Yakov had bought a gun, but maybe he decided that was too bloody. Maybe he had tried using a rope, only to realize the water could give him a cleaner death, a quieter one.
I searched my memory for a sign, some way I could have prevented it. Instead, I recalled his final words to me.
I’m meeting someone from back home. Besides, I suspect it’s not your kind of show.
Someone from back home. Someone from back home. The phrase echoed tauntingly in my head.
“No,” I said. “He didn’t buy the gun to kill himself.”
“Then why?”
“He was hunting someone. The night he died, he told me he was going to the Fair to meet someone. The way he said it, it was strange. He didn’t say friend or landsman, just someone...”
Frankie narrowed his eyes. “Who would Yakov be hunting? And why?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my face. “I just don’t know. I could tell he was keeping secrets, but so was I. All I know is that he was tense that night. Different. I feel like the answer is right in front of me, and I’m missing it completely!”
Frankie sighed, rising to his feet. “Look, we’re getting nowhere by going back and forth, so let’s get something to eat.”
“The answer isn’t in food, Frankie,” I said in exasperation.
“Nonsense, food is the answer to everything.” A smile eased across his lips. “We can sit and eat like old times, just the two of us, and you can tell me all about your friend Yakov.”
18
“I need to think of a boxer name,” Frankie said as we walked down the street. It was midday, and pushcart vendors and beggars crammed the sidewalks of the Levee District.
“A boxer name?”
“All the good boxers have names. There’s Napoleon, the Belfast Spider, the Fighting Blacksmith, the Trojan Giant, and His Fistic Holiness. The last one’s my favorite. I wish I’d thought of it.”
I gave it some thought. “How about Samson?”
“With a name like that, I’ll end up with my eyes gouged out.”
“Oh, wait, how about this? The Slingshot of HaShem!”
“Something a little less biblical, please.”
“The Baltic Beast?”
Frankie cocked his head, pondering it over. “That...that’s actually not bad.”
Another flash of inspiration came to me. “The Villain of Vilne.”
He gave me a sour look. “I’m beginning to sense a theme here.”
“The Lunatic from Lithuania.”
“Now, you’re just being deliberate.”
I chuckled. “It’s not deliberate if it’s true.”
Frankie shoved me lightly in the shoulder, and I shoved him back. As he strode on ahead, I bit my inner cheek to keep from grinning. A part of me wanted so badly to step into his life again. But we could never go back.
On that autumn night I’d left him, I had made an oath to myself that I would live with integrity. Just because the world was unjust didn’t mean that I must debase myself as well. I wanted to become the son my father would have been proud of. By surviving, I would be honoring his memory.
Frankie fell into step beside me. “I almost forgot, after you ran out of the Whitechapel Club, Mr. Whitby invited me to the Sunday evening races. He said that I should bring you along.”
“Why me?”
“How should I know? I think he liked your sorry attempt at a story. So, what do you say?”
“I have work until five, but I can meet after then.”
Frankie looked at me with pity. “Ah, so they keep you chained to the workbench all day.”
“Linotype machine, actually.”
“And that is?”
“It’s used to arrange typeset for printing. I work at a newspaper.”
“Why not come work for me?”
I turned my head, certain I had misheard him. “What did you just say?”
“I mean it. I could use someone like you to work with the fence and keep the ledger. The others are too young and, well, admittedly, not very bright.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know what you’re thinking, but we’re rising up in the world now, Alter. As I said before, I’m making connections. Just last month, down at the Masthead, I got a meeting with the Bath and—”
“The Bath?”
“Bathhouse John. You know? John Coughlin?”
The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Wasn’t he just elected as alderman?”
“Correct, of the First Ward. And like all politicians, he’s got his hands in the Levee’s workings. He’s getting into the protection racket. He’s got the police in his pocket now to shake down the brothel lords and bookies, but he said that in the future, he might have need for someone like me, and the crew, too.”
“You can’t possibly intend to make a life out of this, Frankie,” I said incredulously. “Forget about the Baltic Beast, if you keep this up, they’ll start calling you Frankie the Felon.”
He cocked his head and gave it some thought. “To be fair, that’s not a bad boxer name either. Although it will probably end up being more like Frankie the Fugitive.”
“I’m serious! What you were talking about back there with the real estate and investments and legitimizing your business, it’s a pipe dream. You’ll end up dead or in jail before you’re twenty, and you’ll drag everyone in your crew down with you.”
“Excuse me?” He jerked to a halt and stared at me in disbelief. “You waltz into my place as though you own it, ask me for advice, and then you proceed to shit on me? Seriously? Is this how you show appreciation? By insulting me to my face?”
“No. I’m not trying to insult you. I just—” I took a deep breath. Enough hiding. I needed to say this now, or I’d never get it out. “This is wrong, and you know it. What you are doing is theft, Frankie.”
