should move, get a house nearer the city together, get married, I thought.

“Never mind,” I said.

Life seemed settled, as if I was being invited to move on, yet in the core of me I was still uncertain.

Sheila was skeptical about my relationship with Matt.

“You're just with him because you can walk all over the poor man,” she said. “You've always longed to be respectable, and you can make him do as you please. You don't love Matt, not really. You're still longing to be with that cad Charles—tell the truth!”

Sheila could say things like that to me without me taking any notice.

“The red or the blue?” I asked, holding up two new silk scarves just to annoy her.

We were having coffee in the shop.

“They are both ghastly!” Sheila was envious of my money, but I had decided I wasn't going to support her beyond her food and board. She borrowed my clothes, ate well out of the shop and could drink her fill with the men (who thought she was hilarious), but she was constantly frustrated with not having “her own” money to spend. Sheila had tried working in the shop, but always ended up causing mayhem by bossing everyone about, while not dirtying her hands by so much as lifting a cup.

“Flirting with the male customers and letting them off paying!” Bridie complained.

“She's trying to find another rich fool to look after her,” Maureen added.

Much as I hated to admit it, I had come to think that perhaps finding a rich man to look after her was the best—or rather only—option for Sheila. She pestered me to take her to charity functions, but after she made a holy show of herself, getting blind drunk and sitting on the knee of another woman's husband, I drew the line. I was excusing her behavior to Lavinia, when she shocked me by informing me that Sheila's reputation as a money-grabbing flibbertigibbet had spread from Boston to New York, with word out that she had single-handedly brought down Alex Ward and his family's successful glazing firm. It was an exaggeration, but it certainly didn't help her cause, and neither did her increasingly cheap manners. Without the enforced social boundaries of being married to a “good” family, Sheila had taken to smoking and drinking like a laborer and “dressing like a whore”—Bridie's words, not mine.

“She won't find a rich man in here,” Anna said about Sheila's flirtations in the cafe.

“Certainly not dressed like a floozy,” Maureen added.

It turned out they were both wrong.

On this particular morning Sheila had barely bothered getting dressed at all. She had been out all night—I did not dare ask where—and had wandered into the shop midmorning as I was taking my tea and snack, making the most of Tom being asleep in his buggy.

Last night's kohl and mascara rimmed her eyes in a smoky black, and her foundation was flaky in the stark morning light.

“You're a mess, Sheila,” I said.

She snapped open her compact and reapplied some lipstick over the pale stain.

“There,” she said, “good as new. All I need now is a cure—Anna? Coffee!”

“Jesus, Sheila, don't talk to Anna like that.”

“What? She works here, doesn't she?”

Anna came over and placed a cup of coffee in front of me, before giving Sheila a look of pure Italian poison.

I pushed the cup toward her and she took a flask from her purse and poured in a drop of whiskey.

“Where did you get that?”

“Somebody gave it to me.”

“Who?”

“Urgh! I've always had it. Why must you treat me like a wayward child?”

“Why must you behave like one?”

We were busy bickering when Sheila's eyes rotated toward the door. A man had come in. He was middle-aged, his peppery hair slicked back, his square frame wearing an impeccable three-piece dove-gray pinstripe suit with a pink kerchief in the pocket. Money!

He came straight over to our table and said, “Ladies.”

Sheila's face lit up, but he more or less ignored her and addressed me directly.

“Mrs. Hogan, isn't it? Excuse me for being so forward, but I know you from your face in the paper, and I believe you know an associate of mine?”

“Lavinia French?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “I don't know that lady. I am looking for a man called Dingus McGonigle.”

It took a second for it to sink in. Dressed like that, he wasn't a cop, which meant he could only be from the mob. The cafe was empty. I looked over to signal for Anna to get help, but she had scuttled out back to the kitchen.

“My name is Frank Delaney,” he said, “and I believe that Mr. McGonigle was seen in these premises trying to do some business some months ago.”

