by S. L. Stoner
Mae once more stood at the sink, this time paring age spots out of turnips. Springtime, most of the stored root vegetables got spots and turned woody. That meant a menu change. No more young turnips with a glacé sauce for the Cap’n and his guests. They’d be eating turnip mash just like the boys in the dining hall. That’s what Ms. Wiggit had proclaimed and Mae thought she’d seen a grim smile of satisfaction cross the cook’s face as she’d turned away.
Outside the window she saw the same sad little scene take place as it had every afternoon since she’d started working at the BCS. The same boys sat or stood near the courtyard’s bench, their faces slack with disinterest. “What is wrong with them?” she asked herself, yet again.
The sound of the inner kitchen door opening turned her eyes away from the window to glance over her shoulder. Matthew entered the room, his frame vibrating with energy–the exact opposite of the boys she’d been watching. His bright blue eyes locked on her own and the intensity of his gaze told her he needed to talk. With swift steps, he reached the coal scuttle, dumped his burden and turned to ruffle Andy’s hair, a touch that made the little boy pink with pleasure.
Swiftly bending to lift the garbage pail, Mae dropped it, giving yet another yip of pain and clutching the small of her back. As she hoped, Matthew was at her side in a second, reaching for the pail. “Here, ma’am, let me get that for you.”
“Why, thank you, boy,” Mae said, aware that Mrs. Wiggit had turned from the stove to watch their exchange. Mae forced herself to speak offhandedly, “That pail you’re holding and the other one over there, need carting to the dustbin. Do you have time to carry them out?”
Even as she spoke, Matthew was lifting the second pail and she was striding toward the outer door, yanking it open so he could pass through. He was at her heels, the both of them stepping over the threshold as Mae called back over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back. Just going to open the dustbin lid for him so the pails don’t get mucky bottoms from being sat down in the mud.”
She didn’t wait to hear Ms. Wiggit’s response before firmly closing the door. She pushed from her mind the fact that their little subterfuge had been obvious as a donkey’s nose sticking in a window. The courtyard was paved with bricks so it was not likely there’d be any mud in sight.
Once they were on the sidewalk, Mae halted to ask, “What is it, Matthew, what have you learned? Talk quick because we can’t dally. Lord knows what Mrs. Wiggit is making of our exit. This is the second time I’ve used the crook in the back excuse.” The cook was a smart woman with a suspicious nature.
Matthew wasn’t thinking about Mrs. Wiggit. “Mrs. Clemens,” he said, “I’m near certain sure they got Ollie or someone else locked up there on the third floor or in the attic.”
“What makes you think that? What’s happened?”
“I been staying here three days now. Them boys they take out to that courtyard every day, I’ve been counting them. Seeing how many they are. Five of them is what I count.”
They passed through the gate into the courtyard just as those very same boys exited the courtyard, using the side door into the building’s stairwell. Mae looked at the kitchen window. No one seemed to be watching.
When they reached the dustbin, he passed one of the full pails to her. He lifted the dustbin lid and Mae held it up so he could tip the pail’s contents into it. “Yes, there’s five boys, ” she confirmed, wondering what the number of boys had to do with anything. The way it was looking, they’d made Ms. Wiggit suspicious for no reason.
He must have sensed her impatience, because Matthew stood holding the empty pail, his face earnest with the need to make her understand, “Every day, at noontime, Mr. Growl takes a tray upstairs to the third floor. That’s because those boys never come down to the dining room to eat. So, I started counting. Two days now, there’s been six plates on that tray.”
“Maybe one plate’s for Mr. Growl. His name, by the way, is Norris Grindstaff. Could be he stays and eats with them.”
Even before she’d finished her sentence, Matthew was shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I thought of that but he comes right back down. He doesn’t stay up there long enough to eat. When he goes back up, he comes back with six empty plates. Oh, and I learned his name, all right. I just think Andy’s name fits him better. Every time he speaks, it’s like he’s fixin’ to take a bite out of you.”