“Oh, theft? You don’t say?” He leveled his chin, anger rising in his gaze. “And yet when children lose their fingers to looms and grinders, it’s called industry. Unlike the bosses, I never take from the most vulnerable. Never from the poor pushcart sellers or ragpickers. I have standards. Don’t you dare talk to me as though I’m a common thief!”
“No, instead, you corrupt kids who don’t know any better, who have nowhere else to go. You use them.”
“I liberate them,” he snarled.
“You use fear to convince them that relying on aid is more dangerous than just outright stealing what they need.” I could still remember the stories he had told to frighten the younger boys, vivid tales he invented from thin air about greedy bosses and perverse overseers just dying to sink their claws into innocent workers. True, those things happened, but not the way he described them, as though there were wardens with bad intentions lurking around every corner. If he wasn’t such a hustler, he would have made a lovely Marxist. “You tell them that you’re protecting them, when really you’re—”
“I am protecting them, you putz! You realize what this city does to kids on the street, Alter? It devours them. And what life would they have if they ended up in a settlement house, huh? I landed in Castle Garden, I know the way businessmen come through and offer you a job, an American dream of a new life, and next thing you know, you’re in a sweatshop working sixteen hours a day, and they call that generosity, they call that a chance at a future.”
“And what do you offer them? A life of crime?”
“A fucking choice, that’s what! I give them a choice!”
Frankie was up in my face now. Before I could stop myself, I shoved his shoulder. He dug his heels into the ground and wouldn’t budge, and when I tried again, he seized me by the ribbon tie the way he would a dog on a short leash. We glowered at each other, close enough now I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
“Let go of me,” I said tightly.
“You can judge me all you want, Alter,” he hissed, l
eaning in. “You can call me a damn Fagin, but the fact is this—I’d rather be a shanda than someone’s little suka like you.”
“What did you just call me?!”
“I’m just curious, do you lick your boss’s boots before or after you clean the presses?”
“Damnit, g-get off.” Panting with a sudden shortness of breath, I reached up to pry his fingers off my tie. He refused to let go, instead hauling me closer so he could snarl his next words in my face.
“Fuck you, Alter, and fuck the people who try to convince you that a life as worthless trash is better than rising up.”
As the silk ribbon cinched tight, my anger was overwhelmed by debilitating terror. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. Gasping for air, I struggled in his grip. The world swung wildly, darkening around the edges. I fell and landed hard on—
—grass. Slick grass under my palms and knees, the scent of stagnant water flooding my nostrils. The day had tumbled into night in an instant. I reached up with one hand to tear at the fingers that strangled me, but instead of warm flesh, my nails sank into unyielding cord. Rope. No. Leather. Braided leather.
A knee drove between my shoulder blades, pushing me to the ground. I bucked beneath him—not Frankie, oy gevalt, it’s not him anymore—and tried to shout, but the cord strangled all sound. The taste of blood and dirt welled in my mouth.
I managed to lift my head. Through blurry eyes, I took in the glow of fireworks glistening across the dark water. The reflections of buildings appeared to be on fire. My fingers grew numb, and the numbness spread sluggishly up my limbs, flowing through my bloodstream. Just as I began to black out, the grass gave way beneath me. I plummeted—
—onto wooden slates, tacky with pitch and filth. Panting, I knelt on my hands and knees, too weak to rise. Fingers closed around my shoulder.
I twisted onto my side and cast the hand away. “Otstan’ ot menya!”
Frankie stared down at me, his brow furrowed. “Alter, did you just...”
“Just stay back.” I scooted across the wooden sidewalk until I struck a lamppost. I reached behind me, grasping onto the cast-iron base to anchor myself. If I let go, anything might happen. The ground might give out again. “Please. Don’t come any closer. Just give me some space to breathe.”
Frankie flinched as though I had struck him. His face contorted in pain and horror. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not you. Never.”
“Didn’t you see it?” I stammered, looking around us for evidence. The ash of fireworks perhaps, or grass I’d uprooted in my desperate struggles. But the only remnant left was the burning ache in my throat and the stench of spent gunpowder and swampy water muddling in my nostrils.
“I never should have touched you,” Frankie continued, raking a hand through his hair. He paced back and forth in front of me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I wasn’t—I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted you to stop and listen. I never meant to—”
“Frankie!”
He stopped and turned.
“Did you see the fireworks or not?”
“Fireworks?” he repeated blankly.
“Yes. And I was being strangled.”
He winced. “I just meant to hold your tie. I never meant to apply pressure.”
“No, I don’t mean you. Someone. With a rope, I think. Or a strap.” I swallowed down the heavy lump in the back of my throat, fighting the dismaying urge to cry. “I’m not sure. It was so dark.”
“What are you going on about?”
“Something’s wrong with me.” I pressed my hand over my face. “Ever since Yakov died, strange things have been happening, and I feel like I’m losing control. It’s just like what happened back at the Whitechapel Club and then at shul today, only it’s gotten worse. So much worse. It’s as though there’s something terrible growing inside me.”