I stuttered something like “I don't recall.” A big black car had pulled up outside the door and two slick-looking gangsters had gotten out and were standing by it. I looked over at Sheila: her face was calm, but her hands shook slightly as she lit a cigarette. Her eyes were thoughtful slits—I knew that look, and goodness knows what scheme she was thinking up. Whatever it was, I hoped it was better than what I had, which was nothing.

“Come now, Mrs. Hogan—perhaps it will jog your memory if I tell you that he had a run-in with a man I believe you are well acquainted with: a Mr. Charles Irvington—‘Chuck' I believe his friends call him?”

“What do you know of Charles Irvington?” I asked. My voice sounded defensive, shaky.

“Well, I believe he was residing in your house for a time?”

I could feel my face tighten, my lips pursed, my jaw stuck. Tom was still asleep in his chair. The shadow of that morning with Dingus fell over me. It was happening again. Sheila looked over toward the kitchen; she was panicking too—what did he want?

He pulled a chair over from the table next to us and settled himself in between us both, at the round table.

“This Chuck is a dangerous character, Mrs. Hogan—involved in the unions, he was running roughnecks out of the docks and had many dealings with some of my friends in the police department. You may not be aware of this, but my associate Mr. McGonigle disappeared soon after a run-in with him at your residence.”

“I don't know where Charles is,” I said. My voice sounded high, as if I was guilty of something. Where were all the cursed men when you needed them? Where was Matt? Mario? These men had guns—our men would be no use to us anyway. And curse Charles! He was more trouble when he wasn't here than when he was.

“Is this what you're looking for?”

I looked up. Bridie had suddenly appeared behind me, flanked by Maureen and a rather shocked-looking Anna.

She flung what appeared to be half a pound of sausages down on the table in front of the man. He flinched, and as he did so, one of the men outside opened the door. The man raised his arm and waved them away, his eyes transfixed on Bridie's package, resting on the gingham tablecloth in front of him.

I looked closer. It wasn't a pound of sausages, it was a human hand.

“That's what's left of your ‘friend,' ” Bridie said. “We took the liberty of leaving on his signet ring, so you could identify him—although I'm sure that your ‘friends' in the police department would be happy to fingerprint him for you.”

I was speechless. Bridie had cut off Dingus' hand. Why? (I chose not to think about how—although I had seen her easily butcher half a pig, so I had some idea of what she could do with a knife. I later discovered that Maureen and she had tried to remove his signet ring, failed, and Bridie decided it would be simpler to cut off his whole hand than a single finger!)

Our guest was completely taken aback.

“Who are you?”

“Don't you mind who I am,” Bridie said—she was thoroughly enjoying herself—and actually reached up to adjust her gray bun as she was talking. “Let's just say I'm the person who knows that your toughest lackey was brought to justice by a handful of women. How do you think your protection racket would survive a rumor like that?”

As Bridie was talking, a small smile played across his lips. He wasn't a cruel-looking man. Not like the unfortunate employee whose hand he lifted carefully between his thumb and forefinger.

“So Charles Irvington butchered Dingus, huh?”

“For your information, around here we don't get the men to do our dirty work for us—we do it ourselves,” I said, suddenly infuriated by the implication that we women were helpless.

“Your business runs on fear, Mr. Delaney, and we're not afraid of you,” Maureen piped up.

“. . . and neither will anyone else be, when they find out a bunch of charity ladies have Dingus' hand in their freezer.”

“I shot him,” Sheila suddenly blurted out, anxious for attention and afraid she was getting left out of the party. “I didn't like the look of him, so I shot him.” Then she did the dumbest thing she had ever done (and she had done some pretty dumb things)—she took the small pistol out of her purse and waved it about, saying, “With this . . .”

The two men outside came thundering through the door. Tom woke up and started crying.

“See now, you woke the baby!” Frank said. “I love kids.”