Mae studied the boy’s freckled face, thinking that behind those innocent country-boy eyes was a clever, fine mind “Best be dumping that other pail. We’ve been gone a mite too long.”
Matthew hefted the pail and flung its contents into the metal bin as he said, “It’s Ollie. I know it’s Ollie up there eating off that sixth plate. I’m going to get him out of there somehow.” A glance at the boy’s profile showed a set jaw.
“Let’s get a move on. We’ll talk on the way back to the kitchen,” she said. Once they got through the gate and out of sight of the kitchen window, she grabbed his forearm and pulled him to a stop.
“I think you might be right, Matthew. If he’s up there, he’s being held in the attic. The one time I was up there, I noticed a door with a key in the lock. That might be the attic. I know he’s not on the third floor because I managed to look in every room. But we have to be careful and smart. We have two missions here at the BCS. We must save Ollie but we must save those five other boys too. That’s what Ollie wants. You understand?”
His mouth compressed and his chin jutted out, but Matthew nodded. “They don’t take Ollie out into the sun like they do the other boys,” he said.
Worry sent a twinge through Mae. He wasn’t about to delay his rescue of Ollie for very long. She tried to get Matthew’s mind back on track. “That’s because they have different plans for those boys. They can’t have them looking too peckish.” Mae studied a puff of white cloud drifting leisurely toward the east as she fought to control a sudden roiling of disgust.
She glanced toward Matthew, saying, “Listen, I agree with you. Somehow, we have to get Ollie out of the building right away. But, we’ve got to do it without anyone suspecting you or me.”
“They’re having that dinner party tonight. A friend of the Cap’n is coming to stay and the Cap’n wants to impress him. That would be the best time,” he said. “They’ll be carousing and drinking and won’t notice me going up the stairs.”
Mae was already shaking her head. “No, that’s too soon. It can’t look like you’re involved and it would take too long for you to break him out. And once you got him out, then what? Once he’s out of the building, do you just leave him standing on the sidewalk? He has to be taken away and, if you do that, then they’ll for sure notice you’re gone. You couldn’t come back and we need you here to help save those five other boys.”
They stood in silence. When Mae spoke, her words came slowly, as she tried to parse out the glimmer of an idea. “We need Mr. McAllister’s help and Mr. Eich’s too. He’ll be coming later. We’ll send him to talk to Mr. McAllister. You said they drink alcohol at the Captain’s parties?”
“Yup, when I wait on them during the dinner hour, one of my jobs is to make sure their glasses stay full to the brim.”
“What time do the two of them get up the next morning?” Mae asked.
A grin spread across Matthew’s face. He’d caught on to her plan. “They usually crawl out around ten o’clock or so.”
Mae grinned back at him. “So, long about eight a.m. tomorrow morning they’ll be dead to the world?”
Matthew nodded. In a flash like a solitary bolt of lightning hitting a mountain top, the plan details clicked into place. She ran them through her mind one more time. They fit together snug as a flour in lid. She swiftly laid her plan out, “The BCS doors open at eight o’clock. That’s when we’ll have McAllister come in. Is there an out-of-sight place for him to wait?”
“In the back stairwell that goes down to the swimming pool room. Nobody goes down to the pool that early.”
“Can he get out of
the building from there without going out the front door?”
Hope and eagerness lighting his face, Matthew said. “Yes, there’s another door out of the basement right near there. It unlocks from the inside.”
Once again, Mae felt respect surge for the boy’s ingenuity and foresight. “You’ve done a pretty thorough investigation,” she observed before asking, “So, can you get up to the third floor, break open the attic door where they’re keeping Ollie, or whoever that sixth person is, and get him down to Mr. McAllister in the stairwell?”
The boy’s brow furrowed. “I better make it look like he broke out his own self,” he said.