“Alter, if you talk any louder, we’ll have an audience,” Frankie murmured, squatting down at a safe distance. He glanced over at the pushcart peddler eyeing us suspiciously over her mound of used clothes. “Come. I know just the place to talk in private.”
19
The tearoom’s dampened gas lamps and forest green walls gave the establishment a cave-like feel. The spicy musk of tobacco smoke only added to the impression. We found a private table in the back. The dimness soothed me, dulling the hard edges of the day.
“Keemun tea, please,” Frankie said as the waiter came by. He looked at me. “Coffee, I suppose?”
He remembered well. But the thought of drinking coffee, bitter as bile and as dark as the grave, made my stomach turn. It would be like choking on dirt.
“Tea is fine,” I said.
“With bublitchki and honey cake,” Frankie said, and the waiter departed.
I took off my coat and hung it from the hook on the wall. There was mud or worse streaked on my palms, and I wouldn’t be able to sit still until I had scrubbed away all traces. “I’ll be right back.”
“Going to wash your hands?” Frankie smiled. “You really are a good mensch.”
No, I’m not, I wanted to tell him, my weak smile straining my lips like they might break.
There was a pitcher and washbasin in the cramped lavatory. I stood for a moment with my back against the door, turning my father’s pocket watch around and around in my fingers to ground myself in the moment. Once I had regained my composure, I scrubbed the grime from my palms.
Lifting my hands to my face, I caught the faintest whiff of stagnant water and something else. A tarry odor like hot macadam or turpentine, but with a woodsy edge. What was that? Russian leather? The scent brought me back to my childhood, visiting trade fairs and markets with my father as he pored over bolts of linen, wool, and leather.
I poured clean water over my hands and recited the blessing for eating bread. As I lowered the pitcher, I stared in the mirror above the basin, half wondering if Frankie would find fault in my features, harder than I recalled, or my chestnut hair, well due for a trim. Even my green eyes, which I thought were my best feature, seemed dull and muted.
My throat ached. I untied my string tie, twining the black silk ribbon around my fingers. It had been all I could afford, but I hated it suddenly for how childish it looked compared to the elegant dove-gray ascot Frankie wore, like something you’d tie onto a pet. As I shoved the ribbon into my pocket, I caught sight of my neck.
A faint purplish bruise encircled my throat. I rubbed furiously at the mark, hoping to make it go away. Impossible. There was no way a ribbon could have caused this.
But a leather ligature would, certainly. Wrapped tight enough to cut off all air flow. Tight enough to burst the blood vessels.
I squeezed my eyes shut, grasping onto the sink edge. “Not real, Alter. It wasn’t real. You’re letting Yakov’s death get to your head.”
So, why the bruise? Why the rash upon my back?
It looks rather like a burn, doesn’t it?
I curled my fingers against my palm, digging my nails in. The sting should have kept things distant, just the way I needed them to be. Except when I opened my eyes again, the bruise was still there, and it ached even more than the pale crescents my nails had made in my skin.
I retied the ribbon to cinch my collar shut and forced a bright American smile.
First things first. Tea and cakes. That was all I needed to think about right now. Tea and cakes.
Burying my fear deep inside me, I went back to the dining room. In my absence, the waiter had set out a small brass samovar and the fixings of a proper tea—porcelain dishes of fruit preserves and sugar cubes, slender spoons, faceted crystal glasses in brass holders, a kettle containing tea so concentrated that it was as dark as molasses.
Over the samovar’s chimney, the waiter had draped a string festooned with bublitchki, small bagel-shaped rolls baked to a glossy sheen. Frankie had ordered honey cake, but the dess
ert the waiter brought looked nothing like the dense golden-brown slabs of lekach baked for the new year. Served on delicate bone china, the slices of cake towered precariously high. Each square contained layer upon layer of white cream and blintz-thin cake, the top adorned with crumbs and chopped nuts.
“It’s medovik,” Frankie said, as though sensing my confusion. He pushed my plate closer. “Try it.”
Now that we were seated, I was in no rush to spill the trauma of these last few days onto him. I sampled the cake to prolong the silence. The cream’s pleasant tang complemented the honeyed taste and spongy texture of the cake layers. It reminded me of the fried papanasi my mother served with sour cream she made herself.
Frankie poured some tea into his glass, before adding hot water from the samovar. “Do you take it strong or weak?”
“You don’t have to serve me,” I muttered.
He endeared me with a smile. “Humor me.”
“Strong.”
After Frankie had fixed the tea to my satisfaction, he passed it over. He added a generous dollop of sour cherry jam to his glass, but I was inclined to drink mine unflavored, with only a cube of sugar to sweeten it. I held the cube between my teeth, so that it dissolved with each sip.
“Since when did you start drinking tea like a Russian?” Frankie asked after I had finished the first cube.
I choked on my tea. “P-pardon me?”
“The sugar. That’s how I was taught to drink it, too. I remember, you used to just mix it into your tea. Two cubes, then a splash of milk, just like a Brit.”
“A Brit?”
“My manager does the same.”
“How do you even remember that?”
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