My whole body tightened as he leaned over to see Tom in the buggy, and on his way coolly leaned across Sheila, snatched the gun from her hand, then in one quick flick flipped it open, took out two bullets the size of small earrings and gave it back to her.

“Pretty ladies like you shouldn't play around with guns—even cute little ones like this.”

He leaned back, took a deep breath, then pushed air through his mouth as if he were exhausted.

“Ladies—I don't know what to say? Except that Chuck Irvington sure is lucky to have you ladies on his side.”

“We're on nobody's side, Mr. Delaney—except our own and the poor of this parish.”

I meant it. Charles and I were finished. I had a child in my care now and needed a responsible man to look after us both. If I ever needed evidence that Matt was the man for me over Charles, this was it.

“Perhaps I should be paying
you
protection?” Frank looked up at his men and they all laughed at the great joke.

“Perhaps you should.” I held his eye, deadly serious. “And you can be assured that any money you do give us will go to a good cause.”

He looked at me, sharp and cold, then scraped his chair back from the table. His two lackeys were silenced and stony-faced. As Frank stood up he reached into his inside pocket, and for a split second I rattled with fear and automatically checked that I was in front of Tom's buggy. He took out his wallet and counted eight ten-dollar bills onto the table.

On his way out he turned to Bridie.

“You do soda farls here?”

“The best,” she said.

“Like my mammy used to make?”

“If you had a mammy, which I doubt, you can be sure mine are better.”

Then Bridie picked Dingus' hand up from the table and put it into her apron pocket.

Frank flinched, either at her comment or at the sight of a dead man's hand going into the cook's apron, then sucked his teeth and said, “I'll be back, so.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-
EIGHT

Frank came back the following morning, and most days after that. He had a full cooked Irish breakfast featuring Bridie's soda farls and a pot of strong builder's tea. He sat alone at the same corner table—he always paid, and he always left a ten-dollar bill in the homeless box. This regular, generous cash donation served to bankroll a mother-and-children's refuge for Lavinia, although we never told him what happened to his money, and he never asked.

Despite being married, Frank fell head over heels for “the crazy redheaded broad with the gun.” He set Sheila up in an apartment, a world away from his wife and family in Yonkers, and gave her a good time.

“You can't go, Sheila,” I said. “I don't want you to go.”

“Yes, you do, Ellie,” she replied. She was at the door and her bags were packed and in the car. I was being sentimental. We both knew it was time for her to move on. I had hoped for a while that it might have been somewhere else, with someone else, but there was something inevitable about Sheila becoming a gangster's moll.

“I know you think I'm crazy, Ellie—maybe I am?”

“There's no maybe about it.”

“But I love him . . .”

“No, you don't.”

“Okay, you're right—I love what he can give me: I love the parties, and the dresses, and the
excitement
, Ellie. It makes me feel
alive
—you know? I know you think I'm stupid, reckless . . .”

“I don't, Sheila, I don't think you're stupid at all.”

As I said it, I realized it was true. Everyone had their own furrow to plow, and this was Sheila's. Yes, my oldest friend was a selfish, reckless fool who, I believed, could do more with her life—but wishing for people to change was as pointless as wishing them alive when they were dead. I wasn't worried about Sheila anymore. I knew she could look after herself, and that she always would. I loved her, and that meant I no longer had to be her keeper; it meant I had to let her go.

“Stay in touch,” I said, “and you know where I am, if you need me.”

“Me, too,” she said, then touched my arm and kissed me tenderly on the cheek before walking to the car. As she was opening the door she turned and hesitated before saying, “You know, Ellie—I
do
worry about you.”

I smiled and waved. I was surprised to find I felt brave at waving her off and realized that, for all her chaotic madness, I had needed her this past while, more than she had ever needed me. She had picked me up and pulled me out of the pit of my despair; provided entertainment and distraction when I had been in need of it; had even shot a man on my behalf. You can never know how life's chapters will unfold, or how even those closest to you will react.