by Rhys Bowen
“Really, Ryan, you’ll go too far one day,” Gus scolded. “You know you only do it to shock.”
“One just wants to have one's little fun,” Ryan said, pouting.
“Molly, can we please leave now?” Daniel came over to me and took my arm.
“You haven’t drunk your brandy,” Sid pointed out.
“Thank you, but in the circumstances—” Daniel said.
“You can’t possibly take Molly away. I forbid it,” Ryan said. “It was to seek her out that I trudged all this way through the heat and the flies and the dust.” Ryan took hold of my other arm. “I’m whisking you away, Molly dearest. I’ve been instructed to escort you to a party tonight. Someone is dying to meet you.”
I glanced at Daniel. His face was like granite.
“I’m afraid that I can’t go to a party tonight, Ryan,” I said, then my curiosity got the better of me. “Who is dying to meet me?” “None other than Tommy Burke.” “I’m afraid I don’t know Tommy Burke,” I said.
“Never heard of Tommy Burke?” Ryan sounded shocked. “My dear girl, he is only the leading theatrical impresario in the city. If Tommy Burke puts on a play, it is always a sensation. Did you not see his version of Uncle Tom's Cabin? Not a dry eye in the house. But that's beside thepoint. Tommy Burke is hosting a fabulous party tonight at the roof cabaret at Madison Square. Now tell me you can’t resist that, can you?”
“My, that does sound glamorous,” Sid said. “But you’re only inviting Molly so we understand. Gus and I are mortally wounded that we’re not to be included.”
“Of course you two are included. Our bold police captain too, if he so wishes,” Ryan said. “It just happened that Tommy Burke expressed a desire to meet Molly.”
“Why?” I asked. “How could he have heard of me?”
“I can’t exactly say. Something to do with your detective work, I understand. Anyway, all will be made clear tonight at the roof garden cabaret of Madison Square Garden, while sipping the most delightful champagne. I’ll return to escort you at eight. Wear something devastating.” He glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Horrors. Is that the time? I’m late for my fitting. Must fly.”
And he was gone.
Two
Daniel and I crossed the cobbled alleyway in stony silence.
“You can’t seriously be contemplating going to a party with that dreadful creature?” Daniel said, as I closed the front door behind us.
“He's not a dreadful creature. He's actually quite delightful and very talented.”
“He's a freak, Molly,” Daniel said, “an outcast from civilized society.”
“As for that,” I said, “you are also an outcast from civilized society at the moment, are you not? A jailbird, only out on bail? Dear me, what must Miss Van Woekem and her set be saying about you now?”
His face flushed with anger. “It's not the same thing at all and you damned well know it,” he said. “You let him paw you all over. Is that the way you behave when I’m not around?”
“Paw me all over? Daniel, he took hold of my arm. He patted my cheek, if I remember correctly. That hardly constitutes pawing. And for another thing, Ryan sees me as a sister, nothing more. His interests lie elsewhere.”
“Another Oscar Wilde, you mean? I suspected as much. Molly, I utterly forbid you to go to this party tonight or to go on mixing with people like that.”
Like many of my fellow countrymen, I’ve never been known to back down from a good ight or a challenge.
“You utterly forbid me?” I demanded. “And who are you to be laying down the law, I’d like to know? Until a couple of weeks ago you were promised to another woman, and I don’t recall you getting down on one knee and proposing to me since then. And if you had, then this kind of talk would cause me to rip the ring right off my finger.”
“Then maybe it is lucky that we have made no such promises,” Daniel said stiffly.
“How right you are. Nobody owns me, Daniel Sullivan. I am my own person, and I mix with whom I choose. If you can’t trust me enough to have good judgment in my friends and my actions, then I see no future for us together.”
Daniel picked up his straw boater. “In that case there is little point in my remaining here any longer. Good day to you, Miss Murphy.”
