Grace's Pictures (15 page)

With her camera in hand she crept closer to the statue, raising a finger to her lips as she stared at the pigeon still perched on the toy boat.

“Fifty dollars, I’d say, Goo Goo,” she heard one of the men mumble.

Businessmen, she assumed. Men in America had a strange way of doing business, here in a park. Surely there was a pub for such talk. She leaned out to sneak a look. The man’s eyes met hers, rounded in surprise.

“Hey!” he called, pointing at her.

Embarrassed, she started to stutter. “I-I . . . uh, sorry.”

“She’s got a camera!”

One of the men lunged at her and she ducked under his arm. They wanted to steal her camera! She ran as fast as she could until she reached a round stone building on the edge of the harbor where a lot of people gathered. The crowd was large enough to allow her to escape by squeezing in among shoulders. “Hey,” a plump lass with blonde curls said to her. “Wait in line like everyone else.”

“Sorry. Someone was after me.”

The girl shrugged her round shoulders and then pointed. “There’s a copper out there, Red. Go tell him.”

Copper.
The word Americans used for a peeler. Grace stared at her. “Why would I do that?” No sooner had she spoken than she remembered the admonishment Mrs. Hawkins had given her after they’d encountered Owen McNulty on the trolley when Grace had first arrived.
“Be respectful to the New York police, and they’ll be there when you need them. Treat them rudely and spend the rest of your days looking behind you in dark alleys.”
Grace trusted the people who had helped her get settled, but how far should she take that dependence? Police—peelers—were some of the most unscrupulous people on earth.

The yellow-haired girl laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe you need help or something?” She cocked her head to one side. “’Less you lifted someone’s wallet and the cops are after
you
.” She gave Grace a shove. “Go on and get out of here, Red. I won’t rat on you.”

Her first inclination had not been to find a peeler. It would take some time before Grace could talk herself into taking Mrs. Hawkins’s advice altogether.

Grace touched a hand to her hair before wandering over to another crowd of people where she could stare out over the park. The area around the statue was now occupied by a group of lads playing a game of tag. She glanced up and down the walk that led around the water. The men were gone. The Hawk’s warning rang true. Grace did need to look behind her in dark alleys and also in the park. There were plenty of evil people lurking everywhere.

She took a deep breath and held her camera to her chest. “Excuse me,” she said to a young mother herding a group of children. “What would you all be waiting for?”

She smiled at Grace. “Why, to get into the aquarium. Are you coming in?”

“Uh, what is that?”

The boy next to her giggled. “The fish house. I’m going to see the whale.”

“Where is the whale?” Grace leaned out to get a view of the water.

He tugged on her skirt. “In the fish house.” He pointed toward the building. “They gots an octopus too.”

Grace had to see that.

“Can anyone go in?”

The lass shrugged her shoulders. “There’s no admission charge, if that’s what you mean. Come on and wait in line.”

When Grace got inside, she was amazed. Arched pillars and painted stucco walls gave the place a regal feel. Chattering children and giggling young lasses made Grace think of the great fairs in Ireland, a vague memory from before her workhouse days. The memory of light and color and life. The beauty she had not found out in the park.

She stayed with the flow of people and lifted her nose to breathe in the scent of hot peanuts. The lad she’d seen earlier inched past her, toting a small sack of the treats. He placed one nut in her hand.

“Thank you.”

“A treat for a beautiful lady,” he said, smiling without the benefit of a front tooth.

Beautiful? Not her. He was being polite.

His mother squeezed him to her side, smashing his cheek until he complained. “A charmer, I’m afraid.” She gave Grace a half smile. “Like his father.” She sighed.

A crashing sound turned every head toward the center of the building.

“The whale!” The lad tugged on his mother’s pocket purse until she relented and moved in that direction.

Grace had seen a whale at sea and she could not imagine how one could be tamed inside a building. In Ireland, when she was a wee lass and her mother had taken her to visit relatives in the far west of the island, she’d seen whales dragged from the shore and cut up for blubber and oil and whalebones to be used in various ways. They were massive, magnificent creatures. She turned and clambered up the steps workers stood on to feed the animals, moving in the opposite direction of the crowd. When she reached the highest level where she could still see the pools below, she took in the sight, admiring how sunlight from the rooftop glinted on the water.

Someone bumped into her. She supposed she would have to explain herself to an aquarium worker. She had only wanted to get a better view and no taller than she was, it was difficult down below. But when she turned to the man standing next to her, someone she expected to be a spectator like she was, she noted the lack of a uniform and nearly fell off the platform. The man from the statue!

Just beyond him two fellows in tweed coats sat on the landing, dangling their feet. Sandwiched between them was a fellow wearing a black coat and holding his tall hat in his lap. He glanced at her, his deep-set, dark eyes serious. Even after he turned away, she remembered that face. In the park by the statue another man had called him an odd name. Something like glue. . . . Goo Goo.

He puffed continually on a cigarette as he stared at the opposite wall. The lot of them seemed wholly American to Grace from the cut of their clothes to the ring of their voices.

The man next to her suddenly pulled the Brownie from her hands, took it apart, and felt inside the box. Frowning, he turned the camera upside down and gave it a shake.

“What are you doing? Give that back to me.”

He dropped it at her feet and she scrambled to pick it up.

“Where’s the film?”

“’Tis not loaded.’Tis a new camera. I’m practicing.” Before she could stand, he pulled her satchel from her arm.

“Hey!”

He grabbed her two boxes of unopened film and stuck them in his pockets. Then he tossed her bag to the ground.