“You think you can manage all that?” It was clear from the boy’s scrunched face that he had some misgivings but then he set his jaw. “You betcha,” he said. When they entered the kitchen, it was to encounter the thin-lipped gaze of a suspicious Ms. Wiggit. Without looking at Mae, Matthew dipped his head in the cook’s direction and exited the kitchen, grabbing up the empty coal scuttle on his way. Mae saw the look of disappointment on Andy’s face as Matthew exited and felt a momentary pang before she turned her attention to the cook’s disapproving face.
“We got to talking about growing up on a farm.” she told the woman. Her own ears told her the excuse sounded flimsy as a cobweb across an outhouse door.
“Humph,” was the cook’s response before she turned back to the stove. In the following silence, Mae heard Mrs. Wiggit add under her breath, “I thought that boy told us he came from fishing folk.”
Mae kept her mouth shut. She’d already made one blunder. No sense in adding more salt to the shaker.
When he made his customary four o’clock visit to the BCS dustbin, Eich was surprised that Mae failed to appear. She usually finagled an excuse for leaving the kitchen just in time to catch him as he left the courtyard. He stood for a moment on the sidewalk, uncertain what to do, but finally he shrugged his shoulders, picked up the cart shafts and trudged down the street. “When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks,” he quoted to himself. Shakespeare might have been talking about a different situation but, if Mae didn’t return to her rooming house tonight, he would raise the alarm.
Almost like notes of music in his ears, he heard her voice behind him, calling “Herman, wait!”
He knew the smile he turned on her was bright with relief. “Ah, Mae, you gave this old heart of mine a fright. When you didn’t show, I was afraid . . . .”
She put her hand on his forearm and grinned at him. “That’s because I was telling another big lie to Ms. Wiggit so I could get more time away to talk. Let’s keep walking toward the rooming house. I don’t want to run into anyone from the BCS.”
Curious stares were cast in their direction but the ragpicker with his cart and the dowdy middle-aged woman at his side were too busy talking to notice.
Mae quickly filed him in on what she’d learned from Matthew. “So, I was thinking that you could watch the door and cover the boy up in your cart when McAllister brings him out.
That way, McAllister can drop off the boy to you, stay in the BCS and act as if nothing’s happened. And, Matthew could stay pretty much in their sight the whole time too. They couldn’t blame him for the disappearance either. If McAllister and Ollie haven’t exited in a half-hour or so, maybe you could go in and create a commotion. Give them time to escape or something.”
“That sounds like an admirable plan. I suppose you would like me to inform Mr. McAllister of his role in this escapade?”
“Well, I can’t exactly justify being gone that long just to pay my landlady the rent I forgot to give her this morning,” Mae said with a just hint of snap to her tone.
Eich threw back his head and laughed. When he saw her stiffen, he hastened to reassure. “I will be happy to pay a call on the lawyer. You sure are the one for coming up with imaginative excuses at the drop of a hat.”
Her indignation gave way to a rueful smile, “My mama always said I was the fanciful one. I try not to think she was calling me an easy liar.”
“Mae, you are a clever, wonderful woman,” he told her and had the pleasure of seeing her blush.
She looked away from him and said, “Herman, stop your blathering and get to talking with E.J. We’ve got a boy to rescue.”
“I presume my cart’s final destination will be Mr. Fong’s provision shop?” he asked, permitting her effort at composure and distraction to succeed.
“Lordy, I hadn’t even given a thought of where to hide him. But that sounds good. Poor Mrs. Fong, every time she turns around we’re dropping yet another person on her doorstep.”
That caused Eich to chuckle. “You don’t worry about Mrs. Fong,” he told her “She might be no bigger than a minute, but she is tougher than a rawhide rope. She knows exactly what is what. Besides, it gives her a chance to practice her English and study us European-types up close. She likes that. Our Mr. Fong chose his wife well.”
* * *
When Eich reached McAllister’s building, he tightened down his canvas and left his cart snug against the building’s front. If anyone wanted to steal his bits and pieces, they were welcome since it meant they had a greater need for them.