He gave a polite little bow and left. I stood there staring at that front door. I was so tempted to run after him and make everything all right again, but I forced myself to stay where I was. For the first time in my life I’d had a glimpse of what being married might mean: having a man dictate to me how I should think, with whom I should associate, surrendering my own identity and my freedom. Why did so many women opt for this so readily? Love, I supposed. Did I love Daniel Sullivan enough to marry him and subordinate my will to his for the rest of my life? In the first flush of romance with Daniel I’d have willingly said yes to any proposal. And then there's security, of course. How many women can provide for themselves? Even professional women find it hard to overcome the prejudices of society. Those with private incomes like Gus and Sid do just ine, but I wasn’t making too good a job of keeping J. P. Riley and Associates afloat.
Which brought me back to the invitation for this evening. Something to do with your detective work, Ryan had said. Did that mean that Tommy Burke, impresario, was interested in hiring me for an assignment? Wild horses would not keep me away from the party tonight.
I half expected that Daniel might come back to apologize for getting upset over nothing, but he didn’t, leaving me feeling uneasy and hollow inside. Maybe I felt a little guilty too, because I did realize that Danielwas on edge at the moment and it was not a good time to confront him. But it didn’t bode well for any hope of a future relationship if we both flew off the handle so easily and had such different views of what we wanted from life.
By eight o’clock I was dressed in my inest attire, a sea green taffeta dinner dress, cast-off from Gus's days as a society debutante. The leg-o’-mutton sleeves were now old-fashioned, but the color contrasted well with my red hair. Besides, it was either that or a muslin. After much struggling I managed to tame my hair and hold it in place with tortoise-shell combs. The complexion paste had certainly made my face feel smooth, but it was glowing like a setting sun and I had to calm it down with some corn starch. Still, the inal result, as I glanced in the mirror, was not too terrible,- and I felt a wave of excitement surge through me. Fancy parties at a roof cabaret with a famous theater impresario were not something that happened often in my life.
Sid and Gus emerged at the same moment as I, looking stunning in emerald green and peacock blue. Sid's short dark hair was styled in a sleek, smooth cap, and I noticed that under her emerald green theater cape, she was wearing trousers. Normally such attire would cause a stir, but I suspected that at a theatrical party, she would feel right at home. I supposed that Daniel did have a point when he saw that such friends would be frowned upon in polite society. But then we didn’t live in polite society.
Ryan was waiting for us at the entrance to Patchin Place, having already secured a cab, and we all piled in. He was still wearing the royal blue cape over a frilled lace shirt tonight and looked ridiculously like Hamlet.
“No Daniel, I notice,” Ryan said. “Not his cup of tea, does one surmise?”
“Daniel walked out in a huff after forbidding me to attend this party,” I said.
“And you didn’t allow yourself to be browbeaten. Splendid. Well done,” Sid said.
“Have you ever known me to be browbeaten?” I asked.
“No, but women have been known to act quite ridiculously when it comes to pleasing a man.”
“For your information,” I said, “I don’t ever intend to take orders from a man, not even Daniel Sullivan. If he doesn’t trust me to choose my own friends, then he’d make a poor sort of husband.”
“Ah, so we were to blame for the upset,” Sid said. “Daniel doesn’t approve of your mixing with people like us.”
“Then I pity Daniel and hi
s lack of judgment,” I said. “And we will talk no more about him.”
We were making our way up Sixth Avenue and I stared out at the pageant of New York life unfolding on the sidewalks, as it did every warm evening: mothers sitting on stoops with babies on their laps, small boys playing kick the can, small girls jumping rope. As always I was conscious that I was in a great city, teeming with life, full of exuberance and promise, and I tried to put aside my dark mood.
“Tell me, Ryan,” Gus said, steering the conversation onto a new topic, “what has happened to the good Dr. Birnbaum these days?”
“We’ve parted company, alas,” Ryan said. “I think, like Daniel, he found my company detrimental to his professional standing in the community. Even though I tried so hard to be moderate in all things and actually wore an ordinary dinner jacket in the evenings, I fear my reputation had preceded me. We parted amicably.”
“I’m sorry,” Sid said.
“Don’t be,” Ryan said. “The world is full of wonderful new opportunities, I always find.”