“Nobody takes photographs of my boss, lady.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Don’t matter what you
try
to do.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. As much as she didn’t want to be bullied ever again, she felt weak and helpless.
You are able.
“Give me my film.”

The curve of his lips and his low, dipped eyelids gave her a chill. His eyes were shadowed and beard stubble speckled his chin. The lines beneath his bulging eyes meant that he’d spent too much time in the pub. He rubbed his nose almost continuously. But despite his rumpled appearance, he was still properly attired for a gentleman, with smooth leather shoes and a finely cut suit, custom-made probably. He stared at her a moment, then scrambled down the opposite side of the metal stairs, following his companions, and disappeared below among the children carrying bags of peanuts and a troupe of women in colossal hats.

She examined her box camera and clicked the shutter. Some of the black paper was scuffed, revealing the cardboard underneath, but otherwise it seemed unharmed. All she’d lost was thirty cents’ worth of film. This mugging could have been much worse.

12

OWEN REALIZED
that the reason he was getting a partner was because of these extra assignments patrolling near the harbor. Things were boiling up in Lower Manhattan, and the force was not prepared. Either that, or there were too many corrupt police to find enough men to make headway against the criminal activity in this area. That new partner couldn’t come soon enough. Cracking this gang could be just what Owen needed to earn respect and get a promotion.

Owen glanced up at the barren branches of a locust tree overhead and thought about his future. He was in line to be an inspector, a sizable promotion. He’d so far managed to avoid the long tentacles of Tammany Hall. That organization controlled and dictated much of the police department. Since joining the force, Owen learned to be careful not to draw attention to himself so that they would not interfere with his police work. He just wanted to do his job and move up to a more challenging position. Sergeant came after inspector;
Sergeant McNulty
had a nice ring to it.

He smiled at each face he encountered. If the people thought of you as a friend, you could get their cooperation and even information when you needed it. And like his Irish granny always said, “Every person’s alike in God’s eyes, laddie. They’ve
all got worth, and better that you treat them that way.” And of course, he’d received Reverend Clarke’s blessing, and Owen took that to heart.

He’d tried to show Christ to everyone he encountered, like the reverend said, but being on the Lower Manhattan beat, he’d seen the worst of people—bodies mangled and bloody after being pushed from upper-floor windows, merciless men extorting money from ten- and eleven-year-old prostitutes, little paperboys beaten for the few pennies in their pockets. It was hard to grasp that God loved the downtrodden just the same as the fat aristocrats uptown. Some fared so well and others suffered. Owen had been called to do what he could for the poor folks, but it was often discouraging work, especially since he’d had no success so far moving through the ranks.

“Afternoon, ladies.” Owen tipped his hat at two society women as they passed by him, taffeta dresses swooshing all the while. Today he was more interested in the faces of the men in the park. Word from headquarters was that Kid Yorke, Goo Goo Knox, and the like had moved on from their days with Battle Annie Walsh and were up to no good around the Hudson River docks, calling themselves Hudson Dusters. Knox was now the official head of the gang, but no one knew what that thug looked like. Just that he had a name that indicated he was not an old man, a baby face presumably. Owen’s captain thought the gang was probably in Battery Park from time to time, and so Owen had to be vigilant. Those boys normally caroused in the darkness, but his hunch was that they might be emerging from their gutters to slink about this time of day.

He stopped a ball with his foot. A lad ran up to him, a stick in one hand and his cap in the other. “Sorry, Officer. It got away from us.”

Owen handed him the ball. “Say, lad. Seen any bad fellows about today?”

“No, sir.”

Owen ran his hand through the boy’s tangled brown hair. “You come see me if anything’s stirring. You hear?”

“Yes, Officer.” The boy scampered back to his buddies who waited next to improvised bases—their discarded coats lying in a heap. Baseball was taking hold of New York’s youth like nothing Owen had ever seen before. Better they aspire to be a New York Giant like George Davis or Amos Rusie than end up like Kid Yorke, Circular Jack, or Goo Goo Knox. If it was colorful nicknames the kids were after, baseball was a better choice. The sport had produced Old Hoss Radbourn and Bob “Death to Flying Things” Ferguson, after all.

He decided to move toward the aquarium, a place where families congregated, especially on winter days when they’d rather be indoors. The park with all the families and proper folks should not be soiled by gangsters, not if he could help it. He entered and gazed about, letting his stare linger in secluded corners and out-of-the-way niches. On a catwalk he noticed some young folks clustered together. Loitering in a public building was not permitted. He sighed and began to climb the steps, swinging his long arms. He paused halfway up and looked again. That young woman there with the red petticoat sticking out from under her skirt. Was that . . . ?

“Officer McNulty, what a pleasure.”

He turned to look below him. Mrs. Morgan, a regular attendee of First Church on Rayburn Street, smiled at him.

“Enjoying the fish, Mrs. Morgan?”

She blushed, as women seemed to do in his presence. “Indeed. Have you seen the porpoise? It’s new, I hear.”

“No, ma’am. I’m working.”

“Out here?”

“That’s right.” He inclined his head toward her. “Lovely to see you. I must move along.” He thought he caught Mr. Morgan glaring at him from behind his wife’s shoulder, but he couldn’t linger. He had to find out what Grace McCaffery could possibly be doing up there. When he turned back, however, she was gone and so were the men she’d been talking to, probably exiting on the opposite side. He turned to look behind him but didn’t see them.

He heard someone calling his name. Walter Feeny, a patrolman Owen didn’t particularly like because of his gruff interactions with citizens the man seemed to despise, lumbered toward him. “Captain’s called a meeting for the park patrol.”

“Where, Feeny?”

“Main headquarters. Got a police wagon waiting. Let’s go.”