Eich entered the building and stepped into the elevator. He enjoyed the novel experience of being hoisted upward by a clanking and huffing seam elevator, marveling at the ease with which he reached the third floor. All that way without a single twinge in his knees or a pause to catch his breath.
Fortune smiled on them all. McAllister was alone in his office. When he saw Eich, he jumped up, grabbed the ragpicker’s outstretched hand with both of his and shook it, smiling all the while. “You have news? You must have news, otherwise you wouldn’t take the chance of coming here.”
For a moment Eich felt a sharp pang that he wouldn’t be able to ease the lawyer’s mind about Lynch’s new child prostitution house. But then he let the regret go and explained the situation before laying out Mae’s plan for rescuing Ollie from the BCS.
The lawyer controlled his disappointment well, stating crisply, “I can be there promptly at eight. I know where that stairwell is and the door into the alley. They might think it peculiar that I am swimming so early in the morning but the man on the front desk is a stupid fellow and he might not say anything. Besides, you say the Cap’n and Grindstaff should still be asleep.”
“That’s my hope. Mae is certain they will be. The only thing is, we don’t know anything about the Cap’n’s friend. We don’t even know if he’s spending the night. We’ll just have to hope that all of them get drunk as lords and have to sleep it off.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Dispatch: May 17, 1903, President remains camping in Yosemite Valley, California.
“I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head . . . Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.” —T.R.
McAllister entered Mozart’s obviously bristling with news. That was evident when, all in one swift move, he whipped off his coat, tossed it onto the coat rack and turned to Sage. Sage felt hope surge. Maybe E.J. had learned from Fenton who else might be entertaining an out-of-town guest. If only they could find the mastermind behind the plot. They had to identify that key person, follow him, see who his confederates were–take them all out of action. Or, at the very least, they needed to prevent the leader from giving the signal to that poor deluded assassin.
“May I seat you, Mr. McAllister?” Sage inquired as he stepped forward, a menu in hand.
“Yes, yes, you can, Mr. Adair. There will be three in the party. I am expecting my clients within the quarter hour. But, I came early so I could talk to you. Do you have a minute to sit with me?” There was a definite undertone of urgency in the lawyer’s question.
Sage gestured to Horace and asked him to temporarily add hosting to his duties. Then Sage led McAllister to a table for four some distance from the other occupied tables. They waited until the waiter filed the wate
r glasses and left.
“What is it? I can tell you have news,” he said.
“Things have heated up at the BCS.”
With just those few words, Sage felt his anticipation drain and dread take its place. “Are Mrs. Clemens and Matthew safe? Have you seen them?”
McAllister held up a hand to stop the worrying words. “They’re fine It’s just that, apparently, your boy is bound and determined to rescue his young friend whom he believes they have imprisoned in the BCS’s fourth floor attic.”
“Ollie,” Sage said, absentmindedly as his thoughts grabbed onto Matthew’s past encounters with other bad characters. Each time, things had gone wrong and they’d had to rescue the boy.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “It’s too late now. The plan’s underway and there is no way to get to Matthew and tell him to drop it,” McAllister said and described the special dinner party already taking place, Matthew’s planned attack on the attic door, his own role in stationing himself in the stairwell and Eich’s plan to cart the prisoner to safety.
Sage couldn’t fault the plan. As long as the Cap’n, his aide and guests slept off their drunk the next morning, the plan should work and leave Matthew, Mae and McAllister clear of any suspicion.
“What if Matthew gets caught breaking open the door or leading the prisoner down the stairwell?”
“If Matthew doesn’t show up at the bottom of the stairs within fifteen minutes, then Eich is going to create a ruckus in the front lobby, I’m heading for the third floor and,” here the lawyer looked a little sheepish, “I hope you don’t mind but I’ve enlisted the aid of my friend, Robert Clooney, and a mutual friend of ours. They’re also going to be on hand and will rush the stairs if I whistle. If they’ve caught Matthew, we three will free him, come hell or high water. It’s that simple.”