I looked at him with affection. These were my friends who sailed through life determined to wring every ounce of pleasure and excitement from it. Nothing about them was ordinary or plain or boring.
The cab came to a halt outside an imposing brick building. I’d glanced up at it from the outside before, admiring the Moorish colonnades and the tower that seemed to go up into the sky, but I’d never been inside. Never dreamed I’d have the chance to go inside.
Fashionably dressed theater crowds were milling around on the sidewalk. Beggars and hawkers hovered in the gutters, swarming up to each carriage or cab as it came to a halt. Flowers were thrust at us. Hands reached up imploringly, but Ryan whisked us successfully in through an archway and up a flight of steps. As we entered the rooftop cabaret I was deinitely overawed and hung back as Ryan forged his wayinto the room. The room was decorated with statues in archways, tall palm trees around the walls, and Moorish style chandeliers. The floor space was packed with an absolute throng of people, through which waiters with trays of food and champagne dodged and darted, trays held high above their heads. On the stage at the far end a Negro band was playing some kind of modern syncopated music to which several brave couples were attempting to dance with strange, jerky movements. The noise level in the crowd almost drowned out the band. Jewels glittered and sparkled in the gleam of the electric lightbulbs that festooned the chandeliers. Handsome men in tails, glamorous women, sporting ostrich plumes in their coiffures, mingled with theater folk as outrageously dressed as Ryan.
Ryan swept ahead of us into the fray, arms open wide, greeting, embracing, beaming. He seemed to know everybody. Gus and Sid also seemed to have their share of acquaintances, and I felt like Cinderella. I stood there while the crowd pressed around me, feeling dowdy and out of place and wishing I hadn’t come. A tray of champagne appeared. I accepted a glass when offered, reminding myself an affair like this had been beyond my wildest dreams just two years ago. I was here in the liveliest city in the world, mingling with its most fashionable residents. Not bad for a girl from a peasant cottage in Ballykillin. I resolved to have a good time no matter what and drained my glass.
“Oh, there you are, Molly. Your champagne glass is empty. Let me get you another,” Ryan said, returning to my side.
“The champagne certainly seems to be flowing tonight, doesn’t it?” I commented.
“Literally,” he answered. “Have you seen the fountain yet?” He dragged me across the room. And there in one corner was a fountain, flowing, if my eyes didn’t deceive me, with champagne. “Holy mother, what will they think of next?” I muttered and Ryan laughed. “Tommy Burke has a reputation to live up to,” he said. “If his parties are not the talk of the town, then he feels he has failed.come on, let's try to ind him.”
We fought our way through the crowd. It was a warm, muggy night to start with. In that confined space it was stiflingly hot, and the smells of competing perfumes, cigars, and perspiring bodies made me feel as ifI might faint. I was relieved when Ryan came to a halt next to a large man in tails. He was middle aged with a good head of wiry gray hair, big boned, beefy, round faced, red cheeked, like an Irish peasant. He had a glass in one hand and a cigar in the other, and he was talking with animation to a gorgeous auburn-haired woman in a stunning white silk gown with a train that she carried over one white-gloved wrist.
For once even Ryan appeared to be overawed. He waited for a lull in the conversation before he tapped the man on the arm. “Here she is, Tommy. Miss Molly Murphy. I promised I’d produce her and I have.”
The man turned and his shrewd little black boot-button eyes looked me up and down appraisingly.
“Miss Molly Murphy, eh?” he said, and stuck out a beefy hand. “I’m delighted to meet you, young woman.”
“Delighted to meet you too, sir,” I said, “but I’m intrigued as to why you wanted to meet me, Mr. Burke. You’re not thinking of offering me a part in your next play, are you?”
At this he threw back his head and laughed. “Offer you the lead instead of Oona here? Now there's a thought.” And I realized that I had seen pictures of the woman in white gracing posters and newsstands. Oona Sheehan, one of the darlings of the Broadway stage.
“We know you are notoriously ickle, Tommy dear,” Oona said in a deep, melodious voice. “If you found someone suficiently younger and prettier, you’d drop me in a second. I know my days are numbered.” She turned to look at me and winked.
“Never,” Tommy exclaimed. “You’ll still be the darling of the public when you’re sixty, just like the divine Madame Sarah.”
“And one hopes I’ll keep my looks longer than she has,” Oona said. “We live in the same building, you know. We each keep a suite of rooms in Hoffman House, and I nod to her from time to time. I fear she has become quite plain and ordinary looking.”
“But she can still act,” Tommy said. “By God, she can still act.”
“Are you a fellow Thespian, Molly?” Oona asked. “I don’t recall seeing you—”
“Indeed no, Miss Sheehan. I’ve no aspirations to go on the stage.” “You might do well for yourself,” Tommy said. “I’ll wager a good pair of legs extends up from those trim little ankles.”
“Tommy, you are incorrigible. Now you’ve made her blush,” Oona said.
“Surely not. Don’t lady detectives have to be as tough as nails?” “She's a lady detective?” Oona asked.
“So Ryan tells me. Although I never expected a lady detective to look so young and winsome. So are you really and truly a lady detective, my dear?”
“I am.”
“And Irish too, by the sound of it?” Tommy asked. “I am that too.”
“A perfect combination for my needs. I think you might do very well.”
“Do what?”
Tommy Burke leaned closer to me. “I’ve a little job for you, my dear,” he muttered into my ear. “We won’t speak of it in public.come to the Casino Theater tomorrow, where I’m rehearsing a new play. It's on the corner of Broadway and West Thirty-ninth.” Tell them to bring you straight to me, and we’ll have a little talk. Any time you like. I’ll be in the theater all day.”
“Hiring a detective, how exciting,” Oona said. “He can’t want you to shadow his wife to start divorce proceedings because he isn’t married any longer. I’m bursting with curiosity, Tommy darling.”
“Then you’ll just have to burst, Oona, because I’m not saying another thing,” Tommy Burke said, with a grin in my direction. “You just enjoy yourself tonight, Miss Molly Murphy, and we’ll continue our conversation in private tomorrow.”
Three
I’m a self-made man, Miss Murphy,” Tommy Burke said, turning to me. We were sitting side by side in the darkness of an empty theater. On the dimly lit stage actors were reading through lines, but here at the back of the stalls, we were in a private world, and I was conscious of the intimacy of his big shoulder touching mine, of his warm, slightly beery breath on my che
ek.
“I’ve done very well for a boy who came to America with nothing, and who was close to starving several times in his childhood.”
He looked at me and I nodded approval. “We came over during the famine, you know,” he went on. “Driven out of our homes like so many families. The landowner's thugs actually knocked down the cottage as my parents struggled to save our few possessions. I was only about four years old at the time, but I can still remember it clearly. They broke my mother's one good pudding basin, and she would have killed them if my father hadn’t held her back. Then we had the chance to come to America on a famine ship. You’ve heard about the famine ships, have you? Back and forth across the Atlantic, crammed full of poor wretched souls like ourselves.”
He was still looking at me as if he wanted me to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. “It was a terrible time,” I said at last. “My own family almost died out in the famine.”
“What part of Ireland are you from, my dear?”
“County Mayo.”
“Ah, the wild, wild west. Never been there myself, but I understand it's very beautiful, all mountains and lakes and rugged seacoast.”
“That it is,” I said. “Beautiful and remote. You feel like you’re at the end of the earth. I couldn’t wait to escape from it myself.”
“We came from the south ourselves. Near Cork. I don’t remember anything of it, but I do remember that ship. No steam in those days, you know. Twelve days under sail, and most of us sicker than dogs. Packed in like sardines, we were. People were already weak from the famine, you know, and they were dying like flies all around us.”
“Why are you telling me this, Mr. Burke?” I asked.
“I’m coming to that.” He put a beefy hand over mine, making me wonder for a moment whether he had invited me here with baser motives. I’d certainly heard about old men like him preying on young women. But he cleared his throat. “Like I said, I started with nothing, and I’ve done pretty well for myself, wouldn’t you say? Only problem is that I’m not getting any younger, and I’ve nobody to leave it to.”